Good morning. Well, welcome to another installment of the Shuso Talk. Although some of you, this may be your first experience of me talking. So I just say my name is Tim O'Connor Frazier, and I am the head student for this practice period. In my last talk, I felt that it would be helpful to offer a disclaimer, since not everyone knows what a Shuso is.

[01:08]

or why Shuso would talk. So in short, the Shuso is the head student, and we are asked to talk so that we can learn how to talk. And so I offered this little sign last time. I'm not gonna quite do what I did last time, but I did offer this little sign last time as a disclaimer for folks to know that I am not in fact a Zen teacher. And perhaps a little nod to Case 11 of the Blue Cliff Record, where Huangbo says there are no teachers of Zen. Also, just a recognition that I'm learning to do this thing called Dharma Talks. So now you know. I have a practice of gratitude, and I would like to thank Christina for this practice, for her practice, and for her devotion to offering the Dharma.

[02:14]

On the night that City Center celebrated Thanksgiving, Tuesday night before Thanksgiving, just finished a usual Tuesday of onslaught of meetings, and I was looking forward to this session where I thought I could just sit. And sat down next to her at dinner, and she said, would you like to give a talk? during the seshin, and the shuso says yes, according to the tonto. So I said yes, and it's deepened my appreciation for the effort that goes into creating this thing we call seshin. We each have our own experience of seshin, and there are many people who work extra hard to bring it all together. And I'd especially like to thank the Eno, the Tonto, the Tenzo, and all their crews for the moments-by-moment effort that they put into this.

[03:17]

And of course, as we pick up and we start to look at who's responsible, we see that everyone here is responsible for creating Sashin. So thank you for all of your diligent efforts, both seen and unseen. It truly takes everyone's effort to make this work. I also want to acknowledge that there's a bit of a tale of two zendos happening right now. If the Laguna Street side over here is the eastern side, then on the western side, closer to the doshi door, there's quite a bit of congestion. And so I just want to say it's awesome how you guys are managing over on the west side. particularly during Kinhin, it seems like, kind of had this image of being like a traffic helicopter overseeing kind of that event. So we are on day two, with day two bodies and day two minds.

[04:28]

And how's everybody doing? How is your body doing? Day two is a stretch beyond what we have physically and mentally done so far in this practice period. I was really feeling it in my knees during that last meal. There's something about being an orioki, too, where you can't just take a rest pose as easily. And so... was grateful when the water buckets came on, and it was time to move along. So in a sense, physically and mentally, this sashim is beginning to take hold. Yesterday, over on the east side, we had a little mindfulness drip that appeared. It wasn't there the day before. It just came out of a pipe near the corner.

[05:30]

And then a few seconds later, drip. And I thought, oh, how nice. This will, particularly the beginning periods of Zazen, this will keep me focused. And then the Eno took care of that. So thank you for taking care of the mindfulness drip. And then somehow the mindfulness drip also disappeared. I think maybe Dylan had something to do with that. It illustrated to me how it is actually the container of the zendo that makes the drip possible to hear. Were it not for the floor, or in this case, the ton, the drip would happen, and we wouldn't know that there was a drip, that there was a leak. And so I have a house in Ohio, and we have had leaks, and it's helpful to know when there's a leak, because otherwise it does a lot of damage.

[06:32]

But the drip that we could hear indicated that we could pay attention to the leak. Excuse me. So the most important thing is to notice the leak and to return to our intention. So in the seshin, we have opportunities to notice how we may leak. We have admonitions that encourage us to hold this container, for instance, around silence.

[07:35]

And so I think... We can look at this with a big mind, all of the admonitions, the encouragements that we have to stay with ourselves, to stay with our bodies. And we can notice, because of the container of Sashin, the ways in which we may return to those intentions. And so I just want to encourage everyone, particularly around silence, to hold silence. I think we've been doing a great job so far. think if we can continue to do that, it will support everyone as we practice together. The experience of the silence and the stillness to me is an awesome thing, particularly with so many people in such a small space. And it had me thinking, I appreciated how Christina yesterday brought up

[08:37]

the distinction between immovable and unmoving. In the Fukasazengi, it says immovable. I was curious, what is the point at which things are unmoving? And it's technically zero degrees Kelvin, negative 460 degrees Fahrenheit. So that's where we'd have to get to unmoving. And otherwise, we, being these warm bodies with hearts, and muscles and bones will continue to move. So those hearts, muscles, bones are getting accustomed to being in this posture or in a chair or sitting seiza. They are not used to this. And so I want to encourage us to each be kind with our bodies. Some time ago, I took up this practice after sitting.

[09:38]

After a period, I would stretch out. I'd stretch forward, and I'd stretch to the side, and I'd go down, and I'd kiss my knee. I would just kind of say thank you to my knee. Then I'd go, and I'd try to kiss the other one. This one's harder to get to, but I would say thank you to that knee. That's the kind of heart that I started to cultivate for myself when I realized that I had been really just pushing my body without regard for its own needs. And so just finding a way to express love for the self, for each part of our bodies that hold and make this possible. I hear the grandfather clock.

[10:40]

The rain that we've been experiencing these last few days has, um, been a grateful, I'm grateful for the reminder. I mean, I'm always grateful for rain in California. Let's put it that way. And, um, And also, I feel like it brings us into a kind of alignment with how, in Asia, they practice during the rainy season. And it just feels so auspicious that the rain has come at a time when we are entering Sishin. It changes the quality of the air and the sound, and it feels like a good time to be inside. So part of the physical form that we're getting used to is, in a sense, the ancient twisted karma of our physical bodies.

[12:00]

So when we chant that we avow our ancient twisted karma born through body, speech, and mind, what comes up for me is how we are acknowledging it. We are fully accepting that this is the body that we have. And this is the body that we have to work with. And so, again, I think the encouragement is to be with this body, this very body, to experience it as it is, without an idea of the way it should be. My last talk, I introduced the notion of beginner's heart. I feel like zazen is an expression of beginner's heart. When we sit, we just sit. And we're here for the long run. We're doing this practice so that our bodies can support us to sit zazen in whatever forms we can for as long as we can.

[13:11]

So please find ways to introduce variation into your practice, into your sitting practice. to give different muscles, different joints, a chance to take a break, a chance to get engaged. This idea of beginner's heart, to me, is an interest in taking action and getting engaged. And so when we sit in this way, we are engaging, even though it looks like stillness or inaction, it is itself an action. And I found this quote from Suzuki Roshi entitled, What is Our Practice? It says, I think we have a very good spirit here in this zendo. This was almost 50 years ago exactly here. He said, we have a very good spirit here in this zendo and Tassahara.

[14:14]

I was rather amazed at the spirit you have. But how you should extend this spirit to our everyday life will be the next question. And how to do it is to respect things, to respect each other. When we respect things, we find the true life in it. When we respect plants, we find real-life power of flower and real beauty of flower. So love is important. but more important element will be respect. And sincerity and big mind, with big mind and with pure sincerity and respect, the love could be real love. Just love separated from those factors will not work. So when I introduced this notion of beginner's heart, I was struck by

[15:19]

by the love that is expressed in our practice. And it was something that had come to me from a Q&A with Ed Satazon. And the more I looked at it, and I decided I wanted to see what Suzuki Roshi had to say about love, this element of respect came up. And this morning, I was struck by the levels of respect that we have, even in a simple form like getting out of the Buddha hall. right after service. So first, the people that stand on this side, they take a step forward with the foot farthest away from the Buddha, the foot on that side. And if they're facing each other, they step together as a kind of respect for the altar, as respect for each other. We're seeing and interacting with each other. We're moving together. And so then there's a turning towards the back of the Buddha Hall, and we walk towards the back, and then we arrive at that back spot, and we pause together.

[16:30]

Again, another sign of respect. We're seeing each other in that moment. And if someone is in front of us, we wait not for the person in front of us to go, but for the person in front of the person on the right to pass, so that then we can step off together, another sign of respect. And then we bow. to the, near the back statue there, which I believe is Manjushri. It's Prajnaparamita. Okay, thank you. And so we, every moment there, and then we turned, we bowed together, another sign of respect, and then we turned together and we walk away, walk out. And so in that area, in that simple form, there are so many indications of how we are expressing respect. And in that is the deeper love that we express for ourselves and for each other.

[17:35]

This talk is an expression of beginner's hearts. The Shuso says yes, but not always so. So I have a little story of how a yes can become a no here in this temple and yet still be held and respected. I have a lot of anxiety around being in public. I have a lot of anxiety about my voice. Some of you know this just from conversations we've had. And it goes back to an early childhood experience where I was told that I had a really bad voice. And so during this practice period, I've been practicing kokyo a lot. And as we reached the midway point, the Eno asked if I would be the kokyo for the Suzuki Roshi Memorial, which is

[18:45]

in Japanese and the full moon ceremony. And the shuso says, yes. And so I said, yes, I can do that. I'll try. I'll try to do that. As time went by, we did the Suzuki Roshi Memorial Service in Japanese, and that seemed okay. But the full moon ceremony presented this real challenge for me. I checked it out with Christina. I said, you know, I'm feeling a lot of anxiety about this ceremony. I don't know that I... I don't know that I can do it, but even if I could do it, I don't know that the Sangha would appreciate it. I was really concerned that this beautiful ceremony that I so value would be... experienced as a harsh sound or an unpleasant sound and i really wanted the sangha to feel connected through that experience and so i asked christina for the support to not do that and she said how about you practice it and see how it goes i said okay so uh with with the benji and with the eno

[20:12]

We sat here, and we did a practice of the full moon ceremony. And I quite enjoyed it, to be honest. I really liked it. And yet, the anxiety was still there. The idea of doing this in front of the sangha or with the sangha just was too much. And so with the support of Christina, and then eventually Barbara, Barbara ended up doing the kokyo. I was able to bow out of that ceremony and allow for both the practice of saying yes and trying it out, and also supported to not go beyond what I felt was an edge too far for my voice and my abilities. So I bring this up as a story of how this place, is a container that supports us to find ourselves and to everybody's edge, everybody's practice is different.

[21:20]

What works for you may not work for somebody else. And yet we have this opportunity to see all these different things. If you stick around long enough, you'll probably be asked to do something that stretches you, literally and figuratively. And so... So this is a place to say yes. It's a place to see what you can do. And as we are stretched, we also cultivate respect. So whether or not it was the best choice for me to not do that ceremony, we'll never know. I felt wonderful though by how it went and I felt completely supported to check it out. And that for me is an expression of beginner's heart. So the sincerity of practice is something that I see all of you doing. Everywhere I look, I see a sincerity of practice.

[22:26]

And this to me is an expression of the heart of Zen. I have another little story that I offer. It's not intended to be humorous, but it might seem so. So I don't exactly know how I saw this, but during our robe chant in the morning, there was one time when everybody goes and they put their raucosu on their heads, or their poquesa, and they start to chant. And this person, who to me seemed quite new, grabbed a support cushion and put it on her head. I was surprised, but to me, actually, it met that place of sincerity of practice. It was somebody who was really trying her best. She may be a priest now, for all I know. I don't know. This was somebody who was really intending to meet what was being offered.

[23:29]

And so, you know, it might seem humorous, like I said, but actually, to me, it was an expression of sincerity. we do this, we all try to pick up the practice where we can. We find ways, we look during, you know, or Yoki, even if the guidance is to not, actually, sometimes it's helpful to see what the person next to us is doing or how that person who has been serving for a long time is serving, because that's how we pick up, that's how we learn to do this. And so, that to me is, you know, of what's happening here, and I'm seeing it happen all around. So thank you for continuing to express the heart of Zen. In The Places That Scare You, Pema Chodron writes, the pith instruction is stay, stay, just stay.

[24:32]

Learning to stay with ourselves in meditation is It's like training a dog. I love dogs, by the way. If we train a dog by beating it, we'll end up with an obedient but very inflexible and rather terrified dog. The dog may obey when we say, stay, come, roll over, and sit up. But he will also be neurotic and confused. By contrast, Training with kindness results in someone who is flexible and confident, who doesn't become upset when situations are unpredictable and insecure. So whenever we wander off, we gently encourage ourselves to stay and settle down. Are we experiencing restlessness? Stay. Discursive mind, stay.

[25:38]

Our fear and loathing out of control, stay. Aching knees and throbbing back, stay. What's for lunch? Stay. What am I doing here? Stay. I can't stand this another minute. Stay. This... is how to cultivate steadfastness. So this is day two. And with these day two bodies and day two minds, We have the experience of being stretched. We have the opportunity to love our bodies as they are, to continue this practice of respect.

[26:47]

As our bodies get accustomed to this form, particularly if you encourage relaxation, they'll relax. So I encourage you to just keep moment by moment attention to what's happening in the body. Notice where there's maybe some tension starting, or you may say, oh, look, like for me, inner thigh starts to tense up, and I can notice that, and I can just relax that, and ah, there's some relaxing. You can appreciate the relaxing, but I didn't notice it when it started. And so just keeping in touch with it, finding areas that are tense, seeing if you can relax. I'm grateful to be practicing with you all. This is a big group. So thank you for taking care of the practice together.

[27:51]

Thank you very much. May our intention equally extend. Thank you.

[28:22]

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