This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. Sashims are strange things. I think that all of us, most of us, have some question like, what is my life supposed to be about? Or how can this be a worthwhile, is this a worthwhile life? Or how can it be a worthwhile life? And I think Sashin, in some ways, is about answering that. but in a very nitty-gritty kind of way, you know, not in a philosophical, you know, like what a wonderful way we might fit in with the whole, you know, universe and all that.

[01:10]

We have to use those words, but in Sashin it kind of comes down to, you know, how do I stay in this body? How do I fit into this community in, you know, in a really kind of... particular way like can I get to the zendo the next time and once I'm in there can I stay there and can I stand to be this person you know with these particular physical pains or thoughts or emotions it's hard for me to believe there are people who say they don't have much physical pain in zazen I sort of can't imagine what that would be like but you know I'm sure that they probably have painful thoughts and painful emotions enough to fill up the space. I've been thinking about a lot lately, and some of you have heard me bring up several times this statement from Shoako Okamura.

[02:12]

In fact, maybe all of you, because I think I brought it up at the Shosan ceremony, where he says that... Delusion and enlightenment are not things. Like it isn't that we can get enlightenment and therefore get rid of delusion. You know, like delusion is some thing that we have or, you know, a virus that we've caught or, you know. And he says it isn't even a state of mind. You know, like delusion, we sometimes think it's a state of mind. And if we could get enlightenment, it would get rid of that deluded state of mind. He says, it's not like that. It's they both lie right in the relationship of ourselves to other people and things and beings. And lately I've been thinking that the way to look at that relationship, the way to start looking at that relationship between the self and other beings is to...

[03:19]

focus on my relationship with myself to start from there to start each of us to start with our relationship with ourself and that if our relationship with ourself is something that maybe our relationship with other beings will also be something I think that we, at least in my experience, and it sounds to me like from talking to many of you, that it's a common thing that we have preferred selves. We have various selves that we prefer to be and some that we prefer not to be. And we sort of carry around those preferences. They're part of every situation, every thought almost, you know, every moment of our life.

[04:22]

There's like this shadow of, most of the time, the shadow of who we want to be and who we don't want to be. And sometimes it's clear, you know, like I want to be this and I don't want to be that. And sometimes it's just hazy, you know, it's just, it's a vague thing. Not even a sense, it's just waiting there to interact with whatever happens. You know, whenever something happens, then we know, is this what I wanted or is it not what I wanted in terms of me, in terms of who I want to be. So I think that one of the things that happens in Sashin, and in Tassajara in general, but in particular in Sashin, is sometimes that gets a little clearer, some aspect of that gets a little clearer. like in my second session years ago, when would it have been, 1973, four, something like that, at Green Gulch.

[05:32]

My hair was about the length it is now, and of course you're supposed to wear your hair up off your neck, right, which of course I did. But we were sitting in Green Gulch. I lived in the city, so I was a little, you know, I was was on a little unfamiliar territory, and I lost my barrette, my one barrette, I lost it. So I went to the Zendo anyway, of course, and I was doing Kinhin, Satapurizazen, doing Kinhin, and the Eno, who some of you know, Mark Alexander, and some of you know as Janine Alexander's father, wonderful, gentle man, it turns out. LAUGHTER But he came up to me very nicely during kinhen and said, do you know you're supposed to have your hair up off your neck? I said, yes. Internally, I exploded. I was so furious. You know, I just walked along, and I don't even remember what happened, what for the rest of the sashim, if I found my beret or if he gave me one.

[06:39]

I don't know, but it went on and on and on. I mean, I just had a little fit. And there wasn't much more insight to it than that, except that I did notice that this is like, even to my hazy mind, it was like out of proportion. Like, you know, he just said something. He didn't exactly blame me for being, you know, an insincere Zen student or something, you know. But it was really like, who does he think I am? You know? Doesn't he know that I would know? Yeah. haven't I been wearing a barrette all the time? Isn't it clear that there would be a good reason that I don't have a barrette in my hair now? What's wrong with him? Anyway, it was pretty amazing, you know, just out of the clear blues or whatever color sky the sky was at Green Gulch, you know, that day. It just took over for a while.

[07:41]

So it was very clarifying in a way, you know, even though I didn't quite... understand it in the way that I do now, of this protecting of an idea of self, but I knew something had happened. Something had erupted. Something had been really threatened. All defenses came to the fore. Another session here at Tassajara, much later, 91. It was the winter, and I was the tanto, and Tia was the shuso, and it was a seven-day sesheen, and Reb was leading the practice period, and he had gone out, and there had been a big snowstorm, and he couldn't get back in. So we went ahead with the sesheen anyway, he told us to, and he'd be there as soon as he could.

[08:42]

I forget how he got in. It might have been the time that he snowshoed in, but Or was that out? Anyway. So I gave a lecture, and then Tia gave a lecture, and then I gave a lecture, and I think that Reb arrived on the fourth or fifth day. So on the last day, just before lecture, and that year, the fall I had been Chusso, and then the spring I was with Tonto, and my family was living here that whole year. We lived here for a year and a half. through two summers and two practice periods when the girls were 10 and 12. And somehow just before lecture, I met Keith on the path right down near the Umpan. And I don't remember what happened. He said something to me, which I can't remember. I hope it was terrible. But it could have just been nothing.

[09:43]

But in me, was this like irritated, some irritated thing happened, right? And I said something irritated. I wish I could remember the whole story. It would make a better story, but it, or maybe it wouldn't. Maybe it's better like this. Anyway, something, I said something, I got irritated. And as I walked away, it just dawned, oh, this is self-clinging. This, that, what just happened to me was like holding on to a self. and not wanting a self that was arising, not wanting a self that was being called forth by him in some way. And I started crying. It was the seventh day of Sashin and all. I started crying. I came into the lecture, and I sat right there, crying, [...] about the wonders of practice. And Reb, who was, of course, only on his third or fourth day of Sashin, we were on our seventh day, during the...

[10:48]

During the talk, he said something like, I'm feeling sad that this session is ending. It seems like it's just getting started. It seems like we should be able to live this way forever. And looking at you, I think maybe some of you are feeling the same way. If you're looking at me just because I'm crying, crying, that's not how I'm feeling, but oh well. I'm willing to play that role in your life, I guess. So that was another example of sort of how I think practice and Tassajara and Sashin helps us to have a more complete view of what is self-clinging? What is it actually? How does it manifest in our life? Or another way of saying it is, what is suffering?

[11:49]

you know, a more subtle view of suffering. We know what suffering is. We know all kinds of examples of what suffering is. But sometimes we don't know how subtly we can cause our suffering. You know, how we just, you know, just by preferring oneself that isn't present or that is fading over another one, the one that's either there or coming to the fore. how much suffering that causes for us, ourselves, and therefore we manage to spread it around. Usually we don't do very well keeping our suffering to ourself. Sometimes even when we try to keep our suffering to ourself, that's how it gets spread around. People start looking at us and they think, what's wrong? Does she hate me? Since we're all very self-centered, we tend to assume... That what's going on is about us. So given our interconnectedness, how very, very interconnected we are, when we suffer, others suffer.

[13:00]

One way or another. And that, you know, so this, one of the things that... I think it's again Shoah Kokomura says, that seemed to me like a really good description of Zazen and, you know... It's good to have a good description of Zazen before Sesshin, since Sesshin is so much made up of Zazen. He says something like, we place ourself on the ground of reality. We just place ourselves on the ground of reality, and then we... Let me see. When we place ourselves on the ground of reality, our practice manifests Buddha.

[14:07]

We settle down peacefully within the network of interdependent origination. and allow the universal life force to practice through us for all beings. We place ourselves on the ground of reality. When we do that, we manifest Buddha. We settle down peacefully. Excuse me for smiling when I say we settle down peacefully. I hope it's not always the case for all of you. It certainly isn't for me. I wouldn't want to be alone in that. within the network of interdependent origination and allow the universal life force to practice through us for all beings. I found that helpful, that placing ourselves on the ground of reality as, you know, to just do that, to just like sit down on the ground of reality where our place, you know, like over there I'm going to put myself

[15:09]

Just sit down on the ground of reality as it's appearing now and be there for what happened. Be there for the self that arises in connection with, in interaction with, in relationship with, in opposition to, even, all things that are happening, all beings that are happening, all... So I have found that useful lately, this quote I read not so long ago, and it was useful to think of Zaza in that way, just a kind of not so clear what I think I should get out of it, except to be open to the ground of reality as it's changing and as it's changing in me. I want to read a quote, which I think I lectured on it this summer, but I really like it, so it's kind of a long quote.

[16:25]

This one's Dogen. 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. Yet those who really understand this principle are rare. To think that no one knows a fish's heart or a bird's trace is mistaken. You should know that fish always know one another's heart, unlike people who do not know one another's heart. But when fish try to go up 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. There's more, but let me stop there for a minute. So I think, you know, sesheen is kind of like that. We're kind of like fish, you know, and people who don't do sesheen don't really understand what it's like to, you know, swim up that stream for, you know, three days, seven days, nine days to, you know, follow.

[17:38]

And we may not really believe it, you know, we may think... They're all doing sashin, but I'm not really doing it. I don't really have a fish's heart. I'm just sitting here and I'm thinking about leaving or I'm daydreaming or I'm doing all the things that non-fish do. But I don't think so. I think if we're doing sashin, we're swimming up the nine bends of the Wong River. We're breaking through the dragon gate. The Dragon Gate is one of those rapids in one of those bends where after that one, then fish become dragons. Well, who knows? But we are at least fish. I don't know if we've made it to the Dragon Gate, but I think this describes, even if we can't say it, even if we don't know how to put it into words, still there's some strange...

[18:38]

shared experience of deciding to sit down and stay with yourself for a sesheen. Again, when a bird flies in the sky, beasts do not even dream of finding or following its trace. As they do not know that there is such a thing, they cannot even imagine this. However... A bird can see traces of hundreds and thousands of small birds having passed in flocks, or traces of so many lines of large birds having flown south or north. These traces may be even more evident than the carriage tracks left on the road or the hoof prints of a horse seen in the grass. In this way, a bird sees a bird's trace. I think, didn't yesterday, didn't one of you, either Greg or Steve, say... Birds don't leave traces. That made me think of this. So a small argument. We cannot see the trace of the birds, but according to Dogen, who, you know, how does, does Dogen really know anything about fishes, hearts, or birds?

[19:48]

No. I don't know. Maybe he did. Maybe he was really a fish or a bird. He says that birds can see traces of birds. And somebody here yesterday said they couldn't, and I don't really know which is true. Nor do I really care. This is a nice poetic way of saying something, and it's beautiful, I think. Don't you think it's beautiful to think of birds being able to see traces of birds flying over and beasts and humans don't even think there is such a thing so we wouldn't notice? It's great. 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 Buddha's trace when you are not a Buddha. You may wonder why you do not know.

[20:52]

The reason is that while Buddhas are... While Buddhists see these traces with a Buddha's eye, those who are not Buddhas do not have a Buddha's eye and just notice the Buddha's attributes. So I'm going to go ahead and read the last paragraph but come back to this. Although all who do not know should search out the trace of a Buddha's path. If you find footprints, you should investigate whether they are the Buddha's. On being investigated, the Buddha's trace is known. And whether it is long or short, shallow or deep, is also known. To illuminate your trace is accomplished by studying the Buddha's trace. Accomplishing this is Buddha Dharma. I wanted to go on and read it because it's interesting how he goes without any explanation.

[21:57]

He goes from... If you're not a Buddha, you won't know. You won't see a Buddha's trace. You don't know Buddhas because you're looking not with Buddha's eyes. We're looking at attributes. So we have some idea of what a Buddha is, and we're looking around for those attributes. Like when we look at ourselves, we think, hmm, do I have any Buddha attributes? Am I good or am I bad? Was that a good thing that I did? Was that a bad thing that I did? So we're... already putting this judgment, that shadow of which self do I want to be, is functioning right along. And everything that comes up, we're immediately critiquing it based on those preferences. And that's not a Buddha's eye. That's just looking for the Buddha's attributes and either seeing them or not seeing them. But then he very naturally... switches to, if you find the footprints, you should investigate whether they are the Buddhas.

[23:02]

On being investigated, the Buddha's trace is known. To illuminate your trace is accomplished by studying the Buddha's trace. So it's not that it's impossible for us to see the Buddha's trace or, in fact, to be Buddhas. It's just that we have to look in a different way than we usually look. We have to not be fooled by our immediate critique of everything in every situation about whether this is what I call good or what I call bad, namely in relation to who I want to be and what I want my life to be like. So if we're not fooled by that, even if it doesn't go away, then we can start to look for the Buddha's traces. We can... Search. Search the trace of the Buddha's path. If you find footprints, so what's a footprint?

[24:05]

Footprints are things that stand out. They stand out on the well-trodden road, the road that we're all walking on all the time, that all beings are walking on, that's traveling along. Something stands out like that, my response to that. no-barrette thing, you know, when the Eno came up to me. My response to that, that was a footprint. You know, that was like, whoa, something happened here. And, you know, my interpretation of it wasn't... I didn't even know how to interpret it. It was just like, whoa, you know, a big footprint. I didn't think footprint then, but I did think something happened. So when we notice something... when we notice something in ourselves or we react to something that somebody does. Somebody said to me yesterday they were having a reaction to something that somebody had said, and they said, I'm wondering if I should talk to the person about it.

[25:09]

And I said, you know, I... I believe in us talking to each other. I think we really learn a lot when we talk to each other. Often what we learn is that the other person had a totally different experience than we did, but that's really useful for us. But especially given that it's a sheen, but even if it weren't, to not be confused by, again, you know, this... delusion and enlightenment lie in the relationship, but the way, I think, to most accurately approach that is to first relate to yourself. So to see, you know, the person says something, don't be too distracted by that. Already, they just have to say it, or maybe not even say it, just walk in the room, and we have our response. Notice the footprint. Notice the response and investigate it. Investigate the... You know, the footprint. Is it a footprint of a Buddha?

[26:11]

That's what he says. Investigate whether it's a Buddha's footprint. If you find footprints, you should investigate whether they are the Buddhas. So I think, again, this is a way of saying, we want to know, you know, what is my life worth? Is it a worthwhile life? What's my place? How do I fit in with everything in this universe? How do I fit in? To find that out, we have to have not quite such narrow boundaries. It can't just be according to how do I fit in in the way that I want to fit in. Do I fit in or don't I fit in in that way? That's more suffering. That's how we've been suffering all this time to... to loosen those boundaries for a bit and just look and see, what is this?

[27:15]

What is it? Not is it good or is it bad, just what is it? And the answer doesn't have to come in words. It may be that this footprint doesn't speak in English. It just might be a twinge in your heart. It's another way that Sashin is... wonderfully terrible, is the physicalness of it. This practice, I continue to say, is a very physical practice, and it's a way to get around our minds, which we are so identified with, which we rely on so much, which we think can find the way to freedom and to happiness for us. So we keep... asking, and we keep turning it with our minds. And that's fine. Our minds are wonderful things, and they have to be involved. They exist, so they will be involved, and so that's good.

[28:20]

We should respect them. But we shouldn't put that pressure on them that the answers are there. One of the things that I think, there's my mind, I'm going to inflict you with this thought of mine, and I didn't read this in a Dharma book, I just came up with it after years of practicing, but I feel like we, I, we carry our, we have our particular ways of tensing, carrying this preference to be one kind of self over another kind of self, carrying our self-clinging, And I think that we have our particular karmic physical ways of carrying it. So we store maybe that tension in various parts of our body. And when you put yourself in a yoga position, probably any yoga position, but certainly this one that we, you know, sitting down for a while, those places where we carry that tension tend to start talking to us.

[29:35]

tend to start screaming at us sometimes. They say, it hurts over here, it hurts over here. So the exploration of those places is part of zazen and certainly part of seshin. When some place in your body starts to call for your attention, there's this hard thing that we have to do of deciding, is this a kind of pain I should sit through or not? and really we can only, each one of us, make that decision for ourself. But we should know that it's a tricky decision. It's not just evident that this is not a pain to sit through. Sometimes it's very worthwhile to actually sit very, very still with some physical pain, and the way I describe it to myself to try to remember is to, like,

[30:37]

Put my mind and my breath sort of as close to the middle of that pain as I can get and then sit with it. So it's not always the time to do this. I'm not trying to tell you when you should do it for yourself or when you should move or, yeah, move. But sometimes it can be very rewarding. It's like, you know, that pain lets go. sometimes in a way that can't be thought out, you know, can't be by saying relax to yourself, you know, when you, whatever, you know, your knee or your hip or whatever, or your back starts to tense up and you say relax, relax. Sometimes that works, right? Often it doesn't. But this, sometimes it can relax at a deeper level and it seems to me that that relaxing has to do with relaxing an idea of self. making more breadth for who I might be, how I might fit in, how I might be a Buddha, by which I mean my life be of benefit.

[31:52]

And then this... Buddhas are like this. Buddhas all know the traces of Buddhas. You never know a Buddhist trace when you're not a Buddha. Or I would say, to the extent that we are Buddha, we see other Buddhas. We see the traces of other Buddhas. We see Buddha in ourself. We see Buddha in others. And because we've opened that narrow slit that we're usually looking through of what's okay with me, you know, what makes the kind of me that I'm comfortable with, instead of, you know, the sky is wide open, you know, there might be traces of birds up there, there might be traces of Buddhas down here.

[33:00]

What is it? What kind of footprints are we finding? Do you have any? Aaron? You mentioned putting your mind and breath in the center of the pain. Yeah. I was thinking when I narrow in on the pain, I'm not sure if that's quite what you mean, but it kind of becomes everything. It's too much. But if it's one thing among many, I can sit with the pain for a bit. Yeah, I understand that. You know, we each have to do this however we can do it, right? But I think that sometimes, actually, for me, that narrowing in, it's like when it becomes everything, whether I want it to or not, and I don't seem to be able to have the space to, like, listen to the sounds at the same time, or, you know, then sometimes it has worked to...

[34:13]

I think it could be called narrowing in on it, like really locate it in my body and just let it be everything for a little while. But I don't know if that works for you or not. I certainly can appreciate letting it be one of many things. When that's possible, I like that better. It's written down. Give me a word. The universal life force. Yeah. What's happening? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It kind of puts me in the mind of the self-receiving that we chant every immune service.

[35:17]

I feel like that's Dogen's attempt to describe what's really happening. It's very encouraging to me when I feel like I'm caught by my limited subjective experience. This is the drama here, repose the bliss, hello. do I have so much conviction of that? Why does that statement show up? And if it's based on my limited personal experience, how does that match? Does that make any sense?

[36:22]

I think so. I think our limited personal experience is vast. There are times when... I don't think about the self-employing and receiving samadhi so much when we aren't chanting it, but something like that will come into my mind sometimes if I'm in pain or something, or if I'm... walking down the road, and there are times when I don't want that. I just want something simple. Like, can I just get to the zendo, or can I just get to bed? And yet, I think there are ways that maybe because we have stopped doing a lot of things, because we're here at Tassajara or just because we sit down in Zazen, that we actually have some inkling of that interconnectedness, of how something like somebody coming up to you and whispering, do you know that your hair is not supposed to be down on your neck?

[37:42]

And then exploding. That's kind of evidence of some interconnectedness, right? If we... Once we see it that way, it's hard to deny it ever again, that, wow, there was a connection there, and I don't even know what it was. I don't know. I mean, we might think, he must have been really angry because I received that anger, and now I'm interacting. We might think that. Or we might think, wow, I must be really angry because that came out of the blue. Or we might think... It really did come out of the blue. They just said something to me, and it just was like lightning from somewhere. But I think that's a hint of the interconnectedness. So I think something in us responds to these statements of Dogon's, for instance, or other people's, each other's even.

[38:47]

And we say, something there's accurate. And then we don't know again. I mean, I think we need to be careful, right? We start spouting phrases. We don't know what they are, and they sound good. So we hold on to them, and we beat each other up with them. So, yeah, I think it's kind of tricky. Does that answer your question? perhaps question. Yes. Yes, itis. Oh, not itis, gnocchi. I called you itis because my eyes are... Yeah.

[39:49]

Are there any footprints that aren't made by Buddha? So it's kind of hard to say just by words, right? Which footprints, which alien footprints you're talking about? But I have my doubts. So maybe, you know, it's kind of a catch-22, right, if I say... Well, if you explored footprints and there were a whole series of them and they weren't Buddhas, you need to look at them more closely, right? It doesn't really help, but sorry, that's what I think. But you might be able to convince me in some situation where we could go into more detail. Yes, Sejan. I don't know what small Buddhas are.

[41:05]

It's me as compared to Greg. It's a gnat. It's one of those little flies that we have in the summertime that flies around your ears. That's a pretty small Buddha. I don't know. That's what in my imagination a small Buddha is. And, yeah, Buddhas don't necessarily notice that they're Buddhas. You know, partly I think if we're not thinking so much, if we're just kind of embedded in our life and we're living, doing things, and our attitude toward... people or things or weather or whatever is that they are dependently co-arisen, that they're not good or bad.

[42:06]

They're not really dividable into those simplistic categories. They're dependently co-arisen, and they are. We wouldn't necessarily notice that we are Buddhas, but we would be treating everything as Buddhas. We would be seeing traces of Buddha everywhere, but we might not necessarily stop to call it that if we weren't asked to give a lecture. Does that make some sense? Thank you. There's another hand. Elizabeth? Yeah. Yeah.

[43:13]

Yeah. Yes. Yeah, I think it's true. It's like it forces us somehow. Maybe forces is not because it doesn't always feel like being forced. It's more like it might feel like, like I said in the first talk of the practice, it's like dissolving. You know, like we get tired and we get worn down and our grasping gets worn down. Or it gets forgotten. You know, it gets caught up in the, have to get up in the morning, have to, anyway. Yeah, thank you. Jane. I think we get an idea of what is to benefit.

[45:05]

We have some idea of what benefit is and what not benefit is, and also we have some idea of our particular possible ways to benefit and ways not to benefit, because we've seen it. We've seen how sometimes it looks like we're not benefiting. But those ideas, I think those ideas are what causes the suffering. It's not the intention to be of benefit. It's just having an idea of what that would be. I know. I think it could definitely be of benefit not to have to be of benefit in the way you think you have to be of benefit. The requirement of, well, I thought you said it would be of benefit not to be of benefit.

[46:16]

Okay, well, the requirement's still there in you, right? I would just say notice it when it's functioning, and I think you're seeing it's causing some suffering. That's all. Yeah. Read. Read. Yeah, I don't know if you can not really, but I think one can see that our idea about her is limited. And certainly our idea about who would be better than her is kind of made up.

[47:25]

When she's there, I think it's more helpful, more beneficial to stay close to her than just You know, try, how am I going to get rid of her? And find, you know, to be more open to her. What, you know, if I talk about it, it sounds like we should start thinking about it, which I don't think we do. We've done plenty of that already. But to be more open-hearted to, you know, what's happening with her, really. You know, not to start thinking, why are you irritated? But just to be open-hearted. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, if saying or thinking or looking like what's underneath this is helpful if it opens up to something, that's great.

[48:39]

If it doesn't, I would say don't go with imaginary things. Don't start imagining fear. Just stay with the irritation. But every once in a while you could ask yourself, Is there something under this? Is this hiding something? Our body-mind, I think, has its own rhythm, its own process, its own path, its own way it's been constructed, so its own way that it can start to disentangle in some way. And we don't necessarily know what that is. We might think it's like, well, it certainly isn't irritated. Just go over here in the non-irritated realm. but actually there might be a whole lot of stuff tangled up in that irritated realm that needs to be met. Well, in several different ways.

[50:16]

When we're saying them, when I'm saying them, I try to hear myself saying them and feel it, like I want to benefit beings. Having heard them, or maybe even, as Jane was saying, maybe even before having heard them, they touch something deep. It's like, yes, that is what I want. And I think probably a lot of us have discovered, oh, yeah, that's what I want. I actually do want to benefit beings. And then if I find myself using those as a measure, you know, like, was this benefiting beings? No. Why aren't you benefiting beings right now? You know? Then I try to, if I notice and if I remember, then I try to have it more be like have, I usually say, have some crack in my certainty that this is not benefiting beings.

[51:25]

You know, like what is it really? What would be benefiting beings? I have some advantage in this having talked to a lot of people. So, you know, for instance, people will come to me and tell me about it. interaction they've had with somebody where they've, you know, not benefited beings, where they've done, they've said something mean or something. And, you know, other people will come and talk to me about the same situation, like the person that they were talking to. And sometimes, yeah, they agree with them. They did not benefit me. They were, you know. But sometimes they actually say, wow, this person said this to me and it was like... cracked open the world, you know. I had this whole new take on whatever, you know, them or me or whatever. And sometimes even if they say, this did not benefit me, this was terrible. Life goes on for a while, you know, and they keep practicing and many times actually it turns out to benefit.

[52:29]

So I think there's some mysterious wider view of what benefiting is than what we normally think when we look at our life. The same way. We study action to see is it the footprints of a Buddha. Most of the time I would say there's so much action happening that we're just present with the action that's happening. We just pay attention to eating breakfast when we're eating breakfast and then But certain things get in us and keep returning, right? Like the thought comes up again and again and again. And then we look at that, too, and we try to say, what is it? But again, what is it not that it would necessarily, we're not necessarily looking for a verbal answer. We're looking for, how do I place myself on the ground of reality?

[53:36]

Yes. Is that okay? Thank you. Yes, Cecilia. Yeah, there's the traces of Uda. And there is something comes, right? A situation or whatever that shakes me. And then usually, I don't know what to do. But then, when I go inside, there is inside me something that says, that talks. I say, yes, this. I think some people have that experience, you know, of being able to actually find some intuition, you know, or find a sense of... I haven't usually experienced it quite that way.

[55:33]

It's more... flowing along or something. But yeah, I think being open to what, especially if you're in a situation where you feel like you need to figure out what to do. Okay. Gail. So I don't have a clear articulation of my question. I think part of my question may be a function of my limitation in hearing what you're saying. But as I listen to you, I have this sense of ways of looking for a Buddha trace in my interactions and interrelations with people individually. Yes. And I believe that there are ways in which we affect each other that are structural and systemic.

[56:35]

Yes. When I think about how, I don't know how to engage, how to look for a boot trace in that level. And that's not a clear articulation of my question, but I think you may give self-contentance about that. What do you mean by our structural or systemic? I guess partly this really rose up as I was listening to you talk with Eric and Jane about I want to live for the benefit of being. Yes. And I believe that there are systems in place that do not benefit beings. Yes. And I am attached to the idea of engaging with that. Yes. Not turning away, of seeing it. Yes. And feeling it. Yes. And as I... So then I think, well, look for a Buddhist trace.

[57:37]

Well, how do I connect anything from Buddhist trace with that? And for me, it's, I want to accept what is in the world, but that doesn't mean not try to affect. Yes, yes. But I would say all systems can be, what did you say? Can harm beings, you know, even Buddhism. can harm beings, right? If we hold on to it, if we try to cramp ourselves into our idea of Buddhism or we use it against somebody else, then Tassajara can harm beings, right? Certainly hierarchy can harm beings and we've got plenty of that, right? So I think it's not really any different to look for traces of Buddha in in, you know, I don't know what our government, our, you know, the military, what do you call it, industrial complex, you know, than it is to look for here at Tassajara.

[58:49]

It's like we keep looking at ourself and what arises and then we try to interact in a true way, which is sometimes going to be to say, oh, I disagree with you. And it might be even more dramatic than that. Lots more dramatic at various times. Does that make sense? Yeah, thanks. So maybe that's... Okay, one. Go ahead. Then we'll stop. This is what I think is so magic in a way about Zazen.

[59:53]

Really, if we're just open to who we really are, we're actually pretty understandable. Understandable meaning we evoke compassion. We're just people who are trying to do the right thing who've gotten a whole lot of confusion going on. So we're that way and other people are that way. If we just look, if we just sit down and try to be stable enough so that we can stand to look at what's happening there, I think we start to see, this is somebody who needs a friend. Oh, she's acting like a two-year-old. Wow. What's that about? Or she's acting like a 14-year-old. It all kind of I think that's the magic of what we're doing is that we're not making ourselves into something. We're discovering what we are.

[60:55]

We're discovering what the world is. So really you just keep looking, and maybe it helps to try to soften your heart or to be open or words like that, ideas like that that might help. But I think it actually happens pretty naturally. if we're open to what's there. 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.

[61:46]

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