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. This is the second day of our Rohatsu Sashin, eighth day of the twelfth month. We are getting closer and closer to the winter solstice. The days are getting shorter. The nights are getting longer. And tonight at sunset begins the Festival of Lights, yes? Hanukkah in the Jewish tradition starts tonight at sundown. Eight days of each day adding one more candle, bringing light into this dark time of the year.

[01:07]

So we've been turning the phrase collecting and gathering body and heart-mind into one suchness. Can you hear okay? Yeah? And this word suchness or thusness, things as it is, being as it is, the all-inclusive reality, thus. And this morning we chanted the Jewel Mirror Samadhi. The teaching of thusness has been intimately communicated. Now you have it, so keep it well. So this keeps coming up.

[02:25]

this encounter with suchness, lessness. In the Fukanzo Zengi, it says in one translation, If you want to attain suchness, then practice suchness without delay." And Kaza's new translation in this new Shobo Genzo, he has, if you want to attain just this, immediately practice just this. Just this. all inclusively just this.

[03:30]

I think one of the points at which I turned and decided I wanted to practice for the rest of my life was when someone told me that they accepted me just the way I was. I didn't have to improve. I didn't have to be smarter or prettier or, you know, wittier or more savvy or anything. There was just one big accept. I accept. I accept. And that was helpful for me to see how much I didn't want to be just this.

[04:41]

Just this really wasn't good enough. It really, really wasn't okay. So to encounter a teaching that says, practice just this immediately. and that this vastness has been intimately communicated by the awakened ones. So as we sit in our pain and discomfort, restlessness, discouragement, gratitude and the flow from one to the other and background.

[05:49]

What might be the practice of accepting completely just this with no alternative? That's going to be any better than holding out somehow for some other just this. Sitting facing in this way during Oriyoki Meals, I have a chance to notice how the practice of oryoki is coming along. And I was struck yesterday and today by the tenderness with which people are handling their bowls and their claws and their tying.

[06:59]

And I had great gratitude for a practice such as oryoki The word oryogi meaning just enough, just enough to nourish ourselves. And also the practice of taking just enough, not too much, not too little, is by just the name oryogi, it speaks to that. So to have a practice where we can practice just this, just unfolding and folding and handling. In the ordination ceremony, after the precepts are given,

[08:08]

a statement, may your practice of the precepts be just like this forever, that sincere, that open, that dedicated, which one feels in the ceremony and the whole assembly feels. And similarly, whatever we do, can we be completely there, completely present in our bodies, our consciousness going into our hands as we handle chopsticks, spoons, setsu, bowls. And when we're not completely there, I think we might notice, or we might not be noticing how much noise we can make. Whenever I hear lots of scraping and rattling, I have a hunch, hopefully not a hunched over, but a kind of hunch that someone somewhere else, they're not conscious of their utensil and spoon against ceramic or lacquer or clay.

[09:36]

so carefully, tenderly handling each thing, each object, each object of mind. It reminds me of the story of when Dungshan Tozan left his teacher, Yunnan, and his teacher said, you will go off and widely spread and study the Buddha Dharma and widely benefit the world. And Tozan said, I understand about studying Buddha Dharma, but what do you mean about benefiting the world?

[10:45]

And his teacher said, don't leave out a single being. Each being, each thing is one more occasion for just this. for thusness, suchness. What would we leave out? What could be left out? What might we be leaving out? What being internally might we be leaving out, or externally? I had a dream the other day and it was a wonderful dream and short. I won't go into a long dream with you.

[11:50]

And it reminded me of the Lotus Sutra, one of the parables in the Lotus Sutra. The dream was that I had a watch, a watch that my mother had given me. My mother has died and in the dream she also was not alive. But I had this watch that I really liked because she had given me, it was just an old watch of hers, and it needed repair. So I took the watch into the watch repair person, and he repaired the watch, and when I came to pick it up, he said, this watch is worth a million dollars. And I had no idea, you know, what a valuable timepiece it was. And it was a gift for my mother, but she didn't tell me that it was worth a million dollars.

[12:51]

And it reminded me of the lotus suture where the jewel, there's a jewel that's sewed into the hem of someone's friend who was inebriated, I guess, and So he wanted to take good care of his friend, so he gave him this jewel and sewed it into his hem. But the friend didn't know and wandered around and fell into disrepute, had a lot of trouble and suffering. He didn't know that he had this jewel right there in his clothes. So this watch, in looking at the dream, what are the gifts for my mother? What are the inconceivably, immeasurably valuable gifts?

[13:57]

The gifts of attunement. the gifts of mirroring? Maybe so. These immeasurable gifts. But in a broader sense, what are the gifts of immeasurable value? Have we received the teaching of thusness has been intimately transmitted by Buddhas and ancestors. Now you have it. This is family jewels, family watches, family timepieces that are not externally given. the family jewels don't come in through the gate.

[15:10]

So how do we practice just this? Right now, on your seat, on your cushion, whatever it is that you're experiencing, whatever discomforts of body and mind and heart, or comforts. May it be just enough. Accept it. Study it. See how it unfolds. I appreciate myself hearing Zazen instructions while sitting Sesheen.

[16:26]

I feel always very open to hearing about posture. So I wanted to mention at the base, the back of your skull, the base of your skull, right where your skull and neck are joining, if you can imagine an eye, the back of your skull, If you raise your chin, the eye will be closed. If you drop your chin, that eye opens in the back of your, in your back body, back of your head. Notice that this is a way to place the head that will help in accepting just this without thinking of some alternative. or disappearing. And also the whole neck, the neck, if you think of the neck as wide, this is a kind of visualization, maybe even a wideness in the neck, relaxed and wide.

[17:44]

And to feel all the way around the neck, not just the front, Another very helpful point is the collarbones, to imagine the collarbones turning back, turning up, which will help the arms feel light. Sometimes when we're turned or hunched forward, there's a kind of heaviness in the front body and the arms. So if you turn the collarbones, this is also Very subtle, but you can feel it. Turning the collarbones back, how that affects the shoulders and the lightness of the arms. Also be attentive to over-lifting by making too strong an arch in your lower back, kind of pushing up.

[19:10]

That will make it harder to breathe, for one, and also it's a kind of extra exertion and can move into contraction. it will be very hard to relax the body. So it might mean for some of you, not all of you, this lower back, you may need to drop it down a little bit. If you imagine the sitting bones, if they're like points, if you feel the sitting bones are like pointed on your cushion, that's too much. And if they're way, way flat, then you're rolling the other way. That's too much, too. So there's evenness on your sitting bones. So I wanted to tell you or speak with you about the Buddha's enlightenment, his leaving, his great departure where he left to begin his sitting, his quest or his journey, which ended in his sitting under the Bodhi tree

[20:57]

And I'm not sure, some of you may be familiar with this, but some of you may not, which is that the story that we know so well about the Buddha stealing forth in the night from his house and not waking his wife and his newborn son and slipping out into the night is a tale that that is not from the oldest teachings from the Pali Canon. It's actually post-canonical, and it was picked up by Buddhologists, Western in particular, who something in that story really spoke to them, and it became the story and was anthologized and taught over and over and over until I'm not sure anybody knows any of the other stories about the Buddha's departure.

[22:08]

So there's several different stories, one in which he leaves his crying parents and is an hasn't married yet. And the one that I wanted to talk about is in a sutra called the Sangha Vedavastu. And in this, he doesn't have a son yet either. And what happens is he had seen those four messengers of old age sickness and death and the religious person and had perhaps made this resolve to go on this quest. But in this story, what happens is in the night, Yasodhara wakes up and she's had some terrible dreams.

[23:23]

with, I think, eight different portents. I think her teeth had fallen out and her couch had been broken and her bracelets were broken and various problems. And he comforts her and says, no, no, the couch is fine. And see, your bracelets are fine and your teeth still have your teeth. But she has anxiety. And other people in the household had dreams as well that night. And then they make love, Yasodhara and Gautama. And what happens is that she conceives that night. And she asked him, she said, please don't leave me. And he, one might think this is white lie or something, but he says, I'll never leave you.

[24:34]

But he does leave that night and go to do the ascetic practices. And in the commentary, it's that he's taking her with him as he goes on his quest for Great Awakening. That it's, she's not left out of this. She's part of it. So it's a family-related quest. So the interesting parts of this story are she becomes pregnant that night and he goes off and he begins doing these austerities. And his father sends... people to go watch him and see that his son is okay and they come back and report oh your son he's eating one sesame seed and one mung bean and one jujube and you know he's wasting away and when Yasudara hears that she begins eating one mung bean one sesame seed one jujube and she does she's wasting away too and she's pregnant and it's not good for the the baby that she's carrying and

[25:56]

So the Buddha's father decides, we can't hear any more news of what's going on with my son because of what's happening with Yasodara. She's too strongly affected by this and worried about him, and also he was worried about his grandson or grandchild. So the Buddha goes through these austerities, And there's a kind of news blackout where you don't know what's happening with him, but one of the five ascetics who are practicing with him, those were all messengers actually sent by Buddha's father to be with him and practice with him. And when he ate, when he received nourishment from different stories, one is... one young girl who thought he was a tree spirit.

[27:00]

There's also two girls who feed him. Anyway, they report back that the Buddha has begun to eat again. And they tell her and she begins to eat again too. Yasudara. Anyway, this last, this austerities in these practices last for six years. And during that whole time, Yasodhara carries this child. She's pregnant for six years. And on the night of the Buddha's enlightenment, as he's sitting under the Bodhi tree, she goes into labor. And when he sees the morning star and realizes his true nature, she gives birth.

[28:01]

And this is right at the time when the god Rahu crosses in front of the moon and there's an eclipse. And so the baby was named Rahula. So I like this story a lot myself. I think as I've been studying how with Western values and sensibilities and ethical concerns and hero archetypes, individualistic, leave everything behind and go off, this speaks to a certain imagination that might be shared in certain cultures and maybe not so shared in others. being individualistic thing. So it's not a surprise that this story that we know so well of leaving wife and child was taken up, and it has that hero, all the right motifs, you know?

[29:18]

I... I appreciate this other story from the Sangha Biravastu, this story of together they quested, together they were in relationship to each other. And then there's more stories afterwards about after six years there was some question whether that was Gautama's son or not and how the baby picks out his father and, you know, very young, lots of tropes, lots of motifs, you know, from folklore and Jataka tales. And what happens, of course, is both Rahula and Yasodhara join the Buddhist order. He doesn't come back into the family life, but their family quest becomes a practice life together. with others.

[30:25]

And it turns out Rahula, I just read a little bit more about him, he's one of the Arhats and he grows to be very, very old. And he's one of the Lohan, one of the Chinese Arhats that are pictured sometimes with like white long eyebrows and beard. It's Rahula. So just broadening our understanding of alone with others, each of us alone with others, but in relationship with others. No one can do it for us. Nobody can sit on our Bodhi seat. No one can untangle our tangle for us. But in relationship, out of our love and tenderness and caring for others, we walk this path which is not easy, which asks everything of us.

[31:52]

This teaching of just this, or just this is it, is a strict, you know, it has a strictness to it. There's no alternative. A strictness meaning preciseness. And we can meet it with our own precise, careful, moment by moment, practice each breath, each step, each encounter, not seeking for something to take away our pain, like a deus ex machina, you know, coming down from the sky to whisk us away. But to accept The only way is to completely accept our life.

[33:54]

Just this. Down to the cellular level. And we can do this or we can practice in this way because we are just this. we are a just this kind of person. You know, when Dungshan took leave of his teacher, Yuen Yang, he asked him, he said, if someone were to ask me what your reality is or to describe your teaching or your reality, what should I say? And Yunnan was very silent for a while, and then he said, just this person.

[35:01]

Another translation is, just this is it. And he can say that because he is a just this person. this, just this person. There's another translation of it which I came upon, which is, it's a kind of variant of this, just this person, which is a man of Han, a man of Han, which is Han Chinese. And it was used, this phrase was used when a criminal was being sentenced. According to Chinese legal custom, this phrase was used when a criminal confessed.

[36:07]

So it expresses, you know, a thorough admission and acknowledgement of complete responsibility for our life. Complete responsibility. Just this person. Just this is it. Not separated from thusness. A just this thusness person. With nothing left out. Don't leave out a single thing. disregard a single thing is how we benefit the world don't leave out a single thing in your own body mind this is how you benefit the world

[37:30]

I wanted to mention that one of our practice period participants, due to a medical situation, has had to leave. Jason, some of you in the practice period probably noticed, but I wanted everyone to know. And he'll be back for the Shuso ceremony on Monday. So today, after the lecture, I'd like us, rather than doing outside kinyin on the walkway, I'd like us to put shoes on and do outside kinyin through the garden. So after the lecture, after we chant and bow, let's put on our outdoor shoes and take a walk into this bright winter morning. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center.

[39:02]

Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfcc.org. and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[39:23]

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