Thank you. Welcome to the Saturday morning talk at the San Francisco Zen Center.

[08:32]

Today's talk will be given by one of our senior Dharma teachers and former abbots, Christina Lenhair. In case you don't know, we just began an eight-week practice period being co-led by Christina. The theme of the practice period is taking refuge and creating refuge. And also, we are in the middle of an all-day meditation. And to support that, I want to let you know that there won't be question and answer period at the end of the talk. And now I will chant the opening verse. surpassed penetrating and perfect dharma is rarely met with even an hundred thousand million kalpas having it to see and listen to to remember and accept i vow

[09:46]

to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Good morning. Welcome to the Dharma Talk. As the Eno Brian Clark, the head of the meditation hall, the heart of the meditation hall, just announced, we have just began last Tuesday, last Wednesday, to engage with the topic taking refuge and creating refuge.

[10:47]

Another word for refuge could be sanctuary. And it is a fundamental practice in Buddhism. So all branches of Buddhism have the practice of taking refuge. The word refuge comes from Latin, which means the syllable RE means going back, and fuguere means fly back, flee back. In Japanese, taking refuge is expressed in two syllables, kie and ei. And kie means leaping unreservedly. Throw yourself into.

[11:53]

And A means to rely upon. So either go back or leap unreservedly in something you rely upon. Many books also refer to it as returning home or returning home. to our true self. So in Buddhism, the refugees are threefold. They're also called the three jewels or the three treasures. So we take refuge in Buddha. That is the historical Buddha who was on a quest to understand life. profoundly and woke up after sitting, after doing innumerable practices, trying out different things, then finding what he called the middle way between too much and too little.

[13:07]

So one time he engaged in basically not eating till he was barely a skeleton, but realized that that didn't calm his mind or his heart. So he found a middle way, and then we also, then out of that came his teaching, which then we rely on when we take refuge in Dharma. But we also take refuge that he showed us a way to our own, to your own, to each of ours, innate capacity to be fully awake. So Buddha is not considered a god. Buddha was a human being who fully developed that innate capacity to be fully awake that resides in each one of us. Then we also take refuge in Dharma.

[14:10]

Traditionally, that's the collection of the teachings that came out of Buddha's path and his understanding. And first they were transmitted orally and then they started to be written down and then there were lots of commentary. So it's still the teaching is still proliferating to this day. As is the practice, the actual practice. So that's one layer is the traditional understanding of taking refuge in Dharma. And it also means how. When we bring attention and awareness to our own everyday life, to our own everyday circumstances, that paying attention and bringing awareness becomes a way of deep understanding and love.

[15:15]

We start to understand how things actually are and work. Then we take the third tool is taking refuge in Sangha. Traditionally, that was understood as the members of the Buddhist orders, and there are many different Buddhist orders, but the members of those orders were considered the community of practitioners. But it also means the companionship on the path of practice. And it's the companionship of the whole entire phenomenal universe, because everything is absolutely intricately interconnected. So the Sangha then becomes our dog. family members, the plants in our garden, the co-workers, the people on the bus, on the road, in other cars, in other countries, everywhere.

[16:34]

That is in its deepest understanding is Sangha because we say nobody can really stay in in Nirvana or in freedom unless everybody is free and everything is free. So Buddha, Dharma and Sangha are one way you can name innate human capacity that we all have. In Buddhism, that's also called Buddha nature or our true self. which is more and is not identical with what we think about ourselves. That is a construct that is far too small to actually capture the absolutely mysterious being that each of us is, and everybody is, and everything is.

[17:40]

And it's not the static. It's not the fixed thing. And that's wonderfully expressed in the word being, which is a noun, which is something fixed. But it's also a verb, which is something that is in continuous movement. And if you watch a child or a puppy, you see that it's continuously changing so rapidly. And then if we watch ourselves, wrinkles appear and ropes get too big because we shrink or I shrink. So the changes are always around as continuous. Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Buddhist monk, peace activist, author of many, many books, creator of the order of interbeing,

[18:42]

And just an absolutely bright light in this universe died a week ago on January 26 at the age, I think he was 94. And in one of his books, he says, in Chinese and Vietnamese, those language realms, practitioners say, I go back and rely on Buddha in myself. So that's how they take refuge. I go back and rely on Buddha in myself. And that in myself, Buddha in myself think if you hear this and feel this and maybe repeat it for yourself, I go back and rely on Buddha in myself.

[20:04]

For me, that does something to my whole sense of this being in this body. And it's And then he says, adding in myself makes it clear that we ourselves are good. Regardless of whether we believe that or see that or think that, ultimately we all have the capacity in us, everything we need to be Buddha. There's nothing lacking. There's nothing missing. There's nothing... Not there. Then he says, we must also understand that the Buddha is at the same time taking refuge in us, in me. And that's some other time I will talk maybe about this.

[21:07]

But it's based on that everything that happens, everything that we think we do, happens is reciprocal. That's how karma, how every action has effects. There's a shared relying on each other. And you know that. I mean, you rely on your partner, you rely on your workers, you rely on your computer, you rely that there is a reciprocity that is all the time active in our lives. So now the good news is, for maybe some of you, that you do not have to practice the Buddha way in order to create and cultivate refuge.

[22:11]

That's just one of the many ways that we practice. In this tradition, we practice this way. Buddhism practices in a particular way, calls it the particular names to help us understand and to engage it. But refuge and sanctuary is not dependent. It's a fundamental value. Sanctuary and refuge are fundamental values that transcend all. cultural and denominational boundaries. They're not owned by any denomination, by any belief, by any religion, by any culture. So I think that's really important to know because it's always available.

[23:13]

There is a Case number four in the book of Serenti, which is a collection of 100 Zen koans in the Soto Zen tradition, which there's different Zen traditions. There's Vietnamese Zen, Soto Zen, Rinzai Zen. And there's Tibetan Buddhism. There are many different. And there is Theravada Buddhism. This is a collection of Soto Zen koans, which also overlap. with the Rinzai tradition in many places. And there's just a different angle of how they're looked at or a lens they're looked at, the same cases. And the case is, as the World Honored One, which is the Buddha, was walking with the congregation, he pointed to the ground with his finger and said, this spot It's good to build a sanctuary.

[24:15]

Indra, emperor of the gods, took a blade of grass, stuck it in the ground and said, the sanctuary is built. And Buddha smiled. So Buddha points to the ground, says, this is a good spot to build. the refuge. And Indra, the emperor of all the gods, picks up a blade of grass, sticks it in the ground right there and says, the refuge, the sanctuary is built. So one way to understand this is that every moment, every place, every activity can become a refuge. In this universe, everything offers itself for refuge.

[25:22]

Everything, anything can become a refuge. So how can we engage that fact? that everything, driving your car to work, washing your dishes, the troubles at work, the coffee maker is needing attention, everything can become a refuge. Every activity, everything, every being, every moment, every feeling, every thought, every sensation in your body can, as the possibility in itself, carries the possibility in itself to be engaged as a refuge.

[26:36]

How do we do that? What makes those things effective as sanctuary, as a place that restores our well-being, that brings us back to ourselves, that gathers us, that centers us, that grounds us, calms us, opens our hearts, and lets us see more clearly with more compassion, with more equanimity. These are some of the things that come with sanctuary refuge, feeling safe. So that will be a practice to create refuge out of anything or bring that forward,

[27:40]

what it offers. So it needs the intention to do that. It needs a directed and focused awareness. So you can't do it just by the way while you do something else. You can't multitask. It needs a location, an activity. It needs a location in space. So it's maybe a place where you plan to sit every day or an activity you do every day. So it needs a location in time and space. And it needs... Steadfast, that means regular, wholehearted, engagement and application.

[28:45]

So it's like learning an instrument. You can love the sound, but you have to practice to actually become a master or allow the instrument to fully express itself in its whole range of what an instrument can express. need to practice. So that's steadfastness, discipline, the application, and wholehearted engagement. So for example, for myself, the material world in my body offers itself for refuge just all the time. For example, I love to iron. Ironing is calming to me, is focusing me. The material, it's taking refuge in myself, in my capacity to be fully present.

[29:52]

So that's another way that's important. To be wholehearted engagement means also just be totally present for just this. Just doing that creates in me, let's say, presence arise. The material I'm ironing is teaching me about the Dharma. It's teaching me what temperature it needs, how much steam it needs, how to move the iron. The iron teaches me how it works best. So there's also a reciprocity. So not every material you can iron with the same heat. So that's, for example, just there. Do I engage it or do I just do it by the way? That makes it the difference, whether it becomes a refuge or just a daily task, daily drudgery. Taking care of things does the same thing.

[30:54]

When something is broken and then I have to figure out how to fix it to make it work again, it teaches me how it needs to be fixed. I have to study it. I have to be fully present. It's an appreciation of what it is doing for me. So that's why I want to make it work again. That's another material thing that does that. Or sewing. So that's how my body, all these things have something to do that they engage also my body in activities. So sewing. For example, when we sew Buddha's robes, like this one, this Buddha's robe. So we sew this in our tradition by hand, and with every stitch we say, I take refuge in Buddha, I take refuge in Buddha, or we say, I take refuge in Buddha, I take refuge in Dharma, I take refuge in Sangha, with every stitch.

[31:56]

So... When I was at Zen Center for 10 years and then left for five years back, living back in Switzerland, I started 25 Joes. So Joes are these stripes that are sewed together in one of these garments, these cloth pieces. So that 25 Joes, so it's a long, long sewing task. And I was taking the material and the thread, And I was sewing this for my teacher, Tenzin Reb Anderson. I was after 10 years here, almost 10 years here, I was back in Switzerland. And in my case, only three people of Zen Center have visited me in my parents' house. That is Vicky Austin, Maya Wender, and Reb Anderson, my teacher. So they are the only one who ever experienced where... some of my surroundings and the people in my life that I have known for longer than I have lived in the United States.

[33:08]

So when I'm here, you know, people don't know anything about me, how I'm there or what's there. So Maya said, oh, this is so relieving for me to have seen that there are people around you in Switzerland. Before, when you went to visit, I just felt you fell off into a void because I had no, I had maybe names you said about people's things you said, but I had no, they were non-existent for me. So after 10 years here, I'm back in Switzerland and I'm sewing. And this stitch, because also in, of course, in, Switzerland, only few people came and visited me here. Some of my siblings, some of my friends, so they know. But otherwise, people don't know anything about my life here as a Zen Buddhist priest.

[34:09]

And then there are some sanghas who know about that. So making this stitch, working on this opesa for more than a year, you know, whenever I picked it up, was a thread that connected those two worlds in me and was a refuge for me to stay connected to this practice here, which wasn't manifesting in the same way in Switzerland. So I would like to invite you to take a moment to look at your own life, your own everyday life. And look, are there already refugees in there that you avail yourself of, maybe without realizing or without naming it refuge, that you could engage more consciously and create a practice around it?

[35:16]

So are there already refugees? existing moments of refuge in your everyday life. That can be any activity, making coffee in the morning, wanting to sit in a particular place in your house, Going for a walk. Playing an instrument. Hardening. Tending to the bees. sitting still, looking at the ocean or out into the trees.

[36:25]

And you can, if there are already or is something in your everyday life that you... already have created a little bit, you protect, you do in a particular way, how you prepare your coffee, for example. Has that become a kind of a ritual that you, when you do it and when you can do it that way, it calms you down. It brings you into the present moment. It brings you alive in a peaceful, calm, collected way. That you could, for example, if you were interested in a practice of refuge, you could really more consciously engage and really celebrate it in some ways.

[37:42]

So that can be sitting still, being present with sensations in your body or feelings or thoughts without attaching stories to them, just sensing them, feeling them, letting them be the way they are, just there noticing, there experiencing. You could decide that walking is one way better for you than sitting still, for example. You could walk in the park or around your block. If you want to make it a practice, I would propose you choose the same block every day so that you start noticing the changes in the plants that are growing in the gardens, in the temperature.

[38:46]

are the lights changing through the seasons or through the day, the scents that are changing, or anything else. It can be washing your dishes, it can be taking a shower. So to engage such a practice, we have to set time and space apart. Because if it is a practice, then it needs regularity. So we have to organize our day around it or find the best place for it so that we can organize the rest of our daily tasks and activities around that practice of refuge. So the difference between practice of refuge and something that just is, by the way, functions as some kind of refuge, kind of an occasional refuge, is really the attention and the respect and the space and time you reserve for it and then engage.

[40:13]

So here in residential temple life, we have innumerable opportunities for refuge. So in the morning, we go to the meditation hall. Now we can go again. I'll be wearing masks while sitting there. Also wearing masks while walking around. So the only time we take them off is in our own room when we're by ourselves or when we eat. And we eat spaced out with all the windows open or in the courtyard. But sitting online or in person in the Zendo together is taking refuge in Buddha, relying on Buddha and myself, relying in my own awakened heart. And it's also taking refuge in Sangha. in the intentional presence of the people sitting with us in person in the meditation hall or online in the virtual meditation hall.

[41:35]

All the forms that are offered in the temple, training and structure, are invitations also of taking refuge. That means joining palms together. It's also for a moment bringing all these different things that are going up in our life just into this gesture and bringing duality and emptiness. Understanding that they're one. So there's a left hand and there's a right hand, but they can join, be joined in one bow. And I'm not doing something with my left hand and something with my right hand at the same time. It's a gesture of the union of harmony, the harmony of difference and sameness.

[42:37]

The quality. We chant in service. Every day we chant the refugees. Are we really present for that? We have altar practice. You saw me bowing to the altar. That's another way of being just present for that, those motions and that paying respect to the historical Buddha who showed us a path, one possible path for waking up. There are innumerable paths for waking up. Buddhism doesn't own the true path. No denominations owns the true path. They all offer possible paths to fully wake up, be fully human and be fully present.

[43:43]

Kitchen practice. how you treat the food, how you treat the pots, how they tell you they need to be treated to be really functional. If you burn stuff and don't clean it up, they won't cook your next food. So they're teaching you. That's also in Buddhism, it says everything that's around us is teaching us about how things really are, about reality, and it's always reciprocal. It always goes both ways. How we treat them, they respond back. If we bang around the pots and they become all banged up, they won't do a good job. So we have to find you and we throw them away. But we can't throw anything away really because we only place it somewhere else. That's another thing. There's no place to spit on or to throw anything away in this universe. It just gets moved.

[44:46]

So all the plastic bottles and plastic things we throw away end up collecting in the ocean or by the street. They're not gone, or they are in a bag on the heap of garbage. So kitchen practice is also nourishing the Sangha, nourishing everybody. The temple care practice, the people in the temple care program take care. of the housing that allows us to live here. So, for example, taking care of your room. I love doing that because it's like saying thank you to the room, which gives me shelter, which gives me making the bed that I can sleep in. And I think if we do have those things, it is our, it is necessary It is absolutely necessary that we appreciate it and take care of it and respect it because there are so, so, so many people don't have it.

[46:01]

So if we treat it as just a commodity or disrespectful, I always think, for me, that is what I think is sinful. That is a... harmful thing to do that affects everything. So these are offered at the temple all the time and at your home too. And so the difference is they can become just habits and we don't, you know, we can bow without being present. We know now how to do it and when to do it and cannot listen to the bell. It's just in our bodies. But then that's not taking refuge. And then they're not helping us. And then we're not waking up. And they help us to go sleep. So when I asked you before, are there habits you're having that actually lend themselves or have that refuge quality in them?

[47:06]

How do you differentiate those from... Waking up habits that help you wake up, be more human, more compassionate, more clear-sighted, more open-hearted, more kind, more at peace with yourself and with the world around you and peace-promoting and inclusive? Or do they function as a shutout? You know, do I... drink my coffee or read my paper. So to shut out the world, to close everything off, to just protect myself, that is not the refuge. And you can feel the difference if you pay attention. So we have just started to engage this topic.

[48:14]

It's wonderful because I have Reverend Paul Haller, Ryushin Paul Haller, to do this together with, which is absolutely wonderful and interesting. all of the practice period participants that are here and all around the world that bring their energy to this talk today, to what will arise and manifest as we move forward. The body, the Sangha body of the practice period is just beginning to shape itself and everything and everybody's finding their space in there, which will take a little longer. And then there is the wider community. All of you who may have just looked in for the first time, so welcome very much, and may look again, or you too contribute to the sangha of this moment.

[49:21]

We shared intention, we shared focus. So before we close, we do the closing chant, I would invite you to actually look around on your screen. Notice, go through the pages and notice just who all is there. On my computer, it says that 185 people have zoomed in. So you may see just names or you may see faces, but do look around and I'll do the same. Just so you can read them with your heart and in your heart. Just lovely. When I see faces I know David and Marsha and Kat and then I go see beautiful faces I haven't seen before, which is as lovely. It's like family and then a wide extended family.

[50:34]

That is absolutely heartwarming. Thank you all for being here today. In whichever way you are, that's just perfect. So maybe you can click yourself in if you're there and it's convenient for you. Click your picture on for a moment if you want. It's not the demand, it's just a possibility. Some of her peering, it's lovely. And we have people from all over the world. Marie from Denmark is here. Okay. We will go back to sit in the meditation hall.

[51:49]

And many of you will go back to your Saturday activities. Take whatever resonated with you, in you, with you. And I wish you a very wonderful Saturday and weekend. refuge and sanctuary in your life. And what I want to say at the very end is that if we practice and engage this in our lives, it creates sanctuary for the people around us. So because everything is so interconnected, they too profit and get the space to feel sanctuary and refuge. So it's not a selfish practice. Nothing is a selfish practice. A selfish practice also affects everything.

[52:51]

So everything is inter-effective. Okay. Tension equally extend to every being and place. With the true merit of Buddha's way, beings are numberless. I vow to save them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable.

[53:52]

I vow to become it. Thank you very much. And those of us who are at the Zen Center will return to the Zen though. Thank you.

[54:09]

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