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 by people like you. Good evening. Saturday I talked about kindness and a kind of strictness with yourself. and it was to our big show audience on Saturdays. Wednesday is a little bit more intimate. It's just us folks who have done it over and over again. But because we've done it over and over again, there's a certain kind of vulnerability

[01:02]

Vulnerability is a very important aspect of practice. So it doesn't look that way. It looks like we're invulnerable. But we are vulnerable. And so we may as well cop to it. If you think you're not vulnerable, And I don't know what you're doing here. Ellen Watts wrote a book called The Wisdom of Insecurity. You just have to read the title, you don't have to read the book. I've told this story often about one of my first students would come to me and he would say, I'd ask him how things were and he said it was fine.

[02:16]

Everything was okay. I said that, asked him that several times in a row and I got the same answer. So I started to poke at him a little bit, be a little critical. And then I was critical two or three times in a row, and the last time I said, what am I doing? But the next time he came in, he said, ouch. I knew there was a human being there. Intimacy is something we seek, but it goes through the cauldron of vulnerability. You know, religion sometimes makes believe that it's about some wondrous, shining thing.

[03:32]

Or no thing. And it's really about learning what it is to be a human being. To know what the maximum and the minimum is. So that's why I also feel that practice in the community is so important. If you don't have practice in the community, you can have all sorts of projections about what everybody's like. But when you live with them, you have some more data than that. And Buddhism has grown up in sort of a...

[04:40]

feudal society in which everyone knew everyone else. And now we're trying to adjust to an anti-feudal society where there's ether and waves in which teaching is cast on. And there's some kind of, a certain kind of intimacy is not there. It's okay, but something is missing. Or some of you may want the perfect teacher and you finally can't find him or her. That's pretty good. It's really dangerous if you find the perfect teacher. And then you brag about the teacher as if your connection to them is so important.

[05:47]

Those who have great realization of delusion are Buddhas. Those who are greatly deluded about realization are sentient beings. When Buddhas are truly Buddhas, they do not necessarily notice that they are Buddhas. However, they are actualized Buddhas who go on actualizing Buddha. So we study our mistakes. And that makes us vulnerable. Rather than studying what we're good at, which makes us invincible, right? which I think embodies this is, how is it when the tree withers and the leaves fall, body exposed to the golden wind?

[07:55]

So if you don't feel vulnerable, you don't know where kindness comes from. If you understand the vulnerability of things, then you have some warm feeling about it. comes vulnerability. But it's not vulnerability alone, it's not some kind of feeling sorry for yourself or some kind of self-putting down.

[09:50]

It's when we know somebody very closely. And we do in this building some. Like you can tell who walks down your hallway, you can tell by the sound who it is. You can tell by the cough, who's coughing. I can tell by the sigh How we cultivate this intimacy, this closeness with things without either blowing them up or putting them down.

[11:19]

It's just to open ourselves. If you feel hurt, Feel the hurt. If you feel vulnerable, which makes you not want to feel the hurt, say, I have vulnerability. When people feel too vulnerable, they don't grow. They're stuck because they're trapped. There's too much fear about anything coming. If you don't feel vulnerable at all, you're probably in a state of denial. So you should work with the edges of little vulnerability.

[12:23]

Work with those situations where you feel a little bit vulnerable and go into them with courage. Don't go into situations where you feel completely overwhelmed. After World War II was over, he was ordained in Centauri Hege. And he came back and he told his teacher, he didn't teach me how to meditate. His teacher said, you didn't ask. In America, we want to have, we want to know what's going to happen as a protection.

[13:35]

And it's okay to want to know what's happening. It's fine. But it's really wondrous to go into a situation having no idea. And then when you're criticized for not knowing to say, oh, now I know. In Japan, which I'm not saying is ideal practice, it's just one style of practice, but an important part that we can learn from, you're often thrown into a situation and you're not told any guidelines. It might be, say, clean up the courtyard. And then when you've cleaned up the courtyard to the best of your ability, someone will come around and say, how come you didn't do this, this, and this? Of course, you never thought of it. But it tells you what your idea of cleaning a courtyard is and what somebody else's idea is.

[14:38]

And it also shows how much you want to be a success and how much you feel devastated by being criticized. How dare they criticize me. But there has to be a warm heart in order for you to feel that, a warm-hearted situation. I know, I remember when I was at Tassajaya, we carried the stick a lot. And there used to be people who really liked to carry the stick. They really liked to hit you. Worse were the people who were too shy about hitting you. They were dangerous. Because they would hold back and they wouldn't have any idea where they would hit you. And then there were just people who just did it. And there were all kinds of people in the sango.

[15:57]

some people who are quick, some people who are slow, some people who are gung-ho, some people who are perennially endeavillant. And that's pretty good. Sometimes we go through periods where we want to get rid of certain people. And of course, sometimes it doesn't make sense for some people to stay here. But more often, we learn a lot from the people who push our buttons. They're not as committed to practice as I am. Well, can you imagine living in a practice place in which you're not as committed as other people?

[16:59]

How difficult that may be. But it's expectations which are so important in the practice place. You can live up to expectations. Or you didn't have any expectations. Or you had too many expectations. But talking like this on a Saturday is not so painful. Talking like this on a Wednesday. tweak some of your heartstrings. I remember when I first moved into the building several decades ago.

[18:23]

I was... to a young person. And, well, anyhow, you'll find out. I was on the kitchen crew or something, or we made some lemon juice or orange juice or something, and I used it and I cleaned it and put it on the dish rack. And later when I came up, I found it outside my room. And I thought it had been clean, but there was a little lemon seed in there. And that was someone's way of giving me feedback, which was actually very good. He didn't have to say he did it right and I did it wrong. He just gave me the evidence.

[19:28]

If you're too vulnerable, though, you won't even look at the evidence. So there's some kind of... There's some kind of give and take. There's some kind of feedback, which when a community is ripe, can be very helpful. You know, Zen practice is not easy. We think of it as easy.

[20:35]

But we all have grown up with years of bad conditioning and societies which are crazed and families which are... What we're trying to overcome has been centuries in the making. we may want a quick fix. Alas. After anything, it's in center for about

[21:50]

10 years, a little less than 10 years, I was in a terrible place. I was angry, upset, didn't like my job, didn't like where I was living, but there was no place I'd rather be. So we're gone. So what is it we're trying to do? Who is trying to do what?

[22:53]

And how can we know if we're succeeding? I think we can know if we're succeeding if we see the people around us, we see their practice and are encouraged by it. It's likely then that maybe they see some improvement in my practice. But I shouldn't expect to not be irritated or be disappointed. You know, when I was in New York, Swami Satyadananda was on the radio and he said, when people come to me and say they're disappointed, I asked them who made the appointment.

[24:01]

Here's another thing. You may think that we know who's a good student and who's not a good student. But if you were at Sun Center in 1972 and you saw the people that were there, you would never have guessed that I'd still be here. It's not so much about what grades you get. It's about your courage, your heart, and what you do. So Wednesday evening talks, I usually, I dread them a little bit.

[25:36]

If I give them, I feel like there's a big disconnect. Everyone's tired and wanting to get out of here, except for the new students who want to be in here endlessly. So I feel that there's a certain vulnerability that I have and I feel in the room, which I don't know exactly how to appreciate, to celebrate, to acknowledge. You've come here to do a difficult practice. And we have many discouragements.

[26:40]

But I think we can appreciate each other even as we annoy each other. Sometimes I feel like I just want everything to be perfect and nothing to irritate anything else and everything goes smoothly. Sounds like some kind of scientific experiment. But I don't know if any transformation happens that way. So kindness and strictness, vulnerability, and then courage. Courage is a highfalutin way of talking about it.

[27:57]

Stick-to-itiveness might be a lower-scale way of talking about it. And patience might be a... about that. For those of you who are discouraged, I give you some encouragement. For those of you who are too encouraged, I don't have to discourage you. discouraged or encouraged be encouraged because there may be better things to do there may be better practices and if you find them please do them but until you do practice this way as best you can

[29:13]

Is that a deal? Is there anything to get out of your eye? Well... Well, at least for this practice period, let's try some kindness. Try some strictness with ourselves. Let's try to notice our vulnerability. Let's have courage. And have patience. You know, Trungpa was once asked what the Buddhist equivalent of grace was. And he said, patience.

[30:40]

Patience isn't something you do until something else happens. Patience is what you do. So Suki Roshi said, the secret of all the schools of Buddhism is to be present in the moment. Whether it's a good moment, And that's a good moment. Even with what you have. Those who study delusion. Those who have great realization of delusion are Buddhas. Those who are greatly deluded about enlightenment are sentient beings.

[31:46]

So we're both sentient beings and Buddhists. We're both deluded and enlightened. We both seek things that we ought to and things that we shouldn't. let's encourage ourselves to do the best we can thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center our programs are made possible by the donations we receive please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[32:42]

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