This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. I have a picture in my mind of a relationship between this time of year which we sometimes call autumn or fall. So the time of year, autumn, fall, and grieving, sadness, and entry into the truth. which liberates beings when it's entered and brings happiness to beings in the autumn it seems like the trees

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surrender their leaves to the wind and gravity they surrender their fruits suits the fruits fall and offer themselves and many human beings also fall in the fall many human beings die in the fall. Our mind has, in every moment, our mind has, you know, four seasons. It has a spring and a summer and a fall and a winter. I begin now to talk about the fall of our mind fall of our life our life which is flowing through the seasons a life which is constantly flowing and changing

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we live in this flow we are immersed in this flow but if we cling to anything in the flow we don't realize our immersion when we live in the midst of change and we clean change we we we tend to interpret change often as loss when we hold on to something in the flow and it changes we we feel like we lost it or it was taken from us there's an expression I'm sorry for your loss that we say to people who who might be experiencing that they lost something or someone who they love very much.

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I always have trouble saying sorry for your loss. I am sorry that people think that they lose things. I'm sorry about that because I know that when you think you lose something that you love, that you have loved and you still love, it's painful if we can find a way to live in the change where gifts are given to us and we give them back or we pass them on we don't live in the world anymore of gain and loss we live in the world of gift and giving of giving and giving And then any pain involved is the greatest pleasure. It's not the pleasure of loss.

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It's not the pain of loss. It's the pain of generosity. Generosity is so joyful, it almost hurts. It kind of hurts. It's so exquisite. Our body and mind can hardly... than the intensity of the joy of the flow when we don't grasp. If we can deeply grieve we can enter the great teachings of the Buddhas realize the truth and benefit all beings. Eyes of compassion observe all living beings flowing.

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Eyes of compassion observe all living beings changing and Eyes of compassion do not cling to the sentient beings which they contemplate with compassion. And this way of being with the flowing of living beings creates an ocean of blessing and happiness and virtue with no limit. How can we have this heart and eyes of compassion for all beings with no clinging. By grieving. By sadness. And each of us needs to look in our heart and mind and learn the difference between depression and grieving.

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In grieving, we're opening to a feeling which is medicine. We're surrendering. We are surrendering. We're not fighting it. We're not resisting it. We're surrendering. We're descending into process of change we're opening to this offering of sadness and grief and by descending into this sadness and grief we descend into the true nature of all phenomena by being able to accept deeply accept the autumnal mind

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the mind which is falling down, the mind which is letting go and surrendering, by accepting this mind, this aspect of mind, we warm up to accepting that all phenomena are abysmal. All phenomena have no bottom. They're bottomless and sideless and topless. Well, they actually have a top. That's what we see. That's how we find them at first, by their top, by their surface. And when we meet the surface, grief may come to us in the fall. if we open to the grief we go deeply down below the surface of things and we never reach the bottom and if we become afraid as we descend grief if you can open to the grief the opening to the grief will help us continue to go deeper even though there's fear

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Usually, often, usually, we human beings use forms. We human beings use forms to conceal the truth. We are addicted generally to using forms to cover the vast emptiness of all things we are afflicted by using and we are addicted to using colors sounds and smells and tastes even in the autumn we are addicted and afflicted by using the color of the maple tree to disguise the void of the maple tree using the colors in this way we are afflicted not by the colors but by the using of them to obscure the truth the truth which we are have difficulty facing the truth of the bottomlessness

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red and brown and yellow the bottomlessness of the warm autumn air we use forms this way and we are addicted to using this way and we are afflicted by using in this way we use feelings this way we use ideas this way And we use ideas for the colors to use them to conceal. And we use ideas for the sounds and the smells and the tastes. But there's a medicine for this. A medicine of letting go. Of surrendering. Surrender to the color. Surrendering to the color. Surrender to the sound. let go while you're looking at the color look at the color until you let go surrender to the feeling surrender to the idea until you let go of the idea and enter but this letting go is is a sad thing we feel sadness and the sadness is because is to help us to show us something to open to we open to the color we think

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But if we don't open to the color, sadness comes and says, take me too. You're not really opening to this color. You're still resisting it. You're still using the color to cover the void. And it sweetly says that to us. It's not harsh. It sweetly says, use me. open to me, surrender to me. And then you'll be able to surrender to the colors and the feelings. Then you'll be able to stop using them to hide the vastness of things. If we can surrender to the grief and the sadness, we can surrender to the emptiness, to the ultimate truth of things. Realize liberation. and create an ocean of happiness for all beings. I almost memorized this poem, but not quite.

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It's called Two Autumn. And I think, oh, it's too autumn. This isn't really autumn. This is too autumn. This is John Keats praying to autumn. This is John Keats who's dying himself. Like 25 or 26 years old, dying. And he's addressing autumn. season of mists and mellow fruitfulness close bosom friend of the maturing sun conspiring with him how to load and bless with fruit the vines that round the thatch eaves run to bend with apples

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the mossed garden trees and fill all fruit with ripeness to the core to swell the gourd and plump the hazel shells with a sweet kernel to set budding more and still more the later flowers for the bees until they think warm days will never cease for summers over brimmed their clammy shells. Who has not seen thee oft amid thy store? Who has not seen thee oft amid thy store? Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find thee sitting careless on a granary floor, thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind, or on a half-reaped furrow, sound asleep, drowsed by the foom of poppies, while thy hook

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bears the next swath with all its twisted flowers. And sometimes, like a gleaner, thou dost keep steady thy laden head across a brook, or by a cider press, which with patient look thou watchest the last oozings hour by hours. Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they? Think not of them. Thou hast thy music too. While varied clouds bloom the soft dying day

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and the touch and touch the stubble plains with rosy hue. Then, in a wailful choir, the small gnats mourn among the river sallows, born aloft or sinking as the light wind lives or dies. And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly born hedge crickets sing and now with treble soft the red breast whistles from the garden croft and gathering swallows twitter in the sky rise or sinking with the light winds, life for death.

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Aye, ye have your music too. there is springtime music and we will be ready for it if we completely grieve if we're not done grieving we're not yet ready for the mind of winter the mind of snow the mind which has nothing to do which isn't using anything to cover the truth. And then we will be ready for the glorious spring of happiness, for the happiness of spring.

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And if we cling to spring at all, we will be afflicted through the summer and the spring but autumn will come and offer us a chance to surrender every moment offers us an opportunity to surrender and in that surrender we will enter, we can enter deeply the truth of all things. I was looking in one of my notebooks for this poem to autumn, and I found a card that someone sent me.

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And then the card has two colorful boxes on it, placed horizontally. In one box, it has what looks like somebody wearing a shoe and very colorful socks. kind of a skinny leg with colorful socks and a shoe, and the leg is bending forward as though it was the back foot in walking. And then in the next picture, there's another foot which is leaning backwards as though it went with the front foot. It also has bright-colored socks on. Under the first box it says, departing the realm of misery. And in the other box is labeled, entering the realm of happiness and freedom.

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And between the two pictures, there's a space. which the person who made the card decided to label. But I just did too, didn't I? I told you there was a space. There was a void between the realm of misery and the realm of happiness. There's a void. The way the person who labeled it was, They called it the realm of the space of unknowing. So there's a void of knowing. In the transition from misery to happiness, there is a void of unknowing. There is a giving up.

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There's a handing over. There's a forfeiting. There's a giving away of knowing. We don't get to take knowing with us when we surrender. Are you ready to surrender? Surrender your knowing. Check your knowing at the door. Hand it over. Okay, here's my knowing. But as we start to give over our knowing, we start to feel sadness and grief. If we open to the sadness, we can forfeit everything. knowledge which were grasping but we may this is a process of dying into the space we have to enter on our way from birth and death to freedom and benefit of all beings and then our path our great vehicle path is to enter the realm of suffering again which is springtime

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A new life comes with new clinging and new sorrows. And then we surrender in that realm and move into a new space and so on. Also, along in that same notebook, right next to this picture of the transition from the realm of using... the realm of using, to the realm of freedom from using, and next to that was another little thing which somebody sent me in the mail with a daily planner, and it was 10 ways to control your time. I didn't bring that with me though, so I don't know what they are, but anyway, Basically, you could say 10 ways to control spring, summer, and fall.

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10 ways to control your death. So I'm talking today about giving up the 10 ways of controlling your time. I'm talking about surrender your time, give your time away, but also surrender your using your time to hide the truth. we use time usually we're addicted to using time to distract ourselves from facing the reality which will liberate all beings but anyway that these people sent out that card to me because they they wanted me to buy their daily planner They thought, you know, I probably would like to learn these 10 ways and then this planner would be part of it. If you have this planner, that'll help you control your time.

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I think it also said your time. You could possess it. Be yours. People often say to me, I don't want to take any more of your time. And I say, I almost always say, it's kind of boring probably, but I almost say, you're not taking it. You cannot take my time. No one can take it. However, I can give it and you can receive it and I have to give it, really. And if I'm not ready to give it, then I have some grieving to do. If I don't want to give my time, then I'm going to be sad because it is going to be given. And if I don't grieve, I'm going to think I lost it or somebody took it. And then I'm going to be Unhappy camper. So I try to remember, no, no, nobody takes my time. My time is not mine.

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It's something I have to give, though. And I only have a little bit at a time. So it's not that much. Just a moment. you thank you thank you sadness my great medicine my dear Buddha medicine sadness I know this if I can take this medicine it will help all beings So many stories of grieving.

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In the lotus blossom. Yeah. In the lotus blossom of the true Dharma there's a story. About a doctor. And she has quite a few children. and her children are sick. So, she's very skillful, so she makes them excellent medicine. She gives them, of course, excellent medicine, and she hands it to them, and some of the children, who are in somewhat their right mind,

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they accept the medicine and take the medicine and are cured of their disease. Other children are so distracted, they're using so much, they can't even notice the medicine that their dear mother has given them. They don't take the medicine. They continue to be sick and distracted from the medicine which is being offered to them. So then the doctor has an idea. She says to her children, all of her children, I'm going to go on a trip. So she goes away and she sends word back after a while that she has died. All the children grieve.

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Some children have already taken the medicine and they grieve and take the medicine again. Other children who have not taken the medicine, in their grieving, in their grieving, they sober up. They stop using their playthings. to distract them from the medicine they sober up and they remember the medicine and they take the medicine in their grief and they become well and as soon as they take the medicine the doctor returns as soon as we surrender to the truth the doctor will return as soon as we surrendered the truth the Buddha will be here again face to face with us. But many of us have to grieve the loss of dear ones in order to open, to stop using and open to the medicine.

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So the grieving is medicine which makes it possible for us to take another medicine. The grieving is is medicine for our resistance to taking the ultimate medicine. The grieving cures us of our resistance, cures us of our attachment, and then we can see what we have been distracting ourselves from. And then we will not attach anymore until we do again for the welfare of others. Do you ever watch? Do you know what time it is? 7 to 11. That's auspicious. Think not of them, those songs of spring.

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Thou hast thy music too. So by popular requests, I have a song. Quite a few years ago now, like a lifetime ago, One of the senior practitioners at Zen Center said to me, why don't we ever sing? And I said, we do sing. She said, what? I said, we do sing. But our songs are kind of like, what do you call it, early medieval church music. They're the kind of music which no one knows who wrote. There's no ego in them.

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As a matter of fact, unless you knew that they were highly valued as works of wisdom, you probably wouldn't want to be associated with them. But we do have songs. But I think what she meant was actually songs that have ego in them. You know? Why don't we sing those kinds of songs? Like, What is it? My baby went and left me. She left me all alone. Those kinds of songs. Why don't we sing those? Or don't be cruel to a heart that's true. How about those kinds? That's what she meant. So then I started singing those kinds of songs. And then some people stopped coming to Zen Center. Yeah. They just couldn't stand it. But some other people, you know, usually after these talks, people say, I like the songs. And then one guy who I work out with at the Middle Valley Community Center, he also says, that was a great talk.

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I like the songs. So I promised him I'd sing a song, and he's here. So this is for you, Dick. And I think it's about what I was talking about. It's a song sung by Etta James. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I can do what I want. I'm in complete control. That's what I tell myself. I got a mind of my own. I'll be all right alone. Don't need anybody else. Ego.

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Gave myself a good talking to. No more being a fool for you. But then I see you. And I remember how you make me want to surrender to the way. You're making me want to stay with the way. You're making me want to give myself to the way. Boom, boom. Boom, boom, boom. Boom, boom, boom, boom. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support.

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For more information, visit sfzc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

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