This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. I'm very happy today for all your Warriors fans. Pretty thrilling. Who could believe that they could do that? So that's pretty great. That's a good start. I would have been mournful coming in here today after a warrior's defeat. It would have been kind of sad. Probably would have talked about suffering and despair. Can't hear? Yeah, that better? Okay, yeah, let me know if it turns out you can't hear again because my voice will tend to drop, so you'll wave around your arms and let me know.

[01:03]

Anyway, since the warriors did not lose and instead they sort of miraculously won, we're all happy and cheerful today and it's a holiday weekend. What I would like to do today is read you bits and pieces from various books in and hope that somehow in the end it'll all fall together and make sense as a Dharma talk. Let's see. So first, I would like to read you a very small snippet from a 2014 poetry book of mine called Escape This Crazy Life of Tears. And that book is actually a diary poem of a trip that I took to Japan, a Zen pilgrimage that I took to Japan with a number of senior members of our Everyday Zen groups.

[02:10]

So while I was there, I was writing little short poems the whole time. So I want to read you a very tiny part of one of the poems. And this is... Actually, we were at Eheiji at a time when Hoitza Suzuki, Suzuki Roshi's son, was at that time an official and an important teacher at Eheiji, the big monastery. So we were like greeted as if we were part of the family, you know, instead of being these poor clumsy Westerners cowering over the corner in the big monastery, we were all of a sudden ushered into the main hallways. And one evening we had a... a dharma talk, kind of a private dharma talk that was given to us by Owitsu Roshi. And what I'm going to read to you is my two-second summary in just a few words of what he said to us in that dharma talk, or at least the part that I remember best.

[03:14]

And he is abbot of Rinso Inn, so you call abbots Hojo-san. So it begins by saying Hojo-san, because this is all... by way of quoting him, his Dharma talk. So this is what it says, Hojo-san, East, West, a person of Zazen is the same. Grandmother mind, the kind heart, is imagination. Feeling for another, see them as yourself, takes imagination. Imagination expands the heart. One day, woke, heard sound in both ears, sudden hearing loss. My eyes don't work right either. Age is slowly melting my body. With each loss there's gain.

[04:16]

My ears, my eyes, more mine now than ever. before not. So, when I lose my life to death, will my life be owned by me more than than it ever was? Isn't that an incredible teaching? When he said that, I just... Isn't that something to think about? That... we would own our ears more when we lose the use of them. That we would own our life more when we lost it than when we thought we had it. And that it takes imagination. It's an act of the imagination to care for one another. It's a profound act of the imagination to care for one another.

[05:20]

It's just such a wonderful... And this was not something he, this was just a spontaneous, off-the-cuff, casual talk. So beautiful. And it got me to thinking about imagination and how important the imagination is in our human life in a way that I think we don't appreciate these days. when we have relegated imagination to a sort of tiny corner of our lives, we think of imagination as sort of recreation. We need a little rest, we need a little respite from real life, so we'll go see a Pixar movie and have some fun with the imagination. But what he's saying here gives the imagination a much more profound place in our lives.

[06:21]

So that made me think, well, what have people thought about the imagination? And I've tried to study this. And it turns out that ever since, in our culture, ever since Plato, you know, Plato was thinking about what is the imagination and what place does it have in our lives? And there's a whole history of thinking about this in our culture. So, one of the high-water marks, actually, in that history is the famous definition of imagination by the English Romanic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, whose, if you ever study English literature, this will always be excerpted in the Norton Anthology of English Literature. This is very famous in English literature, Coleridge's idea of the imagination. So I want to read you a little piece of an essay of mine called Imagination that is published in another book called Experience, this book here, which is something that I'm very happy about.

[07:28]

It's a collection of 40 years of essays that I've written on. I didn't even know that I had that many essays, but the University of Alabama Press does a series. Sorry. on poetics. And they asked me if I would collect my essays on poetics and associated issues for a volume. And so I dredged around in my archives and found a bunch of stuff and then wrote some new stuff. And this was a new piece that I wrote for the book because of Hojo-san's Dharma talk. So the book is called Experience, Thinking, Writing, Language, and Religion. So I won't read you the whole essay, but I mainly want to read you Coleridge's, which I quote at the beginning, Coleridge's definition of imagination, which is kind of striking. So this is Coleridge.

[08:30]

The imagination, then, I consider either as primary or secondary. The primary imagination, and he capitalizes all the letters in the word imagination, the primary imagination... I hold to be the living power and prime agent of all human perception. As a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I Am. All capitalized, I Am. So Coleridge, like a lot of the English... educated people in those days, was a cleric. He went to theological seminary. He didn't have a congregation, but he was trained in theology. So he's saying that imagination, actually, it takes imagination for the world to appear to us.

[09:34]

That it's not just a one-to-one scientific act of the eye sees something. In fact, We need imagination for the world to spring into view. And he's saying that when that happens in our lives, it's just like the creation of the universe by God, who, after all, creates the universe as an act of imagination, right? God doesn't, like, get a bunch of materials together and, like, figure out how to make a tree or how to make, like, put it all together. God says, let there be light, and kaboom, there's light, right? Let there be this, let there be that. God, through an act of the imagination, creates the universe. And he's saying, we do exactly the same thing. It's kind of an amazing thought. Then he says, that's the primary imagination, creating the world we live in through perception, thought, and feeling. The secondary imagination I consider as an echo of the former, coexisting with the conscious will,

[10:38]

yet still as identical with the primary in its kind of agency, and differing only in degree and in the mode of operation. It dissolves, diffuses, dissipates in order to recreate, or where this process is rendered impossible, yet still at all events it struggles to idealize and unify. It is essentially vital, even as all objects, as objects, are essentially fixed and dead. And what he's talking about there is art and acts of the secondary imagination, the creation of poetry, or I would include in that religious life, painting, theater. He's saying that in order to keep the world lively for us, We need to engage in acts of the imagination in this way to create something of our own in the world in order to keep the world lively.

[11:46]

So I think this is really true. If we didn't have art, if we didn't have religion, the world would be relentlessly, crushingly impossible to live in, I think. And we'll never know because we've always had, there's never been any human community ever that didn't have religious life, spiritual life, artistic life. We need those experiences to keep the world alive for us. Otherwise, the world... And people do sometimes feel that, right? They lose track of all of that. And facing a world that is relentlessly an object to them, they become depressed, fall into despair, There's no meaning, right? It happens. We all know. Probably happens to some of us sitting in the room sometimes. And it happens to our friends. It happens a lot. This is what happens to us if we don't have the imagination to buoy us up and refresh the world for us.

[12:54]

Then he defines what he calls fancy. And we might call it fantasy. And basically, this is what we now think of as the imagination. Right? And he says this is not creative in the same way. This is not primarily creative. It's just wish fulfillment. You take a bunch of stuff that's a certain way, and you rearrange it and make it another way according to your desire or your wish, and you amuse yourself. And so there's a place for that. He's not saying it's not... worthwhile in some way, but it's not the same as the imagination. The imagination is something much more profound and much more essential to our humanity. So then, my essay goes on and on here. I'm skipping most of it, but the next part of it is a long discussion, which I'll spare you, of the

[14:04]

Buddhist schools of mind-only consciousness, consciousness-only schools, that propose a map of the mind that rhymes quite a bit with Coleridge's idea of the imagination. And I go into long analyzing that. But now I'm going to cut to the chase. This is the end of the essay. I am, I hope, coming around to the connection between all of this, and the imagination. The mind-only schools of Buddhism, and I'm specifically talking here about the Lankavatara Sutra, in that text, the English word, at least in the translation that we were using, the English word imagination is used in precisely the opposite sense that Coleridge uses it. By imagination... Because the Lanka is using the word imagination as Coldridge is using fancy.

[15:12]

So, by imagination, the Lanka actually means what Coldridge means by fancy. Are you with me? Is it making sense? Okay. What is fancy? According to the Lanka, according to Buddhist idealism, what is fancy? Our confused... fantasy of what the world and our lives actually are. According to the Lankavatara Sutra and other texts of Buddhist idealism, reality as we know it is literally a fantasy. It is literally unreal. the mad rush for power and purchase, the endless distraction and destruction, the wars, the sexism, racism, homophobia, fascism, unhappiness, mania for entertainment, the debased sense of personhood, the anxiety, confusion, despair, mass murder, suicide,

[16:30]

economic dread, political madness, all a product of fantasy that we don't know as fantasy. And this, in parenthesis, it says, this analysis does not refute economic and political causes of social misery. It only argues for underlying spiritual, psychological causes. of those causes which must still be addressed. The revolution or transformation of consciousness that the teaching of Buddhist idealism points us to is to me identical to the transfiguration Coleridge feels that the poetic and the imaginative can effect in our lives and consciousness. a transfiguration that makes us more humane and happy.

[17:38]

If, as I take it, the world we are living in now is a failure of the imagination, then all the arts and all of religious practice, and it really all comes from the same place in us, you know, are potentially a healing of the imagination. So, in a way, when you look at it that way, it's a very empowering and cheerful thought, I think. Right? Because you look around at the crazy world and you think, what can I do here? What can I possibly do? This is really way beyond anybody's control. But when you think that the real underlying cause of all this is a failure of the human imagination, you realize that all efforts in the imagination to strengthen the imagination in oneself and for each other will change the world.

[18:45]

And so that's why I am very passionate right now, more than ever, about our practice and all other forms of practice. spiritual practice and imaginative practice. Because these are ways that we intervene to change our collective human heart. And we will not fix any of our problems until we change our collective human heart and open up our view of who we are and what we're doing. It takes imagination, as Hojo-san says, to feel for another, to see the other as yourself. Not, oh, this poor unfortunate other, I better be nice to them. No. To see the other as yourself. It is impossible for any one of us to stand by while any other of us is in pain or is disrespected.

[19:50]

That diminishes us, each one of us. So anyway, the imagination. But all of that's a little theoretical. So what about actual everyday practice, everyday life? So now I'm going to read you from another book. Got a lot of books. I apologize. So this is a book, I'm really, the words of this book are in my ears because It's a book I wrote with my dear friend, Sue Moon, who many of you may know, she's a wonderful Buddhist writer and teacher, whose most recent book I think is called, This is Getting Old, about aging. So, Shambhala Press,

[21:00]

asked me if I would, they said, it's a new generation and there should be a new introductory book about Zen. Would I be interested in writing such a book? And I said, oh man, that already gives me a headache. It seems so hard to do and it would be, frankly, a little boring to be thinking about, you know, what are the top 10 responsible things a person should say to somebody who wants to study Zen and so on. So I said, I don't think I could do it. I think it would be too hard for me. But what if I did it with my friend Sue Moon, and I got her to ask questions, and then all I had to do was answer the questions, then she would actually organize the whole book according to her questions, and it would be really easy for me to write. So they bought that idea, literally. They bought that idea. And so we wrote the book. And the other day, we were over in Berkeley at the famous... fantasy studios.

[22:02]

Remember Fantasy Records? Those of you who are old enough, it was a famous jazz label. Many of the classical jazz recordings are recorded on fantasy. So we were in the fantasy studios reading the book for the audio book. So it made me think about it. The thing about Sue is that she asks very embarrassing questions. She asks the sorts of questions that Nobody who ever came to a Zen place as a beginner would ever ask these questions. She's been doing Zen for 40 years, so she asked these questions. But I thought I would read you a little part of the book because it just goes to show you the kind of down-to-earth stuff. So we're talking about this lofty question of the imagination, and it really is a lofty and important question. But... It actually comes down to our down-to-earth everyday stuff because we're living in the down-to-earth everyday reality in which we're grappling with one another and trying to figure out what to have for lunch and how to get along with this person that's troublesome to us.

[23:12]

So actually, our practice has to do with all that. And if you were writing an introductory book about Zen, you probably would never mention that stuff, right? But Sue asks questions about it. So I'm just going to read you a little section here. from the book. This is chapter 12 toward the end. The chapter is called Everyday Life and Everyday Relationships. So Sue asks, how will Zen practice affect my family relationships? How will it affect my work relationships? So that's a really good question. But like I say, most people who come wouldn't be asking those questions, right? But they're really important questions. So this is my response. Sometimes when I see the spouse of one of our everyday Zen practitioners, that's the name of our family of Zen groups, everyday Zen.

[24:16]

Sometimes when I see the spouse of one of our everyday Zen practitioners, I'll ask, well, how's her practice going? Because spouses would know. The effectiveness of your practice will show up at home. I believe and have seen much corroborating evidence that Zen practice makes you a better husband or wife, father or mother. It makes you more attuned emotionally. It makes you kinder, more patient, more caring and loving, more able to be present even when the going gets tough, even when you have an impulse not to be. When you follow precepts and study the teachings, positive qualities become more than aspirations. They are practiced, developed over time with mindfulness and patient repetition.

[25:23]

Usually, the practitioner herself doesn't particularly notice such changes. She's just intent on going forward. But usually the family sees it and appreciates the practice for it. The same goes for work relationships. One of Everyday Zen's long-term projects is an ongoing series of day-long retreats that we call company time for people who work in for-profit or non-profit businesses or who are self-employed. And we just had a company time retreat here yesterday. I was over here yesterday doing that. So how we work and how we are at work with others is the focus of those retreats. When we first started holding these retreats in the early 1990s, people complained that when they went to work, they had to leave their real selves at the door so they could be professional, which to them meant impersonal and somewhat removed.

[26:29]

And there was a lot of pain in this for them. They assumed that real human interaction was unwelcome and impossible at work, and that to survive in the work environment, they had to be distant and tough. And in our retreats in the early days, when we first started doing it, people would talk about this, and it was really helpful for them to share the sense of alienation that they were all feeling at work. But after some dialogue, people coming to the company time retreats realized that this wasn't actually the case. And now actually the whole world, not just the people in those retreats, but I think the whole world is now agreeing that this is not the way it has to be. That it's better if you bring your whole self to work, including your deepest aspirations. But it takes courage to do this, and the courage to do it was fostered

[27:32]

is fostered by the solidarity and the vision that you get from doing spiritual practice. If you make a commitment to do this at work, you're going to be happier in your work, and probably your work performance will be better. But in a way, that's not the point. The point is that your human interactions at work will be better, and your experience of work will be different and more meaningful. And you would begin to see work not as an alienating necessity to be endured, but as an opportunity for spiritual growth, which is how work is viewed quite traditionally in Zen practice, work practice. It's not an unfortunate thing we have to do, but it's an opportunity for growth, for development. The foundational idea we work with at Everyday Zen, and I think

[28:33]

also at Green Gulch, in our whole lineage, is that Zen practice isn't just what happens in the Zendo, in the monastery, or when you come to hear teachings or participate in ceremonies. All those activities support and encourage the actual practice, which happens all the time in your own life, in your every encounter with others, in your heart and mind. Everyday Zen means that everyday life really is your practice. And this naturally includes your work life and your family life. And then she asks a wonderful question that is really important, but probably all of the Zen teachers here have never heard anybody ask, you know. It's a really good question. What if I want to practice and my partner doesn't? Right? It's a good question. So this is my answer.

[29:39]

In the book, we did it all in writing. We didn't talk these questions. She would write questions and I would write answers. And sometimes I would write answers and she wouldn't be satisfied with my answers. So she would say, well, wait a minute. She really makes me get... In other words, I knew I couldn't... give her a bunch of baloney. I had to really be honest, otherwise she would get after me. So here's my answer to that question. The beautiful enhancements to family life I just wrote about don't always happen, of course. Zen practice can sometimes make a marriage or long-term relationship worse and even break it apart. This can happen when one partner takes up the practice and the other doesn't. Sorry. But it can also happen, and we've all seen this, all of this, when both partners decide to practice.

[30:46]

Because spiritual practice changes you. Which is the point, isn't it? That's why people go to the trouble. of practicing. They seek changes in their lives. Such changes may be deep and disruptive. If they are gradual and carefully integrated into a life that is basically sound, the changes will be positive and will enhance that life. But if there are unnoticed fissures in that life, practice can open them wider and make them obvious and painful. If one member of a couple takes up the practice and the other doesn't, these fissures can feel scary and challenging to both partners, especially to the one who has not taken up the practice. For him, the practice feels like unknown and frightening territory over which he has no control.

[31:53]

And he knows that his partner is entering that territory, and he may well feel threatened by this. frightened that his partner will change so much that she will no longer want to be with him. And this fear can manifest as a kind of jealousy, as if the practice itself is a romantic rival. And the practicing spouse will have a hard time dealing with these feelings. And sometimes there is very little that she can do to change the situation. I have known practitioners who have had to keep their practice on a low key or even give it up because of dynamics like this in an intimate relationship. Ideally, the couple would be able to deal with the problem to get help and work it through. And it would seem that the practicing member of the couple is well within her rights to ask questions

[32:58]

that her spouse allow her to grow in the way she needs to and to be courageous enough to examine and overcome his fear. But sometimes there simply isn't enough trust or courage in the relationship for this to happen. And the impasse can destroy the partnership. Sometimes particularly when the partnership is a long-standing one, the spouse who is practicing will make the sacrifice. Just as it seems wrong for a partner to stand in the way of the growth of a loved one, so also it seems wrong for a Zen practitioner to abandon her or his dearest friend to so that he or she can go to more retreats and spend more time with Sangha members.

[33:59]

If the practice really is in everyday life, then doing less formal practice and more practice at home in relationship is fair enough. So these are the kinds of complexities that it all comes down to in actual real life. So I have one more book to read a little bit from. And so bringing up this book does raise a little bit of sadness. Some of you might have been here a couple of weeks ago when Earthlin was giving a Sunday morning talk and spoke about her teacher and our dear, dear friend, Blanche Hartman, Zen-K Blanche Hartman, who passed away a few weeks ago.

[35:03]

Yeah. And we were going to, we went to sit with her body in San Francisco Zen Center, Page Street. And as we were entering the building, there was Linda there, also there for the same purpose. You know, and we just looked at each other and gave each other a hug, and then later Steve came by, and his husband, and also an old friend of Blanche's, and we just give each other a big hug and shake our heads. Blanche was... ready to die so it wasn't some deaths are searing and terrible and break your heart for decades others they're just sad it's time and it's okay it was like that with Blanche she was perfectly fine ready to go happy to go all business taken care of everybody

[36:22]

give it a big last kiss and hug, so it was okay. Still, though, sad. And as we said later, yes, if we're lucky, we'll all be going through more and more of this, saying goodbye to one another. As the years go by, this is what happens. Anyway, but wonderfully, A few months, or however long it was, some months before Blanche's passing, her little book of Dharma talks came out, Seed for a Boundless Life. So I want to read to you some words of Blanche. I won't read too many, but I also want to read to you my brief foreword to the book, because, again, they asked me, would I write a foreword? I said, I'm not going to write a foreword to Blanche's book. Of course I am.

[37:23]

So I wrote a foreword, and the foreword kind of expresses my heart, and I just want to, and also expresses something about Blanche's life that I want to share. Blanche and Lou Hartman and my wife, Kathy, and I started practicing together at around the same time at the Berkley Zen Center with our dear teacher, Sojin Mel Weitzman, all together. of us had that teacher, still have that teacher. Mel, who I'm sure many of you know. So we started practicing there all together. It is now 45 years later, more or less. Lu has passed on after 96 years in this human form, and he and Blanche were married for more than 60 of those years, had four children and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Kathy and I are still practicing and trying to teach Zen.

[38:29]

Mel, in his mid-80s, is still abbot in Berkeley, and Blanche has become, in her old age, a Buddhist saint. And the last time I saw her, she said, oh God, you made a saint out of me. But I really believe it, you know. I don't think there's any way I could adequately communicate the feeling of wonder and appreciation that comes with the living of the facts that I've just recited. 45 years sounds like a long time, but seems like a short time. You turn around, blink your eyes once, and a lifetime dissolves right before your eyes. And yet, nothing has changed, and no time has passed.

[39:30]

Blanche's face at 90 looks the same to me as it did when I passed her in the entryway at the old Zendo in Berkeley all those years ago. Knowing one another so long, practicing together, heart to heart, not seeing one another maybe for a long time, but also being anyway, the whole time, side by side, something inexpressibly sweet and deep emerges. I call Blanche a Buddhist saint, and I really mean it. Her simplicity, her kindness, her humility, her devotion, Her love are at this point in her life pure, innocent, and complete. Her faculties are 100% sound, but she's slower now, calmer, and sweeter.

[40:33]

She appreciates everyone and has something to give to everyone. And everyone who meets her can see this right away. Above all, Her faith in and love for Zen practice are perhaps deeper than they ever were and deeper than that of anyone I know. Blanche and I were co-abbots together here at the Zen Center in the late 1990s, about five minutes ago. She was the first woman abbot. and I was the first of the younger generation that did not study with Shinryu Suzuki Roshi. I do not recall a single disagreement or even a single unsteady word between us. All I can remember is Blanche's constant encouragement and appreciation. Though she began her practice as a capable, strong-willed, and highly opinionated woman,

[41:40]

as she says herself in the book, she became a person of immense openness and generosity, as this book demonstrates. And I feel fortunate to know her, to have seen her deepen and grow over so many years, and to remain her friend. Each time I see her, I am encouraged in my practice, and I suspect the same is true of many, many others. The job of Abbott is a saint's job. The only way to be an abbot is to be a saint, otherwise you get killed, as you know. In this book, Blanche tells two stories that are destined to be, I believe, classical Zen stories of our time. The first took place before she began her practice and propelled her into it. Blanche is confronting a police officer at a heated political protest.

[42:43]

Looking into the officer's eyes, she suddenly recognizes that she and he are one person, one fear, one passion, one humanity. Not knowing how to integrate this into her worldview, she begins her Zen practice. In the second story, she approaches her teacher Suzuki Roshi, with her accomplishment, that she can now sit without much thinking and follow her breath faithfully. What's the next step? She asks him. And he replies to her, don't think you can sit zazen. Zazen sits zazen. These stories summarize a lifetime of practice for Blanche and all of us in our time and place. Love, concern for and identity with the other, and faith in a profound practice that we can't do, but that rather does us.

[43:59]

This book is more than another wise or interesting Dharma book. It is an example of a classical Zen genre not often seen in our times. Sayings compiled by a disciple of a great teacher at the end of a long life of practice. The virtue of what you are about to read isn't found in the words or ideas. To savor this book, you'll have to read between the lines to hear the spirit, the life of the Dharma itself. the living Dharma, whose light leaks out from between its words and phrases. So I just wanted to read that to express my deep appreciation for Lance's incredible life. And I'll read you just some of her words now, because they are really sweet. The first one is actually her talking about one of the stories I just mentioned.

[45:06]

And the way the book works is it's little sayings, little snippets by her with titles. So the title of this little part is, We Are Identical to Everyone and Everything. Suzuki Roshi said, Wherever you are, you are one with the clouds and one with the sun and the stars that you see. You are still one with everything. That is more... than I can say and more true than you can hear." I was kind of taken by that quote. It caught my attention that we are one with everything. Many of you have heard such a thing. In fact, in my own life experience, I had never heard anything about being one with everything until one day, in the midst of a very intense situation, I had the experience of all boundaries dropping away and of being identical with the person in front of me.

[46:14]

As Hojo-san says, this takes imagination. And as all boundaries dropped away, I felt identical with everything. I felt a kind of expanding to include the universe. And I thought, what's that? That's the way it is, but who knows about it? What was that? That question is actually what motivated me to find someone who could tell me what happened in that moment when all boundaries disappeared and I felt identical at one with everything. And I searched around and I was very fortunate. I met Suzuki Roshi and I went to Zazen Instruction on Friday afternoon, the 3rd of July, 1969. She knows exactly what day. I started sitting every day after that. Every day. There was just something about it. I need to do this, I said, and he knows that I need to do it. This being one with everything is the way we actually exist in the world, but we most often don't notice it.

[47:20]

And then one short other section. Continuous effort. Dogen Zenji, the founder of my particular school of Zen, the Soto school, says in his commentary on the precepts, To expound the Dharma with this body is foremost. Its virtue returns to the ocean of reality. It is unfathomable. We just accept it with respect and gratitude. This saying, to expound the Dharma with this body is foremost, is something that Lou Hartman, my late husband, who was a monk at the San Francisco Zen Center, was very close to. As he got older, he could no longer go down the stairs to the zendo, so he decided to go sit in the Buddha hall on a bench while we were downstairs in the zendo. He did this because our practice is not just for us. Our practice is to join in with the whole community, with the whole sangha, and each one of us is supported by the practice of all our sangha mates.

[48:27]

In sangha, a dharma community, you will notice... how big a support it is to have the people around you making an effort. It helps to support your effort. And this will become more and more obvious as your practice continues each day, month, year, and on. We definitely depend on each other for support, and we give each other our support. And so it was very important for Lu, as he was getting older and couldn't get down to the zendo, to figure out what to do. It was clear that it was a deliberate effort on his part to share his practice with everyone. So one day, Renshin Bunce, how do you say her name, is that right? Bunce, sorry. Renshin Bunce, who we all know well, who is a monk at the Zen Center and a photographer, snapped a picture of him sitting zazen in the Buddha Hall through those doors.

[49:31]

She printed out a copy and gave it to us, and Lou looked at it and said, Oh, God, my posture was so bad. I thought my posture was better than that. You know, he had some osteoporosis, so he didn't realize his posture was bad. He had a sort of widow's lump in his back, and he was making his best effort to sit with the proper posture, but his body wasn't built that way anymore. It was hurt, and and he hadn't realized it and was quite disappointed. But he continued to practice. This continuous practice with each other supports each of us. Perhaps practice is necessary, so do not rest. Dogen says that the way to continue is to have a generous mind, big mind and soft mind, to be flexible, not sticking to anything. Practicing in this way There is no need to be afraid of anything or ignore anything.

[50:34]

We see this notion of continuous practice throughout the Buddha's teachings. We don't just sort of pick up practice one day and then leave it alone for the rest of the week. We actually work on this bringing our mind to what we are doing in each moment throughout today, throughout tomorrow, and the next day, and the rest of it, however long it lasts. And it was really inspiring. For all those years of their old age to see Mu and Blanche, you know, practicing together and practicing with everybody in their 80s and in their 90s, it was quite something and they will be much missed. So I will end with just another short snippet from Escape This Crazy Life of Tears. So this is written at a temple in Japan called Hokyoji.

[51:54]

And you know the picture that you, those of you who have read books by Dogen in English, there's a portrait of Dogen that you see on all the books, right? You know what I mean with his big face and little puckered lips, you know that one? Well, the original painting is in Hokyoji. in the Hokkyoji treasure house. So it's pretty thrilling to go to the Hokkyoji treasure house and see this painting. And it was actually the only painting of Dogen ever painted in his lifetime. So he wrote a poem in his own hand under the painting, which is, so the scroll with the painting and Dogen's poem is hanging up in the Hokkyoji treasure house, and the ink is still black after 800 years, you know, it's kind of amazing. So... It's kind of funny because I took a picture of it, not a good picture because through the glass, and the abbot of Hokkyoji said, it's okay to take a picture of it as long as you don't publish it.

[53:02]

And I completely forgot that I said, okay, I won't publish it, and it's in the book. When the book came out, Kathy said, don't you remember you promised that you, I said, oh God, hopefully. He doesn't read English, so he won't. And it's an obscure book, so he won't know about it. Anyway. I apologize, I really do. Didn't mean it. So I'm going to just read a few little snippets that were from the time we were in Hokkyoji Temple. Small rain, then pelting rain, strong rains, sound, pit, pit, drum, hits earth, peaceful sound, rain, these green mountains, strong, clear streams, sluiceway, zigzag, down, mountainside, water, strong on rock, white, waters, sound, religion, just a word, human, style, that sound, the many sounds of rain, truth's style, earth was made,

[54:17]

to say, cloud says, ear, heart say. And then, why, skipping a little bit, why do they freeze in unheeded hokyoji? Why practice in those harsh conditions? Old time people believed Okay to die in Dharma pursuit. Good karma. Better luck next time. Otherwise, despair, dejection, terror and fear. No use this worldly life anymore. Go to Buddha's land. Seek fortune. Do or die. So, what does all this mean, all this together?

[55:29]

You know, like this last piece that I read, I think most of us wouldn't look at it that way, you know, like, forget this life, practice hard, even if it costs you your life. better luck in next life. I wouldn't think we would, most of us, look at it that way. And yet, I think that when you deeply reflect, when you consider the most important things that have happened in your life, and especially when you do Zazen, when you do spiritual practice with some commitment and some depth. It's really obvious to you that your life is more than your life. You know, your life is beyond your life.

[56:36]

It looks like this. It looks like you're just Joe Schmo doing this, that. But there's more to it than that. There really is more to it than that. And when we get caught in the small story of our lives, it can't suffice. It can't be enough. And we have to feel that. Each one of us has to feel, appreciate our life and see that our life is more than our life. Maybe we will never know what our life is. Probably that's right, you know, probably we will never know what our life is. But it's for sure that we need to make the effort to appreciate our lives at the deepest possible level, to fully appreciate this gift of a brief human life.

[57:43]

And when we do appreciate it, we will not be able to be but compassionate, loving our friends and family, loving everyone, doing whatever we can to help. Who doesn't know this already? We all know this already. But the crazy world spins us around, you know, and we forget and we can't keep track of it. And that's why we're all sitting here now, right? Why are we coming here? Believe me, there are more entertaining things than this. We're here because we know we need one another to encourage each other, to share the Dharma vision, to be together body to body, person to person. And we need to help.

[58:49]

We can't do this just for ourselves. We do it for each other, we do it for our world. So this is a room that I have sat in for many, an hour over the years, and I don't come into it too often now, so it's a treat for me to come into the room and sit with old friends and new friends. So everybody, take care. And go Warriors. Monday night. How are they not going to advance to the finals, right? I mean, we know that they are. Thanks. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support.

[59:59]

For more information, visit sfzc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[60:10]

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