This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. I haven't quite decided how I want to start this morning. Now it's time to decide. Um... I've been thinking a lot about Darlene Cohen recently for numerous reasons. As you know, it was the one-year anniversary of her death last week on the 12th. I think you did a memorial service here, right? And I was gone. I was gone because my granddaughter was born on Darlene's death day. So all of that is very special to me.

[01:01]

And just to note, it was also my father's death day. And Karin Jordan's brother, a very special man, Catholic priest, died on that day. And Keith's mother was born on that day. So our granddaughter has a very auspicious birthday. I'm sure she'll live up to it, no matter what that means. So that's one reason I've been thinking about Darlene. And I wrote to her husband, Tony, my good friend, to say that my granddaughter had come on Darlene's birthday and that I hoped he was coming back to life. And he said, I don't know. He said, you know, I'm getting by on what life I have left, doing the best I can. And that also, you know, touched me very deeply, their connection. And... how we go on.

[02:03]

And then also there's Sue Moon and Florence Kaplow are trying to do a book of women practitioners commenting on women in koans. And several people who you know are writing chapters for this book. And they asked me to do one. And I don't really write so well. or have time to write, or I have some excuse for why I can't write. So they said, well, give a talk, and then we'll transcribe it and include this in your talk, include one of these women in your talk. So by the time I got around to saying yes, there were a few left, and one of them was Darlene. So I chose Darlene, even though her koan is very mysterious, or somewhat mysterious. So I've been thinking about her and her life a lot.

[03:05]

And this morning, and I thought I was done talking. I talked last night in Carmel about Darlene and thought, okay, that's good. I can just leave that and do the lecture here that I say what I want to say to you all. And then this morning I realized that actually they go together somewhat. So I wanted to add a little bit about Darlene and It's about, in this story about her, basically she says that she values skillful means above everything, above karma, above if it's necessary to lie for skillful means. Anyway, skillful means is what she believes in. She had this conversation with some of her students just two weeks before she died. So I think she was really getting to the core of what she based her life on. And so what I wanted to talk to you about was from the Genjo Koan.

[04:09]

We'll come back to Darlene. The phrase that we chant as, enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water. The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken. Although its light is white... and great, the moon is reflected even a puddle an inch wide. The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in dew drops on the grass, or even in one drop of water. Enlightenment does not divide you, just as the moon does not break the water. You cannot hinder enlightenment, just as a drop of water does not hinder the moon in the sky. Komura Sensei, Shoako Komura, in his book on the Genji Koan, has a slightly different translation. It's basically the same, but something about it hit me differently, especially the first part. He says, when a person attains realization, it's like the moon's reflection in water.

[05:17]

The moon never becomes wet. The water is not disturbed. There's something different about that not being disturbed than... not being broken. I don't know why. Maybe it was the thing that hit me most in his commentary on it was he says the drop represents the self and the moon represents the 10,000 things. I was like, hmm, you know, I thought the moon represented enlightenment or realization. Now it represents the 10,000 things. And then I remembered and I agree with his description of enlightenment or realization and also even delusion as not being things and not even being states of mind. It's not like we get enlightenment and then we have it as a state of mind or we have delusion as a state of mind and if we could get rid of it, there would be enlightenment.

[06:22]

It's... What he says, and what he says, Dogen says, is that realization and delusion both happen exactly in our relationship with myriad things. They're like, they're not, you can't get a hold of them. They're like, each moment of relating, each moment of impacting, each moment of being impacted is... delusion or enlightenment or some mixture of the two. So right in the relating, the receiving, the reacting, is this thing we call realization or enlightenment or delusion. So in this picture of Dogen's of the moon in a drop of water... what we experience as ourself is this drop of water, this dew drop, and then all the myriad things are reflected in us.

[07:29]

There's room for everything to be reflected in this drop of water. And then, you know, the drop doesn't hurt the moon, and the moon doesn't... crack or make a hole in, he says, the moon doesn't make a hole in the dew drop or the drop of water. Of course, a drop of water, you know, it sits there, it's so pretty, and it's got the moon reflected in it, or even the entire sky, it says, you know, there are all those stars and that little drop of water. Of course, we have a very alive drop going on here. This dew drop is, you know... it's not just sitting there you may have noticed you know just like a little calm glassy drop of water it's like things are happening you know when the world comes to interact with this drop of water many things come forth right many things happen so if you think of something that disturbs you anything it could be myriad myriad things

[08:42]

You know, maybe you didn't like the temperature this morning or maybe you didn't like the way that person looked at you or maybe you did like the way that person looked at you. And, you know, there are myriad ways to be disturbed, right? So can we take in that, whatever that is, you know, that reflection, that interaction, that relationship, and have our response. So this interaction, this, you know, commonly poetically described interaction of the moon being reflected in the dewdrop, is an example of skillful means. It's a description of skillful means, I believe. It's how skillful means happen. And there are two parts to this skillful means event. One is the dew drop and one is the moon.

[09:46]

One is the self and what happens over here and one is the rest of the universe. And in some ways, even though of course they happen all at once, they are going on right now all at once, in some ways for each of us the place to start is with the dew drop. It's like if we can have our experience of our reaction, that's our first job. Like, can I just experience my little earthquakes? Because if we can't, if we can't let those reactions happen, those responses happen, then we're into reactive mode. We're like, I can't have this experience. And we're out there. And it's such a habit.

[10:49]

We have these habits going on full blast all the time, and they're very much not skillful means. They're just wildly trying to stop the inner reaction from happening. Whatever I need to do to stop feeling this way. So get rid of you, run this way, or get you. I can't stand my feeling of wanting, so I need you. If we can actually just have a feeling of wanting or a feeling of not wanting or a feeling of danger or of being consumed or many variations of this unbroken dewdrop, this poetically sitting there calmly dewdrop, going on for us. So that's one reason why in a situation like Tassajara we kind of simplify it. By now in the practice period you may be losing sight of how simple it is.

[11:54]

But compared to how it was before you came here or out there in the world, it's actually pretty simple so that we have the possibility of even finding those responses. You know, it's why we sit here for so long during the day is so that the responses have a chance to happen and we have a chance to, like, try to get away from them, you know, as hard as we can while we're stuck here in this room facing a wall, most of us, you know, trying to think about something else or go to sleep or, you know, pretty much anything except or argue against it, you know, why we shouldn't be having this response. And we can go through all that and still come down to a little more capacity for having the response that happens in this dewdrop. Once we can have that response, just be able to stand to stay with this body and mind while the response happens, then there are still the rest of the world, the moon and the entire sky,

[13:05]

And in particular, that thing maybe that's been bothering us, if it's still around by then, often it's long gone, but there'll be something else. Or maybe that's still there. We need to still, or maybe it'll come back. We'll still need to, okay, be with our response. And then there may be an interaction that happens. So skillful means is both. It's how to be skillful with yourself be skillful with the responses that are happening, and then respond to the outside person. And the moon and the entire sky are not hindered by the dew drop. They continue on. And one of the important things about them is that we don't know what they are. One of the important things about the responses that are happening in the self, in the dewdrop, is that we think we know what they are.

[14:09]

We think we know this is good or this is bad or this is something I should have or this is something I shouldn't have. So in sitting with or staying with those responses, they can settle down enough so that we begin to see, oh, I don't know what this is. Someone said to me yesterday, that they didn't understand how people could be, they understood people disagreeing with Obama, but they couldn't understand how they could be so vituperous about it, how they could be so hateful, really hate Obama. And it seemed very similar to how they had been about Clinton. And I said, yeah, I feel that, it feels really bad, but I noticed, actually, that I felt the same way about Bush. I really didn't like him. I really didn't think he should be in charge of our country. I really thought it was a bad thing that was happening.

[15:14]

And there was some real personal thing about it that I could get into at various times. And this person said, oh, yeah. So there's some... As we see what's happening with us, we have more understanding. It doesn't mean we know what exactly people are feeling or... you know, what the answer is, but we see the depth of it. We see how complicated, how much we don't know, really. I mean, we don't see how much we don't know, but we see that we don't know. So that's a crucial part of this interaction between the moon and the dewdrop, between ourself and the myriad things, is to see that I don't actually know what this event that's having an impact on me is in its entirety. We pretty much can't help but see it as separate and a thing.

[16:19]

But we can know that it's not just that. It's like Suzuki Roshi saying, big mind is knowing that you can only have your perspective. and that there's more than that happening. Big mind is seeing that I have small mind, and that's pretty much the mind I can have, except I can see that there is something beyond my ideas. There's another way of talking about this. It's in the 37th... case in the Book of Serenity, where they talk about the fundamental affliction of ignorance is the immutable knowledge of the Buddhas. It's always kind of a shocking phrase to me to hear. The fundamental affliction of ignorance is the immutable knowledge of the Buddhas.

[17:24]

And it's a story they tell, actually, both in the case and in the commentary, they tell several stories about Let's see, there's another way of saying it. Oh, the human beings just have... I've got it written down just for this moment. All sentient beings, not just human beings, all sentient beings just have active consciousness, boundless and unclear, with no fundamental to rely on. And then, so all sentient beings just have... active consciousness, boundless and unclear with no fundamental to rely on. And this is the immutable knowledge of the Buddhists. So then they go on and tell these various stories where essentially someone calls out to someone, you know, either to this boy standing in the courtyard or to the whole assembly. The teacher comes in to give a lecture and he, instead of sitting down to give the lecture, he starts chasing people with his stick and they all run away.

[18:31]

And as they're running out the door, he calls to them. He says, wait. And they turn around, right? And the boy turns around. And this is called, what did I say? It is called fundamental, no, it's called the immutable knowledge of the Buddhas. Somebody calls your name, you turn around. It's also called the active consciousness, boundless and unclear. But it's active. You hear your name, you turn around. You respond. It's the same as the dew drop. The moon comes and it reflects it. It doesn't not reflect it. It doesn't say, no, sorry, busy, can't hear about you, the moon, or the stars today. And our body and mind are the same way. It actually responds to things. We can decide, no, I won't. I'm just going to be calm. Let him say that thing again. It doesn't matter. I won't care. You know? We have this alive, active, boundless consciousness that's there happening.

[19:38]

And it doesn't have any fundamental to rely on. So they turn around and then they ask them something like, what is Buddha nature? Or what's your true self? Some simple question like that. And they all go, duh. The poor kid, he goes back to Reiki and... I don't know what the crowd did. They probably just continued to leave. Our teacher's gone crazy. So this is called the fundamental affliction of ignorance. We don't actually know what our true nature is. We don't know what Buddha nature is. It's the having no fundamental to rely on. There's not some stock answer you can pull out and say, oh, in this situation, Here's the truth. Instead, we're in this very vulnerable but alive situation of walking dewdrops.

[20:41]

Walking around totally exposed to reflecting everything or anything. We can't really, thank goodness, take it all in, but some things get through to us. And we have a response. We have this active consciousness. They're happening. It's happening. We merge with things. They come into us and they make something new in us and around us. And we don't know what it is. We don't need to know what it is. It isn't the job of our meditation to figure out what it is. It's the job of our meditation to be able to allow that response and to have the intention of being of benefit. So then we apply everything we have to help us figure out what's of benefit. But the first part of what's of benefit is to allow what's actually there to be there.

[21:45]

So allow our response and allow the vast universe, who, however it appears, in this other person, allow them to be what they are, allow not knowing to be part of that. And then from there, to the extent that our effort has room in the activeness that's going on, in the aliveness that's going on, it wants to be of benefit. But to remember, my ideas of benefit are just my ideas, and yet I have to do something. Sometimes I decide what to do, or I think I decide what to do. A lot of the time... There's just this interaction. And that's the skillful means. That's where Darlene, I think, really enacted this. Like her caring for her students was a huge part of this interaction with them. And let me say before that, her starting with the dewdrop, starting with the self, she had to start with the self.

[22:48]

She had... for years and years and years and years. She couldn't get out of bed if, you know, one's tendency with pain is often to, like, close down and just want it to go away and kind of tighten up. It's definitely the tendency with arthritis, and she found out about that through one of her teachers, Mary Schneider, and he is saying you have to open to this. You have to make, start with tiny movements, you know, just little movements that open to the pain. open to the pain, open to the pain, and then there's more movement. So every morning, every morning, she had to get up, you know, at least an hour before she wanted to start getting dressed and start doing these little tiny movements to kind of get her body back into being able to function. And that was a huge... It was a huge physical commitment, but it was a huge emotional, psychological commitment to, okay, I'm going to live in this body.

[23:50]

At the end of her life, she was saying, you know, there's something good about dying, which is I will finally leave this painful body. That was one part. And the other part was, I'm willing to die. She wasn't afraid. I didn't, I mean, I... I wasn't there right at the end, but I saw her about a month before when she knew this was what was happening. And she, as far as I could tell, she was not afraid. She was, you know, she was wanted to, was sad that there were some things that she had wanted to finish. And she made a big, huge effort to finish some of them, like the Dharma transmissions to her students. Again, you know, feeling like this would be skillful means. This would be how to take care of some of these people who were, was dharma transmission, some of them was jukai, some of them was just saying goodbye. But she felt like, I think, like she'd really done a lot, you know, and that it was the way it was.

[24:54]

And I don't know that she had any regrets except maybe leaving Tony so soon and leaving him alone. You know, that's what she said. But this looking first at the self And really being as much as we can. It's not a state we go to where we're like, okay, okay, finally, I'm all right with being me. Because me keeps changing. It keeps surprising us and sneaking up behind us and doing something we didn't expect. Or getting old, being a way you didn't expect. It's like, oh, no. Now that... When my, one time when we went to visit Keith's parents and his dad, I guess this is the thing that happens, his eyelid wasn't working. Like one eyelid just like wouldn't go up. Eventually it came back, but I was like, what? Even your eyelid, like little tiny pieces of you can like give out just like that.

[26:00]

You know, like so unreliable. So. We don't get to this place where, okay, everything's fine. But we do learn the craft of noticing when we're in avoidance mode or when we're using our favorite thing to try to get away. Our favorite thing might be anger. Our favorite thing might be denial. Our favorite thing might be thinking about it. Anyway, we have various favorite things. So we get more familiar so that we start to recognize when I'm using my escape, my pretty ineffective, but you know, try them anyway, escape mechanisms when we recognize them. And then we also learn the craft of, okay, where do I come back to to try to be open to this alive being? To be open to what's

[27:01]

painful to me now painful or joyous mostly painful is the one we have trouble with so we learn that and then we learn the craft of seeing okay what's out there the mystery that's out there and how much we don't know and we learn the craft of mostly extending our extending that very attitude, the attitude that we have toward ourself and the attitude of unknowing and wanting benefit to whatever's in front of us, how to extend our warmth. And sometimes that warmth might be in the form of arguing with or disagreeing with or stopping something from happening. That's not like those aren't possibilities and not like they might at any time be the most beneficial thing to do.

[28:02]

And we either make our best guess or don't have that opportunity. We just do it. Something just happens. So that field is big enough to include everything. But we can hone this craft, the different steps of this craft. And we can do it starting with small things, starting with breakfast, starting with the chanting, starting with anything that makes us tighten up a little bit, you know, okay, can I relax with this? Can I open to it? And again, I think this is something that Darlene didn't perfect, because I don't know, maybe Buddha perfects it, but she certainly practiced it, and practiced it to great effect with her friends and students. And I think it's that it's That's really one thing that Tassajara is very good at, of encouraging us to open up to that, to open to ourself, to open to each other, to open to the world, the myriad world.

[29:17]

There's a poem that I've rewritten from that case in the book of Serenity. They say... One call and he turns his head. Do you know the self or not? Vaguely, like the dewdrop knows the moon. Intimately, like the dewdrop receiving the moon. One call and she turns her head. Do you know the self or not? Vaguely, like the dewdrop receiving... Vaguely, like the dewdrop knowing the moon, intimately, like the dewdrop receiving the moon. Do you have any thoughts or questions? Yes, Heather.

[30:27]

They can. receiving yes well I doubt if the dewdrop has delusion I'm not sure but I but but we as dewdrops it's very easy you know it's like You know, the server comes with the cereal, and you say this, and they dump out part of it, and they start pouring it, and, you know, they pour the whole thing because you wanted some amount, and then they have to go back and get another scoop, and you're saying, what's wrong with them?

[31:29]

You know, they're supposed to get a whole scoop and then pour it slowly so I can... Don't they know this yet? Haven't we been teaching them? What's then about anyway if they can't listen to instructions? That would be called delusion. There's some truth to it maybe, but it's from my point of view, the way the world should be. Does that make sense? No. No, realization might be the same thing, but seeing, oh my goodness. You know, what is happening here? They're like, I'm having a little tantrum about, you know, the amount of cereal, not even the amount I'm getting, how it's being given to me, but even the amount I'm being given, even if I'm, you know, given, like go plop. And there it is still. Oh, I'm having a tantrum. What was, I think I know what was happening with him. I actually don't know. Can I stay here with this that's happening in me?

[32:31]

Does that make sense? Yes, yes, exactly. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Thank you. And, you know, it may be harder to see if the person actually thinks they're thinking or doing something to or about you. You know, like if you have an actual interaction with someone, I mean, an interaction where there's more personal feeling going on from both directions, it gets even more complicated. Yes.

[33:50]

You better get busy. Yes. Yes. Yes, there is that too. Yes, Judith. One of the quotes you read ended fundamental affliction of the Buddha's name. Yes. Fundamental affliction of ignorance is the immutable knowledge of the Buddhas. Fundamental affliction. Of ignorance. Okay. I just, I thought affliction, it's like condition. Mm-hmm. Affliction. Well, you know... That can be the feeling, but actually it's just a condition, right?

[35:02]

Well, I think being a human being hurts. There is suffering. And it does... I think to some extent it comes from just having a body and a mind. But it also comes from having ignorance. So I think... We don't need to deny that. That's the truth. It's painful. There's some painful things to being a human being. There's some painful things to being a sentient being. And then there's added painfulness to being a human being. But if we can have... Because otherwise we're sort of always... backpedaling on, or maybe it's just the way I'm experiencing this or something. And the way we're experiencing it does have something to do with it. And we do have these experiences, sometimes in Sashin, where we're sitting there suffering, suffering, suffering, and saying, I wish it would end, I wish it would end, I can't stand this, I can't stand this.

[36:12]

And for some reason, we just... hear what we're doing and stop or just stop because we realize we have to eat the rice anyway. Either I'm going to get up and run out or I'm actually going to be here with my knees in this condition. And sometimes when we do that, it changes and it doesn't hurt in the same way. But sometimes it doesn't do that. Sometimes it keeps on hurting and we're just like, okay, here I am. So what you're saying is somewhat true. To call it an affliction is maybe staying in the place of, I can't stand this. But to go too far toward, oh, it's all bliss. I know you weren't saying bliss, but that's the way it is. You're not. It feels like affliction is possible and definitely happens.

[37:20]

Yeah. I think it's a way of defining terms. Well, again, I think it's part of defining, you know, it's how you define affliction. So, you know, and sometimes we do that with suffering and pain. We say we have pain, but we don't have suffering. If we don't, we need to have pain, but we don't need to have suffering. But sometimes people use suffering or affliction in a different way. And I think here they're meaning it as there is suffering, pain in human life. But the point you're making is also valid, I think. Thanks. Yes, Danny. Go ahead. to me that my ignorance might be that I have a fixed view about enlightenment or what being a nice person or skillful need.

[38:33]

Yes. That insidness is the ignorance. I couldn't understand it that way or I couldn't understand it as we would just know what ignorance is. It's their view immutable. I have to think about that one for a while. In the same way sort of in the Interesting. I have to think about that. The fundamental affliction of ignorance. Yeah. Yeah. And then there's the immutableness of this Buddha thing, right? Um, how I've usually taken it as, as a, um, um, encouragement, a kind of surprising encouragement to, um, to not make decisions about part of myself that are,

[39:48]

stuck. You know, they're like, oh, this is obviously not okay. I mean, sometimes I make those decisions about things out there, but I and I think most of us actually make the harshest decisions about parts of ourself, you know, and the most immutable, you know, the most, the strongest, like, this part is not okay. This vulnerability, this anger, this laziness, this, you know, lust, various things, it's clear to us in the pit of our stomach, this is not okay. And I must do everything I can to change it. So this sentence is like, especially if I've tried and tried and tried to change something and it doesn't change, it's like a lifeline of something. Oh, wait a minute. This fundamental affliction may not, may actually be the immutable knowledge of the Buddhas.

[40:56]

And there have been times when I've actually seen that about things that I thought, it's not okay, it's not okay. But they actually are functioning in the same way, you know, that Dogen and Shoako Kumara are saying the moon is the myriad things. They're functioning in that realm of the myriad things. You know, it's interacting with other beings, other things in a way that's alive and actually can be beneficial. So that's how I usually experience that sentence. Yeah. Yeah. And I think those two things are connected. You know, it's like they're, you know, the immutability of the Buddha is that it's big enough, it's, you know, it's unchanging enough to include all the changes.

[42:09]

And when we can be, when we can include our stuck parts, they actually do start to change. They aren't, you know, I think they, like, tighten, we tighten down around them, and they tighten up, and they're, like, there in some habit form. But as we hold them more lightly with more unknownness, you know, like, what are you really? You know, what's really going on here? Then this, like, you know, if you've got anger, like, that comes up, just comes up. Like, there was a guy here years ago, Anytime anyone would say, I wish I could remember the phrase, it was some common phrase, like... Anyway, I can't remember what it was, but he would, like, blow up. And finally, after some amount of time, he realized, I hear my father saying that to me. You know, when I was a little kid, and it basically meant I was stupid. And so, you know, in that, like...

[43:12]

terrible thing he was doing, you know, blowing up, people were hurt by it, was embedded in there this little kid who was, you know, really suffering from feeling not accepted and loved and protected by his father. So our things that we can see, it's not that we're totally stupid, you know, we look at it and we see, oh, this is a dangerous thing here, this part of me, you know. People could be hurt by this. I could be hurt by this. We're not making that up. But our thought that, oh, and I should just take my scapel and amputate it, is really egotistical. We don't know where the ends of it are. We don't know really what it is. So we need to sit still with it, gently with it, and let it unfold. And then which parts of it stay and which parts of it change. Who knows? Thanks.

[44:18]

Anything else? Yes, Michael. Thank you for your talk. And I was just, I was curious about your example that you gave with the serial and how that kind of unfolds. I mean, I can hear you talk about it unfolding here in a talk. But, you know, I think about something like that unfolded for me at Taos Parra. And the first place I go is to dissection and analysis. If I'm aware. I mean, lots of times I'm just not aware. Just like 10 seconds later, I'm like, oh, man. But I mean, if I'm aware, then typically I start to go, oh, wait a second. This is what I'm doing. This is why I'm doing it. This is what I'm not doing. This is what I think I might not be doing. And try to kind of engage the discursively. Yes, yes. And that's not what you're talking about, right? It's kind of an awareness of, without language, what is happening without holding on to my feeling toward what's happened. Is that correct?

[45:20]

An awareness of... I stopped following you right there, but let me say... So our minds need to be involved because they're there and they're very active and they're really a part of our life. So it's not like thinking about things is all bad, but... I think most of us, and some to more extent than another, maybe because they're more effective at it, basically we use what we've got to get away from pain. So I think a lot of times we use thinking to get away from vulnerability or pain. And something like you're describing is probably a lot of times that's what's happening. It's like, for some reason, I don't feel good. And so... What would it be? Why don't I feel good? Oh, you. You know, are you? Are you? Are you? It's so obvious. And they're, you know, and they're like proving it.

[46:20]

They, you know, they provide all the proof we need and there's no question and we could, you know, we could think about it forever and be in a safe little place where we can think about what's wrong and maybe even solve it. so that we never have to feel discomfort or fear. So yeah, I think putting ourself in a stable position, sitting, standing, walking, or lying down, and allowing what's there to happen and not being distracted by our story about it. We don't have to stop our story. We just realize our story is incomplete and try to come back to whatever it is we're trying to avoid. Again, it isn't like words aren't part of that. Words help a lot sometimes, but especially if that's our habit, it's good to try to get underneath it. Yes, yes, yes.

[47:38]

Yes. And you can go on. Yeah. Yeah. Well, If we think we need to get each reaction we have, we're going to be in trouble. So really, even though things aren't really coming at us any faster out there, because it's all dependent on our equipment. We can only take in so much. We're seeing and experiencing many things that we don't notice always here at Tassajara, too. Things that make a big impact will get through, here or out there.

[48:41]

And it's more just being, it's not getting hold of them and knowing that I just had a reaction to that bird singing. It's just flowing along with it. Yeah. It's being comfortable with not knowing. It's being comfortable with not being in control. We're quite happily part of the universe. We are the moon and the stars and all that. We're this little dewdrop, but we aren't in control of it. We aren't even in control of the dewdrop's life, and we don't like that. as we can settle with, you know, anything really, you know, the amount of rice we get, the way that person looked at us, pretty much it comes back to, ah, you know, I'm, they might hurt me, or I'm not protected, or I'm gonna die, or, you know, somewhere in that range, the general disease, the general disease of being a human being, you know, somebody who,

[49:58]

has a sense that I'm somebody and I'm not protected. So yeah, it's like being willing to be that being here at Tassajara or out there. It's not easy. Thank you. We tend to separate from that feeling that we get that's particularly, you know, afflictive feelings. Yes. We tend to, like, go somewhere else really quick mentally. Yes. I was just thinking, I wonder what you think about trying to... And often I have very, what, judgmental... thoughts going on in my head, not myself. You're not okay, you're dumb, or you make this mistake, or whatever.

[51:01]

What do you think about, in order to not separate, to say, to look inward and say, I really love you, and I'm gonna hold you, I'll take care of you. In order to get closer to feeling and not separating, what do you think about some sort of exercise? I think sometimes that's really helpful. It's mainly about the attitude. So sometimes this is a place where words might be helpful to remind us of this attitude of acceptance, of gentleness, of connectedness. So I think it's worth a try. saving all beings and suffering. And if our suffering is just, is kind of about being uncomfortable, you know, what's the difference between trying to make ourselves comfortable to the point of neurosis, you know, and saving all beings and suffering?

[52:25]

What's the difference between, well, first of all, You know, I think of saving all beings as I vow to save all beings from my idea of them. You know, all beings are going along suffering in one way or another and also not suffering. But my ideas about them pretty much put them in some box, right? So to loosen that box at least to know that okay, this is not complete. So then you said, what is the difference between saving all beings and, could you say it one more time? Well, yeah, I mean, I guess in that regard, so like, I feel like I want to understand myself more so that I might be suffering less and then help others as well. Yes. Yes, good idea.

[53:28]

Yeah, but it's still an idea, right? In order to understand myself, don't I need to have packages of here's how that's happening and here's how that's happening and this is why? And kind of a lot of constructive ideas. Don't you need to have that to understand yourself? No. No, I don't think so. I think really understanding, because we identify so much with our mind and we rely on it so much, we think of understanding as something I'll have the right idea. And somebody can tell it to me, maybe a book or a teacher could give me the right view, the right idea, and then I would know it and I could apply it to things. But I think understanding is really much more of an experience. It's an experience of this interaction, this relationship of how things impact each other and how, in particular, they impact this being and a willingness to be that in a way that allows us not to go to our habit of how we go about stopping that, which usually causes suffering to ourselves and others.

[54:46]

I think you're right. Our habits are pretty much our attempt at making ourselves more comfortable, and the thing is they don't work. If you have any habits that actually make you more comfortable, You know probably you should keep doing them, but but I suggest you look really carefully whether that's true You know does it make you more comfortable? Immediately or does it make you more comfortable and all that lasts in a way and you know kind of what's going on there It's not like all habits are bad. There can be really good habits, too, but The ones that pretty much bother us are the ones that don't work and if we can look at them freshly and see that they don't work and

[55:53]

we have more possibility of actual comfort. Because it is true. We're more able to... And it's interesting. Look at Darlene. How do you be comfortable with real deep discomfort? And if it's your only possibility, if you've got a bowl of rice and you're in the Zendo, And your only possibility is to eat the rice or there are other things you could do. But if your body is uncomfortable, if your body is really sick or emotionally torn, to keep pretending like there must be some other option here. Maybe if I just decided I'm well, I'd be well. Because we do that with emotional pain. Maybe if I just decided... blah, blah, blah, you know. I'm going to stay at Tassar for the rest of my life. And then I wouldn't have this pain anymore of deciding where I'm going to be, right?

[56:56]

Probably not an option. So could we just, you know, be willing to have not knowing? Yeah, thank you. Brendan? I'm thinking about this dew drop, not this dew drop, but the conditions for that. or this tension, and a Dijon can't exist without those conditions or without that tension. And it just seems to me like surface tension, like literally like surface tension. But also, I'm really connecting with that aspect of tension, not being able to control what's happening. For me, just like this tension arises with it, and that's how I'm saying it. So you're talking about this internal tension arises with... Not just internal tension.

[57:56]

Internal intention with not being able to control circumstances and your personal tension, you know. Yes. Because two people are holding on to something tightly. Yes. You know, sometimes, you know, those circumstances lead to there being this kind of like, you know, sometimes two people are holding on to something tightly and they meet and it just kind of drops. Yes. Yeah. word I'm searching for, it's grace. Yes, yes. But sometimes to people, all the intention, things just fall apart into a big mess. Yes. And, you know, for me personally, I have a great desire for unity, and it's hard for me to see the falling apart into a big mess as a community, but I just don't try to do that. And some things take a while. It's like we need to stay open to what is this? Is there any way that this is beneficial?

[58:59]

And keep, I think, keep trying to notice which part of the tension is extra. Can I relax this part of the tension? Sometimes the answer is yes. Sometimes even just seeing it, like you say, not only externally, but internally, it just goes away. But sometimes it doesn't. So then can I... It's like turning away and touching are both wrong. It's like a massive fire. So if the tension won't go away, but I've noticed it, to keep my eyes on it because we realize, oh, this is... It's like a rubber band that's stretched. Somebody comes along and they... bump into it, it's liable to fly off, right? So I need to watch it and, you know, be careful with it. Yeah. Dan? Very often in living here, when we're not in Zendo, I notice that some

[60:09]

inner discomfort, inner tension arises, but I have to respond to some external things going on. And it's like, that can be painful. So I'm wondering what you have to say about responding to external situations when you know that you're not clear. You don't have the time in that situation to settle. I think it's well planned in this life, this monastic life, to make that necessary, that that happens. Because we are so prone to relying on our control. If I could just make myself... I won't talk to that person until I really understand what's going on with me. And once I've got my feelings well under control and everything's okay, then I'll talk to them because then I'll be really safe.

[61:18]

I won't have to be vulnerable. I won't have to admit that I have these childish feelings or whatever. So we're sort of pushed over the edge here. They make you get tired. They make you get up at ungodly hours. work and do all kinds of things, and then they ask you to be nice. Or then they tell you, you know, you have to be Jikido again, you know? And really, it's too much. So you just fall over the edge, you know, and which I think we need to see that falling over the edge is part of life. We don't, you know, it's not that we try to do that. We try not to hurt people, right? And we try not to hurt ourself. But if you... snap at somebody, hopefully you can go back and apologize to them. There's an organicness to what's happening.

[62:20]

It's not me. I'm not getting to paint the whole picture. Even this part of it is not under my control, and yet I can't give away the responsibility for it. Yeah, it's a dangerous world we live in. Key. Oh, good. Yes. there's always this tension and duality that Zen teachers often bring out about knowing and not knowing and understanding and letting go and language and not language. And I've heard you say two things when they talk.

[63:22]

One thing in response to Michael is that it's not that we do this process of accepting without language because our minds are inevitably a part of our being. and so they need to be involved in something or integrated. And then, but there's still kind of like this feeling that we'll not know our dyslexia better than them. So we should do not know and put that thought. I don't think it's that it's better. It's that it's bigger. It's like what we can know, we should know. That's good. And we shouldn't pretend not to know. And levels of knowing are different for different people in different areas and what we can understand and what we can articulate. But as far as our mind can go, given the situation, like if you have to spend your time chopping vegetables or taking care of a baby or something, maybe you don't have time to read Dogen, that's fine.

[64:29]

But then know your baby or know your vegetables or something. But it's just that not knowing is so much bigger. It's our knowing happens within not knowing. And we'll never get to the end of the not knowing. So we shouldn't pretend like somehow this dewdrop can see, can know the moon. No, I don't know the moon. But... you know, I can know various things or I can know them in the way that I can know them and I can know that they're part of a much bigger thing. And then I'm thinking about expedient meanings, like for the body of the school, of which you have like an endless lineage, the idea is to have no views or to end all views. To not have is not knowing. Yeah, you can call knowing enough to know that you don't know.

[65:36]

Yeah, or knowing how to not know, or knowing when you're just going off on your own trip. Yeah, or when you can go on your trip far enough. that it becomes apparent that it's a trip, you know, like Dogen or Nagarjuna, you know, like, oh, where are we? Yeah, thank you. So maybe that's enough for this morning. Thank you all 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. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[66:36]

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