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 morning. How many of you are here for the first time? Great. Just let the words wash over you. Don't have to pay attention. Just breathe deeply. You'll get relaxed, at the very least. My name is Grace Demmon. Obviously, it feels like I was in the Buddha hall lifetimes ago. Today, I want to talk about how we can use our bodies as vehicles on the Bodhisattva Path, which is the path of those of us who aspire help people cross over. Can you hear me?

[01:01]

It's okay. But look around. My body is obviously different. Look around you everywhere. Everybody's body is different. Buddhism emphasizes all day sickness and death. These are the ground of all of our being. They're also the ground of the first noble truth, which is that there is suffering. The cause of suffering, however, is what our minds do with that fact. You know, what our minds dealt with delusion, anger, and envy do with the fact of old age, sickness, and death. There is a path out. That's the third noble truth. And the fourth noble truth is the Buddha way, noble eightfold path. All of this is true. at the level of what is. However, at the other level, which is where most of us live, the weight of what kind of adjectives we put on top of suffering is what gives us real problems.

[02:15]

Basically, we spend our whole lives asking ourselves, what am I going to do when I grow up? What kind of person do I want to be? You ask those questions yourself. How many don't ask those questions? The quest and the questions go on for lifetime, lifetime after lifetime. I have used my body as a means of navigating those somewhat troublesome waters. And that's what I'm going to talk about. Right now, I'm struck by a memory. having been in this Buddha hall 40 years ago, I think. Anyway, I was getting chukai. Most of you know what chukai is, but that's a means by which people join the path. They formally take precepts. You write on a rock, you soak rock soup. This is my rock soup.

[03:17]

It's written on the back with your Buddhist name. You're given during the ceremony. Anyway, I was an intern at San Francisco Latino, and I had no idea what I was doing. Let's just say I had no idea why I was doing Sadaw. I would walk down the hallways as I was doing labor and military, and I didn't have time to sit, so I had to measure a stitch, and I think they're 0.3 millimeters or centimeters. Anyway, I took a measuring stick, and I measured each. stick as I walked around. And what I knew for a fact was that a baby was about to be born. And I loved the experience. I didn't know what I was doing, but I loved the fact that a baby was doomed to be born. Nonetheless, I had this strong intuition that I needed to be led into something or maybe out of something.

[04:19]

I just didn't know what. So then The day of Duke High, we have a one-day sitting. I cried my eyeballs out, old serum. I had no idea why I was crying. I'm sure some of you have experienced that kind of upwelling motion. Let me see a sign. Somebody's experiencing it beside me. Anyway, at the end of the ceremony, our teacher, Rabbi Anderson, took those of us who... up to his room because he wanted to show us which are the lineage papers that were given as part of the ceremony. And the lineage papers start with the name of Buddha. And in red ink, they go down through many generations to your teacher, in this case, Rep.

[05:19]

Anderson. Then below, your teacher's And I can't remember whether it's in the given name or my real name. They're both real. I think it's in Black King, right? Is it Black King? No, maybe Red. Our name is Red. And Red, unfurling to Ketchinyaku, was like an Olympic event of origami. The most insidious order. I don't recommend you try to undo your ketchup. You'll never get it back together. I finally understood exactly why I had done this. I had joined a lineage. There was a blood lung that connected me to the boot. It didn't matter that I didn't necessarily love the Jukai group I was with.

[06:20]

though some have remained friends 40 years ago. But it just mattered that I did it. My relief was immeasurable. My body had taken me there. I asked to receive chukai, mostly because I loved sewing and sitting. I had said to my heart, heart, do you want me to do this? My heart said yes. In the same way, My body had taken me to medical school at age 35. I'd ask my therapist, because everybody needs a therapist in San Francisco, especially if you don't know what to do, which most of the time, none of us know what to do. And I said, how do you make big decisions in your life? What do you do? And she said, I said very quietly, I meditate. I ask my heart, what do you want to do?

[07:22]

Then here's the key, Grace. You have got to be willing to do it. Just do it. So anyway, I sat on the bed the next morning, meditate as well as I could for a couple of minutes, not long. Asked my heart, what do you want me to do? And it said, go to medical school. And I said, you have got to be kidding. I'm not a straight-A student. I haven't taken none of the prerequisite. I'm 35. Nonetheless, I embarked on the Enterprise. And part of embarking on the Enterprise brought me to Zen Center because I realized when I was doing the prerequisites at Mills College that I needed to calm down. And I thought, how do you calm down? I thought, I think you meditate. So I sat and tried to meditate. I fell asleep promptly. So I thought, I need a place where you can't go to sleep.

[08:25]

So I came to Zen Center. I looked it up in the phone book. And I came here, and I got practice instruction. And I would sit, come and sit every day at 530. That was my beginning. And from there, I went to Tassajara, where I decided not only did they have a but they had really good coffee and really, really good food and really great warm baths, and it's beautiful. So without a second's note, I said, I think to Catherine Sand, look, I want to forego my internship. Just come down here to a practice. And I also said that to Blanche Hartman, who was living at Green Gulch. And I said, They said, no, no, no. That's not the way you do it. You need to go and complete your training. We're always here. You can come and do it when you're done.

[09:28]

So anyway, that's exactly what I did. I moved in with Fu Schrader, and they let me live at Greco as a spouse, which is really unusual. And Fu and I were asked, called really early one morning, and asked if we would be the home to a child at risk. We'd just been born. Anyway, we said, let's go to the Zendo. Where do you make any big decision but in the Zendo? So we each came out of the Zendo. I asked my heart once again, heart, what do you want to do? I said, just say yes. That's what my heart said. And foos also. Anyway, we went. met the baby. Ten days later we were home. None of us had no idea that was coming. But we just said yes. And I was in a very fortunate situation at Green Gulch because I was first there as a spouse and then later as a mother.

[10:36]

So I didn't have any of the real practice obligations sitting on my shoulder. I went often to the Zendo, mostly went Sabrina was awake or Fu was around. And I loved coming back, walking and looking at the plum blossoms, this land of light which changed every day. It really gave me sanctuary. It slowed me down. I loved it. I loved it. I loved it. But nonetheless, I was a very busy mother and doctor. It practices in both Mill Valley and San Francisco. And sometimes I was crossing the bridge three times a day. But by love and circumstance, I'd become an AIDS physician at that time. It was at the height of the epidemic. And then 18 years ago, I decided to go to the retirement work just to find out.

[11:38]

I all of a sudden discovered I actually had a retirement policy. I had no intention of it. having a retirement policy ever. Did I give any thought? No. I loved medicine. I practiced it. But I am the beneficiary of the greatest health insurance and the greatest retirement program in the world, probably. Anyway, I found out that I would be eligible to retire 18 months, or no, 12 months from retirement. on my birthday. So I came back from the retirement board thinking, yes, I'm going to go to Tazahara, do my one practice period there that I have left to do for ordination. I'm going to go back and get ordained. I'm going to work, of course, but I'm going to get to practice and work. And then I told that to my best friend.

[12:38]

Then I went off to pick up my daughter at school. to go back home where we both had dental, dental hygiene support, not just dental, getting our teeth cleaned. And so we were crossing the Golden Gate Bridge and through a combination of circumstances, decisions, lots of people made, myself mostly included. Forty minutes later we were on a bad collision on the Golden Gate Bridge and What happened was somebody who became later a really good friend of mine, went into atrial fibrillation. That's a radic heartbeat. And when you do that, sometimes you pass out. So he went from the far left, far right lane, coming into San Francisco, crossed three lanes of traffic. And because there were those flimsy yellow stop signs,

[13:42]

You know, cones in the middle separating the north from the south flowing traffic. Hit the car in front of me. Rick stayed off of that. Hit the next car in front of me. And then he hit me head on in my driver's seat. I didn't have side airbags. Both my child and my dog, thank God, were well. I mean, they each spent a night in the ICU. I, however, spent about 12, 13 months in the hospital. I was near the end of my stay in the hospital, pretty much before I was going to get discharged. I was invited to give a talk at the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco. And I had to be discharged to do it. The Dalai Lama was the main attraction. Why I agreed to give this story is just an indication of how badly brain damaged I truly were.

[14:52]

I mean, my MRI to this day looks like my brain looks like mush. But nonetheless, when I was asked, I said yes. So I was into the business of just saying yes. Then Isabel Allende, the great writer, Latin American writer, also happens to be my child's step-grandmother, offered to take my job, which was to give out the ceremonial katas, you know, cloths that the Dalai had blessed. We were supposed to drape them around each of the participants, 50 honorees. I said at that point, I couldn't even move my own, much less receive a kata, much less do anything except drop it. So when Isabel said, how about if you take my job? I forgot, here she's a noted speaker, really gifted, very funny.

[15:55]

She loves to talk. So I again said, yes, I'll do that. So food drove me to the Ritz-Carlton. And when I arrived, I was so overwhelmed by all of the sights, smells, and sounds. I mean, there were women in beautiful saris. I hadn't seen anything but pale green for 11 months. I looked around everywhere, and Fu kept saying, you've got to do everything I tell you to do. And I said, yes, Fu. Yes, Fu. Meanwhile, I wouldn't do anything. And she kept saying, We have got to go to the book. I said, just give me a minute. I had been in puke green for 11 months. Here I am. Let me enjoy this. And I prayed on her guilt. And frankly, it worked for a couple of minutes.

[16:58]

And then she thought, hell with this, which she is wont to do. She's very good at that. She pushed me. She said, we're going. I've got to get you up on the dais because you've got to speak. Meanwhile, I had written, in fact, a 10-minute talk. The way I did it was speech therapists would go over it every day with me. I would add one sentence. So sentence by sentence, this not bad talk was built. I don't know what it said, but apparently it was not bad. Anyway. So I'm up on the dais, again, savoring all the sights, smells. By then, food was hit to the smell, and I'd just lost my stomach tube so I could actually eat. So looking forward to eating. Anyway, and I watched his whole list walk in. All of a sudden, I became a doctor.

[18:00]

I thought, oh, my God, he looks to be cardiogenic, shocked. That was a really bad diagnosis on my part. But anyway, he looked like he was going to die. I kept saying, not on my watch. Not on my watch. No way. So he came right up because we'd met before. Started messing with my microphone. I must have looked like he looked to me. I mean, granted I was wearing red, but... I was puke green. I had been in puke green too long, and I lost 20 pounds, so I was probably like a scare pro. Anyway, he was very concerned, and I couldn't move anything. I'm sitting there with my arms straight out, just like that. So meanwhile, I'm deciding code blue scenarios, meaning what do I do if he passes out?

[19:05]

And I hadn't had to do that for two years, so I'm really lost. I said, hopefully, it's a PEA that I can remember what to do. I couldn't remember anything else. Pulseless activity. PEA, pulseless, extreme activity. Anyway, but he didn't. I forgot, of course, that he had this great Secret Service detail It's got some of the best trained first responders going. After all, they've had to deal with presidents who've been shot. This was minor. I was not going to have to be first in line. I was not in charge. Meanwhile, I had myself in charge. Anyway, so he's trying to adjust my microphone. I'm trying to talk. Finally, we call for... people, and they come running up to help. We should have called for them 10 minutes earlier.

[20:07]

But by that point, we're both left pretty much hysterically, nuzzling foreheads. And I think to myself in that moment, I have lived in a practice community for 25 years, and yet here I am with this wonderful, delightful, zany human being who How did he get to be how he is? And all of a sudden my gut said, you know the answer, practice. I thought, practice. Something there, practice. So I, in that moment, made a real commitment to make life, make practice the center of my life when I got out. And what do I mean by practice? I think you guys know. What do you mean by practice? I mean, looking at our minds, penetrating all the stories we tell ourselves, recognizing that there's no fixed self, no fixed anything, and trying to live by the Four Noble Truths, culminating in the Eightfold Path.

[21:18]

So when I returned to Green Gulch, having already been given permission to start sewing maybe five years earlier, I did exactly that. But I kept getting so seasick that Christina had helped me figure out a way so that I wouldn't get seasick because I shook so much. I could barely put my needle. I could not thread my needle, first of all. But there's a way around not being able to thread your needle. But there isn't a way, really, about not being able to sew if you're shaking so much. But Christina, bless her heart, figured out if I just put this off on my lap. I could stick that and stick the material and pull it all out. And lo and behold, I got stitches stuck. It felt, this just was what was. It felt choiceless, is all I can say.

[22:23]

And then at some point it became very clear that I can no longer remain at Green Gulch. I needed much too much care. And it wasn't fair to Foo. It wasn't fair to Sabrina or me or the community. So I went and found a place where I could live with help. And that's right near Green Gulch, actually. It's at the Redwood in San Francisco, in Mill Valley, which I highly recommend. I began going back to work one day a week. I remained close enough to Green Gulch so that I could go to Sunday lecture and work in the guest program. And I even thought briefly about joining staff, which I never did. And about eight years ago at 70, I fell in love again. Totally surprising, unexpected, somehow glorious, and at a real level, satisfied.

[23:28]

continues to satisfy the very ground of my being. It has a lot of day-to-day texture, meaning we together, we meditate together, we hold hands when we sleep together, and it gave my body a chance to really start waking up. It's impossible to talk about the body without thinking about sex, procreation, recreation, all of which I got to engage in once again. It doesn't change my state of life, but it certainly makes it much... I have a lot more exhilaration about it. And the world is... I mean, I think my relationship is enlivened by my relationship to the world. I think the whole 18 years following the accident, the projects that I undertook during those days, like getting the median barrier built, made that period something more, mere survival.

[24:29]

But something shifted about two hours ago. And I said to myself, I am not thriving. I am just surviving. And I said, I want more of myself. I've got a deeper intention. I wanted to help people find their way, most definitely myself. I wanted once again to know my best friend, my body, whom I felt like I had lost after the accident. And about eight months ago, I was ordained as a Buddhist priest by Christina in the Soto Zen. Once again, I was given a new name, new robes, new rocks, new balls. My head was shaved. And most of all, I got to recite the precepts again. And once again, I got to talk about my intention to live for the benefit of all beings. I will never forget how happy I was that day, articulating the same thing that I've already been articulating for 35 years.

[25:43]

What is all of this to do with the body? Well, I'm 76 now. I'm 78 now. And I think it's finally taken. I wrote to His Holiness, to let him know, mostly to thank him for his influence on me, to let him know what I'd done. And I received a wonderful letter back from his secretary saying, His Holiness doesn't remember anything about the fact that you thought he was going to die. But he wishes you very well. And he was very amused. And I thought, great, great. My body has been the compass for every significant decision in my life. At first, I decided to go to medical school. When my therapist told me just to pay attention and ask my heart, I decided to adopt a baby after getting a call one morning.

[26:47]

10 days later, we were mothers. No regrets. whatsoever. No regrets. The motto of my grade school was, to live is to serve. And my Quaker high school was, let your life speak. But somewhere in the middle, after the accident, I felt in between. And I think it was because I'm disabled. And because I felt like I really didn't know what my body was anymore. By any definition, I am gravely disabled. I cannot. Gravely disabled includes anybody who can't walk, climb stairs, hearing loss, visual loss, can't make decisions on their own, can't make independent choices, is unable to do errands for themselves.

[27:47]

And I certainly can't walk upstairs, I certainly can't reach my toes or head. So getting dressed is a real problem. Bathing alone is a real problem. And I cannot live safely on my own, period, the end. And yet I consider myself extraordinarily lucky. Roughly 25% of all adult Americans are disabled. and only 3% of all physicians report disability. I think that's underreporting. About 40% of American population are disabled or unemployed, and 25% live below the poverty level. In other words, in America, to be disabled is to be undereducated, underemployed, probably impoverished. And in California, disabled people are six times more likely to suffer extreme depression and three times more likely to have significant heart disease, both of which the heart disease is still the big killer in California.

[29:07]

I find these statistics horrifying. And at some level, I'm really shy about presenting them in a Dharma talk. I'm doing it because of the position I find myself in. And it's a part of a way of bearing witness, bearing witness. I think we all have given a job. This is part of my job. So you guys are a part of, that's why you're hearing this. And yet, and yet, and yet, as much as these truths pointed to real suffering and a path forward, I kept thinking, I am more than disabled. I am both disabled and something much more. My deepest intention is not to be an example of resilience or a poster child for bridge safety or a character in film. These images help sustain in the immediate aftermath of the accident, but they weren't the truth of what my existence is.

[30:17]

What I was really trying to do underneath all of it, I think this is what we're all trying to do, was heal ourselves. Isn't that what you guys are trying to do? One of the things I love about Buddhism is that it treats old age sickness and death as not special. I'm not the only one who's old age sick and dying. dying. All of you guys are walking the same ground. This is the ground of human existence. Some people experience that ground more dramatically. I am no different. We all walk on the same path. For myself, I've come to see that survival, which had been my mode since the accident, for which I'd received so much positive enforcement, was not what I was looking was not where the truth of my life lay.

[31:20]

I began to wonder, what comes after survival? I remember the tremendous joy I felt when I first learned to surf at age 50. Fortunately, I have a very kinesthetic memory, so I could just imagine being on the beach. I can feel the waves. Thank God. But this wasn't the kind of a life I was after. Post-traumatic growth is not the resolution of suffering, and it's not the resilience in the sense of past bouncing back to the normal state or the prior state. The person who has grown is changed, and the pain that catalyzed that growth still exists. Researchers describe it as kind of co-existent. person simultaneously experiences grief and loss and ongoing struggle while also holding on to a deeper appreciation of life, new possibilities, transformed relationships.

[32:32]

The wound and the wisdom go together. What strikes me is how this maps onto the Heart Sutra. Sutra doesn't say Suffering is eliminated. It says that it's nature seen through. Avalapiteshvara receives the emptiness of the five skandhas and is freed from suffering as a result. But that's quite different from saying that suffering no longer arises. I began asking again my body to be a guide. I asked my heart, what do I have left to do? or undo before I die. I had spent years immediately following the accident, so grateful that I survived, so grateful that I could see my daughter graduate from middle school, high school, and college. But this time it was different.

[33:33]

I was now 76, and it said, so clear, it said, your job is Stop being so slippery. And I said, what do you mean by being slippery? He said, you have started and stopped. You can manage to come by anything. Stop doing that. Start telling the truth. Love well the people you're with. Be of good cheer. Be like the butcher on 24th Street. Used to hand out to all of us, all the kids in the neighborhood. piece of baloney. Everybody would walk so much happier than they walked in. Celebrate those you love and mentor the next generation. And then I asked my heart, what do you want me to, how do you want me to manifest it? And said, finish it once you start with Zen Center.

[34:35]

So I went back and I asked Christina and others, they would ordain me. was done simply with great love, because I needed that kind of gently structured accountability to complete my life in a way that I would feel peace before I died, peace with the life I've been given. There is a story about someone walking down the street and seeing the Buddha, and he says, who are you? He's totally impressed. The Buddha is luminescence. I am awake. The path and our practice are our means of waking up. And what do we wake up to? The whole thing, birth, death, mostly their meanings. How to love better, how to be a kinder person, how to find meaning in our lives, how they can manifest as meaning in our life.

[35:40]

We arrive right there through practice, resting on the Eightfold Path, right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. Right view rests on the understanding of the cause and reality of suffering and its cessation, the nature of wholesome and unwholesome thoughts and action. and the cultivation of compassion and love. In Zazen, we allow whatever it is to just arise. Theoretically, we're supposed to just not pay attention to it. Let it arise. Let it go. This is not so easy, which is one of the reasons we do extended retreats. In Sashin, we are a little sleep-deprived. physically uncomfortable, deprived of our usual escapes.

[36:45]

As a result, if we're lucky, some of our habitual resistance fades away. We simply give up. We're present to whatever arises. Case 94 in the Book of Serenity is one of my favorites. It's called Unwell. Dongshan was unwell. And a monk says, asked, your reverence is unwell. Is there anyone who does not become ill? And Dongshan says, there is. There is. The monk said, does the one who does not get ill take care of your reverence? Dongshan said, the old monk has properly taken care of that one. It's unclear who's who. But the monk said, how about when your reverence takes care of the one. Dongshan said, then the old monk does not see that there is illness.

[37:48]

So that's why there's one who is not ever sick. Commentary on this koan observes that ancient teachers, some when they were about to die, frolicked in old age sickness and death. Dongshan was remarkable among them. When the monk asked, whether the one who is not ill after the one who is. Dongshan reverses the expectation entirely. I have the opportunity to look after him and when pressed further, how is it when you watch over him? Dongshan answers, when I watch over him, I do not see that he has any illness. This commentary tells us is where everyday practice empowers you when you are dying. One minute we are the one who is ill, the next we are not. We stop fighting what arises and insisting on that things be otherwise.

[38:52]

We really stop fighting. And we discover a kind of freedom that Dongshan points to when he says, the old monk does not see that there is illness. Illness, disability, feeling diminished, and health are unified. and harmonized as the wholeness of life. Because at every moment, there's simultaneously one who is ill, unhappy, lonely, perhaps unskillful, and one who is not. Transcending this duality is, in practice, does not mean living in delusion. We live in the world of pandemic, and we live in the world of political anxiety, And we simultaneously live in the world of the absolute. We all have Buddha nature. They are the same world. We are learning to be the old monk who does not see that there is any illness.

[39:56]

This is where we take refuge. This is our work. Well, I find this disability horrifying in my own life. And I've been... My own life has been really disrupted by it. But I have also experienced that through this loss, a window opened up, which I learned something that I'd always known to be true. I just didn't know it was true. We never know what the future holds. We never know where... what the future's going to bring. We can spend our energy worrying about how things are. Or we can live fully with whatever is present. Everything changes always. And in that constant change lies the real possibility of love. Love and compassion.

[40:59]

Not because we know what they will bring us, but we simply do it to show up. We learn to love. Just do it. And we do it because it's our gift to each other, to the world, and most of all, to ourselves. So just say yes. Just say yes to your life. Say yes to your life. Now, I want to conclude with A. Hey Dogan, who has a wonderful classical. It's right in line with Christina's practice spirit. on how to find the way. It's called Shin Jin Gak Do, meaning learning the way through body and mind. It's very clear. Provisionally, there are two ways to get to the Buddha way. One is through the mind, which I'm not going to talk about. The other is through the body, which we've been talking about somewhat. And we learn the way through our living flesh.

[42:04]

What comes out of this is not only our body, but our body with a capital B, meaning the whole world. Find out our body is nothing but the whole world. The whole world is nothing but our body. They're synonymous. Dogen, who's often oblique, indirect, is here crystal clear. Body and mind are not... symbol or gateway for something. They are the way. Your body as the site of practice becomes synonymous with the whole earth. The universal is found in the flesh. And a damaged body is not an obstacle to awakening. It may be exactly where the teaching becomes undeniable. I wake up every day so grateful to still be alive. And I feel like I want to be here because I love life.

[43:10]

I love the beauty. I love everything about this earth. And I do feel in my flesh that my body here, in this practice here, in this hall here, we are the whole world. I'll close with a poem by Dogen that says it better than I can. Thank you very much for your kind attention. 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.

[44:13]

May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[44:16]

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