Yakuso Ryushin (Healing Source Dragon Heart) began practice in 1994, came to Zen few years later, was ordained in 2005 and received dharma transmission both from Sojun Mel Weitsman, in 2015. She has also studied devotedly with Shohaku Okumura. She practices at the Berkeley Zen Center, is a physician for the old and very seriously ill and loves the mountains, especially when accompanied by her dog.

Full Transcript

It's just marvelous to see your hybrid model in action. And I bet it's a relief to be sitting there together in the Zendo without your masks on. So I'm again, really happy to be joining you today.

The title of this talk is something like "The True Spirit of Zen." The feeling behind it or the reason behind it for me is exploration of the last couple of years since our original teacher at Berkeley Zen Center, Sojen Mel Weitzman died. It's become the task for us who are senior students to try and figure out what our own practices are and how we continue to bring forth the Dharma in his absence and in the face of a changing world and a changing community.

I was very touched in your dedication at the Zen Dokei today as you were chanting. You named your echo names, a list of a number of different more contemporary teachers, not just the traditional list and many different people. I think that points to the truth that our practice is influenced by many folks. One of those was a marvelous Dharma sister named Leila Smith, who died about 10 days ago from cancer. As I was trying to bring a focus to this talk, what came to me was her Dharma name, Jokujon Saitation, which means "pure forge constant." To me that segues nicely with the idea of what a true Zen spirit is. A small dedication to Leila.

I should say the computer's reminding me: Sometimes my internet connection here gets a little unstable. So I have to be very careful not to move. If I just move, I can't move. If I just, you know, I'll reconnect with my phone in another room. So don't be surprised if we have another technical glitch, but I hope not.

"The world is vast and wide. Why when the bell rings, do you put on your robe and go sit?" You may recognize these from Case 16 of the Mumonkan, Master Ummon's famous words. The question is apt today. There's so much suffering and turmoil in the world. It's hard not to be discouraged or overwhelmed. So much change, so many distractions and possibilities. The choices for engagement and entertainment are endless. What to do with this one life? What can one person who wants to be of help do at these times? What does practice have to offer that supports a response in troubled times? These are often questions that are entry gates to seeking a spiritual answer.

There are many challenges. The biggest one perhaps comes in wishing that things are different than they are. Most of you here know that, of course, the Buddha's first noble truth, that our suffering or dissatisfaction exists because we don't really want it to be so. Suzuki Roshi said that the effort in practice is to accept things as it is.

There's a famous story at San Francisco Zen Center that when there was a new in-training student named Mel, one morning he got up and rang the morning wake up bell. I don't know if you know how that is. It's really quite startling. This one student takes a loud metal bell and runs as fast as he or she can down the halls and up and down the stairs, swinging the bell so that it rings loudly. Everyone came out and then realized with both relief and some exasperation that Mel had gotten up an hour early. An honest mistake and so everyone did what? They went back to bed. Suzuki Roshi got up with his robes on and went down to the meditation hall and sat. An hour later when everyone else came, after a while he quietly got up and took the kyosaku or the wake up stick and went around and gave everyone a good whack. Wake up. Each person one after. The teachers in Japan used to use this as a tradition to pay attention. When the bell rings, put on your robes and go sit. Don't ask if you have to or if it's time.

Sojun, my old teacher, learned that lesson and for almost all of his 50 years as Abbot, came and sat zazen five or six days a week, usually at the 5:40 a.m. time. And for many of those years riding his bike from Mylar Silverman's house, which meant he got up at 4:30 in the morning to arrive on time. Much later when he was overnight and ill with cancer, he confessed to one of his students that he really enjoyed sleeping in until mid-morning. He said that was his natural rhythm and before he was a Zen student, that is in his mid-30s, he stayed up until midnight or one and always got up at eight or so.

What drew you into practice? The quiet anonymity, the momentary escape from a restless mind, beauty and simplicity of the forms? And why have you stayed? The people with shared values you meet, the increasing ease in your life? And sometimes it's hard to say when nothing seems to be happening and the vast wide world is calling. Sometimes the practice can feel dry or cryptic or unproductive, yet something about the embodiment of the practice, the live practice has a ring of the real.

I think most often if we're lucky and if a practice really has some momentum to it, it has something to do with the conduct of the teacher. Not so much in what she or he says, but how they move, stand or interact, how they hold their bowls or bow or pay attention and hold the space at the altar. Or even out in the dog park, you can pick them out of a crowd, even when you're not looking for them. Katagiri Roshi said the teacher is like the engine for the practice, the one who knows how to do things. But it doesn't have to be the teacher, it could be anyone, it could be you.

Linda Ruth Cutts, who was an abbot at San Francisco Zen Center, said that when she was a new student coming into practice, it was walking through the kitchen and seeing how the students showed a deep presence to just the activity of right now. You could sense something unusual. All the cognizing had quieted down. There was just pure attention, pure activity, a flow between people as they moved in the kitchen, handled their knives safely with each other, acknowledged but didn't engage in a way that was excessive. The focused effort and undivided effort.

How very good it feels when a person is paying attention. How very good it feels to do just one thing at a time, to have when a person bows to you or hands you something, to look you right in the eye and pause, a complete connection to what you're doing. These days that feels like a luxury to do just one thing when our phone offers us many, even simultaneous features of distractions and entertainment.

The 40 minutes like we just did with each other. A day or a practice period to just pay attention opens up all the sense doors which are usually closed to business. It's almost startling how interesting and varied and rich and unknown the world is when thoughts slow. The world is wide and to an attentive mind, it's even more so.

Zazen is of course the great teacher. Sitting in an upright posture, allowing breath to breathe, allowing zazen to sit zazen and putting the mind in neutral, opening the hand of thought, dropping opinions and preferences and even ideas of the world of worries and pressure softens. And everything comes and goes. The mind's fabrication, both more honest and more obvious, it's bothersome at least over time. Just a movie showing on a blank screen. A settledness and confidence arises. A sense of the truth of things, the natural harmony of things becomes apparent.

In bowing, the mind becomes apparent. And bowing becomes just bowing, an offering, an expression, not something special, but not not special. In chanting the words are complete without their meaning. Just the sounds, just the resonance of voices in the room felt in the body enchanted with one's ears.

Master Ummon's comments about the vast and wide universe was about this reality, not just or even so much the problems of the world. How could we possibly know and understand the problems without opening to the vast and wide universe as it is? He was calling attention to the world beyond the normal view person. Before practice, well, maybe even well into practice, the usual experience of people is like a frog in a well. Do you know that expression? That means when looking at the sky, the frog at the bottom of the well can only see one narrow tube-like picture of it. And that isn't his entire world. Yet how vast and wide the universe is to the mind of zazen. And in that mind, there are many possibilities and much curiosity. Wants become less.

From one side, seen from the old way of being, life can look like a world where there are few desires and striving. Why? There's less conflict, less rumination. Less kind of lightness, oops, I forgot that. Can happen. A kind of joy from being unburdened. For me, it feels like an impersonal joy. Something bigger than me is functioning, and I can't help but feel that. And I can rely on this. And out of a sense of relief and gratitude, slowly a feeling of devotion and dedication arises and takes root.

Accepting things as they are becomes easier. Whatever that is, the death of a teacher, a change in routines, a way of life turned upside down. My first teacher was a very upright and direct New Englander named Maylie Scott. I went to her very early in my practice life and presented the distress I'd carried since I was young. How could I ever really practice with this bone-aching loneliness not attended to? Her cool answer to me was only this: "Please don't ever think anything is ever out of place." Can you imagine someone coming with tears running down their face, asking for help, and saying only that, kind of? But really, it's okay. It's just the way it should be. Nothing is ever out of place. Not even the state of the world, of Ukraine, of Afghanistan, of the millions starving in Somalia, the glaciers melting or the sixth extinction, nothing.

If everything is in its proper place according to causes and conditions that lead to this moment, this very Dharma position to use Master Dogen's words, then even the unthinkable and unbearable is just. And the mind is at ease and no fear need exist. From that place, perhaps it's possible to move forward. Trust begins to grow forged with this sense, the seeing and knowing that things are harmoniously as they are. And life starts to hum in a way larger than the ordinary way of doing and seeing things.

Sojun Roshi said, "I never want anything for myself." What he meant was that he wasn't trying to get anything from anyone. People came and went freely at Berkeley Zen Center. And somehow what was needed came, in part because whatever was there was enough. Suzuki Roshi always brought the saddest looking vegetables, the legend goes, because he felt bad for them. Nothing special. A feast can be created even from this. There was always enough because the practice was always going. Do you understand? Nothing was missing. The practice filled it up. Not with material objects or the right students or the right building, but whoever came, whatever was offered. And somehow it was what was needed.

The world is vast and wide. How do I show up? I'm speaking in past tense, telling these stories mainly, but it's still true. Nothing is missing. The whole world is functioning just as it is and just as it should. Yes, really. And the zazen now that we sat this morning, your zazen is just as alive and free as Okumura Roshi would say, your zazen is Buddha's zazen. The work is to show up and bring everything, your wholeheartedness, your intention to wake up. However you want to say what your inmost request is, that will be enough, but it's a requirement. No teacher sits zazen for the student. Sit down and show up completely.

Dogen Zenji's Fukanzazengi, his description of zazen and Bendowa, his commentary on zazen's merits are his manifesto to the sitting practice. A defining characteristic of Dogen Zen is faith. His faith was in zazen and the power of dropping body and mind as the gateway to freedom. Mental and physical freedom. Fully supported in confidence that we and everyone else and everything else are Buddha nature. A part of Indra's net of interdependent interconnectedness where nothing is lacking and nothing is out of place. And each person, each of us, just as we are is essential.

Suzuki Roshi said though, be grateful for your difficulties. This too is Buddha nature. One time his student Sojun was feeling that he wasn't making any progress in practice and asked Roshi if he should leave. Maybe he'd be more successful. Maybe his life would have more meaning if he did something else. Suzuki said, "Isn't this practice hard enough for you?" Sojun stayed another 60 years and he marveled at how Suzuki Roshi could do the same thing, exactly the same schedule each day. And it still seemed fresh. Whatever his difficulties, he didn't drag in yesterdays with him. He lived with them that day for what they were.

Difficulties are the open door to understanding how things are and what it means to be human. Not running away from the cries of the world does not exempt anyone, including oneself from oneself. All of the uncomfortable this person is or isn't are grist for the mill of practice, essential. That idea of who we are can be seen as just one idea, a fleeting set of aggregates. And it loses its potency from our life.

Suzuki Roshi, and I'd say Uchiyama also said, our practice is a practice of settling oneself on the self, which means always having a new and fresh experience of your true self. Master, master, don't be fooled today. Here you are, here you are. That means accepting ourself as nothing out of place and living with it, facing it and using it as an understanding to bridge our lives to those around us. Seeing the aggregates of our mind consciousness is really Master Ummon's vast and wide world. Seeing through our opinions, ideas of what we think and experience is to open our perceptions being not necessarily an opening to the world.

The world is vast and wide. Why get up? Why put on your robe and go sit zazen? And so to summarize, a true Zen spirit is a full devotion to zazen, giving your full attention to what's right in front, to always saying yes, to accepting everything as it is and looking deeply, to not tire of anyone. Each is Buddha and that includes me and you. To not waste time. The true spirit gets us up because the alarm goes off and the world is wide and deep and ah, so interesting and unknown.

What about you? Your experience of a true Zen spirit and why when the world is vast and wide, do you show up on a Sunday morning and sit down?

So thank you very much. I was heartened when I was told that you enjoy questions and answers and exchanges about what's important to you. I think for me, that's the heart of this practice. So I look forward to hearing what came up for you as you listened to what I had to offer this morning and anything that's on your mind or in your heart today. Thank you.