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. Well, good morning, everybody. Wonderful to be here. It's wonderful to see you all. My name is Shundo, for those who are not familiar with me. And... I think this is my first Saturday talk since we came back in person from the pandemic. So it feels especially wonderful to be here on a Saturday. What a beautiful day it is. Given the weather that we've been having, it feels like the first day of summer. Although maybe if we stay quiet enough, we can still hear the four horns on the Golden Gate Bridge. And it is the first day of the second half of 2023. If you're wondering where the year has gone, it's already gone. And there are many people to thank, some of whom are here and some of whom are not here.

[01:02]

So Anna was the tanto who invited me to give the talk. She's back in Germany now. I think Heather is in that seat now. Thank you, Heather. And I think my current teacher, Zachary, is at Tassahara right now. But thanks to Ryushin, who ordained me as a priest many years ago. And I also want to name check Galen Godwin for giving me the name Shundo a long time ago. And, you know, I lived here at Zen Center for about 15 years altogether and spent many happy years at Tassahara alongside Khan Abbas. We were in the serving crew and kitchen crew together in the abacial seat, which is wonderful. And as I teach out in the world now, my kind of practice is to try to figure out how to convey the teaching for people who don't get to live at Tassajara for as many years as we have.

[02:03]

And, you know, those of you who are here, those who are online, you know, have your own practices, your own practice places. So how is it that we can make this ancient teaching meaningful to everybody? And to start with, I'm going to tell a classic Zen story. This is from the transmission of the lamp. It involves a third and fourth Chinese ancestors. That's Kanji Sosan in the version that we chant in the morning, and Dai Daoxin. And if I butcher the names in Chinese, I apologize. So Dai Daoxin bowed to the great master Jianzhu and said, I beg the priest in his great compassion to give me the teaching of liberation. The patriarch replied, who is binding you? Dai said, no one is binding me. the patriarch answered, then why are you seeking liberation? With these words, Dayi was greatly awakened.

[03:06]

And there's a point to this story where apparently Dayi is 14 years old when he asked this question. And that got me thinking that my 14-year-old concerns were somewhat different to this, but actually maybe they weren't. It didn't necessarily look like Zen practice in those days. It looked more like reading existentialism, listening to music, and endurance sports like cross-country running. But I think I was seeking liberation in the best way that I could figure out at the time. And I know that music was particularly important to me at that time because of the emotional expression it allowed me to have, which wasn't readily available in England at the time. Not in the milieu I grew up in anyway. And I wasn't very good at cross-country, but I enjoyed doing it because it seemed to burn up. a lot of the energy that I had circulating around at the time. But I was thinking about this story mainly because somebody a few weeks ago, somebody I don't know very well, asked to speak with me.

[04:10]

And I was thinking about this, and I had the impression, and this is just my imputation, it's not based on facts, but this person was kind of seeking some kind of validation. They wanted to be validated for something. And that put me in mind of Suzuki Roshi's phrase, exchange value. You know, we go into something with this exchange value, like, I give you this, you give me that. And there's a necessity to that, of course, as we move through the world. There's also a way that we can, you know, can we avoid this? Does this exchange value, is that one of the things that binds us? And I think we all want to be validated in some ways. My 14-year-old self definitely wanted to be validated. And we all bring our kind of karmic insecurities into this, into any situation, into any exchange.

[05:13]

You know, my typical things was, does this person want something from me? What are they trying to get from me? Are they judging me? So these are the things that kind of bind us in a particular situation. And, you know, generally it comes down to, you know, the realm of the conceptual. It's the conceptual that is binding us. You know, the things we want, the things we plan for, the things we prefer. And so if I ask who is binding you, like, no one is binding you. So then why are you seeking liberation? And as a commentary to this, I want to bring in some Dogen from the Mountains and Waters Sutra, which I'll probably refer to again later. And he says, and he quotes the Buddha, he says, the Buddha says, all things are ultimately unbound. There is nowhere that they permanently abide.

[06:18]

To which Dogen adds, know that even though all things are unbound and not tied to anything, they abide in their own condition. So all things are unbound. And that unboundness includes us, whether we believe it or not. And so with all these stories, you know, the story of Dayi and Kanchi and Dogen's commentary, we can intellectually understand them. And at some moment, some of us may viscerally understand, deeply knowing that this is true in the core of your being. And I think in the Zen tradition, the kind of the face-to-face transmission from teacher to student is the teacher's recognition that the student has fully been clear or become clear in the core of their being that their unboundness is true.

[07:28]

But in the meantime, between the intellectual understanding and the visible understanding, what can we do? And so, you know, when I'm teaching Dogen, I always say, like, even if you don't understand what he's saying, or if you can't quite grasp what he's saying, how about acting as if it were the case? Let's trust that Dogen knows what he's talking about and take that as a basis for moving through the world. So how would it be to move through the world knowing that we're unbound? and yet we abide in our own condition. And so our own condition, and what's often called our Dharma position, consists of everything that has brought us to this present moment. So my 14-year-old self is coming along to this talk. I think he'd be a bit embarrassed, frankly, to be the center of so much attention. But nevertheless, he's in there. Your 14-year-old selves are all... here as well, and your three-year-old selves, and your 25-year-old selves, those of you who are over 25.

[08:36]

So we bring everything to this present moment. And that might seem like a limiting factor. You know, we have our own particular mass of karmic insecurities. But can we trust that these don't get in the way? of meeting the present moment. That we can be unbound in the present moment in the same way that the present moment is unbound. Can we be validated rather than being validated by somebody else saying, yes, yes, I think you've got the right idea there. Or, no, no, no, I'm not judging you. But can we be validated just in the present moment? And so, of course, then the question is, well, how do we go about this? And, you know, I think zazen is our primary root in this practice. Zazen offers us, even if it might not seem like it in the moment, to bring, you know, everything that our dharma position, you know, consists of, you know, every part of ourselves into the moment without being bound by it.

[09:56]

So I have my own feelings about zazen. I'm not. biggest fan of Zazen, but I know that it's an amazing practice in which I get to slough away most of my ideas about what I like and what I don't like. And so even if I don't enjoy a period of Zazen, there's trusting that something is happening in there in which I can fully meet the present moment. And so, you know, those of us who spent time at Tassajara are going to know this from the many, many hours of Zazen that everything comes up. Oh, look, here's that thing again. Oh, here we go. Moods, emotions, stories, values, judgment, everything comes up and we have space to hold all of that and ideally to start accepting it about ourselves. Oh, I'm the kind of person who thinks this or does that. And then ideally we meet that with a little bit of compassion and gentleness because... how else are we going to do it? We might have a tradition or an upbringing that is based on judgment and criticism, but can we just sit there with this and find a different way to meet it?

[11:06]

And one of, you know, I don't keep many New Year's resolutions, but one of the best New Year's resolutions I ever kept was monitoring my self-talk. Because, you know, when you start listening to the voice in your head, like, what is it saying to you? Can you move that around a little bit. Can you make a little less judgmental, a little less critical? And there's space, I think, within Zazen to understand, you know, that you're abiding in your own Dharma position and you are free in that moment to meet the moment. And also to accept that everything else is as well. Which is where it gets a little more complicated. So as Segeto says in the Sandokai, each and everything has its merit expressed according to function and place. Each and everything has its merit. Regardless of whether we like it or not, regardless of what we think about it, each and everything has its merit expressed according to function and place.

[12:16]

And so I think in Zazen we create this space where we can start to understand that or start to feel it, start to believe in it. There are three aspects that I want to talk about and how we can take this from Zazen into the rest of our lives. And we can move from this kind of self-concern, you know, just kind of like, oh, this is the person I am, which sometimes, you know, can feel like armor plating, sometimes can feel like a shroud. And we can move from that into presence, meeting the present moment, just allowing ourselves to be validated by the present moment and not by anything else. So as we start to understand our habits, whether it's self-talk or emotional habits, how do we work with us? How can we work with us? So a story I tell sometimes, which I know some of you will have heard.

[13:22]

I used to be the Eno in this building, the person in charge of ceremonies and sittings and everything like that. And I'd be up in my office before a one-day sitting and... seating charts and attendance lists and work lists and various sort of things, only to be organized and then printed out. And I would be up on the second floor and hit print, go down to the basement and find that the printer had done nothing. And, you know, it got to be a little frustrated, frustrating because I was under a certain amount of time pressure on a Friday before a one-day sitting. And, you know, occasionally it was known that I could kick the printer. And, you know, it's... One of those things like, hey, I'm a Zen priest. Why am I keeping a printer? What kind of Zen priest does that kind of thing? And so over time, you know, it didn't necessarily happen with this printer while I was Xeno. But over time, you know, whenever I print something at home, like I did with this talk, I have a terribly old printer. Every time it does what it's supposed to be doing, I say thank you.

[14:25]

I say thank you to the printer. Actually expressing, you know, for carrying out its function. And this is a training that we get here in the temple. You know, those of you living in the temple, we know, you know, that we're expected to handle things in a particular way. And to chant books, the robes, our bowls, and even the dining room chairs. And if you remember that famous passage from Suzuki Roshi where he talks about the noise of the dining room chairs, these very chairs that people are sitting on. And I want to invoke Blanche, who was the abbess when I first lived in the temple. She had a practice and explicitly, you know, reminded us time and time again, lift the chairs, don't scrape them across the floor. Treat things as Suzuki Ubroshi said, you know, the title of that chapter was respect for things. So if you scrape the dining room chair across the floor and it makes a noise and a zendo, that's not respecting any part of the present moment.

[15:27]

If you lift the chair, the people downstairs who are sitting, Don't get disturbed by the noise. And Blanche, you know, would do this in different ways. Sometimes I say she would be explicit about it, but sometimes, you know, she would just model this every day, lifting the chair, lifting the chair. And this is a lot how we practice in this temple. You know, there's, I remember when I started being, you know, it's like, great. Now I get to tell everybody how to do everything right. Because I knew how to do everything right. And everyone else needed to know how to do everything right. And actually that's not how I ended up doing it most of the time. because scolding people doesn't necessarily work, even in a Zen temple context very often. Sometimes it's effective. Not always. But the best thing we can do is just model the correct behavior. And we hope that attentive Zen students are paying attention to the way we pick up a chair, the way we carry the bolts. And this is why I was...

[16:29]

kind of comforted, I think, when I first came to live at Zen Center, which is 23 years ago now, by the example of the elders, I'm going to single out Paul because there's anyone in the room here, who were modeling this kind of behavior, not making a fuss about it, but just this is what they did, moment by moment. And so this is, you know, it's part of our practice, paying attention to see how other people are doing things and like, oh, Maybe that's a nice way to do things. You know, I certainly realized that I had to tone down my English sense of humor when I got here because it didn't land very well in these circumstances. People were being very nice, and my sense of humor was very cutting. And that wasn't a good fit. And so, okay, I get the message. Let's be nicer here. But it also leads to this kind of harmony and smoothness. If we're talking about Oreoki, the formal way of eating, there's a whole bunch of forms there.

[17:33]

But what it boils down to is, is it making things move harmoniously from one stage to another? And I think that's what a lot of those forms are about. A lot of our main forms are about it. So we have inanimate objects that we can pay attention to and be present with, give them respect, treat things kindly. And the second aspect that has been an important part of my practice, and this, you know, kind of, I think, really came to focus for me the last time I did a three-month training period at Tassajara, was being in nature. And again, Tassajara is kind of the wildest place I ever lived. It's way out in the wilderness. And I loved running around the mountains. But in that last practice period I was there, which was about 10 years ago, I noticed that I enjoyed, especially around the abbot's cabin, the kind of trees by the creek, just hanging out there and hanging out with the trees as much as I enjoyed sitting in Zendo.

[18:48]

And there's something about... the way that nature offers itself to us in the present moment that we can pay attention to. We can always pay attention to. And I think it's helpful to pay attention to because as human beings, this is what we evolved in. And I think it's very possible to pay attention equally in the city. I was just walking up Page Street last night, and because the sun was still shining in the evening, which it hasn't done very often, and because we're in the middle of the summer, The sun was on the north side of the street and was illuminating the south side of the street, which doesn't happen very often. This is my photography bar coming out here. So I was noticing the light on the buildings on the south side of the street. And that was a moment of present moment kind of participation for me. But I think we especially do this around trees, around lakes, the ocean. You know, this is... how we evolve.

[19:50]

This is a part of us that is still in there. It's part of everybody's Dharma position. It's not just our 14-year-old self, but it's our ancestral self is actually still present within us. That we can pay attention to what the trees are telling us or what the water is telling us or what the mountains are telling us. Because the Mountains and Waters Sutra that Dogen talks about is not a sutra about mountains and waters. It's mountains and waters telling the sutra, telling us the truth of what's going on in a moment. and as he puts it in the self-receiving and employing samadhi, grass, trees, and lands which are embraced by this teaching together radiate a great light and endlessly expound the inconceivable profound dharma. So he's basically saying these things are expressing their awakening to us moment by moment. A tree is expressing the awakening of a tree. Whatever that looks like. It doesn't look like human awakening necessarily, but that's what it looks like. So are we going to participate in that? Or are we going to be bound by conceptual distinctions and self-concern and not pay attention to it?

[20:56]

So I want to put in a plug for nature as a great practice place. And I find it interesting that, you know, AI and chatbots and everything are becoming a thing right now and everyone's super excited about it. But there was an interview with, you know... a journalist between a journalist and a chat bot or large language model, whatever you want to call them. And at the end of it, the journalist said, tell me something beautiful. And the response was the description of a sunset. So even the large language model knew that we're primed to find sunsets beautiful, you know, and we should remember that even as we rush into our kind of technological and kind of, wow, this is amazing. Look at all the things we can do with this. You know, is it actually as amazing as the sunset? Can we remember to pay attention to sunsets in the middle of all this? Can we remember to notice that the sun is shining in the afternoon in San Francisco, which it hasn't done very much? And enjoy that moment.

[22:01]

all things are ultimately unbound. There is nowhere they permanently abide. Know that even though all things are unbound and not tied to anything, they abide in their own condition. So far I've been talking about inanimate objects and nature. What about people? So when I was, I did a kind of a preview of this talk a couple of weeks ago with my little student group, we were away. up in Humboldt, having a wonderful weekend away, and I got the feedback. You say the present moment demands nothing of us, but I often feel that in a present moment situation, something is being demanded of me. You're face-to-face with somebody, and you know that they want something from you, or there's an exchange that's happening with that exchange value in play. And this is true. We can't avoid that kind of thing as we move through the world. as we talk to people, as we meet people.

[23:17]

And what we can do, I think, in that situation, we can go two ways. Maybe we can drill right down. This very moment, what is happening? Is something being asked of you in this very moment as you talk to this other person? And then, for me, it's helpful to also think about taking a step back. I have this idea, oh, this person wants something from me. Am I going to use that as a way to not participate fully? Or can I understand that that's the point of view that I have? Oh, this person's asking something from me and still participating fully. I know that when I was director, which was my last job here, I was due to have a conversation with somebody and I had a fair idea of what I wanted to tell them because I didn't think they were necessarily doing the right things. But instead of... Leading with that, I let them speak for 15 or 20 minutes for us to express their point of view. Because even though I had an idea about this other person, because we always have ideas about other people, how is it to step back and let that other person express themselves?

[24:31]

Let them feel heard. If not, I didn't necessarily validate the point of view that they expressed, but they felt heard. And the conversation went much better as a result. So can we notice as we meet people, like, is my self-concern getting in the way? Are my ideas, thoughts, and judgments, is the person preventing me from allowing them to express themselves? And this is a tricky practice, but again, living in the temple and practicing in the temple, I think we get great examples of how to meet people You just don't have opinions about everybody. You don't like everybody that you're in Sangha with necessarily. But you can love them completely because you're in Sangha with them and everyone is practicing together. And so being able to tease those things about, oh, this person makes me feel this.

[25:32]

Can I still meet them? And I got great training at this at Tassahara when I noticed, this person's rubbing them up the wrong way. Why is that? And sometimes I noticed, oh, It's an energetic neediness I'm getting from them. And why is that upsetting? Well, it's probably mirroring my own shame about my own energetic neediness. So how can it be if I expand the conversation to allow them to be that person, be the person they are, which gives me room to interrogate or be curious about the person I am? So with everybody being unbound in the present moment, can you let the other people be themselves? It doesn't, again, doesn't mean you like them necessarily, but can you also find ways to create conditions where you can meet people without expectation?

[26:39]

You know, I'm a big fan of, you know, walking down the street and just smiling without any kind of sense that something is going to happen. There's no exchange value in that moment of connection. But again, as human beings, we've evolved around other human beings. And this is something that we've lost a little bit in the last few years. But when we meet somebody, there's an energetic exchange that happens, which we may or may not be aware of. And if we can meet somebody with an open energy, I think they're more likely to respond with an open energy. And I see this when I'm out on my bike all the time. If I get angry at a driver for cutting me off, they respond with anger. if I can open it up a little bit, still feel angry, but have a slightly more or slightly less charged conversation about it. Sometimes I get met, you know, in a way that I'm not expecting. The person's like, oh yeah, I'm really sorry that happened. So creating this kind of space and the, you know, the energetic exchange.

[27:45]

And again, this is where, you know, I think Zen Center models a lot of good behavior in terms of open energetic exchange. And it's not, It's something that I'm probably sitting here in a seat of privilege being able to talk about as a strong guy walking around the streets. It's not always a thing that you want to be able to do or you are able to do. But I think we also know if we're out in the streets and we see somebody coming towards us and you think, oh, that energy is way off there. And you know you're not going to have that kind of exchange with that person. So our energetic radar, I think, is maybe more attuned than we give it credit for. So appreciating, you know, within the human connection that we have, you know, what it does for us, every interaction that we have has this amazing impact on us. And so if we can go around, you know, in the same way that I try to go around thanking inanimate objects, can I go around with that kind of attitude, you know, to begin with, at the very least, with other people?

[28:50]

What kind of impact does that have? You know, hear about all the kind of various neurotransmitters that get released when you smile at somebody. You know, that kind of exchange, which is an open exchange, it's an opening rather than a tightening. And this is the kind of thing that we can really learn how to pay attention to. Oh, am I tightening up? Am I putting on the armor plating right now? Or is it a moment when I can feel a little more open? Tendai asks, can she please give me the teaching of liberation? And she says, who is binding you? No one is binding me.

[29:52]

Then why are you seeking liberation? All things are ultimately unbound. It may sound scary, the fact that we're kind of unbound. No matter how we're bringing ourselves into the situation, the present moment gives us infinite possibilities. But again, weighing up the possibility of energetic opening against the possibility of energetic closing. And maybe you can feel this or understand this intellectually. How is it when you feel it viscerally? And in the meantime, how about moving through the world on that basis? trying it out and giving it a chance. So as I said, I was up in Humboldt with my students a couple of weekends ago and I was also upstate last weekend and thinking about how, you know, 19th century Europeans came to California and kind of spread across and kind of created settlements and found beautiful places to go to.

[31:10]

But it wasn't discovering anything. Stuff was always there. People have always known about it. And that's what this practice is. It's not discovering anything. It's knowing what has always been known. And that's the possibility that we have when we allow ourselves to be unbound in the present moment. 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, please visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[31:59]

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