City Center on this Wednesday night talk. What brings us together here tonight in this place, in this room, on this street, in this city, in this country, in this world? What brings us here together? Echoing something that I recall I mentioned on this Saturday that began this practice period, I believe that what brings us to this place and to this room is that we are all bodhisattvas.

[01:09]

We are all individual persons dedicated who have turned ourselves and are trying to arouse a dedication to practicing for the benefit of others. Practicing towards the liberation of everybody. And tonight I want to talk about how the practice of meditation, the practice of what is sometimes called jhana, concentration, I want to talk about how the practice of meditation is an essential aspect, is a necessary support for people, for students who want to follow in the way of the Buddha Dharma a necessary support for us to take on in order to realize and express this Bodhisattva vow this Bodhisattva vow which is such an enormous commitment

[02:35]

something that we take up as a gift in our lives for ourselves and as a gift in our lives for others. So tonight I want to talk about the practice of meditation, and I want to talk about the fifth paramita, the fifth perfection, the perfection of jhana, jhana paramita. And some years ago... God, it was many years ago. When I first imagined that I was interested in Zen, when I was 20, I had some dramatic ideas about what this interest in Zen meant. I had read the literature, I had heard the stories, and pretty clearly becoming a Zen student was going to be interesting, fun.

[03:38]

But really, actually, I had absolutely no idea what it meant to practice Zen. What I did know, the thing that I can say looking back, that I actually can have to say now with some confidence, what I did know is that my life did not feel right. What I do know now is that mostly people don't rearrange their life, make a big effort to rearrange their life when things are going well. So that sense I had that things somehow weren't right was a gift for me, even though it didn't feel like it. And because I thought, because I felt that there was some lack in my life, some problem.

[04:42]

On account of this, I one day walked up to the front steps of San Francisco's Enciner, and I knocked on the door, and I said, hello. And when the door opened, and I entered, I stood on the threshold. One of the very first things I heard about was something called Zazen. I heard about the practice of sitting meditation, which despite all my expert knowledge from reading books about Zen, I had actually never done. And as I began practice, Finding out about zazen, finding out about the practice of meditation seemed enormous, seemed tremendous. Because in a very real way, in my personal journey up to that point,

[05:56]

I didn't understand how to live in the world. I mean, I lived in the world. I did things like went to school and bought a car and things. I lived in the world. But I didn't understand how to live in the world. At least it didn't feel to me that I did. And from this place where I didn't know how to live in the world, learning how to sit, learning how to sit with myself, not move, learning how to come into a room, sit down, face the wall, and be still with everything that arose, the demons and the pleasance, just to be still there. This was transformative. And I said, learning how to be with myself and be still with myself, but actually what I really learned was how to be with a group of people. What really was... powerful was that I didn't come and say zazen by myself, but I came and I said zazen with a group of people.

[07:08]

So I learned how in some ways I became socialized in a new way. This fact that practicing zazen is something that is made, you know, you can practice by yourself. There's lots of examples of that. But I think that it's a much tougher road to walk down. Blanche oftentimes tells the story of when she first started to sit zazen at the Berkeley Zen Center. And she lived a little distance away, and she drove her car there, and she and another woman friend who lived nearby made a commitment that they would give each other a ride to Zazen. And there were many mornings when she did not want to get up, but she had told Sally, whatever her name was, that she'd meet her at the corner.

[08:17]

She knew either that Sally was going to wait for her to pick her up in her car, or Sally was going to be there waiting for Blanche to pick her up. And she got up. and came. And it's a tiny story. It's not a particularly profound thing. It's sensible. But actually, practicing with others is how we carry ourselves forward through those times when we don't want to carry ourselves forward. So it's a really great thing. So we do not practice this thing called zazen, sitting zen, sitting jhana. We do not practice zazen to realize a state of mind that is something new. We might think we are, but actually we don't practice for that ray.

[09:21]

We train ourselves in sitting in zazen in order to Wake up and see what's already around us. One of the... I'm going to say a few things about Zazen right now. One of the distinguishing kind of marks of zazen, of our practice in Zen, of how we approach sitting meditation, how we practice the jhana paramita, is that we don't think of it as something that involves stages and steps. The instruction that we receive, it's not a practice that involves meditation.

[10:24]

increasing degrees of initiation, like ritual empowerment. The Zazen instruction we get when we walk in the door, which I received when I was 20 years old and came here to Sensei, is still the Zazen instruction which I use in my personal practice. It's very simple and it's inexhaustible. And also in Zen practice, in our Zazen mind frame, we don't just focus on things which seem overtly, obviously spiritual or religious or sacred. That's not the arena where our Zazen is measured. Our Zazen is measured in the whole totality of our life.

[11:25]

This is meditation, zazen, this sitting, this effort to be present with ourself is, first of all, nothing more than the experience of living every moment of our life. Every moment, not just the moment that are framed by the bell rings and then we quiet and then the bell rings and we are free to do whatever we want. So living our life in the container of a period of Zazen, living our life in the container of the entire day, living our life in disappointment or disillusionment or living our life in awakening or living our life in a radiant sense of well-being.

[12:38]

All of this is exactly the practice of Zazen. And this attitude, this spirit of non-duality, I'll say, I'll call it, I'll limit it by calling it a spirit of non-duality, is really a deep foundation for Zen practice and for our Zazen practice. So, everything we do, but also we don't start with everything. We start with one thing. The practice of Zazen is the practice of learning how to do one thing completely. And from our learning how to do one thing, which might just be simply sitting in this moment and not going to another moment, or sitting in this moment and attending to our breath, or sitting in this moment and listening, truly listening to your friend, this one thing that we do completely from this

[13:58]

like a stone thrown into a calm lake. The ripples keep on moving outward and keep on affecting us. It's not just that the rest of our life can be changed. Learning how to be present with one moment, the rest of our life is changed. And from, it might seem paradoxical, but that from the ability, the talent, the complete wholehearted effort to, in zazen, pay attention to the tiniest instant, an immeasurably large heart opens up in us. You've got to be careful to use these superlative words.

[15:04]

In inexhaustible depth. But it's true. And it comes from a small moment. But as Suzuki Roshi said, sometime, somewhere, and I read it, so it must be true. As Suzuki Roshi said, People don't realize how selfish they are. And because of this, this process becomes complicated. Zazen can be a selfless, absolutely selfless expression of our intention. And it can be also a selfish wallow in the mud of our life. These things, these two things, these two truths. exist simultaneously. And speaking tonight, excuse me, talking tonight about Jhana Paramita, talking tonight about the mind of Zazen, the mental place, where concentration, Jhana,

[16:29]

lays the seed for prajna wisdom. And advertising briefly next week's sixth Paramita, this place where concentration, where our practice of old-hearted, focused sitting naturally arises, arouses a sense of wisdom, In thinking about this, I want to tell you what maybe some of you know, that there is a teaching in Buddhism called dependent co-arising. And dependent co-arising is a Dharma gate, which says that there... Here I go. I'm going to say what it is, and I'm going to be wrong. But anyway, I'll say. Dependent co-arising says that... There is no beginning or end to this dream of life.

[17:31]

It is continuous. And despite the way it might look to us from our limited personal, ego-centered view, life doesn't just start here and end over there. It's circular. And to say that life started here is an arbitrary statement. If you say this is the beginning of the circle and that's the end of the circle. I was born at such and such a time and I will die at such and such a time. Well, this is just picking out points on a circle. We think this linear way. We tend to think this way. We're naturally inclined to have this perspective. Because we see our life in a kind of horizontal way. But another way to see our life is that there is just change constantly occurring and transformation constantly occurring.

[18:44]

And this body-mind we occupy is the transformation body of Buddha. And if we understood things this way, we might see that this thing called self, which I personally have a lot of thoughts about. Sometimes seems like my best friend. This thing called ourself is not a fixed event. It's a transformation body. I was here last week and I said something. I was actually in this room last week and I said something. And I'm here this week. And I'm saying something. But today I'm not saying the same thing. And today I'm not the same person. And yet today I am the same person. My driver's license still calls me. It still says Jordan. Jordan-thon. Things are constantly changing.

[19:50]

And if there's one thing we learn in Zazen, you know, well, together. A thing that, not the one thing, but one of the many things we might learn in Zazen, is that our mind is like, our life is like a wild surging river. That is forever moving forward, bubbling over. And sometimes it is... Surging river flows into a broad valley and slows and seems to be more still. Sometimes in we might this body of water of our life might even seem to be like a mountain lake on a still windless day that perfectly reflects the world around it.

[20:57]

And there is a teaching, a story about the process of practicing zazen, practicing Zen. It says, in the beginning, mountains are mountains. And rivers are rivers. And later on, mountains are not mountains. And rivers are not rivers. And still later, mountains are mountains again. Rivers are rivers again. So what is meant by mountains or mountains and rivers or rivers as first place, as the beginning point? Well, this is the place from which most of us start. This is the place where we might summarize it by saying, well, I think it and feel it and therefore it's so.

[22:05]

And I am me and you're you and that's a chair over there. And what's the fuss about? What's the fuss about? So what's the fuss? Mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers. And in the tradition of Zen, we sometimes say it like form is form and emptiness is emptiness. But what is trickier and more complicated, but important still for us in our practice, in our Zazen life, is to know when form is not form, when mountains are not mountains, when rivers are not rivers.

[23:15]

when, like John Lennon said, I am he as you are he, as you are me, and we are all together now. And Thich Nhat Hanh said, I, of course, wanted to follow a quote from John Lennon with a quote from Thich Nhat Hanh. Thich Nhat Hanh said, before practicing meditation, we see the mountains are mountains. And then when we start to practice, we see the mountains are no longer mountains. And after practicing a while, we see that mountains are mountains again. So when you are sitting on the Zafu and you are thinking, when you are sitting on the Zafu and your mind is like that wild surging river, casting enormous spouts of spray off into who knows where, your mind and my mind and all people's minds might seem different.

[24:34]

And this is mountains and mountains. And when you can, through the process of your effort and intention, and through the... support of practicing with other people. If you can settle yourself on yourself and practice the thorough-going perfection of jhana, paramita of concentration, the paramita of zen, well then your mind and my mind and other people's minds start to seem like the same. We see Where we all connect. We see where we are all one body. And in this place there are no mountains and rivers. It's no form.

[25:37]

It's not like there's form. It's not like there's emptiness. It is another place. And this is because the original nature of something, the original nature of ourselves has no inside and outside. Like the Heart Sutra says, given emptiness, there is no form, no sensation, no perception, no formation, no consciousness, no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body. no mountain, no mind, no river, no sight, no sound, no smell, no taste, no mountain, no John Lennon, no realm of mind consciousness. And then the Heart Sutra says, all dharmas are neither defiled nor pure.

[26:45]

Everything we need, It's not tainted, nor is it pure. And there is a place where all dharmas, where all everything, like the Heart Sutra says, are not defiled, not pure. Just simply, radiantly themselves. And this is the place where Mountains flow and rivers stay still. And when we dip our hand into the river, diamonds are visible. This is the place where the life of the river and the life of the mountain. I like the way that Dogen talks about in his Mountains and Rivers Sutra, where he says, the stone woman, the stone woman gives birth to a child in the night.

[27:55]

The stone woman gives birth to a child in the night. Then he tells us, Dogen tells us, there are male stones, female stones, stones neither male nor female. They repair heaven. and they repair earth. And I ask, what state of mind, what state of concentration, what state of samadhi, of jhana, what was Doberman when he felt this truth? The stolen woman gives birth to a child in the night. At the time of birth, Are parent and child transformed? In the face of all of this, when the parent becomes the child, when the child becomes the parent, when the stone woman gives birth, all of our previous questions kind of lose meaning.

[29:17]

they drop away. Indeed, this dropping away is their true answer. And the answer to the question is that the question itself was unreal, not properly phrased. But it was, even so. The honest expression of our understanding at that moment It was the best effort we could make. And in this place where our questions vanish, we understand that still there are some truths. For instance, there is the truth that the practice of Sheila Paramita Paramita, the practice of ethical living, is not a rule, but a glowing description of Buddhist life.

[30:26]

In this very same place, this is where we understand that, number one, one should become a bodhisattva. And number two, there is no such thing as a bodhisattva. And before we could reach and settle and understand and actually feel this place, it actually, frankly, is a miracle that we continue to practice. But at some point in our private and our public heart, In our private intention and our public expression of this intention, we understand that we need, we want to, that we need to continue practicing to, at the sound of the bell, put on our robes and go to the zendo. Because if someone were to ask us why, well, maybe we wouldn't even understand why, but we just know this is the way to live our life.

[31:46]

And if we continue this way, if we do not turn away, if we continue, we certainly absolutely will come to the place where once again, after going through this, we will once again come back to where mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers. But it won't be the same place. It will be the place where things are ever so much simpler than we made them out to be at first. And this takes time. This takes training. This takes commitment. And in the process of this time and training and commitment, we sometimes become impatient. That's part of our human nature, our Jordan nature, our Renshin nature.

[32:58]

We become impatient. And it helps to remember, to know that Zen practice is not a magic potion. It does not happen truthfully. It does not happen overnight. But given sufficient sun and rain and fertile soil given time and nourishment our practice will ripen, will blossom, will bear fruit. In order to progress in our practice in order to actually take our practice down to the very end of the world to the end of where we can imagine going. All we really have to do is continue. It won't happen if we don't continue.

[34:18]

And if we have faith, if we have the persistence, foolish perhaps persistence, to keep up with this commitment that doesn't necessarily seem even like it's actually helping us and maybe even seems like it's done nothing but ruin our life. Maybe it might seem that way. If we continue it, we will at some point, I'm certain, realize that our whole life has come to Exactly this very moment. This very moment right now, which is not another moment later on or the one that just happened. And this very moment is more than we understand. And this very moment will

[35:19]

swallow us and digest us without chewing. And recognizing, which is something that is helped by sitting zazen, recognizing the power and immensity of this single instant, this moment right now, we will be changed I say it you know but also one of the ways we will be changed is that we won't be changed at first mountains are mountains and then they were not and then mountains again are mountains we will be changed and we won't be and then we'll be changed and in the end just to continue practicing

[36:23]

Modestly. Taking refuge in the three jewels. Or taking refuge in whatever you think. Practicing good, avoiding evil, benefiting others. In the end, just to continue is all that's necessary. When Shakyamuni Buddha was sitting in Zazen under the bow tree and a week had passed and he was losing faith in where he was going. Tormented by demons, tormented by visions, tormented in whatever way. He did not get up from his seat and go and learn some more information.

[37:30]

He remained sitting. And just like Buddha, just like all of us, there is the truth that everything we need to know to wake up is here with us right now. We don't have to go and take a class. So there is no hindrance. So there is no hindrance. This moment is vast, but also this moment is completely in tune.

[38:36]

with the fact that our life effort needs wholesome actions. It needs a deep vow. It needs concrete, helpful steps to be taken in order to come forth. And, well, tonight I've said various words and I really hope that they're useful, helpful, nice words for you. Also, please, I know, I feel that these words that I say cannot really nourish you until they are words that you say, words that you feel, things that you know, that you can speak with your own voice, believe in your own heart. Please make this effort.

[39:40]

It's a serious effort, but it's also a great joy. Thank you.

[39:58]

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