This podcast is offered by San Francisco's Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to San Francisco's Zen Center. My name is Jordan, Jordan Thorne. I'm a student here at the Zen Center. I'm a priest. I'm a... one of the teachers here at the Zen Center. And I appreciate the effort you all made to be here on this beautiful, warm San Francisco day. I hope that what I have to say will be useful, and may it be so. Thank you all for giving me the chance to show up here and make this effort. I want to begin by acknowledging something, an accident, a tragedy that happened this past week in San Francisco to our sangha, to a member of the sangha, someone who isn't so close to San Francisco Zen Center, but a woman named Christine Zvonmayer.

[01:20]

I'm not sure about how to say her last name. She works for James Flaherty. She's office manager and one of his trainers. And she was in Bernal Heights at Holly Park with her one-year-old baby sunbathing, and a park and wreck truck drove over her and killed her. This happened a few days ago. And I wouldn't say I know her, but I can't say I've met her. And I know James, who she ran his office, and he's an active member of the Zen Center. He's a very active member of Norman Fisher's group And my heart goes out to all of them. She was a student of Genpo Roshi. Christine was a student of Genpo Roshi, who was a student of Maizumi Roshi, who was one of the kind of founding Japanese Zen teachers who came in the 60s to California, to America. You know, when you read about things in the newspaper or on the news,

[02:27]

you don't think that maybe you knew those people, or that person. It struck me especially when I realized that I knew her. The first noble truth of Buddhism is impermanence. And I'll get back to that. but I want to tell a story about when I was young. A story from when I was a kid. I was 13 years old. I was living in Fort Lauderdale, Florida with my parents and my two sisters. And my sisters were younger than me, six and seven years younger than I was. And At that time, a friend of my father's, who lived in upstate Florida, a little distance away, came to visit us in Fort Lauderdale because he purchased a new car, purchased a new Cadillac.

[03:44]

And he was spending the weekend with us and then was going to go back to where he lived a couple hours drive away. And what was special about this was that he parked this brand new car in Florida. our garage. I was 13, and I really had a kind of, I couldn't wait until I could drive. When my mother would say that she was gonna go to the market, I would volunteer to start the car and warm it up. I'd go outside and turn it on. So this car, parked in the garage was a kind of irresistible attraction for me. It was, you know, this is back when cars were made with heavy steel, no concern about fuel efficiency, lots of chrome. It seated six. There were two seat belts in the front, but that didn't matter because nobody I knew used seat belts.

[04:49]

You know, I grew up at least. And... It was a 427 horsepower V8, which was just right as a family car at that time, at that place. So on Saturday night, my parents went out with this fellow. The car was in the garage. And there's various ways you can mark how things change. And one way is that back then, It didn't seem to be the custom that you put your keys in your pocket. When you turned the car off, you took the keys out and dropped them on the floor. If you really wanted to be kind of secure, you would drop them on the floor and then tuck them under the seat. Push them back a little. My mother would go to the market and just take the keys out, leave them there, walk away with the car unlocked. I think all around us, that was just the way all the cars were like that.

[05:52]

So at some point in this evening, with my sister Sue, we went out to the garage and got in the car. Me in the driver's seat. Sue in the passenger seat. And I knew what to do, which is you put the key in and turn it to accessories. And that way I could play the radio and I could make the windshield wipers go and the... Electric trunk release would release, and the windows could go up and down, and the power seats would power up and down and backwards forward. Also, you could turn the radio on, which was in stereo. Our car radio was mono. It was an AM radio. This was like something for me. Nowadays, everyone's got their Walkmans or earbuds and things. It was like I couldn't imagine more fun. in this innocent, simple way.

[06:54]

Well, after a while, all that happened is the power seats started going slow, and the radio started getting kind of quiet. And I knew what was happening, which is that the battery was getting low, and I knew how to fix that. You turn the car on. So I turned the car on. And at that moment, the air conditioning came on. What a delight. A hot muggy Florida enclosed garage and the air conditioning comes on and the radio gets louder and the seats start to go back and forth and I think my sister and I both giggled. Well, after a while, we were so relaxed listening to the radio and in the cool air-conditioned comfort of this bench seat, that it didn't seem at all surprising that I started to get sleepy.

[08:01]

Matter of fact, it just kind of felt right. You know, I just got kind of drowsy. And I looked over at my sister, and she wasn't just drowsy, she was asleep. And I said, Sue, hey. And she kind of like a little bit opened her eyes, but she didn't wake up. And at that instant, suddenly I realized, oh my, you know, well, I realized that we were in this garage, the door was shut, and we were poisoning ourselves with carbon monoxide. I knew that much at 13, that that was a possibility. And panic struck me. And the panic got kind of a little bit even more panicked when I tried to kind of raise my hand, and it was like moving through molasses. And at that point, I really got scared, and adrenaline, the wonderful thing called adrenaline, kicked in, and I turned the car off, and I took my sister, and I took her in my hands, and I kind of stumbled out of the garage, and I laid her outside on the grass.

[09:09]

She was not moving. She was... I thought she was breathing, but she wasn't moving. I wasn't responding to my calls to her. I ran next door to the house where there were grown-ups. And they rushed back, and it didn't take that long. It took about a minute. And when we got there, I could see that Sue was moving, stirring. And her eyes started to open and shut, and then she woke up. And at that moment when she woke up, I started to cry. I hadn't realized how easily and how suddenly everything could change. There's a lot of different reasons why I came to San Francisco Zen Center. And this is not the reason. But...

[10:12]

It's a piece of a whole bunch of the reasons that I find myself here. This recognition of the precious ephemeral gift of our human life and how we never know when it's going to go away. And what does that mean? We're sunbathing in Bernal Heights. And then... So the first noble truth, the first truth of Buddhism is that things change. Things are impermanent. And sometimes things change really dramatically. And

[11:13]

Sometimes things change. Well, sometimes the change we notice is how like a smile dissolves, turns into something else. And Zen practice begins, and actually there's a whole book of sentences that says Zen practice begins. And one of the sentences in that book is Zen practice begins. when we learn to notice how things change, when we learn our part in this. There is something at Zen centers called meditation, called Zen meditation, Zazen. And some of you today might have come or might not have come to the Zazen instruction. If you did go, I'm sure that it was, I trust that it was useful.

[12:19]

And the as an instruction process, you know, takes close to an hour. Some words and then some practice and some words. But I want to give it very short. I don't have an hour to spare right now. I've got some other things to talk about too. But I want to give you all as an instruction, as a meditation instruction. Which is... In Zen meditation, we notice who we are when we stop moving. We make the effort to stop and be still, and then we see what happens. And it seems simple. Just sit down and stop. But actually, the momentum and... river of our life is so strong that actually what we, if we carefully pay attention, what we notice is we sit down, stop, and we continue.

[13:25]

Continue our... We continue that conversation we had in the office that we, but in this time we continued where we won. So making this effort, And I say effort, a particular word, making this effort requires our active intention. And Suzuki Roshi said something about this, about this active intention, about the energy, the effort it takes. He said, for the beginner... Practice without great effort. It is not a true practice. You have to stretch out your arms and legs as wide as they will go. Be true to your own way until at last you actually come to the point where it's necessary to forget about yourself.

[14:30]

Until you come to this point, it's completely mistaken to think that whatever you do is Zen or that it does not matter whether you practice or not. If you make your best effort without gaining ideas, then whatever you do will be true practice. And he said this is especially true for beginners, but this is something that's good in the beginning and in the middle and in the end. We don't ever really reach a point where we can rest on our laurels, whatever they might be. One day, during a zazen period, in other words, during a period of meditation, Suzuki Roshi spoke out to the assembly.

[15:33]

He said, it doesn't get better later. I'm not sure if I believe that. Sometimes I think, well, it will be better later. But then other times I agree with him. What do you think? Do you think it's going to get better later on? Another time in a talk, Suzuki Roshi said... In the widest sense, everything is a teaching for us. The color of a mountain, the sound of the river, or the sound of a motor car. Each one is a teaching of Buddha.

[16:46]

And then, On another occasion Suzuki Rashi said, people don't realize how selfish they are. I agree with him and I say this not to point a finger at anybody else. I say this from personal experience. This is the work of Zen practice, the ease and the gift and the joy of Zen practice, is that no one else can do it for us. It's not something that we can, well, no one else can do it for us, but also we can't do it on our own.

[17:50]

Those two truths right there. We need others to be friends for us, to be support for us, to encourage us, to see them as models, to see them maybe even some occasions as cautionary tales. We need others around us. But finally, what happens when you sit down and try to stop is you have your experience of what that means and how that is and your own experience of how to ripen. your karma in the midst of not moving. It doesn't get better later. Am I as happy now as I ever hoped to be?

[18:59]

No, actually. But it doesn't get better later. So, in this thing called Zen, in this taking up this thing called Buddhist study or practice. One piece of it might be that you imagine you're going to improve yourself. Because of, you know, God knows we could use some improvement. And at the whole end of, you know, like Sushin's and coming to Dharma talks and going to a class and talking to a teacher... you'll end up a different and better person. Well, there's something to that, actually.

[20:04]

And at the same time, it's not that we become like a new, better person. I believe that who we become, who we realize, what we realize is who we already are. When... Our first Zen ancestor, Shakyamuni Buddha, was sitting under the bow tree for a week. At some point, he was in distress and feeling discouraged. But he didn't have to get up and go get something from somewhere else to work through it. He just sat there and kept stopping and stopping until something happened that still we credit, still we revere.

[21:09]

He woke up. So, you know, Zazen is pretty simple. We sit up straight. We don't lean to the left or right. In the Zen tradition, we put our hands together like so, with the thumb tips lightly touching. We breathe in and out through our nose. We settle into a steady, solid position. And we just continue that then. At some point, the bell will ring and we stand up and walk away. And thank God for that. At some point the bell's got to ring. And the real test of our practice isn't so much like how motionless we might be on the cushion, but how motionless we might be in the midst of all the activity we do.

[22:16]

The simplicity of sasen, it's very simple. Actually, when I first came to the Zen Center and I went to Zazan Instruction, afterwards I thought, is that it? Must be. Must be something. Maybe after a year there's an advanced instruction. But no, there's not. You get it when you come in the door. The Zazan Instruction that you get when you first come here is the same Zazan Instruction that you would offer yourself to others after years and years and decades of practice. Les K. was a student of Suzuki Roshi, but most especially a student of a person named Kobinchino. Kobinchino, sort of like Christine's teacher, Mizumi, or the lineage of Mizumi Roshi, Kobinchino was someone who came from Japan in the 60s to help Suzuki Roshi.

[23:22]

And then later on, he started a Zen practice down on the peninsula and he had a number of students and his teaching school continues, though he passed away tragically in an accident some years ago. But Koblenzino's student, Les, was at a public radio program show, interview, about Actually, Kolben was there with Les, but Kolben is a very quiet person. I really wouldn't say I know him, but I can say I've met him, I've seen him. I was in this room here one time when he gave a talk that still I remember, not because of what he said, but because of something else. Kolben spoke very slowly, very quietly. You had to listen carefully sometimes, at least I found I had to, because he also had a little bit of a Japanese accent.

[24:26]

And not just a little bit, at least in the 70s when I heard this talk. And as I'm sitting in the room, intently focusing on this Dharma talk, this would be a sentence and there'd be a pause and there'd be a sentence and there'd be a pause and the pause is sometimes extended. And at some point I thought, this has been a long pause. And I looked up and he was sitting cross-legged in lotus posture and fast asleep. in the speaker's seat. And I don't know, you know, like, I'm not that relaxed. I'm sitting up here. Last thing I'm going to do is fall asleep in front of you. I would do that this afternoon. Or whenever. But anyway, he was fast asleep. Another anecdote about Colbin. I don't know, this almost exhausts my Colbin Chino anecdotes. Yeah. But he was... Others, I'm sure, have many more, because he was a wonderful person, very loved.

[25:36]

But he was... He taught Japanese culture and arts sometimes, and he was teaching... What I heard was he was at the Esalen Institute teaching a workshop on Zen archery, which, if you've ever seen it, Blanche's son is a teacher of... Is it Kyoto? Is that the name for it? Kyoto. And there is a real form to it. You don't just lift up the bow and shoot it. There's an approach and there's a process and there's moments where you stop and then when you pull it back, there's a pause. It's kind of beautiful. There's a really clear intention and concentration that goes along with all of the process that surrounds letting go of that arrow. And Covencino was on the lawn at Esalen. There's a big lawn with kind of the road to one side and the ocean behind. And there's a target, which was... The targets aren't that big.

[26:39]

It's possible to miss them. It's also possible to hit them. And the target was on one side of this lawn. And he was aimed right at it. And then slowly and majestically, he turned himself 180 degrees until he was... aiming away from the target at the ocean. He released the arrow and watched as it arched out, and at the moment it entered the ocean, he said, bullseye. Bullseye. So... Anyway, so Les K. and Koban are at this public radio station. And the question came up, the question the interviewer asked, in Zen, what technique do you use in your meditation practice?

[27:43]

What technique? And Les K. said... Well, we don't use any technique. We don't use any special technique. We don't have any special visualization or mantra, even really any system at all, besides just wholehearted sitting in the present moment. And you know, that's a pretty good answer. I think that's true. But Coburn, who, as I said, was usually a very quiet person, he leaned over towards the microphone. And he spoke. He said, in Zen practice, we use a technique. We use the most important technique there is. In Zen, we use people's sincerity. And I thought when I read that,

[28:50]

in a book that Les K wrote, that that was very impressive. It seemed like a good thing to use, a good technique. It's a hot day, warm day, and I've all layered up with all these clothes, and it's maybe, and I see a few people, unfortunately, in a T-shirt. I'd like to approach the T-shirt So I'm going to stop now. But there will be tea and there will be a Q&A in the dining room shortly. Thank you all for coming here. I appreciate it. 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 sfcc.org and click Giving.

[29:57]

May we all fully enjoy the Dharma.

[29:59]

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