I vow to taste the truth and to die as words. Good morning. So good morning and welcome to this one day sitting and to the Saturday lecture. For those of you who are coming to the lecture and not sitting with us the whole day. It's pretty warm. This must be not the Indian summer anymore. This is global warming. Just a hot day. I hope that's the case. Somehow it doesn't. I don't think so. So this sitting today marks the end of the aspects of practice period, which is a practice period that we've been in and that serves as an introduction to the practice.

[01:07]

And this time around has been led by various practice leaders, including Ron over here and Lori. We're sorry. There's Lori and Richard and Jerry back there. And Alan, who is not here today, couldn't be with us. He's in Japan. And so all of us have been giving talks and facilitating classes. And Ross, my friend Ross, there he is. Interesting slip there. He's my good friend. Help me with that. Well, I'll say something later. Maybe we'll throw some light on that forgetting. And so this is my turn to give a talk for the one day sitting and to close the aspects of practice.

[02:22]

And I'm representing all the practice leaders and Alan and Mel as well who are not here. And I apologize for those who may feel like a captive audience today, those who came to the sitting and get me as a speaker because they may have wanted to talk. I mean, sit in the session, but not necessarily listen to my talk. And I was telling one of my friends that I was sorry I could not make it to his talk. And he said that was OK because the only reason he was coming to my talk was because he was a captive audience. And now you know who it is. So with friends like that, who needs enemies? So this period also coincided with the election of Barack Obama, or we could say Baruch Obama.

[03:26]

In Hebrew, Baruch means blessed Obama. And this has been a very emotional time for all of us. And I think we all are identified in different ways with the tears that we may have seen in Jesse Jackson, for example, during Obama's talk after he won. And I thought, well, Jesse Jackson was there when Martin Luther King was shot, and now he was seeing him kind of resurrected in Obama. And it was very touching. And people of all cultures and races are supporting him and protecting him because he represents a kind of emblem of hope and redemption, as opposed to being a figurehead for the greedy and the wealthy, like our current sitting president.

[04:27]

Maybe a Republican. Yes. They voted for Barack. Well, you know, the true conservative Republicans have been jumping ship from the Republican Party in droves, and a lot of them voted for Obama. Well, McCain was at his best in his concession speech. That was the true McCain, yes. Thank you. You're welcome. And at the same time, you know, I'm also kind of tender or emotional because we are going into a very difficult time. And a lot of people are losing their jobs, and people are losing their nest eggs, you know, the money they had set aside for old age, as well as losing their nests, meaning their homes. And this past week, I heard that they're – I work for the health department in San Francisco,

[05:37]

and I heard that there's a big tsunami wave coming, that there's going to be devastating cuts that are going to decimate, at least proposed cuts, that are going to decimate the health system the way we know it now. So that's quite difficult. And I was hoping that I was near, kind of nearing retirement, you know. And it looks like there's still going to be one last battle to fight to protect services and, you know, the rights of patients and so on and so forth. So we're really hoping that Obama and the Clintons and the Democratic Party can get us out of this mess that we're in right now, we're going into. And so the party's over, and now it's time for cleanup.

[06:40]

And there's a big mess that's been left behind, you know, from all these years of war and so on. So anyway, I mean, that's been part of our aspects of practice in some way. And since, you know, we say our Zazen mind includes the whole universe and all activities are included here, including all the activities that we all are immersed in in our daily life, so it's relevant that we consider that as well. But today I want to speak about Suzuki Roshi's teaching, which is what we've been studying during the classes and the aspects of practice. And we've been studying Zen mind, beginner's mind, which may be the most widely read Zen book of all time. Not that that's such a big deal, I don't think Suzuki Roshi, he didn't even know about it, so I don't think he would think it's such a big deal, but it's an interesting fact.

[07:52]

And it's amazing that Dogen wasn't read for 500 years, and Suzuki Roshi was with us only about 10 years or so. But now thousands of people have read Zen mind, beginner's mind. But of course we can see it's Dogen speaking through him. And it's also easy to take the book for granted because we're kind of receiving it from Mel all the time. You know, it's Suzuki Roshi speaking through Mel. And by the way, we've had Mel all these years to give us his teaching. But it is a book that is a kind of treasure, and that comes at you and kind of waves. It waves at you, and it comes at you and waves.

[08:55]

And over the years that we practice, since a lot of us have been practicing for decades here, it opens up different things, different gates at different times. And then there's a core of it that remains elusive and mysterious. And we hit upon that core, mysterious core, in different chapters at different points. And for all of us, it's different. It may be mysterious one day, the next day it may not be. So it's mysterious when it needs to be at the right time at the right moment. But it always contains that for us in some way. So in reading the book, we're just not learning things about him, which we are, but we're also learning about Buddhism. And most importantly, we're learning about ourselves through studying his words.

[09:56]

And about each other, and about how we relate to one another, and how we relate to our teacher, and how our teacher relates to us. So everything is contained in it as it should be. So today I want to share with you a few themes that stood up for me this time in going through it. Themes that didn't stand up so much the last time I read it. And so I always seem to come up with a new copy of it. So each time I go through it, I have a new fresh copy, so I underline it all anew. And the underlining of each time is different, what really captures my attention. So first, for those of you who are coming to the lecture today, I want to make just some kind of general points about his teaching.

[11:01]

And his teaching on Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, which is the title. And then I want to talk a little bit about what spoke to me about it this time. And what I understood about it, what I didn't understand about it. Since understanding and not understanding are always together. And not understanding is as important as understanding. And not understanding means both, you know, our limited small mind that doesn't really get it. But it also means our big mind, that even though we don't understand something that is happening, there's something that is coming through for us. Even though we really don't quite get it. Or we don't get it with our head, but we get it with our gut. Or it works through us in some ways and things and events and circumstances that take place during the aspects of practice.

[12:09]

So this question of Zen Mind, so Zen and Suzuki Roshi is talking about our mind. Zen Mind is our mind. It's not an objective mind, it's our mind, our own personal mind, even though it's a big mind. But it's the mind with which we see everything and that contains everything. And on the one hand it's the teaching or the theory of Buddhism. But at the same time it's not really theory, but it's practice. So theory and practice are one piece in this teaching. So it's the teaching that helps us how to live our life or how to understand our life, how to practice with our life. So in beginner's mind, it's the mind that we always return to, where we can remain open.

[13:27]

Open to our experience and open to each other, whatever that may be. Sometimes it's calm, sometimes it's active, sometimes it feels good, sometimes it doesn't feel so good. And it's also how to stay open, free of prejudice. Free of prejudice or wrong discrimination or dualistic discrimination or preconceived ideas. So we're always cleaning our mind, our slate, keeping it clean, although we have a basic understanding. That understanding is always changing and it's always open to revision and we're always changing. So it's not fixed. And it also points to practicing without any idea of achievement.

[14:38]

And that's a difficult one because the culture so much is embedded in achievement. And if you are a parent and you have children or you're a teacher, you're trying to help your children take achievement tests. And do things and achieve things and do things that they don't want to do or feel like doing. And it's difficult to explain to children, just do it for the sake of doing it. Why do I need to do this? Well, because you need to be independent once you grow up. You have to support yourself and you need to have some tools to be able to do that. So we have the idea of tool there. It means for something else. But Zen activity is just the thing in itself. So just doing something just for the sake of doing it.

[15:42]

So this is part of beginner's mind. And another aspect of Zen mind that he emphasizes throughout the book is big mind. Original mind, big mind. And big mind, also Zen, I believe in Japanese also means all-inclusive. All-inclusive activity. So that's big mind, which includes everything. So it's a self-sufficient state of mind. But it's beyond ego. It's not a big I in the sense of a big ego. And the other aspect, the most important aspect of Zen mind is that Zen mind is the posture, is the body. So big mind also includes our bodies and how we live within our bodies and how we practice with our bodies, how we treat our bodies.

[16:51]

How we hold our bodies. So the posture itself is the state of mind. The posture itself is the right state of mind, he says. And so he says that Zazen is not just a form of sitting or breathing. It's not just one of the four postures. Like lying down, sitting, walking, standing and so on. Because it includes all the positions. And also it expresses a key point of Buddhism. So the posture itself is the teaching of Buddhism. And that to be mindful of breathing is not just to be aware of our small self or a state of concentration. This is the teaching of Dogen.

[17:54]

It's not concentration. Because in breathing, breathing includes all sentient beings. So we're all breathing together, we're all breathing the same air, it's all the same breath. So we're not just concentrating on our breathing. Or you could say, well, what is breathing? And the other point about Zazen mind is calmness in activity, or calmness in activity being true calmness. The calmness is not opposed to activity. So they're not two different things. Just like Zazen and our activities in the world are not two different things.

[18:58]

But they're both interpenetrated and interpenetrating. So I think this is echoing a little bit. Oh, move the other one? This one? That way? This way? So that when we're doing Zazen, even though we have calm mind, actually we're also very active. We're always correcting our posture, bringing our thinking back to our breathing, keeping our back straight, watching our mudra.

[20:01]

And so there's a lot of activity in that calmness, in sitting. And the reverse is also true, that then we can carry this calm quality that we all experience in Zazen to our daily activities, whatever they may be. And that quality of Zazen is always there in our activities. But if you say, what is that quality, or you try to say something about the quality separate from the activity itself, then we lose the quality. So if we try to explain to somebody what that quality is while in the midst of an activity, often we may lose that quality because it's not separate from the activity itself. So we just simply express it through the activity, or through the quality of our actions, or our speech, or what it is that we're doing.

[21:08]

And it expresses itself or runs through that. So you don't even have to say you're a Buddhist or that you practice meditation. Because that quality is in through your activity, which is the activity of all people. And then we're all connected through that quality of activity, regardless of whether we're Buddhists or we're Christians or we're priests or we're laypeople, whatever it may be. Whether we have rank or we don't have rank, whether we're supervisor or supervisee, whatever that may be the case. And then the last point I want to bring up as a general theme is that where he says, Suzuki Roshi says,

[22:19]

that enlightenment comes first before practice, and practice comes before study or thinking. So enlightenment comes before practice, meaning enlightenment is already there. We already are Buddha nature. Because we already are Buddha nature, then we can practice. And then in the practice, we have practice enlightenment. And so it's best not to think initially, or he emphasizes that it's important that we don't need to have an intellectual understanding of the teaching, particularly early on in the practice. Because our thinking mind is tied with our self-centered thinking or with our ego.

[23:24]

So when we try to think of the practice with our thinking mind or with our ideas of self or ideas of Buddhism, whatever, we're kind of creating, continuing our karma. We're reproducing our own karma and sort of creating and chaining ourselves with our thoughts. And sort of creating problems for ourselves. So it's best to set the thinking mind aside. But then once we can free the thinking mind from self-centered thinking, then thinking is right thinking or right understanding. Or we have our true human function at that point, which includes thinking. So study comes last. Anybody have any question at this point about anything I said?

[24:48]

Go. Yeah. We're so glad to have you here. We talk so often about how posture is enlightenment. But, you know, posture could, posture I think, my question is sort of like, posture is, we'll talk about the dasana posture, it just stands in for our body all the time in all other positions. And Bodhidharma invented qigong, I believe it's qigong. Have we talked about that? And sometimes it's important for us to do qigong, it's important for us to embody ourselves all the time. So, anyway. Well, yeah, I mean, he says that, right? In the book he says that dasana posture is not one of the four postures, it includes all the postures.

[25:54]

But at the same time it is a specific posture that we take, which is the same posture that Buddha took, or the one he practiced in. And I think we should get a taste of that alignment when we're sitting in dasana and that same taste of being connected with our unified is something to practice that sort of unification all the time. Well, maybe it's the posture that helps us see how all the different postures are connected. Yes, Sue? I don't have my glasses, so it's Simone, yes. I'm trying to speak up for some of us who sit dasana in a different posture now, that is also just as hard to get in one posture as another.

[27:00]

No, but really, the cross-legged posture is wonderful, but it isn't a side of the line that you don't have to assume that posture in order to be in proper dasana posture. Right, well different, the dasana posture may be different for everybody, right, so we have lots of different people sitting in different postures in the zendo. And it's the right posture for everybody, so there's not one single model that is best or that everybody should follow. Thank you. I was wondering, so you have a job, a responsible job in the health department, so how do you go about your daily life, like you have a lot of phone calls coming in, people you have to help,

[28:09]

and you stay in your zen mind, or the big mind, and you do that and not let seeds of delusion develop. That's where I'm right on, I think the practice of staying in the big mind and not let things get out of hand. So would you give an example of how, like if you see some kind of delusion springing up, what do you do? Because you have to live, right? What do you do? Well, you know, I think I just do what my activities are, whatever that may be, and this quality of zazen is always there to a greater or lesser degree.

[29:12]

Sometimes, you know, I get distracted or something comes up or a feeling comes up, and I have to notice that as well and communicate if I need to communicate the feeling I'm having. Like, for example, you know, if there's some grief coming up, that's grief. If there's some anger coming up, then what's the right way to handle that feeling of anger? Do you communicate it? Sometimes you communicate it, sometimes you don't. How you choose your words to communicate it is part of it. And I think that having a consistent practice is important, and that's why we do this practice period, because it's an opportunity to enter the practice and to find a schedule of regular sitting that fits, that you can make fit within your life.

[30:24]

And your life of work, your life of family, your life of relationships, so that's not too difficult, but it's not that there's enough effort in it so that it's helping your life in some way. And so, you know, we have a minimum requirement of, I think, three days a week, is it? Is it three days? Aspects? I think it's the same for aspects than for the regular practice period that we have in the spring. And I think that's probably an introduction to what perhaps is the recommended schedule for every day outside practice period. And the practice period is a way of getting used to organizing your life in a way that you can do that.

[31:30]

And of course, Asuki Roshi says that it's best to sit every day. And, excuse me, so I sit every day, but I don't always come to the zendo. But I try to come to the zendo at least three times a week because it's important to stay connected to sangha and to practice in a group and to relate to a teacher. But, you know, sometimes, you know, you have to sit at different times. And I find particularly with age, you know, being sleep deprived is not so great because you have to rest your body too. So zazen is rest for mind and body, but the body also needs to rest through sleep.

[32:36]

And just, you know, finding the right amount of sleep is important. And you also have to adjust it with your family life. So, you know, I appreciate and thank my partner and my children for making it possible for me today and sit with them. Because relationships are also involved, you know, and if you're going to do something independently, you know, you're also in interdependence if you're in relationships. And you can't just, you know, oh, I'm just going to do this on my own and we'll join in or, you know, that doesn't work for relationships. And so you have to find a way that works so that if you, you know, if you do something with your partner and you stay a little bit later, then the next morning if you have to go to work and you have to get up at 5, let's see, 4.45, which is when I have to get up to come to the zendo,

[33:50]

to sit at 5.40 here with all of you and all of us, then you only get, you know, five or six hours sleep. And at this age I find that that's not enough. In my youth I could do that and go to work the next day just with three or four hours and some people still can do it. I think Ross can still go to work with five hours sleep if he's awake now. He sleeps during lectures, particularly my lectures. They're particularly good for a good sleep, profound sleep. So if at least that's all you're getting from my talk, you know, then that's good. So that's, you know, getting enough sleep is important. So sometimes we think, you know, that practice is, you know, to come to the zendo every day no matter what, no matter your sleep, no matter your family, your children or whatever.

[34:57]

And that's a little bit one-sided. And Suzuki Roshi is very, even though he had a very strict practice, he's always emphasizing that people need to, that that's too enthusiastic, you know, that kind of idea of zen. It's kind of one-sided and that you need to balance your practice with everything else in your life. And that is just like the posture is different for different people, finding that point of balance is different for everybody. But it's the same practice. But sitting every day also he emphasized that and that's also important. And for some people sitting in the afternoon, you know, we also have that practice here is we sit in the afternoons. I sit sometimes, I sit usually on Monday afternoons. It's very nice to sit in the afternoon. So that's also daily sitting. So, how are we doing with time, Paul?

[36:09]

I don't know. 11.10? And we're supposed to, what time are we supposed to end? 11.05. So it's over already. I don't know, a couple of questions or comments that people like to make. I didn't get to like one of my points, but it might be just as well. Yes, Ed. Just to sort of follow up on the last question. One of the things that intrigued me about your book was one of the things that you talked about was kind of maintaining your composure. And I know that's often been a struggle for me in terms of maintaining maybe that quiet in the activity, but also when there are waves of feelings and there are a wave, you know, for those of us who are in maybe more stressful jobs,

[37:13]

when there are waves of things coming at you and there are waves of feelings that are coming up, it's often very hard to maintain that composure and maintain that quiet. I often forget about it until hours later when I realize I've given up on myself and so I'm in the ocean. And so I wonder if you could talk a little bit about what you do when you find yourself forgetting that, when you're getting your peace of mind and only half an hour later you're in the soup. Yeah. Thank you. Well, that's kind of related to the topic that I didn't get to, which is, well, there's two examples, you know, during practice during this period. And one was when I was in the kitchen one Saturday morning and Aleksandra was cooking.

[38:23]

And she was kind of running late and was needing some help and she was cooking with Mark. And so I joined their cooking crew, the three of us were cooking, and actually it went very smoothly. I was assisting Aleksandra, you know, with steering and the pots and this and that, and Mark was doing something else. And we were working very nicely and quietly and harmoniously, sort of in a relaxed, mindful way. But we weren't like chit-chatting or small-talking or, you know, doing that, but we were intimate. And just doing what we need to do. And it was, you know, we were done early and the kitchen was clean. So everything seemed just right. And then one of the servers comes in and says, the cooks here are too lenient, you know.

[39:26]

Lenient. You guys are too relaxed, you know. And so, you know, it kind of pushed that button in me in some way of thinking, you know, here you are, you're doing something, everything is just fine, and it's never enough, is it? There's always the critical mind, you know, there's always, you know, it's never going to be enough. And do we need that in practice? You know, even when you're trying hard, you're practicing hard, and sometimes that happens with the teacher, right? The teacher is always upset no matter what you're doing, you know. So it's never good enough. And then I thought about it, well, I thought about it the other way, which was to think, well maybe that's the compliment. You know, that it's traditional for people in Zen to, and I'm not sure that it was intended that way.

[40:35]

I think it was intended as, and maybe, who knows. I don't think the person I'm talking about is here, because then we could have a live situation. But I think it was intended as a kind of, you know, moment of exasperation or criticism or something like that. But actually you could also take it as a compliment. Instead of saying, oh, it's so nice here, and it looks so intimate, and everything is running so smoothly, which could be nice, but it could also leave some traces. We're saying it that way, and it's also a challenge. Well, how are you going to react? Are you going to take it defensively, you know, as a criticism? You know, say, oh, okay, we're too lenient.

[41:40]

This is the grandmotherly Zen, you know, the too kind Zen, you know, not strict enough. It's okay, we're not strict enough. It's good enough for me. And it was good enough for the cooks. And I think everybody enjoyed the meal. So it was just right. And so it was her comment, right? So being able to incorporate that comment and that kind of opposition, you know, we get into these, you know, everything has two sides, right? And we seem to be, you know, and also we contradict ourselves, and Suzuki Roshi contradicts himself all the time. And then he says, that person that said this thing one moment is not the same person that said the opposite a different moment.

[42:44]

Those are two different independent existences. Those are independent moments. So he's free to disagree with himself. But when you're pointing one side, then somebody brings up the opposite, right? So it's like in lecture, you know, you're making one point, and it's happened to me. I don't know if it's happened to you, but, you know, like male or somebody is giving a talk, you know, and they're saying one side, and you're thinking the other side. And then often the comment kind of comes out of this other side. And so that then you feel like somebody's being contrary. You know, a couple of people also said during the practice period, you know, some of the leaders referred to themselves as being contrarians. So this quality of being contrarian, and sometimes in study group or in group discussions, sometimes it has that feeling people are getting into these contrarian positions, you know, kind of a dharma combat.

[43:55]

So how do we deal with that? But we're just disagreeing with ourselves, but we don't see that we're just disagreeing with ourselves. Because the other person is just bringing the other side where you've also been at a different time, but we forget that. So how not to get polarized in that moment? I mean, that's kind of the art of it. And which is going to be a question for me now that we're going to go into battle in the health department, which we have to. So how we do that in a way that's not contrarian and helps everybody. Because, you know, the administrators are also doing the best they can, because they've been told, the mayor tells them, you give me 27 million cut or you're fired. So then they, and we don't know if they're being foolish or they're being wise. So we have to remember, we say, oh, they're so foolish, they're stupid, why are they doing this?

[44:59]

But then you can also look at that, well, they're actually doing that. They're choosing the most ridiculous cuts that they know everybody is going to go to the streets and yell and complain. And the board of supervisors is going to get involved, and the media is going to get involved, and the whole community is going to be up in arms. And then they get to say, mayor, I'm sorry, you know, you told me to make these cuts, I made them. And now you have to deal with the community. It's very skillful, actually. So we can get angry with the administrators, or we can also understand their point and see how we work with the situation. And the mayor also has a problem. I mean, he's got, there's no money. So how we all work together with that, and looking at each other as representing different sides, you know, of a situation.

[46:04]

But we're always disagreeing with ourselves, so we're being contrarians. You know, we're always self-contradicting ourselves, which is what Suzuki Roshi is doing in his book. Thank you very much. Thank you.

[46:25]

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