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. Here's a story about the Zen school. It's a school where school members get together and tell stories about the school. Family stories. So I just told a story about the Zen school. And yesterday I told some stories about Zen school stories. I told a story about Shakyamuni Buddha,

[01:02]

In a great assembly, raising a flower and winking. And in the assembly, Mahakashapa, his face broke into a slight smile. And then the Buddha said, I have... treasury of true Dharma eyes, the wondrous, subtle mind of nirvana, I now entrust it to Maha Kastipa. And another part of the tradition is in the present to make comments on our family stories.

[02:07]

So... Again, yesterday I said, this is a story where I see the giving of a face, the giving of a winking face, and then the receiving of a winking face, and the giving of a smiling face, and a receiving of a smiling face. These two faces being given and received. Given and received. And in this giving and receiving, the treasury of true Dharma eyes is entrusted. The mind of nirvana is entrusted. And at that time, I think it's good to remember that not anything at all is being given, and not anything at all is being received.

[03:15]

But the treasure that your Dharma eyes is being enacted, is being performed. It's being realized through the performance of itself. And one way we talk about performing it is meaning face-to-face, giving face and receiving face. That's how we perform reality. That is reality. And that's how we perform it. And in this reality of giving our face and receiving our face all day long, there is nothing actually at all in itself being given and received. And this is Buddha meeting Buddha, Buddha giving to Buddha and receiving Buddha. Now, there's a big Zen family and then there's subdivisions of the Zen family.

[04:29]

And one of them is... family that are successors of an ancient teacher named Ehe Dogen and in his the transmission which he offers is a transmission to sit upright in the midst of self-fulfilling samadhi and self-fulfilling samadhi as I suggest is to be collected and undistracted about self-fulfillment, to be collected and calm and open and relaxed and present with self-fulfillment, which is other fulfillment, to be present with self-fulfillment and other fulfillment.

[05:32]

In other words, to be present to sit upright in the concentrated presence of face-to-face transmission. This is a path that is held up as the true path of enlightenment, to sit upright, to be upright in the midst of this transmission of the treasury of true Dharma eyes. The sitting practice of the Buddhas is set up as the treasury of true Dharma eyes, the mind of nirvana. So when we're sitting, we are sitting as the treasury of true Dharma eyes. We are sitting as the inconceivable

[06:34]

mind of nirvana. Someone said to me, what does it mean when it says practice a way that directly indicates the absolute? Or you could say, what does it mean to practice a way that directly indicates the subtle mind of nirvana? The treasure of true dharmas. What does it mean? Well, it Like you sit, and your sitting is indicating the subtle mind of nirvana. I'm not saying you should do that. I'm just saying you could sit and say, this sitting that I'm doing here is indicating the entirety of the treasury of dharma. That's what the sitting is indicating. That's what the sitting is dedicated to.

[07:36]

So, one expression for the person who plays the role of leading a practice period is dharma-flag teacher. It is a teacher, somebody who gets to play the role of a teacher, who raises the dharma flag for the practice period. So, I got asked to be Dharma flag teacher, so here I am, and I'm raising the Dharma flag. And the flag I'm raising is the flag of sitting upright in the midst of face-to-face transmission. Sitting upright in the midst of self-fulfillment, samadhi. I'm just a flag for a purpose. I'm flagging a purpose. And you're welcome to also be flags, so the temple's full of flags waving, indicating the treasury of true Dharma eyes.

[08:57]

someone asked me about something about my practice. And they said, you've been practicing for about 50-ish years? And I said, mm-hmm. They said, well, what practice have you been doing? They said, well, as I told you, around 48 years ago, I was down in another zendo in this valley, and I was sitting, and I got... the idea that it would be nice to follow my breathing consistently, and I set up a coercive system of forcing myself to follow my breathing. And, you know, the upshot of that was I stopped forcing myself to follow my breathing. I stopped forcing myself coercively to practice, pretty much. But before that program started, I was sitting.

[10:23]

And after that program concluded, I continued sitting. The sitting I was doing, what is it called? It resonates through all time. Before I came to Zen Center, I saw a picture. I didn't see it in Light Magazine, but it was a picture that was in Light Magazine. I saw it after. Well, actually, I did see it in Light Magazine, but I saw it after the original publication date, which was 1954. It was a picture of a person sitting upright onto Tommy Matz. And under the picture, I'm going to do a little, what do you call it, verbal fry now.

[11:25]

Under the picture, it said... This is verbal fry. Under the picture, it said, deepest thought. And I thought, what a beautiful... that person has how beautiful it is for a person to sit like that and I thought yeah deepest thought the deepest thought is one where the body of the thinker is beautiful there's other ways to be beautiful have a beautiful body besides that like dancing or You know, gymnastics, walking. There's many beautiful postures. But that was one I thought, yeah, I want to think in a way when my body is beautiful.

[12:33]

And this is one way you can think so your body is beautiful. And when your body is beautiful, your thinking is deep. That's what I thought. And that encouraged me to start doing that posture. And so I did. And so when I was here back then, doing that sitting, even though I gave up that forcing myself to follow my breathing practice, I was happy to continue to do the sitting. I thought, I just, I don't know, and I used to think, it's amazing, here's this... A guy in his early 20s who was spending hours and hours and hours just sitting in a dark, cold room. It's kind of amazing. And I was perfectly happy to do that. And I was into following the whole schedule. And maybe a little bit thinking, I'm doing it better than some of the other people.

[13:36]

Where are they? Why aren't they here? Anyway, I did follow the whole schedule. I was happy to do it. And I was kind of amazed that I was spending my life that way. Because I knew that not too many young men did spend their life doing that. I just thought it was beautiful. And I didn't think, well, I'm going to keep doing this. But I sort of did. And I did. And I often, in this room, up at Green Gulch, and at various other locations around the world, When I sit down, I often think, wow, this is so beautiful. Just to sit here with people. Not just sitting by myself is beautiful, but then to sit with other people who are also doing it, it's just like, it's so wonderful. Such a great thing for humans to do together. And we do other things too that are

[14:43]

Wonderful, like we roll around on the floor and we scratch our cheeks and we groom each other. And we do other stuff. Like, one of the things I do is, I'm a horse to my granddaughter. She rides, I get on all fours. She says, get down on all fours. And I get down on all fours and she rides me. It's pretty wonderful. Just recently I was able to start serving in that way for several months. She said, can you be horsey? And I said, no, I can't do it because I've injured my leg. And she said, can you be horsey again? But just recently I said, okay.

[15:47]

And I served as horsey. And the next day I actually had quite a bit of pain. Maybe from that, I don't know. Anyway, it's pretty nice to be horsey. And she said to me, you're my servant, my horsey, and my salesman. So I knew my servant and horse. I said, well, why salesman? And the reason I was a salesman was because she was in a hammock and I was swinging the hammock. And the hammock was a boat. So I was swinging the boat. So I was her salesman. And I said, well, that's what you usually say. Sailor. That's lovely, but still. At a certain point, she had enough of that and went home. And so then I go back to, like, sitting with people.

[16:52]

And I've heard other people, like, I heard, what is his name, a Zen teacher named Sawaki Kodos, when he died, uh, I was at the Zen Center when he died, I think I was, anyway. But anyway, I heard about his death, and in a newspaper in Japan it said, Zen priests wastes life, sitting exhausted. I think maybe he said that about himself, that he just... He just did this useless thing of sitting zazen for pretty much his whole life. He just gave his life to zazen. But he probably also said, I'm doing this useless, beautiful thing. And then while you're sitting, everything in the universe happens.

[18:08]

And then... you deal with that in sitting, with various dimensions of skill. Hopefully, everything that comes up is met with presence and stillness and great compassion. And everything that comes up is met in wholehearted, genuine, face-to-face conversation, and thus realizing the treasure of true dharma is the subtle mind of nirvana. But whatever, anyway, we're doing this sitting together. And we're giving our face,

[19:11]

and we're receiving the face. So, again, when you chant at new service, Lindbergh says something like, Now all Buddha ancestors who uphold Buddha Dharma have made it the true path of enlightenment to sit upright, practicing in the midst of self-fulfilling samadhi. This was done so because teachers and disciples personally transmit this excellent practice as the essence of the teaching. So they do this practice of sitting upright in samadhi as the true path, but they do that because that was transmitted to them and because they transmit it to others. They're doing this because of this relationship where they and their teacher, where they and their students together have transmitted this is the essence of the teachings, this sitting upright in the samadhi.

[20:30]

And then it says, from the first time you meet a master, in other words, the first time you transmit this back and forth with the teacher, then just sit. Just take care of it. But again, it's nice to sit by yourself, but really you're sitting with others. And so it's nice to sit with others because really you're sitting with yourself. And we do like to sit with ourselves because we sit with others and so on. Just like that picture I saw in Life magazine. I got transmission. I didn't get anything at all. And there was face-to-face transmission with that picture of that Japanese layperson sitting in Zazen. That picture transmitted me into that picture.

[21:33]

And somebody... I don't know... whose book it was, but I didn't cut the picture out of that book. I don't know why I didn't. Maybe it wasn't my book. But anyway, I just looked at the picture and moved on to practice. And later somebody found one of those magazines in a garage sale and cut it out and framed it for me. So now I have that picture. The picture that was part of the... personal transmission of this practice. Before Dogi Zenji, and I also think before this story of the face-to-face transmission between Shakti Muni Buddha and Mahakashapa was published back in the...

[22:38]

maybe 9th century. So Tobi lived in the 13th. That story, which I just quoted, was published like in the 11th. Back in the 9th century, there was a Zen teacher who we call the founder of the Rinzai school, or the Linji school, one of the families in Zen. And when he was about to die, He said to one of his close disciples, he said, after I pass on, don't destroy my shobo genzo. Don't destroy my treasury of true Dharma eyes. I think that's what it said. I don't think it said subtle-minded nirvana. don't destroy my total treasure house of the teachings.

[23:48]

And the student, whose name was San Xiong, said, how would I dare to destroy your treasury of true Dharma lives, teacher? And then Linji said, well, if someone asks you suddenly, What was it? What would you say? And Sancheng shouted. And then Linji said, who would have thought that my treasury of true dharma eyes would be destroyed by a blind ass? So we have this treasure in our eyes, which it's a treasury, right? It's a treasure. It's transmitted to us. And we take care of it.

[24:53]

And nothing was given and nothing was received. And we take care of nothing given and nothing received. And then just to make sure, we tell our students not to destroy it. And then they destroy it. Just to make sure that we take care of something. where there's nothing to receive and nothing to give. And in this way, we have the true Dharma. In this way, we have the living blood vein of the Dharma. Now you have it. Take care of it. Take care of something that you didn't get. Now you have something that you don't have. Please take care of it. And again, you can't get away from something that you don't have, fortunately. I kind of think it's nice, the way that Linji's story goes together with the story of Buddha Mahakashipa.

[26:04]

Back in India, they were transmitting the treasure of Tridharma eyes, and then in China, they're transmitting the... treasure to our Dharma eyes, and then destroying it in order to transmit it. And then, over in Japan, Dogen names his big collection treasure to Dharma eyes. And here, we're still taking care of the treasure to Dharma eyes. If there's anything you'd like to destroy, you're welcome to come to and destroy it. Right here. This is the destruction. Now, of course, I know that nothing is ever created or destroyed. I think there's a TV show called Destruction Derby. Anybody ever watch it?

[27:07]

Roshi, I think, but I don't know. I don't speak Japanese. That Kurosawaki said something like, Zazen is good for nothing. I heard that. And until you realize it's good for nothing, it's really good for nothing. So it seems to me he was pointing at something there. Until you realize it's good for nothing, then it's really good for nothing. Do you have a commentary on that? Can you destroy that for me? I wouldn't dare to destroy it. Did that destroy it?

[29:33]

Thank you for sitting on the hard wood floor. Maybe we should put out a Zalbatant so other people don't have to have such a hard time. If we put enough Zalbatans out here, a lot of people will come. Ravshi, you said nothing is created or destroyed. And what is all this? This is a... Well, this is a Zelda. And what is this interaction?

[30:48]

This is face-to-face transmission. confirm an understanding or non-understanding with you? If you want to try. Do I have to have my hands and gush up? Yeah. Okay. When I hear please devote your energies to a way that directly indicates the Absolute, something that comes to mind is

[32:01]

place your energies in a way that gets to the root of things, or apply effort in a way that tries to get to the heart, would that? That's fine. But actually, it does indicate, so you could also just write your own text and say, practice a way that gets to the heart of things. but it actually says more like, practice a way that indicates the heart of things. Because to try to get to the heart of things is a little bit of a mistake, because you're already at the heart of things. So it's more like saying, just practice the way that indicates the heart of things, because you're already there. Have where you are now the performance of where you are now. Don't try to get something.

[33:02]

Don't try to get to the heart of the center. Get to the root. You are at the heart. You are at the root. So now, have a way that indicates where you are. So right now, I'm practicing a way that indicates that I'm here. Like, my sitting is saying, I'm here. I don't get that. And the heart of things is... It's that I'm here. The root of things is I'm here. I'm Sam. I'm here. And I want to say I'm here, because I am. Do I say that even when I don't think I'm saying that too? Say it again. Is that being said no matter what? I think the Buddha sees you saying that no matter what you think. You may say, I'm not here. And Buddha looks at you and says, he thinks he's not here. He's here. He's here with me thinking he's not here.

[34:04]

And I think maybe he believes it. But he's still here with me. You know, like their child's saying, I'm not here with you, granddaddy. Okay, I hear you. But actually you are kind of here. And you can think whatever you want. And you will. I mean, not that you will think what you want, but you will think no matter what I say. Why? No, I don't know. I don't know exactly all the causes and conditions that lead you to be here at this moment. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Thank you for the meeting. That hammer striking resonates through all time.

[36:17]

The sixth ancestor just did that. 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.

[36:50]

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