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. What a wonderful, intimate group this morning. Just us. Us residents, us employees, us people who take care of the city center here, starting our resident retreat. Really wonderful to be with you this morning. I'm glad the employees could come over too and participate. Even though I know you're thinking about some of those invoices that need to be paid. Some of those deposits that need to be made. Some of those... donors that need to be thanked, the various activities that go on over there.

[01:01]

So I just thought I would share a few thoughts I have about practice in this temple and a little over the history of it. It was in the spring of 1969. Tsukiroshi had been head priest at Sakoji for 10 years, and it had become clear there were so many... American students practicing with him that the Japanese congregation felt like they were sort of crowded out. So a decision was made that Tsukiroshi and the American students would try to find another location for them to practice. And in the summer, this building was up for sale, and they came over and looked at it, and they purchased it with the help of a major donor who had been a significant contributor to... Tashara, Marion Derby, and Chester Carlson was the founder of Xerox, one of the founders and a large donor to Tashara, and they put the down payment down.

[02:05]

And then most of the students that were living in apartments around Sakoji moved in here. And with a very nice loan from the Bank of Tokyo, they were able to make the mortgage payments with the rent that the students were paying to live in this building and the dues of the membership. In November 15, 1969, Suzuki Roshi moved into the building with Oksan and the students. They sat zazen at 5.40 in the evening because some things continue to happen. Basically, Suzuki Roshi said the following thing. He came up to the Buddha hall and gave a little talk. We say our practice is the ornament of Buddha. Even though students don't know what Buddhism is, if they come to some beautiful, Buddha Hall, then they will naturally have some feeling. But essentially, for Zen Buddhists, the real ornaments of the Buddha Hall are the people who practice there.

[03:08]

Each one of us is, should be, a beautiful flower. And each one of us should be Buddha-leading people in our practice. That's you. Each one of you a beautiful flower, a Buddha leading people in practice. Some of you are old students who have been around many decades, are called teachers, and you lead people in practice by helping them. And some of you have been around here three weeks, and you help people and lead people in practice by telling them, That's where the Buddha Hall is, and down the hallway is where the toilets are. We all can help the people that come here to practice in the ways that we can if we have the right spirit. And others of you help people to practice by making sure that their payroll checks are done on time and that various other things are taken care of around this temple.

[04:20]

So... And we all help each other in other ways, too. You know, when I come down here to give a lecture, my wonderful Jisha makes sure I have my watch with me. And even more importantly, that I have my glasses in my sleeve. So if I don't have my glasses in my sleeve, I can't read my lecture. Which would probably produce a better lecture, but in any event, would make me more nervous. So we're always busy helping each other. This is what we call bodhisattva practice. And that's what I want to talk a little bit about this morning is bodhisattva practice. They opened this temple in January with an official opening and named the zendo, the Maha Bodhisattva Zendo.

[05:21]

I don't know how many of you knew that our Zendo was named the Maha Bodhisattva Zendo. Not so many. Yeah, a few. Maha means great. The great Bodhisattva Zendo. We have such marvelous names for this temple. Beginner's mind temple. Open, ready, empty mind, wisdom. And a Zendo called the great Bodhisattva Zendo. Compassion. helping people, taking care of people. This is a temple built to be wise and taking care of people. Also, I just wanted to say a few things about what's different about this temple than the other wonderful temples Zen Center has. I mean, Tashara is beautiful. I'm going to lead the winter practice period down there next year, and I led the winter practice period in 2015, and the sense of the way the container holds people's practice at Tassara is really beautiful.

[06:27]

And I think everybody that can, if they can sometime in their life, figure out how to go to Tassara and live there for a week or a practice period or two years or four years, that would be great. And it's a particular kind of practice. And Green Gulch also has a particular kind of practice. But our practice here at City Center is quite different uh we have so many people that come in here all the time monday nights we have 70 people that come in here on meditation and recovery and tuesday nights we have all kinds of young people working in high tech and various different industries saying what do i do about my life how do i make my life make sense and then we have people that are queer coming here. And then on Saturday, we have all kinds of people here. We have people that are cancer researchers. We have people that are, I was talking with a person the other day who's working with the nine Bay Area counties about how to figure out what to do when the Bay water level rises because of global warming.

[07:39]

How do you get them all to work together? Ed, how does Zen help me figure out how to get them all to work together? It's a good question. Yeah. So we have lots and lots of different people that come here on Saturday and all during the week saying, how does Zen practice help me work in the world? And since we're bodhisattvas, we're going to help them with that. That's our practice. And yesterday when we had the sharing circle, And people came forward with their practice and how they could share and help people. I was just so impressed with all the different ways people brought forward their desire to serve people. They serve people by fixing the plumbing. They serve people by making the flower arrangements with love.

[08:40]

They serve people by greeting the guests as they come in every day, all day long. They serve people by... Reading them in the bookstore. They serve people by taking care of the accounting books and making sure that all the checks are paid. They serve people by scheduling house jobs and preparing guest rooms and greeting people in all the different ways they come in here. Organizing retreats. I could go on and on, you know. And then the students, all of you, said, and we want to do that and make sure that we're being kinder when we're doing it. make sure that we can trust ourselves and each other more, make sure that we can follow the schedule as well as we can and participate with each other and do all this with love. This was what everybody said yesterday, and it was so beautiful to be there and feel that intention. So...

[09:46]

do we do it? How do we generate the energy to meet this request? What is the practice here that does that? So I'm just going to read a little something from Suzuki Hiroshi that I saw in the back of one of his books. The purpose of the study and practice of Buddhism is to have perfect understanding of things, to understand ourselves and what we are doing in our everyday life. understands ourselves and what we are doing in our everyday life. It is also necessary to understand why we suffer and why we have so much conflict in our society, in our families, and within ourselves. In other words, to understand what is going on in the objective and subjective realms. If we see things as it is, if we are aware of what we are doing and have a good understanding, we will know what we should do. So that's our practice.

[10:52]

That's what our Zen practice is. That's what we try to do. If we do this, we can help people. We can help ourselves. So how is this practice here designed to do that? Well, first, this is a Zen training temple. Rather unusual thing, a Zen training temple. to be living in a Zen training temple in America. There's nothing really else in America that runs like we run. I mean, it's just a strange thing. We get up in the morning, and we go down to the Zendo, and we sit Zazen. And then we do Kinyin, and then we sit another Zah, period of Zazen. And then we come up. and we chant and bow together doing service and then we do soji and clean the temple and then we have breakfast. And we do all of that through soji in silence.

[11:53]

And how intimately we get to know each other in silence. Spending that kind of time with each other in silence, we can tell who that person was that was walking behind us in the zendo. We can feel that person chanting next to us or behind us, the sound of their voice. This kind of intimacy, because we're quiet enough to actually start to know each other. This is not what everybody does in the world out there. This is not the normal procedure in the outside world. A lot of people just get up very busily, grab a quick breakfast or a cup of coffee and go off to a very busy day of work. So I think we should remember how unique and what a gift it is that we start our day that way together. And if we all start our day together that way, we have a kind of cohesion in our community that allows us to, when we engage in the busy day of work, support each other.

[13:04]

And then we do work. Work has always been part of Zen practice since... Yakujo in China and the monastic system was developed. A day of no work is a day of no food. We feel that work is an important way to practice. And how you practice in work, that is part of what our training is. How to make work not just getting a job done, but a way of understanding ourselves and what we are doing. How do you chop vegetables in a way in which you're... obviously chopping vegetables fast enough to get the vegetables chopped in order to cook a soup for us to have lunch at 1230, but also how do you do it in a way that you're paying attention to what's going on in your mind, you're paying attention to what the other people are doing in the kitchen with you. This is also true of... Don't we get annoyed with each other all the time when we're working?

[14:27]

It's just amazing, isn't it? I mean, it's just... It's part of our human situation. So what is our practice when we get annoyed with each other? Work practice is... paying attention to ourselves, how we're interacting with other people, getting the job done, and dealing with what happens when we're annoyed with each other. That's what makes it practice. We don't just say, that person may be angry. Well, I'm going to just throw out a few things here, what we do. We have precept practice in Zen Buddhism. One of the precepts is non-harboring of ill will. So the first thing we do is we notice, wow, I'm angry.

[15:28]

We also call it, we do mindfulness. So we say, wow, I'm angry. First of all, let's recognize that we're angry. That's the R, recognize that we're angry. For decades, I thought I never got angry. I was raised in one of those Protestant-American homes where nobody got angry. Nobody ever expressed any anger. Anger didn't exist. It just existed in the shadows everywhere. So it took me a while to realize, oh, wow, I'm angry. So recognize that you're angry. Accept that you're angry. Oh, okay, I'm angry. You don't go, oh, I'm a good Buddhist. I don't get angry. Buddhists don't get angry. I'm not angry. No, we don't deny. We're angry. We recognize we're angry. And then we investigate like a good scientist. We go, well, what does anger feel like? What does it feel like in my body? What are the emotions of anger? What's the nuances of all of this? What are the thoughts that are going through my head?

[16:29]

That person is so, you know, why did they do that? You know, all those things. What is actually going on here? Really study it. Have the courage to recognize, accept, and investigate what this is. And then realize it's not you. This is just a karmic event that's happening in your life. N. Non-identify. You're not identifying. Oh, I'm a bad person because I've... I'm feeling angry. No, this is just an experience you are. You're studying this. And then you're going to forgive yourself for being this way. And you're going to forgive the person that you may have done something to you or may not have done something to you. We don't know. Anyway, that would have to be a further investigation. But our practice is to look inside first. That's what we do. We look inside first.

[17:30]

we forgive ourselves, and we move towards peace. Because as Suzuki Roshi said earlier, why we have so much conflict in our society, in our families, and within ourselves. And in this community, we replicate all of that. We have all of that conflict going on here in a community in which everybody is dedicated to helping everybody else following the precepts, living as upright a life as we can, and still we have conflict. And that is our opportunity. That is why this is a practice place. We use that opportunity to train ourselves, to train our minds, to train our emotions, so that we actually can, when somebody in the outside world comes and says, I'm having a hard time getting nine counties to agree on how we're going to take care of this sea level rise. Saying, oh yeah, I have a hard time sometimes figuring out how I'm going to get three people in Zen Center to do one thing.

[18:36]

Right? So we take these things and we say, this is our practice. That's how we make work practice. So, I'm not... There's also... Sometimes, of course, when we're working with each other, when we actually have to have a conversation and sort it out. It's not just a matter of reflecting on our own practice and going on. And so on Saturday, we're going to introduce the communication protocol for practicing with conflicts because it is useful to know how to have a good conversation with somebody that you have a difficulty with so that you can move past it. As one of my good friends used to say, you have a rupture in your relationship. And if you can repair it, then your relationship will be stronger afterwards. And I do think there has been a tendency in Zen Center over the years to sort of avoid difficulties, pretend that we don't have difficulties between each other, so we just, like, ignore it.

[19:41]

And the funny thing about that is they just sort of grow bigger. So we're making an effort. Some people are reading a book on difficult conversations and trying to promote a little bit more. So I'm also in favor of that. Yes, we look within ourselves first, but if we need to have a conversation, we have a conversation and make sure that we're repairing any differences we have. So I also want to talk about another side. So that's, you know, dealing with the sort of smoothing the pebbles in our relationship. But there's also something else that goes on when you live in in a training temple like this together. And I'm going to just read a section from Not Always So, where Siddhartha Gershu is talking about. You'll understand as soon as I... He says, When you see someone practicing sincerely, you see yourself.

[20:43]

If you are impressed by someone's practice, you may say, Oh, she is doing so well. That she is neither she nor you. She is something more than that. What is she? You know what I'm talking about? You've had that experience. You look at someone and you just go, wow, their practice is so beautiful. I mean, they hit that bell. This morning when I was, you know, I bow at the back of the altar after I do the Jundo and then to my seat in a way. Each bell was hit just perfectly. with when I vowed. I mean, it's just like, their practice is so beautiful. Or you see somebody helping another person in the kitchen, you go like, wow, I mean, he just knew how to hand that ladle to that person just at that right moment. How did that happen, you know? But what Sri Krishna is saying, when you see someone practicing the ladle, you see yourself.

[21:44]

Because you had to understand practice in order to see yourself. that that was a beautiful practice. After thinking for a while, you may say, oh, she is there and I am here. But when you are struck by her practice, that her is neither you nor her. When you are struck by something, that is the actual real you. Tentatively I say you, but that you is the pure experience of our practice. That's a connection between us. I mean, we used to look at Suzuki Gersh and say, how does he do that? How does that happen? But it was our connecting enough with him to actually see his practice. And that connection was a new thing. It wasn't just me observing him. It was us together experiencing something. That is what he calls the pure experience of practice, or what Dogen would call

[22:49]

practice realization. That's enlightenment happening whenever we're feeling that when we're practicing with another peer. And we feel that all the time in this temple. That's the other side. Practicing like that with each other where we just, oh, I just feel that person's practice so strongly. We should sort of notice that, you know, and kind of applaud that part of our practice. It's a funny thing to practice in such an unusual thing as a temple like this and a community like this for any period of time. It's the little kindness. I was head of the shop at Tassara, or I was director, I can't remember. Anyway, a lot of times I would be late to or miss zazen because I was fixing a truck or getting it.

[23:54]

town trip trip out of it. So I was up, I remember this evening, I was up fixing the truck because it had to be fixed in order to go out the next morning for the town trip. And the Eno, who was Steve Weintraub at that time, came up and he said, Ed, how are you doing? Good, working on this truck. You know, if it's at all possible, if you feel like it, if you could get to the Zendo tonight, that would be nice. Not you're late to the zendo, you should get to, just, you know, be nice if you could make it to the zendo. I know you have all this work to do all the time. It felt like he was taking care of me, helping me. Well, that's how we help each other and people are helping you with your practice. Oh, you think you could make it to the, I noticed you weren't in the zendo this morning. You know, that kind of thing. You build friendships. this way. You build friendships here that last a lifetime.

[24:57]

You know, I was in college. You build friendships in college. Friendships you build living in a strange temple like this are friendships that last for decades. And they're the kind of Dharma friendships that encourage your practice all of the time. Well, one cannot talk about bodhisattva practice without mentioning, at least in passing, the great koan, Yunnan's great compassion, the koan about Avalab Kiteshvara. So I'm just going to read it and talk about it for a few minutes. So what's beautiful, of course, about this koan is there's two people, Yunnan and Dawu, who are fellow monks. This isn't the koan between a student and a teacher where the student says something and the teacher says something even more obscure, and then they get enlightened, right? It's not like that. This is two regular old monks that are just, you know, one of them, you know, sometimes they're sweeping.

[26:01]

So Yunnan asked Dao, what does the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion do with so many hands and eyes? You know, you've seen the statue of Avalokiteshvara, Bodhisattva of Compassion, a thousand arms and hands. And Dao says, it's like someone reaching back for a pillow at night. So compassionate activity is not always so direct. It's not like, oh, that person needs help, I'm going to help them. It's more like, oh, wow, that person next to me in the zendo is falling over. My hand reaches out and I immediately grab them. I'm not thinking about it. What, their leg fell asleep, they stood up and they're falling over? You just grab them and keep them from falling over. Like you would reach for a pillow. at night when you're asleep, you're not even thinking about it, you're just arranging the pillow. Yunnan says, I understand. Dao says, how do you understand it?

[27:04]

And Yunnan says, all over the body are hands and eyes. All over the body are the hands and eyes of compassion. Your compassion flows from your whole being. Of course, these guys always have fun with each other. So he says, well, you said a lot there, but you only got 80%. He's giving him an 80% grade for that comment. So the other one says, well, okay, smarty pants, what about you, elder brother? What's your answer? Dao said, throughout the body are hands and eyes. All over the body are hands and eyes. Throughout the body are hands and eyes. Is there any difference? Well, I don't know. It's a conversation between two people. Where does all of our compassion flow from?

[28:06]

That's a kind of discussion question. How does this bodhisattva activity work? I was thinking we can see a thousand hands and I... thousand hands as an image of sangha with each person lending a hand with his own viewpoint and skill to the total body of awakening beings. We're all together, one Avalokitesvara, each one of our hands participating and helping all these people. I think what I'm going to do is just tell one little story about hands, and then I'm going to open it up for a few comments and questions. This is from the introduction, not always so, when Ed Brown was talking about Suzuki Roshi.

[29:13]

He says, Other times when I struggled to sit still, Suzuki Roshi's hands would rest motionlessly on my shoulders, touching me through and through. My breath would soften and lengthen. Tension would release and my shoulders would start to radiate with warmth and vitality. Once I asked him what he was doing when his hands were on my shoulder and he said, I'm meditating with you. It is quite rare to be touched like that, receptively and openly with kind regard. Most touch says, go over there. Get over here. Straighten up. Calm down. This touch said, I'll be here with you wherever you are. Whatever you are. I'll be here with you, whatever you are. I'm willing to touch whatever it is. That was the spirit of his meditation, the spirit of his teaching.

[30:18]

Sit with everything. Be one with everything. Innumerable people were touched by Suzuki Rishi's presence and by his teaching. Each of us in our own way responded to his kind, upright regard, his meditating with us. And this is our example. This is our effort to touch all of the people that live in this building, that work in these buildings, that come in the door asking for our help with that kind of touch. So since we're not going to have a question and answer and we are all just here together, I thought we could spend 10 minutes just talking together. Anybody has anything to add or comments to make? Please. I think we can think about it in all ways.

[31:30]

I think that's a wonderful way to think about it. Ms. Tova? Yes, not just the skin, to say the least. Certainly one has that feeling sometimes in one's heart, a kind of warmth that flows out. One of the easy places to identify compassion coming from. Yes, Vicki.

[32:39]

Realize that isn't the work of, like, instant. It doesn't happen right away. To realize it yourself takes time. I wonder if you could talk about that. Yeah, well, I call it, our practice is the walking in the mist practice. That's what people talk about it, you know. takes 20 years maybe, I don't know, or two weeks, depends. You don't know what's going on about practice. You have no idea what's going on about practice. Sometimes you think, oh, I'm practicing so good. You most certainly aren't practicing good when you're thinking that. Oh, I'm practicing terrible. Probably not. You don't know what your practice is. But to get to that place where you feel that you're Buddha too, that your practice is emanating from something much bigger than yourself, takes a long time.

[34:00]

It's a kind of confidence that has to come. A settling, starting over a long period of accepting yourself, all of yourself, all of the nutty, crazy aspects of yourself are just part of what is... going on around you. So sometimes it happens right away and then you forget. Sometimes you see it quickly and then you forget. Sometimes you don't see it for a while. Feeling that deep connection to everything. We all see it from time to time. We just forget, I think. So maybe if you practice long enough you forget less often. Maybe that's what happens. Anything? A follow up, Vicki? Yeah, maybe that's good. Maybe you're forgetting more often and actually touch better.

[35:03]

Jean. Yeah, well, I mean, I touched on one of the precepts are our practice, but I also talked about how do you catch yourself in the moment of irritation so that you don't actually lash out verbally or, God forbid, physically in some way that is destructive. And so it's a practice of catching it being present enough with your anger so that you can be with it. I mean, you can also have real simple techniques. If you caught it fast enough, before you do anything, you could just take a breath or a second breath or a third breath until you gain your composure and don't say something that you're going to regret.

[36:24]

There are times, of course, where an immediate response is necessary in case somebody is doing something very bad and you need to stop them. Yeah, go ahead. Well, usually the issue is in the first few minutes that the problem is. That's when we're most likely to do or say something that causes the most destruction. It just comes out of us. So how you catch yourself early on in a way to settle down.

[37:30]

If you don't have to act for an hour, you've got plenty of time to figure out, in my experience, what to do. Do you understand that difference? Yes. What I was talking about in terms of speed is if somebody is about to abuse somebody else in some way that is obviously destructive and you need to intervene, then your anger is usually an indication of some clarity of mind and opportunity to move. That happens very rarely, though. willingness or courage to go back from there and be curious about it together.

[39:08]

I think has really taken my friendships over and over again. Well, we all know that that's an essential component of ethical conduct is when you've actually messed up to apologize. When you've actually hurt somebody and you know you have and you've messed up, please go apologize. some of the self-righteousness.

[40:12]

I do think categorize anger as negative. It's not necessary. It's an energy that does have its place. But just to have that little space there. Is this what I want people to do? And just ask that question. Well, the clock chimed 10, I believe, is that what it did? Huh? 11. Well, whatever, the time that this thing is supposed to end. And certainly, isn't it interesting of all the things I talked about, how much anger is such a great, captures us in terms of such a challenge for us in working with each other And so it should be entirely obvious to us why there's all the conflict that goes on in the world out there.

[41:17]

Which is why it's so important for us to mature our practice, to take on this bodhisattva practice of helping other people getting better at doing that. Certainly the world needs it. Well, thank you very much. It's been wonderful to have this kind of time together. So let's go back and sit samsada. 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.

[42:18]

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