I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Good morning. Morning. I'm pleased to be able to introduce our Ross Blum to ourselves. Ross has lived here for many years. He's an exemplar of white bird in the snow practice. Um, that's a delay. So it's a great joy to have you here, Mark, and everyone.

[01:06]

Thank you. Thank you for your kind words, Laurie. Well, we're in the middle of Aspects of Practice, which is a practice period light, Tanto has called it. It's not as long or as intense as a practice period in the spring, but it's an opportunity to intensify our practice. And the senior students have an opportunity to come forward in a more formal teacher role and have opportunities to give talks like here on Saturday, Monday mornings, and classes on Thursday. We're working with Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, Sojin Roshi's teacher's book, Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, who founded this temple back in 1967. For those of you who may be wondering what this black ribbon on my shoulder or chest is, that's a Jewish tradition of a memorial cloth.

[02:14]

My father passed away a couple weeks ago and family members wear them for about a month in mourning. The other person represented on my body is this T-shirt that I have here. which is an Obama t-shirt that old-time Sangha member Barbara Sandich made and sells when she has an opportunity. The chapter I selected for today's talk is called Traditional Zen Spirit. And the essence of traditional Zen spirit is the awareness of breath and posture moment by moment. Suzuki Roshi talks about Zen understanding not being as important as the spirit of breath and posture.

[03:25]

And I believe that his angle of approaching this question was twofold. One was to kind of re-emphasize and reorient practitioners to the place of the fundamental ground that the Buddha sat on where he realized his enlightenment and the 2,500 years since have been an unfolding of this tradition. Prior to Bodhidharma's time there was a lot of intellectual exploration into the teachings of Buddhism. And while there is a place in Buddhism to study the Buddha's teachings and the lineage of teachers and commentaries and such, that's what's known as second principle, that the teachings of the Buddha should be understood directly from direct

[04:29]

you cultivate a practice and you have experiences of non-duality and oneness and basic awareness of your place in the universe and the interrelatedness of you and all beings, when you study Buddhadharma, it will echo what your experience is. And then you go a little deeper. That's my understanding or sense of what this traditional Zen spirit is. The most important things in our practice are our physical posture and our way of breathing. We are not so concerned about a deep understanding of Buddhism. As a philosophy, Buddhism is very deep and wide and a firm system of thought. But Zen is not concerned about philosophical understanding.

[05:35]

We emphasize practice. We should understand why our physical posture and breathing exercise are so important. Instead of having a deep understanding of the teaching, we need a strong confidence in our teaching, which says that originally we have Buddha nature. Our practice is based on this faith. So that raises the question, where does our confidence come from? We may have faith that the Buddha's teaching is the right way to go and somehow or another we have found ourselves sitting here and trying to support each other and get some understanding of what the Buddha's teaching is about, but where does our confidence come from? Yeah, the confidence comes from our experience and it validates something that we may have been thinking or it validates something that we weren't thinking but we suddenly become aware of and then our understanding is kind of reified in a way.

[06:58]

So based on our confidence of seeing directly into our experience our body and mind go forward in a very different way. And this is where the awareness of breath and posture come really clearly into focus. Suzuki Roshi, a little later, will talk about how it's a natural expression of our confidence and understanding to sit upright. we often come to practice with a gaining idea and we wanna sit in order to get enlightened. And we've heard time and again that we already have Buddha nature within each of us, each and every one of us has Buddha nature. And rather than trying to get an understanding of what that means and then study more and try to jockey for position of understanding, Suzuki Roshi is encouraging us just to sit and become aware of breath and posture and as we develop that being which cuts across all class lines and gender lines and nationalities just sitting and the practice of universal zazen we will naturally sit upright because we're sitting in the midst of Buddha's teachings which are very lofty and at the same time very fundamental and basic to our being.

[08:22]

We also become much more accountable to the Buddha's teaching in ourselves because if you think about the aspiration of waking up and seeing how we are no different than any other being and we want to be intimate with each and every thing. we're probably not going to slouch. You want to meet things with some degree of respect and uprightness. And all within the forms of our practice, while some people may think, and I thought from time to time, why do we have to do this? Why do we have to hold a book upright like so? Or why can't I step on the tan when I get up onto my seat? It's easier that way. But we start looking at things a little bit more differently with a sense of respect and honoring what things are in relationship to us our approach to them will be different, so we have a more upright posture, both physical and metaphorical, day-to-day, moment-to-moment. Before Bodhidharma went to China, almost all the well-known stock words of Zen were in use.

[09:30]

For instance, there was the term sudden enlightenment. Sudden enlightenment is not an adequate translation, but tentatively, I will use the expression. Enlightenment comes all of a sudden to us. This is true enlightenment. Before Bodhidharma, people thought that after a long preparation, sudden enlightenment would come. Thus, Zen practice was a kind of training to gain enlightenment. Actually, many people today are practicing Zazen with this idea. But this is not the traditional understanding of Zen. The understanding passed down from Buddha to our time is that when you start Zazen, there is enlightenment even without preparation. Whether you practice Zazen or not, you have Buddha nature. Because you have it, there is enlightenment in your practice. The points we emphasize are not the stage we attain, but the strong confidence we have in our original nature and the sincerity of our practice. When I was reading this last night, I was thinking about finding something or realizing something that is said that we inherently have.

[10:46]

And when I haven't been aware of that, and then suddenly finding it. So the gaining idea is not that we're gaining or getting something external from us, the teaching is that actually we possess this, it's our birthright. That we all cover the ground equally, as Dogen Zenji says, we all cast an equal shadow on the ground, but it's up to us through practice to actually realize that. And it's not an understanding, it's the actual doing of it. My dad liked to quote little Jewish stories, and one of them was, the definition of happiness is when you find something that you've lost. So it's not that you've gotten anything extra, but you think about, you know, where is that? Where is that? And then you find something, and it's just a simple little story, and I didn't think it as a particular Zen story when he told me that, but I feel it really ties into what Suzuki Roshi is talking about here. So our practice is more of a process versus a stage practice or a step ladder practice as often described.

[12:02]

If originally we have Buddha nature, the reason we practice Zazen is that we must behave like Buddha. To transmit our way is to transmit our spirit from Buddha. So we have to harmonize our spirit, our physical posture, and our activity with the traditional way. You may attain some particular stage, of course, but the spirit of your practice should not be based on an egotistical idea. According to the traditional Buddhist understanding, our human nature is without ego. When we have no idea of ego, we have Buddha's view of life. Our egoistic ideas are delusion, covering our Buddha nature. We are always creating and following them, and repeating this process over and over again, our life becomes completely occupied by ego-centered ideas. This is called karmic life, or karma.

[13:08]

The Buddhist life should not be karmic life. The purpose of our practice is to cut off the karmic spinning mind. If you are trying to attain enlightenment, that is a part of karma. You are creating and being driven by karma, and you are wasting your time on your black cushion. According to Bodhidharma's understanding, practice based on any gaining idea is just a repetition of your karma. For getting this point, many later Zen masters have emphasized some stage to it, be attained by practice. So that paragraph feels like the center or crux of the chapter and the book for me. We often hear about gaining ideas and doing away with them and wanting something and trying to find something, trying to grasp something and finding it ungraspable.

[14:18]

So this repeating of our karmic way and the habit energy is just causing more suffering for ourselves and others. So at some point we realize that we're creating our own suffering and we're creating more karma by following that carrot that's out there that we feel is going to take care of us. and support us or make us happy. And that's the Buddha's first noble truth, life is suffering, life is dukkha, life is not quite right as it is. And when we sit perfectly still in zazen, being aware of breath and posture, everything is okay just as it is. And when we squirm and we're off that still point, we've come to realize that I'm not comfortable.

[15:22]

Things aren't quite right. How can I get happy? What will make my life more pleasant now? Myriad questions and only one answer. Sit still. However, if we see truly see that we're creating more suffering with this life of karma, we have an opportunity to stop. So we breathe in this universe and we exhale this universe. We breathe in all the karmic conditions that are out there. They're in our body and we exhale.

[16:26]

The most important point in that cycle is that little half second before exhaling. Because the teaching is to be upright and take in the whole universe no matter what. all political views, all dietary preferences, everything. And then what do we exhale? Well, the Buddhist teaching is that we exhale a life of vow, a vow to stop the karmic chain of suffering that we continue to create and co-create with the universe moment by moment. So a life of vow is very different than a life of karma, a life of vow to wake up. In the Fourth Noble Truth there's a guideline, a road map if you will, of how to practice the Buddha's way, it's called the Eightfold Path.

[17:38]

Apropos to this talk today, the fold, they all contain each other, so you can actually talk about each one and you'll see how it unfolds into this talk. But most pointedly, the top of the fold, if you will, is right effort. So what is right effort without gaining idea? Even though I said a moment ago that prior to Bodhidharma, the practice of Buddhism was kind of filled with a practice of study and intellectual gamesmanship, challenging each other, trying to understand what the Buddha's teaching was.

[18:45]

There's also a practice of like a purification practice. which on the surface seems like a gaming idea that they try to purify oneself of the karmic residue that one's accumulated. But I don't want to throw those very well-thought-out, well-practiced exercises out with the baby water, the baby with the bath water. Because purification practices or the orientation toward looking at what is pure and what is impure is really important. Because if we start doing that, we can start seeing what we're doing that's causing more suffering. What is so-called impure or maybe not in our best interests or other people's interests. Strictly speaking, right effort is the energetic will to prevent evil and unwholesome states of mind from arising, and to get rid of such evil and unwholesome states that have already arisen.

[19:52]

Also, to cause to arise good and wholesome states of mind not yet arisen, and to develop and bring to perfection the good and wholesome states of mind already present. So one could argue that's a gaining idea. I want to get rid of unwholesome thoughts and I want to cultivate good thoughts. What's good and what's not so good. Well, in Zen practice, we include everything. And it's very important to accept all of our shortcomings as well as all of our strengths.

[20:58]

As Suzuki Roshi said, we're half good and we're half bad. There's a saying, every saint has a past and every sinner has a future, which is a really compassionate way of seeing that in any given moment we have the potential to wake up. So we have to be aware of where our shortcomings have been, where our stumblings have come from. And from those stumbles, we can sit upright and move forward. But are we really gaining anything? We're just reflecting on our own self, our own history, and we're moving forward from that moment by moment. and say that the only thing that we're gaining is we're gaining awareness, we're becoming aware. More important than any stage which you will attain is your sincerity, your right effort.

[22:14]

Right effort must be based on a true understanding of our traditional practice. When you understand this point, you will understand how important it is to keep your posture right. When you do not understand this point, the posture and the way of breathing are just a means to attain enlightenment. If this is your attitude, it would be much better to take some drugs instead of sitting in the cross-legged position! If our practice is only a means to attain enlightenment, there is actually no way to attain it. We lose the meaning of the way to the goal. But when we believe in our way firmly, we have already attained enlightenment. When you believe in your way, enlightenment is there. But when you cannot believe in the meaning of the practice, which you are doing in this moment, you cannot do anything. You are just wandering around the goal with your monkey mind. You are always looking for something without knowing what you are doing. If you want to see something, you should open your eyes.

[23:15]

When you do not understand Bodhidharma Zen, you are trying to look at something with your eyes closed. We do not slight the idea of attaining enlightenment, but the most important thing is this moment, not some day in the future. We have to make our effort in this moment. This is the most important thing for our practice. Before Bodhidharma, the study of Buddhist teaching resulted in a deep and lofty philosophy of Buddhism, and people tried to attain its high ideals. This is a mistake. Bodhidharma discovered that it was a mistake to create some lofty or deep idea and then try to attain it by the practice of zazen. If that is our zazen, it is nothing different from our usual activity or monkey mind. It looks like a very good, a very lofty and holy activity, but actually there is no difference between it and our monkey mind. This is the point that Bodhidharma emphasized. Last week the chapter in Zen Mind Beginner's Mind that we were studying was the story of polishing a tile where, for the benefit of those who haven't read it, the story of a teacher and a student and a student is sitting Zazen quite earnestly and the teacher happens by and asks, what are you doing?

[24:39]

And the student says, I'm going to become a Buddha. I'm sitting Zazen. I'm going to get enlightened. And then the teacher picked up a tile or a roof tile that happened to be lying there and started polishing it. And the student said, well, teacher, what are you doing now? He says, well, I'm making a mirror. And the student said, you can't make a mirror by polishing a tile. And the teacher said, well, you can't become a Buddha by practicing Zazen. So that's the end of the story. Before Buddha attained enlightenment, he made all possible efforts for us, and at last he attained a thorough understanding of the various ways. You may think Buddha attained some stage where he was free from karmic life, but it is not so. Many stories were told by Buddha about his experiences after he attained enlightenment.

[25:40]

He was not at all different from us. When his country was at war with a powerful neighbor, he told his disciples of his own karma. of how he suffered when he saw that his country was going to be conquered by the neighboring king. If he had been someone who had attained enlightenment in which there was no karma, there would have been no reason for him to suffer so. And even after he attained enlightenment, he continued the same effort we are making. But his view of life was not shaky. His view of life was stable and he watched everyone's life, including his own life. He watched himself and he watched others with the same eyes that he watched stones or plants or anything else. He had a very scientific understanding. That was his way of life after he attained enlightenment. When we have the traditional spirit to follow the truth as it goes and practice our way without any egoistic idea, then we will attain enlightenment in its true sense. And when we understand this point, we will make our best effort in each moment.

[26:43]

That is true understanding of Buddhism. So our understanding of Buddhism is not just an intellectual understanding. Our understanding at the same time is its own expression, is the practice itself. Not by reading or contemplation of philosophy, but only through practice. Actual practice can we understand what Buddhism is. Constantly, we should practice Azen, with strong confidence in our true nature, breaking the chain of karmic activity and finding our place in the world of actual practice. That teaching strikes to the question that some people feel that after you have Enlightenment or you have some Enlightenment experience, you don't have to do anything anymore.

[27:53]

in the ordination ceremonies here at Berkeley Zen Center, when Sojourn Roshi is officiating, one of the requests he makes of the ordinees is, after attaining enlightenment, will you continue to practice? And the refrain is, yes, I will. Well, why is that? Isn't enlightenment the goal? Well, I like the image of a spiral, and our practice is like a spiral. And at any given point on the spiral are the myriad dharmas or experiences that we encounter. And we come to practice, everything seems very separate from us, kind of looking out there and checking things out. And as we get a taste of zazen and the experience of no separation, even if it's just a glimpse of it, just for a moment, we see things a little differently.

[29:07]

We actually see them as reflections of us. And we can stop there, and actually some people do. Oh, that's what enlightenment's about. I had an enlightenment experience. I am no separate from that post. However, if one continues to practice one actually goes deeper and revisiting the experience of seeing that post or seeing that person that I had a difficulty with. Or sitting on a cushion that is uncomfortable, it becomes a different experience. It's an experience of openness and acceptance and realization that things actually change. That to see someone is not separate from myself When I'm in love with them and I like them, well, that's easy. How about when we have difficulties with them? Are they me? If I don't like them, that's not me. I'm different.

[30:08]

I'm pure. They're impure. If we continue to sit and we don't get knocked off this spiral is actually like a gyroscope and we stay upright. That spinning keeps it upright and we actually can encounter people and things that have given us difficulty in the past and meet them face to face and just be completely present with them and co-create a universe in that moment very, very different than the one that we had before that was maybe not so good. Or contrarily, moment by moment, meet with this person that we have a really great experience with, a great relationship with, an intimacy with, where it's not there. But what do we do with that? Well, if we continue to stay present, the relationship will change and it will develop and it will go deeper. And the gaining idea of teaching that Suzuki Roshi is talking about, to keep in mind, that is not to think about how it's going to be tomorrow or next week, but right now, what is it like being in this body, on this cushion, with all of you all?

[31:27]

When a Zen student here at Berkeley Zen Center becomes Shuso or head student, they have an opportunity to share a seat with the abbot, and they have an opportunity to give talks on Saturdays. And it's a really great opportunity to come forward and share one's understanding, whether that's correct or not, with all you all. And then we have an opportunity to have a few questions and to bring up points and try to get some clarification on things that maybe are not so clear. At the end of the shuso ceremony, the shuso, or head student, bows her head humbly and says something to the effect of, if I've misguided you with any of my teachings, please wash your ears out in the pure sound of the Dharma. I will try harder. that came to mind sitting here and hearing the rain coming down.

[32:55]

So we're all making our best effort here to come forward and offer teachings either in a formal way, as in our Saturday talk, or informal way of just washing teacups after our tea, which we'll be having momentarily. And both expressions are traditional Zen spirit. One has a few more spotlights on it, gets recorded on a DVD, CD. The teacups just get washed and put away and put on a shelf, but they're both equally important. They're both expressions of a person's sincerity in taking care of the temple and encouraging each and every one of us to continue to practice. We have about 12 minutes to have some comments or questions, and I'd like to ask Sojiroshi first if he has any comments or questions.

[33:58]

like the foot before and the foot behind and walking. In order to, that's one sentence. If I can indulge you. let me indulge you, you can indulge me. If I can indulge you in a commentary on the foot before and the foot behind and walking, my very first question to my Zen teacher in New York where I started practice was, I had this idea that practice was about knowing how to step forward and going for something, which is a gaining idea. And he waited for a moment and smiled, and he says, and also knowing when to take a step back. And in the Sandokai, the poem that we recite here on Fridays, it's like the foot before and the foot behind in walking.

[35:40]

So we go forward, but in order to continue going forward, we also have to take that step back in order to keep going. Yes, Sue. I have no idea what you're talking about. No, I'm just teasing. You know, there are consequences to our actions. And sometimes I get mistaken, thinking I'm trying not to have any consequences.

[36:41]

And you can't. Well that's a really good question, a really great observation, that no matter what we do there are consequences. You know, it's a karmic life, the only place that there are no consequences as such is in the still point of zazen, where we're not creating karma. but we have to get off the cushion and we have to do something, but hopefully from that still place of zazen, the consequences of our actions will not be so grave as to cause big problems. You know, fishing an empty toilet paper tube out of a trash can is a noble idea in that, or act, in that you're helping to recycle something and create, you know, less, have less dependence on resources and trees and that sort of thing.

[37:45]

However, if you're not careful in fishing it out of the garbage, you may pick up some germ on your hand and, you know, lick your lips or something like that and then get sick from it. So there's a karmic effect of just doing this so-called noble deed and when we sit still and we think about moment by moment or we're aware of moment by moment of the effects of everything we do we naturally take a humble position but within that humbleness we can sit upright. Yeah. Tamar? The way that it helps me think about no gaining idea is to think of not gaining anything from me alone. So anything I might, that might flourish in me because of my practice, flourishes everywhere. It's not a personal accomplishment, it's like the life of a vow. Whatever I gain, Yeah, that's a really good point.

[38:53]

I think that when we realize that we're all connected, that when we in fact wake up, other people get to wake up with us, which is the story that's attributed to the Buddha when he woke up, and we can see the effects of our waking up and how that affects our immediate surroundings, be it a mindful care of the altar if we're really present and awake, or our relationships with people, yeah. But we think, you know, naively that it's just that only we're getting something out of it. A teacher of mine put it very well, that an example of sort of an unskilled game you might get is, I'm in touch with the universe and no one else is. You know, that's the sort of misguided thing. Oh, the misguided thing, yeah. I'm in touch with the universe and no one else is, and that's the sort of thing. Yeah, yeah. Well, a virtue of Sangha practice is that

[39:53]

even though we have had some kind of enlightenment experience, whether we know it or not, according to the book, that we're already awake, and that enlightenment has actually brought us here to the Zendo, waking up with Sangha and getting rubbed up against with Sangha actually refines that, and then we actually see that our enlightenment continues forever and is all-pervasive. It's not just located in this solely. It's located in every one of us and everything. Eric, you had your hand up? It's not, and I think that's the breath and posture awareness that really cuts through all of that.

[41:15]

But the conditioning that there's something out there that's going to make us happy is really a hard thing to undo. The momentum is so great, and I think that at the risk of getting on a soapbox before November 4th, I think that some people are waking up to the fact that this prevailing, come on rain, come on harder, this prevailing momentum is the past X amount of years is not ultimately satisfying to the basic birthright that we all have. So, there seems to be something in the air. Extra moisture. Pat? Now you've really opened it up. Could you reveal the relationship between the two beings that you're burying on that seat, Suzuki Roshi and the gentleman you exposed in your speech?

[42:26]

The question is, how do they two relate to each other? What's your understanding of that? I'm not asking it necessarily in I think not only the person that's on my shirt, but his opponent also feels he has people's best interest in mind. they might not happen to be the same people that I align with or feel similar to, but I think if we separate out the so-called good with the so-called bad, we're going to create more suffering. And trying to be upright and open and hear the words of people who we don't necessarily agree with enables us to see how the teaching of non-duality, which is Suzuki Roshi's orientation to life and Obama's orientation to life in the political sphere, there's some congruence there, but they're different fields of expression.

[43:41]

Would you embellish me, Ross, and just put your shirt up and put the book next to it? I just have to see it. I like that. That's a great idea. OK. And if you can indulge me just for a moment, this is the bookmark that the cemetery gave all the family members. And it's a reprint of the obit that I wrote about my dad and then his picture at the top, which is the way it appeared in the paper. So here are our three treasures. We have time for perhaps one more question. Martine, you asked once already, so I'd like to give somebody else an opportunity who hasn't spoken yet, if anyone. Courtney?

[44:43]

On this gaming idea, what you made me think of when you kind of crossed back and forth between the two books, this thing of practicing a whole When you think of the idea of the seeds being cultivated and that all of the seeds are there. There's no new seed that comes down. It's all there. So there's nothing to gain. It's a question of what to cultivate. And there's no final solution. There's no ending. Where I've cultivated these and now I'm okay. It's all done. But it's the cultivation itself that is the enlightenment practice. The only difference is just the experience of life when you're doing it. For me, I said, it feels better. Right, yeah. Well, two things come up for me with your comment.

[45:46]

One is the importance of Sangha practice, that by practicing with other people, there's an opportunity for someone to highlight a point that maybe is not fully elaborated on to a place that actually gives fuller illumination, so I thank you for that. And the other thing is just cultivating, that we throw out all the seeds and we cultivate them, but not all of them necessarily sprout. One of Sojourner Roshi's first teachings I remember hearing here was we all practice together and for some students who are a little over this way we bring them here and some students are a little that way we bring them here so they're all towards the center. So some of the seeds sprout and they kind of flourish on their own they don't need too much encouragement and other ones are faltering and they need a little support stick and tie up and a little more fertilizer or something and then hopefully we all kind of grow together here.

[46:52]

Thank you all very much and it's a really great opportunity to be here and share some of Suzuki Roshi's and Sojourn Roshi's teachings with you all. Beings are numberless.

[47:21]

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