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. Good evening. I'm really happy to be here and I'm really happy to be talking to all you this evening. A special welcome to, uh, Keith and Leslie. What a treat. So happy you're here. Yeah, people ask me what's going on at Tazahara. How's the practice at Tazahara these days? You know, I have a guest season, what that's going on. I've been telling them that people do ask me on the regular. That we are small but mighty. The practice here is, it feels vigorous. It feels engaged and robust. to me right now.

[01:01]

So, yeah, I'm really appreciating everyone's practice this summer. You know, it's weird. It's not what anyone expected. And it actually feels true. Yeah. True. That's a good word. I'd like to start my talk the way I always start my talks. This gives me something to talk about. And then I get rolling. It's my little device for getting a drama talk. So I always start the same way. I want to thank and acknowledge my teacher, the late Sojanel Whiteson and Roshi, the old Buddha of the East Bay. Yes, just too many to enumerate. Not if I took all tonight and tomorrow. I could go on and on. And I want to say that this talk is just to encourage you in your practice.

[02:05]

What is it that thus comes? What is it that thus comes? Is it a koan? Yes. It's a question. It was a koan. for a great Zen teacher, Nangwei, a disciple of Huainang. If you have received the precepts, you will get a Kishinyaku, Literally, it means blood vein, but it's the lineage document, you know. In morning services, we chant the lineage of Buddhas and ancestors, and there's a document that starts with Shakyamuni Buddha and ends with you when you receive the precepts.

[03:16]

All the teachers going down. But, or rather, and, in our kitchen yakus, After Hoi Nam, the blood vein splits, actually. There's like two veins that go down through so-called Rinzai lineage and so-called Soto lineage, and then they join again at A.H. Dogen, because Dogen received Dharma transmission in both lineages. He received Dharma transmission from his Rinzai teacher, Menzan, as well as his Soto teacher, Ru Jing. So you'll find... Nangaku Ejo in Japanese on your Kechinyaku. That's the beginning of so-called Rinzai lineage. So there's a story that I think Dogen must have liked this story very, very much because it shows up in the Shogo Genso, the Treasury of the True Dharma Eye, his life's work, in a few places.

[04:26]

And it's referenced in Fukanza Zenki twice. So as you know, we chant Fukanza Zenki as part of our liturgy, morning service. And Fukanza Zenki is Dogen's basically Zazen instruction, universally recommending seated meditation. a ceremony of supermeditation. Zazeng Yi. Yeah, so in summer, currently, we're chanting, part one, fukang zazeng Yi. Part two, fukang zazeng Yi. Right? Yeah. So you're treated to, you get to hear it both. In part one, you get a reference to the story. And in part two, you get a reference to the story. Okay? Fukranza Zangi starts out, the way is originally perfect and all-pervading.

[05:30]

How could it be contingent upon practice and realization? Right? Sound familiar? And then we get to Fukranza Zangi part two. You get the chant. Practice realization, there's those words again, is naturally undefiled. going forward in practice is a matter of everydayness. So, seemingly this is pretty important to, uh, our founder in Japan, Ahekori. Um, it's been my great pleasure in recent weeks to, uh, I've been off and on studying Shogo Renzo with my student, Reverend Curtis Fabens, uh, Yeah, it's just been really wonderful. And so that's what's been up for me. And that's why I'm kind of interested in talking about Shobogenzo right now.

[06:31]

But this story in particular, like I said, it shows up more than one place in Shobogenzo, but in Shobogenzo Henzan, which is translated as all-inclusive study, He tells the story very well. And I just happened to have brought along a rapper. Jordan very kindly brought along for me my handy-dandy copy of Moon in a Dewdrop. That's Sarah Kautzana, how she published this before Publishing the complete show again. There's some really good ones put together in here. And this seems to be the one I keep coming back to over and over.

[07:34]

There's so many Martian area in this book. It's just ridiculous. But I can still read it. So Hoi Nung, as you probably know, is the sixth ancestor of Zen. After Bodhidharma, that interesting statue on the left side of the altar, Bodhidharma came from India to China to bring the teaching of Zen to China, right? Y'all know that. There's a famous poem about that. Why did Bodhidharma come from the West? You know why? Want me to tell you? Because a strong woman teacher told him to. his teacher, Prajnatara, said, go. See, that's that koan. And then next time you hear that koan, you can say, his teacher told him to. And yet she, actually, Prajnatara, the academic evidence that Prajnatara was a woman far outweighs any evidence that she was a man.

[08:43]

Just, they call him a man, you know, because that's just, male egemony at work, right? Anyway, I digress. Hoi Nang was often referred to as the Chinese Buddha, a great, great, great teacher. So Dogen refers to him here as the old Buddha. You're turning me up and down. What you doing over there? It's good, it's good, it's good. Not too long. I probably don't even need this. So, here we go. Here's the story. When Zen teacher Dahui of Nanyue first went to meet Huinang, the old Buddha of Cao Shu, the old Buddha said, What is it that thus comes? Dahui all-inclusively studied that lump of mud for eight years and then presented this move to the ancient Buddha.

[09:57]

So another version of this story, it's clear that this is their first encounter. First Doga-san. Can you imagine a new student showing up in the monastery? Yeah, another version of this story, it says, where are you from? That's the first question, you know. A simple question. Hoena says, what are you from? He says, from Frusong. And then he says, what is it that thus comes? That's a pretty heavy thing to lay on somebody in your very first encounter. I'm just saying, you know, the Buddha is called the Thus Come One, the Tathagata. And here, Hoena is like, first meeting. Oh, what is it that thus comes? Whoa. So, anyways, I don't know. Flustered? Overwhelmed? Stuck? He can't say anything. Not only that, he doesn't come back for Dogasan for eight years.

[11:00]

He doesn't leave the monastery. He's not ready to meet with Wei Nung again until eight years have gone by. Can you imagine? All inclusively studied that lump of mud for eight years and then presented this move to the ancient Buddha. I understand now. When I first came here, you instructed me, what is it that thus comes? Then the ancient Buddha of Sausho said, what do you understand? Dahwe said, speaking about it won't hit the mark. The old Buddha of Sausho said, does it rest on practice and realization? Other translations say, Does it rely on practice and realization? Or does it depend on practice and realization? Actually, I think I like that one the best. Does it depend on practice and realization? In other words, does this mean there's practice and then there's realization?

[12:05]

That way it's said. It's not that there's no practice and no realization. It's just that they cannot be defiled. Again, that's a good translation, but other translations have it as, they cannot be separated, which I prefer. It's not that there's no practice in realization, it's just that they can't be separated. Then, Cao Xiu said, Huenang that is, said, I am like this, you are like this, and all the Buddha ancestors in India are also like this. That's the whole story. It's not that there's no practice in realization. It's just that they can't be separated. They can't be defined. You can't talk about them separately. You can't say practice now and realization later. It's a one thing. And this is the bedrock of Soda Zen. I gave three talks last summer about suchness or thusness.

[13:14]

It's a... not a concept. It is a very, very basic bedrock root teaching of Soda Zen. Shusho Ichinyo. Shusho, practice realization, which Dogen often wrote as one word. Shusho, practice realization. Ichinyo, one Suchness. Nyo is suchness or thusness. It's the same as in the Japanese word for tatagata. The thus come one in Japanese is nyo-rai. You might recognize that from some of our Japanese echoes. Nyo-rai. Thus come one. Nyo. Thusness, suchness. What is it that thus comes? the wholeness of practice and realization.

[14:23]

So that's kind of, as I said, the basis of understanding. And then there's how we put our understanding into action. This, for my teacher, Sojourn Roshi, was the most important question. He'd always say, I'm not interested in what or why. I'm interested in how. How do we actualize our understanding? How do we put it into practice? Zen, it has been said, is a religion of action. We're all about praxis, not theory. Praxis, not belief. Suzuki Roshi used to say, I don't care what you believe. You can be a Christian and practice Zen. You can be an atheist and practice Zen. You can believe what you like and practice Zen. It's about the practice. It's about this thing that we do with our bodies, with our whole bodies and lives.

[15:28]

But it's, yeah, it's not about what you believe so much. It's about what you do. How do we put this into action? How indeed. Well, I could go off in a lot of different directions from there, but I won't. I will segue into another festival. Yeah. It's what I'm currently studying with Reverend Curtis, a very famous one. And I'm so glad that Leslie's here because it's one that Leslie's been very fond of. This one is called Yuributsu Yobutsu, or Only a Buddha and a Buddha. Familiar with that one? Pretty famous. The title of that comes from chapter two of the Lotus Sutra.

[16:42]

Chapter two is Hoban, or Skillful Knees. And in there it says, only a Buddha together with a Buddha can master the true suchness of reality. There's that word again. Can master the true suchness of reality. Not by yourself. Only a Buddha and a Buddha. I think very... Gratified to get in that reference to the Lotus Sutra in my talk tonight. Just like to say the words Lotus Sutra. However, you know, Logan, if you cut me, bleed the Lotus Sutra. No surprise. No surprises there. I don't know if you learned essay writing in high school or anything, high school English.

[17:43]

I did. I had to write essays, and they used to really emphasize the importance of the topic sentence. The first sentence is really important. You have the first paragraph, that's really important, and the first sentence of the first paragraph is really important. That's the topic sentence. And that's how Dogen wrote. That's like all these festivals, actually. Most of them, you know, they kind of like he went to my high school or something, you know. That's how he writes. It must be kind of a universal thing. So I want to share the topic sentence of Yubutsu Yobutsu with you because it's pretty good. Buddhadharma cannot be known by a person. Period. Period. Buddhadharma cannot be known by a person, an individual person.

[18:46]

It doesn't work that way. Sure, I can read you the whole paragraph. Buddhadharma cannot be known by a person for this reason. Since olden times, no ordinary person has realized Buddha Dharma. No practitioner of the lesser vehicles has mastered Buddha Dharma. Because it is realized by Buddhas alone, it is said only a Buddha and a Buddha can thoroughly master it. That's the quote from the Lotus Sutra. So, I feel like I've been saying this a lot. recently, in the past few years, in many different ways. Our practice only happens in relationship. Community only happens with communication.

[19:51]

And, you know, my new favorite line, nobody can do it for you and you can't do it alone. So this happens in relationship. The Shuso ceremony that we do in practice period when there's a head monk and they sit on the platform and they have all these scripted lines. One of the lines at the very beginning, the Shuso says, let us call forth the Dharma together. Let us call forth the Dharma together. It's something that we do. It's not something I do. something that we do as a community. All silence, everywhere. So there was a quote I wanted to use to this end that I was convinced that my friend Zenju Earthland Manuel had said that I read, rather,

[21:09]

in an article that she'd written somewhere a long time ago that really I've liked a lot. And I believe it went something like, when I hear people talking about my practice, my understanding, my path, I think... The wheel of the Dharma has got a flat tire. When I lived in Hunter's Point, I had a friend. I used to hang out with a mechanic. And if you see a flat tire, you'd go, it's only flat on one side. He thought that was really funny. He'd make the same joke every time. So corny. It's only flat on one side. That's one-sided practice. Yeah. Yeah. It's only flat on one side. It's flat.

[22:10]

Because it's one-sided practice. Because it's selfish, actually. Strong word. Self-absorbed. Self-centered. That's actually not how this practice gets traction. At all. It happens in relationship. Now... I don't like to quote contemporaries, friends or students without their permission, especially if I'm not sure I got it right. So I wrote to Zenju and I asked her if I could quote her. I said, I'm pretty sure I read this somewhere that you said this. I've always liked it. And I told her what I just said to you. And I said, can I use it? Do you remember saying that? And she wrote me back.

[23:12]

So sweet. She wrote me back. She says, dear Greg, well, that's not a quote I recognize as mine only because of the car analogy. I can say that we don't own our practice like an object. The path is wider than an ocean. You can't grasp it, hold on to it, and show it off and say that we possess it. It's a collective experience for the benefit of all and for the ancestors. I could say that. And so I said, cool. Can I read that in my Dharma talk? And she said, fine. And... I'm very happy to have your permission because it's the same point. It's a collective experience. This is where the strength of practice comes from.

[24:16]

To my view. There's a lot of power there. A lot of power. And... We really need that strength. We need that power. Because these are really trying times we're living in. What is it that thus comes? Indeed. The new cycle. It's all bad. all just, like, terrible. I thought, you know, I was sort of quasi-writing this talk, and I thought, well, okay, I could start to enumerate things. And then I thought, if I do that, I'm going to have to give this whole talk a content warning.

[25:22]

I'm not going to do that. We used to be, Tazahara, that is, used to be quite insulated from the news cycle. We get our news very much after the fact, when actual paper newspapers were brought in, which we still do that, but everybody's on the internet all the time. It's very different. I found out about the World Trade Center, 9-11, 2001, in a workshop announcement. Can you believe that? And I didn't see any video until like three weeks later. Times have certainly changed. So I'm not going to get into particulars. I don't have to. You know. What is it that thus comes? It's all too much. And there's something that, to my heart, speaks to this in

[26:34]

Yubitsu Yobutsu. And I think it's a favorite of Leslie's. I've certainly heard her talk about it before. And it's this bit. Section 5. For those of you keeping track at home. Page 164 in my copy of Muna Ndudra. Long ago, a monk asked an old teacher When hundreds, thousands, or myriads of objects come all at once, what should be done? The teacher replied, don't try to control them. What she means is that in whatever way objects come, do not try to change them. Whatever comes is the Buddha Dharma, not objects at all. Do not understand the teacher's reply as merely a brilliant admonition, but realize that it is the truth.

[27:44]

Even if you try to control what comes, it cannot be controlled. is it that thus comes? It's all too much. It's too much. It's so easy to go into overwhelm. Well, anyway, it's easy for me. I go into overwhelm on the regular. It's scary. Whatever way objects come, do not try to change them. Whatever comes is the Buddha Dharma, not objects at all. That's a lot to take in. That's a lot to sit with.

[28:53]

Stay present for whatever arises. Whatever. There's a well-known activist named Valerie Carr. She's a devout practitioner of Sikh religion and a social activist. Nope. Native Californian. Heard of her? No. Well, she wrote a wonderful book. called See No Stranger and Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love. I never met her, but I'd sure like to. And Valerie Carr had this to say, I like a lot.

[30:02]

She said, you may say, it's too much. All this grief, all this violence and injustice, it's too hard. You are right. The mind can comprehend one death, but it cannot comprehend thousands, especially when one's own community, nation, or ancestors played some part in causing the death. Mother Teresa once said, if I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will. And so, begin with one. Can you choose one person to practice wondering about? Can you listen to the story they have to tell? If your fists tighten, or your heart beats fast, or if shame rises to your face, it's okay. Breathe through it.

[31:05]

Trust that you can. The heart is a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it becomes. So there you go. There's one potential answer. Thousands of things come all at once. Can you just meet it one at a time? Some of you were here when I was talking about the Buddha's cousin, Devadatta, the bad seed, tried to kill the Buddha more than once, got that man-killer Elephant, one of his plots, just one of his plots to kill the Buddha. You got that man-killing elephant, Nalagiri, got it good and drunk, set it loose in the street, charging straight at the Buddha.

[32:07]

That's how I feel about current events these days. There's a drunken elephant charging at me. And, you know, it's such a great story. I love that story. But it just stood there. Abhyayya mudra. Non-fear. The elephant comes to dead stuff. Starts caressing him, his trunk. Buddha was a gutsy guy. But he knew what he was doing. He knew exactly what he was doing. He's quite an example to say.

[33:15]

Yeah, so maybe The answer is, you just meet what comes, when it comes, as we can, the best we can. Sojourn Roshi always said, just take very good care of whatever's in front of you. Suzuki Roshi said, just shine one corner of the world. You might think, well, we're not so many. What can we do? You might be surprised. Be open to being surprised. Be open to being heroes. It's one of the epithets of the Bodhisattva. Tibetan Buddhism.

[34:20]

Warriors. Heroes. people are willing to stand up and say, not this time. No. There's another way. We can find another way. And that's the request of a suffering world. So, In a minute, because I'm about done. In a minute, we're going to chant the bodhisattva vows. The ridiculous, impossible vows that we chant over and over. What the heck? What's up with that? Well, I'll tell you what it means to me.

[35:23]

It means we're in it for the long haul. This is no short-term project. Why a lot of the Mahayana Sutras talk about lifetime after lifetime. Lifetimes as numerous as the sands of the river Ganges. Don't despair. Don't stop. Don't give up. things change. And we can and I dare say must be the agents of change. It's okay, you know. I find it very comforting.

[36:29]

I'm going to have to figure this out tonight. We're in for the long haul. Staying with me. The suffering world is grateful. I'm grateful. I appreciate everyone's practice. I mean that from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for your kind attention tonight. The practice of dhanaparamita, the perfection of giving. Now we're going to give each other an earlier I find that very agreeable. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center.

[37:31]

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.

[37:47]

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