This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. Today, for those of you who don't know, it's the first day of a three-week retreat that the city center is having. And before I start, I would like to thank in particular the staff, the city center staff, for offering this to everyone, to city center senior staff, to the city center RBT people, to administrative staff,

[01:04]

officers, and to the village surrounding the temple. And also in particular, I would like to thank Christina, without whom I think this offering wouldn't necessarily have happened in this way. And The way that I'm talking about is that people are actually being encouraged to stop, which is very unusual, particularly in a city center temple. It's very hard to stop. This I know because I now live half the time in Brooklyn, and it's really hard for them. And not just stop, but being encouraged to do so.

[02:10]

And in all the time that I myself lived here at the city center, that really didn't happen so much. So this is being offered to everyone who can do it as a gift to yourself. That in the midst of this world of busyness, important busyness, not so important busyness, that you're being encouraged to stop and remember your inmost aspiration, your inmost intention, the question of your life. Who am I? Where is meaning? What is this life about? What is the truth? Is there such thing as freedom, really?

[03:14]

Our culture doesn't encourage this kind of inquiry. So it... It takes some effort to wrap up, to tie up the various ends of the undone things in your life and make a space to nurture yourself, to give yourself the opportunity to sink deeply into silence and to be nourished and healed there. So don't make this an extra thing. If it becomes an extra thing to do, then the point is already missed. We've made lots of, I think, really good changes in the schedule so that you have the possibility of doing this. Class is in the afternoon.

[04:22]

We're stopping at 8.20 in the evening. Many things to try to support your... deep yearning to be free and I say that because I assume everyone who is here has that aspiration otherwise why would you come So along with tying up the ends of your current to-do list, things that are possible like answer all email so you don't have to look at a screen. Say hello or goodbye to relationships or make sure your dog is well taken care of.

[05:28]

And give yourself a chance. We all deserve this chance. Sit as much as possible, whether you sit here with everyone, very good idea, or if you sit at home. But sit. Our way is to sit. That's the name of our school. And then prepare yourself with an open mind, a mind that really doesn't know, so that you can look in a fresh way at what arises for you. And also with an open heart, so that you don't have to judge what comes up. And if you judge, that judgment rests in a heart of deep acceptance.

[06:34]

The work that we do is actually physical. It's not intellectual, although we're going to have some fun being intellectual about time. But it really is a body practice. Transformation takes place in the body. In some way it's really question about where you identify. Do you identify with things that change? Changing thoughts, changing emotions, changing sensation. That's it. That's what we are. But then we are this something else that's ungraspable, that has no form and place. So do we identify with the changing aspects of who we are?

[07:51]

Or do we rest in something that is here all the time, available at any moment, so quiet that it's sometimes difficult to to see and easy to miss. It's not yelling, here I am, here I am, buy this, get this, I'm really terrific, come here and you'll be free. No. It's quiet. And that's why retreat is held in silence. Because the outer silence that we will create is a container and it is the most important part of the container. mirrors the truth of what we are in the deepest way. So there is something in you when you're in silence that resonates with that.

[08:59]

It mirrors that in us. All of us. And also in silence it makes space. It is space for what we often don't want to see to arise. And the farther we walk on the path, the more subtle those things are. So even if we think we know something, there's almost always something else that we're identifying with or grasping at or leaning into the future about. So in this silence as these conditioned emotion thoughts arise we can simply pay attention.

[10:02]

We can simply see them. The Buddha when he woke up didn't say to his conditioned mind, his ego structure, he didn't say, I won. He didn't say, this is great, I got rid of you. He didn't say that. He said, I see you. I see you. And it's actually in the act of seeing, in this radiant awareness that we are, that the egoic structure can't maintain and dissolves. It's true. So we're offering this retreat and

[11:10]

We're doing it in silence, and I hope as many of you as are able to can come and participate, whether it's sitting the different periods in the schedule or whether it's doing that at home. During these three weeks, people will be sitting and studying. you can join that, whether you do that physically or whether you do that at home. It's an offering. And so now... wondering if I've said enough to encourage you.

[12:28]

So I'm waiting to see. Nothing there. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to continue. I have lived at Zen Center for a long time, and at Zen Center, when people are new or return or taking the precepts, they do this thing called a way-seeking mind, which is basically, it turns out to be, a story of their suffering, which is wonderful because when they do that, then everybody else who had had judgments and ideas about who this person was and likes them or don't like them and so on, usually almost always drops those opinions because everybody connects with suffering. Everybody understands that person's effort and understands how that person had to twist and turn themselves in the conditioning of their growing up environment to turn into the somewhat crooked, twisted flower that they turned out to be.

[13:44]

So many of the people here have heard my... way-seeking mind story a number of times, so I didn't want to do that. But what I want to do is I want to catch you up what I've been doing since I left Zen Center, which has been, I worked in a high school, wonderful school, wonderful students, for seven years teaching, trying to teach anyway, meditation and mindfulness and the precepts to the school. And I think you'll see by what I'm going to read to you that I ended up really appreciating that situation a lot. And then I left the school and I went to Brooklyn to be the teacher at the Brooklyn Zen Center. So in the spirit of sharing and being intimate,

[14:50]

with you so that you can know me a little bit before we start on this journey. I'm going to read to you the last talk that I gave at the school, my goodbye talk, to the school. And it'll tell you a little bit about myself. So imagine yourself, if you would, for a moment, when you were a teenager. Just close your eyes and imagine back. because I'm going to be talking to teens. This talk is a talk to teens. And then just to give you a kind of sense of the atmosphere that I grew up in when I was a teen, I asked David to play some music. So for those of you who are my age, and you'll know immediately who you are when you hear this music, Yeah.

[16:04]

Yeah. I'm tired, no, I'm tired, so lonely, I'm tired, you've been so much, you are you. Oh, listen to this on YouTube. It's terrific. Here's the other side.

[17:19]

Okay. For the rest of my life, I've been looking for people to dance like that. I loved it. I loved it. All right, so here you go. So remember yourself as a teenager. Both of these songs were playing as the kids were walking into school, so they kind of had a sense of they didn't know what, but it was different. And when we all sat down in one big great room, After they sat for five minutes, the whole school started the day sitting together, like you do, this is what I said. The songs you've been listening to were the songs I listened to when I was your age. When I was in high school, rock and roll was new, and there were only two billion people on the earth.

[18:30]

Now there are seven. I need my space. We danced swing, and I loved it. I loved high school. I was very popular. I was the vice president of my class and a cheerleader. Oh, yes. I had lots of people wanting to be with me. I was very pretty. And by the time I was 16, I already had done magazine and TV ads. I was even on a TV show called Divorce Court. I had two boyfriends, one in school and one out. The outside one was Bill. He was a cowboy, a wild boy. He taught me how to drive in his Model A Ford. It was a red convertible with a rumble seat in the back.

[19:31]

We both were at the birth of one of his calves. It was a breech birth. The birth took hours in the heat and dust of his valley ranch. He was edgy, and dangerous. He was the first boy I kissed. My other boyfriend, the one in school, was Rob. He was intellectual, very smart, with a sharp, dry wit. He was hilarious and fun to be with. He was a terrific dancer, and he and I could have been king and queen of the prom if I had wanted to. But by that time, other things were becoming important. We were about to go to college, where everything changed. There was a part of me never recognized when I was in high school. It was the part that was unsure of who I was. I became depressed, unable to handle the freedom of college. I was used to everything coming to me with no effort. I never had to figure out who I was and what I really wanted.

[20:33]

I began to have lots of relationships. It was the 60s. And everyone was experimenting, which I think is a good thing if you're careful in not hurting yourselves or others. I was hurting myself. I slept with anyone who came along. I slept with men. I slept with women. During that time, I was active in civil rights. I was arrested and spent some time in jail. As a matter of fact, first on Bryant Street. I know that jail very well. And then down in San Bruno, at that time it was a woman's jail. Now it's for men. While in San Bruno County Jail for Women, a beautifully tall call girl befriended me. We played chess together and she protected me. She told me how much money she made as a call girl.

[21:35]

My first thought was, I could do that. I could take money for sex. My second thought was, Tia, something's wrong here. This is enough. You need to rethink what you're doing. And so I did. When I got out of jail, I decided I wanted to find out what was true for me when I was happiest and most authentic, and I decided to change how I took care of myself. I decided I was going to look for the truth of who I was in the deepest possible way. and I wasn't going to stop until I found out. Life is a journey, an amazing, miraculous journey, and many people are not there for it. Why? Because they're not paying attention. They are lost in their thoughts and emotions. As is said, knowing yourself is to be rooted in being, not lost in your mind.

[22:37]

Think for a minute. Think of a time or times when you are genuinely happy, content. Think carefully and remember. Notice what your mind was doing, or more accurately, not doing. It could be when you were rock climbing or with a friend on your bed, just chatting and looking at nothing in particular together. Things were flowing. You're not thinking if he or she likes you or if you're looking right. You're not judging yourself or your friend. Or you could be taking a walk with your dog or looking out at a sunset or playing music or dancing or playing ping pong or any sport you're totally there for or chess, writing a poem, or almost any time you're being really intimate with someone. Bring up that memory, the feel of the moment, and now be clear.

[23:40]

When you are most authentic, most happy in being yourself, there was no chattering mind happening. Your mind was quiet. There was no self-reflection happening, no separation at all. For it is the chattering mind that is separation. We all are most happy when our chattering mind has fallen silent and we are truly present. I propose to you that we aren't really interested in what we are doing at the time. It could be sports for someone or walking along the forest road for another. But what we are all looking for is the time our chattering mind is quiet. See for yourself when you are being, just being, your most authentic self, that your chattering mind, your self-reflecting everything is about me mind, has finally gone silent.

[24:43]

What relief. What joy. Your journey, even if it is a different time with different songs, different dances, different technology, a seemingly different world, the journey to find out your most authentic self, your true happiness, is the same. It is the same for everyone. Everything changes. You can't count on what you have, what you are going to do, or anything outside. Everything changes like my recent bicycle accident. Everything changes in an instant. You can't count on anything outside yourself for ultimate fulfillment. And we are all deeply connected. We are all living one life. We are one body. The tree in my office and me tea is tree, the famous ficus and I are the same breath.

[25:45]

This understanding is our freedom. So what have I learned here being with you? I have learned to love teenagers. You are hilarious. Your purity shines through all your huffing and puffing. You deserve every one of you to be protected, to be loved, to be accepted exactly the way you are. to be supported, to be the best, most authentic, whoever you've turned out to be. I love teenagers. Your courage in the face of horrific ups and downs, your willingness to try things, your sincerity and unerring ability to smell what isn't authentic is totally life-affirming. Your honesty when you are given the chance, your willingness to respond and be open to new experiences is heroic. I now feel I am the protector of all teens. I've also learned how hard it is to be a teacher.

[26:46]

You have no idea how much work your teachers put in to help you achieve what you want to be, both academically and personally. As much as you are trying, they are trying to meet you. You owe them a great deal of respect. And I've learned again how important living in community is. Community serves as a mirror if you allow yourself to use it that way. It tells me who I am, how well I am doing with my own aspirations. It is humbling as well as encouraging. The journey never ends. It just gets more open and more inclusive. My time as a high school student is long over. Even though I had a wonderful time then, I wouldn't go back there for a minute if I had to have the same mind. I suggest you start your journey earlier than I did. Don't be lost in your mind when you can open to life as it has come to be.

[27:47]

Let your mind, your chattering mind, quiet until your deepest self can be experienced as the vast, silent stillness that is your true nature. I left out awake. It's awake. Let that silence descend into the heart so that you can love everyone exactly as they are. We need people like that in this suffering world. People who know who they are deeply, who are authentic because they know everything changes. They are not living in their thoughts, but as being. They are kind because they know we are all connected. and living one very big life together. So I say goodbye with love. You've touched me forever. We are always connected. There is no way of undoing it. You have had an enormously positive impact on my life, all of you, and I hold you in my heart.

[28:56]

Thank you all, everyone, so very much for giving me the benefit of the doubt. I wish you the deepest peace. It is a bittersweet goodbye. And then I said, please sit up straight. Turn inward. Let your thoughts come as they will and go as they will. Return to your breath and watch in the gap at the end of the exhale your silent mind appear. I've just told you a story It's a story about the past. It doesn't even feel like me anymore. I've had many lives since then, and there is no me the stories refer to. There is no future story I need tell myself. In our retreat, we will talk about time, how science sees it, how Dogen sees it, how it is expressed in literature, and whether it exists in the way we experience it at all.

[30:18]

I'm going to leave you with one more kind of thing. I was walking down the street the other day with my foster son. I have a foster son who's fabulous. And we were just walking down the street, and we were talking about this time thing, and I was trying to explain to him how, from Dogen's point, of course there is mundane time, and we feel a past and future, which we'll talk about. But Dogen conflates, I guess you can say, being in time or activity in time, so there's not this sense of separation. You over here, you know, somehow experiencing time as the stage of And as we were walking, the same thing was true as we were walking down the street. There really is no such thing as you separate from walking, and the street as the stage of you walking down it. There's no place that you are outside of life, outside of the activity we call life.

[31:37]

And our practice, you know, Dogen calls our practice, practice realization. We hear it, practice and then realization, which is in time. But he didn't say that. He says practice realization as one word. And that's what we're going to talk about. You know? Is how we are practicing practice and then realization later? Or are we practicing as life now? Awake now. No matter what it is that we see, there's something always knowing that. And the point is to just shift a little bit from paying a lot of attention to what is changing to paying attention to what doesn't change.

[32:51]

One is time and one is being. One is being mindful and the other is presence. One is practice realization in time and the other is practice realization. So that's what we're going to do on retreat and when it's going to be silent except when you talk. And it'll still be retreat even if you talk. And I'm looking forward to it. You know, I haven't been with you guys for a really long time. And I love doing this. It's going to be boring and it'll be tiring. Well, you know that. But hopefully we'll remind each other enough to be awake.

[33:56]

And that's the point. So have a good day. And I'll see you on Monday. and tomorrow is a personal day. I'll see you on Monday. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost 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. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[34:36]

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