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. So today I wanted to bring up a few things that have occurred to me since yesterday and also to ask your help with something. And then I wanted to do from the sutra, two paragraphs, and then tomorrow, kind of another two paragraphs to complete a kind of section here. And to just start, I wanted to read to you just briefly what Tozan has to say about mending. You know how this is when... you have something that you're working with and then everybody's talking about it, whoever. This is under Dung Shan Tozan's self-admonition.

[01:06]

His admonition is to himself. Don't seek fame or profit, glory or prosperity. Just pass this life as is, according to conditions. When the breath vanishes, who is the master? After the death of the body, There is only an empty name. When your clothes are worn, when your clothes are worn out, repair them over and over. When you've no food, work to provide. How long can a lucery body last? For its idle concerns, would you increase your ignorance? So this is Dungshan's self-admonition. When your clothes are worn out, repair them over and over. So yesterday I mentioned that as a young person, I used to like to play the game Follow the Leader.

[02:07]

And then it occurred to me that I'm in the right profession because I am constantly in procession wherever I go. And so I was thinking I could start flapping my arms and saying that. But actually last night it was like the Keystone Cops. Do you know the Keystone Cops? Or like a cartoon... We were in procession and I stopped to look at the moon and they all like crashed into each other. I can picture it kind of as a cartoon, you know. So we're going to be talking about the four views of water and... and some things that have occurred to me as I've been studying this. But before I do this, I want to ask your help with something. I have a practice, when possible, which I learned about from Brother David, Stendhal Ross, of, if possible, enacting a dream.

[03:17]

So, I mean, you can't, of course, enact all your dreams. since you were all in it, I thought, well, this would be the perfect thing. Brother David tells a story of having a dream about swinging on a swing, and he was somewhere where there was a swing, and it was in the middle of the night, raining, and he just got out of bed, went outside, got on the swing, and just went swinging. That always struck me very powerfully, some relationship with one's psyche and honoring. So I'll tell you my dream, and then I thought we could, if you would, help me with this. So this is the dream, and this is from after lunch, I take a half an hour nap. So the dream was somebody was hitting the umpan, and they were doing it completely wrong, like their timing was all off, and they were doing it in the wrong time.

[04:18]

And all of us who were listening to it It wasn't like we were in the Zen, but it wasn't a formal period of Zazen or something. But we were all chuckling like, oh, doesn't that sound funny? I think it was after Sashin, and it really sounded funny. So we were all laughing. And then, which we don't have to ignore that part. I'm not going to send somebody down to bang on the umpan. But then we began to sing, and this is, I just find this, you know, the language of the psyche is just like so right on. We were singing, you know, the Christmas carol, O Holy Night. We were singing O Holy Night. And when it got to the place where it says, a thrill of hope and, you know, everybody started swaying back and forth and like linked arms. And then the umpan person came up and it happened to be, and this is also very funny to me,

[05:19]

Chris Fortin, you probably don't know Chris Fortin, but Chris Fortin was at Green College many years ago. She's a disciple of Norman Fisher, but her name is Chris, and we were singing about O Holy Night when the Christ child was born, and here comes Chris as the one who, anyway, the whole thing was very delightful. But what I'd like to do is if we could sing O Holy Night. Do you know the song? Some of you do. Lots of you do, probably. But I thought instead of where it says, is the night, let's see, our Savior is the night of our dear Savior's birth, I thought we could say it is the night the stone woman gave birth. If we can remember it, we can remember to insert it there. It's a little bit too many syllables, but I think we can get it.

[06:24]

And then at the end where it says, there's another place where it says, oh, after we fall on our knees, then it's, oh, night when Christ was born, if we could say, oh, night when... a child was born, because it's the child who was given birth in the night, right? So, would someone give me a nice... And we have to sway when it comes to a thrill of... For those of you who... Okay. Oh, holy night, the stars are brightly shining. It is the night that the stone woman gave birth.

[07:30]

Long live world in sin and error path. In she appeared and the soul felt her worth. A thrill of hope and weary world rejoicing. For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn. Fall on your knees. Oh, hear the angel's voice. Oh, night divine. Oh, night when a child was born.

[08:33]

Oh, night divine. Oh, night divine. Thank you. Thank you. And in the dream, when it came to, oh, that high part, oh, night, divine, and then when we came off that, it was, oh, night. Like, just, oh, you doll, you, you know. Oh, thank you, that was so satisfying. Especially to see you all swaying, that was just, oh. Okay, so. This is going to go on, yeah, this will, that's true. Yeah, yeah.

[09:43]

So, this next part is called the four views on one and the same water, which is from a yoga chart text, Mahayana Samgraha, and no, that's not Italian. And I've been, as I read and study the sutra, I see Dogen's construction of it. It isn't just stream of consciousness or something. We had earlier the four views of the mountains, do you remember that? And kind of his saying it's not this view and it's not this view, and now these are four views of water, so it's a kind of parallel. So this starts out in general then, The way of seeing mountains and waters differs according to the type of being that sees them.

[10:44]

In seeing water, there are beings who see it as a jeweled necklace. This does not mean, however, that they see a jeweled necklace as water. How then do we see what they consider water? Their jeweled necklace is what we see as water. Maybe I'll just... read the whole paragraph and then go back. Some see water as miraculous flowers. So the first view is water is a jewel necklace. Some see water as miraculous flowers, though it does not follow that they use flowers as water. Hungry ghosts see water as raging flames or other things. Dragons and fish see it as a palace or a tower or even as the seven treasures or the mani gem. Others see it as woods and walls or as the dharma nature of immaculate liberation or as the true human body or as the physical form and mental nature.

[11:49]

Humans see these as water. And these different ways of seeing are the conditions under which water is killed or given life. So these four different ways of seeing water are ways from the deva realm, or the heavenly realm, the human realm, the animal realm, and the praetra realm, the hungry ghost realm. And what we see as water is viewed in the heavenly realm as a jeweled necklace. And this So that's for the devas. And I think all of these, I think just Dogen is putting out all these different views, I think, to help us kind of loosen our own views that we know what we see, and we know what it is, and we know we're right, and the way we can be in a very deep way.

[12:58]

attached and set on this is the way things are. And in the Buddha Dharma and in the flowing of our life and temporary form and color and dependently coerisen, there isn't such a thing as a fixed thing. But we, of course, think that way and act that way and get ourselves into various disagreements and arguments and trouble and wars because of this. So this is this meditation really on, is this true? And using these different beings to dislodge us. And we can ask ourselves, so if I see water as water, and hopefully we have a shared understanding of water as human beings, but devas... heavenly beings see it as jeweled necklaces.

[14:00]

It's like, but I have a jeweled necklace. Do they use that as water? I don't think so, but how do I know? This is this potato offering, you know. Is this potato offering, does the spirit think it's a rotten potato or do they think it's a special thing? Who knows? How are we going to know? So these concepts we have and views on reality, tight tight views. We share things to some degree, but we don't share with anybody else, really, our world, even with people who are very, very close to us, with our parents, our siblings, our best friends, our Dharma brothers and sisters, our partners. We view things according to our karmic understanding, our karmic consciousness. And we find this out sometimes to our great chagrin that, oh, you mean you thought it was that? Well, I meant this.

[15:01]

And some things have been coming up to illustrate this for me. It's coming upon the anniversary of my mother's death. She died on March 20th. And these days before, just like for anyone in the cycle of the year, Sometimes I'll forget, oh, what are my, oh, that's right, these are those days leading up to it when she was sick and so forth. So after my mother died, my sisters, I have two sisters older, some of you have probably heard this story, and they asked me to write the eulogy. And I wrote this, what I felt really, really, I made the best attempt to honor my mother and her life and her way and the things that she did and the things that I loved about her.

[16:03]

And then I had my sisters read it, and it was kind of like, who's that? She never did that for me. She did this thing. We had a sleeping porch. this is kind of pre-air conditioning, you know, so there was a sleeping porch, because the summers are very humid in Minnesota, and it was a screened-in porch on the second floor, but we used to love to sleep out there into, like, October, Halloween even, and sometimes it would snow, and we'd be under these piles of blankets with this really cold air, and I just used to love to sleep out there, and she'd come in the morning if it was, you know, school was going on, we were going to school, and she'd bring socks and kind of go under the covers and find my feet and put the socks on so that when I stepped out onto this cold floor, my feet would be all warm. I had said that in the eulogy as kind of emblematic of how she cared for us, but my sister's like, who's that?

[17:16]

They had never had that experience. And I remember thinking it was very disorienting, especially at that time. But it's true. We all had a different mother. And you probably know that with your siblings, if you have siblings. There isn't a fixed thing called my mother. That person, that being, that dependable rising was also a sister and an aunt and a mother and a grandmother and a friend and a wife and a... What was she? What is anything, actually? And this is Dogen's helping us dislodge and deconstruct our very strong views about we know what things are. some see water as miraculous flowers, though it does not follow that they use flowers as water.

[18:19]

So these flowers, this is also devas, devas see, according to the Abhidharma Kosha probably, they see rain, devas see rain as manjushaka flowers, these beautiful white blossoms. The devas, you know, they rain down, you know, it sometimes says they rain down blossoms. So I don't know if they're seeing rain, they're thinking, the devas are thinking they're raining down rain, but we see it as blossoms, or they think they're raining, anyway, often there's raining of blossoms, right? The Buddha dies and Manjushakas come down, and the devas, they think that's rain, or anyway, so these are miraculous flowers that the devas rain down and purify anyone who beholds them. And the devas also hear thunder as music, celestial music. So we don't use flowers as water.

[19:23]

And do the devas think our flowers are their water? I don't think so. But we don't know. How do we know this? So in our human society we have And this occurred to me. We have a conventional understanding of what water is and how it's to be used and how it isn't to be used. And this occurred to me, and I wanted to describe it, if I can, to you. The movie The Miracle Worker, do you know the movie The Miracle Worker about Helen Keller? Who here doesn't know that movie? has not seen it, has not seen the movie. So do you all know who Helen Keller is? Does anybody not know Helen Keller? So Helen Keller, in the movie, it shows her, I think she lost her hearing and sight.

[20:27]

I don't think it was at birth. I think she was maybe two or so. She was young. And the movie starts out, and she's this little girl, and I think... maybe about eight or nine or something. And the family is, I think it's like a middle-class family. They're sitting at the dining room table having dinner. And she's walking around the back of them as they're eating and just, you know, going over and grabbing food and just taking it off their plates. And she moves from one to the other and just like, not the conventional way you would have dinner. But they were all trying to have dinner and this was just, kind of like in the animal realm a little bit, just instinctual. You could imagine smelling food and knowing they're gathering and there's gonna be food there, but who knows how she's thinking of it, just instinct. And I was thinking, I remember seeing the movie, how they just tolerated it. They had no recourse.

[21:28]

This is how she got fed. Anyway, they hire Anne Sullivan, this teacher, And Anne, you know, was a very strict teacher. And, you know, she has to sit at, Helen has to sit at the table and, you know, she has to be socialized. She has to come into the conventional world or it's not going to work. You know, she can't go on like this. And she was very strict. Anyway, and working with her with sign language and getting through with, you know, objects of her consciousness, however she experienced them, and making the connection between, you know, she would have her, put her hand to her mouth and she'd mouth the word and then sign the word in her palm, like toast or whatever it is. She'd sign it and say toast, and over and over again to make this connection. And at the end, the kind of denouement, you know, the final,

[22:33]

culminating experience that is like a miracle. And it's so incredibly moving. She's working with water. She's doing water, whatever the sign is for water. I don't know if somebody knows it. And water, you know. And then having water, you know, having her drink water, touch water. And you can... it dawns on Helen the connection between this water, however she experienced water. We don't know how she experienced this substance that she drank and bathed in. She connected this mouthing and this with this substance, and it was this breakthrough of of inconceivable proportion where she broke into the human realm, actually, of conventional life where this, in sign language, means water.

[23:44]

Water doesn't mean this, but we have the convention that it does so that we can live together and eat together and be in harmony together and have a life of piece together. And then all the things, she broke into all the things, you know, she would sign something and Ann Sullivan would give her, you know, whatever, a ball or a food or whatever. And it was just, and I remember watching, just tears just streaming. It was just, so it was miraculous. It's the miracle worker. So I highly recommend the movie, but thinking about these realms and what is water and that we have these conventions, and they are conventions. This is not an ultimate thing. This, whatever this is, is not this or water. That's English that we share and that we agree on. And that's all it is. It's a temporary, but we agree to share that.

[24:49]

But to have that light, a touch with it, rather than, I know what it is, my understanding is right, and yours is wrong, and you have to believe it my way, or whatever it is that happens when we have this tight understanding of it. So we have conventions about how water is used, and then when it's misused, and we have value systems and wasting of water, This is another story that occurred to me around this. Maybe I'll go on to the next one, which is about hungry ghosts. And hungry ghosts, they drink water and it turns into undrinkable things and flames. They can't swallow it. And they're always thirsty. They're never satisfied. And yet what we see as water

[25:52]

or for someone who's surrounded by love all the time and can't understand it, can't feel it, rejects it, is frightened by the intimacy of it. So the water or the love turns to raging flames or turns to, this is hungry ghosts. And the dragons and the fish see it as a palace, which we also have it in Genjo Koan, or a tower, or as the treasure, or the mani gem. So the dragons in these palaces that are water, supposedly the seven treasures are, and also the dragon king has the mani gem or this wish-fulfilling jewel hidden in his body, they say. So, you know, how to use water We have our values and someone may want to use water.

[26:58]

What we understand is a very wasteful way or use it so that it becomes polluted. Using water as a channel to carry away things from a factory. Is that what water is? Well, the factory owners feel like, how great, we're right next to this river. That's where we're going to build our factory. or make our mill or whatever. And I was remembering this story. There was a person whose name I can't remember, thank goodness, who was at a city center back in the 70s, I think before I came to Tassara, 71, 72. And it's so interesting. decided not to eat anymore. I don't think it was anorexia exactly. It was more, I refuse to eat. And the reason she refused to eat is because at City Center, this is what she said, we peed in the water, we peed in toilets in the water.

[28:12]

And how could we do this? How could we pollute water like this? And I think she had been doing Native American practices and was now doing Eastern religious practices. And I don't know if she had been camping for years or what. But she got this notion that this was the worst thing. How could we do that? And of course, it's true, you know, it's true that, you know, I mean, From one point of view, it's a travesty. And from another point of view, it has saved millions and millions of people from cholera and all sorts of diseases. And the person who invented sewage systems was a genius. And those who don't have these systems, it's a terrible life.

[29:14]

And yet, when you're camping, you know, you build your campsite, or if you're building buildings at Greenbelt, you're 100 feet away from the stream, and septic systems, and, you know, you are extremely careful about this mixing of these things, right? To mix those things is chaos, and yet we have this conventional thing of this system where we allow ourselves, where we We do this. Anyway, she was, I think, emotionally disturbed in other ways, this person. But, you know, as is often the case, there was this truth there. There was this, she saw something true and couldn't, you know, it was like the world is crazy. How can you do this? And at a Zen Buddhist temple, you know, she had gone way to one extreme.

[30:15]

And I remember thinking, she's kind of right. But, you know, But still, this is how we live. This is our conventional way of living in a city. So how do we live together with these wide views and when what we feel is pollution is somebody else's good luck? and a way to make a profit. This is our conventional life and our world together, and it's difficult. We have trouble to be in accord with people who have very different views about water, for one thing, and many, many other things. So in this paragraph also it says some people see it as woods and walls or as the Dharma nature of immaculate liberation or as the true human body or as the physical form and mental nature.

[31:28]

These last things, these Dharma nature and liberation, true human body are all different Zen expressions. And the true human body, there's a... Dogon in Yui Butsu Yobutsu, I think, says the whole universe is the true human body or the entire ten-direction world is the true human body. And these different views of mental nature, physical form, these are all ways that we have of viewing reality, things. So then this next part... Dogen says, humans see these as water, and these different ways of seeing are the conditions under which water is killed or given life. And this killed or given life, you know, the sword, Manjushri's sword that gives and takes life is this killed or given life.

[32:33]

And what it usually refers to that killed is, you know, the... the killing, the kind of Prashnaparamita language of no, no, no, no, no. No eyes, no worries, no nos. In emptiness, no abiding self, no realm of eyes, no, no, no, no. This is killing. This is called the sword of killing, negating and saying, in emptiness there's nothing substantial there, no. And the giving life is... affirming that each thing dependently co-arises, has its unique dharma position, and is still, and takes its dharma place, and then moves, stillness and movement. So humans see all these things as water, and these different ways of seeing are the conditions under which water is

[33:41]

affirmed or negated. Given that what different types of beings see is different, we should have some, and there's, Billfeld says, some doubt about this. Akaz says some question about this. And Okamura Roshi also feels question is better. Given that what different types of beings see is different, and these beings are not just... dragons and devas and pretas, and I think really what Dogen is bringing this up for is all of us, all the different human beings, how we see things different, given that what different types of beings see is different, we should have some question about this. We should question rather than be settled on our own view as the only way. And then he says, Is it that there are various ways of seeing one object?

[34:45]

So there's water, and there's just different perspectives. Everybody sees this one thing as water. Is that what it is? There's a fixed object there, and depending on where you're standing, you see it differently. This is this investigating and questioning. And then it's, well, is my view the right view? Is their view the right view? Whose view is right? We all have our views. So is it that there are various ways of seeing water, this one thing? And then the second question, or is it that we have mistaken various images for one object? This took me a long time to see if, isn't he saying the same thing? But I don't think so. So it's either there's an object there and various ways to view it, or we just see various things and we call it the same thing. How can we know that there's this thing called water if we just have our own karmic view?

[35:50]

How will we ever know? This is a fish swims in water, and as far as it goes, there's no end to the water. I think we can't get out of this. We do have our karmic view. But part of studying delusion having great realization about delusion or our karmic view is investigating and studying it and holding it in a light way. So Okamura Roshi is saying Dogen's purpose in this whole thing is helping us to deconstruct our tight views by these questions. Is there one thing? Or is there many things you're just calling one thing? How are you going to get along with others who think differently?

[37:01]

It's not that Dogen's saying he's got the right view that he's now going to tell us about. By studying it in this way and investigating water, there is a letting go of our type views, a kind of release. So, you know, thinking about our practice here, Tassahara, Sashin itself, I think we've been saying that, you know, this Sashin, there is no such thing as Sashin.

[38:11]

That's a thing that everybody would say, oh yeah, that's Sashin. Each person is experiencing it. and grappling with and working with their own unique, conventionally we say sashin, we're all sitting sashin, but lots of different people come and talk with me and I know that there are various different things happening for different people. And if we look at each other and think, oh, they're experiencing what I'm experiencing, um, we may be gravely mistaken. And at the same time, as limbic mammals, we actually do resonate with each other and know and can tell if someone's sad, someone's angry, someone's happy.

[39:15]

We can read, um, In the human realm, there are body language, facial expressions that we read and understand and we call, and we can recognize it in all cultures. That's sadness. That's disgust. They've showed different people in all sorts of, over the world, a picture of a person making a face of disgust, like you just... came upon this rotten something that you almost ate, whatever that face would be, and people can recognize it all over. They have a word for that. That's disgusting. So we do chorus together in our human world, and yet subtly there are these differences. So it's not that we're trying to all have the same view. but to be released and kind of liberated from my view, my opinion, mine is correct, to be freed from that, to be with other people.

[40:25]

And, you know, there's that koan where I think it's two Zen masters and they're arguing about some point or going back and forth about, and at a certain point one of them says, let's have a cup of tea. And they never got to the end of it, who was right and who had the real Dharma on that one. They just said, let's go have tea. Let's get a cappuccino. Let's live like that together. It's not important who's right. That's not our human life. If it's based on that, it just becomes conflict. And to be able to let go and say, let's have a cup of tea. Let's just be together. It's like that book, children's book. about Francis. Do you remember France? Some of you had this as a kid or what? Bread and jam. Yeah. Or best friend, best friend. That's right.

[41:26]

So she had a best friend and her best friend played a trick on her or something, took something away. And finally, Francis said, do you want to be the kind of culminating thing was, do you want to be careful or do you want to be friends? You know, do you want to have to be careful around each other because you don't know if you're going to be tricked or practical jokes going to be played on you. Do you want to be careful or do you want to be friends? I want to be friends. Okay, well, let's be friends. I love that children's book. So it's like that. Do you want to be careful and write or do you want to be friends and have a cup of tea? That means we have to climb off of our high horse of I know what's right, you know. And often that view is defensive and safe and frightened. So that's, you know, karmically speaking, it may come from that rather than, you know, harmonious flowing together.

[42:31]

So we have to see through our karmic consciousness. We can't get out of it. There's delusion within delusion. This is the air we breathe in the water we swim in and the air we fly in, birds fly, and there's no end to it. And when our need is small, our field is small. This is our karmic life. And to be released from it doesn't mean that we... Ours are destroyed and we take on somebody else's who's got it right. It's that we understand how this works. That's the release. And then we can have a cup of tea with whomever and talk with whomever and be able to live out our Bodhisattva vow truly. So this is this last part, and then we'll stop and take it up again tomorrow.

[43:45]

At the peak of our concentrated effort on this, we should concentrate still more. Therefore, our practice and verification, our pursuit of the way, must also be not merely of one or two kinds, and the ultimate realm must also have a thousand types and ten thousand kinds. This was... It's kind of hard for me, this paragraph, but in fact, I came upon something Okuma Roshi said in his commentary, which was, sometimes I feel with the sutra, I just, I can't do it anymore. It's too hard. I just want to throw it away. That's what he said. I just want to throw it away. And then he comes back to it. And I, you know, if I'm tired or if I've been, it's like, I can't. But anyway... coming back to it and back to it, I think, is possible. So this paragraph in the commentary, it's Dogen saying, you know, at the peak of our concentrated effort, we should concentrate more on this, this point of our karmic life and our relationship to objects and our grasping...

[45:02]

mind around objects, we need to concentrate even more on this. Therefore, our practice and verification, our pursuit of the way must also not merely, must also be not merely of one or two kinds. So this, in both the commentaries, it talks about we may have an idea similar to seshin or something that if we practice verification and you know, you in the future will become Buddhas and ancestors, that that's a particular thing, that we know what Buddha and ancestor is. It's this thing. And what Dogen is saying is there are, you know, based on the causes, all the different causations, there are different effects, and there are many different kinds of Buddhas. There are, you know... In the ultimate realm, they also must have a thousand types, ten thousand kinds.

[46:07]

So the full realization of one's Buddhahood will be unique to you. There isn't a thing called Buddha. And depending on our vows, depending on our karmic life, it will have a uniqueness that will be our own. And in the Mahayana, as we know, if you read, Lotus Sutra, Avatamsaka Sutra, all these different Buddhas with all these fabulous names, Sun Buddha, Sun Moon Buddha and Lion Throne, and they have realms, you know, more than 10,000. There's infinite numbers, you know, of Buddhas within Buddhas sitting on lotus thrones who have Buddha realms. So that boggles the mind, you know. So we also might have this thought in our mind that Buddha is a certain thing in this substantial world. way, but depending on the vows, those Buddhas take a particular form and have a particular realm.

[47:13]

So that was an interesting point of how many things, the innumerable myriad things that we have this fixed view about and to concentrate and then concentrate more on how we do this and come back to over and over the teaching that there is nothing, as Suzuki Roshi says, nothing to believe in. I don't believe in anything. Everything has a temporary form and color. Temporary form and color. And to come back to that teaching and live it what might that be, that walking of the mountains? So I think those were the things I wanted to bring up about the four views of water.

[48:24]

Oh, there was one other thing. You know, to uncover the way in which we create the world and have it in a fixed way. This came home to me really strongly this summer when I was at the Sakyadita conference in Thailand with Judy and then Michael and other people, 700 nuns. This was something that I thought was universal, Judy knows the story, that I just had no doubt. I had never examined it, never looked at it, never thought about it one way or the other. And this is... you know, that you wait in line for your turn. You wait if you're, you know, if you're going to go to a movie or you're going anywhere, often there's a long line for women at the restroom, and you just wait. And it'll eventually be your turn, and often you'll chat, wasn't that a good movie or something? Anyway, at the conference there was, it's interesting how I'm bringing up these...

[49:27]

both that one in the city center and this is, anyway. So waiting in line to use the bathroom, patiently, just like universally all people do. And these women, these nuns, just totally butted in line. They just got in front of me and got to the stall before me. It was like, wait a minute here. And then another nun did that. And it was like, there's a line here, folks, don't you know? There's a queue. We were waiting. Everybody's waiting. There's no line. There's no such thing as a queue. What do you mean, queue? There's no queue. And I was like, I couldn't believe it. And somebody else told me when they had gone to India, there's no such thing as a line. That's a convention. And I realized this is a convention that I thought was a universal. Shared by all beings, you wait patiently to take your turn.

[50:32]

It is not true. And how could they be so rude? And they're nuns, oh my God. But there was no rudeness because there was no line. You just... It was really, you know, it was like this Western mind coming in contact with a different culture, you know, and... It was so jarring. I got used to it. And also in the food lines, you know, waiting for food. You wait patiently until, no, you butt in. You get there first and you get your special treat. Anyway, it was shocking in a kind of like, this isn't the way the world is. How can this be happening? But that is the way the world is sometimes, you know, temporary form and color. So there's so many things like that. Everything is like that. And if we examine and concentrate and see how much we create this world that we believe in is the way things are and how much suffering that causes, you know, really.

[51:45]

I mean, the examples I've been giving are, you know, kind of benign, really. But, you know, this is great suffering. So I had wanted to be sure and tell you that example too. Okay, so what do you think? Should we have a few questions or shall we return to our... seems to transcend the precepts or transcends morality.

[52:50]

So I think oftentimes we get into difficulty now by continuing to think that we're right because it's in line with the precepts or it's in line with my value system or morality or my particular knowledge. So I guess my question is, I guess I wanted to flush it out more. How do you engage with those two things? It's so challenging. Well, it's wonderful that you brought this up because, you know, Nagarjuna actually says, until someone is grounded thoroughly in the precepts in a literal way, in a very, you don't even teach emptiness. Because just like you said, emptiness, you know, all of a sudden, where's the precept, right?

[53:53]

Then it's no precept. So you don't offer, we actually, we do maybe even too soon at Zen Center because we chant the Heart Sutra right from the get-go, right? But until someone is thoroughly, thoroughly grounded in the precepts. Because you're right. I mean, emptiness not exactly trumps, but it destroys everything, right? So you have to walk in morality, be grounded in your morality, and then see how to... Emptiness is not... The teachings of emptiness are to liberate us, not to do whatever we want, you know, or to. So we have both the conventional world and the empty... This is middle way. That's middle way. Emptiness and conventional world together, skillfully, that's our middle way.

[54:56]

We don't get stuck in either one. And I think, you know, there's been huge travesty damage done by people caught in emptiness and saying, I'm beyond the precepts and I can do anything because my enlightenment is so deep and so nothing can touch me in the cause and effect world, the world of causation. People have said that and then acted from there to great destruction, actually, of human life. So I'm very happy that When I first came to Zen Center, we didn't recite precepts. We didn't have any classes on precepts. When I received lay ordination, it was kind of like, are you going to do lay ordination? Yeah, I guess so. Are you? Yeah. But there was no study that was offered at the time.

[55:57]

And we didn't do repentance in the morning. So I think these grounding activities, are necessary if you're going to also teach emptiness. Yeah. Yeah, thank you. It seems to me that it could be unbalanced on either side. Like, you could take the moral high ground and kind of forget about this, all these other views, you know, or you can, you know, take, like, all these other views. You spoke particularly about an emptiness, a nihilistic problem, but I think there's also the other side. Yeah, so then we have to check out, well, it's all relative, but there's also the conventional world, there's also compassion, there's skill and means, there's

[57:07]

Ben, as far as your practice, I can see what you see as beneficial. Is this beneficial? And so all those things, all the teachings weigh in. And for someone to say, oh, that's your view, but that's just relative. Yes, and these are my vows that I'm trying to come into alignment with. And this is my conventional life. So, yeah, the nihilistic and also this as if relative, it's all relative, is another excuse, I think, you know? But can we use compassion as a way to see? Because we sometimes don't know what's... We really often don't know. We just do our best. So in consultation and in light of the teachings as best we can.

[58:15]

It makes me think of how much I want a very clear direction. Yes. A very clear method. And how actually it's just completely dynamic. There might be clear method each moment, but each moment is gone. That's what comes up. Yeah. Well, what you said about how much you want a thing that's substantial that's always going to be there, you can count on that. A formula, I've got it. And nobody can take it away from me. And it's unassailable, and I'm right. It's like this very, we want that. And I think taking refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha can feel that way in its dynamism, in its dynamicness.

[59:23]

Not as a substrate thingness, but that it will meet you. but in flowing, not in solidness. But its flowing is its solidness. This is mountains and waters, really, yeah. Thank you. This is a long-going question. You mentioned it's just this person. Is there, you know, how or where? Or do we ever meet? You know, we see one thing and we all have to pronounce. And we communicate about things. Do we ever really, you know, it's just this person. Yeah.

[60:30]

I think we... I think we have met, we are met, we are met. We are that close that we can't. Something outside of us, when it comes together, there's always a separation if we feel it's outside of ourselves. We understand that I am like this, you are like this too. That's the meeting, you know. I'm just this person, you are just this person. We are thus together is the meeting and is the joy. And, you know, the description of one glass of water actually poured into another.

[61:32]

Just glass, just water poured into water. is the meeting. So when we understand, you know, when we understand who we really are, we see we are met. It reminds me of when Suzuki Roshi was dying and someone came to visit him. He was all discolored and the person was terribly grief struck and Suzuki Roshi said, don't worry, don't grieve, I know who I am. I know who I am. So I think when we know who we are, we realize we are met all the time and, you know, like the blue clouds and the mountains are together all day long with beings, with everything. And so that maybe is a kind of

[62:35]

full realization. And until that time, the appreciation, kindness, generosity, giving people space, allowing them to be who they are, this is another kind of meeting, listening to people, attuning to people's needs and our own attuning to ourself. All that is another kind of meeting. But I think what we're longing for is to be held and to feel we're fully embraced and will never be let go of that deep. And I think that is the way, I think that's actually what's happening.

[63:43]

But because of our karmic consciousness, we don't realize it. I have an interest in kind of how acculturation happens, and particularly in subtle forms. And a manifestation of this is I have a reasonable collection of children's books, including Best Friend for Francis, which, when it's not such a sheet, I'm willing to let people know that one, and others don't knock on my door when I'm napping. What's the name of it? Best Friend for Francis is one of the ones I have. I have several others. The caveat, please don't knock on my door if I'm napping. Do you have a sign that you put on your door that says napping? Sometimes. That's a really good idea, I find. Yeah, yeah. Best friends for Frances. Yeah, what is her best friend, like, takes something of hers and breaks it, or she does something?

[64:46]

Well, there are two best friends for Frances' stories. The one that I have is she has a friend who's a boy, and she's not invited for all boys' baseball. Oh, right, right. And so it's kind of the unfolded of that particular tale. Yes. It's music. Yeah. And Frances is a badger, right? Yes. 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.

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