This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. I want to begin this morning with a koan from the Book of Serenity, Case 3, called The Invitation of the Ancestor to Eastern India. And this story was given to me to study by my teacher, Reb Anderson, great many years ago now when I was preparing to be the Shuso or the head student here at Green Gulch Farm. And I think it's a good story for one day sitting and also a very good example of how the Zen ancestors went about enacting the core teaching of the Zen tradition. That being the emptiness of inherent existence, which is also the primary theme of the Diamond Sutra. So here's the case. A raja of an East Indian country invited the 27th Buddhist Zen ancestor Prajnatara to a feast.

[01:05]

The raja asked him, why don't you read scriptures? The ancestors said, this poor wayfarer doesn't dwell in the realms of body or mind when breathing in, doesn't get involved in myriad circumstances when breathing out. I always reiterate such a scripture, hundreds. thousands, millions of scrolls. This poor wayfarer doesn't dwell in the realms of body or mind when breathing in, doesn't get involved in myriad circumstances when breathing out. I always reiterate such a scripture, hundreds, thousands, millions of scrolls. Now, when Prajnatara was a young boy, he had an amazing encounter with Zen master Ponyamitra, who happened to be riding by in his chariot. with the king of eastern India. So Punya Mitra was very impressed by this child and the exchange that they had, which you can also read about in the Koan.

[02:08]

And so the king took the boy to his palace to make offerings to him. Later, the boy put on monastic robes, shaved his head, and received his Dharma name, Prajna Tara. Prajna meaning wisdom and Tara meaning jewel or diamond. a name indicating that this student's affinity was with the perfection of wisdom teachings prajnaparamita the jewels of the mahayana of which the diamond sutra is a prime example so this story of prajnatara is for us you know us as poor wayfarers who are doing our best to stay at our seats during the one day sitting to follow the bodhisattva precepts to care for our families and our friends and all of the other many things that fill up our day to the brim, including those times when the tasks of our day pour out over the top of the brim and onto the floor, making what we call a mess. So confronting the mess is most likely what brought us to the Buddha's teaching in the first place.

[03:13]

And helping us to learn how to clean up the mess is what the Buddha's teaching is for. as are the teachings of the ancestors who followed in his wake. What I found most helpful about this story, Prajnatara, are the two things that he says to the Raja that seem useful as a guidance to us in our practice of meditation, both on and off the cushion. The first is Prajnatara's keen awareness of inhalations and exhalations, a lifelong practice based in mindfulness of his own body, of his own breath. The second has to do with his practice of non-attachment regarding the appearances, whether external or internal, of the variety of images that are arising in his mind throughout the day, as they do in ours. This poor wayfarer doesn't dwell in the realms of the body or mind when breathing in, doesn't get involved in the myriad circumstances when breathing out.

[04:17]

So this is a pretty basic meditation instruction to keep within this fundamental simplicity of the Zen school in its approach to Buddhist practice. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. And don't get involved. There are no fancy equipment required. There's no elaborate contrivances. Just don't get involved. Inhale, exhale. So that's what I'm going to be talking about this morning. while trying not to get involved. So this feeling of a simple practice is also reflected in a verse written by Dogen Zenji in the 13th century, a verse that Chelsea True, the leader of the children's program, used to recite with the kids. Body like a mountain, heart like the ocean, mind like the sky. Body like a mountain, heart like the ocean. mind like the sky inhale exhale inhale exhale it's simple to do but not so easy to understand without getting involved so each morning at green gulch i have the privilege as abbess to face out and see the rows of people who've come into the zendo to sit zazen that day just as i got a chance to see all of you just now in your small squares

[05:47]

upright and sitting quietly. Sometimes I notice their posture and I have a thought that they might appreciate some help in finding a more comfortable position for sitting. Not something that's so easy to do online, but once we're able to sit together again, I think all of the Zen Center teachers would enjoy working with you on the shape of your mountain. Helping you to find your seat is the primary offering that we make to the people who come to practice here at the Zen Center. And once you find your seat, you can begin looking for what's going on in your mind. A mind, as Dogen says, that's just like the sky. So even though I can't see your Zazen posture or demonstrate mine to you, which these days is upright in a chair, I would like to say a few things about the placement of our various body parts that have proven useful to me for the practice of sitting. And then I'm going to talk more about the ocean of our hearts and the sky of our minds, and in particular, what it means to not get involved.

[06:55]

So I want to start with one of the things that Suzuki Roshi gave to us when he came here and told us how to sit. invited us to do things that he had been doing as a monk or rather what he was not doing he said do not think of your body as existing in time or space do not think of your body as existing in time or space rather allow yourselves to experience your true body meaning your great body that is not limited by any concepts that you have of a body of time or of space. So this is a teaching that is mirrored in Dogen's own mesmerizing use of poetry in a lecture that he gave, part of the Shobo Genzo, called Time Being, Uji, in Japanese, Uji. An ancient Buddha said, for the time being, stand on top of the highest peak.

[07:58]

For the time being, proceed along the bottom of the deepest ocean. For the time being, three heads and eight arms. For the time being, an eight or sixteen foot body. For the time being, a staff or a whisk. For the time being, a pillar or lantern. For the time being, the sons of Zhang and Li. For the time being, the earth and the sky. So such an unlimited body is what brought us to life in the first place, what brought our ancestors to life, the first life, and then each and every one of them in turn. A body in which time and being and space all arise altogether. Another way of saying a body that is empty of inherent or separate existence. Inviting our minds to widen past the limited notions we have of our body,

[08:59]

allows our imagination to soften to become curious and even willing to experiment outside the box of our set views views we have about ourselves about this world about each other and especially today anyway views we have about this activity called zazen the recommended antidote for limited views I recall pretty vividly the first time a friend of mine suggested that I try sitting still for a while without doing anything, as she had recently been taught during a visit to Dharamsala, where the Dalai Lama was in exile. She gave me a pillow to sit on, a few suggestions for my legs and arms, after which she sat there next to me on her pillow, having set a timer for 35 minutes. What I mostly remember of that experience was that her dog, Shuba, an Alaskan husky, who had been not so friendly to me before that, came over and laid his big head in my lap and went to sleep.

[10:05]

It was a very nice surprise, but it also helped me to settle my own body and mind into what became a few quiet moments within my otherwise chaotic young life. So settling our body and mind into an upright seated position requires us, first of all, to be willing to enter through the gateless gateway of timelessness and spacelessness, which for those of us with calendars that are filled to the brim is most likely the hardest thing to do. So we may need to set aside some actual time, as my friend did, 35 minutes, to begin the... delicate process of placing all of our parts into a posture that resembles, somewhat, a mountain, which in turn resembles a seated Buddha. The next step, once you've found the time, is to find a quiet room or a spot of earth on which to sit, as suggested in the Fukanzazengi, the Universal Recommendation for Zazen, written by Zen Master Dogen shortly after he returned to Japan from his studies in China.

[11:16]

He said, spread out thick matting and place a cushion above it. The legs are crossed and tucked up into either a half or a full lotus position or whatever way works for you, as it does for me these days with my feet flat on the floor. Clothing is loosely bound and arranged in order. The left hand is placed facing upward on your right palm with your thumb tips touching. The shape that we make with our hands is called the cosmic mudra. To remind us, I think, of our embryonic status as the unborn offspring of the universe. Timeless and spaceless, just like her. Inseparable from the whole, just like her. And just as Dogen says further on in Uji, the way that the self arrays itself is in the form of the entire universe. Next, we place our attention on the spine as the primary means that the body has for balance and stability, just like the trunk of a tree, but more flexible, like the trunk of an elephant.

[12:27]

Allow your spine to lengthen upward. There's a curve in the lower back, in toward the abdomen, and there's a second curve at the neck, in toward the throat. Each vertebra of the spine needs space, both above and below. So give some attention to reaching upward with the top of the head until this feeling of the head is light and balanced on the shoulders and until the feeling of the spine is aspirational, as was Dogen Zenji's and Suzuki Roshi's, or so it seems. Thus sit upright and correct bodily posture, neither inclining to the left nor to the right, neither leaning forward nor backward. Be sure your ears are on a plane with your shoulders and your nose in line with your navel. Place your tongue against the front roof of your mouth with teeth and lips both shut. And yet, as my dentist said to me some years ago, she's also a sitter, please do not clench your jaw when you sit.

[13:33]

It is bad for your teeth. Your eyes remain open and you breathe gently through the nose. Once you have adjusted your posture, take a deep breath. Inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale. Rock your body right and left and settle into a steady, immovable sitting position. Think not thinking. How do you think not thinking? Non-thinking. This is the essential art. So that's pretty much the basic instruction for making of our entire bodies what Dogen calls the Buddha Mudra, the Buddha Mudra, about which he has this to say. When one displays the Buddha Mudra with one's whole body and mind sitting upright in samadhi, even for a short time, everything in the entire Dharma world becomes the Buddha Mudra. And all the space in the universe completely fills with enlightenment.

[14:38]

So that's a pretty big assertion of what we come to do when we sit. And yet for Dogen Zenji, it is the truest and most basic instruction for a human being. Display the Buddha mudra with your whole body and mind while sitting upright in samadhi. And yet what is perhaps assumed but not stated is this particular teaching is that we do this together you know in fact the word samadhi literally means placing together by placing the self the falsely imagined and isolated self together with all things we become who we really are and that is the entire universe filled to the brim with enlightenment even for a moment in a joyful and instantaneous reunion So for me, this placing together is the most important thing that the Buddha saw at the moment of his awakening. He saw that he was the Buddha mudra. And that the Buddha mudra was and still is reality itself.

[15:45]

Just like this. The inescapable presence of the present moment. In which we human beings are at once either trapped or free. Depending entirely on how we see it. how we understand it. So how do we see it? This is the main question for all of us, a question that really comes down to how each of us sees it as we stand alone on and as the top of a mountain, with everyone and everything standing alone beside us. No one really knows what's going on inside of us as we stand quietly alone or as we sit quietly alone at the top of the mountain, including us most of all. And yet that is what Prajnatara's teaching is all about. Prajnatara is giving an instruction for how to work with our minds as we sit, stand, walk, rest, and speak.

[16:47]

And the Diamond Cutter Sutra was a primary source of inspiration for him. as were the Pali Canon, the Heart Sutra, the Lotus Sutra, and the Samni Nirmakchana Sutra, and as they were for all of the Zen ancestors as well. They all had to learn to see with their physical bodies what they had come to understand with their minds through their studies of the Buddha's own vast body of teaching, a body that over time was given its own name, the Dharma Kaya. Kaya means body, Dharma, truth, the truth body, the buddha it's the dharmakaya that brought us here in the first place you know that we first heard in a verse or that we saw as a perhaps a metal image in a marketplace somewhere image of a buddha and that we have come here to study for and as the time being although prajnatara's seemingly simple practice

[17:47]

offers less detail on how to work with our minds than the diamond sutra does it certainly gives us the same encouragement for repetition more repetition than we might otherwise have undertaken with anything i always reiterate such such a scripture a hundred a thousand a million times a million scrolls so studying the mind with the mind is truly the offering being made to us here with the rhythm of the breath as its regulatory agent to bring the body into harmony with the mind. Inhale and exhale over and over again. Harmony allows us to engage wholeheartedly with Prajnatara's simple practice for studying scripture, for studying our own mind and our own body with Buddha's own mind and body, the Dharmakaya. And how, again, does Prajnatara do that?

[18:49]

By not dwelling in the realms of the body or mind. By not getting involved in myriad circumstances. The main tool that we all have and are asked to utilize for this essential study is our life-giving breath, called the Anapana in Pali, for which the Buddha gave an entire discourse, the Anapanasati Sutta. a detailed instruction for using awareness of breath as a focus for what we call meditation. The preparatory instructions given in the Pali Canon for the practice of meditation is familiar to us from Dogen's instruction for Zazen that I just read to you a few minutes ago. Number one, find a secluded spot. Number two, sit down. Number three, cross your legs. Number four, keep your body. Erect, and number five, establish mindfulness in front of you and all around you.

[19:50]

Awareness of breathing is referred to as one of the pratipakshas, meaning opposite or counter-agent or antidote to discursive thinking. Think, not thinking. How do you think, not thinking? Non-thinking. The essential art of Zazna. Breath awareness, unlike other objects of meditation, is said not to tire the eyes. And furthermore, breath awareness, when not getting involved, as Prajnatara is telling us to do, allows the mind to be free of taints. Taints that arise in us whenever we try to find something, meaning to imagine something, that is either inside or outside of our field of awareness that we can get a hold of. can grab onto grasping clinging grabbing second noble truth the cause of suffering holding on clinging or possessing things is a serious and debilitating condition that causes us to suffer a condition that is reflected in a quotation i recently heard by of all beings william shakespeare this is a quote from

[21:07]

something that Hamlet says to Rosencrantz. Rosencrantz was a childhood friend of Hamlet's who he later has killed. Hamlet says, I could be bound in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space were it not that I had bad dreams. I could be bound in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space were it not that I had Bad dreams. Pretty good. So this brings to my mind, once again, the study of the Diamond Sutra with its essential tools for excorciating bad dreams. The primary tool being the study of the Diamond Sutra itself. And how? Well, that's the very question the Buddha is asking in the opening section of this text. How then, O Lord, should a son or daughter of good family who have set out in the bodhisattva vehicle.

[22:09]

How do we stand? How do we progress? How do we subdue or control our thoughts? So, here's a brief review of the Buddha's teaching from the Diamond Cutter Sutra on how to stop creating the causes of our own suffering, causes which are generated and perpetuated within the workings of our own mind, just as the Buddha clearly saw at the moment of his awakening. Most simply stated, he saw that there is no thing and no one outside of the mind, especially and including Mara, the evil one, also known as the master of illusions. The diamond in the Diamond Sutra represents the adamantine mind that's trapped in Mara's illusions, the nearly shatterproof mind that arises from our dualistic ways of viewing the world. The diamond cutter is the diamond sutra itself, used as a tool by which that rough diamond is carved and polished and shaped to reveal the compassionate wisdom that has been there all along.

[23:21]

The wisdom of non-separation in a world that merely appears to be outside of ourselves. The mission and method of this sutra is found in a repeated formula, which I am sure that those in the class have memorized by now. A, the letter A, A, A is not A, and therefore we call it A. A, A is not A, and therefore we call it, we merely call it A. A formula to remind the bodhisattvas, that would be us, that all terms, all words, are just that. With nothing, no thing, no out there or in here that corresponds to their demand for meaning. You are not you, I am not I, the moon is not the moon, and words, although useful at times, are not to be taken too seriously. Especially words that lead us into acts of greed, hatred, and delusion.

[24:24]

Acts intended by us to protect us, to define us, and in the best of all delusions, to make us terribly rich. Language is an invention of the human species, and it is fascinating to me to look into the time, to imagine a time when humans first began to speak, in words, which, like mycelium, have now branched throughout a world that cannot remember itself without them. The path to the realization of Buddha's truth of non-separation, or of non-duality, as it says in the Diamond Sutra, and even more succinctly in the Heart Sutra, is by means of a path that is not a path. A, A is not A. Therefore, we call it A. And why? Because the path is the same as the Buddha. Awakening, which is the same as the universe. Awaken, a universe that is always revealing the truth to us and as us, no matter what we say or think.

[25:28]

happening the truth is that there is no verbal or conceptual approach to understanding ourselves let alone for understanding the entire universe although we sure do try reality is just this at all times and in all places just this just here just me just you just now when on The sixth Chinese Zen ancestor was awakened on hearing this very truth in a verse from the Diamond Sutra that a monk was reciting in the marketplace. A bodhisattva should produce a thought that does not dwell anywhere, that does not dwell in sights, sounds, smells, flavors, textures, or thoughts. A mind that does not dwell or get involved anywhere. Think, not thinking. How do you think not thinking?

[26:28]

Non-thinking. The essential art of Zazen. So this sounds just like the prescription for liberation, which Prajnatara has now added, this idea that we focus on our breathing. Mindfulness of breathing. The poor wayfarer doesn't dwell in the realms of the body or mind when breathing in. Doesn't get involved in myriad circumstances when breathing out. like a metronome. I always reiterate this scripture hundreds and thousands and millions of times. The basic method for liberating our minds from confusion begins when we turn the light of our awareness onto our self. Self-awareness. The self that is holding all the views by means of language. The self that is getting involved by means of language. And then, once focused on the self, allowing the Buddhist truth to begin cutting away at those views, you know, one by one.

[27:33]

Is it so? Really? Are you sure? Completely sure? How would it be if you gave up that view? If the cutting is too deep, then there's no blood left, so to speak, and we arrive at a position the Buddha called nihilism, or annihilationism, an extreme view that there is nothing, nothing to say, nothing to do, and nobody there to do it. If, on the other hand, the cutting isn't deep enough, we simply go on dreaming about freedom, about fame and profit, a dream that the Buddha called eternalism, the extreme view that there is something, something to get, something eternal that will last forever, as diamonds are said to do, eternal truth, in a life everlasting. Now, neither one of these extremes, eternalism or nihilism, is affirming of human life, the life we live here on the ground.

[28:35]

And therefore, as students of the wisdom beyond wisdom teachings, and in particular the Diamond Sutra, our attention is being drawn to that very place where dreams are being made. The place where these two modes of belief, I believe there's something or I believe there's nothing, are taking place, are turning one on the other. Call this place the pivot. Pivot. Is something, isn't something. Me, you. Dreaming. So neither of these beliefs is true. But more important than that, the one who is believing them... The one who is grasping after truth is the least true of them all. It's by this means, by this dualistic thinking, these dualistic views, that a separate self is being cut off from the whole of reality. Cut off and cut into parts, such as time, place, and meaning, such as me and mine and not yours.

[29:41]

The Diamond Sutra is focusing an unblinking gaze on this process of eye-making, self-making, by locating us at this pivot, this place where the self and the other is being made. And then, once our conceptual framework is rearranged by repetition, lengthy repetition, A is not A, therefore we merely call it A, There's a flash of lightning, as it says at the end of the text, that simply blows the eye-making and the eye-maker away, like a cosmic sneeze. Just this is it. In this text, as in many others, the Buddha taught us that in order to be blown away, we need to quiet our mind. So we can find it. Samatha. By quieting the mind, it is possible to realize the non-existence of a separate self, the one who isn't busy. The one who has no need to seek for anything outside.

[30:43]

No self. Justice is it. In our school, the purpose of language is to enlighten us to the truth. That both the real, there is something, and the unreal, there isn't anything, have no self-nature. And therefore, as the Buddha repeatedly says in the Diamond Sutra, we can make good use of words. and of names of things as skillful means for the purpose of liberating one another. And therefore, Sugudi asks the Lord, What then is this discourse on Dharma, and how, when words fall away, should I bear it in mind? The Lord replies, This discourse on Dharma, Sugudi, is called wisdom which has gone beyond, Prajnaparamita, and as such you should bear it in mind. And why? just that which the dratagata has taught as the wisdom which has gone beyond just that he has taught as not gone beyond therefore it is called wisdom which has gone beyond a is not a therefore we call it a wisdom that has gone beyond this means that this buddha and this dharma and this sangha really have no name

[32:02]

They are simply the diamond mind itself. The realization of our true self. An all-inclusive realization that Dogen's NG calls one bright pearl. One bright pearl. The full moon in the night sky. All of these round glowing images for completion and wholeness. What we really are. The center of the Diamond Sutra is one bright pearl. The true Dharma eye. The Shobo Genzo. that Dogen writes and speaks about at length. The true Dharma I is an affirmation that the non-dual vision of the Buddha does exist. The non-dual vision of the Buddha does exist. And that none of us is outside of what the Buddha sees and what the Buddha deeply cares about. Which leads me to the third and final aspect of the children's verse that Dogen gave to us, a heart like the ocean. Today and every day, we are given this opportunity to reflect on the present moment and to see for ourselves that there is nothing whatsoever separate from this or excluded from this.

[33:16]

And therefore, we have to take care of this, you know, the Buddha mudra, with all of its horrors and delights. This is our field of dreams. A concern for the suffering of humankind is what motivated the Buddha to sit down under the Bodhi tree with great determination. He didn't know what was going to happen when he sat there, but he had some great hope of finding a pathway to freedom from the suffering that he was witnessing in the society in which he lived. Not so different at all from the society in which we live today, with its killing and stealing, sexualizing, lying, intoxicating, slandering, bragging, hoarding, and hating. And for us, new words, new terms, not new feelings. Humans still, through and through. Racism, sexism, hedonism, narcissism. And therefore, we too must come here to sit and to study with great determination.

[34:22]

To study ourselves and our actions and our motives in the same hope of finding relief from this seemingly tireless cycle of greed, hate, and delusion, as the Buddha once did and will do again. Without such an understanding of what we are doing here at Zen Center nearly each and every day, sitting would be, as far as I can see, a complete waste of time. Although our sitting practice may have been of help in saving lives, you know, including our own, It's not so clear how many lives it might save this week or this year or even in our lifetime. And yet finding the path of freedom for all beings may still be the best hope we have to alter the course of human history, just as it did over 2,000 years ago in a small village in India in the foothills of the Himalaya. How to live for the benefit of all beings was for the Buddha, as for all of us, something that needed to be learned.

[35:25]

And how? I don't really know. But like you, I intend to continue living a life trying to understand and to do what I know can't be understood or done. And why? Because, as Dogen said toward the end of his life, and as Prajnatara and the Diamond Sutra say over and over again, because it is not pursuing words. or following after speech. It is not learning meditation. It is not the practicing or realizing of supernatural powers. And it is really not the wasteful delight in the spark from a flintstone. And then he tells us what it is. It is simply the Dharma gate of repose and bliss, the practice realization of totally culminated enlightenment, the Buddha mudra. whole body and mind sitting upright in samadhi, if only for a moment.

[36:28]

Like this one. The birds have vanished down the sky. Now the last cloud drains away. We sit together, the mountain and me, until only the mountain remains. Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[37:13]

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