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. Good morning, everyone. The audio good, John? Day six. So that means that this is our last lecture together with just us. Tomorrow we will welcome in the Saturday people to our intimacy that we have here.

[01:01]

And also we'll... So some of them may come even to our Buddha's Enlightenment ceremony, Dave. So they may even be here early in the morning for Buddha's Enlightenment ceremony, a wonderful ceremony. We're going to have two ceremonies tomorrow, one that has a lot of drumming and flower throwing and chanting. So that'll be quite wonderful. And then they'll be here for the lecture. They won't stay for lunch. And then there'll be the Shuso ceremony, and we'll have some more bodhisattvas arrive to help... our Shuso finisher questioning. So we'll have a bunch of guests here tomorrow. It's interesting how intimate you get after six days of this kind of sitting together. Not only the person you're sitting next to or the person that you sit across from or the person on your serving crew. After five or six days, you kind of get it down. In my case, I have

[02:05]

Eli Majesha, who basically attends to me all day long, making sure I show up at the right place at the right time, meeting with the right person, sits quietly there still until I get my robes all arranged, a kind of physical relationship that's very special. So we have that in this kind of a setting. But we're going to share our intimacy tomorrow with our friends that show up. I want to say something about the Shusō ceremony, because that's a very important ceremony, and the key element of the ceremony is the question and answer. Each of you asks a question of the Shusō, and she responds. It's a kind of creation of dharma. We express the dharma together, each one of us, through a question and answer process. And since there are so many of us asking these questions, and we will have 18 additional ex-jusos who will come and join us, we're not having a therapy session here.

[03:14]

These questions have to be succinct to the point. So possibly in the next 24 hours, if you have any spare time between your silent meditation illuminating your mind, you might think about what would be the essential question that I would want to ask someone about my practice. Get it down to something that you could do in one breath, let's say. And it's a question, it's not a statement. It's some sort of question that's personal to you, but at the same time is something that expresses maybe the wider sangha. You don't want to ask something that no one else can relate to. So it's a little bit of a, you know, it requires some sense of how to do this question. So I wanted to give you 24 hours to think about that. And by the way, this is not a test of the Shusoh.

[04:24]

This is a chance for us together to express the Dharma. So just to repeat, the most important part of this ceremony is that your sentence is, your question is short, short, and loud. If your chuso can't hear your question, she's not going to be able to answer it. And if the other people on the other side of the room can't hear your question, they're not going to be able to participate in this process. And that's part of what happens also is some of the questions, you may get your question kind of answered by somebody else, so you may modify your question as you're going along in the process. And there's a kind of energy flow to it. So when it's your turn, step right up. So let me just talk a little bit about the form. The form is fairly straightforward. It's a container to create this question and answering, but it begins with the Shuso coming forward and receiving a staff.

[05:31]

A staff is a symbol of teaching authority, which I'm going to loan to her for the period of the ceremony. So as part of coming up and getting the staff, she's going to do a lot of bowing. Bowing to past abbots, bowing to you, bowing to the new shusos that arrived, bowing to me. Lots of bowing going on, symbolically receiving the staff. Then she takes the staff over and sits down, makes a statement, and then says, you know... Give me your questions. And the first question will come from the Benji, who will recite something and then bring the question. The form for the question is you do something. You go, Xu So. And she says, hi. Meaning, yes, I'm ready. I'm ready for your question. And then you ask your question. And then she will, maybe after she's answered your question, she may hit her staff, meaning it's over with. Or she may, and then you will bow. Thank you very much. She may wait a little bit to see whether her answer was good enough for you, meaning that you might have a chance to have a follow-up question.

[06:42]

You know, so like just, for example, you might go, Shusou, all sashin I've been thinking about vanilla ice cream. Is that okay? I'm making up stuff. And she might say... That would be a good answer. Or she might say, think of chocolate ice cream. And she might hit her staff. And it's over with then. And you go, hmm, I wonder what she meant. Did she mean... I should think of something more profound than ice creaming, like the meaning of my life? Or did she mean chocolate is better for me nutritionally, and maybe when I leave the sashim, I should have chocolate ice cream instead of vanilla? You're left pondering that question. Or possibly, after she says vanilla ice cream, chocolate ice cream, you feel like that wasn't good enough, and she's paused enough, and you say, I was not talking about ice cream.

[07:51]

I was talking about Thinking and non-thinking, not thinking. And the Shuso goes, think non-thinking, boom. So there you go. Could be something like that. That might be too Zen-y. Could be something simpler like, Shuso, I have a hard time opening up to people. The only thing I have a real relationship with is my dog. And the shusou may say, well, you can have a relationship with me. I've just done a couple of examples that aren't real examples, but there are things that you might inspire you to think about how this process works. Okay. I should also welcome... neglected in some sense the people that are online.

[08:52]

We have 50 people that have been practicing with us all practice period online who've been listening to these talks every day and I'm just hoping that they've been inspired during this week to create some space in their life where they practice more intensely and know that to them I'll say that all 75 of us who've been practicing in this building have been practicing with good concentration and sincerity, and it's been an inspiration to all of us, and I'm hoping that you will take it as an inspiration to your practice, too. So a little bit about practice on the sixth day. There's a tendency, of course everybody's different, to go, how well I've made it now, I'm through. And I can... easily spend the entire afternoon daydreaming about who I'm going to have dinner with Saturday night or where I'm going hiking on Sunday or whatever.

[09:55]

And that may be okay and maybe you should do some of that, but on the same sense, I think if you can continue your practice, stay with it for today and tomorrow, it will pay off for you. And like I mentioned yesterday when Jason asked me about the middle way, you have enough experience now with your sitting that you know whether you're goofing off and need to encourage yourself to try a little harder or whether you're pushing yourself too hard and you need to, well, I think I'll just adjust my posture and relax my legs or do whatever it needs to do. You have agency to sit this day the best way you know how to sit it. And that's what I would encourage you to do. Take advantage of this day together with the support of all of us to sit as well as you can sit, knowing you know how to do that.

[11:03]

Dogen would say zazen is the same thing as life or being itself. practice of sitting zazana is just the practice of accessing the deepest way of being alive, life itself, being itself. Can we just really experience what being alive is? So, to continue on with our theme, the Ganjo Koan. There's actually a fair amount of material in these two paragraphs I'm going to read, and to get through it in one day, given it took us four days to get through the one paragraph I started with. I remember Linda Ruth told me she talked on the Ganjo Koan one practice period at Tassara, so I quickly checked, how did she do?

[12:12]

So she had three sashins, seven lectures in each seshin. That's 21 lectures. And then she gave six classes. So that was another 20. So she gave 27 lectures on the Genjo Koan. And I thought, well, okay, 27 lectures. And then I looked at the length of several lectures, an hour and a half, hour and 45 minutes. I mean, that's essentially like giving 50 lectures of the sort we've done here. So I don't feel so bad that we have not covered the entire Genjo Koan today. We've sort of like peaked in a little bit to some sections of it. You could literally probably do twice that many lectures and not get to the bottom of this particular essay. A fish swims in the ocean and no matter how far it swims, there is no end to the water. A bird flies in the sky and no matter how far it flies, there is no end to the water.

[13:14]

However, the fish and the bird have never left their elements. When their activity is large, their field is large. When their need is small, their field is small. Thus, each of them totally covers its full range, and each of them totally experiences its realm. If the bird leaves the air, it will die at once. If the fish leaves the water, it will die at once. Know that water is life, air is life, the bird is life. and the fish is life. Life must be the bird and life must be the fish. It is possible to illustrate this with more analogies. Practice, enlightenment, and people are like this. So Dogen is using the life of a fish and a bird as an analogy for our human life. He's comparing us to the freedom and activity and connectedness of fishes and birds. And this whole paragraph, he's emphasizing, you know, we have this idea that there's air, you know, the sky, and the bird flies in it.

[14:24]

But what he's saying is the bird and air are the same thing. They're a totally connected phenomenon. The air doesn't exist without the bird flying it. And the same with the fish in the water. They're one event. Fish are water, water are fish. I was thinking, these metaphors you use are so fantastic. We look at birds and fish, but thanks to modern technology, we can actually be like a fish. I remember the first time I was scuba diving off the island of Cozumel, off of Mexico. I mean, you're drifting along with the currents, you know, and you're just, you know, you're weightless. You're like a fish, you know. And you see a school of a hundred barracuda fishing. I mean, they're swimming opposite you and the current and the incredible power of their swimming and stuff. So, you know, or paragliding.

[15:25]

I was out at Stinson Beach a couple of weeks ago and watching those paragliders off of Mount Tam. I mean, it's like flying. So for then, I remember seeing those movies about the wingsuits. You've seen those, haven't you, where people jump off high cliffs and literally fly. Amazing. Wow, that's not for me. This is enough flying for me. This is Zazen flying. I'm going to stick with that. I know I'm not going to fall off the tan. I may fall asleep and bob a little bit. I've had friends fall off the tan, but they were usually on the side of the tan and fell off that direction. Usually fall off. It's not as far as those wing guys who go soaring through cliffs on both sides. We're pretty safe here. Pretty good shape. And one of the things is... So...

[16:28]

He's also sort of saying the fish is immersed in water, but it probably doesn't even know that it's in water. It sort of takes the water for granted. And the bird sort of takes the air for granted. It's so much a part of him. And the analogy is we humans are the same way. We absolutely are a part of life itself. I mean, we are life. And yet we forget that. We're so busy with our problems, we forget the medium itself. with which we're operating, the medium of living, the livingness. And so he's sort of pointing to that. Now, remember, you're alive. You're actually doing this. So, a bird flies in the sky, and no matter how far it flies, there is no end to the air. There's no end to the air. There's no end to our practice. Our practice continues endlessly. It was like the... Koan, the Shusosa, gave in her last talk, jumping off a 100-foot pole.

[17:30]

You think, well, I've sat this seven-day session. I've had that marvelous experience. I'm at the top of a 100-foot pole. I'm going to just stay here in my enlightenment. But, of course, your enlightenment, that wasn't the end to anything. The pole goes on forever, as Suzuki Roshi says. And, by the way, the first thing you should do is step away from that and let that go so you can receive the next event in your life. When their activity is large, their field is large. When their need is small, their field is small. Thus, each of them totally covers its full range and each of them totally experiences its realm. So your activity can be large or it can be small. So you could be a musician who travels all over the country performing for people and you have kind of a large existence. Or you could be sitting a sashin here at Zen Center and dishwashing, and you have a fairly small existence. But it doesn't matter whether you have a large existence. You could be, you know, like Dalai Lama gives a lecture to 10,000 people in some stadium, a large expression of practice.

[18:36]

Or you, you know, could be doing something smaller. So it doesn't matter, is what he's saying, is whether you have a large expression or a small expression. If you're... fully expressing your practice in that realm, that is perfect. That's just right. You don't need to say, oh, if only I were lecturing to 10,000 people like the Dalai Lama is, or something like that. I was remembering, I think it was Nyogen Senzaki who came over here, one of the early Zen teachers, and... I thought he spent 20 years dishwashing. I may have been confusing it with another one, but I actually looked it up on the Internet this morning. He came over here, and after he was just escorting his teacher, he was quite famous, and then he stayed here. This was just before the war because Japan was such a mess. But he was an elevator operator and a hotel clerk. For many years, he supported himself doing that.

[19:38]

And then he had this little room he set up, which he called the Floating Zendo, and he did it in... San Francisco, and then he moved to Los Angeles, where he probably, that's probably, I think, where he did the dishwashing job and running his floating Zenda. And meanwhile, some people sat with him, Robert Aitken sat with him, that set up, became a famous Zen teacher in Hawaii. Another guy sat with him, Paul, who became a famous Sufi teacher. But if you had just sort of met him as he was running up and down the elevator, you would have, you know, I'm sure he was fine operating his elevator. training future teachers of Zen in America. I was going to talk about this wonderful connection between the sky and the birds and the fish that Dogen picked up from his famous fascicle, The Point of Zen, where he had this...

[20:42]

poem that he had adopted from Hongzhi. And the last four lines of the poem are clear water all the way to the bottom. A fish swims like a fish. Vast, transparent, vast sky transparent throughout. A bird flies like a bird. That's a poem that goes way back to 8th century China. And I'm not going to do that because I have much more to talk about today. Any of those who are interested could wander into Dogen's The Point of Zazen and read that section. It's lovely. So, there's one more paragraph about birds and Now, if a bird or a fish tries to reach the end of its element before moving in it, this bird or fish will not find its way or its place.

[21:54]

When you find your place where you are, practice occurs actualizing the fundamental point. When you find your way at this moment, practice occurs actualizing the fundamental point. For the place... The way is neither large nor small, neither yours nor others. The place, the way, has not carried over from the past and is not merely arising now. Accordingly, in the practice enlightenment of the Buddha way, meeting one thing is mastering it. Doing one practice is practicing completely. Here is the place. Here the way unfolds. The boundary of realization is not distinct. for the realization comes forth simultaneously with the mastery of the Buddha Dharma. Do not suppose that what you realize becomes your knowledge and is grasped by your consciousness. Although actualized immediately, the inconceivable may not be distinctly apparent.

[22:57]

Its appearance is beyond your knowledge. It's just beautiful poetry. I mean, this causes... translation, and there are many other translations, but I really thought it was beautiful. Now, if a bird or fish tries to reach the end of its element before moving in it, the bird or fish will not find its way or place. So this is one of the most common interpretation is, if you want meaning before starting doing something, you're in trouble. I'm not going to start practicing Buddhism until somebody explains to me completely what enlightenment is and what the whole purpose of Buddhism is. After I get that straight, I'm going to start practicing. The problem with that is you can't learn anything about Buddhism until you start practicing. Many, I'm sure, of you have had similar phenomenon about anything that you've done.

[24:03]

Until you start doing it, you don't know what it is. That's why we ask shusos, you know, please come, and they go, oh no, I have studied here, I've practiced here, but I'm not yet ready. And we say, oh, no. you have to give a lecture, because until you actually give a lecture, you don't know how to give a lecture. You can't study it from afar, you have to study it from the inside. Meaning is created in our lives when we find our own place and path and begin to do something. Until that time, there is no ready-made meaning or purpose in your life. When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point.

[25:07]

So that is practice, finding your place where you are in any given moment, in any given situation. When you find your place where you are, practice occurs. I remember I was at Tassara lecturing on this particular sentence and one of the students who was from New Orleans said, He said, you know, I just can't get it out of my mind. When I'm here at Tassara, I just think about all the fun I had in the casinos in New Orleans. I really enjoyed going there and doing that, and I'm thinking about that all during this machine. And I said, then, what was it like when you were in the casinos in New Orleans? He says, I kept thinking, I can't wait to get to Tassara, where I can sit zazen and be calm. Isn't that our life? I think I actually wrote it down. It must have been one of those things where I tried to copy it from the document and forgot to paste it.

[26:27]

But anyway, he said something like, you're at home. And you're thinking, well, I should have gone to the Zendo and sat. I wish I were at the Zendo and sat. And then you come to the Zendo and you're sitting and you go, God, I'm tired. I should have been at home in bed instead of sitting in the Zendo. He says, when you're there, you're thinking about being here. And when you're here, you're thinking about being there. Too busy. Too busy. So how can we be where we are? Be in the place that you are. that's where you can practice. That's where you have your life experience. That's where you can express yourself. I have this sort of sense that being where you are, practicing in your place, in this moment, that's what it means to be

[27:30]

a grown-up adult. It means to own your life, own your life in the moment you're living it in, in the place that you're living in it, not having some idea of some other thing and placing your life out there, which is a dream. Being a grown-up is living the life you're living in the place that you're living it. So the next sentence, the place, the way, has not carried over from the past and is not merely arising now. place the way it's not it's it path exists for you here in this moment and then let's see that seems like that's definitive it's only happening in this moment but then the next part of the sentence and it's not merely arising now that means you know like bodhisattvas have been walking this path for thousands of years this ancient path And so we're walking on a path that's a known path, even though it's our path alone in this moment.

[28:39]

And I think it was somewhere Sigurusha said something like, the bird's path is very evident and clear to birds of the same species. Apparently, I mean, you know, I talked about the birds leaving traces in the sky. I don't know if they really leave traces in the sky, but apparently birds migrate, you know, halfway across the earth. in all kinds of mysterious ways that they know how to do this. And we, in all kinds of mysterious ways, know how to walk the bodhisattva path that has been walked for thousands of years if we are willing to be present and let ourselves walk it. Next sentence. Accordingly, in the practice enlightenment of the Buddha way, meeting one thing is mastering it. Doing one practice is practicing completely. Here is the place, here the way unfolds. This is like basic Zen blocking and tackling.

[29:46]

Returning to my favorite subject. When you're washing dishes, totally wash dishes. When you're serving, serve. When you're taking the private jet to Europe to sign a big deal, take the jet, eat the lobster, sign the big deal. Do that one thing that's in front of you that you're doing. Completely immerse yourself in it. So doing one thing, everything is realized. If you just sit in zazen, everything is there. We just give ourselves to any moment of activity in our living, everything is there. So Kirusha used to refer to it as your limited activity.

[30:54]

How to be a true Buddhist is to find the meaning of your life in your limited activity. There is no need for you to be a great person. In your limited activity, you should find the meaning of yourself. If you pick up even a small stone, you have the whole universe. We all have enormous limitations in our life, financial limitations, physical limitations, emotional limitations. How do we find the freedom in our life? limitations, and when we're sitting zazen, we're sitting with some pain maybe, some confusion in our mind. Focus on the one thing you're doing. If all else fails, follow your breathing. Completely follow your breathing. Follow it in, deep into your body. Follow it out. Let everything else go away. Pay attention to the physical feeling in your body, and just do that. Just moving through a lot of stuff here.

[32:04]

The boundary of realization is not distinct, for the realization comes forth simultaneously with the mastery of Buddha Dharma. The boundary of realization is not distinct. The Buddha way is endless, and there is no way to measure our current stage of practice. I could repeat that a hundred times and you still would not quite get it. Oh no, but my practice is not good enough. Really, it isn't good enough. Oh, my practice is so great, I can now not practice anymore. Oh, my practice is bad in this way or that way. It's endless. Our mind is busy measuring our practice. Yeah. Practice is so endless that whatever measurement you've got on it, you're a beginner. We'll just start right there. Or... Practice is so endless that everybody's in the same place because it's infinity out there.

[33:05]

You're right there with everybody in the same place practicing together. Just practice. Put down the scale that's measuring it and pay attention to the body that's practicing. I made some comment about practice is more than formal practice, you know, the formal practice we're doing here. Although formal practice is practice, I wrote down being is our practice. The formal practice is to set up a reminder that we're being here. Our practice is just to practice one thing at a time, wholeheartedly, and manifest our own life force moment by moment without evaluation. That is all. That is what just sitting is. Do not suppose that what you realize becomes your knowledge and is grasped by your consciousness.

[34:19]

We do want to know, don't we? We really want to. We just love to know the answer. Although actualized immediately, the inconceivable may, I put in print, is not may not be distinctly apparent. Its appearance is beyond your knowledge. guess when you hear that you wonder well how can I have any idea whether I'm practicing or not beyond my conscious understanding inconceivable not apparent beyond my knowledge this practice that we're doing this mysterious life we're living and I think it's mostly just an intuition you can't settle it with your mind your mind will not say yes

[35:33]

I know why I'm practicing. It's an intuitive feel. You've done it enough to know that this is the direction to go and that you want to keep going in this direction. And you have to trust that intuition and not get distracted by your discouraging mind sometimes. And that's why it's important to have a sangha that you come back and practice with. I usually say for those who are leaving after the seven-day sashin to go back to your active bodhisattva lives that it's good if you have a community, a sangha, that you can practice with, that you can meet with once a week or so, because it will encourage you. It would also be good if you had a teacher who you could talk about your problems with, because that would encourage you. And it would be good if you could continue to have some kind of zazen practice every day as part of your life.

[36:42]

You follow that and your life will be stronger. Boy, this guy just goes on and on. But we are coming to the close of this lecture. Tomorrow we're going to, hopefully I'm going to try to figure out how to weave the koan that Master Bao Che of Mount Mayu did with a student when he was fanning himself. A monk approached and said, Master, the nature of wind is permanent and there is no place where it does not reach. Why then do you fan yourself? And he said, although you understand the nature of wind is permanent, you do not understand the meaning of its reaching everywhere. What is the meaning of its reaching everywhere? asked the monk, and the master just kept fanning himself.

[37:45]

That was the koan that the whole rest of the Genjo koan was a commentary on that famous koan. So hopefully we'll sort a little bit of that out tomorrow, mixing it in with Buddha's enlightenment. Sort of my final comment for this morning is you're will never know the measure of your life, our life. Our life has a virtue and a power beyond anything we can know. Take advantage of that treasure. We have time for one or two questions, maybe. 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.

[38:52]

Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information please visit sfzc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[39:07]

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