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. It's an honor and a blessing for me to be here tonight. It's my first Dharma talk at Tassajara in six, seven years. Thank you for inviting me. And thank you for taking care of Tassajara and upholding the Buddha way here. Those of you who are involved in that. So I have to start with the Zen story for you.

[01:20]

It's a story about the Zen teacher Wang Bo. One day he said to the assembly, all of you gobblers of dregs, if you keep on like this, when will you have today? There's more, but I want to talk about this part first. It's well known that Zen students, and to this day, are goblin dregs. This is like, you know, if I have some teaching, then, you know, what I've learned, then, you know, people say, well, what do you know? And it's well known that Zen students look for the teaching, the answer, the way to do it, and then try to do it that way. All of you goblers of dregs. So is this the way to live a life?

[02:27]

In other words, if your life isn't working, what should you do? Mostly we think, well, the recipe I'm following doesn't work. I'll get a better recipe. Rather than forget the recipe. I'm going to figure this out and I'll do what I want with my life. It's mine. And I'm going to take care of it myself. And I'll handle this and I'll figure it out. So what's the way? Anyway, Wang Bo went on. Haven't you heard in all of China there are no teachers of Zen? Then a monk came up and said, but teacher, there's hundreds of monasteries and thousands of monks. How can you say there's no Zen? And Wang Bo said, I didn't say there was no Zen.

[03:33]

I said, there are no teachers of Zen. So who is the teacher? Who is the student? And if there are no teachers, How will you find the way? This is not so, you know, different than the Zen master. I think it was Nachoan who said, I tell my students to put themselves in the time before Buddha appeared in the world. Very few get my meaning. Before Buddha appeared in the world, who's going to tell you the Buddha way? Who's going to tell you how to live your life? How will you figure out, how will you know what to do with your precious and wild dreams? One life here. How will you spend your time? Most of us think the way to do it is to have a good recipe and then follow it. And we like having little projects.

[04:35]

Because if you have a little project, and if you have a recipe, then you can see how well you're doing. Did the recipe come out the way it's supposed to? Or did everything go wrong? And then, am I just not very good at following recipes, or is it a bad recipe? Sendmaster Tenke said, see with your eyes, smell with your nose, taste with your tongue. Nothing in the universe is hidden. What else would you have me say? And of course, what you want him to say is... well, how can I make everything turn out the way it's supposed to so that nobody has any complaints about whatever I do and everybody likes everything that I do? That's what you'd like him to say. How do I do that? And then, of course, he says, upside-down idea, no such thing. Nothing in the universe is hidden, and one of the things that's not hidden is life doesn't work.

[05:41]

It's the first noble truth. But if you follow the recipe well enough, everything will come out the way it should, right? So why not spend your time following recipes rather than creating your own life the way you want to live your life? So lately I've been thinking about... Horizontal and vertical. This is one way to talk about samsara and nirvana. Horizontal world. And in the horizontal world, you know, things don't work out. There's always these different sides and these criticisms and judgments and this is good and that's bad and this is right and that's wrong and this is the way to practice Buddhism. That's not the way to practice Buddhism. Whatever it is, everybody is discussing it. And then you wonder, how well am I doing? Am I doing well?

[06:43]

Am I doing poorly? And you can assess yourself as well as seeing what other people think. And of course, then you're only as good as your last performance. How are you going to surpass yourself? The vertical world is the world of spirit. And in the vertical world, you know, there's just this. Just this is. Or mind itself is Buddha. Or Suzuki Rishi said, you might think your practice is good. You might think it's bad. You're doing well. You're doing poorly. Your life is your life. Your practice is your practice, period. Your practice is your practice. Say no more. The rest of it is horizontal. Vertically, you are you. You're here. Show up and do you.

[07:43]

Stand your ground. Speak your truth. Realize your true nature, your core. Align your effort, your intention, your action with your core and get on with your life. And sometimes it will work and sometimes it won't, right? Sometimes people will say thank you. A lot of the time we'll say thank you. what were you thinking? And they'll give you an assessment in the horizontal world. And then you say, thank you. Thank you for your concern and letting me know where you're at and that you're very involved in the horizontal world. I appreciate knowing that. And, you know, we get in, especially if we're involved in formal practice, and, you know, I was an institutionalized Zen person for 20 years.

[08:49]

I know something about this. I was committed. And then I got released on my own, you know, you can, when you commit yourself like that, you get released on your own decision. You know, you don't have to get anybody to sign you out. So if you're involved in an organized practice, then there's a way to do it. So is that vertical or is that horizontal? And you try to get the horizontal right. And you think if you get the horizontal right, if you do the practice well enough horizontally, something wonderfully vertical will happen. Is that true? But it's easy to think that. I'm going to sit completely still. I'm going to make my mind completely calm. I'm going to be able to do this. Whatever you decide. And then does the vertical come along?

[09:54]

But I'm doing it right. I'm doing what you're supposed to. Vertical doesn't usually or often show up. It helps, you know, sometimes it helps to stay up all night and, you know, do laborious things. But this week, of course, you know, I'm here with my venerable friend Roshi Tisha and Cho An and others. We're doing Zen and Qigong. So we're inviting the vertical with movement. And we're not too worried about getting it right. And we just keep studying and learning and seeing how it goes. So it's pretty sweet, if I may say. And I'll talk a little bit more about that in a bit. So I want to share, first of all, though, a poem about the horizontal and the vertical. I think you'll get pretty easily horizontal-vertical here. Horizontal-vertical.

[11:00]

This is a poem by Rilke. It's a version by Robert Bley. It starts out, it's hard to tell, the first line... Is it horizontal or is it vertical? You see, I want a lot. Horizontal, vertical. Perhaps I want everything. The darkness of each infinite fall, the shivering blaze of each step up. Where did that come from? the darkness of each infinite fall, the shivering blaze of each step up. We went vertical. Rilke went vertical there. And then he says, there are those who live on and are raised to the rank of prince by the slippery ease of their light judgments. Raised to the rank of prince or president by the slippery ease of their light judgments. But what you love to see are faces that feel thirst and do work.

[12:05]

You see those sometimes around Tassara. Most of all, you love those who need you like a crowbar or a hole. It's not too late and you are not too old to dive into the increasing depths of your life where it calmly gives out its secret. There ain't no secrets here in the horizontal world. If I may say. I mean... You can get a coach and find out some secrets to how to get, you know, a provocative website and attract, you know, bigger, you know, Facebook audiences and whatever. But, you know, the real secrets are the vertical world. And, you know, to solve, really to solve the issues of the horizontal world, we need more people to go vertical and dive into the increasing depths of your life where it calmly gives out its secret. You are you.

[13:06]

What do you want to do with your one wild and precious life? What did you come here to do? So I do want to mention a couple of the secrets that you might discover when you die. One is... The problems you are now experiencing will continue for the rest of your life. I heard that from someone you might have heard of. I heard that in person from Suzuki Roshi. Sashin at City Center about 1970. The problems you are now experiencing will continue for the rest of your life. We all thought he was going to say, until you get enlightened, or until you develop wisdom and compassion, until you straighten up your act.

[14:09]

In other words, the horizontal, whatever you do, the horizontal world is still going to be there. You're not going to solve the horizontal world. You're not going to fix the horizontal world. And yet, you know, as bodhisattvas and as Buddhists and as human beings, we do our best to relate to the horizontal world and do what we can. Yeah? And, you know, we want to take care of the, you know, the kids, the house, the car, you know, the job. You know, we try to take care of things. Get the kids to soccer practice, the dentist... You know, take care of the food, the cooking, you know, the cleaning, the housing. Take care of things in the horizontal world. And Zen has always emphasized this. Take care of the horizontal. And be vertical about it. In other words, take all you can from inside and put it into what you're doing.

[15:14]

That's a vertical. You know, regardless of whether it matters in the horizontal world, throw yourself into it. That's a vertical. practice. Whether you feel like you have heart or not, you put your heart into it. That's Zen. That's the vertical. That's the vertical comes to the horizontal. And the second thing, as I already said, another one of the secrets is you are you. Nobody can take your place. In other words, well, I'm tempted to say help is not on the way, but on the other hand, you have plenty of help from everywhere.

[16:23]

You are you, no one can take your place. All of you goblers of dregs, if you keep on like this, when will you have today? When will you be here today? And Dogen says, today is the beginning. Today is, and Dogen says, you know, beginner's mind is the essential original teaching. And beginner's mind means today. What is today like? What is your life today? Not your old life, you know. A lot of times, of course, today is here and then we're two years old. The two-year-old is reconstellated with something happening here. And we're angry and we're upset and we're lost and we're scared and we're worried. What about today? When will you have today? So let me see how much time I have and I'll see how many stories I can tell you.

[17:25]

Time for a story or two. So in honor of the fact we're doing the Qigong and Zen this week, you know, as some of you know, I've been well known for many years. It started actually here at Tassajara when I became cook in 1966. The last year it was a resort and I was invited to be cook and I suddenly, I didn't, I thought I was a nice person. I had it very together when I was the dishwasher and the baker. I was calm. I had, you know, went down to the baths, relaxed. beautiful bread. And then I became cook. And I was so angry all the time. And they started having meetings. What are we going to do about Ed? You know that you have problems when people are having meetings.

[18:32]

And basically, you know, they say, is this something you're willing to work on or would you like a different job? Okay. So I've been working on this ever since. Oh, well. You have to do something with your time here, you know, on the planet. And this seems like good work. You know, and some people, you know, a lot of people say, that's not Zen. You know, to be emotional, to have feelings. That's not Zen. Zen is... to be impassive and calm and stable and centered. You need to grow up. People tell you various things. Suzuki Roshi actually helped me a bit. He said, Ed, you can be angry if you want. And I relaxed.

[19:35]

And then he said, but don't. LAUGHTER Anyway, other people who are somewhat involved in the world of emotions say, you're one of the most courageous people we've ever met. Because you have the courage to have all these feelings. And mostly it takes a lot of courage because there's very little places where you can have a lot of emotion. But I did get a hand analysis with Richard Unger. He's given hand analysis to over 100,000 people now. Left index finger. I'm here to lead the community with emotion and creativity. It's official. With the hands and the fingerprints.

[20:38]

You know, four months in utero. The wind of destiny blows through and the map for your life is here at your fingertips. In your palms. How does it know? How do we become who we become? It's so fascinating. Anyway, in honor of our Qigong workshop, I want to tell you one story. After 20 years of living at the Zen Center, I'll back up a little bit. I'll tell you just one story, the beginning of the story about how I came to leave Zen Center. I was, for a short period of time, I was the head resident teacher here in the spring practice period, 1984. This place, this place, this endo. 22 students. It was during the fall of the empire, which some of you may have heard of. Shoes outside the door. If you want to know the book. And I walked, I offered incense.

[21:40]

I came in, offered incense. I did the jindo. I got to this seat. I bowed to the seat. I bowed away from the seat. I sat down here. What will I work on today? What project will I have? Shouldn't I have a good project? Shall I work on concentration, compassion, generosity, mindfulness? What will it be today that would really be helpful for my practice? You know, I would have good results and I could have something to show for all my effort. And this little voice inside said, Why don't you just touch what's inside with some warmth and compassion? And without even thinking about it, the tears, my face is wet. And my ocaso is wet. And apparently I've been doing a lot of other things besides feeling what was inside with warmth and compassion.

[22:45]

What are you going to do with your life? I've had a lot of projects. Anyway, a month later or so, Katagiri Roshi was the resident, you know, the interim abbot. It was Zen Center. I went to see him, and I said, just one little point about that first story is there a little voice inside. Once the tears were coming down, the little voice said, it's about time. I don't know. Where does that little voice come from? I went to see Katagiri Roshi. Roshi, when I sit now, I'm just feeling what's inside. Is that okay? Is that Zen? Or is there something more Zen I should be doing with my cushion time? What do you think? And Karagiri Roshi was very vertical. He was so carefully straight. I mean, literally vertical.

[23:50]

And, you know, and his gasho would be right. Two nose, hands, one hand width. Soft feeling. And Kadagiroshi sat there and he said, Ed, for 20 years I tried to do the sasen of Zen Master Dogen before I realized there is no such thing. The little boy said, oh, right on schedule. I've been practicing for 19 years. Maybe it takes this long to realize there's no such thing. There's no such project. There's what are you, what are you here to do? So after this, I decided, you know, I wasn't going to be head resident teacher and sit up in front of people and sob.

[24:54]

I don't know, maybe other people can do that. I thought I need to go some... I need to go find a place to cry, and I can assure you there's not a lot of places to do that, but I found some places. The most formidable place I found was a group of four women who were touching me, and I was crying and sobbing and screaming for two hours, and the Gatadi police came, which I only found out later, and they said, no, he's paying for this. We're not torturing him. We're healing him. And the Qatari police went away. Anyway, after that session, I walked out of this touchdown, it was called in those days in Qatari. I walked out and the world was made of love. The sky was love, the telephone poles, the street, the cars, the traffic.

[25:58]

Everything was made of love. And then, of course, when I went out to lunch, and then I was right away in love with the waitress. One of the things that Lansing tells people is don't marry the first one. You know, if you've found that the world is made of love. Anyway. At one point after I left the Zen Center, I went to Aikido class. Tisha's been doing Aikido for, you know, 40 years or more, whatever it is, and still does Aikido. So I was in Aikido class, and we have some exercise where you're supposed to put out your hand, and then the other person is going to attack you or flip you or do something. So I put out my hand, and this kid, I'm like 40.

[27:02]

I've been doing sin practice for 20 years. And this kid, 18 or 20 years old, he says to me, well, put some energy in your hand. What? I got my hand out. What do you want? I said, put some energy in it. What is he talking about? I didn't know anything about actually having some consciousness in your hand. So I started studying these things. How do you have consciousness in your hands? Because for 20 years, I'd sit down, take the motor, and then my hands would disappear. I asked Lance, and I said, you know, my hands don't bend backwards. What do I do? And he said, well, study and see. And I said, well, I came back, and I said, you know, often the consciousness seems to end right here at the wrist. And he said, you spiritual people are all the same. I said, what?

[28:03]

And he said, well, you know, spiritual people, often you're old souls. You've been around so many lifetimes. So in this lifetime, you don't want to make any mistakes. So just to be on the safe side, don't have hands. So I had to find my hand. There's things you can do to find your hands. And if you just drop them into your lap, you know, they just disappear. What are you going to do to find your hands? So you have hands. So you can do things with your hands. And then, you know, one of the big things for me was the day in the class when we did spatial displacement on purpose. Men tend to spatially displace more, and then women tend to temporally displace.

[29:08]

Not be here. How do you not be here? You be somewhere else. So men like to be somewhere else. Women like another time. Take my word for it or don't. Or ask me about it later. But we were doing spatial displacement on purpose. Take the energy, the consciousness that could be your left foot, put it anywhere but your left foot. Your left leg, put it anywhere but your left leg, your right leg, your torso, your chest, your arms. So pretty soon you take the consciousness that could be different parts of your anatomy and you have it anywhere but that part of your anatomy. And I thought, damn, this is familiar. I've been doing this for 20 years. Spatially displacing in zazen. How would you know? And then... you find yourself in space it's pretty nice but the more you find yourself here then I started having more temporal displacement which means you start to have even more you know the feelings from when you're two and three and and in the utero and you know so that's not the subject of time slideshow so five minutes left and I have two things more things to tell you okay one story one poem um

[30:29]

I want to tell you the story, just so you know that the problems you're now experiencing will continue. A few years back, I went to the Apple store in Corte Madera. I needed a new computer. My computer guru said, you might want to check out apples. So I went to the Apple store, and there's a lot of energy in the store. And on the wall, there's a big screen television with kind of continuous fireballs of slang. And there's these people, and everybody's excited, and there's a genius bar in the back. And everybody's around the store, and they're so excited, and they're getting their, you know, whatever they're doing, they're getting it. And I'm like... And I didn't know what to try out on the computers that are there, because, you know, you can't actually do your email or anything. You can kind of feel the keyboard. And then I started walking to the back of the store, and I turned right, and there are these displays. And then a woman with an Apple... Cheryl or someone, Diane, she comes up to me and she says, excuse me, may I help you?

[31:36]

And I, I don't know. I'm really overwhelmed with the energy here in the Apple store. And she said, have you tried meditation? And I didn't want to say way more than was good for me, probably. Or, you know, it's only been 45 years of meditation. Maybe that's not long enough, or maybe I'm not that good a student. So instead of saying anything like that, I said, well, a little. How about you? She said, oh, yes, I've been meditating for three years. I said, how's it going? She said, oh, it's great.

[32:38]

And she has a teacher there in Puerto Madero and so on. So I wished her all the best and I said, excuse me, I think I'll go home and come back with my support team. When we came back, my cohort said, Ed, now we'll sit outside the store here and we'll visualize what we're going to do when we're talking about it. Anyway. Okay, I promised to end at 920, so I have to get my poem in. This is a poem by Rumi, and it's called The Tavern. And if we had more time, I could talk a little bit about it, but you'll probably get the idea from the poem. Okay? Are you ready? Are you ready? Okay, ready. All day I think about it, and at night I say it.

[33:39]

Where did I come from? What am I supposed to be doing here? I have no idea. Rumi. Where did I come from? What am I supposed to be doing? I have no idea. My soul is from elsewhere. I'm sure of that. And when I get back around to that place, I'll be completely sober. Meanwhile, I'm like a strange bird from a distant continent sitting in this aviary with all the other strange birds. He doesn't say that. Sitting in this aviary. The day is coming when I fly off. But who is it who speaks words in my... Whose voice is that I hear in my ear?

[34:44]

Who speaks words with my mouth? Who looks out from my eyes? What is the soul? I can't stop asking. If I could taste one sip of an answer... I'd be free of this prison for drunks. I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way. Whoever brought me here will have to take me home. What is the soul? So that was the other lecture I was going to give you, but you missed it. I'm so sorry. There's more dregs where these have come from. Haul them back out of the compost pile or whatever, you know.

[35:48]

But anyway, thank you very much for your attention tonight. And my best wishes for your vertical darkness of each infinite fall, shivering blaze of each step up. You are you. So realize, please, you know, realize your true nature and express yourself fully. That's Suzuki Rishi's teaching. Thank you. 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 SSCC.org and click Giving.

[36:41]

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