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. I'm here at Tazahara co-leading the Zen and Yoga Workshop with Patricia Sullivan, who's here tonight. And this is, I can't remember how many of these workshops, these retreats we've done. And I just want to say what a privilege I feel it is to work with her and practice with Patricia. And may it continue. And we've both been feeling enormous gratitude, as has the retreat for the workshop space for the retreat hall. It's just really a marvelous space to practice in.

[01:03]

And thank you to everyone who's contributed to that. Some people here have helped with that. It's wonderful. So in our classes together, Patricia's been encouraging us to slow down and pay attention to our own true body. and our own unique bodies without comparing who's more flexible or who looks better. Each person has been encouraged to take care of their own practice And we've been working with some very subtle energies beyond the concept of the body. The more mysterious, meaning we don't even know how to talk about it, energies and flowing, ever-changing bodies that we are.

[02:13]

One thing Patricia mentioned, which has reverberated with me, and I realized the talk was... born of this reflection for me. The other day, Patricia asked us to move in the pose from the marrow, from the marrow of our bones, to be in touch with the marrow. And it was like, the marrow? What is that? But even the words allowed some deepening. some unusual deepening and resonance with some inmost quality. So in looking up marrow, you know, what is marrow exactly? And it's a soft, fatty material,

[03:21]

in the center of the bones, in the bone cavities. And it has fat cells and maturing blood cells. So in this marrow, fresh blood is being born, is being produced. And it also, of course, has the meaning of the inmost choices, most important thing. the center. And it's connected also with strength and vitality, which I think the blood is connected with strength and vitality. So to pay attention to the marrow of our bones, the marrow of our life, the marrow of our relationships, the marrow of our practice, what might that be?

[04:23]

How do we enter that, the most important, choicest, inmost quality of our life. So synchronistically, someone in the retreat, Mary Ann, asked me if I would speak about the four horses, which is actually an ancient teaching from the Pali Canon that Suzuki Roshi drew from and spoke about in Zen Mind Beginner's Mind. And so I thought, well, I'll look up and see what Suzuki Roshi says about the four horses. I've read it many, many times, and it's always been meaningful and encouraging, that teaching. And I opened the book, and the name of that chapter is The Marrow of Zen. the marrow of Zen.

[05:26]

So I knew that this was the subject of the talk tonight. There was a request from somebody plus this coming together of what I had already been turning. So that's what I want to bring up tonight is this story of the four horses. Who of you knows the story of the four horses? Oh good, not everybody knows. Okay. And then I want to combine it with a... I guess I'd call it a challenge, something challenging for me, and that has to do with something we've also been talking about in the workshop around trying to control things or how we practice with wanting to control. So the... The four horses, there are four kinds of horses.

[06:29]

And this comes from the Samyukpada, I'm not sure exactly the name, but an old text. The four kinds of horses. So the first kind of horse, there's four. The excellent horses, the good horses, the poor horses, and the bad horses. The excellent horse, runs fast and slow and left and right and halts and whatever the rider wants, they're able to do it before they even see the shadow of the whip. They're that attuned. The good horse can do all that right and left and slow and fast and what the rider wants when just about when the whip is about to hit the skin. The poor horse learns to run when the whip, when he feels the pain of the whip on the body.

[07:45]

And the bad horse, the worst horse, learns to run only when it feels the pain to the marrow of his bones, the whip. So one might hear this story and think, well, which horse would you like to be, you know? I want to be that shiny, perfect horse that anticipates everything and is fleet and strong and perfect, you know, before the shadow, even the shadow of the whip, it's already prancing along at high speed. Or at least the good one, you know, second best, okay, second best, okay. And then the third one, the poor horse, that third one of having to feel some pain,

[08:55]

okay, I'll start running now. And that poor fourth one having to feel to the marrow of its bones the pain of the whip before it can go. So I think one possible understanding of practice, both Zen practice or yoga practice even is, I want to be that most excellent horse, the perfect one. And yet, when we look at these four horses, and this Suzuki Roshi really turns this in a beautiful way, which horse might we feel the most compassion for? Which horse might we feel an emotional connection with, really, as it tries to learn to run? And I think that effort that it will take in a life that has felt a lot of pain and difficulty and makes that effort and tries, I think we might feel lots of compassion for that horse, that practitioner.

[10:12]

Suzuki wrote, she says, who do you think Buddha's mercy, Buddha will have sympathy for and mercy for? To flip this around where the one that has the most difficulty and has to try the hardest and feel the most pain, if we think about our Zazen practice, taking a cross-legged posture or any kind of posture, even for some people sitting in a chair may be difficult. This effort to sit and to practice And the pain that comes with that and the difficulty is what allows us to taste the feeling of the practice, to have a feel for what Zen practice is, rather than a kind of shiny idea of some kind of freedom that's

[11:27]

way above everybody else and free and without problems and the best. We may long for that because we think, well, then I won't be in so much suffering. But there's something not grounded enough or deep enough. And in fact, some... people, and maybe this is true in yoga as well, who can very easily get into these poses or take a cross-legged position, flip into full lotus and sit. I knew somebody like this who sat in full lotus. Actually, Suzuki Roshi used him as a kind of demonstration being. He toted him along and had him sit to show the posture. And I remember him saying, kind of, what's the big deal, you know? Kind of, what's it all about, Alfie? Because he could do it so easily.

[12:29]

And it didn't take much. He didn't have to meet or feel to the marrow of his bones. So maybe this kind of flips the four horses where the most excellent horse may actually be in terms of our... entering our life and being with each other truly may have the hardest time. Whereas the one that struggles and tries, they understand how everybody else is struggling too. They understand perfectly in their own bodies, or we understand perfectly in our own bodies, what it takes to stay with something when there's difficulty and pain and problems and suffering. And the taste of what it means to stay with something becomes very valuable.

[13:37]

So it flips around. And I think you could say that about yoga, too. If you have to really work and find your way you have the taste, the taste of the practice is in your body. So even though you may be the worst horse and have the most difficulty, you will taste the marrow of Zen, the real feeling of the practice. in reading this over the years, I've always found it extraordinarily encouraging because this tendency to fall into wanting to be outside of our problems or outside of the difficulties as if that's the point.

[14:40]

The point is not to be free of all our difficulties. In fact, those very difficulties and problems and physical pain and mental agony and emotional difficulties is the stuff of our life, is the marrow of our life. And in working with it and entering it and meeting it day after day after day after day, this is how we live a life. and convey our practice life and help others. I think sometimes when it's so easy for someone or they are sailing along, it's kind of hard to understand what the problem is. Just get a job, you know? Let them eat cake. Is tomorrow Bastille Day? And it's Greg's birthday tomorrow?

[15:45]

a kind of separation from how difficult it can be when it's easy for us, a kind of heavenly realm where we're separated. So the interest of getting outside our net of difficulties and swim free, we won't taste the... the stuff of our life. So, another part of this that was circulating in my, or I was reflecting on, is in the retreat hall. In the new retreat hall, there's a scroll. There's just one kind of altar table and one scroll. And the scroll is of, Bodhidharma, one of our ancestors who brought Zen from India, so the story goes, so the teaching story goes, brought the practice from India to China, brought the Zen practice.

[17:02]

And he's kind of a wild character who sat facing a wall for nine years and lots of stories and legends about Zen. this teacher. And when he transmitted his dharma to his successor and passed on the teaching, he had four kind of main disciples. And he was saying, he was going back to India and said, you know, let me know, tell me what your understanding of my teaching is. And each one brought up a part of the teaching. The first one brought up not attaching to words and letters, and yet not separating from words and letters. And he said, you have attained my skin. And the second disciple, who was Song Chur, who we chant in the women ancestors, Song Acharya, Song Chur, she mentioned her teaching that she had from him,

[18:12]

was about non-attachment, seeing a wonderful Buddha land and never seeing it again and not being attached to that. And he said, you have attained my flesh. And then his third disciple brought up the four elements and the five skandhas and the emptiness of the elements of the psychophysical body, stream. And he said, you have attained my bones. And then Huayca, who was a very, talk about a disciple who entered a difficult time and tasted the marrow of his life. Huayca came forward, did three prostrations, bowed three times silently, and went back to his place. And Bodhidharma said, you have attained my marrow. And hoika received the transmission of the lineage and the robe and the bowl to pass on.

[19:22]

So this is, we chant his name every morning after bodhidharma, tai so eka in Japanese. So you have attained my marrow. And this word attain, you know, I don't know what the character is, but in English the word attain has, you know, reach and after great effort to complete something. But also the etymology of it, it means to touch. So from the Latin, to attain is to touch. So you have touched my marrow. You have touched it. And when you touch, you come together. And later in another place, it's flipped around to, my marrow has attained you. Both together, flipping back and forth as teacher and disciple, as one mind.

[20:28]

So, to touch the marrow of our life, to pass on the marrow, the choicest, full understanding to convey this to all those we come in contact with. But we have to touch it ourselves. So I want to come around to this difficulty that or challenge for me, and thinking about feeling the whip, you know, to the marrow, and help have that. That's what's necessary to learn how to run, to learn how to practice, to live into the practice, not even learn, to live it out.

[21:42]

And this comes together with what I was saying about control, how one of the subjects we've been talking about in the retreat is how often we want to control all the uncontrollable parts of our life because in some ways, if we feel it's under control, then our anxiety is, we bind the anxiety because it's all, we got it in order. But of course, the next moment, it's all changed, right? Something else happens or they don't do what we said. to do or what they told us they were going to do and something else happens and then we have to, and it's an endless high anxiety activity of trying to keep things under control and the impossibility of it. So one of Suzuki Rishi's teachings is if you want to control, not just Anything but a person maybe you could think of.

[22:51]

But if you want to control, he says your sheep or your cow, give them a wide and spacious meadow. A wide and spacious meadow. And then encourage them to be mischievous. And don't ignore them, your sheep or your cow. or your best friend. Don't ignore them. But also don't try to make them do what you want them to do. But pay close attention. That's the best thing. Pay very close attention. And this, you know, I've always been puzzled by this, encourage them to be mischievous. What's going to happen? it probably has a reverse psychological thing where you encourage them and they say, no, I'm going to practice very unmischievously. So this practice of staying close, closely attending, and attending to our own self what comes up when we're trying to control and staying with it, this is feeling the whip to the marrow, really.

[24:12]

in the face of wanting things to be a certain way, wanting them to be other, not able to accept things, the worst things, not wanting to accept it, and yet we have to. We have to. This is our life. This is the stuff of our life. And... So giving this wide, spacious meadow to our own mind and body and to others and stay attentive, stay close by watching. And you could say this is the exact same thing in Zazen, you know, rather than forcing our body-mind to breathe a certain way or stop doing that or don't think about this or we... watch very carefully. And I don't know about encouraging to be mischievous with our own body-mind, but we let, we just give a relaxed, spacious place and watch things come and go or meander around, but stay attentive.

[25:24]

What might that be like? So this is a classic, classic teaching of Suzuki Roshi and a wonderful also very encouraging. These two stories of the horses and the wide pasture, I feel always that this is talking directly to me. It's not some esoteric, highfalutin thing or story. It's so close. So I've brought this story up to many people. about the wide pasture and how to practice. And anyway, recently in a discussion with someone, we were talking about practice and the best way to convey the practice. And they, it was a person, but this person said, well, you give people a small pasture.

[26:34]

And this other teacher gives people a wide pasture. And then they went on, you know, and it was like a... It was like being pierced to the marrow, you know. And as I say it, I can, you know, feel that. And, you know, partially because this classic... practice of Suzuki Roshi's way of giving the wife, give your sheep or cow, and then to have someone say, well, you give them a small pasture. And I had to hear it. I questioned reflecting on it. Is that true? Is that true? Is that rigid? Is that narrow? Am I not allowing people to be themselves? Am I forcing them? Am I trying to control them? So this has now been something I'm turning and looking at.

[27:41]

And I think with this person we got to a kind of shared understanding of different ways of getting to the heart of the matter, different styles even. But it's still reverberating and it's still something that I need to stay with and allow myself to question and ask and not turn it to, oh, you're a younger student, you don't know anything. Who are you to tell me that kind of thing? Yada, yada, yada, yada, you know. This is one... I feel this, I have to listen to this with ears wide open and heart wide open and see what's there for me.

[28:43]

Otherwise, I'll lose the taste of this practice which comes with feeling the whip to the marrow of the bones. And I don't think there's a time when one sort of rides away into the sunset as the excellent pony. If our bodhisattva vow and our practice is forever and ever, there will always be this, meeting this over and over in different forms. Taking this difficult posture, painful posture sometimes, is one excellent method that has been passed down to face our lives and to face the most difficult parts of our lives.

[30:05]

The over and over coming back to our practice strengthens us, strengthens and vitalizes the marrow of our the marrow of our bones and life and practice, the marrow of Zen is... I think of this blood being produced and the bloodline of the teaching being passed on from person to person to person over all these years. If it wasn't, if Zen and the teaching... wasn't about this, it would be long ago dissipated and forgotten. But it's about the most and the most difficult parts of our life and how to meet them. And we all share this. There's no one exempt. It's easier to arouse our way-seeking mind or our bodhi aspiration, our bodhicitta, when there's these difficult times.

[31:31]

The mind of awakening, this aspiration to arouse this, is met with when we have to make this effort because it's so difficult. So as the summer goes on for the students at Tassahara, things get more and more difficult. I shouldn't say that. Things get easier. We get to know the jobs really well. We can just, you know, head into the dining room, do all the jobs. And also it gets like, it's long, the summer's long. And if it gets really, really hot, it's hard. So remember, remember those four horses and see if through the difficult times you feel like you touch into the marrow.

[32:42]

So, I was told that at 9.20, everyone turns into a pumpkin. And as Greg said, some have already become pumpkin pie during the talk. So, That's funny. So let us say good night and thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered free of charge and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma.

[33:50]

For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[33:55]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_98.06