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. Now, if I say that I've been telling stories, then I would say... The stories I've been telling are a kind of distorted version, a very simplified version of reality. Stories are coherent presentations of a life which is not just coherent but I'm going along with presenting coherence so I'm telling stories and that's another story which it doesn't encompass well which isn't the whole story

[01:26]

and I've been telling stories of Zazen I've been telling stories and as I've been telling stories of Zazen I've also been telling commenting on what Zazen is I've been telling stories about Tassajara over particularly over the last 50 years. I have not told so many stories about Tassajara, you know, a hundred years ago and so on. I've been mostly focusing on the last 50 years at Tassajara. Partly because it's been 50 years that we've been here And partly because this is the hundredth practice period.

[02:30]

Those are conditions leading to storytelling about this place. Yesterday I told a story about face-to-face transmission. Yesterday I told a story about zazen. About a conversation. About a relationship. About a situation which was... which was a relationship between the second ancestor in India, Arananda, and the third ancestor in India, Shanavasana.

[03:43]

I told a story about their relationship. And in that relationship, there was a meeting, And there was great awakening. There was zazen. There was great awakening. There was face-to-face transmission. And as I've said repeatedly, I didn't think of zazen as a relationship in the early days of my practice. I thought Zazen was what I was doing, sitting on the cushion in the Zendo. I don't think that any... Well, yes it is, but me sitting on the cushion, now I understand, is me sitting on the cushion together with the entire universe.

[04:48]

It always was that way, I just didn't think of it that way. Now I do. I have my personal practice sitting here, which is, you know, going okay, not too hard. As I told you, I kind of dreaded my personal practice before the practice period started. I thought it was going to be really hard, and I told you about it. So, because I told you about it, well, that caused a that set up a condition for people coming to me and thanking me for being here in this practice period, even though it's maybe hard for me. Just recently someone said, thank you very much for going through whatever hardship you're going through to be with us. That's another story about Zazen.

[05:51]

where I was not finished though. So I say to that person, thank you for going through whatever hardship you're going through to be here with us. And the person says, it's not so hard. And I said, a little later I said, that reminds me of being in this room that I was in with him, cabin six, being in this room in the summer of 1970, with of all people, you guessed it, Suzuki Roshi, he was in that cabin over there with this young person who said, Roshi, my practice isn't hard, it's not very hard these days. It had been hard for the whole time before that. I found this personal practice of sitting, difficult and I practiced it anyway I didn't know any better I didn't think well it's it's hard so I should quit I sort of got a word that it might be hard matter of fact I came to Zen Center

[07:16]

Because it was hard, and I thought I came to Zen Center to get help doing this hard thing called the personal practice of Zazen. And I did get help, but I got help doing something that was hard. So with the help, I could do the hard thing more consistently. Before I came to Zen Center, I tried to sit. I might make my personal effort, but I was quite irregular. Big spaces between the sitting sessions. And I got the idea, well, it might be interesting to do it daily. or maybe several times a day even, but I couldn't do it. So I thought, well, if I go someplace where other people are doing it and there's a teacher, maybe I would be able to do it regularly. And sure enough, that's just what happened. I came and I was able to sit and do this difficult thing. In the summer of 1970, it stopped being difficult. I thought maybe something was wrong.

[08:18]

So I went to the abbot and said, Roshi, my practice isn't difficult. Maybe like brackets, is something wrong? And he said, maybe sometimes for you practice will not be hard. And then he took a piece of paper I would just have a tiny piece of paper. Do you have a piece of paper? You have a book, don't you? Do you have a book? Can I have your book? Since he didn't, he took a piece of paper. Can I have one of your pieces of paper? Thank you. He said in origami,

[09:21]

After we fold the paper, after we make the folding paper, we press on it for a while. Sometimes those folds are difficult to make. watch people who are doing their fingers are really working hard to do this fold, especially if they've got big fingers. They make the fold, and he said, then we press. And the pressing is not very hard, but it helps the fold be more stable. So I understood him to say, you've just made some folds, and now you're just pressing them for a while before the next fold. The next day, the next fold came.

[10:39]

The Zen Center board asked me to leave Tassajara and go to the city to be the director. And I said, did you ask Roshi? And they said, yeah. I said, did he say, OK? I said, yes. I said, OK. So then I went to see him and I said, the next fold came. They asked me to be director of the city center, and he acted surprised. Oh, really? Oh. So now I sit in that cabin, cabin six. Now, cabin six... It's been there for more than 50 years. And across the little courtyard there, over towards the creek, is where Cabin 20 used to be.

[11:44]

Cabin 20 is now down the road next to the other garden. So in the summer of 1970, my future Dharma brother, Paul Disco, and his friends, lifted the little house that Suzuki Rishi lived in, cabin 20, and moved it down Tassahara Road and put it down by the other garden. And then Suzuki Rishi moved into cabin 6. Yeah, and I went into that cabin where he was, and he said stuff to me like... Maybe practice will not be difficult for you. And we press on the paper. And now I sit in the cabin where I used to meet with him. And I meet with you. And you meet with me. I meet you in the room where I had face-to-face transmission with him.

[12:50]

It's just amazing. so I don't know how much longer I'll be sitting in that room meeting with people the way he met with me practicing encouraging Zazen encouraging a relationship in which great awakening is living Someone said, I heard you say yesterday something about zazen, that the job of a Zen priest is to something zazen.

[14:05]

And I said, encourage? And the person said, oh yeah, right, encourage. He said, before you said that, I thought the job of a Zen priest was to sit zazen. And I said, yes, but to sit in an encouraging way. Not to sit in a way to make people feel like, weird, sick, yuck. But more like, cool, interesting, lovely, awesome. Can I do that too? person also said, yeah, we have all this work here at tafsara. I said, well, again, my dharma brother built this zendo in two weeks with his friends. I don't know if he was thinking, I'm going to build a zendo to encourage zazen, but it did encourage zazen.

[15:19]

It encourages it. But some people, even though they see this building where people practice zazen together in relationship, they don't want to go in. It's too scary to go into a room where a bunch of people are sitting silent and still. So they go to the guest dining room and have a nice meal instead. Or they go to the baths. Or the pool. Or for a hike. And they do that. And then after a while, they hear about zazen instruction, and they go up to zazen instruction. And in Green Gulch, too, people come through Green Gulch all the time, and they see the gardens, but they don't want to go in the zendo. So they go in the dining room and have some bread. So we have various ways that we encourage people to practice zazen.

[16:21]

Various relationships get people interested in the relationship, which is zazen. But at first, when they look at it, they think, not for me. Delicious bread, for me. And they eat the bread, and they become more encouraged to have this relationship. with Buddha face to face. Giving their body, receiving Buddha's body. This is Zazen. Also that summer, in that cabin, one day, Zikrashi was in the cabin with me and Mel.

[17:32]

And he said to us, he said to Mel, you should wait four more years to get married. Don't get married for four years. And since I'm younger than him, he said, and you don't get married for 16 years. had a meeting like that in that cabin later he modified the instructions but anyway he gave me he gave me stuff he gave me his face he gave me his words His giving me his face, his giving me his words, that was his encouraging zazen in my case.

[18:40]

Telling me what the job of a Zen priest is encourages me to practice zazen in the form of encouraging people to practice zazen. Telling me what my name is. Everything he did, he was encouraging me by practicing face-to-face with me. encouraging me to practice face-to-face with him and everybody, even though it can really be difficult. We need courage to encourage. And Tassajara has a history of people encouraging people to encourage people to practice zazen. The fourth ancestor in India... I'm not passing over the jokes.

[20:21]

Some of the jokes that come to my mind as I'm about to tell you about the fourth ancestor. I'm not going to tell you, but one of them I'm going to tell you is that this morning somebody said to me, Rab, you cracked me up. And I said, just like... Mahakashapa and Shakyamuni Buddha. Do you understand? Shakyamuni Buddha cracked up Mahakashapa. Mahakashapa thought Shakyamuni Buddha was a pretty funny guy. So his face cracked into a smile. His being cracked up was the occasion for transmitting the treasury of true Dharma eyes. Now, this morning when this guy cracked up, I wonder, did he receive the treasury of true Dharma eyes?

[21:25]

Stay tuned. ancestor his name in Sanskrit is upagupta upagupta we say u baki kuta right u baki kuta dayo show show now watch a dayo show u baki kuta dayo show that's Shana Vasan and upagupta so upagupta comes to practice with the chocolate master. Shana Vasan. And he served him, he helped him in various ways for three years before having his head shaved and becoming a monk.

[22:34]

So here's one of our ancestors who practiced... with his teacher for a number of years before becoming a monk. After he became a monk, his teacher said to him, something like, was it in body? Was it with the body? that you left home and became a monk? Or was it with mind that you left home and became a monk? And Upvagupta said, truly, it was with body that I left home. And Shana Vasana said,

[23:39]

how could the wondrous and sublime dharma of the Buddhas be contingent upon body or mind? And again, in that conversation, in that face-to-face meeting, in that zazeneo practicing together, great awakening was realized. They usually say, Upagupta was greatly enlightened. They don't mention that the teacher was greatly enlightened because the teacher was greatly enlightened in the previous story. So, of course, the teacher didn't miss out on the great enlightenment. The disciple didn't do it without the teacher. They did it together. But they mentioned the initiate. I'm okay with that. But really, it's together. there was great awakening.

[24:45]

That occurred because Shanavasa was encouraging Upagupta in Zazen and Upagupta was encouraging Shanavasan in Zazen. The student encourages the teacher, the teacher encourages the student. Suzuki Roshi encourages us, encouraged us, we encouraged him. He didn't say to me directly, attention is on, you encourage me to practice Zazen. But I heard indirectly from his wife that I encouraged him. Me encourage him? Really? The young student encouraging the old master?

[25:53]

Wow. So a song just came to my head was something like, when I'm married and I can't sleep, I count my blessings instead of sheep. That song came to my mind, but with different words. Something like, when I can't stay awake, when I'm worried and can't stay awake, you bring me blessings and then I'm awake. You help me stay awake. I'm not saying you're always successful, but you help me.

[26:57]

In Zazen, you help me. In reality, you help me. Zazen is reality. of Buddha's reality. It's the reality of Shanavasana. In this case, the teacher asking the student a question and the student answering and the teacher asking another question and the student answering with great enlightenment. That's the conversation of case number of ancestor number four. Usually when I read poetry, even supposedly some of the greatest poems, I read it and I don't... Nothing much happens except I sort of get the words pronounced correctly.

[28:32]

But no, my body isn't like... My body and mind are not like illuminated or... I don't know what... I have to read the poem over and over, usually, and over and over. Usually, if I memorize it, in the process of memorizing, it starts to get to me. The stories like that, when I first read it, it was rather dull. Like the color, like the Buddha's robe, kind of dull. Even though it's such an important thing. still kind of dull, especially the kind of like the last line. How could the wondrous, sublime dharma of the Buddhas be contingent or have anything to do with body and mind? That didn't really strike me.

[29:35]

But now it does because of going over and over it, because of memorizing it. So now you're here, some of you are hearing it for the first time this morning, so maybe it's not much to you either. So I hesitate to tell you how much that line is. I hesitate to tell you. I'm not sure it's time to tell you what about that line, to tell you a story about that line. how could the wondrous Dharma of the Buddhas have anything to do with body or mind? So before I tell you, by the way, what's going on with that line, and great enlightenment strikes you, before that, just thought I might mention that...

[30:41]

There was circulating in the Buddhist world, I don't know about that time, but maybe already in that time, that there was two ways to leave home. One way was with your body, which means you went away from your house and your family and shaved your head and wore Buddhist robes and basically you just focused on the teaching all the time. and that's called leaving the home, the household, with your body. But there was another way to leave the home, and that was to leave the home with the mind, which means you don't move your body out of the house. You stay in the house with your family, but you don't abide in anything.

[31:52]

You don't cling to your wealth. You don't cling to your house. You don't cling to good and evil. You leave home with your mind. That was another way, apparently. I don't know when that started to be a way, but that was another way that they were discussing in this story. Which style did you use? He said, well, I did it with the body. He was quite young. I think he was about 20 when he left home. He was about 17 when he got together with Shanavasana and about 20 when he left home with his body, shaved his head, put on the robes. So both his ways of leaving home, when I heard about them, I thought, well, that sounds good. Both those ways sound good.

[32:54]

So at Tassajara, we have left our home. We're here. We've left our home in the family. And we have opportunity to be mindful of practice all the time. Be mindful of every action for the sake of encouraging face-to-face transmission. of zazen. If we leave Tatsahara and go back to our family and friends, we have a chance also to continue to encourage zazen there too. But in that case, we're not physically leaving our friends and family. We're with them. So those both sounds wonderful. And then there's the Great Way of the Buddhas, which has nothing to do with that. which is completely free of these wonderful practices we're doing.

[34:02]

Thanks for making that sound. A little surprised. Yeah, it's kind of surprising. Got these two nice ways to leave home, and then you got this Buddha way, which is like, totally transcends those ways. Those ways, by the way, are, they have that quality of being personal practice. great way that Buddha is, is not confined by being in the monastery or being in the family. It includes everything. And everything includes it. It's not contingent on anything because it already includes everything. So there's no contingency. because there's no contingency it's always present always alive and it also is present with whatever other things that are always present like suffering it's present with the suffering it's encouraging zazen

[35:28]

in all the different types of suffering usually this time of year and more so if I'm at Tassajara or if I was at the city center I think of Suzuki Roshi a lot because it's this time of year when I was blessed to live next door to him so here's a story story is I was blessed to live next door to him I was blessed to be in cabin six with him then I was blessed to like live next door to him in the city center building and I could say, well, you got that blessing because you were the director and you assigned yourself that room.

[36:32]

There is that story, which I don't deny. I was in charge of signing a roomist and I gave myself room 10, which was next to his. So I got pulled out of Tazahara. but I got put next door to him in the city. So it wasn't that bad. And then while he was dying, I lived right next door. And he was dying, particularly we were aware that his dying was accelerating from September to December. So now we're kind of right in the middle of it. And so that helps me remember yesterday that there was a 40th anniversary of my father passing away. And my father came to visit me at Green Gulch, and he went into my room and saw Sussika Rishi's picture on the altar, and he said, he's your real dad, isn't he?

[37:53]

I didn't want to say yes, because my dad was a real dad. And yet, he was wise to see that Suzuki Roshi was a dad for me in ways that my dad couldn't be. He could encourage me to do zazen in a way that my dad couldn't. But my dad did encourage me to do zazen by showing me how not doing zazen is not good for your health. My dad sacrificed his life to encourage me to go another way. And Suzuki Rishi showed me the way. That both my dad and my dad could see Suzuki Rishi as my

[38:59]

That's my dad with him. So there I am living in the city center and Suzuki Roshi is not getting chemotherapy for his liver cancer. And he's getting sicker and sicker. And when he first is diagnosed, he can still go to the Zendo. He can't give Dermatox anymore. He can't give doksan. That's too much. I mean, one doksan's okay, but he couldn't, like, open the door to the whole community. You can imagine everybody would like to talk to him before he dies, right? So they want to have a meeting with him, but that was too much, so the doksan opportunity was not available, no Dharma talks, but he kept going to the Zen door for a while. After a while, going to the zendo was too difficult.

[40:01]

But he kept going to the dining room. After a while, going to the dining room was too difficult to do unless we carried him up and down the stairs. So we had this hand grip like this with another person. Can you picture that? He'd make this little seat. And he would sit on our arms like this and we would take him down the stairs to the dining room. and then back upstairs to his room. We got to be with him while he was dying. He was not, yeah, he was not averse to letting us help him that way. And he was receiving what he called alternative medicine treatments. He was receiving moxibustion and shiatsu. I don't think he had any acupuncture, but moxibustion where you put these little cones on, points on the back and let them burn down, and shiatsu.

[41:13]

And just a few minutes ago, as I was going up the stairs, again, I was just thinking, you really do that? Do what? Do what I'm going to tell you? Did you go to Suzuki Roshi and say, Roshi, could I just sit in the room when you're getting your treatments? I won't ask any questions. I did that. did that come from how could I make that request what a wonderful opportunity and I asked for and he said okay so I got to sit in the room and watch him get his treatments why weren't there 10,000 people in the room I don't know

[42:28]

Why didn't somebody else ask, can I be in the room? If they'd asked, I think he would have said yes several times. And I just sat there and watched. I didn't say anything. He said some stuff. Like one time he was getting massaged and he farted and he said, that's a good sign. But I didn't ask any questions about practice. I just sat there and watched. I got to watch him lying on his stomach receiving these treatments. Being encouraged to practice Zazen.

[43:34]

Was it by body that I went there and asked for this opportunity? Was it by mind? No. Something else is working there. Something else is working in our life besides our karmic maneuvering. Now, if when Shana Vasana said to Upagupta, did you leave home by body or by mind?

[45:15]

Upagupta could have said, body and mind dropping off left home. body and mind dropped off, is leaving home. Leaving home is dropping off body and mind. He could have said that. And that would have been a pretty good answer, I think. And I don't know what his teacher would have said if he gave that pretty good answer. But he gave kind of a different answer, which gave the teacher the opportunity to say, how could what you did have anything to do with it? And when I read that story, I thought, well, you, you know, putting myself maybe in the student's position or next to the student and say, well, you asked the question.

[46:30]

You set it up. He said, was it by body or mind? Poor guy. What's he supposed to do? Is he supposed to say, dropping off body and mind, teacher? Well, I'm not saying he should, but he could have. But it was hard to have the great teacher say, body or mind? Which one? He could have said, oh, teacher, you're so kind to set this trap for me. And I'm totally... If you want me to, I'll jump into this trap and say, body, want me to. Now, if he had said that, he would have already been purposely enlightened. But he wasn't. So the teacher had to say, no way, you fell in the trap. But then, having seen how I fell in the trap, together and helped the teacher be a good trapper, and we have the Great Awakening.

[47:33]

Okay, I'm going to give you two diluted alternatives. Okay, ready? And if you fall for either one of them, I'm going to tell you you fell. And when I tell you you fell, you're going to be free. Ready? We have a lot of stories like that. You know, the great master Bai Jiang was asked by a monk.

[48:52]

A monk came and gave him a, you know, multiple choice test. Does the great cultivated person fall in to cause and effect or not fall in to cause and effect? He chose the second answer and fell into the trap for a long time. best story he was born reborn as a fox for 500 lifetimes because he said enlightened people don't fall into traps so many traps are set in order to encourage sazen.

[49:56]

Since the kitchen has to leave now, let's conclude. 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 SSCC.org and click giving.

[50:54]

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