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 evening. genjo koan that we chant about every 10 days here at Tassahara in the morning. There's one passage that Dogen talks a lot about. Dogen is the founder of this school. And he talks a lot about birds and fish. It's very interesting.

[01:00]

Maybe his maybe that was the main kind of animal contact that he had. I doubt there were so many wild animals around Japan, but I don't really know. But anyway, he talks a lot about birds and fish. In this passage, some of you will remember, he says that a fish swims in the ocean and no matter how far it swims, there's no end to the water. A bird flies in the sky and no matter how far it flies, there's no end to the air. The fish and the bird never leave their element. people are also like this, he says. And then he goes on a little bit further and says, if you find your place right where you are, practice occurs. If you find your place right where you are in your element, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point.

[02:01]

That's a good thing, actualizing the fundamental points. That means, you know, really... living your life. Kind of what our heart's desire is, you know, how do I really live my life in the fullest way possible, in the fullest, most beneficial way possible. So to actualize the fundamental point of our element, we have to be in it. And what's more, we can't not be in it. So why not be in it? But then, you know, water is the element for a fish and the air is the element for a bird. But what is a human's element? What is our element? That's had some poignancy for me these last few days because here we are in the element of Tassajara.

[03:06]

And it's kind of particular. You know, I think most of us have some appreciation for it. Probably all of us have a lot of appreciation for it sometimes. And then some of us have some non-appreciation for it sometimes. But at the time when it's about to change... And when a lot of the people are going to change, I have this feeling of how precious it is, this particular element. And even though it is very precious here at Tassajara, I mean, it's one of the places where I think we can feel the safest, which, as I always try to say, does not mean entirely safe because... We're here with ourselves, even if it is Tassajara, so we can't be entirely safe.

[04:09]

But it's safer than most places, safe enough that we can maybe notice what is our element. Even here at Tassajara, where it's pretty safe, the human element is still very much like it is every place else. It's still made up of... the world and our way of perceiving the world and our way of interacting with it. And that's because so much of our human element is actually made up of humans, is one reason why Soto Zen is not a hermit practice. Although the main practice is called just sitting, so we just sit. But it doesn't mean that we only sit. It means when we sit, we just sit. But in Soto Zen, we do exactly the kinds of things we've been doing this summer. We do the same kinds of things during the practice period.

[05:11]

We just change the percentage a little bit and we do more sitting and a little less interacting. But usually people are quite surprised when they first come to a practice period to realize how much... hard to say exactly what it is. You could call it social interaction, but a lot of it is how much people impinge on me. You know, my idea of sitting quietly with myself is suddenly filled with people. In a different Dogen text, Only a Buddha and a Buddha, there's a great part of the text that I like to talk about, but I haven't this summer. But basically in it, Dogen talks quite beautifully about how fish and birds, again, know each other's heart. How only a fish can know a fish's heart, but a fish really does know another fish's heart.

[06:16]

He said, and birds really do know each other's hearts. I don't know exactly how Dogen knows this, but he says it very authoritatively, like he says everything. So for now, we'll assume that he knows what he's talking about because he also says something that is very true, which we do know, which is people are not like this. It's very, very hard for people to know each other's hearts. The main reason why it's so hard to know each other's hearts is it's very hard to know our own heart. We get distracted by our idea of things, including our idea of other people's hearts. So again, here at Tassajara, we come a little closer to knowing each other's hearts. We can get pretty close, but it's complicated. It's complicated how to know our own heart, how to know each other's hearts. Somebody said to me today, in a certain amount of anguish, it's so gray.

[07:19]

And they didn't mean the sky, and they didn't mean their mood. They meant it's not clear what's right and what's wrong. It's so mixed up. I thought it was clear what's right and what's wrong. And now it's so gray. It's so unknown. And I thought, yeah, that's humanness. We are all gray. We're all a mixed bag. We all have wonderful parts. We all have some, you know, not so wonderful parts. or parts that can cause or ways of being that can cause joy and ways of being that can cause suffering for ourselves and others. So how do we meet? How do we be in our element in a way that's wholesome? I think it's not by trying to imagine what would be a wholesome me.

[08:26]

And then trying to make myself into it. It's more like Dogen said. It's like find your place where you are in your element. Then practice can actually occur. Then we have some chance of seeing what is there. What is my element? What's happening there? In our human element, talking has a big place. And we sometimes wish it didn't, especially when it gets complicated or when either they or I feel like I'm talking too much, they're saying too much, I'm talking too much, or what they're saying or what I'm saying is gray, is unclear, is complicated. And yet, you can take a vow of silence. There have been a few people at Zen Center who've taken a vow of silence.

[09:30]

We don't encourage it usually, but sometimes people, you know, here at Tassajara, of course, if you take a vow of silence, it has to include functional speech because we have a lot of functions going on and they require speech. So a vow of silence with functional speech is sometimes interesting. Years and years ago, I don't know how many of you know David Chadwick, Some of the guests might know David Chadwick better than the students because he was here at Tassajara for years and years and was the director and is one of the most talkative people in the world. I think if David, my dear friend David, would hear me saying that, he would agree totally. So the teacher then, Richard Baker, at one point asked him to take a real vow of silence, to like not speak. I forget for how long. It was a while, like maybe a month or something like that. And he was the work leader at City Center at the time.

[10:36]

And the work leader has to give people work. And they also have to describe to them how to do things. So David carried around a notebook and a pencil or pen or something and made... more noise silently than I have ever heard anyone make. Anyway, that was our big experiment in silence, and we've gone back to talking as our element. So in this realm where we talk for better or for worse or for both, and sometimes I think talking, you know, there's body, speech, and mind, how to practice with body, speech, and mind. In some ways, I think speech is the hardest. It's like body, we make some big mistakes with our bodies, but mostly we manage to, you know, especially we've got a lot of help here, you know, walk this way, do this at this time.

[11:39]

Mostly people get their bodies pretty under control, and our mind is kind of out of control, but still it's mostly internal, so it doesn't, bother other people nearly as much as it bothers us. But our speech seems to also be somewhat out of control. You know, it's like connected to our mind and things pop out of our mouth, both the words themselves and the tone of the words in a way that sort of broadcasts feelings that we didn't necessarily want to broadcast. A couple of nights ago, we had a community meeting and We talked about something called the agreements, the communication agreements, and we divided into small groups and talked about these agreements. And I thought that was really to the point. A lot of people since then, maybe because of that meeting, have talked to me about how they're struggling with speech.

[12:42]

And I've noticed this summer a lot, other summers too, but... It can't be more. I can't imagine why it would be more, but maybe I've just noticed it more, that speech is so, there's so much potential harm done. You know, people, and it is very hard in this intimate place to speak in a wholesome way. So we're so close to each other. There's so much intimacy here. That we, as I said to someone today, it's kind of like we feel like we all belong to each other. The students, you know, we give you guests a pass. We don't feel like you belong to us in so much the same way. But with each other, we feel sort of like we belong with each other. It's kind of like family. So if two of us or three of us or four of us are sitting around, it does not feel like, I mean, it feels like we can talk about somebody.

[13:49]

because they're ours. It's like, oh yeah, we know them. We know this about them. We know that about them. They've got this problem. And it doesn't really, it's hard to keep in mind that that's creating an idea of that person. In fact, sometimes that's kind of what we want to do. We have an idea of someone and we want to know, do other people feel the same way? Are they causing trouble for the other people in the same way they're causing trouble for us? And then if you're receiving that, you know, and you want to support the person in front of you, if they've experienced some pain from somebody else, you want to support them. And we tend to, okay, I'll just support them by agreeing with them. And maybe you do agree with them to some extent. But we really need to be careful about this, you know?

[14:52]

We are all a mixed bag. We all do things that cause other people harm. But to build this box around our friends and say, this is the way this person is, is not what we want. It's not what we want for ourselves, right? We want a clean slate. Once in a while, you know, we want to be able to change. We want to be able to work on what we're working on. And so is there a way that we could support our friend who's been hurt and still not join building a box around somebody else? Is there some way we could, I'm hoping actually next summer to bring it up at the beginning and see, is there some way we can agree with each other? It's okay if you remind me. when I do that. Because it's hard to be reminded if we're hurting and say difficult things about someone. And then there also is, what do we actually do to help each other change?

[15:56]

How do we help ourself in that situation? How do we help the person who's hurting? And how do we help the person who has hurt? What's really the best way to help them? Is there... Is it possible to speak with them about what happened? Is it possible to speak with them with somebody else? Is it possible to speak about what happened to someone who will help them see it? This is our element. This is the element we live in where we come to a monastery and we spend a little bit of time in silence and then we have to talk to each other. and we have to live really close. We have to have a big impact on each other. Another one of the agreements is impact and intent, noticing the difference between impact and intent, which is a kind of newish, a few years ago, way of pointing at a way that I think comes pretty naturally to all of us,

[17:06]

that we often stop criticism. So if someone says to us when... If someone says to me, when you said that, I got really hurt, and immediately, I mean, it's pretty quick for us, you know, up comes for us, I didn't mean to hurt you. That wasn't what I was saying. I didn't do that. Which may be true... But to leave time to hear, oh, that's the impact that happened on you and let them know that you heard it and to apologize for it even. In our situation, you know, where we are all, we've all kind of said, I want to go to Tassajara, the students, but I think a lot of the guests too, in some way or another say, I want to go to Tassajara to get back to myself, you know, to... We say to get to know myself, to know the self.

[18:10]

So we've all said that. So in this situation, intent is also very important. I mean, intent is always important. So to not privilege impact over intent or intent over impact, to actually make space for both of them. Because if you meant to hurt somebody, if you... hurt somebody and you actually intended to do it, it's a very different situation than if you didn't intend to do it. And for us to know ourselves, we need to know that about ourself. And sometimes it really helps to know it about the other person also. Oh, that's the impact it had on you. And then to make your best guess about whether that person has space to hear what happened for you. Whether whether they have room for your intent, whether you're hearing their pain has made it possible for you to say, and do you want to know what happened for me, what I was trying to do?

[19:13]

But also, to really look, it's been so interesting to me when people have falsely accused me to, there have been a few times, not always, but a few times when I've been able to actually look at myself in spite of feeling like I've been falsely accused. Some of you have heard this story before probably. I think I've told a couple of stories in this. But one was that some years ago, quite a few years ago, I was driving in from Jamesburg and Reb Anderson, who's going to lead the next practice period and is my teacher, and Galen Godwin, who is also his student, they were running up the road. They both run, and they were running up the road, and I think they were at the bathtub and ready to turn around and come down as I drove in. So they got in the car with me, and it was a truck or something, so we were all in the front seat, and we were talking on the way down.

[20:19]

And we got down here, and everybody went their way. And a little bit later, Galen found me and said that... She was really hurt because she felt like I had really excluded her in the conversation. And I was like totally flabbergasted, like did not ring a bell for me at all. Like I did not think that I had excluded her. And I don't remember what I said, but I remember eventually, and again, I don't remember whether it was right in the conversation or not, actually like looking, really trying to look at what was happening for me. Had I done anything that might feel like excluding her? And what I saw was that I did feel left out. Like they were running up the road together. They had this relationship where they shared this thing they were doing together and had this bond.

[21:20]

They were all sweaty together. I didn't think that until right now, but... But this bond, anyway. So maybe I did. Maybe I was trying to insert myself into that, what I perceived as their relationship, and somehow had actually, in some way or another, manifested pushing her out of the way. And... If you have the space to do that, if you have the space to look and see, it's been surprising to me so many times. And usually the other person, they don't get it right. What they say you've done is not exactly accurate. They've seen it from their perspective. They don't see what's going on inside you. So you can argue with that all you want and you'll probably be right. But to actually look and see what might be giving them this impression,

[22:23]

is there anything in there that matches it, is really helpful. And to do it, you have to not be in a blaming mood. You can't be feeling like, if I did push her aside, that makes me a horrible person. You won't be able to look at it clearly if that's your mindset. So to have another one of these agreements is to not shame and blame yourself or others, to really look at us all as a mixed bag, which we truly are. We have our ways of causing suffering to ourself and others, and mostly we want to live a wholesome life. We want to not cause suffering. So this element that we live in, this complicated element where human beings are walking around being human beings, not perfect, not simple, that's where we have to practice.

[23:43]

That's where we have to actually be in our place. We have to find our place in our element. And then we can practice with it. We can make space for what's actually happening with us and see how does it fit into the element that we're living in. Does it fit? Do I belong somehow? Which I think is, in some ways, our biggest question. One way of phrasing our biggest question is, is it okay to be me? And to know that, to answer that question for ourselves, we have to be willing to look at who is me and take all the clues we can get from everybody. Who am I? Not to be answered with words, but to be found, to actually be experienced.

[24:44]

Here is me in this element. Sitting here, walking here, here I am, fitting in. in perhaps this complicated way that is not always easy. My dear friend Tia gave me a poem some years ago, which I would say that our relationship expressed the human element very well. It was very complicated, but wonderful. This is the poem. It's a Zen poem by Genro, whoever that is. True friendship is beyond intimacy and alienation. Between meeting and not meeting, no difference. On the fully blossomed plum tree...

[25:50]

South branch owns the whole spring. North branch owns the whole spring. True friendship is beyond intimacy and alienation, between meeting and not meeting, no difference. This is the kind of friendship we have here in this valley, where even if you're feeling alienated from a friend, We still, we continue to come to the Zendo together. We continue to work together. We continue to, hopefully, we really continue to still wish the best for each other. Between meeting and not meeting, no difference. If for a while we can't meet, we can't figure out how to meet, they're still as good a friend as the one who you feel like you are meeting. They're still supporting your practice. In the very same way, they're still in our element, creating this element, this place together where we try to learn how to have a wholesome life, how to cause less suffering.

[27:05]

On the fully blossomed plum tree, South Branch owns the whole spring. North Branch owns the whole spring. Each person has the full Buddha nature. even though they're a mixed bag, even though I'm a mixed bag, each person, each being is fully, owns the whole spring, is fully blossomed, owns the whole spring. So, do any of you have any questions or comments? Yes, Jonathan. What is your guidance when you hear Or is given to you gossip? And sometimes it's malicious gossip. Yeah. I usually remain silent. But is that right? It's really hard. You know, you have to make some intuitive guess about what will work.

[28:10]

So if we realize that that's what's going on, if we don't, you know, sometimes we don't realize what's going on and we just... join in. Or as I said before, sometimes we can tell that where that malicious gossip is coming from is a painful place and we want to support the person and we join in. If we feel that we can, I mean, you know, I'm in a little bit of a special place. People now here at Tassajara most don't, if they come to me and say malicious gossip, I can assume that they're saying it because they want to practice with it. and say something back to them. But it's harder if it's just your friends, and there you are with them. It might be possible to say, I'm uncomfortable with talking this way. We don't want to be preaching at each other.

[29:12]

We don't do that, mostly. And when it does happen, we don't feel so good about that either. And we know. We're none of us pure. We've all done this. So, yeah. It's a good question. Can we say it? You know, can we not be judgmental? If we're judgmental, that's probably not going to work. Well, my question really was, can we say it in a way that is supportive of the person? Yeah. Yeah. And what would we say besides I'm uncomfortable with this? Yeah. We might be able to say, depending on your relationship with the person, you might be able to say, it sounds like you're really in pain. I wonder if you want to say something about what happened for you, depending on your relationship with the person and the situation, of course. But I think us admitting to each other this is an area that's hard for us might help.

[30:19]

What does it mean that the North Branch owns the whole screen? I think it means that each of us owns the whole world. The universe, the element, is centered in each of us. It's like, all of you are my life, and the best place for me to meet is My life is here, but it includes all of you. There's no one that is out of my life. There's no one really at all, but especially the people here close by. So we own the whole spring, including we own... We have to act. Everything we do, we have no possibility of being passive in this. Whether we say something,

[31:22]

Whether we say something or we don't say something, it's adding to the situation. There's no way that we can get out of that. So, once again, we don't know what to do. It doesn't mean that we can do that right. It's gray. We do our best, but we own the whole situation. Is there any simplicity real? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, where are you? Here I am. I'm in a very specific place. I have a very specific body. So do you. You have a very specific mind. You may have a lot of different thoughts, but you can actually find your place and be there. And then our practice is let that place, let that response you're having happen. Don't But if you can do that, then you don't have to always, you know, you don't have to give it to somebody else.

[32:26]

You don't have to get rid of them. You don't have to, because you can just have your response and sometimes you can tell them about it. Sometimes you don't have to because it's okay to just be in my element, be in my place. And that's actually simple, even though sometimes it doesn't feel like it. But if we stop and get there, It's pretty simple. Anything else? Yes, Helena. I did. You know. Which one do you want? No, you've got to give me some better clue than that. Nothing will come to mind, I'm sure. And it's got to be fast. So if you think of a clue within about a minute, I'll go on and see if anybody else has something, and then you can say anything else.

[33:34]

Yes, Jean? So we were talking about talking over dinner yesterday, I think, and... agreeing that we didn't want to talk about people, even maybe when we were saying good things about people, that it would be better to just not talk about people. And then the person I was sitting opposite said, do you know Andrew? And I said, oh, Andrew, isn't he adorable? We just love Andrew. Andrew's so great. And we agreed about how wonderful Andrew was, how great he was. We both knew Andrew. Yes. Yes. person sitting beside me was very quiet. Andrew said, you're talking about Andrew. And I thought, I did. I totally did. And I thought, is there any way to have any kind of conversation at all about anything other than the weather without talking about it?

[34:41]

I'm not sure that We can, and I think we have to be a little light with ourselves, you know? So, you know, we could probably say Andrew was early for work this morning or late for work or Andrew cooked breakfast, you know, and that would probably be just fine. But it does get tricky, but we're not trying to be perfect, you know? We're just trying to be wholesome. trying to be good, maybe. We are trying to be good, but, you know, we're not going to be good. So we can try to be good, but yeah, we can try and it's probably a good thing that we're trying to be good. Did you come up with anything? No? Oh, well, maybe next time. Okay. Thank you all very much. Joseph, is you just really sure? No, okay, good.

[35:41]

Thank you. 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.

[36:03]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_93.75