This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. reflecting lately what a miracle Tassajara is. It so often feels like a miracle to me and in so many different ways. The start of each guest season, it's a miracle to me that it happens at all. You know, we all come together and nearly all of us are in new positions and we find our way and

[01:01]

Guests often say things like, it just feels like a well-oiled machine. How do you do it? And I usually say some variation on practice and structure. We kind of do the same things over and over again, year by year. And we have... and practice at the heart of what we're doing and bow in people's very good hearts. So it just seems like a miracle to me that this keeps going and is apparently a field of refuge and nourishment for so many people. I was also thinking about miracles. Last night, a guest broke her ankle out at the Narrows. I think most of you probably know about that.

[02:05]

I was in my retreat, so I didn't hear about it until a little later, and then I heard from the first person who came back, who was coming back early to open the Zendo, what had happened. By the time I got myself ready with my flashlight to go down and meet people, they were already within Tassajara, and I knew what was going on, because there were suddenly a large group of people, I think there were a couple dozen people, with headlamps, all visibly doing something. They're bringing this woman back on a stretcher. They brought her back from the narrows. So like up over all these rocks, these two sets of rocks, on a stretcher. And one person who went down has done a lot of search and rescue in the mountains and said this was like the most harmonious event that she'd ever seen. She said no one was bickering or trying to tell people what to do. It was just like right there.

[03:13]

There's an old joke at Zen Center that the main qualification for any position is sitting a lot of zazen, regardless of what the position is. But I think that's kind of true, you know. Because when we sit a lot of zazen, we become available for whatever's there. And that's a great skill, is just to be available to show up and meet whatever arises. So there are all these people who are gathering together and just acting as one body. Probably to different people at different points, this felt like a wonderful and amazing thing. But on any given moment, there were two or three or four people carrying the stretcher, trying to dodge poison oak, step over rocks, not dump her off the stretcher, and getting blisters and poison oak.

[04:14]

And in those moments, that probably did not feel like particularly miraculous activity. It's just like, okay, here we go. And that's our practice, just day after day. Here we go. Here we go again and again. Here we go to Zazen. Here we go to service. Here we go to Soji. Here we go to breakfast. Or if you're out in the world, your version of that. Here we go. And just meeting that wholeheartedly. So I wanted to talk a little bit about what Dogen has to say about miracles. So there's a fascicle called Miracles, actually. The miracles I am speaking of are the daily activities of Buddhas, which they do not neglect to practice. The daily activities of Buddhas.

[05:19]

Another translation says, tea and meals, or getting the kids off to school and answering email, whatever it is. This is our miraculous activity, everyday activity. Lainan Pong was an outstanding person in the ancestral seat. One day he said, miracles are nothing other than fetching water and carrying firewood. You should thoroughly investigate the meaning of these words. Dogen really wants us to understand what it is when he says, when Laman Pong says, miracles are nothing other than fetching water and carrying fire. He points us back to that again, and then he goes on to explain. Fetching water means to draw and carry water. Right? It's not like this is some deep symbolic thing, like it's not the moon is enlightenment.

[06:28]

No. Fetching water means to draw and carry water. Washing dishes means to put water and soap in a bowl, wash the dishes, dry them, and put away. This is miraculous activity. Sometimes you do it yourself, and sometimes you have others do it. Those who practice this are all miracle Buddhists. Although miracles are noticed once in a while, as I noticed the miracle of bringing the guest back from the Naras last night, miracles are miracles. It is not that things are eliminated or perished. when they are unnoticed. Things are just as they are, even when unnoticed. Even when people do not know that fetching water is a miracle, the fact that fetching water is a miracle is undeniable.

[07:34]

So the question for us, though, is... How do we realize that fetching water is a miracle? How do we realize that our activity in daily life is a miracle? How do we recognize that our children and friends and co-workers are miracles? How do we see Buddha as Buddha? How do we see all beings as Buddha? And the how is the important part. It's not that there's an answer. This is how you do it. But finding the how of seeing all beings as Buddha is how we practice. We have to keep finding that over and over again. And treating all beings as Buddha. So maybe that's part of the answer. To treat all beings as Buddha. To treat them with gratitude and respect and kindness.

[08:45]

This makes Buddha beings Buddhas, makes you Buddha, makes all beings Buddha, manifest it, realize it. So this intention, this aspiration that we have gives form to our practice, literally forms our practice. And we conform ourselves to our practice. Our minds tend to want to get big and learn something new and have something different and something that conforms to our ideas, our expectations about what something should look like or feel like. And most of the time, you know, it actually doesn't because we miss what's actually there because we're looking for something else. I wanted the green one, and I can't see the blue one that's sitting right there. You can't see the gift. that were being given because we wanted another one.

[09:50]

We wanted it to look a different way. On my altar in my cabin, I have some photographs of different people. Some dear Dharma friends who are now gone. My teacher, who is not gone. and a picture of my mother since she died a couple of years ago. And I suddenly realized that my mother was also one of my teachers, and maybe I would just keep her there. Even though I'd been thinking, oh, at the second anniversary, I think I'll finally go scatter her ashes and put her picture away. And I thought, no. My mother is one of my teachers. And I used to think she was a teacher in a difficult way. Now I see all the ways that she is my teacher in many, many positive ways. And how much I've become more like her.

[10:53]

In ways that I like. Which is just weird. I mean, it's not weird. But ten years ago, that would have been very strange. And now it's just the way it is. And it's great. The universe is giving us gifts all the time. And the more we can be present for them, the more we receive them. And the more we receive them, the more we're aware of them. We're being given so much love and appreciation and kindness. And the way that we're being given it is so often from each other. You know, you all give each other so much all the time. And it, you know, we can see it in times when like morning service goes really smoothly and it's just great and everyone's chanting in harmony.

[12:05]

We feel it then. And it's harder to feel when it's like it's a little off kilter, it's not quite going right. Or we feel it when, you know, the meals come together in the kitchen or the dining room service is going really smoothly. or we have energy, or we're peaceful, or we got a good night's sleep. All of these things make it easier to access that place of gratitude and connection. But actually, it's going on all the time, even if we can't see it. So, Shohaku Okamura, in his commentary on Genjo Koan, says, when we make this very place our own, our practice becomes the actualization of reality. When we make this path our own, our activity naturally becomes actualized reality.

[13:09]

This path, this place, is neither big nor small, neither self nor others. It has not existed before this moment. nor has it come into existence now. Therefore, the reality of all things is thus. He says, the actualization of reality is not a concept or a philosophical idea. It is actual practice using body and mind, a body and mind that are connected with the entire world. A lot of times we think that Realization is something that we'll feel or we'll experience in a particular way. It'll be seeing light or having some sensory special experience. Visions or sounds or flowers raining from the sky or something. There must be some way of recognizing that this is realization. But it's our actual practice.

[14:15]

realizing, making real what we're doing. Although having no beginning or end and permeating all time and space, this path exists only at this very moment, right now and right here. Before I began walking this path, absolutely no path existed for me. And yet this path did not simply come into being when I began to walk it. Whether I walk it or not, bodhisattvas have been walking the bodhisattva path since ancient times. But when we walk that path, when we participate in the path, when we participate in the practice, however we're feeling that moment.

[15:19]

We are part of the Bodhisattva path. We are creating that path in walking it. And it helps us, and it helps others, whether we see it or know it or not. And this is from... From Suzuki Roshi's commentary on the Genjo Koan, the first part is just from the Genjo Koan, here is the place, here the way unfolds. The boundary of realization is not distinct, for the realization comes forth simultaneously with the mastery of Buddha Dharma. When we're fully in this moment, the realization comes forth. It's not something extra. So often we walk past it thinking it's something else.

[16:19]

When our practice is smooth, it can be very hard to see. When we're not having trouble with something, when it doesn't feel like what our idea of practice is, which is maybe just a little bit out of our grasp. We should be working hard, hard in a particular way. That feels like practice. When we struggle, We can often recognize, oh yes, this is practice. This is work. But when it becomes just something we do, it's hard to even experience it as practice. But other people can see our practice. So it's very nice. That's part of why sangha is so important. Because sangha helps us see our practice. It's reflected back. It's reflected back in how they relate with us. Do not suppose that what you realize becomes your knowledge and is grasped by your consciousness. Although actualized immediately, the inconceivable may not be distinctly apparent.

[17:29]

Its appearance is beyond your knowledge. It's not something you can grasp with your mind. It's something that you live with your body. So Suzuki Roshi says, Even though you have it, you don't realize it. You don't feel you have it, but you have it. How can you have this kind of matured practice instead of lazy practice, always sitting on your black cushions with mosquitoes and false pride? That is not actually real practice. Why we practice so rigidly is to acquire that kind of practice little by little. When you are doing rigid practice, sometimes it is fighting with the dragon and sometimes you are bothered by many ideas that come. Anyway, you try to sit. While you are sitting in that way, little by little, without knowing when you acquired the power, you will own zazen.

[18:32]

Zazen will become your own. And you will not feel you are practicing zazen. Even though you are sitting, you will not feel you are practicing zazen. Even though you are doing something else, you will not feel, oh, it is good to do something after zazen. You will not feel much difference between zazen practice and everyday activity because you are familiar with your practice. Old students say, I've been sitting for nothing, I've been sitting for eight years with you, but nothing has happened. Nothing happening is very good. That is so the flavor of Soto Zen. This nothing happening being very good. Day by day we wash the dishes. Day by day we take care of each other.

[19:36]

Nothing happens. but all the rough edges get rubbed off and we become very shiny. You're all very, very shiny. And I'm so deeply, deeply grateful for all of your practice. You have no idea. Maybe when you go out of this valley, you'll know a little more. But it's not the same as what you know when you're here right now. Suzuki Roshi said when he was practicing at Eiji in his training days, it was just, you know, the daily routine. It was just his daily life. It was very, very ordinary. But when he came back years later, he said, the tears just ran from his eyes. You know, he was so moved by hearing the sounds and seeing the place again.

[20:40]

saying these are the good old days now it's not some other time anyone has any questions or stories to share of miraculous activity that you've experienced Could you speak up a little? I was stunned by how still it is.

[21:46]

And I'm here. I don't know if it's all stillness. But obviously in stillness. But when I went to Esla, There was so much activity, so much social, so many people, so much going on around me. But I was so still, it was like it was all going on in my stillness. And I came back there, and again, I don't notice it. But it is so. Thank you. I appreciate it. You said something in regard to our practicing, that it's visible to other people, you know, and I believe still seeing that as I've been walking in the world, you know, I've seen that as unsettled and uneasy as I am from the inside, that's not what's actually, yeah, that's different.

[22:52]

So I think that's stillness that is talking about, I think, My experience is that the longer that you've spent time and more continually supporting the environment, that you kind of walk with that stillness in the world. You know, sometimes you're not only feeling it. It's kind of a deeply rooted place that you're there. Yes. Even though the waves come by. Yeah. 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, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[23:46]

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