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. Good to see everyone. Here I am again, yes, for those who have seen me earlier. So I hope that we can engage again in a way that is helpful for all of us. I talked earlier about living with fire earlier today. And I mentioned the burning of various things that we have as human beings. And one that stood out for me was mind consciousness. And that is a whole class or practice period in itself.

[01:03]

But I wanted to just say a little bit about that so that it's not confused with losing one's mind. So in that way that they, you know, are not thinking, I mean, in that sense, are not having any kind of... way to see life and those kinds of things. So what is burning away is some of the old that's in our life, the old that's in our bones, the teachings and the learnings from our ancestors from aeons ago. Some of those things are burning and always are burning. Some of the things that we learned as children, in our lives, from our families, from community, from self-society, all over the place, spiritual communities, these things are burning.

[02:06]

And what that means in the sense is they're always the form of them, the shape, if you want to use that word, is coming, comes apart. at some point. And then we kind of build it back up sometimes for ourselves for fear of not having our own thoughts and our own way of thinking that we feel we rely upon rather than not feel. We rely upon these things. And when I first started Zen practice, I remember being very nervous about that. Like, was I going to lose myself if I were to allow this constant burning away of this self that is filled with old, which they sometimes call store consciousness, the storehouse of consciousness. What's going to happen to me? I've relied on it all my life.

[03:06]

Also, you start to lose that sense of I, me, and mine, which is what many of you probably already know about this in terms of consciousness. So, It doesn't just happen. You don't just decide, I'm not going to think of myself in the first person anymore or feel possessive of family and friends and job and co-workers and friends. And so you start to try to do this on your own. But according to the Buddhist teachings, especially in the fire sermon that I mentioned today, these things are already burning away. And this is exactly what is happening now. In our society, it's been happening. And I see the burning away as an opportunity for something new to bloom. I see buds all the time and things that are burned away.

[04:14]

The next thing you see is a bud or a bledograph. And oftentimes it may not be the bud we want or the kind of grass, but it's still something that comes into place. And this is the way of life, right? This is the way of being human. And so when the Buddha is talking about burning away all of our ideas and preconceptions, as I was saying, and judgments and... and prejudices, these are constantly happening. And they have different forms, maybe different names, you know, at different centuries, aeons, generations. But it's the same thing. This action of burning is important. And I had written a bit about it in a more poetic way. And I... Wasn't certain, you know, when I wrote this poem, whether or not it had to do with this burning away.

[05:21]

And really, where did it come from? And I knew it came from my life because it felt like everything that I would pull together would eventually fall apart. I don't know if you have that experience, you know. Even... I was told in a relationship I was struggling with that because we were having trouble, it meant that we had a really good relationship. And it's like, okay, I came to therapy to end the relationship, so you're saying it's really good. It was energy there. She said there's energy there. And even though it was a struggle, that energy indicated that there was something that we couldn't see, that we didn't know or understand. And so, of course, over time, it brought up new ways to be together and even not be together and still be together.

[06:26]

It brought new ways of being, how to live with the fire of the relationship. And... It was something new for me because I had tended to get rid of relationships every two years or something in my habit. And they call it serial monogamy. So I was learning how to be in relationship, learning how to be in life because that's what relationship, I mean, life is, is being in relationship. And that doesn't mean just one-on-one. It just means with people. You know, how to see, how to feel, how to speak, how to be who I am being in my presence. You know, it's just not what I think I'm being, but what I am actually being. Because what happens in a relationship is everything you think you're being goes away. That's what I experience.

[07:27]

So it's a good container for burning. And a good container for collapsing, for everything falling apart, to witness everything in that way. And so we stayed, you know, for many, many years together. And then at the demand of my own teacher saying, you must stay together before she passed. So... We would always have these conversations about that, and my teacher, in case those of you don't know, the late Zenkay Blanche Hartman. Every time we talked about our troubles, I think Simwala was my partner, Simwala Schultz, and she would go in there and talk about me, and I would go in there and talk about her, I'm sure that's what was happening.

[08:28]

And then, you know, she would try to keep us together because she's hearing both sides. And she just, she really loved, she loved Zimbola a lot, you know. And in my sassy mind, because I have a real sassy mind, I said, maybe you guys belong together. You know, because you guys get along really well. And then Lou and I get along really well. And Lou was her husband. And that was true. It's like, maybe we should switch up. Now, mind you, this is not going to happen because both of them are in their late 80s and 90s years old. But it really felt strange. Like, why am I getting along with Lou? And you're getting along with Simboala. So it was kind of funny. And we were quite that foursome a lot. You know, Lou, Blanche, Simboala, and Zinju. And it was wonderful. It was a wonderful experience. So I wanted to talk a little bit about that consciousness and the burning away.

[09:36]

And we hear about where people burn their land, right? They burn the land to have new growth. Or the land burns itself sometimes, right? It says, okay. And that's it. And then something new comes in that place. Our own lives... will eventually burn away in some way. And newness comes. Oftentimes, I would hear this one teacher speak of, everybody in this room is going to be gone in 50 years. And it was such a down, you know, like, it really just like brought us down in this place. And I remember... One student, I remember him very well. I wonder where he is. But he's not me, you know. And he was like, I'll be here, you know. And it's that thing where we want to be here all the way through.

[10:37]

And I'm sure there's some people here that weren't here when I started at Zen Center that were not even an idea, not even a thought. So somewhere along the way, we're making way. for others to come into the world as well. So I just wanted to iterate this because so many things happen and oftentimes we want to hold on to what's being destroyed, what feels to be destroyed, what feels to be demolished, taken away, things we love, you know, things we worked on maybe with others, you know, pulled together. And... It can be disheartening, you know, and sometimes the larger the vision, the harder the fall, you know, and the dream, the bigger the dream, the harder to deal with. So I want to do this poem quickly, and then I want to hear from you a little bit because, you know, we want to get in bed, rest, so we can be in the Zendo in the morning.

[11:43]

So here it is. And some of you may have heard this. I kind of read it quite often. I think I better start marking it so I know if I'm reading it every time I do a Dermatalk or not. But it's something that I love, and it comes from my favorite book, The Deepest Peace. And the part of this is we are to be undone. So we are to be undone. We are to be undone. Sometimes holding together that relationship that I had, I realized later that, oh, we were together to be able to handle things being undone. Ourselves, the world, our relationship, to learn and to have a container for those things that were being just not there anymore in the world and in the life. So sometimes we think relationships are too, like we work at keeping it together. We don't want nothing to fall apart. All along, they're falling apart.

[12:44]

And they're doing that so other things can come into the relationship. We are to be undone. This is life. There's no getting around it. We unravel over and over again. Life gets disrupted. We are thrown off. We face the unimaginable. It's sobering ending up in a place that we thought we'd never be. It's sobering. when we end up in a place we thought we'd never be. And this is also collective at this time. In that strange place, we are quietly undone. In that strange place, we are quietly undone. We're not who we thought we were. We burn away, and then immediately we want to sweep up the ashes or whittle and sand the charred pieces. To make a smooth mound of life, a mound that is breathed upon, would come undone again.

[13:53]

We create mountains from the shadows left behind. By disruption, we only find out after climbing such mountains. I'm going to do that sentence again. We create mountains from the shadows left behind by disruption. So even mountains are disrupted within our lives. only to find out after climbing such mountains, we could have just walked through them. We struggle when the waters of our lives are disturbed and our reflections appear distorted and unfamiliar. We don't know who we are. We run from the waters. Being undone, we discover we've been fooled by wishing wells and have mistaken the fire of desire for radiance. We are stunned. We find out this is not true. To be undone is a mystical occurrence.

[14:54]

That's what I decided. A state of being in which we are rendered eyes open to the unknown. We see, hear, smell, taste, think, and can do nothing about it. All doing is done. What are we to do when we feel lost? a stranger in our own lives. We go through it. That's what we do. We live it. In the undoing of life, silence stretches into eternity, revealing stars in the dark. To be undone is a mystical experience, a state in which we are rendered eyes open to the unknown. So what a precious thing to be unraveled. to be shaken, to be shattered, to be thrown off our ground, to be tossed from what we think we know, to not even understand our own selves, our own mind, our own body and spirit.

[16:06]

I mean, some of you may have had that physical destruction where something happens to your body and suddenly... You have to work out a new life almost because that body is not the same body in the way it was. It is now changed. And so these are things. And then in that process, you might even discover some things that you never knew about yourself, some exciting things that you didn't know, your own radiance, your own level of awakening, your own awareness of things in life. And it feels like to me, it almost took me all my life, I'm not done, but all my life to see and understand the beauty of things that don't last. And even though they're very painful.

[17:10]

Or they could be joyful. Sometimes you don't want things to last. You go, great, I'm glad this relationship's over. I'm glad the job is over. I'm glad I got fired. I'm glad I laid off. I'm glad they didn't choose me to keep going. But even in that, you learn something about what you're glad about and something that why you feel so happy about that. You know, where does your joy lie? Does it lie in what happens to others, you know, in relationship to you? So these are the kind of things I learned in walking this path of Zen, where Zen is definitely life. I always say it feels to mimic life itself, the sitting still and the breathing through the things that are undone.

[18:11]

The things that fall apart. The people who come and go and leave. All of that. I just want to say the name of a teacher that passed away. He's a teacher that passed away yesterday. Was it yesterday? In the Thich Nhat Hanh community. And his name is Larry Ward. Maybe some of you heard his name. He passed away yesterday. He's been sick for a long time. And one of the few teachers of African descent. And I'm a lot disturbed by it. I had a hard time yesterday, last night, and today. And then I created this series of talks. So, you know, I met Larry long ago. And decided he was my lost brother.

[19:19]

And because I had a brother that we didn't know, me and my sisters did not know. And one of my sisters wanted to go searching for this brother. And I'm like, no, no, we don't need any more family. But up shows Larry Ward at a Color of Compassion retreat. And he looked just like my father, you know. And I said, what's your last name when I first met him? I already knew it was Ward. I said, are you sure your name is Ward? You know, maybe you had another name. You know, he goes on and on. And he said, you know, I was adopted. And I said, that even fits the whole scenario. That just like fits everything to make this story right for me. You are my brother. And from then on, you know, I saw him as my brother. And he does look very much like my father. I think we're definitely kin. And so very sad to hear. I knew that they had a long illness.

[20:21]

But I was shocked. I think I screamed out loud, actually. Yeah, I did. I screamed. It was just shocking to me. I still feel shocked. And I have many friends over there in the Thich Nhat Hanh community. so I know they're grieving, and I just want to acknowledge in the moment for their grief, for their loss in that community, and to his wife Peggy, Peggy Ward, to hold her and all of this, and I know the community surrounding her, so if you hear that name, you know, check it out. I think he wrote a book, What was the name, do you know? Racism in America's... Karma of America? Yeah, the karma, something of America's racism or the karma of racism in America, something like that.

[21:23]

It was put out by Parallax Press quite a few years ago. We talked about the book. He said, I had no idea. I wrote all those pages and that book came out so small. I said, yeah, it's really daunting. You know, kind of disappointing when you write a lot and then it comes out very small. To be undone is a mystical occurrence. Are you ready to allow it to happen to you? Are you willing? And it's a state of being in which we are rendered eyes open to the unknown. To really not know. Suzuki Roshi, not always so. To really not know. We see, hear, smell, taste, think, and can do nothing about it. All doing is done. All doing is done. What are we to do when we feel lost, a stranger in our own lives? Continue being a stranger.

[22:24]

That's what we do. So when you find yourself in that place, try to experience it as long as you can. I felt that way when I... started to use my Dharma name, Zenju. I was more interested in my first Dharma name, Ekai Zenju. And Blanche said it's not correct for me to use the first name. So not every teacher has this rule, but Blanche is from the way, way back. And so she has some very set things she was taught by... her teachers. And so I decided to ignore her and use Ekai, which was the first name, because it had an E, like Earthland. And I loved Earthland. That's my name my mother gave me. So it's like, oh, E, still E, E, man, you know, making all these kinds of things up about it.

[23:29]

And I was at the table at lunchtime and... You know, someone said, what is your Dharma name? And I said it very proudly, Ekai. You know, and Blanche went, looked at me like, I look at my students now. Like, what? I gave you guidance on that one. So I was like, not the greatest student, just not. And so... She looked, and she said, I thought I told you not to use that card. Like, this is in the lunchroom. It's a table full of people. And I'm like, oh, yeah, you did. And so I kind of went back to Earthland and lived with that for about five years, maybe. And then someone, I went to see a healer of sorts, and she found out from some reading that my name was Zenju. And Zenju means complete. She said, that's your name? That's your Dharma name?

[24:30]

And I said, yeah, you know, what about it, you know? And she said, you need to use that name. You need to use it. And then she said, just go forward. And that's what I did. So after five years, I took the name Zenju, and I became a stranger to myself. All I know is Earthling. I know what job she had, who she's been with, where she's going. And it's all about her life, but not Zenji. And it was very strange. Very strange experience. People lost track of me. They didn't know where Irkland went. Some people still don't. They don't think this is the same person. It's kind of funny. So be a stranger. Try it out. See what kind of... New ideas, new ways of being in your life come to you.

[25:32]

If you have a Dharma name, that's the easy way. Try it on. People are like, well, what happened to Earth? I don't know. I don't know what happened to Earth. I don't. So I'd like to stop here. We can have about. 14 minutes of engaging, whichever way you'd like to engage. And I hope this little bit that I am sharing with you will help you find some ease in this very inherent nature of existence, this being human. and discontent and suffering and that you find ease and that it is, you know, a gift in some ways. Thank you.

[26:36]

Do we have any questions? Yes. And you speak up a little bit. When you talk about being undone and being a stranger to yourself, I was wondering in that space, how do you feel like it can feel very scary and also this feeling of feeling lost. I'm wondering how do you find ground? What do you hold on to and how do you come back and how do you cope with this feeling of stranger-ness and don't get lost forever. So I'm wondering about how you connect yourself. Yeah. Thank you. That's a good question. I feel that I pretty much have lost the radar on Earthland, even though I still use that whole name, Zinju Earthland Manum.

[27:46]

But the longer I don't use it as my point of reference, I actually see when Earthland comes up, you know, this kind of understanding of now, which I didn't see when I was going by Earthland. That was my reference point. I could see more clearly when I let that go. I don't know, for each person, it would be a different path. But when you took on Zen or, you know, I want you to find something in your life and what you took on and you didn't know what it really was, but you went forth anyway. And in that place, it wasn't what you usually do. Have you had that experience in your life? Uh-huh. And then you lived through that awkwardness, you know, like... You know, probably that's how we are when we're a baby. You know, we kind of drop here and then it's like, whoa, you know.

[28:48]

So I think we have these times all along in our lives. But we hurry up so fast. It's like that part that says, what's this one? Oh, this is it. We burn away and then immediately we want to sweep up the ashes. Or whittle and sand the charred pieces. to make a smooth mound of life. We want to smooth that out again, and then a mound that, if breathed upon, would come undone again, surely enough. Because if you move fast and you hurry up and do something like, okay, that job was me. I identified with that job. I'm going to hurry up and get another one. Maybe I should do this now. And then you do it, and then it doesn't last. Next thing you know, you're at the next job and the next job and the next job. The next relationship, the next relationship. The next path, Buddhism, whatever path, choose.

[29:49]

You know, you keep moving. And even in that, you might confine yourself too. It doesn't mean that that's a bad thing. It's just showing you to slow down. And sometimes we don't know what slow down is. But then something comes into our lives and slows us down. Yeah, I just... left my bed from surgery, I was laying down for seven months. And I'm like, wow. And I said, okay, I'll do the things I do. I love to write poetry. It wasn't working. You know, I love this. Everything on TV was crazy to me. I mean, everything bothered. You know, it's just a different person. And I wondered... Was I ever going to be able to write again and do the things that I usually didn't like? And so I said, I wonder if I allow this person that is very weak to just be.

[30:51]

Where is she going to end up? You know? Well, I'm here. That's where I ended up. But... But I was worried because I didn't know that person in the bed. I don't consider myself a person that has deep illnesses, but I did. I wasn't used to that. And I think the other people who may have experienced illness, you don't know yourself that way. So I would just suggest exploring what has already happened in your life. and to see what you did, actually how you went through it, and what motivated you to stay as a stranger during those times, and what are the times when you didn't? Are you just like, I can't do this part, so I'm going to do something else.

[31:57]

So just, I think, explore your life. And ask questions along the way about, you know, I would say make an inquiry. Because sometimes we ask questions, then we go into making it some kind of dissertation. You know, why, why, why? You know, but what? What? And don't answer that either. Because if you have a dissertation, you know. And so, and that's okay too. Go on and write it. I do it. So it's good. It's okay. Sometimes you write to understand, you know. So is that helpful? Thank you. Yes, in the back. Yes.

[33:02]

Yes. You're asking that for yourself? Do you reinvent yourself? I think some people do get to the point where they're afraid of whether or not, you know, is it over? But do we really know? Like, I wasn't sure either. I said, oh, my, it seems like it's the end of my writing because my brain's not working very well. I had passed my sangha on. They're like a pure sangha now, so I didn't have sangha. A lot of people in my Sundance community were dying, so they didn't have time for me.

[34:19]

So I was really... kind of reeling, and I didn't really, say, have a place in a Zen community. I was living in New Mexico. So I felt like I lost everything that I identified with, everything I was. You know, this is what I am, and I wasn't. I lost my partner. You know, 23 years. So all of that together, all of that, home, everything. My home state, I'm from California, I'm living in New Mexico. It just was... Amazing. So I don't know for me if I'm reinventing myself or I'm allowing time to pass. And I am. I'm allowing time to pass. And it's scary. Like you were saying, I think it's very scary. I was just, you know, ditto on that. Yeah. That's right.

[35:33]

That's right. People do. Because the things are them. I don't think you have to reinvent. I do believe you be patient and see what comes. And some people cannot. I really do feel that it's very difficult. I'm grateful I have a path. If I did not have Zen practice, I don't know. what that would look like, my life, you know, changing so much. When you're attached to things, like you're so attached to the way life is, like if I was completely attached to the way it was when I was in a job with a partner, you know, in a house, and completely attached to California now, you know, I live in California all my life. If I were completely attached to those places, I would suffer greatly, and I would have thoughts of not wanting to live anymore.

[36:35]

But as the time went, I do understand time, that's been my experience, is allowing the time to happen, to go by, and to even cry and to mourn those things that I feel I lost, and to see what I am attached to, to see I've lost a lot. I lost a home I own. In my lifetime, I've lost a lot of things. And as the time goes by, I always go, there's always this period where suddenly there's joy. And I don't know where it comes from. Suddenly there's some joy about something comes through and I go, oh, I remember that joy. And I could feel it and smile and move through. And And then we might start thinking of future tragedy or loss. And that can be also a place of suffering. This is the mind.

[37:37]

This is the mind consciousness holding on to things we possess, how we think we are, who's going to think of us. You know, if I become homeless, how are people going to think of me? You know, these kinds of things of the mind. This is where the suffering... This was what I was saying earlier, that there is this inherent... This is inherent in our existence, the nature of us to be in this way in which we're, you know, we have pain. You know, we have feelings. There's impermanence. You know, this is human. And so if you... experience to me, the more things I experience, the more I understand the nature of being human, and not just me. I understand the nature of others. I feel closer, actually, to me, to other people, the more I lose. Yeah, I think you got it.

[39:01]

I think you just need to walk with it, you know, and don't hold on to that because you might lose that too. You might go, oh, that's not true. So I'm going to ask you to just walk with it. Thank you for sharing. And one more? I don't know. I'm looking at the email. Are we at the end? Okay. I think we're at the end. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you for coming this evening. 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.

[39:55]

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