This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. It's really wonderful to get to be here with all of you today. Thank you to the Tonto Tim for the invitation to speak. Can everybody hear me okay? Is the microphone alright? I bring you warmest greetings from your sibling temple across the bay, the Berkeley Zen Center. It's a temple whose history is utterly entwined with the history of this temple. You could say they have a long relationship, but that makes it sound like they're two different things.

[01:07]

They actually, it's all the same people at the same time that founded and created the two institutions. Mel Weitzman, Sojin Roshi, and Suzuki Roshi founded the Berkeley Zen Center in 1967, just five years after the incorporation of something called the San Francisco Zen Center in 1962, and the same year that Tassajara was purchased. So, old, long siblinghood. And so it's really wonderful to drive across the bay and be here with you today. The exciting news that we have in Berkeley is that we have a new abbot. So about six weeks ago, we had a wonderful ceremony, the mountain seat ceremony, installing Linda Gallion Roshi, who lived here for many, many years as the third abbot

[02:23]

of the Berkeley Zen Center. So it was a lot of fun, a really wonderful ceremony, and we're all so happy. We're all so happy to have Linda there guiding us. Well, today, I thought I would say a few things about something I've been thinking about which is the role of effort or intention or purpose in our practice. Our practice is a ritual practice. We take up a set of ceremonial forms.

[03:25]

We put our bodies and our minds and our hearts into a ceremonial space together when we practice. And those ceremonies might be pretty intricate. They might be pretty complex, have a lot of moving parts. The mountain seat ceremony that we just did in Berkeley, that ceremony has happened in our temple three times in 60 years. So it happened once in 1985 for Sojin Roshi, again in 2021 for Hozan Roshi, and then six weeks ago for Linda Roshi. And so for a temple of our size and scale, a ceremony like that took months to plan and days of rehearsals. So that was a ritual expression that was pretty complicated, a pretty big deal for us.

[04:34]

I think the most complicated ceremony I've ever witnessed or been a part of, a couple of years ago, I had an opportunity to go with groups really from all over the world to Japan for a for the 700th anniversary of Kazan Zenji's death. Abbot David and Abbot Mako were there from the San Francisco Zen Center. Vicky Austin was there. Various San Francisco Zen Center people were there. And I was there with a group from my teacher's temple, the Houston Zen Center. And we did a ceremony at Sojiji that I'm sure I don't remember this right, but it felt to me like there were like 12 or 15 jishas moving around. I've never seen anything like it. It was so choreographed.

[05:35]

It was so big and layered and intricate and complicated. The makugyo, the drum that's played during the chanting, like this drum, this drum here, I think it was about the size of a Volkswagen. And a big kind of beefy guy had to play it because, you know, the thumper is huge, you know, and he climbs these steps and he's thumping and after a while he's really starting to sweat. I was sitting kind of close to him. I could sort of see him and his face is red and he's just, you know, thumping and after about 30 or 40 minutes they spelled him. Someone else came and went up and took the thumper and took over. Three people. It was a couple hours of ceremony. So that's pretty complicated. A lot of effort goes into that. Some of our ceremonies are much more simple.

[06:38]

So sitting zazen at home in my living room, I might bow to my zafu and turn and bow to the room and then sit down. So much more humble in a way. but it's still a ritual expression. I'm not just doing, I don't know, whatever I came up with in that moment, right? I'm entering a kind of organization. I've organized my body. I've organized space or time in a particular way. There's a kind of order a ritual we make a certain set of commitments in a ritual and in a period of Zazen we commit we agree that when the bell rings will sit very still until the bell rings again that's a I don't know we're organizing

[07:56]

bodies in a certain way, right? There's some effort, there's some intention, there's discipline. But I think it's also true and really important that we understand that in a particular way. Maybe it's easy to say what it isn't. I don't think that a ritual We're organizing ourselves in a particular way, but I don't think we're trying to control ourselves. I don't think we're trying to control what happens. First, because it doesn't work. It just doesn't work. But second, because I don't think that's liberative. So me trying to control what happens next in a way is is part of the problem.

[08:57]

So me trying to control what happens in a ritual is just the same, is just the same game, right? So there's effort or intentionality or energy or purpose, but it doesn't feel quite right to say that there's control. There's an old story that Dogen Zenji A monk asked an old master, when hundreds, thousands, or myriads of objects come all at once, what should be done? When hundreds, thousands, or myriads of objects come all at once, what should be done? The master replied, don't try to control them. Don't try to control them. Dogen Senji says about this story, what he means is that in whatever way objects come, do not try to change them.

[10:08]

Whatever comes is the Buddha Dharma, not objects at all. Do not understand the master's reply as merely a brilliant admonition, but realize that it is the truth. It's not just saying a brilliant thing. It's just true. Even if you try to control what comes, it cannot be controlled. Even if you try to control what comes, it cannot be controlled. So I think it's a really vital part of a ritual that it's on purpose, that it is arranged in a particular way. I have never given a Dharma talk in this room, and so the Tanto had to take the time to explain to me what the form is in this room, how to come in and bow to Amida and come in behind the platform, and then that the platform is moved during the three bows.

[11:21]

It's great. It's not a ritual we do at the Berkeley Zen Center. Our tons don't really move. So, Tim helped me know how to build or create or organize what we're doing. The ritual we're engaged in right now, that took choreographing or planning, but not controlling. Another word that I thought of, I've been thinking of all these words, build, plan, arrange, create, intend. I think that all really matters. That's what makes something a ceremony as opposed to just getting bullied by my karma, just doing what I want.

[12:25]

And I thought of the word regulate. You sort of regulate space, you regulate time in a ritual. My dear friend, an important teacher for me, Hozan Alan Sinaki, the Berkley Zen Center, the late second abbot of our temple, wrote this wonderful book called Turning Words, Transformative Encounters with Buddhist Teachers. You know, sometimes when people die, when we lose people, we realize there are things we didn't tell them or we wish we had told them. And I am very, very happy that Alan knew how much I loved this book, because I told him a couple times. I told him every time I saw him for a couple of months. What I really appreciate about this book is that it's his stories. So much of our practice life is our stories, you know?

[13:29]

Who said what that one time, right? And he just wrote down his stories into a book. I think we should all write the book of our encounters with each other. So anyway, in this book, Alan tells a great story about the Chan teacher, Sheng Yen. who came to the Berkley Zen Center to visit once. So this is from Alan's book, Hozan Roshi's book. This must have been in 1989 on a weekday evening. The zendo was full. Sojin Roshi was in his abbot's seat. Master Sheng Yen lectured from the teacher's seat. Teutons up front. in the Zendo at the Berkeley Zen Center. As is often the case then and now, I have no recollection of his talk. It was followed by questions and answers from the gathered students. Laurie asked one of those archetypical Zen questions, what is the most important thing for a lay practitioner to remember?

[14:40]

What is the most important thing to remember? The master answered, regulate your life. For 30 years since, I've been trying to regulate my life. Hozan loved this story. He would tell this story. It came up in Dokusan a couple of times. He'd mention it in talks. Regulate your life. When we enter a ritual space, we're regulating something. So we regulate, but we don't control. We arouse an intention, we make an effort, but we don't control. We arrange and plan and commit to a set of ceremonial expressions, but we don't control. And I think that's the aliveness in our practice, that there's a fulcrum or a sort of balance point

[15:48]

where our effort and our ease touch each other, where we're taking something up and we're letting something go. That's the pivot point that we're always trying to find in our bodies and in our hearts when we practice this way. It's a pivot point. Hongzhi, the great towering A Chinese teacher has a line in a poem. It says, in the subtle round mouth of the pivot turns the spiritual works. Our works, our activity happens in the mouth of the pivot, in that pivot point where effort and non-effort touch. As I say, I've been thinking about all of this, and there's another old story that I want to share, that I think relates in some way to this question of

[17:24]

effort, intention, regulation, but without control or tightness or rigidity, or just bringing my idea forward and trying to beat up reality with what I think should happen, right? It just doesn't work. It just doesn't work. So this is a story about Dongshan, Tozan Ryokai, Dayosho, great, great teacher in our lineage. and his disciple Shenshan. Some of you will know this story. One day, when Shenshan had picked up a needle to mend clothes, the master asked, what are you doing? Mending, answered Shenshan. In what way do you mend? asked the master. One stitch is like the next, said Shenshan. One stitch is like the next. So I don't know how you hear this, but I hear this as regulating, as organizing, right?

[18:35]

There's an intention, there's an effort. This is the way I do it. And again, that's a really key part of our practice. This is the way we do it. You know, the doan doesn't improvise during morning service. It doesn't just hit the bells when it might sound cool. There's one morning service you could say is like the next. One stitch is like the next. It's like this. It's choreographed, planned, built, arranged. Master asks, what are you doing? Mending. In what way do you mend? One stitch is like the next. Dongshan hates this. We've been traveling together for 20 years and you can still say such a thing? how can there be such craftiness, said the master. Another translation is, how can you be so clueless? There's something about one stitch is like the next, even though such a profound part of our practice is that intention to do it in a particular way.

[19:52]

There's something about, oh, one stitch is like the next. Oh, morning service is always exactly the same. that if you ever think that, you should know that Dongshan is upset with you, right? How can you say such a thing? How then does the venerable monk mend, asked Shanshan. He asks. I love this. This is appropriate, you know. How then does the venerable monk mend, just as though the entire earth were spewing flame, replied the master. So that has a different feeling, right? What's it like to mend? What's it like to stitch? I do think an important part of stitching is that every stitch is more or less the same. I don't think it would work if you're mending something to do like a stitch that's like a foot and a half long and then one that's like, it is important that there's some intention to regulate.

[21:00]

I think. You can tell me if you disagree. I think that's important. But there's something about the way Sang San says it. One stitch is like the next. I don't know how you hear it. It feels too controlled or it feels too glib in a way. Like, oh, it's just, I know what I'm doing. Just as though the entire earth were spewing flame. There's something we don't regulate. There's something we don't arrange. It's less subject to our will or our manipulation. It's wilder. It's more powerful. The entire earth spewing flame. It's a really different attitude towards stitching. Isn't it? Does that sort of feel the difference? This is a digression, but I can't help it. I really like this story about Dongshan and Shenshan.

[22:06]

I've thought a lot over the years. I've carried it with me, the difference between mending as if I know what I'm doing and mending as if the entire earth is spewing flame. And every time I think of it, it actually reminds me of this other story from a very different perspective contemplative tradition, and one I don't know very much about. It's the early roots of the Christian monastic tradition, the desert fathers and mothers in Egypt in the third century, I think. Third century. Refer all questions to Reverend Brian Clark. And so I came across this book early in my practice, The Wisdom of the Deserts, Thomas Merton's translation of some of these stories. And I think part of why I like them is they're koans. They're just koans.

[23:09]

They're so familiar. They're exchanges between teachers and students in a community of devoted religious practice. And it's like, oh, we know these. But here's a story, and it reminds me a lot of Dongshan and Shenshan. Abbot Lot came to Abbot Joseph and said, Father, according as I am able, I keep my little rule and my little fast, my prayer, meditation, and contemplative silence. And according as I am able, I strive to cleanse my heart of thoughts. Now what more should I do? I don't know how you hear that. That sounds to me like one stitch is like the next. I'm just doing my little thing. Here I go. My little prayer. I got my practice. I do a little practice. I know what it is. The elder rose up in reply and stretched out his hands to heaven, and his fingers became like ten lamps of fire.

[24:09]

He said, why not be totally changed into fire? Why not be totally changed into fire? I think this is another story where a student is taking up practice, which does need intention, which does need effort. Otherwise, the sorts of transformations that happen in a ritual space can't happen, right? But the student takes it up in a way that feels like the spirit of it is somehow wrong, or the attitude isn't, I think it's too controlled. And in both stories, the image is of fire, is of flame, you know, something really, really powerful.

[25:11]

In thinking about these things, preparing for this talk, I came across a really wonderful Dharma talk online. Actually, what it was was I couldn't remember what fascicle Dogen had that thing, when hundreds, thousands, myriads of objects come, what should be done, don't try to control them. I couldn't remember what fascicle it was in, and so I googled, when hundreds, thousands, myriads of objects come, don't try to control them, Dogen. And that hit return. And the first thing that came up was this Dharma talk by Josho, by Josho Pat Phelan, the abbot of the Chapel Hill Zen Center in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. someone who many of you I'm sure know, lived here for many, many years. I've only met her a few times. She seems wonderful. I don't know her well. But I found her talk really, really clarifying, actually, about this topic, you know?

[26:21]

If it's okay, I'll read just a few little passages from Joshua's talk. It's called intention and control in practice. I was like, oh, all right, she already did it. This is great. This is exactly what I was thinking about. The practice of zazen, or Zen meditation, involves finding a balance between our will to practice and our willingness to allow practice to happen. We need both the will or determination to practice as well as the willingness to give up our expectations of what we want practice to be. Discipline is necessary to get ourselves onto the cushion day after day, especially in the beginning, and once there to maintain an upright position. Self-discipline and effort and energy are one side of practice, the side we consciously work on. But we need to balance our conscious effort

[27:25]

by letting go of our hopes our expectations and goals so that once we are on the cushion we can open to our wider less conscious areas our deeper intention our deeper intention so there's an intention we we maybe know about and then there's something deeper maybe that we can't quite say and Part of the problem with controlling is that we're only doing the part we know about. And we aren't open to the other side. A couple other great passages in Joshua's talk. She... I actually don't know if this was written or spoken.

[28:28]

So our effort to be present needs to be balanced with our trust in practice. It's our effort and our trust. Again, if we try too hard to be alert, we can become tense and on guard. Our consciousness will be directed by our thinking mind. When this happens, a rigidity sets in and our field of practice narrows to what we think we can control. In the midst of the rigor of sitting upright and staying present, we need to find a way to allow a relaxed quality and a sense of ease in our body and mind. When we are actually engaged in zazen, our will and our willingness are finely tuned, our effort and ease are integrated. This is what is meant by effortless effort. This next part made me so happy. The 20th century Chinese master Sheng Yan said that one of the most important things in practicing meditation is to be relaxed.

[29:40]

So the same guy that said regulate your life said the most important thing is to be relaxed. Right? Regulate your life. The most important thing is to be relaxed. I'll say there's... Joshua has this thing she says in a talk, which I've never heard any Zen teacher ever say, but she says that she kind of likes it, or in a student's meditation practice over time, she thinks it's good if there comes a time where you start to fall asleep. which I have never heard. I was like, oh, good. I'm doing great. I thought it was a great, I just thought it was a delightful thing for her to say. And part of what she said is that that means that on some level you're relaxing or opening up or not trying so hard.

[30:43]

Again, that is not an instruction that I had ever received. Maybe one more thing from her talk. Please don't fall asleep in Zaza. This is it. This is really good. Our experience is not repeatable. Our experience is not repeatable. So I just want to go back to Shenzhen. One stitch is like the next. Part of why that feels a little bit wrong, even though we do morning service in a particular way, right? That's true. We do it in a particular way. But to say one morning service is like the next, it just doesn't feel exactly right.

[31:44]

It doesn't feel exactly true. And as Joshua says, that's because our experience is not repeatable. our experience is not repeatable, this moment will never come back and can never be recreated. Yet our practice is to sit zazen and repeat the same activity over and over. We should try to sit with the same strength of purpose, the same enjoyment, as if this period of zazen were the only zazen we will ever sit. Maybe as if we were on our way to the guillotine. Maybe as if the whole earth were spewing flame. This is the only zazen we can sit right now. We can't be more awake in the zazen we sat yesterday. And we can't settle our body and mind now for tomorrow's zazen.

[32:44]

This moment is the only moment we are alive. This breath. is the only breath we breathe. So, in our practice, we create a structure. We organize our bodies in a particular way. We gather in a particular way. There's a framework. We enter a set of commitments and intentions. The doshi... In the enmei-juku kanan-gyo, the doshi bows on jo. Every time, right?

[33:47]

On jo, the first time with the bow, right? Every time. That's a... That's a commitment, an intention. I think that's how you do it here. Is that how you do it here? Yeah, okay. That's how we do it in Berkeley. Every time we sit down on our zafo, we bow to it and we turn and we bow away. Every time. We have to do that. We have to make that effort. That's what That's what makes it a ritual expression of awakening. And it is also possible to enter that framework, to enter that structure, and to let it go. Just let it go. Just let it drop completely. The way leaves fall off a branch. Last story.

[34:50]

A monk asked Yunmen, how is it when the tree withers and the leaves fall? How is it when we let go? How is it when there aren't intentions or expectations or goals or effort? How is it when the tree withers and the leaves fall? Yunmen said, body exposed in the golden wind. body exposed in the golden wind. So when we are exposed, we are vulnerable. We are without our defenses. You know, so often in gross or subtle ways, I am defending myself or explaining or justifying or protecting.

[35:53]

What would it be like to be exposed to the wind? No defending because there's nothing to defend and there's nothing to defend against. There's just an in-breath and then an out-breath. There's that beautiful jackhammer? Something. Power washer. Yeah. There's just a power washer. Body exposed to the golden wind, complete openness, complete freedom. I'm really grateful for your kindness in having me here.

[36:58]

It's so nice to visit this beautiful temple. We're at the end of lecture, and there's a ritual expression for the end of lecture. And in a moment, I will put my hands in ga sho. I think the dawn will clunk, right? Yeah. We'll chant the four bodhisattva vows, and that's the way lecture always ends. That's what we do together all the time, is this ceremonial expression of our life. And so that takes... We have to do it on purpose. The first time you come, someone has to explain, this is what we do. You have to do it. And you might notice when we do it, in 30 seconds here, what's it like to know that on one level there's an intention and an effort.

[38:06]

We have a plan. We have a plan. That's what's going to happen, right? We all agree to this plan. And it is also, or it can also be, no, it is also. Sometimes we feel it, sometimes we don't feel it. But it is also an expression of the vastness and the mystery of our life, of our shared life. And let's see what happens. Let's see what happens when we do it. Thank you 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, please visit sfzc.org and click Giving.

[39:13]

May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[39:16]

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