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 morning. Welcome to Green Gulch. So I'm going to start this morning with a story that's kind of one of the most popular ones here on the farm. It's called Ditsang. planting the fields. Di San asked Zui San, where do you come from? Zui San said, from the south. Di San said, how is Buddhism in the south these days? Zui San said, there is extensive discussion. Di San said, well, how can that compare to me here, planting the fields and making rice to eat? Zui San said, what can you do about the world? And Ditsan said, what do you call the world?

[01:03]

So I would very much like to offer something to you all this morning that is relevant to the world that we are living in right now. A world from where I'm standing appears to be on fire. And what's more, appears to be running out of water. If that weren't enough, there's also, as we all know, this global pandemic. There's a deepening awareness of racial injustice, record heat waves, violence of every kind, and the not infrequent news of giant asteroids whizzing close by the earth. And yet while all of that is so, what's also so is I live in a world, albeit a rather tiny one, on the foggy coast of California where there are people who are sitting quietly together. planting the fields, baking bread, and studying the Buddhist teaching, while at the same time, all the while, trying our best to be friends to one another.

[02:07]

You know, it's not so easy. And yet these people and I are willing to offer the merit of our activities to the well-being of what we wish would be the world, you know, Buddha's world, a dream that is trying to dream us. So in this conversation between Ditsan and his visitor from the South, I am including in my talk today these two points of view of our one world. You know, there's on the one side, kind of like a cry to the heavens, you know, or a prayer to the Bodhisattva of compassion, you know, please, please help us. Please help us. And then on the other side, there's a glimmer of optimism, you know, a feeling that maybe things will improve. Maybe there will be enough rice to eat, enough medicine, enough housing. If only. If only means to me that there are conditions on what it will take for us to make of this world the Buddha's world.

[03:14]

A place that we would be peaceful for all the beings that live in it. The human and the more than human, as Wendy Johnson loves to say. If only we can awaken from our ignorance. If only we could do more than wish for things to be different than they are. If only we would stop hating and hurting one another. If only we weren't afraid of aging and sickness and death, you know, and so on and so on. So the Buddha was a teacher of gods and humans, so the sutras tell us, you know. And what he taught them were some simple and practical methods for freeing themselves and by extension, the entire world from suffering. Those methods were then passed down generation after generation over thousands of miles by those that we call Buddha ancestors. So that's what I want to pass on to you all this morning. These simple methods for how we might make this world a better place in five easy steps.

[04:19]

I kind of made that part up. You know, I don't know if it's five easy steps or ten easy steps or if it's easy at all, but I thought maybe five is good enough for today. So step number one, find yourself a spot of earth, you know, just as the Buddha did, and take your seat. I think finding your seat, as far as I can tell, is both the start and the end of Zen training. You know, just sit, just this. It's very simple. The hard part of Zen training is staying there long enough, at least long enough to find out who you really are and what it is that you are here on this earth to do. So this first step is both personal and very intimate. No two of us are alike, and therein there is no basis whatsoever for comparison. And yet there is so much that we share and hold in common. For example, this great earth and all living beings. Which is exactly what the Buddha declared at the moment of his own awakening.

[05:22]

I and all beings awaken at the same time. I and all beings awaken at the same time. So in that one bright moment, he took ownership of it all. But more importantly, he took responsibility for it all and for its care. You know, clearly a full-time job. So step number two is to do it. To do that one thing that you are called here to do. with your whole heart, you know, all the way to the end. So maybe it's this evening's meal, or maybe it's finishing the last paragraph of your romantic novel, you know, or maybe it's remembering to lengthen your spine and balance your head on your shoulders and breathe gently through your nose while you're sitting. You know, it's simple and it's easy, but we have to do it. So Suzuki Roshi came here, of all places, in order to do that one thing that he was meant to do, all the way to the end. He came here to help these crazy humans with long hair and dirty feet to take a seat, to find themselves, and then to accept the task of helping others to find their seats as well.

[06:36]

When Reb asked Suzuki Roshi back in the day who his disciples were, after a moment the teacher said, Those who are here for others. Those who are here for others. Simple, but not so easy. I've recently started to refocus my own studies on our founding teacher's kind and wise words as a result of a book I got in the mail from David Chadwick, the great David Chadwick, who's been collecting stories for many decades now. So this book is called Zen is Right Here. And it's a sequel to an earlier collection that David put together called Zen is Right Now. Among the many amazing stories that people shared with David about their meetings with Suzuki Roshi, I was quite moved by a response that he gave when he was asked by one of the students if he kept an eye on everyone to see if they were following the precepts or not. The Roshi replied, I don't pay attention to whether you are following the precepts or not.

[07:38]

I just notice how you are with one another. Which brings us to step number three, the Bodhisattva precepts. The Bodhisattva precepts, which we are now reciting twice monthly, once on the full moon and the second time at the new moon, are kind of like an operating system for how each of us will be able to live together peacefully in this world. You know, precepts are kind of like a well-oiled pivot, which, somewhat like the earth on its axis, allows us to turn toward the suffering of our life. The disease, the illness, the fear, anger, lust. And then to keep turning, to turn all the way around toward the medicine for the illness. You know, the cessation of our suffering. So the medicine is simple and only slightly bitter. This step I mentioned already, step number one, sit down.

[08:41]

Find your seat. Find yourself. And while you're sitting, wait. You know, wait. For as long as it takes for the mind to clear from all the pathologies, from greed and from the hatred, from the delusion, the pathologies of self-love or self-loathing, of self-view, conceit and ignorance. the pathologies of judgments and opinions and righteous anger. Sometimes I say to the more senior students, as they are gaining confidence in their practice, now you're going to have to get over yourself. Or as Dogen Zenji more skillfully said to his students, drop body and mind. Drop body and mind. It's over and over again. Simple, so simple. But it's not easy. It's the over and over again part. It's so difficult for us. Just this, just here, just now, no choice. So let it go.

[09:44]

It's already gone. There's one of my favorite poems on that is an homage to transiency that Dogen wrote. This slowly drifting cloud is pitiful. What dream walkers humans become? Awakened, I hear the one true thing. Black rain on the roof. a Fukakusa temple. It's been a while since we've heard rain on the roof. Wouldn't that be great? So speaking of transiency, another student once went to Suzuki Roshi after having sat a month-long sesshin with a couple of his friends, and he asked the teacher how to maintain this extraordinary state of mind that he had achieved. And the Roshi said, well, just concentrate on your breathing and it will go away. So once you discover who or what it really is that's just sitting there right now, the spaciousness, the transiency, and I think above all the extremely good fortune that brought us to this point, we can turn the mind to the teachings of the Buddha in order to find even more help in how to root out the causes of our suffering.

[11:01]

Root out the greed that wants more than her fair share. Or the hatred that harbors ill will. The delusion that leads us to defend, protect and deny. The part that each of us plays in how this world is being made. This very human world. Buddha's world. Human world. Buddha's world. Samsara. Nirvana. Self and other. Right and wrong. Form and emptiness. Round and round again. two sides of one whole world. The bodhisattva precepts, as I mentioned, are an operating system that help to illuminate this fantasy we have of a self and of others as it's being performed throughout our waking day. You know, here is myself and there is the other. How I treat the other is the entire point of these precepts, just as our founding teacher said.

[12:04]

And although the basic precepts precept is the one true reality, the one whole world. For the sake of the human world, the Buddha broke reality up into parts, each one a reflection of a very particular thing that we humans tend to do to the other. We tend to kill them, steal from them, lie to them, sexualize them, intoxicate, slander, and brag about ourselves to them. withhold our possessions from them, and hate them. We humans in human world, in breaking these precepts, have disparaged the Buddha's world, which is the 10th great precept, thereby making the possibility of turning ever the more difficult. So these 16 Bodhisattva precepts are like a verbal reference library to help us locate these unwholesome tendencies arising within our hearts.

[13:05]

There's some hatred. There's some lust. There's some arrogance. And there are a great number of projections. So the primary tendency from which all of these delusions arise is this one that we have of objectifying the other. Of seeing them and treating them like objects outside of ourselves. This tendency for objectifying the world is the very ignorance that's blocking our view. of how the world truly is. So whenever I objectify the other, I affirm my own sense of a separate self, a self that grows ever more solid and intractable. That is my house in my car. This is my country, my opinion. Those are my friends and those are my enemies. It's so simple and it's so easy. And that's the real problem. When the Theravada nun Voromai Kabo-xing, the first Thai woman to receive full ordination, and the accompanying 311 bhikshuni precepts, nun precepts, she was asked by a young man, How do you keep the 311 precepts?

[14:26]

She responded, I keep only one precept. Surprised, the young man then asked, Well, what is that? Then she answered, I just watch my mind. I just watch my mind. So we need to be patient and persistent and curious and enthusiastic about watching our minds in order to break the code on self-making, in order to awaken to our one true self, that being all that there is. So how do we do that? In another story from Zen is Right Here, Suzuki Roshi was asked by a visiting psychiatrist about consciousness. And he replied, I don't know anything about consciousness. I just try to teach my students how to hear the birds sing. So waiting for the birds to sing brings us to step number four. Practicing with the Six Perfections, which are also known as the Bodhisattva training program.

[15:29]

the answer to how do we do that? How do we do that? So I know a lot of you have heard or read about the six perfections. We talk about them often in lectures. In step four, you will have begun to practice with them as well, to make them habits of mind, new habits of mind, to think about them and to see how they're working in your life each and every day. Do you hear the bird? Is it inside or outside of yourself? The first of the six perfections is generosity, dana paramita. And that's the antidote to all forms of selfishness, such as being stingy, being mean, or hoarding. Generosity can be nearly infinite in variety. We can give our attention. We can give our sympathy, our time, our wealth. We can give our protection, our admiration. our love, and we can give our understanding of the Dharma.

[16:31]

And generosity can be practiced by everyone, you know, by the bird and by the elephant and the polar bear, by a human child and by old humans too. It's the foundation for the other five perfections. So the second perfection is called ethics or discipline, silaparamita, which is like a moral compass. by which we humans can navigate our existence. Don't do that. Do do that. And before you make a move, consider whether what you're doing is selfish or not. So ethical discipline is the antidote to a non-virtuous life. The third perfection is patience. Kshanti Paramita. The antidote to compulsiveness and reactivity. By practicing patience with our emotions, whether they're being driven by greed or hate or delusion, we have time to be considerate and reflective, to remember our vows and to do what we can to minimize harmfulness and to increase virtue in our relationship to the world around us.

[17:45]

The practice of patience includes not seeking revenge or retaliating when we are offended, which is somewhat hard to imagine, I bet. When we don't become offensive, when we're offended, we actually are free to choose our course of action. We're free to question what just happened and how it might be different. And of course, there are extremes. There are examples of violence, in which case patience is not exactly... the best approach, but it can protect us and ourselves and those around us if we still have this time to reflect on what we're going to do. So sitting practice is essentially a practice of patience. It was the final practice that the young prince undertook there at the base of a tree. After those six very long years of diligent effort to break the code of self-clinging, The fourth perfection is effort or enthusiasm, virya, paramita, which is an antidote for laziness.

[18:51]

Which is not to say that we don't take time off to rest or to play, because we do and we must. I recently saw this interesting study that was done in Iceland about practicing with a four-day workweek. You know, a very large portion of the culture took on this practice of a four-day workweek. And it wasn't surprising for them to realize that it was a lot better for everyone. The more time that they took to rest and to play. It was better for their family life. It was better for their work life. Productivity went up 40%. And it was overall better for their health and their happiness. No surprise. And yet once rested, we go back to work. On to the more strenuous aspects of our virtuous life. You know, sitting and chanting, studying, cooking, cropping, gardening, baking bread with our Dharma friends. You know, which when actualized, such work is called joyful endeavors for the benefit of all beings.

[19:58]

The fifth perfection is meditation, jhana parmita, the one thing that we are going to do over and over again. Step number one, also known as Zen. Zen is an antidote to the mental complexities that cloud our thinking, that is our thinking. And it's going to take a certain amount of time, you know, kind of timeless time, along with patience and effort and ethics and generosity to open us to this bright light of the mind, its own clear and radiant nature. So right here and right now, just this is it. There is no choice, you know. Boom. At which time, the timeless time, then the bell rings and we go back to work. Busy and not busy. All the live long day. Which brings us to the last of the six perfections, the perfection of wisdom, Prajnaparamita, which is the antidote to erroneous beliefs, such as the belief in a separate self, such as the belief in permanent objects,

[21:09]

such as the belief in the great joy that's going to come to us when those permanent objects now belong to me. What results from the practice of perfect wisdom is a mind that is calm, insightful, and devoted to the welfare of the world, to Buddha's world. In fact, being such a being is a Buddha in perfect harmony with Buddha's world, just like box and cover joining, like arrow points meeting, like the shoes on a baby's feet. In Buddha's world, with Buddha's wisdom, one is free from dualistic fixations of any kind. And yet, one is devoted to helping others still caught in fixations in order that they too might taste the freedom from and for themselves. Great wisdom, as always, is at the service of great compassion. So that's it. That's all of it. a full summary of the Zen training program at the San Francisco Zen Center.

[22:11]

Step one, to sit and find out who you really are and what you are here on earth to do. Step two, do it with your whole heart. Step three, for the benefit of others. Step four, allow yourself to be trained and to help train others for the work that we have all set out to do. So the last step of the five easy steps, for making this world a better place, I'm calling step five, a moral compass. I'm pretty certain that staying on course as we undertake the mission of saving all beings from suffering is about the least easy of the five easy steps. And my therapist often said to me, human first, human first, when I would tell him about how I veered off track into various kinds of self-loathing or other loathing. or laziness or despair. You know, human first, and then he'd smile kindly. Meaning, you know, give yourself a break, take a rest, read a book, talk to a friend, you know, take a bath, and then go back to work.

[23:24]

So this mission of the Bodhisattva has been likened to a 10,000 mile long iron road. And I think that's an understatement. And yet, you know, soon a number of us who have been on the long road, as residents and teachers of Green Gulch Farm, will be leaving for a place called Enso Village. So Enso Village, for those of you who don't know, is currently under construction in Healdsburg, California, and is going to be our retirement home. And it's going to be a very nice place to live. I've seen photos. However, for those of us who are leaving our life at Green Gulch, You know, like the Enso itself, there's going to be an unfinished circle, such as the one that a Zen master draws, you know, to illustrate the impossibility of completing the task, the task of saving all beings. And still, this portion of the circle that has been completed bears the full meaning of our time here on Earth.

[24:24]

And just like the Earth herself in the grand scale of things really means nothing at all. the two truths about this one precious life. Now you see it, now you don't. Which is precisely why the merit of our full and new moon ceremonies are dedicated at the end in this way. Thus, on this full moon morn, we dedicate the merit of the Bodhisattva way through every world system to the unborn nature of all beings. Recently, I saw a video that my Dharma sister and dear friend, resident tea master, Mayo Wender, sent around about the meaning of this short staff that those of us carry who have received from our own teachers permission to teach. This staff is called the kotsu. In English, one meaning is the bone, which makes some sense since it's shaped like a spine with a head on top of it.

[25:28]

That's one of the things I've been told which is really all you need to sit, right? A spine with a head on top of it. Step number one. So in this video, the man offered his own understanding of these ceremonial objects by telling us, I think there was a slight twinkle in his eye, about the magical aspects of our tiny wooden mannequins. And among the interpretation that he shared, he likened it to this shape of the kotsu to a very convincing diagram. of the Big Dipper, which, as we know, has allowed us humans to successfully navigate the globe via its fixed relationship to the North Star. So, when I was reflecting on this video, a metaphor came to my mind, and it was this, that the teaching staff, in the shape of a celestial map, is pointing the way to Buddha's world, you know, to the North Star, or the Morning Star, or

[26:30]

any other star that you like. And it's that very moment when you no longer see that star or any object is outside of yourself. That's Buddha's world. When the bird is singing inside of your own heart or when I and all beings are awakened at the same time. All together now. So as we begin to see how each of these teachings given to us by the Buddha ancestors is a north star, Not only reconnecting our minds to our bodies, but also our seemingly small life to the entire universe, just where it's been all along. The all-inclusive miracle from which none of us has ever arrived or left. The very miracle that's happening right now. Where the river itself is blue and the flowers themselves are red. Where this very mind may never notice that it is Buddha. So what is it that's holding us back from seeing how that's so, you know, from planting our own tiny staff at the top of the mystic peak?

[27:38]

In an all-inclusive universe, what's holding us back is also right here with us now. The one thing that we most easily overlook and undervalue. What's holding us back is how and what we think, you know, and not just how each of us thinks, but how we together are fashioning. this world by thinking, this very human world. And for that reason, we awaken together and we slumber together, inhaling and exhaling our views, our moods, and our gestures. So because these two truths about our one shared reality, you know, the truth of our small separate selves and the truth of our big, wide, all-inclusive self, We have to try, Suzuki Rishi says, to always understand things in these two ways. And the best way to do that, he says, is to sit. Step number one. And after we sit, step number two.

[28:39]

To enter the world of differences and to do the work that we came here to do. In Dogen Zenji's way, he says that work is to find meaning in each and everything. Such as a grain of rice or a drop of water. When you pay full respect to the grain of rice, as you would respect Buddha themself, then you understand the ultimate value of rice, the ultimate value of each and everything. So in this way, as we do our work in the dualistic world of small separate selves, we come to know Buddha's world in its truest sense. And when we practice Azen without seeking for enlightenment or seeking for anything, then there is true enlightenment already here. So here at the end, I'm going to return for a moment to the beginning, to the story of Ditsang and Yangsang talking about the world. Embedded in this story, which is case 12 of the Book of Serenity, is a verse written by Zen Master Hongzhu, who is the great teacher of silent illumination Zen.

[29:49]

You know, that would be us, Soto Zen. Source, and explanation variously are all made up. Source and explanation variously are all made up. Passing to ear from mouth, it comes apart. Planting fields, making rice to eat, ordinary household matters. Only those who investigate to the full would know. Having investigated to the full, you clearly know there is nothing to seek. Zhifeng is After all, Ji Feng was a meritorious minister of the Emperor of China. Ji Feng, after all, did not care to be granted a fiefdom as a marquis. Forgetting his state, he returned, just like fish and birds, washing his feet in the Changlong River, the hazy waters of autumn. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center.

[30:52]

Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost 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. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[31:12]

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