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. So we're very fortunate to have Sojin Weitzman Roshi here for a little while, but And there'll be, I think we'll have an increased class scheduling for the time he's here. And as I had mentioned, we're shifting from studying the Satipatthana Sutta to studying the Sandokai. And before we... But particularly we're studying Suzuki Roshi's teaching based on the Sandokai.

[01:04]

And so those are transcribed, and Sojin was one of the people primarily who worked on transcribing the talks and editing them for this book, Branching Streams, Flow in the Darkness. I also wanted to mention this in the last year or so, the Shohaka Wakamura's Living with Vow book has a nice little commentary on the Sandokai. I thought I would read just a little bit about the author, Shudo Chichyan, or in Japanese, Suzuki Roshi here is talking about Sekito Kisen. And so this is from Andy Ferguson's book on Chinese Zen masters.

[02:05]

So I thought I'd open a little bit with this and then turn it over to Sojin. But someplace we have a copy of the lineage chart, right? Somewhere around? Is it on display someplace? I don't know. Anyway, I think there is a larger copy of this lineage chart someplace. This is just in the back of this book. But this is Bodhidharma right at the top in the first six Chinese ancestors here. And then it splits into these two branches. But then Sekito Kisan is right here. So in the eighth generation. So seventh generation, it splits into two streams, and then the eighth generation is here. And so it's just give you a little sense of where this comes from.

[03:11]

He lived in the eighth century, lived 90 years, lived from 700 to 790. So here's an interesting And key figure. So here it says, he's a key figure in early Zen development. Three of the five traditional schools of Chinese Zen trace their origins through Shi Dou. And sometimes remembered as the Hunan School. So there's not so much historical record, but there's this little bit that... says that when Shinto's mother became pregnant, she avoided eating meat. And when he was a small child, he was untroublesome. As a young man, he was magnanimous. The people where he grew up feared demons and performed debased sacrifices of oxen and wine.

[04:19]

This practice was long established in that village, but the... the master, this is Chito as a young teenager, would go and destroy the ceremonial altars and free the oxen. This went on for ten years and the village elders were never able to stop him. Later, he received tonsure. He shaved his head but did not undergo full ordination. And So he studied some with Huyneng, the sixth ancestor. But then after that, he followed the request of Huyneng to go study with Qingyuan Xingqiu. And so it's recorded that he had a great revelation while reading

[05:23]

the Sao Loon, which is a commentary on the sutras. So he came upon, the story is that he came upon a passage. This is Sao Loon, it's a commentary by Seng Zhao, who was a student of Kumarajiva and lived in the fourth century. So this had already been around for several centuries, this particular commentary. But he came across a passage that said, The one who realizes that the myriad things are one's own self is no different from the sages. Shuto thereafter dreamed that he, along with the sixth ancestor, was riding on the back of a great tortoise that was swimming in the sea. Waking up, he surmised that the tortoise symbolized wisdom and that the sea was the sea of existence. He took the dream to mean that he, together with the sixth ancestor, sat upon wisdom's back, swimming in the sea of existence. And this realization inspired him to write the verse that we now refer to as the Sandokai.

[06:29]

Andy Ferguson translates it here as realizing unity. So we say, what do we say? Harmony of difference and unity. No. difference in equality so earlier we had our translation we called merging of difference and unity and I keep getting it turned around that's because that's because there's no you can't pin it down you can't pin it down and in the back of this book there's a translation of it that was put together from Suzuki Roshi's references and here it's called the oneness of one and many, right in the back here. So anyway, there are various references. And you can't pin it down. And Soja is an expert on not pinning it down. So I'll turn it over to you.

[07:32]

Well, when Michael and I were editing Suzuki Roshi's Sandao Kai Lectures, the title... It has about 20 different ways that you can use, that can be used as the title. And none of them was exactly right. So you just have to settle on something. And just, you know, whatever you settle on, that's what you use. And all of those ways are correct, even though none of them is right. So these talks of Suzuki Roshi were given in the summer of 1970. I was his jisha, and they were given in the old zendo, which was the bar originally.

[08:38]

We turned into a zendo. and it was made out of stones, and then it burned down. But at that time, that was our zindo, and it was really hot in that summer. When you get up, there'd be a big puddle on your seat. But Suzuki Roshi, it was toward the end of his life, and he was doing okay, but it was difficult because of the heat and so forth, but he gave 12 lectures over the summer. Some people may even be here who were here then. Anybody here that was here then, that summer of 70? Yeah, I think we were here. So I'm going to start out just reading the first chapter, talk, first talk, and commenting on it.

[09:42]

And we'll just see how we get. I'm just going to keep going along like this. Of course, the Sando Kai starts out with the first two sentences, or the first sentence, actually. The mind of the great sage of India is intimately transmitted from west to east. West being India and China being the east. Everybody have a book? Some people have books and some people don't have books. Some people do and some people don't. Anyway, it's not necessary to have a book. You can just listen to me. So, mind of the great sages of India, I think this first sentence really is a good introduction because usually this kind of poem... Dogen does the same thing expresses the essence and then the rest is commentary.

[10:46]

So the mind of the great sage of India means is the essence and is intimately transmitted from the west from the east to the east is the function. So essence and function these are the two primal activities. So the mind of the great sage of India is like Buddha's mind, or big mind, we call it. The sixth ancestor called it essence of mind, and it's called various things, Buddha nature, or so forth. But this is the essence. This is the essential thing, which is the oneness of all things. It's the one thing which everything else is a manifestation of and is intimately transmitted is the function. This is the activity of big mind.

[11:51]

So the Sandokai talks about form and emptiness in terms of dark and light, in terms of big mind and small mind, and it is further amplified by Tozan's hokyo zamai where he talks about the five ranks which is another aspect of dark and light used as a simile for the various ways that essence and function interact. So Also, box and lid meeting is another way of speaking about how essence and function work together. So Suzuki Roshi says, this is his introduction, he says, I'm very grateful for this opportunity to talk about the Sandokai, one of our most important teachings.

[13:00]

Its mode of expression is so smooth that you may not feel its deep meaning when you read it. This is a kind of criticism. R. H. Blythe wrote a little thing about the Sandokai, and he really put it down because he says it's a prosaic as compared to koans, which, you know, are not so prosaic. But Sandokai is one big koan. So when you read it, you think, well, this is just kind of prosaic. So the author of this poem, Sekito Kisen, or Sekito Musai Daishin, which is his posthumous name, is the Dharma grandson of the sixth ancestor, sixth Chinese ancestor, Daikan Eno, Dajan Huenong, and the direct descendant of Seigen Gyoshi, Kinyuan Zingshi, who was considered the seventh ancestor.

[14:03]

So... Sekito is considered the eighth ancestor, as Steve was telling us. Among the sixth ancestor's many disciples, the most prominent were Seigen, Yoshi, and Nangaku Eijo. Later, Master Tozan Ryokai continued Seigen's lineage as the Soto school, and Master Rinzai Higen continued Nangaku's lineage as the Rinzai school. So Soto and Rinzai eventually became the dominant schools of Zen. So Nangaku Eijo, the Rinzai school sees its lineages going back to Nangaku Eijo and the Soto school is going back to Seigen.

[15:05]

So the way of Seigen and Sekito has a more gentle quality than Nangaku's way. So in other words, the Soto school is a more gentle way, whereas Rinzai school is a more rough way, so to speak. There's a characteristic of this in Japan, probably in China too, I don't know. But we know the Soto school is called farmer zen, nurturing zen. Farmer nurturing is crops. And Rinzai then is often called a general's zen or military zen. The general moving his troops. So these are two different ways of expressing practice. One is more nurturing, which is a... Suzuki Roshi was certainly that kind of... teacher, very nurturing.

[16:07]

And some insight teachers are more kind of militant and rough. So it's good to have a little bit of both. If you're too gentle, that's not so good. If you're too rough, that's not so good. So sometimes gentle, sometimes a little bit demanding. Good. So in Japan we called the elder brother's way, call it the elder brother's way, because the elder brother is considered to be a little more gentle, and the younger brother is considered to be more mischievous. So he talks about that. Nangaku is more like the second or third son who was often rather naughty. Actually, Suzuki Roshi liked naughty students. He said, when I confront a naughty student, usually they're more out there so I can see who they are.

[17:12]

Whereas, you know, more gentle students tend to be maybe a little more hidden, you know. So he liked people who were out there so he could see right away who they were. So the elder brother may not be so able or so bright, but he's very gentle. This is not always true, as I'm sure you know. My older brother used to beat me up all the time. So this is our understanding when we talk about Soto and Rinzai. Sometimes Soto Zen is called Memitsu no Kafu, a very careful and considerate style. So this is the style of the Soto school. When Tatsugami Roshi was here, Tatsugami Roshi came in 1970. I was his chutsu in that practice period when he came. Suzuki Roshi had started Zen Center.

[18:15]

I mean, his students started Zen Center. And Tassahara. But Tassahara, you know, it wasn't really cohesive at that time. You were just kind of, you know, bumbling along, making it work. But Zipi Roshi hadn't, he didn't feel qualified, actually, to make it into a monastery. And he wasn't feeling that well. And he had Zen Center in San Francisco to take care of and stuff like that. So Tatsugami, who had been the Eno at Eheji for 10 years, was invited to set up the monastic standards for Tassajara, 1970. So he did. And the standards that we follow now are what he set up, basically. We didn't have the Doan Rio, we didn't have the Kitchen Rio.

[19:18]

We did have those things happening, but they weren't organized in that way. So he organized all of the different departments. and the way we do things. And he said, he thought of the practice as memitsu no kafu, which means very careful and considerate style. Soto Zen is very careful and paying attention to detail, not perfection. It's not perfection. It's just paying attention to what to your surroundings, paying attention to how you handle objects. Dogen talks about this in the Tenzo Kyokun. You put the bigger pots on the lower shelf and then the smaller things go on top and everything has a place in relation to everything else.

[20:19]

So how you relate to everything around you, to your surroundings as yourself is Sandokai, and so do Zen, and Minmitsu no Kafu. So he says, Sagan's way is to find everything within himself. That's a little funny statement, but it's to realize that the big mind that includes everything and to practice accordingly. to see, to find everything, what he means is to find everything within big mind. So Suzuki was always talking about big mind, and this is what Sagan's talking about. Everything, we should find everything within our big mind, and all of our activity should be within big mind.

[21:20]

In other words, we exist within big mind, small mind, the two meanings of mind there's the thinking mind and then there's the essence of mind although they're the same thing essence of mind is our true mind small mind is also our true mind but it can be true or false if we're led by our ego then that's not true mind even though ego is an aspect of big mind. So then he talks about our effort in Zen is to observe everything as it is. To see it as it is is the most typical thing because we always see everything through our partiality. So yet even though we may say so,

[22:22]

we are not necessarily observing everything as it is. And then this is a very difficult passage to understand. He says, we say, here is my friend, over there is the mountain, and way up there is the moon. But your friend is not only your friend, the mountain is not only the mountain, and the moon is not only the moon. Of course, that's not so hard to understand, because... We just make up names and call things by their names and then we discriminate what they are according to the way we name them. So this is okay, but it's also not complete. It's illusory. So if we think I am here and the mountain is over there, that is a dualistic way of observing things. To go to San Francisco, we have to cross over the Tassajara Mountain.

[23:28]

That is our usual understanding, but that's not the Buddhist way of observing things. We find the mountain or the moon or our friend or San Francisco within ourselves. So right now, I mean right here, that is big mind and within which everything exists. So... Ordinarily, we put boundaries around things. We see things according to the boundaries. And then we discriminate according to the boundary that we create. So there's this boundary between me and you and between the table and the floor and me and so forth. Everything exists separately. In its true sense, everything exists as one piece. It's like if I hold up my fist like this, that's one thing, right?

[24:33]

But if I go like that, there are many things, many fingers of the one thing. So this is sandokai. The many things and the one thing are the same, except the one thing is the one thing, and the many things are the many things. And the many... things are the one thing, and the one thing is the many things. So it's really hard to get beyond our discriminating mind. That's the difficulty that we have, is that it's very hard to get beyond our discriminating mind, and that's why we practice, and that's what zazen is. Zazen is to let go of our discriminating mind and return to our wholeness. You turn to the one mind. So we take one piece and divide it into many different pieces, and that can be described in many different ways.

[25:34]

I usually describe it as time, because time is just one piece called now. And we divide it into many other pieces called one o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock, four o'clock. So the one piece is now, and the various discriminations are one o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock, four o'clock. Dogs and cats don't go by that kind of discrimination. They have other discriminations. So he says, let's look at the title, San Do Kai. San literally means three. Ichi, ni, san, chi. San is three. But here it means things. It has a different meaning. Things. And so do is sameness.

[26:37]

So to identify one thing with another is do. It also refers to oneness or equality or one's whole being which here means great mind or big mind. So our understanding is that there is one whole being that includes everything and that the many things are found in the one whole being. Although we say many things, they are actually the many parts of the one whole being that includes everything. If you say many, it's many. If you say one, it's one. It doesn't matter. Because if you say one, it includes many. If you say many, it includes one. So it doesn't make any difference except that it does when you want to move around. So many and one are different ways of describing one whole being.

[27:41]

So dependent and independent Suzuki Hiroshi made up this word, independency, which I'll talk about later. So in the Hawaiian teaching, there's a description of the house. You look at a house and you say, that's a house. But then if you look closely, there are the windows. This is the window, this is the floor, these are the beams, these are the pillars, this is the kitchen and so forth. So anywhere you point, you can say this is the house as one piece or you can say this is the window. But the window is also the whole house. The window contains the whole house. The floor contains the whole house.

[28:45]

You look at the floor and you go, well, that's the floor, but it's also the entire house. So the small thing contains the big thing, and the big thing contains the small thing. This is also sandokai. So if you say many, it is many, and if you say one, it is one. Many and one are different ways of describing one whole being. To completely understand the relationship between one great whole being and the many facets of that one great whole being is kai. San, do, kai. Kai means to shake hands. You have a feeling of friendship. You feel that the two of you are one. In the same way, this one great whole being and the many things are good friends. or more than good friends because they're originally one.

[29:48]

So we are originally one piece, but each one of us looks different, acts differently, and sees things differently, and so forth. But still, that's why it's hard to see us as one piece. Now we're saying we're one monk. We're one monk. That's what Tatsugami used to say. He said, we're one monk. So, therefore, like shaking hands, we say, kai, how are you? Hi, kai, hi, how are you? This is the meaning of the poem's title. What is many, what is one? And what is the oneness of one and many? And then he talks about the title like this. Originally, Sando Kai was the title of a Taoist book.

[30:54]

Sekito used the same title for his poem, which describes Buddhist teaching. What is the difference between Taoist teachings and Buddhist teachings? You know, Buddhism came to China, India. They used, because of the alphabet and the Chinese characters, it was hard to match them up. So the Buddhists used Taoist terms as the closest thing in language to Sanskrit or Pali or whatever. And so there was a name for this, which I can't remember. But for many years, Buddhism was expressed... in China in Taoist terms. And then finally they gave that up when Kumrajiva came to China and translated the sutras into Chinese.

[32:05]

And Sengqiao, who you mentioned, was his Chinese student who made Kumrajiva's teaching popular. So Sandokai was the title of a Taoist book, and Sekito used the same title for his poem, which describes Buddhist teaching. What is the difference between Taoist teachings and Buddhist teachings? There are many similarities. When a Buddhist reads it, it's a Buddhist text. And when a Taoist reads it, It's a Taoist text. Yet it's actually the same thing. When a Buddhist eats a vegetable, it is Buddhist food. And when a vegetarian eats it, it is vegetarian food. Still, it's just food. But sometimes we say, oh, this is not Buddhist food. It can't be Buddhist food.

[33:08]

As Buddhists, we do not eat a particular... Now this is very interesting because it goes against all of our... present-day food, woody stuff, understanding of food. As Buddhists, we do not eat a particular vegetable just because it has some special nourishing quality. We choose it because it is yin or yang, acid or alkaline. Simply to eat food is our practice. So this comes from the monk's begging process. When you go out doing takahatsu or begging, people put stuff in your bowl. And whatever it is, that's what you eat. So you don't pick and choose. So, you know, this is wonderful, pure activity. Problem is... Well, you know, if we did do that, we'd die early and young.

[34:13]

And a lot... That didn't last very long because the food that they were eating really wasn't good for them a lot of the time. So simply to eat food is our practice. We don't eat just to support ourselves. As we say in our meal chant, to practice our way, we eat this food. This is how big mind is included in our practice. To think this is just a vegetable is not our understanding. We must treat things as part of ourselves, within our practice, within big mind. Small mind is the mind that is under the limitation of desires or some particular emotional covering or the discrimination of good and bad. So, for the most part, even though we think we are observing things as it is, actually we're not. Why? Because of our discrimination or our desires.

[35:15]

The Buddhist way is to try hard to let go of this kind of emotional discrimination of good and bad and let go of our prejudices and to see things as it is. This is very totally understandable and totally controversial in our day and age, actually. I think that In those days, in the old days, people didn't have so much artificial foods and the foods were not so full of poisons and, you know, and so that kind of purity is not so hard to, you know, to follow. But these days there's so many things to avoid that it's very difficult to have that same kind of, operate under that same kind of understanding. And Suzuki Roshi was used to eating white rice and Japanese food and miso soup and stuff. And when he came to America, we fed him brown rice and bread and all kinds of things that he wasn't made out of.

[36:25]

We're all made out of the food that we eat. And the older we get, the more we're made out of it. Harder to eat other foods. And so I think the purity kind of harks back to a different age when food was more pure. The things that people would put in your bowl was not so varied, not so poisonous and easier to... to deal with that way. Not so different from what your body was already made out of. Not so different from what your body was already made out of. That's right. So when I say to see things as it is, which I mean to practice hard with our desires, not to get rid of desires, but to take them into account.

[37:26]

So when I say See things as it is. What I mean is to practice hard with their desires. In other words, to look at, actually look at what your desires really are. And not to say, oh, and I have to get rid of this. Oh, I have to get rid of that. Oh, I'll be good when I'm not doing this. That's not practice. Practice is just, you know, you've created your begging bowl of emotional, mental garbage. And you have to eat it. Yeah, you have to deal with it. But you can't put it into the silver bowl as it comes around. You have to eat it. So this is about transforming our desires rather than getting rid of them. Practicing with our desires, seeing how they're harmful, not trying to get rid of it, but it's like

[38:34]

persimmons, western persimmons, the big ones, if you try to eat them before they get ripe, they're astringent and it makes your mouth go crazy. But when they're ripe, they're very sweet. So that astringency is necessary to make the persimmon sweet. If you try to take the astringency out in order to make the persimmon sweet, it doesn't work. So the very thing that makes it astringent is what makes it sweet. So rather than trying to get rid of our astringency, we let ourselves ripen so that we come out sweet. So we turn that same energy into something else. And it's not really changing anything.

[39:37]

It's transformation. And it's a process. It's a process of using that energy to ripen with. So Suzuki Roshi liked... He accepted everybody. He didn't say, well, you have to be really good before you can do this or you should stop doing that or something. He just accepted everybody as they were and expected that the practice itself would transform the energy. And in most cases, it worked. In some cases, it didn't. So this is very important that Although disappointing, the teacher cannot be attached to his students.

[40:41]

You do your best and the student has to do their best. And if you have an expectation, that's a problem. So, he says, When I say to see things as it is, what I mean is to practice hard with our desires, not to get rid of desires, but to take them into account. If you have a computer, you must enter all the data, this much desire, this much nourishment, this kind of color, this kind of... In other words, you take all the aspects and put them all together. And we must include our desires as one of the many factors in order to see things as it really is. We don't always reflect on our desires. Without stopping to reflect on our selfish judgment, we say, he is good or he is bad. But someone who is bad, to me, is not necessarily always bad.

[41:46]

To someone else, he may be a good person. Reflecting in this way, we can see things as it is. And this is Buddha mind. In other words, just to see things, this is called the mirror wisdom, that whatever we perceive, We perceive it as it is, not according to our desires or according to our partiality, because we almost always see things according to our partiality, which means like, dislike, or whatever. So just suspending our partiality, we see things as it really is. So... I remember this one guy who was no longer alive, but he was the anjo when I was Shikigoshi Jisha.

[42:49]

I won't name names. But he was a womanizer, among other things. He was a great guy. Shikigoshi, we all loved him in some way. He said to Suzuki, Suzuki Roshi, you know, I just really like screwing around with women all the time. And what do you think of that? Is that okay? And Suzuki Roshi said, as long as you remember the name of each one. So the poem begins, chikuro daisen no shin, which means... the mind of the great sage of India, the big mind of the great sage of India. That is Buddha's big mind that includes everything. The mind we have when we practice zazen is this big mind. We don't try to see anything. We stop conceptual thinking. We stop emotional activity.

[43:51]

We just sit. Whatever happens to us, we're not bothered. We're not bothered is the key, actually. We just sit. It's like something happening in the vast sky. The mind is like just the vast sky, the blue sky. Whatever kind of bird flies through it, the sky doesn't care. That is the mind transmitted from Buddha to us. Many things happen as you sit. You may hear the sound of the stream. You may think of something, but your mind doesn't care. Your great mind is just there sitting. Even when you are not aware of seeing, hearing, or thinking something is going on in big mind, it's just something going on in big mind. We observe things without saying good or bad. We just sit. We enjoy things but have no special attachment to them.

[44:54]

We have full appreciation of them at this time. That's all. After zazen, we say, good morning, and that way, one after another, things will happen to us and we can fully appreciate them. That is the mind transmitted from Buddha, and that is the way we practice zazen, and that is the way we practice daily life. If you practice zazen like that, then when you get off the cushion, you practice in your daily life like that, which doesn't mean you don't take responsibility. You take full responsibility for everything you do, but there's no attachment. Or it's Buddha's attachment, not my ego's attachment. This is a wonderful description of zazen. It's actually perfect. So how does one take care of daily activities?

[46:00]

That's how you take care of your daily activity. You totally, you know, when I was the director back in 19-something, the director is on all the time. Day and night, the director is on. And day after day, every day. And then all these things pile up. The work leader says we have to do these things, you know, and the tendency says we have to do these things. And there's this long list of things that just stretches on into infinity of things that have to be done. And if you're the director, you can't get caught by that. If you get caught by that, you just get destroyed. So you just take one thing at a time. Oh, this is what's happening now. Oh, look at that.

[47:02]

But you can only do one thing at a time. And if you get caught by the future, that's a problem. Nevertheless, you have to deal with the future, which doesn't exist really yet. But if you take care of the present without worrying about the future, then you step into the next moment's future. I mean, next moment's present. And it's this moment, this moment, this moment. This is just like Zazen. It's just this moment, this moment, this moment. And then things all work out because you can never take care of all those things. I have a list at home from back in 1971, I think. And a lot of those things are still there. LAUGHTER How did we survive without doing those things?

[48:14]

Yeah, really. Just don't be bothered by it. I have to say, when I was abbot, I never cared about money and what was going on and all these problems people had. Because other people took care of me. And you take care of the other people. That's right. You take care of the people and the people will take care of things. I do like that. So if you practice Zazen in this way, you're less likely to have trouble when you are enjoying some event. You understand? You may have a special experience and think, this is it. This is how it should be. If someone opposes you, you will be angry. No, it should be like this, not like that. Zen center should be like this. That's a problem. Maybe so, but it's not always so.

[49:15]

If times change and we lose Tassajara and move to another mountain, the way we have here cannot be the same way we will have there. So he did not want us to be chauvinistic about Zen center or Tassajara. as if this is the great place. It's just the place. It's great, but it's just the place we have. If something happens, we feel sad and move up to the pines. Or something. But not to be so attached to things. So... If times change and we lose Tassajara and move to another mountain, the way we have here cannot be the same way we have there. So without sticking to some particular way, we open our minds to observe things as it is and to accept things as it is. Without this basis, when you say, this is the mountain or this is my friend or this is the moon, the mountain will not be the mountain.

[50:22]

My friend will not be my friend and the moon will not be the moon itself. That is the difference between sticking to something and the Buddha's way. Buddha's way is to study the teaching of human nature, including how foolish we are, what kinds of desires we have, our preferences and tendencies. Without sticking to something, I try to remember to use the expression liable to. We are liable to or we have a tendency to do something. So this is my motto. When I was preparing this lecture, someone asked me, what is self-respect and how can we obtain it? Self-respect is not something that you can feel you have. Usually we substitute pride for self-respect. When you feel I have self-respect, that is not self-respect anymore. When you are just you, without thinking or trying to say something special, just saying what's on your mind and how you feel, then there is naturally self-respect.

[51:26]

When I am closely related to all of you and to everything, then I am a part of one big whole being. When I feel I have done something, I'm almost part of it, but not quite. When you do something without any feeling of having done something, then that is you, yourself. You're completely with everyone and you don't feel self-conscious, and that is self-respect. When you feel that somebody you have to practice, that you are somebody, You have to practice zazen a little bit harder because zazen is not your practice. You say, I sitting zazen, zazen is not your practice. Zazen is Buddhist practice. So you let go of my practice and you take on Buddhist practice. As you know, it is difficult to sit without thinking or feeling. When you don't think or feel, you usually fall asleep. But without sleeping and without thinking, just to be yourself is a practice.

[52:30]

When you can do that, you will be able to speak without thinking too much and without having any special purpose. When you speak or act, it will be just to express yourself. That's complete self-respect. To practice zazen is to attain this kind of self-respect. You must be strict with yourself and especially with your tendencies. Suzuki Brothers used to say, you should be strict with yourself and compassionate to others. We each have our own unique personal tendencies, but if you try to get rid of them, or if you try not to think or not to hear the sound of the stream, that is not possible. So let your ears hear without trying to hear. Let the mind think without trying to think and without trying to stop it. That is practice. So I see, but they're not my eyes. Ears hear, but it's not my ear. It's not me hearing. Hearing hears, seeing sees, tasting tastes, feeling feels, nose smells, tongue tastes, but it's not mine.

[53:42]

There's no me and mine there, even though we feel that there is a me and mine. So the more and more you will have this rhythm or strength of this power of practice. If you practice hard, you will be like a child. While we are talking about self-respect, the bird was singing outside. Beep, beep, beep. That is self-respect. Beep, beep, beep. Doesn't mean anything. Maybe he was just singing. Maybe without trying to think, he was just singing. Beep, beep, beep. When we heard it, we couldn't stop smiling. We cannot say that it is just a bird. It controls the whole mountain, the whole world. And that is self-respect. The bird controls the whole mountain because the bird is the whole mountain and the whole mountain is the bird. In order to have this practice, everyday practice, we study hard. But when we reach this place, there's no need to say one whole bane or bird or many things which include one whole bane.

[54:46]

It could just be a bird or a mountain or the sandokai. If you understand this, there will be no need to recite the sandokai. Although we recite it in this Japanese-Chinese form, it's not a matter of Japanese or Chinese. It's just a poem or a bird. And this is just my talk. It doesn't mean much. You say that Zen is not something to talk about. It's what you experience in a true sense. It is difficult. But anyway, this is a difficult world, so don't worry. Wherever you go, you have problems. and you should confront your problems. It may be much better to have these problems, practice, rather than some other mixed up kind of problems. So I just want to say one more thing, okay? And this is a story about Suzuki Roshi and me. So a student, that's me, the other day, when I was beating, we used to have this huge Mikugyo, you know, the Mikugyo was like this big.

[55:49]

It burned in the fire. It burned in the fire. We had a big boom, boom. So the other day when I was beating the makugyo, a small spider crawled across the top of it. Boom, boom, boom. A spider walking up on top toward the center. There was nothing I could do to avoid the spider. I veered a little up to the side to avoid him, but he went right into the striker. That energy just drew him right in to the center. It was too powerful for him to escape. He said, you didn't kill him. And then everybody laughed. I said, well, I said, something did. And he said, by mistake, it happened that way. And I said, yeah, but I couldn't stop. Yeah, you know, it can't be helped. Buddha killed him. You may be very happy. He may be very happy. Sounds like rationale.

[56:54]

But to live in this world is not so easy. When you see children playing by the stream or on a bridge, you may be really worried. The cars are going boom, zoom, zoom, zoom on the highway nearby. So what if there's an accident? If something happens, that's all. If you stop and think, you'll be terrified. Did you hear about the 165-year-old man who has more than 200 children? grandchildren and great-grandchildren, if he thought about each one of them, he would be scared of losing one. So our practice is to be very strict. You should be ready to kill something even if you are a Buddhist. Whether it is good or bad, you must do that sometime. It is impossible to survive without killing anything. We cannot live depending just on our feelings. Our practice must be deeper than that. That is the strict side of our practice. On the other hand, if it is absolutely necessary, you should stop hitting the kyugyo, even though it throws everything into confusion.

[57:59]

So, not so easy. But I like that. Even though, if you feel that you must do that, you just throw everything into confusion. And that's okay. Because you think, well, I just have to keep going. Because everybody... it's okay to hit the spider because how can you stop the rhythm of things? But it's okay to just throw everything up in the air. Both sides are important. You can't live without killing because everything is killing everything else and bringing everything to life. Without killing, things don't come to life. we'd think it's bad, because the killing is bad, which it is, but it's also good. It's both good and bad, and it's neither good nor bad.

[59:04]

It's just what it is, because if things weren't killed, life wouldn't go on. So this brings us to the point, question of birth and death, which is really the important thing we should always be considering and dealing with. But I'm going to stop there. And I don't know how much time we have, but do you have any questions? Yes? We often say, I bow to the end of the Jews. Inexhaustible. Delusions are inexhaustible. You can't really end desires and delusions.

[60:12]

Oh, desires are inexhaustible. Right. Desires are endless. I vow to end them. That's the great koan. If it wasn't, you know, it's a wonderful koan. Desires are inexhaustible. You know, you don't end desires. You use desires. Yeah. But, yes, but, you know, chanting and the way things are worded don't always mean exactly, literally what they say. I think you have to understand that. Otherwise, we get very confused. Sentient beings are numberless. I vow to save them. Well, how can I do that? So you have to get to the meaning behind the words. It's like you have to read between the lines. As Suzuki Roshi stated it, we say you read the other side of the page. So the words are...

[61:15]

stated in such a way that you kind of get it but they're not really accurate but you have to glean the meaning and it's better because if you understand exactly what the words mean then you think you understand so the words are not exactly accurate they don't exactly point to means that you have to find the meaning of yourself. And that's important, very important, to find the meaning of yourself. You're given a hint, and then you have to find the meaning of yourself intuitively. Can I, when I'm saying, reciting that, can I say a different word? No, just recite it. Just recite it. You know, I can't tell you what to think, because you're going to think what you think. But when I'm reciting it, I just recite the words.

[62:19]

And I try to, you know, when I'm chanting, I'm just chanting. And the power of chanting is the most important thing. When we chant the Heart Sutra, we used to chant it in Japanese only, three times. That was our service. Three times in Japanese. And then when Tatsugami came, we... made an English translation because people wanted to do that. And the English translation is okay, but when we chant it, we think we know what it means because of the translation. But it's helpful. We should have it in our own language. It's true. But there's something about doing it in the Japanese where we didn't understand the meaning of the words, and you're just chanting, and the... And the essence, the effort, is in the chanting rather than the understanding. How do you work with this feeling between understanding and not understanding in terms of just living in that feeling?

[63:32]

To me it feels frustrating. What's frustrating about it? I guess it's just like a push of wanting to know, and that pushes strongly sometimes. And so it just feels... Yeah. Well, you know, there are many commentaries, like if you're chanting the Heart Sutra, I mean, there are many good commentaries on it. And so that can satisfy your, you know, you want to satisfy your intellectual understanding, which is understandable, or good, you know. That's why we study. to satisfy our intellectual understanding but our intellectual understanding is still falls short but it helps because the intellectual understanding focuses us on what it is that we want to understand even though and then through practice and study

[64:39]

things come together. So just don't be impatient. Let all that work inside of you. Subconsciously is where our understanding comes from. And so when we have these elements working together, practice and study, it's working in our subconscious. And you have to nurture that and let that take its time to come. So that's why we say, don't anticipate anything. Just do the practice. Just do what's in front of you and don't anticipate where it's going. Or will I ever understand? Or will I ever be enlightened? The enlightenment is in doing what's in front of you. It's not so much understanding. Not so much in understanding. If you really take care of what's in front of you, if you really do Zazen wholeheartedly, without anticipating anything or wishing for anything, the understanding will come.

[65:47]

That's why our practice is set up the way it's set up. Because when you have realization, you realize, oh yeah, this is it, not over there or something else or in the future. Right here is where it is. So how come I don't know that right here is where it is? that's the most difficult thing how come I don't realize that this is where it is and there's nothing the only thing that's been standing in front of me is my ego because talking about silver mountains you know rising into the heavens means you can't get up there right but it's not up there it's at the bottom of the silver mountain because the silver mountain is standing on something So you have to be the one that's holding up. Sometimes a small mind sometimes seems really big. It's a big barrier.

[66:51]

You're just letting go. You remind me that I heard Suzuki Roshi say, you may not understand with your ears, but you still understand. Well, when he was chanting, you know, we're talking about chanting. That reminds me of when he was talking about chanting. Chant with your ears. Yes. Don't, you know, listen. Listen to what's going on around you. Participate with what's going on around you. Be part of what's going on around you. That's all that's necessary. Because when you say understanding, you're talking about your thinking. But understanding goes beyond thinking. It includes thinking, but it goes beyond thinking. So that's why intellectual study is not it, even though it is it. It's good, but it's not it.

[67:55]

Because understanding has to go beyond that. Intuition means... directly seeing without going through the process of thinking, directly touching without going through the process of rumination or thinking mind. But we process our life through the thinking mind. We process our life activities through the process of our thinking, which is fine, you know, we have to do that. But true understanding is beyond that. And if we just do what the teacher says, it works. The problem is that we really have a hard time doing that. The simplest thing, I was explaining something to somebody and they said, oh, that's very simple. But the simple thing is the hardest because we're addicted to difficulty, to making it hard.

[69:02]

You have to read the other side of the page. He didn't mean it literally. What he meant was, do you really understand these people? How do you understand women? To say, do you remember each name? It doesn't mean to remember each name. It means, how do you... what is your true relationship to this person? Not just the superficial relationship. Do you understand? Kind of. Well, you will sometimes. Where does that faith come from, though? Where does what? The profound and pure faith that arises. Faith. Yeah, faith. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I can give you this.

[70:15]

I can lead the horse to water, but I can't make him drink. But I will lead him to the water. I thought of that as maybe encouraging him to do something that he could handle, you know, like, you know, Maybe he wasn't able to remember their name, but if he could just at least do that, that would be a step up from where he drove. Encouragement, but not being too horrible. Well, you know, like, yeah, I can see that. But I think he was saying... You're not seeing a woman as she really is. You're only seeing her through your own partiality and your own desires.

[71:18]

And you're just not seeing this person, any one of these people, as they really are. You're simply seeing... You know, he used to talk about the Tambang Khan. Tambang Khan, the board-carrying fellow. I guess he was... You know, you have a board on your, you're carrying a big board on your shoulder. So you can see over here, but you can't see over there because of the board. So your vision is only, is very narrow. And you only see, like as a man, you only see the woman from a certain point of view, according to your desires. You're not the person as they really are. So, does that make sense? Yeah, I thought it should. Oh, yeah, hi.

[72:22]

Say that again. Well, the intuition's there, but you disregard it, or choose to disregard it. Yeah, what about it? Then you... Oh, well, we do it for different reasons, you know. Um... Well, I can say this for one reason. Because we're so dependent on trusting our thinking mind that we're educated to trust our thinking mind. If we were educated to trust our intuition more, then we wouldn't depend. We'd still trust our thinking mind, but we would pay more attention to our intuition. I think that's... this kind of practice, this is to educate us to pay more attention to our intuition. So I would hope that's what we're doing, which doesn't mean we disregard our thinking mind. But actually, intuition, from my point of view, should be tested through our thinking mind.

[73:30]

Our rationality. I think intuition goes beyond rationality. But nevertheless, rationality has to play some part. And I can say, well, yeah, I don't quite understand this, but I trust it. And there's a kind of, you know, you test out your intuition so that it's not just dreaming. People, you know, they're often people don't know what intuition is. But intuition can be stimulated by deep thinking and by education and so forth. And so all of these factors play a part in intuition. Because intuition is, well, shall I explain this?

[74:34]

The way I think of... Who we are is like a solar system. Each one of us is our own solar system. This is the hara down here below the belt is the sun. That's why we call it the solar plexus. That's the center of our universe. And this is the seat of intuition. The sun spot is where all the energy comes from. And then it's refined through our thinking mind, which is up here. That's one aspect of mind. And then there are the limbs, which are satellites, which circle around each other and around the sun. But, you know, intellectually, we think that the sun rotates around the mind, around the head.

[75:37]

but it's the other way around. So this is, you know, old-fashioned thinking. We think it's progressive because our thinking mind rotates around the solar, the sun, rather than the other way around. So that's what keeps the mind from going off. destructive ways because the mind that's not balanced by intuition or by the heart, so to speak, is just off on its own doing its own thing and ends up in chalicement because it doesn't care what it does to people. And that's what's happening in our world today. I'm very concerned about you people voting. The destructive forces are taking over, you know?

[76:44]

I mean, it's terrible. And it's great to be in this valley and, you know, what's going on out there? What day is this? Is this Thursday or Friday, you know? I remember being here and just, what day is this anyway? So you have to vote. On the 6th. Absentee balance. Yes, I have an absentee balance myself. I urge you, too late to get them now. It's not actually too late. There's a couple more days. To get the balance? Yeah, as long as they're in by October 30th. Yeah, well, I urge you to do that and vote for the guys that you should. And the propositions that you should. Anyway, we should take advantage of that.

[77:48]

A lot of people don't have that opportunity to do that. Anyway, so all of these parts have to work harmoniously together. And the seat of intuition is where the power comes from. If you go out into Alaska or someplace and you're freezing to death, all of the part of your body shuts off all the outer limbs and the energy just keeps going down to the sun spot, to the solar places to preserve you. And that's the place that is most valuable. of the body. And when we sit zazen, we breathe. This is where breathing is. When we inhale, it expands, and when we exhale, it contracts.

[78:52]

And when we have big difficulty in zazen, we don't know what to do. We can't wave or we can't say that. You just have one breath after another, one breath at a time. So this is the This is the vital place and it's where intuition comes from. It's where the seat of feeling comes from and information, deep information. But it doesn't operate by itself. It informs all the rest. But if you lose that, then your mind creates all kinds of fantasy. Well, you know, we can say that this is where compassion and love comes from.

[79:55]

I thought it was planet Earth. It's all planet Earth. This is the sun and then there's planet Earth here. Not too far away. But then where does that put Jupiter? Zeus. Buddha's light is supposed to come from here. This is where Buddha's light shines out of his forehead. But this is the source of it. Because he has the source of it down here, it can... shine accurately up there. So that's enlightenment. Yes.

[80:58]

Okay. I'll have one of those. And you will find in Buddhism from the beginning to the end it's all about light. And dark, which is in... Which is also light. And Sandokai. That's in Sandokai. Gets into that, yeah. 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. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit SSCC.org and click giving.

[81:44]

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