This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. And Buonasera to all the... Students who are just beginning their Sashin in Rome, who are attending the Dharma Talk this evening for them, I'm very happy to see you. Benvenuti. This is not an easy time, I'm finding, to speak publicly to give a Dharma Talk. And I'm returning over and over again to the teaching to meet what is going on in the world, what is going on internally, externally.

[01:13]

And so today, I want to bring up some of the practices, some of the ways I've been studying the teaching to meet what What is going on? Tomorrow is the full moon. And last month I gave a talk also right about this time, the full moon, the first Sunday of the month, which is traditionally for years and years at Green Gulch has been a kids lecture where we begin the Dharma talk with. the children and the young people in the Zendo, and we talk directly to them about some aspect of the teaching, often a story. So I'm just bearing that in mind that we're not doing that now, but I'm thinking a lot about children and a lot about our world and a lot about how we raise children and teach children and how I was raised and taught.

[02:23]

So these are some of the things I've been looking at. As many of you know, the full moon is traditionally a time to renew our precepts, to renew our vows, to acknowledge and admit our ancient twisted karma, meaning our actions, our voluntary actions. of body, speech, and mind that have not been in alignment with our deepest intention, our heart's desire. And so the full moon is, I mean, each day actually is a time to do this, but a full moon in particular is a time when people gather to renew and re-consecrate. and reaffirm being in alignment with the teachings, with Buddhadharma, and with the precepts.

[03:31]

So with that in mind, with this time of the month, I am looking at my own karma, my own voluntary actions of body, speech, and mind, and how those actions create and affect others, create consequences, and affect the world. This is a particularly difficult time right now with this global pandemic. Just looking at the numbers today, I see that there's 18 million people 18,095,000 worldwide active confirmed cases.

[04:34]

And in the United States, there's 158,000 plus deaths. And probably this was just this morning, so probably more as I speak. All throughout the world, Italy in particular, was one of the earliest countries to be faced with these challenges and so many sad deaths. So I feel that and wish for everyone's good health. for your continued care of each other, care of your spaces, and just the ongoing day-to-day details, full engagement in the details of our everyday life that have consequences for our health and the health of others.

[05:50]

Also, I wanted to bring up something this week that strongly affected me, which was Congressman John Lewis's death on July 17th. And this week, just a couple of days ago, was his funeral that was broadcast live. I happened to watch the entire funeral on Friday. on the internet. And this, for those of you who may not know Congressman John Lewis, he was, as a young man, a civil rights activist, arrested over 40 times, joined Martin Luther King on the Mall, the Capitol, and spoke the youngest person to speak during the March on Washington.

[06:55]

And a person that I find is so inspiring, and is so inspiring to people all throughout the U.S., but throughout the world, I think. And... He wrote an essay. He wrote kind of parting words right before he died. That was to be published on the day of his funeral. So in the New York Times, there was his parting words, really. And these words from beyond the grave, you know, from someone who's already gone, were so powerful. such a powerful call to stand up for what we believe in, to act according to our deepest intentions, and to work to benefit all beings, really.

[08:05]

He talked about everlasting love. This was his words. Everlasting love. And, you know, as the last thing that he did to inspire us and, you know, meet us and care for us, he brought up everlasting love as a guide to our actions. And I... I... I just, I can't, he couldn't praise people enough for their compassion and their strength now and wanted people to continue. And, you know, at his nonviolent actions, he studied, and this is one of the things...

[09:12]

He said through his life that in the civil rights movement, they studied and learned and studied history, studied satyagraha, nonviolence, in order to do the actions that they did. And so I have taken this and also the words of many other teachers to heart and renewed. a kind of effort to study and learn and open to open more and more and more. So, you know, usually from the Dharma seat, I wouldn't say this, but I say this in the spirit of... I have this moment to speak with you all, and I want to encourage you to stand up for what you feel is right, to vote, to register to vote, to encourage others to do so in order that the things that you care about, that matter to you, from racial injustice to climate,

[10:40]

to equity of all kinds, that we take up action of body, speech, and mind in whatever way we can. And this was John Lewis's parting last words. So in studying deeply and learning, I think part of this is studying... deeply for me is also studying and unlearning. So unlearning things, looking at things and unlearning what I thought was true or that I hadn't examined thoroughly enough. And this is our Buddhist practice always, I think. I can remember in my earliest practice when I first was at Tassajara, being relieved of a conceptual belief, a rigid understanding that I had about the way things were.

[11:52]

And as I was being relieved of this, where it was questioned, I was being questioned, I felt a kind of opening, actually physical, a kind of... New neuronal pathway opened up as I relaxed and let go of some kind of fixed, held to rigid idea that I had had for years. I'll tell you what it is. The fixed idea was that people who get good grades are good people and maybe even better than other people. And this was like a link. in my mind. And I was beautifully relieved of that by the abbot at the time, Zendatsu Baker, as he asked me questions about this, and I could no longer hold to this. Now, this is a tiny, a tiny fixed belief that affected me and maybe my classmates to some degree.

[13:04]

And And to take that same possibility of being relieved of our fixed views and opinions and assumptions about who we are in this world, how we exist, what the teaching is, I feel is my big job and a never-ending job and out of everlasting love. This job. And I feel like this is the Buddha Dharma, what the Buddha Dharma asks of us. Always. And to never feel like we know what's going on and what's happening. Totally. We are limited beings with limited views. So last week at this time, I participated in a workshop with almost 300 other people.

[14:05]

called Radical Dharma, led by Reverend Angel Kyoto Williams and Abbas Fu Schrader. And the beauty of being in, it was a Zoom workshop, being in a conversation with a very diverse group of people and hundreds of people, having listening to one another, unlearning, learning, and hearing from one another and opening to one another was really a wonderful experience and affected me quite deeply. So one of our main teachings that we chant actually in morning service and study, is an essay, really.

[15:08]

It was really a letter written by our ancestor Dogen Zenji that has the name of Genjo Koan. Genjo Koan, many of you have studied, and it translates in different ways. One is actualizing the fundamental point, or reality as it is. And this particular essay of Dogen's was originally written as a letter to one of his lay disciples, and perhaps a man who had been the boatman who took him to China in when Dogen visited China. So this essay was written to this lay student or disciple, and it's known as, and many of you may not even know that you know it, but many of the quotes from Genjo Koan are repeated and are known outside of context.

[16:27]

For example, to study the Buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. This is Genjo Koan. And there's several parts of this letter that I wanted to bring up today as a kind of very fundamental and basic teaching for how we study the self, how we study... and learn, and unlearn, and let go of opinions, and fixed ideas, and assumptions, and presumptions. So in this fascicle, fascicle refers to these essays, Dogen says,

[17:30]

One thing that he says is, those who have great realization of delusion are Buddhists. Those who are greatly deluded by realization are sentient beings. So those who have great realization of delusion are Buddhists. This, to me, points us, shows us, inspires us, inspires me to look at our delusions. And, you know, each of us have delusions different than one another. I mean, there's the most basic delusion and ignorance that we are separate selves. or ultimately separate selves.

[18:35]

And I think this is a widely shared delusion. However, there are many other delusions, many other fixed ideas that are from our karmic consciousness that are particular based on our backgrounds, our education, how we grew up, our experiences, our physicality of all kinds. So those... Those who have great realization of delusions, those who study the basic delusions that are shared in the collective and our own individual delusions, to study those and have great realization about them are Buddhas. So that's one of the things from Genjo Koan that points us always to study, to be studying and learning always and forever. The other part that I wanted to look at today is another section of the Genjo Koan.

[19:43]

And this, in the Genjo Koan, Dogan uses these images of water and being on water, being in a boat. There's several poetic images from this letter to his lay disciple. And the one I would like to bring up is this. And there's a couple different translations of this, several of Dogen's work. When Dharma does not fill your body and mind, you may think or you think it's already sufficient. When Dharma does not fill your body and mind, you think it is sufficient. When Dharma fills your body and mind, you understand that something is missing. And one might think, now wait a minute, if Dharma fills my body and mind, wouldn't I be filled to the brim and nothing would be lacking, that I would be complete?

[21:00]

Dharma fills my body and mind. This must be backwards. I'll say again what Dogen says. When Dharma does not fill your body and mind or does not fill my body and mind, I might assume it's already sufficient or think it's already sufficient. And I'd like to say that's a kind of arrogance and a kind of narrow-mindedness and a kind of shrinking almost of our wide and flexible, soft body-mind when we think that we know completely. And that means our opinion and what we think is the best and needs to be perhaps even forced on others. or that we don't need to listen to others. These are the consequences of when Dharma does not fill your body and mind, you may think it's already sufficient.

[22:08]

So I want to just stop for a moment and breathe and allow that in. Allow that in, that very strong teaching. And the next part of that is when Dharma fills your body and mind, you understand that something is missing. We understand that something is missing means we know that we are limited beings who do not, are unable to understand completely all the myriad things and all the realms. and all the forms of this world. And Dogen goes on to say, for example, and this is where one of these wonderful poetic images of the ocean comes up. For example, when you ride in a boat, excuse me, when you sail out in a boat to the middle of the ocean where no land is in sight and view the four directions,

[23:23]

The ocean looks circular and does not look any other way. And I think those of you who've crossed the ocean on a boat or been way out on the ocean or even way out on a big lake, like Lake Superior or some large lake, and you look around and... Without seeing land, what do you see? It's a big circle of water. We see a circle. That's what it looks like. And it looks that way because of our karmic life, the way our eyes are, the way we bring in electromagnetic wavelengths. And we see that it... It looks like a circle of water. And Dogen goes on. So the ocean looks circular and does not look any other way.

[24:29]

But the ocean is neither round nor square. Its features are infinite in variety. And I feel like this is Dogen speaking to us out of... grandmotherly compassion to help us to drop our narrow point of view and our tight understanding and to open to this. This is the way I see it. This is how it looks to me. And at the very same time, I know and affirm and consecrate myself to the fact that the ocean, the myriad beings, this society, those people I meet, and the earth itself is infinite in variety, is beyond my ability to know and grasp and get fully understood.

[25:47]

This is limitation. And those who have great realization about delusion, meaning the delusion that I am not that way, are Buddhists, Dogen says. So the ocean is infinite in variety. Each person is infinite in their variety. To think that we know someone. To think that we have someone pegged or in a box. This is prejudgment. This is prejudice, bias, stereotype. These kinds of limitations. To understand how we do that, when we do that. When I do that, this is questioning, disassembling our fixed views and questioning.

[26:56]

The ocean is infinite in variety. And then Dogen goes on, it is like a palace. It is like a jewel. This is the ocean. So we humans see water as water. Other beings, Fish, for example, see water as a palace, perhaps. And devas, heavenly beings, see water as a jewel. They don't see it as what humans see as jewels. They see it as what devas see as jewels. And the fish don't see the palace like what we would call a palace. It's a palace, their environment, their palace. It is like a palace. It is like a jewel. It only looks circular. And this line, I think, is so important for me. The ocean, it only looks circular as far as you can see at that time.

[28:04]

All things are like this, says Dogen. This is our limited view. This is our limited view in relation to suchness, in relation to the interconnectedness of all being arising and manifesting moment after moment. This is Genjo Koan, this fundamental point of both our limited life totally together with the suchness of our being and our interconnected life with all being. This is Buddha nature and this turning together of the limited life and the unlimited never ceases for a moment, whether we know it or not.

[29:06]

Dogen goes on though there are many features in the dusty world, that's our world as we understand it, and the world beyond conditions, you see and understand only what your eye of practice can reach. So this is very good news, I feel, because Dogen is saying, yes, we are limited. We see a circle of water. We only see what our karmic consciousness can see at that time. However, you see and understand only what your I have practiced can reach, meaning the more we practice, the more we study, the more we study the self and causes and conditions, the more we learn and unlearn and assemble and disassemble. our concepts and our fixed views, our practice grows and strengthens and reaches further and further.

[30:19]

But we'll never come to the end. We'll never come to the end. And so practice is endless, and that's fine. Our practice is endless, and our realization is endless. because practice and realization are non-dual. So this is good news. This is not a sad thing that we can see and understand only what our eye of practice can reach. It means that's a clarion call for practicing more and more fully engaged, more thoroughly. to not rest on, oh, well, I've been practicing all these years, so I've kind of done it. No, we haven't. I feel like I won't say we. I feel like I'm just beginning, you might even say, to take up the practice thoroughly.

[31:28]

And at this time in my life, with my energy that's different from when I was younger, and my experiences changing, and my challenges changing, and my sadnesses and sorrow deepening, and my arrogance of youth letting that go. This is a good time. This is a good time to... Take up the practice with all beings. So the end part of this is in order to learn the nature of the myriad things. This is the 10,000 things. This is every single thing through our senses that we see, hear, touch, taste, think.

[32:32]

These are the myriad things. In order to learn the nature of the myriad things, you must know that although they may look round or square, the other features of the ocean and mountains are infinite in variety. Whole worlds are there. It is not so only around you, but also directly beneath your feet. or in a drop of water. This is Dogen's voice, you know, from beyond the grave, beyond the cremation fire to us. This world is infinite, the myriad things, infinite in variety, the features of the mountains and the rivers and our society and each other. are infinite in variety.

[33:34]

And for us to be grounded in our bodies, in our body minds, to be able to open in a relaxed and loving way with everlasting love, to be able to open to one another. Open to ourselves and parts of ourselves. Those are also the myriad things. Infinite in variety. And directly beneath our feet. It's right there. Directly beneath our feet. There's a poem, a verse that I wanted to share with you that was written by one of Dogen's not direct disciple, but he was the abbot of, the fifth abbot of A. Heiji, his name was Gi-un.

[34:38]

And Gi-un lived in 1253, so he was born, Dogen was already, had died, I think, or just about. So, but he did a verse commentary on, 60 of these different fascicles of Dogen. And this poem, this commentary on this fascicle is called Realization Here and Now, which is Genjo Koan, Realization Here and Now. This realization, which I would say, again, is that we are limited beings and we are Empty of separate self and interconnected with all beings. And then the question is, how are we going to live that out? How do we live that out? How is that going to manifest in our every word and action and encounter and thought?

[35:50]

That's the grandmotherly compassion of Dogen. He's asking us. He's wanting us to take this up because this is our moment-by-moment life, realization here and now. So this poem says, realization here and now, what is it? Do not overlook what is right in front of you. Endless spring appears with the early plum blossoms. By using just a single word, you enter the open gate. Nine oxen, pulling with all their might, cannot lead you astray. So this is this commentary on some of the teachings that I've been talking about.

[36:55]

And this line... Do not overlook what is right in front of you. This admonition, this call, this is a clarion call. Do not overlook what is right in front of you. And I ask myself, what is right in front of me? What, if I open my eyes, what do I see of suffering in this world? Whether I understand it completely or not, the infinity of variety, do not overlook it. And in our practice, if we don't overlook it, we have to respond. We have to respond. It's right in front of us. Right in front of us, we can't overlook.

[37:56]

What is that for you? What is that for me? Sickness, old age, and death? Is it systemic racism in whatever culture that you live in? Is it caring or fixed views that are unexamined and spreading them out with all the harm that that does? Do not overlook what is right in front of you. I just want to stop for a moment. You know, I've been, as I said, this was supposedly a kid's lecture, and how we teach our children, you know, affects, it's...

[38:57]

It is the world. It is what the world will come to be, will unfold as how we teach our children. And I've been watching this Netflix series called Babies, which I've talked about a couple of lectures. And the latest one that I watched was about toddlers, little ones, but were walking maybe between 12 and 18 months, which is what my grandson is. And the experiment they did was about altruism, about where is altruism picked up later on, or how early do human beings... have these thoughts of taking care of others and wanting to help. And so they did this experiment with these toddlers where the person running the experiment brought them into a room with a very fun toy.

[40:01]

It was like a container, a big container filled with multicolored balls that they could jump in and play, little ones. brightly colored, and they could swim in it and just play around in this wonderful environment of fun. And then the experimenter said, I'm going to go over here and do some work. So he moved. He was a male. And the mother, I think, was there for part of the experiment. He began doing a job where he was... taking a clothespin and putting little pieces of cloth on like a clothesline. And in the middle of doing this job, the child was playing gloriously with these balls. The experimenter dropped one of the clothespins and was like reaching for it and acting as if he couldn't reach.

[41:05]

It was like now on the ground and he was standing up and he was, extending his hand and trying to reach for the clothespin. He didn't say anything. He didn't say, could you get that for me or I drop? He just was pantomiming, reaching and not being able to reach. And the little child got up from their really fun activity and brought the clothespin over to him. And in the documentary, you saw a number of instances where these little kids, with their parent there or not. So it wasn't like they were trying to please their parent. Aren't I a good child by helping this adult? No. They left what they were doing to go help this other person. They also did the experiment with chimpanzees, the same thing. And the chimpanzee also brought the clothespin over.

[42:08]

So they were trying to, in this scientific experiment, see, and they did this with many, many children, how early and also our closest primate relative, do they do that too? And they do. So this helping one another, understanding, first of all, that someone needs help, empathizing with them that they could use help and then I can help and letting go of what I'm enjoying for the time being and going to help. So this is very young. These are little, maybe even not talking yet, little toddlers. So children, In another article I read about race and discrimination, little children discriminate just like they can tell the difference between red and blue or, you know, different shapes.

[43:21]

They can also discriminate skin color and race in that way. And what what in these different articles I've been reading about children. and education of children is that the adults want to raise children who are not racist and who are loving and yet teach by not saying things directly about the myriad things, about the infinite variety, but somehow land on we're all the same, some kind of misunderstanding of our shared suchness. Shared suchness is never without infinite variety. And to somehow think, well, let's just talk about shared suchness as the way to go. It doesn't work.

[44:23]

It doesn't work. And what the children learn is that you don't talk about it. You don't bring it up. And if you do... The adults have a big reaction, and you've done something wrong. This comes up over and over again. And in this one article I read, the children of parents who were trying to teach equality, et cetera, et cetera, One child, when the mother was saying, everyone is equal, we're all equal, these are white children. Actually, I think it was a mixed group in the experiment, but the white child was saying, what is equality? They didn't even know what the mother was trying to say. Adults may not know how to talk about it. We don't know how to.

[45:25]

We white people don't know how to talk about it. And to find a way. And that was why this Radical Dharma workshop was so wonderful, because it was a very diverse group trying their best to listen and talk about things that we're not trained. Many of us are not trained to talk about, and starting from very little. And how confusing it is, because children do... can discriminate that there are differences and myriad, infinite variety. Children are very, they are very open. They're human beings. So, back to Gi-hun's verse commentary, realization here and now, what is it?

[46:29]

Do not overlook what is right in front of you. Do not overlook what is right in front of you with some construct or, you know, when we overlook something right in front of us, what has gotten in the way is a good question to ask myself. What idea or construct or concept has gotten in the way of what's right in front of me? Endless spring appears with the early plum blossoms. This line is, you know, this endless spring of our suchness, our thusness. And then when does it manifest? When causes and conditions are right, then the plum blossoms come and the tulips and the daffodils and the poison oak. This is our endless spring. And what appears within endless spring of suchness are all the myriad things.

[47:41]

And it goes on by using just a single word, you enter the open gate. Our words and our language matter. A single word. which can be extremely creative, a single action, which can turn the nation. These actions of John Lewis and the Freedom Riders and so many people since and so many people before, you know, John Lewis was inspired by Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King. And Barack Obama was inspired by John Lewis. And who's inspired? Who inspires you? Who's inspired me? And there's the imperceptible inspiration that we don't even know we've been inspired necessarily or called to respond. So there's perceptible and imperceptible ways that we are being asked and called.

[48:59]

to live out our life in truth. Do not overlook what is right in front of you. And this last line, nine oxen pulling with all their might cannot lead you astray. The ox is often used as a... an animal that needs training, you know, the 10 ox herding pictures, the ox is lost and then found and needs to be coaxed and pulled and trained and guided and to learn together. So to have nine oxen, which is a very, strong, strong animal trying to pull you astray, the oxen maybe being our distractions, our likes and dislikes, our preferences, our fixed views.

[50:07]

They tend to want to pull us astray from what is in front of you, what is in front of me, what is in front of one. So... But the poem says nine oxen pulling with all their might cannot lead you astray from this moment right in front of you. This verse is, you know, it's a commentary on actualizing the fundamental point realization here and now. And, you know, John Lewis, 10 oxen pulling with all their might could not pull him astray from his path. That inspired so many people. That inspired me so thoroughly. And especially in his funeral, when, I mean, three presidents spoke and the Speaker of the House, et cetera, at the funeral.

[51:15]

But the one, what moved me quite a bit was when one of his staff members spoke. On behalf of the staff, these are the people who really work closely with him on the day-to-day, on the details, on the campaigns of trying to help his constituency and the world, really. And how she spoke about his mentoring and his kindness and his caring about them and this endless love. So I feel the task of walking this path is never-ending. It's a never-ending path, and we need to take good care of ourselves as we walk our path.

[52:15]

We need to be, as so often is said these days, well-resourced, well-supported, Because this is not easy. I find this is not easy. Unlearning the learned and held to is not easy. However, when we let go of our narrow views, there is a body relaxation and an ease, I think. Because we become more in alignment. I become more in alignment with the truth of our interdependent life. So what for you do you find supports you and resources you? And I would suggest our body practices of sitting. Green Gulch is having a half day sitting today.

[53:18]

Rome is having a... a seven-day session that they're doing online, which I really, I think is really wonderful and a challenge to stay, you know, to not have the nine oxen of distraction and to do this in the middle of family life or with other people not necessarily following that schedule, that will take a lot. So... We do need to be resourced and supported. And our body practices, where is our body in space? Taking this posture, as Suzuki Roshi said, in each moment is our practice. This is basic mindfulness practice of what are we doing each moment, standing, walking, sitting, or lying down.

[54:21]

during all our waking hours. And this is not an oppressive kind of forced activity, but a more receptive, open, wide activity of who and what we are doing right now. Who are we speaking with? What is right before us? Do not overlook what is right before us. That is our own body. Are we breathing? Are we relaxing? I've seen pictures of myself with my shoulders up around my ears, you know? We can all practice this way, and this will support us in everything that we face. facing what is before us.

[55:23]

Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[55:51]

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