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. Good morning. A poem by Branslav Maj. sorry, I'm not sure of the pronunciation, who was born in 1953 in Krakow, Poland. A leaf, one of the last parts from a maple branch. It is spinning in its transparent air of October, falling on a heap of others, stops, fades. No one admired its entrancing struggle with the wind, followed its flight. No one, We'll distinguish it now as it lies among other leaves.

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No one saw what I did. I am the only one. A leaf, one of the last, parts from a maple branch. It is spinning in the transparent air of October. Falls on a heap of others. Stops. Fades. No one admired its entrancing struggle with the wind. Followed its flight. No one will distinguish it now as it lies among other leaves. No one saw what I did. I am the only one. Years ago, my therapist told me a story about one of his teachers at the university who wrote on the blackboard the two principles of psychiatric work. The first being... Number one, abandon all rescue fantasies. And number two, read number one again. So I have been thinking about the great effort that we make, each of us, to recognize our unwholesome behavior and ideation, to acknowledge and accept the ways that we harm each other through our racial conditioning, our gender conditioning, our wealth conditioning,

[02:26]

our class privilege, and so on and so on, what the Buddha called our ancient twisted karma. I do not think there is anyone in this room who is free from remorse, not only for the things that we ourselves have done, but also for the seemingly insurmountable degree of suffering that is taking place right now on this planet. species vanishing, people vanishing, lies, hatred, and theft. None of which, according to the Buddha's teaching, is in any way separable from us. So I know for sure that I cannot help you. And I cannot help myself either. And you somehow, I have been able to find, I can find, and I have found a way to engage my life with this practice.

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And somehow, as if by magic alone, I have found these teachings. And I have met a great number of inspirational teachers, young people, old people, animals, and plants who have shown me a way to live. which at its very core, as far as I can tell, is utterly silent and still. There is nothing happening. There is suffering. There is no suffering. And yet suffering has a cause. So what is it? And although we all know the first noble truth by heart, through and through, I think we need to try even harder to understand the root cause of our suffering, to try even harder to find relief for ourselves without abandoning the world.

[04:38]

And then, and only then, will we be able to offer that medicine to anyone else. So that said, I thought maybe a little good news would be nice. to balance out the sadness which I know many of us have been feeling for the last two weeks, the last few years, and perhaps our entire lives. The good news is that alongside the various defiled aspects of human consciousness, the akushala dharmas, greed, hate, and delusion, there are also wholesome qualities within our minds. kushala dharmas, namely non-attachment, aloba, loving-kindness, maitri, and wisdom, prajna. It has been said that the principal aim, if not the only aim, of Buddhism is to cultivate these and all related wholesome qualities.

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When Okamara Roshi, who taught at the Zen Center a few years back, told us about Soto Zen, he said, the emphasis of our practice is on keeping busy doing good so that we don't have any time left over for doing anything bad. So I don't know how well that's working, but it is not the worst strategy I have ever heard. And yet I am still wondering just what it means doing good. Maybe that's not so obvious. So as I have sought in my own brief life of practice to find a usable framework for my own effort at doing good, doing good, as you know, being the second of the three pure precepts, avoid evil, do good, save all beings. I was particularly benefited in my own search by a talk that Trungpa Rinpoche gave back in 1978, the year that I arrived at Zen Center.

[06:47]

That talk is in a little book called Glimpses of Abhidharma. Trungpa Rinpoche, for those who don't know him or know about him, was the founder of the Shambhala community. His son is a sakyong who is currently being confronted by that community over some of the same failures of ethical deportment that characterized his father's teaching career. Unbridled excuse me, unbridled, maybe unbridled as well, unbridled male privilege, which in my mind is not a gender issue at all, but a dominance issue, and which thankfully is not quite what it used to be when I was a young woman long, long ago, right here in this community. And yet both of them, father and son, have offered through their capacities as vessels of the Dharmak, albeit leaky ones, some really useful and beautiful teachings to their students without forgetting even for a moment what we have learned from our own studies of this human life.

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And that is that saying and doing are in two entirely different categories. The lesser harm being unwholesome speech, the greater harm unwholesome action, as in very bad karma. Placing vets on the side of bad karma is not likely to end very well, neither in this lifetime or after you are dead, as in the way the people you care about will remember you. So that said, Trungpa's teaching really resonated with me at that time, at the beginning of my practice, as it does now. What also resonates for me now, much less than it did then, is that all of us, from the Rinpoches to the Roshis to the Acharyas and the Abbasis on down, are somewhat deficient in the vital way of total emancipation. Which doesn't mean we didn't try or that we shouldn't keep on trying.

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It means, as my beloved therapist used to say to me, human first. And as the Buddha wisely said, morality first, precepts first. And how? How? By cleaning your room, by washing your oryoki cloths, and by being kind to your friends, especially to those who you think are not your friends. And then and only then can we begin to learn what it really means to meditate. So basically, Trungpa's message to his students back in 1978 was that gatherings such as this one, this 90-day Ongo, are a blessing. And that's because they precisely fit, like a box and cover joining. They precisely fit the situation in which we find ourselves right now. We have all taken a chance on coming here. None of us knew, knows, or will ever know.

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how this commitment we have made is going to turn out. We took a chance, we placed our bets as the wheel kept turning. And in that coming together, all of the necessary conditions for practicing Buddha's way appear just like this. No other time and no other people, no other place and no other way, and especially no way out. Neither you nor I can get out of here, although I certainly have thought about it. Not now and not ever. So then, what's a girl to do? What's a boy to do in a truly non-binary universe? From that point of view, Rinpoche goes on to say, confusion, wandering in the samsaric realm of pain and misery, is not a punishment. It's not a mistake.

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But it is fitting. It is appropriate. It is an absolutely ideal situation. And although, as he points out, we could come to the same conclusion intellectually by resorting to the philosophical teachings which tell us that samsara and nirvana are not separate from one another in the same way that light is not separate from dark or inside from outside. but rather that each is simply an aspect of the other and of the causal nexus, just like in roulette. Without the tiny ball, the colored numbers, the dice, the hustlers and their well-dressed escorts, the winning and the losing, there could be no game at all. And yet, as the Rinpoche goes on to say, we don't have to take such a long way around to understand how fitting this situation is. If we simply look directly at the present moment, we can see that we don't need to have either samsara or nirvana, that neither one is required for us to be sitting here together at this very time.

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In fact, the whole situation itself doesn't really even need to exist. But it happens to be the case that it does, or so it seems, and so it is fitting. And therefore, we need to deal with it. And so once again, we place our bets, we make our move, and then we wait patiently for the wheel to go around. A winner or a loser? It's always too soon to tell. So this attitude about our life is neither optimistic or pessimistic. It's both of them together. The situation is fitting in that it is right, And it is fitting in that it is wrong, both at the same time, with each side depending for its existence on the other. Both poles constantly present, just like those of the great earth, as she too spins on her axis.

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Right in its own way is a healthy situation because it happens to be here. And wrong in its own way is a healthy situation because it happens to be here. and there is no need for judgments, objections, or complaints, although those are okay too if they happen to be here. In other words, the qualities of coincidence and auspiciousness are inseparable from the karmic structure of reality, which itself is based on the momentum that develops through the production of a self, better known in this university as the five skandhas. themselves in turn mere numbers on the wheel the Buddha called the 12-fold chain of dependent core rising which in and of itself is inseparable from the whole apparatus that brought us into this gambling hall to begin with where the only thing there is to do is to place our bets if we're able to meet the present situation

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the present coincidence with all of its karmic potency, we can eventually learn how it all works. Omniscience. Clearly observe, the dharma of the king of the dharma is thus. Four noble truths, the three marks of conditioned existence, and the 75 dharmas of the Sarvastavadhan, and much, much more. Once we have learned how it all works, we can become more skillful with those choices that we each make in the present moment. Meditation helps us to concentrate. Mindfulness helps us to know what aspect of our body and mind is disturbed or asleep. Effort gets us out of bed and onto our seats. Quite simple and yet not easy. So at this point, I have pretty much covered all of the major ingredients from the classical tradition as recorded in the Pali Canon.

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The mastery of the meditative trances, the inadvisability of severe austerities, the Buddha's first teachings, including the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, the Five Hindrances, the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, and in just a few minutes, the Four Rupajanas. For over 500 years, great faith in these practices produced real monks, real laypeople, and real temples throughout what became a real Buddhist world. But not only long ago, I can actually remember thinking as a young priest, a young monk, that these lovely things I was reading were completely and utterly true. perhaps edited slightly over the centuries, but nevertheless true. So I am going to end with a joke that I think is relevant to what happened next in Buddhist history, but not until I tell you a teaching story about the four Rupajanas.

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So I want you all to please make yourselves comfortable. Please. Are you comfortable? Which reminds me of this phrase we used in the tea ceremony where you get in the room and you're seated and then the host comes in with all these utensils and says, you know, please make yourself comfortable, which is very funny since you were about to be in SESA for 45 minutes or longer. And after a while I realized, oh, what she means is please make yourself comfortable with the situation that you're in. Thus have I heard. Once the Lord was staying in Rajagaha in the mango grove of Jivaka Kumrabaka, together with a large company of some 1,250 monks. At that time, the king of Magadha, having gone up to the roof of his palace, surrounded by his ministers on the full moon night of the fourth month, gave vent to this solemn utterance.

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Delightful friends, charming and auspicious is this moonlit night. Could we not today visit some ascetic or Brahmin who could bring peace to my heart? The ministers then named the many Brahmins and ascetics living in Rajagraha until at last Jivaka spoke thus, Sire, there is this blessed Lord in Arhat, a fully enlightened one, staying in my mango grove, endowed with wisdom and conduct, the knower of worlds, the incomparable trainer of men, teacher of the gods and of humans. enlightened and blessed, he may well bring peace to your heart. Very good, said the king, then have my riding elephants made ready. And then the king, having placed his wives each on one of the five hundred she elephants, accompanied by torchbearers, proceeded in royal state from Rajagraha towards Javaka's mango grove. Picture that. When the king came near the mango grove, he felt fear and terror, and his hair stood on end.

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And he said to Jivaka, Are you fooling me? Are you tricking me and delivering me up to my enemies? How is it that from this great number of 1,250 monks not a sneeze, a cough, or a whisper is to be heard? Have no fear, my lord, I did not deceive you, replied Jivaka. There are lights burning in the round pavilion. So the king and Jivaka alighted from their elephants and continued on foot to the pavilion's door. Jivaka said to the king, That is the Lord Buddha sitting against the middle column with his order of monks sitting in front of him. Then the king stood to one side and observed how the order of monks continued in silence like a clear lake, and he exclaimed, If only my son the prince were possessed of such calm as this order of monks. I think most parents feel that way about their kids. Then the king spoke to the Buddha, Lord Buddha. There are various craftsmen such as archers, cooks, barbers, potters, weavers, and basket makers enjoying here and now the visible fruit of their skill with their families and colleagues and their friends while supporting and maintaining the many ascetics and brahmins of Rajagraha.

[20:18]

thus assuring themselves the reward of heaven. Can you, Lord Buddha, point to such a reward visible here and now as a fruit of your homeless life? I think this continues to be the big question for all of us concerning our intention, our commitment, and perhaps most importantly of all, what we are expecting to get out of this homeless life that we are living here at Zen Mountain Monastery. at least for the remainder of this practice period, for some of you, and then for others of us, such as myself, even beyond that, I actually even know where I'm going to be buried, at least part of me, right out there in the flats. I do not think of that as home. At Green Gulch, Reb and Paul and Linda and I and Christina and... No, not Blanche and Steve. They had already gone.

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Anyway, we're standing together looking at the grave site and kind of imagining ourselves all buried side by side. And I said, do I have to be next to Paul? Couldn't I be next to Linda? So we haven't figured out the order yet, how we're going to do that. Who dies first or who was Abbott first or whatever. I still hope it's Linda. Anyway. So. Clearly, here at the Zen Center, we have created a hybrid community for monastics. Nothing against Paul, by the way. I really like the guy. Don't you get me wrong. Okay. Clearly, here at Zen Center, we have created a hybrid community for monastics and lay people alike. In most of the Buddhist world, you would have to pick one or the other, but not both. But as Suzuki Roshi said about us, here in America, we cannot define Zen Buddhists the same way that we do in Japan. American students are not priests and yet not completely lay people either.

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That you are not priests is an easy matter to see. But that you are not lay people is more difficult. You are on your way to discovering some appropriate way of life for yourselves. So sweet. And yet, so far anyway, no matter how careful we are setting things up, how progressive and inclusive we become, this same human mind with its troubling thoughts that plague each of us was plaguing the king of Magadha and no doubt his ministers and the multitude of his wives as well. Some things just seem to never change, such as suffering and its cause. Coming to understand the mind and how it forms its distorted versions of this world may truly be the only real work of our human life. And of course, we choose whether to do that work or not.

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Choosing to become an awakening being, a bodhisattva, is a vocation. It's a calling and pretty much a full-time job. even with an occasional day off. So it is our great fortune that if aspiring to become a Buddha is what you're choosing to do, the awakened ones of the past are continuing to speak to us, even in our own language, whichever language it may be, by telling us stories such as this one about the Buddha and the king, so that we too might understand suffering and how it is brought to an end. And yet there's really no secret about it. In fact, we have all been clearly told time and time again that suffering comes from how we think. Those seemingly endless loopings of happiness, sadness, despair, confusion, and regret, all of them perpetuated by a relentless longing to get something for ourselves that will never perish or run away.

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at least not for a good long while, something for ourselves that's not already here. Therefore, the remainder of the teaching given to the king by the Buddha is about the mind and about the joy of meditation. In particular, the sustained samadhi called the four rupajanas, which, as the Buddha tells the king, are the fruit, the reward of a homeless life. So in the next part of the narrative, the king is recounting to the Buddha the many conversations he's had with the ascetics and the Brahmins of Rajagraha, none of which gave him a promise of peace. Some had responded to him with theories of heaven, the eternalists, others with threats of hell, the protectors, the guardians, and still others who gave him no hope at all, the annihilationists. Dear king, when a meditator is perfected in morality, and in a wise restraint with regard to the senses, is mindful and clearly aware during all their waking hours, and lives as contented as a bird bearing nothing but its wings, then when he or she sits down cross-legged, holding their body erect, they will free themselves from the five hindrances, from ill will, from lust, from torpor and excitation, and from corrosive doubt.

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At which time the meditator thinks thus, Before I was ill, imprisoned and in debt, living as a slave, and now I rejoice and am glad to be free. From gladness comes delight. From delight in the mind comes delight in the body, a body which is then tranquil and at ease. With a tranquil body, he or she feels joy, and with joy the mind is concentrated. Being thus detached from sense desires, detached from unwholesome states, the meditator enters and remains in the first jhana, which is with thinking and pondering, born of detachment, filled with delight and joy. And with this delight and joy, born of detachment, she so suffuses, drenches, fills, and irradiates her body that there is no spot in her entire body that is untouched, by this delight and joy.

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Just as a skilled bathman or his assistant, needing the soap powder which he has sprinkled with water, forms from it, in a metal dish, a soft lump, so that the ball of soap powder becomes one elaginous mass bound with oil so that nothing escapes, so this monk suffuses, drenches, fills, and irradiates the body so that no spot remains untouched. This dear king is a fruit of the homeless life, visible here and now, that is more excellent than the former ones. So I'm not going to go through the entire sequence and all the descriptions of these four jhanas that the Buddha offers to the king. You can read those yourself in the sutta called Fruits of the Homeless Life. But I'm going to share with you the poetic portions, such as the one I just read about the soap powder, which I think are actually quite helpful, especially... for those of you who respond well to visual metaphors, you know, you visionaries.

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If you or any of you want to decide to explore these jhanic enchantments for yourselves. With the subsiding of thinking and pondering, by gaining inner tranquility and oneness of mind, samadhi, the monk enters and remains in the second jhana, which is born of concentration, filled with delight and joy. And with this delight and joy, so suffuses his body that no spot remains untouched. Just as a lake fed by a spring with no inflow from east, west, north, or south, where the rain god sends moderate showers from time to time, the water welling up from below, mingling with cool water, would suffuse, fill, and irradiate that cool water so that no part of the pool was untouched by it. So with this delight born of concentration, he suffuses his body so that no spot remains untouched. This sire, too, is the fruit of a homeless life.

[29:08]

Again, a monk with fading away of delight remains imperturbished, mindful, and clearly aware, and experiences in themselves that joy of which the noble ones say, Happy is the one who dwells with equanimity and mindfulness. And she enters and remains in the third jhana. And with this joy, devoid of delight, she so suffuses her body that no spot remains untouched. Just as if in a pond of blue, red, or white lotuses, in which the flowers born in the water, grown in the water, not growing out of the water, are fed from the water's depth. those blue, red, or white lotuses would be suffused with cool water so that no spot remains untouched. This too is a fruit of the homeless life. And again, a monk, having given up pleasure and pain and with the disappearance of former gladness and sadness, enters and remains in the fourth jhana, which is beyond pleasure and pain and purified by equanimity and mindfulness.

[30:18]

And he sits suffusing his body with that mental purity and clarification so that no part of his body is untouched by it. Just as if a man were to sit wrapped from head to foot in a white garment so that no part of him was untouched by that garment. So his body is suffused. This too is a fruit of the homeless life. So the Sutta goes on to relate to what appear to be magical sensibilities that arise in the mind of the meditator while abiding in the fourth jhana, such as the knowledge of others' minds, a knowledge of previous lives, a knowledge of the working of karma, a divine eye, a divine ear, but most importantly of all, a knowledge of the four noble truths. And by that knowledge, the meditator takes the first step onto the ancient trail, the first fold of the eightfold path, right view, Samyagdristi, as the wheel of medicine and the wheel of Dharma turn round and round again, perhaps with a fourth turning just up ahead.

[31:35]

So in honor of our last day of Sashim, and at the request of an anonymous note that I found under a rock next to my door, I would like to invite all of you to join me in a walk up to the Suzuki Roshi Memorial, so you might want to put on footwear that would be comfortable. And with the permission of the Eno, thank you very much. But before I go, I promised you the joke, and here it is. And I do think it's relevant to what happens next in Buddhist history. So a man, so to speak, goes into a juice bar with a penquin on his head. Okay? Got it? It's a visualization, okay? All right. So a man, so to speak, goes into a juice bar with a penguin on his head and asks the bartender for a drink. Then the penguin says to the bartender, how do I get this man off my feet? That's... People are getting it at different points.

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For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

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