This podcast is offered by San Francisco's Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. Wake up. This week I've been reminding myself and others it's a good time to wake up. We celebrate Buddha's enlightenment on December the 8th. And that was just a few days ago. So there have been Zen people sitting, Rohatsu Sesshin, around the world. and are still sitting now, right now, in Tassajara, in honor of Shakyamuni Buddha, historic Buddha, and enlightenment.

[01:10]

So please forgive me for using these big words, the big B word, and the big E word. Because what's important is you, yourself waking up. The news these days is not all so good. Pretty difficult times. I've been receiving emails from a friend of mine who's down in Cancun, Mexico, a global environmental conference I don't think it's been getting much news coverage but it's been going on and they they tried to they actually did last night release a statement a harmonious statement that most of the nations agreed to because it was basically just a statement of hope

[02:21]

without any real commitment to make changes. Bolivia, however, protested and did not sign on. So we do live in a world with a lot of, let's say, collective karma. I could say karmic chickens coming home to roost. And so it's quite a challenge for us to be willing to wake up to that, to wake up with the circumstances we find ourselves in. We might think, through no fault, through no fault of my own. Still, our practice of enlightenment means to wake up to what is.

[03:29]

So that means internally and all around us. Last night there was a ceremony here of Dharma entrustment for one of our teachers who lives, she lives, Marsha Angus. lives in Mill Valley. And she has taken up now formally the practice of teaching Dharma. There's the D word now. Teaching what's true. How can we do that? At the end of that, ceremony, Michael Wenger, who was leading that ceremony, said he quoted an old text called The Path of Purification, which says there's an internal tangle. The whole world is a tangle.

[04:35]

Internal tangle. An external tangle. Who untangles the tangle? And None of us are off the hook, actually. In this lineage practice of Zen, we start with enlightenment. We begin with enlightenment. Suzuki Roshi's book, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, is always going back again and again and reminding us that we are already right now, seated at the place of enlightenment. Your own body is a gift of enlightenment. But it's so easy not to believe that. It's so easy to believe whatever you might believe.

[05:37]

Some mind full of thoughts, beliefs, Because enlightenment can't really be understood with the mind. It can only be understood with the whole being. So sitting, when we sit zazen, we are actually understanding enlightenment. Sitting zazen is our way of understanding enlightenment. It becomes a problem when we want more explanation. But I want to encourage you to understand enlightenment, and that is to fully be present moment by moment. And that's a little different than trying to get someplace. A couple of weeks ago, I was in Japan

[06:44]

I gave a little talk for some of the priests in Nagano. Then afterwards, my host took me out to a sushi bar. And a very tiny little hole-in-the-wall place in Nagano. It was his favorite place, I think. Tiny, maybe ten seats, ten places to sit. And... And I was there with Huizu Suzuki Roshi and Genga Akiba Roshi. And our host there was Akujin Kuryanagi. And then someone else came in to sit down and was introduced to me as a great scholar of Shin Buddhism, great scholar of Pure Land Buddhism. But I didn't speak Japanese, and he didn't speak English.

[07:48]

But Kuryanagi translated, and I said, I had a question for him. I said, is it permissible for a Shin Buddhist, Pure Land Buddhist, to sit zazen? So this got translated, and there was some discussion. And the answer came back to me, no. Because we Pure Land Buddhists are keeping a vision of the Pure Land in mind all the time. Keeping a vision of the Pure Land in mind all the time. And Zazen would not contribute to that. So I said, wonderful. I thought, this is a very, this is a perfect conversation.

[08:53]

Because Zazen doesn't get you anywhere. Zazen doesn't, in our Zazen we don't conjure up some vision of a pure land. we establish confidence that this is pure land right now. Confidence in this being, the Buddha world, this being, the true world right now. Realizing that this moment of awareness, this mind that arises to greet what is, is a mind that's a gift offered by the Buddha-land itself. So this can sustain you even in your last breath. The moment, this moment, this moment.

[10:00]

Being willing to have confidence in this moment, this is our practice. And we have some legends, we have some stories of... Buddha's enlightenment. And they can be encouragement, I think. We have the story of the young, you know, mid-30s, young person. How many people here are in your 30s? All right. You're just at the right age. So the great wise person of the Shakya tribe was sitting and then saw the morning star.

[11:03]

Saw the morning star. And so it said that seeing the morning star was a kind of, oh, moment of realizing that the entire universe is nothing but Buddha nature. And everything in it, every individual in it, is nothing else. So this kind of a moment sometimes happens to us, probably everyone here, at some moment, seeing the morning star. Something like that. And it's at that time to realize it doesn't last. You know, the wonderful thing about the morning star is if you watch it, it's morning. The darkness is turning to light.

[12:06]

And then pretty soon you can't see the star anymore. the little child in you might ask, you know, where do the stars go in the daytime? So seeing the morning star and then realizing, oh, it's gone. It took me years, actually, to realize myself the importance of that part, the morning star, gone. Here's a poem a little bit like this from Raymond Carver. Raymond Carver was one of our West Coast writers, poets, grew up in Oregon, Northern California. He died when he was 50, age 50.

[13:13]

He's famous for the poem Gravy. because he was a very heavy drinker and smoker, I think. And when he was told he had six months to live, he decided to stop drinking. And then he lived for 10 years. And so he called that whole time gravy, the whole last 10 years. Still, he died at age 50. Pretty hard on his body. So I hope you don't need such a pronouncement, a death sentence, before you start taking care of your body. Anyway, this is a poem called The Window.

[14:17]

A storm blew in last night and knocked out the electricity. When I looked through the window, the trees were translucent, bent and covered with rime. A vast calm lay over the countryside. I knew better. But at that moment, I felt I'd never in my life made any false promises, nor committed so much as one indecent act. My thoughts were virtuous. Later on that morning, of course, electricity was restored. The sun moved from behind the clouds, melting the hoarfrost, and things stood as they had before. So this is a usual way.

[15:21]

Right in the middle he gives the clue. He says, I knew better. He knew better than the calm. He knew better than the life of no false promises. So his thinking mind, again, when the electricity was restored. his thinking mind took over again. Not so easy to stay with the calm when we're involved in such a busy life. We actually tend to believe the busy life and don't realize that when you stop, it's peaceful. And that's possible at any moment. It's just this close to where you are right now.

[16:29]

So I think that Chakyamuni Buddha had the confidence, somehow, had the confidence to not go back to thinking he knew better. So this is a very interesting image too, the image of Shakyamuni sitting. He had been sitting for some days. Maybe he was sitting for seven days, as we do in Sashin. And at some point there, the thoughts that were undermining him became overwhelming. Almost overwhelming. And was challenged by the question, you know, what right do you have to be in touch with what's true?

[17:42]

What right do you have to see things clearly? Who the hell do you think you are? This is sometimes presented in our legends as the archetype of the devil, the one who comes and challenges one's right to exist. And then what Shakyamuni did at that point, I think, is really remarkable. In fact, what's maybe most remarkable is what he did not do. He did not start defending himself. He did not start explaining that he actually came from a well-educated family. He did not present his resume. He did not talk about his various PhDs in different forms of yoga.

[18:45]

He didn't explain all the good things that he'd done. He didn't... defend himself, he actually surrendered himself. So we have the image of him just reaching and touching earth. Why don't you try that right now? Just touch what's beneath. Whatever you're touching is earth. Whenever you reach down and touch where you're sitting or where you're seated or where you're standing, that's earth. This is earth in the form of, for some of us in the room, in the form of grass. These are grass mats, actual grass, that grows in earth and then is cut and woven into these mats.

[19:50]

Quite wonderful. This I just touched wood. The wood is earth too. Or I can touch. I don't know if this is cotton. Maybe cotton. This is polyester. But you might not think of it. This is earth also, you know. You can't get away from it. So why not connect with it? This may be made of petroleum. So we have this too, probably. Which we're burning up pretty fast, you know. So we will have to suffer from our excess. We and our species and other species.

[20:50]

If we don't respect... the earth enough. We don't respect the actual material of our bodies and respect that the earth is our body. So Shakyamuni reached and touched the earth. There's one at the Asian Art Museum, there's one sculpture of Shakyamuni Buddha touching the earth. It's just a small bar relief part of a larger set of scenes of Buddha's life. But in this one, when Buddha's touching the earth, underneath the earth, there's an earth goddess reaching up and touching fingertip to fingertip. So it's helpful, I think, to realize this

[21:56]

sense of, you know, this intimate connection, actually. We sometimes say Mother Earth, but we don't actually realize how much we are actually Earth. So that's, you know, we say, we may be fond of thinking, oh, we're connected in We're all connected. We say six degrees of separation. But we're connected even much closer than that. This is one degree, not even separation, one degree connection. So I think it's very important to realize that Shakyamuni Buddha, when confronted with the worst threat, his very right to exist.

[22:59]

The question about his right to exist simply touched the earth. And the earth said, of course. You're here. You've already been given birth. This moment, right now, you are produced with all things. with all beings. Not separate from beings. Completely interwoven in the fabric of beings. So this, I thought, is like if Raymond Carver had realized is okay not to know better. It's actually okay not to know better. This is not easy.

[24:03]

When you check your own mind and what you tend to gravitate towards, you may give more credibility to the thoughts that you have in your flimsy mind than you give credibility to the earth. So... I'd say this is something to investigate carefully. And then let go of the certainties that you carry in your mind or that are built into your body. Those certainties are actually not so reliable. If you check them carefully, you may... kind of get bored and tired of them. I think that's what Bob Dylan was coming to when he did the song.

[25:04]

Lay down your weary tune Lay down Lay down the song you strum And rest yourself Neath the strength of strings. No voice can hope to hum. Laying down your weary tune. So this is laying down one's whole involvement with oneself. One's own ego. One's own attachment to... self, ideas, and resting in the greater vibration of things. Resting, Dylan said, strength of strengths.

[26:10]

I'm thinking, the strength of strengths, what's that? The total dynamic working. Dogen would say, Dogen Zenji would say, total dynamic working. The great vibration. all of the subtle energies that actually are producing this moment, this breath. And you can rest right here. This moment is a peaceful land, peaceful place, nourishing. So this too is part of the big E in enlightenment. The big E. The E is resting. So this is a very respectful way.

[27:11]

Appreciating that the earth is nourishing you right now. Right now the tatami mats are nourishing you. You can't exist without them. To exist without them is just some idea. We also have the image of the Bodhi tree of Chakyamuni Buddha sitting right under, right next to the Bodhi tree. This is very important to realize. One does not wake up alone one wakes up with a tree. We know now, scientifically, that the trees breathe us. That the trees are involved in our own breath, providing us with a balance.

[28:25]

We could not appear here on this biosphere until trees, algae, a lot of hard-working algae, had prepared this nourishing place so that the breath is nourishing. So we may be creating by our kind of exaggerated exploitation. By thinking that actually we're separate from things and not respecting things and we tend to exploit them. And this is like cutting off our own source. It's like suffocating ourselves.

[29:35]

So I mention this because I still realize that the days ahead and the weeks ahead and the years ahead for ourselves and our children demand a high, say, intelligence, and a high value of awareness, a high value of awareness that we are completely interrelated, a high confidence in our resilience, our ability to actually continue to take the pulse, the pulse of what's happening in ourselves and the pulse of what's happening in our communities, and bring awareness, a healing awareness. Awareness itself is healing. Amazingly, that the awareness itself is compassionate, loving attention.

[30:54]

So this itself is healing. And then also there may be some information that comes along. Oh, now I know what to do. Now I know how to help because I'm listening and I'm seeing. Now I can see how to help. This is true in one's own body. One listens to one's own body, appreciates it. First step is to notice where there's some distress and be willing to simply bring a kind, warm-hearted awareness to where there's some distress. If you turn away from it, then you can't be so helpful. You can't ever know what needs, what need is there. So when we sit, Zazen naturally begin to notice, oh, there's some discomfort. Do I turn away from it?

[32:01]

Am I afraid of it? Or am I willing to just be present with it? It takes tremendous confidence in the true nature of things to be willing to be present with one's own body, not to mention the annoying presence of others. But you can start with your own body. And then you might realize, oh, others are also this body. Just as the earth is Shakyamuni Buddha's body, others are also this body. In fact, there aren't others, except, I think, oh, there are others. So this is all part of... how we understand waking up.

[33:04]

Waking up. Buddha is not something so special. Like there is no Buddha. There's no Buddha. There's just becoming. Then there isn't becoming either because that would imply there is something to become. So Buddha is not so special. In fact, he was willing to say, okay, I'm not so special. So this is a kind of tricky business here. You don't want to deny yourself. There's a tendency to go into thinking, oh, denial of self, and actually Buddha made that

[34:04]

He tried that out, the story. He tried denying himself, tried not eating. And not eating has its limits as a practice. And then he tried various forms of purification. And those may be helpful. It may be helpful. Sometimes I suggest to someone, please do a particular practice. Do a particular practice for a while, even knowing that it ultimately is not so helpful. So you may take up the practice of thank you, practice of gratitude.

[35:16]

It's a good time of year. We've had Thanksgiving, practice of gratitude. And now, because it's the dark time of year, because we're going into winter solstice in the wintertime, dark days, it's good to have a practice of warmth. So even though there isn't any particular practice that's needed, it's helpful to have the practice of warmth. So gratitude is a practice of warmth. So then taking up the practice of gratitude in a specific way, I suggest to say thank you. Whenever someone does anything in relation to you, someone comes up and makes a request, say, oh, thank you.

[36:20]

Thank you for the request. Someone comes up and tells you you're stupid, say, thank you. You're mostly right. It's true. Most things I don't know, actually. What I know is just a little bit, so thank you for reminding me. You make a request to someone else, you know, would you please shut up? And they say, I hate it when you say that. No, I'm not going to shut up. I want you to listen to me. And then say, thank you for reminding me. That something needs to be heard. There's some pain that needs to be heard. Thank you for reminding me. To receive everything then as a gift is this practice of gratitude.

[37:28]

That means that enlightenment is not something that you can expect. Enlightenment is something that happens each moment, if you are willing to receive it. Thank you. This is the difference, I'd say, between Zen and pure land. This moment is pure land. Even if it shows up in a painful, ugly way. Even if it shows up as death. Thank you. good friend. Many of us know Darlene Cohen, one of our wonderful teachers. She's dying these days. But she's still alive. She sent out a message a few days ago saying, I'm not dead yet. It's a tendency we have to try to get something over with, right?

[38:37]

Again, wanting to go to some certainty rather than to be willing to be in the not knowing of life, of actual living. Actual living, actual dying. To be willing to be in the not knowing of actual living, actual dying. Not easy. But this practice of thank you can help you. Be present. It may seem kind of clumsy, kind of arbitrary. Oh, say thank you. Sometimes you may realize to say it out loud is confusing to someone else. You might just say it to yourself. But a lot of times you can actually say it out loud. Or you can just Put your hands together.

[39:41]

This is also a thank you. This thank you is the true reality of this Buddha body meeting. The true reality of the Buddha body in front of me. That little chime out there tells me it's 11 o'clock and I should stop. Thank you for listening. 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, please visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we all fully enjoy the Dharma.

[40:43]

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