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'm delighted to be here. Is this mic working? Okay, I'm getting a thumbs up. Thank you. Yeah, I haven't been here since the renovations. So I just got a little tour and I hadn't planned on saying this, but I'm going to say it. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, thank you, thank you, everyone at San Francisco Zen Center. who participated in the planning and the fundraising and seeing this renovation project through. I am so deeply impressed. I am so grateful to see the visitor center, to see the reception area here, to see that amazing elevator and to see the gender inclusive and accessible bathrooms.

[01:11]

Yes. I was on the board, like, I don't know, 2004 or something like that. Nothing of that was here. It makes the center so welcoming. It makes the center so uplifting for people like myself with disabilities and those with mobility impairments. It's really, really, it's so important. It is so, so important. So thank you, everyone. I'm filled with gratitude. And I'll use the word to preview, wonderment. Have you heard that word? Has anyone heard the word wonderment? Ooh, okay. We've got a couple here. I will introduce you to it. Okay. The title of my talk this morning is Embodying Wonderment. And the subtitle is Zen 2.0 in 2026.

[02:19]

Embodying Wonderment, Zen 2.0 in 2026. Today, on the 10th day of the first month of the year 2026, once again, and perhaps... Always so. And perhaps even more so now. As it is famously said in the Mahayana Lotus Sutra, our house is on fire. Again. In thinking back over the times across the years when I've given talks here at San Francisco Zen Center City Center, and other places as well. But thinking back, since this is city center, on city center, every time I've come, the world has been on fire.

[03:22]

And therefore, I say, again. In my point of view, our house, our big planet Earth house, is environmentally on fire. And our houses of U.S. democratic governments and rule of law are set on fire by fascism. Now in January 2026. What do we say and do? What do I say and do? What do you say? And I, we're relating right now, right? What do you and I say? What do you and I do? Where do we go to exit from the burning building?

[04:25]

How many of you know the... that famous story of the burning house from the Lotus Sutra some enthusiastic yeah okay so we have some so for those of you who don't this is very very famous teaching story that's come down to us through the Lotus Sutra and here's the way that I tell it to bring it a little bit up to date I guess or in my understanding So there's a very rich person, parent, and again, I'm a parent, very rich person with a bunch of kids who has a big mansion, say, in the Oakland Berkeley Hills. I live in Oakland. And there are a lot of huge, really expensive houses up there. I mean, they're beautiful.

[05:31]

They're mansions. Unfortunately, with windy little roads, so those hills have burned in the past in the big fire of 19, whatever it was, 1991, I guess. And fire danger is present during fire season. So anyway, there's this rich person, and they have all these kids and this big house, and the kids are... just playing happily. You know, these days they've got their PlayStations and their video games and their screens and their mobile phones and they're busy on social media and doing all kinds of things, art classes, their kids' yoga classes. And they're doing this and they're having a blast. And the house begins to burn on the ground floor. They're up on the second floor. So the parent...

[06:33]

says, you know, screams, kids, come down and let's get out of the house. It is on fire. And the children completely ignore the parent because they're so busy and some have headphones on and earphones and they're busy off in their own world. And besides which, you know, some kids like to be defiant. And so they're like, hell no, we're not going to come out. We're having fun. We think that you're just saying this. And this goes on for a while, and then the parent becomes desperate and says, I've got to figure out how to lure these kids out of this burning house. And so in the traditional story, I think the parent brings up a series of ox carts. That was cool in those days. And says, look, Here's this fabulous art ox cart drawn by a white ox, and it's covered with flowers, and it's filled with snacks.

[07:36]

And kids, come on out. I'm going to show you this great thing. And these days, I don't know what it would be. Maybe a van filled with the latest technology and lots of great snacks. Of course, snacks are always good. And eventually... Basically, through skillful means, upaya gets the kids to exit from the house. Our house is, again, a planet Earth, and that does present a problem. What forms do our Buddhist and Zen practices and bodhisattva vows now take? How do they exist? manifest in the world in individual behaviors? So each of us has agency, each of us has autonomy. So individual behaviors and in collective actions of solidarity and efficacy.

[08:49]

What forms do our Buddhist and Zen practices and vows now take? How do they manifest? How do they show up in the world in individual behaviors and in collective actions of solidarity and efficacy? I believe in strategic action. To answer these questions, I need you. And I think that you need me. And I think that we all need the 10,000 things, the many beings. So once again, embodying wonderment, Zen 2.0 in 2026.

[09:52]

I'd like to bow to my longtime Dharma friend and colleague, Reverend Eli Brown Stevenson, who is my diversity, equity, inclusion, access colleague of many years, for some of the conversations which have led to this talk. Embodiment is very inspiring. and popular word right now in spiritual circles. And I don't particularly like it. I have a very strong aversion to it. It just irritates me so much. Although I understand its importance and I understand its meaning and the importance of its meaning. As I usually say, try making a sandwich or changing a diaper or making nine full prostrations, or driving a car, or doing a yoga class without a body.

[10:58]

I mean, really. So I think what we're actually talking about now with so much actually useful emphasis on somatics and embody this and embody that, which people are cashing in on, I think what we're talking about is, of course, awareness of physical sensations. That's brand new, right? No. The so-called first foundation or establishment of mindfulness in the famous Satipatthana Sitta, the four foundations or establishments of mindfulness. Awareness of physical sensations, embodiment. So what do I mean by embodying wonderment? For the past few years, I've observed with fascination, and I must say, joy, the rise of visibility of Chan, or Chinese Zen, and Son, or Korean Zen, teachers and teachings in our Buddhist media,

[12:20]

And in our Japanese lineage, Soto and Hensai, Zen lineages, circles, I've seen the rise of this visibility of Chan and Song. Adding, I feel, richness, depth, complexity to ongoing attention to the Japanese Zen Buddhist lineages. And I'm calling this Zen 2.0 for the sake of convenience. Thich Nhat Hanh, the great Vietnamese Zen master who passed a few years ago, throughout his teaching life emphasized this vital meditation question, made calligraphies of it.

[13:21]

There's lots. available online and emphasize the question as I first heard it and saw it was, am I sure? Am I sure? My understanding is that Vietnamese Zen, Tien, I believe it's called, is a syncretic form of Zen bringing in elements of the Theravada and of course, Vietnamese culture. So I don't really know where that came from. Plus, I did meet one Vietnamese Buddhist who said, Thich Nhat Hanh is not typical of any other Vietnamese Buddhist. You have to understand this. And I said, oh, thank you. He was a groundbreaking, I feel, genius teacher. who opened the path of dharma, the path of mindful awareness, the path of peace, wisdom and compassion for so many thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of people around the world in many different languages.

[14:38]

It caught my eye. Again, when I saw this calligraphy, when I saw these teachings, that this teacher, this prominent teacher was saying, Am I sure? Am I sure about what? Whatever it is we think we're sure about. And that invites a certain level of mindful awareness. Well, sure, the earth is round. Am I sure? What if I talk to a flat earther? I'll get a different perspective. Well, of course everyone thinks and believes this or that. That's called a thought. Am I sure? So you can see this is not a mantra in the sense that I understand mantra and I do have a mantra practice.

[15:45]

This is... actual living big question, am I sure? And this applies equally to the diversity, equity, inclusion, and disability access and accommodation work, a field which is now being quickly and systematically destroyed by our government. Am I sure? We are, of course, talking now, I believe, about or having some connection to what in Chinese Chan, that's our predecessor of Zen, practice is called, forgive me if I'm pronouncing it wrong, Hua Toh. I believe it's usually romanized H-U-A-T-O-U or something like that.

[16:53]

And my understanding is that that literally means word head. So the head of the word and more the actual meaning, the resonance is more meaning you go to the head of the word and then you go beyond it. So it's before the before the word. It's before speech. It's before speech. And so, for instance, my understanding is in koan practice, which I've done in a U.S. Rinzai Zen organization over the years which actually didn't use any classic koans as far as I know. However, that say there's a koan or case that says, well, does a dog have Buddha in nature?

[18:10]

I never did that one, by the way, although my name is Mushin, and, you know, there's the whole mu thing. Because the answer from the master was mu, and then the student needs to penetrate that mu, which literally means no, but not so much, actually. So Mushin, same as Mushin in Japanese, from the Heart Sutra, no, literally no heart-mind. Very awful name. which I've had since I received it in Toronto in 1983 from my original teacher, Korean Zen master Samu Sinim, who passed a few years ago. So, before speech. In the best-selling book of many years, Mindfulness in Plain English, the author Bhante H. Gunaratna says, Mindfulness, sati, s-a-t-i, that's the Pali, is pre-verbal and pre-cognitive.

[19:22]

So think about that, but don't think too hard. Because it won't get you anywhere, but think a little bit about it. So Chinese chan hua tou practice And what in Korean son, Korean Zen tradition, is called, same word, hwadu. That's usually Romanized H-W-A-D-U. In my limited understanding, the cultivation of continuous, all-encompassing inquiry. Continuous, all-encompassing inquiry. inquiry of looking deeper, of going, as Zen people say, beyond, beyond, completely beyond, inconceivably beyond, gate, gate, para gate, para some gate, and marveling at how much is known and how much is unknown.

[20:35]

Producing a quality of being that my friend, Chan Master Guagu, whose secular name is Professor Jimmy Yu, teacher at the Tallahassee Zen Center in Florida. So he's becoming very, very well known. Guagu, G-U-O-G-U. A quality of being that Guagu has called in English, wonderment. And a quality of practice that my, so that's, he's from the Chan or Chinese school. And a quality of practice that my friend Jagwang Sinim, who is a Korean Zen teacher, her secular name is Audrey Kitson. And so she's teacher at the 6th ancestor. Of course, many of us know that Sui Ning Zen Center in Canada, formerly in Berkeley, near where I live in Oakland.

[21:47]

Many years ago, I used to take my kid when he was a baby, and we would visit that center. A quality of practice that my friend Jag Wang Sinem says is hinted at by summoning however you or I might embody, meaning physical sensations, thoughts, emotions that may arise all together, not separate, all together. How you or I might embody saying, like, hmm. And I notice when I do that, I actually tend to lift my chin up. Hmm. and I look around, I wonder. Wow, I really wonder.

[22:48]

And this spirit of inquiry is meant to be applied to everything that, I mean, we do have to function, but to as many things as possible that come into our perceptual field. Paper. Thich Nhat Hanh did a lot on paper. Hmm. What is this? There's a word, paper. In other languages, though, it will be different. So it's not the word. hmm, what is this really? If I were a baby, I'd put it in my mouth, because that's how we started exploring things. You get the idea.

[23:50]

Exploration. I wonder. If you like, let's test drive this right now. So I'm going to invite you to say to yourself, Hmm. I wonder. So maybe just look around in the room. You could look at that. You could look at the tatami. Again, that's a word concept. That's a concept. Clothes you're wearing. Your hand. Just look at something and ask yourself, huh. What is this? What is this really? Like, I know there's water in here. But if I didn't, like, what is this? How does this test drive feel in your body-mind?

[24:56]

What comes up for you? So if you stay for the Q&A in the dining room afterward, I'd love to hear what comes up for you during this little exercise. My experience of Zen has been that it's for people who don't need and might not want. We're all different. Detailed maps and diagrams as they enter a charted wilderness. My original training in academia was as a poet in creative writing. Therefore, I am one of those people. In 1986, I was sitting in the pre-dawn darkness in an adobe zendo without windows in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with a sangha led by Richard Baker Roshi after he left San Francisco Zen Center. It was the first time I was there. It was so dark.

[25:58]

A few candles. And a priest in a black robe handed me a paper from behind and said in my ear, sotto voce. He whispered in my ear, the good news is that you get a chanting card. The bad news is it's too dark to read it. And I thought, okay. A poem by a famous Korean poet, Ko Eun. This, Asking the Way, translated by Soo-ji Kwok-kim and Sun-ja Kim Kwok. You fools who ask what God is should ask what life is instead. Find a port where lemon trees bloom. Ask about places to drink. And I don't think he meant iced tea.

[26:59]

To drink in the port. Ask about the drinkers. Ask about the lemon trees. Ask and ask until nothing's left to ask. One of the translators... at poetryfoundation.org, wrote this about Ko Eun. And these days, as we say, here's a trigger warning. Korea has been through a lot. When he was a teenager, Ko Eun, the Korean War broke out. Drafted but rejected for combat because he was too thin... malnourished, he worked unloading munitions and loading corpses for burial, sometimes carrying them on his back. At one point, he poured acid into both ears so he would not hear the sounds of killing and dying.

[28:00]

His hearing was further damaged decades later when he was tortured in prison as a political dissident. In an interview with The Guardian, he recalls, Half of my generation died, and I survived. So there was a sense of guilt, of culpability at being a survivor. They had all died, and here I was, still alive. In 1952, before the war ended, Ko became a Buddhist monk. Without Buddhism, he says, of that time in his life, I wouldn't be here today because I was lost. After a decade of monastic life, he left to become a schoolteacher on Jeju-do. It's a kind of tropical island right off the southern part of the peninsula of South Korea. He disrobed to become a schoolteacher on Jeju-do.

[29:03]

and ask until nothing's left to ask, the poet says. In my experience, that is a spirit of Korean zen song. That is wonderment. And how is it that we might embody wonderment? As a mother of a now middle-aged, kind of grumpy, Asian-American man who was once a very lively one-and-a-half to two-year-old at Green Gulch Farm many years ago. We lived there at Green Gulch Zen Center. I'm fairly certain that no matter how rough our childhoods might have been, and I am deeply, deeply sorry if yours was one that included pain and neglect, still, I hope that within each of us there is that baby who laughed, and when they first lifted their legs and grabbed their feet, what in yoga is called happy baby pose, was so joyful.

[30:28]

It's like, oh, feet, feet. And that's even before language, so I'm putting an overlay there. And still I hope that there is within each of you a child who felt the blessing of sunlight through leaves of a sheltering tree or through a window in a place of no trees. And the wonderment of eating chocolate ice cream for the very first time. Wonderment. When I was in Korean monastery in 1987 to 1988 on the sacred mountain I was introduced to the Korean, I guess, koan practice that they call imoko, which is hwaru. The practitioner assumes the posture of Zen meditation in the Zen hall, settles in, then raises the question, what is this?

[31:38]

I wonder, I wonder, what is this anyhow? In other words, whatever arises. My left foot itches. Those are words and physical sensations. Well, what is this? Oh my God, global climate crisis. Wait, wait. What is this really? These are hard and terrifying times, dear friends. Our house is on fire, ablaze with greed and hatred and ignorance. So I am very happy. I feel very blessed and grateful to be here with you now. Doesn't one of our chants say in English, I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words?

[32:45]

As I received it, another set of words for the Buddha means thusness and suchness. Totally cool. But what is thusness anyway? I wonder what it is. And in ending, I am so happy to be able to share with you the instruction in Hwadu, in Imoko, that I received from Wondam Kunsinim, the Zen master of Toksung Mountain in South Korea, in 1988. I had the gift of having a translator, Korean to English, present, and he arranged this meeting. And Wandam Kunsanem said to me these words. This is how I remember them in English.

[33:48]

And I followed this. This is my practice to this very day. So thus have I heard. Wandam Kunsanem said, the only reason we sit or assume a stationary posture when we meditate is because it is simpler. If we're moving around, we have to You know, have what's I think called, what, proprioception, awareness of our body moving and objects we can knock over, things like that. So it's simpler if we're in one place as long as we're safe. The only reason, he said, we sit when we meditate is because it is simpler. However, the purpose of the practice is to raise a question and hold it right in front of us, like, as they say, plastered to your forehead. or maybe like right here. The purpose of this practice is to raise a question and hold it right in front of us in every waking hour.

[34:51]

He said when we're walking to the outhouse, when we're eating, a little bit more difficult, when we're talking to friends, imoko, what is this? I wonder, what is this really? He said to me, as you continue your practice, you will have many experiences. Possibly he meant flashes of insight. He said, you will have many experiences. Ignore them all. Just keep going until the final explosion. And I'm here with you today, so that hasn't happened yet. However, I hope I'm going in the right direction. What a marvelous adventure.

[35:53]

Thank you so 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.

[36:21]

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