This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. How's the sound? Can you hear me in the back? My name's Ed Sadezon, I'm the abiding abbot in the city center, and I rarely get to come out to Greengold, so this is a great pleasure. Thank you very much, Anna, the Eno, for inviting me, and Abbas Fu. The first thing I notice is that it's quiet here. Last lecture I was at,

[01:03]

at the city center, the jackhammers were going constantly for an entire 45 minutes. Maybe the bird sounds will drown us out today. Let's see. So today I want to share a famous Zen story with you. This is case number two from the Blue Cliff Records, a wonderful collection of 100 koans. Is that squeakiness OK? I'm hearing it. OK. So here's the story. Zhao Zhou, teaching the assembly, said, the great way is not difficult. Just avoid picking and choosing. As soon as there are words spoken, this is picking and choosing. This is clarity. this old monk does not abide within clarity, so what should we do?

[02:03]

At that time, a monk asked, since you don't abide within clarity, what do you do? Giaojio said, I don't know either. With that comment, the monk said, since you don't know, teacher, why do you say you don't abide in clarity? And Giaojio says, It's enough to ask the question, just bow and withdraw. So this is a very well-known story. Probably most of you know this story, or some of you know this story. By the way, how many people are here for the very first time? Wow, that's nice. Welcome. Welcome to Green Gullet. It's nice to have you here. So first, I want to say something about Jojo, who is the central teacher in this story. He's one of my favorite Zen teachers and a favorite of Suzuki Roshi too. Jiajou was 778-897, a disciple of Nanchuan.

[03:10]

So he was very early Tang Dynasty, China. And when he was 20 years old, he met his teacher and they had a very good beginning relationship and he stayed with his teacher for 40 years until his teacher died. And then at the age of 60, he decided he would complete his training by going on a pilgrimage, which he did to all the great monasteries in China for another 20 years. And at the age of 80, he decided he was probably ready to teach, and he settled down. This is encouragement for those of you who are a little older and still working on your way. And he taught at his monastery until he was well past 100. I mean, they say he taught until he was 120, maybe. But anyway, certainly telling is well past 100. There's many famous stories that come from him. One of my favorites is the story of the cypress tree in the courtyard. A monk asked Zhao Zhou, what is the meaning of bodhidharmas coming from the West?

[04:13]

Bodhidharma was the founder of Zen. He was an Indian monk who came from India, came to China, and founded the Zen school. So what's the meaning of Bodhidharma coming from the West? And Zhao Zhou said, the cypress tree in the courtyard. This is one of those shorter Zen stories. You get right to the point in this story. I was actually on a trip to China, and I went and stayed at Zhao Zhou's monastery, which was over, since this was established way back in the ninth century, it had been torn down many times. And during the Cultural Revolution, everything had been torn down but the big eight-story pagoda and the enormous old cypress trees. And these old cypress trees now sit in beautiful courtyards that separate large buildings. So I imagine this monk came up to him while he was standing under a cypress tree and said, what is the meaning of bodhidharma coming from the West?

[05:15]

Which is a kind of fancy way of saying, what's up with Zen? What's Zen about? I'd like to know what Zen is. And the teacher says, standing probably under the beautiful 300-year-old cypress tree, the cypress tree in the courtyard. Can you see the cypress tree in the courtyard? Can you meet a tree? Can you be present with the tree? And this is, of course, a great practice one can carry on here at Green Gulls with all the lovely trees we have around here. Anyway, I'm not going to go into that story except for just to wave my hand at it and then mention another well-known story of Zhao Zhou. This one is a similar kind of thing. A new monk, in this case, comes up, walks up to Zhao Zhou, probably standing in that same courtyard, and says, I just entered the monastery. Please teach me. Zhao Zhou said, have you eaten your rice gruel, your morning rice gruel?

[06:18]

And the monk says, yes. And Jiao Joe says, well, go wash your bowl. Well, this is a slightly longer one than the last one, but not as long as the one that I'm going to talk about for the rest of the day. Go wash your bowl, which is sort of like a famous Zen thing, which is to pay attention to every activity we're involved with, even the most mundane activities we pay attention to. So washing dishes is a famous Zen activity. Very fortunate to wash dishes in a Zen temple. Kategori Roshi, who was one of our early teachers here, I remember him because he sort of did it the, wash a pan, wash a pan, wash a pan. You know, if you wash a pan with your whole body and mind, then the whole world is yours. I recommend dish washing.

[07:22]

For any of you who leave dishes in the sink too long, take on dish washing as a great Zen practice. It goes all the way back to Zhaozhou, 9th century China. So he was very down to earth, a kind of very straightforward, unassuming guy, not kind of doing difficult things. But he was loved for that. And he was kind of humble. In China, usually lectures are given sitting in a very sort of formal Chinese chair. And apparently the chair leg broke, and the monks are running around trying to figure out how they're going to fix this beautiful chair. And he walked out and cut a limb off a tree and tied it to the chair for the leg and never let anybody change that. So I like him for that. So that's Zhao Zhou. The great way is not difficult, just avoid picking and choosing.

[08:24]

Jia Zhou liked this saying so much. He used it in four koans in the Blue Cliff Record. Case number two, which is the case we're talking about today, 57, 58, and 59. So he really enjoyed exploring it. And it comes from a very long Zen poem done by the third ancestor, Seng Tsang, which goes, it's long, I'll just read you the first four lines. The great way is not difficult, just avoid picking and choosing. When love and hate are both absent, everything becomes clear and undisguised. I don't know what he's going at necessarily when love and hate are both absent. I'm not quite sure that's the kind of life I want to live. So I looked up another translation, which goes... The beauty of these things, there's many translations. The great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. If you don't grasp or reject, the great way enlightens itself.

[09:26]

And grasping and rejecting, as you know, is what causes us all of our suffering. The great way. Isn't that a wonderful saying? It comes from Taoism. You know, Zen is really kind of the marriage of Indian Buddhism and Taoism. I forget which one was the father and mother, but anyway, that's Tao, the way, the path. The great way is not difficulty. The great way is not difficult. I like that. Don't you? The great way is not difficult. I'm on board. I'd like to be in the great way, especially if it's not difficult. Excellent. That's the second line that catches you. Just avoid picking and choosing. Okay, well, I'll take that up. I'll observe my picking and choosing. Sounds easy enough. Except for every moment you're expressing a preference, you know. It's nice here at Green Gold's, but it was a little windy when I walked down here.

[10:33]

I wore an extra sweater because it's usually cold and it's a little too, and I'm warm too, you know, it just goes on and on, you know. You can't eat a meal. It's a good meal, but a little too salty. So this not picking and choosing turns out to be pretty complicated. And I was thinking about it in terms of one of the wonderful practices we have here at Zen Center and most Zen temples is when we sit one-day sittings or seven-day sashins, we have tea. So usually this is in the afternoon to... to lift your spirits a little bit, so around 3 o'clock or something, you have tea and you're usually sitting on these tans, you turn around, you sit in formal posture, usually in seiza for tea, and servers come in and they bring a tray of treats, and you can either pick a cookie or a little paper cup full of nuts, dried fruit, nuts, and then after you've picked your treat, they come and serve you tea, and you can either pick a herbal tea or a black tea and they serve you tea.

[11:36]

Very formal. It takes 20 minutes to have a cup of tea. But the first thing you notice, of course, is they've offered you this treat on a tray. Do you pick the cookie or do you go for the fruit and nuts? So then you decide, OK, I'm going to go for the cookie. Which cookie do I pick? There's like a slightly bigger cookie, which looks pretty good. But if I pick the bigger cookie, I'm going to feel guilty about being greedy. Zen monks aren't supposed to do that, so I'll pick the smaller cookie. But if I pick the smaller cookie, I say, why do I treat myself that way? I always pick the smaller cookie. Then you go, no, I'm going to pick the cookie closest to me. That's the right strategy. And yet you have to do this. Meanwhile, of course, you're so busy picking and choosing that you've hardly even noticed who this nice person is that's serving you a cookie. You're not having any relationship with them.

[12:37]

You're so distracted by this whole thing. And there's a little bit of suffering going on with all of this, having a treat, a nice treat in the Zendo. I mean, this is our mind. And this happens in like three quarters of a second, all of this. I mean, this is just going . Just the great way is not difficult. Just avoid picking and choosing. Of course, sometimes, especially by the third or fourth day of a Sashin, after you've gone through enough of this, you actually have given up picking and choosing which cookie you're going to have. You just pick a cookie. And sometimes you have a kind of clarity that comes from really just being there. And it's wonderful, this beautiful, quiet sense of composure and serenity and clarity. You know, one might, you know, even, well, we don't use the term enlightenment.

[13:39]

It's just too, it's been too much. But anyway, you really, it's good. You like it. And you think, this is the way I'm always going to be. And that lasts for about 10 minutes after the session ends, and the whole world comes rushing in, and you're picking and choosing again. But that's okay, because if we go back to our case, we remember that, what did, Zhao Zhou say? He said, I don't abide in clarity. As soon as there are words that are spoken, this is picking and choosing, or this is clarity. This old monk does not abide within clarity, so what should we do? So Zhao Zhou is advising us, don't get hung up on that clarity. You know, that's just another one of those picking and choosing. You're going to be sitting around saying, well, I was so clear during that sasheen, why am I not clear? So that's just another comparison state.

[14:40]

You're just choosing one state of mind over another state of mind. By the way, I just wanted to mention to contrast the formality of having tea during a Zen sasheen versus walking down the hall in your office and getting a cup of coffee. Same picking and choosing is going on, but it's happening. It's so busy, you don't quite catch it. So that's the advantage of these strange, formal things we do around the Zen center, is you get to really look very carefully at every minute aspect of what's going on. So anyway, we want something, and if we don't get it, we're unhappy. Even if we want to get something, we're unhappy or worried that it's going to go away. This is basic Buddhism. This is what I call Buddhism 101. All conditions' existence is suffering. What is the cause of suffering?

[15:41]

Grasping and rejecting, trying to keep what is pleasurable, and trying to eliminate what is not pleasurable. So maybe we could really work on our desires, our preferences, and get to the place where Whatever happens, you're good. This is that old hippie thing. I don't know. There's a few hippies left in this room. It's all good. I don't care. Whatever. But as I said, Zhao Zhou doesn't go for it's all good, whatever happens. But anyway, before I want to, I've jumped ahead a little bit. I want to go to the second line of the koan. Zhao Zhao's teaching, the assembly said, the great way is not difficult. Just avoid picking and choosing. As soon as there are words spoken, this is picking and choosing. As soon as there are words spoken, this is picking and choosing. You know, in Buddhist psychology, there's an analysis of perception and language. As soon as our consciousness grasps an object and names it, as soon as there is perception,

[16:48]

there is already picking and choosing. There is already attachment and aversion in the very act of perception. Notice that. We can't escape picking and choosing. It's built into the very nature of our human activity. We hear a sound and immediately make a comment and usually express a preference of some sort. I was thinking about a wonderful lecture Suzuki Roshi gave in the summer of 1970 at Tassara. He was commenting on the Blue Jays. I don't know how many of you have been to Tassara. Let me see how many people have noticed. Well, you are the lucky ones. Tassara is beautiful and I would recommend anyone that has the chance to go and practice at Tassara. And even if you're too busy to go practice, you can go down and vacation for a few days and give up the television and the Wi-Fi.

[17:51]

Anyway, there's a lot of blue jays at Tassar, and they're pretty pesky. If you leave a little bit of food out, like you set your sandwich down, zip, they've got your sandwich. You've got to protect your food from the blue jays at Tassar. And they make a kind of screechy sound, and they can make a lot of racket. And a lot of times we're complaining about the screechy blue jays. And so Zikurshi was giving this lecture about the difference between noise and sound. He says, noise is something objective, something which will bother you, and sound is both subjective and objective. So he recounts how he was preparing his lecture in his cabin, and the blue jays were above, screeching away. And he says, you think the blue jay is singing over there, pointing to the roof. But he says, when I hear the blue jay, it is me. Actually, I'm not listening to the bird. The bird is in my mind.

[18:54]

I feel the blue jay is in my heart singing to me. Peep, peep, peep, peep. So instead of thinking of this squawking blue jay over there bothering him, the beautiful blue jay was in his heart singing to him. Remembering that connection we have to everything in the world. not something separate that we're having a fight with, that we're disagreeing with, not liking, but an intimate part of our life. He says, when you think the blue jay is over my roof, that is primitive understanding. When you practice zazen more, you can accept things as your own, whatever it is. There's a beautiful... I could jump to another koan, and maybe I will, just because it's so... Another koan on preferences, which is a monk asked Dongshan.

[19:58]

Dongshan is another marvelous teacher who was the founder of the Soto sect in China. When heat and cold come, how can we avoid them? The monk says, and Dongshan says, when you don't go to the place where there... Why don't you go to the place where there is no heat or no cold? And the monk says... What is the place where there is no heat or no cold? Deng Xia says, when it's hot, heat kills you. When it's cold, cold kills you. That's very dramatic. Maybe too dramatic. But anyway, these little sayings have a certain drama to them. Anyway. We've all been there. We've all... In Tassara, in the summertime, it can be over 100 degrees, and you're dressed up like this, sitting in 100 degrees. It's too hot. And you can go to the winter practice period at Tassara, at least back when I was at Tassara, in the early days, and it was like 10 degrees. It's too cold. What do you do when it's too cold and too hot?

[21:01]

You know? How do you... You know, it's... What's... And Sudoku Rishi's answer, which is a kind of a quick answer, is you... Become one with the heat. You become one with the cold. You don't have heat out there bothering you. This is the same, you know, when you sit zazen for a long time, you sometimes have some pain in your knees. Some of you might be familiar with that. You become the pain in your knees. You become one with this instead of a separate thing. That's what it means by kill the heat. Kill the person that is separate from the heat. Kill the person that's separate from the cold. That was fast, I'll admit. That was a lot to throw at you pretty quickly. So picking and choosing is everywhere.

[22:03]

Our use of language built in the very act of perception Is there any escape from this grief? What do we do?" So, of course, as Zhao Zhao said, this old monk does not abide within clarity, so what should we do? And the monk says, since you don't abide within clarity, what do you do? And Zhao Zhao says, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know how to figure this out. This living life business is complicated. I mean, I'm getting that picking and choosing can be tough. I'm getting that just getting into some serene space is not the answer, but I don't know. This is Joujo, who after practicing for 60 years, 40 with his teacher and 20 years on pilgrimage, and probably teaching for 10 years, is saying to the monks, I don't know either. You don't know? I don't know either.

[23:04]

Do you believe him or do you think he was just kind of like, you know, kidding us? I think he was true. I think he's saying, I don't know. I don't know how to live in this moment. Ooh, we're about to lose a stick. Thank you. Thank you very much, Jack. Jack is my jisha today. Jishas are the people that attend to you at all times. So if I'm about to fall off this thing, Jack will be there and catch me. That's his job. If after I walk out, some wild coyote comes barging up, Jack's the man. It's wonderful to have a Jisha. I recommend it. Where was I? I don't know. You have to live in this moment.

[24:11]

You have a mind that's busy discriminating left and right. And you have to figure out how to live in this moment. This particular challenge is yours. JiaoJiao doesn't have much to say about it. I certainly don't have much to say about it. It's your challenge to figure out what to do, how to do it. I don't know. I think that's a good attitude to at least approach the situation. gives you a chance of being open-minded. Siddhartha Kauroshi wrote a great book, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. A beginner's mind is not an expert's mind. You want to be a beginner when you're entering this moment. So you have some chance of seeing what's going around without all of the different frames in your mind, all the different ways you have of evaluating it left over from your childhood, just some chance of being a little bit open. And in the midst of this picking and choosing, if you can sort of have some feeling for whether your picking and choosing is being driven entirely by your self-concern, your own selfish needs, or whether your picking and choosing also is incorporating your connection to everything, your deep connection to everything that's going on, which will provide some love.

[25:35]

So is your picking and choosing coming out of or is your picking and choosing coming out of love? Love that comes from this connection to everything. This is a good question, I think, for us in the midst of our not knowing. In this koan, they have lots of commentaries on koan. There's a little verse by Suedo. He always wrote verses to all these commentaries and all these koans. In one, there are many kinds. In many kinds, there are one. Can we see in all of the diversity that is in front of us the oneness of it? And can we, in the sense of oneness, see all the diversity? There is no difference. There is no enlightenment outside of the everyday activity of your life.

[26:38]

That's where it happens. That's where it is. But it... You know, we live in a very busy, crazy world. How can we have some composure in the midst of all the picking and choosing without kind of trying to have a lust for enlightenment? Enlightenment. This is our challenge that's brought forward by this wonderful koan. And this desire that's had, this driving force of desire that's in us, that's okay. That's our life. It's just that when we land somewhere and it isn't where we wanted to end up, we get very disappointed. and how do we redirect ourselves to appreciate where we are at that moment and recognize that has something to do with who we are. Traveling is wonderful for that, because you always have this idea when you're traveling about something.

[27:39]

My wife and I were up in... I'm having a kind of story morning. Well, anyway, that's what it is. My wife and I were traveling in Vancouver last fall, and we'd been out visiting friends for a couple weeks. We were coming back into Vancouver for our last night before flying home, There was this beautiful hotel, this wonderful dining area outside, overlooking the water, looking back at the city. And we'd made a reservation there. We were really looking forward to that dinner together our last night. And we were fighting back through the rain. There was a big storm, traffic jams. So we arrive at the hotel, finally, you know. Walk in, massive wedding going on. Even though we had a reservation on the patio... All reservations gone, the wedding is reserved, everything. They have a little tiny corner in a bar next to the bus station for us to eat. This is not what we wanted. That was not our preference for that evening.

[28:44]

So they were very nice and called around, and of course there was nothing available at any of the nice restaurants on the water looking out back to the city. So we go wandering around and drop into some local hole in the wall back somewhere, sit down, ordered some food. There was a couple next to us. We asked something about what was good and they made something. We got into a little conversation with this couple who turned out to be very interesting. He was a lawyer and she was a judge, a local judge in Vancouver. And we noticed that we had some comments and conversations. They were interested in the politics going on in America, Trump, and all those kinds of things. Then they invited us over to their home, which was just three blocks away, this beautiful modern home. We had carried on for quite a while and had just kind of like an incredibly marvelous evening meeting some people we never would have met out on that marvelous patio that we were so disappointed we didn't have.

[29:49]

So this happens all the time. I was in business for 20 years. And in business, of course, you're always planning, we're going to launch this product. It's going to have this marvelous reception. Things like that happen. You launch the product. It has a terrible reception in the marketplace. You're crushed. My greatest successes, 20 years in high tech, came out of the ruins of the disasters that I had. And that is the truth. So you think you're in a disaster, stand up there and look around and see what opportunities are there for you. That's my advice, even though, you know, so what you expect may not happen, but what's in front of you might turn out to be even better. You get that? Does that make sense? I could tell a whole bunch of business stories now. But the morning is getting late, so I think I will not do that.

[30:56]

But I do remember a line from the Dalai Lama that goes, remember that getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke. No, remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck. Don't take my word for it. Take the Dalai Lama's word. OK? Is that good enough? Is that a high enough credential have I brought forward for you? If you get what you want, you will enjoy it, knowing it won't last. And if you don't get what you want, shift your preference so you can be interested in and open your heart to where you are. This is not just true about vacations, but true about your whole life. So I want to say two things. Of course, sometimes you land someplace and it's just not a matter of accepting where you're at in the sense that there may be a great injustice going on.

[32:04]

But I believe that if you accept where you are, you're in the best position to act against that injustice. Instead of complaining about the fact that you've ended there, you're better able to actually... work to change that injustice if you're present in yourself, accepting that this is the situation that you're in. And the second thing I'd like to do is make a short pitch for zazen. You know, there's books written about zazen, and there's a lot to be said about zazen, but Just to sit. And for those of you who are residential practitioners, I'm in a position, being the abiding abbot, to see the power of residential practice in people. It changes their life. It transforms their life. But for most people, you cannot come and participate in all the activities of residential practice.

[33:13]

But if you just sit a little bit every day, if you can sit 10 minutes or 20 minutes every day. And pay attention to your breathing. Pay attention to your body. Feel yourself sitting on the earth. Feel the being. Feel being. Feel being alive. And you have all this stuff going through your head, of course. There's that problem you had back at work. And that's... The work you. Then there was that repair job your wife wanted you to do at home. That's the spouse repairman. And then there's the difficulty you had with the person at Whole Foods, which is still hanging around in your head. And that's the you shopping person. And then there was that interaction with the guy that pulled out in front of you on the way to work, in the car, in the freeway, and that's the driving you.

[34:18]

There's all these personalities we have, all these people, and they're very important. I mean, when I'm in work mode, I'm working. When I'm in spouse mode, I'm spousing. Anyway, I'm doing those things, and I'm fully doing them. But when you're sitting zazen and you're just being alive, you get in touch with something that's sort of more foundational than all these other people you are. You get in touch with the fact that this is really going on. we're actually here. This is really happening. And this is a more fundamental fact than all the preferences that come from the different roles we have to play in our life. And just being reminded of that, just getting in touch with that a little bit every day is transformative. It will change your life. It will give you a feeling of

[35:19]

you'll remember more often that you're alive. I mean, you forget a lot. We forget all the time. We get lost in our problems all the time. But you'll remember more often that you're alive. And this will give you a kind of centeredness that will be helpful. I also want to say just a comment. about Earth Day, which was Friday. Just a quick comment. There's an organization called the Soto Zen Buddhist Association. And they did a press release on April 18 about climate change. And I would recommend that you read it. This is another pitch. And you can go to the website if you just Google Soto Zen Buddhist You'll find the website, SZBA, and it's right there on the front page.

[36:22]

And it talks about the long relationship Buddhism has had to the earth. It starts with... Ah, yes. As Buddhists, our relationship with the earth is ancient. Shakyamuni Buddha, taunted by the demon king Mara under the Bodhi tree before his enlightenment, remained... remaining steady in meditation. He reached down to touch the earth, and the earth responded, I am your witness. The earth was partner to the Buddha's work. She is our partner, and we are her partner. That's the first paragraph of the statement. It goes on to cite various famous writings by Buddhists. One of them is from Dogen. To leave flowers to the wind, to leave birds to the seasons... are the activity of giving. That comes from a marvelous fascicle that Dogen wrote. It ends with a kind of five principles of green life.

[37:27]

Protect the green of the earth. The earth is the home of life. Do not waste water. It is the source of life. Do not waste fuel or electricity. They are the energy of life. Keep the air clean. It is the plaza of life. coexist with nature, it is the embodiment of Buddha. So I wish you all a happy Earth Week. Thank you very much for inviting me here to beautiful Green Gulch. And I guess there'll be a question and answer afterwards if anybody would like to discuss this topic further. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support.

[38:29]

For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[38:41]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_95.75