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. I was talking to a few guests today. They'd been here years ago, but... Still, they were pretty new to Tassajara, and I would say at least they pretended to be very unfamiliar with Buddhism. They might have known more than they sounded like, but they were asking me questions like they didn't know. You know, what's this about? Is it okay if you're not a Buddhist to be here? And, you know, why are people not smiling at me? As I was preparing for the talk, I had these people in mind. I don't even know if they're here.

[01:01]

I haven't been able to see you well enough. I was thinking, what is Buddhism? What is it that we're doing here? I think there are some different ways of phrasing. People might have different feelings about what they're doing here. here for you know long enough or in the capacity of saying they're studying buddhism uh not it doesn't really have to do with long enough because you know there are students who come for five days there are guests who come for three days who you know say that's why i come to study buddhism so it's not so much the length but it is with that intention what are we saying and You know, some of the things I think, some ways that might be described are, you know, I want to know how to live my life in a way that benefits benefits.

[02:07]

So it's a benefit. Or I'd like to find out how to live with less suffering, you know. less suffering of the kind of suffering I have or the kind of suffering I cause other people I usually say how to live my life with not so much optional suffering because I think the fact that we have bodies means we will have some suffering and the fact that we have minds means that we'll have some more suffering, and the fact that we have emotions means we'll have even some more suffering. And some of that actually is not optional, but some of it is. So studying Buddhism or practicing Buddhism, one reason we might do that is to find out, can I live with less suffering?

[03:11]

Is there some way to live with less suffering? Or can I live freely? So in Zen, at least, we say that studying Buddhism is studying the self. And there's a couple of ways to be confused about that or ways that that can be difficult. One of them is that the self, whatever that is, is the thing that some of our most dearly held ideas are about. Or maybe I shouldn't say dearly held because some of our most, let's say, closely held ideas or deeply held ideas are not so dearly held, and yet we closely hold them. We have ideas about ourself, some of which are important to us, and we like them and we want to believe them, and some of them are things that we don't like and we wish they weren't true, and yet we deeply believe that they are true.

[04:18]

So those ideas about ourself are not really a help to studying the self. In fact, they're a hindrance to it. They get in the way of actually studying the self, and we have them. As human beings, it's pretty rare if there is such a human being that doesn't have deeply held ideas about ourself. And they come from... all over the place, those deeply held ideas. Our parents gave them to us. Every experience we have pretty much reifies them so that we continue to have these ideas about ourself. I am this or I am that or I can't do this or all those ideas that really don't help us what we were calling study the self. Another thing that makes it complicated to study the self, besides our ideas about ourself, is everything else.

[05:19]

So there's the whole world out there which can distract us from studying the self. If we have a problem, we start looking for why do I have this problem? And there are myriad, myriad answers to that, right? I have this problem because it's too hot today. I have this problem because that person looked at me in that way. I have this problem because... And those ideas of our self can come up too, but there are all those things. None of those are helpful to studying the self. And then there's... Really, it's another part of the idea of the self, but a particular one of that the self is separate from all those things. You know, we have this idea that somehow I could study the self apart from all those things. So that also is not helpful to studying the self.

[06:22]

That's another idea of the self, that here's the self, and even if I am careful not to believe my ideas about it, somehow it can be disconnected from all those distracting things. So how do we go about studying the self then? As I said last time I talked, this study, it's not like studying a subject for school where we might read about it and learn about it and then memorize it and try to remember it. It's not like that. Last time I think I said it might be something more like a child learning how to walk or... or a bird learning how to fly. You know, it's more about experiencing what's it like to be this kind of bird.

[07:26]

You know, what's it like to have these kind of wings? And so, you know, if you watch children or young birds, you know, they kind of, they stretch and they mess around with their capacities, right? So we're doing that all the time. We're sort of using our capacities. So it's What I've been thinking lately is it's kind of like expanding into the completeness of ourself. It's kind of like letting ourselves be in our whole self. Which sometimes means noticing what can my feet do. And sometimes it means noticing what my hands are doing. And sometimes it means noticing... that in the pit of my stomach I have a hole, a hole in my middle or something like that. That can be expanding into your whole self. It's letting yourself be there for whatever is there.

[08:30]

Excuse me. I bet you all wish you had a cup of water, don't you? You should all have a wonderful Tico. So I think there are several things that can help us in this study. One is to be able to find the object of the study, to be able to find ourself at any particular moment. And in Zen, This is made very simple by really focusing on the physical world. So we do things like sit in one position for a while until you can find where your body is. It's actually helpful.

[09:33]

We're so identified with our minds that if we just start thinking about where's the self, go into whole other worlds, right? But if you sit down for a while, long enough so that you get tired of sitting there, still you may have all kinds of ideas going on. Those don't necessarily go away, but you come to have some more sense of, oh, I'm over here. For some people, that probably is never a problem. If you did sports when you were younger or something, maybe you really are very in touch with your body. Personally, I've was not. I don't know how much I am now, but it's way more than it used to be because mostly I had my antenna out, you know, looking for how are they doing? Where are they? How do they feel about me? Is everything going to be okay? Is anyone unhappy? Do I have to somehow make sure they're happier so the world will be okay?

[10:35]

So to sit down and actually find myself was kind of a surprise. So... Zazen can do that for you. Also, the physical world can do that for you. Just noticing, especially a kind of simplified physical world. One that maybe isn't so interactive. Something like, or at least not interactive with complicated things like other people. Interactive maybe with dishes. If in your house, You do dishes, it's a really good time to find yourself. Okay, here I am washing the dishes. Here I am cooking my dinner. Here I am, you know, most of the jobs here at Tassajara, especially for the first couple of years, are very manual jobs. Not all of them, but most of them. And it's really helpful just to find yourself. Here I am.

[11:37]

Here's my body. Here's my mind. Here are my emotions. So that's one thing that's really helpful. Another is, again, I'm putting several things together, but it seems to me it's a kind of meditation or attention or honesty. All of those things kind of together. To actually pay attention has a kind of honesty embedded in it. especially, again, if we're paying attention to something fairly simple, like the physical world, including our physical body, including our sensations or that part of our emotions. So if we pay attention to something simple like that, to start out with something simple, a kind of honesty comes with that.

[12:44]

And if we're not getting caught up by our ideas, some of that may surprise us, some of what we find there when we pay attention. Like one of the things that sometimes surprises us is if we have a, let's say a mood or a difficult emotion, one of the things that might surprise us if we actually pay attention to it is that it goes away. It feels so forever. It feels so like the essence of reality. That's how things are. It's terrible now. But if we actually pay attention to it, it changes. So the impermanence of things and the changingness of things are quite evident to us if we're paying attention, if we're honest. And then another thing that is... that kind of grows out of this but is very helpful in it, is not knowing.

[13:46]

So as we are watching something fairly simple, paying attention to it, being honest about it, being open to it, what will come out of that and is very, very helpful in studying ourselves, you know, in studying how... Is it possible to have less suffering? Is it possible to cause less suffering? Is it possible to be a benefit? Who am I? What am I? Is not knowing. And why is it so helpful? Because it's true. Because we actually don't know. Because we think we know all kinds of things. We think we know... Oh, I should be able to do this, or I'll never be able to do that, or I can do this, or I'm this kind of person, or they're that kind of person. But really, it's not that simple. It really is never that simple.

[14:51]

There's a... a stanza in one of the chants that we do during the winter in the Genjo Koan that talks about if you sail out to the middle of the ocean, it says where no land is in sight, and you view the ocean all the way around, so there's no land, and it looks like a circle. When you're out in the middle of the ocean, it looks like a circle. It doesn't look any other way than a circle. It just looks like a circle. But the ocean isn't really a circle, right? It says it's not really a circle. It's neither round nor square. It has infinite variety. And then it says things like it's a palace. It's a jewel. But it's not a circle. It's many, many other things than a circle. And yet it looks like a circle. So we know that about the ocean. But we forget it about... closer things like ourselves or like some person who's near us and the closer they get the easier it is to start thinking oh that's what they are sometimes sometimes it's also easy to do that with people who are farther away right that's what they are so to allow in not knowing and in fact

[16:25]

to remind ourselves of it because it's so easy to start believing our ideas again. Our ideas are so strong, we're so identified with them. We have invested them with our hopes that somehow we will be able to control our life through our thoughts. We'll be able to make ourselves into the right person and make our world the way we want it to be. When something goes wrong, we immediately start thinking, what is it? What went wrong? Where did I go wrong? What did they do wrong? We're very connected to this idea that I have to work this out with my mind. So to... come to rely on this unknown, constantly changing, impermanent world is a very foreign idea to us.

[17:41]

It's pretty scary to some part of us. But that is where we've been living all along. We have been living in an unknown, unknowable, not graspable, uncontrollable, impermanent world. That's what we've been living. And some bad things have happened, but mostly here we are. We got this far, and we have no way of going anywhere else. So this study of the self... what Buddhism, or Zen at least, calls study of the self, is to bring us close to that, bring us so close that we can't deny that that's what's happening, so that we will start to notice that's where we're living all the time. We're just pretending, as we frantically try to work everything out and get it all in the right place, and especially ourselves, to notice this is where we're living,

[18:48]

minute by minute, day by day. And then to notice, is that okay? You know, which is kind of a trick question because there really isn't any place else to live. So it sort of has to be okay. But for us to notice that, to actually settle down in that place, you know, be with that self in that place. And is, is, as we do it, is a very relieving, energizing, freeing thing, as we can actually start to trust that. I say trust that, but trust does not mean talk yourself into trusting it. We won't be fooled by trying to talk ourselves into it. We have to actually just apply more attention, more not knowing, more honesty, and see, is it true?

[19:53]

And when the idea comes up, no, it's not okay. Okay, just set that aside and notice. How is it to be here now? If it's painful, which it often is, then get close to that pain and still notice, is it okay to have this pain? There's a beautiful poem that's about this. I've decided it's about this, which some of you have heard many times. It goes like this, if I can remember it. The unique breeze of reality. Can you see it? Continuously, creation runs her loom and shuttle, weaving the ancient brocade, incorporating the forms of spring. As the woof goes through the warp, the weave is dense and fine. One continuous thread comes from the shuttle.

[20:55]

How can this even be spoken of on the same day as false cause or no cause? Say it again. The unique breeze of reality. Can you see it? Continuously, creation runs her loom and shuttle, weaving the ancient brocade, incorporating the forms of spring. As the woof goes through the warp, the weave is dense and fine. One continuous thread comes from the shuttle. How can this even be spoken of on the same day as false cause or no cause? So this may sound different than studying the self, but given that the self is not disconnected from anything, This is through the self is how we experience this ancient brocade, through focusing on this one continuous thread, which for each of us is our life, which is the life that happens moment by moment by moment, that is weaving this dense, dense meaning very close, very closely connected with everything else, fabric.

[22:16]

that is not just my life, but the life of the world that is unique and yet complete, includes everything, includes all the forms of spring, including all the forms, all the thoughts, all the emotions that are in this particular body. And it's just that this particular body is, for each of us, is our closest connection to the whole thing. It's where everything comes. I have my experience of the universe. I may not recognize a whole lot of it, but this is the only place I can experience it. So then that ancient brocade that we're part of is actually what we're studying. But we're trying to do it in a way that we can do that honestly. We can do that without being confused by our ideas. to have some actual experience of it.

[23:21]

So that's what this study of Buddhism is, or at least here, is recommending. So I'm wondering if you have any thoughts, questions, anything you'd like to add to this, or have me, or correct me on. Is there anything? Yes, Eric. I feel like a lot of the kind of thought that maybe we're trying to get our way from, at least maybe that's the way it sounded tonight, that is like, this should be like that, or the things that we think we know, or things that maybe are really unexamined, but we think that they are, or something, seems like a really big part of what makes art possible, right? where you maybe create something highly controlled and you want it in a really specific way.

[24:24]

I completely buy that there is a way to do that that is inheriting things that are not well thought out or just like... Is doing what to that? Inheriting, did you say? Right, like maybe if you're an actor, you just are copying what somebody else does, and you don't know why, but it's just stuck with you or something, right? Yes. Where it's not maybe inspired. But I wonder what happens when art is inspired, if we want to call that control, or if an artist might say, well, this is the person that was sort of writing down the story that was writing. Right, right. And then I also wonder if that means that it's appropriate to have an artistic relationship with yourself where you say, I want to be like this. But then is that controlling or is it inspired? And I'm just wondering about that.

[25:27]

Right. That was a lot. So first of all, the thoughts that we're trying to get away from I can see where you would think I was saying that, but I don't think I want to say that so much, so much as not be fooled by them. Because if we just try to get away from them, that's another way to be very controlled by them. So it's more like ground them in something, in life. Yeah, I think there's a place for, certainly for vision, you know, and for creating. There also is, probably even while you're doing that, a place for awareness of the dependently co-arisenness of that.

[26:27]

You know, how we don't really have a vision all on our own. You know, it's created by our... by everything, right? By our background, by where we are, by what materials are around us, and also by some things that have come to us that we've inherited. You know, very minutely inherited. You know, maybe an ability to paint or something might be hereditary, but also learned. Anyway, you know, it comes from everywhere. And it has an impact on things. So, you know, as it's made, it has an impact. When it's made, when it's out there, it has an impact. We have to treat it pretty much like everything else. We don't actually know what is the impact of it going to be. Is it something that once it's made should stay or should it be destroyed? If the impact is some things, maybe we should get rid of some of our art.

[27:29]

In terms of whether it's It's meeting ourselves with not knowing, and the art actually comes from there. I think probably sometimes that's the case and sometimes it isn't. And for having a vision for ourselves, of course we have things we want. That's part of being a human, as far as any humans I know. Anyway, we... Actually, it's part of being alive, in a way. Even if we were like an amoeba, just oozing along, and someone held out a pencil, and we oozed into it, we would probably retract, because there's unpleasantness there. And then, of course, it gets more complicated as we get more developed.

[28:35]

So, yes, we... We have things that we want for ourselves, and we also have, you know, tastes for something. Like, you know, sometimes we want, like there often are times in people's lives, if they've started studying zazen, where they want more zazen, just like have a taste for more zazen. Other people might have a taste for less zazen, right? Or like some people want to have a relationship and some people don't, an intimate relationship, and some people don't want to have an intimate relationship. It just is, it's like in them. You know, and of course it's more complicated than that. They may feel like they can't or something, but really some people, so there are tendencies and then there also are desires or wishes for ourself. How we handle those is uh that's practice really that's like how do i live that without trying to trying to make the world support it you know without trying to like control whatever part of the world i think is in the way which could be me or it could be you or it could be you know

[29:58]

Being at Tassajara or, you know, so it doesn't mean we don't do something. It doesn't mean if I have a taste for going to medical school and I notice that being at Tassajara is not helping me do that, I might leave Tassajara. That would be fine. But I do that and then I see, does the world support me to do that? You know, if I apply to medical school, do I get into medical school? If I get into medical school, can I actually do the work? So yes, vision is part of who we are. But then what we do with that, and one simple way to tell is how much do we tighten around it? So like, I want something, fine, no problem, but then I want it, and I want it, and I want it, and you're in my way, and it starts to become... problem and if we notice that we might try to like loosen up on it and see do I still even want it and if I do then can I go kind of lightly and if I try to loosen up on it and I can't which does happen sometimes fine you know because you can't control your grasping either necessarily so then I would say just just keep your eye on it because it has the potential to cause a lot of trouble

[31:23]

But if you watch it, if you're like, I want it, I want it, I want it, but, and then what am I gonna do with, oh, wait a minute, I don't wanna like, I might want it so bad, but I don't wanna like, I don't know what, you know, sock you with it or something. Okay, thanks. Yes, Greg? Yes. So you spoke about, so like, if there's pain, so, you know, can this pain be okay? But maybe because people will ward up, like, when it lasts for a very long time, what... What do you do? Yeah, like, I mean, there's some idea of sort of like accepting that or relaxing into it or opening around it, but it's like, it doesn't...

[32:27]

Yeah. Well, it doesn't mean that you don't, you know, for instance, if it's a certain kind of pain, you don't go to the doctor. You know, so you might go to a physical doctor. You might go to a mental doctor. You might go to an emotional doctor. You might go to a spiritual doctor. You know, so you don't just, like, but with a lot of our pain, even if it lasts for a long time, we pretty much know none of those things are going to take it away. Not all of our pain. And again, if there's the possibility that it can be helped in one of those ways, there is no way to be passive. This is not about being passive. To not do something is to do something. So you don't go to a doctor, that's doing something. But if you've got some... I think you're probably talking about some emotional pain.

[33:27]

And you've tried various things, or you haven't. Anyway, you're just staying with it. You know, if there's something you can do, do it. But most of the time, or maybe not most, but anyway, a lot of the time, there's nothing to do. You know, so... When we say, then, what can I do about this? It's just like clenching your fist. It's just getting tight around it. So instead, I would recommend, if it's there, I mean, you can try going for a run, doing a crossword puzzle. If any of that gives you relief from it, that's fine. But sometimes, if the pain is like, there have been times in my life, like when Keith left me once, when the pain, it wasn't alleviated by doing things. It was just there.

[34:30]

And it was a real blessing in a way to have it like, okay, there it is. It's still there. And even though I'm singing songs with my friends, it's still there because it was something that I could actually then watch. And it did change over time. But the pace of it That's not within our control, really. I mean, except to notice when we're tightening around it. Yes, and then we'll stop. Yes. Why aren't people smiling?

[35:32]

Well, what I said to this gentleman was, it was toward the end of the day, I said maybe they're tired. They've been working all day. And maybe that was it. Or maybe, you know, they're not in a good mood right now. Maybe they are. I mean, I do encourage students to notice that our guests are people. And not just guests, you know. And Smile at them. But on the other hand, the students are living here. They are not on vacation and they are not always in a good mood. So sometimes they just walk by you trying to get somewhere. But nonetheless, please feel welcome to Tassajara. Or maybe it was another guest who didn't smile at them because, like I say, the guests also come for a variety of reasons. not just for rest and food and the baths. Did you want to add anything to that?

[36:33]

No, no? That was okay. Okay, good. Okay. Thank you all very much. 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.

[37:02]

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