Welcome to Beginner's Mind Temple. I'm curious if anybody here is here for the first time, if you do willing to raise your hand. Quite a few of you. Well, welcome. You're here during one of our one-day sittings, which we do about once every month, which means that a group here, 50 or more, are going to be sitting basically all day from 5.30 in the morning till 6 o'clock at night with obviously a little break in the afternoon and a little bit of cleanup and eating breakfast and lunch in the zendo. So it's a real opportunity for them to get to know themselves, both their individual selves and all of their friends. So we won't be having our normal... After lecture discussion today, this will be it.

[01:04]

For those who are sitting the sishin, I hope you find some challenges and some joy and maybe something new happening during your sitting. So this fall I'm going to be lecturing on the Sando Kai, and I thought I would introduce a little bit about it today in this lecture, just sort of to warm you up for it. The Sando Kai is a poem consisting of 22 couplets, that's 44 lines. It was written by the 8th century Chinese Zen master Shido, and it's a fundamental text in Sodo School of Zen. 8th century, that's a long time ago. The poem addresses how the oneness of things coexists with the multiplicity of things. I'll say more about that later. Here at Zen Center, we chant this poem weekly during our morning service, and we do it once a month during the memorial service for our founder, Shunru Suzuki Roshi.

[02:26]

So it's very... well-known and fundamental text in our practice. It is said that Zen teachers often teach the Sandokai when they are at the maturity of their teaching or near the end of their life, or both. And in the summer of 1970, Suzuki Roshi gave 12 talks at Tassahara on the Sandokai. He died in December of 1971, and these talks were edited and published has a book, Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness. And that book was published in 1999. That was actually the second book of Suzuki Roshi Lectures. The first book was Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, which I think almost anybody that has had any interest in Zen has heard about and hopefully has read. That came out in 1970, the summer of 1970.

[03:29]

And amazingly enough, it took 29 years before Zen Center published another collection of his essays. And the Sandokai collection is slightly different than Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, in that it follows a particular text, and Suzuki Roshi sort of went character by character through the poem. And so it's very interesting to study. And we're very fortunate that he took the time to translate what is obviously a... ancient Chinese poem into something more accessible for our American minds. So, maybe I should say something about Shi Dou, the author of this poem. Shi Dou and Matsu were two of the eminent Zen teachers in the 8th century, essentially the two premier teachers from which all five schools of Zen in China and students used to pass back and forth between the two of them.

[04:35]

And there's many stories about both of those teachers, and they both had many, many disciples. So I thought I would just share one story of an interaction between... Sherdo and... his student Yaoshan. So this is the story. So one day, seeing Yaoshan sitting zazen, Shudo asked him, what are you doing here? And Yaoshan said, I am not doing anything at all. So Shudo said, in that case, you're sitting idly. And Yaoshan replied, if I were sitting idly, then I would be doing something. And Sherdo asked, you say you're not doing anything.

[05:42]

What is this not doing? And Yaoshan replied, not even 10,000 sages know. So just a beautiful kind of interaction. Clearly Yao Shan at this time was a mature Zen student, probably already possibly a teacher when this interchange happened because this is not a student-teacher interchange. This is two great teachers kind of just speaking with great love about this marvelous practice of Zazen that is so hard to talk about. And yet there's something to be said. So not even 10,000 sages know. Anyway, we're sitting a one-day sitting today. We have a chance to find out what these 10,000 sages didn't know anything about.

[06:45]

What is this not doing anything at all? Well, it's clearly not sitting idly. So how can you sit not doing anything? What is that not doing? So clearly, we have to do something. When we sit, we have to sit upright, pay attention to our posture, pay attention to our breathing. We try to sit straight in this noble posture. Our marvelous example there on the altar. Breathing evenly through our nose, quietly letting whatever comes, come, and then letting it go. Every thought, every sensation, letting it come, letting it go, with no preference. But of course we have preferences.

[07:51]

At some moment during the day, you've got that quiet, serene state of mind. Ah, this is really what Zazan's all about. Now I'm in the groove here. This is happening. Moments later, your mind is filled with crazy ideas and stories and complaints. So, of course, we go, you know, well, I like that other part better. I'm going to go... going to figure out how to get back to that other part. But this not doing anything is not trying to get back to that other part. We're not trying to do anything. We're not trying to achieve some state of mind. We're not trying to get it right, achieve some preordained result. We're just trying to be alive here. be present with our life. Whatever comes up in our life, we want to be present with it.

[08:57]

If thoughts come up, we let them go. Or as Suzuki Roshi would say, if thoughts come in, welcome them. But don't invite them to stay for tea. We don't need to indulge them too much. This has a welcoming feeling. We should have a welcoming feeling to whatever is going on. Fine, this is my life. And I think maybe if we have a more welcoming feeling, it'll be easier to let it go. Because that is the natural flow of life. Things come and they go, moment after moment. Wouldn't it be great if we could all just sort of really accept whatever was happening as the thing that is supposed to be happening for us at that moment? Well, who knows?

[10:00]

Even if it's not supposed to be happening, it is what is happening. And that is the only thing that is happening in our moment in this life. And if we can learn to accept it and actually maybe accept it as who we are, this is who we are, maybe even... dare I say, love ourselves, no matter what is happening with ourselves. Would that be possible too? What an immense thing that would be, to love ourselves not for what we would like to be, what we should be, what we imagine we should be, but what we actually are in that moment. And we could love others too. not as what they should be or whether we'd like them what we'd like them to be, but as they actually are, with all their painful behaviors and all their confusion and misery. So, a few comments about what the 10,000 sages don't know about not doing, you'll find out yourself today.

[11:12]

I might make one other comment. Yaoshan turned out to be a great teacher. In fact, his student became the teacher of Dengshan, who founded the Soto Zen School. So he's very well known, and he's particularly well known for this phrase. He said, Yaoshan was sitting again. And a monk asked him, in steadfast sitting, what do you think? Isn't it interesting how these people are trying to sit and everybody keeps interrupting them with questions? I don't know. Fortunately, you'll be down in the zendo and nobody will be bothering you with these things. But anyway, in this case, here Yashon said, I'm thinking, not thinking. That's what Yashon said he was doing. And the monk asked, how do you think, not thinking? And Yashon replied, non-thinking, beyond thinking. It's another translation. Non-thinking is one translation. Beyond thinking is another. How do you think not thinking?

[12:17]

This saying was picked up by Dogen and used in his recommending zazen to all people and the point of zazen to well-known essays on zazen. Non-thinking. I mean, it's a form of thinking or not thinking. But if it's thinking, I think the key thing is in our thinking, a lot of times what drives the momentum of our thinking when it just seems to be running our mind instead of us running our life is there's a hook in there about our thinking that is our thinking is all about us. This person mistreated us. I'm not doing so well. These stories that swim around about fundamentally a huge amount of self-concern. that's causing us enormous amount of suffering. So when those stories are going on, just notice if that's the case and see if you can let that self-concern drift away for a little while.

[13:29]

So, back to the Sandokai. The title of the poem in Japanese is Sandokai. It is composed of three characters. The first character, san, means difference, diversity, variety. In this poem, it indicates the concrete, phenomenal aspect of our life, all the relative things that go on in our life. The second character, do, means sameness, equality. In this poem, it means the absolute or ultimate reality of emptiness beyond discrimination. So on the one hand, we have all the differences, the actual relative world, all our discriminations, and we have, on the other hand, reality from the point of view of emptiness, the absolute understanding of reality. And kai means promise or agreement. Apparently in China, when merchants made a contract, they wrote it on a wooden board, and they broke the board in half, and then when the...

[14:37]

contract was fulfilled, the goods were delivered, and the payment was made, they put the boards together. It seemed like they always, in China, they were very practical in China, they decided to adopt all these practical merchant activities as famous Zen things. So the Sandokai refers to both aspects of our life, the concrete composed of many specific situations, ideas, and evaluations, and the things. and the absolute based on emptiness. And like two halves of an agreement, these aspects work together in one seamless reality. So one translation of Sandokai is the merging of difference and unity. Another translation that we use around Zen Center for the one we chant is the harmony of difference and equality. How does the oneness of things coexist with the multiplicity of things? Sukiroshi's comment on kai, this relationship between emptiness or oneness and diversity, was he says that kai is like shaking hands.

[15:51]

That's kind of like maybe a contract on a board. You shake hands. It has a nice feeling of friendship. Our discriminating mind has a friendly relationship with our sense of oneness of all things. Kind of... Friendly, shaking hands. I mean, this is not always an easy relationship. Our discriminating mind is easy to go, that person has disrespected me. That person is not a nice person. I don't like that person. I'm never going to talk to that person again. But of course, the oneness side of your mind goes, but that person is me. How can I say that about me? How can I... So how do you kind of take these two sides of ourselves, the recognition that we're intimately, completely connected and interrelated to everything, and at the same time we are completely different, totally unique, with this fantastic mind that's able to really notice how different we are, and in particular when we're in that kind of mood, how alone we are,

[17:09]

and forget how really much we're connected to everything. Sikiroshi has a famous story of that. The blue jays down at Tasara, for those of you who have been to Tasara, very annoying birds. They steal your food, which nobody likes, and they make horrible squawking noises. Squawk, squawk, squawk. So Sugiroshi was writing his lecture up in his cabin. The bird is squawking overhead above the cabin. Most people would say, well, if that bird just quit squawking, then I could concentrate on my lecture and do a better job. Sugiroshi says, the problem with that is you think the bird is out there. I think the bird is in here. singing to me.

[18:10]

The bird is part of me. And that is true. We make our whole world up. I mean, I'm looking out at you, and who knows how this all works, I don't really understand it. Light comes from somewhere, it's reflected off you, comes through my eyes, into some part of my brain, it's assimilated into something, and now all of your You're here. Well, you're certainly part of me. You're creating my world. Kategori Roshi had a way of talking about these two sides, the discriminating side and the oneness side. He said, a gasho is that. Here's me and my discriminating mind. Here's me and my sense of oneness. It's like that.

[19:13]

Shavako Kumaro used to do that too. When you do a bow, it's form and emptiness. Form. I'm going to try to put my hands together to really do this good. And then when I bow, I forget all about the form and open my mind to emptiness. Isn't it a beautiful title, The Harmony of Difference and Equality? We are each completely unique, also connected to one whole reality, and how do we harmonize this? This is the essence of our practice, that harmonizing, as expressed in this particular poem. Well, we've gotten through the title. It's pretty good. So I'm going to read the first four couplets and see what part of it we can talk about in the short amount of time we have left.

[20:34]

The mind of the great sage of India is intimately transmitted from west to east. While human faculties are sharp and dull, the way has no northern or southern ancestors. First line again. The mind of the great sage of India is intimately transmitted from west to east. Isn't that great? The mind... The great sage of India is Buddha, right? It doesn't say Buddha's teaching was transmitted from west to east. It doesn't say his practice, his forms, his sutras. It says his mind. What are we talking about here? I mean, first of all, it raises a great question. What is your mind? What is a human mind anyway? Is it our consciousness? I mean, we live with it all the time.

[21:58]

When we sit zazen, we have a great chance to pay attention to our mind. So the mind of the Great Self, we know that Suzuki Roshi, that Avalokiteshvara, Shakyamuni Buddha died 1,300 years before this poem was written, so it certainly wasn't his actual physical mind. What is the sense of this? What is the sense of what was transmitted? Buddha said when he was enlightened, I and all beings on earth together attain enlightenment at the same time. He didn't say, I have... through the great effort of my personal effort, achieve something, and good luck to the rest of you. He said, you all have it already too. You already have the mind, the enlightened, awakened mind of the great sage of India.

[23:03]

And I think the sort of import of this first line is that mind is with us. It's been transmitted intimately. Intimately means it wasn't like handed from here to there. It was like it's part of us already from the West, India, to here. That passed through China. That probably went all the way to here. So you have, while you're sitting today, according to this poem, or my interpretation of this poem, you're sitting with the mind of the great sage of India. And, you know, of course, one question you might have is, and is that any different than the crazy monkey mind that's going and spinning around at the same time? Or is that part of the great mind, the mind of the great sage of India?

[24:07]

Is my awakened mind and my monkey mind is all included and mixed together? Anyway, I offer... This is a great exploration for you today. Second line, while human faculties are sharp or dull, the way has no northern or southern ancestors. So, of course, there's a lot of history involved in this, and during the course of the practice period, we'll have the pleasure of exploring all of that. There were two schools of Zen that emerged from the fifth ancestor, One of his disciples went to the north and formed a big school of Zen, and another disciple went to the south and formed a different school of Zen. There was great controversy about which was the better way to practice Zen, the northern school or the southern school, and sutras were written especially by people from the southern school about how off the northern school was. Our school is better than your school.

[25:11]

This is common human behavior. And there's a lot of richness in that, but we're not going to do that this afternoon. We're just going to kind of... Anyway, what Shura was doing in this poem was sort of saying, the way has no northern or southern ancestors. It's the same. Both the northern school and the southern school are teaching the way. It's... these controversies are not useful. When I look at the line, while human faculties are sharp or dull,

[26:13]

I was reading Suzuki Rishi's lecture on this, and he's commenting on sharp or dull. He was saying, you think the clever ones have an advantage in practicing Zen over the dull ones. But it may not be true that the dull ones have more difficulty than the clever ones. And this is a quote from that lecture. Suzuki Roshi, I am not so sharp, so I understand this pretty well. My master always addressed me as you crooked cucumber. I was his last disciple, but I became his first one because all the good cucumbers ran away. Maybe they were too smart. Anyway, I was not smart enough to run away, so I was caught. For studying Buddhism, my dullness was an advantage. So I think there's a larger message here.

[27:20]

Each of us has our own gifts and disadvantages. And as far as the Dharma goes, we are all on equal footing. I don't know why I was reminded of this, but this morning when I was writing this up, I remembered that I'm dyslexic. And I'm old enough that back then they didn't know what that was too well. During first and second grade, I was just sitting there in some bewilderment while all these other children were reading like crazy, and I had no idea what was going on. I was just counting the holes in the asphalt tiles on the ceiling. Eventually, somebody diagnosed what was going on, and in third grade, I learned to read. So this was very painful for me when I was young. Big disadvantage. But in coping with that, I developed some other strengths, which turned out to be useful later in my life.

[28:21]

Actually, I've discovered, somebody gave me an article a few years ago that turned out that dyslexics are a higher proportion of successful people than non-dyslexics. Turns out being dyslexic is a success factor in America. Who knows? Anyway, no complaining. You all have a wonderful gift of a human life. With all of your advantages and disadvantages, you are properly positioned to practice Zen here. The spiritual source shines clear in the light. The branching streams flow in the dark. Grasping at things is surely delusion. According with sameness is still not enlightenment.

[29:23]

So a spiritual source. The beautiful thing about this poem is there's a lot of metaphors, especially nature metaphors, and they sort of swim in and out of each other. So light is usually referred to as the relative because we can see things. When the light is on, we can discriminate and notice everything. And darkness is usually referred to as the absolute or emptiness. So that's one of the metaphors in that saying. And spiritual source is also talked about as the absolute because it's like up in the... And we've got a spiritual source and branching streams. We've got a river metaphor here with the source of the stream up in the mountains or deep in the mountains or the top of the mountain. Anyway, not anything we can get to. And... the streams clearly to be seen flowing in front of us. And then he makes this kind of reversal where normally the spiritual source, which you can't see because it's the emptiness, it's the part which is never visible, is shining clearly in the light. And the branching streams, which you can all see, flow in the darkness.

[30:37]

So it's again one of these places where he keeps turning them together The absolute and the relative mixed all up with each other. So the next two lines are similarly positioned like this. Grasping at things is surely delusion. Well, we know that. That's fundamental basic Buddhism, right? Attachment, grasping at things, that's delusion. According to sameness, that's uniting with oneness, is still not enlightenment. Ooh, that one hurts. We thought that was the idea. Get rid of all this delusion. Get with the oneness. That's not it either. It's somewhere in between those two. It's sort of like those two lines are kind of a classic Zen trope, you know.

[31:40]

I have my desires. I want things. When I don't get them, I'm unhappy. If I do get them, I want more of them. Eventually, I don't get more of it. I'm unhappy. I have things I don't like. I want to get rid of them. That's grasping at things. It's okay to have those desires. It's okay to want things. That's life itself. It's the grasping after it that is the problem. So if you want something and you get it, great. That was really a fantastic chocolate cake. If you didn't get it, oh, interesting, no dessert tonight. I get to lose weight. Wonderful. It's the grasping after it that's the problem, not necessarily the wanting it. But then there is this tendency to go, oh, well, so once I get through with all this picking and choosing, all this... this effort to try to fix my life up and make it just exactly the way it works.

[32:44]

I'm just going to rest in the beingness, the oneness of my marvelous life, the perfection of it, the absolute way of it. Shiro was saying, not so. That's just another state of mind. That's another grasping after something else. So what do we do? We continue with our picking and choosing, but we kind of notice that maybe we can move more away from our self-centered picking and choosing and more towards a picking and choosing based on our connection to other people and to the world. Picking and choosing based on love. That would be a uniting of the interconnected side, the absolute side, and the relative part of our mind that's busy trying to sort out what to do all the time. Well, that was a very quick review of the first four couplets, and we'll get back to them later, but given the shortness of the hour, I think I'll move to the very end of the poem and share a couple of thoughts about the end.

[34:06]

Hearing the words, understand the meaning, don't set up standards of your own. If you don't understand the way right before you, how will you know the path as you walk? Progress is not a matter of near or far, but if you are confused, mountains and rivers block your way. I respectfully urge you who study the mystery, do not pass your days and nights. in vain. Beautiful, isn't it, this poetry? It's really lovely. Hearing the words understand the meaning. Don't set up standards of your own. There's a lot here, so I'm just going to... There's so many words. about what life is, what's going on, words here, words going through your head all the time.

[35:22]

What is the true meaning of your life? What is the meaning of this moment? The meaning of this moment is beyond the words. The meaning of this moment is beyond your sensations of this moment, your feelings of this moment. Everything that's being fed into you as a human being It's so easy to put tags on it, stories, labels. But if you stay grounded in your, what we would say, zazen practice, in your practice, then you can understand the real meaning of your life. And don't set up standards of your own doesn't mean, oh, I'm going to take somebody else's standards. I'll take Buddhist standards. I'll take my parents' standards. It means don't set up any standards. As soon as you start setting up standards of... how things should be for you and what you should be doing, it becomes like a tyranny on you, running your life.

[36:25]

So I think what he's saying is stick close to yourself. Trust yourself. Don't get betrayed by the words. Don't get betrayed by standards. In that way, you will understand the way right before you, and you will know how to walk the path. Then add a little sort of advice. Progress is not a matter of far or near. Not a matter of far or near. There's nowhere to go. You're already there. Just be there. Trust that things are going in the right direction. Whatever is presenting itself before you is what you need to deal with. So you don't need to be confused. But, of course, you will get confused, because that's what we do. And then when you get confused, it is as if mountains and rivers block your way.

[37:33]

Mountains and rivers blocking my way, that is really not good, is it? I don't know. I used to hike in the mountains, and, you know, big mountains, hard to get... You've got to hike over a huge pass to get through. In the springtime, there's a roaring river. How are you going to get across it? Mountains and rivers block your way. Doesn't that feel like life sometimes? Just so confused, we don't know what to do. It's just like mountains and rivers are blocking our way. And I would just say that one of our paramitas, patience. Patience. The practice of patience. There's always a way through. Eventually you will drop your confusion and it will be clear where to go. Then the last line of the poem. I respectfully urge you who study the mystery, do not pass your days and nights in vain.

[38:38]

How nicely put. I respectfully. He's respecting us. I respectfully. He's respecting us because we, you who study the mystery, you who are willing to take on the question of what is the meaning of life. What should I be doing with my life? What's going on here? What is life and death? Someone who is willing to take that mystery on. Not only take it on, but actually do something about it. Definitely worth some respect. You're here because some part of you said, I can do better. So you've taken up the burden of being a human being.

[39:44]

and the responsibility entailed with that. And his parting comment is, do not pass your days and nights in vain. I think that's written on a lot of our Hans, some version of that. Suzuki Roshi's version was, don't goof off. I think I heard the 11 o'clock bell. Thank you very much for listening to my introduction to this beautiful poem. For those of you who are sitting, please enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you very much.

[40:33]

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