I thought I would just say a little bit about where I've been and what's happened these last few weeks. I also want to leave time at the end for three more of you who would like to, I hope you will, share something about yourselves, a little bit about what brings you to study Dharma and where you are in this world, where you're living. So these last two weeks, I was far, far away from where I'm living. My partner and two friends traveled to Mexico and way down into Oaxaca and also to the Yucatan. And it was wonderful to be away and to be totally immersed in a very, for me, very different culture than the one I'm used to. And to find so many kind people everywhere we went. We were just, you know... people were very friendly and very kind and so were we so it was nice to have those uh encounters and we worked on our spanish quite a bit before we went so that was very sweet they were very willing to try to understand what we were saying um so a great deal of joy many beautiful things and experiences and with with the people um and then we got home

[01:37]

Earlier this week, I got back on Monday and started to unpack. And by Monday evening, my partner had a very bad cough. And then next day she tested and she had COVID. And so, oh dear. So then I, we live in a fairly small place. And so we opened all the windows and Karina wore a mask. And I thought, this isn't going to work. Sure enough, by two days ago, I'd also tested positive. So you're seeing someone right now at a safe distance, of course, who is going through a quarantine. So I'm in my five days of quarantine and followed by another five or six wearing masks and basically staying away from Ringgolf City. They certainly don't want us there, understandably. Yeah, it's really quite a shift of energy from very full marketplaces with lots of people and lots of energy to basically being isolated.

[02:39]

But it's quite pleasant. It's quiet. And so far, the symptoms have been relatively mild. And Aquarian has been a little sicker than I have. But she's doing much better now. So we're okay. And I'm... I'm very grateful we have the online possibilities of being together, and I'm still able to stay connected to people at Green Gulch and to all of you, which is very important to me. So I hope you all stay well and clear of this very lusty virus, which seems to enjoy very much finding us, no matter how hard we try to hide. So what this whole... classical that we've been looking at is really all about is just what's been happening what i've been talking about is you know how to meet each new surprise and each new new challenge with wholehearted engagement bendowa you know wholehearted engagement negotiating the way so it you know basically means how to meet our actual life as it continues shifting from darkness to light from winter

[03:59]

to summer, to winter again, and from good health to not so good health, from peace, relatively stable situation, to warfare, and so on, and on and on. Always something surprising, something we're not expecting. And that's what this teaching is really holding for us, as it did for Dogen and his students many, many centuries ago. So nothing stays the same for very long, and at the same time, there is something that feels safe and calm in the center of all of it. That's what we value deeply in our practice, in our studies, and what Zen people call our face before our parents were born, or our original face, something before things have started to change. Before we witness change, there's a potential or a spaciousness there, you know, vastness. What we sometimes just simply refer to as the universe, you know, the universe itself.

[05:04]

There's plenty of room, apparently, for all of this to be happening. And then Shurto, who we've studied in the past, who's the author of The Harmony of Difference and Equality, called it the vast ocean of reality. You might remember him riding on a turtle with a sixth ancestor, on the vast ocean of reality. And the turtle represented human knowledge. A very tiny little turtle, sea turtle, riding along on the ocean of reality. It reminded me that we actually did rescue a couple of baby sea turtles, which was probably the highlight of the entire time. We were on the coast of the Caribbean, and we'd been told that there were little nests around. We should be careful at night walking around. We were being very careful. And then we saw these two little guys, you know, with their flippers going the wrong way. They were headed toward the resort and were going, oh, God, no, no. So I lit my phone and I kind of, you know, pretended to be the moon and led them toward the ocean.

[06:06]

And sure enough, they turned around and they headed to the ocean. And then Karina very gently picked one of them up and put them in the water. And off they went, you know. Incredible. with incredible well-wishing on our part. Good luck on this great voyage. And, you know, the great ocean of reality is no joke when you're a tiny little sea turtle. So Shurto, you know, as I said, called it the vast ocean of reality, and Dogen calls it the circle of the way, the circle of the way, that kind of quiet center to all of this, something that isn't moving, appears to be still. and quiet and silent. So you might recall from several weeks ago that Dogen's circle of the way includes each and every moment, no matter how long or short its duration. And in each and every moment, there is the thought of enlightenment in the circle of the way. There is a complete awareness to the present moment.

[07:10]

And there's liberation. So that's the circle of the way. the thought of enlightenment, complete awareness of the present, and liberation. Round and around. So although each moment is complete, all-inclusive and perfect in the Buddha's teaching, each moment has a direction. Like that little sea turtle. No, not that way. It's going to go that way. And I guess we were kind of playing the Bodhisattva role and Bodhisattva mission of helping to direct these little guys to the way that we hope will be the best for them, the best outcome. And for us, the Buddha said, the direction is toward Buddhahood, based on our bodhisattva vow to live for the benefit of others. That's our direction. That's where we go. Is there some benefit to others that I can locate somewhere in my neighborhood? Probably. Probably not too hard to find how to benefit others.

[08:11]

So as I mentioned a few weeks back, Reb calls this process the imperceptible mutual assistance. That the universe is an imperceptible mutual assistance. Everything's helping everything else to co-create what we see and what we are. So that's just the way it is. That's just the Dharma. That's the truth of it. So the awakened self is awakening and being awakened by others. mutually, imperceptibly assisting one another. How nice is that? So for the realization of this imperceptible mutual aid, Dokkan repeatedly encourages us to express the process of awakening through the three actions of our body, how we handle our body, how we move, how we engage, walking down the street or whatever we're doing, some awareness and uprightness of energy. in our body, and maybe the pace.

[09:13]

If you tend to be really fast, you might want to consider what it's like to slow down, to walk as though you're not late, and just basically holding the presence, the present situation, you know, each foot, left foot, right foot, balancing and moving and observing. It was interesting while we were traveling that I won't name who it is, but one of my dear friends is always on the cell phone to figure out where to go, which is not how I grew up. I grew up looking for street signs or signposts or, you know, a temple or something to kind of learn the territory by picking up on things, on visible signs. Oh, it's that way. It's over there by that store. It's over there. So it's really different having... someone who's just basically navigating by a little blue dot on their phone. And I kept going, whoa, this is a little map and territory issue going on here.

[10:18]

So it was interesting how we all approached not knowing where we were. We'd never been in Oaxaca before, and Oaxaca is alive. It's very alive, and cars move fast, and people move fast, and you've got to know which way to look. And it's very exciting and wonderful, and getting lost is part of the deal. That's just wonderful. part of what we were doing most of the time, trying to find where we were going. So anyway, the three actions of our body, how you handle your body when you're moving through space, how you speak, how you care for your speech, things you say. Is it the right time? Is it the right thing to be saying? Is it needed to be said? Those kind of inquiries to help us slow down again around speech. And then, of course, the mind. There's the good old mind. which we're not in charge of particularly, but we are inheritors of all of these complex images and ideas and opinions that run through our minds.

[11:19]

They didn't start with us. We've learned many things, and some of them we need to consider unlearning or relearning or something like that. So how do we work with these three elements? Well, Dogen says, by sitting upright, in samadhi. Sitting upright in samadhi. At which the whole time, the whole world, the whole phenomenal world becomes the Buddha's seal and the entire sky turns into enlightenment. Sounds pretty simple. Just sit upright in samadhi. And there it is. It's the gateway. So I often find myself really delighted by these extravagant teachings from Dogen. You know, it's like, what really? That's hilarious. Do it. And yet he's kind of like a good soccer coach, you know, running along the sidelines, calling out for us to pick up our energy, you know, to move toward the goal, which for him and for the teaching is right underneath our feet as soon as we pick up our energy.

[12:23]

You know, the practice realization are one. It's one word. It's just one gesture of the whole body. Whole body running down the field is practice realization of playing football. or whatever it is you're doing. When we engage our whole life through our whole effort, that's the Buddha way. That's the practice. So Dr. Kim, who I've been enjoying, continuing to enjoy and struggle with, he's a scholar. You've got to kind of deal with that, you know, look up a lot of words. But he says on this chapter on Bendawa that it's in this very fascicle that Dogen succinctly enunciates his Zen. Here's the sentence that Dr. Kim says is the summary of Dogen Zen. The endeavor to negotiate the way, bendo, negotiate the way, as I teach now, this is Dogen, consists in discerning all things and view of enlightenment and putting such a unitive awareness into practice in the midst of the re-evaluated world.

[13:34]

So that's not such a simple sentence. However, I think what he's saying here is pretty significant and worth looking at. That basically, Dogen is coming from the perspective of enlightenment, already enlightened. So he's not questioning anymore about Buddha nature or it's already what you are. It's just like, that's just the way it is. And now let's go forward from there. This is enlightenment. Practice is enlightenment. And you bring that conviction that practices enlightenment, that how you are in the world is your expression of your awakening, of your awareness, whether it's deep or high or well-trained or beginners, whatever it is, every step of that process, the path is enlightenment, as the Buddha said. Enlightenment is the path. So when your intention is to practice, then each step you take is complete, is full, is wholehearted effort, you know, even when you're drowsy. If that's the best you can do right now, that's your offering.

[14:38]

That's your offering. So this view of coming from enlightenment as the primary perspective that we are asked by Dogen to take, that's the frame. Look at the world through your enlightened nature. Whoa, that's kind of something to say, but that's the instruction. Look at the world through your enlightened nature, the enlightened nature. It's not yours, it's everyone's. It is the nature of awareness, of awakening. And then bring that, what he calls unitive awareness, the whole thing, that all things together, that reality arises together, that ocean of reality, that unitive awareness is then brought into practice. in the world, in the world in terms of its own way of doing things. Like you're going to the office or you're driving down the street. So how do you bring that sense of this is all together and all of this is imperceptible mutual support, getting on the freeway, getting off the freeway, going through the, you know, the counters and the shelves at Whole Foods, whatever it is you do with your day is this

[15:54]

brought you bring this unit of awareness to that activity, which means you kind of got to look around a little bit, you know, get off the shopping list long enough to just look around. What's going on? Where am I? You know, Whole Foods is fascinating since every store is fascinating. Everything is fascinating. You know, if you can pause long enough to look and realize it is beyond comprehension, what's going on here. It's amazing. And we don't know how it's happening. But there it is. There it is. Just like we. We're the same. We don't know how this happened, but here I am. And so then we work from there. So Dr. Kim understands this statement that I read by Dogen is that first we catch a glimpse. First we need to catch a glimpse of this all-inclusive reality, which I have every confidence everyone has had, beginning in childhood and babyhood and all the way through. We have seen many glimpses. know from the tops of mountains and on rivers and on the ocean and in airplane wherever you've done where you've seen a glimpse of the all-inclusive nature of reality you know then this lens of all-inclusive perspective of this wide open awareness

[17:13]

in which this all-inclusive seeing, that would be the subject. So that's you being aware, being Buddha, you being Buddha, not capital B, but just awake. Buddha means awake. So all-inclusive seeing, the subject, is seeing the all-inclusive universe, the object. And they're not separate. So the all-inclusive awareness of the all-inclusive presence of that awareness, object of that awareness, which is the universe, being aware of the universe. It's kind of the way they like to talk. They try to help us to crack open some of our limited sense of who we are, what we can and can't do. This is leaping, leaping clear of any kind of restrictions of your thinking. Like water pouring into water, or Buddha seeing Buddha. Just kind of wave. I like the image, too, of the ocean. Sometimes early on I heard about this idea that the ocean is... reality and each of us or each particular thing is a little wave that's coming up out of the ocean so of course it's the same as the ocean it's just made out of water but here come these little waves so that's like two people meeting on the path you know and just kind of waving and then back into the ocean again so that's our that's that core that core stability that underlies everything that arises returns to the ocean of reality um

[18:39]

So that's what we see right now. That's what's happening right now. This is the only real trick there is, is in knowing and believing that what we are seeing is none other than Buddha seeing Buddha. Just kind of a little bit of a leap of faith, really. The teaching persists in telling us the same thing. You already got it. You already got it. Just keep looking because you're peeling away those doubts, those corrosive doubts. So when Buddha sees Buddha, it is through a persistent and enthusiastic effort that seeks nothing but its own reflection. I see you everywhere I look. Which reminds me of that enlightenment story of Dongshan. I'm sure you remember. It's kind of famous for us because he's our founder. So his enlightenment story is part of our legendary inheritance. So after he's left his teacher, he's still kind of confused.

[19:42]

He's done a lot of work and asked a lot of questions, and he's gotten pretty good understanding. And his teacher's like, you know, he understands it's time for him to continue his pilgrimage. He hasn't quite settled the question for himself, you know, in his quest for realization. He's still seeking. So as he crossed the slow-moving stream, he catches a glimpse of his own image in the water and says, Don't seek from others, or you'll be estranged from yourself. I now go on alone, everywhere I encounter it. I now go on alone, yet everywhere I encounter it. It now is me, I am not it. It now is me, I am not it. One must understand in this way to merge with being as is. So again, this is again playing with language in order to help us to make that shift from our isolation, sense of our isolated self, individuated, separate, trying to accomplish things on our own, being alone, that kind of thing, to being all one, to belonging, to deep belonging, to seeing that belonging each time you look out the window, each time you look across the room, that's what you are.

[21:03]

You are all that you see and hear. and feel is what you are. And so it's always there. It's always like this cozy little wrapping around us that is creating us. How we see the world is through this wrapping of this vastness, subject-object vastness. So the mind that seeks nothing but the clarity of seeing things as they is, in Suzuki Roshi's words, things as they is, the mind that seeks nothing but the clarity of seeing things as they is, is the mind of Buddha. A careful seeing that sits quietly in the midst of the nitty gritty appearances of our all-too-human condition. So that's not going to go away. Our all-too-human condition, I think there's always this kind of secret hope that that's just going to go away and the kitchen's going to stay clean and nobody's going to ever get upset with you and it's just going to be this perfect world.

[22:04]

And that's just like one of those little fantasies. You know, we're always going to be having to clean the kitchen and be nice to each other and take care of our responsibilities. Like I remember which teacher was, I think Boksan, one of those who said, you know, he'd tell the young monks who were all into feeling that they were getting enlightened practicing a Heiji, and he'd say, you know, you may get enlightened, but you think you're going to sit on the altar and eat eight bowls of rice. He said, you're still going to have only one bowl of rice, and you're going to get in trouble if you sit zazen on the altar. So it's sort of like, what are you thinking you're going to get out of this experience? You're going to get to sit in the middle of the nitty-gritty human condition and do your best to be of help. Do your best to be a sponsor of making things a little better where you are, right where you are. So Dogen's mission in this and all of his teachings is to undermine any tendency to separate practice from enlightenment.

[23:11]

Meaning any tendency to make practice the means and the realization the goal. By this means, you sit zazeng, you become enlightened. That's dualistic. There's this and then that. There's a time problem there. It's kind of a vanishing point, like on the horizon. You'll never get there from here. If it's not here, it's not going to happen. So you have to start from here. This is it. And then work your way to understanding how that's so. So there is no means for the realization of the goal. There's no such thing as a view of realization as being on a higher plane of existence than our daily practice. That's another hierarchy of, well, I'm so much better than I was, I do it this way now, and it's kind of like, yeah, well, that's okay. But, you know, I often would get this back from my therapist, human first. Human first. Let's just keep coming back to human first. What do you have to do today? What do you have to take care of? Who do you have to give a call?

[24:12]

You know, doing the work of human first. And at the same time, having this wonderful reunion. Whenever, any chance you get to, you know, quiet down, sit still, and enter the samadhi of connection with whatever it is that's surrounding you, it's creating you in the moment. It's just taking a little break, like a little samadhi break, like you take a dip in the pool or something on a hot day. You just stop and just slowly breathe and look around. I like to turn around if nobody's around. You know, I don't want them to think I'm too cuckoo, but I'm walking home sometimes. I just stop in the middle of the path and I just turn around really slowly and look at the hills and the plants. And it's amazing. It's just amazing every time. I'm amazed. It's like, where'd this come from? Well, it's been there every time I walk by. But unless I stop and I look around, it might as well not be. So Dr. Kim quotes another scholar in this chapter on the Bendawa.

[25:19]

In Zen, the process of verifying realization, so this scholar says, is a total being's total response to total reality. So again, we just have these... masses of existence just kind of harmonizing just all harmonizing with one another if it's just one thing just flatline universe with no you know variations whatsoever well first of all we wouldn't be here so all of these variations all of these ways that matter forms and reforms and explodes and grows and everything else is just the total be our total being's total response to the totality of reality with each side of practice and realization forming and then transforming the other side so this is just a process you know i'm really excited about understanding more and more that we're talking about a process of living and a process of incorporating our understanding to how we've already

[26:22]

You know, what we already know. We've already learned a lot. We're all, you know, grownups in great many ways. And some of those things we've learned are really helpful. And then we're adding some more, some more beneficial. And then there's some things we learned that are not so helpful. So then we can let those drop away. It's okay. We're not going to miss them. So here's just this kind of reconstructing, a little reconstruction of our base camp, you know, our human first. So there is no practice aside from realization, Dogen says, and there is no realization aside from practice. They are conjoined twins of our life. Dogen then says that Zazen is always striving to make Buddha. And Zazen is invariably that striving which is itself making a Buddha. It's kind of interesting, very Dogen thing. Zazen is always striving to make Buddha. And zazen is invariably that striving, which is itself making a Buddha.

[27:27]

So basically, again, he's demolishing any goal-oriented notion of zazen. There's no goal. There's just striving. There's just upright sitting with wholehearted effort. That's it. Just sitting makes Buddha. It's an awakened life. So Dogen also goes on to tell us that each individual striving is entwined with all other individual strivings to form a cosmic web of intimate entanglements. So that's all of us. And then all of you are entangled with even more cosmic individuals. who are entangled with even more, basically the world wide web, you know, of really, of real connection, one to the other. We all depend on each other. Mutual assistance. You know, without that, we can see what's happening when there's the opposite energy. Mutual destruction. That works too, but it's so sad, you know. So it seems like such a waste of what we can do and of who we are.

[28:33]

So... This cosmic web of intimate entanglements, Buddha and the self, humans and the cosmos. So again and again, Dogen brings our topsy-turvy world into the forefront as the only basis for realizing the circle of the way. The way we live our life, where we are, each of us, in our homes and in our communities, how we live our lives is the only basis for realizing the circle of the way. So that's kind of good news. I mean, it's really right there in your own home and in your own life is where practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point. I was talking to a lovely student, a new student, who's just arrived as a guest student at Green Gulch, and I had an opportunity to talk with her yesterday. You know, she was talking about her experience at Green Gulch and how encouraging it had been for her. She has a family, a career and so on.

[29:34]

So as for many of you, you're not going to probably come and live in the community and do all the stuff that we have been doing, which, you know, we were just as interested in how to create that conditions for each of you at home as we have been grateful to have those conditions offered to us in communal living. So there's a really... big requests that the community is making to get that wall, get rid of that wall between what we've, we're going to stop using the term non-residence, it sounds like, you know, non-existent or something, and just figure out some other way of talking about just the sangha, the practice of anyone who's practicing is included. There's no wall, there's no wall there. So this woman I was speaking with said that one of the best things that she'd gotten from her week at Green Gulch was the sheet for doing soji, which is the temple cleaning. So someone handed her a sheet, and she's just had all these instructions, including how to view work practice, how to think about work practice, how to bring wholehearted effort to each and everything you're doing.

[30:42]

and to be thorough and to clean up after yourself, leave no traces. There was just this whole kind of lesson that we've all heard over and over again who live in the community about how to do work practice. But for her, she said it was so exciting. No one ever talks about work as practice in her world. And she grew up in China and she said as much of the influence of Buddhism is still there. I mean, it's in the water, it's in the air, it's in the architecture, there's temples and all of that. The feeling of it, or the understanding of it, she felt was news to her. She never had an introduction to Zen in her years of living in China. And then she comes to California, and here's this excitement that people are having about Chinese Buddhism. So it's lovely to have her finding this heartfelt connection to her own tradition. She said, it's so familiar, and yet no one's ever helped me understand. So I was so excited that she loved this soji sheet.

[31:44]

I thought, there's a good step. Maybe we can give each of you the soji instructions. And she said, I used to have problems like cleaning the house, and I'd resent my husband because he wouldn't be doing it. And then all of a sudden I thought, I'm doing soji. This is my assignment is to take care of my house. I want it clean. I want things a certain way. So she's got her own sheet and she goes through that. And so she's doing soji as her home practice right now. And again, that just made me very encouraged, very happy to know that we have this possibility of offering whatever we can. So there's no escape. from the causes and conditions that bring each of us to consider the possibility of freedom from those very causes and conditions that in each and every moment are giving us our life. So the means for achieving enlightenment in Dogen Zen is the same as enlightenment itself, exactly the same as the wisdom and the compassion of the awakened one, of the Buddha.

[32:48]

So any other way of understanding The workings of practice and realization smacks of dualistic thinking, such as practice as a means to an end, or sentient beings becoming buddhas, or humans being separated from the cosmos. Those are all dualistic notions. So they don't work. They can't work as a basis for awakening. So then Dr. Kim turns to a discussion of non-duality itself, which, as he says, should not be privileged above duality. I thought that was very exciting. Don't privilege non-duality above duality. They're essential to each other, as are all two things are essential to each other. You can't have just one side of a dualistic proposition. In order to be non-dual, you have to have its partner. For light, you need dark. For right, you need wrong. For me, I need you. So these two sides are required in order to have non-duality. You have to have the duals.

[33:50]

You have to have the twos. And then not to privilege non-duality above duality. So each of these, duality and non-duality, are, in his favorite term, Dr. Kim, foci or foci, I think you can say it in many different ways, meaning focal points, in the process of practice realization. Like two eyes that both look inwardly, and they looked outwardly, without settling on a view of what's inside and what's outside, without taking any sides at all. So non-duality, being all-inclusive, embraces duality rather than abandoning it. And with it, the world of suffering beings. So Dr. Kim says the non in non-duality signifies dynamism. It's alive. Non-duality is alive. It's a conversation between this side and that side.

[34:51]

Writing our views, writing our intention, writing our speech, not right speech or right intention. We can't do that because we're alive. And so we have to continuously look for the balance between this side and that side of whatever dualistic proposition is popping up its little head at the moment. So the non and non-duality signifies dynamism, as in wholehearted negotiating of the way, bendowa. So in order for this energetic form of negotiating the way, we need to have all of the resources available to us. We need the resources of language and of intellect and of critical thinking, and such as Dogen has done throughout his entire monastic career. He was very intelligent, and he spent a lot of time thinking about these things and reading and studying and talking and teaching and sharing his insights, as we know.

[35:52]

And then Dr. Kim says that negotiating the way, bendowa, in pursuit of authentic practice, consists in how to do Zen with non-dualistically re-evaluated duality. Isn't that a brown mouthful? Non-dualistically re-evaluated duality. So there you have the two sides again. You're bringing the enlightened view to delusional views. And the enlightened view is shining its light on delusional views. They need each other. Can you turn that light up just a little bit? I'm working on this stuff over here. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. So it's a collaborative. It's collaborative, you know, inside our own body-mind, like working through our own particular journey. So a non-dualistically re-evaluated duality without abandoning one side in favor of the other side. Not abandoning light over dark or right over wrong or me over you or any two things.

[36:57]

Both sides are needed. They're necessary. I can often remember one of the early teachings of the Buddha who said, I hold no views for or against anything. I hold no views for or against anything. That's a big assignment, I would say, and I've thought about it quite a lot. And then Dogen emphasizes that we must look at all sides and all views and consider wisely and compassionately what actions we will take. in our own daily lives. It's not a matter of holding them, it's a matter of studying them and understanding them and being wise about what choices we're making. So actions rooted in the vow to live for the benefit of all beings includes the vow not to abandon anything. We're not abandoning anything. We're just trying to get all the puzzle pieces together and see if we can come up with something that works for the whole, that is the whole, the wholeness.

[37:58]

of life and the wholeness of humanity and that's a kind of a job that looks like it's going to take a while you know and I'm I'm yeah sorry I can't stay around you know I'd love to help you guys but we're all going to have to pass the baton you know as soon as we can to get these young ones fired up I asked them one time in a group, big group at Tassahara. So, you know, we came in, my group came in in the 60s and 70s and the tail end of the Vietnam War. I think I was pretty much, that was my hugest motive in life was war, ending war, feeling about war as unacceptable. And so I asked the kids, this is now 30 years later, are any of you revolutionaries? And if you come here to make a revolution, no, they were not revolutionaries. They're guitar players and they're singers and they're graduate students.

[39:03]

But it's really a different culture. It's a different world, different motive coming to practice. So it's okay. I will yield. But I still feel like that energy, that whole heart and enthusiasm to, you know, right the wrongs and so on is, maybe it's okay now and then to, you know, to really care, to really care and let people know you really care. So right now I think we're all no doubt engaging in thoughts and conversations about these horrifying actions. that were taken by Hamas against Israeli citizens and Israel's response to those events which are unfolding each day with a lot of trepidation on the part of the entire world. How do we find ourselves a pathway between these forces of generational hatred and revenge and torture and murder? It's not so easy. I mean, that's understated. It's not so easy. And I have been reading and hearing a lot of very smart people

[40:06]

trying to do so, trying to help reconcile, to find a way to peace. And the noise is so loud, I don't think anyone can hear it right now. And it's very sad. So just as we are all doing right now, Dogen Zen is always situated in a specific time and place. So this is our time and place, what we're going through now. This is our bendowa, negotiating the way, you know, with how it is now in this world. And it's always in relationship to temporality of existence and of time that Uji, which is the fascicle that I think we'll be looking at once Lisa is able to join us. I kind of promised to save it for her. There she is. And I thought, I think we agreed that we'd look at the Tenzo Kyokun in the meantime. instructions for the cook, which is really a wonderful read, very small book.

[41:07]

If you don't already have it, you can read through it. Dogen's teaching to the cook. Again, this is like the soji. This is a wonderful thing for those of you who do cooking at home or would like to do more cooking at home or come and cook with us at Ringgosh, whatever. It's been a very powerful teaching. I think for all of us who've been in the Zen Center kitchens, it's like we read the Tenzo Kyokun and some of it's, you know, medieval Japanese male monasticism. So there's a lot of, you know, like, you get a kind of feeling of the context of the day. But then there's so much of it that just goes right to your heart, you know. So anyway, we'll take some time looking through the Tenzo Kyokun. I'll do an introduction to it probably next time, next week. So let's see. So I do think, and kind of last thing to say about these fascicles, you know, Dugan's fascicles, in some ways, you know, reading the news and watching the news and feeling, oh, what does this have to do with that?

[42:17]

And it does have everything to do with that. And that's why I keep coming back to, you know, growing my own deep commitment to understanding Dharma. with my own deep commitment to understanding this suffering world. They're there for each other. That's the whole point. So how to bring these ancient teachings into our lives in some real way. And it takes some thinking. It takes some critical thinking in view of the suffering world and how to bring these teachings and stories into our world. So I would like to invite all of you to do some of that thinking on your own, how these teachings might help you do that kind of thinking, which is then, of course, aligned with this vow to live for the safety and health and well-being of all that lives. So at this point, I wanted to offer a little bit of the time we have left to any of you who would be willing to share, as some of you have done already,

[43:21]

little bit about yourself you know where you are right now we're in the world you are and how you've come to practice Dharma if you would like to say something about that would be very welcome and all you have to do is just raise your hand and and And then I'll be right there talking to you. Tell me. Tell us. I'm going to go on. Gallery. For a sec. There you are. Okay. Great. Wonderful. We've got two volunteers. So Melissa, I saw you and then I saw... Okay, we'll start with Melissa. Hi. Hi.

[44:22]

Can you hear me through my headphones? I can. Can everyone hear me? Okay. It's okay? Yeah. Okay, good. They sometimes fail to connect. Hello, Sangha. Hello, Fusensei. So happy to be with you here. And I'm going to show you I was off screen because I was so cheating. Not done. Pointing Sojin that Tenzo Kyokun speaks of, but nevertheless. Wholehearted, I'm sure. Wholeheartedly. I am Melissa. I live in Northern California in a ski region called Lake Tahoe, if you're familiar. Recently relocated here right before the pandemic, and I grew up in and was living in the Bay Area. I came to practice because of the pandemic. Well, I'll say that I came to SFCC because of the pandemic.

[45:23]

I think practice was in me since I was a kid. I actually grew up in the Jodo Shinshu tradition, which is part of the Peerland School. If any of you have heard of Buddhist Churches of America, that's the sect of Buddhist Churches of America. And I have recollections of really deep sensory recollections of being in church when I was little and connecting with the teachings such as they were in that much more devotional sect. This is a much more scholarly endeavor, which I'm really loving squeezing the juice out of. I came to sit with SFCC. originally because I was losing my mind around May 2020. And I had wanted to acquire the skills for a steady meditation practice for a number of years, but then realized when the whole world pauses, as it was so funny because I really felt like in 2016, it would be really nice if the whole world would just pause for a second so that I could just absorb.

[46:33]

What the heck is going on here? And then the pandemic, which is interesting. Anyway, very shortly thereafter, after joining this study group and sitting meditation, I started to ask Fu for instruction, individual instruction. And she has been, as I described to her group, taking the Bodhisattva precepts soon. she's helping me how to figure out life and how to do life because I feel like I was doing it wrong before. I was in, well, I am in the law, but I was leading a really deluded life and it was making me very unhappy and still kind of dealing with the residuals. But tonight I felt compelled to speak because hearing again, Dogen's words upon his enlightenment story, do not seek from others.

[47:39]

Just tonight for me, because, well, just a myriad of reasons having to do with Indra's net and all of the teachings that I am receiving from the universe right now. But nevertheless, it really struck me. And I'm not quite sure... where that's going to go, but I feel really moved by that. So I wanted to share my story with you tonight. So thank you. Thank you, Melissa. Thank you so much. I think we have, yeah, great. Two. Paul and Kate. I think you only have Kate. Oh. Okay. You can have two. You can be silent witness if you like.

[48:44]

I think the stories are pretty much the same. Yeah, you've been married a long time. So I want to take you back to the early 90s when, so this is my story. At that time, I would was practicing Aikido. And there was a woman in my Aikido group who did a different practice. And she was doing a workshop with her brother at Esalen. And that seemed pretty exotic and scary. But Paul and I signed up to do, it was a hiking workshop. And so we did that. And it turned out her brother, who was Stephen Harper, did a hiking workshop at Tassajara, and that seemed even more exotic and more scary. But we'd survived the first one, so we signed up for this workshop at Tassajara, which was hiking and zen, which was co-led by Stephen and Reb Anderson.

[49:52]

And... I remember being at Tassajara and doing morning zazen and then doing soji and being sent to the dining room to set tables and thinking, this is my tribe. This is where I belong. I can do this. I can line the forks up. And so we did that, and we started going to Tassajara workshops every summer that Reb led. So it would be, well, they varied, but certainly the one with Stephen was hiking in the morning at a Dharma talk in the dining room in the afternoon. And there was this group of young men who were Charlie Pocorny, Charlie Hinkle, and Jeremy Levy, who would question Reb. And we would watch fascinated and not understand a thing, but... keep coming back.

[50:54]

And so we did those, we did workshops with Reb at Tassajara for a number of years. And I think it was around 1999, late 90s, when Reb stopped doing workshops at Tassajara. And we asked him what would be our next step. And of course, his answer was, well, why don't you move into Green Gulch? And we said, no, no, no, we're not going to do that. But the next step for us was to do a one-day sitting, and we did what I called shopping for Buddhism. We did a one-day sitting at Spirit Rock, and I remember arriving there with our black Zafus and Zabutans and parking, and Paul saying to me, do we really have to take all this stuff in with us? And we get into this big room with 100 people with a rainbow of colors of blankets and Zafus and water bottles.

[52:06]

And here we were with our black ones. And then the next weekend, we did a one-day sitting at Green Gulch where we just brought our bodies and everything else was... provided for us. So that was encouraging. So the next step was to do a sashim of seven days. And my first sashim was traumatic because I had done a one-day sitting, so I knew I could do this and I was going to power through it. But by the second day, I was having back spasms. to the point where I couldn't take a deep breath. And I remember walking to the Zendo after lunch with Paul saying, I don't know what to do. I can't breathe. I can't. I just hurt so much. And Paul saying to me, you need to talk to somebody.

[53:12]

Why don't you talk to the Eno? So I went to the Eno. And it was Mick. Mick took one look at me and said, you need to go back to your room and go to bed and sleep. And I said, well, I'll take a period off, but then I'll be back. And I did as he said, and I went back, and my belief is that I slept for about 36 hours straight. And then I came back to the Zendo, and Mick said, here's what you do. You go sit in a chair. You don't sit on a cushion. You sit every other period. You take every other period off, and you go to your room, and you're flat in bed. And so I made it through the Sashin. I think the next day, I was summoned by Rib for Dokusan.

[54:15]

I didn't sign up. He wanted to see if I was still okay. And I did go through the sishin, and then I sort of took a break. I was a little gun-shy about doing it again. But eventually I did, and I sat one day, and the second day I felt like my back was starting to spasm. Fu, you were Tonto, and I went and asked for a Doka-san with you. And before I had crossed Cloud Hall, you were at my side saying, go rest, and when you come back, talk to me right away. And we had a talk about what was going on, and it just made a huge difference. ever since and at some point in there we graduated and started doing the three week January intensive which I did I think about 15 of them in succession each year until COVID and then I didn't do the COVID one but

[55:44]

My intention was that Reb's older than I am. As long as he's doing them, I'm doing them. But unfortunately, that's not happening anymore. But I'm still sitting and coming here on Sundays. And it's a huge, important part of my life. So thank you very much to all of you. Thank you so much, Kate. You're a very important part of our life. Thank you. Kate has done a good job at saving me a lot of our story, I guess, together. And I would say a little elaboration on the initial introduction was we had some friends who were kind of, I don't know, I call them spiritual seekers or something. And they were the ones who kind of encouraged us to go explore some of the offerings at Eslon.

[56:51]

And so we had done a couple, but they weren't, I don't know, satisfying, if you will, until we, as Kate said, she suggested we try Tassajara, which seemed pretty scary place to go. But because it was this hiking workshop, we thought we knew how to hike. And we knew the co-leader, Stephen Harper. So it felt like a safer introduction to Zen practice than just dropping in. And as she said, the co-leader was Reb Anderson, a much younger Reb Anderson, who had to run ahead of the pack and be there first up the hill. And nobody could keep up with him. But as she said, also, part of this program was hiking in the morning and then basically a Dharma talk for, I don't know, a couple hours in the afternoon in the dining room at Tassajara.

[57:59]

And we listened to it intently, heard every word, and couldn't figure out a thing. There was absolutely no comprehension. It was like, this man is speaking. It seems like he knows what he's talking about. It's full sentences, but I don't get anything that he's saying. This is interesting. Perfect. So that was what got me sucked in was, I don't get it, so I'm going to just keep coming back and listening. And so our first, as Kate said, our first... approach was these summertime workshops, week-long workshops at Tassajara, which were informal. They didn't, of course, they were designed for non-Zen practitioners, but just people who were curious. So he had his usual array of topics. Can I insert something?

[59:02]

Sure. So Reb would tease us that we came in the side door. How does the side door song go? Oh, just the two of you? No, the whole group. Oh, the whole group. We never signed up for the real thing. We just kind of, you know, we were Sunday guests. We came in the side door, and then we left again. Yeah. So this group that was, because he was doing this pretty consistently year after year, in the beginning he was doing it twice in the summer, and the same people, mostly, would come back over and over again. There was a whole group, and he called it like your group here that comes back every Sunday. He said that people were not coming in the front door of the zendo for the practice. It was kind of coming in the sun. And when he said he was retiring from doing teachings at Tassajara for various good reasons, and we said,

[60:07]

What do we do now? He offered us a progression to try to come and do formal practice at Tassajara, which, I mean, at Green Goat, which Kate had described. So he says, come try a one-day Saturday sitting, and if you're okay with that, then maybe you can, after you do three, I think he gave us a rule. do three one-day sittings, and then we could progress to trying a seven-day sashim. And if we do a few of those, then maybe we could do a longer retreat. And so we continued to be, I continued to be totally confused on what was, so part of these, it's in addition to a lot of meditation practice, which I found very interesting. because it was doing nothing. It was sort of, what's it like to just do nothing?

[61:09]

I'm always supposed to be busy and doing something productive and getting this done or that done. So it was quite a dramatic experiential difference as to just try not doing anything and see what happens. So that's sort of... I don't know how successful that. It's still a wish. Yes, to be able to do more of nothing. More of nothing, yeah. Yeah, me too. And so we progressed through, and I was able to do, I think, 10 years of the January retreats, the three-week retreats, before I kind of couldn't do it anymore, I guess. And Kate continued a few years in addition. So, but we were doing also, so I guess the description of our practice has been for, because of our initial introduction to Reb as teacher at Tassajara, we just wound up sort of following him around and we would, he did...

[62:21]

weekends at Santa Barbara. He did weekends at Mount Madonna, which is down the coast near Monterey in the hills. And so we're just listening, hoping that maybe someday something would make sense. And here we are. Here we are. Still hoping. And I have to say, your teaching in this presentation has greatly expanded my feeling of the practice. I don't know, and I can't express how it's different, but maybe the weekly consistency is different than our, because I guess we forgot to preface that we live up in the mountains in Mammoth Lakes on the east side of the California, Sierra Nevada area. And so we're a long ways away from Green Gulch and Marin.

[63:22]

And it's a day by driving in summer. It can be longer than that in winter to get over there. And so we're doing concentrated listening, weekends and whatnot. We couldn't just come for Sunday program or whatever or other classes that we're doing. happening so we're just yeah that's i'm very hopeful that once we're all you know tucked in at ensal village because paul and kate will be joining many of us up there um that we'll find some way to you know get what everyone wants whatever you want of continuing practice that we'll have some way of customizing that for for all of us so i'm really i'm excited I saw the first pictures of our room. I hope the rest of the song is curious about this, but we are where we are right now.

[64:31]

Kate's saying, no, this will take the rest of the day. Oh, okay. But we are coming up on our appointment to sign the contract in a couple weeks and see the the room that we're in for the first time it's under as as i think uh fu has said the place has been under construction for two plus years and it's just being completed now and they're starting to let people in um through the construction zone escorted through the construction with a hard hat yeah so they're trying to move people in and We'll see. So we are, I think, feels sort of a little bit like we're actually enacting Rab's initial invitation of moving into Zen Center. We're sort of... That's 30 years later. Yeah, we're sort of moving in.

[65:32]

Now, I don't think a lot of the other people who are coming, many others, are thinking they're moving into a Zen Center, but... It might be a little concerned they are. Or they may get pretty surprised when they get there and ask what level of what's going on. But they're certainly welcome to not be involved. There's already Quaker meetings being planned. I mean, it's really eclectic. I mean, everyone will have what they need from, you know, it's our thing. It's our community. We don't have a set of guidelines that apply to everybody in terms of activities and so on. That's exciting, too. I mean, the building's very beautiful. I've been seeing pictures of the Zendo under construction, too, and the doors apparently are stunning. So, I mean, that's part of the Zen thing is, like, put some nice bait on the... This is a very nice... And it's usually food. Food. Food. The other aspect of Zen practice, at least at San Francisco Zen Center, is food.

[66:36]

That's right. That's right. A food orientation. Well, thank you both. Thank you. I appreciate your telling us more about you. And I think that may be it for now. There was one other hand from the Vermont Sangha. Where did you go? Did you want to or are you? Yes. Would you like to share? Let's see. What do you think? Sure. Yeah, usually we end around 6.20 or 6.30 or something. 9.10 up here. Oh, well, we can also wait for next time. No, I'm fine. I'm awake. Remind us of your name because also it says Vermont Insight Meditations. Yes, Drew. Drew. Hi, Drew. Drew from Brattleboro. Okay. I think...

[67:39]

Something started for me back in kindergarten. And I live in Long Island, first day of kindergarten, wicked hot day at St. Thomas. And back then, the nuns were in full garb. And they had these clickers. Stand, click, click, sit. And we sat feet on the ground, back straight, hands on your lap, face forward, no wiggling. And I said to myself, I'm going to be doing a lot of this. Prophetic. Yeah, I think it was. It was. And I think third or eighth grade, I got hold of a book about meditation and staring at a candle. And I can remember the air currents, and it finally got still. And it was almost at that moment my father walks in and says – Now I have to tell the girls at the office, my kids staring at a candle.

[68:42]

And that was it. He just shamed me right out of it. Oh, no. Oh, no. That was a level, the types of discipline was to, well, I won't get into that. So sorry. So I met a meditation teacher in junior high school down in Jersey, who turned me on to a lot of stuff and got me interested. And... It's been a search, you know. I tried my darndest to become a born-again Christian. That didn't work. When I moved to the city, moved into Manhattan, it just opened up, and I was Sufi dancing and Vendanta and Gurdjieff and Theosophy, and it just... I don't really know why. Something had to do with maybe growing up in a Catholic school. Back then it was very ritual, incense, bells, altar boy. There's a sense of occasionally being pitched out, as best I can say.

[69:44]

I think that's what attracted me to Zen. I liked the ritual, the incense and the bells. Just something resonated. And one day a friend of mine gave me a copy of the book by Alan Watts. And that just did it. I got the phone book, looked up Zen, and ended up at the New York City Zen Center with Reverend Nakajima, which is where I met Dan Layton. We did our first sesheen together. And he went on to bigger and better things. I went to the householder route. But that was it, sesheen. And I just loved it. It was just... And that was, you know, once you get the bug, you're done. And so I followed that. Then came moving to Brattleboro area.

[70:45]

I had a craft business with my ex. We had a daughter. And somehow we developed or going through a divorce, I found out there was a Zen group in Brattleboro that I hooked into. That was a very vibrant community. Brattleboro has been like a healing place for a long time. Back in the 1800s, it had water cure, people coming up for the city for the water cure, the Brattleboro retreat, insane asylum, one of the first places in the country for humane treatment. It wasn't very much humane from our point of view, but back then people were just locked up in the barn and beaten. So this was humane treatment. And we had a pretty vital group here. We had Barbara Cohen. Somehow I got in touch with her. She had relatives, I think, up north. So she stopped by a couple of times and gave a Dharma talk.

[71:46]

And we had Ankyo Roshi came up and gave a Dharma talk at one point. Change Your Mind Day, if you remember that whole thing. So we were – it was very – we had a good thing going. And that slowly, slowly dissipated with that small little Zen group. It ended up with three or four of us. We've sat for 25 years once a week. Meanwhile, other people, Claire and Jack from On Insight or from Barry, they started – they tried to pull everybody together. They just went for it and said, we're going to – grow or go, and they started the Vermont Insight Meditation Center, which is what I'm part of now. We've been around for like 16 years. Oh, nice. And we've got our own place. We've got a hybrid thing going. We have people sitting. We have daily sitting and people Zooming in. And here I am. So I'm trying to straddle the...

[72:51]

And that Haku show as I've told you and always trying to kind of straddle the Mahayana and Vata and just what's what, what's the difference? Where do I stand? I mean, everything seems to be coming, getting hybrid these days anyway, so I don't know. So and then. I did some time out in San Francisco Zen Center in intensive, met Tia, worked with her for a while. And here I am. Great. Good to have you here. Found this and coming here and loving the talks and the whole deal. Great. Well, it's good to have you. That's the story. Thank you for your story. Okay, well, if you'd like to go on to gallery view and unmute, we can say good night.

[73:55]

Yeah, I went on gallery view. Good night. Good night, Phu. Welcome back. Thank you, Phu. Welcome back. Thank you, everybody. Great to see everyone again. Good to see you. I hope you and Karina feel better. Thank you. I do, too. Bye-bye. Take care. Be well. Bye. See you next time. Yes, good. Feel better, both of you. Thank you. Thank you. Bye-bye.

[74:35]

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