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. I'd like to begin this morning... by just simply sitting together for a couple of moments, just settling here together in this space. I invite you to allow the eyes to soften. Feel your breathing body, the weight of your body held by your seat. which is held by the earth in a force we call gravity.

[01:13]

This ball of earth suspended by who knows what in space. Don't miss the space. Thank you. Welcome, and thank you all for being here. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Nyokai Kristen Diggs, former resident of this temple.

[02:21]

I lived and practiced here for several years, as well as in the other San Francisco Zen Central temples. And spent so many hours in this space, in this Zen-do, looking at my mind, studying the self. This mind holds the body in so many ways. And in Zen, we practice freeing the mind bringing the mind from its own false views, views that grip the body. And we also work from the side of the body, so to speak. We position ourselves physically in ways that enable the mind to settle and disengage from self-clinging.

[03:24]

And, of course, the body includes the breath, There is no breathing in addition to the movements of the body that draw the oxygenated air in and expel carbon dioxide, I believe, among other things. So in zazen, we inhabit our body in a way that frees the mind of what in Japanese is called un-i, U-N hyphen I. Willful, intentional, egoic activity in a way that frees the mind of Jiriki, self-power. Jiriki is often translated in English as self-power. So we could say that our sitting practice in Zazen

[04:31]

is inhabiting the body in a way that frees the mind from the self. When we sit upright and balanced, receptive, not trying to bring about any particular experience, entrusting the sitting entirely to the sitting, then the absence of un'i, willfulness in the mind. frees the body, and the mind frees the mind, and the body frees the body. The mind and the body are not separate. Traditionally, it's said that the only right motivation for sitting up here to share the Dharma is bodhicitta. the wish to liberate all beings and to devote the fruits of our practice to the welfare of the world.

[05:41]

That is my wish and my vow. And I'm going to begin by assuming that what brings many of you here is the association with this space, with this place of practice, with some nourishing experience. some supportive offering, maybe a feeling of peace or basic joy, restful simplicity. Connection to the people sitting here with you in the room. Connection within yourselves. In the sendo, Many, many hours have been spent by many, many people over many years just coming home, so to speak.

[06:46]

In this place of practice, we're supported to return with all of our attention to what is most near. You might say also what is most dear what is most true. And it's a truth that we need to be able to return again and again to the married things, to our complex and difficult and in some ways heart-rending everyday lives with benevolence and fortitude. I was recently thinking that in Zen, you know, when we take jukai, when we receive the precepts or we ordain as priests, the vows that we take are vows to observe the precepts. Interestingly, we don't explicitly vow to zazen.

[07:52]

That's curious. However, then I thought, Suzuki Roshi taught that zazen is precepts practice, that when we sit zazen, zazen includes all of the precepts, and in fact it's the best way to observe the precepts completely. I've been talking a lot about zazen in recent months, and in recent weeks I've been teaching at class, On the essay, an essay written by the founder of our tradition, Eihei Dōgen, some say it was the very first written teaching of Dōgens, though that first version has been lost. It's an essay by the name of Fukang Zazengi, or Universal Guidelines for Practicing Zazen.

[08:58]

I see a couple of people in my class here today. Thank you for coming. But anybody who's new, I'm sorry I didn't ask. There's some things we routinely say and ask at the beginning of these talks for good reason, and I forgot this morning. How many of you are perhaps here for the first time or new to Zen? Quite a few. Welcome. Zazen is the word that we use in this school for our way of sitting. Sometimes we refer to our way of sitting as, with the Japanese term, shikantaza, or only just sitting, which doesn't mean that sitting is all that we do in Zen, unless by sitting you mean studying the self and observing the precepts. which is most of what we practice.

[10:03]

I'm glad the ABBA degrees. Thank you for inviting me. As practitioners, we're generally not studying the written teachings with a scholarly or academic set of intentions. I'm not a scholar. Unless, in addition to being a practitioner, one happens to be a Buddhist scholar by profession. As practitioners of Zen, we're studying the teachings in order to study the self, which is our primary concern. We're looking at the self, this person. And at the same time, we're looking out at and studying what it means to practice for the welfare of all beings. So we look at our practice through the teachings and we verify the teachings through our own practice. The world often seems to be covered in words, covered in names, colored by words.

[11:25]

What is not words? can't be said. What is the language beneath the words? You can check in right now. It's throughout the body, and I think of it in the language of one of our koans in this tradition. It is like hands and eyes throughout the body. ever awake and receptive and responsive. The founder of this tradition in China, Dongshan, said the meaning is not in the words. The meaning of the teaching is not in the words.

[12:29]

Yet it responds to the inquiring impulse. It responds to our questions. In Zen, words can take us just so far, unlike in most every other field of study in our conventional lives. So we're not quite used to this. There's a line also in Dogen's essay, Fukanzo Zengi, that reads, cease from practice based on intellectual understanding, pursuing words and following after speech, and learn the backward step that turns your light inward and illuminates yourself. Such beautiful words. Instructors. So the irony is that words can be and are extremely helpful to a point.

[13:35]

Beyond that point, thinking about the words of the teaching, especially with regard to zazen, becomes an obstruction. So, from one perspective, I could say that zazen, illuminating the self, learning how to take the backward step and turn the light inward, is learning to take responsibility for our lives. Learning to take responsibility for our bodies and minds. Responsibility for how we use our bodies, speech, and mind in our everyday life. In Fukanzazengi, Dogen goes on to say, in his instructions for Zazen, Do not think good or bad. Do not administer pros and cons.

[14:44]

Cease all the movements of the conscious mind, the gauging, measuring, and assessing of all thoughts and views. or to put it more simply, depending on how your mind works. Allow all thinking and the thinker to stop, to cease. Just drop it. You can try it now. You can just drop it. Notice, how is it to just drop thinking only for a moment, right now? How many of you were able to do it? Thank you. This dropping thinking and the thinker doesn't mean that there won't be the spontaneous arising of thoughts.

[15:54]

Because in the practice of zazen, we don't suppress thought. Zazen reveals, in fact, much about how how we think, when we are engaging in thinking. Isho Fujita, a contemporary Japanese teacher, has written extensively about zazen, and he wrote that when we suppress our thoughts in zazen, it, quote, it paralyzes knowing, unquote. I'd like to read a longer passage from his collection of writing on Zazen called Polishing a Tile. He wrote, Zazen isn't an escapist business of shutting off knowing in order to peacefully dwell in a world of no-knowing.

[16:57]

For that reason, Zazen isn't a narrow, limited matter of trying to expel bothersome knowing. Where is the barrier? No matter what sort of knowing arises, it does not become a difficulty. This is because zazen has a magnanimity that allows all kinds of knowing to freely play without the slightest restriction. The upright sitting of zazen is a unique posture we take where we neither flee from knowing nor chase after it. In martial arts, there is a posture called mugamame, I may be mispronouncing it, which means the posture of nothing, or shizentai, the natural body, which is said to be neither offensive nor defensive.

[18:01]

It is that which precedes movement, That which precedes movement is said to be immovable, but at the same time it is not like a dead body. And it's not a posture that lacks potentiality to transform. Within it is concealed limitless creativity that can freely give birth to a movement that is able to properly suit the situation. So mind you, this is martial arts. He's talking about what proceeds in martial arts, a movement that is able to properly suit the situation. So in zazen, we're not engaging in intentional movement. But Isha goes on to say, it can be said that the upright sitting called zazen is to face

[19:08]

any sort of knowing with this posture of nothing. The stillness that precedes movement. And to maintain it for any, or this goes on to say, so then we maintain this, or we return to it, for any length of a period of zazen. And if beforehand, before sitting down or zazen. If we carry fear and animosity, hopes and expectations with regard to knowing in zazen, and we sit with the thought of choosing between likes and dislikes, then it will not be possible to maintain the posture of nothing. with regard to, or in the face of, the continual flow of knowing that appears within zaza.

[20:22]

If you remember earlier, I referred to a word, uni, forcible or willful movement of the body and mind. And there's a complementary term, which is gōi, which means spontaneous, unintentional, involuntary, inner movement of the body-mind. And Isho-san says that this is the subtle movement that is continuous within zazen. So it's not like a dead body. And this gōi you could say, is what settles the self on the self, reveals the self to the self. Please don't mistake the arising of this knowledge, as he refers to it.

[21:23]

Don't confuse it with thinking. Dogen says, in Zazen, we think not thinking. who cease all the movements of the conscious mind. This knowledge is not thinking. This knowledge, you might say, is like the raw material of thinking. It's the natural arising and ceasing of thoughts. Thoughts that reveal to us how we are feeling in the present moment. The feeling in the present moment is revealed as knowledge. And also the residue, the impressions made by past thinking and feeling are revealed, including feelings and beliefs that in our everyday lives we're often not aware of, we're distracted from, some of which are at the root of repetitive patterns

[22:41]

with behavior. So our practice, our zazen, reveals to us what we hadn't been conscious of believing in, or we hadn't been conscious we were committed to, while also illuminating our conscious hang-ups, our neuroses and our valid concerns. Zazen reveals where we're stuck, as well as how we are free. It reveals our fears and our insecurities, things we've been in denial about, parts of ourself that we've been actively ignoring, and it reveals also our potentiality. This is how, in Zazen, we take responsibility for our lives, for our actions of body, speech, and mind, by looking directly at everything that arises in our own hearts and minds.

[23:57]

What we realize in Zazen is transformative. It does, in turn, transform the ways we act in the world. when we get up from our seats. One is not usually radically transformed overnight, but there's a well-known teaching of Suzuki Roshi, which is, if you walk in the drizzle or in the fog for long enough, you will get soaked. There's a Buddhist term for what I've just been describing about what our zazen practice reveals, and that term is samskaras, or subliminal impressions that are held by the body, held by the mind in the body, held by the body in the mind.

[25:14]

We hold so much below the threshold of consciousness all day long, every day. Ways of knowing that we've received, that we've inherited, consciously and unconsciously, and through our education, formal and informal. And on the conscious level, we play with our inherited beliefs, our learned beliefs, and we try to jigger them here and there as we're able to. Many of us have done a lot of work to refine the way that we think and feel so that our feeling and thinking becomes more functional, more economical, more socially and emotionally intelligent. And many of those developmental processes are meaning-making processes.

[26:24]

And so much of the meaning that we make and so much of what we seem to need to function in our everyday lives in society is binary, dualistic, dichotomous, polarized. Many of us are frequently thinking throughout our days in terms of good and bad, right and wrong, true and untrue, sane and different. We spend so much of our energy trying to reconcile these differences and trying to stay on the side of right. But the lines are always changing and being redrawn. like our Constitution, for instance. And we are always changing continuously.

[27:30]

We're not monolithic. We've never been monolithic. We contain multitudes, as Walt Whitman said. And these multitudes include many contradictions. Many, many contradictions. And to the extent that our contradictions are in conflict, our inner conflict leads to outer conflict. When we read the news of the world, or in some parts of the world, when people step outside of their front door, or even without stepping outside of their front door, they are assailed by conflict, by acts of war, even. And that conflict began, begins, in the mind of separation, which is the mind that can easily dehumanize

[28:48]

and attack whatever appears to be not me. Of course, that is all based on a massive delusion. Because this is one thoroughly interconnected world system. So we engage in this practice. of zazen in order to wake up from the massive delusion and to liberate others from the suffering of the impacts of massive delusion. From one perspective, the world is full of chaos and conflict because my side of right and your side of right look different So for those of us who come to this practice, the question eventually arises, and maybe it's the question that brings us to this practice, what is all of this, really?

[30:01]

And what can I do about it? And Zen says, sit down and settle the self on the self. Sit down and look directly at whatever knowledge, whatever thoughts arise in your mind, without turning away from them, without trying to get a hold of them, without manipulating them, without acting on them. You can be silent and still as you look directly at Whatever arises in your mind, you can start there, Zen says. At any given moment, you can start there, wherever you happen to be. You can start right now.

[31:07]

This is called taking full responsibility for the self. And not with ji-riki, not with self-power, but with ta-riki, other power. What is other power? Is she talking about God? Suzuki Roshi said, when we sit zazen, everything sits with us. Of course, he doesn't mean that all other beings are sitting. Innumerable beings are being born, are growing old or not, are getting sick, and dying as we sit. That is a fact. Life is birth and death.

[32:17]

Suzuki Roshi said that zazen is an awareness of a universal existence, not a separate self. He also said, don't say that you sit zazen. Zazen sits zazen. So I'd like to say a little bit about are Zen practice as bodhisattva activity. Intra-psychically as well as interpersonally and collectively, all of these are totally interconnected, interfused. The practice of zazen in the context of a bodhisattva path is a practice of fearlessness, you might say. What is fearlessness? It doesn't mean the absence of fear. It means a practice of non-attachment, meeting things directly and waking up to the emptiness of all things, which means the interdependence of all things.

[33:35]

When in Zazen, we allow everything to arise without suppressing knowledge and allow everything that arises within us to be seen and experienced, we're cultivating a capacity to look directly at what is without turning away or touching, without judgment, without evaluation, right or wrong, true or false, We don't get into that during zazen. This is a bodhisattva practice in part because we enter the fearlessness, the letting go of self-clinging that it requires, the renunciation of attachments to fixed views in order to practice the precepts completely,

[34:47]

in zazen, so that when we get up from zazen, we know what it means to practice the precepts. Not stealing, stealing, not killing, not lying, not slandering, etc. Zazen takes some courage. This way of being with oneself, it does. this way of being with others. We don't practice alone. Self-power, which is only a state of mind, a state of consciousness, not an actual thing, can't do this practice. It's too invested in an identity. A fixed identity any fixed identity that we have is let go during zazen for the sake of waking up to the way things actually are.

[35:58]

A fear recently arose in me, in my practice. It was a fear of the appearance of amorality or moral ambiguity in the absence of an expression of clear discernment, in the absence of taking a clear stand with regard to passive participation in an apparently unjust set of circumstances. And this fear arose in me in the context of teaching of the Buddha Dharma that I witnessed. I wondered as I listened, what will people think of this teaching? And so in response to that fear, I felt the need to clearly state from the teaching seat shortly thereafter, and here today, that shikantaza, or only just sitting, stripped of the bodhisattva vows, is not Zen.

[37:14]

It is at best a wholesome, secular mindfulness practice, that it's primarily for one's own personal cultivation, for one's own health, enrichment, tranquility, focus of the mind. There's nothing wrong in it when used for wholesome purposes. I recommend it. But it's not Zen. And that's okay. But we should know. Having sat silently with this fear, afterward I recognized the opportunity of the creative potential, as you shall refer to it. I think that might be the kitchen. Thank you all. Or maybe you've just had enough. So as I was saying, I sat with this fear for a while and I woke up with it.

[38:33]

And afterwards I recognized the opportunity, the creative potential to respond. And so I have been doing my best to do that recently. trying my best to make it known that Zen is an ethical discipline and that our ethics have implications for which we are responsible, which means able to respond, particularly as people of vow. So, just a quick Recap. There are two things that I wanted to emphasize today. One is how we sit in this tradition. The other is why we sit in this tradition. Or if you could say, in place of the why we sit, the view that we established prior to sitting and that we clarify over time.

[39:42]

the bodhisattva view of what it means to live and be lived for the welfare of all beings. It's a view that we verify at the time of practice, again and again. And what we verify actually precedes our practice, our intentional activity. It's not a product of our practice. Rather, it's something that our practice reveals, and words can't reach it. Teaching is offered a view. We're told this is a true teaching, but the teaching is only pointing at something. It's a map and not the territory, you might say. So we have teachers and friends in the Dharma.

[40:45]

And everyone here now, even if it's only your first time here, now you have many friends and teachers in the Dharma. Welcome. As I was saying, we have friends and teachers in the Dharma who have traveled this path before us. ahead of us and they tell us, oh yes, I received the teaching and I've verified it. So with enough trust we develop some faith in the truth of the teaching, enough to set out on the path at least, path of practice to verify it for ourselves. And depending on how dirty our mirror appears to be, excuse me, way not. It may take a while to begin to recognize the verification or the enlightenment of zazen.

[41:53]

So hopefully, if we become discouraged on the path, a good friend in the Dharma will say, oh yes, that is normal, what you've described. or your friend may offer you some other skillful means if you feel or appear to be particularly hung out. She might say, maybe you should go clean the toilets, or go dig up some potatoes, or chant the loving kindness meditation, or read the Lotus Sutra. And then later, your friend may notice that perhaps you are spending too much time hanging out with the potatoes. Where's my friend who hangs out with the potatoes? And she might say, what are you doing?

[43:08]

I haven't seen you on your seat in a while. And that's pretty much all that's going on here in this training temple, you might say. So there's no need to become a monk unless it's your karma to become a monk. Maybe just spend a little more time sitting zazen than you spend What? Each of us has something that we know we have been overindulging in, something that doesn't really settle the body or nourish the heart or clarify the mind. So we can be a good friend to ourselves and we can say, haven't you seen that series three times already? How about sitting down and facing the wall for a bit?

[44:16]

And we can say thank you. As I was preparing this talk, a song came to my mind, just a short tune and started humming it and I didn't recognize it immediately. And then I did. I heard the music before I heard the words, but when the words registered, I thought, that's not such a match for the topic. So I started humming it and substituting some of the words so that it matched the topic. And it was a Joan Armitrading song. How many of you are familiar with the music of Joan Juan's trading. I'll share with you this song that arose in me.

[45:31]

I'm not a singer, but... I am not awake, but I'm open to persuasion. You took me sitting And in the stillness I could really move, really move I could really dance, really dance Thank you Now I can feel the sun in my eyes And the rain on my face With friends I still feel so insecure But little Zazen, I believe you can help me out loud. No conversation, no way, goodbye. Just be this town with a little dedication. So that is love and affection for this place of practice.

[46:44]

for this way of love. Thank you all for your presence. I believe this is the time for questions or comments, anything you'd like to bring forth. Thank you, Kristen, for your talk. So I think you answered my question, which is, but I kind of am gonna ask it in a different way, maybe get a sort of clear in my mind answer, and it's pretty foundational with sitting practice. So as I came in today to sit early, I was offered,

[47:47]

you know, another cushion for comfort. I'm pretty tall. And I thought, oh, well, I'll just figure it out when I get on the Zafu. And when I did, of course, it was not. I didn't prepare properly for my own form. And so as I was sitting there, And of course, when I'm at home and I practice, it's different because things are set up for me. And so coming into the zendo, which I don't do that often, it takes some adjustment. And of course, my feet fall asleep. So I guess my question that kind of came up while I was sitting and trying to be in open awareness was also wisdom with attention and kind of how to navigate that time when something needs attention and when it doesn't.

[48:57]

You know, I know it's okay to change forms if things are uncomfortable and change position, but it's also okay to sit with that uncomfortable experience. And I'm just wondering if you have anything else you could say about both. and maybe where there could be some wisdom gained with both those experiences. Thank you. Yes, thank you. This is very common, what you've described, especially for people who've just begun sitting and they're still trying to determine what is the support that I need to sit in a balanced way that doesn't restrict my breathing, that doesn't result in my legs, falling asleep or for an extended period of time, etc. So it's trial and error in the beginning. I recommend trying different things in the beginning until you find something. But then I think self-honesty goes a long way.

[50:02]

You know, you check in with yourself. Is this restlessness that is dictating this experience? Or is it very clear, wise discernment that If I don't make an adjustment now, I may hurt myself or I'm so intensely distracted by the fact that my leg has completely fallen asleep and I think it's probably not healthy. You might decide, okay, I'm going to breathe and I'm going to make a clear and conscious decision to make an adjustment. I'm not going to fidget. And then I'm going to make the adjustment and then I'm going to drop it and I'm going to settle and I'm going to trust that If I truly need to move again, that knowledge will arise, and it will be clear, and I'll make a clear discernment at that time, and then I will return to only just sit. So this goes on. The longer we sit, the more we recognize we're able to sit with, and that sometimes what's holding the body is the mind, so we just focus on the tension in the mind, let go of the tension in the mind.

[51:10]

Don't be too quick. to move the body, learn about how the mind holds the body, restricts the body. Is that helpful? Yeah, it is. And I've been sitting for 25 years, so quite a long time. And I think it's really remarkable about what you said with maybe some of that attention heading towards the mind in this experience. that feedback with the body that occurs, and it's an ever-present dance. So thank you. And I want to say, when I say the mind so generally in this way, I also mean the feelings, the emotions. Often there's a function in the mind that wants to suppress emotion. So notice if things are being attended to off the cushion.

[52:12]

or not, and therefore wanting to come up on the cushion. Thank you so much. You're welcome. I really appreciated you talking about the fact that thinking can be helpful. And the distinction between when it's helpful and when it's not is what I'm curious about, hearing your experience with that off the cushion. particularly when it comes to having to make difficult decisions in life and how maybe you distinguish between when the thinking is helpful and when it's not, if there are any cues you have to determine that.

[53:32]

Thank you. Such a big question and every situation is different. And I don't, when I'm practicing, when I recognize what's going on, I remind myself that I am not this separate individual making my way in the world who needs to or who can't get it right. I'm responding to the best of my ability, not just from my executive perspective, kind of thinking function, but from a more thorough awareness and ability to be present with all that is, the more that I can include in my consideration, which doesn't mean needing to think about everything, but to have the view of inclusion, being supported by all things, to discern and to respond appropriately.

[54:42]

really helps me. And I also am in conversation with others. I don't isolate myself when there's a difficult decision to be made. I share with others. I'm turning this and I'm conflicted and I'm not sure what to do, so I listen. I listen to my friends and I listen to the environment and allow that to inform the decisions that I That's the most general response that I can give. It would depend on the specific circumstances really for me to give you a more specific response. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you so much.

[55:47]

You're welcome. I am a new resident here. I've only been here for less than three months. And before coming here, I was very active in the community and the world and felt that that was really important to do at this time. And also I feel like because of that I'm here. And I have been feeling that same fear or maybe a related fear to what you shared about like just sitting and the passivity that it feels like I'm in. Especially being in like this beautiful environment and like literally being isolated. And Yeah, I'm wondering, like, I read the news this morning, and I was like, okay, this sucks.

[56:55]

Because it always does. Like, never good. Again. And I'm also here. So what is that balance of being with what is here and really meeting what's in front of me while also having an awareness of our interconnected world and the way that things out there maybe not directly affect me here, but I feel like there's still a connection. Well, I heard that there was a tone in the way you spoke that was a question, but I just heard you describe the way it is. And maybe one thing that's helpful is to replace the word passive with receptive. We're learning to be receptive, to listen, and to take care of the things right in front of us.

[58:00]

How is it to take complete care of what is right there? There are many beings here with you and so many things to take care of. I think, especially when we're young, we presume to be able to save the world We only just come up with the right formula, but we still don't really know how to make the bet. So we are growing up and learning how to take responsibility for this and cultivating the capacity for the awareness required to respond to more complex and more... broad set of circumstances, and at the same time, it is happening right now. Though it may not be immediately visible to us, we can't see the direct connection. The whole world is here now. May it go well.

[59:07]

It might be time for one more, if that's okay. Sure. First of all, it's great to see you here. I missed seeing you. I saw you regularly a couple years ago. I'm always curious. You talk about studying the mind. And on some level, it seems like well, that's kind of a puny thing to be studying. Why aren't we studying reality, the universe, the sorts? Something, you know, when I think of the mind, it's like, isn't just the mind something that is limited? With what will you study? The universe. Yeah.

[60:16]

I mean, yeah, this puny mind is what I'm studying the universe with. And it feels like, you know, I have this little tiny hole that I'm viewing it through. But the thing I want to view is so much larger. Part of what we're studying is how the mind gets in the way. If you read the Pukhamsasangi and many of Dogen's other teachings, he says, drop body and mind. But we're not able, most of us, to do that at will. So we begin with study in mind, which really means looking at it. It's not like book study. We become intimate with this mind.

[61:17]

We find out what it is and whether or not it is in the way after all, and whether or not it is actually puny. And what the difference is between the mind and the self if there is one. Everything else that we presume to exist is mediated by our minds. So we need to, as human beings, so in our conscious experience, so if we're interested to become free of no limitations, then we need to look at it. That may not be satisfactory. That look on your face is not look... I like the input. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you all for your presence and attention.

[62:23]

Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[62:48]

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