How to Deal With Your Problems | Jiryu Rutschman-Byler

Key Takeaway

When problems feel overwhelming, Zen teacher Jerry Rutman suggests asking: 'Am I more concerned with my problem than with the fact that I'm alive?' This simple reframe doesn't minimize real suffering, but helps create space to meet difficulties from a grounded, embodied presence rather than anxious mental spiraling.

Episode Overview

Jerry Rutman, abbot at Green Gulch Farm Zen Center, discusses how Zen practice offers tools for meeting life's difficulties through embodied presence rather than pure mental analysis. He shares Suzuki Roshi's teachings on 'beginner's mind' and how meditation serves as training wheels for navigating real-world problems.

Full Transcript

Transcript of How to Deal With Your Problems | Jiryu Rutschman-Byler from 10% Happier. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

Hearing a voice can change everything. So AT&T wants everyone to gift their voice to loved ones this holiday season because that conversation is a chance to say something they'll hear forever. AT&T connecting changes everything. Jerry Rutman Ber, welcome to the show. Thanks Dan. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate really appreciate really appreciate I thought maybe it would be good to get started with some basic information for people who with uh people who are not familiar with uh Suzuki Roshi or Shanriu Suzuki. Uh I I have to say I tried to look at Zenmind beginner's mind early in my practice and couldn't gro it.

Um and and now uh that I'm sitting with you and intrigued to go back and take a look at it. Can can you just give us a little background on on on the man himself? Yeah, sounds like maybe the way where it went a little off is the the trying to grock. grock. grock. So, Shinria Suzuki Roshi as a um Zen priest really his whole life was in Zen. He was actually born in a Zen temple. It's kind of typical in the Japanese uh Buddhist thing for temples to kind of have families and temples to pass from father to son.

So, Shunir Suzukiroshi was born in 1904 in Japan. But then in 1959 he came to the United States and um founded really a major stream of Zen and became one of the people who you could say are the grandfathers or founders of really Zen in in the West. Buddhism generally, you know, the idea of meditation and Buddhist practice and things like this podcast, you know, really were unthinkable. Um, and people like Suzuki Roshi really kind of planted those seeds. So, an early and important founder of American Buddhism.

And you mentioned Zenmind, Beginner's Mind. That's kind of his very famous book. And um, he also founded the San Francisco Zen Center, which has these three these three big residential temples and 70 or 80 affiliate groups. So, it kind of founded one of the major lineages of of Zen practice. There is a critique uh that I think is fair and accurate uh a critique of people like me who tend to tell the story of Buddhism in the west as as as being largely if not wholly the result of uh the so-called Jews, the uh young uh Jewish kids mostly from the New York City area who uh ended up in Asia in the late 60s and early 70s and then came home and became prominent teachers in the case of Joseph Goldstein or Sharon Salsburg or Jack Kornfield or became prominent scientists like Richie Davidson or Daniel Gleman um or John Kabad Zin who was both and that's all true to a certain extent.

I think those guys played a major role in bringing the dharma to the west. Uh but Shenrio's Suzuki Suzuki Suzuki uh was before them and um and as I think about the causes and conditions that have led to my being able to have a practice which has revolutionized my inner and outer life and a second career. Shri Suzuki notwithstanding my lack of familiarity with him is one of those major causes and conditions. Yeah. So 1959 he arrived. you know, there really had not been much in in the United States outside of the, you know, Asian immigrant communities or scholarly kind of um approaches.

So the actually embodied practice um [clears throat] as a possibility you know a possibility for ordinary people living ordinary lives to bring this this meditation practice as you say this kind of revolutionary transformative possibility of of just sitting down and in our case facing facing the wall. So yeah, there is there's been a few I mean that's a wonderful and fascinating topic in itself, you know, how how Buddhism got here to the west and all the different um streams and and threads there. Yeah, there's a good book on the subject that if people want to there's at least one good book on the subject, how the swans came to the lake that I I recommend.

recommend. recommend. When did he die? Did you get to spend much time with him and what was he like? So Shiner Suzuki Roshi by um I did not get to spend time with him. He died in 1971. 1971. 1971. and I was born in 1976. So, we missed Oh, Oh, Oh, okay. You're younger than we missed by a little bit. And um my teacher and my many teachers that I've had over the over the many years here at the San Francisco Zen Center, Temple Tasahara and Green Glo Farms Center and and San Francisco Zen Center in the city.

many of the of the teachers that had kind of made that that place uh what it's become knew him and loved him and were trained by him including my core teacher uh Sojin Mel Whitesman Roshi who was ordained as a priest by Suzuki Roshi and was um very close with him in his life. Suzukiroshi had a way, you know, I'm appreciating one of the things as I study Suzukiroshi more deeply, he was um even though he was just born and bred in Buddhism his whole life, you know, all the way through, he was also a little bit suspicious of it, you know, he was a little bit um skeptical.

He didn't he was ambivalent about the kind of so like in you know in this new book becoming yourself and you see it throughout his teaching he's always kind of like when he gets a opportunity to take a little jab you know at Buddhism and um he's he's trying you know he sees this beautiful thing in the tradition and then he sees all the ways that a religious tradition can get stuck and go wrong and get power and get hierarchy and get confused and so it's this kind of love hate and I That is part of what really made him so appealing as a teacher.

You know, especially in the 1960s, San Francisco, you know, this is not a group of people that were like, hey, let's go find an organized religion to be a part of. They were like, let's be let's be free of all this. And somehow this very traditional guy could just speak right to these people who wanted to be free of everything. And he was teaching them formal stuff, you know, like how to hold their hands and, you know, how to how to do these kind of Zen ritual things.

But he did it with this kind of warm heart and simplicity and directness and love. I think that's the main thing you know when I hear people talk about the experience of being with him is just like unconditional unconditional unconditional love and um this practice you know of really including everything as it is welcoming everything. people really felt that from him like that they with all of their anxieties or confusion or tangles were just totally totally welcome totally seen as as what they are you know which is just life itself so um [clears throat] say his his warm heart really is the the the feature that I've sort of absorbed most as impactful to the people who I know who were able to train with him him him before we get to the new book which as you said is called Becoming yourself and I have a million questions about it including what the title means um in a Buddhist context.

But before we get to that um I'd just be curious to hear a little bit more about you. How did you get interested in the dharma? So interested that you you know dedicated your whole life to it like all of us right like the path um traditionally unfolds starts with you notice suffering. notice suffering. notice suffering. you notice suffering and um realize that just plowing ahead in the usual way that you've been plowing ahead is not actually meeting or touching or healing the the suffering. So for me, you know, as a young adult, there were some mental health things.

I was like I was confused about um you could say what was real and what wasn't real. Um I wasn't so grounded. I wasn't so um here and um so I turned to spirituality. You know, I had a I had some important experiences of sort of opening to that kind of vastness of of what we are or what this life is. You know, it's a total mystery and miracle. We go along like it's just an ordinary usual thing, you know, but being alive is like what you know.

So I really, you know, was starting to feel that and turn towards that and okay, right? This is what spirituality gets at this like spirituality is a place where we can kind of like get together and look at each other and say, "This is crazy, you guys, that there's anything that we're alive." The problem is the kinds of spirituality that I started to look to were sort of like, "Yeah, life is so big, you know, and there's like a cosmos and spiritual energies." And so I was already a little bit ungrounded, you know, a little bit, you know, unclear about what was real and what wasn't.

Sometimes hearing things that weren't there. And so then then getting into spiritual practice and like, right, yeah, there's all these invisible spirits and you're that's somehow these unknown dimensions of being or something. And it was kind of exciting, but it was also really also really also really um [clears throat] ungrounded. You know, the more I kind of tried to get big and connected with the vastness, the less was here, you know, was not helping my mental health. It was not helping my being here in this body, in this place.

When I finally encountered Zen practice in a direct way, it was really amazing to me to notice and appreciate in the Zen practice, it's totally embodied. You know, we say chop wood and carry water. There's a lot of talk about teacups, you know, like how you hold the know, like how you hold the teacup is how you hold your hands, you know, how you move your body, how you sweep the leaves. It's this totally embodied, grounded way as also having the vastness, right? So I thought, oh, the big spiritual thing is up in the air and I kind of have to leave here to get there.

And the Zen teaching is all about just come right into what this body is, to the objects, you know, to the space that you're in just as they are. let it be that kind of small thing and just totally be that and there's all this freedom and space there. So, I was just totally um hooked really, you know, I had a chance to do some some sitting meditation and pretty soon into my practice, a 7-day retreat and I just felt like this this has what I need.

Uh this has what I need. There's a lineage of teaching. There's um we call a sa you know there's people supporting me not just like alone in my room communing with spirits that aren't there you know it's not so good for you and a meditation practice that helps me be in my body and really right here and try to open my loving heart and appreciate the magic of being alive. You talked about spirits. I don't I'm not a student of Zen, but is there a lot of influence on other worldly spirits in that tradition?

that tradition? that tradition? No, no, not really at all. I'm saying before I came to Zen, I gotite quite confused by doing that sort of practice. It's in the background, you know, Zen is so old and um goes way back into history. And so all of that stuff is kind of like in the background of the tradition, but in terms of the actual practice, you know, Suzukiroshi had no time or interest in any of that. And um for me the important thing about Zen was it is not about anything far out or wo woo.

It's just exactly about how am I using my body? How am I finding kind of my softening my um my mind really opening my mind kind of trying to awake this a little more intuitive way of being that's not so mental that's not so much like separate you know I'm over here everything else is out there I have to do something to it so no for me that the spirits is like um what I had to recover recover from that just played right into the confusion I already had yeah so we'll get into the how of the chop wood, carry water ethos in a second, but I just before we get there, I just want to ask a question based on something you said.

You were talking about talking about talking about how it's so easy as we trudge through life life life to lose sight of the fact that this whole [ __ ] thing is a mystery, is a is a marvel. It's wild. uh you know, you don't have to believe in spirits in spirits in spirits to understand that all of this is magic. Like it's everything that's happening right now is riding on this unfathomable ocean of prior conditions that it's it this is all crazy. And yet somehow our busy prefrontal cortices, you know, shut out the the the the glory and we're focused on our to-do list instead and we're bored or we're nursing a grudge or whatever it is.

So just very practically, how do you inject awe into the course of your day? It is a miracle. And spirits, I mean, the Zen tradition is so clear about this thinking that there's a miracle like spirits or something or a miracle. Are you kidding? Like the outreath is a miracle. You know the the the water coming into your lips is a miracle. You don't know what it is. You don't actually the mind cannot grasp. You know we can do science. You can figure out what it is.

You can do physics. You can map the thing. But like the feeling the fact of being alive there was I can't remember her name now. I was listening to um to a podcast about consciousness and this woman had just this beautiful example of this. She was saying um as a kid, you know, all of the adults around are teaching you like how to brush your teeth and how to do math and stuff. And she was sort of waiting like is anybody going to mention, you know, that this is like totally crazy that we're here and alive and this kid just kind of waiting for someone to like point out the obvious of like, "Hey kid, like we don't know what's going on.

You know, we all just kind of got here and we're trying to figure it out. we're trying to do our best and it's um but instead it's just like oh here's how you do math here's how you brush your teeth so yeah and that that's not it's not separate of course it's not separate so one of my favorite lines from Suzuki Roshi which isn't written down but a student of his said remembers really clearly him saying which is you're more concerned with your problem than with the fact that you're alive and I just love that you know it's like I'm so involved in my today problem you that I'm kind of like losing this just this little stepping back.

It's not different from that. I mean, it's not like the fact that I'm alive is like different than my problem. It's just the kind of background, the the thing that's happening. Um the thing that's in which I'm having a problem, you know, the being alive, the being alive together. So the the Zen practice, the meditation practice is just a kind of touching in or a an alignment with or a training in a kind of quieting the foreground. You know, you said the kind of frontal thing doing the thing of um fixating, making the world small and kind of focusing on our problem that that the sitting is a kind of stepping back, taking in a little bit more of the background, you know, you could say the background fact background fact background fact of what is this, you know, and then that supports us.

That just creates a little bit of ground or a little bit of space or a little bit of ease with which we then meet our problems. That's the only thing to do, you know. It's not like they're not so separate. [clears throat] So yeah, in the embodied kind of everyday way, you know, it means kind of exhaling. For me, it means kind of coming into my belly in in the Zen practice. There's kind of this emphasis on what we call the har or the low belly.

This kind of like core embodied place where we're sort of trying to come a little bit down from our head and just into the feeling in our body of being here. here. here. And then just kind of opening the eyes and trying to widen the attention a little bit, you know, just like step back from the fixation on the thing and just notice. Okay, there's a whole context here. context here. context here. How how is it for you? How do you find that um that kind of awe?

I like that you use that word ah. Someone said if you're not in awe, you're not paying attention, you know, or you're paying attention to the wrong things. Well, I don't want to claim that I'm very good at this, although I do think there I think there are lots of modalities. I'll give you one that just comes to mind when you were talking about Suzuki Roshi teaching students in the 60s in the San Francisco Zen Center. All these hippies who are coming in with their problems.

I just think about the fact that to those people 60 years ago th their problems blotted out the sun. It just seemed like God when when's my draft number coming up? Um um my my dad won't let me pursue the career I wanted to pursue. They must have seemed like really big problems. Where are they now? And the same is true of my problems. I find it even on you don't have to wait 60 years, you know, just like even the next morning. Isn't that amazing?

Like at night, you know, it's like, oh my god, you know, big problem looking at my calendar. I you know, I look at my calendar. So I'm I'm quite busy in this this position of the Abbott here at um Greenwich Farm Zen Center which is one of our three San Francisco Zen Center temples. temples. temples. cohabit of this really big and vast Zen center complex of three temples and a wide, you know, non-residential SA. And so my calendar is a mess. And I look at my calendar and I get this just kind of gripped, you know, impossible sort of feeling.

And and that's so real, you know, when it's real and and then just something shifts. The next morning, you just look at the same calendar and it's like it's fine. There's no it's so Yeah. 60 years later, I think. And that's so wonderful about spending time with older people, you know, just that that context. But we can do it now, you know, just little bit of stepping back and appreciating that we're alive while we're alive. You know, the problem, the thing that we're uh caught up in is not in the way of our of our being alive.

You know, the feeling is like I have to get over this. I have to get through this, you know, and then then I'll be alive or something. Then I'll be fully then I'll be okay. Then I'll be able to have my joy. then I'll be able to thrive then. But the problem it's just a series of problems. The problem is not it's not in the way of anything. It just is our life. So person to be telling these most of them kids, you know, young people like don't miss that you're alive.

And um and let's let's do that together, you know, just and that's not to minimize or dismiss the problem. It's just it's like the background or the context or the space it's all happening in. You know, AT&T believes hearing a voice can change everything. It's why we love a good podcast or we save voicemails from loved ones because we appreciate the sound of a familiar voice. When I need a pickme up, I call my friend Willie. Willie and I have known each other for nearly 25 years.

He's just an incredibly close friend and I laugh my you know what off every time we talk. That's my guy. AT&T wants everyone to share their voice over the holidays. So, send a voice note, leave a voicemail, call someone because that conversation is a chance to say something they will hear forever. Happy holidays from AT&T. Connecting changes everything. I've got a big trip coming up. I'm very excited about this. My family and I are flying to Washington to go to a Washington Commander football game. As you may have heard me mention before, my beloved brother-in-law, Jack, is a pro scout for the Commanders.

Love Jack. Love the Commanders. Love their head coach who was on this show not long ago. Anyway, I'm excited about this trip and many of us are heading into a period of time when we're all taking vacation. It's the holiday season and I've got an idea for you. While you're away, you could use that as an opportunity to host your home your home your home on Airbnb. I love staying in Welcoming Homes that I book on Airbnb. And it got me thinking, my home could do the same for somebody else.

I put so much work into this house. My wife put most of the work in, but we put a lot of time and energy into this place. So, why not use it as a spot to help other people feel comfortable while they are away from home? And think about it. If you host your home on Airbnb while you're traveling, it's a great way to offset some of the costs of your own trip. You get paid for taking a vacation. And the extra income you make can be put toward an upcoming trip, a splurge you've been eyeing, home improvement projects.

So, if you've got some holiday travel or any other travel coming up, hosting is a pretty cool and unique way to make some of your money back. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.com/host. Well, let me just get right to the what you said there, but let's not to minimize or dismiss the problem because I can imagine people listening to this and thinking, well, you guys just listed some problems, but they they don't compare to my problem, like my kid just got a terminal diagnosis or I just got a terminal diagnosis or um you name it.

There are problems that are, I don't know, all caps problems, you know, stop the presses the presses the presses uh type type of stuff. So does this, does this, does this, you know, feel the breath at the at the south south of the belly button or contemplate, you know, the fact that billions of people have preceded you on this planet and they've had problems. This stuff might sound nice, but you know, when it's up against something that's like headline news, maybe maybe not so actionable. Thank you.

Yeah. big deep problems the whole you know the world suffering our own struggles [clears throat] our families aging death I mean there's life and death problems you know and I know those too says you know kind of like actually the bigger the problem is the more important it is that we actually find some place in our being that can hold and be with a big problem you know Like we use the examples of the little problems but in a way the little problems the thinking mind the dualistic mind can usually figure its way out you know through the little problems the thinking mind the either or the what should I do the the separate you know I'm over here it's over here what it's over there you know what do I do to it that kind of mental mental mental either or shouldbased approach is like it can't include everything that we need to include when we're meeting a really big deep problem.

So, Suzukiroshi says, "The more you realize how difficult, you know, it is it's what the Buddha said too. When you really realize how difficult, how deep the suffering goes, you need some other tool." You know, the way I think of it is like, okay, if I have a little problem, I can give it to this um to this chaotic childish mind, right? When I have a really big problem, I need to give it to the to the adult, you know, to the thing that's bigger and more grounded.

big problem needs a big self. You could say a big caretaker. And for me, kind of in my practice in the Zen training, that's like this embodied wisdom. You know, our mind can't hold all of the contradictions that a real problem has. It's like I like it. I don't like it. I want it. I don't want it. It's okay. It's not okay. None of the things I can do make sense. The mind is trying to pick figure out like what to do in that. But the kind of quieting the mind and just including all of that in a kind of presence or in a kind of spaciousness even though it's all contradictory, even though it's all a swirl of impossible obstacles or problems, you know, this kind of bigger presence actually can be the ground from which to meet it.

Something comes and I think we kind of have this experience all the time. It's like when we're thinking about something, it's hard to find our way through and then we just relax and take some breaths and then it's like boom, right? I'm going to go left, not right. I'm going to go right, not left. I'm going to say yes and not know. And we kind of don't and then there's even this idea, right, that that action or that decision, I don't know, you've maybe talked to neuroscientists or whatever.

There's there is this idea that that decision actually comes a little bit before that action is coming a little bit before we have like decided with our mind right so there's something about trusting and the zen training is about kind of like trusting whether it's a big problem or a little problem can I rely a little more on this kind of presence that includes everything this soft mind that's just intimate and open and not really knowing can I trust that that will be a ground of action or do I need to be using my kind of manipulative uh separate thinking mind and just try it out in little ways.

Uh a million examples of this you know in our life where we can just try to soften the mind and come more into that that intuitive wisdom and then just see just check it out. See is that trustworthy? Did that work? And then gradually in the language of Zen, you know, we sort of build our faith, our confidence in all right, I can have I can bear to empty my mind a little bit. I'm going to be actually okay if I soften and empty my mind a little bit cuz I have what I need to be connected and to respond with wisdom and compassion.

And that's in the embodied presence. Want to rely on that more and rely on my dualistic, confused, tangled mind a little bit less. I love how in in the Zen world and in the Buddhist world at large um there's a kind of retaking of the fraught word of faith. Um because I in western culture as you know faith is often used um as kind of weaponized uh uh you believe in this dogma or you're a sinner. Uh but but faith in the Buddhist and and Zen and and then the overall Buddhist senses is as you said confidence and that you can build through your own direct experience.

And in this case, we're talking about the direct experience of shifting into a different mindset instead of handing all of your problems over to um I think you refer to it as our childish dualistic mind. Um so let me then follow up with a really practical question. this thing you're describing which sounds great you know the to soften the mind to empty the mind to to to um inhabit a kind of embodied presence what does that mean actually and how does one do it actually so in our in our sitting practice sitting practice you know in Zen is not the point really sitting practice is like one of my teachers called it training wheels I was so into what we call zazen you know seated meditation and I was you know maybe 20 and I was at our our more monastic training place and I was so into you know the sitting and just the more you sit the better you know you got to sit all the time and this wonderful teacher said that's the training wheels you know I thought I was doing some heroic awesome thing by all the sitting and she was like that's just the training wheels you know the point of the sitting is to help us balance the bike you know just to help us live live our life so the sitting is a kind of a good um practice practice area uh kind of um practice range for us to experiment with and sort of take even tentative steps into what's it like to relax the mind a little bit to soften some of the thinking can I can I trust that can I try that so practically you know it it it is helpful to sit even just now and then for a few minutes and the way we do that is to um take an upright posture and kind of align our our spine and head and body so that the breath can can go down into the belly again this kind of belly center.

So we just breathe you know all the way out from the lower belly and then all the way in from the lower belly and already right there when you're concentration is not like some um impossible thing. We know how to concentrate. It's it's kind of our birth rate. rate. rate. Even just for a moment, you know, concentrating on that breath, it's like the thinking is there ready to to rush right back in, you know, but just even for a second, you know, we can we can just breathe out and then the mind, you know, tries to come back in.

So in in Zen then we um try to relax the mind, try to let go of of some of the thinking by t by feeling that feeling of the breath. And then there's this this step that that I think is kind of the basis of almost all the meditation techniques and all the different Buddhist schools. And then in the Zen way, we open our eyes a little bit and we kind of open our ears and we get curious about what's happening around us. That's also a wonderful way to cut through the thinking.

thinking. thinking. When there's something interesting happening, we're not thinking about something else. You know, like we're talking to our friend who we really love and they're telling us something important, we're probably not thinking as much, you know, as when we're just wandering mind cuz something important and interesting is happening, right? So, we're kind of like we're sort of there for it. And part of being there for it means other things, other kinds of thoughts other than about this situation now, you know, talking to my friend, they kind of don't have a place.

And it's not that I'm pushing them away. It's just I'm I'm interested in in what my friend is saying, you know, I want to be here with them. So the Zen idea, Suzuki Roshi's idea is kind of like our surroundings, our life, the light and the sound and the things happening around us also are kind of like very interesting, you know, and they're calling for our our trying to share their their feeling is kind of a funny poetic way to put it, but that's what what Suzuki Roshi says.

you know, they're kind of this the space that we're in is trying to share its feeling with us, you know, um as a kind of metaphor for this intimacy. So, um I don't know if that sounds practical. The point is to come into the body, come into the breath and then just see, you know, focusing on the breath and opening the eyes and just noticing that something interesting is happening around. happening around. happening around. So sometimes we say and Suzuki Roshi does make this point you know when the mind is crowded with all this rubbish it's hard to really feel the feeling of life and to feel how that being alive is like really pretty intimate with everything that's around it.

You know sometimes even like painfully intimate, you know, we're so so together with everything really. everything really. everything really. So the mind is just so so full and so it's hard to appreciate the feeling of where we are but we really can let some of that thinking quiet and part of how we can do that is by remembering finding in ourselves inquiring in ourselves you know are we curious do we want to be connected with what's around and then just attending to what's around us does that make sense Dan Dan Dan it makes sense to me I think it makes sense to me, but I'm going to try to repeat some of it back to you and ask some clarifying questions in service of making sure that I actually got it and more importantly making sure that the listener listener listener can understand it and and deploy it in his or her own life.

How does that sound? sound? sound? That's wonderful, Dan. I really appreciate that. appreciate that. appreciate that. So, I think what you were teaching us there is zazen, the the zen style of seated meditation. the goal of which is not to get better at zazen per se. It's to get better at navigating life and your problems. Um, but this is a foundational training. And so in Zen, I think what you in Zazen, I think what you're describing is it starts eyes closed with a feeling of the breath coming in and out at the har, which is kind of a little bit south of the belly button.

button. button. And then one might open the eyes. Often in zazen meditation, you're actually kind of sitting in front of a wall. So you you might you might take in the wall, the light around you. Um uh so it's a way of sharpening the mind a little bit on the on grounding and um uh honing the attention through paying attention to the breath. Then you open up a little bit by opening the eyes and seeing if you be can be aware of um your surroundings. And of course, every time you get distracted, just start again.

Is that a is that a reason? Is that a decent res uh recapitulation? It's wonderful. And when you put it that way, you know, it does it does sound kind of hard. So, I'm sorry that it's hard. You know, it's hard to be alive. So, like I mean, we're already doing something hard, right? That's what Suzuki Roshi says. If you think that your life isn't already hard, then why would you do something hard like try to meditate? But when you get that your life is hard, so you might have to do something hard to figure out how to cope with your with your hard life.

The Buddha is not saying like, oh, we could do something easy, but I'm making up something hard for us to do randomly. He's saying life is really, really hard. And I'm actually even though it's crazy to say I'm actually offering something that in the long run is easier you know but I think you know the way Suzuki most talks about for beginners the way he most talks about zazin or seated meditation meditation meditation is is counting the breath we can just feel ourself feel ourself feel ourself there's just something about um planting our feet in a a way of the feeling of being alive and maybe somebody has this by walking by walking by walking Maybe somebody has this by doing some other kind of physical practice, you know, running or some sport or just something that's embodied where you're not so much in your head.

And so in the sitting, it's this, you know, I don't Suzuki Roshi when he talks about the har, you know, he doesn't get too kind of specific or esoteric about it. It's more just like letting the breath fall, just drop into the belly. you know, you can just feel your belly kind of um going out and in, just trying to take a few deep breaths. And so then in the sitting, we just count each of those out breaths 1 to 10. And usually we just count around three, two, three.

And then no matter how long we're gone for, we just come back again to one. And the most important thing in the coming back to one is that we're just happy and grateful to be coming back to one, you know, when it's like I'm such a bad meditator. I just was gone. Was that 5 minutes? Was it 10 minutes? Forget it. It's just like as soon as you come back to your senses, right? As soon as you kind of come back to life, remember you're in a room that and have this idea of meditating.

You just come back to one and you're with some some joy, some gratitude like yeah one what a wonderful thing to be back in the breath. That moment is so important you know cuz if we're harsh with ourselves if we're like you idiot you just didn't you know how can you get confused at three again? who wants to come home to that, you know? So, we just come back to the one like, right? It doesn't matter how long, you know, we're looking for just these moments of being fully alive.

It doesn't matter how much time is between them. We're just when we kind of come back to life, we can just be be grateful and joyful. So joyful. So joyful. So he says you know we just count our breath breath breath and then as we count our breath the mind starts to quiet down and then if the mind is quite quiet quiet some and we don't need to be counting anymore for the breath for the mind not to be so crazy then we can stop counting and just kind of be with the flow of our breath and then try to include more and more see if we can include more and more you know of what's happening around us without you know kind kind of rushing back into that tense evaluating calculating calculating calculating inside outside self other either or mental thing.

So even just to count a few breaths few breaths few breaths and just clear the mind for for a little w bit we I really believe that we all have that capacity and then it just is refreshing you know it creates a new ground even if our mind fills up again. Two very practical clarifying questions. You mentioned at some point taking a deep breath, but my understanding is one might start with some deep breaths, but the counting of the breath is you're counting the breath as it naturally occurs, not deep breathing.

Am I right about that? We think, you know, to do kind of like deep breathing, you kind of get out of breath for after, you know, a few breaths. It's not so sustainable. But there's something about taking, you know, in in the kind of traditional formal Zen meditation instruction, you take, you know, take a couple of deep breaths to start to just kind of like reset, you know, just reset the body. I think of it as like prime the the breath or just kind of make a little bit of a forceful kind of expression of intention here, like, okay, I'm coming into my breath.

I'm coming into my body. So, a few strong breaths and then just breathing naturally. breathing naturally. breathing naturally. The thing is when we're relaxed, natural breathing kind of is in our belly, you know, like a baby is kind of breathes in a belly or somebody in a really relaxed state, you know, the breath naturally actually wants to be in the belly. So, it's not like we're forcing it there or pushing it there. It's just as we relax, we might notice that that's where that's where it likes to be.

So, we might give it um some encouragement at the start of our sitting just to remind it. So just to remind it that sometimes it likes to be in the belly. But yeah, the focus is natural breathing just you know as as the Buddha said when it's when it's long it's long and and that's this that's her life and it's amazing and when it's short it's short and that's her life and it's amazing. The other practical question is, do you do zazen the entire time with your eyes open or do you open them once you feel like you've got a base of focus and concentration?

and concentration? and concentration? The traditional instruction is open open the whole time. Interesting. Interesting. Interesting. But when I'm taking a few breaths and trying to concentrate, I do find Yes, it's an interesting question. I feel like if you keep your eyes closed for too long, you start daydreaming or dreaming, you know, and you're kind of separating, you're kind of going in uh in in the the old Zen tradition, they call it the ghost cave, you know, or the demon cave, you know, you're kind of like you're withdrawing into this deep dark cave.

And you know, I'm here separate, my depth, my meditation. And and Zen is about the intimacy the like forgive the expression but becoming one with our surroundings being intimate with every so to have our eyes open is more like right what we're trying to practice is being one with our surroundings not kind of going into this um inner kind of place. So I find like for one or two breaths to close the eyes kind of helps with the concentration but any more than that but that's just kind of how I'm how I'm putting it today.

Generally we keep the eyes open eyes open eyes open and it kind of becomes an important point in Zen meditation instruction because of what that signals about. The point of this practice is not for you to go into some like deep state in yourself. yourself. yourself. The point is to like soften a little bit this rigid fixed inside and outside separation thing. So with our eyes open it's kind of like right the light and the the ears open and the sound and the heart open all the feeling all the sensation kind of being the whole field of of being alive.

So the eyes open you know just just signifies that it doesn't I don't need to be dogmatic about it but it can be a little more helpful if the eyes are open to have that feeling of right I'm trying to connect with my surroundings in a more deep and open way as a sukurishi says I'm trying to feel the feeling of being in the woods when I'm in the woods and so I want my eyes to be open I want to feel the feeling of my friends so I want I want to be looking at them you know to feel to like to be intimate I want to pick up on that word intimacy because it is a major topic in the book and you've brought it up and it's linked to another phrase that that is uh prominent in the book and that you've also um brought up which is this idea of meditation being a source of sharing the feeling.

That was a phrase used earlier and a phrase that Suzuki Roshi used when I hear you talk and I and I'm imagining when I'm listen the listeners hear you talk about being intimate or one with all of um all of our surroundings with everything you know it's the old hot dog joke. Yeah, exactly. Or the ordering the pizza, you know, the Daly Lama ordering a pizza. I'll take one with everything. Um I I you know, we maybe shouldn't use that. It's very 70s to say become one with everything.

So I try to avoid it, but it's also like it's a beautiful idea. It's a beautiful idea to just for the intimacy, you know. But sorry, what's what's your question? No, I love everything you're saying. I just So we're both establishing that this is a a very common trope in spiritual circles. It's maybe the apex predator of like meditation cliches. And yet like how what does it really mean? And how do we know if we're achieving it? You know, I mean, I feel like sometimes I'm on a retreat or especially in my early years, like I'm staring at the trees.

How to be how can I be one with these [ __ ] trees? Like, I'm I'm still me. They're over there. Like, so can you help us like break it down so that we can understand it? I mean, that's a beautiful Right. So, this is Zen in a nutshell, right? Is the more you're trying to like be one with the tree, that's ridiculous. If you're standing there looking at the tree like the point is your your life the tree is not actually separate from your life and when I say that it it might sound mystical.

So I just want to be really clear. This is not like the tree that you're looking at or say the computer that you're looking at the the the table that you're looking at the the steering wheel that you're looking at is not actually different from your life. that kind of once you just sort of appreciate that or just make this little shift, I think these teachings start to make a lot more sense. Where is that steering wheel happening? Where is that tree happening? They're happening in Dan.

You know, I mean, the whole thing that's in that your life is is like everything that's appearing in your life is your is your life. You know, I use this image for that. And I should I every time I use it, I say I got to stop using this, but I can't find a better one for now, which is like a dream, right? And the reason I I hesitate to use this is cuz I don't think we're dreaming. I don't have this idea like reality is a dream.

I think that's dumb. I think that's like not helpful. And I think it's not true. Um who I mean, whether who cares if it's a dream or not? Dream or not. I mean from this end point is like what are you talking about that's we don't actually know what it is enough to know you know to say anything about it like dream or not dream it's not that it's not real and it's not that there's not real things that are other than you like you are really there I'm really here it it's not it's not like a weird and dangerous idea of like I'm the only one that exists but in a dream but it's a good example or kind of metaphor everything that I encounter in the dream what is it made of it's just my own mind, right?

It's my own being. I see someone or I climb some mountain or I see some monster in my dream. That's just it's just made out of my own dream. I don't know if that if that's a a way that can land for you to put it in my life. You know, everything that I'm experiencing in my life just is my life. Nothing is in the way of my life. Nothing is really separate from my life. As soon as I'm experiencing something, it's in the field of what my life is.

It's right here. That's what I mean. It's so intimate. And that's like when you kind of you might get a little uncomfortable even when you start to appreciate like these people around me, you know, walking walking down the the sidewalk, you know, these people around me are actually actually actually they're my own life. And that that's not like Yes. Sometimes you know the Buddha or somebody or somebody or somebody said the beautiful thing about the Buddha and the morning star you know they shared their feeling with each other.

So so sometimes somebody and that was the Buddha's enlightenment you know wow I am not separate and the star is not separate. Sometimes that happens in this kind of dramatic intense feeling of like oh my god oh no I'm actually one things are not separate but even just in a more basic way like right everything I'm walking down the street me walking down the street includes all of this stuff this stuff isn't separate that it is the whole sidewalk is me walking down the street am I like off the rails are you with me Dan or do you think your audience is can appreciate that or does it sound like mystical or No I think you're doing great and I I I think it lands for me.

So, I'll say it out loud and make sure it it really does. But everything that I see or hear or smell or smell or smell is not a separate thing invading my space. It is in my mind. Therefore, it is in my life. And so, we may feel separate from the gum on the sidewalk and the and the person whose outfit we don't like stepping on the gum on the sidewalk. All we may feel like we're this fretful ego, this this this separate ego fretfully navigating the world, but anything that's in your mind is non-negotiably part of your life.

And so there you aren't separate fundamentally. Is that what you're saying? saying? saying? Yeah, that's a wonderful way to put it. My only quibble maybe would be I don't so much like the word mind because um it makes it seem like a mental thing in a way and maybe it's just you know this entraining is more like coming into the body. So it's like just everything that's in your life, [snorts] just everything that's appearing in your life, everything that you see or hear is your own self.

You know it. And so Suzuki Roshi says, and you asked about becoming yourself, right? He says this funny thing. funny thing. funny thing. So becoming yourself in a practical way, in the most kind of basic way, just means, oh, I get to be who I am. I don't have to try to be anybody other than who I am. Like I I can't anyway. you know, we know this is like typical advice, right? It's um just just be yourself and stop trying to be something else and then you can kind of like more more fully be with what's here and be more creative and be more spacious and be more present.

So, it just kind of means, you know, be the idiot you are and um let that be okay. And then there's a kind of wisdom there. But it also means in Suzuki Rosh's teaching, he says becoming yourself when you are you yourself. And I appreciate that you said, you know, I couldn't gro any. I tried to read the the Zen my beginner's mind. I couldn't really gro it. He's speaking to the kind of intuitive thing. Um, and that's in a way this is like the insight versus Zen approaches too within Buddhism.

It's a little bit more more kind of like linear or instructional versus a little more poetic or kind of speaking to the intuition. So he says when you are really you yourself, you include everything. So for him becoming yourself is like becoming this life itself. Becoming the life that you are and then everything is included in that. So being yourself doesn't mean just like I'm myself not you. It's like being the life being myself is myself is myself is being the the fullness of my experience of my my being alive which everything is part of.

So he says when you're really yourself you include everything. So then being that living in that way where everything is included, things aren't so separate. It's softening this fixed view of inside and outside and then just meeting our life from that that we is trustworthy. It's a little bit better ground and so we can kind of live we can be a good you know father, husband, partner, friend, worker. You know, AT&T believes hearing a voice can change everything. And if you love podcasts, you get that.

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It's a chance to say something they will hear forever. So, uh, spread a little love with a call this season. Happy holidays from AT&T. Connecting changes everything. Let me see if I can respond to the to what you said in order first. I love your quibbles. Please always include them because uh I mean that's the very purpose of my restating what I've heard from you is that I want you to correct me. Um you did make a reference and I just want to clarify it for listeners.

uh you made a reference to the difference between the insight tradition versus the Zen tradition and for those of you who are not you know well-versed on uh all of the dharma combat that exists among the various schools of meditation insight meditation is often sometimes referred to as terravada meditation is is literally the oldest school of Buddhism and it it it really is taught in quite a linear way and which is why it is so congenial to sort of western minds like mine. Um that's why I've spent a lot of time in the insider terravada tradition, the Zen tradition, which is a later uh innovation within the the the um multi-entury progression of of of Buddhism, uh is a little bit more poetic and nonlinear.

Um uh and so what what you were saying I believe is that the reason why people like me might struggle with some of Suzuki Roshi's writings is it it it's not me it's not speaking to your prefrontal cortex. It's speaking to some a deeper part of the of the mind and the brain. Um and and then just to get back to your core point about intimacy intimacy intimacy um I used a word a bit of a trigger word. I'm being slightly facitious here earlier when I said it's everything you see is happening in your mind.

You you change that I think helpfully at least for me to happening in your life. And so there's nothing that you're experiencing that is outside of your life. And if you can navigate the world with that attitude of yeah this is all part of it. It's all included. That doesn't mean you're a doormat or resigned to things that you see that are unacceptable, but at least you're not at war with reality and you don't feel separate from everything that's happening. Thank you. Yeah. Nothing to do.

This teaching has nothing to do with being resigned to things, the flow of your life naturally. You know, we're we're part of it. We're responding. We're engaged. You know, some meditation teachers, you know, talk about mind or talk about awareness. And um I'm a little bit allergic to that language. which I appreciate people who go deep through that gate, you know, I think arrive at a wonderful place and I don't think it's different from what I'm talking about. But awareness, I just get a little tangled up like what's the awareness, find the awareness, be the awareness like what I guess it makes me kind of back in my head whereas the just being alive being alive being alive to me makes a lot of sense and that what am I?

You know, who am I? This is also kind of Zen question, right? Frustrates the intellect. Who am I? So people, you know, in in like the Renzai Xen tradition, I'm part of the Soto Zen tradition, but our our friends in other areas of the Zen teaching like to ask these intense questions and just sit with them for a week, you know, in a room, you know, who am I? What is this? Um, Um, Um, so what am I? You know, and in in our stories, it's just like, stop making such a big deal, you know, just be it.

Just be it. You you're not going to be able to figure it out. You can't actually figure it out. So, Zukiroshi says, "If you really want to be yourself, don't try to figure it out. Figuring it out now, you're separating from it, seeing it as an object, and trying to get a handle on it." The point is that being alive doesn't have any handles. The being alive is it's like the feeling of I it's like the So, for me to say um what I am, who I am is just life itself.

that that's not like an accomplishment or that's not like a special fancy thing. It's just the obvious fact. I am I am life. I didn't make that. And that life that I am that's not separate from any of the other life. It's just it's actually just one thing you know. Suzuki says and again maybe this is also a little far out but he says you know you're not just part of this thing. You're not just part of this thing. You are this thing. You know we are we are life and to be that self even just to appreciate or just to even have that idea and breathe out with that idea like right I am just I'm just life you know creates this kind of ease and opening and softening that again just really is good ground for our chopping wood and carrying water and going to work and solving our problems and trying to help the world.

It's not instead of any of that. It's just kind of being honest about what's happening, which is which is which is we are life itself, you know. Let me see. Let me try something and see how it goes over with you. This may or may not go over well with you given that the source is a is an insight meditation teacher. teacher. teacher. I love I love the teachings. We need each other. each other. each other. We all keep each other honest, you know. I hope.

I hope. I hope. Yeah. One of my favorite things to say about enlightenment is as soon as you're talking about enlightenment, you're in an argument, an argument, an argument, [snorts] you know, because everybody there's all these different views on what enlightenment is or means or so. Um, but anyway, setting that aside, the the the the phrase that I'm going to run by you comes from a Burmese master who I've never met. I'd love to meet him. Um, his name his name is Seda Utéia. And one of his instructions to his teach uh students is while you're meditating just to eventually uh to occasionally drop these three words into your mind.

This is nature. is nature. is nature. It's the same teaching. The teachings are all the same teaching. It's just different gates for different minds, you know, and um or different aspects. So this is nature. Is that what you said? Drop those three three words into your mind. This is nature. one of the the kind of the basic feeling of of our being separate. So, Suzuki Roshi is talking about intimacy or sharing in the feeling and sharing our feeling with things that are around us. Being in the woods, we really just feel the feeling of being in the woods, washing the dishes in our kitchen.

We just feel what feel that feeling of being in our kitchen washing the dishes. And he says when you feel the feeling of being in the kitchen or being in the woods that's that's the zazen in that kind of way of immediate sort of direct just being our life. It's not like me plus nature right like me plus the universe. the universe. the universe. Suzukiroshi says when you think you're acting [snorts] on the universe like you're outside it. What's outside the universe? You must be a ghost.

You know, if you're acting on the universe, you're you're a ghost because where are you standing? So, this is nature. This is this is life, you know. It's not me plus life. It's not me plus the universe. It's not even me plus you, you know. Um, and we don't need to understand that with our mind. I think something about these teachings these teachings these teachings is like they can resonate and we can appreciate their resonating and we can kind of like align with them without really understanding it.

You know, I was sharing some Suzuki Roshi with with another Zen teacher the other day. I said, you know, Suzukiroshi has this saying that, you know, when you're when you're just yourself, then Zen is Zen. And I said, I never I never understood what like what does that mean? and she she said, "Yeah, I never understood what that means either, but I like how it makes me feel." You know, there's something about like letting it just letting it um letting [clears throat] these teachings talk to the part that understands them that I remember long ago.

So I was at um our kind of more monastic training place deep in the mountains around Big Su in in California and um doing this this training and during the summer we have a kind of open time at at Tasahara where where guests come in and um my mom my mom visited and um you know we have our morning kind of sitting and then we do our morning services you know this chanting and that day that she was there we were chanting this very obscure text by this 13th century Zen guy named Toen Zenji and um this this very poetic weird text about Zazen, you know, it's like, "Oh, no.

I'm trying to like make a good impression on my my mom that she thinks I'm not doing something weird." And here we're reading this text that's like and she she afterwards she was kind of like, "Yeah, "Yeah, "Yeah, you know, I get it." something and it's and you know something like right she couldn't have explained it you know or she didn't then like give me a three-point thing that it meant but right like something was true about that kind of poetic way of putting what this being alive is and what our path as human beings is so to appreciate Suzuki Roshi even though he does have lots of you know um practical instructions like you know count the breath But he's more like inviting us into a way of being that's a little less mental.

mental. mental. Well, I'm going to violate the spirit of this conversation and ask you a very practical question. practical question. practical question. Please do. I I want that. It this is I'm curious about the order of operations here or the connection between intimacy you and allowing and understanding that everything that enters our life is part of our life that we're not separate from it. How does that help us chop wood and carry water? By which I mean, how does that help us be more effective in our life?

Especially as we're dealing with problems problems problems when we're allowing ourselves to be a little more connected, a little more intimate with what's happening around us. Zen talks about uh the appropriate response, response, response, you know. So, the appropriate response or this kind of great activity it's sometimes called. The appropriate response is like the appropriate response the uh an ancient Zen teacher was asked you know what's the teaching of of your whole lifetime and I think this was Yunmen and he said uh an appropriate response.

So just that ability to be actually present with and responsive to what's happening what's happening around us. So, for example, I use, you know, uh I'm talking to my friend who's having a hard time. I may have all kinds of ideas about their life, right? And what they should do, how they're how they're doing life wrong, you know, and that's what their problem is. And they've got to hear it from me, you know? So, I have some idea. I kind of have something figured out. They're over there.

I'm over here. I know something. And I'm going to tell them. I'm going to do something to them, you know, like tell them how to get their life together. We maybe know you know that kind of way is likely to not be so helpful. Suzukihashi says when you're in that kind of separation it's going to be really hard to help people because you're not actually letting them help you. It's a little bit of a different topic but a beautiful thinking says you can't help somebody if you're not letting every be everything be helping you.

If you're not you can't be intimate one direction you know I'm going to help you but not let you help me. It's like no either the window's open or it's closed you know. So I'm talking to my friend when I can actually just settle my mind a little bit, feel feel that natural warmth, you know, that innate love that we have. This is part of our faith, part of the teaching in Zen. We love each other. We love everything. We get that all covered over and tangled up, you know, and get confused into thinking that we hate.

But we actually in our being, you know, we are not separate from each other and we know that and we we love each other. We have this inherent innate loving heart. So here intimate with my friend who's telling me something, feeling their presence, letting the thoughts quiet down. I don't know what the response is going to be. Wouldn't you like, you know, when you're talking to someone, say a loved one or a friend, wouldn't you like them to not know what they're going to say back to you already?

You want them to actually be present listening. And neither of you know what they're going to say because what they're going to say back to you is like related to what you said to them. It's not related to all your ideas or moral code or system of understanding the three-point thing they're supposed to do. It's going to come from a responsiveness like I'm right here with you. I hear you. And now, wow, look, without necessarily thinking about it, something of my intuitive wisdom, my whole life experience meeting your pain and your words, now something just happened together that and so I'm responding.

I think we can all feel that difference where sometimes we're even a little bit surprised by something that we say, you know, because it was like it wasn't coming from my prior idea. It was actually coming from a kind of presence in the moment. But we don't trust that. We think like, "No, We don't trust that. We think like, "No, you don't understand. I really need all my thinking to get through the day." So that's why we just try it in little ways. And the the teaching is actually you you will have what you need.

It's you you'll be more effective if you're actually more in touch with what's in the room. So like I'm in meetings all the time. You know, maybe people think the habit is like sitting meditation all the time, but but I'm like in meetings all the time, you know, and if I kind of know how that's going to go or I know my approach or I know the problem or I know what that person needs to be doing different or whatever, or whatever, or whatever, I'm really and then I'm coming in with that, it's not going to be as helpful as if yeah, I have my all my views, you know, sure, I was thinking about it all day yesterday because it's a stressful thing.

So, I'm coming in, I have all my ideas about it, but then when I'm there with the person, if I can actually just let all that quiet down and really try to be listening and present and intimate, this is my own kind of this all included in my own life. And I just am curious about it. I'm here with it. And now something can happen. It might be the same thing that I had planned to say, but it's with a kind of presence. or you know I'm in I'm in traffic and I'm like I'm like I'm like just that feeling of all of these people are impinging on my life all of these people are keeping me from you know where I'm supposed to be getting as opposed to like right actually this I mean in the Buddhist sense right without these people around you you're not alive there's no life without this traffic in that moment of traffic the only way you're alive is with the traffic you know so that right okay all of this is my life 60 years from now I'll have wished I was present you know, in the car with it's not against me.

And um so then yeah, I mean, how does that help? I don't like lay on the horn and stick my head out the window and like rage at the people cuz it's like welcome. I can include it a little more. And again, it's not an either or like either you're raging or you're like, you know, one with everything. It's just a kind of softening a little bit more in the direction towards breathing out really everything welcome everything included. So if we're if we can allow ourselves to be in this intimate receptive mode which again we can train through zazen well then when quote unquote problems emerge like traffic we can view them with more wisdom and handle them more effectively and uh and we're responding not from a place of our prior ideas which are all coming from the demon cave, but in fact from this mysterious ineffable wisdom to which we all have access if we can drop out of our thinking dualistic minds.

Yeah. in traffic and also with, you know, know, know, my kid is having a mental health crisis. You know, my mom is dying, you know, the um the pain of of like the world to um let you could say innate wisdom, you know, and that might somebody might say, well, well, I don't have that. I don't have that sounds good, you know, but I don't have that. Another way to say it is kind of like the wisdom of the whole situation situation situation that kind of so zen is kind of like softening and becoming sort of I don't know maybe we shouldn't say but becoming one or just including everything including everything and then the whole there's a kind of um a wisdom that comes from that whole situation that's a little more than what I myself was bringing.

the thing that I figured out and that I'm bringing is not complete. And when I'm open to the whole situation, some kind of responsiveness or something can happen that's more that's more connected and complete. So maybe to say this ineffable intuitive wisdom makes it sound fancy. It's more just we can trust ourselves to know what to do when it's time to do something, you know, and we've experienced that really in a daily way. We just know, you know, somebody needs something, we know what to do without thinking about it.

that it happens all the time and yet still still still in a pinch we kind of go we clench around the thinking. So it's just more like trust this thing that you already know that you have which is the kind of gut you know you're talking about har or belly we have this thing right this gut we we have this gut kind of feeling like we we kind of know what to do and that's an amazing thing about human being being a human being we don't know how we got here we don't quite know what it is but we know what to do you know and it's a mess you know it's a mess is all kind of pain and and suffering and struggle but to say right I don't have to figure out what to do.

I didn't have to figure out how to be born, you know, then have to figure out, you know, how to grow up. I I have what I need and and I'm ready to say I'm sorry. You know, that's not like, oh, I'm using ineffable intuitive wisdom. Everything I do is perfect now. It's the feeling. Zukiroshi has a beautiful thing. He's talking about the the precepts, right? The ethical precepts. And he says, do not kill is like a dead precept. The living precept is I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

You know, it's not like, oh, I'm indefable wisdom. I'm, you know, beyond reproach. It's like, oh, I'm sorry. I'm I'm just here alive trying to do my best and but not do my best by figuring it all out. Do my best by breathing out and trying to touch into this just love and connection. That's that's just what we already are. So, I have this, I think, somewhat incurable um linear way of thinking, which I'm going to I'm going to I'm [snorts] going to like the Kool-Aid Man come bursting through the wall um and ruin all of this poetry.

Um but I'm making a little map on my notes in front of me but it it feels like the order of operations and again please quibble is something like you know we develop this capacity we have to be intimate or receptive inclusive in our mind that then allows us to respond with a authenticity or spontaneity from our gut rather than from our preconceived notions from this you know You're correct to point out that terms like embodied wisdom or innate wisdom sound a little grandiose. It's more just like the fact that we often know what to do.

Um do. Um do. Um so that leads to an appropriate response which then leads to um a perpetual willingness to admit when you [ __ ] up when the appro when the response wasn't appropriate. Therefore you say the words I'm sorry a lot. That's the next appropriate response, right? Is to say I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yes. Exact. Exactly. And it's not, you know, even to say in an appropriate response. Um, it's just a little bit more appropriate than the response I was going to do. You know, again, it's not black and white.

It's just about this is just a little bit more reliable away or my response will be a little bit the word I say to my friend will be a little bit more helpful if I'm actually feeling present with them. It's not, it still might not be helpful because I'm actually an idiot and I don't know what they're going through. Whatever. It's just it's a little bit more helpful than if I had come and just sticking to my ideas. So, we don't have to get into the extremes.

It's just a little more reliable, a little more helpful, a little more appropriate if we're a little bit less in her mind and a little bit more in the feeling of being alive that everything is included in. You just used the word idiot and I thought you used it earlier, but I didn't know if I was hearing correctly. I love the word. I think it's hilarious that you're using it. Um, I think you said something earlier, and maybe this is me just restating it inaccurately, but something like authenticity is is like just the the okayess to be the idiot that you already are at one level.

Yeah. And that idiot turns out is life itself. That that includes you didn't make yourself an idiot, you know. Everything in the whole universe since beginningless time made you an idiot, you know. So, just be that. And um all the wisdom is there and all the confusion is there. All the conditioning is there and you don't have to fight against it. And that doesn't mean you're just like not working on it because also what you are is someone who wants to be doing better. We have this kind of natural wish to improve.

You know, that's just part of what we are as human beings. So, um, it's not if if we misunderstand this, we might kind of get stubborn and say like, well, I'm supposed to be an idiot and I'm not going to try to learn more or be less of an idiot because I'm just accepting that I'm an idiot. But that's not authentic. We are an idiot and we want to not be an idiot. That's like true about us. And so to say like I just let myself be an idiot.

Or people say, "Oh, Zen says you just accept everything so then you stop working for things to be better." That is so crazy to me. It's just so not the point. The point is to be yourself as you are. You want to be better and you want to help others around you. So why it's not like you're cutting that part of yourself off. On the contrary, you're you're becoming more that whole person that you are, which is, you know, I hate everybody and I love everybody.

I'm an idiot and I want to be better. All of that is included. And all all of that is is is a [clears throat] kind of a gift and a miracle. And we don't we don't need to quite clamp down, you know. And I think we're driving it. We can be a little more easeful and feel as we exhale. You know, Suzuki also has this beautiful thing. You just exhale all the way. And then sometimes you can notice breathing in. You didn't do that. You didn't make that.

You don't have to be driving your life all the time. You can actually just like ride the wave a little bit. Sometimes let the life be be moving you. You know that's a little bit more like the intuitive present ways not separate from thing driving the thing and it's so stressful to be driving our life because you know am I doing it right? Am I doing it wrong? We had that side. we include that side but right I feel that way and also I can trust that I'm being carried here by everything this is a miracle from the moment I was born I'm being carried even that I was born so this is a gift moment after moment after moment after moment I'm being carried and yet I do have some agency and some desire to learn and grow but that too is an expression of the universe universe universe exactly yeah to take just one side and then say now I'm just going to like not move And throughout the long, you know, centuries of tradition is like don't be blocking anything.

If you think you're supposed to be blocking some natural, you know, aspiration or natural ambition or natural self-expression, you're missing the point, you know, it's to be kind of like to use a more daist image, you know. It's kind of yeah, just to be that flow of life, to be that flow of nature. nature. nature. I can't remember who said it. Maybe it was your maybe it was Suzuki Roshi, but some Zen teacher said, and I love this statement of the paradox that uh you're perfect and you could use a little improvement.

So to be okay with your inner idiot is not to say it's not resignation. It's just you're you're an idiot in that we're all flawed and uh the idiot the idiot the idiot we all want to grow. We all naturally want to grow and improve. And can we just be okay with both sides of that? So you hear this teaching like include everything. You okay? Right. So I include that I'm an idiot. Yes. But also keep including don't stop there, you know. know. know. Keep including keep including and you're also like in the Buddhist language, you know, you're also a Buddha.

You're also life itself, life itself, life itself, you know. And then those things you don't need to pick between them. You don't need to have them fight it out or you know in terms of like ethical practice in terms of how we live in the world. And that's a big part of becoming yourself. This this book by Suzukiroshi that we just put out is because we wanted to have a book by Suzukiroshi that that has at least some chapters that are more specifically about ethics or kind of like how we conduct ourselves in our life.

And so the and the example of kind of like well I want to lie, I want to be divisive. I want to kill. I want to hate. You know, it's like yeah, you can include that. You can welcome that. You don't have to be afraid of that or push that away or try to get rid of that. Welcome. Yeah, I really want to kill. I really want to hate. Welcome that. Include that, but also keep including. And we include more and more of who we are.

And it's like, right. Also, I really love everybody fundamentally. Also, I really don't want to lie. You know, that's all included, too. And we don't have to then pick like, oh, what am I going to do? We just let all of that be there. And then again this appropriate response or this kind of like something unfolding from the totality from the wholeness. Then whether I go left or right, right or left I was doing everything was included. I didn't cut something off to hold on to something.

I don't know if that makes sense. Cut something off like when I have a decision I think I've got to cut one thing off and pick the other thing. Then even if I go left instead of right this feeling that I I had to cut one of those things off and so it's not such a whole thing. Whereas in the process of the of the discernment or the decision, if everything was included, then there's a kind of wholeness. Of course, I'm going to go left and right.

I can't actually go left and right, you know. But I kind of did it in a way that included right and left, you know. Did I Is that Is that Is that Well, I guess where I get hung up is I think you are making a choice. I mean, you you are being okay with your inner idiot and with your inner Buddha. um you're including all of it, but ultimately you are making the appropriate response as I understand it would be to make a choice usually to go in the Buddha direction rather than the idiot direction.

idiot direction. idiot direction. Well, going back to this um appropriate response thing or what we're talking about about decision is like and I don't know if you've looked into this some or if it's even true, but this idea of like you're starting to move before the decision is made. I think that's actually true like neuroscientifically. So you say, well, you but you have to make the choice. I mean, come on. Come on, Ju. At the end of the day, you have to make the choice. And it's like, okay, yeah, we could say in a practical way, it's sort of like the way I think of it is when I think I have to make a choice, then I have to make a choice.

You know, I'm on the hook. But actually, if I can bear to stay in the not knowing and the presence, did I make the choice? I don't know. Did I make the choice to marry my wife? Did I make the choice to move to the Zen Center? Did I make the choice, you know, to um, you know, have green tea instead of black tea? Yeah, I did. All those were choice points and also there's a kind of unfolding. And so um, yeah, when we think we have to make a choice, we have to be sincere with that.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. But I think part of this training that I'm talking about or part of this learning to trust that things can unfold a little bit more naturally, a little bit less from our either or mind does kind of mean softening a little bit this sense of like I have to choose and a little more like I wonder what he's going to do, you know, and and I and I care and I'm present and I don't I have all these thoughts. It's all included. So they don't have to fight these parts of ourselves, you know, this including everything for me, especially with regard to ethics or decision making or problems.

It's like all of it can be included. All of the parts of ourselves, all the, you know, our idiot self and our Buddha self and all that can be included and we don't have to get into like killing one and empowering the other. We can just let that whole thing be there and trust that they'll work it out. You know the another part of the faith that like Suzuki Roshi has that that's a big part of how he teaches kind of ethics and in becoming yourself is like the Buddha part you know when we really include everything that Buddha nature you know that that innate love and inherent intimacy we have with everything that's kind of going to win you know if if we include everything it's just a bigger it's kind of like the sun in a candle you know my wanting to hate my wanting to kill and my actual innate love for things.

They I don't have to they don't have to fight it. They can fight it out, but like the love is is just more like what I actually am. But people might doubt that and and that's fair to doubt. But it's just, you know, dip your toes and see if you can trust, see if you can appreciate a little bit these teachings. Check it out and you may build some faith or confidence. That's a great place to leave it. I think you're you I do want to recommend before I let you go, I just want to remind everybody that you've edited a new book that you we've referenced repeatedly, becoming yourself, teachings on the Zen way of life, uh which is a compilation of the teaching teachings of your teacher, Shreo Suzuki, who um you never got to meet, but is nonetheless a major influential uh force in your in your mind.

Um, and we'll put links if people want to get the book and if they want to check out the San Francisco Zen Cent Zen Center or the residential centers that are uh under it. Um, we'll put some resources in the show notes if people want to go deeper. But in the meantime, Jurio, a total pleasure to meet you. Thank you for your time. You did a great job with this. Likewise, Dan, thanks so much again. and I really appreciate what you're bringing and who you're trying to reach and um it's been special.

It's been enjoyable to be with you. Thanks for your wonderful questions. wonderful questions. wonderful questions.