Good morning. Hi, Clubs. Hi, this is, we do this once a month, the kids come. Have all you guys been here before? Yeah. Yes? No? It's pretty serious, like, when you come in, you have to sit here and, yeah? I know. No good, that's good. My name is Alan, and I live over in Berkeley. And I've got two kids and they're rearing up. Yesterday I saw my son Alexander. He was in a play. He was in a musical play called Les Mis. I don't know if you ever heard of that. It's great. Sings and dances on stage. And that's kind of what, yeah. That's kind of what he thinks he wants to do when he grows up.

[01:06]

So I'm curious. When I was a kid, there were a whole bunch of things that I thought I would do when I grew up. When I was about 10, my grandfather was a doctor, and I thought I wanted to be... A research doctor. You know, somebody who worked in the hospital and looked at various kinds of diseases so that it could make people well. And my grandfather brought me slides that he got from the hospital. Slides of, once he brought me slides of blood. And I like to look at them. What? Do they have slides anymore? I had a really good microscope. You know what a microscope is, right?

[02:07]

So I had a really good microscope that I had gotten from my father. And slides are the little glass pieces that you put under a microscope to look at these little cells. Yeah, but where was the blood in your slide? The blood, okay, so the blood was, they took a very thin layer of blood and they put it on the slide and then they put a piece of glass over the top of it so that it wouldn't be messy, right? So at the age of 10, I was maybe one of the world's foremost 10-year-old experts in blood, which is not necessarily saying a lot. Yeah. What size looks like? They're about an inch wide and about two and a half inches long and very thin.

[03:10]

Very thin piece of glass so you can see them. Or strong. What? Does it feel soft or strong? No, it's glass. It's hard. It's brittle. Yeah. You know, my co-ed That's good. That's good. Anyway, the question that I asked you, I decided I was really into this for a few years and then I let it go. And now I ended up being a Zen priest, which was not the idea that I had when I was 10 years old. Does any of you want to be a Zen priest when you go out? No. I want to be a scientist. A scientist. Not at all. A Zen priest, the way I put the word, Zen priest is kind of, Zen priest is like, it's almost like a fireman, except no truck.

[04:23]

I'm curious, what do you want to do when you grow up? I want to be a ballerina. You want to be a ballerina. That's good. Let's go around. Do you know what we want to do when you grow up? Well, that's good too. Do you? You don't have any idea? How about you? You play baseball, man? A baseball player, right? A major league or minor league? Yeah. Do you play baseball now? Yeah. Good. And you? No. Hello. Do you know what you want to be when you go out? Um, a ballerina. A ballerina. Ah, we have a dance troupe forming here. Two ballerinas check.

[05:26]

And one scientist. And you're going to be a scientist? Yeah. And you're going to study ballerinas, right? She wants to be Elmo when she grows. She wants to be Elmo. Now, that's... That's very grand. Yeah. And what about this fellow? Does he know? She has a chance. She has a chance. Okay. So, have I missed anyone? Not you guys. Okay. Well, no. She wants to be Elmo. No. Right? I don't think you can be Elmo. Why not? Please. Right. So there's a question of what you want to do, and there's a question of... There's a question of how you want to be.

[06:34]

What was that? Hello. So there's a question of what you want to do, and there's a question of how you want to be. Okay. So how you want to be is what we study here in this room and what we study when we meditate. How can you be in all these things, whether you're a ballerina or a scientist or an Elmo or a baseball player, you know, how can you be a really good person? So how can you be Elmo? That is what... That's what in... See, that's what we call in Zen a koan. How can you be an animal?

[07:38]

And I think if you... If you look at this with your whole life, just as you can be a ballerina or a baseball player, you might be able to be Elmo. I think that would be really interesting. Anyway... I think... I think you guys should go... I think you guys... I think it will be really good now. You guys should go and have a discussion. You should have a meeting. I'll be out. I can't just be really innocent.

[08:42]

No, no, no, no, no. I'm not, uh, uh, what? No, no, no, no. I think we're going to be Elmo. I think you're going to be great Elmo. That's right. That's right. Well, that was great. I still remember what I want to do when I grow up, and I'm almost 62 years old.

[09:44]

I was listening a couple of weeks ago. I don't know if you all heard the Sotomayor hearings, which were exasperating in many ways. I mean, she's kind of a shoe-in, but one of the interesting exchanges was between Sonia Sotomayor and Al Franken. Did anyone hear that? They were both... Sirpa Mayor, her inspiration for becoming a lawyer was watching Perry Mason. And Al Franken, she used to watch it with her family, and Al Franken used to watch it too, so they were talking about that. But I thought what was really interesting was that what inspired her was the district attorney, Hamilton Burger. So it's like, wow, that's really strange. Somebody said... Maybe she said she could do better than him.

[10:51]

You know, he lost all the time. Except evidently on one episode, which they couldn't remember. You know, what we want to do and what we want to be as we grow up is, you know, is a real... It's a question that evolves as we get older. I saw a t-shirt at the gym last week which said growing old is inevitable and growing up is optional. But what does that mean? What's the distinction that we make in our minds between being childlike and being childish. You know, if I look around at my teachers, we just celebrated the 80th birthday of my teacher, Sojan Roshi, and I spend a lot of time around him and work with him, and I am really aware of the, there's still

[12:12]

a childlike quality that he has as he moves in the world. And I would say over the years I've met a number of people, whether they were in robes, in art tradition, in any dimension of life, number of people who seem to me like they are quite awake. And something that I feel they have in common is you can see there's still a child alive in them. There's still a quality of play. There's still a quality of lightness. So with perhaps with enlightenment, there's also a light quality that arises and emerges in people.

[13:23]

And I think when I first took up the practice quite seriously, and I came to Berkeley Zen Center, there were some of the older students that I looked up to. They had that quality. And I was... I didn't have it. I didn't feel it in me. And I sort of wanted to be like them. And that felt to me... To cultivate that felt like... What my idea of growing up was. So when I... When I came really... seriously to practice in my mid-30s. The interesting thing was I felt that I was caught in a place that was childish.

[14:25]

Caught in various kind of adolescent concerns and just really stuck there. But the lightness had not kind of arisen. And I knew that it was in me somewhere. And I didn't know how that was going to emerge. And what I had discovered was that there was not something, you know, asking the children what they want to do when they grow up. What I believed was there was not any particular thing that I could do that was going to lead to this process, this process of maturing and also of releasing the joyous childlike energy.

[15:29]

I had tried a lot of things and none of them as things worked. I felt really, really lucky when I came to Berkeley Zen Center. As soon as I walked in there, I felt at home. And I felt there were people that I could learn from. And I've been there, you know, for the last 26 or 27 years, most of them living there now. So... This is a process that interests me, and how to help people bring that forth in themselves is something that interests me. I think that when I came to practice, as I said, I felt...

[16:41]

which means kind of buffeted by the forces in my life, the emotions, the feelings, pushed around in various ways and having no place of strength or confidence to be able to engage with that. So wherever wind blew, whether it was loneliness, anger and depression all those things would just kind of blow me in one way or another and this was by the time you're in your mid to late 30s and this is kind of like your base level life it gets a little tedious and it's difficult it's a difficult way to live and

[17:43]

All of us encountered this at some point in our lives. All of us know people who are encountering this. And I had, as I like to think, I'd sort of run out of script. There was nothing to do but to sit down, even though I didn't know why exactly I was sitting down. But it seemed like that's what I had to do. I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up, and that may be some measure of immaturity in me, but while I'm pondering this, I notice I've settled into a variety of roles and functions as a father, as a priest, as a musician, as an activist and writer,

[18:46]

All these things. This is the life of multitasking, and it seems to be suited to my particular character. It's not something that I recommend to anybody. You know, we're supposed to do, it's a very grand model for a Zen student. You know, a Zen student's supposed to do one thing completely, you know, from beginning to end. And I do about eight. But that seems to be my life. And my life, I guess, is the one thing that I'm trying to do. So I've been thinking a lot about what is maturity. There's a word that Suzuki Roshi uses a lot. And I came upon this passage in one of the... I think unpublished lectures.

[19:48]

Anyway, he uses the word composure. He's often talking about composure. And I like this passage a lot because it keeps us on the hook of what we're doing. And I think that that is, that's the edge of being a grown-up. So he says... To attain enlightenment means to have this kind of complete composure in our life without any discrimination. So, in other words, to be able to meet whatever comes as the ancient text of Xin Xin Ming says, the great way is not difficult if only you can avoid... picking and choosing. So if you can accept whatever comes to you without discriminating good or bad, without discriminating in that context right or wrong, this is what Suzuki Roshi is saying is complete composure.

[21:07]

And then, in his inimitable way, the way he always does, he then presents the other side. The other side is, but at the same time, if we stick to this kind of attitude of non-discrimination, that's also a kind of discrimination, you know. Oh, well, gee, that just made it a lot more complicated, right? What does that mean? You know, if you whole non-discrimination to be this golden ideal, this principle that you hold above all things, then you're going to get stuck there, which is the discrimination of non-discrimination. And you're caught.

[22:11]

So what he says is, let's have him practice Zaza. we attain this kind of complete composure is the point you should have when you start our practice so it's the point I think maybe we should have when we start if we're lucky and we see that but it's the point that we should have from beginning to end in our practice and so You know, the operative, my teacher always says, the operative question of this practice is how? How do I do this? How do I practice in a way that is not falling into discrimination and not getting stuck in non-discrimination? What is middle-way practice?

[23:14]

in that, given that as a context. There's something Sagan said about a month ago, and I forget it was a lecture or a discussion in the Zendo. In Zen, in Buddhism, we're always talking about, we talk often about the two truths, which are Invaluously described the relative and the absolute. And the interpenetration of the two of those, that they don't exist, they can't exist separate from each other. And they're invariably, whenever this comes up in lecture, they're invariably... our questions and people who want to know, well, which is the highlight of these two truths?

[24:19]

Obviously, the absolute is really that's the real truth and the relative is, you know, something else. But they're fully dependent upon each other. What Sojourn Roshi said that was extremely interesting and I went and I talked with him about it afterwards. Because I'd never heard quite his description. And what he said, and I think it was just sort of off the top of his head, his framing the two truths was the truth of reality just as it is. Of everything as it arises just being... the arising of causes and conditions in the universe, re-unfolding of that. And to try to see that, to look into that really deeply, that's one truth.

[25:26]

The second truth is the one that is really interesting. The second truth, the way he put it was, the second truth is the truth of how you feel about that. That's a kind of unique framing. But that is true as well. So we have difficulties in our lives, in our relationships. We have illness. We have confronting... Our own death, the death of others around us, the fact of war, of all kinds of difficulties in the world that touch us inevitably. This is the way things are.

[26:30]

But how we feel about them is also true. how do we practice in such a way that we're not falling into one side or the other? If we fall into this kind of truth of absolutism, then we're stuck in idealism and we very quickly find out this doesn't really jibe with other people. It doesn't, you know, it doesn't meet the needs or the demands of the world. If we fall onto the side of how we feel about things, then we risk being as I was when I came to practice, pushed around.

[27:37]

buffeted back and forth by these internal winds and tides. How do we practice understanding the interrelationship of these two truths? How do we practice? How do we understand that? In fact, how do we feel about things and then of course what we do with those feelings is exactly causal condition for how everything arises? How do we practice in such a way that we recognize that we ourselves, I, am co-creating the entire universe? And that's a large responsibility.

[28:38]

I think that there's some... I forget the quotation exactly from Obuncino Roshi, one of our teachers. In the face of that reality, it's a very natural response simply to sit down. You know, to sit down and breathe and to sit upright and to encounter... ourselves, to encounter ourselves as the meeting place, as the nexus where the universe is arising and simultaneously our feelings about it are arising. Just that point. Dogen has a fascicle that I think it's zazenshin. I think it's sometimes translated as the acupuncture needle of zazen.

[29:43]

Is that right? It's like just that point when you place the acupuncture needle, if you do that with the proper skill and understanding, you're placing it in such a way that you are both touching and releasing and bringing to bear all the necessary energies that are arising. So this is the challenge. This is what we're doing in Zazen. Now we're thinking, you know, when I ask the kids about what they want to do when they grow up, I mean, I think I'll never forget somebody wanting to be Elmo. That's really good. That's kind of the macro level of life.

[30:50]

And, you know, all of us are still wondering what we're going to do, even though I'm sure a lot of you are quite locked into a path or a career, identity, etc. But the fact of Zazen is that this growing up from birth through your middle secure years to passing away, all of that takes place again and again within each breath. Each breath is an entire lifetime of consciousness. This is what we say when you breathe in, you're born.

[31:52]

When you breathe out, you pass away at the end of the breath. And then so long as our life energy is flowing, we take another breath and we're born again. So we are growing up, we are replicating this process breath by breath. And at the same time, you know, even though we have various, shall we say, techniques, counting the breath, following the breath, shrikantaza, all of these techniques, pretty basic meditative approaches that we use. We're aware that within the space of one short breath, you can go anywhere. Your mind goes anywhere.

[32:54]

And then if you have awareness, mindfulness, you come back, you return. And this is this wonderful process of returning. This is the essential process of Zazen. And then in the next breath, you can go away again. The fact of composure that Suzuki Roshi is talking about is not concentration. It's not sitting here And being able necessarily to count your breaths from one to ten. It's not necessarily being unaffected by whatever sensations or feelings or thoughts, perceptions come up.

[33:57]

It is this ability to accept them. to accept whatever comes up within Zazen hence within your life as appropriate right at that moment to accept it and yet to be able to sit still with it without being pushed off your seat with returning just like a tree in the wind is blown by the wind to the left or to the right and returns to the center this is the this is the practice of composure composure means being able to rest moment by moment it means being able to find your balance not to

[35:05]

hold to a balance. You know, if a tree is too, you know, if a tree is too unyearling, then the wind blows it over. If its roots are not deep enough. But our roots need to be very deep. Our roots in the, in the very soil of all existence. This is why, you know, we, we sit in this stable, manner so that we can actually have very deep roots that allow us to take these winds and tides to be able to bear them and to be able to return that is what I see as growing up that is what I am sometimes capable of and sometimes not but because I have this practice that's been given to me by our teachers it's something that I can return to and I just only have a minute or two more but I want to come back to this quality of lightness because that's where I think

[36:33]

composure manifests uh what i like to say is that i suggest i like to i i aspire to live in a way that i take what i'm doing seriously you know i take so i'm talking to you now i take that seriously i try to think about what i'm saying saying oh you know i hope i'm not saying something that is confusing or that leads you in the wrong direction. So all of us do this in our work, in our relationships, in our lives. Take those activities seriously. And at the same time, not to take yourself seriously. To be able to laugh, to be able to bend, to be able to joke with the kids, to be able to feel... a kind of natural fluidity that does not undercut the function or seriousness of what we do but doesn't fill it with something something holy you know something smelly something

[37:58]

a place where we're building some castle of self on this sand. Because that will blow over. So that's the attitude. That's, to me, the attitude of a grown-up, is having a clarity in one's actions, in one's relationships, in one's purposes, and also having a lightness, an ability to, an ability simply to relate and to play. Play is very important. We should never lose the sense of play. This is, again, just to close with some words from Suzuki Roshi when he's talking about, in a chapter in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, the chapter, I think it's called Control.

[39:00]

And he says, the best way to control people is to encourage them to be mischievous. So how do you bring that forth? How do you bring forth that sense of play, that sense of mischief, simultaneously with whatever responsibility you feel in the world? This is the koan. This may be like the koan of how that girl is going to become Elmo. You know, with what kind of seriousness? Because within that, Elmo is also about play. How do we preserve this until our last? I hope I will be able to do that.

[40:01]

I hope you will be able to do that. And we look at people around us and we see the inspiring example of some who do and who can. And I hope we can be like them. So thank you very much.

[40:22]

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