This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good evening. Tonight I wanted to talk to you again, those of you who were here before, about a little section of the Genjo Koan, which we chant. We chant this section about once every 10 days. Tonight's section is, when you ride in a boat and watch the shore, you might assume that the shore is moving. But when you keep your eyes closely on the boat and you can see that the boat moves.

[01:00]

Similarly, if you examine myriad things with a confused body and mind, you might suppose that your mind and nature are permanent. When you practice intimately and return to where you are, it will be clear that nothing at all has unchanging self. So, it's kind of a quaint example. When you ride in a boat and watch the shore, you might assume that the shore is moving. You know, a lot of us don't ride in boats anymore. I guess a lot of people never rode in boats. I was thinking, well, you know, we ride in cars. And when we look out, it's true. We know that feeling of the world is moving by, right? I mean, we know we're moving because we know cars very well. We get in them, we know the car is moving, but we all know that. feeling of, oh, it looks like the world is moving by.

[02:03]

And it's really a kind of more poetic and calmer feeling to think about the boat and the shore. If you're riding on a boat and you watch the shore, you might think that the shore is moving. But if you bring your attention, your eyes back to the boat, you can see, oh, the boat is moving. Maybe the shore is moving too, but the boat is moving. And then he goes on to say, similarly, if we examine myriad things with a confused body and mind, we might assume that our own body and mind are permanent. So this is our normal state of mind. I think if you think about it, for most people, there may be a few people who actually are settled in, focused on themselves.

[03:07]

But most of us, even if we look, we're definitely self-concerned. We definitely care what's going on with myself. But our antenna, our attention is really kind of out there. watching what's going on, you know, examining myriad things with a confused body and mind. We're looking, we have this sort of sense that we don't really feel that we can necessarily trust ourselves or that we don't need to watch what we're doing. We do keep an eye on what we're doing too. But I think we sort of assume at least what's over here is on my side. But I have to watch everything else and see as Okamura, Shoaka Okamura says, let's see, he has a great phrase for it. We try to find the underlying principle of the change.

[04:09]

We look out and we see that change is happening. And we try to find the underlying principle of that change so that we can control it. So... think most of us feel like, you know, in the morning I get up and I'm still me. I went to bed, I'll go to bed tonight, and then I'll get up tomorrow, and I'll be me, and then things will happen. And I'll respond to those, of course. You know, I'll change in response to those, but basically there's me, and then things will happen. You know, that person might be in a good mood or a bad mood, and You know, that Tenzel will decide to have something for breakfast, and it'll either be a good thing or a bad thing. At least I'll like it or I won't like it. So these things, this change is going on around us. Maybe it'll be a hotter day tomorrow. Maybe it'll be a cooler day tomorrow.

[05:10]

Things will happen. And so we are examining these things, looking for the underlying principle... There are a lot of different underlying principles to see, can I turn them my way? Can I respond to them in a way or control them in a way that makes them a positive thing for me, or at least not a very un-positive thing, a very negative thing for me, a very painful thing for me. So we're spending a lot of energy doing that. And Dogen says this is a confused body and mind, that we're in some ways distracted by all that that's happening out there. And he suggests that we try this different thing, which could be called zazen, but it also can be done in other situations than sitting in the zendo.

[06:11]

But it does... It entails some degree anyway of something like stillness. Anyway, he describes it as practice intimately and return to where we are. So come back to this being that we're so concerned with and be there. Turn our attention here and practice intimately with that and see what we see then. So if we just imagine for a moment doing that, maybe start with our normal state of mind, you know, like, here's me, and things are happening. You know, Leslie's talking, it's getting hotter in here. There's a cricket. I think that's a cricket. There's no earthquake happening right now. Things are happening, right?

[07:12]

And... And our attention is out there. Now try to practice intimately. Return to where you are. So there's a kind of stopping. Not doing for a moment. Even though you weren't doing very much before that. You're just sitting here. But still. Doing less. Coming back. being still, but it's not really still, is it? That cricket is still going on. Probably there are things happening in you. Probably there are thoughts. Probably there are sensations. You know, your dinner's in there, doing what it does. Yeah. there may be just a kind of pulsing that we can get in touch with, you know, being in touch with the pulsing of our life.

[08:21]

And if we do that, if we do that in different situations, we see that it's a very connected thing, this thing called my life. You know, it's not there's me and then things happen. There's a happening. The 60s have been so useful. There's a happening happening, you know. And I happen to be the center of my happening, and you happen to be the center of your happening, which extends, you know, as far as it can extend. But we can actually feel that. We don't... necessarily feel all of it. In fact, we can't feel all of it. The point of this is not for us to know for sure what's happening. That's not one of the possibilities. But we can be in touch with this pulse of our life.

[09:28]

We can feel the connectedness of it. We can feel the mutualness of it. we can feel that nothing has unchanging self, that it's all changing, it's all flowing. A couple of weeks ago, we showed the documentary here, States of Grace. So a lot of you saw that, and those of you who weren't here, maybe you have seen it. It's a documentary about a wonderful woman who's been practicing Zen for... some years. She's a doctor and she was eight years ago. In 2008, I think. In 2008, she was in a head-on collision on the Golden Gate Bridge and was severely damaged by it. But did live, was in a coma for a while and then came out of the coma and the documentary is about her and her partner and her daughter's life and how they

[10:35]

dealt with that and what she's and again now she's still she's very damaged had a lot of operations and still has a lot of pain but is working as a doctor again and still really struggling with her life but nonetheless living very fully and she said several times in the movie and it really struck me how as she was really having trouble with you know, being a person that she didn't want to be. At one point she said, I've been a fucking patient for... I don't forget how long she said that. She's this doctor, you know, who takes care of patients. I have to start doctoring again. I've been a fucking patient for... Because if patients, you know, were really the worst thing in the world. And she liked that one in the movie. Anyway, she said several times, I think twice in the movie, she said... that what was what saved her in a particular moment or as she was struggling with it she said but I know everything changes but I know everything changes and I thought oh such a different point of view you know when life is pretty good change is a kind of dangerous thing you know I mean we want

[12:05]

some amount of change but not a lot not that amount of change you know she just had like this huge amount of change in her life and now the fact that everything changes is her her hope you know it's like even though I feel horrible right now even though I want my life to end right now I know everything changes I know there will be happy... I don't know, actually. I don't know what there will be, but I know it won't be just like this, which is so miserable right now. It was very interesting to me to hear her perspective on change, that it was such a life-saving event. I just came back from a trip to San Francisco and Green Gulch Farm, and... Several things in that trip helped me feel this pulsing of our life or, you know, be more in touch with the way our life flows.

[13:19]

I saw two good friends, one whose mother had just died in her 90s. She's about my age and her mother had just died. And the other one whose husband had just died. And... each of them talked to me about what that was like and what it continued to be like for them. And that's the kind of moment when we really feel, we can feel, anyway, if we can not be too distracted by examining myriad things with a confused body and mind, if we can come back and practice intimately, We can feel that pulsing in our life. Our parents, we expect them to die before us, and her mother was in her 90s. It was clearly the right time for this to happen, and yet there can be a kind of feeling of being cut loose from our moorings.

[14:29]

People often say, especially when their second parent dies, if they've had two parents, that they feel unmoored, ungrounded from what has connected them. And that feeling of being not connected in the way that we have imagined being connected can let us feel this flow of our lives and our parents' lives. What was their life? How did it move along, and how does that flow into ours? And then to have your spouse die, you know, who can imagine this? If you have a living spouse, it's like your life, right? Like her life died. Her life died, you know, and I couldn't help but think, you know, so if Keith dies before me, what could that be like? to have my life, talk about unmoored, to be cut free and find out, you know, how is this boat floating, you know, is the shore floating also at that point?

[15:52]

It feels pretty much like, you know, the whole world is floating. And then I also saw... Blanche Hartman, and I wanted to just tell you about that visit. There's been some confusion going on in Zen Center about what's happening with Blanche. So Blanche is 89, and she was Zen Center's first woman abbess some years ago, and she did that when she was in her 70s. She's like one of the most energetic people you can imagine. She has been. She's just, you know, go, go, go, and... full of love. She's a sewing teacher, so she sews these robes and helps people sew these robes and has taught people to sew them. And she's now been in a care center for a while. She's been living in the city center building and fell a couple of times and has been in the care center. We've been assuming that she would come back to city center, but lately she isn't really getting out of bed

[16:57]

And she says her energy is just really much, much less. When I was there, before I went to see her, I was told that an announcement had been made, and then I saw the main communicator for her. He said that she had decided to stop eating and stop taking her medicine. However, she decided to stop eating, and then she said to him, I don't know if I really want to stop eating. And he said, you can make this decision every meal. You don't have to make, like, a big decision. I'm going to stop eating or I'm not going to stop eating. If you feel like eating some meal, just eat it, and if you don't feel like eating, don't eat it. So... So it was, and she's thinking about maybe moving from, she doesn't think she's ever going to be able to come back to Zen Center because, like I say, now she's not really getting out of bed.

[18:05]

And if she does, I think she's afraid of falling again. So she's looking into whether there's a spot in the Zen hospice, you know, just across the street. Where she is now is just like five minutes, five-minute walk from Zen Center. So a lot of people are going to see her, but she has less energy and they're making the visits shorter and scheduling them shorter and all. So I walked over to see her, and when I got there, they try to really schedule it, so there's one person there at a time, and they don't last for so long. But when I got there, two of my best friends had signed in two minutes before me. For those of you who know them, Linda Ruth Cutts and Susan O'Connell, who were also supposed to be at the meeting I was at that got canceled so we could all go see Blanche. LAUGHTER but they didn't sign up, and I did. But I went up, and they let me come in, too, and we all sat there, and we're talking with her, and I said, so Blanche, I heard you were thinking of going over to the hospice, and she said, well, I'm thinking about it, but I'm waiting for more diagnosis.

[19:12]

I was like, okay, good. Not trying to push you over there at all, you know. But she was very calm, very loving, and Linda... kept asking her really good questions like she said you know what's it like what's it like for you right now you you seem so calm and you know present totally present and um and she said well i just i feel so much less energy and uh her husband was about nine years older and died not so long ago uh and she said when lou when lou was dying he asked me whether I would let him go. Could I let him go? And we said, well, what did you say? And she said, well, I knew that really I didn't have any choice, you know, that even if I said no, he was going to go anyway, and that really it was better for him if I said yes.

[20:12]

Of course, if it's time for you to go, you can go. So Linda said to her, so is there anyone who you feel like is holding you from going? And she closed her eyes and she thought and she said, those great grandkids, did you see them when they were here just the other day? She said, that youngest one, did you see him? He was like, yes, yes. He was so bright-eyed and just everything was like, hi, this is great. She said, the little girl, she's more like she knows everything and she's great too, but she's telling you all about it. But this one was just like... I guess that's holding me a little bit. And then, let's see, what else did she say? Anyway, we talked about various things. The last time I was there, she and I, I reminded her that we had sung this song, which she used to sing all the time.

[21:15]

She used to sing it in any skit nights that we had. Maybe some of you have heard this. and I can't remember it well enough to sing it, and she can't now either, but she remembered a little bit. She calls it Lovely Zazen Legs, because Blanche would sit full lotus forever. Anyway, it goes to the tune of Lovely Hula Hands. Lovely hula hands, lovely... Lovely Zazen Legs, lovely Zazen Legs, I love you. Allowing me to sit... Four hours. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Lovely zas and legs. So she sang a little bit. Anyway, eventually, let's see, what else did we ask her? Whether she had anything to teach us, whether she wanted to say anything, and basically she just said, you know...

[22:19]

The most important thing is love. Just love everything that you can. Love it. So I wanted to tell you because these rumors are not going around. Blanche is going into hospice. Blanche is stopping eating. I think it's not that clear. Later that day, I was at Green Gulch and visiting with Kathy Early, had been to see Blanche and we were talking about it and she said yes when she had been there a couple of times and the first time Blanche was, you know, feeling really grouchy about, you know, really wanting to go home and feeling really grouchy about it was taking so long and then, you know, would remember that she really wanted to practice with this and how was she going to be, you know, not so upset about it and really, you know, practice intimately and come to where she was, deal with the change in her life and be present with it.

[23:24]

And Kathy said then the next time she went, which was just a day or so ago, that she felt like Blanche had really done that. That calmness that we were feeling really was that, that she was very present and had sort of accepted her situation and... Kathy said, and I feel like Blanche may have let go of her body, but I don't feel like her body has let go of her yet. And that's how it felt, really. It was like, okay, she may be ready to die, although I'm sure she'll go through more, you know, ups and downs and feelings and thoughts about it. But it doesn't really feel like, you know, like she's ready to go yet. I could be wrong, but... There's a lot of vitality still there, even though, she says, I just don't have any energy. But, you know, for Blanche, no energy. It could be very different than for a lot of us.

[24:29]

So that's another situation where we can feel the pulse of our life. But we don't have to wait until that time. We can... We can do it now. We can do it in the middle of a busy day, although it's a little trickier than, you know, if you're just sitting here and we practice intimately, we come back to where we are and we feel that connectedness. We feel that connectedness of change, you know, that things are moving, are interacting, are functioning, and that we're part of that, and that we can... We don't have to, maybe this is a step further, but we can check this out, we don't have to examine myriad things with the intent of finding the underlying principle of their change and controlling it, making sure that things go our way.

[25:34]

We actually can ride on the change and respond to it. And we can do that in the midst of our busy life, as I started to say, but it is a little harder to do, but it's well worth it to, in the midst of anything you're doing, to take a moment and really come back. Find yourself. Come to where we are. Practice intimately there and feel that it isn't something we have to figure out. You know, what is it that's going on now? How am I responding to this, that, and the other? It's more just settling, just settling into it. So I wanted to read you a poem. When a cloud flies, the moon moves.

[26:43]

When a boat sails, the shore drifts. The flying of a cloud is beyond east, west, north, and south. The moving of the moon is ceaseless day and night, past and present. Having arrived directly now, we are filled up and not hungry. I'll read that one more time. When a cloud flies, the moon moves. When a boat sails, the shore drifts. The flying of a cloud is beyond east, west, north, and south. The moving of the moon is ceaseless day and night, past and present. Having arrived directly now, We are filled up and not hungry.

[27:45]

This poem expresses that same, you know, inner, active, completely connected movement that we're all involved in, that we can actually rest on and participate in, in some not so... manipulative way is the way we usually feel like we have to decide and control ourselves and our lives. Let's see what we're doing for time. Does anyone have any thoughts or questions? That is, do we overthink everything too much?

[28:50]

Almost certainly, yes. But we do have minds, you know, and we want to have minds. And we don't know how we would be without minds. So, yes, we do overthink, but we could also overthink overthinking. So, it's, you know, it's probably... better just to let your mind think and not take it too seriously. You know, not to worry too much about how am I going to stop overthinking things. Just, like, come back to yourself and notice, whoa, there is a lot of thinking going on. In a way, that's a lot of what zazen is. You sit down and you're like, oh my gosh, I think I might be crazy. And then, you know, you hear other people have this same experience and that's somewhat comforting. And over time, you can see, oh, you know, I'm thinking things I don't even believe, and I'm getting myself all worked up about it.

[29:51]

So you can start to have a little perspective, I think. Of course it has some other uses than that too, but there is a lot of it that's just over. Thank you. I just thought I'd mention that Blanche Hartman Roshi, the first female avid of San Francisco Center, but also she's the founder of the Austin Center. Oh, thank you. The founder. Go ahead. I was just going to say, so the women lineage is actually now tied into being chanted at the Austin Center. So we chant her name every morning. interesting you chant it with the women lineage or with our regular the regular call great thank you Austin anything else before we stop give you just a minute to think yes Mary

[31:07]

to say this, but my sense of Blanche recently is that it feels to me like she's in the process, this may sound, I don't know, anyway, that she's in the process of renouncing the life principle. You know, the nirvana secret says that Buddha renounced the life principle. There's something sad about her, but there's also some way in which she's left with something. Yes. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, maybe hard, but also it was really beautiful, you know? I mean, she, like I say, probably she goes through different stages of it. But when we were there, I mean, she was entertained. All three of us were there. So I'm sure she wasn't feeling, you know, some sadness and fear that we all probably felt. feel around our waning life force yes it's sad for me yes it's sad for you it's sad for mary to watch and i didn't mean to be arguing with mary about that i was just saying there also i felt when i was there not so sad i felt so inspired really by her leadership her continued leadership

[32:35]

Thank you all very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered free of charge, 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.

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