This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. Nice to see all of you this morning. Starting Sashin on a Sunday yesterday when we went out for a walk, It was lovely to see families walking together, lots of people taking bike rides. It was such a beautiful day. This morning, as I was putting some finishing touches on my talk, I could hear the cars honking and the trucks rumbling by. It's Monday, back to work. And here we are, many of us taking this time to turn the light inward, to sit. be quiet and what a gift that is and thank you all for making this space in your life in your for valuing this as a way of being together and being with ourselves so and I also want to thank the

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those of you who are working in the kitchen this week and supporting the Sashin in that way, hopefully having your own Sashin in the kitchen and everyone in the building for supporting the focus and silence of Sashin. I think, you know, I've been in the building doing my usual activities during Sashin and I always feel the benefit of the practice of those who are sitting. So it's really a dependent co-arising. We can support those who are not able to sit this week or have chosen not to, and they, by their silence and attention, will support us, and also by the work that they're doing. So I think, you know, we have the Sashin Sangha, we have the wider Sangha, Why the world sangha as well ripples out.

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So in my talks this week, I thought I would continue to talk about vow, which it's woven through the study that we've done in the practice period of the bodhisattva and the different bodhisattvas. particularly Samantabhadra, who is known for his ten vows, and Jizo, whose great vow to save all beings in all realms, is a hallmark. To talk about vow in different manifestations in each of my talks during Sashin. So last Wednesday I spoke about Dogen's Arousing Vow in the Today I'd like to talk about the chant that we just did that introduces our Dharma talks.

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And I'd also today want to talk about practice as what's most intimate. It's the theme that our Abbot Ed brought up on Saturday. I thought it's very relevant to our experience in Sashin. And I'd also like to talk about the paramita that Rosalie brought up yesterday, enthusiasm, which is how Shantideva describes it, or diligence or effort, joyful effort. It's also a way of describing it. So let's see how we do with those three topics. And I'd like to save some time at the end for questions and comments, if there are any. So the chant that we started with, and we do it so routinely that we probably don't think about it as we chant it, an unsurpassed penetrating and perfect dharma.

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is rarely met with, even in 100,000 million kalpas. Having it to see and listen to, to remember and accept, I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. So there's the vow. I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. And the Tathagata's words express an unsurpassed penetrating and perfect dharma. So in his book, Living by Thou, Shohaku Okamura describes many of the chants that we do routinely every day. And this is one of them. And he says, it takes some time to taste and really appreciate this verse. It's a short verse, but it relates to passages in the Lotus Sutra.

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The first line, an unsurpassed, penetrating and perfect dharma, can also be translated as an unsurpassed, most profound, subtle and wondrous dharma. And the Buddha's teaching in the Lotus Sutra is both the highest and the most subtle teaching. And he goes on to say that none could fathom the teachings of the Buddha. So in the Lotus Sutra, the words are the hero of the world is incalculable. Among gods, worldlings, and all varieties of living beings, none can know the Buddha.

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As to the Buddha's strengths, his sorts of fearlessness, his deliverances, and his samadhis, as well as the other dharma of a Buddha, none can fatham them. And fatham means to measure And we often measure something by comparing it to things that are familiar. To measure means to understand or to grasp. But without something familiar for comparison, we can't measure anything. So when we measure the size of the universe, we measure, we use a unit like the light year, but we can't experience a light year. So it's an abstraction. So how do we comprehend something that's boundless and infinite? And Shohaku said we have to open up our hand and become free of our yardsticks.

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That we can't measure the boundlessness of the teachings of the Buddha. And so using the term kalpa is a way of suggesting that it's immeasurable. And I don't know if you're familiar with this definition of kalpa, but if you imagine a storehouse with a capacity of 10 cubic miles and it's filled with poppy seeds, once every century someone removes one poppy seed. And how long would it take to empty this storehouse full of poppy seeds. That's a kalpa. So it's an incredibly huge measure of time, and that's the rarity of the teachings of the Buddha.

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So there's another... slant that Shohaku Okamura has on this verse, he translates the next lines as, I now see and listen, and I'm able to accept and uphold or maintain the teachings. We say, having it to see and listen to, but he says, I now see and listen. And the difference with that is... The importance of the word now, when we really think about the Dharma and try to get it or grasp it, we're unable to and we're not able to because it's impossible. And the word now means at this present moment. So he talks about now, if you say now, when you say the na part,

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You haven't yet said the out that's in the future. And when you get to the out, the now is in the past. So now is this present moment. It's not the past. It's not the future. It's the present moment. And yet the present is nothing. It's empty. It's the... It's an expression of the ultimate reality, which is ungraspable. So these teachings, which point to the ungraspable, are indicated by the verse that we chant. And yet we can't be outside... We're not outside... reality, we are born into it, we live in it, and everything that we do in our day-to-day lives is a manifestation of the Dharma, of the reality.

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And this limitless, unsurpassed, most profound Dharma should be manifested through practice with our small, limited, impermanent body and mind. And practice means more than sitting in the Zendo, although that's part of it, but it's everything that we do in our lives, in our everyday lives. So now we sit and now we listen to and listen to understand the Dharma, having it to see and listen to, to remember and accept. We vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. And tasting the truth to me means experiencing it through our own sense, through our own

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practice through our own lives and verifying it through our understanding, which although may be limited, it's what we have at this moment. And sometimes just accepting and understanding that our own understanding of things is limited, it's shaped by our life experience. can help us be more open both to different points of view and also to a sense of wonder that there's so much that is ungraspable and magnificent and maybe mysterious. That points to the koan that Ed Sarasan spoke about on Saturday.

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Are there any people? Is there anyone here who wasn't at the Dharma talk on Saturday? A few of you. So he spoke about the koan that tells about an interaction between Dijang and Fayan. It's from the Book of Serenity, Case 20. Dijang was a teacher in a somewhat remote temple, and Fayan and some fellow travelers found their way to this temple during a snowstorm and decided to stay there for a little while. And Dijon asked Fayan, where are you going? Fayan said, around on pilgrimage. Dijon said, what is the purpose of pilgrimage?

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And Fayan said, I don't know. And then Dijon said, not knowing is most intimate or nearest. And that phrase is very, probably familiar to you even if you didn't remember where it came from. But not knowing is most intimate. So what does that actually mean to each of us? I recently found, or actually landed in my mailbox, a book by Roshi Pat Enkyo O'Hara. She's the teacher at the village Zendo. And I met her some years ago when we both were on the board of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. And she has a temple in New York that's right in the heart of Manhattan.

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And it's actually the 10th floor of an office building. And it's amazing to come to a Zendo in the middle of New York and just find a peaceful place. just as I think it's quite wonderful to have a Zendo in the middle of San Francisco as well. And her book is called Most Intimate, and it's based on this koan, or it's, I would say, inspired by this koan, because she finds that what she says is intimacy is the underlying liberation of Zen. And she talks about intimacy with ourselves, intimacy with friends and sangha members, intimacy with partners and families, intimacy with the world. And in terms of intimacy with ourselves, her own story is that

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She came to Zen meditation unsure of who she was, and she starts her book by talking about an experience she had of lying down in her backyard as a girl, looking up at the sky, and seeing all the stars, and being just amazed by the beauty of the stars and the shooting stars. It was a summer night. And then somehow getting lost in the sky, in the stars, in the vastness of it all, and feeling frightened. And then going home and not talking about the experience, but it really touched her deeply. And yet, She felt comforted when she got back into her bedroom and had a sense of me, of who she was.

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But she says, before I began to practice Zen meditation, I certainly wasn't clear about what this me was. It was obscured by the ideas that others had expressed. My mother and father, my friends and teachers, even the place where I lived, the social milieu, all of them had told me who I was. I felt I needed to protect these ideas and the deeper feelings they created. Dissolving was far from my mind. I was consolidating. Throughout my life, I had consciously built up an efficient and affected persona, and that was my way of coping with vulnerability. And I think many of us can relate to that. I certainly did. Growing up, had an idea of who I was partly based on what my parents reflected back, and my teachers and friends.

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But I also wondered if that was really who I was. And she said, in the dead of night, in those moments when all my habits and protections would drop away and I was raw, I was aware that the persona I had constructed was completely false. It was not me at all. And then she talks about her first experience of Zen practice and describes it as a splash of cold water on her face. Wake up. After a few months of practicing sitting meditation, I felt as though pieces of the armor I had created to protect myself had begun to disintegrate and fall away. And then she joined a Zen community where everyone practiced together and realized that her sense of herself was not a fixed and solid thing. She says, I began to feel a little bit like a bird that flies free without a track to fly on.

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Birds just fly, fish just swim. How would it feel to be like that, just to flow with life as it is? And that was the beginning of a new idea of intimacy with herself. letting go of some of her fixed ideas of who she was. And so how do we get to that place of letting go of some of our fixed ideas of who we are and experiencing who we are in each moment? I think that's one of the benefits of sitting Sashin, where we can watch our experience of ourselves change moment by moment and even an unpleasant or painful experience can bring us to that place. Something like that came up for me last evening. I was aware as the afternoon went on of a pain in my ankle and I've been sitting on a bench almost for two years now because my left leg started

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being really stiff and I couldn't sit cross-legged without a great deal of discomfort. And I've been going to a Feldenkrais practitioner and doing some exercises, watching what chairs I sit on, being much more attentive to my posture, but I still have not been able to sit cross-legged. And then last night, realizing that I didn't want to put more stress on my ankle by sitting on the bench. I experimented, and I was able to sit cross-legged for two periods of zazen. I was really surprised. And I realized I had this fixed idea that I can't sit cross-legged, and I thought, well, I'll never be able to sit cross-legged again. And sometimes we have these ideas. We see a limitation or an obstacle, and we think it's always going to be that way. But not necessarily so. And Enkyo describes an experience with pain.

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I imagine that for some of you, pain is coming up. And Rosalie spoke yesterday about practicing with pain, physical pain. It doesn't arise for everyone in Sashin, but it often does arise. And this was Enkyo's experience. She says, I'm susceptible to arthritic pain. When it starts, I think, oh no, this is going to be really awful. In the next moment, I realize that I can switch and be with the pain, not fighting against it, not fighting against my idea of what it will be like and my fear of it. I don't need to add those extra elements, those labels. I can be present, aware of the shifting sensations in my hands and feet and how my mind colors these sensations. That is being truly intimate, truly at one with myself, moment by moment.

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And when we're faced with physical or emotional pain, we don't have to do anything with it or try to fix it. We can just be present with it. And instead of thinking about how things are going to progress in a certain direction, can we be open to not knowing and maybe be surprised? There's a short poem by Naomi Shihebnai that captures this. I think in a very visceral way. Naomi is a poet who lives in San Antonio, Texas. And for a number of years, she's been coming to Tassajara in the summer with Paul Haller doing a Zen and Poetry retreat. And this poem arose from one of her experiences at Tassajara.

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It's called Crossing the Creek. Crossing the Creek. Which stone do you look at? The one you're stepping onto or the next? This one's a little slick, but can't get across without it. So when crossing the creek, you know, sometimes it's tempting to just look several stones ahead, but if you do that, you might not. notice that the stone you're about to step on is it's got lichen on it and moss or it's wet and it's slick so you still need to step on that stone in order to get across but perhaps when you notice that it's slick you can land on it with a little more attention and and

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watching your balance. And that whole experience of crossing the creek taught me a great deal when I lived at Sahara. I initially was very clumsy and I wouldn't cross the creek without a big walking stick that I could kind of balance myself with. And it was in a way, it helped me feel safe crossing the creek. And eventually I learned to be able to cross the creek without it. And now when I go back, I've lost that ability to cross the creek without the stick. But I still really appreciate the experience of crossing the creek and knowing that it's stone by stone that I will get to the far side. And in a way, I think that's a metaphor for our lives.

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We might want to avoid the slick stone, but we really, it's right there. We have to look at it and encounter it, meet it, in order to get on to the next stone. And each stone is like that, because each one is different. So can we meet each experience, whether it's a slick one or a smooth one, and be with it as it is, So I wanted to talk a little bit about joyful effort, or I think what I've been speaking about is, in a way it is, it does take effort to meet each thing that arises, to meet it fully with our full attention. And...

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I prefer the term diligence. I haven't looked up the derivation of the word diligence. Perhaps someone here knows. But it does connote steadiness and care. And I do prefer the phrasing joyful effort or enthusiasm. And I think about the meal chant in the morning, the lines that it's often, those lines at the end are often chanted by the head student, or the chiseau when there is a head student. Let's see. This morning meal of 10 benefits nourishes a us and our practice, its rewards are boundless.

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And there's one Chiselle at Tassajara, I remember who said, filling us with ease and joy. You know, that was the feeling of it, rather than filling us with ease and joy, which is how we often chant it. Can we really take it up with ease and joy? And I think that's the spirit of joyful effort. And there's a wonderful children's story that kind of captures the spirit of joyful effort. I wonder if there's anyone who doesn't know this story, the little engine that could. Anyone who's not familiar with it? You're not familiar. Would it be okay if I tell this story? I will abbreviate it, but... It's the little engine that could, and it's about a train filled with toys and stuffed animals and food for children.

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This is kind of the map. The train is coming along, and there's an area with a roundhouse, and the train is going... to climb this mountain and deliver the food and toys and stuffed animals to children on the other side of the mountain. And it gets just around this point near the roundhouse when the engine breaks down and it can't go any further. So when that happens, here's a picture of of the train with the stuffed animals, the giraffes, their necks sticking up, the dolls, the clowns, and heading on their way. And suddenly, they're not able to go any further.

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And so they try to get some help. Here comes a shiny new engine, said the funny little clown who jumped out of the train. Let's ask him to help us. And all the dolls and toys cried out together, please, shiny new engine, won't you please pull our train over the mountain? Our engine has broken down and the boys and girls on the other side won't have any toys to play with or any good food to eat unless you help us. and the shiny new engine snorted. I pull you? I am a passenger engine. I have just carried a fine big train over the mountain with more cars than you ever dreamed of. My train had sleeping cars with comfortable birds, a dining car where waiters bring whatever hungry people want to eat, and parlor cars in which people sit in soft armchairs and look out of big plate glass windows.

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I pulled the likes of you? Indeed not. And off he steamed to the roundhouse where engines live when they are not busy. So the little train and all the dolls felt very sad. And then a little clown called out, that passenger engine is not the only one in the world. Here's another engine coming, a great, big, strong one. Let's ask him to help. And so they asked this big engine. There's this big engine. And this engine bellowed, I am a freight engine. I have just pulled a big train load loaded with big machines over the mountain. These machines print books and newspapers for grownups to read. I am a very important engine indeed. I won't pull the likes of you.

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And the freight engine pulled out indignantly to the roundhouse. So they were all very sad and then the clown again said, clown has a very important role in this. The freight engine is not the only one in the world. Here comes another. He looks very old and tired, but our train is so little. Perhaps he could help us. So the little toy clown waved out, waved his flag, and the dingy, rusty old engine stopped. And all the dolls and toys said, please, kind engine, won't you help us pull our train over the mountain? But the rusty old engine sighed. I am so tired. I must rest my weary wheels. I cannot pull even so little a train as yours over the mountain.

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I cannot, I cannot, I cannot. And off he rumbled to the roundhouse chugging. I cannot, I cannot, I cannot. And by this time, the dolls and toys were ready to cry. But a little clown called out, Here is another engine coming, a little blue engine, a very little one. Maybe she will help us. And she saw the toys and stuffed animals, and she stopped and said, what is the matter, my friends? Oh, little blue engine, will you pull us over the mountain? They make their request again. The little blue engine says, I'm not very big. They use me only for switching trains in the yard. I have never been over the mountain.

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But we must get over the mountain before the children wake up, said all the dolls and toys. The very little engine looked up and saw the tears in the doll's eyes. and she thought of the little boys and girls on the other side of the mountain who would not have any toys or good food unless she helped. And then she said, I think I can, I think I can, I think I can. And she hitched herself to the little train. She tugged and pulled and pulled and tugged, and slowly they started off. The toy clown jumped aboard, And all the dolls and the toy animals began to smile and cheer. Puff, puff, chug, chug, went the little blue engine. I think I can. [...] Up, up, up, faster and faster and faster. The little engine climbed until at last they reached the top of the mountain.

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And they all cheered as the train went down the mountain. And the little blue engine smiled and seemed to say, as she puffed steadily down the mountain, I thought I could. I thought I could. I thought I could. So sometimes, you know, we see a need and we can't need it. We're too busy or we're too tired. But sometimes we think we can. energy arises and we may feel the support of others and we're able to do something we didn't know we could do. So, you know, I think each of these engines in this book has a voice that's important to hear and we tend to think, well, the little engine was the good engine and the other engines maybe not such good engines, but they had

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or we might say, well, the little blue engine is the bodhisattva engine. But sometimes it's good to acknowledge that you're too tired, you can't pull a train, and take the rest you need so that you can revive, and perhaps then you'll be able to respond. So on that note, I just want to... Encourage everyone, when we do go back to the zendo, to turn toward whatever is most intimate for you in your sitting today, and if possible, to meet it with joyful effort, whatever is appropriate at that moment. So are there any questions or comments? Marie?

[39:01]

I really like your story about crossing the river and the... The slick one? The slick one? It's like, I really need to step on this, but it might slip to fall and go into the river. So my question is basically, where is the... the decision to take that adventure? When is it risky? When is it safe? And do you sometimes just have to throw up and go, let's do it? Yeah, sometimes you might fall in. That certainly happened to me. And I think you have to decide that in each moment. When do you need your walking stick? When can you go without it? You might decide one day you just don't want to cross the creek that day.

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Or you take your shoes off and walk across rather than jumping from stone to stone. So it's no hard and fast way to know. But it's a good question to ask. things that I always think of when we talk about the Dharma and fixed views and the idea that maybe we can do something. Metaphor for me is the Seven Sisters. It's a star constellation in the sky. The guy with a sword. And you can't just look at it straight on. You actually have to look at it as a sight. her eyes to actually see it.

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It amazes me every time I do it. I can't, it's like, what we talk about, we can't look directly at it. It's a beautiful metaphor. Yes, so Miles was talking about a constellation called the Seven Sisters, which is near Orion. It's maybe a way to locate it in the sky, but you can't look at it directly. You have to look at it from the side of your eye in order to see all seven of them. And sometimes you can't look at something directly, but you can find another way of seeing it. Does that capture what you said? Yeah. Thank you. Bye, kitchen. Thank you. Peter.

[42:08]

So the verse that we recite before a lecture, it's always struck me to kind of feel like it's the reason that I'm here today, both for the exhortation to experience rather than believe, and also for the to the warning that we don't get too many chances at this, at the star, at this chance. Do you know where the sands of fame is on? I'm just curious. Well, according to Shohaku Okamura, the original text is in the Lotus Sutra, and he points at chapter two, How we adapted it, I don't know. I don't know. Since we chanted in Japanese as well, I wonder if it's one of the chants that Katagiri Roshi introduced when he was here in the early days with Suzuki Roshi.

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I don't know if it's chanted in monasteries in Japan before the Dharma talk. That is a really good question. My guess is that it is. But it does, when you really think about it, I think bring a great appreciation for being able to study the Dharma, hear the Dharma, and practice and sit. I mean, I find it very humbling to say that before giving a Dharma talk. It's pretty daunting. But I think we each, when we give a talk, whether it's a way-seeking mind talk or a Dharma talk, do our best to express our understanding at that moment and to know that, you know, it's like looking at the night sky.

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It's so vast and wide and perhaps we can capture the beauty of a star, you know, what we what we share, but listening, to listen in that way, I think it's helpful just to whatever touches you in a talk or resonates with your own experience may be beneficial. Thanks. Ken? What is it missing? It's... Trying to not have too many fixed ideas about myself or other people so that I can be open when I meet myself or someone else. It's also trying to be aware when I do have a fixed idea that it's a fixed idea so I can try not to hold it so tightly.

[45:33]

You know, I think we all have impressions, even when we first meet somebody, oh, this person is kind, or this person rubs me the wrong way. What is it in me that comes up that I think that? And sometimes, you know, we solidify our views when we see people over and over again, and can we be a little more spacious I think that's intimacy. Acceptance. I think it's acceptance that people and places and situations change all the time. And so if I have a fixed idea, I'm not going to be able to meet this person or this situation as it changes.

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And that leads to suffering. And also can lead to a feeling of separation and maybe distance and not giving the person or the situation an opportunity to reveal something surprising or fresh. I remember reading an article quite a number of years ago. It was an interview with President Obama. Soon after he became president, talking about his relationship with Michelle Obama and saying that he didn't really know who she was. They'd been married for quite a long time, that he kept on finding out things about her that surprised him. I think that's intimacy.

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Any other questions or comments? Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost 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. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

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