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. One way of saying what Buddhism is about, or what practice of Buddhism is about, is how do we live in a way that creates less suffering? It doesn't create more suffering. It creates less suffering. And the way that we study that,

[01:05]

Maybe we can say the good news or even the gospel of Buddhism is that that is possible to do, the teaching that it is possible to live in a way that creates less suffering instead of more suffering. And in fact, maybe not just that it's possible to do, but that that is something that could be called the nature of things. Actually, that is how things work unless we mess them up. Which, of course, you do, right? So the way that we practice that in this particular practice, Soto Zen and Asics practice here at Tassahara, is essentially, I think, Zazen. It's like being upright and keep your eyes open. Try to be in the center. Dogen says that the way we study Buddhism, the way we study how to not create more suffering, how to create less suffering, is to study the self.

[02:22]

But it's not the self, some cut-off self. When I was first practicing Zen and my family found out about it, one of my parents, set something back, but it's so self-centered. But it's not that self, that cut-off self. A couple of the quotes are, the entire universe is the, let's see, I have to move it out. The ancestral way, in the ancestral way, there's only attaining the self. There's only getting back to the self. And then the entire universe is the Dharma body of the Self. The entire universe is the true human body. The entire universe is your very human body. So it's not just this being. It's this being that is the entire universe.

[03:25]

So what is that? That's part of what we're studying. How do we get to the center of the universe? as it is known from this body. So this body, for each of us, is kind of like a portal through which we can get to the entire universe. We have this other one, called our mind, where we think we can get to the entire universe, and we do go to pretty far out universes, but they are not necessarily, some of them might be brilliant, but they aren't necessarily connected with the entire universe as it's manifesting at this moment. So there's nothing wrong with that, with our mind and being able to go to the entire universe, or even other universes, as long as it doesn't cause more suffering. But if we're looking, how do I live in such a way that causes less suffering, not more suffering?

[04:32]

It's good to spend at least some time right in this particular human body and seeing how does it interact with the rest of the universe? How does it cause suffering, actually? So that's what Zazen is helping us to do. It's like sit down and just stay with this body in the center of the universe for a little while. over all those other universes, but if we're sitting down and sitting still, and we go home, we aren't. Even when we're walking around, if we have an intention to practice this kind of being in the center of the universe with this body, this body that is the entire universe, eventually we notice, most of us, I think all of us, some suffering. going on. You know, life goes on, maybe we're pretty happy, maybe the period is going really well, maybe our work is going well, or our relationship, but eventually, something happens that we notice some suffering going on.

[05:48]

And maybe it's, you know, pretty intense suffering, or maybe it's just something we would call dis-ease. But that, when that, if we're there, you know, upright, and with our eyes open, figuratively, you know, we're looking for it. When that suffering arises, then we have this possibility of suffering it, of studying it, suffering it and studying it. You know, we have habitual things that we do instead of that, actually, that are habits that are particularly built up to free us from studying how we cause suffering. One way of saying that maybe is we can prepare things, we can get into a kind of comparing mode. If some kind of suffering comes up, we start to look around for what else is going on.

[06:51]

And that sometimes leads right into blaming, where if we have some suffering some dis-ease or pain that's happening, and we're looking around, we can almost always find something or someone to blame it on. And we can justify that, too, because there'll be good proof that it's the case that either, I mean, you can pick, we can blame it on ourselves, You can blame it on someone else. You can blame it on something else. It may be true, as truth goes, but it's not in that hurdle that gives us this information about how I help there be less suffering. How do I cause suffering? What are my ways of causing suffering?

[07:55]

To do that, to see that, we need to stay right in the middle. Another thing that we do is we try to control things. It's really a habitual response, and you have habitual ways of controlling. For instance, I was... And I have to say, I think a lot of the time, at least in this practice, This doesn't happen because we are like saying, okay, now I'm going to study how I create suffering. Now I'm going to stay very upright and have my eyes open. It's more like we live our life doing that. We sit some Zazam. Certainly life at Tassajara, I think, supports this kind of awareness developing. This kind of, maybe not even awareness, maybe more like capacity. Like, there's enough stability.

[09:00]

We start to have enough stability, enough support, enough courage that when the suffering starts, you can actually stay there. You can stay there. Not exactly, like, decide to stay there, but, like, the impulse to run away is not quite as strong, so you stay there. So once, after I'd been practicing for a while, somehow, enough capacity had developed that... A pretty familiar thing happened. I was with a man that I knew very well, and he got angry. Not at me, he just got angry about something. And I noticed, it was like a surprise, I noticed this very familiar feeling. Once I noticed, I noticed that it was familiar. Very familiar dis-ease. And the dis-ease was connected, sort of habitually, to how do I make this better? How do I stop it from happening? How do I make him happy again or convince him that he isn't seeing the full picture or anything?

[10:08]

Just what can I do? And I don't know exactly why, but it's not like I've decided now, wait, stop, go back to the center of the universe, go back to where I'm actually feeling suffering to see what do I do with suffering. It wasn't like that was a thought, but somehow that happened. I didn't do my habitual thing. That's a very crucial part of it, is to not do your habitual way of getting away from yourself. So, by grace, I did not do my habitual thing. I didn't say anything. I just noticed, oh, this is fear. I'd never thought of it like that before. You know, I thought... Yeah. Stop, this isn't happening. I hadn't thought. I hadn't thought at all.

[11:09]

But anyway, I recognized, oh, this is fear. And it was so surprising because right along with it came a more accurate response. Because in this case, it could be different in different cases, but in this case, I wasn't really afraid of this person. I mean, I really did have fear, but I was like, what am I afraid of? Well, it feels like I'm afraid he's going to hit me or something. It's like a very primitive kind of fear, but I didn't really believe that. So the power was gone out of the fear, you know? And actually, I didn't do anything. I just sat there, and he was angry, and I was noticing this uncomfortable feeling, not much worse than that, really, going on. And it was eye-opening, because this was not like a one-time event.

[12:12]

This was a many-time event with many different men in my life. You know, something that I learned a long time ago with probably my father, but anyway. It was like, oh, this is a way that I further suffering. This is a way that not doing actually helped. Helped my suffering. And I don't think it was bad for his suffering. I don't know what exactly I would have done that time to try to make him feel better, but I doubt if it would have been very effective. So to just let him have his feeling... created less suffering. So that movement maybe of staying in the center of the universe, the center of this universe, the center of that universe, the center of your universe, and letting it be open to the entire universe, how does the universe come into this body?

[13:24]

And what does this body do with it? And I think we've learned ways to protect ourselves. We've learned to use whatever we've got to protect ourselves, as you've heard me talk before. I'm going to say this almost every time. If we're smart, this morning I heard I drove in last night. I had to go out to Jamesburg because my granddaughter... was at our house, and she's too much for only one adult. So I drove back to Jamesburg, and then drove back in this morning, and on the way in, I listened to the radio, and I heard Newt Cambridge. Those of you of a certain age, we used to hear Newt Cambridge all the time, right? And now mostly we don't hear him, but he sounded just the same. He sounded really smart, you know, really like, and with a very unique, well, to me, unique take on things, like seeing things like almost the opposite of I would see things, but really with a lot of ammunition for how it was the way it was and sort of talking very fast and very loud.

[14:34]

And the reporter kept saying, I understand that you think this, but what about this? And I thought, oh, that is such a protection mechanism, you know, for those who can do it, for those who think really fast and talk really fast and are... are smart. That's one way of protecting my idea of who I am. Some of us can't do it quite like that. Almost nobody can do it quite like you, but some other people can. And some of us can do our own version of that. If that doesn't work for us, usually there's something else. If you're big, you can get bigger. I was once walking down the from the Zena Center in San Francisco to the library with, I think we were, for some reason, probably at night with a man, his name is Robert Lytle, maybe some of you know, and he was big. And it was nice, like, somehow he was talking about, well, if, you know, it's okay to walk at night because, you know, if anyone comes along, you just, like, hop up and get, you know, like...

[15:45]

You know, it just doesn't work for me the way it works for you. You know, he looked big. He looked kind of like you wouldn't mess with him. I don't think that's my way to think of something else. So that's another thing you can do. If you get angry easily, that works. Protect yourself with anger. If you cry easily, you can cry. I used to live with a... community of women right after college. I went to a Lutheran college, and a number of my friends and I started this community called the Community of New Life. And we were teachers in Lutheran grade schools in Chicago. And we lived in the inner city and pooled all our money. And it was in a pretty rough neighborhood, and we had this—it probably came from some thinker, but anyway— It was like if you run into trouble on the street, basically you invite them home for tea.

[16:47]

So we used to do that sometimes. That worked too sometimes. I mean, it never turned out horrible in our sweetly naive, really blessed life. Whereas if somebody starts hitting on you, you say... You know, I don't really have time for this right now, but if you'd like to come home with me for tea, that'd be okay. I have a lot of friends there, and there were always people at the house, so they'd come and they'd be a little overwhelmed. I suggest that if you haven't thought of that as your strength. You invite them all to hear it with us. One of my favorites is to be nice. You know, if you can do that, I really recommend it. It works really better than most of your ways of doing it. Somebody gets mean and threatening, you just be nice, like I was just saying.

[17:51]

So these are our strengths, right? Oh, and if none of that works, you can always try alcohol or drugs. It's a good way to avoid suffering, right? The problem with these skills... is that most of them cause more suffering, at least some of the time. Some of them really are strengths, you know, and we don't necessarily want to, like, I don't want to, I really do think it's a strength to be able to mostly be nice to people. And I don't want to get rid of that. However, I don't want to make that my way of getting through life, you know, to use it as a manipulation, as a strategy to avoid suffering. And especially to avoid the study of how do I cause suffering? How do I, is there a way that I could make less suffering in the world instead of more suffering? So that's the program that we're involved in, I think here, is how to do that.

[19:03]

And again, I think the basics of it are essentially Zazen, whether we're sitting down Zazen or walking around Zazen. It's like, be here, be upright, try to have your eyes open, be aware, not turning away from, notice how you turn away from, and then notice those habits of going away from there, how we go away from there, how we start to blame, how we start to how we start to try to control things. One way of describing it may be the same as what Dogen's saying when he says, to carry the self forward and experience myriad things is delusion. To carry the self forward and experience myriad things is delusion. That myriad things come forth and experience the self is awakening. So there's a kind of settledness. And things are happening.

[20:04]

It's not passive. It's really not passive. I don't think there's any way to be passive. We are an active species. As things come forth and experience themselves, it's by an interaction with us. It's an active interaction thing that's happening. And that's where we need to stay open, maybe. what is happening? Am I causing suffering now? And, you know, partly am I causing suffering for me? But if I'm staying here and in touch with the entire universe, you know, especially that that's right in front of me, am I causing suffering for others? And then is there something that I could do a little different to do that? And, you know, this can get to be a big... question for us, what do I do in this situation, you know, some situation that we're dealing with or that we're thinking about to not cause suffering or not cause as much suffering.

[21:12]

And I think really mostly the thinking about it is beside the point. We have those questions and we spend a lot of time trying to decide what should I do with this situation and think it's much more be there be there upright and open and see what you do see what you do when you don't do your habitual way of getting away be surprised you know as they say in our chant you know your treasure store will open of itself so how do you how do we actually respond to people things our internal world in a way that's taking into account, that's willing to be. It's willing to be itself, willing to be part of the entire universe. I'm going to say a poem again that I've said several times, which has to do with this, I think.

[22:28]

moved it around a little bit, but it's from the Book of Serenity. Tonight, I'll say it this way. A child of riches, when he falls on the road of destitution, has such sorrow. Still, do you know the self or not? Vaguely, like a moon through ivy, a crescent at that. A child of... The child of riches, that's us. We are completely connected to the entire universe. We have a portal to the entire universe that can... It's not that it can be without suffering. That's what I believe. That because we have a body, because we have a mind, there will be suffering. But that can... live in such a way as to create less suffering instead of more suffering.

[23:32]

So we are a child of riches that can do that. Still, when we fall onto the road of destitution, when we fall into our habitual ways, when we try to think our way out of things, we have such sorrow. Even though we have this portal to the whole universe, We're that close to falling into destitution and sorrow. Still, do you know the self or not? Still, the study of the self and how we meet the universe can happen. Do we know it or not? Vaguely, like the moon through the pine tree over there as I came into the Zendo, vaguely like the moon through ivy or through tree branches, a crescent at that. So we don't know the self perfectly. The self is the entire universe. There's no way we can know it, like get a hold of it and control it.

[24:37]

But we can be there for it as it is now and interact in that way much more accurately with the universe in a way that creates less suffering. So do you know the self or not? Vaguely, like moon through ivy, a crescent at that. Does anyone have any questions or give me a cut and... Yes. So, you're getting a call? Yes. I'll dig in or this commentary that I'm reading talks about the relative, the ultimate, but that's not enough. It's also like you started perspective, it's the position to have. Do you know what I'm talking about? Do you know? No. Does it make any sense? So do you remember what they call the third position?

[25:42]

What he calls the third position? It's related to emptiness is foreign, you form is emptiness, but foreign is also foreign, and emptiness is also. And so it's as if those three things have to be held together. And I was wondering maybe a correlation between that and experiencing suffering as a portal to everything. Yeah. I think so. I hadn't thought of it as three things, but maybe three things. Three perspectives. So... To... You know, experience to stay there with our suffering, to not run away from it, is, will be, can be a way to see the emptiness of it. That's what set freeing about it. And that if we stay there with it, most all suffering actually, like everything else, is changing.

[26:51]

And... It dissolves. I mean, it may eventually dissolve in death, but it's a changing thing so that there's emptiness there. But emptiness only comes in form. You know, it only comes. You can't, if we try to imagine ourself to a less suffering place, you know, a place that maybe we might call emptiness, we might call heaven, you know, our imagination is not really trustworthy in that way. So to get there through the form, through the actual form, through the extra suffering is the way this practice at least teaches and recommends to stay right in that. Maybe that is the third thing, to stay right in the middle of where things are happening and coming apart. Anybody else?

[27:54]

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

[28:28]

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