I don't know. How's that? It sounds like it's okay.

[01:10]

Good evening. So it's come to this. Monday night at Tassajara. When I sit here to give a lecture at Tassara, it often feels quite formidable in a way because I sense the great devotion and spirit of practice and...

[03:10]

people's wholehearted effort and interest and understanding. So sometimes I don't know that I can say anything that would be of any use to such amazing people such as yourselves. But nonetheless, I will probably end up saying some things. And then they may or may not be of use to you. And, you know, not long remembered. Or maybe something will stay with you. I told my baking workshop this morning about when I was 10. And...

[04:14]

My brother and I went to visit my aunt, my Aunt Alice in Falls Church, Virginia. Just before the plane landed in Kansas City, I threw up. I had been asking, what are these little bags for? In the seat pocket in front of me. In those days, they were very common to have bags. Now you don't usually see them. Planes are so much smoother now. than 1955. And then we sat for a long time in Kansas City because the plane needed repairs or something. It was very hot, about 115. But when we got to my aunt's house, there was fresh homemade bread. And it smelled divine. And it tasted

[05:15]

Incredibly good. And I had never had bread like this in my life. You know, sometimes we have these experiences, something touches our heart. And my aunts are bread with butter. At my house we had margarine. It was supposed to be good for you. That's a whole different lecture about what's good for you and what's not. And she made sometimes, we had homemade bread with butter and homemade jam. My brother later said that he remembered the Smithfield ham.

[06:21]

But I was eating that bread, and we'd come home from sightseeing in Washington, D.C., and the whole house would be full of the smell of homemade bread. And I started asking myself, well, Why don't we eat like this? Why don't we all eat like this? Why are we living the way we do? Why are we eating puffy white bread, Wonder Bread, Kilpatrick's, Langendorf? In those days in 1955, there was six feet high in the supermarkets. Things have changed since 1955. So I wondered and I thought, what went wrong?

[07:24]

What are we doing? And finally I decided one day, I thought, I will learn to make bread and I will teach others. I was 10. and you know sometimes if you think back you can remember something from eight or nine or ten what are you what did you come here to do often it occurs to us when we're eight or nine or ten i just had dinner with um reb anderson on thursday and He ended up telling us a lot about his grandson Masio. Masio. Masio. And how he was interested in the farm apprentices. He's nine years old. And so he wanted to work in the fields.

[08:27]

And then he noticed they're going to the Zendo. So he said, I want to move to Cloud Hall. And Reb said, well, you can sleep in my room. So then Reb had set him up in the room, Reb and his assistant, and then Reb went home. He said, probably if I'd stayed there, Mesio would have gone to sleep. Mesio? But he said, I went home, and so a while later Mesio came up and said, I miss my mommy. But then he went to the Zendo. And the first period of Zazen, he just went to sleep at his seat. And the next period, he set up some cushions so that he could be like a chaise lounge, whole pile of cushions. And he sat there, his legs out. And then he said, Reb said after a while, he, hi.

[09:29]

He turned nine years old. Anyway, we often have, there are moments in our life, something touches us and we know what to do, what we want to do, what we're here to do. So it's important to know, and part of what we're doing in sitting is learning how to watch for those moments and to know them when they come. It's not something you figure out, you know, it's something you receive or hear or know, intuitively. And Suzuki Rishi used to say, we sit without talking, and we sit without moving, and we don't read so much necessarily, especially during sushin, and then you can listen and open your intuition, and you start to know.

[10:37]

what you're here to do, what healing you're here to do. Healing yourself and healing the world. So I came home from that trip. I asked my mom if she could teach me to bake bread. She said, no, yeast makes me nervous. And so I kind of forgot about making bread. But I got to Tassara here in 1966, the summer that before Zen Center bought Tassara in December of 66. And I became, I was the dishwasher and then they were making bread. And I said, teach me. And they said, yes, we will. Wonderful, wonderful bread. And so sure enough, I learned to make bread and I've been teaching others to make bread and now I'm still teaching others to make bread. And each of us somehow is, you know, finding the thread, following the thread of our life, following, you know, what are we here to do?

[11:47]

And, you know, some people can go through their lives and not so much think about that. It seems the momentum of things carry them along. And it's almost as like American culture is designed to have you not do that at all. You know, buy the products, watch the television, and, you know, don't think about why you're here. What are you here to do? Who are you, you know, What is it in your life that you're passionate about, that interests you, that draws you, that moves you, that touches you? So one of the summers that I was here at Tessahara,

[13:01]

as a young man. You know, Kadagiri Roshi was here. I think it was the summer after... 1984, I think it was. And I said to Kadagiri Roshi, you know, I had Doksan, and I said, Kadagiri Roshi had been giving lectures and he had been saying, practice as the ancients practiced. And I was wondering what that would be like. What did the ancients practice? How did they do this? What were they up to? So I went to see Kadagiroshi and I said, excuse me, Kadagiroshi, but did the ancients practice at a temple with women as well as men and women wearing, like if you go to the pool, the women are wearing bikinis and just around town, they're just often wearing shorts and tank tops and they tend to have a fair amount of skin showing.

[14:06]

Is that how the ancients were doing this? He said, no. He said, so when you say practice as the ancients practiced, how am I to do that? And he said, well... even if you can't practice as the ancients practiced, well, you should keep their practice in mind. So I thought, that's nice. So a little while later I went to see him and I said, you know, Katagiroshi, you know, I have a girlfriend in San Francisco. here at Tessahara you know I have a girlfriend in San Francisco but sometimes there's women here they look so good and I I start to feel some desire if I may say so and what should I do in category she said well that's just greed

[15:23]

If you already have a girlfriend in San Francisco, that's just greed. And I said, but it feels kind of, actually, it doesn't feel like greed. It feels like fairly wholesome. It feels like natural, you know. Normal. And... Karagash said, no, it's just greed. I said, but isn't each moment of our life a moment when the bodhisattva, avadakiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion enters the truth of the moment? And he said, if that's the case, you should get in there right away. LAUGHTER What is the truth of this?

[16:26]

So then I said, but, you know, I don't understand. It seems like this is kind of a normal thing. One feels desire, one has attraction. And... It seems like one could act on this with integrity and wholesomeness. And Katagirishi said, Ed, you can do whatever you want. Just take responsibility. take responsibility is a big one so I thought about this a lot and I tend to be a fairly reflective person you know Zen is

[17:55]

pretty natural for me. What's more natural than sitting? Why would you do anything? And, you know, we aim to have actually in our lives a balance between action and reflection. If you're acting, act, act, act, and you're jumping into things and you're doing this and that, after a while you burn out and you just do too many things and you can't keep it up and you And if you're always reflecting on things, you never get off the diving board. You never dive into your life. So we need some balance of acting and reflecting. But so what I've come to over the years, I realized that there's actually a term for this. Some people use that, you know, eros. Eros sometimes can... Eros is our passion and our vitality and our energy, and it's also what Kadagiri Roshi used to call the flower of your life force blooming.

[19:06]

And he would say, let the flower of your life force bloom. Let it bloom. And that seems like such a relief compared to... Be careful what you do. Get it right. Don't make any mistakes. Don't get it wrong. Follow the rules. So let the flower of your life first bloom, feels like. Oh, of course. Why wouldn't I let my energy, my joy, my vitality rise? But, and then sometimes, though, that's coming up and it goes like, what Rumi says is sometimes, you miss the garden, you want a stray fig from a random tree. And so then your energy is, our energy starts going to this one particular place.

[20:10]

And then what about all the rest of the time? And all the rest of the moments? So there's such a thing actually as, and I think this is what we sometimes study in Zen, volatile eros. It's eros that is moving and alive and active. And you have passion and vitality and energy for the work, for sitting, for walking, for standing, for visiting with friends. You have energy and passion and vitality, and it's free. It goes into the moment. and into the activity. And it's not sort of fixated and waiting for something to pounce on. And, you know, this can happen sometimes in relationships. And it happens outside of relationships, but also sometimes in relationships. It's, well, it should be, I want it to be a certain way.

[21:14]

I want it fixed. And then when it's not the certain way we want, it's like, uh-oh. But how do we have some freedom? So Kadagiri Roshi used to say, well, actually that summer then, I talked to a couple students, and one person had been to see Kadagiri Roshi, and they said, Kadagiri Roshi, I am so tired. I get up early in the morning, and then we sit, and we work, and it is so hot, and I can't believe how tired I am. And Kadigarishi had told the person, it's the flower of your life force blooming, don't you think? No, I thought it was just being tired. And Kadigarishi said, no, it's the flower of your life force blooming. And then... Another student told me they had gone to see Kadigarishi, and they said, Kadigarishi, I'm just angry.

[22:17]

I'm furious all the time. I get so annoyed and so upset and over the littlest things, and I can't believe it, and I'm so ashamed of myself, and my friends are upset with me, and people tell me that I need to quiet down and be more patient, and I just don't know what to do, and Kadigarishi... had told the person, it's the flower. I feel life force blooming. Oh, I thought it was just being my anger and I needed to do something about it. So this, you know, our energy of our life actually blooms and, you know, in various manifestations and forms. And of course, you know, the big problem is we start thinking, I need to do something about that. Yeah. I need to fix it. I need to have it be a certain way. And if I could get it to be a certain way, that would indicate that I'm a really great person, if I could get it to be a certain way.

[23:23]

And then people might recognize me for my success at getting it to be a certain way. And so then we get... fixated about making things in a certain way, rather than our energy blooms in one fashion and it blooms in another fashion. Sometimes fatigue is blooming, sometimes anger is blooming, sometimes joy is blooming, sometimes energy and vitality are blooming. This is a kind of study. It's a craft. How are we going to be with the flower that's blooming? And none of these flowers last. This is famous saying, of course, in Dogen. In your attachment, flowers fall. In your aversion, weeds flourish.

[24:26]

Uh-oh. You know, Bhikkharashi used to say, just because you feel some connection and desire towards someone at a party doesn't mean you need to go home with them.

[25:32]

And if you go home with them, it doesn't mean you need to live with them. And you live with them, it doesn't mean you need to get married. You know, it's about, do you settle down in your story? how things need to come out for your story to come out and what indicates what you know I don't know I need to stop talking pretty soon but this is just to say in brief you know a skilled Bodhisattva does not settle down in the story and what it all means an unskilled Bodhisattva says it means this it means that I'm great I'm not so great I'm good I'm bad depending on how things coming out this is the unskilled Bodhisattva so we're aiming to be skilled we know the story and we can take it in different places in different directions and we may come up with a new story so I want to tell you a different story

[26:44]

I wanted, last time I think I was here in May, I mentioned, actually the week I was here in May, I got a phone call on Monday. You know, my friend Carl Dern, who's a sculptor and lives a couple blocks in Fairfax, had died. And I had gotten a message from his wife, Marie, saying that Carl had died. And Tuesday morning, I called and talked to Marie. And I wanted to share this with you because it's something about the power of this practice and about following the thread of your life, finding your way in your life. What are you here to do? What healing are you here to heal? And Carl was 73.

[27:49]

He had been a metal sculptor. So over the years he'd been inhaling microscopic particles of metal. So finally his lungs were basically metal, not living tissue. Very little living tissue left, a lot of metal in his lungs. And they weren't working very well. And he was going everywhere with a little oxygen tank. I want to tell you the end first, I think. I called up Marie, and Marie said, yes, Carl died on Monday night. And they knew that he was...

[28:51]

going fast. Carl said, I can't do this any longer. He had decided to see if he could have a lung transplant and he'd actually been accepted for a lung transplant. He was first on the list in Northern California and his family was very excited and a day later he said, I'm not going to last much longer. I laugh because isn't this our life? You know, oh, I could get a lung transplant and go on living. But Carl wanted to go on living because he had wanted to, he had asked me about receiving Jukai, the Buddhist precepts, and he wanted to share Buddhist practice with other people in recovery. He'd been in recovery for 35 or 37 years, since his late 30s, about 36. So he'd been in recovery for half of his life. And he wanted to share Buddhist practice with people in recovery.

[29:55]

So he had this wish to live, to offer and share practice with people. So I think it was Saturday he said, you know, I won't last much longer. They'd heard on Friday he was first on the list. And Marie began chanting to him the Enme Jugu Kanan Gyo. We chanted that this morning. And she chanted it to him, you know, for hours. While she was chanting the Enme Jugu Kanan Gyo, Kan, Se, On, Namu, just very quietly, um... Everything became very still, very quiet. Carl's breath became quiet. And then the whole family, she called all of their children, and they came on Monday to the hospital, and they sat with him all day, and she chanted.

[31:07]

Very still, very peaceful, very quiet. And then in the evening, Karl gestured, that was enough. He wrote a little note. He couldn't talk anymore. And in his shaky writing, it said, this is okay with me. And... Each of his four kids were holding his hand. Each of them had a hand or a foot. And everybody was very quiet, very still, and he left. I felt very touched that, you know,

[32:16]

Somebody could sit with me. Carl and Marie sat with me just one day a week. And we would chant the Heart Sutra and the Enmejuku Kanangyo. And that stayed with them and became something that helped them through this challenging time, which is when we're ready to leave. And then his whole family let him go. Oftentimes people are saying, Don't go. I love you. Don't leave. I don't know what I'll do without you. Come back. So it's very touching when people can support someone who's dying and let them go. So last Sunday, week ago we did carl's memorial service it was at their beach house in stinson at carl marie's house and there were more than 200 people because carl had friends in the art world carl and marie have extended family about 30 people

[33:42]

They're Carl and Marie's brothers and sisters and their kids and their kids and their own grandkids. And then people in the art world, people in the world of recovery. And I had told Carl in the hospital... Because he had asked about Jukai and receiving the precepts, and you know we sew the Raksu, the Buddhist robe with the straps. And Carl had, for his Raksu, he had asked his friends in recovery to give him pieces of cloth from old shirts. And they left these in his mailbox on Park Street in Fairfax. And he had taken the fabric that people had given him and dyed it all a kind of blue.

[34:47]

Not quite a blue denim color, but a fairly somewhat lighter than most of our blue, deep blue colors. Very soft, because the fabric was all, you know, as old as it was and used. So Carl's rocks, who literally was... These are intended to be the field of merit and the Buddhist field and the community, sense of community. So because Carl had wanted to share Buddhist practice with those in recovery, and I told him in the hospital whether he... whether you live or not I said to him whether you're going to be there for it or not we're going to do that ceremony for you so this is something you know traditional for us at memorial service we sometimes give people jukai or ordain someone as a priest or give them Dharma transmission so we do this sometimes as part of the memorial service so we had two parts to the memorial service

[36:07]

and where family and friends spoke and shared poems and readings, and then the Jukai. And I gave Karl, a Buddhist name, Seiken Myo Do, which is for fine work and wondrous awakening. Carl worked very hard. He worked, you know, not only on his metal sculpture, but, you know, and he woke up about the age of 37 and got sober. And he studied how to live his life and what to do, you know, to be, to benefit himself, to benefit others with his life. It's so...

[37:10]

touching when any of us do this. So many of us, you know, all of us in our room here, you know, are doing our way of doing this. How do I benefit others? What is my path in this life? And Carl studied what he needed to heal, so his work, fine, refined, polished, meticulous, detailed work to wake up. And he wanted then to share this with others to help others cross through, you know, come through this life that can be such a struggle. After the ceremony, by the way, we were sitting with Marie at a table in one of the rooms a little bit to the back of the house, and there were all these photographs.

[38:20]

And I had no idea, but Marie, who's now about 73 as well, she now has gray hair, and in these pictures she has bright red hair. And she's so delicate. And there's Carl. with his big head of hair. And Carl, all the years I knew him, had a shaved head. And they're so beautiful together. And they were together for something like 58 years, married. But Marie said, I met him when I was 12. He was the only boy tall enough to dance with me in Salt Lake City at the school. So we danced, and I thought he was tip-top. And we were looking at those photos, and she said, Margo was there with me, and she said to Margo, no, she said, wasn't lust great?

[39:33]

So I wish you well with your life, finding your way, knowing when there's something, what is it that calls? What is it that gets your attention and then draws you? And what do you trust? What can you trust that's pulling you, drawing you, asking, calling forth your passion, your joy, your energy, your vitality. Very important study. Thank you. Blessings.

[40:27]

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