How is everybody today? Good, huh? Beautiful day, spring, May. I brought my clock with me, so I know how long to talk with you. And then, you know, I think the last time I did a kid's talk, I had a little friend with me and I brought him back today. My friend's name is Wilbur. Wilbur, and Wilbur is very wise. He's a wise, what do you think, dog? No, it's a little mysterious, like what kind of creature he is. But Wilbur has done a lot of Zen practice. So he has a very deep understanding and

[01:00]

Even though he's done a lot of Zen practice and has a deep understanding, he still likes to come to other people's lectures to see if he can learn something. So this is part of what makes Wilbur so wise because he's always ready to learn. So he's gonna sit here and listen in to my talk too, so see what he can find out. And you can listen also and see what you find out. Will he sit on here, do you suppose? I don't know, maybe, I don't think so. Maybe we'll just put him down here. Okay, there you go, Wilbur. Okay. So this is an auspicious morning, May the 2nd, and one of our couples here, Sarah and Jiryu, Sarah gave birth to a baby last night, about 11 o'clock, a little boy. Was it Frank David? Frank David, Frank David.

[02:01]

So a little boy and he's just under eight pounds. So this is kind of amazing. Do you remember when you were born? And do you remember where you came from? Sometimes when babies are born, do you have little sisters or brothers who were born after you? Because sometimes, well, when babies are born, you can't quite, each of us is who we are. And each baby is very special. Have you noticed that? And each of you are very special. And interestingly, but on the 20th of April, which is about 10 or 11 days ago now, my daughter had a baby too. So I'm now a grandfather. And my daughter is 37.

[03:05]

So a little late to be having babies, but still possible. Especially now with modern medicine. It's easier to have a baby, you know, when the younger, usually. Usually it's easier when you're before 30 or so, you know, it gets harder. But anyway, I'm very happy to have a granddaughter, and my daughter, the mother of the baby, is really, really happy. This is a good thing to remember, you know, how happy people are when you are born. And my daughter, when I talked to my daughter, she said, Dad, I can't believe that anybody could love someone else this much. I just, you know, I just am so full of love for my baby. And this is what, you know, most of the time, most parents feel for their babies. When you're first born, mom and dad, they just fall in love with you.

[04:10]

And then later on, they sometimes forget a little bit. How much they love you. So anyway, this is very precious. And when you're first born, the room is very quiet. It's so still. And babies, they're like from someplace else. The baby is like from someplace else, you know. It's not the same as this world where it's so busy and things are happening. And around the babies, everybody is so quiet. And then the baby's so quiet. It's very mysterious. you know, and very sweet. So each of us is special, you know, and my daughter said that she has, that her baby is the most beautiful baby in the world. And then she said, ever.

[05:14]

But that's an example of how much, you know, she loves her baby. And then, but every mom You know, every mommy and daddy feels this way that, you know, you when you were born are very precious. Okay? Do you remember that? Now I'm going to tell you a story too, okay, about how in your life you can have some problems and how maybe it's okay to have problems. Okay? I want to tell you this story. This is a story that takes place in India. And there was a king Do you know king? He's royal and then he has like a crown and then everybody does what he says. Head of the country. Long live the king. And then people say things like, long live the king. So this king liked to, one of the things he liked to do is to go hunting. Do you know hunting? Hunting is where he goes out in the forest and then he hunts for wild animals to

[06:20]

I'm afraid to kill them and to have their meat to eat. So one time he was out hunting with his minister, and this minister, whatever happened, whatever the king said, the minister would say, yes, that's great. That's wonderful. That's perfect. You might think this is a good thing, but if it's not such a good thing, and he says it's a good thing, it can be kind of surprising. So they were out hunting, and the king had an accident, and he accidentally cut off one of his toes, and it hurt a lot. He cut off his toe, and it hurt so much. And the minister said, that's great, that's wonderful. And when they got back then to the palace, the king was sitting there on his throne and he said, you are such an idiot.

[07:22]

How could you say that cutting off my toe was great and how could you say it was really wonderful? And then the minister said, it's wonderful that you would say such a thing, sire. What do you mean it's wonderful, the king said. The minister said, well, you're saying just the right thing. And the king said, you're fired. I don't want to see you around here anymore. Get another job. Go home. So then the minister said, thank you, sire. That was excellent. Well done. Very well done. So then the minister went home. And after a while, the king's toe was healed. So he thought he would go out hunting. And because, usually he went hunting with his minister, but in this case, he went hunting with some people in his army. So they were out in the forest, and then somehow the king got separated from everybody else. And then there were some wild tribes out in the forest, and they captured him.

[08:28]

Some, what do we call them, native peoples? Anyway, he was captured by... Some people that he didn't know were living in the forest, they captured him and they tied him up and then they had a custom there that whatever they captured like this, they would sacrifice. So usually people in old times sometimes would sacrifice like a goat or some kind of animal and they kill the animal as an offering to their god. Nowadays we think this is strange, strange custom, right? Very strange. But in this case, this tribe, they knew like, oh, we have a good subject here too. They said, instead of a goat, we can sacrifice a human being. So then they cleaned him up and they put a garland of flowers around his chest, made him look very pretty. And then they had him taken to this clearing in the forest.

[09:29]

And then the priest of the tribe came out and the priest is dancing. And they were playing music and singing and we are going to have a great sacrifice. And the priest of the tribe had this big sword in his hand and then he put down his sword and he says, now I have to examine the sacrificial animal. They didn't know he was a king. So then he looks at the king and his head's okay and his shoulders are okay, his arms are okay. And he gets down finally to the foot and he says, This man is missing a toe. We can't sacrifice him. He's not good enough to sacrifice for our God. And the king was just so overjoyed. He was just so happy. Thank goodness he'd lost a toe or he would have been sacrificed by this wild tribe. So then they let him go. They said, well, go on.

[10:31]

Get away from here. Go on home. So he goes home. And he's so happy. And he calls the minister in. He says, oh, you were right. It was, you know, when you said it was so fortunate and so right that I lost my toe, you couldn't be more right. But you know, I don't understand. Why was it so good for me to fire you? You said that was good too. And the minister said, well, you know, if you hadn't fired me, I would have been out hunting with you. And when they found out you were missing a toe, they would have wanted to sacrifice me. So there you have it. You might find that your problems are, you know, the things that you think are wrong are not so wrong and actually you have, you know, you're very well loved by your mother and father and all the world you can find love.

[11:34]

And you can appreciate who you are, even though you have some difficulties or problems, okay? Warm wishes, have a great day, huh? Beautiful time. And Wilbur wants to say goodbye too. Bye, bye. Bye. Hi. Hi. How are you? Hi, how are you doing?

[12:38]

My name is Bobby. Huh? My name is Bobby Soul. I couldn't hear. My name is Bobby Soul. Bobby Soul. Nice to meet you, Bobby. Is this Wilbur? Wilbur. What's your name? Ila. Ila. Nice to meet you, Ila. How are you? Hi. Happy to meet you. Have a good day. Bye. Bye. Are you on your way? Bye bye. Thank you. So there's a few more seats up in front now. Not so many, but a few. I think you could use a bath, Wilbur, you've gotten a little scruffy in the face.

[13:49]

This is what happens with these oldsters, you know, sometimes people get so old they need to be, they're like kids, you need to take care of them because they don't know to take care of themselves. Okay, so you want to sit here and listen to the rest of the talk too? Okay. Wilbur likes to think he knows more about Zen than anybody, but actually he's still learning and willing to study. Last night I had dinner with some friends and one of them said, when the kids leave, why don't you leave with them? Yeah, I could go out that door and around the building and come back in this door.

[14:56]

So maybe one of these days I'll get up enough nerve to do that. So just now telling that story, I'm remembering a poem by Robert Bly, just a line or two from it where he says, being yourself, is that like limping? And then he says, oh, go ahead, walk without a limp, walk perfectly, beautifully. And then he says something like, you know, you don't have any problems You've got them carefully hidden away.

[15:57]

And then he says something like, you know, house walls get scars. Matter and drudgery takes it up. You know, that somewhere that your wound will show in your life. And then he says, you know, be brave. Like the bird men of Bhutan, he says, they walk on, they dance on stilts. I don't know, you know. I've never seen them, but he says they dance on stilts. And they're very courageous. Anyway, being yourself, is that like limping? So this is actually related to the beginning of my talk with the kids. How precious, when we were born, And how precious it is to be a human being.

[16:59]

And then, over the course of our life, we learn to forget. And then, one of the tendencies we have is to... But we remember, in some ways, we can remember that, and we wonder, how do I get that again? That love. That sense of being the most precious person in the world that each of us is. In Zen, we say, each one is best. Every day is a good day. And Suzuki Rishi said, every day is a good day. It doesn't mean you can't complain. Complaints are one of the great things you can do. So, we think in order to have this love again, we need to be perfect. We need to not have problems, not show problems, not let anyone know what our difficulty is.

[18:02]

And then they would probably like us. And if we did this well enough, and enough people liked us, maybe we could like ourselves, love ourselves. And of course the question is, how well has it worked? How are you doing? And, of course, what Buddhism points out is, you know, this is not a possible task. You will never do things perfectly enough to gain the love you always wanted that you had, you know, when you were first born. And you were still from someplace else, you know, you didn't know what it was like to be here and to get involved with good and bad and right and wrong and am I good enough? So, you know, one of my friends has created a bit of a dictionary, for instance, of what he calls kids talk.

[19:14]

So you're familiar with this, right? So, I must, I have to. And many times Buddhist teachers say, you have to. You must. You must be completely mindful. Or what? Or you're going to get punished. So if you feel have to or must, or you say, I have to, I must, whatever it is, get to work, make a living, then you're also believing that or I will get punished. Or something bad will happen. Or people won't like me. Or... I won't get the love I want. Or, you know, that will show that I'm not good enough. Or should, you know? What about should? I should. I should get to work on time. I don't want to, I'm not going to, but I should. What about reality?

[20:20]

The reality is you're not, you know, and you don't feel like it. Then what will you do? How will you talk to yourself then? And then we have can't. I can't. Somebody says, would you come to dinner? I can't. You could say, I have some other plans, because can't means, actually, I'm choosing not to, but I don't want to tell you that I'm choosing not to, because you might be upset with me. that I'm not choosing, you might be upset that I'm not choosing to do what you're asking, so I say, I can't. Well, I can't. That was simple, huh? That gets you off the hook. Nobody can blame you, criticize you, punish you, reject you, because, well, you can't. But the truth is, of course, you could. You could make other plans, you could change your plans, of course, but then those people might be unhappy with you.

[21:22]

LAUGHTER So interesting. But to have a more complete statement, you could say, well, I have plans already for that evening, and I think I prefer to go ahead and do those, the plans that I've already made. Anyway, there are various ways to talk, but sometimes we do must, have to, should, can't, or another one is when you don't feel like doing something that somebody asks you, and you say, well, I'll try. Which means, I don't want to do that, I have no intention of doing that, but I'll try. And I'm going to tell you I'll try because I don't want you to be upset with me for not being willing to do what you've asked. So we try to kind of maneuver in this way through the world so that we can get...

[22:24]

the recognition, approval, love that we're missing. And how are we going to have that? And finally, of course, if you remember what it's like for a baby, it's not about your performance. What you're doing or not doing, what you're good at or not good at, the problems you have or don't have, the difficulties, and the love is you can allow it into your heart, into your life, or not. How will you do that? So, for me, I found this so important in my life, and it took me just 19 years of Zen practice. You know, Suzuki Roshi used to say over and over again, you Westerners seem to have a strong wish for improvement.

[23:34]

You know, something that you can measure and gauge, you know, how you've improved. This is a kind of Western idea and scientific, you know. We used to walk and go by horse, now we go by car and jet plane. This is progress. And he said, some of you who practice Zen, you've rejected this idea of cultural improvement, but you keep the idea that you could improve. And Buddhism, he said, is not about improvement. We don't emphasize that so much. Improvement you have to measure. And he would say, Some of you believe in stepladders then. Today, I will understand this. Tomorrow, I will understand that. Little by little, I can go up the rungs of the ladder. Stepladders then. And he said, when you believe this, you will lose your way. Because the end of your practice should be right now.

[24:41]

Here we are. And is your life or your practice in the future when you get better, when you improve, when you understand, or is it here? So the question becomes, or the emphasis, how will you do you here, now, today? So this is, of course, a very big question for us. And I want to say a little bit about this today. in perhaps a slightly different way. And I want to remind you that your directives, your judgments, you need to this, you should that. Your directives, your judgments, your pronouncements, this is the way to be, this is not the way to be, you need to this, why don't you that? And then you won't be punished, then you will get approval, recognition,

[25:44]

Everybody will like you. The world will be different. You will be a magnificent person that people bow to and want to open your car door for you, give you Rolls Royces. A few people have actually been successful at this as a career move. So interesting. So judgments, pronouncements, directives, what to do. It's stepladder practice. It's aiming for improvement. And to be at home in the world and to be comfortable in your being, to have some ease and joy in your life, you'll never be good enough to have that unless you just go ahead and practice and allow that to happen and to have that. This is not complicated.

[26:46]

The concept is not complicated. Changing the way you go about things is more complicated. So what I'm going to suggest today is that this is about your aesthetic and about cultivating and allowing your aesthetic to shift. So your aesthetic is in you already. What you like, what you don't like, what's pleasant, what's unpleasant, what's beautiful, what's ugly. So is it beautiful to have a problem or to have a difficulty, or is that ugly? Is it something you hide or something you show? And when you show it, do you act it out and make a big drama out of it, or do you just allow it to be there and to be seen? Suzuki Rishi said, some of you are trying to be good Zen students. Why don't you be yourself? I will get to know you better that way.

[27:48]

When you aim to be a good, then I'm aiming not to be criticized, not to be judged, not to be blamed. And then, do people know you or do they just know your performance? So, over and over again, Suzuki Roshi and Dogen Zenji say, be sincere, be wholehearted. Be yourself. So this is very interesting because your aesthetic, what you naturally like, don't like, you like a certain amount of salt in your food. You like a certain amount of sweet in your food. Some of you will like spicy food, you know, some peppers and others, I don't like that much spice. You know what you like. This is reality. what you like, what you don't like, what you enjoy, what you don't enjoy, what's pleasant, what's not pleasant, and you know. But the interesting, and then our judgments and pronouncements and directives are aimed to try to make the world conform to our aesthetic.

[29:00]

Because we assume our aesthetic is right. And then we say, you make me mad. And if you behave differently, you wouldn't make me mad. Because I don't want this unpleasant experience that you're giving me. And you're the cause of it. We say things like this. But your aesthetic could change. And this is an interesting point because usually we think, or we hear in Buddhism, ego is not good. You shouldn't have an ego. But actually, you know what you like, what you don't like, and you're entitled to Your aesthetic. And your aesthetic is how you can be an artist in your life, whether you're actually an artist or just the artist of your own life. You're creating your life. You can create your life so that this moment is your practice. Your practice is not coming to fruition sometime in the future.

[30:04]

It's coming to fruition now, this moment. What is this moment? What's going on? Thoughts, feelings, sensations, liking and disliking. The question then is not that you have an aesthetic, but do you stick to it? When you stick to your aesthetic, then you live in this world where you're always the victim. We're always the victim of our experience. You make me mad. This has too much salt, too little salt. This needs more pepper. Oh, it's raining again. Oh, beautiful day. So, is each moment, will you buy your aesthetic? If you stick to your aesthetic, then there will always be things, obviously there will always be things you like and things you don't like. And then you will try to bring about more of the things you like and less of the things you don't like. And none of us can do very much with that.

[31:09]

It's always going to be about 50-50, right? And no matter how much... See, one of the basic problems here is what's sometimes called samsara is you will keep going about things like this in a way that doesn't work. You will keep trying to get more pleasant, less unpleasant, rather than looking at your aesthetic and experiencing things closely enough to see if there's some way to allow your aesthetic to shift. so that you, with all your problems, for instance, you, with all your problems and difficulties, you see that you are beautiful. And it's beauty that comes to you that's not connected to your performance. And whether you have difficulties or pains or problems, or somebody's upset with you, disappointed, discouraged, but you're beautiful.

[32:13]

And the person who's upset with you is beautiful. That's your aesthetic, you know, can shift, can grow, can change. Problems, as Suzuki Roshi said, obstacles become, hindrances, I guess was the word he used, hindrances become an opportunity for practice. Hindrances, in other words, become an opportunity for you to examine your aesthetic and see if you can't find beauty in what previously you saw as being something to reject and trash. Do you understand? So, I wanted to tell you a bit, I get these things, I think we all do, you know, we get these email things, people send you email stuff, you know. The most recent one I got was a list of, you know, lawyer jokes, sort of, or courtroom transcripts. courtroom transcripts, like the lawyer says, so what was the first thing that your husband said to you that morning?

[33:22]

And she says, he said, where am I, Kathy? And the lawyer says, and what was so upsetting about that? And she says, my name is Susan. And then there's another one, when you had that automobile accident, what gear were you in? And the person answers, well, Gucci sweats and Reeboks. Anyway. A while back, somebody sent me a piece about how to be lucky. Some of these things I just find so interesting And this was about a man in England whose name is Richard Wiseman. I guess you wouldn't usually say it Wiseman, but you say Wiseman. But Richard Wiseman has been studying for many years now what makes people lucky.

[34:29]

And is it something that you can train yourself in being more lucky? Or, you know, are some people just lucky and other people aren't? and he put advertisements, he's in England, so he put advertisements in all these national magazines and various things, and he got 400 people to respond, some of whom are lucky, and some of them who aren't lucky. And the example, the lucky person he used was a woman who was like 42, and she says, I have the most wonderful job in the world, and my husband is a great guy, we have two beautiful kids, I couldn't be more happy with my life. And the unlucky person was a woman, he said, who, stepped in a hole, twisted her ankle, fell down some steps and hurt her back, and backed her car into a tree in a driving exam all in the same week. So what's going on? So he gave these people, he did tests with these people. So one of the tests he gave was he gave everybody in both groups a newspaper and he said, I'd like you to tell me the number of photos, photographs that are in this newspaper.

[35:36]

And the unlucky people on the average took somewhere over two minutes or three minutes before saying the number of photographs in the newspaper. The lucky people glanced at the newspaper and in less than 30 seconds would say the number of photographs in the newspaper. So he said, On page two of the newspaper, taking up half the page in oversized type, it said, stop reading, there are 43 photographs in this newspaper. The unlucky people are so busy counting photographs because that's what you're supposed to be doing. And if you did that well, you would be getting it right and be successful. And they don't notice that this half-size, half the page, oversized type Stop reading, there are 43 photographs in this newspaper. They don't see it. Do you understand?

[36:37]

So, we can get way focused on following our directives, our pronouncements, our judgments, trying to be successful, trying to do it right, and we don't notice what's right in front of us. You know, information that's right in front of us. Another example, he said, people go to parties and they look for this special person. How do you know who to talk to? How do you know who might be that special person? And then you don't talk to other people or you get away from them. He said, and then you might be overlooking somebody who's a wonderful person who actually could be really fun to be with. So he says, you might just as well go to a party and talk to everybody who's wearing something with blue. But because we have ideas about how to do it and who we're going to talk to and who we're not going to talk to and who we feel comfortable with, that's our aesthetic.

[37:40]

So it's possible actually to change your aesthetic and to think about what would you do to shift your aesthetic. Now, what we do in... In meditation, we sit with things that we normally would not sit still for. Pain in your legs or whatever it is, or you're thinking, going on and on about this and that. Or how do I get someplace? How do I improve? How do I get better? Rather than, can I just see what's coming up and how to be with it? In just a simple way, how to be with this. This moment. This is the end of practice. Suzuki Rishi also said, well, one time in meditation, don't move. Just die.

[38:43]

Nothing is going to help you now because this is your last moment. Not even enlightenment. will help you now because you have no more moments. So this being the end of practice is like that. We're not getting someplace. It's not about doing performing. It's not about your performance and getting it right. It's how do I open my heart to be with this moment? How do I receive things that I find pleasant and unpleasant and joyful and sad and delightful and painful, how do I receive all of this and take it into my heart? How will I do that? And you ask how, but actually all there is is doing it awkwardly or not so awkwardly. And usually how you do it is awkwardly at first, and then you get better at it, because it's your intention.

[39:46]

It's your intending, you know, your intention is, I am intending, I am wishing, I am choosing to receive this moment. And maybe this moment has some challenges or difficulties or problems, maybe it doesn't. But every moment is mysterious and every moment is both completely still and precious like a newborn baby. and then all these other things that are going on that we like and don't like. So, I also wanted to then finish. I want to tell you part of a poem by William Stafford. William Stafford is a very unusual poet. He lived in this century, last century. died a few years back.

[40:49]

And part of what was unusual about him was he was a conscientious objector in World War II. Weren't very many of those. And he wrote a lot of fairly short poems because for many years of his life he had a practice of writing a poem each day. And of course, the famous story about him is that an interviewer once said, well, Mr. Stafford, you write a poem every day. How do you do that? And he said, yeah, I write a poem. I have a place to, I get up early before the kids, and then I start on the poem, and then I have to, I put it on a little shelf I have just for the poem, and then I get the kids up and get the kids to school, and sometimes I can work on it during the day, and then if I don't finish it sooner, I finish it at night after everyone's gone to bed. And she said, but how do you do this? Every day, day after day, how can you be inspired? You know, day after day, and he said, I lower my standards. But this is a little bit like, you know, meeting this moment.

[41:58]

It's just, forget the standards. What about just being with this precious moment, with all of its, with all of it? Rather than wanting to fix or improve, you know, what you think of as yourself. I mean, I spent years, you know, thinking like, oh, this person is unhappy. What did I do? I'm sorry, but, you know, a lot of these people have been around for, or, you know, one time I was cooking at Tassajara and Suzuki Rishi broke a tooth. There was a stone in the black bean chili. And then all the students said, it's your fault. We're going to miss out on the Dharma for three days while he goes to San Francisco. And that is your fault. And I thought about it finally and thought, oh God, I'm just the worst person ever in the history of the universe. I broke my teacher's tooth because I didn't seem careful enough with the stones and the black beans.

[42:58]

And then after two or three days, I thought, you know, his teeth had been around here since before I was born. And he had a real poor diet, I know, during the Second World War. In the Second World War, of course, he stayed at his temple. And he decided to go on being a Zen priest. Many Zen priests, he said, became like school teachers. But he decided to follow Dogen's teaching. You continue your practice. And he continued to be a priest. And then when people came to the temple, One day, one of the women who was a member of his congregation was there and she said, oh, I'll make lunch for you. And she went to the rice bin. It was empty. So then she told all the people, he doesn't have any rice. So then people started bringing little bits of rice. Pretty soon his rice bin was full.

[43:59]

Then people heard, he's got rice. So then they came and asked for rice. So then he gave it all away. Okay. But anyway, I thought, his teeth, there's more to this than just my neglect. Anyway, this is a poem about meeting things. How are you going to be with this moment? And for me, in the context of today, this is a poem about how do you change your aesthetic? and how do you go about your life then? So, the last stanza of this poem is, So, to you, friend, I confide my secret. To you, friend, I confide my secret.

[45:02]

If you want to be a discoverer, Hold close whatever you find. Hold close whatever you find. And after a while, you decide what it is and turn to the open sea and let go. I'm going to say it again because I got a little bit lost in that. So to you, friend, I confide my secret. If you want to be a discoverer, you hold close whatever you find. Hold close whatever you find. And you hold close whatever you find, and after a while,

[46:08]

you decide what it is and turn to the open sea and let go. This is not about improvement, right? This is about discovering a new aesthetic. Your aesthetic changes because you hold what you find close. This moment, you've taken this moment, you hold it close. After a while he says, Oh, secure in what you have found. I left Adaline. I have to try it a third time now. So to you, friend, I confide my secret. If you want to be a discoverer, you hold close whatever you find. And after a while, you decide what it is. Then, secure... In where you have been, you turn to the open sea and let go.

[47:15]

This is, of course, similar to that poem, Antonio Machado or Juan Ramon Jimenez that Robert Bly likes so much. Mankind has four things useless at sea, anchor, rudder, oars, and the fear of going down. So this is shifting from, you know, I want to know what's going to happen and how to handle it and to handle it well and, you know, the way you're supposed to, to I trust myself to respond to what the circumstances are that come up in my life by meeting it closely enough to know what it is and venturing on. So thank you for your presence today and your good hearts taking on this adventure. Blessings.

[48:17]

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