This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. Thank you for coming. Whether you're here in the flesh... or in some other place in the flesh. There's no other way to be. It's truly beautiful and meaningful to be together. could just spend the next hour being very quiet and listening for the baby squeaks with utter attention we just did the opening chant which is the vow to hear the true Dharma of the Buddha intently listening for the true Dharma of the Buddha and if we're quiet and still maybe we'll get it again

[01:29]

Everybody feeling greedy? Come on, make it squeak. So breathing out, you know, arriving together. And just breathe out completely. the best thing, to just breathe out completely, let everything go. And then breathing in completely welcoming, receiving everything that is. Breathing out, coming into this

[02:41]

temple, this sacred barn, held in this place of zazen, of sitting in upright, open, loving stillness, we can just breathe out and leave behind and let fall away everything that's not And enter with this baby-like freshness. As though just born. It's kind of true. Arriving here. Wait and wait, you know, and then when you stop waiting, it comes.

[04:01]

So what is this? What is this being alive right here? Right now? Letting go of everything that's not. The feeling of this. aliveness in this moment this aliveness that we can't really grasp hold of that we don't really know what it is in this practice we come together now and then and let go of everything except this new feeling of aliveness together So we let the past fall away, and yet the past is right here together with us. And we let fall away everything that's not this room.

[05:14]

And yet the whole world is still present together with us. Some of us here are part of a three-week practice period now happening at Green Gulch that's being led by Zenju Osho and myself. And one of the points that Zenju Osho has been making is this, that the whole world is right here arising together with us we're not separate we arise all together so this is worth turning towards and reflecting on even though we're just right here everything is together with us.

[06:28]

It's a very important teaching for those of us who are, you know, living in the temple for some time, doing intensive practice, but it's true of all of us, wherever we are, whenever we are, that where we are includes, arises together with the whole situation, the whole world, with every being and place. I think this should sound familiar. Buddhism. Everything is profoundly intertwined. Nothing exists without everything else. Existing together with it. We arise together with the whole universe of past, present, and future. And so I want to raise this teaching and reflect some on this teaching because for a very long time now, there have been people, followers of the Buddha way, who have found it deeply meaningful and nourishing to reflect on this teaching that

[07:55]

the whole thing, the whole universe, the whole world arises together and that it's arising together with us right now. you thought I was kidding so there's various ways you know to enter this gate of interdependence and I just want to invite some reflection on the way it is that we arise together moment after moment we're rising together with everything a beautiful way this is expressed of course is Thich Nhat Hanh's teaching of interbeing

[09:15]

or interconnection, interdependence. He would often reflect, you know, tracing the causes and conditions that any one thing that we think we're looking at actually has everything else totally bound up in it, everything else included, intertwined. For example... want to put them on the spot you know that's the other thing I want to talk especially if I speed up a little here the other thing that I'd like to talk about is how we make a self from the actual reality of this baby like situation which doesn't actually have any separate things in it

[10:17]

We're all just babies who have figured out how not to be babies. But it's not very convincing. And it's actually hugely destructive. So how can we know, how can we grow up and come to know without getting fooled by the knowing and thinking that we're arising separately from all that other stuff? So Thich Nhat Hanh, you know, to invite us in, he does these kind of beautiful reflections on, say he's doing calligraphy and he says, you know, in with the ink, I put a little bit of tea that I'm drinking while I do the calligraphy and that tea, so now the ink and this calligraphy has in it some of that tea leaf that was grown so far away and the sun that was shining down on that day. when that tea leaf was growing.

[11:21]

And then the worker who drove the tea leaf to the port, you know, the meal he had for breakfast, all of that kind of one by one. And where does it end? You can keep exploring that interbeing and you'll never get to the bottom. It's just this profound entwined being. And then you're looking at this calligraphy and you feel like the whole thing is here without any... One thing not being... If this could not arise other than arising together with the whole thing. A beautiful and skillful and kind and loving way of reflecting. And in the Zen tradition... More traditionally... rather than explore kind of these separate things and see how they come together to make each thing as, as compelling as it is to study in that way, Zen tends to take the posture before there's separation.

[12:41]

So it all, it all just arises. as the wholeness and it's not really little pieces like a bunch of separate pieces that are supporting each other does that make sense like there's a truck and there's a worker and there's a tea leaf and there's tea and there's ink you could if you make a story like that of the world that's kind of a story of separation right of all these different things so now we've separated it and then take that home comes along the great sage and tells us all those things are woven together He could also say, you know, they were woven together before you just did that thing of calling one thing tea and one thing worker and one thing truck and one thing breakfast, right? And that's more where Zen tends to live. It's like before you say anything, before you know anything, it is arising together as one thing. And this is our actual life as we experience it most directly. Our baby-like, fresh life.

[13:48]

We think we're experiencing separate things because we're used to, we really believe that we're experiencing separate things because we're so used to thinking in that way. So the Zen is inviting us to engage with our life in the wholeness. So in this practice period some we've been studying this teaching by Shohaku Okamura a Japanese Soto Zen teacher who talks about these different perspectives on the self in Buddhism. That's been an interesting and helpful study. He talks about this truth of interdependence interbeing. He calls it the self

[14:51]

That is connected to all things. Or the universal self. Your. Your feeling of being you. Your aliveness. is connected to all things, universal self. And he quotes this early Chinese Buddhist ancestor, Seng Zhao, and I root. The myriad things and I are one body. Heaven and earth and me have the same root.

[15:56]

All of the 10,000 things are one body. This is an important phrase that you find in Zen. Heaven and earth, one root. The myriad things, one body. And I was touched to see Shohaku citing this. because I was remembering one of my teachers, Harada Tangen Roshi, of Bukokuji Temple in Japan, where I had the chance to practice for a little while, and who left a deep impression on me. He would often say this, as though speaking from the bottom of the ocean, heaven and earth, one root, The 10,000 things. One body. Heaven and earth, you know, are like the most far apart things possible.

[17:04]

There's this great chasm between heaven and earth. Yet they're the same root. Heaven and earth. Freedom and suffering. Confusion and awakening. and ease. No matter how far apart, they're actually the same root. They are just this aliveness. They are this life itself. They aren't actually a different kind of thing. heaven and earth, one root, the myriad things, one body. Everything arises together as one being.

[18:21]

So I was training with Tang and Roshi in 2002 and 2003 when the U.S. invaded Iraq. And obviously, I'm this weekend practicing in Japan and hearing the invasion. Yesterday, my almost 16-year-old son asked, does this mean I'm going to get drafted when I'm 18? And also, why? Why? Why? Why? That is an excellent question, I think.

[19:29]

Why? I don't think, you know, in this current situation, this bombing of Iran, I don't feel like anybody really could say why. I don't think anybody really knows why or what the point of the violence and destruction is. Maybe somebody knows. But I kind of feel like nobody knows. But Buddhism kind of knows. Buddhism kind of knows why. Why human beings keep doing this decade after decade, century after century. And actually moment after moment, day after day, the way that we separate, we cut off. We cut off from each other.

[20:33]

We imagine that we are alive separately and independently of each other and the earth and the mountains and the rivers and anything and everything. That we exist separately and independent. This is really the focus of Buddhism is to study not just of the wholeness or the oneness, that's what our life actually is in our own experience of embodied presence. And I say that and I feel people sometimes think, I don't have a feeling of oneness in my embodied presence. it's annoying that you keep telling me that I do.

[21:38]

I have two-ness and separation and I want to hear you and I want to hear me because I know that that separation is the cause of so much suffering and pain and is so profoundly compelling. But I'm also just utterly convinced that that when you breathe out, you're not actually breathing out in a world of separation. That everything we encounter, everything you meet, one of our great ancestors, founder of the Soto Zen tradition, Tozan Dongshan says, I have no idea who I am. I haven't been able to figure out who I am, which is going to continue to be the case.

[22:43]

We don't get to figure out who we are. I haven't figured out who I am, but everywhere I turn, I meet myself. I don't know what it is, but it's the only thing happening. You know what I mean? This is why we talk about self. In Buddhism, your being alive is the only thing happening. doesn't mean that we're not all alive together but that we are intimate we are being each other's life we are each other's life there's nothing separate your experience is totally intimate everywhere I turn all I encounter is my own being right there's not there's no separation really you can't experience something somewhere other than in your being. Does that mean? It's worth reflecting on. So when I say fundamentally, we feel this non-separation, I'm not trying to talk you out of your feeling or my feeling of separation.

[24:02]

I'm just pointing out that the thing you think is separate is happening in your own life. And it's not made out of anything other than that. It's literally made out of your life. There's not two things. Heaven and earth, one root. The myriad things are one body. So in... In 2003, in those days, Tang and Roshi would also say, with a kind of wise sadness, he would say, left hand, right hand. I don't remember if he explained much other than that. Maybe he did, because I have a strong sense of what he meant. But in my memory, you know, you just said left hand, right hand, and we all said, yeah.

[25:10]

But we were kind of, you know, we were in the soup anyway, so. The 10,000 things are one body. So as he was grieving in 2003, the invasion of Iraq, he was saying the left hand and the right hand. This is the left hand and the right hand. Stop. One body, the left hand and the right hand know that they are one body. They are together. all things are this way. We are one body. And because of our confusion, we have, we've decided that the left hand and the right hand are not the same body and start bombing each other.

[26:19]

And this isn't just the big picture, you know, and this isn't just somebody else doing it. And that's what's, that's the invitation of the Buddha way. Those people who keep dividing the world into us and them. How am I, this is the opportunity of our study. How am I day after day, moment after moment. Separating. Ripping the undivided fabric of what the actual alive. feeling is fundamentally ripping that into me and you, friend and enemy, good and bad. in this way you know to make peace to be peace is not to like get someone else to do something it's also to understand and study closely the way that we are convinced by and confused by and acting from

[28:13]

a small, individual, separate self that isn't actually grounded in the situation, the intimate and unknowable situation of our being alive. So we study how we are doing this ripping. Occasionally, maybe we study the wholeness, but more often we're studying how we separate. Oh, again and again. So our Japanese Sotos and founder Dogen Zenji says, to study the Buddha way is to study the self. To study how from this aliveness, aliveness, We grasp onto a story of the world that has inside and outside me and you, friend and enemy, good and bad.

[29:32]

even though when we're silent and still, the truth is we can't find the boundary or the edge. We don't know what this is. We're in this, not even in this, we are this profound mystery. And I think part of what happens is that feels a little too big. What we are and how we got here and the fact that we don't really know what it is and can't really get a handle on it is kind of like a lot to work with. So we like this story.

[30:58]

Then we hear this story like that baby we'll hear soon. We hear the story that is just kind of reassuring and makes it all make sense, which is you are you. Other people are other people. You're a separate independent being who is the owner. You've been authorized as the owner and operator of this separate independently acting human being. And that's inside your skin. And then on the other side of your skin, there's all kinds of other owner-operators who are out there, you know, like the trucks. Owner-operator, you own and operate your own rig. I think I've heard that commercial. I'd like to own and operate my own rig. This is like actual traditional Buddhism, these terms, owner and operator. there is something happening here and nobody owns it and nobody's operating it.

[32:06]

But that's kind of scary. So nevermind. You, you, your little person with your name is somehow, even though in that calligraphy, the whole world is there. Somehow you managed to cut yourself out from that. But then how did you come to be? separate from all those conditions but we cut ourselves out of that somehow and then imagine that we could act independently of all that stuff but if we were independent from all that stuff we wouldn't be arising the only way that anything is is arising altogether So to study the Buddha way is to study the self, to study the way that I think that this separate, independent owner-operator is moving through a world of mostly dead stuff, I guess, and other people.

[33:21]

And then animals, I think we're not quite sure what to do with them. In between. Anyway, our view of the world is absolute nonsense. It's just not what's happening. And so now and then we come together in a room like this and we offer incense to a body that is upright, silent, still, and open. And we bow and we say, we have no idea what is happening here. And that is a path of healing. I have no idea what is happening here. is the next thing that Dogen Zenji says. He says, to study the self, to study the self is to forget the self. To study the Buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self, to forget everything that we know about what the situation is in which we find ourselves. As Suzuki Roshi says, you know, forget who you are and where you are and how long you've been there.

[34:32]

So to study the Buddha way, we forget. To really study this self, to study this aliveness, we forget everything we know about it. Forgetting what we know, there's actually no separation. The separation wasn't arising in the immediate, fresh experience of being, the separation is just a story that we're telling on top of it. A very impactful and important story. It's not a story to kill or reject, but a story that when it comes out of balance with the embodied non-separate reality becomes bombs and hatred and constriction and suffering. So we forget the self. To study the Buddha way is to study the self, to study this being alive. What is it?

[35:37]

Who are we? What is happening here? To study this self or to study this being alive, we forget everything we know about it because we want to encounter it directly. So forget everything we know about it. And that's why we come into a posture and we come into a place, hopefully with some safety, or find a place in our own practice where we can feel, may it be so, some safety and allow ourselves to forget everything we know about what this is. And the Buddha says, I don't... The Buddha guarantees... That when you forget everything you know, there is no inside and outside. There is no self and other. The 10,000 things are one body. Heaven and earth are one root. So Suzuki Roshi says, forgetting, we forget everything.

[36:50]

who we are and where we are and how long we've been there. Dogen Zenji says, forget the self. Suki Roshi says, when we forget who we are, then we are the self that includes everything. When we don't know, then, and we wake up into the feeling of aliveness, everything that's here and everywhere is included in everything. the aliveness of our self, of this being. And that's also how Dogen Zenji continues. To study the Buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized, by the 10,000 things.

[37:53]

When you forget your small separate self, then what this is, is manifested by everything. It's everything else. It's everything is what's arising. Your aliveness is actualized by the whole thing. When actualized by myriad things, by the 10,000 things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away. And there is just intimacy, the intimacy of what our life actually already is. So one of the

[38:58]

things that we've been exploring in this practice period is that when we talk about the teaching of no self, Shohaku Okamura says, you know, this teaching of no self that you hear so much about in Buddhism is a kind of connector between the small self and the universal self or the self that's this constricted separate person and the being alive that includes everything. No self is the kind of forgetting of what that is. that allows this small person to actually be the aliveness that includes everything. Study the self. We forget the self. And then what is here is everything together arising. So when we say no self, it's not that there's not something happening. It's that the thing that's happening is free of everything that we know and think about it.

[39:59]

The thing that's happening here is not a separate, independent owner-operator. I'll close sharing one more way that Dogen Zenji puts this. To carry yourself forward and experience all the things, is delusion. That all the things come forward and make you is awakening. You can feel that in your body, like the carrying of yourself forward, you know, that big backpack that you're carrying forward into the world. I'm moving the worlds out there. I'm moving forward, carrying myself into it. That's confusion. That's war. That's hatred. That's suffering. ease and peace and joy is that all things arising are making yourself, which isn't separate from those things.

[41:10]

It just is the arising of everything. Does that make sense? Or rather, can we engage in the practice of noticing the carrying myself forward into the things? And remembering that that is the root of war and confusion and greed and breathing out and breathing in and connecting with the way that actually the aliveness is arising together. I'm not going forward into it. It's rising, giving me my life. The feeling. Imagine walking in the world in that kind of intimacy.

[42:10]

For ourselves and for each other. you for your kind attention this morning. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

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