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, everybody. Thank you very much for coming this morning to the Dharma Talk at Green Gulch. And those of you who are required to be here, thank you for coming. And those of you with the way-seeking mind who longing for the way, longing for wisdom and compassion in this suffering world, took a long drive over the hill.

[01:01]

and through traffic to come here in person or those at home who took this time out of your busy sunday to turn your heart and mind to reach for some nourishment in your practice of wisdom and compassion as your natural our natural full-hearted response to the suffering in ourselves and in our families and in our communities and in the whole confused world. So that effort is the point. So this is all gravy, I guess. The main thing is you turning towards that part of yourself and saying, I long. To hear the true Dharma, I long to practice the way.

[02:02]

And then we just try to support each other however we can on that basis and with that intention. So I know many of you, maybe not all of you, my name is Jiryu. I'm the abiding abbot here at Green Gulch. And this morning I wanted to share a little bit of my own experience practice intention, the way that I'm thinking about and feeling into my practice, moment after moment, which is to say, any moment I can manage to do something called practice, then this is the practice understanding that I have in mind. I wanted to lift that this morning and turn it a little bit with you all. Motivated. I'm motivated in my practice by this wish for wisdom and compassion as a response to the suffering of beings.

[03:10]

So this practice that I want to explore with you is the practice of wholeheartedness, wholehearted being. I was given this new robe. Thank you to the dear Sangha for lovingly preparing this new robe as I took the abbot seat and was given this weighty, a new robe that I'm still becoming intimate with, wrestling with. We're developing an understanding, but it'll take a little bit of time. Maybe it will polish me and I'll soften it. So this intention in Zen, in a way, maybe the whole point of Zen practice or a main theme main expression of Zen practice is this, giving ourselves wholeheartedly to the activity that we're involved in, moment after moment.

[04:34]

So when we bow, to bow with our whole being, whole body and mind and breath and heart, and the whole being within us bowing, and then the whole being all around us bowing, bowing breath and body and mind and heart and the birds and the smells, and the light all bowing together, whole being, wholehearted activity. That's all. And so we try to do this in every moment of our life, and that's what's so wonderful about it. You need no special equipment, and you need no special circumstance. in which to just give yourself wholeheartedly to the activity of your life in this moment. To have a Zen, you know, to achieve some Zen state maybe needs some equipment, I don't know, or needs some special circumstances that are not reliable in order to fall into some kind of calm or ease or

[05:54]

deep kind of Zen feeling that we might find appealing. So that's a kind of special thing that can happen in Zen. But this ongoing practice, which we can do wherever we find ourselves, because we're always in some activity, is to just give ourselves wholeheartedly to the activity that we are involved in. And our sitting practice, I think a good way to consider our sitting practice, is as a kind of laboratory or training ground for this wholehearted way of being. Zazen is, as I sometimes say, life in its kind of most basic unit. What could be simpler than sitting? There's nothing, it's just nothing but life itself. Of course, it's always nothing but life itself, but somehow, especially when we're sitting, It's just, there's nothing extra. It's just life itself.

[06:55]

So if I want to practice how to be alive, which is the question, I think, for spiritual people, how do I want to live? How do I meet this life? Then kind of paring it down to this very simple training area or laboratory with nothing going on, just like, okay, me, and in our tradition, me and the wall and my life. What do I want to do? How do I want to live? No one will notice if I fall asleep. No one will notice if I ruminate. No one will notice if I become enlightened and merge with all the Buddhas throughout space and time. What do I want to do? How do I want to meet this life, this moment? So in terms of wholeheartedness, the Dharma gate of wholeheartedness, We talk about our sitting practice as an opportunity to just do something fully. It's not that the sitting is special, it's that living wholeheartedly is special, and we can practice doing that by just sitting.

[08:07]

For example, right now, you may be sitting. And the interesting thing about sitting is that we're pretty good at it naturally. You know, it might be uncomfortable, but it doesn't take our whole body and mind and heart and energy and the birds and the light to sit, really. We kind of know how to do it. So we can just come and we can sit. not be wholehearted. So maybe that's also part of what's special about sitting. It's easy to do not wholeheartedly, so it's a great opportunity to do this thing that we could do halfheartedly, wholeheartedly. So in our physical practice of sitting, we practice wholeheartedness by tending to the posture, coming all the way into the body,

[09:29]

feeling the breath, that energy in our deep lower belly, letting the breath emerge from that belly center, and return to that low belly center, extending our spine up the back of the top of the head, Bringing our breath and our mind and our body together to this one place. Giving our full self just to this seated body. So as I sit and take care of my posture in Zazen, I've been paying special attention to my head.

[11:01]

Where does the head go is a big problem for us, I think. Metaphorically and physically, we have this head and we have to figure out where's the best place for it. Where does it go? head is basically always confused. Our head is full of ideas that are not actually complete or not actually matching or meeting the reality of our life. Part of the insight in Zen practice is that if we can live from our embodied intuitive wisdom, we can live less from our head and more from our belly center and we'll be more connected and harmonious with things, and less confused and destructive, basically, in our life. But we still have this head and we have to do something with it.

[12:06]

So in the posture of sitting, Dogen says, ears over the shoulders, or the chin in. So I've been sharing and coming back to this teaching from Suzuki Roshi, who I think had a wonderful answer when a student asked how to quiet the thoughts that kept coming up in meditation. Suzuki Roshi said, you start to think because your mind is not participating in the practice. So it starts to wander about, asking, what shall I do? Your mind should also join your practice. The way to bring your mind into your practice is to physically pull your chin in and stretch your neck. Our chin and neck should always be that way.

[13:08]

Otherwise, your mind will ask, what shall I do? And we'll start taking a walk. That is why you start to think. I really appreciate this instruction. We can sit half-heartedly, not really marshalling the mind to help with this project of sitting. And then it's not so satisfying. We have all kinds of thought. And then we're sitting and we're thinking and we're dissatisfied because we're not connected with our meditation. And so then we may get the idea that we should do some meditation thing. that we should be making some mental effort to occupy the mind since the mind is wandering around. But if we can just sit wholeheartedly, if we can bring the mind into the body, then it's no longer a question of finding some spiritual or

[14:18]

zen thing for the mind to do on top of the sitting body the mind joins the body the mind just is participating in the activity of the wholehearted sitting so it wanders off when it doesn't remember or isn't reminded that it's needed here it's needed here in this wholehearted whole mind whole body sitting so we bring the chin in Suzuki Roshi's instruction to call the mind. In mind, we need you here. Now it seems like we've got this, but actually we don't. We really need your help here. We need our whole being in this sitting. And then the mind is happy to help. It was just wandering off because it thought it wasn't needed. But the body, the body's got this. I'll go for a walk. So we bring our chin in to call back the mind. Say we want. this practice right now to have our whole being to enter the Dharma gate, to enter our full life.

[15:25]

We need everybody here, all hands on deck, our whole being, our whole heart and whole mind. So I often share when I'm talking about Zazen and often think when I'm encouraging myself in Zazen, Zazen has a yoga posture, or a kind of athletic endeavor. And I find this illuminating and amusing to imagine, and I know there are some yoga practitioners here today in the hall who are maybe quite skilled at yoga asanas. And I wonder if any of you who, say, have achieved a one-arm handstand would be in a one-arm handstand and then ask the yoga teacher, great, now what do I do with my mind?

[16:29]

How do I direct my mind? Or what is the activity of the mind? It should be obvious that no one would ask. No one would have the breath or the mental energy to ask, by the way, what should I do with our mind? But in our everyday life and in our everyday practice of half-hearted zazen, we actually have that question. Okay, body upright check. Now, what do I do with my mind? If we think about the zazen as a posture that's taking as much wholehearted energy as it would to do a one-armed handstand, there's no question of what to do with the mind. The mind has a job, which is... of goes without saying it's it knows that it's needed in this posture that's clear there's no in this wholehearted embodiment totally engaged in upright sitting there's no leftover energy for the mind to to wonder what it should be doing

[17:37]

the invitation of Zen practice is to take that same feeling of wholeheartedness that could be expressed, say, by this one-armed handstand and live with that kind of total exertion in every moment. So sitting, and walking and talking, these ordinary, easy activities, we try to engage in as though it was calling forth that same complete being. But we may have a habit, or I think this teaching works against a habit that we have, of using the least amount of energy possible, the least amount of effort to complete a task.

[18:55]

I don't want to waste my effort. I don't want to waste my energy. I want to save my energy, maybe for something later, or I want to save my energy so that I can be doing something else. For example, in Zazen, it might be good to just sit and then save some energy to, say, prepare a Dharma talk. in my head while I'm sitting Zazen. I've got all this time, the body's done, so it can multitask. So we save our energy or we try to do various things at the same time with our energy. So Zen training proposes that even if we could engage in or complete an activity with just a fraction of our life energy, how about doing that with our complete 100% energy of body and heart and mind, 100% of the energy of our whole being and the whole universe sort of coursing through every cell to do this simple activity, like sitting in the Zendo at Green Gulch, listening to a Dharma talk and the sound of the birds.

[20:08]

It doesn't take much, but it could. It could take everything, and the invitation of practice is to give it everything. even though we don't have to, because that's how we want to live, because it's a deeply satisfying way to live. It's the Dharma gate of wisdom and compassion, of entering the interdependent reality that is together, harmonized with everything and everyone. even though it's optional. Even though maybe no one will notice. But in order to live fully for ourselves.

[21:12]

So in Zen we have a practice, when it's practical and appropriate, which we often talk about, of handling objects with both hands. So if you spend time at a Zen temple, you see a lot of objects being handled with both hands that wouldn't need to be handled with both hands. And this is a beautiful practice. I think it's deep. It expresses many of our values, including the steep respect for the physical world, deep respect for everything, objects, beings, life itself, as manifested in every particle of dust and every teacup and every table and every pine cone. And it expresses this intention to be wholehearted. I could do it with one hand, but what if I do it with both hands? So it's easy to pick up the teacup with one hand, but what happens when we pick it up with both hands? So we practice in this way. And it's a good practice.

[22:16]

I recommend it. Pick something up with both hands that you could just pick up with one hand and see and feel what's different, what changes in your being, in your body and mind. when you express that respect and also bring more of your whole self to that activity. I remember a long time ago, a Zen teacher here at Green Gulch, right here on this seat, gave a talk and shared this teaching about handling things with two hands. And as always, also in Zen, we aim to live and move. and kind of be from this low belly center, the composure and groundedness and spaciousness of that low belly center and letting our activity, our whole life sort of unfold from that base rather than from up here.

[23:16]

And I had a very funny friend at the time who that evening at dinner said, passed the salt in this way, I would maybe need salt, but... Whole being, 100% every cell, the whole power of the universe totally engaged in lifting and passing the salt. It was quite funny. And pointed out, you know, it was a sort of caricature or expression of this is an absurd, this is an absurd practice. Can you imagine, you know, what are these people up to? If everybody was passing the salt as though, you know, it was like a one-armed handstand. Let's see if I can pull this off. Okay.

[24:20]

Or as though the salt weighed 100 pounds, you know, I need the whole belly power to lift this, the whole universe in this salt jar. So if it only takes 1% of my energy to pass the salt, why would I pass the salt with 100% of my life? What a waste. Think of all the other things I could be doing with that 99% of my life. Why pass the salt so completely? It's not that the salt is special or any more special than anything else. And it's not that the activity needs that much energy. It's just that this is my expression of practice and enlightenment.

[25:21]

This is my expression of totally, fully being the life that I have. So part of what was funny about this moment, this miming of over-the-top literal understanding of this Zen instruction, is that it points to a kind of a way that I think we can miss this teaching of wholeheartedness. So our wholeheartedness might have that kind of energy and intensity and strength. But it may also be very soft and very warm and very open and still be the whole being engaged.

[26:24]

All of the body and the breath and the mind, our whole life right here. The activity may be very soft and light, but it's totally what we're doing. Somebody I remember reading, I forget the words they used exactly, but somebody was expressing just this awe at watching Suzuki Roshi, our founder, a walk in the garden. Some expression like, he was just walking in the garden. this sort of so hard to express feeling of somebody's complete being, of somebody really being present. I saw Suzuki Roshi walking in the garden, and he was just walking. He was just walking in the garden. So that's a beautiful image to me of a person just with ease and warmth walking in the garden with their whole being.

[27:29]

Or I picture my late teacher, Sojin, Mel Weitzman walking on the sidewalk in Berkeley with no particular intensity. You're not knocked back 10 feet when you come into the radius of Mel because he was so intensely concentrated or rigid in any way. But there's a kind of presence of a person whose whole being is right there. And of course, in my image of Suzuki Roshi in the garden, And in my experience of male on the sidewalk, if you pass them, they will turn and warmly say hello. There's no, there's nothing extra. There's not an intensity that you'll necessarily recognize, but there's a wholeness of being that I find very inspiring and that is a real pointer for me in my practice. be fully in whatever activity I'm doing, even if it's just walking down the street.

[28:37]

So in Zen, we call this total exertion, or becoming one with our activity, or burning ourselves up completely in our activity. Suzuki Roshi uses this image of burning ourselves up like a clean, great bonfire. Don't be a smoky fire, he says. Burn up completely in the activity. Become one with the activity. Total exertion. So we practice this total exertion in our sitting. Again, it's not physical sitting plus mental activity of some kind. It's just total sitting. And we practice it in every activity. So this total exertion is a practical instruction, and it also has this step of teaching that I also am hoping to point out. I want to say a little more about that.

[29:42]

On the one hand, to exert totally is what I'm saying about bringing our whole body and mind, 100% of our being, into this activity, total exertion. When we're sweeping, we're just sweeping. There's nothing but the sweeping. Everything is engaged in that sweeping. And the other side of this teaching of total exertion is more like a teaching about the nature of our life, the nature of reality, the way things are in this world we find ourselves in, which is that at this moment in time, this moment of having a body, and a mind, and some awareness. This circumstance is the total exertion of everything together. Everything is working totally to give rise to this moment.

[30:47]

And each of us making our whole effort in the activity that we have is the gateway into fully appreciating That that effort we're making, this life we have, is the whole interdependent working of everything, totally exerting itself as this particular circumstance in this moment. It's not your total exertion. It's your total exertion meeting the total exertion of everything that is what our life is. Suzuki Roshi, as usual, says this quite beautifully. And simply, in his instructions about counting the breath, some of you may have the practice of counting the breath, where we having invited our breath deep into the lower belly,

[31:58]

we exhale and offer a number to the exhalation the first one gets the name one so we call it one we greet it and meet it and engage with it by saying one hello one And then the next breath is called two. And so we say two all the way out with the exhalation, discounting the breath practice. And when we get to ten, we come back to one. And if we lose count, we come back to one. So Suzuki Roshi says, in meditation, we sometimes practice counting our breath. While we are counting each number, we find that our life is limitlessly deep. we count our breath in the ordinary way, our practice doesn't mean anything. To count each breath is to breathe with our whole mind and body.

[33:05]

We count each number with the power of the whole universe. While we are counting each number, we find that our life is limitlessly deep. And we count each number with our whole body and mind and with the power of the whole universe. So just counting has no special value. But if we can count with our whole body and mind, then we're entering this limitless depth. In another place, he says, you know, if you just tell people to practice with our whole body and mind, we won't know what to do. Hey, everybody, practice with your whole body and mind. Maybe you do, actually. Maybe not so hard. He says, but if you say count, count your breath. It's easier to say count your breath than it is to say practice with your whole body and mind.

[34:10]

But when we say count your breath, all we mean is bring your mind and body into this wholehearted sitting. And that when we do so, our whole mind and whole body with each breath, all of our energy engaged in the sitting, that counting will be with the whole power of the universe it's not that you have that power and will use it to count the breath but the that that totally being with this breath you will maybe notice and appreciate that it's everything working together that allows that breath and that enables that counting. I want to share one more image of this whole body, whole being practice.

[35:23]

And to check in myself and maybe in yourself, is anything left out in this moment? Is everything here with you? Here's this beautiful image from Suzuki Roshi also. When a calligrapher or a Japanese sumi ink artist works, even though they are not in the perfect posture of zazen, they apply that posture in their work. For these artists, one stroke or one line expresses many things in the same way that our practice includes everything. That may be the difference between art in general and Zen art. In Zen art, full concentration is put on one dot, on one line. If you see how they do it, you will understand. You don't need your whole being. to make a dot. But what if you put your whole being in making a dot?

[36:48]

So he says, they usually hold the brush in the right hand, but the left hand is working harder than the right. You could say that the artist is working the left hand with a brush in the right hand. In the same way, the artist's whole body is working on one line. If you paint just by using one hand, you cannot work properly. In some way, your left hand should help your right hand, and your whole body should make your brush work freely to express something. If your brush includes all of your effort, and if you have become completely one with everything, then you can work in a true sense. I love this kind of koan or this pointer. What is the left hand doing? to support the right hand that has the brush. The whole body is supporting the light and free brush in the right hand.

[37:53]

How would that be in our life, in our every activity, that the whole body, the left hand, is working with the brush in the right hand? The right hand isn't doing anything. It's almost like, God forbid, the right hand does something, you know, or makes some effort. The effort is all around, and the brush is free. So that's also such a beautiful aspect of this image. At the point of the activity, there's this profound lightness and ease, and the effort, this intensity of effort is all around. But at the point of expression or the point of activity, there's this great ease and responsiveness and lightness. We try to do something with the right hand to paint. It won't flow. There will be some rigidity. But if the right hand is free and every other part of the being is working,

[39:09]

then there can be some expression. And that's my feeling, too, in this image of seeing Mel walk or imagining Suzuki Roshi turning to greet someone in the garden. This beautiful softness and lightness and freedom right at the point, right at the edge of this moment, but surrounded by this wholehearted, whole-being effort. So he says, that is why we put emphasis on our posture. When you are not sitting, you still should keep your back straight and find out how to be concentrated on your activity. There will be some way to be concentrated on what you do. And that's what we're trying to explore.

[40:10]

What is the way to be concentrated on everything that we do? It might seem like this practice would be kind of exhausting. All day long, whole body, whole being engaged in activity. I'm tired already just thinking about it. Get up in the morning, come to the zendo. bring my chin in to invite the mind to practice, whole being, whole body, and the whole sound and light engaged in the zazen. That's like, wow, enough. I've just done a one-armed handstand for an hour. And then moving into work practice and giving our whole body, washing dish after dish with our whole being. So it might sound kind of daunting. And of course, we might get exhausted, in which case we would, with our whole being, lie down and rest with everything included.

[41:20]

Resting with this fullness, you know, that we would stand on one arm. When we're outside looking at that, it may seem like, wow, that sounds really intense and tiring and I don't really want to do it. But if we enter that, if we actually give ourselves fully to a moment of our life, really join our activity with our whole being, we join, we open this power of the whole universe. Our total exertion is supported by everything and everyone. We are supporting everything and everyone and are supported by and are in harmony with everything. And so it's easy. It's easier to give 100%. than to give 2%, 3%, 5%. Because then you've got all this smoke in your fire. You've got this 95% wandering around. Maybe you've been that person or worked with such a person. Wandering around. What should I do?

[42:22]

What's the task? That's exhausting. Giving ourselves fully each moment to our life enters the energy of our whole being. allows us to be supported by and support everyone. And that's also last point. The way that this wholehearted being is with everything, is the total exertion of everything, opens the flow of everything together exerting. In this teaching, there is always, we would say precept observance in wholehearted activity. So you might think, well, some people are very wholehearted at like exploiting the earth, for example, and others and winning things and ensuring their personal gain and success.

[43:31]

sometimes inspiringly so, 100% energy all day and all night. Wow. That's not the wholeheartedness that we mean by definition. So this total exertion is always including everything, including everything in ourself and including everything around us, that whole being together functioning. So I could say that I wholeheartedly steal something from my friend. And maybe, you know, I have my chin in and maybe I'm pretty concentrated while I'm slipping into my friend's room to get the chocolate bar that I saw from the store yesterday. I may be fully concentrated in the ordinary kind of sense. My body and my mind and my breath are right here together.

[44:33]

But that's not total exertion. It's not wholeheartedness because my whole being is not included. I'm leaving some things out. I'm leaving out the part of myself, the part of my heart that really respects and loves my friend and that really wants to be in accord with everything. The part of myself that is Suzuki Roshi says, you already have everything. Why would you steal something? It's all already mine. It's all already yours. Our longing to understand that and to embody that. We must have pushed that aside. We left that out when we had to steal something from our friend. So we can't say it's wholehearted because it didn't have our whole being. And our whole being includes this innate vow, this innate call to live in harmony with everything. So please don't think that this wholeheartedness doesn't have a deep moral dimension because it does.

[45:38]

And that invites us to be wholehearted, completely including everything that we are and including everything that is around us. So that is a way I believe and feel to live fully. to practice and be together in a satisfying and mutually beneficial way and to receive and express the wisdom and compassion that the world needs. Thank you for your kind attention this morning. Sorry to talk. or so long, and any merit of your wholehearted listening, listening attentively with your whole being, not for any other reason, not because the talk deserved it, not because the talk didn't deserve it, but because of your own self-respect and integrity to live, to be here fully because it's your life, not because what's happening is good or what's happening is bad.

[47:02]

It's said that there's great merit, great value in that, and we turn over that merit, we offer that merit for the welfare and liberation of all beings from suffering. I think that since I've gone on so long, we will end here and can do the closing chant with our whole breath and body and being. Thank you. 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.

[48:00]

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