Welcome to Green Gulch Farm, Green Dragon Temple. This day, cusp of summer, summer solstice tomorrow. So we've reached the time of bright daylight. Beautiful day. It's amazing you're all here indoors. So thank you for coming indoors for a little while. Most important thing is to live in accord with the totality of things. And to live in accord with the totality of things is not easy. you don't even know if you're, you can't even know if you're doing it.

[01:00]

But we do line up at least with some parts of it. So there's a sense of alignment that comes partly from sitting, sitting zazen is a practice of alignment and also from relationships, seeing if we are in accord with our relationships. So today is also Father's Day, and so I wanna talk a little bit today about relationships in regards to fathers, being a father myself, also having a father. Probably just about everyone in the room has a father. not necessarily known, and that can create some very interesting matters in itself.

[02:08]

But through relationships, we see ourselves. We say that the eye cannot see itself. So there's a way in which the eye is blind, even though the eye brings us so much, so much of our world. But in the relationship, if we see what we see as ourselves, then we meet ourselves in whoever is in front of us. We meet ourselves. Here's a quote from Suzuki Roshi. To understand reality as direct experience is the reason we practice Azen and the reason we study. Through this practice and study, you will understand human nature, your intellectual faculty, and the truth present in your human activity.

[03:17]

And you can take human nature, you can take this human nature of yours into consideration and when you seek to understand reality. So we have this practice of ongoing study, ongoing inquiry, in which we take whatever we meet, whatever we find, into account, into consideration, including it. Even though the relationships may be seen somewhat dimly, we say it's rare when arrow points meet. We're not always having the experience of directly meeting. Often we're having the experience of someone missing. So, with some humility today, I feel, I want to say a little bit more about fathers. So, happy Father's Day.

[04:21]

Yeah, that's a good wish. Happy Father's Day. How can fathers be happy? Does it take something? Does it depend on this kind of wish? Does it depend upon success or failure of children? Does it depend on being loved? Does it depend on being forgiven? So, from the outset it's maybe good to remind everybody that you are not your own fault. And you're also not your father's fault.

[05:28]

Robert Bly wrote a prose poem, Finding the Father. This is Robert Bly. This comes from the collection of poems about the body called, this body is made of camphor and gopher wood. But this section is called Finding the Father. This body offers to carry us for nothing, as the ocean carries logs. So on some days, the body wails with its great energy. It smashes up the boulders, lifting up small crabs that flow around the sides. Someone knocks on the door. We do not have time to dress. He wants us to come with him through the blowing and rainy streets. to the dark house. We will go there, the body says, and there find the father whom we have never met, who wandered in a snowstorm the night we were born, who then lost his memory and has lived since longing for his child whom he saw only once, while he worked as a shoemaker, as a cattle herder in Australia, as a restaurant cook who painted at night.

[06:55]

When you light the lamp, you will see him. He sits there behind the door, the eyebrows so heavy, the forehead so light, lonely in his whole body, waiting for you. So here's a lonely father, and I think there's a loneliness, not unusual for fathers. And here in this poem, the father does not know how to show up. The father is too awkward or uncertain maybe. It's even questionable whether he would accept being found, whether he would accept being met, waiting as he is behind the door in the dark house. Last weekend I was with a men's group I call the Old Zen Guys.

[08:06]

Friends of mine, I hear from the San Francisco Zen Center in the 70s. We came together and most of us actually were here for many years in residence, either here or at Tassajara or the city center. And some 10 or more years ago, we started meeting again, so we've been doing an annual retreat every year. And over a weekend retreat, and over the course of the weekend, we check in with each other. I think this is something my father never had, actually. Never had a group of peers to associate with and check in with over many years. It's not that he didn't have some peers, but I think there was this, he didn't have the sense of commitment with a particular group of people and the commitment to being open and vulnerable, actually, in expressing what's happening with a group of men.

[09:22]

I think men tend to find this difficult in our culture, so I feel very fortunate This last weekend, we spoke about our fathers, actually. We'd been meeting for 10 years, and this time it occurred to us to talk about our fathers a little bit. And so it was quite interesting to learn the difficulties. So gathering eight men together, we had the whole range. There were fathers who were absent a lot. There were fathers who were present too much, or too controlling, say. There were fathers who had the whole gamut of addictions, you know, alcohol, alcohol, alcoholics, workaholic, sexaholic, rageaholic,

[10:28]

But what was interesting, now we are all people who've been practicing this Dharma path for many years, you know, 30, 40 years. In each case, at the conclusion of our weekend, we felt gratitude for our fathers. Each person expressed some gratitude that the big problems that came with the relationship were also the jewel of practice, that people were practicing with the difficulty that the relationship with the father brought and found it deeply rewarding in the sense that the very misunderstanding, the misunderstanding contributes to the energy to cultivate bodhicitta or to cultivate the mind that wants to wake up. So some fathers are hard to find.

[11:37]

And then hard to connect with. And of course as you know, well many of you know anyway, that in this tradition the founder of Buddhism, Shakyamuni, left his infant son and family and went off to find his own true, you could say, his true self, and to find the solution to suffering and confusion. So how to communicate clearly when you don't know yourself? My sense is that he had to leave because he knew that he wasn't clear about who he was. he had to go and actually find himself.

[12:38]

So there's a sense of grief and loss, but also a deep intention. Later, he reconnected with his family. But this whole matter then of connection and communication, how does one actually find a way to communicate? I think in our men's group, there was an effort on the part of each father to communicate. And often it was misunderstood. So here's another quote from Suzuki Roshi about this thing. It's difficult to have good communication between parents and children because parents always have their own intentions. Their intentions are nearly always good, but the way they speak or the way they express themselves is often not so free.

[13:49]

It is usually too one-sided and not realistic. So the good intentions maybe are encumbered by particular agenda, limitations, and also fears. So the fears that actually prevent some openness, prevent some sense of being willing to be present with a child. Recently at San Francisco City Center, a young woman gave a way-seeking mind talk in which she expressed, she wanted to say, really her whole talk was about her relationship with her father who had died early this year. She's a young woman in her mid-twenties.

[14:50]

But she spoke particularly about An occasion when she was young, when maybe seven or eight years old, and she was, I don't know, watching TV or something with her father, and she wanted to get close to him, and she came over and kind of wanted to snuggle up to him, and he kind of pulled away from her. And that experience of him kind of pulling away from her... Deeply, she felt very deeply. So it's hard, I think, in the relation of fathers and daughters. And I have a daughter, I have two daughters. One's my biological daughter and one's my adopted daughter. And so relationship fathers and sons and relationship fathers and daughters, there are some different issues.

[15:58]

Fathers not necessarily knowing in either case. But then with daughters, the feelings, how to express affection without getting involved in some eroticism. This is an issue. And then for fathers looking at their daughters growing up and becoming beautiful, realizing that how to confess my own lustful feelings towards other daughters and not wanting and fearing how other men will be looking at my beautiful daughter. Often as young women become adolescent, their fathers really are bewildered and don't know how to relate. I see a few heads nodding.

[16:58]

So there may be some truth to that statement. I don't actually know what I'm talking about. But what I'm saying is an effort to maybe suggest or encourage you to investigate your own and to consider to inquire into this matter how to live in accord with the totality of things as it manifests in that particular relationship. So... As it turns out, I was here last month talking about mothers.

[17:59]

I happened to come on Mother's Day. And I invited everyone to join in a metta meditation for mothers, so today I'd like to invite you to do that. Join in a metta meditation, which metta means loving kindness. So a loving kindness meditation for fathers. No matter what you happen to feel, about your father at this moment, it's possible to extend loving-kindness, the thought of loving-kindness. And that's true whether your father is living or not. Because the father actually, the father that you know, that you think that you know and that you envision is actually your own idea, your own conception. And that's carried beyond whether your father is living or not.

[19:02]

My own father died several years ago. Just in passing, just to say, with any loss like that, very significant loss, I think it's helpful to have a practice of honoring and respecting and letting go. So for a year after my father died, I did a little service, a little ceremony each day, each morning. That was kind of an arbitrary idea, saying, okay, I'll do it for a year. But it was helpful to me, actually, to complete our relationship in some way. Not that it is complete yet, but that transition, from living father into father who's passed away is very significant.

[20:03]

So you might consider that for yourself, some way to recognize that. So, metta meditation, the metta practice begins with oneself. And first, it's important to acknowledge the wish for happiness for oneself. So we'll do one round in which we say, may I be happy? And then another round for the father. And when we get to that place, I'll say, close your eyes and visualize your father actually in front of you. And then you can speak directly to that father that you visualize. So... I think it's good to do this metta practice right at the threshold of the inner world and the outer world.

[21:04]

So there's a sense in which it's good if your eyes are closed. And when you repeat, I'll say phrase by phrase, when you repeat it after me, just kind of murmur it. You don't have to proclaim it, just murmur it. So you feel it inside, it resonates inside. So please just repeat after me. May I be happy. May I be free from fear and live in safety. May I be at ease and abide in peace. May I be at ease and abide in peace. We'll do this three times for each session. for oneself and for Father. So, again, may I be happy. May I be free from fear and live in safety.

[22:05]

May I be at ease and abide in peace. May I be happy. May I be free from fear and live in safety. May I be at ease and abide in peace. And then visualizing your father coming forward and standing in front of you. And say to him, May you be happy. May you be free from fear and live in safety. May you be at ease and abide in peace. May you be happy. May you be free from fear and live in safety. May you be at ease and abide in peace.

[23:14]

May you be happy. May you be free from fear and live in safety. May you be at ease and abide in peace. May you be at ease and abide in peace. So relationships with father are completely interconnected, you know. We have recently a baby was born here to parents at Green Gulch and Jiryu, became a father. And Frank, did Frank make Jiryu a father? Jiryu couldn't be a father without Frank. But it's not exactly, you know, clear. What are all the conditions present to create that person as a father?

[24:26]

So, Shakyamuni Buddha, original teacher, made various statements about parents. And so I wanted to talk a little bit about his teaching in that regard. First of all, he has several synonyms for parents. One, creator. So it has to do with this, well, who creates who? But parents do have this, they have to contend with this matter of bringing a child into the world. It's a big, very significant action. None of us would exist, our species wouldn't exist without this creative, Also, Buddha used that term, first mentor or first teacher, recognizing that children learn from the parents, from the very first, say, before birth, and then from the first day and from then on.

[25:57]

So the parents are there first, in most cases. And he also used the word, the beloved. Beloved. Indicating this relationship is fundamentally based on love. A deep bond, connection, and kindness. There is this notion then that parents have this particular role and they have duties that come along with it, duties, responsibilities. So, in one of the early Pali suttas, there are numerous references to parents' responsibilities. The parents, in addition to bringing the children into the world,

[26:59]

Parents provide them with manifold help, feed and care for them, and teach them the right path. Teaching them the right path, this is a big responsibility. I think my own father had this idea, teaching the right path. And so the way he did it, in me produced a kind of a mix maybe of understanding the right path, of resenting the advice, resenting the controlling agenda of the way he was trying to teach me the right path sometimes. But included insight and included rage on my part. Sometimes really very angry. at being told this is what you should do or you have to do.

[28:04]

There's a challenge here. Who is molding who? Is someone being molded here? I don't particularly like being molded. I don't know. Maybe someone here welcomes being molded. And it's actually quite a challenge in our practice forms when people come and sit down and they're being told, here's how you sit. You sit like this. And you sit upright. And you cross your legs like this. Or you hold your head like this. And you put your tongue here. And you put your fingers here. All these things. And so there's a sense in which, you know, am I ready to be molded? Am I ready to receive the form of the formative power, actually, of this practice. So, it's interesting to me that I felt I had to have enough confidence in the practice to trust it and be willing to allow myself to be molded

[29:22]

So this goes on, testing it out. Okay, is this actually for my benefit or is this just for your ego? Whoever it is who might be in a position of authority. But then the Buddha, I want to just note five responsibilities. These are in a book that just came out a couple of years ago called The Buddha's Teaching on Prosperity at home, at work, and in the world. These are teachings from the Pali's original early Buddhist canon that were then collected with some commentary by Bhikkhu Vasnagoda Rahula. So if you look up Rahula and the Buddhist teachings on prosperity, you can track it down on Amazon or wherever. I don't know if we have it in our bookstore here. Does anyone know? No, we don't. Maybe we should get some for our bookstore here.

[30:28]

Very helpful, actually, for many aspects of life to have some practical guidance. So the Buddha, in addition to the most sublime and subtle teachings, also offered many very practical kinds of forms of guidance. So the first one is that parents refrain from And they help children refrain from unwholesome conduct. And so there's a question, well, how to do this? How to help children refrain from what's unwholesome, what's harmful, what is causing trouble? And so his guidance is not by punishment and not by harsh words, but primarily by example. that if parents refrain from unwholesome conduct themselves, then they can suggest what that is to their children. So this is having to do with actions and speech and thoughts.

[31:40]

And then the corollary to that is to lead and support wholesome conduct. This term is kalyane nevisenti, kalyane nevisenti, which means to establish in actions that are beautiful, charming, and virtuous. So to support that, and I think, as we say, it takes a village to raise a child, and so a part of this then is that the parent and participation in relationships with others to support wholesome conduct, which then children can discover in their own relationships as they grow up with other people in the community. So Buddha gave to his own son, Rahula, he gave what he called the best gift, which is a gift...

[32:50]

the gift of teaching of wholesome conduct. And that was actually membership in the community, membership in the Sangha. So although he left his son when he was an infant, then he invited him to join the community of his people who were practicing his teachings when Raula was about seven years old. Later on Rahula, evidently the Buddha was pretty skillful in working with Rahula as his son because later on Rahula was known as the one who is most willing to be trained. That's hard for me to imagine. So third, parents should educate children for a profession. that they should see to the education of children so that the children actually can find their place in the world and be productive and contribute to society.

[34:00]

And fourth, they should help their children find a suitable partner for marriage. So in our contemporary society, we don't often give much guidance. I think in ancient India, the parents would choose, right? But to choose a suitable companion would be meaning to find someone who has good character and to help from the perspective of a mature adult to see that various people may not be suitable because of their their personality or certain limitations they have or certain characteristics that may not be so compatible that a child or a younger person may not see themselves, but a mentor may.

[35:04]

So actually here at San Francisco Zen Center, we encourage people before getting into a relationship to check with their teacher or their practice leader and begin to enter into some conversation so that there's some perspective offered. Is this relationship something that is healthy for you? Is it healthy for them? Is it healthy for the whole Sangha, the whole community? So we actually have our way of supporting that. And finally, the fifth point of the Buddha's practical teaching is to for parents to transfer an appropriate amount of wealth to the children at the right time. So appropriate amount of wealth would mean not so much that the parents themselves are destitute, and not to hold on to the wealth when it's not necessarily needed and actually could be better used by the children.

[36:14]

It was very interesting to me, this notion of of wealth being passed on, and of course Buddha himself saying that the greatest wealth is the Dharma, the greatest wealth is the teaching of truth. So we at contemporary worlds, I think, as parents think of launching, launching the children, right? Are they launched yet? And actually, because we have a complicated world, I think, it means supporting children sometimes through a couple of efforts, fledgling efforts. You know, are you ready to launch when you're 16, when you're 18, when you're 21, when you're 25, when you're 27, when you're 30? Are you able to stand on your own two feet? And make...

[37:18]

healthy decisions for yourself. Each case is somewhat different. But all these points, education, a suitable partner, and having the resources, all pertain to that notion of successfully launching the next generation. So sometimes that doesn't work so well. Sometimes parents themselves are not really competent as parents. Sometimes they're not clear enough in themselves to be that helpful. Sometimes they have many good qualities and sometimes also have limits that interfere. And so then the matter of how to deal with that comes up for me and for many as parents. how to forgive, how to forgive the mistakes of the parents.

[38:21]

So here's a poem from Dick Laurie, published in Ghost Radio. Some people need to leave and get ready for tea, lunch, thank you. This is called Forgiving Our Fathers. Some of this poem was in the conclusion of the movie, the film Smoke Signals. Maybe in a dream, he's in your power. You twist his arm, but you're not sure it was he that stole your money. You feel calmer and you decide to let him go free. Or he's the one, as in a dream of mine, I must pull from the water, but I never knew it or wouldn't have done it until I saw the street theater play so close up I was moved to actions I'd never taken before.

[39:24]

Maybe for leaving us too often or forever when we were little. Maybe for scaring us with unexpected rage or making us nervous because there seemed never to be any rage there at all. For marrying or not marrying our mothers? For divorcing or not divorcing our mothers? Shall we forgive them for their excesses of warmth or coldness? Shall we forgive them for pushing or leaning or shutting doors? For speaking only through layers of cloth or never speaking or never being silent? In our age or in theirs or in their deaths Saying it to them or not saying it. If we forgive our fathers, what is left? So all these possibilities.

[40:27]

For leaving or not leaving. For marrying or not marrying. Or divorcing or not divorcing. For pushing. For shutting doors. For speaking. Only through layers of cloth. I like that one. Muffled speaking. But then the last line. If we forgive our fathers what is left. Big challenge in the practice of forgiveness is to face the unknown. So that we don't live through the mistakes, just continue to repeat the stories and live again and again through the karmic mistakes of our fathers. It's necessary to forgive. Forgive and forgive and forgive. Realizing that that one, that person, was doing what they thought they needed to do.

[41:36]

Doing the best that doing the best that they knew how. But after forgiving, then what's left? Many people, I think, continue to believe that somehow the, say, mistakes of the parents have to be, say, held on to. And sometimes this belief is not conscious, but this belief is unconscious and carried in the body and perpetuated in the next generation. So how to say when you receive a legacy to say, oh, this legacy is not really so helpful, not wholesome. Can I let it stop here? And for it to stop here means to come to complete peace with it. So our practice of zazen, of sitting, means that whatever is arising and whatever is feeling like an imposition or whatever is stirring as a kind of restlessness inside is allowed to settle.

[42:56]

That one finds one's composure with it. Not trying to push it away, but not believing it and reenacting it either. So for myself, it was necessary for me to sit with my own rage when images of my father and various memories would come up in my mind and sitting silently, sitting still, in order to become more and more still, meant to be able to be present with the intense energies held and released in the body. Intense energies. Over sometimes very small things. Eat your lima beans. You can't leave the table until you clean your plate.

[44:01]

Sometimes being treated unfairly, being completely misunderstood. The anguish of being misunderstood by someone who you love. To sit still with that is an occasion for forgiveness. Forgiveness means then to completely let them go, to see them extend generosity, extend compassion, and take full responsibility for what is being held now in this body, in this mind. So this then comes back to, yes, may I be happy. So this is liberative practice because the binds, the bonds that bind one,

[45:11]

may seem like they're imposed by someone else. But why not let them go? You have to let that person who seems to be binding you go, so that you can be free yourself. So this is all part of developing a... culture of compassion, a culture of wisdom and developing it in oneself. And so this gathering today is in support of that, in support of you developing wisdom and compassion in yourself. And it helps to have the Sangha support. It helps to have the Sangha relationships Not that the Sangha relationships are easy.

[46:16]

Often we can't really work with our family directly. We have to come to a training place, work with ourselves. So it was for me, after years of practicing at Zen Center, then I could go back and meet my father without resenting, without feeling that he owed me anything. which kind of puzzled him. What's, you know, why are you so nice to me? So I feel very fortunate for the practice and fortunate for the big problem that my dad gave me. So just a brief mention. In regards to Sangha, since I've been Abbot the last few years, I've felt that we need to articulate our membership.

[47:24]

To be a member of the Sangha is really to support a culture of wisdom and compassion. And you've got to do it someplace, and so this is a place that's dedicated to that. And San Francisco Zen Center is dedicated to that. creating a culture of wisdom and compassion. So we all can benefit from that. So this week someone called me up. In fact, it was Nancy sitting right here. Called me up and said, oh, we're doing a membership. I'm coming out to Green Gulch to do a membership thing. So you're gonna be at a table out here after this talk. And so people who wanna find out about the benefits and the responsibilities of participating in the Sangha formally as a member can check with Nancy. This is a unique opportunity today. And so this practice of Sangha, we say, is a mutual benefit.

[48:28]

One offers oneself to the Sangha and the Sangha offers many resources. So this completes the way we find sanctuary, where we find refuge. So today, because it's summer, I thought I would end by inviting you to sing with me an old song that senior Dharma teacher Tenshin Anderson started singing here many years ago, and so... I'd heard it, but then I finally learned it. Red, Red Robin, right? So you can join, maybe you'll sing it twice. That way you'll have more confidence. Maybe even I'll have more confidence the second time.

[49:30]

When the Red, Red Robin comes, Bob, Bob, Bobbin' along. Along, there'll be no more sobbing when he starts singing that throbbing that old sweet song. Wake up, wake up, you sleepyhead. Get up, get up, get out of bed. Cheer up, cheer up, the sun is red. Live, love, laugh and be happy. What if I've been blue, now I'm walking through fields of flowers. Raindrops glisten, but still I listen for hours and hours. I'm just kid again, doing what I did again, singing a song. When the red, red robin comes, bob, bob, bobbing along.

[50:35]

This would be good for fathers to sing to children. When the red, red robin comes, bob, bob, bobbing along, along. There'll be no more sobbing when she starts throbbing that old sweet song. Wake up. Wake up, get out of bed. Get up, get up, wake up in bed. Cheer up, cheer up, the sun is red. Live, love, laugh and be happy. What if I've been blue? Now I'm walking through fields of flowers. Raindrops glisten and still I listen for hours. And ours, I'm just a kid again, doing what I did again, singing a song. When the red, red robin comes, bob, bob, bobbing along.

[51:42]

When the red, red robin comes, bob, bob, bobbing along. So thank you for listening and have a good summer.

[51:53]

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