This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Today, a day like every other day, we wake up frightened and empty. Don't open the door to the study and begin reading. Take down the dulcimer. Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground. This moment, Like many other moments, we wake up.

[01:02]

We feel empty and frightened. Don't open the door to the study of your past and begin reading. Take down what's presenting itself in this moment. Let the beauty... Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel to meet this moment and to kiss the ground. Homage to Rumi. Apologies to Rumi.

[02:02]

Yeah, you know, good morning. Welcome and thank you. Thank you and welcome to all that are in this room that might be out in Zoom land and to those that we have yet to meet. You know, this is... a familiar way we start a lot of the Dharma talks and you might think well that's kind of a cliche template but actually I could repeat that good morning, welcome and thank you and that could be the end of the Dharma talk right there because you know each morning we wake up and sometimes confused or empty and frightened, and we can still say welcome to whatever is coming and thank you.

[03:07]

The thank you has something to do with our willingness to be present and meet what's arising. And then I think, well, how many times do I need to repeat that? According to the teachings, it's something like a hundred, a thousand, a million times, until it really not is something that I or we say that's outside ourselves, but it becomes what we do. I had... I've been contemplating a particular story I wanted to share for a long time, and then last night when I was looking for it, I couldn't find it. And what came up as I was walking today is the word homage.

[04:14]

So in one way, part of my... part of my what, yeah, that's it, part of my what today is to say and greet you as I get ready to depart from Green Gulch after being here for more than 30 years and move on to the next chapter, the next adventure, which is Enso Village, which some of our previous teachers have moved to. And mostly right now I'm surrounded by either empty boxes waiting, or full boxes that want to be taped shut, or items patiently waiting on the shelf to be put into a box. So this is a big transition time, and I've been thinking about... been considering what I would like to say or one story of my experience here over the years in practice and that it might be some, for somebody, some encouragement.

[05:28]

And as I was thinking about it, I remembered, I don't know if it's a story, but a statement that one of our teachers, Mel Weitzman, once advised us. is for the first 10 years, just sit down, shut up, and do what you're told, or study the teaching. For the next 10 years, you can question everything. And then for the final 10 years, you'll be freer. You might have said free, but I'm going to go with freer. So I felt that the pointer in that story is that this is a long, It's not a weekend workshop. It's not a three-month stay. Anyway, whatever it is, whatever brought you here, what invited you into seeking, it's a journey.

[06:30]

It's a process. And it won't happen. One of my gestures is to go just like this. Got it. Done. So... So we need to have a lot of patience as we go forward for the fall down, get up moments. So homage. Homage to Buddha and Dharma and the Sangha. The Dharma, the teaching, the Buddha or the seeker. Buddha was a seeker. All of you Buddhas. to the teaching, and to the people, the friends that go along with you as we travel the path. Homage to the trees that scattered around Green Gulch, to the hills, to my friends, to my teachers. Homage. I am

[07:34]

I let all of this kind of wash over me. And one of the things that really carried me that I love are the Zen koans or the teachings, the Zen family stories. And truthfully, I am not a Zen expert either, but not a koan expert. But one of the things I love about the koans is how they touch me, just how the words, show up it's not necessarily to understand the words from outside but to feel where they might register inside we're very well trained in outsidedness everybody here probably if I asked you what is 2 plus 2 you might know the answer but that came from outside that wasn't an experience you had inside And our teaching, the Zazen's teaching, is a way of turning ourselves inside to see what we missed or what might be happening.

[08:45]

So the Zen story I wanted to bring up today that I think might resonate for some of you as it did for me is us Sen Zhou and her soul are separated. So that's, we could say, that's a story about somebody in outsidedness that got separated. So the story, it's an old Chinese story. I think it's related to a ghost story. And Sen Zhou was, due to causes and conditions, the only child in that family, and she was really well... very beloved, and she had a pal named Ocho, and they played together, and they really enjoyed each other and loved each other. And the father would tease them and say, oh, you two are so wonderful together.

[09:53]

One day you'll get married. And as they grew, and as Senjo became... got closer to being married, her father picked a different groom. It was not Ocho. And they felt so betrayed. And Ocho couldn't stand it, so he left town, got in a boat, went down the river. And Senjo just was so grieved that she also left in the night. So... paying attention to the words, in the night, right? And ran through the reeds along the river, and then Ocho heard something in the reeds, stopped, and she got in the boat, and they went downstream together. And in that time, while they were downstream together, they got married, had a family, had two children.

[10:53]

But as time went by... Senjo started to miss her family, and they felt that maybe they didn't really leave in quite the right manner and thought we should go home. We should apologize and reconnect with our family. And Ocho agreed. Going home, he said to Senjo, you wait here in the boat with the kids, and I'll go apologize. to your father, and then you can come. And so Ocho went, knocked on the door, and started to tell the story and apologize and ask for forgiveness. And the father was surprised. He said, I don't know what you're talking about. Ever since you left,

[11:56]

Senjo has been in bed, has not gotten up, and has not eaten, and has not spoken. And Ocho said, no, that can't be true. You have two grandchildren. And in that time, Senjo, from the boat, came toward the house. This is leading into my story here. Senjo came to the house, and the Sen that was in bed got up, and the two merged. So the koan, the question is, which is the true? The one that was in bed that was not speaking, that was not eating, or the one that left home and had a life? So I first heard this story and I went, and when I first came here, I was going to work on my days off in Sebastopol and I would be driving to work and thinking about this story.

[13:16]

Maybe just put a little parentheses here. When I came to Zen Center, I had only intended to stay for three months. So now it's worth 30 years. But as I'm driving, I'm thinking, I can't keep doing this. I can't keep doing two things, which is the real. And at some point, what I felt, what I understood, was that it was not two things. It was one life doing various things, showing up in various ways. And the way I understand that now, or maybe the way I would like to bring in our teaching of Jogan, the founder of this school, he has a fascicle called Being Time.

[14:28]

or time being. Because we are being time. And at the opening of it, he says, for the time being, stand on top of the highest peak. For the time being, proceed along the bottom of the deepest ocean. For the time being, three heads and eight arms. For the time being, an 8 or 16 foot body, for the time being a staff or a whisk, for the time being a pillar or a lantern, for the time being the sons of Zhang and Li, for the time being the earth and sky. And when we sit, we have an opportunity to meet. three heads and eight on this or eight or 16 foot body, a pillar or a lantern.

[15:35]

So what is it that brings us peace? I think that I came here as a way to understand suffering and a way to be a part of relieving suffering. The Buddha, when he traveled around, witnessed suffering, and then he sat down and said, I've got to find a way to deal with this. And he sat down under a tree. So here we are in this valley, I'm encouraging sitting, and what I have understood over time is the many, many, many stories that have made up my life. And attaching... to one story actually is the beginning of suffering. You probably have some story about your life, maybe trauma, maybe you're supposed to be a doctor or a lawyer or a CEO or a nurse, somebody great, that's for sure.

[16:49]

And... holding those stories close makes us vulnerable. And we receive those stories from our family, from our causes and conditions, and they make us vulnerable at a time when we're very impressionable. And we don't have capacity to say, wait a minute, I don't know if I feel the truth of that. And so there's a danger. in having a single story. And in the midst of homages, this danger of a single story, I want to pay homage to, if any of you know her, and if you don't know her, check it out, Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie, which has a wonderful talk about the danger of a single story.

[17:53]

And if we attach to the story that I'm not good enough or it should be better or this should not be happening to me or you have broken the rules or you should be doing something different or why don't you just do the dishes and stop complaining. If we have a single story about somebody being a complainer or mischievous or an ogre or even an angel, it kind of flattens who they are. It doesn't give them the space to change. It doesn't give them... It's not an opportunity of generosity, of giving. Yeah, of giving. open up the story, in our teaching we say, the world is vast and wide.

[19:03]

All of us are vast and wide. And can we just notice somebody caught in their particular moment and then say, welcome, greetings, thank you, And what else? And can you do that for yourself? I just dropped the pot of soup. And what else? Let's clean it up and start over. is that we don't get caught in the consequences of having a single story about ourselves or another.

[20:05]

It's an act of compassion, practice of compassion for ourselves and others to say, and what else? Or what next? To invite them into something greater than just that moment. One of the Other pointers I would like to bring up is a feeling, and some of you might have this that are visiting here today. You might feel that about Green Gulch. When people sit down, they say, oh, I feel like I've come home. I had that feeling. Oh, I've come home. We hear that here, or people might feel this place is home. So what is home? Home is not so much of a place. but a feeling. Can you come home to yourself? This is the repetition of my story this morning.

[21:09]

What is it to come home? Coming home is a place where you feel safe, where you might feel met, where you feel encouraged. Can you encourage yourself? Feeling a place where you can love and be loved. I think the story of, I'm thinking back now about Rumi, and we let the beauty of what we do be what we love. And I think, although the koan of Senjo wanting to go home was a story about love. The love is what took her away, and the love is what brought her back. So what is it that we love? What is it that we can feel blessed? What can we offer as a blessing? Who do we see as family? Might not be our blood family, but who's our family?

[22:12]

A place where you feel like you can offer your sadness, your difficulties, and share your happiness. Where is your home? Where have you gone astray and left home? What did you leave behind? One of the things that, thinking about home and what's been left behind, I notice as I'm unearthing things that I have not put my hands on in a while, is I'm rediscovering my mother. So, My mother was born in Germany and was taken out of Germany during the war on the Kindertrains and landed in England.

[23:18]

And in England, her work, she was put in a factory. She was invited into a factory, and she became a seamstress. she came to New York she worked in a factory and was a seamstress and finally she came to Denver visiting a friend and met my father and got married so our house my mother was very very smart but her education got cut off and very talented so she made When I emptied the house, lots of fabric that had yet to be sewn into something. But she also went to opportunity school, and she learned calligraphy and painting and decoupage and needlepoint.

[24:20]

Anyway, it was just always some adventure for her. And I notice as I'm packing, I'm finding... a suitcase of fabric. I'm finding paintbrushes. I'm finding different art pieces that I've collected. So now I wonder, who is it that's been in bed while I've been here, sitting in Zen Center? So I don't know. Maybe once I get to Enso Village, there'll be a merging of... and I'll have a chance to re-meet my mother. Yeah, homage. So laughing, laughing and crying. Sometimes I meet someone on the path here.

[25:24]

We're sitting at a table, and they're not happy, or they're turning something. And then we speak, we laugh, and it moves on. That might be the power of having a friend. But first we're crying, then we're laughing, and then the bell rings, and the world starts over again. What is it now? What is the danger in our being caught in a single story? My teacher, Tenshin, Reb Anderson, is devoting his time now to something called the Avatamsaka Sutra. I'm not going to open that except to tell you that it's more than 1,600 pages and it's pointing to the world as vast and wide. So what is it that we can allow ourselves to listen to the story and then after we say it, whether it was happy or sad, pause and then say, and now what?

[26:47]

What is underneath the ticker tape? And now what? So one more homage that I'd like to offer. Actually, two homages. One is thinking of my teacher, Tenshin, Reb Anderson, but who's devoted to the power of conversation that we learn from each other. And I would like to... pretty soon here, stop and open this to the power of conversation. So we might hear where the question is, what is your story and did you find a way out? I just get to sit here to be the conversation starter. It's not like the answers are here and they're not there. So there's some of you out here that have been practicing for a while or done some

[27:58]

work in some other realm, and you understand how you worked with your story. So this homage to Koan stories, and this integration, this Senjo and her soul meeting each other and becoming one. One of the others, just to give you a metaphor, an image, one of our Zen stories, the emperor asked the national teacher, after you're gone, how shall we remember you? And the national teacher said, Behold me a seamless monument.

[29:01]

And he was quiet. And he asked the emperor, do you understand? He did not. So the emperor gave him someone to relate to later. I'm not going to repeat the verse exactly, but what I can say to you, to me, to us today, between this and that, the universe is filled with gold. It's vast and wide. Do not be vulnerable. I'm going to take that back. Be vulnerable to a single story and question it. If we, if I am really quiet, just like now, you could catch a whisper.

[30:27]

What now? Can you feel a quiet spot? In sign language... if I remember correctly, this is the sign for tree. I don't know if people in the back can see. It comes from somewhere you can't see, that's the whisper. Tree. When you sit quietly and listen, to those that know sign language if I didn't get it quite right but tree for the time being standing on top of the highest peak for the time being along the bottom of a deep ocean of despair

[32:04]

For the time being, three heads and eight arms. For the time being, eight or 16 foot body of celebration. For the time being, a whisk or a staff. For the time being, earth and sky go on forever. Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to be you. There are hundreds of ways to be in any moment. There are hundreds of ways to say thank you and welcome. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss this moment. I'd like to ask you,

[33:07]

if you don't mind, what are the ways that you have found to kiss the ground? Or what are the ways that you've worked so that this over here, from that over there, becomes just this moment? To stay open to the question. Instead of being trained from outsidedness, training and insidedness, have you done that? Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost 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. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[34:11]

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