Thank you. This is where I should get to talk on my own.

[19:17]

It is a good thing, this is where I'm leaving, and I'm just waiting for it. Even in my mind, I'm going to be glad to sit in the middle of the house. I've had no need to get this to the ski end of the snow studio. This is where I'm going, but I'm not going to make sense. I've been able to buy out my books to see this, but I'm sure we've got the best to find some of this works. Good evening, everyone. Oh, it's loud. Good evening. My name is Kim Kogen Daiho Hart, and I would like to thank the Tanto for inviting me to give this talk. And thank you as well to the Abbot Tenzin David Zimmerman for taking such good care of our temple.

[20:21]

This evening, I'd like to talk about the sacred. Now, I don't know about any of you, but I have sacred things at home. I have an altar that I've got the Buddha, I've got the candle, I've got the flowers, and then all sorts of tchotchkes. I've got mala beads that somebody gave me. I've got one of my cat's collars from a cat that passed a few years ago that I completely loved, photographs of my loved ones, people who have passed. These are very, very sacred things to me. And in fact, when I was helping Shozan Victoria Austin, one of our very senior teachers here, to clean her apartment a few months ago, I was helping her clean her altar and I was surprised. Well, I wasn't surprised. I was heartened to see that she, too, on her altar when I was helping her clean, it's full of photographs of former teachers and poems and things that remind her of the past and of sacred times.

[21:26]

And perhaps you can take a moment and think about what are the sacred things that you have in your life. If you have an altar at home, what do you have on your altar? What does it represent for you? The first time I remember thinking about something sacred, I was very young. I was about eight years old. And I went to my mum and I said to her, for Christmas, I would very much like a Bible. And I was quite clear that I wanted a Bible that had that very, very fine tissue paper. I didn't want a children's Bible that was big with pictures and thick paper. I wanted something that had the sacred quality. I remember very clearly that that's what I wanted. I wanted something old and leather bound. And that was the first time that I remember thinking about the sacred. And then another moment was when I first started practicing Zen.

[22:28]

I was about, I guess I was probably 19 or 20 years old. And it was my first ever, I think it was like a three day set. I was in South Africa. And back then, I don't even think we had any Zendos or even formal Zen practice in South Africa. So it was at someone's house and they had invited a senior teacher. His name was Mudung Sunim. So I think he was probably from Burma. Excuse me, it's very hot. I can relate to you. And... I sat, you know, I did this three days and I was very new. I was clearly the newest person there. And there was this opportunity to do an interview with the teacher. And I was like, okay, well, I've never done that before. It sounds like an intimidating and terrifying thing to do, but I really, I really want to do this. And so I went in and I sat down and he said, well, do you have a question for me? And the question I came up with just, it's not really to do with this talk, but I think it's interesting anyway.

[23:33]

I was like, well, I'm a very new Zen teacher. practitioner, what advice would you have for a very new Zen practitioner? And he said, sit Zazen every day for 10 minutes. That's my advice to you. Every day, just 10 minutes, make sure you sit meditation. And then I said, thank you so much. And as I was about to get up and leave, he said, wait, wait, wait. And he reached behind him and he got something and he took my hand and he put it in my hand. And I looked and he'd given me a little pendant and on it was Kanon. which is the Japanese word for the bodhisattva of compassion that in this building here we refer to as Avalokiteshvara. So it's the bodhisattva of compassion. And it was kind of like, I think this was like in the late 80s, we were very into like mood rings and things. They would change color depending on the temperature of your body. And it was like a mood pendant. So it would change color depending on how I was feeling. Oh, I love this thing. It was so... precious to me.

[24:33]

I was like, this great Zen master is giving me, I'm going to wear it forever. So I remember getting that and I really, really treasured it. I wore it for a very long time. And then in those early days of meditation where I would sit and meditate, I would sit, I remember learning that you should learn to concentrate. So I concentrated hard on looking at a candle. I would sit and stare at this candle and intensely wanted to bring in a kind of special, powerful, sacred energy into meditation. But after a while, and after, welcome, after discovering Zazen and the practice of Zazen, which is what we do in this tradition, I realized that it's not actually necessary to invoke or try and create a special, powerful, sacred energy. Because through Zazen, the sacred energy sacredness of the moments actually reveals itself. It's always there. Now in life, we seek answers.

[25:35]

We want to know who we are, why we're here, and what happens after we die. And no matter how much we study or think about these things, there's always going to be a mystery about them. They're beyond our understanding. And this is called the sacred mystery. It's not something to be solved, but something that we embrace in Buddhism. We don't try to explain things with fixed beliefs. Instead, we try and observe and see how everything changes from moment to moment. Nothing stays the same. Even if you look at the leaves on the trees, whether the light is changing or the wind is moving through them or season to season, They don't stay the same. They're constantly changing. And as we recognize this, we begin to see that life itself is a mystery, a sacred unfolding, a sacred unfolding of moments. So the Buddha taught that wisdom came not from having the answers, but from seeing things as they are.

[26:45]

And in Zazen, we don't chase after our thoughts and try and resolve things through our beliefs, but we observe in stillness, and that way we connect with the present moment. And in this present moment, the sacred mystery is alive. And this allows us to be open to the experience of not knowing, to be able to be able to rest more in uncertainty. This shift in perspective is powerful and it frees us from the need to control and allows us to live with a little bit more ease. The sacred mystery is not outside of us. It's not actually held in books or in pendants. The sacred mystery is pointing to what the Buddha refers to as the three marks of existence. These are a foundational principle of Buddhism that explains the nature of reality.

[27:47]

Now, the three marks of existence are impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, or sometimes called suffering, but I think unsatisfactoriness is more accurate, and non-self. So I'll go through these. The three marks of existence, as spoken about in Buddhism, are marked by impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and non-self. Impermanence is pretty self-explanatory. And in fact, even Suzuki Roshi, when he was asked, what's your elevator pitch for Zen Buddhism? He was like, everything changes. Everything changes and everything changes everything. So this applies to all things. It applies to our thoughts. It applies to objects. And it applies to emotions. They're arising, they're changing, and then they cease. And I encourage you to investigate this in your own life. When you're doing meditation, even when you're not, consider if this is true. I've spent many years considering it, and it turns out Buddha was right.

[28:50]

Everything is impermanent and everything changes. So that's the first mark of existence. The second one is unsatisfactoriness, which is basically saying that we suffer because we don't want to accept the nature of... We actually don't want things to change constantly and all the time. And we see ourselves as separate and independent from our context, that we have some kind of hard and fast reality. And our resistance to these two truths means that we suffer. Things are fundamentally unsatisfying. The third mark of existence is this non-self. Sometimes people hear that, and in Buddhism, they think that we're talking about that there is no self. This is inaccurate. It's non-self. It means there is no... There's no abiding self. I'm not the same person I was when I was 14. And I'm also not the same person I am even today when I'm with my grandmother versus when I'm with my husband who's sitting back there versus when I'm sitting in front of all of you. We change depending on our context.

[29:55]

We are entirely related to what is happening around us, all the causes and conditions of our life. There is no abiding hard and fast reality of anything that exists independent of its context. So these are the three marks of existence. So once I saw that everything... Oops, I just completely lost my timer, which is not great. Here we go. Once I saw that everything was constantly changing, my relationship to physical objects changed. I was then able to consider, well, these objects that I was holding that I considered so sacred, this pendant or this Bible or any of the other things that I have, how could they themselves be sacred? And I realized that everything exists as a result of its ever-changing context and exists in a perpetual state of change. And I, through careful attention, could participate in this.

[31:02]

fleeting reality, this present moment, this sacred moment. We spend a lot of time maybe thinking about the future, but the future's not here. We might reflect on the past and spend time thinking about the past, but the past is already gone. And some of you might be anticipating that I'm about to say the only thing that's here is the present, but see if you can grab it. The present's ungraspable too. You are not standing on solid ground. but you have the opportunity right now and only right now to participate in this dynamism, this fleeting, exquisite, completely transitory, tragic, phenomenal full moment that is your life. Understanding this helped me to understand that uncertainty is a part of life. And this has actually helped me to find peace. Change is existence. Change is natural. And change as an expression of the moment is our life.

[32:05]

We can begin to see the state of change, this uncertainty, not as a threat, but actually as an expression of the potential that we have. It's our natural inheritance. And sacredness is not something that's separate from our daily life. It's present in simple, ordinary things, like having your cup of coffee in the morning. or taking a breath. I can feel the air. And the simple act of breathing is a miracle. It is keeping me alive. And how often do we reflect on that? We are being kept alive by breath that we barely even pay attention to. Right now, as you're breathing, you are fully alive. And this sacred moment, is no different than any other moment of your life. Think about the sound of the traffic. Notice how it's expressing the first mark of existence in permanence.

[33:14]

It's rising, it changes, it fades away. The sound of people's voices. Feel the air on your skin right now. These are moments of connection with life itself. And when we stop to appreciate them, we can rediscover a deep sense of peace and gratitude. And this is at the heart of why we practice Zen. Abraham Joshua Heschel is a great Jewish theologian, and he had a wonderful expression. He said, when referring to the Sabbath, it is a time when we can build a cathedral, in time as opposed to in space. And we have this opportunity at any point, we can build a cathedral in time. And this is what it is for me, is creating a temple in time. It's always with you and you can access it whenever you want.

[34:17]

As a priest, when I took my vows, I took a vow to uphold and transmit the sacred. And in general, within Zen practice, we have many residents here and people who are Zen practitioners. We've got many ways of practicing being present or practicing presence. The most obvious one is Zazen. For those of you who'd like to join us or who are new here. Or if you're online and close by, you're welcome to come and join us. We sit every morning at 5.40 a.m. And most oftenoons, I think Monday through Friday at 5.40 p.m. So you're very welcome to come and join us in the Zendo. And this is a practice where we are sitting and practicing being present, constantly coming back into the body, coming back to the breath, to the sound, to the physical five senses, six senses. and re-establishing connection with the present moment. But it's not so easy, especially sitting.

[35:21]

And once you've been sitting for a little while, you can get quite comfortable. And when you're comfortable, your mind can drift off, and you think about the cup of coffee after Zazen, and you think about the arguments you had yesterday with somebody. It's a tricky practice, slippery. So within the Zen practice, we have other ways of bringing ourselves into bodily presence. For example, one example is bowing. You'll notice when I came in here, I did a bow. Every part of that is prescribed. I step forward with the right foot. I step back with the left foot. I bow in a very particular way with my fingers all together. I do this as honoring my teacher, but all our fingers together and our thumb inside and this kind of parallel to the ground. And we bow in a very particular way from the hip. It's prescribed like this, not to be particular and to be inflexible and to have all these rules. Oh, hello. Excuse me.

[36:21]

Please, everybody, turn off your phones. It's so that we are brought into our physical body. You know, when you're first learning a piece of music, you have to concentrate really hard and look at the notes and be trying to like memorize it. And it's the same when you first come to Zen practice. We walk into a room or we walk into the Zen, though you enter with your left foot, you exit with your left foot. When we, before we sit Zazen, we will go to our cushion and we bow to it. And then we turn clockwise and we bow away from it. Every part of our movements within Zen practice are prescribed. But this is because it is teaching us how to get into our bodies so that like the musician who eventually learns that beautiful piece of music, they can play it and be in their body and express beautiful music. We can practice with our bodies. We can step in, we can be very, it's being present.

[37:23]

physically, because the body, more so than the mind, is always in the present. So it's a really helpful practice learning how to get back into the body. So sometimes what looks like from the outside, us having all these very particular, like eccentric ways, it might look a bit wild, but it's actually, this is all part of a practice to help us and to train us as priests and non-priests to get into the present. Even our Our robes, like I'm wearing this. This is called an okesa, and it's really quite big. You'll see the priests around you wearing them. But some people are wearing rakasus, which is more like, who's wearing a rakasu here? Shoko's wearing one over there. It's like a miniature, miniature okesa. And these, we make these ourselves. That's also part of a presencing practice. So when you take lay ordination or priest ordination, and you're sewing those with every stitch, You're chanting, I take refuge in Buddha.

[38:27]

I take refuge in Dharma. I take refuge in Sangha. And we're practicing being in our bodies in the present as an expression, as an expression of pilgrimage towards the sacred. Sometimes within this tradition, we intentionally use training methods that are tricky and difficult. I'll use the robes again as an example. Oops, sorry. These sleeves are exceptionally long, and I can't walk around with my arms just down by my side like I would if I was just walking outside in the street. My robes are part of my training. This particular robe is quite a tricky teacher because she sticks, you know, and she doesn't move the way she's supposed to move. And these are hard robes to wear in any way that you're going to look elegant. So it becomes a really fastidious teacher wearing priest's robes. And if you just start at the temple, when you come in in the morning after we've sat zazen, we come and do service.

[39:30]

And then after that, we do 20 minutes of temple cleaning. And if you're somebody who's new, or even if you're not somebody who's new, you might be asked to go outside and sweep. And we sweep the sidewalks here. And sometimes it's windy and you're sweeping leaves in the wind. And it's like, what's the point? That's the point. Sweeping leaves in the wind is just the most perfect expression of Zen practice because it is about being present. It's not about focusing on a goal or getting something done. It's about being in this present, beautiful, sacred moment and just being thoroughly in the body. And this is why we practice this way. For me, one of the most poignant parts of our traditional training is when the Han is calling us. So the Han, if you come for meditation, you'll hear this wooden kind of cluck, cluck. And again, it's also struck in a very particular way. And it lets the practitioners know how long they've still got to go before they need to be in this endo.

[40:32]

But you're striking with a mallet on a piece of wood. And what that piece of wood says is great is the matter of birth and death. Swiftly passing, gone, gone. Wake up, wake up. Do not waste this life. This is the essence of our teaching. It's about pay attention. We're calling you to Zazen. We're calling you to being present in your own life. And we need to practice it because we're not so good at it. Our minds like to wonder. We're always lost in our thoughts. And when we are, we miss the beauty and sacredness that exists. here and now. Even daily practices like having a cup of coffee or spending time with your cat can be sacred if you do them with awareness. When you hold your coffee tomorrow morning, feel its warmth. Taste it fully. Smell that coffee. Notice its scent. When you leave here later, just when I finished my talk, feel your feet on the ground moving from the tatami onto the cold,

[41:35]

Even as we're sitting, feel the weight of your body upon the ground that's holding you up like an absolute hero and has been for your whole life. No, no. Sacredness is not found in temples alone. It's in the ordinary, waiting to be experienced. And the more we slow down and pay attention, the more we realize that everything is already sacred. We can have those moments where we'll suddenly see a beautiful sunset. It'll take our breath away. And that is our awareness meeting what's happening right there. And you're like, oh, this is a sacred moment. Or when you're coming in after a hard day's work and you stand and you get that blast of hot water from the shower on your face and you're shocked into the moment. These are ways that your body is, your bodily present and present. You really do realize the sacredness of the moment. And it's always available.

[42:36]

Sometimes we need some training to remember that, but that's always there. Dogen said that miracles are practiced 3,000 times in the morning and 800 times in the afternoon. And he was talking about ordinary things back in those days. Dogen is the founder of the school of Zen in Japan in the 1200s. So back in those days, it would have been things like fetching water. And he was referring to these things as miracles. The ordinary activities of every day are miracles. And he said, we will continue to thoroughly engage in each activity in order to cultivate the proper conditions to transform the 10 directions. And the 10 directions are north, south, east, west, north, west, north, east, those eight plus up and down. So basically to transform the whole universe through all time, let's bring awareness.

[43:42]

And let's bring attention to the moment. My father used to work in prisons in South Africa. He worked in maximum security. In fact, in the same prison, the last prison that Nelson Mandela was in before he was released in the 90s. And my father was a teacher, and he used to work in the shop, and he would teach what in South Africa we call fitting and turning. I don't know what you... call it in America, but you're working in a shop and you're training. He was training these men to be able to have a skill, a trade that they could take out into the world. But these were hardened criminals. He would come back with some pretty scary stories. But my father was very loved. He was always getting into trouble because he kept taking like... Coca-Cola in and cigarettes for the guys. And they were like, you can't do this. You're messing with the currency. You're causing trouble in prison. You can't just be giving stuff out, you know. And he was very loved. And one man, after he had served 14 years, came to my father and he presented him with a perfectly constructed engine of a car in miniature about this big that he had spent years making.

[44:55]

from things he'd stolen out of my father's shop. And he presented it to my father as this gift of something that he'd made for him over years. And to this day, it sits in my father's since past, but it sits in my father's home. They made a little prospects box for it because it was so poignant. The time, the attention, the energy that had gone into that. Suzuki Roshi says on my favorite bookmark here, one of my favorites, all my bookmarks are my favorites, we treat things very carefully and we respect things very much. Everything itself is Buddha, so we treat it as Buddha. Or we could say we treat things very carefully and we respect things very much. Everything itself is sacred, so we treat it as sacred. When we spend time worrying about the past or fretting about the future, we forget the most important thing, the present moment.

[46:00]

And true peace and happiness are found when we are fully present and in the present. Paying attention to the present without judgment is not so easy, but it is simple. It's not so easy because our minds wonder. But if we can come back to the present, we begin to see life in a new way when we are present in our very life. When I bow to you, I'm not just bowing, I am living. This is the power of presence. When I am present with my activity and I'm not thinking about what comes next, it becomes a way of being in the middle of my life. and all of my senses are activated because I am bodily in the present moment. This approach can also help us deal with difficult emotions. When we feel angry or sad, we might try and push those feelings away.

[47:01]

But if we can experience being present, then we can learn to face them gently and observe them without fear. And in this way, we can see that they are like waves. They come and they go, and they do not control us. Once again, the first mark of existence, the nature of impermanence. In Buddhism, we learn that sacredness is also found in how we relate to others. One of the most powerful ways we can learn to rediscover the sacred in life is through compassion and by offering kindness and understanding to ourselves and to those around us. Compassion begins with understanding that everybody has struggles, pain and joy, just like you do. When we see our struggles reflected in others or other struggles reflecting in our own, our hearts naturally open.

[48:03]

And a kind word or even just listening to someone with full intention, with full attention, excuse me, can create a sacred connection between people. I am filled with gratitude that you all are here with me right now. We are sharing a perfect sacred moment. We have created a sacred connection right here in this moment. And I'm very grateful to all of you. So what do we do if we see somebody who is struggling? We can extend our compassion to that person or we can give them words of support. And we should extend that to ourselves as well. The acceptance of our own vulnerability helps us open our hearts and the sacredness within our own hearts. When we extend compassion to others, then we experience the interconnectedness of all life. And this again links back to the three marks of existence of Buddhism.

[49:06]

Non-self means that you are connected to everything around you so deeply and intimately. This is called inter-being. It means that we are all connected and the well-being of one person will affect the well-being of everyone. And when we act with compassion, We are not only helping others, but we are nurturing the sacred bond of all interconnectedness, and that ties us all together. Like I mentioned earlier, my father passed about four years after that gentleman gave him that gift. And at his funeral, there were all the people in the prison at the front. But at the back of the funeral, at the back of the church, it was just filling up with all of these ex-cons. Everybody came to see my father off where it had gotten around. And it was so moving.

[50:07]

It was a moment of real interconnectedness and a reminder that how we are in the world affects everybody and continues to infinitely. In the end, compassion transforms our view of the world. We begin to see that every person we meet and every challenge we face and every act of kindness we give or receive is a part of something sacred. And by living with compassion, we rediscover the sacred, not just within ourselves, but in every aspect of life. So where is the sacred? It's not held in books. It's not held in these beautiful objects we keep on our altar. It is here. It is in every breath that we take and every small act of kindness. In fact, in every act, in every small act, it doesn't discriminate. Life itself is sacred. And when we slow down and we become present and open our hearts to compassion, we can reconnect to that very deep truth.

[51:13]

Each day offers countless opportunities to notice the sacredness, whether you are washing dishes or driving to work. There are value in all experiences. So experience the experience that's being experienced. You don't need to seek special places or wait for perfect conditions. You have the opportunity to build a cathedral in time wherever you are and remember your sacred breath. you are essentially life recognizing itself. I'd like to end with a poem by Wendell Berry. When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,

[52:16]

I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water and I feel above me the day blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world and am free. I'm going to read that again just because we have a minute and it's so beautiful. When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things

[53:18]

who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water, and I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time, I rest in the grace of the world and am free. Thank you. Okay, so if you have a question or a comment for Kim...

[54:19]

Raise your hand and I'll bring you the mic. Hi, Kim. I think it's machining with lathes and working metal is machining. Yeah. Yes. My job of learning to translate into American is an ongoing practice. Thanks, Kim. It seems like so much of the sacred is really about making a decision. Can you say something about that, that it's really our decision to decide whether or not something is or is not sacred? Well, things are inherently neither sacred nor not sacred because things...

[55:20]

do not exist in any hard and fast way, independent of their context. So the important thing, I guess, that I wanted to communicate with this talk is that it is the moment that is sacred. And it is not down to a decision as to whether, even whether we like the moment or don't. It can be an unpleasant moment, but this is the juiciness of our life. And that in and of itself is sacred. The only decision is whether we pay attention to it. And that is very important because if we don't pay attention to our life, we miss it. And it's important to pay attention to your life and to not miss it because it's one wild and precious life. Does that answer your question, Tonto? Thank you. Thank you. Another question? Thank you. I wanted to ask you, there is one struggle which goes on me, is that there's a teaching which I've taught for long, that the story of this Tibetan nun, which was in prison in the Tibet for years, like 30 years, and she come back and His Holiness asked her, that what was your fear?

[56:43]

She said, there is one time when I was really feared that I will losing my dharma and he thought that he was thinking that she's referring her life was in danger but she said that she was very very feared in one time because she thinks that this is the moment where i really lose the compassion towards the chinese police which was present so this is the teaching which is how i try to follow you know that there are certain things and certain things which happen But how you do a balance, or is it to have the balance, to having, you try to do a compassion, even the person which is, you know that you can destroy his life completely in so many ways, but you are trying to take that step back because of your own commitment to yourself. But in the times of that, you feel like, no, you're doing harm more than doing for yourself. I still struggle in this.

[57:46]

So what is the balance it should be? Okay, I'm not sure I completely understand the question, but it sounds like it's around compassion. And it sounds like this nun was afraid that she was going to lose the compassion that she had for the Chinese people. And that says to me that this great nun understood that compassion was very important. I'm not really an expert on compassion. I struggle with a lot of the same questions that you do. But I think even when we do not necessarily feel compassion, we can still be in touch with that, investigate it, and be present with it. And then it raises the questions. Like at the beginning of this, I said, we don't know the answers. We observe compassion. And we are open and we live in uncertainty. And as long as we remain open and uncertain, we are full of potential for understanding.

[58:51]

And that is what is important. And in a way, that is what compassion is, is having an open heart, willing to consider everything. We don't need to decide beforehand. Thank you. I think it's bedtime. Yeah, I think that's all we have time for. Thank you. Thank you. . [...]

[60:12]

. [...] If you could help us not bring those back to the shelf, we're going to have to be great.

[62:44]

Thank you.

[62:45]

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