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. feeling very happy to be here today, given the opportunity to give a Dharma talk, and thank you all for coming. I see some faces I haven't seen in a long time, so it's very nice to see people. So welcome to Green Gulch. For how many of you is it your first visit to Green Gulch? Well, special welcome to people

[01:03]

for whom it's your first time. Last night at dinner, I was sitting with a group of students and I asked them what they would like to hear about for the Dharma talk tomorrow. I mean, I already had some sense of what I wanted to say, but I was wondering what they would like to hear. And this was the list I got. Compassion for all beings and the biosphere, which was about as big as you can get, I think. Grieving. Cutting off the past and cutting off the future and being present. Transitions, how to practice with transitions. Worrying. how to practice with worrying, and how you tell, how can you discern between healthy and unhealthy attachment, or what's love and what's attachment in a not so healthy way.

[02:19]

There is attachment that's very healthy as well. So I thought that was a pretty good, recipe for a Dharma talk that encompass all of Buddhist teaching from the beginning far into the future. So I'm gonna see if I can wrap it all up and touch on these things. This coming Wednesday, April 22nd, is Earth Day. This is the 45th anniversary of Earth Day being commemorated, being celebrated, and as you might recall, 45 years ago, there was a massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, right, in California, and these Earth Day celebrations began at that time, so it's been 45 years, and there are things that are happening, interfaith things, community events,

[03:23]

Zen Center will have a ceremony the morning of Earth Day, and yesterday the talk at City Center was in honor of Earth Day. Thursday we're showing a film called, let's see, Symphony of the Soil. Symphony of the Soil, which anyone is welcome to come to, I think. It will be shown here for the residents and guests who are here. Also, the next Saturday, there will be a children's volunteer to work in the garden program in honor of Earth Day. And I was told by the head of the fields that the, is it pronounced Lyrid meteor shower? Lyrid? Leonid. Leonid, it's spelled wrong. Leonid meteor shower peaks on Wednesday the 22nd. It's going on now between the 16th and... 27th maybe, so it's peaking on the 22nd, so you might wanna bathe yourself in that vision of seeing those shooting stars.

[04:32]

Meteor shower. So I did wanna bring up Earth Day and our care of the great Earth along with these other topics that were proposed to me to bring up. Last week I was in Austin, Texas for a big ceremony, and this was a ceremony installing the first and new abbot of the Austin Zen Center. And coming into Austin, Texas, if those of you don't know, at this time of year anywhere there was a constant bird song all day long and in the evening that was a soundscape for the ceremonies and for our time together. And this bird song was deeply enjoyable, deeply enjoyable, but a kind of healing, comforting beauty.

[05:44]

that really touched me. Yesterday I was going for a walk on one of the Green Gulch trails, and you pass our wood pile where we split wood, and the people who were working there said, careful, there's a bird that's nesting in one of these boxes, one of the wood boxes, there's some kindling in there, and then in this little spot was a bird, teeny bird, I'm not sure what it was. a tiny little bird sitting on her nest and she kind of tried to send people on their way. She went off the nest to divert people and then went back on them with little tiny eggs. So this reminded me of a teaching called The Bird's Path and these images of the bird and our path being like the traceless paths of birds through the sky and migrating.

[06:57]

And how do they do this? We don't know. And we can't see it. When we look into the sky, we can't see their path. But they know it. And it's passed on. So this is an image for our path and our true path and the teaching that I wanted to bring up with you today. And there's a Zen teacher named in Chinese Dong Shan, Zen master from the 800s, very famous. many, many stories have come down, many teachings have come down. We recite a poem that this teacher wrote in regular morning service called The Song of the Jeweled Mirror Samadhi.

[08:01]

So this, the Jeweled Mirror Concentration, this teacher in Chinese is Dungshan, in Japanese is Tozan. And when Tozan was taking leave from his master, Nanyaren, his master said to him, as he's going off to teach or to be outside of the close teacher-student relationship body to body, he said, make a thorough study of Buddhadharma. Buddhadharma is the teaching of the Buddha. the truth of the awakened way. Make a thorough study of the Buddha Dharma and broadly benefit the world. This is what his teacher said to him. And Dung San said, I have no question about making a thorough study of the Buddha Dharma, but what is it to broadly benefit the world?

[09:07]

And Nanyarin said, do not disregard a single thing. Do not disregard a single thing. This is how, this is his teaching of how we broadly benefit the world. Do not disregard a single thing. So in our practice and in our practice of taking care of the great earth, what is really before us now as we realize more and more strongly and more and more in the consciousness, in the forefront of people's consciousness, of the place that we are standing on, sitting on, in terms of our great earth, our environment and climate.

[10:11]

How do we practice facing this truth unblinkingly without disregarding a single thing? How do we broadly benefit the world by not disregarding a single thing? That admonition, not disregarding a single thing, can be looked at very personally in our own daily life. What is it that we avert from, what is it that we skip over, that we don't want to hear about, that we don't have time for, that we worry about but actually don't take up? How do we not disregard a single thing? I think it starts with our own body, our own daily activities. Sometimes we disregard things because we think we're doing something more important than those little things in our life.

[11:19]

And sometimes we think those big important things, they have great big names like our spiritual practice, you know. Don't bother me with that because I've got my spiritual practice to take care of. This can happen sometimes to us where we avoid or avert from things that are difficult, from details of our life, from relationships that need our attention, from practices, daily practices that are not intentional enough because we have big fish to fry or we have our ideals. So this is something each one of us can really look at There's a kind of term for not taking care of the things that are necessary in our life, especially relationships and difficulties for these big ideals, and this is sometimes called spiritual bypassing, where the most important things

[12:41]

where we sacrifice what needs to be taken care of because we have these bigger, bigger things to take care of in our spiritual life. And this will lead to more and more difficulties and a kind of separation from our spiritual life. So this question about worrying that someone brought up sometimes our worrying and obsessing and being preoccupied by something means that we haven't been able to settle ourselves and face it completely. And we may need help, we may need help for that. In terms of taking care of the earth, I think each one of us can

[13:44]

honestly look at how we lead our life. What are the ways that we can bring attention to the small things in our life that make a difference? The cars we drive, the way we handle our energy needs, recycling. And I think I may be preaching to the choir here, but there's always room for more attention here, more considerations, more joining with others to work on these issues. Not disregarding a single thing. So this Dungshan, this teacher, one of his admonitions was to follow the bird's path.

[15:02]

And the bird's path, as I was saying, is you can't grasp the bird's path. What is a bird's path? It's a traceless path. And yet, the bird goes from, you know, some birds travel thousands of miles. There is a path which cannot be grasped. So one of the things about the word path is a translation of, in Sanskrit, marga, the path, or the dao in Chinese. And often we can become quite attached to wanting our path to lead us somewhere to get to our goal. and to follow the steps and stages and proceed along this way until we get what we want. And, you know, we can see there's courses and classes and teachings that sometimes say, you know, five easy lessons to have complete happiness and peace for the rest of your life.

[16:19]

And it's very, it's... Oh, gee, it reminds me of dieting things. It's like, try this for six weeks and all will be well. So this is, we're very prone to this, I think, human beings, to have followed these steps, and if you complete these steps, you'll get what you're after. And this can be, I don't mean to, I want us to look at this. How can this help us? When is this encouraging and a kind of skillful means or skillful way for people to set forth in their practice life? Because it looks like, well, I just start doing this and then I'll be okay. So there is If this is encouraging to you, that's okay.

[17:24]

But the bird's path has a traceless quality. And once you're on it, you can't grasp it. So there was a monk who asked Dungshan about this following the bird's path. And the monk said, the master normally tells us to follow the bird's path. I wonder what the bird's path is. And Dung San said, one does not encounter a single person. So on this path, this kind of solitary path, this single person, there's nothing, this is a fundamental kind of Buddhist, teaching of emptiness, there's nothing that's outside of you that you can grasp. You don't encounter anything, not a single person.

[18:26]

It's you manifesting the path. And each so-called person or thing or activity that you manifest is the entirety of the reality of your existence. And the monk didn't understand this and says, well, how does one follow such a path? And Dugashan said, one should go without a thread on your feet, meaning not bound to anything. one should travel this path without being attached or holding on to anything. And the monk goes on, well, if one follows the bird's path, isn't that seeing one's original face?

[19:32]

And original face is a kind of image for the fundamental true reality of all existence. That's our original face. So the monk is saying, if one follows this bird's path, isn't that then seeing the fundamental reality of all existence, one's original face? And the master says, why do you turn things upside down? And the monk said, but I haven't turned things upside down. And Dung Shan said, if you haven't turned things upside down, Why do you regard the student as the master? Then the monk, this is a long story here, the monk gets, he just said, well, what is the original face? And Dung San said, not to follow the bird's path. This is a very Zen story, you know.

[20:33]

The other day I was in a meeting with some people who are working with Zen Center on establishing establishing a Zen-inspired senior living facility. And we were talking about the elevator, installing an elevator, whether there would need to be an elevator. And I told this Zen joke, which I felt our visitors didn't get. The joke that just occurred to me was, what's it like to be in a Zen elevator? And the answer was, you don't go anywhere. Well, you're all laughing. You don't go anywhere because you're already there. There's nowhere to go. This is kind of Zen speak. This is a kind of Zen. And it's not to confound us. It's not to sort of make strange riddles. It's not to stop the mind from thinking or something. It's with words to try somehow to express something that...

[21:37]

is really unexpressible with our regular grammar and way that our language is. So it's the teachers and all the teachers from ages and ages have tried to express something that will help us to wake up to it. So this final thing, this final line from Dungshan is to follow the bird's path not to follow the bird's path, that's the original phase. Now what? So there we are with our wanting something, wanting some kind of steps and stages and path. There's the noble eightfold path, right view, right intention or right consideration, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right mindfulness, right concentration. the correct way of relating with the world and with ourselves and with every single thing.

[22:45]

But that path is not where you start with right view and you go all the way. It's a path that is happening simultaneously. You don't first do one and then the other and then you come to right livelihood later. It's the whole thing at once. the whole fundamental right, correct, uprightness right now. But we often, I think human beings often want, first tell me this and then what's next and then I'll do this and then next. I think this is our tendency. We feel more comfortable maybe when we have that or think we'll feel more comfortable comfortable and safe and like there's a plan. So this teaching is trying to illuminate already, without going anywhere, you, just the way you are, in this present moment, are manifesting and appearing

[24:02]

in this world as true reality. Cutting off the past, forget about the future, being present right now. This is bird's path, traceless. And I would say this is broadly benefiting the world. but we can't get a hold of it, which is, you know, you can hear that teaching and say, I don't understand, and that's okay. I don't understand either. So when the monk says, well, how do I follow this? And the teacher says, well, you're turning it upside down. He's turning it upside down because he wants to have something to hold onto, to have, to complete and finish.

[25:08]

And that's, it reminds me of other Zen stories, if you go after something, you're going the opposite way. By going after something, by trying to get something of the ungraspable, inconceivable reality, we go the opposite way or we turn something upside down. So not to follow the bird's path is the original face or the original reality. But the teacher says, follow the bird's path. Following the bird's path is not to follow the bird's path. So how does this operate in our own life, this teaching of being present manifesting the reality of our life, not disregarding a single thing right now.

[26:08]

It's not getting home and cleaning the closet necessarily, although you can test it out whether you're disregarding things. As someone said to me, what does it look like under your kitchen sink? What are we disregarding? Disregarding is not regarding. Regarding is to look again, to hear and look again, to regard. And also it has respect there. When we give someone our regard, we respect them. We respect everything that we care for and handle and see and hear and touch and think. because each thing that arises is the true reality, is our true reality. Traceless, ungraspable. So, we're in a big transition now, I think people have personal transitions they're in, but there are

[27:26]

Well, there's small and big transitions. Any transition, which is each moment, and sometimes those moments can be very intense, but each moment is transition. Each moment, each present moment is letting go of past, not grasping to future and living out this moment. Each moment is changing and moving and flowing. So you could say, each moment is transition. How do we settle there? Not waiting for a time when, well, if I could just get this done and that done and take care of this, then I could finally settle and practice and not disregard a single thing. But the beauty of the teaching and our practice is that we don't have to wait for a time when everything's all. in place and settled, after we've finished our steps and stages, then, the practice is now.

[28:33]

And in the midst of grieving, in the midst of great change, in the midst of loss, and great joy and adventure, in the middle of our life, there is the capacity, more than capacity, there's the request of the entire world to be present, to be present in our loss, to be present in our letting go of this moment and opening to the next. In our sitting practice, which has been passed on from teacher to teacher throughout the ages, our practice of meditation, either seated meditation and all the other kinds of meditation, standing, walking, sitting, or lying down during all our waking hours, there is the

[29:59]

we find more and more, the longer we practice, the more connected we are to this flowing, moment by moment, ever-changing life. And we have more and more capacity to accept, to stay present and calm, and to regard the cross of the world, which is the name of that capacity within you that has infinite compassion. Infinite compassion for people, animals, plants, water, air, earth, the entire biosphere. this compassion, which, you know, there's all this scientific study that's going on about compassion and what happens to our body-mind when we practice and specific compassion practices of loving kindness, but also just sitting.

[31:09]

Some of you may have been, are up on these kinds of studies that have been done of, that, you know, the scientific studies with MRIs and so forth are just showing how true the teachers and teachings of the ages have been about the way that practice opens us to all beings and extends our caring, loving, kindness, to each and everything, not disregarding anything. In these scientific studies it shows actual lessening of the gray matter in areas of the brain where there's anxiety, where it's anxiety and feeling cut off from others, and there is worrying and obsessing, and that gets smaller, and then areas of the brain of interconnectedness,

[32:19]

loving feelings, actual noticing when others are in distress, hearing, being able to actually hear cries. These scientific studies are showing this, the growth of areas of the brain at a cellular level of our capacity. to live a life of compassion and loving kindness. I'm taking a course right now at Stanford about compassion, which shows this, it's practice-based, but has all these neuroscientific studies as part of the curriculum. So it's fascinating. It reminded me of, after being at Zen Center when I was in my early 20s, I think, I think I was 23, and I was going to college out here and sitting, living at Zen Center, sitting every day.

[33:25]

And then I went back home to St. Paul. I had a dentist appointment, and when I walked into the dentist's office, I saw my dentist, and it was like seeing this person who I'd been seeing since I was a kid for the first time, and I thought, something terrible has happened. Maybe he has cancer or his wife died. I saw something that I'd never seen before, and it was suffering. It was his suffering, which many dentists actually have, I've found out. I think the suicide rate with dentists is higher, due to this intimate connection, I think, with, there's pain involved in, anyway, and I saw my dentist and I thought, But I realized later that he probably always has looked this way. There was no big thing. There was no big change in his life. But I couldn't see before.

[34:26]

And I remember thinking, I can see. It was like veils had dropped away. I could see suffering. I could hear it. And human beings, when they see and hear suffering, not only empathize, meaning feel the distress, in their own body, but have compassion, meaning the thought of wanting to relieve it, wanting to act in order to alleviate. Human beings have this capacity. That's been now studied early, early, early. Babies will do something to help what they understand is trying to help pre-verbal others. So our sitting, our meditation practice helps to widen this already, the reality of our body-mind and to help us to open to another and bring down our own anxiety and stress as well, this combination.

[35:45]

so that we move towards those that are suffering, people, animals, and plants, and our great earth, rather than backing away. And there's more calm and ability to help to follow. So, right now Zen Center's in the, middle of listening to the cries of the world in a kind of specific way, which I wanted to mention, and enlist your thinking on this, your thoughts, because this has to do with not broadly benefiting the world and not disregarding a single thing. How do we balance this? How do we make this one thing?

[36:47]

Zen Center, due to many, many, many donations by many people and great benefactors, now has, after 50 years, what's called an endowment, which is some reserves that we have. This is due to our fundraising campaign. And that endowment, those funds, have been, in the meantime, while we work on establishing guidelines for it, have been placed in investment funds. And right now, there are many people who are making a strong voice, petitions, and talking to our elders council and board and leadership in the community about the use of those funds and how we invest those funds. And I think everyone is on the same page.

[37:54]

Everyone wants to have those funds invested ethically and in line with our precepts, in line with our vows, in line with our mission, in line with not, with broadly benefiting the world. And so we're looking at, well, what kind of screens need to be put in place so that we're not investing in all sorts of things, arms, tobacco, fossil fuel. These are the new ones. For years we've had, in a small way, certain social screens. And now there's call for no fossil fuels, no agribusiness, many, many, many things so that it's in line with our life as a spiritual community and our wish to broadly benefit the world. And then there are consequences to making those decisions and there are consequences to not making those decisions or making different decisions.

[39:05]

How do we not disregard a single thing and go forward with eyes open and clarity. And what we see, and we have to study this more and more thoroughly, that to invest in certain ways means we'll have less, perhaps, we have to find this out for sure, and we're having people help us with this, but less available self-support funds and funds to take good care of Zen Center, to offer programs, to offer teachings, to support teachers, to support Sangha, to support you all in creating environments of calm and beauty with ways in which you can encounter yourself in a deep way.

[40:09]

So if we have less available self-support for that, because, you know, is that broadly benefiting the world? Is that disregarding something? How are we gonna work this out? This is an ethical, we're right in the middle of this ethical, I don't call it a dilemma exactly, as a deep study. a deep study, and I really want to include a broader group of people to help us with this, think about it with us, encourage us, and to hear from you in any way you feel called to. So these are the kinds of things that when I bring up, how do we broadly benefit the world, not disregard a single thing, what about one's investments, what about the objects that we buy and use and our sadness and

[41:28]

deep pain over our environment and the loss of our beautiful world and animals and places. I think I read that the white rhino is now extinct, I think as of this last week, and there was a picture of this magnificent animal. There's five. There's five left, but for all... One male. One male left. for all intents and purposes. So the pain of that, I think this is where we're all connected and so close, each of us. When we feel this pain and also knowing we have responsibility, we're not like, well, I guess it's just somebody else, they did something. We're all, this is, We're all in this together.

[42:31]

So what can each of us do together, individually and together? These are these issues that we can't avert from because we have spiritual matters to attend to or we've got, you know, this is our spiritual matter. How can we pull it apart? You know, this is birth and death. This is loss. This is the pain of our life. And how can we be calm enough, open enough, unflinchingly available to each moment and what is arising? So, And this kind of love for animals and the earth and one another is not attachment, I think, in a clinging, grasping way.

[43:42]

This is love that flows from our own nature, which is imperceptibly, mutually helping one another. This is the reality of how we all are together. You can call this love. you can call this compassion. The student last night, the attachment and love quandary, we can sometimes be clingingly attached to people, animals, and things. And this flies in the face of the reality of our life, which is all things are changing. There's nothing that is permanent, nothing that you can have forever.

[44:44]

A person, an animal, even this earth is, you know, someday. So when we cling to that which is ungraspable and impossible to hold, we cause suffering for ourselves. That is suffering. That kind of clinging mind is suffering and we create conditions of suffering for others. And that's different from love. And the good attachment that's necessary for babies to make healthy attachment connections with their mothers and fathers and caregivers. This promotes health, this is health, to have these kinds of attachments. So it's unfortunate that this word, you know, in Buddhism attachment is, you know, we can make that mistake of, well then we give up all attachments, good and bad.

[45:55]

or clinging and non-clinging attachments. I think the attachments for loving one another fully and manifesting that is not to be eschewed, it's not to be somehow renounced. Our enunciation is that which we cling to and grasp after have made the big mistake to think if we had it then we would be okay or happy. That's what we need to let go of that way of thinking. So flying on the bird's path, taking the bird's path is traceless and and yet we can join other birds who have followed that path.

[46:57]

We can join other people who have walked the traceless path. And we start with the most simple thing of sitting and letting go of grasping after anything, sitting upright. not pushing away our life, not grasping after our life. And this is a way to study the self and to study the Buddha Dharma, to study the Buddha's way. There's a commentary on the bird's path, which I'll end with.

[48:00]

The bird's path is called, this path is called three different names. This road, meaning right now, this moment, this inconceivable moment right now, ungraspable. And it doesn't mean that you have to kind of get rid of all your problems first. It means right in the middle of our problems, difficulties, our life, the consequences of our actions right there, right in the middle of a heap of whatever your life is. You don't have to get rid of that first. It's this road. That's the first of the bird's path, this road.

[49:04]

And the next one is called the hidden road. And that's after settling right there in this trackless, traceless life that's the reality of our life with a mind that really has no place of dwelling, because it's always flowing, right there is called the hidden world. And it's beyond any particular place. It's all places. And the last of the bird's path is called extending the hands. So while we remain right there in this just this road or this road, this hidden road of no grasping of a self or dwelling place, then right there you extend the hands.

[50:14]

And this extending the hands is to relieve suffering, to express compassion, to broadly benefit the world, to extend the hands. And this can be inspiring to others. It can encourage others. And in these scientific studies, when we see others being compassionate and helping others, just by seeing somebody else do it, it also, in these brain scans, broadens those areas in our own brain of giving and loving warmth and compassion, just by seeing someone else, which I find wonderful. So by extending the hands to help, we inspire others, we encourage others, and we unify one another in one life that lives for the benefit of all beings.

[51:23]

So in our own individual practice, know that that individual practice includes the entire great earth, includes everything you touch and see and encounter and encourages and brings benefit. very much. 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 sfcc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[52:30]

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