This podcast is offered by San Francisco's Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good evening, everybody. Welcome to Zen Center. My name is Shundo, and I see some very familiar faces, some people I haven't seen for a while. Nice to see you guys. And some new people. Is anyone here who is brand new? Right, welcome, especially to maybe the New Year thing, to come and check out Zen Center for the first time, and hope you find something helpful. Thank you to Rosalie for giving me this chance to speak, and it's nice to be back on the Dharma seat again. Let's start with the koan, shall we? I think this is a lesser-known koan. It's case 25 of the Blue Cliff Record. And in the secular translation it says, The master of Rengeho Cottage held out his staff and said to his disciples, When in olden times a person reached the state of enlightenment, why did they not remain there?

[01:11]

No one could answer. And he replied for them, Because it is of no use in the course of life. And again he asked, After all, what will you do with it? And once again he said in their stead, Taking no notice of others, throwing his staff over his shoulder, he goes straight ahead and journeys deep into the recesses of the hundred thousand mountains. So I'll give you another translation of this because I think it's always good to compare translations. This is the Thomas Cleary one. The hermit of Lotus Flower Peak held his staff up to a group and said, When the ancients got here, why wouldn't they stay? No one spoke, so he himself answered, because they did not gain power on the road. He also said, what about the ultimate? Again, he himself replied, with my staff across my shoulder, minding no one, I go straight into the myriad peaks.

[02:15]

So we'll come back to that later on. So usually on Saturdays during the Dharma talk, I'm out the front. As you might know, I'm trying to welcome people into Zen Center. It's a lovely thing to do. I know a lot of faces, and I know quite a few of the names, so it's nice to try to make people feel welcome. That's what we want to do here. And as an introvert, it's a good practice for me to just be out there. It's a good practice for me to be up here and speaking. It's a good feeling sometimes. And a few months ago, I was sitting out there and somebody from the Young Urban Zen Group, and I don't think they're here today, so it's okay, came through the door, and just when they did that, there was a little digital voice that said, you have arrived at your destination. So I was struck by that, and first I was struck on a really kind of basic level, like this is somebody who's been to the building dozens of times, and I was kind of curious that they still needed some GPS direction.

[03:20]

LAUGHTER And this would get me into some kind of old fogey-like rant about, you know, these young people who don't know the way in front of their noses. I remember I was giving directions the last time, well, not the last time, but Young Robinson went off to Sonoma Mountains End Center up near Petaluma. And I went up there the week before, and so I was trying to give directions to people on how to get there. You know, you go up the 101 to this exit, you turn here, and then when you get to the fire station, you turn right. And somebody said, don't bother, they're just going to be looking on their GPSs anyway. But I kind of think there's always something missed when you're doing that. And I was also thinking when I was back home in England, my father lives down in Cornwall, which if you know anything about Cornwall, there's a lot of very narrow roads there. And one of the roads that leads to his house is a very narrow road. And if you're going down the road before that one, you might miss the turning completely. And the only way I know where the turning is is because there's a big tree right in front of the turning. And so if I'm going down that road, which is kind of undulating up and down and looking for the tree rather than looking for the lane.

[04:23]

And it looks different from both directions, but I think if you were following a GPS, you would never even see that. And it reminds me that... Virginia? Oh, good. Am I being loud enough for you? Good. And there was a New Yorker cartoon, I think last week, of a car, and it was travelling in a... Infinite loop, a figure eight, like an old slot car track with a bridge and an underpass. And it's obviously the man who's driving. He said, I will trust the GPS until I find a reason not to trust the GPS. But there they are, going around in circles. But on a deeper level, there is something very resonant about that phrase, you have arrived at your destination. And in way-seeking mind talks that students give here, I often hear people saying, oh, the first time I walked through the door at Zentunter, I felt I'd come home. And I think that's a very strong feeling for a lot of people. And I think other people might feel beguiled or intrigued or maybe a little put off by some of the formal rituals or entranced by the calm in this urban temple that we have here as a refuge, for which we thank Julia Morgan.

[05:36]

And we're currently working on a plan to see how we can develop city center as a place. And somebody said, I heard that we were going to put a cover on the courtyard or put a roof on the courtyard, and they had to say, no, we're not doing that. Other things might happen, but we're not going to put a roof on the courtyard. That's part of the refuge. So people come here for reasons that they may not know for themselves. They may just be some indistinct pull that brings them to practice or brings them to a Zen center. And I remember before I moved in, which was 15 years ago, I moved in to be with somebody, and I had little... little experience of formal Zen, and I wasn't completely clear about my motivation beyond wanting to be with this person. Jeffrey, who was the director at the time, said, do you know what you're letting yourself in for? I said, well, I've got some idea. But obviously, the moment you walk through the door and start, something else completely different happens, and that first idea you have is gone already.

[06:41]

And of course, now I look at the place very differently. Even now, I'm not quite sure why I stayed, but here I am. almost 15 years later. And of course, there's one level where we all know what our final destination is. We all know that we're going to die. And there is an arc of life that begins and rises and ends. And I was thinking, perhaps when we die, we'll hear a voice that says, you have arrived at your destination. Perhaps it will be the most comforting voice you've ever heard. Perhaps it will sound like Scarlett Johansson or Morgan Freeman or James Mason. We don't know. And I've been reflecting on death a little, as I think we all have, with the anniversary of Steve's death and remembering how that felt a year ago when he was dying, and also Dennis Rodriguez, who worked in the accounting department, who also died relatively unexpectedly quite recently.

[07:43]

And I think we have an idea that, or I've certainly heard it expressed, that practicing, coming to Zen practice, is a way of enabling us to face the certainty of death and face our fear around it. And Steve gave us a wonderful example of that. But I noticed for myself, what was coming up for me as I was thinking that here's this amazing teacher and he's dying. Where am I finding the value in my own life at this moment? What I was feeling was like it was my ego self and it was bound up. in the fear of its own annihilation. It came up very strongly for me. This is our destination. Can we do anything about it? And I remember when the Reb was leading a practice spirit at Tassajara, somebody asked him about their fear of death and how intense it was for them. How could they possibly let go of it? And he said that letting go isn't necessarily a case of going from this clenched fist to this open hand. Sometimes it's a matter of going from this clenched fist to this slightly less clenched fist.

[08:49]

And that's still letting go. It's still a process that we can keep working on. We don't have to go from here to here all in one leap. We keep practicing, keep trying to open up, trying to understand, trying to find deeper peace in that whole process. The Zen Center being such a multifaceted community, it's not just death that's been around at the moment. We've had two births at Zen Center since New Year, even one at Green Gulch and one here just up the street. And last weekend, I was lucky enough to get to officiate a wedding. And the bride was seven months pregnant, which is kind of like two major life stages all happening at once. And I had a personal kind of milestone relatively recently. or I turned 50. And that kind of felt like a time for solemn or sober reflection on where have I come in my life so far? Where do I think I'm going next?

[09:51]

And as it happened, it was a kind of very tender time for me because I was asked to step back from teaching for a while and then reflect on myself in the light of a few people having complained and had questions about my behavior. And without wanting to go into details, you know, a lot of it had to do with my own karmic suffering, my own strong, deep stories, which through the years of practice I've got more and more familiar with. But as I keep learning, they still have a lot of power. I just had an email from somebody I care about before I came down to dinner, which kind of said something that triggered me. I don't want to be feeling that. I'm just about to give a Dharma talk. Don't upset me like this. And... Thankfully, Shinny said, it's just a story. You can forget about it. It's just an email. But so, you know, practicing and sitting long, long periods of meditation. Thank you, Miguel. I'm aware of these strong karmic forces, but still they can come and overpower me.

[11:03]

And sometimes, before I had the delusion that I was somewhat invisible, that people didn't necessarily think about me or I didn't count for much in their way of thinking. And in my current position, there's a kind of vanity in that delusion. How could I possibly think that nobody is thinking about me if I'm sitting on the Dharma seat or if I'm in my day job as director of the building? I am very visible and I know that everything I do has an impact. And so it's a question of having to recognize and working to recognize how much impact my speech and actions have on people. especially those who consider me as a teacher, and that I could not just coast along with my own presumptions of what my impact was. And in many areas I've learned the difference between having good intentions and having wholesome impacts. So that's something I have been asked to work on and I will continue to work on. And I think everyone who comes here comes for a reason to

[12:07]

Again, whether they can articulate or whether they know exactly what it is, that there is something inside they need to work on, some particular suffering that you're aware of, that you want to work with. And that's your particular journey that you're going to be undertaking. It's not an external destination. It's the internal journey that we're wanting to make. And I think about Dogen's line in the Fukanza Zengi, why leave behind the seat in your own home to go wandering in vain through the dusty realms of other lands. And it took me a few years of practice to realize he wasn't talking about geography there. He was talking about, why look outside yourself to find answers to these things? You have to go inside yourself, into your own dusty realms. So Norman Fisher, the former abbot of Zen Center, gave a wonderful commencement speech at the Stanford Baccalaureate group a couple of years ago, which says many of these things much more skillfully than I can.

[13:09]

He says, the truth is that it is not going to be so easy to survive your promising life. It's possible that one day you will find yourself wondering what you've been doing all these years and who you have become. It's possible the life you wanted and have built will not be as you expected it to be. It's possible the world you wanted and hoped to improve will not improve. Anyway, you will keep busy and you will have things to do and you will try not to notice such feelings. You will try to deny any despair or disappointment or discouragement or boredom you may be feeling 2, 5, 10, 15 or 20 years from today. And probably you'll be able to do that more or less. But only more or less. So I think probably many of you have felt, maybe come to a stage in your life where you feel that or maybe you haven't quite felt a bit, you know, this is the impulse that brings us to practice. And it's where Dogen says in the Genjo Kahn, study the Buddha way is to study the self.

[14:12]

So we feel that urge, we feel that impulse. So Norman Fisher goes on and he says, okay, here's the uplifting part. Your life isn't and has never been about you. It isn't and has never been about what you accomplish, how successful you are or are not. how much money you make, what sort of position you ascend to, or even your family, your associations, your various communities, or how much good you do for others or the world at large. Your life, like mine and like everybody else's, has always been about one thing, love. And this is the next line in the Genjo Koan, to study the self is to forget the self. So he recommends practices in his talks, meditation, kind speech, beneficial action, identity action, which is recognizing the interconnectedness of everything, and compassion. And this is forgetting the self and being actualized by myriad things, as Dogen says.

[15:16]

So another way I've been thinking about this idea of the journey and the destination is looking at the Sandokai, the harmony of difference and equality. It's all wonderful. The lines I'm particularly going to focus on tonight are 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? So it's not about going anywhere. It's about what is right in front of you, what is happening in the present moment. So one of the most wonderful books I've read in the last few years is Shohaku Okamura's Living by Vow. And towards the end, he looks at the Sandokai line by line. And of course, being Shohaku, he can dissect each kanji, each character, and say what the constituent parts are and how meaningful and relevant they are. And on this line, he says, if you don't understand his translation, if you don't understand this path as it meets your eyes,

[16:28]

how can you know the way as you walk? His commentary is, when we wake up to reality, the way is always in front of our eyes. I remember him at again, so way, describing the way. And I think, not being an expert on kanji, I think that two parts of the kanji for the way are a head, the head and direction. So it's like the direction your head is facing is the way. But then he went on to explain that it wasn't a linear way. It was a way that always circled back to the present moment, which is a really amazing thing to think about. You think about the way as like, oh, I'm going off into the distance, I'm going through time, I'm going through space, but no, you're coming right back again, right back again. When we wake up to reality, the way is always in front of our eyes. We are born, live, and die within this reality. We never fall out of reality. And yet, we almost always lose sight of it. So why do we lose sight of it?

[17:54]

Because we're human beings. That's what we do. Our minds take us to different places. Practicing, we can bring ourselves back to the moment each time. So coming closer to home, another way to look at this is through Suzuki Roshi's commentaries in Branching Streams, Flow in the Darkness, which is his commentary on the Sandokai. I'm talking about the lines, don't set up standards of your own. He says, when you enter a monastery, you shouldn't say, I have my own way. If you come to Tassajara, you should obey Tassajara's rules. You should not establish your own rules. To see the actual moon through Tassajara rules is the way to practice at Tassajara. Rules are not the point. The teaching that the rules will catch is the point. By observing rules, you will naturally understand the real teaching. From the beginning, this point may be missed by all of us. Most people start to study Zen in order to know what Zen is.

[18:56]

This is already wrong. They're already trying to provide some understanding or rules for themselves. He continues, so you should not try to make rules for yourself. These are very strict words. They may not seem much, but actually when Sekito says this, he is waiting with a big stick. If you say something, he answers, don't make rules for yourself. Don't try to understand through your head. He is waiting like this. The footnotes say, Suzuki Roshi holds up a stick as if ready to strike. So he cannot say anything. Hi! Yes, that's all. You needn't even say hi. You should do things like a mule or an ass. You might think this is absolute surrender, but it is not. It is the way to understand the source of the teaching. So when we come to a Zen center, especially when we come to live at a Zen center, there are lots of rules, there are lots of guidelines, there are lots of forms. So this is a way to come into the teaching.

[20:00]

It's a way to keep ourselves present at each moment. So during the formal times, the forms are pretty strict. And then the rest of the day, we don't have so many forms, but there are many ways of beneficial action. How do we respond in a particular situation? Miles is already smiling because he knows what I'm going to say next. So this morning, Miles said, what are you going to talk about? And we were in a small kitchen. And I was trying to get some coffee out. And the handle for the coffee spoon was buried in a coffee. And that means you've got to dig your hand in a coffee to get the spoon out. And so I said, well, I'm going to talk about how you should leave the spoon with the handle sticking out so you don't have to get coffee on your hand. And he said, oh, you've got to talk about something more interesting than that. And actually, no. This is beneficial action. This is harmonious living in community. It's like when we go to the bathroom and the toilet roll is empty. How do we feel? So if you finish the toilet roll, the next toilet roll is, you know, put the next toilet roll there for the next person.

[21:04]

This is beneficial action. This is harmonious living in community. And somehow I wish we talked about this more often, but when we do, it tends to come out as nagging. And I know because I do that quite a lot. But... I really think that there are ways to approach every situation like this. There's always a Dharma gate right in front of you. There's a formal Dharma gate or an informal Dharma gate. They are boundless. So each moment there is that possibility. The way is right before you. When you're scooping out the coffee, leave the handle of the scoop invisible for the next person. If you're closing the door, close it quietly. There's so many things you can do if you're just paying attention in that moment. They don't have to be formal things. So Sekito is waiting with a big stick. I've got quite a long way in this talk without really mentioning Dogen, but Dogen is also waiting with a big stick from the extensive record, the way he describes it.

[22:06]

I can remember Yunmen asked Sao Shan, why don't we know there is a place of great intimacy? Sao Shan said, just because it is greatly intimate, we do not know it is there. Which is like Shohaku saying, we never fall out of reality, we just don't always remember to look at it. So Dogen continues, suppose this were Eihei and someone asked me, why don't we know that there is a place of great intimacy? I would just hit his face with my stick and ask him, is this knowing or not knowing? If he tried to answer, I would hit him again with the stick. So when you hit with a stick, that's a pretty moment you're going to pay attention to. Which I think is probably why the masters did it a certain amount. You've got a less painful version of that. Anytime the bell rings, think about, well, you don't think about the bell ringing, you hear the bell ringing. Because then it's impossible to think about anything else. But if you don't understand the way right before you, how will you know the path as you walk?

[23:12]

Or as Dogen also says, if you make one misstep, you stumble past what is directly in front of you. So right now, what is our destination? What is our destination in this moment? It's always there if you want it to be. I'm going to read the koan again just to see where we've got to with it. The master of Rangaho Cottage held out his staff and said to his disciples, When in olden times a woman reached the state of enlightenment, why did she not remain there? No one could answer, and he replied for them, because it is of no use in the course of life. And again he asked, after all, what will you do with it? And once again he said in their stead, taking no notice of others, throwing her staff over her shoulders, she goes straight ahead and journeys deep into the recesses of a hundred thousand mountains. So what kind of journey is that?

[24:13]

What kind of journey are we making right now? What I like about Zen is there is no place to rest. There is no way to say, oh, I have achieved that, I'm going to stop. This is what the master of Rangiho is telling us. You don't stop anywhere. Even if you think you're enlightened, you don't stop. You keep going. It's not all going to be easy. It's not going to be fun and simple. But through our practice, we develop a certain hopeful equanimity to deal with that. So times may be difficult, but can we keep showing up for that? Can we keep going on? So any understanding we think we might have, can we let that go and keep meeting the next moment? I have a calligraphy by Daigaku Rume on my wall. It's been with me for many years. I think the Japanese character is Shoujin, which is diligence.

[25:18]

which is one of the six parameters and also one of the eightfold path. And I think I understand the two parts of the characters to mean excellent, pure or subtle progress or advance. But what is that progress? Are we going anywhere or not? So Daigaku's latest work is translating his teacher Sekiharada's commentaries on 10 verses of unfathomable depth, which were a fairly obscure Chinese poem. And I haven't really had a chance to read it, but it looks amazing. And I just want to read a little bit of two of the poems since they resonated so much with the koan. So the sixth verse is called The Song of Returning Home. And it goes, Don't be distracted by the king of emptiness when you are still on the way. You must drive your staff forward, moving on until you reach home. If you travel for a long time like clouds and water, don't get attached to it. Even in the deep recesses of snowy mountains, don't forget your mission.

[26:21]

This is followed by verse 7, the song of not returning home. Having the intention of going to the source, of returning to the origin, is already a mistake. Essentially, there is nowhere to settle down, no place to call one's home. The ancient path through the pines is covered with deep snow. The long range of mountain peaks is furthermore blocked. And that verse finishes, how will you sing the song of returning home? In bright moonlight the dead tree is blossoming in front of the hall. So there it is, there is the bright tree. The dead tree, the bright tree. So go and take a look. 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.

[27:27]

For more information, please visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we all fully enjoy the Dharma.

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