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. I noticed that moment of hesitation. You know, what are we going to do? kind of magic of sangha where there's a kind of a wordless negotiation for a couple of seconds and then we're going to do what we always do except it's so long since we did it i don't know how it is for you but it feels to me like the practice period ended about a year ago I was thinking about the contrast between practice period and now.

[01:08]

The contrast between here's the schedule, here's what's going to happen, and you're going to do it. Follow the schedule completely. And now we have surveys. What do you prefer? What do you think is best? What do you want? And then we have the con. Do they have that relationship? Is the relationship between give over to something and take the core principle and let it manifest in relationship to current circumstances and personal being.

[02:26]

The last time I gave a tug, what I thought I was doing, I don't know what you thought I was doing, here's what I thought I was doing. I was taking an image, the image of mothers setting aside all affairs and ceasing all involvements and entering the way. The image of Nadia's Algerian French mother rolling out her mat, facing it towards Mecca and saying her prayers five times a day. And my own mother, when it struck her to do so, which was a little bit of a mystery to her seven children, saying, okay, kneel down on this stone floor and say the rosary setting something aside ceasing something ceasing all involvements setting aside all affairs how that in some ways

[04:07]

of practice the request of awareness is to release preoccupation release busyness and immerse in the fundamental being and that flavor of renunciation that is so evident in practice period. Give yourself over, then give yourself over some more. And then it ends through unexpected circumstances, in our case,

[05:11]

Maybe from a part of your practice, we could say how fortunate we are. What an extraordinary fortunate set of circumstances. Here we are now. And you can't pull out your calendar and say, oh, and then this is going to happen, and then that's going to happen, and then we'll have a 4th of July celebration, and then this, and then it all ends on exactly this date. And then something else we know is going to happen. And then after that, we'll move on. Something nobody expected. I think no one done a lot of us. Nobody planned. Is now. Strongly influencing. who we are now and how we are in this space and challenging us to kind of respond appropriately.

[06:31]

And we feel our way along. I think of the meanings of sitting up here with Goyo and Hakusho and saying, well, we don't know. So in that not knowing, we're going to do this for a while. And now that not knowing is giving birth to something. How does that relate to the fundamental request of practice? And are we blessed by this current state of not knowing? The tangible expression of life is not under our control.

[07:42]

never is. But here it is. Utterly evident. That's the case. And I'd offer you this notion. Which I've offered before. The Sandhu Kai is the harmonizing of the fundamental. Go beyond your opinions and judgments. Go beyond your affairs and involvements and experience timeless now. And then enter wholeheartedly into the world of being. can we do other than relate to each other and discover and rediscover and recreate practice here and now?

[09:04]

And are we ever not doing that? Every time you notice that your mind has wandered and some involvement, some affair of your life has risen up into consciousness and is defining the moment. And then there's noticing. Does it sustain its steady grip? Or does something part, something dissolve in some reaffirmation of the vow of practice? And I would say to you, this is one of the central themes. Maybe this is the central theme of practice.

[10:04]

This integration of it. How does that fundamental grind of being illuminate the aspects of who we are as persons? How does it guide us as a collective, as a community? How does it help us shape what it is to be a Sangha? So I'd like to talk about it in two ways. One is about Fear and courage. And then the other is about. And maybe in a way that's. Now if you think about it.

[11:08]

We can say. None of us even knows exactly what's going to happen today. And we can think. And feel how utterly marvelous that this day gets to be itself. That this day gets to unfold in its own unpredictable beauty. Or we could say, but will I be okay? Will we be okay? Will we make a mess of it? Is this whole endeavor okay? Which is often called corrosive doubt. First one is usually called great doubt. This curiosity about being alive. And then the second one is, but I want it on my terms.

[12:15]

I want an engagement that offers me some assurance. In his poem by Seamus Heaney, he's describing where he lived in Northern Ireland, was close to the west coast where the Atlantic storms commit. You know, you have like 300 or 3,000 miles of sea They can come in at literally gale force. It's called Storm on the Island, a little island that his family owned right out there on the edge. And how with those storms come in, they're a kind of irresistible force, an unpredictable event.

[13:23]

you're at the mercy of. We're prepared. We build our houses squat, sink stone in rock, and roof them with good slate. This wizened earth has never troubled us with hay. So, as you see, there are no stacks or stooks that can be lost. Nor are there trees which might prove company when it blows blast. You know what I mean. Leaves and branches can raise a tragic chorus in the gale, so that you listen to the thing you fear, forgetting it, forgetting that it pummels your house too. But there are no trees, no natural shelter. You might think that the sea is company, exploding comfortably down on the cliffs, but no. When it begins, the flung spray hits the very windows, spits like a tame cat turned savage. We just sit tight while the wind dives and straths invisibly.

[14:31]

Space is a salvo. We're bombarded with the empty air. Strange. It's a huge napping that we fear. That way, uncertainty, unpredictability, Unsettle us. That we can. We can feel. Bereft. Of the ability to make plants. Next year I'll do this. When we have our summer vacations, I'll do this. But wait a minute.

[15:33]

Are we going to have summer vacations? And even if we do, are you going to be able to do what you'd like to do? Isn't this notion strange? It's a huge nothing. we fear it's the absence of something that would give us some dependability some certain so in a way here we are In a charmed spot, you know. Throughout the world, people are obliged to live in their dwelling, you know.

[16:45]

Only venturing outdoors for the necessities of life. We happen to be surrounded by 130,000 acres. None of it off limits. What good fortune, you know, when I hear of Someone was telling me that at 340, the building beside 300 Page Street, some people haven't left their apartment in a month. They just have their groceries delivered and they're just there.

[17:46]

That's how they're sheltering in place. That's how they're staying safe. by contrast we're so fortunate you know we can wander around we can sit out in the sun let the flies bite us and yet a murmuring a murmuring of uncertainty. Maybe we can have surveys and put something together that will allay our fears to some degree.

[18:52]

Maybe we can shape this time, feel some agency, feel some way. It has become a manageable and i would say no doubt we will both make it manageable and flirt with the notion that in the midst of the request of practice asking everything we have we can also add a few preferences. But let me offer you a different notion of powder face uncertainty. And this is a poem written by Amelia Earhart. If you don't know, she was a famous aviator.

[19:55]

And which was at a time of Aviators were still a rare breed. And even rarer was the fact that a woman would be one of the leading ones. She tried to fly around the world. And somewhere, I think over the Pacific, she got lost. And it's still not clear whatever happened. But she wrote this. It's called Courage. Courage. Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace. How about that for a proposition? Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace. The soul that knows it not knows no release from little things, knows not the vivid loneliness of fear, nor mountain heights where bitter joy can hear,

[21:01]

the sound of wings. How can life grant us boon of living, compensate for the dull gray ugliness and pregnant hate, unless we dare the soul's dominion? Each time we make a choice, we pay with courage to behold the resistless day and count it fair. Maybe the language is a little obscure. Unless something in us says, yes, I will. Yes, I will engage this world we're in under these circumstances. This is our life.

[22:05]

And usually we have enough to use, it means we're dominion over our life to feel like, well, my life's not just here. My life's also there. I'm going there in a week, a month. Whether we like it or not, we've been handed a set of circumstances that simply say to us, your life is here, now, and what's the future going to hold? That's not so clear. And can we say, yes, I will. I will live in this world as it is. often struck me in in our initiation ceremonies you know our ordinations one of the common features is you repeatedly asked even after attaining buddhahood will you continuously observe this yes i will yes i will yes i will

[23:37]

this world we're in come to life if we don't meet it and enliven it the same way our attention meets the breath and the sensations in the body the same way attention meets the activity of mind the same way attention meets the emotionality of being the assumptions of what is and the conclusions what's good and what's bad and the sandokai is saying Practice isn't presenting, you know, a virtuous renunciation versus a profane involvement.

[24:54]

You know, it's presenting an interplay. How do we attend to that which appears when we cease all involvements and set aside all affairs. The interplay between that and this deeply ingrained human habit of creating a version of reality that we want, that we prefer, that we dread, would say our practice is that the foundation the dropping everything illuminates but not just illuminates but offers us a way to contact and experience what comes up for us as a human being

[26:09]

It was fascinating reading the survey results or comments. Especially when there would be a contrast. One person saying, this is a precious time. Why aren't we having a practice period? Why aren't we taking full benefit of it? Another person saying, Practice period's over. Why are we still doing this? Why aren't we moving into the next thing as we normally do? And it was occurring to me, oh, this integration is not just a singular thing, you know, for each one of us to do it. It's a collective too. How do we listen to every voice inside our own collective being?

[27:30]

And how do we listen to every voice in a more literal sense? And if it isn't presented in accord with what you emphatically stated will you feel rejected disapprove it disappointed and if it is in accord with what you emphatically stated will you pump the air and go yes nothing but fire crew. The liberation of our practice is can we see either mind?

[28:45]

Can we see both minds? Can the interplay between them a deep teaching on the human condition? Could the appropriate response be a call on? Should I cast aside all my opinions and preferences and enter nakedly into original mind? the boundary between me enlivening life and me wanting what I want and thinking the words you apply. In the spirit of Zen practices, it's a calling. And it's the dynamic tension between the parts of it that enliven us.

[29:52]

It's my experience in coaching people how to practice that part of our human tendency is to fall into practices this and not that. Your mind should be urgently and utterly attentive to the moment in this simple way of body and breath. What if the way it strays is teaching us the person we are? What if the way the attention strays is showing us how our world is shaped? What if it's teaching us here's what it is to relate and feel

[31:05]

that emotion that rattles through you so persistently? What if it's teaching us, oh, and when that mood is present, it creates this kind of psychosomatic presence? What if the inner world And the outer world are both the world of Dharma and the world teaching us liberation. So we read your surveys and we made an attempt to respond and let the response display itself in the sangha, in the schedule.

[32:25]

And dramatically We shifted the time from evening service by five minutes. Earth shattering, I know. But hopefully you'll be able to make the adjustment. And we'll start some peer-led study groups. In fact, we'll have one on the 28th couple of days after personal day. We didn't find some magical way to both cast aside the rigors of formal

[33:34]

practice period and also take up formal practice period and turn this into summer practice period. We're still working on that one. But whatever the results, hopefully we can harmonize. As it says in the Parinirvana Sutra, you know, the Sangha that comes together in harmony, discusses in harmony, separates in harmony, will thrive. Actually it says will not perish and will thrive. as we were, wordlessly negotiating, how will we, what are we going to chant right now?

[34:50]

To me it said, we need each other. That that moment of uncertainty left us nakedly present. But then together we chanted what we normally chant. We need each other. There's something about our collective being that has Not just an authenticity, but a wisdom to it. And I think we need it in those wordless seconds of uncertainty.

[36:02]

And I think we need it in the messy collective process that we're going through. And it's my hope that in doing that, we both rediscover what this practice is truly about, and we discover what's appropriate response under these circumstances. I remember when I moved to Green Gulch. Green Gulch, we got it a little bit less than a year when I moved there. And we were pioneers. We were make it up.

[37:02]

Let's have no machines. Let's just have horses. A beautiful, stupid idea. You would think we'd have had enough intelligence to think. Do we know how to use horses? Do we know how to take care of horses? Do we know how to, you know, have horses do some work? No, we were being purists. Keep evil machines with their smelly exhausts far away. got horses we learned we didn't know how to use horses and that it wasn't a good idea and when we finally got the tractor and discovered you can turn a key and it starts precipice a pedal and it goes marvelous and

[38:22]

The joy of learning. The joy of saying, yes, I will. And then laughing later at your own stupidity. What were we thinking? That the horses would train us? Well, they tried to. We weren't very good students. But I think sometimes of just training us Feed us and leave us alone. If you want to apply the grind, go dig it up. We are the pioneers of this moment. That to me is Amelia Earhart's courage. Setting off thinking, I am going to be the first person to fly solo around the world.

[39:46]

Because courage is the practice, is the price that life exacts for granting peace. The soul does not know it's released from little things. knows not the livid loneliness of fear. How can it grant us food of living unless there's courage, unless we dare the soul's dominion? Each time we make a choice, we pay with courage to behold the resistless death How do we individually and collectively remember that? I remember the first time I read, towards the back of Zen Mind Beginner's Mind, Suzuki Roshi's talking about his attitude of brain practice to the West.

[40:58]

There's some principles, there's tradition, and there's making them relevant to the moment. And still my mind has only one response to that. Yes. What else makes life fun? What else gives life some kind of interest and zest? Someone sent me a message recently and they said, we'd like to interview you on the future of health care. Me?

[42:09]

Then I thought, sure, why not? How do we know until we're faced with it what the response is? How do we know what the response is until we not only are faced with it, But we made it. Yes. And will there be gales blowing in off the Atlantic? Yes, there will. Will there always be pandemics? Who knows? bodhisattva vow stirs something in our hearts it doesn't occur to me that we all had relentless mothers

[43:47]

who prayed in the middle of swarms of children. But it does occur to me that we all had teachers when we were children and young adults. And because of them, we're here. Because of what they taught. And I would say carrying that forward is our bodhisattvao. And maybe with our clever minds we can articulate it in exquisite ways. But I would say truer guide is our foolish hearts that want to live, that want to not only want to live as in an individual way, but want to live in a collective way.

[45:19]

I would say that's why we were all stupid enough to end up here. And maybe we'll never fully understand it. But I think we can live it. We can feel it. My foolish heart, that's what Suzuki Roshi was trying to communicate and trying to live himself. Thank you. 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.

[46:31]

Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving.

[46:45]

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