This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. My name is Susan, and I was just informed today that the children would be here today. So at that moment, I had a couple of choices. And so I actually want to talk to you kids just for a few minutes about what happens to you when you get surprised or disappointed, or something doesn't go the way you want it to go.

[01:04]

And I can see some of you right now are in that place. Things are not going the way you wanted them to go. You're here, and maybe your parents brought you here, and you weren't so sure, and some of you look quite happy to be here, so that's another response. So when Doris came up and said, you know, of course, that it's the children's lecture day. And I said, no. What could I have done? What was one of the things that when something happens that surprises you, what might you do? Run away. Run away. Run away. One woman says, run away. What else? Could you go, throw a little temper tantrum? Does that work? No.

[02:05]

Well, the mother says it doesn't work. But I think maybe sometimes it works, right? Yeah, sometimes it works. To stop the discomfort of something that you don't like. Just make it more uncomfortable, right? Really, really, really, really complain. That's one possible thing to do. What's another thing? What's another way when things happen that you don't? Let's say it's not that I don't like talking to you. It's that I wasn't prepared. I wasn't thinking about it. So I'm a little nervous that I'm going to make a mistake or that I'm not going to give you something beneficial. But maybe, you know what? Would he like to ring the bell? Would you like to ring that bell? I think that might be a really good thing to do. And you may ring it too.

[03:06]

And you can ring it too. Okay. Ready? I'll show you how to ring it. Three little striped-shirted boys. Wow. Can you hear the bell? Okay. Another one. Okay. Ooh. Ooh. Nice. And one more. One more young person here would like to hit the bell. A roll down. Thank you. Thank you very much. Sometimes when we do meditation instruction in the city, we bring people downstairs to the basement where there's a big bell, and I hit the bell.

[04:11]

Hit it now, just once. And wait for the sound to stop. Just wait. Still hear it? Now it's probably stopped at least to these older persons' ears. You've just meditated. That was a meditation experience. When you listen quietly and in a still body to sounds, or when you watch the light change, sitting still, not moving, that's meditation. So when I asked you, and then we had the little interlude with the bell, what another response would be to being disappointed. One possible response would be to be grateful for something new.

[05:18]

This is new. I didn't expect to meet you today. I didn't expect to be challenged in this way today. And it's a new opportunity, so Gratitude for change is a possible response. And I wish I had a story to tell you, but I'm not going to pretend that I do because I don't. I don't have a story. So what is the plan with the children today? What are they going to do? Planting in the children's garden. That's a really amazing experience. And you're kind of not happy, huh? Yeah. You're kind of not happy. Do you want to go out and plant things in the garden? Yes. Yes. Okay. Okay. So how about you're released to go plant things in the garden and have a wonderful day. And I'm sorry I didn't meet you with a story today. Okay.

[06:22]

You're welcome. You're welcome. You're welcome. Bye. Bye, sweetie. Bye. Bye. You're welcome. Goodbye. There are a lot of seats up front here. Please come. Please come. attended outside.

[07:46]

I asked him what he would want to hear if he were a young child today, and he said, well, maybe something connected to your talk. And kind of ironically, I didn't have anything to give to the children, and my intention today is to talk to you about nothing. Nothing as a transformational teaching that Zen offers us. Nothing is one of the three characteristics of existence as taught by the Buddha, otherwise known as suffering, impermanence, and emptiness. We experience suffering and we're aware of impermanence But what do we know about emptiness? In Buddhism, we talk about the two wings of the bird, wisdom and compassion.

[08:55]

And these teachings about nothing, about the realization of emptiness, these are wisdom teachings. A couple of, maybe a month or so ago, my Dharma brother, Jiryu, talk at the city center about emptiness, I was inspired by him. He said, these teachings have the potential of freeing us from everything, from all anxiety, from all fear, from all self-concern. And he also said, extreme times call for extreme teachings. And his bravery did inspire me to talked to you today about, well, nothing. One way of entering into these wisdom teachings, it is recommended that it is very helpful to first spend some time in the realm of compassion.

[10:03]

Right now in our world and in our country, children are dying from lack of food or shelter, gay men are being thrown off roofs of buildings, war is everywhere, injustice is everywhere. Can we allow ourselves to become intimate with this grief and find a place of balance in the middle of it while staying close to it? Just take a minute right now and allow the pain that you know is in the world, let it into your heart, and send out compassion for those who are directly and devastatingly affected by war or pain or hunger or discrimination.

[11:12]

or violence. Take a moment to grieve and then offer to connect with those beings through compassion. Zen is about not turning away. So this wheel of receiving suffering and giving compassion keeps our hearts pliable and open and warm. It hurts a little, doesn't it? It hurts. But then as we stay with it, as we don't move, our hearts become more pliable and warmer and open. And this giving compassion, receiving suffering is actually what's happening already.

[12:14]

We are constantly and without end creating and sustaining each other's lives. And this is an acknowledgment that we don't exist separately. When we participate in the act of giving compassion, we're enacting this truth of mutual creation. Giving compassion can be seen as a ceremony that exemplifies the unknowable and total interdependence of all life. What one teacher here at Green Gulch called imperceptible mutual assistance. I like that word imperceptible because when we talk about emptiness and when we talk about maybe it's more... positive description, which is interdependence.

[13:21]

Nothing exists separately. We tend to think, at least sometimes I do, that that's something, that idea of mutual arising is something that we can actually hold on to and understand. So it feels more comfortable to talk about emptiness in that way. But actually, Our mind is not set up to understand the vast, just unthinkable complexity of how everything creates everything else. So the mind that thinks it and understands it is not the mind that actually can understand it. one of the ways we talk about this mutual arising is calling it emptiness.

[14:21]

Emptiness meaning that all things are empty of a separate, isolated, permanent, and unchangeable self. You've heard these teachings, right? Today I'm using the word nothing, and I would say that the gift of Zen is the gift of nothing. And it's a dangerous word, so I will try to be careful. Suffering is suffering. And if experienced directly, it's neutral. Impermanence can also seem like suffering when we resist it. But it's also the truth of the possibility of change. of transformation, of waking up, the possibility of waking up from our delusional attempts to resist change.

[15:25]

But the idea of nothing or emptiness, depending on how we hold it, can scare us or calm us. It can cause us to run around. or to sit down for a while. It's difficult to approach this idea directly. So in Zen, there's a world of wonderful stories, a story that I didn't have for the children this morning, but I have them for you. They're called koans, where the experience of nothing or emptiness can be suspected and felt. chosen a few stories that involve a teacher asking for a gift. And maybe you'll notice as you think about each story, it may be very difficult to not try to make this nothing into something.

[16:36]

Bodhidharma was a very influential Zen ancestor, had a student named Vika, One day, Hueca came to his teacher with this question. My mind is so restless. How can I set it at peace? This question may sound very familiar to you. Some of you may have had meditation instruction today for the first time. Did anyone come for the first time today? Oh, yes, good. Okay. Those of you who have been meditating for a really long time, this will also sound very familiar to you. How can I set my mind at peace? Many of us come to meditation practice because of the unsettledness of our minds. So what does Bodhidharma say? He says, bring me your mind and I will set it at peace.

[17:47]

Bring me your mind. This is the study of a lifetime. Bring me your mind. Can you find yours? Go ahead, look. Vekka says, just like you, but when I search for my mind, I do not find it. And Bodhidharma says, see, I've already put it at peace. That ping-pong that sometimes I'm aware of when I look at these questions, where is my mind? Where is myself? It goes from there, not there, there, not there, there, not there. That ping pong, ping pong, ping pong.

[18:55]

And eventually, we let go. And we're right back where we started. But with a mind that's at peace. You can see this parable in many ways. I'm today emphasizing how to look for the gift of nothing. Did Bodhidharma give his student the gift of nothing? What is it? Today, I say, it's relationship. And to participate in this nothing, to uncover this nothing, We need to cultivate a mind that can shed or drop off the greed and selfishness of the ego and become aware of the harmony of all transactions.

[20:01]

Giving, the first of the perfections, paramitas, is a key way to practice this shedding of greed and selfishness. and to celebrate the truth of relationship. Here's another story. Venerable Yang Yang asked Zhaozhou, these are wonderful Zen teachers, Chinese Zen lineage, in our lineage, when not a single thought is brought, then what? Yang Yang is kind of hovering around in there with not a single thought. And he's bringing that to his teacher. Does he think he's bringing the gift of nothing? Does he think that there's something in addition to or after presenting nothing?

[21:14]

Zhao Zhou says, put it down. What was Yang Yang carrying? A puzzled Yang Yang. Some of these people in these stories really go through it and in front of their teacher, right? And then they get memorialized for us to go through it again to them. Yang Yang says, If I don't bring a single thing, what should I put down? Zhao Zhao says. Then carry it out. These subtle holdings, it's a continual study for me. What is it that I am holding on to that I think I can give in that way, in some kind of concrete way, in some kind of solid way.

[22:20]

And each time I think maybe it's, you know, it's kind of light, it's not so heavy, it's not so full of itself. If I'm lucky, my teacher will say, then put it down. I'm going to read you the introduction to this story. It's poetic, which is another good way to talk about something that's really hard to talk about. So the introduction says, playing with reflections struggle for the form. You don't recognize that the form is the source of the reflection. Raising your voice to stop an echo, you don't know. The voice is the root of the echo. If it's not riding an ox to look for an ox, then it's using a wedge to remove a wedge.

[23:24]

How can you avoid these extremes? Here's another story. A university professor went to visit a famous Zen master. It doesn't have a name in this story, but while the master was quietly serving tea, the professor talked about Zen. The master poured the visitor's cup to the brim and then kept pouring. The professor watched the overflowing cup until he could no longer restrain himself It's overfilled. No more will go in, the professor blurted out. You are like this cup, the master replied. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup? So I love that.

[24:30]

I love that. The gift of Zen is not about what we're going to get, but what we're going to lose. And when we lose everything that is extra, what's left is the complete fullness of being intimate with everything. The Zen... Lessons or stories don't really have answers. Only the invitation to come closer, to bring our attention to the ever-present gift of intimacy, relationship, imperceptible mutual assistance. couple of, for me, clear obstacles to entering into this wisdom teaching about emptiness.

[26:02]

And they seem to be related to other characteristics of suffering and impermanence. So I notice that how I want to work with impermanence in listening to these stories is I want to find somewhere to stand. I want to make a nest. I want to know something. I want to be someone who knows something. This tendency to look for some place to land. And again, my experience is one of the things I am most grateful to my teacher and my many teachers for helping me with is just when I think I've landed somewhere, they pull the rug out. That is Zen love.

[27:06]

That is just complete courage, support, helpfulness. So then I have nowhere to stand again. Can I stop myself from looking again for another place to stand in the midst of that? Am I looking for the rug? So the other impulse that is in the way of lining up with this wisdom teaching is the sense I don't have enough. I don't have enough. More. I want more. That is a very deep, a deep restlessness comes with that. Reaching out for more.

[28:09]

Reaching out for something, again, to stabilize and hold on to, but fill me up. as opposed to empty me out. Fill me up, empty me out. This is the push me, pull you. Fill me up, empty me out. So these are just impulses that I notice and I work with. But there is nothing that will create a permanent place to stand. And there is nothing outside ourselves that will fill us up. So giving, which I mentioned before, is one of the... Well, if you follow a kind of a linear way of looking at the paramedas, is the first parameda, although they are all...

[29:15]

intricately involved with each other. Giving of things or money or teachings is a gesture of acknowledgement of our relationship in inextricable intimacy. Connection between us embodied in the form of a gift is the bridge over which this enactment of the exchange seems to occur. Even though these stories of teacher and student seem to indicate the value of nothing, nothing does not stand alone. Nothing is the nothing of something. And something that is given with no expectations is the gift of nothing. When we give, I don't think we should give something unless it has the qualities of nothing.

[30:25]

Can we give compassion with no expectations that it will alleviate suffering? Can we give each in-breath and out-breath to the benefit of the world? Don't give something unless there's nothing special about it. This nothing allows complete view of the other, and it upholds the relationship above all. One last story. Dengshan, another Chinese ancestor, was conducting a memorial service for his teacher, Yunnan. And a monk asked, what instruction did you receive at your late teacher's place?

[31:29]

Dengshan said, although I was there, I didn't receive his instruction. The monk said, then why conduct a service for him? Dongshan said, I do not esteem my late teacher's virtues or his Buddhist teaching. I only value the fact that he gave me nothing. So in conclusion, I celebrate this relationship we have in which we hold each other up and mutually create the world, which is empty of permanent, unchangeable things and full of mutable, vibrant, shining, relational life.

[32:37]

And I encourage all of us to consider the value of the gift of nothing that the teachers here at Zen Center do their best to offer you. Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[33:27]

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