This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good evening. Can everybody hear me? Well, welcome all of you to Tassajara on this beautiful evening. I see many old friends in the audience and many people I look forward to meeting. When I was up in San Francisco, I had a little bit of time to think about this lecture, and I came up with a wonderful lecture on Vimalakirti, who was the householder disciple of the Buddha. a layman, and he was considered the wisest of the Buddha's disciple.

[01:01]

And I thought, wow, how nice to have a layman to talk about practice in the world. And there's a beautiful long Vimala Kirti Sutra describing his marvelous talents. He was the businessman among businessmen, the politicians among politicians. He's wealthy, but he was the man of the world, but not caught by the world. And, of course, this marvelous sutra is kind of a description of how he does that. But that's not what I'm going to talk about tonight because I came down to Tassajara and I was so struck by the place. I first came here to Tassajara in 1970. And I met Suzuki Roshi when I was here. He was the abbot of Zen Center at that time.

[02:02]

And mostly I think what I want to say tonight is I want to express my appreciation for him for having brought to America this wonderful practice that we have and for having found this place and built this monastery for us to practice in. And in addition to that, he also found Page Street City Center and established practice in that. And he did that all in 12 years. So if you want to find somebody that knows how to practice in the world, I think you don't get a better example than Suzuki Roshi. So that's probably what I'm going to talk about, but I can't leave Vimalakirti completely alone. So I'm going to give you five minutes of him. This is interesting.

[03:06]

Since I was making this part up about Suzuki Roshi, I wrote it out in pencil, none of which I can read in this light. It's all right. So getting back to Vimalakirti. So anyway, the whole structure of this marvelous... This is Zen, so we're going to summarize a 150-page sutra in five minutes, because we get to the kernel of things. So Vimalakirti is in his marvelous house, and he's sick. But he's not sick because he's got an illness. He's sick because he feels the suffering of the whole world. And because Buddhists like to visit sick people, the Buddha wants to send all of his disciples to visit... Vimalakirti, none of which want to go because every time they met Vimalakirti in the past, he's always sort of shown them up. But finally, the Bodhisattvas decide to go and they come. And it turns out that Vimalakirti is able to practice in the world in such a marvelous way because he's not caught by dualistic ideas.

[04:09]

So they have the discussion to answer this question from Vimalakirti. And this is the question. So Vimalakirti asks, what is a bodhisattva's method of entering non-duality? So if we're not going to be caught by dualistic thinking, this is good, this is bad, measuring things, this is, of course, what causes most of our suffering, how are we going to be a functioning person in the world and not caught by duality? How do we do that? And in the story, there's a nice chapter where each one of the bodhisattvas presents their solution to this. And they get better and better and better. Each answer is better until you get to Manjushri, the bodhisattva of wisdom, who gives the best answer, which is this. According to my mind in all things, no speech, no explanation, no direction, and no representation.

[05:11]

leaving behind all questions and answers. This is the method of entering non-duality. You can see, I mean, everything is eliminated because speech is dualistic. A very good answer. And of course, since he's the Bodhisattva Manjushri, it's the best answer. And he says, well then, Manjushri asked me, Malakirti, we have all spoken. Now, should you say, good man, What is the Bodhisattva's method of entry into non-duality? So Vimalakirti, if this is the traditional sutra, has to top that. And what is Vimalakirti's answer? Vimalakirti is silent. He says nothing. How does a bodhisattva, what's the method of entering non-duality?

[06:15]

Silence. And of course, there's all kinds of silence. Is this silent because he doesn't know the answer? Is this silent because he's afraid to say something? This is referred to as Vimla Kirti's thunderous silence. And I was thinking about that. What's the practice of silence? We hardly have any practice of silence anymore with our iPhones and the traffic and the noise. But we've come to Tassajara. And while we're here for the next two days, maybe we can allow ourselves to find a little silence, maybe by the side of the stream, listening to the voice of the stream. Maybe we can find a little quietness in our mind when we're not so busy with activities. So the sutra is about a lot of things, but it's also about finding some quietness in our life and through that quietness entering into a space that's not dominated by dualistic thinking.

[07:28]

Does that make sense? Could we use a little bit more silence in our life? So that's the five minutes on VMware security. So what to say about Suzuki Hiroshi? So in the late 60s, I was a graduate student in mathematics. And for those of you who are not as old as I am, there was a major cultural shift that was happening in America in the late 60s. And I got swept up in it. There was the Civil Rights Movement, there was the Vietnam War, there was women's liberation, there was the anti-nuclear

[08:37]

There was the environmental issues started coming to fro. And so it completely changed my world around about what I was going to do with my life and how to address these issues. But one of the things I noticed was some of the people that were involved in this cultural change, the quote-unquote counterculture, had some pretty strange ideas about what they wanted to do to affect change. I was in a meeting where some guys wanted to go and blow up the local NRCT, you know, ROTC building, right? And also they were pretty angry. I was angry at what was going on. And I decided that maybe there was something about that that didn't set right with me. So I thought I would set out on an adventure to find out Maybe somebody knows how to live in this world and make change, but do it in a way that seemed better.

[09:45]

On that trip, I sold my Triumph sports car. I was a sporty graduate student and I bought myself a VW van and I just drove down this road into Tassajara. Can everybody still hear me? Was that unannounced? I thought, well, maybe I'd just take a bath, but I walked into the front office and said to somebody that I had read a book on Buddhism and was interested in Zen a little bit. And the guy looked at me and said, oh, well, you could stay here for a week or so and you'd learn more about Buddhism than if you read all the books written on that in English. And before I know it, here I am sitting zazen, the old zendo down there by the stream, And Suzuki Roshi is lecturing. And in fact, I did learn more about Buddhism than if I'd read all the books on Zen.

[10:48]

And what was it about Suzuki Roshi? You know, there's a quote from, I think, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, that Suzuki Roshi, how was it? His whole being testifies to what it means to live in the reality of the present. Without anything said or done, just the impact of meeting a personality so developed can be enough to change another's whole way of life. So there's a lot of talk now about be in the present. But to actually meet somebody that actually lives in the present was... quite a thing for me. And if you looked at the collection of people that were around in those days, it was amazing what a wide variety of people seemed to be hanging around Suzuki Roshi. And I, in fact, one of the nice things about being abbot of Zen Center is, city center, is that almost every week some person wanders into the city center and gives a talk about their marvelous life they've lived.

[12:01]

since they first met Suzuki Roshi, you know, 40 years ago. So besides all the people that met Suzuki Roshi and stayed in Zen Center and built this magnificent monastery and the city center in Green Gulch, there are many, many people that met him and went off in the world. And I thought I would share one story of one person that I met, what, last Friday, His name is Narcissus, and it's Italian, so my wife helped me with this, if I can find the page. Quagliate. Narcissus Quagliate. Beautiful Italian guy. He came here as a young man. He was from Italy. He was studying at the Art Institute in San Francisco. He ran into Zizigurashi. He started sitting with him, and before long, Zizigurashi, made him director of the city center.

[13:03]

He was the first director of the city center. And he told the whole story about how he tried to deny that. But anyway, he tried to get out of the job. But he got the job. But he couldn't paint in the city center, so he went and took a stained glass class somewhere. And he did a couple of stained glass. It was one of Susie Kirschi's hands in Gassho and one of... and they're in the doors that go between the dining room and the dish washing area. And he did another stained glass window at the end of the north hallway that's quite beautiful. And then he left and he's built a career in glass work. He was showing us some of the pictures. He just finished, I guess it's the largest stained glass illuminated dome in the world in a train station in Taiwan. He had a big dome in the Basilica in Rome at Michelangelo's Basilica. I mean, just a fantastic career artist doing stained glass.

[14:04]

So, of course, he mentioned in this meeting that his entire career is due to having met Suzuki Roshi. And this is one of the things he mentioned, which I'm going to share with you. During a question-and-answer period, a student did a question that I don't even remember precisely, but probably it had to do with attaining something, even attaining something spiritual. But I remember his answer. The key words were, this is a grossest answer, the fulfillment of your dreams and aspirations or desires are truly boring. And they do not compare with seeing truly life as is. Life as is is more interesting than the achievement of your dreams. And he said it again. So here I am sitting there like a blank and an archer has just hit.

[15:12]

In my chest an arrow traversed my entire body. I stood still, frozen and wounded. I had never... had that thought in my life. I thought that my life had meaning. If I could achieve being a true artist, if I could marry the right woman of my dreams, it never occurred to me that the attainment of all that was boring. More interesting instead was seeing life as is. Isn't that an interesting idea? And instead of all these dreams that you're going to achieve to live each moment, As it is, that is life. Each moment lived fully as it actually is, is a life lived. By the way, Greg, what time am I supposed to stop here?

[16:14]

Oh great, I have more time. So near the end of Siddhartha Gershi's life, I guess it was the summer of 1971, he gave a lecture on a very famous koan from the Blue Cliff Records. And the koan is called One Speck of Dust. And it was a commentary on... how to build a monastery. So here's the koan. Feng Shui said to the assembled monks, if one particle of dust is raised, the state will come into being. If no particle of dust is raised, the state will perish. So the traditional understanding of this is what you would say

[17:18]

to raise a speck of dust is to, say, build a monastery, to do something. But instead of just saying to do something, they say raise a speck of dust because compared with the entire universe, building a monastery is a pretty small thing. But on the other hand, if you don't build a monastery, then you don't do anything. So this is the dilemma. And Suzuki Roshi was talking about this. He was saying, many Zen students come to Zen Center Is this something meaningful or not? If something good happens, at the same time, something bad will happen. Most likely, if one good thing happens, 10 or 12 or more than 20 bad things will happen. Does this remind you of working in the world? I set out to do something good. I'm going to build a monastery. I'm going to build the first... Zen monastery outside of the Orient.

[18:20]

This is a good thing. But not one bad thing happens that follows. Because things change. And problems occur after you start out on this mission. And 10 or many 20 bad... I always love that about him. Such a realistic view of our efforts in life. 20 bad things will happen. So he says, so we should think. when we pick up a speck of dust, whether it's a good or bad thing to do. But if you don't, nothing will happen. This is also true. What will you do? Will you pick up a speck of dust or not pick up a speck of dust? Or will you leave everything as it is without saying anything? And he goes on. Many people choose to let people suffer. Let them go in the wrong direction saying, this is not our problem. Let them go as they go. I cannot do anything with you. That is, we will not pick up any dust.

[19:22]

But if you want to do something with them or if you want to help them, then at the same time many bad things will happen. That is our problem. We call that the everyday koan. The every moment koan. Every moment life presents you a question. What should I do? And if you're living in the moment, that's the only place that you can answer the question. Do I pick up a speck of dust? Do I help somebody? Or do I say that's someone else's problem? Knowing, even if you do pick up a speck of dust, that many problems will occur. So sometimes people say Zen is a kind of quietistic thing. We just come down here in the mountains and sit listening to the... What are those things?

[20:29]

The crickets? Or the stream? But actually, this is where you learn how to be in the world. how to meet the world, all of the world, every person in the world. Sukaroshi didn't seem to make care whether you were a businessman. I mean, Sukaroshi went to New York City and met very wealthy people. He went to Boston, met very wealthy people, and he raised money to build this place. Sukaroshi met sort of crazy hippies. When I arrived here, I was a graduate student, but I had a very long beard and I'd been hiking in the Big Sur Mountains. So the only I only had like one clean shirt, which was an orange T-shirt and a pair of blue jeans. That's what I went into the Zendo in. And so I'll just tell you this story about the first time I met Suzuki Roshi here.

[21:44]

The first time you meet a Zen master is a very important story. There are usually these stories where he asks you a question and you say something very important back and you have this kind of dialogue and they have koans about all these stories. So this is my story of that. I had been hiking on my day off and didn't get in time for a bath. So this was the next day. So I really wanted to take a bath because I hadn't had one the previous day. And because I was on an alternate schedule, because I was the dishwasher, I went to the baths at an unusual time. And I went into the baths. There was not anybody in the baths, except for as I turned the corner, there was Suzuki Roshi. This is when the baths were across the stream. And we had little rooms. And in each one of the little rooms, there were two little rooms, there was a kind of a tub. that you would fill with water and you would get in and wash yourself off before going into the big plunge, like the plunges we have in our modern.

[22:48]

And when the monks bathed together, there would be three or four monks that would get in the tub together and wash off because it was pretty big. And Sigurush was filling the tub up, and he was completely nude, sitting on a little bench, and he was kind of washing his feet off. And he looked up at me and he said, do you want to take a bath? Well, I did want to take a bath, so I said, yes. But then my mind is whirling, like, maybe I shouldn't go in with him, or maybe I should, you know, because the students would bathe together. But I said, no. I said, I'll just go to the plunge. And Suzuki Roshi said, well, usually we wash off before we go into the plunge. So I thought, well, this is an obvious situation. I'm going to go into this room with him, and we're going to get in the tub together and wash off, and then we're going to go to the plunge, and I'm going to learn all about Zen. So I go in there.

[23:51]

I'm taking my clothes off. He's still puttering around, filling up the thing with his water and everything like that. I'm all undressed, and I turn around, and I'm still wondering a little bit because he's not in the tub yet. And so I kind of look at him like, what should I do? And he, what emotions? Get in the, get in the. So I get in the tub. But he doesn't get in the tub. He's somehow magically completely dressed and is walking out the door. Now, my mother raised me properly. You don't kick Zen masters out of the bath that they've drawn for themselves. That's not the way I was raised. And I'm sitting in that tub looking at him leaving, and I am just, I can't tell you, as the realization of what's going on is going through my mind. And he's walking pretty fast, too, but as he hits the door, he sort of pauses a little bit.

[24:58]

And he turns around, and he looks at me, and he says, Don't. worry. And he walked away. But he said it in a way, somehow, that I actually didn't worry. I mean, I knew what had happened, but I didn't worry. And I went to the steam room and went to the stream, and I remember lying in my back in the stream looking up at the trees and thinking, that was wonderful. So how does living in the moment and knowing exactly how to act turn into kindness? How does

[25:59]

meeting each situation in the moment turn into compassion. Suki Roshi used to call it big mind or beginner's mind or ready mind, a mind that is ready to meet the situation. And a ready mind is a mind that recognizes that I'm not just this small person I'm somebody that's connected to everything. I'm somebody that's somehow connected to the whole world. And when you feel that connection to things, your natural response is love. And so most of the people, I would say, I was in a room very much like this one night when Zuckerberg was giving a talk and he had been very strict with the staff because it was the summer guest season and there were some guests wandering around that weren't following the rules properly and were causing trouble and it was just getting to be very difficult and some of the staff people were unhappy with the guests and complaining about the fact that they had to take care of all the guests and Zuckerberg was pretty strict with them.

[27:25]

And so he wondered if they had any questions, so he gave about a 10-minute lecture, and then he asked if there were any questions. And one of the students eventually said, you know, I've been practicing here for five years, and I still find myself getting angry with people and not treating them well. And Sukiroshi said, five years is nothing. You don't know how hard it is to love some people. Anyway, some of us are still plugging along 40 years later, making our effort. I never did finish up the second part of this koan, and I don't know whether I should mention it, but I will.

[28:34]

So we just went through the one particle of dust business, and a while later another very famous Zen master took a staff like this and held it up and said, are there any patched-robed monks who will live together and die together? Are there any patch-robed monks that will live together, die together? Usually a staff like this represents the reality of this moment. And in Zen we say, in each moment you live and die. You die to the past moment and live to the present moment. So are there any patch-robed monks that will understand the meaning of this moment? and live their life accordingly. And that's the end of the case.

[29:40]

So do we have any more time for a few questions? Four minutes? Okay, are there any questions? Yes. Yes, patched robe. This robe was made up of a bunch of patches. You know, another way of saying is, is there anyone, forget the patch robes, who lives and dies with this moment? Okay, let's go take a bath. 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. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma.

[30:46]

For more information, visit sfcc.org and click giving.

[30:50]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_95.76