This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzce.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations by people like you. Good morning. So first of all, Happy New Year. Happy New Year. It's the fifth day of the... the new year. In Buddhism, I was thinking it's a Thich Nhat Hanh moment. It's always a new year. It's always a new day. It's important that we start fresh always, that all of the past is contained in this moment, in this room, and all of the future too, even though it's maybe beyond our everyday knowledge. It's a great opportunity to live together, to be together.

[01:02]

And we have two audiences, but not really, we're just one people. But the beginning of this lecture, it's Children's Saturday, so the beginning of this lecture is going to be directed to the kids, the children. And I thought I would read a story. I'll read a story today. And because it has pictures, I met Circle. I didn't meet you. Can I ask your name? Is it OK? It's pretty scary in this room, I know. Well, my name is Mark, so. Lolly. Lolly. Oh, nice name. Good morning, Lolly. So I invited everybody to come up if you wanted to look at the pictures in this book as I read the story. And you're welcome to if you do. So I'll leave it to you if you feel like that's... Or you can come a little closer anyway, because you're kind of... Let's move this.

[02:06]

Want to come a little closer? I know, it's scary up here. Come up there. Come up here. You can bring your pillow if you want, too. You can look at this picture book. There's a cushion. You can sit down, maybe. You can sit there. If you don't come up, I'll just grab these pictures to you and to everybody else. You can't all fit up here. Maybe in the next lifetime, when we're smaller, you can come up here. So, the theme today are buffaloes. I don't know, buffaloes have been dancing through my head for the past two months. So, the first is a story from the Jataka Tales. about a buffalo, and it's called The Magic of Patience. Okay, so I'll read this story. It's everybody, but to you especially.

[03:09]

Okay, so this is your part. Can you sit over here a little bit, even? No? You guys aren't coming out. I'll keep turning and looking at you. Okay, so this is called The Magic of Patience, and it's about a Can you see? It's a pretty nice buffalo. It's a buffalo. What does he have on his? Horns. Big? Pretty big horns? What do you think? Yeah. Pretty big, yeah, you think? He's got legs. He's got legs? Yeah, he's walking. Yeah, he's walking. Yeah, you can help me. We tell this story. So... Monkey. Monkey. See you in this thing, yeah? Once upon a time, deep within a jungle, there lived a great being in the form of a wild buffalo. On the outside, he seemed stirring and frightening.

[04:11]

Does he look frightening? Yeah. A little bit. He's climbing in a tree. The monkey's climbing in a tree. But on the inside, the buffalo's heart was gentle and kind. You know, seeing Jungler lived a mischievous monkey. Do you know what mischievous is? What is that? What? Funny. You know? Kind of funny. Kind of funny. We play tricks, huh? Do you know mischievous? Playing tricks a little bit. You know that? mischievous monkey who insulted and annoyed that buffalo every day. When buffalo was about to feed on the grass, monkey would play a trick. Try and eat, try and eat, even though I stand under your feet. Huh. And he would run around the buffalo so the buffalo couldn't have any grass.

[05:13]

When buffalo went to bathe in the river, monkey would play a different trick. What is he doing? What's he doing? Tell everybody. When buffalo went to bathe in the river, monkey would play a different trick. Don't slip and fall, don't slip and fall, even though you can't see it all. And then when buffalo, what is he doing here? Dancing. Yeah, dancing, maybe. He's dancing on the buffalo's back with a stick. When Buffalo wished to take a nap, Monkey would play yet another trick. Give me a ride, give me a ride, or my stick will beat your hide. But Buffalo patiently endured all the tricks. She never hurt the little monkey, or even frightened him away, and continued to treat him as a friend. What a Buffalo.

[06:21]

One day, a ferrous elf caught sight of these monkey tricks and he became very angry. Oh great buffalo, why do you put up with this silly monkey? What can you be thinking? Are you afraid? Have you become his servant? Does he know some terrible secret about you that he threatens to tell? Why the strongest lions fear your wrath. And even the elephants step out of your path. With those great hooves of yours, you can crush them to bits. And with those horns, those are pretty big horns, huh? You can shred them with strips. Hmm. Hey. Hey. Who's that? Cow. Cow. Hi, cow. Hey, the buffalo replied. Anger just never leads to happiness. You know, this little monkey does me a great favor of giving me an opportunity to defeat my anger and practice patience.

[07:31]

And when I learn about patience, I take care of myself and others, and I help others, too. And I feel pretty good when I'm patient. Maybe it doesn't upset my heart, and I don't have to hurt somebody and feel sad later. But the little elf couldn't understand. Listen, this monkey's tricks are only going to get worse if you don't teach him a lesson right now. Well, I said to Buffalo, it's better to be patient because then the monkey can wake up. Though the monkey is a little silly and mischievous, like all creatures, he possesses a good and true heart. Before, I was amazed, before he had not figured out how to handle somebody who is mysterious and teases. And even though he knew all manner of magic and spells, he said, patience, what a magical charm.

[08:41]

Could you teach me how to do it? Show me quickly, because I want to use it right now. We know the buffalo has his work cut out for him. Luckily he's patient. So, well, send the buffalo to practice patience. You need something really difficult to help you, like monkey. It's no use practicing on some gentle and kind creature. That doesn't require any patience at all. What you need is a good monkey. Would you like to borrow mine? Why are they laughing? I don't know. Monkey. Why that silly monkey? If he tried his silly tricks on me, I'd show him some of mine. Well, said the buffalo, you see already how hard it is to practice patience, but you have to keep trying.

[09:47]

It's really a magic charm. It's the only real magic charm. There's this elf. He's flying away. He said, you know, I learned to be patient by just thinking about monkey. I thought, you know, all that teasing is going to get him into trouble. Sooner or later, he'll play a trick on somebody who maybe isn't so patient. And he'll get a bad scare or maybe even a beating. Poor monkey. Then I thought about how lonely the little monkey must be. Why none of the animals want to be around him. And everyone wishes he would just go away. It's kind of sad. Little monkey. But I thought how confused he must be. He's always relying on his bad qualities, not his good ones, and his good heart. And he turns all of his cleverness and energy into silly tricks. So I felt sorry. And I don't want to I don't want him to feel any more unhappiness, so I'm patient."

[10:52]

Well, the elf said, I could think this through the way you do. Maybe I could learn some patience, too. And off he flew into the forest to practice patience. We hope for the best. We hope for the best for this elf. Just then, Just then, Monkey, who had been hiding in the trees listening to every word, came up to Buffalo and said, I did not know I had such a good friend. In fact, I didn't think I had any friends at all. How kind and strong you are to be so patient with a silly monkey like me. Please forgive me for teasing and playing these tricks. And let's be friends. And then there's a little poem. I'll take this poem. If you think of all beings as your friends, tricks and teasing can do you no harm.

[11:53]

For your heart is protected by patience. And that patience works just like a charm. Yeah. That's it. The end of the story. So, is it okay? You can take it with you if you want to show everybody else. Ethan? Do you want to take it with you? So I think everybody's going to go to, all of the kids are going to go to the student lounge now for a treat. And Ethan has the book, so you can look at the pictures. Okay? Thank you very much. Thank you very much. And everybody, if you want to come fill in, you can come up with a little closer, too. I don't have any more pictures to show, but you can come in here.

[13:00]

So the theme today is buffaloes. So we'll go on with buffaloes. And I wanted to pause for a moment. We've had a kind of a difficult week in our community. We lost two sangha members this week. So I thought I would just mention them. It felt right to mention. This is our first Saturday lecture of the new year. And just one, the first person is Adilio Seneseros. I don't know if people know Adilio. He died on New Year's Eve, and he was a very good friend, and Sangha made here. A man of strength, determination, and many opinions. And so many attention. And I thought, you know, that's what makes him, it made him very real. that he shared that because, you know, and he always worked with his difficulties in plain view.

[14:18]

It was a great gift he gave to Sangha. And he also made us wonderful, I was thinking of the Mexican dinners he would make. He was from Mexico. Made these wonderful Mexican dinners and breakfasts. And he was most inspired by his uncle, who was a doctor in Mexico. Must have been a very unusual man. This was when Adelio was small and Adelio was 80, I believe it was his death. His uncle practiced yoga and meditation in Mexico and was a businessman. And taught Adelio, he said, about being honest and gentle to lead a different life. His uncle eventually became a doctor, went back to medical school and ran a free clinic. And his wife Adelio said, this was the week before he died, said his wife was furious because he never charged. And he said, we just, and she said, how are we going to live? I said, don't worry about it. It'll take care of itself. We just have to do what's important. So it was an inspiration in Adelio's life.

[15:20]

And, yeah, a wonderful person. And just recently, another member of Sangha, Celeste West, who had been our librarian for many years, suddenly died this week. And Celeste, I've known her since 1989, when she started her 1990s library. And she managed to infuse, despite the difficulties in her life, a kind of joy to going into the library. She had a bright and happy nature that she shared with us. And always did her best here. I kept the library open for many, many years. So anyway, so we've lost these two wonderful people, and we have kids around us too. It's the nature of life that's coming and going. So maybe can we sit for just a second and raise a warm thought for these friends, you know, on this return to the stream, this big journey.

[16:30]

And I'll time it, and then maybe we can end with two big bells. Did you ever hit the big bell? And we'll do two big bells for them, okay? So we'll just sit for a moment. So, but here we are in the midst of this wild and difficult and wonderful life in 2008.

[18:28]

And we go on. We do our best. I want to read a co-on to you. If I can reach this. So, sorry, my promptio. I'm going to read a koan to you this morning, another buffalo koan, and talk a little bit about it. And because I get to talk, I'll tell you my point of view, and then the tea and cookies later, you can tell me what you think about this koan and any questions you have. This is Case 38 in the Moomin Cup. I have Robert Akin's version, which I really like. This is called Wutsu's Buffalo Passes Through the Window. Wutsu said, it's like a buffalo that passes through a latticed window. Its head, horns, and four legs all pass through. Why can't its tail pass through as well?

[19:31]

I'll do one more. Wutsu said, it's like a buffalo that passes through a latticed window. Its head, horns, and four legs all pass through. Why can't its tail pass through as well? So this is the koan or public case, kongan, or public case that Wudzu presents us with. And it was written down in roughly 1050 AD in China, Sunan Dynasty, China, where all the koans were created, really. Although they come out of the lifeblood of our training, our sodo and our zen practice. So what to make? of this strange buffalo. And as Ethan said, the buffalo has vast and big horns. This is the water buffalo or the cape buffalo with big horns and a powerful shoulder. Somehow, easily, that front end just manages to pass through this latticed window.

[20:35]

The latticed window is even more perplexing, of course, because there's even less space. But this buffalo easily goes through it, yet its tail can't pass through. Why not? And what's the problem here? What's the nature of the problem? What's the nature of the lattice window of your life? Many questions come up with a koan like this for me. What I was thinking about this morning was somewhat like our Zen practice. For me, when I first started, a year, two years, there was a lot of passage through in my practice, you know, big problems and big solutions, big breakthroughs sometimes happen. But then at some point, things got stickier.

[21:36]

They got, for me, a little bit more real, a little bit stickier. And I couldn't move about so freely. So in some ways, it's like our practice. There's a time of great momentum, and then a time where we get stuck. If you sat Sashin, you know, I used to start off the first, Sashin is a seven-day period of sitting where we'll sit all day. I'd start off with bold plans and high hopes. You know, that this was, I was going to sit perfectly somehow. And at some point, I would be slumping on my cushion, and it would be very difficult. And I think, oh, it's not going to work. I'm not doing it. So what is it not to do it? What is it to do it in Zen practice? What's being offered here in this practice and by this koan? I think it's a particularly good koan for our culture.

[22:39]

It's very alluring for Americans because it provides success and failure, which are... finding gods, you know, that kind of drive us to distraction often in our world. What is it to be successful? What is it to fail? And how does Buddhism help us in this wild world that we live in with these questions every day when we go out and meet our lives? And how does this koan written in 1000 AD raise this question? Does it give us any guidance in what is it? Is Buddhism about success? Is the cessation of suffering success a new triumph for us? Something that we can hang on to in some way? How do we get it? Sounds good. Sounds good. Freedom from suffering, yes.

[23:40]

Sounds pretty good. So how do we do it? So this Wutsu propose this as an act of kindness, a way to get off the horns of the buffalo of success and failure, of false gauging of situations, of misunderstanding the relationship between form and emptiness, seeing how they truly, although being different, inform each other and sustain and express each other. You know, and death, of course, for us, I think it was Suzuki Roshi, someone told me, although he couldn't have said all these things. Everyone said, and Suzuki Roshi said, we're on a sinking ship. What a joy. What a joy that we don't wander endlessly in space.

[24:45]

We have some frame we can work with now. So, you know, in our culture, I think sometimes I watch myself, but friends that still are working in the business world where I worked and so driven, you know, people, it's almost like we're frightened to stop and turn around and regard this fundamental situation of success and failure and the meaning of our life. If we don't, if we stop, we're not owning up, we should be more indulged. And of course we should work. That's not an answer. That's not trying to go through the window. If you say, well, it's about passivity, I'll just give up. That's not good enough. Nothing will happen. There's no vitality. Because we stay here alive. We have to undertake something. So we have to make this big effort. And...

[25:48]

And I thought of Adelio, and that's what makes him so compelling. It wasn't that he was always successful, it's that he made an effort to be alive as he was. Not concealing his irritation or his opinions when he had them. And trying not to cling to them. It was hard for him. But he did his best. So, I think there... When we live that kind of life, when we're perpetually propelled by this fearful desire for some success or some extrinsic having and meaning, we separate ourselves from the source of life itself, from big mind or essence of mind that's not graspable in the way we normally want to touch things. And we substitute things

[26:49]

for this true relationship, what our heart truly desires. It's important to stay open to this inquiry, this backward step, this deep part of ourselves that's always alive, always willing to help. So this buffalo has trouble with its tail, and it seems to be the problem. Woman writes a verse, and I'll tell you another koan, even a kinder koan. Woman writes a verse, passing through, falling in a ditch, turning beyond, all is lost. This tiny little tail, what a wonderful thing it is. So, what's that about?

[27:49]

You know, what's he saying there? So, I think he's saying, maybe you think this too, just where we're stuck is the entry point into our true lives. Not maybe where we see our greatest success, but you can have success too. That's too far. That's too one-sided to say, well, I have to give up everything. I can't. That's not necessary. That's unnecessary drama. But this is an invitation with our tiny little tail that always gets stuck to stay right here, which is our great vow in Mahayana Buddhism. I will stay here forever with all sentient beings until we find our way. by invoking this vow, I find my way. I don't fall into this ditch.

[28:52]

I don't wander aimlessly. I stay right here with my problems. So, for me, I actually went a long time playing with the lattice window. I was capable of kind of great... You say, you know, I wasn't maybe so well connected with what I was feeling. And it took a friend grabbing my tail and yanking until I said, ouch, I'm alive. Some people can go on a long time. I think that was seven years at that point, six years. My perfect sashim, my perfect life. I'm a good person. Ouch! And somebody grabbed my tail because they couldn't stand it anymore. They couldn't stand it anymore. That's an act of zen and kindness and trust.

[29:55]

Can you listen when your tail's grabbed? And can you pay attention to how it feels when you encounter the great difficulties that we'll encounter in life? can you get under the difficulties of success or failure so that whatever flowers is a gift. This invitation in a way to failure or getting stuck is an invitation to humility and openness for the first time of intimacy with our life. A friend, a student came to me and had a I made a mistake or did something wrong. And it felt really terrible. But we felt, after we talked, I felt very close to the person. And I said, you know, I don't want you to ever make the mistake or have a bad time, but I hope you have more mistakes like this one.

[30:57]

And we can crash around together a little bit. And you can share your heart with me a little bit. So this is the invitation of our tail to begin this exploration. Not out here. You know, in coal lines they set a trap for you. Success, failure. Success, failure. Like two little goodies on each corner of this buffalo. It's all misdirection. So you have to turn the buffalo around and look at the tail. Don't necessarily look at where the koan is pointing. So there's another koan. This one is even kinder. As the old sung master said, it almost puts the cookie in your mouth and helps you chew it. I didn't bring it, so I can't read it, but I remember it. It's one I worked on for a long time. This is from a 20th and 21st century teacher.

[32:00]

And here's the koan. Michael, correct me if I do it. I'll make it. One road leads to utter destruction. One path leads to utter destruction. The second to complete annihilation. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly. Woody Allen. Michael Wenger wrote a book called Dirty Three Fingers where he tried to evoke these koans in

[32:35]

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