Good morning. It was us. 40 years ago, this practice period was my first practice period at Tassajara. Unbelievable. Really unbelievable. There were only three Tangario students that practice period. Most people, I think, back then came in the fall and would stay through. And we didn't have nearly as many people who would come for just, you know, for one practice period, come from their, you know, their regular lives. and do a practice period at Tassar, which some of you, I think, will agree is really a wonderful possibility for people.

[01:07]

But there weren't very many back then. There was people who came mostly from the rest of Zen Center, although the two other people who were with me, Lisa Dunn and Richard, somebody, weren't... I don't think they were from Zen Center at that point, until they got here, until we got here. And if you think... as a Tangariya student, that people are watching you now. If there's only three of you and there's like 55 other people, it's a scary event. But mainly I feel so blessed and lucky to have been able to spend as much of my life here at Tassajara as I have. It's really not something I could have planned or made happen somehow. came to pass and I'm very grateful for that. My family and I went to Zen Center in San Francisco for nine years and lived there in the neighborhood of Zen Center.

[02:17]

Keith and I lived there for about three years before we came to Tassajar. So in 1975 to Tassajar. And what I want to try to say something about today is to encourage you to make as much use of Tassahara as you can while you're here. So to give you one view, one of my views of what Tassahara is about, what's going on here. And... One way of saying that, I would say, is it's all about trust. You know, yesterday, Greg quoted Dogen saying... I almost got it. But I've got it right here. Although... That was the first word. Although this inconceivable Dharma is abundant in each person.

[03:19]

And that goes on to the very nice quote. But that part right there... although this inconceivable Dharma is abundant in each person, is enough, I think, to stop us right there. It's like, really? Really? This inconceivable Dharma is abundant in all these people, and most particularly in me? So sometimes we have a lot of non-trust in that. We don't really trust that. So... one way of describing what tasahara is about is that, just that, is that a trustworthy statement? We could say it's a place to develop trust, but, you know, I think that we already tend too much toward thinking that's our job, is to develop various wonderful things, including trust, whereas it might be that tasahara is just a place to check that out.

[04:23]

Before I go there, let me say a little bit about people. What I think about people. Human beings are, let's say, a bundle of sensory nerves. This is not a real scientific thing. I may not be describing it correctly scientifically, but basically each one of us is this karmically conditioned, meaning it came from our whole past, including way before our own life, but in our life, plenty of experiences that have formed this bundle of nerves to respond to things. And they're sensitive. And mixed in with that, bundle of nerves somehow in human beings is a sense of me.

[05:30]

So we each have a sense of me as a separable, somewhat separate and hopefully protectable event. Here's me with these nerve endings in the world, lots is going on, lots Lots is going on. A lot is going on. And we feel, I think, rightly so, somewhat vulnerable. And we have this idea that there's a me and it could be somehow protectable. So we precede human beings. You know, in the West and in our modern world, as opposed to like if we were living in a tribe. If we were living in a tribe that was pretty isolated, we might feel like we could depend on the tribe.

[06:33]

That would probably be our experience that our tribe took care of us. In our world, mostly I think we come to feel like I depend on me. We may have some friends who we trust, or we may have had a very positive family experience when we were young, and maybe that makes it easier for us to trust than for some people who didn't have that experience. But still, I think mostly, at least in the West, we pretty much depend on ourselves. And what we mostly depend on is our mind. We think, I can figure this out. I know how to be... Sometimes we think, I don't know how to be, but then we're still depending on ourselves. I know that I don't know how to be whatever, successful, safe, happy, sane.

[07:40]

So we proceed in our life kind of gathering ideas that we put on us like... Like, oh, I know how to do this. I don't know how to do that. This is a good person. That's a bad person. These kind of people I can trust. These kind of people I can't trust. And we just keep plastering this armor onto us because we feel not safe. And for good reason, because this... armor of ideas doesn't really protect us. As we're walking around the world with these nerve endings being touched at least, assaulted at various times by cold and hot and other people's ideas and other people's words and the possibility of their ideas and words and actions.

[08:47]

so humans one way of looking at humans anyway is that we're walking around trying to have a good life have a happy life maybe even trying to be of benefit to other people at least some other people maybe all other people and still we have these ideas that we're hoping will protect us like Maybe if I study Zen, I'll feel better. Maybe if I could just sit still, I wouldn't get so upset in that way that makes the people around me upset. Maybe if I just understood where my upset was coming from, maybe then I could get to the bottom of it and really have a better life. And it's very, very hard to get out of that loop because we're seeing the world through our mind.

[09:57]

We're interpreting the world through our mind. We're trying to meet the world through our mind. We're basically caught in this place where our mind is... It's our main tool. We might pick up another tool, but our mind is deciding to pick up that tool. And so we're... here we are, you know, this fabulous tool which actually can't protect us in the way we want to be protected. So one way of looking at Tassajara is it's a place to see whether we can lay down that tool a little bit. Is it actually safe to lay down that tool? And again, it's pretty tricky because we decide to lay down the tool and then we decide how to lay down the tool and then we decide we haven't done it well enough and we should do it. So our mind is in there judging and grading us on the whole event.

[11:03]

I sometimes think of Tassajara's practice periods as a cocoon. Some of you have heard this before. where we go inside the cocoon and like a caterpillar or a fly or something, we sort of dissolve. And what dissolves is all these ideas, or what has the possibility of dissolving anyway, are all these ideas that we have about who I am and how that could work in the world. You know, so like, we might think, well, on Sunday mornings, I like to read the New York Times with my bagel and coffee. But you don't even know when Sunday morning is. And you don't really have access to bagels. You do have coffee. And you can still think, every morning I like to drink coffee.

[12:07]

That's fine, unless we run out of coffee, and then you'll get that opportunity to... Fear was struck to the ten, so it was hard. So really, we use everything to kind of decide who am I. And so here at Tassajara, we take away a whole bunch of that. We don't take away everything, but we do take away a bunch of it. And with the cocoon, really, of the schedule and the guidelines, we say, okay, you're safe enough. Try this out. See how it is to not know when it's Sunday morning. To not know what do you do on, you know, what time of morning do you like to get up? How is it when you don't, who cares? Your main experience is probably getting up earlier than you would like to. Maybe there's a few people here who would love to get up at 3.50 or something.

[13:12]

And if there are those people, then they would probably go to bed at 7. So they still have to stay up past what they would like. So this cocoon, this support of the schedule and the guidelines to just walk around in and see, like I said, it's safe enough to see what is it like to just not... worry about, I was going to say not think about, maybe not think about, maybe not worry about some things. And I don't know that we necessarily notice that we're doing that, that we think, oh, that's a relief, I don't have to think about what I do on Sunday morning. But there is a kind of settling that I think happens, partly because we aren't triggered to do that in all its many forms nearly as often.

[14:17]

On the other hand, of course, we are triggered to do that regularly by all kinds of things, like someone on your serving crew tells you to put the spoons the other direction. Something can easily come up that says, I know how to do the spoons. Or something like, oh, God, I'll never get it. I'm never going to be smart enough. One of those ideas about ourself that we have taken on as, you know, okay, I know who I am. I know there's no way that I could be on a serving crew because I'll never figure out which way the spoons go. So I shouldn't even try. But here at Tassajara, actually, almost everybody is on a serving crew. And if they come in with the spoons the wrong way, the wonderful thing about Tassajara is nobody dies. I mean, not that nobody dies, we're all going to die, and who knows, somebody might die here someday, but nobody dies from the spoons being the wrong way, or from the, you know, all the other myriad things that we can do wrong, nobody dies from it.

[15:30]

And we might laugh, but out there in the world, sometimes people die from really small things, you know, really small things that get misinterpreted, and turn out to be, you know, deadly sometimes, and when not deadly, just a big mess often. So in this, I don't know, now today I'm not feeling so attached or so good about the cocoon analogy. I brought it up because I've thought it many times and there's an accuracy to it, but... We're so in this together, you know. Whereas a cocoon might feel like you're in it by yourself. But it's this funny mixture, you know, of really being by yourself. You know, really just... And I want to encourage us to take that up.

[16:30]

You know, like to really test that out. Like to turn our attention... ourself and to our responses as much as possible even though we're living here so closely with each other and that's a very important part of how Tassara functions is that we're all here together we're supporting each other to do this practice and we're also triggering each other to have our responses as somebody said some years ago it's like we took a vow lifetimes ago to come back and fend each other here at Tassajara, poke each other a little bit here at Tassajara, and support each other at the same time. So if you have a hard time with your mother, she's probably here, don't worry. If she hasn't found you yet, or if you haven't found her yet, rather, you will. Or whoever else might be in you as a problem figure, usually Tassajara can provide it.

[17:35]

So... But I do, I recommend that as much as possible, turn your attention back to your own responses. When something happens, or even when nothing happens, and still we are making things happen, we're thinking, thinking, thinking. Or if you're not thinking, if you're sitting in zazen and just sitting there peacefully, to rest your mind in this body and just use this time to get as familiar with it as you can and as familiar with the responses that happen as you can and if you know if you're in the midst of a interaction with somebody and it gets difficult and you're trying to do that maybe you remember maybe you know it starts and gets a little heated and then you remember oh I want to pay attention to my part of this it's okay to say to the person

[18:37]

you know what, let's do this a little bit later. I need to pay attention here, what's happening. Once in a while it might not be okay. There might be something that's happening that's crucial to continue it right then. But mostly it's okay, and let's try to give each other the space to do that if somebody says that. I mean, it'd be great if then you could say, you know, I'll get back to you for this... This part of it isn't about you or something, but if you can't get that out, we'll try to understand that for each other and do the same. Walk away and notice what's going on. And again, this mind that we have that's such a wonderful tool that wants to interpret everything. has its limits you know it really it comes up with its same old story it's so habit oriented you know and for good reason I think because our habits are kind of deeper than our thoughts they're in our body we've had this experience before because we still have the same body so something happens and it feels the same so if possible to not totally believe our thoughts to

[20:00]

Not that they're wrong. We do have true thoughts and they're often helpful. But we just go there. We miss a lot of other truth about what kind of mostly fear we're having. What kind of suffering we're causing ourselves. What kind of suffering is optional and what kind we just have to... sit upright with. I read a quote recently, someone asked the Dalai Lama, does the bodhisattva take days off? And he said, no, she doesn't rest, but her mind does. She gives herself a vacation from suffering. That's how she gets her energy. So she doesn't rest, but her mind does.

[21:05]

She gives herself a vacation from suffering. That's how she gets her energy. I don't think we can take a total vacation from suffering because we have bodies and minds. I think we will have suffering, but there is a whole lot of it that we can actually take a vacation from. It's sometimes hard if you find yourself in one of those suffering moments You know, there are various kinds. Let's take one where mostly you've gotten an idea of something and you're like turning it over and over and over and it's a painful idea. There it is. And there's not much happening. You know, maybe zazen is happening or you're walking down the road and something has happened maybe that triggered it. But right now it's just this idea and that can be really strong, really hard to just like drop and, you know, I mean, I've done it many, many, many times. I've noticed, oh, this idea is giving me a stomachache.

[22:09]

I'm getting so tight around this. Okay, I'm going to just stop. It's got a lot of power to keep going. So we can try, like one thing that's pretty helpful is to actually find something to either do or some part of your body that you can identify, like if you're walking, to notice, put your feet on the ground. Mainly, it's attention. It's like taking your attention away from this thought and putting it somewhere else. If you can't do that, then I suggest you put yourself in a stable position and still try to find the part of your body that's working with this, like it might need to be lying down sometimes. Find the part of your body that's being affected by it, and even if the words need to go on, still keep at least part of your attention on that part of your body.

[23:11]

If it's a painful situation where something's actually happening, where you're involved with another person, That's usually the most painful. Sometimes objects are painful for us, but a lot of times other people are the most painful for us. If we're involved with them, still the same thing, to try to find where am I? Where's my body? And that's one of the things that this practice that we're doing here is so helpful in increasing our possibility of doing that. And because we spend so much time just sitting there with our body, and actually I'm sorry to say that I think the painfulness of Sashin, those of you who don't have pain, too bad for you. The painfulness of Sashin actually helps us find our body. So anyway, the practice period helps us be able to find it when we're in these

[24:19]

whatever kind of painful moments, physically painful, emotionally painful, mentally painful moments, to find our body and try to be there with it. And there are some real good reasons to be there with it. For one thing, it becomes more apparent to us, what are we relying on? Again, often it's our thought. We'll think, what's wrong here? Oh, I know. they did this, they did that, or, oh, I did that thing again. So we'll see, if we're actually present with ourselves, we'll see, oh, I'm relying on my mind. I'm trying to figure out how to make this better. So then we might say, well, what should I rely on? You know, in Buddhism, we say... take refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.

[25:21]

And this could be a whole other lecture, but I'll just say for now, one way to understand that is Buddha being the world, the universe, the place where we are in it right now. Dharma being, just as Ed was saying the other day, being the fact that form is empty, namely form is not permanent and it's completely interdependent. So whatever it is that we're suffering with at this moment is not always going to be this way and every tiny move we make helps to make the next moment. It's like whatever we do in this moment helps to make the next moment. So we have some choice there, or sometimes we have some choice about do I keep going in this way or do I turn it a little bit?

[26:30]

Is there some direction I can turn it that I can at least try? And we can do that without dropping our insight. We might have some... insight into a situation which is painful. We might see, oh, this person is projecting a lot of anger at me and I see that and I don't want to let go of that because I think they need to know it. So without getting rid of that completely, we can still take a little time, if not right then, maybe later, and try to see, okay, what was happening for me then? How did I help to create this situation the way it was? Is there anything I can do that will turn it a little bit even? So here at Tassajara, we have this possibility.

[27:31]

Things are slowed down enough. Again, it's not totally safe. There are lots of unsafe things that let this stuff come out. It's slowed down enough that we can... We can try that, we can test that, we can see, really, is the inconceivable Dharma present in all beings? Is it really present in this person who's angry at me? Is it present in me? Is there inconceivable Dharma here? Again, I don't think it's best to go at this in a kind of mental way. First of all, what is inconceivable Dharma? But to just settle and see, is this a trustworthy situation. Is it okay to be me in this situation? Maybe I'll stop there for a minute and see if you have any thoughts, questions, comments.

[28:32]

Yes, Tim. Thank you very much. It sounds like what you're explaining is vipassana, insight into the body, and the experience of the body. My first training was in vipassana for a few years, and I found that very helpful. Why is it that we can't focus more on this? Because what it is you're saying is very, very important. Why is it that we don't... And I asked my teacher, I said, you know, should I let go of my Vipassana practice now that I'm committing to Zen? He said, no, it's assumed that that is just a part of our Mahayana practice. Well, this is just my, you know, I haven't practiced anything but this. So I don't, I haven't studied any of them a lot, except I've been doing this for a long time.

[29:35]

So this is my thought about that. which is just what I was saying earlier, it's like we tend to rely on our mind so much already. And Vipassana, when it's described, or even what I was saying, you know, then we get a hold of that with our mind and we try to do it with our mind, of course, and that's great, but that can't really get to the bottom of it. You know, it's not... If we... we're trying to save ourselves essentially, you know, make our life work better with our mind, we're going to run into our self our idea of our self again so Soto Zen which I think all the practices are probably just as great as Soto Zen is, it's just that's the only one I know Soto Zen here at Tassajara in a way gets underneath that it's like You're sitting there in zazen and you're thinking, oh, Leslie said I should pay attention to my whatever, whatever, and so I'm going to do that.

[30:42]

And then you can't. Your mind goes off on its same old story and it happens and then you go out of here and you have an interaction and it gets all upset. And somehow in the life and in the sitting a lot beyond where we can do what we think we should be doing, a settling and a letting go of those very cherished ideas about who I am and who I'm not and all that cherished or feared or whatever they let go in some way at a deep level that's what I think is happening and I'm sure that Vipassana has a way of dealing with that also but I don't know what it is Yes, Alish. Thank you very much, Leslie.

[31:43]

I'd love to hear you say something about the relationship between the invitation to dissolve in the cocoon and sleep, or for me, continuously rushing up against not enough sleep and various states that it produces. Yes, yes. I hope not. I don't know. Yes, I tell myself this whole schedule was developed obviously over thousands of years and every once in a while I think, really? Maybe they made a mistake. But I don't know if you all heard her, but she said, could I say something about the relationship between this invitation to dissolve our grasping at ideas and protections for ourself and the little bit of sleep that we are allowed to have here at Tassajara.

[32:46]

Well, I do think it is useful, you know, that one thing that happens at Tassajara is we get so tired that we can't do some of our old habits of mind, mostly. Also, maybe sometimes of body, but basically, you know, it's just like, okay, I can't. I remember once I thought, this story I'm about to tell myself, I've heard it a gazillion times. I can't stand it. I can't stand it another time. Even my breathing would be more interesting than this. And I think fatigue was part of it. I didn't have the energy to embellish it in an interesting way. Just repeat it over and over. And I think even in Zazen, even the... You know, when we're sitting there, and some people tend to go to sleep very easily in Zazen.

[33:58]

Me, that's one. And we have to be really careful to try to stay awake because otherwise we will... You know, just dream away. And also I think there are trance states that are so close there. You know, not helpful trances, just like dreamy trances. That once you're in there, I speak from experience, like in a period of time, you can't get out really. Like I've sat in lectures and I'll think, oh, I'm awake. I hear them. Oh, I'm awake. Yeah, I'm still awake. you know, at the end I realized I have no idea what was said, because actually, yeah, I maybe woke up, you know, a little, half woke up several times. So it's, it takes a lot of effort, and anyway, but there are some people who don't go to sleep, who like, they're, who mostly, you know, start out with, anyway, start out with the practice period, they have a lot of energy, and, or something, I don't know, nervous energy, or

[35:07]

or they just don't go to sleep. For them, sometimes the practice period wears them down to where they actually let go enough to go to sleep. I believe this is actually a healthy step. Like, you know, where there's some letting go of putting the world together and relaxing enough that something like sleep can happen. We still have to, you know, wake up. We all have to wake up because the bell will ring. You have to leave the Zendo. That's very lucky. So sleep is a really deep event. It's obviously necessary. How much is necessary is very mysterious. We feel like it's different for... for different people, I'm sure it is, but I know in my own experience it's also very mixed in with emotions.

[36:17]

I don't know if it was my first practice period or my second. Very early on I went to sleep in the zendo and slept a lot, a lot, a lot. And back in those days we were carrying the kiyosaku, you know the stick, So every period, except for the periods right after meals, when they gave us a break, two people would carry the kiyosaku in the old zendo. So there are two long, about as long as this, two long rows with the altar at one end, and they would walk down the row and not like today when once in a while we carry the kiyosaku, then people ask for it if they want it. That's how we do it now. If you look like you were asleep, you got hit. So, you know, I got hit. Eugh, whoa, you know, lots and lots and lots. So they come and they put this stick on your shoulder while you're bobbing around to find your shoulder.

[37:18]

And that would wake you up. You put your hands in gashow and lean forward. Whack. Lean the other way. Whack. Both bow to each other and they would go on. and I would go right back to sleep. So they came back. And many other people were doing a similar thing, actually. And I would walk in, I'd sit down, and I would just go right to sleep. And then I would go out. As Ed said the other day, in those days we were working in the morning and in the afternoon. We'd go out and go to work, and I'd be fine. I didn't even feel tired. I didn't even feel tired on my days off. take a hike, do fine, walk in the zindal, clunk. I mean, it was really, it was that trance kind of thing, which it took a lot to get out of. I can still go to sleep easily and do sometimes, but it's nothing like that. And just for storytelling, I think in the third practice period, it was either in the third practice period or after your third practice period,

[38:29]

you would be taught to carry the kiyosaku. And let me tell you, carrying the kiyosaku is way worse than being hit by the kiyosaku. Because, you know, not everyone hits well. And it's not easy to get to the point. Now, I mean, we don't do it now, partly because some people have really strong reactions to, you know, hitting people for good reason, or the sound. I mean, it's really... It's an intense sound, you know. So I'm happy that we don't do that anymore. I think that's, for some people, it's really an intense and unnecessary experience to bring up here. But there was also something good about it, you know, how to do that, how to receive it and how to give it in a caring way, you know, really to, okay, I have to carry this now. It's my turn. And just really the nuances of working on your attitude.

[39:33]

Okay, I have to hit that person. They have really narrow shoulders. Oh, I get to hit this person. They hit me the last time around. And they have really big shoulders. They're really strong. Mostly. It's just so obvious. Okay, I want to help you. you know I don't want to be someone who walks around hitting people with a stick because they like to hit people with a stick because mostly you don't okay I'll do this to help so anyway that went a little far afield but yeah it's a mystery but yeah and I don't really know you know this practice period supposedly we're getting a little more sleep than some with the work days we're definitely getting more sleep than we used to back in those old days but more people were younger than so we have more older people now and I've heard some people not feel so good about like we had another practice period where we did this where we had a lot of work days

[40:53]

And some people felt like, no, there wasn't enough zazen or there didn't push enough. And I'm sorry about that. I think that's true, that there can be a really kind of strict and vigorous kind of practice that if people are supporting each other to do. So anyway, if that's your feeling, maybe talk to us and let's see what we can... to support some extracurricular activities or something. Anything else? Yes, Andy? Can you repeat your recommendation on when something happened and you say go to find a place in your body and so on? Yeah. Can you just repeat that? I had a little, what's it called when you have a letter at the beginning? Mnemonic. Mnemonic. Acronym. Acronym. Sower.

[41:53]

Settle. Open. Attention. And then response. So maybe the, so settle, you know, basically just like come back. And open, settle and open in some ways are the same thing, but to make sure it's like a, you know, open for whatever. Because these ideas we have are so... like we can have such a strong idea that I should not have this feeling that we would never notice ourselves having it so to kind of open the space for whatever is there and then what to put the attention on so I think that in this practice actually quite naturally we start to notice where is the grasping as a physical thing you know not as an idea of grasping but as an actual physical thing because we're sitting here with ourselves and then some part tightens up and we start to notice in fact one of the things that I heard some Vipassana people say was that when they came into one of our zendos they walked into one of our zendos they said oh

[43:21]

Everyone here is doing hara practice, or these people are doing hara practice. I don't notice such a thing because I think we're just participating in it. But actually the feeling, or the feeling, the movement in a Soto Zen, Zendo, I think moves toward our belly. It's not always there because sometimes our knees call to us. or our heart calls to us or something, but a lot of our attention and settledness happens in our hara, and that's one of the places that really starts to tighten up quite. It's very responsive. So I think we quite naturally get more familiar with, more in touch with what kind of state are we in, having to do with the contraction, sometimes mostly in our belly, but also your shoulders, your heart, your chin, your mouth.

[44:30]

So notice that, if you can, and then pay attention to it. Just give it the space to, not to figure it out, but to have its life to develop, to show its... emptiness, you know, show its impermanence, to show its connectedness, what is it, and just stay there with it. John? Would you say something about if we're in one of those places, difficult places, talking to somebody, a practice leader, or a friend or something, how does that... Thank you. Thank you. Sometimes it can really help. I think one of the ways that it helps is with this, as I was mentioning, some of our really deep ideas about what it's okay for us to be or not to be.

[45:41]

We have some really deep and some... inarticular to bold they're so deep that they can't be put into words ideas about what we should be or fears and ideas of what we know there's no way we can be that so sometimes if we go to somebody else who isn't ourselves who it's good if we trust them at least a little bit you know at least We have some trust in them. We don't have to think, oh, my God, they're the most wonderful. They're my teacher, my perfect teacher. But we trust them, and we go and we tell them what's happening for us. Sometimes they can have a very freeing response. Like we can say, oh, my zazen's terrible. I'm having this... fantasy over and over and over again and it's just it's the worst thing you know I've been trying to stop for hundreds of years and can't and they might go oh yeah well that's normal so I think that's a big part of it is not so much what they say as the fact that they don't run away from us screaming that they stay in the room with us because we're

[47:12]

pretty afraid that we're actually not acceptable. That's kind of our, I think for most of us, that's our biggest fear, actually. No, I'm not okay. And sometimes we put up big fronts of, I'm really okay, look how good I do this, and look I'm a great person in this way. And a lot of the time it's based on this deep fear that I think I'm not not really okay. So the fact that they stay there and don't have that response to us I think is one of the biggest helps. And the other thing that's really good about it is we say it. When we say what we're thinking out loud to somebody else, we don't do it in quite the way that we have been doing it, doing it, doing it, doing it internally. it allows some movement to happen. And it's also really useful if we can say it to some... like if we're having a problem with another person.

[48:31]

Like I say, here at Tazahara we have this wonderful advantage of taking some space from that. We can give each other space And because the most important part of that problem is what happens in us. That's the part that's most within our realm of having an impact on. So we want to do that. But when it's possible, if it's possible, to actually talk with the other person and offer them some something new, some insight into what's happening for you. It might feel vulnerable. It might feel scary. You might need somebody else to be there with you to do that. But when we can do that, and sometimes then we can receive it from them too, sometimes they can do that back, offer some new help about what's happening here between us, it can be the most miraculous thing, really.

[49:37]

so surprising how much our world that we've built and how certain we are of it is not complete. Somebody? Somebody? Who am I looking at? Matthew and then... Have I been looking over this way all the time? I was just wondering if you could say something about how you worked with Sleeping in the Zendo and doing that less? Yeah. Well, every life has its particular. So I had two kids and nursed them and went to the Zaza in the whole time. So we'll leave that part aside because that's probably not relevant to most people here. But... think it's mostly it's like it's a habit so to break a habit you have to like stop doing it so so like for me I left here I went to the city center just by chance I think and I was sitting zaza and still falling asleep and I started noticing that like pushing down with my right knee would wake me up

[51:04]

So for a while that worked. And then another thing that helped some was sit down and imagine there's a doorway in front of me. And if I step over that threshold, I'd be in that other world. So don't go through that threshold. Just stay here. Here's the door. Don't go through that door. Stay out here where there's the sounds and everything. in this world that we're sharing don't go through that door where I'm just in my own little dream world so I don't know that's what I know yeah about like dreams at night is there a because we spend like a big part of our life sleeping and dreaming yes Is there like a way of like practicing with dreams at night or like what's your experience with that part of your life?

[52:12]

Well I think there are a lot of practices with dreams that would you know it's hard to do them here at Tazahara because you know we like go to sleep and then get up and go like you know one of them is write them down. I did that for a while that was back when I had extra energy and very interesting. And I think often at Tassajara, dreams are very strong people. There also is lucid dreaming, where you try to be awake in your dreams, which is very, I think, connected to meditation. How do you be awake in your life, including how do you be awake in your dreams. I haven't really, really done any of those, so I don't know the details of how to do it, but I have. noticed some really interesting things in my dreams sometimes. I was president of Zen Center for a while, because Linda had a similar dream to this, but I was president of Zen Center for a while, and the whole time I was president of Zen Center, I would have dreams of driving huge semis that things were not working.

[53:26]

Like the steering wheel wouldn't work or the brakes wouldn't work or something. And I'd be driving these huge semis. And then when I was going to stop being president, like the night before the ceremony where I stopped being president, I had this dream where I was driving this huge semi on a very icy curved road. And it was just like there was ice everywhere. And I had this thought, my dream, you don't have to drive. You could walk. So I stopped it, I got out, and I started walking. You know, in a way, I wish I could have done that when I was president. Get out and walk. And a little bit I did. You know, it was very helpful to be a president. Very good learning experience. But for the dreams, it's interesting. I sort of feel like we maybe have a parallel life going on in our dreams. These days... My parallel life is having to take care of itself. I'm not remembering it much.

[54:28]

New topic. Yes. What is your opinion on drinking coffee and tea to wake up? It seems that one can meditate better then. Afterwards you're more tired? I myself can't. I can do green tea. I like it. It's nice and smooth. The other kinds of caffeine I can't do. Or I can't. I hate it. It's so jittery. But some people like it. Basically, we have to live with our mind no matter what we do to it. So here, we've taken away a lot of the options. There's a lot of things you can't do here. We have left coffee and tea. And cigarettes, for that matter. So... you're going to have to make your own decisions. You might try it both ways and see. But basically, it's not like having the right state of mind is where we're trying to get to.

[55:36]

It's more, we're trying to get to where we can live with ourselves. We're trying to get to where we can settle in whoever I am right now and be open to it in a way that allows me to be open to rest of the world. Yeah. What about food? Well, you know, one way of... Certainly everything, and especially the few things that are left once we're here at Tassajara, can be objects of neuroses.

[56:40]

So, again, I'd say keep coming back to what's my experience, how do I get familiar with this being, because this is the one I'm going to have to live with. Just understand it. Another one way of looking at Tassahara during the practice period is we've taken away a lot of stuff. We could take away more. We also have our own room. In Japanese monasteries, they don't. Everybody lives in the Zendo. You don't have your own space. So we haven't done that. So we've left some things. I think in any monastic situation, almost any, we would be left with some food. We're left with quite a bit. And then we're taking, we expand it so that we can live safely together. So like we sit here for an hour, chanting, you know, bringing the food, waiting for the... One way to look at it is we're sitting there just to fill up the day so we don't go out and hurt each other.

[57:45]

Another way to look at it is we're sitting here so we have time to... time and subtleness to get close to ourself and see, not see, like, understand, like, say, but actually feel, oh, I prefer, I have these preferences, you know, I wish we weren't having this soup, and actually that's causing me suffering. So food is, you know, food's a good thing to work with. The question of sleepiness, I wonder, it reminds me of when I was in, both when I was in grad school and around finals times, maybe it was an undergrad too, if I felt this unprepared or pressure, and I remember I would get home and if I had some big take home exam or something, and my body would just want to crash. I'd know I needed to work, and my mind would just shut down.

[58:49]

I'd want to fall asleep. noticed this also when I was reading Harry Potter and book six when Dumbledore supposedly dies and my I just it was the same thing it's like I didn't want to look at whatever was coming up for me around that so I think of this sleepiness sometimes as a hindrance right the hindrance of staying present and what is it that is doesn't want to be seen right sometimes there's sleepiness because we're exhausted and then there's the kind you're talking about where You're not really tired. As soon as you step out of the setting, you're not awake. And yet something is turning away, is shutting down. Yes. Now, I have been called a Pollyanna. And I don't think that's totally true, but I do tend to see the positive side of things in this case. Yes, I agree. I think there's a way that we...

[59:50]

fall asleep or get groggy because it's too hard and we don't want to see something. And I also think there's a way that it has to do with this reliance on our mind where we're trying to make it work somehow. We're trying to get it. Who am I? What's going on with me? And sometimes it's just like, no. Go to sleep. Life is happening. You can relax. You know, you can just... It's such an act of faith. come in here for a period of zazen. You know, just like let your life happen by itself for 40 minutes? My God, you know? Let alone come to a practice period. You know, some of you actually just like took your life and put it in some state where you could leave it for three months and you probably feel the, whoa, is that all right? You know? But it's that way for all of us, even those of us who were here before practice periods. Like, okay, we're going to just try to let it run itself a little more with less of my meddling in it.

[61:01]

That's one way of describing Tassar. And sometimes sleep is really good for that. One more. Yes. This to me was a little humorous and also relevant given all of our talk about sleep. Most of the comments have been about going to Zazen to fall asleep. Last night I dreamt that I was sitting Zazen. The second part to this, also related to sleep and to Eilish's comment, was that I'm feeling so tired that the mental energy to hold up a lot of my habits, including many of my manners, is just not there anymore. And that's bringing up this sense of a mild worry and a little bit of fear of like, how am I going to treat all of you when my manners fall off?

[62:05]

Yeah. Yeah, we'll see. We didn't know that's what we were doing. But when we said, okay, I want to go to the practice period, we didn't know. We were saying, okay, I'm going to go down there with a bunch of people. that aren't going to be having enough sleep, they're going to be under stress, their ideas in themselves are going to be, you know, being questioned, deeply questioned. So they're going to be in stress, and I'm going to, like, stay there with them. And more than that, I'm going to stay there with myself. I'm going to, I think that's the real vow that we take when we sit as in this. I'm going to stay with you. I'm going to stay with you. And I think that's the vow we need to take for our lifetime, really. This one, in this lifetime, this is the one I'm going to stay with. Somebody has to do it. I'm going to do it. Thank you all very much.

[63:05]

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.

[63:25]

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