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. How's the audio? Can you hear me okay? Good. My name is Ed. And I'm the abbot here at the city center. And I see, I think, some new faces here. If you're here for the first time, would you be willing to raise your hand and let me? Oh, wow. Wonderful. Welcome. Welcome to you and welcome to all the people that are returning for another time. It's always a... think special when someone is willing to step out of this beautiful weather outside and come in a hall like this and listen to someone talk.

[01:02]

And what I'm going to talk about today is a koan or a Zen teaching story, one that I really love a lot. And koans are sort of a Zen style of teaching that was developed in China. A lot of them came from about the 8th, 9th, and 10th century in China. And they usually were just an interchange between a student and a teacher, or between two teachers, or between two students. And they usually encapsulated in that interchange some truth about the practice in a very sort of small, condensed form. So... So this is one of those stories, and it's a story of Zhao Zhou, who turned out to be later on a very, very famous Zen teacher. But this is when he was a young monk in the monastery, and his teacher Nanxuan, who was a very well-known Zen teacher, was the abbot of this training monastery.

[02:12]

And so this is the case. So Zhao Zhou asked Nanxuan, what is the Tao? What is the Tao? And Nan Quan said, ordinary mind is the Tao. And Zhao Zhou said, should I try to direct myself toward it? And Nan Quan said, if you try to direct yourself, you betray your practice. Nan Quan said, how can I know the Tao if I don't direct myself? And Nanjuan said, the Tao is not subject to knowing or not knowing. Knowing is delusion. Not knowing is blankness. If you truly reach the genuine Tao, you will find it as vast and boundless as outer space. How can this be discussed at the level of affirmation and negation?

[03:17]

With these words, Zhajo had sudden realization. That's usually the punchline for most of these stories. Because you can see how clearly Nanshwan laid out the issue. Naturally he would have been had some kind of awakening with all of that. And usually with these koans there's a commentary by Wu Man, who assembled this particular collection. This is Case 19 in the Gateless Barrier, and he usually has two comments. One is sort of a commentary, and the second thing is a poem, and I'll read those to you right now, and we'll discuss those two later. So this is his first commentary, Wu Man's commentary. Questioned by Zhao Zhou, Nanxuan lost no time in showing the smashed tile in and melted ice where no explanation is possible. Though Zhao Zhou had realization, he could confirm it only after another 30 years of practice.

[04:26]

And this is his verse. Spring comes with flowers, autumn with the moon, summer with breeze, winter with snow, when idle concerns don't hang in your mind, that is your best season. Let's deconstruct it a little bit. What is the Tao? Most people are familiar with Tao. The Tao has become part of modern language. It means the way or the path. When Buddhism moved from India to China, it started adapting some of the Chinese terms as part of a way of expressing it. So the term for jhana or meditation or Dharma, the teaching, became the Tao. So the teaching, the practice, the nature of things, the essence of things, this is what the term Tao points to.

[05:33]

It's a very broad term. And Taoism, the religion of China, is named after this word. And when Taoism went to Japan, when that word Tao went to Japan, it became Tao, chowdo, the way of tea, kado, the way of flowers. So all of these things were carried through into the Japanese tradition. And one of a famous Japanese teacher once said, Taoism is the mother of Zen and jhana, that is meditation Buddhism from India, is the father. So Zen is really influenced quite a bit by Taoism in China. So for this story, though, I'm going to quit using the word Tao and just use the word wei. So Jiajou was a very sincere student who had come early in his life. I think he was 18 years old when he came to study under Nanxuan. And he'd been practicing, this is according to the commentary, for a couple of three years with Nanxuan.

[06:33]

Following the schedule and busy learning all the instruments in the halls, figuring out how to be a good student in the temple. And then he came forward with this question. Kind of a fundamental question. What is the way? What is the way to live a life? What is the meaning of a life? How do I do this practice? It's a good question and kind of a brave question to ask. I'm following the schedule. I'm doing everything. But really, how do I do this? So, of course, this is not just a story about Jajo. This is a story about you. Certainly, at some point in your life, you've asked, well, what's it all about? What's it all about? There's songs in there. What is it all about? What is life about? How do I live a life? And usually, at a certain point in our life, we get so busy with making a living and doing all the things one needs to do to live in this society.

[07:45]

But still, somewhere in the back of our mind, even if we got busy with that, we sort of wonder, What is it all about? What is this life all about, and how should I address it? So sometimes this question is brought more into the forefront of your life. Many students I talk to come here because of some real suffering or difficulty they have in their life. Other students have some big experience and want to get enlightened, and they like that idea, so they come to get enlightened. Other ones have some kind of nagging idea that this rumor they've heard that they're going to die at some point in time might actually be true. And are they wasting their life doing whatever they're busy doing? And along with that, I thought I would read a poem that I always like in this context about...

[08:48]

that particular subject. And for those of you who might be from a foreign country and not familiar with the Niagara River, or people who are, you know, I just wanted to mention the Niagara River is a big river that separates Canada and the United States and terminates in a very large waterfall that you don't want to go over. Okay? So here's the poem. It's by Kay Ryan, who's a wonderful Marin poet who friend of Zen Center. As though the river were a floor, we position our table and chairs upon it, eat and have conversation. As it moves along, we notice, as calmly as though dining room paintings were being replaced, the changing scenes along the shore. We do know, we do know this is the Niagara River. but it is hard to remember what that means.

[09:50]

Want me to read it again? As though the river were a floor, we position our tables and chairs upon it, eat and have conversation. This is our life, eating and having conversation. As it moves along, we notice as calmly as though dining room paintings were being replaced the changing scenes along the shore. We do know, we do know this is the Niagara River, but it is hard to remember what it means. So we do know this is our life and our life will terminate, but it is hard to remember what that means. We forget it most of the time. Kind of scary to ask that question, though. What does my life mean? What is the way to live my life?

[10:53]

It might interrupt or interfere with the current way I've structured my life. But anyway, Zhao Zhao stepped forward and asked the question. And Nanshwan said, ordinary mind is the way. Now, is that the answer you would have expected? No. It's kind of a surprising answer, isn't it? Ordinary mind is the way. You might have thought of something like, well, the way of Zen is, first you should take a long trek to the Himalayas, hike for about five days, find a very remote hut, sit for 10 years, developing different expertise in the jhanas, and then, maybe, at some point, you would find the way. And that would be okay because then you would have a pretty good idea what's going on. Set your sights on that. Or that some magical special state of a mind has to be achieved before you'd find the way.

[11:58]

That would be, certainly was an idea I had when I first went to Tassar. But no, ordinary mind. And that's the mind that we have all the time. That's the mind that we have when we're trying to find a parking spot. in San Francisco. That's the mind that we have when we're washing the dishes that our friendly co-partner in the apartment didn't wash the previous evening. That's the mind that we have when we're sitting at our computer. That's the mind that we have in all our daily activities. That mind is the way. Surely you jest. That mind is a mess. That mind, I've been living with that mind my whole life. It's causing me plenty of problems. Is that the mind that we're talking about? Well, I guess the good news in this is it's available all the time. It's right there. So we know it's at hand.

[13:02]

That's pretty handy. I like that part of it. he's suggesting that all these things that have limited and reduced our lives through our preconceptions and habits of mind, our conditioning, our stories, are in fact something wonderful, vast, unknown, mysterious. If we could only let go of our preconceptions our limited ways of looking at things, we could find joy and satisfaction with everything. Really, with everything in our lives. I think that's what makes Zen practice so wonderful.

[14:02]

The recognition that it's not about special activity. It's about each and every activity. Whatever is in front of you will heal you and awaken you. So returning to the Chinese etymology of ordinary, it's also sometimes thought of as everyday, but it's also thought of as constant or eternal. The mind that is with us all the time. The ordinary mind. That's the mind that's with us all the time. What part of your mind is with you all the time? There's an old Zen poem that Robert Aiken mentioned in his commentary on this. These koans, basically, they consist of a story plus a commentary, followed by lots of commentaries by lots of teachers over the time. And then I make commentary on it.

[15:04]

That's kind of the process of this. So in his commentary, he has this poem. It's an old Zen poem. What our eyes see is ordinary. What we see is ordinary. It does not frighten people, but it always remains like the moonlight on the chilled window. Even at midnight, it shines on thatched cottages. You know, moonlight is kind of a metaphor for consciousness or awakened mind in Zen. Beautiful metaphor. I spent the winter practice period down at Tashara and, you know... There, because there's no ambient light from anything. These stars, and especially in the moonlight when it comes out, draping the marvelous mountains, the hills, beautiful. One of the things you notice when you're out walking at night in moonlight is how the objects that you look at are there, kind of like during the daylight.

[16:08]

You quite well see the mountains and the forest and everything. But in the moonlight, it seems like the predominant thing you're experiencing is the moonlight, the effect of the moonlight. So I'm making a kind of metaphorical comparison. Our consciousness is the moonlight. But we're so busy in the daylight looking at the objects of our consciousness, the things we see, the feelings we have, the things we hear, the thoughts we have in our mind, Oh, especially the thoughts we have in our mind. Don't we just love all those stories? I don't know if we love them. Sometimes we hate them, but we can't get rid of them. And before long, we're just living in our mind, the thoughts in our mind. And we've forgotten about this conscious, this thing that's with us all the time. Our conscious, awake mind. Always with us. Creates the whole world.

[17:09]

I mean, what would we have without consciousness? But we don't remember that. Dogen is in his essay on the moon. The mind is moon. The moon itself is mind. If ordinary mind is the way and I cannot see it, what am I going to do? If I try to go toward it, I miss it. Can you see in each moment of your life that awakened mind that you have? The part that is actually kind of busy finding objects to notice. Anyway, so now we get to the heart of the question. Nanjuan said, okay, should I try to direct myself toward it? How do I get to this mind? You know? And Nanquan says, if you try to direct yourself, you betray your practice.

[18:13]

Or another translation is, you go away from it. That's our normal way of doing things, isn't it? We need to get something done. Got to go to the store, get organized, put our shopping list together, go to the store. At work, we have lots of projects we're doing. We direct ourselves. That makes sense in the world of ordinary things. But we're talking about something deeper, some kind of spiritual thing. We're trying to talk about what does it mean to feel your very aliveness. Do you try to... push into it? Do you take it on like you take on most of your projects? And Nanjwana is saying, no, that's not because once you do that, you set up a division.

[19:15]

I'm here and I'm going to take myself to there where I can find my ordinary mind. But unfortunately, your ordinary mind isn't there. It's not out in some future place. Your ordinary mind is right here. In fact, your ordinary mind is so close to you that anything you do moves you away from it. Right? Tricky business. I mean, if you are already where you need to be, anywhere you try to go takes you away from it. So this is sort of a common trope in Zen, you know, no gaining idea. So Sukiroshi said, you know, if you think there's no purpose or goal in our practice, you will not know what to do. the way to practice without having a goal is to limit your activity or to be concentrated on what you're doing in this moment. So most of the life around a temple, if you were to go to Tassar and live there for a few years, you would take your PhD in bioscience or your carpentry skills and you'd go to Tassar and they'd have you dig ditches, wash

[20:37]

wash dishes and do simple things and try to see if just doing one simple thing after another can you actually be present with what's going on in your mind. One simple thing after another. Of course, there can be problems with that. When we first opened Green's Restaurant, It was all staffed by Zen students. This was 38 years ago. And lines out the door, everybody was very interested in this gourmet vegetarian restaurant in that beautiful setting. And we were just losing money like crazy. I think I was the president of Zen Center then. So we had a meeting to figure out. There were a lot of things that had to be straightened out, the pricing of the food, the buying of the coffee and everything. But the main problem was the busing. Because all these students were setting the tables like they were in a tea ceremony.

[21:38]

People are standing outside the doors, all these empty tables. Doing one thing at a time, concentrating on what you're doing, does not mean going slow. You can go fast and concentrate on what you're doing and be present, right? Anyway, so part of this effort is to, instead of trying to do more, is to do less. To let go. Let relax. Step back from driving your life. And settle into what... This is why we sit zazen. We sit zazen to see if we can just be with our life. Without trying to adjust it in any way. And what kind of thing do we do when we settle into a life without trying to adjust it?

[22:45]

I mean, this doesn't mean that practice doesn't have all kinds of forms of cultivation. We're working with our posture, we're working with our breathing. But all that effort is done with the attitude and the spirit that we're undoing something, not doing something. this attitude of letting go and of trusting that our life is just fine as it is. I mean, we have these moments, don't we, where all of a sudden it's just okay the way it is, right? Isn't that nice just to actually, it's okay. I'm just, you know, Life is fine without me doing anything right now. But we have this pressure that comes from our structure.

[23:53]

I need to do something. I need to achieve something. I need to change something. Whatever I'm experiencing right now is not good enough. It's too hot. It's too cold. It's too windy. It's on and on and on. It's always something, isn't it? Still, Zhao Zhao was not quite clear on the subject, so he continued on. Well, okay, how can I know the way if I don't direct myself? If I aren't driving myself towards this goal of being myself, if I'm not doing that, How can I know what I'm doing? How can I know the way? And Nan Fan said, the way is not subject to knowing or not knowing. Knowing is delusion. Not knowing is blankness. If you truly reach the genuine way, you will find it as vast and boundless as outer space.

[25:00]

How can this be discussed at the level of affirmation and negation? Well, we know this, right? We know so much. We've spent a whole lifetime learning things, knowing things. But still, it's fundamentally based on our childhood, the parents we had, the model of the world, the map of the world that we built then, and the culture we were raised in, and the religion we were raised in. And that model of the world is distorted. And you know it's distorted because you keep bumping into reality, and it causes you pain, right? Suffering. Because you're, I mean, it's useful in many ways, but it is distorted. So that's why we call beginner's mind. An expert mind can't learn anything, but a beginner's mind is always ready. So this side of things, recognizing the limitation of our knowing, very important.

[26:09]

Knowing is exaggeration. We're overstating the case when we know something. It's amazing, you know, the older I get, the less I trust my own thinking mind. I've gotten very skeptical of most of my thinking mind things. I mean, you can just notice how many of your thoughts you have cause you suffering. They do. And what's the point of that? I mean, nobody treats you as badly as you treat yourself in your head. Those thoughts are not true thoughts. So that's one side. On the other hand, not knowing... is just blankness.

[27:12]

Not knowing is not taking responsibility for your life. So let's say that we have no idea what's going on here. But it is a great gift to have a human life. I mean, who could imagine? I mean, you couldn't write a science fiction story this amazing. Galaxies, stars, buildings, this human life we have. This wasn't something we did. You didn't busily build this life. I mean, you're struggling along the way, but it's mostly a gift. And that's part of the not knowing. Let's recognize that this is a gift given to us by who knows what. But at the same time, we have a responsibility to manage this gift. We notice we have great effect. things. So with a certain amount of kindness and a certain amount of care we have to take responsibility for our life and recognize we do know something and this world needs as much help as we can give it.

[28:27]

So on the one hand, this all seems very straightforward. I'll just live in the present moment, right? This is not new news to you. There's probably 10,000 lectures on the Internet right now about living in the present moment. The trouble is, a lot of the moments we're having aren't so wonderful. We're in pain. We're suffering. We're angry. Someone's mistreated us. We've been disrespected. You know, it's not good. And we want to pretty much get around those things, right? We want to see if we can get over that real quick and get back to the good stuff. But Jajo is saying, not so fast. You have to, whatever you're experiencing right now is what you're experiencing and there's a reason you're experiencing that. It may be your past karma, it may be all kinds of things, but the first thing to do is to live it to feel it, and go into it, and in the depth of that, whatever it is, you will find the vast sky and space of your life.

[30:08]

Because in everything that you're experiencing, it's there. I was taught on the Paramitas when I was down at Tassara. The Paramitas are six perfections of bodhisattva things that we try to cultivate our character with One of them is patience. And I remember in developing the perfection of patience or tolerance or constancy, there's three things you have to be able to tolerate. One, all forms of personal suffering. Two, the injuries of body and ego caused by other people. And the third one I love the best, the capacity to tolerate others. a more comprehensive vision of reality that undermines your long-standing habits of mental insecurity. So whatever map of the world we have, we have to tolerate the fact that it is not true.

[31:09]

And the farthest extent of that in terms of Zen is, in fact, every map of the world, everything, we call it emptiness. tolerate the fact that you have no actual idea what's going on here. So, yes, at every moment we have a challenge to live that moment. But I think Zhao Zhou I mean, Nanshwan gives us a little bit of hope in the midst of this saying, as vast and boundless as outer space, when you find the genuine way. It's as vast and boundless as outer space. That's what our life is. That's how big our life is. You know, we get so caught up in our problems, we forget how big our life is.

[32:17]

One of my favorite sayings of Suzuki Roshi was when he looked at us and he said, sometimes I think... You think your problems are more important than the fact that you're alive. Sometimes you think your problems are more important than the fact that you're alive. Yes, we have problems. Life is full of problems. They never end. But they're not more important than the fact that you're alive, and that part of your being alive is your ordinary mind. It includes these problems. Everything that arises is liberating if we could relax and stop wanting anything and see what is right there. Because we are always looking for something else, the beauty of what is there eludes us. The stories we tell ourselves are so compelling, we close ourselves to our possibilities, our other possibilities.

[33:21]

We talk of emptiness, but emptiness is like the potentials, the potentiality of your life in every moment. It's boundless. Hmm. I have some wonderful things to say. Ah. I'd like to talk about this, but I think I'm just going to read this, and you can just sort of let it sink in. A student asked Suzuki Roshi essentially the same question. What do you mean by making the best effort in each moment? And Suzuki Roshi said, I mean don't sacrifice this moment for the future, and don't be bound by your past life or try to escape from it either. This is the kind of effort you usually make.

[34:28]

But there should be a more important point in your effort. What is that? To stand on your feet is the most important thing. To sacrifice this moment for your future, for your ideal even, means that you're not standing on your feet. So the most important thing is to accept yourself, to have true subjectivity in each moment. Become intimate with your life. Don't complain. I love that. Don't complain. Accept things as they are and satisfy yourself with what you have right now. You should think, this is the only reality, the only Buddha I can see, I can experience, I can have, I can worship. At that time, you are Buddha. Probably could give a whole lecture on that. since I only have five minutes left, we do have to get to Wuman's commentary because it's pretty good.

[35:31]

Question by Zhaojo, Nanshuan lost no time in showing the smashed tile and melted ice where no explanation is possible. Sure. This is Wuman's commentary. Question by Zhaojo, Nanshuan lost no time in showing the smashed tile and melted ice. where no explanation is possible. The smashed tile and melted ice. Maybe he smashed some preconceived ideas that Jojo had melted some fixed positions about a subject for which no explanation is possible. What is Wumann talking about? He's talking about the fact that we have an intellectual interpretation of ordinary mind. We've been talking about it for 40 minutes here.

[36:33]

What is it? Is this actually anything we can talk about? Your consciousness with any understanding? He's warning us that words are different than the actual experience of your ordinary mind. This is your job to find your way. Ordinary mind is the way. Even with all of fantastic neuroscience going on, we haven't got the slightest idea how consciousness is created. And even if they explained it all to us, it wouldn't be the same as experiencing it. There's that famous English proverb, fine words butter no parsnips. the word butter is neither smooth or salty. You know, you have to eat the parsnips. The words about it mean. So, the second part of the commentary is though Jiaojou had realization, he could confirm it only after another 30 years of practice.

[37:39]

That's a wonderful statement to make. And that's exactly what Jiaojou did. He had some understanding through this interchange with Nanzhuan, and then he spent the next 40 years studying with Nanzhuan. And when Nanzhuan died, he spent 20 years going on a pilgrimage throughout China until he was 80 years old. And then he started to teach for another, they say, 40 years, continuing to practice ordinary mind is the way. So what we've been talking about here today, living in the present moment, is common knowledge. You already knew it all before you even walked in this room. The trick is, how do you do it? And it's a moment-by-moment, lifetime practice. There's no end to the practice of this way. This was Suzuki Roshi's way.

[38:46]

Simple, everyday practice. For his whole life, faithful, sincere, steady practice. That's what his enlightenment was about. He said, practice is like walking for a long time in a slight mist. You might walk and walk and never feel that you're getting wet. And never feel that you are getting wet. But when you arrive at where you're going, you will notice that your robe is soaked. Sometimes we say walking in the mist, you don't notice anything, and then when you come indoors, you're soaked through to the bone. That's our practice. He also said, if we walk in the mist together and you get impatient with me and want to go ahead, that's all right. Please go ahead. Wuman's verse.

[39:53]

bell has rung spring comes with flowers autumn with the moon summer with breeze winter with snow when idle concerns don't hang in your mind that is your best season every moment of your life is your best season Thank you 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, please visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[40:56]

May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[40:59]

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