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 on this beautiful, bright, sunny day. So I want to thank everyone for your effort. It was very quiet in the zendo this morning. And as we're settling into the rhythm of sishin, I hope you're able to find many moments of ease and joy along with some of the other more difficult moments that may be arising. So my topic for today is close to the earth. humility as a form of wisdom.

[01:02]

And I came to this topic in reading Dale Wright's book on the perfection of, yeah, on the paramitas, the six perfections, in which he talks about many different aspects of wisdom. And actually, I had never thought of humility as an ax... an aspect of wisdom. And when I read the pages on humility, I was so surprised about how all-encompassing humility can be as a practice. And so I wanted to share with you some of my excitement about it. So the root of humility is hummus, H-U-M-U-S, not H-U-M-M. and the chickpea dip that we often eat. And it comes from Latin for earth, ground, or soil.

[02:10]

And I found a beautiful description of hummus in Wendy Johnson's book, Gardening at the Dragon's Gate. Wendy Johnson, some of you may know her, she was one of the co-founders of... Green Gulch's organic farm and garden, and she's a gardener to this day. And she describes hummus as the rich, ebony, dark, decomposed organic matter on the floor of every undisturbed forest and every well-made compost pile. The word hummus has many deep old roots and every... has many deep old roots and connections. In addition to meaning soil, it shares the root for humankind, humane, and exhum, words buried in earth roots.

[03:11]

Humble, humiliate, and humorous derive as well from the same fertile root word as do... humility and hubris. Humility itself is multifaceted, and I'm going to talk about four dimensions of humility that Dale Wright mentions in the chapter on wisdom. Awareness of our own ignorance, acknowledging our origins, recognizing our dependence and fragility, and cultivating reverence for life. So starting with awareness of our own ignorance, when we don't know something, it's wise to acknowledge that we don't know. And this may be humbling, especially as in our culture, knowing is highly valued.

[04:16]

When we're asked a question, we try to come up with an answer, even if we don't know. And... So looking at admitting that we don't know can be an expression of humility. And this ties in with a question that David asked in his class on Wednesday, or a question he raised, how is wisdom different from knowledge? And it reminded me of a story in a book that I've referred to a few times, a book called The Hidden Lamp. It's stories, a hundred stories of our women ancestors with a hundred commentaries by contemporary women teachers. And this story is called The Old Woman's Rice Cakes. And it tells of an encounter between a monk named Deshaun and an old woman whose name we don't know.

[05:19]

This story is also in Andy Ferguson's book of our Zen our Zen Chinese ancestors. And in Hidden Lamp, it has a commentary by Roshi Joan Halifax, who teaches in Santa Fe at Upaya. And I think it has a different kind of commentary than you might find in Zen's Chinese ancestors. And yeah, so I think it's valuable to explore some of the ways in which women write about these koans and what we see when we uncover them. So Deshan Xuanshan lived from 819 to 914, and he was from northern China. As a young man, he studied the classical precepts, and he also thoroughly penetrated the Diamond Sutra, the sutra we chant on Fridays.

[06:25]

At the time, there was sectarian strife between the northern and southern schools of Buddhism, and Deshan was vehemently critical of the southern school coming from the north. When he heard it was flourishing, he railed against it, saying, how dare those southern devils say that just by pointing at the human mind, one can see self-nature and attain Buddhahood. I'll go drag them from their caves and exterminate their ilk and thus repay the kindness of Buddha. So he set off on a pilgrimage with copies of commentaries on the Diamond Sutra on his back and went south. And in the course of his travels, he came across an old woman by the roadside who was selling tea and rice cakes. And he asked her, who are you? And she replied, I'm an old woman selling rice cakes. When he asked if he could buy some refreshments from her, she inquired, Venerable Priest, what are you carrying on your back?

[07:35]

He said, I am a scholar of the Diamond Sutra and here I have all my notes and commentaries. Hearing this, the old woman said, I have heard that according to the Diamond Sutra, Past mind is ungraspable, present mind is ungraspable, and future mind is ungraspable. So where is the mind you wish to refresh with rice cakes? O scholar, if you can answer this, you may buy a rice cake from me, and if not, you can go elsewhere for refreshment. So Deshawn was unable to reply. The old woman then directed him to a Chan master nearby, who later became his teacher. And the next day, Deshan burned all his notes and commentaries. Now, one could say, well, why did he burn all his notes and commentaries?

[08:38]

Did he realize, partly from that encounter with the woman who refused to sell him rice cakes, that the notes and commentaries weren't really what his quest was about, and the distinction between knowledge and wisdom. Did he find a different understanding of what was really important in his search for the meaning of life, which is, I think, why people go on pilgrimage. So, Deshawn may have dismissed the old woman just because of her being an old woman. He was looking for a teacher, and he had a conditioned perspective on who his teacher could be, probably based on some unconscious biases.

[09:42]

He couldn't see the wisdom of the old woman. He couldn't see her as a teacher. And yet, and this is what Joan Halifax offers, yet this nameless old crone became Deshaun's catalyst to awakening, challenging his ego-based confidence, introducing him to an ungraspable moment, a moment of absolute freedom from glosses, commentaries, and secondary consciousness. So perhaps Deshaun came to the encounter with knowledge, but not with wisdom. And I think his act of burning those sutras he had been carrying around with him was also an act of humility. And perhaps realizing the heavy load he was carrying, he no longer needed it. So when we don't know something, one thing we can do is ask questions.

[10:45]

We can become curious. And this is a big manifestation of beginner's mind, the wonderful teaching of Suzuki Roshi, the mind that enables us to see freshly. And in Zen mind, beginner's mind, Suzuki Roshi says, in the beginner's mind, there is no thought I have attained something. This is an expression of humility, I think. And he continues, All self-centered thoughts limit our vast mind. When we have no thought of achievement, no thought of self, we are true beginners. Then we can really learn something. And Suzuki Roshi encourages us always to be a beginner. And can we take this intention with us to every period of zazen, to each...

[11:47]

Step of Kinhin, and every morning when we recite the Heart Sutra, can we do this with beginner's mind? He acknowledges that the longer we practice, the harder it may be to find beginner's mind. So again, I think this is an expression of humility, realizing that even if we've done something over and over again, we may not really fully be present for it, or we may find something new in it each time. So another aspect of wisdom that Dale Wright mentions is that it can bring us to a finely tuned sense of the vast scope of the reality in which we live. When our vision opens wide enough, we can see that the enormity of space and time overwhelms

[12:50]

the proportions of our small lives and world. And this may happen when we stand on a beach and look out at the ocean and appreciate its vastness. Sometimes I have friends in Australia and I love going to any beach in California, looking at the Pacific Ocean and knowing that they're thousands of miles away. but they're there, and feeling that sense of the vastness of the ocean. Or sometimes at Tassajara at night when you can see all the stars, the constellations so clearly get a sense of the vastness of the universe and how small our planet is. And I think that can also awaken in us a sense of humility. Sometimes I stand in the courtyard in the morning, before zazen and just look up and see either the clouds, the fog, or some stars and just appreciate where we are in the context of the universe, a small temple.

[14:05]

Wendy Johnson, when she worked on the farm at Green Gulch, would take breaks from farming and take a walk to Muir Woods, which is close by. And she wrote, I go to the redwoods for a little breathing room, not to escape the garden exactly, more to be able to see and hear it again fresh. It is cool in the woods and dark. The outbreath of the forest is thick with saturated oxygen. I walk beneath a thousand-year-old sequoia sempivirens, which is a redwood, and find my way back home. So I spoke not that long ago about trees and how trees can help us appreciate so, well, actually each of the paramitas, each of the six paramitas, but certainly when we're with or in the presence of old trees, large trees, tall trees, we get a

[15:18]

a different sense of the brevity of our own lives and that it can be another expression of humility. So Dale Wright says, humility derives from a meditative appreciation of dependence on realities far greater than our own. Acknowledging these sustaining realities, everything from one's family history, one's cultural heritage, the earth, air, fire and water that sustain us, to the unity of being itself, we get a glimpse of no self and the foundations of true humility. As a dimension of wisdom, humility includes a profound sense that we did not create ourselves, and that we owe our existence to larger, more enduring processes that encompass and sustain us.

[16:25]

This awareness of our ultimately dependent condition and fragility evokes awe and wonder and a profound gratitude for the gift of our existence. And one way in which we may every day experience our sense of interconnectedness and gratitude in sushin is through our practice of bowing. Whether we do full prostrations, touching our forehead to the earth, to the tatami or to the floor, or do standing bows, we bow to acknowledge the Buddha in ourselves and others. When I first came to Zen Center, I... was totally unfamiliar with bowing. It wasn't in my culture, my background, and I was at first really uncomfortable with it. And it took me a while to understand that bowing can be an expression of gratitude, an expression of connection, an acknowledgement that each of us has.

[17:34]

the capacity to wake up. Each of us has Buddha nature and appreciating that in each person that I encounter and acknowledging that I have that ability as well. And so we bow as an expression of respect and gratitude to our cushions, to the zendo. We bow to the servers in oryoki, also in an expression of gratitude. And... And I just want to tell a story about a moment in my own life when bowing changed the course of my life. Some of you may have heard this before, and if so, I hope you'll forgive me for telling it again. So when I first moved in... Excuse me. When I first moved into this building in 1999, I was working for the Buddhist Peace Fellowship.

[18:47]

The office at that time was in Berkeley. And I really enjoyed my job. And then after living here for about a year and a half, I wanted to go to Tassajara. And my teacher suggested I go for a year, which meant I had to resign from my job at BPF. And it was one of the best jobs I had ever had. It involved visiting BPF chapters around the country and fundraising for BPF and co-leading a program called BASE, Buddhist Alliance for Social Engagement, in which... People would come for six months and do volunteer work or some other engaged work in the world. And we met twice a week. We would sit together and study various Buddhist teachings from the perspective of engaged work, whether it was working with homeless people or teaching people

[20:04]

environmental work, a whole range of things. So I left that job and went to Tassajara. And then during my time at Tassajara, which extended beyond a year, I thought I wanted to ordain as a priest. And I spoke with my teacher, Linda Cutts, and she said that at that time, at least Tassajara, Her idea of priest training was that one would live and work at Zen Center for a period of five years. And I agreed to that. And then I found out that the position of the director of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship was open. And I really struggled with what was the right thing to do and decided to pursue the path of priesthood.

[21:06]

And then on September 11th, 2001, I was in Berkeley on a break. I was about to fly to New York to visit my parents. And the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were attacked. And the flights, all flights were canceled. And I had this 10 days and wondered what would be the best thing to do. So I called the Buddhist Peace Fellowship Office to see if they needed any volunteer help with anything. And they were organizing a community meeting for people to come together and talk about, it was actually an interfaith gathering, to talk about the threats of war that were already arising and just a place where people could come together and express their... grief and concern. So I helped with that, and then I also learned that the position of director of the Buddha's Peace Fellowship again was open.

[22:11]

And I talked to some people, including one of my mentors, Joanna Macy, who had been a co-founder of the Buddha's Peace Fellowship, and she encouraged me to apply for the job. I tried to call Linda Ruth, and she was on the East Coast with her family. I couldn't reach her. So I put in my application, and then I went back to Tassajara for the fall practice period and called her. And I expected that she would be upset with me, and she wasn't. She said, well, I understand this is a difficult decision for you. And she gave me an assignment, which was to pay careful attention every time I bowed. So I started noticing the experience of my body when I bowed. And one morning in the zendo during oryoki breakfast, I bowed to a server and suddenly just knew that I wanted to ordain as a priest.

[23:17]

And it was not a decision that came from my head. It really came from my body. I withdrew my application for the job and let Linda Ruth know that I wanted to ordain as a priest. So I'm telling that story because something so simple as bowing can sometimes have great meaning. It can be anything that helps us wake up to some deeply held sense of who we are, what is our path. And it can sometimes come unexpectedly. So, Joanna Macy offers a guided meditation in one of her workshops.

[24:21]

I'll say a little bit more about who she is. Joanna Macy is a Buddhist scholar. She has a PhD in systems theory and wrote her PhD thesis on dependent co-arising as it manifested in a group called Sarvodya in Sri Lanka. And in the 80s, she developed a workshop called Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age. And she's... worked on different iterations of that workshop, including ones that focus on concerns about the environment. One is called the Council of All Beings. And I went to a workshop of hers in 1982 that rekindled my concerns about the planet. And then I learned to lead workshops

[25:22]

like the one I had attended. She offered trainings. She still does. She's in her 80s and she's still offering these workshops, which now she calls the work that reconnects. And there's a guided meditation that I think helps us tune in to both our fragility, which is a source of humility, and also the wonder and beauty of each human life. So I'd like to offer it to you and I'm going to invite you if you're willing to close your eyes and just for a moment center on whatever sensations you're feeling in your body. And then I would invite you to Hold one of your hands in the other hand or with the other hand.

[26:27]

And as you hold your hand, feel the weight of it, the warmth of it, and flex your wrist and fingers and note how the joints are hinged to permit a variety of movement. Feel the articulation of bone and muscle, the intricacy of the structure. What you now hold is an object unique in our cosmos, a human hand of planet Earth. Feel the energy and intelligence in that hand. that fruit of a long evolutionary journey, of effort to swim, to push, to climb, to grasp. That hand has learned to hold a spoon, to tie shoelaces, to throw a ball, to write, to wipe tears, to give pleasure

[27:48]

And now change hands if you would like, holding your other hand. Observe the subtle differences from its twin. This hand is unique, different from all other hands. Feel the life in it. And note, also its vulnerability. This flexible, fragile hand so easy to cut or burn or break. Be aware of how much you want it to stay whole, intact in the times that are coming. It has tasks to do that you can't even guess at. And now gently put it down.

[28:57]

And when you're ready, open your eyes. So for me, this cradling opens me to the wonder of my life. to a sense of gratitude for my body, for my ancestors, and all those who have nurtured and taught me, including all of you. So I think in a sense, we are cradling one another during Sashin, silently and without touching one another physically. Can we feel it? in our actions as we care for this building that shelters all of us this week? Can we feel it during meals, thinking of those who prepared the food and the kindness of the servers?

[30:04]

Can we feel it as we sit quietly in the zendo? Each person's effort supports all of us. and no one person stands out. Perhaps this is a communal expression of humility, of wisdom. 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.

[31:02]

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