In San Francisco, Benetton, we now have a public address system, so we've got used to speaking softly. So if you can't hear me at the back at any time during the talk, you can just put your hand up like this, and I'll take that as a cue to speak louder. What I'd like to talk about this morning is my notions, my personal notions, and I hope they're not too unconventional. You know, my role at the Zen Center is called Tanto, and before that it was called Ino. And in both those positions, I often get asked various questions about what a teacher is. Sometimes people refer to quotations from Zen texts.

[01:30]

like, who is the teacher? Are you the teacher? Who is the teacher? And sometimes more complex questions, questions around trust, giving over your authority to So that's what I'd ambitiously like to talk about this morning. And I'd like to talk about it using a poem. It's out of the Sho Yoroku, the Book of Serenity. And it's called the, it's case 24, it's called the Turtle Nose Snake. But actually, the way I'm going to talk about it

[02:40]

the mainstream of the Kahn, but more like how the commentaries relate to the various people who respond to the Kahn. The Kahn is like a teacher. I asked Akin Roshi what was Zen training and how is it taught? And he said, Zen training is minding your own business. And the teaching is laughing every day. So I have to say that as a preference.

[03:51]

What are we doing selling water by the river? Are we making things easy or more difficult? Is there anything to teach? What do you not know? So when we enter into the practice of Zen, come already fully knowledgeable. We come with everything that's needed to realize ourselves. And then our practice is about realizing that that was the state in which we came. So in our practice, in particular the beginning of the book, he says, to take this posture is not the means to awakening.

[05:20]

It is not the means to the mind of awakening. It directly is that state of being. So one of the first things we learn in this practice are the forms, the particulars of sitting, and the particulars of the forms that go along with it. Formal eating, halioki, how we enter, how we leave the sandal. And a whole array of particulars and details. And in some ways, they're quite easy to learn. And someone could say, here's how you went for the zinga. You do it on this side, with this foot, you put your hands like this, and you bow like this. And then maybe after you've got a little more familiar with it, they'll add a few more details.

[06:21]

somewhere between here and here. When you bow, bow from your whole back, with your whole body. And then as you become familiar with that, then they'll add something a little more complex. When you bow, bow with your whole mind. Leave nothing out. So the forms have this amazing quality that they start very tangibly, in a very particular, accessible manner, and they take us completely to awakening. With our whole body and mind, we meet the moment. Recently, I was talking to someone who'd been sitting with eyes in for about 25 years. very diligently, and part of that time he decided as a practice to sit for 10 hours a day.

[07:35]

And so for 10 hours a day, 5 in the morning and 5 in the evening, he practiced dazen. And then he decided he would go and study with a teacher in Japan. So he went to the teacher give me Zazen instruction." So the very first thing was to start over, to learn how to sit Zazen. And maybe with a nuance to it, to learn how this teacher expects someone to sit Zazen, or what this teacher knows about sitting we're always listening with an attentive mind to discover how to practice the forms.

[08:36]

So this is also embodied in the form. So as I say, this is our initiation and our graduation. And when we take up the form, And we continue with them. An obvious and magical process happens. All the particulars of our life, of our personality, of the places where we're blocked, of the obstacles and difficulties that we experience, they come to meet us there. you don't approve of them. Maybe we don't like them. Maybe we can't stay focused with those forms.

[09:40]

And maybe Zazen is the largest where we find somehow the space to be entirely and completely what we are. So I said all that to sort of set the stage for this call. As I said, this poem is about a teacher addressing his assembly, and then three of his senior students make comments. So the teacher's name is Sui Feng. Sui Feng. Sui Feng said to the congregation, on South Mountain, there's a turtlenose snake.

[10:48]

You people must watch out for it. Chang Ching said, Today in the hall, there are many people losing their bodies and lives. Later, a monk quoted this to Swamsa. Swamsa said, oh, their only brother, Chongqing, could say this. However, even though he's right, I don't concur. The monk said, what do you mean, master? And Swamsa said, why use South Mountain? Later, on hearing this, young men threw down his staff and swung to persuade Feng and made a gesture of fright. So. So what's a turtleneck snake? Anything. Bowing completely, any moment. You know, one of the images that's used to try to conjure up an answer to what is Zen.

[11:54]

Zen is the water surrounding a fish swimming in the ocean. Zen is the air we breathe. So we have this wonderful coin right in our meditation. We're constantly breathing all the time. fundamental description of being alive. And yet it's so hard to stay with it. So this is Zen. Zen is our breath. Zen is the air. Zen is our breathing. So Zen is nothing but creating creating a way to let us see that we're already breathing. It has nothing to teach us that we don't already know.

[12:57]

So this is what a turtle-nosed snake is. A turtle-nosed snake is something special. It's like entering the zendu and bowing, doing something special, creating a special moment, or already there is a special moment. So the teacher says to his students, pay attention, something very special is happening, right here. And his first senior student says, he offers confirmation, Yes, right here in this hall, it's happening. And if you get that, you'll drop off body and mind. You let go of your distraction, of your self-centered preoccupation and be totally present.

[14:03]

And then the second student says, this is pretty good. and I congratulate him for saying it. But why say right here? It's everywhere. It's not just right here. And the third student, he reacts completely to the idea of a terminal snake and pretends he's frightened. So yesterday I was talking to someone and they were having a problem with their teacher. Nothing really juicy, just a... Disagreement.

[15:10]

A difference of opinion. And I'd be thinking about this con. And this person told me all their difficulties. They told me of the difference of opinion, and then they told me about how they didn't feel valued, they didn't feel heard, and what a deep difficulty that was to feel that with their teacher. So this thought was sort of biting around in my mind and somehow or another I managed to slip it into the conversation. And it was very interesting to watch and somehow take the problem, so to speak, and put it into a different container.

[16:18]

the container that this koan creates allows both of us to look at it in a different way. So that's a way that koans can function for us. We can take our life that we're fully invested in which is wonderful and terrible. It's wonderful that we're fully invested in it because we will take it seriously. We will give it our best effort. We will put everything we have into it. And sometimes that's its undoing. We put everything we have into it and we're overwhelmed. Our emotions are too strong. Our opinions are too fixed. Our mind is held by just the desperation, the tenacity, the potency of our own response.

[17:28]

So our practice in general, and also one way we can take up cause, is a way to create a different container. It's not to say that our life is not precious and that's not to say that we can excuse ourselves from being present in it completely and realizing it is a life and death matter. But it's just a way to allow us to bring in some flexibility. So in the commentary on this coin, there are very interesting comments. The person who just confirms the teacher, he comes in for a bit of a hard time. And the person who writes the commentary says, oh, not too bad, but just going along and just saying, yes, you're right, teacher.

[18:35]

He's missing something. It's not just a matter of just saying, it's your right, teacher. It's a matter of taking it and seeing that you already own it completely and acting from that place. To tell someone else they've got it right is not to treasure your own family treasure. So that's the critique that he gets. And then the second person who commented and said, first of all, he congratulated the first monk who confirmed the teacher. And then he said, but why say in this hall? Why say here on Scythe Mountain? So he took it, he owned it.

[19:39]

And he turned it. And this says a lot about how we create a healthy relationship to practice. To take it, to own it, and to express it out of our own being. which is not easy. I mean, that doesn't give us permission to go back to our own self-centered opinionations. But at the same time, it isn't asking us to deny our own truth. And as we get more into practice, this will come up for us How can we wholeheartedly open to this practice, or to someone who's trying to communicate it to us, and trust them completely, and at the same time preserve our original nature?

[20:55]

Or not preserve our original nature, but stay true to our original nature. So in the commentary, it offers two phrases as a guide to that. The two phrases are... In this language, they're called, to send away and to summon. And the other one is, to capture and to release. So to capture and to release is to... It's maybe the main activity of sitting zazen. To pay attention to the moment and to let go. To notice what's happening and to not hold on to it. So that's one of the abiding forms that we keep practicing.

[21:59]

What's happening, to notice it, to let go of it. to notice when we enter the Zen Do, to notice our breath, to let our breath flow, to notice our state of mind, to notice what emotion arises, and to let it go, to notice our reaction to some teaching, to our teacher's words, to our friend's words, to our lover's words, and to let it go. sort of capturing to release. And then the other one is to descend away and to summit. In some ways this is a similar phrase, but I think an interesting way to think about it is in terms of personal authority.

[23:05]

In relation to our personal authority or staying true to our own word or our own idea. We move back and forth in our practice. If we stay too close to what we think practice is, how are we going to change? How are we going to hear something new? How are we going to open to it? So sending away can be thought of as sending away our own opinion. being willing to take feedback, being willing to hear someone else's statement about us, someone else's comments. And then the other side is to be able to call forth our own opinion.

[24:15]

So this is the balance. We have to be able to listen to both sides, to someone else's opinion, to the whole world's opinion, and we have to be able to hear our own and not get stuck in either. So in the commentary it says, if you've practiced paying attention, noticing, and letting go, The other one, the other practice will come along naturally. The practice of being able to balance not holding to your opinion and being able to call forth your opinion. Sending away your opinion and allowing your opinion to come forward. So the second month, I'd like to return to him again, because in many ways he seems to be cast as the hero in this.

[25:21]

And it's interesting, he's cast in the hero, as the hero, and yet, two very interesting phrases about him. It says, he always bore witness on his father for stealing sheep. And in benevolence, he did not defer. The first peculiar phrase, what it means is that he always noticed exactly who his teacher was. He didn't project on him some state of perfection. He just said, he is this. So stealing sheep, it's just a sort of a graphic way of saying he wasn't perfect. So here, what it's offering us as something to think about or a guide to our practice is not to idealize the person, the teacher,

[26:36]

the other students, but to be realistic, to bear witness on who they are and to notice carefully. Because projecting and idealizing is a form of separation. I remember once someone came to visit the city center where I live, and she came with this notion that we were rather saintly. And it was very interesting because she stayed awake. It struck me that it's almost like no matter what we did, She wasn't going to let go of that notion that somehow we were saintly beings and that lived this pure existence.

[27:41]

And it was difficult to help her get a sense of the practice. Some ways it felt a little painful to disillusion her, but also it felt painful because we knew we weren't. We knew we weren't saints and are not saints. So to bear witness on exactly who the teacher is and in benevolence to not to defer So this is a nice tricky one. I think they're both very juicy. But in benevolence to not to defer. So how do you keep an open mind and an open heart to the teaching and at the same time not defer?

[28:54]

I don't think we have to think about it too hard to realize that that asks a lot of us, that asks of us to stay really in touch with what's going on. To see when, to be able to differentiate between when we're getting stuck in our own self-preference or maybe on the other hand when we're moving into idealizing or just some sense that I shouldn't question, I should just defer. So really, when we take up all these points, we see that this is our practice, our relationship to our teacher, whether it's the person who gives us Zazen instruction or someone that we've practiced with for 30 years. It's a delicate balance and it asks us to pay attention in as astute a way as we can.

[30:05]

So then the third monk, the third person to respond to this teaching was young man. And young man is the hero of, one of the big time heroes of this set of koans. These koans were written in 8th and 9th century. And apparently he must have been quite a guy because he gets mentioned all over the place. With true finesse, he takes it off, acknowledges it completely, turns it around, and does the whole thing with total flair. And this is also the way that these coins can help us. There's also something light to them. Yes, it's a matter of life and death, but at the same time we can laugh at it.

[31:21]

We can laugh at the absurdity that we breathe all the time and we have to struggle and practice for years to try to notice it. It's ridiculous. Why can't we take it seriously? Why can't we waste our life in such a ridiculous manner? So this is young man, he just picks it up, and makes a mockery out of it. He pretends to be totally terrified by this turtlenose snake and to run away. So in some ways the practice of Zen and relating to the teachings and to a teacher They're the same from the first day you start to the last day you finish. You know, over the years, as we've got more involved in our heritage from Japan, you know, we make more and more diligent efforts to try to decipher it.

[32:35]

You know, this teacher will give his students transmission after two years. This teacher will give his students transmission the day before he dies. I remember reading one teacher yesterday in a book and he was saying, this was a truly benevolent teacher, he never acknowledged a student until the day before he died. He just criticized him. And then the person who was writing this was saying, nowadays teachers aren't this kind. They're always telling their students how good they are. So it's a matter of style, but it's also a matter that we walk in the door with our own wisdom. We come to Zen with our own wisdom.

[33:38]

And we shouldn't forget it about ourselves and about everyone else. This is very valuable. And also we should remember that for whatever reason it appears that it takes a lot of diligence to discover that fact. That it takes quite a concerted effort to notice that there is a turtle-nosed snake in every moment. That we are always breathing. And in that sense it does seem like there is a progression. It does seem like there is something to learn, and something to gain, and something to strive for, and something that can be communicated, and a way to communicate it. So that's the balance, to uphold both. To let go, to send forth so we can listen to the teaching, and to call forth so we can remember our own wisdom.

[34:43]

And this is the realm in which we practice. And this is the realm in which we learn and in which we teach. So, let me see if I forgot something I was going to say. I was writing myself notes. And the note I wrote myself to describe how I thought about this was I called it Dancing in the Dark. Because I think sometimes that is what we do. We sort of try to move in harmony without holding on to any fixed opinion. So if you have any questions, I can try to respond. I was wondering, on one hand, it seems that if we have our natural being, the wisdom, kind of like Socrates made me, so the path is dividing, leaving all on our own presence, then why do we need

[36:23]

It seems to be, on one, if, you know, our tradition is heuristics, you know, something coming from the outside, like teaching, going to school, you know, and yet there's a natural, it seems to be that If there are no instruments, in other words, the formalities, I don't see how you can get away from the instrumental quality of the formalities and the forms, and still be like Sufi Sam, you know, Sufi Sam, Careful what you said.

[37:35]

I'm just raising that because it seems I don't feel that question can be resolved. It can be resolved? So you don't feel it can be resolved? As long as there's... I don't think you can resolve generally, maybe... Well, do we need to have a form for all the presence?

[39:52]

The answer is no, we don't. If we look at spirituality throughout the world, or even within a particular tradition, There seems, in many traditions, there seems to be a pattern where the person who has something that we think we call accomplishment will often say, it's not a matter of striving and struggling, just allow it to happen. And this is why we call our meditation Just Sitting. But when we dip our toe into that ocean, we discover that that ocean is vast and that to negotiate our way in it,

[41:07]

the experience of those who've gone before us, in whatever tradition, can be of value. And certainly we should never forget the question, but we should never prevent it from investigating. And that's what I was trying to bring out. We should never forget our own original enlightenment, but we shouldn't let it become an obstacle. to investigating and to discovering what others have to teach. And that's the balance that I think this teaching and many teachings bring out. And I think, you know, the first student, he is He's qualified in the commentary by just saying, yes, you're right, teacher.

[42:20]

He heard the teaching. This is pretty good. And he agreed with it wholeheartedly. But did he make it his own? Did he discover that he knew the teaching before he ever heard it? So as we dip our foot in the ocean and we discover the nature of water, this is our guide. You know, when we take a step, then that step becomes our guide to the next step. So in a way, our practice is to confirm that those who've done this practice before got it right. as well as to discover how to create the mind that can listen and respond to their teachings.

[43:25]

So it is a balance to bring forth our own wisdom or to recognize that our wisdom is always here and to open our hearts into our mind. to the teaching that we are inheriting through a particular tradition, and to the teaching that's just present every moment. Every moment has the extraordinary uniqueness of a turtle-nosed snake. Yeah, so and so.

[45:27]

Right. And I think this coin is rebuking us for that idea. Another sense of the word family is that in a family, the blood, the genes, you know, the genes are in our blood. In the Buddha family, the genes of a Buddha are in our blood. This is our family too. It's the Buddha family. And of course, in that sense, we are as completely a member of the family as any other member. Dogen Zenji said, when we realize that, we meet all the other Buddhas in a circle.

[46:30]

Not in a hierarchy, but in a circle. They're all present in a circle, and we're part of that circle. And the circle exists now. Everyone in the family exists now. I'm curious about this moment of letting go that I keep hearing about. Because it seems to me that my attempts to practice that, they feel very real to me on some levels, but things continue to resurface with consistent power. So as I hear you speak, My head starts to spin a little bit with feelings about, what is this?

[47:36]

Am I letting anything go ever really? And I feel sort of helpless about it and confused. Well, you know, when we let go, the next moment arises. I mean, everything just doesn't turn. The whole causal nexus that creates our being, all the conditions and circumstances that create our being, they bring forth the next manifestation of who we are. You know, that's why when we make, you know, when we contact our breathing and zazen, something else comes up and sweeps it away. And the whole process is our teacher.

[48:43]

We learn something about the flow of life, the flow of our own being. And we learn something about how not to cling and how not to become desperate for something other than that's already here, how to value what we already are, that we already have everything we need, and how not to be entranced by it, to engage in the very activity of bringing forth our effort is to discover the whole nature of our being. It's not a desperate effort to reach something eventually.

[49:51]

That's just to cheat ourselves. That's why we need to be careful just not to defer to the teachings. When I'm like that, I'll be a Buddhist, or enlightened, or a Buddha, or whatever. That attitude can permeate the whole way we relate to practice. And that's why the forums are so wonderful, because To put your body through a certain motion and to experience the dignity of that and the presence of that is to experience directly the dignity of our own being. And it doesn't have to come in through our mental attitude or conception.

[50:55]

It can be right there in our body. And that's why in Soto Zen we do place a lot of emphasis on bringing dignity and presence to the forms. So they're not so much to do with compliance or deference, but more to do with dignity and heartfelt feeling. I mean, maybe the biggest challenge in the forms is to really mean it. is when you take on a posture that looks dignified, to feel dignified, to sort of value yourself and everything else with that posture. Thank you.

[51:45]

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