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. Oops, David Zimmerman. And I, Tonto here, the head of practice. And you are? Tova Green. I'm a resident here and currently in the development office. So we're co-leading the practice period together, and this whole thing is an experiment. So from the beginning, we are experimenting. And one of the things that I want to do, because Tova has a kotsu, a teaching stick. It's the sound of it.

[01:00]

And I don't because I don't have Dharma transmission yet. I'm not supposed to carry a kotsu for Dharma talks until you receive Dharma transmission. So I did want to go empty-handed, so I decided to bring a flower to encourage me and to offer a little bit of beauty to you all. So thank you for allowing me to entertain myself in that way. So anyone new here for the first time? Great. Welcome. Anyone who's been here many, many, many, many times? A lot of you, yes. 20 years or more, yeah. Well, welcome. It's good to have you here. And regardless of whether you're freshly new or returning, I hope you receive something from this evening that will be nourishing. This is the first... Dharma talk for a practice period that we're starting, the spring practice period, or on-go. And I just want to say how delighted I am to be co-leading this with Tova.

[02:04]

I feel very honored and happy that we had this opportunity to take this journey together. And Tova and I have talked together before on Queer Dharma, so it's wonderful to have a slightly different venue at which to teach. So thank you for joining me in this. As I said, this is the first of a six-week on-go. And the on-go or practice period is, for those of you who are new, first time arriving, is a seasonal event. It's for people to come together in community. And we come together, and we connect, and we kind of settle in, and we discover what it is to lead a daily life or practice together. And in doing so... find out what is most true for us, what is most authentic, most alive, and most vital in our lives in this moment as we're meeting it, as we're engaging it.

[03:05]

So here's what we're launching into. This is actually a very old tradition that has been in Soto Zen for hundreds of years. It actually was established in the Buddhist time. when the monks during the summer rainy season would stop their wandering and pause for several months and take shelter and practice together in shelter. So 2,500-year-old tradition, way of life, if you will. And I want to emphasize it as a way of life. It's very important how we live this way together. So I'm gonna read you the beginning of a poem, and you might consider it sage advice for how we might enter into a practice period together, into this way of life together. The great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences.

[04:11]

When love and hate are both absent, everything becomes clear and undisguised. Make the smallest distinction, however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart. If you wish to see the truth, then hold no opinions for and against anything. The set of what you like against what you dislike is the disease of the mind. When the deep meaning of things is not understood, the mind's essential peace is disturbed to no avail. One of the lines in there sticks out for me. If you wish to see the truth, then hold no opinions for or against anything.

[05:16]

Another way that this is translated is, Do not search for the truth. Only cease to cherish opinions. Do not search for the truth. Only cease to cherish opinions. So I think many of us come to spiritual practices, such as Zen, or to Dharma centers such as this, this Beginner's Mind Temple, seeking what is true in our life And we might be seeking this truth as if it had a capital T to it. And I think this search is fueled by our feeling, maybe indefinable in some way, some vague feeling, that we're just not seeing something. We're not in touch with something essential, something that's dependable, something that we can rely on.

[06:17]

And so we come seeking for something other than the truths that we grew up with, either in our faith traditions or that are inherited from our families or from our cultures of origin. And yet it may be that we found these truths in some way limited. They don't really speak to us. They don't meet us. They don't express what is most deepest in us. we may come to a Dharma center such as this and join other members of the Sangha and living the question, what is true? What is true? And what is it that I can fundamentally rely on? And yet, by coming to a Zen center of all places, we have to realize that we've chosen a path that doesn't have a doctrine to rely on It doesn't have a God or some great other, if you will, to which we turn to to tell us what is the truth.

[07:29]

Instead, what we do is we come and we sit in silence. And we notice our bodies and our breath. As we do so, we notice the stirrings of our hearts as well as the fleeting moments of bliss and heartbreak and despair. We also notice the machinations of our mind. The stories and ideas and truths that we try to create all the time, habitually. And what we do is we just sit with that. And we just notice. And we do not think But just notice. And notice. And notice until noticing the mind of absolute presence is all there is.

[08:35]

The theme that Tova and I have chosen for the practice period is cultivating a mind of radical trust. Zen practices for living in an uncertain world. And so all the Dharma talks over the next six weeks that Tover and I and guest speakers will be offering will be an exploration of this particular theme. What it is? What is trust? Or what is faith? How do we cultivate it? And how do we live from that particular place in our lives? And I expressed yesterday in the opening ceremony that we had just the morning when we went to all the altars in the temple and offered fragrance as a opening greeting to this practice period. I see our practice together, our Zen way, as fundamentally one of radical trust. So we sit together,

[09:46]

and we chant together, and we eat together, and we work together, and we also argue together. But everything we do together is done in the faith that we are already one with the heart-mind of Buddha, that we already are Buddha, already are life as immeasurably awake Presencing. And then it follows that fully showing up for each other and for ourselves, because we can't leave ourselves out of this, is also an act of faith and an act of love. And so our trusting heart-mind is born of our unfathomable interconnectedness. The reality that no matter how diluted our conditioned minds and our habitual self-cleaning, nothing can truly separate us.

[10:55]

We are this one life. And life is what we are. I would propose that our fundamental problem, our fundamental source of suffering, is that we don't trust ourselves. We don't have confidence in our true nature. our root life. And we somehow have lost touch with what's true and with what it is to live an authentic life, a life of integrity. And oftentimes we receive messages these days that we are independent individuals. It was somehow islands unto ourselves. And that our self-worth and our value is somehow tied ceaselessly to the ceaseless activities that we do.

[12:01]

To everything that we need to achieve and accomplish and think and produce and collect. And then we end up comparing each other and ourselves to all these islands. things that we are doing and collecting. And the underlying message is actually that we are not enough, that we're not good enough, we're not perfect enough, we're not complete enough. And somehow we're supposed to fix this lack in order to be perfect, in order to be fully human, in order to be superhuman, if you will. So in such a world, it becomes actually a revolutionary act to simply stop and ask ourselves, is that true? Is that true?

[13:06]

And it takes radical courage to do this. To stop all our CISIS activity, and thinking and comparing, instead to be still and silent and open ourselves up completely to be transparent and vulnerable, to sitting in the middle of not knowing itself. So I'll continue on exploring just a bit. What is fundamental trust? And this became a very important word to me as I was preparing for Dharma Transmission last year. And at one point, I said to my teacher, Linda Cutts, that I didn't think I was ready for Dharma Transmission, which is being fully authorized to teach.

[14:11]

I said, I don't know enough. And she said... it's not about what you know, it's about trust. And so I started thinking, well, what is that trust? What is it that she trusts in me? What is it that I trust in her? What do I trust in myself? And I think the text we're going to study in the practice period that David read part of, the Xin Xin Ming, really points to that question of what can we truly trust in a very deep way. There are many things we may think we trust, and yet if we don't trust in ourselves, and I think there's a way of thinking of ourselves as not not our separate selves, our everyday selves that have names and identities, but part of an interconnected realm of beings, our bigger selves.

[15:29]

Sometimes we can call it Buddha mind, our awakened and awakening selves. If we can tap into that sense of self, it can truly help us in dealing with changes in our lives, in dealing with loss, in dealing with all of the many challenges that living in our world presents every day. So how do we develop that sense of trust? And so I'd like to invite each of you to explore for yourself for a moment what is it that you trust. What does trust connote for you? And what is it that you can trust? And I'm going to ask you, if you would, to pair up with someone. And for just a couple of minutes, each of you will have a chance to speak while the other listens.

[16:36]

And I'll ring a bell after two minutes. then you'll know it's time to change and the person who was speaking can listen and vice versa. So if you would be willing to just turn to someone near you and perhaps the person with the shorter hair could go first. Does everyone have a partner? Does everyone have a partner? Okay.

[17:41]

There's a lot I didn't say. Give him a second. a few moments because it started. Thank you. [...] Okay, so please switch so that the person who is listening has a chance to speak.

[18:57]

Yeah, I'm happy. [...] Thank you. So please finish up with your partner and thank your partner.

[20:55]

And we'll come back together. And I wonder if there are a few people who might like to share what your... A sense of trust is what is it that you trust? Yes, Phyllis. It sounds like a dumb horse, but really I had no idea that that's what any fact... Thank you.

[22:16]

Anyone else? Gail? Thank you. Michael? and myself and the planet are all imperfect or, let's say, potentially fallible, then shrugs as a gift because I couldn't ultimately place it in anything that couldn't let me down possibly. So it's something that I allow, but the realization of this practice for me is that I have to give that gift. I have to place it out there, or else I'm holding, like, you know, let's say a hot coal that's up early. I have to give it.

[23:21]

But the realization that I could feel let down by the Sangha, or I could be let down by this person, or by potentially even a teaching, this is just a raft, but that it's something that must be given. Thank you. Maybe one more? Yeah, Caitlin. Thank you. Thank you very much. And I hope you'll continue to explore this question for yourself over the next weeks. What is trust? What is it that you deeply trust? Back to you, David. I trust David. Does David trust himself? That is the question. So part of this exploration, 36 Weeks, as we talked about, is going to be working through a 6th century poem, a Chinese poem called the Xin Xin Ming.

[24:32]

And it's attributed to Zen's third ancestor in And in Japanese, we chant every morning, for those who are chanting with us in the morning. So the Shenzhen Ming is one of the earliest and most influential Zen writings. And it's actually referred to as the first Zen punk. And this poem consists of 146 unrhymed four-character verses or lines. And when you actually look at it, it's just written in this beautiful flow. However, when we translate into English, it's often divided into stanzas, four-line stanzas, to make it easier for those who don't read Chinese to be able to track what's going on. It has historical significance because this is the point in which this particular writing was developed, was when Indian Buddhism was making its way into China, and in the process, merging with Taoist philosophy and also the emerging Chan principles.

[25:54]

And so what changed is the language. The languaging of what kind of was Indian Buddhism switched to something that became much more simpler and direct. And the language itself became more of a pointer in how it was expressing things to practice itself. So that was a major shift. Now, this poem is very beautiful and has a lot of great insights. And there's been a number of commentaries that have been written about it, some of which we'll be studying or referencing during this practice period. It's a very, very dense poem. So we're only going to be scratching the surface of this poem through this six weeks together. But it's really worth a lifetime of study. There's so much there to discover and to practice and to engage in. In fact, all of Zen practice, if you will, is actually calculated into this particular poem.

[26:58]

What I'd like to do is just very briefly share what the title of the poem means itself, Xin Xin Ming. And the first two words, as you can hear, sound the same, Xin Xin. But they're actually two different characters in Chinese. The first Xin means belief or faith. And now, this is not faith in the ordinary sense of having a belief in something. But rather, it's a faith that comes from firsthand experience. It's a faith that arises out of the intimate wisdom of direct knowing. You could say it's a faith or trust in the very fact of existence itself, the fact of reality itself. And this believing, this shin, this belief is actually an affirmation that all

[28:02]

existence, all reality is essentially Buddha mind. One mind. It's essentially our true nature, our true mind, our true heart mind, if you will. And the second shin means heart. But it can also mean mind. So what happens is in the Chinese understanding, the heart and mind are not separate. So the reference is the same thing. But this particular mind is not that a deluded mind that comes out of our ignorance, our particular karmic clashes, but rather it's the mind of Buddha that's clear, luminous, unobstructed, and boundless. So shinshin is often translated as faith in mind or trust in mind. And because there's no difference between a noun and a verb in the Chinese language, it could be either trust in mind or trusting in mind.

[29:12]

And another way it could be understood is trusting mind, trust truthful mind, upright mind, or perfected mind. I've also seen it translated as the trusting heart or on trust in the heart. And then you could finally say the trusting mind, trusting itself. The trusting mind, trusting itself. So you might want to reflect when we look at these particular expressions of Shinsheng. Is this description about a mind of trust that comes from practice? Or it is about the mind of practice itself? The last word, Ming, literally means inscription.

[30:16]

And it's sometimes translated as verses. And it means a written expression or record or truth that survives over time. And it can also mean warnings or admonitions. I found that one scholar noted that Xinxing Ming means the verbal expression of the fact that the very nature of existence and of all the phenomenal world are no other than the faith mind. Another way to express this is The truth that the heart-mind is one with directly experienced reality. The truth that the heart-mind is one with directly experienced reality. So in other words, there is no other truth.

[31:18]

There is no other heart than right now. This is complete entirety. So basically this poem boils down to a practice guide. And oftentimes it's actually used or referenced to doing longer sinning sessions and so on. Because we can understand it both as from a practice meditation instruction kind of level. And we can also understand it as directly pointing to the essential nature of reality. So, how do we practice? And what is it we're seeing? How do we understand that which it is we are seeing as we sit in Zazen, receiving all of life?

[32:20]

So, Basically, this poem speaks to the essential perfection of our awareness and our fundamental nature. We're already perfect. We're already whole. We're already complete. And it points to how we can discover this by freeing ourselves of habitual, discriminating faults and ideas, which I was pointing to at the beginning when I read the first few lines of the poem. And it presents us from various perspectives throughout. And pointing out to us how persuasive our judging mind, our comparison mind, the mind that creates opposite is, and how profound a transformation can be experienced when we liberate ourselves from these particular condition, habit patterns. And so the poem, through its very subtle and accessible teaching in many ways, points to one fundamental question for us to entertain.

[33:41]

How are we to live in this vast, changing, and complex world, care deeply for it, and act freely within it without attachments? So I'd like to talk about two ways in which this poem encourages us in our lives. As David mentioned, it points to some of our habitual patterns of mind. One translation of the first line is, the way is not difficult for those who are not addicted to preferences. We all have preferences. We prefer one kind of coffee over another, or a certain kind of... We like one color better than another.

[34:45]

We like it hot, we like it cold, in terms of weather. And sometimes we don't even recognize when we're, in a sense, attached or addicted to our preferences. For example, at Tassajara, when we ran out of peanut butter, it was very upsetting. It was a staple. Or sometimes here, when we run out of coffee, we recognize how strongly attached we are to certain things that we really like. But when we recognize how... unhappy we can be or how unhappy we make ourselves when we're so attached to having things a certain way, we may be able to develop more ease around it. So that's one of the teachings of the Xin Xin Ming to see how it's possible to be more spacious around our preferences and not be so ruled by them.

[35:56]

Another teaching of the Xin Xin Ming points us towards our tendency to compare ourselves with others or to judge ourselves or others. Whether we think we're better than someone else or worse, then it's still comparing mind and those thoughts cause a lot of unhappiness and dissatisfaction. And we'll... I'll be talking more about that during the practice period. I just thought I'd give one example of that. I think we can all think of examples. But when I was living in Boston, I decided to study Aikido because I wanted to become stronger as I grew older. So I started when I was 40. And there were two younger women who started at the same time that I did. they progressed much more quickly. One of them became involved in a relationship with someone who was a black belt in Aikido, so she had the added benefit of practicing with him quite a lot.

[37:07]

And I started feeling really badly about myself and also jealous of the two of them, until one day I realized that I could ask them to work out with me and I could learn from them and feel... than both sympathetic joy for their ability to progress and also appreciation for where I was in my life and my ability to accept my own kind of place in the dojo, in the Aikido room. And it... It's a lesson that has stayed with me when I begin to get into that comparing mind and feel often not as good as, not as smart as, not as capable to begin to unpack that.

[38:24]

Well, actually, someone shared with me a comment by Thich Nhat Hanh that to think of oneself as better than someone else is pride. To think of oneself as not as good as someone else is also pride. And to think of oneself as equal to is pride, because they all have to do with comparing mind. And how can we find some... equanimity around who we are, some acceptance and not be trapped by our comparing minds. And the same with judging mind. So that is one of the teachings of the Xin Xin Ming that we will explore further during these six weeks. So it is exactly 8.30. where we wanted to wrap it up.

[39:28]

Thank you so much for your attention tonight and for coming to the beginning talk of the practice period. I hope you'll come back and explore this wonderful text with us. Do you want to say some closing words as well? Thank you. Just very briefly, we I wanted to use the word radical because radical actually means to return to the root. And so this is what this particular text and what this practice is about. Returning to what is essential, to the root, to before the judgments arise, before the thinking patterns arise, before words, you know, the discursive mind arises, what is there? Can you rest there? Can you abide there? Can you stay there? as long as possible. And even when you enter into words, enter into the discursive mind, can you enter from the place of stillness, the place of clarity, luminosity, the place that is most true and direct for our life.

[40:52]

for who we are. So in each moment, am I expressing what is true in my body, speech, and expressions of mind? What is most true in this moment? Thank you, everybody, for your patience and your presence. 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.

[41:44]

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