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. My name is Sarah. Many of you know me, and many of you may know that I live here at Green Gulch. with the Sangha and I also have a smaller family. I have two sons and my husband also lives here. And I'm currently serving as the director of Green Gulch Farm. I just wanted to start by appreciating that all of you have come here today and that we all have this place of refuge to come to. You know, recently some scientists came and did a study of the birds here at Green Gulch.

[01:08]

They listened and they looked and they took, I don't know what it's called, but poop samples. Bird poop has a special name. And they found over 40 species of birds in the valley and up on the hills a little bit. So we know this, the birds and the flowers, the garden, the trees, the open space, the clear ocean air, this beautiful old barn, Zendo, and the people who come here, the nourishing food. This is really important for human beings to have a place of refuge, a place that where you can feel or touch some kind of calm and then have the space to turn inward, to reflect on your life, to hear about the Dharma, to hear the Dharma and to open to insight and wisdom and reflect a little on this business of being human.

[02:26]

So I just wanted to very much appreciate how All of us support this place and the need for us all to continue to support places of refuge in the world for everybody. And may it be so for all of us today that we can find some calm and perhaps even some opening. So what's been coming up? For me lately in my life as a mother and as the director of Green Gulch and as a human being is views. Or as the Buddha once observed, the wrangling of views, the jungle of views. So I wanted to talk a little bit about views this morning and what the Buddha meant.

[03:29]

So to start us off, here are the words of an old master. Thanksgiving dinners sad and thankless. Christmas dinners dark and blue when you stop and try to see it from the turkey's point of view. Sunday dinner isn't sunny. Easter feasts are just bad luck when you see it from the viewpoint. of a chicken or a duck. Oh, once how I loved tuna salad, pork and lobsters, lamb chops too, till I stopped and looked at dinner from the dinner's point of view. So that classic was called Point of View, and it's by Shel Silverstein. For those of you who didn't know immediately, I have a six-year-old, so I have occasion to crack open where the sidewalk ends and dive into this world that Shel Silverstein brings to light, to life.

[04:42]

You know, and what he's brilliant at is showing us kind of our unexamined assumptions and views about the world, you know, and particularly those of children, right, that we carry. kind of turning them up into absurdist propositions. You know, there's someone else in the spotlight who is serving this function for us these days. He happens to be running for president. And it seems to me that in that case... What's happening is that views are kind of, that are at the base of unspoken undercurrents in our society are being turned way up and shown to us so that we really see them. You know, they're out there. So the way the presidential candidate I'm speaking of speaks, he makes it clear there's an eater and an eaten.

[05:56]

You know, there are different views. There's different experiences. And whatever, you know, whether you agree with the views or not, they seem to bring up strong feelings for everybody. So I bring this up not as a political commentary, and I'm not going to dissect the views of of all the presidential nominees in light of the Buddhist teaching, although I'm sure that would be a very interesting talk. Rather, I meant to hold them up as an example that perhaps is common to most people in this room of strong views and perhaps what happens to us when we're in the presence of somebody who expresses strong views and perhaps... we notice we ourselves have some strong views. Some views come forward in response and some feelings.

[06:58]

What is that experience? At this point, I've said views a number of times and perhaps already your mind has produced many different ways that we talk about views or think about views. You know, political views, religious views, environmental views, social views, views on parenting, views on pets. This is a big one right now. I don't know if any of you know that National Park Service has these new dog walking rules proposed for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. And there are a lot of feelings about this, where you can walk your dog and where you can't walk your dog, and what animals are being protected and what animals are not being protected, right?

[08:03]

So dogs, just the idea of a dog is bringing forward views on people's lives, how they want to live their life, how they are living their life, how they should live their life, about liberty. about freedom. So a lot of views all the time. This is the jungle of views. This is the thicket of views. And it's kind of happening constantly. These lovely organs, we call brains, are quite good at producing views. So kind of the general meaning that's pointed to in our language of a view is something like an idea or an opinion. But in Buddhist thought, there's kind of an added dimension to the definition, which is really important for practice, for practicing with views.

[09:13]

And that's that a view is not a simple abstract collection of propositions, but a charged interpretation of experience, which intensely shapes and affects thought, sensation, and action. So you might notice that, can think about some views that you really agree with or that you don't agree with. You can feel in your body, what does it feel like? What comes to your mind in response? What thoughts come to your mind in response? And perhaps even, what do you do? A lot of people are writing letters to the National Park Service about the dogs, right? There's action that comes out of these views. So you might notice these three areas, thought, sensation, and action, correspond to the three kind of areas where karma is produced, body, speech, and mind.

[10:15]

So views are produced by and in turn produce mental conditioning. So views are shaped, are conditioned by past ideas, past views, past experiences, which for each of us is unique. All of the conditions, particular, conditions that have gone into our entire life condition our present views. And all of that producing this present moment is the basis for the next conditioned moment of existence. So when we think about it this way, we see that views are are kind of symptoms of conditioning rather than neutral alternatives that you can dispassionately choose from.

[11:21]

So our ideas, opinions, and really simply our thoughts are always conditioned according to the Buddha's teaching. And therefore, are always particular and partial. Our views are limited. So, so far the examples I've been talking about are kind of these big, gross views, you know, ideas, opinions, big concepts. While the Buddha's teaching is applicable to all views, the Buddha was interested in very particular, subtle views that seem to underlie all views. And you can check this out for yourself. You can really investigate this. And the more subtle views are basically the view that we have a separate, permanent self in here.

[12:41]

You know, which if you really look at it logically would mean it's unconditioned because it's separate and permanent from whatever else is happening. And therefore there's something separate and permanent in here. And the same goes for everything out there. When there's an in here, there's an out there. And when there's a me that's permanent, then there's a you that's permanent. And things can stick to these selves we create. We can run really far with that one. What naturally arises from this view of separate self is to protect it from harm and pain and to acquire for it happiness and safety. So from there, we take action based on these views.

[13:43]

This hopefully sounds familiar to you. This is what the Buddha described as the root of suffering and had his great awakening about. We'll get to that part later. So, When I started thinking about views, the Genjo Koan, this wonderful piece of writing by Dogen Zenji, the founder of the Soto School in Japan, came to mind. I'm going to read you a little bit of it. He says, so he took this big trip. He brought Zen from China to Japan, and when he did so in the early 1800s, It was kind of a big deal to go from Japan to China, and from China to Japan.

[14:50]

It wasn't like a quick hop on a plane, right? So he writes about the experience in the Genjo Koan. He says, when you sail out in a boat to the midst of an ocean where no land is in sight and view the four directions, the ocean looks circular and does not look any other way. So I like this book. It's a good example. I think it's... You can imagine when we're on a boat in a really big ocean where you can't see any land, and you look around, look around you, it will just look like a big circle of water. As far as you can see, you know, in all directions, water. And really, when it looks circular, we experience it as circular. He was having a lived experience of a circular ocean on that boat.

[15:51]

So what Dogen's pointing out, I think, is that we have this experience all the time with all our views. We experience them as reality. They appear to be real and true. So as I was saying earlier, the first way we can relate to our views is by holding on to them, believing they're true, being stuck in them. So this is called suffering in Buddhist thought, holding on to our views. It reminded me of being a teenager. I don't know if any of you can access that experience, that memory, that kind of vague memory maybe for some of you of being a teenager and like everything, you know, and I have to say this is an important time of being a teenager, kind of the important psychological formation of the self, the self-identity.

[17:06]

So this is really important to have a self-identity. don't want to denigrate like the formation of a self-identity but what I maybe the experience of it I I remember everything seeming really really important right like who liked you or who didn't like you or what you were doing or what you were invited to or what you weren't invited to or you know how well you were doing in school depending on who you were or where you lived, all of this was so totally consuming and seemed to have permanent lasting effects on your life. Every one of those things and more. Even highly self-reflective teens seem to experience these overwhelming emotions. We know a lot about this now, right, about the hormonal imbalances you go through as a teenager and how your brain is still developing, et cetera.

[18:12]

But the lived experience is like the circle of water is real. Nishiari Boku-san, who was a prominent Dogen scholar of his time and was the teacher to one of Suzuki Roshi's two main teachers, he did a commentary on the Genjo Koan, in which he says, when we see with a discriminating mind, the distance between enlightenment and delusion appears to be like that of heaven and deep water. So we exhaust ourselves in oscillating between the true and the false. So when we're caught by self and other, right and wrong, good and bad, disaster and triumph, which as teenagers we can't seem to help, given the conditions I mentioned of hormones and brain development, and which as adults we do not necessarily notice

[19:31]

or know how to care for, we exhaust ourselves. We suffer. So this is not so unusual. This is the world of political parties and partisan politics and wars and us and them. And in a more subtle way, this is the experience of loneliness, of isolation, of jealousy, and of longing. Norman Fisher says, when you hold onto views, any views, you create a fixed world, a world of linear time, a world of suffering and opposition. So here we are at Green Gulch on a beautiful spring day.

[20:47]

And we've come maybe because we have some kind of inkling that there is another way. There is a way to notice views, to study views, and to practice with them. So the first step necessarily is to notice. You have to pay attention and notice one of you arises. Did you notice? Did you notice again? So this experiencing of noticing is available to us in every moment. probably the experience of noticing views arising, particularly, is available.

[21:53]

So the second step might be to relax. Relax with your views. And if you happen to be noticing someone else's view, you can relax with that one, too. And then slowly turn around and notice your own view. It's really good. It's really important to get good at noticing this one. And when you've gotten really good at keeping your eye on this one, then you can talk to somebody about how to work with that one. we stay over here. So, you know, don't freak out when you notice you have a view. Like freak out and try and get rid of it, or freak out and start having more views, like I'm a bad person, I shouldn't be thinking this, or this is a partial view, how do I get rid of it, right?

[23:09]

So this is just more views, and we can notice those, so we can relax with those. and we can, you know, judgment or self-judgment or all of this, you know, then we can be kind to our views, you know? Welcome them. Let them know they don't need to be afraid. Be upright with them. So this is like not... Totally like leaning into the view, like getting a little too cozy with the view, thinking maybe the view is really the way to go. It's the real deal. And not leaning away, which is what I just talked about, like getting rid of the view, thinking that there's something wrong with the view. So then you can see if you can be curious with your view, about your view.

[24:16]

or with a few of your views even. Are they consistent? Are they unwavering? Are they fixed? Do they change based on conditions, on your mood, on who you're talking to? You can check it out. You can be curious. One way views have been coming up for me lately is by noticing that somebody is coming to me, and this happens kind of in all areas of my life, presenting kind of a view, an idea of how things are. That sounds, that's not my view, but it sounds really familiar. You know, like, oh, I get that. I used to think that, right? I... Totally understand where you're coming from. You know, except now, like, I'm on the other side of the view.

[25:19]

You know, which is really interesting. Just kind of looking at this person that I call I, that I think has been inhabiting this body for as long as I can remember, that somehow appears to be a fixed I, seems to be changing. It's not fixed. You know, and this can be really funny and it can be really profound or it can be really disillusioning. It makes me think of in the movies, you know, when somebody says something and then they go, oh, my God, I sound like my mother. You know, and it's supposed to be really funny, right, because it's making fun of mothers probably. But, you know, it's actually pretty profound. I have stepped into another set of conditions, and these conditions manifest as this.

[26:23]

They manifest as this thing being said that my mother, clearly under a similar set of conditions, manifested in her saying the same thing. You can fill in the blank, my boss, my spouse, whatever it is. Perhaps you found yourself on the other side of it and noticing, like, oh my gosh, I'm holding the other view or another side to this. So this is actually called or could be called in certain circumstances according with conditions. You know, when you are a grown-up, you see things as a grown-up and you say things as a grown-up. You know, mother fully inhabits her dharma position. You know, I say according with conditions, it might be, because the question is, how does one understand or practice with having a position?

[27:29]

So going back to Dogen, when you sail out in a boat to the midst of an ocean where no land is inside and view the four directions, the ocean looks circular and does not look any other way. But the ocean is neither round nor square. Its features are infinite in variety. It is like a palace. It is like a jewel. It only looks circular as far as you can see at that time. All things are like this. So the part about the palace and the jewel is referring to the four views of a single body of water. So a fish sees water as a palace, and celestial beings see it as a jewel ornament, and hungry ghosts see it as pus and blood, and humans see it as water. So each being sees it from their own dharma position, from their own conditions.

[28:40]

The same thing. It's true for each of them. what it appears as. You know, to a child, a playground is a joyous place to play, and to a mother, it's an accident waiting to happen. Right? So which one's true and which one's false? Nishihari Boku-san says, these are the views corresponding to each being's karmic limitation. None of these views is complete. In the same manner, To see the ocean as only circular is a limited, tentative view. So to some degree, we understand this as we grow older. In addition to your hormones evening out, maybe several other things have happened. You've had more life experiences, giving you access to different emotional realities and possibilities.

[29:43]

different views of the same or similar conditions, different views of different conditions. Sometimes you've been on both sides of an argument. Sometimes you've been a student and then you've been a teacher. So you more easily see the difficulty or the bind or the view of the other person. You've walked in their shoes. This happens a lot at Green Gulch. We like to talk about it as training. One of the most inefficient things we do here is rotate jobs, which means people are almost constantly on a very steep learning curve, which is pretty inefficient, right? On the other hand, it means that people are always having the lived experience of being in a different Dharma position.

[30:47]

They are having the lived experience of, you know, perhaps, you know, particularly when conflict or competing views arise, or competition for resources, not that we think about it that way. They're seeing the other side of whatever view they had or another side and experiencing the complexity of the conditions that contributed to each view and contributes to all views. So when you can see more of the whole, when you've had the bodily and emotional experience, of the different parts being both incomplete and complementary. You naturally realize the limited nature of each of the parts and the necessary nature of each of the parts.

[31:58]

And you can go further. which leads to the third way of relating to views, which is freedom. The freedom I'm speaking of is not the absence of views. It's the inclusion of all views and not sticking to any views. Dogen says, though there are many features in the dusty world and the world beyond conditions, you see and understand only what your eye of practice can reach. By eye of practice, I think he means our lived experience.

[33:08]

the true understanding that comes from our own experience. In order to learn the nature of myriad things, you must know that although they may look round or square, the other features of oceans and mountains are infinite in variety. Whole worlds are there. So this experience is speaking of his true maturity. Of fully understanding that our viewpoint and all viewpoints are necessarily incomplete. They are partial. Which means they are parts of a whole. Norman Fisher...

[34:11]

a former abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center, gave a great talk a while ago about Suzuki Roshi and not sticking to, particularly to the teaching, but to any views. And Norman said, I think sometimes if you read Suzuki Roshi's words and think about what he is saying, you might think that he is rather wishy-washy. He often will not take a definite position about things, or if he does, he will soon say that the opposite is true also. He often used the phrase, the other side. The other side is, you would say. It meant, well, this is one way to look at things, one kind of truth. And then there is also the other side, the other way to look at it. Both are true and therefore also false. So here you go.

[35:15]

How do you hold two truths? Or more than two truths? How can they both be true at the same time when they seem to be opposing? How can a child's world and a parent's world exist simultaneously without being mutually exclusive? How does my concern as a parent not obstruct my son's joy as a child. Norman goes on to say, Suzuki Roshi understood the idea of non-dualistic, not as a philosophical concept, but as a way of being. He understood it as freedom, as not being caught by anything, not being limited by views, even Buddhist views or Zen views. So Norman inserts the story, the story that many of you have probably heard about Suzuki Roshi driving either to or from Tassahara to the city or the other way, and he was with a student.

[36:33]

A student was driving him, and they stopped for lunch, and the student was an ardent vegetarian, and who knows what he ordered, but, you know, a salad, a... grilled cheese sandwich, something, right? And Suzuki Roshi ordered a hamburger. So this is a good teacher to order a hamburger, a loving teacher. And when the food came, he then took the student's food and pushed the hamburger toward the student. So practice is beyond all views. It includes all views and honors all views, but doesn't stick to any views. Suzuki Roshi was always interested in pointing out to people the nature of their sticky views and encouraging them to unstick themselves from them.

[37:34]

I don't know if that student stuck around or if that was encouraging or not. I imagine Suzuki Roshi doing that with love. So this is a little clue to all of us who wish to practice with views, is to find a good teacher or Dharma friend that you trust, that you're open to when they push the hamburger towards you in a hopefully playful way. You know, find someone who can help you see your views and encourage you to unstick yourself. You know, so that's really important that your teacher or Dharma friend, it feels encouraging to you. Even if at moments it feels discouraging, like seeing your views often feels very discouraging.

[38:38]

Because usually when you see them, you weren't seeing them for a while, right? You start thinking, oh my goodness, what have I done? But again, that's a view. That is something to practice with, to relax with. So just to continue with Norman, I found this so encouraging and helpful, his talk. I can't help but share it with you. Not sticking to views is not wishy-washy. if you're not sticking to views, truly comes from the heart of your practice. When your practice is faithful, you stand firmly in the middle of your own life, which is not separate from all of life. Standing in that place, truth is clear. It is not confusing. Standing in the place where you're in the middle of your own life,

[39:47]

which is not separate from all of life. Don't know how easy that is, but Norman says, in that place, it is not confusing. But how to express truth may change according to circumstances. You will know what is important and what is trivial. what is truly helpful and what is not helpful. And even if you do not know what is helpful, you will have the patience and confidence to go forward in the best way that you can without getting confused or caught or pushed off center. Doesn't that sound really good? This kind of freedom. This kind of practice is a subtle thing.

[40:48]

It has more to do with a feeling for life than it does with any rules or doctrines. Over and over, Suzuki talked about how there are no rules, no definite procedures, and that even when there are definite procedures, one should understand that these are completely contingent. One of my favorite phrases of Suzuki Roshi came in response to the question, what is the essence of Zen? And he said, not always so. So it just occurs to me that this is not a comfortable thing. This student who had this hamburger pushed towards him, I'm sure that was not that opportunity to practice. You know, because there aren't no rules, no definite procedures, no position or view to fall back on.

[41:59]

You know, you have to be asking yourself, moment by moment, where is the center of my life? What is true? Am I stuck? Or am I unstuck? Just to close, Norman goes back in his talk to emphasize, and I would also like to emphasize, Suzuki Roshi realized that it was not enough to explain something, but rather it was necessary to do something and to do it with constancy and faith. The important thing is not what we think about, but what we do. Zen has always emphasized direct pointing. This is because our mind is very easily interested in something and then confused by that which it is interested in.

[43:06]

Even correct ideas and excellent teachings can be counterproductive if there is not an actual lived experience behind them. This is our eye of practice, our eye of practice. a lived experience that ripens and deepens over time. In Zen practice, certainly we're interested in the mind and in thoughts and ideas, but we try not to be led by the mind. We try to have mind and body and heart aligned and working together. Try not to be too concerned with complicated ideas or with complicated teachings. Actually, All teachings are quite clear when our life is whole. So, this direct pointing that he speaks of, this is zazen.

[44:17]

This is our zazen practice. Breath. posture, attitude, and thought all aligned into one whole. This is our basic fundamental practice that we return to over and over. And when we experience this, when we experience breath, posture, attitude, and thought all aligned into one whole. In that moment, we understand what Nishihari Bokusan means when he says, vastness without limitation is immediately underfoot. You may think the great ocean is vast and distant, but it is no other than the cup of tea you are drinking right now.

[45:24]

Vastness without limitation is immediately underfoot. You may think the great ocean is vast and distant, but it is no other than the cup of tea you are drinking right now. So please continue. Please practice more. Please care for each other and help one another in this thicket of views, this jungle of views. Please remember to relax and breathe and be open to curiosity. And now, let's go have a cup of tea. Thank you very much. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support.

[46:45]

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

[46:54]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_96.18