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 evening. How many of you are guests here at the center? Raise your hands. Thank you very much for coming tonight. And how many of you are students that are essentially just here for the summer, new students? Kind of a mixed crowd. Well, welcome to all of you. My name is Ed Sadezon. I'm the central abbot of Zen Center. which means that I have responsibilities for all three of Zen Center's temples, and Tashara being one of them.

[01:08]

And it's always a pleasure for me to be down at Tashara because Tashara was the place where I first started to practice Zen, unbelievable as this may seem, 49 years ago when I drove a VW bus down here in my hippie T-shirt and... long hair and beard and began practicing with Suzuki Roshi. And that changed everything. So Tassar was always a special place for me. And I thought I'd say a few things about what Tassar was like back then. It was very much the same way it is now in most respects. The weather was very similar. The mountains are pretty much the same. the stream is pretty much the same, and basically the practice is pretty much the same. It was a little different then because it was the beginning, and there was a lot of building energy as we were renovating and fixing up all the cabins that we had bought.

[02:14]

But the basic idea, for instance, of alternating the guest season, which had been run as a resort before we bought it, and then closing down for seven months of the winter to do practice periods. That started with the very first year that we opened. We opened with a practice period in 1967. And we've been doing practice periods every year since then. I think we've done 102 of them. When we opened the practice period at Tassar in 1967, it was the first place outside of Asia that had... put a formal Zen training place. So it was a very big deal in America that we started a training place, and Suzuki Roshi hoped we would continue doing them every year, and we have done that. I feel very happy that we've been able to continue that tradition. So, I don't know, it was a couple of weeks ago, Mel Weitzman, who was one of Suzuki Roshi's original disciples, he's the abbot and founder of the Berkeley Zen Center,

[03:24]

We invited him over to City Center to celebrate his 90th birthday. He's shown tremendous durability, still reigning as Abbot at age 90. But of course, we still made him work for his cake. He had to give a lecture. And so in the lecture, he was remembering the early days. He said, American Zen was the combination of beatnik hippie Zen and square Zen. I thought that was an interesting start. I had no idea what he meant. I mean, I kind of got the idea of the hippie beatnik thing. I was part of that movement. That was a time when we were questioning the norms of American culture and thinking of different ways to do things and sort of rebelling from all of that and thinking Zen was sort of anti-establishment and kind of freewheeling Alan Watts style of Zen, you know, do whatever you want, it's all Zen, you know, that kind of thing.

[04:28]

That was the hippie beatnik Zen. And of course we met Suzuki Roshi and Mel called Suzuki Roshi Zen square Zen, meaning a 2,500 year tradition with very specific forms and sitting zazen just like this for long periods of time, even though it was uncomfortable. in the heat and following a strict schedule and discipline and all of that. So how did those two things mix? Well, how they mixed is what we have here now. Part of it was Suzuki Roshi was incredibly creative and entrepreneurial and at the same time a well-steeped Zen master. We were very fortunate that he was willing to come to America and bring this deep tradition to our shores. I was listening to an NPR program on my way into work the other day.

[05:38]

You certainly don't want to listen to any other kind of news these days, but for sure. And I... Heard this story about Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road project. I don't know if many of you are familiar with that. Yo-Yo Ma has been a very creative musician, tremendous musician, who has decided that he wants to marry his music with all kinds of different cultural music and cultural instruments. And he said that this has really produced new creativity for him. And he calls it the edge effect. the ecology that creates a term called the edge effect. And he says, when two ecosystems meet, you have the least density but the greatest variety. And actually, my next-door neighbor specialized in building ski resorts all over the world, and he used to talk to me about

[06:39]

The edge effect, you know, between streams and land, that's where the most variety of ecosystems occur, between meadows and forests. So this thing, the edge effect, has sort of become one of those things. And on this program, they were also doing some research, because sociologists love this stuff, where they were looking at couples that married from different cultures. And it turned out if you married someone from a different culture, you were more creative, statistically speaking. So I bring this forward only now to think that the marriage of hippie beatnik Zen with traditional Japanese Zen turned out to be a very creative event here in America. It was a kind of edge effect. And things like in all Buddhist monasteries in the East, men and women never practiced together. If you were in a Zen training temple in Japan, you were either in a men's Zen training temple or a women's one.

[07:40]

But Suzuki Roshi had many couples that practiced with him, many women that were serious practitioners. So when up in the city, that's where he first started. So when they established Tassara, the question was, well, how are we going to do this? Are we going to have men's practice periods and women's practice periods? No. In the end, they decided to have the men and women practicing together. It was part of... kind of the feminist movement, and hence 2,500 years of tradition changed. And that's been a very good thing, because in American Zen, men and women have equal status in terms of teaching and authority and running Zen Center and in many other Zen organizations. Of course, at that time, I don't know if you... Some of you are not old enough to remember, but there was a lot of hippies running around hot springs and hanging out together. So they had the idea that they would all bathe together in the hot springs, men and women.

[08:42]

And Tsukurishi said, no, I don't think so. I mean, there was... The hippie sort of said, but, you know, in Japan, don't they do that? And he said, no, they don't. So... And of course, some of the couples left with that. They said, well, if that's how uptight you're going to be around here, we're not going to practice here. So all of this sort of, all these forms and decisions had to be worked out in the early days. Now it all seems like that was ancient times, way long ago that got worked out. But that was really only in one generation. One generation trying to figure out how to make Zen. applicable to the American culture. We still do many of our chants in Japanese because we like the rhythms of them and we haven't quite figured out what the meaning of that is yet. We still have many of our forms adopted from the Japanese culture.

[09:45]

I still wear robes, Japanese robes. Maybe eventually we'll have American-style robes. It is traditional in Japanese. the world of religions for priests and ministers to wear some kind of robes, most cultures. And now we're going through a generation shift. I'm probably the last abbot that will actually have known Suzuki Roshi, and we're having a whole new generation of abbots coming up that will be bringing the new forms of this culture. There's many aspects of what's going on in the culture now that I think are very exciting, and I'd love to work on them, but I realize that I don't have the kind of feel that the younger generation has for the new things and new ways they want to build a society. Well, I suppose I should say something about Zen here. Someone asked me today, what does Zen have to do with love?

[11:00]

It seems like it's all about non-attachment and sitting these difficult periods of Zazen and penetrating the deep insights of the mind. And when I first came to Tassar, I sort of wondered about that too because it was an awful lot of hard work and a lot of Zazen sitting. So I'm going to share a story that some of you have heard, but maybe many of you haven't. It was a hot summer day like today, and all the students had been working hard, and there were lots of guests running around, and apparently there had been some difficulties with, as there always are in a day like this, somebody wasn't getting along with somebody, and there was some problem, and so the staff members were arguing. There was a staff meeting happening. I wasn't in the staff meeting. I was a new student just digging ditches and moving rocks, right? But apparently in this staff meeting, Suzuki Roshi got very mad at the students, at the senior students, for how they were complaining about life and practice here and how difficult it was.

[12:08]

And that was unusual for him. He was usually incredibly kind and very understanding of our difficulties. So that night he gave a very short talk, like maybe 15 minutes. because he wanted to open the floor for questions, thinking somebody might have a question about the fact that he'd been angry with them. And the senior student on the staff raised a hand and he said, Suzuki Roshi, I've been practicing for five years and I still find it very difficult. to be kind with people. And Suzuki Rishi said, five years is nothing. You have no idea how hard it is to love some people. And it was just funny to be in that room that night because we were a pretty disparate group of people

[13:21]

I mean, Suzuki Roshi had attracted to him around a very wide range of people. And each one of them, there was a kind of silence that fell over. The room felt how kind and how Suzuki Roshi had touched their heart in a way that no one else had. And it became clear, how do you do that? How do you love? 50 or 60 or 80 or 100 or 200 people? How do you decide that you want to live a life that your goal is to love everybody you meet? How do you live a life like that? And, of course, I knew nothing really about Zen. I was just a beginning student, but that's when I realized that's what it's all about. It's not about attaining some altered state of mind, some enlightened place where you have no problems anymore.

[14:22]

It's how do you live a life of kindness, of friendliness? How do you be helpful to people? That's the problem. That's why it's a lifelong problem solved. So, of course, in Zen, in order to love somebody, you have to have wisdom. Because love isn't just a matter of sitting there and beaming out warmth, although it's kind of nice every once in a while. Love is the capacity to meet another person actually. How do you meet another person? Suzuki Roshi had the capacity to actually see you, to be seen by somebody. How rare. That is to actually be seen by somebody. We have a statue, a bodhisattva statue called Avalokiteshvara as the bodhisattva.

[15:24]

For those who are Christians, it's kind of like the saint of compassion. And you've seen these statues with a thousand arms like this. And in each hand is an eye to see you. The bodhisattva of compassion sees your suffering. That's the most important first thing is to see another person suffering because then you can identify with them because you suffer, they suffer, you share a great thing together, the human suffering life. So now to the Zen part of my lectures. Suzuki Hiroshi was a great student of Dogen. And for those people who are not familiar with Dogen, Dogen was the founder of the Soto sect of Zen in Japan.

[16:30]

He was born in 1200 in Kyoto. He was an unusual Zen master in that he was a great writer. And he had 95 essays that he wrote, and they were assembled in the treasury of the true Dharma I. And the very first in most collections of this 95 collection of the essays is called the Genjo Koan, and it's the most studied essay of the collection, and it was listed very first. And Genjo Koan translates into... Essentially, the koan of the present moment or the koan of everyday life. And we all know what a koan is, don't we? Those are those weird paradoxical Zen stories. So the koan of the present moment or the koan of everyday life is what's the question produced by this very moment?

[17:40]

Essentially, as a human being, every moment is a new moment, a fresh moment that presents you with a question about how you're going to respond to it, how you're going to live your life. And since everything's changing all the time, that means you have to address this new moment with freshness, vitality, openness. Sukuroshi's book's was titled Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. You have to address the moment with a Zen mind, which is a beginner's mind, a ready mind, an open mind. So how do you achieve such a mind to address this present moment? And Dogen has a very sort of simple way of getting there. This is a paragraph from that essay. To study the Buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self.

[18:45]

To forget the self is to be awakened by all things. When awakened by all things, your body and mind, as well as the bodies and minds of others, drop away. No trace of realization remains, and this no trace continues endlessly. Kind of beautiful, each sentence is a stage along the way. First you study the self. Maybe you do that for a couple of years. Then you forget the self. Maybe it takes a couple more years. Then when you've forgotten the self, you're awakened by everything you meet. And then you can drop your body and mind and the body and mind of others. And then no trace of realization remains. And this no trace continues endlessly. Wait a minute now. All that work and I've got nothing left at the end? Wonder about that. Anyway, it really doesn't work that way.

[19:48]

To study the Buddha way is to study the self. So this is essential to Zen. Zen is not an external thing. Zen is not, although we study many texts, we do lots of text readings and we learn complicated ceremonies and things like that, but all of that is in the service of studying the self. We obviously study the self by sitting zazen. The Japanese translation of study, the characters use it to become intimate with it, to become intimate with ourselves. Well, of course, somehow that seems odd. How can we not be intimate with ourselves? I mean, what else are we but intimate with ourselves? But from another point of view, we all know the many ways we aren't really in connection with ourselves. Connected are we to our body? How connected are we with our feelings? I was raised in a family where nobody got angry. So I remember once my wife said, you're angry.

[20:51]

No, I'm not angry. I don't get angry. Well, of course, if you look a little deeper, you do get angry. You're just sort of pretending that you don't. And of course, as you know, all Zen students don't get angry. We are only kind, warm, and friendly. The first thing is to actually admit what you're feeling. Actually admit, oh, I am angry. Maybe that's why I kind of was snarky with that person. Admit what you're feeling. This means you have to observe yourself honestly. What's actually going on in my mind? What's actually going on in my body? So I think one of the first things, this is not going to come as a great realization to you, is that you notice that you're suffering and that you have a desire not to be suffering.

[21:53]

And our sitting practice makes it ever more clear that we are in a condition that is suffering. Impermanence is suffering. Not getting what you want is suffering. Being close to what you don't want is suffering. Seeing others in pain is suffering. There is no way to be a human in this world without encountering suffering. But suffering is not enough. There's a way to end suffering. And that's what we're doing here. That's the purpose of practice here. So, of course, there's a formula in Buddhism for what's the cause of suffering. but I'm going to take a kind of slightly different tact here. I'd say that the fundamental cause of suffering is an unwise relationship to our self, to our very self. Some people think that the Buddha taught there is no self, but I don't really think the Buddha taught there is no self or that there is a self.

[23:03]

It's one of those questions. that he thought was useless and that pursuing it is a waste of a precious moment of practice. The Buddha's only concern was that we see that it is not a question of what the self is or whether there is a self or not, it's a question of how we relate to ourself, how we stand in relationship to ourself. We come out of our childhood having built a belief system that defines the world we live in and who we are in it, This self defines us in a very narrow way. Our deeply ingrained habit is to defend ourselves and avert and run away from anything that seems to attack this self that we have created. We put things and ideas and notions in between ourselves and our experience, and we are removed or narrowed down every minute. Because of that, many things seem threatening, many things seem difficult, and we suffer and see a world in which others suffer as well.

[24:10]

To be truly intimate with our experience, whatever it may be, is our job and Zen practice. So, you know what I'm talking about here, don't you? our mind creates a world that we live in that is a prison for ourselves, essentially, because it is so narrow. And since it isn't really a world that fits well with the actual world that's going out here, there's inevitable suffering that occurs because we can't manage the world to make it fit the world that we have in our head, and we can't manage the world to satisfy all the needs that we think we have. So the question becomes, what do we do about this situation? And I'm going to refer to a famous something Suzuka Hiroshi said, which I love.

[25:19]

If you try to understand who you are, it is an endless task and you will never see yourself. It is very difficult to try to think about yourself. To reach a conclusion is almost impossible, and if you continue trying, you will become crazy, and you won't know what to do with yourself. So this little simple first-line instruction of Dogen to study the self turns out to be slightly more complicated. Sukarishi quotes Dengshan, the founder of Chinese Soto Zen sects, as saying, don't try to see yourself objectively. Don't try to seek information about yourself. That is information. The real you is not that kind of thing. And I love this example. When you see someone practicing sincerely, you see yourself. If you're impressed by someone's practice, you may say, oh, she is doing very well.

[26:21]

and that she is neither she nor you. When you are struck by someone's practice, you see yourself. That is the real you. That is the pure experience of practice. Actually, if we really watch our experience, we will know that the self is one meeting point after meeting point. We meet something and it goes away and we meet something again. So our life really, if we live it most intimately, is meeting, meeting, meaning, warmth, warmth, warmth, moment after moment. I'm saying that your life is actually a life of connection. The real you is every time you connect with another person,

[27:24]

a tree. It's the connection that is you, not the stories in your head, not the definitions in your mind. Those are all things that separate you from the ability to actually meet another person, to meet anything, even meet yourself. It's a wonderful thing in Zen. They talk about warm hand to warm hand. face-to-face meeting. And in the meeting and in the connection is love. That is what love is. Love is that intimate connection that you have with another person, with a beautiful tree out here along the pathway, and with your own heart and mind. This temple is named Zen Shinji.

[28:25]

Zen heart-mind temple. To practice in this temple is to find your true heart-mind and open yourself past the narrow view you define yourself to be, to find a much larger self. Last time I lectured here, I ran 10 minutes over and I was admonished by the ever-attentive Tanto to make sure I finished on time. First of all, we might have time for one question, but I do want to thank all of you for coming to Tassara. As guests, your fees help support Zen Center. But I mostly want to thank you for the way you somehow participate with the practice we have in a way that is very seamless and careful. I always think it's wonderful that guests so easily slip into this valley and notice how silent we are and help us take care of the practice here.

[29:36]

And of course, I also want to thank the staff, the Zen students that work so hard here in the summertime to take care of this place. Of course, they get the great advantage of spending seven months in the winter just take care of themselves. But in the summer, it's hard. It's hard work. And I really appreciate the effort they take and make this place such a beautiful place to visit and practice in. So I do have time for one question, if anybody wants to put one up. That's pretty good. Most of the time I slept through evening lectures at this time on a hot night. The fact that you don't have a question. Oh, yes, you have a question? How does the meditation practice help develop a sense of connection that you just talked about?

[30:52]

Well, first of all, have you sat any zazan? So I could talk a lot about zazen. I mean, there's books written about zazen, but I think the best thing is to try some yourself. But what happens in zazen after a while is you quiet down and all of the definitions you have about yourself start to slip away. And that narrow human being that you are opens up into something much wider. there's an incredible event going on here right now. Are we part of the stream? I feel like I'm a boulder in the stream and the sounds of the stream are pouring through me. Am I part of the mountains? They say the river is the long tongue of Buddha and the mountain is the body of Buddha. You can feel so connected.

[31:54]

to everything when you let go of yourself. And you can do that in zazen because you have developed the power of confidence that you don't have to hold on to yourself anymore. If you sit in this posture long enough, there's a kind of strength that you develop to actually face and let life in. Zen is about living life fully, wholly, experience everything. And that takes a kind of openness and strength that comes through developing a posture like this that can teach you how to do that. Is that an answer? I would encourage any of you and all of you to sit a little bit of zazan every day in your life. It will make a difference. Thank you very much. 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.

[32:58]

Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[33:08]

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