This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. Everybody hear me okay? That's my grandma or granddaughter, Tallulah, out there. My name's Miles. And Nancy and I drove from Sebastopol this morning where we live. But this feels so much like home to my friends.

[01:04]

the instruments, the Buddhas, the cyclists headed out to Marin on the Golden Gate Bridge. It's funny because I took or I came from the South Bay about 13 years ago. My brother actually drove me here and Lucy Zhao opened the door for us. And even after a couple of years here, still driving back from the South Bay, Driving into San Francisco didn't feel like home. But now it does. The chant that we do, having it to see and listen to, To remember and accept.

[02:09]

The first few months here, I thought it was to remember and forget. It always reminds me that forgetting is not the problem. It's remembering what we forgot. And just being here, it reminds me of all the Beautiful ways I've been here. Zen Center is interesting in that as soon as you acquire the expertise to do something, they just give you something else to fail at. And so here I am failing to get the microphone on. I woke up last night, I was up for like 47 minutes and I've been putting this talk together and it kind of came to me last night about bearing witness to the tension in our life and how my whole life I was taught

[03:40]

or I saw to look away. And so here I am, hands a little shaky, mouth a little dry. Maybe giving a visualization of being in a space and feeling tension and sharing that with a community. that I trust. In the room and for those of you online, I wish I could see your smiling faces in your Zoom boxes. So, I'm Miles. I'm a student of Paul Hollers. He couldn't be here, but he's sweet. He texted me last night that he wouldn't be here, but he's here in spirit. Just about when I started here that I asked Paul to be my teacher and we had this conversation.

[04:47]

And I think we both had doubts when I asked him to be my teacher. And it's amazing the trajectory. I think when I first started being his student, I projected a father figure, somebody I needed approval for. which has transitioned into brotherly love. And I joked with Paul. I said, Paul, what's changed? And he said, me. And it's true. I think through the process of the anxiety of constantly being asked to do something new things in a community you trust, you can't help but acquire some self-love.

[05:52]

At least I have. And when I give these Dharma talks, I always want to say that I think I have a habit of saying we or us. which I apologize for. As I sit in this seat, there may be some human behavior or a human experience we share, but I don't want you to feel that I know your experience or that I can tell you your experience. So as I sit here and share, I speak from my heart and my mind. Paul's teacher was Mel, and Mel's teacher was Suzuki Roshi. And Suzuki Roshi brought this Zen to America. And I've always thought it fascinating that he arrived on May 23rd, 1959 to be the priest at Sakoji, which is just up the street here,

[07:11]

was a Japanese is a Japanese so it was then temple but what I always found interesting what it was 14 years after World War II when America had dropped two atomic bombs on Japan and annihilated most of the cities with firebombs and 14 years is a while but still And it was 13 years after internment where the Japanese congregation continued to pay for the temple from internment camps for four years. And yet, Suzuki Roshi opened his heart to American practitioners. And we're here because of that.

[08:13]

And we're, I'm, see, we. I'm trying to create some self-love and compassion and empathy because of it. It's interesting that the Sakoji board eventually asked Suzuki Roshi to leave because he couldn't manage both. At one point, the Japanese congregation and the American congregation was practicing separately. So in 69, he went full-time with the San Francisco Zen Center, and very recently after that, we bought this place and practiced here. One of the things that I acquired on my trajectory of Zen is a robe.

[09:22]

And normally the process when you're sewing your robe is to say for each stitch. But I have to shamelessly admit that I was actually listening to Suzuki Roshi talks. And I listened to about a hundred of them at 3.30 in the morning before Zazen, sewing my robe. And they're available on our website and they've been audio corrected so you can hear them well. And essentially our Roshi was teaching the practice new students and it's frozen in time for us. So you can listen to those talks as if you were a student of the 60s.

[10:27]

Just like they were. And one of those talks stuck with me. It was a Shosan ceremony on Monday, November 11th, 1968. And a Shosan ceremony is a Dharma inquiry ceremony that happens within a practice period. So it's timed just about a time that the residents have gone feral enough to ask questions about their Dharma experience. publicly. So it would be as if we were sitting here and each one of you would get on your knees and ask a question in choku to the teacher publicly. My favorite question was my last practice period when a resident said, Hojo-san, how do I tell Catherine I stole a cookie from the kitchen?

[11:40]

And needless to say, Catherine was in the room. During the Shosan ceremony around 1968, the Vietnam peace talks were in a troubled state. Nixon was elected. The White Album was released, and the first interracial kiss happened on Star Trek. The question was from Pat Long, who was obviously a dedicated student and resident. And one of the things I read about her was that she spent the most terrifying summer of my life registering African Americans who lived in the South to vote.

[12:54]

I had met civil rights workers, listened to their firsthand accounts of the huge anger and violence of white Southerners. I had seen photos of white policemen releasing vicious dogs into crowds of African-Americans, turning fire hoses full blast on them, women and children who dared to stand up for equal rights under the law. I had heard and read of lynchings of busloads of freedom fighters set on fire. That's Pat Long. And Pat Long, during this Shosan, went into Choki. And she said, Roshi, could you explain what it means to be a serious Zen student? And Suzuki Roshi said, serious? Excuse me, serious Zen? As if the words didn't even go together. And Pat said, serious student of Zen Buddhism.

[14:00]

And Suzuki Roshi said, serious student Zen Buddhism? Don't try to be serious. And the Zendo laughed. Just keep up with our practice. Don't, you know, try to get up earlier than other people. And maybe some of us in the room have a way of getting up earlier than somebody else we're in competition with. Stay in bed, okay? And one of the benefits of doing a Dharma talk is actually pondering what's been important in your life. And this really has stuck to me. And as I was thinking about what I wanted to talk about, I thought about, well, if we're not serious, what can we be?

[15:06]

And the answer that came up was sincerity. And for me, I realized the reason that my trajectory with my teacher became from father to brother was because Paul helped me focus on sincerity, not perfection. So I hope I did the forms right. I hope I do the forms when I leave right. I can tell you I'm sincerely engaged with doing it right. And then I can let it go. Seriousness can manifest as defensiveness out of a fear of being wrong for me. So seriousness has a way for me to manifest my fear.

[16:14]

When I thought about this Dharma talk, I thought about being in front of everybody publicly, the way I look, the way I talk, maybe my mouth's dry, maybe I'm shaking. And I thought, Just be sincere. Just bring all that I've brought through practice and try to share, not some way for everybody to be perfect, but for some way for everybody to manifest acceptance. what i came up with sincerity is that it can manifest as acceptance by bearing witness to the reality of the situation or your own feelings without resistance or judgment and i have to say i got one foot in vipassana and one foot in zen and um

[17:28]

It might've been Jack Kornfield that called it loving awareness. There's some enlightened state that I think I want to achieve, or thought I'd want to achieve, or that's achievable or important. But in some ways, it's actually what's underneath, which is just our bare witness. I look into your eyes, you look into me, you're the universe bringing in consciousness, and I'm the universe bringing in consciousness. Look around at everybody else. See all the eyes and ears of the universe looking back. And in some way it's neutral, which is... think what I always appreciate with friends, and that friends appreciate me listening without judgment, with neutrality, so they can find their way.

[18:50]

And the genius is, it's always there, right? You can't not be aware. There's no switch. But for me, the problem is it moves to my mind and then makes up stories. It's a story-making machine. I don't know about you, but my mind and it's in the future, it's in the present, it's in the past. So I started to think about what Suzuki Roshi was trying to tell Pat about seriousness, which is maybe the mind is useful so you can get here in time for the Dharma talk, but it's not the whole picture. And so for me, meditation is a way, I was thinking yesterday, it's kind of a way to bore yourself to death.

[20:09]

But it's the mind that dies. Because at some point, you just can't take it anymore. Right? It's like it's a revolving 10. It's like there's number one, there's number two. And maybe there's not just a way for it to stop, but with sincerity and acceptance, maybe it can be healed. I was thinking about what's different. I know, I hear from friends and family that people are stressed. And as I was stating what was happening for Suzuki Roshi and what was happening for Pat, I think we've made some progress.

[21:25]

We still have a lot to do. But it seems like with social media, we know everything all the time. And so is there a way to try to, for me, I actually deleted Facebook and Instagram because I just noticed it was just killing me. It was just like I needed to go back and be fed some information that would make me miserable. It's so bizarre. And I think the workings of way this sincerity and this seriousness work I think in some ways they kind of have the keys to the process and knowing how to feed that part of ourselves. I was thinking about seriousness as well.

[22:30]

Even if I'm right, sometimes it leads to self-righteousness. which doesn't feel good either. So acceptance. One of the things that I did when I got back from Tosahar the first time was those of us that went sat down and we kind of made goals that we wanted to achieve and I was just I wanted to sit full lotus which was kind of bizarre because I have a high school degree and it'd be like saying I want a PhD I think I was in the most pain at Tassahara during the whole practice period and so I just started sitting for an hour before Zazen and

[23:31]

And what I learned with my body, which also happens with my experience, is that I wasn't really stretching. I was bringing awareness to tension in my body. And my body had a way of connecting the pieces that had been disconnected to bring a flexibility to my body. I have this that pressure causes resistance and doesn't change behavior. So that anything that I apply force to, the force will be at least as much or more pushing back. And so whether it's my experience or my body, how can I bring this loving awareness in some ways, to a part of me that's reaching out for help.

[24:41]

That's asking for it to be seen. Defensiveness builds a wall to protect oneself from a perceived threat. And acceptance tears down the wall because the threat is no longer present, allowing for true intimacy and connection. As I was thinking about this sort of radical acceptance, as Tara Brach calls it, I was also thinking that when done, it needs to be in a community that's safe or a situation that's safe.

[25:49]

There's a six-month rule here that if you come in to the temple, you have to wait six months to begin a relationship. Because most people that come into a situation like this and feel fully accepted, feel loved. And mistake this love for romantic love. This isn't about merging or possession. It's about acceptance. It's not romantic intimacy. It's a spiritual intimacy.

[26:52]

For my last drama talk, I framed the precepts in a positive way because I always didn't like them in a negative way. if you know the precepts. So the first pure precept is I vow to refrain from all evil, which for me can bring a seriousness. Evil is bad. If I do evil, I'm a bad person. So I reframed it. I vow to reclaim and maintain my innocence. The innocence of not knowing. Even if I know now I can step back into it healed. I vow to reclaim and maintain my innocence, wholesomeness and benevolence through the cultivation of kindness and forgiveness.

[28:04]

And I, as I do this Dharma talk, Also frame that as loving awareness. Through the cultivation of loving awareness. Of cultivating that part of myself that accepts myself fully. Even when I make mistakes. And then I can pass that along to everybody else. I'm a hospice volunteer, and my patient is nonverbal, so we're reading Dogen's exquisite, exquisite? Dogen's record. And this popped up. which made me think about what we call maybe the absolute and the relative, what I might call mind and heart, maybe loving awareness, witnessing and acting.

[29:36]

He said, if the greatest cold does not penetrate into our bones, If the greatest cold does not penetrate into our bones, how will the fragrance of the plum blossoms pervade the entire universe? If the greatest cold we feel does not penetrate into our bones, how will we feel the fragrance of the plum blossoms pervade the entire universe? maybe I'll leave with this story I was at Tassajara when our good friend and residents and exquisite person Caroline went missing and was later found dead it was about three quarters into the practice period and everybody went kind of fully nuts and

[30:54]

John and Jean, their parents arrived. I picked them up at the airport. I was their assistant, and Yael and I took care of them while they were there. While they were there, Caroline was still missing, and it had been a few days. And it was really cold at Tassajara, like really cold. And each night we went to bed, those of us that went to bed, some were out hiking all night. You can imagine the grief we were feeling knowing our friend was out there. And Jean and I hiked the hills with some of the people that came in and helped. And we called out Caroline's name into the abyss, hoping that Caroline might call back. Sheen said, what if Caroline hears me but can't call out?

[32:03]

And then Caroline's body was found. And we had a memorial for her. It was 34 of us, 35 of us in this endo. And I asked Sheen if she... wanted to wear Caroline's robes. And she said yes. And I picked up Jean at her cabin and she was wearing Caroline's robes in Roccasue and you can imagine it probably had the smell as Tallulah has in her robes. And Jean let Caroline's spirit attend that ceremony. And when we left, Jean saw some residents that were breathing and Jean went to go support them.

[33:14]

And then, The moment I'll never forget is we're walking back from the retreat hall, Jean and me, or Jean and I. And Jean stops and she looks at me and she says, Miles, there's even beauty in all this. Jean wouldn't defend her heart and miss the opportunity to be with Caroline. I asked Jean if I could tell this story

[34:33]

And she said yes. And I have to say I'm protective even sharing it because in some ways it seems culturally unapprovable to even have an undefeated heart or to even see the beauty. But there it was. So I offer you Gene's story. So when some tension arises in your life, and those little brick layers start to build a brick wall around your heart,

[35:37]

Maybe we can think, what would Gene do? What could Gene help me do? Thank you. 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, please visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[36:30]

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