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. You know, I've considered this Green Gulch my home temple for so many years. During the 10 years I was in residence at all three centers, but mostly here. returning in anticipation of this talk and now entering this zendo with which I'm so intimately familiar, I just feel tremendous gratitude for all of the teachers and fellow sangha members and good friends in the Dharma who I moved through this space with for so many years, and many of whom who are no longer here. So I'm aware of their apparent absence, and I also very much feel their presence.

[01:05]

And there is this immense Manjushri, so familiar, always there, looking upon me, so. You know, I was thinking when I came in, our eyes are cast down in this room, often. when we come here to sit zazen. And as I was recalling the faces of many people who I've practiced with, I could also see their feet. It's amazing the detail with which we can recall each other's feet. And I was thinking, oh, the amount of DNA in these floorboards. We all have our DNA here. How many thousands of peoples? It's a wonder these boards don't get up and start walking. So as I was saying, I'm, like many of us, fortunate in many ways for being able to practice here, both residentially and non-residentially, and for the ways my teachers continued showing up as themselves completely, giving me

[02:23]

everything and nothing. And everything is what? Lit sticks of incense, the daily schedule, instructions, forms for entering and exiting and getting onto these seats on the tan, which is not so easy the first time, getting up and spinning around. in these robes, and so many forms and ceremonies were imparted to me. Places of practice, as we say, work practice. I worked in so many realms of this temple, in the kitchen, on the grounds, in this zendo, in the administrative offices. These are all things that were given to me to practice with here over the years. And as for nothing, I was offered things like teachings on impermanence, emptiness, face-to-face meeting, intimacy, and not knowing.

[03:48]

none of which can be gotten a hold of. And this is what we mean, I think, oftentimes by nothing in Zen. No actual thing to grasp. We are offered the whole universe to practice with and at the same time given nothing really to hold on to, at least not for long. Welcome to those of you who have just arrived. A couple of familiar faces. Thank you for coming. A few days ago, as I was thinking about giving this talk here, I was thinking about the fact that there's a three-week intensive about to begin. And maybe some of you will be participating in that. And along with the intensive is a class titled It's Just a Story.

[04:58]

And as I was thinking about this, this kind of funny, I'll admit somewhat uncouth thought arose in my mind. I thought, ah, Zen gossip, rumors, speculation, and idealization. And then I thought, well, that's funny and curious and interesting. And then I thought, well, that's really good, actually. And I wondered then, well, what is the difference between gossip, rumors, speculation and idealization, and Zen gossip, rumors, speculation and idealization? And one of the answers that occurred to me was, well, in Zen, In the beginning, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers. And in the middle, mountains are no longer mountains and rivers are no longer rivers.

[06:05]

And in the end, mountains are mountains again and rivers are rivers. Do you get it? Gossip. rumors, speculation, and idealization are really only mountains and rivers projected upon by the stories that we tell about them. Likewise, you could say that gossip, rumors, speculation, and idealization are not really the mountains and rivers. They are the concepts that we project upon the inconceivable reality Mountains and Rivers. So what is this talk in Zen of mountains and rivers? Our Japanese Soto Zen founder, Ehe Dogen, wrote a sutra called The Mountains and an essay that he titled The Mountains and Rivers Sutra.

[07:12]

What do they represent or convey? You could say they represent our everyday life, the context in which we enjoy our everyday rice and tea or oatmeal and coffee. You could say they represent the way things actually are. Prior to the stories that we tell to try to pin everything down and to know it, These are the stories that, when believed, determine the way that we relate to actual mountains and rivers. And then we say the mountains and rivers are the Buddha body. And we say that they also don't exist outside the mind. And we say that the truth, the suchness of mountains and rivers cannot be

[08:24]

grasped or conceived by the mind. So again, these are all concepts of mountains and rivers, the images they call forth, and the conceivable stories that we tell about our inconceivable everyday life. I'd like to return to something that I just touched on briefly in the beginning, which is Being oneself completely, as demonstrated by my teachers and so many of the ancestors in this Soto Zen lineage. Being oneself completely without pretense, and also at times skillfully with pretense. Everything is included in what is complete, without pretense, and with pretense.

[09:27]

So what does it mean, this being oneself completely, which is what Suzuki Roshi encouraged? What does it imply? In recent months, I've been giving a lot of thought to really deeply contemplating interdependence, which we also often refer to as Dependent origination or dependent co-arising, emptiness, and I think sometimes interdependency, interbeing. And I'll just take a few moments. This part might be a little dry for some of you, but I think it is... Important for those of you who are hearing these terms for the first time, they're often used interchangeably, interdependence, co-dependent, dependent co-arising, dependent origination, emptiness.

[10:37]

But I'd like to take a few minutes to talk about how they're different as well as the same. Dependent origination is the term that was used in early Buddhism in the Pali canon. And there it emphasized the causal conditions that lead to birth and death, suffering and the cessation of suffering. And dependent co-arising is a term that shows up more in English translations of Mahayana teachings, including Zen. And it tends to emphasize mutuality of causal conditions. So rather than a kind of one-directional linear chain of events, rather than A causes B, it's more like A and B arise together, or AB arises, like a kind of co-emergence.

[11:38]

And the term emptiness, which in Sanskrit is shunyata, arose in the Mahayana tradition in certain schools, including Zen, in a way that emphasized the absence of inherent existence or absence of fixed self-nature. And lastly, interdependence or interdependency or interbeing. These are all more modern Western terms that are used in the context of Zen and that were popularized, I think, by Thich Nhat Hanh and other... others who were dedicated to engaged Buddhism. And I would say that the emphasis of these terms added to the mix compassion and responsible relationality, awareness of social and environmental implications of the Buddhist teachings, and accountability and mutual reliance.

[12:43]

within worldly systems and structures, so not just ways of talking about ultimate reality. All of that's just a brief overview of how these terms are used variously, and at the same time, they share the same fundamental understanding of non-separation and the way things, plural, actually are singular. So I want to return to being oneself completely in light of interdependence or emptiness, which is probably the word I'll use the most for the remainder of this talk. This morning, I'd like to suggest that this being oneself completely has a lot to do with understanding, recognizing experientially practicing and studying in ways that help us to become conscious of the fact that we are always telling stories to ourselves and to others, stories about the way things are.

[13:57]

And in so doing, our minds are often habitually covering the way things actually are, which provides a basis for things such as gossip, rumors. speculation and idealization, which I use somewhat playfully, but also I want to say, as you know, these things are rampant in our world and, you know, so swiftly and voluminously, like, generated and disseminated and uploaded through online media sources with the aid of modern technology. And yet, Even without modern technology, we have these tendencies. We have our ancient technology, which is the human brain, body, consciousness. We have been doing this for millennia.

[15:01]

We also use our minds, these technologies, in ways that bring a lot of benefit to the world. Obviously. But we create a lot of suffering. And that brings us to practices like Zen with the question, how can I be free of this suffering and help others to be free? So first, perhaps by becoming conscious, of the nature of stories and of being storytellers, for better and for worse. Secondly, having a practice in which we can look at this, just look at the mind and the body and the mind's creation and the felt sense of our own stories. In Zen, we call this looking zazen, sitting silent and still with our senses open simply aware of what's arising without trying to get a hold of or push away, add to or subtract from.

[16:20]

We call this practice just sitting. Sometimes we say doing nothing. And sometimes it is talked about descriptively as thinking, not thinking, with awareness or attention to posture and breathing. So we have self-reflection and zazen, and we also have teachings passed on by wise and compassionate teachers who dedicated their lives to realizing the way things actually are, to actualizing their realizations for the benefit of others, for us, and for all the beings that our lives can and do reach. And one of the foundational teachings that they have passed down to us is the teaching of emptiness or dependent co-rising.

[17:22]

This morning I'm suggesting that the fullness or the form dimension of emptiness is complete and is actualized by being oneself completely. in faith that Buddha nature is our nature. In preparation for this talk, I was reviewing some of Suzuki Roshi's many teachings on emptiness, and I came across something very interesting to me, something that struck me as quite advanced and profound, actually, in Zen mind, beginner's mind. And I was struck not just by the teaching, but by the fact that I had never consciously seen this, though I have read Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind many times over the years. I thought, oh, what a wonderful example of how the Zen teachings are hidden in plain sight.

[18:28]

We can't see them or hear them so long as our eye or ear of practice cannot reach them. To quote Dogen, He wrote in his essay, The Genjo Koan, you see and understand only what your eye of practice can reach. So you might say over time, the aperture of our practice widens and the lens becomes clearer, enabling us to see more, to see more clearly. So this lecture of Suzuki Roshi's, which I suddenly was able to see and hear in a way that I never had before, is called in the book Constancy. And in it, he refers quite a bit to emptiness. And he used what I think is a really brilliant metaphor that can also be understood literally. He said, quote, the sky is never surprised when all of a sudden a thunderbolt breaks through.

[19:33]

And then when the lightning follows and one is simply aware of this wonderful sight to be seen. He goes on to say that similarly, and I'm paraphrasing, when the attention of the mind is resting in the truth of emptiness, it is never surprised by the thunder or lightning. How is that? I don't know how, but for those of you who've sat in this zendo, or in another zendo elsewhere in some other dwelling, on a windy morning before the sun has risen, with the inside of the zendo very dimly lit, you may have noticed on one or more occasions that when a heavy, large pine cone suddenly drops and hits the roof at, say, 5.30 a.m.,

[20:37]

And your mind in that moment was not thinking something in particular. And so that thought wasn't suddenly shattered by the sound of that pine cone striking emptiness. You didn't startle or generate any thoughts about it. Although perhaps immediately after you thought pine cone or you had some profound insight that wasn't exactly a proliferation of thought, like mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers. Maybe at that time when the pine cone struck the roof, the mind's attention was resting in unhindered constancy of emptiness, also known as suchness or Buddha nature.

[21:38]

If someone asks you later, did you hear that this morning? You think, ah yes, I did hear that. But between hearing it and being asked, you had forgotten. But it left a trace, and that trace allowed for the arising of the memory. Ah yes. To return to Suzuki Roshi's lecture, Later in the talk, he refers to emptiness descriptively and again metaphorically as the utter darkness of the sky. He brings it up in the context of saying that he, as a Japanese man in the U.S., is eating American food and doing his best to speak American English as a non-native English speaker and wanting to understand English speakers. He says... I may understand you better than anyone who can speak and understand English.

[22:42]

This is true, he says. Even if I could not understand English at all, I think I could communicate with English-speaking people. And then he uses this reference to utter darkness. He says, there is always a possibility of understanding as long as we exist. in the utter darkness of the sky. As long as we live in emptiness, as long as we live in that darkness, what does that darkness refer to? He continues, I have always said that you must be very patient if you want to understand Buddhism. But I have been seeking for a better word than patience. The usual translation of the Japanese word is patience. But perhaps constancy is a better word. You must force yourself to be patient, he says.

[23:45]

But in constancy, there is no particular effort involved. There is only the unchanging ability to accept things as they are. For people who have no idea of emptiness, This ability may appear to be patience, but patience can actually be non-acceptance. People who know, even if only intuitively, the state of emptiness always have opened the possibility of accepting things as they are. A little later in the same passage, he says, the sky is always the sky. Even though the clouds and lightning come, the sky is not disturbed. Even though pine cones strike the roof in the dimly lit zendo in the wee hours of the morning, surrounded by utter darkness, the sky, vast emptiness, is not disturbed.

[24:51]

It continues. Even if the flashing of enlightenment comes, our practice forgets all about it. then it, our practice, is ready for another enlightenment or another pine cone. And finally, he says, this is what is called enlightenment before you attain it and after you attain it. In other words, now, right now. This is quite advanced teaching, I think. in Zen mind, beginner's mind, but maybe that's just because I'm a beginner. And because I think maybe some of you are also beginners, I want to look a little bit more closely at some of what he's saying here, at least around the edges. And while doing so, continue considering, at least in the background, how this relates to being oneself completely.

[26:00]

So he begins this passage or this part of his Dharma talk by saying that he is looking for some word other than patience to refer to what he thinks one needs in order to understand Buddhism. And he shares with us his reason, which is that he thinks the word patience or nin in Japan, I'm sorry, in Japanese, tends to suggest a kind of willful or forceful effort. some restraint, perhaps. And I had this kind of funny example. I thought it was a little bit humorous and also quite mundane. I think you can all relate to it. I thought, oh, like when we're sitting in traffic behind another car and the light turns green and the person in front of us is on their phone so they didn't notice that the light changed. And there's this sort of restraint that we have to have for a few seconds to keep from honking on the horn, particularly when the person behind us has started honking at us, apparently, for not honking at the person in front of us, you know, to relieve the universe of this tension.

[27:17]

So this whole situation can take some restraint and is not necessarily acceptance of what is happening. Suzuki Roshi went on to say constancy is a better word because in constancy, as he means it, there is no particular effort involved. There is only the unchanging ability to accept things as they are. Sounds like zazen, this constancy, this acceptance of the way things are. of whatever is arising in the field of awareness. And in the next sentence, he seems to be equating constancy with emptiness. He says, for some people who have no idea of emptiness, this ability, constancy, may appear to be patience, but patience can actually be non-acceptance.

[28:28]

So this constancy is either being used as a word for emptiness or to refer to a practice grounded in an understanding of emptiness which lends itself to a state of acceptance. He says people who know even if only intuitively the state of emptiness always have opened the possibility of accepting things as they are. What is it about this emptiness that makes this possible, this acceptance? Perhaps it is a quality of openness. Perhaps it is an unhindered inclusion of everything that is arising in awareness. Earlier I said that my understanding of the ability to be oneself completely is related to emptiness.

[29:41]

And now I see it's also related to or equated with acceptance. Acceptance of oneself. Acceptance of others. But only total acceptance. Emptiness is total acceptance, as different than partial acceptance. Accepting what we like, what we're comfortable with, what we agree with. pausing now because I'm tempted to go off script.

[30:43]

And I tell myself before coming into these talks, don't go off script. It occurs to me that the ability to be oneself completely is dependent upon what in Zen we call practice realization. Not just intellectual understanding, but something much more embodied than mere intellectual reasoning. Something realized, made real, or actualized. Moment after moment in our everyday activities, not only on our cushions, in our meditation seats, we can notice as an intentional practice that the myriad things, innumerable things, beings, appearances are coming forth, are occurring and altogether bringing about my own self-experience.

[31:57]

That is the only self-experience. And we are equally participating in this coming forth and bringing forth to the arising of other people's experiences, who are in turn giving their experiences back to us without end. When this coming forth of myriad things to manifest myself is realized, then emptiness and non-separation is realized. Dogen wrote, who would take wasteful delight in the spark from the flintstone? Form and substance are like dew on the grass, destiny like the dart of lightning, emptied in an instant, vanished in a flash.

[33:02]

He wrote that a thousand years approximately after the Diamond Sutra was written. And in the Diamond Sutra it says, all conditioned phenomena are like dew or a flash of lightning. Thus should they be contemplated. Dogen went on in his version, in his essay translated Guidelines for Seated Meditation, please honored followers of Zen long accustomed to groping for the elephant. for very partial knowledge based on limited perceptions, perspectives, fixed views. Do not be suspicious of the true dragon, the whole dragon. Concentrate your efforts single-mindedly, he wrote, on this fundamental truth.

[34:07]

on realizing this ultimate teaching of emptiness, constancy, completeness. I'd like to end my talk with Suzuki Roshi's words. He said, Buddha's teaching is everywhere, in the mountains and the rivers. He said, today it is raining. This is Buddha's teaching. People think their own way or their own religious understanding is Buddha's way without knowing what they are hearing or what they are doing or where they are. Religion is not any particular teaching. Religion is everywhere. We have to understand our teaching in this way Teaching is in each moment, in every existence.

[35:14]

That is the true teaching. That was said in a talk that was later titled, Right Understanding. Thank you very much for your attention. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered 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.

[35:58]

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