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. Sometimes we address each other. as honored followers of Zen. May I address you, honored follower of Zen? Welcome to the Green Dragon Temple. might say that this temple is dedicated to the practice of listening to the cries of the world.

[01:16]

This hall is called a meditation hall. a Zen hall, a Zen Do. It could also be called a listening hall. A place to sit quietly and in the quiet listening to the cries of the world. Another way to say it is it's a temple for observing all living beings. We sit down and we stand up in here and observe all living beings, contemplate all living beings. And then this hall, this temple is also dedicated to

[02:28]

in the context of listening, in the context of observing all living beings, we train. We train the listening. We train the observing. We learn to listen. We learn to contemplate all life in the most skillful way. And in this training of our listening, of our contemplating, when the training comes to maturity, when the training of the listening comes to maturity, We hear the truth.

[03:31]

When we're untrained and we listen to the cries of the world, we may be able to hear them. We may be able to listen to them, and we may be able to hear them, but without training, we don't necessarily hear the truth of the cry. hear the truth when we hear the true teaching in the midst of the cries that hearing liberates all living beings when we contemplate living beings and the contemplation is trained when the contemplation is brought to maturity then we see the truth. We see the way things really are. And in that vision, all the living beings are liberated from suffering and distress.

[04:44]

So I just told a story about the practice of this meditation hall, this listening hall this hearing hall this liberation hall so that the beings who wish to work for the liberation of suffering they could enter this kind of path they wish to make the best possible contribution to the world of living beings, one might recommend that they listen, and then they train, and then they can hear in the hearing of the truth.

[05:52]

The wish to liberate beings is realized. The wish to benefit the world to the point of liberation of suffering. That's basic. From that wish, we listen to the suffering beings. And then we enter training. You could call it Zen training or training in the Buddha way. training the listening, training the contemplation. And another way we speak of this training is we study the self. So we... We...

[07:03]

Living beings, humans for example, human living beings, live part of their life in a realm called consciousness. Where the human beings know things. And where there seems to be somebody named me there. It's a realm where there's a self. Where there seems to be somebody who is listening. and there seems to be somebody who forgets to listen and there seems to be somebody who is anxious or nervous or uncomfortable or happy or confused or encouraged or discouraged in this realm of consciousness the listening is occurring

[08:05]

But because the consciousness may be turbulent, we can get confused and forget to listen, or we can listen but not yet hear the truth. So that we train in this realm of consciousness where the listening is going on. We train in the study of the self and the self that seems to be listening. There's a practice there. Also in this realm of consciousness where we hear cries, where we know living beings, where we know them, where we have We know them as how they appear in consciousness.

[09:11]

Everything we know depends on words. Buddha's wisdom does not really depend on words, but to learn Buddha's wisdom, In consciousness, we are living in the realm, the coin of the realm of consciousness is words. And the realm of words is a realm where it's difficult to have continuous practice of listening and studying. it's around where we often get reactive and forget about living for the welfare of the world and think more in terms of perhaps those people are the problem those people are not being kind to me and I

[10:37]

I think they should be punished for not being kind to me rather than I think those people are not being kind to me but I wonder about that thinking and I really wish the best for those people who I think are not being kind to me I'm listening to the cries of those who I think are not being kind to me. And I'm listening to the cries of those who I think are not being my friends because I want them to be liberated from suffering. But in the realm that I'm listening, I sometimes get disoriented and forget that that's my aspiration. Part of the training is to be able to listen and hear the words and not get disoriented from the aspiration to hear the truth that liberates beings.

[11:59]

Studying this challenging realm of consciousness is studying the self because the self appears in consciousness. There is a story in the Zen tradition about a teacher named Zhao Zhou who lived in China. And one day a monk came to him and said, does a dog have Buddha nature? In the introduction to this story, in one of the books where it appears, the introduction says, even highly cultivated beings are turned about in the stream of words.

[13:06]

Even the highly cultivated, even the well-trained, even those who hear the true Dharma and who are liberating beings are turned about in the stream of words. I'm elaborating that. When I first heard this, I thought, I was surprised. Oh, really, a highly cultivated person is also spun around? turned about in the stream of words? I know uncultivated people are. I know some people, if you insult them, they seem to get spun around. And if some people, you praise them, they seem to get spun around. Right? We know even we sometimes are spun around by insults and praise. but I thought a highly cultivated person wouldn't be spun around. But then I read that, I thought maybe they too are spun around, and maybe it's not.

[14:22]

Maybe it's not that after they train more and more and more, they don't get spun around anymore. Maybe they too get spun around. I think that today. The highly cultivated person is willing to live in consciousness where there's words and where they're getting spun around. What's the difference between highly cultivated and untrained? I suggest the difference is the highly cultivated person gets spun around and doesn't get disoriented. The untrained person gets spun around and gets disoriented because they haven't trained at being spun in the stream of words they're not familiar with the spinning churning world of their consciousness because they have not studied and trained within consciousness if you watch some ballerinas or what do they call the male versions

[15:41]

Ballet people. If you watch them turn, they can spin around and not get disoriented. They can spin and spin and know the next move and be quite present. They learn how to spin and not get disoriented. And they can even tilt their head back and have their head be swinging around the center and not get disoriented. That ability is... fruit of a lot of training. Most of us without training would not be able to do that. And as you know, little children like to have you spin them around and to experience the disorientation that occurs. The wonderful dizziness in which they're temporarily relieved from suffering. again when I first heard that phrase I thought oh the highly cultivated people are turned about in the stream of words but even more cultivated they aren't turned now I think they are turned and they show all beings how to live in consciousness where their words are streaming all over the place and they show how to be turned about and not forget

[17:22]

what we're in consciousness for. We're in consciousness for the same reason we're in the meditation hall. Consciousness is our meditation hall where we sit upright and listen. And when we get spun, we continue to be upright and listen. And we remember the reason we're listening is because we wish our life to benefit all beings. And we understand that we can be of some benefit to beings, but if we don't know how to continue to be upright as we spin, we sometimes forget all about benefiting beings and think only about own welfare and even forget that we get so we can get so disoriented that we think I'm not even gonna be kind to me not to mention all those other people who are so painful for me to listen to

[18:44]

I think that the highly cultivated person is turned about without disorientation. They don't forget to listen and they don't forget to study the spinning. The Buddha way is to study the world of self and other. The world of self listening to other in the world of other listening to the self. The Buddha way is to study that realm and the Buddha way is basically to spin. To go forward on the Buddha way is to turn and spin and leap in the flow of life. To be steady and upright in the midst of intense change, which is our normal life.

[20:00]

The intensity undulates or has a rhythm, goes up and down and sideways and increases and decreases. And by finding our balance in this turbulence, in what appears to be even hostility by finding our balance there we hear the truth where there's no increase or decrease no beginning or end no self or other and in that vision beings are saved all day long living beings have the opportunity to train their listening, their observing of all life, which is all others and all selves, to study this self, to study how this person feels, to study my fear, to study other people's fear, to listen to my anxiety, to listen to other people's anxiety.

[21:21]

to listen to my hardships, to listen to others' hardships. And to watch any sense of separation and to stay upright, to be upright, to be upright, to be upright with the turning, with the leaping. To study the meeting place of self and other. to look at the place where self and other meet. To learn to stay and preside over the threshold, the meeting place of self and others. To preside over the boundary between self and other.

[22:22]

preside over the boundary between peace and war, to preside over the threshold between freedom and bondage. All these are occurring in our moment-by-moment consciousness. We have the opportunity to listen to it all and then train being in the center of it in the threshold where all dualities meet. So if someone is talking to me and perhaps clapping for me or wait,

[23:26]

or waving their finger at me. My grandson does it sideways like that. Rather than forward and backward, he does it sideways. No, granddaddy. Nope. Like he goes, don't dwell in the past, granddaddy. When people make offerings to us, of various kinds, there's a practice of presiding over that meeting. It isn't really that the self is presiding over the meeting. The practice is the presiding of the meeting. The self is there. Like it or not, there's a self who's being addressed. or there's a self who's addressing.

[24:29]

There's a self who's listening, or there's a self who's crying and being listened to. All day long. All day long. How does it go? He lives in the treetop all day long, hopping and bopping and singing his song. Everybody on J.E. Street, love to hear the robin go tweet, tweet, tweet, rockin' robin all day long, all day long. He's singing, he's listening all day long. The practice is presiding over the meeting. And I looked up the word presiding. It means the authority that's present at a meeting. Or it also means, preside means to play, at a public meeting, like to play the piano. The presiding over the meeting between ourself and others is the practice, which is playing at the meeting.

[25:42]

And training ourself is to let ourself appreciate and be part of the presiding of the meeting between the listener and the cry between the cry and the listener to train and study that relationship until it comes to maturity and in that maturity there is hearing the truth is heard the truth is seen all day long we can study this situation because it's all day long situation But again, because it's so dynamic, we often get disoriented and forget the opportunity to study self and its relationship with actions and others. So again, listening to the cries of the world doesn't mean just listening to the cries of others.

[27:02]

It means listening to the cries of yourself. And listening to the cries of yourself, you might have a cry in response to the cry you hear. I... Yesterday I told a story about something that happened about 100 feet from here, like right over there. There used to be an office which has been recycled. And I had an experience in front of that office about 20 years ago. I took a walk with somebody up in the mountains. We walked around up in the hills. We walked around. And we came back. And I thought... our walk was going to end at the office. And so we came to the office and we stopped walking, but the person I was with continued to talk.

[28:06]

And he was talking in such a way that I didn't feel like, he didn't like talking and stop and look at me quietly and make a little space there where I could say, well, thank you for the walk and the talk. Great to see you. Bye-bye. He was just... talking and I didn't see a space and he was such a nice person I just didn't feel like I wanted to interrupt his talking and I felt like actually when I was looking for an opening to come in and say well I'd like to go now it seemed like he sensed that I wanted to go and he sped up so I wouldn't have a chance to say anything And inside, I was feeling like my energy was sinking down, down, down. I could hardly breathe. I was listening to his cries, but I was having trouble listening to mine because they were so... His didn't seem to be so bad for him.

[29:18]

He seemed to be happy chatting away. But I was hearing something like, I'm dying. I can hardly breathe. Get me out of here. So I kept listening to him and I kept listening inside. And I felt kind of anxious inside because I thought, how am I ever going to get out of this conversation? And I don't know how much longer I can go. And I couldn't bring myself just to lie down on the ground. I thought he might be insulted. But I actually would have been more comfortable listening to him in a reclined posture. Because I had just taken a long walk, you know. And then I heard this voice inside.

[30:18]

And the voice was, I love you, Rebbe. That's what my dad used to call me. And I just felt refreshed by hearing that. And then in response to hearing that, I cried and I said, thanks for the great talk and walk. See you later. And walked away. And it was fine. And I could have said that before, but I couldn't hear. But I listened enough so finally I could hear what I needed to hear, and I could say what I needed to say. But it was hard. I was having a hard time. One poem which I recite quite frequently is a poem written by a person who they say was a Sufi.

[31:26]

His name is Rumi. And I don't know if they would say that Rumi was a dervish. A dervish is sometimes defined as a practitioner of Sufism, of the Sufi path. And in particular, sometimes the translation of the word or the definition of the word dervish is like an ascetic practitioner of Sufism. not all Sufis are necessarily ascetics, but the dervishes are sometimes said to be the ascetics, and one etymology of the word dervish is poor person. But the etymology is somewhat unclear, and some other interpretations bring the etymology to the root dar, which means door. And so, again, one interpretation of that root is that it's a person who goes from door to door.

[32:35]

In other words, a person who begs. Because the Sufis, the dervishes did beg for their... They begged for food. And they actually begged for food, not for themselves, but for the community. And then other people would beg and give them what they received. But someone said to me, which led me to do this research, that... The root of the word dervish is threshold or door. And they said that to me when I recited this poem by Rumi, which is, The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don't go back to sleep. You have to say what you really want. Don't go back to sleep. The door is round.

[33:39]

Oh, excuse me. Everyone is walking back and forth at the threshold where the two worlds meet. The door is round and open. Don't go back to sleep. And when I I liked that poem when I first heard it. I appreciated it. And I kind of thought that that meant that one of the concluding comment was the doors were on and open, so if you're awake, you can walk through the door. But today I feel like we're at the threshold and the doors round and open. But it's not that we should go through the door. It's that we should be at the threshold and live with the open door. Because the door is not just open into peace and freedom, which it is, it's also open into bondage and suffering.

[34:39]

It's open in both directions. The door is not just open into others, it's open into self. So now I feel like it's not that I should go through the door, open door into others, and I shouldn't go through the door, open door into myself. I should stand or sit upright at this threshold, at this doorway, and be open to others and self. I should study that situation where freedom and bondage meet where we live. We live, according to the poem, at that threshold where self and other meet where peace and war meet, where freedom and bondage meet, and not lean into freedom, but realize it at the doorway. Realize the freedom because it's right there touching us all the time.

[35:47]

If we lean into the freedom, this is not the way of the one wishes to benefit the world if we lean into the world of suffering this is not the way of the one who wishes to benefit the world of suffering it's to be upright at the threshold and to show people how to be upright and if they are they will realize the freedom that meets their bondage we realize freedom without abandoning bondage we realize relinquishment of all suffering and distress without moving away from suffering and distress. We live at that threshold. And not only do we live there, but we turn there. We don't just stand there stiff.

[36:51]

We don't just walk back and forth. We spin back and forth. We jump up and down. because we can't help it. But we train so that we don't lean in either direction and embrace both. We don't lean towards others. We don't lean towards self. Of course, we do lean towards others and we do lean towards self. And then we practice confession and repentance that we leaned. And when we lean, we all... we notice we get disoriented, so we confess. When you said that, I leaned into what you said. When you said I was wrong, I leaned into you saying it was wrong and I got disoriented and then I stopped appreciating you and I'm sorry. And now I'm upright again and now I can be grateful for you telling me I was wrong.

[37:52]

Not because I really believe I'm wrong because I'm not going to lean I actually I actually leaned into right and wrong so it isn't that when people tell me I'm wrong I lean away from wrong or into wrong I listen to it I train to listen to it and turn with it because it's the turning that's the Buddha way not the believing or disbelieving which we do So that in the realm of bondage, there's believing and disbelieving. And that world of believing and disbelieving meets the world of freedom from belief and disbelief. Just now, quite a few people left, and I imagine they went to cook lunch.

[39:16]

Or maybe to get the vegetables ready for you outside. Or get ready to serve tea. Anyway, a lot of people left. And there's a world like that. There's a world where people leave, which you may have noticed. And it's also a world where people come. And there's another world that meets the world where people leave, where people do not leave and do not come. And if we wish to help beings who live in the world where people leave and people come, we want to help people that live there we need to be upright with the world where people leave and realize it's not separate from the world where people do not leave and show other people how to realize the non-duality of the world of birth and death and the world of peaceful, tranquil non-birth non-death

[40:40]

Nirvana is called peace. Nirvana is called freedom. Nirvana is called the birthless and the deathless. But the teaching of the Zen temple is birth and death are not the least bit different in any way, really, from no birth and no death. Nirvana is not different from cyclic suffering. But we have to train, otherwise we'll lean towards nirvana or away from nirvana, towards birth and death or away from earth and death. That's our habit. And we need to train and be kind to that habit and listen to the cries of that habit in order to serve all beings by demonstrating being upright in the midst of this meeting of all beings.

[41:48]

There may be trouble ahead. So while there's music and moonlight and love and romance, let's face the music and dance. Before the fiddlers have fled, before they ask us to pay the bill, and while there's still a chance, let's face the music. Soon we'll be without the moon humming a different tune. And then there may be teardrops to shed. But while there's music and moonlight and love and romance let's sit upright

[43:13]

face the music and dance this might be the way to liberate all beings do you wish to liberate all beings do you wish to make that kind of contribution to the world to join the liberation project we will make a contribution to the world we cannot help it we will we are responsible for the world we have made contributions up till now so from now on in addition to all the contributions you've made so far, what contributions do you wish to make for the rest of your life?

[44:20]

The beginning of the poem is, the breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. If you can be present, and upright, you will hear the secret that the dawn of every phenomena is singing. And the next line is, you have to say what you really want. In order to live and preside over the boundary between self and other, between freedom and bondage, in order to live there and preside, or I should live there and be with the presiding, We need to say what we really want. Do you really want to serve in that way? We need to say so. To stake our claim on being there in that way.

[45:32]

So please consider saying, not just, first of all, find what you really want. and then please consider saying what you really want. And then if you can find it and say it, then I would say, please consider that those who have become mature in the practice are those who say what they really want over and over, not just once, but on a daily basis. hourly basis to refresh, to remind yourself of what you really want so that you can do what you really want to do. I have to remind myself that I really want to study the self so that I can go back and try again. And I would like to remind myself every moment.

[46:39]

I wish I could. I wish everybody could. But if I can't, or if you can't, then I wish I could admit that I forgot and say I'm sorry in the presence of those who remember. This is the pure and simple color of true practice. The true mind of faith, the true body of faith. 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.

[47:49]

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

[48:01]

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