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. Good morning. Zen Master Dijang asked Fa Yang where... are you going? Faiyang said, I'm going around on pilgrimage. Dijang asked, what is the meaning of pilgrimage? Faiyang responded, I don't know. Or maybe he responded, I don't know.

[01:02]

Zijang said, not knowing is nearest. Or some translations say, most intimate. Not knowing is most intimate. So, fifth day of Sashin here, We're about a month into the peaceful abiding of a practice period. You might feel a sense of pilgrimage, actually, in the sense of not knowing where you're going, or not knowing what you've gotten yourself into. this is pointing to the the central difficulty of this practice of zazen that we take up is the matter of knowing and not knowing and behind that is our

[02:36]

deep fear, actually, of being bewildered, stepping off the, sometimes we say, stepping off the 100-foot pole, stepping off of secure ground. Having a counting practice, pointing to the breath, is a pilgrimage actually going on a pilgrimage it's a pilgrimage of some depth and some going from distance from duality to intimacy going to the nearest place And so you may notice the inclination to think.

[03:44]

To think thoughts that are familiar. To think stories that are familiar. To stay on the beaten path. So this practice is an invitation to... Make that, again and again, make that kind of choice of deep faith and deep confidence in true nature. That your breath actually is right where it needs to be. That your body is right where it needs to be. that all the, sometimes we say, all the Buddhas and ancestors are supporting this body and this breath right now to be exactly where it needs to be.

[04:55]

Moment by moment, there's an invitation. It seems so compelling. to get back into the usual track. It's amazing. Someone was commenting to me how powerful is the karma of this desire to be where it's familiar. even when where it's familiar is most suffering even when where it's familiar is destroying the planet of course the planet we're not capable of destroying the planet but we are capable of with our technological civilization of really making a big a big mess of

[06:11]

fowling our own nest, staying with our usual ways of greed and ill will, our usual dualistic mind. So we actually have this choice to save the experiment, the human experiment, which is ironic by calling it homo sapiens, right? The ones who know are actually only saved by not knowing. So it's very interesting... Excuse me for chuckling.

[07:18]

I know some of you are in pain. Just to sit here and stay, you know, stay in this room for five days is a tremendous accomplishment. So I congratulate you to stay at this seat. Keep coming back to this seat where all these things crop up, you know. All the old unresolved tangles of one's life show up. Sometimes just a little peek, just a little bit shows up. And you know, oh no, I don't want to think about that. Let me think about something that I'm okay with, but then I get bored.

[08:23]

So it's quite an adventure. Once you get the knack of it, it's endlessly fascinating to go off-road and go on a pilgrimage right here, sitting right here. The pilgrimage that you don't know the meaning of. You can't actually say the meaning of it. And yet it is completely dependent upon your say intuitive Well, we'd say the mind, the bodhicitta, the mind of awakening, the intuition that there's something that is true.

[09:33]

So to keep setting aside everything that's less, setting it aside or letting it fall aside while you keep honing in on what is true. So this is a kind of pilgrimage of letting everything extraneous fall away. Each step, each breath is always moving in the direction of nothing but what is most true. shikantaza the shikan as I said before means like nothing but nothing but just this so that it may just seem like it's impossible

[10:59]

course, it is. It's impossible to do. You have to be willing to give up doing. So this is very strict practice. So Earlier in the week or earlier in the session, I was saying, well, do something. Count from one to ten. Count the breath. And then once you've established some connection with the breath, then you can begin to realize that this is just being aware of the breath. And just being aware of the body. just being aware of all of the immediate experience.

[12:02]

And then the tendency to get into one's conceptual mind is quite compelling. Someone told me, yeah, because the thoughts I'm having, the clearer my mind gets, the more interesting the thoughts are. the better I'm thinking, so why shouldn't I be thinking while I can think better? So compelling, you know. So that's points, you know, points of, oh, feeling that desire. So even the slightest desire takes you away from the pure effort. Pure effort. So again, usually we think, oh, I'm making an effort.

[13:09]

Effort means I'm doing something. But in this case, pure effort means the effort doesn't come from you. The effort comes from the totality, totality of things. So anything that's driven by me, driven by the sense of I doing something, can be identified as, oh, okay, not that. That's not reliable. So I think it was brilliant of Shakyamuni Buddha to realize the unreliability of body the unreliability of self the unreliability of thoughts so we have this profound practice and many pointers to it but it's so easy to get sidetracked by

[14:27]

Even the slightest desire, the slightest wish for something to be a little bit different this moment. The tendency to come up with a strategy. But reality will completely frustrate all strategies. All human strategies fail in the face of reality. It's wonderful. It's just devilishly difficult. So you may find yourself again and again trying to create some way to get around what's right in front of you.

[15:28]

So the pilgrimage, this step, next step, is just what's next. Sashin is a big help that way because it's very simple. Just do what's next. So it's helpful to have some, say, form some people would call it a technology to subvert technology so to have some way that actually frustrates eventually you know I know you may think that your strategies are working but if you if you stay with it, you'll see more and more clearly that any strategy you have is, in the end, it's not reliable.

[16:40]

There's a commentary and verse, Tian Tong, Tong Tong actually collected this conversation, Dijang and Fa Yang, and put it in the Book of Serenity, we call it, Shoyu Roku. And then he, so he collected 100 of these little dialogues. And then he added a, a verse statement. So this is what he said. Having studied to the full, it's like before. Having shed entirely the finest thread, one reaches not knowing. Let it be short, let it be long, stop cutting and patching. Going along with the high, along with the low,

[17:53]

It levels itself. The abundance or scarcity of the house is used according to the occasion. Roaming serenely in the land, one goes where the feet carry. So where these feet take one, Roaming serenely. So this is Zazen. Roaming serenely. Now having studied to the full, it's like before. So this is also a beginner's mind. Beginner's mind. Studied to the full. It's like before. Shedding. Having shed entirely the finest thread. even the littlest thing one's holding on to.

[19:00]

One reaches not knowing. Let it be short. Let it be long. Stop cutting and patching. So there's a good pointer. Going along with the high, along with the low, it levels itself. This is like practice of water leveling itself the abundance or scarcity of the house is used according to the occasion so you actually use abundance and you use scarcity you use in this way because you don't evaluate abundance and scarcity you use abundance and scarcity equally When you have something, because you don't have it, because you're not holding on to it, because it's just the same to you as not having it, then you can use it freely.

[20:14]

When you have scarcity, when you have some limitation, when you have something that you realize that you can't do, When you realize your own mistake or imperfection, then you also use that limit. Abundance or scarcity is used according to the occasion. Roaming serenely in the land, this is going where the feet go. So this is going just according, being in accord, being totally in accord with things. And again, this is not knowing, most intimate.

[21:22]

So I have a poem that just leaped out at me. I was going to use another poem, but that's too complicated. This poem is simple, but it's calling. This is a Mary Oliver poem, Sleeping in the Forest. I thought the earth remembered me. She took me back so tenderly, arranging her dark skirts. her pockets full of lichens and seeds. I slept as never before, a stone on the riverbed, nothing between me and the white fire of the stars, but my thoughts, and they floated, light as moths among the branches of the perfect trees.

[22:31]

All night I heard the small kingdoms breathing around me, the insects and the birds who do their work in the darkness. All night I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling with a luminous doom. By morning I had vanished. at least a dozen times into something better. So this is a great enlightenment while sleeping. Because this is sleeping in the, say, the womb of earth or Tathagata.

[23:44]

This is sleeping in Tathagata Garba, we'd say. This is like the place that's completely nourishing. Like a stone, nothing between Nothing between one and the white fire of stars. This is... Sometimes, you know, here we have a chance at Tassajara to see, to feel the light of the stars. It's amazing, isn't it? I don't understand it. How light travels. I don't even understand it. How can it do it? How can it do that? From... a million light years away or more, millions of light years, light years traveling, endlessly traveling, endlessly traveling, just for me, showing up here.

[24:49]

It's so generous. And the moon, did you feel the moon? Feel the moonlight last night falling. falling through the trees, light and shadow. It's really such a universe of generosity. Like, you know, the story of Ryokan, the poet monk. When the thief came, he was in his little hut, and the thief came and took his robe. He sat shivering in the moonlight, saying, oh, I wish I could have given him this. So again, Mary Oliver, sleeping in the forest.

[26:04]

I thought the earth remembered me. She took me back so tenderly. That's almost enough right there. Excuse me. The great thing about the earth is it doesn't forget you. It doesn't forget any of us. Can't forget you. You're always held. Each of us is always held. But it feels like the earth is taking her back, receiving her back, but it's not that the earth had left her, but she had left the earth. I thought the earth remembered me. She took me back so tenderly, arranging her dark skirts, her pockets full of lichens and seeds.

[27:15]

I slept as never before. A stone on the riverbed. Nothing between me and the white fire of the stars, but my thoughts. and they floated light as moths among the branches of the perfect trees. All night I heard the small kingdoms breathing around me, the insects and the birds who do their work in the darkness. All night I rose and fell as if in water, grappling with a luminous doom. By morning, I had vanished at least a dozen times into something better.

[28:24]

All night I rose and fell as if in water grappling with the luminous doom. Luminous doom. Isn't it wonderful to have a luminous doom? Doom like fate. But it's luminous. So it's a little bit the difference between karma and fate. that in between is what's luminous. In between is what's the capacity for pilgrimage, for not knowing, for letting go of what it is that's gripped and compelled by one's karma, which is self-clinging. So becoming like a rock on the riverbed, a rock in Tassajara Creek.

[29:34]

Not such a bad place to be. So this is endlessly... endlessly unfolding when you bring this sense of pilgrimage, this sense of very respectfully, very respectfully in a sense of really appreciating the intricacies of what is supporting you in this moment and allows you to wake up. It supports you to simply be.

[30:39]

So with this, there is a sense of gratitude. You can practice gratitude as a practice, but that's not the same as the gratitude of purely dropping off of any wishes, dropping off of any desires. This is good. I think I'll stop with it. Just leaving you with this feeling of being in the moonlight. Tonight, we have a chance to have a dialogue.

[31:52]

Thanks for hearing Dijonk. And Mary Oliver. 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.

[32:25]

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