This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Even though the storms have been strong, we still gather here. put on our Sunday best and sing songs. Yesterday, millions of people walked for the sake of peace and justice and equal rights for all beings.

[01:07]

One of the rights is the right to make posters. So people have the right to be creative and make posters and hold them up in the air to express themselves one of the posters from yesterday was it's so bad even the introverts have come out now here in this sanctuary we enter the third week of an intensive meditation retreat. We retreat, I don't know, from the traffic over the hill and stay here for three weeks.

[02:17]

And the theme of this intensive period of meditation, one of the themes is building sanctuaries, building places of refuge. This theme was stimulated by a story about the Buddha walking along on the face of the earth, probably in India. And the world honored one pointed to the face of the earth and said, this is a good place. to build a sanctuary. So one understanding of that that I have is the Buddha is always pointing to this.

[03:22]

These hard times are a good place to build a sanctuary, a place of refuge, a place to return to what's most important right in the middle of the storm. This is what the Buddha might be telling us. No matter what you see, no matter what you feel, no matter what you think, in that thought, in that feeling, that's a good place to build a sanctuary. There's no place on earth that's not a good place Every place is a good place. And for some people, the place of refuge is a place to return to

[04:41]

practicing stillness. It's a place to return to remember stillness and remember silence. It's a place to receive stillness and receive silence and to practice it and to transmit it in this room we sit in various seats each seat is a place to build a sanctuary each seat In this room is a place to remember stillness and remember silence and to practice stillness and to transmit it, to receive it and transmit it.

[06:05]

The place of refuge, well, I could also say that in this stillness, in remembering and receiving the stillness, we can also remember and receive the truth. Remembering stillness, we can remember the truth. Receiving stillness, we can receive the truth, which is being given to us every moment. We can remember peace in stillness. We can receive it and we can transmit it. Justice is also living in stillness and silence.

[07:23]

So we can remember justice and we can receive justice and we can practice justice and transmit justice. If I see injustice in the world, the Buddha points to this injustice and says, this is a good place to build a sanctuary to justice. If I have unjust thought in my mind about myself or others, this unjust thought is a good place to build a sanctuary

[08:28]

for justice. Moment by moment, place by place. This building of a sanctuary is not something I do by myself. I do it together with all beings. So the story, actually, I didn't tell it fully. The Buddha was walking along on the face of the earth with his group.

[09:34]

The Buddha was traveling in a group, in a troop, in a mass of beings. And the Buddha, together with all beings, pointed to the earth. The building, the sanctuary, is something we do together. Once we have the sanctuary, then we can remember and receive and practice and transmit what we want to do in the retreats, what we want to do in the refuge. But that practice, that receiving, we do not do alone. The receiving of justice and transmitting of justice is something we do together. I cannot do it by myself. So this receiving of peace and justice and truth,

[10:36]

and transmitting of peace and justice and truth, we do together face to face. So Zen is called the transmission of truth, the transmission of peace, the transmission of justice face to face. There's a visible human face like this one and visible human faces like I see around the room. So the practice is for those visible faces to meet visible faces and wholeheartedly meet and wholeheartedly receive together peace and

[11:45]

and transmit peace together, meeting by meeting, face to face. But there's another dimension which is, if you excuse the expression, more mysterious, which is the meeting of our original face with other original faces. There's a face we have which was the face we had before our parents were born. We had that face too. That face is invisible. It's the invisible original face of our moment-by-moment

[12:50]

visible face but we cannot realize the mutual face to face transmission of our original faces without the visible human face to human face I propose that justice is realized in the face to face meeting between people human faces that are visible and also between invisible original faces. One of our ancestors wrote a book called The Transmission of Light. And the first story in that book, the story of the Buddha, Shakyamuni, in India, The story goes something like this.

[13:51]

Shakyamuni Buddha saw the morning star and awakening said, I, together with all living beings, attain the way simultaneously. The Buddha's teaching that the Buddha attains the Buddha way together with all living beings and, did I forget to say, the great earth. This is what the Buddha said. And there were, in that story, no humans in the near neighborhood. And most humans did not know that the Buddha awoke and said, I, together with all of you, attain the Buddha way.

[14:53]

But that story at the beginning is saying the Buddha way is attained by the Buddha and all beings. It's a mutual face-to-face transmission. But not everyone knows it. So the next story in the book is a story about Buddha meeting someone who can see the Buddha's visible face, and he can see that person's visible face, and they see each other's visible face, and they blink at each other and smile at each other, and they understand that they are attaining the Buddha way together. They understand the mysterious, intimate, Transmission of the truth and justice.

[15:56]

Original face to original face. Recent face to recent face. This is my most recent face right now. So as I mentioned, this is where I usually sit during meditation periods. I sit there and I receive the Buddha's face. I can't see the Buddha's face, but I receive the Buddha's face at this seat. And the person next to me receives Buddha's face at the seat next to me. And here, together with the Buddha, I transmit Buddha's face at this seat. This meeting is a place where justice is living and where justice is received and where justice is transmitted.

[17:09]

So if I sit in this seat, when I sit in this seat, I always bring a world with me. A world which might be... stormy and tormented. And I also bring with me a self, an I. I have a consciousness which I bring to the seat. And that consciousness is narrow and biased and egocentric. So we don't have a sign at the door here, but sometimes I think of putting a sign at the door which says, in English, check yourself at the door.

[18:21]

There's two possible meanings that come to my mind now. One is check yourself. Look at yourself when you come in here. The other one is leave your... yourself at the self-check booth. Leave yourself outside and out there. And then come in. But when you come in and sit in your seat, yourself will pop up again. And then I would say again, check yourself. Check this egocentric consciousness. Because it's going to show up. It's part of our situation, is that we have a world and we have a biased, narrow, egocentric consciousness. And in egocentric consciousness, we can forget that what we're doing when we meet each other

[19:37]

is face-to-face transmission of justice, we can get distracted from that work. If we wanted to do that work, we could get distracted from it. And if I get distracted from meeting each face, then I can meet my distraction and remember to build a sanctuary in my distraction. I can be generous and careful and so on to my distraction. And now I'm back in the sanctuary And I still have myself.

[20:39]

But I have just recovered from being distracted from the work of checking myself and building a sanctuary in myself together with all of you. I cannot be free. of this egocentric consciousness without face-to-face meetings with other human beings. This face-to-face meeting with others is, in this, for the sake of justice, could be called ethics.

[21:49]

And I need to practice ethical behavior face-to-face in order to approach and realize justice. For example, I could be intending to vacuum the floor. And someone might say to me, don't put that vacuum cleaner away.

[22:57]

And I might think, I'm vacuuming. And, you know, why are you telling me to put the vacuum cleaner away? Why are you accusing me of doing something I'm not doing? But before I would say that, I might think that. Here I am, you know, Sincerely trying to vacuum, and somebody's telling me, don't put the vacuum cleaner away. This is like a... I'm being falsely accused. In my ego consciousness, there's a false accusation. I'm not intending to put the vacuum cleaner away. I'm intending to use the vacuum cleaner. And now...

[24:01]

I'm being accused of trying to put it away and being told not to do it. But before I make my case, I can build a sanctuary in this thought that I'm being falsely accused. Okay, now here we are in the sanctuary of false accusation. What about the face-to-face meeting here? Okay, here we go. I don't know what I would say, but I might say, Yes, ma'am. I won't put it away. Would you like me to vacuum? Yes, stupid. Of course I want you to vacuum.

[25:02]

Okay. I will vacuum. matter of fact I'll vacuum so wholeheartedly that this vacuuming will be not vacuuming and all living beings and I together will attain the Buddha way right now with this vacuuming by this face-to-face transmission by meeting this person fully who is accusing me of doing something I think I'm not doing, of this face who's vacuuming and that face who's accusing not vacuuming.

[26:04]

Those faces meet wholeheartedly, sharing responsibility in the meeting, and justice arises like, yes, ma'am, and then wholeheartedly vacuuming. or somebody's in a lot of pain and hurting themselves somebody I really care for and they won't stop hurting themselves and they cry out to me and I listen to them and I feel pain listening to their pain face to face, two people feeling pain in the sanctuary.

[27:20]

by this face-to-face meeting, being responsible to the meeting, responsible to myself, responsible to the other, in that wholehearted meeting, fully experience the pain. And there is the liberation of pain. Or you could say from pain. The Buddha doesn't say the liberation of suffering of this pain is someplace other than the pain. The Buddha points at the pain and says, build a sanctuary in this pain. And then in that pain, in the sanctuary, in that pain, now meet face to face. In that face-to-face meeting, there will be a whole, a complete experience of the pain, and that will be the end.

[28:52]

That will be freedom. That will be peace in the pain. Listening to the cries of a child. Listening to the cries of the child's parent who can't free the child from its pain. Feeling also I'm listening to the cries of the parents and the child and there's a cry in me which is how inadequate is my listening and my observing. The Buddha points to my feelings of inadequacy and says, this is a good place for a sanctuary.

[29:55]

And now, face to face with the crying child and the crying parents, by meeting them wholeheartedly, we realize justice and peace and truth and freedom from suffering. no other place. We're not waiting for this pain to go away and then build a sanctuary. We're not waiting for these cries to stop and then realize justice. If the cries stop, then that's the place we build the sanctuary. If things appear to be peaceful, this is a place to build sanctuary and to meet face to face in peace now there's lots of challenging situations where it almost looks like war but it's not yet war but it almost almost war and this is a good place to build a sanctuary

[31:14]

We are probably going to end this talk soon. I just want to mention to you that we're going to offer you tea afterwards. Is that right? We're going to offer tea? Where's the tea going to be? It's going to be in the dining room. Even though it's not raining, it's going to be in the dining room. Because it might rain. Anyway, after the tea, or during the tea, we're going to have a question and answer opportunity here. An opportunity to listen and learn. Opportunity for me to listen and learn and you to listen and learn. An opportunity for face-to-face meeting back in this room. It's kind of a nice setup for my talk that we can follow up and try out face-to-face meeting again.

[32:41]

Now I feel like pretty much I said what I need to say. And part of the reason I feel that way is because we have another chance a little later to bring up any questions or questions. comments. So I just thought I would finish with a song. A song for today. Because it's today, right? You're welcome to join me. It's a song some of you know. So the way I sing it is like this. Are you ready?

[33:46]

I'll try to be too. When you, when [...] you walk through a storm, hold your head up high and don't be afraid of the dark At the end of the storm is a golden sky and the sweet silver song of alarm. Walk on through the wind, walk on through the rain, though your dreams be tossed and blown. Walk on, walk on with hope in your heart and you'll never

[34:55]

Like the Buddha. The Buddha never walks alone. And we never walk alone. The Buddhas are always walking with us. And we're always walking with the Buddhas. and we're walking with everybody who doesn't think they're walking with us. The Buddha teaches this. So let's walk together. 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.

[36:03]

For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[36:14]

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