I'm bound to taste the truth about the Buddha's words. Good morning. Nice to see everyone here. I think this is the most beginner of a beginner session we've had. But as Greg said, we're all beginners. And yesterday we had Buddha's birthday. Was Mel here? He was. because I smelled him on the cushion when I bowed. His scent was still there. But when we celebrate Buddha's birthday, it always reminds me of the beginning of my practice. When I started practicing, I was about 20, and I know some of you may find this hard to believe, those of you who know me well, but I was extremely arrogant, stubborn, know it all, although there's a law of impermanence.

[01:02]

Some things don't change. And at that time, Berkeley Zen Center met in Mel's house on White Way. And I really counted on that zazen every morning. I had a lot of anxiety and depression at the time, and it was really a bomb. to soothe me. And so I went every morning, and one morning, which was the once a month, as scheduled, I guess, Suzuki Roshi showed up to give a talk about Buddha's birthday. And being the way I am and was, I thought, who does this guy think he is, coming here and giving a talk and interrupting my zazen. So that's why Buddha's birthday always reminds me of the very beginning of my practice.

[02:06]

And so he gave this talk, and I don't know, I guess we didn't even record the talks then. And he just went on and on in his broken English about, well, Buddha could have been born this day, but some people say it was this day. or it might have been this day. And this went on for what seemed like a hundred thousand million kalpas. It was probably 30 or 40 minutes. And I fumed the entire time. And as soon as it was time for questions, I said, why do we care when Buddha's birthday is? And he looked like he'd been waiting for me. The answer to my question was, Well, if we don't know the Buddha's birthday, then how do we know there was a real Buddha? And if we don't know that, what are we doing sitting here? So that kind of set me back a little.

[03:10]

Thank goodness that was the beginning, the very beginning. It takes quite a lot to wear through arrogance. But I began to see myself in the context of how we practice. And of course I was a little discouraged to see this great disparity between what I thought was going on and what is going on. or what is, and so sometimes that can be a little discouraging. I've heard Quan Lam talk about it, where he says, you know, when we look at our practice and compare it to the ancients, it's, you know, it's a little discouraging, or something like that. You know, what do we make of this? So today I wanted to talk about effort. and how we sustain and nourish our effort despite the difficulties that we encounter in our practice. So I want to talk about effort in the larger context of all the things that support our practice.

[04:22]

And then I want to talk about how we cultivate this effort. And finally, once we have developed our effort and seem to have some momentum how we aim it. So, effort actually is described in the Eightfold Path. I don't know how many of you have studied introductory Buddhism, but you know, when you do, you'll encounter many lists. You know, the Four Noble Truths, the Three Marks of Existence, the Eightfold Path, the Four Wisdoms, and so on and so on. I think if we didn't have all these lists of things in Buddhism, we wouldn't have anything at all. And that, I mean, is the absolute truth, because Buddhism is almost invisible. Because what it does, as far as I can tell, is just find ways to describe the truth, which already is, so there's hardly anything to say.

[05:30]

But we keep organizing it in terms of these lists. The first list that the Buddha put there for us to hold on to, as if there were these four things, was the Four Noble Truths. And the first is that the nature of life is suffering. And the second is that the suffering is caused by our cravings and desires. And the third is that there is a way to end this craving, suffering, desire. And the fourth Noble Truth is the Eightfold Path, so that takes us into the next list. And the Eightfold Path includes effort as one of the pieces that makes up our way.

[06:31]

So putting it in that context of what are the parts of our practice. So we keep dividing it up so we can describe it, otherwise we really wouldn't have anything to say. So in this Eightfold Path, the first one is Right Understanding, and then there's Right Thought. And these are considered to be the wisdom portion. of the meal here, of this menu that we have. And then there are the virtues, which are right speech, right action, and right livelihood. And then there are three more, which are about concentration. And they are right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. And both right understanding and thought, the wisdom component, have to do with just how wise are we about what we consider is going on in the world.

[07:43]

What is our understanding? Is it self-centered? Or are we oriented to seeing life as it is? And right thought is watching or the thoughts that come up and cultivating the right kinds of thoughts about our practice. And right speech and right action and right livelihood are the ways we intersect with the world and keep polishing our efforts. I mean our efforts to see things as they are. So once we've already slipped through understanding and thought and the words have started to come out our mouths, right speech is how we keep working on not insisting on our way. And of course if right speech fails us, or if we blurt through the right speech, then of course the next step is that we're going to take an action.

[08:46]

So right action is then again continuing to keep in line and in harmony with our by our activity. And of course, right livelihood is the accumulation of all of that in what are we doing in the world to support ourselves and to nourish life. So then that takes us to the concentration three, which are effort, mindfulness, and concentration. And these have to do more with what supports everything overall. Our effort as it sustains us, and mindfulness, keeping alert to everything as it arises. And concentration really refers to our zazen. But if you listen to all of these, effort, or the effort that I'm going to talk about today, has to do with all of this. And even in any of these paths you can find that the others, all the other seven, are contained in any one of these

[09:52]

ways of the Eightfold Path. But effort certainly sustains everything because there's this balance about the way we try. We need to keep moving forward and trying and yet we need to not be attached to what the outcome is. So there's a way of keeping our effort clear. And I wanted to read something from a book called Zen Lessons. which describes this continuous effort and this process of turning and turning ourself over and over again to practicing and trying to be in harmony with life. And this is called Hot and Cold. Now these were written, I guess, around the 10th century. These are Sung Dynasty. This is about the time that Chan, which was before Zen became Zen in Japan, when Chan, which was what Zen was derived from, was in China, it became very popular.

[11:06]

And there were very large communities of more than a thousand people sometimes trying to live together. And so this is called Zen Lessons, The Art of Leadership. contains many of the works that were written to describe how the community sustained the Chan way. Hot and Cold. Fushan Yuan said, there are certainly things in the world that grow easily, but we have never seen anything that could live given one day of warmth and ten days of cold. The Supreme Way is clearly there before the mind's eye, so it is not hard to see, but it is essential to be firm of will and powerful in practice. This should be dealt with whatever you are doing, if you believe for one day and doubt for ten. If you are diligent in the mornings, but put it off at night, not only will it be hard to see the way right before your eyes, I fear you will be turning your back on it to the end of your life.

[12:19]

So this was actually in a letter to a senior student that this was written. And it really, I think, very much captures the point, which is no matter how long you've been beginning as a Zen student, it's so important to keep trying, to keep sustaining your effort, time after time, and not to lose track of that. So one of the things that happens when we do put this great deal of effort into our practice is that we begin to look at our practice and say, as I did in that morning when I had done my arrogant questioning, what's wrong with my practice? Why haven't I gotten it yet? Because this is naturally what occurs for us when we've been putting a great deal of effort into something.

[13:25]

We look at the practice as it's manifesting. either how we've become in our own relationships, or what has it done for us in our life in some way, and we say, well, there's something missing, or there's something wrong. And this is like looking at a fruit after it's grown, or as it's growing, and saying, oh, there's something wrong with this. And it's almost like trying to put cosmetics on the fruit or the flower, rather than nourishing the roots. So the point is, how do we actually nourish what our practice arises from, rather than look to our practice and say, there's something wrong here, at this point. And this is what I mean about sustaining and nourishing our effort. Well, of course, in Buddhism and in the early Indian texts, there are four ways of effort.

[14:26]

There's another list of four. So this list is about preventing wrong effort, abandoning effort or thoughts that arise. If you haven't prevented them, then you can abandon them. Or the next, the third one is developing right thoughts, right effort. And the fourth one is maintaining. So that's one way that we describe our effort, which is both moving away from things that pull us down and moving towards and sustaining things that keep us practicing. However, I find that a little bit abstract, and I've been very impressed with a model that Uchiyama Roshi discusses in his book, Refining Your Life.

[15:28]

And he talks about the three types of mind, which he calls Daishin, Kishin, and Roshi. And these are big, magnanimous mind, joyful mind and parental mind. And by actually describing these states of mind, it gives a very good model for how we cultivate our own mind and therefore keep renewing our effort. For me, Daishin, which is magnanimous mind, like in Daihi Shindorani, Daishin is the mind that includes both Roshin and Kishin, both parental mind and joyful mind, are contained in magnanimous mind. And when he talks about magnanimous mind, he's talking about the kind of mindset that includes all circumstances as part of our life.

[16:37]

That is, when we are in any given situation When someone acts up or something goes wrong, we accept it as part of our own self. This doesn't mean you become a victim, but for example, if you're driving in traffic, your magnanimous mind understands all of the causes and conditions and the effect as one. and functions in some way to assure you that this is just what there is at this time. So it then frees you from, in a certain way, you're pushing forward for your own self-interest. I've got to cut this car off. Got to cut that. And Kishin, or joyful mind in that case, would be about being content right where you are, always sustaining the natural joy that could be part of our awareness.

[17:41]

And the parental mind is, the Roshin, is about how do I take care of other people around me given that we're in this difficult, very difficult situation. So I believe that cultivating these three states of mind is very nourishing to sustaining effort. When I think about Kishin, I think about my dogs and what happens every time they're out in nature. They've never caught a rabbit, just like in Elvis Presley's song. They've never caught a rabbit, but they never stop bounding. Every time they smell one, or a gopher or a squirrel, it's like they never give up hope. They aren't at all affected by the results of the 300,000 times they have tried to catch an animal. Every time they get the scent, out as fast as they possibly can chasing tails wagging and sniffing and as if as if this time something is going to happen actually I think they came close to catching one once because my Rottweiler has a bite mark on his nose so I think he cornered something in a gopher hole or whatever and he got bitten on the nose but it has not at all restrained his joyful mind in the way he

[19:08]

continues to bound out and hunt down these animals as if he knew what to do with them when he caught them. He probably wouldn't be able to figure that out either. And parental mind is the mind that Uchiyama Roshi describes in this book, Refining Your Life. It's about something Dogen has written as instructions to the cook. And parental mind is the way we handle all of the ingredients he describes, all of the ingredients in that we realize that we are giving ourselves to others and taking care of others in our activities every day. So he describes that over and over again as the mind of the cook. And I think I became interested in this effort In Berkeley, I have my office right up the street.

[20:11]

It's not such a nice neighborhood, but since it's very close to the Zen Center, I keep it there. I'm a psychologist and I keep it there so that if I have a cancellation in the afternoon, I can come down and do Zazen. So it's handy for that. In any case, I saw a man and see a man regularly who has cerebral palsy. And he never fails during the course of encountering him to sort of stop whoever is walking past him on the sidewalk to greet them. And it kind of sounds and looks like, you know, how you doing? There's this incredible effort in his body to stop people and in this, just to get the words out. And I'm on a different schedule than he is. He has a different pace to his life. So he stops for everyone, and there's this very painful concerted effort.

[21:14]

It looks painful to me, he may be enjoying it completely, to stop and greet me. And I have spent time occasionally saying, I'm fine, how are you? And he seems to be willing to spend However long, I will spend with him on the sidewalk saying, well, I'm fine, and how's the weather, and so on. Most of the time, I have my own schedule, and I'm rushing ahead, and I don't take the time. But I usually do stop to greet him. But one day, I was coming up to Shattuck, walking up Russell, and I saw him walking. And when he was walking, He was walking in a way that required so much effort. I was so humbled by it. There was so... In the time that it would take me to walk half a block, he had walked maybe just a few steps.

[22:17]

And I was really touched by the amount of effort he put forth to do the things that are just so ordinary. And what it would be like to muster this much effort in our everyday life and to just give our full attention and effort to every activity that presented itself as he did. So I found it very inspiring. And I think in certain ways there's just so much that we take for granted in how we conduct ourselves and we forget to have our attention and our effort available and moving. I guess if you think about, I know they use the word vehicle for

[23:25]

the Dharma for the Mahayana practice, which is our practice. Zen is part of the Mahayana school of Buddhism. They talk about this great Dharma vehicle. And so I started thinking about this vehicle as a car and effort as fuel that would move it forward. It's kind of an interesting thought for me. But the thing about the effort, just like our practice, and like so many things in life, we can't get at it directly. It's not like Nancy Reagan suggested, you know, just say more, or just say pay attention, or just say no. There's some way that we can't make it happen. It's a little bit like sleep, where you can't make yourself sleep. You can set up the conditions that foster, you know, good sleeping, a quiet room and so on. But actually to make yourself have effort, you can't do that.

[24:31]

You can't tell your effort to push harder. So we need to keep cultivating the state of mind from which effort arises, just the way we cultivate a place for ourselves to sleep. I also saw another piece in Zen Lessons which made me think about what do we do once we have developed our effort? How we aim our effort, what we do with this practice as it's developing. Because as I said, we can't make the effort We can't put the cosmetics on, I mean we can, we can sort of put cosmetics on our practice and maybe pretend a little that it's better than it is, but it's not the real thing. So it's kind of like in a plant, you can nourish the roots and you can also put a stake in the ground to support it, but you can't really go over to the plant, you know, and do too much to it once it's arising to change it.

[25:46]

so you can support it, or you can nourish it. Anyway, I saw this little piece, and it said to me, this is one of the things that happens when effort goes astray. This is called, Penetrating Obstruction by Reason. Chon said, when Fochon was the leader of the great peace community, Gaon was in charge of taking care of guests. Gaon was young and high-spirited, and he looked down on everyone else, there being few who met with his approval. One day, at the time of the noon meal, as Gaon sounded the call, he saw a worker placing food before Fojong in a special vessel. So this would be like all of us were having oreoki and our teacher was given some special bowls.

[26:49]

So Gawain felt very righteous and he left the hall announcing in a loud voice, if the teacher of 500 monks acts like this, how can he be an example for later students? Fojohn pretended not to see or hear this. He was the teacher. Then when Fojohn left the hall, Gowon looked and found that the special vessel contained pickled vegetables. For it turned out that Fojohn had a chronic stomach ailment and did not partake of oil, which was ordinarily used in the monastic food for nutrition. Gao An was ashamed and went to the leader's room to announce his resignation. Fozhan said, what you said was quite right, but it just happens that I am sick.

[27:53]

That is all. I have heard that a sage said, penetrate all obstructions by reason. Because what I eat is not better, I am not doubted by the community. Your will and temper are clear and far-reaching. Someday you will be a cornerstone of the source teaching. Don't let this stick in your mind." When Fo Chan moved, Gao Han went elsewhere and later he became a successor of Fo Chan. So for me, I think What I mean by aiming the effort is, you know, once we feel like we're not such beginners in certain ways anymore, we have a certain attitude about doing things right and a kind of righteous attitude that develops. So I think it's really important that once your practice develops and you know, you know, how to do kin-hin the right way and how to lay out your bowls and

[29:02]

really doing great. And you can sit your 40 minute periods and you can understand to a certain extent the talks and the readings and so on. Then we all become the great experts of how not only we ought to conduct ourselves but how everyone else should and how they're not doing it right. So it's very important to watch this as effort develops and as a practice develops. And so for me, the way we aim our effort is sincerely. Rather than imitating what we think is the way, how do we do this practice so completely that it becomes a natural part of ourselves, rather than sort of inflicting the forms on ourselves and others. In other words, to do it wholeheartedly, the mistakes will occur, but not to try to imitate anyone we think is holy, or anything that we think is holy.

[30:09]

So doing it sincerely and naturally, I think, is a good aim of practice, of effort. Another way to talk about it is selflessly. to do it and to continually empty out our pride in our own self-centeredness, which moves us out of the competitive arena of practice. Well, I can do this better than so-and-so can do this. Another thing to consider is our own corrections and correct action rather than judging others. When we see someone doing something so-called wrong How do we turn our attention away from that and turn it back towards ourselves? And then another way to look at this aiming is about letting go. Letting go of these so-called mistakes over and over. I've already had one experience of it this morning while

[31:13]

You know, as Greg and I were talking about the Seshin, we allowed 25 minutes for orioke instruction just for an overview. Well, it didn't finish in 25 minutes and people weren't here for the first bells. So, there was a constant effort on my part to keep letting go of what I thought was the right way for this to happen, because it was happening the way it needed to happen, and I couldn't necessarily know the reason that it was happening in this way, but it was. So this is about letting go rather than keeping attached to being right. And a simple way to talk about this as an aim is to expect, to continue to expect without having specific expectations of the outcome. Finally, there's a wonderful I'm not sure whether this came from Dogen, there's a wonderful expression in Refining Your Life, and it is to remember that gain is delusion and loss is enlightenment.

[32:23]

So, I think I'm about at the end here, especially with this story of Gaon, sort of brings us full circle to my own story at the beginning about arrogant practice. So I'd like to give you a chance to ask questions about anything you want. I actually have two questions, but I'll ask one first, and then maybe there is time for another one. Well, that's an interesting idea, that effort isn't natural. But I wonder where it came from. Yeah, where did the idea come from that effort isn't a natural part of

[33:28]

human life or life period. Did you ever see a flower or something, a plant, break through the concrete of a sidewalk? Yeah. They didn't stop halfway and say, yeah, this is too much trouble. Well, they don't have a mind to control that. That's right. Well, they might. I mean, we're not sure. But the fact is that their effort and the effort of life continues. And it's exactly the mind that would say, ah, this is too much trouble, that hampers us. And which is natural? The mind that hampers our effort and says, oh, this is not natural? Or the mind that continually turns toward truth? How do I know that I'm going to find truth in this?

[34:30]

Or how do I know that psychology, you know, how do I know that, you know, I mean, what is Zen missing? There's a question I, you know, like, okay, if I continually focus on my breath, then what will that leave me? And what will be missing from that? How do we know this is going to work? The question you're asking is another talk, the one that should have come before Effort, which was on faith. And actually, we kind of assume, and sometimes when I talk about Effort, I talk a little bit about faith first. To come here and to spend a beautiful Sunday after all this rain, sitting and facing a wall, it seems a little bit ridiculous, unless you have some faith that something is going to come out of this.

[35:32]

So, there's again, like effort, there's not so much we can do about faith. We either have it or we don't in a certain way. But our practice, you know, the turning towards the practice, we sometimes call it way-seeking mind, is really our faith, that this will answer some needs. And we keep having doubts, but doubts are very important. So maybe as the doubts arise, you can turn to cultivating the effort, and just, you know, like that flower that's coming up under the sidewalk, saying, well, I don't know if this is going to work or not, but I better go for it. I will not, you know, stop. How do you know when, you know, effort is just sort of, kind of, you're defeating yourself? Yeah, it's about time to call the art club or something, right?

[36:37]

It's stuck here. Effort is good, but when do you know when to say, okay, I'll let go and sort of step back? Well, maybe you have a specific event that has occurred mind and most of us have come to a place where we said well I've been trying this for you know 40 years it still hasn't working so you know what do I do about that and actually our practice includes conversation with a teacher or a senior student or something so that we can when we get up against the wall rather than give up totally although there are several kinds of giving up I mean there's sometimes just sitting down and saying what's not working But another thing that we offer formally here is both doksan and practice discussion to talk about, why does it seem like I'm against the wall? And is this the wall that I have to blast through, or should I take a right turn and find the door? Yes, Sammy?

[37:38]

One of the, I put up this thing, which is a tape, right? And it talks about creating an attitude that maybe you haven't had before. And what I'm wondering is a lot of times I present myself at a certain place and I say, well, all I have to do is have this attitude and I'll have the outcome that I want. But what I'm starting to realize is perhaps you have to create a level of consciousness to have this attitude become part of you. It's not something you can just say is going to happen. Right. But it's something that you have to develop a consciousness for, I guess. Yes. Because in the less concerned, if you put the weight on the outcome, that's about the cosmetic side. It's like, how do I dress this up? So putting it into the nourishing part of this activity is what you're saying is developing your consciousness.

[38:47]

Right, like Nancy Reagan said, just say no, or just say yes, or just say more effort. It doesn't work that way. One of the problems that I'm struggling with is beating myself up for the mistakes that I've created in the past. Yes, I would say so. Expanding your mind to include all of yourself and your difficulties is a big part of your practice. It's also a big part of ours. That when you have difficulties, we say, well, this is Sammy and this is all of her. And she's part of us and our practice here, so it works both ways. What's to do with that 40 minutes?

[40:04]

And all this time that I spend turning from breath to thought to thought to breath to the next thought to the breath, and I get confused about it. Sometimes I'll spend 40 minutes just, you know, and I've maybe been aware of one or two breaths, maybe. And then I wonder, well, is that still effort? And I wonder about arbitrarily turning from thought to breath and choosing to turn it. Yeah, that's the muscle. That's the muscle. But then again, we can't make that muscle stronger than it is. I mean, that's really where we have our hands in a certain way on the lever. exactly in that, you know, thoughts arising and then turning it back to breath. Thoughts arising and turning it back to breath. So we only do that if we only do it for 40 minutes or 3 hours a day or whatever it is.

[41:09]

How do we extend that exercise which develops that muscle? into our lives, into every activity, and that's why I talked about cultivating these three states of mind as a way of continuing throughout the day to build some muscle so that the effort can grow. Yes, Peter? of all beings. And as I would cruise by the one jerk who ran out of gas and stopped thousands of people, I would say, oh. Thank you. Thank you. But the point I want to make is that there was that lesson, and it was still frustrating to be late.

[42:11]

I mean, it's still always I mean, it's still uncomfortable, even the relatedness. So that was one thing. And the other was, I was thinking about beginner's mind and about, as you know, I learned to fish. He said, well, you'll get really good at this. And I thought as we were fishing, I like not being good at this. It's so, I'm so completely engaged. I have to pay attention to every single thing that I'm doing because I don't know what I'm doing. And I'm almost, there's so much pressure to be good at everything. It's a rare treat to be stuck as a beginner.

[43:16]

this year and I'm still no good at it. I've been sitting here thinking, oh, jeez, I'm still going to be hopeless. And then I thought, oh, good. It's a wonderful attitude. Most people don't have much comfort. I certainly don't have any comfort at all in being no good at things and just being a beginner. Yeah, it's time. Is there anybody? Yeah. My question has young woman here spoke about watching the breath and then watching the thoughts and all of that. And there are times in which that happens to me. There are times, both of the times anyway, that's my condition. And I noticed that there is almost like a forcing to come back to the breath. And in that forcing,

[44:24]

It's almost like counterproductive to what we're here for, you know. It's like the allowing is lost, you know. And so it's interesting because at the same time that we're talking about effort, there's something efforting which is not. Forcing the outcome. There seems to be a lot of self behind it. And another thing is to be here and allow things to happen. And yet, you know, what is the quality of that quote unquote effort? So those are the things for you to hold gently.

[45:41]

Enforcing it and being in la-la land. The person who's watching both of those occurring is sustaining the right amount of effort. Just noticing that those two are occurring. There's some one layer behind that which is observing all of it. And that's probably the gentle holding that you're talking about. We're going to have more time for discussion at the end, so if you have more questions or if you think of more, we'll have a chance to discuss it later.

[46:12]

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