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. Good morning. Why don't we turn around and say whatever your favorite greeting is in the moment to each other? Go for it. You guys are fast. So for those who don't know me, my name is

[01:01]

I just realized that I was it's 20 years since I was ordained in this room this year almost 15 years since I've had Dharma transmission and it was only my second time back since the I've been giving a lecture since the renovation, and it's so nice. And last time I was in January, so I didn't get to see the upstairs here, so it's really lovely, and got to use a fancy bathroom upstairs and everything. Who's here for the first time? Okay. All right. How's your experience so far? All right. Yeah? Well, I hope it improves. No, I don't mean that in a bad way.

[02:04]

I just mean I hope it continues to improve. So I was asked recently to do some writing on the difference between Zen and insight practice. So I thought I'd share that with you all. I, like many people in the room, including Abbott, David, if I remember correctly, started out in the insight tradition. No? Oh, but you have had insight practice, yeah. And, oh, I apologize. I should do my Zen form first. Thank you to Tim, the tanto, for the invitation to speak today. And, of course, Abbot David. And anyone else in the room I should thank? My teacher, my Zen teacher now. Shosan Victoria Austin, who's online, and my other teacher is Gail Fronstall, who started out in Zen and now mostly teaches insight, and I'm also training intensely with him to be empowered in the insight tradition also.

[03:15]

So, oh, and this next year here, I'll be back in person in this Room to Teach meditation training series in person again since the pandemic. So that's really exciting. It's been online and it's, you know, it's a great way to have access for people. So we appreciate that. And from the beginning, I've incorporated insight into Zen practice. In part, I like to say in the course, especially meditation training 1.0, the first one, it's really the craft of meditation. And in Zen, in faith that we are Buddha, we enter Buddha's way. And so for me, faith is the beginning of Zen.

[04:20]

our beginning of practice. And we begin, I like to begin there, because what I really appreciate about Zen, and of course when I say Zen, I mean Soto Zen, this lineage, and I'll be very clear that I'm talking about convert Soto Zen, very specifically in this lineage of Shinri Suzuki Roshi, and when I talk about insight, or some of you might know it as Vipassana, I'm also talking about the convert American insight, mostly from the spirit rock tradition. That's where I learned it in the years. I learned in the early, the late 90s and early 2000s. It was mostly the Thai force style, the A-chan-cha, the teacher of Jack Cornfield, and a little bit Burmese. So in Zen, We begin as fools.

[05:20]

In Zen, the most important thing is to be a Zen fool. Because we start with faith. In faith that we are Buddha, we enter Buddha's way. And the faith is, we say the posture itself is Buddha. When we go to sit down, or lie down, or stand, or walk, any of the meditative positions, We are Buddha. We take the posture of awakening. And that in particular means that we begin to understand that we're already, as Suzuki Roshi said, we're perfect the way we are. But we can use a little help. And it's a little bit of help that I... bring in the insight, not to diminish insight, just that in Zen, you know, who here has been for Zazen instruction? Mostly you get posture instructions, wouldn't that be true, and how to count your breath.

[06:27]

And then who here was at Zazen this morning or any other time, okay? Anybody tell you how to do anything down there? No. You just stare at the wall. And zazen instruction, and earlier they include form instruction, which is now how you go in and out of the zendo, how you get on and off the platform, baton, and face the wall and all that. And so it's this idea that we sit there in our buddhaness. We're told how to take the posture of Buddha. Then you just sit there. When I first went to Tassajara, the monastery of this lineage, in the first practice period, there were 18 of us who were first time there in the Tangari. David, I think you're one of those. And I remember one time we were sitting there, because it's silent all the time, right?

[07:30]

And then the Tanto, the head of practice then, said, wake up! And I remember after we were like, whoa, whoa, some teaching, you know, some teaching. Turned out someone was asleep. And they were really annoyed, so that's why they were screaming out there, right, or yelling out. Blanche, my root teacher and the first abbess of this lineage, you know, she sometimes would say, are you awake? Quietly. She didn't yell so much. So we begin there, but I know, or and I know, that it's really hard for me to just sit in my awakeness. And so in the craft of meditation, I like to bring in some insight practices. Now, insight or vipassana, and by the way, the word vipassana

[08:35]

in the Pali, pasana means to see. And then V is like a modifier that makes it steady or focused or direct. So V pasana is, that's why you get insight, like you really steady the awareness. So I like to think of insight as giving us some instruction on what to do when things are difficult. Because to me, it's very hard to know my buddhaness, that I'm perfect already. And by the way, you might be going, what kind of perfect is she talking about? And for me, as a recovering perfectionist, perfect at first just meant very proper. Was I pretty perfect, do you think, coming in? No, oh.

[09:36]

Okay, well. Then I'm a good Zen student because I keep on trying. That's the other thing, right? So part of the not being told things is that actually we just keep showing up and trying or doing, engaging. So one way in which I would frame the two is that In insight, the focus on what, and in Zen, we focus on who. Now, do people know what the three marks of existence is? Or more specifically, conditioned existence, which we all are. There's a teaching of Buddhism, which is there's impermanence, there's not-self, and there's dukkha. which is often translated as suffering. Other translations are disease, discontent, dissatisfaction.

[10:42]

I myself appreciate overwhelmed, though not a scholarly implication of overwhelm. Some, like Thanasara Bhikkhu, would say it's stress. So it's the suffering that we can do something about. So for me, while these are true, of all of the sects of Buddhism, the way that the focus of the ways of practice is, in insight, there's much more of a focus on understanding impermanence. Or how, when we hang on to permanence, the chance of dukkha, the third one, arises much more easily. This is why in insight practice, there's very much a focus on noticing what is happening moment to moment to moment. And essentially, the pivotal point is to notice how things arise and fall.

[11:47]

They're not permanent and solid. This is why, for instance, in insight, in particular, when you practice insight, Let's say you have a pain. The idea is to note the pain in a way that you see it's arising and it's falling. So we do that by really clarifying what exactly is happening at that place. What is happening? Notice I just said, what is happening at that place? And so for instance, another way that I would put the two is an insight. Let's say I have a hand. And the practice, this is suffering.

[12:48]

Dukkha is a solid mess. And we practice noticing what is suffering. The sensation. I say my knee hurts at the knee. The actual physical sensation. What are the emotions that are there when that's happening? And what are the thoughts that arise as that's happening? What are the patterns, the habitual reactive patterns? The... pattern mostly, the two that are meshed a lot is your emotion and your thought. If you have an emotion, there's some thoughts that are often associated, or you have a thought and there are emotions attached. For instance, dentists. Probably most of you have some kind of emotion with dentists, no? Probably not joy, unless you're a dentist, right? Then you're like, oh, yeah, more clients.

[13:51]

So those are often enmeshed, so sensations where you focus a lot, but the patterns, patterns that come up is what's key. Because you could think, dentist, ouch, pain, I don't want that, I'm not going to the dentist. Fear of pain, and then disliking, and then your teeth gets worse or you're sore. truth gets worse and then it aggravates the pain. So the pattern and then the field of awareness. And notice what happens then when you can source out these things. Then letting go happens on its own. Or more easily. Now whereas in Zen... Don't think about it so much. Don't try to source it all out.

[14:52]

Just sit. Just sit. Pain, pain, pain, pain. Just like this. And you don't even note it. Someone gets what I'm talking about. So Zen asks us to be with it completely and just engage fully. And if anything, it's the who. that is meeting this. Who is it that's arising? Who is it that's arising? This is where the forms asks us or gives us the, the container of practice is so much off the cushion. Yes, we sit in completeness. We sit in completeness, but how we source it out is when we keep engaging. The most important thing in Zen is wholeheartedness. Wholeheartedness.

[15:53]

Wholeheartedness. Shit, I messed up, but I keep going. I keep engaging. Because I keep watching what is the self, the sense of self that comes up to solidify, that brings me more suffering. Now, when I was at first at Tassajara, we arrived in April. I was thinking maybe we were in the same van, but I don't think we were. And I was day off head of cabin crew, which means I cleaned the cabins for the guests. But then when we, you know, when we had some time, we would do other things.

[16:58]

So one time, you know, and early on, and I actually had never done Zen before, but I had gone to get the, in those days in 2002, you had to work the whole summer, the five and a half months of guest season to earn two practice period credits, right? Two, three months practice periods in the winter. And there was no partial at that time. It was all or nothing. Wholehearted. And I didn't have any Zen practice, but I didn't want to go to the East Coast for various reasons. And so I was just going to do one practice period. So I had very little Zen experience. So one day we were going to paint the walls of the pine cabins. And the shikha, the head of practice, you know, was telling us how they wanted it good.

[17:59]

And I thought, oh, I think this is a more efficient way to do it. And so I voiced my, you know, helpfulness. And the shikha said, just do it. This is the Zen way. Just do it. And I thought, No, I know this would be more efficient. In fact, I realize I pride myself as an efficiency expert. I knew how things would be most, but that's what they kept saying, and I just like, right, and did it. And I realized that part of what's important in the practice of Zen is that we're asked to engage because our mind, the habitual mind, the discursive mind, will go in those, now that I have more insight study and understanding, it's that habitual patterns of thinking, right?

[19:15]

Like the five hindrances. The five hindrances, hardly ever hear them in Zen, but they're... emotional and mental patterns that the Buddha taught as what gets in the way of your concentration. What gets in the way of that focused mind that's settled and composed. And they are sensual pleasure, aversion and ill will, sloth and torpor, Restlessness and anxiety. And skeptical doubt. Or indecisiveness. Gil prefers indecisiveness these days. So, well, there are five set and they're taught around concentration. It's one framing of the fourth noble truth that the Buddha of patterns of Dharma are

[20:16]

Phenomena arising of emotional and mental states that the Buddha taught as what we need to explore to understand liberation and that inside tradition. And so these are one way of framing how we perceive experience. And while there are five of them and we have them all, most of us have one or two, but usually one is the predominant. It's like our go-to, given... conditions of our life and our conditioning, right? And so that kind of colors our perception. Now, while they're taught for concentration, when we're not careful of what they are as the pattern, like the mood that's in our heart and mind field, then we take how we perceive to be the truth. They're like the motivation or the Mood factor. So, for instance, sitting here, how many of you already thought about yummy things to eat after this, or your breakfast, right?

[21:28]

In class, in meetings, these things come up all the time. This is why, you know, there's food, right? There's stuff at meetings. How many of you have thought, I don't like this? I don't like her. It's okay. Go for it. Remind me your name. Write that down. All right. It's too hot. It's too cold. It's too this, too that. How many of you are restless, anxious? And how many of you, oh, I reverse these sometimes. Sloth and torpor. Right? How many of you already? This is why you fall asleep and practice a lot, too.

[22:28]

It also can cover up a lot of other things. And then how many of you already thought, I don't know. I don't know. I could have gone to mass instead, or I could have gone to brunch, but I don't know why I'm here. Hmm? I'm not sure. I'm not sure about this. So these color the way we perceive, and it's what drives us a lot of time, unless we're aware. So in that story about the cabin, people who know me will already know which is my go-to. Aversive and ill will. No, that's not how it should be done. I know how it should be done. That's not right. There's a better way. The aversive, not person, mind you. It's the arising. And so, again, in insight, we would watch how that arise. What are the tightness of the body around aversion, right?

[23:30]

When you watch people in the Zendo, if they're sitting like this, they probably have an aversive response. And when they're sitting like this, they're probably having a sensual pleasure. I like it, I want more of it. And when there's a lot of, unless it's a certain jana state, there's a lot of moving around. There's a lot of, what I like to think of as the other three, anxiety causing it, or sloth and torpor, or just doubt, fragmentation. So when we're not aware of that, that's what drives the way we... view the world. In Zen, we want to watch for how, with that view, we think that is us. If I solidify around that tendency I have, then I don't want to do anything.

[24:31]

My girlfriend, we're both aversive type. Sorry, Deb. Deb's used to me. calling things out about her. But this one's clear. So this morning, what if she asks me? How are you? Right? And she's asking for it because she knows before I do anything, there's always a period when I'm like, I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it. Because the verse of type just wants to, like, you know, the tendency is just to go, no. Right? Notice the back here. No. I'm not... Not perfect. Not perfect. And so there's always a holding back. But when I'm aware of that as a tendency of how I hold myself and carry myself in the world, then it becomes a thing where I'm aware of it. I don't have to push it away. I don't have to get rid of it. Because it's a habitual tendency that I learn for really good reasons in life.

[25:37]

really good reasons, right? I've had a lot of various experiences in my life that make meeting life super hard. And so it's not to invalidate that. The practice isn't to say, forget all that. I have to be a new person. The practice is to notice that either as how it affects the emotion, the thoughts, the sense fields, and the pattern it tends to take into, right? Unpleasant, I don't like it, I won't do it. Or resistance. But when I'm aware that that is there, I can say, oh, that's a sense of myself that is impermanent and not solid. I am more than this habitual way of viewing the world and sense of myself.

[26:44]

Like, I want to say I'm aversive. Even when I say aversive type, most of you, myself included, probably thinking, oh, yeah, that's how she is. We could do that to other people, right? Don't forget that selfing. We self others. We don't just self ourself. We self others in groups of people. How you chose where you sat maybe had some form, since this is a Zen center, but some of it has to do with your sense of how you carry yourself in here. Where is the most pleasant spot for those who are driven by sense pleasure? Oh, the sun is so beautiful over here. I'm going to sit in the sun. I don't know about that person. I'm going to sit over here. Where can I skedaddle out of here as quickly as possible in case I just can't stand it? Where can I fall asleep and no one will notice? Should I be here?

[27:44]

Maybe I'll go sit in the dining room. So these are ways in which if we're aware, we need it with compassion and then with tools for how to work with it. In the field of aversiveness, I think this is partly why I, you know, Zen for me is very hard. I would love, you know, I go to insight retreat and I just want to be left alone. I confess, I go with a hoodie. I do the whole blanket thing. I just want to be left alone, right? In Zen, we're not supposed to cover our heads. No blankets. Cold, cold completely. Hmm? Hot, hot completely. What is that? Who is here? What is the Buddha-ness of hot and cold? To experience it completely.

[28:46]

So the inside thing is to, we know the components so that when we get closer and closer, eventually it is the total, totality of experience. Whereas in Zen, Be the total. Be the total. Be the total. So, let's see. I'm already behind because I have like six things. So, I only have done one. The what versus the who. Okay. Well, I'll summarize by saying, and part of the what and the who, so, so, here's the thing. And the who keeps arising anyway. It's not that insight. You don't look at the who, mind you. get there so the who is um in terms of the two differential i would say the who is very much more the who and insight is we strengthen our witnessing this is more about the way we perceive the way we process data right raw data um the reason why mindfulness has become my opinion completely how mindfulness has become really popular

[29:57]

and especially for health reasons and stuff. And by health, I mean both physical and emotional and mental. It's because it strengthens the witness. In mindfulness, there's always an object to observe and a subject. I guess, who is it that's observing? And so it helps us to give us some space away from what we tend to enmesh with already. Depression. What are the sensations? How do the emotions come and go? It's not a cure-all, mind you. It's not the only thing when there's physical, emotional, mental health issues, but it's why it's popular or useful useful tool skillful tool because it strengthen the witness so that you can see how it comes and goes it's not solid it's not enduring whereas in Zen again the thing is we strengthen the being how am I how am I in this moment how am I how is what is a skillful way to be with this

[31:19]

And then they both have skillfulness. And then also in that, I say these are the two Cs of the two ways. In insight, it really supports us to understand that we have choices. Because when you can differentiate, a sensation is just a sensation, an emotion is just an emotion, a thought is just a thought in particular. Then, and you have the one, the ability to identify what each is in the moment of happening, and then to be able to focus your attention on where you want to focus. For instance, walking into a room of many people.

[32:24]

You know, when you're sitting there watching someone, what's your name again? Heiko. Heiko, thank you, I'm hard of hearing. Heiko, have you ever done a ceremony? Not. Not at the mat, yeah. So you can watch it a million times until you're taught how to do it. which you're not allowed to until you've been shusau. Morning service, anyways. And so then there's just many little minutia that makes it proper. Hold your hand a certain way when you approach. Hold your hand a certain way when you leave. I'm a form queen, so you don't step on the line. There's all sorts of little things you can learn. Really great for perfectionists. until you crash and burn, which is actually, I think, part of Zen practice. When you meet that, and you keep meeting your sense of who you should be so much of the time, and you see how you keep suffering when you think, I will be perfect at this, I will be perfect at this, I will be perfect at this.

[33:39]

I know Hoka doesn't think, Spell it so they don't know. H-E-I. H-E-I. K-O. K-O. H-E-I. What does it mean? Calm Lake. Calm Lake? Oh, all right. A talking Calm Lake. That might be your full Dharma name. Anyway, that's a whole other story when we used to come up names for each other. That does our... Anyway, mine would have been... Oh, never mind. It's not... Grouchy... Whatever. Okay. I am the verse of types. Anyway, I divert. So when you come up to do this, there are many things. So if you keep on thinking you're going to be perfect, at some point you're going to fall apart. It will. And I think that's the gift of Zen, to be perfectly honest. And in both practices, the idea is you dissolve... the sense of what you think something is, or you allow for the dissolving.

[34:46]

That's a better way of putting it. I think sensation is solid, but really it just comes and goes. I think my emotions, I think my sense of myself is solid, but it just comes and goes, depending on condition. In Soto Zen, when you go down to do a full prostration, you raise your hands above your ears. Like this. Not like this. Because the Buddha is standing on your hands. Do you know that? You don't want to flip him over your shoulders. Right? And mine, I was so good. Like this. Don't look. And they just equally above and equally below. And my fingers are nicely together. When I ordained, a senior person said, wow, you're a form queen, aren't you?

[35:47]

But then one time at Tassajara, when I went to do it, I was so proud of myself. I thought my forms were so great. But just worn down, worn down, worn down. And one time I went like this. And I was like, I give up. I give up the struggle of just holding on to the sense of self as like this solid and perfect. Someone says, oh, you're a form queen. Now I just hold it as me. It's just someone saying it. I like it. I think it's okay. It's not harming anyone. But when does it harm me or others if I hold on? I was just watching a ceremony recently, and I found myself going about forms, and I was like, whoa, right? No need. But it's going to keep arising.

[36:52]

So when we understand that there are ways in which we have a choice where we pay attention, I'm back to choice. If I stay with the thought that I am perfect, then I'm going to tighten around it when I do something wrong. When I can notice also the tightness that comes from holding myself to perfectionism. When I'm upright, because I think I should be upright, and that's the way I should carry myself, there's tension. There's a huge difference in being upright because I'm aware that in this posture of uprightness, I am more aware. I am more receptive, especially if my tendency is to go like this because I'm afraid of the world. And again, I may have had really great reasons to be afraid of conditions of the world.

[38:03]

But in this moment, is this fear? When it's not, am I able to be open? The posture of awakening is one that's able to receive fully. So when I can focus on, oh yeah, I actually love forms. Oh well, okay, there was a mistake. or that wasn't quite as instructed, then can I let that go and move on to the next thing? It's when I hold on to how I should have, I should have, I should have. There's where my suffering. Now, whereas to me, the other C in Zen, we are asked to commit. Commit.

[39:03]

Commit. commit like this, like this, like this, like this. Things as they are. [...] I'm as I am. You as you are. Am I open to meeting you as you appear? Right? No. Not like what I do. Next moment. You might enjoy. I saw a smile. So it might be enjoyment. Oh, there's a frown. Nope. Just what it is. That way I would frame it. It feels a little bit... And again, I'm just saying these, you know, luckily in Zen, Dogen says that a Zen master at life is one continuous mistake. Because you can't be perfect.

[40:05]

I don't know what he meant, but that's how I take it. It can't be perfect. And the moment you open your mouth, it's already wrong. Because the Dharma is inconceivable. Every time I say anything, I'm just pointing to a little bit of it. Or more correctly, I'm going like that. This is how I see it. What do you think? What do you think? It's like this. I see it like this. I see it like this. So everything I say here, of course, is from my perspective. So another way that I would say in insight, and I think this is why in part my opinion completely, people really like to come to Buddhism especially in insight, because the popular thing is secular, you know?

[41:08]

There's no religiousness. Faith has to do with, most of us think faith has to do with religiousness. Another talk completely. But there's that thing where it's like, oh, in insight you could say, prove it to me. You know, I love to go on an insight retreat, because they say, do this, and then this will happen, and then you do this, and this will happen, and I'm like, yeah, yeah. I love learning and information. And then they don't tell you anything. So how will you know? Except for when you're doing forums or moving around with others. So there's kind of a prove it. And in fact, really settle into that, like, know for yourself. It's kind of the insight motto. Know for yourself, right? I say this, but prove it. Prove it. Is this your experience? Is this your experience? And again, it fits everything. I'm just kind of saying it focuses more on that. Whereas in Zen, we ask you to have faith.

[42:13]

And faith that you're a Buddha and you just walking in here have entered Buddha's way. And it never leaves you, actually. When you leave here, Before you came, you already had Buddha. You're already Buddha. But here's where we hopefully have you meet your Buddhiness. Meet your Buddhiness, meet your Buddhiness, meet your Buddhiness. Not always with a smile. Not always with a smile. Not always pleasant. Hopefully the thing is that we learn that as you are, is well enough. And so for me, actually, you know, I never thought I would become a priest or be religious. Ask me what I was going to grow when I, you know, be when I grew up.

[43:19]

I would never have guessed this. And as with practice, for me, my sense of faith in the Buddha way has strengthened. And so to me these days, as my students who know, I like to think of faith as strengthened confidence. Strengthened confidence. I've strengthened my confidence in how practice, be it you call it insight or Zen or Rajarana, whatever you want to name it, will support the seeing of where suffering that we can do something about can arise, be it through solidifying around our experience as a being, especially a sensory emotion and thought, or as our sense of ourself.

[44:21]

So while the two might have these differences that I'm setting up for you, It's kind of like two directions, right? Remember the three marks of existence? Impermanence, not self, and dukkha. So one way is to see where there's, when we can see the impermanence of things as they arise and fall, our chance of dukkha lessen. The other is to see how our sense of self is not solid or enduring. And that also lessens our dukkha. So where there are two directions, they're the same way, pointing towards the alleviation and the ending of suffering. Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost, and this is made possible by the donations we receive.

[45:24]

Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[45:38]

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