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. Wow. Good morning. All my young friends are here. It's so nice to see you. How have you been? How have you been? Good? All right. You know, sometimes when you come to visit... Oh, we have an unhappy person. Sometimes when you come to visit... I give you little challenges or tests.

[01:02]

Are you ready for a little test today? No? Well, get ready, because one's coming. So, one thing I'm wondering is, do you know what a wiggle worm is? What's a wiggle worm? Yeah. Wiggles, that's right. And sometimes our minds are like wiggle worms. And sometimes it gets in the way of knowing what's the next best thing to do. So we're going to play a little game. And I brought a bell with me so we could do some practice, okay? So... First start, this is the first thing we're going to try. This is the first wiggle worm. We're going to let our hands be wiggle worms, okay?

[02:04]

Wiggle, wiggle, [...] wiggle. Okay, put your hands down. Now when I ring the bell once, you're going to do finger wiggle worms, okay? And then when I ring the bell, no, when I ring the bell twice, we're going to do wiggle worms. When I ring the bell once, all the wiggle worms are going to stop. Okay, let's see if you can do that. Okay, so here we go twice. Ready, set. Wiggle worms. Okay, stop. Wow, you're good. Okay, let's try it again. Wiggle worms. Okay, ready? Stop. Wow, what a good grief.

[03:05]

Okay, let's do kind of face wiggle worms. Okay? That'll be fun. Okay? Face wiggle worms. All over the place. Blinking our eyes, moving our mouth. Oh, that's a good one. Like a little snake. Oh, that's a good one. Okay. Stop. Oh, I forgot the bell. Stop. Okay, how about, let's try head wiggle worms. All right, ready? Go. Stretch them, they're out of balance, they're all over the place. Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle. Stop. You are really good. So sometimes our minds are just like that, thinking, thinking, thinking. You're upset, you're upset, you're crying. And then what? Stop. And that helps you see what's possible.

[04:09]

And I have a little storybook here. Do people know the book Be Still? No. This is a book about Bentley. Bentley the bee, and all the other bees were sent out to collect honey. They were like the wiggle worms, going all over, and Bentley went, hmm, I don't know. And Bentley found a little flower, like, I don't think everybody can see, oh, where's my page? Oh, where's my page? My mind is going through a wiggle worm. Would you like to sit? Oh, he found a flower to sit in. Did somebody see that? Found a little flower. Because I think you're going to go to the garden pretty soon, or somewhere, right? See, flower. And he was sitting there, and you know what that was like?

[05:11]

That was, what's the word? Stop. Okay, he stopped moving. And then Sammy the squirrel said... What are you doing, Bentley?" And he said, I'm meditating to quiet my mind. Because sometimes our minds get kind of squirrely. And pretty soon, all the little animals kept saying, What are you doing, Bentley? And what did he say? Meditating. Okay. And then, at the end, He said, ready? You can think about whether this is true for you. So when life is hard or you need to chill, think of Bentley and try to be still.

[06:19]

That still that Bentley was doing was... What is that? Stop. Okay. So that's what I would, this is the practice. This is what we do here in this room when there are different people gathered here. We sit down, we put our hands together like this. Can you make a little mask? It's like a little diving mask. Yeah, and then we take our little diving mask and we go right down to our belly button. And we're still. I see you. So sometimes that still is called being in balance.

[07:20]

And I think that's what you're studying today. It's about being in balance. So we had a short time together here about being still. And the adults sometimes, the grown-ups, they just have a short time because they've got all these things to do. Their mind is in wiggle worm and they have a short time. And so what their practice is, the same thing as yours is, stop. Be still. You did that really perfectly. Okay, why don't you see what's happening in the garden today? And when you go home, if your parents aren't here, you could test them and see if they know how to do this and then say, be still. See if you can be the tester. Okay? All right. Thank you. Be still as you leave. Be still. Thank you.

[08:21]

Bye-bye. Our shoes are out this way. Okay. You're welcome. You're welcome. Thank you for coming. Thank you. Thank you. You're the best. Hi, thank you.

[09:31]

I don't know. Did you see chocolate? I don't know. I don't know. Come closer, my dears. I promise not to bite. It will just be still for a moment.

[11:32]

Finding, oh, not yet. It's such a wonderful, or the possibility of such wonderful practice being surrounded by so much commotion. Because finding stillness in the middle of that. Today I propose, that's what we're looking for. And I say today, that's what I think we're looking for, but maybe I'm about to undo that. As I was considering what it is I wanted to bring to the congregation today, I got very quiet and very still. And one of our Zen teachers from

[13:29]

the 10th century, Master Yun-men came to my mind, and a student came and asked Yun-men, what was the Buddha's teaching of an entire lifetime? And I thought, yeah, what is that? And at that time, this teacher said, an appropriate response. So as I was thinking about this, what is the Buddha's teaching of an entire lifetime? And I thought, I teach one thing and one thing only, suffering and the end of suffering. What is the Buddha's teaching of an entire lifetime? Find out for yourself.

[14:34]

Don't take my word for it. Question everything. What is the Buddha's teaching of a lifetime? An appropriate response. But, and, so, how do we get there? What is that? where is the appropriate response? Is it somewhere in the Buddha's teaching, like it's in a book, I'm going to read it, and I'm like, oh yeah, I see it's on the last page. I don't think so. So what is the Buddha's teaching of a lifetime? We live in these times, and I think this came to me thinking about these times that we live in that are so that seem so tumultuous. There's a climate crisis. There's our various leaders who are labeled bullies.

[15:47]

Whether that's true or not, I don't know. But anyway, we have these leaders, this leadership that's changing. There's lots of change in the oceans, in the climate, in our waters, in our communities, and in the way that we relate to each other, racism, misogyny. And we might think that this is just now, this is just current times. But in my studying, or my... hearing of the past, there was a time in the Tang Dynasty, it was the An Lushan War, it was a ten-year war, and one in three people were being killed. So lots, the world has gone through lots of tumultuous times, but what is it to have an appropriate response to what's occurring now?

[16:51]

And what appropriate response are you looking for? One of the things to come to that is how to find some kindness and clarity. But kindness and clarity are not something that you read about in a book. So in case you haven't already guessed, today I'm kind of promoting zazen. So stopping and seeing. What are we stopping? We're stopping... delusion and confusion. We might be stopping our belief in what we think and seeing more clearly what's true. One of the things that we could say is true is that everything is always changing. I see you today, and I see you in 15 minutes from now, and you might not be the same.

[17:56]

at the end of all of this. So stopping and seeing, being ready for anything. In the Buddha's time, I came across this factoid, and that was he didn't talk about meditation. I think the word meditation may not have occurred then, but at that time he used the word cultivation. or planting seeds. So zazen is a way of cultivating this stillness and this stopping and seeing. The question is, what will be your intention? What filter do you want to come through? What is the gift that you want to bring to a given moment? So at this moment, I'm seeing a friend of mine in this group and I sit with a group in Tiburon and they've been meeting for about 30 years.

[19:04]

And one of the stories I heard was that they were getting ready to go across the street in Mill Valley. It's a kind of a double, you have to go through a middle way. And when they looked behind them, they saw someone with a walker who didn't seem like they were seeing very well and looked like they needed some support or some help. And instead of moving on, they turned around and said, would you like some help? The person said, yes. Walked across the street, across the first part of the street together, stopped at the midway and then walked across the other side and said, would you like some more help? And they said, yes. No, thank you. That was enough. So this was a stopping and seeing what was needed, a moment of asking and waiting for the answer, not just assuming that we know what would be helpful.

[20:12]

I was very inspired by that story. For me, that's about sitting and contemplating what is it that's important to you, and then it becomes part of your DNA. It becomes part of what you do. It's not that you have to contemplate it as you're cutting carrots, as you're washing dishes, as you're driving down the road. When I'm driving, if I see people that are, or feel people, that are kind of in a hurry, my Buddha mind, my wisdom mind says, Let them go. I think that's for my safety and for theirs. So what is it that your wisdom mind would call up? So we need to, I don't know if we need to, but I think it's beneficial to go from reactive to responsive. And how do you get to responsive and what do you want to respond with and how do you want to respond?

[21:19]

So one of the archetypes that we refer to in our story world here are bodhisattvas, which are awakening helpers or helping beings. And in order to be a bodhisattva or to stay awake, we need to pick up some practices of mindfulness, maybe of investigating the teaching, of bringing our energy. Bringing our energy is part of the cultivation. When I sit, sometimes my mind is like, not like Bentley the bee, like his friends. And then I have to work to bring myself back. That create needing some energy and some focus and some concentration. And knowing that If anything disturbing comes up, if I return to my breath, if I return to stopping, if I return to my belly, if I return to my heart,

[22:45]

might know what the next thing is to do. So it's stopping and listening. What is the Buddha's, the wisdom teaching of a lifetime? An appropriate response. But what is appropriate is going to come through what is your intention. What is it that's important to you? What will you bring your mindfulness to? Our habits of mind repeat the same stories over and over again. This isn't good enough. This is not perfect. This shouldn't be happening. Why are we doing this over and over again? And to stop and ask myself, what would be the most helpful right now? What would be the most helpful right now?

[23:54]

What is it to be awake? What is it to see what my response should be? So with the kids, I showed them the little diving mask. Some of you went and saw Zen instruction today. Maybe you got some information about the little diving mask. And you take these little fingers and bring them right down below your belly. And one of the things that I discovered fairly recently is that if you take this diving mask and fold it like this, this is the diving mask folded. So sometimes when I'm standing in line at Safeway, or somewhere busy, I take this diving mask that's down here where I find my stillness and I fold it up and bring it to my center.

[25:00]

It's your reminder of returning to, and you get to choose the word, kindness, clarity, stopping, listening, asking. What is it that's the most helpful right now? What is it that's the most helpful right now is the Buddha way. The Buddha way, Buddha means the awakened way, the wisdom way. What is the wise thing to do? So how will you know if what you're doing is having some effect. How will you know? When we understand that things change, we can become more calm.

[26:10]

We have a little bit more equanimity. when we realize that things change, when we realize that there's a dependently co-arisen, that there's causes and conditions that we both know about and don't know about that are coming to be, we actually have more of a curiosity and we have the possibility of becoming less judgmental. And when we're less judgmental, people become more open to us and there's more curiosity. When we're less judgmental, maybe we're more open to accepting what's happening. If we accept what's happening, and then I ask, what is an appropriate response, something refreshing might come up. Not like, well, I have this hammer in my toolbox, and it's always worked before, so I think I'll use it now. But actually a saw would be much better. what is an appropriate tool.

[27:14]

If we have these things gathered together in our capacity, then we have a little bit more peace. And when we have more peace, you have the possibility of more compassion. If we have more compassion, we might have a more careful way of speaking with each other. In these troubled times, taking, slowing down and finding a way to speak from a place of stillness, from a place of knowing that birth and death are part of what's happening, knowing that things are changing, knowing that impermanence is part of our lives, knowing this, allows you to have an appropriate response.

[28:18]

However, whatever I say or I don't say today is not what's important. What's important is that you make the commitment to do the work. As I was thinking about this, I remembered a story. It's another of the koans. It's called Dreg Slurpers. And it's a story about, in this one, it's about a wheelwright, somebody who makes wheels, but I've also heard it about a butcher. So a wheelwright is making wheels, and then he notices that the emperor is studying texts. And he goes to the emperor and says, what are you doing? And he says, I'm reading the words of the sages. And... And he said, are they still alive? Where are they? He said, oh, no, they've been dead for a long time.

[29:22]

Oh, look at that. They've been dead for a long time, and I can't even find the story. They've been dead for a long time. And then he said, well, then you're just a dreg slurper. And the emperor said, how dare you insult me? He said, unless you come up with a good answer about how you come to be saying this, off with your head. Some people know this story? Anybody know this story? No? Okay. So the Wheelwright says, I make wheels. I've done this for over 30 years. I know just how it feels. I know when to turn right and when to turn left. I know what's in balance and what's not.

[30:25]

I cannot teach this to my daughter or my son. They have to learn it for themselves. The butcher said, for 30 years I've used the same carving knife and I've never had to sharpen it because I can feel just the way to go through things. go through the joints. This is not something I can tell you about or you can read about. You need to feel it for yourself. To read about something, to hear about something, and to think that we know something is much different than taking that diving mask and sitting and finding for yourself what is the right tool. Where do I go off balance? What are the words that I tell myself that take me left field? Maybe that was right field. I don't know. To you it's left field. What is it that takes me out?

[31:27]

What is it that is a trigger for me? And that trigger is exactly your Dharma gate. It's exactly the door that you need to hold in the palm of your hand and bring right down here to the belly button. and sit with and unpack it. Through that Dharma door, you will find your appropriate response. That's what I propose. I saw that, look at the time, I saw the kitchen leave. I think I want to... I intended this to be kind of a short talk because the main thing I want you to walk away with was happened at the beginning, which is, what is the teaching of a lifetime?

[32:29]

An appropriate response. What is the teaching of a lifetime? I teach suffering and the end of suffering. Can you find what causes you suffering and what's the end of suffering? What is the teaching of a lifetime? Investigate, question everything. What is the teaching of a lifetime? An appropriate response. Suzuki Roshi says that we say to shine one corner of the world. You're the world. To shine one corner of the world. That is enough. Not the whole world. Not everyone else. Just make it clear where you are. You only need to shine one corner of the world.

[33:35]

Not the whole world. Just make it clear where you're coming from. Make it clear what it is you want to offer to this suffering world. Make it clear that if you see someone who needs help crossing the street, that you can take a moment and offer them some support. The place to find that is be still. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving.

[34:37]

May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[34:49]

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