This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Okay, how was that? I'm Charlie. I used to live here. I lived here in Green Gulch Farm. I'm going back and forth between 94 and 07. And while I was here, I started a family. And so I live with my partner, Sarah, and our children, Kaya and Loka, in Sebastopol, about an hour north of San Francisco. And we try to come back every summer, and it's really wonderful to be here. And it always feels like... coming home. And this weekend I'm here with Dale Kent and we're leading a retreat called Zen in the Kitchen.

[01:15]

And so tonight I want to talk about a teaching from a text by a dogen who founded Soto Zen. in Japan, teaching from his instructions to the cook. And this is a teaching of three minds, a joyful mind, a nurturing mind, or a parental mind, and a big mind. And these are instructions for the head cook, but they're instructions for any kind of work. And they can be instructions for any kind of activity, and including the activity of sitting in meditation. And zazen instruction is also instructions for the head cook in any activity. But we have these, it's nice to have these instructions for these different realms.

[02:22]

We have different stuff we need to work out in all the different contexts of our daily life. When we sit, we invite all of our problems and difficulties into our sitting. We make a big open space in our sitting for all this stuff to come and have its life without trying to change it, push it away, hold on to it. And this is transformative. And then we also basically try to do the same thing when we're not sitting. And because of the kind of beings we are and the kind of dispositions we have, the different areas of our life bring up different entanglements.

[03:26]

So it's really important to have sitting practice, but then to have our practice live in all parts of our life. And Dogen's talking about three minds. This is Shin. And this can be translated mind or heart and mindfulness or spirit or attending. And these three minds are not states of consciousness, I would say. They're not discrete forms of consciousness. They're not sensations or feelings. They're not experiences. They're modes of engagement. They're qualities of practice. And so we can, no matter what we're experiencing, we can engage these three minds.

[04:31]

And no matter what we're experiencing, they can shine a light on what we're experiencing. They can illuminate our life. So in this practice, awakening illuminates our life. So Dogen says, you know, Buddhas have great realization of delusion. So this isn't a realization that gets rid of delusion. It's a realization of delusion. We need all that. We need delusion. Without delusion, we don't have a way to be with each other. But if our delusion isn't illuminated, we suffer. Zen is about realizing true nature or our awakened nature.

[05:40]

But there's various approaches to this. So one approach... is to put an emphasis on seeing that true nature, recognizing our awakened nature. And it's sort of like we do a practice that's aimed at getting a recognition, kind of a dramatic realization. And this is more what you see in the Rinzai school. So there's two main schools of Zen, Soto and Rinzai. This is what you see in the Rinzai. In the Soto school, we have, it's a different emphasis, and this is very strong in Dogen. So rather than awakening being something kind of out there that you try to, or in here or somewhere, anywhere, you try to recognize or see in everything you do to express your true nature. In everything, in all activities to manifest true nature.

[06:48]

And ongoingly. So this isn't, so, you know, there's one kind of idea, like enlightenment, somewhere out there, I can do something to get it, once I got it, got it, then it's back there, and then I can do whatever. And whereas this is like, you enact or express or live awakening in your activity, in this activity with your actual body and mind, you know, as it is right now. Ongoingly, So that's kind of a frame for these three minds. Another way of talking about this is our meditation, our sitting meditation.

[08:01]

Sometimes we say just sitting, shikantaza. And any activity, it can be just that activity, just do that activity, just work, just play. And this just is... that it's a wholeheartedness. So in a way, just sitting or just doing what you're doing, it can sound kind of simple and straightforward, but it's deep, and in its depths, it's inconceivable. So we can't get at this practice with our thinking and our doing. How we can... express true nature is not something that we get with our thinking.

[09:05]

But we can do it, and the only way we do it is with this body and mind, in this moment, with these conditions. And so we have various teachings to help us with this inconceivable just sitting, inconceivable just engaging the present activity. And these three minds, this is one way to unfold this. So we have a joyful mind, or a kishin. And joyful minds, this is not saying that we should... kind of put a state of joy over whatever we're feeling or pretend to be joyful all the time. But what we can do all the time is do what we're doing as an offering.

[10:08]

Do what we're doing as an act of giving. We can engage this posture in sitting as an act of giving, as an offering. This is, of course, in the kitchen. This is very natural that you prepare food. You can prepare food as an offering. We prepare a little offering for the Buddha every day with breakfast and lunch. This is this idea of offering. This is what we're doing in the kitchen. All of our activities can be an offering. It's up to us. The quality of our engagement can make anything we do an offering. This is an offering that's not a kind of offering that's trying to get something back. It's just... Pure offering. And so this is a joyful mind. Another way Dogen talks about joyful mind is gratitude. To appreciate our life.

[11:12]

And gratitude also, like joy, can seem like a feeling. And either you feel it or you don't. But there's also... This is something we give. We can give thanks. Actually, bowing, this is a way to give thanks. And we can bow to anything, no matter what we're feeling. We can bow. And in a way, when we're sitting zazen, it's like we're always bowing to what's happening. Just appreciate what's happening. And so we can give thanks and give thanks. Joy in this way. Or it's the joy of giving. When we sit, we can totally give ourselves to this posture.

[12:15]

This still upright sitting. when we're working or engaged in any activity, we can give ourselves to that activity. And this is a embodied. I think Dogen particularly talks about kitchen work, I think, because it's embodied. And embodied practice was very important to Dogen. You know, the way is not realized apart from the body. We are fundamentally embodied beings. And this body and this mind are how we enact true nature, our awakening nature. And this is also sort of like cooking.

[13:22]

When we're cooking, we use the ingredients we actually have. We make something that could be wonderful, could be so-so. But we only make stuff with actual ingredients, and we only do this practice with our actual body and mind. So this practice, we're not... use this moment for our practice. In Dogen's instructions for meditation, he also brings up joy. Actually, in the translation we do here, I think it's the Dharma gate of repose and bliss. Sometimes you also see this translated, the Dharma gate of easeful joy. So again, in this context, this Dharma gate of repose and bliss or repose and joy, this isn't a joy we make or we feel on top of whatever we're feeling.

[14:30]

It's a joy of not trying to make anything different, of not trying to be even the slightest bit different from how we are. And this is a quality of engagement. Jomir Samadhi says, the meaning is not in the words, but it responds to the inquiring impulse. So this meaning, it says it's not in the words. I would also say it's not in the content of our life. The meaning is not in the content. The meaning is not in what we're doing. But the meaning, it comes forth with this inquiring impulse, with an engagement. So anything we're doing can be meaningful by way of our engagement. So meaning isn't something that happens to us.

[15:40]

And it's not really something we go out there and get. It's here, but it comes forth with the quality of our engagement. And this is wholeheartedly engaged. So that's joyful mind. So then there's Roshan. which is literally elder's mind, but also commonly parental mind or nurturing mind. Sometimes in other writings by Dogen, it's ro-bashin, and that's more clearly like, you could say old woman's mind, but grandmotherly mind. Or grandmotherly heart or grandmotherly spirit.

[16:46]

And this refers to the devotion of a parent to their child. Kind of a complete devotion. And a kind of a devotion that's how things grow. And so we need to be, we can cultivate this kind of nurturing mind, towards everything we handle, and engage with, and do. Dogen mentions, like, you know, cooking the rice. But any activity. And I think, and the spirit of this is that... The spirit of this devotion is when you're doing the present activity, there isn't any awakening, there isn't any life, there isn't any practice somewhere else than totally engaging this activity in this moment.

[18:07]

Another aspect of this nurturing mind is moment after moment. One of the interesting things that Dogen says, actually, is that our true nature, our awakened nature, is impermanent and radically impermanent. It has absolutely no duration. So in practice, what this means is it's moment after moment. And there isn't an awakening that we kind of get and then we can kind of hold on to and carry forward in our life. Actually, we have to re-engage every moment. And for Dogen, this was a wonderful approach to life because the way never stops unfolding. Practice never stops unfolding. One of Dogen's most important disciples was Tetsu Gikai.

[19:30]

He actually didn't receive Dharma transmission from Dogen, but from Kohanejo, the second Dogen's main heir. And it seems like the reason he didn't receive Dharma transmission from Dogen was that Dogen said, you don't have grandmotherly mind. And Tetsu Gikai, he wrote about this later. He said, you know, Dogen, he said to me multiple times in his last years, including the last words to him in his life, you know, you're a great practitioner, but you do not have grandmother in mind. And Gikai says, you know, I didn't understand it. I don't know what he means. But he took it very seriously. Some years later, He had a shift and he understood. And the way he described it was he had studied another Zen school before he came to Dogen and that school taught everything you do is Buddhism or awakening.

[20:42]

Everything you do is awakening. And he realized that what Dogen's saying is something slightly different. everything you do can be engaged as expressing awakening or enacting awakening or living the life of awakening. But your engagement's always required. Without your engagement, awakening has no life in the world. So the first thing, everything you do is awakening. It's kind of a static truth. Sounds like it doesn't matter what you do, doesn't matter if you're engaged or not. And it's kind of, it's just something true that you can hold on to and say, you know, this is how things are. But it doesn't unfold into a dynamic, ongoing practice.

[21:44]

And so this is, he realized this is what Dogen was teaching, was this other thing. Engaging everything you do is expressing awakening. And this is the spirit of just sitting. And also this is... Sometimes you'll hear a teaching, Zazen is completely useless. And... I mean, it's not, actually. But the way it's useful is when you practice it with a spirit that it's completely useless. If you're practicing Zazen with a... with an attitude or a spirit that it's going to get you somewhere else, you never land here. So we need Zazen to have us be completely here. And so spirit of uselessness, actually, it's kind of this useless thing.

[22:48]

It's not getting us anywhere. Our effort in zazen is its own result, or its own fruit. Our engagement in what we're doing, that engagement is the fruit of practice, realization. That's awakening, living in the world. And so another way of saying this is to enjoy the process. So that's the nurturing mind or parental mind that moment after moment completely devoted to just this activity and taking care

[23:55]

of awakening and then the third is big mind or sometimes great mind or magnanimous mind and this is not trying to make our minds big in some ways actually you can practice this by noticing how your mind is small This is a big mind that includes everything. It includes big expansive feelings and it includes tight little feelings. And so this includes everything in our practice. So when we're sitting, everything is included.

[24:59]

what's happening in the room, what's happening inside, feelings, bodily, thoughts, all sensations. It's all included in the sitting. And this can also be true with our activity. So we wholeheartedly engage our activity, you know, just do the activity, but everything's included. So these three minds, they deepen each other and extend each other. So just the nurturing mind, I think you could get too focused on just the activity. So the big mind is opening us up, including everything. Another way, Suzuki Roshi talks about big mind quite a bit, the founder of this temple.

[26:01]

And the way he talks about it is the practice of big mind is to see each thing or each person in each moment as having an incomparable value. So we give things various relative values, comparative values. But this is a kind of attention that... that when it meets something, it's not comparing it to anything else. And it's a complete attention. In a way, this is saying everything is the same. And everyone is the same.

[27:06]

And there's important truth to that, but how it actually lives in practice is we notice what's unique. And if we're meeting someone, we're open to this person. We might know them very well, but we actually allow them to be something that's not what we know, no matter how long we've known them. because we're always changing. And so this is this being with each other and, you know, we can do this with everything we relate to. Dogen would go by a creek with a ladle and he'd get the ladle and he'd, you know, get some water and drink some of it and then the leftover water, he'd bend over and carefully put back into the creek.

[28:10]

I think the feeling was, well, this is just his leftover water. He takes care of it. It's not just leftover water. In that moment, it's his life. and he's taking care of it. Someone was talking about they practice Japanese archery, and although there's a book called Zen and the Art of Japanese Archery, it's kind of an idiosyncratic creation, that book. But I really like this story. The way they learned was you shoot the arrow at the target, and when you go to pull out the arrow, you don't just pull it out of the target.

[29:12]

You touch the target, and in a way you kind of honor the target as this thing that's received your arrow. And then it's been wounded, and you touch that and draw out the arrow. So this is this kind of... Each thing has incomparable value. This big mind. So these three minds... you could say there are like three currents in our practice.

[30:16]

And we're swimming in all three at once. And how these three minds happen and how they work together, we can rediscover this. Dogen also says in his instructions for the cook, use all of your ingenuity. So this is a practice that can engage all of our creativity and how the way actually unfolds for each of us as a creative event in each moment. So kind of summing up, so the joyful mind is coming out of or living with giving offering gratitude appreciation making our activity into an offering nurturing mind is this ongoing devotion to our activity without just for its own sake just to

[31:40]

that's not just sitting or just doing whatever we're doing for its own sake. And then a big mind is including everything. We could also say joyful mind is being more concerned about giving than getting or collecting or acquiring. And nurturing mind is more about the process or what's happening right in this moment rather than some future goal. And big mind is rather than attending to kind of the value of things based on our preferences, to attend to something, to attend to what's happening as our life. And so we have these ways of practicing, and again, this is like an illumination.

[32:50]

So there's other minds. Minds, you know, the mind of getting things done, and a mind that just wants to tune out, a mind that's fed up with everything, a mind that wants to be somewhere else. Endlessly. And all these minds, these three minds we're talking about tonight, those don't overcome all these other minds. They don't eliminate all these other minds. They don't end them. They shine a light on them. And when they shine a light on them, they don't necessarily... We don't want them to go away. We do need to get things done. We do need goals. We do need things... If we're working in the kitchen, we have something to do, we need to get it done. But that's just part of what's happening.

[33:52]

It has a place, whereas if we live in it, it's got us. It runs our life. So we want to be able to have it just have its place, but we have our place in the moment. So it's a dynamic of light and dark. It's like in the Sandokai, right within light there's darkness, right within darkness there's light, and they don't... The light doesn't swallow the dark, the dark doesn't swallow the light. They live together. And this is part of the dynamic of our life and our life of practice. So, what time is it? About three minutes.

[34:53]

About three minutes? Well, one or two questions? Or comments? You know, he doesn't say. He just says, like, I think working with the question, I think for him it was almost like a koan.

[35:58]

My teacher's dying words to me that I don't have grandmother mind. I don't understand it. What does he mean? I think he was working on this. He doesn't really say anything more besides that. But he had a shift. It was a shift from this kind of static assertion of everything you do is awakening to this more dynamic assertion that engaging with every activity as awakening is practice. Completely wholeheartedly engaging this moment as the expression of awakening. Well, I think practice is illuminating delusion.

[37:45]

So we have to keep an eye out for that. I think actually it's very easy for delusion to become a practice without illuminating it. So we have to really keep an eye on that. Thank you very much.

[38:39]

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