This podcast is offered by San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. Welcome. Hello, everybody. Welcome to the San Francisco Zen Center. And my name is Jordan Thorne. Grateful. to have you all here in front of me and giving me the excuse to offer this talk, so thank you. Just a little while ago, I came from the art lounge where I was, where there's a class during the practice period, an introduction to Buddhism, introduction to Zen class.

[01:04]

And in that introduction to Buddhism class today, we talked about the Four Noble Truths, a little bit about them. And I have some further things to say on the subject. So in some ways, today's talk is about the Four Noble Truths, a very fundamental, foundational, teaching of Buddhism. These Four Noble Truths are sometimes called the Noble Truth of Suffering. A very particular word, suffering, which I'll say more about. But first, before I explicate, perhaps, Buddhist teachings of suffering I want to say that we live in a beautiful world and that the blue sky and the fluffy clouds are a great gift and we live in a world with picnics and puppies and kittens and funerals there's a funeral here this afternoon we live in an amazing this human life experience is an enormous gift

[02:29]

opportunity, challenge, training arena for us to live in, to go forth in. The world is what we make of it. And here we are today at a Buddhist temple. In particular, we're here together. Actually, there's some people in the dining room listening, and later on I think there will be some folks. in some other private space perhaps listening by tape or podcast or whatever it might be so i don't want to limit this audience to those i see right now but let me just say uh because it's useful to the point i want to make that here we are together in this particular room right now and this room is of a particular size it's you know whatever it's a big room but it's not the biggest room ever It includes all of us, and it includes, what was it?

[03:39]

I include multitudes? I contradict myself. Thank you, I shall. So anyway, with all those different things that we might be, we find ourselves here today at a Zen Buddhist temple, at a Zen center. And so maybe I might just say, what is Buddhism? It's a question I'm interested in. And I'm going to tell you all that Buddhism is a lot of different things. But it is also an intention and effort to live a life that turns towards awakening. Buddhism is a practice that organizes itself around the enlightenment of our founding teacher, Shakyamuni Buddha, who offered guidance to us.

[04:49]

And Buddhism is an effort, the practice of Buddhism is an effort to understand who we really are. maybe not the same as who we think we are. We contradict ourselves. And just a second ago, or maybe moments ago, I said the word enlightenment. I said the word awakening. I said being fully who we are. And saying those words, I... I feel a little kind of, you know, I feel some concern. I don't want to just toss off words like awakening or enlightenment, casually. They're special words, and they need a special container and a special intention, and they need to be given some special weight.

[05:58]

But nonetheless, here I am, sitting in this speaker's seat at this Buddhist temple, and I have to say something about Buddhism. And that makes me think I want to say something about waking up. And so for me, most days start with the alarm in the morning that wakes me up. I put my hand out, I turn it off. And I lay there for a moment. And then I get up. That's a kind of waking up. And you know, waking up is waking up. So not to get too fancy about it, but in my... I know that my waking up in the morning and setting forth into the day is not the same as what was meant when we say that Buddha, under the bow tree, after seven days of sitting and after years of ascetic practices, woke up.

[07:09]

In Zen practice, we have a kind of special vocabulary, a special lingo we use sometimes. Actually, one of the most charming aspects of Zen for me is that we describe the transcendent truths of Buddhism with regular words. But sometimes these regular words are put together in ways that clearly have some potency. And I'm going to read here this practice period that was underway here at City Center as using a teaching of a Japanese Zen master named Dogen, a teaching that he wrote called the Genjo Koan as its kind of organizing core. And I want to read a few words that Dogen said, which are this. To study the Buddha way is to study the self.

[08:27]

To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind, as well as the bodies and minds of others, drop away. And no trace of realization remains. And this no trace continues endlessly. So this is a teaching about waking up. Maybe a little different than setting the alarm and having a jangle in the morning. This is a teaching that encourages us to live our life so completely that as we study ourself, we forget ourself. And forgetting ourselves... We are actualized, and actualized means woken up by myriad beings.

[09:33]

And doing this, our bodies, I say bodies, my body and your bodies and all of us together, and our minds, your minds and my minds and all of us together, drop away. And drop away. And then this... no trace, and doing this, and doing this, dropping away, then no trace remains, which no trace continues endlessly. So this is a kind of, for me at least, hearing these words, this is a little bit like a high-def IMAX movie version of Waking Up. It's a really strong, I feel that it has a strong description. To study the Buddha way is to study the self.

[10:42]

To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind, as well as the bodies and minds of others, drop away. No trace of realization remains. This no trace continues endlessly. This is the kind of place we want to point to at the Zen Center, at a Buddhist temple. And Buddhist teachings, which are myriad, bring us towards this place through different devices. through different metaphors. And I'm going to say something about the way of practice that Buddha expressed almost directly, a few days or so, but almost directly after he had his enormous waking up.

[12:05]

This is a teaching which we call the first turning of the wheel of the Dharma. And it's also a teaching which we call about the Four Noble Truths. And these Four Noble Truths, with apologies towards the limitation of words I'm going to say, number one, there is suffering. Number two, there is a cause of suffering. And number three, there is an end of suffering. There's a possibility of an end of suffering. And four, there is a path towards the end of suffering. So, in what I just described, first, second, third, fourth truth, I use the word suffering every time. But suffering, Buddha actually didn't speak English.

[13:07]

so he didn't use that particular word he used a word called dukkha and dukkha means impermanence it means stress it means despair or worry it means dukkha is a word which means that things are of the nature of change. Included in dukkha is the fact of love. Love is a place, love is something which we would like to have be steadfast, but it changes too. So I could say that the Four Noble Truths are There is stress. There is a cause of stress.

[14:10]

And there's the possibility of the end of stress. There is a noble eightfold path towards the end of stress. There is impermanence. There is a cause of impermanence. You can substitute some other words if you don't want to use suffering. But this teaching that Buddha gave shortly after his waking up, this first turning of the wheel of Dharma, is something that he kept to for his entire life. It wasn't just, you know, first he delivered the first teaching and then the second teaching got kind of better and the third teaching was, well, that was really where he was at. He came back over and over to this. And at the very end of Buddha's life, when I say the end, I mean at the last moments of his life, he said he had his assembly of students gathered around him, and he asked the group around him, he said, if even a single monk has any doubt or perplexity concerning Buddhadharma or Sangha,

[15:35]

about the path, about our practice, well then ask. Don't later regret that the teacher was face to face with us, but we didn't bring ourselves to question him. And at this, his students gathered around him were silent. And he said it again, a second time, he said, if any of you have a question about my teachings, this is the time to come forth with your question. And perhaps their sorrow Or for whatever reason, his students were silent in the third time. He said, if any of you have a question about the Dharma, about my teaching, please ask me now. And still nobody said it. And so then he tried a different tack. He said, perhaps if one of you would like to share your question with a friend, and then the friend might ask me. Thinking maybe they were kind of shy or would be embarrassed. And still nobody came forth and asked anything of him at that moment. And so then he said to them, he said, now then monks, I tell you, all conditioned experiences are subject to change.

[16:46]

Bring about your own awakening through mindfulness. And those were his final words. All conditioned experiences are subject to change. Please, bring about your own awakening through mindfulness. And I know that's maybe not exactly the teaching of the Four Noble Truths, but this is, for me, the experience of what dukkha, of suffering, where suffering comes from, the fact that things change. But still, I wanted to, at the beginning, I said, you know, we live in a beautiful world with a lovely day and such things as puppies. I was watching a YouTube video last night when I should have been preparing even better words. And the heading of it was toddler eaten to death by beagle pups.

[17:54]

And there was a group around. A toddler was in a little playpen, and there were like 10 puppies. And they were all nibbling on him. But it was lovely. They were licking him everywhere, and he was just giggling uncontrollably. And I thought, what a beautiful world we live in. Anyway, and maybe for that little kid, suffering was when the puppies were pulled out of his playpen. Things change. One bit of suffering was when I was... Anna had left the apartment and I had this video on and it sounded... Anyway, she came home and she thought that I was wasting time. Which I was. And very quickly I turned it off.

[19:00]

Got back to the matter. Things change. Um... So what do we... You know, there may be many things we share together. But one thing I can say we share as a common experience is this truth of things change. Things are impermanent. Those things that we thought were settled and steady don't always remain so. It might be that it's a little bit extra to say... that because of that, then this is called suffering. And I say that because actually I want to make a point that the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism are not a dogma. It's not that, you know, it's not a dogmatic instruction that our experience is akin to suffering.

[20:04]

There... This is not like an absolute truth. This is kind of a reflection of an observation about the way our human emotional life proceeds. But even in the midst of this reflection on the way things seem to happen, there is a teaching and instruction that there is a possibility of the end of it. There is a path through this to another place. This Buddhist instruct teaching of the vulnerable truths of suffering is a conditional statement intended to be useful. And if it's not useful, well, there's enough other stuff you can work with and deal with to try to...

[21:10]

Encourage yourself. Don't worry if it doesn't seem useful. The whole part of the addition of a personality, of our personality to suffering is an extra step. It's not that Buddha said when he delivered this first turning of the Wheel of Dharma that there is someone who is suffering. He said, there is impermanence. There is Duga. There is change. There is suffering. And so part of the practice of Buddhism is, I think...

[22:13]

an encouragement for us to let go of our personal sense that we own the discomfort of our life. But as an aspect or as a process towards letting go of it, we first acknowledge it. We don't deny it so that we can then see what it is we can drop. There's a very important text in Buddhism, in the Zen tradition, especially the Diamond Sutra. And almost in the very end of the Diamond Sutra, there is a short verse that describes how we should look at these conditioned experiences which we take as so real in our life.

[23:20]

It says, As stars, a fault of vision, as a lamp, a mock show, dew drops, or a bubble, a dream, a lightning flash, or cloud, so should one view what is conditioned. So should one view what is conditioned. This way of understanding the truth of suffering is not the same as feeling that you've been brutalized by life. This awareness of impermanence and how things change and how they affect us is something that occurs in the midst of this lovely room with a beautiful flower arrangement and the prospect afterwards of a delicious lunch.

[24:26]

and who knows what other prospects. Things are constantly changing. And one of the ways that at a Zen center that we face this truth and that we work with it, that we compost the change of our life and try to kind of bring forth fertile soil is that we go to the zendo and we sit down and we turn around and we face the wall and we're silent. We're quiet. And of course, when we make that effort to be silent and quiet, it only appears that we're silent and it only appears that we're quiet because if you could get inside the mind of that person with such equanimity facing the wall, you might find out that there's a lot of jumbles of thoughts and recollections and I can't believe I'm doing this or when is this?

[25:29]

It never ends. It never ends. Inside of us, our life force of delusion and desire continues. Inside of us, our thoughts continue to bubble. Sometimes it's a rolling boil and sometimes it's a small kind of... You and me and all of us are always being exposed to stuff. always being exposed to things that make us become whoever we are the next minute, moment, hour, life.

[26:45]

Being alive, and I think we're all alive here in this room, being alive is kind of a vulnerable, sensitive experience. And being alive, it's such a common thing that we see what happens through the prism, through the lens of us, of me, of I, of how things affect us. It's a very rare person who doesn't see themselves as in the center of whatever happens. they go through the day we remember what happened when we were roughly spoken to we remember what happened when we said just the right thing remember we remember well we remember us

[27:59]

we filter the day, we filter our life so that we're at the center of it. And I think, well, I can say for myself that when I came to the San Francisco Zen Center, I did not come here because I wanted to make acknowledgment of the suffering of my life, of the suffering of impermanence, front and center. I came here because actually I was searching out what I thought would be happiness. I was trying to actually... I was turning towards what I thought would be joy. And it was... In some ways it has been true. That has been so. But also... This turning towards fulfillment has included, I think does include, owning our own shit.

[29:16]

And owning your own shit is awkward. And excuse me for using a curse word. Maybe it's not a curse word used that way. There is a kind of thing that happens, that when we recognize the difficulty and awkwardness of our own life, that we, I think, more naturally and instinctively respect others. I encourage those of you in this room who are interested in Buddhism to investigate in your own life what impermanence looks like and whether this is suffering for you.

[30:24]

That's such an awkward word, suffering. I encourage you to understand Buddha's first truth, so that you can then come forward and ask yourself, well, what is the cause of this, which is Buddha's second truth? And perhaps feel some motivation to then step into the third truth of Buddhism, which is that there is an end to this, and then that leads us directly to a very particular and spelled out So the vulnerable truths of Buddhism, vulnerable truths of stress or impermanence, whatever it might be described at,

[31:38]

are not outside our experience. They're not truths that someone in India 2,500 years ago had. At least I believe that it is not a truth that was only valid then. I think it is something valid now. And why do I think that? Well, because I see things through my own eyes and in the middle of my own life that show. I can't know for you guys if it's in the middle of your life or so. So we are asleep, and the alarm rings, and we reach our hand out, turn it off, and get out of bed. What are we going to do with the day? What sort of day will it be? This world we live in is a beautiful place, and it is what it is. It's a place of...

[32:41]

an opportunity. This world is what we make of it. This world is a dance of impermanence. This world is made up of what Buddha called Dukkha. And this world is also the place of our transformation. Maybe. Well, thank you all for being here today. For more information, please visit sfcc.org and click giving.

[34:05]

May we all fully enjoy the Dharma.

[34:07]

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