Navigating Leadership Through Presence

In our latest episode, Marc hosts a thought-provoking conversation with Abbott Jiryu Byler, exploring the profound intersection of open-heartedness and effective action in the face of uncertainty. This discussion delves deep into the zen teachings of Suzuki Roshi and presents invaluable insights into the journey of mindful leadership.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Marc: [00:00:00] Welcome to Mindful Leadership with Marc Lesser, a biweekly podcast featuring conversations with leaders and teachers exploring the intersection of keeping our hearts open and effective action in these most uncertain and challenging times. Please support our work by making a donation at Marc Lesser slash donate.

Today’s guest is Abbott  Jiryu Rutschman Byler actually goes by the name his dharma name, his Buddhist name is Jiryu. Jiryu is the co-habit of the San Francisco Zen Center and abiding Abbott at Green Gulch Farm. He is a transmitted Zen teacher in the lineage of Shira Suzuki. He [00:01:00] received his Dharma transmission from Soja, Mel Weitzman I’ve known Jiryu for many years.

And I’ve always been impressed with his his both his scholarly ability and that he has done work at San Quentin. He’s currently co-editing a new collection of teachings by a Suzuki Roshi a book called Becoming Yourself. And I am looking forward to the book and I am really looking forward to my, this conversation with Jiryu.

Jiryu. Good morning. It’s really a pleasure to get to spend this time with you.

Jiryu: Good morning, Marc. Thanks so much for the invitation.

Marc: So I can’t help myself. I think I, I need to start with a dream that I woke up with yesterday morning, which was I was I was waiting. I. Waiting for some people to go somewhere and they were late and I was feeling stressed and anxious.

And then in the next scene I was in a [00:02:00] courtyard where I was supposed to teach a college class and I didn’t know where the room, what room was in. And I was looking through the pamphlet and I couldn’t find out. I was getting more and more anxious and stressed. And finally I found the phone number for some people to call.

I pulled out my phone and my phone was frozen. It didn’t work. And in that moment I had this enormous, simple insight that none of this was real. And it was partly, I think I knew a little bit was, I knew I was dreaming, but also I just knew that none of this was real. And I walked over to to my wife, Lee.

I looked at her with a big smile on my face. I said, none of this is real. And I leapt in the air about 10 feet in the air and did a back flip and landed next to her. [00:03:00] And and then I took the hand of a woman next to me and started flying. And so I, I think this is, I think I’m curious your thoughts about a way into, Suzuki Roche’s teaching and this book that you’ve just recently edited.

A becoming, it’s funny I go back and forth with becoming yourself, becoming ourselves, becoming yourself. And and so much of his teaching, I think is what we think of as I. Real, maybe not so real, and what we think of as ourselves. Maybe there’s another perspective. Yeah.

And even the type what does it mean? Becoming yourself. Becoming yourself. Why? And in terms of I of course found my dream to really help me in my leadership conversations yesterday [00:04:00] and all of my conversations. Just a sense of not it all is real and it’s not what are your thoughts on what is what is, what do you have to say and what does Suzuki ROI have to say about this?

Okay. Thank you so much. Yeah. Suzuki Roshi, I don’t know. I guess the, I remember the story that goes wash your face. Now that, you had your dream wash, your face, is a classic zen response to a dream. I thi this isn’t in the Suzuki Roshi book. It was, I came across a story in Norman Fisher’s book.

It’s something like this, the practitioner says, I had the most amazing dream but can I tell it to you? And the teacher says something like, yes, hold on. And then comes with a basin and a towel and says, wash your face. So there’s, which again is the, so now, in the kind of like ongoing turning presence, beginner’s [00:05:00] mind letting go.

Now there’s an idea which is serving you today, right? And yesterday for a few days you get this okay, things aren’t real, but what’s the teaching today? So wash your face and what’s the teaching today and what’s the so that’s, it was just my reaction. And remembering I don’t exactly remember the characters of that story, but touched me when I read it in Norman’s book.

But that’s a beautiful expression of kind of the lightness of reality. The freedom of reality, not the sort of that it’s not what we think, that there’s all this kind of space in it is generates this sort of creativity and possibility and engagement aliveness. It’s not I think if we think like intellectually about.

It’s not real and hold onto that in some kind of way, then that could be a kind of nihilistic or deadening or something. Who cares? It’s not real. But what you’re describing is just oh, it’s not exactly that, it’s not real, but it’s not, it doesn’t have this kind of fixed, stuck quality. It’s not [00:06:00] what I think it is.

And so here I go with a back flip. Here I go flying off here I go, smiling at the person I love. That’s yeah, that loosening, softening of the self as actually allowing a kind of authenticity or intimacy. Which I think for like for Suzuki Roshi, when he’s talking about becoming yourself, it’s not hardened the self in this kind of hardened, like you are real and what you are is real.

And be that it’s this what you are yourself is this changing and intimate, he says, uses this term in one of the chapters. So beautiful. It’s sharing the feeling, I don’t know if you saw that chapter, sharing in the feeling of what’s around you, and that when we really are ourself, everything’s included.

So this kind of intimacy and freedom from the self by just being what it is. It’s a subtle point, but I think it’s, I think it’s important and that’s a beautiful dream. What I think of as I, I think it’s an early case from the Blue Cliff record, right? Where the student [00:07:00] enters the monastery and says, to the teacher, give me your teaching.

Oh no, this is the wash your bowl, not wash your face. I’m thinking of the wash your bowl. So in that story, give me your teaching. And the teacher says, have you eaten breakfast? And yes, then wash your bowl. Which I, again, much could be said about that, but it’s. I think a story about learning from experience, right?

Learning. And again, which is maybe similar to what you’re saying about the wash your face. That that don’t, maybe I hear you saying, don’t be so don’t be too caught on whatever lesson I learned yesterday. There might be a new one. Be open to the new one to today.

Jiryu: This connects for me to this question about habit energy and this kind of intimacy with life that you’re describing.

Sort of having this light, light inspired lightness in your life. The feeling of not fix, not stuck reality, and then [00:08:00] you can really receive, your grandson’s leap and and these conversations that you’re having in the way that, in this chapter, in the, in becoming yourself, Suzuki Roshi.

Using this expression, sharing your feeling. And it’s about he says, when you’re in the woods to really feel the feeling of being in the woods is what we mean by meditation. And he says the purpose of zen is to just share the feeling, this share in this feeling of being alive with everything that’s here alive with us.

And he says that’s the purpose. But the problem is our mind is always full of all of this rubbish. And so you say, but it’s beautiful. It’s not just like you needed the bulls, you say wash your bulls. They needed it to be dirty. You needed the food. They it. So he says it’s not rubbish while you’re using it.

It has a purpose while you’re using it. The thinking and all of that’s in our mind. That’s creating a little bit of a kind of filter [00:09:00] layer between us and this kind of intimate, more alive, not known and wondrous reality. There. It’s not like bad that we have those thoughts. They were important while we were using them, but we don’t need them anymore.

So he says, clear the table. After you’ve eaten, you have a pile of like papers and cans and stuff. You just have to clear the table and keep clearing the table, not so that you can be, so that your mind is empty. That your mind isn’t so stuck with this kind of layers of sludge that are blocking you from intimacy.

And I just find that framing so helpful. ’cause we hear clear the mind, get some idea that it’s ’cause the thoughts are bad or we’re supposed to squeeze to stop the thoughts or something. And he is just saying, can you hear the call of the woods? Hear the call of the room that you’re in. Hear the call of the person you’re in front of, and let your mind be quiet so that you can actually be intimate, and receive them.

And then he says that’s what the Buddha did when the Buddha was awakened and saw the morning star, the Buddha. Was [00:10:00] just had an this empty open mind and so could be totally intimate, share the feeling of the morning star. Then he has that great line where maybe it was the morning star sharing the Morningstar’s feeling with the Buddha.

We can’t really say. So that kind of intimacy as what our meditation practice is and then where our ethical practice, our precept practice are skillful practice harmonizing with others in the world also comes from that same like intimacy.

Marc: Yeah. And I I’m aware that, you current, you were, you’ve recently been not so recently, it’s been what, a couple years now thrust into this role of leadership and I think I imagine it is many descriptive words, but one would be fascinating how you practice with, having to lead and, work, lead an organization, work, work with people who have many different needs and ideas while at [00:11:00] the root, this practice of intimacy in lead leadership. And I, there’s a line I pulled out from the book that says to find true joy under some limitation is the way to realize the whole universe.

There’s no other way. The whole universe makes sense to you before you think about it. It’s important to give up your foolish discrimination or foolish ideas of freedom. This is the way of practice which I thought was again beauti. Beautiful. And both you have this blend of pra practical and yet very deep sense of right as you’re describing this feeling of practice.

And I wonder how it’s going in terms of bringing this feeling into practice in terms of your leadership role.

Jiryu: Thank you. Yeah. That’s a beautiful chapter in the book about finding yourself in the limitation. And it’s such an important teaching for [00:12:00] Suzuki Roshi and for Zen practice generally, that because we’re trying to get out of the current, we’re trying to get slip out of the current limitation that we’re in for some freedom that’s outside of that, then we’re actually missing the kind of bottomless boundless.

Alive intimacy with what’s here. So no matter how big or small the room is, if, when you’re totally just in it without trying to get out of it, then that’s how you find the freedom. And if you’re trying to get the big thing he says, you don’t, there’s no way to get the whole universe.

You just get your small room. And that’s how you get the whole universe. So I do think that all of us, it’s like the very, very daily kind of feeling of being in some limitation that we’re chafing against and feeling like wanting, there’s some freedom. There’s gonna be some freedom if we can manage to like, slip out of this list space, and of course, like a demanding job is one of those, I just look at my calendar and feel totally trapped. Like confined in a space is like impossible, jam packed. [00:13:00] And then I have this feeling like, how do I get out of this? I get outta this. But then as this is just what our life is of of saying yes to what’s here.

Then it’s like you just step into that moment, into that activity. There’s no limitation. That was the idea I had, this morning when I was anxious, looking at my calendar, it felt limited. But now that I’m in it, this is not eight o’clock Jiryu lesser, ah, how’s that gonna be in my day?

This is like the whole universe. We’re just here intimate. It’s free, there’s nothing blocking anything. ’cause we’re right here in the small room together. And for me, I’m always trying to, yeah. To wiggle out. So that finding yourself under some limitation has been a really important teaching for me.

There is a, there’s a, a couple things maybe to respond to that question of how it’s going for me. I do feel so part of the,the teaching on this becoming yourself, is also that [00:14:00] I. So for the meditation to just be the authentic kind of experience of this being alive together.

And this, he calls it yourself, but really he means this presence that we have right now that kind of includes everything. Not in some fancy way, but it just does. Like we’re here with everything. Everything is included. So just to be more trust that presence, then that presence can there’s an intuitive wisdom there.

And so the meditation part is just sharing in that feeling. And then the ethical part, or the kind of right action part is not so much trusting our mind and our stories and our fixed ideas, or even our moral codes if they’re like rigid, fixed moral codes that we have in our mind. But being who we are fully includes that we have this kind of innate loving heart, and that we’re intimate with what’s here and it’s trusting that our action, that kinda I can’t say like the best thing or the right thing, but.

A better approach is gonna be to [00:15:00] trust that I can settle down, try to empty and clear my mind a little bit, try to become intimate with how it feels right now in me, which includes my tension and my resistance, but also includes my innate tenderness and loving heart, and then be present with the person that I’m with.

So I’m often in these situations where I think, the worst, right? As a like leader is somebody tells you to tell somebody, person Y tells you to tell person X, thing B, and you’re just like or I have a feeling, oh, that thing needs to be fixed, or something needs to happen, or somebody is doing something wrong.

And then I have the story that starts to build and I’m gonna, get me a meeting with so and we’re gonna do this thing. And then I. I’m in my head with my idea about what’s supposed to happen to solve this problem that I’m gonna solve, so that I can be out of the limitation, so I can be free.

So then the practice is okay, I have all this idea, now I’m with this person. Can I actually just find this presence and this intimacy? And then o often it’s oh [00:16:00] yes, my story’s true. My thing that I had worked out in my mind about what the situation needs. Might still have some wisdom in it might still need to be expressed, but there’s something here also that’s alive and intimate and I can feel the tenderness and really be human with.

So that and then I feel the stakes of the practice, the stakes of the practice of intimacy, rather than coming in with my ideas, which I have compassion for, because that’s me trying to take responsibility. I’m trying to be responsible for the thing, but then my head is trying to do it by making these fixed ideas about how things should go.

If I really understood how important my responsibility was, I would be wanting to entrust that to the intuitive wisdom that this intimacy, which includes the mind, but, so that’s a kind of everyday, ’cause I get these stories about people, and then when I’m actually with them and allow myself to just be with them, it’s oh, I don’t know you and I don’t know what you need.

And part of what’s been fascinating for me in unpacking and [00:17:00] exploring this idea of becoming yourself for Suzuki Roshi, it does have this feeling of your becoming yourself in a real way, in a deep way. Your authentic self, which is this, as I said, intimate and this kind of tender loving heart. And that doesn’t mean like to push away.

The part, you might say I don’t really have a tender loving heart, or My tender loving heart is not accessible. I’m just aware of like my constriction and anxiety and resentment and all that and that, that’s all welcome. That’s all part of it. But there’s a kind of confidence, in c Kiros teaching that if you just keep opening, if you just really welcome what’s here at the core of our being is this intimacy and love, you don’t have to go somewhere else to find that.

You don’t have to manufacture that. You don’t have to slap that on top of something even on top of your hatred. You just make room for that, include that, and just keep, including, include [00:18:00] everything. And if you keep including how it is to be you’re gonna get to this natural. Tenderness there.

So I think when we say find your loving heart, somebody might scramble somewhere else to like, get that, where do I find that? And the direction is always no, you have it and you don’t have to you just keep including whatever’s here. You can just keep including it and then trust that that is our nature and that we can, it’s worth trying to settle into that and then to try to live from that, that, that might be even more beneficial than living from the kind of moral codes and ideas that we have.

I’m not saying that I’m doing like a particularly good job of that. You can ask around in the community here, but as a direction of the effort, it’s I wanna be here with each o with people,

Marc: no,  that’s, beautiful as a, in terms, whether it’s leadership or just life, right?

That [00:19:00] the yeah, not, yeah, again, it just I feel like the title of this book, becoming yourself kinda like a mantra, become like what is and yet there’s the always the underlying contradiction. It’s but you already are yourself.

Jiryu: You already are yourself. And also it doesn’t Buddhism say there’s no self anyway, there’s all kinds of problems with it.

But I find when I, and then, I bring up this topic and people say, but what about, I thought there was no self. And, but what about the fact for me, as I, one of my favorite expressions from the book is. He’s saying versions of this all the time, our way of sitting is for you to just become yourself.

Our moment by moment is just you, simply as yourself. Or this one of the point is to learn to be yourself as completely as a stone. As a stone. And I don’t know exactly what that means, but I just feel like this sort of permission to be exactly what’s here in a way that creates some freedom from what’s here.

[00:20:00] This not needing to be any other than any way other than I am. And that doesn’t mean like justification for me being petty because actually that’s not really how I am at the bottom of my heart. I don’t wanna justify being petty. I wanna find something deeper. And that’s my authentic being too.

But just that I have what I need to rely on and it’s here in this shared being alive kind of presence together. And that I don’t need to reach for anything. I don’t need to change anything. Exactly. But I do wanna deeply share the feeling of be intimate with what’s here. There is a piece that I I wonder if I could get your thoughts on that, is about leadership really in I don’t know if you came across this section or had come across it before in the unedited talks of sushi in this in this version it’s on 1 24.

He has this he’s talking about how we practice [00:21:00] ethics, and he uses this image of a couple images. One he uses the image of, so in our formal and practice of chanting, we have this drum called the GIO that keeps the time. And so he says, and so the person leading is kinda like the person.

Playing the drum is, thinks that they’re setting the pace of the chant. And I could I read you what he says about that? Because I think it’s beautiful. And I think it will, it’ll make sense to anyone who thinks that they can lead anybody. So he says first, oh my gosh. This is what you said.

You said like every line is like a lifetime, of study. So before the part that I wanted to read, he says, when we think about how to cope with the problems we have in our everyday life, we realize how important it is to practice azen, to practice meditation. I love that [00:22:00] when we think about how it’s wow, it’s hard to cope with these everyday problems.

That’s where the wish to meditate. It’s beautiful. The power of practice will help us in a true sense. But then he says, okay, for instance, while chanting with a group, when you strike the GIO or wooden drum, if you try to control the chanting thinking, this is too fast. I must make the chanting slower, or This is too slow, I must make it a little faster.

And you try to do so by the way, by way of your hand or your thinking, it doesn’t work. Only when you do it from your horror, your vital center, can you do it When you do it just by your thinking or your hand, it doesn’t work. The group will not follow your rhythm. Only when you do it with your zazen power can you control it.

When you can control yourself very well without having any idea of [00:23:00] controlling anything, you can set the right pace when you can control yourself. In the same way that you sit in Zazen posture, you can control the chanting perfectly. This is also true with your everyday practice. And then he says, this line that I’ve been carrying around now for years as I’ve been working on editing this book.

When you do something just through your skill or your thought, you will not be supported by people. And so it will not help others. Only when you do it with Zaza in mind can you help others and be naturally supported by people. So like when you’re separating, you separate from others and then think that you can do something with your skill or your hand in the case of the drummer, that you can be separate from it and control it isn’t gonna work because you’re not letting people support you.

That line of course, you’re not gonna be able to support the people if you’re not letting them [00:24:00] support you. And that’s what Zazen is receiving that support.

Marc: Yeah, no, thank you for, thank you so much for bringing this back to leadership J no. And I, in, in, in my day job where I’m teaching, working with leaders, I often come back to y yeah, there’s a lot of skills and strategies and things, so not that you shouldn’t learn how to hit the drum, and I like teaching people how to hit the drum or how to chant or in, out in the world.

Here are some skills and strategies for how to have difficult conversations but none of them will work. They’re pointless without the, what you’re calling zazen mind, which I might just call presence, pre presence, or. Open heart open like beginners something, a kind of leadership presence.

’cause I can remember a leader who I was [00:25:00] working with who didn’t understand why no one seemed to trust him or follow him, but his body just exuded defensiveness. And and that was, that was the work of the body, the work of or one’s full presence and yeah.

And meditation or zazen as the practice for actually accessing at that deeper level of, again, I get it again, coming back to our own leadership presence. Vital presence. Heartfelt presence is beautiful. That passage.

Jiryu: Share. Yeah. The sharing and the feeling.

The being intimate, the being present. That’s all. Also by zen, by meditation and that kind of settling the body and mind a little bit so that you can see what’s here and be with it. And this thing for me that I don’t know for you, but I get trapped thinking that to be generous with myself it’s not necessarily that I want to control for control’s sake.

It’s, I wanna support [00:26:00] people. I wanna support people, and I feel like it’s my responsibility to support people. But then I put my, I separate myself from that, from them, and I feel like I’m over here supporting them. And then Suzuki rashi’s reminding me Judy, that’s not gonna work. If you’re not be, if you’re not noticing that you’re supported by them, you’re not gonna, the things you do to try to support them are because there’s not the intimacy.

It’s not it can’t go one way like that you. You have to join the chanting, and then from joining the chanting, you can lead the chanting. He talks about this other image in Zen. I forget if it made it into this final version, but in the same kind of conversation, he uses this zen image, which he uses, I think, in his other books too, or it’s around in the zen tradition of driving the wave and following the wave.

I don’t know if you’ve studied that one, but it’s like you’re pushing the wave, but also you’re pushed by the wave and it’s a little bit like you’re leading the chanting, but also you’re following the chanting.

Marc: I recently was with [00:27:00] a, a new group of people who had very little chanting experience and just, my instructions were.

Just notice, notice, notice the chanting, and of course, notice your own voice. Your voice, this pace, the, the sound that you’re making and notice the sound that others are making. And it’s not exactly like you can experiment with harmonizing. You can experiment with not harmonizing and seeing how that goes.

And really I think, our leadership and life and relationships is a lot like that. Like part of it, it’s like just being curious about other people’s experience, being curious about, I often like I’ll walk into where there’s about to be a meeting and I’m like, oh what’s the energy here?

What’s hap are pe are people happy to be here? Are they nervous about being here? What’s the energy and what energy am I? And then what energy am I bringing? And what’s the dance that we’re doing, that we’re doing together? And where would I like this to [00:28:00] go and where do they, where would they like this to go?

And all of that. But then again, coming back to I think as much as I can, I, bringing in my, just opening my heart. Okay what’s happening here?

Jiryu: And trusting that a little bit more than your idea. And that’s the, for me, the basic thing about meditation practices and is like trusting presence a little more.

And trusting our ideas a little less.

Marc: Yes. I wanna read one section of the book that really I thought was just beautiful. It’s from the chapter, don’t try to figure out who you are. It says, after seeing his reflection in the water, toan wrote. This enlightenment verse, don’t try to seek yourself.

Don’t try to figure out who you are. The you found in that way is far from the real you. It is not you anymore. But when I go on my [00:29:00] way, wherever I turn, I meet myself. This verse means that you must find yourself in each zaza, in each meditation period. When you take your own step. Then wherever you go, you will meet with yourself.

I love that chapter.

Jiryu: Yeah, that’s so helpful for understanding what this is really pointing to. When we say becoming yourself it’s not become your idea, it’s become this aliveness. That it’s in everything you encounter and if you try to like step outside of it to get a hold of it, that’s not.

That’s not what we mean. I often think of we don’t need to imagine ourselves from the outside, like objects, in the world. It’s connecting with actually what does this feel like? And nobody can say anything about that really this being alive is ungraspable and boundless and deeply mysterious.

And that we can really [00:30:00] allow that feel that appreciate that and that’s what he means. Everything is ourself. Everything is our life.

Marc: Yeah. And yeah, I’ve been I’ve been studying some of Han’s teachings and I love, his talks a lot about, what seeds are you watering?

Jiryu: Yes.

Marc: And I feel like the language, I think, I love that you just used the word Ali aliveness, and it made me think about, as a practice watering the seeds of aliveness. And you’ve used the word intimacy a lot here. So water watering the seeds of intimacy and aliveness as a practice.

So if there’s if there is just by chance any takeaway from this conversation, I, maybe that’s it. That’s part of it. But anything else you would like to say today? Thanks so much, Jiryu. This has been wonderful and feels complete. Thank you very much, Jerry.

I hope you’ve appreciated today’s [00:31:00] episode. To learn more about my work, you can visit Jiryu lesser.net. And if you’re interested in enrolling in a self-directed course. Called Seven Practices of a Mindful Leader, please visit Jiryu lesser courses.thinkific.com. This podcast is offered freely and relies on the financial support from listeners like you.

You can donate@Jiryulesser.net slash donate. Thank you very much.

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