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 by people like you. I want to welcome all of you and thank you for organizing your lives so that you can come and sit. I know it's not so easy to do. And it's sometimes hard to appreciate the intangible value of coming and doing this practice. So I want to honor you for your ability to the insight that you have in your own intuitive heart that brings you here.

[01:06]

I also want to mention a little more about Ananda Dahlenberg, whose name is on the altar. Yesterday at San Francisco City Center, we had a funeral service for Ananda. And he was one of the early students of Suzuki Roshi. I think he was the second Shuso, Tassahara, for the second practice period. And when I came to San Francisco Zen Center, he was pretty frequently giving talks And usually his talks were quite simple. I thought, anyway, very simple. And now in retrospect, it means, oh, I can even remember some of the things he said.

[02:14]

More complicated talks, I can't remember. He said that it was very important, he felt. for Zen students to recognize that they were part of a big Buddhist family, a wide and inclusive Buddhist family, and that he wanted to emphasize that we shared a tradition with many other Buddhist groups and that we shouldn't be too proud or righteous, narrow-minded, elitist, about being Zen practitioners. So he taught us the Pali form of chanting the refuges, which at the time we thought was pretty weird. Budam, Sauranam, Gacchami, where did that come from?

[03:16]

But now we've chanted every day in Pali. And I feel some real gratitude towards Ananda Dahlenberg. Actually, he at that time was Claude, Claude Dahlenberg. Later he changed his name to Ananda. In between, while he was changing his name, he himself would forget that he changed his name. So he would introduce himself as Claude Dahlenberg. Claude, I mean Ananda. And so for a while that became his name. Actually, I remember him as Claude, I mean Ananda. His daughter at the service, one of his daughters, told a little story about him that when she, I think it was, I forget what grade she said, whether it was fifth grade or something like that.

[04:23]

Anyway, in grade school, And it was parents' day. She was very proud of her dad being a Zen Buddhist priest. And she was pretty excited about him. He was going to come to school and talk because the class had something going on about world religions. And so he was going to come and talk about Buddhism. And he came to the class and she thought, this is my chance to to get him to answer the question that he never answers. And so after he talked a little while and there was this chance for anyone to ask a question, she raised her hand and he called on her and she said, so what is the meaning of life? And he said, that's it.

[05:25]

And she was so disappointed. She wanted an explanation. And later she talked to him about it and said, why didn't you answer my question? And finally she got that his teaching was that this spirit of asking, of questioning, of inquiry was for him. This was the meaning. of his life. And so that's what then took him from being a Zen priest to organizing various interfaith groups, particularly bringing different branches of Buddhism together. And at his service yesterday there were representatives of Theravadan Buddhism and Jodoshin. and Tibetan and various branches of Buddhist practice and teaching that he himself had spent years associating with and cultivating.

[06:39]

And he, in his later years, he grew his hair out, full beard, big hair, big beard. There was a picture in the paper, actually, and the same picture was on the altar in the city, where he looks kind of like a... I don't know, he kind of looked like Moses, I thought. The picture of Moses with his hair, back, and full beard. Kind of a prophetic character. And he... He liked it simple. He eschewed all these robes, actually. When he came out here to Green Gulch to talk sometimes, he would wear this robe, the oquesa, over a western suit or maybe just a shirt and pants.

[07:45]

And he insisted on his non-conforming way. So I talked Wednesday a little bit about mindfulness, and particularly the classic foundations of mindfulness, the Mahasadipatthana Sutta, the four foundations of mindfulness. And today I wanted to talk a little bit more about... the notion of Hinayana and Mahayana mindfulness. Hinayana means small or lesser, lesser vehicle. Mahayana means great, great vehicle. We might say it's the great inclusive way.

[08:51]

Suzuki Roshi was quoted as saying that we, in this Zen practice, practice with a Mahayana form, I mean with a Hinayana form, small vehicle form or lesser vehicle form, and Mahayana spirit, great wide spirit, So what does this actually mean when we're doing our zazen practice, when we're coming in the zendo and sitting and making an effort, as you are all doing all day today? I think the essential difference has to do with a goal. And the four foundations of mindfulness is an implication that if you You begin practicing with body and breath awareness.

[09:53]

You move on to awareness of feelings. You move on to awareness of states of mind. You move on to awareness of all the Dharma teachings of mind objects. And eventually understand the whole phenomenal world from a Buddhist meditative perspective. And there's some sense, okay, that you are going to get someplace when you are concentrating your mind and bringing your attention to a particular focus. And then here in our Zen practice, we're doing Shikantaza, right? Shikantaza is just sitting. completely, wholeheartedly sitting, not trying to go any place.

[10:56]

No particular goal, no idea of a particular outcome, no idea of a particular, say, path of escape. But I think probably most of you are sitting with some idea of a path of escape. people are always coming up and saying, you know, how can I get free of this particular problem I'm having? So I think most practitioners are actually doing Hinayana practice. Pretty hard to actually do Mahayana practice. Pretty hard to actually, pretty difficult to actually sit and realize that this place right here is the perfect place to be. I remember in high school, I read Jean-Paul Sartre's play, No Exit.

[12:12]

I don't remember much of the play, No Exit, but I liked the title. The title is very powerful, No Exit. And the one line in the play that I do remember is the statement, hell is other people. Hell is other people. So if you sometimes may feel that way, The world would be a great place if this wasn't for those other people. So he studied that very deeply, of course, and understood that it really is true. That if you think that there's other, it means that you're separate.

[13:16]

And when you're separate, you're in hell. So a lot of times we go around disguising that various ways. We don't want to actually feel the pain, the angst, the anguish of that separation. So usually we try to make nice. We have some relationships which we try to cope with. with this separation in various ways. But underneath, if you stop and feel what you're feeling, you often notice that you'd rather be someplace else, or you'd rather that the person in front of you would be someone else, or act like someone else, or just get out of there.

[14:21]

So how does that fit with our great bodhisattva vow? The bodhisattva vow, the Mahayana, emphasizes the bodhisattva vow, which is to wake up, be enlightened with everyone. No matter who they are, no matter what they look like, no matter what they say, no matter whether they can be dependent on or not. Yesterday, not yesterday, the day before, Jiryu, or Shuso, head monk for the practice period, gave his talk about some of his life trials and tribulations that brought him to Zen practice. And one of the things he discovered in himself was the unreliability of mind.

[15:23]

Unreliability of mind, I think he was talking about unreliability of his own thought streams. And unreliability of mind also means maybe unreliability of other people, who you understand other people to be. Ah. unreliability of the relationships that you have. So it's pretty difficult to take this bodhisattva vow of being awake with everyone, including their unreliability. So usually we work pretty hard or make demands on our friends, say, I really want you to be reliable, right? Parents and children. Children and parents.

[16:28]

Friends, teammates, colleagues at work. We all would like some reliability. And so it's actually pretty difficult to accept that... You can't get away from other people. There's no exit. And at the same time, they're unreliable. You can't depend on other people. One of the old classic stories in the time of Shakyamuni Buddha is the story of Kisa Gotami. And I've talked about her from time to time. And many of you may know the story. But Shisa Gotami, just briefly, just to say that she actually had an idea that she could have a successful life, even though she grew up in a poor family.

[17:49]

And when she married, she married someone who was wealthier and pretty successful. So she felt this is really a step up. And she was so happy. And then she had a little baby, baby boy. And he was the light of her life. little baby boy, was so beautiful. And not only that, in Indian culture at that time, to be a mother raised your status. So the pinnacle of her life was that she was recognized as a mother. And she just delighted in this relationship.

[18:53]

And not only was it, say, supportive of her own self-esteem, but those of you who know little babies, how much they return your love. It's just so wonderful. They can't help loving their parents, right? So the little baby was loving. She said, go tell me. But when her little baby was about two years old, it got sick and died. she went into a kind of a state of shock and walked around with carrying the baby on her hip, convinced that if she just found the right medicine, he would live. And after going from person to person, they kept chasing, saying, you know, get away, get away, your baby's dead, just go bury your baby and forget about it.

[19:59]

And finally she came to the Buddha, Shakyamuni, and said, can you, can you heal my baby? And he said, perhaps I can help you if you bring me a mustard seed, just a single white, mustard seed but it has to come from a household where no one has died and so she went off from household to household and said I just need one mustard seed can you spare a mustard seed and people said of course and then she said but has anyone in your in your family in your household died and they said oh yes yeah many people have died in our family and so she went from house to house until she finally discovered that there was no person in her town.

[21:01]

There was no household that had been spared death. So she came back to her own senses and she came to the realization that her baby actually was dead and accepted that and took him and buried him. And then she came back to the Buddha and said, now I'm just grieving tears and tears, endless tears. And the Sangha took her in and she became one of the followers of Buddha and followed the teaching, followed the foundations of mindfulness, learned to concentrate her mind. and learned to keep the company and follow the rules of the Sangha. And later she wrote a statement that I wanted to read.

[22:06]

Keep good company and wisdom grows. Those who keep good company can be freed from suffering. We need to understand suffering, the cause of suffering, its end, and the Eightfold Way. These are the Four Noble Truths. I have practiced the great Eightfold Way, straight to the undying. I have come to the great peace. I have looked into the mirror of the Dharma. The arrow is out. I have put my burden down. What had to be done has been done. Sister Kisa Gotami, with a free mind, has said this. So this is a statement of her own deep realization. Not only did she practice study suffering, study the origin of suffering, she stayed with the practice all the way to great peace, she said, the undying.

[23:27]

straight to the undying. The arrow is out. This refers to the teaching story of the Buddha, that if you have some, if you've been shot with an arrow, don't waste your time figuring out who shot it, why they shot it, what was wrong with them, what tribe they belong to, but simply to actually focus on your own source of suffering and take that arrow out. So she referred to that in her statement, and then she continued her practice, and later on she had another encounter with Umara. She was sitting in the forest by herself, And this demon appeared.

[24:28]

Mara, the evil one, she wasn't sure who it was. Who is it? Is this a person? So her response was to say, who are you? Who are you? He teased her about her dead child. Cruelly. Cruelly teased her about her dead child. But she thought, oh, you must be Mara. And then she spoke to Mara. I have finished with the death of my child. And men who belong to that past. I no longer grieve or cry. I'm not afraid of you, friend. Everywhere the love of pleasure is destroyed. The great dark is torn apart. And death, you too are destroyed. So this, in her mindfulness practice, she was able to meet the archdemon, Mara, and meet him with the word friend.

[25:44]

This is quite striking to me, that she said Mara and friend. So at this point, when she can see the archdemon as friend, I would say that she's practicing the Bodhisattva Tao. This is Mahayana practice. She's saying, ah, as bad as you are, I'm not trying to get rid of you. I simply see you for who you are, for what you are. And in this, she was actually liberated. So this is, I think, very profound teaching. In our mindfulness practice and in our sitting practice, you may notice that you're carrying some relic of the past.

[26:52]

Something like a dead child. Something like a memory that you don't want to fully acknowledge and see. Something that you may feel owes you, you know, owes you an explanation at least, right? Why did you betray me, you know? Why did you die? How could you do this to me? You may notice in your zazen, in your sitting, oh, something coming up like that, where you think, oh, I think of so-and-so, not too happy. Maybe some thought, I'd rather not even meet that person again. Or you might even find yourself planning some strategies for getting rid of someone. So this all is an opportunity to notice that you're doing what Kisugotami was doing, carrying this...

[28:05]

say, death, and not simply seeing what it is. Not being willing to put it down. So in that case, you are narrowing your mind. You're not completely being willing to be open to the totality of your life. with all of its blessings and all of its losses. So our concentration practice may sometimes be misunderstood, where you feel that, okay, I'm going to concentrate, I'm going to concentrate, and I'm going to be peaceful. And that's good. concentration actually stabilizing your mind does bring a certain kind of sense of being settled.

[29:12]

But our concentration does not mean to be just concentrated on one thing. Our concentration means to be willing to see everything and then to meet whatever comes up and not turn away from it. Suzuki Roshi in a talk in early 70s, 1971 actually, the last year of his life, he was talking about this kind of concentration and he said, when I look at one person, then I don't see everyone else. But when I do zazen, my eyes are like this. It's hard to explain, but kind of soft, right?

[30:15]

So if I'm sitting here in the zendo and my eyes are soft, not looking at anyone, then someone moves over there. Ah! You catch that. Catch that movement. So that means you're willing to meet whatever comes up, whatever pops up. There's a koan in the Shoya Roku from two great practitioners, Yunyan and Dao Wu. And they're talking about Nabilukiteshvara Bodhisattva. Avalokiteshvara is the bodhisattva of great compassion, the wisdom being of great compassion. And sometimes Avalokiteshvara is portrayed as having 1,000 eyes and hands, 1,000 hands and eyes, and every hand and eye, willing to see everything, willing to hear all the cries of the world, willing to respond with an open hand,

[31:29]

in all directions. And so Yunnan asked his elder brother, Dao Wu, what does the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion do with so many hands and eyes? And Dao Wu said, it's like reaching back for a pillow at night. It's like you know, you know, you're willing to be feeling for something in the dark, right? You're actually willing, and it's a very sensitive kind of openness, right? Willing to feel. So he says, it's like reaching back for a pillow in the dark. And Yun Yun says, I understand. Da Wu says, what? is your understanding.

[32:30]

And Jung Yan says, all over the body are hands and eyes. And Dao Wu says, you've said a lot there, brother. You've said a lot there. 80%. And so Yunnan says, well, 80%, well, what would you say, brother? And Da'u says, throughout the body are hands and eyes. Throughout the body are hands and eyes. So it's a wonderful conversation, wonderful dialogue. What does it mean, this... Spirit of compassionate practice. That you're actually willing to be ready to meet anything that comes up.

[33:46]

It means you must have complete confidence, actually. Complete confidence in where you are. That whatever comes up is also already included. It's already included in where you are. It may be a surprise, but it's a surprise that's already included. You already knew there was going to be a surprise. So that kind of feeling of practice, of being willing to settle in right where you are, including everything, is this kind of mindfulness practice that we're talking about. So it's okay to also then have a focused attention, concentration. When something does come up, then you can meet it with a complete focused attention. But not losing the wide field of awareness.

[34:47]

So when something needs to be taken care of, you can take care of it. But you are not lost in it. It's like athletes often say, well, I have to play within myself. Play the game within myself. If you're a pitcher, you have to pitch within your own capacity. If you try to pitch beyond your capacity, then you do a very bad job. You have to actually accept the limitation of your capacity. And in the very limitation of your capacity is the totality of everything and nothing left out. So when Sartre is saying no exit, there is no escape, he is recognizing that one side, the limited side of our existence,

[35:58]

But when we say the bodhisattva of bao in this practice includes everything, it means that that very limitation is how you meet. It's your own freedom. So Dogen talks about this in Bendawal, describes it like this. So we've been talking about the path and he says, the path through which Anuttara Samyak Samvodhi of all things returns to the person in Zazen. So this Anuttara Samyak Samvodhi is complete, complete perfect enlightenment. This path is the path whereby a single person and the enlightenment of all things, intimately and imperceptibly assist each other.

[37:05]

Therefore, this Zaza in person, without fail, drops off body and mind, cuts away previous tainted views and thoughts, awakens genuine Buddha Dharma, universally helps the Buddha work in each place as numerous as Adams, where Buddha Tathagatas teach and practice and widely influence practitioners who are going beyond Buddha, thereby vigorously exalting the Dharma that goes beyond Buddha. So this is going beyond Buddha, going beyond awakening, going beyond any particular idea you have, not being limited to who you think you are. So that means that you're being completely assisted by everyone else. And whoever shows up, whether it's a friendly face or whether it's a demon, you are willing to say, ah, okay. You are assisting me.

[38:10]

You are helping me understand who I am. You are helping me understand the total working of things, and so now I know what to do. It's... pretty difficult to live in this way because you know you have your ideas each of us has our own preferences each of us has our own fears what would happen to me if I am willing to meet anyone so this doesn't mean to say be to be foolish To not know who you're meeting. Meeting someone may mean, oh, I better step out of the way. Just like meeting traffic. Meeting traffic, you go for the space rather than running into the other car.

[39:16]

So it's important to realize that everything has its own position. and you take your place in relation to it. Just to say, when driving a car, you see space, you see other cars, you know that how to meet the situation is to drive into the space. Sometimes you even have to Be creative. If someone's in your own lane coming toward you and they're on the wrong side of the road, still, you could have an argument and say, you're on the wrong side of the road, right? Well, you may not have time for the argument. It may be better just to swerve and have this spacious experience rather than a collision.

[40:23]

Likewise, sometimes with a friend who may be making some big mistake or being rude to you, sometimes it's more harmonious to say, oh, okay, I appreciate what you're saying. Rather than saying, oh, you're wrong. I'm going to set you straight. Sometimes you can set someone straight and sometimes it's more skillful to actually simply appreciate where they are coming from. They're coming from their own limitation, right? They're coming from their own suffering. They're coming from their own particular view. So this way of being a very, say, flexible, flexible mind, and including everything, is... a description of the way we do our concentration practice.

[41:26]

To be concentrated is to be ready to focus on one thing and also ready to step back and take in everything, moment by moment, this kind of feeling. So I think that's... a sense of how to practice in a one-day sitting and how to practice in life. If you can do it in a one-day sitting, then you can go out of the zendo and try it out. If as you sit, you notice your tendency to get caught on one particular thought, one particular attitude, one particular idea or stream of thought, some particular focus, I suggest that you would say, step back in yourself.

[42:34]

Bring your awareness back to your breath. Find your body. Find the breath in the body. If you step back a little bit, then maybe what is seemingly so... Impossible. So inescapable is more spacious. Where a moment ago there was something that you're completely caught by. If you return to your breath, step back in yourself, you experience a spacious field. So this is a capacity that everyone has. when I say I was here at Green Goats for most of the seventies and then I moved over the hill and lived in Mill Valley and every day is actually pretty difficult for me to find how to practice without having a zendo and without having

[44:04]

some reminders. So I have to create my own reminders. And one time I remember I was just, I was so angry. And I didn't like to think of myself as being angry. I wanted to get to being a person who was not angry. And yet, the anger was so intense, I couldn't deny it. So this is probably a good thing that I was open to being angry. And I had to actually just stop and feel the pain of the anger. I could hardly breathe, so intense. I didn't even know exactly at the time what the anger was about. All I knew was I was just so angry. And then I noticed that if I didn't think about it, but just felt it, that this anger actually became very intense, but there was a kind of precision, a kind of precision in it.

[45:27]

And I noticed that even though I felt that the anger was so intense I couldn't breathe, that there was still some breath. And then I noticed that I wasn't dying. I thought that, I was so angry that I thought it would kill me. But I noticed, oh, I'm not dying. So at that point, I learned, actually, to trust this body. in this breath. From that point, I felt, if I'm willing to die, and let the anger be so intensely painful that it will kill me, and then discover that, oh, it's the feeling I have that this feeling is just my own feeling.

[46:33]

It's just my own nerves. It's just my own body and mind. And this body and mind is just so magically constructed that it can feel it's dying. It can feel like I'm thinking, I have the thought that I'm dying, and yet the breath continues through it. So this kind of a miracle for me was to say that to realize that this spot, this particular moment, is the place of opening, the place of Dharma gate that opens. That was a time when I stopped trying to escape. That was a time of realizing no exit. Realizing no exit is a time of... seeing the very limitation as the opening, as freedom.

[47:39]

So since then, I've been working, as I think Kiso Gotami did in that statement of hers, to whenever I feel that it's impossible, whatever is going to happen next is too much for me, right? to actually stay with it. To notice that the idea of too much is an idea. It's not what's really happening. And what's really happening is pure experience. You could say pure phenomena. Idea of body and mind drops off. That's Dogen saying body and mind drops off. Idea of body and mind drops off. No more body and mind. Just pure experience. So this is the way we actually can live freely.

[48:46]

And it helps in our relationships. It helps in everything that we do. It helps you realize that your body and mind is completely connected with everything. It helps you realize that this floor... supports you. You didn't have to make it up. It's already here. The earth is supporting you. It's already here. The air that you're breathing is supporting you. It's already here. There's so much that you can actually trust in this moment. That you can have deep confidence. that you don't need to go anywhere and do anything. You can stay right here, be completely present, and appreciate this amazing existence.

[49:49]

Then when something pops up, okay, then you have a fresh approach. You can, okay, just take care of this thing. Somebody has a problem? Okay. You can relate to that problem. There's work to be done. There's lunch to prepare. There's seeds to plant in the garden. There's weeds to pull. Okay. You can take care of that. And notice, moment by moment, anything that's extra. Anything that, oh, you're accumulating. So... This time, this one day sitting is a chance to notice the things that you may have accumulated and see if you can just set them down. Relax. Set them down. Breath by breath, finding your confidence in what is.

[50:52]

Not knowing what it is, like reaching back to that pillow. Not knowing. Exactly what is it? Where is it? Please continue. Thank you for listening.

[51:41]

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