This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzz.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. So this story that I read to the young people is a very good example of the Yogacara tradition, which is also known as the mind only or the consciousness only tradition, which is one of the two major schools that underlie what we think of as Zen, what we call Zen. The other major school of study is called the middle way, in which the emphasis is placed on the teaching of emptiness. So those of you who have practiced with us here at the Zen Center will be most familiar with the emptiness teachings from the recitation we do just about daily of the Heart Sutra, but also from the lectures that you've heard from Zen teachers, because we are pretty heavily influenced by the emptiness teachings, which I'm sure you will have noticed if you come regularly.

[01:14]

So emptiness teachings are basically concerned with our coming to understand that there is no thing or person that exists separately or independently from everything and everyone else. Emptiness is also understood to mean that everything and everyone is dependently co-arisen, like all together now, dependently co-arisen. All of us here in this room right now are dependent on one another to be here. and to have an experience that we're having. But not only what's in this room, of course, what's outside of the room, and what's outside of that, and gravity, and on and on and on, until we can't see any further what's supporting us. But the entire universe is supporting us to be here right now. And another example, which is pretty current for us, is the example of the necessity for us to... have water. I mean, recent rains were such a blessing, as I'm sure all of you felt.

[02:17]

You know, the sound of rain, it's been a while. So when there's no water, when there's no rain, there's no grass, and when there's no grass, there are no flowers, and no flowers, and no fruit, and no fruit, no support for human life, as is happening right now in a great many places on the earth. Cape Town, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Mexico City, we're running out of water. So mind only refers to the proposition that in order to address the suffering of ourselves and of the earth, we begin with one principal concern, and that is taking care of our own minds. Taking care of our own minds so that we might come to deeply understand how this interdependent universe begins with each of us and how we think. So that may sound either too simple or unlikely, but if you think about it for a while, are mindful about it, you might find that our usual tendency is quite the opposite.

[03:32]

Our usual tendency is to try and take care of things and people that we believe are external to us, are outside of ourselves. Them, that, and those. And that what we believe about them is true. I hope that sounds familiar. The Yogacara teaching proposes that ultimately we don't know what is outside, out there, in the world. We don't know what exactly it is that's appearing. before our eyes, or in our ears, our noses, our mouths, onto our skin. The best that we can do is a calculated guess mediated by our consciousness, by means of our language, just as these children are learning how to do. At the sound of the fruit falling, the rabbit thinks, the earth is falling to pieces. In fact, I'm sure of it.

[04:34]

Run! In the Yogacara teaching, this notion of the self, of me, and what I think is considered to be the very source of our alienation, our fear, and oftentimes, as the Dalai Lama calls them, our pathological behaviors, such as the little rabbit telling all of his friends that they'd better run too. Misery, as we know, loves company. In his very helpful book called Inside Vasubandhu's Yogacara, the author, whose name is Ben Connolly, we have these books available in our Welcome Center, recounts a famous Zen koan reflecting the consciousness-only approach to understanding reality. Two monks are arguing over the movement of a flag outside the monastery gate. One says to the other, quite sure of himself, the flag is moving. The other says, no, it's the wind that's moving.

[05:38]

The sixth ancestor of the Zen tradition, Hui Nung, who happened to be walking by at the time, said, neither the wind nor the flag is moving. It's your honorable minds that move. So just how intimate is that? that the flag, the wind, the sixth ancestor, and our fellow monks are all present within our own minds, to say nothing about how differently I behave toward them when I believe that they're outside of myself. This teaching has been considered to be a revolution at the very base of our fundamental belief about ourself and about the world. And coming to understand this teaching has the power to literally turn our lives around in the direction of an ever greater kindness, respect, inclusivity, and compassion, in the direction of selflessness.

[06:40]

The very realization the Buddha taught as the pathway to liberation is that there is no separate self. So Ben Connolly tells another story in his book about a Theravadan nun by the name of Voromai Kabulsingh, Voromai Kabulsingh, the first Thai woman to receive full ordination and take the requisite 311 bhikshuni precepts. A young man asked her, how do you keep the 311 precepts? Voromai Kabulsingh responded, I keep only one precept. Surprised, the young man asked, well, what is that? And she answered, I just watch my mind. And unlike astrophysicists or geneticists or nuclear physicists, Yogacarans are not trying to explain the nature of so-called reality, but rather they are offering a model for understanding the nature of our lived experience, the workings of the human mind.

[07:54]

For example, how we know, the limits of what can be known, and most importantly, how to find a pathway through the mind that leads to our well-being, but not only for ourselves, in our best and wildest dreams, for the well-being of the entire world. Many people quickly object to some of the basic recommendations of the mind-only teachings, fearing that by focusing on their own minds, their own reactivity, and their own righteous responses to the very bad things going on out there, that those very bad things will never end. So this teaching is not trying to ignore or minimize the bad things that are happening in the world. As the Buddha said, the cause of suffering in this world of bad things is beginningless greed, hatred, and delusion.

[08:56]

That we have come into a world that is being driven by craving and selfishness of every kind. The revolution is away from craving and selfishness, and it is deeply personal, and it is hopefully highly contagious. Gandhi was a revolutionary. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks were revolutionaries. Buddha was a revolutionary. And each of us who wishes to be is a revolutionary. We are the ones wishing to turn the light of the world's suffering away from notions of ours and yours, me and mine, their problems and our problems. This path of mind only radically redirects us to concentrate on our own choices, our own actions, and our own minds, which is in direct contradiction to most of our habitual tendencies. So Ben Conley gives a very good example of this and what for all of us, I would imagine, is a terribly familiar experience.

[10:05]

So let's imagine it's December and you have a few packages to mail, gifts for nieces and nephews, perhaps. On the way to work, you stop at the post office. The line is very long. You glance at your watch, fearing you'll be late. The people in line are tense. They shuffle about, inching forward. Why don't they have more workers at the desk, you fume in frustration? It doesn't smell very good in here either. Shuffling forward, you realize that it is taking five minutes for the older woman at one desk to figure out how to mail her package. Come on, how hard could it be? A child in front is involved in a tense exchange with her mother. Perhaps you have some great ideas about how this mother could be a better parent. Sweat beads on your forehead as you glance at the clock yet again and tensely check the messages on your phone.

[11:08]

The line inches forward. Now, alternately, upon entering the line, if you focus on consciousness itself, you might notice the frustration that appears in your mind. And you might be intimate with the tense feelings in your body. Be aware of the judgmental thoughts that are floating into consciousness. and then out of being. You might realize the intimacy of your mind's suffering with that of everyone in the room, with that of all the people in the world. You might see through your own suffering and into your profound connection with others. You might relax and pass out some quiet smiles and kind words as you move through the line. And of course, you will still arrive late to work. Directing the attention to consciousness itself does not create a world according to our desires, but it is the happier way both for you and for those all around you.

[12:14]

So this same approach works in any situation that you may find yourself in. My friend and longtime companion, Dr. Grace Damon, who was hospitalized for a very long time after a serious automobile accident, would always get her caregivers to talk about themselves and their families. You know, I watched her do it. She modeled for them what it was to care for others. And almost without an exception, came to care a great deal for her. This is a perfect reflection in the mirror of her own life as a doctor, but mostly her life as a healer. And I would suspect that most of us know that healing that mostly needs to be done has to start with our own tender hearts. To bring our awareness and compassion to the frustration, the impatience, and the judgmental thinking which is so easily and habitually dominating our lives,

[13:21]

My own teacher once said to me, the practice of patience doesn't count when you're feeling patient. It counts when you are in a terrible rage. The last time I spoke, a few Sundays ago, I had those who were here then try a few exercises in the mind-only teachings. And then on Monday evening, I asked the class here to explore the sensory organ of the eye. what it is to see. What is it when you notice seeing as you go through your day? What do you see when you wake up in the morning? Do you see your room and your cell phone like that little boy did? So seeing is one of the ways to enter into a greater sense of ourselves and how the world is being made by the way we see it and the way we think about it. And as I said earlier, Yogacara teaching is focused on experiential learning, focused on the very basic experiences that we are each having throughout what we call a normal day.

[14:31]

For example, the experiences of your physical body, the itch and scratch, as it's called in Zen, the experience you have of seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and most importantly and predominantly, the experience you have of thinking about it all, of thinking about what you hear, what you taste, what you smell and touch, mind only. So why don't we all just take a moment to focus our attention on what we are experiencing as we sit here together in this room right now. And as you do so, notice how quickly your sensory experience is translated into words and sentences. into naming the objects that have called to your attention. So this is Yogacara's study, a study that you can do anytime throughout your waking hours, a study that endeavors to answer the question that I asked the kids this morning, what does it mean to be awake?

[16:18]

One of the things you may have noticed as you were attending to your own experience is how effortlessly you split the world into two. There are the things you conceive of as yourself, and the things you conceive of to be other than yourself. And additionally, yourself is quite naturally seated at the center of it all. So not only is self-centering the primary target of the Yogacara study, de-centering from the self is the very foundation of the Buddha's awakening. Vasubandhu, the primary teacher of the Yogacara tradition, points toward another possible way to view our own experience, and that is that everything conceived as self or other occurs in the transformation of consciousness, mind only. In other words, the self and the other are mere concepts occurring within conscious awareness.

[17:29]

And conscious awareness is likened to a river moving along in a process of endless change. If you look closely at your experience for a generous amount of time, as we do in meditation, you'll find many, many things. But what you won't find are fixed elements or even stable moments. There is simply a process of transformation, of endless change. In seeing the true nature of their own experience as an unending flow, the Buddhas and ancestors came to view the world around them, along with themselves, as a miraculous appearance, naturally intimate, generous, joyful, and compassionate. The Buddha called himself the Tathagata, meaning that which is thus coming and thus going. And he described himself as merely a flowing occurrence, the outward form of which was consistent, calm, compassionate, and available to all who came to him for teaching.

[18:44]

So that's the theory and the basic premise said to lead to awakening. And in the many centuries since the Buddha gave these teachings, teachings which had been elaborated, And codified, many human beings have found themselves deeply inspired by the Buddha's example and by his words. And then here we are today. We're the living beneficiaries of those many centuries, not only of devotion, but of diligence, of effort. I think it's that diligence part that strikes many of us here in the land of the free as a bit challenging. As the saying goes, everyone wants to talk about enlightenment, but nobody wants to talk about the sweating horses. The diligence. So therefore, I want to give you the no-sweat approach to engaging in Buddhist practice. And that is, as Vormai Kabbal Singh responded when asked how she keeps the 311 precepts each and every day, I just watch my mind.

[19:56]

That's all. Just watch your mind. You'll be amazed. So I can promise you that no one and no thing can get in the way of you watching your own mind. And why? Because that's all there is. You and the world all around you are not separate. They never have been. They never will be. And sometimes we forget that. And that's what it means to be human. And sometimes we remember, and that's what it means to be awake. These two seeming aspects of how we think and behave actually belong to each other like a box and cover joining, as it says in one of the sutras. Self and other. Perfect fit. No gap. So I want to end today with some verses from what I have heard is Suzuki Roshi's favorite teaching.

[20:58]

called the harmony of difference and equality. The mind of the great sage of India, the Buddha, is intimately transmitted from west to east and continuously, nonstop, right now. While human faculties are sharp or dull, the way has no northern or southern ancestors, no separation. Grasping at things is surely delusion. According the sameness is still not enlightenment. In the light, there is darkness, but don't take it as darkness. In the dark, there is light, but don't see it as light. Light and dark, self and other, mine and yours, oppose one another like the front and back foot in walking. Each of the myriad things has its merit expressed according to function and place.

[22:03]

Phenomena exist. Box and lid fit. Principle responds. Arrow points meet. Self and other. Hearing the words understand the meaning. Don't set up standards of your own like our little rabbit did. If you don't understand the way right before you, how will you know the way as you walk? Progress is not a matter of far or near. But if you are confused, mountains and rivers block your way. I respectfully urge you who study the mystery, do not pass your days and nights in vain. So good luck with all of that. And thank you so much for your kind attention.

[23:22]

May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[23:24]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_97.35