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. It's been such a joy to be back here. Last time I did this was about six months ago. No, it was longer than that. I did a departing monk ceremony. It's the last time I offered fragrance to the Buddha. So doing that in reverse as a welcome back feels very apt. I feel very happy to be here with you. Things have changed a little. I'm now flanked by lights and new faces and old faces. So the theme that I wanted to discuss tonight was the shape of our practice. the shape, the shape of our practice.

[01:00]

And I want to bring this up first. I met someone recently who really inspired me. A Dharma colleague of mine named Alexis. And maybe as a piece of background that will make this story make sense. I was assisting on a retreat at another place recently, and I had to give an hour-long Dharma talk. And I maybe prepared 20 hours for this one hour. It was a lot to pack in, you know, it was a lot of preparation. And I did that three times over the course of a while. And anyway, I meet this person who does the same sort of thing. I was talking to him and he said, yeah, I don't write Dharma talks. He just sits down and lets the Dharma come forward. in that moment from the seat. That sounds terrifying. I don't know. Do any of you speak publicly?

[02:04]

Can you imagine doing such a thing? I didn't go that far, so I have an outline for myself, but I thought, you know, I tend to over-prepare, so I'm going to pull back a little bit and be with you, speak with you, talk with you about the shape of our practice. Yesterday would have been Mitsu Suzuki's 110th birthday. Mitsu Suzuki, of course, was the spouse of the founder here. To put it in, that phrase just doesn't quite say it, actually. Mitsu Suzuki, I think, was responsible for a lot of the continuity of practice for decades at City Center. I was recently reading the introduction that Norman wrote to this book of haikus by Mitsu called A White Tea Bowl.

[03:06]

And it talked about how she lived at City Center, obviously much, much longer than Suzuki Roshi did. He died too young, Norman said. And Mitsu lived here for something like 30 years, 30 plus years. 20-something years after Suzuki Roshi passed, she was still here. One of her main things to do was teach ceremony, but apparently she would also invite people into her room and serve them tea and feed them pickles and talk to them about the Dharma and instruct them in formal and informal ways. Norman characterized her as the continuity. The continuity. So what's the shape of our practice? I wanna talk about that a little bit inspired by Mitsu.

[04:10]

I'll pull a little bit from our practice of Zazen. Another beautiful story about intimacy. And then just some ways that I'm noticing my own practice is changing as I've moved away from the temple. I think perhaps it's a place where we share similar questions. Like, now I live in a place where there's no Han. There's no Jundo. There's no Densho. It's wild. I lived here for six years and Tassajara for two. And the heartbeat of the forms, I am... seeing in relief, being out in a place where this doesn't happen, I'm feeling them in my body. And my body calls for the form. Does that make sense?

[05:10]

Yeah. So being back here, it's like slipping into the hot springs at Tassara. It feels so good to hear the bells and sit with you. And this morning we did the full moon ceremony. So I'm really thinking about this question, what's the shape of our practice when I'm living in a place that doesn't have the outer shape? And of course, city center's shape is changing, has changed, and all of us who already live outside the temple where there is no Densho and there's no Han and there's no Jundo, and we make the form of practice in our own life. So I want to talk about this notion of form a little bit, but I want to read you this. A hundred haikus.

[06:16]

I'm not going to read all 100. I'll just read you this one and a few others later. Mitsu says, first calligraphy of the year. Today, again, I write beginner's mind. Beginner's Mind Temple, of course, but first calligraphy of the year. Today, again, I write Beginner's Mind. And I pair that in my mind with... Stone guardian dogs, mouths open wide, torrent of cicada sound. Stone guardian dogs. This really caught my attention. And let's talk a little about zazen so I can share where I'm coming from here. The description of our method of zazen is so simple. It's deceptively simple.

[07:18]

We might describe it in terms of placing ourself on the cushion, establishing our presence, and then There's absolutely no volition whatsoever. None. Awareness and attention move from object to object. We don't do anything. We let this moment arise. It's deceptively simple. It captured my attention recently. I was reading one of Dogen's foundational works, Ben Doha. He has this... sort of make-believe Q&A with an interlocutor that he wants to have a make-believe Q&A, which was part of the teaching forum in China that he picked up and he wanted to share it in Japan. So the make-believe questioner says something like, how can this be worthwhile or how can this be the way to just sit on your cushion and do nothing?

[08:24]

That's a good question. How many of us have fielded that question before? And Dogen's answer is like, more or less, I'll soften it a little bit because Dogen could get really feisty. He said, more or less says, if we think that sitting on the cushion just doing nothing is shikantaza, that's missing the mark. He goes on to complicate this a little bit by saying something like... In colloquial terms, we might say like the whole universe is doing the meditation. It's not you sitting there on the cushion doing zazen. It's all things of all time, all space manifesting as this moment of awareness. We just don't get in the way. That's our practice. One way of characterizing it. Another is that all Buddhas of all time are manifesting this moment.

[09:28]

Suzuki Roshi captured this really, really nicely with this phrase, beginner's mind. Where moment after moment, we release whatever we're clinging to, whatever's known. We instantly let it go. Let it go. Begin again. Begin again. Fresh. Fresh. It's the vitality of life. That's what's living through you in Zazen. And I'm thinking of Mitsu Suzuki. How many years must she have written about calligraphy for beginner's mind. Just like every morning, we put ourselves on the cushion, beginner's mind over and over, beginner's mind over and over. So what does this have to do with the stone dogs? What's been interesting to me recently is that zazen is utterly empty, but we create a specific form around it. It's like we make a form to hold the emptiness.

[10:36]

We bow in our cushion, we take our seat. Hongzhi has this great line, the body being emptiness, the arms and mudra. We establish the posture, we create the seal, create the body, and then let emptiness manifest. It's pretty amazing. Beginner's mind and these stone dogs. So what's the shape? What's the shape of our practice? Some might say that what the simple practice of Shikantaza allows for is greater intimacy with this moment.

[11:41]

You're more fully alive. Here and vital and able to meet face to face with another being. I wanted to read you this. So the first abbess of Zen Center was named Zenke Blanche Hartman. Happy to bring her into the room. Tonight, this was a talk that she gave in 2001, where she told a story. She told one of the old Zen stories that discusses this point of form and emptiness and how they come together and how they manifest as our practice. Put in some terms, you'll probably recognize. She says, the 42nd ancestor, Ryozan Enkan was the attendant to the 41st, Doan Kanshi. And as such, he carried his robe for him.

[12:43]

There was a moment in which his teacher needed to put on his robe, so Ryozan handed the robe to Doan. And Doan said to his disciple, what is the business under the patch robe? Blanche goes on to explain this line by saying, You know, what's this form? Why do we put on a form? What's underneath it? What are you actually? In the terms that we're discussing, we have the, like, why bother bowing to and away from your cushion? Like, what's behind it? Why do we do it? So the student, Riozan, had no answer. And the teacher said, to wear this robe, and not understand the great matter is the greatest suffering. So you ask me, is it kindly, kindly giving a, he's gonna give the answer to his student who must be undergoing the greatest suffering by not knowing what's under the robe.

[13:47]

So the student asked the teacher, what is the business under the past robe? And the teacher said, intimacy, intimacy. And this was the moment when the 42nd ancestor broke through. He bowed to his teacher in great gratitude and tears were flowing. The teacher asked, what have you understood? Can you express it? The student said, what is the matter under this robe? Intimacy. His teacher said, intimacy even greater than intimacy. So we have these specific forms that we follow. If you ever read the Fukanza Zen Gi, the Dogen's instructions on meditation, it's like 90%, no, not 90%, it's probably like 70, 60% posture instruction.

[14:51]

Very little, very little to say what's going on there. But he gives a lot of care, a lot of care to establishing the form. establish the body, create the mold in which emptiness can manifest, and then release, and then just release, release. And what does this give rise to? Intimacy. I'm turning this question a lot of what's essential feels rather personal, but a few things kind of coalesce that have me turning this question right now. I'm feeling inspired more to share my practice with you than try to teach you something.

[15:53]

I hope that's okay. Yeah, a couple of months ago, When I was, last time I was here, actually, a few months ago, I guess, my family, we almost lost my dad. He was having a surgery and a little too much anesthetic. So his heart rate dropped to, I don't know, like 30. And he's okay. But something about that was just like a pulse in the system, like, wake up, wake up. What's going on here? And you know how those move through your life? There are those moments that like, they hit the Han or they like ring the bell and they reverberate through you. And you go, what am I doing here? What am I doing? And no answer has come.

[16:55]

It's just been this question, what am I doing here? The second thing that's sort of moving through me is like something that's arising after leaving residence which is, I still feel very like of this cloth. Does that expression make sense? While I was assisting on this retreat in March, it was like, I'm teaching this place that's not a Zen place. And I'm feeling that what the well is in me that I have to offer is actually my Zen training. It's incredible. It's incredible what we do here. I want to bow to each of you right now and then when we get up. Yeah, this question.

[18:02]

It's like, what's essential to the practice? It's really alive for me. It's really alive. And there's something about the transition of moving out of residence that kind of broadens my scope. I kind of feel like I have a leg in each world, like I can kind of relate to the residential life, I can kind of relate to the life outside. And the question that stays is, what is this practice and how are we doing it? It's deep, it's alive. And that's what I'm coming to, is I don't actually know. I don't know what Shikantaze is. It's alive. It's alive, like moment after moment. And something that's really beautiful is like stepping out of residence, something is happening to me where I'm losing the idea of what a priest is.

[19:07]

I think I had a much clearer sense when I was in residence that I wanted to live into an idea of what I thought a priest was. And I don't know what that is anymore. So maybe we say I'm lost, but I feel like I'm just going through this phase of growth and I wanted to share that with you. The confidence that the practice is alive And it's taking us, it's moving us along. This morning I saw Tim. Thank you, Tim. I saw Tim do the founder's offering for the first time at the back of the, or it's my first time to see it.

[20:15]

We used to go upstairs and go to the founder's hall and bow to the wooden Suzuki Roshi and this founder's plaque that's behind the Buddha. And I thought, how beautiful the whole sangha is doing the founder's greeting. How fabulous is that? And then it was time for soji. I took off my okesa, I sought out the acting, you know, actually, you know, please give me a soji assignment. The form, the form is the beautiful thing that allows the emptiness to come forward. I was talking to someone, I can't remember who, was talking about the very bumpy coming of age of Zen center back when various stages of this and that, this scandal, that scandal, not that many scandals, it's okay. Um, Mitsu Suzuki helped see us through all this. But this person told the story, the question arose, like, how do we keep going?

[21:19]

Like, what are we doing here? And the answer was that the next morning, after the bad news, somebody got up and they hit the Han. The form held. The form that we hold around our emptiness is what held. Yeah, it's the... our first pure precept to vow to uphold forms and ceremonies. That's what makes this possible. Anyway, so I saw Tim doing the founder's offering this morning, and I thought of Mitsu again. She has these beautiful little ways of calling Suzuki into the room. So this calls on her tea ceremony and the Roshi. I pour Sensha. into the white porcelain tea bowl he loved. That's so poignant. Two things I want to share.

[22:43]

One is I'm eager to have a conversation with you, so I'm trying to be brief. And the second is... It's one of the more encouraging things that I've come across in the last few months. It's not easy to practice. It's not easy to practice together, and it's not easy to practice alone. So in this question of what's the shape of our practice, one of the concerns or one of the thoughts is how do we keep ourselves motivated? It's really hard. It can be. Getting up day after day, it's cold in the Zendo. Or getting up at home and the bed is so warm. It's hard to get to the cushion. How do we keep ourselves motivated?

[23:45]

I find that... Sometimes I can have the motivation that's based on me saying, I know that I am kinder to people when I get out of bed. When I get out of bed and I do zazen, first thing, I know that I'm kinder to people when I do that. The other motivation is, if that's not going to get me out of bed, I always have the motivation of all of you. I have the rest of the sangha. I do it on your behalf. I do it for all beings. But more inspiring than that was... My wife recently took me to a little place that she came across when she was a little girl. She went to elementary school in Santa Cruz, this little cute place called Gateway. And behind Gateway, there are these gigantic trees just off West Cliff in Santa Cruz, like right off the ocean, these huge trees. She went there when she was a little girl.

[24:46]

She looked up at these trees and she saw that the leaves were dancing. So she took me there after a rainstorm and it's still like drizzling on my face a little bit. I look up at the trees and the little leaves. This was in the spring or late winter. The leaves are dancing. I pause for a minute. My perception corrects. And I realize it's not leaves. Those are monarch butterflies. Just... Scores of them. There must have been hundreds of monarch butterflies in these trees. Little wings dancing. And then I noticed, oh, they're flying around a little bit, back on the tree, raindrops. It was quite a scene. Turns out that this is a monarch butterfly sanctuary, if anyone's ever been there or wants to go. Something like Lighthouse Field. Something like this. And... Why is that touching? Why is that inspiring?

[25:46]

Reading about these monarchs, there's this little, I love how they do this in parks, signposts, describing the journey that these butterflies make. So there's a, at the top of their migration route, they're up in Southern Canada or Northern United States on the West Coast. One generation called the overwinter generation comes all the way down, all the way down. That's a long way. And then they make the next generation. They're born and these don't live very long. These ones don't live very long. That's interesting. They only make it a little bit of the way up and then a new generation is born. A little bit back up, a new generation is born. Back up and a new generation is born. To get from the beginning to the end is several generations. And I had this moment of the Dharma waking up in me in that moment, realizing that there are butterflies that make this journey who never see the beginning and they never see the end.

[26:58]

But their participation creates the possibility of the butterflies getting home. And then the next generation coming down, next generation going back, next generation coming down. And I thought about the way that we hold a sangha, we weave a sangha together. None of us were here at the beginning. None of us are the founding generation. We won't be here at the end. But we keep our practice going. And we do it for this beautiful place. It's not easy. It's not easy. So sometimes that's the way. That's the way. With this sort of care for generations, I found this one. Three generations strolling hand in hand. Plum Blossom Festival.

[28:00]

Too sweet. 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 sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[28:32]

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