Good evening. Welcome. So I'm going to start out tonight bringing up and acknowledging a deaf in our community, Brett Drasky. lived up the street at 340 Page. He was someone who used to live here in the building. So some of us know him, some of us know him fairly well, and some of us don't know him at all. But he still is a part of our Sangha, so I felt it was important to mention him tonight. And I live at 340 Page as well, and cross the hall from him and I used to live above him for several years too that the person over there who knows him the best is Basia Petnick and I asked her to write or I asked her to send me a little something about him and she wrote this and gave me permission to read it so it's not very long but I'd like to read it to you tonight to honor and remember someone

[01:33]

in our Sangha, in our life. So that's what it says, Brett Drasky came to Zen Center in 1988 or 89 and lived on the second floor on the north side of the building for several years. He came to Zazen regularly but was not much of a community person, not a follower of anyone or anything. He was an intelligent fellow and always asked a lot of questions in classes or after lectures. He thought deeply about things and struggled to understand. Question authority would definitely describe Brett's way, and he sometimes came to verbal blows with Enos and work leaders and other authority figures. My fondest memory of him is when we lived in the building and he carried his toiletries in a briefcase every day to the men's bathroom on the second floor. And I would see him buying at the Caesando in his bathrobe and slippers.

[02:35]

Like, okay, we weren't supposed to wear our bathrobes in the hallway, but there you go, there you have it. That's what I'm talking about. His dark leather briefcase full of shave cream and whatever, his boop tall self, and his briefcase, and his toiletries, and his bathrobe, right there at the Caesando. that was independent, more of a loner than a joiner. He was an expert windsurfer and served often and well. It was probably the love of his life. He worked in an office for a few years at a job he didn't seem to consider significant, and for a time, he did some typing at home. He had nice chats and several long, long, down with fun talks, in the hallways and laundry rooms of Zen Center and 340 Page. I wish I had given him more time, love, and attention. I wish I had even once invited him into my apartment for dinner.

[03:38]

It's beautiful that he died on the open water, a place he truly loved. So what happened with Brett is, like Basia said, he was a passionate windsurper. And he, over the weekend, he went out windsurfing with a group of people and they lost track of him. So they reported that probably to the Coast Guard. Someone saw his board wash up on the shore. So the Coast Guard knew something was happening and they went looking for him and they found him about two miles out. So I don't know what it was like when he died. They think possibly he died of a heart attack while windsurfing. I don't know where it happened, but that sounds possible and if that's possible, wow, what a way to go. To be right there in the middle of the love of your life and boom.

[04:46]

I think most of us would not mind that being our tale, our story. when we go. So I think there might be a memorial here for him sometime this week. He only has one, pardon me? Friday night. Friday night. He only has one relative in the world, a nephew, and he's in town and they're sorting away affairs and Friday night we'll do a ceremony. So Being right there in the middle of joy is a little bit of a tiptoe towards the subject of my talk. But before we get there, I have a story to tell. And it was from yesterday. I was in the front office and so was Trevor. And he looked at me and he said... What are you going to be talking tomorrow?

[05:47]

And I said, yeah. And he said, what are we going to talk about? And I made some comment about, I don't know, something kind of like, I don't know, or that I wasn't really preparing and some kind of in-the-moment Zen offhand thing. And, you know, we basically just went our separate ways. But actually... What that brought up for me is thinking about the challenge I have to prepare for a Dharma talk. I actually, I find it very difficult because for me, the Dharma is very dynamic and alive and it's not something I think about. I think it's, I'm more of a feel it in my gut person. So to, I think I'm preparing for a talk to kind of like reach into that and pull something out and hold it long enough that I can, you know, look at it and see it and find something to say about it, but not so tight that I kill it.

[07:02]

I haven't quite figured that out. Haven't quite gotten, I don't know, the handle on that. And I don't know if I ever read, I don't know if that has to do with a certain kind of talent I have or don't have. So when I was talking with Trevor, I think I was mostly expressing my own kind of anxiety, but it also occurred to me too that I thought about making a cake. And I thought, you know, When you go to make a cake, you get a recipe, and you sit, you know, usually we should look over the recipe before you start to cook. So, you know, you can sit down and look at it. And, you know, you could really get into it. You could, you know, like flour. Okay, where does the flour come from? And what kind of flour is it? And how long has it been that flour? And what did they do before they had that flour? And what kind of flour do they use halfway around the world?

[08:04]

Or... And this, you know, how do you crack an egg and where do the eggs come from? And last year they had two eggs. Anyways, you could really just study the recipe. But study the recipe doesn't make the cake. And I feel like when I come and live a donut talk, the request is to bring cake, not the recipe for the cake. And hopefully, the kind of cake that nourishes you and nourishes your practice and inspires you to make your own cake, get in the kitchen. So preparing for a talk, studying for a talk, I know I'm supposed to do it, I know it's helpful, I know there's, as Susan has said to me, it's like a trellis that you build and then the vine can crawl up it. It's an interesting struggle. It kind of reminds me of when, when I was a kid, we used to better the Natural History Museum.

[09:06]

I don't know if they're so popular anymore, but back in the 60s, it was kind of the place you would go to, to see wildlife. And we would go into these big rooms, and there would be, there would be dioramas, life-size dioramas of wild animals, right? And there would be polar bears, and tigers, and buffalo, and And you can get really close to them and you can see them and you can count their teeth and look at the quality of the fur and all that. You can really examine them, but an important piece of information about them is missing, and that is their wildness, their aliveness. So again, for me, this kind of koan of how to talk about it and keep it alive. how to not miss that important piece. We'll see. You can tell me.

[10:07]

So my subject, if I dare to have one after that, is Joe. and I'm going to start with a poem written by someone in the EPP. And EPP is Establishing the Path of Practice. It's a year-long program that we offer here at Zen Center. And I co-lead it with Paul, Haller, and Christina, and Anna and Linda. And we have small groups that we sit with. And someone in my small group sent me this poem. And she's a poet and a writer, and she gave me permission to use it. Her name is Kim Wade, and the name of the poem is Joy. Today, while running for the bus in typical big city stressed mode, a dog mistook me for someone in the throes of joy.

[11:18]

and met me at the corner, leaping about and chewing on my hand. I was so taken by his reminder that I stopped and bounced around with him. As the bus went by, I waved. I didn't care. I was happier than I had been in days. So today, while running for the bus, In typical blue city stress mode, a dog must kick me for someone in the throes of joy and met me at the corner, leaping about and chewing on my hand. I was so taken by his reminder that I stopped and bounced around with him. As the bus went by, I waved. I didn't care. I was happier than I had been in days. So last week, I had a really busy week, a really intense week. I'm Zen Center's secretary and we had a board meeting. And any week that we have a board meeting is a busy one for the secretary.

[12:21]

So I can't remember what day it was, but it was a busy day. And, you know, it was, you know, meetings and emails and phone calls and priorities and discussions and decisions. And it was all piling up and it was just all in a day's work. And around five o'clock, I noticed it was five o'clock and it was time to go. So I got up and left and turned up my computer and put on my code and my bag and went down the stairs. And I work over above Salmon Bar, around the corner here. And I've been working in that building at Barry's Zen Center jobs for about five years now. So I've come along from that building quite a bit, you know. five years, five days a week, several times a day. But for some reason, this time when I was leaving and I went through the threshold, I was really struck with that transition. I was walking by the stairs.

[13:25]

My mind was in full-on workload. I was thinking. I was planning. I was making lists. I was reminding myself. And I walked through the door and sent I don't know what, but something reminded me, or something, a voice in my head said, you're not at work anymore. Stop. And somehow, I was not enough to listen to that voice. And I paused, and I looked around me, and there I was, on the corner of the page in Laguna, and I've been living in this neighborhood for maybe... I don't know, 13, 14 years now and I know that intersection pretty well. I've walked it thousands of times but suddenly I really appreciated it. There wasn't anything fancy happening. I mean the sun was setting and it was kind of golden and the wind was blowing as it does around five o'clock in our neighborhood and so the trees were kind of dancing and

[14:29]

Some of I was cooking something pretty good because it smelled good. And I didn't do anything. I just walked up the street and walked home. But there was a sense of deep connection and appreciation. And dare I say it, there was joy. So tonight what I want to suggest is that joy is a very necessary person. ingredient on the path of the bodhisattva for those of us who have taken on this life of practice. We focus it out on suffering and actually that's fine. I think we should. I think it's important. I think it's very... significant turning in our practice to look deeply at our suffering.

[15:30]

But sometimes I think we forget that there's joy too. So tonight I'm going to talk a little bit about joy and joy in practice. First, I'm going to try to clarify what I mean by joy. It's kind of a tricky territory that I'm gonna give it a stab because I think it's important to be clear about that. And in a true British fashion, I'm gonna do it by telling you what I think it's not. And the first thing in that realm is, you know when you get something you really want, is that feeling, it's kind of a spike in adrenaline, a little, you know, this kind of heightened pleasure. That's not what I'm talking about. That's a feeling of pleasure that it has, it's bound in causes and conditions, and it's a lot of, it comes from usually from a place of lack.

[16:39]

there's a feeling that I don't have something and now I'm getting it and it's plugging up some kind of hole. And actually that kind of pleasure on one end of the extreme is, it's actually not that bad. It actually can be recommended. Maybe we're feeling really, really stressed out and we decide to walk down the hill and get a coffee and sit with coffee. And there's a certain pleasure in that. You know, that's fine. On the other end of the spectrum, of course, that can lead to extreme acts of greed or addiction or other unwholesome things. So this drug isn't in that realm. It's not about likes and dislikes. It's not about grabbing what I want and pushing away what I don't want. It's not about gratifying our ego. And what Jerry I'm talking about actually isn't ours.

[17:43]

So it doesn't, it's not something we get. It's not something we can be selfish about. And maybe, you know, Jerry might not even be the right word, but it was, I thought about it for a while and it was the best one I could come up with. Maybe just a few words about what it is, or a few words that would point to what it is. I think if I look back on my experience of leaving work and walking up Page Street, it's a sense of being available, completely available to the moment. And when I look back on it, what happened was kind of a, there's a teaching in Buddhism about this, which is pause, bring awareness, and appreciate.

[18:45]

It's very simple three steps, very easy to forget to do, especially when our minds are in that, again, that heightened mode, but that It is a practice, and if we try to remember to do it, eventually it just becomes something that's at hand and available. So pause, bring awareness, and appreciate. And in my situation, I was on the corner page in Laguna, and there was kind of a nice sunset happening. So appreciation was my response. If it would have been a more difficult, a more challenging situation, then compassion would have been an appropriate response. Also, in the Genjo koan, there's a couple of lines that speak to this kind of experience. And like a lot of Degren's teachings,

[19:50]

For me, at least, so much can be contained in two lines, and it almost can seem very simple, but the more I work with it, the more I can find it's endless. And the two lines from the Ganja Koan are, to carry yourself forward and experience miry things is delusion, that the miry things come forward and experience themselves is awakening. So the question of practice is how to be available for the myriad things coming forward. How to, you know, what Paul often talks about is the world according to me. And when he says that, I always picture this kind of like shield, you know, that we kind of hold that in front of ourselves. It's full of our opinions and our desires and our likes and our dislikes and kind of a bad, twisted thinking.

[21:01]

And we kind of hold it there and we say, and every time we meet the world, that's what we put in front. And it mediates our experience with the world. Of course, in dangerous situations, it might be good to have a shield up. that a lot of life, at least, I question if we need to have it up all the time, and we often do. So I'm suggesting that we need joy. We, again, being the people who have taken up this practice, you know, again, we spend a lot of time studying Dukkha, and if I were, I'm not sure, is it the Sanskrit word for Dukkha that means the axle and will, and how when there's a will and the axle goes in and it doesn't quite fit, there's this kind of awkward, frustrating, painful, not working

[22:16]

as the court tries to move forward. So when I think of joy, I don't think of joy as something that fixes dukkha. It's not there to make it all better, but maybe it's a little, you know, gross in the axle. Maybe it can kind of help in this exploration of suffering to take away some of the, just to help us line it up a little bit. And of course, what supports this? What supports us to be available for the myriad things coming forward? And for me, the first answer would be zazen, practice. I probably, you know, could talk all night about zazen, but mostly for me, when... When we sit down and we spend some time with our body and mind, with the blank wall, and we're able to set it both physically and mentally and start to untangle some of the tangles of our thoughts and ideas and opinions, a certain spaciousness can happen.

[23:43]

dramatic, just a little bit more room and that little bit more room makes it more available to receive the myriad things coming forward. Practice two, mindfulness during the day, paying attention, training ourselves to be present in the moment with something like a carrot or the telephone or the doorway. Just be available for the dog as you're running for the bus. There's joy bouncing right in front of you. Are you going to keep running? Catch that bus? Is that the most important thing? Or is the happy dog more important? Another important thing in cultivating the mind that can receive joy is trust.

[24:49]

That when the new things come forward and awaken you, it's going to change you. It's going to undo us. And so there has to be a certain trust that will be okay and trust I think comes with practice and practicing with trust and trying it out in small ways, in simple ways. In general it was practice of pausing, bringing awareness to the situation and appreciation, compassion I believe should be started in what I call kind of neutral situations. Situations where it's not, you know, kind of scary or difficult or alarming or also kind of heightened bubbly things, but more walking like Page Street or sitting on a not so full bus.

[25:57]

A full bus I think is very stressful, but a kind of an empty bus is, there's something not so bad about that. Nature helps a lot. being in nature, taking a hike, but even the trees in front of Page Street or the little bits of grass here and there are all really, really helpful. So allow the world to come forward, trust the world to come in and undo you, and discover joy. And then like that cake, It's something you don't hang on to, but you go and you make one for yourself and you hand it out to other people. Also, you know, as I was talking, I was thinking, you know, I'm talking a lot about joy that kind of comes at us. And I think there's also a joy that lives inside of us, too, so that the rooms around that would be less receiving and more opening to that.

[27:06]

It's kind of late and maybe that's another talk, huh? I don't know. I don't know if I'll ever do this again. So that's what I didn't prepare for since what I, or actually I did, you know. I mean, I did sit down and write some things and think about it. Anyways, that's my attempt at not holding too tightly to something. Are there any questions? I think I finished early, not surprisingly. Hey Trevor. What's that? Is it a class of Buddhist teaching from some texts?

[28:08]

I think it is. Maybe someone else can answer that question. I mean, I've heard it taught here, and we teach it in the EPP, but I can't bring up a text name. I could find out if you're really interested. Okay, I'll find out for you. Michael. Thank you for receiving it. Yes. Hi. I just had a question about the shield. And I wonder if sometimes we can't help but have it. Definitely. She's on the chair. I thought I was just pushing a book this morning and... was talking about, in science, the relation of the microscope was focusing on objects, how much is influenced by the being of light.

[29:17]

Right. Yeah. I don't understand the being of light and the shield. Well, I guess the shield result that we look like and not its own condition. How much can we escape that? Well, that's a beautiful Buddhist question. We look a lot at conditioning in Zen and in Buddhism. And my answer to that is I think, you know, we start where we are. and we work with what we have, that life and everything is constantly changing and constantly in motion. And so the shield I'm talking about doesn't always have to be what it is. It can change, it can suddenly get little, it can go from maybe a big, thick shield to a filigree fan.

[30:28]

It's still something else. So it's workable. And yes, how we defend ourselves or how we keep the world up there is a part of us that it doesn't have to, it'll change. So maybe the beam of light. Yeah. Does that make sense? Oh, okay, good. Blanche? Do you find close companionship, joy, and gratefulness? Oh. Well, I think appreciation and gratefulness, those are similar. So, yes. But what do you think? What's the difference between the two? Well, I don't know. I just find your close companions. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe there's some subtle differences, but basically, you know, gratitude. I mean, even one can tell first, but the other seems to be close behind.

[31:33]

Yeah. That's true. That's true. Thank you. Thank you for bringing that word in. Thank you. Yeah. Chris. So, I'm kind of shocked by the thought that you brought up, I don't know, but this idea that maybe joy is something ever-present. We don't. It's not something you can have. It's almost like an invisible field that leads back into everybody. Yeah. That's just, it's not something we keep, argue, or maybe share it. Or help people to see it. Yeah, it's not a thing. It's not... It's not, like I said, it's not something we get. It's more of an experience, and I do believe it's ever-present.

[32:37]

I do believe it's fundamental to existence. That's kind of putting a stake in the ground there, but I do. That's kind of a radical concept that joy is not accomplishment. our possession or anything that's helping us. Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you for saying it that way. That was helpful. Yeah. So it originated when you were walking across the street. What happened was a hiding to words. And I've experienced that myself, and I wonder that with that heightened awareness, if that's Victoria, if Victoria isn't accompanying part of extreme awareness being really geared down.

[33:50]

I wouldn't say it was heightened or extreme, actually. What I was... Thank you for asking that because it helps me clarify this. For me, it was more just of an ordinary paying attention. I didn't have a sense of anything being extra, super. As a matter of fact, part of what I think, part of the reason why I trusted it was that it was a very ordinary thing. It was the corner of Page and Laguna and I was walking home. Nothing more than that. It was just... So, yeah, so I would have to say it wasn't so heightened. It wasn't so extreme. So, I don't know if that... Sounds like what was, sounded like your being present was more annoying every day. Right.

[34:51]

Yeah, yeah, certainly. Certainly, my being present was more thoroughgoing, yeah. But it wasn't this huge shift. It wasn't like, it was a very subtle shift. And, yeah. What are you saying is it's like you're a terrible woman. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, very close. Yeah. Oh, definitely. That's a big part of it. Yeah. I mean, I paused both physically. I actually stopped for a second. But I also, again, it was kind of remarkable to me that how clearly I saw the work mind as being, it never occurred to me that that was optional.

[35:52]

And then in that moment, it occurred to me what it was. And then it was really, it wasn't that, it was a deal to kind of let it all go. So. Curtis. I can't see that well. Okay. Thank you so much. You're welcome. For reading that letter. Thank you. I would have thought to bring it. And that's amazing. I mean, I would have never thought of hearing anything from all that close to that. I consider it a great job. Well, I don't know about that. I appreciate that. Well, you're welcome, but... Okay. I suspect you... Well, you're the answer...

[36:53]

Okay. Thank you. Thank you for saying that. Yeah. Are you going to sing it? I'm not going to sing it. Oh. Thank you. Who knows it? It starts out. I've got joy like... What else do you think? I love it like an ocean. [...] Thank you.

[37:56]

That was wonderful. Oh, hello. Can we talk a little bit about, for me, I don't want a great place. I don't want to really get an expression of this, nothing extra. I'm working a lot, but I've been arguing the extra stuff, the option of liking the option of all of that stuff. And that's because of the lack of that extra stuff. And maybe they talked about that again. Yeah, that's true. Well, I mean, yeah, yeah. You're right, and thank you for framing it that way. You know, at one point, my talk was going to be about not having opinions and about how painful opinions are and how opinions, I was gonna talk about, I'm on the internet a lot partially because of my job.

[39:08]

I had to take care of our website and our Facebook page and all that stuff. So I'm really struck with about how much, especially the form of the internet. I mean, there's just so much opportunity to have an opinion these days. And everyone's just kind of out there giving it. And so I think one of the ways to work with that nothing extra is to pay attention to opinions and how limiting they are and how actually painful they are. The... usually prevent, they usually just kind of solidify this tiny little bit of self, and they don't often leave the door open for beginner's mind for anything else to happen. They just kind of put us in a cage. This is who I am, this is what I think, these are my limits.

[40:12]

And so... That's just a drop in that whole discussion. Okay, all right. Thank you very much for being here and for listening. Take care.

[40:32]

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