This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center, on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Welcome to sunny Green Gulch. And, uh, yeah. We so-called Zen people have been here now for about 45 years. We first invaded right about this time of year in 1972. When I first... came down the highway and took a left turn into this place and looked down into the valley, hearing that we might be moving in here and practicing here, I looked down and I said, we can't live there.

[01:16]

That's impossible. This is for like multi-millionaires. But here we are, living in this amazingly beautiful place. And you all are welcome to come and practice here. Practice. What's that? Well, just now we talked about the unsurpassed penetrating and perfect dharma. Dharma could be understood as the teaching, the teaching of unsurpassed, penetrating and perfect enlightenment, the teaching.

[02:16]

But it also could be the truth of our life. And at the end of the chant we said, we vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's teaching. Buddha Tathagata is teaching, we vow to taste the truth of it. So saying that, what we just said, is a practice. So those of you who said those words, you performed a practice. Those of you who listened, performed a practice. A practice of speaking, a practice of sitting, and a practice of listening. I have been informed that the Abbas of Green Gulch is offering a class, offered a class this morning.

[03:28]

How did it go? I was there. You were there? So she was there, and was there a class? There was. There was a class, and guess what the name of the class is? The path is enlightenment, and enlightenment is the path. Something like that. Another way to say it is enlightenment is the practice and practice is enlightenment. Sometimes people think of practice as some activity which will lead you to Buddhahood. But this morning I just wanted to bring up a form of practice which doesn't lead anywhere.

[04:32]

A practice which doesn't lead anywhere or lead to anything. A practice which is the realization of Buddhahood. A practice which is realizing unsurpassed, penetrating and complete awakening. practice which is an expression, practice which is expressing through the practitioner's actions, through the practitioner's actions of, for example, physically sitting, using the action of physical sitting, of sitting upright, use that action as an expression of

[05:55]

Buddhahood. And using your present posture, your present action, physical action right now, as an opportunity to express Buddhahood, to express acceptance of Buddhahood and commitment to Buddhahood, by sitting upright, right now. This sitting could be expressing a commitment and an acceptance of enlightenment right now, not later, now. This practice is the same as enlightenment. Such a practice is the practice of a Buddha.

[07:36]

When a Buddha sits, a Buddha's not going anyplace. A Buddha's sitting right where she is, and she's expressing acceptance and commitment to Buddhahood. Zen ancestors have invited us to join the practice of the Buddhas, which is to sit as an expression of Buddhahood and to realize Buddhahood by the present, your present postural activity. And if we're speaking, to use the opportunity of speaking as an expression of Buddhahood.

[08:51]

And also to be committed to that amazing act of using your speech as as an expression of the Buddha mind and your thoughts, whatever thoughts are going on in the consciousness where you are, to use all those thoughts as expression of the Buddha mind. All of them? Each and every one? That's what I'm suggesting. To practice with each thought. To remember to use each and every thought.

[10:06]

to express the Buddha mind. I might just mention briefly, and perhaps someday go into more elaborate comment, that one might have a thought like, one might have a thought like, that last thought I had was a below average thought. Or even the thought that's a below-average thought is not that good. So maybe I shouldn't use this thought to express the Buddha mind. Maybe I should wait until a better thought comes and use that to express the Buddha mind. Well, using that thought to express the Buddha mind, yeah, that would be the practice. When another thought comes, even a better one, even a worse one,

[11:09]

even the judgment of better and worse, whatever is going on, whatever your body's doing, to use it to express Buddhahood. There's a very frequently expressed, recited teaching from the scripture called the Flower Adornment Scripture. It's very often said, probably been said billions of times, which is the Buddha talking upon the

[12:17]

realizing Buddhahood, at the moment of realizing Buddhahood, the Buddha said, now I see all living beings fully possess the wisdom and the virtues of Buddhas. However, because of attachments and misconceptions, they don't realize it. And I gave an example of a misconception. A misconception would be, okay, I heard that all sentient beings, including yours truly,

[13:23]

the wisdom compassion and all the virtues of the Buddhas that I fully possess them but I don't understand that and I can't believe that the thought that I don't understand could be used as an opportunity to express the wisdom and virtues of the Buddhas. I can't do this practice is a thought that occurs in living beings' minds. I've seen that thought and heard about that thought many times. I can't do this practice. That thought is an action, a mental action, and that thought, that wonderful thought, I can't do the practice, is an opportunity to express the Buddha mind with that thought.

[14:45]

And by using that thought, and by being committed to use that thought and all the other ones, for this purpose, Buddhahood is achieved, is realized. That's how it's realized. It's realized by using a life and the activity of a life to express Buddhahood. However, because of our misconceptions, we think, well, okay, I got the idea, but not now, not this, not this posture, not these words, not this thought, not this opinion, including this opinion. No, maybe some thought could come up that can be used to express Buddhahood, but not...

[15:56]

any ones that I've seen lately. So I'll just wait until a good one comes along, and then I'll try it on that. And again, that thought is another opportunity. So we train. Those on the path of realizing Buddhahood, and the path, again, is not going someplace, it's the path of realizing Buddhahood now with now, using now to realize now Buddhahood. We're training to remember that, to come back to this radical, you know, radical, like to come back to this root, the root of the practice of Buddhahood, the root of the practice of Buddhahood is

[16:56]

Buddhahood, that's the root, to come back to the root in the practice. Quite a few people in the back are leaving, which makes sense to me because this is such a radical practice. Yeah. People often would like a practice that leads somewhere to something other than this. It's understandable. Again, that's what the statement says. They fully possess it, but they can't believe it. They don't realize it. I think many of you have seen the cartoon.

[17:59]

or versions of the cartoon, but quite a few years ago there was a cartoon circulating, which I think the cartoon has two people carrying, what are they called, sandwich boards? Is that what they're called? Where they wear a board on their chest and also in the back. And I think the first person was carrying a board that says... Jesus is coming soon, or something like that. Or Jesus is coming. And then the person behind them is carrying a board which says, Buddha's already here. And I don't think my sister, who is a Jehovah's Witness, I don't think she's, she might not have seen that ad, maybe she saw it, but somehow she heard about Buddhism, And she heard that Buddhism says, Buddha's here right now.

[19:00]

And she said, but some people actually, that doesn't work for them. They would rather have a divinity that's coming soon. Like a movie, you know. It's coming soon rather than this is the movie. Which you don't have to pay for other than being here, which is too high a price, so... Let's go to the movie that's coming soon. Which has a lower price, like $12 or something. But if this is it, then you have to be here in order to watch it. Which is, you know, we're busy. We have other things to do than be here. Right? Did somebody snort? so yeah so that's I think that's pretty good pretty good radical it's called radical sudden practice you can do it right now you don't have to do it later

[20:26]

You can do it moment by moment. It's a moment by moment using your life right now to display the Buddha mind, to express it. And part of the principle is that, which is also very difficult to understand or believe, is that When we use our life to express the Buddha mind the entire world is included in that expression. When we use our present life to express the Buddha mind that is the realization of Buddha mind. The expression of Buddha mind is to use your present life to express it.

[21:29]

The expression of the deluded mind is to use your past life and your future life to express it. I have a memory, which actually might be a dream, that I was moving through the hills here and coming downhill, and I met a philosopher coming uphill.

[24:39]

This philosopher lived at Mirror Beach, a professional philosopher with, you know, academic credentials, doctor of philosophy, in philosophy. And we knew each other and we stopped for a moment and he might have said something like, you know, I really appreciate, it's so encouraging that you people who live in this valley are here witnessing silence and stillness. So part of the practice is that we sit in this room and walk in this room and we witness stillness.

[25:46]

and we witness silence. And when we're sitting at our seats, we're kind of sitting still. But even when we're sitting still, we also witness stillness. Or you could say also even, even when we get up and start walking in this room, we witness stillness. You can be running around, like in the mountains, running down, and as you're running down the mountain, step by step, you can witness stillness. You can also witness it going up, but I don't know, it's kind of hard to witness it going up or down. witness stillness when you're running. But the philosopher said, it's really encouraging me that you people, while you wash dishes, while you walk in the meditation hall, while you work on the farm, while you cook meals, whatever you're doing, that you're attempting to remember stillness.

[27:14]

And when you're talking to each other, that you're attempting, that you're committed to remembering silence along with this talking. Of course, when we're listening, it might be easier to, in some ways, to remember silence when somebody else is talking and you're listening. But even then, it's quite difficult, as you may have noticed, to remember silence. when you're listening to someone else talk. Because when you're listening to someone else talk, you might also be having a talk in your head. And you might forget to be silent with the talk in your head. But you can be. For example, someone could be talking and the thought might come up I have something really brilliant to say. And we might forget to be still with the thought of how brilliant our comment is.

[28:27]

And then because we forget to be still and quiet, we maybe start talking before they're done. forget to express the Buddha mind because we forget stillness and silence. Or we forget stillness and silence when we forget to use our life to express the Buddha mind. When we leave this room, we will start moving, I guess. In order to get out, we're going to have to move. We're going to start walking around and we're going to start talking to each other. So it might be challenging to remember and to witness stillness.

[29:30]

But it's not impossible. It is possible to be walking and remember stillness. Yeah, to remember stillness and remembering it, then when you remember it, then it's kind of like, oh, here it is. Also, one time when I used to climb up the hill there, these hills here, mostly on this side rather than that side, used to climb the hills, and climbing was quite difficult, and still is, and then I'd get to the top, and the top... levels out a little bit. So then I'd be walking on the top of the ridge and this thing would come to me. The stillness would come to me. I was still walking, but I forgot the stillness climbing, but then I rediscovered it on the top.

[30:33]

And then I could have a chance to remember it as I walked across the top and remember it as I went down. It's already here. The Buddha mind is already here. It's omnipresent. It's never the slightest bit in the future or the past. Well, actually, it's in the future and the past, too. But right now, it's here. And so we have a chance to enjoy it. And it helps to remember stillness. And in stillness, perhaps you would realize you have nothing better to do then realized Buddhahood. So, that's enough, okay? What do you think? Is that right? Okay, is that enough? All right? May I bring this convention to a close?

[31:37]

Thank you for listening to this podcast. offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

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