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. Thank you. I wish my glasses weren't fogged up so I could see more clearly. Hello, everybody. Hi. Welcome to City Center. Welcome to this evening's talk.

[01:01]

My name is is Jordan Thorne, and I'm grateful for the opportunity for Allison to help me here. Thank you. It's nice to see friends, strangers, Dharma brothers and sisters here. I appreciate it. I appreciate the support you expressed for me, and I hope I can support your attendance with a talk that you find helpful. May it be so. Before this evening, a couple of people asked me, what are you going to talk about? And I said, well, Buddhism. And then that person said, no, I mean, what are you really going to talk about? And I said, well, Zen Buddhism. And then this morning another person asked me, after work circle, what are you going to talk about?

[02:09]

And I said, I'm going to talk about the first noble truth. So that's what I'm going to talk about and wish me well. I hope it's useful. Let's see how it goes. The first noble truth is the truth of impermanence, sometimes described as the truth of suffering, sometimes described as the truth of transformation, sometimes described using a Pali word, dukkha, which has a complex translation, but I'll just leave it as suffering slash transformation.

[03:22]

And to start myself off on talking about the first noble truth, the first thing I want to say is the world we live in is what it is. The world we live in is just exactly what it is. And the world we live in is many things. It's what we make of it. And this world that we live in is the field of our practice. It's the field of our life. It's the arena of our learning. It is where the adventure of who we are is uncovered. And when we are young in this world that we live in, maybe I should say when I was young, it seemed like stepping into the great adventure meant adding things.

[04:50]

I added education as a little kid in kindergarten, etc. I added even before that, toilet training. Very essential thing to learn. At some point, I added into the mix independence. Relationships. I added a curiosity about money. Perhaps even my idea of what stylish clothes were. And this story of my, and I think our, becoming born and becoming human is a lot about first adding on to ourselves. But life passes.

[06:05]

We ripen. Experience changes. And what we perhaps begin to notice, and certainly with the passage of sufficient time we begin to notice, is we notice what we are losing. Because at some point we start to lose our sharp eyesight. We lose a little bit of our vigor. we might awkwardly lose some of our teeth. And even as we get older, we might lose some of that early found toilet training. And yes, we might lose a portion of our independence. And finally, at some point, we lose our life. Undoubtedly. For sure, we lose our life.

[07:16]

The momentum of our life is like this. It's always like this. Our presence in the world begins with almost what seems like a path to happiness. I'm speaking a lot personally here. It seems like an adventure to find out about how to be contented and And then this process leads to what becomes a familiarity with disappointment and loss. There's lots of types of disappointment. You know, there's the obvious kind of disappointment that happens when you don't get what you want. We're all familiar with it, perhaps. But there's another, and I think another more foundational for practice disappointment, which is when you get what you want, and you realize it's not really the thing that you needed or that's making you happy.

[08:21]

And I think at some point, for many of us, I wouldn't want to say for all of us, but at some point, in a way so subtle that we don't exactly see the moment of transition, what earlier seemed like well-laid plans for the way our life would go, start to seem like dead ends. Or maybe insufficient. This thing which I'll call the beauty of the world shows itself as nothing more than the mouth of the labyrinth. But still, it is really, truly a beautiful world.

[09:31]

It always has been, it always will be, and we're blessed to walk through it. In this process of becoming born and becoming mature and starting to notice our life and how it unfolds, one thing that's always happening is what I'll call the dance of impermanence, which is the first noble truth of Buddhism, which is what in Buddhism is called dukkha, or called suffering, and is also called transformation. And no matter how well we plan our life, maybe some people this is not true for, some fortunate folks, but no matter how well we plan our lives, in the end everything changes.

[10:32]

Our vision dims, our new shirt becomes an old shirt, a little frayed. And I want to propose that this experience is the thing that unites us in this room. and with other people in this world. In practicing Buddhism, in practicing the Dharma, there are many gates to enter through. But really the place where practice begins is when we notice how things change. when we see how involved we are in taking part in this change. So we're here together at a Zen center. Not just a Buddhist temple, but a Zen center.

[11:34]

And at a Zen center, there's something that is taught, which is called Zazan, Zen meditation. A zazen is, by some measure, the way, the effort we make to face the world of impermanence and learn who we are. But also, I look around the room and not just some of you here are experienced at giving a zazen instruction. Some of you have practiced zazen for a long time. So I almost hesitate to define zazen to you because I think it's important we each find itself for ourselves, but nonetheless, let me just say, I want to give you all a very short instruction in what Zazen is. In Zazen, in Zen meditation, we notice who we are when we stop moving.

[12:42]

We make an effort to stop and be still, and then we see who and what arises. And this effort we make to sit down and stop is one of the ways we understand how our life is always changing. Again, I hesitate to say to all of you what you might know and realize and notice about Zazen because this is for you to notice and realize. But I'll say that there's one thing we learn in Zazen, which is that our mind and our life is like a wild, surging river. Forever moving, forever bubbling.

[14:02]

Sometimes this river... moves into a broad valley where our surging thoughts calm down and are still sort of like a mountain lake reflecting the beautiful scenery around it. And then sometimes our mind is like a waterfall and we realize how strong and persistent our personal life energy is. the ancient Chinese poet Li Po, a contemporary of some of the founding teachers in the Zen tradition. Li Po wrote, The long river passes east away. Surge over surge, and white blooming waves sweep all heroes on, as right and wrong, triumph and defeat, both turn unreal.

[15:03]

but ever the green hills stay to blush in the west waning day. Ever the green hills stay to blush in the west waning day. Yes, we live in a beautiful world. And yes, our human life has a rhythm to it, a flow. We're born, I can say for sure, everyone here in this room, born. We're born innocent, sweet babes. Lovely apples in our parents' eye. I hope so, at least. Every time we discover we're independent from others, we discover we can make choices that our parents don't approve of. We can make decisions that we think will satisfy ourselves. In doing this, we discover that our life becomes complicated.

[16:07]

And one of the complications of our life is that we have the capacity to be... How can I say it? What is it? We have the capacity to be lonely. Here's our problem. Or rather, I should say, here's my problem. We, or I should say I, are convinced we're incomplete. We, and actually I mean me, are convinced we're separate from others. So we're always looking for something to complete us. And of course we're not getting it. And even if we were to get it, it wouldn't be what we're looking for. We're looking for so many different things. I could make a long list.

[17:17]

But what I'll say is, what it really all adds up to is, we're Buddha looking for Buddha. And realizing this is part of our waking up. In this looking process, in this practice process, one part of an imperative for realizing how to be with people and how to be with ourselves is the recognition that our life is fleeting. We don't ever really know where it will end. Some years ago, I lived in Berkeley, and a friend of mine went to the dentist to have wisdom teeth extracted. His girlfriend worked in my office, and she was leaving in the afternoon to go pick him up from the sidewalk because he had general anesthesia and he wasn't supposed to go home on his own.

[18:30]

So he was waiting in front of the dentist's office on the sidewalk for her to get him. pick him up, and he fainted and fell back and hit his head on the sidewalk and died. Death by tooth extraction. This is one of the things we're at risk for in this life, amongst other many possibilities. The Diamond Sutra says, as a fault of vision, a mock show, dew drops, or a bubble, a dream, a lightning flush or cloud, so should one view what is conditioned, and this is one way the truth of impermanence is expressed. is what it is.

[19:36]

We go to bed at night, full of troubles, maybe full of happiness, and then we wake up the next day, and we have to once again stand up, upright, honestly. In doing this, day after day, we might maybe, perhaps, a little bit mature, gain perspective, ripen, learn how to be helpful to other people. But very significantly in this story that I just described, we need help. More particularly, we need friends. We need friendship. We need spiritual friends. And one of the great virtues of practicing in a sangha is that as irritating as other people can be, it is healthy to not be lonely. It is healthy to have people who know us. It is healthy to be seen, to be known, to be exposed and not hidden.

[20:45]

You know, when you practice in a sangha, in a neighborhood of like-minded souls, in a way more profound than you might immediately obviously know. There's no hiding. And also, when you live in a practice community, hiding, hiding yourself, is another word for hell. We need to reveal ourselves. We need to show ourselves. We need to be who we are. practice of Dharma, the practice of Zen, it's found, it's brought forth and it flourishes with intimate friendships, with honest, open friendships. And the bonds of connection that we develop within a Sangha, or within our work friends, within our life,

[21:57]

This is all. These connections are a gift between ourselves and how we step forward into manifesting the bodhisattva's vow of being helpful to others. Being connected in a sangha is a mysterious teacher. And I say mysterious teacher Because I'm going to tell you a story that's kind of mysterious to me. And I apologize if you people here heard me say this. I think Claire knows this. But my teacher is Norman Fisher. And could it have been 15 years ago? A long time ago, some time ago. He told me... that he was in San Rafael and he was going to a sporting goods store in the part of San Rafael, which is an industrial thing with the big box stores, orchard supply hardware, etc., etc.

[23:11]

It was a big box camping store. And it was down the street or a block or so away from the Marin County Recycling Center, out there in that part of that flatland that leads to the bridge. He parked his car and he's walking to this store. And he saw in the recycling center a gusts of wind. It was a gusty day. And he saw some paper lift up on the other side of the fence. And it swirled in the air. And it flew over the fence and down the sidewalk. And he watched as some papers went like this down the street. And one paper slammed into his chest directly and stuck there. And he pulled it off and looked at it, and it was a love letter from a student of his who was in Japan, written to another student of his who lived in Marin. And he didn't know about their relationship.

[24:13]

We think we can be hidden. The good luck is when we're revealed. I have kind of a different story, but similar in some ways in terms of like, how did that happen? I was ordained in this room in the late 1970s as a Buddhist priest. And I went through a personal process of being engaged and then disengaged and then moving to Berkeley and then being married and having children. And one thing led to another. And in the 1970s, I found myself living at Green Gulch Farm. And shortly after I moved to Green Gulch, I went... It's kind of like prison break.

[25:19]

I got out. I came over to the city, and I went to Green Apple Books. It was interesting and exciting. I was out of the watershed. I went to Green Apple Books. I just had been removed, put myself back at Green Gulch. And when I was at Green Apple, I was on the second floor. And on that floor, they had a bulletin board where people put, like, Tai Chi classes and apartments for rent. And there was a significant sign that said, all notices must be dated. Any notice over 30 days old will be removed. And I walked by it, and I didn't look at it. And I just, when I started to head down to this, I thought, well, who do I turn myself around? Maybe there's something interesting there. You never know, you know, I'm... So I went back and I looked at the bulletin board and pinned up in the center of it was a photo of me on my ordination day in this room, walking in with my kimono on. Go figure.

[26:23]

Fifteen years earlier, or thirteen. I took the picture off, I looked at it, there was only one pinhole in it. It wasn't like it had been there for years and years. It just had been put up, it seemed like. And it was in violation of the rule that it wasn't dated. So I took it off and I took it to the cash register. And I showed it to somebody and said, you know, this picture's up there and it wasn't, you know, do you know anything about? And the person, they had no idea it was me because I don't quite look like that. You know? And the registered person had no interest in it. Take it. I don't care. So I put it in my pocket and I took it home. And I have it in a drawer. At home. Picture of me. The only picture that I have of my ordination day that's focused on me. Who can figure what a mysterious world we live in? I think when I began in practice last week, I thought that knowledge meant having all the answers.

[27:50]

But this week, I understand that real knowledge, real wisdom, Intervisionally stated, not necessarily always so, but real wisdom is having all the questions. The wonderfully complicated Tibetan teacher Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche said over and over again, he said, the question is the answer. And if we think that some path or some teacher or some book is going to give us the answer, then we're looking in the wrong direction. We have to learn to trust our questioning mind. And we need to learn to trust our insight without reducing it or pinning it down. And I think this quality of the spirit of trying to find the root question,

[29:03]

The root question is something honored deeply in the Zen tradition. Master Ma was asked, what is Buddha? What is Buddha? He said, no mind, no Buddha. And I said, what is this knowledge that can't be possessed, that we can't hold, that isn't our credentials, that isn't an object? What is this knowledge that seems to only appear When we're not trying to grasp and own it, what is the sudden insight that leads to the direct experience of our original nature? Well, for each of you, you need to answer that question. Answer. Question. Maybe they all become one thing. Here's an example from another time and place, from early Chinese Zen history. there once was a monk named Tozan.

[30:10]

And actually, this Tozan guy, he's the person who gives us the toe in our soto Zen. He's one of the founding teachers of our lineage. And after some years of practice, after some years of Tozan being settled into his teacher, Yan Yan's Sangha, training temple, after years of following this schedule, the Zen student Tozan asked his teacher, Yunnan, he said, when I want to see it face to face, what should I do? I'm going to leave aside what it is. That was his question. When I want to see it, what should I do? And Yunnan said, ask someone who's done it. Tozan replied, well, that's what I'm doing now. I'm asking you. And Yin Yin said, really, what can I say?

[31:16]

He said, really, what can I say? Sometime later, In this same little story line, Tozan was preparing to leave Yunnan. And Yunnan asked him, where are you going? And student Tozan said, I don't know. I'm not sure where I will end up. And Yunnan said, are you returning home? Tozan replied. No. And then Yunnan sweetly said to him, you know, if you leave, it will be difficult to see one another. And Tozan replied, it will be difficult not to see one another.

[32:26]

And then, as Dozan was about to depart, leave the monastery, leave the temple, he said to Yunnan, he said, if in the future someone asks me whether I can describe my master's truth or not, how should I answer them? What should I say? And Yunnan said, after a long pause, He said, just this is it. And hearing those words goes on side. He gave a long sigh. When we're young, it appears, I think, to most of us, that each birthday is a happy moment.

[34:05]

But as life passes and we ripen, our experience changes, our birthdays become cause for reflection. And when I was a child, my father changed my diapers. He wiped the food off my cheeks after I ate a meal. And some years ago, when I was a man, my father returned to being a child in the hospital, and I wiped the food off his face when it mysteriously somehow didn't enter into his mouth. The river of our life is like this. The world we live in is what it is. And this world is many things. It's what we make of it. It's the field of our practice. The room that we share right now, this room, is the field of our life.

[35:15]

And this room we share right now is completely Sufficient. Completely sufficient. Everything we have ever wanted or might want is deeply insignificant. And the secret to whatever peace might be available for us in our life is to want as little as possible for ourselves and wish for as much as possible for others, especially for others who wish no harm to anyone else. Practicing this way, perhaps we might someday say,

[36:18]

like yon-yan. Just this is it. Just this is it. 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.

[36:57]

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