This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning, everyone. Can you hear me? This is a new experiment for me. I usually am able to sit on cushions, but... My knee's been bothering me. This is my first time in a chair, so I'll get used to this setup. Well, first of all, my name is Ed Satasan. I'm a senior Dharma teacher here at Zen Center. Wonderful to be here on this beautiful rainy day, and thank you for those who came out in this weather for this Dharma talk, especially since there's no tea today. I don't know if you were informed of that. But to come out here just for the Dharma in the rain, wonderful. I very much appreciate it.

[01:02]

And are there a few students from Tassar here? Do I see any Tassar students? Well, I think most of them must have gone to the city center. I want to thank them for their effort in keeping the fire in the Zenda from spreading further. And I want to welcome everybody online who have busy days and the taking some time to listen to the Dharma. It's very much appreciated. So first, I just want to express a little appreciation for this room filled with all these beautiful statues that encourage us in our practice. And as Suzuki Roshi would say, filled with the true ornaments of the zendo, all of you who practice here. He used to say, each one of us should be a beautiful flower and each one of us should be a Buddha leading people in their practice.

[02:05]

This was at the opening of the city center in San Francisco in 1971 when everybody was so excited about the beautiful building. And he said, no, you're the true ornaments of practice. Do you all feel like beautiful flowers leading in the Dharma? I'm sure you do. These statues are actually kind of archetypes or models that encourage us in our practice. And one of the statues that I'd love the most out here at Green Gulch is this beautiful Jizo Bodhisattva behind us. Jizo Bodhisattva is the guardian of children and travelers. And Jizo's vow is to remain present for all beings in all realms. You know, we have the six realms of suffering. Whatever realm a being is in, Jizo is going to be present for us. And of course, that is our vow, to be able to meet everyone, whatever realm they're currently living in.

[03:07]

Just meeting them is enough. So Jizo holds in her left hand a wish-fulfilling gem. That beautiful gem in her hand? It represents a wish for the ease of all suffering for all beings, which seems... particularly relevant now with all the unnecessary suffering going on in the world. So I always kind of like to feel her encouragement to us in these times. There's a little chant we do at the end. I lead a group in the valley called the Beam Lasanga. And at the end of sitting, we always say, may all beings be filled with loving kindness. May all beings be free from suffering. May all beings be happy and at peace. Jizo's wish for all beings. The staff in the right hand has a finale ornament at the top with six rings. I came in just before the lecture to see whether it was four or six. If it's four, it's the Four Noble Truths.

[04:08]

If it's six, it's the six perfections. Generosity, right conduct, patience or tolerance. joyous energy, joyful energy and wisdom and compassion. So this is a staff of the Dharma or a staff of wisdom. So we have this representation of the two sides of our practice, compassion and wisdom. And apparently this is really true for the pilgrims. As they would do pilgrimages in China, they would carry the staff with the finale on the top with the jingling rings, and each step they would take the rings would jingle, which of course would announce to all the beings nearby, the worms and the foxes and the rattlesnakes, to get out of the way so they wouldn't be hurt. So it's kind of a way of ahimsa, non-harming, indicating their effort to walk through the world without harming anything.

[05:15]

I had that realization once. I was into climbing mountains when I was young. And I would climb up to a 14,000-foot peak and sit up there in the wind. And then I finally would walk down into the meadows with the beautiful butterflies and flowers and everything. After a while of doing that, I realized, I'll just stay down here in the meadows and quit climbing to the top of the mountains. It makes a lot more sense. But, you know, I had that moment when I was walking through the meadows where I realized every step I took, I was crushing some beautiful flower or stepping on some insect. So what to do? I should have had my staff with my ringing bells. Run away. The staff also kind of awakes the monk from his distracted thoughts with each step at the jangling, rings go jing oh quit daydreaming about the next temple you're going to go to and the great zen teachers you're going to meet be here present in this moment so that's the other aspect of the jingling staff with each step and wouldn't that be wonderful if each step we took was a wake-up call wake up notice where you are with each step we don't have a staff to help us we'd have to sort of

[06:35]

invent that and we do we do have ways of inventing that in this temple here we do kenyan with each breath lou richmond used to call my teacher used to call it breath walking with each breath we would take a step between zazen periods and really learn and i i've really grown to appreciate the value of walking as a practice just like zazen is our practice walking is our practice and we have a practice when we enter this zendo If you enter on the left side of the doors, near the door jamb, you enter with your left foot. And why? No particular magic to that. But you'll notice if sometime when you do that, if you enter with your right foot, like I remember I was at Tassar working in the shop and I entered with my right foot and I was thinking about the carburetor instead of the left foot. And all of a sudden I realized, oh, something's wrong because your body tells you you did wrong foot so now you should leave the shop and enter a meditation hall where you can be a little different so i actually took this practice into the work world when i was in tech for 20 years i would as i would enter a new room for a meeting or something i would think oh who what's happening i'm leaving the space i was in and i'm entering a new room and who are these people and what am i supposed to do there usually i wasn't meditating usually i was

[08:01]

conducting a contract negotiation, but still the same feeling. Mel Weitzman, in his beautiful essay on Shikantaza, you know, our practice of Zazen, which extends to all aspects of our life, he talks about walking to the store. And of course, there is a purpose in going to the store. At the same time, there is just this step by step, totally living in the life of walking within walking. So yes, of course, we have a goal to go to the store, but we can also be walking and be with our walking. Zuki Roshi has one of his lectures. It's called Walk Like an Elephant. He says, you can do true practice here, watching yourself step by step, one step after another. We practice like a cow rather than a horse. Instead of galloping about like a horse, we walk slowly like a cow, or an elephant. If you can walk slowly without any idea of gain, then you're already a good Zen student.

[09:07]

I wrote that down yesterday when I was assembling these notes because I thought, oh, this is a good example of walking, but do we really want to walk like a cow? No, I feel like galloping like a horse makes more It feels, I don't know, at least an elephant. You know, Samantha Badra rides an elephant. Maybe I'll walk like an elephant. And then I was thinking about Suzuki Roshi, and I don't ever remember him. I mean, in the old Zendo down at Tassara, which burned down in 1978, the one by the stream, the aisle was very narrow. And I remember when Suzuki Roshi would walk past you during service, he was walking pretty bristly. It didn't feel like an elephant to me. I mean, it felt like an elephant in the sense of there was some kind of weight there. And so I was thinking about what he means by this walking like an elephant, and I also would watch him a lot. He was always sort of present. He could move quickly, but there was some sense of a stillness in the middle of it all.

[10:23]

You know, there's, I kind of remember that, I guess it's, T.S. Eliot, the four quartets. This is strange. Oh, there we go. At the still point of the turning world, neither from nor towards, at the still point, there the dance begins. I don't know. Kind of like that sense of The movement comes from some stillness. Maybe that's what he meant by us walking. Even if we walk fast, we walk with that sense of an elephant. I have to admit, in my early years at Tussar, I was not very good at that. I was director and head of the shop, and I always felt like I had lots to do. I think it was more a feeling than actually having lots to do, so I was always...

[11:28]

on the verge of running. You know, there's a rule at Tassar, you never run, right? You always have to walk. Probably, maybe not like an elephant. You want to walk like an elephant, but you're too busy getting from the baths back to service or something. So this question of how to walk in a way so that you're waking up with each step, so you're present with your movement through space, or What other technique is there? And I'm going to quote a case, case 12 of the gateless barrier. This was one of the practices of Rouyan. He would call out, master. And then he'd say to himself, he'd do this every day. Yes. And he'd say, be aware. And he'd say, yes. Don't be deceived by anyone. No, no. He lived by himself in a temple and used to do this.

[12:29]

This was his practice. And I guess when he'd give lectures, if people showed up, he would demonstrate the same thing. So it would be like, Ed. Yes. Be aware. Yes. Don't be deceived by anyone. No, no. So let's all try this. Shout out your name and say yes. OK, here we go. Ed. Yes. be aware yes don't be deceived by anyone no no very good now we've finished with the talk and we can oh we can't have tea so I must talk some more of course we're always talking to ourself maybe this is a way of talking to ourself that's actually more encouraging be aware And I notice actually when I'm going through the world, there's times when I do that. Like I say, I'm shopping in a grocery store and I've got my cart with my stuff and I'm approaching all the different checkout stands.

[13:35]

I actually have gotten in the habit of saying, Ed, be aware. This is a complex situation you're moving into. Lots of moving carts, vying to pick which aisle to go into. It's an easy place to notice yourself being a little bit kind of Whatever strategy you want to, maybe the strategy should be, oh, I should be kind unless other people get to the, you know, just, so that's a time when I kind of notice, talk to myself about paying a little attention. Be aware of your surroundings a little bit. You know, you get to the checkout stand and there's someone who's decided to pay with cash and is counting out pennies. I mean, I'm old school. I mean, I use my Apple Watch, my iPhone, but I mean, other people are just walking up and waving at the thing and they walk through somehow. So I'm pretty old school, but counting pennies, that's when you take three deep breaths.

[14:43]

You can always take three deep breaths when you're feeling anxious or... The world isn't turning the way you want to turn it. That's a great practice. So calling out to yourself and feel yourself, here I am. Come home to the feeling of being alive. Practice returning to here I am. freeing ourselves all at once from our habitual ideas and recognizing the depth and poignancy of each moment of our everyday life. Sikhi Roshi used to say, how to apply Zen in every day is not difficult. We live in each moment, that is Zen. Whether you are sitting or working, living in each moment is Zen. Zen is our everyday life. Of course, this is not so easy. We get distracted by our daily problems and tasks.

[15:53]

They consume us, and it becomes easy to live in a small world created by our mind, burdened by these many problems. We get preoccupied by bills, dental appointments, to-do lists, and all the other points in our respective timelines. I remember once Lucrecia said to me, he said, he looked out at us and he said, Sometimes I think you think your problems are more important than the fact that you're alive. He thought that about us sometimes. He thought that. And he was right. That's what we thought sometimes. We forget that we are alive and how remarkable and vast that is. We forget our true nature, which is beyond description, interconnected with everything, and yet changed, charged with infinite possibilities.

[17:05]

So today is, I'm going to change course here a little bit, is a memorial service for David Chadwick at 3 o'clock here. That's why we're not having any tea, to get ready for that. How many of you knew David Chadwick? How many have heard of David Chadwick? How many of you have read Crooked Cucumber or gone to cuke.com? Okay. So, David emailed me in December. He had been diagnosed with cancer. He was going to quit doing his podcast for a while to focus on finishing his books. He was always so optimistic. He died two months later working on his books to the end. He was ordained by Suzuki Roshi in 1971, and he dedicated his life to preserving the teachings of Suzuki Roshi.

[18:17]

In the early days, he focused a lot on transcribing and preserving Suzuki Roshi's lectures, which he really made a tremendous effort to do. He wrote Crooked Cucumber, which is a tremendous biography of Suzuki Roshi and just a great biography in itself. So if you haven't read it, I would really recommend it. It's a beautifully written book. And with cuke.com, he preserved all of the aspects of the early years, interviews with many, many of the students in the early years. We're going to miss David. to say something about kind of how he was sort of personally and a couple of small stories basically David was from Texas and to say he was naturally friendly is just too small a statement David was outrageously friendly he was you couldn't escape him basically and this turned out to be enormously useful in the early days when Tassar was just getting started because here was this

[19:27]

weird group of people wearing black robes and sitting zazen deep in the mountains. But of course, David would go into the city and when he was director of Tassar, meeting all the supervisors and bringing them to Tassar. And we just had so many friends in Salinas and Monterey because David would just capture them. And that's really what helped us fit in well down there in the early years. And a similar thing happened when we opened Greens. restaurant in 1979. And Richard Baker had managed to convince David to be the maitre d' for the first two years. So we had all of our friends come for free and dine for lunch for two weeks. That's how we spread the word. But soon after we opened, Patricia Unnerman, who was the big deal reviewer in the pink section of the Chronicle, wrote a rave review about us. And all of a sudden we just had lines out the door.

[20:29]

And we were only for lunch, open for lunch for the first six weeks and then for dinner, just Fridays and Saturday. So it was impossible to get a reservation. I mean, to get a reservation for dinner, you had to call a morning six months in advance. You know how those things work when you become a hot restaurant in San Francisco because we had so many friends in the restaurant business. And David had to manage all that. And there were these lines at the door, and then there were empty tables. Why were there empty tables? There were empty tables because we didn't know how to run a restaurant. We had people who were, quote, busboys who were setting the table like it was tea service. I mean, it just like, oh. We actually brought Ed Brown in to say, Ed, you run the floor and teach these people that you can actually be concentrated and move fast. But meanwhile, it was hopeless. So many people wanted to get in, and it was so hard to do it. But David just made friends with all these people, all these reviewers, and managed for two years to get us through that period until we really figured out how to run the restaurant.

[21:40]

I was thinking about this recently because I was on a panel at Fort Mason because it was the 48th year we'd been open at Green's. Amazing thing. And I just recalled how... Of course, many other people, Deborah Madison, et cetera, who made us successful there. So David was always himself. You know, there's this wonderful book that Kiryu just edited, Becoming Yourself. David was always himself, this kind of outrageously outgoing. You know, in Zen Center, 95% of the people are introverts. I don't know if you've noticed that. I went to a workshop where they gave us one of those tests where you take how many introverts over here. I was like in the middle, and I was the most extroverted person there. So David was over on the extroverted side, but willing to be himself. And he loved Suzuki Roshi, and Suzuki Roshi loved him.

[22:43]

Anyway, he would always ask questions at the end of lectures during Q&A, and this is one of the famous questions that he asked. This story is recounted by Bill Shurtleff. Once in a lecture, David said, I've been listening to your lectures as best I can for three years, and I don't get it. It's really hard for me to understand what you're talking about. Could you just say in one sentence what Zen's about? Everybody laughed, just like you're laughing. Like, get real, David, you know. And Sukarshi was laughing along, and then he said, everything changes. Everything changes. I mean, if we could just figure out what everything changes actually means in our life, we'd be good. It's a lifetime practice. I mean, impermanence, as you know, impermanence that nothing can be grasped or held onto.

[23:46]

As far as classical Buddhism is concerned, impermanence is the number one inescapable fact of our life. I mean, we all understand impermanence in a superficial way, but to understand it in the deepest possible level and to merge with it fully, that is our practice. I mean, I'm enjoying... I'm thinking about impermanence this spring, you know, the leaves come out on my maple tree. By the way, it's amazing how fast that happens. I see a little bud, and I turn around, and all of a sudden it's completely leafed out. It's just really quick how this happens. And I know in six months the leaves are going to fall. That's later. And then my rhododendron is blooming right now, and I go, oh. But the rhododendron flowers will fall. two weeks, and that's later.

[24:49]

And so most of this, you know, change or impermanence seems kind of irrelevant. Like, I'm alive now, and later I will die. Of course, this seems farther off. It seemed farther off to me when I was 25 than Being 81 doesn't seem so far away. But still, it's later. And later is easy to live with. Isn't it? Oh, that's later. Deal with that death stuff later. But in truth, impermanence isn't later. It's now. Buddha said, all conditioned things have the nature of vanishing.

[25:52]

Right now, as they appear before us, they have that nature. It's not that something vanishes later. Right now, everything is in the same way, vanishing. Though we don't understand that way or how it's done, it's vanishing before our very eyes. And embracing this with grace, kindness, and wisdom is difficult because we really want to hold on to some things. This clinging, this sticking to things is so much a part of our nature. Wow, it's so great. I'm just going to hold on to it a little. Oh! So, Suzuki Rishi had... something to say about this. He said, or this is one of my favorite little comments by him. Things change. For the usual person, this is very discouraging.

[26:56]

You cannot rely on anything. You cannot have anything. And you will see what you don't want to see. You will meet someone you don't like. If you want to do something, you may find that it is impossible. So you will be discouraged by the way things are going. As a Buddhist, you're changing the foundation of your life. That things change is the reason why you suffer in this world and become discouraged. When you change your understanding and your way of living, then you can completely enjoy your new life in each moment. The evanescence, the impermanence of things, is the reason why you enjoy your life. When you practice it in this way, your life becomes stable and meaningful. Did you get that term? Change causes us suffering because we're so attached to the past moment. But at the same time, in this moment of change is a new moment, a fresh moment of possibility and life.

[28:05]

And that is our true joy, if we can live in that moment. And if you can, he says, your life... becomes stable and meaningful. So this is a thing to study. And when we sit in Zazen, we get a chance to study this motion of our life. It's interesting that sitting still is a place where you can feel that change, that impermanence. would say about that in Zazen. First practice smoothly. He has lots to say about Zazen, but this part I'm picking out for today. First practice smoothly exhaling, then inhaling. Calmness of mind is beyond the end of your exhale. To take care of the exhalation is very important.

[29:08]

To die is more important than trying to be alive. When you're always trying to be alive, we have troubles. Rather than trying to be alive or active, if we can be calm and die or fade away into emptiness, then naturally we will be all right, moment after moment. Do not lose this practice." It's beautiful. You inhale and then you exhale fully and let go. And he latently says, and naturally, an inhale may come back if you're alive, fortunate or unfortunately. So you don't have to worry about it. He says Buddha's taking care of it, maybe our body's taking care of it, but you just let go with your exhale and maybe an inhale will come back. And to feel that sense that there's a release, a liberation at the heart of every moment and that we can actually enjoy this changing.

[30:16]

impermanent life we have. So you find life by embracing impermanence. I'm a little aware of time because we have so much to do at Greenville's today. In closing, one cannot talk about impermanence without saying something about great loss. Grieving the loss of someone we love. I have found in the pain of loss there is at the same time the beautiful essence of what it means to be at all, to be alive at all.

[31:17]

And grieving together connects us to our common humanity. So in light of sort of those two comments, if you'll indulge me a little bit, I'd like to take, read a short passage from Crooked Cucumber, both as an example of David's writing, also as a kind of salute to Suzuki Roshi's death. So it's about Suzuki Roshi's death and the community's response at the last public appearance before he died two weeks later. It was Sunday, November 21, 1971. Richard Baker's installation as the next abbot and Suzuki Roshi's last responsibility was happening at this ceremony called the Mountain Seed Ceremony. So people had heard that Suzuki Roshi was gonna be there to do that, and there were 500 people filling 300 P.H. Street at City Center.

[32:21]

I mean, only about 100 people fit in the Buddha Hall. They were filling all the hallways, up the stairs, everywhere. And Suzuki Roshi had been sick with cancer for a couple of months and had really not been visible to anybody and was extremely weak. But he had been able to make it down to the ceremony, and it's a fairly long ceremony. He was seated in a chair. And I want to say something about this. He used this staff with these rings to walk down the stairs into the ceremony, and he was carrying the staff out. And if you take a staff and you kind of do like this with it, the rings jangle. You hold the staff between your palms. So the ceremony was ending, and this is David Chadwick's description of Suzuki Roshi X-ing at the end of the ceremony. Suzuki was helped to face the altar where he made another slow, painful prostration from which he rose almost by himself.

[33:25]

Then he started down the aisle to leave. Halfway to the opening doorway, he stopped in the midst of his sangha, disciples, students, former students, admirers, old friends, visiting teachers and guests. was utter silence. He looked to the left and then decisively rolled the staff several times between his hands. The rings at the top burst out, jangling. He looked to the right and rolled the staff again, and again the rings rang out. It was the sound of ultimate effort. It was the sound of his love and his freedom. Tears and sobbing began on all sides. Hearts cracked open. Everything was suspended in his presence in an immense shared feeling and deep stillness.

[34:31]

A moment that started the day he arrived in America continued as he was helped out of the room, striking his staff to the floor as he went. He left behind him a room full of palms pressed together saying, thank you, saying goodbye, saying what could not be said. So these staff is used in many ceremonies in Zen Thunder still. So many people were moved by and loved by Suzuki Roshi. I was one of them. And it was a really diverse group of people, very kind of wild. It was beatniks and hippies, and David was just part of that group. And a lot of us came with the excitement of enlightenment and stories of Zen wisdom, everything.

[35:35]

So this is my concluding story. It was the summer of 1971. I was at a lecture. I was just kind of like a regular student down there. But apparently the staff had had a meeting with Sr. Kershi during the day where they were complaining about, you know, all kinds of things you could complain about, the guests, new students, whatever. And Sr. Kershi was apparently quite strict with them. He didn't do that very often. He was always just very sort of easygoing, but he was quite strict with them. And that evening in the lecture, he gave a very short lecture, maybe 10 or 15 minutes, and then he said, well, some of you must have a question. And I think that maybe the director, or at least a senior student, raised his hand and said, Suzuki Roshi, I've been practicing for five years here, and I still just find it hard to be kind to people. Kind of reflecting on what Suzuki Roshi did.

[36:37]

were brought up that day. And Suzuki Rishi said, five years is nothing. You don't know how hard it is to love some people. And I was sitting in this room with about 80 people who all had been sort of touched so deeply by Suzuki Rishi. You could just kind of feel them sitting there quietly. What would it be like to be a person who said, my challenge is to meet every person I meet and love them? And that's when I learned that Zen is not about some fancy learning koan tricks or jumping through enlightenment hoops, but actually how to live a life of loving kindness. So I leave you with those thoughts. And I think we have a few minutes. here if there's any questions.

[37:39]

Yes? I have no idea how this operates here. My question is about the statue behind you. It has a halo around its head, and I'm wondering What does that mean? I've seen that a lot around statues of Jesus. And is it the same thing? Is it the radiance of enlightenment? Yes, exactly. Were Jesus and Buddha alive at the same time? No, Buddha was alive about 500 years before Jesus. Okay. But as Buddhism... progressed in time about the time of Jesus is when an entire new movement in Buddhism started called Mahayana Buddhism and that's when the Bodhisattva ideal came forward of living for the to help all beings which was Jesus's message love all beings and and so this sort of turn in that happened in we would say the old school the first four or five hundred years was about getting to personal salvation and

[38:55]

although it also included taking care of everybody else. But that was kind of the emphasis. And then with this Mahayana movement of the opening to the idea of the bodhisattva ideal, to live for the benefit of all beings, happened at exactly the same time. And there's the Gandharan Buddha that unfortunately burned down at Tassa, I think there's just the head left, comes from that time and it has a very similar look to the Greek. statues that were during that time. And so there was a lot of fertilization between Christianity and Buddhism during that time. A lot of trade going back and forth. And there's books written about it and stuff. Thank you for your question. Thank you. While you were talking about the staff, I envisioned myself running up there and taking it out of the hands and then making the noise.

[39:56]

I'd be very careful with that. That's a very delicate... Yeah. That's why I didn't... God forbid that you tip it over. Oh, God. I'd be in trouble. There might be one here somewhere. I mean, I know the one that Suzuki Roshi used is still in the Doksan room at the city center. When I was Abbott, I used to look at it. Thank you. The staff also represents... It's your support when you're walking along. So it's also a metaphor for what supports your practice. So you don't have to grab the staff. You can just think about what's in your life that supports your practice, whatever it may be. And that can be your staff. Could you share some Buddhist... gambits about loving every person you meet?

[40:58]

I wish there was a gambit that worked. First of all, it's just absolutely impossible. I start with, can I love one person, my wife, start there. Can I love Suzuki Roshi? Yes. Can I love my, are there a few friends I can, you know, I mean, we have to, I mean, that's, That's the bodhisattva ideal, that we live and help all beings. So I think there are... I try, and I was avid at Center for nine years recently, and there are challenging people that live in community and challenging people that live out of the community, and I made my effort to be with them. I think sometimes it was helpful if we would meet when we'd be sitting in Zazen across from each other, so you could actually be present with each other.

[42:01]

And listening is a pretty important thing. If you can actually try to listen and try to feel their pain, I think that's the first place you go. You have to be able to feel their suffering. I think Suzuki Rishi, I just was for some reason recently reading an old lecture. Somebody was talking about happiness and they asked him about happiness. He said, well, happiness, I don't know. When I'm with people, if they're suffering, I want to suffer with them. If they're joyful, I want to be joyful with them. So you sort of adjust your life to where people are at. And I guess the other comment I'd make in that area is obviously this is a lifetime practice. This is... This is why we practice for a lifetime, because you will be challenged to the very end dealing with your own craziness, which interferes with your ability to meet people and their craziness.

[43:03]

And you meet maybe our craziness together sometimes works out okay. Anyone else? Thank you for coming and talking with us. I'm particularly loving the stories about Suzuki Roshi. Would you talk a little bit, please, about householder Zen? Well, I think householder Zen is more difficult than monastic Zen. I've done both. I lived for 20 years in Zen Center as a monastic when I was young at Tassar and City Center. And then when I was Abba for 10 years at Tassar leading. But I also lead a group. called Vimalasanga. The name is after Vimalakirti, the famous layholder, disciple of the Buddha. And my experiment was to see, it was co-founded with Lou Richmond, to see whether lay practice would work with ordinary people.

[44:08]

I mean, that is, would lay practice, meeting once a week as a group, and maybe doing a half-day sitting every once in a while, and... maybe some people would start sitting a little bit every day, whether that would transform their life. And it does. If you can just sit a little bit every day, meet with a sangha that can encourage you, because you do need some encouragement, so if you can meet weekly with a sangha, and if you can maybe every once in a while, maybe once a year, sit an intensive, a one-day sitting, or something that deepens your zazen practice, And I would say kind of develop a little bit of mindfulness practice. Mindfulness, you know, we have this acronym RAIN, you know. Recognize what's going on with you. Oh, I'm angry. Accept it. It's okay that I'm angry. I'm angry. Investigate your anger, R-A-I, and then it's not who you are.

[45:09]

It's just something that's happening to you. Don't identify, oh, I'm an angry person all the time. No, I'm just angry right now. So I'd say those four things, a little bit of sitting every day, meeting with a group to support you, maybe an intensive every once a year, and some aspect of mindfulness during your day. It actually helps. I have, by the way, because I was a layman, because I practiced in the world after I left Zen Center, I have students that our doctors and making an effort to bring Buddhist practice into their work. And I really think it's a wonderful thing. So I hope you encourage it. Hi. I have two questions. One is marketplace monk and householder kind of the same thing? Yeah, kind of.

[46:10]

OK. Some of it I hear you talk about is what I kind of put into the bucket of pure love. And I've been practicing pure love pretty consistently now for three years. But what I'm finding is that the more I practice pure love, the harder romantic love and romantic notions are for me. I was just curious if you could talk a little bit about the differences in that concept? So I'm not sure I hear the word. Are you saying peer, like people to people? P-U-R-E. Pure. Pure love. Pure love. Yeah, well. I'm no longer an expert in romantic love. I have my students who say, so-and-so... Dump me, I'm 25, I'll never love again.

[47:11]

I say, I don't, you know. So I don't really have a lot to say about romantic love. I think I'm kind of in the realm of, I mean, there's a feeling called pure love, I guess, what you're referring to that is just maybe walking in nature and just... feeling quite open and embracing everything and loving it. But even still, you're loving a tree or you're loving the sun on your shoulder or something. But I think it's with people that we need to, and I don't mean romantic love, but with people that we need to connect. In Zen, it's warm hand to warm hand, warm heart to warm heart. We're trying to meet with people. And I would just say friendliness is... Good enough. Better than romantic love, maybe. Romantic love is kind of a craziness thing, just like... I do have that kind of memory, but way back when.

[48:21]

But friendliness love is more what I like to practice. Would you like to say something more? Or is that good enough? Sort of where the... It's called contemplation that I've been having the last few years is romantic love has a notion of attachment. Yes. And when I've let go of that notion of attachment and focus more on pure love, looking at other human beings and what's best for them, what's best for me, what's the most loving way to be. it's drawing me farther and farther away from any notion of romantic love. Which is complicated. Yeah, I see what you're saying. I think in real love between two people, there has to be some distance.

[49:23]

And I don't mean distance, it's some non-attachment. Because if you get even, you know, so it's a tricky thing how you how you be non-attached and have deep love. Because you'll notice, actually, a lot of times what you're attached to is you want them to be a certain way that they're not, or they used to be and they've changed, or whatever thing you're interested in. So you have to get less attached to that so you can see where they're really at and connect with them. So there is a little distance, I think, in true love between people. complicated subject. Boy, way back in the back of the room, Brian. You're going to get your walking exercise. Walk like an elephant there, Brian. But fast. Fast elephants. Hi.

[50:29]

I was wondering And we practiced so much trying to let go of our karma. And I wondered if you could explain some, how we accrued it? How we what? Accrued it. How we got our karma? Yeah. Oh, gosh. It goes all the way back to the first reptile that crawled out of the water and became a mammal. No, evolution created an enormous amount of our karma, and then it's our great-great-grandparents and our grandparents and our parents and the culture we're raised in. It's all of that that's contributed to our karma. We also personally create more karma, and it is possible to live in a moment without adding to our karma and actually start extinguishing some of our karma. So that's what our practice is actually about. But that's why I say... Just accept what you're experiencing because it goes back a long way.

[51:34]

I was reading a book recently by Sapolsky called Behave, where he analyzes in 800 pages in small type how at every given moment, whatever action you take is a consequence of what's going on in the neurology of your brain, what goes on in the hormones because what you ate, what went on all the way back through your childhood, back through... Your society, evolution, it's amazing what builds our karma. You'd have to take a three-month course just to even understand that aspect of it. So maybe that's just, I'm just waving my hand at where your karma comes from. But your karma, a classic Buddhist definition of karma is if you intentionally do something harmful, you have created karma for yourself. So that's why we emphasize ethical conduct so much. If you behave ethically, you will create good karma, and if you behave unethically, you will create more bad karma.

[52:40]

So that's the best you can do. I was wondering, in our idea of, I don't know, is there an idea of an original place of where we began and is that a pure place? We talk about our original face and that's what I'm curious about. I guess like the very start of that journey rather than the steps in it. I always love coming to Zen Center and getting the hard question. So we talk about emptiness. what Zipi Roshi talked about in fading into emptiness at the end of your breath, that moment when you're no longer entangled with form and function, where you've let everything go.

[53:42]

So there is a place that's indescribable and a mystery and nothing that we can understand out of which everything is arising moment by moment. whether we can actually touch that, we get hints of it, we have a sort of sense of it, this bigger, vast activity that all of this that we can see and hear and feel comes from. And one of the beauties of sitting zazen is you sometimes get a sense of that, sometimes walking in a forest, you get a feel for it, sometimes I go out and pick up the paper in the morning and a bird sings and it touches me. So, emptiness. Try it out. Beautiful to hear the rain.

[54:56]

It's been a long time. We've had a long, dry spring. I think we're about that time, aren't we, Brian? Well, I just want to thank you all for your patience and for coming out today. It's been a pleasure spending time with you in this beautiful place. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[55:48]

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