This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzz.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. Sometimes I wonder how it is for you when you come in and the person giving the talk does a lot of fussing around up here. So I don't sit cross-legged, so I don't have that wonderful opportunity to move my leg and pull the kimono down and rearrange the okesa. Sometimes when I am watching that, part of me, my diaphragm tenses up and I want to help them, right? You know, I'm like, but just move it this way.

[01:01]

So just to let you know that the Dharma talk has already started and part of what I'm wanting to bring forth today is patience. By the way, my name is Susan. And I don't live here, but I've had the great benefit of having lived here for eight years a while back. And I'm here this weekend because there's a holiday retreat with maybe 17 or 18 people who are taking this time of year to reconnect with themselves. And so we've been enjoying each other. And it's winter. And it's time during winter to allow our roots to go deep and be nurtured by the earth.

[02:06]

It's also New Year's. And it's time to sit in the middle of our life and ask, shall we look backwards? assess how the year has gone and how we have or haven't lined ourself up with what's most important to us? Or shall we look forward to refining our sense of our utmost concern? Either way, it's a time to clarify those intentions, those utmost concerns. And when I hear those words, I resonate with something that I read that Suzuki Roshi said once. He said, the most important thing is asking what's the most important thing.

[03:17]

And of course... I looked this up online because I wanted to see how many times he said this. And in fact, he said 87 different things about what the most important thing was, according to David Chadwick. And he said things like, forgetting all gaining ideas is the most important thing. And he said, keeping a straight spine is the most important thing. And making our effort on each moment is the most important thing. But I really like the energy of the open-ended question. It can be asked even if we land on a specific idea or ideal, like generosity or...

[04:20]

ethical conduct or patience, we can then ask, what's the most important thing about that? When I first came to Zen Center, I thought I was going to stay for two months. Monday is the 24th anniversary of me moving in. What happened to me, among many other things that supported this turning towards a life of training and practice, was I realized that the Dharma, the investigation of the Dharma or the truth or the teachings, is endless. You don't get there. You keep turning. Everything keeps turning, right? New ways of looking occur on every moment almost.

[05:25]

And possibility for insight is there all the time. So I thought, wow, that would be a good thing to devote the rest of my life to. Something that doesn't have an end. So maybe that's why I'm also very fond of this saying. It really fits. the way I prefer to live my life. Most years, at this time of year, I think about what is the particular practice or area of study that I would like to focus on for the coming year. Last year I didn't do it. I was very engaged with kind of a business prospect, and it seemed like I wasn't going to have a chance to study a particular dharma of that. I just had to engage, which I did. But I've looked at things like greed.

[06:29]

I spent a whole year on greed, and I practiced looking at some of my material goods and seeing what was the relationship and how attached I was and why was I attached to a thing. And I would, in Dharma talks, give things away that were on the edge there, you know, the slightly difficult to let go of. Not too hard, because then there's a yearning, right? The loss gets pretty strong in there, and that's not so pleasant. But there are things like, well, well, recirculate that. That was a really interesting year for me and for the people who I gave away a cashmere sweater once. So I did work with that practice, that understanding about what is that greed. And I think I did that mostly because that's my tendency. I'm a person who wants more as opposed to a person who is on another side of that.

[07:36]

I looked at truth. What is truth? What is truth? Of course, there's no final answer to that, but it was very helpful. It's part of my name, and it was a lovely investigation. I looked at hope. I looked at kindness. I looked at busyness, spiritual friendship, fear, which I'm least familiar with. And I discovered at the end of the year, I kept thinking, I'm just not really afraid. I'm afraid of fear. So I steer clear of it. That became clear to me. Others probably could have told me that, but I had to find it out for myself.

[08:39]

So as I was preparing for... meeting you today, I said, okay, what do I most care about now? And this talk is actually an invitation for you to consider the same thing. I am aging. We're all aging. Some of us are more aware of it. than others. The signals may be a little more clear, dramatic, visible. And I'm also, this project that I mentioned, I'm collaborating on the development of a Zen-inspired senior living community, which will be housing some of our retiring senior teachers and the public.

[09:43]

And we're going to be training the staff and any resident who is interested in something we've been calling contemplative care. And that training right now has three modules. One of them is called Abiding Presence, and it has a lot to do with establishing a meditation practice, an awareness practice. Understanding what presence is, what stillness is, out of which come appropriate skillful responses. Another module is called active compassion. And that's emphasizing that any kind of caregiving is a relationship. It's not a transaction. So non-dual caregiving. and what that means. What does active compassion mean?

[10:46]

It's a giving and a taking. It's receiving and a giving. The third module is called conscious aging. And I think when I look at our training, that's the one that needs more work. So my attention right now is going towards investigating and clarifying what practices might support conscious aging. There are people in this room, I'm sure, who have sat by the side of a loved one, or a stranger even, who is actively dying. And you maybe know the value of being still. And letting go of expectations. Sometimes we find out our expectations that we have about how a person should be dying or when they should be dying.

[11:54]

And those expectations, it turns out, are not so helpful to you or to the person. And through the past 20-plus years, the Zen Hospice Project, which came out of San Francisco Zen Center around the time when so many people were dying from AIDS. And it was a response a few people had to caring for those people. And then out of that came an actual hospice and hospice practices and hospice trainings. And that movement, that movement, presence of the Zen hospice became a leader in a new understanding of hospice. So it's grown and there are many other manifestations of being with dying in a conscious way. And for most, this experience of being with dying is a life-changing line.

[13:00]

But in a way, Being with dying is easier than being with aging and sickness, I think. Dying has a near result, near-ish result. Aging is like a rollercoaster ride followed by a merry-go-round, followed by an avalanche, followed by a jump in cold water. It's dynamic. It's surprising. Dying is too. But the changes are over a longer period of time. And the changes come up against, at the very beginning of those changes, the idea that they shouldn't be happening.

[14:06]

which is a little bit different when it's acknowledged that the person has walked through a threshold of dying and maybe is on the other side of that threshold and is moving towards dying. The threshold of aging is very narrow. People don't like to walk through it and say, this is happening. So in order to include those of you for whom this is not as active of a concern or an intimate part of your day-to-day life, I'd like to widen the definition for now to what Suzuki Roshi said was the basic teaching of Buddhism. And that is, everything changes. So if we see what that feels like in our bodies, just to hear the word, and maybe now explore a little bit what would help us to meet this truth.

[15:24]

Because the first step in meeting our aging process is overcoming denial about the inevitability of change. Suzuki Roshi gave a lecture in September of 1965. It has a title that says, Change. So I'm going to pull just a few sentences out of it and work with this a little bit with myself and with you. He says, When we find our composure in the everlasting truth, which is everything changes, we find ourselves in nirvana. If we cannot accept this teaching that everything changes, we cannot be in perfect composure.

[16:36]

It throws nirvana in at the beginning. Isn't that interesting? So to accept this truth of change allows for composure, allows us to meet the change with equanimity and not be wagged about by the winds of change. This is what we all want. And the price for perfect composure, for being able to meet whatever arises, is acceptance of impermanence. It's a strong resistance.

[17:42]

And I'll talk a minute a little bit more about The root. So Suzuki Roshi goes on to say, although this is true, everything changes, it's pretty hard for us to accept it. We do not want everything changes. And because we cannot accept this truth, we suffer. But whether or not we feel good or bad, the truth is the truth. And we have to accept it. Ultimately. Or just by turning around and seeing what it was like a minute ago. To deny it is to suffer. You find that to be true?

[18:45]

heads nodding. Some people dwell in that denial like a cocoon and maybe fool themselves into thinking they're not suffering. But to close down one's worldview to the place where nothing hurts closes all other things out too. And I have a personal story about that in a minute that I'll share with you. So what's the root cause of this denial? Suzuki Roshi says, because of our small self, it is difficult to accept it. When we find out how small our small self is, How small our small mind is, we will experience big mind.

[19:52]

And we will accept the truth as it is. Deep spiritual insight about impermanence is an affront to the ego. the small self. And therefore it's pretty hard for us to accept it. We place ourselves outside the circle of sickness. There are statistics, right, about people. There are a certain number of people who have cancer. I'm not in that circle. That's never going to be me.

[20:55]

Never going to be me. And then pop. There you are in that circle which you were so sure you had protected yourself against by not thinking about it. The superstition It's so amazing to me, and I want to understand this better. I have some relatives, I will not say which relatives, who I visit often, who I have asked time, and they're my age, time and time again, to fill out those papers that you fill out saying what you want to have happen in your dying, what do you want to have happen in your funeral, even such things as wills. These people are in their 70s. I brought the papers down with me when I visit them. And I said, let's work on this. Oh, sure, good idea. Never any time. Never any time.

[21:58]

And I suspect, although I haven't asked this question, and maybe I will next time, do they think that if they think about it, it's going to bring it closer? I actually think people, I know, I can recognize a little bit of that in myself, but the strength of that denial or the superstition or the belief that willing it not to be so will make it so, it's very complicated because, of course, having certain attitudes about yourself and your body that are positive can be beneficial, and having negative attitudes about your body can be detrimental to Where does that, where's that line? Where's that line? And what's the attitude that we bring towards positive attitudes towards our body? Is it a controlling attitude or is it an accepting attitude? Is it a flexible attitude?

[23:00]

I'm curious about this. I'm sure someone's done some studies, but the superstition about holding off sickness or death. Because people think they can hold off death, right? Not going to happen to me. Isn't that silly? And it's so true in people's minds. So this, everything changes, this impermanence is hard for us to accept because of our focus on maintaining our separate, solid self. And I think, I would add, because of our habit of trying to stop change, to keep away the pain and to prolong the pleasure. This is our human habit. We're programmed to promote permanence of self and to constantly strategize about how to avoid suffering.

[24:10]

This is our program. Buddhism and the teachings of Buddhism are, as people have said, like swimming upstream. We're going against the program. We're going back to a previous program. Previous program. And in which the suffering that is caused by our denial and our and our attempt to control is alleviated. Suzuki Roshi also said in what I've read you already that oh no I haven't read this so he says a taste of big mind can help us accept this truth of constant unavoidable change.

[25:13]

And I'm going to get back to that near the end of my talk. So while turning towards this truth is difficult, Suzuki Roshi goes on to say something about the antidote to this difficulty. So what are the ways to work with it? He says, in difficulty we will find the joy of making effort. The joy of making effort in difficulty. This, he says, is how enlightened mind accepts the truth. For self-centered mind, it is suffering to accept this truth or to know this truth. But to know this truth is the first step to enter our way. When you realize this truth, you become quite sincere with your life because you know that you cannot escape from this truth.

[26:16]

Wherever you go, this truth will follow you. You have nowhere to escape this truth. It is impossible. Wherever you go, this is the truth that everything changes. There's a little bit of whenever one looks for how to work with something, sometimes there's a method that is kind of a carrot or a... Here's something that maybe is a little yummy that will help you turn towards something. And then there are also sticks that make you sit up straight and maybe try a little harder. So making patient, persistent effort with enthusiasm is joyful. This is a carrot, I think.

[27:18]

Seeing the inescapability of change and acknowledging that all things end and fully accepting that, it's a bit of a stick, right? Wake up. It's going to change. Wake up. It just changed. Because that stick can remind us, if not now, when? If not me, who? And when we look deeply into our relationship to change or admit the level of denial that we have maintained, we realize how useless our control strategies are ultimately. You can control up to a certain point. You can get good at it. I remember one time in a sashim here.

[28:23]

It was maybe day six. And I had been using what I felt like was a big effort and putting everything I could into it. But it was a strategy, right? It was a strategy. And at a certain time, I remember I reached the end of my stamina. And I went and I actually talked to you, Linda Ruth. And I went, I was like a puddle, right? I was exhausted because I had used what I thought was a big effort. But it was an effort to control, not an effort to just allow, which is a much more subtle practice. So the effort to control can work for a while until day four of Zachine. And then it falls apart. And, of course, then the surrender that's available is fantastic.

[29:28]

But often we have to find that out. We have to find that out through our habit of wanting to control and strategize. So we find out how small our small self actually is and how little of our life actually engages, the small self engages with a very small portion of life. So when we see that, we may be motivated to make this continual effort. And with that wholehearted effort, we will have access to joy in all circumstances. going to get anywhere near to the end of this talk. So let me just review what I wrote down here as kind of the review of what Suzuki Roshi offered, which is accept the inevitability of change and make the effort to understand the habits of mind that resist realizing this truth.

[30:44]

So first accept it and then check and see what's going on with you and have you fully accepted it or can you see why it's been difficult? And then he says, in difficulty, we will discover the joy of making the effort. The carrot. And the result will be a deeper experience of the fullness of life, of big mind. This is a happy story. It's simple, but it's not easy. And so I've decided that What I want to study this coming period of time, year, maybe more, is I think one of the key elements for approaching this is patience. And patience, it's one of the perfections, which include generosity, morality, patience, enthusiasm, meditation, and wisdom.

[31:54]

wonderful focal points for our practice. Patience is sometimes combined with the word persistence. So being persistently patient, not apathetically patient. And I appreciate that, but I wonder if this joy that Suzuki Roshi is talking about isn't also coming from the paramita of enthusiasm. So what would it be like to combine patience and enthusiasm? That's my inquiry. Because my instincts tell me and my experience tells me that patience is one of the keys to being in a healthy and skillful relationship with change. There are other obstacles in terms of conscious aging, like vanity, which I think I'll study too.

[33:03]

But I want to start with better understanding patience, maybe with a little bit of the zeal of enthusiasm in there. How will that work? What is that? So, going to tell you this personal story which relates because it's about what patience actually is, which is a capacity. And it's a capacity to be relaxed in a difficult situation. I have been recently working with a diagnosis of cancer. It was a small, little cancer, and part of the treatment was some radiation, and I was eligible for, which I'm quite happy about, for a kind of radiation that happens over a shorter period of time, over seven days as opposed to five or six weeks.

[34:18]

However, this procedure meant that a port had to be put into my body and stay in for seven days in order to receive the radiation in a very targeted way. So I went to the appointment. I had this port put in my body, and I could feel, and I think it was from like about eight inches behind my head, behind my back, I could feel panic coming from behind me, and it got to about the level of my ears. It was coming. Panic was coming. It was like there was a message that was, get this out of here. This was the message that the body was influencing the adrenal system to...

[35:23]

That was what was happening. And I remember when it came, I thought, what would Darlene Cohen do? Because Darlene is a great, was a great, great teacher about working with physical difficulty. And I studied with her some, and I've tried to really follow her practices and have some of my own about physical pain. And I thought, boy, she would turn towards this. It would be a turning towards. And I didn't do that. I decided to narrow the field of my consciousness and to not allow my mind to go to the panic. I actually had the thought that if I let my mind go there, I'll rip it out. This was a thought. It wouldn't have happened, but I was in a survival place, a place where the body was threatened and survival was coming up.

[36:26]

So I could do that. I can, for seven days, control my mind. I've been doing it for a long time in sashines. But basically, it was a skill I had, and I could do that. And breathing, but just because of sort of cocooning, the cocoon I talked about earlier, I cocooned in this narrower focus. And I got through the process. But all along, I felt like I'm missing out on an opportunity here. And I actually went and spoke to my teacher about this, and I wish I had spoken to him. Of course, I thought I could do this by myself. Silly. I should have spoken to someone earlier, but we talked about this and about patience being a capacity, and perhaps the capacity was... Well, it was. It was limited at that time to not being able to get too close to the panic.

[37:31]

I couldn't get closer. I got medium close, but certainly not really turning towards. I turned away. And after the fact, I thought, ooh, what happens if I am so fortunate to be conscious as I'm dying and panic comes? I don't want to turn away. I don't want to turn away. And I missed that opportunity to practice that. And it reminded me of the story about Suzuki Roshi who One day in Tassajara, the students were down by the Narrows, which is a beautiful place in the creek where there are these kind of Benny Buffano rocks, round, soft rocks and deep pools. And the students were diving into the pools. And Suzuki Roshi, I guess, looked like it was so much fun. And he jumped in and he didn't know how to swim.

[38:32]

And he sank to the bottom. And... This is all by a story. I wasn't there, but the students thought, oh, he's just being a Zen master, sitting at the bottom of the pool. And finally someone realized he wasn't coming up, and they pulled him up. And it was a very difficult experience for him. And he said, where's the story? Yeah. He said he had not been able to breathe. And he saw how deeply attracted he was. to life and air. And it made him realize how poor his practice and understanding were. He said he had to be more sincere and diligent in his efforts to concentrate on the great matter. And I hear that something similar happened with Ram Dass when he had his stroke. After returning to more consciousness,

[39:37]

he realized that's really hard to practice with. The body goes into survival mode. So, you know, am I being too ideal by saying I would really like to meet that? I don't know. But I know that expanding my patients for whatever reason is beneficial. Um... I'm just going to end with not all the things I was going to talk about, but I found something that Frank Ostaseski has recently put up on Facebook. And Frank was one of the co-founders of the Zen Hospice Movement and also does trainings for people in kind of conscious care. And he said... Patients...

[40:38]

is something, instead of patience and persistence, he used the words endure and endear. Endure and endear. Because endure means to carry through, to continue in existence, to suffer patiently without yielding. But endear means to make beloved. So the suggestion here is that we get more intimate with this point of change. We go in and we see what's actually happening in the point of change without filtering it with our resistance, and somehow it may turn into something beloved. And Frank says, well, this might sound like spiritual bypassing or just giving a positive spin to what's difficult, but Frank says, what is really being asked of us in such moments is to look at what else is there? What else is there in that calm abiding, in that patience?

[41:45]

What happens when judgment and resentment and worry-based preoccupation with self and self-preservation are sloughed off? Will there be equanimity, which patience and perseverance help us develop, he says? Will there be a taste of big mind, I say? Isn't big mind where authentic, subjectless, objectless joy lives? Frank ends up saying, when change means more than loss, we can feel the flow of life that is beyond our own circumstances, beyond our own self-reference. The flow of life itself. then without denying our circumstances, we can let the larger field of the life force help us endure and endear.

[42:51]

So this is what I intend to explore this year. How about you? 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.

[43:36]

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