This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning, everyone. It's great to see you here on this beautiful day. Thank you for coming. Those of you who have heard me give a Dharma talk before I seem to have gotten on a one way railroad here in the last few years months whatever of my life which is expressed very beautifully in the sutra on loving kindness so I myself have been the one who has received the kindness of the whole world and want to repay it, to express my gratitude with generosity.

[01:33]

that happened most dramatically for me when I recovered from a heart attack in 1989. And I stepped out of the hospital and I said, wow, I'm alive. I could be dead. Wow, the rest of my life is just a gift. And then, just a minute. It's always been a gift. Pity I didn't notice it before. Try to understand this life of yours as a gift, and that will really make a difference, I think, in how it is for you. It certainly did for me. I hope you don't have such a dramatic way of encountering it. But I am truly grateful. that what came to me in that moment of having survived the heart attack was gratitude.

[02:41]

Gratitude is a wonderful feeling. I highly recommend it. So I can't help but want to talk about loving kindness meditation. I mean, Paul is leading a practice period on continuous practice. And of course, in this case, it means continuous practice of the Buddha way, of Zazen. And you can focus on breath during Zazen, but you can also focus on gratitude. during Zazen. Your presence and focus of practice is what needs to be continuous.

[03:43]

What you focus on is going to be different for each one of us because each one of us has had different experiences of life. In any event, I would like to... I think you... we're going to give out copies of the loving-kindness meditation and read it together as an introduction. While we're passing these out, are there any of you who are here for the first time? Oh, my goodness. Wonderful. Thank you for coming.

[04:48]

And, of course, thank you for coming to all the regulars who come quite often. I think what's going around now is the whole sutra book, so you're looking for loving kindness meditation. I don't know. Okay, thank you. There's an extra one here if anyone needs it.

[06:02]

Okay. Loving-kindness meditation. This is what should be accomplished by the one who is wise, who keeps the good and has the same peace. Let one be strenuous, upright, and sincere, without pride, easily contented and joyous. Let one not be submerged by the things of the world. Let one not take upon oneself the burden of religion. Let one's senses be controlled. Let one be wise but not buffed up. Let one not desire great possessions even for one's family. Let one do nothing that is mean or that the wise could improve. May all beings be happy.

[07:08]

May they be joyous and live in safety. All living kings, whether weak or strong, in high or middle or low realms of existence, small or great, visible or invisible, near or far, born or to be born, may all beings be happy. Let no one deceive another, nor despise any being in any state. Let none of my anger or hatred wish harm to another, Even as a mother at the risk of her life watches over and protects her only child, so with a boundless mind she'll want to cherish all living things, giving love over the entire world, above, below, and all around without limit, so let one cultivate an infinite goodwill toward the whole world, standing or walking, sitting or lying down, during all

[08:08]

So for me that is a very inspiring ambition to love all beings everywhere. It's a big effort, but it's well worth the payoff, which is feeling gratitude for this life that we have been given right here, right now, and recognizing how connected we are

[09:10]

with all that lives. One of the most important experiences that I have had is having the vivid sensation of being boundarylessness. of not having anything separate me from anything else, what Dogen Senji calls the experience of oneness. He calls, at one place in this fairly new book called, I think it's called Essential Dogen, he equates delusion with ignorance of oneness. And certainly for the first 50 years of my life, I had never had such an experience of being one with everything.

[10:23]

But I did have such an experience and I couldn't imagine what it was. And I went around looking to find out who could tell me what that experience had been of identity non-separation, oneness with everything. When we can have such an understanding, we will be able to respond to this loving kindness meditation in a different way. that we are one with everything always whether we notice it or not. And in light of that understanding then we naturally want to take care of everyone including this one but not excluding anyone.

[11:37]

Anyhow, that's a tremendously enticing possibility to me that we could love all beings without exception. It's worth working on a little bit. A lot of it. Even as the mother at the risk of her life watches only and protects her only child, so with a boundless mind should we cherish all living beings, suffusing love over the entire world, above, below, and all around, without limit. Isn't that a great vision? Isn't that worth working on? I think so. I think that's what the loving kindness meditation is all about. It's encouraging us to cultivate that mind, which is possible for all of us.

[12:47]

Am I speaking loudly enough? Yes. Okay. There's a song... that I sing sometime. Look for the silver lining when ere a cloud appears in the sky. Remember somewhere the sun is shining and so the right thing to do is make it shine for you. A heart full of loving gladness will always banish sadness and strife So always look, look for the silver lining and you will have and you will see the sunny side of life. Came from, it's a popular song of about 60 years ago.

[13:56]

But I also like very much a song that all of you probably know. So if you do, you can join in with me. Just a moment. This is what happens to memory at 88. Oh yeah. This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine. this little light of mine i'm gonna let it shine this little light of mine i'm gonna let it shine [...] everywhere i go i'm gonna let it shine everywhere i go i'm gonna let it shine Everywhere I go, I'm going to let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

[15:10]

Thank you, everyone. That was fun. You might try that sometime when you're feeling a little gloomy. Just see if you can shine a little light on the subject. I had myself experienced a great experience of gratefulness this past week. This community put up with an invasion of my children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. And it was not always quiet here, as we like to keep it, but everybody was very welcoming to them and it was tremendously grateful for me. People found space for the whole family to stay.

[16:12]

It was really great. And it was kind of important with little kids like that to have some access to kitchenette, to maybe have food that they'll eat instead of food that they won't eat. It happens sometimes with two-year-olds and four-year-olds. But the community welcomed them with open arms. It was so kind. I really appreciate it. And my kids made a big effort to get here too, which was really kind. So I'm feeling really grateful, particularly this week since One of them I hadn't ever seen before. He's two years old and I hadn't ever seen him because he lives in Vermont. Vermont is a long way from here.

[17:13]

However, it turns out that this is a really good time not to be there. So they were grateful to make the effort to get out from under the snow, which the pictures show as being, you know, over the head of everybody in the family. I mean, way over the head for the two-year-old. But thank you all, all the residents in the community, for putting up with this invasion. And the kids really enjoyed it, too. So it worked all the way around. So working on cultivating loving kindness and gratitude is really a worthwhile effort for you and for everyone around you.

[18:22]

One of the things that brought me to practice was hearing myself sing. This was in 1967, I guess. I'm fighting for peace! And I heard myself say that. Wait, wait. Isn't that an oxymoron? I mean, isn't there a peaceful way to work for peace? And that's when I started looking around at wise people in the territory. California is a good place to look around for wise people, I think. And I had the good fortune of meeting Suzuki Roshi. And I thought, he knows something about that. I'm sure he does. And so I started going very regularly to the Berkley Fendo where he gave a talk every Monday morning.

[19:30]

And before you knew it, I'd quit my job and gone to Tassajara. And I'm not at all sorry. But you don't have to quit your job in order to practice now because we have the city center and we have Green College as well as Tassajara. And we have more than 50 groups across the country that have grown from Suzuki Roshi's lineage. So I think he probably did have some words for us that we really appreciated, had some example to show us in his own being. My question, I came to him with,

[20:33]

when my friend died suddenly was, well, how do you live if you know you're going to die? And when I met Suzuki Roshi, I had the feeling he understands how to live when you know you're going to die. I'm going to hang out with him for a while. And luckily, my husband also hung out with him for a while. Suzuki Roshi said to me once, it doesn't always work that way, you know. Sometimes a husband gets jealous like wife had a new boyfriend. And I've seen that happen. Somebody begins to sit and their spouse is not into it yet and they feel competitive with them. They get up early in the morning and go sit. I want them to stay with me when they get up early in the morning. I think a sense of humor is really important.

[21:38]

It helps me a lot. I think I better see, has anybody got any questions they want to poke into? Of course you can always come for the discussion afterwards if you don't want to do it here. Oh, yeah. Hi. Well, the first thing is to notice that we have a participation in making that suffering.

[22:48]

Thank you for reminding me. I meant to mention, I watched suffering happen in the four-year-old who wanted the attention. And she wanted something to fold up in a certain place, and it wouldn't fold there. And it couldn't fold there the way she was doing it. And I tried to say, it can't work that way. It can only work this way. But I want it to work that way. And she was just so frustrated. And I thought, oh, that's how we develop suffering. We decide that we want something to be different than it is, and we want it to be different. And it isn't different. It is what it is. Life is like that. There are any number of exchanges in the traditional literature. Are you giving me a signal?

[23:55]

It's okay. There are many exchanges in the traditional literature of... where the teacher ends the conversation by saying, just this is it. I think in the story of Dungshan it says, just this is it. And Dungshan sighed, according to the description of the koan. And I like that, oh, this is it. Okay. Things change. All things are impermanent. They arise and they pass away. We don't like it. If we focus on wanting things to be different than they are, then we will find ourselves suffering a lot.

[24:58]

If we focus ourselves on how to make the best of what's happening, we may have a way of coming back to appreciation of all good things that you happen to have in your life, as well as this one bad thing that's making you suffer. I don't know if that's helpful at all, but we do... have the capacity to change the way we're thinking from not wanting to accept it to, well, how's the best way I can deal with it? Um. That's all I can come up with at the moment, is to realize that I am making my... I am deciding which thoughts to pick up and run with.

[26:14]

And if I pick up and run with, oh, I hate this, then we're going to feel miserable. And if I pick up and run with, well, let's see what I could do to make it a little kinder. How can I cultivate kindness? In Dogen Zenji's Four Methods of Guidance, one of them is... Excuse me. One is giving or generosity.

[27:24]

And one is kind speech. And I think working on what is kind speech would be, is really a very helpful development of mind because it affects so many people around you. That's maybe my response to that. There was a hand up over here somewhere. Yeah? Hi. How do you cultivate kindness and keep a sense of humor in the light of in the face of food and loss. I think I'm just asking you to elaborate on what you've done. Well, I have been working with that for the last three years since my husband died.

[28:29]

And knowing how much he cared about me, and he was very convincing about that, I knew that he wouldn't want me to be focusing on the sadness. He would want me to be focusing on the good times. And that that was the best way I could honor him. And of course, when the family got together, we were full of stories about death. Although we had one about me. We found a photograph of me taken in 1927. I was born in 1926.

[29:42]

And it looks remarkably like the baby of this crowd that was here last week, who's two. His smile, someone had said to me, quite independent of anything, that one there has got your smile. And then it was in the next time we were going through the old pictures and who was going to take what, that we found this one of me at his age. And sure enough, it looked a lot like me. I would never have imagined it. Maybe we should... Where's their timekeeper over there? Yeah? Intentional? Well, I think that what we have to do is recognize that by hanging on to the attachment, we're making ourselves miserable.

[30:58]

And do I want to make myself miserable? Well, not really. So there may be some attachments that show up that I can't do anything about. then the wise thing would be to not get stuck on it. Say, oh yeah, that's an attachment of mine and it hurts every time I think of it. How can I put it to peace? How can I let go of that grip? Mine! Mine! Did you ever work in a nursery school with little kids? I remember that that heartbreaking bleat from kids. Mine! It may only be a handful of sand, but it's mine! And when we notice that kind of behavior in its somewhat more grown-up form...

[32:10]

we can say, oh yeah, there's attachment again. What am I going to do about that? It hurts every time I bring it up. Let's see if we can calm it down somehow. Yes? I was struck by how you said you started trying to work for peace in 67. And I wonder, you've seen so much in the world and so much... of shifts and backwards movement. And I wonder, sometimes it feels so hopeless between global warming and the wars going on, and it feels like we're moving backwards instead of forward. And I wonder, how do you feel like there is hope? Or where is the silver lining in that from what you've seen in your lifetime? Well, I am a little mystified because there was this... I'm not sure exactly what, but a group of GOP climate deniers spoke in a different voice about two weeks ago, I can't remember.

[33:36]

They've had something that said, I do believe in global warming, and I do believe it's human cause. I don't know how that happened, but do you remember that? You're not on all the e-lists. Email this, mom. I think we better just go have smaller... I mean, people are getting a little stretched out in the legs, I think, probably. It's time for us to continue the conversation to the degree that we want to continue it in the back of the dining room, I think. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information visit sfcc.org and click giving.

[34:41]

May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[34:43]

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