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 evening, everybody. Thank you for smiling. It makes me feel better. So, when I asked my teacher, Ryushin Roshi, what I should talk about today, He said, continue with your way-seeking mind. Talk. Talk about your practice. So that's what I'm going to talk about, about my practice. So this person and that practice and this practice. So there's like three parts. I'll talk in three parts. So first I'd like to start.

[01:00]

with the middle part of the Heart Sutra, which says, no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind. And then it goes on to say, with nothing to attain, a bodhisattva relies on prajnaparamita, and thus the mind is without hindrance. So what is prajnaparamita? So just for a second if we can just close our eyes. Thank you. So the person sitting next to us in front of us and behind us are still there but then We connect to something other, something other than that, other than just seeing them.

[02:06]

We are with them as we sit, even when our eyes are closed. We still feel them, we feel their presence, but we're not actually seeing them. So what happens when we fall asleep? Like we are in a room, maybe in a very luxurious room, with a very beautiful bedspread and a very fancy mattress and everything. But then when we fall asleep, then it doesn't matter how comfortable the bed is or room we are in and who is sleeping beside us, the most loved person. So even the sense of self drops off. And when we awake, it all comes back with all of the emotions. I am this person or that person and my son and my beloved. It comes with all the associated memories and emotions.

[03:09]

And then with a sense of purpose, we get through the whole day. It makes us go about doing what we need to do. So this person, so there is this person, the body, the mind and the spirit complex, which is So this person's body is like a vehicle, like a car. So there is this person, Shindo, or that person, you. So in Sanskrit, this would be called yantra. So yantra means vehicle. So there is this vehicle. And how this vehicle is trying to understand the world. So there is a technique or something, like when you'd have to drive a car, you learn the technique of driving the car.

[04:12]

Like you learn about the brakes and the clutch and the gears and you know how to drive the car. So there is something that this person has to learn to learn go on with living life. So, there is, you know, you start, at some point in your life, you start questioning and then we ask ourselves, who is this person and what is this world around me and how do, what is this interaction, how are we connected, everything is changing. So then we slowly enter into a deeper aspect. And then we start studying our lives in some way. So let's say, for example, a person walks into a dark room. So the room is dark, the person enters the room, and then he feels the presence of another person.

[05:18]

And he says, who are you? Is there someone here? Who's in this room? So the other person says, I. And then, so he says, who are you? And so this person also says, another I. So there are two I's. And in between this I, which is a common factor between each of us, we give the names and the forms and all that we identify with. So on hearing the word I, the questioner becomes fully alive to his own inner awareness when he too says I. And so each one is unique, and at the same time we have our differences. And so like this, when we start to inquire into...

[06:24]

things around us, we start to study life itself. And that in Sanskrit is called mantra. So mantra is anything that is from memory, like again and again, saying it again and again, chanting, like chanting a mantra. So what we keep on thinking about or contemplating about or... something that becomes so much part of our life is called a mantra. It's like when you learn to drive a car, the know-how of driving a car. So for this person with this yantra, I started to learn the tradition in which I grew up with my teacher. And so there was a constant mantra, learning about life and how life works. how to go about life.

[07:26]

So to follow something which somebody has already lived, the teachers of the past, so they have tried and tested life, so that becomes like a measuring rod, like a yardstick to verify, understand. to verify and to understand life. And so in that tradition, I grew up not really studying the techniques or the terminology, but it was the Vedantic tradition, the tradition of the ancient sages. So just like how Dogen Zenji says, To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things.

[08:29]

When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind, as well as the bodies and minds of others, drop away. No trace of realization remains. So this continuous study, so living with the teacher, used to be the continuous study. So we had to constantly drop away body and mind. There's no question of thinking about myself or that I am the person that's doing this or I am the person who's doing that. So if you did, for some reason you get it back. It just comes back to you. So you can't really fool around, particularly when you live around a teacher. So this continuous study became a mantra. It was always part of life. It became part of life. It became habitual. So this body, the yantra, and then the mantra, so that's one is the physical aspect and the other is the mental aspect.

[09:46]

The mantra became the mental aspect. So the third part, it's called the Tantra. Tantra is like when you have a car and you learn how to drive the car, and then you learn how to skillfully maneuver the car. So you're able to take it up on a hill, you're able to take it down the hill, you're able to drive it on the snow, You're able to drive it on a desert or on a muddy road. So you have your own unique way of how you use the skill, how you put it to use. So each person has a unique way of doing it, even though we all learn the same techniques maybe, but we have our own way of applying it, putting the thing to practice.

[10:51]

So that in Sanskrit is called tantra, how to skillfully manure. So to me, having this body, this mind and spirit complex, and having grown up in a culture that I grew up in, and then... The skillful means I really find in this practice here, applying in the practice of Zen, and more so being here in the United States. So this for me is a great learning experience in how to bring practice into the world. So how to take the practice into the world. I don't think I would have gone to Japan to learn Zen. I feel very comfortable here being a woman and practicing in the world of practice.

[12:03]

It's pretty challenging in some parts of the world. So to be here and the sounds that we hear here in the monastery, in the temple. The sound of the bells, the sound of the horn, the sound of the drum, the sound of the densho. So all these, and the meal drum, the rolling drums during meal offering. So all of these things, which is all built around a whole structure of practice. So what does this arouse? To me, it really feels like it... arouses something which is beyond words. So it arouses some kind of, it gives a kind of a gut feeling, you know, like you feel it in your body. It's very palpable, very noticeable. So all the extras, like who I am or what I am, everything starts to drop off just living in this temple because you don't have...

[13:17]

you don't have the time and space to think much about who you are or what you're doing, or, you know, you just go about one after the other, and then it just feels like it's helpful to drop all the extra add-ons. And what is it that connects us? I mean, even though... We're all from different places. There's something that's very, very deeply connecting. So I feel it's, you know, the virtue of this practice and the values that we uphold, it really connects us. And I feel that is where we're all connected. And that value is beyond any name or form. It doesn't have any labels. So... I feel that we're deeply connected in that sense. So that's kind of like a continuation of what I spoke in the last talk.

[14:30]

Here I would like to quote J. Krishnamurti. He's a philosopher, some of you may know. He's also known as Jiddhu Krishnamurti. he talks of a naturally spontaneous attention. He says, so out of this attention comes a brain that is quiet, not made quiet, not disciplined, not enforced, not brutally conditioned. Because this whole attention has come into being naturally, spontaneously, without effort, easily, the brain cells are not perverted. not hardened, not coarsened, not brutalized. Unless the brain cells are themselves astonishingly sensitive, alert, vital, not hardened, not beaten, not overworked, not specialized in a particular department of knowledge.

[15:34]

Unless they are extraordinarily sensitive, they cannot be quiet. So the brain must be quiet, but yet sensitive to every reaction. Be aware of all the music, the noises, the birds. Hearing these words, watching the sunset, without any pressure, without any strain, without any influence, the brain must be very quiet. Because without quietness, uninduced, not brought about artificially, there can be no clarity. So I think this practice of Zen where we just make continuous mistakes, we drop everything, we don't have to be perfect, we try to be perfect, and at the same time we make mistakes, we make a lot of mistakes, and then we, no matter how hard we try,

[16:39]

we're not really getting to be perfect. We start to understand how much we don't know as we get deeper and deeper into the practice. We realize all that we knew was not really what it is. It's something beyond. So going back to the question of what is prajna paramita, With nothing to attain, a bodhisattva relies on prajna paramita, and thus the mind is without hindrance. So there is a kind of conviction, a kind of certitude that somewhere deep within we know, something in the body knows. So there's a kind of confidence or a trust. and the trust deeply in the practice.

[17:43]

It's not a trust on a belief, or it's not a kind of a dogma that we believe in. It's a deeper trust which we start to see, and we connect with something, some kind of a trust in an external support, which is beyond our understanding. There is always a support. And we are in... When we fall in tune with that, there is a kind of harmony that we experience. And we also experience, when we are out of that, we experience suffering or we go against it. So, you know... A deep understanding. The other day, we were talking about this one word called shraddha.

[18:44]

And I thought that really... I was talking to my teacher, Rishan Paul Heller. We were talking about this word, and he asked me, what does it mean? And I said, this is a word which is very commonly used in all languages in India. Shraddha actually means attention in the local languages. But then when Rishan Roshi said it means faith, then that was when I went back and studied this word to see what it really means. So it commonly means pay attention to this, you know, like when you're not mindful, our parents would say, do it with Shraddha, you know, do it with Shraddha. So I did not know that this word had such deep meaning. So it doesn't really, it's not blind belief or faith, not unquestioning acceptance of dogma, and it's not an intellectual exercise, but a willingness to accept or trust something that we cannot, in our present state, cut through, through the illusory way in which we're seeing.

[20:07]

So how we can have faith in ourselves and personally verify what we understand as we practice day by day. So we start knowing through verification and understanding. So now here, understanding is the key. and faith precedes it. So there's still a lot of time, and I really wanted to end with a poem by Philip Whelan, and then maybe we could have some questions. Is that okay to have questions? So the poem by Philip Whelan that I keep seeing every morning when I go to do the wake-up bell in the student lounge, I keep reading it every day, day after day.

[21:23]

And each day it brings a new meaning. So I'm kind of attached to that poem which is hanging in the student lounge. And this is how the poem goes. Mountaintop Door in the sky. Mountaintop, door in the sky. From here, we look at heaven. From here, we look at heaven. From there, we always return. From there, we always return. Somebody else. A world of sweat. Mountaintop, door in the sky. We look at heaven. From there, we always return. Somebody else, a world of sweat. By Philip Whelan. So that's pretty much what I have to say.

[22:29]

If there's anything anybody wants to ask, if there's any questions, I think that will be a good interaction to give more things to talk about. The nobody has to become a somebody, so the nobody is a somebody. I did not know when I was living with him what he was teaching me.

[23:39]

I didn't have any name to it. But then when I came here and started to, the first time I came here as a guest student in city center, we were cleaning the floor. cleaning the bathrooms, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning all over. And it just felt very familiar, and we had to do it silently. And I remember cleaning the roads with my master. You know, we lived in a village in the mountains, and in those days the village people did not have toilets, so they would dirty the street. And so my master would take a long broom and then he would start sweeping it himself. So we would follow him and start cleaning.

[24:39]

So this would happen every day because these people in the village did not have toilets. So finally he put some people early morning at 5 o'clock. Some of the young people in the temple had to go there and... watch these people and tell them, not here, you're not supposed to be doing it here. And then he would, like cooking with him, cleaning with him, cutting a vegetable, he would cut it in a particular way and he would tell us how to cut it in a way that it doesn't hurt it very much. Cutting a tomato in a particular way. and how to stir the vegetables, how to blend them without hurting them in a beautiful way. I remember somebody who came to the temple telling me that when he first came to the temple, the master was frying something, deep frying, the papadam,

[25:52]

I don't know if you're familiar with papadam. So, yeah, so he was frying that, and that's such a simple action. But the person just stood there. He said, how can you fry these papadams so beautifully? And he says, that's what brought him to practice, to the temple. Just watching the teacher frying papadams silently. He would become a mother sometimes. He would, like when we had... yearly gatherings, he would make the pickle, or we would all help him. And after the pickle was made and put into jars, he would drop in a lot of rice and mix it with his hand, and he would make it into small balls, and we would line up, and he would give it to us. So I think every part of it was very... Zen in many ways to me, when I came here, I found that connection and I felt all this, I've done this before.

[26:59]

So that was when I could connect it and say that I have an experience of doing Zen with him. Yeah. I guess when there's no gender in the mind, then the external factor of gender becoming a problem also drops off. That's my experience. So... But in an Indian culture, there's always male domination, a pressure. I did not grow up so much with male domination.

[28:04]

My father was quite liberal. But I did have trouble with one of my brothers, I remember, but not so much. But when I started to live alone in a temple in the wilderness, I was the only woman there. So there were a lot of men. And nobody would come to help. And everybody would be sleeping here and there or doing their own things, watching the sunset or something. So the only person that was cooking would be me being a woman, you know. So I had to get them to come and work. So they were not used to helping their mothers in their houses. And I think a lot of it has got to do with the mothers because the mothers would not... allow the male child to come and help. When they're young, you know, they would say, kitchen is not the place for you. So I would take a plate and start banging, you know, calling them like a bell, come and help, you know, because otherwise I would have to do everything myself and it was a big strain.

[29:17]

But now things are better. I mean, they come and help. But, I mean, that's my personal experience has not been so bad, but I hear a lot of people do have a lot of problems. But coming here to the United States, there's just no question of gender. There's no talk of gender because everybody is just people. We're all just who we are. And I was most surprised when I went to Tassajara for the first time. And then I could hear outside the cabin, there was a woman calling out to another woman. And when I went out to see, it was Judith Keenan. Judith Keenan was working on a cabin. And she was under the cabin. And I was like, what is she doing there? And she was in her overalls, and she had her tools all over. And I was so impressed.

[30:17]

Wow. Wow. You know, look at that, how creditable a woman is making the cabin, and her assist was another woman, and they were doing it all themselves. They were, you know, working on the plumbing, the electric, or everything themselves, and she was the head of the carpentry, and I've never seen a woman carpenter in my life. So I was very impressed, and so... To answer your question, I think it's also connected to the mind of the person. I think if the person feels a gender issue, then externally it keeps coming to them again and again. I find it happening less in my life these days when I'm not thinking about the gender. Yeah, I think I'll try to answer your question.

[31:29]

So I think attention means being at tension. You know, like there is a tension in attention. But Shraddha, I think, would mean more awareness rather than attention. Like you're not, there is no effort of tension. There's no tension there. So it's an inner deep which gives you this complete faith that you can trust in. Because I think we're all enlightened, actually. And I think we don't see it because we're distracted. And so that inner truth is within each one of us. And so that gives us the certitude that, yes, that seems right. So the shraddha is very, very deep and it's in the bones. It's in the marrows of our ancestors. It's as deep as that.

[32:31]

Yeah. Well, all of here is just Vedanta. It's so oneness. Everything. You know, we're wearing the same colors, there's nothing to make anyone stand apart, and we're all in the same schedule. There is just a feeling of oneness, and there is no separateness here. So... Yes, and Veda Antha means end of science. Veda means science. Antha means end. So Veda Antha means end of science. So I think in this practice, we're not talking about anything.

[33:40]

We're not talking about anything per se. So we're just doing it. So I think that is the end of science, where we're not questioning anymore. We're just doing it. Go ahead and just do it. The role or rule? The role of questioning in my life. You know, in the tradition that I grew up, we never really questioned anyone. We just kept listening. You know, you're just supposed to listen. But then I found that whenever I was told, you know, don't do this, I would do just that.

[34:50]

Because I was questioning, but my body was questioning more than the mind questioning. It's like, don't do this. I'll just try it out. Do it and see what happens. But then, of course, there was a lot of... But the men in the society would always question. So there were always questions around us. People were always questioning this, questioning that. They were always questioning. So women were not supposed to be heard. They were only supposed to be seen and not heard. So there was very less questioning. We just never questioned so much. But inside, there is always a question. The body is questioning. And you listen to all the questions around you. And I grew up in a place where There were a lot of spiritual practitioners, so they're always asking questions.

[35:55]

And then, of course, later on, it happened as a self-questioning process and trying to find the answer through that. Thank you. Is that it? idea of oneness. And yet difference is very, very tangible. It's a place we live from. And it's a place of much suffering for many of us.

[36:58]

And truth filling. So how do you reconcile this oneness with the truth of difference? I think it's okay to be different. A lot of differences had brought problems in India, particularly in Kerala. There was a lot of caste difference, and all this came from the Vedas, actually. From the Vedas, where they talked about archetypes, Just like the yin and the yang, the sages who wrote the texts talked about the archetypes and how there are four different types of energies of people in any given society.

[38:11]

So they talked about the Brahmana, the Kshatriya, the Vaishya, and the Shudra. So these people... And then that got hardened into castes, and there was a lot of caste... differences in India, and there was severe problems. And also religion. You know, when the British were in India, they came up with this policy of divide and rule. So the religious problems were always erupting. There was always constant problems of differences, which still continues to happen. So I think differences... To find a harmony between... In the differences. I mean, a harmony of difference and equality. To find that. I think one needs to find that with oneself.

[39:14]

When one is centered in oneself, he doesn't... Because your world is within you. What you see is... What you see and project comes from who you are. So I think if you can... stabilize and have the right understanding in yourself, then what you see, you don't see with difference. So to find it in your own center would be what I'm thinking of. 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. 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.

[40:12]

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