This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. This is my first Dharma talk here after Dharma transmission. So I get to have this wonderful, wonderful stick. Thank you. Oh, the stick, it's the stick. Thank you, Elliot. Elliot carved this kotsu for me. I used to live here year-round for many years. It was many years ago now, I think about seven years ago. And I have the great fortune of being invited back to co-lead Zen and yoga retreats. among other reasons.

[01:01]

But I'm very happy to be here. This is, I think, James and my fifth time, sixth time? Something like that. We've been doing this since when I was still a student here. So it's lovely to come back. And I sadly missed last year. So it's been two years since I've been here. And I think three years ago, we didn't get to do our retreat. We did one day before we had to evacuate. All right. So many of the people who come for the summer season, for the guest season, well, for the summer season, many people come who are seeking something. Sometimes it's just some rest and relaxation. Sometimes it's just getting away from one's phone. Sometimes it's people seeking something that they don't know what they seek, that they have this interest they've never been here before. It's always amazing to have a... A group of people come together who may not know anything about each other, although some people repeat and they come year after year.

[02:07]

But it's always striking to me how a community is formed in a retreat. Not to mention the community that's formed each summer with the students who come and go. And the communities that are formed when you're working on a different crew. So the community of the dining room crew or cabin crew or kitchen crew. And Shindo, last Wednesday, I think she gave a talk here, and she mentioned something about how everybody who comes down that road, I can't remember exactly how you put it, but we're all connected just by virtue of seeking something. So I'm always struck by that. And I hear that there's been a lot of turnover here at Tassajara in the last... I don't know, months, years, a year maybe. And a new practice period is coming up at the end of the summer. And no one knows how many new people will be here, how many people who've been here will be leaving.

[03:15]

It's a constant change. It's constant change. So the ability to be here for some small slice of it is very precious to me. I thank all of you for being here, guests, students, people who take care of this place in one way or another, because it is fantastic. And we have something very, very special here that is not found in anywhere. It's hard to find a place that's this hot. Sorry. That's this... Oh... Excuse me. This is not a stand-up comedy, but I'm struck by how warm it is. It was really cool when I first got here last week. Thank you for being in this hot Zendo with me.

[04:20]

The topic that I wanted to talk about tonight, a couple themes have been... swirling around, but one of the topics that we've been talking about in the Zen and Yoga retreat that we've been doing for the past few days is the topic of, well, we've talked about the self, what the self is, this big self, small self, but really one of the questions that we went into deeply today was the question of what are you afraid of? What scares you? Which is rather a sobering topic, right? And not one maybe that you hear so often. Maybe not one that we even ask ourselves. But it came from looking at some of the qualities or gifts of a bodhisattva. And one of those gifts is the gift of fearlessness.

[05:25]

How Does fearlessness, how does fearlessness manifest? And just as, you know, we have this description of some kind of, there's a distinction between the small self, the self of grasping, a constricted self, maybe the personal self, the ego self, in comparison with something greater, something bigger, something that we all participate in, which is sometimes called big self, transcendent self, sometimes called big mind versus small mind. So in looking at some of these qualities of bodhicitta, the mind of awakening, which is something that connects all of us through our heart, through our ability to connect and to feel.

[06:31]

It's a source. Bodhicitta is a source of our deep desire to wake up, to cut through some of the pettiness that we all have in the small self. It can be very hard. And oftentimes people come to a place like this Because they're looking for peace. They're looking for some kind of inner ease, harmony. And it's striking, I think I was one of these people, when people sometimes they come to Tassajara and they think that they can find that there. They come into the zendo and maybe the first thing they find is a panic attack. You're sitting in here. You've been given Zazen instruction.

[07:32]

You find yourself in this position and your legs start to hurt or your mind starts to race. Maybe your heartbeat increases and this feeling can come over you like, I need to get out of here. When is that person who rings the bell going to ring the bell? Maybe he's falling asleep. We come right up against... the very thing that we think we're trying to let go of or push away or transcend, this small self, self-concern, frightened, maybe, nervous, anxious, greedy. So we come to a place like Tassajara thinking that we're going to be able to find something beyond that, and we run right into it. even in a yoga and Zen retreat. So the thing about this ego, this small self, is that it's constantly trying to maintain itself and creates ideas about what is safe, what's not safe, what makes it look good, right?

[08:44]

Sorry, I lost my glasses, so you're all blurry. What makes you... the self-concern of how do I survive? And it's not like we can jump over that, even though we might want to. So one of the things that we did, we did a lot of meditation in this retreat. I thank James for sharing space with me. And I think one of the things that we do in this workshop, we've done well over the years, is... balancing motion and stillness. And in particular, even within a yoga session, there's this quality that I love of leaning in, getting right up close to a shaky point, right? Right up to our edge. Sometimes, maybe even a little bit over one's edge, but getting right up to that, squeezing, pulling in.

[09:54]

ringing out, and then releasing. And it's this back and forth that we do in yoga, and I think we do it in Zen as well. And we need to. We need to see the full expression. Because what we're searching for, more than anything, is to be truly who we are, to find our true nature. And we like to call it our Buddha nature. You can call it whatever you like. But we all know what that is. And it has nothing to do with the concerns of the small self. And yet, without, we can't bypass it either. So today when we do our exercise, during the exercise, at some point I thought, ooh, maybe this is too much. To go deeply into this question of what frightens you. And yet, I feel very... very proud of the group of us that embarked on this mission.

[10:57]

It takes a lot of courage, right? And actually, it lays the ground for fearlessness, the ability to be with our small self. Now, Suzuki Roshi liked to talk about the boss. You know what I'm talking about? So he would say, like, you know, don't let this, you know, the small self be the boss. You need to be the boss. Well, it's like, well, who is the boss? Big self as boss. In the Genjo Koan, there's this line, to carry yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion. That myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening. So if we carry our self forward, That's kind of the small, this is the small self, has the self-concern.

[12:01]

How am I doing? Am I okay? We have to be very gentle with this self. We can't just rip it off and be like, okay, I'm done with it. Maybe some of us can. I've never been able to. But that myriad things that the universe... which we are, right, we are the universe, that myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening, whereas carrying our self forward, like this idea of, you know, put your best foot forward or, right, make sure your makeup's right in the morning before you leave the house, right, that self, and I'm not saying, you know, don't do that, But don't think that's the true you. That's a part of you. And I was thinking of Myogen Steve Stuckey earlier today when petting the cat Otis.

[13:10]

So Otis, there's Otis and Olive. Olive lives up on the hill and Otis is out and about. They were born during the week the fire that came through in 2008 happened. And then they grew up a little bit and then they moved to Tassajara. Became the kitchen cat and the dining room cat. They lasted like two weeks before they were like just Tassajara cats. But Steve Stuckey was the one who named them, Otis and Olive. And I was spending some time with Otis and thinking about Steve and thinking about one of the teachings that he gave. He was an avid practitioner of a type of philosophy, maybe a therapeutic method called internal family systems. I don't know if anyone's familiar with that. And this idea of internal family systems is that there's the true self, capital S, which he used to say is the true non-self.

[14:12]

And that that self is the big self that's actually impersonal, that connects us all. It's characterized by spaciousness, by connection, courage, clarity, compassion. But again, it's impersonal. It's not your big self. And then in this system, alternating with this big self, this true self, are parts. In Buddhism, we like to non-identify with these aspects of ourselves that come up. We let them come, we let them go. We do this in zazen. We breathe in, we feel our feelings, we ask ourselves, what is this? We notice, we pay attention, but we don't grab onto it.

[15:17]

We let it come and we let it go. And if you've spent any time at Tassajara as a student, you will notice that these parts, you know, we can form identities around them. We can form opinions and judgments, strategies for making that part of us safe, right? And this is all fine if we don't identify with them, right? If we let them come, let them go, we don't cling, we don't grasp. They can come and go, and we can apologize when we make a mess. Problems happen when we cling and we identify and we think of ourselves in a particular way. I think one of the main things that comes up when doing an exercise like, what are you most afraid of? What scares you is, what do you think? Lack of control. Lack of control of your faculties. lack of control of your relationships.

[16:22]

These are some of the most frightening things, which makes sense. In this internal family systems model, parts, these parts can exist. They exist to protect us. So when we get irritated or triggered by somebody doing something in the dining room or the kitchen or wherever it is, just walking down the path, it doesn't happen without reason. It's just that it's not good enough reason to actually believe in it. It's like we let it come, we let it go. We don't identify with it. But we can only do that, the non-identification piece, if we're held in a spacious space. loving, safe space. So, this big self, this vast oceanic, maybe limitless, boundless, bright heart.

[17:37]

I was talking today about the heart space when we breathe into it and we allow it, we touch into that compassionate place, we realize that it's actually limitless. There's nobody that we can't have, that compassion can't arise for. Nobody. Now, when we don't identify with the small, these... aspects of small self, these parts of us that are actively trying to protect us, even though they usually come from very young, they're very young parts of us. How do we hold them in this spaciousness? Suzuki Rishi talks about not one, not two, right? Are we parts? Are we many or are we one? Are we all one? Or are we independent?

[18:39]

You can't say we're not independent and you can't say that we're not dependent. We're both, both and. So when we come to a place where we're able to sit down and not be distracted, then as things settle, we start to be able to pull back the layers. We start to be able to see things that maybe have been scary to us. But when we can connect to that which connects all of us, things aren't so scary anymore. So I suggest that this fearlessness that comes, this is a gift, the gift of fearlessness, comes... Only when we are able to not just get rid of or cut out our small ego self, but actually when we can extend that compassion, when we can extend that brilliance of our heart energy to the very things that we feel kind of critical of.

[19:57]

And maybe they're critical of us. How do we hold them? as opposed to... Have you ever tried to change a habit by beating yourself up over it? Does it work? No. No, it doesn't work. Now, in finding that balance, you don't want to let this small self-characteristic, maybe a critical taskmaster that you have, some internal oppressive... you know, angry side of you that comes up, you don't want to let that be the boss, right? You don't want to blend with it and let it take over. And at the same time, it will sometimes do that, right? But every time that that comes up and we just squash it, that's not the activity of big self, right? The big self actually allows everything. It allows everything and anyone and just radiates acceptance

[21:01]

kindness, not judgment or condemnation. But how do we promote this fearlessness in our own lives? By allowing, by creating enough space to hold with attention, with kindness, and with love all the wounded parts of ourselves that really just need to be held. so that they can calm down. It's funny. I was saying to the group earlier, I think it was yesterday, I was reflecting on... So I'm now living in Austin, and at the Austin Zen Center we have our mission statement on our website, and it used to say...

[22:02]

that the Austin Zen Center offers a haven of peace and harmony in which to engage in the arduous task of self-discovery through Zen practice. That was what it used to say. And somehow along the way, maybe in the last year, the arduous part was taken off the website. And I actually think it needs to go back. Because it is arduous. I think it was just, you know, we don't want to scare people away. But no, it's true. It's an arduous practice, but arduous in the same way that working yourself, that squeezing in, feeling the edges can be deeply relaxing. I don't know if I've ever relaxed as much as after one of James' yoga classes. When we lie down in Shavasana, it's like, I feel so relaxed. But it's only through some sense of arduousness, right? I'm pushed. And, you know, I did a yoga retreat last week, and it was a restorative yoga retreat.

[23:04]

We didn't do so much pushing, which, you know, is completely appropriate. So, in terms of this arduous practice, how we cultivate this gift of fearlessness is precisely by being open, by opening our hearts to our fears, by basking these fears in the brightness of the well-wishing within each of us. We all have this ability to feel, to wish well-being and to really touch down into that genuine wish. It's different from empathy. So neurologically speaking, I've been reading these studies on whether the different pathways that are responsible, neural pathways, responsible for the feeling of suffering with, which I think is what compassion literally means, but empathy.

[24:07]

So have you heard of compassion fatigue when helping professions when somebody is a caregiver but gives and gives? can get very tiring, right? Compassion, I suggest, is this ability to wish well, which has a buoying quality, as opposed to a mirroring quality of, oh, you're in pain, I'm feeling your pain, and I'm going to mirror your pain, and oh, I feel kind of painful myself. That's not buoying. That may be empathetic. and maybe understanding. But the ability to wish well, to send an aspiration, to say, may you be well, has an uplifting quality that's not draining. It's the opposite of draining. So how do we face this world of suffering beings, of incredible polarization, of cruelty sometimes?

[25:17]

How do we go out and touch everyone that we meet with a heart, with a loving heart, as opposed to condemnation? Now, that doesn't mean that there can't be condemnation. But how do we do it in a way that's also respectful, that doesn't drain us? We can be fierce. This fearlessness is not, what's the word I'm looking for? It can be strong, connected, not mushy. It can be firm, but respectful. So tomorrow is our last day of this workshop.

[26:20]

And I'm not sure what we're going to do on our last day, but I hope it's arduous. A little bit, you know, just enough. Because I think that that's where we grow. Thank you very much. If anyone has any comments or questions, I think we have just a few minutes. Otherwise, we can exit this warm space and go out into the cool breeze. All right. Oh, yes. How do you stay in big self over time? All the time. I don't know if that's even possible.

[27:22]

I don't think you would want to, in a sense. The big self, this idea of big self, it's not personal. We have to have both form and emptiness. How do you stay connected? How do you stay connected? Through your body, through complete awareness of what's happening in your body and your breath. without turning away, we get distracted from time to time. So learning how to come back, we're always going to be distracted. I mean, there's always going to be distractions. So it's not a matter of how do you stay there. It's how do you return. When you're learning how to walk, you're finding your balance. If you never fell off balance, you'd never learn how to come back. to center. So it's not about staying centered, it's finding it again and again and again.

[28:28]

And how do I do that? How do we do that? We sit zazen. We open to the experience. We keep opening to the experience. A fresh, a fresh experience. It's very hard to not have all our preconceived notions come with us. It's very hard not to have all that habit energy of our karmic lives coming with us. We can't. We just have to learn how we can be with it. Again, keeping in touch with that heart energy, feeling that breath, feeling our body, being able to relax with it. In small, small doses, how do you welcome, how do we welcome whatever it is that's happening, arduous or not?

[29:29]

Thank you. Yes? So there was this fine line between arduous enough and Yeah, this is kind of like the question of how do you know what's too tight and what's too loose? You have to get in there and get messy with it. to some degree, and sometimes you may end up going too far, and something comes out, you say something that you regret, you slam down a pot too strongly, or you yell at somebody, right? How do we not be afraid of making mistakes with one another? As long as we are very clear about what responsibilities we have, and we come back and we

[30:44]

confess and repent our mistakes. We ask for forgiveness. But yeah, how do you know if you're being too loose? That's a harder one, I think, in some ways. Yeah, and when you live in community, we mirror each other. They say that it's really hard to give feedback or it's really hard to receive feedback. Giving feedback is really hard to do. We're always giving it. How do we learn how to listen as well? But yeah, there's nothing better than living as closely as we live together in community like this to getting that feedback. I think that's time. Thank you very much. Thank you all. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive.

[31:51]

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

[32:01]

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