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, everyone. Welcome. Welcome to Zen Center. So here's a quote from our founding Zen ancestor, Dogen Zenji. On the great road of Buddha ancestors, there is always unsurpassable practice, continuous and sustained. It informs the circle of the way and is never cut off. Between aspiration, practice, enlightenment, and nirvana, there is not a moment's gap. Continuous practice is the circle of the way. So as Koto just said to you all, we are in the final gathering of our special three-week intensive. It's been just delightful for all of us, I think, who've been involved.

[01:03]

And welcome to all of you to this conversation. The harmony of Zen and Vipassana. What a wonderful idea. So during these past weeks, as good Dharma friends, Paul and Gil and I have been offering teachings and teaching stories from these two traditions. And this morning... our very special guest, Gil-France Dow, from the Insight Meditation Center, who trained with Jack Kornfield, and who also has received Dharma transmission and Soto Zen from our beloved late abbot, Sojin Mel Weissman. So he and I are going to talk together about certain key aspects of these two traditions. And then Paul, as you heard, is going to join us for the question and answer. So given that all three of us are offspring of the same spiritual source, Shakyamuni Buddha, We thought it would be of interest for you, as it was for us, to discuss the two branching streams that have flowed from this ancestral source, Zen and Western-style Vipassana. My job this morning is to talk about Zen, and in particular, Soto Zen, and how we express the idea of a goal in our practice, as well as the idea of a path leading to that goal.

[02:16]

So given that my training has been exclusively in the Soto Zen tradition, particularly Soto Zen as it was brought to us here in California by Japanese Zen master Shinmyo Suzuki Roshi. I'm going to be using the language and the teachings from within what we now call the Suzuki Roshi lineage. So first of all, I want to say a few things about this idea of a goal, which, as it says in the dictionary, is usually thought of as the object of a person's ambition or effort. thereby marking the end of a journey or of a race. So I think most of us as Buddhists probably imagine or assume that the goal of practice is enlightenment itself. Right? And then the question becomes, what does that mean to be enlightened or to be awakened? That question is a big part of the mystery that we as practitioners of the Buddha way are faced with to this very day. A mystery that our dear founder, Suzuki Roshi, did very little to clarify.

[03:21]

As you can hear from a lecture that he gave back in the 1960s called Buddha's Enlightenment. You can find this lecture in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. Buddha nature is our original nature. We have it before we sit zazen and before we acknowledge it in consciousness. So in this sense, whatever we do is Buddha's activity. If you want to understand it, you cannot understand it. When you give up trying to understand it, true understanding is always there. Without trying to be Buddha, you are Buddha. This is how we attain enlightenment. To attain enlightenment is to always be with Buddha. By repeating the same thing over and over and over again, we will acquire this kind of understanding. So for me, this lack of clarifying talk about enlightenment is deeply familiar and at the same time, oddly comforting. In fact, I have a hunch that if I had been told when I arrived at the Zen Center exactly what enlightenment was and how I would go about getting it, I probably would have had it the other way.

[04:29]

Because the reason I came to Zen Center in the first place was that all of those assurances that I had gotten as a child about adulthood and about the purpose of life, were not holding me up very well. And I had already wandered away from home in search of some deeper meaning and hopefully some better way of life. So for me anyways, Zen teaching, as challenging and mysterious as it seems to be, was just the right medicine for me at just the right time. And so I stayed, and I stayed. And as Suzuki Roshi recommends, repeated the same thing over and over again. And the same thing that we call Zazen. Just sitting. Twice in the morning and at times at night. So during this time that I have spent with my friends Paul and Gil, listening to them talking about sitting, I have begun to suspect there might be some difference in how we understand what it means to just sit.

[05:34]

For example, in the teachings that I'm used to hearing at Zen Center, the core value of just sitting is not as a pathway to awakening, but rather as awakening itself, as just sitting itself. As it turns out, this same conversation about sitting and the purpose or the goal of meditation has been going on for several thousands of years among the meditating monks of ancient India and then throughout India. all of Southeast Asia, up into Tibet and Mongolia, along the Silk Road to China, to Korea, to Vietnam, and across the waters to Japan. Lots of conversations, not only about sitting itself, but also about reality and what it means when we say that Buddha awakened to reality. Also about the path and about the truth. And yet, most importantly, I think the conversation has been about what will and will not be of help to us in bringing an end to suffering.

[06:41]

I think this is the main reason the three of us came to practice in the first place. We needed some help. When Zen Mind Beginner's Mind, with it as the source of my own understanding of how these conversations turned out, I would say that Zen is a kind of fundamentalism. Grounding... itself and practices and teachings around the actual experience of awakening itself, an experience that Suzuki Roshi calls beginner's mind, Shoshin. He also said that the worst thing a student of Zen can do is to lose that original attitude that brought them to Zen in the first place. The beginner's mind, as he says in the book by that name, is limitless, open to possibilities, trackless, inclusive, and above all, non-dualistic, and therein the path and the goal as one. He calls this a mind that is empty and ready, always ready for anything, and always open to everything.

[07:47]

And that by keeping this big, open, original mind, even the precepts keep themselves. And then he says that whenever we study or read about Zen, each sentence should be seen with this same fresh beginner's mind. Such a mind does not say, I know what Zen is, or I have attained enlightenment. And in this way, the beginner's mind is the real, and perhaps only, secret of Zen practice. Which leaves me with a whole lot to say about Zen. And yet, at the same time, it leaves me with a deepened... Why so much of what Suzuki Roshi's book is about are the aspects of our behavior, how we behave, about our posture, about our ritual, about breathing. Without needing to understand just what it is that we're doing, we are able to do whatever it is with a kind of innocence and a sense of wonder. I've always appreciated what Isadora Duncan said.

[08:52]

the improvisational dancer from the last century, who you may know of. She said when asked about her exotic movements, you know, what do they mean? She said, if I knew what they meant, I wouldn't have to dance. And if I knew what Zen was, perhaps I wouldn't have to sit. So I think this emphasis on not knowing is nearest to explaining what we are up to in practicing Zen. You know, not knowing leads us as students of Zen to ask a lot of questions. Not about why we do what we do, but about where and how and when, how to repair the wiring in the shed, or when to arrive at the Zen door on Saturday morning for the talk, where the guest students are going to meet with the guest student manager, and so on, all day long. Where, how, and when. So Zen for me is about training ourselves to stay open and curious, whether just sitting or just working or just fooling around, as we often do. It's about our experience living in a community with others who are also open and curious about knowing the way to get things done.

[09:59]

Not always the right way or the easy way, but maybe if we keep looking together, we can find a way that works even better. Reb once asked Suzuki Roshi who his students were, and after a pause, the teacher replied, the ones who are here for the benefit of others. So although we may have come to Zen practice in hopes to wake up, what we didn't know, because it's not so obvious, is that we aren't going to wake up by ourself. There is no one, a self, as in a separate self, or a by myself. And in fact, it would be a waste of time to even think that way. As Dogen says in the Fukanzazengi, who would take wasteful delight in the spark from a friend's stone? With the sky... full of stars overhead. In some real ways, then can be understood as a pure experience, like the ones that we are having together right now, you know, of things as they are, before the shaping effects that language and words have on everything, before the I know sets in, or I don't know sets in.

[11:12]

And yet it may also be that Zen enlightenment leads us to an awakening about the power and the beauty and the subtlety of language as it did for Dogen Zenji, rather than turning us away from speaking, from thinking, from using our words. In his own thought-provoking book, What is Enlightenment?, Dr. Dale Wright invites us to consider taking this question into our own personal field of inquiry. You know, what do each of us think might be the answer to that question? Are you awake? What happens inside of me or inside of you if we dare to wonder about the answer to that question? Whether or not we're enlightened is something we already have or not, or dare I not ask? Suzuki Roshi and Dogen and all the other Zen teachers down through ancestral time tell us that it's already here, right here. And where else could it be? And that the question about enlightenment is to be answered inside each of us.

[12:15]

No matter how much instruction or teaching or assurances or acknowledgments we have had or not had along the way, until we come to see for ourselves that there is no possibility of freedom for anyone until everyone is free. And once that happens, your separate body and mind, as well as the bodies and minds of what you think are others, drop away. without a sound, just as fantasies tend to do. No more walls, no more barriers, no more separate self. And as with dreaming, once we awaken, all is forgotten, including the pathway by which we came. Here's a passage from the large Sutra of Perfect Wisdom in which Subuti is asking the Buddha this very question. How then is enlightenment attained? The Buddha replies, Enlightenment is attained neither through a path or a non-path. Just enlightenment is the path, and the path is enlightenment.

[13:21]

Norai Suzuki Roshi says, We cannot keep still. We have to do something. So if you do something, you should be very observant and careful and alert. Our way is to put the dough in the oven and watch it carefully. Once you know how the dough becomes bread, you will understand enlightenment. So before I turn the conversation over to my dear friend Gil to talk about Vipassana practices, I want to finish by sharing with you a story that I heard recently about two coke machines. One is a Tibetan coke machine, yet another variation on Buddhism, and the other one is Zen. So the Tibetan machine has a clear glass front. You put your money in at the top and then you can watch it as it moves down through all the gears as they were in turn and so on. And you can watch as the Coke comes out into your hand. The Zen Coke machine, on the other hand, is opaque. You put your money in at the top and you wait.

[14:25]

And you wait. And then maybe, just maybe, the Coke pops out into your hand. So... My dear friend, Gil, here's my question to you. What kind of Coke machine would the Western Vipassana tradition likely have? We don't have any Coke machine. I was afraid you'd say that. We do have water machines and provide water. It seems to do a very good job. the water, clear water, and heat the water and have tea, but we don't have Coke. And so it's kind of more, so it's easier, it's more straightforward. We go to the source, the same source where the water is, but we don't mix the water and this complicated mechanical stuff and have to take all these complicated routes.

[15:29]

And so it's much more direct, just water, then drink it, then you get the benefits. So that very well. So, so, so, so what to make of this metaphor? Well, thank you too. That was delightful. I just loved listening to you and, and, and celebrated both the wonderfulness of the teaching. And it's, it's a wonderful, wonderful point. It's almost like I could feel as you taught the. Yeah. the practice in you, but also kind of in me evoking it. And it was so well-spoken and I just, it was such a wonderful thing to hear. Thank you. And I knew you were going to ask me a question, but I thought, because you told me once you asked a lot of your students for a period of time, you know, Emma, are you awake?

[16:30]

And so I thought since you went down that direction, I thought, oh, she's probably going to ask me, are you awake or something? But instead I got the Coke machine question. I never heard about the Coke machine. And yeah, so we don't have Coke machines. And I think that maybe speaks to something about the Vipassana and the Theravada. The Vipassana in the West, you talk about Western Vipassana, has really intentionally... and maybe to its detriment even, really emptied itself of a lot of the things that are not centrally connected to, really centrally and maybe necessarily connected to the path of awakening. So, you know, so, you know, we don't have, religious clothes, for example.

[17:31]

Religious clothes are good. They have their role, but they're not centrally connected to it, perhaps. What's more centrally connected to it is virtuous behavior, you know, that we live well and honestly and ethically. And the chanting and, you know, it goes on and on, all the things that are not included. So it doesn't have all the machinery involved in making it. I actually like Coke, I don't drink it very much, but it's a nice thing to have. But you know, it's simpler and that's part of the strength and weakness of the Vipassana and also some of the Theravada Buddhism is how simple it is. And so the question is in the Vipassana, what's the path and goal, what's the path and fruit? How does that play out and understood there? And is there some overlap with Zen? And I think there is a lot of overlap with Zen, but it's contextual.

[18:38]

So you have to understand the context. And I think that as I was listening to you, both today and Paul during these three weeks, that there is a kind of shape-shifting very quickly in the Dharma talk that goes on. that it's a little bit tricky for me to follow between times when you're talking about the oneness of practice and enlightenment and times you're talking about putting the bread in the oven and waiting for something to happen. And so there's a clear recognition in Zen that there is a development, a change that unfolds over time. And I loved earlier in the weeks when you talked about through the, I guess, being Abbas and sitting facing out and watching a new student arrive. And their body is all challenged to sit there. And slowly, day by day over the months, you see their bodies shift and change and develop until they have a body that's stable and still.

[19:42]

And I think that represents representative of what happens in the mind and the heart as well. And when you talk at Zen Center a lot about, you know, being sharp-cornered rocks that are tumbling in the washer and the river together, rubbing against each other and becoming smoother and smoother. And so there's a development and change that goes on over time that's clearly recognized in Zen. And so when is a discourse talking more about the oneness of it all with no emphasis on change? And when is a discourse talking about a change that happens over time? And sometimes I get a little bit... how quickly it goes back and forth and where are we now and how is this now? And so I think that in Vipassana, if you kind of can really keep these two different sides, the sides of development and growth, a little bit separate from the goal or the fruition of the path, then it's easier to begin maybe seeing where these traditions fit together.

[20:51]

Until a point where in dhipasana too, practice, you come to a place where it's the shift shifting back and forth becomes almost like, it's so non-dual. It's so much all the same thing that whether you're talking about growth and development towards a goal or talking about expressing or being the goal, the enlightenment, it becomes this, you know, it's like you're talking about the same thing. It's just different sides of the same thing. Rather than different sides of the same coin, it's different sides of the same ball. You turn the ball over and like, is it the other side of the ball? You don't even know if it's a ball. It's all kind of mixed together. So in Vipassana practice, the path of it is based on a longer path. It's a particular section of a path of practice that leads a student to some kind of initial awakening.

[21:57]

And I prefer to refer to awakening as a significant release from suffering that not only gets the person attention, that nothing else will get your attention, but also release from suffering that changes the person. in a new way. And so Vipassana discourse in the West mostly talks about, it's kind of like a lot of the language, a lot of the discussion is all about kind of a beginner's introduction to Buddhism, introduction to practice, to meditation practice, with the idea that we're bringing people to the point where the dough is ready and to be put in the oven. But they want to get the dough ready, good and ready. And then when the dough is ready, then you put it in the oven. And then you have to trust or allow for the oven to do its work and for the dough to do its work.

[23:04]

But you've done your work having made the dough. And then we're allowing something else that's different than our own efforts, our own agency. to do the work of practice. But it takes a while, in Vipassana, it's understood it takes a while to get there. But once you get there somehow, then you can go back and see that the goal was always present in the practice all the way up. But that's hard to see for most people, to see really for themselves until they've had some significant release from suffering. the bread comes out for the first time, you know, because, you know, it gets stale after a while, so probably should put it back, you know, make another dough the next day and, you know, make another batch. Keep going back and sitting. So how this works, what's fascinating about is that the language of bhavati, bhaveti,

[24:15]

which is the closest word to what sometimes people call meditation in the Pali, in the ancient language, has often translated as cultivate. And it's often, in terms of practice, is used in a grammatical form where it's, we're bringing something into being. And once it comes into being, then we allow it to unfold or to work us. So it isn't so much that we, as practice develops, it isn't so much that we are practicing mindfulness. In fact, mindfulness is not something we're supposed to practice for the agency. Mindfulness is something that we bring into being, and then we abide in it, we rest in it, we be it. And then we're in the oven. that the Eightfold Path is not something we practice. That's kind of for a beginner.

[25:16]

But at some point, the Eightfold Path is something we've brought into being so that it is us. We're not separate from the Eightfold Path. It's not like this thing we can practice because it's within us. And when the Eightfold Path, when it's been brought into being, then we put it in the oven, in a sense. And the language of cultivation works very well for a metaphor that Buddha uses for practice, which is that of a farmer growing plants. The farmer has agency in terms of plowing the fields, planting the seeds, watering the seeds, fertilizing the plants. But the farmer doesn't have agency for making the plant grow. The farmer doesn't go out in the field and tug on the plants to get taller, bigger, you know. or doesn't go out there and reprimand them for not going fast enough or something. The farmer just nourishes and cultivates the conditions. And with those conditions, the plant grows.

[26:20]

So the same thing within us. We're responsible for creating the conditions for practice, for this cultivation, for something to cultivate and grow inside of us. And so... The conditions, one of the first important conditions in Theravada Buddhism is ethical conduct, sila. Another important one is kalyanamitas, having good spiritual friends like you and I. And another good condition is attentiveness, apamada, to really be heedful, be careful, live a life that's careful, attentive. And another one is wise attention. So two of these four very important conditions that are put in place have to do with using our attentional capacities, our capacity to really be sensitive and attentive to what's happening now. And to do this stuff this well, then that's what we contribute.

[27:26]

That's plowing the fields and planting the seeds. But with those in place, a big part of vipassana practice is having that in place well enough so something can begin unfolding, moving, developing over time. And that's one of the functions of what's so-called mindfulness practice is to create the capacity for the practitioner to be in the present moment enough to to do what you described, to be ready. That Suzuki Roshi talked about readiness of mind or availability of mind. So to really to be present enough to stay in the oven. I mean, imagine if the bread, you know, went into the oven and a little, you know, dough man or whatever, you know, says, I think it gets too hot now. I think I'm about to get a glass of water and pops out. No, you have to stay in there. No, it pops out.

[28:28]

You stay, you know. And you have to stay in the oven long enough. And so in this metaphor, staying in the present moment long enough so that something, it's like a present moment is the oven. That's the sunlight which helps the plant to grow. And so this trusting something arises and arises within us and that allow it to grow. And what is it that's growing and developing? Some of them is the wholesome qualities of mind, wholesome qualities of heart, but some of it is a letting go, a letting go, letting go of not being ready, a letting go of not trusting, not being in the oven, letting go of goal-oriented, trying to get something and want something, or letting go of trying to want anything, let alone enlightenment, just... you know, want to get, you know, if I sit long enough, can, you know, I'll plan, you know, what kind of vacation to have.

[29:31]

I want a great vacation, you know. So you have to let go of all kinds of things if you're sitting, because sitting in sasa and thinking about a vacation, you're not in the oven, is my view. So to learn to really be in the present. So there's a lot of letting go. And as the letting go goes further, at some point there's a, in vipassana practice, vipassana practice, technically ends with this very dramatic letting go that the tradition calls stream entry and that's such a definitive letting go that at that point the person has available to them a kind of more or less readily easily qualities of the goal qualities of enlightenment that live in the person And those qualities then become the reference point for how to stay in the oven, how to allow things to keep growing.

[30:33]

And so then we have a direct contact with not the Eightfold Path per se, Eightfold Path becomes who we are, but we have direct contact with the space of the mind that allows the Eightfold Path to move through us, to be who we are. And so the whole reference point for how people practice after the first experience of awakening shifts. It becomes the same practice. So practice, what the so-called practice is, is the same. However, now it's based on an awakening. And the way that's referred to in the text, it's based on what in English we can call, we can say, it's based on independence, freedom, and a certain stopping. Viveka, viraga, and nirodha is the Pali words. And in English, American terms, we call independence, freedom, and stopping.

[31:39]

So we're independent. Something inside of us, not all of us, but something inside of us recognizes independence, freedom, from grasping and clinging, from greed, hate, and delusion. Something inside of us has a visceral experience of freedom from greed, hate, and delusion. And something inside of us recognizes a place in the mind and the heart where there's a stopping of greed, hate, and delusion and its manifestations. And that becomes... And all those three are characterized in common as by an absence. And that absence then becomes the space where the plant can grow, the space in which, you know, the space of the oven that allows something to come up. And so in that point, the practice of a person is very clear that the practice now is not really that separate from the goal, from the fruit.

[32:49]

If the fruit is letting go of the forces of suffering inside of us, then there's a kind of ongoing reference point that yes, I'm sitting connected to that absence of suffering, absence of clinging. I'm sitting connected to that freedom of awakening. I'm not completely awake. I'm not completely free. There's still work to be done. But now I see that it's not my agency that's gonna make a difference. It's rather, it's basing what I do on this oneness of the practice and the goal. Or basing what I do is the practice is not to leave the goal in order to strive for the goal. But as a person does that, there is something still grows and develops. And as the Buddha says, if you do this repeatedly over and over and over again, like Suzuki Roshi, is repeatedly doing it.

[33:49]

But now you have this thing which, now it's just, the plant that's growing is freedom. And if you keep practicing, you don't have to want to, you don't need to have a goal anymore. You don't need to want that anymore. Because as the Buddha said, if you, if you, if a hen sits on an egg incubating it, even if the chicken does not want the egg to hatch, at some point, the egg, the chick will hatch. In the same way, Buddha says this, literally says, if all the conditions are right and you're sitting, and so now they didn't have, you know, the bread is in the oven, it will bake. If you're sitting on your egg, And it's a nice metaphor for Zazen or meditation, seated meditation. If you really sit on the egg of awakening, you can't help it for it to grow and hatch at some point.

[34:57]

And even if you don't want it, it'll hatch. So this idea of goal, wanting something, is not really needed in this oneness of practice, awakening. It happens at some point. And then a person looks back and sees, Well, in fact, now that I realize it, in order for me to, before awakening, before for me to reach awakening, the most important part of that was I had to practice with a letting go of clinging all along. And so in fact, there were qualities of awakening, of freedom, of goal, of awakening. In my practice all along, I just didn't recognize them. In fact, I was looking somewhere else. I wasn't really seeing that that the goal was in my practice because I thought the goal was someplace in the future. But in fact, each step along the way where we're not clinging, where we let go of clinging, then it's helping us grow. So in this regard, one of the sayings we have in the Vipassana world is a cliche or something, is that yes, there is a path, a journey that we take in Vipassana,

[36:11]

where we go from A to B, from ourselves as a suffering being to a person who doesn't suffer, suffer as much, you know, there's a path of growth. So you can go from A to B. However, the fastest way to get to B is to be fully at A. So, you know, just be fully at A and... And so the way you articulated so well about the oneness of practice and enlightenment really supports people to be really right here today. And if you do that, everything is always changing. And to do that, you're putting yourself, you're creating the conditions for a very different change in you than if you spent the whole day watching Netflix. It's a powerful thing you do. when you sit fully at A as if A is practice and enlightenment, something changes.

[37:12]

And it turns out a really great way to get to B. So that was my thought. I probably talked way too long. I warned you a little bit that I might, but so what do you think, Fu? But we keep making it the same, you know? It's really disturbing people. Wait a minute. I thought you were going to talk about the difference. Yeah, it's still bread. We love bread, you know? And we love making bread. What came to mind, one thing that came to mind, I think it's a languaging thing, of course, right? It's just the way language structures the ideas of practice. It's all this relative truth. We're languaging. We're in differences. Language is difference. It's how we make difference. We say, oh, that's different. You know, that's Vipassana, that's Zen. And they're different. And this is if it's true. I'm going to say they're the same as if it's true. So, you know, language is just a kind of little tricky thing we do, a magic show.

[38:17]

And I think that deconstructing of language is the same for Zen and Vipassana. That's where you get to at the end. And I think, but, and, but, I don't want to say but, and, it's the kind of language. And I think, you know, when I, and I so enjoy listening to you. In fact, I'm probably going to come down there soon and do one of your retreats, you know, like, Gil, please give me some of that straightforward, no nonsense, simple, you know, instruction so I can understand how you teach. Because I really enjoy you as a teacher. And I'm used to Zen, which is more like, you know, throw it in the washing machine and push the button and, you know, like the Coke machine. You just, you hear, maybe you hear the sounds, but you don't really told like the stages of the process of something happening. You know, there's no end that you can actually count on or, you know, there's no guarantee of anything.

[39:18]

And that being in that no guarantee of anything zone is to me is more kind of emblematic of what Zen does for you. It's like they keep pulling the rug. conceptual rugs out from under you. Anytime you get a hold of something, it's like, oh, really? You know, Rev does that to me all the time. Oh, really? No matter how nicely I say things, oh, really? It's like, ah. So I do think it's a language shift. I don't think the experience, on the experience side, we're all the humans with the mind and the body, and I know what you mean by the words you say. They resonate in my body. So, and I wonder though, you know, like I was thinking of Jack Kornfield's book, I think it's something like After Enlightenment, The Laundry. So maybe one of the emphasis, and as you've said, you really teach people who are on retreat. They're not doing laundry. You know, they're doing something very specific. They're sitting there and watching the kind of internal movement of the mind.

[40:21]

And... And I think our emphasis is more on doing the laundry. It's on how do you enact whatever that mystery is that you've come to experience in your practice, in your meditation. How do you bring that into relationship with the task, with the work, with people, with children and your family? Or do you just like, oh, I'm on retreat now. I can't, you know. Don't bother me. People at Zen Center used to talk about being samadhi busters for Suzuki Roshi. We took him out to a restaurant, you know, broke his samadhi. So I think I want to hear a little bit about that from you, about this turning toward the world again. Like, where's the instruction or the guideline for you in that? Yeah, it's actually, there's a... We do a lot of teaching at IMC, and I do, about how to practice in daily life.

[41:23]

And I think it's in the context of this three-week discussion we're having where, like today, you were talking about this enlightenment awakening thing. And so you might have been, you know, and I think you did have a reference towards Azen at times, but maybe you meant, you know, this is your whole life and every little detail of your life. And... And perhaps I was a little bit more, and really have some clarity around what I was trying to say. The reference was more meditation practice as we go along here. But everything about mindfulness teachings, vipassana teachings, can be applied to daily life. And we do a lot. Bringing mindfulness to daily life, being ethical in daily life. looking at the eightfold path in daily life, the paramis, the perfections in daily life, right speech, hugely important.

[42:24]

This last year, I did a whole program on fear because I could see that a lot of people, the Vipassana community, were very good practitioners, but they were leaving out parts of their whole life from practice having to do with fear. So we had a whole year looking at fear. and how to practice with it, how to be with it, and to just bring it into the practice so it's not kept out. And so the application of all this can be due in daily life for sure. And strictly speaking, everything I said applies to practice in daily life as well. Though I think that generally in daily life, there's a little bit more emphasis on agency than there would be. sitting in in meditation and meditation is less emphasis on agency like this is what you do you know it's like you know so in in if someone comes and says i'm having a lot of trouble with my in-laws i keep getting angry and upset and they're always irritating me and i might say well when you you don't just just you know i might not say just sit there in the oven and just see what happens i might say um hey why don't you

[43:43]

You know, look at your intention, the second factor, the Eightfold Path. Or maybe you should practice right speech when you're with your in-laws. Or maybe, you know, cultivate some metha, some loving kindness when you're visiting them. Before you go see them, stop in the car and spend 10 minutes doing loving kindness and then go there and be sure you bring a gift. You know, and usually you say words of loving kindness. So those are all things maybe of agency and what you can do. because the daily life requires that, whereas in meditation, it's a different context. And there, some agency is used, but the emphasis is much more on, because there's space and time, you're in the oven then, in a different kind of way. I keep talking, it's an occupational hazard. I'm just gonna keep asking. So... It's so nice to have you. You know, we get to hear from us all the time. This is a Zen Center, you know, program.

[44:43]

So it's really nice to be able to have you as a guest. So, you know, the other thing that occurs to me is like you, I remember you talking about when you come back from practicing in Southeast Asia that you sat in a hut by yourself. And Paul talked about that being out in the forest by himself. And it's such a different contrast to Zen where you don't sit by yourself. I hardly have ever sat by myself. I hear the bell and I go to the Zendo and I sit with other people. And that's what I know as practice. So I'm curious because I think the emphasis on the us as opposed to the me is pretty strong. And I often talk about that. So I'm wondering in terms of your... isolation from others, how that plays out in our contrasting our two approaches. Yeah. Well, I benefited from both. When I went to the first Vipassana retreat, when I sat, I kind of stumbled onto it.

[45:48]

I didn't even know what Vipassana was really when I stumbled on this. I just kind of stumbled on this monastery in Bangkok while I was waiting for a visa to go back to Japan. And I told the abbot, I'm here, I'll do whatever you tell me to do. And it turned out that it was a Vipassana center. So he told me to do Vipassana. And he told me to, okay, go to this little hut, this little hut, but that's where you're sleeping. Go to the hut, just practice there by yourself and meditate for seated meditation, 15 minutes, and then 15 minute walking meditation and keep redoing that over and over again all day. And I protested because I'm a Zen priest. You know, I've been to Tassahara, lots of sushi. I can sit longer. And he said, nope, not any longer than that. And then every day he had increased a little bit by bit until I sat longer. But very quickly, I realized when I was sitting there alone in this little hut that at Zen Center at Tassahara, I had relied, without thinking about it,

[46:51]

on the group discipline, on the momentum and the support of the community for my discipline. And that would have been really helpful for me. And I thought, okay, now I have to learn something new. I have to learn how to have that discipline in myself. And I realized that was my challenge. That was my growing edge is to have that inner sense of purpose, discipline, a capacity to really sit there without both the healthy support and the unhealthy peer pressure that I gave myself. of sitting, you know, I have to show up because everyone's like, no one's going to like me if I don't get something. So that was a great lesson to develop and find that I had that, I could develop that capacity inside of me. And then at some point when I went to Burma, I was given a little room and it wasn't a hut anymore, but one little room. And for eight months, I hardly ever left the room except to go eat and meet with the teacher. I just practiced everything in the teeny room. And it was one of the happiest times in my whole life.

[47:54]

Lots and lots of happiness and joy. And the days just sped right by, you know, just like everything, you know, it's like, you know, I can't believe it's Sunday again. You know, wow. You know, just, I was just practicing a lot. And what that, what the solitary practice did there for me, it allowed something that I think for me in context was, my practice where i was in my practice and where my what was unfolding you know was baking is once once you put bread in the oven um you don't want to open the oven too many times you want to really leave it alone and so i was um uh i i said if i go if i have a conversation with someone you know ordinary conversation it's gonna take a while for the oven to get warm enough for the baking to keep happening because my mind's gonna spin and be preoccupied by what happened. And I wanna be simple, simple.

[48:57]

I don't want any input because now's the time for the mind to get very, very, very still and quiet, or to say it differently, to really come into the kind of the deepest, fullest capacities we have for not clinging to anything. Not because that state is ideal, like the purpose of life or anything like that. It's just that as the mind becomes more and more still and quiet, more and more non-clinging, not agitated by anything at all, it allows for, in the vipassana world, it allows for the deepest kind of falling of body and mind, falling away, dropping away of body and mind. And that dropping away of body and mind is the end of vipassana practice, is the experience that... And so having that solitude really allowed me to go far and practice. When I came back to practice here in the West again, then there were times when I went on retreat, and I found it really wonderful to practice in community again.

[49:59]

I came back to do the three-month retreat at IMS, the Vipasta Center back east. And I wrote to the teachers and said, can I please have my own room? Because they were either doubles or singles, because I'm gonna practice alone. And so they gave it to me. And then I mostly practiced with everyone else. And I found that was mostly very beneficial in many kinds of ways. And so it goes back and forth context and what you need to learn. So I think having just one modality to practice sometimes is less beneficial than be able to practice in different modalities at different times for the different benefits that come from it. You really are a hybrid, aren't you? I can feel that. I can feel your deep knowledge of Zen and also something that I haven't experienced myself, this other really alone, like the eight months

[51:04]

Sounds very intriguing. Yeah, it was pretty wonderful. Yeah. I didn't feel like I was deprived. It felt like the opposite. It was the wonderfulness of that, the richness of it, the intimacy or the being at home or the sense of deep connection to reality, to the universe that It was so present that in a sense, oddly enough, if I had left to go to, you know, if I'd left to go down to Rangu to a party or something, you know, or, you know, you know, I would have had all these people and connections and it would have been lively and rich and nice with people. But I would have lost... because my mind would have been agitated and preoccupied with thoughts and ideas and feelings. I mean, why did she say that? Why did he do that? And what should I do? Will they like me? Will they not like me? And, you know, should I get a Coke or should I get Franta?

[52:09]

We used to do that after Sashin's that you probably remember, like you'd have my, you know, early years, you go to Sashin and then we all go out to, you know, dance or something. It was absolutely insane. You know, we had accumulated all of this calm abiding and then they were just like, you know, turned up the heat. And I mean, it was fascinating. The contrast is pretty interesting, but after a while you say, no, I don't think so. I think I'll just get up and sit again tomorrow morning. But imagine that the party was on the fifth day of Sashin. You finally gotten settled. And they said, okay, we're going to go to the party and then start again tomorrow. Wisdom to that, maybe let go of a lot. That's useful. But it's a little bit of pity, too, because then the next two days, it takes two days to get even halfway as settled as you were. So then it was good. I didn't feel deprived in that time. We should give Paul a chance to say a few words. because he's been listening to us and it seems only fair.

[53:18]

And so it feels like we're kind of come together a little bit and then we can take questions. Great. Hi, Paul. Hi, Paul. Hi, Guillaume. And hi, everyone. Well, maybe as, you know, when I was sitting, I was just letting all the ideas and perspectives and images just wash in, and like the tide coming in and going out, you know? It seemed like at one point you were saying something different, and then at another point they were merging. Yeah. in my mind would just say, well, isn't that practice? We go from A to B, and the quickest way to be is to be at A. Is that a Zen statement or is that a Vipassima statement?

[54:28]

Just sitting, didn't seem any different from either. So, those are my words. Thank you. I've received a question in the chat, if I could share. I've been asked to read. This is from Laura, who says, I have a question about the arising of vipassana in Zen. Theoretically, a vipassana can arise naturally out of shamatha, and yet practically it does seem possible to just sit and get settled. and yet not necessarily have insight arise. Rinzai has koan practice. What is Soto's vipassana practice? I'd like to answer that, if it's okay with you, my friends. Is it okay? So one answer to it is that, you know, one of the things I feel strongly about is not to...

[55:38]

prioritize any one kind of practice and any kind of description of what happens as people practice, how the bread bakes in the oven as being the way. And so there's many ways in which people grow and develop and practice and many ways in which people come to the end of suffering. And some of the ways that classically Vipassana has presented is one way that it can develop, but it's only one way. And so I want to be very careful not to present it as this is what you have to do or this is what's supposed to happen. We have to have a lot of respect for people's individuality, individual conditions that have to do with all kinds of things, that's how their practice unfolds. And one of the strengths, I think, of Zen practice is that it does give a lot more room for people's individuality to allow it to surface and have each person find their own way and their own way in which it evolves.

[56:39]

They cook and develop and bake or something because it's not so regimented or so clear, laid out so systematically. And so I think it's very, very respectful of people to allow each person to find their own way. And so what I've seen over the years is that different Zen students have maybe different minds, different backgrounds, all kinds of things. And they actually develop different ways. And a few people, without knowing it, without knowing anything about vipassana, will, in doing Zen, go through some of the classic stages of insight. Vipassana has these classic 10 or 16 stages that people will go through that are very well delineated. And some Zen students will just fall into those and be confused. And some of them are actually very difficult to go through. And so some Zen students have come to me and said, this is what's happening. I said, I know exactly where you're on the map, that you're on the Sipasana map. And you're here.

[57:41]

And for some reason, that's how your practice unfolded. And other people, you know, Zen students have unfolded other ways without that map and without that sequence. And it's completely valid which way to unfold. Anyway, now I lost track of why I'm saying this, so I'll stop. That's the Zen part. Yeah, I think you're right, Gil. I think people do stumble on it. And I think one of the things that's kind of emblematic of our style too is that you have a teacher. In the best of all worlds, you have a teacher and it's someone you trust enough that when these things happen in your own head, You don't recognize him as your own head. And then you get scared. So I remember getting very scared at one point during the session. And normally, I was scared of my teacher.

[58:42]

That was as scary as anything else. But suddenly, it was like, oh, I got to go talk to my teacher. This is too much. And basically, he said, are you afraid? And I thought, actually, I'm not afraid. He said, OK. So I think part of it was this reassurance. that this is okay. What you're going through is not, you know, it's not off the chart. I mean, some people do get off the chart. We have to be very careful. Both of us know that. I mean, both traditions have had people who really, as Hakowin said, he made the biggest mistake of his career was pushing a student who was not, it wasn't the right time. And that man, that young man lost his mind and he never got it back. So these are great regrets that I think we should be conscious of when we are kind of messing around with our own psyches and other people's that we should know when we're hitting someplace that's out of bounds. And be very careful, respectful of that, too. That came to mind as something. My notion is somewhat inspired by different Zen teachers' teachings.

[59:51]

The notion that it's... our inquiry that brings us to the Dharma gate of either tradition. And personally, I think all sorts of karmic coincidences also play into arriving at the gate. But then keeping that inquiry alive, in Zen we talk about great doubt. Everything is there to be examined thoroughly. to be learned from through thorough examination. Don't take it for granted. Don't take it because someone else said so. And to me, that goes the whole way back to Shakyamuni's teaching. And it's the wind of the Zen school. And in that inquiry, the path of Vipassana will make itself evident.

[60:55]

and maybe it won't be the classic Vipassana that's taught in Burma or Thailand, but the ingredients will arise. And I think in another way, I think, oh, well, this is just the practice of sati, you know, the great gift of awareness that will... an opening of consciousness, keeping us seeing what's going on that will invite a balanced perspective, that will dissipate the impulse to cling to certain notions of what practice is or what it isn't. In my own experiences, the way I was taught, both traditions emphasize that.

[61:55]

And so in some ways I feel like I'm not quite sure what the difference is between both traditions. Thank you. 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.

[62:34]

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