This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. Thank you for having me. My name is Tenku Ruff, and... It was suggested to me that I start by introducing myself a little bit. So I'll do that. It's great to see everybody. Thank you for coming. So, like I said, my name is Tin Koo Ruff. My temple is in Beacon, New York. This is just north of New York City. And... Just like you, I spent time here at San Francisco Zen Center many years ago.

[01:06]

I started my training in Japan in the 1990s. And then left, traveled throughout Asia for about a year, visiting different temples and monasteries. Came back to the United States, ended up in San Francisco for... a little over two years, spent another couple of years in a different American monastery, and then went back to Japan for ordination and training. So that's my background. My teacher is Tessa Yamamoto Roshi, and I had the great fortune to meet him when I was first in Japan in the 1990s. And then I had the great fortune to make my way back to him a little bit later. And looking at Kevin is somebody who met my teacher in the 80s and such a nice connection to have.

[02:12]

So I completed my training in Japan through Soto Zen monasteries there. My tradition is, my teacher's tradition is a Koan tradition. So we're Soto Zen. And in addition to our regular soto zen training, we also do koan training. So I did that with my teacher. It's a great life, though. I spent a lot of time at my teacher's temple in the mountains of Nagano. We keep monastic schedule there. It snows. It has the most snow in all of Japan, which is... great for this Floridian, you know, for training. And when I finished my novice training there, I came back to the States. So just a couple of extra things I think Shul San asked me to bring in.

[03:15]

I am trained as a chaplain. That's a really big part of how I approach the Dharma. And my field is palliative care. So I've spent a lot of time working in that. I went to graduate school in a Tibetan Buddhist graduate school. So that's an influence that weaves its way in sometimes. And I spent six years on the board of directors of the Soto Zen Buddhist Association, three of which I was president. So it was in Buddhism for all of North America. So I stepped down from that in 2020 and am still the chair of the ethics committee for that organization. So that's my bio for you. You can do what you want with it. You can take what's useful, throw the rest in the garbage, but that's just some context. And what I was, you know, I was... It's always a little uncomfortable to introduce yourself, at least for me.

[04:22]

But what I was really appreciating as I was waiting to come in here and thinking about what I was going to say is scope. Having practiced the Dharma in many different places, having traveled and visited different countries and lived in different countries, having met many different Dharma practitioners from all over the world now, and definitely all over North America, gives me perspective. And when I think of that perspective, it fills me with love and care. And how much everybody is trying, doing this practice in our own ways, and really bringing our full heart into it. So the wider I've gotten, the more chances I get to see how the Dharma is practiced in different places, in different ways, in different manifestations, the more tenderness I feel for all the Dharma practitioners throughout the world.

[05:39]

So that was my impression today. Today I'm gonna be speaking I'll be talking on Ocean Seal Samadhi, which is a writing of Dogen Zenji, the founder of Soto Zen Buddhism. But I really want to approach it from the perspective of the great storm. How are we going to be in this great storm? This is a theme that I've been thinking about over the last few weeks and have approached from this side and this side in different angles. And it's a theme that I continue to really engage with because right now in this country, in North America, and then again, if you switch and stretch wider to the world, we have a great storm going on. So my question for you,

[06:41]

is how are you going to be present during this great storm? I grew up in Florida. I love storms. I... I wasn't afraid of hurricanes growing up. In fact, I was really enchanted by them. And when I got ready for ordination, my teacher asked me my intention as a Dharma practitioner. And over time and over many cups of tea and over drawings, what I said to him is through a drawing, I drew a picture of a hurricane or a typhoon. And a person, a monk, sitting in the middle of the typhoon. And I said, I want to be like that. And I said, I'm aware that around the edges of the eye is where the strongest winds are of the hurricane.

[07:49]

And I want to be the monk that sits in the middle of the great storm. And there was more to it. when your teacher in Japan creates a name for you, they weave in your birth name. And because Japanese say your surname first and then your given name, my birth name was Rough Gale. So I always told Japanese people it means a strong and powerful wind. And so he wove that in. But the thing is, when he wove it in, What he did was put two characters together. And this is my sort of first name, not Tenku, but my first name, which is Seidan. The two characters that he put together are Blue and Gale, a strong wind. Or Arashi, this...

[08:52]

powerful storm. And when you put these two characters together, Blue and Gale, what you get is samadhi or a feeling of great peace. And this was his intention for me. When I first wanted that name or thought about that name, I had the idea that I would be sitting calmly in the middle of the storm. My engagement with that has changed. And now I really understand more that I'm not in the middle of the storm. I am the storm. You are the storm, too. We are part of, not separate.

[09:55]

But we, in order to be in the storm, we must be completely the storm. And this is where we are in this country right now. If you think you're separate, even if you weren't born here, if you don't vote, you're here. So how are you going to be fully present to this storm that we are in? as a whole nation. And then I'd like to draw on some of the things Dogen has to teach us for that. How are we going to be here? I was really impressed by the, you know, we had these recent hurricanes that happened and Hurricane Helene came in just as my aunt was dying. And of course, thinking about her, I thought about times of meeting hurricanes because she's also from Florida.

[11:02]

And I thought of the time that my grandmother was dying. And as my grandmother died, my aunt, whose name was Gloria, was with her. And she... She was scared. She got really scared. And she called my dad. We lived about an hour and a half away from where she was, alone with my grandmother, Helen. And my dad and I, my dad picked me to go with him. I don't know why. And we drove to be with him. And along the way, I think my task was to keep my dad awake. It was about two in the morning. I was in my pajamas. I was still, you know, I think I was a pre-teenager. We talked. In this space, a quiet in the evening, we talked about life and death and meeting this moment.

[12:10]

And I got to hear from my dad. his thoughts on life and death, which isn't an opportunity you get very often. And this beautiful, precious moment in the middle of this very difficult time came back to me as this storm that coincidentally had the same name as my grandmother approached exactly at the moment that her daughter was dying. And I thought, what a great way to go out. This is perfect for her. brought by the ancestors, you know, across the threshold, whatever that is. And that storm continued up across Florida, across where I was born, across where my mother was, afraid, and all the way up into North Carolina. That storm hit all of my relatives. It just kept going up and up and up.

[13:13]

And when it got to North Carolina, it kept going. And as you might remember, if you looked at this, because it was strange, usually a hurricane, when it comes on land, its power starts to go down. But in this case, for many reasons, one of which is climate change, the ground... in North Carolina was saturated with water. And the temperature was really high. And that combination of heat and all of that water created what they called an ocean of mud. An ocean of mud. And it created this great energy and this great destruction. And we were all surprised. And I thought, what a great metaphor for this country and this place that we're in, an ocean of mud that we're in, we're part of.

[14:26]

We helped create it through our own actions, even now. And we somehow seem surprised from it. It's over there. It's something weird. It's something outside of us, not something that's part of us and who we are. So likewise, this is our country. We co-created it. Our actions determine, even now, what kind of country we are going to live in. We are not separate from the people, the birds, the trees, everything in this country with us. And everything that we do matters. Everyone in this place matters.

[15:29]

We are all in this together. So the way that we act now, the way that we meet each other, listen to each other, heart to heart, makes a significant difference. We must believe this with our whole being. But how? How? So, samadhi. What is samadhi? What is this ocean seal samadhi? The samadhi of the great ocean. Dogen Zinji says, in the great way of going beyond, no endeavor is complete without being one with the myriad things. Without being one with everything, every body, every tree, every drop of water.

[16:33]

Without being one, no endeavor is complete. Samadhi is single-pointed concentration. It's what we do in our Zen practice in silence through Zazen. We sit. Many of you came for Zazen just before this talk today. Many of you have been practicing for many, many, many years. We sit. We let our breath drop. into our lower belly. We let our thoughts drop to sink down into the body and to dissipate. And we follow our breath. And as we follow our breath, letting go of our thoughts, we let go of this idea of me as somebody separate from you, which is another way of

[17:39]

what we call ego. It's a word that we use in English for this idea that I am separate from you, or this lie that I am separate from you. We grow up thinking there's like, I'm over here, you're over there. But the more we interact, the more we start to understand that everything we do affects everyone else. We can see this very clearly. You know, if you live in a family and you wake up on the wrong side of the bed, as my mother always said, and you're crabby, you go into the kitchen, you know, you're a little rough with the dog, the dog runs, the dog's crabby, you're a little rough with your child, you're a little crabby, then their day is affected.

[18:41]

And then they go off to school and they're affected in the way that they meet their classmates. Or your partner goes off to work and it affects them. And then it just spreads like that. Well, we can spread through a place of love and kindness and true meeting. And the way that we do that is to get ourself out of the way, to let go of this idea, this delusion that I'm separate from you. And this is samadhi. In this particular case, ocean seal samadhi is sagara mudra samadhi, the samadhi of all existences of past, present, and future, all contained within the mind. And this is the ocean.

[19:43]

This is where the ocean comes in. All reflected in the great ocean. All reflected. It's a calmness of mind that, like the great ocean, reflects all things. And when there's not a big me in the middle, it's easy to reflect back. We just meet each other. If you meet somebody who's having a bad day, you shift from, oh, so crabby this morning, my day is terrible, I don't know what I'm going to do, to, oh, how can I help you? What do you need? How can I make your day better? And in doing so, in making that shift, we make our own day better.

[20:45]

It's really not that hard. This is how we show up to this great storm in which we live. We can't do it if we're backing out and backing out, if we're afraid of each other, if we're not talking to each other. When we reach the place where we're just like, I can't stand to hear what that person has to say. Or worse, if when we reach the place where we think, I can't stand to hear what that thing, insert whatever word that's not a person you want to insert. Maybe it's a snack food. Maybe it's an animal. Maybe it's a kind of a monster or a historical figure. Whatever it is that's not a human being, then we separate.

[21:46]

There's no way to come together then. We have to stay in this world together and really find ways to meet each other. So this starts with samadhi. Letting go of the me. and allowing this luminous truth of the beautiful universe to shine, to reflect in our actions. Because the way that we are is the world that we will live in. That's it. The way that we are now creates the world that we live in. If you don't like this world that you live in, create it. Be the way you wanna be. Nobody can tell you otherwise.

[22:47]

You don't have to give in. Be it. Dogen Zengi said, doing no evil, Engaging what is skillful and purifying one's mind. This is the teaching of the Buddha. Doing no evil. Don't do bad things. Engage in what is skillful. Do things that are beneficial. And purify your mind. That's it. Maybe I can finish now. That's all we have to do. There's no magic. Just doing it. Samadhi as a state like the ocean has no inside, no outside, no in between.

[23:49]

It's full, empty of any separateness. It includes the mud. It includes the depth. It includes the shallow. All the great ocean together. Dogen tells us to walk with our feet on the ocean floor. As the movement of the water happens all around us, we can bring this steadiness by being one with the water. by really embodying the water, by really showing up to all the elements of this great ocean. How?

[24:50]

Let's take another approach. There's a Tibetan teacher I love. His name is Sandong Rinpoche, and he's the former prime minister of Tibet. And I think of him as the Tibetan Dogen. So he fits in very nicely here. He teaches in a way that's very clear, and he doesn't mince words. So this is what he had to say in terms of politicians. If we wish to improve the world, we must conduct ourselves with honesty, and openness. And this is especially true for politicians. So he says this, he was a politician, a mock politician, but still a politician. And so this is also the way he wants to show up, with honesty and openness. We can hear this and go, yeah, honesty and openness is the way to show up.

[25:55]

How easily said and difficult to do. And this is the only way. Because if we conduct ourselves with even a tiny element of anger or hatred, we do not have true compassion. If we think that we are practicing nonviolence and even a scrap of of anger remains, this is not true nonviolence. If we do not have a compassionate heart, this is not nonviolence. So the work is here for us. We must embody our practice, our way of showing up, our way of meeting each other. He also says it's easy to have compassion that's high in the street, but not deep in the heart.

[27:04]

It made me think of the mother of one of the hostages who was killed, who said, hatred is easy. It's seductive. And that we can't give way to that. And I thought, if she can say that, then I can do that. Yeah, hatred is seductive. Anger is seductive. It's easy. Let's take the more beneficial route. Let's really show up without a scrap of anger, but with true compassion at heart. And as we do this, what we find is instead of superficial laughter, and this is continuing with Samdhan Rinpoche, instead of superficial laughter, we get deep joy.

[28:08]

Instead of an intellectual understanding, we get true wisdom. Instead of rules, and legislation, we find deep virtue. A richness of virtue that sustains us through the power of compassion. If we sacrifice our honesty for expedience or for prosperity, then an inner darkness appears. So we must meet this moment with honesty and openness. Walking through feet on the ocean floor as part of this world.

[29:11]

Honest. Truly meeting each other. Not pretending, but really engaging. Dogen uses the example of Avalokitesvara, the bodhisattva of compassion. Avalokitesvara has hands with eyes on each hand, and each eye reflects everything else. And in this way, we reflect the entire universe with compassion. How do we meet this moment? Dogen uses the story of ungan and dojo. And it's a question and answer story. What use does the great bodhisattva of compassion make of all these hands and eyes?

[30:14]

Compassion, compassion, reflecting. What use is this? What use is this to you? And Dolgo said, it's like someone reaching to straighten the pillow in the middle of the night. You don't have to think. It's so part of us that we simply act. I was thinking of this as I put my robes on today. The other day, somebody asked me to help them tie their robes. And it was hard to explain out of my mouth. But when I just do it, my hands have done it so much that they just know how. And so to try to take that from the embodied experience of tying to the intellectual experience of teaching about it, telling someone was a challenge.

[31:16]

And this is the way that we need to embody compassion. So we do it and we do it and we do it until it's just the way we are in the world. We try honesty, both with ourself and with others, and openness, which is not easy. We keep doing it and doing it and doing it. until this is the way that we are in this world. And then this is how we meet everybody we meet. And then this is the world that we live in. That simple. Does it sound nice? I want it. I want a world that's full of compassion. Love, kindness, care. I don't want any killing. I don't like when people call each other snack foods.

[32:21]

You know, I just want to really be together in this. And it seems far away. You know, TV, Internet, those are far away. Just come back to the people around you and meet them. Come back to your practice. Letting go of all your fears and your anxieties that come from self-protection and turn them toward helping others or being, embodying the world that you want to live in. When we do this, Our entire being, not just our body, our entire being is completely embodied compassion.

[33:23]

I have a dear friend who really teaches on suffering in a way that I found beautiful. She says that, you know, we think that suffering is done by us. You know, I suffer. I'm really suffering. I'm having a hard time. But suffering is not done by a single entity. is suffering for everyone together because we're not separate. When someone suffers, anyone, anywhere, that suffering, whether I see it or not, is literally my suffering because we're all together in this. And you think, oh, you poor person over there in that country that's in a war.

[34:45]

That separates out. But when you see it from the perspective that we are all here together, then you understand that being open and caring is literally the way to stop The way that we cause suffering, she says, is our own suffering, you know, because we're in it. It's to be suffering. When we are suffering, we cause suffering. And it comes from fear or our delusions. And our fears make us see other people as suffering. Far away or other. That's suffering and that's how we cause it.

[35:46]

It's that simple. So then, therefore, the solution to suffering is equally simple. We change from what's going to happen to me. Oh my God, what's going to happen? This is really scary. to how can I meet you? Every time I think of this, I think of the dining room upstairs. When I lived here, I was, I'm an introverted person in general. And it was really frightening to go from the kitchen into the dining room on a Saturday because it was full of people. And I had this one friend, Susan. She was the same way. And we'd wait in front of the door. And we'd be like, we can do this.

[36:47]

We can go out there. And so I started to shift from, oh, my God, all those people out there, that's too much for me, to where is one person who looks lonely or who looks like they could use a friend today? And that shifted my fear. toward helping others. This is how we do it. This is how we meet the suffering of the world, by joining this great ocean as part of. To be the Buddhas and ancestors is always the ocean seal samadhi. Swimming in this samadhi, we have time to teach. to practice, to verify the virtue of walking on the ocean goes all the way to the bottom. The currents of birth and death return to the source.

[37:51]

How are you going to walk with your feet on the ocean floor through this great storm that we are in? You're going to start with samadhi, with letting go of your thoughts, letting go of your own idea of me. And then we're going to move toward honesty and openness in the world, changing our fears from what's going to happen to me to how can I show up for others. And as we do that, we, together, all of us, and I'm telling you this because it's so urgent. It's so vital and important, especially now, especially this week, these next few weeks.

[38:57]

Don't get lazy. Really do it. Make... this world, create the world that you want to live in through your everyday actions in every moment. I'll end with one of Dogen's waka or short poems. Being illuminated by the moon, Dwelling in the cloudless mind, even the waves are breaking down and becoming the light. Be in it fully. Become the light as part of this beautiful, great storm that we are all in together.

[40:01]

Thank you. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost 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. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[40:29]

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