This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations by people like you. So I just had this request as I was sitting here. If we would just not do some sitting with you, if we would just sit. for a moment and hold this room and in our world right now and our thoughts a little bit to open our hearts to each other and to ourselves just for a moment and make a place for each other. These are difficult. This is a very difficult era. Probably people have been saying that for twenty five hundred years or ten thousand years, but it seems difficult. So if we could just sit for just a second. And we take refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha and raise our intention to hold each other in this moment, make room for each other.

[01:10]

Despite all of our differences and different ways, different ideas. explanation of what's going on today, too, so people know that there's an American Zen Teachers Association conference at the other end of the building. So that's why people that often are, you know, you can listen in the dining room and ask to come into the big room here.

[02:11]

So and this is a hosted event by Zen Center. I don't know if it's every year. I don't know if it's every year, but it's a hosted event, too. invite different leaders and teachers from around the country, if not the world, to come here to make an inquiry together in ways to teach, ways to spread the Dharma. So that's what's been happening. And Rosalie and Linda Gallion and the senior staff have done a heroic effort in putting this event on. It's been going on. I think we were housing 33 extra people for this three-day period, so big deals. big family right now. And I want to do one other show and tell. I've never used this before. I've never used this. It's called a kotsu. And when you get this brown robe, you get things to carry around, Dharma toys to have.

[03:14]

And I inherited this from my friend John King, so I have never used it, so I thought I would wave it around this morning. I'm not quite sure what you really need to do, but you bow with it. I used it actually once in Chicago, and I called it a teaching stick, so I passed it around. I probably broke some major vow. It doesn't matter. But I used it as a teaching stick. I said, here, do you have something to say? We had fun. We had fun with the stick. So I'd like to begin with a scene-setter quote. I don't have to find them too often. This says, One great splitting of the universe into two halves is made by each of us. And for all of us, most of the interest attaches to one of the halves. But we all draw the line of difference between them in a different place.

[04:18]

When I say that we all call the two halves by the same names and that those names are me and not me, respectively, it will at once be seen what I mean. This is a quote from William James, the pragmatic philosopher and psychologist, I guess, of the 20th century, early 20th century. So this. is what I'd like to talk about today, the world of me and the world of not me, practicing with self. How do we engage with it? How do we learn about it? Ultimately, how do we find a way to make our world bigger, to allow more things into our lives? When I think of James's quote, there's that picture. I don't know if you've seen that painting that they used to do.

[05:19]

You know, somebody would do a painting if you're from New York and they would do the streets like this is 52nd Street and East 9th. And it would be delineated on this picture map. And then it would be the Midwest, the rest of the world. So how do we work when we're stuck like that? you know, stuck in this place, which seems quite bound up, you know, be what I'd like to talk about today. Dogen Zenji, the Japanese carrier of this lineage, a Chinese lineage, ultimately a lineage that comes from Siddhartha Gautama himself, the Buddha, says, you know, to study the Buddha way, is to study the self. And to study the self is to not be bound up or entrapped by the self or to be self-concerned.

[06:21]

Many different ways to translate that. So it becomes a core part of our practice in the Soto tradition, this inquiry. What am I? What is this thing that I experience moment by moment? How do I live with it? Why does it seem to get me into so many difficulties? And what's a fruitful way to go about this inquiry, both in meditation and in our lives? So, you know, Buddha considered this to be the essential problem for humanity. that this problem itself of this belief in separation or this belief in this separate entity was what lay at the root of all of human discord and problems, if not war and difficulties.

[07:27]

This misconception or darkness, Avija, the first of the Nidanas or links, is darkness or confusion, confusion about this matter. leads us on a course of some problems, if not disaster, can lead to disaster. So he treated this as a very important aspect of his training with his monastics and with the people that they taught in turn. And around this core or misperception of separation, of reification or solidity, lie three additional problems or confusions of greed, hate, and delusion. I think most human afflictions of anxiety and anger, depression, sadness, spring from this kind of nexus, the coming together of self-clinging and the endless stream of phenomena, of situations changing.

[08:35]

And this karmic wind becomes our life. becomes the force of our life that becomes almost too compelling. We can't find a way out. Have you seen the great Tibetan wheels with the nine links with the Kali chakra, I think, in the center, the demonic personality? It's the image of samsara itself, of being caught in this windstorm, this blowing windstorm. So this is treated by Buddha as the core thing to work with to begin to understand the situation of what we call separation or self. And I think I was thinking through the Dalai Lama recently, and I think it's kind of like what he said, you know, even it's important to take this on in a serious way if we're going to do it. You know, when we take on this practice of studying the self, the serious doesn't mean this is serious business.

[09:45]

So we have to have a light and joyful heart to do it because it's so serious. We can't be deadly with it. We have to have a kind of lightness that we bring into this practice, into this inquiry. But if we are too negligent about what we're working with, you know, so first it's important to look into your own life and decide, is this a question that's important to you? Is this study important to you? And to find the reason it's important to you in your own life as you are. And then as you undertake this inquiry to do it with a certain intention or seriousness, even if it's but to do it with a certain seriousness. So often it becomes self-defeating if we become too negligent, too unconcerned. The paramitta of energy or virya or energy is to raise this serious purpose and stay with it.

[10:55]

So to slacken with that can create a kind of backwash that we get lost in. This isn't really working. There's something wrong with Buddhism or there's something wrong with me. So by taking refuge in Buddha, we're actually taking refuge in that this is something that works. A human being did this. Many human beings have done it. This is a message of hope. There is a way to work with this situation. So but first to kind of decide what's important. and to kind of bend your will or your energy to do this, to do this kind of practice, this study together. And then as we, you know, like with any undertaking, I was talking with somebody recently and I was saying, you know, Sometimes I watch myself and it's almost like I'm trying to figure how much delusion I can get away with.

[11:56]

It's still not suffered. You know, where the lines are. That's like when the alarm rings in the morning. And I say this with all the humility. It's best to just get up. It's very painful to drag out that 10 minutes of something might happen or am I really sick? So. So that's the joyful part of the inquiry, how wonderful we are as creatures that we come up with these things. How much delusion? Maybe a little bit today. I think actually we're very subtle with this. We do it a lot. And it is dangerous. It is dangerous. It has a dangerous element to it, but it's quite wonderful. We have to kind of... We care for ourselves in that way, too. The wonder of being us. So. So then we make this entreaty or this compact that will start to change.

[13:12]

We'll take this out as a serious task. And traditionally, the. Part of the Eightfold Path of Marga, or the Way of the Buddha, is to watch how you speak, watch how you act. Speech and action are very powerful, and the setting is very important to do this kind of work. And how you work, you know, what kind of work, and of course there's the quality of work in terms of harming life, it's one aspect. But even to make our inquiry in the very activities of work itself, of the physicality and the presence of work to deeply penetrate all of these actions of our life, become Buddha's way. So we set the stage by creating a foundation. You know, when we say we leave the realm of sensual desire, we leave the realm of being caught in the foolishness of this sort of windstorm.

[14:19]

Not that we leave our humanity, but we pay attention now. Everything we have some responsibility for. All of our actions we're responsible for. Whether you're a vegetarian, you're responsible. There's responsibility in anything we undertake. So we sort of set the stage with some care because this is a meaningful moment, a transition in our life to undertake a serious Buddhist practice. Often... I find one thing that's really difficult is the belief that we can even do this, that we have the right to wake up, that this is an important activity, that we have the right to practice with wisdom and compassion with ourselves and with each other. And so it's important to... In one way, taking refuge in Buddha is this compact.

[15:23]

Yes, it is important. Yes, you can do it. And yes, it's your right to abide on the earth where you are with true human dignity, just as you are. And that this is the perfect vehicle for making this inquiry into the self, to doing this Buddhist work. So these are considered hindrances. Anxiety and doubt, you know, the doubt. I don't know if I can do it. I don't know if it's worth doing, you know. And we give the personification of Mara to this, you know, this questioning, this doubting. So we even enfold that with softness and compassion, this doubting. This is what all sentient beings. work with. We share that with each other. Can I do this? We share this problem.

[16:26]

Usually at some point it comes up, you know, you have to have a self to give up the self. And it is true, you know, that, you know, in my life there have been I come from a banged up background and many of us do. There are situations that are damaging, you know, that require additional help. We had a therapist here named, he's a great name, I always love his name, Flint Sparks. I was going to laugh. Let me say it again. Flint Sparks. I really like his name. He's a wonderful guy. And he said to Blanche, you know, I've been studying here to give up the self, but now I'm a therapist. I'm going home to help people rebuild their selves. Is there a problem here? And I don't I don't think so. You know, I think we don't practice therapy here. It's not what we do. It's about insight into the self and self clinging as a way of finding openness or freedom.

[17:36]

But balance is good, you know. I don't know if, especially our society feels very self-critical. Again, it's a big thing, I think, in our American society that we tend to beat up on ourselves a lot, that we're pretty self-critical as a people. Are you doing enough? Should you be doing more? Do you measure up? This ceaseless kind of going and pursuit. So to find some balance, before making this inquiry into what is the self and ways to become free of it are very important. And it may be therapy. I've seen a therapist. Or it may be medications. And for a time, I took an antidepressant, as I have a tendency. And that even becomes a dharmagative inquiry. And I thought, wait a minute. This is Mark.

[18:38]

I don't need that. You know, I can't just be a squirt of chemical, you know, my personality. You know, I should master this. It was quite an interesting thing. And then I thought, well, why? You know, let's try something different. Let's work with it in a different modality, a different way. Let's experience a lighter look at something. So I did that for a time. So we should not, you know, this is good. We need this kind of balance in this inquiry. This is the vehicle that we're going to look into or the subject that we're going to look into. So to find that balance or traditional Buddhism talks about shamatha or finding ease to be able to make this inquiry, to be able to stop, is not only important, it's a critical step in laying the groundwork for the study of self. Probably the most important thing after some groundwork is laid, you know, our usual way of dealing with this is to try to think our way out, you know, to begin a process of analysis, you know.

[20:06]

So I'm even refraining. The Buddha had different terminology of skandhas for perceptions and conceptions. I don't even want to do that. I don't think those are just more terms in a way. They're fine terms and they're probably very useful. But more important, I think, is the direct experience of consciousness and of our life, of this physical presence as it's manifesting itself. to let nothing kind of come between that. So this is the penetrating study. This is where prajna actually arises from, or wisdom actually arises from a penetrating inquiry. This becomes an experiential matter, not an intellectual matter, although later it's fine. We can frame what we've learned. But when we make our inquiry, it's very important to have some depth and breadth in looking at body and mind so the first step is to actually slow down you know we slow down and we sit down and we need to get intimate and juicy with our own lives for the first time really in there with ourselves just as we are i was talking with somebody yesterday and i used the phrase

[21:36]

Here it's okay to put your worst foot forward. Being able to share ourselves with each other allows us to make this inquiry. This is the gift of sangha. This is how sangha holds us, that we can not do everything perfectly. We can be angry. We can be depressed. We can be jealous. And... It's okay. This is what we are. This is our life as human beings. As I said, serious work. So you need a kind of lightness to look at this area. You need a kind of lightness to look at when you're... I mean, there's so many wonderful times when you're chanting in the morning and... You got the whole chant down and you look around and you go, some of these people, they need books.

[22:36]

It's OK. But check that out. You know, check it out with true compassion. What's really happening, the dimension and what's arising up for you, you know, how it feels, what its texture is. I see. Larry is here. I'm the board secretary at Zen Center. So practicing in community is wonderful because you always get the job you don't want. So I take the minutes for all of the meetings. And when I was interviewed for the job, they said, do you want the job? And I said, well, you know, I hate meetings and I take crummy minutes. So they said, OK, the board unanimously now wants you to do this. So, you know, I'll sit there and I'll have my minutes and then somebody will go, you know, I don't think we said that. And I can feel it, but it's fine. And it's so ridiculous. You know, it's a series of words, you know, but it's there.

[23:38]

So then you just check it out, see what's really happening. So the Buddha says, you know, when you bring your attention to this, don't reify it if Joe says to Mark, your minutes are incomprehensible. It's not Mark getting mad at Joe. This becomes a kind of a wrong step or reification in our meditation and our training. It's simply anger. It's simply fear. It's simply a sense of self that's being threatened. You know, my little comfort area is a little threatened. I want to be a good boy. I want to have good minutes. I want to sit with the big people or whatever. We all have some craziness. So you can't get to see it if you are pushing it away. It's too if you're too discouraged by it. And you can't get to see it if you're trying to be too good.

[24:41]

So I spent a long time really trying to be too good, you know, trying to be a Buddhist icon, you know, of helpfulness and friendliness. I still do that. It must be really irritating. You guys should tell me. But it's my thing. But to really show up and present yourself to sangha and to yourself is the way we learn. It's really important in meditation. We talk about the mortification of the Buddha and the middle path that he came up with, but this middle path permeates all levels of the teachings so that when we meditate, it's not good to plot revenge against people and to get into the fantasies. This actually is going in the wrong direction. Actually, you're reifying separation from things.

[25:47]

The other extent is to try to suppress any thought. So there's a requirement, some bare touching, some bare contact is necessary. This is the middle path that Shakyamuni has talked about. It's neither annihilation where we destroy or remove everything, nor is it being stuck in things as they arise. So it's important to hold that in our meditation. to start out with serious purpose and to see these things as they come up, the wondrous nature of these sticking points and stories as they come up for us. The more you can stay there with them, the more you can abide with them. This becomes vipassana or insight. The more the insight will grow, wisdom begins to grow naturally as we begin to see these things unfurling or deconstructing before our eyes. You know, if the total I brought here, if the total quality is correct, it will be deeply informative.

[26:57]

So if this touching is correct, if this contact between body, breath and mind is correct, if the balancing point is correct, moment by moment in our meditation, we stay upright. Then there is this kind of natural healing that goes on of letting go and finding space in our lives. So we sit an hour a day, and we've got another 23 or so, and we sleep six or seven hours here. So when I lived outside and worked in the maritime business, I thought, when I get in here, it's all going to be different. And it was, and it has great power to be in community, to be living here. I love a lot of the things in the maritime business.

[27:58]

I love the energy of business and the energy of so many people's lives and inquiries. So this practice shouldn't stop when we get up, whether we're in an intentional community or we're going downtown to work. Everything we do is an act of information. Information is being supplied every second. We need to cultivate the ears to hear it, the humility, actually, to listen. So when we get up here, you know, we may have a perfect Zendo breakfast, and Oreoki is pretty nice, but what do we do with the bowls when we come upstairs? Do we sort of mash them in the cupboard? If we have the last milk, are we aware of what this means if we don't get another quart of milk? How do we just do ourselves? How do we live together in very simple ways with attentiveness? How do we hang out with ourselves in all of those situations?

[29:04]

Shouldn't just stop at the Zendo door or our practice will be really weak and it won't spread. It won't really help out here where there's so many people, I think, that could use this practice of sitting down. So I think I'm. I'm wrapping up. I'm going to read something to end with. If you want to move a little bit, you should move a little bit. It's fine. In one sense, this is serious business. In another sense, it's quite funny. It's quite paradoxical. You know, we say just give up the self.

[30:04]

But there is no self really to give up. There is no separate self to give up. So we undertake this training to work in this realm. In many of the old koans, they say, you know, and. Inanimate, inanimate objects, all sentient beings and all inanimate objects are ceaselessly proclaiming the truth of the Buddhists all around us. So to live our lives in that way, being willing to open completely to each situation, including our own delusions and attachments, but opening completely and listening completely. is letting myriad things now express themselves all around us. It's quite a wonderful universe. And this is, of course, the paradox of Shakyamuni saying, and all sentient beings from the beginning of this time have expressed this dharma, this truth, without any real hindrance.

[31:13]

It's being expressed ceaselessly. So we need to cultivate this kind of listening, this kind of patience. So I'm going to read this, and I'm not even sure why, but I do. I have some sense. I've read it twice now, and I'm starting today. It's called Pai Chang's Fox. I'm just going to read the koan to stop. And I think when I stop, that's it. I think I leave. Rosalie, we stop and chant, and then I leave, and then we come back? Okay, so should I explain that? I just did. But not really I'm going to explain this. So at the end, are we going to? I'll talk about it. You'll talk about it, okay. So I'll read Pai Chang's Fox in a little poem. And Pai Chang, or Yakujo, is a famous Rinzai ancestor.

[32:15]

who taught us how to work together. He's famous for his teaching that, you know, a day without work is a day without food. At a very advanced age, he was going out in the fields to work one day, and the monastics took his hoe and his shovel away, and they said, you know, you should, you're the abbot, and you're, I don't know, 93. You should go sit down. You should go rest in the shade, you know. And so then he said, a day without work is a day without food. We all work together. We share our common fate together. This is how the wheel of Dharma is really turned. This is the core of Soto practice. We share all of this together, good and bad, enlightenment and delusion. Whatever comes, we're there together. So this is Pai Chang. Once when Pai Chang gave a series of talks, a certain old man was always there listening together with the monks.

[33:23]

When they left, he would leave too. One day, however, he remained behind, and Pai Chang asked him, who are you standing here before me? The old man replied, I'm not a human being. In the far distant past, in the time of Kashyapa Buddha, this is the Buddha before Shakyamuni, the sixth Buddha, Fifth Buddha. I was head priest at this mountain. One day a monk asked me, does an enlightened person fall under the law of cause and effect? I replied, such a person does not fall under the law of cause and effect. And with this, I was reborn 500 times as a fox. Was it a tough school? Please. Say a turning word for me and release me from the body of a fox. He then asked Pai Chang, does an enlightened person fall under the law of cause and effect or not?

[34:26]

Pai Chang said, such a person does not evade the law of cause and effect. Hearing this, the old man immediately was enlightened. Making his bows, he said, I am released from the body of a fox. The body is on the other side of this mountain, and I wish to make a request of you, please. Abbot, perform my funeral is for a priest. Taichung had a head monk strike the signal board, the Han, and inform the assembly that after the noon meal, there would be a funeral service for a priest. The monks talked about this in wonder. Why, all of us are well. There's no one in the morgue. What in the world does that teacher mean? Intentional communities, we talk a lot. What's going on here? What's the board thinking today, for God's sake? The abbot, I don't know. After this meal, Pai Chung led the monks to the foot of a rock on the far side of the mountain, and there with his staff, he poked out the body of a dead fox, and he performed the ceremony of cremation.

[35:38]

That evening, he took the high seat before his assembly and told the monks the whole story. Wang Po stepped forward. Now, Wang Po is Lin Xi's teacher, will become Lin Xi's teacher, I believe, or Rinzai's teacher, Lin Xi's teacher. Wang Po stepped forward and said, he's a giant, apparently. He's one of those big guys. Big guy says, as you say, the old man missed the turning word and was reborn as a fox 500 times. What if he'd given the right word, right answer each time he was asked the question? What would have happened then? Turn the tables on old Pai Chang. And Pai Chang said, now this is where you've got to be careful with this. Just step here a little closer and I'll tell you the secret. Wang Po went up to Pai Chang and slapped him in the face. I guess Wang Po slapped Pai Chang in the face. It must have been a horrible scene. Now, these are metaphors, by the way.

[36:41]

We can assume that he maybe minds slapping this ancient abbot in the face, Pai Chang. Paichang clapped his hands and laughed, saying, I thought the barbarian had a red beard, but here is a red bearded barbarian. I didn't get it either. I have some feeling for it now. I have some feeling for it now. Let me give you a clue. My wife is sitting over there, Nadine. We told this ten years ago. He read this and he came out and explained it to us twice. And then he looked in my eyes and he said, it's okay. Lunch. Not falling, not evading. Two faces of the same die. Not evading, not falling. A thousand mistakes. Ten thousand mistakes.

[37:43]

And Newman says... If you have the single eye of realization, you will appreciate how old Pai Chung lived 500 lives as a fox, as lives of grace. 500 lives as grace. And this is the last, I promise. It'll be perfect. And I don't know why I open to this section. Maybe it's no dualism. And Suzuki Roshi is talking about maybe you're dying at the end of your life. Maybe it's because, John, it's a year memorial to his death, my friend who I inherited, quits him from. And that means, you know, maybe you meditate or involve yourself in this inquiry. Trying to be free from the suffering of duality itself.

[38:48]

And this is the practice of form is emptiness and emptiness is form. Because of the truth of emptiness, you want to have some actual realization or some openness in your very life. And, you know, if you practice, Suzuki Roshi says in this way, it will. And you make an effort. It will help, of course. But it's not perfect practice. Now, remember this fox. knowing that your life is short, to enjoy it day after day. Moment after moment is the life of form is form and emptiness is emptiness. When Buddha comes, you'll welcome him. When the devil comes, you'll welcome him. 500 lives is grace. Here together. Take care of yourselves today.

[39:53]

Be playful a little with this inquiry. You can do this. It's the way of the Buddhist. It's our it's our our heritage. We are swimmers in the deep ocean. We can make this inquiry. It's where our true heart lies. 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 the practice of giving by offering your financial help. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click giving. May all beings be happy.

[40:38]

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