The Summit of Heat and Cold

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

0:15 Welcome to the Wednesday evening talk at Beginner's Mind Temple. I want to thank Tim Latanto for inviting me to give this talk. Report an error in the passage at 0:15 Highlight the passage at 0:15

0:33 And to the Eno and the rest of the Doanryo for supporting me and giving this talk by striking bells and offering flower petals with me and getting the room set up. And I want to thank each of you for being here. A lot of faces I know and some faces I have not seen before. So welcome if it's your first time. Report an error in the passage at 0:33 Highlight the passage at 0:33

1:02 For those of you who don't know me, my name is Heather, and I live here at City Center now after many years of living at Tassajara, which is the Zen monastery about four hours from here in Carmel Valley. And there's a number of those people here now, the Tassajara folks, because there's been an evacuation, as some of you might know, because of a fire that most likely won't get there, hopefully. Report an error in the passage at 1:02 Highlight the passage at 1:02

1:41 But nonetheless, too much smoke and heat. So people evacuated here as well as that to Green Gulch. So welcome, Tassajara people. Report an error in the passage at 1:41 Highlight the passage at 1:41

1:59 So I'm going to talk about a koan. This evening. And I've been working with koans with this teacher for about four and a half years now. This is not a koan that we've been working on together. So maybe that's helpful because I'm stuck on this koan. Although he keeps saying I'm not stuck on this koan. Not this one, but another one. He's like, that's part of the process. But I feel kind of stuck on that koan. Report an error in the passage at 1:59 Highlight the passage at 1:59

2:32 So hopefully he won't hear this talk and say, hey, you're stuck on that one as well. Report an error in the passage at 2:32 Highlight the passage at 2:32

2:39 Who knows? I thought it might be fun to just explore this koan and some of you might be familiar with it. So I'll start. So a monk said to Dung Shan, cold and heat descend upon us. How can we avoid them? Dung Shan said, why don't you go where there is no cold or heat? The monk said, where is the place where there is no cold or heat? Report an error in the passage at 2:39 Highlight the passage at 2:39

3:09 Dung Shan said, when cold, let it be so cold that it kills you. When hot, let it be so hot that it kills you. Another way this has been translated is when it's cold, let it be so cold that it finishes you. And when hot, let it be so hot that it demolishes you. So this other translation as well, if that word kills is a little too strong. So first, what is a koan? Report an error in the passage at 3:09 Highlight the passage at 3:09

3:38 As some of you probably No, because now koans just seem to be, or the word anyway, like zen. People seem to know more about zen, or they think they know more about zen, because it's out there. We have the internet, and unfortunately we have also AI in some ways. But when I was in college, I never heard of zen. Report an error in the passage at 3:38 Highlight the passage at 3:38

4:01 I never heard of a koan. But koan is an enigmatic story. And in Chinese, it means something akin to an official public case. And in Japanese, a matter for public thought. So this was something that was taken up to be discussed and literally was a case in China, like on the docket that was actually being, if you will, I guess, litigated. Report an error in the passage at 4:01 Highlight the passage at 4:01

4:26 So koans are these paradoxical anecdotes that some teachers, especially in the mensage and tradition, employ to help students come to some realization that's beyond discriminative thinking. So although koans are not, although they're puzzling, they're not puzzles to be figured out with our logical mind, with our thinking mind. They are utilized by Zen teachers to confound. Report an error in the passage at 4:26 Highlight the passage at 4:26

4:51 This logical mind and break through the barrier of words and phrases to a spiritual epiphany. And then we use this word Kensho and Kensho in Japanese means seeing and show means essence. So can mean seeing show means essence. So it's a seeing into the true nature of reality or seeing into our true essence. So Kensho is a dropping off of body mind. Report an error in the passage at 4:51 Highlight the passage at 4:51

5:19 a non-dual experience. Report an error in the passage at 5:19 Highlight the passage at 5:19

5:46 this personification of wisdom, this In this case, a female personification of wisdom knows the own being of all dharmas, for she does not stray away from it. Unlike me, who strays away from it all the time. So we can only become intimate with this essence of the koan, or any koan really, by dropping below these words and phrases, right? Report an error in the passage at 5:46 Highlight the passage at 5:46

6:10 And of course, I have to use words and phrases to discuss this koan. And my teacher's teacher, Dainin Katagiri Roshi, would say, you have to say something. So I am going to say something, and I hope that it is illuminating in some way. So first off, the teacher in this koan, he's a Chan teacher from the Tang Dynasty. His name is Dongshan Linji, or in Japanese, which is easier for me to pronounce, Tozan Ryokai. Report an error in the passage at 6:10 Highlight the passage at 6:10

6:43 and Dongshan lived between 807 and 869, and he is the founder of the Soto Zen School, or Shadong Zen School. And he devised this profound teaching called the Five Ranks, which guides practitioners in their understanding of the relative and the absolute. And for those of you who have been to our Zen services in the morning, And I've had the good fortune of hearing us, of chanting with us, the song of the Julmira Samādhi that's also attributed to him, although recently I was reading that he might not have written it at all, but that's okay since I'm not a scholar. Report an error in the passage at 6:43 Highlight the passage at 6:43

7:29 I just stick with the profundity, perhaps, and not necessarily, and so concerned about the authorship, right, for me. So when the monk asks Dung Shan, how can we avoid cold and heat? Or maybe for those of you who just came from Tassajara, how can you avoid smoke and dust and more smoke and dust? Does he mean this literally? Is this question just about how to avoid this extreme weather? Yes and no. The monk is asking this teacher a question that many of us have probably pondered. Report an error in the passage at 7:29 Highlight the passage at 7:29

8:02 I know that I have. How can I avoid what I dislike? And conversely, how can I get what I like? One trait that we share with other sentient beings is that we human animals move away from pain and move toward pleasure. We don't want something and so we move away from it or we really want something and we grasp onto it. Report an error in the passage at 8:02 Highlight the passage at 8:02

8:32 So depending on many factors like our socioeconomic status and our location, we can manipulate our environment and avoid a certain amount of physical discomfort. Now this probably wasn't that true back in the Song Dynasty and the Tang Dynasties and when Dogen was around in the 1200s because they didn't have air conditioners, right? Report an error in the passage at 8:32 Highlight the passage at 8:32

8:55 I mean, there's so many cities in the United States and around the world. Report an error in the passage at 8:55 Highlight the passage at 8:55

9:09 they don't have the ability to manipulate it, and so their body has attuned itself to that climate. Report an error in the passage at 9:09 Highlight the passage at 9:09

9:19 Well, I think more to the heat. I don't think you can survive as well in the cold. But here, if we dislike the cold weather, we can turn up the heat in our houses, put Put on warm clothes or we could also move to a warmer state. If we dislike hot weather, we could put on the air conditioner or a fan, if people still have those. Report an error in the passage at 9:19 Highlight the passage at 9:19

9:41 Put on shorts and a t-shirt or move to a colder climate. Obviously, there's nothing wrong with attending to our physical needs and being safe and comfortable. Report an error in the passage at 9:41 Highlight the passage at 9:41

9:54 However, when we habitually move away, from psycho-emotional suffering and sometimes physical discomfort can activate psycho-emotional suffering or exacerbate psycho-emotional suffering if we're in tremendous physical pain from an illness or a temporary injury and Report an error in the passage at 9:54 Highlight the passage at 9:54

10:21 as we all know since we are human animals we all know there's countless ways that we suffer and There's also countless ways to avoid this suffering. I think especially in our modern society where we can intoxicate ourselves with food, entertainment, work, sex, exercise, the internet, on and on and on. Report an error in the passage at 10:21 Highlight the passage at 10:21

10:43 There's a plethora of ways that are very easily accessible. One of them is handheld Māra, right? Our phones, just constant Māra. Oh, there's the god of temptation. Look at that. Let me go, like the doom scrolling, right, as some people call it, which I love that. Just this way that we can distract ourselves from what's going on. Report an error in the passage at 10:43 Highlight the passage at 10:43

11:11 So even though these activities are physical, I feel that the urge to distract ourselves from suffering or dissatisfaction originates in our discriminating mind. Because we're so adept at avoiding our suffering, Report an error in the passage at 11:11 Highlight the passage at 11:11

11:26 We don't even know sometimes that we are suffering. suffering. I know before I started practicing Zen in 2001, no one even really talked about suffering. Report an error in the passage at 11:26 Highlight the passage at 11:26

11:39 And I remember when I went to the Austin Zen Center for the first time, well, not for the first time, I didn't walk in and everyone said, oh, are you suffering? Glad you're here. I mean, that wasn't how they greeted me, but just... Finally, people were discussing the mind and suffering, very different from my Roman Catholic upbringing, where that was just our cross to bear, even though no one again said the word suffering. Report an error in the passage at 11:39 Highlight the passage at 11:39

12:05 So it was really a relief to be in this community where people openly spoke of suffering and the causes of suffering, as well as the cessation of suffering and the path leading to the cessation of suffering. This is, of course, called the Four Noble Truths. So we get caught by distractions, right? Our iPhone. Report an error in the passage at 12:05 Highlight the passage at 12:05

12:31 We often forget that our small mind, the one that's being distracted, is creating the suffering, right? It is the origin of suffering. This is extremely important. I feel for us to remember because this means our liberation isn't dependent on external circumstances. So if the small mind or a discriminating mind is the cause of the suffering, then this is also the place where suffering can be transformed. Report an error in the passage at 12:31 Highlight the passage at 12:31

13:09 As we know, there is no perfect place where there's no cold and no heat or no smoke or dust. Or no sadness or no anger. All of these are examples of little deep dharmas, right? Conditioned phenomena. Report an error in the passage at 13:09 Highlight the passage at 13:09

13:28 So Dung Shan's initial response to this monk, it might seem like he's encouraging him to avoid his dislikes. So why don't you just go where there's no cold or heat? I hear San Diego is a great place for that, right? I mean, isn't it always like 75 degrees or so? Like it doesn't ever seem to get cold or hot there, people tell me. Report an error in the passage at 13:28 Highlight the passage at 13:28

13:50 But of course, we know there really isn't any place that probably never gets cold or hot. There's also, I think, what he's alluding to or stating directly is, you know, there's no escaping these causes and conditions of life. And I think Deng Xiaon was also exhorting this monk to continue to investigate the origins of suffering. Report an error in the passage at 13:50 Highlight the passage at 13:50

14:16 I think he's also highlighting here That we cannot know cold without heat and heat without cold. And so cold and heat are relative and impermanent arisings, right? Impermanent dharmas, which is redundant. But we don't know what cold is unless we've experienced heat and we don't know what heat is unless we've experienced cold in this dualistic way of being in the world. Report an error in the passage at 14:16 Highlight the passage at 14:16

14:48 Also, our likes and dislikes, our subjective All right. mind I used to one of my housemates in Washington DC like he loved humid 95 degree weather and he was raised in Chicago never wanted to be in a cold climate again I can't stand 95 degree humid weather so there is no subject there is no objective reality what worked for him as far as weather did not work for me at all Report an error in the passage at 14:48 Highlight the passage at 14:48

15:17 So this is a subjective state of mind. And also I want to mention, maybe we don't notice this so much, but because we can manipulate our environment to a certain extent, I think it also allows us to complain more. It's like because we have this ability to do this as a human animal, we have all these human tricks. Again, the air conditioners, the fans. Report an error in the passage at 15:17 Highlight the passage at 15:17

15:49 Fire, obviously very important in our evolution as human animals. But just somehow it introduces this complaining because we know it could be warmer or colder somehow. And we should have a trick to do that, to make that happen. So the discriminating mind also compares the present to the non-existent past and the non-existent future. Report an error in the passage at 15:49 Highlight the passage at 15:49

16:39 satellite weather mapping. So now it's like we're so overly prepared, at least in certain societies, we're so overly prepared for the weather. Maybe that takes away some of the surprise of a shower that might happen while we're out without our umbrella. God forbid we should get wet. Report an error in the passage at 16:39 Highlight the passage at 16:39

17:02 So I do feel that these modern conveniences give us this illusion that we're more in control because we can manipulate many aspects of our of our existence especially when it comes to getting away from physical discomfort and even emotional discomfort of course right with the way we can go into fantasy land in our mind and also through the phone or binging on Netflix right all the ways that we move away from what's happening right now here in the body mind I think the benefit, one of the benefits of Zen practice is that it really helps us to stay, or at least reminds us to stay present to what's going on. Report an error in the passage at 17:02 Highlight the passage at 17:02

17:54 And even just in acknowledging what's happening, that gives a little space before perhaps our mind starts running away with all the ways everything should be different, especially the way people should be different, so I can feel a certain way or not feel a certain way. Report an error in the passage at 17:54 Highlight the passage at 17:54

18:42 country we can move to or a room we can seal ourselves off in. That's not what Dung Shan's talking about. In his fascicle, which just means a teaching essay, Spring and Autumn, Ehe Dogen Zenji, who, for those of you who don't know, he founded the Soto Zen school in Japan in the 1200s. He exhorts us in this teaching, Spring and Autumn, to examine this monk's question. Report an error in the passage at 18:42 Highlight the passage at 18:42

19:18 When colder heat comes, how can we avoid it, right? When cold and heat comes, how can we avoid it? And Dogen Zenji says, this is to study the very moment when cold comes or the moment when heat comes. This colder heat, complete cold or complete heat, is itself cold or heat. Accordingly, when either comes, It comes from the summit of cold or the summit of heat and manifests the eyeball of cold itself or heat itself. Report an error in the passage at 19:18 Highlight the passage at 19:18

20:00 This summit is where there is no cold or heat. This eyeball is where there is no cold or heat. Report an error in the passage at 20:00 Highlight the passage at 20:00

20:11 So Dogen Zenji is expressing the absolute source or summit of heat and cold before the mind creates a distinction. For the mind conjures up its comparisons before the mind says, oh, this is hot and this is cold and really believes all of that. And this eyeball is awakened vision or this clear seeing or an awakened perception, awakened perception of reality from the summit where there is no cold and there is no heat. Report an error in the passage at 20:11 Highlight the passage at 20:11

20:45 This place, if you will, that's beyond or before distinction, before. dualistic thinking arises, what some people refer to as direct experience or bare perception. So when Dung Shan tells the monk when it's cold that it be so cold that it kills you or that it finishes you, he's instructing the monk to question whether these apparent distinctions actually exist. Report an error in the passage at 20:45 Highlight the passage at 20:45

21:13 He's also reminding him to employ this eyeball of awakened perception to see through the dualism, And here's what's, this is the fundamental point in my humble opinion, to see through the dualism so that the separation between me and heat, between me and cold, so the separation between the subject and object disintegrates, right? Report an error in the passage at 21:13 Highlight the passage at 21:13

21:40 Just cold, just heat, if you feel like you need to label it. I don't think it really changes anything, but the mind likes to label. So when this false sense of separation falls away, So does suffering. Dogen Zenji says this, cold or heat, just as it was precisely the place where there existed no cold or heat. Report an error in the passage at 21:40 Highlight the passage at 21:40

22:06 While living in the cold, the enlightened person lived in cold, in total freedom. So while living in the cold, the enlightened person lived in cold, in total freedom. While living in heat, one lived in the same way. So living in heat, living in the 95 degree humid weather and total freedom. Total freedom for my housemate, not for Heather. Report an error in the passage at 22:06 Highlight the passage at 22:06

22:34 So if we're not able to perceive heat and cold from the summit where there's no cold or heat, if we don't have this awakened perception, I still feel that we can cultivate the physical and mental posture, if you will, which is what we're doing when we're in zazen, when we're in seated meditation, meditation where Report an error in the passage at 22:34 Highlight the passage at 22:34

22:56 Sitting like a mountain, right, the stable physical posture, and we're working with what's arising that might be stressful for us, might be causing us some suffering or lack of ease. So when we meet arising circumstances with equanimity, our karmic habitual patterns are gradually burned off. That is, our old selves die. Report an error in the passage at 22:56 Highlight the passage at 22:56

23:24 These identities start to slough off. When we just feel the cold or the heat without interpretations, this is true intimacy, true freedom. So before I ever heard this koan, I had a physical experience of it. Report an error in the passage at 23:24 Highlight the passage at 23:24

23:49 So in the months leading up to moving to Tassajara for the first time in 2008, I had heard stories from a lot of people because at Zen Center, there were a number of people who had spent time at Tassajara, like four or five people. And I was very afraid of the cold. And they kept telling me that it was going to be really cold and most likely I wouldn't have heat. So it wasn't so encouraging. Report an error in the passage at 23:49 Highlight the passage at 23:49

24:16 And I almost didn't go because who wants to be cold and miserable and not be able to keep yourself warm? Report an error in the passage at 24:16 Highlight the passage at 24:16

24:50 So fortunately, my aspiration slash desperation to be free from heavy afflictive emotions was much more powerful than the fear of being cold. So I went. So my first practice period, what we call Tungario practice period, was in the fall of 2008. And let me say, I froze. It was so cold in my little tatami cabin. Report an error in the passage at 24:50 Highlight the passage at 24:50

25:17 There was no insulation. If you looked up the floorboard, there was just the ground. There were no glass windows. It was just shoji screens, which are beautiful, but they're just rice paper. So if it was 26 degrees outside, it was also 26 degrees in my cabin. and so I would spend my night Report an error in the passage at 25:17 Highlight the passage at 25:17

25:40 Sometimes before I went to Zazen, sometimes when I came back in the evening, I'd be eating these like Clif bars, you know, and just like literally shivering. And then I would get into, which is not a good idea, by the way, because I wasn't burning off any of those calories, not as many as I had hoped. Report an error in the passage at 25:40 Highlight the passage at 25:40

25:56 But I also got into, I had like three, I didn't even have one of those fancy, you know, down. Report an error in the passage at 25:56 Highlight the passage at 25:56

26:14 which is where people drop off stuff and I got this old flannel Sleeping bag, the one that you zip open and there's like the ducks inside of it. I don't know. I'm sure some of you are old enough to remember. And I probably still sell those at Camp Moore or something. But it was old and it was heavy. And I was under all these layers of everything I could put on. I slept with my clothes on practically, right? Report an error in the passage at 26:14 Highlight the passage at 26:14

26:41 So it was really wonderful. It was a really great practice, which we always say that in Zen. But for sure, this was for me in the sense that I couldn't escape the cold, right? Report an error in the passage at 26:41 Highlight the passage at 26:41

26:54 Tassajara as well, we would stand on the back of the zendo on this wooden walkway, which also was not insulated. I mean, there was just a ground beneath it. It was elevated, though, and it was freezing. The wood blanks were just cold, and my feet were freezing. And I'd stand back there, and my feet felt so cold. They were like hot coals, like swollen, thick bricks. bricks and and then then plus plus there was an abbot who was a lot more stoic back then than he currently is now and i won't say who he is but some of you might guess and so he wouldn't let us wear socks into the meditation hall never mind scar So when I was serving, you know, carrying these bowls and pots of food to serve my fellow monks, My feet were so cold I could barely walk on the zendo floor, the meditation hall floor, so I was almost like in tears. And then one morning, like in late November, I was walking across this little creek to go to the dining room after serving in the morning breakfast. Report an error in the passage at 26:54 Highlight the passage at 26:54

28:04 I went and put on my socks and put on my boots to go into the dining room, which is heated, thankfully. And this student, another Tungario person, it was her first practice period. She walks past me and I was trying not to cry, but I'm not very, back then I was really not good at not crying. So I was just crying and my face was all red and she's like, what's happening? Report an error in the passage at 28:04 Highlight the passage at 28:04

28:25 And she gave me a hug. And I said, oh my God, my feet are so, and I'm sure I cursed, effing cold. And then a moment later, after I uttered those words, I was surprised to hear me say, and I'm exaggerating. Report an error in the passage at 28:25 Highlight the passage at 28:25

28:43 And then we both started laughing. And it didn't really strike me then what that actually meant. So this is 2008. But there was some part of me that knew that all these stories I had about the cold and Mother Nature was out to get me and the abbot was definitely out to get me and why can't I wear socks and all this on and on and on. Report an error in the passage at 28:43 Highlight the passage at 28:43

29:38 fully grok it, but something was killed, something was sloughed off, something was demolished, something was finished. Report an error in the passage at 29:38 Highlight the passage at 29:38

30:15 was and everybody else who didn't who had heat how awful they were why did they get to have heat and I didn't get to have heat and that person's 50 or they're not 50 or they shouldn't be in there whatever all the stories were all those stories kept me from guess what just experiencing cold experiencing my cold feet the cold sensations on the wooden planks behind the meditation hall waiting to step in to serve Report an error in the passage at 30:15 Highlight the passage at 30:15

30:45 And since there's a lot of zazen, a lot of hours of facing yourself, facing that wall, a lot of this stuff just kept burning through, right? Just kept coming up and did my best for it to stay out of all the stories, out of all the, you know, not engaging all that papantia, the proliferating mind. Report an error in the passage at 30:45 Highlight the passage at 30:45

31:08 And just coming back to my body, dropping those stories over and over again. And there was a lot of stories, but fortunately there was a lot of zazen. And if I had not been in this freezing cabin, I would have been able to avoid the heat. And let me say this, let me say that you could ask Abbot David. He wasn't there. He wasn't the abbot, but he was the director at the time. I am not exaggerating at all when I said I complained. Report an error in the passage at 31:08 Highlight the passage at 31:08

31:36 I complained, like, I mean, the abbot said, Heather, stop your whinging. So I was like, I don't know what does that mean, but I know what it means. It means I was complaining so much that one of the senior people there finally said, could you just give her heat? So the next practice period, I got heat, right? Report an error in the passage at 31:36 Highlight the passage at 31:36

31:56 And I have to say, let me just say, back then, the dorm, which was also heated, there's nine rooms. And we used to alternate between men and women. So it used to be all men, and then the next year it used to be all women. This is back before we talked about gender fluidity and unisex and all that, more nuanced ways of working with gender. Report an error in the passage at 31:56 Highlight the passage at 31:56

32:19 So let me say that I was in this heated cabin, and I felt like I was on vacation because all of a sudden I could relax. I didn't realize how uptight my body had been because I was cold all the time. And so the guys moved into the dorm. They were in the dorm that second practice period, and the heat went out. And they were so cold, like they were now, they were all complaining about the cold. Report an error in the passage at 32:19 Highlight the passage at 32:19

32:44 And they had their scarves on and their hats, not in the zendo. And I felt a little vindicated, which is saying, because they were all much younger than me. Report an error in the passage at 32:44 Highlight the passage at 32:44

32:54 But it was such a relief to be in a heated cabin. I mean, really, it was, I felt like I could finally relax. Yeah, it was incredible how constricted my body felt. And yet, like I said, if I had been able to avoid the cold, that arising would have never happened. It was such a helpful experience to walk into that cabin at night. You're sort of expecting it to be a little bit warmer, but it's not really any warmer. Report an error in the passage at 32:54 Highlight the passage at 32:54

33:26 And I remember going in there once and just having this... Or maybe not even once this happened. It was like, it was so still and dark. You have those little lanterns flickering. And just feeling like I was going to die physically as an animal. Just feeling like I was going to be annihilated. And I don't think I've ever had a conscious experience of that before. Report an error in the passage at 33:26 Highlight the passage at 33:26

33:55 My life's never really been threatened in that way. So it was just... An animal instinct. I'm going to die, which, you know, obviously I didn't die, but that was really strong for me. And I also want to confess that I did eventually persuade the stoic abbot to let me get battery-operated socks that had a little 9-volt battery at the top, and it heated my toes. Report an error in the passage at 33:55 Highlight the passage at 33:55

34:26 And my friend Gita, who is from India, I mention that because she just never saw these things before. Obviously, she's from India. I don't think it gets super cold there. But she would call them, oh, you have your magic socks on, Heather, your magic socks. So I did wear my magic socks in. And then at the end of the practice period, I vowed not to wear socks in again. Report an error in the passage at 34:26 Highlight the passage at 34:26

34:51 And I think I probably left them in the goodwill for someone else to pick up. Yeah, it was really helpful to practice with this cold, right? So for me, practicing zazen was a way for me to turn toward this physical pain and psycho-emotional suffering with this cold. And that psycho-emotional suffering, in a way, it insulated me from the cold because I wasn't really with the cold. I was with all these stories being tossed around, buffeted by all these stories that... Report an error in the passage at 34:51 Highlight the passage at 34:51

35:25 Really didn't allow me to feel the cold. And it was just so much easier to deal with the cold when it was just cold. It was just the physical sensations of cold. So Dogen calls this taking the backward step. When we're practicing seated meditation or walking meditation or lying down meditation or standing meditation, it's this backward step to eliminate ourselves. Report an error in the passage at 35:25 Highlight the passage at 35:25

35:55 And as he instructs us in this essay that we chant at San Francisco Zen Center called Fuka Zazengi or Universally Recommended Instructions for Seated Meditation, he says this, you know, think of not thinking. How do you think of not thinking? Non-thinking. This in itself is the essential art of Zazen. Report an error in the passage at 35:55 Highlight the passage at 35:55

36:50 Wonderful capping phrase. So capping verse or phrase is just a Zen teacher's or Zen master's commentary or verse on a koan. And this Zen teacher I've not heard of, and they say he's only really mostly famous because of this capping phrase on this koan. His name was Zen master Fudong of Mount Yi. And so here's what he says about this koan. Where there is no cold or heat is Dungshan's phrase. Report an error in the passage at 36:50 Highlight the passage at 36:50

37:28 This place is where a number of Zen persons get lost. Go for fire when it is cold. Cool yourself when it is hot. All your life you can avoid cold and heat. Thank you very much. I don't know if we have... Time for four minutes or four questions? Four minutes. Four quick questions. Report an error in the passage at 37:28 Highlight the passage at 37:28

38:12 Thank you. So, you know, like I think as myself experiencing these things, like, for example, when I first moved into the temple and had to wake up at 5 a.m. every day, you know, that was one thing to work with. But then, you know, sometimes there is somebody else. Who's experiencing these things? And let's say somebody in charge or somebody, you know, like the abbot in the stories that you mentioned, has to decide whether to to kind of either treat that person with tough love or to kind of or to find a balance between treating them with tough love and maybe listening to their body and being like, OK, well, actually, this isn't working for you. Report an error in the passage at 38:12 Highlight the passage at 38:12

38:56 And it almost seems like there's a very fine line between, hey, like my toes are freezing off. Or your toes are freezing off, or maybe you should investigate whether something can be dropped away. And how do you navigate finding that balance? That's a great question. And it's hard to answer hypothetically, because obviously it's case by case. Report an error in the passage at 38:56 Highlight the passage at 38:56

39:23 I have to say that because this particular abbot was pretty strict, It was really helpful for me. There was no time really at which he said, yeah, Heather, you can wear socks in the zendo until I really like super pleaded with him. And I mean, it took months for me to get that permission. And I do feel like this is why it's really important to have a relationship with a teacher because they get to know you. Report an error in the passage at 39:23 Highlight the passage at 39:23

39:55 They get to see where you're stuck. They get to see your habit patterns, especially if you're honest with them. and it was just what I needed like I didn't like I didn't want to be able to manipulate the the Shingi Report an error in the passage at 39:55 Highlight the passage at 39:55

40:29 to just feel. Report an error in the passage at 40:29 Highlight the passage at 40:29

40:41 easy at Tassajara, but there are ways to do that. So it's like, what is our motivation for practice, right? If we're here to escape, that's not going to help us alleviate our suffering, transform our suffering. If we can work with a teacher who can say, Yeah, and I bet you you can go into the zenda without your socks on. And I bet you you're okay with getting up at five or investigate that and see how it feels, watch those stories, drop them and get up at five anyway. Report an error in the passage at 40:41 Highlight the passage at 40:41

41:12 Because we think that we're faking out the mind and we're in control, but we're not, right? And we don't necessarily always see that. Maybe we see it more in session or like a one-day sit or a three-day session. Report an error in the passage at 41:12 Highlight the passage at 41:12

41:25 We think that we're outsmarting the mind, but usually we're not, right? So yes, it is. I think it's a case-by-case student-teacher relationship where they can help you reach your deepest aspiration of waking up and tasting some freedom in the middle of that suffering, experiencing a little bit of that summit. Report an error in the passage at 41:25 Highlight the passage at 41:25

41:49 So thank you for being here and waking up at five. Report an error in the passage at 41:49 Highlight the passage at 41:49

41:58 We're out of time. Okay. Thank you, everyone. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving. Report an error in the passage at 41:58 Highlight the passage at 41:58

42:23 May we fully enjoy the Dharma. Report an error in the passage at 42:23 Highlight the passage at 42:23