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. Good evening. So wonderful to be sitting here in the Tassajara Zendo. Walking over here, I was listening to the crickets. and the foxes. That little chirping sound, if you don't know what that is. A warm night. We're very blessed. So tonight I'd like to talk about a fascicle from Dogen called Yui Butsu Yobutsu. only a Buddha and a Buddha.

[01:01]

Yui means only or solely. Butsu is Buddha. Yo is and or together with. So only a Buddha and a Buddha or Buddhas alone, together with Buddhas. That comes from a phrase in the Lotus Sutra. Only a Buddha, together with a Buddha, can fathom the reality of all existence, can fathom things as it is. So this is a very interesting thing to say. Only a Buddha and a Buddha can awaken, can realize. And yet the Lotus Sutra, one of the hearts of the Lotus Sutra, is that it teaches... that all beings have Buddha nature. All beings are predicted to become Buddha, without exception.

[02:04]

It's, I think, in some ways, kind of the New Testament of Buddhism. It's preaching the good news. Buddha is not far away something other than In Shakyamuni Buddha's time, of course, Buddha was very close. Buddha was a human being that people could hear and see. And many, many people became awakened. But as it got farther and farther away from that time, Buddha became this very mythical being, this being that no one could possibly attain to. Buddhahood was not seen as being possible for people. could only have a kind of a lesser level of being an arhat. So the Lotus Sutra comes along and preaches that, you know, all beings without exception have Buddha nature, or as Dogen says, are Buddha nature.

[03:11]

We're not separate from that, that there's nothing apart from Buddha in the whole universe. So this is kind of a koan, only a Buddha and a Buddha. can fathom the reality of all existence. So Dogen has a lot to say about this. And being Dogen, he doesn't explain this. This is just the starting point for an extended riff. So he says, Buddha Dharma cannot be known by a person. For this reason, since olden times, no ordinary person has realized Buddhadharma. Because it is realized by Buddhas alone, it is said only a Buddha and a Buddha can thoroughly master it. What does this mean? Buddhadharma cannot be known by a person.

[04:13]

So a person refers to our usual way of seeing things, our singular way. dualistic, separate self. And from that place, that point of view, we can't know Buddhadharma, not as it is. We can hear the explanations, we can read about it, we can take it in, and that's the first step. That's where we begin. But we can't actually know it. We can only know it on its own terms. It's like knowing another person. only more so. We can imagine, we know another person, we can hear their stories, we can listen and observe, but until we're really inside of them, we can't know them. The difference is that we never totally get inside another person except in the sense that we're all Buddha. From the point of view of Buddha, we're all the same.

[05:21]

We're all Buddha. So Buddhadharma cannot be known by a person. Because it is realized by Buddhas alone, it is said only a Buddha and a Buddha can thoroughly master it. So how do we become Buddha? I don't know about you, I'm an ordinary person. So how do we become Buddha? Then there's a story about polishing the tile, like you can't just sit and become a Buddha so what is this all about? And what is a Buddha anyway? So we'll hold that question. Dogen goes on and says, when you realize Buddha Dharma, you do not think, this is realization just as I expected. Even if you think so, realization inevitably differs from your expectation.

[06:26]

Realization is not like your conception of it. Accordingly, realization cannot take place as previously conceived. When you realize Buddha Dharma, you do not consider how realization came about. Reflect on this. What you think one way or another before realization is not a help for realization. Oops. So whatever you think awakening is or realization is or Buddha Dharma is, it's not that and the thinking isn't helping. Let's just sit with that a minute. Whatever you think, this other thing that sounds like such a great thing and you want it, what you're thinking it is or thinking you're supposed to do to get there isn't it.

[07:31]

Whatever your conception of realization is, that's not it. I love that bumper sticker that says, meditation, it's not what you think. And we can't help thinking. And thinking is not actually the problem. It's just that when we think we know what something is, we're not actually open to knowing anything at all. Because we already have our preconceived ideas about it. So we think this can't be it. Maybe some of you have fallen in love with someone that you thought was it. And then they turned out to be rather different than you thought. Or the other way around.

[08:41]

Maybe there was someone that was there all along and you never saw who they were until much later and you suddenly realized, that's it. They're my true love. But you had a different idea about what that was going to look like. We have such a hard time seeing what's right there in front of us. Apparently our brains are wired about 20% to sensory input in the outside world and about 80% wired back into itself. Which makes sense. I mean, there's lots of interconnections that need to happen. But our tendency is just to is to have all this feed-forward mechanism. It's a great survival mechanism. We wouldn't be here without it. But it keeps us in little boxes that we made before we were five years old.

[09:43]

Most of the boxes that we live in are just elaborations of boxes we made when we were really, really little. They have all kinds of fancy concepts on them but they're just ways of bulking up and defending and making look good our basic fears and anxieties and longings and needs. And that's just what our lives are as human beings. but we don't have to stay there and we don't have to be stuck there. So just recognizing, just realizing that we have conceptions about what awakening is or who other people are or who we are. You probably have more conceptions about that than anything else. If you can see that you have conceptions, If you can see that you have expectations and ideas, you're halfway there.

[10:54]

Then if you cannot take them totally seriously. I love what Fu said in her talk. I don't believe these thoughts I'm having right now. That's just a good practice, you know, because it's like... I cannot believe the thoughts I had yesterday. That's pretty easy. I've had new ones and I'm more distant. But the ones I'm having right now seem really compelling. It's a good practice. I don't believe these thoughts that I'm having right now. I don't have to believe these. Dogen goes on. Although realization is not any of the thoughts preceding it, this is not because such thoughts were actually bad and could not be realization. Past thoughts in themselves were already realization.

[12:02]

There is nothing outside of realization. There is nothing outside of Buddhadharma. This includes your past thoughts. Your self-concepts, your ideas about other people, your ideas about realization, it's all included. There's nothing outside. Past thoughts in themselves were already realization. But since you were seeking elsewhere, you thought and said that thoughts cannot be realization. So we sit in zazen and we try so hard to get rid of thoughts. All these little intrusive thoughts that come out... what I have to do today or tomorrow or whatever, they're not actually the problem and they're not going away. It's how we live with them. It's how we relate with them, just like our bodies, just like our partners or our friends or where we live. How we relate to what arises is the key.

[13:12]

And that's what practice can offer is changing our relationship with what arises, with what comes to us. This seeking elsewhere, this wanting it to be otherwise, this is the second noble truth. The cause of suffering is just wanting it to be otherwise. It's not the thing in itself Similarly, we can think that real practice is somewhere else. Maybe before we came here we thought, well, real practice is going to be at Tassajara. It's the oldest and largest Zen monastery in the West. Real practice must exist here. And then maybe you come and think, well, this isn't real practice. This summer can't be real practice.

[14:26]

There's too much talking and it's not hard enough and there's not enough zazen and whatever. Like real practice is happening in the practice period. And it's cloistered. Everyone wears robes all the time. But that's just seeking elsewhere. Practice is our relationship with reality. When we first come, we often have beginner's mind. We're open and receptive, as well as hopeful and excited. But we are usually in a place of wanting to let go of our ideas and open to something else.

[15:28]

And this beginner's mind is so precious. So how do we keep that alive? How do we keep that freshness of our practice alive? Whether you live at Tassajaro, whether you're here for the summer, here for a few days, here as a student, here as a guest, it's a practice for our life of how we keep our lives fresh, how we keep meeting each moment with an open mind, each person. Dogen goes on, being undivided is like meeting a person and not considering what the person looks like. Sometimes I think we have that experience with other people, but I think we often know it when someone is seeing us that way.

[16:34]

Like they're not seeing our surface, they're not seeing what we look like. They're just seeing into our heart and what they see is good. Their love illumines the love in us. Also, it is not like wishing for more color or brightness when viewing flowers or the moon. You know, those times when everything is okay just as it is. You know, we can't ask for anything more. Whatever it is that's happening, those moments tend to stand out for us as bright moments. When we're very simply free from our wanting minds and we're completely at peace with what's there. We don't desire more color or more brightness when viewing flowers or the moon.

[17:39]

We don't even desire less heat when it's hot. It's just hot. Spring has the feeling of spring, and autumn has the look of autumn. There is no escaping it. So when you want spring or autumn to be different from what it is, notice that it can only be as it is. Dogen says this in different ways over and over again. We want things to be other than they are. And just to have a mind when we're not wanting things to be other than they are is so rich. That's to awaken. or when you want to keep spring or autumn as it is, reflect that it has no unchanging nature.

[18:45]

Tassajara is always Tassajara. It goes through its seasons. Guest season, work period, practice period, interim practice period, work period, guest season. the heat of summer, the cold of winter, silence, sound. It's like the creek. It's always the same and always different. If we think it's always changing, it's always the same. If we think it's the same, it's always changing. coming year after year the people in the valley change but the feeling of practice the feeling of this place continues on not because it's a thing that people plug into but because it's something that's created over and over again by the people who come by the students by the guests all of you

[20:10]

all of us together make Tassajara, moment by moment. Preparing food, serving food, eating food. In the student eating area, in the dining room. Checking in at the office, coming to evening service, sitting zazen, bathing, walking on the paths, listening to the silence, meeting new people, saying goodbye. We make Tassajara moment by moment. How we make it is what it is. How we make it is what it is. It's incredibly beautiful, this arising that we all make together.

[21:19]

It depends on so many beings. Buddhas, together with Buddhas. All of us together making a Buddha field. Here, it feels so easy to see that this is a Buddha field. You might not call it that. but you could see it that way. The whole earth is a Buddha field. The entire universe is a Buddha field. Dogen says, the entire earth is the true human body. The entire earth is the gate of liberation. The entire earth is the single eye of Vairachana Buddha. The entire earth is the Dharma body of the Self. The entire earth is the true human body.

[22:23]

Our human body is not limited by this form that we live in and carry around, are born in and die with. This is us. It's inseparable. I cease to be me if I don't have this body. But my true body is the entire universe. My true body is all of you. My true body is the Zendo. My true body is Tassahara. My true body cannot be seen. In birth and death, Dogen says, there is a simple way to become a Buddha.

[23:29]

When you refrain from unwholesome actions, are not attached to birth and death, and are compassionate toward all sentient beings, respectful to seniors and kind to juniors, not excluding or desiring anything, with no thoughts or worries, you will be called a Buddha. Seek nothing else. I like that he says there is a simple way to become a Buddha. And he doesn't say there is an easy way to become a Buddha. Simple is not so easy because it's simple. Equally, he could say There's a simple way to become a Buddha. Follow the schedule completely. Not so simple.

[24:33]

Especially when you couple it with not excluding or desiring anything. Letting go and again letting go. Just had an ordination, shaving the head and again shaving the head, which is letting go and again letting go. If you don't open your hand of thought, you can't receive. You have to lower yourself, your idea of how things should be. Not that you don't have ideas, not that they're not useful or helpful, but if you don't hold them very softly, they will grab you by the throat.

[25:48]

If you can let go, if you can walk through the small door, you will be Buddha. Only a Buddha and a Buddha. When we see all beings as Buddha, we are Buddha. So an ordinary person cannot realize Buddha Dharma. Only a Buddha together with Buddhas, a Buddha seeing Buddhas, is Buddhadharma. This is our path and this is our practice. Thank you all for walking it with me. Are there any questions?

[27:00]

Yes? Daniel? Yes. Follow the schedule completely. Meet what arises with complete relaxation. Notice where you're holding. If you can let go, let go. If you can't, just notice it. Become deeply intimate with whatever arises, most of all what you're bringing to the moment. Listen. Listen deeply. We're never just in this valley breathing the air.

[28:43]

We're always relating. We're always meeting one another. We're always thinking and feeling and responding. And the totality of that is how we create Tassajara. It kind of depends on how you are with that, I think. If you're wholeheartedly here with being here because you have no idea what else to do with your life, then you're completely present with that, with your confusion and lostness. And that's honest. But if you're hiding from yourself and

[29:49]

usually kind of bad-mouthing other things and putting down this and that, then that has its effect. So it depends. But it's not, practice is not about hiding. And still. You know, we wander in the darkness for a really long time, usually, most of us. And these thoughts that we have prior to realization, like I'm just here hanging out because I don't know what else to do and there's a good workshop going on, those are just our past thoughts that aren't actually bad and are somehow getting us here, which is kind of interesting, rather than somewhere else. An old friend of mine said, hang around the barbershop long enough, you'll probably get a haircut.

[30:53]

Or the other story about the woman who, I think it was a prostitute actually, who in jest tried on an okesa and later became a nun. So it's like, we have no idea. We actually have no idea what we're doing. And we still have to do our best. If we're not doing our best, other people feel it, and we feel it, and it feels bad. Yes? Same thing. Or at least in the same very broad neighborhood.

[32:03]

Are you pointing or raising? Pointing. Ah. Sarah. Sarah. Buddha and Buddha, and yet we're all Buddha. When we're all Buddha, then it's a Buddha and Buddhas. When we're all Buddha together. We can't be outside. It's like from inside the Buddha field, it's illuminated as a Buddha field. From outside, it's either ordinary people or these very special people that we call Buddha. Inside, it's just us, just us Buddhas. This is actually what Buddha looks like.

[33:13]

There. That's what Buddha looks like. and there, and there. But to see that as Buddha is to see with the eyes of Buddha. So seeing with the eyes of Buddha, we awaken. Paul? Yeah. So in accepting things as they are, We also accept that we don't want things to be as they are. And I don't think that's quite as simple as just saying, well, I guess I don't want things to be as they are. Because if you accept that you actually don't want things to be as they are, then that desire is still there. And you don't make that go away by just being cool with it because it's still a desire. And so coolness with it is impossible. Right? I don't know have you found it impossible I usually don't trust that I would actually I guess I just defer to the wisdom that I'm hearing so I can usually say I probably don't actually want things to be different and can then read

[34:48]

coolness but I would say I mean the things that we more deeply desire to be different like I desire to fully grasp no self that sort of thing it seems very problematic to accept because it seems to be in the way of itself totally Right. And can you stop wanting to fully realize no self? Well, if I do, then I haven't really accepted things as they are, right? I mean, if you can really get intimate with The suffering of wanting things to be other than they are, I'm so grasping, I'm so clinging at wanting to realize no self.

[36:01]

It's different to have a vow or an aspiration or an intention that has this energy or is fueling your practice. It's delusional, but who cares? It's a good engine. You'll get over it. Don't worry about it. But the ones that are causing us suffering, because we're going around in little circles, if we can see how we're going around in little circles and causing ourselves pain, and we actually see how we're doing that and that it's not helping, and we can actually start to slow things down and see the mechanism, it's like, oh, I'm wanting to realize no self because my self is really painful now and I want it to go away. It's not even, oh, I want no self. It's like thinking, well, I'm feeling suicidal because I want the pain to stop and I can't imagine any other way for the pain to stop than except stopping my life. But that's just seeing from a very limited point of view.

[37:06]

If we actually touch the experience that we're having, separate from our ideas of it, we can usually stand it. And when we can stand it, we don't have to be afraid of it. We see how it arises. We see how it passes. It's like, oh, okay. And then we're not holding anything at bay. We're not fighting with it. Life is just happening, and we're going along with it. That doesn't mean we don't have agency or do things. There are... Many, many, many wrongs in the world. And we should do something about them. But the more clearly we can see how things are, the more skillfully we can know how to help. If we're stuck in our ideas, we're really limited, both with ourselves and with others. One more.

[38:11]

Rachel. bad is bad and good is good. Can you help me with that? You don't understand that pain is pain and bad is bad and good is good? Basically. Can you help me understand what you mean by that or how that is for you? We have pain and I think I see situations where I could drop it. but I don't trust that it's bad enough to drop it. I trust it more as reality than as bad. Then it sounds like for you, dropping it, because you trust the pain, because it's familiar, it sounds more comfortable than dropping it, which might be

[39:21]

actually more uncomfortable than the pain. I don't know about that. I don't know that I enjoy anything because it's familiar. I don't think I meant enjoy. Sometimes it's really not about pleasure or enjoyment. It's just that the unknown or the unfamiliar are so deeply uncomfortable. Are you sure? Right, but I don't hear that from you. What I'm talking about is the way each of us experiences pain, the way each of us experiences suffering. not what someone else thinks you should be doing.

[40:29]

What's painful for you? Where is your pain? It's not, but you don't have to answer it if that's too... Pain is in frustration and that's something that I could let go of if I fully believe that pain was bad. I'm not sure that pain is bad What do you mean by bad? I hate to drag everybody into this.

[41:44]

Moving away from pain is the idea. So that's why I call it pain is negative, pain is bad. Let's just say pain is what we don't want. And The Buddha teaches that much of the time, what we think we're trying to get away from actually doesn't work. We think that suffering is in all these things out there. And yes, there's all these things out here, but most of our suffering is what we're generating inside. Inside. Our own heads. Our own hearts. Our own experience. That's where the pain that we can really do something. The suffering... that we can really do something about comes from. So, yeah, if you chose to, you could experiment with different ways of being with that and see how it is.

[42:45]

Among the very last things that the Buddha said in his lifetime were, be a lamp unto yourselves. Don't take my word for it. Test it out for yourself. Find your own way. So, really, each person has to see what is useful for them to find their own way. And if it's not useful, don't use it. 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.

[43:39]

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