So my name is Linda Gallion and I'm a resident at City Center. This is the first time I've spoken here and I'm really, really delighted to be here. So I practiced for four years at Tassajara and then four years at City Center and I'm the program director there now. I'd like to thank Arlene, who I know isn't here this evening, for inviting me to give this talk. And I'd also like to thank my teachers, Sojan Mal Weitzman, my ordination teacher, and Linda Ruth Katz, who's my Shuso teacher. So I bow to both of them. So I've been studying Shantideva lately, and one of the first things he says is that the talk that he gives, which became the guide to the Bodhisattva's way of life, He wrote to encourage his own practice, but that he hopes that it will encourage others as well.

[01:04]

So I feel that very much, that this talk is encouraging to my own practice, and I hope that it will be encouraging to you. That's really my own intention in giving this talk. And that feels very alive for me right now because this has been a very challenging period in my practice. So to have to give a talk in the middle of great challenges in one's practice, not just outwardly but inwardly, has been very interesting. So this is very fresh. So I was at Tassajara last week co-leading a retreat. And in the course of that, a number of people, a number of the retreatants, asked me individually, so I got to say this several times, how I came to practice and how I came to Zen.

[02:06]

And it was actually through a footnote in a Salinger novel. I think it was Seymour in Introduction, to be specific. And the narrator advises his young readers... because Seymour writes haiku. He said, if any of my young readers are interested in reading haiku, I particularly recommend the translations of R.H. Blythe, who is a high-handed old poem himself. And something about that description of a person as a high-handed old poem completely captivated me. I was in my early 20s at the time, and there was something about that that caught me. So I tracked down his books, which at the time were... completely out of print and unavailable, and I see this as some sort of manifestation of way-seeking mind, like, why would I pursue this? But I eventually found some of his books and found the haiku translations, which were very nice. But what was more interesting to me was his essays.

[03:09]

Blythe is a very interesting character. He's a quite eccentric Englishman. He was tutor to the Crown Prince of Japan prior to the war, And he was incarcerated in Japanese concentration camps during the war, where he wrote his first book on Japanese humor. And he was Aiken Roshi's first teacher, I believe. They met in the camps, and that was where Aiken Roshi first learned to sit. So Blythe had this very paradoxical way of writing. And he talked about the Zen in English literature as well as in Oriental classics. And he said, it is not difficult to write about Zen. What is difficult is to write by the Zen. And I felt that he often did that. There was something in the way that he expressed himself. I think many people found that in reading Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. But I found that in reading R.H.

[04:13]

Blythe, that these paradoxical things that he would say shifted my mind into a very different realm, which I was completely interested in, very free and open and spacious, free from my usual way of thinking. And I could only access that when I was reading him. I didn't see any connection with practice. And in fact, he kind of downplayed the side of practice. He was really interested in Zen, you know, some essence of Zen. and not in Zen as a religion or Zen Buddhism. But nonetheless, I set about trying to find Zen practice places, and I, again, couldn't get the connection between all these very serious people sitting and facing the wall or facing out, and this joyous, playful, exuberant experience that I was tapping into when I read Blythe.

[05:16]

So much of this talk is about how I've brought these two together and the kind of tacking back and forth between some touching into spaciousness and how practice provides a foundation for that and coming back again and again to just the very fundamentals of practice. Part of the reason that it was initially hard for me to connect with sitting practice or the precepts was because I didn't have much of a connection with the First Noble Truth. Everything was fine. So if everything's fine, without a connection to my own suffering, I didn't see any real reason for practice. I just wanted... I wanted the fruits and I didn't want the work, frankly. I didn't know that. I just didn't see what connection it had to me.

[06:20]

So... I want to talk about right effort tonight, or joyful effort, virya. So right effort appears in a number of different places in some of the Buddha's foundational teachings. There are the 37... factors of enlightenment. And right effort shows up in the Eightfold Path, the Four Exertions, the Five Powers, the Seven Factors of Enlightenment, and in the Mahayana, the Paramitas. So this is clearly a central factor in our practice. And I believe that the word virya comes from the same root as virile, the Sanskrit root. So it has a... It conveys a general attitude or feeling of exertion or energy or enthusiasm, and it's been translated in all of those ways. But there are specifically four aspects of right effort.

[07:28]

And they are... There are these four right exertions. Which four? There is a case where a monk generates desire, endeavors, arouses persistence, upholds and exerts his intent for the sake of the non-arising of evil, unskillful qualities that have not yet arisen, for the sake of the abandoning of evil, unskillful qualities, pardon the translation, it could be unwholesome, skillful qualities, that have arisen. Third, for the sake of the arising of skillful qualities that have not yet arisen, And for the maintenance, non-confusion, increase, plenitude, development, and culmination of skillful qualities that have arisen. These are the four right exertions. So the four are to guard, to abandon, to develop, and to maintain. So...

[08:32]

In Zen practice, and particularly with Suzuki Roshi, we don't tend to break it down quite so much in this way. And in fact, there's an essay in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, on right effort. And it has a rather different flavor. It says, the most important point in our practice is to have right or perfect effort. Right effort, directed in the right direction, is necessary. If your effort is headed in the wrong direction, especially if you're not aware of this, it is diluted effort. Our effort in our practice should be directed from achievement to non-achievement. And he goes on to talk about purity of practice and purity of effort, meaning non-dual, not getting rid of the bad, but the non-dual side. But where I've been in recent weeks, that really wasn't working so well for me.

[09:38]

I needed something a lot more foundational and basic than that. So I found practicing in this very concrete way with these four manifestations of right effort to be very, very helpful. It's often said, if something's too big, break it down. Break it down into small enough chunks. You know, if you had to look at all the food you were going to eat in a lifetime. Or think, you know, where I've got to be in my practice. It's too big. It's too big to do. So... So first, rather than taking them in order... What I first had to address was abandoning unwholesome, unskillful things that have arisen. They definitely had arisen.

[10:42]

And I remembered back to my actual first experience in dealing with that. And it was, I don't know, 15, 20 years ago. And I started practice, but wasn't practicing so much. I was in graduate school and I was studying psychology. And I was struggling at that time with depression. And I remember reading a study that indicated that ruminative thoughts, you know, those thoughts that go round and round, and you're trying to figure out what you should do, and dwelling, was not only a symptom of depression, but a cause of depression. And for some reason, because it was a study, and I was in graduate school, I believed it. And that was absolutely crucial because I knew this. I knew these weren't good thoughts to think on. In one way or another, I'd struggled with that much of my life, having negative self-talk and doubt and things like that.

[11:46]

But I had somehow believed that if I figured it out, it would be better that I could overcome my difficulties by thinking about it more. So here was some information that said, this is actually causing you more difficulty. And I chose to believe it. So the next time that arose, I recognized it, which was also a first. It was like, oh, there's that thing. There's that thing, and I'm doing it. And that thing is supposed to be causing me more suffering, not making it better. And I remember I was at home alone, I was supposed to be working on a paper or something. And I can't even remember what it was I was dwelling on. Totally doesn't matter. It could have been anything. But it was so large in my thoughts that I couldn't kind of see around it. I couldn't think of what else to think about. And I remember having a thought, it doesn't matter.

[12:50]

Anything, anything but this is going to be an improvement. It doesn't have to be perfect. just something, not this. So I tried all manner of things. I cleaned the house, I called friends, I got angry at somebody, which was very interesting, that actually moved the energy. And I went, it's moving the energy, and I'm not thinking about this, but I'm not sure I like the direction this is going. But it was very interesting to notice, wow, this actually moved the energy. You know, I'm not dwelling anymore. I'm angry and I'm energized and I'm focused and my mind is clear. Isn't that interesting? So over a period of a couple of hours, this was a deep one. It really took a couple hours. I noticed that my mind and body shifted and something let go. I actually had the experience of letting go.

[13:53]

And I don't think I had ever before that had the experience of letting go. I had things would shift, but I wouldn't particularly know how they happened. You know, like you talk to a friend or something and your mood changes and you kind of know it's because you're talking to your friend. But to have the experience of letting something go was very profound. And I don't think I've ever been caught in that way since because I was actually awake during the whole process to watch it. And because I made tremendous effort. for like two or three hours. And it was remarkable to feel my whole mind and body change as a result of that. So I think when it's an extreme situation and we're really suffering with something, it can be easier to let go. The stove is hot.

[14:54]

I'll take my hand away. It's pretty clear. At that moment, I was suffering. I think it's a lot harder to notice when we need to let go. If it fits with our stories, if it fits with our idea of who we are, if it fits with our expectations, our responsibilities, whatever it is, it's kind of harmonizing with us, with who we think we are. And I think that's part of why we make such a point of practicing with that under all circumstances. We practice in zazen, letting go of thoughts. We practice in all of our lives a practice of letting go of preferences. Just because it's a good practice. It's like if you know how to let go of it, then you know how to take it up again. But if we don't know how to just practice letting go, it's really difficult. I find it very difficult. Later, when I was at Tassajara, I had a wonderful example

[16:00]

of a more subtle form of letting go. We had a dog at Tassajara for a while named Madra. And Madra was a very dominant and very willful dog. Hard to train. Even human beings are hard to train. And we were at some point really trying to train Madra. Everyone was putting a lot of effort into this. And one of the things we wanted Madra to do was to drop things that he'd picked up, because he wouldn't give them back. And we needed to show Madra that we were the boss, not him. He was kind of boss of Tassajara for a while, and this was not working. So, I remember watching Madra with Sonia. Hi, Sonia. Sonia was training him. And there you are. And I remember watching you and watching other people get Madra to drop it.

[17:11]

And Madra learned to drop it. And Madra learned to be really a good dog. And Madra would be looking up at whoever, usually Sonia, with a stick in his mouth, drop it, drop it, and finally Madra would You know, he'd just open his mouth. And I thought of that in Zazen when I had thoughts going on. I was very encouraged by Madra. I thought, I don't think of myself as being willful. I mean, I'm willful with myself, but not with other people. And I thought, if Madra can learn to drop it, so can I. And I would do the thing with my mouth. I would, like, open my jaw a little bit and say, drop it. And I have to tell you, it really worked. So that's the abandoning. Actually, that gets into guarding, actually.

[18:18]

So that before unwholesome things have arisen, there's guarding against that. And in order to guard against anything, we actually have to discern that there's something to guard against. We have to recognize that something is unwholesome. So I wasn't able to recognize that dwelling on things was unhelpful, was in fact harmful, until I recognized... I mean, I couldn't stop it until I knew that it was unwholesome. I had no interest in stopping it because I thought it was a good thing, or I thought it was neutral. But once I realized that dwelling was not helpful, then I had some motivation and some reason to let go of it. And many of you are probably familiar with this story, but it's been very helpful to me. And I encountered it as autobiography in five acts. So act one, I walk out of my house and walk down the street.

[19:23]

There's a huge hole in the middle of the street. I don't see it. I fall in. It's not my fault. I'm not to blame. It takes me a long time to get out. Act Two. I walk out of my house. I walk down the street. There's a huge hole in the middle of the street. I fall in. I recognize that I've been here before. It maybe doesn't take me quite so long. And, oh no, the second one is that I recognize that I have some responsibility in this. And it doesn't take me quite so long to get out. Act three. I walk out of my house, I walk down the street, there's a giant hole in the middle of the street. I see the hole and I fall in anyway.

[20:26]

This is the really, really painful one. Because prior to that, it's like, it's so not my fault. The world or whoever is not behaving the way they should. But when you're in act three of the play, you know that you have some responsibility and you also have more power. you have more choice. So it doesn't take you as long to get back out of the hole. Act four, I walk out of my house, I walk down the street, I walk around the hole. Now we're getting somewhere. That may be a little more like abandoning hindrances that have arisen. And act five is, I walk down another street. Actually, I think in a way, I'm going to take that back because I hadn't thought before just now about relating these five acts with these four right exertions.

[21:41]

But I think the guarding would be more walking around because you have to see that something's potentially there in order to avoid it. You have to know, oh, I see where this is going and I don't want to go there. But I think the sides of developing wholesome and skillful things that have not yet arisen, and maintaining wholesome and skillful things that have already arisen, would be on the walking down another street. And actually, you know, none of this goes in sequential order, especially, you know, where we walk down the street and what we do, because we're always falling in holes and getting out, constantly. I actually thought that the Zen version of that story would be something like, I dive in and out of holes. You know, there are many holes and I jump freely in and out of them. But in terms of, oh, to go back, when I recognized, when I was struggling with negative thoughts, with dwelling, and I experimented with anger as a possible antidote to that,

[22:56]

I also had some wholesome thoughts, and I thought, oh, this is better. Gratitude, appreciation, you know, and that right there is actually developing wholesome factors. So they actually completely interplay with each other. But developing skillful qualities, I think the root of that is intention and vow, because There are many, many wholesome and skillful qualities. And I was thinking, I think it's Dickens who says, happy families are all alike, but unhappy families are unhappy each in their own individual way. Tolstoy. I always say Dickens and I always get corrected, but it's Tolstoy. Thank you. But positive qualities tend to gather... other qualities around it.

[23:57]

If we start developing patience, we also tend to develop compassion, and it all kind of comes along together. So in some sense, I'm not sure that it matters exactly what the intention is, but that there is an intention, and that there is a vow. And as we go on in practice, I think that vow naturally deepens. I think if we find a true vow or intention for ourself at whatever moment we're at in our practice, and really commit to that and stay with it, that it will develop of its own and deepen very naturally. But it is very important to choose and to commit and to follow through. So it's really a practice of how are we choosing How are we choosing to encourage and support our own practice? I've personally found a lot of support in encouraging other people's practices.

[25:04]

I think the first time I noticed that was living at Tassajara. And it may have even been my first summer there. And it was the end of summer, and it was very hot, and I was very tired. And I started noticing... that if I gave energy, gave a smile, gave some encouragement to someone else who looked even tireder, hotter, and grumpier than I was, that I would get a lot of energy back, I would get a smile back, I would forget my own suffering, and that it kind of generally lightened things. And in fact, I've I've often noticed that about myself, that I can be pulled out of a difficult mood by seeing someone who's having a harder time than I am, because it somehow reminds me, oh, I guess I'm kind of making a lot of this, and maybe I don't have to. But I think each person finds their own way of encouraging your own practice, encouraging what is good in your practice.

[26:14]

I think many of us, I know I, often feel like my practice should be smooth. It should look a certain way. You know, if I've been practicing for X number of years, it should look like this. I shouldn't be having difficulties anymore. I have to tell you, that was one of the main difficulties I was encountering, was I shouldn't be having difficulties. It's very hard to actually deal with them. And hard to be honest with myself and hard to be honest with other people. Mostly hard to be honest with myself about just how hard a time I was having and how to relate with having a hard time. You know, if you're, say you're rowing a boat and it's a beautiful, clear, sunny day and, you know, you can just go skipping across the waves and it's all great. And you think, maybe this is how it should be. But if someone else is rowing a boat, and it's a very stormy day, and it's choppy waves, and it's difficult, like every stroke is a struggle, they may not look so good.

[27:32]

Or if this is you, you may not look so good in your practice. But practice is being deeply developed by continuing that effort, that enthusiasm to just keep coming back over and over again, regardless of what it looks like. Remember Suzuki Roshi talked about looks like good and looks like bad. So in some sense, I'm not sure that we ever really know what our own practice looks like. I think other people often see our sincere practice much more clearly than we see our own. But at the same time, it's very important to see the sincerity of your own practice and appreciate it. And also, where you're not sincere, and to address that. But I think many of us find it easy to see where we're not making our best effort and have a hard time acknowledging our good efforts.

[28:41]

So it really needs to be in balance. Shantideva, again, one of his most famous chapters is chapter 6, which is on patience. Actually, the Paramita that he's talking about is... I mean, he's talking about the Paramita of patience and forbearance. But what the whole chapter is about is anger. The whole chapter is about dealing with anger. Which tells me that Shantideva was a hothead. You know, that he really had trouble with anger. And that's why he knew it so well. And that's why he could offer such deep teachings on anger, is because he'd had to deal with this probably his whole life. So he had a lot to say on the subject. So whatever difficulties we have, these are our Dharma gates. These are where we're truly able to enter practice. These are the way that we open to our own suffering,

[29:47]

and to others. So the last one of the four is maintaining, maintaining wholesome qualities that have already arisen. So this is maintaining continuous practice. And I think this is kind of, in a way, like steering a car, like learning how to drive. When you first learn how to drive, like, well, there's way too many things happening at once, you know, the cars, the rear view mirror, and turn signals, and we often overcorrect one way or the other, kind of careening all over the road. And as we learn to drive, we're not focused on all the details anymore so much. We are able to maintain some balance, take it all in. text, eat, talk to our friend, and drive. Okay, maybe not text.

[30:48]

Because we're not focused on all the small things anymore, that's pretty well under control. We still need to maintain it, and we still need to be alive and alert for any emerging conditions. You know, if someone swerves into the lane, we can't ignore that. We have to deal with that right away. So all of these factors are always there. But in maintaining... It's more like we're looking down the road, we can see where we're going, we're keeping the end in mind, and everything else is adjusting to it. We're keeping it naturally in balance. So this points to that right effort really has to be right effort, not too tight and not too loose. So mindfulness, noticing, and discernment... are also very important to notice how we're making effort. Are we striving? Are we trying too hard? Are we giving up too easily? And to come back again and again, how does that feel in the body?

[31:53]

We had a three-day sashim this past weekend, and I had a new variant on the classic window problem in the zendo, that the windows are never right. It had been warm in the morning, warm and beautiful. We have high transom windows, which are kind of like these. As far as I know, only the Eno is supposed to open or close those because you have to use this long stick with a hook on it. But that was my idea, was that only the Eno could do that. And they'd opened all the windows in the morning. And after lunch, it was really cold and windy. I was freezing. I was sneezing. I was so cold. I'm like, see, that proves it's too cold. I'm sneezing. And I didn't catch this as classic Zendo windows, you know, because we had this unusual practice period. There were 12 practice leaders, six senior and six junior. I was one of the juniors. So I was sitting facing out, and I was two seats down.

[33:01]

I was the Kokus. I was two seats down from the Eno. And it wasn't the regular Eno. It was a substitute Eno who'd only started the first day of Sushin or something like that. So I felt responsible. facing out. Maybe I should do something. And maybe the Eno doesn't know that he should be closing the windows. Clearly, he should be closing the windows. Maybe I should tell him. Fortunately, I caught that. But what was really interesting to me, there were two things that were very interesting. One was, this is an old situation. Well, actually, three. One, this is an old situation. I've been here, done that enough times to It's like, how did I get caught again? Oh, it's a new situation. I know how to drive, but if I were driving on snow and ice where I've never driven before, never driven on snow and ice, that would be a completely new situation. I'd have to go back to square one. It's not what I'm used to, so this was new. I noticed what the feeling, the experience of craving and aversion was like in my body.

[34:08]

I actually felt how uncomfortable it was to want things to be other than they were. And when I tuned into how that felt, I realized I'm not cold anymore. I could say various other things, but I think, well, I'd really like to open it up to questions. So I guess just I would conclude by saying that there's something for me about finding right effort over and over again on each moment that really has to do with beginner's mind.

[35:15]

about allowing each moment to be fresh and to see what's actually there. And then how do I meet what's there? It's not a thinking process, is this wholesome or unwholesome. But nonetheless, that inner attunement to how we meet each moment. So to bring that freshness of our minds and renew our enthusiasm for practice on each moment. So, does anyone have any questions or comments? Yes. I've had a discussion with several people about about pain when we're sitting and where the threshold is for when you're hurting yourself and when it's important to sit with the pain.

[36:28]

And I think we each had different experiences, but I wonder if you could comment on that. What have you found most helpful? more to sit through it and see what that's like and when there's a point when I sort of know the difference in my body where there's like I feel like I'm hurting myself versus there's just discomfort that's sort of discomfort so I've noticed that I can sit with discomfort but not but I don't, I move when it's, I feel like it's hurting my body. How has that been working for you? Or maybe the question is really, it sounds like there's still a question about it. There's still a question about, yeah, about sort of knowing where that is, especially if it's, I mean, I guess I'm wondering about, you know,

[37:44]

There's sort of different levels of that tolerance, I think. Is that your body telling you that you're hurting yourself? Or is that... Well, what comes up for me as a question is, what is the quality of your mind as you're sitting with this pain and discomfort? Is your mind soft? Is there some striving, some pushing, some idea? For me, when I sit with something like that, it's very distracted. I mean, it's very busy. I get very kind of agitated. Can you feel the agitation in your body as well? And you're also aware of that as an experience in your mind? Do you have a sense of what that's about? whatever it's about, can you sit with that, what's underneath the agitation, and just allow that to be there?

[39:10]

Maybe try sitting with that. Yes? when you have these thoughts that are spinning, that you would do the drop it thing. And this came up during the last practice period at our tea, and we asked Red about, you know, when you're, we talked about gnawing, when we're gnawing on something, what to do about that. And I think that he suggested, you know, Zazen isn't always the best thing, but sometimes running or sleeping or doing something else is helpful. And so, yeah, I was just wondering if you could add to that list of things to do. Oh! Like when the gnawing is really bad and you're starting to get little bald spots.

[40:18]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That word has come up for me, too. Like a dog, just like, you know, the way they, like, gnaw on their... when they have fleas or something, it's kind of... Yeah, the physical stuff really helps. Well, actually, I struggled with practice a lot in my first years trying to just sit because I really didn't know how to calm my mind. To me, letting go was your hand is beaten so bloody you can't hold on anymore. That was kind of my conception of letting go. Not literally, but metaphorically. So I actually started really deepening in Tibetan practice. And one of the four foundational practices is prostrations. You do 100,000 prostrations, and they do full ones, you know, like on a board, and you put pads under your hands so you can slide out. It's kind of like ab rulers, you know, because you're like really going out and pulling back. I had amazing abs during that time.

[41:21]

So I would do like 300 of those a day. in 45 minutes. So it was a good clip. It really worked up a sweat. While you're doing this, you're visualizing, like on those tankas, those very elaborate Buddha fields, all specified what you have to visualize. A terrible visualizer, but you're supposed to visualize this, like living before you, in this 180 degrees in front of you, this entire Buddha field with your teacher and the Guru Rinpoche and the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and then all behind you is all the beings of the world, your friends and family right behind you, but everyone going on, while you are counting and reciting a mantra. That kept me busy. Reading good books, inspiring books, that I find some modern fiction terribly depressing, but there's some fiction that is like a super compelling story, and it's also very inspiring.

[42:31]

I found that very helpful. It's like, wow, I like living in this mental state a whole lot better. So it's kind of like, so yeah, something compelling enough to get you out of the head, whatever that is. intense physical sensations, cold water. Yeah. Yeah, I think you could... It's also sometimes helpful, I have found it helpful, when I'm in a positive state of mind to write myself a letter that has suggestions for when I'm not. Because then I can look... You know... I know you really well, and I know what's actually going to work in this state, and then getting myself to actually do something about it. Commitments are also really helpful, commitments that you make to other people, to meet with them or do something with them.

[43:36]

It's like, okay, at this time, we're going to go for a walk to the beach, and you just show up. Yes, I experienced that preparing for this talk. Like, what am I going to say? I think it actually doesn't help to think about things when you're in that state of mind. I think as long as you're in that state of mind, you're digging yourself deeper into whatever it is. So there's a very fine line of discernment because you have to kind of see where you are on the continuum.

[44:42]

Am I anxious but can manage, or am I kind of getting... so anxious that I can't actually be... This isn't helpful. So you have to be able to discern when something's not helpful. And on the other side, it's like taking a break, saying, okay, I can't think about going into foreclosure right now. I can see that this isn't helpful, but then not avoiding it. So it's, again, it's like steering. You have to find that middle place of... can I take a break and come back? And then maybe what supports do you need to come back to that? Maybe it's talking about it with a friend. Maybe it's writing it down. I've often found it very helpful to write things down because my thoughts can go A, B, C, A, B, C, A, B, C. And when I write it down, I can go, oh, you're going A, B, C, and I can see that C is leading to D, but I didn't want to go there.

[45:47]

but somehow writing can really help get it out of your head. So it's kind of walking between those two. I think maybe that's enough for this evening. Thank you all very much.

[46:07]

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