This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. I came in and I saw this empty space. I thought, I wonder if I left an empty space because someone thought I might get up and do an interpretive dance. I'm not planning on it. I know. But Friday night is skit night. No, I'm planning on talking about which Dogen Zenji, the founder of Soto Zen, this style of Zen in Japan, he wrote, he set a task for himself of writing 100 essays and he got up to 95 and then he died.

[01:19]

And across his writings, there are certain repeated themes And certain things that he references quite a bit. And this koan by Yaushan is one of those things that he references a lot. The koan is pretty simple. It's an interaction between a monk and Yaushan. It's attempting to answer or address or elucidate. What happens in doing sasana? On Saturday, I was talking about another famous coin, which Dogen also had a great appreciation of, because he mentioned that a lot too, which was nanyue and baso.

[02:21]

Basso's sitting, Nanwai asks him, what are you doing? I'm sitting to become a Buddha. Well, he picks up a tile and starts rubbing it. He says, well, what are you doing? He says, well, I'm rubbing this tile so it'll become a jewel. And then in this koan, the monk asks Yavshan. It's not quite what it says in the koan, but... Yashan's just sitting there very present. And the monk says to him, when you're sitting very present, what are you thinking? And Yashan says, not thinking. And the monk says, well, how do you do that?

[03:24]

usual translation is, how do you think not thinking? And Yashant says, there's two translations that seem to be prevalent. One is beyond thinking, and then the other one is non-thinking. I hope you can get some flavor there of... not about thinking. It's about a state of consciousness that's not about thinking. And you can look at Zen koans, many Zen stories, and you can relate to them as they're talking about Zazen. What is Zazen? I was thinking about this, thinking about it, a while back, a week or so ago, and I was thinking, maybe everybody should write out what they're supposed to be doing or not doing or being when they do something.

[04:50]

Write it out for yourself, in your own words, in a way that makes, that's significant and relevant for you. And then watch what you do when you go sit on your cushion or sit in your chair or engage in Zan Zen. And what I'm trying to say there is that the catalyst of Zan Zen, the that which stimulates our involvement is a deliberate, committed involvement in it. So Dogen wrote an essay called Zazen as the acupuncture needle.

[06:02]

In acupuncture, when the energy is blocked, you put in a needle, you put in an acupuncture needle, and it releases the energy and it lets it flow. And when the energy flows in the body, the body is healthier. The body thrives. And how Zazen is like the acupuncture needle... of human existence. You put in the needle, and it stimulates the flow. And the energy flows, and the human existence is supported to thrive. And if you think about that, well, then it becomes a very relevant question. Hmm. Well, then what is Zazen? is the origin it points to?

[07:12]

What is it to sit thoroughly present without an agenda? What is it to engage the body, the breath, the mind, the workings of human existence in a way that something profound is realized about being alive? below the chatter, below the distractions, below the formulations, the assumptions? What is it? What is being alive? And then what is it to let that express itself in everything you do? What is it to live authentically rather than just habitually, distractedly? reactively. I sometimes think Zen is like shock therapy.

[08:16]

Conjure up the question that's shockingly impossible. I remember a friend of mine saying to me once, He was studying with Harada Shoto Roshi in Sugengi in Japan. And he got a message in the middle of the day. Roshi wants to see you right now. And, you know, in Rinzai temples, the teacher could call you in to answer your call whenever he feels like it. And so, of course, he was filled with dread. You have to go... and address the impossible, and speak about that which can't be spoken about. And he got in there, and he went in, and it turned out there was some question about his visa in Stangrich.

[09:26]

And he said, ah, what a relief. Just my visa. we ask ourselves to get in touch with the core of existence, and then after that, oh, just my visa, oh, just taking the bus to work, just eating breakfast, just dealing with my unpleasant emotion, or watching my own preference in a particular situation. There's this strange and wonderful way that when we challenge ourselves deeply, then the so-called challenges in our life, they float. They're a little bit, they're more in perspective.

[10:30]

Okay, I don't have to deal with the impossible. Yeah, I can talk about my visa. Yeah. You need my birth certificate? Sure. something tangible, straightforward. In addressing this coin, what do you do when you're just sitting there like that? What are you thinking? Well, it's not a matter of what I'm thinking. Well, then what is it? bigger than that. It's beyond that. It's more inclusive of everything that a human life expresses. And the catalyst in the particular moment of Zazen is quite specific.

[11:36]

Not in the details of The real way to do zazen is to sit on a black cushion. No, you can sit on a red one, a yellow one, any kind of cushion. The color of the cushion is not the problem or the issue. The breathing technique you adopt is not the singular issue. How flexible your body is or isn't is not the issue. So we winnow away. Now, if your mind's just lost in distraction, if your mind is just filled with preoccupations, then it's like you're not really there. You're somewhere else. So there's something in that.

[12:39]

If you're fixed, fixed idea of what the outcome should be. Then you're busy creating the outcome that fits inside your version of reality, your version of what practices. And this is Nanue trying to instruct Baso. It's not just, doesn't fit inside your version. It's more multifaceted. It's more multidimensional. It's more inclusive. It includes interpretive dance. Here, let me show you.

[13:42]

Just kidding. So Dogen quotes this coin. And then he says, from Shakyamuni, through 36 generations, all the way to Yaushan, the same practice. And he says, now, Yaushan just said it a certain way, and that's not the only way. But there's something authentic in the way he talked about it. So consider, if you were to write it out, If you were to, in a steady, clear way, tell yourself, the heart of Zazen, the essential elements of being Zazen are these.

[14:58]

What would you say? And I would say to you, every time you sit, bring it forward. Let it guide how you sit in your body. Let it guide how you engage your breath. Let it guide how you relate to thinking and beyond thinking. And if you watch it narrow down into right and wrong, what should be achieved or what should be avoided, reflect on that. And in the Zen world, this reflection, this inquiry, it's called the first principle of practice.

[16:01]

And I know some of you have had the misfortune of hearing me say things like this. Notice, acknowledge, contact, experience. Or, as I've been saying recently, experience the experience you're experiencing. Or that's being experienced. That there's something in engaging what is that goes beyond the ideas of it, and yet you're completely capable of doing it. It's not like you have to be something different or have something you don't already have. The sign to the music in the passing car opens the gate of liberation.

[17:16]

How could it not? could some moments be just as it is, but other moments not. And yet in the workings of a human, a conditioned human existence, each of us has our own propensities, our own resonance with certain things. And so we study and watch who we are and what we are. helps me spark into aliveness. Is it readings and coins? Or do you look at these and think, what rubbish?

[18:18]

kind of sophistry of ideas. Well, in that regard, I would say they're not intended to be that. But who knows how they strike you. But what is the key? If it's not that, what is it? Enough trust to explore what enlivens. And then even more mysterious, enough trust to not just try to limit it to the way you would like it to be limited. Here's what works for me and I don't go beyond that. If you remember a while back I was quoting Suzuki Roshi who was quoting Dogen saying, the teaching, the word in the translation was

[19:27]

forces something on you. Maybe a little bit more understandable and accessible, asks something of you. Like when you sit down to do zazen, it asks something of you. What is it asking? What is it to attune with the request and respond and give? A while back, I was talking to Shohakamura Roshi, and he was talking about doing Sashin's Rantaichi. And he was saying, which I knew. They sit for 55 minutes, they do five minutes kingdhin, sit for 55 minutes, five minutes kingdhin. And he says, inevitably, at some point, you've given as much as you have to give.

[20:33]

and then you keep going. Is giving as much as we have to give, is it all about physical athleticism, physical hardship? Is it about challenging the preferences that we construct in how we negotiate our lives? Is it about cracking open the habits that have become ingrained in how we think and feel and act? In our practice, inevitably, there's a request for something like a radical honesty. Can you, with as much and honesty.

[21:40]

Can you look at who you are and how you are and what you are and what you do? And can you cross-reference it with the process of awakening? Hmm. And I would say, when you do that, it's wonderfully humbling. You might say to yourself, oh, well then, I will stop doing that. Maybe you will. Maybe you won't. And if you don't stop doing it, have you failed? If you do stop doing it, have you succeeded? This is Nanwe talking to Basel. So it's all a matter of, here's the goal, and I just have to achieve it.

[22:43]

In telling you that story about Shohaku Gamora, was I saying, no, it's some ruthless process where you coerce yourself into going beyond your limits? Is that it? Strangely, if only it was that easy. We could all just go out and do something incredibly difficult and painful and challenging. I remember once when I was doing Doka Sen, someone came in the door, very deliberately took off all his clothes, put them in the corner, and then sat down completely naked. And I thought and I said to him, ah, it's not that easy.

[23:53]

within our capacity as a human being. It doesn't require anything of us that we haven't got. And yet, in a way, it requires everything we've got. And to follow that thought, we give everything and we receive everything. But in the realm of experiencing that, that is realized. As an idea, we might think, oh, what a beautiful idea. How wonderfully exalted. Give everything, receive everything. But we can watch ourselves.

[25:09]

as we process and engage our own life. What do I do? I may say that, but what do I do? Then in Zazen, can I get to the bottom of it? Someone sent me a painting Here's the coin. 10,000 feet deep in the bottom of the sea, there's a rock. I pick it up without getting wet. And she's an artist, so she made a painting of it. How do we enter the stuff of our own life without being stuck in its way of coming into being?

[26:29]

Maybe that's too esoteric. So the first principle. And so, Bodhidharma goes to see the emperor of China. And the emperor of China says to Bodhidharma, this first principle, what's the profound expression of the first principle? And in some ways, in the world of Zen, That's the question we set in front of ourselves. In some ways, as we're living our life day by day, we get out of bed in the morning and we go and live our life as if we know what it's all about and what's important and what's not important and how to be authentic and how to express it and how to engage others in an authentic and expressive manner.

[27:45]

What's the first principle of being alive and being awake? And Bodhidharma says, shunyata. The nature of everything is it's impermanent. It arises through interaction, interbeing, and there's nothing separate from that existence. That's the first principle. And when we enter into being, we realize it. When we live it, we act it out. But being a Zen kind of guy, Bodhidharma, offers no explanation.

[28:49]

He just says, Shanyata. The emperor says, well, who can say that? Who's saying that now? What state of being are you that that can be expressed? Maybe he's asking, what have you realized that allows you to make that statement? And Bodhidharma says, don't know. It's not something you're going to figure out. You're going to experience it. You're experiencing it all the time. Maybe you're not realizing you're experiencing it. And in the world of...

[29:53]

Zen koans, this is the first one. It's the same koan when we do zazen. Now, what is this about? What's supposed to happen here? And what is it to enable that to happen? And if I engage a technique, how do I engage the technique in a way that it supports it? How do I relate to my body in a way that supports that? How do I relate to my breath? How do I relate to the sign, to the passing car? The sudden concern I have about something I have to do tomorrow? The nagging problem of my life that feels like My life will never be okay until that's resolved.

[30:59]

What is it to reach down into my life without getting stuck? What is it to just see it as it is? that nagging problem I have. When it comes up, it feels like a stone in my shoe. I won't be able to walk comfortably till I take that stone. So in this style of Zen, Soto Zen, the very activity of Zazen is the koan.

[32:22]

Maybe we could say, sitting Zazen like this is so formidable that when it's over, the rest of life is easy. Oh, okay. after being immersed in the impossible, no, I can just go and have breakfast. Or face that task I have to do. Or just sit on the bus and look at people's faces and marvel at what it is to be alive. And that we're all doing it all the time. clock, it's twenty past four. The process of realization, I heard the Dalai Lama talk about it once, and here's how he talked about it.

[33:32]

Very interesting notion. He said that, maybe I would preface it by saying, we all have our glimpses of awakeness. sometimes they startle us into presence. Sometimes we just quickly fold them back into whatever it is that's flowing through our mind, whatever it is we're worrying about or excited about or dreading. But those glimpses, it's like they're an illustration. They're an example of another world, a whole different frame of reference for what's going on other than the one we normally live in.

[34:34]

And he said, part of the challenge is it's so unfamiliar, we can't relate to it. And what needs to happen is repetition of the experience so that in the familiarity how to relate to it becomes evident. You don't figure it out. It's just repetition of experience. And of course the danger is then you lose your beginner's mind in the repetition. Each time you sit down to do zazen, can it be a new experience? After you've done zazen for a while, sitting for 30 minutes is not an earth-shattering thing, doesn't push you to your limits.

[35:50]

tolerated enough of your own internal ramblings that it isn't going to kind of test your limits in terms of listening to your own thoughts and feelings. But what is it to cultivate that each time you sit, it's like, this is it. I mentioned a while back, about a month or so ago, I went to see someone in hospital and he was having this intense of chemotherapy. And it was really messing up his mind. He was saying, intense. And he said, it really made him appreciate sitting sasa. He said, there's nothing like desperation to kind of quicken your interest.

[36:56]

Shall we wait for that and then make our commitment? Or can we cultivate an intrigue? What helps you be intrigued about the process of you being you? What helps you be intrigued about how you construct the world? The ways in which sometimes your mind wants to go to your difficulties instead of the things in your life that are pleasant and enjoyable. The ways in which your mind can yearn

[38:02]

for what it wants, and almost in a way yearn to be preoccupied with what it doesn't want. What is it to sit zazen and have consciousness shift into a more fluid state that can become dreamlike? Or it can have its own kind of almost luminance, you know, that you're not sure whether you can hear the passing car or see the passing car. What is it to rekindle that kind of beginner's mind?

[39:09]

In the fascicle, Dogen goes on and he says, as Dogen had a penchant for doing, he would rebuke what he thought was an inappropriate way to think of practice. And in this fascicle he goes on and he says, some people think it's just about tranquility. And then he rebukes them for that. I would say, if you pay attention, often having the mind settled down, be less agitated, less caught up in likes and dislikes, there is a clarity that arises. But maybe the challenge is, in that clarity, can we open up the question?

[40:22]

In that clarity, can we look more clearly at the particulars of being alive? extraordinary it is, even in its ordinariness, that that particular thought, how extraordinary I would look at an empty space and think of interpretive dancing. Just in case you haven't realized it, I'm not into interpretive dancing. At least not so far.

[41:33]

There's a poem that William Stafford wrote. I don't remember the poem, but I remember the image he creates. He talks about a person being in a cell. And the door, the iron bars are locked. And then the jailer comes and throws open the door. And the prisoner goes over and pulls the door shut again. Do you want to awaken? Or do you prefer the predictability of just where you are within the confines of what it is? In the wisdom and compassion of practice, this fierceness

[42:45]

is balanced by what we might call a deep healing of our human condition. With our careful attention, we discover how we make life difficult for us and discover how to heal, how to stabilize both ourselves and every person we meet. There's someone who sleeps on our doorstep and occasionally gets up and comes to morning sunset. How fierce a human life is. much we all need to heal.

[43:53]

We all need the support, the compassion. In both of these, together. One can have us settle into nonchalance and the other one can unground us and disturb us. We need them both. This is the skillfulness, the wisdom and compassion of practice. What is to go to the bottom of the ocean? What is the origin? And what is it to live in everything we do? Thank you.

[45:01]

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

[45:31]

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