This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good evening. I'm going to start tonight by a short reading from the Shovo Genzo, Section 3.1. I always have a little problem with the showbogenzo and how we share it because in it, it's obvious that, you know, H.O. was taking down notes from Dogen's talks to his monks and that sometimes, you know, he's really a little bit harsh, a little bit strict.

[01:06]

And it's not always clear, well, it is clear, how this applies to some of us who are not monastics. It's still some of my favorite resources, the Shovo Genzo Zui Monkey. So Shovo Genzo Zui Monkey, section three, one. Students of the way, let go of body and mind and enter completely into the Buddha Dharma. An ancient said, at the top of a hundred foot pole, how do you advance one more step? In such a situation, we think that we would die if we wouldn't let go of the pole, and so we cling firmly to it.

[02:11]

Saying advance one more step means the same as having resolved that death would not be bad and that therefore one lets go of bodily life. we should give up worrying about everything from the art of living to our livelihood. Unless we give up worrying about such things, it will be impossible to attain the way even if we seem to be practicing earnestly as though trying to extinguish a fire enveloping our heads. Just let go of body and mind in a decisive manner. in a decisive manner. My ordination was many years ago, and it took me a long time to get through it. I was telling someone the other day that one day my teacher said, okay, you said you wanted to ordain, so let's go.

[03:24]

And we went down to the Kmart, and we bought this cheap fabric. And it sat around for about two years before I actually cut it. And then it took, you know, another year for me to actually finish. So like three years total going on that robe. My ordination day, I remember, went very smoothly, you know. My mother was there, my sister was there, my aunt was there. I think my sister was there to make sure I wasn't, you know, getting initiated into some cult somewhere, you know. But she came. And, you know, I had long dreadlocks that I had been wearing for like nine years. And Friday, I got uncut off.

[04:26]

And Sunday, we shaved my head, and I went through the ordination. There was no controversy at the ordination. There was no controversy with my family. I told my mother I was going to ordain. She said, okay, what does that mean? Oh, okay. She didn't say no. She didn't gossip me. She didn't say, you know, are you sure? My best friend, who is kind of conservative, genius girl, I told her and she said, really? That's interesting. Let me know how that works out. And she loves to argue. But she didn't argue with me.

[05:28]

Nobody argued with me. I said, oh, I'm going to ordain. I went and ordained and, you know, went through the whole, you know, shebang. And, you know, Sunday I ordained. And a few days later, I was back at work. And then I went on for another, you know, three years. My teacher, very lenient, the only requirement she had of me after ordination was that I learn how to put my robes on, that I come to Sashin every month, and that was a, you know, it's a three-hour ride from Charlotte to Asheville, where the temple is, in Charlotte, where I was working in temple, and that I don't wear jewelry, so the earrings had to go. Beyond that, You know, what was this? And as I said, I went on like that for three years.

[06:33]

And some part of me had the nerve to be disappointed, disillusioned a little bit, and very confused. You know, because I thought I had made a vow and to change my life. But nothing changed. Nothing was required. And I had all these little expectations that somehow this was magically going to be different. I was going to be different. And that I had dedicated myself to the Dharma. And I'm not laughing at that younger woman, you know. Because the intention was definitely there. But the intention to what? You know, the understanding wasn't there. So one day, and somewhere in these three years, I was at home cleaning the porch.

[07:49]

And my teacher called me up. He's on the other end of the line. talking about something called Ongo, and you have to go and it's going to take three months. You have to take three months off of work and, you know, go to Ongo. I didn't have the kind of job where you took three months off of work and came back and still had that job. Yeah. I didn't have the kind of money to, if I didn't have that job when I come back, to pay my bills and take care of that because You know, it was a low paying job, you know, the kind of job where if you're single, especially, you know, once you pay your bills, the car note and that kind of thing, there's very little left to save. And I had debts, school loans, you know, the crazy years of credit card debts where they give you a credit card when you're 17 years old and you lost your mind, you know.

[08:53]

And it took you 20 years, 17 more years to pay it off. And that was my life at that time. And then, you know, but when she said that, you know, when she told me I had to do this, there was some angle coming up that year and she was wanting to sign me up and I'm like, I didn't say no. I couldn't say yes, but I didn't say no. And I didn't go to Ango that year. It took another year and a half, two years, before that actually happened. But something happened on that porch. The change didn't come or the turn didn't come with the ceremony at Great Tree and the shaving of my head and all of that.

[10:06]

The change came when that turn came. When I decisively decided. I sound like George, but... And I made that real decision to take that vow seriously. The next time she called a few years later, I didn't say no. But at that point, I was ready. Somehow, with that turn, that change, that dropping of whatever it was that I thought I was building, you know, because I thought I was about 47 at the time.

[11:10]

And I thought I had my life in order. I had built this life that... even though I was never satisfied, even though I was always suffering, even though I was always grambling, always never had any money. I was always, you know, at least once every few weeks, coasting into the gas station on fumes and, you know, taking $5 out of the ATM so that I could at least get the car back, you know. into the driveway, you know, before the gas ran out. So from a life of that, suddenly with that understanding of what this meant, what it meant to dedicate one's life to the Dharma,

[12:14]

In the way that I needed to do so. I'm not saying this is how everybody else should do it. In the way I needed to do it. It was suddenly absolutely possible. I had cleared most of the debt. Car payment was still out there. But I had figured out a way to do that. I quit my job. I had been at that job for 20 years. I lost my health insurance. I knew when I came back from wherever the heck it was I was going, and not even really clear about that, I was not going to be here. This was gone. This life, this thing I thought I'd built, this definition of myself that I had been working on and polishing all these years.

[13:17]

Gone. I raised money for the first time in my life. I had to go out and I had to raise money. I had to ask the world to support me in this endeavor that I couldn't even really, as you can see, Explain. Or couldn't even expect them to really understand. And they gave it to me. Freely. That's now how, you know, she knew Simone at that time was treated. That's not how. I never, you know, asked for something and receive it.

[14:23]

The night before I got on the plane to go to Japan, I cried. I cried so hard, I got the hiccups. And I was so scared. But I was also so sure. And I got on that plane. And I went to Cushu, someplace I'd never heard of before, for three months. And when I came back, I still was alive, you know. I didn't have much. Or I had a little bit too much of junk that I no longer needed. You know, all this stuff, you know, that I was paying on that credit card and everything, you know, years of that.

[15:36]

It didn't have anything to do. With my life. At that time. And. That's just to say. That. That was my stepping off. the 100-foot pole, and I'm still in free fall, and sometimes I can hear the wind whistling past my ears, and sometimes, you know, the rush of air, you know, the rush of pressure, you know, takes my breath away. And sometimes,

[16:42]

I'm sitting on that edge where it could be life and death. I spent the whole 10 years with no health insurance. And I learned how to be sick. And I learned how to get old. I learned to take care of myself. And I learned every once in a while to be a little bit hungry. And I learned that even though I didn't have much, when somebody came and asked, you know, this is living in the temple, asked for my time, asked for teaching, ask for a cup of tea.

[17:47]

All I had to do was be right there and give the best of what I had. And I learned how to receive, too. When Logan says that advancing one step further means the same as giving up, worrying about everything, worrying about where the next meal is going to come from, worrying about where, how, and where, and when. worrying about this body and life and death, you know, and put that down and just be decisive about living

[19:17]

a life in Dharma. What's that have to do with nothing? One of the things I learned, you know, in this time that I've been, you know, ordained is that all the stuff that I hold on to, that pole I hold on to, you know, 100 feet up, clinging like a, you know, like a raggedy flag, flapping in the wind, dealing with, you know, the weather, watching, you know, the blood, Trains from my fingers I'm clutching so hard to nothing.

[20:23]

Trying to hold on to an identity that I'd built for 47 years. Some of which had nothing to do with me. Some of that identity I hadn't chosen. It was chosen and imposed upon me. based on whatever society thinks that someone like me is supposed to be and what someone like me is supposed to care about and what someone like me is supposed to, you know, accept. And some of that I did accept because... And also my ego... idea of myself and what it meant that I was independent and taking care of myself. I had some decent clothes and I had a car.

[21:33]

A piece of car. I had a job. I had one of those good government jobs that you have to, you know, If you lose that job, just something. And it's not to say that, you know, in those jobs that people don't work, and we did work hard. But, you know, it's all a system. It's all a, you know, it's a scam. It's not really taking care of, you know, the community. It's more like the kind of jobs that throw... I work for social services that throw all kinds of obstacles in the way of really helping people. Bureaucracy and it's weaponized bureaucracy.

[22:36]

I was part of that for 20 years. And all the intentions that go into... wanting to be of use in the world, but never really finding that for myself. Never really reaching those folks that I felt needed me in my ego brain. And when it came to Dharma practice, going through certain motions. Yeah, showing up for those sashines every month. And I'm not saying they didn't help. And I'm not saying that, you know, they weren't good sashines. But what was I, you know, sitting there in my little robes, you know,

[23:45]

I tease sometimes, you know, in my little robes that I didn't know how to wear. And as you can see, I'm still struggling. You know, I call myself and, you know, when you don't know how to put on your robes, it's more like wearing a costume. You're doing the cosplay monk, you know. And that's why, you know, I'm always a stickler, you know, because I have such trouble with it myself, you know, because my body doesn't fit these robes. When I see somebody with their clothes on, I still do that. And that's my thing.

[24:49]

At the point on that porch was the real ordination, was the real decision. And I remember that day really clearly. And I remember Tejo's voice really clearly asking me. She wasn't even, you know, pushing me to do this. She wasn't, it wasn't, I guess she had some expectation. But she wasn't angry when I didn't go. And she wasn't angry because I was, you know, seemingly indecisive. So there wasn't that pressure. But there was a real letting go of a real renunciation. And that's an important part of this practice, I think. Not renunciation in the sense that, oh, I'm letting go of all the world and, you know, I'm not part of the world anymore.

[26:00]

It's renunciation of all this idea of self and what I need and what I should be and do. spend a lot of time and invest a lot in that, especially in this culture. And when I take all that away, what's left? When I take away the social service worker and I take away the car and I take away money, even though When I'm on the edge of poverty, I always live that way. And I take away even what most people would think I had so little. When I take away that, I felt like a millionaire.

[27:07]

I felt like Elon Musk giving away millions of dollars for nothing. I felt like that. Like I lost something, and that really wasn't anything. And when I came back from Japan, I moved into the temple, and I moved from my grandmother's nine-room house that I was trying to upkeep and be in, my mother moved into it later, to a single room that I could only fit a certain amount of stuff in. pet my cat, though. I couldn't just abandon her. And that was all I needed. I packed up trunks worth of clothes, you know, because I had some style. No, I didn't.

[28:14]

But I had the right clothes to go to work looking like I cared. And everything I owned was black. I was telling somebody the other day that I wear these, most of the time, wear Samway or at least some part of Samway, Samway pants. My jackets and my shirts. Everywhere I go. And I don't even know what I look like most of the time. And it doesn't define who's here. It's just the clothes I put on to go out in the street and be decent. It's the clothes I feel comfortable in with my arms covered and my legs covered. the way you come to the Zendo, because that's what I'm dressed for every day.

[29:28]

I most of the time shave my head. I have a skin problem back here that keeps me from shaving it, you know, as regularly as I would in the monastery. But I usually don't have any hair. from the long dreadlocks. I'll look on top of my head. Nothing. Nothing. And it feels just fine. And I don't feel in danger and I don't feel poor. And I don't feel useless because I don't have the new skills out there to get the busy job, you know.

[30:40]

No, it's not three figures. Six figures. I will never make six figures, never have. And at any moment, I could get sick, and I will just be sick. And I'm getting old, and I'm just going to be old, because this is what this is now. This is what this is with all of that. Drift away that unnecessary story, that unnecessary idea of who this is meant to be. And I have no idea who I'll be tomorrow or in another three years or if another turn is going to come.

[31:49]

to change this. Because it will change. Don't know. And sometimes, to be honest, I'm comfortable with that. And sometimes I'm not. The wind whistling past, air whistling past as I fall. And that's nothing. I was going to say something because I never wrote it down, but maybe I won't. There's part of the Genjo coin. Okay, bear with me. There's part of the Genjo coin where...

[32:50]

Dogen talks about the fish and the bird. And the bird and the fish, the fish in the ocean, the bird in the sky. And I'm just going to read it. I'm not even going to explain. Maybe something, you know, something about it hits in a certain way that connects with this. Because it's all connected, of course. But, you know, it's Dogen's poetry and my blithering brain trying to hold it. And maybe I'll figure it out. And maybe somebody can tell me why, you know, where this fits. Since I can't explain it. Therefore, if there are fish that would swim or birds that would fly. Only after investigating the entire ocean or sky, they would find neither path nor place.

[33:57]

When we make this very place our own, our practice becomes the actualization of reality. When we make this very place our own, our practice becomes the actualization of reality. And something about that, for me, connects with that moment on the porch. When I make this my own, it is actual. It is reality. I am there. I am present. I am in the Dharma. practicing the decisive being of this nothing is actual.

[35:07]

It's right here. And that might be blithering, but something touches me about that in that. And maybe that's not what Dogen meant, but if, you know, the fish in the ocean is not worried about the ocean. It's just in the ocean. The bird in the sky is not worrying about the sky. It's just in the sky. If I am in the Dharma, I am not worried about If I am in the world and the Dharma, I am not worried about the world. I am just here being in the world. And letting the sky carry me and being the sky.

[36:13]

The bird is the sky. In the same way the bird song is... The sitter in Suzuki Roshi's. Okay. I might have to shut up before I get into any kind of trouble. We're at 830. Am I doing it again? Okay. Okay. Okay. Sorry. So I lost the question and answer time again. I'm sorry. I thought I was shortening up. Okay. This is my brain. I'm sorry. I would love to hear your questions and any comments you have. It's not that I'm avoiding that. It's just that I don't know sometimes.

[37:19]

Whatever you heard in that, I hope that it's helpful, or at least it gave some illustration of what Dogen and the patriarchs have been trying to talk about. I don't know. Thank you very much for your attention. And I'll end it there. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma Talks are offered at no cost and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[38:23]

May we fully enjoy the Dormen.

[38:26]

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