How's that time? Is that good? Everybody here on? Well, I see very many people that I don't know. And so I assume that you don't know me either. So I thought I would say a little something about how I got here. I came to Zen Center in 1970. As a math graduate student in search of the truth, I drove into Tassajara. and was fortunate to practice there with Suzuki Roshi. I then, in 1973, started living at Zen Center for nine years. I lived at Tassara for four years, and I lived in the city center, this building, from 1977 to 1982. And that was a period of great activity in Zen Center, so I eventually, I liked work practice, so I eventually became president of Zen Center and helped build businesses and buy lots of property.

[01:11]

I left Zen Center in 83 as a full-time resident and went into the micro-computer software business for 20 years, which I retired from recently. And now I spend half of my time as a lay teacher with Lou Richmond and a group in Mill Valley called Levine Lasanga. And I spend the other half of my time as channel of the board of the San Francisco Zen Center. How many of you are first time people here? Okay, welcome. It's wonderful to be a first time person at Zen Center. My youthful style in my group in Mill Valley is I choose a paragraph from Suzuki Roshi's Riving Suzuki Roshi was the founder of Zen Center. He had the famous book, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, and also another one, Not Always So, which is a collection of his lectures.

[02:14]

And I usually pick a couple of paragraphs, and then we read it together and comment on it. So I was very pleased when I picked this paragraph. Usually I pick a paragraph, and I read it to my group, and they say, Ed, that's totally incomprehensible. I can't understand anything he's talking about. But anyway, this paragraph... The student yesterday said, won't you read? That's one of the first paragraphs you've read that I actually can understand. But I suspect today after I read it and comment on it, it'll be just as confusing as the other paragraphs. So... This first sentence comes from his commentary on a very famous essay by Dogen, who founded Zen in Japan. It's called the Genjoko, and he says, The secret of all the teaching of Buddhism is how to live on each moment. The secret of all the teaching of Buddhism is how to live on each moment.

[03:15]

This is a pretty common thing now. Everybody knows, and The Power of Now is a very popular book. I've read it, but everybody gets that we're supposed to live... in the present moment. What I'm gonna talk a little bit about is Suzuki Roshi's description of living in the present moment. I didn't really get living in the present moment until I actually practiced with Suzuki Roshi and I realized when somebody actualizes that in their life, what clarity, what spontaneity, what kindness comes from a life lived so completely in the present moment. So anyway, this paragraph comes from a lot of times after lectures that Roshi would have question and answers, and I actually kind of like the question and answer periods in his lectures. The student said, what do you mean by making your best effort in each moment? And Roshi said, I mean, don't sacrifice this moment for the future, and don't be bound by your past life or try to escape from it either.

[04:22]

This is the kind of effort you usually make, but there should be a more important point in your effort. What is that? To stand on your feet is the most important thing. To sacrifice this moment for your future, for your ideal even, means that you're not standing on your feet. So the most important thing is to accept yourself, to have true subjectivity in each moment. Don't complain. Don't complain. Don't complain. Accept things as they are and satisfy yourself with what you have right now. You should think, this is the only reality, the only Buddha I can see, I can experience, I can have, I can worship. At that time, you are Buddha. So that wasn't. It's pretty straightforward, wasn't it? Beautiful, actually. I'll read it one more time so we really get the hang of it.

[05:27]

Student, what do you mean by making your best effort in each moment? So we're trying to live in each moment, and we have to make our best effort to do that. And he says, I mean, don't sacrifice this moment for the future. And don't be bound by your past life or try to escape from it either. This is the kind of effort you usually make. But there should be a more important point in your effort. What is that? To stand on your feet is the most important thing. To sacrifice this moment for your future, for your ideal even, means that you are not standing on your feet. So the most important thing is to accept yourself. to have true subjectivity in each moment. Don't complain. Accept things as they are and satisfy yourself with what you have right now. You should think this is the only reality, the only Buddha I can see, I can experience, I can have, I can worship.

[06:32]

At that time, you are Buddha. So there's about a half a dozen lectures in here. I mean, just the first sentence alone, I don't, I mean, don't sacrifice this moment for the future and don't be bound by your past life or try to escape from neither. There's a whole lecture right there, you know, about no gaining idea, not getting stuck. We're not going to give that lecture today. I don't know if you noticed, but he said twice in this one paragraph the most important thing. She noticed that he says that a lot. She was always saying, well, this is the most important thing. Do this. If you're bowing, bowing is the most important practice we have. If you're sitting zazan, sitting zazan is the most important practice we have. Chanting sutras, that's the most important practice we have. So whatever it is you're doing, that's clearly the most important practice you have at that moment.

[07:34]

So anyway, the first most important practice is stand on your feet. Well, there's two sides to this. The one side is metaphorical. To stand on your own feet means that you should own your own life. You should own your own practice. That is, you can't give your practice to your wife. You can't give your practice to your parents. You can't say, oh, you tell me what to do with my practice here, teacher. You have to stand on your own feet and find your own practice. Because practice is not some idea that somebody gives you and then you fall around. Practice is something you have to feel by doing it. By actually taking responsibility for your life and entering into that and doing something with your life, you can learn what practice is. So that's sort of metaphorical part of standing on your own two feet.

[08:36]

But I also like the actual standing on your own two feet. This is very much a body practice. And for the beginners, they may think all Zen is about, you know, like the mind and deep philosophic paradoxical koans or something like that. But actually, our practice is an awful lot about how to actually be in our body while we're walking around on the planet. Actually, when we subside, then we pay attention to our breathing, And we pay attention to our physical posture. That is, we take our focus away from our very busy, mostly crazy thinking mind and put it in our body. And that's a great place to, of course, you know, notice our crazy thinking mind because it tends to slow down a little bit. So standing on your own feet means, you know, you're standing at the checkout line in Whole Foods. I live in Mill Valley. I don't know if any of you have been in the Whole Foods in Mill Valley, but...

[09:39]

It's an art form to shop at the Whole Foods and Yale Rally because it is so incredibly crowded and everything is, you know, you're weaving through people. And anyway, so you're naturally there's, you know, bumping into people and getting anxious because the checkout line is going slow. But that's a good place to stop and stand on your feet in the checkout line and pay attention to your breathing and remember where you are and who you are. So. Part of standing on your feet is remembering where you are and who you are. That is, coming back to yourself, coming back to... There's a very famous Zen master that used to yell out to himself. He'd say, Master, referring to himself. He lived in a quiet mountain. temple where no one else was. So he'd go, master, yes, master, yes. He says, be alert. Be awake.

[10:40]

Yes, yes. Don't be fooled by anything. No, I won't be fooled by anything. So he was famous for this. This is a famous practice to bring yourself back to the present moment. Oh, Ed, there you are. You were off on that story land about something. I forget what it was, but here you are now standing in the line trying not to step on somebody's foot at the Whole Foods. Now I remember. That's part of to stand on your own feet. The next area I wanted to talk about in this commentary is to accept yourself. No, this seems like on the one hand, the easiest thing in the world to accept ourselves. You know, we're so many things, though. We're multitudes, you know. We're our fathers sometimes.

[11:41]

We're many different people. We're grumpy people, happy people, terrified people, all these different things. So when I say accept myself, first of all, that means, like, you know, I don't know if any of you have ever noticed that you criticize yourself. I don't know if any... Everybody's had that experience where you do something and then afterwards you give yourself a hard time about it. Like, I think probably if you were to measure the number of times you praise yourself versus the number of times you give yourself a hard time, it may be 99 times you praise yourself. Oh no, 99 times you criticize yourself. One time you praise yourself, so anyway. So part of accepting yourself is to actually sort of get that, all these different people you are, that's fine. Let's get into all those different people you are. So there is a very famous koan or story on this subject, which is sort of the main focus of my talk this morning. This is a koan from the Blue Cliff Records, which is a collection of Zen stories.

[12:45]

And this is a story about Zhao Zhou. Zhao Zhou was a very famous... Zen teacher in, you know, he lived from 778 to 897. Those of you who are good at math will realize that's 120 years. And they kept pretty good records back in China, so he probably did live close to 120 years, and Zhao Zhao did. Anyway, this is the story. Zhao Zhao was one of, this is Tang Dynasty, China. you know, the golden era of Zen in China, and he was one of the great teachers. There's at least eight of his stories in The Gateless Gate, and many of the famous Quran collections have his stories. He was 20 years old when he went to his teacher, Nanshuan, and he lived with his teacher, Nanshuan, for 40 years, studied with him, and then when he was 60 years old, he went on pilgrimage to test his...

[13:48]

So he wandered all over China and meeting with all the great teachers. And after 20 years at the age of 80, I think he said something like, I'm not ready to teach yet, but I think I'll just sit down and teach. Anyway, before he went on pilgrimage, there's a very famous saying, I think it went something like, if I meet an 80-year-old person who's well-versed in the Dharma and he needs my teaching, I will teach him. And if I meet a 7-year-old girl who can teach me something, I'll sit at her feet and learn from her. Of course, this is a wonderful attitude to have in general, but especially in China in those days where normally it was all based on seniority, so you would normally not teach somebody older than you, and you would learn from somebody younger, but that was his spirit, which was he learned from everything. So here's the story. A monk asked Jajo, for a long time I've heard of the stone bridge of Jajo, but now that I've come here, I just see a simple log bridge.

[14:53]

Jajo said, you just see the log bridge, you don't see the stone bridge? The monk said, what is the stone bridge? And Jajo said, it lets asses cross, it lets horses cross. Well, I promise you, I'd give you something that wasn't absolutely, totally transparent at first read. They do that, you know, these Chinese stories for dramatic purposes. You know, I mean, I'm sure that Zhao Zhao was not nearly that way. He was sort of famous for that kind of stuff. He's very much like, he reminds me a lot of Suzuki Roshi in that way. being very sort of down-to-earth and straightforward. Many, many stories like that. You know, one would be at the beginning of practice periods, Jiaojo would meet all the new students, and he would ask the student, have you been here before?

[15:57]

And the student would say, yes, I've done many sittings with you. And he'd say, oh, good, go have a cup of tea. The next student would come in, and he would say, have you been here before? And the student would say, no, this is my first time. And he'd say, oh, good. good, go have a cup of tea. And after this had gone on to all the students, the head monk came up to him and said, Jajo, every time you talk to a student, you tell them to do the same thing, go have a cup of tea, what's the meaning of this? And he said, oh, go have a cup of tea. Of course, tea is very much connected to Zen in China, it's an old tradition that goes back a long way, that's a whole other story, I won't get into it, but Another story of Jiao Joe's is a young student comes to Jiao Joe and says, I've come to understand the teaching. You know, give me your wisdom. And Jiao Joe says, have you had breakfast? The student says, yes. He says, oh, go wash your bowl. So this, you know, this is kind of like really simple Zen.

[16:59]

Zen is not some deep philosophic thing. It's just paying attention to washing your bowl when you wash your bowl. It's just drinking some tea when you're drinking tea. It's just doing what you're actually doing in the moment that you're living in. That's kind of... One of his other famous ones is the monk. Same question. It's always the same question when you go to a Zen master. What's the meaning of life? What's Zen all about? Tell me the whole story, teacher. And his answer was... the cypress tree in the courtyard. I actually was in what is now Zhao Zhou's temple in China last November. Three or four of the other members of the board of directors went on a trip and went and visited lots of famous old Chinese temples.

[18:00]

And we went to This temple of Jagos, which had been completely destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, and they rebuilt large portions of it. A huge, beautiful temple was, you know, very large. I mean, we sat in the guest, the lay Buddha hall, which was, I don't know, maybe four times as big as this room. I mean, huge. At least 300 people could sit in. And then there were 150 active monks there. Anyway, I won't get into China, but anybody that's interested in talking about what's happening in Buddhism in China, I'd be happy to do it at the question and answer period. Anyway, the point of that whole story was they had these beautiful courtyards between the main building. So there's, you know, a Buddha hall and then there's a meditation hall. All in these beautiful courtyards are these gorgeous old cypress trees. And so when Jiao Bill says, you know, the cypress tree in the courtyard. This is something the monks walk by every day.

[19:02]

Did they actually know what the cypress tree in the courtyard is? Did they actually see the cypress tree in the courtyard? So that was his little encouragement to practice with trees. I recommend that practice, by the way, if you run across a tree, check it out. Anyway, Siddiqui Roshi and Ajaj were very similar in this way. Their practice was very straightforward. Not some special activity. Zen is not some kind of special transcendent activity. Zen is just doing what you're doing. Just doing it simply and straightforwardly. And most of the time I learned from Siddiqui Roshi by just watching him do what he did. moving rocks, walking on the path, whatever it is. Of course, if you can do what you're doing with a certain amount of clarity and presentness, you might possibly also be kind to other people at the same time, which is, you know, basically the point of the whole thing.

[20:13]

So that's a good thing. So getting back to our story, we've got this young monk who's, first of all, oh, yeah, this is the other part I forgot to tell you. There's a very famous bridge Jiao Jiao was the name of the city. A lot of times Zen masters are named after the mountain they're at or the city they're in. Jiao Jiao was the name of the city that Jiao Jiao settled in, so he was named after the city. And the bridge, which was there, was named after the city too. So it was called the Jiao Jiao Bridge. This bridge still exists. It's there. I guess it's the oldest continuously used bridge in China when it was built, I don't know, in the fifth or sixth century. I looked it up on the internet. It was... You know, like the Golden Gate Bridge of China. You know, it was like fantastic bridge. It's like 150 meters long. It's a single span. It's made with these beautiful fitted stones. In fact, there's a civil engineering plaque next to it. We went and looked at the bridge that said, you know, all the reasons why this is the most.

[21:16]

It's still the longest whatever open spandrel bridge in the world. Anyway, the people would come. from all over China just to see the bridge. It was a tourist attraction, kind of like people come to see the Golden Gate Bridge. And also, but if you were a monk, of course you would come travel hundreds of miles in your sandals to meet Jajo, who was even more famous than the bridge here. But Jajo was probably about 100 years old by the time this guy met him. So he probably didn't look too great or too outstanding, you know. And, you know, Chinese monks in those days were pretty straightforward guys. So he sees Zhajo and he says, getting back to the story, for a long time I've heard of the stone bridge of Zhajo. He's kind of making the connection between the famous stone bridge in the city and the teacher. But now that I come here, I just see a simple log bridge. A simple log bridge is just one log sort of thing.

[22:17]

I don't see any great Zen teacher here. I see her just, you know, an ordinary kind of old guy, you know. What's the story? I don't know. Can any of you relate to that? I was just thinking, you know, when I first got interested in Zen, which I was doing graduate work in New Mexico, and I read a book, I think it was $3 a Zen, and then somebody said, well, you know, there's a famous, there's an actual living Zen master who's done a monastery in America now, a place called Tassara. I said, wow, that's right outside of San Francisco. So I decided to take off that summer instead of doing my normal work and travel around in search of the truth. And so I drove down to Tassara. And I remember when I looked at Sikorshi, Sikorshi was small and he wasn't this big.

[23:18]

I was kind of a small guy, and I was kind of looking at, what's going on with this guy? It's kind of ordinary to me, you know. And I remember the first lecture I sat there, and I've been sitting in on philosophy lectures at the University of Nietzsche and existentialism, and I don't know, we had this special class, existentialism, psychoanalysis, and then, you know, and super actually was talking about this guy, Dogen, who took this boat trip, and I'm thinking, this is like Sunday school. What's this all about? So that's a natural inclination. Have you got some goods? What's going on here? You look like just an ordinary person. So, of course, Jaijo's answer was, if you get back to this story, you just see the wall bridge. So he's not saying that he isn't just an ordinary person. He said, yeah, I am just an ordinary person. I am just a kind of particular comic person who had parents and wandered around China for 20 years with my sandrails and I got a bad knee.

[24:25]

He was famous for having a chair that when the leg broke, he said, well, let's get you another fancy chair to sit and give lectures on. He just took a stick and strapped it to the chair. He was a very kind of ordinary guy. He said, yeah, I am just an ordinary guy. but you don't see the stone bridge. You don't see that maybe I'm not just an ordinary guy. Maybe there's something else going on here. And the problem is not so much that you don't see that I've got something else going on besides just being this karmic human being, but you don't see that in yourself. So what are we talking about here? What are we talking about? I mean, obviously, We're all very aware that we're very particular people. I was born on a certain date with certain parents. I have certain eye color and certain personality proclivities that cause me all kinds of problems. That's what we all are.

[25:30]

But is that all we are? So I don't know. There was this guy, Buddha, 2,500 years ago that said, oh, no, you're more than that. You're, I don't know, you're, well, I think sometimes they say you have the pure mind of Buddha. You are, in this moment, connected to everything. You are bigger than anything you can imagine, than anything you could ever know. That's who you are, too, in addition to being this particular person. And how can that be? How can we be both connected to everything, in touch with everything, a part of everything, and this very particular person that we are? So that's part of why we practice, because...

[26:38]

That's not something we can understand with our mind. That's something we can live. And that's something we can touch with our life. I was raised in Los Alamos, so science was a big deal when I was young. I think when I was in high school at the valedictorian, one of the scientists came by and said that they were developing fusion energy. Los Alamos was, by the way, where the atomic bomb was built. So they were developing fusion energy and he was explaining that within 10 years they would be desalinating the oceans off San Diego and piping water all through the Southwest and growing vegetables all over Arizona and New Mexico. And they had just, when I was in college, completely analyzed the mathematical equations of the energy produced by the sun. The Greeks had looked at the sun, how does that work, what is it? I mean, we actually knew the nuclear fusion equations of what was producing the energy of the sun.

[27:46]

There was a tremendous sense of we can understand what's going on. Of course, there was always the shadow side of science, which is, as we know, all those nuclear bombs which are still around and the fact that we could easily destroy the planet we're living on. Where am I going with this? Oh, I know where I'm going with this. These days I just follow science by reading the Tuesday Science Times and the New York Times. Anyway, so whatever comments I make on this, I'm sure there's several people here that are experts in this area from the University of California up there. But anyway, I've been interested in these mirror neurons and how... There's neurons in our brain that are actually, if you raise your hand up there, I experience your hand being raised. I don't experience your hand being raised. I experience my hand being raised. And the only reason I don't experience my hand being raised is I have neurons that are going up here saying to the neurons that are saying your hand is raised that are saying, oh, no, it really isn't.

[28:48]

That's why people, according to this thing I read, when their hands, people that have had a hand amputated, somebody raises their hand, they feel that their hand is raised. That's just one of the many ways in which we're connected. There was another story I read about. It's a book called Your Inner Fish. These guys have found the first fish that climbed out of the water 375 million years ago, and they did the DNA on it. And the DNA on that fish is almost exactly the same as our DNA, just a few genes that were switched on. I mean, that's really how close we are to fish. A beautiful story of your inner fish. I mean, we are connected in so many ways to everything. But our usual experience, of course, is not that. Our usual experience is we've got a problem. And we're usually so into our problem that we can't see anything else about ourselves.

[29:53]

We can't see the bigger us. I remember one time I was very depressed and I ran into Sigurgy over there and for some reason he connected me in a way that I realized, wow, I'm totally depressed. I can't even speak to him and yet I'm this young energetic person who's so much bigger than that. Oh, I'm, you know, it's 10 minutes to and I'm not even halfway through this beautiful story. I don't know what's going on here. I've got to get back on the program. Okay, so the first part of the story is, Giorgio says, you see the log bridge, but you don't see the stone bridge. You see you're a karmic person, but you don't see that you're the pure mind of Buddha at the same time. Well, the student kind of gets it and he says, well, what is that? And he says, it lets asses cross, it lets horses cross. The pure mind of Buddha, our bigger mind includes everything.

[30:59]

It includes... Paths would be a metaphor for the stupid parts of ourselves, our idiocy, our craziness, our messed up part. And the horses crossing our brilliant parts, our magnificent parts, our enlightened, awakened moments. All of this we include, we hold in the container of our life. This is our practice. When he says accept yourself, he means accept everything you're experiencing. Ground yourself first in what you're experiencing. And this doesn't mean, you know, one student once said to me, does that mean I don't act? So that's not a passive thing. Your action flows from rounding your life in your actual experience of your life. The actual experience you have in this moment is the truth of your life. So I want to tell you one quick story about Uzi Kershi. I'm reminded of it because it happened right here.

[31:59]

It was the summer of 1971. Sigurishi was, we didn't know it at that time, but he was dying of cancer. And I walked down the hall. There was some very famous Japanese teacher here. And we were called together, I think, around noon or something for a quick talk from this Japanese teacher. And Sigurishi was doing a translating. So I walked in that room right over there, I think, where the director's office is. The door was open, and he was having his robes adjusted by his assistant. And I looked in, and I saw him, and he was just, you could see he was just humbled by the pain he was in, by the difficulty he was having right at that moment. I'd never seen a humbler person in my life. I'd never seen somebody so humbled by what they had to deal with, which at all, to help. humbled by what we have to deal with, the responsibility of living the life we live. So anyway, I came in and sat down here.

[33:01]

I was sitting probably right where Paul was sitting, and Suzuki Roshi came in and stood here, and the Japanese guy was going on about how great Suzuki Roshi had founded this great monastery in America and how important it was. And you could tell he was sort of really downplaying the translation. And I was looking up at Suzuki Roshi, and all of a sudden, his entire being was sweetness. He was just absolutely sweetness. And he felt like he was being sweet to you, but I think everybody in the room felt that connection. So how do you do that? How do you go from being completely humbled by the physical difficulty you're in to being able to let that go and be able to express with great kindness, sweetness to your students. How do you hold all these different capacities in you?

[34:01]

How do you let go of one and let another one come in? This is the sort of possibility of our life if we embrace it all, if we don't push any of it away, if we take it all in. I think I should say something about the last sentence in this lecture. It disappeared. Here it is. Don't complain. Accept things as they are and satisfy yourself with what you have right now.

[35:04]

You should think, this is the only reality, the only Buddha I can see, I can experience, I can have, I can worship. Accept things... Don't complain, accept things as they are, and satisfy yourself with what you have right now. Well, it seems like just basically good advice, right? And I want to be a little bit careful because that doesn't mean that we sit here and say, well, gee, I complain an awful lot. I'm not very satisfied with what I have right now, so I'm not a good Zen student. That would be not what Sigurishi's talking about. Sigurishi's encouraging you to remember, as he would put it, he'd say, sometimes I think you think, your problems are more important than the fact that you're alive. So I'm complaining about my problems, but I forgot that I'm alive.

[36:12]

I forgot that I'm a human being. I forgot that I've been blessed by something which is so incredible I could spend an entire life and never understand what it is, my human life. So don't complain quite so much. He's encouraging us to sort of appreciate the other side of your gift. You should think this is the only reality, the only Buddha. This moment now, even with, oh, it's not quite right, it's a little too hot, a little too cold, my back hurts, and this cushion isn't quite high enough, whatever, you know. This is your only reality. If you think there's some Buddha in the future you're going to get, or something else down the road, that's not it. This is the only reality. Right now, it's the only Buddha you're going to get. In fact, at this time, he says, you are a Buddha. In this moment.

[37:15]

In this present moment. So I think what I'll do is, just since it's such good advice, read the paragraph one more time and then we'll end. What do you mean by making your best effort in each moment? I mean don't sacrifice this moment for the future and don't be bound by your own past life or try to escape from it either. This is the kind of effort you usually make, but there should be more important point to your effort. What is that? To stand on your feet is the most important thing. To sacrifice this moment for your future, for your ideal, even means that you are not standing on your feet. So the most important thing is to accept yourself. to have true subjectivity in each moment. Don't complain, accept things as they are, and satisfy yourself to what you have right now. You should think, this is the only reality, the only Buddha I can see, I can experience, I can have, I can worship.

[38:24]

At that time, you are Buddha. Thank you.

[38:34]

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