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. I just had the thought that after all this time of... To go dead again? No? Is it loud enough? Yes. Okay. I just had the thought... that after all these years of practice that I'm no longer dismayed, intimidated when things go wrong. It's actually sort of come to expect them to go wrong. This is an impermanent existence. Batteries do go flat. What I'm going to talk about this evening is Path to Wholeness, which is the title I gave, the workshop that I'm teaching here.

[01:06]

I find it interesting and challenging to rephrase Buddhist terms. In their origin, they're in Kali or Sanskrit, in the heritage of Zen, They're in Japanese, this being a derivative of Chinese Zen to Japan and then to the United States. And often the terms that are there in the Pali and the Sanskrit, they have arisen in the context of practice. And so it's not so easy to take a term and find a singular English word that matches it. And then sometimes we do have words, but the word wholeness, wholesome, wholehearted, to make whole, they convey for us.

[02:22]

Just think about it for a moment, wholehearted. it captures for us a particular kind of involvement wholesome similar and yet quite different it has a implies a certain kind of ethical character to it not moral but ethical. It's a wholesome activity. Not quite putting it, calibrating it in terms of good or bad, but wholesome. That was part of what attracted me to that title. And this notion of ethical and not moral.

[03:34]

Most of us have grown up in a Christian Judaic system that did have implicit structure of good and evil. And many of us find it didn't encompass our disposition, our beliefs. For many of us, that's why we ended up here. And I don't mean to say that the Judea-Christian system is singularly held in good and evil. I don't think it is. But it is prevalent. And the challenge for us as we engage a new form of spiritual practice Zen being the one I'm talking about right now that we don't without even recognizing it put it into the context of a system that it didn't arise from Zen didn't arise from a system of good and evil it arose from

[04:59]

a system of wholehearted, wholesome, to make whole. Even the word purify is a famous Buddhist text called the path of purification, which can readily seem to fit within. Purified is good, impure is evil. But within the Buddhist system, pure is when it's completely itself. Like pure gold. It's completely itself. The aspiration of the path of purity to be completely what is. As a person, as a moment of non-separation, as a sense of openness and connection, as a disposition of generosity and compassion.

[06:19]

And then how does that sensibility get conveyed how do you convey that in a weekend workshop in the ventana wilderness well perhaps unfortunately i conveyed it with a lot of words and we spent a lot of time inside a room and not outside in wilderness but that being as it is. I was just reflecting before I came over to give the talk. We had meditation. We had mindful stretching. We had dyads. We had group discussions. We had writing exercises. And probably something else or some things else that I'm missing right now.

[07:33]

And I was thinking how interesting what we're accumulating as the methodology, as what evokes the path of practice in this context. I don't think in medieval Japan they did dyads of repeated questions. Maybe they did, but I don't think so. Or poetry. I left out the poetry. I did think they had poetry. And yet, the intention is exactly the same. to realize something fundamental about our human existence.

[08:35]

To address the very same dilemma that Shakyamuni was determined to address when he saw old age sickness and death. That hasn't changed at all. That core attention is still there. In some ways, we could say, Shakyamuni's practice was the path of wholeness. We didn't take it to a workshop at Tassahara, but it was still his path. And as such, The aspiration of our Zen practice is that in its essence, it's formless. It's not held within a particular context or a particular methodology or even a particular set of ideas.

[09:41]

It goes beyond all of those and all of those can express it. Our intention and aspiration is still to align and manifest what Shakyamune was proposing and yet to make it contextual and accessible in the lives we're living. dyads, poetry, group discussion, and the like, and writing exercises, offer access to the very same practice and realization that Chaktamuni Buddha was engaged in, and Bodhidharma, and A.H.

[10:57]

Dogen, and Suzuki Roshi. all the great saints and teachers in between and beyond. So with that in mind, I offer you my words on the subject. I'm talking about poetry. Here's a poem by Rukh. Whoever grasps the thousand contradictions of their life, pulls them together into a single image, that person joyfully and thankfully drives the rioters out of the palace, becomes celebratory in a different way.

[11:59]

Presence is the guest that is received on quiet evenings. Presence is his own solitude, the tranquil center of talking with himself. And every circle he draws around presence lifts some out of time on its compass legs. Whoever grasps a thousand contradictions of their life pulls them together into a single image. An elemental component of our practice is integration. The mind's tendency to create

[13:04]

separation self and other as separate independent being belies the interconnectedness of our existence sometimes in workshops we write independent from each other on the same topic often a very intimate topic what will you do with your wild and precious life? And when I die, I want to say, to let the gravity of that existential question draw you down into wholehearted expression. And then as you listen to discover that the images and language and admonitions and aspirations that came up for someone else could just as easily have come out of your heart.

[14:18]

Could just as easily being wholeheartedly expressed by you. That we experience in that sharing interconnectedness. This is a shared dilemma and a shared challenge and a shared adventure, this human life. Each of us on the journey from birth to death, each of us held sway by, as Maslow would put it, Maslow would put it, the hierarchy of needs, you know, from our basic survival to our sense of safety and security, to our sense of belonging and love and intimacy, to self-expression.

[15:24]

For some, as Maslow in his day would put it, self-realization. Self-actualization. Even as it takes context now for us when we touch the heart of the matter. We touch our interconnectedness and we touch a common expression. We touch what is important for us as human beings. It's a gravitational pull towards interconnected existence.

[16:26]

It's a gravitational pull towards integration. And then as Rutger says, the thousand contradictions. Each of us, in hearing it expressed a certain way, will say, yes, this is important in life. This is something I value and in my own way carry forth as my calling for this life. And then each of us contradicts it a thousand ways. last piece of dessert at the dining room table I wanted for me the way in which desire objectifies and in that objectification creates

[17:40]

something separate. Maybe even some sense of competition or scarcity. These contradictions that arise for us. In how, in this Western context of being, how do we identify them? How do we attend to them? In the workshop today, I was telling the participants that a few years ago I was in India visiting Zenstube there. And we had dinner, we had lunch at... a hotel owned by one of the Dharma students.

[18:45]

And after lunch, he said to me, well, I have a naked sadhu who lives on the roof. Would you like to visit him? And I thought, only in India would a fancy hotel have a naked sadhu living on the roof. And indeed, we did go visit the naked sadhu, and there he was, living on the roof. And how wonderful... in that wonderful mix of a fancy hotel and this ancient tradition of the mendicant just coexisting. What will we bring to coexist in our environment? What have we already brought to coexistence? in the path to wholeness, in the path to skillfully integrating the attributes, the complexities of our human life in this environment.

[19:55]

One of the articles I put out was from a book by a philosophy professor, Jacob Meidelman, called Money and the Meaning of Life. And the book has a playful tone to it, the way the title goes. And then in another way, he's trying to point towards, he's trying to poke at, he's trying to bring a realization and awareness around money as maybe almost like the distillation of material being. The door of material being is thrown wide by access to cash. Is that so? Has that ever been so?

[20:59]

Was it coincidence that the story of Shakyamuni had him living in a palace? and climbing over the palace wall to get out. Not in, but out. And take up the life of the path to wholeness. What helps us be conscious of that dimension of our lives? If we were really doing it, would we all be naked saddles? or right in the lives we're living, how do we stay true to an awakened engagement with the material world? So Zen relishes the impossible question.

[22:03]

Well, that question isn't difficult enough. Well, let me give you a more difficult one. Let me give you the question that presents you with a challenge that has no easy answer, that has no quick statement. Oh, you just do it like this. Hmm. This world, this life is interconnected. No. It abounds with difficulties. and a thousand contradictions within us, singularly and collectively. How do we draw it into whole? The image in the Torah, the sacred Jewish text, is that

[23:05]

the sacred vessel is shattered. And the practice is to bring it back to wholeness, to integrate. In some ways, similar to the Buddhist practice of realizing interconnectedness. And some of the images I was offering within the retreat was This integration has a variety of modalities, in the heritage of Zen, within the heritage of awareness. As we attend exactly and directly to the experience of the moment, attend to it, notice it, acknowledge it, contact it, experience it. And what happens when we experience, we become one with, we integrate.

[24:15]

We can truly and rightly say, Zazen is the practice of being part of what is. It's that intimate and integration. Sometimes we get dramatic about it and say it's the great death. Other times we don't get so dramatic. So there's this, what we might call the practice of momentary phenomena, the exactness of that kind of attention, that kind of opening, that kind of integrating. the other aspects of our life. Money, the material world being one. And as Maxwell points at, these different needs of our human existence.

[25:25]

Each of them fraud with the potential for contradiction. I love you, but I get intensely annoyed when you do that. I just heard in the news a couple of days ago where someone who's wealthy had offered to build 200-odd low-income housing units. They were interviewing someone who was essentially saying, you know, it's a great idea, but, you know, I prefer it didn't happen, you know, in proximity to where I live. Contradictions of our being.

[26:31]

The dilemmas, you know. And in this curious way in which Zen is saying, Don't take the contradictions, the dilemmas, the challenges as a slight, as a failing, as a hindrance. No, these contradictions are making a request. They're asking us, what is it to get to the heart of the matter? What is it to go beyond what your mind might conceive of as the solution, the fix? How do we let the challenges of human life, rather than pull us up into agitation,

[27:42]

Distress, disappointment, disillusionment, disconnection. How can the challenges of human life invite us down? What really matters? When I die, I want to say. I want to say I had the latest model car. I want to say I held that grudge to my last breath. I want to say I competed with my co-workers unrelentingly. When I die,

[28:43]

I want to say, my dog and my cat loved and did not fear me. That was pretty terrific timing, Tom. I don't think we could have rehearsed that better. And I... I hope your dog and your cat appreciate the person who feeds them. I would say that does seem to be the bond, the strongest bond I have with my cat. We're continuing with our lives.

[29:44]

And then there's an unexpected interruption. Is this cause for annoyance, distress, or is this cause for, oh, can this be integrated into now? Does now have a fixed form? our boundary, our way of being. And when we start to plot that depth, we start to see that the challenges in human life, we can almost say they are a necessary attribute of our opening. If the world didn't continually show us that it is not about to comply with what we think it is, what we think it should be.

[30:58]

That it has a wildness to it that goes beyond the conformity and control we want to give it. Could we be wholehearted about opening? Could we learn the emotional, psychological, mental flexibility? What's happening now? Not that I can engage it in a way that satisfies all my Maslow needs with more that I can accept the invitation in the greater being and I can accept that invitation I can engage it not because I have eliminated as Wilke says the thousand contradictions

[32:12]

but because in the versatility of engagement, they are integrated. Dogen Zenji, the founder of this kind of Zen in Japan, he placed great emphasis on a practice that he called in Japanese, Jiji Uzama. Engaging the self to learn about the Self. We engage the contradictions that we conjure up to learn about what it is to be human. I want to say about this life, I have the aspiration the intention, the motivation.

[33:18]

And still what comes with it is the upwelling of my conditioning. The conditioning of my physiological being. The way I have embodied my negative experiences and hold a sense of contraction. my mental patterns, my emotional patterns. And as they manifest, what is it to notice, acknowledge, contact, and experience? What is it to do that when I'm at work? What is it to do that in my familial and significant relationships?

[34:21]

What is it to do that when I meet someone lying on the street? It's city center. There's a person who's been turning up on our doorstep for over a decade. some ways a sincere practitioner and then along with that addicted to methamphetamine. His life starts to come together and then he falls into addiction and his life breaks apart. Being the good people that we are, we thought Let's get him into a recovery program. Let's really work with him and fix this.

[35:26]

Not in any kind of harsh or, you know, superior way, but just, hey, how can we not make that kind of effort? Because we care. And it didn't work. Should we resent that he still turns up on our doorstep? Do we demand incessantly that he does things our way? We can contract. We can separate. We can also despair. Oh, I'm not good enough. If I was a good enough person, I would create the acceptable outcome.

[36:34]

Can we get in touch with this fierce teaching of a human life? in its singularity and in its collective existence. It unfolds the way it unfolds. And as it does, it challenges us to keep rediscovering life is more than what I think it is. Life is more than what I want it to be. It's more beautiful. It's more creative. It's wilder. And it offers participation in that fierce, wild, beautiful being.

[37:50]

It offers us with our extraordinary repertoire of contradictory behaviors. It offers us the Dharma gate, the greater being. And Dogen Zanji says, this involvement, this Jiju Yoizamai, is the central activity. of our practice. And Suzuki Roshi said, here in the United States, we will rediscover, we will recreate. Doesn't mean we will ignore. No, no, not at all. We're still completely practicing Shakilini's way. His way is the heart of the human one.

[39:01]

His way is the path of wholesomeness. His way is the path of wholeness. How will it unfold here? impossible challenge. The great thing about having an impossible challenge is you don't have to lie awake at night thinking, will I get it all right? You won't. You can relax. You're not going to get it all right. And you don't have to fantasize, will it all be perfect tomorrow? No. Maybe for brief moments. Depending upon which direction you're looking.

[40:03]

So we enter a naked involvement with being alive. Maybe we keep our clothes on while we're doing it. Once in our tradition, we have one-on-one interviews, and it's once someone came in, and as he came in the door, he started taking off his clothes, and he took them all off, and put them in a neat pile by the door, and sat down completely naked. And I said to him, it's not that easy. He goes, Being completely open to human life, unfortunately, is not as easy as just simply taking a close hold. So what is it?

[41:14]

To invite the world in, to enter right into the world. in its fierce being. And let it be a process of awakening. This is what was in Suzuki Roshi's heart when he came to United States. And since he died before I came to Zen Center, That's a pretty interesting statement to make. But I'll make it anyway. And this is in Bodhidharma's heart when he came to China. In Shakti Muni's heart when he climbed over the palace wall and entered the forest. And so now at Tassara in the summer we offer retreats.

[42:27]

expression, one of the current expressions of the Buddha way. 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 visit sfcc.org and click giving.

[43:10]

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