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 afternoon. Good afternoon. So, my name is Les, and I'm with, I'm here today. for this week with a group of Zen students from the Kanando Zen Center in Mountain View, California. And for those of you that aren't quite aware, let me just say that Mountain View is in dead center, right in the heart of Silicon Valley. And we are surrounded by... Apple, and Facebook, and Google, and LinkedIn, and Cisco, and Stanford, Hewlett-Packard, Yahoo, Netflix isn't far away.

[01:21]

Did I say Apple? It fell. Intel, Microsoft, and a thousand startups. So, you know, that's a lot of creative energy is taking place there, fueled in no small part by Stanford. A lot of very energetic, really smart, ambitious, visionary young people doing their work there, doing their work with technology. and most recently beginning to do artificial intelligence, which you've heard about, and we don't know what's going to happen with that. But anyway, it's a stressful place. It's a productive place. It's an exciting place. It's becoming difficult to live there because of the crowded conditions and the stress and the traffic and the lack of housing and all that. So in the last five years or so,

[02:23]

A lot of the people who live and work in Silicon Valley are beginning to feel all those pressures and are beginning to ask a question. Is this it? Isn't there something more? Isn't there something other than this? This feels so tight. And some are saying, you know, I'm achieving success in my work but doesn't feel successful. And that's a That's a very strange feeling to have. When you know your success by all the signs that say you're successful, but you don't feel it. You feel there's something missing. So people are beginning to explore their lives. They're beginning to look for... They're beginning to sense that perhaps there is another dimension other than the dimension of... Technology of intellect, of logic, of analysis, progress, ambition.

[03:28]

They're saying, you know, maybe I've had enough of this. Maybe there's a limit. Isn't there something else? So they're beginning to look at their other dimension. They're beginning to get a glimpse of something else up there. We call it the spiritual dimension. So many people are... A number of the visitors... curious and the seekers are showing up at Kanadoa from having that motivation. They come from Silicon Valley and they're wondering, isn't there something else? Is this Zen practice a way to find that? So they come with that motivation, but they all come with some background, with some ideas about what Zen is and what they think it's supposed to be and what they think it's supposed to do for them. Many different points of view. So I'd like to talk about one of those points of view that people bring with them to the practice of Canada when they come seeking and wondering what it's all about.

[04:32]

And that point of view is the idea of transformation. A number of people, many people, maybe most come with the notion that Zen practice will transform me. So let me start with a personal story or a real-life story that relates to that. Up until a few years ago, there was a young woman who came to Kanando who had been there for five years or so, and we all loved her. She was great. She was creative. She was full of energy. She was full of humor. She had great ideas, and we loved to be around her. She was always doing things. She's really smart. She had a doctorate in computer science. She had a doctorate in computer science.

[05:34]

So she's really smart, and she worked at some of the top places. So one day, we were talking. Two of us were talking, and she said to me, give me something that will make it happen fast. I said, well, you have to have some patience. Our practice is not like that. You have to have some patience. And she said, I don't have time for patience. She didn't stay much longer. She left and went on someplace else. We miss her because she was really, really great. So she had the idea that the practice was going to transform her, and she wanted it right now. That is, as you all know, a misunderstanding of the practice. It's not a technique to change us. In our tradition, in one of the stories of our tradition, many of the stories of our tradition talk about that.

[06:42]

And one of the most famous stories... Most of you know, all of you don't know, is about the Zen master Basso, who lived in the golden age in the 8th century. So the story is that one day Basso, when he was a young monk, and he was still young before he became famous, a young monk, he's sitting in Zazen. And his teacher happened to come by, Nangaku. having it come by. Nangaku says, looks at him and says, well, what are you doing? Basso says, I'm sitting in Zazen. And Nangaku says, why are you doing that? Basso says, to be I'm a Buddha. So then Nangaku just sits down next to him and picks up a brick, picks up two bricks and starts polishing one with the other. Polishing the brick. Basso says, what are you doing?

[07:46]

Nangaku says, I'm polishing a brick. Why are you doing that? He's making a mirror. Basso says, how can you grind a brick into a mirror? So Nangaku says, how can you sit yourself into a Buddha? And this is a very famous story, and it's about Basso thinking he's going to transform himself through Zazen, going to become something else. And go from me to Buddha, Nagaku. He says, well, how can you do that? Well, I think human beings have always had this idea, this desire to... We've always had this desire to transform ourselves, to become... You know, something else. It's because we feel dissatisfied with who we are, what we are, how we are in the world.

[08:51]

We want to become bigger, better, more holy, more pure. We're dissatisfied with who we are, and we want to become perfect. Superman, Wonder Woman, Buddha. We want to return... or go to that perfect state, that pure state. And, of course, this believes in the existence of some kind of perfect existence, some kind of perfect state that we can be transformed into. And it's also, it's coupled with the belief that our ordinary self, this everyday self, is impure. I want to transform myself into something pure. That's a delusion that many people have. Many people come to meditation, I believe, because of a desire to transform their life.

[09:58]

In other words, they don't like the parts of themselves that they don't admire. And they feel that the way to get rid of those unadminable parts is to be transformed into somebody else or something else. It also means they don't know what to do with the troubles that come up in their life. They feel overwhelmed by the disappointments and the griefs and the sadness and the sufferings. And they want to be free... from the parts of themselves that cause trouble or that can't handle trouble. They want to be free from the parts of themselves that they feel get in the way of happiness. The idea being, happiness is the result of being transformed. In other words, it's like, that's my technique for becoming happy.

[11:02]

I'll be transformed. A lot of people come to the practice with an idea kind of like that. But the practice will do that for us. And they want it, you know, like that. It's a misunderstanding. The idea that transformation means no more trouble in my life. The idea that transformation means I will always win and I will never lose anymore. There will be no more suffering. I will be always happy if I can only transform myself into Buddha or somebody else, somebody other than who I am. But this is not, this is not reality. Our practice, our practice, the practice that Suzuki Roshi brought us in particular reminds us that that is not reality.

[12:05]

That's wishful thinking, or Buddha would have said, that's a delusion. That's one of the delusions Buddha was referring to. So, the practice tells us that our life is not a matter of pure versus impure, that we need to be converted from one to the other. It is not an idea of perfect versus being perfect versus being imperfect. Practice says put aside those notions and just make a continuous effort. No matter what you are, who you are, who you think you are, no matter what you think your dark places might be, just make a continuous effort. And that, of course, requires patience. means never put an end to your effort.

[13:13]

No matter what you do, whether you're on the cushion or in the kitchen or in Silicon Valley or on the freeway, you never put an end to your practice. And that sounds good. And we say, right, got it. But it is based on what came up this morning during a work period. It's based on an aspiration. I was on the kitchen crew this morning with some of you, and others have been on the kitchen crew before, and the kitchen holds a little bit of a service in the morning, a little bit of a small study group where they study Dogen's instructions to the cook, And this morning we were in a chapter where Dogen was severe. He was really critical of the way some Tenzo that he saw was handling his job.

[14:21]

In other words, this guy is really sloppy. He's really casual. He doesn't pay attention. He's always doing other things. He's reading sutras or he's napping, but he's not checking in with the kitchen to make sure that the rice is okay, soup is okay, that the ingredients are okay, and Dogen was really severe. And he used the term, or we read the term this morning, Dogen said, it's based on aspiration. This Tenzo has no aspiration. You know, not motivated. Not motivated continually. So our practice is about that. It's about aspiration. A lot of people are very interested in mindfulness these days, meditation. And somebody I know who has a practice and works with a high-tech company was asked, what do you think of this new mindfulness interest in Silicon Valley?

[15:26]

He said, it's unsustainable because there's no commitment. You go and do meditation, and then you say, and you don't carry an aspiration with you to continue that. So it's just a cookie technique to make you feel better. So our practice is about taking the attitude you have on your cushion and in the Zendo, taking it with you wherever you go. That's aspiration. So that's the attitude we need to develop. or find in ourselves rather than, this will transform me and take away all my unhappiness. So, a brick that Nangaku was polishing, it can never be polished perfectly smooth. That's why Basso said, well, how can you make it into a mirror?

[16:27]

It can never be perfectly smooth. The nature of a brick is to always have some bit of surface roughness. Even if you file it down with a machine, perfectly smooth, the nature of a brick is to have some roughness. No matter how much you grind it, it will never be 100% smooth. And no matter how much we polish ourself, there will always be some roughness. So I have a personal story along those lines. When I was first starting to practice in a small group that met in a garage back in the 60s, before Santa Clara Valley became Silicon Valley, we had a small group that was kind of emerging, you know,

[17:36]

People were coming. And at Suzuki Roshi's suggestion, we brought over a priest from Japan whose name was Kobanchino. Some of you may know that name. Kobanchino was the teacher at our group. And I had the very same confusions in those days. I worked in Silicon Valley. I was one of those guys. I was also... was also one of those people who said, isn't there something else? So I was in the practice. But I was full of all these unadmirable parts. Emotions would come up, and I didn't like that. And I'd been practicing in a couple of years, and it still came up. So I went to see the teacher, Kogan Chino, a Zen priest who I assumed had all the answers. And he said, you know, my anger keeps coming up.

[18:40]

I don't know what to do about that. It just keeps surfacing. And he said, oh, it's just some surface roughness. Oh, it's just some surface roughness. That oh was like enlightenment, the way he said it. Oh. And then he said, just enlightenment. It's just some surface roughness. And I was very touched by that. Later I realized that's the meaning when we say everybody is Buddha. Oh, Buddha has some surface roughness. Don't pay attention to that. Don't be worried by that. Pay attention to your true self. I'll never forget that O. So we are always Buddha. That's one of the messages we hear.

[19:43]

And that includes our roughness. We all have some roughness. We all have personalities that have parts of us that not 100%. And our practice says, well, that's fine. As long as you have your aspiration to continue your practice. So... There is no need for us to transform our fundamental self. There is no need to worry about whether we are smooth or whether we are rough. And that doesn't mean we cannot change the way we live. If we notice something about ourselves, we say, I have to work on that. So when we continue our practice with aspiration, we will diminish or we will lessen those troublesome habit patterns in Buddhism known as karma, those habit patterns that we brought with us from years back. So, let's consider that human quality of anger, which some of us have to some degree, and some of us have it to a small degree.

[20:57]

But let's imagine anger On a scale of 1 to 10. The idea of transformation means I can take anger and drag it to zero. Zero anger, that's what transformation does. But our practice means we're simply working on having anger go from 10 to 9. Or 9 to 8. 7 to 6. If we say, I'm jumping from 10 to 0 tonight, this is a misunderstanding. So we shouldn't worry about transforming ourselves by just practice. Instead, we simply practice paying attention. We continue our awareness. And that's how we go from 9 to 8. We continue paying attention. We stay aware in our everyday activities. And we pay attention to each experience, no matter how small they are.

[22:04]

Like that. When we pay attention to each thing in our life that occurs, when we sort of record each experience in our mind and put it in a database or a bank that we call intuition, That's the only way to be free of impurities. Continue paying attention. We continue this practice for as long as we live. We're always working on our impurities without a wish for transformation. Our teachings tell us that we are Buddha, fundamentally, inherently.

[23:13]

All of our daily activities express our Buddha nature. When we do it, we can express our original nature. through what I'll call, what I like to call a taking care attitude. Taking care, which is the opposite of casual, which is the opposite of sloppy. Taking care attitude. And that's what... That's what our group from... That's what our group in Canada has found here in this past week. All of the students at Tasapara have that taking care attitude. Not only in what they do, but in how they relate to each other and how they relate to visitors and new people.

[24:23]

Teresa told me... Teresa told me this story yesterday. Teresa was working in the kitchen. She told me she was chopping something with a knife, some vegetable or something, and she wasn't really enjoying it. She said... Kind of boring. I wasn't really enjoying it. When somebody came along and said, let me show you how to chop. Take the knife in you. Like a dance. Mindfully. And then he went away. Teresa did that? The whole thing changed. Because of this one person noticed, whoever it was, noticed what was going on with her and she really wasn't into it. It was a chore. It wasn't joyful.

[25:32]

He noticed it because he was aware, because he was sensitive, and he had a taking-care attitude. He said, let me show you something. And he changed you all day. And now she has this memory. So, our practice expresses itself through our Through the vehicle of our taking care attitude, we emphasize our seriousness, our serious effort in each activity, and we let each activity express itself. We give up control. We just bring an open nature and an open mind to it. This is the way we let everything express themselves naturally. When that happens, there's no need for transformation.

[26:37]

And we do this with each other indirectly. We help each other indirectly. You all know the saying, you should practice what you preach. And some people think that's really a good idea. Really good. If I give people advice, I should follow that advice. But in our practice, We don't preach. We don't go around like this. We don't preach. Listen, Pirochi never preached. He gave talks, but he never preached. He never said, you should. You must. This is the way we follow. We don't preach. We simply live our practice in our daily life. through our own awareness. If we preach, there is no practice. Preaching short circuits practice.

[27:48]

And the preaching is always forgotten anyhow. When we discover things by ourself and through our own effort, It's never forgotten because it's ours. It's not somebody else's. So when we bring our practice, when we put our practice into our bones and express it with our heart and soul, we will never forget. We will never forget our experiences and we will be I'm blightened by that.

[28:52]

I'm not that familiar with the schedule yet, so each sound acts. Does that mean we stop now? Oh, that's right, it's four o'clock. New people. So I was like, okay, good. Thank you. Does anybody have any questions or anything they'd like to add? Yes, Scott. I was having a discussion this morning with Keita about community and thinking about how your talk applies to that. Because I think that when a song is functioning well, it's not that people abstain from hurting each of those students accidentally, if that weren't, what would they take care of that? And, you know, it's good to aspire not to damage relationships, but it's unrealistic to make people polish that surface entirely smooth. Instead, I think we have to learn, like the students here have learned, to look with each other in spite of our roughness and find some way to come together anyway.

[29:59]

Does anybody have an experience, a recent experience, where they might have said something or done something that hurt somebody else's feelings? Does anybody have it happen to them? How's the relationship now? Tricky. Tricky. When we know we've done that, and we realize, oh my goodness, then we work to heal it. Then we work to heal it. That's our practice. That's the something else that people are looking for. Because in the other dimension, if we hurt somebody's feelings, maybe we wanted to. The boss wants to... hurt somebody's feelings. Or maybe we got angry and we really wanted to hurt somebody's feelings.

[31:06]

And the idea that we hurt their feelings is we feel, oh, so what? Let them live with it and all that. People are tired of that way of living. They're really fed up with it. And they say, there's got to be a better way. There's got to be another way. And this, as God says, we work on the relationship. If we did something like that that hurts a feeling, we work on the relationship. Colvin Chino, who I mentioned earlier, once said to me, the most important thing is relationships. So if we've done something that looks like we broke it, we work to put it back together so that we're always connected. Because... As the teachings tell us, we are all connected. We differentiated all one.

[32:11]

Always connected. So inherently, our relationship cannot be broken. At the deepest level, it cannot be broken. We're always connected. But if we accidentally do it in our everyday life, we work to get back together. That's our practice. Any other observations? Yes, please. Even though we don't enter the practice to have the transformation, transformation occurs. And sometimes I think, wow, what's next? Is there some wrongness? Oh, wrong to say what's next? Yeah. depends on our attitude towards it if it's what's next I want it then maybe that's harmful that's desire but if it's what's next I'm curious that's pretty wholesome we'll wait to see what happens what's next so it depends on our mind is a grasping nature or we're letting go of that it's okay to say what's next

[33:32]

Yeah, there's some excitement there. There's some excitement there, yeah. Remember this TV series, West Wing? It was popular a few years ago. I love that series, and the fellow who played the president, they would always have some trouble, and they would resolve a terrible problem, and he'd say, what's next? That's all right. Bring it on. Bring it on. I love that part. That program went on for years. I never forget that. What's next? Anybody else? Anything? Yes, please. If we believe that we can

[35:01]

control things, and we can make, we can create an end result, a desired end result, because we have the will to do it, the ambition to do it, the skill to do it. If we are driven by control, it means, it kind of assumes that we know everything there is to know about a situation. I'll just put it together. I can control it. I'll just put it together. No problem. But our practice tells us, our life experience tells us, things change. We have to be ready when some surprise comes along. When things change. When a new piece of information comes along that maybe changes the whole picture of our strategy. Our strategy that we had in such control and was moving along so nicely. If a new piece of information comes in, uh-oh, tear that one up.

[36:05]

If we feel that we want to be in control of that, we may not even look at that piece of information. No, no, I will lose control. So we have to be careful of the arrogance of saying, I'm in charge, I know everything. We have to be open and ready for somebody who's going to quit, the competitor will do something. This information will flow in. The supply chain got cut. Something. We have to respond to that in a creative way. So we have to be ready to give up control when, because things are not always in our control. So just acknowledging that is enough to soften our approach and make people around us relax a little bit. But it's really a good question and something. that we can look at every day. Thank you. Somebody else had a question? Yes. I've used the word aspiration.

[37:08]

I've been chewing it over sitting just here. Quite another word that seems to be, might be related, is detention. But when I get here, it wasn't like aspiration, but I wonder what does it mean? Is it conscious? Is it related to willpower? Well, let me admit that I used the word because it was in what we read. It was in what we read this morning, what Tenzo read from Dogen. I used the word aspiration, and so I just took it from there. But we could pick it apart and see what it looks like, but it wasn't my word, to be honest with you. It probably wasn't Dogen's word. It was somebody translated it. He might have meant something else. But thank you. Yes, Travis.

[38:13]

You talked about going from a 9 to an 8 after practice with Anger or some other aspect of our character that we don't like. I was wondering if you could talk about not liking that tape and leaving it and then having to come back to it like our tolerance for our own defects and the instability that that causes isn't that part of practice too just seeing ourselves with the steady mind Yes, being realistic about ourselves. You know, if there is such a methodology as going from 10 to 9 or 9 to 8, if there is such a thing, we probably won't notice it if we go from a 9 to an 8, say, impatience or anger.

[39:28]

But over the years, we might one day say, I'm not the person I was six years ago. Something's different about me. The changes in our being are very incremental. Small, and if you're in the testimony, small, very subtle. And of course we don't try to measure ourselves, but someday we may notice that somebody said something that years ago, you say, I might have really, there was a time when I really get mad at that. I just saw myself being very calm and patient with that. Oh, isn't that nice? What's next? So we try to be aware of ourselves.

[40:34]

Sometimes it's so subtle we don't know what's happening, but we just keep going. Keep going. Thank you. Tishri? So I remember one time you brought this up about what does the practice do for us? And you'd mentioned the word softening. And so is that the same idea going from nine to eight? Is that the softening that you're referring to? Is that the gradual kind of shifting that occurs in time? Sure. Sure. Our hard edges, our rough edges, just some rough edges, those get softer. then, you know, we polish that brick, we polish ourselves, it does get smoother, but we don't have the idea that it will become perfect, but it does become smoother.

[41:45]

So we just keep polishing. Thank you. Ms. Long? I have a question about this. You mentioned this... for transformation this expectation of self and others to transform and do it badly quickly I'm wondering where does it come from and is there a seed of goodness in that at all? Yes there's a seed of goodness in that If we have a desire to transform ourselves from personality that we know causes harm, we don't want to do that anymore. We want to be a good person.

[42:47]

We just never learned how, but we had some shock in our lives that shook us up. We want to transform ourselves into a more productive and nicer being. So there is goodness in it. The transformation I was talking about is kind of a selfish one. I want to be better because it's in my own advantage. I want to transform because it's in my own advantage. But when you see the good news in it, it's because it's in somebody else's advantage. It becomes other-oriented rather than self-oriented. To be a better person in this world, somebody helped me transform to be that better person. There's been times in my practice where the transformation does occur and there's been moments where through those transformations and changes that it has felt like I've abandoned myself.

[44:04]

But there's an abandonment that, you know, I have heard people say, oh, I'm a brand new person. And I'm going, oh, that's kind of sad. You were really great. And they have other pages left in an email. And so my desires have not been to transfer myself. It's probably more to see myself. But still, there are moments, especially in the deepest part of the practice, where I feel like some abandonment of that original self. How it may not be different, but it's hard to recognize. How far do we keep? You know, the depth of it, just feeling something.

[45:08]

Just feel abandoned sometimes. Abandoning yourself. Yeah. That's it all the time, but there's moments. Oh. If those... moments of a sense of abandonment are accompanied by a sense of finding ourself, then there's no problem. So if we feel like we're abandoning ourself, we need to give ourselves the permission to recognize what's appearing, what's newly appearing. This is going away. We can abandon this. It's being replaced by something else. Sometimes we don't give ourselves permission to acknowledge what's happening.

[46:09]

Maybe we feel it's ego or pride or something like that. But if we say, I'm more generous than I was a year ago. That's not abandoning the ungenerous person. It's accepting the new person. You need to accept what's taking the place of what's being abandoned. And we have to give ourselves permission to do that. Sometimes a good teacher will help us with that. If he or she says, you're not recognizing something that's fundamental that you should be aware of in yourself. It's really good. Sometimes our friends will do that for us. Thank you. That's a good question. Yes. in the same place. I felt that, and I think a lot of times for myself, but then I'm not often from comparing who I am was and who I am now.

[47:17]

I'm not going to say accepting or even feel like they're being quite a trans person, but kind of the new character relationship and not really accepting that, like, okay, this is myself. And often times I have to be able to serve. It's not falling in there. And it's just like preparing what you were and what you have now without feeling it because I'm not accepting that. But I have to. And I think that's what's really new because. Thank you. Leap. I'd like to speak to that question also because sometimes I've felt that in changing the quality that I had when I was a child that was a good quality but kind of got by circumstances sort of engineered out of me.

[48:22]

Either by ridicule or by harshness of some sort or somebody carelessly saying that no, that's not good. I find some quality that I've lost that is a good quality. And I think that's part of what's so wonderful about this slow transformation. It brings you a happiness that you were meant to have. Yes, please. Is there any relationship between continuous effort and letting go? Is there a relationship between continuous effort and letting go? I think you can't separate them. I think they're the same thing. You make a continuous effort to let go of, you name it, desire, delusion, all those things.

[49:29]

That's our continuation effort to open up the grasping mind and let go of all those things. That's our effort. That's our effort. Thank you for your question. Yes? Aspiration. Where did you take the aspiration? Well, I'll name two, and maybe somebody else can name another. One is trouble in our life, suffering. And we aspire to understand that and aspire to live a life that doesn't create suffering. I really need to change the way I behave or the way I think.

[50:30]

And the other is seeing other people suffer in wanting to reach out and become more self-oriented rather than self-oriented, become other-oriented rather than self-oriented. That's, of course, the Buddhist story. He had this nice life in the castle and then he went out and he saw suffering and he said, I've got to do something about this. He had a pretty big aspiration. I'm going to put an end to all suffering. Wow! That's a big... So it can come from that. Seeing suffering and being touched by it. Feeling our own suffering and not wanting to live with that anymore. Can anybody else think of other places where aspiration comes from? Yes, please.

[51:35]

Those who knew Suzuki Roshi really talked about his aspiration. To come to America and then to view what he did in such a short time. His commitment to those young people. That's what I hear a lot. His aspirations were huge. Yeah. I don't know how to think about that, but that's somebody who I see who has to do the best way. I'd say I'm self-help. From what? No. Love. Love. Yes. Yes. Scott? I would say also observation. Observation. When I see someone else handle a situation that I would not do very well and I go, that was really skillful. I want to learn from that, that inspires me. I aspire to do it well. Thank you. Yes, Jake. I want to follow up on Scott's point. I also think like that observation of inspiration.

[52:39]

You see somebody, like you see Buddha, you see somebody with a Buddha nature and you're inspired by it. Maybe you haven't suffered, maybe you haven't seen suffering, but you just see this person and you get inspired. And you say, wait, I can do that. I want to be that. And maybe I know that's desire. But to be inspired. Sure. Inspiration from others. It's not desire when it's not selfish. When it's unselfish, it's not. Desire is about wanting something for yourself and yourself alone. That's a selfish thing. So that's not desire. Yes. Yes. I think it can also come, it's kind of close from what Jeffrey and Scott were talking about, but I feel it's different. Also, an aspiration can be a thing from recognizing a truth that somebody talks about, but recognizing it in yourself.

[53:42]

And because that person articulated this truth in such a way that it becomes clear now, we can kind of... get a sense of, oh, that's what I aspire to. But without the other person, without the talk or without the book, we were not able to really get that sense. Thank you. Yes? Brenda? I think it can also maybe come out of curiosity. Curiosity. I know... You know, seeing things around and saying, what's going on here? What am I doing here? And what's happening? Yeah. It can also come about by accident. You know the story of this. The sixth patriarch, you know the story. It's supposed to be a woodcutter, and he was in a village one day collecting wood, and he heard somebody chant the Diamond Sutra.

[54:48]

And he goes, what's that? Diamond Sutra, how do I learn more about that? He says, well, you've got to go study with the fifth patriarch. So he turned his elderly mother over to somebody else. That's the story. And some scholars say, well, that really didn't happen. But nonetheless, that's the legend, that this man heard somebody chanting the Diamond Sutra. And what he heard, I've got to go find out about that. Or sometimes you may pick up a book. I've got to go find out about that. So it can be an accident. Many ways an aspiration could occur. Okay. Well, if there's no other questions, I want to thank you all for being here and for making this a lively discussion. And we'll see you again later. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center.

[55:50]

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, visit SSCC.org and click Giving.

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