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, everyone. Susan should be. Thank you so much for being here this morning. It's kind of a tradition in the Dharma Talks to, in the welcome, see if it's anyone's first time here at Zen Center. And I'm wondering, is it anyone's first time here at Zen Center, at City Center? Welcome. It's kind of an intimidating place. That's how it's feeling for me right now. I asked a woman once if she had ever been to City Center, and she seemed familiar with City Center.

[01:04]

And she said, I've been close. And I said, oh, what do you mean by close? And she said, well, I've been as close as Samovar, which used to be the tea house on the corner. And she said, those steps, you know, those brick steps. I said, I know. So welcome, if it's your first time. Congratulations. You made it up the front steps or through the bookstore. Maybe you met Arlene. So welcome. And I'm wondering if anyone is a beginner in the crowd. If you're feeling like a beginner this morning. Oh, that's such a relief. So... My name is Nancy Petron and I came to Zen Center in 1996 as a farm apprentice and never really thought then that I'd be in the hot seat teaching the Dharma, sharing the Dharma.

[02:10]

So I ended up living at Green Gold for nine years and I guess I very much feel like a beginner and And that feeling of beginner, this is beginner mind, temporal, temple, beginner's mind, temple. Sometimes it comes up for me when I'm doing a long sitting or maybe just a moment in Zazen, just that, oh, you know, or the teaching. It's like, oh, this is what I'm going to do with my life. 20 years later, this, now I'm really going to start. You know, this is what I want to do. And those moments are very encouraging. And really our practice is to begin in each moment. You know, you may look around and you see people who are in lots of robes and they look very kind of decorated or something and you think, wow, you know.

[03:19]

But really... their practice is a beginner's practice. Because in each moment, we're beginning. And we've never been in this moment before. This moment. And that's really the whole teaching, is to allow ourself to be in this moment. and you know as Paul has been teaching to experience this experience but that's so hard yeah so here we are together practicing with the support of each other beginning again and again when David asked me to give the talk this morning, thank you, David, I told him I kind of wanted to get out of it a little bit, so I said, you know, I'm really better one-on-one.

[04:41]

And he said, perfect. He said, it's a whole room full of one-on-ones. And So I invite you to the question and answer following. I'm interested in what's being called forth for you. What brought you here this morning? You could be out in search of the sun or running errands or all those, actually some of the Things are so important, you know, there's a lot of important things going on right now, places we could be, and yet somehow we all ended up here this morning. So thank you for your practice. Thank you for being here in this moment.

[05:47]

I told Christina Lenhair that I was doing the talk this morning and immediately she said, Talk about what's alive, you know? And so, you know, as a Zen student, I got very quiet. You know, I started sitting more and just turning this question, what is alive? You know, what is alive? What wants to be shared? And then I started looking at that, you know? It's like, what is this that we humans do? What is it about someone being vulnerable and really sharing opening from that place? You know, what happens when I bring forth what's most alive for me? It's very kind of scary. To take something that I've been kind of holding maybe personally, maybe with a teacher.

[06:54]

You know, and bring that out into the light and turn that with a friend, with a teacher, with a teaching. Call that up in Zazen, in my meditation practice. What is it when we articulate these things and we put ourselves out there? Oh, I didn't welcome everyone on the live stream. Welcome, everyone. I love it when I'm on the other, when I'm live streaming and the speaker actually remembers that we're there. There's probably a bunch of people out there. They better be. I told them they needed to be. So that was part of putting myself out there. It was like, you know, this is my first Dharma talk. And, you know, I could hear Miles on the phone in the office talking to people saying, hey, are you coming to Nancy's Dharma talk on Saturday? I'm like, oh, shut up. Like, who are you telling to come?

[07:57]

So then I did the same thing. I sent the link. I saw, I went on the live stream and I saw my face there. I'm like, oh my God. And so I took the link and I sent it to friends and I said, hey, I'm giving a Dharma talk. And Nick and Caroline came, they're here. So what is it, you know, to when we allow ourselves to be that vulnerable when we put ourselves out there? And these last few weeks, as I was thinking about this, I could really feel it in my body. I could really feel the Dharma talk, and then what comes up in my body. And then I started applying, just meeting that with the word alive. So every time Dharma talk would come up and then the voice, you're not prepared, you're, you, you know, all just like, ah.

[09:04]

We're so hard on ourselves, you know. So as soon as that started coming up, I just met that with alive. You know, and it's so hard to just stay with that, that feeling like, oh, what does that feel like in my belly? Can I get curious about it? It's like, oh, this tingling on the ends of my ears, you know. When I was upstairs with Eli getting ready to come down, the two hits on the Han, that was the most alive, probably, that I was feeling. You know, in Zen, we don't take these matters lightly, you know. It's hard to stay with just that feeling, you know. David comes upstairs. It's just a field of love. I'm like, oh. So what is it, you know, just to stay with that feeling? We cause so much trouble for ourselves because we can't stay.

[10:09]

We haven't been taught to stay. You know, even when your mother is a Zen student, she was like, stay with that feeling, honey. You know, she's just like, I won't do... I won't tell you what she says to me, but you know, it's like, it's so hard just to stay with that vulnerability, that humanness. So each of us knows this right now in our life. There's something, there's something maybe really hard to allow. Maybe our vulnerability after our surgery Maybe a difficult, really difficult conversation with a sister. You know, kind of came out of nowhere. You know, what is it? What is it for each of us? So maybe we could just drop into that feeling.

[11:11]

What is it to be here listening to my voice? Maybe it's really irritating, you know. What is this feeling right now? What is coming up for each of us? breath and be brave enough to call it forward. So a few weeks ago in his Dharma talk, Jeffrey Schneider said that when we turn to practice or when we start looking at our life, that not only is the rug pulled out from underneath us, but so is the floor in the entire universe.

[12:23]

And this is a good thing. This is what we celebrate in that. And Norman Fisher, who is a poet and a scholar and a Zen teacher, he knows a lot of people in a lot of different worlds, and he said when people come up to him and they say, you know, I want to study Buddhism, you know, and he said, no, you don't. He said, I discourage them. He said, no, you don't. He laughs. He doesn't really discourage them, but it's a big deal, you know. towards our lives so it's hard it's hard to loosen our grip and we need each other and we need the teachings and this is what it is to be a practitioner you know I started writing this Dharma talk about community and and then something else kind of happened you know as I was writing the talk but but really

[13:31]

Sangha, community, each other. We cannot do this without each other. And maybe people in our lives aren't practicing this way. So then it really is important, these spiritual friendships and coming here. I think a practice community is a different thing than we think of about community, maybe like a barn raising or a potluck. I think maybe we're all a part of those communities or we long for that. So sometimes it's confusing, that longing for community. And then you see this Zen community, it's like, oh, those are real practitioners. Oh, they have a rakasu or they wear robes. So it's easy to feel not a part of that, but really the community is, it's the practice that brings us together as a community. It's anyone who has said, I'm studying this. I can't live on this little rug any longer. have to step out onto the floor and into the universe and that is so scary you know so we look at it slowly you know gently sometimes it comes in a big way but it's the turning and the willingness to be in this moment and experience this very experience this very moment so um

[15:02]

This is from the Blue Cliff Record, case 27. A monk asked Chan Master Yunmen, how is it when the tree withers and the leaves fall? Master Yunmen said, body exposed to the golden wind. In these... and these Zen teachings, it's always two people, at least, who are turning their lives together, asking these questions that don't seem so straightforward to us at first, so we get to turn them ourselves. And, you know, what is it? What is the withering tree and the leaves falling? You know, what is that? What is the feeling of the golden body exposed to the wind?

[16:05]

It's a very physical practice, our practice. You know, everything that is available to us really arises in the body. That's where our study really begins. And zazen helps us with that, you know, dharma talk. You know, just the feeling of it. It wasn't even dharma talk, it was duh. It was just the D. You know, I started to feel it come up, especially like yesterday or when I was going to bed. I was just like, oh my God, you know. But just alive. Alive. Staying with and committed to this being and not abandoning in that moment when it gets so hard. It's jealousy or it's anger. You know, it's depression. It's these difficult mind states. Can I stay with this moment?

[17:10]

So I'd like to explore this just a little bit about this teaching and what I've been working with, what's most alive for me. This is kind of what came up in answer to that, and it's anger. So about a year ago, I... started turning towards anger. And it didn't happen kind of that way, like I turned towards anger. No, I pretty much was avoiding it my whole life, knowing it was there. But I went and I was with a friend and I was sitting on her sofa, happened to be over at Green Gulch Farm. And this friend, she's a teacher in our community, gray-haired woman, be careful of the gray-haired women. Be careful of those gray-haired women and men. But I, she had heard me over and over talking about this situation I was in, I mean, maybe for at least a year.

[18:18]

And I was on her sofa and I was talking to her about it and I wasn't, I could see myself like, I really kind of like let myself go for it in a very different way than I normally do. And I really was just crying and complaining and just this very hard situation that I've found myself kind of stuck in. And it didn't feel like there was a lot of room for practice. Stuck. And I could see myself complaining and kind of crying. And when I was done, she didn't say, you know, Oh, poor you. Oh, this is so hard. You know, oh, you know, let's go get her. You know, she didn't, she didn't go there. But what she said was, wow, she said, you're so angry. And I, I think that normally my response would have been like me, you know, me angry.

[19:23]

But in that moment I didn't defend myself. I remember feeling very small, and the question came out of my mouth, and it was like, how do you practice with anger? And she said, you take responsibility for your life. And it was just the perfect timing. It was like, as we chant, it was like arrow points meeting. I mean, how often does that happen? It just felt my question and her response. just came up completely together and I was able to hear that. And she also said, be with you.

[20:33]

So I don't see her much. And I've been practicing with anger. And she is with me. And this is what it is to practice with Sangha. So... So after... I think that was a Sunday. And Monday morning, I was in the car driving to work. I was driving along the grade highway. And, God, I was so angry. You know, I really, you know, anger was like the brick stairs, you know. And I was hanging out in the tea house. I was like, I knew it was there, but really, you know. I think I thought it would swallow me up. If I ever really, if I turned toward it. I thought that anger, you know, would just wash over me, wash me away like a wave.

[22:16]

And I remember driving down the great highway, and I called one of my good friends, who was a practitioner, and I said, oh, Mikael, I'm so angry. Just everything is making me so angry. And he was like, great! And he made me laugh. He was like, that's such good news. So then I go into the coffee shop, you know, it's just like, ah, like they're so slow, like all this agitation, you know. And then the guy turned around, he sees that's my seat. Why is he standing right between me and my seat? Like, come on, you know. So I pulled out my cell phone and I googled Pema Anger. Because I knew that Pema Chodron had taught a lot about anger. I'd seen all those books, you know, it stayed away from them. And, uh, oh yeah, wow, she's angry, you know, angry Pema.

[23:20]

So, uh, so I, I googled Pema angry. I was just like, oh my gosh, Pema, she just met me. I don't know if it was, was it, oh, was it her voice? Was it the teaching? I can't remember now. And, uh, When you're in it, and the teaching meets you, it's amazing. It's the golden wind, you know. And so then I got to work, and I work here at Zen Center. I'm the development director, as many of you probably know. And so I get into work, and I go in the office, and I go into Jeffrey Schneider's office, and he does outreach work. He does. He has a lot of books for the prisoners. And I said, oh, Jeffrey, I'm just so... I think I was a little bit kind of excited at that point. I said, I'm working with anger. All of a sudden, I'm going to start telling everyone.

[24:21]

And he said, oh, you need this. And he picks up this little book, Pema Chodron, Practicing with Peace. And I was like, anger. I was like, okay, I'll read about peace. Man, this is hard. Peace is hard. And bringing patience to anger is hard. You know, someone said to me once, you're so patient. And I thought, you know, it just comes to me naturally. That's what I thought. Oh, I'm not really patient. But there's a big difference between patience and being kind of checked out. You know, patience is hard. You know, when anger comes up and all you want to do is defend yourself and say why you're right and say why it should be written the way that you want it written, you know what that email should say.

[25:22]

And you're trying to get the rest of the team there. You know, you know. Frustration, irritation, blaming, you know. Bringing patience to that. That is where we get alchemically transformed. Just cooking and letting our life cook and experiencing that experience. So I think all my years of Zazen and experiencing whatever moment I was in when I remembered, you know, all the meditation. That really allowed in that moment for me to hear her. I didn't hear, you're an angry person. No, I heard, anger is important for you.

[26:24]

And I heard, I'll be with you. So it takes a lot of courage to ask that small little question to bring it out and see how it's transformed. I'm so off script. So, you know, in Pema's teaching, she talks about anger as, I think it's shepa, is the word that she uses, Tibetan word for it. And it's a barbed hook. So I don't really think of it when I think barbed hook. I don't really think of like a fish hook. But I think of a hook that has like barbs like all around it, you know. And the teaching, just don't take the hook, you know.

[27:24]

Feel it coming up. Our sitting practice really helps to feel that feeling before acting on it. A friend of mine did the chaplaincy training and they went out to San Quentin and they were meeting with prisoners at San Quentin, incarcerated. And it really blew her away. She was like, wow, they're really practicing. And she said what most touched her was that all of them said that if they had just had that little space between the feeling, the anger, and the acting, if there had just been a moment between the feeling and the action,

[28:30]

whatever it was that happened, that they're incarcerated now. They had had that time. And they really see that now because they're practicing. So there was a sadness when I was looking at finally turning towards anger. There was a sadness that came up for me I was like, oh my God, Nancy, all those years, like you knew anger. You know, you knew anger. You're a nine on the Enneagram. It's an anger type, you know. It's like, yeah. But it's like all those wasted years. That's kind of what I was, you know. God, you've been practicing all this time and now you're finally looking at this, you know. And there was a sadness that came up for me. And... And again, I think that all those years were so important to actually finally be there for that teaching.

[29:45]

And I think it's easy in our day-to-day to say, oh, this isn't really practice. You know, I hear people saying that. I was on the phone the other day with a woman. She was leaving a legacy gift to Tassajara, and so she needed to talk with me. And I said, you know, I'm always so curious, you know, what is it that moves someone, you know, to support Zen Center? And our members and supporters are just amazing. Like every conversation is like, ah. And she said, well, I go to Tassajara once a year, and it's such an important place to me. And she said, I had a sangha in LA, but now I don't. And I'm, you know, am I sitting like I have, I'm a freelancer and I work these crazy hours. And so we started talking about how hard it is to sit. You know, I don't live in the temple. Not that it's easy to sit when you live in the temple, but I don't have anyone, you know, saying, hey, hey, why weren't you on your cushion this morning?

[30:51]

And so I started talking to her about how I kind of, what I've worked out. And so at the end, we kind of were encouraging each other. She was like, oh yeah, I'm going to try and sit in the morning, even if it's just for five minutes, kind of set my intention for the day. I said, I'm going to sit in the evening, which is what she does. You know, evening sitting is just so delicious and you kind of just like slip under the covers. So I felt so supported by this woman who I don't know. Her name's Nancy too. She might be watching. I sent her the link. And, um, But she said to me, I'm not really practicing. And, you know, I didn't tell her this because I didn't think of it until later and I was thinking about this talk, but, you know, we are all practitioners. We're all practicing. You know, something brought us here this morning. We're looking at our lives. And we need help to do that.

[31:55]

So as I said, this talk, was gonna be about community. And as I was looking at that teaching and looking at what I've been working with with anger, I realized that the whole talk actually is about community. It's about Sangha. Because you can't do this work on your own. Miles and I were telling David about this membership survey that we did and all the responses that came back. It's like, why do you support, what motivates you to be a member of Zen Center? Almost everyone said community, you know. It's so important to be supported in this work, you know, whether it's Pema in my pocket, you know, or on my iPhone, or my friend, you know. Great! It's so important to have each other

[32:58]

So thank you so much for being here this morning and for practicing. And please come to question and answers and we'll continue to turn the teachings and to look at our lives together. Thank you. 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. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[33:50]

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