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. So is everyone okay back there? Yeah? Okay, good. Welcome everyone. to San Francisco Zen Center, City Center. Welcome, everyone, out there in Zoom land. Thank you all for taking the time to come tonight. My name is Gengyoku Tim Wicks, and I currently serve as the Tanto, or Head of Practice, here at City Center. And I would like to thank Abiding Abbott Makovokal, who's leading the practice period that we're in right now, we're in the middle of right now, and Central Abbott David Zimmerman for letting me hold the Dharma seat tonight.

[01:11]

I'd also like to thank my teacher, Rinso Ed Satterson, for his patience and kindness as he shows me this great way. So I'd like to get rid of this folder, first of all. I'd like to start by situating us on this land where we are, right here, that once belonged to the Ramitesh Ohlone. We are uninvited guests here on this land, and I'd like to do that because living is hard, and it's important for us to have a stable footing in this place at this moment in time. So there used to be no building here, obviously. There was just sort of fields and hills. And then there was a house that was built next door in 1900 that is our conference center.

[02:15]

And it's where we have tea and cookies on Saturdays after our Dharma talk. And it's a beautiful Victorian. Then this building was built in 1920, so a little over 100 years ago. And we're going through a restoration now. Most of you know that, but maybe not all of you do. We're having a year-long restoration where all of the plumbing is being redone, and we're getting new toilets and restrooms. We're going to put in an elevator so that... People who haven't had access to all the building will have access to it. And we're going to have a welcome center in the entryway. The outside of the building is going to look the same, but the inside of the entryway is going to be very different. San Francisco City Center is a bodhisattva training center. And a bodhisattva means enlightenment being.

[03:20]

And a bodhisattva is... someone who studies the way and works towards enlightenment but forgoes entering nirvana until all beings can together be awakened. I had the chance to paint the building next door, the conference center. In fact, it was the last job that I did... as a painting contractor, which is something I did for 30 years. And it was really kind of worn out. We had to replace a lot of rotten wood in it, and now it looks newish, and it's beautiful and returns somewhat to its original glory. And doing something like that, making something old look new again, is a little bit like... putting a new engine in an old car. Something tired and old gets new life.

[04:23]

And the title of this talk is The New Chevy V8. So when I was young and in my 20s, I had a 1972 Chevy Nova. And I loved that car. It had a 307 small block V8 engine in it. and I'm very partial to Chevy small blocks. They're not like those big, fat Ford big blocks. The Chevy small block is small and compact, and it's got lots of room to work on, but it still has got plenty of power. When you change the engine of a car, you put the new one on a bench, and then you take the old one out of the car and put it on the bench next to the new one, And you take a lot of the outside bits and pieces from the old engine and put them on the new engine. The carburetor, the alternator, the distributor. They'll get taken off the old engine and put on the new one.

[05:26]

And after having a worn out engine, there's nothing like having a brand new one in the car that you love. You've given it new life. And coming to train as a bodhisattva is a little bit like getting a new engine. a lot of the outside is the same. The conditioning from your old life is the same. Some parts might have gunk left over in them, left over from the old life. And even though your training is a bodhisattva, you still have karmic consequences, which for me, as a straight white male, I have karmic responsibilities, one of which is towards the Ramatush people who once lived here. As a male, I have karmic consequences and responsibilities towards women. And as someone who's white, I have karmic consequences as a result of the institution of slavery. And that's just to mention a few of the sort of social, outside karmic consequences that I have.

[06:31]

On a personal and more internal level... I was subject to conditions as a child that brought about complex trauma that has left some gunk in my new engine as I trained as a bodhisattva. And these two sets of social exterior conditions and interior conditions have led to some clinging on my part of my old life where I was very self-sufficient before I had before I came to live here at City Center, I was very self-sufficient. And although I was very much leading an isolated life, like we do in our culture, which tends to isolate people, I was able to look after myself in the way that convention says that I should. So I was able to pay rent and my medical bills and have a vehicle. I could afford groceries. I could engage in what... in Buddhism we call worldly affairs.

[07:32]

So here is a koan that I've been working on recently. Koans are word mechanisms that we use to help us awaken. And this is one of the more accessible ones. And this is called Shishuang's 100-foot pole. And here's the koan. I'll read it twice. You who sit on top of a 100-foot pole, although you have entered the way, it is not yet genuine. Take a step from the top of the pole, and the worlds of the 10 directions are your total body. So once again, you who sit on top of a 100-foot pole, although you have entered the way, it is not yet genuine. Take a step from the top of the pole, And the worlds of the ten directions are your total body. Excuse me. So I came to be Tanto five months ago.

[08:38]

It seems like it was just yesterday, but it was a whole five months ago. And I was sort of asked a couple of years ago, the idea was brought up, put forward, and I turned the offer down. there's a lot of pressure in an expensive world to make a living, and you become attached to what it is that you do. And I still was even more attached a couple of years ago. I didn't think I was attached too strongly to my past life, but when I was asked again and said yes this time around, that attachment to who I was and where I was in the world became a source of clinging for me. I took the leap and said yes, but there's still some gunk left over from my previous conditioning. So I've worked with my hands most of my life. I'm trained as a fine artist, and I've always made things. It's a very different life being a tanto.

[09:42]

I used to make things. Now I look after ceremonies and the people who enact them. It's a very unique job, being a tanto, and although it's the best gig in the house, I've had a little bit of trouble letting go of how it is I used to be. And clinging, said the Buddha, is the cause of our suffering. Even if you're provided with everything, as the Buddha was, as a prince, who had, as a father, a black belt codependent, Even if you have everything, you suffer because you cling to the opposites of old age, sickness, and death. So we cling to youth, we cling to good health, and we cling to life itself, which was true in the Buddha's time, and it just astonishes me to no end that it's still true now. So even though I've been practicing here for over 20 years and have now become tanto and still not fully jumping off the pole,

[10:45]

The conditioning is deep. I'd received Jukai in 2006. Jukai is lay ordination. I ordained as a priest in 2014. And I was Shuso, which is first monk for a practice period, not once but twice, in 2016 and 2017. I needed a little extra training and was fortunate to get it. So we think that to jump off the pole, we need to be pure somehow. To fully enter the way, we have to be pure. But our conditioning, as I've said, runs deep. Suzuki Roshi, in the record of his lectures called Not Always So, talks about this koan, this 100-foot pole koan, when he talks about evil desires. He says, mentions evil desires and uses that term, evil desires, as a metaphor for all the things that we want to get rid of before we feel like we can jump off the 100-foot pole.

[11:54]

Because our conditioning runs so deeply, I've seen that there might well be aspects of myself that will probably change very little and I may have to just live with and try to manage as best I can. Complex trauma for me started when I was very young. As I've studied this in myself, which is what Dogen asks us to do, to study these things, I've seen that my experience, one of not being nurtured as a child, is very common. I share this complicated set of responses to life with others. My trauma response to not being touched while this complicated being that is me was developing is significant. something that I share with other people who've had the same experience. I can see as I study my own complex conditioning, I see that others have similar conditioning. This makes it easier to relax around it in me, and then I can study it deeper.

[12:59]

If I see that I share it with others, that somehow makes me grasp it a little bit less tightly. As I do so, the hard fabricated separation between me and others begins to fade. Suzuki Roshi says that when you're in contact with evil desires, when you are in contact with delusion and ignorance, in other words, you're in contact with Buddha nature and you just say yes. Saying yes opens you to Buddha nature. So I want you all to join me in saying yes. Not yet. I'm going to count one to three. I just want to make sure that when you say yes, really try to mean it. And I want you to pay attention to what happens to your insides when you say yes. Okay? So one, two, three. Yes! Yes!

[14:00]

So we're studying the precepts in the practice period right now, the precepts in everyday life, the practice period that Mako is leading. And in the small group that I've been leading with my friend Roger Hilliard, we've mostly been talking about how it is that we break the precepts. Studying them doesn't make us pure. Practicing them means breaking them. and seeing how they are an aspect of what Suzuki Roshi calls our true self. So evil desires, a metaphor for delusion and ignorance, comes with us when we leap from the pole. Our delusion is a part of our Mahayana vision of awakening. The robes that we make, these rakasus and ocasas that we make, are made out of both long and short pieces. The short pieces are the delusion or ignorance panels, and the long pieces are the sexy wisdom panels that we all come to Buddhism for.

[15:17]

But we're not trying to get rid of our ignorance and delusion because that's a part of the broad picture of awakening for us. We actually sew them together because that's a part of the whole project of Buddhism. We don't, in other words, just make our robes out of long pieces only. The rakasus are made out of one short piece and one long piece in each row. But the priest robes, this big rakasu is made out of one short piece and two long pieces. So at least you have a little bit more wisdom, hopefully, or the admonition is that you should anyway by the time you reach priesthood. So it's because our conditioning is so deep, I find that we study and practice with the precepts. They are how we order our lives as we learn to be our true selves. But we fall and make mistakes. So we forget.

[16:20]

And Mako's been talking about this in the class. We forget about our precept study. And we need reminders. And to me... That's what the whole of Zen practice is. It's a series of reminders throughout the day to be present with my true self. I know that I'm clinging, and it's important to be fully present on the 100-foot pole. That's why we have these ceremonies and rituals and why we recite sutras and verses. To help me with this Koan that I've been working with for the last couple of weeks, I've been reciting Dogen's Ehei Koso Hotsu Ganmon, which we don't recite that often here, but we do at Tassahara, our mountain monastery. And it's in the form of a gatha. A gatha is a vow that's actually... Gathas are the...

[17:26]

style is is actually pre-Buddhist it's their Vedic and but they always start with we vow with all beings or I vow with all beings this is a really long one they're usually very short I'm not going to read the whole thing but I'm going to read just a couple of parts of it we vow with all beings from this life on through countless lives to hear the true dharma That upon hearing it, no doubt will arise in us, nor will we lack in faith. And as I'm on the pole and trying to be present with my conditioned self, which is clinging, that's what it is that I'm lacking, faith. That's why I'm still holding on to that pole. That upon meeting it, we shall renounce worldly affairs and maintain the Buddha Dharma. And in doing so, the great earth and all living beings together will attain the Buddha way. Although our past evil karma has greatly accumulated, indeed being the cause and condition of obstacles in practicing the way, may all Buddhas and ancestors who have attained the Buddha way be compassionate to us and free us from karmic effects, allowing us to practice the way without hindrance.

[18:49]

And after requesting that we make contact with our ancestors, Dogen, that brought this practice to us, Dogen ends powerfully, quietly, explore the farthest reaches of your causes and conditions. So study deeply what it is that is making you hold on to that 100-foot pole, as this practice is the exact transmission of a verified Buddha. confessing and repenting, which is what I'm doing right now. In this way, one never fails to receive profound help from all Buddhas and ancestors. Please, please, please. That's not in there. I just said that. By revealing and disclosing our lack of faith and practice before Buddha, we melt away the root of transgressions by the power of our confession and repentance. This is the pure and simple color of true practice, of true mind of faith, of the true body of faith.

[19:51]

So Zen Buddhism begins with the body. Our posture in Zazen is a yoga posture, and it is the posture of enlightenment. We're asked to keep an upright position through our sitting, no matter what happens on the inside. And just like a pine tree, we sit up straight throughout all weather, through joy, through sadness, through exhilaration, through depression, through stress and calm. We didn't used to, when I first came to do sashins here, sashin is a concentrated period of meditation, usually five or seven days. When I first came to start doing sashins here, we didn't have... stretching or yoga. We didn't have any movement at all but now we do and I'm really happy about that. There's almost always a period of at least stretching if not yoga each day.

[20:56]

So there's a deep connection between Buddhism and yoga. Yoga actually predates Buddhism and influenced it a great deal in Buddhism's early form. There's actually sculptural evidence of yoga being practiced 2,500 years before the Common Era. And some scholars believe that yoga's first flowering was at the time of the Buddha. And Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, which to some, but not to everyone, are the sort of Bible of yoga, Bibles of yoga... probably wrote the sutras about the same time that Mahayana Buddhism was developing in the second century of the common era. Our bodies have these great big ridiculous brains that are only partially used. And this, in fact, our whole skull developed so that it could house this oversized brain that we have.

[22:04]

And along with the brain, which is where the mind does its work, which is what it is that we work deeply on in our Zazen practice, is the mind. Along with the brain, we have a very complex nervous system that has to be nurtured very carefully. So I've read 15 years or so, is how long it takes for the human nervous system to mature. If it isn't, if we're not cared for as influenced by loving adults, and lots of research now is saying that you actually need to have two loving parents, not just one, a minimum of two loving parents. If you don't have that, then there's going to be problems. My parents were not able to be around, and as we do, I blamed them and was very bitter when I first came here to San Francisco Zen Center. Our families are our most recent karmic responsibilities.

[23:06]

The result of childhood neglect for me and so many others I've met has been shame. My teacher scolds me for talking too much about shame. He calls me with some irritation a shame expert. But I talk about my practice and this is what it is that I practice with. So once you put the new engine in the car and everything is all bolted down, you start it up. Usually you have to make a few adjustments. But when you hear it roar for the very first time, there's nothing quite like it. This power and the sound and most of all the sense of accomplishment. I put this engine in. But you have to go easy for the first couple of thousand miles. You've got to really kind of take it slow. You have to break it in. You've got to break in the new engine. Most importantly, you have to blow out that gunk from the transplanted parts left over from previous lives.

[24:09]

This you do gently and over time. There might be a couple of parts that can't make the shift to the new engine, and they have to be discarded, replaced with a new part. After a few weeks, you do the final adjustment to the valves, and then you're off and running. And the thrill can feel miraculous. So too are Zen practice. We're asked, while understanding emptiness and interconnectedness, that is true reality, to begin to have a different relationship with time. I'll save that topic for another talk, but what I have learned and what I do want to say is that it's possible to change the past from this present moment. To me, my parents were too preoccupied to pay attention to me and my three sisters.

[25:12]

My mother was dying of cancer and my father from alcoholism. The bitterness and resentment were eating me alive and when I first came to City Center. Zen Buddhism taught me to let go of the story, and over time I've become open to other stories. I know that my parents loved me, and surely they were happy that day when my mother returned from the doctor after having been told that she would have another child. I know my father was thrilled at the idea of having a son, men and their desire for legacy. My mother had great fun, she told me, with her first pregnancy. So two years ago, I came across these words that I want to give to you, for you to use, if you would like to. And they're from Norman Patrick Brown, who is a Diné poet and actor. Diné is the name that some but not all Navajos would like to be called.

[26:20]

It basically means people. And I found this as a sort of frontispiece to a poem by Joy Harjo, who's our first Native American poet laureate. And here are the words that he said. Very short, I'll say it twice. I am the Holy Spirit of my father's song and my mother's prayer. I am the Holy Spirit of my father's song and my mother's prayer. And now I'm going to finish with a poem. It's also not very long, but I'll only read it once. And it's called Open by David White. It is a small step to remember how life led to this moment's hesitation.

[27:21]

how the door to the deeper world opens, letting the body fall at last toward the few griefs it can call its own. Oh yes, I know, our wings catch fire in that downward flight and we come to earth afraid we can never fly again. But then we always knew heaven would be a desperate place, everything you desired coming in one fearful moment to greet you. your full presence only in rest and the love that asks nothing, the rest where you lie down and are no longer found at all. Thank you all 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.

[28:25]

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.

[28:38]

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