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. Welcome to the children. It's hard to tell who the children are and who the who the older people are. I see we have actually a child Zen priest here. How wonderful. It's great. And welcome to the adults. Somebody gave me a T-shirt I wanted to show you. Can you read it?

[01:16]

It says Green Gulch Farm. Do you kids know this place is called Green Gulch? Did you know that? So your parents brought you to Green Gulch. This is called Green Gulch, this valley. And we have a farm here, so we say Green Gulch Farm. And we also say Green Gulch Garden. So we have a garden... And a farm. And then it also says, Green Dragon Temple. Green Dragon Temple. And on the front it says, We Grow Incredibles. Is there a movie called The Incredibles? Is that what it's called? Those superheroes? Is that what they're called, the Incredibles? Some of them can stretch and so on.

[02:17]

We grow Incredibles here. But also we grow edibles. The green parts, the edibles. So this is a farm and a garden where we grow, we try to grow really happy vegetables and flowers and fruits and herbs to help people. And also, it's a temple. And temple is kind of like a school. So in this temple, we try to learn things. We try to grow people of a certain type. And it's called Green Dragon Temple. So I brought a dragon staff.

[03:19]

Can you see the dragon? Can you see the horns? This is a dragon staff. Can you see the dragon? This is a very friendly dragon. This dragon makes everybody peaceful and happy. And also, we have outside, over there in the tree, we have a big dragon bell. The bell is a dragon shape. On the top of the bell is a dragon head like this. You can go out and see the dragon head. I think maybe two dragon heads with two sets of horns and two sets of eyes. And 100, it's a mommy dragon. So it has nipples to feed the baby dragons. And there's 108 nipples.

[04:22]

And then at the bottom of the bell are the dragon's toes. So we ring the bell. We ring the dragon bell in the temple to help us learn something. What are we trying to learn in the temple, in the dragon temple? We're trying to learn to be kind, to be gentle, to be peaceful, to help others.

[05:27]

We're trying to learn that together. We're trying to learn to be kind and gentle to our babies. You know how to be gentle with babies? Do you ever see any babies and your mommy say, be gentle with the baby? We learn to talk gently. We don't necessarily know right away how to talk gently. We know how to scream. Babies can scream. But we have to teach children and adults to speak gently and sweetly. We have to learn that. So we learn This temple is to learn to be kind and gentle with babies, and then also kind and gentle with our brothers and sisters, and kind and gentle with our parents, and kind and gentle and peaceful with our friends.

[06:36]

We have a school to learn that, so we call it a temple. And we also not just practice kindness to other humans, but we try to learn to practice kindness towards animals, towards dogs, cats. And we have some dogs and cats here. And people here are quite kind to the dogs and cats. But we also have rats here and mice. And skunks. You know what a skunk is? If you're not kind to the skunks, they get scared. And when they get scared, they send out a chemical that smells very bad. So people are generally, if they know about skunks, they are gentle with them.

[07:41]

And so... That's easy, and easy to dogs and cats, too, maybe. But rats are maybe harder to be gentle, too. And we also have deer and mountain lions and bobcats. So we try to be kind to all those animals and the birds. And then also, the farm is a place where we particularly practice being kind to the land. Also, we try to be kind to the hills and the water and the sky and the ocean. We try to be kind to all the animals and the land. And then we plant, we put seeds into the earth, into the soil, and then when the seeds are big enough, We transplant them into the field to grow vegetables that are grown with kindness and gentleness and attention.

[08:51]

We pay attention to them. And then they grow up to be very friendly, helpful plants so that we can eat them and be healthy. So we try to learn here how to be kind to all humans, all animals, all plants, the earth... the water, the sky, and fire. We try to learn that here. And we also practice patience with how slow we are to learn sometimes. So one little example of learning to be helpful is a story about acrobats. Acrobats are people who can like stand on their heads, stand on their hands, do flips and things like that.

[09:57]

Various physical tricks or performances. So one acrobat was a man acrobat and his daughter. So the man was bigger than his daughter. And the trick that they did was that the father acrobat would take a big pole, I think, and put it up on top of his maybe chin or on top of his head. Some people are scared that I'm going to drop this dragon. Especially the people who have made donations to repair the statue behind me.

[11:03]

See, I'm trying to be careful. I'm practicing being careful of this tall pole. And then... When the father acrobat held this pole up, his daughter climbed up on his shoulders and then climbed up to the top of the pole. That was their acrobatic performance that they did. And the father said to his daughter, His daughter had a funny name. His daughter's name was Frying Pan. Do you know what a frying pan is? It's a pan that you like fry things in like eggs. Her name was Frying Pan. I don't know why. Does anybody hear a name Frying Pan? You are? Hi. Anyway, so Frying Pan said to her father,

[12:07]

Honored teacher. She was respectful to her father. She was kind to her father. She said, father, oh no, the father said to the daughter, now daughter, frying pan, you take care of me and I'll take care of you and we'll be able to do this feat. And the daughter says, excuse me, father, but I think you have it turned around. you take care of yourself, you be peaceful with yourself, I'll be peaceful with myself, and then we can do this together. And the Buddha comments on this story and says, the daughter is right. First you take care of yourself, and then you'll be able to take care of others. And the Buddha said, how do you take care of yourself so that you can take care of others?

[13:14]

You practice mindfulness of your body. You pay attention to your body. You're careful with your body. You're careful with your thoughts. You're careful with your feelings. Then, when you take care of yourself that way, then you can take care of others. That was the teaching about how to learn to help others by paying attention to your own body and your own mind and feelings. And I'd like to tell you some more stories, but it's getting late and you kids probably want to go learn something else. So I thank you very much for listening to the stories of Green Gulch. Garden. Green Gulch Farm, Green Gulch Temple, the Dragon Temple. Thank you very much.

[14:16]

One of the things I didn't say to the children, which would have been good, was this temple, this school, offers the opportunity to learn to listen. So part of... What we want to learn to do here is listen. Listen to ourselves. Listen to our body. Listen to others. Listen to our parents. Listen to our children. Listen to our students. Listen to our teachers. This is part of what we're trying to learn here. of what we wish to offer the opportunity to learn learn to be good friends with all beings and specifically learn how to free all beings so they may dwell in peace

[16:57]

free all beings from suffering and misery and distress. question arose, how do we help all beings, including ourselves, become free of misery? One response, I don't mean to answer the question, but one response that might come is by intimately communicating

[18:10]

with suffering and misery by intimately communicating with it or in the intimate conversation with suffering and distress in that intimate conversation there is a guide for all beings and in that intimate conversation is the realization of the freedom from all misery. So it seems appropriate then for us to learn how to be intimate with the place, with the realm of suffering. To learn about the realm so we can be intimate with it.

[19:12]

to be kind in that realm so we can be intimate with it. There isn't exactly a first or second about whether you start by learning about the field of suffering first, whether you learn about it, or whether you learn how to be kind within it. They kind of go hand in hand. Is that clear? You have this field of stress, so you can both practice kindness with it, gentleness with it, patience with it, carefulness with it, generosity with it. You can do those practices, and they will help us be intimate with it. And you can also... learn and listen to teachings about how the realm of suffering works.

[20:20]

That also helps. Like, again, in the farm and garden and on taking care of the land, we learn about the plants, we learn about the soil, but then we also practice kindness towards it. So part of it is practical and part of it is theoretical. There's some theory about the realm of suffering. And then we practice compassion together with the theory. So again, the compassion is all the things in the realm of suffering to be kind to them, which involves generosity, ethical carefulness, patience, diligence. and developing a tranquil, undistracted, flexible awareness. Those practices of compassion get us ready to enter into intimacy with that realm.

[21:29]

But theory also may be helpful. So, here's some theory. In English, we're struggling with what words to use to describe this realm. And so we have words like mind, awareness, consciousness, unconsciousness, or consciousness and the unconscious. We have different words like that to try to help us study the realm of suffering. So I would suggest for this conversation that we have a word for mind or cognition. Did I say cognition before? Mind or cognition or awareness, that I would like to use them interchangeably as general terms.

[22:36]

In other words, there's many kinds of cognition. many types of awareness and many kinds of mind. So I may use those three, mind, awareness, and cognition interchangeably. And they have varieties. So one of the varieties of cognition is what I would call consciousness. Another variety of cognition is unconscious cognition. And I propose that... I mean, I tell you the theory that human beings have a lot... A living human being, whether asleep or awake, has a virtually inconceivably rich...

[23:39]

unconscious cognitive function. For example, I'm speaking English to you right now, and it's in consciousness that I'm thinking I speak English. And in consciousness, I think I'm here looking at you, and I think that I think. And I think that I speak English. And the place where I'm doing this kind of thinking I would call consciousness. It's also called karmic consciousness. In this realm of awareness where there's a point of view which an eye has or which I have, there's action. I mean, in other words, action appears. And some of it seems like it's mine, and some of it seems like it's yours. This is the realm that I would call conscious cognition.

[24:45]

But my ability to speak English doesn't come from my conscious efforts to speak English. I cannot consciously figure out how to speak English. I am not consciously figuring out how to move this tongue in the ways that are necessary to speak English, which without... Well, I do have an accent. The way I speak English, I do not know consciously how to do it, but it's happening. There is, as I said, a very rich unconscious cognitive process which supports this amazing thing called speaking English. And another amazing thing is the way I'm moving my hands. I can see I'm moving my hands, but I could not consciously figure out how to do this with my hands. Like, I'm going to put my hand up, but the way it went up, I did not figure that out. But conscious cognitive processes made that possible. Like, for example, when Glenn Gould or Arthur Rubenstein played the piano, they were not consciously figuring out and instructing their fingers to do those pieces.

[25:57]

That performance comes from a place where you can act much faster and much more richly than any conscious intention could do. Like they say, well, I think I'd like to perform this piece, and they watch themselves perform it in consciousness, and they're happy about it, maybe. Maybe they feel like, they might say, uh-oh, stop thinking. Don't get your mind in the way. Because this is not coming, these performances do not come from conscious control. But some things do. So we've got a consciousness. And it's in the realm of consciousness where we are... What's the word? Where we have birth and death. Gain and loss. Self and others. And in consciousness, it actually looks like other people are separate from us.

[26:59]

And it looks like gain and loss are separate. And birth and death are separate. And when we see separation and it looks real, and we believe it, there's stress. When we see someone, when I see you, I see appearances of you. my cognitive unconscious processes which are taking in the data of you to me they support a consciousness which makes you into an appearance but the appearance of you is not you it's just the way you appear in consciousness but there's a subliminal sign underneath the appearance of you which says this is real but I don't see that it's a sign But I read the sign, I say, that's really the way he is.

[28:02]

Which is not true. Conscious processes are misleading a lot of the time. But it's there that we learn English and learn the teachings about mind. It's there that we learn to be kind to suffering so that we can be intimate. It's there... that we learn the teaching that intimacy with self-suffering, that in intimate conversation, the intimate communion with suffering, in that intimacy, suffering is relieved. And we are guided along the path of liberating all beings so they may dwell in peace. I cannot consciously figure out how to liberate beings. I can think of ways to do it. For example, I might think, this is the way to liberate some being.

[29:08]

I have that thought. But that thought doesn't liberate beings. Intimacy with that thought liberates beings. And that intimacy with consciousness. I'm proposing to you the theory that consciousness is a type of cognition. Another type of cognition is unconscious cognition. And unconscious cognition is intimately related to the body, to the nervous system. Conscious cognition, unconscious cognition in the body. And there's another kind of cognition which is sometimes called Buddha cognition. Buddha cognition is intimacy with the other two kinds of cognition and the body. Intimacy with the body, which is promoted by mindfulness of our conscious sense of our body.

[30:16]

The way the body appears in consciousness is not the body, it's an appearance of the body. But we need to be to the appearance of the body in order to realize intimacy with the appearance of the body and by realizing intimacy with the appearance of the body we start we become intimate with the cognitive processes which live with the body and thereby we become intimate with the body the cognitive unconscious and the conscious so the Conscious cognition, unconscious cognition, and the body all join in this process of compassion, all join in this process of becoming intimate. And they change together in this intimacy. And this intimacy of all these realms, physical, cognitive, unconscious, very close to the physical, and consciousness,

[31:28]

conscious cognition, the intimacy of all those is Buddha cognition, is Buddha awareness, is Buddha mind. It doesn't do anything to consciousness. It doesn't do anything to the unconscious cognition. It doesn't do anything to the body. Other than one little thing it does, It doesn't do anything to these realms of body and cognition. It doesn't do anything to them. It is the liberation of them. It is their freedom. The Buddha mind doesn't come and free beings from suffering. It doesn't come and it doesn't go. It is their intimacy. It's the way we already are. we already are intimate with our consciousness we already are intimate with our unconscious cognitive processes we are already intimate with our body this is our life this intimacy and this intimacy which we already are which is already our life this is also called Buddha mind and this intimacy which we already are is

[32:56]

the liberation of all beings. And conscious beings might say, how can an awareness liberate all beings? The awareness doesn't liberate all beings. The awareness is the liberation of all beings. This awareness is already our life. Our life is already liberated. We are actually alive. And not halfway, but completely. But because we don't yet practice and realize this intimacy, we don't realize it. So the last few talks I've given here, and this year we seem to be emphasizing a song.

[34:09]

It could be called the Samadhi song. It's a song that comes out of a Samadhi. A Samadhi is a type of awareness. It's a type of cognition. A concentrated, undistracted, tranquil, flexible state of awareness. It's a song that comes from this kind of awareness. And it's a song about the liberation of all beings. It starts out like this. The teaching of suchness is intimately entrusted by Buddhas and ancestors. Now you have it. So take care of it. The teaching of suchness, and then the translation says, which is intimately, or the teaching of suchness is intimately communicated by Buddhas and ancestors.

[35:20]

But you could also say, these by and to and from, you can drop them and you can also say, teaching of suchness, which liberates all beings. Intimate entrustment. which liberates all beings, Buddhas and ancestors, which is the liberation of all beings. Or rather, I take it, teaching of suchness is liberation of all beings. It's not that it liberates. The teaching of suchness is the liberation of all beings. Intimate communion is the liberation of all beings. Buddhas and ancestors is the liberation of all beings. And now you and I have this intimate, communion. We have this teaching of suchness. We have the Buddhism ancestors. What are the Buddhism ancestors? They are the way we are liberated. They are the way we are enlightened. The intimacy of all these cognitive and physical realms is already the case according to this theory.

[36:32]

in order to realize this theory, we have to practice. So we have to be kind, not have to be kind. We need to be kind to all these cognitive realms. And being kind in consciousness is also... When we're kind in consciousness, when we're kind to the appearances in consciousness, when we're kind to the appearance of other people, when we're kind to the appearance of ourself like when you look in the mirror when you're kind to that appearance before you try to make it look different don't miss the chance to be kind to that appearance aw aw hi you can do that can't you hi hi hi young lady Hi, older lady.

[37:35]

I love you. You can do that before you say, maybe I could get a neck job. I know somebody's thinking getting a neck job. I'm not against neck jobs. I just hope that before you have a neck job, you're kind to your neck. Because if you're not kind to your neck and you get a neck job, then... If you're not kind, you're not going to be intimate with your neck. You've got to be kind to be intimate. You've got to practice kindness to realize intimacy with your neck. And if you realize the intimacy with your neck, or the intimacy, actually, of the neck, which actually belongs to everybody who's intimate with your neck, then that's where there is a guide for not just you, in what you do, but that's a guide for all beings. So again, the English sentence that we chant is, the teaching of suchness is intimately communicated

[39:00]

Okay? That's, I think, what it says. The teaching of suchness. Has been, even. So has been, is. Has been intimately communicated. And is intimately communicated. Right? But I'm suggesting not to change the translation, to leave it, but understand the teaching of suchness is intimate communication. The teaching of suchness is is intimate communicating. And then it says, by Buddhists and ancestors, how about the teaching of suchness, which is the liberation of all beings, is intimate conversation, which is Buddhists and ancestors. Buddhists and ancestors' job is intimate entrustment. That's their job, but they're nothing but their job.

[40:06]

It's not like our Buddhist ancestors and their job. They're just their job. What's their job? Intimate communion. That's their job. They are just their job. So teaching of suchness equals intimate communication, intimate conversation, intimate entrustment equals Buddhism ancestors. And all three of those equal. the liberation of all beings. All three of those are the guide of the way to live together with all beings. And the way to enter this intimate communion is the same as the way to enter the teaching of suchness, is the same way to enter the Buddhism ancestors, is the way to enter the liberation the liberation of all beings. That's theory.

[41:09]

That's a theory about the mind, and it's a theory about practice. And what do you think? Is that enough? Is that enough? Yeah. Enough? Is that enough? OK. For those people for whom it's not enough, come to question and answer. And I'll tell you some stories about intimate communication from our life. Okay? And please, those who don't think it's enough, please forgive me for being this way. 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.

[42:11]

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

[42:23]

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