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. Good evening, everybody. Thanks for coming, and thanks for having me. Leslie, it's nice to see you here. Thank you very much to Leslie and Greg for the invitation to speak tonight. It's an honor anyway, whether it's a treat or not, for me or for you, remains to be seen, I suppose. But I do very much appreciate being in this old hall with you all and having the opportunity to speak and to be here this week with Diego, a great yoga instructor and a great group of retreatants. who are learning together from Diego about smiling, the inner smile within difficulty.

[01:11]

I think he knows that this is actually what he's teaching. It seems like yoga, but really it's smiling. And I see some Zen students are practicing this too. Inner, inner smile. Don't worry. No one has to know it's there. So we've also been practicing receiving our life. Been exploring Suzuki Roshi's teaching on the exhalation. And he says... we're always trying to live we're always trying to get our life and we do that we express that by trying to get our inhalation many of us live in this way so Suzuki Roshi in this beautiful chapter in one of his books suggests renouncing the inhalation and just giving ourselves completely to the exhalation and noticing he says if you're still alive an inhalation will come

[02:29]

So entrusting ourselves to the grace of the inhalation by giving ourselves totally to the exhalation. So we're practicing quite wonderfully in this way. Actually, a t-shirt has been designed that says, Tassajara, I inhaled. And so our retreatants are feeling this. this given inhalation, this life that we didn't make. It's also just really nice for me to be in the practice. I live at Green Gulch Farm, which is a practice place, with my wife Sarah and my son Frank, who some of you maybe saw running around a couple days ago. But I've been spending a lot of time lately at at UC Berkeley, where I'm, with the support of many beings, doing some study of Buddhism and really appreciating the chance to get a little bit more familiar with some of the Buddhist tradition, Buddhist languages, Buddhist doctrines.

[03:48]

And part of what's so striking to me in the study and compelling about it for me is just this dawning and deepening appreciation of how very strange San Francisco Zen Center Zen is. How very strange and wonderful. For a long time I think I intuited that actually San Francisco Zen Center Zen is kind of strange because sometimes you read a book and it says that this is what Zen is and then if you're practicing at San Francisco Zen Center you look around and you wonder how this could have happened. Where's the connection? So I think I felt for a while that what was happening at San Francisco Zen Center Zen was somehow kind of random. It was like a random version of Zen. But I think as I deepen my study both of San Francisco Zen Center Zen and of some other traditions or traditional forms of Zen and Buddhism, I'm appreciating a little more the sense in which it's an evolution.

[04:56]

It's a kind of intentional evolution. in this time and place. Suzuki Roshi, the founder of San Francisco Zen Center Temples, actually has this great line. He says, things didn't happen to Zen Center by chance. It's from the transcript, so there's a lot of ums and you knows, but things didn't happen to Zen Center by chance. And I think that's the feeling I had had, is that this style developed kind of haphazardly by chance. But he talks about his teachers, Kishizawa Iyan, and Kishizawa Iyan's teacher, Okasotan, and his teacher, Nishiari Bokusan, and how, if we have any questions about our practice, we should look to them, his teachers. So I think in this comment that things didn't happen at Zen Center by chance, I think he's pointing out that we've inherited these forms.

[06:02]

But not that we didn't inherit them from Dogen, Zenji, exactly, although we like to say that we did. We inherited them from Suzuki Roshi and from this group of people like Kishizawa Iyan and Okasotan and Nishiyari Bokusan, these people who were kind of training Suzuki Roshi and actually who had inherited and were evolving and adapting and understanding Zen in their own kind of messy and complicated times. So I'm just getting a richer sense of how the dharma moves. You can think of the transmission of the dharma as a kind of cloning of the dharma. But I'm seeing it now really as a kind of turning. That it's turned and it's passed. And it's turned and it's passed. And then that we too are turning is the turning. the Dharma coming alive in this present moment.

[07:06]

So I've been looking at these teachers of Suzuki Roshi, who I mentioned, and I want to share something that comes out of my study. And to understand how it comes out of my study, maybe I should share a little bit about how I study. Some people, maybe especially those of you who don't know a lot of Zen students, may think that Zen students are very concentrated people. I found particularly in the study that I am concentrated for about 15 or 20 minutes. And then I experienced an overwhelming impulse to check on any breaking news. You know, these last 10 or 15 minutes of slogging through Kishizawa, Ian, Zenji. In that time, there may have been some happening of world historical significance that I've missed.

[08:15]

But thankfully, CNN is right there for me with the breaking news. And mostly what I find is things that the CNN staff... really hopes will keep my attention for a few moments and which generally fails to do so. But once, recently, I came across a story that really did stick with me. It really actually was deeply interesting to me and kind of gnawed on me for a while and I wanted to share this story. So it's about this 34-year-old woman who was in line buying a lottery ticket. And she noticed that there was an elderly woman getting in the line, and she griteously offered this elder the place in line.

[09:20]

Please cut it in front of me. And I'm sure she said thank you, and it was very nice, and they went on their way. And then I suppose it was a few days later that she realized that this 84-year-old woman who she'd cut in front of her in line won the zillion-dollar lottery. So I was just kind of heartbroken for this woman, not because I think she was somehow more deserving of the big lotto win than the other, but just this feeling of how that could have gotten to a person. how that could get to you, the sense of what if... I could imagine her just being haunted by this. If I hadn't done that, I would have won the lottery. And tossing and turning in her bed, you know, and paying the bills and thinking, if I hadn't done that, I would have won the lottery.

[10:27]

And I think it... It struck me because I think that I can relate to it really deeply, and I think a lot of us can, this feeling of being haunted by some version of that. What if I had? What if he had? She had? What if it had? What if it were? And I think most of the time when we have such a thought, it seems like a pretty ordinary and basically harmless thought. But I want to dwell on it for a little while because I am I'm noticing the way that it's... Actually, this way of thinking is pretty much constant and very subtle and actually profoundly harmful. It may not be the sole cause of our suffering, but I think it's a very significant factor in pretty much all of the suffering we experience. So if I hadn't let her in the line...

[11:35]

I'd now be the lottery winner. So I think when we have a thought like that, we think essentially that everything would be the same. I would still be me and now would still be now, but there would be one piece that would be changed. I would be me and now would be now, but there'd be an extra zillion dollars in my pocket. But otherwise, this world and this self and this now would be unchanged. So this article goes on to say that actually, it's not that simple. She wouldn't have won the lottery anyway. These tickets are produced in a very complicated way.

[12:37]

And even if there had been like a millisecond of difference when she got in the line, a different ticket would have been produced and she would not have gotten this winning ticket. But I don't actually think that her problem was... The problem with this kind of thinking is just a matter of not understanding lottery science or kind of how these random numbers are generated. I think behind this way of thinking is a sense that There's a stable me at the center and a bunch of essentially interchangeable details that are swirling around me. So this ability we have to imagine an alternative world, to imagine an alternate world, that there could be an alternate world, and that the same me that's here now could somehow be living in it. So if she had done something differently, I think from a Buddhist understanding, it would actually be an entirely different world.

[13:57]

And that entirely different world would not actually include her. The world in which she had done something differently would be a world in which actually there was no her and there was no now. It's a world that does not support the condition. for human life. It is an alternative world in which no being actually lives. It's a world that has no now. So if I hadn't let her in, if this thing hadn't happened, there would be a world that has no now. So essentially... We can have that world in which we have a zillion dollars, but we won't have a now in it. So we can choose whether we want this alternate world in which there is no now or the world we have.

[15:03]

So there is no me except the me that there is now in this precise situation. I think Buddhism is really clear about this, and I think it actually really deeply goes against the way we think about our world pretty much all the time. Basically what I think is that reality equals me plus details. So when I'm drinking tea, it's me plus tea. And when I'm doing yoga, it's me plus yoga. And when I'm talking to someone, it's me plus the person I'm talking to. And basically now I'm drinking tea, but I could be doing yoga, and it would still be me. But actually, there is no me except the me that there is right now. There is no now except the now that there is right now. There is no world in which there's a me having any other experience than the experience that I'm having now. And to imagine that there is is actually to suck the light out of the world that is, the only world that is, which is the precise world of now.

[16:23]

phrase that kept coming to mind when I was thinking about this talk is that it's not a mix and match. This is not a mix and match situation. Like, here I am, and all you guys, I could mix and match. It's a package deal. If there's anything, it's this. So some of us have been in this hall before, many times, listening to different speakers. And we can have this memory of sitting in this hall hearing different people talk. I was sitting in this hall and I heard Leslie speak. And I was sitting in this hall and I heard Greg speak. It was me the whole time. It's been me the whole time. But, you know, some different people have come up here and spoken. And we have that thought and we have that memory, that experience.

[17:27]

And then we apply that to now, too. So here I am. I've been here with different people speaking. And so I could be here now, but instead of listening to this basically incoherent talk by Jiryu, I could be listening to a very well-crafted and inspiring talk by Greg. Maybe somebody actually thinks that. I would be me. I would be me. Now would be now. This would actually be a human life that would be mine, that would feel like me, and that there would be a now quality, but that instead of this guy, there would be some other guy up here. I feel that we think this. I think this way all the time. It's this kind of subtle stream that this situation is kind of accidental and interchangeable. But this is called delusion, and this is called the root of all suffering. It's not a mix and match package.

[18:28]

It's not you plus whoever happens to be up here. It's us together creating a now that is only this precise now with these exact details. If you want to change some detail, you throw away the whole now. So we think that it's me plus the details, but the Buddhist understanding of no self, and that really is what I think I'm talking about anyway, the Buddhist teaching of no self is that there is no me, there's just the details. What I call me is just the sum of the details. All there is is these exact details. And each detail matters totally. So in the Buddhist understanding of interdependence, the vision of a world that's so deeply intertwined that each thing is completely resting on each other thing, this radical interdependence, sometimes it's even called intercausality, that each thing actually causes each other thing.

[19:43]

That even, as the Hawaiian school of Buddhism teaches, that even interdependence Even the tiniest particle actually has the total causal power for the whole universe. Without that particle, there would be no universe. There would be no now if it was not this precise now. course, this isn't just a question of Buddhist doctrine, understanding the doctrine of no self or the doctrine of interdependence. It's about exploring what causes us to check out of our life and what causes us to enter our life.

[20:46]

And for me, this idea that there could, and generally speaking, should be something else happening than what is happening is my number one excuse for not showing up for my life. As I was actually getting ready for this talk, really thinking about how deeply I believe that there can be no world but the world that is now, I noticed that I had this subtle feeling. I had this kind of painful sore in my mouth, and I felt that I don't have to be having this. I was thinking about this talk about how deeply we rely on things being precisely as they are and how we can't even speak of any existence apart from the precise existence that is now. And I was at the same time indulging this thought that this thing that's happening to me doesn't have to be happening.

[21:50]

I would still be me and I would still be now, but I wouldn't have this problem. And maybe some meditators can relate to that. It's not this period of zazen that I object to. I'm happy to be me and I'm happy to have now. It's just I want it without this knee pain, without this shoulder pain, without this grief, without this devastating longing that I feel. But otherwise, I would still be me and now would still be now and I'd be meditating. And that we actually believe that such a world is possible, that it could be. Because after all, that I'm desperately longing or that I'm deeply grieving or that I have a little sore on my mouth is kind of a detail that I could dispense with or have without actually changing the essence of everything.

[22:54]

But of course, it's not like that. There is no now and no me other than this one with its exact problem. There's various Zen teachings about being hot and being cold. I think because, you know, even though Zen is the middle way, Zen students often find themselves either very hot or very cold. And Tassahara is no exception. And the most compelling teaching about being hot or being cold is that when you're hot, all there is is being hot. And when you're cold, all there is is being cold. And I think that's really the same teaching. Not indulging the fantasy that there could be some me apart from the hot that I'm presently feeling.

[23:59]

Right now, there's me plus hot. And let's just switch out that hot for a pleasantly cool. But keep the me here. This hot thing is like an extra detail that I'd rather not have right now. I think we can explore this. ourselves in the steam room and the creek. There's a you, there's a me in the steam room that desperately wants to plunge into the creek as though it would be the same me that's now hot could get cold. That's going to be so nice because I'm so hot. It's going to be great to be cold because... That's my problem right now, is that there's hot. But I'm just going to switch the hot out for cold.

[25:04]

So we jump into the creek. But by the time we get to the creek, the hot me that was in the steam room is long gone. We're never going to get to the creek fast enough to have caught the actual hot one. Because the hot one is totally gone. before the you and the me that's in the cold creek arrives. You can't get the hot one cold. The hot one does not get cold. All there is is hot. When there's a hot person, there is no self that's hot. If there was self plus hot, then you could change the temperature of the self. But there's just hot. There's just the detail. There's just a precise experience of this moment. I can do something... in the next moment. But this moment is done. This moment is given.

[26:07]

We fight with this gift, you know, as though we could have some other gift. Thank you very much, inconceivable universe, beginning with time, for giving me this moment. But if you could just swap out the hot for some pleasantly cool There is another world. There is another world in which I'm there, but the temperature's better. So I have a three-year-old friend. Many of you met him. And for a while ago, we stopped giving him naps because basically one minute of napping in the afternoon is like 10 minutes of total misery in the evening because he just won't go to sleep. Yeah, it's maybe five or ten, kind of a multiplier of five or ten. For each minute of nap, there's five to ten minutes of not going to sleep, which is basically obstructing my wife and I from the life that we actually want to be living, which is the life in which we do what we want for one minute of this day.

[27:28]

Please, thank you. So, you know, when we come home and, you know, the dear friends and family who have so graciously watched Frank for a little while say, oh, and by the way, he fell asleep for five minutes. There's this sense of, it's like overwhelming doom, you know. Like, you know, just think of the movie, you know, he's running from the... It has happened. My evening is... So this happened the other day, and I was lying in bed with Frank in half hour past his bedtime, 45 minutes past his bedtime. Maybe he's about to fall asleep, and then he starts kind of moving his hands and muttering about alligators or something. Please, please. And I really had the sense that this should not be happening.

[28:30]

This was a mistake. Actually, this was a particular person's mistake. So this should not be happening. This doesn't have to be happening. This doesn't have to be happening. If I hadn't let her in line, I would have won the lottery. This doesn't have to be happening. But because you did that thing, now it's happening. But I don't think it should be. And I think that this is a big mistake. And so I'm not going to show up for it. I'll show you life for giving me the wrong one, giving me a kind of second-rate moment. I just, you know, I'm going to not be here for it. And with total justification, because this was someone else's mistake.

[29:33]

And I shouldn't have to be here living the result of someone else's mistake. This shouldn't be happening. So I'm going to miss my life. And I'm going to imagine that there could be an 815 in which I am me and there's a human life, but I'm doing something really fun like, I don't know, reading Shizawa Iyan instead of, you know, listening to Frank mutter and not go to sleep. But there's not. There's not this world. And it's no help to think that there could be. It's just killing my own life. It's just missing my own life, missing an opportunity to be alive for a minute in this very short time that we have to be alive. So I think there is, you know, a very real way in which we inquire about cause and effect and we ask, what if

[30:36]

You know, what if I had done that differently? What if things had been different? And we ask that in a way that looking towards the future to really learn. You know, in the case of Frank, this can be avoided. I know now that I can ask people to really take care that he not take a nap. So we can study the way things have worked out and we can think about whether they might have worked out a different way. And then we can carry that forward. and use that in some creative and wise and helpful way to affect some future moment. So if that's how any of us are holding what if, if it's sincerely and genuinely a total acceptance of the totality, the kind of unchangeable totality that is this moment, the total acceptance of that, and then an inquiry into how to live from here, how to contribute to... a better world, a better future, then please, you know, what if away.

[31:40]

But pretty much all of my what ifs are not that kind. Pretty much all of my what ifs and all of my alternate worlds are not alternate worlds that are guiding me in skillful action in the future. They're alternate worlds that are giving me an excuse to not be in the actual world that I have. So, I mean, in a way, this whole talk is what if, you know, what if I hadn't thought that that moment with Frank didn't need to be happening? And I can reflect on that and use that moving forward. And remember that I, or even give rise to a vow to not create an alternate world, to really understand that there is no alternate world. Or if there is, it doesn't have a now. It doesn't have a me. So it's truly no good.

[32:43]

It's truly no use. What is its use? Its use is my suffering. Its use is to keep me from meeting my life and keep me blaming you and resenting the gift of this inhalation with a little too much heat, this inhalation that I'd rather have. be inhaling somewhere else. So I think that if I could live without creating alternative worlds, I could live without regret and without blame and without anxiety. and total appreciation that this situation, exactly as it is, is the only situation in which I can be alive ever. And I truly believe that in doing so, in renouncing alternate worlds, the beings in this world can actually be deeply served.

[33:58]

So long, long ago, I vowed should I ever speak from the seat to not speak too long I accept that this talk could not have been any other way and though I wish and hope that in the future I can more clearly express and share this vital life-giving teaching, I completely avow and fully accept that this is the moment we all have and the only moment we will ever have. And I hope that our practice of this moment can bring deep and lasting benefit, not just to us, but truly to all beings. Thank you very much.

[35:29]

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