Thank you. Hear that? So the path of this penetrating and perfect honourable is what we met with in a hundred thousand billion developed past.

[03:04]

That begins to see and listen to, to remember and accept. I am allowed to taste the truth of God, to talk about his words, and not surpassed the tree and perfect one law. It is rarely met with, given a hundred thousand living of us. Advocated to see and listen to you. To remember and accept. I am about to face the truth of the world. And as it surpasses. Denetating and perfect dogma. Israel, we met with even a hundred thousand million of us.

[04:13]

Happiness, history, and blissness, too, to remember and expect. I vow to taste the truth of the Thessalonians' words. Good morning. Welcome to Green Dragon Temple. Thank you, Nadia, for loaning me your glasses. And I'm so grateful to be here with you all this morning. Thank you so much to Lauren and Timo for inviting me to talk today. For those of you I haven't yet met, my name is Erin Merck. And in addition to being a priest through San Francisco Zen Center. I'm also a full-time high school student, which is a job, high school student, high school. I just never graduated.

[05:16]

I'm a full-time high school teacher in San Francisco, and it's a job I've been kind of negotiating with my Zen practice for more than 20 years now. So these are, it's a perspective I definitely, bring into my practice and which my practice kind of weaves into as well. So it's truly a joy to be able to come here on a Sunday and just share this space with you all and have a chance to touch into the Dharma in such a direct way. So thank you. And as we bring, as we begin our Dharma talk journey this morning, I wanted us to just take a moment and kind of settle in and ground into our bodies and minds, if that's okay with you all. Because I, for one, have traveled a distance and it's not a usual thing that I do on a Sunday. So just wanting to arrive.

[06:17]

And so we can start by just taking a moment to let ourselves really settle into our seats and settle into that feeling of gravity, of gravitational pull. And just noticing that feeling of contact between you, your body, the parts of your body that are touching the ground, the cushion. And just noticing what that awareness, how that awareness shifts your experience. taking a moment to feel into the movements of your breath and your heartbeat. Just noticing that within any kind of stillness we try to create as humans, there's always movement.

[07:33]

Always a rhythm. Just noticing the edges and curves of your body. You might feel the parts of you that are in contact with your clothing. Noticing the feeling of the air around you. And taking the moment, especially if you're in this space here at Green Gulch today, to sense the presence of others around you. fullness of our shared life together.

[08:38]

Thank you very much for taking a moment to arrive. And in my own practice recently, I've very much been drawn to exploring the power of simplicity. turning towards the most basic of our practice to help me meet what's available right now in the moment. And I imagine for many of you, many of you may share this experience. Over the past few months, I've frequently found myself feeling pulled in a variety of directions, often at speeds that don't feel in alignment with with the reality of my own human body and mind, whether it's the endless barrage of current news, local or global, whether it's the culture of urgency that I find in my work environments and sometimes in other environments that I also traverse or hear about, or whether it's the stories

[10:02]

and experiences that I hear from my family and friends, it can be very easy to feel swept off of my feet and to feel sometimes overwhelmed at how to respond and how to respond in ways that feel actually skillful and helpful. So I'm not sure if any of you have experienced this over the past few months or so. And overwhelm, as we know, is a feeling that if we leave it unattended, uncared for, can actually work to erode our most basic feelings of power and agency and of embodiment as human beings. So being able to find ways to negotiate overwhelm to pause and be able to come back to our humanity is a genuinely important practice and a genuinely important part of our life as humans.

[11:14]

Fortunately for us all here, Zen practice is fundamentally a yogic practice, what we might call a yogic practice, offering simple yet very powerful tools to help guide us back to our wholeness and our sense of basic goodness or basic Buddha nature, however we want to call it, as humans, especially when we feel kind of lost, overwhelmed, or pulled in so many directions by the strong winds around us. And the root of the word yogic or yoga is a Sanskrit root called yogam, which means yoke or to yoke. And for those of you who might not be familiar with the word yoke, a yoke is a very ancient piece of equipment.

[12:23]

It's a piece of wood that's generally used. It's a frame that can hold two very large animals like oxen and help to kind of contain them, connect them, join their power, and guide them towards doing a task, usually in this case a task that would be useful for humans, such as pulling a cart or plowing a field. So yogic actually has that meaning to yoke or to join together forces, to join together power, to find a way to channel our power, especially when it's going off in different directions so that it can actually serve, so that it can be a force of goodness and usefulness to us. So in the case of us as human beings, this kind of yoking can mean or often means bringing our hearts and minds, our bodies together with the present moment.

[13:43]

So bringing ourselves back when we have the tendency to wander to, as we know, either kind of jump into the future anxious, worried, or jumping into the past, or even now, this special power that we have to be in the present, doing things in the present with technology at speeds that don't make it possible many times for us to actually also pay attention to our bodies, the life of our body. And so we have already being a basic human being, you know, even traditionally, so the word yoke and the object yoke dates back to about 4000 BC. So we can imagine that even human beings at that time struggled to form union between heart, mind, and body. But now we have so many more challenges, right, in our sphere of what we understand.

[14:53]

that can pull us in a lot of different directions and kind of take us out of that basic grounded feeling and basic grounded power that we have access to if we can slow down enough and if we have the tools to help guide us back to our spot in the present moment. And of course... As we know, the present moment, we hear this all the time, especially if you come to places like this or watch Dharma talks or read Dharma words. We know that the present moment is really important because it's the only place where we're actually living, where our human life is actually unfolding, where we actually exist. So this is where all of our potential and power and agency to act in ways that benefit. This is the only place that it actually lives.

[15:55]

So when we're constantly dragged away from it and dragged away from that power, that face of power, we lose. We lose our place. We lose our human way, our precious human gifts. So a yogic practice can be something as simple as what we did just a few moments ago of just taking an intentional moment to arrive, to actually notice the feeling and sensation in our bodies, to notice the present moment experience of breath that's keeping us alive, of noticing the most essential and basic movements of our hearts and lungs, working to keep us alive and working to kind of keep us going in that present moment.

[16:58]

Fullness doesn't take much. One of the most fundamental teaching stories that I've been appreciating lately, I've actually been... creating, I'm so excited actually, to be creating this class for high school students that's actually about Zen. Because normally I teach in a program called Body Mind Education, which isn't too far away from Zen, but I've never actually taught a class that has the word Zen in it. And so I've been invited to create a class called Zen in the Bay. which is going to premiere next spring. And one of the cool things about this class is that it joins together young people from seven different independent schools. And they get to choose something that's maybe an interest or something they didn't know they'd be interested in and explore it in a hybrid format.

[18:07]

So... the only face-to-face meetings we'll have will be on the weekends. So during the whole semester, we'll get to have really immersive weekend experiences related to Zen, such as visiting the Asian Art Museum and maybe having a tea ceremony or coming to a Dharma talk like this, or maybe visiting... city center to understand and learn a little bit about urban practice or coming here perhaps to, warning, coming here perhaps to explore farming and Zen. But in between, the students will just be exploring some of the basics of what Buddhist practice is, where it's from, how it got to the Bay Area, what some of the issues are, all of these different things. Anyhow, that's the context. So I've been going back to our most basic stories to try to cull and glean what might be interesting to young people and just thinking about what kind of young people would sign up for this class, given that it doesn't really offer anything specifically useful like math or technology or that kind of requirement.

[19:26]

It's just a straight-up elective. And one of the stories that I know I'm pretty sure they'll be interested in is the actual life of the Buddha. Just from having heard students at my own school really enjoying reading that classic Siddhartha text. So I've been looking at the life of the Buddha and just thinking about what moments, how to kind of roll it out with them and... which aspects of his life to bring out and emphasize and what kinds of activities they can do to feel excited about this person's life journey. And one moment that I've really been struck by that I think is one of our first yogic instructions from the Buddha is the story of his journey, the retreat that led to his awakening. of the most powerful moment in transition of his story from being Gautama, the practitioner, to experiencing this immense awakening moment, how that transition happened.

[20:45]

So we know this, that after years of his searching and struggle and experiencing doubt and practicing with all of these different renowned ascetic teachers, he just couldn't find the answers to his questions, to his most basic practice questions, which kept him searching. He nearly died because one route that he tried was kind of trying to control his body in such a way, not eating, not drinking, trying to shut off the sense gates so that he could come to some kind of mental understanding. And after years of this, years of struggle, and going from his teenage years along into his 20s and 30s, he finally just got tired of seeking.

[21:50]

And the story goes, decided to sit down and tap into the simplest technology of his own body and mind. I mean, combined with all of the teachings that he'd gathered through his lifetime, which were many, and not get up until he understood, until he could understand the meaning of his life, and his place in the universe. So in this sitting retreat, which we kind of reenact or go into ceremonially every year in December, some versions say that he sat for days or weeks sometimes. However long it was, it was a very long time. He had a very, very difficult experience. His mind was, he was still recovering from all of the practices that he'd done to deteriorate his body.

[23:00]

And he'd only just recently started eating again. That's a whole other story that I really love. So he was pretty, in some sense, pretty defeated, you know, pretty, down coming into this state of determination to just sit there. And at a certain point when his struggles were at their most intense, there's this beautiful story that he just was beside himself. He had so many difficulties, staying present, keeping himself in his body, keeping himself grounded. And so he reached down towards the earth, touched the ground, and called the earth to witness, to witness his effort to be with him.

[24:05]

He used his body, the channels of his body, to yoke to use the power of the earth to yoke his energy so that he could stay present, so that he could stay grounded, and so that he could finish that retreat feeling like he'd awakened to the questions that were most central to his heart. And I'm just... Every time I hear that part of the story, there's so much to the story, but somehow for me, especially as a person with a yoga background and just very body-oriented person, I always feel touched by that simple gesture of reaching down to touch the earth. And I think of it as, as I mentioned in the beginning of the talk, I, lately with just the amount of information, the amount of grief and stories and it's hard to keep up with it, any kind of simplicity that I can tap into and try out and hear about that will help me personally stay in my seat.

[25:36]

and feel the nourishment around me so that I can keep going and keep meeting all these different situations, I'm going to be very excited about that kind of practice. So reading these stories again and hearing that simple yet powerful gesture of reaching down to the earth struck me again as such a beautiful, powerful, simple practice. And some of you might already know this and be smiling because of this, but it turns out that the, I actually texted my teacher, Ejun Linderuth, yesterday saying, Linderuth, do you know if there is an example of the calling the earth to witness Buddha here at Green Gulch? And she was probably like, Aaron? She said, well, you know, on the altar, on the main altar, there is such a Buddha. And so on your way out, you can check out this Buddha.

[26:39]

It's the smaller figure, gold, seated in the front. And so when you're walking out today, you can actually see this calling the earth to witness Buddha for yourself. For those of you at home who might not be able to see it, the Buddha is seated in lotus and has his right arm extended down towards the ground. Otherwise, just sitting in zazen posture. And if you want to, you can actually try this out yourself right now. Whatever... posture you're in, whether you're sitting or standing or lying down or at home or here, wherever you are, you also can find your way to reaching your right arm down. And depending where you're sitting, you might be able to reach down and touch the earth.

[27:45]

I know for myself, I'm touching the cushion, but that's okay. And if you're standing or if you're sitting in a chair, you could either reach down and feel the chair, because that's the earth that you're on right now, or you can just reach down and extend through your fingers, just kind of gently calling the earth towards you. And this specific posture is in Sanskrit is called Bhumi sparsha mudra. Bhumi is, I'm sure it has many complex meanings, but basically connotating the earth, the ground, and sparsha calling to witness. Bhumi sparsha mudra.

[28:49]

Mudra is a special posture. The word mujah means seal or sometimes cosmic seal. And like a yoke, it's used to channel our human energy to flow in a certain direction, to help ground our intention, to help awaken our awareness. And in zazen practice, as many of you probably know, if you've had some zazen instruction, we usually sit in cosmic mudra, so with the palms kind of nested on top of each other as... Our teacher, Suzuki Roshi, says you're holding something very precious in your palms and then with your thumbtips lightly touching.

[29:53]

And so Bhumisparsha mudra is the cosmic mudra as well. So you keep your left palm holding something precious and you just reach down to engage to call, to invite the power of the earth to be with you and to perhaps fortify your own efforts, your own intention. So if you're trying this mudra, or if you're moving from cosmic mudra, or whatever, perhaps you have your palms on your lap, whatever mudra you're trying, you might consider how does it feel?

[31:07]

What do you notice as you I was engaging this practice a lot yesterday in preparing this talk and a little bit this morning as well. And as I was sitting there... like tuning into the grounds beneath me, just feeling the connection between my body and my fingertips and this ground. I had a flash of awareness. It's just imagining, thinking about all the networks of power and communication and resource under the ground.

[32:12]

that especially if we're city dwellers, which I am, it may not always be easily accessible, might not always be easily aware of it because of so much concrete and asphalt. We know so much now about the fungal networks, the ways that trees travel, the roots of trees travel and the ways that trees protect each other from a distance even. The incredible kind of super highway that looks like some kind of neural network underneath the ground. So in reaching our own palms down to tap in, you can just imagine restoring our own connection to this power, to this network, and being part of the community of human and non-human creatures that are supporting the entire universe.

[33:30]

The Earth... Witness buddha, of course, is not just a story from the Buddha's life or just a posture to look at on the altar. But it can be an invitation, an offering for each of us in the midst of our own busy, uncertain, and sometimes overwhelming lives to take a moment to touch into the ground of our own being and remember our basic wholeness, our basic goodness. One of the rakasus that I have, which is a smaller Buddhist robe that's inscribed on the back, says the entire universe is the true human body.

[34:58]

So I think of this mudra as the entire universe is the true human body. or I open the space for questions and comments and expressions, I have two poems that I wanted to share with you this morning. It's greedy, couldn't choose. The first one, many of you will be familiar with Wendell Berry, a writer, poet, activist. And this poem is called, The Peace of Wild Things.

[36:01]

When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water and I feel above me the day blind stars waiting with their light. For a time, I rest in the grace of the world, and I'm free. The second offering I have for you is by the late great teacher Thich Nhat Hanh, and it's called Earth-Touching,

[37:26]

actually about this mudra. It's from a collection called Call Me By My True Names. This is just the first part. Here is the foot of a tree. Here is an empty, quiet place. Here is a cushion. Friend, why don't you sit down? Sit upright. Sit with solidity. Sit in peace. Don't let your thoughts lift you up into the air. Sit so that you can really touch the earth and be one with her. You may like to smile, friend. Earth will transmit to you her solidity, her peace, and her joy.

[38:30]

With your mindful breathing, with your peaceful smile, you sustain the mudra of earth touching. So as I close my comments for this morning, Just want to extend this invitation to you all to touch into this powerful simplicity available today. And may each of us remember this simple grounding, grounding ourselves, calling the earth to witness, and returning to the fullness of this moment together. So thank you for sharing your practice, your presence, your life with me and with each other this morning. And may our efforts here ripple outward, grounding not only ourselves, but all beings everywhere.

[39:38]

So I think we now, thank you, have a bit of time for questions, comments, thoughts, expressions. so much to say, and thank you for doing what you're doing. Boy, is it needed. I hope you sell your book here, because I'd like to pick up a coffee and give it a few to some of my young friends. You've heard of forest bathing, of course. Yes. Yeah, and I found a grove in Muir Woods by Alice Eastwood Camp, and I go there often and just lay in a bed of needles. And I wake up, and I feel like I've had 12 hours restful sleep. It's just amazing. Sounds amazing. It is wonderful, especially on a hot summer day. Also, David Attenborough, the naturalist, he does some wonderful conversations on how nature can speak to itself for hundreds of miles, like gray whales, and then the trees, and...

[40:55]

It's quite remarkable. And I think if you talk to someone who does mathematics, what do they call it? Mathematics, the really high form. Quantum. Quantum. Physics. Yeah, physics. That's it. They've proven it all the way into our universe and how everything is so interconnected. And there's so much we don't know as humans. But... does exist around us, like gathering that energy from chi, out in the environment, yoga. So I really appreciate your conversation. Thank you so much. Thank you. You've given us a lot all to touch into and to consider as we practice. Thank you. Thank you so much for your talk.

[42:09]

I really enjoyed it. And I'm wondering if you can say a little bit more about how you balance the urgency of working in a school and the very real needs that are present working with young people and in a school environment, how you meet that while also staying in touch with your practice and and showing up in a way that feels authentic and nourishing for you. Thank you. Thank you for your question. I think it probably depends on each person, but for me personally, being a very sensitive person and very introverted, and my job as a high school teacher is very extroverted. So one way that I... feel like I set myself up to be able to be available and to kind of meet each different person and thing as it comes up throughout the day is to leave a lot of space.

[43:21]

So I am at school very early and I give myself the feeling every day that there's so much time just by arriving very early. And what I notice is it really does help me be able to kind of be in a quiet space, be able to practice a little before school starts. And then as I start hearing the arrivals, I do truly feel ready. I feel replenished and like, okay, now let's see what happens today. And I feel like I can go into the classroom and just pick up on the vibration of the day. which you never know what it could be. It could be very buoyant. There's so many ways that young people are reacting and expressing in relation to what we're handing them right now. And sometimes they just want to spend the day laughing.

[44:22]

So that will be a direction we'll go. And some days there might be a lot of crying and drama and a lot of other kinds of feelings coming up. So I think Taking really good care of myself, which there are a lot of teachings about that, taking good care of yourself to take care of others. That one really works well for me. And also, I think just knowing that I'm a human and I have limitations and I have boundaries and knowing which aspects of the school could essentially spend so much time there and... you know, say yes to everything. And I do say yes to a lot of things because I do have a lot of energy. But there's a certain point where I know that I'm just not going to be very useful anymore. And so knowing when I can just say, actually, no, I can't be available anymore. I have to sort of reset and take the weekend and be introverted again. So that's just some things that come to mind.

[45:24]

I think it's not easy, but making the space for the practice. is really important. Otherwise, it's just too easy to get swept in without feeling any sense of ground or connection to the power that is available to me that I can use as my gift. Thank you. I'm fascinated by your experience with high school children. As someone who's very new to Zen practice but has several college-age children, I'm struggling with a lot of things. Yes, thank you. No, they're great. They're great. How to get them or show them

[46:28]

mindfulness and being in the presence while understanding that they have a lot more to plan for than say I do, right? I can come here and I don't have to think about a lot of things and they do. So I have a lot of other things I would love to hear about, but that's kind of what I've been thinking about more as I've become more grounded myself. How can I impart that on a young person as well? Yeah, thank you for your question. And yeah, for being a parent, that's very difficult. And I think college-age students right now, it's just, oof, there's a lot going on for them. And I would say, in my experience, you can't really, it might not be worth the effort to try to push them towards anything, really. Just by your practice, I think they may be curious.

[47:33]

And eventually, I just really think this is a practice that people have to come to on their own. And I notice whenever I try to, if I ever try to do something with them, that because it's such a personal, intimate... way of being and it can bring up so much. I think each person has to come to this kind of practice on their own and they may not come to exactly this form of it, but there might be something that they like that will offer a similar quality of presence and connection. So whatever they're interested in, maybe there's some way that that thing they're interested in can serve in a similar way to this practice maybe has touched you so i'm thinking about i know when a lot of young people the only time that they're able to kind of get away from the media onslaught is when they're off on some kind of nature trip so if you have any if any of your kids like that i think that kind of trip together where you're cut off from

[48:46]

all of the technology and you can really see stars and you're really down to the most basics, that can be very powerful way of practicing or some kind of any like art passion, like taking them to experiencing some art with them that maybe is, I don't know, very touching or helps them feel vulnerable. But I would say definitely don't share this with them. Don't try. Like, make them want to chase after you to get it. I would make it very secretive. Yeah, I would say, no, no, no, no, this is not for you. That's what I recommend. Sorry. No college-age people allowed. You know, Erin, I'm reminded of a question I've been turning, which is not a question, but a statement that I heard from a senior Dharma teacher, which is everyone is on the path of practice.

[49:52]

And so I'm just reminded of that, you know, when we're talking about inviting or not inviting others to join what we are in. And so I'm just trying to understand what that means or, you know, just kind of practicing with that statement. Everyone is on the path. Yes. Yeah. I believe there's so many... Zen, I think there's only Zen because we're saying Zen. We're calling it Zen. There's only a Buddha because we decided this is Buddha, right? But it's just a name for what's happening, the flowing of the universe. And there's so many universal aspects of this practice and this way of being. Obviously, there's some very particulars too, but I don't think those are as important as just this universal... which I believe people can experience in many different ways, even might look quite different, but may bring the same opening and the same kind of desire and wish to be a benefit and use our precious human life for helping others and being with others and making life better for others.

[51:04]

I don't think that's only limited to Zen. I happen to like this. this style, but maybe not everyone would. Okay. Any questions online? Well, thank you all so much. I think I might have talked really, really fast, too. Faster than I had planned when I practiced. So sorry if I'm letting you out early. But we can meet again outside for tea, right? Thank you.

[52:41]

I'm not going to do this anymore. [...] In the evenings of God, I have no progress. I am not going to be a wrap-up for this secret plan. He'll do the healing inside of God and bring his heart to the wall. I find a guarantee that I am not going to be able to serve him well. But I am not going to be able to serve him well. [...] I heard that I was listening to the message that I was listening to the message that I was listening to the message [...] that I was listening to

[54:06]

I don't know. [...]

[54:19]

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