The Satipatthana Sutra and Zen Practice

0:00 This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Report an error in the passage at 0:00 Highlight the passage at 0:00

0:16 Welcome to Beginner's Mind Temple. That's where you are right now, Beginner's Mind Temple. It was founded by Suzuki Roshi back in the 1960s. And Suzuki Roshi, a A Zen practitioner who really valued the beginner's mind. So if you're just coming, who's here for the first time? Report an error in the passage at 0:16 Highlight the passage at 0:16

0:44 Welcome, welcome, welcome. Oh, the rest of you have been here before. Well, if it's sort of early on in your career of coming here, your way of thinking is very much valued in Zen. Report an error in the passage at 0:44 Highlight the passage at 0:44

1:01 I want to welcome everyone who's joining us online as well, both here today and in the future through the recording of this talk, which will be posted. And I'd like to thank Abbot David Zimmerman for allowing me to take the Dharma seat today. Report an error in the passage at 1:01 Highlight the passage at 1:01

1:28 And as always, my teacher, Rinso Edsadison. Who is very generous and kind and incredibly patient with me. Today we're having a one-day sit that the central abbot has asked me to co-lead with him. And a one-day sit is something that we do every month. We sit all day, basically. We don't only sit. We do some walking, sitting, walking service. Report an error in the passage at 1:28 Highlight the passage at 1:28

2:04 Sitting, walking, sitting, walking, service, eat. But that's what we do all day, and it's a wonderful thing to do. It's challenging sometimes. It takes lots of people to put it on in the kitchen, and everyone who's doing it today, I want to thank you so much for making time and space in your busy lives to do this very radical thing, which is to basically sit in the middle of capitalism doing nothing. Report an error in the passage at 2:04 Highlight the passage at 2:04

2:59 So today I would like to speak about one of the foundational texts for Buddhism, and it's called the Satipaṭṭhāna Sūtra. Report an error in the passage at 2:59 Highlight the passage at 2:59

3:15 And this was the very first sūtra that I read. You can read it in a couple of hours. It's a short one, but it's a beautiful one. Report an error in the passage at 3:15 Highlight the passage at 3:15

3:26 And it opened up a whole new world for me, the world that I had been inhabiting all my life. I think I was probably 40 when I read it quite a while ago. It opened up the world of my internal experience, which I had been mostly unable to really connect with in any kind of knowledgeable way. I vaguely knew there was an internal experience, Report an error in the passage at 3:26 Highlight the passage at 3:26

3:56 The Satipaṭṭhāna Sūtra taught me to look very closely at what it is my internal experience is. Until I came to Buddhism, I'd just really been existing in the world, like many of us are, is really surviving, tossed around by the need for food and shelter and pleasure and getting them in the fastest and easiest way that I could find them. Report an error in the passage at 3:56 Highlight the passage at 3:56

4:25 In Buddhist terms, I was subject to the conditioning of existence. So existing and by existing, we are affected by the other things that we're connected to. And in Buddhism, we believe we're connected, especially in Zen Buddhism, we believe we're connected to absolutely everything. So the conditioning that happens to us can be very complex and extensive. Report an error in the passage at 4:25 Highlight the passage at 4:25

4:55 How we live connected to all things has an effect on who it is and what it is that we are. We call this karmic consequences. Report an error in the passage at 4:55 Highlight the passage at 4:55

5:07 Karmic basically means action with consequences. But I didn't know how to identify any of what was happening inside of me. Report an error in the passage at 5:07 Highlight the passage at 5:07

5:20 The first form of Buddhism that I was introduced to was through a Theravadan teacher. Theravadan Theravadan Buddhism is slightly different from Zen Buddhism. It really considers itself sort of the original gangster of Buddhism. Report an error in the passage at 5:20 Highlight the passage at 5:20

5:42 Zen came much later, several hundred years later. In fact, the word Theravadan means the way of the elders. They're constantly telling us this, the Theravadans. And the Satipaṭṭhāna Sūtra is one of the most important sutras for Theravadins. Sati, the first part of the word of the title, means mindfulness or memory or recollection. Report an error in the passage at 5:42 Highlight the passage at 5:42

6:13 There's a sense in this meaning of a knowledge, a sense of returning to something that you're familiar with. And the second part of the title is Upatthana. Report an error in the passage at 6:13 Highlight the passage at 6:13

6:29 which means to establish, to verify, to look at, to investigate. It also means presence. So in its compound form, the two sections together, satipaṭṭhāna means present mindfulness. Report an error in the passage at 6:29 Highlight the passage at 6:29

6:52 It gave birth to the practice and theory of vipassanā, which is quite known by many of us now, which means deep insight. Or to see things as they are. So this is mindfulness and that was my first practice in Buddhism. This concept and experience of mindfulness was delivered by the Buddha in this Satipaṭṭhāna Sūtra. And when I came to Buddhism first, I was completely disconnected, as I said, from my internal experience. Report an error in the passage at 6:52 Highlight the passage at 6:52

7:26 I knew very little of what it was that was happening inside of me. I couldn't really identify it, as I've already said. I needed a framework for identifying what my internal experience was. What were these things that were happening inside of me that seemed to have so many consequences in the rest of my life? The Satipaṭṭhāna Sūtra created a kind of opening for me by helping me to understand what it meant to be a human being. Report an error in the passage at 7:26 Highlight the passage at 7:26

7:57 And by identifying what my experience in life was, what pleasure was, and what suffering was, I began to be able to identify those experiences inside me. Report an error in the passage at 7:57 Highlight the passage at 7:57

8:19 I'm not a scholar, and so I'm not going to really go through the Satipaṭṭhāna Sūtra. In a scholarly manner, I'm just going to sort of quickly mention what's in there before spending some time talking about how it is that it was helpful to me. Report an error in the passage at 8:19 Highlight the passage at 8:19

8:40 The very beginning of the Satipaṭṭhāna Sūtra on page three is the Buddha speaking to the monks. Monks, he says, this is the direct path for the purification of beings. Report an error in the passage at 8:40 Highlight the passage at 8:40

9:01 For the surmounting of sorrow and lamentation, for the disappearance of dukkha, dukkha we usually translate as suffering, but that's not quite what it means. It actually means an axle which is slightly off-center of a wheel, so that the wheel, when it turns, is slightly sort of wobbly. Report an error in the passage at 9:01 Highlight the passage at 9:01

9:24 For the disappearance of wobbliness, of dukkha. and discontent for acquiring the true method for the realization of nirvāṇa, namely the four satipatthanas. Report an error in the passage at 9:24 Highlight the passage at 9:24

9:39 So these are four mindfulnesses. And he goes on to mention what they are. They are the mindfulness of the body, mindfulness of feelings, mindfulness of the mind or contemplation of the mind, And mindfulness of dharmas, which small d really means conditioned reality or everything in the world. Report an error in the passage at 9:39 Highlight the passage at 9:39

10:10 These four satipatthanas are studied in a very objective way. This is something that's very different from our Zen practice. Focusing on the body, the feelings we have, what's happening in the mind, and what exactly we call reality. What is this cushion that I'm sitting on? What is this grass mat? What is this building? Report an error in the passage at 10:10 Highlight the passage at 10:10

10:36 And I have to admit that even though I was approaching middle age when I first read it, I still had a scatological 14-year-old inside me that really liked this section, but not as much as the section that I'm not going to read you because it's a little too crazy. Report an error in the passage at 10:36 Highlight the passage at 10:36

10:58 Page six. Report an error in the passage at 10:58 Highlight the passage at 10:58

11:03 So he's talking about how it is that you use these satipatthanas. And this is the satipaṭṭhāna of the body right here. Again, monks, we review the same body up from the soles of the feet and down from the top of the hair, enclosed by skin as full of many kinds of impurity thus. In this body there are head hairs, body hairs, nails, teeth, skin. Report an error in the passage at 11:03 Highlight the passage at 11:03

11:29 Flesh, sinews, bones, bone marrow, kidneys, heart, liver, diaphragm, spleen, lungs, bowels, mesentery, contents of the stomach, faces, bile, phlegm, pus, blood, sweat, fat, tears, grease, spittle, and snot, which I'm interested is translated from the original Pāli right there. Oil of the joints and urine. Oh, I loved it. Report an error in the passage at 11:29 Highlight the passage at 11:29

12:03 So he does the same thing with feelings and he does the same things with the mind and he does the same thing with dharmas. And so this is just sort of a way to break down these different elements of what it means to be alive to see what exactly it is that they are. He identifies what it is that we're made up of as aggregates or heaps, they're sometimes called. Report an error in the passage at 12:03 Highlight the passage at 12:03

12:31 What is it that we, and this is what it is that we cling to. We cling to form. These aggregates are made up of form, sensations, the sensations that we have in our bodies, perception, volitional activities, the actions that we take, and finally consciousness. So he's teaching us in this sūtra to really look at and break down all of our reality and come to understand it. Report an error in the passage at 12:31 Highlight the passage at 12:31

13:03 He wants us to see how it is that all of the elements that make us up can be actually broken down and observed as they're constantly changing. To see that there's actually not anything that could be said is a permanent self in us. We break everything down. It's always changing. It's constantly changing. And we're empty. Report an error in the passage at 13:03 Highlight the passage at 13:03

13:31 He says, of permanence. There's no permanence in us. So by breaking reality down into these parts, I was able to begin to understand what it meant to be this human being named Tim Wicks. Report an error in the passage at 13:31 Highlight the passage at 13:31

13:47 I was able to begin to identify fear, anger, joy, depression, anxiety, and inspiration in their subtlest forms, even when they were just beginning to arise in me. Report an error in the passage at 13:47 Highlight the passage at 13:47

14:01 And by identifying them, I was able to begin the process of breaking them down and understanding them as well as for many of them the root of where it is that they came from. Report an error in the passage at 14:01 Highlight the passage at 14:01

14:20 So by identifying suffering, by simply acknowledging it, it begins to diminish. I didn't know really what depression was. I had to learn about this sort of cascade, this group, this bouquet of feelings that were constantly changing. And as I began to identify them, they began to shift and change, or I began to notice that they were shifting and changing at all times. Report an error in the passage at 14:20 Highlight the passage at 14:20

14:54 And for the first time in my life, I began to understand the inner workings of myself, suffering and what it was made up of. Report an error in the passage at 14:54 Highlight the passage at 14:54

15:06 And the Satipaṭṭhāna Sūtra ends with a prediction. It's very famous for Buddhists. Monks, if anyone should develop these four Satipatthanas, these four methods of analysis, these four objective ways of approaching our existence, in such a way for seven years, Report an error in the passage at 15:06 Highlight the passage at 15:06

15:38 One of two fruits could be expected for them. Either final knowledge, here and now, which means enlightenment, or if there's a trace of clinging left, non-returning, and non-returning is sort of nearly enlightenment. Not quite, you've got a ways to go, but it's nearly enlightenment. Let alone seven years, six years, five years, four years, three years, two years, one year, seven months, six months, five months. Report an error in the passage at 15:38 Highlight the passage at 15:38

16:08 If anyone should develop these four satipatthanas in such a way for seven days, one of two fruits could be expected of them, either final knowledge here and now, or if there's a trace of clinging left, non-returning. Report an error in the passage at 16:08 Highlight the passage at 16:08

16:27 And so it was, with reference to all this, that it was said, monks, this is the direct path for the purification of beings. Report an error in the passage at 16:27 Highlight the passage at 16:27

16:38 For the surmounting of sorrow and lamentation, for the disappearance of dukkha and discontent, for acquiring the true method, for the realization of nirvāṇa, namely the four satipatthanas. Report an error in the passage at 16:38 Highlight the passage at 16:38

16:55 That is what the Blessed One said, and the monks were delighted in the Blessed One's words. Report an error in the passage at 16:55 Highlight the passage at 16:55

17:14 So, as I've mentioned, this is objective meditation, what it is that the... Buddha is trying to teach us with this sūtra. It's meditation that focuses on specific things, on the breath, on the body, on feelings, on different parts of our existence. Report an error in the passage at 17:14 Highlight the passage at 17:14

17:37 It's actually very different overall than how Zen is. Report an error in the passage at 17:37 Highlight the passage at 17:37

17:45 In Zen, we speak about the way seeking mind. We're about to have a practice period and various... Students in the practice period will be invited to give a way-seeking mind talk during the practice period each week. And there are stories of how it is that we came to the dharma. Wei is usually capitalized, or the W is usually capitalized in Wei. Report an error in the passage at 17:45 Highlight the passage at 17:45

18:19 And this comes from our Chinese ancestors. Buddhism, as many of you know, started in northern India and then moved through incredibly diverse and different cultures in India and out into East Asia. And the word way comes from Taoism, which was a spiritual precursor to what was called Chan in China and then became Zen in Japan. Report an error in the passage at 18:19 Highlight the passage at 18:19

18:55 The way in Taoism literally means path or road. It also means the source of the foundational principle of the universe. Report an error in the passage at 18:55 Highlight the passage at 18:55

19:12 We prefer to it a little bit lazily, perhaps as emptiness. So we use our stories to tell the way that we came to this path. And the Buddha used the story of his early life to explain his understanding of the way. He said, I teach one thing and one thing only, suffering and the end of suffering, which when I first heard that really sounded like two things. Report an error in the passage at 19:12 Highlight the passage at 19:12

19:43 But I came to realize that Buddhism is always trying to get back to how it is that everything is connected, even suffering and non-suffering or the end of suffering. The Buddha was protected as a prince by his father, the king. His father gave him everything he thought his son needed to be happy. He protected him from harm. He sheltered him from suffering as best he could. But when the Buddha became a young adult, he experienced suffering anyway. Report an error in the passage at 19:43 Highlight the passage at 19:43

20:19 His dad wasn't able to keep him away from old age. From sickness and from death. And the Buddha saw examples of all of these once he left the palace, the protection of the palace. So even if you have everything that you think you need just to be happy, the fact that you are alive means that you will suffer aging if you're lucky and the process of aging and the fear of dying. Report an error in the passage at 20:19 Highlight the passage at 20:19

20:51 And in this way of the way-seeking mind, I use my own story to help me to understand the dharma. I try to stick mostly to what it is that I can verify in my own experience. The Satipaṭṭhāna Sūtra helped me to identify the suffering in my life and how to begin the process of ending that suffering. Report an error in the passage at 20:51 Highlight the passage at 20:51

21:14 We talk in Buddhism about karma, which is kind of misunderstood sometimes. Which means, as I mentioned earlier, intentional action. It's action that has consequences. We speak of karmic consequences. Consequences that are connected to our actions. And conditioning is just really a fancy way for us to say life affects you. Report an error in the passage at 21:14 Highlight the passage at 21:14

21:42 And there's consequences to what it is you do. And there's consequences also to what it is that you don't do. Because of what happens in life, you are this way. And the way that life had affected me by the time I came to Buddhism, and in fact the reason why I came through those doors 25 years ago was because of the way that life had affected me, which is that I had become a drug addict and an alcoholic. Report an error in the passage at 21:42 Highlight the passage at 21:42

22:11 And after getting into recovery and having several years with my Vipassanā practice, I started coming here to Zen Center where there was and still is a meeting on Monday nights for people who are in recovery from addiction who are interested in Buddhism. And to be honest, I didn't really like it here very much at first. Report an error in the passage at 22:11 Highlight the passage at 22:11

22:46 My Vipassanā teacher is from a tradition that decided that if we, back in the 70s, In Burma and Thailand, if we bring Buddhism with all of the bells and whistles to it to the United States, people won't like it. Let's drop all of that stuff and just talk about only the doctrine, only the ideas. And so there wasn't any of this stuff. Report an error in the passage at 22:46 Highlight the passage at 22:46

23:10 No robes, no bowing, no big altars, no altars. Occasionally you'll find a candle and occasionally you'll find a bell. But none of this stuff, which now has become incredibly important to me. So you need to be careful because Zen can sneak up on you, right, when you're not suspecting it. Report an error in the passage at 23:10 Highlight the passage at 23:10

23:36 In Zen, we sit. We just sit. Other schools of Buddhism think that we sort of throw people in the deep end because we just sit. Report an error in the passage at 23:36 Highlight the passage at 23:36

23:48 We call it shikantaza in Japanese, just sitting. We don't do any of this objective stuff of concentrating on anxiety and fear. We face the wall and we try to let go of everything that arises, noticing but not activating or pushing it away. So not feeding what it is that arises and definitely not pushing it away. Report an error in the passage at 23:48 Highlight the passage at 23:48

24:17 We're witnessing life as it arises and as it fades away. In our Zen practice, we're really observing and experiencing impermanence. Report an error in the passage at 24:17 Highlight the passage at 24:17

24:32 And our 13th century founder in Japan, Dogen Zenji, was constantly saying, study this, study this, investigate, investigate, which to me is sort of a little bit objective. Report an error in the passage at 24:32 Highlight the passage at 24:32

24:50 I had this objective training in Vipassanā. My meditation experience was based on focusing on something. And now I was being told just to sit, non-objective sitting. Don't add or push away what arises in your experience. And I did this for a couple of years and I found a teacher. Report an error in the passage at 24:50 Highlight the passage at 24:50

25:15 And you can do this. You can get a teacher here and you can ask them questions, meet them on a regular basis. And you can ask them questions. I asked him when some anxiety was starting to come up in me, in my life. I can't remember what was going on, something at work probably. Some anxiety was starting to come up pretty regularly. Report an error in the passage at 25:15 Highlight the passage at 25:15

25:39 I asked him if it would be okay for me to return to a little bit of vipassanā. We were in a silent room, you know, away from everyone. It was private. I wanted to do a little bit of objective sitting. I was starting to become, I was starting to suffer again. Report an error in the passage at 25:39 Highlight the passage at 25:39

25:57 And he said to me, he said something very interesting. He said that everything that came in Buddhism before Zen is a part of Zen. And the teachings of Theravadan, Buddhism are actually inside of Zen. And we actually start out when you come here. Every other Saturday we have Zazen instruction in this room. So Zazen means sitting meditation. Zen means meditation or concentration. Report an error in the passage at 25:57 Highlight the passage at 25:57

26:35 And when we give instruction, it's at 8.40 next Saturday, if any of you want to come. When we give instruction, one of the first things that we teach you to do when you're just starting out is to focus on your breath, just like in Vipassanā. And, um... Report an error in the passage at 26:35 Highlight the passage at 26:35

27:00 We start out actually in general in Zen with the body. We start out with the posture that we sit in. It's very important to us to have the correct posture. It's very important to be upright and to focus on the breath. That's how we begin. Just like in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sūtra, I started to notice that after my teacher had told me that it's in us, it's in our practice. Report an error in the passage at 27:00 Highlight the passage at 27:00

27:27 Then we move to feelings. What it is that's going on inside of our body, our internal experience, then the mind, then out to everything else. So in Zen, we're trying to open up our awareness. So we begin with the body, begin with the breath, but then open up to the rest of the room that we're in, to the rest of the building, what's happening outside. Report an error in the passage at 27:27 Highlight the passage at 27:27

27:53 And then we begin to add into it movement. So we do walking meditation as well. And then the sutras, studying the sutras, we add to our meditative experience the teachings of the Buddha. So we're constantly trying to open up. When we cling, we're closed. We're small. We're protected. A grasping hand or a closed fist. Report an error in the passage at 27:53 Highlight the passage at 27:53

28:23 Intimacy is something that is sometimes described as the truth being delivered or shared to someone without judgment. So if I tell you that I was an alcoholic and you don't judge me, I'm being intimate with you. I'm opening up. If you judge me about being an alcoholic, there's a separation that occurs between us, a separation, a disconnection. Report an error in the passage at 28:23 Highlight the passage at 28:23

28:55 that is being cultivated. For the Buddha, there were three poisons or three obstacles to our awakening, and they were greed, hatred, and delusion. And they are greed, hatred, and delusion. And in my experience, delusion is really the worst of the poisons. Because of delusion, hatred and anger or greed and anger arise. That was my experience. Report an error in the passage at 28:55 Highlight the passage at 28:55

29:28 Delusion, of course, is not seeing the truth as it is. My childhood, like so many of us, was in many ways unbearable. I needed, however, to think that everything was all right when it wasn't. And that's where delusion comes in. Oh, everything's fine. fine. That's why I ended up drinking and using drugs, because my consciousness was unbearable. And the Satipaṭṭhāna Sūtra taught me to see the truth in a way that was gentle and safe. Report an error in the passage at 29:28 Highlight the passage at 29:28

30:06 This Report an error in the passage at 30:06 Highlight the passage at 30:06

30:13 was the greatest thing that I learned. I can see what it is that the truth, what reality is made up of and how it is that I share it with the rest of the world. So as I begin to break down and look at my suffering, I begin to and become familiar what it means to be me. I begin to notice how it is that many of the experiences I have, I share with others. And now I'm going to finish with a poem. Report an error in the passage at 30:13 Highlight the passage at 30:13

30:58 Two weeks ago, a poet named Wendell Berry died, and he was a novelist, he was a poet, as I mentioned, he was an environmental activist, a cultural critic, he was a farmer, and he was extremely dear to many people who practiced Zen. And this poem is called The Peace of the Wild Things. Report an error in the passage at 30:58 Highlight the passage at 30:58

31:30 I'm just going to read it once. When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, I go and I lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water and the great heron feeds. Report an error in the passage at 31:30 Highlight the passage at 31:30

31:58 I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water and I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. Report an error in the passage at 31:58 Highlight the passage at 31:58

32:19 And for a time, I rest in the grace of the world and am free. Thank you all very much. Because today is a one day sitting, we will not have my very favorite part of my dharma talks, which is questions, answers, and discussion. So sorry about that. If you have a burning question that needs to be asked, my... Report an error in the passage at 32:19 Highlight the passage at 32:19

32:51 My email address is, if you go out in the hall by the restrooms right there, there's a notice board and on it is a list of practice leaders and you can check those practice leaders out and make an appointment with one of them and come and ask a question. You can, if you don't feel like coming to see me to ask your question, you can write me an email and I will get back to you within a week and a half. Report an error in the passage at 32:51 Highlight the passage at 32:51

33:25 So that's all that we can do right now. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Report an error in the passage at 33:25 Highlight the passage at 33:25

33:41 Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, please visit sfzc.org and click Giving. Report an error in the passage at 33:41 Highlight the passage at 33:41

33:54 May we fully enjoy the dharma. Report an error in the passage at 33:54 Highlight the passage at 33:54