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. Good evening. I was thinking that the guest season has really begun now. You might have noticed that all of you, those of you who live here and those of you who are visiting, guest season has really begun. And one of the ways that seems to me like that shows up, now I'm not so sure about it, but in the beginning of the guest season, most of the people here are new to their jobs. A lot of them are new to being here at all. So there's a real... You could call it beginner's mind.

[01:01]

You know, Suzuki Roshi praised beginner's mind as a wonderful state to be in. It doesn't always feel so good. It feels like you don't know what's going on. And in some ways, that's a really good thing. It gives us some different way of thinking. Maybe it feels confused, but there's... There's some freshness there. So now the guest season has really begun. And a lot of people, there are still some new people here. There are some new guests here and some returning guests and some new students. But a lot of us have been doing our job for almost a whole month, a little over a whole month. So we're really experts now. And that means that... our old ways of thinking can reappear. They probably never really went away, but they're not hindered by that sense of not knowing what's going on and trying to figure it out.

[02:09]

And they can be described, in Buddhism they're described quite simply as greed, hate, and delusion. It's like we have thoughts and feelings arise that can fall into those three categories. And we... often have a preference for one or the other. Maybe not a, like, I like that, but a habit, anyway, of falling into one or the other. But we're all pretty good at all three. At least the people I know. And the one I know best really, you know, has her preference. She prefers delusion. This one prefers delusion, but greed and hate function quite well. You know, there are other names for these, greed, hate. Hate maybe sounds a little strong for a lot of our hate states are much more like aversion, resistance, irritation, you know, that kind of sort of negative feeling.

[03:19]

Don't really like it. And then on the greed side, there are, you know, I mean, atasara, there are kind of, well, I mean, there's several things you could be greedy for. You could be greedy for, if you came out of the practice period, you could be greedy for more zazen, like the practice period, or more quiet, like the practice period. We can be greedy for, you know, the teachings. Maybe a really great teacher is coming, and we're looking forward to it, or maybe our teacher is not coming, and we're sad about that but that kind of like I want more of the two that are most prevalent at Tassajara are really just plain old greed for food and greed for whatever you want to call it this is a deep subject which I'm not going to go into a lot tonight but it's a relationship could be called sex but it's more like sexual energy around here so you know

[04:23]

validation from another person, greed for that, like wanting somebody, a particular person usually, but sometimes a lot of people, to really convince me that they think I'm really special. So that's starting to pop up, I'm noticing, in my talking with people, both of those things, the kind of judgment of things, You know, there was always judgment, but now it's getting, like, the vision's getting clearer of what's wrong around here. And it's getting clearer of who's right around here. So, you know, attractions are starting to happen, and delusion is always good. You know, it could be confusion, just confusion about how we feel about something. Sometimes it's more like not paying attention. It's like not noticing enough to have a feeling of whether you actually like it or don't like it.

[05:29]

So, with that tantalizing bit, I was going to actually tell you about a suggestion of Dogon's for how we might view people and things and even our own... feelings about things, our own thoughts about things, even our own greed, hate, and delusion, our own judgments, our own attractions or lusting or whatever form it comes to you in, in our own delusion. This is in the Genjo Koan, so those of us who live here chant this every 10 days. We chanted it just the other day when I returned, I think on Tuesday morning. Today's Wednesday, right? And I thought, that's really profound. When Dharma fills your body and mind, you understand that something is missing.

[06:35]

For example, when you sail out in a boat to the middle of the ocean and look in the four directions, the ocean looks circular and doesn't look any other way. but the ocean is neither round nor square. Its features are infinite in variety. It is like a palace. It is like a jewel. It only looks circular as far as you can see at that time. All things are like this. In order to learn the nature of the myriad things, you must know that although they may look round or square, the other features of oceans and mountains are infinite in variety. Whole worlds are there. It is so not only around you, but also directly beneath your feet or in a drop of water. So this is a very different way of seeing things, people, ourselves. When we look at something and we immediately have a feeling of I like it or I don't like it, I want more of it or I don't want any of it,

[07:47]

this is a different sense. That's like looking at the ocean and seeing a circle. And this is kind of how we live in our life. If you imagine you in your life and looking around and you see various things and when you look at them, you know what they look like. You know that person looks like they're angry. That dinner looks like it's been reheated. That person sounds like they're happy with me. That person sounds like they're unhappy with me. That's called seeing a circle. And it's not wrong. It may be correct, even from the other person, if there's another person's point of view, or from the dinner's point of view, it was reheated. There may be some fact to it. that it can even be, what do they call it, consensus.

[08:51]

There's a mutual consensus about it, but it's still a circle. It's still not the whole truth. So to actually notice that there's more to this fact or more to this thing or this person, than I see and that I experience and let that into our experience of it creates a different world. I heard or I think I read that Suzuki Roshi said that small mind is seeing things just from your own perspective and big mind is knowing that's the only way we can see things. So it's not that we have to actually find out so many things.

[09:56]

We don't have to find out. We don't have to find out what the other person is actually thinking, although sometimes it's useful to ask. We don't have to be able to see something from all perspectives. We don't have to be able to, if we're in a boat in the rise up some way and see the coastline in all the different directions. We can actually be there seeing a circle, seeing an angry face, what we feel is an angry face, hearing a bird sing, tasting a dish that we do or do not like, seeing someone that we think is very, very attractive, We can be right in our spot and see that and still know this is not... That is an unusual sound here. Good.

[10:59]

Okay, that's good. Don't worry. It's not a problem. We can do that. Be in our place. have the world as our experience and actually know it's just my experience. It's not the truth with a capital T. And there's a way to live where that knowledge does not invalidate your experience. It doesn't mean we have to not have our experience to know that it's not the full experience. story in fact it's our job you call it to live in our spot but to have big mind to know there are other spots that are just as valid as ours so then from there to act but to act with not with knowing like I need to tell that person how they should be

[12:03]

Or somebody should tell that person how they should be because I see it and I experience it. They are causing me pain and therefore they are this kind of person and somebody better get them straightened out. It's possible to say, oh, this is causing me pain and I don't know what's happening over there. Do I need to ask them? Would it help if I understood more? Would it help them? Would it help me? making our best guess of our actions and words based on a whole lot of not knowing and a little bit of knowing. Like, oh, this is what's happening for me. This is what's happening for me right now. I don't even know what's going to happen for me in a minute. I cannot assume that every time... In fact, there was a friend of mine... who made me really uncomfortable.

[13:06]

This guy who I would see, I don't know, a couple times a year here. He was here as a student for a while, and then he went away. He was a friend. I liked him. But I didn't like something about him. And I spent a lot of time trying to figure out, what is it I don't like about him? What is it I don't like about him? What is he doing? What is it? And then this thought occurred to me, maybe I should... actually apply this teaching to my experience. So that's a further step in it, to not just apply this not knowing to other people and things, but to actually apply it to my emotions, my thoughts. So here they are. They're not a circle. It looks like a circle. It's not a circle. It's something. something it's a palace it's a jewel so this person was here when i had this thought like oh maybe i should try it instead of looking at what is he doing what is he doing to actually try to say what's happening for me and that and he came up and sure enough this kind of feeling arose that was uncomfortable and i you know it's a little bit tricky like

[14:31]

carry on a normal conversation and be noticing. But it's not impossible, actually. And so I put my mind on this experience, which was just kind of dis-ease, you know? And there's no really great ending to this story. The feeling went away. And it didn't come back the next time I saw him. There was no, like, in this particular case, There was no, you know, the answer was revealed. It's like this feeling that I had, I guess, had had enough attention at that point and thought it had made whatever statement it made. It's also, you know, it's not like the world has to make sense in English or whatever your favorite language is. We don't have to... figure out what is going on and be able to say it to ourselves.

[15:32]

We feel like we do. We want to do that. It's really basically wanting to be in control. It's like, I want to know what's going on so that some of the time I can make it go away or I can turn it the way I want. But the world is not really functioning in our little circle. It's not functioning from our point of view. The world is functioning in some intricate, complex way. I was talking to Keith tonight, and he reminded me that our first summer here, 1976, there were no lectures at all. None. The whole summer. And I think probably in the next few summers, there weren't very many. There weren't any teachers living here. and there weren't teachers visiting, really. We didn't have the retreats, so all the people who'd come and lecture were not coming to lead retreats, and Richard Baker, who was the abbot then, would come a few times, and I think we usually had general meetings, and probably sometimes he gave lectures, but according to Keith, whose memory about these things is better than mine, that first summer there were none.

[16:45]

So I was remembering, Keith and I came from Chicago to... We read about Tassajara, and we really wanted to come to Tassajara, and we were sitting in Chicago, and we wrote to Zen Center and said, we really want to come to Tassajara, and they said, you can't go to Tassajara. You have to go to the city center in San Francisco. So we moved to San Francisco. It could be done back in those days. LAUGHTER moved into the neighborhood and sat at the city center. And after about a year, we came down here. I came, I think he came for two weeks and I came for nine days or something as a guest student. And I really didn't like it. You know, I don't know exactly what I didn't like. Anything, maybe. I didn't like the schedule, you know. And at that point, the new students were interested At least for breakfast, and anyway, I'll tell you, at least for breakfast, the regular students were eating Orioki in the Zendo, and the new students would leave and go eat by ourselves, with somebody, the Eno, or probably not the Eno, somebody who would do the clappers.

[18:03]

And so I don't know for sure what happened, whether it was breakfast that we had this, or whether we also did that at dinner. I think it must have been breakfast. Anyway, we had... gruel that was... I know it had cauliflower in it, and I know it was pink. It had... Must have had beets, the remains of beets or something. Anyway, I was not happy. Not happy with the whole thing, and we were here for 10 days, and we went away, and I was relieved. And then life went on, and I sat a couple seshines, and a few years went by, and... I'm a slow starter, so I got more used to zazen and this taste for, this thirst for kasar practice periods. I didn't know exactly what they were, but I knew something about them, and it was like, I need to go there. I want to go there.

[19:06]

Eventually, I came back and I was here for the practice period, and there was even more schedule. You know, I got to be in the Zendo eating the Horioki, and there was more pink gruel, mostly at night at least, not in the morning by that time. And I loved it. I totally loved it. I don't know, totally. But anyway, I loved it. And I felt like I need to know, do I like Tassajara or do I not like Tassajara? Who am I? Am I the person who didn't or the person who... does and actually I I didn't need to know I don't need to know still you know I I'm at Tassajara and things are happening at Tassajara that are quite miraculous and if you ask me I would say I'm very happy and I like Tassajara but you know as all of you probably feel there are things about Tassajara that are kind of difficult those flies for instance

[20:14]

So we don't have to tie our experience down to something, something that we can say. We don't have to tie ourselves down to something we can say. We don't have to tie other people down to something we can say. We think that will make us feel better, like I'll know. I'll know something. I'll know how I feel about this. I'll know what I want to do. But really, life is much more complex than that. We live our life in a circle of water. And we see a circle. And we look at things and we see them. And we see people. And we see ourselves from our limited... We see it from our... We see it from our whole experience, but then we also have this even more limit, which is limited. Our experience is limited.

[21:18]

It's just from my place, not from your place. But then it's even more limited by how I can articulate that. We don't have to just live our life in there. We can live our life with the possibility of all the unknown being there. And in some ways, this is the best gift we can give ourselves and each other. Where we don't tie a person to the mood they were in that day when they talked to us. Where we give them a clean slate, if possible. And we may still have this experience of them. We may still get a yucky feeling in our stomach when they arrive. But we don't have to believe that's them. We don't even have to believe that's our relationship with them. We can explore that moment in our life. with this knowledge that I don't really know what this is. I'm really not seeing the fullness of it.

[22:20]

And we can live from there. We can live actively, vibrantly, doing things from there, but with the possibility of changing on a dime, of turning. if it turns out that our experience that we've brought to the situation is something else is called for. See what time it is. See if I've forgotten anything. I wanted to mention that it's also really good to see the people we look up to, our teachers or our seniors, in that same way, to see our boss or people who have power over us, even.

[23:33]

to see what they have to teach us, to see what they're asking us to do, to see, you know, is this the time to do it, but also to see them as regular people, you know, people who are not a circle of water, people who have hidden aspects to them, some of which are wonderful and some of which are hurt, you know, that may turn out to cause harm to ourselves and to others. And from that place of seeing them in that way to, if possible, I don't know, I think of it as be the bodhisattva in the situation. Don't wait for somebody who's your senior to be the bodhisattva. If you can see, oh, this person is not perfect in this way, that's okay, I can still... listen to what they're saying and sometimes they'll they will be speaking the truth there's you know there's everyone has wisdom everyone has wisdom some people might be really pretty far out pretty crazy even they still have wisdom there's no way to write them off completely we need to listen with this knowledge that

[24:59]

don't see things from their standpoint what what is there to learn here and what kind of compassion can I give what kind of benefiting how can I cause less suffering for myself and others and how can I help and this knowledge this knowing that something is missing Knowing that I'm not seeing everything actually helps us do that. So I want to stop there and see if you have anything that you would like to add or ask or help me clarify by saying, did you really mean that? minute yes well of course a lot depends on the situation

[26:31]

How much space do you have in this situation? Is there something going on that you need to do something about in the external world, or is it mostly your feeling? But whether you have to do something or not to approach both the situation and your internal feeling with this question of what is it? but not with the feeling like you have to get the answer. Just this openness, really, to... And in a couple of ways, in what you're saying, you know, like, you know, sometimes I have to talk to people about things that they've done, I've heard they've done or said to other people or, you know, that are not quite the way that we would hope things would happen at Tassara. And I have discovered that it is way, way, way, way, way better to ask them first what they think happened.

[27:40]

Because it's really surprising. If I go there and say, I heard you said this. And then we're in this world where I've said this and they're sometimes defensive. Whereas if I ask them, I heard something happened here. What happened from your standpoint? You get all this information. And then you can bring in the other part and say, you know, and then... Anyway, it's a much more accurate conversation. So that's one way. And another way is with yourself, you know, to respect the feeling that's happening. to not immediately believe the feeling, like I should not be having this feeling. You know, like with most unpleasant feelings, we could say painful, but even unpleasant feelings, for me, and I think for a lot of people, the feeling immediately arises that this should not be happening.

[28:54]

I should not be having this unpleasant feeling. And from there... there's two possibilities. It's either my fault or their fault. And sometimes we go back and forth. Sometimes we know whose fault it is. They're obviously at fault or I'm obviously at fault. I'm doing it, you know. Or sometimes we go back and forth and we try to figure it out. Whose fault is this? What's going on? Like I was with that guy. There's another option, which is actually this is... the right thing to be happening. It's not that it's wrong that it's happening. It's actually accurate. And this is like the basis of Buddhism is where do things come from? Dependent co-arising means from everything. They come from everything and given everything at this moment, I'm having this feeling. And it really can't be argued with. It's like...

[29:57]

It can be changed. It will be changed. It will change. And what we do has something to do with how it changes. That's what we're trying to study. Am I causing more suffering? Is there any way to cause less suffering? But the fact that it's there and that actually it, if we want to use this word, should be there because by dependent co-arising, which is everything that's ever happened, it is there. you just save yourself a whole lot of flailing so you can get down to the real issue of what's here and what is the way to... Is there a way to cause less... Am I causing more suffering? Is there a way to cause less suffering? Would that be to talk to the person? Would that be to go to my room and lay down for a while and just be with this feeling and see what is it? Thank you for asking the questions.

[30:59]

Anything else? Yes. Following up on that a little bit, applying that to oneself, the circle of water, and so if you're ruminating on something, for instance, and trying to let it go and trying to think, well, I don't have to make this decision, but maybe you do have to make a decision Well, decisions are very interesting. I've worked with them a lot in my life. In the past, I've hated making decisions, and I noticed a couple of things. One is, as you bring up, sometimes you need to make a decision, but we often misjudge when that time is, and we actually try to make the decision too soon, like when we don't know yet. and we don't actually have to make the decision yet. So not knowing is a legitimate Dharma position, and sometimes you actually have to make the decision whether you know or not.

[32:12]

I once asked Mel Weissman in a, we have a ceremony where everybody asks a question, and I asked him something like that, like, what do you do if you need to make a decision and you don't know what to do? And he said, if you're standing with one foot on a boat and one foot on the dock, and the boat starts to move, you will do something. You will either jump to the dock or jump to the boat, or you'll land up in the lake. So part of decision-making is that. It's like we think, I have to do this. I have to do this. Some teachers say we don't actually make any decisions. I don't know. It looks so much like we do, I'm a little reluctant to give up on it. But we do not make as many as we think we do. If we watch, most things that we worry and worry and worry about, something happens as it gets closer, and it's either clear or the whole thing goes away. So another part about making a decision, another hard thing about making a decision that I discovered for myself anyway, is that I...

[33:22]

I tend to think there's a right answer. And I am searching for it. Searching, searching. And sometimes it's like, what kind of ice cream should I get? And it's like, I know there's a right kind that's going to make me happier or something. And when I finally noticed that, it got a lot easier. Because I don't really believe that. And it's true. Sometimes you need to decide now which ice cream you're getting, because we are tired of waiting for you. So pick one, or we're leaving. Yeah, so a lot of decisions are like that, where you basically, you make your best guess. Settling with, you know, letting the decision sit there as long as you have, and then, you know, knowing. Sometimes you have to make a decision, and if you still don't know, you make the one that you can most live with what you think are the consequences, which we don't know what the consequences are.

[34:28]

If you choose one thing, it doesn't mean your life is going to go. Sometimes you choose that, and the next minute you regret it, and the next time there's a possibility you clearly go the other way. So, yeah, decision. Really a great interaction with the world. Thank you. Thank you for the question. And now we must stop. 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. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[35:14]

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