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. Good evening. Is the mic working okay? If I don't knock it off. It's great to see you all. And first, I'd like to thank Rosalie for inviting me to give a talk. It's a great opportunity for me to learn and study and share with everybody. Thank you. And thank you for your support. And I also want to thank senior Dr. Paul Heller, who's not here today.

[01:01]

for his support of my practice, and also my parents and grandparents for the many gifts that they have given me. My parents will be arriving tomorrow to visit me, so I want to mention that tonight. It's the first time they come to California. They live in China. Tonight I want to talk about change. Let me change my position first so I can see better. Change seems to be the

[02:12]

theme of my life in the past year or so. And for those of you who don't know me, my name is Lucy, Lucy Xiao. I lived here for quite a while, for about 12 years. And I recently moved out of the city center. And now I live across the bridge. And as you can imagine, that's a big change for me in both my personal life and practice. And I also noticed tonight there is a lot of different faces. Some of you I have not seen before. And I also noticed that Blanche, our dear Dharma teacher, is not here tonight.

[03:19]

And she doesn't live here either, nowadays. So, change happens in life. Whether you like it or not, It happens. In nature, we always change from one season to another. The fall seems to be arriving, and from day to night, and back to day again. Our body changes all the time, whether we know it or not. Sometimes we do. I practice Chinese medicine, so sometimes I get patients who complain that, now my ankle hurts after running.

[04:27]

It didn't used to. And I always tell them, it's called mileage. And so sometimes we notice changes in our body. But not everything. We don't notice a lot of things that change in our body. How many of us know exactly what's happening in our body when we take a breath in, a breath in and a breath out? There's a lot going on. And I heard that every minute in human body, there are close to a million cells dying and reproducing. Can you imagine that? So change happens all the time, but we may or may not know it, and we may or may not like it.

[05:36]

Our relationships change all the time, There's always something happening in life, birth and death, getting married, getting divorced, new relationships forming, things always happening. And these changes, these... Where's Barbara? Barbara is my English instructor. Should I say these change, changes? Changes. These changes bring us a lot of reactions and responses vary from feeling happy, excited, to anxious,

[06:43]

distressed, angry, worried. It's just nature of our life. And in Buddhist teachings, this is one of the basic teachings. It's called impermanence. And the basic Buddhist teachings are impermanence and suffering and no-self. Well, these are some of the most important teachings that the Buddha taught. And so tonight I'd like to share with everybody

[07:44]

some of the teachings that the Buddha gave about impermanence, and also a couple of commentaries. One from Suzuki Roshi, our founder of these temples, and another one from Master Woman, or muman in Japanese. So in the early sutras, there are many places that the Buddha taught about the nature of impermanence. The impermanence of human existence in terms of five skandhas, four, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness.

[08:51]

And also in terms of sense, sense basis, and sense consciousness, like I, I consciousness, I and form, ear and sound, and ear consciousness. So all of these are subject to change. And so one of the sutras, well, let's see, I have a couple of sutras here. They're both from the collective discourses of the Buddha's teaching. Some of this I translated from the Chinese version of the Samyotab Nikaya and some of them is the Bikyu Bodhi's translation from the Pali Canon.

[10:08]

So in In this sutra, the Buddha talked about the impermanent causes and conditions giving rise to five skandhas or five aggregates. He said, form is impermanent. Form arises from causes and conditions that are impermanent. Therefore, it is also impermanent. As form has originated from causes and conditions that are impermanent, how can it be permanent? Likewise, feelings, perception, mental formation, etc. So in the Buddhist sutras, you know, you often see the repeats of the same teaching, and then it comes down to consciousness.

[11:15]

is impermanent. Consciousness arises from causes and conditions that are impermanent. Therefore, it is also impermanent. As consciousness has originated from causes and conditions that are impermanent, how can it be permanent? Therefore, because form is impermanent, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness are impermanent. What is impermanent is suffering. What is suffering is non-self. So that is one of the presentation of the impermanence teaching of the Buddhas. Similarly, that was based on the five skandhas, and then also there, he also talked about the six sense spaces, such as...

[12:43]

In dependence on the I and forms, there arises I consciousness. The I is impermanent, changing, becoming otherwise. Forms are impermanent, changing, becoming otherwise. Thus, this dyad is moving and tottering, impermanent, changing, becoming otherwise. And I consciousness is impermanent, changing, becoming otherwise. the cause and condition for the arising of I-consciousness is also impermanent, changing, becoming otherwise. When? Because. I-consciousness has arisen in dependence to worth. On a condition that is impermanent, how could it be permanent? And so on and so forth. So maybe for some of you, it may sound a little abstract or not.

[14:01]

But I find that really, I feel really resonate with that. And there is a famous story of Suzuki Roshi when someone asked him, you know, at the end of a lecture, you know, you have this Q&A, and someone, it might be David Sherwood, asked him, Suzuki Roshi, your teaching is great, and I'm sure, you know, I feel it's very... very clear, but I still don't understand. I've been practicing with you for quite a few years now, but I still don't understand. Can you describe the Buddha's teachings? Can you boil it down to just one phrase?

[15:05]

Everybody laughed, and Suzuki Roshi laughed, and he said, everything changes. And probably a lot of you have heard that story. So in Zen Man Beginner's Mind, his talks on meditation and practice, there's a chapter called Transiency, which is, in another word, impermanence or change, that I thought it's a perfect commentary for the discourses that the Buddha gave in the sutras. In this talk, Suzuki Roshi said, the basic teaching of Buddhism is the teaching of transiency or change.

[16:14]

that everything changes is the basic truth for each existence. This teaching is also understood as a teaching of selflessness because each existence is in constant change. There is no abiding self. In fact, the self-nature of each existence is nothing but change itself. The self-nature of all existence. Later on he said, without accepting the fact that everything changes, we cannot find perfect composure. But unfortunately, although it is true, it is difficult for us to accept it because we cannot accept the truth of transiency. We suffer. So the cause of suffering is our non-acceptance of this truth.

[17:19]

The teaching of the cause of suffering and the teaching that everything changes are thus two sides of one coin. So it's not that things change is in itself suffering. It's the fact that we, when it changes and we don't want it to, that causes us suffering. That we don't accept the truth, the reality that everything changes and that things in our life come and go, people in our life come and go.

[18:20]

And if we truly appreciate what's right here, right now, what's right in front of us, if we appreciate the person who is sitting right next to us, who lives with us, if we can appreciate everything and every moment, then when it has to go, when it goes, there's not much of this entanglement. Because we can see that the, you know, the arising and falling away is part of what makes up this existence.

[19:42]

And, you know, flower a bud shows up and the flower opens and the flower fades. When we have a clear mind and a present mind, every stage has its own beauty. Maybe it's easier to appreciate a flower in that way. Maybe it's not as easy to relate to certain people in our life in the same way. And in Chinese medicine, we always say that

[20:46]

similar to some Buddhist thoughts, that everything is in constant flow. There's always this dynamic interplay that produces life. When the night sets, doesn't all of a sudden become night. It starts from afternoon. And when the dawn comes, it doesn't show up right. No. All of a sudden, it starts from midnight. At the same time, all our body parts and organs and everything in our life, there's always this interdependent relationship that gives rise to life, to new life, or to death of certain things,

[22:16]

dying, letting go of certain things. And it's what life is. If nothing changes, we won't have life. If nothing changes, we'll be all like the figures in the wax museum sitting here. And the fact that our hearts beat and we breathe and we grow and we age, give us, give each of us a very distinct beauty and distinct place in this in this big world of human existence.

[23:23]

And some of these, some of the things about ourselves we may not like, and some of the things in our partners or our family members, we don't like. We don't like it when people we love go away. And we also don't like it when people we hate come close. But see that's the Buddha taught that that's That's because we have certain... Well, first of all, we don't understand, we don't see that everything, every existence arises due to causes and conditions.

[24:34]

And we don't see that oftentimes. And also because we are attached to what's pleasant to us, and we have aversion to what's unpleasant to us. By the way, there's also a sutra about that. You know, the pleasant feelings, the unpleasant feelings, and the neutral feelings, they all also arise due to causes and conditions that are ever-changing, that are impermanent. So, when you get attached to them, you think in your mind that you don't want them to change because they're pleasant, or you want it to go away because it's unpleasant. But it has its own way of arising, existing, and falling away.

[25:40]

But we are fixating. on certain ideas that certain things should stay, certain things shouldn't. And that causes a lot of trouble in our life. And just like Suzuki Roshi said, Because we cannot accept the truth of transiency, we suffer. The cause of suffering is our non-acceptance of this truth. It's not the transiency itself. It's our non-acceptance of it. And a Zen master

[26:43]

Wu Men, or Mu Man, who from the Song Dynasty in China, who compiled the famous koan collection, the Gayless Barrier, Wu Men Guan. There is a poem, a verse that I like very much. It's from Case 19, Ordinary Mind is the Way. Some of you have read it probably. So in that case, the verse goes like this. And here's a rough translation. A hundred flowers in spring, moon in autumn. Cool breezes in summer, snow in winter. When no unnecessary things hang on your mind, it's the best season of life.

[27:50]

It sounds like this in Chinese. So, seasons, There are many seasons happening in nature and in our life. We may get flowers sometimes, and moon another time, and we may get breeze, or maybe chill wind, and we may get snow. What makes it the best season? What makes it the best season in our life? Well, Master Woman, whose name means gateless or no gate, he said that when there's no unnecessary things,

[29:14]

Hanging on your mind or hindering your mind, that's the best season. Maybe you have your own answer. What's the best season of life for you amidst all the seasons that you experience? every day. So, there are a few more minutes. I'd like to open it up to comments or questions if anybody has anything to say. a hand.

[30:21]

Hello, yes. Sometimes I think something good is going to happen. Yeah. And I imagine a good thing happening and I feel, you know, I feel my thought body just vibrate and my thoughts, grace, imagining it. And then maybe it doesn't happen. And then it all runs in reverse. It's completely my imagination. It gives me those good feelings to begin with. It must be completely my imagination that creates the opposite in its absence. Why is it so hard to be wise when We can see that to be the case right before our eyes.

[31:25]

To be wise to it. And not be tricked by it. Not be tricked by your own imagination before things happen. Yeah. And is it possible to just simply live in the state of that imagination of good things? I mean, if it's just your mind imagining it that makes you feel good, why not just... Stay in your imagination. Or why can we not call that feeling to our mind and our body without the intending belief? Well... It seems like you put too much money on your mind.

[32:31]

You're betting too much on your mind. Agree? You bought the house as it were. So our mind, our imagination, or how we perceive things, is just a little part of our existence. It's not the whole. It's a mental note. It's not the reality. these imaginations and hopes and plannings or yearnings, they arise due to certain causes and conditions.

[33:31]

But it doesn't mean, but it's in your mind, but it doesn't mean that the causes and conditions of the reality will bring that about. And so for me, the best bet or a better bet is to stay very present to what's happening, not to stay in the head. Christy, when I'm visiting with people who are in the emergency department, something that we often enter often in pain, something we often do is bridge together and I invite you to turn a warm attention, kind attention to how the pain is changing with each breath.

[34:50]

And sometimes That's helpful. Yeah. And I wonder if that, you know, I'm just, that came up listening to you tonight, and I wonder if that isn't more generally applicable to life, you know, that we can just turn our attention to the change. Yes. And to our response, the actions. Intention. But with time. Yes. Or grandmotherly. Yeah, yeah. So we can create positive conditions for changes, for change. Didn't Buddha say that it's due to causes and conditions? So there are certain causes, but there are also certain conditions. We're not totally off-duty. We have a part in it. So we can create positive conditions. for a situation like that. And that sounds a very kind thing to do.

[35:54]

Thank you. And anything else? It's like it's bedtime. So thank you all very much. And thank you to the city center sangha. I always feel very warmed. And yeah, my heart is warmed every time I come back here since I moved out. Thank you very much and I wish you all sweet dreams and wish you all best season in your life. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center.

[37:00]

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.

[37:19]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_87.7