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. I'm leading a lawyer's retreat, as many of you know, and we've been using this as kind of a touchstone. Song of the Grassroof Hermitage. I built a grass hut where there is nothing of value. After eating, I relax and enjoy a nap. When it was completed, fresh weeds appeared. Now it's been lived in, covered by weeds. The person in the hut lives here calmly, not stuck to inside, outside, or in between. Places worldly people live, she doesn't live. Realms worldly people love, she doesn't love. Though the hut is small, it includes the entire world. In ten feet square, an old man illumines forms and their nature.

[01:04]

A great vehicle Bodhisattva trusts without doubt. The middling or lowly can't help wondering, will this hut perish or not? Perishable or not, the original master is present, not dwelling south or north, east or west. Firmly based on steadiness, it can't be surpassed. A shining window below the green pines, jade palaces or vermilion towers can't compare with it. Just sitting with head covered, all things are at rest. Thus, this mountain monk doesn't understand at all. Living here, she no longer works to get free. Who would proudly arrange seats trying to entice guests? Turn around the light to shine within, then just return. The vast, inconceivable source can't be faced or turned away from. Meet the ancestral teachers. Be familiar with their instruction. Bind grasses to build a hut and don't give up.

[02:07]

Let go of hundreds of years and relax completely. Open your hands and walk, innocent. Thousands of words, myriad interpretations are only to free you from obstructions. If you want to know the undying person in the hut, don't separate from this skin bag here and now. So I've been thinking about this, and I'm struck by this notion of weeds. I built this wonderful grass hut. There's nothing of value, except, of course, everything. And after eating, I relax and enjoy a nap. Just normal human activity. But then it says, when it was completed, fresh weeds appeared.

[03:09]

Now it's been lived in covered by weeds. Covered by weeds. We're all covered by weeds. We have weeds. The lawyers have been talking about weeds. You could say that the weeds here represent our our hindrances, our habits of mind that we're attached to, our greed, hate, and delusion. I thought I had to stop myself. I could have a long litany. I could go on for the next 20 minutes. I'll tell you mine. You told me yours. That notion that when it was completed, as soon as it was completed, there were weeds. There was a human being living in there, an imperfect human being living there who had, I'm sure, hindrances. I know a number of people that I would consider Zen masters, and I don't know any of them that are perfect quite yet.

[04:18]

So fresh weeds appeared. And then he lived in it for a while and it was covered with weeds. Covered with weeds. When we've been talking about some things that one of the hindrances that a lot of lawyers seem to have is perfectionism. And it's not a wonderful thing. And I suffer from it. I used to be a lawyer. You don't necessarily all know that, but I did used to be a lawyer. I have not been a lawyer since 1989, but I'm still a lawyer, I'm told. And this is an illustration of my perfectionism. When I was head student, sitting right over there, somebody right over here said to me as a question, he said, what is a Zen master? And I immediately responded, a Zen master doesn't make mistakes.

[05:23]

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I thought, oh, no. But you kind of don't get to take it back. I mean, I suppose you could ask for a do-over, but you don't. So that's the idea. It moves along, and the question comes, and you answer it, and you go on to the next person. And I just felt terrible. Three people later, a friend of mine, Galen Godwin, blessed be her name, said, about that Zen master. And I said, a Zen master owns her mistakes. And that felt so much better. But it wasn't until years later that I realized how much that my response said about me and how I think. Because that was my response. And I do believe that. And it's a hindrance. I started to say it's ridiculous, which it is, but it's another of my hindrances, and I'm not going to go on about my hindrances, but another of my hindrances is that I sometimes talk to myself in ways that are unkind and pejorative, and we do that.

[06:37]

I know I'm not alone in this. And a lot of the lawyers did this, but that's that. Talking to yourself that way and being unkind to yourself is a common, unwholesome habit. It's a weed that's twining around your hut. So we all have these weeds. Maybe we're more delusion types or anger or greed. I'm sure you know your weeds well enough. So what do we do to work with them? Oh, I'm just going to pull them all out. I'm not going to be that way anymore.

[07:37]

I'm not going to be greedy anymore. Or I've heard people say, I'm going to be compassionate from now on. If only it were that easy. To quote Hemingway, towards the end of the sun also rises, wouldn't it be pretty to think so? So what do we do? Because there is part of what he's saying is about not grasping after eradicating weeds. accepting weeds in some sense. He says, the person in the hut lives here calmly, not stuck to inside, outside, or in between. Not stuck to weed whacking all the weeds. I don't know how far I want to go with that image, but it's a good image because that's what we try to do.

[08:41]

And you know, when you weed whack dandelions, they love it. And they come back stronger. So there's a deeper process that we need to use to work with these weeds. And we need to work with our relationship with them. Some of my hindrances are ancient tangled family karma. I came from a family when there wasn't really enough. My parents loved me and they were kind and all blah, but there wasn't enough. And so I have issues arising out of that kind of thing, as many of us do. That's not going to go away. But my relationship with that fact of my psyche has changed because I work with my weeds. and I think it's supported by a meditation practice.

[09:46]

It's stuck. I read it's stuck, yes. I'm not so stuck as I used to be. And when we are willing to be with our difficulties... and let them arise, abide, and pass away. And I'm talking about arising and abiding in our bodies, not our heads. When I said somebody would say, I'm going to be more compassionate, that's a head event. And I think compassion arises out of being willing to know the deep connection among people, being willing to sit still for your own Mishagas, people of Mishagas, your own, it's a Yiddish word, your own stew of troubles, your own difficulties, your own fears, and get to know them, and then in the process you know other people.

[10:54]

I've been saying to the lawyers, you know, you think you're so special, but you're not. We all, we share these things. We go into groups and we feel insecure, and we feel kind of unwanted. And we feel outside. Virtually everybody feels like that. So if you feel like that, and you're at a conference, stop and think, oh, I bet other people feel like that, and so maybe I could be brave and go sit at the table with the people I want to sit with. And you do it. And they don't turn their backs on you. And they talk to you, and they listen to you, and pretty soon things change, as they do. But getting to the point of understanding that you're simply another human being with weeds so that you're not somebody super fantastic special and horrible or great.

[12:02]

You're not horrible. You're not great. You're simply another human being and you have your weeds and they're a little different from mine. but not so different. But it's the being willing to sit still and get to know them, deeply get to know them, that makes a difference. And then you're not so, you're not so bound by the weeds. I keep thinking of like a vine twining around somebody who's seen like ivy and a tree. It doesn't have to The weeds don't have to hold you like that. It can be like... I'm trying to remember the name. There's a vine that... John Updike wrote a wonderful poem about a vine.

[13:04]

While he was dying, he was writing wonderful poetry. And he's talking about this vine that... It goes up sides of buildings and up plants, but you pull it, and it just comes right down. Let's go. It's wonderful. I want to say it's Virginia creeper, but I have no idea. I don't know Virginia creeper, so I don't know. That doesn't sound like that kind of a vine, but I don't know. But it doesn't matter. It's just that notion that there are those kinds of vines, and I think maybe we can cultivate a relationship with our weeds. that allows them to not have that IV kind of hold on us. But you can't cut them off. You can't insist. You have to simply get to know them. Take a kindly, friendly interest in them.

[14:06]

What is this fear of looking like a fool? What is this fear when I go into a group? What does it feel like in my gut? And physically experience that, see what happens. I'm not promising anything will happen. And I think you can't practice in order to. You can't practice to get happy. You can't practice to... You can't practice to say, I'm going to be more compassionate. You just practice and see what happens. There are fruits of practice. People do become more compassionate, but I don't think it's useful to practice in order to get something. It's kind of self-defeating to see the ivy sort of grasping harder. I don't know if you ever tried to get ivy out of a tree, but it's hard. And one of my mottos is that trying doesn't work.

[15:14]

And I think that's true. That's true about weeds, about hindrances. That just getting to know you is not easy. Especially when it's unpleasant. When I was, I have commitment issues. When I was deciding whether I completely wanted to be a priest, I went through a long process about it because it really frightened me to make that commitment and to say, this is who I am and this is what I want. And so I went through a process of looking at my, of just being open to what are my reasons and just living with that, sitting with that question. And the things that came up, some of them were, I want to impress my teacher. I want to be one of the big kids.

[16:17]

I want the big party. Luckily, I'm sitting Zazen by myself, so I could sit there sort of really embarrassed. My face quite red, I'm sure, but nobody knew. And... I told him some of it. I don't know that I told him all of it. And that was getting to know my weeds. And most of that stuff, it would arise and I'd see it and I might feel a little shame and I would laugh and it would go away. But I had to let that arise and and abide as long as it did, so I could let it go, so that I could strip away all this extra stuff to find out what my real vow or my real intention was.

[17:20]

So we go through a process like that, I think, especially with our difficulties. He says, Just sitting with head covered, all things are at rest. Thus, this mountain monk doesn't understand at all. Which in Zen terms is a little bit of a boast. Don't you think? That's maybe a little weed. A little oxalis. But just sitting with head covered, all things are at rest. And he doesn't understand. And I think another way and a kinder way of talking about that is that he isn't trying to understand. He isn't trying to figure it out. He's simply sitting and then see what happens.

[18:28]

He's sitting quietly, not stuck. but he is devoted to paying attention. And I don't know, in his day, there wouldn't be somebody lecturing about working with your emotions, which is what I'm talking about. This is a Western way of thinking about it. So I don't know, and we can't call him up and ask him. And yet I think that he would... recognize some of this it might be in a different in a different language and I don't mean just the words I mean sort of a cultural language but I think that what I'm saying probably would resonate with him but in some sense this kind of a poem is kind of like a well like any poem once it's out there it belongs to us and it's like a koan

[19:33]

My friend Michael Wenger says that koans, Zen teaching stories, koans are Zen Rorschach tests. You project onto them. So he sits with head covered. We have our heads covered. All things are at rest, and he doesn't understand. He doesn't work to get free. He's just sitting here. Just sit here and see what happens. But the hard part is paying attention. The hard part is staying with it. The hard part is not turning away and distracting yourself with ice cream or liquor or marijuana or buying things on the Internet. Or anything.

[20:34]

Eating. He says, turn around the light to shine within and just return. That's it. Turn around the light to shine within and just keep coming back. Just keep coming back. Right here. [...] She's pointing at her gut for anybody listening to this. Meet the ancestral teachers. Be familiar with their teachings. Bind to grasses to build a hut and don't give up. He's not saying don't do the work. He's not saying no discipline. He's not saying don't do the homework. He is saying don't grasp. And we can have hindrances from wholesome habits that we're

[21:37]

attached to. And it's the attachment, it's the grasping, it's the insisting that's the problem. Unwholesome habits are never going away as long as you're grasping after, insisting after they're going away. That's a good way to bind them closer. So build yourself a hut. There could be a virtual hut. Find a place to meditate. Sit down and get quiet and pay attention and see what happens. Get to know you. And then let go of hundreds of years and relax completely. Relax completely. Open your... I can do this. Open your hand. There's a wonderful book by Uchiama Roshi. The title is Opening the Hand of Thought. So open the hand of your thought. that we grasp after our thoughts. And so Uchiyama is saying, open the hand.

[22:39]

Can this be the gesture? Let go of hundreds of years and relax completely. Allow, allow, allow what's there to arise. Zazen is a lot about willingness. Just willingness to sit still, which sounds easy and it's not easy sometimes. when the weeds are rampant. Open your hands and walk innocent. And then thousands of words, myriad interpretations are only to free you from obstructions. Get to know the ancestral teachers. Get to know the teachings. But the point of all of it is to practice, is to free you from obstructions. It's not a head event. Some of you may have read some Dogen. And Dogen studied deeply and believed in studying.

[23:43]

But it was all about practice. Sometimes he said, oh, you don't need a teacher and you don't need incense and you don't need to read and so on. He didn't mean that. He just said it. Just like Suzuki Roshi and my teacher both. They'd say... this is the most important thing. And then 10 minutes later, this is the most important thing. And I do it too. But the truth is that it's to free you from obstructions. It's about practice. You've been studying Vasubandhu and sometimes it's hard to get your head around Vasubandhu. But he's doing it to teach you about practice. He's trying to show you how you construct a self and get caught by it. Is that a fair characterization? So that's the point. Only to free you from obstructions.

[24:45]

And then he comes, this is why I think he would resonate with what I'm saying. If you want to know the undying person in the hut, don't separate from this skin bag here and now. Don't separate from this skin bag. This one and that one. All of us skin bags. Stay close to home. So do you have any questions or comments? We have a few minutes. One, two. One, two. Even wholesome... I'm not sure. I said the... It's the attachment that's the problem. So if you had a wholesome habit, say, of going for a walk every day, but you insisted on going for a walk every day even when your mother was actively dying and your place probably was at the bedside,

[26:01]

that would be an attachment to a wholesome habit, for example. Or sometimes people are attached to zazen in a way that's not useful. Sometimes somebody needs to go in the kitchen and make dinner. Yeah. Can you say something about the putting out of the chair? Oh, yes. What does it say? Who would proudly arrange seats trying to entice guests? That's in the section it says that he doesn't understand and he no longer works to get free. Who would proudly arrange seats trying to entice guests? And I think of that as sometimes we show off in order to attract people. Maybe we cook food that's maybe too fancy for a particular occasion in order to impress people with our great cooking prowess, or we over-decorate something.

[27:09]

We manipulate people in order to interest them in us. I think about, and I'm trying to... There's an AA, an Al-Anon, probably 12-step motto. It's attraction, not... Promotion. So that this is more like promotion, I think. That's how I think of it. And he's saying just don't try so hard and don't manipulate people. There are people in the world, programs in the world that say, you know, if you pay really big bucks, what is it? You can get enlightened in about two weeks. And they advertise a lot. So that's, to me, that's arranging seats, trying to entice guests. Okay, and you said the other day that there's like a particular meaning to it.

[28:11]

And I can't remember what exactly you said. Well, there is something in there about trying to arrange things to attract realization. Trying too hard. Yeah. It doesn't work. It doesn't work. If you can have an enlightenment experience, you can have an experience of great settledness in your meditation, and then it sort of goes away, and then you drive yourself crazy trying to get it back. I've always thought maturing in practice, those experiences are wonderful, but the maturing in practice is really the letting go of them and stopping trying to entice them back. Yeah? I'm struck by the simplicity of this existence. The simple hut, the weeds, and then this.

[29:15]

You know what? He was the abbot of a great monastery. He was right near this hut. And I don't know, did he retire to the hut, or did he sort of go there and... I don't think anyone knows. He was teaching in a big place. He ran away. The hut. It's always a question and a balance. It's also a question for my little temple in Vallejo. How much do we advertise? How much do we get the word out? Because you do need to let people know that it exists. But do you take out big, splashy ads? Or do you offer... Give a raffle. An enlightenment prize. What? Maintain integrity. Right, but also let people know. And, you know, Zen Center is always trying to find this balance.

[30:19]

And the Zen Center is huge, you know, within the United States, not compared to AAG or something. But this is a big event. And it's run... You know, people make jokes about it being run like a corporation, but it's a big event and it has to be run with some kind of fairness. And I helped write the first personnel policy many, many, many, many, many, many years ago. And I was halfway out the door because I didn't want to be part of a place that needed a personnel policy. But it needed a personnel policy because otherwise people were treated unfairly. And if they can't file a grievance or if they can't feel that they have a right to be treated fairly, it's just human nature to pick favorites and so on and to scapegoat people. So we needed a personnel policy. And Zen Center needs all those things.

[31:22]

And you can argue about whether it needs all of that or not all and whatever, but it's not an easy thing. And there's lots of people get trained here. then I get to come back and hang out. One more question. Yeah. Oh, that was another direction. I didn't go that direction. Because, you know, one person's weed is another person's purslane for the salad, which we've been eating, and it's delicious. I'm very happy to see it. When I was 10, so we did a lot. I got criticized because there were these young men that liked to go and forage around, and I liked to have it and put it in the salad, and I got criticized somebody. There's all this stringy stuff. Anyway, so there's no telling, you know.

[32:24]

And I'm obsessed with oxalis, otherwise known as sauergrass. Really pretty yellow flowers, but oh. So I definitely think it's a weed. even though I do think it's pretty. And it winds up on our altar sometimes. I don't pick it, but I certainly understand picking it. So that's a whole other thing. And also within your own life, knowing if something is, you know, is it a weed? Is it a hindrance or not? It's not always clear. My perfectionism... is also, I think, the basis of my being thoughtful. Leslie says our biggest hindrances are often also our biggest strengths. So it's not a simple thing. But again, get to know it. Get to know it. And often it will clarify itself to you.

[33:28]

And you can... then you can kind of work with it and notice, you know, when it gets into the grasping realm, let it go. From my family upbringing, I have a kind of a neurotic need for certainty. Ambiguity is hard for me. And at the same time, I have a deep dharmic vow of wanting to know what is. And they're not two. They're not separate. Those are the same thing. So it's a matter of sit down and get quiet and pay attention and don't give up. Give up and then come back again. Because we get to give up. We turn away. We should stop. 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.

[34:31]

Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[34:41]

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