This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Hello, good morning. Welcome to San Francisco Zen Center. My name is Kyoshin Wendy Lewis, and today I will be speaking on the Chinese Zen poem Sandokai, or Harmony of Difference and Equality. And as I was thinking about this, I saw that Anshi Zachary Smith is going to be teaching an online class called Zen Foundations, Exploring the Sandokai. That begins next Thursday, May 1st. So my talk may be a useful introduction. I think one of the reasons I was... thinking so much about this poem, is that when I was the doshi, or the person who leads service, for a long time on Fridays, that's one of the chants we do.

[01:12]

So even though I was just chanting along, chanting along, I think some of it started to sort of sift down more because I'm responsible. And I think there's something about ritual that Like as I came in, I'm concerned about giving a useful talk, but then I go around and I bow, and something else comes in. I don't know what it is exactly, but we'll see how that informs the talk. This poem, Sandokai, or Harmony of Difference and Equality, is attributed to Sekito Kisen. And if you chant the Buddhist ancestors, you'll hear his name. And he was a disciple of Seigen Gyoshi, who was a disciple of the sixth ancestor, Daikon Eno. And his story is recounted in the Platform Sutra.

[02:16]

So part of this history... is the division of Chinese Zen into two schools, the northern and southern, or gradual and sudden enlightenment schools. And Sikido Kisen's dates are 700 to 790, which is just about the whole 8th century. So he had a long life. And his poem was written, he wrote the poem, about 1,300 years ago. So here it is so present to us. 13th centuries. So the poem begins with an overview, and you don't need to be familiar with it to follow the talk, but it begins with an overview of what it is going to address, sort of like my saying, I'm going to give a talk today on such and such. So it begins, the mind of the great sage of India, and that refers to the Buddha, is intimately transmitted from west to east.

[03:18]

While human faculties are sharp or dull, the way has no northern or southern ancestors. The spiritual source shines clear in the light. The branching streams flow on in the dark. Grasping at things is surely delusion. According with sameness is still not enlightenment. So in order to thoroughly understand and study this poem, a person would need to be familiar with the sort of history and historical people in Chinese Zen, particularly the 7th and 8th centuries, as well as various texts and traditions on which this poem is a commentary and explication, and also its role in the development and the continuity of Zen and Japanese Zen, which is where we have landed. So some of these resources are knowledge of the schools of Zen and the Zen lineage, the platform sutra, which I mentioned, and the concepts of emptiness, the absolute and the relative, which the poem is very engaged with.

[04:36]

And then Nagarjuna is a Machamaka Karaka, the heart sutra and commentaries, a work called The Awakening of Faith, Tattagatagarbha, Buddha nature, Abhidharma teachings, Taoism, Tendai Buddhism, the history of Japan and Japanese Zen, Dogen Zenji's teachings, and so on. So this very beautiful, simple poem is echoing all these teachings and these other commentaries. And Suzuki Roshi, Shinryo Suzuki, wrote, well, he gave a series of lectures. And those were compiled into Branching Streams, Flow in the Darkness, Zen Talks on the Sandokai, which Zach is going to use for his class. And then Shohaku Okamura more recently wrote a commentary on it in his book, Living by Vow, a practical introduction to eight essential Zen chants and texts.

[05:43]

So these commentaries imply that this is a very important... chant and in Zen history and in our practice and in the whole experience of insight. It's chanted daily in many Soto Zen temples and at the memorial of the temple's founding teacher and we chant it at the monthly Suzuki Roshi Memorial. And a version of the last verse, Don't Waste Time, is painted on the wooden Han that is used to call people to Zen, which you just heard. So all of this, this rich history and meaning and depth and concern about the teachings and how to explain them, is in this poem. So Suzuki... comments in Branching Streams, some people say the Sandokai is not such a good poem because it is so philosophical.

[06:51]

It may be so if you don't understand the background of Sikido's teaching and if your mind does not penetrate through his words. So over time and hearing some of these teachings in talks or reading books or something, You can develop some familiarity with what he's talking about. And most of us will just hear and chant and interpret the poem from our sort of personal experience or perspective. And all of that's legitimate, but it's interesting to know where it comes from and comes to us. So the overall tone of the poem is a commentary on the interactivity of the relative and absolute truths.

[07:52]

That is, in the light there is darkness, in the dark there is light. So they both contain each other in a certain way or talk to each other. And this interactivity... neither affirms nor negates either truth. They're both always in play. And I think most of us intuitively know that in our daily lives, but to study it and to consider how it actually works or manifests is what the poem is trying to encourage. So in studies of religion and spirituality, there are usually... There's found two tendencies. One is the apophatic or negative, and that's associated with developing wisdom. And the cataphatic or positive, and that's associated with developing compassion.

[08:56]

They're not separate, but they're ways to see things or study them. And in simple terms... these could be referred to as study and application, and application is also something called praxis. It's, you know, practice, we say, and praxis is the Latin term. And in his teaching on the Sandokai and in many of his other talks, Suzuki encourages study, and apparently he tried to get his students to study and... You know, I think that, I mean, I was thinking about, you know, he came from Japan, and he had a university education, and here he comes to try to teach people who have no background whatsoever in what he's offering. And I think he just wanted people to join him, you know?

[09:59]

Here, just read this so that we can discuss it. You know, this is, and so I think that was his, and I often have requested that of students who I've spoken to. Well, you know, why don't you read this and then we can talk. You know, how do we invite each other to engage in that way? But Suzuki then says, almost always, that zazen or meditation is the most important aspect of Zen endeavor. So I think his point is that You know, study informs our zazen. Like, what are we doing? What does it mean that in the light there is darkness and in the dark there is light? How does that get manifested or develop a kind of an intuition about how our mind and our body works? So I think his point is, you know, that they are complementary.

[11:06]

And that complementarity sort of gives both vitality. So the meeting or the interactivity of the relative and absolute truths and of the apophatic and cataphatic methods and study and application is... what I believe the poem is addressing. So generally, I think one comes to practice out of self-pity. And at first, you'd think that self-pity is part of the first noble truth of suffering. But it's actually a characteristic of the second noble truth of desire, that wishing things to change or stay the same, or sort of becoming apathetic about everything.

[12:08]

And the path to the deepest aspects of practice often is based in sitting in our self-pity until we feel at home in it. That is to know ourselves intimately. And Suzuki says, Buddha's way is the study and teaching of human nature, including how foolish we are, what kinds of desires we have, our preferences and tendencies. Zen is difficult. But anyway, this is a difficult world, so don't worry. Wherever you go, you have problems. You should confront your problems. It may be much better to have these problems of practice rather than some other mixed-up kinds of problems. And I think, in a way, you know, that sort of... brings us to practice, and then gives practice its life for us. This kind of better-to-have-the-problems practice than some mixed-up kind of problems.

[13:17]

And he isn't saying that our problems are solvable or unsolvable, but that in the context of practice, they are our resources. They're just the aspects of the human condition. And that means placing our relative self-pity. And I think it's good to find terms like that so that, oh, you know, you see what you're doing. There's something clear to look at. So this relative self-pity, putting that into relationship with eternity or equality or the absolute. And Suzuki says... The absolute truth is something we may think of as a deity. So the interactivity of the relative and absolute is a container for what might be called prayer or radical hope. And the container for this interactivity is emptiness.

[14:22]

And the absolute, or darkness... is where there is no exchange value or materialistic value or even spiritual value. So the prayer or the hope that is engaged there, it's not a bargain. It's not like you're asking for something and expecting it and being disappointed if you don't get it, and this is for yourself or others. But it's this... that's not based on bargaining. So when he says we may think of it as a deity, to me that's something similar to how people pray. It's not, you know, like there's a tendency to think that's a bargain. But if it's... And I think actually that that's what the story of Job is about in the Bible.

[15:27]

I think there's many interpretations of it. But it's about that your relationship to the absolute, it's not based on bargaining or rewards or relief of suffering. There's some other conversation. And this is an aspect of pastoral care. And that's the effort of the spiritual representative. is to offer a container for this interdependence of the relative and absolute to do its work. And that container can accommodate how foolish we are, what kinds of desires we have, and our preferences and tendencies, as Suzuki said, for anyone in the container. And so the role of a pastor, and in our Zen lingo, we say the practice leader or the teacher, But that role, it's not an arrogant one of I know stuff, but it's to access a kind of bare pre-prejudicial state of mind while upholding the principles of professional care.

[16:40]

So this container has some conditions about it in order for it to work. So I think, you know, again, I walked into this room and I did my bows. That's so that I acknowledge my non-expertness. And then I sit down and you hear my voice. So Suzuki refers to this in terms of love. And in his commentary on the first few lines, he explains the term ki. The capacity of the human mind has three aspects. Potentiality, interrelationship, and appropriateness. So he explains that potentiality refers to both current and future possibility, as in the possibility of attaining Buddhahood, or even Bodhisattva-hood, if we think in those terms.

[17:48]

Interrelationship describes the interaction between a Buddha and someone with a good nature and between a Buddha and someone with a bad nature. And appropriateness means applying good means. If you see people who are suffering because of their ignorance, because they don't know what they are doing, you weep, you suffer with them. When you see people who enjoy their true nature... you should share their joy and give them encouragement. So these three capacities inform each other. That's potentiality, interrelationship, and appropriateness. And for the second one, he says, so ki sometimes means the interrelationship between someone who helps and someone who has helped. This is also called ji hi. Ji hi, ji hi. Here means to encourage someone.

[18:52]

He means to give happiness. Jihi is usually translated love. Love has two sides. One is to give joy and the other is to lessen suffering. To lessen someone's suffering, we suffer with them. We share their suffering. That is love. And this love... It's an offering in the sense that there is no expectation of return or response as exchange. So he's not saying, you know, oh, I am offering this or, you know, you are receiving this. It's more that the person who's encouraged in their joy or supported through their suffering is isn't asked or required to accept what is offered. It's more this, both people are part of this.

[19:55]

So he describes love in the self another way, but the context is that interrelationship that he was referring to, which means that neither person is superior or better equipped for loving. They both need to enter the container that allows for this interdependence of the relative and the absolute to work, or to do its work. And I think this is difficult and rare, and it's something we're always developing, remembering, reminding ourselves and others that that's our job as... I don't know, practitioners, human beings, whatever. Okamura says, Sikido's teachings on difference and unity are really about seeing our lives from two different perspectives as one seamless reality.

[21:05]

So I think that this sense of the interactivity of light and darkness or relative and absolute is part of any experience of change or transition. And, you know, these are always happening moment to moment, day to day and so on. And at Zen Center in the last few months, it has just been one thing after another to put it in, you know, conventional terms. There have been a lot of changes and transitions and other things. The first group of retirees left and moved to Enso Village, and I'll be going there soon. And City Center, as you know, was closed for renovations, so some people left, and many, many people had to change their living and working situations. And all this adjustment and these changes and who is here and... all those sort of things. And for, you know, there were residents who left, and they're making their adjustments somewhere else, but, you know, a lot of adjustment is going on for those who are still here.

[22:25]

And visitors to the temple, as many of you are, there's no longer, you know, that access to the building and passing people in the hallways, and that sort of ordinary kind of social... So that's shifted away. And a city center resident took their own life. And at Tassajara, a Sangha member died while they were out hiking. And this is just in the last few months, all of that for us and for many of you who are not residents. And then there's the wider world events, you know. And holding all of this, and I think that for many of us, you know, feeling some extra responsibility and concern due to our spiritual vows and our intentions. And it results in responses that may vary, but I think all of our responses are true, human, they're sorrowful in some ways, and they combine both hope and

[23:39]

And when change or transition is particularly intense, time kind of moves strangely between past and future, and the present seems less accessible. And these events and these shifts and all these things kind of surface griefs and losses and joys and triumphs. from the past, as well as a kind of a hope for avoiding future griefs and attaining future joys. So Suzuki said, time does not wait for you. So you should go on and on following reality. You cannot think the same thing always. You cannot always stop and think. You should just go on and on making your best efforts. Sometimes you feel as if you are doing something good, and sometimes you feel as if you are doing something bad.

[24:46]

But you have to accept that you are going on and on in that way. Then you should do something, say something. So as I said, I'm moving to Enso, and I've been in the midst of this transition, packing and doing all these things, and leaving San Francisco, where I basically have lived since I was a little kid. Even though I've lived other places, I've always returned to San Francisco. And the city has changed. But, you know, it remains so familiar. There are places I just go over and over and people I know and, you know, places I shop and the people who work there and the trees and the gardens and this neighborhood and when I go farther away. Golden Gate Park, most important, and other of these little neighborhood parks that I just, I just, I don't know.

[25:48]

So that, you know, that daily familiarity and navigation will change, obviously, with my move. And I will need to establish new paths and places. And I'll also be leaving Zen Center, where I've lived and worked and practiced for 35 years. So moving to Enso Village feels a bit like dying twice. You know, once in leaving everything familiar in my life, including one of my sisters who lives in the city, and supportive, and then my actual death, which, if that doesn't happen in the next week or two, will happen at Enso. So is this sort of attitude facing reality, or... wasting time worrying and thinking. I think it's kind of both. And as relative and absolute reality meet in all of this, because I have access to it and I purposely have access to that interactivity consciously, I think moments of peace and unsettledness just keep going back and forth.

[27:05]

I... And I feel that that's what transitions are about. But to have that access, to always remember it, because many of you are experiencing and have experienced loss and change and endings in your working and living situations and in relationships, and the disequilibrium that can be caused by national and world as well as local events. and the fear and the grief and the relief sometimes, boredom, numbness, excitement, and all these natural responses. But as I was saying, however any of us respond, this idea of impermanence and of the interactivity of the relative and the absolute can be available when things are hectic and miserable or ecstatic and liberating. And it's not a solution, but it's a perspective.

[28:12]

In an article I was reading in the London Review of Books on Artificial Intelligence, the reviewer said, to be able to express new facts, language must be to some extent unpredictable, which sets an absolute limit on what a network can learn about it. To be able to express new facts, language must be, to some extent, unpredictable. And I think of how much language has changed since I was a teenager. The words we use, the phrases we use, the things we referred to, and then that same activity, in a sense, is happening, but it's been impacted by decades of the world sort of shifting and changing. So I think that type of unpredictability is also related to creativity and evolution, adjusting to circumstances.

[29:13]

And the more predictable we hope our lives to be, the more limited they will be, of course. And yet predictability can be a good thing, knowing some things that are happening next. But that creative working of unpredictability is also, something to remember, you know, every time our familiar is upended. So I think, oh, you know, it's really beautiful up in Healdsburg. What am I worried about, you know? And that sort of thing. Or maybe I'll find things I didn't realize I was interested in. Who knows? All those kinds of things. And... In his commentary on the image in Sakito's poem of Arrow Points Meeting, it says Arrow Points Meeting in midair, Okamura says, We shouldn't negate our individual opinions, but we have to see things as a whole. The most desirable condition is when both ways of seeing meet each other, like the arrows shot by the masters.

[30:23]

If we can perceive a situation like that, we can be really peaceful. It doesn't happen very often because it's really difficult. So rather than, you know, seeking after peace as some imagined state of satisfaction, the point is to not waste time. That's what the poem says. Or in our version, I respectfully urge you who study the mystery, do not pass your days and nights in vain. So Suzuki says, Sugito says that if you practice our way in its true sense, there is no problem about being far away from the goal or almost there. Even though you work very hard, it does not always mean that you are doing the right thing. The famous koan, every day is a good day, doesn't mean that you shouldn't complain if you have some difficulty.

[31:29]

What it means is, Don't spend your time in vain. So, you know, in the midst of whatever we're experiencing and what I'm experiencing and so on, or imagining, you know, I think let's take, you know, that chance of thinking that today is a good day. Even while, you know, we experience some dread or some kind of... hope for things to change. And, you know, not a good day as he says, you know, as being kind of comfortable, but as a touchstone to sort of accommodating the unfolding of what can't be controlled or predicted. And he's, you know, emotional and psychological components can be overwhelming.

[32:31]

And I think the world still, I mean, now that I'm in my 70s, I somehow feel this sort of radical hope that in some form or way the world does go on, you know, and sometimes it's kind of sweeping us along and sometimes allowing us to rest. And that's far from complacent. to say that, even though it sounds like it, because all that other stuff is still happening. It's not as though this is an escape. So Sakito's poem proposes a Zen perspective on the interactivity of the relative and the absolute, which is the container of emptiness, in which everything is included and which the relative and absolute converse. through words and emotions and actions. And I describe this as poignant.

[33:37]

The quality of this is poignant. And I recently read a description of it as ripened melancholy combined with rituals of gratitude. So, you know, we don't have an alternative place to go, really, but Because wherever we go, we take ourselves and all our stuff and joys and sorrows and everything. But in this container of the relative and absolute, that interactivity, and those are expectations and fantasies and the thoughts and emotions that accompany them. In that container, they can shift. and find, you know, groundedness or peace, and approach an accommodation with reality. A ripened melancholy combined with rituals of gratitude.

[34:41]

That's pretty practical, actually. Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[35:10]

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