This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations by people like you. When I woke up, I live up there, and I was coming down this way, and the light in the maintenance shop was on. And it was foggy, as it is now. So I didn't actually see the window of, I didn't look in the window or anything, but the light coming out of the, the light coming through the window, the glow of it with the fog was really something.

[01:02]

Moments are like that, but usually we can't appreciate them so much. Occasionally we stop and then we say, oh, wow. We stop and appreciate our existence, but usually we're too busy getting something done or going somewhere, people to see and things to do. what I want to speak about this morning is, can you hear me okay? Up louder. What I want to speak about today is what I think, I feel, is a unique attitude, a unique approach, attitude, perspective that

[02:23]

from our practice and is exemplified in our practice in our zazen practice our sinning meditation and one of the sources for inspiration for my talk was that about a month ago I gave zazen instruction here as probably all of you know, every Sunday morning at 8.15 is Zazen instruction. Here at Green Gulch. And then in the city, the same thing on Saturdays. And sometimes it's just three or four people, but sometimes, you know, 15 people. So if you count up, The numbers of Saturdays and Sundays. Sundays here since 1972.

[03:25]

Pretty much, maybe 50 weeks a year. Maybe there are a few weeks that don't get it, you know. Saturdays in the city since 1969. And then multiply that by an average of 12. You get a very large number of people who... learned how to do meditation. If you've been to one, maybe you were at meditation instruction this morning, but if you've been to a Zazen instruction, it's usually very simple and straightforward and brief. Because our practice is very simple and straightforward. This The fundamental attitude of our practice that I'm talking about of integrating, integrative, tending toward integration.

[04:35]

Embracing the world. Including, including everything. It's pretty simple. Pretty simple. The briefest zazen instruction that I'm familiar with is, I attribute it to Katagiri Roshi, but I'm not sure if it was him. Five-word zazen instruction. Sit down and shut up. Very clear. It's not much room to wiggle around in that. Sit down and shut up. But maybe shut up, you know, it's a bit harsh.

[05:47]

So we could say sit down. It's only four words. I already made it simpler. Sit down, quiet down. Sit down, sit still. Don't move. Don't move doesn't mean don't move. It's okay to move. If you move, we say don't move within moving. Because don't move is not an achievement. It's not a contest. Who can not move the most or the least?

[06:54]

We sometimes get carried away, we think it's a contest. It's not a contest, it refers to this attitude that I'm talking about. This attitude of practice that I'm talking about. So on the one hand we have our zazen practice, our sinning meditation. And on the other hand, we have our everyday life. Chopping firewood and carrying water. But we don't do that anymore. We drive on the freeway and send email. But still, what is our Zazen mind driving the freeway, sending the email? What is this mind that's open to the world and that can appreciate things? mind that allows us encourages us in the direction of ease and relaxation and enjoyment so the book that I brought is not always so the collection of Suzuki Rishi talks and another inspiration for my talk is

[08:25]

The sixth talk there. In that book. Which is called. Enjoy your life. How to enjoy your life. So it encourages us. In that direction. And particularly. Particularly this. this feeling that I'm talking about, this attitude that I'm talking about, comes into high relief. Excuse me. Comes into high relief when we are faced with upset, disturbance. I gave this same talk that I'm giving today to you all.

[09:35]

I gave a talk in the city a week ago very similarly. And the night before, I came up with a great title for the talk. Here's the title. Anxiety. Where it comes from and what to do about it. I thought maybe I can... that you put on a magazine cover you know like self magazine might have a title like that even though there's no self the people at self magazine think there's a self I can send it in to them and maybe maybe I could get on a talk show and talk about anxiety I had a subtitle I came up with a subtitle actually where it comes from and what to do about it, or dead fish.

[10:37]

I thought dead fish might actually be the title and the other one the subtitle because dead fish is more catchy in a certain way. In a certain strange way. Kind of slow you down. Dead fish. What the heck are you talking about? So I want to talk about anxiety, where it comes from, and what to do about it. And I'd like to speak about it from two perspectives. One is the perspective of traditional Buddhist teaching. And the other is the perspective of modern, Western, psychological understanding. As some of you know, I've been studying for a couple of decades the relationship between psychology, Western psychology, psychotherapy, psychotherapeutic psychology on the one hand and Buddhist practice on the other.

[11:49]

And in general, I find them pretty resonant with each other. Not the same, very different methodology. In Zen, we say, sit down and shut up. In psychotherapy, we say, sit down and start talking. Talk, talk, [...] talk. The talking cure. So the method looks very different. And actually, in this issue of anxiety, where it comes from, they talk about it, these two disciplines or whatever, about it in different ways, where it comes from, but what to do about it, they're quite resonant in the what to do about it department. And the relationship between psychology and Buddhism will take us a while to work out.

[12:53]

Usually it takes years to work out that's how long it took for Indian Buddhism to work things out with Chinese Taoism and Confucianism so now what we call Zen we call Zen Buddhism but it's actually as much Taoism and Confucianism maybe more than it is Indian Buddhism The influences are very strong. So a very famous statement in Zen is, what is the way? Everyday mind is the way. Even the word the way, Indian Buddhists didn't know about the way. They didn't know anything about it. The way, Tao, is completely Chinese. China and about five or eight hundred years later you have Zen so here also five or eight hundred years from now we'll have the Buddhism the teaching will mix get mixed up with our local culture our local culture which is Western psychology and democracy and

[14:24]

Democracy is a good idea. It's a great idea. And feminism. But it'll take a while to sort it all out. And the Judeo-Christian tradition also. the point of view of traditional Buddhist teaching, the reason we have anxiety is because we don't exist. We do exist, you know. If you pinch yourself, you know, I ouch, therefore I am. He said something like that. And So we do exist in this way, in what's called a conventional way.

[15:34]

We exist. And we think it's pretty darn important that we do, too. Especially the me part of it is extremely important. We exist in this way. But simultaneously, we don't exist. This is called the ultimate... So in the traditional teaching, it's called the teaching of the two truths. Conventional truth and ultimate truth. Simultaneously operative. According to ultimate truth, it's not exactly that we don't exist, but we don't exist the way... We don't exist the way we'd like to exist. We don't exist like me. Me, here I am and here I'll always be.

[16:35]

We don't exist that way. The way we exist from the point of view of ultimate truth is that we are, I am, this moment is, you are, the forward, the most forward, tippy tippy tip of the crest of the wave Of infinite, inconceivable causation. So you've probably heard this kind of explanation before. Or you may have. But I'll say a little bit about it. So I thought as an example. Obviously, I wouldn't be here if my mother didn't give birth to me. A little more than 60 years ago. my mother having given birth to me a little more than 60 years ago.

[17:40]

And the infinite number of the billions and [...] billions of causative factors between that moment and this moment that led up to my being here talking to you using this microphone, you hearing it, having ears, having voices, the whole shebang. It's all just infinite causation right up to now. So, we say, I am in a conventional way, but in some sense, all I am is my mother and everything else that brought us to here. And of course my father was an important feature of this event as well. My mother and my father. I'm getting to the dead fish.

[18:42]

So my mother was born in Warsaw. And my father was born in a town probably not very far away from Warsaw. But it was in Russia. So it was Western Russia. Dovnyagov. They both were born in 1915. My mom lives in New Jersey. She's almost 92. She's going to be 92 in December, December 22nd. And she's doing great. She's doing terrific. you may experience yourself or as you may know, often when people get older, when we get older, we get sometimes crotchety and start to complain naturally because more and more stuff breaks down.

[19:48]

More and more stuff goes wrong. My liver, my head, my ears, my sight, all the organs, they start to fail, fail, fail, fail. We don't like it at all and we get annoyed. And upset. Our memory too. Just like in 2001, the Space Odyssey, when the guy goes flying in and starts pulling out the memory drawers from Hell 9000 and he gets stupider and stupider and stupider. That's just like us. The memory drawers. That's like my mom. I mean she has very poor short-term memory. In a conversation, I'm going to go visit her in a couple of weeks, So in a conversation I may need to, in a short conversation, she may ask me, so when are you coming? I'm coming in a few weeks, Mom. I just told you that a few minutes ago. Oh, great. I'm so glad to hear it. She gets happy every time. Just like I had told her a few minutes ago.

[20:55]

Anyway. was born in 1915 and in 1921 when she was about six years old she came to the United States. Her name in Warsaw was Hayadina and that became Darce at Ellis Island. And my dad also came from Western Russia coincidentally in 1921 also and Herschel became Harry. So my dad, oh, and they both wound up when they were growing up living on the Lower East Side, New York, where a lot of Eastern European Jewish immigrants lived. Not everybody, but lots of folks live there. My dad had very little, didn't go through a lot of education. I know he didn't finish high school.

[21:56]

I can't remember whether he started high school or not. But anyway, he started to work for some relative on the Lower East Side in a fish market. I don't think it was his uncle, some relative. So he lived on the Lower East Side and he was working in this fish market. And my mom, her mom, I mean she was a young adult, her mom sent her to go buy fish for the... You see where this is leading... A romance flowered over dead fish. Some might think this is an inauspicious beginning. But here I am and my sisters and other things also. So according to ultimate reality, I am tremendously grateful to those dead fish.

[23:09]

Right? No dead fish. No mom and dad getting together. No mom and dad getting together. No Steve Weintraub. Without those dead fish, I wouldn't be here. As well as everything else. We can name the dead fish. We can name my mom. We can name my father, etc. But it's everything coming together. that creates this moment. Oh, so there's a story, a koan in Zen that is referred to by Dogen in the Tenzo Kyokun in which he refers to the story or the exchange what is the way And the response, it might have been Joshu's response, is three kin, which I think is a measurement of weight, three kin of flax.

[24:11]

What is the weight? Three kin of flax. So Joshu said that maybe eight or nine hundred years ago, and we wonder, what the heck is he talking about? So a thousand years from now, Zen students will ask the teacher, what is the way? And the teacher will say, five pounds of dead fish. And people will look at each other and say, what does he mean? Why does he say that? So you were there at the beginning. Because you know what it means. Five pounds of dead fish means infinite causation. It means the ultimate truth. are I want to go on to another part but before I do there's one other thing I want to say about the ultimate truth and conventional reality conventional reality and ultimate reality which is part of the teaching of the two truths

[25:29]

is that the two truths are equal. One is not better than the other. And I say this because sometimes, particularly Zen students, have a preference for the ultimate truth. Understandably so, we have a preference. Hey, it's ultimate, man. It sounds much cooler, right? To know the ultimate truth. And it's understandable. This is also infinite causation. It's understandable because... Ultimate truth is like we see the world and then when we pierce through the conventional world, we see the ultimate world. And it's wow. It's like, oh, I see. Just like in The Matrix, right?

[26:30]

In the first movie. You take the right pill and you pierce through the seeming world to the actual world. The ultimate truth describes what actually is. is the case, which is infinite causation leads to this moment. Inconceivable causation leads to me and you. However, you know, the problem with the Matrix movie, or at least I think, is that It actually made it literal that one was truer, one was really true and the other was just fakely true. Whereas in conventional truth and ultimate truth they are equal. It's not that one is better than the other. If we think ultimate truth is better than conventional truth, this is a thought that occurs in the realm of conventional truth.

[27:37]

ultimate truth, ultimate truth is not any better than anything else. It's only in the conventional world. We have big, small, better, worse, large, you know, fast, slow. It's only in that conventional world that we can say, oh, ultimate truth, man, that's much better than the conventional stuff. I mention this because this is a very important, this is kind of a foundation of our Mahayana way, which is the way of embracing the world. The way of welcoming the world. The way of being in the world and practicing in the world. This world of conventional truth. Not an inferior world to the world of ultimate truth. So anyway, to continue... So, this thing of the ultimate truth and conventional truth is very interesting philosophy.

[28:47]

This is Buddhist philosophy. But, you know, maybe we're not so interested in philosophy. What catches our attention, what we really notice, what we can't help but notice is... old age, sickness, and death. Old age, sickness, and death are absolutely the way that infinite, inconceivable causation shows up in our life. That's the way it appears to us. It's like, you know how in the sports events, you know, Gillette sponsors the thing, you know. So infinite causation is the sponsor of old age, sickness, and death.

[29:51]

Old age, sickness, and death represent causation to us. Infinite causation to us. Old age, sickness, and death is just one arrangement of causation. From the point of view of ultimate truth, you take a billion, gazillion, inconceivable, infinite number of events and you have, whop! You have Steve Weintraub and Mary and Joe and Barbara and Sam. Then you just shift things a little bit, throw a little old age, sickness and death in there, a couple of other things, and then you have no Steve Weintraub, no Joe, Mary, Barbara, Dan. From the point of view of infinite causation, from the point of view of ultimate truth, you hardly even notice it. It's less than that. But from the point of view of Steve Weintraub, Barbara, Susan, Joe, and Dan, it's a big deal. This is where ultimate truth shows up in a way that we really, we'd like to avoid, we'd like to ignore it,

[31:03]

is no way we're going to ignore it. So the formula in the teaching, the formula of the first noble truth is they use the Sanskrit word dukkha. Dukkha usually is often translated as suffering. And people say The first noble truth is life is suffering. Those Buddhists are a bunch of pessimistic bums. I don't want to have anything to do with it. But suffering is not really such a good translation of dukkha. I explained this before, I'll say it again. The etymology of the word dukkha is, you know, you have an axle like on a car or a cart or something like that with a wheel. This is a wheel. This is the axle. You have another wheel here, right? When the axle, when the hole in the wheel is in the center, you have a very good car.

[32:10]

It rolls right along. Everything goes smoothly. Dukkha, the etymology of Dukkha is the hole is not in the center. Like that. This is the nature of our life. Things don't go smoothly. Just like because the hole is not in the center of the wheel. They just don't go smoothly. So here's the formula about dukkha. Birth is dukkha. Old age, sickness and death are dukkha. Being separated from people and things that you like and love is dukkha. pushed together and associated with people and things you don't like is dukkha. Not being able to get what you want is dukkha.

[33:17]

And then the final statement is something like the whole conditioned world is permeated with dukkha. So the dukkha is only in terms of our conventional understanding now. It's not a problem from the point of view of infinite causation. From the point of view of infinite causation, it just happens to be the way it happens to be. And it's not likely to happen again that way very soon. In fact, it won't. It'll be different the next moment. and the next moment, and the next moment. But this comes into our life as unsatisfactoriness.

[34:20]

We notice infinite causation because things just don't work out the way we want them to. And they don't work out the way we want them to because of infinite causation. Because we are not in control of the strings. So we don't like it. And this causes, this is the root of anxiety. When we're with people we don't want to be with, we say, when am I going to get out of here? Can I get out of here? How will I do it? Or with the people we like being with. And we say, well, Jesus, I hope I don't lose them. And, oh, I'm going to lose them. And then what's going to happen? And then I'm going to lose this. And then I'm going to lose that. And then we're going to lose everything. It's frightening. It's insecure.

[35:22]

It's insecure because there's nothing to secure to. There's just... Like that. There's nothing to moor it to. There's no dock that you can throw the rope onto. And they'll tie you down. Oh, so in the Diamond Sutra, the Diamond Sutra is called the Diamond Sutra because... it shines brightly with wisdom like a diamond. Like that. And also because it's short and it's very compressed the way you make a diamond, right? You compress coal onto the earth for 10 million years and you get a diamond.

[36:25]

Unless you're Superman. And you just crush it. You get a diamond that way too. Anyway, so it's very compressed teaching in the Diamond Sutra. So the Diamond Sutra is a conversation between Shariputra, no, between Shakyamuni, between Buddha and Sabuti, one of the disciples. And at one point, Shakyamuni says to Sabuti, So it is, Sabuti, so it is as you say. He says that a lot in the Diamond Sutra. So it is, Sabuti, as you say, most wonderfully blessed will be those beings who, upon hearing this sutra, will not tremble, nor be frightened, nor terrified. So it is, Sabuti, so it is, as you say,

[37:32]

Most wonderfully blessed will be those beings who, upon hearing this sutra, will not be frightened, nor tremble, nor be terrified. So, it's curious, why would you be frightened hearing a sutra, hearing the words of the Buddha, hearing the truth? Why does he say that? He says it because the Diamond Sutra is endlessly saying things like, As no person should a person be understood. As no thing should things be understood. As no dharma should dharmas be known. And they go on at quite some length about how everything is that way. And the no part refers, this is exactly this infinite causation. Again, technically, for folks who are familiar with this, this is svavava shunyata, the emptiness of own being, which is basically a cognate for, or kind of associated with, conditioned co-production, what I'm calling infinite, inconceivable causation, pratijit samapada.

[38:56]

Those are all different aspects of one thing. So the person who's no person, the thing who's no thing, it's a person, that's the conventional, and no person is the ultimate. And the reason he says you'll be blessed if you're not scared is because it's kind of scary when you really get it. And it's particularly scary when you get it in these very palpable ways enumerated in dukkha. And specifically within that, when you get... sick and die. It's difficult for us and frightening and insecurity producing. from the perspective of western psychological understanding what the source of our anxiety is and Fu who gave the talk here a few weeks ago quoted a story where one person asks some guys are visiting some other people and they say well how is Buddhism in the south

[40:51]

And the person responds, there's a great deal of discussion. In other words, there's lots and lots of ideas. And in Western psychology, I'll just describe this one perspective, but there's lots of different... Western psychology is like religion. Schisms. And then after the schism, the people on one side say... I don't know what they're talking about. It's completely wrong. It's this way, you know. And then 20 years later, somebody else comes along and says, they're the ones who are wrong. And, you know, they fight each other and so on and so forth. Just the way we are, you know. So anyway, so one of the perspectives in Western psychology that I've been studying recently is called attachment theory and this was an idea kind of germinated one of the most important people founding persons who had this kind of thought about attachment the importance of attachment was a man named John Bowlby a psychoanalyst in the 1940s 50s and he came up with the idea so

[42:20]

At that time, psychology, Western psychotherapeutic psychology, mostly meant psychoanalysis, which mostly meant Freud. So for Freud, one of the basic ideas Freud had is that how we work through and live with and what happens to our sexual drive, and then later he added, after the First World War, he added... aggressive drive, how those things work out, how those things work out in our life is the most important feature of what our life is like and if we're happy or not happy and how we feel about things. John Bowlby said, no, wrong. The most important thing is not these so-called endogenous drives that we have, the most important thing is our relationship to other people.

[43:24]

What our attachments are like. What our attachments were like when we were infants and children and we were attached to our moms and dads, sisters, brothers, uncles, etc. What happens to that in our life? I know in our practice, we talk about non-attachment, cutting off attachments. But I think there's a misunderstanding about what that means. I feel very strongly it does not mean removing oneself from the world. This is what Shakyamuni Buddha said. In the mythic story of Shakyamuni Buddha, this is what he specifically adjured was removing himself from the world. He decided not to do that. Anyway, getting back to the attachment thing.

[44:30]

In the development of this thought, one of the fundamental distinctions that various people who have thought about it and they researched it and so on and so forth... They came up with is that in the realm of attachment, there's secure attachment and insecure attachment. Secure attachment is produced by contingent communication. Contingent communication... We're having lots of contingent communication right now. Contingent communication is one person sends out a message... And then the receiver does three things. They take it in, they process the message empathically, and then they respond appropriately.

[45:34]

So, you're taking in what I'm saying, you're processing it empathically, And you're not yelling, boo, no, we don't like this. You're not throwing tomatoes at me. So this is the appropriate response. So contingent communication produces security. Non-contingent communication produces insecurity. So when the baby goes like this, The contingent mom, or the contingent moment, and it's not like there is a contingent mom and a non-contingent mom. It's not like it's supposed to be perfect or anything. But anyway, if you're having a moment of contingency, then you see the baby, you say, Oh, sweetheart, come here, let me give you a hug. That's contingent. The baby needs a hug. They put out their arms. You get it. You see what they're doing.

[46:39]

You process it. And then you respond. But, if the baby puts out their arm and the mom is recovering from having gotten beat up by the baby's dad, or worried and insecure herself about her own life, or busy... putting on mascara, then the mom may say, stop bothering me. You always want to be hugged. What's the matter with you? That's non-contingent communication. And what that produces is insecurity. Obviously. Because the baby thought, oh, I need something. Then they're told It's wrong.

[47:42]

It's the wrong thing to need. Wrong time, wrong need, wrong... You didn't ask in the right way, etc., etc., etc. All the millions of permutations that occur on this. And that produces insecurity. A feeling of... The foundation that might be there is not there. It's perforated. It's lost. May I ask you what time it is, Arlene? It's a little bit after 11. I didn't bring my watch. So I do have a few more things to say. So whether the anxiety that we experience, the insecurity we experience,

[49:06]

the lack of sense of foundation whether we're talking about it coming from an intimation of our non-existence more probably presented to us as illness, old age and death or whether This insecurity is coming from problems that we've had in receiving contingent communication, to oversimplify it a bit. We do feel anxious. We don't know what to do in the face of that anxiety.

[50:13]

Three of the things that we do in the face of that anxiety is, one thing is we become fundamentalists. The advantage of being a fundamentalist is that I am completely secure. Because I know. I know what the truth is. I know who's right. I know who's wrong. And I know the way things are. And not only do I know it, but it's infallible. I have infallible knowledge of the way things are. As a fundamentalist. Christian fundamentalist. Islamic fundamentalist. Buddhist fundamentalist. Science fundamentalist. You can put fundamentalist after anything. Fundamentalist means I know the way things are. Unfortunately, it then also has permutations into I know who's good and bad and I'm going to kill the bad ones and I happen to be lucky enough to be one of the good ones and et cetera, et cetera.

[51:22]

But it's an attempt to deal with our anxiety by, you know, me anxious? What have I got to be anxious about? You know? Do you see how that works? So that's one. Number two, denial. It's very helpful. I'm not afraid of getting old because I won't get old. See, I've got raw grain. I'm going to put raw grain up here and get this ticked, tucked, tucked, tucked in here and Don't be old. No, no, no, no, no. Work out on the elliptical machine and then it won't happen to me. We laugh because it's so patently ridiculous.

[52:26]

But we manage to convince ourselves in some kind of way like that through our ability to deny reality. So that's another way that we try to deal with our anxiety is denial. And then the third way is compulsive activity. I'm not okay now but after I have this drink, then I'll be okay. After I have this sexual conquest, then I'll be okay. After I have this whatever, [...] whatever. We try to fill up the whole of our anxiety. We try to fill it up with compulsive activity of one kind or another. We're driven by the anxiety.

[53:42]

The anxiety is the driver and we're the thing driven by it as an attempt to meet what is otherwise so frightening. So from our practice approach, our practice way is don't move way is turning toward, turning toward that which we are afraid of, turning toward our insecurity, turning toward old age, sickness and death. So the way this, this is the feeling, the approach, the perspective that I'm bringing forth from our practice understanding.

[55:01]

So how do you do it? The first way you do it is by not doing anything. fundamentalism, denial. What's that third word? Thank you. Compulsive. Not doing no's. If we get involved in no's, it's very hard to stay with how things are. So we abstain. Let's put it this way. We encourage ourselves to abstain from those things. They will occur anyway. We'll be compulsive about something or deny or fundamentalize something. But we encourage ourselves to not do that.

[56:05]

Then... I'm speaking about it as though it were a process, and it doesn't exactly work like that, but I'll explain it as a process. Then, out of that ground, you might say, what is then possible is the intuitive tolerance for the inconceivability of all things. This is... In Sanskrit, this is Anupalabdi Dharma Kshanti. Great phrase. Translated at the end of the Vimalakirti Sutra by Robert Thurman as the intuitive tolerance for the inconceivability of all things.

[57:13]

So there is a tolerance. That's our practice way. We tolerate tolerance. We tolerate old age sickness and death. We tolerate inconceivable causation. We're willing to be with it. We're not going to tremble and be frightened or terrified. And even if we are tremble and frightened and be terrified, we'll stay there anyway. Because sooner or later we'll calm down. The intuitive tolerance of Inconceivability of all things means infinite causation, means ultimate truth. The intuitive tolerance for ultimate truth is something that we can nurture. We can nurture our ability to be with the way things actually are, which ain't the way we want them to be. Even that version of the way things are, we can nurture our ability to tolerate it and to

[58:18]

Live with it. And that's no different than sitting still. Sitting still is an example of that and it's a metaphor of that. There are two results of this practice. There may be many results and so on, but I'm just going to name two things in connection with this. So one result is love. That's because if I'm not anxious, if I'm not worried, then there's room in me for you.

[59:24]

There's room in one for the other. That's why a mom gives her child contingent communication because she's got lots of room for that baby. This is like that. So if we are stable not in some fundamentalism, not because we know the truth, the infallible truth, not out of denial, not in some compulsive way, but if we're actually stable, then there's room in our heart for other people and things and the world. That is what makes room. That is what love is, is room like that. Then we have room.

[60:32]

So the two results of this practice. One is love. Oh, I want to mention one further thing about love. So love is also, we could say, compassion. And in Buddhist teaching we say wisdom and compassion. And then wisdom is compassion. Compassion is wisdom. This is how wisdom is compassion. Wisdom is this getting and getting with the ultimate nature of things. And getting with it is simultaneous with or connected with this ability to have room. There are two facets of one thing. And when I was talking with my daughter about this a couple of weeks ago, she said, she said, oh yeah, and then she completed the circle.

[61:34]

She said, and that's why compassion is wisdom, because compassion is recognizing the interdependent nature of all beings and things. So that's compassion, which is the wisdom that leads to the compassion of of having room in our hearts for the world. I thought that was neat, completing the circle in that way. So, one result is love, and the other result is enjoyment. So, here's Suzuki Roshi. about enjoy your life he didn't come up with that title but that's what Ed Brown called this talk enjoy your life this is the end of it things change for the usual person this is very discouraging

[62:51]

Us usual people. Now he does his own little version of the first noble truth. You cannot rely on anything. You cannot have anything. Actually, that's not the first noble truth. That's ultimate truth. That's infinite causation. You cannot rely on anything. You cannot have anything. Now we get the first noble truth. And you will see what you don't want to see. You will meet someone you don't like. If you want to do something, you may find that it is impossible. This is this little recounting of the first noble truth, the main points thereof. So you will be discouraged by the way things are going. They're not going to be going smoothly. As a Buddhist, you are changing the foundation of your life.

[63:56]

So here's an important point. He says as a Buddhist, but it doesn't matter if you're a Buddhist or Shmudist. It doesn't matter what you call it. The thing that he's... And he didn't care either. You can do anything. You can call it anything. The thing is changing the foundation of your life. That's what I'm trying to talk about. The shift... That things change is the reason why you suffer in this world and become discouraged. When you change your understanding and your way of living, then you can completely enjoy your new life in each moment. When you change your understanding and your way of living means when you turn toward, in the language I'm using today, when you turn toward suffering, when you encourage and cultivate suffering, the intuitive tolerance for the inconceivability of all things.

[64:57]

When you pierce the veil of conventional truth and get to ultimate truth and pierce the veil of ultimate truth and get to the unity of conventional and ultimate truth, when you change your understanding and your way of living, in other words, you've got to practice it, completely enjoy your new life in each moment. The evanescence of things is the reason why you enjoy your life. So the very thing that was a problem, evanescence, change, you know, old age, sickness and death, infinite causation, that thing that was a problem is why we enjoy things. That's like the light outside the shop this morning. Or just like the light right now. but just like the sound of nothing. Just like our own breathing. And it's all evanescent.

[66:06]

He liked that word evanescence. It was one of those English words that he hooked on to. It's a mouthful, if you're not used to Latin words. The evanescence of things is the reason why you enjoy your life. When you practice in this way, your life becomes stable and meaningful. When you tolerate instability, your life becomes stable. When you turn toward old age sickness and death, your life becomes stable and meaningful. So the point is to change your understanding of life and to practice with the right understanding. Yep, that's the point, all right. Oh, boy. Oh, boy, oh, boy. So the point is to change your understanding of life and to practice with the right understanding. Yep. Oh, he gave this talk in 1969, the day after the first moon landing, the first time human beings ever walked on the moon.

[67:15]

And his talk is all, he says various things. Well, people landed on the moon, they think it's a big deal, but I don't think it's such a big deal. To arrive on the moon may be a great historical event, but if we don't change our understanding of life, it won't have much meaning or make much sense. So no matter how good our computers are, or our Mercedes-Benz's, or our intelligence, or our whatever. Unless we practice this understanding, it won't have much meaning or make much sense. We need to have a deeper understanding of life. That's the spirit of practice. That's my addition. The only way is to enjoy your life, even though you are practicing zazen, counting your breath like a snail. you can enjoy your life.

[68:17]

Perhaps even more than taking a trip to the moon. That is why we practice Sazen. The most important thing is to be able to enjoy your life without being fooled by things. So, 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 the practice of giving by offering your financial help. For more information visit sfcc.org and click giving. May all beings be happy.

[69:03]

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