This podcast is offered by San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. Welcome to the San Francisco Zen Center Beginner's Mind Temple. Great to see everyone this morning. I was thinking about a story. from 13th century Japan about Dogen, the founder of Zen in Japan. And this is a story about when he left Japan and went to China. And the story goes that he was unable to find anyone in all of Japan who could adequately answer his burning questions that he had, questions about life and death and questions about impermanence and One of his questions was, if everyone has Buddha nature, if everyone has their true nature, their original nature, why do we need to practice?

[01:10]

This was one of his questions. And after four years of practicing and working with a variety of Zen teachers in China, he returned to Japan. And someone asked him, they said, what did you bring back? from China to Japan. And he said, I came back empty-handed. I came back empty-handed. And this person, whoever this was, said, but what did you learn? And he said, not much except gentle-heartedness. And he added one more thing. He added, I learned that eyes are horizontal, nose is vertical. I learned that eyes are horizontal, nose is vertical. And I've been sitting with those words all week and just trying to imagine. This is something that happened 800 years ago, but if you could imagine such a conversation, if you ask your child, what did you learn at school today?

[02:21]

Eyes horizontal, nose vertical. Just a sense of... kind of something very simple and profound and stripping away of everything extra. We might expect that this great Zen teacher would have some kind of profound teaching, something intellectually challenging or at least stimulating, and instead what we get is all I learned is empty-handed, gentle-heartedness, and eyes horizontal. nose vertical. And I want to kind of address and unpack these teachings and see if I can make them come alive and be applicable to how we live our lives in this time and in this place. So the first teaching that he talked about was empty-handed. And this is, I think, the practice of letting go

[03:27]

I mean, here we are, this is beginner's mind temple. And in some way, the practice of the beginner's mind is the practice of letting go of ways that we protect ourselves, ways that we narrow, things that we think that we need to be safe, to let go of those things and to expand our awareness, expand our ability to see more directly and more clearly. this practice of empty-handed. We're born empty-handed and we'll die empty-handed. There's nothing that we can hold onto. And this expression empty-handed also reminds me of one of the instructions that I recently heard about how to do meditation practice or zazen practice, which is one of the key practices in Zen is to practice opening the hand of thought.

[04:32]

So it's a really, I think, a wonderful image to try, is noticing how often when a thought comes up, when a feeling, a motion, that we grab onto it. And to practice opening, to actually take it on as a practice of opening your hand, opening the hand of thought. And it's interesting, and it doesn't... It doesn't mean that we aren't clear and direct and decisive when we need to be. And in fact, I would surmise that by opening the hand of thought, it allows us to be clearer, more decisive, more able to plan and work in the world with more effectiveness. So the second practice that Dogen talks about having learned is the practice of gentle heartedness. And I can't help but think of, there's a famous, I think of it as a famous quote by the Dalai Lama where he said, my true religion is kindness.

[05:43]

My true religion is kindness. So famous that I once published it as a greeting card when I was in the greeting card business. My true religion is kindness. But I think just to see how much confidence it gives us and how much confidence it takes to practice gentle-heartedness. It's interesting, it's somewhat paradoxical. I think the more confident we are, the more we trust in our own true nature, our own original nature, our own Buddha nature, the more possible it is to act in the world with gentle heartedness. And the third practice, eyes horizontal, nose vertical, I think of as the practice of letting go of everything that's extra and dropping down into what really matters in our lives.

[06:49]

To be kind of radically simple, to bring a a radical sense of presence and meaning and the ability to show up completely for whatever is happening in our lives, to respond, to be able to respond fully and completely. It's interesting, I've noticed the science and neurology of meditation and mindfulness practice is a very hot topic these days. And I think it's pretty wonderful. I think it has its positive side, and sometimes I think it has its shadow side, but mostly it's very, very positive. And I feel like I've had the privilege to be learning and studying and teaching some of the science and the...

[07:52]

There's a program that I've been teaching for several years now, and I'm right in the middle of one, at Google's headquarters, a program called Search Inside Yourself. And it's mindfulness meditation and emotional intelligence. And there was an interesting study that we were, this is a particular scientific study that we were talking about last Tuesday night at Google, having to do with emotional regulation. and how we are aware of our emotions and strategies for working with our emotions. And in some way, Zen practice, this mysterious Zen practice, in some way is actually, I think, the study of how we work with our emotional life. Our emotional life, I think, encompasses who we are, who are we outside of our emotional lives. And this particular study was looking at three different strategies for how we work with our emotions.

[08:55]

And I want to talk about these and then kind of tie them back to these three practices that Dogen talked about. So it's interesting, there's three ways, three kind of big categories of how we can respond to our lives, respond to difficult situations, in fact, respond maybe to any situation. The first is avoidance or distraction, right? And this is perhaps the most common. If you look at how, I think for most of us, if we're honest with ourselves and we look around, how do we deal with difficult situations? How do we deal with anything that's uncomfortable? Avoidance and distraction is a very good, very quick, very effective kind of strategy. one that I have to admit I know really well myself. I sometimes think that I have a PhD in avoidance or distraction because I have to work really hard at not avoiding.

[10:05]

And this study shows, and I think experience shows, that though it is an effective strategy in the short term, it's a very bad strategy in the long term, right? That avoiding pain, it works for the moment, but in the end, it leads to worse and worse things happening in our lives, and even it's not good for our own health, and we get more and more stressed out, and we're not developing a way of working with our own difficulty, our own difficult emotions. I mentioned to my wife one day this week, and I said something to her, and I was really surprised how much it elicited a huge smile, and she seemed so happy when I said to her, I'm practicing being miserable this week. I'm practicing being miserable. And because I tend to avoid my own feelings of being miserable.

[11:10]

I recently had a very close friend die, and I have a variety of people who are dying in my life. And there's many, you know, if you read the newspaper, it's hard not to feel miserable. And I think it's not a bad practice to feel miserable sometimes as a practice. So I've been attempting for a period of time each day, like this is my feeling miserable time. What am I really feeling? What hurts? What am I avoiding? To really look at What am I avoiding? And then to go on. I notice I can then let go of my feelings of misery, learn from them, and move on. And maybe this is a good segue into the, right, so one practice is avoiding or distracting ourselves. Again, effective in the short term. Very bad as a lifetime practice. The second strategy for working with our emotions is reframing.

[12:16]

And this is something that we do all the time, that we're constantly reframing. And again, these practices can overlap because reframing can be a way of avoiding. If we're always taking what's difficult and making that positive, that's a kind of avoidance. But reframing can be just stepping back and getting a different perspective on things and understanding, reflecting. looking more closely at what's underneath things. So for me, I think this practice of feeling miserable is a kind of reframing. It's a kind of practice of I don't need to avoid, I don't need to feel miserable, I don't need to make myself try to feel good all the time. I can reframe by practicing, trying on different kinds of emotions. I can try on... making things feel good or positive. It's a little bit like I notice when someone asks me, how am I doing?

[13:23]

How's my life going? Or how's my business life going? How's my work going? I can choose the frame. I can describe my work as complete failure. I can easily describe what I'm doing as how badly things are going and how much I'm failing. Very easy to do. And I can also describe it as complete success. I can look at just all of the things that I'm learning and doing and that are successful in the work that I do. So reframing, in part, is just seeing that we create context. We create to get a real, and not just an intellectual glimpse, but I think to feel it in our bodies, how much we create context how much we create context in our lives, whether it's success or failure, feeling joyful or misery, feeling that we, just seeing that we have choices and owning the way in which we get to, we're a part of creating this context in our lives.

[14:35]

And the third strategy in this scientific study, right, so the first is distraction or avoidance. The second is reframing. The third is to completely experience our emotions, to completely and fully experience our emotions without anything extra, without judgment, without protecting or narrowing ourselves, without tightening, but to just completely... completely feel and face into our lives wholly. It's a little bit like, I think it's that kind of martial artist, like being able to stay in the center and feel whatever is coming our way without needing to distract ourselves, and even without reframing, but to sit fully and completely in the center of our lives. and seeing how impermanent our feelings are, that we might be feeling joyful this moment, but if we wait long enough, it will change into something else.

[15:50]

We might be feeling misery in this moment, but if we stay with it, it will change into something else. Often when I find myself teaching meditation practice or zazen practice to people, For the first time, one of the practices I recommend is that if you're sitting and you feel an itch on your nose, resist the temptation. Like in a way, just scratching it in a way is a kind of avoidance. So instead, I suggest just notice it and maybe breathe three times and see what happens. It will most likely change. It may disappear. It may get worse, and you may say, okay, now I'm going to scratch this itch on my nose. But just noticing. Someone once asked the historical Buddha, how can I find real happiness in my life?

[16:57]

How can I be happy? How can I find real meaning and satisfaction? And one of his responses was, when you're breathing a short breath, know that you're breathing a short breath. When you're breathing a long breath, know that you're breathing a long breath. So this is a lot, I think this is a lot like Dogen's, when asked what he learned, that he responded by saying, eyes horizontal, nose vertical. And this, I think what Dogen is saying, and what in this study, this third principle, way of responding to our emotional, within our emotional life and responding to difficult situations, it's shown that this is where the most learning happens. This is where the most change happens, right? So the least amount of change happens when we avoid and distract ourselves. The medium amount of kind of change and development can happen when we reframe.

[18:03]

And the most amount of... change and our ability to move from reacting to responding, our ability to meet situations with a sense of choice. We grow this ability in this third strategy of completely experiencing our emotions. From the context of Zen practice, all of these, it's not a continuum, it's like embracing all as, you know, we can be avoiding Buddha, we can be reframing Buddha, and we can be meeting our feelings completely Buddha. It's not as though, you know, this one's bad and this one's good. If we really pay attention, I think we're always, we can't possibly take in all of the stimuli and information that

[19:05]

is coming our way. Avoiding is something that we need to do, and we need to be good at it. Reframing is something that we need to do. And then being able to also to meet our feelings and to stay completely with our feelings is also a really valuable, important part of our lives and practice. Yeah, I was thinking of two things. One, one of the things that I do these days is bringing dharma, bringing these practices from Zen into the world of business. And I work with business leaders. And I remember there was one CEO who I was coaching who told me about a happiness chart that he kept.

[20:06]

And it was really important to him that he have a way of measuring how happy he was. And he showed me, he had this, it was a really, it was really like, there's a great word among CEOs, like having a dashboard. We all like to, we have these dashboards of who's doing what and what we're trying to accomplish and keeping benchmarks. And these are important things, I think, in running organizations. Well, he had a dashboard for his own happiness. So he listed all the different parts of his life, his relationship life, his exercise life, his work life, his spiritual life, and every day he measured between one and ten how he was doing. And he'd sum them up and come up with an average. And I actually think this isn't a bad practice. I'm not putting this practice down. In fact, it's pretty good as a way of paying attention to our lives and and asking ourselves, how are we?

[21:08]

It's better than not. I also think of another business person who I was in a meeting with recently, and I asked him, how's your relationship life going? And he said, I don't have one. He said, I just work. I only work. And I said, is that by choice? And I could see just raising that question. What is your relationship life like is a great question. In fact, I mean, this is something that I often recommend that people track. How many meaningful conversations are you having each day? How many meaningful conversations are you having? This is something I recommend. But getting back to this client of mine and this happiness chart, I recommended that he keep another chart and that he continue doing his happiness chart but that he'd keep another chart called letting go, or being present, or satisfaction, or whatever he wanted to call it, and that he'd give himself tens all across the board.

[22:18]

Complete tens. That with no measure, like it's good to have this way that we measure, but what would it be like to keep a chart also next to it and give yourself all tens. Perfect. Perfect in... Maybe it's effort. Maybe it's the effort that you're making. I'm making perfect effort. I'm really trying. And just whatever it is, whatever it is for you, it's a practice that I want to suggest of keeping, if you do keep, and I think we do, even if we don't write it down, we can laugh at this fellow, but I think we all, in a way, we're always measuring how happy are we, how good are we, how successful are we, All these things. So this is, in a way, having a letting go chart. And I think, again, that this is what Dogen was at least pointing to in, right, what did you bring back? What did you learn in these years of having risked your life and gone across the seas to China?

[23:24]

Eyes horizontal, nose vertical. I think that's what he's... trying to help us to understand. And I want to tell one story, and this is a story about my daughter. She's in Mexico now, so I feel like I can embarrass her in public. And actually, this is a story, too, that I've been writing. So she's seen this, and she's given me... I feel like I have her permission to tell this story. This is a story... about many years ago when she was 17 years old, and this was on Father's Day, and she handed me a card. And usually this is a family tradition that we write on birthdays and Father's Day, Mother's Day, we write these notes to each other. And so I wasn't surprised on Father's Day morning when my 17-year-old daughter handed me a card.

[24:28]

But I was surprised when she said, you might not want to read this today. This was not a good sign. But I decided to not follow her warning, and I went into my bedroom, and I read this Father's Day card from my 17-year-old daughter, and it went into great detail about all of my failings as a father. and went on to all of my failings as a human being. And how she now was ruined and was going to have to undo all of the crap that she had gotten from me, all of my failings. And when I read this card... At first, my first response was avoidance.

[25:34]

Actually, I think my very first response was anger. First, I was angry. How dare she write this card to me on Father's Day? This is Father's Day. I was so angry. And then I was kind of... feeling my anger and avoiding the anger. And then I think I went from there to reframing into shame and embarrassment. I felt really a failure. I felt like I had... This was like one of the most important things in my life was being a good father, and I had failed. I completely and utterly failed at this. And so I went there. So I was... I went to anger, I think avoiding anger, reframing, feeling ashamed of myself. And this, I think this may have been one of the times in my life where I felt like having a 30-year meditation practice may have made a difference.

[26:46]

That I then, you know, after kind of going through these processes, I got it. I completely got it. what I needed to do. And it just became really clear. And I walked into, my daughter was in her bedroom, and I walked into her room, and I said, thank you. I said, thank you for sharing your honest feelings with me, that this is all I ever want. All I ever want is for you to be able to be open and honest with me, even when you're angry with me, even when you're really, really angry and think that I'm a total jerk, I really, really want you to be completely honest with me, that I got that this was what was needed in this situation. And I said, I know this must have been a really difficult letter for you to write. This was a really difficult letter for me to read.

[27:48]

And as I said that, I started to tear up. And she started to tear up, and we both were in tears. And we came over, and we hugged each other. And I said, I really love you. And she said, I really love you, Dad. And she looked at me and said, now get out of my room and close the door. But it was completely perfect. Recently, I... I took my daughter Carol to a business conference that I went to, a conference of socially responsible business people. And she just loved it. She just completely, completely loved being at this conference. And she looked at me and she said, why haven't you taken me one of these conferences before?

[28:50]

I just love being here, and it seems like such fertile ground. And I tried to remember, and I said, I think at this point maybe she was 20, 21, and I said, oh, well, last year you were out of the country, because she traveled to Africa. And I said, oh, and the year before you were someplace else. And I said, let's see, before that, the year before, you weren't talking to me. And the year before that, you weren't talking to me. And it was such a wonderful... I was just stating the facts. And she completely melted. And she looked at me and she said, I'm so sorry that I did that. And it was a wonderful moment. So I think in some way what I'm... What I'm suggesting here is the practice of showing up completely for our feelings and showing up completely for whatever is happening in our lives.

[30:02]

And again, noticing as Dogen points to that our eyes are horizontal and our nose is vertical and that It's an interesting practice to notice each person that we see. I find myself looking around the room and say, yes, it's true what Dogen says. Eyes horizontal, nose vertical. And I also think that within, I was thinking too of the, maybe one other practice to talk about is the practice of asking questions. And in some way, so much of Zen is all filled with these stories. This story, this started with the question, what did you learn? What did you bring back from China? And I was thinking that it's interesting to look at that we tend, I think, to focus

[31:12]

the what question right the question of what are you like usually it's the what are you doing and we look in our conversations and in our daily lives so often the focus is on the what right what are you doing and we tend to lose track of what I think is perhaps also really really important is the how right how how are you doing it? We tend to measure ourselves or measure our lives by the what, the what we're doing. But then there's the how are you doing it? What's the quality of what you're doing? And then there's the third really interesting question, which is the who question. The question about who is like, who am I? What are my values? What am I bringing to each situation? And then the other question, interesting question to turn is the why question. Like, why am I here? Why am I here?

[32:15]

Why am I doing what I'm doing? So I want to just suggest those kind of playing with those questions as a way of not avoiding, as a way of practicing with reframing and a way of practicing completely showing up. I think I do. I've been debating whether to do this or not, but I think I want to. I want to get you talking for a few minutes. I know this is unusual in this setting, but this is what I'm being told we should do this morning. So without saying a word, if everyone could just turn to someone, just turn to someone next to you, find someone, just find someone, Okay.

[33:23]

You can introduce yourselves. That's fine. You can introduce yourselves. But that's all. But that's all. Wait. Okay. So one thing about this is it's really important to keep, if you can keep your voices really, really low. You have to get close enough so that you can hear each other speaking. And... so that we don't end up all yelling to hear each other. So let's see, a couple instructions. One is what we're going to practice here is just speaking as much we can from our hearts. We're not trying to impress the other person in any way. As we're speaking, maybe we're speaking outside of our usual tapes. and we're exploring. It's okay to be awkward. It's okay. You might even say something that you've never said before. How miraculous would that be? And second, we're practicing listening.

[34:25]

So we're just being present and listening to what the other person is going to say. So we're just going to do this for like four minutes. So each person is going to have about two minutes. I'm not going to time I'll give a halfway signal. I'll give it so you know to switch if you haven't switched. So my proposed question is, what supports you to let go to have confidence in your true nature? What supports you or what gets in the way? What supports you or what gets in the way for you to let go and to have confidence in your own true nature? Just a simple question. And... And you can say, of course, whatever you want to say to your partner. You might have something else happening in your life. Sometimes we just need to be listened to. It's a great gift of just being listened to.

[35:28]

So my proposed question, what supports you or gets in the way of you letting go and having real confidence in your own nature, your own true nature? What supports you or stops you? or anything else you want to say. And so go ahead and I'll give a halfway signal. So two more minutes. That's halfway. That's halfway. Two more minutes. Okay, let's all come on back. Thank your partner. Thank your partner and come on back.

[36:40]

Is there anyone who wants to share what their partner said? No, I don't mean that. But... Share anything, maybe what you said, or anonymously or with permission what your partner said. Anybody want to share anything? Yeah. I failed. You'll have to talk after. I did say, maybe everyone didn't hear. I did say halfway. I did, but maybe not everyone heard. Oh, sorry. My mistake. That happens. Any other comments? We have my failings. Yes. That's exactly what my partner said. He was brilliant. He just said, what supports me in letting go?

[37:43]

He said, having everything fall apart. Failing. Failing helps me to let go. Yeah, I... Yeah, anyone else? Yeah. The expression, in fact, what my father said, the feeling of others are better than me. All people are better in things than I am. And others are the personal things he learns. So I'm hearing that as humility and curiosity. Openness. Yeah.

[38:49]

Well, you know, in some way, right, we're... I think it's... We're not letting go, and we're letting... Like, I think it's the... What we want to be doing, I think, is, in a way, doing both, right? I mean, you know, we... As human beings, you know, we... We want to live, right? We want to live, and we want to be happy. We want other... others to be happy. But I think it's the letting go of the trying to control, letting go some of the world of me, having it be tightening, being safe, letting go of not wanting to fail. That kind of... Last one, and then we're going to do question and answer after, but great. was to pay the cost.

[40:06]

And what? To what? To pay the cost. And the cost, I was told cost is traction. And I haven't understood that very well. But suddenly it was eliminated that you can only have as much as you pay for. But it's a huge barrier to have this cost. Athletic role is one of the most and then whatever you're letting go forward, you won't forget as much as you let go. And you don't really know what that will be always, but then you're giving up. Whatever the cost is, how much you value it. And that's it. It's so helpful.

[41:07]

We can talk more about that. I think, I mean, I'm not sure, you know, we'd have to have a conversation, but for me, you know, eyes horizontal, nose vertical means we have everything. You know, everything. It's all right here. It's all right here. And maybe that's what you're saying, but I'm not sure. I want to... I was... A couple of just quick administrative things. One is I wanted just to mention Zen Center and membership. That if you're a member of Zen Center, great. If you're someone who is interested in being a member, you should go talk to Nancy, who's gonna be outside.

[42:07]

I was thinking of, I love, I listen to NPR all the time, and there's this wonderful, wonderful conversation that Ira Glass of This American Life has. If you listen to NPR, you've probably heard it, where he embarrasses this person on the radio who is a huge NPR fan, but has never, you know, it's like it's been so, so meaningful, and yet he's never in all these years become a member. So if you're someone who loves Zen Center and sit here and values Zen Center, then think about becoming a member. But even if you don't become a member, keep coming and sitting here. Don't worry about it. But think about it. And the second thing is I wanted to mention, and I'd like to invite people to, to I'm going to be hanging out here this afternoon doing a workshop called Accomplishing More by Doing Less, starting at 1.30. If you're interested in hanging out with me, please sign up or just come.

[43:13]

I don't know what you do. Find out. And then I wanted to end by reading a poem. And this is a poem by Rainer Marie Rilke called Sunset. Slowly the west reaches for clothes of new colors, which it passes to a row of ancient trees. Slowly the west reaches for clothes of new colors, which it passes to a row of ancient trees. You look, and soon these two worlds both leave you. One part climbs toward heaven, one sinks to earth. leaving you not really belonging to either, not so hopelessly dark as that house that is silent, not so unswervingly given to the eternal as that thing that turns to a star each night and climbs.

[44:14]

Leaving you, it is impossible to untangle the threads, your own life, timid and standing high and growing, so that sometimes blocked in, sometimes reaching out. One moment your life is a stone in you and the next a star. Read it one more time. Slowly the west reaches for clothes of new colors, which it passes to a row of ancient trees. You look and soon these two worlds both leave you. One part climbs toward heaven, one sinks to earth. Leaving you, not really belonging to either, not so hopelessly dark as that house that is silent, not so unswervingly given to the eternal as that thing that turns to a star each night and climbs. Leaving you, it is impossible to untangle the threads your own life, timid and standing, high and growing, so that sometimes blocked in, sometimes reaching out,

[45:26]

One moment your life is a stone in you and the next a star. Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered free of charge and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, please visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we all fully enjoy the Dharma.

[46:02]

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