we believe

my name is christina
now it's working
and my dharma name
i have three garmin names
okay first to that bracketing to me on my uk in january nineteen ninety eight by norman and now
ah
cho joshing
oh it's so
joshing was translated as pure face
and how it to as karma jury or rapture or ecstasy
and my priestly ordination in january nineteen ninety three
i was given another first name kicking
which has translated as lieu of emptiness
and how who remained so for me
i'm all three names are
like operating
anna cheese in my life and in different phases
the surface or i take refuge in nam
because i feel them necessary to help me on kind of invoke their energy into my life invited into my guy
and my rocker so
and must creating a part of or is written a part out of the first
the verse of the first case of hypocrisy or anything
ah and
the theories of reality can you see
continuously creation works her long and shudder reading the ancient brocade
worms of spring
but nothing can be done about mantra stories leaking
hmm
so to give this talk tonight i have been thinking of giving away seeking my talk because for many people have you you don't know me at all
some of you to know me
more from a little bit
can everything in between
i and i
wondering how this will this fabric will weave tonight because i'm
not interested in falling into telling
stories that have been told in my mind or laugh out loud thousands of times
and i'm not quite sure how how that will happen but i actually see this situation here
like the loom
race which has when there is a loom you you have a work
which is once you've said it it's a given so if each of you i could see as a one thread in the work
and
then there is some freedom in what gets woven into had given
on
so i'll see how my life at this moment
reeves in into all these threads incorporating the spring of this moment
time

i came to live in this building three and a half weeks ago
i have never
lift here i've never spend a night in this building before
i never sat in the zendo before i moved in
i visited the building a few times for events mountain seat ceremonies suzuki roshi memorials or passing through early in the morning to catch a ride to toss a her

and i very much like living here i hadn't no idea how it will pay for me
hum
i deeply appreciate the
kindness and friendliness of the people all of you
and i few here and the patience and i'm allowing me to
find my way
since ten days i'm in the position of tanto and it's all
new and sometimes overwhelming and
a different than the other two places of st center i've been many little details that are different
hum and a whole culture seems to be different it's like a different we've it's different environment different people different
ah
structures that influence the whole the whole event that's happening here
hi
and all i can bring to it is a readiness
and willingness to be here and kill risk and be with what's
happening
wow me in me
and if you are all

i was born fifty six years ago
i gave a brief way seeking men talking green gulch and set berra said i was born sixty five years ago
i'm thinking about this talk it always came back and i made a point of not forgetting to say fifty six
and i heard it i heard it but i didn't really notice it i heard that there was something a little interesting about the number came that came out my mouth
and it's sticking with me so it's i don't know what that is why something tells me i'm nine years older than i'm am on paper but a case or fifty six years ago i was born in switzerland masaryk
an opposite pursue opposite the elephant peng on the zoo
i'm
in to as a second child of a family that and the end were seven children i have one older brother four younger sisters and one
little brother he's the biggest and tallest and heaviest of all of us protests this little brother
and my parents are opposed still alive my father is eighty seven years old and my mother is eighty five years old
and all my siblings or alive
and they have children i have twenty nieces and nephews
they range from probably in the meantime twenty three two
five
here's old
my youngest sister lives in new zealand with her husband and two children and all the others wave in switzerland i live here i'm the only one who does not have children
both my parents come from large families my mother's family were nine children of which eight are still alive and my father's family
where eight children to died early and
three i just recently in the last four years

so it was a very lively lively growing up with all these children and when we get together it's like
everybody speaking everybody is having things just tell sorts and remit quite often together rink
we're kind of her tripe
and i've been wandering often i think it gives a certain amount of
of security or off
because there's such a big body of from your family that you know that you you have a certain amount of
wait or just to be here it is okay and i think it's something that one is not wear off for a long time and that's just a given
i'm
so of course moving to other countries and living there that
i could start to see that more created and while i was in switzerland
so i grew up in a little village outside of zurich we had a farm just beside our house when i was eleven my parents build a house because it was hard to find living space with at that time six children
and
so we walked to school
go back to school came home over lunch had lunch luncheon where's my parents my father came home from work
and back to school played
and our vacation we were spent in the mountains because my father liked hiking on his honeymoon he went miss my mother skiing high up in the mountains they have to sleep in bunk beds
that's a fair idea of for honeymoon
i'm
oh at school i was
mostly not they're continually i was we have an expression that was sitting by the window
can for looking out and i was just a disadvantage was i was just good enough that i had enough short term memory that i would and pass the exams but nothing would stick so i actually never learned how to learn which i stay
il don't know how to do which of course now will come to bear and i have to start giving talks
so i'm

so it was hard for me to know what i want to do because there were so many things that interested me and they were wildly diverse and
they went from becoming a horse trainer to being a musician too

poor king with children too
being a former for a long long time i was convinced i would only marry a farmer and have five boys know girls
master to i was eighteen about
idea
so
i did
train as a physical therapist had seemed to bring a few things together know the other one was of course if i would have a beautiful voice i was that was the only thing i'm new than i would only become one thing that will be a singer
but i didn't have that voice to do that so
or a dancer
i became a physical therapist worked thirteen years as a physical therapist and working with people the training was oh here's the knee and he has a
meniscus operation at that time there were no art ross copies and you treat that need to first time first day like this the second day you do you are able to do this after rate you're able to do this
and then you went to disney and of course there was a person attached to the knee
which made all the difference and the first day in the second day in a week day and we formed a little group to kind of actually incorporate that we were treating a person that had an operation on their knee or whatever it was and how how to actually
be aware of that and take that into make that the primary
i'm concerned
so then i started to become interested in psychology because i i started to feel it
get a sense of how much people's view of themselves and of the world was affecting how their hearing process was happening
so i started studying psychology and psychotherapy
and worked for many years in psychiatric clinic
and there of course it became obvious to me that
fact the psychology model does not
what get close to the suffering that's their and cannot actually
i'm really encompass it and help it but it's it's
reduced approach to human life
how pulling certain areas but not not in a for people that really have
barry keep
suffering
it was just like
i'm a hopeless situation
the diagnosis of nowhere kind of
just like a little bit like death row sentences or something like that
so
right i was studying psychology i met charlotte's over when switzerland she was doing century workshop sensory awareness workshops and she
i went to those and nineteen eighty four eyes began and one thing she offered and a regular basis for three months workshops in
in at gringotts form
in nineteen seventy six in psychotherapy training i met a woman that worked with call craft your came in germany who had a place where they sat thousand
and
she impressed me just by the way she was working and i was curious and i went there and that was the first time i entered the xander
can i sat down and i felt like
i'm home
and from then on i sat at the beginning more often on i mean periods of on and off long periods of have long periods of and then more on and off and
i sat is a group in zurich that was a rinzai group right i was studying psychology and at some point i stopped sitting there because like about in a eighty six i stopped because i was preparing for my exams i was
sitting all the time commuting between two cities to go to the classes and i also felt like i wanted to actually post that keeper but i couldn't do that at that time
start up with corn training they didn't start your up with corn training before you've sat for about two years with them
i was married in by then i met my former husband
i was working as a cycle in a psychiatry clinic
and i we were married eleven years and we're very good friends now he's married again and has a daughter
hum
so i
in
nineteen eighty eight i decided i finished have finished my exams everything and i
wanted to pick up sitting again so the combination of sensory awareness
her workshop three months workshop class that it was offered a sense and to make me go so far and i came for three months and i stayed for a year
i extended my time always little longer
when to toss her format first practice period
and
i'm
huh
and that first practice period was
a gift from my husband he
he had to bear with me we separated our household before i left to go to a sweatshop and
then i called back and said i want to stay longer i want to stay longer and when i talked about going to toss her
i had a conversation with rape who was leading the practice pure bred in that time tulsa her and he said well i said i would have to borrow money to go and he said well that's not a good idea
our conversation continued and i said well i would have to borrow it from my former husband and he said well you might consider asking him if he would give you the money as a gift
so i had to think whether
i be able to ask him that and also if i will be able to accept it
chara one day i went to the phone and i said you know i would actually still want to stay longer for another three months and i want on top of i would like to ask you if you would give me this money as a gift
and through the phone came i would be happy to do that
and to this day i
it's it's a gift up for me is immeasurable
right a similar in the situation i've never been to toss her by then i've never seen the place
i just knew that's where i wanted to go
and
at the end of toss a her norman had his dharma transmission in that mean that practice period and he'd been my main featured throughout that year
so i'd asked him but you they didn't want him to ordain immediately after drama transmission so he now who was leading that tracks know how we must mail me
no smell know that i had to talk to rape to get permission or smell leading to practice spirit so mail and norman did it together to normal choose my name but mel performed the ceremony
so then i went back to switzerland to
i'm clear my situation and think about whether i wanted to come back for longer and came back in nineteen ninety did another workshop with charlotte while i was at green gulch and was a foreign student came a french student and started working with
norm and and with rape
i'm a regular basis
and god ordained by rep in ninety ninety three january
and just before the origination all true sewing
i went back to switzerland have all my friends my family and my parents put
stitch stitching my few stitches in my okay so when i was told i could start sewing okay so
it was like an
a joyful fright or a trifle shock or was like these two things and i thought there was this thought i can tell this to everybody but my father and i he was actually
i was in the dining room someone came up to said reps on the phone and i cut up i didn't know what it was about went to the phone for some reason i bowed to the phone picked up the receiver and said this is christie and said well i'm on my race to vacation and i just wanted to let you know you can start
sowing your case on then i thought i can purpose to everybody but my father and i have a moment in that in that dining room which i don't know how long a blast it was like
i saw or felt the completeness of my relationship with my father and it was like an image of an island in this in a notion and that the island was my father and i was in a boat and there was no place to
land and this whole island
and but it was completely still there was no
i mean everything was there the whole
and know the whole realm of feeling around it was there but it was completely still it wasn't anything oh i could try this refer to this wise it that way nothing it was i just
i don't know how long it was like no movement in there
i walked out to the
i am
tiny room out and then started sewing and suddenly i thought i go i need to go home and have my friends put me in stitches and my family and the thought came up up from nowhere or maybe i even asked my father which was a big surprise
for me that thought
and then i just let it be and pub well i see how it is a tone so i went home
when everybody putting stitches
i i mean i told my parents and
one of my sisters in law said to my father well now shouldn't you know you could put in some stitches to any say all know that i felt like unless i have to for myself i'm not going to bring it up again
i just wait and see what happens in the day before i left he said
i think i
should probably put a few stitches in this okay so
and i said oh yes if you'd like to i'm very happy my father is very i was raised catholic and my father is a practicing committed
dogmatic
conservative catholic which is as far as i can tell catholicism in switzerland is little bit different than hearing the states so it wasn't
but heat for him for me to be in a buddhist tradition took him a long time to
i'm
to be able to appreciate it
he always supported me but so the stitches were the first it'll that was really wonderful for their in here
and
so in nineteen ninety eight i felt i need to go back to switzerland i just i didn't know exactly why but i just felt i had to go i returned and
state five years bear
these five years i left one and a half years on my parents' house with my parents rich
because i was i was very ill when i go back when i after i got back and
so i went and stayed at their house for one and a half years and
he was an amazing time it was like
before i came to send center i never even spend one night my parents' house i didn't have to and i never have to so after i moved out and over the years i stayed lorn lorn men i leafed one and a half years in their house and it's just
wonderful because they age very gracefully
the you can really their practice really
is working and helping them so if i can eat that way i feel very fortunate and my mother is almost blind but you wouldn't be able to tell she makes the most beautiful flower arrangements switched to cease the colors and she walks around
and she can't recognize people but you go shopping and she cooks and she had goes like this to find out whether it's dirty or not some place or
i'm
and she listens she has started to listen to
capes long time ago from the library
so
so it was hard to come back and leave them
i mean i i have moved out i didn't come straight from living with them here i i lived in another place for one and a half years
of those five years
but it's hard to to know that they're getting more afraid and more frail and be here not there so i'll see what happens with then i came back because i couldn't find a job that actually engage me the way that i feel engaged
two and i'm here and i felt i always was committed to complete my training this rip
and so he came to switzerland in the fall and i talked to him and
i considered to whether i come back and complete my trainer concentrated way instead of going back and forth once or twice a year and trying to figure out something in between in switzerland i had a little sand on people came and sat with my slowly over time a few people
the
i don't have a commitment of two years here in this job

and i you know i was asked probably may
whether i would consider taking this job and i thought well i've never been here i've never had a conversation this paul and knew how will we was but i've never been in the same place to practice i should probably go and have conversations and find out how this is to be here and read
i want to do this man was the the weekend came in the i just realized there was a yes sing me it was just yes and then i can provide
why then
go and talk what would i talk about
paul didn't feel like you need he talked me at least i never heard he had to talk to me first before
i was asked by linda different would consider this position so i just said yes and now here i am
so all of you and i understand what my main understanding of this
work is is to support you to support each of you came your practice in your life
king
learning together how all the circumstances that come up our dharma gates
and
i would really ask you please to speak to me and to speak to me directly and tell me if you have problems with me tell me don't tell everybody else or not mean that's one of the
big difficulties i find often
and my commitment is to listen and to
try to here i mean to really hear what you're saying and if you feel i haven't heard it police say it again and
to be available
for your concerns and
no beef just before my ordination
this last bit
just two days before three days i got completely
alienated i went to the sender green gulch and i saw the priests and i thought their search reared people like
each one of them i got look at them and fussing with their class around and you know each one has it we have all our inc ios increases in a one is falsely that is exactly and and
it's so japanese and what do i have i i couldn't imagine and i but also i was not able to go and tell anybody and i thought i'm going to stand there and seeing all these yes
but i'm lying i but i also couldn't go and say i can't do this and i had a horrible night i mean it was like
i was just going to openly
lie
is a bows and lie but it was i mean i would know it nobody else probably
and he was it was at the worse and then the next revision be passed down head i was ordained with tier together and pathway or navy
and we the evening before we have to browse our heads was little shorter than now i'm reading girl because i'm going on with see my parents in december
i'm i'm not sure if i wanted to confront them is a bald head me i might but i'm not sure
oh
and we have to go to a rehearsal and grab said we should bring little cards because we would have worse to say to to with remember in a memorize
so i went there and i felt completely
alienated and actually pretty freaked out and the first verse we had to say was memorize right time was freed from my ancient karma freed from my worldly attachments everything is changed
freed from form and color everything is changed except my deep desire to live in truth with all beings
and that just dissolve this whole
event that was going on with me and because they was completely what i could say yes to and it's beyond denomination
it's not the truth is not good is a is not christian a is not islamic truth is no
one it's just
universal
and to that i can commit and that's my bow
and so i really do want to living truth with you a peculiar to help me
i'm not the truth that i figure out
so please do

may our and cancer and equally penetrate every