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. My name is Layla Smith Bockhorst. And I want to actually introduce myself a little bit. The last time that I gave a public talk here at Zen Center was over 15 years ago. But I first came to Zen Center many years ago, a long time ago, and lived here for quite a long time. And then... was away for a while. I'm what is occasionally referred to as an old-timer.

[01:02]

And I know a lot of you are new, and you don't know me anyway, but also a lot of you who aren't so new don't know me. So I do want to say a little bit about myself. And also, stories are great. Stories are good. I always really enjoy hearing about other people's stories, how they came to Zen Center, how they first got here, what it was like. So anyway, I'll talk a little bit about myself to begin. So I first began practicing at Zen Center in 1969 But before that, in 1964 or 5, when I was a freshman in college, I read a book by Alan Watts, The Way of Zen, which brought, actually that book brought a lot of people to Zen.

[02:12]

Back in those days, it was one of the very few books on Zen available. And that book was like something that my mind already knew. my mind was opening to something that I already knew when I read that book. It was like, yes, of course. Something I had been looking for and didn't even know I had been looking for it. Very familiar. But there was no way to practice. Alan Watts doesn't talk about Zazen practice, and there was no way to practice then, at least in Portland, Oregon, where I was. So the experience I had when I read the book of my mind opening in this way. I thought, this is enlightenment. And it was, you know, everything looked different. Everything just looked, I was seeing everything from a completely wider point of view. So I thought, this is great. But, you know, it was great for three days, and then it was gone.

[03:15]

And there was no way to recapture that. I tried reading more books by Alan Watts. You know, I tried rereading that book. and it wouldn't come back. So there was no way to actually integrate this experience into my body. So I went away, took two years off in the middle of college, and basically I think part of me was stalling for time. When I look back on it, at the time I said, you're immature, everybody else here in college is like, it's like they're two years older than you are. So take two years off in the middle, and when you come back, you'll kind of be the same as everybody else. So I took two years off, and when I came back, we had a psychology class, and excuse me, my voice gets rough sometimes. We had this psychology class, and one of the students in the class, we were supposed to share something we were passionate about, and he had us sit zazen for five minutes.

[04:20]

So, again, it was this feeling of, yes. So there was an off-campus house there called the Cosmos. It was the local Zen house, which had just been started. Lenny Brackett, who was Richard Baker's brother-in-law, was a Reed student, and he and his friend came down to Tassajara the second summer that Tassajara existed and came back and started this Zen house. So I started sitting in this Zen house. And then I came to Tassajara the next summer for a month as a guest student in August. And this was, I believe, the second summer guest season that Zen Center had put on. So everybody was new and everything was new, but I didn't know that.

[05:22]

and for me, being at Tassajara was, you know, it didn't matter. As soon as I got to Tassajara, I was just taken up into and swept up by the practice. I was immersed in the practice. Things were funky, you know, things weren't very well fixed up yet, and I lived in the upper barn in this little room, and I think we still ate oreochi, at least oreochi breakfast during guest season, and we... ate our meals in the dining room before the guests came. So we'd eat quickly and then the guests would come. But, you know, the practice then, and during the day, you know, I'd get up and sit saws in, do my work, clean cabins, make beds, sit saws in. The practice then was exactly the same as it is now. I was actually down at Tuscarora for the spring practice period this year. It's exactly the same practice. You're just following the schedule. And immersing yourself, just being immersed by the practice. The details change, but there's the same coursing in something that happens when you practice.

[06:33]

Even when you first begin, you're coursing in something. For a long time, I've tried to search for words to describe this basically kind of inexpressible quality of our practice. This kind of... vivid intimacy, vivid intimacy with yourself and with the world. And lately, you know, I thought of words like, well, joy or happiness or satisfaction, but those are all kind of, they're too emotional. They're emotionality-based and they're kind of person-based. So they don't cover it. So anyway, recently, there's this phrase from Dogen, that I think says it very well. The zazen of even one person at one moment imperceptibly accords with all things and resonates through all time.

[07:33]

The zazen of one person at one moment imperceptibly accords with all things and resonates through all time. Or Suzuki Roshi would say that this kind of activity satisfies our inmost desire. And it was difficult to be at Tassar and doing the practice period. I wasn't used to the diet then, which was, they were trying to follow a macrobiotic diet, which was, you know, brown rice and vegetables, no dairy. And I got pretty sick actually being there and had to leave. We don't follow fads so much anymore as we did when we were all, we were all young new students, you know, and we didn't, know what Zen was. We were trying to figure out what Zen was. In 1969, I went down for the winter interim down to Tassar, but I stopped here. I stopped by here. Just one more little story here. I stopped by here on the way down, and Zen Center had owned this building for one month, and we had a party.

[08:42]

We had a Christmas party, or maybe it was a New Year's party. It was probably a New Year's party in this room. There were no tatamis. There was a fire in the fireplace. There was a Christmas tree in that corner. You know, and all the chairs and sofas and things that are probably in the back of the dining room now were around here. And so we had this party. Most people sat on the floor. We just had this nice little party. Tsuki Roshi was here. And lots of other people. And then I headed on down to Tassajara for two more weeks. And... Then I went back to earn money to go back to practice period. And in 1970, I went back to Tassahara for practice period. I had to stay one month here in the city center before I went down. That was the requirement. They wanted to get to know me before I went down to Tassahara. So I had to spend one month here in the city center. Then I went down to Tassahara. Tatsugami Roshi was leading that practice period along with Katagiri Roshi.

[09:49]

And so I went there and I spent the next 18 years or so practicing at Tassahara and City Center and Green Gulch Farm. And Suzuki Roshi was there, was around. I knew him. We didn't overlap by much and I believe he was already starting to get sick then. So he was mostly in the city, and I was at Tassajara, so I didn't see too much of him. But in the summer, he did come down and give some talks, and I sat a sashin here once, but he led, so he led the entire sashin. I was very shy, very shy, and I was shy of him. You know, he was the Zen master, and so I didn't approach him. I was kind of shy of him, but I was sitting on the front steps out here, Before I went down to Tassajara, making a Christmas present for my mother, I was carving a wooden salad set, a spoon and a fork.

[10:57]

And he came over and was very interested in what I was doing. He wanted to know what I was doing. This kind of handwork, I think, really interested him. So I talked to him a little bit. But then at Tassajara, he wasn't there much. And he died in 1971. So it was during the Sashin, Rohatsu Sashin at Tassahara, and during the third day of Sashin, Dan Welch stood up in the middle of the morning and announced during the period of Zazen that Suzuki Roshi had died. So I thought I wasn't going to be very affected because I had so little contact with him, but as soon as Kenyan came, I just barely made it to Kenyan, and then I told somebody this, I rushed to the linen room and buried my face in the, you know, in the towel, in the sheets and so on, so people couldn't hear me just sobbing, sobbing my heart out. So then I realized, you know, he was the teacher.

[11:59]

He was the teacher at Zen Center. Katagiri Roshi helped, and Kohumichino helped, and Tatsukami Roshi was there, but he was the primary teacher, and there was a lot of grief when he died. But I felt like... I continued studying with him even though he died. He was my primary teacher, my first teacher, and he continues to be my teacher. Like so many people, I read Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind so many times. I had it memorized pretty much and read his lectures. But also what is my teacher is this lineage, this Suzuki Roshi lineage. You know, non-attainment. Nothing special to attain. Just continue this practice. This practice of just sitting. The result is not the point.

[13:02]

It's the actual effort you make that's valuable. And he had great confidence in this kind of effort. Non-gaining effort. Just continue this practice. So deep trust in the practice and trust in our own effort and in the sincerity of our effort. And I said this also before, but I did a way-seeking mind talk at Tasahara in the spring, and this came up, came to me that the lineage, the character of this school is Dogen Zen through the lens of Suzuki Roshi's humanity and his warmth and his kindness. You know, Dogen Zenji is like the root teacher of the Soto lineage we practice. And Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, though it took a few years, especially for me to realize that what is so much... incorporating Dogen's teaching through the lens of Suzuki Roshi's humanity, him as a person, and his warmth and his kindness. So, you know, Suzuki Dogen is so important to this school, but we don't know who he is as a person.

[14:07]

We'd like to, but it's really hard to get a sense of what he was like as a person. But we know what Suzuki Roshi is like. He presented Zen to us in this completely human form. So I got married and had a daughter and went through a lot of changes along with San Francisco Zen Center. Zen Center went through many changes. Suzuki Roshi dying and the Richard Baker years, including acquiring Green Gulch Farm and the many businesses that we acquired then and ran, Elias Stitchery and the Tassajara Bread Bakery and Green Grocer across the street and buying up some of the residential properties buying a residential place in the neighborhood. And of course, Green's Restaurant. So we were very busy. And the Neighborhood Foundation established in Kaushland Park across the street.

[15:10]

Then there were the difficulties when Richard Baker left and the changes that Zen Center went through and the reorganization and also the greater maturity that resulted in institutional maturity that resulted from that experience. And in 1998, my husband and daughter and I left Green Gulch and moved to Mill Valley. My husband was not too happy with community life. My daughter was 11 and wanted to live in town and close to her friends. And I myself was being asked to take on more teaching responsibility. And I didn't feel like I was ready. I didn't feel ready for it. And I wasn't ready for it, actually. You know, I think I needed to take my time and slowly, slowly get used to that responsibility and slowly, slowly get over these kind of scary ideas of how I thought I had to be if I was going to be a teacher. But I led a small group in Mill Valley, which then we moved to Larkspur, moved to Larkspur, and that continues.

[16:16]

And I go to Montana, which is where I was born and raised. I go there. a couple times a year and lead Zazen retreats there. And I've gone back to Tassajara two or three times to do practice periods in those intervening years, and every time I feel like I essentially disappear into the practice, I'm there. But every time I sit Zazen, and it doesn't matter when or where, I feel like I disappear into the practice. And I think any time any of us sits, we disappear into the practice. Because, you know, this practice does us. We don't do it. And it's always exactly the same practice. The very first time I sat Zazen in the cosmos in Portland, Oregon, in this house, Zen house, I said, I'm going to really do this right. And I focused, I'm going to count every breath.

[17:19]

And I visualized on the wall in front of me a letter number one for one breath, two for the second breath, and so on. You know, I was really going to do this. But luckily, I wasn't able to keep that up. You know, I had to give up that practice and let practice do me. You know, practice rescues us from ourselves, from our own ideas about it. So I want to talk a little bit more about practice. Practice is the great strength of this path of the Buddha that we study and that we take up, this path that we're on. In high school, I would read Reader's Digest magazine that my parents subscribed to, and in every issue there, almost, there would be some article that now we call self-help.

[18:19]

how to be a better person. Just do this and you'll be more liked or something. And I wanted to be a better person. So I would try to take on these practices, these things to remember. But again, they wouldn't stick. Nothing stuck. I felt there was something wrong with me that needed to be fixed, but I had no way to make these efforts. integrate into me to make them stick. So how do you integrate your intention and your effort and insights into the very cells of your body through practice? So what is practice? First of all, I think you can say that practice is inquiry and it's awareness. We approach our lives with a mind of inquiry, which you could also say a mind of not knowing.

[19:25]

Just, you know, what is this? And not even needing to know, just what is this? Just opening ourselves up to inquiry. And a mind of awareness, present moment awareness. Without being obsessive about it, just paying attention. What am I feeling? What am I doing? So we practice in everyday life, and particularly we practice zazen. Zazen is like, I feel it's like fuel, you know, it's like fuel for our practice. It's the fuel that actually integrates, you know, our efforts and our intentions into ourselves, into the very cells of our body. You could say that it's what integrates our bodhisattva vow into ourselves. You know, the bodhisattva vow is... is to save all beings or to help all beings, ourselves included. And zazen is how we realize our efforts and intentions, you know, to be better in order to help beings, both ourselves and others.

[20:32]

It's how we make it real to ourselves. We realize it. It's how we make it actual in ourselves, this desire to be of benefit. We actualize it. And during zazen, we don't do anything in particular except take the correct posture and keep coming back to the correct posture and to just sitting here in the present moment. And we take this alert and balanced and concentrated physical posture so our body is still and it's concentrated. And our mind may not feel particularly still or concentrated or stable, but as our body sits here, you know, stable and still, Thoughts that come up in this concentrated space that we've created with our body don't stick so much. They come up and they go. They come up and they go. And all sorts of things will arise in this space. Thoughts of past, present, and future. Griefs, fears, joys.

[21:35]

Replays of things that we said or did or things we're going to say or do. Things other people said. plans, fantasies, regrets. They keep coming up, but they come up and they go because we're sitting in this open, stable posture. So, you know, things let go of themselves. We don't even really have to let go of them. They just let go of themselves, bit by bit. It's like a wrinkled cloth hanging up, and it just hangs there, you know, and the wrinkles kind of fall out of the cloth. And the fundamental fact is, is we are here. We're always here. Always, you know, we come back to ourselves, just us, just sitting here. The thoughts, you know, and the emotions that we have are more superficial than the fact that we're just sitting here. And we can't even say that we know who this person is. You know, who is it that's sitting here? Who is this person? And we don't need to know who we are. You know, we can let ourselves be ultimately unknowable to ourselves.

[22:41]

It's also like a pot of water boiling. Water molecules come up and they break loose and they drift away. And they just drift away in a mist. Drift away and they empty. The pot is emptied. Emptiness. Zazen empties us. We have a more spacious, empty mind. You know, a mind of not knowing. Not being so sure about anything. Because we don't know so much, we actually know more. Because without trying to, you know, we come into contact with our own who we are before we think about it. And it's unfathomable, basically. Each of us is pretty unfathomable. Everything is ultimately unfathomable. So, you know, we use a lot these words, Buddhist and Buddhism. but actually there's not much of an ism in Buddhism.

[23:46]

It's a path of practice. It's not a belief system. It's a path of practice, a path to follow. Maybe it might be more accurate to say the path of the Buddha or the Buddha Dharma. And also, strictly speaking, there's no ist in Buddhist. There's just us. We're just practicing, you know, practicing the Buddha Dharma. We're people following the path of the Buddha. So, of course, you know, conventionally we use these words Buddhist and Buddhism. But at the same time, we try not to cling to these ideas too much. We're practitioners of the Buddha way. We're just following a path of practice. You know, even though we have particular lineages and traditions, and within them we have particular forms, ways of doing things, particular teachings, all the time we try to put a caveat on it, to be aware of that this is a temporary expedient. Everything we do, in a sense, is a temporary expedient.

[24:49]

Our fundamental practice is just what works, what helps beings, what helps alleviate suffering and discontent, and what leads to wisdom and compassion. So even though we're within these specific forms of practice, at the same time, again, we take them lightly, take them with a kind of no mind. We need these forms, you know, these various forms. They give us a toehold. They give us a toehold into practice. And they're necessary to carry teachings and practices forward through time. And, this is important, because we're human beings, we come to love and treasure certain forms and ways of doing things. They're familiar and a comfort, and they're also an expression of our love for the Dharma. So we love the Dharma. And we practice it wholeheartedly within these forms and traditions and let go of it at the same time. Hold it loosely.

[25:51]

And also we let go of any particular identity. This practice itself actually helps us not to stick too closely to any particular identity, any idea of who we are. So we're following this path. We're doing our practice with sincere effort, but at the same time we try to leave ourselves open and undefined, right in the middle of it. So you might say, well, I'm a total beginner, or I've been practicing X number of years, or I'm a priest, or I have Dharma transmission. But really, none of this is too important. In a way, it is important because being ordained, for example, can be a way that some people manifest their love of the Dharma. And it's also a help for passing Dharma on to others. And others manifest this love through their work in the world, manifest their love of Dharma by doing their best work with intention and integrity, no matter what their field of activity is.

[27:00]

So these various roles or identities that we take on are important in that they encourage us or they help us encourage others. But even if they're important at the same time, we also let go of them. Katagiri Roshi once said, a priest robe can be a problem robe. And he meant, you know, any identity can be a problem identity if we think about it too much or stick to it too much. So we practice wholeheartedly within roles. And we also emphasize emptiness, not sticking too much to things. The mind of not knowing, no particular thoughts of who we are. Anyway, we try not to dwell on it too much. You could say we're all just Buddhist children. We're all just doing our best to follow Buddhist path of practice and help others follow it when there's an opportunity to do so.

[28:09]

There's a Buddhist phrase that says to mature beings. But practicing Buddhism brings us to maturity. And maturity is different from happiness. If what we're seeking for is happiness, you know, it can be hard to find it. It will, like, always elude us. Because whenever we have suffering or difficulty... in our lives will think that there's something wrong. That maybe there's a place to be where we won't have this suffering and difficulty. So, maturity, you know, is the ongoing practice and the ongoing gradual process of realizing that these sufferings and difficulties we have actually are our life itself. There's no Buddha outside the truth of our life right now, right in the middle of whatever sufferings or difficulties there are.

[29:18]

This is our very life as Buddha. And this is a different way of seeing suffering and difficulties. This is a way of accepting things as they are. And it's also a way of not taking these difficulties so seriously. Suzuki Roshi called this a big mind, you know, a wider point of view. There are inevitable, inevitably, there's ups and downs in life. Inevitably, there are cycles, you know, that we all go through. Inevitably, there are difficulties. Everything changes, you know, things come and go, people come and go. And because we're human beings, we cling and we grasp and we love. We hold on and we grieve when things go. So we practiced to allow this just to be as it is, to allow all this just to be as it is.

[30:19]

And we let ourselves be a human being with human emotions. Suzuki Roshi said, the basic teaching of Buddhism is that pleasure is not different from difficulty. There are two sides of one coin. have to realize how to accept this truth then even though you have difficulty you will enjoy your life and um there's a phrase uh that i love i don't know where it came from but it's it says avalokiteshvara and avalokiteshvara is the bodhisattva of compassion the hearer of the cries of the world so avalokiteshvara leads us to an understanding of suffering You know, it doesn't say she leads us to an escape from suffering. She leads us to an understanding of suffering from endurance to consent to delight in this temporary existence. From endurance to consent to delight in this temporary existence.

[31:25]

So even though you have difficulty, you enjoy your life. You can enjoy your life. So, I want to talk just a little bit more about practice from the point of view of shila, samadhi, and prajna. Sometimes the eightfold Buddhist path is divided into these three factors. Shila is... ethical behavior, moral integrity. Samadhi is concentrated awareness and prajna is wisdom. So, shila, you know, Buddhist ethics or moral integrity, we have these 16 ethical precepts that we take and they boil down to, you know, in any situation you're in, to do things, acts of body, speech and mind that cause least harm and whenever possible, help people.

[32:44]

actions of body, speech, and mind. So we refrain from acts that cause harm, like, of course, you know, killing or stealing. And we refrain from acts of speech that cause harm and acts of mind that cause harm. You know, thoughts and emotions are actually a subtle form of action, like angry thoughts, you know, will affect your body in a way. And if you rehearse in your mind, you know, saying angry things to people, it's more likely you'll actually say them. But emotions and thoughts can be hard to work with. That's after all what practice is about. So even when we have these unwholesome negative thoughts or emotions, and we will, we can still follow the precepts by not acting on them. This is the first step in our practice, and it's a continuing part of our practice, and it's very important. Someone said the precepts are a description of enlightened behavior. So, you know, precepts recognize that there's an integrity that also is at the very core of us.

[33:51]

When we practice, we come into contact with this integrity. You know, that's what we call Buddha nature. And this is also, you know, our own personal bodhisattva vow. We don't, basically, fundamentally, we don't actually like or want to hurt others. It's deeply distressing. apparently uh in war they found that soldiers don't actually fire their guns very much you know even in battle many of the soldiers don't fire their guns it's hard you know it causes deep psychological harm to people who have to cause harm to other people And, you know, our truest joy really is to help other people. My father, when my father got old, you know, what gave him the greatest joy was being able to make something for someone else. He took care of my mother when she was old, and then he made a table for my sister, and he made an altar table for me.

[34:57]

You know, this was what brought him true joy, deepest joy. It was of meaning. The deepest meaning for him was to be of help to others. So this is the Bodhisattva vow. You know, this is our inner bodhisattva vow. And it's why we practice this, to realize this vow, to make it real in ourselves. You know, this is what satisfies our inmost desire. But it's hard to do this because our own emotions and our karmic history, reactivity can be strong in us and cause us to act in unskillful ways that actually hurt us and others. And because this distresses us, So we practice shila ethics, but it has to go together with the study of ourselves. It has to go together with samadhi and prajna. Samadhi, concentrated awareness, attention, so we pay attention. How do I feel? What am I doing? What emotions and thoughts are arising in me?

[35:58]

When we observe ourselves and see what we're doing, we can take into account and refrain. from acting out of negativity and acting out of ancient twisted karma. And just awareness transforms. Awareness itself is transformative. So on and off the meditation cushions, we practice awareness and we practice concentration without trying too hard to concentrate. I read recently, some teacher said in Zazen, 25% of your attention should be placed on your breathing. 25% of your attention should be on overall awareness. And 50% of your attention is just left abiding, spaciously. Just left abiding. So this spacious abiding, this is wisdom, prajna. Just observing things as they are and letting things be as they are. Accepting things as they are. You know, we can accept who we are with some kindness.

[37:06]

And we can accept who others are with some kindness. And there's no end to this process. In fact, this process itself is what is important. It's our very life itself. And this is all nothing special. It's no special accomplishment or understanding. Just simply act with integrity. Treat others with kindness and respect. And keep practicing and studying and listening to the Dharma. Keep sitting zazen to solidify all of this into the cells of your body. Just keep being who you are, continuing, making an effort to practice. Being nobody special, but actually a Buddha, just a Buddha. Nobody special, just a Buddha. Shogun Zenji said, there's a simple way to become a Buddha.

[38:07]

When you refrain from unwholesome actions, are not attached to birth and death, and are compassionate toward all sentient beings, respectful to seniors and kind to juniors, not excluding or desiring anything, with no designing thoughts or worries, you will be called a Buddha. Do not seek anything else. I think I thought I have too much to say. I'm almost done. So, we used to live across the street in 293 Page, when we lived here, before we left Zen Center. We lived up in the top floor, which is now offices. And I just started working at Zen Center again, and I'm up there on the top floor in my office that's in that corner where our bed was.

[39:10]

And it looks out on the street, and it looks out, and you can see the door down there that goes into the Zendo. And when we lived up there, I would look out the window, and I'd look out, and I'd see, you know, that door down there, and I'd see the city happening outside, and people going by fast often, and the noise, you know. And I'd think, just make a right turn. Just go in that door. You don't know what's in there. You'll find. In a sense, you know, I felt like, you know, going in that door, your life's taken care of. In a sense. You know, you're going into this peaceful space, one, in the middle of this... you know, hectic city and so on. It's kind of a refuge. But that's just the physical gateway to the inner gateway, you know, the refuge that you find in your own mind and body in this practice.

[40:15]

It looks like an ordinary door, but it opens into this path, you know, that you can follow for the rest of your life, no matter where you are. And it's a happy path. I used to think... know it doesn't actually matter to me so much what happens now i'm on this path no and of course you know all sorts of things happen to me good things and bad things and they continue to happen to me you know often especially in a community like this i would feel often very bad about myself you know it's really easy uh you know to compare yourself to others it's such a habit so many of us have um But all this was happening and happens in the context of practice, of being on the path. And I think everyone feels bad about themselves from time to time because everyone wants to be better. So it's important to be able to tolerate these feelings.

[41:18]

That we feel bad about ourselves sometimes is also our true nature. It's our bodhisattva nature. We want to be better. we're making an effort on our lives. So, you know, of course, we notice everything that's wrong. And we might feel like we're getting worse rather than better. But Mel at the spring practice period, he said this wonderful thing during a ceremony. He said, as long as you keep getting worse and worse, you'll be okay. As long as you keep getting worse and worse, you'll be okay. So, you know, when we're having a hard time, It's very natural to want to try to get out of it or escape it or find a reason. This is natural. But basically, we can't do too much when we're suffering a lot emotionally except keep ourselves company. Just keep ourselves company with it. Yes, I'm on your side. I'll stick with you. I'll be kind to you. If there's a lot of grief or sorrow or regret or worry, it's not like you can analyze it or figure it out too much.

[42:24]

You just stick with it. Coexist. I'll coexist with this. I'll sit right in the middle of this difficulty or suffering. This is endurance. This is the phase of endurance, maybe. Not struggling, but being kind. And then, you know, you find out sometimes it's not so bad, actually, to suffer or have a hard time. So this is like consent. Okay, okay. That's what it is. That's what it is. And sometimes, you know, later, you look back on that time and you're having such a hard time, and it's even, you kind of sort of miss it in a way, you know. There's this vivid quality sometimes to it. There's a really vivid time. Delight. So, you know, that we have difficulty means, you know, actually we're real. We're just who we are. And we're pretty vulnerable. And pretty vulnerable means pretty good. We're real and we're vulnerable like everybody else. So Dogen, last quote from Dogen, he says, one plants twining vines and gets entangled in twining vines.

[43:37]

This is the characteristic of unsurpassable enlightenment. Thank you very much. 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.

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