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. I'm Charlie. I trained for some years at Tassajara and Gringos Farm. And I teach now at Stone Creek Zen Center in Sonoma County. with my partner, Sarah Emerson. She gave a talk here in April. And this is the first time I'm giving a talk here at San Francisco Zen Center. And thank you to Mary and David for the invitation. And I deeply appreciate this opportunity, particularly because this is where I first came to Zen practice. about almost exactly 28 years ago, late August of 1991.

[01:07]

And I came here, and I somehow missed the beginning of Zazen instruction, but got there for part of it, then sat that 925 period, and came up here for Dharma talk. I think I sat on that bench over there, and... Zenke Blanche Hartman gave the talk that morning. Maybe some other people remember it. And I remember one thing she said. She quoted Suzuki Roshi, you are perfect just as you are, and you could use a little improvement. And I remember that because something happened when I heard that. and I thought, okay, you know, this is good enough for me. I was kind of, I was searching, I was seeking, I was stumbling along, and those words could resonate with something in a sea of confusion.

[02:17]

So there was some kind of turning there, and Blanche heard Suzuki Roshi say this. I guess, in the late 60s. And then I heard her say that in 1991. And now I'm going to talk about it today. And then maybe someone here can talk about it in 20 or 30 years. There's no pressure. So you're perfect just as you are, and you could use a little improvement. So my... main feeling is just talking about our true nature, our true nature and the practice of our true nature or how we live our deepest truth. And this true nature is inconceivable. We can't grasp it. But still we talk about it.

[03:27]

because that seems to be part of how we find our way. So here we have these words. It's an offering. And if we grasp the words, we can miss the offering. And particularly, I think there's a nice contradiction in this teaching. You're perfect just as you are, and you could use a little improvement. It's a kind of, it's a two-sided saying. And if you grasp one side, the other side's always there as a kind of problem, which is kind of, that's nice. It's alive. And so we can't kind of make a nest on either side of this. Each is kind of helping us with a kind of unbalanced apprehension of one side or the other. So I would say they're inseparable, but don't reconcile them.

[04:32]

Don't resolve them. Let them kind of live in intention. And that embodies something important about our practice, our life, the heart of Zen. Actually, I don't like the word perfect. It sounds kind of abstract, kind of static, idealistic, basically irrelevant, unresponsive, exclusive. There's not a lot of space in perfection for improvisation and vulnerability and being changed by everything. But, I don't think Suzuki Roshi's talking about a kind of perfection that's way over here versus an imperfection way over here.

[05:37]

We could hear this like you're perfect just as you are. It could sound like we have a perfect little Buddha inside us. Like a nugget of perfection. And somehow around this... essence or core is all this imperfect stuff that we need to fix. And once we fix all that stuff, then that essence can shine. This is kind of a way we sometimes might think about Buddha nature. And I would offer that you're perfect just as you are is not like this nugget. It's not like an essence, and that it's all-inclusive. It includes all our stuff. includes all our imperfections, our mistakes, our shortcomings. It includes our sorrow, our confusion, our grief, our pain, our anger. So it's not a dualistic perfection in contrast to imperfection.

[06:45]

It's like a perfection of all our imperfection. And I would offer... you know, maybe we are nothing but imperfection. Which is not meant as an insult, but as I kind of, that it's actually, this is a beautiful thing. And we're totally perfect at being imperfect. And each in our own unique way. Imperfection and loss and impermanence... are flowing through us. Every cell of our body fully embodying endless imperfection. And so with this idea of an all-inclusive perfection like this, you could use a little improvement isn't kind of pointing to the stuff we need to fix so that the perfection can be okay or somehow, you know, live.

[07:54]

It's alive. You could use a little improvement. It's also our true nature. And our true nature isn't a static thing. It's our dynamic and alive. And it's constantly developing. Calling for expression. Calling for actualization in the world, in our relations. So I would offer, we can let each side be a kind of living inquiry, a question we live with. What is this being perfect just as we are? What is this you could do as a little improvement? And kind of gently allow this to be unwieldy, not all figured out.

[09:01]

or that the real figuring out is not a conceptual event. It's a whole being event. So you're perfect just as you are. I think it points to a kind of fullness right here. This moment is not for the sake of something else. When this moment's for the sake of something else, we miss the fullness of this moment. We miss the fullness of our life. And this moment becomes something small, like a step or a stage, like a linear progression, leading somewhere. And so, you know, with this moment, not being for the sake of something else, you could use a little improvement is that, you know, in this moment, in the fullness, we are not passive.

[10:24]

We're not complacent. There's a kind of endless seeking, but it's not a seeking for truth or a seeking for awakening. for true nature. It's a seeking of truth. It's a seeking of our true nature, of awakening. It's awakening, seeking, awakening. Awakening, investigating, and actualizing awakening. So sometimes, you know, Suzuki Roshi can sound kind of deceptively simple. And this saying, I think in particular, it has a kind of sweetness to it. It has a kind regard. But I also feel like there's something really deep there, really getting to the heart of Soto Zen practice. Soto Zen emphasizes, sometimes we say, practice realization, or practice based on realization.

[11:26]

So this is in contrast to kind of another model or another approach, which is practice that leads to realization. Practice that you do as a kind of means that will take you from here somewhere else, that's realization. And practice realization is this other spirit, the practice of awakening, the practice of realization. So it's not a practice that's going somewhere else. And it has these kind of two sides. We start from awakening. We start from our true nature. You're perfect just as you are. And this is our trust or our faith. And we also, we practice. We practice zazen, sitting meditation, chanting, bowing, bowing, dharma talks, generosity, precepts, and so on. And we, in our soto zen way, we do all this stuff not to get somewhere.

[12:34]

It's the life of awakening. This is how we bring awakening into the world. And it's an endless inquiry. But it's not trying to change imperfect stuff into perfect stuff. It flows from a wholehearted, unflinching investigation and actualization of the fullness of imperfection. So our life right now, or right in this moment, is perfect for practice. This is the perfect moment to give ourselves to completely. There isn't some other moment that's going to be better.

[13:36]

It's perfect to wholeheartedly engage. And there's nothing we can change about the moment to make it better, to wholeheartedly engage, to fully live, to fully love. And this perfect, just as you are, is not about perpetuating anything. It's actually about change and transformation. A deep change or a real transformation doesn't proceed from thinking we have to be something different, be someone else, be somewhere else. A real change or actual transformative practice is grounded in facing this moment fully or completely working with the challenges right here. When our practice is grounded in thinking we need to become something else, when we need to try and change something and we know what needs to change or we have a good idea about it, there's an underlying grasping that's not being addressed.

[14:59]

And so that will actually keep us stuck. Our real freedom, our real transformation is not something we foresee. It's not planned out or mapped out. That kind of change or progression is reductive. And it keeps us small. It keeps us from opening to the real vastness of our life, the real aliveness of our life. And that's it. Entering the fullness of the present is where we actually find our agency and our living participation. The agency of this moment. Um...

[16:10]

Trying to get past the work of this moment, we miss the real opportunities of our life. Our freedom is inclusive and mutual and responsive, and it's out of control. We invite and we welcome everything that's here this is our life and we give up a sense of like ownership or entitlement and you know with humility and not knowing and vulnerability uh we become open to real change so you know we're working with this but it's not being it's not becoming passive We're perfect just as we are, but it's not becoming comfortable with any of the ways we perpetuate suffering.

[17:18]

And it's not affirming that there's something fixed. How we're perfect is not a static thing. It's dynamic. And it's a changing wholeness. And it doesn't have a form. It's not something we perceive. It's not something we can hear or see or measure, but it's not abstract. It's totally our life, our embodied feeling, thinking life. But we can't grasp it, and that makes it easy to overlook. And when we overlook it, we wither.

[18:27]

And when we can open to it, it nourishes us. So this is to be nourished by ungraspable life. And this is the basic ground of our practice. We might feel like something's wrong with us. It seems to be very common in this culture. And you are perfect just as you are. It can be kind of a firm, a kind of worthiness. A worthiness to be here. A worthiness of belonging in the universe. An appropriateness to this person with all the imperfect stuff that comes with it.

[19:31]

So totally welcoming this person. This person is totally welcome on this seat and the universe is supporting it. And everything is here. There's a story that when the Buddha sat down under the Bodhi tree and resolved to realize awakening, he encountered challenges. And in some of the stories, this is personified by Mara. Mara's challenging the Buddha. And there's these various challenges. And the final challenge is a worthiness. Mara says, you're not worthy to sit on the seat of awakening. That's my seat. And in response, the Buddha touches the earth as a witness. The earth is my witness that at least in this moment, I belong to you.

[20:43]

on this seat. You're perfect just as you are. And we might have our own encounters with Mara and unworthiness. And we might need to feel the pain and see the stories we have. And breathe through them. And, you know, stories of unworthiness or imperfection, of needing to prove ourselves, needing to establish ourselves, of comparing ourselves, being involved with status or competition, one upping and one downing, or pleasing others.

[21:45]

Being concerned about what others think. Proving that we're not concerned about what other people think. Being better or right. So feeling through all of this. This is not actually where our practice comes from. This is what practice works with. You are perfect just as you are. You can just... we can be perfectly ordinary, incomparably ordinary. And there's a fullness here that cannot be measured. And it's not something we attain, it's not something we use or make or hold. But again, we can be nourished by it. And you could use a little improvement as, again, not a separate truth, but maybe opens to other patterns of grasping and bring forth a fuller sense of this practice, this life of our true nature.

[22:58]

And so, you know, what kind of improvement is Suzuki Roshi talking about? Is it that we would suffer less? Is it that we'd be more comfortable? Is it that we might have less pain? Or is it more like we'd be less distracted or more calm or equanimous, peaceful? Or is it that we'd be more humble or more kind, more gracious, more tender, more helpful? Is it that we'd be awakened? Is it that we would emit light? Is it becoming some better self? Is it becoming selfless? Is it broad and inclusive? Or is it something very basic?

[23:59]

And again, where is this impulse coming from? Is it coming from some lack? Or is it coming from a fullness? Is it coming from you're perfect just as you are? And what does it look like? It's a little improvement. Is there some way to measure it? And is it something... Is it something we could see or experience or get, or is it really something we give? And it might look like zazen. That might be what you could use a little improvement looks like. It might look like reciting a vow. It might look like this.

[25:02]

Just totally intimate. It might look like being alive, like growing. opening, learning, or just becoming more ourself. I really like that Suzuki Roshi said, a little. And then I feel like there's a lot in a little. One part of it is gentle and respectful. So it's not like, ooh, you need a lot of improvement. You need to do a lot of zazen. And there's also, I think, a way that it's cutting through grasping or cutting through this gaining idea, like a big improvement. I'm going to get something out of this. I'm going to get something really great out of this. And...

[26:08]

And then I thought it was kind of like anti-advertising. You can get really big, great stuff somewhere else. Here we just have a little improvement. And sometimes Rinzai Zen is like, we have a big improvement. We have Kensho, seeing nature. All your problems are solved. And in Soto Zen, we just have a little improvement. But it's endless. and it's non-stop. You could use a little improvement endlessly. And also, you know, the little is about kind of cutting through the gaining and the grasping. It's also, it's not actually about something quantifiable or small or big. Being perfect just as we are, and you could use a little improvement. These are not quantifiable things.

[27:10]

They're about opening to a non-quantifiable, non-thingy sense of ourselves. So we could use a little improvement. We could use a little turning. We could use a little overturning. We could use a little letting go of everything. We could use a little... walking in the mist until our robes are wet, a little studying the self, a little forgetting the self, a little being actualized by myriad things, a little going beyond, a little swallowing heaven and earth, a little holding up a particle of dust, a little also, you know, It points to something modest but grounded and real. We can take one step.

[28:11]

I once went to see my teacher, Reb, for Doksong. And I said, well, my focus and practice is like, I feel like I have these like... moments of being fully present, and now I'm trying to extend those moments longer and longer. And he said, no, no, no. Bodhisattvas don't try to be present for longer and longer periods of time. They try to be present for shorter and shorter periods of time. Smaller and smaller periods of time. So we can take one breath. We can't fix the problems of our life or of the world today or in many days, but we can take one step.

[29:19]

Maybe we could say the world is perfect just as it is and it could use a little improvement. And then we might think, well, maybe it needs a huge improvement, or a bunch of huge improvements. Climate change, border crisis, systemic racism, income inequality, and on and on. And so a little improvement is not to say we hold back from big improvements. We don't hold back from small ones. Many, many small ones. Our life is probably mostly small ones. And so let's not miss these small moments and miss the agency of a small step. Let's not miss the agency of smaller and smaller steps.

[30:27]

Suzuki Roshi also said, a little fire is still fire. It's not necessary to have a big fire. And another thing Suzuki Roshi emphasized was constant effort or constant practice, day-to-day, moment-to-moment. This is how our life is. And, you know, I think... Anyway, I feel something very deep about this idea of constant practice, actually, and easy to underestimate its depth. And we don't aspire to constant practice because we should. Again, like should would be, shouldn't want to be really grounded in this, we're perfect just as we are. But we aspire to constant practice because of how our life is. We will never improve little by little to a perfect self.

[31:37]

And we'll never achieve a perfect society or a perfect world. But always you could use a little improvement. Always the world could use a little improvement. And there's no getting it done. There's no attaining world peace. And that's why our life in this moment always matters. So a little improvement is like bottomless meaning. This how we show up here always matters. Every act of kindness is important. Every drop of love is important. And So we're not here to get a perfect world or perfect happiness or settle down in awakening.

[32:42]

We're not here for that kind of a static, abstract fantasy. Our real happiness isn't about getting or having anything. And world peace is not something we can get. It's only something we can live moment by moment. We endlessly open to the suffering of self and others. There's a sutra called the Vimla Kirti Sutra. And in this sutra, Vimla Kirti is this bodhisattva, this awakening being. And he's ill. And his illness is the suffering of all beings. And his practice, I would offer, is not to get rid of his illness. His illness is his practice.

[33:49]

His illness is his intimacy with all beings. And I brought this up recently, and some people really didn't like this vision of bodhisattva practice. And I think there's something really important here about Vimalakirti being ill with the suffering of all beings because of his awakened practice. This is a vision of awakening, the life of awakening, living awakening. And it can be hard to accept. Isn't awakening getting away from suffering? Or becoming intimate with suffering? And that that's actually where our life and our freedom and our intimate responsiveness actually live.

[34:56]

So being sick with the suffering of all beings, you are perfect just as you are, and you could use a little improvement. And we act. We show up. We risk. We're always acting in uncertain circumstances. It's unpredictable. We would never really know. or have assurance that what we're doing is good or right or useful. And exactly because of that, we're interested, we're improvable, we want feedback. And so we have the humility. And this is vital to living together. True nature is not really improvable, but the living of it is endlessly improvable, endlessly criticizable.

[36:02]

This could be endless, gentle, deep self-criticism. So part of how we study a teaching is but how we receive it is to see how we frame it. And we're inundated with materialistic, consumeristic, and individualistic frames. So how do we attend to these frames? We're not often looking at the frame, we're looking at what's framed. But how do we challenge the frames? You know, Being perfect just as we are is not an individualistic or a personal thing.

[37:02]

It's our true nature, and our true nature is that we're happening with everything. Nothing happening by itself. So this being perfect, there's nothing insulated here. It's totally uninsulated. It's totally vulnerable. And then it's totally open to our participation. Sitting, fully inhabiting our agency. So is meditation, is it something we do to improve ourselves? I think one of the dangers of meditation is it can look like, it can look solitary and individual. And so actually one of the things we emphasize here is We sit together. Which is really important to understand, actually, this isn't an individualistic practice.

[38:14]

And it's not really about self-improvement. And our freedom is not an individual freedom. It's totally intertwined. Awakening is not an individual or personal event. It's more like Vimla Kirti's illness. And we can also bring this into kind of an interpersonal dimension of friends, loved ones, Anyone we meet, people we have a really hard time with, you're perfect just as you are and you could use a little improvement. I've heard a number of people say what really impacted them about Suzuki Roshi was they felt like he saw their Buddha nature.

[39:20]

So what kind of love is this? everyone we meet, you know, a vastness, an incomparable fullness arising from myriad causes and conditions. Perfect. And also, you could use a little improvement. Or, you know, we could use a little improvement. And that our basic, you know, unimprovability... and our endless improvability are totally intermingled across self and other. And opening to a kind of truth of immediate and infinite value, and also being a champion of each other's self-unfoldment, fully becoming ourselves together.

[40:26]

this appreciation of our mutual humanity, I would offer, lives in the inseparability of these kind of contradictory movements. And either on its own tends to, I think, fall flat, become shallow. And taking them together, we commit to mutual transformation and recognition and acknowledgement. And that seeing someone... as perfect just as they are does not mean we don't have boundaries or that it doesn't justify harmful action. It doesn't mean it's appropriate for someone who's unskillful or immature to be in a position of power. Or it doesn't mean any form of domination is okay. It doesn't mean we don't hold each other accountable. and where you can be still deeply in touch with our shared capacity for transformation.

[41:32]

So this is this two-sided teaching of being unimprovable and endlessly improving. Not trying to get somewhere, but never stop taking a step. Or engaging gradual practices with a sudden spirit. Perfection endlessly practicing imperfection. Awakening endlessly engaging and realizing delusion. And our practice cannot be rooted in just our perfection or just our imperfection, but the dynamism of both. This is how our practice can be alive and deep and growing. Thank you very much.

[42:49]

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. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[43:17]

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