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 evening. In China a few centuries ago there was this student asked the Zen teacher, what's the difference between you and me? And the Zen teacher said, I use the 24 hours. You are used by the 24 hours. And the Raja yoga program we've been doing Sherry said that the advanced something like this if I misquote you the advanced yogi always works within her own capacity advanced yogi works within her own capacity is that fair enough

[01:26]

And so I was thinking, do you understand how these are the same? So while you're clarifying that for yourself, for yourselves, I wanted to mention that. I just wanted to acknowledge that we're missing a few people here. who went up to the city today, San Francisco Zen Center in the city, for the ordination of Diagon. And as far as I know, it happened. Has anyone heard anything? To the contrary? So we have someone who... I have a mosquito here that's chosen me out of all of the gatherings. but so we have someone who's taken the priest ordination received the precepts clarified this intention to live a life of the bodhisattva vow in a particular way that we keep working out here as priests in this lineage so anyway I'm thinking of

[02:55]

today supporting Dagon and the people who are up there in that ceremony. So usually I think when I first heard that statement that I use the 24 hours and you are used by the 24 hours I thought I better get busy. really want to use the 24 hours you know we have on our Han here on the sounding board we have a statement don't waste this life and so what does it mean not to waste this life what does it mean to actually use 24 hours 24 hours can mean what does it mean Maybe another way of saying this is just this moment.

[04:02]

24 hours is moment by moment by moment. So how to fully use this moment? It may seem that it's a kind of paradox that if you try to use this moment, you can't do it. It's like the yogi trying to go beyond his capacity. Today, a few times I try to go beyond my capacity. I feel it in my sore body. I even for a moment thought, I don't know how these people do it, you know. I'm definitely... This is my first beginning experience with Raja Yoga. And so, you know, there was a moment there where I thought, could I get my feet over there into that, you know, other direction?

[05:13]

I thought, if I leverage with my, push out with my hands, I could. And just at that moment, Sherry said, don't use your hands. She was on to me. So to use the 24 hours and to be present in this moment, I'm proposing that it's not to do what we usually think. Maybe it's not just an American problem, but maybe as Americans we really have this tendency to want to get results. Why do anything if you don't get results? When you're thinking about results, it means you're thinking about what's going to happen beyond this moment. And you miss this moment. You miss knowing what your own capacity is.

[06:20]

So this is... It's quite a challenge to be willing to drop all the plans that I have. It doesn't mean that you forget them. You can still have plans. I have plans. At the same time, you hold them differently. You hold the plans differently. You hold any expectation differently. a wish for a particular result lightly not like this but just lightly results will naturally unfold the reason this is important is because it's

[07:27]

A deep misunderstanding to think that I am in control. Big mistake to think, oh, I'm in control. I do have maybe some influence sometimes. If I do orient myself in a particular direction that is different than orienting in another direction. If I orient myself to the intention to just see what is, that's different than the intention to make things be the way I think they should be. And so this life turns out differently. So the Buddha taught fundamental teaching of Buddha is called dependent origination.

[08:41]

Dependent origination means that nothing arises by itself. That what arises is hooked to other things. Anything that you can pick out is connected to other things. Usually it's presented in some of the suttas as a sequential teaching. This leads to this, leads to that, leads to that. In Mahayana teachings, usually we put in another two syllables, ko. So we say dependent ko origination. Dependent co-origination, it's the same. It's pointing to the same thing. It's not a different teaching. But it suggests maybe more that things are simultaneously interconnected.

[09:49]

Sequentially interconnected when we talk about them, but simultaneously interconnected. So today we also had an event here with the publication of the Fire Monk's book. And so I haven't thought about the Tassar fire so much, but today I'm thinking about it because we have the Fire Monk's book. And Colleen read some. And my thought is that this book may, at its best, it may help people to understand dependent co-origination. And how that works in relation to using the 24 hours.

[10:57]

Not being used by the 24 hours, but using the 24 hours. How to actually live this rare life within the capacity of this life. Moment by moment. Seeing what is the situation moment by moment and responding. Responding to it. So, we have various teachings that inform our understanding and one teaching that I had been studying here for some time comes from another Zen teacher in China, Shichou Shichian, who wrote, in Japanese we call it the Sandokai, and then we translate it usually as the harmony of difference and unity, or the harmony of difference and equality.

[12:06]

The last couple of days I've been realizing that Raja Yoga as a wisdom teaching and Zen as a wisdom teaching both work with this matter of harmonizing difference and equality. Harmonizing difference and equality. What does that mean? Isn't equality or unity already harmonized? Why do we need to say, oh, difference and unity or equality? Already it's included, and yet it isn't. We still experience difference. In fact, without this whole matter of dependent co-origination, seeing that everything is interconnected, we wouldn't. we wouldn't understand the need to harmonize.

[13:15]

I don't know if that makes much sense when I say it. So, a few days before the fire came in here in Tassajara, the road was closed. Nobody was coming in except forest service people. And suddenly, right here, a carload of Korean visitors showed up. And I said, it was wonderful. Oh. So I talked to, so there was a Korean priest who, Buddhist priest, who has a a temple, I think, in Santa Cruz. And these were his guests from Korea, and he wanted them to have, he had promised them that they would get a chance to visit the Tassajara hot baths.

[14:22]

So they came down, they parked there, they came down the walkway, and they were carrying their towels and everything. They were ready to go, and we said, didn't you see that the road was closed? LAUGHTER And he said, oh yes, road closed, but also open. So this inspired me, actually. So they went and they had their baths. they went so I thought so this is you know this is wonderful you know a teacher arrives and offers some teachings you know road closed but also open so when it came time to decide about this decision to evacuate that's a horror

[15:37]

This came up in our book reading, that Colleen read the book, and then someone asked a question about this decision. And the decision that needed to be made, I thought, was like that. So I thought, okay, we have to leave. The circumstances have already been set up, that the decision has been made and certain people's minds that we had to leave. And also need to stay. So for me, this is harmonizing in difference and unity. There is difference, of course, in the language, you know. What's the difference? Leaving and staying.

[16:39]

Leaving and staying are clearly different. And yet fundamentally there's really no difference in leaving and staying. So coming back to the harmony of difference and unity in the middle it says the four elements return to their nature just like a child turns to its mother. Fire heats. Wind moves. Water wets. Earth is solid. So when we say fire heats, water wets. Wind moves. Earth is solid. When we say that, we tend to think that we know what fire is and what fire does. We tend to think we know what water is and what water does.

[17:40]

We tend to think we know what earth is and what earth does. We tend to think we know what is wind. But this is just our conceptual mind. Reality is actually not like that. So we say that the four elements return to their natures Like a child turns to its mother. What is the mother? Turning to the mother. Returning to their own natures. What is the nature? So this is a very important point, but not easy to see. Not easy to see that actually fire has no nature. That water has no nature. Wind has no nature. Earth has no nature. Turning to the mother is turning to no nature.

[18:46]

Turning to the mother is turning to what sometimes we say is empty. This is the way things are. There's no particular thing with any particular characteristics. Right now in this room, There's nobody here. Isn't that wonderful? Right now in this room, there's nobody talking. There's nobody listening. But that doesn't mean that you're not here and I'm not here. It means that something is happening. But we don't really know what it is. Something's happening. We're participating in it. And anything that we say about it is not really complete. Anything we say about it is not really what it is.

[19:50]

There's some vibrations happening. There's energy moving. Well, to say that is already putting ideas out there. The four elements return to their own nature. This is the way things are before we turn them into things. Our experience is so intimate and direct that we actually don't know ourselves. We tell stories. We tell stories about who we are. We name things. And then we sometimes get caught in believing that things are what we say they are. And the name of something is what it is. I definitely learned that the name Raja Yoga is not what it is.

[20:58]

I don't know what it is. I know that Zen is not what we say it is. I know that Zazen, sitting Zazen, is not something that you can do. It's not something that I can do. Not something that anyone can do. Sitting Zazen is an offering. An offering of our most sincere effort. To make the effort to be right here. To make the effort to not get diverted off into some thinking about the future, not some thinking about the past. To be right here means to say let go of any ideas that one might have. It doesn't mean that ideas vanish and you're living in a blank state.

[22:04]

but it means that the ideas are not controlling you there's complete freedom even with being in the midst of ideas even being in the midst of objects even being in the midst of 24 hours so being willing to be completely at home in the midst of this reality that we don't know is, I think, part of the message in the Fire Monk's book. I think everyone in the book did the right thing. The Forest Service people did the right thing. The people who were here, who left, did the right thing.

[23:10]

The people who stayed did the right thing. Maybe I shouldn't say that. Maybe that's too much. But everyone did the right thing. And this is not right in the sense of compared to right or wrong. I think everyone really did what they... needed to do as they best understood it. Water does wet. So this matter then of how we make decisions, moment by moment we're making decisions.

[24:31]

Stand up, sit down. Move a little, be still. Open the eyes, close the eyes. Where do these decisions come from? So the Zen master is saying, I use the 24 hours. It means that he's actually letting go of using the 24 hours. The only way to use the 24 hours is to completely give up thinking about 24 hours and come back to right now this must be done completely giving up the 24 hours is to say equality or unity or oneness to use the 24 hours to say

[25:55]

this being right now is a manifestation of the total capacity I'm not going to turn away from that so I'm actually going to take action knowing that it's not my action and yet it is my action knowing that I'm only able to act because of emptiness I'm only able to act because you're over there. Because the sun has set. Because this is solid. This is solid means this is empty. Because empty has no particular characteristics. It can be solid, it can be we make solid out of empty.

[26:57]

After the fire, I had a phone conversation with Stuart Carlson, who was the one who was teaching us. He was a professional firefighter. About a week later, I had a telephone conversation with him and at that time he was talking about the fire that he fought that day which was somewhere in Santa Cruz and he told me about the fire and how his crew worked and they worked well and they actually were able to put out the fire and he said that's the kind of fire I like to fight I thought, he knows what kind of fire to fight. And I don't.

[28:06]

So, because I didn't know fire, And because I didn't know myself, and because I didn't know Tassahara, I knew fire. I knew myself. I know the fire is in me. It's not something alien. And I know I can't fight it. I wouldn't even want to. I wouldn't know how. But I also know that I cannot turn away from it. And one of our other teachings, it says, don't turn away from fire.

[29:21]

So fire can be anyone standing in front of you. Anyone standing in front of you is fire. To know how to respond to that person is to completely accept that they are fire. When you completely accept that they are fire, then you can say hello. Can I help? If you don't want them to be fire, then you actually can't say hello. In a complete sense. They might be leaving something out. So this is very difficult for each of us to be willing to be fully present, not knowing how much we're faced with a dangerous challenge, moment by moment.

[30:41]

I know I want to try to turn it into something that I can manage. Sitting zazen is to give up trying to manage. And noticing how creative one's mind is trying to manage things. How much effort gets put into trying to manage things. So, To see, to accept what can't be managed helps you actually to see what you can manage, what you can do. So this is the yogi working within her capacity. To know what her capacity is, she has to go beyond her capacity. A little bit.

[31:48]

I often ask people, what's the edge of your practice? What's the edge of your practice? It's good for a Dharma student of any kind. A Dharma student is anyone who's paying attention to what's true. If you want to pay attention to what's true, it's good to know, what's the edge? Where are you coming up against what feels a little uncomfortable, unfamiliar? And right there, seeing, okay, can I hold it right there? Can I keep my attention right there? And then feel like, oh, there's space that I didn't even know was there. Because I had put up in my mind, I'd put up some edge. That really isn't the edge. The edge is road closed, also open. So right there, it's a very interesting place to be making the great effort.

[33:04]

A subtle effort, but a great effort to be right there at the edge and also to relax. If you don't relax, then you don't see the opening. So great effort doesn't mean, so when you're using the 24 hours, doesn't mean that this is something that you're necessarily exerting in some kind of gross way. You're just willing to be right there and relaxing. So I should stop. But I did say relaxing. So then in the book, Nicoleen introduces me, says sometimes these things relax your mind. So, please forgive me. There's a song, An American Zen Teaching, from Lead Belly.

[34:07]

Hootie Leadbetter, a folk singer, ex-con, and king of the 12-string guitar. But... He has this, he was, Alan Lomax recorded him in the Library of Congress recordings. And so in that Library of Congress recordings, he has a little statement. He says, I wrote this song, Relax Your Mind. And it's for people who are driving. He said, I drove. He said, when I drive a car, I look through the windshield, and I don't, you're sitting over here, I don't look at you. You talk to me, I don't look at you. I looked at the windshield. I've driven all over this country, and I never even hit a chicken. So you can join in on the chorus. Relax your mind, relax your mind, helps you live a great long time.

[35:17]

Maybe I'll pitch a little higher. Relax your mind, relax your mind Helps you live a great long time Sometime you've got to Relax your mind So you can all sing that, right? Relax your mind, relax your mind Helps you live a great long time Sometime you've got to Relax your mind when the light turns green. Put your foot on that gasoline. That's the time you've got to relax your mind. Relax your mind. Relax your mind. Helps you live a great long time. Sometimes you've got to relax your mind.

[36:20]

And when the light turns red, push that brake down to the bed. That's the time you've got to relax your mind. Relax your mind. Relax your mind. Help you live a great long time. Sometimes you've got to relax your mind. I had a friend cross a railroad track. Oh, Lord, he forgot to relax. Not funny. He lost his life because he forgot to. Relax his mind. Relax your mind. Relax your mind. Helps you live a great long time. Sometime you've got to relax your mind. And when the light turns puce, that's not the time to be confused.

[37:23]

That's the time you've got to relax your mind. You can look up puce. Relax your mind. Relax your mind. Helps you live a great long time. Sometime you've got to relax your mind. Thank you. for singing and for listening. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click giving.

[38:14]

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