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, everyone. And good morning, especially to the young people who are here. Wow, there are a lot of young people here. And as we all know, and perhaps especially the young people here know, last week was Halloween. Yeah, yeah, man. And did you go trick-or-treating on Halloween? All right. I did not, but I can appreciate the activity. And did you get dressed up? As something.

[01:01]

What did you get dressed up as? Cinderella? A dinosaur? Okay, I'm convinced you got dressed up in a lot of different costumes. Good. Did anybody get dressed up as an elf? No elves, huh? Okay, well, I'm going to tell you a story this morning that involves elves. And the name of the story is The Shoemaker and His Wife. You do, all right. Okay, okay. The ones we know are the best ones, don't you think? You can hear them again and again and again.

[02:04]

Okay, good, good. Well, you can add comments as I go along, if I leave out any parts. And I may know a version of it that's a little bit different than the ones that you know. Anyway, once upon a time, a long time ago, there was a shoemaker. and his wife, and they lived in a small village. And nowadays, when they make shoes, they often make them in factories, you know, big factories, and they make hundreds of shoes at the same time. And the shoes are made out of leather, but they're also made out of rubber and plastic and lots of stuff. But when this shoemaker and his wife lived, They didn't have those kinds of things. The shoemaker made one pair of shoes at a time.

[03:04]

He'd get a piece of leather, no rubber, no plastic, just one piece of leather, and cut it into sections and then sew the sections together. So one part would be the bottom, the sole, and another part would be the part on top. You slip your foot in there. And also laces and that kind of thing. Anyway, that was how they used to make shoes. And this shoemaker and his wife were very good people, but they were very poor people. And I have a runny nose, so hold on a moment here. They were very poor. And there was no real reason why they were poor. He was a good shoemaker and they were good folks, but they were just down on their luck. Their luck was not good. And it was winter as well. So they had enough leather for one more pair of shoes, the last pair that he could make.

[04:12]

And they had one potato for dinner. So the wife cooked up the potato in some water to make a thin potato soup. And the shoemaker cut the leather into pieces. But by the time they were done with all of that, they were so tired and they were cold because they didn't have enough wood for the fire either. They said, well, let's just go to sleep and tomorrow morning we'll finish the shoes and see if our luck can change. So they did that. They went to sleep. The next morning they got up. They went out into their living room and what did they see? They saw a pair of beautiful new shoes. Somehow the leather that the shoemaker had cut the night before had been sewn up into a beautiful pair of shoes, red shoes, red leather.

[05:22]

They sewed them up, they dyed them red. And they were beautifully done. Well, of course, the shoemaker and his wife were totally, what's going on here? They didn't understand what was happening. But they accepted the fact that this wonderful thing had happened to them. So they put the shoes in the window. And sure enough, somebody came along later that day and saw the shoes and said, wow, that is one heck of a beautiful pair of shoes. And they went and got, they went and purchased them from the shoemaker and his wife. And they complimented the shoemaker on what a fine pair of shoes he had made. He didn't tell them that he hadn't sewn them together himself, but he accepted the compliment. So then, because they had sold these pair of shoes, they had enough money to buy a little bit more food. They bought some fruits and some vegetables.

[06:25]

I'm not sure if they were vegetarians. Maybe they bought some chicken and some fish to have, fish soup. I'm not sure about that part. But they also had enough money to buy more leather so that that night the shoemaker cut enough leather to make three pair of shoes, not just one. But they had had such an exciting day and were full of all of this delicious food that they were able to have purchased. that the shoemaker decided the same thing. Let's wait until tomorrow. I'll sew these up. We don't know how it happened last night, but tomorrow I'm going to sew these myself, and we'll see what we can do. The next day, guess what happened? They came out, and three beautiful pair of shoes were there, just beautifully done with tiny little stitches. That was the mark of a really fine pair of shoes if the stitches are tiny. There was a red pair. And a black pair and a cordovan pair.

[07:29]

Cordovan is like a dark brown. I have a pair of cordovan shoes. Not with me here, but I have them. It's a color I like. So they put those three pair of shoes out in the window. They sold those shoes. Repeat, repeat, repeat. They got more money. They got more food. They got more leather. They cut the leather at night. They came back in the morning. The shoes were sewn. They sold one pair of shoes, then three pair of shoes, then 10 pair of shoes, then 20 pair of shoes. They were doing great. They just felt terrific about this. They were so happy and so grateful. They were very grateful. They were very appreciative of what had been happening to them. But it was still a mystery what it was, how these shoes got made into such beautiful things. So after a while, they decided, we're going to find out.

[08:29]

That night, they left. Wait, no, that's different than what I was about to say. So, oh, yeah, that is what happened. That's right. Thank you very much. Thank you. They stayed up. Forgot that part. They stayed up. They had a plan. We're going to stay up and we're going to hide in the closet and we're going to see who it is, what it is, how these shoes are being made. That was what they did. They hid in the closet. And they fell asleep. No, they didn't fall. Well, maybe they took a nap. But in the middle of the night... They saw, peeking out of the closet, they saw 10 elves coming from, we don't know exactly where they came from, but they came in. They came from the ocean. They took a boat and they sailed across the ocean.

[09:33]

That was really good that they came from the ocean. They were sailor elves. And each elf was about this big. The elves in this story are this big. They looked like human beings, but they were just this size instead of regular adult-sized human beings. And they had pointy ears. Any other aspects that we want to name, we can, but those are some of the important ones. Pointy ears, yes. Because they were elves, after all. And... So those elves came in and they went right to work. And now they had a lot of work to do because there were so many pieces of leather to sew into so many shoes. And there were only 10 of them. And they were small. So when the shoemaker sewed them together, it was like sewing like this. But for them, it was like a big pole. The needle was like a pole that they had to put through the leather.

[10:36]

But because they were so small, that was how it was that they made these beautiful tiny stitches. So the shoemaker and his wife looked at each other in total astonishment. Wow, we've had elves coming in helping us every night. They were delighted. Maybe then they went to sleep, but they didn't do anything. They didn't disturb the elves in any way. And after the elves had finished working very hard, very studiously, that's not the word I'm looking for, but it's something like that. Diligently. They were working hard. Diligently is a fancy word for hard. Yes. The elves left. So, and then the shoemaker and his wife went to sleep. The next morning, over breakfast, they had a delicious breakfast with eggs and toast and jam and lots of stuff because they could now afford those things.

[11:38]

They thought... We are so grateful to these elves. We are so thankful at this wonderful thing that they did. We don't even know why they did it, but they have helped us so much. So we want to repay them in some way. We want to give them something because they gave us something. And the idea they came up with was the elves, you know, the elves had been working very hard, but like I said, it was winter, That's right. They gave the elves clothes because it was winter and the elves, even though they worked very hard, their clothes were threadbare. That means that they were very thin and not really warm enough for the winter. So the shoemaker was very good at making shoes and the shoemaker's wife was very good at sewing and knitting. So she sewed and knitted ten Outfits, one for each elf.

[12:39]

Pants made out of wool, shirts, jackets, a scarf, and overalls, and lots of really good things. Oh, and the shoemaker cut tiny pieces of leather, sewed them together into tiny little shoes, and made 10 pairs of shoes, one for each elf. They went into the closet that night In the middle of the night, around 1 o'clock in the morning, the elves came out. Oh, and they didn't put any leather out for the elves. The shoemaker and his wife, that night, they didn't put any leather, just 10 outfits. The elves came out, and they were, what is this? Wow. They were so surprised and delighted at receiving this gift from the shoemaker and his wife. And they put on the clothes, and they joked around with each other, and they shouted and screamed and, you know, had a lot of fun and danced and, yeah, they did some of that, but we don't need to do more of that.

[13:44]

I know. They were very, very happy to have gotten all of those things. So they were just jovial. You know, they had been serious before, but now they were quite happy because they had all of these fine clothes. And there was nothing more to do. Once they kind of put on the clothes, there was no shoes to make, so they just scampered off. And that was the last that the shoemaker and his wife ever saw those elves. They never showed up again. But they had done this wonderful thing for the shoemaker and his wife and had gotten them started so well that the shoemaker and his wife just sailed on very beautifully from there and made lots of shoes. And they lived very contentedly to the end of their days and were very grateful to the elves for the help that the elves had been in their lives and turning, turning their lives in a really important way.

[14:53]

And I think that's the end of the story unless I've left some parts out. Those are the main parts of the story. I think that's it for us and the Zendo for the kids. And we're going to go someplace. We're going to go out into the beautiful day. It is a beautiful day outside. Oh, I was going to say one more thing. Just like the elves did this wonderful thing for the shoemaker and his wife, so... We get lots of gifts. For example, we go outside and the sun is shining and the air is clear and there's beautiful dirt to put your hands into and you can run around and you can have all kinds of fun. This is a wonderful gift that somebody is giving us. Well, I don't know if it's somebody exactly, but somehow we're getting this gift.

[15:59]

And we feel very grateful for it. We appreciate it a lot. It comes from the ground, that's right. It comes from nature, the ground. It comes from the ground, water, air, and fire. Those four things is where it comes from. Okay, that's it for today, kids. See you guys later. Have fun outside. And as a mighty acorn, good. Bye-bye, Kira. I don't have one of those on me. That's okay. Bye-bye. You're welcome. Bye. Bye, Wyatt.

[17:01]

Bye-bye. You're welcome. Rowan? Yes. Hi, Rowan. My grandson's name is Rowan. He's much younger than this Rowan, though. He's only nine months old. Great hat. Thank you. You're welcome. Bye.

[18:59]

So one of the things that we're grateful for, very grateful for, is the gift of teaching, the gift of the Dharma. The Dharma means the teaching in Zen, in Buddhism. It means the understanding of the way things are. And... we really mark our appreciation of the teaching that comes through teachers. For example, Sojin Mel Weitzman is the person who is one of my main teachers, and one of his main teachers and my main teacher was Suzuki Roshi. And I think I could say that just as the shoemaker and his wife, just as their luck turned, luck, what is luck?

[21:02]

We don't know what luck is. But anyway, just as their fortunes turned to the better. So for me, personally, coming to San Francisco Zen Center and hearing Suzuki Roshi's teaching turned my life. And in a sense, I'm living out the consequences. of that turning having happened. Maybe it's still happening. So I wanted to begin, as I often do actually, with some words from Suzuki Roshi and then speak about them and try to talk about what I understand him to have meant in what he says.

[22:16]

and what the implications of what he said is for us, for our life. So this is what I'm quoting. What I'm about to quote is from a Dharma talk that he gave, I think 1971 maybe. And in the book, Not Always So, it's the Dharma talk, titled True Concentration. And it's the last paragraph of that talk. And here it is. The extent of our practice is limitless. With this as our base, we have real freedom. When you evaluate yourself as good or bad, right or wrong, that is comparative value.

[23:30]

And you lose your absolute value. When you evaluate yourself by a limitless measure, each one of you will be settled on your real self. That is enough, even though you think you need a better measurement. If you understand this point, you will know what real practice is for human beings and for everything. So maybe one more time, I realize, you know, when I'm preparing for a Dharma talk like this, you know, I study some words like Suzuki Roshi's words and study them enough so that I've actually memorized them.

[24:54]

So I'm very familiar with what I'm saying when I'm saying it to you. But of course, it may be the first time, very likely the first time you've ever heard it. So let me say it again. And I'll say the whole thing and then I'll... I'm going to break it down into pieces. The extent of our practice is limitless. With this as our base, we have real freedom. When you evaluate yourself as good or bad, right or wrong, that is comparative value, and you lose your absolute value. when you evaluate yourself by a limitless measure, then each one of you will be settled on your real self. That is enough, even though you think you need a better measurement.

[26:05]

If you understand this point, you will know what real practice is for human beings and for everything. So the very first thing that Suzuki Roshi says is, the extent of this practice is limitless. So I want to talk about what this thing is, this word practice, which if you hang around these parts, you'll hear a lot of talk about practice. Practice, practice, practice, practice. I want to say a couple of things about practice. a couple of things about limitless because there's at least a couple different ways of understanding what Suzuki Roshi means when he says the extent of our practice is limitless.

[27:09]

So first of all, our practice is our practice. That is, it's our activity, our spiritual activity. The effort we make in our spiritual life is our practice. That's when we're practicing. We're making an effort in our spiritual life, spiritual life in our life, in a spiritual direction, any way you want to say that. So one of the big time favorite practices for Zen Buddhist people is sitting Zen, which is what we do here. right, on these cushions. You sit and face the wall or look down, eyes open, straight back, clear posture, without getting attached to our thinking mind.

[28:12]

This is called Zazen. And this is a kind of specialty of the Zen school. is an emphasis on Zazen practice, seated Zen practice. So that's one kind of practice. Now, if you live here, like now it's, we're now at Green Belch, there's a practice period, a period of time when we're really emphasizing this thing called Zazen practice and other formal activities. So, If you live here during practice period, there's lots of zazen. There's zazen in the morning, there's zazen at night, there's zazen in the afternoon, and then sometimes there's more zazen besides those. There's lots of zazen. And, most of you know this, there's a wooden board, you see a few around in different places, that's hit with a wooden mallet that tells people to come to the zendo.

[29:15]

It's called the han. You know, it's that thing. like that, and it's hit in a certain rhythmic pattern. So when you're getting ready to go to Zazen, you hear the Han. You say, oh, OK, well, because you know the rhythmic pattern, you know, well, I've got about eight minutes left to get to the Zendo on time. But sometimes you're late. You hear the Han and you say, I'm never going to make it there on time. So then I start to rush. Get those robes on. Get that thing on. Do this. Do that. Do that. Walk fast. I can't run because I've got these robes on. But some young people who don't happen to have robes, they'll run to the Zendo to get there on time. They'll run to the Zendo in order to sit still. They're in a big rush to do nothing.

[30:21]

Literally nothing. As much nothing as they can possibly do, they're going to do. The more nothing, the better. It's a big rush. Let's do nothing. So the feeling of Zen practice is the extent of our practice is limitless. It's not limited to this thing called sitting on a cushion, eyes cast downward, focusing on your breath, et cetera, et cetera. We extend it past there. Oh, when you're coming to the zendo, that's called coming to the zendo practice. That's a practice. Then after zazen in the morning, again, for those of us who live here and practice here daily, after zazen in the morning, we do bowing and chanting. The bowing, by the way, is gratitude. Gratitude for the teaching. That's why we bow.

[31:21]

And we chant certain things in Japanese and English and various other languages. And that's chanting and bowing practice. We're extending our practice. The extent of our practice is limitless. Then after that, we go outside to that room there, what's called Cloud Hall, and we stand in a circle. And then people are assigned cleaning work jobs called soji for 15 minutes. So then we have work practice. And the feeling of this style of practice is all of those are co-equal practices. There isn't some, the extent of our practice is limitless. There isn't some place where No, we can't practice there.

[32:23]

Anywhere you can be, you can practice. So that's not just limited to this place called Green Gulch Farm either. There's work, but if you work as a computer engineer in Silicon Valley, well, then that's the practice of working as an engineer in Silicon Valley. And if you work as a bus driver in Mill Valley, that's called the practice of working as a bus driver. The extent is limitless. That's the meaning of that limitlessness. It permeates our life. And this, before I came to San Francisco Zen Center, this was very attractive to me. I remember. Do any of you know the place called Rockaway Queens in New York City? So every summer... My family, we lived in Queens. We'd go out to Rockaway and hang out on the beach and stuff.

[33:27]

And I remember being in Rockaway and I was reading, not Joseph Campbell, not C.G. Young. I was reading, who's the guy? Who's the guy? Not Jack Kerouac, close. Alan Watts. Alan Ginsberg, too. DT Suzuki, yes, but that was a little bit later. It was Alan Watts. Anyway, I was reading Alan Watts and hearing about Zen, and a few years later when I was, you know, just past being a teenager, I was 21 years old, came out to California, and shortly thereafter, began practicing at Zen Center, and And that was so meaningful to me and so important to me that this Zen practice was not just some bunch of ideas. It was not some theory.

[34:30]

It was not some philosophy in the way that I had understood philosophy. No. It really was about how do you live your life? How do you live your life when the rubber meets the road? That's practice. That's our practice, is to work on that. Work might not be the exact correct word, but to emphasize that. In that sense, I've said before, our practice is very handy. It's very portable. You can take it wherever you go. Very lightweight. You don't need to carry around. There was a famous Zen master once who, before he became a Zen teacher, this was 1,000 years ago, 1,200 years ago, he carried in his backpack, he carried all of these books, sutras, the Diamond Sutra in particular, because he was a great scholar of the Diamond Sutra.

[35:45]

To make a long story short, he just burned all of those books and walked away when he encountered this understanding of practice. So it's lightweight. Not to demean books. Books are very good. We need books and understanding things intellectually also. Anyway, that's one. meaning of the extent of this practice is limitless. And I'm already seeing, I'm just on the first sentence, and already it's late. So I'm going to have to edit what I was going to say here. The second part, the second meaning of the extent of this practice is limitless is harder to understand. And It's an unusual understanding because very naturally, because of our general understanding of things, we think practice is the means to get to the end called enlightenment, awakening, realization.

[37:12]

We think here's practice, I'm going to do this practice, and then... I'm going to get to the end point. I started playing the piano in the last couple of years after a 50-year hiatus I played when I was a teenager and then stopped for about 50 years and started again. So I practice as much as I can. And soon I'm going to perform at Carnegie Hall. Depending on the definition of the word soon, That's the end point, right? Oh, the performance at Carnegie Hall is I'm practicing and then I'm going to do it perfectly and then I'm going to perform. So this unusual understanding of what practice is, it doesn't make that distinction. The extent of our practice is limitless.

[38:13]

the practice extends to the end point. Or we say practice and realization are not separate. There isn't any moment of practice that is not a moment of realization. There's no moment of realization that is not a moment of practice. It's very odd. It's not... Thank you. It's not intuitive. Well, it sort of is intuitive in another way, but it's unusual for us, this non-separation of means and end, this non-separation of practice and realization. So in that last sentence of what I quoted, Suzuki Hiroshi said... If you understand this point, the point that he was making is not the one that I just made.

[39:18]

The point that he was making had to do with the absolute, which I'm going to get to in a minute. If you understand this point, you will know what real practice is for human beings and for everything. We could as easily say, we could say, paraphrase Suzuki Roshi and say, if you understand this point about the absolute value of things, If you understand this point, you will know what true realization is. That is realization. Understanding and enacting the point that Suzuki Roshi just made is practice and it's realization. And it's a big deal. You will understand... what true practice is for human beings. This is not small potatoes. For human beings and for everything. What true practice is for everything.

[40:20]

If you understand this point, now I'm going to talk about this point. So this point is, I think what he's referring to is what he had just said, which was, when you evaluate yourself, as good or bad, right or wrong, that is comparative value and you lose your absolute value. When you evaluate yourself by a limitless measure, each one of you will be settled on your real self. So he says, if you evaluate yourself as good or bad, right or wrong, but what he means, what I say, feel he means, is not just good or bad, right or wrong. It means any kind of comparative that is differentiating, that is separate-making kind of evaluation.

[41:28]

Good, bad, right, wrong, tall, short, slim, husky, depressed, happy. if you evaluate yourself in any particular way, that's comparative value. Then he says, and you lose your absolute value. There's something called absolute value. It's very, very important. I say something called, I don't literally mean something called absolute value. I mean Suzuki Roshi is referring to something that's an important part of our teaching and part of what our practice lives are enacting. And he says, you lose your absolute value.

[42:30]

That sounds very final. I would say it a little bit differently. You may lose your absolute value. You may lose your understanding of the absolute value of yourself, of others, of circumstances, of grass, walls, trees, and tiles, of the earth. You may lose your understanding of that if you're caught in the comparative world, if you're stuck in the comparative world. If you think that world, if I think that world is the only world there is, that differentiating, separate-making world, if I'm stuck there and that's what I think is the totality of reality, then I lose my understanding, my appreciation, my awareness of the absolute value of things, of myself, of each other.

[43:31]

And I hardly need to mention. See if I can say this without cursing. I hardly need to mention the extent to which we are capable. I'm not sure how this works. If you could help me, please. Did I do that right? Thank you, Kristen. I hardly need to mention how terrible it is when we lose that sense of absolute value, when we're caught, stuck, trapped in some comparative value, in some separate-making value, in some... Caught means...

[44:47]

To be really caught means to act on it. It means to think, I'm going to get stuff for this thing over here, and you're not going to get it, and I don't care. That's a very crude version of it. But as we know, this is an expression of what are called in the teaching, these are called the three poisons. The three poisons... which we are also quite capable of. We're quite capable of enacting understanding and enacting our practice mind, our absolute valuing mind. That's a good thing we're capable of that. We're also quite capable of ignorance and ignorance is friends, fear. That's not in the official list of poisonous minds, but It's right there. Ignorance, fear, greed, hate.

[45:51]

Pretty complete list. That poisons our mind and it poisons the world. So Suzuki Roshi, I believe, is saying that, of course, he's not saying exactly these words, but I'm putting it in there. Of course, we have a particular understanding. This is called karma. For example, an example I often use, part of our human karma is that we can see our eyes, in the visual spectrum, we see from here to here. But, as we know, there's a lot of stuff on either side of that.

[46:58]

We don't ever see that stuff. Same with our ears. Never mind the fact that our eyes see the way our eyes see, but, of course, a dragonfly's eyes and a bee's eyes are faceted. They're not round balls. They're facets. I believe. I'm not sure of my entomology or whatever that is. I think that's true. Anyway, somebody has faceted eyes out there. What do they see? We don't know. We don't know what they see, really. We don't even know what each of us see, really. We make some assumptions that are approximately correct. So we are very particular due to karma, either human karma or our family karma or our individual karma or our society's karma it's very very complex but it all adds up to something very specific the number of hairs on our head or you know what we see or how we understand things very very particular it has to be that way that's the way human beings are that's the way things that exist are

[48:16]

They're limited of necessity. But the point Suzuki Roshi is making, which is this very, very central point, which if you understand it, you will know what real practice is for human beings and for everything. The point that he's making is that laminated to that particular thing, particular view, Laminated to that particular view around it, above it, below it, is absolute view. Laminated to that particular comparative valuing. Oh, that person is tall. I like tall people. May I tell a humorous story that I know about Fu Schrader? Yes, sir. So Fu, how tall are you, Fu?

[49:19]

I used to be 5 feet 8. Right. So this is the way I heard the story. I don't know if it's true. I didn't hear it from Fu. But Fu is 5 feet 8. And the woman who I am so lucky to be married to, Linda Ruth Cutts, is 5 feet 2. Now, Linda's mother, my wife's mother, And she has two sisters. They were all, well, her mother's no longer alive. She was 4'11", maybe. And her sisters, Linda's sisters, were five feet tall. So Linda always thought of herself as being very tall. Whereas, I believe, Fu Schrader's siblings and parents were all much taller than five feet eight. So Fu Schrader, who's five feet eight, thought she was very short compared to Linda, who thought she was very tall.

[50:22]

Comparative mind. So attached to this comparative mind is big mind. Attached to this limited view is limitless view. Attached. So there's a metaphor I wanted to mention, and it's a metaphor that's used by Dogen. So Suzuki Hiroshi is in the Zen lineage, and then if you go back to the first half of the 13th century, you find Dogen in this same lineage, a Japanese Zen teacher, brilliant, extraordinary Zen teacher. And his metaphor that he uses, he may have gotten it from somebody else, I don't know. But the metaphor that he uses, he uses it in somewhat different circumstances, but I'm going to recruit it for this, is the moon, the full moon, kind of like these globes in here, but much more beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, gigantic full moon and dew drops on the grass.

[51:37]

Hundreds, thousands, we could even say millions. of dew drops on the grass. So the moon is absolute value. The moon is, we could say, Suzuki Rishi was saying, true nature. The dew drops is us. Each particular little tiny dew drop. But it's a wonderful metaphor because if you look in the dew drop, you see the moon, right? In every dew drop is the moon. The moon is inside the dew drop. And Dogen goes on and he says, even in a puddle, an inch wide,

[52:41]

the full moon and the entire sky is reflected. And now we know, Dogen may not have known, but now we know, when he says the entire sky, he's talking about 100 billion galaxies, and in every galaxy is 100 billion stars, approximately. It's reflected in every dewdrop, even in a puddle an inch wide. So I take this to mean that even if I feel like my life is like a puddle an inch wide by my comparative valuing, even if I feel poorly about myself, there's an absolute value that is in there, that is enormous, limitless. Oh, and...

[53:42]

So that's Dogen. So that's stretching back now 750 years or so. And then about 500 years before Dogen was Tozan, a famous Chinese Zen teacher. And one of the things that Tozan said was, everywhere I go, I meet myself. I am not it. It actually is me. And so everywhere I go, I meet myself is limitless understanding, is absolute value. I am not it. I am not the entirety of the universe. I am not the entirety of absolute value in the universe. But the absolute value in the entirety of the universe manifests as me.

[54:50]

He wasn't bragging. It wasn't like, hey, I'm the universe. He was just saying, this is the way it is for all of us. And we shouldn't forget it. That's what Suzuki Roshi, I think, is imploring us. Don't forget it. in the midst of our comparative life, which, you know, it needs to be comparative. We need to compare things in order to know how to make our way in the world. In the midst of that, we shouldn't lose, we shouldn't forget the absolute value of ourselves and of others and of things. And our practice is an encouragement of not forgetting. So two more things I was going to say, and then I'll end. One was, so this is the basis of, this understanding is the basis of, you might say, our morality.

[56:00]

It's the basis of our action in the world. Dogen, that same Dogen, wrote something else, called, one translation of the title is the four methods of guidance for a bodhisattva. So a bodhisattva is somebody who's on the path to awakening. And this is technically four methods. This is like advice to bodhisattvas. This is how you should guide other people. That's, so to speak, if I were to say it that way, like a manual. Here are four methods to guide other people. But it doesn't just mean that. It really means this is the way we all should be with everyone. This is the way we should act in the world. Because if we're making an attempt to practice, then that puts us on the bodhisattva path.

[57:02]

I hereby certify you're a bodhisattva. You don't have to do anything further. It comes with the territory. So what are these four methods? These four methods are generosity. I love this because Dogen is so hard to understand sometimes. You know, you read and say, what is he talking about? You know, think, not thinking. The blue mountains are walking. You don't know what he's talking about. But this is so straightforward. These four methods of guidance. Oh, somebody else... Shohaku Okamura translates them as the four embracings. And I think he tends to do things more literally, so probably that's more accurate. But I'm imagining that whoever originally translated a thought, gee, I can't get into embracing. That's a little too intimate. I better call it something else, you know. Let's call it the four methods of guidance.

[58:04]

But actually it's the four embracings, how we embrace each other. generosity, kind speech, beneficent action, and the fourth one is a little complicated. I call it empathy action, empathic action. More literally, it means all in the same boat, action, the fourth one. These are the four ways we relate to others. The four methods of guidance, the four modes of practice of relating to other beings, humans and others. Generosity, kind speech, beneficent action, and empathy. Wow! That comes from understanding, appreciating, being grateful for, and not forgetting the absolute value of things and people. That's where it comes from.

[59:06]

So that was one thing. And then the last thing I'm going to say is just a small personal anecdote that I thought of when I was preparing this talk, which I thought was lovely. So I mentioned Sojin, Mel Weitzman, who's been a guide and a teacher for me for many years. And many years ago, so we would get together, you know, as we do and talk about things. So many years ago, he said, how are you? I don't remember the circumstance exactly. How are you doing? And I said, wobbly. I think that was pretty good self-description in the realm of comparative mind. That was wobbly. It was like, what am I doing? I can't stand it. You know, I was upset or was liable to become upset, disturbed, confused, self-critical, critical of others, wobbly.

[60:22]

You know wobbly, don't you? Are you familiar with this? In other words, not feeling strong, stable, equanimous. What a word, equanimous. Not feeling that way. I was wobbly. I don't know. Having a hard time. Anyway, I think wobbly kind of got it there. So he said, how are you doing? I said, wobbly. He said, oh, wobbly Buddha. That's absolute value. in our comparative, specific, particular mind state. And, you know, that was probably in the decades, 22 decades, three decades ago, some number of decades ago,

[61:34]

that he said that, and I'm remembering it now. Why? Because it was really a gift. Very encouraging. As encouraging as finding the shoes all sewn up. Yeah, very encouraging. So then for a while, I had the practice of adding Buddha to anything else. Wobbly Buddha, depressed Buddha, upset Buddha, happy Buddha. Because Buddha is a word, a key word or a turning word for that limitless sense of things, limitless universe. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast. offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive.

[62:38]

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.

[62:59]

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