I vow to taste the truth of the Tathāgata's words. Good morning. I wanted to share with you the good news I just heard on my way in, which is that Tassajara is safe, and I guess we don't need to worry anymore. There was a big fire in the forest. Very close. The four great elements return to their natures like a baby taking to its mother. Fire heats. Wind moves. Water wets. Earth is solid. Eye and sights. Ear and sounds. Nose and smells. Tongue and tastes. Thus with each and every thing, depending on these roots, the leaves spread forth. So today, September 18th, 1999, we are here together at Green Gulch Farms and Center.

[01:17]

And each of us has a place to sit and three bowls into which we are given food. I was wondering a little bit about how you usually spend your Saturdays and how you go about eating your breakfast and your lunch. Our way in this room is to eat together in silence with undivided attention from the beginning through the middle to the end. We don't have a TV on or radio, no newspaper, no good friend to talk with. Nothing to draw us away from the basic facts of our life.

[02:22]

Eating, drinking, sitting, walking, feeling, thinking. The reason that we are sitting here today is in order to learn how to sit here. There is no other reason and there is no other way. Just like learning to swim in the water or learning to write with a pen, learning to sit still is a very useful tool for our life. A tool with which we can open ourselves and begin to explore what's inside. So the part of our common life, our common body that I want to talk about today

[03:27]

is this part right here, our belly. The place where the babies come forth. And also the deep pit of our longing, our desire, our pain. And I'm going to talk about the belly through this everyday activity of receiving food. I recently read an article in the New Yorker about cannibalism. And as you know, this is taboo. We don't eat the flesh of other human beings. And it's so obvious that I have never even mentioned to my daughter that this is something she mustn't do. So this reporter, Norman Lewis, brought this taboo to our attention

[04:37]

after traveling to places in the world where cannibalism still occurs. For the most part, these are places with some notable exceptions based in shamanic invention. Where there is no food. The people in these places, according to Norman Lewis, would prefer to eat tofu, rice, lettuce, or pork. But usually they eat fleshy insects and small rodents. When I read this article, I realized all the way into myself that I do not appreciate the food that I receive every day of my life.

[05:39]

And that's why I wanted to talk about it today. So I want to suggest that we all use this opportunity of undivided attention to look more deeply into our bowls of food and to withhold, for a while anyway, our opinions about whether what's in that bowl is something you like to eat or not, whether it's too soft or too crunchy, whether it has enough salt or enough seasoning. I find it very helpful that we have a meal chant to help us with this meditation. And I structured my thoughts around the five contemplations that we recited this morning.

[06:44]

The first contemplation, we reflect on the effort that brought us this food. I think it's pretty usual for us at Green Gulch Farm to notice food and where it comes from and to feel some appreciation for the handsome young apprentices who work here so diligently. But I was thinking at the same time, are we overlooking all of these lesions of old men and old women who spend their entire lives hoeing and weeding in the endless fields around the world? You know, I see some of these people on my way to and from Tassajara. They're sun-drenched people out there in the fields of Salinas.

[07:51]

And I want to remember to appreciate them and admire them and give them my blessing. When I was a lot younger and a lot stronger, I had a fantasy that I wanted to work on a farm, picking vegetables or fruit. And I never knew that there was such a place like Green Gulch. I'm not sure there was when I was younger. So I wrote to a pineapple company in Hawaii because I thought it would be very romantic to be in Hawaii picking fruit. So they sent me back a very nice form letter saying that I should check in the employment office on arrival. And when I got to Oahu on the bus

[08:53]

taking me to the mountains where I would be living, I saw the people picking pineapples. They were wearing protective headgear and goggles and padded gloves up to their shoulders, leather aprons and heavy boots. And they were walking behind a huge machine with a conveyor belt, throwing spiny pineapples up into this machine as fast as they could. There was nothing romantic about their work in that tropical heat. So then I talked to some of the women who had worked in the pineapple-packing plant where you stand and select for size rings of pineapple and put them in a can. And they said, well, it's about eight to ten hours a day at minimum wage

[09:55]

and you're covered with pineapple juice and in the company of flies. We reflect on the effort that brought us this food. Within a week I took a job waiting tables. How about you? Second first, we reflect on our virtue and whether we are worthy of this offering. Well, the Buddha says that we are all worthy of happiness and a good life, each and every one of us. The problem is we don't know that. And we don't know that about each other. And so we humans often behave in a way that's unworthy of our true nature and our true value. And therein lies all of the suffering of the world.

[11:00]

So each month in our community we chant the full moon ceremony together. And for those of you who are familiar with it, it begins with the same verse that we started service with this morning. All my ancient twisted karma from beginningless greed, hate and delusion, born through body, speech and mind, I now fully avow. Out loud. So this is confession and it's the beginning of gratitude. We start with confession. And of course we are not worthy of these offerings. Not a single bite, let alone three heaping bowlfuls three times a day. We are overeating, we are over drinking, we are over consuming,

[12:05]

we are over working, we are over thinking. So when you begin with confession often it's kind of teary and heart-rending, you know. I know because I'm the worst one of all. That's how I feel. Maybe that's how you feel. It's just the flip side of our conceit. So I want to read you two poems on this matter of confession. One that I wrote a few years back, my own confession, that I did in a kind of light-hearted way. And the other is by George Herbert, who was confessing way back in 1633. So here's me first. Just for some of you who may not know, Huike, who was the disciple of Bodhidharma,

[13:08]

began his beseeching of Bodhidharma by, this is the story, myth anyway, by cutting off his arm and standing in the snow to show his sincerity. Lacking the courage to cut off my arm, I stand at the doorway and quietly knock. Who is it, he asks. Buddha, comes the reply. Prove it, he says. So I start to cry. He hands me a Kleenex. I wipe off my face. How badly I wish to get out of this place. Then somehow, like magic, a softness appears. I look in his eyes and admire his ears. You're Buddha, I cry, my heart filled with song. I won't say you're right, and I won't say you're wrong. I tell him I'm dying, compassion I lack, plain rotten, no good, that my practice is slack. He says, just stay with it, you're on the right track.

[14:12]

I stand up to leave without going nowhere, pull out my zhagu and fall through the air. Three times to the floor, again and again. One thing I'm sure of, there's no end to Zen. And here's the second, I think, lovelier poem, which was brought to us some years back by Tenshin Roshi. Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back, guilty of dust and sin. But quick-eyed love, observing me grow slack from my first entrance in, drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning if I lacked anything. A guest, I answered, worthy to be here. Love said, you shall be he. I, the unkind, ungrateful? Oh, my dear, I cannot even look on thee.

[15:15]

Love took my hand and, smiling, did reply, who made the eyes but I? Truth, Lord, but I have marred them. Let my shame go where it doth deserve. And no, you not, says love, who bore the blame. My dear, then I will serve. You must sit down, said love, and taste my meat. So I did sit and eat. So I think it takes some courage and bravery to admit to our humanity and, at the same time, to admit to our longing to conform to some idealized vision of a Buddha or a God, a vision that always leaves us standing outside of the door, ashamed and fearful.

[16:18]

This is the primary concern in the Lotus Sutra. There's a parable called the Parable of the Prodigal Son, same name as the biblical parable, but a little different story. And I want to propose that this story is the basis for Zen training, which I consider to be based in compassion. Because we have forgotten who we really are, we wander around through the mountains and the deserts seeking false comfort. Our father and our mother, the Buddha, recognizes us and welcomes us, but we run away. We're afraid and ashamed. So then we're offered a job cleaning the stables, washing the dishes, which we accept. I can do that. I can do it well. So we accomplish the task wholeheartedly.

[17:25]

And little by little we master the accounting office, the maintenance department, the kitchen, the meditation hall, until there are absolutely no possibilities left but to turn and receive the Buddha's teaching, which has been our birthright all along. It seems sort of strange to me that it's easy for us to see in the young humans and the children that they're worthy. It's so obvious, you know, Olivia and Lucas, Sabrina, Davy and Elisa. We enjoy feeding them and giving them toys and telling them how much we love them. And how wonderful they are. It's just so obvious. But I don't know why we forget that with each other

[18:28]

and also why we forget when we look in the mirror. The third contemplation, we regard it as essential to keep the mind free from excesses such as greed. So when I was thinking about this verse, what came to mind was this familiar experience of standing at the checkout counter at just about any place I go to shop. And there are all these little things that you can grab at the last minute. You know, cigarettes, chocolate, beef jerky, People magazine, easy reach, everything. So yesterday I was standing there and I saw this freezer cabinet full of ice cream. And I opened the door and I reached in. And I was standing there weighing this ice cream sandwich.

[19:31]

And then some great force of will, it really was, put it down and closed the door. Because I was slightly hungry. And that sandwich looked like the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. And for me, this not eating actually made me feel a lot better. And it stayed with me for a while as a reminder of what I can do, that I can restrain myself from immediate gratification. I think when I was younger, I used to practice doing that out of vanity. Oh God, that'll make me fat. But yesterday anyway, I put it down because of this story I'd read about people who have no food. And this contemplation of keeping the mind free

[20:39]

from excesses such as greed. We are by nature greedy, and we're kind of a greedy nation. So maybe we can try to turn this a little bit. The fourth verse is, We regard this food as good medicine to sustain our life. My daughter doesn't like food, and she never has. She says it doesn't taste good. So I've been telling her for a long time now that it's medicine, that you need to eat it. It's good for you. Hoping that someday it'll matter to her one way or the other. I said, you know, you need it to grow big and healthy. And she told me recently that she's a midget,

[21:41]

so I don't have to worry. Maybe so. So this is the other side of our greed, which is our hatred, our rejection, our no. No, I don't want any, thank you. Go away. When the Buddha was a young ascetic, he tried this method for gaining liberation. In fact, it was regarded as a valid path to liberation, which was to separate the mind from the body. You ever thought meditation was for that purpose? You know, to get out of here? To escape from this terrible human existence? Well, that was commonly believed, and I think it sneaks in sometimes nowadays too. Maybe we can get out of here, you know. So the young prince tried this. He stopped taking nourishment

[22:43]

and found out what happens when you do that. And I thought I would read to you a passage that Leila Bockhorst read in Monday night class last week, and I really enjoyed. Some of you weren't there, so here it is. This is from the Pali Sutras, oldest texts that have been held together in one bundle. The young prince is speaking here. I thought, suppose I take very little food, say a handful each time, whether it is bean soup or lentil soup or pea soup. I did so, and as I did so, my body reached a state of extreme emaciation. My limbs became like the joined segments of vine stems or bamboo stems because of eating so little.

[23:45]

My backside became like a camel's hoof. The projections on my spine stood forth like corded beads. My ribs jutted out as gaunt as the crazy rafters of an old roofless barn. The gleam of my eyes sunk far down in their sockets and looked like the gleam of water sunk far down in a deep well. My scalp shriveled and withered as green gourd shrivels and withers in the wind and the sun. If I touched my belly skin, I encountered my backbone too, and if I touched my backbone, I encountered my belly skin too, for my belly skin cleaved to my backbone. If I made water or evacuated my bowels, I fell over on my face. If I tried to ease my body by rubbing my limbs with my hands, the hair rotted at its roots, fell away from my body as I rubbed because of eating so little. I thought, whatever a monk or brahman has felt in the past

[24:50]

or will feel in the future or feels now, painful, wracking, piercing feeling due to striving, it can equal this but not exceed it. But by this grueling penance I have attained no distinction higher than the human state, none worthy of the noble one's knowledge and vision. Might there be another way to enlightenment? I thought of a time when my shakyan father was working in the fields and I was sitting in the cool shade of a rose apple tree. Quite secluded from sensual desires, secluded from unprofitable things, I had entered upon an abode in the first meditation, which is accompanied by thinking and exploring with happiness and pleasure born of seclusion. I thought, might that be the way to enlightenment? Then following up that memory there came the recognition

[25:51]

that this was the way to enlightenment. And then I thought, why am I afraid of such pleasure? It is pleasure that has nothing to do with sensual desire and unprofitable things. And then I thought, I am not afraid of such pleasure for it has nothing to do with sensual desire and unprofitable things. I thought, it is not possible to attain that pleasure with a body so excessively emaciated. Suppose I ate some solid food, some boiled rice and bread. Now at that time, five mendicants were waiting on me, thinking if the monk Gotama achieves something he will tell us. As soon as I ate the solid food, the boiled rice and bread, the five mendicants were disgusted and left me. The monk Gotama has become self-indulgent. He has given up the struggle and reverted to luxury.

[26:53]

So these are the two extremes, the two sides that the Buddha understood the night of his enlightenment are to be avoided. The extreme of indulgence and luxury and the extreme of self-mortification. And any two extremes you can think of like good and bad, right and wrong, like and dislike, me and you. These are the extremes to be avoided. We are the students of the middle way. The middle way. No longer separating the life of the body from the life of the mind, from the life of the entire universe. This is also the meaning of the emptiness of the three wheels. Completely filled to overflowing. The giver and the receiver and the gift. There is nothing lacking.

[28:00]

There is nothing to be longed for and there is nothing to push away. So these contemplations that I have been talking about this morning are like the facets of a jewel and each one of them is the completion of the others. And through these contemplations we can learn how to hold just for a moment this offering that is coming to us and through us, continuously. Through our eyes and our ears, our mouths and our minds. Turning the black lacquer bowl around and around in my hands, one side looks just like the other. In the middle, a pond reflecting the face of a friend. How very kind of everything to come together in just this way.

[29:01]

Thank you very much.

[29:04]

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