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. Good evening. Good evening. Hello, Mel. So many old friends at Tassajara right now. And all the time. So this summer, when I've done talks, they've been taken from some part of the Ganjo Koan. And so tonight, we come to fish and birds. So Dogen often talks about fish and birds. And this is...

[01:01]

A quote from the Ganja Kwan, a little bit of what he says there. A fish swims in the ocean, and no matter how far it swims, there is no end to the water. A bird flies in the sky, and no matter how far it flies, there is no end to the air. However, the fish and the bird have never left their elements. When their activity is large, their field is large. When their need is small, their field is small. Know that water is life and air is life, the fish is life and the bird is life. So I think that Dogen often uses fish and birds as a way to describe life. But if we talk about life in general, it gets very conceptual. like, you know, life. So to actually take a particular living being, which is really maybe the only way we can get past our thinking about what life is and actually have some sense of, oh, this is life.

[02:18]

Like, this bug is life. This person is life. This fish, this bird is life. That he's also using it To me, not just that particular life, but life as dependent co-arising. Life as it happens as a whole, but with these particular beings. So the fish only lives in the water. There has to be water for the fish to live. And really, the fish isn't separate from the water. And the bird isn't separate from the air, although it's separable. You can find it. So Dogen uses fish and birds, I think, to have a very lively way of talking about this thing that we call life. And usually, you know, when humans think about their life, when we think about our life, we think about, you know, we don't really think about our world as our life.

[03:20]

We think about, I am my life, I have my life, and then I make my way through the world with my life. I sort of take my life along with me, and I try to make it as good as I can, and if I run into obstacles in my life, I try to move them out of the way, instead of sort of having this sense of a fish in an ocean. There's a person in a life, which is our whole world right now, is our life. Our whole world is our life. No wonder we don't think about it so much because it's a little overwhelming. But this big, complicated world that we have right now is actually my life. In another text...

[04:22]

Dogen, in Only a Buddha and a Buddha, Dogen talks about fish and birds again, and he says, fish know each other's hearts. The fish know each other's hearts, not like people. We have a hard time knowing each other's hearts. And birds, he says, know each other so well that after a flock of birds has flown by in the sky, the other birds can see still where they've flown. But that people aren't like that in general. People can become like that, but it's very hard for us to become like that. And the main reason it's hard for us to become like that is that we're not really open. We don't know ourselves, let alone knowing other humans. So fish know each other because they're open to what is it to be a fish. And then they know what it is to be a fish.

[05:23]

But humans, we don't want it. We don't really want to know what it's like to be a human. We just want to know whatever we want to know. We want to be who we want to be. We want to decide who we are and then carry around that idea of who I am and turn it into reality somehow. So at the beginning of the Genjo Koan is really my favorite verse in the Genjo Koan. It's translated in different ways, but one of them is, conveying myself forward and meeting myriad things with practice enlightenment is delusion. Letting myriad things come forward and meet themselves with practice enlightenment in me is enlightenment. So this is the same idea, how we... In general, as human beings, we want to get an idea of ourself in particular and build it, you know, carry it forward in our life, make sure everyone knows the right me, you know, not just any old me, but the one that I want to present that I think I should be, I think I could be.

[06:44]

And we put a tremendous amount of effort into that instead of actually being open to the me that I might come forward in this world, this life. Several of us just went to Green Gulch for a, what was it called, a training, I guess training, and it was called an emotional currency. So it was about money and emotions, I guess. It was about money, it was about how we live with money, So, you know, money is a very emotional topic, but we don't usually think about it that way. We, you know, in the same way that we think about ourselves, we get a way that we like to deal with money and then we do it. And, you know, like I have a husband and we have worked out how to deal with money. It works pretty well, actually. Our values are pretty close.

[07:46]

And, you know, I don't really like to... I like to have money, and I like to count money, actually. I like to do my bank statement. I like to add and subtract and have it turn out right. But the burden of deciding what to do with money, I don't like that so much. And he likes to save money, too, and that's good. But once in a while, he gets an idea of something we should have, like a car or something. And so our agreement is that we will make these decisions together. So he comes to me and says, we need a new car. And I think about it for a while, and then I say, yes. And then I get a new car, you know, and I haven't had to. That's quite well. I suggest you get one like that if you need that kind of person. So, but at Zen Center,

[08:51]

We have to make decisions with people who don't necessarily have the same, that close a way of working out how you deal with money. And, you know, it's much more complicated. There's a lot more people. And there are a lot more possibilities of things to buy when you have three practice places instead of just one house with room for one car. So... this workshop was to help us really talk to each other about money. That was one of the ideas of it. And to do that, the woman who was leading the workshop has done a lot of work on herself about how complicated money is in her life. So she talked about that some, and then she had us each think about one of our parents and the messages or some things that had happened with us and them around money.

[09:52]

And she said, and it might get complicated. The other parent might come into the story or, you know, but to just think about that for a little bit. And then she had us write for 15 minutes, you know, just that where you put the pen down and you just start writing about your history with this parent and money. And then after that 15 minutes, then we broke into threes, and we talked about it, each of us, and then a lot of people shared it to the whole group. And as we were doing that, I started to feel like a fish in an ocean, really. It's like, oh, yeah, you got this way you deal with money, fine. As an idea, as a practice, as a way of living, it works pretty well, unless you run into, you know, real opposition in some way or another. But then you start bringing in those emotions and how closely they're tied to my idea of money. And it just started to seem kind of murky and, you know, it wasn't like a bird in the air.

[10:56]

It was definitely like a fish in the ocean. And then as we're talking about it, so other people were clearly, that was happening with them too. I mean, the stories were amazing. The things that, you know, you know, people, the binds that people put each other in, people put their children in, since we were talking about parents, and we were talking about grandparents, you know, grandparents definitely came into it, some great-grandparents came into it, got very crowded in the ocean. But the interesting thing was, like, other people's stories didn't have the same effect. It felt like, oh, yeah, we're swimming in the ocean, and oh, wow, that was an intense ocean over there, you know, but it didn't, it wasn't murky. It was more like compassion. It felt warm, really, to hear their stories of what they'd been through about money. And it made their ideas about money, which, you know, have been pretty strange to me.

[11:59]

Not strange, really, just wrong. I could understand them, but they were just obviously wrong. But it made sense in a way. I didn't want to spend my money that way necessarily, but I could understand. And then in the second half of the day, we talked more about the present and did the same thing over again, but more from how have your experiences and your about money affected how you deal with money at Zen Center now. And so we had really a kind of People said a lot of different things. They expressed a lot of different views. But in this context of where they were coming from, this emotional currency of where they were coming from, nobody got mad. You wouldn't get mad at somebody in that situation when you knew why they were saying what they were saying.

[13:02]

You might still disagree with them, but the depth of the understanding was just so much greater. I thought this was similar, really, to not carrying a self forward, not having a set self that you carry forward, but a self that you allow to be more complex and where you allow more in. And this is somewhat... I think it's a little dangerous for us to do that, or we think it would be dangerous to not have an idea, to just go out in the world It's actually not not have an idea because we have ideas. So it's more like notice your ideas enough so that you don't get fooled by them. You know, like I have an idea of who I am. That's pretty hard to do away with, but I don't really have to believe it. You know, I can see that it's an idea or a hope or a, you know, but I don't have to believe that's really who I am or that,

[14:11]

It's my job to make myself into that. But to walk out into the world and meet the world, meet the myriad things, and let them come forth and create, really, create a me that comes forth to meet them, it's a little out of control for how we usually like to live our life. We're certain parts of ourselves that we've met before, we'd rather just keep in a box somewhere, not have it come out. suddenly, just because somebody treated us in a certain way. So it takes some experimenting with, I think, to see, do I dare do this? Is it really okay to be this person? I think this is really the core truth of Buddhism, is it is okay to be you. If you let your whole self in, if you can be wholehearted about that, if you can be open so that you aren't walling off part of yourself, and then some pretty mean parts can come out.

[15:25]

If we're trying to get rid of parts of ourself, it can get pretty, as we've seen, as we've all seen, it can get pretty nasty. Another thing that happened while I was... before I went to Green Gulch, when I went to the city the night before. Excuse me. I stayed with a friend in the city on her couch. I slept on her couch, or I thought I was going to sleep on her couch. It was very light, and it wasn't really so noisy, but it was a lot more noisy than it is here. And so I was laying there not sleeping, [...] sleeping, and it was fine for a while, and then it was like, then it started to feel like I was really far away from my world.

[16:26]

You know, like, I rode up with people I was riding down when I didn't have my car. I didn't even have my phone because my husband, we share a phone. And he had the phone, which usually wouldn't bother me. I mean, I don't have my phone. I never had my phone here. But I wasn't at Tassajara. I wasn't at Jamesburg. I was in the city laying on this couch and not sleeping. And I started feeling like disconnected and like I didn't know who I was. And I knew, I mean, as I was laying there thinking about it, I knew I could like... reconstruct myself. I could start thinking about who I was and why I was there and, you know, many things. But I thought this might be actually a good opportunity to, you know, experience, really have a more direct experience of who am I. So I thought I could sit up and titsazen. Then I thought it's the middle of the night.

[17:27]

I'd really like to be lying down. So I just stayed lying down there and just tried to be present with this body there in that situation. So this is something we can do. We might not be able to do it for a long time. We might go off into some story or something, but we can all do that at any time. We could do that right now. Just take a minute. We'll do it. So try to find yourself here. in this room without too many stories attached to who you are so we can feel, you know, we can each feel feel how we're sort of various parts of our body in a more or less you know it might be kind of vague or it might be sharp in some way and we can feel you know what we're sitting on and how we're supported by that and we can hear the crickets and you know have a sense of here I am surrounded by air lucky for us because we're

[18:56]

similar to birds in that way. And I was thinking that night, and since then I've thought several times, you know, I've never had a shining experience of oneness, like some people have, you know, some people have that, and it can be a wonderfully encouraging experience to have this, oh, we are all one. It can also be a little bit of a trap because you can feel like, I need that experience back, or I need to have that experience to prove to myself that we're all one. But sitting here, I think we can feel how connected we are to our surroundings without it being shiny. It doesn't have to be shiny. It can just be this moment. So that's something we can do at any moment, and it helps us understand more about who we are, you know, about how things are, how we aren't really separate.

[20:07]

Because we tend to go around in this mindset of it's me, it's my life, I need to do this, I need to do that, I need to, you know, lots of things that we are like trying to do all the time. Identities that we're trying to... solidify and people's opinions and things to get done. And so to just, you know, every once in a while come back to, oh, this, this is actually my life. This undescribable thing that's happening right now where I'm part of this world. And it can give us much more of an understanding of the heart of other people how people are living also how birds and fish are living and lots of other things so and maybe the best part about it is it's it's a relief it's a huge relief to just experience that

[21:20]

support and aliveness and to put down our burden of trying to make ourselves into something for a few moments. And then if we continue to do that, and if we find out, which I think we will, I think I have, I think you will find out that it's actually okay to be yourself, then it's a huge relief that goes on And so it's a relief, and it makes us so much more available for what comes. Things can come forth and call us forth in an accurate way. It's not us going forward and trying to meet them with practice enlightenment, with our idea of practice enlightenment. It's being called forth in the ocean that we're actually swimming in at that moment. I wonder if anyone has any thoughts, questions?

[22:34]

Yes, go ahead. I guess besides being yourself, are there any other ways that you can Point to that you've offered that to other people? Offered being yourself, being myself to other people? Are you talking about me or that one question? Offered that practice. Offered that, you know, besides talking about it and just being yourself. Are you trying to, are you pointing towards Zazen? Are you? Are you trying to give me a point towards Zazen? It was not a trick question? Okay. It's not a... Yeah, it's not a trick. Yes, Zazen is very good for that. Zazen is very good for just... And thank you for reminding me. Zazen is very good for that.

[23:43]

It's just to sit down... for a few minutes or for 40 minutes or, you know, for weeks and days or whatever, and just be there with yourself while we're doing this human thing, you know, think, think, think a lot of the time, but noticing, it definitely helps one settle into our place more so that we notice where we are and that, We can actually be there. I mean, we're always there. We're doing this all the time. It's just that our mind doesn't want to see it because it's so busy trying to take care of things. So to let it have a rest. Other ways, well, life at Tassajara is always good for that, but so many people can't do that. Hi, Lee. Yes. What about what happens with conflict? You're trying to be yourself, and then somebody else is trying to be their selves, but there's a conflict between the two selves.

[24:48]

Yes, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that can be really scary for us. But I think if we are, the best way to deal with conflict is more presence with ourself. I mean, a lot depends on the situation, right? Like sometimes, if the conflict is bad enough, sometimes you just have to leave in order not to do harm. to each other or get harm done to you. But if there's enough space to actually get closer to yourself and let that self that's, you know, if we feel the danger of conflict, we sometimes like contract down to kind of the nubbin of what we're upset about. But if we can let that expand again into more of the complexity of what's going on with us, like about the money, you know, Like, oh, and then to share that with the other person, some more information about what's going on with me in this conflict.

[25:53]

And if we're willing to hear that from them also, often the conflict actually leads to so much more understanding. So, you know, sometimes, like I say, sometimes we have to take a break from that. Sometimes we need help doing that. Sometimes there might be someone that we can't do that with, but we could still do it with ourselves about that conflict later. But yeah, conflict comes up. We're real beings. We aren't just one thing, the whole, this beautiful whole. We're real things that take up space, physical space, emotional space, and we get in each other's way. So there is... conflict, you know. But I think that it can actually lead to a better understanding of how we live. Is that... Is anybody else?

[27:00]

Yes. And being myself, or trying to be the best of my ability, I often... noticed, I guess a part of being myself feels like sitting with a really intense desire not to be myself. That's all I got. Again, I think getting closer to that Just, and by closer, in some ways, I mean, like, put yourself in a stable position. Sitting, standing, walking, or lying down. See if you can find it in your body, this feeling. And see if it unpacks itself at all. You know, like, an intense desire not to be myself.

[28:01]

Anyway, I could imagine what might, like, if you let that... bloom a little bit, what that might include. It might include some fear. It might include some dread. It might include some real aversion to parts of ourselves. The good thing about everything is it doesn't stay, it's not solid, it's not static. It actually moves. So if we give the space, instead of either trying to get rid of it or box it in, either make it more or less, it unfolds. It may take a while, but you can do that. So I think it's totally fun to have a feeling that I don't want to be myself. It's just a feeling. You are going to be yourself anyway.

[29:06]

It's not going to harm that. Knowing the self and also not knowing or no self? Yeah, well knowing the self and not knowing are exactly the same. Like there's no way that we can know the self in a, like I know who I am. Because the self is changing constantly. It's like it's a living. developing, processing thing that's totally included with everything that's going on around it. You know, there's no static self. That's the main teaching of Buddhism, which you're not supposed to accept from me. You're supposed to examine for yourself. But if we're like, if I'm saying, I want to know myself, okay, I'm going to sit down and study myself in Zazen, for instance.

[30:11]

one of the first things that we see is, oh, I don't know who I am. I don't know why I'm thinking these thoughts. I don't know why I'm having these feelings. Oh, and there's another one that, oh my goodness, where did that come from? What is that about? So not knowing, if we're honest, not knowing happens. It just happens. It happens because that's the world we live in. The world we don't know And it's okay to stay present. We can know enough to live accurately. For those of you who were here last night, I was going to tell you, we definitely are not staying late tonight. That was a different show. My dear teacher, I should say.

[31:12]

Okay, is there anyone else that would like to see? Okay. All right, let us proceed to swim and fly. Thank you all very much. 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. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[31:53]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_91.62