This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Welcome and good morning here at Bengals on this nice, sunny, rainy day. Welcome at home over Zoom. Welcome new practice period again. By the way, if you don't know, there has just last week, we started a practice period here, a six-week practice period, which is led by Renaud Kokyo. And it is about the song of the trusting mind. Should I talk louder? Yes.

[01:00]

Okay. I can do that. Yeah. Maybe I should introduce myself. My name is Timo and I'm here the new Tanto since January, which is head of practice. And I'm very honored and even more humbled about that position here. And so... I was invited to give a Sunday talk. And as you heard, the theme of the practice spirit is the song of the trusting mind. So my talk will be a little bit about trust, about trusting mind, and about entering walls of unknown. um the text i was like the last half year i could say or the last year uh i was mainly exposed to two texts um one as a zen student and that was avatam sagasucha and one as a dad which was harry potter

[02:21]

And since we heard a lot about the Avatamsaka Sutra in recent times, I will talk about Harry Potter today. Where do I start? I think I'm talking about that because more than 30 years ago, in a German Zen center where I grew up, I saw on the Christmas party, their Harry Potter, I think it was one. And I don't remember much except that one scene, which will come over and over again in this tour. And so then it was silent for over 30 years with regards to Harry Potter for me. And I don't know the whole story. Then, like half a year ago, my kids, and they might listen right now, actually, they started to read all the seven books of Harry Potter.

[03:36]

And then they started to watch the movies, all the seven ones of Harry Potter. And then they re-read the books again. And then we built some Hogwarts castle at home. And then... We have some memory games, which we do, which they always are very happy to play with me because I never remember the characters and so they can always win. That's just for you to get a feel of my level of exposure to Harry Potter. And still, even with that level, I am in no way any expert of that. And if I would say so, I think they would roll their eyes at home. I wanted to go to that one scene which had recurring in my mind. And since it happened like over the 30 years, you can imagine there is quite some modification in that story which happens inside there. So when I actually re-read then finally that little chapter and also saw the part in the movie, I was pretty disappointed, I have to say.

[04:47]

So I won't... read this story to you, but I will tell it to you how I remembered it and how that got stuck sort of in my mind. I'm just wondering how many people do actually know Harry Potter? Who does not know Harry Potter? Yeah, okay. There's some waving hands there. Can I give a very brief introduction into that even? So the way I have the story in my mind is like there is this Harry Potter, which is a son of some real magicians. So by nature, I would say he is a magician too. But he does not know that, does not realize because his parents have been killed and he grows up in a different family which doesn't want to have anything to do with magic.

[05:59]

So then at one time all the situations come together and he gets this many, many letters which tell him sort of that he is a special person and that he is invited to go to this school of magic. And in this letter, he is actually given the way how he can go to this school. And as you might know, I'm mixing quite a little bit of... Buddhist concepts here and it's really fun to translate that story because you could say it's a boy who has Buddha nature or is a bodhisattva but doesn't realize that and then goes on finally on his journey and to go on his journey he needs to go to this magical place which is called Hogwarts and in this letter it tells him how to get there

[07:08]

And it says that you have to go to a certain train station. I forgot the name. And the train which departs on your journey leaves at platform nine and three quarter. So as you might imagine, nine and three quarter doesn't exist. At least not for normal deluded people. which are called in this book muggles. So like we are all muggles or we are all magicians as you like it. And so he is on this train station and looks around and he even asks one of these officers there and they just give him a strange look. And he knows he really needs to go there. That's what his life is about. But there is no way for him to enter. And so you could say his karma or his way-seeking mind was good enough to just hang around and watch.

[08:17]

And so what he sees at one point is that there are some other kids who are sort of on the same journey. And he recognizes them because they have the same outfit. I mean, it's like you have a magical outfit and they have their owls with them and their coats. or frogs or so. And so he realizes, oh yeah, I just need to watch how they do it. And so he watches and doesn't get it because they just vanish. They just disappear. And finally he meets, there's this old wise lady which has compassion with him and She sees that he wants to go on this journey, and so she comes to him and tells him the secret about how to get on this trip.

[09:20]

And she says, like, it's not Platform 9. It's not Platform 10. It's just in the middle of it. What you think looks like nothing special, just like a brick wall. That's where you need to go to enter. And there is one trick or one very important point. When you go to penetrate this wall to your journey, you have to have complete faith. You do not hesitate. If you go there, you just need to enter this wall without any hesitation. Harry follows that guidance and pushes his cart with all his stuff and his owl into the wall and enters his journey.

[10:23]

So this is my story of Harry Potter. And what intrigued me most or what... stuck to my mind, was one, the impossibility of walking, of entering, of penetrating this brick wall, and whatever would happen there, and two, the guidance, the main secret, the main key to do that is You don't hesitate. You have complete trust. And so, yeah, that was the part which stuck to my mind and which actually come up for me in daily practice, I would say.

[11:32]

But I'll talk more about the walls later. I think what I will try to do now before I talk just about what I feel like is to have us all experience this amazing thing of walking into a wall. And so how I would like to do that is maybe like the people who are sitting in chairs could just stand up And the other ones can stand up or can stay seated depending on how it works for you. If you are very advanced, you can just stay seated. And so maybe we just make a tiny move, but we just make a dry run first without walls. And so what I want you to do is just to move a little bit forward right now.

[12:41]

Move a little bit forward. And then now you can stay there a little bit. See how it feels. And now you can step back. Step back again. Don't sit down, but step back. So... And now the next version is like we do that with a wall. So... I'm sorry that the people on Zoom can't see now all these walls rising. But I want you to imagine in front of you, if that feels comfortable to you, a wall directly in front of you. And I will ask you soon to make a step inside. But before I ask you that, I just want to give you a few details tricks about how to do that.

[13:44]

And the one trick is like stay calm and continue to breathe. And the second one is like don't try to figure it out because there's no way you will ever figure out how to penetrate this wall. And Thirdly, when you move forward, just no hesitation. Now, if you don't resist, the wall will not resist. If you resist, the wall might resist. Okay, so are we ready? We just imagine having a wall in front of us. And now we remember the guidelines. And we lean or step a little bit forward into the wall.

[14:47]

And we sense how that is there, which we cannot in any way figure out. So it doesn't make sense to hold on anything. We just let go and maybe listen to the wall. And then we feel welcome to step back again or lean back again. And you can sit down. Thank you. Congratulations. Why I did that and why I said so...

[16:09]

Intriguing to me is like, for me, that stepping in, that leaning into, is like a zazen instruction. It's like the instruction to go into a place which we cannot figure out. It's like to go into a place which is completely unknown for us. And what we need to do to arrive at that place is to stay calm, let go, and let the place penetrate us. I have here one quote of the Trusting Mind song, which just makes that point a little bit bold about not using your mind when you encounter walls and want to penetrate them.

[17:30]

And that is, stop talking and thinking and there is nowhere you can't pass. There is another well-known association of wall and maybe the mind of Sazen, which was done by our founder of Zen in China, Bodhidharma. And the quote goes like, outwardly seize all attachment, inwardly grasp not with the mind, with the mind like a wall you enter the way. Now most of us

[18:42]

do not have maybe the privilege for the resilience to face a wall for nine years as Bodhidharma did. But what I want to go into a little bit more is like facing the walls and penetrating them, the walls that appear in my life, that might appear in your life. And I'm not so much talking about physical walls, but about the walls, that separate us that separate us from others that separate us from ourselves that hinder us to be to be free and um maybe i start with a very known wall um for myself which i experienced quite a bit while preparing for this talk And that is, you might not feel that, it's like that I experience a lot of anxiety and fear of public speaking.

[19:52]

So this is for me a wall which is quite present before I come to a talk here. And it's funny, there are actually at the Buddha lists like five main fears of humans. I don't know, you probably have heard of them. The first one is the fear of death. The second one is the fear of becoming sick. The third one, I don't know if I have the order right, the third one is the fear of losing your mind. The fourth one is the fear of losing livelihood. And the fifth one is the fear of giving speech in public. Amazing. When I heard that for the first time, I was really relieved. I said like, oh, I'm together with a lot of friends here.

[20:54]

Yeah. So, all these walls, like being in fear or anger or irritation or, you said, what we experience in our lives are what I hope to see, pathways for liberation. But they are only pathways for liberation. They only help us to go on our journey if we penetrate them and if we don't try to dismiss them or go around them. So in this way, I would say we should treat these walls, these fears, these angers appropriately, which means as gates, as friends who help us to find our way of freedom.

[22:07]

and to let them invite us so we can become intimate with them. And when I say that, there's a wonderful poem of Rumi, which probably most of you know. I'll maybe read that at the end of the talk. which just brings this wonderful together to invite all this, what I call walls or obstacles or whatever you want to call them, as friends into your house, as guests. Maybe I want to talk a little bit about the walls. In case people have not enough own walls or they are not high enough, you're very welcome to come to this monastery.

[23:22]

When you come here, we give you some for free. And they include especially, I mean, a practice period is a very good place to receive lots of walls. And we call them here shingi. Call them shingi or forms. or schedule. That's a wonderful name for quite a wall. They're still training walls, you know, like nothing happens if you fall into them. But we offer them, or as a practitioner, as a wonderful practice to find out. And often what happens is actually that they seem to be pretty small, but then... they create inside even bigger ones, like real skyscrapers, aversion skyscrapers against these walls, against the shingy, the form, the schedule, and what I need to do here.

[24:27]

And yeah, often it is seen like the shingy or the forms, the schedule is just a way to keep so many people... sort of peaceful together but what is missed is really that they are made actually they are provided in their original intention to restrict and for people who all of them are up for letting themselves penetrated by them to experience liberation inside So there is actually a picture that is representing that situation, which is often caused in the in the monasteries, which is called like a snake in a bamboo tube.

[25:30]

And you might imagine when I actually said just when I left here to my wife that I'm also talking about the snake in the bamboo tube, she gave me this. She got that, I think, for her chuseau ceremony. This is a bamboo tube, and this is a snake. So what the idea is, or the picture is, which looks a little bit cruel, but... maybe forget that this is a real snake and a real bamboo tube, is that the snake believes, of course, that the snake is real and the bamboo tube is real, goes into the bamboo tube. But there is so little room, even less than here, that there is no place to wiggle. And there's also no room really to turn around there. And so in this sort of container, what the opportunity is,

[26:35]

is like for the snake to completely surrender the situation to surrender that it cannot move and with this surrender like wake up wake up to the dance of the snake and the bamboo tube wake up to the dream of a separate snake and a separate bamboo tube and being stuck in there that is that is the offer of the temple I wonder.

[27:36]

Oh, yeah. I have not much more to say. But I would like to read to you this very well-known poem of Rumi. And then maybe after that we can have a little bit of a discussion. And I would like to hear your experiences and your expressions. So the poem, the Rumi poem goes like this. This being human is a guest house. Every moment a new arrival, a joy, a depression, a meanness. Some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome. and entertain them all. Even if they are a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still treat each guest honorably.

[28:51]

He may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes because each has been sent as a guide from beyond. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[29:52]

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