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. I was upstairs contemplating what to talk about. I thought, hmm, these talks in this machine are probably hard to listen to. I think I've been talking about nothing. Trying to talk about the internal experience of becoming present.

[01:00]

Being present, looking for the particulars of that process. Remembering, tuning into. I think when we talk about process, there's no good story there for our mind to hold on to. Dude's Samaritan. If you were raised Christian or Jewish, you got it. It's a story. It's a nice story. It's good. Good plot. Good finish. We even like to tell ourselves stories. Wonderful way to spend your time inside. And in Zen, of course, we're filled with stories too.

[02:12]

We call them koans. So something, a particularity, pointing at, in a way, pointing at nothing. Pointing at the process of experiencing. pointing at when we experience a certain way, something's illuminated, something's made evident, something becomes conscious. And when we get engrossed in the details and weave them into the world according to me, something like staying in a dream. So I've been trying to talk about the process of waking up. And even though I think it's hard to listen to, I'm going to continue. And there's good news and bad news.

[03:18]

I am going to tell a Zen story, but the bad news is then I'm going to talk about Dogen Zenji's treatment of the story. It seemed to me, you know, that Dogen seemed a delight in taking a Zen story that everyone else seems to say, okay, there's this story, there's the conclusion, and here's what to draw from it. And then Dogen comes along, and he turns it upside down. And he says, see that part you thought was success? That was failure. See the guy that you thought really didn't have a clue? He was a Buddha. So he does that to this story too. One of the key phrases in this story, the teacher says to the student, well, if you have a horse and cart and you want it to go, what do you beat, the cart or the horse?

[04:20]

And everybody goes, oh yeah, you beat the horse. Dogen says, nope, you beat the cart. previous koan that I was referring to Hueneng and Nangaku. Well, this is Nangaku and Nangaku's disciple. Previous koan, we could say the gist of it was presence is. You don't manufacture it. And the way you relate to it doesn't diminish it. And of course, when I ask them, do you rely on it?

[05:26]

Do you rely on practice realization? So I've been trying to talk about what is it to come into an intimate involvement with what's going on. An intimate involvement that sees what's going on and sees through it. that sees the particulars, but rather than getting caught up in the particulars and liking and disliking them and being afraid of them and desiring them, seeing through them and seeing, oh, this is the activity of mind. Oh, this is the unfolding of the karmic patterns of what's called me. Oh, this is an illustration. of the ever-changing nature of existence. It's ever-changing.

[06:31]

It's interactive. And the way it's defined and named is just a convention in relationship to something else. And even though we do all that, we don't from presence. We may realize it or not realize it, but we neither manufacture it nor diminish it. And after 20 or 30 years, you know, Nangaku got the message. And then he had a student commonly known as Matsu, Master Ma. And so here's the conventional story. Master Ma is deeply dedicated to Sazen.

[07:37]

He does Sazen all the time. And his teacher, Nangaku, asks him, what are you doing? A great thing to ask yourself, you know? Both in a simple manner, you know, what am I doing? And then in a profound way, what are you doing? You know, I'm doing orioke and I'm trying to get every single detail right. And what are you doing? I'm engaging wholeheartedly in a process that facilitates awakening.

[08:41]

You know, now with the blessings of Apple computer, we can wear iPods while we're doing almost anything. Someday someone will give a Dharma talk wearing an iPod. Or maybe someday everybody will be listening on their iPods. The particular version of what I was thinking of was going to the gym and wearing your iPod while you exercise. I want to exercise because it's good for my body and good for my heart and my muscles and maybe even my state of mind. However, it's not enough. I want more. There's a wonderful line in one of Rilke's poems where he says, you see, I want a lot.

[09:50]

In fact, I want everything. You go to the gym, you want a good body, you want a good heart, you want a clear and strong mind, and you want a nourishing, happy, pleasant life. So you've got to wear your iPod while you're exercising. And yet... that mix of agendas, that what you might call split allegiance, makes something difficult to experience directly.

[10:53]

And so, in our Zazen, in our practice. Okay, this is a good thing, it's virtuous or moral or however we consider its appropriateness. And that's an interesting thing to look at. What's the appeal of this? What's the appeal of sitting here with often some parts of my body hurting some parts of my mind There's a Zen coin that says simply, when the bell rings, why do you go to the Zen Do? And then, the point I wanted to make was, when we go to the Zen Do, do we do some version of plugging in our iPod in? Is there some part of us saying, be quiet and present, and some other part saying, I have a really good story to tell you.

[12:21]

Or some part that's simply saying, this is not enough. I have a lot of things to worry about. A lot of things that I need to accomplish. A lot of things that need to be figured out. So I'll do a little multitasking. What I'm doing says it. And in some ways, especially when we do a longer sitting like a Shishin, we get a taste for letting something settle. No matter how much you multitask, no matter how often you pursue with energy a particular agenda, you can't fix a human life.

[13:37]

You can't complete, perfect a human life. not possible. So there's a request from Zazen to let that sink in. Not to criticize our desires. Not to criticize and condemn our fears, our anxieties, our regrets, our resentments. But to realize that the fundamental agenda that stirs them up, that makes them seem an appropriate response, is misguided. This is the basic teaching in Buddhism.

[14:38]

When you come at it from the wrong perspective and set all these things in motion, the suffering compounds rather than dissipates? Can something settle? And there can even be a physiological component of that. Like a settling in the body. Okay, this is the way it is. I had an impulse to tell a story. Okay, I'll tell a story. I was a student in Northern Ireland, and we grew up in the same neighborhood, which for many years, for many decades, was a pretty ferocious environment.

[15:43]

And he had been in the middle of that. Christian strife. We were both on one side, and of course, there was another side. And of course, we hated each other. I mean, what else can you do? People who aren't the same as you, surely you must hate them. And better still, we bombed and killed each other. And as life would have it, all this happened in the context of poverty. Which, if you look around the globe, it usually goes along with these kinds of endeavors. So we practiced together for about a decade, and then one day he was telling me

[16:55]

I wouldn't exactly say he has PTSD, but I wouldn't exactly say he doesn't either. But he was telling me of the challenges and difficulties and turmoil in his life. And they were formidable. And then he looked at me, and I looked at him, and I said, so what? Of course, he had kind of like a startled response, like, I just give you my best rendition of the tragedies and difficulties of my life, and just say, so what? And he took a breath, and then he nodded. some way to settle enough that we can look a life we're living in the eye with all its difficulties, with all its unfinished business, with all its disappointments, and say,

[18:25]

something just meet that hold that be with it and even hold the turmoil we have with regards to it you know whether it's resentment deep anxiety and something just be. Like the first noble truth, that's what you get. But not with indifference, not with callousness, but actually with a tenderness. What response other than compassion makes sense. But the sister of compassion is this kind of acceptance.

[19:49]

And of course we come to Zen and we dearly wish that would sort all this out in some way. With my student, he nodded, and then he started to laugh, and then I started to laugh. And we do a lot of things together to promote peace, to teach stress reduction, to build community. And we're very motivated to do it. Maybe we're trying to fix something.

[21:03]

So Nangaku comes across Master Ma. Master Ma is sitting with great intensity and great diligence. And Nangaku asks him, what are you doing? Are you trying to fix a human life? And Master Ma says... according to this version, Nangaku says, what is your intention in sitting? My intention is to become a Buddha. Nangaku picks up a tile and starts to polish the tile. Master Ma says, what are you doing? He says, I'm polishing a tile. Why are you polishing a tile?

[22:11]

I'm turning it trying to make a mirror. Can you polish a tile and make a mirror? Can you do zazen and make a Buddha? So, in some ways a fairly straightforward story, right? You can't fix your life, you can't make it perfect, Literally, don't waste your energy. Refine your effort. Surrender to, open to, become. And then the dialogue goes on. And Master Ma says, well, what should I do? And Nangaku says to him, well, if a horse and cart won't go, do you hit the horse or do you hit the cart?

[23:25]

Oh. And like all good stories, Master Maha had an awakening. And then Dogen reads the same story and says, People have been interpreting this story for hundreds of years. Seeing it as Nangaku instructing Master Ma. Not necessarily so. But he totally turns it on his head and says, without polishing the tile, how can a practitioner have the skillful means of a true person? Without polishing the title, how can a practitioner have the skillful means of a true person?

[24:32]

And he goes on and he tackles the phrase. This is from a fascicle called Kokyo. It's translated as eternal mirror. But really, the notion is that something that goes beyond time. So you might say, kindless mirror. And the mirror being Seeing clearly, usually we have a bias, and what's reflected back is what's happening according to our bias. We add to the experience our own bias, and that's what we become aware of. So the clear mirror just reflects it back as it is, without a bias. And it's timeless. There's no... It just resonates like a good parable, a good story.

[25:55]

It applies to the two of them whenever it was 1,400 years ago, 1,200 years ago, and it applies to us. Timeless. So the story goes on, and then Dogen says, yeah, people say, you know, beat the horse, don't beat the cart. Beat the cart. Practice for whatever reason you practice. Of course, your karma brought you to practice. Of course, your misguided view set up your suffering.

[27:00]

Your response to your suffering was, I'm going to practice. And so your practice and your karma are linked. And of course, part of the motivation is to have your practice resolve your karma. Dogen says, to come to terms with that, to come to relationship with that, to think that you can be a perfect being with a perfect practice, ain't gonna happen. You're gonna wait a long time for that to happen. imperfect being with the imperfect practice. And then he says, and that's how you learn how to practice.

[28:09]

And what I would say today is there's something about the so what. It's just a desperate, imperfect being, desperately practicing. How will you ever see the foolishness of beating the cart? How will you ever just see, oh, this is something to hold with compassion. I don't want to suffer. sit here in this body I want it to be at ease when I sit here with this mind I want it to be clear I want it to be filled with equanimity I want it to be wise I want it to be compassionate I want it to be Buddha

[29:34]

I want to take this karmic life and I want to polish it and have it be transparent, luminous, vast, and clarifying the Dharma. Not to say we don't have our moments, and we can't have our moments. Pausing is a simple thing. To think that we can purify the whole of our life. In Yogacara Buddhism, they have a kind of a calculation as to how long that takes. All I can remember about the calculation is it takes a long time.

[30:38]

You know the notion of a kalpa? A kalpa is how long it takes a dove carrying a silk handkerchief that brushes against a mountain. I can't remember whether it's once a year or once a thousand years, but it's how long it takes the dove to turn the mountain into dust. So I think, according to Yogacara, it takes a hundred of those, a hundred times, a hundred kalpas of practice to perfect a human life. And then for good measure, they have a special category. They really do. They have a special category and they say, and there's certain people, But even if they do that, they can't do it. Even if they practice that long, they're not going to become Buddhists.

[31:46]

They ain't got it. How much we want to formulate, we want to measure. We want to quantify. As Dogen says in G.G.U. Samai, even if all the Buddhists got together, they couldn't quantify, one person says it. So here's what I would say to you. We're in a very interesting state, having sat for four days, some of us for two weeks and then four days. So what?

[32:54]

It isn't so far away. We've tasted a little of it. We've touched a little of it. explore it in the breath. We can explore it in the tensions in our body. Let something just settle into itself. It's like inhabiting your own skin, inhabiting your own guts. doesn't mean that it's being perfected. From the nobility of your transcendent state, you can look back at the foolishness of your karmic life.

[34:04]

Maybe it's more like from the humility, humus of the earth, humility, from the groundedness of the ground you stand on. Okay. And you work with the cart. You work with the body you've got. You work with the mind you've got. You work with... habit energies of thought and emotion you've got. Dogen Zenji says, this is how the Buddha you are discovers how to actualize being Buddha.

[35:11]

polishing the tile to be something different. Yes, indeed. There's wasted effort. If we're working with what we've got, not because of what we're going to accomplish, not because of what we're going to transcend, person I was talking about in Belfast. We got invited to City Hall. I was going to give a little talk. So when you grow up on the bottom rung, City Halls, a lot of rungs above you. So to be invited to City Hall, not only to be allowed in the door, but to be invited in, it's quite a shift.

[36:26]

So we walked in and he looked kind of nervous. And I asked him, are you nervous? And he said, yes. And I said, why are you nervous? We own this place. We belong. We belong everywhere. This is the blessings of our practice. We own this place. We own it so much, we're part of it. And it owns us. This is the intimacy of our practice. And in some ways, to discover that in the workings of our own being. Belonging in this body, in this breath, this world, this Buddha hall.

[37:40]

It belongs to me and I belong to it. It's not a comment of accomplishment. It's not a comment of entitlement. It's not a comment of superiority. It's just the nature of what is. And this is just another facet of, so what? That's how it is. And actually, and then at City Hall, I gave a little talk, 15 minutes or so, while we held teacups made of wonderful china that had gold Decorations on them. I noticed.

[38:46]

This is what to drink your tea out of in City Hall. And then the deputy mayor, when I finished, presented me with a wooden plaque and said to the group, And see what he was talking about? That's what I do as a politician. Last time, now that was a great line. I admired his school on this. If there's anything good in what he said, I lay claim to it. plays of our mind, you know?

[39:52]

How we sneak in good and bad, success and failure. But can we see that even though it's understandable the impulse to wear our iPod while we're exercising at the gym. That there's a way in which we're missing listening to our iPod and we're missing exercising at the gym. That belonging is about commitment. I belong here I'm committed to here. If I belong to this body and this body belongs to me there's a commitment.

[41:06]

You know to come into intimate relationship with the complexities of our mind's and psychologies and our heart is formidable. It's a formidable challenge. We're not going to get too far if we're either resisting it as we're doing it. You go to the gym, but you don't really want to go to the gym. So you're kind of at the gym and kind of not at the gym. You're still in your iPod. So doing Zazen and resisting Zazen. It's like I've been trying to talk about this careful deliberateness.

[42:18]

Each time you sit down on your cushion, Remind yourself. My whole life is here. It's nowhere else. This one precious life is right here. How is it being related to? Discovering each time we sit down, what is it to be wholehearted? It's not what it is to be perfect. It's not what it is to transcend the karma of our life and look at it from heavenly clouds down on a solid earth.

[43:20]

commitment that opens and experiences everything. Dogen Genji says, this is how the Buddha you are discovers the Buddha you are. This is the process of realization. You can indeed direct your energy towards transcendence. You can indeed direct your energy towards perfection. You can indeed try to hide out in keeping yourself amused or entertained. But there's something more immediate, something more potent in the process of Zazen.

[44:45]

It just so happens it asks for everything you've got. A mere detail. But it doesn't ask for anything you haven't got. if you think about it, it's not a bad deal. If you look down on a tile, this is Dogen in his fascicle, if you look down on a tile as a lump of mud, You look down on a human being as a lump of mud. Who knows that there is a mirror that is brought forth as a tile and is actualized as a tile.

[45:48]

The very activity that we take on in the process of our sitting makes evident the workings of our human life. Makes evident its mirror. So what I've been trying to say in these talks about nothing is just, you know, each time we sit, to remember the request of sitting each time we sit, to discover the request of sitting. Each time we sit to let something be just what it is.

[46:57]

to discover that that's an endless process because being alive is an endless process. There's no quick fix. There's no simple definition. Each time you sit down, the body-mind of that sitting is there asking to be met just as it is. as all the great sages throughout the ages have liked to see. Don't waste time. Thank you. 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.

[48:13]

Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, please visit sfzc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[48:28]

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