I think it's fun. Today, Peter Overton, who generally sits with you, is giving the lecture at San Francisco Zen Center. And I practice now at San Francisco Zen Center, though I began here. And I'm over here to lecture. And I really like that we are doing that, that we keep alive the fact that the Sangha which has grown out of Suzuki Roshi's coming to America is one Sangha and they were all Dharma brothers and sisters. And I would urge you all to feel quite welcome to come to San Francisco Zen Center from time to time if you feel like it as many of our residents come to visit here. This is really my Dharma home. I began at the Berkeley Sendoh on Dwight Way and sat with Mel for three years before I went to Tulsa Haram.

[01:29]

So I'm very glad to be here and those of you who have heard me speak before I hope it's not a great disappointment. I really only have one thing to talk about, and I talk about it all the time. And I always try to find maybe some different way to approach it, but really it's... When I first met Suzuki Roshi, the first time I heard him speak, He said, you're perfect just as you are. You have everything you need. And I was feeling particularly aware of my imperfection and couldn't understand what he was talking about. But I feel that there was something somewhere in me

[02:39]

who heard that and perked up and said, I have to hear more about that. I don't understand it, but somewhere in me, something understood it and wanted to hear more about it. And Covincino said, when a person realizes that it's completely his or her responsibility to manifest Buddha life in the world. Naturally, such a person sits down for a while. It's not an intended action, it's a natural action. And Kadagiri Roshi says, we sit to settle the self on the self and let the flower of the life force bloom. All of these are pointing to one thing.

[03:43]

This fundamental teaching of Buddhism, that each being is perfect and complete as it is. That our fundamental nature is, we say in Buddhism, is Buddha nature, is the nature of awakening. and that each of us is a manifestation of this fundamental nature of all being. Suzuki Roshi says a human being practicing true human nature is what our practice is about. So How is it that we find ourselves feeling far from perfect?

[04:48]

That when we hear someone say, you're perfect just as you are, when I heard someone say, you're perfect just as you are, it seemed like almost an absurdity. When I thought about it, when I tried to make sense of it, Although, as I say, something in me resonated with that and came back again and again to see if I couldn't find some way to understand what he was talking about. He didn't, therefore, say, you don't need to make any effort. He said, our practice is to make effort, make your best effort on each moment forever. And then this became a big question for me, well, what does it mean to make effort if you're perfect just as you are?

[05:53]

What kind of effort do you make then? And as I work with that question, which is a question that I sit with often, maybe always, it seems that it's something like making effort to bring this particular body and mind, this particular manifestation of the fundamental nature of all being more in accord with its fundamental nature, more in accord with the ... This is if you are used to sometimes ask this too, what is your innermost request?

[06:58]

Somehow more in accord with my innermost intention to manifest Buddha-life in the world, in spite of the obstructions that come up from the greed, hate and delusion that arise in my mind and that affect the actions of body, speech and mind. So bringing the actions of this body, speech and mind more in accord with this fundamental nature is what what I think practice is about. Developing awareness, noticing what the obstructions are to acting in a harmonious way with our innermost request. Noticing when we feel some hesitation and paying attention to that and seeing maybe this is an action of body, speech or mind that

[08:09]

I don't really want to do, but I may feel some impulse to do it, and I may feel some hesitation. And pay a little attention to that hesitation to see where it's coming from. As dear Anne mentioned, I'm currently Tenzo at the city, head of the kitchen. And so naturally I've been, again, reading Dogen Sanji's Instructions to the Head Cook, and in particular, Uchiyama Roshi's translation and commentary, which is in a book called Refining Your Life, which I recommend to you. In Japanese, his title was How to Cook Your Life. It's not just instructions for the head cook of his head monastery.

[09:14]

It is in fact about refining your life in every situation or about taking care of your life in every situation. And I believe that this taking care of your life has to do with bringing your actions, your everyday actions, in the particular circumstances of your life, in moment after moment, in to accord with your fundamental intention, your fundamental Buddha nature. And our practice is just tuning in more and more carefully, becoming more and more aware of what our fundamental intention is or belongs. How we really want to live. This practice is about, how do I want to live this life?

[10:16]

This is the question that we all have. Here we are, how shall I live this life? And our life of practice is just unfolding that question moment after moment in various situations and circumstances in our life. And one of the stories that Dogen Zenji tells in his instructions to the head cook, he tells about going to China. and meeting the head cook of a monastery who came to the boat. He came from Japan on a boat, and he had to stay on the boat, I guess while his immigration papers were gotten in order. And while he was staying on the boat, this rather venerable monk came to the boat,

[11:21]

And he was all excited, oh he'd finally come all the way to China, at some considerable risk of life and limb, to meet real Chinese Zen monks. And here was one right there on the boat with him. He said, oh how wonderful. Please stay and have some tea with me. And he said, oh I'm sorry. I just came to get some mushrooms. Tomorrow's the holiday and I want to have something nice. And I came to get some mushrooms from your boat, but I can't stay because I have to go back to the monastery." And it turns out he had... Dogen Zenji was astonished and said, but you were a venerable monk. Why would you be doing something like cooking? He was an aristocrat. For him, The life of a monk was a life of meditation and ritual and study. He had been studying, but he was a monk in a culture that respected scholars and didn't respect just the ordinary labor of life.

[12:28]

So for a venerable monk to be a cook was just amazing. And he said, but surely somebody else can come. I said, but this is the work of my old... I've been given this responsibility in my old age and I need to take care of it. But why do you have to do it? Surely somebody else can do it. He said, someone else, it's not me. So they had this discussion, and he said, I'm sorry, how far do you have to go? Well, it's about 14 miles. He walked there, he's going to walk back. And he was very puzzled, and the monk said to him,

[13:29]

Or this young man from a foreign country. You don't really understand. I guess they were talking about reading and studying characters, Chinese characters. You don't understand the meaning of characters or the meaning of practice. And he said, well tell me, what are the meaning of characters? What is the meaning of practice? And he said, if you don't make a mistake about this, if you really pursue these questions, you will become a true man of the way. And he left to go back to the monastery. And later that summer, they met again. The monk was going to return to his home, and so he came to seek Dokuzenji out, see how he was doing, before he returned to his home from the monastery. And they got into a discussion again about it.

[14:39]

And he said, well tell me, what is the meaning of characters? And what is the meaning of practice? Or what is the meaning of characters? And he said, what are characters? One, two, three, four, five. Everything. What is the meaning of practice? Nothing at all is hidden. So, everything is practice and nothing is hidden. The truth is right in front of you. The truth is just things as it is, just like this. It's very hard for us to see the truth, because we have so many... It's hard for us to see things as it is, because we have so many ideas about it.

[15:44]

And in particular, we have ideas about this body and mind, with which we identify as ourself. And we get confused that whatever we are, it's limited to just this appearance, just this skin bag, it's sometimes referred to in Buddhism. And we miss the larger context of what this is we we overlook the total connectedness of this particular manifestation of true human nature and all the other manifestations of true human nature of this particular flowering of the light force

[16:54]

and all of the other flowerings of the life force. You miss the fact that everything that lives is living the same life. The life that I live is not different than the life that you live. It is the same life force expressing itself here like this and there like this. So we talk a lot in Buddhism about the apparent and the real. And according to appearances, you and I are completely separate. But is that the case in reality? When we get caught up in this delusion of

[18:00]

the separateness of subject and object, we fall into some confusion. And it's hard for our actions to be completely appropriate to the circumstances that we find ourselves in, because we're leaving out this important ingredient of our connection, our vital connection, with everything. In his discussion of the remarks of the monk to Dōgo Zenji, Yama Roshi quotes a poem by Shuedu, which I want to read to you. It's 1735.

[19:08]

The truth you search for cannot be grasped. As night advances, a bright moon illuminates the whole ocean. The dragon's jewels are found in every wave. Looking for the moon, it is here, in this wave, in the next. Each wave, each wave is just like each being. There is the whole ocean and each wave is just one being after another, all arising and returning to the ocean. The moon, representing what? Truth?

[20:11]

Reality? Wisdom? It's in each wave. It's in this sense that we're perfect just as we are. Each wave contains the whole moon. And each wave is just arising from the ocean and returning to the ocean. And never separate from the ocean and only apparently separate from the other waves. We chant a long poem which was written by one of the founders of this particular stream of Zen, Dongshan Liangjie, in Japanese, Tozan Ryokan, the To of Soto Zen.

[21:22]

And The Song of the Jewel of Mirror Samadhi is the name of the poem, and we chanted it in morning service at City Center. I suspect you chanted it for some time, too. Did you? Yes. The Teaching of Thusness? Yes. In it, he's talking about the apparent and the real. or the relative and the absolute, or sort of apparently separate individual phenomena or beings and the unity of all being, this apparent

[22:30]

dichotomy about which the situation is always saying, not one, not two. It's not that there are not... Appearance and reality are not exactly the same. They're also not different. So it says in the poem, filling a silver bowl with snow, hiding a heron in the moonlight. Filling a silver bowl with snow, or putting a white heron in front of the moon, when you array them, they're not the same. When you mix them, you know where they are. They're not exactly identical, but they're not exactly different. And this is the kind of mystery of how things really are that we study when Dogen Sanji says, to study Buddhism is to study the self.

[23:46]

And to study the self is to forget the self. And to forget the self is to be awakened by all things. Or as perhaps to really understand your connection to all things or your identity with all things. So that this apparent separation between subject and object that we get confused by, we can see through this apparent separation. And Dongshan's poem, when he... I don't want to go through the whole discussion of his great awakening, but the poem that he wrote, when he finally saw this

[24:56]

is like this. I'm going to change it to feminine because I'm a woman but you can use whichever pronoun is appropriate to you. Avoid seeking her in someone else or you will be far apart from the self. Solitary now am I and independent but I meet her everywhere. She now is surely me, but I am not her. Understanding it in this way, you will directly be one with thusness." Or he says in the poem, it's like facing a jeweled mirror. Form and image behold each other. You are not it, but it actually is you. You are not true human nature, but true human nature actually is what you are.

[26:19]

There is a section of the poem, Toward the End, that someone asked me about recently in a practice discussion. A minister serves the Lord. A son obeys the father. Not obeying is not filial and not serving is no help. Practice secretly, working within, as though a fool, like an idiot. If you can achieve continuity, this is called a host within the host. And so someone brought up this question of what is this A minister serves the Lord, a son obeys the father. Again, if you think it's talking about two people, you and someone else, if you say, oh, that's talking about this hierarchical, patriarchal situation that we're in, you miss the point.

[27:30]

He uses this metaphor because that's the society he was in. This is a metaphor that naturally came to mind in the Confucian society that Tozan was living in. But when he talks about son and father and minister and lord, he's again talking about this apparent and real, or the relative and absolute, or this this human person practicing true human nature when you can bring the actions of body speech and mind of this this manifestation of Buddha into accord with your inmost request into accord with the father into accord with the lord your own That innermost nature, that innermost request, that fundamental nature of who you are, when you can bring the day-to-day activities of body, speech, and mind into harmony with how you really want to live, this is the minister serving the Lord.

[28:48]

This is the son of man and father. And he says, if you can achieve continuity, This is called the host within the host. This is no longer host and guest. This is the host within the host. If you can, moment after moment, bring the activity of your life into accord with who you really are, with your fundamental Buddha nature, this is called the host within the host. Practice secretly, working within. You're not trying to show anyone else. You're just trying to bring this human person into accord with true human nature. To bring yourself into harmony with how you really want to live.

[29:52]

And so because of greed, hate and delusion, we have to keep making this effort forever. There isn't some time that we finally do it and it's done and we don't have to try anymore. Because greed, hate and delusion are always arising, because this fundamental delusion that we, this subject, is separate from all that we see, We're continually have to renew this effort again and again. And that's the wonderful thing about this practice. It never gets used up and worn out. It will always serve us throughout our life. So maybe that's enough for now and we can talk about it together a little bit. Are there any questions or comments Discussion?

[30:59]

In the Bodhisattva Sermon it says, beginningless greed, hate and delusion. Why do you think it's beginningless? I think it's just the nature of thought. that as soon as you put things in words, they're subject and object. So somehow the nature of discursive thought brings up this separation of subject and object. All the time the nature of language is based in subject and object. So we continually get caught up in this delusion of separateness of subject and object. And of course as subject if you feel separate from object then either grasping or aversion as between

[32:20]

this apparently separate subject and this apparently separate object can arise. So that greed and hate come up with this delusion that there's some separate separation. And as, you know, as the saying goes again and again, it's not one, not two, it's we're not separate but There's a way in which we appear separate. There is this, I mean, each wave appears separate from each other wave, even though they're both all the ocean. And because of the way human consciousness works, we we get caught in just thinking that that separation is what's real. And I think that, you know, that's the best way I can approach why it's beginningless and endless.

[33:28]

But how about a Buddha? Would the Buddha have ended it? Maybe a Buddha does end it, but we vow as bodhisattvas to stay with all suffering beings in this world of delusion. And I don't know, the Buddha, the Buddha when he had his awakening, you know, instead of wasn't going to say anything about it, because people are not going to understand. And so he just sat there in the midst of his realization until he was asked to please talk about it. So in one way, in our tradition, we say that every teacher stands in the place of Buddha for us.

[34:58]

And I've met some pretty neat teachers in my day, beginning with Suzuki Roshi, and certainly there's a way in which I think of him as a Buddha, And certainly there's a way in which I think of him as an ordinary being who sometimes was angry, sometimes was forgetful. He got so excited about seeing all these lovely things down at the bottom of the creek, down at the narrows, that he forgot he couldn't swim and he almost drowned. Yes. If the Buddha sat maintaining silence with his understanding, how is it that it was acknowledged by someone, I suppose, that he had this understanding, so that a request was made that he speak?

[36:17]

Well, it's said that Indra, the king of the gods, came to him and asked him to speak. So I suppose he had some supernatural power to see the Buddha's awakening, even though he hadn't said anything. My mother had this expression, plus, you dare, Charlie? How do I know? All I know is the legends about it. It's true. I think so. I think there must be a problem. It's certainly a problem for me sitting up here to know is it appropriate for me to do it.

[37:21]

And the way I solve it is just to try to say yes when people ask me to do things. And I do the best I can. A long time ago someone recommended to me that I just try saying yes. So, I keep trying. I find myself going back to your original comment that Suzuki Goshi is saying to you, that you're perfect just as you are, and wanting to hear the stages of your arrival at that awareness, which I kind of assume you got that sense of. Well, as I say, somehow, the best I can talk about it is something like, in my cognitive mind, I kept arguing with, well, I mean, what I said to myself the first time I heard him say that was, oh, he doesn't know me.

[38:33]

You know, I'm new here and he doesn't know me. And so he doesn't mean me, he means these other people who are here. But then I heard him, on many occasions, say things that kept pointing in that direction. That, in fact, everyone is of... of this nature of Buddha. Everyone is complete and doesn't have to look outside themselves to find the truth. That the truth is right here along with all the mess that we're caught up in. And that as a teacher, what he kept doing was encouraging me to find clarity in myself.

[39:39]

and encouraging me by continuing to point to the fact that I could do that, that it was here. It wasn't somewhere else. As Tom-San says, if you look for it somewhere, if you look for it in someone else, you'll always be separated from it because your own truth is right here and you can trust it completely. You need the teacher to be the object. So it's subject and object at that point. It's the same kind of duality. At that point, it's very helpful to have a teacher who keeps encouraging you. It's also very helpful to have a teacher who keeps reminding you that I do not have something that you don't have. I do not have something to give you. One of my teachers said to me once, you want me to give you something. I couldn't understand how he came to that. I mean, I asked him a question.

[40:43]

I can't remember what the question was. But I couldn't see what relationship that answer had to the question. But I could acknowledge that it was true. I wanted him to give me something. But I didn't know how that question had elicited that response. So sometimes teachers say strange things in response to your questions. But it's true, I kept looking for teachers to give me what I thought was missing here. And all they would ever do is keep saying, it's not missing, keep looking for it where you are. Keep paying attention where you are, because it's right there. You are never separate. As Dogen said, he says, you're never separate from it, right where you are. Another place he says something, in Genjo Koan. Genjo Koan is wonderful, by the way, in this book. He says, no creature is ever, no creature ever

[41:51]

fails in its own completeness. These are just kinds of hints or clues or suggestions for practice that teachers keep giving us. And it's up to us to to just to keep sitting with the ones that we find response to. See, what I'm talking about are the, I mean, many teachers have said many things to me and some of them have kind of hit a mark in me where I said, oh, I wonder what that means. And what I think happens when I say, oh, He said that. I wonder what that means is that something in me has responded to it and that has become my question to worry with.

[43:01]

Another time he said, you can take care of others but first you have to take care of yourself. Do you understand? And he was very intense about it and I had to take that up because I kept saying, Because when he said, do you understand? I said, yes. But then I got out of there and again I got into, no, no, that's selfish. Zen is about no self, not taking care of yourself. No, that's just what I was talking about. I don't want to be selfish. I want to take care of others. But he was a Zen master. Why would he say that? And who said yes? What does it mean to take care of yourself? So now, instead of saying, no, no, that's not right, I have to say, well, what could he mean when he said, first, you have to take care of yourself? How do I take care of myself? What self is it, if I take care of it, can't help others? You know, I had to kind of worry around this question that I had some response to.

[44:03]

and realize that he had given me an entrance to studying myself. So the thought that you had around the yes was all the conditioning, because you had the insight at that moment, and if you could have traveled from there, all that would have been superfluous. Right, right. But I couldn't. I had a lot of conditioning. I had a lot of concepts, a lot of ideas, about who I was. But something about that instruction from him arrested my attention enough that it became, again, a focus for me to study myself. So when you hear something from a teacher that you feel some response to, That's an entrance for you to work with, like your own personal koan, and talk to your teacher about it some more, and see what it has to teach you.

[45:09]

I don't know, I have no idea how to respond to that. Well, the reason is, why I don't know how to respond to that is my skill and means is not so developed and I don't know you well enough to know what would be most helpful to you in your practice. thoughts, the bad is sort of hiding a little bit, sort of waiting to pop up. But no thought, it seems like I naturally just act, I mean, I sound like, but no thought, I'm not acting bad or anything, I just naturally act good, but I'm not really thinking it. Well, you've got your own answer. Yeah. When I'm acting out of an idea of what I ought to do or who I am or something, there's a separation. from actual connection to the momentary situation.

[46:42]

When I can respond directly, you know, as she said, when Suzuki Roshi came at me so suddenly with that, do you understand? I said yes. Spontaneously something in me understood and said yes. And then all the thought around it came up and I'd gotten a great muddle. That often happens to me. I don't know about you. It often happens to me. But thoughts, you know, that doesn't mean, therefore, that somehow we want to suppress thoughts. Thoughts, in our mindset, it kind of secretes thoughts like, you know, like Lawrence Wells' bubble machine puts out mugs. The main thing is not to get caught by your thoughts, and not to imagine that each thought, that thoughts are reality, or even thoughts are a description of reality.

[47:52]

Thoughts are thoughts. And reality is more something that's seen more directly, not through a screen of words. and concepts. I think, according to my instructions, that my time is up, and it's time for tea, unless anybody has another burning question.

[48:29]

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