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. Welcome. Hello. Good evening, everyone. And thank you, Abbott David Tenzen. I want to say, first of all, that you just said a warm connection. Yes, totally. I'm deeply, deeply grateful and appreciative for how friendly, just extremely wonderfully friendly, you know, not that... not some kind of... spiritual persona type friendliness, but real genuine friendliness, Baker Roshi and I have been receiving here.

[01:08]

And it's really been a wonderful time to have the opportunity to practice with you and be in the presence of this amazing place. You've already learned so much. Thank you. Yeah, and for tonight, by the way, I do need to figure this out. The way I speak now, you can hear me okay? Okay. I'm not used to speak with loudspeakers, but that's good. Okay. Yeah, I thought for this time we have together tonight, mostly I just wanted to hang out and continue a Dharma conversation which your talk and which maybe hopefully some of you were part of Abbott David's talk on Saturday.

[02:10]

There are a number of points from that talk that actually have been working in me and which I think are highly relevant and helpful for just for the lack of a better, broad term for our world today, whatever that is exactly, but our world today and what to do. And I'm not going to comment really on the koan that Abbot David discussed very insightfully. That was very helpful to me. But more bring out certain points that are particularly alive and might practice right now. And so this koan, for those of you who haven't been in Saturday's talk, the core two lines in that koan are, this is Master Dijang and Master... I always don't pronounce that right, Xuanzha?

[03:16]

Yeah. Shushan. Shushan are in the fields and... Shushan asks, let's just assume a sincere question. We don't know exactly, because there's a lot of relational stuff going on between the two, but let's assume he's asking a sincere question, and he asks what to do about the world. And again, I do think, at least for me, that's a relevant question, what to do about the world. How do we know what to do? And then Dijang likes so often Zen teachers in their frustrating manner. They never really tell us what to do. I don't know if you've had that experience. I surely have. What to do? Please tell me what to do. And that's, they are just not going to say what to do.

[04:18]

So Dijang in a similar manner says, what do you call, what do you call the world? So he asks a question back into the process. Of course, implying though, if you want to know what to do, you have to know what you're calling the world. If you want to know what to do, you have to get a perspective onto the views that your actions may be arising from. Your actions will be an expression of your views. And not just views in the sense of, you know, opinions or complex conclusions we've drawn, but here he points even more deeply what you call the world.

[05:19]

He goes at the level of naming, just pure naming, naming the world. What are the names in which the world appears to you. So Dijang is, again, Dijang is bringing this kind of question into Shushan's process of asking how to act, what to do. And I do think that's gonna be my statement for, well, one of the, at least opening statements for tonight, I do think that that is an utterly relevant addition, that question, what do you call the world, to our societal conversations today. I do believe that no matter what we look at with regard to societal transformations, and there are many kinds of transformations that are needed for various different kinds of reasons, not just, you know...

[06:27]

We know, but ecological catastrophe, do we call it? Do we call it climate warming? That's a different kind of name. That sounds like, oh, nice, there's going to be avocado in my garden. Or do we call it climate catastrophe? Ecological catastrophe. It makes a difference what we call it. Or be it systemic injustice, oppression, all kinds of, you know, or the global issues we're dealing with. No matter, I think those of us living in, at least many of those of us engaged in contemplative practices in Western societies, Europe or the US, many of us are, I would think, engaged with a sincere questioning of our views. And the world's favorite genius, Albert Einstein, I think one of his, besides the theory of relativity and other great things that he came up with, one of the really useful things he said is, the thinking that created the problem can't solve it.

[07:49]

So the thinking that Sometimes that's also translated as the mind in which the problem is a problem, in which the problem was created, from which the problem was created, is not gonna be the same kind of mind that can solve the problem. So from my point of view, that's where wisdom practices, wisdom practices come in in an utterly relevant way. I do think the kind of societal transformations that we are going to need will require a wisdom component, a wisdom practice component. That's my view. That's the position I'm taking. I think we have a lot of other components. We have a lot of intelligence. We have a lot of technology. We have, I don't know, whatever else we have.

[08:51]

resources of various kinds. But from my point of view, again, the position I'm taking, one of the missing elements is wisdom. Then, of course, though, if I'm going to say that, I feel like I should define what I mean with wisdom in this particular case. And of course, I'm a Zen practitioner, so... what I mean with wisdom, I was always very grateful to the Buddhist teachings that, you know, even though teachers don't tell us, me at least, never exactly what to do, but they, teachers have, Beka Roshi specifically, has told me very early on and never made a big secret out of it what to look for or how to view things. Like, wisdom views aren't a big secret in Buddhism.

[09:56]

We know what they are. And basically, they're pretty simple. Wisdom views, the core views that I want to point to today. Wow. That's normal for here, right? like that would be an instance of it. The world isn't predictable. It's like, of course, we know in emergency situations, geez, I didn't expect that. But so one of the core wisdom view and practice is everything changes. Everything changes. Everything changes. We say in Greek philosophy,

[10:57]

The only constant is change, right? Now, from a Buddhist point of view, that's not even true. Also, change isn't even a constant. Change changes too. Change changes how change changes. It's highly dynamic. It's so dynamic, there is no ground. Change changes, everything changes. And everything changes together. us sitting here is changing together. Everything changes together. These are, I would say, the core wisdom views of Buddhism. They're pretty easy to understand and not always so easy to embody and act from them what to do about the world. What does that mean? How do we derive our actions?

[11:59]

once these views have become really clear. Well, I should add in a third kind of consequence out of the first two, which is very impactful, though, of course, you know, with the first change and permanence, and the second interdependence, everything changes together. And then the third, which again is a kind of like, that is part of the same equation is, if that's so, then nothing has an inherent self. Not even you. Nothing has an inherent self. We're all changing together continuously, bringing each other's experience forth, co-arising. So if these are wisdom views, and that we can maybe explore a little bit at least tonight, How would that lead to? What kind of actions would that lead to?

[13:02]

And how would it lead to what kinds of actions? What could be the process? What could be the craft? Of course, again, that's why I emphasize not so much just Buddhist philosophy, but Buddhist practice craft or wisdom practice craft is to, once views are known, We can examine them, you know, we can think about, are they really true? And we would want to, as practitioners also, we would want to really look into, is this true? In the case of change or interdependence, you know, that's both true, but also we can say it's sometimes, you know, like when I go outside, then that big tree was there yesterday, and I expect it to also be there tomorrow.

[14:03]

So that didn't change, did it? Well, if I look closely, yes, the tree actually changed. But there's also permanence. Otherwise, I'm from Germany, and just recently, to many people's surprise, our train system just turned into a complete mayhem. you look like you've taken a German train. And once predictability wasn't available for German train customers anymore, it really wasn't, it was a big surprise and a big problem. So yeah, normally we expect predictability because it oftentimes works. But then we're surprised when it's not as we expected, when it's not predictable. Would you agree? Are you surprised? Like, oh, I expected that to still be that way.

[15:05]

But that means that you're inhabiting, that we are inhabiting, a view of permanence. If change is the surprise, then that notion, that experience, the surprise itself, the experience of being surprised, then that is a symptom. of inhabiting permanence, or of living a view of permanence. And now Buddhism isn't saying that permanence isn't true. It's relatively true. I love that about Buddhism, how it has several truths. It's relatively true. It's just not fundamentally true. And that's the wisdom choice. We could turn it upside down, but Buddhism says, yeah, do that, but then you're not living wisely. It's better to expect and to live in impermanence and be happy and appreciative of when things do work out the way you expect it to.

[16:10]

But, you know, like that. Then it's not surprise and disappointment. No, it's appreciation and gratitude when something does work out. If we're inhabiting change and impermanence as a truth, a more fundamental truth. So again, we can examine, and we should, of course, as practitioners, we always want to examine our actual experience, right? Not just our thinking, but notice the symptoms in how our experience is put together. So we could look in a similar way into the experience of interdependence, and what is that really? You know, when do you feel, start putting on that lens of, when do I feel that another being, not always even a human being, but just something other, is part of me?

[17:19]

When do I feel that I am part of something other. How does that work? And is it really other and me? What are the layers here? For me, what has become such a fruitful process, which then made me decide, as Abbott David introduced, I studied psychology and I had to at some point decide whether to pursue the path of practice or Zen practice or whether to move on in academic psychology. And what kept me in practice was very, very clearly the process of trying out views and then exploring them and then living questions. I loved the idea of living questions. In academic psychology, everything seemed to always be about definitions and answers.

[18:22]

And I just loved the idea of living the questions. So I ended up here rather than at the university. But yeah, anyway, so wisdom views. Yeah, so I guess what I'm Suggesting here, as part of practicing with this koan that was brought up on Saturday, or as part of the questions, whether even independent from the koan, when I ask what to do about the world, to first very deeply again look at what are the views that my actions are an expression of. what is the, you know, like I may have an impulse to do this or that, to, oh, it can be anything, but we did just yesterday in a restaurant, for instance, have a very difficult conversation with another customer who, it felt a little bit like that person was trying to pick a fight

[19:45]

And that's such a situation, it's interesting. We didn't do anything but just leave the restaurant and we were happy with the food. And it seemed like this person didn't want us to be happy with the food. I still don't quite understand, but he was very unhappy that we were happy with the food. There was a real tension there. And... So those are the kinds of situations when interactions have, in this particular case, have forms of aggression in them. What to do? What to do? Should I show a misplace? Should I try to be nice? Should I just walk away? Should I? There's so many options. So whatever comes up, I've been thinking about that. over the evening, what should I have done?

[20:47]

I didn't do much. So I was wondering, what should I have done? What would I have felt better with? And I can see, though, how all the different alternatives, just walking away, is an expression of a particular view of this person, of what's worthwhile, of what makes sense to do, of what's important. Or engaging with this person is another kind of as an expression of another kind of view. As practitioners, I would say to look for views, which the views of impermanence and interdependence are such views that open up inner space rather than closing the experience that's there. Do you know that difference?

[21:48]

That's, I think, a really important difference. We can hold views that open us into an experience and even a phenomenon that almost like we can hold a certain openness, openness in view that inquires, that calls forth, what's going on here? What is this really? Rather than close it off, put a label on it and... you know, park it into one of our inner drawers or categories. So what are the views and how do the views function such that they call forth the world, such that they allow for the world to speak to us, even to sing to us? As Baker Roshi oftentimes quotes Suzuki Roshi, He asked this question, when is a tree a tree? And when is a tree a poem?

[22:51]

So again, what is it that Zen practice and contemplative practice, with the intention to inhabit wisdom views, what is it that that can specifically bring into our world today? Well, I would say, for one thing, trying out these very particular views and inhabiting how can they open the world? How can they call forth the world? How can our eyes be such that they see more and not less? That the world is coming forward into our senses, into our eyes, our ears. When is it a poem? not necessarily a nice poem, but something that speaks to us, not always at all, not always at all in a rational way or in a conceptual way, but so much more often just, you know, the way maybe music does, in resonances, dissonances, feelings, non-graspable feelings.

[24:10]

in bodily ways of knowing. I do think that is, for instance, one of them, like Einstein says, you know, what is the thinking, what is the mindset that is creating certain problems? It is a particular kind of epistemology, a particular kind of idea that the world exists in the categories of subject, verb, and object. It's like the DNA of, it's not even... Subject, verb, and object is the DNA of our language. That is present in any language view we hold in English or in German, for instance, as well. But that's a view. Does the world really exist as subjects, verbs, and objects? No, it doesn't. It exists in so many other ways that aren't captured by that structure. So what are the views that allow our experience to open into a world that may defy any structure that just wildly unfolds?

[25:27]

What is that like and how do we learn it? I think the good news is that we can learn it quite simply as we do. in how the practice of still seated meditation is conceived and then practiced by all of us. Just this one square meter of, you know, where the time and how we sit and everything depends on what kind of meditation instruction you've gotten. But I've gotten a very detailed one about the precision of how exactly everything has to be, which hand lies in which hand, with what kind of pressure the thumbs are touching. Like, very detailed. So there's a lot of structure in the bodily posture. There's a lot of structure in the schedule. The bell is ringing at exactly 30 minutes and not 31.

[26:32]

And even if you feel like sitting another three minutes, nope, that's it. So it's clear structure. But within... that define time and space of that one square meter and those 30 minutes, there is no structure. Nobody tells us what to do. It's the permission to release all the structures, all the names, all the grammars, all the architectures of our thinking. Release that maybe into gravity into vastness, into unstructured time and space. And I think if we can learn, at least that's my experience, to stay with that process and to learn the unfolding of releasing everything literally into

[27:38]

unstructured time and space, and trusting that it, unstructured time and space, which is as vast as the stars, boundless, that it will be there and hold and carry. So, yeah, maybe from, I guess, just that. to be sensitive to. It may sometimes be a tender or gentle, tiny little feeling, sometimes like a light or just a tingling that can arise in that unstructured, vast time and space and be like the seed or the beginning of a different way being in this world that is constantly changing together.

[28:45]

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 Dorma.

[29:10]

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