This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning and welcome to the Green Dragon Valley Temple. on this Independence Day weekend. A holy day called Independence Day. And in Dharma circles, we sometimes like to rename it Interdependence Day. May all beings as celebrated on this day be free from oppression, free to practice and live the way they would like to freely and be well and happy.

[01:24]

So I think that we all understand the meaning of interdependence, at least basically, and why we love interdependence around where we're not separate individuals, but interdependent with each other and with everything. But also, and maybe a more less celebrated version of dharma we can also celebrate independence day the holy day of independence day and how would we understand dharma independence suzuki roshi our zen center founder

[02:32]

often spoke of big mind. In his collection of teachings called Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, he says, if your mind is related to something outside itself, that mind is a small mind, a limited mind. So this is one way we could understand and celebrate independence. Big mind is in a sense independent because unlike small mind, it's not related to anything outside itself. Small mind is kind of an interdependent mind. It's related to other interdependent minds and other things, according to this version of Suzuki Roshi's teaching.

[03:42]

If your mind is related to something outside itself, that mind is a small mind, a limited mind. If your mind is not related to anything else, then there's no dualistic understanding in the activity of your mind. Kind of implying here, kind of surprisingly, that this realm of relatedness or interdependence is kind of dualistic. Dualistic means there's two aspects of the situation. So we could say the small mind is related or dependent on other things, but that's a little bit dualistic because there's something else for it to depend on. saduki roshi goes on big mind experiences everything within itself do you understand the difference between these two minds the mind which includes everything and the mind which is related to something or dependent on something

[05:05]

He doesn't use the word independent mind, but maybe pushing it a little further to express it that way. I think we could understand big mind is, it's so big that there's nothing for it to be related to. There's nothing for it to be outside of it. So it's not interdependent with anything, but it includes everything. It includes all interdependent appearances within itself. Suzuki Roshi asks, do you understand the difference between these two minds, the mind which includes everything within itself, and the mind which is related to something? Actually, he says, they're the same thing, but the understanding is different, and your attitude towards your life will be different according to which understanding you have. that everything is included within your mind is the essence of mind.

[06:16]

And whatever you experience is an expression of big mind. You might say, within big mind. Can you follow a little bit? This is in his Mind Waves chapter of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. big mind. You can't see it. You can't get a hold of it. If it's something that you could see, then that would be some related kind of mind. It's what we are always already. Inescapable. Nothing outside of it. Very intimate. so intimate that there's no relationship possible within this big mind.

[07:19]

It's the realm of unity appearing as multiplicity. And this big mind, Suzuki Roshi, coins this term, big mind, I think quite beautifully. to express a Buddhist concept called Buddha nature. Buddha nature is maybe more of a technical term. Colloquially, we could call big mind. It's not related to anything because everything's included within it. Buddha nature. Buddha means awake.

[08:22]

The awakened nature of all beings. It's taught that all living beings have or even are this Buddha nature. We all are big mind and our individual our individual selves are Appearing within. Big mind. So. Suzuki Roshi. Says. In the epilogue. Of. Zen mind. Beginner's mind. Everyone has Buddha nature. We each must find some way. To realize. Our true nature. Buddha nature. Big mind. the purpose of practice is to have direct experience of the Buddha nature which everyone has.

[09:26]

Suzuki Roshi might say at different times other purposes of our practice, but in the epilogue, in the conclusion of his classic collection of talks, He says the purpose of practice is to have direct experience of this Buddha nature, which everyone has, we might even say, which everyone is. It is our true nature. He says whatever you do should be the direct experience of Buddha nature. Buddha nature means to be aware of Buddha nature. Your effort should extend to saving all sentient beings from suffering. I think this is one of the great lines, unique to Suzuki Roshi.

[10:32]

Okay, let's define Buddha nature. Many ways to define it. But here, what does it mean? Buddha nature means to be aware of Buddha nature. That's kind of a koan you can sit with for the rest of your life. Buddha nature means to be aware of Buddha nature. And this is the purpose of our practice. Elsewhere, Suzuki, he says, in our practice, the most important thing is to realize that we have Buddha nature. Intellectually, we may know this, but it's rather difficult to accept. If we say, if we call it this Buddha nature, something like the Zen ancestors sometimes called it, like ordinary mind.

[11:43]

It might be a little easier to accept it. Ordinary just in the sense that it's always present. It's inescapable. This right now is Buddha nature. We're having this meeting within Buddha nature. None of us are related to Buddha nature because we are Buddha nature. We're not depending on Buddha nature because We are manifestations of Buddha nature. We are Buddha nature, appearing here and now as each of us. So in celebrating Independence Day and Buddha nature, I'd like to bring up a Zen koan. I don't know why this one kind of strikes me.

[12:49]

It's not exactly a story. It's like questions. This koan comes in the form of questions offered to each of us. It's case number 47 in the gateless barrier collection of Zen koans. And it's called Do Shui's Three Barriers in the collection called The Gateless Barrier. So in Zen, there's this word barrier. Or maybe more like, maybe more literally, it means like a frontier pass. Like a whole booth at the edge of civilization. Something like that. And I guess in old China, there were these frontier passes that you had to pay your toll to get through.

[13:59]

So they're like barriers, and unless you have the fare, you can't get through, I guess, either to civilization or to the wild openness outside of civilization, depending which way you're traveling through the barrier. And this collection of Zen koans is wonderfully called the gateless barrier. So it's like this frontier pass. It's a barrier to get through, but there's no gate. There's not like a certain doorway in the barrier that you can open a walk through. It's more like the barrier itself is a gate. It's not like a gate in some particular location. But just being one with the barrier, you pass through. So within this gateless barrier collection, the case, case, public case number 47 is called Do Shui's Three Barriers.

[15:13]

Within the gateless barrier, he's going to offer three other barriers. Passes, tollbooths, to... pass through. This teacher called Doshue or Tosetsu is a transliteration of Tushita. The Sanskrit word Tushita is a heavenly realm where the future Buddha Maitreya lives. When the present Buddha, Shakyamuni Buddha's dharma disappears from this world system and everyone's forgot all about it, then Maitreya, the Buddha of love, will appear to benefit beings in the future. And there was an old Zen temple in old China called Tushita Temple.

[16:18]

Maybe there was a Maybe on the main altar there was an image of Maitreya Buddha. And this was this Zen ancestor's temple. So he's called Tushita. And I'll just read you his three barriers first. These three questions to pass through. And now we can talk about them. They're all about Buddha nature. So now we have some background on... what we're talking about here. Big mind. Tushita, Zen ancestor Tushita's first barrier for us. Parting in the grasses, exploring the mystery, is only to see your true nature, Buddha nature. Right now, venerable one,

[17:19]

Where is this nature? Right now, where is your Buddha nature? The second barrier is if you have realized Buddha nature, you're free of birth and death. When the light of your eyes begins to dim, in other words, you're starting to die when your body's dying how are you free of birth and death at such a time the third barrier is when you're free from birth and death you know where to go so as your four elements disperse after you've died the elements of your body disperse.

[18:20]

Where do you go? These are the three barriers of Zen ancestor. So I find them intriguing and inspiring. This is not only about encouraging us to discover our own Buddha nature right now. That's the first one. But the second two are about this dying and death business. So challenging. So inescapable. And we want our practice to apply everything, including our own dying and even after our death. So starting with the first barrier, parting the grasses, exploring the mystery.

[19:35]

I think this is poetic Zen way of talking about like making our way through all these weeds and grasses, tall grasses where lost in a field of tall grasses pushing our way through in other words there's no path here we're trying to push aside the tall grass to find our way I think is a wonderful metaphor for Zen practice and it often can feel this way I know there's supposed to be a path here but I don't know where I am I feel stuck and I'm just but I'm She'll compel to move forward, parting the grasses, pushing aside the weeds, looking further away, looking for Buddha nature. Because Suzuki Roshi says, the most important thing is to realize we have Buddha nature.

[20:39]

And we each must find some way to realize Buddha nature, our true nature. Where is it? We know it's everywhere. We know it's inescapable. Intellectually, we may know this, but it's rather difficult to accept. So we push our way through these grasses. The tall grasses and the tallest, stickiest, thorniest grasses are like The past and future. So thorny. Oh, the past, I regret. Why did I have to do it like that? And the future, like, what am I going to do next? How am I going to figure it out? They forgot to give me the instruction manual.

[21:44]

Those are the thorny grasses. The past and the future. Worry and regret. and fear and fantasy about other times and places. So a Zen practice is so much about just being here now. So simple, so difficult, isn't it? So those are the big Rasses in Zazen and all day long. Here, now, always, here, now. And those big, tall grasses, but what about that past? How can I relive it again now? What about what I'm going to do after I leave Greenwald? Push it aside. And then we get, maybe we push those big, thorny grasses aside, and then we get to the shorter grasses, the smaller grasses that are just here in the present.

[22:53]

But they're still confusing the grasses of... What did you just say? I guess that's a little bit past already. What are you saying right now? And what's going on here? And what's that sound? What am I seeing here and now? And these feelings, these sights, these sounds, these feelings, these emotions, these sensations, this bodily ordeal of living in this lump of flesh. It's decaying quickly. What about all this? This is present moment experiences, but they're still like... Where is the Buddha nature in all this? So these are more grasses we're kind of pushing through.

[23:57]

We're working with. We're not pushing away any present experience. But we're working with this unblazed trail through all these moment-to-moment experiences. Where is big mind? Where are these experiences happening? We heard that happening in big mind. Is big mind another experience? No. Because if it was, it would just be dependent on other experiences. Anything that comes and goes, we call an experience, is dependent on other factors, on the previous experiences and other factors. people's experiences and the world. So, strictly speaking, as I would understand, experience is something always temporary, which means it's always dependent, and therefore it's not Buddha nature.

[25:07]

Buddha nature is not an experience. Buddha nature is like the space, the boundless, unlocated, timeless, ever-present space in which all experiences are happening, are coming and going. Big mind is not an experience, but it includes all the moment-to-moment small minds. We call it experiences arising and ceasing within big mind. So if it's not an experience, how can we find it? We're moving through these grasses, looking for it. Could it be that our very making our way through these grasses, exploring, investigating the mystery of Buddha nature is itself Buddha nature.

[26:10]

Could it be otherwise? Buddha nature is not something we're going to find at the end of the grassy field. What if there is no end to the grassy field? It's not exactly that the grasses themselves are the Buddha nature, but their nature is Buddha nature. They're appearing within big mind. If we look very carefully, each blade of grass is actually big mind itself, awareness itself. We can't find anything other. But each grass has its own particular sticking points so we kind of like we get stuck in these blades of grass we forget that their nature is buddha nature and our nature is buddha nature in the uh the great parinirvana sutra the buddhas maybe

[27:41]

quintessential source of Buddha nature teachings. Epic, vast, great vehicle sutra that was very influential for the Zen tradition and understanding of Buddha nature. In the sutra, it's taught that by analogy, looking for the Buddha nature in particular experiences is a little bit like looking for music in some part of the guitar. And the sutra tells this story of somebody who is listening to this beautiful guitar music, maybe lute or whatever, ancient Indian

[28:45]

string instrument they had in those days where what's the source of this beautiful you know seemingly formless music I want to get a hold of it and I know it's something to do with this guitar so I want to find the source of it I want to find like where exactly in the guitar does this music come forth so this person started dissecting the guitar started like chopping it into parts right like you know took off the neck of the guitar and like shook it put it to his ear like music doesn't seem to be there the body of the guitar held it to his ear the music's not there even the hanging string of the guitar There's no music there.

[29:46]

He got very frustrated trying to find the music, beautiful music, seems to come forth from this guitar, but it's not in any of the parts. It can't be found. Beautiful music can't be found in any particular part of the guitar. Just like Buddha nature can't be found in any particular experience. And yet, The totality of all experience in the present is manifesting Buddha nature. It's expressing Buddha nature inevitably. Music is a great mystery, and so is Buddha nature. So parting the grasses of our challenging experiences exploring the dark mystery is only for the purpose of seeing realizing our true nature buddha nature so in this story uh it's the it's the term kenjo is only for the purpose of kenjo seeing nature and nature generally refers to this buddha nature

[31:13]

But of course it's not something that can be seen in the way we see other things. It can't be experienced as a particular experience. But it can be verified. It can be practiced and verified by itself. I, the person, cannot verify Buddha nature. But Buddha nature can verify itself. And is, in fact, verifying itself moment to moment by being itself. And we, as people, can accord with this. So this issue of Kenjo in our Soto lineage, we're not so fond of this term.

[32:17]

Because our founder, Dogenzenji, way back in the 13th century, was not so fond of this term. I think he felt like it could be misunderstood as it's something that we're supposed to see rather than a reality that we are and must be completely. So maybe a little... side note here uh because this word ken show is in the is in the koan about this these schools of zen soto and rinzai japanese names for saodong and linji in old china and uh so we can find sort of different emphases But I think the main point is that it's all Buddha Dharma, not just Buddha Dharma, it's all Zen.

[33:18]

It's one school of Buddha nature. But there's different methods and different emphases. So at the risk of making it sound like these are too different, we can talk about some stylistic differences. And we can hear about them through the words of our founder, Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, in a talk in July of 1971, a few months before the light of his eyes dimmed and his elements dispersed later that year. Suzuki Roshi says, in Rinzai Zen, you can forget about dualistic life for a moment. This is so-called Kensho. Literally means seeing nature, seeing Buddha nature.

[34:23]

But even though you have Kensho, you don't have a Buddhist life completely. You just get a glance of your Buddha nature. Maybe we could say a glimpse of your Buddha nature, which is not egoistic. This is, you know, his way of speaking English. We might say a glimpse of Buddha nature where there's no self, no separate self. That's what you're glimpsing. It's not egoistic. But a glimpse arises at a particular moment, and it ceases. A glimpse, it's hard to say a glimpse is anything other than an experience. An experience is dependent on various factors, and it's impermanent.

[35:30]

It's not Buddha nature, but there can be an experience at a certain moment where one is really in accord with this verification of Buddha nature. And then that verification seeps into the ordinary personal human mind. It says, aha! That aha is not actually the Buddha nature, but it's, as Suzuki Roshi says elsewhere, It's like a letter from emptiness. We can't see emptiness. We can't experience emptiness directly. It's not an experience. But emptiness sends letters and we can receive letters from emptiness. They're like letters like you open up the letter and it says this is the realization of emptiness.

[36:36]

This is the letter. So, Suzuki Roshi says, you get a glimpse of Buddha nature in Kenjo, and it's not egoistic. But it doesn't last because you're so busy and you're deeply involved in your usual way of life. That's why you have to, yes. We're like in a retreat or something. We really taste it, and then the retreat ends, and we have to get back to busyness, and we get lost in the grasses again, right? Making our way through these grasses. Where is the Buddha nature now? It is in this grass, each blade of grass, each experience. But, of course, it's very helpful.

[37:39]

to kind of, what should we say, mow the lawn sometimes. We call it sesheen. It's like, there's still some grass, but we mow it down really, really short. So it's like kind of easier to accord with Buddha nature. Then maybe we get busy again and we can forget it less and less. That's his Suzuki Yoshi summary here of the Rinzai way. And he says the Soto way is to follow this non-dual way of life, like Tassahara, he says, which is our other Zen center. We could say Green Gulch. If you follow Soto way, even though you don't feel you've entered non-dual experience, more and more your life will be non-dualistic.

[38:39]

because our way of practice is set up according to the non-dualistic way of Buddha. We kind of set up a kind of a lifestyle, a way of living that's based on Buddha's non-dual awakening and the way he expressed it, which is, for example, having like daily zazen. So great. And all of you visiting, you don't need to be living at Green Gulch to have a daily Zazen practice that's setting up a non-realistic way of life where you, basically, it's a time when we're not busy. I mean, ideally, we're not too busy during Zazen. It's a time to really be here now. Not that it's So easy, but it's maybe easier than when we're having to think about the past and the future.

[39:44]

So we set up. Our way of practice is set up according to the non-dualistic way of Buddha. That's why we in the Soto school put more emphasis on how to eat, how to drink, how to walk, how to work, how to recite sutras. So those rituals set up by the Soto teachers are based on non-dualistic idea. It's almost a caricature summary of some different emphases between Rinzai and Soto schools, but I think he does get at some flavor difference. We pay attention to to these beautiful expressions of practice. We have a way to do each thing carefully and lovingly, attentively and beautifully, formal, ancient, ritual ways of doing things.

[40:52]

They're set up based on a way to express this Buddha nature that's already here. It's less about seeing something, that's about getting a glimpse the emphasis is more on just expressing our life through that and then maybe slowly maybe gradually like walking through the mist we start to feel more and more like the way we offer incense just like this is like the kind of sense or the uh This is happening within big mind as an expression of big mind. Suzuki Roshi, later in this talk, he says, the difference between the people who have attained enlightenment and those who haven't is whether they realize their hat

[42:00]

is on their head or not. Sometimes having your hat on your head, you will seek for your own hat. Where's my hat? But actually your hat's on your head. We have Buddha nature, but most people don't feel that way and are seeking for Buddha nature somewhere else. It's like seeking for treasure when you have a lot of jewels and diamonds in your body. Which I think that saying of Suzuki Yoshi is a nice commentary on Tsuchitsa's first barrier. Parting the grasses of each experience. Investigating the mystery is only to see our true nature, Buddha nature.

[43:02]

Venerable one, that means all of you. Venerable because you're single-mindedly exploring the mystery only to verify Buddha nature. It's a very venerable practice. Right now, venerable ones, where is your Buddha nature? Where is my hat? Parting through all these shirts and pants and socks and gloves and jackets and shoes. Where is my hat? It's not far away. It's It's kind of nice to show his hat because it's something that's so close to our eyes, so close that we can't really see it.

[44:14]

It's almost a little bit behind our eyes. We're looking out there in all these grasses. How do we turn the light of awareness around to verify? We are aware right now. Are we aware right now? Am I aware right now? You can ask it sincerely, naively, and curiously, like a child would ask, am I aware right now? Oh, yeah. Of course. I was working with all these grasses, like thoughts and emotions and sights and sounds and bodily sensations. But actually, there's an awareness that's ever-present.

[45:15]

It can't be grasped. And as soon as I ask if it's present, it's very easy to verify that it's present. We're talking about ordinary awareness. Are we aware? Yes. The moment we say yes, that is, I would say, that is being aware of being aware. It's not some special tricky business. It's just verifying the fact that we're aware right now. And that this awareness is not exactly our own personal consciousness. That's how we might feel like My awareness is residing inside my skull. And yours is in your skull. And it's generated by a bunch of synapses in a lump of gray flesh called the brain.

[46:19]

Scientists in modern times might talk this way, but it's not the way the Buddhism ancestors talked. There's no evidence that this presence right now is a product of a material brain. There's some relationship between what we call the brain and conscious experience. But the fact that there's no evidence that awareness is a product of a physical brain relates to the next two barriers here. But this awareness, the Buddha nature we're speaking of, is not subjective personal consciousness. It's not a subject that's related to others, right? Big mind is not related to anything. Our individual consciousness is related to objects that it's experiencing.

[47:19]

So it's not individual consciousness. This is an unrelated Buddha awareness. I recently came across this, and I think a kind of nice, pertinent writing from Thomas Cleary, the late Zen translator, and a commentary on Dogen. And he's talking about the Rinzai and Soto thing. So we're on this topic just to bring this up. Half-baked Rinzais, This is a little critique. I think it's inspiring to me. He's talking about the misunderstandings of both Rinzai and Soto. Half-baked Rinzais brag about their supposed awakening, while half-baked Sotos suppose they're already awake.

[48:21]

Half-baked Rinzais tend to mistake altered states for true awakening, while half-baked sotos tend to mistake their own subjectivity for true suchness. Their own subjectivity is like, well, I hear that this ordinary mind, awareness itself, is Buddha nature, so that's just my subjective consciousness that's related to you. and that dwells inside my skull, Soto people maybe, they're less into altered states maybe, more into like, my experience now, my experience is Buddha nature. And you all are kind of related to it, but outside of it, by being related to it. So, The second barrier that they build on each other here.

[49:32]

So the first is about realizing Buddha nature. The second barrier is if you've realized your own true nature, Buddha nature, that was the point of the first one, you're free of birth and death. Because this Buddha nature is... It's not related to anything. Birth and death are not something outside of Buddha nature. They're experiences. Birth and death are experiences arising within Buddha nature. So therefore, Buddha nature is free from birth and death while it can manifest as birth and death or anything else. If you've realized your true nature, you're free of birth and death when the light of your eyes dims. When you're about to die, how are you free? This is something we all will face this moment when the light of our eyes dims.

[50:36]

In the temple I practiced at in Japan, temples always have a cemetery where every morning we'd go out and we'd chant for the... the graves of the deceased temple supporters from past centuries whose families were no longer around. They were all collected together. And because their families wouldn't come and make offerings to their ancestors, we as the resident practitioners would do so. And at the entrance into the cemetery, there was a big stone kind of... ancient stone carved sign that said in Japanese we were once like you are now you will one day be like us which I found very moving to remember there's a lot more of them too than there are of us

[51:50]

there's something it's like to be aware right now and and though experiences are changing moment to moment there's something it's like to be aware is it not always actually the same the experiences are constantly changing but there's something it's like to simply be aware And we've never experienced this simple something it is like. We've never experienced the beginning of that or the end of it. It's impossible. To experience a kind of end of it, there would have to be another awareness. Something it's like to be another awareness in order to experience the ending of one, of this awareness. So it's not like... This is maybe a kind of profound point that you could consider over time.

[52:58]

If big mind is something that doesn't come and go, and this can be verified, then it's impossible to verify a beginning and end of awareness. It didn't start when we were born, and wouldn't it end when we die? Again, it's... Our logical mind might think that way at first, but there's no evidence for that. Nobody remembers the first moment of consciousness before they were born, even in the womb or something. Is it just a matter of we can't remember it because it's so far back, or is it that there wasn't a moment when it actually began? This is something we could consider. And that, yes, of course, the brain dies at death, the individual consciousness, all the memories, all the sense of self, of course, all that disappears at death. But there's something it's like right now.

[54:00]

It's called the dark mystery. Very ordinary, but undeniable. How could there not be something it's like? Again, not from me. Kokyo is not going to last very long here, but I have a deep intuitive sense that there will always be something it is like to be aware. Not from me. This doesn't have to be divided into me and you here. There always has been, there always will be something it's like to simply be aware. It's a strong intuition, and it's hard to know what happens after we die. But if we're free from birth and death, as we begin the dying process and the light of eyes dims, how can we practice in this life to develop confidence in our Buddha nature such that we can really let this body go when it's time to let it go?

[55:17]

And then the third thing, barrier is when you're free from birth and death, you know where to go. So as your four elements separate, this is kind of after the body has died. This is the old way of talking about the earth, wind, fire, and water, the four elements that make up the body. When they disperse, that's the old Buddhist way of understanding physical death. When the four elements separate and disperse after death, Where do you go, venerable ones? We know where the body goes. We know that the individual consciousness and all its memories from this life doesn't last. But what about this Buddha nature? Does it come and go? Or is it not related to anything?

[56:17]

Is it... The Buddha famously said in the early teachings, there is an unborn, unbecome, unmade, unfabricated. If there were not, then liberation from the born, the made, the fabricated, could not be realized. But there is an unborn, deathless, What is this? And is it somewhere else? If it were somewhere else, it would have to be dependent, actually, on time and place and people finding it and so on. One time, Nan Quan, one of the Chinese ancestors, said, where knowledge doesn't reach, don't speak of it.

[57:33]

If you speak of it, horns will grow on your head. Later, when Nanquan was about to die, the head monk asked him, After you die, where will you go? And Nanquan said, Down the mountain to be a water buffalo in the town down below the monastery. And the monk said, Can I follow you? Nanquan said, If you follow me, you must come with a blade of grass in your mouth. Excuse me for growing such long horns. I hope you can even get out of the room without getting tangled up in these horns.

[58:43]

And it's just about time to... Just stop. Just stop? Yeah, just stop, right? Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfzc.org. and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[59:24]

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