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 from people like you. Good morning. So welcome, welcome all of you to the San Francisco Zen Center. I'm at Green Gulch Farm and I think many of you may be in the city center or many other places. So what a magical thing. that we can sit together today. So, what can I tell you? The Buddha said, radiant is the mind, O monks, but sometimes it appears defiled, as though by defilements that come from outside of itself. And therefore, the ordinary person doesn't know the mind as it truly is. Radiant is the mind, O monks, but sometimes it appears defiled as though by defilements that come from outside of itself.

[01:00]

Therefore, the ordinary person doesn't know the mind as it truly is. So as Kodo mentioned, over the past few weeks, I've been focusing classes and talks on these mind-only teachings, and I've been using Vasubhanda's 30 verses for the text. I'm not going to go through those verses today or mention them, but There's so much in there that's been very helpful to me in my own practice and I think for a lot of people over many years since these teachings arrived in English not that long ago. And they're very helpful for confronting what the Buddha called defilements. So first we welcome them, the defilements, and then we get to know them with a spirit of kindness and generosity and compassion. We've been together a long time. my defilements in me. So I think it's time for all of us to get to meet face-to-face, to welcome, and then perhaps a cup of tea would be nice. So this morning, I'm going to talk about some traditional instructions for gathering our minds and for focusing on those activities of our minds, including the defilements, that can help show us just where and what the mind truly is.

[02:15]

And I wanted to begin with a few teachings by our founder, Shinryu Suzuki Roshi. If you want to express yourself, your true nature, there should be some natural and appropriate way of expression. Even swaying right and left as you sit down or get up from zazen is an expression of yourself. It is not preparation for practice or relaxation after practice. It is part of the practice. So we should not do it as if we're preparing for something else. And this should be true of our everyday life. not preparing for something else. And then Suzuki Roshi says, this is the most important point, which he says quite often about a great many points. But mainly, I think what he's telling us here is that we didn't come to the Zen Center to prepare ourselves for some other time or some other place or to become some other person, that we really are here to learn how to fully express ourselves.

[03:18]

And in doing that, to learn something about the world, and how it's being made in each and every moment by us. So this understanding is quite difficult for us to see. We're not used to thinking of the world as being made by us. We're used to walking around as if the world were already made. It's already here, available for our use, and clearly outside of ourselves. Kind of like a 360-degree full-length feature that continuously is running right here, in our own neighborhood. And yet, upon analysis, a phrase that Buddhists use when they're trying to think more deeply about the world around themselves. Upon analysis, Suzuki Roshi said, what we are taking to be reality is like a movie. But we are generally unaware that there is a screen. If you want to enjoy the movie, you should know that it is a combination of film and light and a white screen.

[04:21]

and that the most important thing is to have a plain white screen. So this plain white screen is our mind before it becomes covered over by what is being projected on it, by our all too vivid imaginations, what I like to call my Imaginarium. During each period of meditation, we are given some version of our own white screen to gaze at when our eyes are slightly open. we're offered an opportunity to observe that very moment when the lights seem to dim and the screen becomes covered in imagery. You know, by experiencing for ourselves the appearances arising from within our own conscious minds as we gaze at a plain white screen, in the case of our zendos, it's an actual wall, we may come to realize that the world truly is a product of our very own imagination. And how it is that we have evolved to be very clever in doing that, in imagining things.

[05:22]

And we're so clever that we can't really see the screen at all. You know, we just see the movie. Pointing to a cat, the monk said to his teacher, I call it a cat. What do you call it? The master replied, you call it a cat. In other words, we call the world by various names, names we have been taught and have come to believe are true. That is a cat. There is no doubt about it. I know a cat when I see one, and even if I'm not seeing one, I know a cat, you know, like right now, and so do you. So according to the mind-only teachings, we do not see the world. That is not a cat. And what we are seeing is merely a projection made up of three aspects of our minds. So first, the first aspect are our five senses. All too familiar. And in this case, it's the sense of vision. I see a cat. So the second aspect of the mind is our unconscious karmic conditioning.

[06:26]

All the things we have ever been taught, including the names of things. I call it a cat. And third is this underlying foundation of reality itself. And that is all of the interdependent causes and conditions that brought life to planet Earth in the first place. Cats and snails and redwood trees and all of us. As astrophysicist Carl Sagan famously said, if you want to make an apple pie, first you have to make the universe. So these apparitions that are appearing before our eyes and into our ears and on our skin and... up into our noses, are likened to waves on the ocean of reality. Arise, abide, and cease. Arise, abide, and cease. Over and over again. Mind waves. And as meditators, we have this opportunity to craft for ourselves an upright, seated posture, like a human-shaped boat, that we can ride those waves, you know, as we allow the mind to calm itself.

[07:37]

the ocean to calm itself, in order to meet on those very special occasions when really big waves come to meet us. Waves that are much bigger than a cat. So for the Buddha, before his enlightenment, those waves took the form of a frightful apparition known as Yama, the Lord of Death. And the young prince, perhaps like most of us, was afraid of death. He was also afraid of life. And he was afraid of what was going to happen to his beautiful young body as it was subjected to aging and sickness and death. The very life that is characterized in this Saha world that we all face and are facing now. And yet there was no other place or time or person that he could be. He couldn't run away or hide from himself. So he turned and he faced the Lord of Death, the Law of Impermanence. and the absence of a substantial self.

[08:40]

And he found a way to live in this world just as it is, without complaint or compromise, a place where he could be himself and where he could be no self at all. So, you know, what kind of a place is that? Well, it's just like this, just like this one. A place where flowers bloom and birds sing and cats purr. children play, tempers flare, and longing abounds. So this is the very place, this is the very earth on which our young prince sat, determined to find the cessation of suffering. And he did. He did. To the blessing of us all. So our sitting practice is the very same doorway that connected the prince to his own unconscious, self-centered habits. Defilements clouding his radiant mind. Mental habits through which he had pleaded with the world to be another way, any other way than the one he imagined it to be.

[09:48]

Old age, sickness, and death. Anything but that. So by cultivating an awareness of the waves, of the boat and the wall, and the storehouse of our karmic conditioning, we may be able to soften our gaze at the world. To relax our bellies. and to breathe more easily as those waves go up and down, up and down, just as the young prince did. So once he had calmed and softened his mind through such practices as focusing his attention on his breathing, shamatha, tranquility practice, he then turned his attention to the movements of his conscious mind. And like a very good scientist that he was, he was dispassionate as he observed what was there. he noticed there was a sense of an eye that didn't seem to change, a point of view or a physical presence as a self. And that self seemed to be permanent and stable and unrestricted by any particular time or place, like an unblinking gaze or what Katagiriwashi calls the observer, you know, tagging along with us wherever we go.

[11:03]

And he thought to himself that the birth and death of the self was beyond the limits of his own imagination. And yet that is exactly where the Buddhist enlightenment began, beyond the limits of what he already imagined to be so. And as Dogen says about his own awakened insight, when you sail out in a boat in the midst of an ocean where no land is in sight and view the four directions, the ocean looks circular. And it does not look any other way. That's the self. 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 this time. And all things are like this. And then the young prince began to notice patterns appearing within the circle of water. these mind-made patterns of moments.

[12:04]

And although the patterns themselves are an illusion, each of those moments, like the ones that are passing now for us, created a pattern which created a pattern to follow. So there are waves on the ocean and there are waves upon waves whose true features are infinite in variety, like a jewel or like a palace. This endless chain of self-creation and of world creation is called karma, as each of our actions and their results kind of pile up on top of each other, becoming like this persistent little knot that I call myself, with nothing really more to it than that, persistence. And then, right then, seemingly out of nowhere, the thought of enlightenment, the bodhicitta, occurred to the young prince, a thought which did not depend on nor was hindered by the place or time when it occurred. Again in Zen Master Dogen's words, Conditions do not arouse it and knowledge does not arouse it.

[13:11]

The thought of enlightenment arouses itself. This arousing is the thought of enlightenment. The thought of enlightenment is neither existent nor non-existent, neither good nor bad nor neutral. It is not the result of past suffering. And even beings in blissful realms can arouse it. The thought of enlightenment arises just at the time of arising. It is not limited by conditions. The thought of enlightenment and conditions together hold out a single hand. The thought of enlightenment and conditions together hold out a single hand. A single hand held out freely. A single hand held out in the midst of all beings. And yet, as we know, the Buddha also taught us that this longing that we have for whatever we're wishing to receive from this single hand is at the heart of the human problem. And it's because we think that we're not complete.

[14:15]

We think something's missing. And therefore, we suffer trying to find our missing piece or our missing person, the person that we can imagine. And then once we've imagined, we long to be. I want to be like that. So this problem of longing to be is deeply entwined with our aspiration for freedom, you know, with the thought of enlightenment itself, the longing to be awake. First noble truth, there is suffering. Second noble truth, suffering is caused by ignorance and longing, longing for things to be other than they are right now, always right now. When one side is illuminated, the other side is dark. And if it's the illuminated side that we want, soon enough, it turns the other way. As the world turns, light to dark, joy into sorrow, life into death. And it hurts. This is the subtle suffering and the most ubiquitous one.

[15:18]

The suffering of change, of impermanence. The change that is so very hard to see. And why is that? Why is it so hard for us to see change? I think it's because our little boat is riding on the waves, on the mind waves. Now we're up and now we're down, only up, only down. It's always now and always in perfect sync with the way things are and will always be. Change. Radiant is the mind, O monks, but sometimes it appears defiled as though by defilements that come from outside of itself. Therefore, the ordinary person doesn't know the mind as it truly is. And so we sit and we study and we think about human life in the mirror of reality itself until we concede in such a timeless moment as the Buddha had that our life is ungraspable, unimaginable, and incomprehensible to the very core.

[16:19]

Even the core itself, as it says in the suttas, like a banana tree, is hollow and hallow. Vast emptiness, nothing holy, including emptiness itself. Drop body and mind, body and mind dropped. So at the very same time that the meaning has lost all of its meaning, we may find this human life to be ever more precious. And although words can't ever reach it, still, it's words like those that the Buddhas and ancestors We're kind enough to say for the benefit of all of us. I think it's pretty easy to imagine that this project of coming to know the mind as it truly is is beyond the scope of a single moment or a single day or even a single lifetime. And there are those who say that's so, you know. And there's others who say, but it's already here. You know, this is the mind as it truly is. This mind that we are having right now.

[17:22]

Now, how much more beyond saying or thinking could this very moment possibly be? Don't know. And that's the truth. That's the ultimate truth. Don't know. And yet beyond doesn't mean separated from. It means that we can't grab a hold of this mind. You know, we can't have it. However, we can be it and we can fully live it just as we are doing right now. So a mind that knows the relationship between knowing and not knowing, between being and not being, busy and not busy, thinking and not thinking, without abiding in any of those, is the Buddha's mind, is realization itself that continuously moves beyond realization, that moves beyond moving and not moving. As Master Dogen says in the Genjo Koan, leaping clear of the many and the one. Leaping clear of the many in the one.

[18:24]

But not by dreaming that it's you or me that's doing the leaping. You and I have to wait and listen and relax and breathe. When myriad things come forth and realize themselves is awakening. Is she kantaza just sitting with all we've got, you know, at this exact moment on this exact spot? It's called Silent Illumination Zen, in which the mind and the body and the person in the world are utterly at ease. So I don't think there's much more I could say to help with our sitting today, and that's really because there's not much more to be said. If there were something more, you already have it. You already know it. You already are it. The essence and the function of reality. Just this is it. Over and over again.

[19:25]

Just this is it. However, I can talk about my own sitting practice and what has been helpful for me over the years. Basically starting with my body. I think it's always been my body that's been teaching me. It teaches me what it needs in order to meet the request to sit upright and to be still. a request I made to this body a very long time ago, and I make it again each and every day, you know, and I think all of us are making that request, many of you anyway, to your bodies today, this extra big request to spend a great deal of time in an upright seated position. Now, although it took me a while, quite a while, eventually I found a way for my own body to sit comfortably in a half lotus position. And some of you may have found so as well. You know, maybe you sit in full lotus or Burmese or maybe you sit in a chair. When Suzuki Roshi was asked by a student, what's the difference between sitting on a cushion and sitting on a chair?

[20:30]

He said, the only difference is the legs. So although our bodies look somewhat similar, you know, legs, arms, a head, a torso, each one of us is truly unique. you know, one of a kind, with our own special requirements for meeting this request of upright sitting. I've really been appreciating how Suzuki Roshi spoke to the new students that came to him when he arrived in this country over 50 years ago. It's hard to believe. But he gave them this simple practice that we're all being offered here today. Same thing. And it's the same simple practice that Dogen Zenji offered to his monks, as did our founding ancestor, Shakyamuni Buddha, Just sit. Just sit quietly. So I have found it of great value to try and understand what my body needs in order to meet this request to engage in this simple practice of upright sitting. As an old Zen teacher once said, the greatest pilgrimage of my life has been my body.

[21:33]

Greatest pilgrimage of my life. So the nearest thing that I know, how I've learned to care for my own body, the best example, the many years I've I spent taking care of a very good dog. His name is Mack, for those of you who met him. He's kind of an angel dog. And Mack never complained about his body. Not even when he got very old and tired and he couldn't really walk too well or wasn't interested in food. He just looked up at us with that same warm, welcoming look in his eyes, you know. Family. Aren't we? So I want my body and my gaze to be like that too, to be patient and kind and welcoming without complaint. Someone once asked Suzuki Roshi, how you know when you're enlightened? And he replied, when you no longer complain. Seems kind of hard to imagine. So I think all of you know right now, all there is about sitting, your own sitting.

[22:35]

You already know that it's never the same, not in any moment or any hour or any day. It's always a surprise. always changing, with nothing to take a hold of. It's just changing in this non-repeating universe. You also know there's something about you that doesn't appear to change, and that that's the part that came here to study Zen. Fire boy comes seeking fire. Awakening comes looking for itself. Just this, this ungraspable, unknowable, unlimited nature of reality. which, just like my good old dog Mac, is patiently waiting for the family to return home. So why the good dog waits? It's not a bad idea to pay some attention to the parts of the body that have not yet settled in for a much-needed rest. Oftentimes it's the back or the shoulders where you carry your attention. You might want to put your shoulder blades down your back, like there are two little pockets there you can slip your shoulder blades into.

[23:40]

Then there's your fingers and your jaw, your diaphragm, your intestines, just to name a few of the stops along the pilgrimage. Naming, owning, and releasing. Naming, owning, and releasing. When I first sit down on my cushion in the morning, I take quite a bit of time. to arrange my body for what we're doing now, which is an hour-long sit. I first pull the heel of my foot, either my case right foot, into my thigh, as my yoga teacher taught me long ago, in order to protect the knee, which, as she's explained, is designed to bend like the hinge of a door. And that's the only way it likes to bend, just straight back like the hinge of a door. And then I rotate my leg from the hip joint, which is a ball and socket. And it's designed to rotate. And then I can bring my left foot up onto my thigh, into the half lotus that Dogen mentions in the Fukanzazegi. After that, I spend quite a bit of time arranging my robes with everything tucked in and tidy.

[24:48]

And then I notice this very just-so placement of my buttocks on the cushion, something that I have had to be very careful about. to the point of memorizing over years as a result of the times I did not get that placement quite right. As Dogen says, a hair's breadth deviation fails to accord with a proper attunement. A hair's breadth. You know, and that hair's breadth deviation in the placement of your legs on the edge of a chair or on a cushion can result in some numbing pain that over time can turn into the dreaded sciatic nerve irritation, which at all costs... you must avoid. So the sciatic nerve runs from the lower back down through the buttocks in the back of the legs. And if you find yourself developing any such symptoms, such as numbness in the legs that persists after you stand, it's really a good idea to talk to a practice leader or a yoga teacher as soon as you can. You know, it may be a simple matter of adjusting your posture or changing your cushion, just a hair's breadth deviation.

[25:53]

Often we'll take care of it. So once your legs are settled, I then place my attention on my spine, starting at the base. Spine has two natural curves. There's a big one in the lower back that curves in toward the abdomen, and the other one is at the neck, curving in toward the throat. These curves give our spine a springiness that has evolved over millennia in order for the upright human body to bear the weight of gravity on the top of our head. The head is quite heavy, So with proper alignment, it can balance very nicely, very lightly on top of the spine. When the spine is bent over or sideways, the weight of the head can also lead to injury and a great deal of pain, particularly in the shoulders. This is also true just when we're walking around. It's very nice if you can learn to keep your head balanced lightly on your shoulders and on your spine. So I really recommend... that you take some time to look at the anatomy of your spine.

[26:58]

You know, YouTube has all kinds of great stuff in order to see what a healthy alignment looks like. And another place to see a healthy spine is in the upright posture of a young child who's just learning to walk. Absolutely perfect, upright, balanced. So then you line up your ears with your shoulders, your nose with your navel. And then Dogen says to us, quiet your tongue by resting it against the front roof of the mouth with the teeth and lips both shut. But not, as my dentist says, who's a sitter, press tightly together. Just let your teeth rest inside your jaw. Do not clench your teeth. The eyes are open with a soft, welcoming gaze downward at a 45 degree angle. And then once you've settled the upper body, bring your arms naturally into position. above the lap. Your fingers are overlapping, the thumb tips gently touching. This creates what's called the cosmic mudra. It's kind of like a large belly button, reminding us of our inseparable connection to the universe, to the Great Mother.

[28:06]

The thumbs and the cosmic mudra are placed at the level of the navel. I usually press my baby fingers lightly into my abdomen rather than dropping the weight of my arms onto my legs. That way I feel like my arms and hands are also engaged in energetic sitting. So each part of our body is invited to practice together as an awakening being. And again, Dogen says, the Zazen I speak of is not learning meditation. It is simply the Dharma gate of repose and bliss. the practice realization of totally culminated enlightenment. It is the manifestation of ultimate reality. Traps and snares can never reach it. Once its heart is grasped, you are like a dragon gaining the water, like a tiger taking to the mountains. How nice is that? Furthermore, he says, we don't even need to leave the seat that exists right here in our own homes in order to find the right Dharma.

[29:08]

The right Dharma is right here. in this very body and in this very mind when it's filled to the brim with life itself. So once having allowed our bodies to settle into an upright and stable posture, we can then begin attending to these subtle, persistent movements of the breath and then of the mind, body, breath, and mind, like the clouds topping a mountain. Breathing is a very good sign that the body is still alive. And it's a very good sign when you've noticed your breathing for a while that you're beginning to quiet your mind. Inhaling and exhaling over and over again. Like a bright green turtle on the open ocean. Allowing your attention to rest on your breathing is a good way to calm yourself. And calming yourself is a very good way to discern what is real. Calming the mind.

[30:09]

discerning the real. Upright sitting with a calm mind, shamatha, is the method of learning that we have been given by the Buddhists and ancestors. The very best kind of learning for us, the kind that we can do for ourselves. And it's about ourselves, which the Buddhists and ancestors have told us, as we will soon discover, is just like them. The essential practice of our school is the very thing that we are doing today. We are sharing this space and then deepening our connection to one another and to all things through the simple practice of upright sitting. And yet our practice is not about being given a lecture or about understanding anything. It's not about perfecting a skill and it's not about enlightenment either. It really is the joy that we find in sharing this life together, this life of practice. Without some form or some limitation, true joy, Suzuki Roshi says, cannot be found.

[31:15]

Without some form or some limitations, true joy cannot be found. In the tradition of the tea ceremony, which I and one of my dear friends have been practicing for many years now, we use the word keiko for practice. And this term keiko, according to my tea school, means consider ancient times. practice, consider ancient times. So this in turn implies that through repeated practice of traditional forms, many forms of Zen, for example, forms that were considered important long ago, those forms are then brought back to life, as are the founding teachers of Zen and of tea. The ancient practices of the Buddhists and ancestors, as done by us, brings back the spirit of an awakened life. A life that has passed through thousands of years and hundreds and thousands of miles to live again through us.

[32:16]

This is the spirit as we practice Zen. Soto Zen, to be very precise. Simple devotion to sitting. Total engagement in a movable sitting. And again, Master Dogen. Although there are as many minds as there are persons, still they all negotiate the way solely in Zazen. the essential working of the Buddha way. So even though Zen is not something to talk about, as we've been often told, and it's also something to talk about, as we've also been told, and therefore, here are a few more things about the practice of Zen that Suzuki Roshi gave to help guide our efforts in negotiating the way. Words that tell us how sitting by itself, zazen by itself, without the guidance of a teacher and the teachings, may not be enough. For example, some of you may have some unusual experiences while sitting, you know, experiences you might think have something to do with enlightenment.

[33:17]

One such student went to Suzuki Roshi expecting to be praised for what had been appearing in his mind during and after his meditation, something I'm embarrassed to say I thought myself at one point, long ago, went to the teacher. In this case, Suzuki Roshi said to him, hmm, well, soon you won't be having this problem. This is common with beginning students. Your practice is okay, though, so just keep sitting. On another occasion, when our founding teacher was asked about enlightenment itself, he said, I think you won't like it. I think it's hard for us to understand what it is that we're looking for when we come to practice Zen, and it's really hard not to be looking for something. And yet the basic teaching of our school tells us over and over again that it's only when we are completely involved in our daily activities, you know, taking care of each thing one by one, moment after moment, with wholehearted attention. That's the key, the secret sauce.

[34:19]

Wholehearted attention. That the thing that we're looking for suddenly appears, which is at the very same moment in which the one who is looking suddenly vanishes. Just this is it. Just this. So what we thought was myself is just activity, but it's not my activity or your activity or the world's activity. It's just this activity that includes everything else. Right now and right here, when we hear a bird sing or when we hear a dog bark or a bus go by, just this is it. I appreciate how Tenshin Roshi, during a recent lecture, responded to almost every question with a teaching of generosity, of giving. such as giving ourselves time and space to reconsider our intention toward each other and toward the world, and especially to reflect on the silence and stillness that's at the core of our existence. You know, it's always there. It's always there, silently waiting for us to come back, you know, not just to visit, but to dance, as did the young prince when he sat there under the tree, and as did good old Mac at the very end there, and as will all of us.

[35:33]

if we sit quietly enough to hear it, the silence. In other words, we are cultivating a mind that doesn't mind itself at all. You know, I don't mind, you know, please be my guest. Again, Suzuki Roshi says that when we can just be ourselves, we can speak without thinking too much and without having a special purpose. We just then speak or act just to express ourselves. That is complete self-respect. If you practice hard, you will be like a child, just playing, just singing, just sitting, just this poem, just my talk. It does not mean much. We say that Zen is not something you can talk about. It's what you can experience in the true sense, the true joy at the heart of our human life. Thank you all very much. 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.

[36:35]

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

[36:49]

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