This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. I was listening to the talks of our... politicians and the politicians' wives this week. And I was thinking, dang, the bar is really kind of like set high for public speaking. So I don't know. I don't know how I'm going to stack up against those things, you know. Of course, even though even though I'm the president of Zen Center, I'm not running for re-election. And I did for a second think, well, what if I cut off the sleeves of my dress and showed my big shoulders and what kind of nice effect would that have?

[01:17]

But I decided against that. No, this is just a simple Dharma talk, Green Gulch, which this month, I understand, is celebrating Food Awareness Month with a variety of kinds of creative responses to the challenge to understand how to... relate in an effective, beneficial way with the absolute mess that our food system is today. So thank you everybody at Green Gulch Farm who's been involved in that.

[02:22]

I also want to thank everybody who participated in the event that we had yesterday, which was an event called Feasting in the Fields, and we had a bunch of people go out to the fields at Green Gulch Farm and we had created a very nice lunch, kind of farm-to-table lunch for people to raise awareness for a building project in In 2014, we will take that, the residential part of this building, and rebuild it and turn it, well, turn it from what is kind of now a reused or repurposed barn into an actual really great living space for about 34 people who live and practice here at Green Gulch Farm for... You know, anywhere from a week to five years.

[03:27]

So if anybody's interested in that project still, Susan O'Connell is here in the front row, and she'd be happy to talk to anybody after this lecture. So I practice in the city, and my name's Robert, and I practice at City Center. And so yesterday I was thinking about this talk and I didn't come to the, because I was, nothing was really coming to me. I didn't come to the event at Green Gulch Farm yesterday, but instead I went, I decided that I needed a cup of coffee. I don't usually drink coffee, but I thought, well, maybe a little cup of coffee. So I walked down the street and... People may not know where City Center is. It's right in the middle of San Francisco.

[04:30]

It's on the edge of a neighborhood called Hayes Valley, a neighborhood that has changed dramatically in the last 10 years. Really incredibly. It used to be a... When I first moved there in 1993, there were drug dealers and hookers right there on the corner of Page and Laguna. And now it's this really trendy... neighborhood. So I walk over, and there's a little street that they've turned into kind of a street slash garden, and there's a coffee place that is kind of like a kiosk, but it's a very nicely designed thing where they roll up these doors, and this big espresso machine shows itself to you. So I'm in the line of the coffee, getting my coffee, and I'm, you know, my A little cup of very special espresso.

[05:34]

And the woman behind the counter is talking to somebody else about how these beans are very unique. And they come from all over the world. And they actually are so fresh, they've been roasted within 48 hours of picking the beans. So I order one of these macchiatos with the organic milk, and then I see there's an artisanal cookie right there with a handmade cookie with rosemary from this local farm, organic farm. Not Gringo's Farm, but another one. So I get a cookie, and I sit down in the sun. And, you know, I'm a little worried that I didn't put sunblock on, the sun's coming, and I'm eating my rosemary biscuit and my macchiato with these special beans that have been roasted within the last 48 hours, and they're so incredibly fresh and organic milk, and it's created a nice design on the top.

[06:41]

And I'm thinking, well, I've been studying the Zen ancestors and the stories of the Zen ancestors, and I'm sitting there thinking, what does that have to do with this scene that I'm looking at right now? Stories of Zen people transmitting practice 2,000 years ago. What does, in this increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world that we live in, what does a story about a Zen person 2,000 years ago have to do

[07:49]

have to tell us, have to show us about how we can actually respond to our situation, especially in the case of our food system, where all these amazing and wonderful things are happening. At the same time, it's like their borderline is horrifying. It's like, what? At the same time, You know, this is happening and this is happening. And it's not going to get better anytime soon, probably. It's just going to get more complex, more uncertain, more ambiguous. It's not moving. I was thinking about... about the films I saw as a kid where everybody was going to get, you know, they're on the spaceship and this is the future and it's like way off in 2000-something.

[08:58]

And they're going to get a little tray and it has some pills on it, right? And everything's going to be like the food system is going to be under control. We will have mastered this whole problem of needing sustenance. So that's my goal for this talk, is to connect those two things. I'll be perfectly transparent. That's my goal, and you can let me know how it goes. As I was coming over here, I had a flashback to the time that my parents came to visit me when I was at Tassajara. They only came one time, and I was there six years. They came one time for a weekend. And in the 36 hours they were there, I heard the phrase, well, that's different.

[10:01]

More times than I've ever heard in my life. So that's the other goal of my talk today is not to have you leave this talk just going, well, that was different. But actually have you, you know, maybe help you draw a connection or some meaning from the stories that in Zen practice we actually study and remember and transmit to each other. So here's the story from a text called Transmission of Light. Before an assembly of 80,000 on spiritual mountain, the Buddha raised the flower and blinked his eyes.

[11:13]

Did you get that? 80,000 people. The Buddha raised a flower and blinked his eyes. No one understood what he meant. No one knew his meaning. And everyone remained silent. All 80,000. The Buddha then said, I have the treasury of the eye of truth, the ineffable mind of nirvana. I have the treasury of the eye of the truth, the ineffable mind of nirvana, and the formless teaching of complete illumination.

[12:19]

I entrust it all to Kashapa. Kashapa was one of his disciples. And in this text, Transmission of Light, there are 53 similar stories about the transmission, the so-called transmission or succession from one person to another person from the time of the Buddha all the way to through China and eventually to Japan over the course of centuries. And while there are There are issues with some of the stories, the authenticity of some of the stories.

[13:29]

And there are, in fact, breaks of time that don't quite make sense. In Zen, we actually, the foundation, or we find it important to connect today's practice, today's realization, today's effort to all the way back from person to person, all the way back to the Buddha. These stories illustrate in a kind of tangible way or easy to understand way, simple way.

[14:31]

The power of relationships to change people. The power of relationships to change the course of events, to change circumstances. I think we think about... We don't necessarily think about ourselves as having superpowers. But actually, as human beings, we do have superpowers. We have superpowers because we have powers that no other entity on the entire planet has. This power to appreciate, to understand, to see what has come before, to be in the present moment, and to make decisions, to explore a creative, imaginative response.

[16:06]

And to put that into action is a tremendous power. It's a superpower. And when used for in negative ways, for not so wholesome things, ends for selfish purposes. That power has the ability to cause great harm. So we as human beings have the ability to cause harm that no other entity, no other being, no other form of life on the planet has. And similarly, when we our energy or align ourselves with being beneficial, helpful, then that power has the power to help beings and help the world like no, nothing else.

[17:33]

As human beings, we have the power to help in ways that are unique. So I do have Dharma transmission. That's why I wear this brown robe. But I don't have a transmission story for you. I don't have a story of Like my teacher raised a flower. And then everything was different. I mean, even if I did, I don't think I would tell it. I don't think that's the way it works. I don't think Kashyapa then sat around the card table and said, and then the Buddha raised the flower and...

[18:36]

I got it. It doesn't work like that. But I do have a story. I do have lots of stories of practice. And I'd like to share one with you today. So when I first, my very first practice period at Zen Center, no, my second practice period, but my first practice period at Tassajara, I did with a teacher that some of you may know, Reb Anderson. He lives here. Anna and I did the practice period together. And in this particular practice period, we have, well, in every practice period, we have these interviews with the teacher. And we go and we see the teacher, and they're very intimate, and they're in the abbot's cabin. And we sit down face to face, and we meet, oftentimes very early in the morning. Usually very early in the morning.

[19:41]

But in this particular practice period, Reb decided that we were going to do this, all of us, we were going to do this every day. At some point, not through the whole practice period, but at some point, he decided we were going to do this like every day. And we were going to come in for just like five minutes and do like a quick dokasan, it's called. And I really struggled with these. I mean, I would suffer so much. Like before the Doka San, I was like, well, what's he going to ask me? Oh, I know what he's going to ask me. He's going to ask me this. And then I think about my answer to what I thought he might ask me. Of all the possible things that he could ask me, I thought, well, it's probably going to be something like this, and this is going to be my answer. And that's going to make me look... What? Like a good Zen student?

[20:46]

Maybe even enlightened. I don't know. Right? I was just going to try to figure this thing out. And I was 34 years old at the time. And I had developed some ways of kind of relating to things and people that I thought, you know, worked pretty well. So continually I'd go in there. And sometimes I'd have a story to tell or I'd have it all figured out, this whole agenda. And then it wouldn't work. Time after time, it just did not work. And I'd go back to the Zendo after that and suffer even more. It's like, oh, my God, what a fool I just made of myself. But I couldn't figure it out. You know, I couldn't. what am I supposed to be doing? So then I thought, instead of trying to get Reb to like me, accept me, think that I'm great and wonderful, maybe I have to like him and, you know, think that he's just perfect just the way he is.

[22:06]

So I tried that For a while. And that. And that. It worked better. It worked better. It was better. But it wasn't. It wasn't really so good. It wasn't so good. I still suffer a lot. And it wasn't. Basically it wasn't so good. Because. Because. Reb. As a reflection to me. I could tell. He wasn't so pleased. He wasn't so pleased. It seemed. And one time I was doing my thing and he was looking down at the ground and he had kind of like a knot in his forehead. And I said, all of a sudden I stopped whatever I was saying. I said, you have a furled brow. And he goes, that's my karma. LAUGHTER I was like, so I got up and left.

[23:17]

And I thought, this is really not working. So one day, I just went in there. And I can't remember if I decided that this was going to happen or if I just gave up and it happened. But I just sat down. And I just said, okay, let's see what's gonna happen here. What? And then it started to work. It started, it went somewhere that I didn't, I had no idea could go to it just started to it's and and i started to say things that i didn't know i was going to say and um and uh

[24:37]

About that time in my life, I had, as I said, I was still kind of coming to practice. It was 18 years ago. And I was really struggling with the fact that I always wanted to be an artist. And all my life that I had this idea, I'm going to be an artist. And in the process of kind of opening myself up to the creative, engagement with this relationship, this kind of creating this kind of improvisational field that seemed to be happening, I realized that actually I didn't have to worry so much about the fact that I had left this artist thing over there when I'd come to that actually my life could be my art form.

[25:52]

Engaging with the present moment creatively, improvisationally, adapting flexibly to the moment, to the situations, to the relationship, to whatever comes. was like the answer to my particular need to be creative. So, you know, I see, I can't help but in some ways see the Buddha raising the flower. being entrusted as something similar.

[27:04]

Not the same. It's not that when we talk about transmission, it's not that actually something gets passed on. I have it and I'm going to give it to you. It's more like it's more like we together people well someone feels people feel empowered or entrusted to access or to open up to an aspect of themselves that was not before revealed to them.

[28:06]

Suddenly appearing is me. in a different way before my eyes, like a flower, suddenly blooming. So this, and it's not so important that even this happened, but however, And that's not the focus of my talk, that this happened to me because it happens to all of us all the time. It's what happens next that is actually the most important thing. How do we take that kind of opening, that kind of empowerment that reveals ourselves to us? How do we take that into our lives and...

[29:15]

use it to be a beneficial force. That's what's most important. So that story happened, like I said, 18 years ago. I've been a practicing sense and president for the last seven years. And in some ways, I dedicated a and my practice to creating a lot of plans for Zen Center. Jeremy laughs. Because Jeremy and I worked together on a plan for Green Gulch Farm. I'm sorry, what? That's right. Jeremy was my partner in crime. Developing a long-range vision for Green Gulch Farm. But in truth, I'm not so interested in plans.

[30:23]

I'm not very interested in plans at all. I'm interested in the plan that hasn't been written yet. The plan that's going to happen, the plan that's going to actualize itself when we actually start doing things. because I'm interested mostly in this field, what I've come to know as this field of creative improvisation. I've learned that... making good decisions, engaging effectively with complex problems is not so much a matter of rational thinking, actually, and concluding that this is the right thing to do after weighing all the evidence.

[31:43]

It's not so, that's not so actually important. It's not as important, and it's not so interesting to me. And it's more effective, I'm more effective when I actually engage creatively, open up to the possibilities of within the relationships and the situations that I find and when I operate improvisationally. I really do believe that kind of cultivating this field of creative

[32:45]

improvisation can help us to deal with this ever-increasing volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity that we're facing today in our world, each one of us faces today in our lives. This is the example of the Buddha holding up the flower and blinking his eyes, creating a field of possibility to see what happens next.

[33:48]

So there's a couple of principles or practices that I use that actually support me to do this. And I'd like to share those with you very quickly today. Number one. It is quite helpful to loosen our grip on our need. control the situation it sounds simple but it's not so easy so as we find ourselves paying attention to circumstances in the in the present moment If we're able to do that, that's a great start.

[35:07]

So paying attention to the sensations that are arising within and the information that's coming from without seemingly. If we can actively engage in this present moment, saying yes to the unknown future moment, the unknown next moment. We have the possibility for something that we could have never predicted to happen. To loosen our grip on the need for control is to, in some ways, kind of unlearn what we think we know. Because what we know isn't gonna be very helpful in this field of creative improvisation.

[36:16]

We don't have to forget what we know, but we have to loosen our grip on it. When we enter into this field of creative improvisation, we allow ourselves to not be in control anymore. And we allow the unexpected to take place. The second practice which I find necessary and helpful is to embrace the volatility, the uncertainty, the complexity, and the ambiguity with compassion. To accept it. To not wish it wasn't there, to not try to push it away, but to actually embrace it, meet it, engage with it.

[37:31]

Miles Davis, who is maybe the king of improvisation, was not afraid to make mistakes. And it's this kind of this courage to be able to make mistakes that is required to improve. It's almost an aesthetic of forgiveness that's required to have this kind of compassion for our complex and uncertain situation. Miles said, if you're not making a mistake, it's a mistake. So the stories of our Zen ancestors are stories about how one person can make it possible for another person to be their best.

[39:03]

How one person can make it possible for another person to... express themselves in ways that they never knew were possible. The stories of Zen ancestors are stories about how we can see our lives as creative improvisation. how we can see our lives as processes of change in which creative improvisation can take us down paths we never knew were possible and have

[40:16]

and have impacts in the world that change things for the better. So I encourage you to develop this capacity. It's very, it sounds so simple, you know? Meeting another being without expectation, without an agenda, without trying to show them how wonderful I am. But allowing life to be created in the space between us.

[41:17]

in the moments of uncertainty. What comes forth? This sounds like something so simple, so ordinary. But why doesn't it happen more often? Why is it so rare? It's a beautiful day out there. There are all kinds of kids running around Green Gulch Farm today that are here for the Coming of Age program, which is starting today. And I encourage you also to walk through the fields. They are absolutely spectacular.

[42:22]

Green Gulch Farm does such a great job of taking care of this beautiful land we live on. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[43:04]

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