Ooh, there's a very loud buzzing sound coming from you. That's my refrigerator. Oh, my gosh. I know. And we've asked for a replacement, and it should be on the way any week now. Anyway, I know. It's like a helicopter running all the time. I apologize for that noise. Can you hear me okay? I can, yeah. With the noise? Okay. So good evening. Welcome, welcome. So this evening, I'm going to be talking still and ongoingly from Zen Mind Beginner's Mind. And the talk that I have been reading for today is called Nothing Special. So I don't know how it strikes all of you, but I found this title alone to be kind of strangely soothing. You know, Nothing Special. You know, the idea that there is something special that we could get or that we could be and that we don't have or that we aren't has been one of the ongoing sources of great disappointment in my life and probably for many of you as well.

[01:25]

I was remembering back in high school when we had our big graduation and at the ceremony there was one valedictorian, one homecoming queen and one homecoming queen And I remember thinking to myself something like, well, what are the rest of us, you know, like Swiss cheese? It seemed like we were being treated like nothing special, which in that case wasn't such a positive feeling. So I have often credited Buddhist teaching with what I think is a truly egalitarian view of humanity. You know, we are all born deluded and we are greedy, we are hateful. And at the same time, we have all been overlooking the core true of our lives. And that is that we are actually Buddhas. We are Buddhas who have not yet come to realize that we are Buddhas. And that's basically what this talk that Suzuki Roshi is giving to his new students is all about. So in this particular talk, he's focusing on our true identity and the simple way that we can access the truth by sitting upright.

[02:35]

and quietly for just a little bit of time each day. And what Suzuki Roshi is calling nothing special. And what my friend Reverend Angel Kyoto Williams calls, no big deal Zen. So in the quote at the beginning of this talk, Suzuki Roshi says, if you continue this simple practice every day, you will obtain some wonderful power. And before you attain it, it is something wonderful. But after you attain it, it is nothing special. So I do know that some of you sit quietly, maybe daily, maybe every once in a while or several times a week, whatever amount of time you do. And I think you know that no one else can tell you how the practice of sitting is working in your life. You know, we don't know. We really don't know. There's something about it that's just so mysterious and cannot be grasped, right? So in truth, we don't even know.

[03:35]

So as Dogen has said in his lecture on zazen, it's a really lovely talk he gave called Self-Receiving and Self-Employing Samadhi. He's describing zazen as self-receiving, self-employing samadhi, almost like inhaling and exhaling the self, sense of self. Dogen says that know that even if all Buddhas of the ten directions as innumerable as the sands of the Ganges, exert their strength and with the Buddha's wisdom try to measure the merit of one person's zazen, they will not be able to fully comprehend it. Even if all Buddhas of the Ten Directions, as innumerable as the sands of the Ganges, exert their strength and with the Buddha's wisdom try to measure the merit of one person's zazen, they will not be able to fully comprehend it. So this may be part of the reason that Suzuki Rishi says in the beginning of this talk that he doesn't feel like speaking after he's sitting, after zazen.

[04:39]

He feels that the practice of zazen is enough. And yet, although words can never reach that experience of quiet sitting, if he has to say something, then it's in order to encourage others to share in what he's found for himself to be this wonderful practice of zazen. So along with our inborn karmic tendencies for greed, hate, and delusion, we also have an inborn opportunity to practice in order to express our identity as awakened beings. He then says that even though everything we do expresses our true identity, our true nature, and our true nature, without practicing it's very difficult for us to realize it. Everything we do expresses our true identity, our true nature. And yet without practicing, it's very difficult for us to realize it. We are very busy people, as you all know, even here at Ansel Village, where theoretically I have retired.

[05:41]

You know, every day I get up and I get going. I'm packing, eating and chatting and walking and thinking about going for a swim one of these days. There is so much that I have to do before returning to bed for that mandatory rest period we call sleep. And yet it's because we think that we are doing all those things. You know, I think that I'm unpacking, that I'm eating, I am considering going for a swim. And there is this subtle separation between the activity that I think I'm doing and what we imagine ourselves to be, you know, the I who is doing all of those things. So this becomes particularly insidious when we think I am doing something special or I have attained something special. And perhaps it's even more insidious is this idea, I have never done anything special, or I am incapable of something as far removed from myself as awakening must be.

[06:43]

Suzuki Rishi says that as long as we are thinking that way, with an I, that is doing those things, then we are actually not doing anything. And ironically though, when we give up and no longer want something, or when we do not try, to do anything special, then we do something. We do something without any gaining idea. So I think you might remember, I don't know what you remember, but I always go back and review some of these things. When we looked at the Four Noble Truths, you know, truth of suffering, number one, the truth of the cause of suffering, number two, the truth of the cessation of suffering, number three, and the truth of the cause for the cessation of suffering, when we look at noble truth number two, which is the cause of suffering, we learn that wanting something special, something other than what's happening right now, is the cause of our suffering.

[07:46]

It also is true of wanting ourselves to be different than we are, which actually means wanting ourselves to be different than we think we are. You know, such ideas are ideas of gaining something better than is already right here. Gaining ideas are the source of our suffering. So this reminded me of something that my grandmother used to say when I was a child, and I would ask for things that I wanted to have or that we couldn't afford. And she would say, if wishes were horses, then beggars would ride. I never really got that. I couldn't quite understand it. I knew it was a criticism, but I couldn't quite figure out what it meant. But I do understand it quite a bit more now that I am at the same age as my grandmother was when she said it. If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride. So what Suzuki Roshi is telling us is the good news, that what we think we are has nothing whatsoever to do with what we truly are.

[08:50]

which for the young prince at the moment of his own realization was the truth of himself as an awakened being. A truth that he had been so busy trying to find out that he'd overlooked it completely. He'd been trying to find out who he was by looking for something very special, you know, much more special than himself sitting quietly under a tree. When we sit upright in meditation as the Buddha did, as Dogen did and as Suzuki Roshi did, what we are doing is not for the sake of anything at all. We may think that what we're doing is special, you know, going to the zendo, bowing and finding a comfortable posture and then waiting for the bell. But actually, as Roshi says, you are simply expressing your own true nature, which mysteriously appeases your innermost desire to be just fine, just the way you are. You know, good enough. He then says that if you continue this mysterious practice, you will obtain a wonderful power.

[09:53]

And before you attain it, it is something wonderful. But after you obtain it, it's nothing special at all. It is just you, yourself. Nothing special. He then shares this Chinese poem, which says, I went and I returned. It was nothing special. Sozon, which is a place. Sozon, famous for its misty mountains. Seiko, famous for its waters. And then he goes on to explain that people think it must be special to see a famous range of mountains covered with mists and the waters that were said to cover the earth. But if you go there, you will just see water and mountains. Nothing special. Just the everyday miracle of life on planet Earth. Nothing special. other than perhaps that awesome feeling that one might have, as Carl Sagan expressed back in 1990 on seeing a photograph of nothing special planet Earth taken by Voyager 1.

[10:59]

You may remember that. He wrote a book with the same title. He suggested to NASA that they turn the cameras back as this Voyager 1 was exiting the solar system to take a picture of Voyager 1. of home, of planet Earth. And there's this tiny, tiny little speck in the center of this ray of light. And Carl Sagan referred to it as a tiny blue dot, the tiny blue dot, nothing special. Roshi then talks about the word enlightenment, something that those of us who have no experience of enlightenment, or so we think, imagine would be something quite wonderful. And yet when we humans realize our awakened nature, at the same time, he says, we realize it is nothing. And at the same time, it is not nothing. So there's that non-duality that we are called to again and again to say, watch out for that dualistic thinking.

[11:59]

If there's nothing, then there's also something. So nothing and not nothing. You know, this teaching of one side of any proposition depends on its opposite in order to have any meaning in our human language. You know, light needs dark, and sweets need sour, and up needs down, and self needs an other. And then he asks us, do you understand? And of course, most of the students who were listening to his talk continued staring down at the floor, thinking to themselves, no, I do not understand, which is pretty common for any of us studying Zen. He then uses the example of a mother with her child. For a mother, having children is nothing special. That's what mothers are. And he says it's just the same for us when we practice upright sitting. Over time, you acquire something special that is not special at all. like that little baby. I remember once asking senior Dharma teacher Linda Ruth Cutts if it was necessary to have children.

[13:06]

At that time she had two and I had none. And she thought about it for a little bit and then she said to me, no, it's not necessary. And then a few years later, after adopting my daughter Sabrina, I went back to Linda and I said, I thought you said it wasn't necessary to have children. having discovered how incredibly validating and helpful it was to my life to be raising this little being. And then she responded, Linda responded, now it's not necessary to have children if you haven't had any. Just this is it, without any gaining ideas. Like those... companions, Dorothy's companions in The Wizard of Oz, you know, if I only had a brain, if I only had a heart, if I only had the nerve, you know, gaining ideas, wishful thinking. So unless we express our true nature as human beings, we can't know what we are. We are not quite like other animals, and we're certainly different from rocks and from flowing water.

[14:11]

Maybe we are ghosts. or maybe we're gods or demons or fighting spirits, without being in touch with our true nature, what we are is just a delusion that thinks it knows what it is. For example, I think I'm a woman who was born in 1948 in San Francisco, California. And after that, your guess is as good as mine, you know? I really don't know. And Roshi says that such a creature as I think I am doesn't actually exist. It's a delusion. Or as my own friends call it, it's delulu. It's delulu. And yet even though whatever it is can't ever be said, something does exist right here that I don't understand. He then tells us that intellectually my talk makes no sense. But if you have an experience of true practice, you will understand what I mean. If something exists,

[15:12]

It has its own true nature, and its own true nature is Buddha nature, awakened nature. As it says in an ancient sutra, everything has Buddha nature, which Dogen Zenji, our Soto Zen founder, in his famous teaching, changes to everything is Buddha nature. Can you see that difference between everything has Buddha nature and everything is Buddha nature? And if we say that everything has Buddha nature, there's this problem that I was talking about at the beginning, that if you have Buddha nature, then there are things, and those things have something added to them that's called their Buddha nature. So when we say everything is Buddha nature, there's nothing left outside that can be brought in, and there's nothing inside that can be taken away. And therefore, if there were such a time, When there is no Buddha nature, Roshi says, then there would be nothing at all.

[16:14]

All things are Buddha nature. Roshi says at the end of this talk that something apart from Buddha nature is just a delusion. It may exist in your mind, but such things actually don't exist. And so, and here's this very big so, to be a human being is to be a Buddha. Buddha nature is just another name for a true human being. So thus, even though you don't do anything, you're actually doing something. You are expressing yourself. You are expressing your true nature. Your eyes will express yourself, your voice will express yourself, and your demeanor will express yourself. The most important thing is to express your true nature in the simplest and most adequate way. and to appreciate it in the smallest existence, you know, like Swiss cheese. The most important thing is to forget all gaining ideas, all dualistic ideas.

[17:17]

In other words, to just practice Azen in a certain posture. Do not think about anything. Just remain on your cushion without expecting anything. And eventually you will resume your own true nature. That is to say, your own true nature resumes itself. So how about that? Kind of wonderful. So as I was reading this talk over and over again, I realized how often I have needed to hear this kind of encouragement in the course of my own effort at practice. And I remember when I was in therapy for a number of years, I would tell my therapist all about my struggles with Zen and all of... of what I thought were my sincere efforts to rid myself of those inborn tendencies for greed and hate and delusion. And I remember how patiently and kindly he would just listen to me. And then one of those days he said to me, human first, human first.

[18:19]

And I think I said, oh God, no, I don't want to be human. It is so hard and it's so painful. I came to Zen to get out of this. I just really wanted to get away from this human thing. But then he, like my Zen teacher, would also do. He just kept smiling warmly at me and nodding in solidarity. You know, yeah, it's hard. It's difficult. Human first. And Buddha, always. So next week we begin looking at part two of Zen Mind Beginner's Mind called Right Attitude, which begins with a Suzuki Roshi saying, The point we emphasize is strong confidence in our original nature. It's just what this talk has been about as well. So the first lecture in part two is called Single-Minded Way. Even if the sun were to rise from the west, the bodhisattva has only one way. Even if the sun were to rise from the west, the bodhisattva has only one way.

[19:22]

I also wanted to mention that on the week of May 5th, there was a little mention, a little banner underneath the announcement of this evening's talk that I'm going to be at Green Gulch for the memorial service for a funeral, actually, for Carolyn Meister, who passed away at Tassajara at the end of March. I think many of you heard about her falling. She fell during a hike and we didn't find her actually for several days and kept hoping she'd be okay. And sadly, she was not. And so we're going to be celebrating her and missing her as we already do. And so I will then be back again the following week. So that's what I had to say for today. I have been... doing a lot of unpacking and a lot of organizing and a lot of trying to get ready for more of a relaxing life here.

[20:25]

So in the meantime, I do want to continue to be in touch with all of you. But I thought I'd let you do more of the talking for a little while so that I would have a chance to, you know, do other things. So please help me out. If there's anything you have to offer or you'd like to say, I really enjoy hearing your thoughts, your comments. So welcome. Kosan. Oh, there I am. Great shirt. I remember that. That's a throwback to my childhood. You got to keep the classics alive, right? There you go. There you go. Yeah. I don't really have anything in particular to say, except I wanted to rescue you from it.

[21:26]

Thank you. Thank you. So talk on. How's your moving going? Well, there's lots of moving of furniture happening today. I'm... slowly feeling out what feels good. I'm not super great at furniture placement, and so I'm just making mistakes and then realizing. So that's what's going on right now. I actually attended a really sweet BIPOC grief one-day event today through Spirit Rock, and it was lovely to... be in a space where one could safely explore grief, which is such an ever-present for everyone, suffering. And yet we just don't talk about it that much.

[22:29]

And so, yeah, that's what was happening for me today. And I... I so enjoy coming to these talks and hearing you repeat all of Suzuki Roshi's teachings is really grounding me in, yeah, it's okay to let go because in that grief, there's a lot of letting go process. And just this is it. And... Yeah, it's not really going to get better. It's not really going to get worse. It's just this. And working on finding, really identifying moments of joy, which is so, they're just everywhere, right? And actually cultivating the presence of mind to recognize that those moments of joy are everywhere is... Yeah, all of this is arising for me today and in no particular order. So there's lots of hands.

[23:32]

I saved you. You get a lot of extra credit. Thank you. Let's see. Hi, Kevin. Good afternoon. Hello, Pu. Hello, Sangha. I too was reaching out a hand to try to save you. Thank you so much for the offering of this Dharma. It's so basic, so essential, but so magnificent and wonderful all in the same. Honestly, I found myself in a bit of a funk the last 24 to 48 hours. And when Hosan said it's okay to let go, I felt more so like this talk was a whack on the head saying, hey, let go. It's like, oh, yeah, I can do that. That's right. And it's a lot easier to do than to hold on to these delusions of what should be. But just open my eyes to appreciate what actually is and all the beautiful things we have to be grateful for, even if it's uncomfortable or unpleasant, rather.

[24:37]

It's just a tool that can help grow, that we can learn from it. And I was just grateful for this talk to open my eyes to that. So thank you so much. Thank you for coming on. joining us. Very nice having you here. More rescuers. Great. Helene. Good afternoon. Hi. So I wanted to say that one of the things in... Well, first I want to say thank you for that wonderful talk. For just... Thank you so much. Really. And your talks always make me feel like they were meant for me. They are. Yes. I take it very personally.

[25:39]

My favorite thing in the portion called Nothing Special is... This practice started from beginningless time, and it will continue into an endless future, which I find incredibly comforting. Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing how language poetry can just turn us on a dime, you know, from something like despair to comfort. It's wonderful. It's what it gives. Yeah. Two-edged sword. Yeah. Yeah, that one's giving life. Yeah, I just love it that even when we say during morning service that everything comes from nowhere and goes nowhere. It comes from everywhere and goes everywhere.

[26:42]

It just, and it makes me let go. of things that I'm mulling on. Because there's no way of, I don't know where it started. I don't know where it came from. You know? Yeah, yeah. So, you know, it's just like the simplest thing is to just let go. When you said that, I had this image of like a little bunny rabbit chewing on a carrot. Chewing, chewing, chewing. It was a noise. Oh, I forgot. I'm just chewing, chewing, chewing. Yeah, we chew a lot. Yeah, I feel like I used to love carrots when I was a kid. And I always felt like in my last life I had been a rabbit.

[27:44]

Nice one. Good choice. Good choice. That was a nice perception. Well, it's always good to see you. Thank you. Same to you and everyone. Yeah, you and everyone. That's a great phrase. You and everyone. There's another everyone. Hello, Cynthia. Hello, Pho. I don't have anything to say. I just thought I'd tell you about my day. Please, please. Now wait, host is, I don't know, there's a little sign up here. Whatever. Okay. Well, so today, for the first time since March 13th, I went to Green Gulch. March 13th, what year? 2020. Because you closed. We were getting ready for coming of age. I went on Friday to get ready for coming of age.

[28:46]

Yeah. We'll sweep over on Saturday. Yeah. And Saturday I got the call to tell everybody, don't bother because we're closed. And then I hadn't gone back. I had gone back just to drop some things off for Sam two times, but this was the first time. And so I went to a Dharma talk and I saw Wendy. Oh, great. It was really, really lovely. But the funny thing is that the thing that actually brought me there and kind of gave me the courage, I've been a little hesitant to go, just to go back into something and not having been there. It's like a friend has somebody from England who is staying. And my friend said, do you happen to know Reb Anderson? Which was a strange question. And she said her English house guest was... had studied with Reb in England 30 years ago and wanted to go.

[29:47]

And so he escorted, I escorted him. He escorted me. And that was, it was a lovely experience. It was just this. So I don't know what you call that where, you know, we're not separate. We have each other's the best. We're not separate is the best. Yeah. Yeah. And I needed him as much as he needed me. And he's actually a farmer in England. And he wanted to see the farm. And I've never seen anybody walk so slowly, except for a two-year-old. Had to look at every tool. Had to look at every weed. Everything. It was like, what do they call that? Beginner's mind eyes. Did you stay for Arbor Day? No, I had Zach at home and I told him I'd be home by one and it was already late. And so I spent my morning there doing just with that one focus.

[30:53]

Did he get to talk to Rev? No, because we didn't call Rev ahead of time or contact him. But he did get to talk to, but I bought him the book, Being Upright. And he can take it home. And he can be really surprised at the colorful life of Reb. Yeah. Great. Good story. Yeah. Strong. And then I believe I have a doku song with my teacher coming up, too. So I thought I would let you know that. I think we do, don't we? This must be my calendar. I have a calendar. Might be Friday at 2. Check that out. Someone better tell me if it's not. I've lost my administrative staff since I came here. Part of retirement is like, you will get no help. Help yourself. I know people who know people. I can get them. Oh, there you are. 2 o'clock Friday.

[31:56]

Bingo. Zoom and we'll figure out how to do it. Okay. Anyway, I was kind of just raising my hand because you asked. I begged. I begged. We'd like to hear my story. I do. Well, you did. It was a great story. Thank you, Cynthia. Bye. Soren. Hi, Fernando. I don't think we've met yet. Hi, I'm Fernando. It's my first time here. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you very much. I try to go into the Oman Sando as frequent as I am able to. Yes. I live in Ocales. Right now I'm in Arizona, but I live in Mexico. Welcome. Welcome to California. Thanks. Well, I'm in California anyway. Not everyone is in the group.

[32:58]

They're from different parts of the world actually. So nice to have Mexico here too. Thank you for such an inspiring talk. It gives me insight because I'm listening to Suzuki audiobook coincidentally and I'm listening to it in audiobook format. So I found that Every time I bump into the same ideas, I understand them a little bit better because it's not easy for me to grasp, to understand so fully yet. And also, I wanted to ask you if, you know, when I sit, sometimes more than others, it's difficult for me to stay for longer periods of time.

[33:59]

So I always have this want or desire to get up and like I'm kind of nervous or desperate to get up and just be conscious again, like normally conscious. So is it a valid way to get rid of desire to Try to not desire to get up. Yeah. Well, if you can, you know, whatever you can do to drop those impulses, which are really strong, you know, I have those every morning too. It's like some point it's like, well, that's enough. I don't know if you're sitting by yourself, but, you know, I sit now, there's a Zendo here where I'm living and... So I have to wait for the bell. I mean, I agree to do that. I don't have to, but I do wait for the bell. So that's helpful to have someone else timing you You know, so then I can just keep settling back down as those little bubbles of I want to get up, come up.

[35:02]

It's like, well, not yet. So you better just relax. You know, like on an airplane, you know, it's just you're not there yet. So you just eventually you relax. You begin to let yourself just settle back into your seat and let time go by. And, you know, eventually the restlessness sometimes settles. and then you feel okay, and the bell rings can be kind of a surprise. Oh, well, that's nice. So it's different. Every day it's different for me, those impulses. But I do think over time you get kind of more of a willingness to let those impulses just kind of come up and then go away. Just a little quieting down. And it does take some time to find what I call find your seat. You know, a lot of the new students who come to Zen Center, I used to sit where they were seated. So my seat was right where their row of seats were, and I would watch them kind of, you know, jiggling around and being uncomfortable.

[36:03]

And then over time, you know, maybe a month or two months, some cases, they'd find their seat, and they would just be able to sit still. So it's an exploration that each of us does, you know, privately. It's like... Finding my seat is my job. Finding your seat is your job. And however you can get support for that, particularly if you can sit with other people, that can be extremely helpful in helping you do that. Thank you so much. I just had one another quick question. Is it okay to do Zazen when I'm on the couch that for some reason I'm too tired to... to sit on the floor and just close my eyes and do Zazen in any place I find myself in? Yes. Any place, any time you feel like settling into where you are, that's wonderful.

[37:09]

Okay. Thank you so much for welcoming me. Yeah. I hope we'll see you again. Thorin. Oh, Hope. Hope has vanished. Oh, there she is. She's kind of sneaky. She pops in and pops out. I think she popped back in again. Hi, Hope. There you are. Hello, Fusan. Hello, Sangha. Welcome, welcome. I missed you all the last two weeks. I had my little sister's Family birthday dinner. And then who knows what happened the next Sunday? Clearly you don't. Nope. Can't remember. Thank you so much, Fu. It looks like you're settling into Enzo in some way. It looks beautiful. Beautiful flower arrangements behind you.

[38:15]

My question is... It seems like there's maybe a little bit of a theme going on here. Maybe it's the eclipse. But what is actually happening with the whole letting go thing? Because it's like we never really had it. That's right. What's going on there? You know what I mean? I do. So basically it means just try to hold on to it. You think you've got something, right? So try holding on to what you think you've got. That's letting go. Because you'll realize I don't have anything. I never did. I never will. No matter how hard I squeeze or how hard I grab, I come out empty-handed and empty-minded. It's just passing on through. It's like, whoop, and not again.

[39:17]

And I missed it again. Yeah. Yeah. It like feels like there's a hook, you know, like it feels like there's a hook, like something has a hook in my spirit and I've got to like, yeah, it's like so painful. And then it's like all like it's not actually real, but it's so painful. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, it's called a barbless hook. We are caught by a barbless hook. All you have to do is open your mouth. We think there's a barb. There's no barb. Actually, it's insane. The barbless hook. Just open your mouth and you're free. You're already free. That's so tricky for us, right? You're already Buddha. You're already free. What are you going on about? What about my... Yeah, well, what about it? Try to get it. Try to hold on to it. And then letting go becomes more like exhalation.

[40:21]

You don't have to do anything to exhale. Your body just taking care of you no matter what you're doing, right? I'm exhaling right now. And now I have to inhale in order to continue exhaling. So we're just on automatic, you know. But we've got this crazy little thing up here that's going on and on about, you know, chewing carrots. So is there like, if my attachments are kind of like inhaling and exhaling or letting go, like letting things arise, letting things fall away, what's breathing? This is really difficult to describe, but sometimes in life, it feels like there's something is pushing you to exhale. Like something is pushing you To let go, even if you don't want to. Yeah. Yeah.

[41:23]

Well, just leave out the something. The agency, agent of control or an agent of doing. There's no agent of control. That's the I. I exhale. Oh, yeah, really? Good job. I wonder if you forget. Oh, God. Yeah, so there's a lot of stuff we take credit for. There's really nothing at all other than we were born, somebody gave us a whack on the butt, and we started to inhale and cry, and we've been crying ever since. and now we're kind of learning about when is it okay and when is grief a good thing and it is a good thing, it's healing, tears are medicine. All of these things we humans naturally do are really for the benefit of our coming to realization that things are okay, whatever it is. It's okay, we're going to die, it's okay. What am I going to say? No, I'm not going to. Sorry, I'm not going to exhale, I'm not going to inhale. I'm not going to let my heart beat.

[42:25]

I am really alive. I am truly alive. I didn't do it. I can't take credit. And I want to learn as much as I can from this opportunity, this short time I have on the pale blue dot. Don't you think? Hey, Soren. Hey, hey, fool. Thank you for being here, holding this space, and taking the time out of the boxes. Yeah, right. That's a relief. Yes. It is. I fully understand. Something else. Yeah, yeah. Anything else. Yeah. Anything else but another box. The bathroom needs cleaning? I'm there. That's right. That's right. If I had a lawn, I'd mow it. Yes. Yes. Oof.

[43:25]

Oof. Yeah. So, you know, I was, you know, thinking about, I put up my hand because I really remember, you know, you ask a question, you're lecturing, you ask a question, dead silence. And, you know, it's really hard to hold on and let people just have the space that they need to come up with an answer because you always want to jump in. Right. Yeah, so I put up my hand, and fortunately it's late enough in the lineup that I thought of a question. Yes, all right. Okay, so I was thinking about the nothing special. Here's the state. It's nothing special. It just is. And yet, if you go to other parts of the liturgy, and I forget... what it is, and I know I've chanted it many times, a hair's breadth of deviation fails to... Forward with the proper attunement.

[44:31]

Yes. Okay. So it's nothing special, yet it can be out of alignment. Yeah. And that... That's not so special. Yeah. Being out of alignment, that's easy. Yeah. But then being in alignment, if you will, is nothing special either. Yeah, exactly. So what's the difference? No difference. Some difference. Big difference. You know, we just call it. We just call it. Like umpires, you know. Strike. Strike. We're just calling it. It's our projections, right? We look at the world through these lenses of our projections, of our imputations. Oh, there's something special. Whatever it is that we think is special, we're imputing that specialness.

[45:37]

It's not really special. It's really not special. Okay. It's ungraspable by human language. We already have it. Whatever it is you're perceiving, it's already happening. You can't stop being drenched in the rain or stop being hot in the sun or whatever it is. It's happening. Just this is it, you know. And then we have all these little thoughts about it could be better, it could be more, it could be better, I could be better. You know, all that stuff that we torture ourselves with. If we stop that, you know, just give it a break. Oh, such a relief. So I was wondering, as you said, the catch of language, special, not special, is there also non-special? Well, yeah, both special.

[46:40]

That's the pivot, right? Yeah, right. That's think, not thinking. How do you think, not thinking, non-thinking. Non-thinking, right. It's a qualifier of thinking. It's not attached to thinking, not attached to special. It could be special. They have specials all the time. You know, they're specials. But we're not attached to these things as they fly through and they look like opposites or they look the same. You know, the way things look or just the way they look, nothing special. We attribute, we put all that stuff out there. It's our feelings that create the idea of special. They're emotionalized conceptualizations. I love it. I love it. I hate it. I hate it. It's all about this body, these embodied feelings about the world that are making my life the way I think it is. Nothing is the phrase, nothing special. Almost like a little lever, a little key.

[47:43]

Yeah. To turn so that you don't have the gaining idea of getting something special? Kind of like that, so you don't fall for it. We're in a culture that is trying to trick us into believing that there are very special people and certain things that make them special mostly having to do with marketing. It's the marketplace. So I'm like, oh, that's really interesting. You know, I've been sold a whole bill of, I've been given a bill for the cost of what it is to be special in this culture. And when people think they are, you know, for whatever reasons, we kind of get the lack of truth in that. You know, it's like, well, that's not it. If I think it's not it, when I think it's so, if I have any self-awareness, it's like, what am I thinking? What have I done? How have I fallen into this trap of self-making and evaluating?

[48:50]

Where am I in terms of others? How am I calibrating myself around others? So jealousy and whatever else just becomes pain. It's pain. Yeah. So, you know, human first. Human first. I didn't want to hear that. But it's so true. And that's where the work happens. You know, Buddha doesn't have to go to work. It's just like da-da-da-da. You know, we laugh about that a lot here at our retirement community. It's like, Gringold, we said, working hard, accomplishing nothing. Here we say, not working at all and accomplishing nothing. People are retired. And it's like, what do you do all day? And so mostly we go to the dining room and eat. And then we... We just spent two hours at lunch talking to a bunch of people. It was really, really nice. It was really fun. I finally said, I got to go. This is a confession. I got to go get my talk ready for this afternoon.

[49:53]

I can't sit here with you people, you know, having a good time, doing nothing, accomplishing nothing. So, you know, it's like there's just this different ways that we know the world as we go through the process of being alive. Yeah. And I'm just learning this one. It's quite different. Yeah. Then my old one, my old skin. Yeah. Yeah. I'll be interested to hear how you settle into the idea of schedule and no schedule. Yeah, me too. Yeah. I'm still thinking I might go for a swim. I've got that really high on my wish list. But the schedule, the support of the schedule. Yeah. Yeah. How one lives without it. How do you make one? Yeah, I try. Yeah. I'm already doing that. We have 7.30 Zazen here.

[50:54]

This is quite luxurious. So civilized. I have to ask, are you still waking up at 3.30 anyhow? I do. I actually wake up at 4.00. I'm pretty conditioned for that. Yeah. And then I kind of answer emails and I read the news, the bad news and the good news. And then I get out of bed and have some tea and go to the Zendo. So I've got an extra two hours. It's kind of luxurious. I'll let you know. So far, so good. Good enough. Yeah. Two and a half years, I still haven't settled that one. Well, we'll help each other figure it out. Thank you. You're welcome. Hi, Senko. Hi. Good afternoon. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Yeah. So I started reading this book by Mel Whiteman, this new book called Seeing One Thing Through.

[52:05]

I think that's the title. It's interesting for me to see. Actually, I don't think I've read a book like that for, you know, Zen master to write about very like his ordinary life, his life experience and how he was thinking about like before Zen or after Zen and those experience. And it's also quite interesting to see his experience with Richard Baker because he didn't hide his feelings. He's expressing his criticism, right? You know, it's very, I think it's weakening me up a little bit because I guess I have to confess when I first exposed to Zen, my aspiration was trying to be someone like super nice, you know, much more mellow than I was, you know, three years ago. I don't know. Maybe there's some like directional change. But now I... Now I... I think maybe Suzuki Roche, he said, the practice is just to be yourself, to enable you to be yourself fully.

[53:12]

It's not to be something else. Intellectually, I can't understand it, but now I think I'm getting a little more visceral understanding that I really cannot turn into something else. I think I'm trying to express myself in Zen, hopefully. Yes. So I still have a lot of... You know, when I get mad, I can still be very mad. I can still criticize. Just like what I think Mel Weitzman did in the book. So I'm trying to think, usually there's, like we talked about the appropriate response versus reacting, right, on the spot. Because I understand when I was reacting to things, I feel a lot of karmic impact, like pulling me. It's automatic. But how about appropriate response? Does that still have the... karmic impact? I think it still has. Even if I feel sometimes I'm more appropriate, I still have the karmic. But when the Zen teachers talk about that, do they mean you have a proper response without the karmic impact?

[54:16]

How can one do that? Well, I think, you know, it's really helpful to review those two koans at the beginning of the Mumongkang. The one about does the dog have Buddha nature? No. It's like, no, you don't have Buddha nature. There's no distinction between, you know, a dog and a Buddha or whatever. Yeah, there's a distinction or whatever that koan's about. It's like, that's the wrong question is really the point of that. No. Does the dog have Buddha nature? The monk is really asking, do I have Buddha nature? And the teacher's saying, no. Meaning you don't have Buddha nature. This is the same thing Suzuki Roshi's talking about. You are Buddha nature. And Buddha nature has all those qualities that you're noticing about being this thing, being this dog, you know. So that koan is really about the ultimate truth of all things are Buddha nature, all inclusive universe. It includes anger. It includes opinions and judgments. And I like that guy and I don't like that guy. All of that's included.

[55:17]

Buddha nature includes everything. But we're not caught by all those different parts. They're just moving around. You know, that's just fine with me. I need to be careful. So I want to be aware of my tendencies toward greed, hate, and delusion, which is also included. So if I want to be, you know, so in the second koan about Yakujo and the fox, Yakujo, you know, answers the students by saying a person of the way is not subject to cause and effect. It's free of karma, you know, and he becomes a fox, which is the fox is the symbol for karma. So this 500 lifetimes he spends is a fox. And then he asks the current abbot of the same temple, what did I go wrong? What did I say wrong? And the current apple, Bai Zhang, says, a person of the way does not ignore cause and effect. You're not ignorant of the actions of your own body and mind or of your relationships to others.

[56:19]

You don't ignore it. You really study it. You understand the workings of the mind, the workings of karma, how good actions lead to good results and bad actions lead to bad results. You know that from yourself. You're the proof. When I do something that doesn't feel good, it's not so good. I don't feel good. My kids don't feel good. So I'm learning that by my own karmic behavior. I don't want to ignore that. I want to study it carefully. Stay in connection with my human first. And that's who I'm here to train. I'm here to help that human to be more responsible, to make a more appropriate response to things that arise rather than the impulsive responses of like an animal, like greed, hate, and delusion. I don't like it so whack. I like it so grab, you know. So we're really just slowing the whole thing down so we can study it and make more careful choices.

[57:20]

Yeah. So, yeah, so I think so. I mean, the proper response also is based on my, oh, what's made me, right? It's not free from my karmic or whatever, but it's more proper somehow, I feel. Well, yes, yes, yes. And you don't want to fool yourself. Well, everything I do is appropriate. I mean, that's kind of like falling into one side of a big mistake and falling to the other side is nothing I do is okay. That's another big mistake. So it's more, the middle way is, is like a path that you're, you hit the too much and, and that bounces you back to the middle and then you hit the too little and that bounces you back to the middle. So we're in the middle way, but it's alive. It's not a, it's not a, like a line on the road. It's more like the water, like more like navigating in a river. There's lots of change going on and we're not ever sure. Was that good? I don't know. That's already gone. How about this one? Yeah. Did I do a good job? I don't know. I hope so. I know. Don't walk the boat, right?

[58:23]

I gotta keep going, yeah. This river's going downstream and I gotta keep up. Yeah, exactly. I really like the story Suzuki Rosh was talking about. Oh no, Dogen. Don't walk the boat, right? Is he? I'm kind of mixed up. Whoever. One of those Buddhas. Yeah. Thank you. You're so welcome. Thank you. You're welcome. Hi. Are you Tommy? Yes. Hi, Tommy. I'm Fu. Okay. So, uh, first of all, this is my first time here. Welcome. Thank you. And I, uh, like, uh, I got into the stream of like Zen and Buddhism and also Taoism and that kind of stuff. uh yeah like i that thing you said about being a human being something difficult you know that you said uh yeah it resonates with me i had a like a tough time you know early in my life and i um yeah so i felt like drawn into this path because i wanted to experience like a sense of relief you know and uh

[59:53]

Yeah, like you were talking with a girl earlier about like the difficult things in life, like dying, you know, that kind of thing, you know, and how like our sense of self, like am I breathing? Am I the one doing the talking right now and all that, you know? So I, I got like, I faced this because I, I had so difficult times that I contemplated, you know, the end at one point. And so, yeah, like I really wanted to overcome that thing, the self, you know, like being someone or something. So I watched this Taoist person who also talked about the, I mean, Japanese person that spoke about the Tao, you know? And he would always say things like, don't try to reach Satori.

[60:57]

You're already there. Or you are the Tao. You are it. Things like that. He would say, you alone exist. There's nobody else. You're the only being in existence. And I would go walks in nature and this sort of stuff. But I could never surrender, you know, like literally just like lay back like a dog like this, surrendering to the cosmos. It was like I was holding on to something. I was like closed in on myself, you know, because of fear or something. So it brought a lot of relief to actually think of that, think of like all that process of dying and killing myself. was actually like wanting to kill my ego in life.

[61:58]

Yes. Yes. That's right. That's right. And it's already you don't have one. So the good news is you don't have one. It's a fantasy. So really we're waking up from our illusions. And what we experience are illusions. It's not that thing isn't really there. And the closer you look, you go, well, wait a minute, where'd it go? So we are of the nature of an illusion, and that's what the Buddha woke up from. He said, I know, I know, I'm an illusion, and it's okay. I can be that. I am that. And all of these things that I've been doing and thinking, and I'm a prince, and I gotta do all this painful stuff. I gotta hurt myself in order to get free. He became free of that when he realized, like you said, I'm already fine. I am the center of the universe. So is everybody, right? We're all the center of the universe, of course. And it radiates in all directions around us.

[62:59]

And we're connected. We're always connected. We've never been separate. So it's just we need the right words. We need to hear the right poetry in order to be reassured. Like children hearing lullabies. We need to hear the music. of you're fine the way you are, you're welcome, you belong here. And all of that stuff is really important. And without that, I never would have gotten through these last 50 years in a way that I would have felt, I'm sure, felt very good about. So I am grateful you've come into practice, and I hope you'll find some healing and a healthy way for yourself. It's there. It's really there. And help is good. You're alone and you're not. That's one side of it. You know, I walk alone, that's a Zen saying, and I walk alone with others, not by myself. So I just want to welcome you again, and I hope you find some comfort in all of these teachings, because they're wonderful.

[64:03]

Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Marianne, how are you? You are muted. Thank you for your talk. Good evening, Sangha. We have the appearance of Carmina. Hold on. All right. Welcome. Oh, there you are. Hi there. It's been a while. Nice to have you back. Thank you. I thank you for everything for the last two years. And I want to thank the Sangha, which is always, well, full of knowledge and personal experience.

[65:06]

And it always moves me and, you know, takes me back to my own experiences. Now, you know, Marianne and I never, introduced ourselves. And I'm going to try to be very quick with this because it's really a practice to a comment related to your talk, okay? First of all, both Marianne and I are Christian theologians. My degree from GTU... associated with the Dominicans, the Franciscans, and the Jesuits. I have a degree from the Jesuits. This is all to say that before I graduated, got my doctorate in 1998, I had totally left the church. I was no longer, I hadn't been for many years a practicing Catholic.

[66:10]

Well, maybe in the first few years. I was at GTU for 11 years to get my PhD. But in any case, so at some point during that experience, a very close friend who had also been my superior when I worked out at the Contra Costa County, poverty program, she took me to Green Gulch. Okay, I think I was still somewhat of a Catholic, you know, a Catholic on her way up. And Edoma Daniel was a committed Buddhist. She said she was a Tibetan Buddhist, but she took me to Green Gulch, and I'm almost sure we were I know for sure we were outside, and the teacher was sitting outside, kind of raised up.

[67:18]

And as I've begun to see more and more, I think it was Fisher, senior teacher Fisher. And I was blown away, okay. But I didn't do anything about it except go to a barbecue with Edoma down at the beach, in Muir Beach. But anyway, this is to go back, to give you some context of how I have come to be at least an occasional Buddhist. Certainly not a Christian. Definitely no longer a Catholic. But... totally imbued with the philosophy and experience of Buddhism. It has transformed my life, actually, since Edelma took me to Green Gulch and I heard Norman Fisher.

[68:22]

In any case, since Marianne and I have never introduced us to our beloved sangha, I'm introducing myself. So you'll forgive me. I will try to speak faster. But as part of the introduction, I am your basic Tex-Mex out of San Antonio who was actually born, I mean, raised in San Francisco from the word good. So, but... You know, I'm a white woman, but all my being is wrapped up in what I call the minority experience, minority struggle. I hate the expression people have come. We are minorities, you know.

[69:24]

Someday we, you know, Hispanics. Latinos will take over California. That's not important to me, but I just wanted to let you know who I am, where I've been, and what Buddhism means to me. One of the things that has come up for me in your explication, beautiful explication, of Suzuki Roshi's foundational work is is that as he describes that point of illumination, which is ultimately nothing special, the only thing I could think of was that my studies had always been ultimately in universal mysticism. And this is foundational that...

[70:26]

across religions, you will have either the prophet or the saint or the wise person who one day suddenly after practice and meditation in terms of Christians, maybe the rosary, suddenly reached that point and then suddenly come back to earth, so to speak, and realize that they're nothing special, that they have come back with a mission. And the mission is to be as generous and kind as they can possibly be. I'm going to give you an example. I wrote my dissertation on St. Teresa of Jesus, otherwise known as Teresa of Avila. And my dissertation took her through all of these levels, leading to what, in lieu of enlightenment, was called her union with the Godhead.

[71:41]

Well, when Teresa finished that, she was back on Earth. She was no longer levitating in the chapel. John at the Cross, she was leading a convent. And she was teaching these young women, you know, how to be cloistered Carmelite sisters. And this was in the 16th century. And some of those sisters, young probably, had to be very jealous, spiritually jealous, spiritually jealous. And they probably had seen that transformation, even though, you know, Teresa wasn't, you know, telling everybody what she'd seen or felt, experienced. And so she had, she told them, looky here, you know, we all keep working.

[72:49]

bodhisattvas, and a few will obtain a kind of Buddhahood. But we're back. We're here. It's reality. It's where we are. A lot of those ladies, girls, didn't like that. But that was really the message. And that's just one example of how prophets across religions, saints, whatever, have been mystics that Buddha was. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's kind of dangerous to be a mystic. Right? I mean, poor Jesus. Look what happened to Jesus. Yeah. Yeah. I think one of the, there was a book back in the day I read called, um, warm buddha hot uh no cold buddha hot christ and it's like i don't really i didn't read the book but i thought the title was interesting because jesus was young he was what 34 when they crucified him or something 33 he was a kid and he was passionate you know and um buddha died of old age because he was kind of cool

[74:04]

As in chill. You know, he kind of wasn't making a lot of noise. He was just kind of moving through it. So, you know, how you approach the realization that you have something to offer to other beings, I think is a part of what the lessons are. Like, now what do you do? Now what do you do? How do you behave? You go like, whoa, I got it, I got it. You know, probably not. Probably not a good idea. You're nothing special. Nothing special. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And that's a good protection. It's a shield that helps everyone because everyone's special, but we're nothing special because everyone's special, right? It's really egalitarian. And it says in the sutras, even those who never know their Buddhas are Buddhas, going on actualizing other Buddhas. You don't have to know it. You just keep walking the path of kindness. And modeling, that model. Yes, yes, yes. Even without... You're wanting to. It's just who you are.

[75:07]

And if they like who you are and you don't pretend to be anything special, they will love you and they will seek you out and you will become their teacher, Pooh. There you go. Yes, and you too, dear. Thank you so much. Thank you to the songer. for your patience in my long-winded introduction, and I'm sorry, lecture. Thank you so much. Thank you for coming forward. I really appreciate it. And just a little side note, my dad's from San Antonio. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So there we go. The yellow rose. The yellow rose, that's right. Thank you very much. Thank you, Carmina. Okay. Now, Brian, are you gay? Is that correct? That's right. That's right. Welcome. Thank you.

[76:07]

Thank you for what you had to say. I'm on the East Coast, so this afternoon would be my time. I had logged into the San Francisco Zen Center website, and I was going to try to hear a talk from Green Gulch. And I was late, so I don't know if it was at the end. Maybe. I don't know. But I had left Zoom on and forgotten about it. Oh, here you are. Out of a little bit of disorientation because hours had passed. My wife was selling plants. I was helping her. I was talking to her in the living room at one point in the afternoon. And all of a sudden... I heard a voice in the other room. Oh, that's funny. And then I was right on the edge of remembering, and then I came in, and here you are. So I'm thrilled that I left Zoom on because I would hear you often speak at Green Gulch, and even though I'm on the East Coast, I felt connected in a way with –

[77:20]

was going on there by coming to um the dharma talks um and all of this made me realize that um i am probably also here and probably logged on today because i uh have wandered from my practice um and that has brought suffering and i didn't realize what was going on until the awareness of how far I had drifted from my practice had come to mind. And this is timely, I suppose, because I am in the middle of having to make a decision about either going to graduate school and the school that I've always wanted to attend and the degree I've always wanted to do, or continue in the path that I'm on now, which is a teacher, which I've been on for a number of years.

[78:23]

And it is the case that at my school, a full-time position is coming open in my area, which I have a very good chance of getting. And I feel that in either case, I will have to choose one or the other to And I feel that at this point, and the other, the job possibility came up after I was accepted to graduate school. Oh, ouch. Yeah. I hate that stuff. So maximum suffering. Yeah. This is first world suffering, by the way. You know that. You know that. Yes, very much. Very much so. So my level of suffering is not the level of suffering other people may endure, but it is. But this is. It's yours. It is real for me now.

[79:25]

Yeah, of course. But in other case. Why were you spot on with Teresa? You were very. I was. Excellent job. And I don't know if I need to. be at peace with maybe it's that I need to be at peace with potentially not having either one or, or to just, uh, be okay with being in the tension. But I think sitting will over time bring me to a place where I need to be with all of this. I know this, I know this. Um, and I know this in the practice and I think it is really interesting that I, that I logged on on an evening when you were discussing Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, because it's a book that I've read twice. And hearing you talk about it is like taking a tall drink of water on the hottest day when my throat is parched.

[80:27]

It's just such a relief to hear... the Dharma, and to know that I can always come back to my practice. Absolutely. And may I tell you a story? Kategori Roshi, do you know Kategori Roshi's name? Yes, that was... One of the people that Suzuki Roshi brought from Japan to help him establish Zen Center? Yes, my teacher's teacher. Oh, is that right? Yes. Who was your teacher? H.O. Munich. Oh, I didn't know H.O. Lovely person. Yes. Yes. So Kategori Roshi told the story before he went to Minnesota about that. He said he had this offer to come and lead a temple or found a temple in Santa Barbara. And they showed him this beautiful property that was way up on the mountain, looking down on all these other seminaries, like Christians and the Lutherans and stuff like that. And they said, you know, this is available. We'd love you to come and set up a Zen temple. And he said, oh, you're very nice. And then Minnesota contacted him and he said, you know, we don't have much money.

[81:29]

Nobody here knows anything about Zen. You know, there's not a lot we can offer you, but we'd love to have you come. So he said, I didn't know what to do, so I decided not to think about it for a week. And then I said, on Sunday, I'm going to decide. And then on Sunday, he decided he was going to go to Minnesota because they'd never heard anything about Zen. So you might trust the universe to give you your answer, you know, to your heart of like, maybe you already know. Sometimes my therapist used to say, was that your partner? I'd say, no. He said, so you've already known. You already knew in your heart something. So it may already be there. Can't really tell. But if you give yourself a little time, it might just bubble up as the path you really are going to take. And the other one will vanish. Right. Right.

[82:30]

Indeed. And I think that's a nice way to look at this. And I do believe this because I have experienced this in moments when... There's just a little extra push that's necessary or something that needs to open. It happens. And I think it resolves that way. Yes. And thank you. Some kind of faith. Company faith is something wants to take care of you. Yes. Yeah. Thank you for finding me. You're welcome. Welcome. Thank you. Okay. Maybe that's good enough. Good enough is good enough. All right, everyone. So good to be with you as always. I wish you all well. If you'd like to unmute and say farewell. Say farewell. Please do. Please do. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, everyone. Welcome, everyone. Welcome to our people. Thank you. Thank you.

[83:31]

Yes. Echo's back. Great. You're gay. Thank you all. I appreciate you. Yeah, certainly do. Good night. Wonderful gathering. Thank you all so much for being yourselves. Bye. Bye-bye.

[83:50]

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