Hello, everybody. Good to see you again. And just so I know my audio is working, give me a thumbs up if you can hear me. Excellent. Wonderful. Well, thank you all again for being here. It's always a joy to twice a week have this opportunity to get together in this way, to sit, practice together, to explore the Dharma. and then particularly to share what our practice is at this time. So thank you again for being here. And if anyone is here for the first time, who's new, I'll just quickly say that the usual format for this is that we'll begin with about a 20, 25 minute period of Zazen and meditation, followed by a Dharmat or some encouraging words. And then after that, there'll be an opportunity for some form of sharing. And then we'll aim to wrap things up around 6.30ish.

[01:05]

So without further ado, let's go ahead and find our posture and our seat for the meditation. And again, it's helpful to find an upright, attentive posture, one that accommodates your body. And so throughout the meditation, give yourself over to both the physical and the mental posture that is attentive and yet relaxed. So I'll ring the bell three times to begin the period and then one time to end it. And allow your awareness to stay in contact with the sound of the bell throughout the three rings.

[02:12]

taking that same focused attention that you gave to the sound of the bell and direct it to your immediate experience right here, right now of being present. Become aware of, connect with, and relax into your present moment experience as best you can. Taking time to relax and settle a little bit more deeply into your being, into your body, into the breath, into your hara at the center. Connecting with what's true in this moment for you. If the mind is particularly active, you might find it helpful to use the breath as a touchstone, use it as an object for a period of time in your meditation, to redirect the mind's attention away from whatever it's been occupied with, its busyness, and allow it to attend to the breath.

[04:34]

Framing the breath with a continuous tension. Being with the flow of the rhythm of the breath. Breathing in, being ready in breath. And then breathing out, being ready out. Allow yourself to settle in a little bit more deeply through this moment-to-moment flow of experience, whether the breath, whether the body, or the sky or the light. staying in relationship to the now, staying in relationship and contact, connectivity with the immediate experience, as best you can.

[06:09]

It's helpful you might wish to direct mind's attention to the center of your being, to the Hara, the center of your body. And just rest inward. Resting in that inward space. Maybe it makes itself first known through the breath. time deepens, widens, maybe even becomes boundless. Through each breath lets you settle more deeply into the body, into the sense of being, into the sense of spaciousness.

[07:38]

It's both within and without, and yet located nowhere now. meeting whatever makes itself known in this moment with that sense of spaciousness. Whether or not the physical experience that arises and makes itself known in whatever way it does, pleasant or unpleasant, perhaps a sense of tightness, tension,

[08:43]

pain in the body, or just a simple, subtle discomfort, allowing it to be, embracing it with the sense of generous, spacious awareness. taking the same approach with the mind. Whatever shape of clouds or weather makes itself known in the mind, allowing it to be embraced and held in the vast boundless spacelessness of Buddha mind.

[09:45]

worries or anxieties, concerns, or raising thoughts like raising clouds through the sky. Just allow them to make themselves known, appear for the time of their presence, and then, like all things, fade away. As Uzuki Roshi would say, don't invite them in for tea. Come through the front door, pass through and exit through the back door. It's like a breeze. We simply rest, not needing to do anything. Simply observing,

[10:53]

Do you find any particular thoughts or experience having a little bit more stickiness to it, wanting to hang around, something that's caught your attention in a way that doesn't want to release? Don't you notice that this has happened and just allow yourself to breathe with that experience. to manipulate it or change it in a way, but simply observing it, illuminating it with awareness. Meeting all experience in the same way.

[12:29]

That's best we can. There's no right or wrong in meditation. That we can relax just into being present. resting in stillness, resting in silence, resting in balance awareness, continuing this quite for the rest of the period.

[13:42]

Thank you, everyone, for sitting together. As I think many of you have heard me mention before, the word pandemic comes from the Greek. And it's made up of two words, pan, which means common, public, universal, and then the second word, demos, which means people. And so... Pandemic means basically common to the people. And from a Buddhist perspective, suffering is also common to the people. It is pandemic. And many of you are familiar with the dukkha, which is often translated as suffering. It's also kind of translated as dis-ease, distress, dissatisfaction, anguish, anxiety, or pain. So we say in Buddhism, suffering is at once utterly intimate, it's personal to us, and it's also utterly shared.

[29:58]

It's common to us. We all experience suffering in some way. So it's a common universal truth, a shared experience among all peoples, even if its particular forms and impacts are unique and manifold to each of us in some way. I'd like to share with you an excerpt from a conversation that Krista Tippett had with the Bay Area writer and historian and archivist, Rebecca Solnitz. This is from a 2016 broadcast of On Being. I don't know if any of you listened to that or encountered that before. Some of you have, right? And I first became aware of Rebecca Solnitz in 2009 when her book, titled, A Paradise Built in Hell, The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster, was released. And Solomon's book describes how the spirit of community and kindness is fostered when it is physically ripped apart by a natural disaster.

[31:04]

So has anyone read that book? Are you familiar with it? Yeah, a few people? Great. So I had the pleasure actually of meeting Rebecca a few times as she's attended a number of dorm events at San Francisco Zen Center. And I want to offer you now the excerpt from the interview with her. And because I think it's apropos of for this time of global pandemic. So she says, there's the way a disaster throws people into the present. gives them this super saturated immediacy that also includes a deep sense of connection. It's as though in some violent gift, you've been given a kind of spiritual awakening where you're close to mortality in a way that makes you feel more alive. You're deeply in the present and can let go of past and future and your personal narrative in some ways.

[32:07]

You have shared an experience with everyone around you, and you often find very direct, but also metaphysical, senses of connection to the people you'll suddenly have something in common with. Let me read that again. There's a way a disaster throws people into the present, gives them this super-saturated immediacy that also includes a deep sense of connection. It's as though... In some violent gift, you've been given a kind of spiritual awakening where you're close to mortality in a way that makes you feel more alive. You're deeply in the present and can let go of past and future and your personal narrative in some ways. You have a shared experience with everyone around you and you often find very direct but also metaphysical senses of connection to the people you suddenly have something in common with.

[33:13]

So I think that it's very important during this time of extended isolation and extreme physical distancing to not forget that each of us is still a part of a great fabric of being. It can be in times like this, as Solnit points out, that we're forced to reckon with a deeper sense of aliveness and connectivity. And one that comes about due to our suffering, actually. There's a way that suffering and adversity can begin to undermine our sense of being a separate self. And when we begin to let go of our personal narrative through, actually, the crucible of adversity, we become more able to recognize a shared narrative and a universal experience with others, a commonality of the journey we're collectively making, whether we want to or not.

[34:29]

And regardless of our individual experiences and unique intersectionalities that we're inhabiting, including those of gender, race, sexual orientation, physical abilities, and economic needs. There are those differences, and there's also this human commonality of suffering that each of us, an adversity, that each of us has to navigate in a particular way. I was surprised when I first opened and saw Solstin's book that it includes actually a brief account of the 2008 Basin Complex fire that swept through Tassahara Zen Mountain Center. And I think as many of you know, Tassahara is Zen Center's monastery in the Bintapada Wilderness. And she talks about in the book, in kind of just a couple of pages to fix her, how it was that our spiritual practice as a Sangha supported us to navigate and meet the natural disaster of a wildfire and i i mentioned in the first of these online practice sessions that i was serving as director of tosser at the time that the fire came through and i was one of five people who was in the valley and during the time of the fire we spent basically six and a half hours engaging the wildfire trying to keep it out

[35:56]

of the monastery, or when it entered in and started burning some of the buildings, how to put the fire out. But in the end, we were able to actually save Tassajara and take care of our spiritual homestead in this way. And we ended up reopening Tassajara. We had a gate opening ceremony about, it was three weeks after the fire had passed through. So we quickly were able to recover and then open up again to the wider public. Whether or not this is going to be something we can do this year, we still don't know. But at the time that we had the gate reopening ceremony to re-initiate guest season, I wrote a statement and the following stanza I'd like to share with you. What, I ask, has the fire taught you? What, during these past weeks, Have you discovered in the blaze of your own being that is beyond all displacement, beyond all destruction?

[37:03]

And what, even now, are you willing to lose in the conflagration of the present moment? Give it all to the flames. Hold nothing back out of the mistaken notion that something, anything, must be or can be saved. For equanimity and generosity only fully ignite in that space of total renunciation where there is nothing left to lose. So the experience of living through a wildfire was a powerful teacher for me and one that continues to stay with me and teach me. Indeed, any form of adversity can be a powerful teacher for us, like this time of pandemic. Adversity, like fire, contains within it elements of transformation.

[38:07]

So if met with courage, adversity opens us up. Similarly, suffering opens our hearts and allows us to bloom. to feel and experience our deep connection to one another. When we allow ourselves to open within adversity, within the pain and suffering and heartbreak of our lives, including the endless experience of loss that we might feel in the persistent face of impermanence, then there is, you could say, a light that is released. And the nature of our suffering can be illuminated in that light. And innate wisdom is released and allowed to bloom. When we open within adversity, including within the fires of adversity created by a literal pandemic, we also begin to recognize the fires.

[39:23]

or adverse conditions that others dwell in, and which dwell within them. And in this recognition, we realize we are no longer alone. We are not isolated, even in this time of shelter in place. Adversity in this way challenges our perception of isolation and separateness. Sometimes they even force us or demand of us that we not only recognize our interconnectedness, but that we learn to rely on it. How and what are you discovering in this time? of adversity, about aliveness and about connectivity.

[40:27]

So I want to do something a little different today. Rather than the usual question and sharing format, I'd like us to actually break into small groups. And I want you in groups of three to share what it is that you're discovering during this remarkable challenging time. about the practice of adversity, aliveness and connectivity. So in a moment, Tim's gonna help us by breaking us into groups of three, right? So all you have to do is sit patiently and in a moment he'll, you know, put us in our little groups. We'll have about 10 minutes or so. Each of you will have three minutes to share. And I ask you to kind of keep track for yourselves in that time. However you like to respond to these particular questions, I've asked him to post in the chat field the questions that I invite you to consider, and they are, what in this time of adversity is awakening in you?

[41:38]

What is this time of adversity awakening in you? Are there ways in which the pandemic has become a Dharma teacher for you? If so, how? And then a second set of questions, are there ways in which the pandemic is encouraging you to let go of old narratives and expand your sense of connectedness to others, right? To have a shared narrative, a collective narrative. And if so, how? So those are two possible questions that you can kind of consider, reflect on, or something else is more alive for you. then share that, share on that. And it may be, depending on how our timing goes, that we'll have a few moments to also kind of break into the larger group and see what odds come forward. So now I'm going to ask Tim to break us into the three groups, or into groups of three, and you'll have 10 minutes, and then we'll come back together in about 10 minutes or so.

[42:49]

Okay, and Tim will give you a 60-second warning. Tim, make it so. Hi, I'll reassign you to a breakout room, just a second.

[44:15]

Okay. Okay, well, which room, this is room 13. And... I like how people are just popping back into space, like little genies returning.

[55:04]

How delightful. So we have just a few minutes left, but I wanted to see if anyone had something from your own inquiry, your own kind of sharing that you'd like to bring forward. Something that was stimulated by the conversation you had with your group or something more. And I think you know the instructions for how to raise your hand. Tim has placed that in the chat box. If you don't, please take a look at that. And then you can raise your hand by clicking down in the participant field, and you'll see a place to raise your hand if you want to speak. And Tim will unmute you. He will let us know, and then he will unmute you. Oh, Terry, yes. Great. Thank you, Tim. Hello, Terry.

[56:23]

Hello, David. I had a very strange experience because I was switched from one group to another group. Oh. In the middle of what I was talking, so I really did feel like a genie. Change happens. You have to be ready for it. I just, when you were talking about generosity, I just, I've been so conscious of my privilege. And knowing that there's people that need places to stay and knowing that I have more space than I need. And just really not really knowing how to think about that. Because I really don't want anybody to move in with me. And, you know, there's an opportunity for gratitude in that, for starting with gratitude and appreciation.

[57:35]

That's absolutely, yes. And then even though it doesn't, you know, it may not be practical or wise to have someone move in with you, are there other ways to give? Yes. What would that be? Yes. Yeah, right. I do feel like I am, yeah. working on those, but yes. Okay. So just gratitude that I have. Yes. I can just feel grateful for what I have instead of feeling guilty for what I have. Yeah. I mean, guilt, guilt is extra. It doesn't, it doesn't help anything. It doesn't. Right. So the connectivity is built in actively being generous, finding an act of generosity that you can manifest. Okay. Then you will feel that connection with others. Okay. Well, I am doing that. So, in fact, I do feel I am doing that. Wonderful. Good. Thank you, Terry. That's very helpful. And I see Carol Ann Schmitz.

[58:37]

Hi. Hello, Carol. I'm just so very moved. My heart is beating rapidly in the chest right now. I'm so moved by the opportunity you gave us to meet with these other two people who I never would have encountered once from... Different states, all different states, three different states all over the country. And I just feel the sense of the group when we first came right back on. There was just the quietness in the group that I think maybe, probably other people feel the same way too. It's just been a very moving experience to connect in this way. So thank you. You're welcome. You're welcome. I'm planning to do this a little bit more often. Because I think it's, especially at this time, a great gift. I see Dalot has a hand up. You muted yourself, Dalot. I'm mute. There you go. There we go. Hi. Hi again.

[59:38]

So I just want to thank you for this whole setup. not just you, but also everyone who is organizing this. Because right in front of me, I'm seeing a lot of people who I recognize. Ellen Simpson, hello. And, and, and it just feels like a reunion of sorts and in so many different ways. So it's It's wonderful to have this experience, especially in this time of isolation and just immense gratitude. Thank you. You're welcome. Some things I do sometimes is at the end of the day, I reflect on the oftentimes numerous faces that I have and beings that I've encountered on Zoom for a particular day.

[60:41]

And I'm in Zoom meetings a good deal of the day. And I just reflect back on who it is that I've had a chance to connect with and then cultivate some experience of appreciation and gratitude for that opportunity to connect, even in this limited way. It may not be what we would prefer, the way we prefer, but there is connection happening. And so it helps me to just kind of remind myself of this beautiful saga that we have in this way. So I see, let's see here, Jason Smith. Yeah, I just wanted to echo. I mean, I'm in Oakland and I'm a university professor and one of the CSU. move everything online and continue to run our university.

[61:47]

And I wanted to acknowledge that one of the things that came out among the three of us is our sort of deep appreciation for the Zen Center, sort of getting all this organized. And it was really like a port in the storm for those two weeks when it first started. And to be very aware of like the logistical complications of moving here live and the entire Zen Center online. And how grateful I think all three of us in our breakout room were for that. So I just wanted to thank you again for offering these things over the past few weeks. Thank you, Jason. It's a joy to be able to do that. I think we have time for one more. I see John Renwick. Hi. There you are. Well, hey. Well, I wanted to tease you a little bit. Oh, great. Well, look, the session's over now. I'm sorry. I wanted to say, I don't think we've had any Abbott who's been single other than yourself.

[62:48]

It hasn't brought a significant relationship. So we would, I don't speak for the community, but we would welcome a dating Abbott. And I just wanted to say that. Okay. Thank you for that wish. And I leave it up to the universe to decide what was most suitable for me. So in the meantime, I have all these wonderful connections with all of you. So that is deeply fulfilling and satisfying in many ways. So thank you very much. Okay, my friends. Well, I think it's time to say goodnight or good morning, depending on where you're at. And thank you again for your practice. Thank you again for your connectivity with each other, for continuing to explore what is the teaching of this pandemic? What is the teaching of this time of adversity? How is it encouraging me to open and deepen and bloom? Because that is the gift of this time.

[63:53]

And if we can see it that way and relate it to it that way and ask it What is the teaching? What is the opportunity for me to basically awake in this time of great challenge to break open, to break open our sense of self and feel the sense of vast, profound interconnectedness. So continuing, if you will, turning that over. you know, for the next while. Okay. Good night. Be well. Be safe.

[64:35]

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