Good morning. One of the ways that I think Zen is useful to us, Zen practice is useful to us in our life, is that it helps us develop stability, a sense of stability. Suzuki Roshi used to, he had certain words that he particularly liked. Composure was one of them. How do we meet our life with composure? How do we meet our circumstances with composure?

[01:18]

particularly, of course, the difficult circumstances of our life. Outer difficulty of... illness perhaps, or some friend or loved one, family member, illness or loss of some kind or another, outer difficulty and inner difficulty, they often come together, our own feeling of discouragement, depression, anxiety.

[02:21]

How do we meet those circumstances, that situation, with composure, with a stable, solid mind and feeling? This has to do with, in practice, in Zen, this has to do with the kind of effort that we make in practice. the nature of the effort that we make in practice. And in the activity of that effort, we have the opportunity to encourage our sense of stability. Can you hear me in the back, by the way? Okay. Okay. When I say stability and composure, I by no means mean a kind of down in the mouth over serious attitude, which sometimes it looks like Zen students have.

[03:48]

I was remembering that when I first came to San Francisco about 2,000 years ago. No, it was only 40 years ago. I worked at a psychiatric halfway house. And after one year, I had my year review with the executive director. And she said, you're a very serious young man. At that time, I was a young man. And then she said, well, actually, when I first met you, I thought you were a very serious young man. Now I realize you're just depressed. She was right. This was accurate. So I don't mean depressed.

[04:53]

or repressed or anything like that, but some stability, some solidity, some way of not getting pushed around, less liable to get pushed around by the winds of circumstance, by the winds of our own psycho-emotional thinking life. I don't do too much stuff on the internet, but one of the things I do get in the email is A-W-A-D. A word a day. Yeah. Which is a delight. So they have the word like sedulous. Sedulous. and then they have a little thing next to it, and you hit that, and then it tells you, you know, it's a voice that gives you the pronunciation.

[05:58]

Sedulous. A franchise. These beautiful Latin words, you know. I realized I'd forgotten what sedulous means, which is kind of the main point. But anyway, at the bottom of it, at the bottom of the page, it says, you can look this word up in the visual thesaurus. What's that? So I clicked on that thing. And the visual thesaurus, which I recommend, especially if you love the English language, the visual thesaurus is, it will like have sedulus in the middle, and then it'll have these, like in a flower, is the long thing in a flower called a pistil? It'll have stamens coming out of the word and with the various other possible, you know, similar meaning words.

[06:59]

Then if you click on one of those, it goes whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, and you get a new thing, you know, a new, they call them word blossoms. So... What I'm hoping to talk about today is not exactly thesaurus-like synonyms, but I'm hoping to talk about a word blossom of composure and effort and circumstance or situation, how those relate to each other, those three things. Dogen Zenji is the founder of Soto Zen in Japan, lived in the 13th century, and wrote many wonderful pieces about Zen, one of which is called, many of you are familiar with it, Actualizing the Fundamental Point.

[08:07]

How do we actualize the fundamental point? And he says many, many things in actualizing the fundamental point, about actualizing the fundamental point. One thing that he says, which, again, some of you are familiar with, and I am very familiar with it, you know. What I mean is, it's been decades that I've been reading this two or three page book called a fascicle, it means like a chapter, this two or three page piece by Dogen. So I was really surprised recently that this line, which I'm about to tell you, kind of came out at me. And it wasn't similar to how I've understood it before, but more strongly or more vibrantly or something like that.

[09:08]

So the line that I'm talking about in actualizing the fundamental point is, when Buddhas are truly Buddhas, they do not necessarily notice that they are Buddhas. That's in the translation by Masao Abe and Norman Waddell. And in the translation of that same of the Chinese characters that Dogen wrote, in the English translation by Uchiyama Roshi, he says, when Buddhas are truly Buddhas, same, there is no perception of oneself as being Buddha. So when Buddhas are truly Buddhas, they don't necessarily notice that they are Buddhas.

[10:12]

When you are a Buddha, you do not think, oh, I'm a Buddha. I've accomplished Buddhahood. I've attained what needs to be attained. And now my composure and my stability and my calm mind can rest on that attainment, because after all, I've attained it. No, you don't necessarily even notice it. It's really surprising. You'd think it'd be something you would notice, you know. And then Uchiyama says it even more dramatically. When you are truly a Buddha, there is no perception of being a Buddha. None. It doesn't happen. So this reminded me of a story about Suzuki Roshi. I'm not sure if it's true.

[11:20]

I'm not sure if it actually happened. But if it didn't happen, it should have happened. So we'll assume it happened. I was thinking maybe if Reb was here, he would remember whether it happened or not. And I don't remember if it was something I actually experienced, whether I was there at the time or not. Anyway, at the end of a seven-day sashin, seven days of intensive meditation, Suzuki Roshi said, three people in this sashin have attained enlightenment, but they don't know it. And I've thought about that. What do you mean they don't know it? Isn't that the point?

[12:24]

Isn't that the whole shtick is to know it? Three people in this issue have attained enlightenment, but they don't know it. This is a very unusual way. This is an unusual method. The usual method is, well, we've got a goal, we've got a result, an outcome, we're heading in that direction, and then we can also measure, you know, well, I'm closer now, I'm wiser now, I'm getting better at Zen than I was before, I'm getting better at it, oh, no, now I'm worse, you know. I'm not doing so well. Today was really bad. I was really not doing so well. Or hey, today is really wow. I'm really cruising along there in Samadhi-ville or whatever.

[13:28]

We're getting better at it. So we're measuring our thing here. We're measuring how we're doing. And we've got the goal. So there is no perception of oneself. In fact, later on in actualizing the fundamental point, Dogen says it even more extremely. He says, if you are practicing fully, the mark of practicing fully is that you know that you're not practicing fully. If you are not practicing fully, the mark of not practicing fully is you think you're practicing fully. Strange. To say it more exactly, he says, when Dharma does not fill your body and mind, you think it is sufficient.

[14:28]

When Dharma completely fills your body and mind, you know something is missing. The mark of Dharma filling your body and mind is, oh, this is not quite right. That's the mark of it. The mark of, oh yeah, this is it. I have arrived. This is the end. That's the mark of Dharma not filling your body and mind, not practicing fully. So why or what would this, I think, unusual way of thinking about things, different than our usual way, different than the way, in a sense, that we have an evolutionary predisposition

[15:40]

to think in this way of the goal and how far away and so on and so forth. It really works in the world. And this is different than that. Why would that be useful in developing composure? So I want to say something else, but just briefly, that's useful because it's a whole different system of motivation. It's a whole different system of relationship to our effort and to the result of our effort it's a different relationship to those things and finally a different relationship to what happens as a result of our effort when things don't go the way that we want them to when things don't happen as we would like them to as they should it's it it gives us a basis for relating to that in a different way than the usual goal orientation, measuring orientation gives us.

[16:50]

So this way of this unusual motivational system, for lack of a better phrase, comes directly from Zazen practice. Both our formal Zazen practice, like we do here, you know, early in the morning and various other times of the day, you know, sitting with one's legs crossed. Both that kind of Zazen practice and Zazen mind. which is much more portable, does not require some particular posture or some particular activity. This kind of effort comes from zazen, or is exemplified by our zazen practice, and our zazen practice in turn gives us a chance to practice this kind of way. So zazen is very simple.

[18:11]

We sit upright on a cushion or on a chair. And we focus our attention, focus our mind on our breathing or on our posture or down here, you know, in the lower abdomen, the hara. And when thoughts arise, as they will, because we have a brain and brains think, that's what they do. Like stomachs digest, you know, livers, what do livers do? They take care of your blood, is that what, no, yes. Livers, you know, help your blood. Brains think. That's one of the things they do. They do a lot of stuff, but that's one of the things they do.

[19:12]

So naturally, thinking happens. But when thinking happens, we try not to get too excited about it and move back to just our breathing, just not get caught up in the thinking. That's zazen. That's, you know, in essence. You can say a lot more about it, but if you can do that, that's pretty good in a measuring kind of a way. So there's another work of Dogen's where he talks about how to do zazen, called the fukan zazengi. It means how to do zazen. It's a little bit different than that, but basically it's how to do zazen. And he says in that... in the Fukanzazengi, among the things that he says are cease, let's see, cast aside all involvements, cease all affairs.

[20:23]

So don't get involved in thinking about the movie you saw last night, last night I saw Departures, which is a Fabulous movie. Don't get involved in thinking about that. Don't cast aside involvements and don't think about your affairs. How this person did that and they shouldn't have and you're going to do this and so on and so forth and getting your car fixed and et cetera. That's the recommendation. Don't do those things. Then a little bit later he says, Cease the movements of the conscious mind, the gauging of all thoughts and views. Gauging is what I want to focus on. And actually, this cease the movements of the conscious mind, the gauging of all thoughts and views, this is, again, Abe Waddell's translation. It's actually very technical. If you go back to Dogen's characters, some of you might enjoy doing this because it's fascinating.

[21:31]

then those characters have a very technical meaning that refers to various Sanskrit terms. So it's very elaborated. But this kind of more beautifully elegant and simple way of talking about it takes care of it. Cease the movements of the conscious mind, the gauging of all thoughts and views. So we practice ceasing, gauging, measuring. That's what we practice ceasing in Zazen. We practice letting go. That's another phrase of Uchiyama Rishis, is letting go the hand of thought, not holding on to things. We practice... ceasing that kind of usual measuring mind. You with me?

[22:37]

Is this vaguely sound intelligible? So that's That's why when you're a Buddha you don't necessarily notice it because you're practicing ceasing the measuring mind. You're practicing ceasing, noticing and getting all wound up in the way we usually do our goals and outcomes and results and how far are we and so on and so forth. That's why it's called selfless practice. This is a selfless practice. Because all the measurement stuff is all about the self. How is the self doing? How am I doing today? How am I doing tomorrow? How am I going to get this self to do better? This self is doing great.

[23:39]

This self is doing terrible. We're very, very concerned about the self. Earlier, this is evolutionary. This is appropriate. There's not something wrong going on here. This is what we need to know. We need to be concerned about ourself, or what I should say is that's the survival of, you know, that's our evolutionary, one of our evolutionary advantages is being concerned about the self. If we weren't concerned about the self, as I've often said, we wouldn't be here, and more importantly, we wouldn't be able to leave afterwards and go have lunch. That's important, you know, this concern about the self. But we are the kind of creature that is not limited to that concern. That just happens to be the way things happen to be. We're not limited to those self-

[24:43]

centered, selfish concerns. Now there's a very important, I want to digress for a moment here about this. There's a very important point about selfless, selfish, self-centered that has to do with translating things into our culture. Because the opposite of selfless is like selfish or self-centered. But selfish or self-centered, this is not a moral judgment. It's very hard for us to get this, for us Westerners to get clear about this. This is not moralism. This is not morality, not moralistic, no. It's not like my grandmother. My grandmother used to say when I was a kid, She used to say to me and my sisters, you selfish moit.

[25:49]

How could you be such a selfish moit? I don't know what moit means. It's Yiddish, I'm sure, for something. I got it. I got the message. I got the message. It took three decades, four decades or so to recover. from being condemned as a selfish mite, which she used to tell me and my sisters with great regularity, partly because she lived with us, she lived upstairs, and she and my grandfather, we took all of our meals together. So... Anyway, so this is not that, okay? This is not a moral judgment about the self or about you.

[26:55]

Because if it were, then there'd be a whole new raft of criticisms that one could direct at oneself for being so selfish, you know, called measuring the measurement. Steve Weintraub said to myself, And Dogen said to cease all affairs, cease the movements of the conscious mind, the measuring of all thoughts and views. And here I am measuring my thoughts and views. What a dope I am. There's a whole new level of stuff that could be loaded on. This teaching is not in order to do that. The teaching is to release us from that. So I've been talking about this kind of effort of relinquishing, eschewing.

[28:01]

That's another word today, eschew. And I learned how to pronounce it. Eschewing the measuring mind, the mind that's always and only, well, always concerned with the self. So One way to talk about it is, as I have been, via negativa, what one doesn't do. Relinquishing, letting go, ceasing, those are all negative words. Via positiva, speaking about the same thing, just in a positive way, in the circumstances of our life, means simply... We do what we can, we do what we should, as far as we can tell, as far as we can see, as far as our eye of practice can reach. We do what we can.

[29:02]

Again, a Suzuki Roshi phrase that he used to like to use a lot. We make our best effort. Period. Now, what we need to understand about this, or one thing that we can understand is that what comes along with this best effort that we're making, what comes along with we do what we can do, is that the world will respond as the world will respond. Sometimes good, sometimes not so good. But we're not pegged into the outcome as severely, as strongly, as that's what really is the only thing that counts. The nature of the effort is we do the best that we can do, and that's all we can do.

[30:09]

Then, as Matthew says, He maketh the sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sendeth rain on the unjust and the just. I used to think there was a word alike at the end of it. The just and the unjust alike. But there's no alike. but it's implied. So the sun rises, good things happen, not just to good people. Good things, the sun rises on the evil and on the good. You may have noticed this. And it rains, much as we don't like rain, or, well, no, we love rain, but in this metaphor anyway, rain is a negative thing.

[31:25]

It rains on the just and the unjust. So even though you're just, it rains and you don't have an umbrella and you catch pneumonia and you have to go to the hospital. Even though you're just, not just the unjust. Sometimes the world gives us back wonderful things and responds quite appropriately as it should. And sometimes it doesn't. This was a key feature of Shakyamuni Buddha entering the path. That's why he entered the path. He was floating around there in good times. He was a good time Charlie, right? Up until he was a young man. And then he saw a sick person, an old person, and a dead person. And basically he said, what?

[32:25]

How could these things happen? How could these negative things that we don't want to happen happen in our life to everyone? This is what catapulted him into practice. How do we meet that? So my summary of Buddhism in 25 words or less is Buddhism is about that very thing, how we meet, as illustrated in the metaphoric mythic story of Shakyamuni Buddha, how we meet the circumstances of our life that are not, you know, when things turn out not the way we want them to be. as illustrated by sickness and old age and death.

[33:27]

And if we are only holding on to the good result how I can get the good result and the good outcome of course we want the good outcome we want the good result again evolutionary that's necessary that's perfectly usual but it don't always happen it ain't always going to be that way and if we hold on to it too strongly and don't recognize oh yeah Well, much as I'd like it to happen in such and such a way, it's not that way. My friend is going to die. Much as I would like that not to be the case. If we hold on to that too strongly, we cause all kinds of problems, all kinds of difficulties. So I thought of an example of Nelson.

[34:54]

So we all know that Nelson Mandela was in prison for 27 years on Robben Island. And then apartheid in South Africa ended, and then, pretty soon after that, Nelson Mandela became president of South Africa. That's the story we know, and it's really a happy story. It's a very happy story that we know. We know the happy ending to the story. So then the sun rose on the just.

[35:58]

That's wonderful. But what I want to point out has to do with the effort we make in the middle, not when we know the happy ending to the story. What was it like for Nelson Mandela after seven years in prisons? What was it like on the and become president of South Africa.

[36:59]

He didn't know that then. He didn't know the happy ending to the story. And it's hard to imagine that he did not feel this is terrible. Apartheid will never end. All of my friends and everyone I care about are persecuted or killed or in jail. That's the outer. Terrible, terrible outer. Maybe the inner. Maybe he also thought. Hard to imagine he wouldn't think. I must have done it all wrong. This is a terrible idea. I should have done this or that instead of what I did. I shouldn't have done this or that instead of what I did.

[38:02]

He must have thought something like that. Or anyway, most of us would. That's the inner. So... I don't know. I don't know what Nelson Mandela did. And I've never heard of him associating himself with Zen practice, if he's even heard of it. He's probably heard of it. But what I'm saying is that this practice... where we make our best efforts, where we do whatever it is we can figure out to do as far as we can see, where we're less invested in, less holding on to, less dependent on the result, the outcome, and less constantly measuring, [...] that that way provides

[39:27]

some stability, some settled quality in difficult circumstances when we don't know what the ending will be. In other words, always, right? Always. We don't know what the ending is going to be. which is different than our usual way or what we can easily fall into when circumstances do not happen as we want them to because it's so frightening and awful for us. We can easily fall into blaming someone, including ourselves. If I didn't do that, it would have been okay. If she hadn't done that, it would have been better.

[40:30]

This blaming, this blaming energy comes from trying to push away, push away how things are. Refusing to take refuge and rest in things as they are. blaming or rigidity, holding on to something, holding on to some idea. You know, we see this in our political public life. I think some folks out of fear, fear of loss, fear of, it's uncontrollable. So we grab some piece that we think we can control. And we hold on to that for dear life, you know.

[41:36]

That's going to do it. That ain't going to do it. Blaming, rigidity, aggression. Aggression is a popular one. That's when we don't in our effort, but feel like we can only settle when we get the result. So, last thing I was going to mention was similar to this, resonant with this, I believe, is a talk given by Suzuki Roshi that's quoted in Not Always So, Ed Brown's compilation of Suzuki Roshi's talks.

[42:43]

And he, Ed, titled this talk, Sun-Faced Buddha, Moon-Faced Buddha. It's toward the end of the compilation. The Sun-Faced Buddha, Moon-Faced Buddha, Suzuki Rishi is talking about this Zen story, which is called Sun-Faced Buddha, Moon-Faced Buddha. And the Zen story is that Matsu Basso was sick and his attendant came one day and said, how are you feeling? And Matsu said, Sun-Faced Buddha, Moon-faced Buddha. So the back story here is, you need to know the back story a little bit. The back story is that a, this is, Suzuki Rishi explains this in the talk.

[43:45]

A sun-faced Buddha lives a thousand years. A moon-faced Buddha only lives 24 hours, a day and a night. So that's what That's what Matsu was, you get the feeling of that? He was saying, his attendant said, well, how are you? And he said, sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha. He means, well, sometimes I feel good and sometimes I don't feel so good. Sometimes I feel like I'm living a thousand years and everything's going great. and I'm a sun-faced Buddha, and then sometimes I feel like life is too short, and things are terrible, and I'm going to die in a day and a night. That's the sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha. But the Buddha, you notice the Buddha is in both of them.

[44:48]

The Buddha is, that is our stability in the face of circumstance, in the face of a thousand years of wonderful life, or in the face of 24 hours of terrible life, there's a Buddha there. That's what Matsu was saying. We're focusing on that Buddha. We're taking care of that Buddha. We're seeing if we can grow that Buddha in the midst of whatever the particular circumstances of our life are. I'm not sure. I think that's... I didn't look it up when Suzuki Roshi talked about that, when he gave that talk. But I think it was at the end of his life, toward the end of his life. I think it must have been after people knew that he was...

[45:53]

Because he says, Suzuki Roshi says, If I die, it's all right. It's quite all right. The word quite is all in capitals. He must have really He was trying to knock it into our noggins, trying to really be clear about where our composure

[47:21]

comes from, rests, develops.

[47:28]

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