This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. A very esteemed looking group. So welcome to the first day of Sashin. And I want to begin by thanking Victoria and Mark for inviting me to give the Dharma talk this morning, which I see as kind of an extended orientation to the Sashin. And this Sashin is the culmination of a practice period that... Vicki and Mark have been co-leading for the past six weeks.

[01:06]

And the theme that they chose for the practice period is come as you are, which I think means to them and to us that you don't have to change yourself around or dress up. or improve yourself in some way to participate in this practice period. You can just come along and be yourself. And I think it's a worthwhile exploration for us to explore what it means to be yourself. had people say, oh, just be yourself at times, and it's not always so clear at all what that would mean, or when you're being yourself and when you're not.

[02:11]

So I want to make some suggestions about what it might mean from the perspective of Zen Buddhist practice. So I think that... Being yourself means accepting yourself as you are. You might say warts and all. And accepting your life as it actually is, rather than looking for some greener grass on the other side of the fence. Accepting your body. as it is, and actually treasuring and appreciating all that it allows you to do. So it allows you to be alive and practice in the first place. Even if you think it has some flaws or disabilities or limitations, it's still wonderful to have a body.

[03:25]

And accepting your karma, which to me means accepting your dharma position in this world right now, accepting the circumstances of your life that are brought about by all the causes and conditions of all time in the world. So your individual karma and your collective karma that result in your being here now. And accepting the truth of things as it is, as Suzuki Roshi used to say. So accepting the nature of reality, how things actually are. how we exist in the world, and how everything exists. So that's a lot, isn't it?

[04:31]

Do you think we can do all that today? I think that's a pretty tall order, and it sounds to me like a lifetime of diligent practice to just be ourselves. So this sushin, of course, is a time to focus on sitting meditation. So it's an opportunity to practice with the teaching that we don't sit to improve ourselves or get enlightened or become Buddha. I think we sit to see more clearly the nature of reality, to study the nature of reality, to find out who we are, and to actualize our true nature.

[05:41]

So again, just to be here as who we are and really look closely and carefully at what that is. So in the rhythm of life at city center, a practice period is usually a time of intensification when there are more practice activities and more is expected of us. We step up our practice a bit. But this particular practice period was designed by Mark and Vicki, especially to be accessible to everyone, including people who might have difficulty doing a very intense practice period for physical reasons or reasons pertaining to their schedules, either their work schedules or family commitments or whatever.

[06:53]

And in fact, both of the practice period leaders, both Vicki and Mark, have such limitations themselves. And I think it is a compassionate response on their part to offer a practice period that can be done by a wide variety of people. And you've been practicing during this time with compassion. So you know that one of the ways that we develop compassion is to see our own challenges and difficulties and know that other people have similar ones, that we're all in this together. So they can... be compassionate with other people and their special needs and requirements and schedules too. I think in America, we have a culture that includes a lot of self-loathing,

[08:14]

or self-criticism. And so the practice of self-acceptance is especially beneficial and important for us. But it's also challenging and difficult. I think often we don't really think that we're acceptable just as we are. We have a variety of ideas about who we are versus who we might think we should be or who we might wish we were. And a lot of us have the tendency to compare ourselves with other people or with some ideal that we imagine. Sometimes I wonder what the effect will be on our psyche that our culture is so pervaded with the use of Photoshop.

[09:28]

You know, our picture of life and the human condition has been Photoshopped. It used to be that you could retouch a photograph a little, but now you can... completely change the vision of reality or what a human being looks like. So what is that going to mean for us? Are we going to try to attain some completely imaginary and unattainable ideal? I think we have to be careful about that. And sometimes we want someone else's life. or some other life that we imagine. And actually, if we want someone else's life, that's probably an imaginary life. We don't see all the difficulty and the nitty-gritty of anybody else's life.

[10:31]

There's that phrase that psychotherapists use about comparing your insides to somebody else's outsides. that I think is useful to keep in mind. So I think the practice that we actually do, the teaching that we're here to follow, is to wholeheartedly live the life that we actually have from moment to moment. Be patient with its difficult moments and appreciate its wonderful moments. The idea that we're fine just as we are is paradoxical. It doesn't mean that we don't have to make any effort. And, of course, I'm sure we're all thinking of that famous phrase of Suzuki Roshi's that you're perfect just as you are.

[11:44]

but you could use a little improvement. And the founder of our school of Zen, Ehe Dogen Zenji, had a burning question in the early years of his practice, which was, if I'm already enlightened... If I have Buddha nature to begin with, why do I have to practice and exert myself? And he practiced and practiced, and through his practice, he arrived at an answer that satisfied him to that question. One of the paths to living as a bodhisattva, which is what we try to do here, is the six paramitas, or the six perfections.

[12:45]

These are six trainings for aspiring bodhisattvas. And one of them is diligence. And the Eightfold Noble Path, which was Buddha's formulation about how to end suffering, how to practice with... the inevitable suffering in our lives is right effort. So we study what it means to make right effort. And even the sweet and gentle loving-kindness meditation that we've been chanting every day for noon service reflects this balance of... joy and ease and effort. This is what should be accomplished by the one who is wise, who seeks the good and has obtained peace.

[13:52]

Let one be strenuous, upright, and sincere, without pride, easily contented and joyous. Standing or walking, sitting or lying down, During all one's waking hours, let one practice the way with gratitude. I appreciated Mark's email suggestion that those of us who are participating in this practice period read Suzuki Roshi's lecture on naturalness. And I hope... Some of you have, but most of you have. Suzuki Roshi came to America in 1959. And that was the end of the B era and the beginning of the hippie era. And I think both of those cultures really valued and prized and appreciated things that were natural.

[15:06]

So natural food was popular, and clothing made out of natural fabrics. Natural hairstyles, which might have meant long, flowing hair or ponytails for men, and kemped or not so kemped. The young people didn't necessarily have the same standards about bathing or dress that their parents had. So in this idea of naturalness, there was some feeling of rejection of establishment mores or our parents' mores. And it's in this context that Suzuki Roshi gave this talk. about naturalness, and I want to read a little of it. There is a big misunderstanding about the idea of naturalness.

[16:14]

Most people who come to us believe in some freedom or naturalness, but their understanding is what we call heretical. which means there is no need to be formal, just a kind of let-alone policy or sloppiness. That is naturalness for most people, but that is not the naturalness we mean. The true practice of zazen is to sit as if drinking water when you are thirsty. There you have naturalness. It is quite natural for you to take a nap when you are very sleepy. But to take a nap just because you are lazy, as if it were the privilege of a human being to take a nap, is not naturalness.

[17:23]

You think, My friends, all of them, are napping. Why shouldn't I? This is not naturalness. Your mind is entangled with some other idea, someone else's idea, and you are not independent, not yourself, and not natural. So being natural isn't just doing what you want or what you see other people doing. I think it's accepting your own particular life as it is and making a real effort to live in harmony with the way things are. And that's being ourselves and the kind of naturalness that we're cultivating. The founder of our school, Dogen Zenji, one of his most famous writings is Genjo Koan, which includes the instruction to study the Buddha way is to study the self.

[18:48]

And I appreciated Shohaku Okamura's commentary on the word study in that instruction. He says that that word study means to get accustomed to, to become familiar with, to get used to, to become intimate with. The kanji, the lower part, depicts the wings of a bird. And the upper part means self. So this kind of study is like a baby bird learning to fly from its parents. By nature, the baby bird has the capacity to fly, but does not know how to fly. It learns by watching its parents and then trying over and over and over.

[19:56]

until finally it flies. When I first started sitting, I think it was a little like this. I didn't enjoy zazen. I have seen people who sit down to their first period of zazen or go to Tassajara for tangario, and they just take to it like a duck to water and enjoy it from the first moment. I was not one of those people. it was pretty hard for me. I was in pain, and I didn't see a lot of benefit happening, so I would ask myself why I was doing this. And I don't know why I was doing it. Something kept me there. Something made me continue. And eventually, my experience of it took over, and I began to feel... like I was at home, like it was something I was accustomed to.

[21:01]

And it was the direct experience rather than debating its merit in my head or asking myself why I was doing this or is this a crazy thing to do? Why does it make any sense? So I have some feeling of this myself. And now it seems very... now that I've gotten used to it, and I really appreciate the practice of sitting. One of the features of this practice period that Mark and Vicki included was one week of not taking attendance for the residence. You... I... I think sometimes people who don't live here are surprised to see someone taking attendance. Doesn't everyone just want to sit zazen? Well, yes, I think we all do, but we don't necessarily know that at 4 o'clock in the morning when our alarm goes off.

[22:10]

Then it's kind of a question. So I think Mark and Vicki intended that everybody would look. at this choice that we make to sit zazen and see what it was about for us. Was it to impress somebody who would look at the attendance figures? Was it to continue living here? Was it because we loved zazen? What was it about? What motivated us? And so we had this week of no taking of attendance. And then last week we had a residence meeting where Mark asked people to comment if they would like to on how this was for them. And we had a very rich conversation. So some people said that they appreciated the choice.

[23:12]

that they appreciated getting to choose for themselves what worked best for them on that particular day and given the circumstances of their lives without some feeling that anybody was looking over their shoulder or judging them. And some people who decided to sleep in and not go to the Zendo said that they really appreciated the extra rest and were grateful for it. And some people said it really didn't make any difference that they came here to Sitzazen, they love to do it, and they don't come because of whether somebody's taking attendance or not. And some people said that it was troublesome because they had to think about it every morning. There wasn't this automatic expectation that they would have to do this, and so it was a question, it was a choice, and a certain amount of mental and emotional energy preceded whatever decision they finally made.

[24:28]

I know this well, because as Tano, I'm obliged to go to Zasana every day. It's expected of me, and I have no question about it. It's not a choice, and I find that extremely supportive for my practice. I feel really lucky to be in that circumstance. It's a big help. And when interim comes, I don't get up, and I enjoy that too. That will be after this session. So I think this exercise accomplished what Vicki and Mark had in mind, which is it got us all to think about it and notice what we do and why we do it, what our process is around it. Very rich. The teachers and practice leaders at City Center are part of a committee called the Practice Committee.

[25:35]

that meets every week and we have discussions and sometimes make decisions about practice issues and at a recent meeting after this Saturday when the residents spoke up we had a conversation about whether to continue not taking attendance for the rest of the summer and Oh, I skipped something that's very important. Just a minute, let me figure out what to do. So I'm going to read something from another Suzuki Roshi talk called Control, which is relevant to how the practice committee looked at this. To give your sheep or cow a large, spacious meadow is the way to control him.

[26:42]

So it is with people. First, let them do what they want and watch them. This is the best policy. To ignore them is not good. That is the worst policy. The second worst is trying to control them. The best one is to watch them, just watch them, without trying to control them. So I think that's, we didn't talk about this passage, but the flavor of it is kind of the flavor of the conversation that we had. we felt like actually we want to know how people are doing. And whether they come to Zazen or not is one of the aspects of their practice that it's interesting to observe, to see how people are doing, how people are feeling in their practice.

[27:46]

And we felt like... to not take attendance for such a long period the whole summer was a little bit like ignoring your sheep or cow, that we just wouldn't know what was going on. We wouldn't know if someone needed encouragement or maybe was sick or needed help in some way. So... We felt like taking attendance was more like watching but not controlling. And that's what we decided to do. Of course, we can't control anybody. We can't control anyone's behavior. None of us can. But sometimes people feel like someone else is trying to control them.

[28:49]

And that's a very unpleasant situation. So I think when that feeling or thought comes up, it's helpful for us to remind ourselves that actually we make our own choices and no one can control us. We do naturally, I think, set up circumstances that are in keeping with our intentions for our life. So if we want to know who we are, and we want to know the truth of reality, and that's our priority for our life, and we think we can do that through Buddhist practice, then we set up circumstances or a structure to help us, to support us in that. So we found a Zen center, offer a practice period.

[29:50]

have a sushine. And I think that's what's happening here. And people come here deliberately for that support, for a situation where they can sit every day with other people and the motivation to do that is shared. It's very supportive and helpful. I think it's much easier than sitting on one's own, although that can be a very strong practice also. I think that people who sit at home alone on their own and can do it regularly have a very, very strong practice. And it's natural to have rhythms in our lives, times of more intensity or less intensity, times of greater effort and greater ease. So this practice period is the culmination of the sashin.

[30:54]

It's sort of a container within a container within a container, like those Chinese boxes that fit into each other. And in this container, we have a safe place where we can be natural. and see what that means. We can be ourselves without having to plan or strategize or accomplish something or become somebody in particular. We can drop our usual comparisons and just be who we are and study who that is and what that is. And we can... practice freedom and see what freedom actually is. So how do we do that during Sushin within this structure that's been created?

[32:02]

I think we follow the schedule, and the schedule mirrors us. The schedule will show us some things about ourselves and what we actually want to do. we follow the meditation instructions that we're using. So people may be doing a variety of things, shamatha, shakantaza, practicing with the Brahma Vaharas, following the breath, counting the breath. But whatever you're doing, adhering to that set of instructions and trying to bring it to life in your life. Eating what's served. And doing your Zendo job that you were assigned to do. Sitting still as much as you're able as a foundation for a still mind and to keep from distracting your neighbors.

[33:06]

Keeping silence yourself and in doing so supporting the silence of the whole body of the Sashim. In general, just making your best effort to follow the admonitions for the sashim. So I think all this is natural, and it's also natural that there will be moments during sashim when you'll see that you don't want to do this, when you actually don't want to follow the schedule, or there's something in your bowl that you don't want to eat, or you don't want to do the job that was assigned. And then the practice of trying to harmonize is to try to let go of that and just do the next thing. Do follow the schedule.

[34:09]

Do do your job. Finish your meal. And it's a balance. You have to pay attention to your own needs and self-care and observe what comes up around all of this. So, for example, I was at home getting ready for this talk, but I hear that there's a great deal of noise going on. that the zendo is very noisy, that there's construction work that's probably going to continue through Friday. How do we practice with that? Can we accept that that's happening and bring it into our lives and not have it be separate from us? Can we take it in and work with it? So that's the kind of activity that we do during Sashin, trying to be with whatever pleasant or unpleasant thing is happening with some kind of equanimity.

[35:19]

One of the main ways that Sashin is different from our usual daily sitting schedule, has to do with time. We sit for a longer period of time than we may be used to. And that brings up issues about time and how we relate to time. So we've set aside this time to do this. and it will be some time before we have this opportunity again. There actually won't be another sushin until December. And some of us may have some fear, either a lot of fear or maybe just a little bit of fear, about sitting for such a long time.

[36:34]

At the beginning of a sushin, it may seem like there's this huge expanse of time ahead of us to be filled with sitting. So I encourage you during these three days to pay attention to your experience and observe the thoughts that you have about time and also your actual experience. I think we all have times when we wish that time will pass quickly. And at the very same time that we're doing that, we know that that's wishing our life away. Because we have an intuitive understanding that what time actually is, is our life. That's all it is. It's not something. that's separate from us, that marches on without us.

[37:39]

Time is just our life. I remember in my early sessions, I really had the belief, which I never articulated to myself, that if you're in pain and you continue sitting, It just gets worse. Or if you're tired, you're just going to keep getting more tired until you go to sleep that night. And so there were times when I would be cranky and achy and tired and not want to sit the next period of sushine. I would think, I don't feel good now, and if I sit more, I'll just feel worse and worse. But you're supposed to follow the schedule, right? So the bell would ring, and somehow I would sit down and stay for the period.

[38:46]

And lo and behold, I would have a pleasant, comfortable, easy period of zazen sometimes. And that was a real revelation to me. And I think it's because of the nature of time that time is just change and impermanence. And our life and the conditions of life are arising and disappearing in every moment. So every moment, there's a new world for us. Every moment, we're a new person. And so whatever was causing your pain in the previous moment may not be present in the next moment. Things change, and you can't predict how they will change. All you can do is be curious and enjoy life unfolding, I think.

[39:52]

For that reason, And also, you know, our experience isn't just dependent on the condition of our bodies or on one particular thing. So I think it's safe to say that we're going to continue sitting in this room for a few more minutes. We're not probably going to get up and go somewhere, and hopefully there won't be a big earthquake or anything to change the whole world suddenly. Things will just probably continue sort of as they are. But we don't, any of us, actually know what we'll be experiencing even 20 seconds from now. So I think that, for me, is really helpful to keep in mind, that life is an unfolding... and something to be curious about and interested in.

[40:58]

And it's my life. All of this stuff that happens is my life, and I want to be there for it. It's what I have. So our practice is to see that we're not separate from time. Before I stop, which I'm going to do soon, I want to talk just a little bit about the four immeasurables that we've been practicing with. I think they're wonderful practices, loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. And I encourage you to bring them into your meditation during this Sashin. Find ways for them to help you. So I would suggest that every time you sit down for a period of zazen, you take just a moment and wish loving kindness for yourself and the people sitting on either side of you and all the people in the zendo that are part of the sushin.

[42:16]

And if you decide to do more loving-kindness meditation than that, I think it's an excellent concentration practice. So I think that would be just great. I think it's just great as a meditation practice on its own. And there will inevitably be moments when you are suffering or you see that someone else seems to be suffering. And when that happens, can you pause and find in yourself the wish to end suffering for yourself and others by seeing yourself and everyone else with the eyes of compassion? And there will inevitably be moments when you have pleasure, and really appreciate the time that we're spending together.

[43:23]

So when that happens, can you feel gratitude and rejoice at your own good fortune to be able to do this and wish for it for your friends who are sitting the sashim with you? And maybe you can even extend it to people out in the world who don't know about sashims. And ultimately, we practice even-mindedness, accepting equally everything that arises as our precious life. Thank you. 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.

[44:26]

For more information, visit sfcc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[44:36]

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