Mindfulness and the Path to Liberation

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

0:19 Welcome to Beginner's Mind Temple at San Francisco Zen Center. Welcome to everyone who's joining us online. Report an error in the passage at 0:19 Highlight the passage at 0:19

0:30 Oh, no. Report an error in the passage at 0:30 Highlight the passage at 0:30

0:34 Oh, no. Report an error in the passage at 0:34 Highlight the passage at 0:34

0:41 Oh, no. I left my talk at home. Can you go get it for me? Report an error in the passage at 0:41 Highlight the passage at 0:41

0:51 I think it should be on my bed. I'm 104, number 104. Oh, my gosh. Report an error in the passage at 0:51 Highlight the passage at 0:51

1:02 What a fantastic nightmare. We Report an error in the passage at 1:02 Highlight the passage at 1:02

1:08 just had a practice period recently, and it was led by former abbess Christina Lenher. And she... She, her very first talk of the practice period, she came out and... Report an error in the passage at 1:08 Highlight the passage at 1:08

1:47 My apologies. I'm going to be talking about the platform sūtra today a little bit. That's what it is that we are doing for the practice period that we just started. It's a month-long practice period, and practice periods are periods of intensified study. study. Report an error in the passage at 1:47 Highlight the passage at 1:47

2:13 And in Zen, there's usually at least two of them a year that last for three months, oftentimes three of them a year. Sometimes they last just for two months. The one we just had was two and a half months. And this one is one month. And I'm leading it with my Dharma sister, Lucy Hsiao. Report an error in the passage at 2:13 Highlight the passage at 2:13

2:38 And so far, we're having a lot of fun. At least we were until I left my talk at home. Report an error in the passage at 2:38 Highlight the passage at 2:38

2:50 First of all, I want to thank Central Abbot David Zimmerman for letting me hold the dharma seat here. And as always, I want to thank my teacher, Rinso Ed Sadison. Let's see, how did that talk start? Report an error in the passage at 2:50 Highlight the passage at 2:50

3:12 I was just practicing it. Edison. Report an error in the passage at 3:12 Highlight the passage at 3:12

3:22 Yeah, how did it start? Oh, I need a prepared talk. I can't do this off the top of my head. We have people who can do it off the top of their head, people who don't use any notes at all. Former abbot Paul Haller, I've seen him, I've seen him, because I usually sit over there, and I've seen him come in with notes because he's being humble. Report an error in the passage at 3:22 Highlight the passage at 3:22

3:51 Thank you so much. Oh, my gosh. Making time here. And I'll see him never refer to his notes at all, unless he's got a quote. He doesn't refer to them. And he'll point at them like this while he's making a point, but he's not reading from the notes at all. It's awe-inspiring. Report an error in the passage at 3:51 Highlight the passage at 3:51

4:19 Okay. All right. So today is a one-day sashin. Sashin means to gather the heart-mind. And so it's a retreat, and we started early this morning, and we're going to go all the way to dinner tonight, where we are going to be... Report an error in the passage at 4:19 Highlight the passage at 4:19

4:47 Meditating, sitting in meditation, walking meditation, sitting meditation, walking meditation. And always a part of a session or a retreat is a dharma talk, which is what this is, a dharma talk. The dharma are the teachings of the Buddha. And it's a dialogue where it's this... Talk is being co-created. Even before the actual talk got here, we were co-creating this talk. I was bearing myself to you. Report an error in the passage at 4:47 Highlight the passage at 4:47

5:22 There's nothing else I could do. I had to admit the fact that I didn't bring the talk with me. And you were all, for the most part, I think, except for a couple of you, very sympathetic. sympathetic. Report an error in the passage at 5:22 Highlight the passage at 5:22

5:38 So we're co-creating this. It's kind of a dialogue between the dharma, the teachings of the Buddha, me, and all of you. And really, that's what all of Zen is, is a dialogue. Report an error in the passage at 5:38 Highlight the passage at 5:38

5:52 It's a dialogue between the teachings and the individual practitioners, the teachers who have kept this teaching going, and what it means to actually be alive living on planet Earth. On Fridays and Saturdays, every morning we have service here in this room. This is the Buddha Hall. And we do chanting. We chant some of the sutras and some other sacred texts and do lots of bowing. And on Fridays and Saturdays, we recite the names of all of our ancestors, the ones that we know anyway. Report an error in the passage at 5:52 Highlight the passage at 5:52

6:35 And these are all the people who nurtured this teaching. And who kept it alive through the ages so that we could be introduced to it in the present. And when I first came here in 2001, about 25 years ago, I heard the reciting of the names of the ancestors and I really had absolutely no association with it whatsoever. Report an error in the passage at 6:35 Highlight the passage at 6:35

7:05 I don't come from like a strong cultural background. I am a former. Report an error in the passage at 7:05 Highlight the passage at 7:05

7:15 I'm a Jew, but I was not raised Jewish at all, really, except the only thing that my Jewish mother taught me before she passed away at a young age for me, the only Jewish thing that she taught me is how to eat with chopsticks. chopsticks. Report an error in the passage at 7:15 Highlight the passage at 7:15

7:32 And so, you know, my background and my lineage goes from my father and mother to my grandparents, who I know sort of a little bit about, and then it's just a mystery after that. So this reciting of these names, this long list of names where we recite all the names of our ancestors, starting with the Buddha, all the way through India, then into China, then into Japan. Report an error in the passage at 7:32 Highlight the passage at 7:32

7:57 And the final person on that list is Suzuki Roshi, who founded this temple, who came to the United States from Japan in 1959. So it's a long list. And one of the people, through repetition, I began to feel a little bit more comfortable. I didn't like any of the bowing or all the robes and all the chanting when I first came here, and now I totally love it. Report an error in the passage at 7:57 Highlight the passage at 7:57

8:44 So watch out. One of the people on the list is called Bodhidharma. And Bodhidharma was the first ancestor in China. He brought in the fifth or sixth century, we don't really know exactly when, he brought the teachings of the Buddha in the form that would become our school, Chan, which would then be called Zen. Report an error in the passage at 8:44 Highlight the passage at 8:44

9:15 he was the first one to bring that to China in the fifth of And so we call him the first Chinese ancestor. For some reason, the Chinese ancestors, the numbering of them only goes up to six. Even though there's a seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth, and all the way up to like 20th Chinese ancestor, we don't call them by their number. Report an error in the passage at 9:15 Highlight the passage at 9:15

9:40 But the first six we do. Bodhidharma is the first ancestor. ancestor, and It helped me in this process of learning the names, reciting the names, it helped me that I practiced with people who had practiced with Suzuki Roshi, who at one point was living, and he actually was my teacher, Ed Sadison's teacher, so he was my teacher's teacher. Report an error in the passage at 9:40 Highlight the passage at 9:40

10:10 And it was really helpful in learning about the relationship between teacher and student to know that my teacher had had this living relationship with one of the people on this list. And we really stress the importance of this teacher-student relationship. My first teacher, I was his jiko. And so I would come here. I didn't live in the temple then, but I would come and park my truck outside early in the morning and come on Thursday mornings. Report an error in the passage at 10:10 Highlight the passage at 10:10

10:49 And I would carry the incense for my teacher as he walked around the temple and awoke the temple. And it's just a really beautiful thing to do. I had never had an experience like it before where you're in close proximity to someone who you really care about a lot. Report an error in the passage at 10:49 Highlight the passage at 10:49

11:57 Totally sure if it was two, some scholars say three pieces. They're all pretty short. Most of what we know about Bodhidharma comes from stories about him. And there's actually a picture of Bodhidharma out in the hallway. When we're done here, you can go and have a look at it. And many of the pictures of Bodhidharma are very terrifying. Report an error in the passage at 11:57 Highlight the passage at 11:57

12:21 And this one is so terrifying and so big. Report an error in the passage at 12:21 Highlight the passage at 12:21

12:40 Drawing of Bodhidharma's scary face. What we know about him, like I said, comes mostly from stories. And one of the stories, which I choose to believe, is that he sat in a cave facing the wall for nine years. And I oftentimes feel like I make contact with him when I'm downstairs in our meditation hall. Report an error in the passage at 12:40 Highlight the passage at 12:40

13:06 So Bodhidharma... Once he got established, he, and I presume after the nine years, he had a disciple, and his disciple's name was Huike. And so Huike is the second ancestor in China. And when Bodhidharma was identifying Huike as his student, his main student, he gave Huike. Bodhidharma gave Wicke the Lankavatara Sūtra. And Bodhidharma said to Wicke, this is the only sūtra that you need to read. Report an error in the passage at 13:06 Highlight the passage at 13:06

13:49 You don't need to read anything else. Everything you need to know about the dharma was in this sūtra. And the Lankavatara Sūtra is considered to be or is referred to as the mind-only sūtra because it focuses on the mind. In it, it states that The 10,000 things, which is Buddhist talk for everything, the 10,000 things, all phenomena, what we perceive in the world, everything, are manifestations of the mind. Report an error in the passage at 13:49 Highlight the passage at 13:49

14:22 So everything is somehow a manifestation of the mind. It says that suffering... Buddhism's main concern, which is suffering and the end of suffering, even simply to be alive, even if everything goes great, you're going to suffer at the very least from old age, sickness and death. And that suffering arises from ignorance and delusion and attachment to, at the very least, the opposites of old age, sickness and death. Report an error in the passage at 14:22 Highlight the passage at 14:22

14:52 So youth and good health and not dying. All things that we are very concerned with today as they were concerned with them in the time of the Buddha. And although ignorance, delusion and attachment are felt in the body, they're based in the mind, said the Lankavatara Sūtra. The sūtra asks us to meet this suffering, understanding that the suffering is directed by this false idea of reality that we have. Report an error in the passage at 14:52 Highlight the passage at 14:52

15:28 And in this meeting of reality that we're encouraged to do, we transform the mind through meditation and direct experience, asking us to have a direct experience with the present right here, right now. So by transforming the mind, we begin to transform our suffering. Buddhism has always really been concerned with the mind. Report an error in the passage at 15:28 Highlight the passage at 15:28

16:00 It's just in this era, it becomes a little bit more intensified. An early poem, Buddhist poem, the Dhammapada, beautiful poem, begins with dichotomies where it says, all experience is preceded by mind, led by mind, made by mind. Report an error in the passage at 16:00 Highlight the passage at 16:00

16:21 Speak or act with a corrupted mind and suffering follows as the wagon wheel follows the hoof of the ox. All experience is preceded by mind, led by mind, made by mind. Speak or act with a peaceful mind and happiness follows like a never departing shadow. Report an error in the passage at 16:21 Highlight the passage at 16:21

16:44 So this idea of transforming our suffering by transforming our mind has been one of the basic tenets of Buddhism since its beginning. Report an error in the passage at 16:44 Highlight the passage at 16:44

16:56 So the second ancestor, Wike, is said to have said to Bodhidharma, This is one of my favorite koans. And he famously, Huike famously asked Bodhidharma, my mind is anxious. Please pacify it. Bodhidharma replied, bring me your mind and I will pacify it. And Huike said, although I have sought it, I cannot find it. Report an error in the passage at 16:56 Highlight the passage at 16:56

17:27 Bodhidharma said, see, there, I pacified your mind. Problem solved. Report an error in the passage at 17:27 Highlight the passage at 17:27

17:38 So as I think probably all of you know, the mind's perceptions help us to understand reality. We really need our mind. The mind is very useful. It aids us in maneuvering the world so that we can feed ourselves and so that we can procreate and build productive communities so that we can then develop systems like Zen to address our suffering. Report an error in the passage at 17:38 Highlight the passage at 17:38

18:05 The mind is where our idea of a permanent self is also formulated. And this is one of the great delusions for Buddhism that causes our suffering, that we have a permanent separate self. And this permanent self engages in clinging and all kinds of activities that are based in the ego. Report an error in the passage at 18:05 Highlight the passage at 18:05

18:29 And it's in the mind where this idea of a permanent self can begin to be broken down with the help of wisdom. So the environment brought about by the Lankavatara Sūtra is the environment that early Chan, which is what Zen is called in Chinese, found itself in. With this focus on the mind and on consciousness and the role of the mind in perceiving suffering and in developing an end to suffering. Report an error in the passage at 18:29 Highlight the passage at 18:29

19:06 The next big sūtra in China was the platform sūtra. And when this was developed, marks the beginning of the Tang Dynasty in China, which is sort of considered the golden era of Chinese culture, the early 7th century to the 10th century. Report an error in the passage at 19:06 Highlight the passage at 19:06

19:34 And in our current practice period, I think I mentioned this already in my fumbling through while Atta was getting my... Report an error in the passage at 19:34 Highlight the passage at 19:34

19:44 My talk, that we are studying the Platform Sūtra in our current practice period. And in the Platform Sūtra, which by the time of the Platform Sūtra, you're up to the fifth ancestor now in China. And the fifth ancestor, his name was Hongren, was wanting to name his successor. So the sixth ancestor, he wanted to find out who the sixth ancestor was going to be. Report an error in the passage at 19:44 Highlight the passage at 19:44

20:13 And everyone in the community in that temple was pretty sure that it was going to be Hsinchu, who was the head monk. He was the most advanced monk, the senior monk in the community. And to choose the successor, the fifth ancestor, Hongren, asked everyone in the community to please write a poem illustrating your understanding of the dharma. Report an error in the passage at 20:13 Highlight the passage at 20:13

20:43 Everyone was so impressed with Hsinchu, they just said, we're not going to bother. Let's just let Hsinchu write his poem. And we all know he's going to be the next ancestor anyway. And this is Hsinchu's poem. The body is like a Bodhi tree. The mind is like a clear mirror stand. Time and again, we must polish it and not let dust alight. Report an error in the passage at 20:43 Highlight the passage at 20:43

21:15 So it's a nice short poem. I'm going to repeat it. The body is like a Bodhi tree. The mind is like a clear mirror stand. Report an error in the passage at 21:15 Highlight the passage at 21:15

21:25 Time and again we must polish it and not let dust alight. We just had our first class on Monday, and Lucy was very generously translating this poem from the Chinese to the English, and Tara asks, what about the... The mirror stand right there. I knew someone was going to ask that question. It just rhymes in Chinese. So that's why there's a mirror stand in there, because it rhymes. Report an error in the passage at 21:25 Highlight the passage at 21:25

21:57 It's nothing, no big dharmic lesson right there. So Hui Ning is a member of this community who works in the rice shed. He's illiterate. And someone reads Hsinchu's poem to Hui Ning. And even though he's illiterate, he understands it and immediately says, I've got a poem as well. Write this one up on the wall. Report an error in the passage at 21:57 Highlight the passage at 21:57

22:27 And this is Wei Ning's poem. Bodhi originally has no tree. The mirror has no stand. Buddha nature is always clear and pure. Where can the dust alight? Report an error in the passage at 22:27 Highlight the passage at 22:27

22:46 So once again, Bodhi originally has no tree. The mirror has no stand. Buddha nature is always clear and pure. Where can the dust alight? So Wei Ning, this illiterate temple worker, of course, wins the battle. And the fifth ancestor chooses him as the sixth ancestor. and I Report an error in the passage at 22:46 Highlight the passage at 22:46

23:18 Hongren knows that everyone in the community is going to be really upset about this, Shinshu not becoming the next ancestor. And so he sends him off. He gives him his robe and his bowl, symbols of his being the next ancestor. And Wei Ning goes into hiding for like 15 years until it's safe for him to come out and start teaching again. Report an error in the passage at 23:18 Highlight the passage at 23:18

23:40 And there's a koan that I like featuring Wei Ning. from the Womankan, which ties him in with this focus on the mind. In it, two monks are arguing about the temple flag, which is waving in the wind. And one says, the wind moves, and the other one says, the flag moves. And they couldn't agree. They kept arguing about it. Report an error in the passage at 23:40 Highlight the passage at 23:40

24:08 Wei Ning comes along and says, it is not the wind that moves. It is not the flag that moves. It is your mind that moves. And as is often the case in koans, they were enlightened. So in this sūtra, in the Platform Sūtra, a debate is laid out that has continued to, in my opinion, be unresolved for 1,300 years. Report an error in the passage at 24:08 Highlight the passage at 24:08

24:36 And the debate is between the argument for sudden enlightenment and the argument for gradual enlightenment. Hsinchu's poem, the first poem, is provided as an example of gradual enlightenment, which would become called the Southern School. This is indirect awakening. And Huining's, the second poem, illustrates the Southern School. Report an error in the passage at 24:36 Highlight the passage at 24:36

25:09 The other one, the first one, is the Northern School. Thank you, thank you. I can feel the tension over here. Report an error in the passage at 25:09 Highlight the passage at 25:09

25:17 Wrong, Tim, wrong. Report an error in the passage at 25:17 Highlight the passage at 25:17

25:22 But that's not all that's in the sūtra about this argument. That's a part of it. It's a really wonderful sūtra. It actually doesn't take that long to read. You should read it several times, though, because it's pretty heavy in parts. parts. The sūtra also teaches that the nature of mind is inherently pure, and that's really what these two poems are trying to get to, and that our false ideas about the self, the self as a permanent thing, arise from our compulsion to cling And so this idea of removing dust from the... Report an error in the passage at 25:22 Highlight the passage at 25:22

26:05 The mirror, the mirror is often used in Zen as a metaphor for the mind, which reflects reality. And if there's dust on it, the idea of that first poem was to erase the dust, keep the dust off it so that the vision can be clear. The sūtra stresses non-duality, the unity of all things, that everything arises in connection with and in collaboration with everything else. Report an error in the passage at 26:05 Highlight the passage at 26:05

26:36 Everything needs everything else. It also talks about the direct experience of ordinary activities, something that is a big part of our practice still today. Report an error in the passage at 26:36 Highlight the passage at 26:36

26:50 Realizing liberation from our suffering in everyday life rather than just having it limited to formal meditation practice. There's kind of like an expansion of your formal meditation practice. Out into the rest of the world, and we still do this here. So we sit first thing in the morning, facing the wall in the meditation hall. Report an error in the passage at 26:50 Highlight the passage at 26:50

27:15 Then we walk. We take our meditative awareness into movement by walking really slowly. Then we take that meditative awareness out to chanting and bowing up here in the Buddha hall. And then, which is very important to Japanese Zen, we take our meditative awareness into soji, which is cleaning. We clean the temple. Report an error in the passage at 27:15 Highlight the passage at 27:15

27:43 Only then do we eat. And this morning we had ariyoki breakfast, which is ritual ceremonial eating. It's really beautiful. It really got on my nerves when I first came here. I had a friend who referred to it as OCD picnic. Report an error in the passage at 27:43 Highlight the passage at 27:43

28:06 And yeah, it really got on my nerves because it's very complex, but it is a way for us to have meditative awareness with the process of eating, and it's beautiful. It's a beautiful thing to do. So realizing liberation in our ordinary activities, a couple of quotes from the Platform Sūtra, our very Buddha nature. Report an error in the passage at 28:06 Highlight the passage at 28:06

28:37 Our very nature is Buddha and apart from this nature there is no other Buddha. The kingdom of Buddha is in this world within which enlightenment is to be sought. To seek enlightenment by separating from this world is as absurd as the search for a rabbit's horn. And this is kind of a reference to an older A more ancient form of Buddhism, Theravadan Buddhism, the way of the elders it's called, where the ideal is sort of this lone monk who goes off to the mountaintop to become enlightened. Report an error in the passage at 28:37 Highlight the passage at 28:37

29:22 Our ideal in our Mahāyāna school of Zen is the ideal of the Bodhisattva who stays in the world, stays in the everyday world. stays in the world of suffering, continues to work towards enlightenment, but stays in the world of suffering until all beings can be liberated together. Finally, Report an error in the passage at 29:22 Highlight the passage at 29:22

29:52 in the mind, there are no distinctions between the sacred and the ordinary. These are all arguments that awakening is to be found in this very moment, in this very life. And that's really what our Zen practice is, is for me, Report an error in the passage at 29:52 Highlight the passage at 29:52

30:10 A reminder that I am alive in this and how rare it is to be a living organism. My Dharma brother Dan Gudgel gave a Dharma talk a couple of Wednesdays ago and in it he said something that I'd never heard before but knew somehow. And that is that one of the rarest things in the universe is life. And if my memory serves me correctly, Dancer, if I'm misquoting you, it's even rarer than diamonds and gold, which there's probably a lot of in the universe. Report an error in the passage at 30:10 Highlight the passage at 30:10

30:51 But life, we don't know very much of life. Some of us hope there's more life out there. If there is, though, it's clearly very, very rare. And for me, that's what Zen is, is a reminder to remember the rareness of life and what an amazing thing it is to be alive. Report an error in the passage at 30:51 Highlight the passage at 30:51

31:12 So to finish up with Suzuki Roshi, who once again founded this temple, he said that each activity is important. If you want to make your life sacred, you should think about each step that you make. And in his famous book, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, this is called Beginner's Mind Temple. Report an error in the passage at 31:12 Highlight the passage at 31:12

31:38 Many of you have heard the famous quote that in the beginner's mind, there are many possibilities, and in the expert's mind, there are few. Report an error in the passage at 31:38 Highlight the passage at 31:38

31:49 Thank you all very much for listening to me today. Unfortunately, because this is a one-day sit, we don't get to have Q &A and discussion, which is my favorite part of the dialogue that happens here. But thank you all very much for coming and listening today. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Report an error in the passage at 31:49 Highlight the passage at 31:49

32:12 Our Dharma talks are offered free of charge and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, And click giving. May we fully enjoy the dharma. Report an error in the passage at 32:12 Highlight the passage at 32:12