This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Welcome, everyone. This is our weekly Sunday talk, and it's also the last... talk in a five-day Sashin meditation retreat. We're in the middle of a practice period, a Sashin, and the Sunday program. So those of you who've never been in a Zen Sashin before, now you have. Just a little bit of it. So we won't have the usual afterwards and we'll just finish off our silent retreat after this we've been looking at and we'll continue to look at for the next month or so the first Zen writing first Zen poem

[01:26]

The first Zen writing is a poem by the third Chinese ancestor of Zen who lived in the 6th century China. This poem is called Song of the Trusting Mind and it begins the great way, the Tao, awakening, the way is not difficult. Those of you just arriving might feel like, yeah, can understand that.

[02:30]

And those of you who've been sitting nonstop for five days might question such a statement. But that's what the third ancestor says. The great way is not difficult. In parentheses, for those who hold no preferences. Or maybe more literal translation. It's kind of funny, I think. Maybe literally we could say, the great way is not difficult. It only hates holding preferences.

[03:35]

The great way is not difficult, except the great way has this one problem, is that it hates picking and choosing. It hates having holding preferences. I don't know if you can see the humor. and hating holding preferences. The gray way is not difficult. It's all fine. It's just that the gray way has this one little problem, like a kind of a strong preference for holding no preferences. It's like that. And to me it seems like naturally as humans we have preferences. It's not such a problem.

[04:40]

It seems to me to sometimes prefer one thing over another. But to hold the preferences, that's where we really do get into trouble. We can say, I'd rather have this than that, but then a person says, well, you can't. You're going to get this instead. Okay. If that's how it is, that's not so bad, I think. Not such a problem, but more like, no, I really need to give me that, not this. Well, I'm sorry. It's not going to happen. We'll make it happen. Now we have a problem, right? The great way is not difficult for those who hold no preferences. Those are the first recorded, maybe the first recorded words of Zen in our world system.

[05:44]

And maybe no more are needed, really. That kind of covers the basics. Of course, there are a lot more words. But... This could be understood to be the heart of the matter. When I think of this line as a poem, for some reason, when memory comes to mind, a Zen memory of a long time ago when I was first practicing Zen as a young practitioner over 30 years ago, I was at Pasahara Zen Monastery, our kind of connected Zen center down in the mountains. And it was a practice period led by our Zen center's first woman, Abbas Zenke Blanche Hartman Roshi.

[06:55]

And somehow, One of the things that, when I think of her, one of the things that stands out about her is I think she really was up for exploring this teaching of not holding preferences and kind of examining preferences to be aware of them. Those who were here last week heard Reverend Imo talk about the practice period and Sashin and Zen are like putting a curvy snake in a bamboo tube. We have naturally curvy nature and Sashin creates this kind of straight bamboo tube where we can't wiggle too much. Our curves get kind of straightened out.

[08:01]

And as I mentioned previously, it's not so much like we're trying to straighten a curvy snake. It's more just us curvy snakes get to become more aware of our curvy nature by sliding into a bamboo tube. Just to notice, like we might feel like, I don't really hold many preferences, but then we step into Sashin. bamboo tube, narrow bamboo tube, and we start to notice, wow, all kinds of things, preferences I didn't even notice are now like in my face. Anyway, this was a practice period at Tassajara with Zenke, Blanche, and we have this Uriyuki practice. Those of you who've been sitting this week, we've been having all our meals, in the zendo with our sets of bowls and the servers come in and they serve us food silently.

[09:07]

It's a very beautiful ritual once it's learned. And I hope now on the fifth day, I know some people were very new to it. I think that, I hope you're starting to enjoy the flow of it without worrying too much about figuring it all out. We have one more meal to really enjoy. Anyway, we're Yoki. Servers come in and they start ladling food into our bowls and we have these hand signals like this is enough, you know, this a little bit more. And so we don't, we already, our preferences are minimized because the food just comes to us. We don't get to choose what the food is, but we have a little choice of like how much to take. But Zenke Blanche did... had this practice and I think she told us in the practice period or told at least some of us, uh, I think I'm going to try out this practice because I see my, my preferences around food.

[10:09]

Even at Orioki, I see them coming up so much and how I'm trying to control them, control the food situation. So I'm going to do this practice of just, uh, I'll just receive one ladle of every, every bowl of food. So I won't have to think about it at all, like how much to take. If I'm hungry, it might not be enough. If I'm full, it might be too much. But I'm just going to see what it's like to just give up the preference about not only what it is, but how much it is. And I thought, wow, I would have a hard time doing that. I still would have a hard time doing that. And she did that for many days. My vague memory is maybe she told some of us but not the whole community because I think the servers serving the food didn't know that she was doing this practice.

[11:17]

If they did, maybe they would just make sure to give her a really full ladle. It's not that much. But, you know, or maybe they knew, but they just forgot because nobody else was doing this kind of thing. So they just, you know, take a half a ladle and figuring they're going to take many half ladles and pour it in and that's it for Zenke Blanche. However big a ladleful it was, she just received it and the server went on to the next person. And I think that that was an amazing practice. She got to watch her preferences. And I think by the end of Sashin, I think in a Dharma talk, she maybe confessed to the assembly, like, this has been actually challenging for me. And when those servers, just a tiny little bit, because the next ladle is going to be the full one,

[12:24]

I confessed that I would have sometimes a little bit of resentment. I was like, why did they give me so little? Of course, I couldn't tell them. So I think for the last meals, I'm just going to give up that practice so I can just fully love the servers. So it was an example of trying out a practice to really confront her preferences and also seeing how difficult it is. And another time, with Zenke Blanche, it might have been the same practice period, she was very into Zazen. She was probably in her 70s at that time. I was in my early 20s, so she seemed like a venerable old seasoned Zen practitioner, but also, you know,

[13:24]

She should be taking care of herself in her 70s. Don't push it. But she would love to do night sitting, yaza. So we sit all day in Sashin, but then after the schedule, there's kind of informal, optional sitting. And Blanche would always come sit, and many others would join her. Some of us have been doing Yaza, the Sashin. I like to just always do it, not like whether I prefer or not, just as a practice. Sometimes I don't always enjoy it, but I often do. Because often by the end of the Sashin, I'm talking with people, I'm meeting with people all during Sashin. Still by the time the day ends, This night sitting is his chance.

[14:28]

Finally, now I can actually just sit quietly. It's so refreshing. In one old sutra, the Buddha is talking with somebody and somebody asks, Blessed one, Buddha, you're a fully awakened one. You don't have any problem. You don't need to do any more training or practice. So why do you still live out in the forest under the trees? What an uncomfortable life you have. Why do you live like that? You could go back to your palace where you grew up now because nothing would affect you one way or the other. And the Buddha said, well, since you ask, I'll tell you. I like to... live out in the forest under the trees for two reasons. One is, because I really like to.

[15:31]

I like it. It's a little bit like a preference. Somebody said, you're not allowed to live in the forest anymore. Probably the Buddha would say, okay, okay. But it's okay to have a preference. I don't think he was holding it so strongly. I like it. And the second reason is to set a good example for future generations. How nice when these two things align. It's probably not so good to set an example for future generations of doing something that we really don't like to do. Because we don't want people to do what they don't want to do. But maybe it was an example of just... I want to make sure... that I'm okay living in any situation.

[16:32]

So like under the trees in the forest is kind of unusual one that most people probably wouldn't like. So I want to make sure that I don't have a problem with it. And then he got used to it and just liked it. So anyway, maybe Blanche was sitting like this with, me and the young students into the night. And I think it was a kind of custom for her and for some people at Tassahara. I don't know if it's like that these days or not, but the last night of Sashin, not just sit a few hours, but like sit all night through to morning zazen and then just keep going through the last day. So I think she maybe even... said to the assembly, I'm going to sit all night in the Zendo tonight. If anyone would like to join me, you're welcome. And a bunch of people did, including me.

[17:35]

And this particular occasion that I'm remembering is at Tassajara, there's this role called the Jikido. I don't know if I even still have this or not. Is there still a Jikido? At that time, the Jikido, the assembly would wake up at like 3.30 for Zazen, but the Jikido would wake up at 2.30 to light all the lanterns. I think they don't have to do this anymore because it's electrified now. It would take a long time to light many, many lanterns on the path so the assembly wouldn't trip in the dark. And to make sure that the Jikido didn't oversleep their 2.30 wake-up time, they slept in the zendo the night before. It was just part of the form. So when we would be doing this yaza, night sitting, there'd always be a jikido in the zendo.

[18:40]

Often people were sitting all around them, so they would kind of feel like they would join the sitting a lot of the time. But at some point, especially if it was sitting all night, they would go to sleep. And this one night, this all-night sitting night, the Jikido, I don't even remember who it was, but they fell asleep quite quickly, and they snored very, very loudly. Like the paper windows on the Zendo were vibrating. Even the seats were almost shaking. Every breath. Like. Like a really. Like this is like. The. The. Maximum. Snore.

[19:43]

Possible. And it was going on for. It started pretty quickly. And it was not stopping. And quite a few of us were sitting for a while like that. And of course it was the dominant content of zazen. Like no other zazen. The breath, I don't find any breath. All there is is that person's breath. That rhythm, that rumbling earthquake of snore. And so at some point I thought, we're just getting started. This is going to be like eight hours or something. It's been many hours. And it's already hard enough to sit all night. And we don't want to, the poor person, we don't want to wake them up and disturb them. We just keep snoring.

[20:45]

But there's other places we could sit. Jikido is supposed to sleep in Nizemno, but we could go over to the Founders Hall and sit over there. So at some point I thought, my preference was getting stronger and stronger of like, what can we do? And why doesn't the Venerable Addis do something? Why doesn't she do something? She's the boss. I can't believe that she's just sitting here and us young ones, shouldn't try to instigate some change. But she just didn't for hours, right? And at some point, I'm like, I got to take the matter into my own hands. So I got up, went over to Zenke Blanche, and whispered in her ear, what do you think about this?

[21:47]

what about we could all just quietly go sit in the Kaisando Founders Hall together? I didn't need to explain why. It was quite obvious. And she said to me, you're welcome to sit there if you'd like, but my practice is to sit with whatever's happening. I was very impressed by that. I think I stayed in the Zendo too. And so these little snippets of Dharma, right, from 30 years ago, that made a big impression on me. I thought, well, maybe she just doesn't want to bother moving. Maybe the form is to sit in the Zendo. But no, she's just like, this is my practice of not preferring quiet room. wow so um the great way is really not so difficult uh there's many great parts of this poem after this line so just to recap a few for uh it wasn't the scene as the rest of you haven't heard

[23:12]

Also because there's many modern commentaries on the Song of the Trusting Mind. But apparently, the first commentary ever in China was written by our Soto Zen ancestor, Chong Liu Qingliou. In Japanese, we call him... who lived in the 12th century, many centuries after the third ancestor. But maybe it's the first known commentary in China on this poem. And we have it in English. That's how the world is now. So I really like some of his comments we've been looking at. So there's another line in this first Zen poem.

[24:23]

The way is perfect like vast space where nothing is lacking and nothing is extra. The great way is not difficult. It just hates. Hating and attaching. It just hates preferences. But this great wave is not so difficult. It's perfect. Like vast space. It's complete. Like vast space. Where nothing is lacking. And nothing is extra. Like the space. That's filling. Zendo. And filling. The atmosphere of the planet. And filling. The space between the planets filling the entire universe.

[25:23]

That space is complete. It's not missing anything. It's not lacking anything. And nothing really can be added to the space, the physical space of the universe. Yeah? Space is that kind of thing. You can't really add anything to it or take anything away from it. Our true nature is like this. What is the way? Ordinary mind is the way. This ever-present, spacious, ungraspable, colorless, soundless, tasteless, smellless, thoughtless, space of awareness is complete.

[26:26]

You can't add anything to its ordinary mind and you can't really take anything away from it. And anything that happens within it doesn't really affect it. Just like us walking around and throwing things around the space of the Zendo doesn't really affect the space of the Zendo. It's intimate with the space of the Zendo, but Nothing, even if we were throwing rocks at the space of the Zendo, they wouldn't damage the space in the Zendo. If they land on some object in the Zendo, they might damage it. But nothing damages or harms space. And this is how our ordinary mind of ever-present, plain old awareness is. Third ancestor says, the way is perfect, like vast space where nothing is lacking and nothing is extra.

[27:29]

And Choro Sergio comments on every line of the poem. So his comment here is, all colors cannot stain it, this space of the way. Sounds cannot disturb it. Myriad forms cannot mix in. The totality of appearances cannot participate. Well-rounded and independent. Space is not dependent on anything. Complete, without limit. In ordinary people, it's called... the state of ordinary people. In sages, it's called the state of sages. But it's not actually different in ordinary people or sages.

[28:37]

Fundamentally, it has no lack and no excess. Where is it? Seemed through. Where is space anyway? Can you see it? It's seen through. Another line from the poem is be serene without striving activity in the oneness of things and such Erroneous views will disappear by themselves. This is a practice instruction. Be serene without striving activity, trying to get something that we don't already have.

[29:40]

Be calm and relaxed without striving, gaining activity in the oneness of things. Well, the oneness of things is another way of talking about the space. How many spaces are there in the universe? Approximately one. It's indivisible. It might seem like space is being divided into the Zendo space and Cloud Hall space and the kitchen space, but actually it's really just one space, right, that... that seems to have these temporary limitations of walls around it. But the walls aren't really affecting the space, really. They're just temporarily delineating certain areas so that we can call them zendo as opposed to kitchen.

[30:51]

And we're kind of like that too, right? We're temporary delineated beings that share the same space. But our identity is not, our true nature is not the edge of the body and the edge of the thoughts. But more like the unchanging space that always just knows whatever is happening, like a mirror that's unaffected by whatever image appears on it. So be serene without striving activity in the oneness of things and erroneous views. would disappear by themselves.

[31:54]

And Choro Sario's comment is, The skin shed completely. There is only one true reality. Illuminating past and present, it is as clear as the bright sun appearing before you, naked and clean. But do you see it? can you see it? How can you see space? How can you grasp space? It's called, Choro Sario says, ordinary mind. And now we've reached the line We're all up to date now, to speed with where we've arrived in this poem.

[33:03]

Everybody, this is the new line, and I think one of the highlights of this poem. To return to the root is to find the meaning, but to pursue appearances is to miss the source. At the moment awareness turns around and illuminates itself, there is going beyond appearance and emptiness. The changes that appear to occur in the empty world we call real only because of ignorance. To return to the root is to find the true meaning or the true purpose. What's the root? We get so caught up in the branches and the twigs and the leaves, which is like all these many different things moving around in the wind.

[34:13]

We get concerned with the content of space because that's what we pay attention to. And we forget the root of space. in which everything's happening. So we have a practice of, yes, there's lots of squigs and branches to attend to, but for now, in Zazen, we can return to the root, the stable, unshakable root from which all these branches spread and frolic about in the breeze. To return to the root is to find the meaning or the purpose. Purpose of our practice. But to pursue appearances is to miss the source.

[35:16]

To pursue that all this branch-like stuff is to miss the source or the root. At the moment, awareness turns around and illuminates itself. There's going beyond appearance and emptiness. So maybe a more literal translation here of these lines is like, instead of to pursue appearances as to miss the source, literally it's like to follow illumination. misses the source. Illumination is like our mind is illuminating the world and all the things that it illuminates. To follow the illuminated things is to miss the source of the illumination. Or you could also translate it as to submit to the illumination of things is to miss the source.

[36:27]

That illuminates them. At the moment of returning to illumination, there's going beyond. That's a kind of more literal transition. To follow or submit to the illumined, is to miss the source. At the moment of returning illumination, there's going beyond. So you could say follow illumination is like attending to the objects that are known by mind. And when we're attending to the known, We miss the source of knowing.

[37:31]

But the moment illumination returns or turns back, or the moment of shining back, or here, a little more elaborate, explanatory translation, the moment awareness turns around and illuminates itself, And this is in Japanese, the term here is hensho, which became, this is the first Zen poem. So this is the first time this term in a Zen text is used. Hensho literally means like back, back shining, backward illumination. And from then on, after the third ancestor, many, many Zen ancestors started using this term. I like the term. So I once collected this huge list. It has like 30 different Chinese and Japanese ancestors that all talk about, use this term, Hensho.

[38:40]

And sometimes it's combined with two other characters. It has Eiko. Eiko Hensho literally means turning the light and shining it back. Eko Hensho. Sometimes just Hensho is used. Sometimes just Eko is used. There are often, for many, many ancestors in China, of all lineages, and in Japan, they spoke of Zazen in this way. Including our ancestor, Eihei Dogen, Zenji, who, in his universal instructions for Zazen, He uses this term, originally from the third ancestor, to turn the light around and shine it back. Dogen says, turn the light around and shine it back.

[39:44]

And body and mind of themselves will drop away and your original face will manifest. Awareness is, when we're paying attention to something, awareness narrows itself into a beam. If it's just like spacious, formless, sizeless light of awareness, in order to attend to something, that light has to narrow down into like a beam of light that's directed towards a specific object of attention. That's how I would describe and define the word attention. Attention is like the bright space of awareness contracting into a narrow beam of light to focus on something.

[40:49]

And that's how we focus on things. Like if you want to focus on one word on the page in the dark, You could have the whole room kind of glowing with candlelight, or you could have a narrow beam just directed toward that one word. It'd be more efficient to know something specific. But the problem with that is that then everything becomes narrow, and we lose touch with the spaciousness of the all-pervading light. When we pay attention, We have many practices in Zen of paying attention. I think partly because our attention is usually directed towards specific things, but it keeps switching between specific things. This thought, that thought, this feeling, why did that person say that? This one, that one. So the attention keeps jumping around.

[41:51]

And this is disturbing, so we say, just to kind of rein in the attention. Just choose one thing. Just pay attention to one thing. It's posture. It's breath. Start to settle down when we pay attention to one thing. It's a skillful means. So that's one type of meditation is to pay attention to one experience. try to narrow our focus of attention to one thing. And then there's another type of meditation that's more like almost seems like the opposite, almost like relaxing attention from anything. And practically speaking, it seems that in zazen, to begin with, and many people are new to practice,

[42:57]

that at first, and people have been telling me, their thoughts are like all over the place, and it's like obsessively, uncontrollably chaos, right? In such a case, it's very good, I think, that Buddhas and ancestors offered this method of just trying to focus on one simple, simple experience, like... the breath in the lower belly, which is hard to do because the thoughts have their own momentum. But we can gradually train the mind, patiently, finally attend to one thing. And then when we're somewhat calm, when the thoughts aren't total chaotic, spinning all over, then we may feel curious about this type of meditation.

[44:07]

It's like, now I'm quite present, I'm quite relaxed, there's still some thoughts, it's okay, but how would it be to kind of widen this beam of light that's directed towards the breath two inches below the navel, very specific point of attention. What if it's like relaxing the attention, releasing the attention, and relaxing or sinking back into the ever-present space of ordinary mind. So in this way, I would propose that turning the light around and shining it back or awareness turning around and illuminating itself is not an activity that we do.

[45:14]

And if we look at that, then it would be very frustrating. It's not an activity we do. It's more, kind of ironically, strangely, It's more like we're letting go of an activity that we're already doing. Because focusing attention on an object is an activity. Even when we're totally distracted, the mind is very active, right? It's actively attending to these thoughts. It's paying attention. We're paying attention to thoughts. These thoughts. With our attention. We're giving them our attention. And the more we pay the thoughts. The more they're like. This is great. This is a lucrative career. I have here. I'm just going to keep doing it. So we pay them more and more.

[46:16]

And they increase more and more. Paying attention to thoughts. Actually does. continue them and increase them. Paying attention to the breath actually promotes focus on this one stable experience of breathing. So that's, I think, a better client to pay the breath. But then There's this other practice that's kind of like this activity that we're doing of paying attention. It's kind of like releasing the activity that we're not even often aware that we're making this activity. But we're ceasing, we're letting go, we're softening an activity that we're kind of doing all day long, paying attention to the content of awareness.

[47:21]

So turning the light around, we first approach it maybe as another activity. Okay, the light's going out that way. I'll just like stop it there and bend it back. No, no, no. It can sound that way, but it's not. For one thing, it's not something we do. And for another thing, it's not like we're turning the laser beam back. It's almost the opposite. It's like there's the laser beam of attention. and we're just relaxing, focus wider and wider, opening wider and wider, staying present, if we start to daydream, then we're attending to the daydreams. So we're like, without attending to, paying attention to any particular, we're widening, thinking, awareness, the light of awareness relaxing back into itself is what we call poetically in Zen, turning the light around and shining it back or returning the illumination to its source.

[48:38]

And another way to practice this, as many of you have heard, is to simply ask, is awareness present? I propose that that is exactly identical practice to echo Hensho. It's just a slightly different version of it. Is awareness present? Am I aware right now? I'm having an experience, so there must be awareness of it. Where is that? It's not out there at the end of my attention beam. It's not back there either. It's like space. Unlocated and ungraspable, yet undeniably illuminating everything.

[49:42]

Always. So Choro Serio's comment on this line of the poem, he says, Once you understand that all things, all experiences, are yourself, there's not a single thing that can strike your feelings. You see through a thousand differences. Right away, this is true. Turning matter back into emptiness instantly. No longer detaching in order to contemplate emptiness. This is maybe getting quite profound. It's not like contemplating matter. Not...

[50:53]

like trying to release our grip from attachment to things in order to find emptiness. It's turning things, it says matter, instantly into emptiness. It's not like really a magical transformation. It's that what we call matter experientially for us is nothing but the empty space of awareness. like a piece of paper like this, right? Looking at it, it's like, we could call it matter, but experientially for us, where is this piece of paper happening for you and I? Is it not happening in the space of awareness? They have all kinds of stories that it's happening in Coco's hand or it's happening on the back of the retina.

[52:02]

These are all stories experientially for us. Most intimately, is it not happening in the space of awareness? And is it like scratching the space of awareness? Is it touching the space of awareness? Or is it actually just, it is. awareness, temporarily expressing itself as what we call a piece of paper, black and white colors. This is a very intimate investigation to see that everything we're experiencing in the world of color and sound and thought and sensation can't be found as anything other than ordinary mind awareness itself. It's not really that ordinary mind knows colors and sounds.

[53:04]

We can talk that way, but intimately, this is why we need another Sashin. Let's have one soon. We could sit a lot, deeply exploring this. not exactly thinking, it's more like investigating direct experience very carefully. Choro Saryo goes on, identifying with the very essence, yet without description, is called seeing mind when you see matter. This is why it goes beyond appearance and emptiness. This is the next line. In the next comment, he says, if you know yourself, that will do.

[54:09]

That's all you need. So maybe this is a bit much for a Sunday talk. I don't know if this is like getting too out there. for some of you but I hope it plants some seeds that like everything we're experiencing may not actually be the way we assume it is and the way we assume it is that doesn't always work out so nicely we have we have our problems we have some are not content. Identifying with the very essence, Choro Suryo says, yet without being able to describe it tentatively, we can call it seeing mind when you see so-called matter.

[55:13]

That's why there is going beyond appearance and emptiness. Going beyond the distinction of appearances, sights and sounds, and the empty space of awareness. Going beyond the duality of the appearances of the world and the empty, bright space that fills but that we rarely attend to simply because it doesn't look like anything or sound like anything. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support

[56:19]

For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[56:30]

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