This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning and welcome on this wonderful day, this full moon morning at Gringold Schwang. Thanks for all of you who drove that nice winding road down here in the sunshine. And also, thank you for joining online. And I want to send a very special welcome to our new farm and land apprentices, which are here, as are here for the first day today. And I haven't met them yet, so may I see some hands, who is one of the new, I see they're all distributed there in the back.

[01:08]

Maybe I shortened the name a little, the full name is Farm and Land Work Practice Apprenticeship Applicants. I really wish for you that your life here seems a little bit simpler than the name we gave you. But I think people just couldn't let go of bringing all these words in to not lose something, especially not the work practice part. And I'll talk more about that maybe today. But for those who don't know what that apprenticeship is, program also is, I just want to spend a few words of explaining what we have here at Green Gulch. So we have all the different temple jobs. And for all the different temple jobs, we have essentially what we call apprenticeship programs. So there's a minimum of three months for these.

[02:13]

There's like the farm and land, which just joined here. And then we have kitchen apprenticeship. And then we have guest program apprenticeship. And then we have sometimes maintenance apprenticeship. And most of the programs all come throughout the year. But for the farm and land, because it's such a seasonal work, we actually ask them to commit to come for the whole season. And so they come in a cohort. And as for all the programs, we have people come for two weeks before just to... give them an experience and let them decide, like, is that really what I want to do? So they come two weeks before, and that's what the farm and land apprentices are right now here for to see if they actually want to come this year's season and to farm with us, to practice and to farm with us. And then after this time, they can decide if they want to stay here.

[03:19]

for the season or for their lifetimes. Just kidding, you're allowed to leave. So, I think I thought like this was the perfect time for me to maybe say something about work practice, which is so highly valued in our tradition. And, Maybe I want to start with just giving you a little bit of an historical overview, because if you know a little bit about Buddhism, I mean, it's surprising that we actually really value the work, because at the beginning, at the time of the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni Buddha, the monks were not even allowed to work. So they didn't have any work duties during that time, And not only they didn't have any work duties, they also didn't have any schedule.

[04:23]

So it is quite, there was no wake-up bell, no work meeting or something like that. It was just like everybody lived according to their own timing. And I can imagine for some residents, maybe including me, that sounds like paradise. Like, what? No schedule? Or you get up in the morning, and when you get up, and you meditate a little bit, and then maybe you walk into town and get you a free breakfast, and then you come back, and in the afternoon you can rest a little bit, and then hear maybe some dharma dogs of the Buddha when he's there, and then meditate a little bit and go to bed. So, I mean... Maybe that was a little bit by delusion, and I know it couldn't have been just like that, but I read a little bit up on that, and that sounded quite a little bit different, I should say. Even though it was very clear they did not have a schedule or anything, on average, the monks got up at 2 a.m.

[05:27]

in the morning to start to meditate and then got later into their... hygiene and into their robes, and then went to town, which sounded also a little bit less romantic. They just went into town silently, one row, not looking even up, eyes cast down with their bowls, and they received whatever food they got. They were not supported to ask for any special food requirements or so. And then they... came back and had usually their one meal, sometimes two meals, but definitely before noon. And yes, then they had some rest and they had maybe some talks and meditation and they usually meditated until 10 p.m. in the night to get up at 2 a.m. in the morning again. So, and there was, I mean, I thought like, was there some hidden pressure or so?

[06:29]

Of course, You don't know where Lise says, but it seems like that is what these monks wanted to do. And so the whole discipline to do this pretty vigorous schedule, which wasn't one, came from their, you could say, from their inner seeking or from their They had a word for that at that time, which was amazing. They had the word samvega, which was the driver for their practice. And samvega directly translated means something like an inner deep jolt or a rattle or so. And I found a nice, let me see, I found a definition which I wanted to read.

[07:31]

Yeah, so the Sanskrit meaning is like a sorrow shake or deep agitation, sometimes translated as existential urgency. And the definition, which I like very much, was the insight that one's way of living is not appropriate in the face of aging, sickness and death. And so that was their motivator. And I was touched that they actually in this culture in India had a word for that because it showed that they actually had respect for such a third. They had respect for the realization of the impermanence and respect for monks following their call and going out and following their search to find what they were looking for to make their life meaningful.

[08:44]

And I think if you compare that to our culture, I saw it a little bit. If we have something And I think in our culture, it's a little bit like that we really try to keep that impermanence a little bit under the rug. I mean, we hear a lot like in the media, of course, in the news, we hear a lot about death and suffering and so. But still, they're somehow set up in a way that it doesn't come to us us so much at least they try to prevent that um i recently had like i i i looked at a um life insurance brochure and um you might think like well that's that's the part where it comes really that's the part where it comes up but i mean If you look at the pictures, it doesn't show dying people or really sick people or something like that.

[09:52]

They look all like they never need this life insurance. Even in these situations, we really try to avoid bringing over this message of you know, life is short, and you will face aging, sickness, and death. And what are you doing about it? That would be an interesting life insurance message. Yeah. I think the only word, strangely enough, which came to my mind, which we have for something like that, for a person who, like, feels like his life is not appropriate and it's it's short it's like we say oh he's in midlife crisis and also this is uh this is like the opposite of respecting really that realization um

[11:05]

Yeah, of course, I just want to refer, of course, in that in the culture in India during Buddha's time, life expectancy was about like 30. So death was really in the face of people from very, very young age. Some got older if they managed to become 10 years old or so, but still like people where death was right in front of you. And also, of course, they didn't have all this distraction through media or other stuff where they could get into the illusion that life is eternal, more like I feel like we do here. Anyway, this was a little bit of a sidetrack, just maybe to make a major point that The culture in India during Buddha's time respected renunciates which followed the call.

[12:20]

And that was directly connected to the fact that it was normally in their culture to feed monks, to provide food, to provide labor, to provide places for them to stay and to practice. And that went on for the next like two, 500 years after Buddha died. Even in the early monasteries, it was like the monks did not, they got a little bit more of a schedule, but they did not, they were still not supported to work. And so it was that all the lay practitioners, or lay practitioners, they didn't call them practitioners, but all the lay people around really liked to support these monasteries. And they did the work in the monasteries, they did the cooking, and they did the farming or whatever was necessary to do. And then the big change came when Buddhism traveled from India to China.

[13:33]

And that was like, yeah, you could say like 500 years later or so. And Buddhism there met a totally different culture. And the culture they met there was not set up at all for giving arms or providing food or providing free labor for people. And then there was also, not only it was not set up, there was from a culture, like there was a suspicion of, I think, what we call idle renunciate. So from the... Confucian philosophy, I think it was not very much accepted that people were just like meditating and receiving everything from outside. So the only chance for Buddhism, for Buddhist practitioners to survive while moving to China was to become self-sufficient. And so the monasteries which developed in China started

[14:39]

started to do their own farming and they had of course their own kitchen where the monks cooked and they had their maintenance and all of that. So that was the big change where for the first time in Buddhist practice you could say work was introduced. And at the beginning you could say, I mean it makes sense that at the beginning when the work was freshly introduced that people, they knew it was introduced because it was necessary. It was not introduced because there was a change in philosophy, but it was necessary for them to survive. So then at these first few hundred years again in China, it was more like meditation was still like the crown and the work was necessary. But through these new conditions, after the hundreds of years, also people felt more and more the value and the potential of practice and realization in the work itself.

[15:59]

And that's where work slowly moved into becoming more important. work practice and a substantial part of our practice in this tradition. And maybe so, we are just before, we are now just in Tang Dynasty China, like 1200 years from now, backwards. So one famous, there's one famous recording or quote of our ancestor Bai Zhang during that time, which showed clearly that change. And the quote is like, a day without work is a day without eating.

[17:00]

And you might think, hmm. Hmm. I thought, mm, too. But maybe, first, let's say, like, well, it really acknowledges, actually, which is totally new for Buddhist practice, that monks work and that that has a value. I mean, the second part is a little bit hidden because, I mean, the first impression of the sentence is like, oh, well, that could have been, my dad could have said that to me, you know. It's like... Well, you better work to earn your living or so. But that would be not really respecting Baizang and his life. And knowing that in that complex, one could say that this was a very early and not so clear expression really of what came up more and more and which came up especially when later than Chan went to

[18:07]

Japan with Dogen where the value was or the realization was that work and practice or you could say with Baisang like the activity of work and the nourishment were not really separate and that it was not like oh yeah there is practice and there is work but or there is practice and then there's realization, waking up. That was all, you could say, realized, or that was the major philosophy which come up, that these are not two different things. And so, I think that is where, our value, and I'll see more about that, where our value of work practice came from, how it developed.

[19:12]

And, of course, the question then comes up at that point, it's like, well, work practice, okay, what's the difference between work practice and work? Is there any or is there not? Or, How about somebody is just like, say that we're busy, working busily. Is that the same than somebody working as practice? And not answering this question. I mean, I want to read. There's a wonderful... exchange between between two brother monks from the time actually they are both students of bison from the time of the tang dynasty and there's an exchange exactly about this question and we are lucky that it was um written down and noted down in the um in our collection of coins the book of serenity

[20:32]

It's case 21, and it's called Yunyan Sweeps the Ground. And I just want to read that plain case, how it's written there, and maybe then comment a little bit about it after. But it shows nicely how they struggled with that question which we, or maybe our apprentices, will struggle here too with. The case, reads, as Yunyan was sweeping the ground, Dao Wu, his dharma brother, said, too busy. Yunyan said, you should know there's one who isn't busy. Dao Wu said, if so, then is there a second moon? Jungian held up a broom and said, which moon is this?

[21:34]

I always loved these koans, and many do. It's very popular for this playfulness, the lightness, and maybe also for the fact that nobody gets whacked in this koan or screamed at, which is not uncommon in our tradition. Not here. I can calm you down. I'm not here at Green Gulch, but if you read especially like Rinzai koans, that's a lot expressed there. So I think I want to just restate the koan a little bit in my own... in my own imagination just to bring a little bit of life into like how how did that really look like because it's a very short and dry koan and i hope i don't suffocate it too much um but so imagine the story like there's this monk in the morning like we do here for example what we call zoji in the morning like people are cleaning toilets sweeping the ground around the temple or so every time after our uh after our morning service

[22:54]

So one of the monks is sweeping the ground nicely, and then another monk comes up to him and says like, you know, it looks like you're a little bit too busy. You're a little bit too involved in work. I don't think you're practicing. Like, how about doing something spiritual? And then, so I clearly see this like, Ooh. And then Yun Yun, obviously, at least it seems like here, stays calm. He doesn't say, I'm busy, I'm not busy, or anything like that. And, I don't know, plays a teaching role and says, you should know that there's always one who isn't busy. And That sounds a little bit, I mean, for me, that sounds a little bit like, okay, yeah, even if there's a busy one and then there's also a realization of not being busy at the same time.

[24:07]

And Dao Wu got that and realized that and said, like, I got you. And asked him the question, but before he asked him the question about the two moons, I just want to give you a little bit of background, sorry, which is written in the commentary, which it doesn't state in the case itself. And so what comes to Daavu's mind, the monks are very well trained, and so they are very knowledged of the sutras, even though it says like Chan or Zen is a transmission beyond the sutras. They're very knowledged about them. And Daavu recalls a sutra, It's called Shurangamam Sutra. And in this sutra, Buddha explains to Manushri, Manushri is that guy on the altar back there, by the way. Buddha explains to Manushri how ordinary deluded people, because of their distorted way of seeing things, see two moons.

[25:22]

And that really, there is only one moon, as Manu Shvi also realizes. So having this in mind, he throws that back to Yun Yan and says like, are you seeing two moons? I mean, are you one of those who are deluded and see two moons? And I'm sure Yun Yan knows what he's referring to. But he does what the real Zenmeister does, because he doesn't go into further philosophical or conceptual debate. He just leaps out in the presence, you know, and leaves all this conceptual behind. He leaps out and says, which moon is this? I hope nobody here was trying to answer that.

[26:30]

Just like our texts which we read in the morning sometimes say like, if you try to answer it, if you try to answer it, you just move further away from it. You just move further away from it. this moment. And so the koan ends just with that statement, leaving for us the practice of not answering it. That's one way of seeing it. You could also say like, well, Being in the present moment right now, who can say busy or not busy?

[27:36]

Being any time really wholeheartedly here, there is no distinction between busy, not busy, good, bad, or all of this. And that is a little bit where this koan is pointing to, without saying to us. Like we often say, we point with the finger to the moon, and this koan points us to the one moon with the finger without telling us the details. So there's still the question you could say, like, what is it left to do for us?

[28:45]

And the commentary of this koan addresses us directly and says, good people, as you eat, boil tea, so and sweep. You should recognize the one not busy. Then you will realize the union of mundane reality and enlightened reality. That was the commentary written a few hundred years after that, so around 1200, so it's a really old commentary. on this case, recommending like, you should recognize the one not busy. But then how do we? Wouldn't we all like to?

[29:53]

I think I want to move at this point to an analogy which I love very much and I brought it quite often but I'm not giving so often talks so you might have not heard. It's an analogy which Suzuki brings up from time to time between the movie and the screen. So the analogy would be like The one who is busy, the one who is involved in the conceptual world, or you could say in our conventional world, is the movie. That's usually what we are looking at, and that's what we are very familiar with. And then there is the screen. The screen which relates to the one who is not busy.

[31:02]

And I just want to read again how Suzuki himself, that's actually our founder of San Francisco Zen Center, worded it. He says, our everyday life is like a movie. Most people are interested in the picture on the screen without realizing there is a screen. It's like most people are interested in whatever we can figure out in our busyness, but are not realizing the one who is not busy, are not realizing the screen. But when you are practicing, you realize that your mind is like a screen. To have, I would say, to recognize a pure, plain, white screen is That is the most important point. So he's saying the same thing than actually this comment that I said like 1,200 years ago.

[32:12]

Just that recognizing the one who is not busy is the most important point. Why I brought up this analogy and what I like very much on it is that In this analogy, it is very clear, A, that the movie is never separate from the screen. The busy one cannot be separate from the non-busy one. Without a screen, without anything to project on, there is no movie happening. And so screen and movie are... totally interwoven. They are two sides of the same thing, you could say, nearly. And the second part is like, for the one, for the actor in the movie, you could say, like, we, how I see myself, how I walk through the day as I know these things and I perceive things, as this person, as the actor of the movie,

[33:26]

there is not a way I can touch the screen. No actor in a movie can see or touch the screen on which they are projected on. That's just not possible, but that is a very important realization because otherwise we just keep trying to move, to touch, to find things the one who is not busy, to find enlightenment and to always think like, oh, it must be somewhere deep as a special state of mind or I just need to do this and maybe I can get a glimpse of it. But the actor will not get a glimpse, will not get a glimpse with his perception of the screen. That's why the texts always tell us, like, it's not... within reach of feeling or discrimination or anything which is at hand to our normal senses to us.

[34:38]

And I would add even to the supranormal senses. And I feel like this is an important point for clarifying also what we do during Zazen. That we are not sitting there and waiting for something which isn't present right now. Because we are the actor, the movie, which is always on the screen. No matter what stupid thought I just have. And if I have the thought, I'll find it and it will come soon. I see like I'm very close. It's funny because that's already all happening on the screen. So there's not a need really to... go out and find it somewhere else. So that comes back then to, okay,

[35:57]

And so how do I practice? And one way, a good way of answering that is, in our tradition, not to answer that, but to live with that question. since I know this is very unsatisfying, and I'm not a Zen master who needs to just leave questions open. I'll just say something. I think what I feel like one word which fits well is to develop faith, to develop trust in what is not graspable or perceivable to us.

[37:01]

So that's a very important point of our practice. Another point of it's all like, but is there something that we can do? Yes, there's lots of things we can do. And there are millions of recommendations in Buddhist. There's all this very... profound teachings of the following the parameters and so. But I'll just give a little bit more of an angle from our Zen practice. I think what we can do or what we think we can do is like to study, to study our own movie, to study our own movie very closely and to settle down and look at what is happening there. not so much with the goal of finally seeing the screen, but maybe with the goal of playing with the movie, playing with our belief, with our belief in the movie, playing with letting go of our concepts.

[38:21]

And with this playfulness of letting go of our conceptual, we are, you could say, we are developing further the face towards the unknown. We are getting closer, even though we were never apart, but we are developing trust in our own nature, which we cannot grasp. And that might feel because part of that path is to let go of our concepts, let go of our knowing who we think we are, let go of our knowing who we think

[39:29]

And that might feel a little bit scary or unusual and strange. Especially if you exercise letting go of this muscle. Because we use this muscle just to constantly during the day, we affirm that we are a person, that we know the world, and we have sort of control of it. So... you might move into the space when you let go of these concepts and all of this effort where things get a little bit unclear and where you are more frightened about am I still functioning when I let go of this? When I don't know anymore who I am? And Although this practice is very rewarding, we have to be very careful when we practice this way.

[40:34]

And a major part of this practice is just to be very kind, very gentle, and very loving to this person who is letting go. Because the loving, the warmth we give this person will allow this person to trust, to let go, and for us to find rest or home in the one who is not busy. And so, just to stress again, that our practice is not going on a rigorous search for something outside, but to just send warmth and love to this person as whenever we remember, whenever we remember to let go of all of our busyness during the daily life.

[41:48]

Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[42:21]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_97.1