Let me start by offering a warm welcome to all of you, old hands and new. Welcome to the San Francisco Zen Center. My name is Jordan Thorn, and it's my privilege, my challenge, to speak with you all today. So here I go. I want to start by asking all of us here, what brings us to this room today?

[01:01]

What brings us to this place, this wood hall snuggled into the western edition of San Francisco? What process, mysterious processes, active in all of our lives to bring us together today, at this spot, in this room? What understanding do we think we might gain by being here today? God forbid, what teaching do we might think we could express by being here in this room with all of us? So I want to try to talk about how I understand these questions. these things and the first thing I want to say is that we are all here together today because we are all of us bodhisattvas enlightenment beings we are all of us persons who are practicing the way of waking up the way of liberation whether we know it or not

[02:19]

this is really so. This is who we are. And this certain feeling I have, this certainty that all of us together in this room have aroused the thought of waking up, this is the background. This is a kind of a background a necessary background to our practice of Zen, to the practice of Buddhism, to our effort to live a full life. And in order to better understand this effort to live a full life, to how to go about it, I want today to talk about Zazen, about the central practice of meditation which we engage in as part of our Zen practice, as part of our Buddhist life.

[03:38]

I want to talk about Zazen, which is a gift that we all are given when we visit a Zen center. And one of the first things I want to say about this thing called Zazen, this thing called Zen meditation, is that we don't practice Zazen, we don't sit meditation, in order to realize a state of mind which is special. We train ourselves in the practice of sitting. We train ourselves in order to wake up and recognize the world that's already around us. Not to change the world, but to be with it. So that we can see the way things really are. And

[04:50]

As part of my talking about Zazen, I also have to say that in our Zen practice, we don't just focus on things which might seem... We don't put all of our eggs in the basket that might appear to be a spiritual one. We don't just measure ourselves by how we do when we go to the Zendo. to the meditation hall. Don't just focus on these things because Zazen or meditation in our Zen heartfelt way is first of all nothing more than the experience of living every moment of our life. This right now we are all doing Zazen together and me as I speak with you I am practicing sitting In the present moment.

[05:51]

And you are as well. And one of the things that this means, this understanding that I tried to express just then, one of the things this means is that in a very real way, the time we spend in our everyday life, at work, outside of the meditation hall, is just as important for our practice and our awakening effort as the time we spend in the Zen Do. And this spirit or attitude of a non-dual approach to what Zazen is, kind of at least a stab at a non-dual approach, this is really a deep foundation of Zen. a deep foundation of Buddhism.

[06:56]

And I think this big view is the way to understand what it is to try to make an effort to practice Zazen. But also, I feel that I want to say some things a bit more specific and particular about Zazen. because I don't know, in this room, some of you are old hands at it, and some of you perhaps are just hearing these words for the first time. So I want to say something not so non-dual, something a little bit more particular about sitting meditation. And I want to apologize just a tiny bit ahead of time for in some way diminishing the... for somehow diminishing zazen by giving it a more narrow form or shape, but maybe this is useful.

[07:57]

So let me say also that zazen, sitting meditation, is a physical and a mental practice where our bodily posture is held carefully while our mind is directed carefully. initially towards following the breath, and then maybe later simply more towards being alert without a particular focus. There's many ways to talk about Zazan, but this is one way. And in this one way of sitting Zazan, of practicing Zazan, when our attention lags, when our mind rips, when our attention becomes diffused and maybe even... full of discursive thoughts. At that moment, we return to the simple fact of our breath.

[08:59]

We come back to the simple fact of our posture, the simple fact of the space, the room we're in. In practicing zazen, one of the things that happens is that we over and over and over and over come back to the present moment, which we might think for somehow that we've left. We come back over and over to the present moment. And by practicing zazen in this way, we have the opportunity, we have the chance to learn how to do just one thing completely. That one thing might be different things at different times. But we learn how to meet with a complete embrace the activity of that moment, which might be following our breath. It might be making dinner. And from this effort to learn how to do one thing completely, the rest of our life can be changed.

[10:12]

The rest of our life actually is changed. From this simplicity of only trying to be just with what you are doing at that instant, there comes an inexhaustible, a really deep depth. Picking up a a grain of sand we might see that we're picking up the whole universe. Which we are. And we aren't. Meeting just one person with our best effort of concentration and immediacy is meeting everybody with that best effort. And this effort, this commitment to practice the Dharma of doing one thing completely opens the door of our life to a really large space in our heart.

[11:37]

But this large space that we can open up in our heart is not a gift for us to keep. It's not something that we We diminish it immediately if we believe that it's ours. Because if we really care for the people around us, if we really care for our friends, and even those people who we haven't yet realized are our friends, well, we also have to help them find that large space. One way I feel to describe this is that in order to realize a lovely intimacy with others, we need to start by creating a lovely distance, a lovely space. And this space, this distance, is so that they can be really who they are, not who we want them to be, but who they are, which will often surprise us.

[12:52]

in many ways. So, it's one of the paradoxical, perhaps paradoxical, truths about Zazen and the mind that we connect with in Zazen that this very large space is found in the very smallest parts of our attention, in the very smallest moments of our breathing, in the tiniest contact of our thumbs together with our mudra. In many tiny little places, this is where we can enter into And once upon a time, many years ago, in a place called China, there was a Zen ancestor named Gu Ke.

[14:21]

This is a fairly well-known story in Zen. Excuse me for those of you. who've heard it before, but there was a Zen ancestor named Bhute. And when he was a young student of Zen, he lived in a training center and spent his time meditating and chanting the Lotus Sutra. And one day he had the good fortune to meet a nun who asked him if he would tell her a word of Zen, if he would open up to her, or what it meant to practice Zen. And in the face of her request, in the face of her question, he actually couldn't think of what to say. Which is a kind of integrity, to acknowledge that you don't have something to say.

[15:27]

After the exchange, she left. And he stood in this. He continued to reflect on his inability to offer a helpful word, a helpful phrase. Having spent so much time in, already believed, having spent so much time in meditation and study, thought he should have done better. So sometime afterwards, another Zen, teacher named Tenryu paid Gute a visit and Gute asked Tenryu to teach him how to understand Zen. He explained the nun's question and asked if Tenryu had anything helpful to say to him. And in response to this question, Tenryu held up One finger.

[16:33]

Held up his finger. And once upon a time in a place called China, the story says at that moment, Gute woke up. I wonder. From that point on, Gute, whenever he was asked a question about the Dharma, he held his finger up in reply. It must have been a very convincing finger because over time a community gathered around him. And he had a young attendant who, as so often happens, had no original idea of his own and so used his teacher's gesture to answer questions. This young attendant would people would ask him, what is the teaching of Gute?

[17:38]

And this young boy would hold up his finger like this. And Gute heard about this. So he called him in to visit. Once upon a time in a place called China, when this young boy came to visit his teacher, Hu Te, grabbed the boy's hand and chopped off the finger. That's what it says. He screamed. Sued. Flight followed. Rushing out the door, holding his hands, Bhute called out to the young boy who turned.

[18:44]

Bhute held up his finger to the boy. And the story says, at that moment, the young boy woke up. What would this waking up be? When Gutte later on passed away from old age, he gathered his students around him and he said, I attained my one-finger Zen from my teacher Tenryu, and in my whole life I could not exhaust it. Whenever Master Kutte was asked a question, he would just hold up one finger. Over and over. Answering questions by holding up one finger. On some level, you know, I think this isn't really adequate.

[19:49]

We need more guidance, it seems. But on another level, Gute's one finger held up is like a hammer striking emptiness. And, you know, no one can answer the question of your life like you can. So in Zen practice, in this tradition, we honor here at this San Francisco Zen Center. In Zen practice, the teaching is sometimes kind of redundant. Gute's finger is raised over and over. The Han sounds calling us to Zazan over and over. Our body is firmly planted on the cushion over and over. And what makes

[20:59]

These repetitive actions transform from staleness into freshness is when we ourselves settle into the place we already are. Shakyamuni Buddha, the first Zen ancestor, when Shakyamuni Buddha was sitting in meditation under the bow tree, in the days before his great enlightenment, he struggled. He had doubts. He was tormented by skepticism and what might even be called almost demons.

[22:09]

And it's, I think, an important teaching for us to realize that at no point did Chachamuni have to get up from his cushion and go research some topic or get some additional information. Everything he needed for his profound experience of waking up was contained already where he sat. And this is true for all of us as well. tricky because I don't want to say that we have everything we need. That would maybe be too strong to phrase it, but also we have everything we need. In the midst of what I believe is the true statement to say that right here, where we each of us sit, is sufficient.

[23:45]

At the same time, I want to say, I think it's important to say that our life needs a deep vow. It needs a commitment to wholesome action. It needs a deep vow in order become complete. And the reason that sitting zazen, the practice of Zen meditation is satisfying, is the same reason that it's difficult. Because in zazen and in our life, there really is nowhere to hide. In the process of sitting down and facing the wall, if that's the way Zazen might look, in this process, we can see clearly that there's nobody but ourselves that's ruining our day.

[24:55]

And at the same time, I think that we don't even know that this effort is succeeding in order for it to succeed. Succeed. What would that be? What is this success? In this world, this Saha world that we live in, where there are millions and billions of people, some of them happy and healthy and some of them sad and sick every possible in-between place in this world this enormous world a beautiful world with trucks and birds I can feel I feel confident in saying that there is something true in common shared

[26:05]

by nearly every single person. Which is that for me, maybe for you, maybe for all of us, the process, this fact of being alive, it brings with it also something that might be seen as, be felt as It might be a gross pain, like a toothache. But more commonly also, and also more trickily, it's the pain that we might experience when evasive flowers slowly wilts. Or when our children leave home and we're not sure exactly how to do it. And this sort of experience is enshrined in the Buddhist Dharma as the first noble truth of dukkha, of impermanence.

[27:25]

And this truth of impermanence is something that beautiful fall afternoon does not negate. It's true even when we have a smile on our face. So Buddhism is a teaching. The way of life is a teaching that's founded on awakening. But it also includes the fact of our delusion. And Zen is a practice that trains us, maybe that helps us, to walk the line between delusion and enlightenment. And in this walking, if we do it completely, we might understand, we might have the experience that our own very mind, our own very mind, is naturally Buddha's mind.

[28:43]

which is something that the great master Matsu, a sort of perhaps friend of Gute, a compatriot of Gute, Matsu said, this very mind is Buddha. Zen practice is actually quite pragmatic, or can be. it's not so much a teaching about purity, but rather how to live a helpful life in the midst of the muck of events. And each of us carry with us a different sort of compost pile. So we all are going to find a different path to understanding the problem that we feel is our problem

[29:45]

But amidst these different solutions, given the different causes and conditions that we all have as our source, amongst these different truths of you and me and her and us, One starting point for our path might be to see that we live so much of the time in a kind of a daydream. Not all of us all the time, but many of us much of the time. We live in a daydream that we imagine to be so all-compelling and powerful that we take it as our solace.

[31:07]

We take it as our kind of like... We take it as just what we need in order to get through the day. And this is one of the things that we learn about when we practice zazen. When we practice meditation, we learn about how strong that impulse for us to not be present is. We might even be shocked to realize how much concentrated energy and almost like muscular attention needed break through and stop the daydream and then that's just for good for that moment because next instant it's back One day, during a period of Zazen, San Francisco Zen Center's founder, Suzuki Roshi, spoke out loud to the assembly and he said, it doesn't get better later.

[32:45]

And this is a powerful example. This is like when Matsu says, this very mind is Buddha. Matsu didn't mean that our special, occasional, unique, concentrated mind is Buddha. He said, this very mind is Buddha. On another day, Suzuki Roshi, at another time, he said, the assembly in its widest sense widest sense everything is a teaching for us the color of the mountain the sound of the river or the sound of a motor car each one is a teaching of Buddha and then on another occasion he said

[33:55]

People don't know how selfish they are. When we finally learn to trust our situation When we finally learn to trust our intention, then we see that the problems of our life are not really just problems, but they're opportunities. But this is not always such an easy thing to remember. As Thomas Burton once said, when we are afraid of the names we might call each other,

[34:58]

if we dared to be honest, when we're afraid of the names we might call each other, if we dared to be honest, end of quote. When we're in that place, then I think we're not really honoring our intention to wake up. Because one of the, in a very real way, our biggest challenge is to treat the people who we know well with respect. to treat them with appreciation. Because it's not just our task in this Zen practice, whatever, to realize our own Buddha nature. We also need to help others. Our fulfillment is found in the effort to encourage others and then to be encouraged by others. The one step in this path is to see, to know, that everyone we meet is on the same path as we are.

[36:07]

More than we perhaps realize it, our friends need our support. And more than we perhaps realize it, we need the support of our friends. in order to continue on this effort, this path of waking up. At first, when we come to a place like San Francisco Zen Center, if we take advantage of what it offers, we might follow the schedule of practice.

[37:24]

And maybe we do this because we're training ourself, because we're improving ourself, because we're helping ourself. And then later, perhaps, maybe, after some years of doing this, we might follow the schedule because we realize that this is the best way for us to express ourself to manifest ourself and from the outside these two ways don't look so different and from the inside they don't even seem so different and they really aren't because even as we express ourself through tending to the schedule, we're further training ourselves. And there's no end to this. So, Zazen begins with a simple moment.

[38:32]

We sit down, turn around, we face the wall. we face the person that we are. And this can be an embarrassing moment. This can be a moment of revelation. It can be a moment of bliss. I wonder what's the real difference between these the moments I described. Thank you very much.

[39:32]

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