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. So I know you have some exciting work to do this morning. I was told by Chelsea that you're going to be planting trees. The three sisters. Anybody know what the three sisters are? Three plants that are called the three sisters? Any guesses? This is Native American planting. Very common for Native American people. One of them is corn. What happens when corn grows? Yeah. Really big, yeah. Really tall. And then there's beans. What about beans when beans grow?

[01:01]

How do they grow? Yeah. On vines, that's right. So corn is like a vine that the bean can grow on. So that's very good to plant them together. So the bean crawls up the corn. And at the base, they plant squash to keep the moisture around the corn. So they're three sisters. And they're really good to eat. So when they get big. So because of that, what you're doing today, I thought I'd read you a story from a book, my new favorite, called Frog and Toad Together. Do you know Frog and Toad? I bet you do. Did you? You read them all? Don't give it away, okay? This is really... I'm going to read the one called The Garden. This is about planting seeds. So Frog was in his garden, and Toad came walking by.

[02:01]

What a fine garden you have, Frog, he said. Yes, said Frog, it is very nice, but it was hard work. I wish I had a garden, said Toad. Well, here are some flower seeds. Plant them in the ground, said Frog, and soon you will have a garden. How soon, asked Toad. Quite soon, said Frog. So Toad ran home. He planted the flower seeds. Now seeds, said Toad, start growing. Toad walked up and down a few times, but the seeds did not start to grow. So Toad put his head close to the ground, and he said loudly, now seeds start growing. Toad looked at the ground again. The seeds did not start to grow. So Toad put his head very close to the ground and shouted, you want to join me? Now seeds start growing.

[03:03]

Frog came running up the path. What is all this noise, he asked. My seeds will not grow, said Toad. That's because you're shouting too much, said the frog. Those poor seeds are afraid to grow. My seeds are afraid to grow, asked Toad. Of course, said Frog. Just leave them alone for a few days. Let the sun shine on them and let the rain fall on them and soon your seeds will start to grow. So that night, Toad looked out of his window. Drat, said Toad. My seeds have not started to grow. They must be afraid of the dark. So Toad went out to his garden with some candles. I'm going to read the seeds a story, said Toad. Then they will not be afraid. So Toad read a long story to his seeds. And then all the next day, Toad sang songs to his seeds. And the day after that, he read poems to his seeds.

[04:05]

And then all the next day, Toad played music for his seeds. Toad looked at the ground, and the seeds still did not start to grow. What shall I do? cried Toad. These must be the most frightened seeds in the whole world. Then Toad felt very tired and he fell asleep. Toad, Toad, wake up, said Frog. Look at your garden. Toad looked at his garden and little green plants were coming up out of the ground. At last, shouted Toad, my seeds have stopped being afraid to grow. And now you will have a nice garden too, said Frog. Yes, said Toad, but you were right, Frog. It was very hard work. Okay, so you guys go do some hard work out there. Plant some seeds and then come back next month and I'll bet you something started to grow. Okay? Okay?

[05:06]

Thank you, Chelsea. Okay, bye-bye. You're welcome. You're welcome. Bye. You're welcome. You're welcome. Come back. Hi. How's that? Ruby. Hi, Ruby.

[06:08]

There are now many seats left here. Good question. What are we doing? Thank you. That shrank us up a little bit. Yeah. Good morning again.

[08:13]

Welcome to Green College. Are any of you here for the first time? Would you mind showing your hand? Oh, great. Welcome. Welcome. Nice to have you. So I'm going to share with you a classic haiku by the 17th century Japanese master poet, Matsuyo Basho. Old pond, frog jumps in for plop. Old pond. Frog jumps in. Kerplop. That's it. So in much the same way that the children a few minutes ago were invited into the story of the toad trying to grow a garden, I would like to invite all of you to step inside this very simple story of a pond, a frog, and a sound. So if you like, you can close your eyes and imagine yourselves deep in the forest, perhaps on a late summer afternoon.

[09:22]

You have been walking alone for most of the day. It's warm and very, very quiet. And just then, just now, you come across a pond and so you sit down to rest. And just like the waters of the pond, Your mind at that moment, at this moment, is still and beyond measure. Suddenly, a small green frog leaps up and out and into the water. Kerplock. So now try to imagine what happens next. What happens to your quiet mind when a sudden sound or a movement takes place? Can you see the ripples radiating out from that place where the frog had suddenly entered into the water? And after a while, can you see how the water of the pond settles back into silence and stillness, and yet, as always, potentized for whatever might come next?

[10:34]

So I can remember being very moved by this poem when I first heard it read aloud, which probably was at a Zen Center lecture a number of years ago. Old pond, frog jumps in, kerplop. Somehow those few lines seemed to have some sort of spiritual significance, but I had no idea what it was. I just know that I liked it, and it made me feel something. I couldn't quite identify. something kind of big. So this morning I want to use this poem as a way to explore with you some ideas about three particular things that we humans have in common and that the Buddha considered quite important for an understanding of ourselves and of this world in which we live. Those three things are imagination, sensory awareness,

[11:38]

and reality itself. Imagination, sensory awareness, and reality itself. So in my understanding of the poem, reality itself is represented by the old pond. Beginningless, endless, fathomless, and yet persistent. As in one of my favorite quotes by Dr. Einstein, the universe doesn't really exist. It's just very persistent. So the frog, we can think of, is an example of sensory awareness, that multitude of experiences, events, and disturbances that have been going on in the universe throughout all time. And for our purposes, can only be seen, albeit briefly, through the singular lens of human awareness. One. by one, by one.

[12:41]

So that reality viewing station I call myself. A self, or me, is first known to us as children through our sensory awareness. I hear, I smell, I taste, I touch, I see, I think, I feel. Kerplop. At the very moment where the sound and sight that's made by the frog strikes the self as sensory awareness, this poem drops off. Like a good cliffhanger. So then what happens next? What happened to the frog? What happened to the sound? What happened to the me who was sitting alone by the pond just a few minutes ago? Did we make it out of the forest? Were we home in time for dinner? On and on and on.

[13:46]

So the poem itself, in this way, serves as a vehicle for our human imagination. In other words, this poem can help us to see the very way that our minds create and then try to answer strings of questions that arise in the wake of sensory experience. Just as the frog disturbed the tranquility of the pond, thought ripples disturb the mind. Disturbances that we call imagination, or fantasy, or daydreams. So there's a name the Buddha gave for those ripples that arise in our minds when a disturbance has taken place, like the frog jumping into the pond. Or like the honking of a car horn behind us on the highway. Or the telephone ringing late in the night. The name in Sanskrit is prapancha. And it's translated as mental elaborations or karmic consciousness.

[14:55]

Mental elaborations or karmic consciousness. So this term, prapancha, literally means diffusion or expansion. And when used in the Buddhist teaching, it refers to conceptualizations or conceptual elaborations. And in the simplest terms, it means our human compulsion to make up stories. I don't know if I've recounted this story recently, but it's one that I heard from Dr. Gregory Bateson the well-known linguist and environmental theorist, when he visited us at the Zen Center many, many years ago, probably in the late 1970s. He came into the zendo while we were sitting together in a sashin, as in as all of us were sitting there quietly alone by the old pond, and then he spoke. He made a sound. He said,

[15:58]

They have now produced a computer that thinks like a human. To test the computer, they asked it a simple question. Do you think like a human? After a long pause, those machines were pretty slow back in those days, the computer printed out, that reminds me of a story. So given that these mental elaborations, prapancha, are so important to an overall understanding of the Buddha's teaching of liberation, I'm going to go a little bit into the detail of how the mechanism of storytelling in the human mind does its work. So here's the basics from the old teachings of the Buddha recorded in the Pali Canon. All living beings, that's us, all living beings, are subject to an impersonal causal process of perception. All living beings are subject to an impersonal causal process of perception, such as hearing the water splashing as the frog jumps into the pond, such as hearing the sound of a bird or the sound of my voice.

[17:19]

It's impersonal. Mere sounds and sights are And we all perceive such things throughout our waking hours. Just as right now, my voice and appearance is jumping into the pond of your spacious awareness. So this exchange between you and me, by means of our sensory awareness, depends on two particular things. First of all, it depends on a functioning sensory capacity on your part. You can hear and you can see. And second of all, it depends on what appears to be an external object of your sensory awareness, and that would be me sitting up here talking to you. So in your case, self, and in my case, other.

[18:21]

or subject and object. So, so far in this sequence of events, there is no mental elaboration taking place or even necessary. Just sound, just sight. In fact, at the level of direct perception taking place in the present moment, there are no problems whatsoever. And yet, we humans don't stop there. Once there's been contact between a subject and an object, the next step in the sequence is the inborn tendency nurtured by our cultural conditioning to have feelings about the object that has appeared on our radar. Kerplop. Kerplop. Did you say kerplop?

[19:22]

Yes, I did. So, does that contact with the object frighten you, or confuse you, or intrigue you, or attract you? Feelings come in three basic flavors, according to the Buddha's analysis. There's greed. I like it. There's hate. I don't like it. Or there's confusion. I am not sure yet if I like it or not. So once feelings have arisen, it doesn't take long before the tendency for conceptual elaboration raises its fuzzy little head, something that we all do and yet perhaps have not looked at as a sequence before. So at this point in this story, the sense of a self, our selfishness, intrudes on the simple process of perception by making it into something personal. that then drives us into actions.

[20:24]

If we don't like the object, we move away. If we like it, we move toward it. And if we're not sure, we freeze it for later consideration. The sutra puts it like this. What one feels, one perceives. Samya grasps. What one perceives, one thinks about. And what one thinks about, one elaborates upon. By our persistent attachment to perceptual objects, things out there, not simply as things in themselves, but as somehow connected to us as if by invisible strings enforcing our opinions of them. That's ugly. That's pretty. That's tasty. That's stinky. On and on, all day long. The shorthand term used in Zen for this process is called picking and choosing.

[21:27]

I like coffee and I don't like tea. So the reason this is a problem for us, if you don't see it already, is that the perceiving subject, in my case, me, becomes the hapless victim of an unremitting process of mental subjugation. In other words, I think, therefore I am. what I think. Yikes. Which is just what the Buddha said. You are what you think. Your life is a creation of your mind. So how is this version of creation going for us? I like it. I don't like it. And I'm not sure yet if I like it or not. So as a result of this unremitting process of conceptual elaborations, everything that can be experienced in this world, past, present, and future, is bound together in an intricate network of concepts, all tied to oneself, and projected out from oneself onto the world predominated as craving, conceit, and wrong view.

[22:45]

So these are better known as our human bondage to what's called, again in Sanskrit, samsara. Endless circling. Literally, it means endless circling. Habits of thought, habits of mind, not this again. Oh, I'll try it one more time. It's this endless circling, endless craving, endless willingness to try it all over again. So the good news is... that according to the teaching, a systematic attention to the impersonal character of sensory experience, in concert with the practice of a wise restraint, such as don't move, will bring this tendency to inject a sense of self through the entirety of the perceptual process to an end. Kerplop. So therein, there's a saying in Zen that just this is it.

[23:51]

Just this is it. Just this is it. Just this is it. So once the mental elaborations have ended, or at least slowed down to a crawl, one begins to see the world as it truly is, an impersonal causal process. inevitably marked by the three characteristics of all conditioned existence. This is the part we really don't like. All things are impermanent, without self, and marked by suffering. So these are the three things that our human life is about and that we really reject out of hand. I do not like not having a reliable, well-ordered self. I do not like that things I love don't last forever, and I don't like that there is so much not to like. My everyday efforts to get a better deal from life, that is to negotiate with the facts of life, is in itself another fact of life.

[25:03]

I waste a lot of time and mental energy trying to change things that simply can't be changed, particularly noticeable when it comes to other people. Have you noticed that? Just stop it. Hasn't worked yet. So one way of understanding the purpose of Buddhist practice is to recognize and eliminate prapancha in order to see reality clearly and directly. So I found this story of the rope and the snake helpful in understanding how this clear seeing comes about. So one day, a monk was walking along the road when she came upon a rope that she thought was a snake. First, the monk jumped back with a yelp, and then she looked down more carefully from a distance to see that the snake was in fact a thick piece of rope. Familiar?

[26:04]

The snake is our imagination overlaid on a sensory aspect of reality, a rope. which itself is being overlaid by our imagination as a rope. Rope means very little to a snake. So rope, too, is a mental elaboration. So are strands of fibers woven together. So are fibers and strands and woven. In fact, as the Zen saying goes, words can't reach it. Words can't reach it. At best, words are merely fingers pointing at the moon of reality itself, while the moon, in turn, is pointing right back, subject and object, no separation. In the two schools of Buddhism which underpin the Zen tradition, the middle-way school and the mind-only school, each of them sees a particular type of prapancha as the culprit in our bondage to samsara.

[27:10]

In the Middle Way School, represented daily here at the Zen Center by our chanting of the Heart Sutra, sees the overlay of intrinsic existence on oneself and on objects to be the most dangerous type of elaboration, believing that things really exist the way I think they do. So, most simply, this means seeing objects as existing in the opposite way from how they actually do. from the opposite of these three characteristics that I just named above. So rather than impermanent, seeing reality or wishing it to be eternal, eternal life. Rather than selfless, seeing oneself as a very big deal. And rather than suffering, seeing what one deserves and acquires as rightfully leading us to unending pleasures, like winning the lottery. Wouldn't that be nice? Doesn't seem like it is, actually, from what I've read.

[28:12]

For the mind-only school, propanthas are viewed as seeds that infect the mind with unwholesome conditioning. These seedings are then passed down through generations as greed, as hatred, and as delusion of various stripes. These seeds ripen in the perceptions and actions that are taken throughout one's lifetime. So the goal of practice in the mind-only school is said to be a state of mind beyond all thought constructions and verbal elaborations. In other words, not being fooled by our own imagination. Just like the old pond, which is not bothered a bit by the frog or the poet or the sound. There was a really lovely scene in the film version of Anne of Green Gables that literally moved me to tears when I first saw it. I think maybe some of you who have seen the film might know this scene.

[29:15]

Anne has just arrived at the train station to be taken to Green Gables by the elderly Matthew Cuthbert. He arrives in the buggy, sees the young girl, and knows there's been a big mistake. He and his sister Marilla were expecting a boy to help them with the farm work. Not able to disappoint the enthusiastic and talkative young Anne, Matthew drives her toward home. The entire way, Anne is chattering on, Matthew not saying a word. Eventually, Anne says to him, I hope you don't mind me chattering in this way. To which Matthew replies with a warm smile, I don't mind a bit. So I think this is how Buddhas come to care for us chattering humans as well. Buddhas, whether he's she or they, just don't mind a bit. We are welcome.

[30:17]

So I'm going to finish today with a lovely sutra from the early teachings in which the Buddha gives a simple instruction to a monk named Bahiya of the bark cloth, which I think exemplifies this teaching about mental elaborations. So here's a little back story about Bahia. Bahia was greatly revered as a teacher in the town where he lived. And then one day, a woman of great understanding visited the town and candidly said to him regarding his claim to liberation that he was not. Being an honorable man... Bahiya dropped what he was doing and set off to find the Buddha, who he had been told was truly liberated and who taught a path leading to liberation. When he arrived at the place where the Buddha was staying, Bahiya was told that the Buddha had gone into town to collect alms, so he raced into town to find him. And sure enough, there he was, serene and inspiring confidence, calm, his mind at peace.

[31:23]

Having attained the utmost tranquility and poise, tamed, guarded, his senses restrained, a blessed one, the old pond itself. So Bahiya threw himself on the ground, begging the Buddha to teach him. The Buddha replied kindly, This is not the time, Bahiya. We have just entered the town for alms. A second and then a third time, the monk begged for the teaching, saying, but blessed one, it's hard to know for sure what dangers there may be for the blessed one's life or what dangers there may be for mine. Teach me the Dharma, oh blessed one, for my long-term welfare and bliss. So the Buddha then said, Bahiya, you should train yourself thus. In the scene, there will just be the scene. In the herd, just the heard. In the imagined, just the imagined. In the cognized, just the cognized.

[32:23]

That is how you should train yourself. And when, for you, there will be just the seen in the seen, just the heard in the heard, just the imagined in the imagined, and just the cognized in the cognized, then, bahiya, you, in connection with that, will not exist. you will not be found in this world or in another world or someplace in between. This, just this, Bahia, is the end of suffering. Through hearing this teaching from the Blessed One, the mind of Bahia was right then and there released from the toxic belief in a separate self. And once having exhorted Bahiya of the bark cloth with this brief explanation of the Dharma, the Blessed One left. The next day, Bahiya was attacked and killed by a cow with her young calf. When the Blessed One returned and heard the news of Bahiya's death, the monks said to the Buddha, Bahiya's body has been cremated, Lord, and his memorial has been built.

[33:31]

What is his destination? What is his future state? Where has he gone? To which the Buddha replied, Monks, Bahiya of the bark cloth was wise. He practiced the Dharma in accordance with the Dharma and did not pester me with issues related to the Dharma. Bahiya of the bark cloth is totally unbound. And then to help them further in realizing the significance of that, the Blessed One exclaimed, Where water, earth, fire, and wind have no footing... There the stars don't shine. The sun isn't visible. There the moon doesn't appear. There darkness is not found. And when a sage, a brahman, through sagacity, has realized this for themselves, then from form and formlessness, from bliss and pain, they are free. So what the Buddha is talking about here in this teaching to Bahiya is the experience of awakening itself, in which the mind is no longer seen as separate from the body, or this place is no longer seen as separate from that place or from any other place, and most importantly, your suffering is no longer seen as separate from mine.

[34:52]

So once again, it's very simple and it's easy, and yet... What is it that's happening inside of us that makes such teaching so difficult to practice or even to understand? Well, the answer the Buddha gave has to do with the very things he had seen inside of himself. Fantasies, stories, narratives, daydreams, projections, mental elaborations, and in the most tragic of cases, the extremes of pathological thinking, of greed, of hatred, and of delusion. The image of the human mind common in the Buddhist tradition is of clouds covering the moon. The clouds being our delusional thinking, and the moon being the clear light of awakening. In the seeing, just the seeing. In the moon, just the moon. And in the clouds, the focus of our study. Although directing our attention to the mind itself will not create a world according to our desires or our preferences, it is the only way to create a kinder and safer world for all of us who live in it together.

[36:10]

So I'm going to end with a poem by Ehe Dogen Zenji, founder of our school. This slowly drifting cloud is pitiful. What dream walkers we humans become. Awakened, I hear the one true thing. Black rain on the roof of Fukakusa Temple. This slowly drifting cloud is pitiful. What dream walkers we humans become. Awakened, I hear the one true thing. Black rain on the roof of Fukakusa Temple. Thank you all very much.

[37:23]

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