This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. What a treasure it is to be here. I'd like to thank the Tonto for the invitation to give this talk this morning. And to my dear friend. Oh, dear. So good to be here with you. Ed and I met at his use of practice period in Green Gulch, something like fall of 2003, when he came running into the sewing room one afternoon. to get his robe hemmed up because the hem had come out and happened to be there.

[01:02]

It seems like I've been working on sewing and robes with you ever since. My first practice fair year at Tasselhara was the fall of 2004. Linda Ruth was the leader of that practice fair year there were 35 people in the Tangari group. Yeah. So, I don't know what the other 15 people in the practice period were doing, but my guess is they were either making food or serving food. I think that was probably what they were doing in Tangari. The whole town of the towns were full. It was lovely. I think this is my last toss of heart, just period. My body is telling me that I'll get you through this one, but don't do this to me.

[02:12]

So, as much as I'd love to come home to the valley, to get recharged. So this probably being my last Shasahara practice period, everything is special. Not that it wasn't before, but it has that glow. That inner glow. Have you noticed that when we first started this practice period, when we came to evening service, it was dark? Have you noticed that? And now it's not. Now there's that little bit of light. And at one point, The sun will at last hit the courtyard, probably in March sometime. I was here for the winter practice period in 2006, as I infamously mentioned last night, the GRD practice period. I was here for that, and eventually we all got over. But I remember the last week, right before the last session, so this was in March, it snowed. And it snowed down into the courtyard, and all around, just a dusting of snow.

[03:18]

And Sonia Gartenschwartz was so thrilled, because she had always wanted to see it snow at Tassajara, that she danced in the corner. And I was in Room 9. I was at Eli's room at the end of the practice period. And I was in Room 9, and I got to watch Sonia dance in the snow. Now, I must say, the rest of us weren't quite so thrilled that it was snowing, but it was delightful to see such joy from Sonia. the most precious joys of this practice period, in addition to the light and to all of you, is that I have the unbelievable honor of getting to do this practice period with three of my students. Eli, Julian, and Andrew. Thank you, three of you. You are such a gift, as are all of you. It's wonderful to be here with you. And this evening, Abhisattva and I are going to do a precept ceremony for Ander and Julian.

[04:26]

It will take a great leap into the vows. There are, as you probably know, 16 Bodhisattva precepts. And no, I'm not going to amory all 16 of them in this talk. I am going to talk about the one that holds them all. The one that holds all those 16. And that's the very first one of when we chant the four. Beings are numberless, I vow to save them. Beings are numberless, I vow to save them. Now, have you ever wondered what it is we're supposed to be saving those beings from? Have you ever wondered that? I've wondered that. It's like, because Buddha doesn't proselytize, right? We don't send missionaries out to save souls, etc., etc. But then there's this first vow. Beings are a number of us. I vow to save them. And the answer to that is, from what are we saving them?

[05:27]

Well, from us. Honestly, from us. So we're saving beings from us. And basically what we are saving other beings from is our ancient twisted karma. The precepts and the paramitas that Ahmed is teaching us this practice period are the antidotes to our ancient twisted karma. So that's how I would like to spend a little time on today. Beings are numberless. I vow to save them from my messy behavior. So karma. Karma is a word that means action. Karma in Sanskrit. Karma in Pali. It means volitional action.

[06:29]

It means actions that we decide to do. Intention is another word for this. So this does not cover things like snoring, sneezing, muscle spasms, things like that. That's not karma. And we have to be really careful to not call that stuff karma. Karma is a volitional action. I decide to do this. Karma is the second of the chain, of the 12-fold chain. And between karma and ignorance, we're hosed. That's it, we really are. So, really early on, we kind of get into these patterns. What's really interesting is that in the Mahayana 12-fold chain, this step is called karmic formations. Chain number two is called karmic formations. But, in the Primaayana literature, in the Pali-Kanon, and the other literature that came before the Mahayana, this step is called Kamavipaka.

[07:39]

Action, fruition. Both. The action and the consequences. The Buddha said, we are the owner and the heir. H-E-I-R, that kind of heir. We are the owner and the heir of our actions. The action and the fruition. So here's karma, right? Okay. Pond, bowl. us pebble we throw in the pebble and little waves go out and at some point the little waves hit the other shore or the edge of the bowl and they come back to us and if we just toss maybe a pebble gently in there then we get this nice sort of massaging way back but a lot of times what we do is we take the biggest bowl that we can find

[08:41]

And we throw it in the bowl. And we throw it in the pot. And then the wind comes back and our boat sinks. Basically, this one ends. So, this idea that we are the owner and the heir of our actions. Of course, the big cosmic joke in karma is that there is no external divine punisher in karma. The punisher in karma is us. We punish ourselves. We throw this stuff out there from greed, hate, and delusion, trying to preserve the self, and cause these massive tsunamis that then come back and swamp us. So this is karma, karma fruition. I like it much better in the Pali version, karma of the pocket. Karma fruition. What we put out, we get back. And in our lives, as sentient beings, it's not the edge of the pole and some other shore out there that the waves bounce against.

[09:44]

It's other people. So other people are just a mirror, and we send out our karmic stuff, and they send it back, for better or for worse. So this is what the precepts and the paramitas are designed to help us avoid, is this... stuff that we put out there unthinkingly or thinkingly from greed, hate, and delusion coming back. So there's some pretty choice words about this in the literature. In the Lankavatara Sutra, Bodhidharma's favorite sutra, so greed, hate, and delusion are the poisons, the three poisons. And in the Lankavatara Sutra, it says we get charmed by these poisons into repetitive karmic behaviors. What a lovely word for what a terrible set of consequences we set up.

[10:46]

But I love that choice. I love that choice of words. Nagarjuna puts it even more bluntly. He says, karma is a promissory note upon which is written, honor your obligations or pay the consequences. In other words, behave a pay the price. So that doesn't mean rigidly by trying to not act. Of course not. Of course not. But to be careful about the wave that we're starting to put out there with all of our actions. And the precepts and the paramedias help us to remember what kinds of waves to put out there because we are the owner and the heir of our actions. Annie Tencent Palmo, a British woman who moved to Tibet and became a Tibetan monk, Tibetan nun, wrote a wonderful book called Receptions on a Mountain Lake about her many years in a cave in solitary meditation.

[11:53]

And she has this wonderful line where she says, nobody ties us to this karmic wheel. We grip it tightly with both hands. So we grip our greed, hate, and delusion and send it out there. And then we get back. Smack. Dogen, among many, many other commentators and scholars and practitioners, have said, have defined nirvana as the end of action. Freedom from action, Dogen calls it. Now, this is really interesting, right? Because we've got this awake person in the Buddha who did stuff, right? He took action. He didn't just sit there. Well, yeah, he did. But he did more than that. But it's the freedom from volitional action driven by greed, hate, and delusion in the pursuit of self-preservation. That's the action that Doge is talking about. When we are free of that, that's what we save all beings from, the consequences of us.

[13:03]

So... We can make a lifelong study of what we put out there and what we give back, and I would suggest that's a pretty good study to make for a lifetime. But I wasn't so good at this for several decades of my life. I'll be 60 this year. I, knowingly or unknowingly, even before I knew the precepts, I was breaking precept number five right and left. This is the precept about intoxication. But I was not intoxicated or addicted to substances. I was addicted to getting stuff done. I never had a to-do list I didn't like, and the longer the better. because I could shut that stuff off, and then I could measure my self-worth by how much I got done. Of course, it didn't help that I had a husband at the time who also measured my worth by how much I got done.

[14:14]

And when I got home every evening, instead of reading me with, hi, honey, glad you're home, he would say, did you get what done today? Tell him one of the reasons we aren't married anymore. But I take full responsibility for that. I was a... addicted to multitasking. I was addicted to getting stuff done because, of course, what I was really doing was anesthetizing myself so I didn't have to feel. With all that busyness, that's what I was doing. But I was addicted to to-do lists, and I was addicted to getting stuff done. And the karmic consequence, the way back, if you will, from hitting the other shore, the way back from that was that I was amazingly efficient. and amazingly lonely. Because when you're really busy, people are in the way. Yeah.

[15:20]

And as the Buddha's teaching, gosh darn it, everything's all connected, of course this led to problem with another preset, which is preset number two. Disciple the Buddha does not take what is not given. In other words, we don't steal. Now, don't worry. Again, I wasn't out there doing something obvious like Grand Theft Auto. But I discovered in a workshop one time that Norman Fisher gave, which he still gives, Company Time. It's a series of contemplated days that he gives a green gulch for people in the business world, which is where I was at the time. And I went one time, and he took up the second precept, the disciple of the Buddha does not take what is not given, does not steal. And he talked about, not about, you know, stealing the office taper clips, he talked about stealing ourselves from each other, which of course was exactly what I was doing.

[16:24]

I was... intoxicated by busyness, and that robbed me of other people and robbed other people of me, most notably my daughter. So several met her in Jamesford. She brought me to Jamesford. Bonnie is her name. She's 32 now, and we did one fabulously. But there was a period there when she was about maybe 7 to 11 or 12 where it wasn't so right because Mom was... off on her multitasking high and being addicted to the to-do lists and ignoring it in my need to get stuff done so that I could feel that I had some worth. Ignoring, of course, the fact that parenthood is hugely worthwhile. as some of you know, and as you always get to find it.

[17:27]

So I spent the afternoon of that workshop crying on the deck of the guesthouse at Greenwich because I realized that I had in my headlong rush to get things done, to be intoxicated and addicted to my to-do list. I had robbed the most important person in my life of me. Had robbed me of her. Karmic consequences. What we put out, we get back. I put out my to-do list was more important than her. And what I got back Would she do it? Ow. Several years later, I asked her, and I finally got the courage enough to ask her what she saw as the difference between the monastic long and the corporate long.

[18:42]

By this time, I didn't live in Greenville for maybe 10 years. And she said, well, she said, when you went to Monastery, you got real. Before that, you were just busy. Ooh, that was mouth-based. And she was right. She was right. So I went home from Norman's workshop and I changed my behavior. The first thing I did was I apologized to her for ignoring her. And the second thing I did was I asked her what would be most important to her for me to demonstrate that I was not stealing from her. And bam, she was right there with the list. Yeah, kids know nothing. Yeah. And her first two requests. The first was that I never again take work-related calls on her time. And I never did after that. Never did. And the second one was that we would go for a walk every evening after dinner.

[19:44]

And to this day, I've stayed with her when I'm not on the road. I'm the visiting teacher for the branches, James Sonder. And today, to this day, when I'm not on the road, I stay with her, and we still go for a walk after dinner, 20 years later. So we have some karmic choices that we can make, and the precepts tell us how to do that. And I would like to suggest that the wording that you're going to hear tonight isn't strong enough. It's going to be something along the line of a disciple of the Buddha does not kill, does not steal, da-da-da-da, all those, especially the great precepts, it can. And I'm going to suggest that what they really need to say is a disciple of the Buddha stops killing, stops stealing, stops intoxicating, just stop. Just stop that stuff.

[20:46]

Don't even drop the pebble in the pond. Don't even throw that karmic boulder in the pond. Because what we really need to do to be with each other is to stop. And there's a particular thing that I think we need to stop, and it got illustrated right here in this synod just beautifully. Fall 2007 practice period, Steve Stuckey's first practice period as Abbott, Judith Randall was the Eno, I was the Het Dolan, and right next to me was Ann Baker, a priest from Arizona. Some of you may know Ann, she comes here quite a bit. And Ann is subject to debilitating migraines every once in a while. And she was telling us at the Dolan Rio check-in one day about a particular migraine that she had just had. She had been out for the day, and she was telling us about it.

[21:47]

And she didn't get hardly more into her first sentence when one of the other members of the Doha and Rio, who she already named was, broke in and said, well, have you tried this? Have you tried this? The latest research says this, and it sounds like this is good for migraines, and you can eat this and not eat that. You know, what we had for breakfast wasn't quite so good for migraines. So finally, when he stopped to take a breath, finally, Ann said, very but very firmly. Could you be with me without trying to fix me? In other words, stop. Stop trying to fix me. And just be with me. My brain is on. So I think that the precepts to don't do this and don't do that actually isn't strong enough.

[22:52]

I think we need to think of those precepts as stop signs. To get really well-appointed with and stop doing, just cold, stop doing those things that throw the boulders in the pond. and keep us from just being with each other. Can you be with me without trying to fix me? At our first community meeting, I suggested that one of the things this practice does for us is it helps us distinguish a true emergency from drama. And there are times when we need to act. There are true emergencies. And for that, we can't just stop and sit there. I get that. I get that. But we also need to remember that drama is very insidious because drama doesn't want to be stopped. Drama feeds and gets karmic energy and becomes a bigger boulder because drama wants to continue.

[24:03]

drama wants the attention. So that's why I think that these precepts need to be taken as stop. Stop this stuff. And take refuge in the precepts and the paramitas. In the Dhyanakaya, there's this wonderful Q&A between Shaka, one of the gods in the heavenly realm, and the Buddha. And Shaka says, well, So what exactly do Buddhas and Bodhisattvas do? And the Buddha says, they wisely await ripening. They wisely await ripening. What a wonderful phrase. To just wait and see. Just... Be in flow. Flow is an easier to pronounce word than dependent polarizing.

[25:15]

Flow. Just be in flow and see what arises rather than casting your bolter and fixing something into the stream and then having to clean up the karmic mess that happens after that. To wisely await. write the name. This is otherwise known as Patience, the third paramita, which Adam and Ed will teach us about shortly. Patience. Patience with ourselves to know when we just need to stop and be with someone rather than trying to fix them. That magically then gives us the space for right action to arise when it's needed in an emergency, in a crisis situation. We need to have space, to have creative space for right action to arise.

[26:21]

And the only way to do that is to be still and quiet during the job. If we can stop killing each other's good ideas and creativity, if we can stop stealing our attention away from ourselves, if we can stop misusing sexuality, stop lying, stop the whole list, if we can stop putting our to-do list ahead of our relationships, then we have a chance to just be with each other, to accompany each other on this path, rather than trying to fix each other. And if we do that, we won't be lonely anymore.

[27:23]

about your comments or questions. Do you know some? Okay. Okay. Thank you. Jody, good morning. Thank you for that. Give us a talk. Let's go back to 3 p.m. to say a little bit more about karma as volitional action. Because we also know that many of the unschoolful actions that we do are the results of samskaras, karmic grunts, interpreting habit patterns, unconsciousness. And how do we think about that form of action, which for many of us gets us into more trouble than the Holy Shows. Yeah, it does. What is the relationship between two questions?

[28:44]

What is the relationship between just stop and those unconscious ruts, like literally the real ruts that we fall into again? Also, how can we be with and for each other in the other's pocket ruts? So when suffering is unskilled in a way that you know it's not being part of the programming of suffering, how do we be with each other spiritually in that? Thank you. There's a whole Dhamma talk and all that. So, yeah. Ancient Twisted Karma. This requires a suspension of disbelief. For those of you who are having trouble with rebirth, reincarnation, whatever Buddhism calls it, that kind of hops, it's a bit hard to get over. So some of this we need to realize got twisted an awfully long time ago, and we're living with the knot in this incarnation.

[29:54]

There isn't something I can demonstrate up here, but... The important thing is to make sure that we don't take that knot to do that with it. So... What you're talking about is habitual habit patterns that have come with us, and you actually don't need... I'm not going to ask you at this point to buy the previous lives thing if you don't want to. How about yesterday? So we have twisted up some stuff throughout our lives, and that has become unconscious habit patterns. And honestly, you can't do that if you're multitasking. Take it from a multitasking expert, okay? We need to sit and we need to stop. So just recognition. Just recognition. Thich Nhat Hanh says that every time a piece of ancient twisted karma is recognized, it loses a little bit of its twist.

[31:05]

It loses a little bit of its power. So just... recognizing some of that and just going to work on what's right in front of us that comes up. I made a vow not to make to-do lists anymore. Can you believe that? A multi-master? Jeez. Okay. But just, just, just what's in front of us, just what we recognize. I think, I think it's, you know, we don't go to work on the huge stuff. We don't need to. The little stuff leads to the big stuff. So even if it's deeply in our consciousness, in our unconsciousness, when we sit and we sit quietly, we create the space to have it have a chance to come up. The other thing that happens when we create the space in zazen is that alternatives have an option to come up. The other source of alternatives is sangha. When we trust people enough to say, here's a piece of my ancient twisted karma and I'm having trouble, would you help me?

[32:10]

And then somebody comes along and says, can you be with me without trying to fix me? Teaching right there. Right there. So the other part of your question is when you're at your end, I'm in my end, you know? What do we do? What do we do? I like the park bench. I sit down on the park bench. You sit down next to me on the park bench. And we just sit. We just sit. And perhaps somewhere in that space, if I have seen you do something unskillful, I have a chance to say, not about you, but about me, because you just showed me a mirror about me. And if I can start with how that ancient twist is for me, maybe that will give you the gift of courage, the third of the three gifts of generosity, by the way, material goods, dharma, fearlessness is the third one, and on the part, maybe by telling our own story,

[33:27]

that gives courage for the other person to bring up their story, and right there is for the ruts merge. And then we can work on it together. Great. Good morning. I was wondering, maybe you've touched on it a little bit, especially, you know, since you're doing like a very powerful ceremony tonight, but I'm wondering if you could speak more about how this really intense monastic practice, this formal practice here, can help with... I can tell you how it's helped me. That's the only story I can tell. You know, the Buddhist classic question, what is your experience? I'll tell you what my experience is. Toma Green has this wonderful poem that she wrote that many of you might be familiar with.

[34:28]

It's called, The Monastery Needs the Road. That's the first line of it. It says, the monastery needs the road. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Yeah. So, you know, there's all the problems right here. So let's go with it for the moment that there's a road out there. All right. But this poem brought up a lot for me. It was really helpful. My first practice period here at Tassajara, when I realized that I had three choices about this monastery and this practice and that road. The first choice was to turn around and go back up it. I don't think it didn't occur to me. The second choice was to sit down out here on the steps at the end of the Zendo and see what came. What is it that thus comes?

[35:29]

Classic Ludus question that prevents us from putting labels on stuff. What is it that thus comes? And the third choice was to step off into the wilderness. And right before I came, I got some really good advice from tensioner of Anderson, who said, surrender to the schedule. Surrender to the schedule. And for me, that was stepping off into the wilderness. Because multi-casters don't surrender to anything except their to-do list. So this was surrender to somebody else's list, the schedule. And I did. I took his advice. And it was... A 90-day fall off a sheer cliff into a downcropper. It really was. It was taking that leap and trusting that the stantle would hold me up while I fell apart.

[36:29]

And it did. So I think that's one of the beauties, that very mundane schedule that's posted and it's just the next thing. But what that did for me was it held me up so I could fall apart. In other words, so I could look at my ancient twisted karma and what was ready to come up. I wouldn't, you know, we wouldn't be here if we weren't ready to look at this stuff. So I was ready and the schedule was my best friend. Not your talk, Fahri. I think that just a very starting point, and you touched on something that has been really worrying me, the line about saving all beings. And it's worried me so much that I can't even say it. Not because it's a necessity, but evangelism, I think it's even more dangerous than that. It's a kind of attitude, the presumption of knowing better that has licensed the most obnoxious forms of liberal colonialism and liberal interventions.

[37:38]

They've wreaked havoc on Africa, Southeast Asia, all swathes of the world. So it really worried me. So your interpretation of saving all beings from ourselves seems rather wonderful. It is potential. But I think the obvious interpretation to someone who doesn't know or who's a novice like myself, the more obvious one is the one that I have. And so... And that's a thank you. But there's also a question, which is, in this anxiety, I've heard that Berkeley Zen Center didn't say that. They spoke of awakening with all beings. And that made me feel that my anxiety was not mine alone. I just wonder if you would comment on the Berkeley Zen Center formulation. Yeah, I like that one, by the way. Beings are nevertheless, I vow to awaken with them, is that correct?

[38:41]

I vow to awaken with them. I think that's a more hopeful note that I'm proselytizing with, right? Yeah, I like that. My interpretation of that, what that means to my heart when I hear that is I'm not alone. I have company in this and we are helping each other wake up to our ancient twisted karma and the possibility of nirvana, which is action without those dreadful karmic consequences. So I find to awaken with all beings much more of a we than an I. And I like that a lot. Kalyanamitra, a wonderful word from the Pali scripture. Kalyanamitra means a good friend on the path. And I think that to awaken with all beings is a statement of Kalyanamitra. It's a statement of all of us together. So I like that. So thank you. Thank you, Andrew. One more. You need more questions, Sam? Yes? Can you give me a little suggestion on staying close to the probability?

[39:45]

This is the mark for me. Do you know what's wrong? Give me the size of the mark. Can you just kind of picture it with your hands? Yeah, this is like the mark. Show it to me. Where is it in your body? Can you just put a hand there for me? Okay. So, take that mark, and for everybody to say, include your part in it. Widen that part in there to include, just so it includes your mark. Just do that. Okay. And then,

[40:46]

Breathe your heart and your lungs right there. Right there. And include, include that spot of fallibility. Don't try to fix it. Just be with me. Don't try to fix me. Okay? Just be with that spot of fallibility. Right there. With your own warm breath. Just sitting down with it. and notice the instant where the fallibility and the fear of that begins to relax its judgment of you. Just notice that. Just notice that relaxing of judgment and that widening of that fallibility. I might suggest that Another word for fallibility also might be availability.

[41:50]

And that when we fail, we open. With our breath and our heart. So when you fail, include your heart. It's warm. It keeps you alive. It's there for you. They'll close down a minute, I doubt. Stay open. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma Talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[42:49]

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