Good morning, everybody. Good morning. My name is Ross, for those who may not know me. for those. I like recycling. This is a recycled paper from a talk he gave. Well, I hope everybody today has a great sashim or zazenkai or one day sitting, whatever they call it.

[01:02]

I was asked to give the talk today and the person who asked me said something about, well we can always talk about beginner's mind, which is the mind that Suzuki Roshi talked about, that is the most appropriate mind to practice with, as if you're fresh and new to each moment like a child. But that's the ideal. because we're not like a child. That's how we should practice as if it's never happened before and each moment is new and we're totally open to it. Well, it is true. Each moment is new and fresh and it's never happened before and we're totally changing and totally new each moment. So in some sense of the word we are like a child.

[02:08]

However, we all fall and stumble and realize too that we're adults with years and years of history and accumulated karma and judgments and all the things that keep us separate from what's happening in each moment. So we have to practice with beginner's mind, moment after moment, and at the same time, we have to practice with the mind that we have, which is full of all the adult, non-beginning stuff. And through Zazen, we can hopefully clear away some of this accumulated activities that influenced us. And we can never get rid of this accumulation. That's one of the ideas that we have.

[03:14]

We can sit zazen and fix ourselves and get rid of all this accumulated stuff. But that stuff is called karma, which is what we have accumulated from previous lifetimes up to this moment. And that's what we have to work with. So the question of sitting Zazen, doing Buddhist practice, and getting on with our lives requires a lot of effort. And things are going to come up in your life, which I'm sure they have already, and will continue to come up. which will impede your progress and your practice. And you'll never know when it's going to happen. About a year ago, something started happening to me in my life.

[04:22]

And since the past year, it's been pretty difficult. For those who know me, know some of the details. I won't go into all of it, but suffice it to say it's been a tough year, but I'm still here, still breathing and practicing. So we all have to find a way to carry on with our life and our practice, and everybody does it differently. But one variation of or another in this mode of carrying on revolves around faith. So I want to talk today a little bit about Buddhist faith. And I want to talk about innocence.

[05:26]

existence of life. Well, the three marks of existence are suffering, impermanence, and no self. And this is basic Buddhism. And if anyone asks you what is Buddhism about, you can tell them those three things, and you'll be right. And you can not have to say anything else. arguing and on and on and on. But anyway, the important thing to remember is that there is suffering. There is impermanence or transiency and there's no abiding self or soul. One could give a whole class or series of lectures just on these three tenets. But today what I want to talk about was how faith relates to those three things.

[06:31]

For me, and I think if you look at your own life, you'll find out that there's not a whole lot that you can count on. And I spent a lot of time, energy, money, all the stuff that we're made of. Putting myself in situations and pointing myself in a direction that I thought was the right way to go. And I think for the most part, it was the decisions I made were good ones. And I feel very appreciative of my parents and family and all my Dharma pals, my co-workers and all the people that have influenced me in one direction or another over the 38 years I've been around here. And when I had this setback in my life, I started thinking, well here was this sort of tower or

[07:43]

structure of my life that I thought was pretty solid and my foundations being tampered with. So some of you might have gotten the foundation fundraising letter in the mail for Berkley Zen Center's temple. And I swear all the money went to Berkley Zen Center and not to my foundation. But in any case, we all have a foundation that we're working on. And in order to keep it intact, it takes a lot of work. So These three marks of existence, the first one being suffering, that you should have faith, you should look at your faith in suffering. And suffering is not just whimpering and crying.

[08:46]

but suffering that things are slightly askew, slightly off, not quite right, not quite satisfactory, always adjusting a little bit, either physically or mentally, to get comfortable. And that's one of the things that we all do. So there is faith. There's truth in that very existence. And to think that it doesn't exist is an illusion. And I'm guilty of that illusion or having that illusion. This doesn't mean that you should walk around saying, well, things are falling apart and everything's uncomfortable and that's just the way it is. What we should practice with is finding that place when we're sitting, as Mel talks about often, and feeling that spot, and when we're a little uncomfortable, to feel that spot and to come back to that perfect center.

[09:54]

It's an ongoing practice. And the trick is to carry it with us all the time. And an easy way of doing that is following one's breath, not only in zazen, but at work and at play and all about, that you can come back to that center. But it's not permanent. it will always be changing, which is another mark of existence. Transiency or impermanence. Things are constantly in a state of flux and change. And if you think that things are fixed, you're wrong. They're not fixed. They're always changing. Things that appear very solid are slowly decaying. Suzuki Roshi has a very good chapter on transiency in Zen Mind Beginner's Mind that I recommend people to read. So knowing things are in a constant state of flux or change, we can go with that and having faith that things are in change.

[11:01]

wakes, it woke me up and it will wake you up too when things change drastically in your life or maybe not so drastically. Fran yesterday talked about life being somewhat like a ball in a rushing stream. Put the ball in and it just goes with the stream. So we can look at our life somewhat as being a ball in a stream and it goes this way and that way and it's influenced by this current and that current but constantly flowing and constantly changing. The last mark of existence is no soul or no self, no abiding self. And this relates to the other two in that because things are constantly changing, there's no fixed identity. called Ross. Ross is constantly changing. The Ross of a year ago is very different than the Ross today. There's some similarities, but there's lots of differences.

[12:08]

That, in fact, all we are are a collection of aggregates or heaps which is how we take the world in through our senses. And if you look at your own life and your own self, you'll see that you also have changed over the years, and your ideas about who you were probably have changed a lot. It's okay to have a sense of yourself and your identity, that's very important. You have to have some kind of identity, but it's important to have faith in no abiding self, nothing fixed. And in that way, you'll live your life a little lighter in that your fixed ideas about how things should be, how things shouldn't be, will not keep you from your

[13:12]

true path of going with circumstances as they arise. Buddhist faith is replaced with knowledge as one gains experience, whereas many other religions require their adherents to have faith forever. In Buddhism, faith drops away when one is just being completely. When we begin our practice we have faith or some idea of getting better and as we practice more and more this idea of getting better dissolves because we don't get much better. That's the news. But what we get, and this is the good news, is that we get clearer about our hindrances and our karma that I referred to earlier.

[14:17]

And we can live our life a lot softer on ourselves and others being aware of that. And that's through experience. Not through ideas of who we are, but actual experience of who we are. Suffice it to say, there are certain personality traits that are more user-friendly than others or more popular. But Buddhist practice should not be a popularity contest. There's all sorts of people in the world and we're all on the path together. Stay tuned to that. Be informed about yourself through your Zazen, and that experience will carry you forever.

[15:22]

I will be eating Oreos soon at lunch, and that's a very involved process of getting food in your mouth. And some of you might not have so much confidence about remembering all the details. However, as you do it more and more, a knowledge comes of how to do it, and an awareness, and then you're just eating. And the form of eating is just practicing eating. And you'll feel your foundation become a little more solid. And if you feel your foundation being shaky, it's okay. Just eat quietly. It's okay. But as with anything, with our experience, we'll become a little more rooted in our practice. Now faith, Buddhist faith is not intellectual acceptance of things.

[16:36]

This is how things ought to be. Buddhist faith is not blind acceptance of an unprovable tenet. And Buddhist faith doesn't have anything to do with a common phenomenon like the sun will rise. These are things that people have faith in but it's not really rooted in their own experience. It's rooted in other practices, other ideas. Buddhist faith is complete confidence in so-called other objects, be it ideas, or one's teacher, or the Buddha himself. This is also known as taking refuge in the three treasures, which are Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Buddha is the Buddha, the historical Buddha, or his representative, which at Berkeley Zen Center would be Mel, in the mind-to-mind transmission through the 2,500 years of succession.

[17:48]

The Dharma is the Buddha's teaching. and could also be looked at as all-phenomenon in the world. And the Sangha is the community of practitioners. For today it would be all of us in the Zendo. So taking refuge, or being one with, communing with, all three of those facets is what Buddhist faith relies on. and is informed by. Now having a faith in those three things is where our practice is informed and depending on your temperament or your karma, it might be related, you'll have more

[18:51]

tendency toward one over the other. You might be a Buddha type, you might be a Dharma type, or you might be a Sangha type. You don't have to panic, but try to balance all three. The downside of being too much of a Buddha type is that you can fall into idol worship. Either this figure here, which a lot of detractors of Buddhism say, you all are just a bunch of idol worshippers. I don't know if it's I-D-L-E or I-D-O-L, but in any case. with Shakyamuni Buddha's representative, who would be Sojourner Weissman, that it would be like a guru worship or him. And there's a difference between having respect for your teacher and having this sort of all-consuming worship and losing perspective. You want to be careful to take his guidance to heart.

[19:59]

but not lose yourself with the other two. The other two, Dharma and Sangha, give a balance. Now being too much of a dharma type, I tend to fall into that. That's following the rules and the teaching very minutely and not falling off of that line of teaching with interpretations which I, and maybe other people, feel is not what the Buddha taught, might be erroneous or watered down. So take the teachings to heart and don't be too tight or rigid with those teachings. A nice balance to that are the other two, which is a community of practitioners and a teacher. And they can keep you from being too rigid by pointing out things to you or just being in your face with, well, I don't have to explain that.

[21:03]

So, the third, the Sangha treasure, is the community of practitioners. And that's very important because this is not a hermetic practice. Having faith in the Sangha treasure is seeing and trusting the support of all of us, each one of us. And inanimate objects too. Suzuki Roshi talked about even the inanimate or the insentient. Like watches and pieces of cloth are also part of our Sangha. Now... One aspect of Sangha practice is the social aspect. And it's good and important to discuss the Dharma with your Dharma friends and Dharma relatives. But doing that too much or socializing without having the sitting practice or relationship with the teacher, it just becomes a social thing.

[22:10]

I come to BCC because I'm part of the BCC club. And you can get little tastes of the Dharma coming in that way, but you should look at, what am I doing here? And am I being informed about my life and Buddhist practice by just doing this social thing? I came to Buddhist practice looking for someone to couple with. So that was my initial thing. I just wanted company. I wanted a friend. And in order to sustain oneself in practice, it has to go beyond that. It has to go beyond that Sangha. It has to go beyond the teaching. It has to go beyond the teacher, if you really are going to sustain yourself through it. And through my practice in New York and practice here, over the 11 years, I've become friends and intimate with lots of people.

[23:22]

And I really value all of that. It's quite obvious that the nurturance that one gets from all of you supports my practice. And I have a lot of faith in that support. Faith in the first mark, which is suffering, and the Four Noble Truths, which is life is suffering, there is a cause to suffering, the cause is craving, there is an end to suffering, and the end of suffering is the Noble Eightfold Path. So having faith that life is suffering and that there are the Four Noble Truths that the Buddha taught, is seeing the unsatisfactoriness of life and wanting to come to terms with it.

[24:24]

This is raising the thought of enlightenment, which is a seminal teaching of Dogen Zenji, who's the 13th century Japanese Zen master who brought Buddhism from China, Soto Zen, from China to Japan. The third truth that there's a cessation to suffering is the realization, or faith, that there is potential for change, thus restoring clarity, sanity, and contentment in everyday life. So although we talk about this practice is very self-oriented, the faith is actually coming from something outside. It's actually an other practice. And the other practice or the other idea of practice is that there is this thing called enlightenment.

[25:27]

And that's kind of the carrot at the end of the stick that keeps us on the cushion. And what Dogen Zenji taught is that this very moment in zazen in Zazen is the same as this idea of something outside this chariot of enlightenment, and that right now we are okay as we are, and we're completely awake as we are. more to the point is that we have the potential for all this clarity and sanity and contentment which we're striving for and what we came to practice for whether we realize it or not. Mills talked about people usually find some way of describing how they came to practice and they'll pull out something saying, well, the reason I came to practice was I was looking for a relationship, or I was looking for this, or I was looking for that.

[26:35]

But actually, all the factors that came into our life that brought us to practice is, in some sense, it doesn't really matter. Here we are sitting, and this is what we have to live with and to work through. But when you really take the Buddhist practice to heart, you'll see that there is nothing to rely on. And all your ideas about what your crutches were and what your support was are not there. And that brings us back to those three marks of existence and the imperative that we have to see that things are constantly changing and that along with faith often comes doubt, which is questioning.

[27:36]

And the Buddha told his students and people who just passed through his group that you don't have to take my word for it, find out for yourself. So it's okay to have questions and doubts about these three marks of existence. And with time and patience you'll you will be informed that they're true. And if it's still a little hazy, it's okay. You just keep sitting. And hopefully with time, they'll be a little clearer and a little clearer. So it's okay to have doubt. If you're too doubtful, then it borders on cynicism. And if you're too faithful, then you're just accepting everything, and you're not watching out for yourself. So just like the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha needing to be balanced, one needs to balance their faith with doubt.

[28:38]

And typically, they come up without your asking. Sometimes it seems like you doubt everything. You know, I doubt everything. there's like hardly any faith to carry on. And then other times it seems very like doubt doesn't even exist and you're walking on top, you're almost like walking on a few feet above the ground and you have all this faith and you feel invincible and then something will happen to bring you back down. So you don't have to plan anything, just live your life and things will arise. which is how I'd like to end or bring this little talk to an end, which is having patience or forbearance, which is one of the paramitas, which is a way of practicing or things to look at in practice.

[29:45]

Having patience is very important. things unfold on themselves in their own time. And when we rush to have them unfold more quickly, often we get a rude awakening. So make the effort, which is another paramita, a vigor effort, to have patience and see things unfold And I found for myself, as difficult as it can be at times, by being patient and seeing things unfold on themselves, that their karma or the way things fall into place is how they're supposed to fall into place. even though we can't predict it because this isn't a fate practice. Things are changing and each moment they arise and in the next moment they fall apart.

[30:54]

But things happen quite naturally and there does seem to be an underlying reason or system or law of how things are. And by being open to it It might not be what you wanted necessarily, but it can be enriching and informing of how you have been in your life and how you might want to conduct yourself in the future. Patience enables one to bear present pain or hardship with calm endurance and future actions where one anticipates a situation, one sees it's right to develop patience. For instance, if you're commuting and you listen to the radio and there's a traffic jam up ahead.

[31:57]

you can get all excited about it and you can say, well now's the time to develop patience because I'm going to be late and breathe and drive. So either present or future, they're both opportunities to develop patience and have faith that it'll be okay if you're late. Lastly is faith in others, which is maybe the hardest thing. I catch myself often lacking faith in other people, especially about taking care of little details, and especially at work where I'm running around like a maniac trying to do everything for 30 people. And it's important to have faith that others will take care of it. And it might not be the way you wanted it, but the knowledge that other people are okay and that they have their own life to live and express will enable you and it certainly has enabled me to lighten up on my expectations and live life a little more more enjoyably.

[33:19]

Well, that's all Alan had to say. That's all Ross had to say. Does anybody have a question or comment or thought? Yes? I'm so happy that you lectured on what you lectured today because it was something that's been haunting me for the past two and a half weeks. A situation has come up where a friend of mine's 16-year-old daughter was struck with encephalitis. 16-year-old girl is paralyzed from here down. She can't speak. She's 16 years old. And my whole faith is completely crumpled. And even though I sat on a cushion and I thought I could understand the world and probably handle whatever A situation like this, which is so real, and even though it's not my daughter, it's my friend's daughter, it's such a living example that these people will have to deal with for the rest of their lives and all of us.

[34:40]

In fact, with this innocent child, the suffering will be endless in their lives. I don't know how to make sense of it as a Buddhist, or as a person, or as a friend. It really shatters all of us. Yeah, I bet. I've had similar experiences in my own family, and it doesn't make any sense at all. And trying to make sense out of it can really be And it's really difficult to accept something like that. For me, what I saw when I had to go through that kind of pain in my family, I saw this chain of suffering and how it just permeates out.

[35:42]

and there's definitely a feeling of hopelessness and helplessness and why and why and all that and that's really difficult to sit with. But the unexplained why it happened is that things are and that there is impermanence. And there's no soul. And oftentimes that's not much consolation for a really deep-rooted pain and anguish. One of my first teachers in this practice said something about This practice isn't going to necessarily make you feel good.

[36:50]

And he's right. Sometimes it doesn't feel so good. And at the same time, you should have support for situations like this, and your friends should have the appropriate support to handle something like that. Because even though things change and an able-bodied child can no longer function that way, there has to be the appropriate resources for them to adjust to this new life. Just as we're constantly adjusting to our new situations, maybe we don't need as much help, we don't need the professional services, but at the same time, it's no different than us. We have to adjust too. So I wish you a lot of support and comfort and your friends too. Sammy? Are we saying that he shouldn't try and make sense out of things that don't make sense?

[38:14]

Well, What I'm saying is that you can try to make sense out of things that seemingly don't make sense. But my inspiration is the very complicated law of cause and effect, and that the numerous causes that brought us to here and the effects from that that are going to carry on into the future, it's impossible to trace all of them. So the best that we can do is ascribe a certain amount of truth to some of those causes. For instance, in illness, we can track or trace certain problems through biology, physiology, as to why something develops.

[39:17]

But there's lots of other factors that come into play. And something more rudimentary is, why does this coffee taste so horrible? I work at a coffee store. It's seemingly more simple. Oh, well, the coffee's just over-roasted. But that doesn't take into account the person who was roasting it and the constant conditions that they were in at the moment of their work and what was happening in the store, what was happening on the planet. There's all these things that come in. So I think what we all do, and myself included, is that I try to find some truth or some sense about why this is happening. And that's all we have to work with. And it's the relative world. It's why I have difficult times relating to people, for instance.

[40:20]

I can look at my habitual behavior and say, well, the reason I'm this way is because I'm filled with, well, great hate and delusion. But that doesn't explain it enough. And one can go deeper and further and further into all that. But actually to me it always feels like it's not quite enough. So you should make the effort to find out why. Why things are happening and try to make sense out of it. And realize that it's a provisional making sense, that it's not ultimate, it's just provisional. In this moment, the reason this isn't working, or why there's this discomfort, is because of X, Y, and Z, and not cling to it, because in the next moment, the conditions are going to be different. Does that make sense?

[41:24]

Yeah, I mean, you were talking before, Maybe it isn't necessary to make sense of things. Maybe they just don't fall into place. While you're sitting. Right. Well, there's two things going on. There's the relative trying to make sense of things, and then there's the underlying principle that there is cause and effect happening, regardless of us trying to make sense out of it. Suzuki Roshi says, that's often quoted, you know, you're okay just as you are and you could use some help. So the coffee tastes great and it could be a little better. The belts are fine and they could be a little better. So how do we balance both those things? And for me, I think it's just having faith that everything is okay and I need to make an effort because our practice really is filled and fulfilled with effort.

[42:35]

for your attention and have a great remaining few hours of our Sashin and have faith.

[42:59]

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