This podcast is offered by San Francisco's Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good evening, everyone. Good evening. I'm having a little trouble with my voice tonight, so if it gets weak, let me know so I can talk a little louder. First, welcome. Welcome to everyone. Thank you for being here. My name is David Zimmerman, and I am the head of practice here at City Center. And here with all of you. And anyone who's here for the first time? Yes. Welcome. Good to have you. Did I miss anyone else? Hi. Welcome. So, Tonight, I titled my talk, A Trust Larger Than Life and Death.

[01:04]

And as those of you know, most of you know in the community, unless you're new, we are in the Sangha, is in the process of meeting the death of our beloved New Dharma teacher and former abbess, Blanche Hartman, Zenke Blanche Hartman. She died on last Friday, early in the morning, She was about five days beyond the age of 90, so she had a long life, and her health had been failing from the last year or so. So it wasn't unexpected, but even so, it can still be a shock to us who are dealing with this particular transition. And as is the... The custom in Zen, or here at least at City Center, Zen Center, a number of the Sangha came to pay a condolence call and to sit with Blanche here in the Buddha Hall with her body for three days.

[02:10]

The practice is to sit for 24 hours over three days with the body. Just being together, she was laying right here on the table her head towards the altar, surrounded by flowers, and people would come and offer some flowers and then spend some time connecting with their memory, their sense of her, the way that she impacted them, what they received from her, and also what they gave to her as well. And so we were keeping her company, as she made the transition from one state that we call life to another state that we call death. But we were also keeping company ourselves and with each other. As we made the transition to this burgeoning realization or awareness that once again we have lost someone

[03:23]

that we love, and that we too will one day transition in this way, that others will also mourn for us, remember us, carry us in their minds, hearts, and bodies in a particular way. So we can understand the practice of sitting with... Blanche's body for three days is a significant Zen ceremony or ritual. It's a very intimate experience to sit with the dead. To ourselves embody a profound commitment to stillness and silence in front of someone who is beyond stillness and silence. And being with the body of a deceased is a powerful reminder of our own human bodies, the direct source of our sense experience, the ways in which we connect to a feeling of aliveness.

[04:40]

In Zen, Zazen, sitting meditation, is itself considered a ritual. It's a... ceremonial enactment and an embodied expression of our innate, awakened awareness. It's often characterized as silent, still, open, spacious, and luminous. In her wonderful book, Bringing Zen Home, which explores the healing Zen rituals of Japanese laywomen, Paula Rai notes that ritual, including the ritual of Zazen, expresses through the body what the mind cannot grasp or make sense of.

[05:43]

She writes, The power of ritual, however, is not in an ability to communicate conscious knowledge, but to frame experience in such a way that it may be comprehended meaningfully. Rituals help facilitate healing, including grief, because rituals are an experience of the non-bifurcated body-mind. Rituals in this way point us to our interconnectedness. Rituals provide a space to tolerate the otherwise intolerable. when they are signed and performed accordingly. Rituals can help us to tolerate the intolerable because, through them, we can experience ourselves in an incomprehensively vast space, large enough to contain the source of angst, grief, pain, fear, confusion.

[06:48]

along with a space that transcends particular conditions. Rituals are adapted at working with and guiding emotions. They help in healing because they facilitate staying in the present. So our ritual of just sitting, of sitting with life and sitting with death, as best we can in an open, spacious, receptive way, supports us to hold the myriad paradoxes and emotions we experience in the midst of the apparent arising and passing away of conditioned phenomenon, and to do so with a greater ease in spaciousness. Ritual enables us to transcend the need for answers.

[07:50]

Zazen enables us to transcend the need for answers. Because when we sit in perfect silence and stillness, all is experienced as whole, perfect, and beyond coming and going. the questions themselves become mute in some way. So there's been a particular Zen koan that has been sitting with me for the last few days while we have been meeting Blanche's death. And it's titled, Dao Wu Pays a Condolence Call. And it's case 29 in the collection of 300 of Dogen's koans. known as the True Dharma Eye. And this is it.

[08:52]

Zen Master Dao Wu and his student, Jian Wan, went to her house to offer condolences. Jian Wan struck the coffin with his hand and asked, Alive or dead? Dao Wu said, I'm not saying alive. I'm not saying dead. Ji Wan asked, Why not? Dawu said, I'm not saying, I'm not saying. On the way home, Jiwan said, Say something right now, teacher. If you don't, I'm going to hit you. Dawu said, You can hit me, but even if you hit me, I'm not saying. Jiwan hit him. After Dao Wu passed away, Ji Wan went to another teacher, Shi Shuang, and told him this story. Shi Shuang said, I'm not saying alive, I'm not saying dead.

[09:59]

Ji Wan asked, why not? And Shi Shuang said, I'm not saying, I'm not saying. At these words, Ji Wan had an insight, which usually happens in these koans at the end. If they didn't happen, they probably wouldn't be in here in most cases. So how would you answer the monk's question? Is this life or is this death? For those of us who sat here with Blanche, is this life or is this death? Is this life? Is this death? It's a very important question. And in Zen, we're constantly reminded again and again what an important question it is. In the collection of Blanche's teachings, which was published just last year, titled Seeds from a Boundless Life, Blanche herself reminds us that throughout Dogen Zenji's teachings, the question of birth and death or life and death

[11:17]

is called the Great Matter. On the Han, which is the wooden board that we strike in order to call people to Zazen, we have this quotation that's often chanted every night in a monastery in Japan. Great is the matter of birth and death. All is impermanent, quickly passing. Wake up, wake up, each one. Don't waste this life. I always like, when we hit that, just the idea that that verse is sounding out through the building, through the neighborhood, through the universe, as a reminder. She continues, there's a sense of urgency to understand about life and death. That's what Dogen Zenji is speaking to. Common parting words in Japan to someone who's leaving is to say, please.

[12:18]

take care of the great matter. It's very central in Buddhist teachings. Practice is a matter of life and death. So what is it that's born? What is it that dies? Is there life after death? In different schools of Buddhism and other faiths, there are different ways of looking at the question of life and death, and each with an integrity that's particular to its worldview, somehow answers these questions. This cone is just one view to ponder and sit with. So Dao Wu was asked a question by a student, and he gave a response. I won't say is one response to the question, is this life? Or is this death?

[13:19]

So answering this question is a fundamental part of the Buddha's teaching. This question of life and death was one of several questions that actually motivated the Buddha on his own quest towards liberation. And some of the sutras report dialogues with the Buddha in which people asked him about this question. They wanted to know if it can be said that a person exists or does not exist, both exists and does not exist, or neither exists nor does not exist. And these questions are normally considered in Buddhism as a group of questions that simply can't be answered. and which the Buddha himself set aside without answering when they were asked of him. And one of the reasons for his silence was that he saw that speculating over these types of questions was actually a time-wasting sidetrack from a fruitful spiritual practice.

[14:34]

Instead, he emphasized that taking care of the great matter is to live this life-death right now, right here, wholeheartedly engaged in every breath? This question is not a matter of metaphysics. It's a matter of your life. So as many of you know, we are in the midst of a six-week practice period in which we're exploring how we might go about cultivating a mind of radical trust. And so at times like this, we might want to ask ourselves, what is radical trust in the face of undeniable impermanence and death? What do we trust if we can't rely on this conditioned existence, this body?

[15:39]

which is prone to old age, sickness, and death, as well as the rest of conditioned existence, expressed either through the environment, culturally, socially, political, and so on. What do we rely on? The text for our practice period, the study that we are embarking on, is called the Xin Xin Ming, which is generally translated as trust in mind. or faith in mind. And one of the primary points of this sixth-century poem by the third ancestor, whose name was Seng San, one of the points it makes over and over again is that in order to experience a deep sense of trust or ease or equanimity in our lives, in order to truly know ourselves, as, if you will, universal life, Buddha life, one mind, sometimes, what the poem itself says.

[16:52]

In order to do this, we need to refrain from grasping onto conditioned appearances and conditioned views, including, if you will, our opinions, our preferences, our comparisons, and our dualistic concepts. And this includes not getting caught by the binary concept of life and death. So both trust in mind, the poem, and this particular koan reminds us that words and language are conditioned constructs, and therefore they're not reliable. We can't trust them. Again and again we are told in Zen to not depend on words for an answer because words never reach it. They always fail to capture or to express that which is most essential in this moment of experience.

[18:00]

Words cannot express the totality of our being. How do you experience that? How do you experience and know and express the totality of your being? Shinshen Ming states, the way, the great way, is beyond language. For in it there is no yesterday, no tomorrow, no today. The great way, or you could say the way of awareness or Buddha mind, is beyond words and beyond time. It's incomprehensible. The more you talk and think about it, says the poem, the farther astray you wander from the truth. Stop talking and thinking, and there's nothing you will not be able to know. So Dao's response to the question, dead or alive, was, I won't say.

[19:08]

He didn't say anything. I can't say. And he didn't say, I don't know. And he didn't say, go away. And he didn't say, I forget. He simply said, I won't say. So Dao Wu's not saying is his way of refraining from affixing a definition or label or a dualistic definition dualistically framed narrative or story, if you will, of beginning and end to what we could call the great mystery. But how do we then express the inexpressible? How do we then bring resolution to the irresolute?

[20:09]

how would you respond to this question? Alive or dead? In fact, how would you answer without even opening your mouth? Jianwu's question of Dao Wu and his subsequent actions of hitting his master exposed a sense of irresolution and doubt not only about his own life and death, but about who he truly is. In fact, he becomes so agitated by his existential inquiry that on the way back from his condolence call, he says to his master, you should say it quickly for me, teacher, or I will hit you. There's a footnote to this koan in the text that says, separation... always breeds confrontation.

[21:11]

Separation always breeds confrontation. So that's where the student is coming from. Separation. Dao said, hit me if you will, but I will not say. And the footnote to this says, relentless in his kindness, he exposes his heart and guts. and holds nothing back. So what is Dawu giving his student here? What is he giving all of us? What is he pointing us to that's much more than whether a corpse is dead or alive? he's kindly pointing us to the fundamental question, who are we? Who are you?

[22:14]

What's your true self? A while ago, I came across an article by the Buddhist scholar David Loy in which he argued that our true fear is not of dying, but of not existing in the first place. He says, Buddhism essentially points out that it's not death that underlies our deepest fears and mental suffering, but the more immediate and terrifying suspicion that anatta, or non-self, gives rise to, that I am not real right now. So how do you feel when I tell you that? You're not real. right now. At least not in the way that you think you are. That you contain no inherently existing self, nor any substantial impermanent thingness.

[23:24]

Now this is kind of pretty unnerving. I don't know about you, but I feel that. Someone tells me that. And a good teacher is always reminding you that, you know, in some way. And most of you, like me, probably don't want to be hearing this, don't want to be right-minded of this, even if we consider ourselves good sin students. Sometimes there's some part of us that strongly just wants to resist and deny this fundamental truth. A little voice inside going, na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na. You know? Facebook, anything other, right? So David Lloyd goes on, from the Buddhist perspective, our most problematic duality is not life against death, but self versus non-self, or being versus non-being.

[24:27]

The Buddhist response to such dualism involves recognizing the side that has been denied. If death is what the sense of self fears, the solution is for the sense of self to die. If it is non-thingness, the repressed intuition that the self is a fiction, that I am afraid of, the best way to resolve that fear is to become nothing. Once during a period of Zazen, Suzuki Roshi offered some words of encouragement that emphasized this very point as a practice instruction. So imagine yourself sitting in the Zen-no downstairs and Suzuki Roshi sitting with you and sitting in the middle of the period. Apparently he didn't say much during Zazen, but once in a... blue moon he did, and one time he said, don't move.

[25:30]

Just die over and over. Don't anticipate. Nothing can save you now because you only have, because you have only this moment. Not even enlightenment will help you now because there are no other moments. With no future, be true to yourself and express yourself fully. Don't move. This is shikantaza. This is the practice of just sitting, just sitting with the suchness of reality and with our true self, and not turning away from swallowing the hot coal of this question Who am I? The Xin Xin Ming offers a parallel practice tip for working with our doubts and irresolutions and that hard-to-shake sense of having a separate dualistic self or existence.

[26:45]

It says, In this world of suchness, there is neither self nor other than self. to come directly into harmony with this reality, just simply say, when doubt arises, not to. In this not to, nothing is separate, nothing excluded. So John Dido-Laurie, who translated the koans in the two Dharma I, the book that I mentioned earlier, Dogen's 300, says in the commentary for this particular koan, he makes a related point, saying, Graveling within the forest of brambles, Zen practitioners the world over probe the question of life and death before it is realized is like a 10-mile high wall or a bottomless gorge.

[27:54]

After it is realized, it is seen that from the beginning, obstructions have always been nothing but self. And this is where the student was coming from. Self. Small self. And the teacher, Dao Wu, was coming from the perspective of no separation. what we would say is intimacy. So Dao Wu, the student, was coming from the perspective of differences, which is the realm of the small self. And then it is the same with all barriers. The only way through the barrier is to be the barrier. And what this means is, in other words, the instruction of Xin Xin Ming is return to the source. return to reality. So our tendency is to put everything kind of outside of ourselves.

[29:01]

To think that who we are is this actual bag of skin. This is often the phrase that's used in Zen. We're a skin bag, this body. Nothing but a skin bag. What a lovely way to consider this being, right? But this skin bag is only a part of who we are. It's not the whole thing. The whole thing actually encompasses the whole universe. And so Thayda Laurie's commentary goes on to say, Lost in the double barrier of life and death, the monk has to know. Knowing is very important when we feel separated. Because of intimacy, the old master won't say, Intimacy with what, we might ask. Intimacy means not falling on one side or the other, or both, or neither.

[30:08]

So the word death misses it. Life misses it. Neither life nor death misses it. Both life and death miss it. There's nowhere to land in Zen. There's nowhere to abide. Intimacy, true intimacy, is just this open space where all possibilities flow forth. The minute you grab onto something, you're no longer intimate with your life. So Zheng San's trust in mind points us again and again to this open, undifferentiated, intimate space of oneness or one mind. It says, the way or one mind is perfect like vast space with nothing lacking or in excess.

[31:18]

Everything there is comes from oneness, but oneness cannot be described. And yet, even though it's indescribable, we still have to say something. And so we still use words to describe it. Words such as vast, boundless, limitless, spacious, luminous, deathless. And though vast and indescribable, the universe, or this one mind, takes the appearance of diversity, of individuality, takes the appearance of you and me and Blanche and flowers and Zafus of Zen Center. So Suzuki Roshi speaks to this matter in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, in the chapter Nirvana, The Waterfall.

[32:25]

And this chapter was one of Blanche's favorites. And in it, Suzuki Roshi speaks about life and death using the analogy of a river going over a waterfall. And apparently, I think he came up with this when he was at Yosemite. He was reminded of this. Before we were born, we had no individual feeling. We were one with the universe. This is called mind-only, or essence of mind, or big mind. After we are separated from birth, after we are separated by birth, from this oneness, as the waterfall is separated by the wind and rocks, then we have a feeling. In other words, then we experience separateness. You have difficulty because you have the feeling of separateness. You attach the feeling you have without knowing just how this kind of feeling is created.

[33:32]

When you do not realize that you are one with the river or one with the universe, you have fear. Whether it is separated into drops or not, water is water. Our life and death are the same thing. When we realize this fact, we have no fear of death anymore, and we have no actual difficulty in our life. When the water returns to its original oneness with the river, it no longer has any individual feeling to it. It resumes its own nature and finds composure. How very glad the water must be to come back to the original river. We say, everything comes out of emptiness. One whole river or one whole mind is emptiness.

[34:34]

When we reach this understanding, we find the true meaning of our life. Suzuki Roshi is reminding us here, once again, not to be fooled by our delusions of separateness. for we are never apart from the source. And even if we temporarily appear as individual water droplets or individual conditioned arisings to which we might give the names David or Blanche or Altar or Buddha, we're not separate, but we're all dependently arisen emptiness. To realize, to deeply realize this truth is to truly become one mind, to truly become one with faith mind.

[35:40]

The Shinshin Ming tells us, emptiness here, emptiness there. You could also translate this as dependent arising here, dependent arising there. But the infinite universe stands always before your eyes, infinitely large and infinitely small. No difference. For definitions have vanished and no boundaries are seen. So too with being and non-being. So too with life and death. Don't waste time in doubts and arguments that have nothing to do with this. only don't say. One thing, all things, move among and intermingle without distinction. In other words, without separation or discrimination. To live in this realization is to be without anxiety or without fear, about non-perfection or about death.

[36:52]

To live in this faith is to live in true confidence, is the road to non-duality, because non-dual is one with the trusting mind, one with the Buddha mind. Can you trust that who you truly are is beyond life and death? Can you have great faith that who you are is beyond coming and going, alive or dead. Are you willing to drop your doubts and to simply sit in silence and stillness, breathing together this one life until our very last breath? Sitting and living and dying in faith

[37:55]

that you are already Buddha. I want to close with a poem from Myogen Steve Stuckey. And Myogen was also a former abbot who had pancreatic cancer and within three months after diagnosis died. And this was about two and a half years ago. And as in often the tradition, he wrote a death poem just a day or two before he died. And I think this poem beautifully encapsulates both the dharma of Dogon's koan, alive or dead, and the heart of what the Shinshin Ming is pointing to. This is Steve's poem. This human body truly is the entire cosmos. Each breath of mind is equally one of yours, my darling. This tender abiding in my life is the fierce glowing fire of inner earth, linking with all pre-phenomena, flashing to the distant horizon from right here now to just this.

[39:16]

Now the horizon itself drops away. Bodhi Svaha. So the horizon that drops away is the small self, the separate self, the conditional demarcation and point through which we locate and limit our lives. But when we locate our true bodies and our true selves as the entire cosmos, as the unconditioned, extending beyond all time and space, extending between just now and just this, then we are truly awake, truly bodhi. And the expression in that moment, svaha, you could just say, wow, pretty amazing.

[40:22]

How wonderful. to have a trust that's larger than life and death. And it's this trust that both Blanche and Steve and all of us rest in, now and always. 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, please visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we all fully enjoy the Dharma.

[41:08]

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