This podcast is offered by San Francisco's Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good evening. So welcome and thank you for being here. I think this evening I'd kind of like to get into a little bit, into the question, what is it to be a student? I think in a way this role that I've been practicing with for the last couple months has been asking me that. talk a little bit about what that means to me and my experience, particularly in Zen, but to be a student of anything, what does that look like?

[01:25]

And so I'm curious, just at the start, if there's one word, one quality that you think is necessary or helpful. Does anybody have any suggestions? Diligence. Curiousness. Yeah, curiosity. Openness. I'm sorry, Paul. Willing to learn. Studiousness. Studiousness. What does that mean to you, to be studious? Now you got me. card out some special time for effort or intention or energy. To create the time and the space for that willingness to learn. Yeah.

[02:29]

Great. And consistently. Okay. Consistency. That's another quality. I'd like to start with a story from Bendawa, which is a fascicle by Dogen, a teaching by the founder of this style of Zen. And there's a section in Bendawa that's broken into question and answer. So this dialogue of student and teacher And in response to a student's question, Dogen brings up this old koan story that I'd like to share with you. So, long ago, Gensoku was the director monk in the assembly of Zen master Hogen.

[03:37]

Hogen asked him, Director Gensoku, how long have you been in my assembly? Gensoku replied, I have already been in the master's assembly for three years. Hogan said, you are a student. Why haven't you ever asked me about Buddha Dharma? So this is the curiosity maybe that to ask questions is part of being a student. to inquire. What is it that we learn here? What is it that I have to learn? Gensoku said, I cannot deceive you, oh teacher. Once when I was at Zen Master Seiho's place, I realized the peace and joy

[04:47]

of Buddha Dharma. So in a way, like this, the student's saying, I already kind of, I already get it. I already understand, so that's why I haven't been asking questions. I think this happens sometimes in our learning. You know, there's phases of being sure that we don't know, that we need help, that we're kind of willing to ask for help. And

[05:48]

phases of kind of having received help, having kind of kind of confirmed for ourselves that we understand something. And this is of course always a dangerous place. But at least in this instance, this monk is upfront about that fact. You know, sometimes we hide that. Hogan asked, with which words were you able to enter? So tell me about this experience that brought you the peace and joy of Buddha Dharma. Gensoku responded, I once asked Seho, what is the self of the student?

[06:56]

Seho said, the fire boy comes seeking fire. In a way, what we're looking for is what we already kind of are. And maybe we look to discover that, you know. Seho said, the fire boy comes seeking fire.

[08:12]

Hogan said, good words. However, I'm afraid that you did not really understand them. Gensoku said, my understanding is that the fire boy belongs to fire. Already fire, he still seeks fire. Just like being self and seeking self. Hogan exclaimed, now I really know that you don't understand. If Buddha Dharma was like that, it would not have been transmitted up to today. At this, Gensoku was overwrought and left immediately. On the road, he thought, the master is one of the world's fine teachers and also the guiding teacher of 500 people.

[09:23]

Certainly there must be merit in his pointing out my error. The willingness returns. Maybe I don't know. So one of the teachings of monastic Zen life is that we get to play these different roles.

[10:26]

You know, there's somebody who rings the bell during the sitting, and that's called the Doan. Teaching of these various roles is to kind of discover who we are by being given something that we don't know how to do, by being a student in a way. At least at Zen Center, these roles are many and they're kind of always changing. So for a period of sitting, we're the Doan and then we're not, you know, then we're back to sitting in our usual place, not at the Doan seat.

[11:46]

You know, there's a whole kind of hierarchy in the kitchen. There's the head of the kitchen practice or the Tenzo, and his assistant or his or her assistant, the Fukuten. And then sort of crew members. In each role, you get to see the world or in this case, the temple, from that perspective. Gentoku, I'm sorry, and Gensoku, at hearing his teacher say, he was sure he didn't understand, and having kind of fled at that news, stops on the path and says, well, maybe my teacher's right.

[13:39]

So, he returned to Hogan. And after doing prostrations and repentance, asked, what is the self of this student? Hogan said, the fire boy comes seeking fire. With these words, Gensoku was greatly enlightened to Buddha Dharma. So his teacher just repeated the words that he had heard from a previous teacher. And yet, as the student, he heard them completely fresh.

[14:50]

And sometimes this is the antidote to this feeling that I've already got this. I've experienced this joy of Buddha Dharma from having heard my first teacher say that I am just sort of wisdom seeking wisdom. the teacher kind of with this doubt is able to just sort of push the student off balance a little bit and in a way kind of bring back this curiosity or kind of do I do I understand do I

[16:16]

Do I really know what it means to be a student? And this slight off-balance kind of then allows this opening to, or that question can allow that opening to a new question and a new response, even if it's the same response. I think I mentioned in the last talk that I gave that maybe one lesson that I've

[17:30]

feel like I've received in being a student is that I have to respect or trust or follow my kind of my own experience that And I guess what my my experience of that is that what I think is happening, what I think I'm learning isn't

[18:37]

exactly the whole story and so to kind of leave this opening, this kind of curiosity for my own responses to reveal themselves. So maybe about five years ago I got interested in learning how to surf and I had a good friend who would take me to various beaches near here and kind of give me some tips on how to do it and how to paddle, how to be kind of aware of the other surfers and know how to get out of their way. And there was something that was always drawing me to that and I didn't know exactly what it was. I knew I wanted to be in that wild sort of natural environment of the ocean, that I wanted to discover that realm that I felt like I didn't know but had some inkling that it was important to me.

[19:54]

And in surfing there's a, you know, There's something called the lineup, where basically all the surfers sit, which is kind of approximately where the wave is building in, kind of growing in size, and then is about to break. And so there's a great deal of timing involved in being at the right place at the right time, kind of feeling where that's going to be, in your own body, which takes time to develop. At first, early experiences of surfing is just sort of paddling and holding onto your board and hoping not to be swept away or drowned or something. And as the wave begins to build,

[21:00]

if you're a little bit late in sort of when you're paddling with the wave, trying to catch it, trying to have it kind of continue to carry you, at which point you hop up and surf the wave, if the timing's a little off, if the wave hasn't kind of built to that crescendo yet, it will just sort of slide under you and you'll miss it and it won't carry you. And if your timing's a little late in the other direction, so if you've paddled too far and the wave's built and it's sort of about to come over, what can happen is something called going over the falls. And this is sort of the worst case scenario in surfing. And it basically means you're at the top of the wave and the wave breaks.

[22:00]

And basically you just fall from whatever the height of the wave is to the bottom of the wave. And of course it takes building up some courage to even try for a wave. And then you do and usually the first few times it kind of slides under you. And then maybe that third time you over-correct and you get to this point where you're at the top of the wave and it's breaking and you know you haven't caught the face of the wave where you want to be and you just fall. And then you hit the water and then the wave continues to break over you and you get turned around like a rag doll in a washing machine. And the first few times it happened to me, what surprised me was that I came up, you get turned around and you're not sure which way is up and how do I get to the surface and there's a little bit of panic and

[23:24]

And then you kind of relax in some way, like, oh, I know if I just float, I'll kind of go that way that I need to go. And what surprised me is the first few times it happened, I would get to the surface and I would have this huge grin on my face. A couple of times I just shouted, like, woo, that was fun. And I discovered what I liked or some aspect of surfing that I liked was that falling, that being out of control, that being thrown around by the water. There's so much kind of self-consciousness to our lives about trying to do things correctly, trying to like appear like we know what we're doing. that it can be kind of a relief to be out of control in a way that feels at least somewhat safe.

[24:35]

You know, I'm surrounded by water. Even if I fall, I'm gonna fall into water. I guess I bring this up as just sort of an experience of, there's, some way that we think we're drawn to something or why we think we like doing something. And then there's just the experience of the body and what it likes or what it notices or what it recoils against. And in Zen and in being a student of Zen, we get to get this encouragement to non-judgmentally and acceptingly witness this reaction of whatever this body-mind is, beyond what we think it is, beyond what we want it to be.

[25:49]

I think a big part of what being a student has felt like to me is like learning to let go. Learning to let go of what I think my life is supposed to look like, what I think I'm supposed to look like, the responses I'm supposed to have. And yet I found it like a really frustrating concept. When people say you're kind of tense or confused or unsure in a situation and you are encouraged by a teacher or a friend to just let go, there's a part of me that just says,

[27:04]

what does that mean? Like, if I knew how to do that, that I wouldn't be so tense, you know? And I don't know that I'll be much a service to you this evening in explaining what letting go is, other than to kind of share this experience that I think we learn what it is through kind of witnessing it happen rather than planning for it to happen. So I didn't know that I was gonna enjoy being tumbled by the ocean, but it physically taught me something about letting go, that there was no way I could stop the wave from not landing on me.

[28:05]

And in that particular instance or that scenario, my body did let go. It felt like, okay, I'll just be loose and get thrown around for a little bit and then I'll probably pop up to the surface. So for me, that was a... a place or a scenario where that came out in me, but it's, you know, of course it's different for everybody, but to maybe just note, you know, when you come across those moments in your life where you feel out of control, but it also feels safe. And then, that sort of being a student is like receiving that experience.

[29:07]

Like, okay, what does it feel like to be out of control right now? Is there like a relief to that? So I guess since I've been in this role of Shuso in the last few months, I've been kind of thinking like, how did I end up here? And often in Zen we're asked to give way-seeking mind talks, so how we came to practice. But I was speaking recently with my teacher, and we were both kind of remarking at how the way seeking mind talks often end with like, and then I walked in the front door of Zen Center, or you know, then I sat for the first time.

[30:19]

And so what happens after that? What happens when you land in practice? So I lived at Tassajara in residence for two years, and then I lived here at City Center for three years after that. I had just finished a job here that I had done for a couple years in the accounting office, working for creating the payroll for Zen Center and helping to manage health insurance benefits. I didn't know what was next, what I was going to do, and I decided to apply to a program in Chinese medicine and was accepted and it was kind of a big, very

[31:37]

from applying to suddenly being in school a few weeks later. And I thought, you know, I had some friends who had done this program and had studied Chinese medicine and had lived here at Zen Center in community. And I thought, okay, that sounds like a good life. I'll do that. And in the first six months or so of being in school, like the school life took over. It took precedence in a way. It was new. It was a kind of a struggle to, you know, am I gonna survive in this? Am I gonna flunk out? And I kind of stopped Very, you know, gently my schedule started to shift, and it was kind of easier for me to study in the evenings.

[32:40]

I was kind of more able to be present with reading and studying. Just with my own energy, it was easier to be still and focused in the evenings. And so I would kind of stay up later and later studying, and then... you know, it was sort of gradually shifting to where it was like really hard to get up in the morning to go to morning zazen and kind of stopped going as much and started receiving feedback that that wasn't okay to live in the community and not go to zazen, which I can understand. And... It was another experience of discovering like my idea of what I wanted or needed or the path that I was on in that moment and the reality of my life, the reality of my responses, my body.

[33:43]

And it took a while, it took a while to sink in or some months, weeks or months. And I said, okay, I'll go with this reality, whatever's happening. I've lived in community for five years straight. Some other life is calling me right now, so I'll go with it. And I moved out and found an apartment in another side of the city, very close to the beach, so I could surf more, and it was kind of I was trying to like, there was some disappointment, like I wanted to live at Zen Center and do this program and I feel like a failure. I feel like that didn't work out. And I was trying to kind of change that into, okay, I'm going to discover some new thing that I wanna go towards rather than sort of feeling this regret about what I was leaving behind.

[34:47]

And, you know there were times where it was definitely very lonely to suddenly live in your own space and not have the support of you know so many friends and practice companions around and so I started to look for places where I could find that in my life out in the world and visited different Zen temples and would go to the Berkeley Zen Center fairly regularly and do sits there and take classes there and also started to go to Michael Wenger has a small temple in the Inner Sunset. And that was only about 20 blocks from my house and I could bike up to...

[35:51]

the temple there and it was a refuge. You know, it really clearly was a refuge when I felt lost in some new world that wasn't kind of this container of practice that this community can be. And one night I went to Dragon's Leap, which is Michael's temple and there was a woman giving the talk and I don't remember who it was, but she told this story of a Japanese monk in the 60s or 70s who I think was asked to come to America to teach to a congregation here or or just sort of sent off as an emissary to America. And I think the teacher's name was Yasetani, but it wasn't one of the Yasetanis that I had heard of.

[36:58]

And I'm not positive about the name. But the story goes that he arrived here in the city and nobody knew that he was coming. There was no community here for him to teach to. And I think he was quite a famous teacher in Japan. very well respected and he kind of was stunned to be in this new world and nobody was waiting for him to come you know and okay what do I do now and apparently he got some sort of menial job and found an apartment and lived in the city and This went on for a number of years. He was sort of like waiting for either a community here to develop or ask him to teach or waiting for a word from Japan to come back and teach there. And I'm not sure how it resolved.

[38:03]

I think maybe he went back to Japan, but somebody asked him later, what were those years like that you were in America? And he was... I was kind of ecstatic. He was like, it was lovely. Nobody knew me. I could walk anywhere. I was kind of this amazing freedom of being kind of lost in the city. And I know sometimes being lost in the city feels quite lonely, but when I heard this story, I said, kind of awoke something in me, because it was where I was at in my life, and I thought, yeah, actually, I really love this. There's some part of being anonymous that feels like a great, great freedom.

[39:10]

And that was the lesson of the next few months of my life. So living out in the outer sunset, I had this sort of continuous joy or relief. I mean, it was a complete shock. And I didn't quite understand it, but it had something to do with the pressures I kind of internalized of living in community and feeling like I had to act a certain way and be at a certain place at a certain time. And of course there are times in our life where we agree to do that and it's hugely beneficial. And I think I had benefited immensely from that life, but I just didn't know that that moment had shifted and I only discovered it

[40:22]

in kind of hearing this story and totally resonating with the joy that this monk found in kind of being somewhere where nobody knew who he was, you know. And that feels like a form of letting go or letting go into our experience. Like, oh, this is my response right now. I wonder, you know, this isn't the response I expected to have. I guess I'm wondering if there are any questions about anything I have said.

[41:55]

Wonderful. Perfect. Thank you. 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 sfcc.org and click Giving. May we all fully enjoy the Dharma.

[42:38]

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