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. Tonight I want to talk to you about how our ideas of practice and our ideas of the fruits of practice are not always so. How practice and what we think is supposed to come from practice might be something different than our idea. And I'll start with this. Keith, my husband, said to me a few days ago, you should talk about how you came to practice. That would be a good thing to talk about. And I said... well, I came to practice following you.

[01:01]

And he said, that's how you came to Zen Center, that's not how you came to practice. Okay. So I thought about it some, and then a few days later I asked him, well, how did you come to practice? And so he told me several things, but I'll tell you this part of it. We were both very much into Christianity. And he, I think, was really struggling with, you know, I don't know, many things. But one of the things he was struggling with and had been, he said, for a long time, is, what can I do to actually actualize this? You know, there were these helpful things about Christianity and things that he believed in, but this question of, but how do I do it? What do I do with it? And he said that the first time he sat down in zazen, it was like this huge relief of something he could actually do.

[02:06]

We talk about not doing and not trying to do zazen. On the other hand, sitting down is actually something that you do. It's different than not sitting down. It's different than, or at least some portion of it, maybe not our attitude and maybe not his attitude, but some portion of it is different than the way we usually do things, where we're trying to, with some rational, we move toward it. This time to do something, we sit down and don't do anything for a while. And that felt very accurate to him, and there was some real sense of relief of this, what he called suffering, real suffering in... the kind of questing of how do I actualize this? So my coming to practice was quite different than that. I did follow Keith to Zen Center. I think I was in my early 20s, 22, 24, 24 when we moved to Zen Center.

[03:10]

And I would say I'm not exactly sure where I was living. I was definitely not living in my body. It never occurred to me that such a thing was a possibility. My body was just something to try to make reasonably presentable and do things with. And it wasn't so much in my mind. I think I was an okay thinker, and I didn't mind thinking, but that wasn't kind of like what I cared about. I think the main thing I cared about actually was relationships of all kinds. And I think I kind of lived in the realm of relationship. And it was pretty not exactly unconscious, but not exactly conscious either. It was just maybe kind of not intuitive. I've never felt like, anyway, whatever. It was there. That was how I was maneuvering my life was how

[04:15]

I think it could be said as how to have good relationships. And a big part of that was making other people feel good, which later I learned. I'm pretty sure it was in good part to make me feel good. If they felt good, then I would feel good. But there was also some real desire to have people be happy. So I was... proceeding in this world of relationships. That was all there was. And then, of course, there was Keith, and that was like a major relationship. And so I was following him wherever he went. And we started both he and another major relationship, the leader of this community of women that I was living in, were both reading Buddhism, reading a lot of Buddhism. So... I read Buddhism and I read Alan Watts and I would think all the way through it, this makes so much sense.

[05:18]

This is great. This is just what I've been looking for. And then I'd get to the end of the book and I'd be like, what was that again? I guess I have to read it over again. So it kind of didn't stick in any mental way or any way. And then we... Well, we started sitting in Chicago, but we came to Zen Center. And then the community was like... I liked the community. I wasn't so fond of Zazen. I mean, I did it. But the physical experience of it was definitely... Anyway, it wasn't all that pleasant, especially toward the end of a period. And pretty much every period I would say, I'm not doing this again. I'm never doing this again. And I had this... feeling like I was following Keith. But when we got to San Francisco, we lived in the neighborhood around city center, and we had different jobs, and Keith would go off to work, and I would go to Zazen.

[06:23]

So I wasn't exactly following Keith. I was going to Zazen when Keith wasn't there, and I was sitting a period and then saying, I'm never coming back here, and then I'd be back again the next time. Anyway, so... Something was going on there. And now I think that, looking back on it, that some part of me knew that I needed the sanity that was somewhat growing in me by sitting. That this working in the realm of relationships, one of the downsides of that was that I was very dependent on relationships. And especially when this important relationship appeared in my life, I was really coming to rely on it in a major way for how I saw myself and how I experienced myself. And that was, you know, as probably many of you know, that was pretty imbalancing. So I think that there was some balancing going on that I could feel but couldn't really recognize, didn't have any way of thinking about it.

[07:32]

or experiencing it, but somehow knew it and knew that I needed it. And for me, Keith mentioned that the pain of this looking for where's the truth in my spiritual practice and how do I actualize it, the pain of that helped get him to practice. And for me, I think the pain, and I've mentioned this before in lectures, the pain of, at some point, Keith left me, he left Zen Center and me, and it was extremely painful, and I actually see that as the time that my practice, you know, I think now it started back before that, but when I recognized it and really felt its effect was when there was this pain, and in a way it was the same, it was the same question, you know, like, what can I do And it was such a relief to, like, you know, I would go to sleep at night and I would wake up really early in the morning, you know, and lay there and fret and toss and turn and, you know, feel sick.

[08:47]

And it was such a relief when it was time to get up and go to Zazen. There was something to actually do that felt sane in the midst of my insanity. So, you know, this story goes on and on and on. But I'm going to stop there for tonight and go on to Dogen, because I do want to talk to you about how practice and the fruits of practice are not what we think, or not always what we think anyway. So Dogen says in Only a Buddha and a Buddha, realization is not like your conception. excuse me, is not like your conception of it. Realization is not like your conception of it. Past thoughts were already realization, but since you were seeking elsewhere, you thought they were not. Realization does not come forth by the power of thought.

[09:48]

Realization comes forth far beyond thought and is helped only by the power of reality being realized itself. Let me read that part again. Realization is not like your conception of it. Past thoughts were already realization, but since you were seeking elsewhere, you thought they were not. Realization does not come forth by the power of thought. Realization comes forth far beyond thought and is helped only by the power of reality being realized itself. And then he goes on with this example of it, a very simple example. Spring has the tone of spring. Autumn has the scene of autumn. If you want spring or autumn to be different from what it is, notice that it can only be as it is.

[10:54]

Or when you want to keep spring or autumn as it is, reflect that it has no unchanging nature. So it's a pretty simple interaction with reality. It's here is summer, summer is summer. If you notice yourself wanting summer not to be summer, notice that it just is summer. If you want summer to stay and not turn into winter, notice that it can't do that. It doesn't have an unchanging reality. It changes every day. I hear tomorrow is going to be really hot, and by next Sunday it's going to be back in the 70s. There isn't any summer that can just be summer, and certainly it can't be summer by the power of our wanting it to. So this realization that we have some idea about, as Dogen says, you know,

[12:00]

And I think most of us do. We have some hope of what practice will bring us, of what it will cure in us, of how it will allow us to live differently. And that hope changes over time. In the beginning, we might just think, it'll help me stop being this way, or it will help me be nicer to people, or it will help me be less... unhappy or will something. And then it might shift to, well, it will help me be more present. It'll help me be open to whatever happens. Whatever those ideas are, and, you know, like some of you come and talk to me and I tell you my ideas, we have to use our ideas to talk about it. So, you know, we all have ideas. It's good to remember it's not that. It's not It's at least not just that, that realization is only helped by the power of reality realizing itself at the moment when it realizes itself.

[13:15]

And I think this is really the crucial point. It's like realization only happens right now. It only happens as we are right now. So each time realization happens, it happens different. It happens to a different person. It happens to the person that you are right now. And then a little bit later, it happens, it potentially happens anyway, to the person that you are right then. So it can't be figured out by thinking about it because we don't know who we're going to be then. We really can't remember who we were back then in the past. And anyway, we can't go back there. So that one can't be realized any more than it was. So this right now, as things come together right now, that's where we find the fruits of practice, whether we can say them or not.

[14:19]

Katagiri Roshi has a chapter in Returning to Silence. that's called Buddha is Your Daily Life. It's just a little tiny chapter, and this is part of it. He talks about how a policeman eats breakfast to catch a thief, and a pickpocket eats breakfast to have the energy to go out and take a $10 bill out of somebody's pocket. But a practitioner eats breakfast just to eat breakfast. Eat breakfast to offer your mind and body to Buddha, to the universe. Eat breakfast to offer your mind and body to Buddha, which is the same as to the universe. That is offering your mind and body to reality as it is realizing right now.

[15:22]

And then he says this. to the pure sense of human action. So this is not a, you know, not moving kind of thing. This is how human action happens in a pure way. You're just eating breakfast to eat breakfast to offer yourself to reality as it is right now. And to keep offering yourself to reality as it is right now, which is... Human action, for you, for me, unless you other beings are listening, for me, and maybe for some of you, human action is the kind of reality we will be involved in, which is interaction with the whole universe. So to have this pure sense of human action, where human action just happens in the interaction with everything, That's why we eat breakfast.

[16:27]

And then he says, Buddha is not divine. Buddha is your daily life. Buddha is not divine. Buddha is your daily life. Another illustration of this is the koan, it's number 21 in the Book of Serenity. the one about, I think his name is Yunyon, is sweeping, sweeping, sweeping in the monastery. Sweeping, sweeping out of cabin for the guests to come, or chopping, chopping, chopping in the kitchen. Anyway, he's working along. And his friend, Dao Wu, comes up to him and says, too busy. And Yunyon says, you should know there's one who isn't busy. And Dao Wu says, smart aleck, that would mean that there's two realities.

[17:37]

He says two moons, which kind of means two enlightened realities, but two realities, the one who's busy and the one who's not busy. Not a good Zen answer, right? There's not, we don't have, what's it called? Dichotomies like that. starts with a D. Dualism. We don't have dualism. There's not two realities, there's just one reality. So there can't be one who's busy and one who isn't busy. But Yunnan just lifts up the broom and says, which moon is this? And then he goes back to sweeping. Very apropos koan for us in the summer. Here we are sweeping, cooking, chopping, cleaning away, maybe feeling very busy, and then somebody reminds us, wait a minute, what are we here for?

[18:39]

What are you here for? Is it to clean cabins? Is it to serve in the dining room? Why don't you go work in a restaurant? You'll make better tips. And then we say to ourselves, wait a minute, there's one that isn't busy. I know it's here somewhere. Where is it? Where is the one who isn't busy? What did I come here for? Maybe it's in the zendo. Maybe when I go to the zendo, there's the one who isn't busy. But wait a minute. When I'm in the zendo, I'm trying to follow my breath. I'm trying to stay awake. I'm counting the seconds until I can get out of there. I'm wishing there was more zazen and I could stay here forever. Is that the one that's not busy? Jung Nyan lifts up his broom or his zafu or his mudra and says, which moon is this? This reality has the potential to be realization.

[19:42]

This reality, whichever one it is, if we can get there, has the potential to be realization. In fact, always was realization. Even the thinking that's going on in it Always was realization, but only we didn't recognize it because we were looking elsewhere. So how do we get there? We don't know. We don't know how we get there. We're already there. We can't be anyplace else. And yet we're trying to sweep, sweep, sweep, trying to look for the one who isn't busy. But we only have one life. There really is only one reality at every second. It's not like, you know, if you described reality this minute and I described reality this minute, we might say different things. There would be a different description. But nonetheless, there is one reality that we're each involved in, and we even have a different experience of it, but we have the experience we're having.

[20:44]

It's beyond our thinking, beyond our describing, but it can be settled. on it's just that we don't know how to do it and we are not the ones who need to know how to do it that's not how it happens we're already there that's why we need something indescribable like zazen where we can sit there and pretend or act or believe that we are trying and we can actually try and actually that sometimes is a helpful thing and yet we can see oh i'm not doing this it's it's I'm part of it. I'm part of what's happening. I'm part of the universe that I'm offering myself to, that I eat breakfast to offer myself to. So, did that make any sense? That's how practice and the fruits of practice are not what we think they are. They're mysteriously happening.

[21:48]

And it's not that we can't experience them. We actually can experience them, and we might even be able to say something about them. But that's not exactly the point. The point is being it, just being what we are. And in this wonderful setting that we're all blessed with being in, and some of us for longer than others, that kind of recognition, that kind of realizing reality as it's happening, is encouraged and grows and flourishes. The kind that's very simple, the kind that's like noticing that summer can only be summer. Noticing that if I want summer to be different than summer, it's kind of wasted wanting. Because summer is going to be summer. And if I want summer to last longer, that's kind of wasted wanting too.

[22:55]

And wasted wanting that causes me some suffering because time moves on. Things change. Nothing has unchanging self. So, let me see what time it is. unchanging not unchanging self we have a few minutes do you have anything you would like to say yes key you said realization what can help us in the present or future Yes. Yes. Yes, definitely.

[24:04]

I mean, they are us. You know, whatever realizations we've had in the past, whether we recognize them as realizations or as traumas or whatever, They become us, so they help us in that way. And sometimes we even remember them, and they encourage us, sometimes, some of them. And though there may be some clinging in that, both things can happen at once. clinging to an insight that we've had in the past, that actually hinders us from being in the present. But that memory can come into the present and be part of the present and be an encouragement to us to, again, try to be present.

[25:05]

Thank you. Yes. Do you want to say something? Anybody else while he thinks about it? No? Yes, John. In a way, I think it's just realizing that we don't know what we are. Because really, we don't know what we are. A lot of the time, we think we know what we are. Some of the time, that's not much of a hindrance.

[26:14]

It's kind of the crux of the kernel of pain, the kernel of suffering, to think we know what we are because doesn't match up a lot of the time and then we're shocked and dismayed or something so to realize that we don't know what we are I think can be very helpful it also can be a little disorienting and then it's really good to notice where you are like notice where your feet are Notice where your hands are. Because that who we are, I think, is the big ungraspable thing that we really care about. Like, who am I? Am I okay? Am I safe? And we're sort of, I think, most of the time looking for the answer to that and to realize how much we don't know about that.

[27:24]

can make us feel unbalanced and is very frightening to the part of our mind that thinks it's supposed to be doing that. It's supposed to be keeping us on track about who we are and making sure we're safe and also that part of our mind can get quite freaked out by how out of control that is. So again, then it's really good to notice, okay, where am I? What am I doing? is it okay right now? Am I taking care of things? Is that to your point? Yeah. Yeah. Some place where you are, which is not, you know, it's not unchangeable, but it's findable. It's like, like Paul said during the practice period, contact, contact. He suggested during, uh, like during a zazen period, but also any time to just notice where's the contact, where's the contact between our sense organs and what we're sensing, our world, to notice where our feet are, to notice what we're smelling, to notice what we're hearing.

[28:42]

It's a grounding thing. Thank you. Curtis. He'll raise his hand. The practice and the fruits of practice are not what we think they are or not just what we think they are. Could you say a few words about other people's ideas of our practice or the fruits of our practice? Particularly people such as maybe practice leaders who had something where we may either have a feeling of some need to communicate our practice or our ideas of our practice or to whom we, from whom we seek verification of our ideas of practice. Because it simply follows that their ideas aren't.

[29:45]

Yes, yes. Yeah, good. Yes, deep topic. You know, one of the things that I noticed early on was that when I went to Dokusan, I did not want to tell, at that point it was Richard Baker, my teacher, what I thought about practice, because I didn't want him to tell me that it was wrong. You know, so that's a really good thing to notice. You know, that's a very protected place to be. I mean, and then I really tried to do it. I really tried to tell him what I was thinking about practice to counter that. But I think there was sometimes when I didn't notice that that's what I was feeling and I didn't do that. I just wanted to keep my little idea safe from somebody's view of it. Somebody who I actually trusted, you know, not to be always right, but to, you know, to have some insight into what I did.

[30:52]

me, at least. It was my experience that he had some insight into me and when I was holding on to things, when I was clinging to things. So I think we have to go with our sense. We can go counter to it like that. Like I noticed that I didn't want to talk about it, and then I noticed that it was for a pretty suspicious reason. So then I went counter to my inclination, but I was still going according to my inclination because I actually trusted this person to listen to me with some insight into when I might be having an idea of self and holding on to it and things. So I think it's like that. We can't just go with our own thinking. because it's faulty, and we start to see that.

[31:57]

But we can't just turn it over to somebody else either, because they're not perfect either, as pretty much everyone I know has proved. Pretty much everyone I know. I was rereading a book of Norman Fisher. He was actually writing about Richard Baker, but it goes for many... He said, you know, I really loved him. But I loved him like you'd love a rainbow, not like anything you'd really rely on. Oh, yeah, it's kind of like everybody, you know, like we should love everybody, including ourself, kind of like a rainbow, you know, not like, oh, yeah, that's what's going to save me, that person. But still, sometimes these people in our lives are... people who we check things out with. Does that mean true? Okay. Yes, Shogun. Is the actualization of realization anything different than complete acceptance of what is?

[33:07]

I don't think so. Do you think so? No. No, I think that's, and this, you know, Kategori Roshi is saying this is pure human action. You know, it's not, which I'm sometimes accused of making it sound like, so I want to be careful not to make it sound like that. It's not a passivity. You know, it's not, oh, this is the way things are, so therefore I can't, I shouldn't do anything about it. You know, I shouldn't say if I don't like it or I shouldn't, I should just accept it. all but it's it's uh accepting in a very alive way you know that we are part of it and that if something in us says no there's probably some way to say that there are actually lots of ways to say that and one way to say that is just because you know like i don't like uh summer so i want summer to be winter which

[34:20]

It's not really, you know, once in the end, it causes suffering for us because we want something to be the way it isn't. But if it's, whoa, I need a drink of water. You know, it's hot out here. It's not like just accept that it's hot and don't get any water. You go get a drink of water if you possibly can. So, you know, it's an active interaction. It's a universe that we are part of that we're accepting. So we're accepting... the outside, and we're accepting the inside, and we're accepting the parts that we don't understand, and maybe sometimes even the parts that we don't have any idea exist. Thank you for the question. Okay. Yes? How do we realize our delusion? Yes, it is. So what? accept it completely.

[35:23]

It's a complicated thing. It's not just a thing. Our biggest delusion is that we're separate from it or that we're separate from things. But then we have more discrete delusions. So they're there and they're functioning. But when we see them or get some hint of them, How do we realize them? We don't deny them. We try to stay close to them. We don't try to deny that they're there, but also don't try to kill them. Try to be, but don't try to justify them. Like, oh, of course this is true, or I believe this is true because whatever. So basically, Openness. A lot of delusions, when we actually look them right in the face, can't stand up to it.

[36:29]

Once we see how crazy they are, we can't really maintain them any longer. So there's some freedom from them. Sometimes the habit energy stays for a while. Does that... Do you want to say something more? No, enough for now. Good. Thank you. Okay, I think it's time to end. So, thank you all 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, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[37:27]

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