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. Thank you so much for Moon and the Dew Drop. It's about the only thing that I can stand to read these days, for some unknown reason. Probably all of you have heard, or maybe some of you have heard, that Dogen says, to study Buddhism is to study the self.

[01:03]

And really, I think that's kind of like the essence of Zen. In fact, in some ways, I think the vow we're taking when we sit down, although most of us don't know it when we first sit down to do Zazen, but is, I vow to be with this person, this particular, unique, karmically created person. I vow to do that. And now I'm going to try to do it for 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 40 minutes, whatever we decide we're going to try to sit there. And we may have a lot of other ideas about what we're going to try to do while we're sitting there. We're going to try to be present. We're going to try to not fall asleep. We're going to try to count our breath. And we think that's what we're doing. But I think at some level, really, the vow that we're taking when we sit down to do meditation, this kind of meditation anyway, is I vow to be with this person.

[02:06]

And I think there are probably many reasons, but I can think of three reasons why studying the self is a good place to start. One is, I think this is true. I'm going to say this stuff, but I'm not saying you should believe it. I'm saying you should listen to it and then see whether it seems true to you as you think about it, feel about it, experience it. So I'll say it as if it's true, but you figured that out because I might be wrong. But I think that for each of us, our self is actually the thing we care the most about. I mean, sometimes we like to, we feel like maybe we care about our kids or our lover or our something. But I think really deep inside what is most like physically there for us is this thing that we call, that we experience as a self.

[03:20]

We actually experience it as a self. So that's one reason to study it, because we really care about it. We really want it to be okay. And sometimes, somebody was just mentioning this to me the other day again, how I think they were saying how the Dalai Lama or some other Eastern teacher was so surprised that self-hate seems to be so deep in Western culture. that mostly Buddhism talks about being careful of self-love, like don't love yourself more than other things. But a lot of people in our culture feel a lot more self-hate than self-love. But in a funny way, self-hate actually is self-love. It's like because I am the most important thing in the world,

[04:20]

I need to be perfect, and I'm not. So therefore, this self is not good enough. I need another self. I need a better self. I need to be different in this way. And it's so drastic for us that we can't really often, we can't really stand it that we're not good in these ways that we perceive. So this thing that we experience as a self is very, very important to us, whether we end up loving it and thinking it's better than other selves or hating it or worrying about it because it's worse than other selves. So that's one reason. Another reason is that we, because we care so much about it, because it's so kind of vital and deep for us, and vulnerable for us, we get very confused about it.

[05:26]

It's very hard to see it kind of accurately because there's so much bound up in whether it's okay or not. And then a third reason, I'm sure there are more reasons to why studying the self is so beneficial. is that in studying the self, we get so much more unmediated information. To study this thing that we experience as our self, this body-mind that we experience as our self, we don't have to read a book about it. We don't have to be able to put it into words, whatever it is we're discovering or experiencing about our self. All we have to do is... actually be there without getting too distracted by many other things. So it doesn't have to make sense in English or any other language.

[06:32]

It just is kind of like being there, I would say, with an open heart. We could also say with an open mind. So one of the things that we can get distracted about from this studying of the self is any ideas we might have about what it should be. If we're holding on to those, if those are kind of in a way between us and our experience of this thing, that's part of the distortion, right? How it's not matching up with our idea. Another thing that we can get very distracted by are other things. Other people, other ideas and experiences of other beings can really distract us from ourselves.

[07:35]

In fact, Dogen talks about that in the Genjo Koan, which we... chant here every week. We'll chant the second half of it tomorrow, but we chanted it this morning. The one where he says, the paragraph where he says, if you sail out in... No, not that one. Not in the midst of an ocean. It's the other one about the boat. When you ride in a boat and watch the shore, you might assume that the shore is moving. But if you keep your eyes closely on the boat, you'll see that the boat moves. Got that? That makes sense, right? You're riding in a boat, you watch the shore, it looks like the shore is going by. But if you keep watching the boat, you see that the boat moves. Similarly, if you examine myriad things with a confused body and mind, you might suppose that your mind and body are permanent.

[08:38]

Your mind and nature are permanent. So if you're watching your crew or your crew head and you see what stupid things they're doing and you see all the mistakes that they're making, you might, mostly without even thinking about it, assume there's something over here that's solid. I mean, that's Mostly we don't think about it, but as we're going through life and watching the things around us, and again, I think mostly without sort of unconsciously or subconsciously, or anyway, not fully consciously, kind of trying to protect ourself, trying to make sure that everything is going in a way where life will work for me. So we're looking around, trying to see, is everything going okay?

[09:40]

Oh no, they just told me to chop the vegetables this way, and then they came and they told me that was the wrong way, and now it looks like I've done it wrong all this time. So we're sort of interpreting the world and everything that everybody's doing on how is it for this me, this solid me that's there, Again, we don't think of it that way, but there's this thing here which, if everything else was okay, if they would just get it right, would be okay. This thing would be better if all of these mistakes that I see out here weren't happening. When you practice intimately... and return to where you are, it will be clear that nothing at all has unchanging self.

[10:42]

So when we come back to when we're not distracted, I say distracted, from this study of the self, when we're not distracted, then we come back and we actually are intimate with where we are, with this... we have of this body and mind, it's clear. It's not solid. It's changing all the time. And so another reason to study the self is this last line. When we get really clear about that, when we actually have that as an experience that isn't just something we're reading in a book or we're talking to ourself about the, in a way, the depth of the changingness of our, what we call ourself. You know, the fact that you don't really know, like when you, if you go to sleep tonight, well, you don't know.

[11:52]

Are you going to go to sleep tonight? But if you go to sleep tonight, you don't know, like, what... you're going to wake up as tomorrow morning. You don't know what mood you're going to wake up in tomorrow morning. Things happen that even if nothing happens on the outside, even if you're just waking up, you don't really know who is that going to be tomorrow. You may be a person who normally wakes up in a good mood in the morning, but you can't really be sure of that. And then what if we have the wrong thing for breakfast? Is that the breakfast fault or the Tenzo's fault, or if suddenly you're either in a bad mood or you have a stomachache or any number of responses to whatever goes on tomorrow. Once we actually were there for that, like practicing intimately and see and feel that happening,

[12:56]

Then it's clear to us when we look around, oh, that's happening to everybody. That's happening. It's harder really to see, you know, like with solid things. It's harder for me anyway to see that they are changing. I sort of still have to like remember, oh, yeah, they're changing. I know they are. Over time, they're changing. But it's not that hard for me to see it with people because... People are showing us all the time. They're changing right before our eyes. Sometimes they act the same way a lot for a long time. But if you watch them closely, and if you have felt the... I mean, it could be called the... What do you call it? Insubstantibility? Is that the right word? Insubstantiability of things, of this thing.

[14:01]

In a way, the insubstantiability of it goes right along with its... Or let me say, since I don't seem to be able to say that word right, I'm not sure what other words to say with it. The unstuckness... Much easier. The unstuckness of this one in some ways goes right along... goes right along with its there-ness. The fact that it's changing, changing, changing, and yet is still there is a big relief to us once we get it. Before that, we feel like, I have to make it a certain way for it to be okay. I have to make it likable. I have to make it right. I have to make it skillful. I have to make it all these things. Or it won't, our feeling is like, or it won't be okay.

[15:04]

It will die in some way. But once we actually experience how much it's changing all the time, how much we can't really rely on it being a certain thing, it's obvious it's been that way all along. all along meaning for this life it's always been that way and it's here it is in its current changing state and I didn't really make it like that it got that way you know Buddhism says by dependent core rising by everything making it and there's some capacity really to relax a little bit to not feel like I need to be in control this whole thing and make sure that it's okay because there it is slowing along it and everything else constantly changing so this this intimate study that shows us that in some ways the thing we were most afraid of and are still most afraid of that that everything is out of control you know that this huge effort to

[16:25]

make my life into something is actually pretty much wasted effort. You know, it's not working, we're not in control. So when we practice intimately, we see, oh my gosh, it's like I can't even control my own emotions. I can't, there's almost nothing I can control, and yet it's slowing along. And that, meeting of our fear liberates us. It actually allows us to live our life as it's happening. So I there's this part of one of Dogen's, what are they called?

[17:31]

One of Dogen's things that he writes, Only a Buddha and a Buddha. The last part of it, which I really like, and I try to bring it into some lecture every summer, because that's when I lecture the most. But it's kind of weird, really. Dogen's fairly weird. And it's a little strange. And I'm sure that it relates to what I've just been saying. And I could go there. It's kind of like adding a poem at the end. It's more like a little story. So I could go there. But I also really like when you help me to make more sense. You know, like you have some question about what I've said that really doesn't make sense to you. And often the... corrections that come from that are very important. So I think I'm just going to stop for just a minute and see if anyone has anything that they want to bring up or ask about what I was just talking about. And then if there's time, I'll go on to this slightly weird Dogan-ness.

[18:35]

Does anyone have anything that they could help illuminate from what was just said? Yes, John? You talked about self. does no self fit in the equation? Well, my understanding is that, different ways of saying it, it's not that we don't have anything that we could call a self. We have a thing that we could call a self, but our sense of it's a thing, it's not. In comparison to that, it's no self. But it's more like... There's more like self, [...] self. There's no permanent self. Some kinds of Buddhism say there's no inherent self. There's no self that is there by itself, by itself, unaffected. But in fact, it's like a self that's being made all the time, coming apart in various ways.

[19:46]

still there in various ways, made, again, by dependent co-arising, which is, you know, to, I mean, I have scholars here. I'm nervous. What are you guys doing here, after all? I forgot you were going to be in the room. But nonetheless, here I am. You have to say something. So Linda will have her hand up. She'll help in just a minute. Anyway, so this, anyway. I forgot what I was going to say now that I... Yes? You quoted the study... What is it? It's to study the self, but how about quoting the next line? Yeah. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things, which is exactly the same thing, right? How the self is constantly made by everything, so it's obviously constantly changing. That's what you're pointing to, right? And this, you know, forget the self... I'm interested, because if you want to say what you think, but I've always thought that doesn't mean you're supposed to try to forget the self.

[20:55]

It's more like if you're really studying the self, you do forget what you thought was the self because you don't find it. You find, in fact, myriad things, making a new self and a new self. Was there another hand up? Yes. [...] Go together. I think it's essentially the same. I think it's the same form as emptiness. Emptiness is form, but We don't want to go there right now, so some other time maybe. But yeah, I think so, that this aliveness in a way, we could call it unstuckness, but another way of saying it is the aliveness of this self, but also everything interacting with each other is miraculous.

[22:14]

And so much. more alive than this imagination of what should and is happening. detail a little more about how that process of being more comfortable with that changing self can help us behave in a way that is more in line with our precepts, say if we're trying to be more patient, as opposed to being angry or snarky with our co-workers. How does that help us? Yeah. Well, I didn't say we shouldn't control him much. I said we discovered we couldn't.

[23:15]

So that doesn't mean that we don't have any impact on them, that our intention doesn't have any impact on it. It does. And things that we might do, like counting to 10, if one of our habitual ways of responding to things is to blow up, and if we can change that habit to counting to 10, that can be a quite useful thing. But this attempt to... make our emotions something else, I think just adds to the suffering that we're causing. We're like, we've decided this emotion is not okay to have, and then we do whatever probably has worked for us at some point to be safe, supposedly safe, but it doesn't work that well, right? So, you know, we, like, Like I said, I think we use whatever we've got to try to be safe in the world.

[24:22]

So if we're smart, sometimes we use, you know, like somebody says something we don't like and we, you know, we tell them very cleverly how it should be. If we are big and have a temper, we can use our temper, right? Even if we're small and we have a temper. We can use our temper to be safe, which in a way means be isolated. If we don't have so much of a temper, or our emotions are not quite as strong, and we have the capacity to be nice, we can use be nice to protect ourselves. But there's a kind of shrinkiness... holding in this, you know, graspiness, contractiness to that, that's still trying to be safe, really.

[25:24]

So I think finding out, like actually being there with what's happening, and I'll say it this way, finding out whether that's okay, whether that fits in this world that is moving and not stuck and... is meeting our fear that I'm not okay. And I think my fear that I'm not okay is the main thing that leads me to create more suffering for myself and others. So if I find out that somehow this emotion is accurate, you know, that it fits, there still are ways of having that emotion that might cause more harm. But I think a lot of the time the way comes from actually not being able to have the emotion. Like if, I don't know, pick any example.

[26:26]

If someone says something that hurts me and I don't, if I'm not willing or not able even to have that hurt, then the things that I do to get away from that hurt usually cause more harm. Okay, anything else? You might have to do without this Dogen-ish thing. Okay, you want to hear it? It's kind of long, but it's kind of great. Okay. There has been a saying since olden times. No one except a fish knows a fish's heart. No one except a bird follows a bird's trace. See, Dogen seems to be such a poet in this.

[27:27]

It's like he takes total, what I would call, poetic license. Anyway, yet those who really understand this principle are rare. To think that no one understands a fish's heart or bird's trace is mistaken. You should know that fish always know one another's hearts, unlike people who do not know one another's hearts. But when fish try to go through the Dragon Gate, which is some waterfalls or something at the end of the Yang River, one of those rivers in China, and after that they become dragons. Anyway, they go up the river through the nine bends, and then they turn into dragons. When they're doing that, that's kind of like the salmon who go up the rivers and have babies turn into dragons.

[28:29]

But when fish try to go through the dragon gate, they know one another's intention and have the same heart. or they share the heart of breaking through the nine great bends. Those who are not fish hardly know this. Now it gets even stranger with birds. I mean, how does he know these things, right? But he says it like he knows it, and why not? Again, when a bird flies in the sky, beasts do not even dream of finding or following their trace. As they do not know that there is such a thing, they cannot even imagine this. However, a bird can see traces of other birds. They can see traces of hundreds and thousands of small birds flying in flocks, or traces of so many lines of large birds having flown south or north.

[29:32]

Those traces may be even more evident than carriage tracks left on the road or footprints of a horse seen in the grass. In this way, a bird sees a bird's trace. What is he talking about? And why is he telling us this? I wonder. Anyway, then, Buddhas are like this. So Buddhas, you know, Buddhas are people who are... aware of, who actually notice that they are connected to everything, that they're part of everything. They notice that they are not separate. So normal people, which most of us are most of the time, think that I'm a separate self. That's how we experience the world. Buddhas are people who have noticed and

[30:36]

They're actually Buddhas at the time that they notice that they're not separate. So Buddhas are like this. You may wonder how many lifetimes Buddhas have been practicing. Buddhas, large or small, although they are countless, all know their traces. You never know a Buddhist trace when you are not a Buddha. All who do not know... So that might be us, right? Buddhas all know that when they look around, they see other Buddhas. When Buddhas look around, they see other Buddhas, and they see, oh, these Buddhas are all connected, and how long have they been practicing? Eons and eons and eons. So when they look around, they just see that. If you're not a Buddha, you won't be able to see that. All who do not know, who might be us most of the time, when we look around, we're like, I don't know, is that person even practicing right now, let alone how long have they been practicing?

[31:45]

And if they are practicing, why aren't they doing it better? And maybe not a Buddha. All who do not know should search out the trace of the Buddha's path. So I actually... See this as study the self. Like, look for where is... What's here? Maybe better, because we have such strong imaginations, is not where is the Buddha in me. It's not like, here, is this the Buddha? It's like, what is it? What's here? What's here? Is this... Can I be open-hearted with this? It might be called searching for the Buddha's path. All who do not know should search out the trace of the Buddha's path. If you find footprints, you should investigate whether they are the Buddha's.

[32:51]

So footprints, I would call actually anything. If you're searching for the Buddha's path... Anything, anything you experience, and especially if you're studying the self, anything that arises in you, you can ask, is this a Buddha's footprint? Is there some way that this is a Buddha's footprint? Or what is this? One way that I say it, and it's not quite right, but it feels right. is is this okay if something arises in me is because so often something that arises in us it feels like it's not okay or it might feel like it definitely is okay in a kind of comparative way like better than that but if something arises in it in us and let's say we have a feeling like i don't know if that's okay this doesn't or this doesn't feel so good to me to see that as a footprint

[34:02]

that we're following, and have this question, could this be okay? Or in a way, like, what is this? But not, what is it? Like, I'm going to come up with the description of it, but more curiosity, openness about it. To investigate whether they are the Buddhas. That's this, whether they are, whether they fit in with everything, whether they're connected to everything. On being investigated, the Buddha's trace is known. So how to find whether this part of myself that feels like it might not be okay is actually Buddha, to investigate it is the way to find out. To illuminate your trace is accomplished by studying Buddha's trace. Okay, sure, it's probably time to... Yes, it is. Okay, I hope you enjoyed that.

[35:04]

That's at the end of Only a Buddha and a Buddha, in case you want to go and read it yourself. 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.

[35:36]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_94.72