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. Good evening. I'm helping Steve Harper lead a workshop This week on the nature and Zen. What is it again? Caitlin, what is it? The nature of Zen. Steve is taking people out into our wonderful wilderness to experience it. And even those of us who aren't going out into the wilderness are, of course, experiencing it right here. Someone, one of the people from my workshop when I was eating dinner tonight asked me what this lecture would be about. And not being quite sure yet, I said, it's Buddhism according to Leslie.

[01:04]

Of course, what else could it be? I mean, here we are in a Buddhist monastery. It certainly should be about Buddhism. But it couldn't be anything other than according to me. That's, I'm sorry. That's all there is here. So I wanted to warn you that. that this is Buddhism according to Leslie, and that Buddha said as he was dying, he said to his disciples, don't just believe this because I told you so. Check it out. See whether it's true for yourself. So I'm not intending to be dying right now, and you're not all my disciples and all that, but still, I'm hoping to give you something tonight that you can actually try out for yourself. You might not be happy with it, but that's my hope. So in my last lecture here, and also in the talk I gave today in the workshop, I talked about this statement of Dogon's that to study Buddhism is to study the self.

[02:13]

And that's from the Genjo Kohan, which we chant every ten days, or two out of every ten days, because it's long, so we divide it up here at Tassajara. And the next statement after that, after that paragraph, the next paragraph is, when you first seek Dharma, you think that you're far from its environment, but Dharma is already correctly transmitted, you're already your original self. So Dharma is the teaching, the teaching of how to be free. So when we first start looking for where is freedom, where is peace, peace, we usually think, I have to find it. It's like, where is it? Who can help me? Where is it? Far away, I'm sure, from this moment when I feel like I need it. But Dogen goes on to say, Dharma, the teaching of how to be free, how to be free from suffering, is already correctly transmitted from

[03:25]

to us, we already have it. We are already our original self. And partly I think that he's saying there that the nature of reality, to use a pretty large term, the nature of reality is actually freedom, is actually peace. And we are part of that reality. Each one of us is part of that reality. So he's encouraging us to study the self, to actually look here for how do things work? How does one come to peace with ourselves or peace in our world? So it's... It's a sad, perhaps sad, or at least interesting fact that it's easier for us to see the nature of things, the nature of things being, well, let's say, one way to say the nature of things is that they're free and that they're not stuck.

[04:40]

So it's easier for us to see that, I'm proposing, in pain rather than pleasure. This is the part you might not like. That when we're having pleasant thoughts, pleasant feelings, a pleasant experience, that's great. There's no problem with it. It changes, just like everything else. It changes, and when it changes, it changes into something not so pleasant or into another pleasant thing. But it does change. But it's harder for us to, like, get to the experience in a... Maybe we don't care enough. We're just enjoying it. And that's good. We should enjoy it. But when we have a painful experience, a physically painful experience or an emotionally painful experience, we don't want it, right? We don't want it there. So in some way, it's easier to settle on it.

[05:46]

We're not just absorbing it. We're wondering... What is happening? Why is it there? Suzuki Roshi said a similar thing. Somebody told me recently that they're reading the book, Cricket Cucumber, and really enjoying it. They read just a little bit at a time because it's so powerful for them. At one point, Suzuki Roshi is quoted as saying, I used to think that I practiced to get rid of my suffering. Now I know that pain is really important and helpful. You should all have more pain, he said. And laughed, of course, as he did often. So she was shocked. She was very surprised to hear this. She said, of course I was surprised. Why would I have thought that? Whenever I had pain, I thought the idea was to get rid of it. I think this is pretty familiar to us.

[06:48]

Something painful happens to us, we usually think something is wrong. And sometimes there are things we can do that will actually lessen our suffering, and when we can do that, fine. If it actually lessens your suffering, just stop doing it or move away or something. But often, when we think we are lessening our suffering, we're actually increasing it. I haven't read this book, but I heard that there is a fairly new book out by, I believe, Stephen Batchelor, who is a Buddhist scholar and translator, and he has a somewhat controversial translation of The Four Noble Truths. The Four Noble Truths are pretty basic Buddhist teaching, and I've usually heard them taught as there is suffering, The cause of suffering is clinging.

[07:51]

There's a way beyond suffering, which is nirvana or is freedom. And then the Eightfold Path, which is the way to get to this nirvana. And the Eightfold Path, I'm not going to go into it, but it's a lot of wonderful things like right livelihood and right view and right speech while we're studying. Anyway, his basic difference in how he translated was he says that that's a kind of philosophical way of looking at life and that Buddha actually wasn't so much into philosophy and into thinking. He was actually into how do we practice? What do we do? And that a better translation, I'm no judge of this, but I liked it. So a better translation is the Four Noble Tasks These are four things to do. So the first one is not just that there is suffering, a kind of philosophical there is suffering, but embrace suffering.

[09:00]

We'll come back to that. The second one, which is usually clinging causes suffering, he said is actually the other way around, that when we suffer, we suffer. become reactive. We react against it. I said to this friend who was mentioning this book to me, I said, when we suffer, we cringe away from it. And he said, well, for a lot of us, we do a lot more than cringe, which is why he appreciated the word react. We react. So when we're suffering, we react. I have found it very useful to look at when we suffer. When I suffer, I tighten. You know, that could be a lot or a little, but there's some tightening. Usually tightening, trying to get away somehow from the suffering, but sometimes that tightening leads to some bigger reactivity where we're pushing away.

[10:17]

people or things, ideas, emotions. So the task in the second noble task is to notice this reactivity. Notice the reactivity. And then the third noble truth, as I said, is usually there is freedom from this. And this is essentially the same, that when we notice the reactivity, and instead of just going with it, embrace the suffering that that is nirvana, that is freedom. And then the Eightfold Path, the fourth noble task, is how we help beings after we have realized these tasks. So then we can help beings by right livelihood, right speech, right action. So, you know, I really appreciate this thinking of the four noble somethings, not so much as ideas, but as something that we do.

[11:30]

And the reason is that I think I've actually found that it works. That when something is painful, either physically or emotionally painful... that if I can notice my reactivity to it, notice my tightening around it, and notice, is that helpful? What's happening there? Is that creating more suffering, more pain? And then if I can relax, stop tightening around it, lessening my pain in that way, does that lessen my pain? and then to actually embrace the pain that's left, the suffering that's left. Sometimes this is a new pain for us. If it's a physical pain, it might actually be a new pain.

[12:31]

Most of our emotional pain has a very familiar quality to it. It might be worse than we've ever experienced before, but... Usually there's some familiarness. We usually don't have a brand new emotional pain. We have our old ones slightly differently. So to find this pain, to actually find it in our body, and I don't usually say embrace. Stephen Batchelor said embrace it, but I usually think of it as more like find it and embrace it. get as close to it as I can, bring my mind as close to it as I can in my body, and then be still with it. Just be there with it and see what happens. Is there really freedom in that?

[13:32]

Is that pain actually not stuck? Does it actually change to something? This is something that actually we need to discover for ourself about our own pain. That's the only one we care about, really. I mean, we care about other people's pain, but to know how does it really work, does it need to be solved the way that we often think that we should solve it, you know, with our mind, like figure out how to get out of this situation or... What should I do or how to change myself or someone else so that this pain is not there? What happens if we... I mean, again, if we can do that, if that's easy and doesn't cause more suffering, fine. It's not... And this is not a kind of... You can probably tell this is not a kind of passive thing. This is very active. This is like breathing along with your pain.

[14:36]

either physical or emotional. Stay there with it and see what is it, what happens to it. And what I call my only enlightenment experience was kind of like this. There have been some more personal, emotional pains that I've dealt with in this way. But this one's pretty simple. I can tell you about it easily. I was... working in San Francisco, living at Zen Center and cleaning houses years ago, and had to take a bus on Market Street to get to the houses, and they were tearing up Market Street. For a long time they were tearing up Market Street, and I was standing waiting for, I guess, a bus, and a jackhammer was going off. They were jackhammering the street, Market Street, up, and it was a horrible noise, as you know, right? jackhammers in your head. And I felt myself cringing away from it.

[15:40]

I was in a practice period at Zen Center, so maybe that's why this thought occurred to me to stop cringing away from it and just come back. I couldn't really get away from it because it was a jackhammer in my head. And it changed. It just really changed. It became not painful it was this sensation that was happening that you know i'm glad it didn't go on forever or a long time but while it was happening it was actually it wasn't what i had thought it was it wasn't the kind of pain that i thought it was and the same kind of thing has happened with emotional pain sometimes well let me say the same thing has happened with physical pain especially um in something like sesheen, where we sit for a long time and your body starts to ache. And it's not always possible for me to do it, to remember.

[16:42]

Try not to cringe away from it. Try to be with it. Get as close to it as I can. Open my heart to it. But when I am able to do that, it changes. It's not the same kind of pain. It's maybe something I would still call... pain, but it's more like pulsing, more like the jackhammer. And emotional pain, for me, a number of emotional pains, I don't mean to make a blanket statement about all emotional pain, but some of the emotional pain that I have felt like I have to do something about this, oh yeah, what should I do? Oh, find it and stay with it. You know, it's so interesting. Often what happens is it goes away like that, which is kind of too bad because you've really, you know, you've revved up to, okay, I'm just going to feel this, and then it's gone, and you wonder, you know, what was ever there?

[17:46]

Did I make it all up just because I was thinking so much? But there is emotional pain which actually stays, you know, which is embodied enough in us that even when we pay attention to it, it's there. and we can do the same kind of joining it, being open-hearted with it, and you can feel the pulsing of it and the changing of it, the loosening of it, and the continuing of life-ness of it. It's a very important experience for us to have. It tells us something about the nature of reality, actually, about how we're made, how suffering happens, how we can meet our life. So, again, I want to encourage you to study the self. And to study the self even in this kind of intense way.

[18:47]

You know, to study the self just by staying with the self, enjoying walking around Tassajara. Hopefully, those of you who are here for a short time don't have too much pain while you're here. Those of you who are here for longer... You've probably started to notice that it's not all as wonderful as it looked in the beginning. Maybe if it looked wonderful to you in the beginning. That, you know, all the people who are here are not as nice as you thought they were. And you're not as nice at Tassajara as you thought you were. So you will probably have the possibility of studying some pain of some kind. I encourage us all to take it up when the opportunity arises to stay close. So I'm wondering if you have any thoughts or questions at this point. Yes, go ahead.

[19:59]

I think I need more help. Okay. When someone tenses up or when I tense up, how do I remember to stay close? Did you say it? How do I remember? Because sometimes 15 minutes or 30 minutes or an hour will go by. I can feel it in my shoulders and my jaw. Yeah, and in your mind. Well, you know, when we don't remember, there's no way to remember. You can try that, you know, tying a string around your finger. I found that very effective. But that is one of the good things about pain. It's like when we're in pain, if it gets bad enough, so maybe it's not bad enough, we don't remember, we sometimes think, what can I do? What can I do about this? So if you have that thought and it sounds like that, Maybe it will come into your mind, the answer, one answer, I'll just put this out there as maybe a trigger that will come up later, is nothing.

[21:03]

Don't do anything. Which is code for try to sit or stand or be in a stable posture. Lay down is a good one. Probably not in the kitchen, but out on the lawn in your room. Be in a stable posture and try not to do anything except be open-hearted with this tight knee. And if it doesn't happen for an hour, that's okay. That's a good entry time, an hour. We'll see how much damage you've done before then, any of us have done. But, you know, just whenever the opening arises, try it then. I think that's all we can do. We can't go around, we don't want each other to go around and say, oh, are you in pain now?

[22:08]

Are you paying attention to it? Go back to your work. Leave me alone. I'm studying myself, you study yourself. I mean, maybe they'll say that maybe our friends, that really are good friends, whoever they may be, If they notice that we're tight, maybe they will have some way of saying something is tricky. It's tricky, you know, because if we're not ready, it just makes it worse. So probably they should just, you know, do it themselves if they remember. Thank you for asking. Yes, Annie. Annie. Can I have that moment of sometimes when you start paying attention to something that's painful and it shifts so quickly or it melts away, it vanishes somehow. Yes. And especially during last practice period, I experienced that a lot.

[23:10]

It was a period where it was like things would come up and then my awareness would almost melt it away. Yeah. Something that I think about now is, is that a kind of numbing? Like, is that actually appropriate? That once you put your awareness on something, it leaves? Like, is that... Well, if that actually happens, that's appropriate because it happens. But I think what we need to watch for is, am I suddenly... pushing it away by having some idea of I should be calm, I should be, you know, rather than actually open-hearted. But so much of our suffering is made up of a cringing, you know, or adding to, you know, adding stories to. We have some discomfort and we add the reasons why and what they did and it gets worse.

[24:16]

And then if we actually stop that... then there's not so much there. And when we pay attention to it, sometimes, especially in something like a practice period or a session where you're already, I'm not sure what, maybe more in touch with your body or your body hasn't built up a lot of tension. It's already relaxed some. Sometimes you put your mind on it and it does. It's just like not... So that difference between pushing away and just, you know, what they sometimes call bare attention to tension, bare attention to tension, I think it's appropriate. I think it's appropriate. Great. Do you remember...

[25:18]

practice period that Rev. Anderson led when he said, meet what arises with complete relaxation about a thousand times? I don't know if I remember the practice period, but I remember that phrase about a thousand times, yes. Yeah. With complete relaxation. Yeah. I thought, I don't know, I don't really recall... any specific practice instruction. He just said that over and over again. But he seemed to get into some of us, go around and be repeating it. Yeah, I could meet that with complete relaxation. Just kind of taking it up. I don't know why, just because he repeated it so many times. It seems to work some.

[26:19]

Yeah, I know. That was good, I think. Yes, I've often noticed, because as you may notice, I tend to give slightly short lectures, even here at Tassajara, where we're very careful about the time so we can go to bed. So I've often thought of Reb and thought, I should just repeat things more often. Seems to work okay for him. I could start over if you want. Or we could stop early and go to bed early. Does anyone? Yes. A couple. Yes, Katie. One of the things I noticed when I'm going through a period of experiencing emotional and physical pain is that when it does seem to there to be a lull, I really am eager to... to sort of call it a chapter that's closed, and they say, that was then, and it's over, and I know what it is, and that's generally a mistake, or at least it turns out to be wrong.

[27:28]

Not always, but often. And I guess I'm wondering about how to look at pain over time so that you do notice patterns in it and do notice when it comes up in the similar circumstances without that temptation to hope yeah or to say you know that that it's come to sort of any kind of that particular pain has come to some kind of cessation when you really are in a wall So the question exactly was what? I think I totally understand what you're describing and have experienced it myself. I guess I feel like it's hard to know how to look at pain over time. I guess maybe that's the question.

[28:29]

How to look at pain over time in a way that's useful. Well... I mean, we look at things over time, that we have memory, to some extent. And, you know, so if a familiar pain comes back, especially one of those that we hoped was gone forever, we usually notice it. So this is my thought. We each have... karmic situation we we have we carry karma in our body we've had various experiences uh some of them when we were very young we also carry the karma of our parents and our families and our ancestors and our species at least you know and maybe other species previous species so uh that's in us each in a

[29:36]

individual way. Maybe it's not totally unique. Maybe there are other people just like us. But anyway, we're not all exactly alike. We have different... I don't know. To me, it almost feels like we have different chemicals in the pit of our stomach that get activated in certain situations. And we can call them, you know, and then maybe we feel abandoned or we feel... Anyway, we have things that come up. And when we... do some practice, this one or some other one, that actually gets us to the core of that and it dissipates. We hope it's gone, but it isn't necessarily. And I think that it partly isn't gone because we haven't gotten to the bottom of it. I think there are times when it goes completely, but that can't be our goal, really, because that's a kind of tightening. You know, it's like...

[30:38]

When it comes, we have to meet it. If it comes again, we have to meet it again. But once we see the kind of, this is my karma for this lifetime, and that's why I say the familiar ones, it's usually pretty familiar. It's kind of lucky, you know, if we got somebody else's problems tomorrow and they were totally new to us, we'd have to start all over, but we'd get our own back again. So we have some sense of how do I get to this, really. It may take us a while to remember it, but there we are again, and we need it again. That's all. If it ever gets to the bottom, maybe it'll be gone completely. But once we recognize it like that, it's not as devastating, you know? What's devastating about it is both the pain and the feeling that it shouldn't be happening. This is some kind of weakness that I'm feeling abandoned.

[31:40]

Especially, you know, once you start noticing, oh, they're not really abandoning me. I'm just feeling abandoned. It's the same old, I'm being abandoned even though I'm not. So it feels like this is a mistake. This is some weakness in me. But once we see, you know, this is like chemicals in the pit, karmic chemicals in the pit of my stomach. And my job is to be open-hearted with them. then, you know, the old horrible saying in Zen, this is a practice opportunity, is true. It's like, this is the chance to meet my karma this lifetime and maybe get a little closer to the bottom, but who knows? Is that... Thank you. Shon, and then we'll stop. So recently... a sort of difficult emotional moment and that was fine I dealt with it in a way I felt sort of comfortable with and what I've noticed in the days since is sometimes when other folks will talk with me about it where I had thought there was sort of I was sort of happy with it the discussion of it is sort of bringing up this whole sort of sense of oh my eyes are tearing up now I feel sad again

[33:05]

And I'm wondering, you know, that's useful sometimes for infected wounds, but I wonder, emotionally, is that just rubbing it raw over and over, or maybe is it that there's still something there? Or both, or, you know, the point is not to do everything perfectly. You know, like, what is the perfect way of dealing with this so it won't cause me any more pain? It's to live open-heartedly. So you can say, I don't really want to talk about that right now. Or you can tear up again and feel it again, get to know it again. And then, I don't know, we make our best guess, really. And luckily, we don't live in a vacuum. We make our best guests and lots of things give us feedback.

[34:08]

In this case, our self gives us feedback. But also we're surrounded by, that's part of why Tassara is set up the way it is. You know, you come here to study yourself and here you find that you're crowded in this narrow valley with all these other people. It's because they will help you study yourself. They'll help you, you know, they'll say, geez, you seem like you're in a bad mood today or, you know, it's, it's, I think why we have a guest season because, in fact, you can't just sit around and mope and study yourself all day. You have to get up and go to work and study yourself while you're taking care of things and see what happens then. Let's see, can I work as part of this crew? What about on the day I feel really horrible? Can I do something? Can I go to my job where they're expecting me? Or do I actually today have to say, can't come. It's not like one is right and the other is wrong. We're just functioning.

[35:12]

I think we're going to stop here because it's time and we're on the Zen schedule. Thank you all very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma Talks are offered free of charge and 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 SSCC.org and click Giving.

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