This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. The first few minutes while the kids are here, I actually have a special guest that I would like to invite. today. Actually, two special guests. One is, I'd like to invite my husband, Jeremy, to come up, and then our very special friend, Baby Dinosaur. Yeah, yeah. I know, it's a little intimidating, but they're smiling, if you like. You can sit it over there. Over there? Over here.

[01:00]

We're about to cross the front of the altar here, so when we do that, we put our hands together and we bow just to acknowledge. Okay. I'm so glad you're here. I think I'm glad to be here. I'm glad you're here too, Jeremy. Oh, thank you. I am relaxed. Good. Is Elizabeth here? No, Elizabeth, our daughter, didn't want to come today. But you can tell her all about it. Okay. Okay. That's good. That's good. Do you ever kind of sometimes feel like a little upset or sad or kind of just don't know how to really kind of calm down? Oh, that happens to me a lot. Sometimes I get very excited. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Sometimes I do things I'm not supposed to do. Really? Yeah. Oh. Have you ever heard about finding the still quiet place inside?

[02:02]

The still quiet place inside? Yeah. You don't have to be quiet. I don't know anything about that. And you don't have to be quiet all the time, but sometimes it's nice when you want to be quiet inside to know how to find that place. Oh, yeah. That seems like that would be a good thing. I think. So you can, let's try it. Are you up for trying it with the kids? Are you all up for trying it too? You want to try it too? Okay, so kind of sit up straight in your egg. No, no, no. You can relax a little bit. Yeah, yeah, just sort of natural. That's good. No, no, no. It's okay. All right, now just notice when you're breathing. Hi, Frank. Notice when you breathe in. Actually, take your hand. Do you take your hand, everybody? And should you put it? Is that a hand? Is that what it's called? It's a claw. It's a little claw. A claw, a little claw. Take your claw and put it on your belly. And this is really good for adults, too, by the way. Okay. Now breathe in and see if you notice anything, any movement.

[03:06]

What do you notice? Your belly got bigger. Your belly got bigger. Did anybody else's belly get bigger when they breathed in a little bit? Now when you breathe out, so let's take a nice breath in. Breathe in. And now a nice breath out. Do you notice anything in your belly? What happens to your belly? My belly got smaller. Your belly got smaller, yeah. So you can tell, you can focus on your breath by noticing when you breathe in, your belly gets bigger. And then you breathe out, your belly gets smaller. And when you breathe in, you can say some words if you want to inside your own head, but you don't have to. But you could say in, out. In, out. You could also say some other words that might be nice. You could say happy as you breathe in. Peaceful. Happy. Peaceful.

[04:11]

And you can close your eyes if you want to. I can't close my eyes. Oh, you can't close your eyes. That's okay. You don't have to close your eyes, but you can. And you also don't have to put your hand on your breath, on your belly. You could do this anytime, and maybe nobody would even know it. You could just breathe in and go happy. Peaceful. And just do that a couple of times. And then, do you know what's happened? You've found your still, quiet place within. Now you know how to get there. That it's inside you. It's always there. There's one more thing I'd like to teach you and the kids, Baby Dinosaur. Are you up for one more thing? Yeah, I have a question, Doc. What's your question? So, I'm happy to learn how to find my still, quiet place. But I'm a little afraid that if I always just go back to my still, quiet place... I may never come out of my shell. I'm trying to come out of my shell. Yeah, you can still find you're still a quiet place and you can still be really expressive and play in your life.

[05:14]

And then you can come back and you can go out again. Is that okay? Yeah, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't going to have to stay in my shell. Nobody has to stay in their shell forever. Please don't stay in your shell forever. I've been here a long time already. That's right. So we talked about sometimes you feel excited or different emotions. What are emotions, baby dinosaur? Do you know that word? Emotions. What are emotions? Maybe we could ask them. Would you ask them? Do you know what emotions are? Feelings. Feelings, right? Yeah, and ask them maybe what feelings they might have. Like what kind of feelings? Like that. That's sad. What kind of feelings? Happy. Happy. Yeah, great. And sometimes we have feelings. Sometimes they're kind of hard feelings, like you feel angry or upset, and it's like a big thundercloud comes. And when you're in the middle of the thundercloud, all you can see is gray and lightning and thunder, and you forget that it's just a cloud. But has anybody been in an airplane?

[06:14]

Anybody been in an airplane? You know how when you're in an airplane, you see the wide, [...] wide blue sky that goes on forever? So in a way, our mind is really like that wide blue sky. So can we remember, even when we're in the thundercloud, that our mind is actually like a wide blue sky. So I'm going to teach you a song. A song. Okay, so I'll sing one line twice just to teach you, and then you and the kids can sing it after me, and then I'll keep going. Does that sound good? Okay. You up for it? All right, let's try it. The mind is a clear blue sky. The mind is a clear blue sky. No, you didn't do it right. Oh, I'm sorry. That's okay. I know. All right, so let me try again. I'll sing it twice, and then you sing it twice, right? The mind is a clear blue sky. [...]

[07:16]

And the thunder comes. And the thunder goes. And the thunder goes. The mind is a clear blue sky. The mind is a clear blue sky. The mind is a clear blue sky. And the lightning comes. And the lightning goes. The mind is a clear blue sky. One more time. And the anger comes. And the anger goes. The mind is a clear blue sky. [...]

[08:21]

Yay. Thank you so much for helping us today. Thank you, teacher. So I think the kids get to go out into the beautiful day with the wide blue sky. So please enjoy your day. They're quite excited out there. Can you hear me? Yeah. Okay. So about this time last week, actually right before the 925 sitting, I was in my little house, which is right over there by the pond. thinking about what it was I was going to talk to you about today. So I was feeling very disciplined that I was sitting inside and focusing and it was the week ahead and I had plenty of time and so I was absorbed in this. And just as I'm right in the middle of this, a black-robed figure who happens to be my husband came in the door very excited and

[09:30]

like the kids. He doesn't know I'm going to tell this story. And he said, you have to come out and see the light coming through the trees. It's so beautiful. And my confession is I had a flicker of hesitation. I don't think it was quite annoyance, but it was definitely hesitation of I am in the middle of this important thing, which is figuring out what I'm going to talk about. next Sunday. But it just lasted a second and then something else happened. I said, okay, let's go see. And so my daughter Elizabeth also got up and we all, we all trooped outside and just right out here where the eucalyptus are. And it was a morning, it was a beautiful morning like this, but it was a little bit different. The sun was just as bright, but it was just coming up over the hills and the mist, the fog was actually still quite thick. And so when you stopped and you looked, you could see the rays of sunlight.

[10:37]

They were so distinct, you know, piercing through the eucalyptus trees. And it was incredibly beautiful. And then you said, no, no, keep coming. So then we came up even further, and we were standing right out here by the Zendo. And I don't know if you've noticed, but there's this marvelous Monterey cypress, that big, huge tree by the parking lot. Sometimes it has bees in it. but the sun was coming up just behind that tree and these big dark branches and this thick fog mist and the sunlight piercing through. And it was almost like a shout, like, hello, wake up, look, look. And in that moment, I actually could stop and look. And I thought, you know, in almost 12 years in total living at Green Gulch, I don't think I had ever seen anything quite like that before. And I wouldn't have seen it if I had not been invited, invited to see. And I was just in kind of sweatsuit and things and people were starting to come to the Zendo and in robes and I was just standing there.

[11:43]

And then I started to notice that other people were coming by and a few people would look and then keep going or a few people wouldn't look at all. And I just allowed myself to let go of this idea of what I was going to be talking about and just stand there. And I think I stood there a long time, because when I looked around, Jeremy wasn't there either. He just left me. I was talking with my friend Roger Houston, who's a writer, the other day, and he talked about shimmering moments, that we all have these shimmering moments in our lives. In a given person, if you think back into your life, the moments that you remember, you have, and you remember all your life, you know, and they may be big moments, you know, when you know you're going to move to a new city or you know you're going to have a child or something big like that, but they can also be these really tiny moments or seemingly small moments when something opens to you, you know, when you see a tree

[12:56]

when you really, really see a tree. And so as I think, you know, we have our biography, our autobiography, which is something like, you know, born, grow up, graduate, get a job, get married, have kids, retire, die. That's our life. But can you think also, what is our true biography? Like where are the moments when we actually are present in our life? When we truly see something or we truly are seen. This idea first, it was interesting to do, excuse me, introduced me when I read a book which you may have read called Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard. Has anyone read that book? A few nods, a few, yeah. But she talks about, I think it was a girl who had been blind and then her sight was restored.

[13:58]

And so she hadn't processed the world in the way we conventionally process it. And so she looks up at a tree and she asks her mother, can you see, oh, look at the tree with the lights in it. And she saw not just sunlight and trees, et cetera, but it actually looked to her like the tree was full of glowing lights. And Annie Diller talks about going through her life wanting to see the tree with the lights in it. And then she says at some moment, she's not thinking about it, and she's out in the countryside, and she looks. I think it was a maple. And suddenly she sees it. She can see the tree, and she can see it as if it has all these lights in it. And she says it was like she had been dumb until that point, like being a bell that had never been struck. And suddenly it sounds. And your whole being sounds. So I'm interested in what helps us come alive.

[15:04]

What are the moments that not only do we say yes, but we actually become the yes. We become the bell that struck, the bell that rings. Our whole being becomes yes. What can we do to cultivate that? What do we say yes to that allows that? Do we actually get up in the morning to go to the zendo or sit in the evening or sit at home? Does that help? What places us on a kind of edge that's not always comfortable? Like when I was asked to give this talk, it's like, yes, yes, yes, I think yes. a little bit uncomfortable. I could have said, no, I really have too much on my plate. Maybe next time. But there's something about saying yes to having to think about and notice, oh yeah, the tree, the Monterey Cypress with the light coming through, the tree with the lights in it.

[16:16]

To have to pay attention, to put oneself on this edge, it's a little bit uncomfortable sometimes, but opens us to what's happening right now. I have a poem. And this is a poem called, I think a longer poem, called Come As You Are by Rabindranath Tagore. Come as you are, tarry not over your toilette. If your braiding has come loose, if the parting of your hair be not straight, if the ribbons of your bodice be not fastened, do not mind. Come as you are, tarry not. Come with quick steps over the grass. If your feet are pale with the dew, if your anklets slacken, if pearls drop out of your chain, do not mind. Come with quick steps over the grass. Do you see the clouds wrapping the sky?

[17:19]

Flocks of cranes fly up from the further riverbank and fitful gusts of wind rush over the heath. The anxious cattle run to their stalls in the village. Do you see the clouds wrapping the sky? In vain you light your toilette lamp. It flickers and goes out in the wind. Surely who would know that with lamp black your eyelids are not touched. For your eyes are darker than rain clouds. In vain. You light your toilet lamp. It goes out. Come as you are. Tarry not over your toilet. If the wreath is not woven, who cares? If the wrist chain has not been tied, leave it by. The sky is overcast with clouds. It is late. Come as you are.

[18:20]

Tarry not over your toilet. So what do we tarry over? What separates us from coming right now? And Tagore says, quit fussing over how you look. It doesn't really matter. You're beautiful anyway. The hour is late. What is important is now. What are we putting off? And how do we put it off? Do we say, you know, when I get done with this project, when my kids are out of the house, when my kids get done with college, when I have a little more time?

[19:32]

then what? Then what? You know, how often when asked, how are you? Do we say, oh, I'm busy. Everyone smiles and nods. Busy, good, busy. You know, it's an interesting question. Even more than fine, busy. What is busy a code word for? I am valued. I am productive. I am in the middle of things. I'm not lost somewhere floundering on the side. What if I weren't busy? What if I said, oh, not so busy these days? But people wonder, how's that person doing? Of course, there's a famous Zen story of someone sweeping, sweeping, sweeping, sweeping.

[20:41]

Master comes by and says, oh, so busy. And the person says, monk says, but you should know there is one who is not busy. So I guess there's busy and there's busy. And what is this busyness keeping us from? Anything? Do we inquire? Do we ask? Does it keep us from doing the things that bring us alive? As Steve Jobs recently said, I think recently, famously, remembering that you're going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. you are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. But we may have to ask this question, what does it mean to follow our heart?

[21:47]

And are we tarrying? So it may be doing the things that bring us alive in a creative way in the world, our passion, our creative gift. It may be taking the time to come to Green Gulch on a Sunday morning. It may be taking the time to sit, to develop a practice, or maybe to go on retreat for a week, can you imagine? A week of just sitting still. What would you find? But also, maybe we're too busy to see the sunlight through the trees, or to simply be awake right now, in this known other, this moment. Are we too busy for that? In vain you light your toilet lamp.

[23:00]

It goes out. The sky is overcast with clouds. It is late. Come as you are. This is actually pretty good news, I think. You don't have to be different. You don't have to wait for the right circumstances. Now. Now. Now, now, now, now, now. And then there's also, you know, literally tearing over one's toilet. I saw someone recently, I think it was an older woman, but she looked great. She obviously had put a lot of effort into her appearance. Seemed to be in good shape, beautiful dark hair, dressed nicely, jewelry, etc. Was really taking care of herself, which was wonderful. But when I looked at her, I saw that and I saw fear.

[24:02]

that there was not an ease. You know, even maybe, this was perhaps my projection, but a sense of a little bit of desperation in there that's probably not acknowledged. Like, how much do we feel that? I was talking to a friend of mine who's just a little bit older than I am and is in pretty good shape, but we were talking about getting older and changes in the body and things like that, and she laughed. And she said, you know, oh, this body, kind of ruefully, she said, it's a lost cause. And it is. Your body's a lost cause. I hate to tell you, but it's true. And it's an amazing, precious vehicle for developing wisdom and compassion and for practicing and for being present in this world and for seeing sunlight and trees. So please, please, please do take care of yourself the best you can. Eat well, sleep, exercise, and know it's a lost cause.

[25:11]

And the mind is too, by the way. I think this is a lot of what Buddhism is about. It's just getting these basic things out of the way. Right? The body's a lost cause. The mind is a lost cause. Okay, now what do we do? Okay. Don't worry too much about it. I think about that. You know, and different traditions have been onto this for a very long time and talk about it in different ways. And so, of course, in the Bible, they talk about not building your house on shifting sands on a solid foundation. What does that mean to build our house on shifting sands? Are we putting all our eggs in the basket? I've got to keep it together here. But the thing is, we kind of know on some very deep level that that's not really possible, and so we're anxious. There's some little kernel of fear in there, even when things seem to be going pretty well.

[26:20]

So in Buddhism, they talk about three three what I call marks of existence or the way things are. And one is simply impermanent, always changing. Always changing. One is no self, nothing exists really by itself. Including my sense of self is actually created by language and my parents and my biology and Even this talk is not me up here giving a talk. It's all of us. A kind of co-creation arising. And then suffering in the sense that if we're out of touch with that, if we try to hold on to things as if they were permanent, as if they were separate, it's simply not the way things are. So it's going to hurt when we find out that's not the way things are. But along the lines of

[27:26]

appearance and Toilette, I'd like to give you what I find a very encouraging, encouraging quote by, of all people, Roald Dahl of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and many, many, many other books. And he says, a person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick out teeth, but if you have good thoughts and They will shine out of your face like sunbeams, and you will always look lovely. Isn't that delightful? This is also good news. A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. If you have good thoughts, they will shine out of your face like sunbeams, and you will always look lovely. Back to this question of what is true stability or where do we look?

[28:40]

We realize, oh, I've actually been putting my eggs in the wrong basket or I'm building a house on shifting sand. I'm starting to be able to open to that possibility as uncomfortable as it is. Then what? I mean, there's so many metaphors. One is they say that the family treasure does not come in through the gate. The family treasure does not come in through the gate. So it's not actually something out there you have to go get. I'm going to share... a story that was actually given to me by a friend who is in the room today, so I thank him for his contribution. It says, legend has it that when the gods made the human race, they fell to arguing where to put the answers to life so that humans would have to search for them.

[29:46]

When God said, let's put the answers on top of a mountain, they'll never look for them there. No, so the others, they'll find them right away. Another god said, let's put them in the center of the earth. They'll never look for them there. No, said the others, they'll find them right away. Then another spoke, I know, let's put them in the bottom of the sea. They'll never look for them there. No, said the others, they'll find them right away. Silence fell. After a while, another god spoke, we can put the answers to life within them. They will never look there. And so they did that. So you might also think, let's put them in a church. Or let's put them in a Zen temple. Or let's put them in a sutra book. Will they look for them there? Probably.

[30:48]

They'll look for them there. But you're not going to find them, actually. because they're not here either, really. Yet there are some maps, some guiding phrases. I mean, you could look at the story of the Buddha as someone who very seriously was not too busy to look within. Who could stop and say, OK, I really want to understand. And he actually did look out first. He went to all the different teachers of his day that were available to him, but was not satisfied with the answers he found. So then he had to look within. And we can read over, you know, two and a half millennia what's been passed down to us, this incredible treasure store

[31:55]

But it's not the true treasure store. To find that, you have to do the work yourself. And sometimes it comes as grace, too. So he looked within, and then he found out a few things. And at first he thought, everybody has this potential. This is really amazing. But nobody's going to understand. So at first he wasn't going to teach. That's the story. And then it goes that I think the god, Indra, came down and said, no, there are some people who have but little dust in their eyes, but little dust in their eyes, and they will understand. Please teach. And so he did. So we have these wonderful roadmaps, again, that have been carefully preserved over so, so, so many years of mindfulness and concentration and inquiry, insight. And then also Zen teachers... you know, putting their own spin on the instructions, the guiding phrases.

[33:00]

So one is, you know, turn the light around. So normally we look out. What's going on? Out, out, out, out, out. So take the light that shines out, the light of attention. Turn it inward. Turn the light around and shine it inward. Another is take the backward step. Take the backward step. But sometimes we have to actually create a space where we can do this. So we can look within, and also we can open to everything around us in this moment. The English poet William Blake. To see a world in a grain of sand. and heaven in a wildflower. Hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour.

[34:05]

So you could go out and you could wait another 12 years for the sunlight to come through the Monterey pine, just as I said. Or you could go in the garden right now. Right now. Or even in this room. Can we open to what's here right now? The ordinariness of every moment and the profundity of every moment. right now. How about you? What is your life? What is your practice? And if this is already within us, why practice? I mean, this was the question of... Dogen Zenji, who's the founder of Soto Zen in Japan many hundred years ago. It's already in. Why practice? How do we practice? I mean, for me, coming to this temple a fair number of years ago now, I think it drew me because it seemed to speak directly to something that I already felt inside.

[35:23]

There was something already leaning in this direction but didn't have the language for it or didn't have the practice. And then to somehow find my way, stumble into a whole tradition that's devoted just to that, just to articulating this sense of, what is it? I think we all have it. It's all there somewhere. This questioning, this opening, what is it? There's an image of a chick and an egg. And the chick is pecking from the inside, and then a teacher is pecking from the outside, right? Peck, peck, [...] boom! And baby dinosaur pops out of his shell, right? So I think this sense of pecking, peck, peck. Is anybody pecking from the outside? Not that it's impossible to do on one's own, but there's something wonderful about adjoining others who are also pecking in their own way. joining a language, joining a practice.

[36:26]

And for me, this basic practice of simply sitting, there's so many wonderful practices in the Buddhist canon, that the simple practice of directly sitting, facing a wall, being with oneself, sometimes for a short period of time, sometimes for a very long period of time, for me, touches it most directly, points directly to what? Just asking yourself right now, is there, is something questioning, asking from within and how do you support that? You know, does it mean taking a few minutes to sit in the morning, sit home? Does it mean going for walks, slow walks in the garden, letting yourself just sit on a bench?

[37:32]

Does it mean signing up for a week-long retreat somewhere? Does it mean starting to read something that talks about this? Does it mean starting to meet with a teacher? Is it important? Is it worth your time? Is this relevant to this very life that you're living that is... as we are reminded of lost cause. And there are many good things. I also teach meditation and mindfulness, the sorts of being present in one's daily life in a lot of different settings, including corporations and schools and da-da-da, and it's really wonderful. And then there's a danger, or maybe it's just skillful means, of it can start to turn into something we do because it's good for us. You know, it lowers our blood pressure, or it helps us calm down, or it does this. And that's fine as a start, and it does all these amazing things. But it's so far beyond that, too.

[38:34]

It's so much bigger. It's a different category of experience. And so Dogen also says, you know, it doesn't matter if you're smart or not. You don't have to be really intelligent. which is also good news for us, says just sit. And also you don't have to go on a long search far away. It's always right in front of you. And he writes, we chant this, by the way, once a week here. You have gained the pivotal opportunity of human form. Do not use your time in vain. I think he's talking to you. You are maintaining the essential working of the Buddha way. Who would take wasteful delight in the spark from the Flintstone? Besides, form and substance are like the dew on the grass, destiny like the dart of lightning, emptied in an instant, vanished in a flash. He says, if you devote yourself to this way, then your treasure store will open of itself and you will use it at will.

[39:46]

It is late. Come as you are. Do not tarry. It's said that the true human body is the entire universe. And that the entire universe is one bright pearl. The writer Diane Ackerman says, It began in mystery and it will end in mystery. But what a rare and beautiful country lies in between. I'd like to finish with one more poem. This is The Treasure by Robinson Jeffers. He's a California poet. who lived in the first half of the 20th century.

[40:53]

Mountains, a moment's earth waves, rising and hollowing. The earth, too, is an ephemerid. The stars, short-lived as grass, the stars quicken in the nebula and dry in their summer. They spiral, blind up space, scattered black seeds of a future. Nothing lives long. The whole sky's recurrences tick the seconds of the hours of the ages of the gulf before birth and the gulf after death is like dated. To labor 80 years in a notch of eternity is nothing too tiresome. Enormous repose after, enormous repose before, the flash of activity. Truly, you never have dreamed the incredible depths were prologue and epilogue merely to the surface play in the sun, the instant of life, what is called life.

[42:00]

I fancy that silence is the thing. This noise, a found word for it. Interjection, a jump of the breath at that silence. Stars burn, grass grows, men breathe. as a man finding treasure says, ah, but the treasure's the essence. Before the man spoke, it was there, and after he has spoken, he gathers it. Inexhaustible treasure. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[43:02]

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