This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good evening. Very nice to be here. And I want to thank Fu Schroeder for being such a gracious host. And I said that in haste. And also several members of San Francisco Center and Green College for inviting me to speak here this evening. I will stay mindful of the time. I think we go until 8.15. But stop at 8.15 maybe at the most so we can have some discussion. Is that the format?

[01:01]

Time between now and then is divided however you like. Okay, good. But I know this is an evening talk and everybody's been up since very early and it's very easy to get sleepy in the evening. If you do, that's okay. People doze off sometimes during lecture in the morning as well. And so we don't create a dichotomy between awakening and falling asleep. You know, there's that famous story of Rinzai when his teacher walks into his endo and he's sleeping on the floor. And he goes with a stick and hits the head monk who's sitting very straight and erect and awake. And he says, you should be more like him. Like Rinzai who was sleeping that moment.

[02:02]

So we have to be careful with our dichotomies, dualities. Although sometimes people say, oh, that's so confusing. Zen can be so paradoxical. And it's nice when we keep dual things separate, you know. this over here and this over there, but reality's not quite that way, so. And I also have to get up very early tomorrow morning to go up in the zendo, so we're in the same boat, and hopefully I won't fall asleep giving the talk. I know there's a famous Zen teacher who used to do that, but yes, so. So the Dharma is indefinite and infinite, and it's happening in an indefinite period of time, and yet always in time and on time.

[03:04]

And so the topic I have chosen for this evening is one that I've been working on for some time. I think you saw the the title already, there was a title out there for the talk. But it also coincides with the fact that today is the anniversary of my father's death, died on September 26, Yom Kippur is also the Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement was today. And they don't always coincide, but this year they did, and the two, I mean, September 26th, the two calendars, the Hebrew calendar and the Roman calendar. And they concided the year of his death and the same this year. And my father's name was René, which in French means reborn. So, therefore, the topic, the title of the talk is Mother and Father in Sin Practice.

[04:12]

And as you see, it's a topic that kind of spans or bridges these two worlds that I practice in and inhabit. And I added, since I was told that the topic of your study, you're studying a study period now? Summer season, we usually have a topic. You have a topic, what skillful means. So I added, ask the skillful means of infinite life. mother and father being the means of infinite life. And you know, in the Lotus Sutra, which Logan liked, the Buddha is referred to as the father of the world. And the Buddha uses various means to help people, including being a father and being a doctor. Although the medicine being used doesn't always feel good, how it tastes good and can even be suspect at times.

[05:16]

I think there's a story there where he's trying to convince his sons, it's an allegory, it's not the Buddha himself. He's talking about the parable of a father who was a doctor and was trying to get his children to take the medicine and they won't take it. So he tells them that he died and he fakes his death. And then after he fakes his death and they decide to take it. So there's a whole discussion there of skillful means in terms of is that saying a form of falsehood? Is that inconsistent with the Dharma? And the Lotus Sutra says it isn't. Then that's actually skillful means. Upaya also means the energy of nature. I don't know if you knew that or if you've focused on that or not. or prajna. It's not prajna, but prajna. So with a G instead of a J in the transliteration. And as we see, this energy of nature is very close to prajna or wisdom.

[06:24]

And so prajna, we could say it's infinite life, and prajna is its realization. So I use the term infinite life and father and mother as means of life, even for Buddhists. So now into the main topic, I'm gonna start with the case 123 of the sound of the one hand koan collection. And the main character in the koan is a mythological figure by the name of Prince Nada. Prince Nada tore up his flesh and returned it to his mother, broke up his bones and gave them back to his father. Then he revealed his original body and exercising great magical power preached the truth for his parents.

[07:34]

Yes. Prince Nada, a mythological figure, tore up his flesh and returned it to his mother, broke up his bones and gave them back to his father. Then he revealed his original body and, exercising great magical power, preached the truth for his parents. And then... The Koan, the format of this Koan collection gives an answer for the Koan. And the answer is, Mother, you must be tired. Shall I rub your shoulders for you? So Prince Nada, Nada in Spanish is nothing. Prince. Prince nothing or prince of emptiness.

[08:40]

Or a prince, true prince has no prince. Like the Buddha was a prince but really became no prince. Or the prince is a pauper or a servant of the people. Or the emperor has no clothes. Or the gods and the revolutionaries have clay feet. That's like the fifth rank. Just an old cranky man sitting by the fireplace. So he realized that his flesh and bones were empty and carried himself and that of his parents across to the other shore. And he touches the self nature of being tired and of ire and anger. when we're tired and sleepy, we easily get angry.

[09:44]

Like a child that cries, is frustrated, and wants food, and then falls asleep with his ice cream, or the ice cream cone on his eyes. Have you ever seen that picture? It's a wonderful picture of a baby asleep on the ice cream. Just wanted that ice cream, but really wanted to sleep. So didn't know how to read his needs. And so the mother has to know how to read what the baby really wants. So we're all like that baby. What is that we want? What's our inmost request? So This koan reveals different aspects of the parent-child relationship. Traditionally, a child has to make sacrifice and renunciations and honor their father and their mother.

[10:51]

And the Torah or the Old Testament stresses filial duty in the form of the commandment to honor your father and your mother, which is one of the Ten Commandments. And in contrast, in the Gospel or the New Testament, it features Jesus throwing his mother out of the house of his father in heaven and not having a relationship to the father that raised him. And I don't know if you know this quote from Luke that says, If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and his mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. And we know in our own tradition, Tozan is a famous story that has caused some controversy. The founder of Soto Sen in China also closed the door on his mother when in her old age she came knocking and asking for help.

[12:01]

And then The story goes that after she died, Tozan had a dream where his mother told him that thanks to his action or his response, she was freed from attachment and now lives in one of the heavenly realms. So in traditional Buddhism, filial duty was an important obligation for lay people. There is a clear distinction between For lay people, it's like the Torah or the Old Testament, to fill your duty, honor your father and your mother. And monks instead have to abandon their families. And for them, the sangha becomes their siblings, and the teachers become like their parents. So the sangha becomes like a family. And the teachers become like our parents. And then very similar... kinds of dynamics that happen in the family of origin than can happen in sangha life.

[13:05]

So even though we may think we leave that family behind, that family continues with us in our own psyche and then we reproduce those relationships and those feelings in relationship to the sangha. So that's the samsara within nirvana. So we leave samsara behind, but then we find that right in the middle of nirvana is also samsara, which was the teaching of Nagarjuna. And then we have all the sometimes the problems that can happen in residential communities and between teachers and students and problems with sex and aggression and so on. So the father and mother are the progenitors of the karmic body.

[14:16]

The body is, our bodies, comes from a sexual act. I mean, that's a truism, but it's true. We take it for granted. And it's an act of passion and desire between the parents that at the same time becomes forbidden knowledge. forbidden knowledge of the flesh for human beings and something that's called the primal scene which according to psychoanalysis is one of the core proto-fantasies and it's interesting that according to Basubandhu He said that even in between lifetimes, that after we die, if we believe in rebirth, which we don't have to necessarily, although it's part of Buddhist teaching, but we can have the practice without necessarily believing in rebirth.

[15:28]

And we can understand rebirth as something that happens in just this one lifetime. But according to Vasubandhu, we actually choose which sexual act we're going to join in order to be born. Which couple, which coupling, which parental coupling we're going to join in order to be born. So according to Buddhism, every existence or every birth is an act of karmic retribution. So on the one hand, a human birth is a result of good karma and an opportunity for practice and for enlightenment. On the other hand, realized Buddhas are considered to have ended a long series of deaths and rebirths.

[16:32]

So what happens to Buddhas after that? And traditional Buddhism views Buddhas as no longer subject to rebirth. And so... And at the same time, there's something in us, or in Buddha nature, that is neither born nor dies.

[17:37]

So, There is the reality of the unborn and the undying. So even though we're born, we're not really born. And even though we die, we don't really die. So what happens to Buddha then after death? And so Buddha continues. The mind of the Buddha continues. continues in the mind of his or her disciples in the same way that our parents live in us. So what happens to our parents after they die? Well, they continue to live in our memory and in our own being, but as ourselves, not as something separate from us.

[18:38]

That's the problem. Sometimes people have grief when their parents die and they may become depressed because in some way they don't realize that after their parents die, actually they may become closer to them than they ever were before. So the dead parent, when people have unresolved grief, or melancholia, is because the person who died hasn't become a part of them, remains separate from them. And so when the parent becomes part of you, then it's a part of you. They become you rather than them. And in the same way, teachers and students, the student, the teacher lives on in the student, but not as a nagging teacher, Although sometimes it's said that, well, what would Suzuki Roshi say in this moment?

[19:46]

Or what would he say? Would he scold me? Or so on and so forth. That's kind of allegorical. Sometimes teachers speak to themselves in that way. They call themselves out. Say, Raul, yes? What are you doing? Where are you? Where are you? What are you in this moment? What is happening? So the Buddha is not reborn but lives on in the mind of the disciples. So that's one possible answer to this question of what happens to the Buddha once the Buddha dies.

[20:47]

And we all have a relationship to our ancestors who came before us and we chant the names of our ancestors every day and many times. And the names, we actually recite names even though we don't give it that much importance to names the names are also important because they convey something meaning it's a signifier pointing at the moon the signifier is not the moon but the moon or the finger but in this case we say the signifier because it's a name it's not just a finger it's a name which is a human construction And where does it come from? Where does it go? The words are uttered, and where do they go?

[21:50]

So that's the reality of the unborn and undying. So the name invokes the moon in us. That's the mind of Buddha. The Buddha mind. But the name is not the moon. But it also depends on how we chant the name and with what kind of intention. We chant the name. It depends if the name then does in fact invoke the moon or whether the name is just a word pointing to the moon but it's not the moon itself. So sometimes in the chanting the name is the moon.

[22:59]

The moon is the name and it's just chanting. And sometimes we're just chanting And when we're just sort of going over the motions of the recitation of the name, then these are just names and words that are not actually invoking the actual moon. So Buddha is the name of the moon, of this mind that we call Buddha, that we call moon. remember that after my father died, both in the birth of my children and in the death of my father, my mother's still alive, it was the closest to the experience of Sazen.

[24:05]

Right there, the experience of birth and death. is right there in the experience of Zazen. And in the experience of birth, there's this great effort, this total, complete exertion of the mother in giving birth, and the total, complete exertion of this child coming through and being born, and going from one element to another element, this transformation of elements, and this great shout. that comes out and the room is completely illuminated and this illumination is the light of the radiance of our being of precisely the unborn in birth and in death

[25:09]

There's the death trance, right? So people go into this death trance. And so we sit with people in the death trance, and the death trance is Zazen. And then the moment that they pass, there's this great flashing and illumination. I remember my father's world, he was completely radiant. And he looked like a young man, actually, as he passed. So right there we have the unborn and the undying in birth and in death. Not one, not two. But you have to have the eye open to be able to see that. Otherwise, it looks like birth and death as two completely different things.

[26:17]

But in fact, birth and death could be called birth death. It's just one word, birth death. So even though to be born requires karma, we're not born without karma. And even birth is seen by Buddhism as an act of karmic retribution. And yet it's also an opportunity. So karma is both an opportunity for practice and for practice realization. And at the same time, it's a limitation, a constraint and a form of suffering. So right there, there's both suffering and liberation, one piece. that's just like sitting Sashin suffering and liberation for death one piece undivided so that's what we have trouble with in Sashin that it's precisely undivided and we want to divide it right we want to you know say let's get rid of the suffering part the aging you know knees or legs or whatever

[27:44]

And just keep the nice illumination aspect of it. But we can't do that. They both rise together. At the same time, we have to live in a world of duality. And if we have to move, we have to move. But if we move, we solve one thing. And then we also, you know, what we gain on one side, we lose on the other. It's good. it's good to move, it's good not to move. So he used to say, don't move. That's the way I was trained in the old school in the early years. Don't move. And then saying don't move became like this old-fashioned tyranny, patriarchal tyranny from the Middle Ages. Men forcing themselves to put themselves through this kind of masochistic kind of pain.

[28:46]

And why would we want to do that? Isn't that crazy? Well, some people actually didn't injure themselves. So it's possible to injure yourself in Sazen. So you have to be careful. There are certain pains that we should avoid. And there are other pains that we take on. So sometimes we're in the world of duality and we separate pain from no pain or pleasure from pain or joy from pain. And other times we see things from the point of view of non-duality. And sometimes the answer is over here and sometimes the answer is over there. And the teacher will tell you one thing one day, tell you the opposite thing the next day. And there are lots of stories about that.

[29:48]

Well, what come you said this on one day and then you said this other thing on the other day? Aren't you contradicting yourself? Right? We're all educated according to the principle of non-contradiction. Aristotelian logic, square of oppositions. Truth is non-contradiction. Teachers are always contradicting themselves. And it drives us crazy. And parents... do the same thing. You know? They're always contradicting themselves. So they say, oh, do as I say, not as I do, and so on and so forth. But each time is a teaching specific to the situation. So the other side has to be included on this side. Joy is included in pain, but pain also includes joy.

[30:53]

So the truth that life is suffering also means life is joy. I sometimes say, oh, the Jews particularly, you know, If you're in contact with Jewish community, some of them say, oh, Buddhism, you know, they're all suffering, suffering, suffering, you know, so much pain. Oy, baboy, you know, we already have so much pain. Why do we want more pain, you know? And life is joy. What do you mean life is pain? Don't you know the rabbis who were about to be killed, you know, and they were singing? So... So we have to keep both sides always in mind within perspective. So there's a story of Tozan, apropos of this question of

[32:08]

of the mind of the Buddha and the unborn and undying. And so there's a story where when Tozan was a young man in his early 20s, you've probably heard this story before, he visited Nansen. Nansen was a disciple of Basso Matsu. And They were going to make offerings to Matsu who had just died. And Nansen asked the assembly whether they thought that Matsu would come. So this was the funeral. And so Nansen, who was the student of Matsu, asked the assembly, well, do you think Matsu is going to come? What do you mean he's going to come? He's dying, don't you see?

[33:09]

He just died. He's dead there. What do you mean he's going to come? He just left. Did he leave or is he just arriving? So the community was completely silent. Nobody said a word. You know, those moments in or in the Dharma hall, whichever it may be. And so Tozan answered, gave an answer, and he said that Matsu will come as soon as he finds his companion. So it's a question, what happens after the Buddha dies? The Buddha is extinct. The Buddha shows the place of extinction, but it's not really extinguished.

[34:14]

And this is also part of the Bodhisattva teaching. There is no extinction. So, Matsu's life, Matsu's life and death continues in the mind of So then after Tosin had said that, Nansen responded saying, although this man is a youth, he's excellent material to carve and polish. Although this man is a youth, we would say this person these days, not man, is a youth, he or she is excellent material to carve and polish. Sounds, you know, fair, good enough thing to say, something that a teacher would say.

[35:24]

And then Tozan responded, let not the venerable abbot debase a free man into a slave. Tozan points to the inner self that cannot be carved and needs no polishing that is already there. So this is a little bit like the story of the mirror, the sixth ancestor, and the two poems. One poem says the Zen, the practice of Zen is the practice of polishing the mirror. And the other poem says, there is no mirror, so what is there to polish? So those are the two sides. Birth and death, no birth, no death.

[36:27]

So Zen students are untamed. It's not taming. It's not socialization in that sense. It's not, in that sense, it's different than raising children. Although in education, they say the education, you bring the understanding and the knowledge from within the student. It's not something you're putting on top of them. You're bringing something forth. So it's the same understanding. We're not taming students. We're bringing forth their nature. That's already there. that is natural and free. So that's why the bodhisattvas, when they're riding different animals, whether it's a lion or an elephant, these are not tamed animals. The bodhisattvas are in accord with the nature of the animal.

[37:35]

So this is how the teacher-student relationship differs from the father-son or the father-daughter relationship. A student is more in accord and more free from the teacher than a son or a daughter will ever be, hopefully. And if a student doesn't feel free from the teacher at the same time that they're in accord with the teacher. So it's complete accord and complete freedom. that represents a true father. It's not the father that represents a head on top of your head, sort of the superego chastising you, telling you, oh, you need to be doing this and so on, this kind of duality. That's the carving and the polishing. And there's some of that that does take place in sent training.

[38:40]

But it's not really the ultimate teachings. that's an expedient so you have to be able to feel completely in accord with your teacher and at the same time completely free from the teacher and this is part of the those two sides are the same teaching in the in the Torah and the New Testament so Jesus is saying being completely free from throw out throw out your father from the house or leave your father's house or throw out your mother and leave your mother it doesn't mean and at the same time the other side is mother can I rub your shoulders how are you feeling how are you are you aching so it doesn't mean that Tozan slammed the door on his mother That actually, literally, one is not supposed to honor your father or your mother.

[39:43]

But you have to become free from them. And ultimately, you have to become free of your teachers as well. You have to become completely yourself. But when being completely yourself, you're in complete accord with your teacher. So the mother is the first example of the self-evidence of things. She's not an object outside of me. She's a self-object. She's me and she's herself.

[40:53]

So a mother doesn't treat her child as an object that treats the child as herself. And when the mother treats the child as an object of her own narcissism or to satisfy her own needs, rather than those of her child, then that creates a lot of suffering for that child at some point. So all things are like this. So this is the understanding of the mother as Prajnaparamita. So Prashnaparamita is the mother of the Buddhas. And this is the example of the mother as a Buddha or as a teacher. So the good mother knows what the child wants as a subject, not as her object.

[42:06]

As a subject like her. As a mirror. but it's not her reflection in the mirror. And this is similar to the practice between teacher and student. There's the practice of Sindhava between teacher and student, where the student actually has to figure out what it is that the teacher wants. The teacher won't tell you. You have to use your intuition to find out exactly what is it that they want at that moment. As an expression of this self-intuition, as this self-evidence of reality. This. So that's like a child and its mother. And at the same time, the mother represents the root of desire, the first object of desire.

[43:19]

And that's the root that needs to be cut off. So that's why the teachings also say, you know, leave your mother and your father behind. And Rincai said, you know, if you come across your mother and your father, kill your mother and your father, And if you come across the Buddha, also kill the Buddha. And this is from a teaching from the Lankavatara Sutra, where precisely they're talking about all the things that you're not supposed to do to the Buddha, the cardinal sins. To hurt a Buddha, to make a Buddha bleed, to kill your mother and your father, to kill a Buddha, the worst mortal cardinal sins. And at the same time, that is used as an example of realization. So the mother represents this attachment to the breast, to wanting this never having enough of the other and of the object of desire, which is precisely produced through this

[44:38]

fusion between the mother and the child that the child wants to return to. But then the child gets stuck in the reflection. It's not like a mirror with reflections. So wanting to get back to getting attached to the other is a way of trying to catch one's own image in the mirror because the attachment to the other is really the attachment to ourself. So often there's this tension between Western psychology who emphasized the importance of healthy and secure attachment and Buddhism that emphasizes non-attachment. So this non-attachment is cutting this root of desire. But the healthy attachment is the realization that we're all connected.

[45:43]

That mother actually represents the self-evidence of things, of what things actually are, which is us, which would be me, or you. So we're already there, we're already connected, we already have each other completely. But in our delusion or in our ignorance, we think that we don't. So we can't get enough of it and want more of it. And the father also represents ignorance. This ignorance of having this voice of authority outside ourselves as not being who we are. So there is no authority outside.

[46:53]

The authority is only intrinsic to us. We are the author of our own thoughts. These ideas that we're creating of the others. Oh, my teacher said this, or she wants this, or he wants that. Or, why won't he do this, or why won't he say that? So those are all the images of the father as ignorance. So that's the dual side and the non-dual side is that the father is really the Buddha. And this is part of our confusion because these two aspects of reality are one. And sometimes it looks like this and sometimes it looks like that.

[47:55]

Sometimes we think our teachers are very wise and sometimes we don't think they're that wise. Or we think they can't have any shortcomings or faults. I think I've stirred enough dust for one evening. So I think I'm going to open it up for questions and discussion. Yes?

[49:03]

Could you go over there about the ignorance part? That you think of the authority of your father or the teacher as outside yourself. reproaching you or telling you to do something or not do something, when in reality, these are your own voices that are speaking to you. And the ignorant father's also the one that puts himself in that place of an authority separate from you, rather than helping you find within yourself.

[50:04]

Where the ignorance is. I guess that you see it as something separate from yourself. that we ignore, that the world arises together with us, that it doesn't really exist out there separate from us. I think that's the way that actually Lankavatara Sutra speaks of the father as ignorance, and that's the root of ignorance that has to be cut off and turned into wisdom. And we can't really learn that from our fathers, and that's why we have to seek for the Buddha, who is the true father, the true, kind, noble one.

[51:21]

Although, at the same time, in every father also lives the Buddha. And sometimes that's revealed, and sometimes it's concealed. Welcome. Yes? You talked about being represented in accordance with the future. Can you say a little more about what that you do the same practice together and that you know exactly what to do and you know one of the coincidences like meeting your meeting running into your father at the crossroads or the practice of bowing

[52:35]

It's the same thing. And it's not a struggle so much anymore. I mean, often there is a lot of struggle that happens in the teacher-student relationship, where the teacher is dissatisfied with the student or the student is dissatisfied with the teacher, where the teacher criticizes the student or the student criticizes the teacher. And a lot of that goes on as part of the normal relationship samsaric life of Buddhist Sangha life. But at some point, that drops off. And there's no longer any criticism. Or any idea of practice. The practice is just the practice. There's no separate idea of practice. This is what you do. This is what you do. And you do it together. If you had any words on cutting root desire, is there a role for discipline and how do you see that?

[53:55]

Well, desire is ultimately emptiness. Emptiness. And we're trying to fill the emptiness with something. Fill it. Fill the emptiness with something. Put something where there's nothing. But that something that we're trying to put in the place where there's nothing, I mean, it's like the ego, too. It's like the ego. There's an absence of self, and because there is no self, we're trying to fill it with the self. Instead of just letting it be what it is, and then the self flowers of its own accord. And so desire is just life and emptiness. And so it has to be left just as a pure desire. This is the pure intention. The inmost requests that Tsukiroshi spoke about.

[55:03]

So that's really the way to cut the root of desire, is not trying to eliminate desire, because that's nihilistic. Then you become kind of deadly. Deadly and lifeless. As opposed to lively and empty. Lively and empty. So it's a different understanding, a little bit of desires. Desire something. As you say, desires are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. But if they're inexhaustible, how can you end them? You can't really end them. Because if you end them, then you're dead. Which we already are anyway.

[56:06]

But in that deadness, we're also very alive. And so that aspect of aliveness or infinite life is also there in desire. And it's just pure desire without being fixated to any object of desire. So leave desire without so many objects, just this pure intention, this pure yearning. Desire actually arises in objects. It gets attached to the object. But otherwise it's just life. It's aliveness. So aliveness is not the same. You could say desire is when the object, the life force, clings to like a moth and a light, right? Clings to a particular object. You could say that's desire, that without the object there's no desire.

[57:08]

Or you could say that it's just desire without an object, without a fixed object. Empty. Well, for example, let's say, let's say, I'll use myself because I don't know if you like chocolate a lot. Chocolate. I want chocolate. How do you look with that? Yes. Well, sometimes, you know, I like chocolate and sweets. I have a tooth, a sweet tooth. But I don't, I don't buy it. And I don't have it around me. Because I know that it will make me sick if I keep eating it. I want to continue eating more and more and more. So I just don't eat it. Except very occasionally, I'll take a bit of chocolate and I will enjoy it. And stop at that. Not eat the whole bar. But the way to discipline myself is not to have it around because otherwise there is an inclination to eat the whole bar of chocolate.

[58:13]

So that's part of letting go, but I don't develop an idea of chocolate as being that. I think chocolate is a wonderful product of the earth. And of human beings. So it's not my enemy. And then there's... Not to have it around? You just don't buy it. You don't buy it. And then the hard thing is if you work and you're at your work setting and then people bring it to work. Because there's always the excuse, well, you don't need to work, but I work. Everybody's working hard. You've got to have something. And so then it's laying around. You haven't bought it. And then to restrain yourself from... from eating it there, then that takes a little extra effort.

[59:15]

But then, you know, our nature is chocolatey. So eventually we become the chocolate. And then we feel satiated. About zazen? All of this is zazen. Well, zazen is the practice of stillness and activity. The activity of stillness. Because even though we're sitting still, within that stillness, there's great activity. whole universe opens there before our very eyes.

[60:21]

And the universe is the stillness within activity. So right in the middle of that noisy street where there's all this noise and the children playing, nothing is moving. Everything is... Still, in all that activity. So it's just our life is like that. And that's why Dogen said, Zazen, don't think Zazen is something special, different from anything else. Zazen is like a rock, piece of rock pressing on grass. It's just like a rock sitting on a blade of grass. So the more, you know, but the more we sit, the more we realize that.

[61:27]

And the more we sit, the more we realize that our life is Zazen. The universe is Zazen. And becomes our ordinary state of mind. Because that's what it is to begin with anyway. It's just that we don't realize it. So we need to realize, we need to sit to realize who we already are. Why would a Buddha choose nirvana over the rebirth? Why would she choose annihilation? Nothing? Well, because he or she hasn't supposedly produced any more karmic activity that could result in a new birth as a retribution for misdeeds during the birth. a lifetime. So the karma has been spent.

[62:32]

So it's not really a matter of choice. Right. I mean, the choice is how you live your life. That's what the choice is. If you live your life this way, this is what happens. If you live your life that way, this is what happens. So that's, you know, like in the Bible it says, Life and death have I said before you, choose life so that you and your children may live. So there's always a forced choice. We're choosing, but we're choosing within the conditions that we have. And within those conditions, if we choose this, our life will go this way, we choose that, it will go in a different direction. We don't know that. We don't know that for sure.

[63:36]

We do know that the spirit of our teachers and of the ancestors continue in the new generations. That we know firsthand. And that's all we need to know. Whether there's a rebirth or not, it's not that important in terms of how we live. our life but there is a way in which we are reborn in this life in the life that we have we can choose life over death we can choose to be to become a new person and this is the new I there's a new I that opens I capital I, and I, I-E-Y-E.

[64:39]

So, but that's the self of no self. But that manifests as a new being. And this is the fruit of practice. Yes. Yes. How can I kill you? How can you kill me? Is that what you said? Don't see me as something separate from you. Thank you. She knew that. She knew that. Yes. Yes.

[65:50]

Before you said something about why would anyone choose to sit in the Deshivaru camp of don't move and just now you said something about the fruit of one's practice and And I wonder, you know, if there's anything beneficial that comes from maybe sitting at the Dejimaru camp with don't move, and is the Suzuki Rokshula and possibly the fruit of the practice? Well, actually, the don't move is with Sojin Haroshi, not Dejimaru. Okay. But I think at some point he stopped saying that because he was getting a lot of criticism for saying that and for understandable reasons. But again, what was the question again? So the choice of being somewhere where you're not exactly sure you should be, what's beneficial about that?

[67:01]

Sitting there thinking like, you know, I have choice for what I'm not here. What's it small enough to see what's choice and what's just kind of preference? Well, your question is, what is there to be gained by not choosing, by just sitting through and not moving? Right. What is there to be gained from that? There's nothing to be gained from that. That's precisely the point. Because precisely that's the problem. If you have gaining idea, you think you're sitting, you know, like a samurai with some gaining idea, to become some rock or immortal or something like that, that's completely useless.

[68:05]

So then people say, well, don't sit that way. Well then, if you say that, then you don't understand the meaning of uselessness. So when teachers say Zen is absolutely good for nothing, you should understand what that nothing means. It just means, beginner's mind, no gaining idea. It's useless from that perspective. You don't get the things you would think you would get, in a worldly sense, from it. It will actually wreck you completely. So, if you're stuck not holding, how do you move? You don't.

[69:12]

But if you have to move, then you bow and you move. And you don't look back. Sometimes you move, sometimes you don't move. Either way. 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 to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[70:04]

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