This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning and good morning particularly to the young people who are here for the first part of our talk this morning. For those of you who haven't been here before the first Sunday of the month, young people are invited to come and are here for five or ten minutes at the beginning of the talk and then go off and have fun. And I was thinking that since it had rained yesterday, there will be an excellent opportunity. I'm looking at the head of the children's program. to get good and muddy in the muddy waters of Green Gulch Farm.

[01:06]

But first, once upon a time, there was a queen and a king. And they loved each other very much and wanted to have a baby, wanted to have a child. And after a while, it came to pass that they did have a child, a girl. Her name was Rosamund. Rosamund. And they loved her very much. They loved her very much just like your moms and dads love you very much.

[02:13]

And they were so excited and so happy that they had had a baby girl that they wanted to have a big party to celebrate. So they invited lots of relatives, uncles and aunts and cousins and grandparents, and they invited people from the neighborhood And they also invited some special guests, wise women. Now these wise women, because they were wise, they had a particularly strong power so that whatever they wished for would come true, which doesn't usually work for the rest of us, but for them it worked that way. Whatever they wished would come true. Now, in their part of the country, there were 13 of those wise women.

[03:15]

So they got all ready for the party, but they found out that they only had 12 golden plates. They wanted to use golden plates for the wise women as a special thing, you know, because they were honored guests. So they only had 12. So they didn't invite one of the wise women. they excluded one of them. And that was the first mistake that they made. That was a bad idea. Because when you exclude things or people, they sometimes make more trouble being excluded than if you would have invited them in, even to share a plate with somebody else. But they did. They excluded her. the 13th. So they had a party, and they were having a very good time, and then it was time for the wise women to give their wishes for Rosamund, and they wished many different things.

[04:27]

They said, may she be happy, may she be talkative as necessary and as enjoyable, and And may she not be submerged by the things of the world and not take upon herself the burden of riches. May she be strenuous, upright, and sincere, without pride, easily contented. These are the things that make people happy, being that way. May she never deceive another, nor despise any being in any state. These were the different wishes that the different wise women gave.

[05:29]

And then it was the tenth one, and then the eleventh one, who said, may she be happy. And then suddenly, the one who had been excluded, the 13th one, burst into the room and made a terrible, terrible wish. Because she was upset from having been excluded, she made a very frightening wish. She said, when Rosamond is 16 years old, on her 16th birthday, May she scratch herself on a spindle, which is a thing you use to make cloth that has a point on it. May she scratch herself on a spindle and then she will die. Everybody was really upset by that. Oh, my God.

[06:30]

Wow. And then she left. So there was still one wise woman left. And she couldn't change the 11th one, I mean the 13th one. She couldn't change that one that came in suddenly, completely, but she could soften it a little bit. So what she said was that instead of dying, Rosamond, if she scratches herself on the point of a spindle, If she scratches herself on the point of a spindle, she won't die, but she will fall into a deep, deep sleep. So the party ended, and Rosamund grew up, and what the queen and the king decided to do was, well, if the problem is that she's going to scratch herself on a spindle, then the thing to do is get rid of all of the spindles. They banned spindles, these little things that you use to make cloth with.

[07:38]

They thought that by trying to get rid of them, they would solve their problem. That was their second big mistake. Because you can never get rid of all of the spindles around. It's not possible. So it was her 16th birthday. and she was a wonderful young person who exhibited the various virtues that the wise women had wished for her. And her parents, since they thought that the problem was solved, the queen and the king, they went riding off on a horseback ride for the day, not really thinking much about it. And Rosamund, being very curious and intelligent, was kind of exploring around the castle parts that she hadn't been in before. And she saw this set of steps that went up.

[08:43]

She had never been up those steps, so she went up that set of steps. And then there was another set of steps. She went up the second set of steps. And then at the top of that, there was another set of steps. She finally got to the top of that and up at the top of that third set of steps was this old door. It was kind of beat up old door with a rusty old lock and a rusty old key in it. No one had been up there in a long, long, long time. So she went inside and guess what was inside? A spindle. Not only that. But there was an old woman inside who was spinning cloth using a spindle. And since the spindles had been banned, Rosamond didn't know that, you know, she should stay away from spindles. So she was curious and she went over and she was asking the old lady how she spun the cloth and so on.

[09:45]

And she said, can I try? The lady said, sure, you can give it a try. And she tried and she was working with it for a while. And then sure enough, she scratched herself on the spindle. And she suddenly got very, very tired and said, I am going to go take a nap. She went down to her bedroom and she fell asleep. But it was way, way more than a nap. She fell deeply, deeply asleep. Not only did she fall asleep, but her mom and dad, the queen and the king, had come back from their horseback ride and they were sitting in the great hall and they fell asleep. Not only did they fall asleep, but the horses in the stables fell asleep. And the dog, who was asleep by the fireplace, kept sleeping. And the... fire fell asleep. Yep, that's what happened.

[10:51]

The fire fell asleep. And the flies on the walls fell asleep. Everybody, everything fell asleep. Even the wind fell asleep. There was no wind. It was very, very quiet. Very quiet, very still. Because everybody was completely, deeply asleep. Which, if you have sleep deprivation is actually, sounds pretty good, actually. To go deeply asleep. So anyway, everybody fell asleep, and since they fell asleep, a bush hedge started to grow around the castle. And there was nobody to cut it because everybody was asleep. And it grew, and it grew, and it grew, and it grew. Days, weeks, months, years, years, and years, and years, and years. Completely, that hedge covered the entire castle, so you couldn't see any of the castle.

[11:52]

And years and years went by. Decades. That's ten years at a time. Decades went by. So everybody around there, they didn't even remember anymore. Was there a queen? Was there a princess? Was there Rosamund? There's sort of rumors going around, but nobody was sure of anything because you couldn't see the castle because it was hidden behind the hedge, which happened to be a very thorny hedge, so it was a very difficult thing to get through. At the end of a hundred years, a hundred years later, that's a long, long time, there happened to be a prince riding around near there, and he had heard these rumors. And because it was the end of 100 years, the spell was about to be broken. So the hedge that was all thorny became a hedge of beautiful flowers when the prince tried to get through it, and he just walked right through.

[12:54]

And he went into the castle, and he saw the horses asleep, and the dogs asleep, and the fires asleep, and the flies asleep. And he was walking around. He saw the queen was asleep. The king was asleep. And then finally he got to Rosamund's bedroom and he saw that she was asleep. And he immediately fell deeply in love with Rosamund when he saw her. And I bet you all know what happened next. Will anyone say? Hello? Should I just say it? You all know it. He kissed her, yeah. And she woke up. And she said, oh, what a nice nap I've had. And who are you? You look like a nice guy.

[13:55]

And he apologized for kissing her without even knowing her. But that seemed to be okay. And then everybody started to wake up. The flies, the dogs, etc., etc. Everybody woke up. And they continued their life that way. Once he had kissed her and once she woke up and they got to know each other after a while. And then they got married. And then they had children also. but they knew it's not a good idea to exclude things, and spindles, otherwise known as problems, always will come up, so it's not a good idea to try to get rid of those either. It's better to just try to work with the ones you've got. And they lived pretty much happily ever after. You know, they had problems like everybody else, but they worked on them together. and things worked out pretty well.

[14:59]

And that is the end of that story. Okay. Well, it's really great to see all your beautiful faces, and we'll see you later. You're welcome. Excuse me, I sometimes get choked up with kids, you know, because they're so... I'm getting choked up now because they're so fabulous and delightful. Some of the time. LAUGHTER If you're responsible for their care, it ain't always so easy, but wonderful beings in our midst.

[16:13]

So I wanted to begin this portion of the talk with a story about Suzuki Roshi, something he said, just a brief thing, which is a story that Ed Brown tells, and this took place during a seshin at Tassahara. Seshin is where you sit, where one sits zazen for many hours each day, 14 or so hours a day. for a number of days in a row, five days or seven days or ten days or some period of time. So it's arduous. We're in the midst of a practice period being led by Tension Reb Anderson, and there'll be a Sashin coming up soon at the beginning of December that he'll be leading. So this was the third or fourth day of Sashin, and as Ed relates the story, our backs were aching, our knees were on fire.

[17:35]

We were full of hopes and fears and wondering whether it was worth it. And Suzuki Roshi, with people in that state, began his talk. his lecture by saying the problems that you are now experiencing. And he paused at that point. And I think Ed's mentioning Is it worth it? Is the effort worth it? This struck a chord with me being a member of the cost-benefit analysis school of Zen.

[18:44]

Is it worth it? Is it worth it? Is it worth knocking yourself out, you know? Aching backs and flaming knees? Is it worth it? Which put me in mind of a story in my own history of a conversation I had with my aunt, Fran. My aunt Frances, who's a New Yorker, which is where I come from. New Yorker. Born and bred. She worked for... I think 30 or 40 years as a secretary in Manhattan and lived in an apartment in Brooklyn with her husband. In fact, my wife, Linda, and I last year in the winter went back for her birthday. Undisclosed number. Her daughter said she was about 90. Excuse me.

[19:50]

but she wasn't talking about that anyway. She talked about a lot of other stuff. Anyway, many years ago, after I had been at Zen Center for a few years, I spoke with her on the phone. How are you? How are you? Fine, fine, fine. So how are you doing out there? I'm doing pretty good. Are you making good money? She asked me, it's got to be good money, not just regular money. Good money. You're making good money? At that time, I was receiving room and board. I was a full-time Zen Center person, as many people here are. I was receiving room and board and $50 a month. We had been getting $25 a month, and then there was an across-the-board 100% pay increase to $50 a month.

[20:59]

So we didn't know what to do with all of that extra dough. So she said, are you making good money? I couldn't really say. I was, no. No, no, I'm not making good money, our friend. So are you happy? That was the next thing. In the cost-benefit school, well, okay, you're not making good money, but maybe you're happy. You know, that's the trade-off, you know. So are you happy? No. No, I... I didn't really say I was happy. I think she wondered, what's he doing?

[22:03]

What is he doing that for? No money, no happy. What's the point? She didn't ask me that, but I think that was probably on her mind. So Suzuki Yoroshi began his talk, and... said, the problems you are now experiencing. And Ed said, and I would say, and I think it's true, and probably the people there thought that then Suzuki Roshi would say something Zen, you know, like, you know, problems you are now experiencing, you will realize have no inherent existence. For example, there's something, you know, the schemata is like this.

[23:11]

Current situation, not good. Future situation, good. And between current situation and future situation, is Zen practice. So you do the Zen practice, and then the bad situation gets to be a good situation. Something along those lines, you know. We thought he would say, Ed thought he would say, but he didn't. He said, the problems you are now experiencing will continue for the rest of your life. LAUGHTER thanks a lot thanks a lot that's what he said he didn't say the thanks a lot part so oh and Ed said the way he said it everyone laughed

[24:17]

That's interesting. That's very important, actually. The laugh. An important part of that story. So, I would say it a little bit differently. It may be that the problems you are now experiencing and that I am now experiencing will not continue for the rest of your life or my life. May they not continue. May it be so. However, it's very likely, more than very likely, that the problems, that if the problems you are now experiencing go away, that new ones will arise. This is the nature of things. This is, you might say, common knowledge and at the same time the profound insight of practice and Buddhist understanding.

[25:19]

This is not to say that all problems are created equal. Some are minor, like my bum knee, which I'll tell you about in a little while. Relatively minor. And some are major. Some loss or some difficulty may be almost unbearable, may feel unbearable. So this is not to make light of our problems. They are sometimes very, very difficult. But I think that what Suzuki Roshi was trying to say, my commentary on his statement is, that what he was saying was, don't look around. Don't think or imagine or try to find some place where there are no problems.

[26:24]

Don't seek elsewhere other than the actual life that you have. The actual life that we have now. With the problems that we have now. Not to imagine that there's some way to get past them or around them or over them or under them. The only way is through. very practical Zen teaching. This world that we live in is called samsara. Samsara, the etymology of samsara means continuously flowing. In the world of samsara, in the world of continuously flowing, everything changes.

[27:28]

On another occasion, when someone asked Suzuki Roshi to summarize all of Buddhism in one phrase, he said, everything changes. This is the characteristic, one of the major characteristics of samsara, of the world with the life that we have, the world we have. when everything changes, sometimes things don't work out the way we would like them to. Sometimes, occasionally, almost never, frequently, very frequently, you choose the... There isn't any, they always work out exactly as I want them to. That one you can't have. That's not one of the choices. This is the characteristics of samsara, that everything changes, and that things don't work out the way we would like them to, sometimes.

[28:47]

So I was mentioning my knee, As you see, I'm sitting here in a chair, and usually, for many, many years, I have sat with my legs crossed on a cushion. And then suddenly, among various other problems, my knees swole up, got swollen about three weeks or a month ago. For no good damn reason. There's no reason why this shouldn't happen. No reason. I mean, other than the reasons that it happened, there's no reason. I went to the orthopedic guy and gal, and they said, well, as we've been telling you for some years, you have arthritic degeneration in both your knees and your hip, at least your right hip. So you need new ones, and you just, you know...

[29:54]

biding your time until you get knee replacements. So in the meantime, there's some pain and discomfort associated with having a swollen knee, especially like, oh, it's because I don't have any cartilages left. Or, you know, very, very little. You know, they've gotten worn down to paper thin, so it's... That's what arthritis is. Probably from sitting cross-legged for many years because my body was never made for that kind of thing. So there's discomfort, pain, and then there's my image, you know. I would rather have an image, you know. You know. legs crossed preferably, full lotus posture, which I've never been able to do, but at least having my legs crossed.

[30:59]

So there's an image problem, you know, with sitting in a chair. Then, you know, what kind of a Zen practitioner is that that's worried about his image, you know? Is that problem too? This is the way samsara is. It just roll, roll. One problem rolls down the hill, collects more. Anxiety. So when is this going to be over? When will my knee be okay? Will my knee be okay? Will I have to have an operation? Will the operation be successful? I went to see a Feldenkrais practitioner and she said... knee replacements are the least successful orthopedic surgeries. Don't do it. Then somebody else says something else, you know.

[32:03]

How's it going to be? So with pain, discomfort, anxiety, upset, disturbance, about a knee, but of course about everything, anything, anything you might feel those things about, it's no wonder then that we get the idea that we should try to get out, get out of samsara. How do we get out of that kind of a mess, you know? How do we get from that bad situation to a good situation where those things don't occur, the pain, the discomfort, the anxiety, you know, where we don't feel those things anymore? That's where I want to go. What does Tina Fey say? Me want to go to there, or something like that. That's where we want to go, is that place. So this is a very fundamental point of Buddhist practice, of Buddhist understanding.

[33:10]

Everything changes. Things don't work out the way we would like them to. And then how do we live with that? How do we bear that? What do we do about that? Fact. Fact. Fact. So it's fundamental, one indication of how fundamental it is in our practice. And in our understanding is that it's right there in the founding myth or the myth of Buddhism's founder, Shakyamuni Buddha. You're all, I think, familiar with the story pretty much and particularly with that part of it where, you know, he was innocent and not exposed to any difficulty. And then when he did these different little trips to the city, near the pleasure palace that he lived in, he was confronted with old age, sickness, and death.

[34:20]

Old age, sickness, and death are the universal human markers. They're the universal indications of samsara. They're the universal indications of everything changes. and things don't work out the way we would like them to. Do you see how that is? That makes sense? So, in a sense, I think we could say that the story of Shakyamuni Buddha is the story of confronting that, realizing that, recognizing that, and it was after that that he cut off all of his hair and went off to try to figure things out, what to do about that. The story of Shakyamuni Buddha is the story of meeting that, and then the rest of it is what to do about it. What to do about it and his teaching about what to do about it.

[35:23]

Now, I think there are two ways of understanding the what to do about it part. In broad stroke, I mean, maybe there are many, but just broadly speaking, two ways of understanding that. One way is the way of leaving samsara. You know, there's a cycle, a circle of samsara continuously flowing, everything changing. things not working out sometimes called dukkha suffering and then you get out of that that's one understanding of what to do about it namely suffering this is the four noble truths right suffering cause cessation nerota that's the end the end of the so-called end of suffering and then the path which is how you do number four is how you do number three

[36:41]

The path is how you do this thing called cessation. And then, once you do the cessation thing, then you're in nirvana, which is blown out. That's what nirvana is. It's when the afflictions are blown out like a candle. And then you're not afflicted anymore. And this is, sometimes we think that that's what Zen practice, again, similar to what I was saying, we think that's what Zen practice is about, is how do you do that? How do you get to number three, cessation of suffering? But I think there are some problems with this understanding, and I want to offer a different understanding than that way of understanding the Four Noble Truths.

[37:52]

Dogen, who is a Zen master in the lineage of Zen teachers that led to Suzuki Roshi. He lived in the 13th century and was brilliant and very literary, beautiful, wrote beautiful things. One thing he wrote is called the Genjo Koan. And in the Genjo Koan means... What is the English translation of the Genjo Kohan? Help me out. Thank you. Genjo Kohan means actualizing the fundamental point. And in this work called Actualizing the Fundamental Point, he starts talking about birds and fishes. Metaphorically. And it is quite beautiful the way he expresses it. He says, a bird flies in the sky...

[38:56]

no matter how far it flies, there is no end to the air. And a fish swims in the ocean, but no matter how far it swims, there is no end to the water. This is something very elegant and, oh yeah, that's right. Wonderful about that. And he goes on to say, if a bird or a fish tries to get to the end of its element without swimming in it, without flying in it, without moving in it, then that bird or that fish will die at once. So this is, you know, very obviously he's speaking metaphorically. So what is the medium? What is the the air or the water of human beings that we travel in, that we move through.

[40:04]

Shohaku Okamura would say this medium is myriad dharmas. That's the medium that we as humans move through the way a bird moves through water. A bird moves through air and a fish moves through water. And there is no end to it. Myriad dharmas means the things around us. It means the 10,000 things. It means samsara. It means the place where everything changes and things don't work out as we would like them to. That is our air. That is our place. That is where we move. That's the world that we live in. The same way that the bird lives in the world of air and can fly endlessly. And if we think that there's some way to get out of it or get around it or get to the end of it without moving in it, we will die at once. Not literally, but it means our spirit is not engaged.

[41:15]

So that's one problem with the cessation as a literal understanding of ending suffering idea. That's one problem with it. Another problem with it is that here in samsara is also the relative world. There's a fair amount of talk in Zen about the relative and the absolute. The absolute is ultimate reality. The relative is illusory reality, they say. But I think this gives an unnecessarily, what's the phrase? This is a bad rap, bad rep Bad rap for the relative, you know?

[42:23]

Unnecessarily pejorative characterization of the relative world. Illusory. Because the relative world is the world of relatives. It's like your cousin, you know? And there's that kind of relative. And relative means related. The related world. I was just reading a psychoanalytic writer, a woman named Barbara Stephen Sullivan, who was saying relatedness, the ability to relate. Maybe she just said relatedness is the foundation of emotional health. The ability to relate, the connection that we have with things. With our spouse, with our children, with our grandchildren, with our grandparents, with our friends, with the sunset, with everything.

[43:32]

With our glasses and with our gloves. Our relationship with things. This is the make it or break it of human life, is how we relate. Good relationships. Good life. Bad relationships. Bad life. Money can't buy love. So if cessation, if some way of quote-unquote ending suffering means somehow not being in that relative world, well, I vote for the relative world. I like the relative world. That's the one I like. Keeps the blood flowing. So lastly, there isn't my last kind of point that I wanted to make about

[44:47]

what I think is an understandable but inaccurate idea of nirvana and cessation is its dualistic quality. So Suzuki Roshi said at another time, he said, you get up by where you, excuse me, you stand up by where you fall down. You stand up by where you fall down. In other words, you've got to fall down. In order to stand up, you've got to fall down. So in the story... In the story, you don't get a prince... You don't get the prince of your own nature or the princess or the king or queen of your own nature to arise unless you scratch yourself on the spindle.

[45:59]

And you only scratch yourself on the spindle if you've made a mistake. You don't scratch yourself on the spindle if you never make any mistakes. You make a mistake, you scratch yourself on the spindle, you go to sleep for 100 years, and then the prince comes. That's how you get princes to come. They arise out of that. That's the world in which princes arise. I don't know where my voice is going. Let's try this. Hold on a minute. I haven't been talking that long. That's how princes come into the world and princesses. So rather than this idea of trying to get to the end of the element, rather than this idea of blowing out our afflictions as if we could do that, rather than that, my sense is that our way is the way of

[47:17]

Harmonizing. Harmonizing with the samsaric life that we have. How do we harmonize? What is harmonize? Harmonize means not getting pushed around by samsara and not denying samsara. It means engagement. Active engagement. And we do this, there are many ways to speak about how to do it, what comprises doing this. And harmonizing also, by the way, it doesn't necessarily mean being harmonious. What I mean is...

[48:19]

It doesn't mean being nicey-nice all the time. That's not necessarily harmony. Being nice and sweet and always agreeable. It's more complicated than that. But that's the koan. That's the question. What is that harmonizing that is neither avoiding nor being thrown over taken over, knocked around, pushed over, pushed around by our life, by what we meet in our life. Okay, thank you. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive.

[49:21]

Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[49:42]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_97.5