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. It's hot in here. Especially with all these clothes on. Of course, the only relief from the cold... from the hot is the cold of the creek. And today I was in the creek. I was in the creek down that way, and I was in the creek at the bathhouse. And I sat down at the bathhouse. I sat down on the men's side. There's just enough pool so you can kind of sit down, get up to here, and get quite cool. And as I was doing that, I looked down into the water, and there's a few fish, and somehow I started picking up some rocks, medium-sized rocks, and just tossing them about 15, 20 feet at some other rocks.

[01:21]

So I was just sitting there tossing these rocks, and I'd pick up another one, and I'd toss it. I did that about 12 times. And I was coming out of the creek, back up to the bathhouse, and there was a gentleman there at the edge of the creek. He was quite a bit older than I was, and he was just watching the water and the play of the water there. And as I passed him, he was just looking down. As I passed him, he said, did you hit anything? And I said, no. And we laughed. So I may tell some stories tonight that somebody's heard before, so I'll apologize in advance if you've heard any of these stories before. Immediately after I left, I started walking up these stone steps.

[02:28]

I left the... the man who I don't know, maybe he's here tonight, that I had the encounter with. And I immediately remembered an episode from my childhood. I was about 12 years old, I think. And at that time, I was a young, skinny boy in Arizona, and I was crazy about baseball. I just loved baseball. I wasn't very competitive, but there was something about it that I just loved. And what I would do was I would take a ball, and sometimes it was a tennis ball, sometimes it was a baseball or a rubber ball, and I would go out into the backyard, or we also had a side yard that also had a fence, a concrete wall fence, and I would throw this ball against the wall.

[03:28]

for hours. I mean like for hours, like two, three, four hours. In the Arizona sun, it was hotter than this. For years, I would do that, just by myself. I would play out there, and I think I was trying to, I think there was some concept of a base there next to the wall, and maybe a batter, but it wasn't even so defined. I would just throw it, and then it would bounce back to me, and I'd throw it again. And one day I came in. I think I was about 12. I came in the house. I was probably all sweaty and everything, and I just got done throwing my ball. And my mother, bless her soul, she looks at me, and she says, Bobby, I made her stop calling me Bobby a few years ago.

[04:31]

But she says, Bobby, why do you throw the ball against the wall for like hours at a time? And I said, I don't know. I don't know. And I think what I said next was something like, I think it's fun. I'm having fun. I have one more baseball story. So I was also on some kind of little league team. And I only remembered this story because I was in the library today, and there was a little lizard running around in the library without a tail. But there were a lot of ants in the library. And as I was writing this, as I was kind of remembering this baseball thing with my mother,

[05:34]

I remembered an ant started crawling up my leg. And I looked down and I thought, oh, that's really weird. And all of a sudden I remembered when I was like the same age, 12 or so, I was on the Little League team and the coach had me play in the outfield. And I was standing out in the outfield and I was kind of a player that was kind of like disconnected to the whole thing somehow I didn't kind of get in there were players who seemed to know what they were doing and players who didn't and I was one of the ones who didn't quite know what to do when so I was like just standing out there in the outfield right probably have my mitt don't hit the ball near me you know and I just stood there I think I stood in one place for a long time and then something happened And I had to run.

[06:35]

And I realized that when I went to run, that in the time where I was just standing there, a whole bunch of these big red ants had crawled up my pants. I think I was wearing jeans and some kind of thing. Up my pants into my... underwear and even up into my shirt and once I started running they were like not happy and and so I spent the rest of the I was afraid to say anything to anybody and I spent the rest of the game like dealing with these ants biting me you know underneath my uniform That's my last baseball story. There might be some baseball metaphors to come, but that's my last real, real story.

[07:41]

So, my name is Robert. Just so you know, I don't know if anybody knows or cares. I live in San Francisco, and I'm the president of San Francisco Zen Center, which is Pasajara, Green Gulch Farm, and City Center, Beginner's Mind Temple in the city. I'm going to talk a little bit tonight about why we practice. I think that that's a... really important question that can be asked at the beginning of practice in the middle of practice and at the end of practice at the beginning of the day in the middle of the day at the end of the day it can even be asked in a slightly different way before you're even like practicing you know why would I practice why would I spend my time

[08:59]

this precious life, my precious energy, the only life I have, why would I spend that doing something like Zen practice? And it doesn't even have to be Zen practice. Why would I turn my life towards any practice which helped me wake up from the delusion that I am separate from everything else. Why would I do that? Why would any of us do that? And the answer is not even so important, actually.

[10:02]

The question is what's important. So I'm going to talk a little bit about that tonight. In 1993, I was 34 years old, and I was extremely confused in my life. and partially running away from a lot of not really working relationships, a crowd of people around me that weren't really helping me, a drug and alcohol habit that was really turning my life into something that I didn't even recognize. I ended up I went I tried to go as far away as I possibly could and I ended up in a forest monastery in Thailand in a very remote part of Thailand practicing with some monks there it was a very beautiful place very peaceful beautiful place not so dissimilar to Tassajara wood I mean dirt paths

[11:30]

these wood cooties, they called them cooties, which are little huts in the forest. I had a cootie myself. And these things were about eight feet by eight feet, and they were raised about ten feet off the ground and had ladders to them. And about halfway up these poles that they rested on were these big black, wads of fabric and tar. I think it was some kind of tar, black tar. And that was to keep the ants from crawling up into the kutis. Because all around in this forest were these big mounds of, these big ant villages. And sometimes they were as tall as I was. And as you can imagine, I avoided those things. I was not, and I was even not so sure about the kuti, because is that really going to work?

[12:38]

So, I was in my kuti one day. I'd been there about a month. And I was sitting there, and it was at the hottest of the hot season. and hotter than today here at Tassajara. And I was sitting there, and I'd already done my basic chores for the day, which are sweeping and carrying some water and doing some things. And I was sitting there, and I was looking. You couldn't see any other kuti from my kuti. It was just jungle. And there was jungle kind of 180 degrees around me. And I was looking out to the jungle, and it was like a forest jungle, so there were trees, there was bamboo, there were a lot of vines, snakes, other kinds of animals there. And I was just looking out into it, kind of a little bit spaced out, but just kind of noticing what was there.

[13:52]

All of a sudden, these cicadas started to go. And they started to get louder and louder and louder. And it started to get hotter and hotter. And then it felt like... like all the birds in the jungle were coming in and they were just going as loud as they could. And then the snakes and any other animals and the trees and the leaves and everything was just going as loud as it could possibly go and vibrate as fast as it could possibly vibrate. And I was just sitting there and... I don't know how much time went by, but a long time went by. And then at some point, I was part of that vibration too. And I was singing. There was nothing audible.

[14:54]

But I was singing. I was vibrating. I was moving. And it was all just as loud and as intense as it could possibly be. and there was no separation between me and anything else around me. And I sat there in this place for quite a while, and then just like it kind of arised, it kind of went away. And all of a sudden I noticed that I was sitting there, and I was back to normal. It was like, oh, there's me, and there's the jungle forest out there, and there's a few noises. I was like, wow. I don't know what that was about. But within some number of months, I left the little forest monastery.

[16:04]

I thought about staying, but I left, and I came to Tassajara. here and this was the summer of 93 and I was actually I was actually leaving walking out the day I was leaving after being here for a little while I was I was walking out on a September day right along this path right here fact right just over the bridge. I was walking that way towards the front gate, and I had my duffel bag on my back. And I was saying to myself, I think I'm probably going to have to go back to the other place, you know, the place in Thailand. I said, this place isn't really doing it for me. I didn't connect with anybody. I had to work way too hard. I didn't understand what practice was all about.

[17:04]

And so I was looking out over the courtyard here as I was walking out and saying, well, I suppose I could be a celibate monk. I don't know, but maybe I should give that a try. So just as I got about here, another, a priest came walking up to the zendo and His name I would find out later that he was an abbot of Zen Center. His name is Mel Weitzman. Some people may know him. And he walked past me. And I was just like wearing my shorts and a t-shirt and my duffel bag. And he stopped and he noticed me out of the corner of his eye. He was already past me, but he stopped and he said... He said, hey, are you taking off? And I said, yeah, I'm heading out.

[18:06]

And I thought I was really just heading out. This was not the place for me. And he kind of squared up to me and he put his hands together and he said, well, thanks a lot for coming. We really appreciate your help. And I bowed. back to him. And he just, he turned around and kept coming up to the Zendo. And I walked out, and I walked out the front gate, and I was saying to myself, this is the greatest place. This is just, I'm going to come back here someday. What a great place that is. What a special place that is. So about a month ago, I had occasion to tell that story. And somebody, after I told that story, came up to me and said, they said, no, you did that to me.

[19:11]

And I said, well, you know, I guess that's how it works, isn't it? That's how it works. We don't do these things by ourself, you know. can't do these things by ourselves so in in that spirit thank you very much for coming I we really appreciate it you all are helping something somehow in some way helping yourself helping those you love helping who knows who knows so about two years later

[20:34]

I'm working in the kitchen and I have a job that's called Fukuten, which is kind of like the, what do you call it, like the manager of the kitchen. They decide who does what and how things happen when it happens. They're kind of like the coordinator or the traffic cop. kitchen. Great, great job. Really great job. But a very busy job and kind of an intense job. And I would come in there every day and I'd just be scared to death. Am I going to be able to pull it off? What you look at, you have like four meals the what we call cut sheets of like four meals or five or six meals in front of you and each one has about 15 20 30 things to do on it and you have to get it all done and and in the right way and and

[21:57]

For me, coming into that job, I was just, every day I would come in there, I was scared, I was anxious. Some days I was angry. Why did they, five gallons of carrots, small chop, what did they expect? I can't do that. So, pretty soon I realized that I have to figure this out. You know, this, I have to figure. I had to figure this out and and one of the ways that I figured it out was was that I didn't really have to do anything you know I I just had to kind of start things and it wasn't actually up to me like our my way and I think our usual way sometimes think it's all on me and if and if Basically, if this doesn't work, it's my reputation that's at risk here.

[23:00]

I'm not going to get ahead as a Zen student. I'm not going to be asked to do this. People aren't going to think I can do anything. So all of a sudden, one day, I realized I don't have to worry about that because I'm not alone here. And I started... thinking about it in a way that all I have to do is just start something. It's enough just to start. And then we'll see where it goes from there. So I would come in and I would look at all these cut sheets and I would just say, where are we going to start? And when it wasn't... When it wasn't... all on me to accomplish this. When I was actually just helping other people, I wasn't afraid of anything. I wasn't afraid to help somebody.

[24:02]

I wasn't afraid to ask somebody if they could do something. I was lucky I had one guy in the kitchen who, if five gallons of onions came up there, I gave them to that guy. And he loved doing onions and his eyes didn't tear. But other than that, I could just rest. I could just rest in the fact that I was part of something larger than me. And it wasn't really about me. It was how was I going to be successful in helping others be successful. And at that point... I really started to enjoy that job and I wasn't worried anymore. I wasn't angry anymore. That was when my practice, actually the rubber started hitting the road in my practice and I started actually practicing. In Zen, we say that to study the Self, we say that to study Buddhism, to study Zen is to study the Self.

[25:35]

And that to study the Self is to forget the Self. And to forget the Self is to be actualized, realized by everything so when I forgot that I was separate from everything else then I could just be with feeling I could be actualized my life could be actualized I could be supported by everything There's a huge difference there. In that place of being supported by everything, everything is possible.

[26:44]

Anything is possible. There's a There's a beautiful Indian family here today at Tassajara, or maybe yesterday, too. And I was reminded when I saw them that after being here for six years, Samantha and I left and got married, and we went to India and other places in Southeast Asia. And we had just arrived in India. We were at Boggaya visiting the temple where the Buddha's enlightenment happened 2,500 years ago. And the Bodhi tree is there. And we were staying in a Tibetan center. And the next day, they had arranged for a vehicle to go out and visit this clinic.

[27:49]

outside of Bodh Gaya, where they treated young people who had polio. And they asked us if we wanted to join this excursion. And we said, sure. So we showed up the next day at the Jeep that was going to take everybody out to this village and this clinic. And we were going to help them massage the children who had polio. So Samantha and I showed up to this Jeep, and it's not a very big car, and there's a front seat and a back seat, and there were already about 10 people in this car. And I said to the driver, I said, I don't think so. I said, we'll go another day. I don't think so. He says, no, no, no, no, no. He says, you can go in this vehicle. And I said, it's not possible. Yeah. You can see it's not possible.

[28:50]

He says, wait, wait, wait. Sir, you are in India. Anything is possible. So then he proceeded to get really serious with this group. He goes, okay. He looked at the front seat. There were already like six people there. He says, you here, [...] here. And then you two, he pointed at us, you are here and here. And we got in there, and we sat there and there, and he closed the door, and we were in there, and then we headed out on the road, and I never knew that being in a car, a small car with 12 other people could be so much fun. It was so much fun. It was so enlivening, you know? It was like, yes, we are alive now, you know? Going over the road, people's Okay, another India story.

[29:52]

Sorry. A few weeks later, we're taking a train trip from Bodh Gaya to Varanasi. And somehow, Samantha and I read the ticket wrong or something, and we got on the train on the wrong day. But we thought we were on the train on the right day. So we got on this train, and it was kind of like a second-class... car, so nobody, there were a lot of people on each car. And so we sat down on these, we had a little bench seat on the side, and it wasn't very big, and we sat there, and this other couple came in and sat right next to us, and it was very small, and we're like, it was like... oh, wow, this is kind of like too crowded for us. And we said, well, these are our seats. And, you know, like any American would do, this is my seat.

[30:57]

I paid for it. And they said, these are our seats. And we said, no, these are our seats. And so it's going on kind of like that and our luggage is there. I was very irritated after about an hour that we were so crowded and these two people were in our seats. And so the conductor comes through at some point and he looks at it and he says, oh, big problem. You are on the wrong day. And we're already way, you know, hours outside of our station. And of course, everybody in the car is like, looking, oh, what's going to happen? And so they go, next stop, you get out. And so I got out the next stop. And I went, and Samantha stayed in the seat with our other two people who were on the right day.

[32:05]

And it was their seats. And I got out, and I went and talked to the other ticket, the Maha ticket agent. And they looked, and a crowd of about 20 people gathered around. They're paying attention. Oh, this is bad. And he's on the wrong day. And his wife is in there. Oh, very bad. So they say, go ahead. It's okay. So I went back in, and I sat down, and I realized that all along, these other two people, who it was their seat, they were actually letting us sit in these seats. It didn't seem like it before, but they were actually letting us sit there, and they were okay sharing with us. So we looked at them, and we said, is it okay? And we weren't in India long enough to know certain things.

[33:06]

And, of course, the man, he put his head like this. And we didn't know if that was, yes, they're okay, or no, they're not okay. And is it okay if we stay? And it was like, and then we started to get up, and other people were like, you know. And we would get up, we would look around, and people were going like, it's okay, we can stay. So we stayed there for hours, and we had so much fun, just all of us being together. And at one point, this young man came over. He said, you are traveling alone? And we said, yeah, it's just the two of us. He says, well, where's your family? And we said, well, they're back in America. He says, you don't travel with your family? And... And we said, no, no, thank God we don't travel with our family. And we said, are you traveling with your family? Oh, yes, this is my whole family here.

[34:07]

There were like 20 of them, you know. And at one point he says, you must be very lonely. Remember? Yeah, maybe we were. Maybe we were too close. But he was not lonely at all. And he went back. I think he got bored with us and went back to his family where a lot of things were happening. A lot of exciting things and a lot of food and everything like that. Besides these stories, I want to make sure I get a little Dharma in here. So I'm just checking my notes. So in Zen, we are, this is the place where we focus in Zen practice, is the present moment. That could seem like a non-sequitur, but it's not really a non-sequitur.

[35:10]

Because everything, everything, every moment, everything that's ever happened to us in our life has happened in the present moment. There's not one thing that's happened in our life that wasn't happening in the present moment. You weren't here and you had something happen back there. What's happening now is happening now. But the thing to understand about that is that what's happening now is connected to what happened before and what's happening now is connected to what's going to happen next and that's why Zen practice focuses on the present moment because we need to understand that we didn't get here

[36:25]

all on our own we didn't get here independent of a lot of other stuff some of it were to blame for and some of it we can blame other people for and some some of it we can't we don't even know about And because this moment is conditioning the next moment and the rest of our lives, we have to really take care of this moment. This moment is really important.

[37:29]

So in Zen practice, we start, we cultivate an awareness of this place where we're at right now, right in between the past, what happened in the past, what's going to happen in the future and we pay attention to that and we're open we have an open mind and we allow ourselves to receive that to receive the teaching right there and in that moment anything is possible Because we are not separate. We're not some... None of us and nothing is some kind of separate entity outside of the web of all existence, outside the kind of interconnected web of life.

[38:56]

Because we're not something... separate from that because we're connected to a lot of everything everything and a lot of stuff that we don't know about anything is possible it's possible That some little boy who would just like to throw the ball against the wall is sitting here. And you all have the same story for your life too. I have two images that came to me today. You know, I actually think that this is really good news, that anything is possible.

[40:00]

And it's actually the kind of news that the world needs right now. Because if things were just, you know, well, it's really good news that anything is possible in today's world. And hopefully a lot of things that we don't know about right now are possible. They are. So two things struck me today. One is hearing the mindfulness bell in the kitchen. I thought the mindfulness bell. So we have a bell that gets rung in the kitchen. And when that... Okay, okay. I'm getting the time from the Tanto here. Okay, so to me, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is a mindfulness bell for all of us.

[41:11]

And we better listen. We better be listening. And there are mindfulness bells happening all over the place. And I hope we're listening. because anything is possible but you have to be you have to be listening you have to be watching you have to be open to receive the sound of the bell so that's why we start that's why we practice because everything starts here The rest of our life starts right here. It couldn't start any other place. Thank you very much. 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.

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Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit SSCC.org and click Giving.

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