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. I'm not mic'd, so let me know if I'm not speaking loud enough. Put your hand up. You might be surprised, dismayed, shocked to hear that the theme of this class is the practice of sin. But before we start,

[01:03]

I'd like to say a little bit about the class. I was thinking as I was walking over, a teacher arrives at the class and comes in and says, hello, my name's Roshan Paul Haller, and here's the class words. Please try to turn up on time, which you all did today. I thank you for that. And please don't bring tea or coffee. If you ever, as many of us do, That throat congestion, you need to bring some water to drink. That's perfectly fine. Someone asked me, how about knitting during class? Guess what I say. So to try to be in the class with the CM presence. we try to manifest in Zaza.

[02:05]

The heritage of the Zen way is that, yes, we purposefully engage ideas and concepts, but we're holding them in. You could say we engage mind and hold it in the context of no mind. And I'll say too much about that in a few minutes. But in how we do that, we stay with the body-mind of Zazen as best we can. You're welcome to ask questions. You know, usually when I give a tug, I don't ask for questions. I sort of feel like... What's said is like holding up a finger. It's just what it is. It's not claiming to be everything. It's just what it is in that moment, that expression of Dharma.

[03:13]

But in the class, it is to try to elucidate and come into some appreciative relationship to the concepts that are being presented. So it's fine to ask questions. Any questions? If we think about the human condition, you know, modern neurology tells us now, you know, when we're born, our senses haven't quite manifest. But as they're in the process of manifesting over that three to six months, We are also in the process of creating neural pathways in relationship to our response to what's experienced. So pretty much from the time we're entering this world, we're starting to create a personalized version of it.

[04:22]

And then as we develop, that becomes more complex, more nuanced. And our cognitive mind starts to function more better, more efficiently, and we develop the variety of psychological influences that operate within us. And we perceive reality from this prejudiced place. then we respond to the reality that we have helped to co-create. So then there's a great dilemma for us. Given that, how do we not just simply get into a kind of circular involvement?

[05:30]

I sort of see what I want to see, and then I have a response to what I want to see, and I just struggle with that, and then I see some more of it. This, in a way, from a Zen perspective, this is a key question, a key challenge that we attempt to address in how we do Zazen and how we practice. To put it in a certain set of words, that we attempt to have a non-dual response to the human condition. An unconditioned response to conditioned existence. And I say this because in a couple of minutes I'm going to start talking about Dogen's Bendowa.

[06:37]

Really, when Dogen came back from China, this was one of the first fascicles that he wrote. In some ways, trying to set out his response to the human dilemma, his understanding, his appreciation, and his appreciation for the Zen way. But before I do that, I wanted to start in a slightly different place. I wanted to start in the middle of Heart Sutra. So we could say, in this process of waking up in the middle of conditioned existence, formidable existential challenge. There's a request to attain, to realize.

[07:49]

Something key to diminishing our suffering and enhancing our liberation. In the middle of the Heart Sutra it says, with nothing to obtain, Bodhisattva dwells in Prajnaparamita and the mind is no hindrance. So this formulation came along, modern scholarship It's interesting, especially in the last ten years. In the absence of knowing most of the texts and sutras of the Buddhist canon in its broad sense, not just the early canon, we sort of assumed it was a linear progression. The Buddha said this, people memorized it, then they wrote it down,

[08:59]

down palm leaves, and eventually they wrote it on paper, and there it was. Pretty much what he said. And then other people came along and developed additional ideas, and so we have this nice, orderly progression. A recent scholarship has discovered it's way more confused, complicated, and multifaceted than that. Some of the ideas that we thought were later, Mahayana ideas, were actually arrived quite soon after, if not during his lifetime, but quite soon after. Like what? What kind of ideas? Some aspects of śūnyata were there quite early.

[10:00]

Maybe as early as 75 years after he died. Often thought to be in a development later. But now, not only that, but sort of the seminal Mahayana practice was also coming into being at the same time. And I say that, and then the Heart Sutra. This is what led me to say that the Heart Sutra is an interesting document. It has come to have a very significant place in Buddhist thinking. And it evolved somewhere around maybe 100 BC, 200 AD. And as far as we can tell at this point, It was developed in India.

[11:03]

It was taken to China. The Chinese added this notion. This is one of the things I want to talk about this morning of shunyata. Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form. This became a key point of understanding. And then it transmigrated back to India and became the Orthodox Heart Sutra. Why did I say all that? Because in some ways, it represents the formulation of Prajnaparamita. The wisdom beyond wisdom. As we'll get to in a minute, many places in Buddhist teachings, it will say, well, everybody's living in the moment.

[12:17]

There's no other way to be. Everybody's manifesting and engaging in interactive existence. It manifests the core of Buddhist teachings. Interdependence, interconnected, no abiding self, no independent substantial existence, impermanence. But this is always, we're always living it. We just don't realize it. So the question is not, how do we do something that we're not doing? How do we be something that we're not being? The question is, how do we wake up? And from the Zen school, that question is the primary question. How do we wake up?

[13:18]

And the teaching that addresses this, Prajnaparamita, The reason I mentioned that, you can say, as my good Dharma brother Gilfaza would say, right there, from the teachings of Shakyamuni, this teaching was there. And he has his texts and his quotes to substantiate his position. And then we can say, In later teachings, there was a development of thought that added another facet to it. It's a Prajnaparamita. And I hope I haven't lost you yet, but don't worry, I'll get a little clear in a moment. The teaching that illustrates this, that talks about this, Prajnaparamita,

[14:33]

is based on the concept of emptiness, shunyata. And as the concept of emptiness evolved, in early Buddhism, when we look at the canons that we now have, despite our disillusioned notions, they had a linear progression, one common theme is a kind of emphasis on negation. There's no self. It's a construct. There's no independent being. The attributes that arise, the descriptions of reality that arise, are subjective. There's no attribution we can make about the moment.

[15:38]

It doesn't entail a component of self. That manifestation that I was saying, it begins, as far as we can tell now, within months of when we're born. And then one of the paradigms of meditation was called bare awareness. Bare in that the phenomena of the moment is attended to. In the early canon, one of the stories is, I take that back, in one version of the early canon, in one version of the early canon, This version, marvelously, this version, Thus Have I Heard, this story is, Chakyamuni died, all the Arahams got together and said, we should write this all down before we forget.

[16:46]

And Ananda had photographic memory, total recall, I guess is the term. So they said, Ananda, recall every single talk he gave in those four years. And I just said, okay, got a pen? And he started off with, thus have I heard. And now modern scholarship is saying, we don't actually know who initiated that version. But that version has become sort of like the standard. That's kind of the orthodox version. And in a way, it's wonderful to have our ideas of this is the real thing with certainty and absolute conviction. It's wonderful to have it taken away from us. Because then we just cling to it and think, if I don't think that, my thinking is incorrect.

[17:51]

That's it. In that version, Drakyamuni is out walking with his monks, as they did. practitioner, not in the Buddhist tradition, comes along and says to Shankya Muni, could you just give me the gist of what you teach? And he said, okay. In the seeing, just the seeing. In the hearing, just the heart. And the guy said, fair enough, got it, and went on his way. And And of course the monks asked Chakyamuni about all that and that turned into a wonderful teaching. But the point I wanted to make was this bare attention. That the mind is brought to a quiescence and attentiveness where phenomena are engaged without elaboration or attribution.

[19:03]

If you think about it, it upholds the standard of shunyata, of none of this, no self, no attributions. It's what you might call a reductionism or a dropping away. And this was the primary emphasis. The gist of the practice, the question is, well, how do you cultivate and manifest that state of mind? And part of the answer was, you let go of all your desires and aversions. In fact, better still, eliminate them. letting go, the seeds of mental activity are not bad.

[20:16]

The impulse to create stories, the impulse to like and dislike, the impulse to embellish the core phenomenal experiences is extinct. Does that make sense? It's a fairly simple notion, right? And therefore, the practice is to cut off the root of clinging and aversion. And then an array of practices that help to do that. Okay, I hope that made sense. The Bibbon formula, okay, do you get that? If you're gonna have bare attention, as the gist of what the practice is about, as the manifestation of liberated awakened mind, then how do you get it? Here's how you get it.

[21:20]

You cut this off. And how do you cut it off? You do this and this and this. So shanyakta in this context has a context of elimination. Renunciation. And then we could say, well, isn't that a kind of attainment? Is that more than just a kind of attainment? Isn't that an attainment? Especially given the human propensities and in conditioning. And it's a very interesting question, a proposition. So then, has the notion of shunyata kept evolving? And in some ways we could say, if we go to the Chinese notion, form is emptiness, emptiness is form.

[22:33]

And if when you read the Heart Sutra, you see this tucked in there as a preface, as a preface to the following eliminations. There's no this, there's no that, there's no that, there's no that. Everything is being dropped off. Everything's being removed. But the preface is form and empty. So in one way, the removing of the attributes the removing of a self who can have the attributes the removing of a conclusion that can arise from the attributes of the moment the description of the moment that's conjured up through our conditioned existence you remove all that you have very attention form

[23:38]

is emptiness. It's empty. It's absent of all those things. Now, in the later notion of shunyata, the codependent arising, the interaction became a more significant entity. And it's interesting because the word shunyata, the root meaning, means nothing. Nothing or void. And you'll see old Zen texts where they talk about the great void. And I think when I say this, I think modern scholarship in general would agree, English scholarship. That's a little misleading because it seems to harken back to an emphasis on absence. Does that make sense?

[24:42]

Well, what's void? Well, void's nothing. But in the dynamic of interaction, there's something going on. It's not a vacuum. It's not creating independent self. It's not creating independent object. It's not generating fixed attributes. It's totally dynamic. But there is an energy. There is content to that dynamic. So out of the dynamic, manifestation of that contact.

[25:44]

Out of emptiness, form. So first of all, we have form is emptiness, negation. And then we have emptiness is form. And we could say affirmation. And then the challenge for us is In that affirmation, in that realization of existence, those habits of mind and body and emotions and psychological complexes, how do we not simply have them take ownership of this dynamic and just get busy recreating the other, the attitudes, the preferences, that the core teachings admonish as our way of suffering, our way of getting caught up and stuck.

[26:56]

How to relate to the dynamic in a totally different way. Okay, got that? Thank you, man. And just to harken back, so some of the early sutras, they do say, and this is a meditative disposition. Shunyata is a meditative disposition. And this, I would say, to the best of my knowledge, this is in Dugan's proposition 2, that this meditative disposition is the key catalyst to our practice, our practice being soto-se, and that we endeavor to enact it, to

[28:11]

make manifest the nature of existence as it is, and in making manifest to realize, to get it. Now, in terms of Prajnaparamita, the perfection of wisdom, it's not, I get it, I understand it, I can wrap it up in concepts. That, wrapping it up. Yes? Well, yeah. And it's a great question because in a moment I'm going to go on to Bendawa and with Dogen in his first couple of paragraphs.

[29:12]

assumes this background I've tried to describe and jumps into the meditative disposition of shunyata and he says it's a wondrous method method he uses a the Japanese word is myo which means wondrous in that It's not the product of, I have an understanding. From my understanding, I create this attitude and definition of practice, and then I set about doing it. It's not that. And that's why I quoted that piece from the Heart Super where it says, with nothing to attain, implicitly saying,

[30:19]

If we have in our mind, here's what I have to attain, and I have to set about doing the right thing to attain that. We're not coming at it from the disposition of shunyata, or we're not coming at it from Dogen's wondrous method. Let me digress just a little. You said it's a dynamic energetic process. Yes. Do you mean what Suzuki Roshi called things as it is, is a dynamic energetic process or are relation to this? So where is the dynamic energetic process happening? Well, the wondrous part comes in. is that what Suzuki Roshi said and what we might say are inside of it.

[31:24]

They're not separate from it, attributing to it their understanding. That's going back to duality. From inside it that The truly subjective nature of the arising is what's experienced without necessarily thinking that it has to be bare phenomena. I would take Suzuki Roshi's comment as emphasizing suchness which in a way we could say is the manifestation of it, the suchness of being.

[32:26]

Another word that Suzuki Roshini liked a lot was Shoshin or Soshin, which is a state of being. One place he calls it soft, pliable mind. A state of being that can flow with what's going on. It's not neutral. It's not stripped down to bear phenomena. But in its constructs, it's flowing. And this is a great gauge for us because one of the ways we can attend to all of this is attending to where and how we get stuck, what's sticking us, what does getting stuck bring up in response, and how to practice with it.

[33:38]

So in the process of this meditative disposition of emptiness, In the Mahayana, everything that arises is dressed for the milk. Everything that arises is an expression of what is and is offering itself as a teaching. Now, whether we're in the mood for a teaching is another question. Sometimes we just want what we want. That might be so, but I still want what I want. or I don't want what I don't want. And then from the breadth of the Mahayana, and that too is a teaching. This notion that you hear sometimes, you can't go outside the way, includes all that arises in the human condition.

[34:43]

Okay, so my digression was this. So I'm going to put out, a number of fascicles, not a whole lot, about five, Dovin's fascicles, his essays, which are commonly considered to be his seminal texts. It's a bit of a presumption, because he wrote in 96. But I think it's fair enough to say they contain a lot of his core ideas. And then they're laid out this way. Some of them have four translations and some of them have five. And the notion of offering you this way is this. So these are all English, right? They were written in what you might call medieval Japanese.

[35:45]

and maybe a few of us here could read that, but the majority of us can't. So in offering the English translations, they're laid out in columns. So there's one paragraph, and then you go across the page, and there's four or five translations of the column. And so you get to see, okay, this person said it like this, this person said it like this, And here would be my suggestion to you. As you ponder it, you know, they're all saying, they're all talking about the same thing. So can you triangulate between their different expressions? No. And what is that? And then not to say, okay, now I have the absolute truth. No. you have a proposition.

[36:52]

You have a hypothesis in your mind to be tested in your practice. So that cross-referencing so that hopefully you're not getting tripped up on one particular translator's choice of words. And it's interesting because sometimes you'll read across and you think, well, these three said almost the same thing, you know? We rearranged the sentences a little bit different, but they said almost the same thing. And then this one said something quite different, you know? And sometimes that's eliminating, makes you think, well, quite likely these three were closer and this other one that word and maybe translated the meaning of it that wasn't quite there in this context. So they're all talking about the same thing.

[37:57]

What is it they're talking about? And then the other way to think about it is they're all offering a different facet from which it can be understood. You know that parable about the blind man and the elephant? Do you? Okay, so they're all talking about an elephant, so what's the elephant? And yet, they're all offering a different facet, you know? And so sometimes that's helpful to, rather than go into reductionism, to kind of try to attend to the different facets of this teaching. And then, as I say, either way, as best you can, being aware of your own thinking.

[39:02]

You know, in Christianity, there's something called Lecto Divino. Try to offer a translation, an understanding of that term. No? Or yes? Sacred reading, it's a contemplation. It's reading and contemplating. Okay, thank you. Reading and contemplating, or in Zen speak, we might say, reading with no mind. to muddy that beautiful phrase. First of all, reading with attention, as best you can, taking in with what's said. Sometimes we're slightly distracted

[40:12]

and slightly caught up in our own prejudice. So we don't exactly read what it says, sort of read what we think it ought to say or what we want it to say. So the first part is like, can you get a little more deliberate? Okay, this is what it says. And then the sacredness of it is Can it speak? Can it tell you what it is rather than you get busy imposing your understanding upon it? The no mind there is not being caught up in our own opinions and prejudices and judgments. Oh, I like it better when he says this than when he says that.

[41:18]

Okay, that's you. You like it better that way. But what does it say? So as best you can to read it like that. Okay, any questions? Let's change. Where you say that seems to be... In the contemplative reading, there's a notion of will. Will. Somehow, whether we are reading or we are seeing zazen, things arise, but we're not imposing our will. And how do we do that exactly? Yes. Seems kind of tricky. Yes, it is. And we get our first hint of it when Dogen says, wondrous. This is a wondrous method. Well, what does that tell us about how?

[42:20]

Sometimes you read a Zen fascicle and this is the emphasis of it. This is wondrous. And you think, okay. That's nice to know. But even before we get into the how... to appreciate the fundamental proposition. Because when we appreciate the fundamental proposition, whatever technique, strategy, purposeful intention we adopt, if it's illuminated and guided by an appreciation for the fundamental proposition, It has more appropriateness. When it's just the product of what I want to have happen or what I don't want to have happen.

[43:28]

I think almost all of us have had those moments where we experienced a concentration, a groundedness, a clarity. And then we got busy about recreating it. That's it. I'm doing it. I've achieved it. Now, just got to repeat that next period. And then, of course, you discover that very attitude gets in the way. That very attitude is stirring up and unsettling that groundedness and clarity. we will get to the how and what I'm hoping to do in this class over the time is present the what and then you know look at the how and I'll offer you my own notions of a how in this environment and

[44:45]

how in terms of relating to mind, how in terms of relating to body, how in terms of relating to psychological being, how in terms of relating to the forms and the Shingi, how in terms of relating to each other. But they're all prefaced by the what? They're not absolutes that have an absolute success and failure. If you don't do it like this, you're not a successful venture. The marvelous thing about the hows is we all make a mess of them. And it's one of those hard-won insights you haven't practiced. often it occurs to me, you have to give it everything you've got and fail.

[45:55]

And then something in you goes, okay then. Now I've clarified that. I can let something, that whole attainment thing, I can like get a little, the non-attainment thing, I can get a little more at ease with it. Okay. So is there a notion of emptiness that arises or associated with cessation of thought? There is. That's what I was trying to say in the early tradition. That seems to be what's emphasized and there was also this notion of meditative disposition. Anyway, that's the way one person translated into English. So it seems to imply, right there, the very same thing Dogen Sinji is trying to talk about somewhere between nine and twelve hundred years later.

[47:06]

So, with that... It's easier, obviously, to have fair attention when your karmic formations aren't shouting, screaming at you. Yes. Therefore, you're not imputing onto what's arising. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just a second. You know, there is that wonderful quote by Suzuki Roshi, Mahayana, Hinayana practice with Mahayana mind. we're not going to fool ourselves into saying, no, that the mind can be illuminated with abundant clarity and non-attachment while it's in the throes of great struggles of this and that and wanting and avoiding. We have to come into relationship with that.

[48:10]

We have to discover how to come into relationship with that. We had to discover how not to have that be a defining hindrance to weakness. And this is the nitty-gritty work of our practice. When you were talking about the Heart Sutra, you used this translation that we don't have, that we don't read, which is, the mind is no hindrance rather than the mind is without hindrance. And I think that's helpful because... A mind without hindrance is different from a mind that is no hindrance. So, in a way, it's like, there's nothing, for me anyway, there's nothing to attain because when everything falls away or settles, you're right back to where you started from originally. Well, this is why I offer multiple translations of these fascicles. Because, you know, someone else could say, oh no, those words are synonymous. But for you, that was a significant shift.

[49:13]

Yes, you see that. So, emptiness is formed. We start that from a duality, right? It's a form, emptiness is one, and it's going to be one. So, but you don't have other ways to first accept it, because it's one, and it's inside. That can be two, it's one inside. I don't know if that makes sense. It does make sense. And then it has no one or two. No form or no emptiness. Because we're pointing to something that is beyond that duality. So I guess that will be the fact. It's debatable whether we can say form an emptiness and emptiness as form is a duality. I would say it both is and isn't.

[50:20]

And this is why the Sandokai in the Zen, the merging of duality and unity, why this is a seminal text in the Zen world, because it's trying to address the interplay. The common thinking is form is emptiness, emptiness is form. It's trying to address the interplay between duality and unity, rather than setting them in opposition. And this is a key point. Because as we practice, we have this, you know, as we delve into it, we see, well, here's this extraordinarily wise and compassionate proposition. And then here's this human condition with all these deeply ingrained struggles. But if we set them in opposition, our practice will be the practice of opposition.

[51:32]

Your critical mind can get to work and it can define you, it can define others, it can define the practice. There's lots to complain about in all three of those. Or can the proposition eliminate the conditioned nature? This is our challenge. Yes, Tony. What were you talking about? This position or approach to things like when you move off your cushion and say you go out to your car and it doesn't start. You've got to start thinking like is the battery flat? Is it not out of fuel? Do those steps rather than saying who last used this car? Who left the lights on? We enter into the world of form.

[52:43]

But hopefully, with maybe to use the phrase Cecile was using, with non-dual mind. This is just an expression of what is. The battery is flat. It's neither good nor bad. It's just how it is. There's a causality to it. Yes, this is a conditioned existence, cause and effect. I can have a response to it. Yes, this is a conditioned existence, cause and effect. I can draw conclusions. Yes, conditioned existence. So, including it all, and the thought that often helps me It's like in science. In science, you have a hypothesis.

[53:46]

And then you test it in the actualizing. My hypothesis is the stupid, lazy person who last used the car left the lights on. And I'll test the hypothesis. Maybe it's an old battery and it's just a matter of aging that it doesn't hold the charge anymore. But hopefully I'll have got a great teaching about the kinds of conclusions my mind is inclined to make. And some of the tendencies I have about how I tend to consider my venerable Sangha members... Sometimes that's the gem for us. It's like, hmm, look at me. So that.

[54:53]

Can the workings of conditioned existence, as Suzuki Roshi would say, can they be held with soft mind? Okay. And then, yeah, what do we do? Is there another battery in the shop? Should we get the charger over? Yeah. And the soft mind, and this course now turns it into some kind of pseudo-dualism, you know. Soft mind is good. Getting pissed at your co-sangha members is bad. Can we accommodate? Can we accommodate what is rather than getting stuck in what should be?

[55:55]

They should have turned the lights off. That would have been proper practice if they were real Zen students. And obviously they're not. And the marvelous thing about it is that the everyday occurrences, when they're engaged, they can draw us back into the realm of awakening. Yes, yourself. I'm very struck by the word accommodating what is and then Wondering if your phrase lecto... Divina. Divina. Is it divina or divino? Divina. Divina. Divina. You were right. Lecto divina.

[56:59]

Lectio. [...] Lectio is in book. Lectio. Lectio is in word. Lectio. Lectio. Okay. It's our lighting lesson for the morning. The meditation disposition is to read the world with no mind, to read everything, not just the texts, the sutra, the early sutra is what we're studying with that, the text, the universe. Flexio Divina is a text of the universe. To have that relation. Yeah, I mean, you could say that. Augustine called it the book of the world. I think she just did. And Augustine said the book of the world.

[58:02]

He supported us having a relationship with Flexio Divina to the whole world. Yes. Augustine. But in Zen being extremists, we would say, and the no world too. Let's not go for the little stuff. Let's go for the whole thing. Earlier in the class, you were talking about shunyata as that bare tension where we're letting go of desire or aversion. Better yet, getting rid of... Yes, the root. Cutting off the root. I had to step out for a minute, so you may have said this. And if so, I can ask you later. But I'm curious, did you talk about later interpretations of shunyata? I did. You did?

[59:04]

Okay. I did. Okay. What I said was that the emphasis, and if you think about the word that As far as I know, maybe he didn't coin it, but as far as I know, Thich Nhat Hanh coined this word interbeing as the interpretation of Shunyata. And just in the commonality of our language, interbeing is a very different notion than void. And so it really captures this dynamic interplay of existence. And I hope you've sort of got in that, that's kind of like a foundational sentiment of the awareness of the Mahayana that Zen espouses to. Yes, go ahead. When you're talking about, thinking about energetically or dynamically, and actually the use of the word dynamic, it seems to me in my practice that there,

[60:10]

There seems to be kind of almost a moving between, you know, that there's some way that I might get this sense of view of self, and then it's lovely, and then it tightens up. And all of a sudden, I've lost contact with the world, or I've created full resistance to this other world. And so then it feels as if, like, I need to go back into flow, right? I need to kind of move in and include. It's kind of like when you're sitting on your cushion and you're not just sitting still, you're kind of moving between maybe a little tightening and a little too loosening. So I love the idea of it energetically. Like my body gets some signals that are folded to one side or another. But what about this for an extravagant note? You can't go outside of it. It's not possible. The notion of me separate from it is a notion.

[61:17]

Whatever is happening is part of what is. It's the current expression of what is. This is Jiju Yuzangai. This is Dogen Zenji's what we might call his keystone you know like okay when we think okay but what's the fundamental practice out of which what's the fundamental proposition what's the fundamental practice that manifests that proposition and then from there the how builds up like Suzuki Roshi said if we lost this place talking about Tassahara We go somewhere else and we create. We wouldn't create the same thing. We create the expression of practice in that.

[62:20]

So in our sitting, okay, now I'm not doing it and I have to go back to doing it. Those are ideas in our head. The idea of I'm not doing it is the manifestation of what is. The idea of doing it is the manifestation of what is. And even though it starts to sound like trying to be clever with our thinking, the challenge for us is in how we make our effort, in how we engage, in how we affirm or deny, Can that proposition start to inform them deeply so that our practice has this sense of inclusion? Over the years, I've come to notice that most of us, when we sit down, we sit down and now we're going to do something.

[63:39]

Now we're going to take what's happening and make it into what it should be. And it's so interesting because in the Zen text, that's not the proposition. But that's what we do. And so really to return. Every time we sit down, return to the fundamental proposition. And that's the sort of thing I'll bore you with. over and over again. Oh, I kind of feel like it depends on the Zen text, because I feel like there's a lot of Zen literature that totally condones and endorses mind control. Well, thank you, Benzin. In the heritage of Zen Master Dogen, in the Soto Zen Way, in the heritage of Shikandasa, we could say that. But personally, I would like to stretch a point and say expedient means of that.

[64:49]

I mean, I do Rinzai practice, and we do all sorts of strenuous, directed, manipulative things. But from my sort of Zen mind, we never deviate from Shikapasana. Not for a single breath. Next time I see Harada Shoda Roshi, I'll ask him about that. See, as he hit me with the stick. I actually, I agree. You know, honestly, I doubt it. I think he'll... I don't know. He'll do something. Any other thoughts? Yes. This is Christianism, and I was very, very grounded. Maybe the divina, the contemplative way of reading, what it's pointing, it's the basis of many practices, like shamanism.

[66:02]

You are possessed by God. It's like stigmata and all that. You are not there, right, through the wounds and everything. So relating that to our practice, I was thinking that... Relating what to our practice? The stigmata? Yes, yes. Stigmata and anything, why not? It's not separated, right? So the tool that we have is free. The witch, the tool? got a tool for that, right? You reach and then you take yourself and your mind or whatever you have, I don't know, out of a situation so something else will arise and you do at least the time. Well, here's what I would say. I don't know. I have not done that practice. I have not been trained in it and I have not studied it in

[67:05]

other than in a very sort of cursory way. And I would say what that points to, our own experience, you know, like laying all this out and then saying, and this is some seminal fundamental thinking about Shikantaza. Like saying that and then saying, and that's the proposition that we're going to explore in this practice period. We're not saying, and that practice over there is inappropriate or just saying, no, this is what we're going to do. And then I was sort of kidding Benson. I would say, well, sort of kidding and sort of not. Those fierce adamant. accomplish this with every fossicle of hair in your body, I was saying, yeah, that's another skillful means for Shikintasa.

[68:21]

And part of me considers that to be so. But those are practices that we are not going to study, but they also don't imply any deficiency or inappropriateness about them. We're just doing this. They thought that we'd pray. Well... Of course now, if we use a verb, we have to say pray. We have to say what do we mean. And then if you delve into Christianity, you see... Well, even within Christianity, that's not a singularity. I can think of four varieties, and how many can you think of? I'm trying not to think. But that's also willful non-thinking.

[69:22]

So, look, there's one kind of prayer. I couldn't give you the Latin name for it. Emptying. That gets into the territory. I would say, maybe especially for those of us who have a Christian background, to not be too quick in saying, well, what we do is the same thing as praying. I think for us, it's helpful. It's helpful for us. Most of us, with a few exceptions, have grown up in a Western culture and implicit within that culture its own notions and affectations around spirituality.

[70:31]

And it's helpful for us. to take on an Eastern approach because it challenges us in some ways. Zen is not a version of Christianity. I'm not in any way criticizing or even critiquing Christianity. I'm saying in many ways it has some fundamentally different propositions. And I would say that's helpful for us because then it challenges us. Can I take on a radically different way of thinking. And I would say that informs us. In some ways it's helpful to walk around dressed like this because it takes us out of habituated being. And to have these monastic forms beyond their capacity to manifest the wisdom and compassion of practice

[71:34]

they take us out of habituated. Okay, I'm going to stop in a moment. I was going to read you this first paragraph. Yeah. But I'll tell you a funny story. So, Brother David Standelrusk, I was going to say who I adore, but maybe that's too extravagant. Who I deeply respect and appreciate. Like a doer. We were teaching here this summer. And then when we do that, we do this presentation to the students in the evening. And then we said, well, what shall we present? And in a previous year, I said, how about we do this?

[72:43]

Every question on Christianity, I'll answer. And every question on Zen, you answer. But this year, here was the notion. I'd bring a sin. And he wouldn't know what it was, but I'd read it. And then he'd comment on it. And then he'd bring a Christian saying, and I wouldn't know it, but I'd comment on it. Anyway, I brought this piece from Vendula. He brought a very simple statement. And then something that's abused me greatly in reflecting on remembering it. He said to me later, he said, well, it was like a story from Peanuts, where Peanuts and Linus are going to do show or tell at school. And Linus brings a copy of the Constitution.

[73:49]

And he was likening this piece from Bendua for that. And he says, and Peanuts brings... the rubber ducky he uses in his bath. He was likening that. Anyway, I find it hilarious. Brother David's a very extraordinarily learned person on spirituality. It was, you know, the... playfulness, the lack of attachment, the good humor, you know, and the transparency, you know, to just put that out there. Nothing to attain.

[74:52]

It seemed like he didn't have any great reputation to uphold, I'm the great brother David Stendlerust. So learned it with his doctorate in divinity from Harvard and his other qualifications. No, I'm like peanuts bringing a little yellow rubber duckie. So this came to mind. Dogen comes back from China. He literally grew up studying Tendai Buddhism. Dense, wonderful, vast volumes of Buddhist texts. They say he had the equivalent of a PhD by the time he was 19. He switched to Rinzai. He had all those terrible, fierce practices.

[75:59]

Then, very interestingly, with his Rinzau teacher, went off to China together to study, to meet teachers and a teacher. And for Dogon, that was Ruji. Studied with Ruji, had an awakening, came back to Japan. And one of the first things he did was write Bando-wa. he had a great sense of place and purpose that this was the dawning of a new era of spiritual practice in Japan and that this was his life's work he wanted to facilitate that engage that and he thought Zen practice could make a significant

[77:02]

contribution to that so now you're all excited to hear what he said and what we'll do as I say with these festivals we'll make three or four copies just because it's paper and paper came from trees but if we need more copies we'll make more copies Translations that are on it are Kaz Tanahashi, Shuhaka Gomorra, Nishiyama, Kozen Nishiyama, Nishijima, and Shastabi. But the one I'm going to read is Kaz Tanahashi, the one that we use. All Buddha to those who have awakened, who individually transmit the inconceivable Dharma.

[78:13]

And this is a notion, transmission. We're all dwelling in this interbeing all the time. We're never not part of it. Why aren't we all fully awakened? Why haven't we all got it? Transmission. No? So all Buddhas transmit to themselves, to others, to the squirrel beeping, to the walls. All Buddhas transmit the inconceivable dharma. You can have all sorts of wonderful ideas. That's not transmission. Something, prajnaparamita, something that goes beyond.

[79:14]

All Buddha to tagatas who individually transmit inconceivable dharma, actualizing, making manifest, Unsurpassable, complete enlightenment. Have a wondrous art. We do it through a wondrous art. Let's see what are the translations. Art. Art. A-R-T. He says wondrous way, unsurpassed and unconditioned. He modified it. Wondrous art, wondrous method. This is Shohaku Okamura's translation. Subtle method. Subtle, wondrous art.

[80:27]

Dijuyuzamai is its mark. Its defining characteristic is Dijuyuzamai. One of these marvelous people. Receptive Samadhi. as G.G.U. Zammai. He translated the term G.G.U. Zammai. That's the one we're going to do in about, well, more than a few minutes. We're going to do every night.

[81:29]

That's also what you were saying is the fundamental proposition. Exactly. If everything's included, the engagement of inclusion is receptivity. It's a wondrous art. It doesn't have... And here's the fixed expression of it. And now you know it. busy making it happen. It is essentially beyond thought. It's wondrous. And if you think about it, when we enter experience, when we open, when we experience what is, we're going beyond the self-constructs. The self-constructs have their knowing, have their conceptualization.

[82:36]

This is inconceivable. It goes beyond conceptualizing. It goes beyond conceiving of ideas. So each moment is offering, inviting this kind of engagement. And this kind of engagement transmits the dharma of what is. And Dogen Zenji is saying, this is what it's all about. Except he said it in Japanese. And then for good measure he also said, Receptive samadhi. Buddhas transmit to Buddhas without tearing up.

[83:39]

A little bit of a technicality. Samadhi in Sanskrit can mean both connection to the object. It means essentially connection to the object. Continuous connection. experience of the object. That can be a single object, so it's single-pointed concentration. That can be the ever-changing object. It's continuous contact to whatever's happening. Continuous contact is letting go of being caught in the concepts, the preoccupations, and experiencing directly what's happening in the moment. And as that transition happens, the story about it is dropped off.

[84:53]

The conclusions about it are dropped off. attributing some characteristic to it as a drop down. And so, in that, we're both embracing the Hinayana, Shri Nita, and we're embracing the Mahayana, Shri Nita. Making manifest the suchness of what is without any idea as to what it should be or should not be. With no attainment, the Bodhisattva dwells in Prajnaparamita, but literally doesn't know. So as we read the Jiju Yusamaya today at lunchtime,

[86:02]

When that phrase comes up, you can go, oh, there's that, there. Because it is. This is the proposition. And we sit down on our cushions to absorb in that practice. We're lacking nothing. We're already... We can't not be part of it. I mean, how easy could this be? You can't not do it. And yet, and yet, it's the hardest thing a human being can do. These are intertwined. If you only uphold one of them,

[87:05]

the hardest thing you can do okay well let's get busy and work very very hard you can't not do it well then why even bother trying to make any kind of effort just chill you know they balance each other you know and and so this notion of it's an art no this notion that it's It's wondrous. It's not simply some very skillful thing that if you work really hard, you'll get right. Can be. Certainly if we get hung up on them. More accurately, we would say that in emptiness, neither of them would be held as proposition.

[88:19]

Within form? Oh, yeah. And that's usually what we do. Yes. As I said, you know, usually we make a mess of the whole thing and our practice is watching our mess. More and more. And not only that, being foolish enough to be taught by it. This is the transmission. They're not always in perfect balance. They're not always in perfect balance. No, what are they? The form and emptiness or these two modalities of practice? Well, the two modalities of practice, no. Some of the time we have them in balance and most of the time we don't. And as we continue with practice period and we settle into more subtle awareness, the nuances are about, it's very interesting, as we come more into balance, we see more of the subtleties of the discrepancies.

[89:34]

You settle into your unsettledness, and you see it more clearly. And then you get busy judging it until that hurts your head, and then you just think, ah, what the heck, I'll just go to Zaza. I understand there are a couple of transmission, reception, as well as self-receiving. The transmission, self-receiving. Yeah, I'll talk about this at length. The self there is, I mean, what else can you sit with except the constructed version of reality that happens here? otherwise known as the Self.

[90:41]

And then this Jiju Zalmai, it has both an attribute of, some people call it play, some people call it enjoyment. It's like when we're doing something and we're flowing with it, it's almost like a game. We're playing this game called making lunch. The crew has a kind of mysterious choreography as they roam around the kitchen. And when they get closer in sync, it's like someone else is making the soup, but as you walk past, Maybe you notice it's about to boil over, you just turn it down, but then you just keep going and doing what you're doing. You become undifferentiated.

[91:43]

And then you hear someone starting to do the pods, and you go over there and you just join them. This kind of play. And making lunch. is enjoyable it's work you know but it's also it's different from the days when you argue with the fukutan and you know and you're annoyed with your lazy crew members and you go home burdened and annoyed about being here and being stuck in the kitchen you know play enjoyment And then the flow of continuous contact. Whatever's in front of you, that's what you're doing. That's what you're making contact with. Okay, and now, for a few brief moments, we'll go up and put it all into action.

[92:57]

So here's my suggestion. Get up on your cushion. and sit down and say, what was all that? And don't worry about, what way did it speak to you? And if what, and then, how does that guide, inspire, does it? And if you think, that whole thing was cockeyed, okay, well then, What is the true Dharma? And be guided and inspired by that. That's a simple question. What is the true Dharma? And sit with that. Thank you. It is indeed a simple question. What could be simpler? It's the rubber duck. Okay. Thank you very much.

[93:58]

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

[94:19]

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