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, everyone, and welcome to Green Gulch. And to those of you online, welcome to the Sunday Talk. I... I just wanted to mention that you might have been expecting a different speaker this morning. Our abiding abbot Jiryu was unable to offer the talk this morning due to family need, need in his family for his presence. And he invited me. the other day to give the talk in his place, so here I am.

[01:07]

My name is Linda, by the way, for those of you who may not know. The talk today is an effort to blend two things that I've been reflecting on for the last month or so and have talked about at another Dharma talk I gave and in a retreat that I gave. And this is today's turning, iteration of what I've been reflecting on internally and with others as well. So I wanted to let people know that this is the beginning, these last days are the beginning of a practice period here at Green Gulch, Green Dragon Temple.

[02:14]

And we have about 20 people, people who have come who had been residential and continue to be, and those who have come from other practice places and come from home. And this practice period is the 79th practice period at Green Gulch. And during the opening ceremony, there's a number of ceremonies at the beginning of a practice period, but I didn't see it, but I heard from someone, my disha, that during the offering of incense, at different altars around Green Gulch, which opens the practice period, there was a shooting star. This is right about dawn, I think, early morning, the ceremony took place. And I think it was, it sounds, to me it feels very auspicious and also a kind of

[03:26]

thrilling, really, experience to see a shooting star. And then my chisha, Kristen, told me that we are in the middle of the Orionids meteor shower, which looks like it's coming from the constellation of Orion. And the peak of being able to see these shooting stars is tonight and Monday. So after midnight to the early morning, When the sky is dark, maybe if you stay up or get up early, you might be able to see it. I'm going to try and do that myself. And just be able to respond to and meet this phenomena in our world. that brings awe and joy and also, I think, reminds us of our place in this world of birth and death.

[04:53]

Speaking of birth and death, I just have to tell you this story. It just occurred to me. Yesterday I was driving with my son and his wife. My son is in his late 30s. And we were trying to get away from the traffic coming into Tampa Junction for a sunny Saturday. And we drove by Fernwood, which is on Tennessee Valley Road. And it's... I don't know if you know what Fernwood is, but I said, oh, there's Fernwood. And my son said, what's Fernwood? And I said, oh, that's where I'm going to be cremated. And it got a laugh from him and a little titter from you all. But it was, I think it was kind of a little jolt to him, something he hadn't been thinking. thinking about or wanting to think about. However, this is our life of birth and death and I've certainly been turning this and part of the theme of what I wanted to talk with you came up for me at a funeral of a relative that had been unexpected and shocking for the family and

[06:27]

A lot of, how could this possibly be? I just had dinner with her the other night, you know, that kind of thing. And while I was there with family and many, many people who came to pay their respects, this verse arose in my mind. as people were dealing with grief and loss and shock and disbelief. And how could this be? Kind of a swirling, seemed like a swirling of emotions, a wide range of emotions. And this verse arose in my consciousness. that comes from the ceremony of ordination, of a priest ordination, shūtkei tokudō, leaving home and attaining the way.

[07:41]

And this verse I'll recite for you is only the mind of a bodhisattva can cut through this drifting, wandering life and take the path of peace, the path of nirvana. This virtue cannot be defiled. Only the mind of a bodhisattva can cut through this drifting, wandering life and take the path of nirvana, peace. This virtue cannot be defiled. So this particular verse and what has come along with remembering this is what is a bodhisattva? What is the practices of a bodhisattva that can cut through our world of birth and death, our human life of arising and vanishing and the truth of suffering that comes in

[08:51]

immeasurable forms you know we were all of us are are affected strongly by the wars that are going on on this earth all over not just the Middle East but other places and then the wars of in families and among family members and with friends, with communities, racism, misogyny, violence of all kinds. And we're all entangled in this. We can become entangled

[09:55]

in this world of suffering, the truth of suffering. So this turbulence and violence, including, oh, I didn't begin to name, you know, the climate crisis, the loss of our beloved animals and plants and species and landscapes and countries and fire and you know it's all of us all of us cannot help but be affected whether we have a strong feeling of it or whether it were averting from it or trying to distract from it everyone is together in this world so how do we through this drifting, wandering life.

[10:56]

I wanted to say, so as I was saying, there were two things I wanted to blend. One is this question that I just brought up. How do we cut through this drifting, wandering life? And the second part was, as it's the beginning of our practice period and we are immersed in Many of us are practicing the 79th practice period at Green Gulch and also other practice centers. This is a time when traditional 90-day practice periods or a couple months of practice period are held all over at different practice centers. So many people are taking up these traditional practices right now. So I wanted to blend this mind of a bodhisattva with our traditional way of practice at a practice center.

[12:13]

You know, recently Tension Rev. Anderson made a comment that these temples are not Zen retreats. They're Zen centers. They're not places, although we offer that. We offer, in fact, there's a yoga retreat right now, and I just led one last week, Yoga Zen. We do offer retreats for people to come for five days, come for a week. However, the purpose of these temples, these Zen centers, is to offer the unique and difficult to do on one's own, traditional practice periods of total immersion in that form that's been passed down for centuries, millennia, of practicing and working and training together with others in a way that's very difficult to do on our own.

[13:20]

And it's not easy, but there's a combination of joy, joy and blessedness in these practices, while it being not easy. So many of you have... know what a bodhisattva is, and I'm familiar with that term, but I just wanted to say what that term is. It's a Sanskrit word, bodhisattva, meaning an awakening being, or bodhi is awakening, or enlightenment, enlightenment being, sattva is being. And it also translates as the mind of awakening. And there's a Tibetan translation. One of the Tibetan translations of this word is heroic person or a hero.

[14:32]

Hero or hero, and I say I wanted to translate it as heroic, heroic person is another translation of bodhisattva. Well, how come, you might ask, are they heroic? What's their practice? What is the mind of a bodhisattva? And actually, I've looked up the word hero, the etymology of it, and it comes from Latin, servare, servare, to serve, to protect. It's not an, it's the, you know, the root of it is, which is S-E-R in the Indo-European root system. So it comes from to serve and to protect and also cognates with observe and preserve and conserve. So that was interesting for me to go from heroic person to protection and serving, which I think is part of bodhisattva practice, which is a vow

[15:45]

to live for the benefit of all beings. And included in that, kind of packed in that, is to awaken to the reality of our existence, the true reality, the true form of our reality, and wake up to that in order that we may serve, protect, through liberating beings. We sometimes, the translation, sometimes it's saving all beings, saving them through wisdom and compassion. So the baby bodhisattvas, how do we That sounds like a tall order, you know, living for the benefit of all beings, vowing to save innumerable, countless beings.

[16:53]

One might feel faint, you know, thinking about it. How could I possibly? So this is the heroic quality. Like, even though it's impossible, even though I can't, it's inconceivable how I'm going to fulfill this vow over this lifetime or lifetimes to come. We still make the vow, or a bodhisattva makes that vow. This has this heroic quality and a gift to the world. So... Bodhisattvas want the well-being for all beings and themselves included, as well as, and included in that is the liberation. So only a bodhisattva can cut through this drifting, wandering life and take the path of peace, this virtue, the virtue of taking this vow

[18:06]

can't be defiled by dualistic thinking of self and other. The true meaning of that vow is it goes beyond dualistic thinking of self and other. I'm going to save you. It isn't I'm helping you. It's practicing in such a way, training, I use that word knowingly and willingly, training in such a way that we develop and strengthen and are able to meet this drifting, wandering life. The drifting, wandering life reminds me of the teaching of the eight winds. the eight winds.

[19:06]

These are, well, you'll hear them. There's praise and blame, pleasant and unpleasant, pleasure and, actually, pleasure and pain, and profit and loss, good reputation and bad reputation. So there is a tendency in our human life to want to go after that which is pleasurable, pleasant, and then to stay there, you know, no matter what. But it will because of the truth of impermanence and change, it will not last. No matter what it is, it will not last.

[20:09]

And actually, it's moment by moment, moments of pleasant and unpleasant or pleasure and pain within a conversation with someone. As we walk to the beach, you know, this winds... Praise and blame. Am I being praised for that? Oh, they don't like it. They don't support it. They don't like me. Praise, blame, blame. Going after praise. Going away from blame. And as I'm moving around here on this Dharma seat, it's like the winds, these eight winds. Going after good reputation. And then running away from there, running to this and running to that. It's exhausting. And it is painful and suffering.

[21:14]

You know, we have the traditional sufferings from the Buddhist time, named sufferings, old age, sickness, death, grief, lamentation. loss, pain, being forced to be with those you don't love, being separated from those you do love, not getting what we want, getting what we don't want. This is a definition of the traditional named sufferings, but as we all know, there's so many more we could name. that maybe fit into these categories. So this idea that we might have of, well, freedom is just to go after what's pleasing to me, and I'm free to do that. However, that notion that we have of what's freedom to just follow my preferences will not bring peace,

[22:26]

will not bring stability, will not bring the mind of a bodhisattva that wants to serve beings, that vows to serve beings. What are our preferences? What do we dislike and like? And these are all part of our karmic consciousness, you know. And they changed, too, you know, things that we loved as a kid. I remember I used to buy these straws, candy straws, that were filled with colored sugar, colored flavored sugar, and you'd just like just pop it in your mouth, you know, and swallow the sugar. I just can't imagine. But we used to love them. And I think they cost a penny. back in the day. So these things that we're running to and running away from may not be healthy for us, serve us, help other people, help the environment, contribute to the well-being of the world and the wheel of the world.

[23:41]

And yet we have habits, we have tendencies, we have our own ways of doing things that we like. And we continue that until they can be rigidified, you know, fixed ideas. I like this, I don't like that. I like this kind of person, I don't like that. And acting and speaking and thinking in that way. This is not freedom. This is bound by, you know, a lifetime of tendencies that are unexamined, unexamined. bound by preferences. So we have this practice period. In Japanese it's called ango. Ango. Peaceful. The an is peaceful. And the character is the character for woman under a rooftop.

[24:46]

This character an, which reminds me of, you know, to be peacefully... able to sit without fear at home, without fear of being invaded or bombed or the worst things happening. That's peace. That's this character. The ideogram is this woman under a rooftop. So this peaceful abiding is our traditional practice, period. And we abide together And we take up, not according to our preferences, what we like, our fixed ideas. I like to eat this. I want to go to bed at this time. I don't like to wear this. And that's all dropped. It's all let go of. And the people who've applied to practice period or earned their practice period, paid for the practice period, have said, I want to do this.

[25:50]

Nobody's... And we actually have people sign that on the application. I've read the guidelines. I've read the schedule. And yes, I do want to do this. Because back a while ago, before we did it, someone would say, why are you making me get up at this time every day? I don't like it. And we'd say, hey, you signed up for this. This is what you want to do. You're not being forced. You volunteered to come. So now we make sure that people say, yes, I do. Yes, I will. So these traditional forms and ceremonies and traditional practices strengthen us, work with, and I've said this before, I call it kind of the royal road to that which is self-clinging, self-centered, self-promoting, self-aggrandizing. These practices and these forms of practice and these ceremonies, there is a tension between I don't like to get up early in the morning.

[27:05]

I want to sleep longer. And this is my practice, and it doesn't matter whether I prefer or not. It's not about my preferences and putting me in the center, and it's got to revolve around me. how do I live a life and wake up to a life that is ever-changing, that this self-centeredness and self-clinging is based on a delusion of our separate self. So not only is it suffering and painful to live in that way and isolating and fear, promotes fear often and reticence to meet or try something new or anything because it may not be like I like it. The opposite of that is practicing with others not based on preferences and this delusion of selfness and finding out

[28:23]

for ourselves with this very body-mind, how to develop and grow and deepen our character and our ability to withstand this drifting, wandering life and the pain, to withstand with tenderness and kindness, compassion, gentleness for ourselves and for everyone we meet who is in this same world with us. And it might feel like, well, how does developing in that way correspond to doing a practice period? And it may not seem clear to you. However... As I said, it's this royal road because left to our own devices, we fix things the way we like it and stay away from the stuff we don't like, if possible, and don't hang out or meet or greet those people that we're not, we don't have chemistry with, good chemistry or whatever.

[29:45]

We form our world like that, which does not promote resilience, patience, generosity of spirit, loving kindness, joyous effort or heroic effort, an ethical and moral life, if it's all about me. There may be some moral decisions where it works for me, but it's hurting others. So this mind of a bodhisattva and the life of a bodhisattva or the practice of a bodhisattva, there's a koan, very short koan, number case 14 in the Blue Cliff Records, where a monk asked Zen master Yun Men, who's a Chinese Zen master from 800th late Tang,

[30:51]

a monk asked Yun-men, what is the teaching of an entire lifetime? And the commentary says this is referring to the lifetime of a Buddha. What is the teaching? And Yun-men said, an appropriate response. An appropriate response. That is the teaching of an entire lifetime. So these practices that I've been describing of an ango include these forms and ceremonies such as getting up when the wake-up bell rings, coming to the zendo, following the schedule completely. And those of you not in the practice period, by the way, you have your own schedules and your own... working with the details of your life that I hope you feel like this is not just for the practice period, this is for you as well.

[32:01]

Other practices we have are bowing when passing. You walk along the path, you bow to the person in greeting and acknowledging. You don't have to stop and chat or make a big deal of it, but Here we are practicing together. I bow to you as Buddha. You can think that perhaps. You just respectfully acknowledge someone. And then there's things like being on time. Being on time for work meeting, for your crew meeting, for study hall, for ceremonies, for zazen, for meals. And you might think, I'm being on time. I like to come a little later. that's that um there it is there it is that i i don't wanna no i won't get these there's this little song i learned about um what's your name little girl my name is ida ida what little girl idawana

[33:17]

And the other verse is, what's your name, little boy? My name is Noah. Noah what, little boy? Noah won't. So we have that, right? I don't want to. I'm going to come when I want to. That is like a recipe in terms of practice spirit for not receiving the blessedness of this practice, which goes so deep. It goes to the places that are so hard to reach, like I don't want to. It goes right there, like, you know, I'm going to be at study hall on time. That's the practice. And it's respectful for those who are leading the practice period and for your fellow practitioners. I'm going to check. I feel like I'm going on too long. I'm okay. It is. It expresses respect for the practice, for the tradition, for our teachers, for the head student that you sew to be there when you say you're going to be there, to your crew head.

[34:22]

This is Zen practice. This is not a Zen retreat where, yeah, I paid for my retreat, and I think I won't show up to this, that, and the other, because I, you know, this is our Zen training. I feel very, I'm getting this heart. area here is starting to get very warm. Because I do feel like this is a way to relieve suffering, to serve beings, to discover the true reality of our life together. And this has been passed on. This is for us. And all the other traditions, all the other practice period guidelines, things like not running in the central area. What's that about? If I feel like running, I'm going to run down to the garden. It's the temple, keeping a temple feeling in contemplative space rather than, you know, or this one has really been, on my mind, silence.

[35:37]

for the first 10 minutes of our meals. The cloud gong, the umpan sounds, and we come to this beautiful meal, vegetarian feast often that's been prepared for us by our head cook and the crew and other helpers brought to us by Earth, wind, rain, sun, animals, plants. And the first 10 minutes to support our contemplative eating practice is silence. While we're serving up, take our place so we can come back to, over and over again, we eat to serve others, to be in this world and wake up, and it's only 10 minutes until the clacker is hit.

[36:46]

And this is one of the forms. And people also take this into their daily lives sometimes and appreciate a silent meal, whether they're in a practice center or not. So the practice spirit, if we kind of cut corners and, well, I'm going to come late to this and I'm going to do all these things, that's about what I prefer, the practice spirit will be sort of wishy-washy. Why do people think practice spirit is so great and so helpful and so illuminating? So one has to fully immerse oneself. and fully take up these traditional forms and ceremonies to taste the nectar, you know, the fruit. And really if, and it includes letting go of our ways we like, ways of doing things.

[38:03]

And sometimes it is how we like it. It's not all, you know, sometimes completely we're in accord. It's fun. It's just the way I would cook that meal or whatever. So over time, you know, these living in this way and practicing this way and the strengthening that happens to face, to respond in an appropriate way, in a kind of, we don't have to think about it. Suzuki Hiroshi, I brought this lecture where he talks about this. He calls it intuitive. He says, this is something, he says, the observation of rigid rules is not the point, because sometimes people think, oh, Zen Center has all these rules. It is necessary to have some strength or to have some discipline in order to be free from one-sided dualistic ideas.

[39:07]

So this notion of freedom as anything I care to do is actually being bound by our habits and rudinized way of seeing and thinking about the world. And then you have these new things and This is what I wanted to read. If you keep up this kind of effort for a long time, you will develop a kind of intuition so that you will know what you should do without thinking and wandering so much. This develops our capacity to be in accord, to see, to actually have awareness of without Should I? Shouldn't I? What about that? To intuitively have this appropriate response. And this just doesn't come of itself.

[40:13]

We need these kinds of practices. It's not wishful thinking, oh, I'd really like to have an appropriate response. We have to walk that path. I think the last thing that Suzuki Rashi says in this lecture, kind of like the last sentence is... There's a whole other thing that I want to bring up. Which it's too late to bring up. But he says at the end, no one has this ability... without practice. We shouldn't mix up some idea of freedom with the freedom of an awakened person. Let's be really clear.

[41:16]

We can't do it without some kind of practice. The thing that I'm not going to bring up but just mention is All of these practices, I will mention, because it's an important point, but it's a whole other lecture, really. But we start out with, it's difficult. We don't know how to exactly do it. We try over and over again. But one thing that's important to remember, and this is Suzuki Roshi, as well as every teacher, is to let go of a gaining idea. I'm gonna be on time so that, just one more, so that I'm gonna be praised as the shining practice Bodhisattva of Green Gulch. So we have to be, we're so, the ability to fool ourselves and kind of once more

[42:23]

get into that mode of what's in it for me it's it's very it's so um deep you know and old so being aware of gaining ideas what suzuki roshi calls it and in this there's a sutra about the buddha who made all these wonderful offerings and practices and the buddha in past lives but he wasn't predicted. He wasn't told, you will wake up and you will become a Buddha. And why? It says, because he had expectation of gain. This was a bodhisattva who became a Shakyamuni Buddha after eons, and then he served another Buddha over and over and over, offering things, caring for things, doing the practices, but he was not predicted. And why? It says, because there was expectation of gain. So this went on until he met Deepankara Buddha.

[43:29]

And at that point, the Buddha realized the patient acceptance of dharmas, of phenomena that failed, that are inconceivable, that failed to be produced, that you can't grasp and have, including the dharma of You know, I'm the best bodhisattva in the world. You know, some kind of thought like that. These are ungraspable and empty of separateness. So this point that I'm sort of throwing in at the end is not to be thrown in. It comes with all these practices and then right within that thinking, you know, getting caught, you know. with what's in it for me. So we just keep practicing and talking with our Dharma friends, talking with teachers, and acknowledging and admitting when we see, studying the self.

[44:40]

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.

[45:06]

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