Our speaker this morning is Paul Haller who is the Tanto or the head of practice at San Francisco Zen Center in the city. He's been here before and we're happy to have him talk with us this morning. Thank you. About a couple of months ago, someone came to the center in the city, and he said to me, after we talked a little bit, he said, I want to be the next Buddha. Personally, I was charmed by it. I thought, that's wonderful. Of course, in strict Zen terms, you know, we'd give him 30 blows and throw him out. because he didn't realize he was already Buddha, that he was blaspheming.

[01:10]

But in less strict terms, a very charming, to me anyway, sentiment. And then I was thinking, you know, after he's been around a while, he will probably blush when he remembers having said such a thing. So I'll keep his identity a secret. But I think there's something there, especially in our society and how we relate to the world, that I think for many of us, being Buddha is more appealing than being Buddhist. That personal truth, personal integrity, validation in relationship to that,

[02:14]

is very important to us and a motivator in our spiritual quest. So when we approach something as vast as the realm of practice, our sense is more to be Buddha. And of course that's wonderful and it's terrible. Someone said to me very recently, I have a real approach avoidance with you. And in one hand, I want to practice with you. And in the other hand, I really don't want you to tell me what to do. And I fear getting into a situation where that would be either expected or possible.

[03:17]

And to me that's linked to this wanting to be Buddha and maybe our heritage of our society of the integrity of the individual rights we have. There's a con not exactly about this, but in another way it is, where Mbacho, who was a famous then teacher, and at this time he had a disciple, Thaume, and this disciple had practiced with him a long time, and in fact had received transmission, but he was still practicing with him, and he said to him, what is Buddha? And Baxo's response was, this very mind is Buddha. And when I was thinking the way I've just been describing, I think this is a wonderful passage for us.

[04:31]

Because it takes the strength of what I think comes up naturally for many of us around our individuality. and it draws us into the request to practice. This very mind is Buddha. So it both confirms us and it challenges us. And when this person said to me, I don't want to be told what to do. For me, I thought of trust. Because the deficit of our individuality is that we have something separate that we need to protect because it's Buddha, because we want it to be Buddha.

[05:49]

told it already is Buddha. So how can we compromise it in relationship to anything? Whether it's what someone who's practiced longer than us wants to say to us, how can we compromise it in relationship to another person, a lover? How can we compromise it in relationship to society? When we look at any one of these and see they're not perfect, that they have flaws, how can we bring forward a trust? Particularly in design. We talk about coming forward and being what's happening.

[06:54]

Yesterday I asked someone what I should talk about and she said to me, talk about the mind that arises when you open the door to the Zen door. And I thought about it, and I said to her, that's very strict. That's a very fierce teaching. And she said, yeah, you said that to me last year. So this is the delights. When we become familiar with each other, we can move back and forth, and the sense of individuality of compromise, they disappear and something can flow, something delightful and something very instructive.

[08:06]

Her saying that to me was very helpful for me. It helped me stay on track. It helped me realize that if I trust this very mind of Buddha, the very mind of opening the door to the Buddha hall, to coming in, to entering, it's Buddha. What else could be expressed? What else would need to be expressed? So how can we trust this kind of naked engagement that doesn't offer us any guarantees, that doesn't have a... that isn't protected by established accomplishment.

[09:08]

I don't think we can. In a way, Ba Xiu's teaching is impossible. This very mind is Buddha. As I was walking in, Zazen instruction was being given and the instructor was saying, at first this posture might feel a little unnatural and a little uncomfortable. And eventually, it'll feel comfortable. And I thought, yeah, maybe. Maybe 10 years, maybe 20 years, or maybe for a moment. First time you sit. So right at the heart of how we engage in the request practice is a very interesting koan.

[10:24]

And when we say this mind is Buddha, really it relates to all our relationships, to the forms of city, to the consciousness that arises. Can the consciousness that arises totally trust the moment? To be present with whatever's happening without reservation? And then we're asked to carry it into our lives. Can we trust this society? Can we trust it to be part of it? And in all these aspects, what they're really asking us to do is to become involved with them and then become intimate with them. And if we say, no, I can't trust society, discussion closed, life is diminished.

[11:38]

Our Buddha isn't extending into society. We've set up barriers. And it might throw at us a very provocative question. How could the society be trustworthy? How much can I trust it now? And then, that's the next step. What is the appropriate response to the condition of our society as I'm looking at it? And what immediate trust can I offer? So we experiment. We experiment with entering into the zendo without knowing exactly what's going to happen.

[12:43]

But we don't do it ignorant. Ignorant in both sense. We don't do it ignoring what is happening. And we don't do it without the thoughtfulness that's offered by the tradition. The traditional Buddhism that we have our love-hate relationship with offers us a passage into the moment and we negotiate that passage from where we are to where we ought we negotiated with our own reservations and limitations. So in some ways we're matching, like when we take it back to city, which is such an essential, simple

[13:59]

What is asked of us to do with this body, if we just take it on that level of sitting up straight, balanced, open, letting it be without manipulation, it's a bottomless challenge. It plunges us into something. and the light that arises from it shows us the particulars of who we are as a person. When we aspire to the body of Buddha, we see the body we've got. We see the way we cross our legs, the limitations of it. We become very intimate as we sit a while, a day or so, with our sitting bones, the relationship to the cushion that we sit on.

[15:06]

We make minuscule adjustments. We become very intimate with this body, with the ways that it holds tension. in its breath, in our body, all over. And then we have this puzzle. What do we do with this limited being that we are in relation to these forms that are asking everything? They're asking us to totally be in the moment. The fiercest, strictest, most demanding teaching that we can ask, that be asked of us. So from this background, Tapé asks his teacher, who he studied with, I guess, over 20 years,

[16:18]

Is Buddha this ideal form that I should keep reaching for? Or is Buddha this limited person? And his teacher says every mind is Buddha. and of course this answer includes both sides it includes the ideal and it includes the limited and what it's really talking about is the meeting point because where we meet the tradition with our own life It is where it happens.

[17:24]

It's where the practice happens. It doesn't really matter where someone else sits. What matters is how you sit. How I sit. This very mind is Buddha. How does this very body sits us? It doesn't really matter if 2,500 years ago, someone did it perfectly. It doesn't really matter if everyone else is supposedly doing it perfectly, whatever that is. What really matters is this very mind. And yet, this freedom is discovered in the realm of particularity. This capacity to go beyond distinction, to be free, is discovered in a very exact place.

[18:33]

It's discovered in the meeting place between the tradition, all the teachings that it holds, all on the images of perfection, of idealism that it holds, where that meets me as a person, as a limited neurotic being, where those two meet and touch in this moment So when someone comes in the door and says, I want to be the next Buddha, we honor it.

[19:41]

And it's an interesting challenge. How much should we honor it? Should we honor it so much that we immediately strike him with a stick? Or should we honor him and tell him to come to us as an instruction? And of course his path is his path and not the path of anyone else. And how he will take that and relate it to the demand, the request, the expectation of the forms that we have here will will be his personal drama.

[20:46]

Each one of us engages in these forms with a wonderful kind of personal drama. What we like about them, and what we dislike about them, and what they provoke in us, and how we create ourselves in relationship to them, and how we create them in relationship to us. And the exacting nature of our practice is that all of these dramas, all of these reactions and interactions are Buddha. And all of these reactions and interactions can distract us and knock us off the path, can push us back into a fearful place, can push us back into a sense of feeling I'm being compromised. I'm not being true to myself.

[21:53]

Or pushes into a place of I have to be submissive. I have to let go of my ego and submit to the teaching. And so we have this wonderful calling. This is the richness of our practice and this is the shit of our practice, the stink of it. And it can brighten our lives and it can muddy our lives. And how do we stay true to this very mind that's Buddha? So with each of these stories then there is a comic.

[23:11]

Here's what the comic is. Wu Ming says, if you grasp this point directly, There's this razor's edge of the exactness of what's going on. You wear Buddha's robes, you eat Buddha's food, you speak Buddha's words, you take Buddha's role. So when we're on the point, when we're in the moment, that's it. That's Buddha. What we're wearing is Buddha's robes. What we're eating is Buddha's food. And what we say is Buddha's words. That is, you yourself are Buddha. And then he refers to the person who asked the question. And he says, Thamme, whoever, misled quite a few people into trusting a broken skill.

[24:15]

So, We can be misled by Dātta. Sometimes when we say, what is Buddha? We say it as if this is not Buddha. This is not it, where is it? So it's not enough to say, I want to be the next Buddha. That's misleading yourself and misleading others. Don't you know you should rinse out your mouth for three days when you utter the name of Buddha? So there he's saying, don't hang up, don't get hung up on symbols. Don't get hung up on projections or concepts.

[25:20]

This is it. It's not some special event that's not here. It's not some... It doesn't smell some special way or have some special feel to it. This is it. If you're genuine, you'll run away holding your ears upon hearing the words, this very line, this Buddha. So there what he wants to do is throw away even that teaching. So how can we throw away even something as subtle as hold on to nothing? That's what makes me say maybe it's impossible.

[26:23]

Somehow, when we proceed with our efforts, sometimes we're wearing Buddha's robes and speaking Buddha's words without making a miraculous transformation. Traditionally, we get closest to this essential grind through simple practices. Through this simple practice of sitting up straight and holding still and discovering all the ways we don't sit up straight and all the ways we don't hold still.

[27:46]

But if we're really going to open our heart to what that's teaching us, it's very important for us to remember the ground on which it arises, that this very mind is Buddha. And Dogen Zenji, the finder of our style of practice, Soto Zen, he said, we start off with this very mind is Buddha. We start off enlightened and from there we practice. If we start off from a place of trying to get something that's not here, we torture ourselves. And in our stubbornness, we will declare, I am Buddha.

[29:02]

And in our despair, we will So he strongly emphasized, and that's something we've tried to carry along, that when we take the first step, we take it from enlightenment into practice. That this is the glide and the activity simultaneously. And how we do this with each other, with someone we might want to think of as a teacher, or in the complexity of our own social world, that's our life.

[30:18]

The spirit of it doesn't change. And the particularities of it change completely. And this is... I guess this is why we can take teachings that were written 1,200 years ago and discover that they're more intimate with us than we are with ourselves. This is their great kindness, their great compassion, is that they can support our being more intimately and skillfully than we're willing to do for ourselves.

[31:25]

And when we explore this and can discover this, then something naturally trusts it. So our style of practice is to just say, do it. And to trust each person will find their own version of Buddha. This was why, you know, when Suzuki Roshi came to America, Americans didn't want to look at practice. They wanted to be it, get into it. And this just won his heart. This just captivated him and made him willing to change the whole course of his life and be here.

[32:34]

And I think it's the same with any relationship. When we realize that someone or someones are willing to be with us, to plight their trust with our trust, with our truth, then we're captivated. That's the world in which we want to live. We want to live And of course all of us who've tried many relationships or worked hard on one relationship or worked hard on many know what that is like. How that simple straight line can become so crooked and mysterious and hard to follow at times.

[33:35]

But it arises out of the same ground. And I think there's something there for us to savor. When this person told me recently that they didn't tell me what, they didn't want me to tell them what to do, I was very relieved, because I felt, now we can, now we've got it out in the open. You know, now we know where we are. Now we know what we're working with. And actually, the birth of that statement was something painful. There was something going on that was a little edgy.

[34:42]

And then that statement was born, and then we could meet. We can meet each other on any truth, on any truth that arises any moment, and in a way that's inconceivable for us. Something in us says it has to be a special truth. It has to have some special quality about it. But when we explore it, when we bring courage to commit something will come back. Thank you. So I think we have time for some questions.

[35:51]

It's a good... A while back you were talking about This very mind is Buddha and this sitting, I should take care of my sitting and be concerned with this as opposed to that person sitting that's their practice and their path. And could you say something about what this very mind that arises about the other's practice and how that is Buddha too? This very mind that arises is about other. that I don't feel that it's something that I would want to, that you're encouraging us to hone.

[37:38]

Actually, it's this very mind and practicing here is what we should be working on and how that kind of relates. I think it's a helpful starting point to realize that my opinion about you or my judgment about you is mine and those are attributes that I'm contributing to you. And then, you know, because usually that's the obvious truth that we live in and then we get into trouble. There is another interesting comment where a student asked a teacher about this and he says, A donkey looking in the well. All right, the teacher asked the student about this. Well, what is it? What do you see? And the student says, a donkey looking in the well.

[38:39]

So what he's saying is, that's what you're seeing. You're seeing your own opinionation. When you look, you see your own opinionation. And the teacher said, pretty good, but that's not the whole story. And then they actually turned it into percentages, which is an interesting thing. And so the story goes, as the teacher said, 80% is your own opinionation. 20% is valid. And I think It's like when the person comes to me and said, I fear you telling me what to do, right? So when it comes from her, as her statement about her, then something fluid seems to happen.

[39:48]

When she was responding from it, So I think maybe that's a key for us. We can put out our statement about ourselves or about someone else and see what it produces. I think putting it out is, well obviously in sitting we absorb, but in our life we put it out, and in our relationships. How much do we absorb and be patient with, and how much do we give feedback? I don't like what you're doing, stop it. You know? Sometimes it's a very valid statement. Thank you.

[40:51]

How does one being in the present The tricky answer to that is, whatever you're thinking about, you're thinking about it now. You know, whether it's the past, or the future, or what you consider to be the present. Now, you can think about tomorrow. That's the knack that we're trying to get at. And if you sit Zazen, you see that it's not quite that simple, that we have this capacity of mind to literally experience as if we moved physically out of this physical presence. If you sit Zazen, sometimes you can discover that at some point you weren't here. You moved into your thoughts.

[41:58]

whatever it was, whether it was the future or some past. I'll tell you, there's that shift, kind of, where this disappears and you're in your mind thinking about the future and then you cook back into it. Yes. So we try to train ourselves to have some reference, local reference. And that makes it easier for us to access what comes up as a present phenomena. To have some local reference. And the local reference we use is usually something very simple. Something physical. Like our body or our breath. And then our mind produces its amazing capacity to create all sorts of experience.

[42:55]

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