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. Good morning. Well, it's really wonderful to be attending this 50th Anniversary Sashin. I don't know where the 50th starts. 1962? Suzuki Roshi came in 1959. I guess since then it was incorporated in 1962. I don't know why 1962 is the date we start from, but why not? We have to start somewhere. Since life is arbitrary, we pound a peg into space and start from there.

[01:13]

As a matter of fact, we're doing that all the time. We need a starting point and we need a reference point. So for us, our reference point is zazen. Well, it's really wonderful to be here with everybody. So many older... By old, I don't mean in age. Some of them... Students who practice with Suzuki Roshi, who I haven't seen for years. Some who I know very well and practice with. And all to bring together this group of people... who came together at one time to practice and then dispersed into the world and now are here renewing their practice again.

[02:24]

I think that's just the most wonderful thing I can think of. When Zen Center first began, when we thought about Tassahara and established Tassahara in 1967, I thought, This is a wonderful place where people can practice and then go out into the world and take their practice with them into the world and then come back and rejuvenate, renew their practice in the monastery and then go back out into the world and practice and then come back and renew their practice in the monastery over and over again. To me, this was the ideal of our practice. Some people stayed here forever, which is good. I'm really happy to be able to do this practice together with Reb. Reb and I were co-abbots from 1988 till 97.

[03:32]

That's when I was abbot. Reb was a little bit before me, and he stepped down a little bit before me. But basically, we practiced together, and we're still practicing together, even though we're in different places. And that was a wonderful, for me, I think for Rep, too, even though you may not admit it. A wonderful way to practice, because we're so different, and yet so much the same. I always think of us as being the same. our differences are sometimes we think we're opposites but we're opposites that come together and pass through and where we meet is the most fundamental place so Reb is being very kind to me and I'm enjoying it immensely and I'm trying to be kind to him too

[04:41]

I think we've both been at Zen Center for so long, and we've stayed in our places. And I think of us as kind of like the boatman or the gatekeepers. People come and go. They go, and then they return, and they go. But we're just always there. And somehow creating a stable situation for practice in which people can come and go. and mature, both in their monastic practice and mature in their practice in the world. A few years ago, I don't remember, three or four years ago, we had a reunion at Green's Restaurant. It was a great reunion. So many people came and mingled with each other. And that was, I think, the beginning of this kind of thing, where this 50th anniversary, Sashin, has brought many people together who have been dispersed in the world and carrying practice into the world.

[06:00]

So this is a bodhisattva practice. Suzuki Roshi used to say, our practice is... Mahayana, Hinayana practice with a Mahayana mind. So Hinayana practice is kind of like what we do for ourself. We practice in the monastery and develop our understanding and develop our maturity. And the Mahayana part is when you go out into the world and bring our practice into the world. And how do we do that? How do we bring our practice into the world? This is, I think, the most difficult thing. When we're practicing in the monastery, we think we know what we're doing. This is, you know, everything is set up for us. We walk into the Zen, and we know that's Zen.

[07:04]

We bow to the cushion. We sit in the Zafu. We do lots of Zazen. We eat meals in a formal way. This is Zen practice. And then you go out the gate. Cars are rushing by. I remember the first time I... After my first practice period, I went out the gate. And I think we probably went to Monterey. And the cars were rushing by like crazy. And people... Looking at people's faces and their bodies and the way they were walking and acting, it was like a paper bag. I can't describe it. It kind of wrinkled. You could see all the worries and problems that people were carrying around with them with their postures and the way they look and the way they walk and the way they act, which is different than the problems we have in the monastery.

[08:07]

It's always been easy for me to go back and forth between Tazahara and the world. I never had any problem that way. I think when I was in the 50s, I was an artist, and I lived in the artist's world, the poet's world, the North Beach world. The dope world. Bohemians came before. I was a beatnik. Hippies came later. But I'd seen my friends get strung out, dying, ruining their lives because they had no place to go. They had no... spiritual life. And they're trying to create a spiritual life out of the dregs of life, actually.

[09:18]

And I was always looking for a way to find a spiritual life. So when I came to Zen Center, when I met Suzuki Roshi and started sitting Zazen, first time I said Zazen, it felt like I was home. So I always wanted to create a place where those people who are like myself could find a way to liberate themselves, find a way to practice. So I've always appreciated the idea of practicing in the world. The hidden priest. The one who just does ordinary activity in the world, unknown, but whose practice is deep inside and is just expressed through their ordinary work in the world.

[10:26]

To me, that's the extension of the monastic practice. The monastic practice I feel, should be extended into the world, either known or unknown. Sometimes, you know, when you're ordained as a priest, you're made into a visible symbol of practice, and you get everybody's projections, of course, but you're visible. people can see, well, you set an example for practice. And it's a visible example. Oh, that person's a priest. This is how you practice. But when you go into the world without your robe, you wear the inner robe. I remember Kati Yuriroshi had this, on a string, had these little rocks.

[11:30]

It was a pouch with these little teeny rocks. And he always wore rocks, even when he went to bed. He always had the robot. But it wasn't visible. You wouldn't see it. So this is a big test for people in the world to practice in the world without recognition. and to stumble along. When you're with, whoever you're with, you align yourself with those people. This month has been a very busy month for me.

[12:36]

I went to Chapel Hill which I do every year to Pat Phelan's Zendo and then to Richmond and then to Houston for Galen Setsuan's Dharma mountain seat ceremony and then I came back to Tazahara to give Dharma transmission to Greg and Linda and now I'm here again but when I was in Chapel Hill They have a prison sangha. And so I was invited to go to death row in Raleigh, North Carolina. The one prison where they have a death row. They have 160 people or something.

[13:40]

and in California, you don't usually go to death row, they don't let you go into the death row, but they took us, they let me go in there, and we sat zazen with a couple of inmates, and then we had a conversation, and it was, you know, because I'm a priest, they let me do that, the chaplain, it's a chaplaincy thing, sort of, and seeing all these prisoners there who will never see the light of day outside of the prison if they do live. And I was thinking, you know, because I'm a priest, I'm doing this. But what if I wasn't a priest? What if I was just nobody special? How would I handle that? How would that be handled? But, you know, we're always walking amongst murderers all the time. without realizing, I don't mean hidden murderers, I mean people who fight wars.

[14:48]

How do we help the world, actually? What do we contribute to the world? I think our biggest contribution is what we're doing right now. Some people will always be in Zen Center teaching and helping others and opening the gate for people to come and go and practice, and that's the greatest contribution. And then there are those who leave and enter the world, and that's the greatest contribution. So the greatest contribution is whatever you're doing. If it's really doing it well, wholeheartedly. I wrote a bunch of things down here, but I didn't talk about any of them.

[16:00]

I picked out a koan from the Blue Cliff Record that I thought was relevant to us. Some of you know this koan, and probably some of you don't. This koan in this book is called Master Yunman's One Treasure. And Master Engo introduces the subject. He says, with untaught wisdom, he, it could be she, engages in the subtle action of non-doing or subtle action of non-action. With untaught wisdom, he or she engages in the subtle action of inaction, but it's actually he because he's talking about somebody specific.

[17:18]

with unsolicited compassion he becomes your true friend with a single word he kills you and saves you in one move he lets you go and holds you fast tell me who is it that comes in this way and then he says see the following and the following is the main subject so I'll read this and then I'll go back Main subject. Master Uman said to the assembled monks, between heaven and earth, within the universe, there is one treasure. It is hidden in the mountain form. You take the lantern entering the Buddha hall and you take the temple gate placing it above the lantern. Sounds a little crazy, doesn't it? And then he has a poem.

[18:23]

On the ancient bank, who is that holding the fishing rod? Quietly moving clouds, boundless waters, the bright moon illuminating the white flowers of the reeds. You see by yourself. So, going back to the introduction, with untaught wisdom he engages in the subtle action of non-doing. So who's doing? That's the question. What is he doing? This untaught wisdom. What is untaught wisdom? Untaught wisdom, of course, as you know, is called pragya. You can't learn it. You can only be it. You can't see it but you can be it. If you try to peek, you lose it. If you try to peek behind the curtain, it's elusive.

[19:30]

But when you are doing it, when you are practicing, truly practicing, it's there. So, as Master Dogen says, practice brings forth enlightenment. Practice brings forth pragya. As the sixth ancestor says, Samadhi and prajna are not two different things. Samadhi is like the lamp and prajna is the light. So zazen is the basis of prajna, whatever zazen might be. Shikantaza is the basis of prajna, which is illumination. So he says, with unsolicited compassion, he becomes your true friend. He's still talking about this person. Actually, he's talking about Uman, Master Yunman. With unsolicited compassion, he becomes your true friend.

[20:35]

Unsolicited compassion is a state of being. It's not something that one does. When your life is based on compassion, then it's just your ordinary activity. So practice should just be ordinary activity, which is compassion. Sometimes people say, someone will say, I'm angry all the time. How can I not be, how can I, when something happens, how can I not be angry or how can I control my anger? Well, they're looking for a quick fix. There's no quick fix. You have to practice non-anger. All the time. And then when something occurs, you naturally control your anger. Because you are a controller of anger.

[21:37]

That's who you are. Just like you are an embodiment of compassion. So instead of being attached to anger, you express compassion. Because that's who you are. You can only be who you are. So with a single word, he kills you and saves you. Kills you means kills your ego, right? And saves your life. So this is what Suzuki Roshi was always doing with us. His bottom line was not kill your ego, but... replace your ego with something else. Instead of relying on ego, rely on something else. He used to say, we're half Buddha and half ego. Half Buddha and half ordinary. So, which half is winning?

[22:44]

We have these problems in practice. Even though I try to be good, I'm always doing bad. Even if I try to be right, I'm always doing something wrong. Of course. That's because you're half good and half bad. Phew. So we have to know how to accept our bad side. I call it bad. You know, that covers everything. And allow the bad side to be absorbed into the good side. so that good and bad are balancing each other. So we call the good side Buddha, and we call the bad side ego. So Buddha, what brings us to practice is, we say it's our suffering or whatever, but actually it's our enlightened mind.

[23:51]

Our enlightened mind is what brings us to practice, even though we don't know what it is that brings us. It's our enlightened mind. So, our enlightened mind brings us to practice, and when we start to practice, we are offering our ego mind, our ego self, to Buddha. We place our ego in front of the altar and do nine vows so that Buddha our Buddha side in his compassion accepts it and transforms it allows our ego side to be transformed into compassion and selflessness so what Suzuki Roshi was always talking about was selflessness don't be selfish I remember him saying don't be selfish and I thought He said, you are all selfish. Well, I don't think I'm selfish.

[24:55]

I may be selfless, but I wasn't either one, of course. I was just stupid. But that was his constant refrain. That was his teaching. Don't be selfish. So we offer ourselves constantly to our Buddhist side. and let Buddha lead. So this is compassion. It's also wisdom. When we let our Buddha side lead, when we let the good side lead the bad side, but good and bad are not to really bad terms. I would rather say the Buddha side, which is emptiness, lead the foolish side. Then our practice becomes easy, much easier. So with a single word, he kills you and saves you. It's like a turning word, you know, a turning word that can just, you say, wow, that's it.

[26:04]

And suddenly there's a transformation. Suzuki Roshi did that, used to do that a lot. You just find the right moment and very casually say something, which is turn people around as we... who practiced with him experienced at one time he just walked up to me for no apparent reason and said just being alive is enough there's like a turning word that just turned me around so in one move he lets you go and holds you fast tell me Who is it that comes in this way? Who can do this? Who is doing that? What kind of person can do this? And then in the verse, he says, on the ancient bank, who is that holding the fishing rod? Well, it's Uman, of course.

[27:07]

The fishing rod is like, how does a teacher invite students? What kind of bait do you put on the hook to invite students? If you take this bait, you know, it's really delicious. And you will get enlightened. Or you will feel free. Or you will blah, blah, blah. All kinds of enticing things. And as we can see, we have, in this day and age, so many gurus and spiritual leaders who will entice you into many wonderful mansions. But Suzuki Roshi always fished the straight hook. In other words, the fish really has to want to get caught.

[28:15]

So he would say, If you sit zazen, you will sit zazen. That's all. So that really encouraged me. I thought, that's it. If I sit zazen, I'll sit zazen. He didn't promise anything. He just promised that what I'm doing is what I'm doing. And that's the most... the most mundane, kind of unattractive, ordinary activity actually is enlightenment. But he never promised enlightenment. People say, Suzuki, you know, he never talked about enlightenment. He never talked about enlightenment. Which, you know, he acted enlightened. He didn't have to talk about enlightenment, except that he did. He talked about enlightenment all the time.

[29:20]

Everything that came out of his mouth was enlightenment. But people don't understand it because he didn't say, enlightenment is this and enlightenment is that. And if you do this, you'll get enlightened. He never talked like that. Or rarely talked like that. Get down in the boiler room and shovel the coal. Just do the work. If you do the work, you'll just do the work. Because you are totally at one with your activity. That's practice enlightenment. Some people always say, oh, where's the enlightenment? Where's the enlightenment? Because we expect something. We want something to happen. It can't be this. This is the problem with people. It can't be this. It's got to be something else. So we invent many spiritual mansions. We'll go to heaven and all this. Maitreya sits in the Tushita heaven.

[30:25]

In Buddhism, there's lots of heavens, 33 at least. And each one has, and there are also hells that are comparable on the way down. Maitreya, the Buddha of the future, lives in the Maitreya heaven, in the Tushita heaven. And someday, he's the Messiah. the Buddhist Messiah come down and his name means love, loving kindness and establish his dominion in the world but don't wait who is Maitreya? who is Maitreya? Maitreya is you and me You are Maitreya. Your Maitreya is sitting up there in your Tushita waiting to descend or be expressed.

[31:36]

If anybody's going to save the world, it's got to be you. We're all looking. Why is he going to come? In Judaism, you know, we had... these false messiahs throughout history, people thinking that so-and-so was, and some say, I am the messiah, you know, and I will lead you. Each one of us has to lead ourselves. Each one of us is Maitreya and has to establish our dominion here within our environment, within our circle. Though we think, well, I'm just an ordinary guy. I'm just an ordinary lady. That's true. But you're also very extraordinary. We have all this extraordinary potential which we don't use. We expect somebody else to do it. So a good teacher doesn't do anything.

[32:43]

Suzuki Roshi did not establish Sun Center. His students established it. He was inspiration but he let everybody else do the work and encouraging everybody courage it so he saw us as innocent people we didn't have any baggage we didn't have a history of Buddhism and he can just just allow us because we didn't rely on and in the past we had to bring everything forward from myself So that's what created Zen Center and Tosahara. So he wanted us to find ourselves and to encourage each other.

[33:48]

And that's what we've been trying to do. It's so great to see Zen students who have practiced here for various lengths of time and at various times, sincerely, and then go into the world not even knowing what you're doing or not even thinking that's what you're doing. But you can't help it because once you practice, it's always there. Once you practice, it's always there. Sorry about that. It's true. sometimes people are stuck outside. You know, they can't really find their way back in, but they say it's so wonderful that you're there and the Zen Center is still doing what it's doing. People are still doing what they're doing. And that we were open to having everybody return.

[34:48]

You know, people return sometimes after 20 years. I have students, you know, that will be practicing. for 10 years, and then they disappear. And then 10 years later, they walk back. You think they're gone. And it is high, and it's just like they never left. You just pick up where you left off, because the practice is always the same. Gee, I keep coming back here, and it's always the same. There's something that's always the same, even though it changes. But the basic, the basis is always the same. And that's very reassuring for people. So I don't know how practice is going to develop later as time goes on. The old people will die off and the new people will come up and become the old people. But I've always felt that Suzuki Roshi's students mostly...

[36:00]

Suzuki came from Japan and handed us the teaching, and he became the root, planted himself in the earth of this place, and the sprouts have been coming up. And so we're the transition people for the next generations. who are the people that carried, that held the teaching from Japan and Suzuki Roshi. And it will transform in the future. But right now, this is the baby. And a lot of people will say, well, let's change the baby. Of course, the baby is growing up. The baby will grow up and become more and more mature, hopefully. So I feel that we have to maintain the basic practice so that when people do leave and start their own, become teachers in other places, that the basic understanding will remain and not get distorted or changed, even though the circumstances will change and the procedures will change and so forth.

[37:29]

but not to lose the basic thing. So I think that's what Reb and I are trying to do, even though we have different ways of doing it and appreciating each other very much. So that's the end of my story. I don't know whether I'm supposed to stop now or not, but... If anybody has a question. So it seems like this practice kind of describes very situational athletes who are coached to life. And I've heard often that really what you should rely on is your intuition and what's beneficial and what's awesome.

[38:41]

But I'm just curious about viewing up any recommendations on how to cultivate the faculties that can see what's awesome and what's beneficial. Yeah. You know, we should follow the precepts. Precepts tell you... Precepts, you know, are not rules that bind you, but they're precepts that inform us, remind us of how to lead a wholesome life. But the precepts are also dualistic, and so they need to be studied in a way where we understand the true meaning of precepts. There's a kind of precepts by rote, don't do this, don't kill, don't steal, you know, those are just ordinary common sense, right? Because whatever you do leads to something.

[39:48]

And if you do something that's harmful, well, it's not only harmful for others, it's harmful for yourself, right? But we have to understand the precepts in a way that are both dualistic and non-dualistic. And that takes some study, and we should be studying precepts. Suzuki Roshi says we should create our own minor precepts. They're the major precepts, like don't kill, don't steal, don't get caught in sexual misconduct. I can't remember them by line, but don't prejudice yourself at the expense of others. There's many precepts about how you behave with others and how you not be egotistical. Basic precept is act with compassion.

[40:49]

Suzuki Roshi didn't like to talk about the prohibitory precept so much. He said, if you follow the precepts by rote, that's heretical. He said that, but heretical is a little bit strong. But he said, the real meaning of precepts is act like Buddha. Act with compassion. If you act with compassion in all of your activity and act like Buddha, well, how should Buddha act? That's all you need to know. Then you are practicing. That's practice. And so this is called living precepts. The living precepts and the dormant dead precepts. But dead precepts are important. Dead precepts don't mean that they're not important. But the living precept is how you actually act in a situation given the understanding that you can't kill.

[41:53]

You can't steal. And the precept that don't do this, don't do that. And then in between, that sandwich is where your life actually is. And using those two and understanding the dual and non-dual aspect is how you approach every situation. So keep studying. I think it's probably time. Thank you. 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, visit sfcc.org and click giving.

[42:52]

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