Excuse me, it's my blood sugar. I'll take care of that before we chant. Oh, it all is well. Thank you. An unsurprised, penetrating in perfect dharma, Israeli network, even in a hundred thousand million Gabbas, having you to see and listen to, to remember and accept, I bow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Good evening. It's been such a joy to be back here.

[16:20]

Last time I did this was about six months ago. No, it was longer than that. I did a departing monk ceremony. It's the last time I offered fragrance to the Buddha. So doing that in reverse as a welcome back feels very apt. I feel very happy to be here with you. Things have changed a little. I'm now flanked by lights and new faces and old faces. The theme that I wanted to discuss tonight was the shape of our practice. The shape of our practice. I want to bring this up first. I met someone recently who really inspired me. A Dharma colleague of mine named Alexis. Maybe as a piece of background that will make this story make sense, I was assisting on a retreat

[17:22]

at another place recently, and I had to give an hour-long Dharma talk. And I maybe prepared 20 hours for this one hour. It was a lot to pack in, you know? It was a lot of preparation. And I did that three times over the course of a while. Anyway, I meet this person who does the same sort of thing. I was talking to him, and he said, yeah, I don't write Dharma talks. He just sits down. and lets the Dharma come forward in that moment from the seat. That sounds terrifying. I don't know. Do any of you speak publicly? Can you imagine doing such a thing? I didn't go that far. So I have an outline for myself. But I thought, you know, I tend to over-prepare. So I'm going to pull back a little bit and be with you. Speak with you.

[18:22]

Talk with you. about the shape of our practice. Yesterday would have been Mitsu Suzuki's 110th birthday. Mitsu Suzuki, of course, was the spouse of the founder here. To put it in, that phrase just doesn't quite say it, actually. Mitsu Suzuki, I think, was responsible for a lot of the continuity of practice for decades at City Center. I was recently reading the introduction that Norman wrote to this book of haikus by Mitsu called A White Tea Bowl. And it talked about how she lived at City Center, obviously much, much longer than Suzuki Roshi did. He died too young, Norman said. And Mitsu lived here for something like 30 years, 30 plus years, 20-something years after Suzuki Roshi passed.

[19:30]

She was still here. One of her main things to do was teach ceremony, but apparently she would also invite people into her room and serve them tea and feed them pickles and talk to them about the Dharma and instruct them in formal and informal ways. Norman characterized her as the continuity. the continuity. So what's the shape of our practice? I want to talk about that a little bit inspired by Mitsu. I'll pull a little bit from our practice of Zazen. Another beautiful story about intimacy. And then just some ways that I'm noticing my own practice is changing as I've moved away from the temple. I think perhaps it's a place where we share similar questions.

[20:33]

Like, now I live in a place where there's no Han. There's no Jundo. There's no Densho. It's wild. I lived here for six years and Tassajara for two. And the heartbeat of the forms I am seeing in relief, being out in a place where this doesn't happen, I'm feeling them in my body. And my body calls for the form. Does that make sense? Yeah. Being back here, it's like slipping into the hot springs at Tassara. It feels so good to hear the bells and sit with you. And this morning we did the full moon ceremony. So I'm really thinking about this question. What's the shape of our practice when I'm living in a place that doesn't have the outer shape?

[21:37]

And of course, city center's shape is changing, has changed. and all of us who already live outside the temple where there is no Densho and there's no Han and there's no Jundo, and we make the form of practice in our own life. So I want to talk about this notion of form a little bit, but I want to read you this. I'm not going to read all 100. I'll just read you this one and a few others later. Mitsu says, first calligraphy of the year. Today, again, I write beginner's mind. Beginner's mind temple, of course, but first calligraphy of the year. Today, again, I write beginner's mind. And I pair that in my mind with...

[22:42]

Stone guardian dogs, mouths open wide, torrent of cicada sound. Stone guardian dogs. This really caught my attention. And let's talk a little about zazen so I can share where I'm coming from here. The description of our method of zazen is so simple. It's deceptively simple. We might describe it in terms of placing ourself on the cushion, establishing our presence, and then there's absolutely no volition whatsoever. None. Awareness and attention move from object to object. We don't do anything. We let this moment arise. It's deceptively simple. Captured my attention recently, I was reading one of Dogen's foundational works, Ben Dowa.

[23:54]

He has this sort of make-believe Q&A with an interlocutor that he wants to have a make-believe Q&A, which was part of the teaching forum in China that he picked up and he wanted to share it in Japan. So the make-believe questioner says something like, how can this be worthwhile? Or how can this be the way to just sit on your cushion and do nothing? It's a good question. How many of us have fielded that question before? And Dogen's answer is like, more or less. I'll soften it a little bit because Dogen could get really feisty. He said, more or less says, If we think that sitting on the cushion just doing nothing is shikantaza, that's missing the mark. He goes on to complicate this a little bit by saying something like, in colloquial terms, we might say like the whole universe is doing the meditation.

[25:03]

It's not you sitting there on the cushion doing zazen. It's all things of all time and all space manifesting as this moment of awareness. We just don't get in the way. That's our practice. One way of characterizing it. Another is that all Buddhas of all time are manifesting this moment. Suzuki Roshi captured this really, really nicely with this phrase, beginner's mind. where moment after moment we release whatever we're clinging to, whatever's known. We instantly let it go, let it go. Begin again, begin again, fresh, fresh. It's the vitality of life. That's what's living through you in Zazen. And I'm thinking of Mitsu Suzuki. How many years must she have written the calligraphy for Beginner's Mind?

[26:06]

Just like every morning we put ourselves on the cushion, Beginner's Mind, over and over. Beginner's mind, over and over. So what does this have to do with the stone dogs? What's been interesting to me recently is that zazen is utterly empty, but we create a specific form around it. It's like we make a form to hold the emptiness. We bow on our cushion, we take our seat. Hongjir has this great line, the body being emptiness, the arms in mudra. We establish the posture, we create the seal, create the body, and then let emptiness manifest. It's pretty amazing. Beginner's mind and these stone dogs.

[27:07]

What's the shape? What's the shape of our practice? Some might say that what the simple practice of shikantaza allows for is greater intimacy with this moment. You're more fully alive, here and vital and able to meet face to face with another being. I wanted to read you this. So the first abbess of Zen Center was named Zen K. Blanche Hartman. Happy to bring her into the room tonight. This was a talk that she gave in 2001 where she told a story. She told one of the old Zen stories that discusses this point of form and emptiness and how they come together and how they manifest as our practice. Put in some terms you'll probably recognize.

[28:25]

She says the 42nd ancestor, Ryozan Enkan, was the attendant to the 41st, Doan Kanshi. And as such, he carried his robe for him. There was a moment in which his teacher needed to put on his robe, so Ryozan handed the robe to Doan. And Doan said to his disciple, what is the business under the patch robe? Blanche goes on to explain this line by saying, you know, what's this form? Why do we put on a form? What's underneath it? What are you actually? In the terms that we're discussing, we have the, like, why bother bowing to and away from your cushion? Like, what's behind it? Why do we do it? So the student, Ryozan, had no answer. And the teacher said, to wear this robe and not understand the great matter is the greatest suffering.

[29:38]

So you ask me. He's gonna give the answer to his student who must be undergoing the greatest suffering by not knowing what's under the robe. So the student asked the teacher, what is the business under the past robe? And the teacher said, intimacy, intimacy. And this was the moment when the 42nd ancestor broke through. He bowed to his teacher in great gratitude and tears were flowing. The teacher asked, what have you understood? Can you express it? The student said, what is the matter under this robe? Intimacy. His teacher said, intimacy, even greater than intimacy. So we have these specific forms that we follow.

[30:40]

If you ever read the Fukanza Zen Gi, the Dogen's instructions on meditation, it's like 90%, not 90%, it's probably like 70%, 60% posture instruction. Very little, very little to say what's going on there. But he gives a lot of care, a lot of care to establishing the form. Establish the body, create the mold in which emptiness can manifest. And then release, and then just release, release. And what does this give rise to? Intimacy. I've been turning this question a lot of what's essential This feels rather personal, but a few things kind of coalesce that have me turning this question right now.

[31:42]

I'm feeling inspired more to share my practice with you than try to teach you something. I hope that's okay. Yeah, a couple of months ago. Last time I was here, actually, a few months ago, I guess, my family, we almost lost my dad. He was having a surgery and a little too much anesthetic. So his heart rate dropped to, I don't know, like 30. And he's okay. But something about that was just like a pulse in the system, like, wake up. Wake up. What's going on here? And you know how those move through your life? There are those moments that like they hit the Han or they like ring the bell and they reverberate through you.

[32:47]

And you go, what am I doing here? What am I doing? And no answer has come. It's just been this question. What am I doing here? The second thing that's sort of moving through me is like something that's arising after leaving residence, which is, I still feel very like of this cloth. Does that expression make sense? While I was assisting on this retreat in March, It was like, I'm teaching this place that's not a Zen place, and I'm feeling that what the well is in me that I have to offer is actually my Zen training. It's incredible. It's incredible what we do here. I want to bow to each of you right now and then when we get up.

[33:50]

Yeah, this question. It's like, what's essential to the practice? It's really alive for me. It's really alive. And there's something about the transition of moving out of residence that kind of broadens my scope. I kind of feel like I have a leg in each world. Like I can kind of relate to the residential life. I can kind of relate to the life outside. And the question that stays is, what is this practice and how are we doing it? It's deep, it's alive. And that's what I'm coming to, is I don't actually know. I don't know what shikantave is. It's alive. It's alive, like moment after moment. And something that's really beautiful is like stepping out of residence, something is happening to me where I'm losing the idea of what a priest is.

[35:07]

I think I had a much clearer sense when I was in residence that I wanted to live into an idea of what I thought a priest was. And I don't know what that is anymore. So maybe we say I'm lost, but I feel like I'm just going through this phase of growth and I wanted to share that with you. The confidence that the practice is alive And it's taking us, it's moving us along. This morning I saw Tim. Thank you, Tim. I saw Tim do the founder's offering for the first time at the back of the, or it's my first time to see it.

[36:15]

I used to go upstairs and go to the founder's hall and bow to the wooden Suzuki Roshi and this founder's plaque that's behind the Buddha. And I thought, how beautiful the whole sangha is doing the founder's greeting. How fabulous is that? And then it was time for soji. I took off my okesa, I sought out the acting, you know, please give me a soji assignment. The form, the form is the beautiful thing that allows the emptiness to come forward. I was talking to someone, I can't remember who, was talking about the very bumpy coming of age of Zen Center, back when, various stages of this and that, this scandal, that scandal, not that many scandals, it's okay. Mitsu Suzuki helped see us through all this. But this person told the story, the question arose, like, how do we keep going?

[37:18]

Like, what are we doing here? And the answer was that the next morning, after the bad news, somebody got up and they hit the Han. The form held. The form that we hold around our emptiness is what held. Yeah, it's the... our first pure precept to vow to uphold forms and ceremonies. That's what makes this possible. Anyway, so I saw Tim doing the founder's offering this morning, and I thought of Mitsu again. She has these beautiful little ways of calling Suzuki into the room. So this calls on her tea ceremony and the Roshi. I pour Sensha. into the white porcelain tea bowl he loved. That's so poignant. Two things I want to share.

[38:43]

One is I'm eager to have a conversation with you, so I'm trying to be brief. And the second is... It's one of the more encouraging things that I've come across in the last few months. It's not easy to practice. It's not easy to practice together, and it's not easy to practice alone. So, in this question of what's the shape of our practice, one of the concerns or one of the thoughts is, how do we keep ourselves motivated? It's really hard. It can be. Getting up day after day, it's cold in the Zendo. Or getting up at home and the bed is so warm, it's hard to get to the cushion. How do we keep ourselves motivated?

[39:45]

I find that... Sometimes I can have the motivation that's based in me saying, I know that I am kinder to people when I get out of bed. When I get out of bed and I do Zazen, first thing, I know that I'm kinder to people when I do that. The other motivation is, if that's not going to get me out of bed, I always have the motivation of all of you. I have the rest of the Sangha. I do it on your behalf. I do it for all beings. But more inspiring than that was... My wife recently took me to a little place that she came across when she was a little girl. She went to elementary school in Santa Cruz, this little cute place called Gateway. And behind Gateway, there are these gigantic trees just off West Cliff in Santa Cruz, like right off the ocean, these huge trees. She went there when she was a little girl.

[40:45]

She looked up at these trees and she saw that the leaves were dancing. So she took me there after a rainstorm and it's still like drizzling on my face a little bit. I look up at the trees and the little leaves. This was in the spring or late winter. The leaves are dancing. I pause for a minute. My perception corrects. And I realize it's not leaves. Those are monarch butterflies. Just... Scores of them. There must have been hundreds of monarch butterflies in these trees. Little wings dancing. And then I noticed, oh, they're flying around a little bit, back on the tree, the raindrops. It was quite a scene. Turns out that this is a monarch butterfly sanctuary. If anyone's ever been there or wants to go. Something like Lighthouse, Lighthouse Field. Something like this. And... Why is that touching? Why is that inspiring?

[41:45]

Reading about these monarchs, there's this little, I love how they do this in parks, signposts, describing the journey that these butterflies make. So there's a, at the top of their migration route, they're up in southern Canada or northern United States on the west coast. One generation, called the overwinter generation, comes all the way down, all the way down. That's a long way. And then they make the next generation. They're born and these don't live very long. These ones don't live very long. That's interesting. They only make it a little bit of the way up and then a new generation is born. A little bit back up, a new generation is born. Back up and a new generation is born. To get from the beginning to the end is several generations. And I had this moment of the Dharma waking up in me in that moment, realizing that there are butterflies that make this journey who never see the beginning and they never see the end.

[42:57]

But their participation creates the possibility of the butterflies getting home. And then the next generation coming down, next generation going back, next generation coming down. And I thought about the way that we hold a sangha, we weave a sangha together. None of us were here at the beginning. None of us are the founding generation. We won't be here at the end. But we keep our practice going. And we do it for this beautiful place. It's not easy. It's not easy. So sometimes that's the way. That's the way. this sort of care for generations, I found this one. Three generations strolling hand in hand. Plum blossom festival.

[43:59]

Too sweet. So I'd like to open it up and see what you're thinking about. shape of your practice? How are you relying on form? How are you inviting emptiness? How are you staying intimate? How are you staying motivated? These are the questions in my heart right now. If you have other ones too, I'm happy to talk about them. Thank you for your attention. If anyone has a question, they can raise their hand, and I will bring over the microphone, and anyone online can raise their Zoom hand. I guess it'll be typed in and be read out. I want to be a responsible host and ask you what time it is.

[45:02]

8.16. Fabulous. I really appreciate your approach to this Dharma talk and keeping it kind of open-ended and sort of letting what happens happen. My question to you is that now that you're lost, as you say, something I experience and am experiencing now, How do you, is it simply the answer, the shape of your practice that continues your motivation forward? And how do you, I don't know the right word, faith comes to mind, that answers will come when they need to?

[46:10]

How does the faith come forward that answers will come? Yeah. How do you continue forward, I guess, in the state of being lost? Being lost is not very pleasant. It's really not. It's really not. It's not pleasant and it's not the only thing in the mix. Is that true for you? I mean, yeah, there are other things, but yeah, I like answers. Me too. Me too. Let me see. The mix for me, and I'll just share this and see if anything resonates for you. It feels like three things are happening.

[47:20]

One is this thing about living in a question mark instead of a period. But it's alive, it's vital. It's not static or stuck. I don't get to quite know where it's gonna go. But take a step, take one little step. keep paying attention. So that's happening. Then there's this unrelenting dharma nourishment. It's just, sometimes it's accessible, sometimes it's not accessible. When it's accessible, the heart can feel so full. And that tells me that something good is going on here.

[48:26]

And then the third thing in the mix is a lot of compassion for our process and our grief and our growth. All of those seem to be swirling around. Yeah, I like that a lot, actually, living in the question mark. Where do you find your compassion? That's a learned trait. I learned it from my grandmother and Suzuki Roshi and Mitsu and Tim Wicks and all of you. My friends. Sangha. If it's not here for me yet, then I look forward in my Sangha. Or sometimes I just do one of these. It's okay.

[49:29]

Something about putting the hand on the cheek really helps. That's a great answer. Thank you. Thank you for the question. Great. What could it be? Marie says, this is my first Dharma talk in a little while. I have been working with Buddhist teachings on my own and I keep having thoughts and thinking I have learned something. It makes me incredibly happy to come back and recognize that I have so much left to learn and that my understanding is still very limited. I'm grateful every time. I'm humbled. Beautiful.

[50:36]

Beautiful. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for your talk. I enjoyed that. I always thought that Zen mind, beginner mind had to do with in the beginner's mind, there are many possibilities. In the expert mind, there are few. So I enjoyed you saying beginner's mind means when you sit down, you begin again. So I hadn't thought of it like that, so thank you. Great, great. I think those may be related in the possibilities that then come forward when the mind's released in a moment of fresh vitality. Well, when we begin again, we're letting go, I guess. So that's what we all have to do. Lovely.

[51:52]

Thank you for... getting to the core of the question right away. I really appreciate that. And I appreciate that you've left a lot of room for Q&A. What I was wondering, this question of what do the forms do for us actually has been kind of preoccupying me this week a lot. You mentioned something about the rituals, like the Han or... the bells or like waking up coming to the Zen though. I know that rituals do something for us. What I'm wondering is kind of like that metaphor of butterflies and made me think as kind of generations that are continuing this practice, how do we decide

[52:54]

what forms and what rituals serve us and do we pass them on? And how do we decide, you know, how do we trim the tree? Like, you know, like, how do we decide what's the core? Yeah, it's a good question. Are you finding yourself with your hands on a lot of different trees? Yeah. Yeah. There's some wisdom in that.

[53:57]

And you can... whole different types of leaves and make a really nice wreath for the holidays or something. My first teacher used to say, if you go over here and you dig a little well, and then you stop. And then you go over here and you dig a little well and you stop. And then you do it over here. You'll never hit water. But if you dig a well and you go deep, deep, you'll hit the water table and then it will spring up. Tenshin Roshi, one of our senior Dharma teachers, puts it something like, when you... These aren't his words, so I'm just paraphrasing him, but when you give yourself to a style, a tradition completely,

[55:04]

Give yourself over to it. I don't remember exactly how he says, thoroughly embodying and becoming it. Once that process is complete, then you can do the trimming. But you have to really dive. Or there's a risk, which is... A little bit of preference here, and a little bit of preference here, and a little bit of preference here. Zen training is sometimes likened to the snake in the bamboo tube. You can see how that might be frustrating. But it can't be guided only by pleasant and unpleasant. One of my teachers says, if you're only free when it's pleasant, you're not really free. Yeah. So we know when we go deep.

[56:08]

Is that fair enough? Thank you. That was very insightful and actually satisfying. Great. Also, I have a comment on the shape of the practice. Great. The first Dharma talk that I attended here, the speaker used the metaphor of a labyrinth. That you walk alongside of it. You're always making progress alongside it. It takes you really close to the core. All of a sudden, there is a part of it that just takes you all the way back to the edge. It's never complete, but you're still making progress. kind of feels, comes to my mind. Comes to mind. I think I remember that Dharma talk.

[57:11]

Thank you, Roger. All right, we have time for one more question. Thank you so much for the talk. That was great. So my question for you is, when your father nearly passed or had that incident, and I believe you said, why this? Do you think that's a question you'll find an answer to in this lifetime? Or is it in your hope to find an answer to that? Or is it not, and perhaps if it's not, Could it be because asking that question or searching for that answer is somehow foundational to you in your practice perhaps?

[58:13]

And you heard the question as, why this? Yes. Why this? That one seems a little... difficult to unwind. I think, maybe I said that in a, maybe spoke too fast or something, but the question for me was more like, what am I doing? What am I doing? It's kind of like a self-wake-up call. What am I doing? Yep, sorry, sorry, that is what I meant, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, maybe to answer the way you asked it, I don't anticipate to arrive at a final answer. But I heard it as a wake-up to pause, stop.

[59:24]

There's a different perspective emerging here. What's the next step? So that's alive. I don't know how long that question will last. Thank you very much. Thank you all so much. Pleasure to be with you.

[60:09]

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