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, all. So, how many are here for the first time this morning? Oh, welcome. And just to continue my survey here, how many people have been here to more than 10 Saturday lectures, let's say? Welcome back to all of you, too. Today I'm going to talk about work and Zen practice, or work as Zen practice. Probably an odd subject to talk about on a summer day. I usually think of summer as the time we're all running around in fields and flowers and things like that.

[01:03]

But one of my students came to me yesterday and was talking about her life and she says, I feel like I'm in the fast lane. I'm working 70 hours a week. So for those few of you who are working hard, which I think is the case for most of you, that's what I'm going to talk about today, work. I mean, we may think of Zen practice as sitting zazen, bowing or chanting or studying, which it is, but it's also been a long tradition in Zen to think about work as part of practice. Bai Zhang, who was in the 8th century China, part of the Tang Dynasty flourishing of Zen in China, was famous for establishing the Zen monastic rule in China. Buddhism, as you know, started in India, and most of the community in India were wandering monks and nuns who carried a begging bowl and were fed by the lay community that supported them, but they didn't live in monastic settings.

[02:04]

But when Buddhism moved to China, because the weather conditions were different and the culture was different, they started living in large monastic communities, and they had to develop the rules of living in large monastic communities and Bai Zhang was one of the most famous people in setting those monastic rules, one of which was around work practice, and this is the story that goes with that. Bai Zhang was always very insistent on working every day. When he was old, he persisted in this, and the monks felt sorry for him, so they hid his tools. He said, I have no virtue. Why should others work for me? And he refused to eat. He said... A day of no work is a day of no eating. This saying has become famous in Zen circles, and to this day the Zen schools are noted for their practice of work. So this is a fundamental point.

[03:05]

One must work for food. We say in our chant every evening at dinner before eating, we reflect on the effort that brought us this food and consider how it comes to us. We reflect on our virtue and practice and whether we are worthy of this offering. So our work is a contribution to taking care of necessities of life. That's part of what is going on with work. Another well-known saying of Bai Zhang, same teacher. Once Yunnan asked Bai Zhang, every day there's hard work to do. Who do you do it for? And Bai Zhang said, there is someone who requires it. Yunnan said, why not have him do it himself?

[04:08]

Good question. And Bai Zhang said, he has no tools. Who is that someone who When we were young, it was our parents who said, oh, go out and weed the garden or wash the dishes or chop the firewood. And probably our parents are still echoing in our minds a little bit about you're not working hard enough. But I'm talking about something a little bit bigger than that. This request to work comes from, does it come from all beings? Does reality itself request us to work? Does Buddha ask us to work? Is some innermost self in us requesting us to work? Where is this request to make this effort come from? I think all of those are true and not quite enough. Maybe it's best to say we don't know who that someone is that's asking us to work.

[05:19]

Why doesn't this person do it himself? Because He has no tools. Our body, our mind, our whole life are the tools of this bigger request. So we throw ourselves into our work with a lot of verve and joy. In this kind of work, there may be lots of planning and organizing and concern about how much money we make or how much work we get done. But the reason we are concerned about all this is not because we want to get rich or become famous or get a promotion. The reason is that we love the one who requires us to work and we want to do as good a job for that one as possible. If we are complaining and feel like we are working too hard and joyously, these are signs that we are not offering our work to the one who requires it. That our work is not an act of generosity and love. Recently I came across an article about the Roman philosopher Seneca.

[06:23]

He had a 2,000-year-old treaty. I guess this is an old discussion in the world called On the Shortness of Life. That was the title of the treaty, and this little essay was The Shortness of Life, Seneca on Busyness and the Art of Living Wide Rather Than Living Long. So Seneca writes, It is not that we have a short time to live. but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death's final constraint. to realize that it has passed away before we knew it was passing. So it is, we are not given a short life, but we make it short.

[07:25]

And we are not ill-supplied, but wasteful of it. Life is long if you know how to use it. Seneca's version on the need for us to use our life effectively. So... My sense is no amount of money and prestige justifies wasting our precious time, our precious life, doing something that isn't important to us. That is what a human being does. Fish swim, birds fly, humans work. This is our life and our joy. Kind of heavy for a Saturday morning. I'm going to have to lighten it up here a little bit, I'm afraid. So, how do we make work a vital, joyful activity?

[08:39]

So I will use a well-known case about being Busy. Too busy. It is a koan that, although from the 9th century China, is very appropriate to us. The world we live in now makes continuous requests for our attention and effort. Maybe we know too much with all the knowledge we have about how to fix ourselves, our community, our country, the earth. We go to bed at night with a feeling we didn't do everything we needed to do. A lot of times I ask people, how are you? And they say, I'm fine. I'm just too busy. So this is the case about busyness. And here it goes. As Yunnan was sweeping the ground, Dawu said, too busy. And Yunnan said, you should know there's one who isn't busy. And Dawu said, if so, then there's a second moon. And Yunnan held up his room and said, which moon is this?

[09:41]

So in the realm of Zen koans, this is fairly straightforward. But we could unpack it a little bit anyway. So just to let you know, Yunnan and Dawu, this is, again, 784 to 841, 8th and 9th century China. They were both students of Yaoshan, a very, very famous teacher at that time, and Yunnan eventually became became the teacher of Dengshan, who founded the Soto School in China. So they were prominent teachers. But during this period of time, they were students of Yaoshan, living in the temple. They were actually also brothers. Dao was the older brother of Yunnan. And they had this sort of sparring attitude towards each other, challenging each other's Zen practice as a kind of way of improving themselves. And there's many, many stories about the way they did this. So in this case, just to repeat the story, Yunnan, the younger Dharma brother, they're living in the monastery, is sweeping the path.

[10:52]

And his older brother, Dawu, and older brother, Dharma brother, too, says, too busy. And, you know, if you're a Zen student, you're not supposed to be looking busy when you're sweeping. You're supposed to be calm and composed and sweeping with great unity with the whole world, etc. And then he repeats, and Yunnan shoots back, you should know there's one who isn't busy. I think a pretty good response. I mean, he could have done something like, what are you giving me a hard time about this morning? What are you doing? But he just said, you should know there is one who isn't busy. And then Dawu responded again, if so, there is a second moon. and Yunnan held up his room. Which moon is this? Okay, so now we've kind of got the basics of it down. You know, every morning in this temple, we do soji, cleaning the temple. Right after we have service, the work leader hands out brooms and various instruments, and people go out and sweep the front street and clean the courtyard.

[12:02]

This is very much a part of Zen work, this physical, basic work of cleaning. traditional temple work. So there are two aspects of this kind of simple temple work. There's a mindfulness aspect, which is while you're sweeping, you're supposed to be mindfully paying attention to what you're doing, mindfully paying attention to your mind, mindfully paying attention to the sweeping you're doing, and also the people around you. So this is part of our basic practice in the Zen temple. When you're working in the kitchen, you're supposed to be mindfully paying attention to your carrot chopping, mindfully paying attention to the other people in the kitchen. And as part of this practice, actually, in the kitchen, we say we have only functional speech. So you're not supposed to be chit-chatting. You're supposed to be concentrating on your work and doing it, being present in your body.

[13:08]

And there's Big advantages of this, of course, if you're not chit-chatting, there's less likelihood you'll cut off your finger, which is handy. And also, you don't bump into other people as much. You actually pay attention to. So this kind of work is very traditional in Zen temples. In fact, this is part of your life, too. Work isn't just the job you're doing. When you get up in the morning, you have to brush your teeth. You have to make your breakfast. You have to wash the dishes after you make your breakfast. Work is just part of life. I have many retired friends who are so busy washing dishes, doing the shopping, taking care of their life, taking care of the garden, that they say, I don't know when I ever had enough time to have a job. So just the daily taking care of life is enough. I think the other characteristic of work, as I'm defining it here, is generosity. Work as an act of giving. So the one thing is you're just being mindful, being present in the moment.

[14:12]

The other is an act of giving. The attitude and purpose of work is for the benefit of others. You are doing this to contribute to the clean street, not your own ego fulfillment. Oh, I'm such a great sweeper. Look at how fast I sweep. I'm doing it better than that person. No, you're just contributing to the cleanness of the street, a generous act. I was reminded of a story the other day. I was talking with a friend who knew Suzuki Roshi and Mike Dixon, who did the paintings at Green's Restaurant. And Mike Dixon was one of the early students at Sakoji when Suzuki Roshi came from Japan. He first was the priest at the Japantown Temple Sakoji. And after Saturday morning, sitting in Orioki breakfast, they would have a work period where they would clean up. And I guess Mike was... kind of complaining to Suzuki Roshi that there were so many new students that wandered aimlessly around during the work period, didn't know what they were doing, and he was complaining to Suzuki Roshi about it.

[15:15]

But anyway, one morning, there was one of these students wandering around, not knowing what to do, and Mike just sort of felt, he just took his broom and gave it to the broom, his broom to this student. He said, here, have my broom, because the student was looking for a broom, didn't know where to get it. And all of a sudden, he turned around, and there was Suzuki Roshi. handing him his broom. Such a beautiful story of Suzuki Roshi and A, how he was always, he always, at least this is my experience of him, he always seemed to be there. You know, you would be looking at him across a long courtyard and when he turned around, he looked at you like he knew you had been looking at him or something. It was like he had this, his sense of being so present that when he connected with you, it was so... It was really something wonderful. Anyway, mindfulness and generosity, two aspects of work. So back to our story.

[16:16]

So Taoist testing Yunnan, saying your sweeping looks busy and not so good zen. By the way, I just want to mention this. We talk about how this is done in a temple. Generally, other students don't come up to students and say, your zen doesn't look so good. You're not following the form so good. We try to kind of tone that back, especially very new students. They learn the forms quite quickly, let's say, and after about three weeks, they've decided they're going to correct everybody else in the temple with their forms. So if you're new here, please, nobody will bother you about whether you're stepping into the zendo with the right foot or not the right foot. Just come to the zendo and sit. We don't. It's only because Dao Wu and Yunnan were such good friends that they could sort of challenge each other this way. So Yunnan said, you should know there's one who isn't busy. What an interesting comment. Is there one who's not busy?

[17:17]

Are you ever one who's not busy? When is it that you're the one who's not busy in your life? Can you be the one who's not busy and be busy at the same time? Can there be a kind of quiet person inside of you, a composed person inside of you at all times, even when you're doing many things? So this is a question that's put forward in this koan. When we sit zazen, sometimes we think, when you first start sitting zazen, you think, I'm sitting zazen. As Siguroshi used to say, you should never think that you're sitting zazen. Zazen is sitting zazen. Buddha is sitting your zazen. Some bigger person is sitting zazen with you. That some bigger person is you too.

[18:20]

It's just you're so kind of confused by your small mind that you don't recognize that bigger person. Well, that's the same in our work. There is a bigger, not busy person with you that you can connect with. I mean, we talk about being one with the universe. I don't think the universe is busy particularly. I mean, it's doing a lot. All those galaxies zooming around and everything. But it doesn't feel so busy. It's just what it's doing. So, good response from Yunnan. He's saying, I'm in connection with one who's not busy. Don't you see it? I may look busy to you, but I'm in connection with one who's not busy. And Dao shoots back.

[19:22]

If so, then there's a second moon. Kind of like, what? There's two of you? A non-busy person and a busy person? You're claiming there's two of you? They always make these things more complicated. He could have said... you claim there's two of you, a busy one or not busy, he's got to use this moon metaphor. They were nature lovers back in China. And also it sort of raises a wider question of moons are used for enlightenment, so do you think there's an enlightened person there and a not enlightened person there? Is there a relative self and an absolute self? And this is a common theme in all of Zen, which is, yes, I'm just a karmic, relative, particular human being here in this moment in life, and we would say in Buddhism, and you're Buddha, too, at the same time. And what do we mean by you're Buddha, too? It means part of you is connected to everything.

[20:24]

Part of you is one with everything. Part of you is part of the whole universe. And in that sense, you're Buddha. So, and this is, of course, the major question in Zen always is how do we unite our very specific relative world of washing dishes with a higher sense that life has more, is also that washing dishes is, you know, being a Buddha. I'm going to address that more when we get to the commentary on this koan because it's laid out beautifully. So what's Yon-Yon doing when he held up his broom and said, which broom is this? When he holds up his broom and says, which moon is this? He's saying, see, here, now, I am both a relative person and an absolute person.

[21:27]

I am both being myself completely and I am also being one with everything at the same time. That's his gesture, his physical comment on this challenge put to him by Dao. Beautiful answer. So these koans, of course, have commentaries on these little sayings because they like to expand on them. So this is the commentary. Dao bore down on union. Without upset, there is no solution. Without struggle, there is no expression. Here as Yunyan was sweeping the ground, Dawu casually tested him. Yunyan said you should know there is one who isn't busy. Good people as you eat, boil tea, sow and sweep, you should recognize the one not busy. Then you will realize the union of mundane reality and enlightened reality.

[22:32]

Then you will realize the union of mundane reality and enlightened reality. In the Dungshan progression, this is called simultaneous inclusion, naturally not wasting time. Dungshan was the founder of Soto Zen and there were the five ranks in the Dungshan progression moved to this place where you were simultaneously including mundane reality, the relative world, and enlightened reality in the same moment. So going back to one of those sentences, without upset there is no solution, without struggle there is no expression. I think that's reassuring. The way I've been laying out work so far is we're all being calm and composed in our work and everything, but let's face it, sometimes work is hard. Upsetting, difficult, anxiety producing, there's a great struggle. And they say, without struggle, there is no solution.

[23:35]

Without struggle, there is no expression. No expression means no solution to the problem. And if I think about my own life, my biggest disasters, my most trying times, have turned into my greatest successes. So if you're in the midst of a great trial, a great difficulty, that's fine. That's how work is sometimes. It's difficult. But those difficulties will mature you and produce, at least in my experience, great solutions. So what's this simultaneous inclusion they're talking about? It sounds kind of mystical to me. Good people, as you eat boiled tea, sow and sweep, you should recognize the one not busy. Then you will realize the union of mundane reality and enlightened reality.

[24:39]

Kategori Roshi was one of our early teachers, used to always say, wash a pan, wash a pan. Wash a pan with your full being and washing a pan will become a religious activity. Why shouldn't every thing you do be a religious activity? Your life is sacred. You're alive. Every bit of activity could be a sacred activity. How do we live with, work with, practice with, situate ourselves in the fact that washing dishes is just work in the relative world And yet, at the same time, washing bowls is enlightened reality. Eternal thusness, the endless awakening of all Buddhas in all worlds. How do we make that real? How do we make a practice of it?

[25:45]

How do we make a training of it? This is tricky business, I think. It's pretty easy to just ignore the loftiness of this whole idea that washing dishes is a special high spiritual event. I'll just shelve that. Who are we kidding? We're just washing dishes here. Nothing holy here. I think that's shelving it. I think you should at least raise the question since you're there doing it and usually sometimes with other people that maybe it is something spiritual. Or you can go the other direction and get into some kind of lofty idea, oh my, I'm Buddha here washing dishes and do a lousy job on washing the dishes because you're being Buddha. No, that's a fantasy. That's a fantastical, just a dream. So we have to experience this, this very mind of Buddha while we're washing dishes.

[26:50]

So Dogen Zenji, who was the founder of our school of Zen in Japan, wrote an essay called Zenki, Total Dynamic Working. I love that title, right? We're not just washing dishes, we're being total dynamic working. And this is what he said. Thus there is detachment from birth and death and penetrating or immersion in birth and death. Such is the complete practice of the great way. There is letting go of birth and death and vitalizing birth and death. Such is the thorough practice of the great way. By birth and death, let's just say he's talking about the arising and vanishing of each moment of our life. So at every moment, our life arises and dies away. Life and death. And he's saying there is detachment from this arising and vanishing. and immersion in the rising and vanishing.

[27:56]

There's letting go of the rising and vanishing and vitalizing yourself in the rising and vanishing. Isn't that interesting? Both sides. How is this work? In each moment, detachment and immersion. If we can commit to a thorough immersion in our lives, as they are, And when we do it, we are closer in with all the people in our lives and with our own experience than we thought possible. And yet at the same time, the quality of that being closer in is a kind of detachment and freedom from our lives. As if we didn't possess our lives, we didn't possess our experiences, we didn't possess anything or anyone. completely immerse yourself in your life and give up your attachment to any results.

[29:03]

Give up your attachment to anything. In letting go of our lives, which is letting go of all the past, we vitalize our lives in the present. Even though the past is still there, we didn't forget who we are or where we came from. To care deeply for the world and for our own lives is to be free of the world and of our own lives. How to understand this and live this is our Zen work practice. Anyway, just to bring it down into something a little simpler, one of my favorite sayings from Suzuki Roshi, I always loved this when he said, sometimes I think you think your problems are are more important than the fact that you're alive. You would look at us and say, sometimes I think that.

[30:04]

We have problems. We have work problems. Are they more important than the fact that you're alive? I mean, is that a spiritual event that you're alive? I don't know. I mean, at some level, it seems to be a spiritual event. It certainly... a remarkable thing that this is going on. I mean, we still haven't figured out what's going on here, even with all the great physics and biochemistry and neuroscience. We have no idea how life actually happened. Somewhere 14 billion years ago, some physics happened, and we don't know what happened before that or why it happened. This is all just an enormous miracle. And let's not forget the miracle of this in the midst of solving our work problems. That's the second side and somehow if you come so probably enough on that I don't want things we used to say is to be of the world

[31:22]

and not caught by it. So Zen is not a practice, at least my version of Zen, or the way I like to think about Zen, is not a practice of running off into the mountains and living in a cave by yourself for nine years, although that's what Bodhidharma did. But to be in the world, in your life, in connection with the problems of the world, and not be caught by them, to be able to act with a certain kind of freedom in the midst of this, a freedom to express your deepest intention. And Suzuki Roshi's comment on how you do that was in a little essay he wrote called Limit Your Activity. When your mind is wandering about elsewhere, you have no chance to express yourself. When your mind is wandering about elsewhere, you have no chance to express yourself.

[32:25]

But if you limit your activity to what you can do just now, in this moment, then you can express fully your true nature, which is the universal Buddha nature. This is our way. I mean, I know now in our modern world, multitasking is what we're all doing. looking at the computer, I'm chatting with someone. It used to be you'd be on the phone, but I don't think the phone's happening anymore, whatever you're snapping somebody or whatever you're doing, twittering somebody, talking to somebody at the same time, probably in a meeting. You just cannot do all of that at the same time. It just doesn't happen. And a lot of times when I have a lot of work to do, it seems to be my thing. has been my thing for a long time. There's so much. What do I have to do right now?

[33:26]

I'll just take that project and I'll just work on that. Then I'll take the next project and I'll work on that. I'll move this project into this area. All of a sudden, I calm down because the busyness in my mind is all the things I should be doing, I can't be doing it, but if I just focus on the one thing that I need to do right now, the only one thing I can do, I'm completely calm because I can do that. Even if it's difficult, that's part of it, but I'm doing the one thing. And in the doing of that thing, we're experiencing the depth of our life in the activity that we're doing. We can transform the circumstances and challenges of our work life into opportunities for inner growth. That's what it means to bring a spiritual life into your work-a-day life.

[34:29]

Bring more creativity and joy in your work and life. I was going to say something about, or maybe I've already said it, but, you know, can you love the work you do if the work you do flows from a love of it that you're doing? I read a quote, work is the concrete actualization of love. It's the way you express your love for the world is through your work. So I will finish with a quote from an article I read on Pablo Casals. the great Spanish cellist who was working away playing his cello and writing things and doing things until he was 97 years old.

[35:31]

And this was a recent article. And Casales argues, we renew ourselves through purposeful work. Of course, he goes on, of course the gift to be cherished most of all is that of life itself. One's work should be a salute to life. So I think that's a good place for us to end and thank you very much for your attention. 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.

[36:33]

May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[36:36]

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