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 Beginner's Mind Temple. The Eno told me that this is a wild group. So... Be wild. But sit still. Actually, that's an important admonition. To sit still, but not to lose your energy. To keep your energy high and to sit still. It's about dual tracking. It's about seeing the objective world and experiencing the subjective world. Knowing how you feel. and seeing how everybody else feels.

[01:00]

Seeing the field of physicality and the field of the subjective. But I'm not gonna talk about that today. I don't think, we'll see. I've been at Zen Center for 39 years, and this is my last year of residency. I finally graduated. And I'm looking for places. And I found an interesting place which may work out. But I won't say anything about it because it's not sure. So it's been a time where I've been reflecting upon my time here and my time before I came to Zen Center and where I'm going. Suzuki Roshi said that the secret of all the schools of Buddhism is to be present in the moment.

[02:03]

So welcome to all the schools of Buddhism. Here you are. This is the cutting edge of your life. What's going to happen next? If you know what's going to happen next, it's too much. If you don't know what's going to happen next, maybe you're not trying hard enough. I don't know. I recently had been teaching the Diamond and Lotus Sutra, and I remember an experience I had early on in my practice. Lotus Sutra is, for those of you who don't know, is a technicolor sutra. It starts out, it's a thing about who's there, who's in the room when the Lotus Sutra is being talked about, and then it opens up to the eastern quarter where thousands of millions of worlds are. and it talks about the connection to them.

[03:07]

About this time I first was reading these sutras, one day I was watching television, of all things, and I began to see that the actors had parents and had family, and the cameramen did, and the whole television opened up to more than just a confection of entertainment. but of a connection of things, which goes way back and connected with me. So I wasn't just watching a television show. I was watching the connection with the all being. To be able to open up your life is pretty good. Zen practice, in a way, looks pretty boring. You sit down and you shut up. And you follow a schedule. But that's just to ground you so that you can open up to the wider world.

[04:08]

If you're lost in dreams, you're not connected to the world here and to the wider connectedness of all things. So that's what I'm going to try to step out. I'm calling my place Dragon's Leap. My Buddhist name is Great Dragon. And I'm taking a leap. And I don't know exactly what will happen, but I have some ideas. Last night we saw a film which Ed Herzog did, who was a Berkeley Zen Center member. He did an hour film of Berkeley Zen Center. It was pretty good, but I was just struck by, that's the Berkeley Zen Center now.

[05:12]

Five years ago, there was another Berkeley Zen Center. Five years from now, there'd be a different Berkeley Zen Center. The leadership and people who were talking were those people who were talking for now. And it was very moving to see how things change all the time. a long time ago I published a book called 33 Fingers and I updated it with 49 fingers 16 years ago I wrote the book and 16 koans got added and the one I put last is called Bullseye Kobanchino Roshi was at Esalen with Shibata Sensei his Kudo, archery teacher. Shibata-sensei shot at a target and then handed the bow and arrow to Kobin, inviting him to demonstrate his skill.

[06:16]

Kobin took the arrow and bow, did a 180-degree turn, and with complete attention and care shot the arrow into the ocean. When it hit the water, he said, Bullseye. Sometimes what we're shooting for is actually rather narrow. And that can be okay as long as you realize that what we really want is something rather big. Particular in general. Objective and subjective. Dual tracking. I just thought of something.

[07:25]

I should read the first koan. That was the last. This was the first. It's called Vending Machine. That in Katagiri one said, you take care of your life as if it were a vending machine. You put the coins in from the top and then get the soda at the bottom. You do meditation and you expect something. But life doesn't always go so well. The vending machine goes out of order. Then you are mad and you kick the machine. It's starting out with a very small desire. It ends with a big intention. Which is maybe how we start our practice. We start it with a small desire. And the desire usually is to not hurt so much or get a little bit better. self-improvement.

[08:26]

And then it goes to the heck of self-improvement. Let's go all the way. Let's do something that just myself to improve, but which the whole world can leap together. So it's not so easy to leave. I'll be not seeing my friends, like I haven't used Shin so much, and other of my friends here. But maybe you'll come see me, and I'll come here too sometimes. But living in the moment, you know, in a certain way, after I was here for 35 years, I didn't think about leaving. It just didn't seem like something was a possibility.

[09:31]

And then all of a sudden it said, I can leave. I can do something different. That maybe my learning and teaching has reached a new place that I need to go to. So I'm going to emphasize creativity. I'll do some painting. And compassion. A Zen temple emphasizes discipline and it's very important. But discipline needs to be leavened with something else. And sometimes when you're disciplined you find out what that other thing is. You're no longer distracted by doing whatever. but by trying to do each thing completely, you say, oh, now it's time to do this.

[10:33]

So, to live each moment not knowing exactly what's happening is scary. Yark. But it can't be beat. To live just to live safely may be important for some time. In Buddhism we take refuge and we take refuge in a way to make us feel safe but after we've taken refuge then we have to become a refuge for other people we need to take refuge so that we can give refuge so I understand there's a how many of you are here for the first time?

[11:47]

good welcome there's a lot for you to learn here and there's a lot for you to give here And it's not accidental that this temple is called Beginner's Mind Temple. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities and the experts there are few. So I can't imagine where you've come here. You may have come here to learn meditation. You may have come here to say, what do those people in their strange clothing do? Or you may have come here to say, Buddhism, that sounds interesting.

[12:50]

Or you may have come here to say, I've got nothing else to do this morning. But for whatever reason you've come, open to the possibility. See what it is that you're expecting and what you're learning. I'll give you one clue. If you come to a lecture and you're not any so interested in a lecture, that's okay because you still do meditation. You can still find yourself where you are, actualizing the fundamental point. Wherever you are, you can be a Buddha. long as you don't have too many ideas of what being a Buddha is. Last week I was in L.A. to Soto Shu.

[13:54]

Soto Shu is a particular school of Zen and Shu means school in Japanese so the Japanese tradition has a headquarters in L.A. And once a year they have a get-together for the teachers that it recognizes. And it's always, there's always some kind of, like with parents, there's always some kind of, why do they tell us what to do for? And they're saying, you should do this. But this year there was a difference in that they were saying, you guys should take over. The American Zen teachers should run the American, what happens in America, which means take care of registration of priests, have some standards, all the stuff that we're not so interested in doing, but maybe we all have to do.

[15:06]

But it was interesting. There was two directions going on. There was one proposal for this Japanese temple, which would be a traditional Japanese temple, which would be run traditionally, and maybe it would be the center of Soto Zen in America. And the other, they want the Americans to take over. It's like schizophrenic. But then again, we're all schizophrenic. We want to hold control. We want to do what we want to do. And yet we want to interrelate with things. So that's why it's important for the Americans and teachers to interrelate with the Japanese and teachers because it's not a matter of Japanese or American. It's a matter of how we institutionalize these things. It's the danger. The spark of practice is everywhere. It's not any country's intellectual property.

[16:18]

So each one of you is a school of Buddhism. Each one of you is your own field. And you should appreciate it. Another one of the koans in here is a famous one of Suzuki Roshi, which said, he said, each one of you is perfect the way you are, and you can use a little bit of improvement. He was very gentle. We could use a lot of improvement. But if you just think you need improvement, you can never get there. If you think you're perfect, then you're stuck. There's one other teacher who's been at the Zen Center who I really appreciated a lot was Issan Dorsey.

[17:24]

And he said, each one of us gets what we deserve, whether we deserve it or not. The fact that some things happen to us, we sort of deserve it, but karma is whatever you do has results. Karma is a result of everybody doing things. So to think that you don't have any participation in things is an error. But to think that it's solely your participation is also an error. To accept responsibility for the way things are, even though I don't know how I got us into this mess, is important. But the thing also about karma is, after all the karma is out there, then there's an opportunity to do something which will change. So if you accept things as they are, then you can make a response to that.

[18:35]

Buddhism was first, early on, was thought of as a religion of renunciation. But in America, I think we see it more as a religion of acceptance, accepting who we are, not renouncing. But there's a way in which these two meet. We do a full moon ceremony where we do the avowals, which is all my ancient twisted karma from beginningless greed, hate, and delusion born through body, speech, and mind I now fully avow. Avowing, recognizing, admitting, is both a renunciation of what you've done and an acceptance of it. If you can't accept what you did or what you're capable of, then you can't change.

[19:40]

So avowing is... accepting both your ancient twisted karma and your desire to change. So in America, we emphasize acceptance more because I think we all have low self-esteem. So we have to accept that. And if you renounce a low self-esteem, that may just make it lower. You understand? If you renounce low self-esteem, then you ain't got no esteem at all. So for those of you who are beginning your practice,

[20:46]

Keep going. Find what you love to do and do it. For me, meditation was something I loved to do. I didn't love it every time or for every moment. But in general, it's pretty good. And I learned from it. So find what you love and do it. But hopefully what you love can also teach you about yourself. And now I want to bring back the wild energy. So let's all shout after three. One, two. Ah! We can do better than that.

[21:49]

One, two, ah! Maybe once more. One, two, ah! Have a great day. 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 sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[22:38]

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