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. Morning, everyone. This will be our last. talk of the sesheen. And yeah, this way of coming together will never happen again. You know, this is one time, one meeting. That's what tea ceremony, one of the phrases for tea ceremony, coming together, preparing the room, cleaning seasonal flowers and scroll and the company.

[01:13]

And it's just for this one time and never again, which is how our life, that is our life. That is our life. So I wanted to mention a kind of correction from yesterday, which Tenshin Roshi brought to my attention after the lecture, and also I also realized it after the lecture, which was when I was talking about the Buddha gathering grasses to make the sitting cushion, I called the grasses by the wrong name. So the grasses are called kusa, kusa grasses. And out of that, the meaning of the fact that they're sharp and you have to be careful when you gather them.

[02:15]

And skillful comes the word or related etymologically to kushala, wholesome, skillful. So it's kusa grass. I just wanted to mention that. I wanted to say something about the coronavirus, which is, as you may know, maybe you haven't looked. I looked today just to see what's happening. And there's, you know, this big surges all over. I think California will be having new lockdown. protocols implemented. And the numbers, the world numbers are of deaths, 1,528,000 plus some more. And that is just to give me, you know, like, what is that?

[03:20]

How many people is it? That's the entire population of San Diego. If you can just imagine that. And in the U.S., it's 286,000 and climbing. I think maybe even as we speak, that's higher. And, well, how many people is that really? What would that be? And that would be the population of Mill Valley, San Rafael, Novato, Petaluma, Sausalito, Marin City, Healesburg, Tam Valley, Sebastopol, and Monterey. So picture those cities with every resident having died. Somehow that helped me kind of really bring it home in a feeling way rather than just these numbers.

[04:29]

that I'm reading online or hearing about. So just maybe even take a moment now to allow that to sink in and the feeling of grief and hard to believe, you know, hard to believe. And yet we must accept that and take responsibility and for caring for one another, caring for ourselves and those with whom, who live with us and speak with us. And as happens with grief, you know, often along with grief comes gratitude. Grief and gratitude tend to, for me anyway, rise up together. The grief at the loss of a being or a place or a way of life.

[05:34]

And at the exact same time, gratitude for that person or that way or that place. So grief, grief and gratitude go. They're like yoked together, kind of yoked together. This morning, I was the officiant, the priest that officiated for morning service. And it was chilly in the Zen Dome. The floor was cold. And as I approached the altar to offer incense, I realized there was a little fire there, a little mini fire. you know, this burning ember, the charcoal with smoke rising.

[06:38]

And it was putting, sprinkling the chip incense, offering it and sprinkling it on the charcoal. I could feel the warmth coming onto my fingers. And I had also gratitude just rise up for the elements, you know, the elements of... fire and water and air and earth, the four great elements. And part of our service is bringing fire, you know, and which has an alive feeling and aliveness to it. And as the warmth on my fingers, I remembered I have a tendency to get what are colloquially called Chilblains. Chilblains is kind of the folk name for Renaud syndrome, I think, where the circulation does not get to the extremities as well as it could.

[07:57]

This results in cold fingers and toes and sometimes ears and nose. Sounds like the Heart Sutra. And this first came up for me when I was at Tassara, my first practice period, which was a very cold practice period. It got down to 18. And I had... these sores and cold hands and feet, and then taking those very cold hands and feet and going into the hot plunge was not a good idea. That was, you know, the capillaries, when they hit the hot water, tried to open, and anyway, lots of difficulties. And I didn't know what it was. I thought my... My shoes hurt. You know, I thought maybe I need a new pair of shoes. I think I was going to order new shoes. Until I heard from the folks there about this phenomena.

[09:06]

And I was extremely ashamed. I was embarrassed and ashamed that I had poor circulation. which meant to me my practice was not up to snuff, and I couldn't breathe properly, and the pathways of the breath were blocked and not functioning, and therefore my hands, you know, and toes, fingers and toes. So I was very embarrassed about this, didn't want people to know. And the abbot at the time, Zen Tatsurutcher Baker, heard about this, that I had these terrible sores. And he asked if he could see my hands. And I hid them behind my back. I didn't want to show. Because that was proof of what a poor student I was.

[10:08]

Because there was the proof right there on my fingers. And I remember what he said, which was... That's not how we practice. Show me your hands. And it hit me very hard. It's like, what was I holding out for? What was I protecting? What was I not wanting to share with the sangha, with the teacher? What was that all about? And I think it was, you know, I didn't. I didn't have a name for it then, but I had a feeling of what that was. It was self-cleaning, self-protection, fixed view, competitiveness, no self-compassion, you know, just really harsh, kind of a harsh view of practice and...

[11:13]

who I was and who I better be, you know, right now, that kind of feeling, not so warm-hearted, as Jerry, you talked about the other week, not so warm-hearted. But somehow that phrase, that's not how we practice, really came in strongly. And then it was, how do we practice in a shared, with a shared life and a shared life? sharing our suffering, having compassion for ourself and one another. Is that how I would feel about somebody else if they had a similar difficulty, like that they were shameful, you know? Yeah. So that memory kind of rose up as I was offering incense and feeling the warmth of our little mini fire, our fire element. that is there for us to make offerings to the Buddha.

[12:21]

So this bringing up these deaths all around us, whether we know of anyone personally or not, how can we not be affected and feel this gravity, the graveness of our situation And so many people. And yesterday I mentioned Suzuki Roshi's, this phrase, things teach best when they are dying. And I think, as I said yesterday, Suzuki Roshi's teaching of caring for his students and leading up to his death, the way a calmness, with which he faced his own demise. That was, you know, that was new to me rather than, I don't know, a combination of fear and anger and all sorts of other things.

[13:36]

Disbelief that I had come to associate with, you know, dying. But... Suzuki Roshi taught calmness of mind, even while in the midst of great pain. So our pain, you know, the experience of pain, if we could measure and say, you know, this amount of pain, some measurement is equal to what this person, other person is feeling the same. But the The one who experiences the pain more as suffering is the one without a calm mind. So having pain, which I think we're discovering during Sashin, having pain with a calm mind, that is not so disturbing.

[14:41]

It is what it is. It does not throw us off our cushion. make us want to run away or punch the person next to us or there's nobody next to us, punch the divider, you know. Calmness with pain is, those do not need to be separated. And I think we learn that. And that lesson or that deep understanding is something that will, We can meet all the aspects of our life with that same understanding, emotional, psychological pain, with calmness. It is what it is, but it does not throw us. When we don't have a calm mind and are fighting and running around in our minds and trying to get away and trying to change our reality,

[15:45]

more suffering, much more suffering. So Suzuki Roshi's way showed calmness of mind. And of course, there's myriad ways to face our death and myriad ways of dying. And we can hear stories from hospice workers and also from our Zen ancestors of teachers who shouted so loud that it was heard miles away. at the moment of death. There's no one right way or one particular way, but Suzuki Roshi's way was calmness. There was a story of one of his students who came to pay his respects at the end of Suzuki Roshi's life. And by that time, Suzuki Roshi, because of his cancer was very discolored and didn't look like the way he usually looked.

[16:53]

And when this person came into the room, he was visibly taken aback at the change. And it showed. And Suzuki Roshi said to this person, don't grieve. I know who I am. Don't grieve. I know who I am. So that knowing who he was, his true nature, this is the Heart Sutra's teaching. What is our true nature? And knowing Knowing who he was meant a calmness and acceptance.

[17:53]

So there's another story about things teaching best when they're dying, which I've told this story before, but it's a very much heart citrus story. Actually, it's... It's an enactment of the Heart Sutra. And this is a story about the myogin, Steve Stuckey, when he died in 2013, actually December 31st on New Year's Eve. He died. And so... Just in studying the Heart Sutra, I realized how much of a Heart Sutra teaching this story is. So those of you who knew Steve Stuckey, he was tall, over six feet. He worked on a farm when he was first at Green Milch.

[18:59]

I think he was part of the horse when we had horses. And he had a kind of reputation of hardworking. And just you could rely on him. He would show up, and that's what he also felt. But when he became sick in September of 2013 with pancreatic cancer, very soon he was unable to do his work. usual, ordinary daily activities. After he gave the talk, when he let us all know, most people did not see him again. He couldn't leave his home, and he did some online things, and I visited him in the hospital.

[20:00]

However, most people really didn't see him again. He did... I guess it was Zoom, I'm not sure what was the technology, come to a board meeting. He was the central abbot at the time, and he came to the board meeting, and his picture, there was a large screen, and he came to the board meeting through this screen, and he looked quite changed when he saw him, and he apologized for not being able to get to City Center to the board meeting. He was in so much pain and couldn't travel really. And what he said was, and this is this sentence that for me, it was like searingly Hatsutra speaking. He said, I now see that it is all.

[21:06]

causes and conditions. I used to be the one who always showed up. I was always there. You could count on me. You could rely on me. And I now see that it was just causes and conditions. So this real insight into the nature of self, rather than our tendency to think I am this entity that kind of goes along through time, but I'm pretty much the same being with a substantial kind of an abiding self that just keeps, and I have certain ways about me, like these are my tendencies, these are my patterns, I show up, And then to see there is no such being that shows up.

[22:16]

There are the causes and conditions that allows showing up or not showing up. And when those change, like in Steve Stuckey's case, health reasons, he no longer could be that one. There is no, there isn't a one like that who always shows up. I now see that it was just causes and conditions. So this is what the Heart Sutra is teaching, that all the five skandhas are empty of own being, empty of separate self, empty of substantial, objective, And it's the coming together and changing and flowing of the five skandhas endlessly that create this designated, we designate a kind of self in our conventional world.

[23:40]

psychophysical, five skandas. We designate self. Yes, there is an appearance of self. I recognized Steve Stuckey, who was different from somebody else. There is this appearance. And we designate a self on top of that. But that self does not truly exist as its own separateness, separate being. that is the one that shows up or does anything. So to look to the causes and conditions, we're freed from fears about that self and our attributions about what it is or isn't or should be or shouldn't be. So that I now see, I now see that with stress caused and conditions is a great teaching of someone who was dying and knew they were dying.

[24:58]

And it's a teaching of not only impermanence, but emptiness. The emptiness of all five skandas are empty. There it is. And there it was for all of us, kind of unfolding in real time. This was his sutra that he was sharing with us, which is what the Buddha was sharing too. And Avalokiteshvara, the words of Avalokiteshvara in the Heart Sutra are, from, you know, at the behest of the Buddha speaking to us and teaching. So there's a book called The Buddha Karita, The Acts of the Buddha by Ashwa Gosa, I believe, quite old.

[26:12]

text that talks about the Buddha's life and all. And Ashwagosa mentions the part of what the Buddha, when he saw impermanence in the old age sickness and death messengers, what the Buddha realized was, what the Buddha said, or Ashwagosa wrote, the arrogance of youth and health. There's a kind of feeling like, you know, it's about somebody else, not about me, because I feel so strong and healthy and energetic and powerful, one might feel, one might feel. And in this Buddha Karita, it's named as the arrogance of youth and health. And we are, we kind of wake up to that misunderstanding, that kind of pride and arrogance that takes us away from settling into the truth of our life, truth of our life together.

[27:36]

So, the Heart Sutra as, you know, all fears and distress are forsaken and all fears and saved from all suffering and distress. How could... Is that true? Can the Heart Sutra actually, can the teachings of the Heart Sutra free us in this way? And I think, you know, this ignorance, and this is the main ignorance of our life, is this belief in not only our self as substantial and separate, but the objects of our awareness. They appear, and that's why it's so difficult. That's why this is so... why the Haritsutra is so deep, you know, and hard to understand, is because the appearance, these things appear just like your computer and everything.

[28:53]

There is the appearance. They look like they exist as separate, substantial things upon our looking at them. That's what the appearance is. And yet, if we study and using not only our analytical powers and using the teaching, really study the teachings on this, but also in our zazen, we see that there is nothing like that. That's substantial in that way. But it does appear to be that way. But nothing exists that way. Nothing exists like a separate entity. All things are in relational, are dependently co-arising.

[30:00]

All things. that we see, these appearances, dependently co-arise. They are in relation with other things. There's no thing that's somehow just by itself, although at first glance, it sure looks that way. And, you know, I haven't seen my grandson except for a couple times, distanced and all, but he's learning language right now, and I'm watching, I saw some videos of him, and people, my daughter and his mom and dad are holding things up and saying, what color is this, you know? And he says, well, his version of red or whatever, and put the block in the bag. And, you know, we teach that, you know.

[31:05]

And she said, what are you eating? He was having snack, and he said his word for apple. And she said, yes, that's kind of an apple called a persimmon, which I just felt was so skillful. She didn't want to say no. He's just trying it out. So she kind of made it. It's an apple persimmon thing, but naming, naming, naming. This is how we, this is our conventional life, right? Without that, how's he going to get along, you know? Without language, without conventional designations, this is our conventional life. This is, you know, if we talked about the two truths in our class, this is our conventional relational life where things have conventional designations just like You can call me Linda or Linda Ruth or whatever.

[32:09]

My dad used to say you can call me whatever, just don't call me late to dinner. Those are conventional designations based on this psychophysical appearance. And we have to have a very strong rootedness foundation in our conventional life. Like this... Like kids, this doesn't belong to you. This is hot. This is time to put our shoes on. We have to be grounded in conventional life. However, if that's all we have and all we know, we will suffer the grasping after things. trying to get things for this separate self that we believe in more and more strongly.

[33:12]

So Nagarjuna talks about in order to approach the absolute or emptiness, we must be grounded in our conventional relational life. And that means precepts. caring for one another, caring for our bodies and minds, caring for this earth. That is our conventional relational life. We don't throw that away in order to have some absolute because that conventional world form is not different from emptiness. Emptiness is not different from form. Taking care of our conventional life. Right there, form is not different from emptiness. So we take care of our conventional life, which is taking care of and being in alignment with the true way that we exist, which is empty of separate self.

[34:19]

So this is our Heart Sutra, which I feel at this time in the Sesshin, We can hear those words freshly, you know, in a new way. And sit in the middle of that. You know, this designated self based on the psychophysical, the five skandhas, five rivers that are always moving. We don't even have to, just saying the five skandhas are empty means, self is empty. Because this self is based on this belief in self or the conventional self is already empty. You don't have to say, and the self is empty too. They go together. So we don't privilege

[35:30]

the absolute over to the relative. This is middle way. The conventional designations, there are things that appear in our relational life, and we give those names and conventional designations. We give them nicknames because they are empty of own being, and that's our middle way. And it isn't that, well, absolute is better than. We can't pull them apart, actually. They're interfused in just this, in our one life together. So one mistake is like privileging and somehow wanting absolute. That's a kind of sickness, you know, it's a kind of a Zen sickness, and Nagarjuna talks about it, where caught in and even thinking that somehow going after what I want is absolute.

[36:39]

Absolute is already right here. We don't have to go searching. Form is emptiness. This is Heart Sutra. So, You know, in the Fukan Zazengi, Dogen, in the admonitions for Zazen, Dogen says near the end, have no designs upon becoming a Buddha. So our sitting, and especially our Sashin, is to sit without any, Suzuki Roshi, of course, has gaining idea, without wanting and grasping after things, after something special. Some get me out of here into some place where I won't have to feel this pain or upset or get me out of here.

[37:47]

And, oh, I know how I'll get out of here. I'll become a Buddha. And Dogen says, have no designs upon becoming a Buddha. How come? Because already this very body-mind is empty of own being and is awake in nature. That's what the Buddha realized and woke up to under the Bodhi tree after studying the self. He didn't have to, and he also let go of all these practices and contrivances in order to get somewhere else. He let go of all that and said, I'm just going to sit here, have no designs upon becoming a Buddha. How come? Because that is our true nature, Buddha nature, which is this limited conventional self, which is empty of separateness, interfused already.

[38:56]

So what are we trying to get? This is going beyond Buddha. Have no signs upon becoming a Buddha. Just sitting is the celebration of the true way that we exist. And you know the story, the teaching story of the Buddha exclaiming when he woke up upon seeing the morning star. upon seeing and realizing non-duality with this morning star. You know, there's the teaching that he said, not in English. He said it in whatever language anyone speaks is how he said it. Marvelous, marvelous, all beings, without exception, are completely and thoroughly awakened. And the great earth. except because of their delusion.

[39:59]

And I think these avarana, these coverings, they don't realize it. So that was, you know, the Buddha's awakening, all beings without exception, and the great earth already. That is the true nature of all, of the oneness. Myriad objects partake of the Buddha body. And sitting upright under the Bodhi tree, you immediately leap beyond the boundaries of awakening. So the Heart Sutra maybe celebrates this with the mantra at the end. since the whole Heart Sutra can be like a mantra, this mantra meaning protection of the mind, you know, this teaching that protects us from faulty thinking and going in the opposite direction, meaning trying to find anything other than right here, right now.

[41:15]

So the mantra, this mantra, gati, And as you know, in the Heart Sutra, a lot of time is spent to, at the end there, like almost a little paragraph about this, how wonderful this mantra is, is the great, great mantra that removes all suffering, you know. And the mantra that says, gate, gate, or gyate in Japanese, gate, para gate, parasam gate, Bodhi svaha. That's my feeling of the Buddha under the Bodhi tree, you know, this proclaiming that he's, the translation is gone, gone, gone beyond, altogether beyond. Oh, what an awakening. Bodhi svaha, which translates as all hail is one translation or hallelujah, just some

[42:18]

of celebration and joy. That was the Buddha under the Bodhi tree. That's us on our Bodhi Manda. So this gate, gate, the first gate is gate gone from suffering, the suffering that arises from belief in separateness and the pain of... feeling that separateness and acting body, speech, and mind, karmic actions based on some separateness that is not the truth of our life. So this first gate is gone from suffering. And the second gate, gone from the forgetfulness about who we actually are and the lack of mindfulness about how we exist. Gathe, Gathe, Paragathe, gone from duality to non-duality.

[43:24]

Parasam Gathe, the Sam in that is everyone, gone to the other shore, not just me, as the Buddha said, all beings without exception. So Parasam Gathe, everybody, the Paragathe, Sangha, our community, the entire world, gone to the other shore, the shore of relief of suffering. Gathe, Gathe, Paragathe, Parasam Gathe, Bodhi. Oh, what an awakening. Spaha. So that's the culmination of our of our Heart Sutra and to feel that sitting on our Bodhi Manda, sitting under the Bodhi tree, all of us right now, celebrating this, celebrating our true nature, even in the midst of cold and discomfort and all the conventional stuff that we meet, bringing to bear this teaching of empty of separateness,

[44:39]

I now see that is just, it's causes and conditions. Can we study the self that way? And sitting, how grateful to be able to sit here in celebration, our zazen as celebration, bodhis vaha. Thank you all very much. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[45:37]

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