I think some time ago Jackie said that I gave her something a long time ago. Oh, right. You think I gave this to you a long time ago? No? Somebody else gave it to you. I bought it. Well, you bought it. You bought it a long time ago. Yes. In a store. Yes, at the Zen Center in the city. Okay. And guess what it says? From the withered tree, the flower blooms. She bought it. She paid money for this. Shall I pass it on? Yeah. It's yours. You can do whatever you want. I was actually lifting it to the soccer floor. He's like this.

[01:06]

I imagine many of us have seen flowers blooming. Is that right? How about the withered trees? Anybody seen the withered tree? Where did you see it? In the garden. In the garden? When you go hiking, you see a lot of withered trees. In our minds. It's just words, but it says the wither tree, doesn't it? Yeah. I wonder if it's the wither tree or a wither tree. I mean, are there a lot of wither trees? Hmm.

[02:50]

Hmm. Or is it just one withered tree? How is the withered tree for you during the springtime? Hopeful. Last, about a week ago, I recited a poem in English. I think the original might have been in Japanese. There's various conditions leading me to think maybe it was written in Japanese. One of them is that I saw it written in Japanese. It starts out, Itsumotada. Itzma means always, and pada means just.

[03:57]

So it starts out saying, just always. Just always, or always since these flowers are invariably blooming in my village home, The colors do not change, although springtime passes. The name of that poem is Nirvana, or perhaps Great Nirvana, or... Nirvana, Great Nirvana. And it's attributed to the person who wrote the verse we just chanted, Ehe Dogen.

[05:11]

There's seats up in front here. Would you say your first name, please? Anshul. Anshul. Anshul. And also, for some reason, I went looking for this piece of calligraphy and the drawing here. So the person who gave it to me, his name was Yanagida Seizan. He's a very wonderful, he was a very great scholar of Zen in Japan. And so you might think that that might be a picture of Bodhidharma.

[06:25]

And the poem to Bodhidharma's right, I think it says, Facing the wall, in the back, a flower blooms. Or another translation could be, wall-gazing, in the back a flower blooms. Facing the wall could be understood as somebody like you is a human being, is facing a wall.

[07:36]

And I think probably many of us are blessed with that thought now and then when we're in the zendo and we're facing a wall. We might think, I'm facing the wall. But another way to say it is wall-gazing. Wall-gazing. And ball-gazing could be understood as something which a human being does, or it could be understood as something that a wall does. Or it could be understood not as something a human does, and not as something a wall does. It could be understood as a practice.

[08:50]

A practice which we call wall-gazing. Yes? Is your name Carl? Yes. Did you say last week that it had to do with no separation, like the tree is past, not separate from the future, and likewise, when we look at the wall, there's no separation. Our senses are... arms seeking out, hands seeking out, the things around us, and there is no separation even though it's behind us, the future is unseeable. Yes. wall-gazing.

[10:02]

It seems to me wall-gazing is very intimate with the withered tree. And Zen students for a long time, I don't know how long, probably more than a thousand years, have been thinking about and talking about wall-gazing. Also, I think the first character there at the top, over on this side, I think the character's face So, facing the wall is another translation.

[11:07]

Facing the wall. Men. The word for face, the Chinese character for face is men. we have this expression that's very... It's a very big phrase in Soto Zen. It's called menju, which literally means face giving, giving the face. And it's usually translated as face to face transmission. It's like you give your face to me and I give my face to you.

[12:19]

This is going on all day, right? Isn't that going on all day? You're giving your face and people are giving their face to you. That's called face-to-face transmission. It doesn't have a beginning or an end. I mean, you know, like, in this moment, you could think, okay, in this moment I give my face, but every moment there's this face-to-face transmission. So it says face, and peki means wall. So facing the wall, or face walling, or wall facing. Walls have faces, by the way. Kind of convenient. This is the face of the wall. So we have here wall facing.

[13:21]

You could say all wall-facing, but this is wall-facing. Now, for a human being to participate in wall-facing and also face-to-face transmission, we kind of have to give up being stuck in, or dwelling in, I have a face and I give a face. In face-to-face transmissions, I'm giving a face is not excluded. I'm receiving a face is not excluded. But the face giving, there's no dwelling in the face or the giving. So anyway, Bodhidharma supposedly sat facing the wall, or Bodhidharma sat and there was wall-facing going on for nine years.

[14:43]

So the poem says, actually, face wall, wall-facing, In the back, a flower blooms. So, you know, in the Zendo, I face out into the middle of the room, and most of you face the wall. So if there's actually wall facing there, not so much you facing the wall, but if there's wall facing there going on, the poem says, in the back, you could say in your back, you could say behind you. So another translation would be facing wall, wall facing, behind a flower blooms. So in the back or behind you there's a flower blooming while you're giving yourself to this wall-gazing, which I can't see even though I can see your back, and you can't see because you're wall-gazing.

[15:58]

It's a blooming which is not... It's a flower which is not different from your body. It's your body flowering. Yes? Could you, I mean, the metaphor of facing the wall, I hear that as facing what's ever difficult, my wall, my obstacle, whether it's grief or whatever it is, that's my wall, that somehow that gives rise to a growth that I can't see in front of me. In a sense, this teaching has two sides. One side is you face the wall. You face your difficulties.

[17:02]

You look at your problems. And maybe you look at them with eyes of compassion. But that's like you do that. That's one side. The other side is, there is facing these problems, or these walls, Zen problems are often called walls, or barriers, or gates. You're facing these difficult gates, or I should say, that's one side, you're facing the difficult gates, hopefully with compassion. And Again, part of the teaching is observing the gates, observing the wall with eyes of compassion gathers an ocean of blessing beyond measure.

[18:06]

Just the observing, and you can also say just you observing, but you can take away you and just say, the observing of the wall, the observing of all, of everything, the observing of all walls, in other words, the observing of all living beings with eyes of compassion, gathers an ocean of blessing. And one of the blessings is right along with this compassionate observing, there is wall observing. There is the observing of a wall. And then another blessing comes, which is this lotus blossom blooms out of the So one kind of observing, which we don't want to forget, is the observing with eyes of compassion.

[19:24]

And the other kind of observing is the observing, which is the observing of the withered tree, which is the observing of the walt. But usually you start by, I'm observing a wall. I'm observing suffering. And maybe even I'm not observing the suffering compassionately. I'm impatient with the suffering. I find the suffering irritating, and I'm feeling impatient with the irritation of this. But then as you become more skillful, as it's more skillful, the observation is no longer, I'm doing it. That's when the I'm doing it withers, as I said last week, in the furnace of, for example, paying respect to the Buddhas by doing their practice of compassion,

[20:39]

then the tree withers, then the observation becomes not my observation, but wall observation. And not exactly the wall's observation, it's wall observation. Are you saying your suffering becomes... melts away, it's not about you anymore? It's not so much that the suffering melts away, but the attachment to, for example, as I said, discriminating thought melts away. So, here we've got suffering. Have you seen any lately? We've got a lot of fear going on now, a lot of fear. It doesn't say that, some people say this, but I don't hear it saying, got all this ocean of suffering, and then you observe it with eyes of compassion, and the ocean of suffering melts away.

[21:51]

I don't hear that. I hear that you have the ocean of suffering, you have the observing with compassion, and blessings come. Now you might say, well, suffering melting would be a blessing. Okay, fine. But it doesn't say, the suffering melts away and then blessings come. It says you melt away. Is that what you're saying? That you melt away. No, I think what melts away is this impossible thing called attachment and called dwelling and being stuck in life. That melts away. And then that also relieves suffering, but not by melting it or getting rid of it.

[22:52]

So the discrimination is suffering, ocean of suffering, and then there's ocean of peace, like the Pacific, right? There's an ocean of peace, and then there's an ocean of suffering, and then there's a discrimination between the two. And compassion towards the ocean of suffering brings the blessing of the wilting of the discrimination between the ocean of suffering and the ocean of peace, without getting rid of the ocean of suffering. So, in a way... But it doesn't really melt the discrimination, it just... Again, it melts the attachment to the discrimination.

[23:56]

which is wall-gazing. So again, we sit in the zendo and we look at the wall or the floor, and most people can think of more interesting things to do than that. Some people might not be able to, and they're not better than the people who can think of more interesting things. We do need some energy, however, to do the practice. To do all the practices. To do the practice of observing sentient beings with eyes of compassion, that lives with enthusiasm and energy.

[25:08]

That's why I brought up those vows. So, like, the vow to pay homage to Buddhas unceasingly. There's an opportunity there in the process of paying respects to Buddhas every moment. You know, again, without trying to get any energy. Because, again, when you're paying your respects... I laughed. I think there was an irony there. The irony was, I guess, an image of you're paying your respects to somebody secretly, or on the side you're trying to get some enthusiasm. If I pay my respects to this respectable person, I'll probably feel energized.

[26:16]

But that's not it. Two people are paying respect to you, right? One person is paying their respects to you. They're just paying their respects to you, and they're disrespecting you. The other person is paying their respect to you, and they're trying to get some energy from their respect-paying. Which respect is the most respectful? Now, this is a terrible thing I'm going to say now, so please forgive me because I'm going to go ahead and say it. And there's some irony in there, again. And the terrible thing I'm going to say is kind of a compliment to me. So it's called, I called it post-practice. How many people have heard of post-practice? One? No, you haven't, Elizabeth?

[27:18]

Two? Olivia, you've heard of post-practice? What is it? What did you hear it was? In my tradition, which is about Buddhism, we call, I'm going to throw off the question, post-practice. Oh, after practice. Post as in after. Okay. All right. This is a different post. This is a piece, kind of a piece of furniture post. So, Latino. So, again, it looks like only Christopher raised his hand when I said, have you heard of post practice? You've heard of it? Two, two people have heard of it. You never heard of it, Imola? Wow. Now we have. Okay, you've heard of it, but do you know what it's referring to? So, in the early minutes or weeks or months that I got to hang out with Suzuki Roshi, I didn't think he particularly liked me or disliked me.

[28:28]

I really didn't know. And I wasn't really thinking about whether he appreciated me. I kind of thought he knew me, because somebody told me that he did. They had a meeting. When I first became a member of Zen Center, they had a meeting, and somebody was trying to explain to whom I was, who I was, and they went like this. No, and they told him about who he was, and he went like this. Because I had a mustache at the time. And the secretary of Zen Center said, he knows you. But anyway, I wanted him to know me and I wanted him to know that I was there. But I didn't want to be like, excuse the expression again, I didn't want to be, what's the word? Don't tell me. Presumptuous. Well, presumptuous, yeah, but there's another word for it. Okay, I give up.

[29:31]

It's like haunting, or... Will you follow somebody around? Stalking. I didn't want to be stalking. I didn't even know the word stalking, and I don't know it now. The only way I... But at Sokoji Temple, where Zen Center was before Tassajara and before the Zen Center on Page Street and before Green Gulch, the temple was on Bush Street. And in that building, there was a stairway and a banister, and the bottom of the banister was a post. And when he came down the stairs and he turned the corner, he put his hand on the post to turn the corner. And when he went up, he put his hand on the... I said, I'm going to be like a post, a piece of furniture in his life.

[30:34]

I'll just be there. And if he wants to ask me something or teach me something or tell me to go away, he knows where I am. So I was just there all the time. And he did notice eventually that I was there. And then after he noticed, he noticed I was there again. So I was there all the time. But I wasn't really trying to get anything. I was just like offering myself to him if he wanted me. And the sad story is that there was another person who used to, after Zen Center moved to 300 Pais Street, there was another person who did stalk him. Very nice guy, but he was like outside Siddharishi's house, his apartment all the time. And his wife had to come and shoo him away a lot. Of course he respected Siddharishi, but he wasn't really being respectful. He was trying to get something from the teacher.

[31:36]

And it was really inappropriate. It's inappropriate to try to get something from Buddha. However, you know, if you don't do it as much as that guy, you won't be shooed away. But really, even to try to get anything from Buddha is not appropriate. Buddha's not trying to get anything from you. Buddha respects you. Buddha's not trying to get food from you. Even though Buddha goes to town and begs for food, he's not trying to get food. He's giving you a chance to feed him. Emla, I don't think you knew Lei Hong, did you? Did you know Lei Hong? Yeah. So Lei Hong was this... I think she was, what do you call it, a... We say ethnic Chinese. So there's ethnic Chinese living all over Southeast Asia, right? So I think she lived like in Singapore.

[32:38]

And she met the founder of a city of 10,000 Buddhas, Xuan Hua. And she asked him if she could become ordained. And he said, okay. And she came to America to become ordained as a monk. However, in the meantime, either she already had it or she manifested cancer. And so in their tradition, they do not ordain people who are severely ill. So they wouldn't ordain her. But she had come from Singapore or wherever to San Francisco, so she wound up in the hospice at San Francisco General. And one of our members, Martha de Barros, actually I think at that time it was Martha Free Baron Smith, she worked at the hospice and she told me about this lady who wanted to become ordained

[33:52]

And she said, do you think she could come and live at Zen Center? I think she'd like it. And so I went to see her and I said, would you like to live at Zen Center? And she said, yes. So she moved to Zen Center. And by that time she was in a wheelchair most of the time. And she had a tumor on her head that stuck up about three inches out of her skull. And it was wrapped, you know. So she came and lived at Zen Center. And I don't know how we got her downstairs, but I guess we carried her. But anyway, she sometimes came downstairs. Her room was upstairs at the city center above the main floor. She came down for meals and ate with us. And yeah, I don't know if she's trying to get anything. But she gave herself to us.

[34:56]

And so we could practice compassion towards her. Yeah. But I don't know if anybody was trying to get anything from her. It's a pretty good relationship. And she wasn't trying to get anything from us, and we weren't trying to get anything from her. This is the way we relate to Buddha. And when you pay your respects to Buddha without trying to get anything, a lot of energy comes up, and you can continue that practice. And as you do that practice, as we do that practice of paying homage without trying to get anything, of paying respects to Buddhas, but also to sick people, Paying respects to anybody without trying to get anything. The tree withers. The wall gazing comes alive. If we're trying to get something, that's not wall gazing, sorry.

[36:00]

It can be a warm-up. But in wall gazing, walls are not trying to get anything. And after nine years of joining the wall, gazing, there's just wall gazing. And in that wall gazing, the flower is blooming. Okay? So that's Bodhidharma style. And then later, so Bodhidharma predates this statement. The withered tree, what did it say again? Do you say in the withered tree? Just from the withered tree. From. From in the withered tree, flower blooms. In waghazing, the flower blooms. The flower of Buddhist wisdom blooms in this not trying to get anything, in this renunciation of basic animal,

[37:09]

maneuvers. But we don't push it away. Yes? My question is about paying homage. Last week I would remember to... try to practice it sometimes. Me too. And when I did, well, it was a new practice to me, and when I did it, it felt like compassion. It didn't feel like what I imagined homage to be. And I just wonder... Paying respect is compassion. However, you might not be used to compassion as paying respect. to me anyway, if you're practicing compassion in the neighborhood of some suffering, it would be appropriate to respect that you're suffering.

[38:12]

So I'm not big on, you know, fight cancer, kill cancer. I'm not big on that. I'm more into respect cancer. You can also have chemotherapy and all that stuff, but of course we respect cancer. Pay homage. Bow down to cancer. Don't look down on cancer. Don't put yourself above cancer. Putting myself above cancer is not compassion. Compassion is respecting suffering. So there's more to compassion than just respect, right? Next comes praise. Next comes offering, generosity. And so on. All the practices followed, but respect was the first on the list. Also, I... Again, I laugh.

[39:20]

The irony is that it's kind of like, unexpectedly, because of my good fortune of being able to face out during Zazen, I get to look at the altar. And on the altar is a statue of Buddha, a statue of Manjushri. I get to look at them. And then I can sit there on my seat and pay homage to those bodhisattvas and Buddhas. And then also I had the thought, you may have heard, or you may not have heard, that in the history of the Buddhist tradition, some of the practitioners... have done a lot of bows. They paid their respects by doing many, many, many bows. Thousands and thousands of bows. It's still going on.

[40:23]

Some people are doing a lot of bows. Yeah, that's part of the tradition. And some Zen people do lots and lots of bows. But when I'm sitting, without getting up and going over to the altar and doing bow after bow after bow, I can pay my respects just by sitting. I'm sitting and my sitting is paying my respects. I probably wouldn't be able to do prostrations all day long because now I'm kind of old. When I was young I maybe could do prostrations all day long. But I don't think I could do it. I think I'd get too tired now. After maybe two or three thousand, I probably would collapse. But I can pay homage in the sitting posture a really long time. It's really nice. And you can too, even though you don't get to look at the Buddha during Zazen, you can pay homage

[41:31]

While you're sitting. You're sitting, you can clock in homage. Your sitting can be homage. And again, you're not trying to get anything by paying homage, but even though you're trying to get anything, you will get something. And you will get enthusiasm for the Buddha way. because of not trying to get anything, but by paying respects without seeking anything. I have a question about differentiation. Yes. We also say discrimination. Discrimination. I understand, in theory, to let go of the discriminating mind, sort of, but to me, lots of what I receive from you is really discrimination. Like I receive a lot of important discrimination.

[42:34]

And when I'm sitting in zazen, it's easy to pay homage to the Buddha, but lots of things that come my way, I don't know if they're Buddha. And so I feel like I scramble with discrimination to know what things are in the dark, kind of. And so I'm really, and don't want to let go of discrimination. Actually, I just want to be quick. We're at it. We're at it. It's time to fall. I said last week, I'll say it again, if you pay homage to the Buddhas... Oh, you don't want to let go of discrimination, is that what you're saying? Not really. Like, I get, like I should, but I'm not, I'm like, no way.

[43:37]

Like, I'm constantly with my mind, what's that, what's that? Can I see in the... What do I feel? What is this arising? What is it? And I'm discriminating all the time. If you had already let go of discrimination, if you had already let go of it, then when the wish not to let go came up... you would practice compassion towards not wanting to let go of discrimination. If you have not let go of discrimination, then if you haven't let go of something, then when the thought that you don't want to let go comes up, you might not be able to be compassionate to it. Some people haven't let go of things, but they're willing to let go of them. They're just not willing enough. But they would like to let go of them. Some people do not want to let go of stuff. If you say, do you want to let go? They say, no, I don't want to. I do not want to let go. And also I'm afraid that if I did let go, I would lose it. So I'd rather be miserable trying to hold on to this thing than let go, because at least now I have the possibility of being able to possess it if I don't let go of it, even though I'm distressed because it seems like I've lost it.

[44:58]

So anyway, if I ever don't want to let go of something, that is a great opportunity to observe that with compassion, with eyes of compassion. Now again, if I actually had let go of it, I would naturally observe it with compassion. So if you let go of discrimination, that does not mean discrimination won't come up. Letting go of them does not get rid of them. It just realizes nirvana. That's all. I've never shipped my wife. But if you try to get rid of them, that temporarily distracts us from nirvana. But if you haven't had any discriminations, plus you don't want to let go of them, the discriminations and the wish to hold on to them which is quite normal, that both opportunities for eyes of compassion are going to work here.

[46:09]

That looks like a flower. It is. Discrimination, not discrimination. Discrimination, not discrimination. Discrimination, and don't let go of it. is a flower that you can observe with compassion because discrimination isn't so painful, but not wanting to let go of it or just holding on to it, that's painful. So all these painful things are actually flowers, and if you treat them with compassion, more flowers will bloom. Yes. I'm going to put my glasses on now so I can see you then. Make my eyes bigger. Yes, but you can talk even though I'm in my glasses. You said that you get the time to look at the Buddha.

[47:09]

Pardon? You said that in a sense that you get the time to see, to look at the Buddha. To look at the statue. Yes, so you can't order it. So do you pay homage to the Buddha in your heart, or do you pay homage to the Buddha's statue? Do I pay homage to the Buddha in my heart? Yes. And what was the other one? Just the statue. The statue. Just the statue. Do I pay homage to the Buddha in my heart, or do I pay homage to the Buddha in the statue? Yes. I pay homage to both in my heart. But there's no Buddha. Isn't what Buddha said, there's no Buddha? Buddha is nothing in and of itself. I pay homage to the Buddha, which is nothing in and of itself. Therefore, I can do it with you, and with a statue, and with something in my heart.

[48:13]

I can do anything. I feel that I, in very rare times when I'm walking, in one very rare moment, I pay homage to the Buddha in my heart, and I feel that I'm more lucky than looking at the Buddha statue. You can have that thought, and that thought is another thing to observe with compassion. But also, by the way, I also pay homage with my posture. My posture is sitting on the cushion. That posture is an act of homage. This body is an homage. It's an homage machine. And I can do it when I stand up, too, and when I walk. Every posture can be an homage to Buddha.

[49:15]

And again, I don't seek anything from this homage. And the more I don't seek, the more enthusiasm and joy comes from giving homage to Buddha without seeking anything. And then this energy to do all the different practices, all the different Other kinds of not trying to get anything. All the other forms of not trying to get anything. And energy for like giving up discrimination between health and sickness. So now there's a big deal going on. Have you heard about it? There's a sickness and then there's health and there's this thing going on between sickness and health that people are really concerned about. I'm not trying to get rid of that. that discrimination. But we're going to have this great opportunity to practice with this situation, to practice compassion with it, but also to be ready to let go of the discrimination between sickness and health.

[50:28]

And that discrimination is going to keep coming to us for the rest of our lives, but now it's like It's like kind of a special time we have now to practice. Kind of a really good time for practice. Not to say there wasn't, but during some times people realized, now's a really good time. Yesterday was good too, but today's really good. We had problems yesterday, but today we have new, fresh problems to practice with. So we really are fortunate that we have the opportunities and we're also fortunate that we have a practice to give to the situation that we're in. It's so wonderful, isn't it? And it's so wonderful that we're challenged. We're challenged. Yes? Can we say, with our practice, our suffering does not melt away?

[51:31]

The suffering causes melt away. You can say suffering person melts away, you can say suffering melts away, but even though it melts away, it's always here. The suffering person is always here. What I'm talking about is not getting rid of suffering people. If suffering people melt away, I'm not going to stop that. I'm not here to stop suffering people melting away. I'm not even going to stop people trying to get rid of suffering people. There have been times when people tried to get rid of suffering people. I'm not into that, but if anybody's trying to get rid of suffering people, this is an opportunity for compassion. But you can say suffering person melts away, fine. But that doesn't mean suffering person isn't here. Suffering melts away.

[52:33]

So I don't think... I think suffering and suffering people are going to keep being here, which means we're going to keep having opportunities for the practice. We're going to keep having opportunities and also requests. We are being requested, people want us to practice compassion with the suffering and the suffering beings. I think what I heard was not by suffering persons or people, not the other people, but this one, the one who's practicing, facing suffering, and who has a tendency making stories out of the suffering and pains, that person melts away. Okay, I'm saying fine. If that person melts away, you have no complaints from me. I'm not saying don't let that person melt.

[53:35]

I'm just saying that the person you said that's melt is always here. That's all I'm saying. Melting doesn't mean getting rid of it, the person. And wishing to get rid of the person brings on more suffering people. But I'm not saying you're trying to get rid of the person. You weren't, were you? No. So it melts away and I accept that, fine. And also if a suffering person comes back, also fine. And melting away is not finer than than not melting away. And if I think it's finer, then we practice compassion with that discrimination. You know, because it's understandable that people might think that nirvana was finer than samsara.

[54:39]

But I didn't hear the Buddha say, nirvana is finer than samsara. I did hear the Buddhist say, however, nothing would be finer than to be in South Carolina in the morning. And Joe Biden thinks South Carolina is really great. I wonder if he sang that song. Yeah. Okay, well, thank you so much for practicing compassion and paying homage. Well, one more thing is that in Samantabhadra's vows, it starts with paying homage to Buddha, but then number nine is basically to pay homage to all beings. But it's hard... It's maybe hard to start by paying homage to some beings.

[55:47]

People are having trouble paying homage to some beings right now. So you start with Buddha, and then you work up this wonderful enthusiasm by practicing homage to Buddhas, and then you can turn it on other beings. which would be good.

[56:13]

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