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 so good to be at Tathahara. When I was a student here, I would hear... People who came to give talks say that. And as a student, it's like, yeah, yeah. It's so ordinary when you're a student here. Sometimes. If you're lucky. What time do I go to? 9.20. Great. So I'm here this week co-leading a restorative yoga and zen retreat, which is one of my favorite retreats to do because restorative yoga is so much about paying attention and getting into your body in a way that's really open and spacious and without having some fixed views.

[01:17]

So we put ourselves in these postures and then we relax and ask ourselves, what is this? And we've been asking this question. in the retreat. And this morning, and yesterday morning, I was very happy to chant the Fukan Zazengi, which is the universal recommendation for the practice of zazen, I think is how it translates. And the universality of it is what I think of as, in some small part, it bridges this talk so that it's accessible universally to everyone. whether you're a guest student, it's your first summer, your last summer. The universality of it, the universality of Zazen and our practice, you don't have to be a Buddhist, you don't have to be a Soto Zen Buddhist.

[02:20]

The practice, in some sense, of a lifetime is the same. It's the question, who am I? And how do I want to live? How do I want to live this one precious life? This is a question that all of us ask ourselves, hopefully. And if you don't ask yourself, you're missing out on a lot of pain and suffering and joy and laughter and love. So in Buddhism, Buddhism primarily I think is the study of the self. And yet, It's also the study of no self. And we've been talking about this in the yoga retreat a little bit. What is the self? And what is this idea that there's no self? What are they talking about? Ndogen Zenji, the founder of this school in Japan, in his Genjo Koan, or actualizing the fundamental point, asks the question or says that

[03:28]

To study the self is to forget the self. The self that we think we have, that we think we are. And somebody in the retreat, I can't remember who it was, said when I asked the question about what is the self? How do we find out who we are? What's our true self? They said, you have to forget the self. I think it was Brit. Maybe not. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. To be actualized by myriad things, your body and mind, as well as the bodies and minds of others, completely drop away and your original face is manifest. Your true self, your Buddha nature, your original face. Soto Zen, as well as, I think, all forms of Buddhism ask this question of what is the self?

[04:34]

And in Buddhism, I think all the teachings and practices gear us to challenge the very foundation of our experience, our subjective experience. We don't take it for granted. We ask, what is this? We don't know. So we ask. And the request of practice, the request of our practice, is how do we enter into each moment fresh, new, without dragging our preconceived notions about who we are, what's important, what's not important, without dragging that in, all of our conditioning, our karma, how do we ask that question wholeheartedly and live into it without having the answer? and maybe even without finding an answer. I've been urging people in the retreat, you don't need to answer the question, just asking and gearing ourselves towards that openness of, what is this?

[05:42]

Who am I? When we do that with curiosity, things float by, and it's not like we come up with the answer. which goes against our usual way. Usually we want to find an answer to our questions, and we almost don't ask questions that we don't think there's an answer to. So the request of practice, as I said, is how do we find ourselves in our life, and how do we turn towards our life completely wholeheartedly, even when we're not wholehearted? Because that's often the case too. So how do we turn to our experience and turn to our awareness of what's happening in our bodies and minds with fresh eyes? It's a radical practice.

[06:45]

Why is it radical? Anyone? This is the audience participation part. Why is it a radical practice? Yes? What's the root? What? The root. You're pointing here. It goes to the root. It goes to the source. The source of our life's energy. our lifeblood. What happens when we have an idea before we even ask the question? What happens when we know the answer? What does that do to our questioning? Yeah, kind of like, why would we ask the question if we already know? So a lot of Buddhism, a lot of our practice is cultivating this not knowing because when we know something, we don't even bother asking.

[07:52]

And it leaves us cut off from our present moment-to-moment experience, which is such a sadness to go through life without being aware, which I think most of the time we all do that, right? But every so often we pause, step back, and do the radical thing of going to the root and asking the question without knowing. In my own personal history, in school, in college, I studied philosophy, and I was very interested in sociology. And in philosophy, the big question that I had was, who am I? You know, questions of personal identity. I think I know who I am. I like this. I don't like that. We think of who we are in terms of what we like, what we don't like, our personality, right? And it's almost like we want to define ourselves and cut things out.

[08:55]

We're not open to not knowing who we are and allowing who we are to manifest moment to moment. Allowing ourselves to manifest moment to moment is kind of scary. Who knows what we're going to say? It could be very embarrassing. So this question of who am I led me into philosophy and sociology in particular. And after a while, I got really interested in... neuroscience because I thought, I got really into science and was like, okay, now I'm going to really study the brain because that's the seat of who we are, right? How we think, consciousness. And after doing that for a little while and actually studying neuroreceptors and their interactions with one another, I was kind of like, I think I've lost something here. And so I dropped out of graduate school and moved to San Francisco. And and started practicing at the San Francisco Zen Center. In terms of sociology, the question, who am I?

[09:58]

When you think back to your, not just your preferences, but what you think of as your core values. This is kind of what we think of as what makes us who we are. But where did those come from? So much is conditioned, coming from our culture, our gender. our class, ethnicity, right? We like to think of ourselves as being free agents, but are we? People are shaking their heads, no. So I guess the question that I want to talk about is how do we cultivate this question of who am I without falling into a pit, as it were, without falling into something that is actually going to limit us? Because my feeling is this question, if it's not about asking about freedom, which is basically what I think is meant by enlightenment, profound freedom, then what's the point?

[11:03]

So how do we find, or how do we, if we don't find it, how do we cultivate trust? And what is it that we're looking to trust? Faith, trust, confidence. All of these can be the term shraddha in Buddhism. This deep sense of ease in knowing. In order to do this, we actually need to be very open to our experience, which is very hard to do, because what we find is if we're not open to our experience, The reason we're not open is because we're carrying around an identity that's oftentimes been handed to us. And maybe we, you know, we, of course, make some choices along the way. But again, to be open to the question, to not know the answer, and to be fully open, open-hearted to the question, like a child, like Suzuki Roshi's beginner's mind, right?

[12:17]

That's scary. How do we be open to our experience? Be open to not knowing? How do we be open to our life? In all its glories and miseries, how do we not turn away? So one of the practices we've been talking about a little bit in the yoga retreat, I've been asking people to notice the neutral. All feeling can be broken down into three kinds of feelings. Pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral. And our karmic life is one where we lean towards the pleasant, we lean away or run away from the unpleasant, and we don't even notice the neutral oftentimes. Why would we bother? If I can't eat it, it's not going to bite me, then why would I even pay attention?

[13:19]

So I've been encouraging people to notice the neutral in their day-to-day, just walking around Tazahara. And I hope it's been an interesting experience for them. So this question of how do we find this trust or how do we cultivate trust? And when I say trust, what do you think I mean when I say trust or faith or confidence? What is it trust in? Anyone? Trust in our vulnerability? I think vulnerability comes when we open ourselves to the question, for sure. But yeah, how do we trust our own vulnerability and our not having to know? Because oftentimes, knowledge is a way we protect ourselves. If I know something, then I can put it in its box and check the box off and then not have to deal with it.

[14:22]

or I can isolate from it. And we do this with ourselves. We cut off parts of ourselves. We do it with each other. We have ideas about each other and ourselves. And then we're not open because we've got this fixed view. And we do this as a means of protecting ourselves. This is very natural. We need to survive. We're mammals. We're living creatures, and things can be very dangerous, and we're afraid of dying. So yeah, vulnerability. Anyone else? Not knowing. Beyond knowing. The unknown. Trust in not knowing or the unknown. What does that look like? How do you step into not knowing? Trust the process? Yes. Trust the process. But do we think that it's going to go a particular way?

[15:25]

Then we get caught. If we think it's going to go a particular way, we get caught. But really, there's this strong urge to know and to have something be not mysterious. Because if it's mysterious, then it can turn around and bite us. At the end of the... the Zen section of today's workshop, I left the retreatants with the question, do you know the self or not? So I ask you now, retreatants, any thoughts on that? What is the self that we either know or don't know? And do you feel vulnerable when you don't know? And does that drive us to find something that we can know and hold on to?

[16:27]

One of the things that, in terms of giving, dhana, paramita, one of the things that a bodhisattva or an enlightening being gives, not material goods, although they might, but Not trust. What does a bodhisattva give? Sorry? Not view. Yes! Fearlessness. And in terms of fearlessness, how many of you have experienced fearlessness? Everyone! Everyone's experienced fearlessness at some point. Right? Right? a feeling of settledness, of being okay. Right? Now, fearlessness becomes very difficult in the midst of fear. And yet, that's what the bodhisattva, the aspiring, enlightening being, gives.

[17:35]

Because fearlessness, true fearlessness, requires what? Courage. But if you're not afraid, courage comes easily. So it's not really courage. So in the midst of fear, how do we step into it, into our life? We're all going to get sick. We're all going to die. How do we meet our life in a way that we don't have, we're not caught by our fear? It's not that we're going to get rid of fear, right? In fact, courage requires that there's some fear there. Yes? You're naturally... You're facing it if you try and run away. So turning and facing it, turning and facing your fear, that's courage.

[18:50]

Even in the midst of fear. So I ask this question, do you know the self or not? And I haven't heard any answers yet. As I said earlier, when you take up yoga posture, if you're... If you're practicing yoga in a way that's not just trying to get yourself into an asana and looking at the model who's got this perfectly straight back and you're like, I'm going to get into that posture. But actually you're aiming towards something, but you don't feel like a failure when you can't get there. Because the point is not to get there. The point is to settle into your own body and mind in the process. Right? to take a posture and then what? We've been doing this a lot in the yoga workshop.

[19:54]

Relax. Relax. And even more so in terms of fearlessness, to step into the feeling of fear and then open yourself to, can I relax here? Can I breathe? Can I notice, be really closely attentive to the minutia of one's Physical breath, body, tightness, constriction, releasing. Can I notice the minutia? So we've been asking this question while sitting. What is this? What is this in this moment? Or what's happening right now? Not two minutes ago. Not what I anticipate is going to happen. But what's happening right now? and to be fresh and open to asking that question. Again, you don't necessarily need to come up with an answer, but just the motion of turning towards has this feeling of creating some space, right?

[21:06]

Because oftentimes when we walk around with our views and we know that person's that way and I'm this way and... That's why I don't sit next to them at the dining table or whatever, right? When we walk around in that way, we miss reality. We've constructed something and we take it for what's real. But it's not real. It's just a story. It's a fabrication. So how do we live our life in a way? I mean, we're not going to stop having stories, right? We're not going to stop creating concepts. about ourselves and other people. Not going to happen. Well, maybe, I don't know, maybe if you are hot. But in general, we're not going to do that. How do we live our lives in an open, spacious way, allowing for space in the midst of being human and having a human life, where we're frightened, where we're vulnerable? How do we step in and create a little bit of space?

[22:10]

I had a friend, my Dharma sister, Judith, name her. She used to have this practice. We lived here for many years together, and she had a practice of... I don't think she was very open about the practice, but I remember her talking to me about it. The practice of proximity, she called it. The practice was, if there was somebody that she was having difficulties with, at any opportunity that she felt she could... she would go sit in proximity to that person and breathe and relax, right? When we take up a yoga posture, we do the same thing. We get ourselves in positions that we would never naturally get into, right? And then we see what's happening. We check in with ourselves and we breathe and we relax. And then we can ask this open question, what's happening in my body? What do I need? Do I need an eye pillow on my hand? Do I need an extra bolster? And I think we're getting pretty good now.

[23:16]

Maybe like 20 years ago, American yogis weren't necessarily so good at not looking around the room and being like, oh no, that person's not using a bolster. I shouldn't use a bolster either. We're more aware of, well, this is an individual practice. This is how I manifest in this body and mind. And to not feel shame about it. Not to say that vulnerability doesn't come up. So this gift of fearlessness, it comes, the gift of fearlessness that a bodhisattva can offer comes from having fear and stepping into it. Of course, not all the time. We can't do it all the time, right? But we can notice. So in this question, do you know the self or not, we've been talking a little bit about the philosophical, intellectual idea of, well, there's no self in Buddhism. So how can we be talking about this self?

[24:20]

It's not that there's no self in Buddhism. It's that there's no self in Buddhism. There's a story of Suzuki Roshi when he was... about to die. I think he only had a couple months after he was diagnosed. He thought he had hepatitis. He did have hepatitis. But it was quickly discovered that he had the bad kind of hepatitis and that he had cancer. And he only had a couple months. And a student came to visit him and Suzuki Roshi was in bed, incredibly weak and jaundiced. And the student came in to inquire about how he was doing, and they bowed together. And I think that the look of, you know, just grief, grieving on the student's face, Suzuki Roshi looked straight into the student's eyes and said, do not grieve for me. Don't worry. I know who I am.

[25:23]

So this question, when we talk about not knowing or knowing, As in all Zen things, there's never one answer that's going to fit. It's always both and or. Because our language is dualistic. And our practice is beyond duality. So he says, I know who I am. And yet, in Zen, there's the expression that not knowing is most intimate. Not knowing is most intimate because once you know, you can be cut off from being awake to what is, because you have this fixed conception. So how do you balance Suzuki Roshi saying, I know who I am, with not knowing is most intimate? Or Bodhidharma's only don't know, or don't know mind. Some of the people in the retreat when we were talking about the self said the way that you know the self is to forget the self.

[26:35]

Again, how does that work? Knowing or not knowing? What is it that we think is the self? What is it that we think that we know? Is there a deeper knowing than... Is there a superficial knowing that's fake and a deep knowing that's true? And are they even about the same thing? So this question that we ask ourselves, and I would say that we ask ourselves this question in Zazen, when we sit down, we arrange our bodies, we sway side to side. And when we're doing that, it's not like we're just like, oh, I'm supposed to sway side to side. It's actually feeling into your body, feeling into your spine, feeling into your breath as you're moving. It's not just for show, right? But we feel into it and then we ask this question, what is this? What is this experience? What is this life? What is this moment?

[27:37]

Very, very ordinary questions and yet they're completely, to have them be so spacious and open, again, it doesn't matter necessarily what comes out of that. Just the curiosity that's developed by asking the question opens whole worlds. Richard Baker, in the introduction to Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, he says, to wonder, this curiosity, to have this wondering, this open curiosity, to wonder and to answer that wonder with the deepest expression of your own nature. That's Beginner's Mind. To answer that wonder with the deepest expression of your own nature. Again, what is this own nature? Is this the true self? Is the true self the non-self? The small self? Is it different from the big self? Oftentimes we say the small self is based on ignorance and delusion.

[28:42]

The idea that I have a self, I am a self, you're a self, and it's fixed. And it's not actually completely interconnected with everything else in the universe. When we investigate this small self, it's very limited And it's usually based on our likes and dislikes, our preferences, our egocentric notions of who we are. This is called delusion. It's called ignorance. And what it does is it covers our intrinsic Buddha nature, our original face, which is much bigger than this right here. Or this right here. It includes everything. Blanche Hartman used to talk about Katagiri quite a bit. And one of the expressions of Zazen, the practice of Zazen, Katagiri spoke of was to settle the self.

[29:49]

Zazen is the practice of settling the self on the self and allowing the flower of our life force to bloom. This flower of our life force is much bigger than what we think of as our small self. The flower of our life force, which maybe is this root. Yes? Suzuki Roshi also said that enlightenment is an accident. Lazan makes us accident prone. I love that. So in generating this trust, it's not trust that we're going to be a particular way or that everything's going to turn out okay and that we're going to live forever and that our loved ones will be free from pain, that we're not going to hurt anybody. That's not what we're confident in.

[30:50]

What we're confident in, what we can become confident in or trust in, is what? even if we don't, which is the beauty of it. Our practice includes everything. So yes, our willingness to accept or our ability to hold, our ability to create space for, even in the midst of not being able to create space, and this is the beautiful part of our practice, is that nothing is excluded. So even when we're a total mess... and we're failing at our practice, and we're not manifesting what we think of as our Buddha nature, everything in our experience can be raised up as an offering.

[31:57]

As long as there's some awareness, as long as we have presence, everything, no matter what, we can make an offering of it, even our ignorance. running out of time. So I wanted to, one of the retreatants asked for a koan. I want a koan. So I was going to bring up the koan from the Book of Serenity. It's case 37. Guishan's active consciousness. And I'm sorry that I'm bringing this up five minutes before I end, but Guishan asked Yangshan, If someone suddenly said all sentient beings just have karmic consciousness or active consciousness, boundless and unclear with no fundamental to rely on, how would you prove it in experience? Yangshan said, if a monk comes by, I'll call to him.

[32:59]

Hey, you. If the monk turns his head, I'll say, what is it? If the monk hesitates, I'll say... not only is their karmic consciousness boundless and unclear, they have no fundamental to rely on. They're confused. I'll say that just again. Yongshan said, if a monk comes, I'll call to him and say, hey you. If he turns his head, I'll say, what is it? Now imagine that you're just walking down the street and someone says, hey you, and they say, what is it? You'd be like... Stay away from me. Unless you're a Zen teacher. Then you smack them. Guishan said good. And then there's a little bit of commentary. A monk asked Yunnan, the treatise of the Flower Ornament Sutra says that the fundamental affliction of our ignorance is itself the immutable knowledge of the Buddhas.

[34:08]

The fundamental affliction of ignorance is itself the immutable knowledge of the Buddhas. How can this be? And then he says, this principle is most profound and mysterious in the extreme, difficult to comprehend. Yunnan said, this is most distinctly clear, easy to understand. At that moment, a boy happened to be sweeping there. Yunnan called to him, and the boy turned his head. Yunnan pointed to him and said, is this not immutable knowledge? The fact that he turned his head. Call and response. When Yongshan calls a monk and the monk turns his head, that's precisely the situation. So Yongshan says, hey you, the monk turns his head. Yunnan then asked the boy, what is your Buddha nature? And that's where things get tricky. The boy looked around at a loss and left. Yunnan said, is this not fundamental affliction?

[35:12]

And then there's a verse that goes with it, which I love. The verse is, one call and he turns his head. Do you know the self or not? Do you know the self or not? Vaguely, like the moon through ivy, a crescent at that. The child of riches... as soon as she falls on the boundless road of destitution, has such sorrow. A child of riches also can't escape our human life. So the reason I love this koan so much is because this opens all of our experience. It makes it, I think, quite clear. When we try to separate into... pleasant, unpleasant, good, bad, when we fall into our dualistic notions, we miss that everything is right there and is included, which I think of as being the gateway to fearlessness.

[36:22]

When nothing needs to be gotten rid of, we can step into our life no matter what. Even if we fail at doing it, I mean, how can you fail at stepping into your life, right? Even if you decide to end your life, that's stepping into your life. You can't avoid it. We're born. We will die. We live. I just wanted to end with this story here about Suzuki Roshi again. One morning, a student arrived late for the beginning of Sushin, the retreat. He was Suzuki Roshi's first ordained priest. Leslie, is that Ananda? Wearing the traditional okesa, so this robe. So his first student, right, should be setting a good example, shows up late.

[37:28]

After breakfast, Suzuki Roshi took him to task, saying, priests don't arrive late. You're no priest. You have no right to wear that okesa. So he shouts at him. And this student, horrified, starts taking off his robe. Like, oh, okay, I have no right to wear this. My teacher just gave me this robe, but I have no right to wear it. I'm going to take it off and give it back. He yells at him again. He says, what are you doing? No one has the right to tell you to take off your robe. So again, I think this story is like... It's like, what is confidence? What is trust? How do we have to, I mean, if we think that we, in order to cultivate trust or confidence, that we have to get rid of something, we have to get rid of our fear, we're missing out on our, like, at least half our life. Fearlessness is not about not having fear. It's about the courage to step into it. And when we don't have the courage, we don't always have the courage.

[38:34]

to step into our vulnerability. And then we sit with that. That becomes our offering. Because as soon as we allow ourselves to feel and be aware and create space, even in those tight moments where we don't feel any space and we can't breathe ourselves and we're like, ah, I can't deal, right? The next moment comes and the next moment. What's happening now? So when we open ourselves to that question, we give ourselves and the entire universe, really, an opportunity to not know, to not have a fixed view, allowing our life force to bloom. Because when we think we need to know, because we need to be safe, we're cutting off our actual experience, what it means to be a human being, or a sentient being.

[39:36]

I meant to leave room for questions. Sorry. Thank you very much. I hope you all enjoy your stay at Tassajara. Students, too. Enjoy your stay at Tassajara. 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 sfcc.org and click Giving.

[40:15]

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