morning. Thank you for coming all this way on a beautiful day here at Green Gulch Farm. And hopefully wherever you are, if you're online, thank you also for joining. This is the part of the week where I sit here and try to say something about Zen. I thought as I was coming over here, I wonder what it's like to teach math.

[01:17]

I'd like to try teaching math. so subtle and profound, so slippery, this practice of just being ourself, of just being fully alive. We are how we are. As soon as we say anything about it, try to get something, and we move a little bit away from what it is right here already. So that's kind of the problem that we've taken on, that we take on every day in this hall and every week around this time. And really, it's just a time to be together.

[02:23]

Breathing out and breathing in. And seeing if we can remember that we're alive. If we can connect fully with what's here. To bring our whole our whole being into one place. To open and connect with what's here. So how do you do that? How do you open to your life? How do you become one with your environment?

[03:26]

How do you wholeheartedly be who you are? There's a funny aspect of this practice that is we're always a little bit unsure about how to do the practice that we do. We're always a little bit unsure. So we take up all these practices to try to connect us with this being alive, to try to open. We may feel a little bit separate from our life, a little bit separate from ourself, a little bit disengaged. from this miracle of being. And then we come here, or we turn to the teachings to try to find some way to rejoin, to reconnect with our life.

[04:40]

And then we hear about different things that we can do, different techniques, different practices that we can take up. never quite sure if any of those techniques or practices really are the point. I was thinking this morning of my practice not so much as a technique. A technique that I would have for my practice is something that I would come up with somewhere else, and then I would bring to this moment something that I would apply to the moment, my technique. I was playing with a word more like sincerity, such as it being here with some sincerity or intention.

[05:52]

to sit here in touch with some longing to be all the way here. To be here right now, not as a thing that I'm doing, but almost as a prayer. bring all of this up because recently I spent some time around meditators and maybe you've had that experience sometimes with being around meditators and I noticed I was a little bit uncomfortable around all of these meditators very diligent and inspired and clear minded

[06:58]

And they would wonder what my practice is. And I would feel a little bit unsure. So I had the opportunity last month. spend some time visiting some Chan Buddhist temples in Taiwan and China. Chan Buddhism is Zen. It's the same word. Chan and Zen are the same word. Chan is the Chinese form. And the Chinese lineage is the source of our transmission in the Japanese style of Zen, which is the sort that we have received here. at San Francisco Zen Center, Green Gulch.

[08:01]

As part of this time, I was able to do a short retreat with a wonderful Chan teacher in the lineage of Sheng Yen, Master Sheng Yen. Throughout the retreat, he emphasized the method. Have any of you heard this phrase? The method. And all of his students were very into the method. And so we would sit and he would say, just stay with the method. thought, I think I'm supposed to have a method. It seems like the people sitting on my right and left have a method I was supposed to bring with me.

[09:19]

I would like to join in this single-minded application, my whole heart and body and mind absorbed on this method. but I don't remember what my method is. Maybe you remember this moment in the movie Annie Hall where this Californian caricature of a Californian at a party calls his guru and says, I forgot my mantra. An excellent line. As a now Californian hit, you know, stings a little bit. Just the right sting.

[10:19]

And that was a little bit my feeling. Like, okay, I'd slip out on a little break and make some phone calls. Or check, you know, I was doing this. Send my beginner's mind. There's something in here. We have a method, probably. I'm a little unsure the method. The point is to become one with each thing, each moment of my life. The point is to not be a ghost in my own skin, but to be completely here as myself with whatever's arising. Is that a... So I'm sensitive because I've spent time with people, and I recommend this if you're a Zen practitioner, to spend time with people who, following, you know, really a thousand years of lineage, who feel that it's embarrassing that people...

[11:34]

It exists, you know. People say, some people, there's probably somebody at some Dharma center right now saying, you know, there's some people who sat zazen, who've meditated for 30 years, and they can't even tell you what their method is. And it's good, you know. To feel, you know, that... At first, there's this kind of defensiveness or insecurity. I do so have a method. It's just a very subtle secret method. And I remember this. This was a wonderful moment of beginner's mind because as a beginner or at that more awkward kind of like, I don't know, adolescent practice place where there's some confidence in the practice but not a lot of clarity about the practice, this feeling of insecurity.

[12:38]

Right, I should probably have a method. I don't want to be that guy, you know, who sits for 30 years not knowing how to sit. When I'm feeling confident, then I'd love to be with these people, and they say, some people, 30 years... And don't know how to sit. And I say, isn't that wild? Isn't that wonderful? 30 years and still no idea about how to make life become whole. Nothing to bring to this situation to complete it. A kind of uncertainty. A kind of crack of... I wonder how to be fully alive. right now. So after a little bit of this feeling of kind of like trying to find my method, feeling of discomfort of not having some pre-planned thing to do with my life,

[13:59]

was able to remember to just be there. To remember that I am devoted to some kind of practice, but it's not the practice of a method or a technique exactly. It includes that, but it's not exactly that. Again, it's more like a devotion to a kind of sincerity or a kind of intention. a kind of prayer, an effort to be open and clear and present with whatever is. Like giving rise to a kind of invitation to my life, an invitation to myself to be here as I am. Somebody recently reminded me of this wonderful story.

[15:13]

I won't tell the whole story, but it's a ghost story, an old Chinese ghost story that was repurposed by the Zen tradition to become a teaching story. This is a story basically about a young person who becomes split into two and one of them wanders off and has a An amazing life. And the other is immobilized in bed in their parents' house. It's a beautiful, it's a little bit haunting ghost story. And then in the end, there's this moment where they meet and there's this question, who's the real one? Wonderful. Tori. about feeling like a ghost.

[16:14]

And so that word has been turning, as I think about my own practice, this feeling of feeling a little bit ghost-like in life. I wonder if that resonates for any of you, if you feel a little bit like a ghost. Suzuki Roshi also mentions feeling like a ghost. When we separate from our life, separate from the world or our being, or feel like we're a little bit outside of something and we're doing something to it. We're a little bit separate from the world. And then we feel like a ghost. Because I guess that's what ghosts are. a little bit separate from the world, not totally joined, not totally one with this being alive.

[17:21]

We're trying to get something that we don't have, and we're trying to get away from something that we do have. And then we feel disconnected and ghost-like. So then maybe we try even harder to get something we don't have that will stop feeling this way or try harder to get rid of something we do have so that we can feel whole and really hear, really solid. I think that's a great moment, a great thing to feel if you can feel your ghostness. I think that's a great... moment to be a ghost who knows that I'm a ghost. And then what? We feel a kind of longing to reconnect, to be fully here. And then our habitual mind says, yes, don't want to be a ghost.

[18:34]

I want to be fully here. So let's get rid of this ghost feeling. and get some meditation or something to reconnect, to re-engage. So this is a moment to be very careful of when we feel that longing to be more whole, that longing to be more completely in our life. That rather than rush off to try to feel something, that we actually just Experience that disconnection thoroughly. Does that make sense? To just be fully a ghost. The kind of thing that Dogen Zenji, our Soto Zen founder, might say. Just to, all there is is ghosts. Forget about it. Just be completely the ghost that you are. Stop trying to get out of that. Feel what that's like. And then there's some joining.

[19:37]

There's some wholeness. Because we're not trying to get away from something we have. We're not trying to get something we don't have. But I don't feel zen. I don't feel connected. Right. Just feel that that's where you are. That's the thing to connect with. But I want my heart to open. That's the thing to connect with. My heart is closed and I want it to open right there. The problem with the meditation techniques is it's going to give you some way to open your heart. But that's too far ahead. It's not time to do the technique. It's time to just feel that you're a closed-hearted ghost. And what is that actually like? What is the actual reality of this moment of closed-hearted ghost? It's ungraspable. It's not. You say you can't quite grasp it, and that's uncomfortable.

[20:39]

But this is the situation. We can't quite grasp it. It's ungraspable, and it's inconceivable, limitlessly deep reality of being exactly how we are now. to try something. It might be informative. But I'm not sure. So right now, we have this opportunity. We're sitting here. If you were to wholeheartedly take up being fully alive in this moment, what would that be?

[21:41]

try that for a minute, just to be completely here, completely how you are. Be completely open and one with the situation of life right now. I'm fascinated by what just happened. I wonder if you notice what you did.

[22:47]

What did you do? What did you do to become whole, to fully be here? Saw some people close their eyes. Maybe you took a breath. Or touched your friend's knee. became still. We say become whole, reconnect, be fully alive, and something responds to that. So I wonder what muscle you used. What was that? And was that something you knew that you brought? Or was that something that came alive and responded to that wish, to that moment of connecting with the longing to be fully here?

[23:58]

Does that question make sense? What did you do there? What did you squeeze? And when you squeezed something to be fully here, was that helping you fully be here? Or were you actually trying to go somewhere else that you remember as having some characteristics like be fully here? This is the tsaroti or the frustration. As soon as you did something, what was the spirit of that thing you did? As soon as you did something, your circumstance changed. So if you were listening to the sounds, beautiful way to connect with your life. You can try it out right now. Now we feel more connected to our life, hearing this beautiful birth song, but also we just changed our life by listening for the birth song.

[25:01]

You could really give yourself a headache trying to keep track of whether you just did the right thing or the wrong thing. The point is maybe you feel better, so that's good. The problem is now we've squeezed some muscle. We found some muscle. And something has changed a little. The birds are louder. The breath is deeper. And I feel more alive. Now, when I apply this technique again, will it be to connect with how I'm actually doing in this moment, or will it be to make my breath deeper and make the birds louder and get a little bit away from this feeling of being a closed-hearted ghost?

[26:23]

It's good to do some practice. But the spirit with which we do the practice is very important for us in Soto Zen especially. Is the spirit of the practice to move a little bit away from what we feel into something better and then we have a technique to do that? Or is the spirit of the technique that we want to just be how we are? So the most pure and wonderful thing, if any of you have no idea, like have never heard that question, have never heard that suggestion of being fully alive, then whatever you did, we want to know. We want that. That's beginner's mind. That is just the heart naturally coming up to meet this request for presence or oneness or connection or openness. You didn't bring something.

[27:27]

you sat in some kind of open sincerity and there was a response. But those of us who've been sitting a long time have our whole bookshelves full of all the tricks and techniques that we do to get ourselves back. And those are good. But by get ourselves back, do we kind of secretly mean get to this better place? wonderful aspect of visiting Chan temples is feeling the difference between the way that the practice has evolved from the shared roots in 8th and 9th century China, how differently it then evolved, say, from the 11th, 12th century on after being transmitted to Japan, the Chinese and Japanese practices evolved without

[28:40]

too much interaction there's some interesting exceptions but for the most part sort of evolved on different from early on and that transmission became about re-energizing and simplifying the practice by doing just one practice so in our school of Soto Zen founded by Dogen Zenji there's just one practice that we do and that's I'm not sure. That's to just, we call it just sitting. And then we get very complicated about it. And then we keep reminding each other, no, it really means just sitting. You say, yeah, right. Just, you know, capital J, capital S. Something. It can't just be just sitting. There must be some trick. There must be some technique. This is my moment of, what's my, what's the trick again? So this practice of just sitting, which is to say, don't change anything.

[29:44]

Just be how you are. Upright. Be upright. And here. And don't do anything else. So that's our practice, a very silly practice that is profoundly transformative. But in China, Chan school kept this kind of this diversity of practices that in Japan got separated out into different lineages. Like they do that practice and we do this practice. In Chinese Chan, all of the Chan practices are present in the same temple. So you have monks practicing side by side. Everybody's kind of doing a different practice. Some might be contemplating sound, and they do cool practices too.

[30:49]

There's a lot of cool practices you can do. I recommend becoming a meditator if any of you would like to. Is that a try? Pursue the life that I did not. Become a meditator with some technique, you know, that's clear. So people contemplate sound and become just absorbed in the sound until they say there's not sound. So cool. And then some contemplate the breath in different ways. That one is a little more familiar to us in the kind of standard Soto Zen teaching. So yeah, if you're just sitting there, you're also breathing. So you could notice that if you wanted. And then there's this whole set of practices about wonder, about kind of doubt and wonder. that they lean into. Like, who is it?

[31:51]

Or a popular one is, who is it who is dragging this corpse around? It's sort of intense, right? But a great question. Who is it? It's like, what's the difference? Who is it? That's a great question. And you just become absorbed in this kind of wonder. When some are reciting the name of Buddha, it's reciting the name of Buddha. And then sometimes with a kind of background question, like, I wonder who's reciting the name of Buddha? So there's this whole set of practices. And they do a practice and they're clear about it. So you can ask them what's your practice and they'll tell you. So you see why I was uncomfortable. And so I kind of had the same question that I'm sharing now. When we do a practice, when these wonderful practitioners who I met are doing a practice, is the spirit of it to get to something or is the spirit of it to connect with what's here?

[33:05]

And in a way for sotos, and that's the fundamental question, is It's not so much like you're not allowed to do a technique or we want to make sure you're not doing one of these practices or we want to make sure you're not too clear about anything. That's not at all the point. The point is, can we keep the spirit of the practice not towards, I'm going to do this technique so that the birds get louder. I'm going to do this technique so that my breath gets deeper. Whether or not we do a technique, can the spirit of every moment of our life be... May I join more fully with how it actually is right now to be? Am I doing some meditation to change something or to fully be what I am before it changes? the most strict Zen practice says, so don't do anything.

[34:18]

But that's too, it's too pure. It's so pure that it's, it's not so helpful. You know, like water that's too pure to drink. It'll poison you. It's so pure. I don't know if that's true, but I've heard that. So Hongjir, this founder of the silent illumination, so some of these monks and practitioners in Taiwan and China also are practicing silent illumination, which is to just sit with an open, clear mind in the brightness of the present moment. That's our team. who sort of elaborated on this practice, major figure in our lineage, says outright, it's a common thing in Zen, it can't be practiced.

[35:30]

It can't be practiced or actualized because it is intrinsically full and complete. So how do you practice what's already here? Or Dogen Zenji, our founder in Japan, says, the Zazen, and I kept thinking of this as I was meeting people and struggling with practice, the Zazen, the practice that we're teaching, is not training in meditation. It's not learning a technique to make your life deeper. It's a really interesting comment. It's really pointing to something important. He says, actually, it's not training in meditation. It's just stepping through the gate into ease and joy. Sounds nice.

[36:36]

Which is like the ease and joy of not trying to do anything with our life and not try to manipulate our life in any way, but to just be how we are. There's something easeful and joyful about allowing that just being. Or Suzuki Roshi, our San Francisco Zen Center founder, says it's zazen sits zazen. So this is another way that we understand this. When we sit, if we have a technique that we're doing, we're doing something. But if we sit and let the meditation do the meditation, we're giving the zazen to zazen with this kind of question, with this openness. I wonder how to be fully alive right now. Like we did, and then zazen might answer, and then we say, great, you seem to know what to do. So we give our zazen to zazen.

[37:38]

We don't do it. That's what I wanted to talk about this morning. I'm grateful for your patience and attention. I want to really emphasize that so this practice of shikandaza, of just sitting, or this practice of not really knowing what our technique is because we're not bringing something into the moment. It's more like we're asking the moment. it doesn't mean that we can't take up some technique. Some people, sometimes we can feel that way, that, well, I do shikantaza, so I'm not allowed to be mindful of my breathing because shikantaza is something different than that.

[38:43]

I think the best way to think of it is that shikantaza is just this spirit of whatever practice I'm doing, it's to reveal and connect me with what it's like right now. It's not to become calm or to become deep or to become anything. It's to be how I am. Is that clear? Am I just hammering the snail again and again? I like the ancestors. So, of course, when we sit, you know, we attend to our posture, especially if there's any new sitters here. please be sincere about these instructions that you've received. This is undermining any scant training that you may have received here. This always strikes people, they come for meditation instruction and they hear something like this.

[39:45]

Hence, then they don't come back. Except some people feel like, I think that is more like what I need than some other thing to do. some other thing to achieve, some other thing to make some progress in my life. How about I have a place where I'm not doing anything like that, and I'm just not sure. And allowing just what is, allowing this close-hearted ghost to just be here without trying to fix him. and open him and wisen him and enlighten him. But anyway, we do give some basic practices because it's hard to sit without some clarity, even just the physical instruction. So we do attend to our posture. It's a big part of our practice. And we take good care of our breathing.

[40:47]

And we try to become quiet in our mind and empty and open and still. Coming completely still in body and mind. It's a wonderful place to put our effort. And then other techniques call to us. Other directions emerge from zazen and we can follow them. They're all welcome. They're all guiding us. But the spirit is always to stay how we are rather than to go off towards something. That's the most important point for practice. Anyone have any question or comment about meditation practice, given what I've shared? One on the side and then please.

[41:50]

it very closely like so so i just came here like four days ago and can i ask you a question yeah when i said become fully yourself and just be here totally your life in this moment did you do something we're exactly you are exactly who we wanted to hear from Maybe you have a long time practice, so... Wait. Wait, could you say that again? A little while ago, I said, let's try to just be fully present. And then people did different stuff, which was cool to watch. And I wonder what you did. I didn't do much. Let's listen closely.

[42:59]

I guess I kind of relaxed, but I didn't move. I guess I did do something kind of different, but then I was like, wait. And then I stopped doing it. Well, I'm glad you're here. Thanks. Did you have a question? Yes. So I've been... I learned how to meditate, quote-unquote, before coming here. And I've been feeling really confused by the whole, like, just sitting thing. Especially from, like, a Theravada place where I was taught that sila, morality, brings you to samadhi, concentration, which brings you to panya, which is wisdom. And I'm like, how does that fit in with just sitting?

[44:08]

Because now when I do this just sitting, I feel like my mind is everywhere. So what do you want to say about that? By your mind is everywhere, I guess you don't mean like your mind is in the bird sound and the... Rocks and tiles and breath. Well, it is. But it feels like it's focusing. Scattered. Yeah, it's scattered. Not all at the same time. It's like darting around. Yeah. And so if you say to yourself, if you invite this question, how to be fully here, how to be fully alive, how to be really one with my life, then you might... feel that having your mind wandering all over the place isn't supporting that so much. Yeah.

[45:08]

Yeah. And then maybe your mind would respond to that. So what I'm pointing to there is to connect with this intention or this sincerity or this longing to be present. And then try to kind of energize that and let that have some life rather than bring something in that's going to do that. So that's a kind of maybe a subtle approach. Of course, bringing your mind to your breathing is a wonderful practice, important practice. follow-up question.

[46:09]

Does that mean that I should stop developing concentration? Well, that's an interesting question. Yes. Okay, thank you. Okay, no, I can't just stop there. Yes. You know, so with the yes, I honor the ancestors, and now I slander the ancestors. And you concentrate on how you actually are right now. And not concentrate in order to, like, achieve some concentration or to get anywhere. And in a way that, you know, the Shila Samadhi Prajna, I don't know if it's right to say we have it the other way around, but in a way the Prajna is first.

[47:18]

So if you understand that just about the doctrine of Zen teaching, maybe of Mahayana Buddhism generally, the Prajna, the awakening, the wisdom and the compassion are what's here already. They're not at the end of some path. They're at the start. They're what you are. They're how you're here. They're your moment. They are fully manifest in your moment of saying, I wonder if having this wandering mind is actually honoring my life. So we don't have to do anything because when we stop doing anything, the wisdom and compassion is already there. So the feeling is, the awakening is original. It's inherent. It's here. And we're just trying to release and connect with that. So if your mind is wandering, your sincerity, I think, will naturally call you to settle and quiet the mind so that you can fully be here how you are.

[48:25]

But if you get too intense about it, like try to get this thing, then it's just another kind of ghost activity where you don't like what's happening and you're trying to get something better. And so that's this one thing. It's like even at this great cost to the meditation power or the meditation quality, Soto Zen has sort of said, even though it's going to cost us, you know, like a lot of samadhi or a lot of concentrated energy, we still want to emphasize this point. Don't set it up as something that you're going to achieve or get to. Just be here to be here with this question of like, how can I be here? And if you really are sincere in that question, Something orients. Zazen can start to sit zazen. Not because you're doing something to it. And I think the Theravada sees the same. They just feel that we're not ready for that practice. And you say, yeah, but let's not wait to do the best practice.

[49:34]

Sorry to ramble. One more. Hi. Pretty much in the same lines. I read once a quote from Dogen Zanji. He says, keep it like a baby. Sorry? Keep it like a baby. Keep it like a baby. Yes, wonderful. When you go out of here to the stream of life and to your everyday life, how do you do that? Because there's a lot of stuff that's trying to hijack you. this yeah so treat it like a baby like your life itself treat it like a baby or this this open mind i think i think the meaning was that once you have the present once you present yes and you have that awareness that we had today yes and he said keep it like a baby yes like treasure it yes But then when you go to your everyday life, there's a lot of distractions and a lot of things that are trying to pull you out of it.

[50:43]

And they put you back to be a ghost. Yes. So how do you keep it? How do you not deteriorate from it? Yeah. Thank you for that question. I really appreciate it. I have been a parent for 14 years, and I've read probably like two pages of a parenting book. Like, there's some way to do this. Somebody knows some way to do this. Has always been in the back of my mind. Somebody wrote down some really helpful things about how to do this. But I'm like, she's just doing it. In a way, that's maybe just my temperament. the Soto Zen part. It's like, I don't want to know the technique about how to do this right. I just want to wholeheartedly try to be here for it. And again, that's maybe really, sorry to my kids.

[51:46]

We could have just read the book and saved a whole lot of suffering. But so in a way, it's exactly how do you keep a baby? You can't, like, you don't keep it still. It's constantly changing. Every moment, it's asking for something else. So in a way, you forget how, like you try to do the thing that you did last night to make the baby go to sleep. You have to see what to do tonight to make the baby go to sleep. So keeping it is not like a still thing. And I think that's a big confusion. And in a way, that's what this silent illumination, this Chikantaza, is the most portable of all these practices because it's not a practice. So then any time... It's just this kind of question of how do I become one with this situation? How do I give myself wholeheartedly to what's actually here? That's the thing we're preserving. That's the kind of effort that we're preserving. In these other things, like you do some kind of meditation and then like we did, I hear the sound and I'm full of the sound.

[52:51]

Now we have some state and then we're trying to preserve that state. And then people say, how am I supposed to preserve the state at work? And then Zen teachers make something up. that's totally impossible about how you're supposed to preserve that state at work. And then everybody's like, I'm such a bad Zen student. Like I can't preserve that state at work, but that's not the point at all. The point is every moment at work, every moment in your life, you're just asking this question. How do I give myself completely? How do I be one with this situation? How do I be completely in, in this moment to be completely alive? And I'm not sure, but that, but that's the intention, the prayer, the wish. And so that's what we're keeping, is we're keeping this effort. We're keeping the effort of opening and connecting, and we're not holding on to any of what it's like, any of the result of that effort. And that's exactly what I was trying to get at by, now that you do a technique and you get some result, you're going to try to keep the result instead of keep the technique.

[53:54]

And that's what's so confusing about our practice, which is why Suzuki Roshi sometimes says, Maybe we shouldn't have any zendos. It doesn't exactly say that, but you feel this kind of ambivalence about having a zendo, because now people are going to think that they get something in the zendo and they have to keep it. It's confusing. The point is to be one with your life, as it is moment after moment, and we can actually cultivate that effort. We can get more and more used to being in that question, being in the discomfort of that, like, oh, I feel disconnected. Okay, yeah, I really feel disconnected. Wow, okay, good. And I long to connect. I long to be here. And then let that work. Thank you so much.

[54:42]

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