Thank you. Good evening, everybody. I'm like fiddling with my mic and drinking water and thinking I wonder how much of the 45 minutes I can just spend sort of faffing with things.

[01:30]

That'll get me through. So since I last sat here a couple of weeks ago, And I think I mentioned then that I was rather hoping to discover the secret to not feeling nervous before coming up here. And just to give you an update, still haven't figured it out, but working on it. And you'll be the first to know if I do. But thank you all. Really thank you to the whole community for the support and the encouragement. that I feel like I've received and that you give to one another in this space. Thank you to Paul for inviting me to be here and for your support.

[02:32]

So something I've been... doing in the run-up to this practice period and during the practice period is making contact with other people who've been chouseaus before, who've been in this role of chouseau and trying to get everything I can out of them to have some idea of what was ahead. any advice they could give me, especially around the Dharma talks and, you know, not just chusos, but mentors and teachers also. And sort of one message that has come back to me pretty loud and clear, you know, I've heard again and again, don't worry, just be yourself, you know, just be yourself, be yourself. Those two words to me, I don't know how it is for you, but those two words for me sort of open a gate of so many questions that follow on from that. What does that mean?

[03:44]

On the surface of things, I can have some idea maybe of what being myself might mean. I might come here, be aware that I'm trying to put on some airs and graces, but, you know, truly presenting as myself. And so originally when I was preparing this talk, I was kind of looking to all sorts of, like, teachings and the Dharma and texts and, you know, what can I bring to support this? And it seemed that, you know, really the way to approach this that stays the truest to the advice that I've received is... just to bring where I am and what I'm feeling in this moment. I think it's really helpful to share our difficulties.

[04:49]

I think that we have a kind of an instinct about that as people, You know, as humans, we ask each other so many times during the day, you know, how are you doing? How are you doing? You know, what's going on for you? And often we'll just, if you're me, often you'll just say, I'm fine, I'm fine, everything's great, I'm good. And then, so a lot of people have asked me that like in the last few weeks, I suppose, because, you know, we've come in new to the Zen Center, you know, learning a lot of things, plus stepping into this role. So a lot of people have very sweetly kind of checked in with me and, you know, how are you doing? And, you know, it's probably a lot of responsibility. And I said, oh, you know, it's all fine. And then once, one day somebody said to me, you know, we had this exchange and then they looked a bit disappointed and they said, um,

[05:56]

I was kind of fishing for a complaint there, actually. I was kind of hoping you might complain about something. I think the way that we share our difficulties together can be really energising for receiving as well, receiving from one another. If we are able to share that, to reveal something which is difficult for us. So I'll file a complaint this evening. I'll approach the complaint. It's hard for me because my personality is a little bit like I like to look at the bright side of things sort of compulsively, maybe a little bit too much. Sometimes I sweep the things that are difficult under the rug a bit. So, you know, what is the most challenging thing right now?

[07:00]

Um, so I get asked a lot, people say, oh, how's cleaning the toilets and how's doing the wake up bell? And that's all fine. That really is genuinely like quite enjoyable. And, uh, we just started the Shuso teas this week and this is wonderful, like really delightful. But the hard thing for me is, is sitting up here and speaking. This is, uh, this is probably the most challenging bit. Um, I don't know if it's a full complaint exactly, but I'll share that it's difficult. I'll share that it's challenging. And it probably goes back to what I was saying about my difficulty to really understand for myself what this idea about being yourself is. really is, you know, what is it to be myself? So because I'm realizing that that's kind of difficult for me to understand, then it's kind of difficult for me to get up here and talk as well.

[08:13]

There's a feeling of not being ready. It's very strong. And so that kind of plays in on confidence too. And whenever I think of confidence, I think back to somebody I knew when I was at art school. I was a student. And there was somebody who was a mature student there. He was an older person. And while sort of the rest of us young people were all experimenting with different media and not quite sure what we were doing and doing one thing one week and the next thing the next week, this person just had this... whole body of work that they were already doing. And they were sort of so sure of themselves and they were already having exhibitions and not really sure why they were even at art school, honestly. And I said to him, you know, I said, you know, you just seem so confident. And he had this huge smile, these lovely bright eyes.

[09:19]

And he said, it's a trick. He said, confidence is a trick. You know, it's a trick. You just learn, you learn tricks. And I thought, maybe to some extent I could see that. You know, that could be tricks. And so in my practice, I think what I've been trying to do is put down some of those tricks. You know, what does it feel like to put down some of those tricks? My big challenge tonight was... to show up with just this one little piece of paper and not what I would like, which is like a whole file full of, like, you know, quotes and sutras and things that I could quote to sound sort of clever and meaningful. This would have been my trick. So I'm really grateful to be in this role.

[10:33]

I'm discovering it as I go. I would wish it for everybody here, you know, to experience like every corner of practice. When this Shuso role began, for those of you who weren't here, it begins with a ceremony, the Shuso entering ceremony it's called. And for those of you who've never seen it, it's kind of like a drama. You know, it's something that's kind of acted out and it's scripted. And it goes something like that the student is asked if they'd like to be chouseau. And they say, oh, absolutely not. No way. Like, this responsibility is too great for me. And there's a way that it's kind of physically plotted, like downstairs in the Zendo, where this student is kind of physically sort of pinned in by all the senior Dharma teachers who just kind of ask again.

[11:39]

And the Shuso says no many times, the potential Shuso, the student says no many times. And then in response, the teacher responds in an appropriate and encouraging way. So the Shuso says things like, you know, I'm not ready. I'm not ready yet. I don't feel ready. And this responsibility feels too great. And the teacher says, you know, but who's... Something along the lines of, but who's ready? You know, when could we ever be ready? And, you know, please, please come. Please join us. And then something happens when the student in this scene, in the script, just kind of flips and says... okay okay I'll do it you know I'll try I let me help you please let me help you let me come in and help you and I thought this is so so curious I mean first of all like acting this out because I was feeling it you know I was really feeling it like I'm I'm not ready could what would ready be

[12:50]

You know, let me just, like, read the Shobagenzo a couple more times. Yeah, just cover to cover. You know, maybe then I'll be ready. Or, you know, give me another, like, 10 years or something. Maybe then I'll be ready. So what is it that happened? Like, I'm so curious. What is it that happens when there's, like, a change of heart and a change of mind? And this character goes from saying, oh, you know, No, to yes. Let's try. Let's go forward. Let's take this step. So I've been making a little study of myself about readiness. Like I've been thinking a lot about this word and the state. and how it feels to not feel ready and then to feel ready.

[13:52]

And what does that mean? What do I do? What do we do? What does any of us do when we don't feel ready? I think there's all kinds of different responses. There's like evasion, you know, like, oh, just see if I can run this one out or maybe putting something off. Maybe I'll just put this off for a little while and then this time next week I'll feel better about it. Or a year from now, maybe something will change. Or it happens sometimes and maybe you're the kind of personality who throws caution to the wind and just charges directly at the thing you're afraid of, like a warrior swinging your axe, battle cries... This is another approach, I suppose. I know that for myself, I kind of get like a sort of a sinking feeling, like a sort of a shrinking feeling.

[15:02]

And one of the things that I often feel that I need in order to be ready to face something is, like, information. You know, like, I need to know. If I just, like, read up on this, then I'll know, you know. I'll be... I'll have more expertise. And so this was funny. This made me laugh the other day. I was looking online, and this, like, clickbait sort of article came up for me. you know, clickbait, or my daughter calls it brain rot. You know, when something's, that's what the young people call it now, it's like brain rot. I came across some brain rot where it was quite an interesting, I don't know if it's true, but they said that the clickbait was, the title was, here's a riddle that like 95% of Harvard graduates can't solve, but kids can, right?

[16:12]

I know some of you are like smiling, but you've come across the same thing. So I was like, ooh. Like, I wonder if this would be interesting. I wonder what this could teach me. So I clicked on it, and somebody somewhere got a dollar, I'm sure. And it went something like this. This is why it made me laugh. So they sort of put out this riddle. And it's like impossible. It's something like... I am why polar bears are white, and I am why women comb their hair, and I'm why grandmothers wear green on a Sunday or something. And they give all these sort of bizarre clues. And then at the end it says, and can you solve this riddle? And they're like, oh, kindergartners all get this right, you know, and really smart people don't know where to start. And so the answer was, no, you can't solve the riddle. Like, that was the answer, you know? And I was like, of course. Like, that's what my daughter would say, you know? Like, that's the most, like, obvious response.

[17:16]

It's right here. Like, it's the most honest response. And it's right here. And sometimes it feels like it's the most difficult place to get to. To be so simple. in your approach, you know, to kind of not kind of get caught up in, you know, that this is so difficult. I have to figure it out somehow. I have to figure it out using my brain and everything I've ever learned. So I would say that Being in this role for these few weeks is teaching me about readiness. I guess that's where I'm going with all of this. It's teaching me about readiness and the field of readiness, whether there's lack or whether there is readiness present.

[18:24]

What does it mean to be ready? And then I also have trained as and worked as a chaplain. you know, in a hospital. And I thought back to that process, like that process of training and what that taught me about readiness. And it felt very similar in a way. When young, sort of fresh chaplaincy students enter a hospital and then within... After a very short period of onboarding, they kind of get sent straight out onto the floors, you know, to visit people who might be going through something very, very life-changing, life-ending, you know, serious and very serious emotions and grief and, you know, all sorts of things. And I remember kind of walking through the hospital corridors on my way to my first few visits just thinking, how?

[19:26]

how do I show up for this? I haven't read enough books. I need, wait, [...] before this starts, you know, let me just go get my certificate in grief counselling and, you know, let me just go and do this and let me go and do that. But there was something about the support we received and the confidence that our teachers, our educators put into us, gave to us, that really sort of allowed us to feel... that there wasn't necessarily anything that we needed to know, like know, before we went in. You know, they would say, you already have what you need. You already have everything. You already have everything. And then I'd be like, really? Then why do we train? You know, why do we spend years doing this? Why do chaplains spend years and years training and specialising and certifying?

[20:32]

Why do Zen students, if we're already perfect, spend so many years, all our lives, in this sincere practice? So during my time at the hospital, I remember one of the encounters that really stands out to me was I was working as an on-call chaplain that day and I was called to the emergency room to talk to a woman. I'd been told that her husband had passed away. They were an older couple and he died very suddenly from a stroke. And I'd also been told that the woman did not yet know that her husband had died because in the hospital, the way it works is that the attending doctor has to be the person to break the news. But they also said, but this woman's all on her own and she needs someone to sit with her.

[21:40]

So can you go and sit with her? So I was walking into this space, you know, knowing this huge deal that this woman didn't know. And this, you know, it was, you can imagine... difficult but then she started to she started to catch on and she felt that something was wrong and she felt something had happened and she you know we we ended up you know get getting to the getting to the truth of the situation and her grief was very strong very sudden you know very sharp and I had this feeling of you know just uselessness, you know, what can I do, what can I say, what could anybody say in this moment? I felt it so strongly I began to take it personally, you know, I was actually thinking of myself more than I was of this person because I just kept beating myself up that I couldn't do more, you know, that I couldn't help her in the moment.

[22:44]

And I left eventually, you know, when the doctors came, I left and I didn't feel great about that situation. And then a few hours later, a colleague of mine who'd also met with a woman came to me and said, oh, you know, just so you know, I just met with this lady you met with earlier. And she expressed great appreciation for the chaplain that had been with her. She said this was really helpful for her that the chaplain was there. And I just thought, it's beyond me. It's beyond anything that I did or that I could have offered. There was something else going on there. And then the darkly funny end to that story is that the next day, another one of my colleagues gave me a call and said... could you call this lady? And it was the same lady. She said her husband just died yesterday and she said she wasn't visited by anyone from spiritual care. So that's how it goes sometimes.

[23:52]

I was confusing, I think, and I often confuse this desire, this urge to be helpful, or to be knowledgeable, you know, to have some kind of expertise. And I confuse that with maybe just bringing my whole heart into the situation and allowing whatever needs to unfold to unfold and trusting that. And being kind with that. I have another story. When my husband and I were getting married, there was a little boy who was the son of a friend of mine.

[24:59]

And he was very small. He must have been, I don't know, maybe three years old at the time. Very little. So we thought the best job that we could ask him to do would be to throw, I think we had little flowers or something or rice or whatever it was, and to throw that in the air as we went past. And he was like, okay, he was very excited to do this job, sure. So when the moment came, I remember so clearly he was standing right next to me and he pulled this handful of flowers or rice out of the little box. And then he was doing this. He couldn't figure out how to open his hand and put his arm in the air at the same time. It was just impossible. And he just kept saying, I can't do it. I can't do it. And I think his mum was saying to him, now's the moment, do it. And he was like, I can't do it.

[26:01]

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