Good morning. Good morning. It all takes a very long time. So sometimes I'd have a feeling like I'm just arriving. Books are kinda done. There's some famous stories of doing all this ceremony and then taking the seat and then just leaving. I don't yet have the courage.

[01:01]

You do. I'm humbled and grateful to be here on this seat. My name is Chiriu Ani Abathir Klingolch. I'm grateful to see some old friends. I have many friends out of mine as well. Welcome to all of you. And as always, I wonder what we're doing here, what brings us here. And this morning, I found a line that might speak to that for you. Can you hear me okay? Now can you hear me better? You didn't miss anything.

[02:05]

I'm just like the dog, you know, walking in circles before I lie down. It may be a while. Some dogs just need three. You know, only the Buddha has really laid down everything. So we circle and circle and circle. longing to lay it all down. So these lines from Suzuki Roshi, I feel, are maybe expressing something about why you're here this morning, and certainly they express something about why I'm here. Zen practice is not so hard.

[03:06]

That's good. Everything else is hard. How about have Zen practice not be so hard? Our practice is everywhere. So you didn't have to come here, but thanks for coming. You don't have to come next time. Zen practice is not so hard. Our practice is everywhere. If you don't attain enlightenment, it's okay. As long as you do not lose these points. How to be kind to others and how to be one with others. You don't need to attain enlightenment or have some idea about what Zen is. if we can just stay close to these points, to be kind to others and to be one with others.

[04:12]

Sometimes he says, you know, this is our founder, Shinriya Suzuki Roshi, founder of the San Francisco Zen Center, of which Green Gulch Farm, people are sometimes surprised to hear, is a part. He sometimes says, you know, it is already enlightenment. to be one with others, to be kind to others. And by others, we mean everything, anything that arises in the field of our life. Does that sound familiar to your heart? Like, oh yeah, maybe that's why I drove over the road. to be kind to others and to be one with others without losing our place as ourself. So the reason that's not hard is because we already have that nature, the nature of...

[05:31]

utter intimacy with everything in the field of our life, and the natural heart shape of love and care. We don't have to climb a mountain to get those things. It's just already our nature. So maybe we come to be reminded. We touch the teachings to be reminded that this nature is so intimate. Our life is so intimate. We are one with each other without losing our place. And we naturally long to practice kindness with all things. So because it's our nature, you know, there's nowhere we need to climb to. There's nothing we need to really change about what we are or what this is.

[06:35]

But we have ample opportunity to let go of things. So our practice is kind of a practice of letting go and resuming that nature that we already are and have. The nature that everything, our life arises as one thing with everything in it. Intimate, not separate already. This isn't like a fancy idea. This is just a direct experience of each of us in our life. Everything that comes in our life is together with our life. Nothing is outside. And this kindness is our natural heart, our birthright.

[07:41]

So one of the ways that we practice not losing these points of kindness and intimacy or oneness with things is to practice zazen or sitting meditation. So I wanted to refresh a bit what this Sazen practice is, the way we teach it here. Okay. And is anyone here for another reason than this? Or a reason that can't be expressed through these words? These words aren't the reason. But what these words express maybe is something like the call of our heart. Could we just love? Could we just be in the intimacy?

[08:46]

So Zazen isn't some grueling meditation practice. It's letting ourselves just resume, return to the unified field of our life. the intimacy of being alive together with everything and the warm nature that arises from that intimacy. So to practice zazen, we come into our body. It's this embodied practice. We come into our body and we come into our breath. And especially we invite the breath and the energy and the awareness down into the belly, into the ground, down.

[09:51]

So as we breathe out, we're breathing out from as deep in our body as we can. And breathing in, the breath flows all the way into the bottom of the belly. Grounded, embodied. And as we breathe in this full way, the upper body aligns and opens to make room for that breath. So we sit upright and relaxed, breathing all the way down. And Suzuki Roshi reminds us that we're not using the breath to achieve some state of mind. We're caring for the breath in this way of breathing.

[10:54]

It's just a good way to care for the breath. The breath is here and we love the breath. So we make room for the breath and stay present with it to take good care of the breathing. Grounded and breathing and upright. and relaxed. The jaw relaxed, and the eyes relaxed, and the shoulders relaxed, the belly relaxed. And the heart relaxes. We can remind ourselves of the love that's in our heart already.

[12:03]

You all know the line from Mary Oliver, maybe? You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. So just letting the heart, as we relax and open, sit upright, the heart is softening and just free to love what it loves. Brent sees every single thing that arises. Like, really? You'll let me do that? We don't have to do the other thing for a little bit? I thought you had said we have to, like... Defend and protect and withdraw and retract and fight. Really? We get a breath from that. Like the dog off the leash. The heart off the leash. Yeah, we can just love it all like you want.

[13:08]

Don't worry, I'll tell you when we have to, you know, put the wall back up. Reserve the right to close the gate again. But for now, you know. Just let ourselves be that love. It's so satisfying. It's so true because it is our nature. And as we let ourselves touch it, it's like more and more we might feel, I don't want to close the gate again. So we sit in the natural kindness, upright, open breathing. And then we clear our mind. This is the best way to connect with the intimacy of our being.

[14:09]

And this is maybe one of the trickier points. To empty our mind completely and forget everything. but it's worth inviting or exploring. Forget everything sounds maybe like too much, but just forget whatever is available to be forgotten. Let go of whatever can be let go of. You don't have to hack anything out. But there's maybe some stuff that's ready to fall and just let it fall. And that might just be a passing thought or the... the energy and story of some grudge. Or it could be the idea of body, the idea of mind. So Suzuki Roshi asked, when telling the story of the Buddha's enlightenment, he asks, why did the Buddha have such joy when he saw the morning star?

[15:18]

This is the story, right, of the Buddha's Awakening, he's sitting in a grueling meditation after years of grueling practice. And he sits, his breath in the belly, his heart warm and finally unprotected. And he opens his eyes and sees the morning star and feels this great joy. And Suzuki Roshi says, why so much joy at the sight of the star? Then he says, because he had forgotten everything and the star came up in his empty mind. That's why he had so much joy and could be so intimate with the star. Not be sure if it was the star or if it was him. So he says, we may say he attained enlightenment, but it's more like he forgot everything. He forgot that he was separate from the star. He forgot that he was supposed to hate.

[16:20]

What joy. So when we forget everything, you know, this is part of the courage or the faith or the opportunity of Zen practice that we tiptoe towards and then, you know, scurry back from. And we just forget. Just forget what we think we know about our life and just be in the wonder that of not knowing in the wonder of just being this totally ungraspable, unknowable, unnameable mystery of just being here as we are human beings. We get so used to it like it's nothing special. It's crazy to be alive. And we can't get a handle on it. We can't figure out what it is. But we're trying and we have lots of stories and lots of maps.

[17:26]

So forgetting the maps is not like, oh, you can't have them later when you might need them. It's just, can we reconnect with what there is before we made some map and story that anyway was not really working for what the situation is. The wonder of the feeling of actually being. So to include everything, to regain this innate oneness, so to not lose these points, to be kind to others and to be one with others. Our founder, Suzuki Roshi, offers that if we want to be ourself in the way of being alive that includes everything, then we should forget ourself, forget where we are, and forget how long we have been there. How does that sound?

[18:32]

Risky? Like how will we remember what kind of sandwich we like when we're at the store or how to get to the store or that there's a store? The thing is, we know how to get to the store. This image I keep using is like, You're carrying this backpack. I'm carrying this backpack because I need it. You know, I'm carrying this backpack full of hard tack, full of rations, right? To get me through. And I'm walking with my heavy backpack and I'm going through life. And I, every now and then, you know, I stop and rummage through my backpack and chill, chill and stuff that I'm carrying because I have to provide for myself. You know, I'm carrying all this stuff And then the Buddha says, you know, you could put down the pack.

[19:39]

I say, no, you don't understand. What am I going to eat? Where am I going to sleep? It's a good question, and we don't need to force it or let go of something that it's not time to let go of. But we can open our eyes and look around. We can put it down for a minute and see... There's fruit on all the trees. And the stream is overflowing with fish. This giant pack, I don't need it. In the letting go, I will have what I need because what I am is a rising together with everything. This is kind of the faith that supports the letting go. And then the letting go tests the faith. And little by little, we... Drop and drop and drop until maybe for a minute we lie down. Let ourself be supported by the life that has been holding us the whole time.

[20:47]

So, to forget who you are. or to create space at least between who you think you are and what this immediate experience of being alive is. I say I'm Jiryu. That word has nothing to do with the feeling of being alive. That's what is actually happening for me. Do you know what I mean? So our Zen founder in China, Bodhidharma, was asked by the emperor, who are you? And he said, I don't know. There's not a word for this.

[21:50]

Because we're so in it, you know? The word would have to be kind of outside of it. So we just sit kind of forgetting, okay, maybe I'm not so sure who I am. Or maybe the things that I think I am are true when I'm in relationship, are true from the outside. But what am I from the inside, you know? What is this feeling of being? Forget what I know about that and reconnect with the embodied, direct experience of being alive. And then he says, then maybe we'll notice that in that embodied experience of being alive, there's not two things happening. There's not separation. There's just one arising whole being. In a similar vein, he suggests you could forget or soften or consider letting go of where you are.

[22:58]

And that's been an interesting one for me. Like, you imagine you might... not think that you have a strong view of where you are, but we kind of imagine ourself on a map. Do you think? Like, where are you? And you'd point to a map as though that's more real than the feeling of here-ness that you have now. Or we imagine, what's the earth? The earth actually looks like this picture from the moon? That's just what it looks like from the moon. How is that more real than what it's like right now? Do you know what I mean? Where are we? And that's not to get like ungrounded. It's to get actually grounded in the aliveness now, which includes everything and is bright and full and supporting us. So he says, you know, you could forget where you are. And then the wonderful one for Dharma talks, which is maybe why I teach on this phrase so much, you can forget how long you've been there.

[24:00]

Forget who you are and where you are and how long you've been there. And some of you know, I've really been chewing on this one. How long have I been here on this planet? When did that start? On this planet, see? Breathing out and breathing in. Of course, it started a while back, I guess. But when we step into the moment, we're not so sure, you know. Maybe it just started. So Dogen Zenji says, no, it didn't just start, but it also isn't continuing from some past. In other words, Dogen Zenji, our 13th century Zen founder, like our 20th Century Zen founder is saying, forget, stop putting this experience into time and place.

[25:09]

Or at least take a little break from that and feel what it is to be alive. And I've been feeling that as I practice this kindness, practice with this intention of kindness, I've been feeling that practice of forgetting, of kind of softening the naming and the knowing as a kind of kindness to my life, you know. Zuki Roshi has this funny image, sort of traditional and sort of his own, where he says existing in time and space is like putting a snake in a can, like pushing a snake into a can, putting a snake into a jar. You with me? Anybody feel like a snake in a jar? We won't do hands, but... So it's like, you can have the jar, you can know all this stuff.

[26:22]

You can be, you know, on a point, on a map, as though that were more real than the feeling of alive now. But you don't have to be. You can take a little break, and that's our seated meditation practice. And you get up with it. And then part of what grows our faith is we see we can respond perfectly well without these extra layers of knowing. So feeling like, I know who I am. I know where I am. I know what time it is. That's kind of like jamming that snake into the can, you know? Not so kind. So when I think of just, you know, just what actually is this? Let it be what it is without telling it what it is. That's the kind of kindness to being, to just sit not knowing, sit forgetting. Just let that, the boundlessness of our life, whatever this is, it doesn't have dimensions exactly.

[27:26]

What is it to be? So it just... Let it out of the jar now and then. As a kind of kindness. So to not lose the point of kindness to others or kindness to everything. Kindness to our breath. kindness to the sensations, kindness to the light and the sound and to each other. You see, that feeling, that kind of warmth, that sort of kindness is Buddha's compassion and it's Buddha's wisdom. It's the kindness of non-separation, the kindness that flows.

[28:30]

from non-separation. So it is actually Buddha's compassion and Buddha's wisdom. It welcomes everything, just like being alive welcomes everything, just like the Buddha welcomes everything. And it's not separate. It's Buddha's wisdom and Buddha's compassion, just this little practice of kindness. I want to share a couple of stories about kindness. And one of the things I've noticed about kindness is that sort of along the lines of the kindness that we're doing is like echoes of the Buddhist kindness or the fundamental kindness of being.

[29:33]

That we don't practice kindness from a place of not receiving kindness. The practice of kindness is like the practice of being in kindness. Do you know what I mean? When you're practicing kindness, you're like, the field is also kind. You're receiving kindness. You can't really practice kindness and not receive kindness. Do you think? Maybe you can, but I'm skeptical. Good try. Kind of like hopping on one foot maybe would count as walking. So the kindness is this kind of openness in the intimacy of the field of being. And it's not something we generate from inside. It's more like something that we're flowing in. It's more like an element of what our life is. So our sitting practice is just to sit upright, warm, open in kindness for whatever arises.

[31:04]

Whatever you're feeling now. Whatever you're seeing and hearing. This meditation practice isn't getting rid of anything you have or even transforming something you have is just to be with what is in open kindness. Warm heart. Artanto, Eli, is there in the back? I think. he asks himself, can I be as kind as silence is to sound? Oh, wow. You should be the tanto. Can I be as kind to everything that's arising as the silence is to the sound?

[32:13]

No friction. No friction. Just complete embrace. This has helped my Zazen practice to just sit, not kind of doing my tricks to get the feeling I want to get, but just sitting in kindness with what's here. The kind welcome. Just embrace without friction. That that's going to be the ground of my transformation. That's going to be the ground of any good that I do. It's not like instead of doing something, It's as the ground of doing something to just be this kindness, to walk as kindly as the silence is receiving sound. When we practice in this way, you know, the kindness is like we can be kind to the earth as we walk. We can be kind to the food as we crush it between our teeth.

[33:20]

The sensation. I'd say, well, the anger, this is what makes kindness such a grounding practice and why I like to talk about it because I feel like, well, I can just be kind. I don't have to be anything else. You know what I mean? I don't have to reach for anything. If my practice is not to be angry, that sounds great, but then when I'm angry, I'm going to have a problem, you know, and I'm going to start scrambling for the non-anger and I'm going to be way out on a limb. It's like, I'm pretty angry, but I think I'm supposed to not be angry. And then just pop. I think I'm supposed to be concentrated, but I'm pretty all over the place. I better get concentrated. I think I'm supposed to feel something that I don't feel. And I've been in this talk for like, I've been at Green Gold's already for an hour and a half, and I still don't feel the thing that I'm trying to feel. So then we're out on the limb.

[34:24]

Where is that? And the more we're out, where is that thing that I'm supposed to be feeling? The more like, we're just leaving behind the being of our actual life where we are as it is. And for some reason, the kindness, I mean, you could have kindness practice in the same way. Like, don't be unkind. When you're unkind, you have to kill the unkind and get back to the kind. But it's not really the feeling, you know? The feeling of kindness is more like, wow, I'm so unkind. That's okay. I'm feeling so unkind and I'm acting so unkind. Wow. Okay. The kindness doesn't fight with anything, just like the silence doesn't fight with any sound. Silence and say, well, that one's too loud or those notes were not quite right. So this kindness practice just can meet whatever it is, even the unkindness. yeah, it's welcome.

[35:26]

We never have to be any way other than how we are. So then we can always be ourself. We can always be right where we are. This isn't really a practice of becoming something we're not. The practice of loving what is and noticing that what is is totally ungraspable, has no inside or outside, and is warm, is love. So these couple of images that I wanted to share about kindness. One I shared last time, and I've just been chewing on it, and I wanted to share it again just to refresh the story and bring it back to mind. This is again of Suzuki Roshi. whose work I quote so much because I'm studying it closely, not because we're a cult of Suzuki Roshi.

[36:34]

Disclaimer. His students all really loved him. His family wasn't so sure. We're all just practicing the way. We're just making this great effort together. To come back to our intimacy and oneness with each other and all things. to stop forcing inside and outside on the one arising of our life and to just let our heart love what it loves. So he has a story of doing the begging rounds where as a temple priest in Japan, he would walk around with his bowls for donations for the temple to support him and his family.

[37:47]

And this is during the Second World War. During wartime, sometimes I went on takahatsu begging rounds, and if I came across people who were digging a trench for shelter from the bombs, I helped them. I'm not so strong, but I could help them. So he's asking for people's kindness, going with his empty bowls, and then you see some people digging, and he puts his bowls down and says, I'm not so strong, but I can do a couple shovelfuls. Receiving kindness and giving kindness, natural. It's just in the field of kindness. He wasn't like generating it. He was asking for it and then giving it. And then I transplanted cucumber and eggplants around the trench because we got such good dirt from the trench. So they're digging the trench to like lie down in when the American bombs are falling on them. And he's like, well, this is some good soil. Let's put some eggplants and cucumbers in here.

[38:53]

So we planted cucumber around the trench. So sometimes I helped in that kind of way. If they did not end up needing the trench, anyway they could eat the cucumber. So we prepared cucumbers, a vegetable garden, and a trench. Below a trench, above the vegetables. So I just love that image of kindness, of just... Natural kindness. Tender and intimate and mutual. Giving and receiving kindness. And we say, I'm kind to my breath. My breath is pretty kind to have come, you know. Who's been kind to who? So then the second story I've also shared, which I want to spend a little bit of time with, though I don't want to keep you all too long. Fortunately, this may have just started in beginner's mind.

[40:00]

I mean that, you know. We're just so often living just in such a thick kind of mesh of our ideas and views about what's happening. So there's some of you, many of you maybe know the work of Ryokan, the Great Fool, the Japanese poet of the early 1800s. He's kind of a cartoon character, I think, in in my image, and I think in Japanese culture in a way, in the kind of antics that take place around him. So the story of him and the bamboo, there's a couple versions of it.

[41:02]

One is that under his house, some bamboo shoots started to grow up under his house and push against the floor. And so he cut holes in the floor so that they could get through. And then he said, don't worry, you know, when you get to the ceiling, I'll cut the holes in the ceiling. That image of, it's welcome. It's welcome. You don't have to block the bamboo sprouts. Just got a hole in the floor. Totally foolish. The great fool. Another version of the story is that one night when he went to the outhouse with his candle, he noticed that there were bamboo shoots growing up, bamboo growing up in the outhouse and brushing against the ceiling. And he just felt this great concern for the bamboo shoots that couldn't get out. It's kind of like the snake in the can, you know, or our heart in its little crate.

[42:08]

So he thought, I'm going to put some holes in the ceiling so these... Bamboos can get out through it. So he took this candle to burn holes in the ceiling for the bamboo and burned the outhouse down. The great fool. It's funny, right? It touches our heart. It's like the joy, the total non-self-centeredness. It's like problematic, you know? I mean, it just burned down. He just ruined his house. It was burned down the outhouse. It is not like a model for us exactly. It's not mature. It's not wise. But it's so pure, and it's so actually selfless. It's not hedged, and I think that's what's so kind of exuberant about it. You just feel like, so much for me at least, so the kindness is kind of like, well, as long as it works for me, then yes, I'll be kind. And that's good, you know? Our kindness should include everything.

[43:13]

It has to include everything. It's Buddha's kindness. It includes everything. Ryokan's foolishness, and there's many other cases like this, like he would sleep with one leg out from under the cover so the mosquitoes could eat. And now and then, you know, when it was a really nice day, he would take his robes and lay out some rice paper and take off his robes and shake all the lice out and then move the paper into the sun so the lice could get sunned for a while. and then shake them back onto his robe, you know, and put the robe back on. So, like, he's being very kind with no thought of himself. And it's off balance. The kindness is, you know, like, what about your leg? Could you also be kind to your leg? What about your outhouse? Could you be kind to the outhouse? So the exuberance of it touches our heart, I think. And then, of course, it's a cartoon, you know. Our wisdom comes and sees... The kindness includes everything.

[44:14]

In this practice of forgetting, of just being our life, we stop saying, this is me, this is not me, this is inside, this is outside, and we stop having a different policy based on, is it inside or outside? We're conditioned differently. Some of us, the way that policy got written, whoever did that, the policy is, If it's labeled inside, then it doesn't get much. If it's labeled outside, it gets everything. And then many of us have this other policy, which is like, if it's labeled outside, probably not. And if it's labeled inside, yes, go for it. It's yours. The Buddha way is stop doing that to the boundless being. It's just kindness as the posture. Kindness before there's anything. So of course it doesn't matter if the thing is my leg or the mosquito. It's equally arising in the posture of kindness.

[45:18]

The kindness is already there before something happened. And I get that from these images. It's not like Suzuki Roshi was not being kind and then he saw some people and then he responded with kindness. He was already walking kindly on the earth. The kindness is already in the posture before something comes. It's too late. Once there's something, it might be too late. You can try. But it may be too late. This practice of kindness that's inspiring me is like to practice before there's anything. Just to practice kindness already. To be in this tender, open way. Then things that arise naturally there will be kindness. And it doesn't matter if they're inside or outside. So it's not off balance. It's trustworthy. It's not self-care. It's not not self-care. Kindness towards everything that arises. And then our mind freaks out and says, well, yeah, but it's going to be one or the other. Who gets the thing? You know, got one ice cream cone, who gets it?

[46:21]

Them or me? But the heart of kindness doesn't have that problem. It's not like that. All of it. The mosquito and the leg. The bamboo and the outhouse. the monk on begging rounds and the people hungry and afraid. So I want to close just with one image to get at this question of how do we practice this kindness and just invite in closing the study of how do I cultivate kindness? in my posture, in my being? What gets in the way of that and what waters that? Can I feel my heart calling me to kindness and intimacy?

[47:24]

And can I respect that and how do I support that and nourish that? So once when I was at the Tosahara Zen Mountain Center, also part of San Francisco Zen Center, I was working in the kitchen and the head cook. I appreciate it, but I found it a little bit difficult to work with. And I wasn't the only one. One might say he was objectively difficult to work with. A little bit sharp. And sometimes I was frustrated with him. You know, do you think that Zen students would be... Naturally kind. If we had already done the practice, we wouldn't be here. People who already have it together aren't here.

[48:27]

They're just like doing their thing. This is remedial. It's like we're trying to catch up. So then people come to the Zen Center and they're so discouraged that somebody's not kind and somebody's not wise and it's like, give me a break. How about you? And then later, you know, five, 10, 20 years later, we see, wow, that person was so kind to my little arrogant thing. So once I was getting something I needed from his desk, and I saw that in a place... Other people couldn't see it. A place that only he could see. He had taped this sign that said, am I being kind? And I was so... stopped, you know? So touched. So to practice kindness is to ask, you know, am I being kind?

[49:38]

And more often than not, be willing to hear the answer, which is like, nope, not to your breath, not to the light, not to the sensation, not to space and time, not to your friend, not to your partner, not to your kid. But to be asking and to know that each other is asking. So Zen practice is not so hard. Our practice is everywhere. It doesn't matter if you attain enlightenment. Just don't lose these points. To be kind to others and to be one with others. Thank you so much for your kindness and attention this morning. I'm sorry to go on and we'll close here. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center.

[50:39]

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 sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[51:05]

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