I'd like to start by thanking Rosalie Curtis, the Tonto here at City Center, the head of practice, and my fellow ordination master, my root teacher, Seke Harada Roshi, and my teacher here at Zen Center, Vicki Austin, for inviting me to be here today and for their inspirational teaching. Ever since beings began to have intelligence they have been seeking understanding. People sang songs, people write poetry, people develop all kinds of sophisticated machines and organizational systems, the pecking order,

[01:24]

They tell stories about the natural world and how they think it works. And in fact, I would say that most of you here today may be here in the search for understanding, in the search for something which is helpful, helpful in dealing with the suffering of your life, helpful in dealing with whatever it is that's unsatisfactory. And that search can be helpful in itself. Everything that we do in our lives is energy. By virtue of being alive, everything that we're doing is energy, is generating energy, and so it's important to

[02:27]

apply that energy in a way that's helpful to relieving your suffering. But I would caution you that trying to understand your life may be quite difficult. Right? There's no end to the amount of questioning that can happen. Who am I? And what does this mean? What should I do with myself? And oftentimes an answer can simply lead to another question. Over and over again. In fact, it's said that the thought of getting rid of suffering is itself a form of suffering. And it can be quite painful.

[03:29]

So this is really an expression of aversion, actually, this thought of getting rid of suffering. And in fact, one way to think about this need for understanding or this desire for understanding is that maybe you think that if you understand your life, then you'll have less suffering. You'll think that you'll be more free. But thinking about understanding your life is actually a way of saying that you would like your mind to be better. You would like your mind to behave a little better and not be quite so unruly. Because actually, the true nature of things is really beyond our ability to grasp it with thought.

[04:38]

We have a limited experience as human beings. So there's no amount of refinement of your thought that's going to lead you to freedom or to the ability to experience the true nature of things. It just cannot be grasped. And even so, you might think, well, if I study the teachings and if I do good, then I'll have less suffering. And that's a noble endeavor. That's a wonderful thing to do. We practice with the precepts, what we call the precepts in Zen, the ethical teachings. And by practicing with the precepts, you might come to see some of the interconnectedness of things. You might find out about consequences. What happens when you take the thing that's not given? You eat the last cookie and your roommate gets really irritated and you experience the consequences of what happens when you eat your roommate's last cookie.

[05:55]

So we can, through practicing with the precepts, we can start to experience the interconnectedness of the world. And in fact, actually, you may have fewer hindrances. It's likely that you would experience less of what we call the hindrances. So in Buddhism there are five hindrances. Grasping, and in particular grasping at... Material things or material comfort. So this is a kind of neediness that eats at you. Ill will, which includes hatred of the self, anger toward the self and toward others, other beings, other humans, other animals, and so on. This is a good one. Sloth and torpor. like laziness, dullness.

[07:00]

And interestingly, restlessness and remorse go together. So restlessness is one, I think, that is quite endemic in American society. This constant drive, drive, drive, drive to the next thing. And the remorse that comes from having done something quickly, moving on to the next thing before it's quite time. And then doubt is the last of the hindrances. And in particular corrosive doubt, which is really fundamentally a doubt about oneself, a doubt about your own innate Buddhahood. So we can practice with the precepts and we can experience less of these kinds of problems in our life.

[08:05]

And ultimately, however, that's not quite enough. Ultimately, life still contains the suffering of old age, sickness, death, separation from your loved ones. It still contains quite a bit of suffering. And so we need the precepts and we need an ethical life, but we also need wisdom. And the Buddha was a role model for the shift to a life which is free of those things, free of that suffering, while still completely in the midst of it. That was the turning. So you might say, well, how?

[09:08]

How to develop wisdom? In Zen, the teaching of wisdom is really based fundamentally on the emptiness of all things. And I want to be careful to point out that we don't mean empty as in missing something. We mean empty of permanent existence, empty of an inherent nature that is independent of things around it. So I want to talk a little bit about an old Zen story that points to this. And it's a conversation that happened between a student whose name was Jiaojo in Chinese or Joshu in Japanese, or we could just as easily say Joshua, and a teacher named Nangguan or Nansen in Japanese, or we could just as easily say Nancy. So Joshua and Nancy are having a conversation

[10:09]

And Joshua, being a new student, comes to Nancy and he says, what is the way? And Nancy replies, everyday mind is the way. And so Joshua takes that in for a second and he thinks to himself, you know, I don't know what she means by that. Everyday mind is the way. I don't get it. So he asks another question. He says, well, how can I direct myself toward it? How can I practice with everyday mind? And Nancy says, well, if you seek after it, you will go further away from it. And so Joshua says, well, if I don't seek after it, then how will I ever know it?

[11:10]

Nancy answers, the way is neither knowing nor not knowing. Knowing is an illusion and not knowing is apathy or sometimes translated as ignorance. When the uncontrived way is truly attained, it is like the sky, empty, vast, and open. And it's said that Joshua had a spiritual awakening at that moment on hearing those words. So just to talk a little bit more about this. So Joshua asks, what is the way? So we can think of this question as saying, how can I be free? Or what should I do with my life? Right? Right? comes to his teacher and says, please tell me what to do. And his teacher says, everyday mind is the way.

[12:22]

So right here you think, oh yeah, everyday mind. I get that. I have an everyday mind. Right? I get up, I brush my teeth, I put my shoes on. But again, I would really caution you about that understanding of everyday mind. I would say another way to think about this term is the original nature of mind or the natural function of mind is the way. So the mind, which is encompassing both delusion and awakening, Not your concept of it, not your understanding of it, not this catchy little phrase, but the direct experience of it. So Joshua then continues on saying, how can I get this, right? What can I do to make this happen?

[13:24]

How can I get this thing that my teacher seems to have, actually? And then the answer comes back pretty surprising, right? The answer comes back, if you seek after it, you go further away from it. So this is pointing at something, right? It's not out there to be acquired. It's not some future time to look forward to. If I do X and Y and Z, then A and B will happen. It's always right here and right now. So Joshua then, continuing on in his difficulty in this relationship, in this conversation, says, well, if I don't seek for it, how will I ever know? So this question is, right, if I'm ignorant now, won't I always be ignorant? Doesn't it feel like that sometimes?

[14:26]

Sometimes we feel like I need to do something Right? This confusion is killing me. So, then we come to the answer. Right? The fundamental wisdom that Nansen offered. Knowing is an illusion, and not knowing is ignorance. So what do we do with this information? If it's neither not knowing nor knowing, then what is it? It must be something that is not within the realm of understanding. So Nansen is pointing at this truth.

[15:31]

Nansen is saying, When you go beyond the seeking, when you set aside the seeking, there you will find the freedom within knowing and not knowing. So why is it that this can be said? What is it that makes that true? The way is neither knowing nor not knowing. it brings to mind this Japanese phrase, soku shinsei butsu. This very mind is Buddha. Soku shinsei butsu. And I'm going to read a quote by Sekiharada Roshi talking about this particular conversation that occurred and how it ties to everyday mind. He says, When we say everyday mind, this is something that is neither in the past or in the future.

[16:32]

It is the very thing itself and cannot even be said to be the present. The expression neither knowing nor not knowing signifies the condition where the thing itself cannot be perceived. I'm going to repeat that. The expression neither knowing nor not knowing signifies the condition where the thing itself cannot be perceived. This is also your present condition. It is what you are always doing in the moment now. So because everything exists only in dependence on other factors, because everything is co-created by others, every other thing, because everything changes and is impermanent, then everything exists within the realm of emptiness.

[17:41]

That means you, that means me, that means all objects, all beings. So seeking for this thing, seeking for everyday mind, is like standing in the ocean looking for water. It's said to be like standing in the middle of the ocean looking looking around for water. Not only are you in it, you are of it. You are completely filled by it. You are an expression of it. It cannot possibly be separate from you. So as an example of this, you know, there was a time when I was at the monastery and I was doing some work in the garden. And we were very precise... at the monastery when we were doing our work. So, you know, if you were in the kitchen and somebody asked you to chop carrots into matchsticks, they meant it literally. Like, those things were going to be exactly the same size and just like matchsticks.

[18:46]

And so I was there in the garden and I was asked to pick chamomile flowers. It's a lovely day, bright and sunny, and we were going to make some tea. I'm going to make some fresh chamomile tea. And I don't know, maybe some of you are not familiar with the chamomile bush. So it's a bush, you know, with these very tiny, tiny little stems and just a big mass of flowers, basically. Hundreds of little teeny, tiny white flowers with even teeny, tiny or white petals. Hundreds of them. And as you might imagine, it takes quite a few flowers to make some tea. It takes a lot of flowers to make even a single cup of tea. So I was fine with that. It's a nice day. I'm out there. I have my little bench to sit on, and I'm sitting there at the chamomile bush, one of the chamomile bushes.

[19:49]

And I notice, you know, that on this bush, there are flowers that are in all different stages. So there are little teeny flowers that haven't quite opened up yet. And there are flowers that are past their prime and the little petals are starting to come off. And there are flowers that are in full bloom. And I think to myself, geez, you know, there's probably a very specific way that I should be doing this. There's probably some instruction about this detail. that I don't know. So just a couple of rows away from me was the head gardener, this German monk named Shodo, Shodo-san, who also was the translator, the English translator. And I turned to Shodo-san and I said,

[20:52]

Shoto-san, you know, I want to pick these flowers and I want to do this efficiently and I see that they're in different states and I'm not sure if I should be picking the ones that haven't fully bloomed or if I shouldn't be, or maybe I should pick those but not pick the ones that are already beyond the full bloom and the petals are falling off. And I went on like this for a couple of minutes and finally Shoto looked up at me with his face all screwed up and he... with this great frown, and he said to me, did you just ask me when a flower becomes a flower? And it was true, I had. Right? So what is Shoda-san talking about? Shoda-san is talking about flowers fully manifesting flower. It doesn't need me to figure out whether it has enough petals on it. And I don't need to know whether it has enough petals on it to know that it's a flower.

[22:01]

So, does this mean that there's nothing to do? Right? If we are already fully an expression the perfection of everything, then does this mean there is nothing to do? Well, I think that you wouldn't be here if you thought that that was true. Right? So there is a teaching that can give us a bit of a hint, a bit of a pointer about what to do with this information. And it was written down actually a few decades after the time of the conversation that happened between Nansen and Joshu. It was written down in about 868 A.D. And in English it's called the Diamond Sutra. You might hear it read here on Friday mornings during service. It's introduced as the Vajra Chetika Prajnaparamita Sutra.

[23:10]

And it's also, as we understand it, it is also a conversation. It's a conversation that happened between Shakyamuni Buddha and his disciple named Sabudhi. And I'm going to read a little bit of it from this commentary by Musong, which is subtitled, so it's called the Diamond Sutra, subtitled, Transforming the Way We Perceive the World. So from section 28... The Buddha says, again, Saburi, if a daughter or son of good family were to fill as many world systems as there are grains of sand in the Ganges River with the seven precious treasures and give them as a gift to the Tathagatas, Arhats, fully enlightened ones, and if, on the other hand, a Bodhisattva, an awakening being,

[24:18]

a bodhisattva, were to gain the patient acceptance that all dharmas are empty and have no self-nature or essence of their own, her merit would be immeasurably and incalculably greater. So if an awakening being were to gain the patient acceptance that all dharmas, all things, our dharmas, all things are empty and have no self-nature or essence of their own, then the benefit would be immeasurable and incalculable. So, patience, an awakening being who gains Patient acceptance.

[25:20]

Patience that things are not the way that we expect them to be. Patience that things are going to change, even the things that we love. Patience that loss happens, that difficulty happens, that we cannot understand things conceptually, that we cannot just figure out our life. So an awakened life is a lived experience, not a better way of thinking about things, but a patience and an acceptance of a lived experience. Wei Nung, the sixth Chinese ancestor, who was two generations before Nansen, says it this way. He says, to penetrate all dharmas without thoughts of a subject or an object... is what is meant by acceptance. The benefit to bodhisattvas exceeds the benefit of the treasures because it is not for themselves.

[26:33]

Their thoughts are focused on helping all beings. So there's another hint, right? Patience and acceptance and benefiting all beings. These are the ways that we experience wisdom. These are the ways. So in keeping with Zen-centered tradition, I'm going to read you a little poem about this topic. And it's a poem by a woman named Izumi Shikibu. Izumi Shikibu. She was a Japanese poet. She served the Empress during the Heian period in Japan, so about 200 years after Joshu and Nansen had their conversation. And she wrote this very brief, beautiful poem.

[27:39]

Although the wind blows terribly here, the moonlight still shines. through the roof of this ruined house. Although the wind blows terribly here, the moonlight still shines through the roof of this ruined house. So wind is often the metaphor that's used for the movements of the mind, right? So I think that everyone in this room has had an experience of the wind blowing terribly. The moonlight is the light of wisdom. The house, this is the mental constructs, right? So the way that we build a box, the way that we try to define our world is

[28:45]

so that we can feel more comfortable in it, so that we can feel that we understand it. And the house is ruined. Why? Why is the house ruined? Because through practice, through hearing the teachings, we begin to see that things actually might not be the way that we thought they were. We begin to see the cracks in our certainty about permanence. So although the wind blows terribly here, and in fact the wind blows terribly anywhere, right, potentially, although the wind blows terribly, the moonlight still shines through the roof of the ruined house. So the meaning of this is that even in the midst of the storms that blow through our hearts and minds, even though we mistakenly try to

[29:49]

to contain that which is incalculably vast, even though we try to find out that the way things work is the same as what we think it is, we try to make that fit, even though we try to understand things that cannot be understood, still the light of wisdom is always It is always within us, expressing itself through us. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost 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 on giving. May we fully enjoy the Dormo.

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