to see and listen to, to remember and accept. I vow to taste the truth of the Tantagata's words. Good morning. Am I microphoned? How's that? Oh, that's... So for this talk this morning, I have borrowed two poems from a book by John Tarrant called Bring Me the Rhinoceros. I find this to be a very valuable poem for anyone interested in Zen and Zen stories. And this particular chapter that I've taken these poems from is called The Red Thread. Connections that desire make.

[01:00]

Friday I tasted life. It was a vast morsel. A circus passed the house. Still I feel the red in my mind though the drums are out. The lawn is full of south and the odors tangle. And I hear today for the first time the river. in the tree Friday I tasted life it was a vast morsel a circus past the house still I feel the red in my mind though the drums are out the lawn is full of south and the odors tangle and I hear today for the first time the river in the tree Emily Dickinson At the time of awakening, the Buddha is reported to have said, the entire universe in the 10 directions is the true human body.

[02:14]

The entire universe in the 10 directions is the true human body. So that's what I want to talk about today. Now, how is it to be such a person to both contain and be contained by all there is. So I thought I would begin by inviting each of you to ponder for a few minutes how it is to be such a person. This is a teaching of the Buddha, a moment of his awakening. And I thought to aid this pondering, I would welcome you to look around a little bit maybe starting with your own hands, you know, if you want to. Just take a look at these amazing hands and maybe down at your own feet, glancing at your knees on the way.

[03:20]

How about the knees of your neighbors and the walls of this room and that's hanging over our heads. The entire universe in the 10 directions is the true human body. And then I'd like to ask you, how does that feel? Is it exciting? Exciting? Yeah, a few heads. Is it frightening? A few heads. Is it utterly neutral? No heads. Well, these three reactions or responses, excited, meaning I like it, frightened, meaning I don't like it, or...

[04:29]

utterly neutral, meaning I'm not sure yet, are the most common reactions that we human beings have when confronting the so-called big questions concerning our existence. What are we? Where are we? How did we get here? Who made us? Where are we going? And what does any of this mean anyway? I remember, I've told this story here before, when I was younger, that maybe in my early mid-twenties, I was a very avid reader of science fiction. And also kind of a junior astronomer. And I said to one of my friends, I can't wait until we get into outer space and find out what's there.

[05:30]

And my friend said, Nancy, we are in outer space. I think that's when I became a Zen student. Well, the good news is there really is nothing that we can do about the situation that we call our existence. We can't point at it. We can't get into it. And we can't get out of it. We are more or less resolutely frozen in this present moment. Even trying to say that I froze. Resolutely frozen in the present moment. No way out, no way in. Here we are. So what can we say about that?

[06:35]

Well, we can say, pass the cheese. many other things as well. Because we have all been trained in the vernacular of everyday life. We have learned a common language. Or used to it. And there's nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all. Like the birds and like the hounds, we are creatures of language. Many dialects, many varieties of language. And at the same time, once in a while, somebody comes along who says something that's unusual or wonderful about our existence. And Shakyamuni Buddha was such a person. Shakyamuni, he was the Muni, the wise one of the Shakyamuni tribe.

[07:41]

I'm sure they were very proud of their young man. The awakened one. And he had a realization. about himself and about all of us by extension. A massive realization. The entire universe in the ten directions is the true human body. So this Buddha, this awakened one, was described as though someone who had been blind from birth suddenly had their eyes opened and they could see perfectly. And not only that, he could speak sensibly about what he had seen. Although not at first. When the Buddha first spoke, he spoke in the uncommon language of spiritual realization. He spoke in the language of poets, mystics and saints.

[08:48]

So I thought I would read to you a small sample of something that the Buddha is said to have spoken at the time of his awakening. This basically is a direct recording of what he said in 1,500 pages. It's called the Avatan Saka Sutra or the Flower Garland Sutra. And I need my glasses desperately. She has them in her sleeve. I know she does. Thank you. Some things do change. The great ocean. Oh, so this description here is... being given by the bodhisattva whose name is universally good.

[09:51]

And universally good was asked to describe what he saw when he looked around, just as we all did at the world around him in the 10 directions. 10 directions are eight in the horizontal plane, one up and one down for a total of 10. So glancing in the 10 directions, universally good said, The great ocean of worlds has no bounds. Its circumference of jewels is pure and multicolored. All the adornments it has are of rare beauty. This comes from the spiritual power of awakening. Rings of jewels, rings of exquisite incense, as well as rings of pearls and lamp flames. Various beautiful treasures adorn it. Whereon rests a pure ring of mountains. Their minds are of solid jewels. They're decorated with rose gold. Their light blazes throughout the ten directions. Inside and out they shine, all pure and clear.

[10:53]

Made of masses of diamonds, also reigning beautiful jewels, their jewel atmospheres are unique and different, radiating pure light, beautifying everywhere. The fragrant rivers divide into streams of infinite hues, scattering flower jewels and sandalwood, with lotuses thickly blooming like clothing spread and rare plants abundantly growing, all of them aromatic and so on for 1,500 pages. So when the people heard what the Buddha said, they said, what are you talking about? That's not what we see. And so out of compassion for the people, the Buddha then said, there is suffering. There is suffering here. And there is a cause of suffering. There is an end to suffering here. And there is a cause to the end of suffering.

[11:57]

And then all the people could begin to listen. So at this time the Buddha did speak in the vernacular. He spoke about human problems in human language. And so I thought today that I would bring up some human problems that have been taking place in the world in which I live for quite a while. But right now I'm acutely aware of some of these problems having heard the suffering of some people who I And so I'd like to tell you about it. And I think this suffering comes from a failure of not only my own insight, but our collective failure of insight as a community, as a people, certainly as a nation in this world.

[13:03]

our failure to recognize and to proclaim the true human body, the body of the diamond pear tree. So the problem I want to bring up is around the issue of diversity. Maybe when you looked around, you noticed something about who's here in this room, mostly. What color you saw. I see a lot of white people. So diversity has to do with the differences among people. Differences that people see and act upon. And differences that create these three primary reactions of excitement, of fear, or of indifference.

[14:10]

So I want to begin by telling a story about something that happened to me last Wednesday morning during community work when I was sent down to the fields under the tutelage of our land steward, Suki Parmele, to make another effort at eradicating Cape Ivy from the lower fields of the farm. Now, Cape Ivy is a very invasive and destructive plant, and particularly destructive of the native flora of California. And I'm not personally prone to hate plants, but Suki has taught me to hate Cape Ivy. So by the time I got down to the fields, I was impassioned and ready to yank. So I pulled great masses of Cape Ivy off the fences and the trees. And then Suki said, no, no, go down into the soil and get their roots.

[15:18]

So I did. What amazed me about the Cape Ivy root system was two things. That it's utterly beautiful. They're bright red. And they are everywhere. Each piece of soil that I cleared revealed more intertwining of Cape Ivy root systems. So as I was working down there, I thought this might be a good metaphor for the problem I want to talk about. A problem that for all of us is invasive and destructive. of the people of the world. So the current manifestation of this problem appeared for me two weekends ago at Tassajara when I co-led a retreat for the LGBTQ community.

[16:30]

And I was wondering if all of you know what those letters stand for. Does anyone not know what those letters stand for? Okay, so that's indicative of the problem. Last week was also Gay Pride Week in San Francisco, and that's when our retreat was taking place. And I think some of you may know that Gay Pride Week usually takes place in June of each year in various places of the world. to commemorate the Stonewall riots of June 28th, 1969, during which 400 riot police were battling 2,000 mostly Latino and black gay women and men at a bar in New York City called Stonewall. Many people were beaten, which had traditionally been done,

[17:37]

to the gay community by the police. And the difference this time is that the people began resisting. And they began a movement which has become a movement for liberation and civil rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people. Transcendent transgender people. That's what I was trying to say. The entire universe in the ten directions is the true human body. The body of a diamond pear tree. So during our discussions down at Tassajara, several significant comments were made about... how Zen Center is perceived as a welcoming and open institution. And these comments that were made about Zen Center were very familiar from comments I had heard by people of color and people with disabilities who have come out of their interests in Buddhist teaching and Buddhist practice.

[18:54]

And basically the reports are not good. In fact, one of the people, a member of the gay community, said his impression was kind of like the disrespectful policies of the U.S. military. Don't ask and don't tell. And this man went on to say he's a gentleman who works at Stanford Hospital as a senior administrator. He said it's very similar in the corporate world. Don't talk about your partner and don't tell us about your kids. So some of the observations that the people in the retreat made were, for example, on the tables in the dining room at Tassahara, there were signs with large letters saying LBGTQQRetreat. And one of the people said,

[19:59]

when did our community become a set of letters? Many people don't even know what they represent, as we all saw just now. And also, someone observed that during the yoga retreat, there had been yoga mats for sale and books on yoga on display. But during our retreat, there weren't any books by gay Buddhists prominently displayed, or even our own much-loved Issan Dorsey, who had been a famous drag queen in his youth, and a Zen priest, a much-loved Zen priest at Zen Center when I was a new student. His book wasn't visibly displayed, and there weren't any rainbow flags. That would have been nice, sweet feeling. But we missed it. And when I got home, I heard that neither of the lecturers on either Saturday or Sunday at City Center or here had mentioned Gay Pride Week during their talks.

[21:10]

So whether intentional or not, and I actually trust it's not intentional. The message that our community is giving to people of color, to gay and lesbian people, and to disabled people, is that they're not welcome. That we are an exclusive community. Even though our material all says, we do not discriminate based on gender, race, sexual orientation, or ability. But, you know, that's not enough. It's not enough. I just noticed in my notes here I wanted to make sure I said I am not blaming anybody else.

[22:12]

You know, I really see this as an introspection of my own homophobia, my own privilege as a white person, my own class privilege, my own privilege as a female. I've had many privileges in my life, and so many I don't even notice. They're entitlements, I think they're called. I was reminded Also of a time when my daughter was about five. My daughter uses a wheelchair to get around. And it's not so easy to do at Green Gulch. Get around in a wheelchair. And again, I'm not blaming anyone else. I have been the director here twice in 14 years. And still we're not accessible.

[23:15]

So red roots are everywhere. They're entangled everywhere. And until we start to dig, we're not going to be able to do anything about our ignorance, this veil of our ignorance, blind from birth. We just don't see. When my daughter was five, I left her walker at school by mistake, and she was crying when we got home. And I said, oh, it's okay. I'll get it tomorrow. Don't worry. It's okay. I'll walk you around. And I think I bribed her with something to stop crying. And the next day, my therapist said, you know, that walker is her legs. And I didn't know. I hadn't thought about it. But I didn't forget again, and I didn't leave her walker. If I forgot it, I went back and I got it. Blind from birth. You know, we have to wake up.

[24:15]

We have to think. We have to look. And feel how hard it is. What we forget. What we overlook. So I wanted to tell another story on myself that had to do with... This one took place about 15 years ago. Because one thing I know... for myself is that until I experience these painful feelings in my own body, in my own heart, I really don't get it. It's just intellectual noise otherwise. I'm just talking. I did a diversity training at Zen Center for five days and I thought, what am I going to do for five days? I love everybody. I'm not prejudiced. I'm not a problem. I was on my knees weeping at one point during those five days.

[25:18]

I didn't know how much of a problem I am and have been out of ignorance. Ignorance is the problem. That's what the Buddha taught. We're ignorant. We're not looking. So... So I did get a feeling in my body about 15 years ago, a really big feeling. The same feeling I got when I was a kid and began learning something about history, knowing that my family of origin is German. Big feeling. I was ashamed and afraid. So I went with my friend Rusa to what we called the reservations. We went to visit the reservations on a road trip. And we were out of supplies, so we stopped at a grocery store in the Navajo lands.

[26:28]

And we each took a cart and headed off in different directions to get stuff on the list. And I hadn't gone very far. when I had a severe panic attack. In this store, there were these lovely and quiet people, elegantly dressed, and for the most part, the women in long dresses and velvet tops, tunics, with their hair pulled back in buns. The men were in Levi's and cowboy shirts, also many with long hair tied back in a bun. They were soft-spoken. And personally, I was wearing shorts. And I felt very conspicuous. And again, this feeling of terrible dread and shame came over me. And I couldn't stay in there. I left the store and I went back to the car. And a little while later, Rusa comes to the car with all her groceries and

[27:35]

being very happy and excited about the wonderful experience she just had in the grocery store, meeting with her common ancestors. Now, Rusa is Chinese. So for her, these were the people who had left long ago, waved goodbye and crossed the Bering Straits to inhabit the northern and southern continents of what they called Turtle Island. The entire universe in the Ten Directions is the true human body. So since that time I've spent more hours and days with the Navajo people, did NA. We had a camp here for kids, Navajo kids, with some kids from Mel Valley two years ago. And I've met the teachers and some of the parents and then we traveled last year

[28:38]

on a caravan to Navajo land, as they call their homes, Navajo land. And we got to meet with the elders and hear their stories. And I've learned a lot more about what we've done to these people, we, of the dominant culture. And basically there was an effort at genocide that nearly succeeded. Their fruit trees and animals were destroyed. Their children were sent to boarding schools and they were forbidden to speak their own language or do their own ritual. tried and true methods. And then, as I was speaking to a consultant that we have here at Zen Center, who's also Native American, about my great passion to do something good for the Navajo, to bring as much as I can gather of the wealth and skills of Marin County back to some of the impoverished people there,

[29:41]

My consultant listened to me for a while and then she said, Fu, is there anything you'd like to learn from the Navajo? And again, I felt ashamed. Of course, there's much I'd like to learn because I've lost the traces of my own ancestors. they have turned into these red roots that run under all of the soil of this American land. And they are coming up and covering over all of the body of wisdom about this sacred land and the one people. So if that's not enough, On Thursday of this week, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that conscious racial integration is the moral equivalent of conscious racial segregation.

[30:53]

Did you hear about that? Now, this kind of turns my head because I can't quite figure it out, but it hurts my heart. Something's off about this. what's happening here. You know, seeds of privilege are being sown for the generations to come. I can feel it. We're locking in. We, we're locking in for our children, our tribe, our ways, our money, our property. And we're covering and smothering all those. have been here before and would like to be here now. There's a word in the dictionary of the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language.

[31:57]

I looked up decency. And it's defined as conformity to the prevailing standards of propriety and modesty. which does not leave much room for minority views. So when the young men and women were being attacked regularly at Stonewall and many other places around the world, they were being attacked because they were in violation of common decency, defined as, in their case, kissing each other and holding hands in public. So they were beaten, arrested, and their names were published in the newspaper. So I would like to propose that we humans continue searching for standards of decency that have more universal application.

[32:59]

Within the Buddha's teaching, these standards are established at the first moment when an individual sees for themselves their utter lack of separation from the world around them. That the entire universe in the Ten Directions is the true human body, the body of a diamond pear tree. But as former Zen Senator Abbott, Mel Weizmann once said, Who told you enlightenment was something you were going to like? Because with non-separation comes a tremendous feeling of responsibility. This is your universe. This is your body. These are your children. Dying of AIDS in Africa. Driving Humvees through the desolate streets of Iraq, Baghdad.

[34:04]

And those are your fathers and brothers who are lighting the fuses of the IEDs. When I was young, I don't know if any of you remember, but San Francisco, my hometown, used to be called Baghdad by the Bay. Do you remember that? Yeah, really. Baghdad by the Bay. I think Herb Cain was the one who called it that. And I used to think when I was young, boy, I'd love to go see Baghdad. It must be a beautiful place if they compare it to San Francisco, which obviously is a beautiful place. But not anymore. What's happening? What is happening? Are we excited? Are we frightened? Are we utterly confused? So again, I'm really talking to myself here, reminding myself, you know, what am I doing?

[35:13]

What have I done? Mostly I talk. That's what I'm doing today, talking about it. But I did agree. In fact, I volunteered and even suggested that we have a gay and lesbian retreat at Tassahara. And I have to tell you, quite honestly, I must confess that it embarrasses me to have anyone wonder or speak about my own sexuality. It's embarrassing. I think it's my own private business. But unfortunately, that's not how it's seen in the law. It isn't my private business who I love or who I marry. It's against the law. Can you believe that? Well, it's true. So I have to talk about it, even though it embarrasses me. And I was thinking, you know, what would have happened in Hitler's Germany if we all had worn, if everyone had worn a pink star, pink star, pink triangle, yellow star, pink star.

[36:29]

Let's all wear pink stars. How can they take any of us apart if we're all together? for all one true human body. It's up to us. There's nobody who's gonna come and rescue us. The Messiah is already here. He's in your hands and in your hearts. We have to talk and we have to talk to each other and we have to talk to people who we think are different or don't think like us Look like us. Walk like us. So I have offered gay and lesbian sittings. I wish someone else would do it. Someone who doesn't necessarily think they're an LBGTQQ person. To walk with. Walk together.

[37:34]

Protect each other. I've also joined the Marin Interfaith Council. I thought, I've got to meet some of those people. And I have, and they're wonderful people. Catholic nuns and priests and Baha'i and Brahma Kumaris and Sufis and Lutherans and Presbyterians, Episcopalians, irreverent socialists and Republicans. We are not like-minded, but we are like-hearted. And it's from there that we radiate our work, from our like-hearted, compassionate, vernacular selves. So I have a few simple suggestions to make. Please welcome your gay friends to speak openly about their relationships, their love affairs, their partners, and their children, whether...

[38:36]

in your businesses or in your schools or in your homes. And please, if you don't already, say hello to everyone you meet with warmth in your heart and in your eyes, like the cashier at the Arco station at Tam Junction who said to me last year, Jesus loves you. And I was so pleased that he said that and I've smiled at him ever since. We like each other now. We're bonded. And I thought, perhaps if you don't already speak Spanish, you might learn some Spanish, at least enough to say, thank you so very much for all your help. We couldn't do this without you. And is there anything at all we could do for you? Anything? And perhaps they would say yes. Please stop raiding our homes and separating us from our children.

[39:38]

And perhaps you could come up with a decent immigration law. Because we're pretty sure that none of your ancestors arrived here with a passport legal in Turtle Island. We must agree on what matters. Kissing in public places, bacon sandwiches, disagreement. cutting-edge fashion, literature, generosity, water, a more equitable distribution of the world's resources, movies, music, freedom of thought, beauty, and love. Salman Rushdie. Thank you very much. May equally extend to every being and place with the true merit of

[40:48]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_97.35