Tim Burkett Dharma Talk for SBZC on Authenticity

Tim Burkett began Zen practice in early 1964 with Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. At Suzuki Roshi's urging, Tim began a weekly meditation group on the San Francisco peninsula later that year. Suzuki Roshi's talks to that group were later edited and published as Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, a now-classic text and a gateway to Zen practice for many westerners.

After completing his BA at Stanford University, Tim attended the maiden practice period at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center in 1967. In 1970, Tim and his wife Linda moved to Minnesota. He was an early member of MZMC and was ordained by Dainin Katagiri Roshi in 1978. Tim received dharma transmission from Sekijun Karen Sunna in the Katagiri lineage in 2000. He succeeded Karen as Guiding Teacher in 2002 and served in that role until 2019. Tim and Linda live in Minneapolis and have two grown children and two grandchildren.

Tim is a licensed Ph.D. psychologist, whose doctoral work focused on neo-shamanic practice. He is also the retired CEO of one of Minnesota's largest non-profit agencies, People Incorporated, which provides community-based services to individuals with mental health concerns. Shambhala published his first book, Nothing Holy About It: The Zen of Being Just Who You Are, in 2015 and his second book, Zen in the Age of Anxiety, in 2018. A central focus of Tim's first book is his discussion of the impact of Suzuki Roshi's teaching on his life and on his own Zen teaching, while the second book focuses on practicing Zen in our modern, fast-paced world.

Full Transcript

Welcome. Wonderful to be with you guys. Weather is a little different here. Maybe the Massachusetts River Western Mass is a little similar to here was I think either one below or one above a couple hours ago but. So we just kind of go into a zone. Going to hibernation.

Anyway, I'm really happy to be here. I used to go to some Santa Barbara when I was a kid for it was she she loved it. I'm sure I'd love it now but I hear it's really expensive. Who would have thought back then. So much beach along the West Coast.

Anyway, so I'm going to talk today. A little bit about my early practice in the Bay Area. And then continue from there. Say some things about the Dharma. So, we've all been wounded. We've all been wounded. We've all had some trauma or other in our lives. And it's interesting for me as a retired psychologist that trauma seems to be the word of the mini decade. We didn't do too much. People didn't talk much about trauma 20-25 years ago. But it's we all have been traumatized and somewhere up there. We're wounded. Plus, we've had two very difficult years in this country. I think probably the most difficult in my life. Through this combination of factors which I don't really want to go into.

You know, nevertheless, whatever is going on in the outside world through our practice. We have the opportunity to settle into a quiet joy that's not of time or space. A quiet joy that doesn't know anything about time or space. And supposedly this is what our archetypal hero Buddha tapped into and what he called enlightenment. And there was a path to it that you guys are very familiar with. But I don't talk about it much, but I want to pull it up. I'm going to talk about a little bit.

If I can share a screen. I'm not great at sharing screen, but I'll talk about it even if I can't share screen. So let's just see if I can share screen first. Let me give you permission to share. I think I have to do that from my end. But let me see. Okay. Okay. Okay, try it now. All right. Yep. Let's see. Can you see it? Raise your hand. Okay. So here's the full path. I'm not going to spend much time on it. But it starts with, I use my own words here, right understanding at the top. Based on our understanding, we have an intention or aspiration to practice. We understand about interbeing. We want to practice it. We need to practice it. Then we exercise the first leg. To bring the trust. The faith that we have that through our understanding and our aspiration, we can embody it. The first leg of practices, speech, action, and likelihood, the ethical practice. And the second leg is. Effort concentration and mindfulness. And then we exercise those. Over and over. With the aspiration to. Turn. Our right view. Our right intellectual understanding to something deep. Something calm. Something joyous. And. So I think that's really important. And as we do that, it's a spiral that goes on and on.

But our original trust, faith. Gets deeper in us. And kind of makes us a little bit wise. Maybe not very wise, but just a little bit. I use the thing very wise, but here I've been practicing for more than 50 years. I only have this much. I'm not going to be able to do it. So that's the path. And I'm just going to stop sharing. I'll bring it back in again at the end.

So. Our practice. Enables us to release our need to be anyone or anything. Then who we are or what we are already. It doesn't mean we don't have ideals. We have to be able to release our own. Our own image of ourselves. We give up. Poor narcissus. The Greek God narcissus is focused on. Self image. He's so frozen. But he. He just gets frozen by his reflection in this stream and he can't move. And little by little through our practice, we. We can. Or even use ourselves.

And the 12th century. Zen teacher Hongja. Calls this. The illuminating of the empty field. The illuminating of the empty field. And Basho. The. Haiku. Zen master. Says. We need to. Let go. Of the monkey's mask. He says. Year after year on the monkey's face, a monkey's mask. And we know about that. Year after year. We're we're worried. About something. And we want to. Put on a mask to protect ourselves. And. Of course, part. Developing. My kid, my grandkids. I'm watching them. Is trying on masks and becoming. Adept at using different ones, different images. But how can we do that and not be caught by any of them? How can we do that? That's what happens through our Zazen. But what happens beyond the conscious mind. And you have to have that. That trust. That faith. It's the first two steps in the path.

I worked with a guy. Before the pandemic started whom I'll call Bob. Bob was. Not unlike my own father, which is I remember. Bob pretty well. My dad was. He was. I'll go further. Bob was fiercely competitive. He argued. He was really good at arguing. And it was time for a family reunion to come up with his wife's family. And. She said to him, Bob. Maybe you can put another face on. For this reunion with my family. And Bob was. She counseled him. He wouldn't listen to anybody but her. She counseled him. So he. He went to the. The family reunion. He tried to smile more. He tried to be friendly. He bit, tried to bite his tongue. He tried to stifle the urge to argue or debate. Cause that was his way that he'd learned to get along in life. And he did it. He did it. And at the end of the evening, he told me he was. Frustrated and exhausted. But. I said to him, how healthy. You tried on a new mask. I know it had been hard. And he said, yeah, my wife was proud of me. Yeah. So he began to see. The family reunion. And he said, yeah, I'm proud of you.

And so he began to see. That he didn't need to live. Within the confines of a single mask or persona. He'd learn. He needed that specific mass to feel safe, to feel protected. In a, in a scary world. And so he started to see that. That's not something that works for them. It's part of growing up. They're trying on different faces. And that's fine. It's not something negative. They need to need to feel adequate. They need to project a sense of adequacy. Or even our competence. Even when they are feeling that way. That's part of. Being developmental. And then we're caught in the two dimensionality of the mask. And we lose our original. Timeless joy. That's always right here.

So Bob himself put on this unfamiliar face. And cloud cover is clenched teeth. But he had to keep practicing that. And then he had to keep practicing. And his Zazen and letting go of all of his masks. Because I kept encouraging. As a good teacher. As encouraged you along the way. I hope. I encouraged him to try to live. Just authentically. I don't know what authentic means. Just authentically without knowing what it means. And then he said, I'm going to keep practicing that. Beyond the confines of any single mask. And the 10th century woman says. Open up to your original face before you were born. Your maskless face before you were born. And how do you do that? You do that by exercising. The two legs. I'm going to put them on my screen. Are they on your screen? No. Okay. Well, I don't. I'm not going to bring them up. I don't know why they're still on my screen. Exercising those two legs. Ethical conduct. And meditation. One leg. We just fall over. We need to. Two. And then. I'm going to show you the face behind. Behind our faces. The face behind all the faces.

Oh. I was. Working with. I work with people a lot over the years. Who. Attend meditation retreats. So sesshin is. And I. Stay with what's going on. Experience something deeper. Than any of the shoulds or should nots or has beens or must be. Or should have been, or might have been. Or has been, or would be. That. Coagulate. And cause us to manifest these faces.

So back to my early years of practice. I. Was very focused on. Shedding my masks. And living more authentically. And I was also influenced. By a lot by existential teachers. That's a whole different Dharma talk. But. My study. Existential teachers. Luckily. I came to Zen and just didn't stay in the. Jean-Paul Sartre coffee shop. Coffee house for the rest of my life. I don't know if you know what I mean. Luckily. Not that I ever went to Paris. I'm talking metaphorically. We have the. Opportunity more in retreats. Than in our daily setting. But our daily setting can prime us for retreats. To. Settle into something more alive than our masks. You could say a sweet spot. Or a sweet no spot. What. Cause as I said a minute ago. The luminosity of the empty field. The luminosity of the empty field.

So anyway, as I said, I wanted to shed my masks and live more authentically. Suzuki seemed to be able to do that. And I was able to do that. I was able to live more authentically. Suzuki seemed to be able to do that. This young man Katagiri even seem to be able to do that. And I've talked a lot about them in my Dharma talks. I'm not going to talk about them today. But I had a third teacher and his name was Tolan. And he was a Chinese guy. In San Francisco. There were not many, many Zen teachers in those days. And he. I went to his, his apartment. To do his Zazen with him and listen to his Dharma talks for probably a year or two. I don't know. And he. He had radiant saffron robes. None of these Brown roles. The do-shis where. Radiant saffron robes. And he had a radiant ear to ear smile. Not great teeth, but who cared? And he was a great guy.

He had been in communist China. Escape from communist China. And when we, and we did our Zazen and his. He didn't call it Zazen. What I don't know what the Chinese call it, but we sat on. Zafu's in his apartment. And. I was, I was getting kind of bored with Suzuki. So I like going over there. He was exciting. I was, I was getting bored with Suzuki. Because he did things that Katagiri that Suzuki didn't dip. Do like he talked to us about the moxibustion that he burned on his body as part of his practice. And he raised his. His chip. His robe. And showed us the moxibustion. I thought, wow, do you do that in China? That sounds kind of indiscreet. But for us, we thought, wow. And. He talked to us about. Visiting a wolf coming to visit him when he was sitting in a cave. And I was even then interested in spirits and shamanism. So. Wolf. You said, yes. Wolf. Told him to come to the U S. To San Francisco. Oh, you know, that got me all woo woo. And there he was. And he was. And he heard him. Were you saying that? He heard him. Very well. And he? He heard him. I don't know where he was. In Japan town. But he was totally isolated. Because he didn't speak Cantonese. And China town none was full of people who spoke Cantonese. People who spoke Mandarin couldn't understand the Cantonese. So the Wolf had said him. But he was there all by himself. And. Nobody was paying any attention to. and heard his Dharma talks with a translator, a couple of women who spoke Mandarin. I love that.

So he and Suzuki were both from different cultures and they talked about Buddhist practice very differently about Zen practice, but they both shared a lightness and an effervescence that was delightful and refreshing. They seemed to be able to shut their masks and just be who they were. And of course, that could have been my projection. That could have been just another mask, but it was my aspiration. So I don't care if it was my projection, it was my aspiration. Wherever your aspiration comes from, I bet your projection, that's fine. If it helps you stay with exercising the two legs, you can do it. So, Tolan was teaching from a book by Lin Chi Rinzai, where Rinzai talks about letting the person of naked flesh come forth.

And that's when he pulled up his robe and showed us his moksha. Japanese never would have done this. Never would have, if you know about the difference between the two cultures. So I asked him all kinds of questions. And since there were just four of us, he would talk to me. And I said, I want that, more or less. I said that in my American way. I want that. I'm caught by all this stuff. How do I get it? And he said, whatever I said. And he said, oh, well, you need to, I'll give you a koan. And I thought, oh no, I don't really want a koan. I didn't say that. He said, yes, practice with this statement. What was your original face before you were born? I thought, oh no. I always read those koans and they mixed me up. They still mix me up. If you want to know the truth. They mix me up. I don't know if I understand them, as if I understand them, but they mix me up. So I said, okay. And I tried to do it, but it was hard.

I did it at San Francisco Zen Center and Tassajara. I went back and forth between the two places. I never mentioned to Suzuki that I was also meeting with him. And it was very confusing. And I was really frustrated. And I continued to long for the naturalness that they seemed to have, both these guys seemed to be. And I got to know Suzuki so well that he really did manifest that. I didn't get to know him. He really just was able to be where he was. No doubt about it. Very comfortable in his own skin. Very comfortable. But so I went, kind of went back to Suzuki, but Suzuki was still boring. He kept saying the same thing over and over again. He didn't talk very much. He didn't show me his moksha or anything to excite me. Just kind of the same as I was in every day.

So I always looked around the Bay area, but there wasn't much then. Oh, I found one guy. Philip Wilson told me about one guy outside of the Bay area. I took an hour or two drive, maybe with some friends to meet him, but he was, he was full of himself and he didn't have that simple ease. So I just went back to Suzuki. Wasn't like now, now everybody has a smorgasbord to choose from. Nothing. Nothing. Luckily for me, I think. And of course, a half dozen years later, these guys are both famous. Suzuki Roshi becomes famous. And at least in Buddhist circles, and you know, my father still never heard of him. And so does Toh Lan. He develops, he opens a City of 10,000 Buddhas. And that 10,000 Buddhas thrives and he's the head guiding teacher. But this is all after my time. I moved to Minnesota in 1970 and this happens after. It happens all of a sudden coming out of the counterculture. It's kind of weird. It's wonderful, but it's weird.

So the question continued to burn inside me. Who was I without these different roles, without these different masks? But my main mask as a kid, which had been bestowed on me, which you guys might think is a great mask, was a gifted child mask. But the gifted child mask was so hard that I almost died. I was so scared. I was so scared. I was so scared. Gifted child mask was so hard that I almost, that I thought about killing myself when I was in the eighth grade because I got a bad report card. Really, that's a whole other story. These masks are hard when we get stuck on them because we're supposed to be a certain way. This is the way we are.

So then I came to Zen Center and my gifted mask didn't help me at Zen Center at all. Zero. We didn't do anything intellectual. They wouldn't even explain the hard sutra to me back then. So just chant, just chant. That's a whole other story in itself. That story appears in a book that David Chadwick just put out, "Zen is Right Now" with stories about Suzuki Roshi. That's one of my stories. It's in that book. "Zen is Right Now" or something.

So I just kept doing it. I just kept doing it. And my gifted mask didn't work, but that's good. That's good. Instead, I felt really awkward doing everything because I was physically awkward, especially the oryoki, really quite awkward. But that's good practice because my gifted mask totally didn't work. Totally didn't work. And I became more aware of how my own identity, my own timeness was based on this complexly interwoven series of attitudes and habit patterns, many of which I hadn't even been conscious of and many of which today I'm not conscious of. You never get this perfect. Remember, it's a spiral. I just apologized yesterday to someone that I see that my habit pattern just knocked them over. I didn't even know I'd done it. That's no excuse. I'm supposed to be a Zen master. Good luck. Good luck. Luckily, I cling to Dogen's statement. As Zen teachers, life is nothing but one mistake after another. Saved by the bell. Saved by the bell.

So the awareness that we develop in our zazen, little by little, opens us to our original face, which is deeply and joyfully connected with everyone and everything. And the person of naked flesh comes forth, naturally comes forth through exercising our legs. Emanates from the rich soil within the empty field. And then we're not captured too much by the monkey face, the monkey. Go a little bit, but not too much. And when someone points it out to us, we're pretty easy to apologize. Oh, I'm so sorry.

So in our cultivating the empty field practice, first, we become aware of our masks. Second, we begin to notice how the congealed habit patterns, which is the fabric of each one, isn't solid after all. Each time we get lost in a moment of anger or frustration, or try to repress our feelings, we're creating the conditions for further anger and frustration, which turns into solidity, solid mask making. And since our mind has been conditioned to return again and again to thoughts which perpetuate or conceal our fear, our anger, we become a fearful person, or an angry person, within our securely fastened mask. Our mask helps us, but gee, it doesn't really help that much. As Bob found out.

When our mind has been conditioned, that happens. But it is possible, third, to clearly see how each mask is held together with no hint of self judgment by sponsoring our fearful and painful energy that arises from the mask making and the negative emotions, and the negative emotions that create the mask, by sponsoring it. I'm not a 12-step person, but I learned a lot about 12-step, how sponsors are really there for you. Can we learn to be there for ourselves in that way? Really sponsor whatever comes up in our zazen without judging, without anything, just sponsoring and sponsoring it. Doesn't mean indulging, doesn't mean repressing it. Not what a good sponsor does. I think it's possible for us all to do that.

I put in my 10,000 hours when I was pretty young, and then another 10, and then another 10, and... I'm 78 now, you guys. Wow, I must have some kind of record. I wanna be the, have the most hours with anybody. No, I'm not getting up and going to early morning zazen at the Zen center. I think, oh, I've got enough hours. Well, I don't know, what's enough hours? My ancient twisted body is saying, one below, you're 78. You really have to keep getting up at 5.15 every morning. And then my kind, empty field says, no, you just stay in bed and breathe in bed and do your zazen later. Thank you, kind body. Thank you, kind body.

So our maskless self will emanate. It is emanating from the rich soil within the empty field as we keep cultivating with our zazen. A self that's not captured by the monkey mask. Practicing with this third and fourth paramitas patience and persistence, patience and persistence, the two legs, patience and persistence, patience and persistence, doing our shikantaza.

So a few years ago a woman came to me on the second or third day of a retreat and she said, I feel like people can look right into me. I feel raw and naked. She said, I think I should go home now. I said, oh no, don't go home. I said, that's wonderful. Congratulations. And she looked at me. I said, congratulations. She said, but I feel so vulnerable and exposed. I said, wonderful. Congratulations. I'm saying it because I felt that way. I felt that way. Something had fallen away. Something had fallen away and some vulnerability, some sensitivity underneath was just there for her to experience. So she stayed and then I encouraged her to keep cultivating the empty field. A while after the retreat she came to me and she said, Tim, all that's left is this. And I said, being a good Zen master, what's this? Although I said it in a smiley way, not too much of a rinzai guy. What's this? I said, and she said, this. And I said, oh, oh, our original face before we were born, right here, right here, right here.

So let me show the path again. Let me see if I can call it up again. Did the share screen once and I'll do the share screen again. Let's see. There it is. So there's the path again, which some of you are very familiar with. Although I have to say that I practiced with Suzuki for five years and he never did the path with me. We just sat on our butts most of the time and listened to him talk. Anyway, there's the path. It's just a question of exercising your two good legs, your speech, action, and livelihood. That's your leg of shila, your leg of morality, and your meditation leg, effort, concentration, and mind. Usually we say effort, mindfulness, and concentration. They put it backwards. Well, everything, who knows what's backwards? Who knows what's backwards? They did it backwards the way I learned it. Anyway, those are the three meditative legs over and over.

And that brings us, we become more trusting then of ourselves. This is called jiriki in Soto Zen. We develop a self power. I'm going to stop sharing our self power. Not so much a Tim power. It includes Tim. It doesn't kick Tim out, but a deep power that comes from the empty field. That's right here. We develop that. We develop that. Now the empty field itself may not give us much encouragement. That's why everybody goes to IMS and no one comes to Zen centers anymore. I love IMS. I do IMS stuff. But IMS gives us lots of tools. What tool does shikantaza give us? Cultivating the empty field. Cultivating the empty field. And we develop some trust, which little by little morphs into wisdom. Little by little.

So the right view and the right understanding of the first two become more how we really experience the world rather than how we're trying to experience the world. We really feel when we read something by Thich Nhat Hanh about interbeing. We really feel interbeing. And we feel it before we read it by him. We read it by him and then we say, oh yeah, he gets it as if he didn't. Duh. Duh. Maybe the deepest, the deepest Zen master in the world if we want to evaluate Zen masters. But we can't really since they just all make one mistake after another. We don't see Thich Nhat Hanh's mistake. But somebody lived at Plum Village for a while and said, oh, I had enough of that, Tim. I said, what? Thich Nhat Hanh? They said, yeah, they have a shadow side there. I didn't ask them. I didn't ask them. I didn't want to know. We all have a shadow side. If we cultivate the empty field, we're willing to learn from that shadow side, accept that shadow side, embrace that shadow side, and confess when our shadow side messes things up and we're not really manifesting interbeing.

So that's what I want to say. And let's see how much time it is. There's 11:55. Monica said there's a little time for Q&A if people have anything or for stories or songs or ancient wisdom, whatever.