Gratitude and Generosity

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SF-03928
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Sunday Lecture

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ah have to chase the truth of the target as words
who

good morning
i'm a little amazed to see so many of us happy to be out lorraine
i went for a walk outside both thursday and friday with some friends and although we enjoyed a clear sunny days
there was also some yearning for the rain
so isn't it nice that it's here
i also want to say how happy i am to be here having not been for almost three months
seems in some ways like a long time and in some other way
not very long at all
as some of you know i was on retreat and i also went to japan to pay my respects to the ancestors
and be initiated into several more racial implements and to study the body sat for jizo who is the bodhisattva who takes care of the underworld so
that's the body such how we call upon as were being born as we travel into life and as we travel out of life and in the intermediate stage between death and rebirth
and jizo is in japan much loved probably the most loved and attended to have any of the bodhisattvas in the buddhist tradition
i was particularly looking at
the versions of jesus that have to do with the ceremony which has done
two
take care of those beings who die as a consequence of abortion which is as some of you may know the standard means of birth control and japan and so there is a lot of abortion
so i spent a fair bit of time in graveyards and looking at shrines and i traveled by myself quite a bit and because i don't speak or read japanese
i felt like i was in a kind of linguistic limbo
which had the consequence that my other sense perceptions were somehow heightened
and i want a reference some of my experience being in that
our language less condition terms of what i'd like to talk about this morning
it seems to me irresistible on the weekend following thanksgiving
to not talk about thanksgiving
to not talk about gratitude and generosity
because it is so much what this time of year is about
in thinking about this activity of giving thanks what comes up in my mind is how much we need to notice what we have what benefits come in our lives in order to be thankful
makes me think of something take that hand says sometimes about being thankful for the toothache you don't have
i don't know about you but i don't think about the toothache i don't have very often
so and considering the practice of gratitude or thankfulness
what comes up for me immediately is how crucial it is for us to find ways of noticing that about our lives for which we can be thankful
to be grateful for a human life for our comfort in the logistics of our lives which all contributes to are being able to
study and practice the boot away
the fact that we
here today probably are not consumed was worrying about the roof over our head or the food that we're eating or the clothes that were wearing
it seems to me that very close to practice of gratitude is the practice of generosity
and i think that for many of us
we have a much easier time being generous and expressing gratitude but being on the receiving end of generosity and of gratitude is sometimes more difficult
and for me in many ways the time i spent in japan was a
ongoing opportunity for me to let myself be as utterly helpless as i was to not try to hide that and to accept whatever kindness whatever help came my way
to be on the risk to practice being on the receiving end of generosity
and i must say that i was on the receiving end of extraordinary kindness and generosity in many small ways
and what i noticed was that there was a real connection between my willingness to let myself look as helpless as i actually was
to be public with my actual condition
that that seemed to be a factor i willingness to be in that place was a factor in the relationship that i experienced with people who are kind and helpful
so much to my amazement i would be standing in the middle of one of the busiest subway stations in tokyo with my bright red extremely heavy pack on my back with my shaved head which meant that for many japanese people they didn't know whether i was a man
or a woman
and if they thought i was a woman they felt some pity on me because in japan for a woman to be ordained to be a nun is sort of the bottom of the line what dreadful thing could have happened to her as she took this course of action
i have to say however i didn't feel on the receiving end of pity in the specific instances of being helped
it was just a matter of standing there with my head up looking around for some arrow or sign that would help me figure out which of the many stairways and hallways i should take to get to the next train and i never
doubly somebody would show up and say haltingly and with shyness but would say in english may i help you
or if they didn't speak english they would still come and stand in front of me clearly receptive for me to say the name of the next station i was trying to get to
and it happened over and over and over again
so i experienced not only the kindness of the people that i knew or had some introduction to in japan which was significant the kindness that is but also that kindness of perfect strangers
if i got hung up in ah
acting on or encouraging my fear about eek what do i do next
eek what happens if i point to this on the menu well i get something on the set before me that i can actually eat
eek if i put my letter in this orange box which has a slot in it is it a mailbox
is it a mailbox for local mail or international mail i had no idea most the time

curiously what i am noticing certainly came up for me during these weeks of
poking around in japan but also what has been surfacing for me over the last may be year as i've been thinking about and looking into an appreciating the practice of generosity
is to begin to pay attention to the obstacles
and one of the obstacles which interests me a lot and which i would invite you to look into his the obstacle which is classically noticed as self clinging that preoccupation with myself and how i'm doing how
how i'm looking what will sell on so think about me how am i being treated isn't good enough et cetera
how much that place where my mind can go that has to do with me me me me me me me me me me me me me
becomes an obstacle to my capacity to hang out because it were in whatever condition i'm actually in
i can't
give up the habit of self clinging if i don't look into at first
so what i've been
working with over the last while is to find a way to be interested in those specific instances where that's where my attention has gone too
what i've discovered is that i can't be interested in at state of mind at preoccupation unless i can do it with a certain degree of friendliness
and that if i get too obsessed with what i'm noticing that's a problem also
so what i find fruitful is to be willing to look into what's inspiring the thoughts or actions in the each moment
to be curious about how often
self clinging is at the bottom of much more of what i do then i would like to admit
certainly much more than i would hope my press release suggests that i'm a little uncomfortable with what i'm noticing
and so i want to be gentle or kindly
with the noticing
note oh here it is again another example of being preoccupied with me as the center of the universe
and to then
after briefly noticing that move back to where are my feet how am i sitting what's happening to my breath
so that i don't let my attention stay with the example or instance of self clinging so that i begin obsessing about it
because of course that's when we began to beat up on ourselves especially if we have that
we're hurst
i think it's useful to notice how beating up on ourselves thinking were crummy is a negative version of self cleaning
we're still preoccupied with how we're doing we're just preoccupied with how badly were doing
anyway i want to invite you again to say what you can do to find some degree of curiosity
for noticing the moments when that tendency is present and informing what you're doing or what you're thinking
i think that in coming to know our own patterns especially around this particular hindrance my experience is that we can begin to let it go a bit and to the degree that it continues way
we cannot let that state of mind take the driver's seat quite so often and that there is in fact a very high degree our relationship between that loosening of preoccupation with ourselves and our ability to genuinely appreciate
the detail of our lives and to come to that place not only of appreciation and gratitude but of generosity that they go together
a wonderful line from shanti deva the great indian philosopher and meditator
have you ever known someone who was generous who was not happy
thanksgiving is the beginning of the holiday season the time when we all have been educated to think that we should be happy
and for a lot of us it's a time when we're not happy at all
the days get shorter and the nights get longer
the disparity between the press release about the holidays and the way we actually feel that disparity begins to make itself felt
i think it's the perfect time of year to find tiny ways moment by moment to
practice appreciation and gratitude and generosity
and to be as interested as we can be in the obstacles and the hindrances
there is a set of vs that some of you may know called the eight vs for mind training
i think it's the second verse the talks about
regarding others as superior to oneself taking the posture of being the lowliest
group of us who have been working with these verses have been referring it referring to this versus the doormat verse
because i think for for many of us when we read this first we sit that we think oh yuck i don't want to do that that's not healthy
but i think that if i really understand how pervasive my preoccupation with myself is then that verse becomes an antidote and in that context it makes more sense
to practice putting others first as a way of balancing our tendency to put ourselves first takes on a very different
when we begin to understand have direct first hand experience with our own particular version of self clinging then the usefulness of counterbalancing it becomes apparent without anybody having to
make a big heavy handed point a at
so part of my suggestion about looking into getting to know
each of us our own instance of preoccupation with ourselves is because i think it becomes it's own argument for finding a way practicing other states of mind which directly lead to happiness
that which we all want
at least so far i haven't met anybody who doesn't wanna be happy

i'd like to talk a little bit about
some of what i
looked at
in my wandering around in japan particularly in graveyards are looking at these figures because
being in japan and being in the situations that i was in had a direct effect on my appreciation for what we have here and i'd like to share that with you a little bit
i think for many of us when we travel to some other country we go some place else it has the effect very often of helping us appreciate home
and that was certainly true for me with this trip particularly with respect to home the dharma home if you will
i thought a great deal about green gulch and about our shared practice here
at this particular place and in the united states i thought about a particular as a woman
because as much as anything that i came to appreciate during this last few months i came to appreciate how fortunate i am to be a woman living and practicing in the united states
because part of what i got to look at was how doubtful it is for many women in asia and just in japan but in asia in general even to be more
that abortion is on the continuum of infanticide which has been practiced in japan until somewhat recently and it still continues to be practiced in other asian countries
one of the things that struck me in being in japan and seeing the extraordinarily beautiful places ah which have been the sites for buddhist practice not just zen practice but many different traditions buen
ruffle temples and monasteries gardens extraordinary figures made of stone or metal or wood
and continuing practice of certain ritual forms by people in japan even though buddhism is
from some point of view i think pretty much a dead tradition certainly
heavily in decline
even so
there were lots of people at shrines doing various practices offering incense pouring water over figure bringing flowers reciting a sutra
sometimes bringing offerings especially at shrines for
children who die bringing a teddy bear or
a carton of juice or milk a pair of shoes a toy or kinds of things
i remember in kamakura for those of you who have never been there it is the grandest entrance i've ever seen goes on for i don't know probably several miles of are raised walkway with either chair
oh your plum trees lining the walk and in the distance you've see this extraordinary shrine built upon the hillside that you can see for a long time before you can't there
those are the kinds of things i mean when i say that the the forms of buddhism or still very much in abundance and an extraordinary
resource for us to understand what's possible i found myself whenever i would go to a temple or a monastery thinking about the development of this place because clearly what i was looking at was developed over many many generations
and that what came up for me was that if we are patient we too can slowly and carefully developed this place to be a beautiful place which people can come to
enhance the beauty that's already here to make this a place that people can come to for refuge for solace for the company of practicing meditation studying together being together and separate in the way we use
use this as a dharma center
one of the things that struck me in my traipsing around japan was how important it is for us to know as much as we can about where the buddhist tradition has come from and to understand what we have inherited here
to really educate ourselves about how much of what we are doing has to do with japanese culture and that how much of it has to do with the teachings of the buddha
because to the degree that we do that we have extraordinary freedom to discover how to follow this ancient path in ways that really fit for us as americans and that we have an incredible opportunity in that situation we have to some degree
three because of the fundamental elements of our own culture an opportunity to be quite creative and free at the same time honoring the tradition
that we do not have to lose ourselves in everybody doing his or her own thing that we can honor what really works for us coming out of the tradition but that we can also think about it
we are after all a primarily a mind culture we respect the intellect and are interested in psychology in this culture and we have the opportunity to include those dimensions of how we study and understand things in
our meeting of the buddhist tradition
and not trying to turn ourselves into japanese for example or for those of us who were exposed to buddhism and other cultural trappings to become chinese or korean or to baton or whatever
i think both because women have a different role in the united states than they do in most of the asian countries and because we are meeting the tradition primarily as lay people as householders
we have an opportunity to shape the tradition which we respond to so that it works for us as men and women practicing together differently than has historically been the case and as people who are primarily householders even though we may at times
times practice as monastics
so for me this opportunity came up as something i could recognize and appreciate from the perspective of being in japan and being away from home for such a long con i could see clearly what a great art
opportunity i have and that i think we all have here
one of the
appreciations that comes up for me in being away from here is that we also have incredible clear air
to tokyo or delhi or hong kong
or i don't know where house
you might not realize
what a jewel we have here with air we breathe most days
that we can go out for a long walk
that we have this beautiful valley and the surrounding watershed to be part of
that there are so many of us who are drawn to practicing together
that there are so many of us who are drawn to practice meditation zazen together
is a real treasure which is not enjoyed so much japan
we actually might have some influence on japan because they are beginning to notice that we are interested in zazen for example
a friend of mine who was at our house for dinner last night was a japanese man was reminding me that he learned about buddhism he really came to understand something about buddhism in the united states
and in english
i find that very interesting because we so emphasize the bridge that bring that goes from japan here we don't think about the bridge going the other way and we don't think about how our interest in buddhism
underscores the elements in this great tradition which make it more international that is not the possession of the people of any one culture
a tradition which can be relevant and a resource for people of many cultures
so when i think for myself sitting here this morning with all of you
when i drove in this morning and saw the number of cars here on this rainy sunday morning
i felt a great upwelling for
our company with each other
that there are so many of us with some authentic in deep inclination to find some spiritual practice that there is this turning towards a life an inner life a life of the spirit if you will in the united
states which is hard to find in japan these days
the evidence of its recent presence is certainly there
but to find places where people who are practicing together which has some feeling of of true life about it is hard to do
there are those rare exceptions but they are rare exceptions
so i'm not only grateful to be born a human being with a clear mind most days
and with a comfortable place to live and so far good health
today good health
except for my one big toe
no toothaches this morning
good
dharma friends
i feel completely amazed to be on the receiving end of so much benefit
and i want to recommend especially for those of us who have a hard time letting ourselves be helpless when we're helpless i want to recommend the benefits of putting yourself in a position where that's what you are and there's no question about it
i remember one day riding home to my husband's saying that i felt like my time in japan was like one perpetual trust fall
because virtually everything i did
i had to trust that it would turn out okay i had absolutely none of the usual clues to give me some sense of what how it was going where it would lead to
and i was amazed
at the degree to which things went swimmingly
a friend of ours who has been a practitioner and zen center for many years who's now doing his doctoral work in tokyo went to see some temples where jizo is the central figure
and as we were riding along on the subway we were having a conversation about the fun of riding the subways and tokyo and my amazement that i never got lost
and richard said
well of course the wonderful thing about riding trains and subways in japan and in tokyo and particular is that if you get lost you only lose time
he it's not like new york for example or if you get lost you may end up somewhere where you'll lose your life
and i thought isn't that interesting
i hadn't thought of it but it was true the worst thing that could happen to me seem to be that i might lose time
i think it's very good for us americans to go to a country where it's still by large pretty safe
certain kind of violence which the japanese certainly have in their fantasy life but they don't seem to be acting it out
of course as a woman in particular i really felt deeply grateful for that
but this valley is a a a place where i realize
women in particular often come and the guest house here because they can go for walks in the surrounding hillsides and feel pretty safe
maybe we can have that ooze out into our lives
so i want to express my deep gratitude for all of us practicing together
literally every day that we come together and when we know that we're practicing
in our respective homes and daily lives and come to gather periodically this extended sanga that we have here
feels like a great treasure as does green gulch
so i want to thank you are
i think that knowing that green gulch and all of you were here continuing your lives and practice was a great point of reference for me and no small part of my being able to sustain the
a continuous trust falls over the last several months
and i would like to encourage you all to look into whatever is your obstacle to the state of mind which
easily can express gratitude and appreciation
and out of that generosity
especially over the next week's as we go through the holiday season with all of its choice and sadnesses
one day at a time
thank you very much
may i