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Meeting Death as It Comes
AI Suggested Keywords:
12/14/2013, Steve Weintraub dharma talk at City Center.
The talk discusses the profound concepts of impermanence and interconnectedness within Zen practice, using the life and practices of Steve Stuckey as a focal point. It explores the significance of impermanence (anitya) and non-self (anatman), illustrated through Dogen's poem and the insights from Blind Lemon Jefferson's blues, showcasing the application of these concepts in facing life's inevitable challenges and mortality. The speaker emphasizes three guidelines for practice: engaging fully with life, recognizing the unlimited nature within the limited, and practicing generosity.
Referenced Works and Relevance:
- "Genjo Koan" by Dogen Zenji: Cited as a key text illustrating the metaphysical concept of moonlight in dew drops, conveying the ideas of impermanence and the reflection of the limitless within the finite.
- Ehe Dogen's Poem: Reflects the transient beauty and impermanence, important to understand life's fleeting nature.
- Blind Lemon Jefferson's Lyrics: Used to underscore the relational and emotional aspects of life, indicating that while death may not be feared, the emotional ties and responsibilities to others highlight our interconnectedness.
- Zen Teachings of Suzuki Roshi: Mentioned as reinforcing the principle of empirical observation, particularly his teaching that everything changes, which is fundamental to Buddhist practice.
- Four Noble Truths: Implicitly referenced through the discussion of suffering (dukkha) as arising from resistance to impermanence and non-self.
These works and figures frame the practice of Zen as a means to live authentically in accordance with the true nature of reality.
AI Suggested Title: Embracing Change: Zen's Timeless Flow
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. I told the Ina I've never used one of these things before. And for some reason, even though previously, you know, I'd use a microphone, a clip on here, having this makes me feel like I'm an agent in the Matrix. Agent Smith. Maybe I'll listen in for instructions as to what to do with my life. Tell me if it starts to go haywire or wrong in some way.
[01:16]
How many folks here, is this your first time, or maybe you've been here once or twice, relatively new? Raise your right hand. I don't usually ask that kind of thing. But the topics that I want to talk about this morning are grounded in a situation here at San Francisco Zen Center that if this is your first time or only been here a couple of times, you may not know about, you may not be familiar with. So what I'm speaking about, and those of you who have been around certainly know this very deeply, what I'm speaking about is the situation and the practice and the teaching
[02:40]
of Steve Stuckey, who is, we have a complicated structure here at Zen Center, and there are three people who, instead of one abbot, one head person, there are three people. And Steve Stuckey is the central abbot. So on September 30th, he went to the doctor, and he had had some examination done before that, and the doctor told him that he had pancreatic cancer, stage four. His wife, Lane, asked... if this is stage four, what's stage five?
[03:44]
And the doctor said, there is no stage five. And apparently this way of this particular kind of cancer, maybe there are other ones like it, is that way, out of the blue. He had had some indications of it over the last few years, but mostly it was just out of the blue and quite shocking, as you can imagine. So it's that situation that is the ground of my talk this morning. He wrote an email to a number of people later that day and in his inimitable way was very present.
[05:08]
not ignoring, denying, avoiding this shocking news, but also not... There was no flowery philosophical elaboration. Simply, this is the situation. So since that time, of course, Steve has been absorbing this news and practicing with his imminent death. And those of us around him
[06:14]
who knew him. Many of you know him and have practiced with him extensively and perhaps are students of his. And I've known Steve since he came to Zen Center, which was a few years after I did. So maybe 40 years or so. And been close with him. And he and Paul Haller and I have a particular bond because we received Dharma Transmission together at Tassajara in 1993. So Steve has been both exemplifying the practice in a truly awe-inspiring way.
[07:37]
And we can also ask, well, what is our practice? What is our practice in the face of this? In the face of the loss of our... dear friend, and also pretty immediately the way we are as people in the face of our own imminent demise. How do we practice with this? This is a very central, fundamental question of Buddhist practice. Maybe the most fundamental one. So we learn by example. And those of us around Steve now are learning by his example.
[08:40]
And we also learn by understanding. Our practice and our understanding go together. We practice Zen on the basis of what our understanding is. of Zen, of the world, of our life. So Steve was very helpful at the bottom of that email that he sent that afternoon of September 30th. He put two quotations after he said, you know, pancreatic cancer, stage four. The doctor says, my life expectancy is three to six months. So now, right now, it's December the 14th. So one, two, just a bit. So since that moment, he's been alive for two and a half months.
[09:47]
The doctor said, my life expectancy is three to six months, and then if I... If I receive chemotherapy and it's effective, then it can be extended a little bit past that. So he said that, and then I think, I haven't looked at it recently, but as I recall, then the last thing he wrote in his part of the email was something like... remember exactly, something like, I hold each one of you in my heart. Steve Stuckey. Then there were two quotations at the bottom of the email. One was a short poem penned by Dogen.
[10:57]
Ehe Dogen Zenji, who is the... So like I said, Steve and Paul and I received Dharma Transmission from Mel Weitzman, Soj and Mel Weitzman in 1993, and Mel received Dharma Transmission from Huitsu Suzuki, who will be here with us in a few months. Thank you. visiting from Japan for the mountain seat ceremony. And Hoitsu Suzuki Roshi received armored transmission from his father, Shunryu Suzuki, that's our founder, and back [...] through the centuries, back to Dogen in the 13th century. So Dogen was a very big, is a very big figure in the particular lineage trail of Soto Zen that that we're a part of here. That's our family. The poem from Dogen was To what shall I liken this life?
[12:10]
Moonlight reflected in dewdrops shaken from a crane's bill. To what shall I liken this life? Moonlight reflected in dew drops shaken from a crane's bill. Crane, the bird, crane. And then, so that's from Dogen. Then beneath that was another quotation. Steve has always been a big fan of the blues. And this was a quotation from Blind Lemon Jefferson, who was a blues singer in the early part of the 20th century. I just saw something somewhere about how there's some new jazz label or record label that's going to be promoting all of these original
[13:24]
Jazz, blues, people. Maybell somebody. Anyway, I don't know that much about it. But anyway, Blind Lemon Jefferson was one of them being reissued. And the quotation from Blind Lemon Jefferson was three lines. Let's see. I got trouble in my mind, Lord. I believe I'm fixin' to die. I got trouble in my mind. Lord, I believe I'm fixing to die. Well, I don't mind dying. I just hate to leave my children crying. That was what Blind Lemon Jefferson had to say. So as a way of... as a way of grounding or inhabiting this situation, I want to speak about those two quotations and explicate them, bring out what's being said.
[14:41]
So in the Dogen quote, dew drops shaken from a crane's bill So dewdrops is a very, in Buddhist teaching, dewdrops is one of the most classical allusions, allusions, I think that's the word, references to impermanence. And it's very accessible. It's very out there. We see it. We know it in nature. So something we call a dewdrop, right? It's this water. takes this particular form, a thousand dew drops on a thousand blades of grass, and then the sun comes out, and then the dew drop goes away, transforms into something else. It's not permanent. There is no such thing as a dew drop.
[15:51]
If we gather certain conditions together, you know, moisture, certain temperatures, various other things, then we get these little tiny drops of water and we say, oh, that's a dew drop. Then, in a short while, the dew drop disappears, right? It goes into wherever it goes. I don't know where it goes. It goes into the air. It evaporates, right? Then eventually it's a cloud. We called it a dew drop a minute ago, and now it's a cloud, which is the same thing. Just certain things coming together in a particular way at a particular time, and there it is, cloud. But there isn't any such thing as a cloud. That's permanent. So this is dew drops, and this is clouds, and this is Steve Stuckey.
[16:53]
and this is Steve Weintraub, and this is you. Just like that. More complicated. A little bit more complicated. So we are, dewdrop is simple and quick, and then more slow is the minarets. The minarets is a word meaning minaret, but it's also the name of a mountain range in the Sierra. The minarets, what we call the minarets, is this ridge. When you go there, you climb to about 10,000 feet to Minaret Lake, and then you look up at the minarets, which are a couple of thousand feet above 10,000 feet. The minarets were in the uplift, the one that happened before the Sierras.
[17:58]
When the Sierra uplift happened 60 million years ago, the minarets had already been around for 290 million years. So the Sierra uplift was like a young whippersnapper compared to the minarets, you know? So that's where we're in between the minarets and a dew drop. That's simpler and faster. Then there's us. Then it's much slower and more complicated if you're a mountain range 350 million years old. But in all three cases and everything in between and everything outside of those as well, it's always that way. It's always not permanent. Suzuki Roshi used to use the word tentatively. He didn't mean tentative like not sure of itself. He meant tentative more like temporary.
[19:02]
Tentatively. Tentatively, we have this moment. Tentatively, we have this life. And soon, when the sun comes out, it will change. It will disappear. It will be something else. even more so in Dogen's poem because it's a top-notch poem. You know, it's two drops shaken from a crane's bill. That's the quality of our life. We're moving. We're moving. We're always moving from one thing to another, from one moment to another. What we did this morning, this afternoon, tomorrow, yesterday, next year, ten years ago, it's always moving. like dewdrops, shaken from a crane's bill.
[20:06]
Never stable, never stops. This is a quality of impermanence. In Sanskrit, impermanence is anitya. A means not, nitya means permanent, not permanent. And the corollary, maybe, or of impermanence is a second very fundamental truth of Buddhist teaching called anatman. No a-an-atman. No self. So when we turn impermanence toward oneself, then we have anatman. They go together. They're really two... you can see how if something keeps changing, right? Like dew drops become clouds, become a piece of wood, becomes a piece of paper, becomes a great essay by Montaigne, et cetera, [...] et cetera.
[21:16]
If it's always changing, it doesn't have any particular selfhood that's permanent, that's always abiding. There's no abiding self. That's the second thing. that goes with impermanence. David Chadwick, an all-time Zen center person who many of you know, a wonderful character, personality, one of a kind, like the rest of us. One time he asked Suzuki Roshi, so, you know, Suzuki Roshi, you're always talking about things... But what is Buddhism in the simplest way you could say it? Can you give me that? He would say things like that to Suzuki Roshi. Which was good, because all of us had that in mind, but none of us had the chutzpah to say it.
[22:21]
David was, and is, very strong in the chutzpah department. So he asked Suzuki Rishi that question. Suzuki Rishi said, everything changes. Very simple. Very straightforward. Oh, and also, we should say, you know, Zen practice is empirical. What I mean is, don't believe me. We say, don't believe me. Look at your own experience. Maybe you'll find something permanent. If you do, let us know. I'd be very interested in hearing about it. But it isn't exactly a doctrine like, oh, you're supposed to believe in this. It's more like, look at your experience. Look at your life. And if we look at our life, what conclusions do we come to?
[23:25]
So these first two features of this world, this life that we have here, these first two features are no change, excuse me, always change, no permanence, and no self. You with me so far? Generally speaking. These two things we don't have any choice about. No choice. We can't choose to have things have a permanent self. It's not within our range of possibilities. Steve can't choose not to die. In fact, None of us can choose not to die. Even if we eat super green drinks.
[24:42]
I remember some years ago, Steve was drinking these super green things. I don't know what super green exactly means, but super greens for health. We can adjust things. If we eat super green and exercise and meditate, then we'll live longer. This has some benefit, you might say. But in the end, no choice is possible in this regard. Both personally for our own life, and no choice is possible for we can't choose permanence. So these two things we don't have any choice about. However, there are two other ways that we do have a choice about, and that's how we relate to the other two.
[25:43]
So how we relate to impermanence and no self. So one way to relate to it is called dukkha. Commonly called, commonly referred to as suffering or more accurately dis-ease, unease, dissatisfaction. The first of the Four Noble Truths, dukkha. When we don't live in accord with impermanence and anatman, impermanence and no-self. When we don't live in accord with those two things that we don't have any choice about, you get dukkha. You get suffering. There was an older system, and now I'm going to talk about four,
[26:52]
impermanence, not-self, dukkha, and a fourth one, which I'll tell you about in a minute. But the older system just had those three. It was called the three marks of conditioned existence. Conditioned existence, that is, this existence that we have now, whereby you're sitting there and I'm talking and you can hear me. This existence has three marks to it. Impermanence, anitya, anatman, dukkha. My translation is impermanence, no self, and we don't like it. We don't like this impermanence, no self business. We want to have more control over that. We want to have more choice in those first two areas. We don't like it at all. No. You can't do this to me. I used to sing that song from... Fred Astaire.
[27:55]
No, no, no, you can't take that away from me. But that's what happens. It keeps getting taken away from us. Right? As we get older, our faculties get taken away and then this thing we called living gets taken away. No, no, no, that's dukkha. when we live in accord with, when we can get in the groove of, in sync with, and I dare say sing and dance with and sit with impermanence and no self, that's called nirvana. So, Nirvana is one of those things about which there's a lot of kind of hype, PR, mistaken ideas that we have in the culture.
[29:04]
Ooh, Nirvana, wow. It's really going to be fabulous once I get there. This happens. This kind of literalizing and concretizing. So when we literalize and concretize nirvana, we think it's a place or a state of mind, something we can get a hold of. Oops, I got it now. But that isn't what nirvana is. It's not a concrete, literal thing. It's not a state. It's not a place. It's simply living in accord with how things are, living in accord with impermanence and no self. When we can do that, this is meeting our life fully.
[30:10]
This is facing our life fully. You know? No! No, don't tell me about it. Not that. But rather turning toward what our life actually is. So on September 30th, Steve received this diagnosis of fourth stage pancreatic cancer. And previously, some months before, it had been scheduled that he was going to give the Wednesday evening Dharma talk, that's like what I'm doing now, at Green Gulch Farm. Not to let a little thing like terminal cancer stop him, he decided to proceed.
[31:20]
with that Dharma talk on Wednesday, on that following Wednesday, which was October 2nd, which that he would even do is already like, wow. It's already, again, a kind of demonstration of another favorite Suzuki Roshi word, composure. a demonstration of being composed, a demonstration, I dare say, of a willingness, a tolerance for impermanence and no self. So I attended that talk that Wednesday evening, October 2nd, that Steve gave. And many of you, I think, have listened, some of you were there, and then others of you, I think, have listened to it on the internet or the CD, etc.
[32:33]
And one of the things he spoke about in that talk was the Tassajara fire, the forest fire that came through and came through and around Tassajara. So when was that? Two years ago? Three? When was it? 2008. Oh my God. Oh my God. 2008. That's five years ago. So this was the forest fire of five years ago. And Steve was one of five people who was at Tassajara when the fire came in. Due to many complicated circumstances, many other people might have wanted to have been there, and anyway, it was quite complicated. But as it turned out, there were just five people at Tassajara, which is 160 acres.
[33:42]
And the forest fire is coming, and the forest service is saying... Leave. Don't stay. But Steve chose to stay, and then four other people joined him. David Zimmerman. Is David here? David lives here in the city. Let's see. David... Mako Vocal and Graham Leggett, who right now are in... Excuse me? Graham Ross. Thank you. Graham Ross, who right now are in Austin, Texas, at the Austin, Texas Zen Center. I visited there just a few weeks ago. I was in Texas. I went to see them, and I saw Mako and Graham, and then the...
[34:45]
So it's David, Marco, Graham, Colin, Gibson. And Colin is the head of the San Antonio Texas Zen Center. I visited him also a few weeks ago. And Steve. So what Steve spoke about on that Wednesday evening was that... The cancer is like the fire. Here it comes. Here it comes down the road. And again, you can try to do certain things to not have the fire come, to not have the cancer come, but sometimes anyway, here it comes. It's this thing of no choice.
[35:49]
At that point, the forest fire was going to at least surround, if not envelop, Tassajara. And there was no choice about that. So what there was a choice about was responding to that. meeting that, facing that. The word that Steve used in that Wednesday evening talk was engagement. So I had even thought in giving this talk that I was going to mention certain specific guidelines for practice. I don't usually do, but I'll try it, see what happens. So this is the first guideline for practice, is this sense of engaging with our life.
[36:55]
It means not avoiding, not denying, not minimizing, not trying to get out of it in any way, shape, or form, but actually facing our life, meeting our life, engaging with our life. in these, you know, it's helpful to us, the way we are as human beings, it's helpful to us to hear about it in these very dramatic circumstances of forest fires, of terminal cancer. And it's, it makes sense that those would be instances wherein this kind of engagement and meeting and facing our life is very, very difficult, unusual, hard to do. But that's the spirit of practice, the feeling of Zen practice is in that direction.
[38:02]
It's supporting and encouraging us in that direction. Even if you don't have terminal cancer, even if you're not facing a forest fire with four other people. To find, to face toward and engage your own life. No holds barred. No avoiding of it. So that's all in dew drops. shaken from a crane's bill. The second aspect of that is moonlight reflected in dewdrops. So the poem again is, to what shall I like in this life, moonlight reflected in dewdrops, shaken from a crane's bill. So in the midst of, in the midst of,
[39:08]
this impermanent life, we have moonlight reflected in the dew drops. And for those of us familiar with Dogen, we know this refers, or is cognitive, similar to in Genjo Koan, another work of Dogen's, not a poem, a long essay that he wrote. the English is actualizing the fundamental point. And in this essay, Actualizing the Fundamental Point, he also talks about moonlight reflected in dew drops. And in this, and he says that the full moon and the entire sky is reflected, is in water, even in a thousand dew drops. Even in, he says, a puddle an inch wide.
[40:14]
So the image, the metaphor is that even in each one of these tiny little things, even in some muddy old, stinky old puddle, is the entire full moon and the entire sky. Again, it's true, right? I mean, if you look in a dew drop, you look at the dew drop, or look at the puddle, you see, you know, if it's nighttime, you'll see the moon and the entire sky. This thing feels like it's always falling off here. It's very, this is another example of impermanence. It's impermanently on my ear. So as we know, the sky, where does the sky end? It doesn't end. They keep trying to come up with other aliens. There's so many millions of galaxies in the universe, bazillions, kazillions.
[41:18]
Millions, billions, trillions. What comes after that? Quadrillions. Thanks. Thanks. You know, and you make them up, right? Like, bazillion, bazillion, you know? But that's how many galaxies there are, right? And then in each galaxy, there are gazillion, bazillion, gazillion stars. It's infinite. It's way beyond our ability to conceive. Beyond conception. Inconceivable. The inconceivable sky is reflected in dewdrops, and even in a puddle an inch wide. Even if our life is like a puddle an inch wide, inside that, in that, is inconceivable, inconceivable dimension, beyond dimension.
[42:27]
In everything limited is the unlimited. The unlimited exists in the limited. It doesn't exist anywhere else. There's not some special unlimited realm. There's not some special inconceivable realm. The inconceivable and the unlimited are in the limited. That's the meaning of moonlight reflected in dewdrops. So this leads us to my second guideline, which is to not be caught. This is an encouragement to not be caught, not be stuck, not be lost in our limited life, which is unlimited. Don't forget, it's unlimited. not be lost in our karmic life, not be lost, not be fooled by our karmic life, not be lost, not be fooled by our thinking mind, by our conceptual mind.
[43:50]
Our actual life is beyond our conception. So this is something wonderful Because it's beyond our conception, we can't conceive it, but we can practice it. Zen practice is about encouraging and supporting our recognition and inclusion of the unlimited nature of things in the limited nature of things. That's guideline number two. Guideline number three is generosity. Generosity is one way. Generosity is how we express unlimitedness in one way, just in our everyday life. Suzuki Roshi said, just to have a generous mind, a big mind, a soft mind, is how we continue our way.
[45:01]
That's how the way is continued. Generous mind, big mind, soft mind. He's referring to this, I don't know how to say it, inclusion of unlimitedness mind, heart in our activity, in our thinking, in our speech. So, review. Number one, No denying, no avoiding. Number two, we shouldn't get lost in our karmic life. Number three, be generous. It's the first of the six perfections, generosity. we move from Dogen to Blind Lemon Jefferson.
[46:26]
Dogen is fabulous. I'm a big Dogen-ophile. But compared to Blind Lemon Jefferson, Dogen is pretty cool. Blind Lemon Jefferson is pretty warm. And I think it's very fitting. that we move to Blind Lemon Jefferson. Because he and others like him are the teachers in another lineage that we have. There are very famous Zen teachers from the 7th and 8th century in China, the Tang Dynasty Zen masters, the big names in Zen. from 7th and 8th and 9th century China, and then there's Dogen. But that was a long time ago, very far away.
[47:30]
Now we have Lincoln, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, and we have Nelson Mandela, and we have Blind Lemon Jefferson, and other teachers. Bob Dylan. So Blind Lemon Jefferson says, so it's interesting, you know, you can just, oh, these are blues lines, you know. And you can pass over them. One could pass over them pretty easily. But I kind of, what's being said here? I got trouble in my mind, Lord. I believe I'm fixing to die. So it sounds like at that point that the trouble is that I'm going to die. I'm troubled about that in my mind, in my heart, that I'm going to die.
[48:35]
But it turns out that's not true. He says, well, I don't mind dying, I just hate to leave my children crying. This is pretty good, pretty strong stuff. And what I feel Steve was conveying by quoting Blind Lemon Jefferson is, for us, the centrality of relationship. You know, Blind Lemon Jefferson was in the song, I hate to leave my children crying. And Steve has children and grandchild or grandchildren, not sure which, at least one. this connection that we have with each other is very important.
[49:39]
So just as we say don't get lost in our karmic life, we also practice with, practice in the arena of Practice in the world the atmosphere of don't forget our connected life, our connection to our children and grandchildren and grandparents and aunts and uncles and friends and enemies. Don't forget our connected life and connected not just to human beings but to all beings and connected even to rocks. very connected. Not to forget this connected life that we have that's so, on the one hand, brittle, momentary, tentative, and so beautiful.
[50:56]
In a talk of Suzuki Roshi's that I'm studying with some folks, Suzuki Roshi says, instead of seeking for some success in the objective world, what does he say? Instead of seeking for some success in the objective world, we try to experience the everyday moments of our life more deeply. That is the purpose of zazen. And for those of us who know Suzuki Roshi, often it's kind of an ongoing joke that often he would say, the most important point is. But he said it like hundreds of times. There'd always be something after it that was not exactly the same as anything else. The purpose of zazen is. And then you never knew what was going to come after that. This was a talk that he gave in 1969, the day after an astronaut landed on the moon.
[52:13]
And Suzuki Roshi wasn't too excited about the moon landing. He said, well, the rocks on the moon, probably they're pretty much like the rocks here. They might be a little bit different, but pretty much they're the same. When I was in Texas, we went to The Houston Space Center, right? Apollo 13. Houston, we got a problem. You know that Houston? We went to the Houston Space Center and there was a moon rock that you got to touch. And it was in a big case. You had to reach underneath, I think, probably to stop somebody from stealing the moon rock. I wasn't so interested in touching the moon rock. But my wife... She's a very enthusiastic person who's very... She said, how could you not touch it? This is a rock. This is a rock from the moon. I said, okay, I'll touch it.
[53:16]
I touched it for a minute. Anyway, this was the talk she gave after the first moon landing. And he says, don't... Don't spend a lot of time hopping around the universe. It's not necessary. And he said this thing, which is, instead of seeking for some success in the objective world, we try to experience the everyday moments of our life more deeply. That is the purpose of zazen. That is the purpose of our practice. It's simple. Straightforward. It means don't go away. Don't go off to the dusty realms of other lands. Don't leave the seat that exists in your own home. This seat that exists in our own home is plenty because it's totally inconceivable.
[54:27]
We don't have to go someplace else to find inconceivability. It's right here at home. So I think I've been talking for a while now, and maybe I should come to a conclusion. But I did want to say one more. I had one more piece that I wanted to add on to this. Which is... These are wonderful teachings that are given to us. This is a wonderful practice that is given to us that we are the lucky recipients of. We lucky few. But it's very difficult to practice this when we're afraid.
[55:30]
It's very difficult to accept our life when we feel fear, which is pretty much most of the time. Human beings, fear, anxiety, various forms of distress. We're afraid. So this is another kind of very fundamental aspect of Zen practice. This fear, anxiety, disquiet, takes many forms and is very pervasive. has an estimable evolutionary background.
[56:40]
We are the descendants of the gene pool of people who were afraid. The ones who weren't afraid, oh yeah, saber-toothed tiger, nothing to worry about. We are not their descendants. Right? We're the ones who were... Our forefathers and foremothers were worried all the time. So fear is very fundamental to our way of surviving. We think we need it for survival. And then built into the fear thing is the three F's. fight, flight, freeze. This is very deep. This is not up here. It's down back here.
[57:43]
It's deep in our brain. Flight, fight, and freeze. It's how we survive as animals. How we learned how to survive in the face of our fear. Run away, fight them, or freeze, and I hope they go away. Very effective. Evolutionarily, very effective. No surprise that we are that way. Afraid. Anxious. When our survival is threatened, which is, guess when? Always. Sometimes more dramatically, sometimes less dramatically, but always. So our way, our practice way, our Zen way, is something that is not flight, fight, or freeze.
[58:46]
It's not any of those. That's what I mean about facing our life, turning toward our life with composure. That's not fighting. It's not fleeing. Flight. And it's not freezing. It's actively responding. We could define zazen as that which is not flight, fight, or freeze. That's zazen. The support that we get for responding to our life and the threats in our life and our worries and concerns and fears and fear of death and fear of insubstantiality and fear of impermanence.
[59:49]
The support that we get, that's what our practice is, our support in that. Usually it's expressed through three ways called Buddha Dharma Sangha. Buddha Dharma Sangha is how we support each other, how each of us gets support for facing our life from someplace other than fear-driven flight, fight, or freeze. And by Buddha, usually we mean an individual, an example. Dharma is the teaching or the truth. So today this was a Dharma talk. I was trying to, I hope, say a little bit of the truth, of the teaching. And Sangha is our community where we encourage each other to follow this way.
[60:56]
And Buddha is The example. The example of Shakyamuni Buddha, but the example of Steve Stuckey Buddha also. Mick Sapko once mentioned that emergency, he spelled it differently. Instead of emergency, He wrote it as emerge and see. That's the same thing. So homage to Shakyamuni Buddha and our ancestors and Blind Lemon Jefferson and Steve Stuckey.
[62:01]
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, please visit sfzc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.
[62:33]
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