This podcast is offered by San Francisco's Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good evening, everybody. It's lovely to be here. And it's lovely to see so many faces. I was watching people come on the screen. It's nice to be surrounded by Dharma brothers and Dharma sisters and names I remember from my years of practice at City Center and Tassahara. Thank you to Nancy for inviting me to give this talk. Thank you to my teacher, Anji Zachary Smith, who is in the assembly. So it's my privilege, I think, to give the first talk of 2022. Thank you. And I have not made any resolutions for this year, but I do have a vow that I will say again. My vow is to embody upright teaching. And I apologize once again for the times that I have failed to live up to that vow.

[01:04]

And it happens that I also gave a talk in the first week of 2021. And it was interesting to kind of step back in time and to read again the notes I made for that talk. And interestingly, in that talk, I reflected back on a talk I'd given at the end of 2019. So bear with me. Beginning of 2021, imagining what it was like at the end of 2019 when we hadn't even begun the pandemic. And I suggested that if, from my viewpoint of the first week of January 2021, if I had said to everybody in the Assembly at the end of 2019 what they were about to live through in 2020, everyone would run away screaming. And yet we had all managed to survive 2012. Many of us had managed to survive 2020. And actually, the mood at the beginning of 2021, if people find it hard to recollect, we had, you know, the sense of a new year. We had a new president and a new vaccine was around the corner. But as I said during the course of the lecture, are we there yet?

[02:09]

No, we're not there. We're here. There was already a feeling that we wanted the pandemic to be over. It struck me very strongly that I mentioned the death toll, the US death toll at the time, which was 350,000 people. And I was talking how I was visualizing that with the aid of sports stadium, imagining several sports stadium fill of people. The New York Times today announced that, well, the number quoted in the New York Times today is 828,000 deaths in the US. By way of comparison, the population of the city of San Francisco is around 880,000 people. So for the purposes of visualization, visualize that 94% of the population of San Francisco has died from the pandemic. So I think we can all pause for a moment to think about that.

[03:12]

And when I started gathering material for this talk, I was finding it a little hard to be optimistic. So the talk I gave last year was immediately before the January the 6th insurrection at the Capitol, the effects of which are still happening right now. And reading the stories of my home country back in England, the government seems to be mired in an ongoing corruption and kind of lack of integrity that is deeply troubling. And while we have the vaccines now and we have boosters, you know, a year ago we could not envisage Delta, let alone Omicron. And, you know, when I started thinking about this, Omicron was looking extremely worrying. Now people are trying not to be so worried about it because it doesn't seem so lethal. But nevertheless, we are still deeply impacted. There is still a lot of suffering happening. And so, of course, it's tempting to wonder a year from now, You know, how will it look to us? What will we have lived through in 2022?

[04:35]

Now, I was intending to write this talk at Tassajara because I'd been invited, which is a great gift, down to spend a few days at Tassajara right around the new year. And I was excited on many levels, one that I haven't been to Tassajara, which is a place I love for more than two and a half years now. Another is that I literally had not spent a single night away from home in the whole year of 2021. It didn't seem a prudent thing to be doing. And I traveled down on the 30th with some monks who were returning to the practice period. And we got as far as Salinas in very heavy traffic on the 101. And Leslie called from Jamesburg to say that even though the county had come to remove a tree, which we knew was blocking the road, they hadn't actually removed the tree that people coming out of Tassajara had removed. encountered on their way out. So there were still other trees on the way. She advised us that we couldn't get into Tassajara that day, that we should travel back to San Francisco and start again the next day.

[05:40]

So we turned right around on the 101 and headed back to San Francisco. So I didn't get quite time at Tassajara. I didn't get to visit. I have just today been, I've had two online photo albums shared with me today by Dharma Brothers, Brent and Miles. Brent was down there at the last practice period and Miles did manage to get in and out during the interim period. So I got to experience some envy of the beautiful photographs that they had taken. I certainly got to miss that experience this time around. However, I'm going to invoke Tassahara in the context of a quote by Suzuki Roshi that, it being 2021, I shared on Instagram, on the 50th anniversary of his death, which was about a month ago, on December the 4th, 2021. And this is a quote, I was looking for quotes, I've been reading a lot in the Suzuki Roshi archive, as I'll say a little more about in a moment, looking for quotes about what he was saying about

[06:42]

Zen in America. And this quote I found very striking. So this is July the 1st of 1969 when Tassahara was just a couple of years old and was still a fledgling monastery where they were still establishing the kind of the monastic way and how things were done. Suzuki Roshi says, and I think we should not try to propagate Zen in America, you know. That is not Dogen Zenji's way. One by one is enough. If you have good understanding between your friend, that is enough. If you love someone you know, you should try to make them understand you. That's all. So at this point, I want to put in a plug for several things. first of all, my upcoming class with Avid Ed, where we're going to be looking at several talks by Suzuki Roshi. Not these particular talks from Tassahara, but earlier talks that he gave in Los Altos, talks which then became Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind.

[07:45]

I want to put in a plug for the elders of Zen Center, Ed included, who are still around, who had personal experience of being with Suzuki Roshi and the presence that he had and transmitted that has... sustained, I think, the Zen Center in the 50 years since his death. And I also want to put in a plug for the archives themselves. They're an amazing resource. Suzuki Roshi gave about 400 talks, we think, during his time in San Francisco, and there is now audio for around 300 of them. They're not all super easy to listen to, but once you start getting used to his cadences, it's an amazing treasure to be able to access. And just You know, as a reminder, Suzuki Roshi was the founder of these temples. And, you know, in the Japanese tradition that we inherited from Suzuki Roshi, the founder has an esteemed role in the temple. And, you know, there are special rooms at City Center and at Green Gulch and Tassahara, you know, dedicated to his memory, the Kaisando.

[08:49]

So he, you know, as the founder, he built the foundations of Zen Center. And, you know, I'm going to take a moment just to reflect for those who may not be so familiar with the history, like what it was that he managed to achieve in the course of only 12 years that he was in the States. And I often think and, you know, when I'm teaching, I often draw parallels between Suzuki Roshi's experience and Dogen's experience, Dogen being the Japanese founder of Soto Zen and the tradition that has been passed down to us. and their experience of trying to establish Zen in a new country. And another parallel that occurred to me while I was writing this was that both of them lived through challenging times. When Dogen was alive at the beginning of the 13th century in Japan, it was a time of war and famine. And even though he had a birth in the upper strata of society near the imperial court, I think he was not immune from that.

[09:53]

And of course, Suzuki Roshi, as a young man, lived through the Second World War in Japan before coming to America. I mean, if you don't know his story, I really recommend reading Crooked Cucumber. But in 12 years, he managed not only to start or, you know, help found the non-profit of Zen Center in 1962, but also founded Tassahara as the first training monastery outside of Asia. And then... Before his death, you know, the city center building was bought and the community established there. And the fact that we're all still practicing in these temples is, I think, a tribute to the power of his teaching and the power of his presence, I think, which are inseparable from each other. And... The other thing I appreciate about Suzuki Roshi is when you listen to his talks or read, read the talks or read Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, which is the first Zen book I read more than 20 years ago, which, you know, had a huge influence on my choosing the path of Zen.

[10:57]

You can hear how he's channeling Dogen's teaching and Dogen's teaching is, you know, for me, one of the pinnacles of human wisdom and Suzuki Roshi did his absolute best to explain in a language that was not his native language to people who did not know necessarily the context of what he was talking about, what Dogen was trying to convey about the human experience. And this is a treasure, this historical wisdom is a treasure that we can hold these teachings so close to us. And we have many people to thank for that. We have, you know, the people at Zen Center at the time, you can hear... on many of the tapes, Richard Baker, you know, making little announcements about when the tape was made or what was missed when the tape was turned over. To Marion Darby, who recorded the tapes that became the transcripts for Zen Mind Beginner's Mind at a time when nobody else had thought to record Suzuki Roshi in an audio form. We have to thank...

[12:00]

all the offices of Zen Center who've made the archive available and have, you know, kept it going over the years. And Joe Tennis, the archives professor at the University of Washington, and David Chadwick, who's done a lot of work to make this happen and put a lot of his energy into securing the legacy of Suzuki Roshi. And I have a personal thanks to Charlie Wilson, who I've worked with for coming up to six years now in digitizing these archives, not just the Zen Center archives, but other related Zen archives as treasures that we can all access and all engage in. And part of my experience has been literally holding the actual reels and cassettes that were being used for the recordings back in the 1960s, which is something of itself. I had the amazing privilege a couple of years ago now of listening to The Real, which was thought to have been lost, where Suzuki Roshi used the term beginner's mind that became the transcript of the talk.

[13:04]

And as I realized that it was actually the talk in question, that was the talk, because the markings on the tape weren't clear, there was like a shiver that went down my spine to be hearing those words and not knowing how long it was since anybody had actually heard him say those words. Even if we've read the book, there's something about hearing him say those words. And often when we listen to these talks, when I listen to these talks, it sounds like he's having a lot of fun with a group of friends. There's this very small, pretty tight-knit community in some cases. And he is really trying to instill his vision of Zen. And we can still feel the intimacy of those occasions. And the question came up a lot of how to build Zen in America. You know, how Japanese should it be? How American should it be? What compromises needed to be made? And this is a live question even now.

[14:04]

And it's worth remembering that, you know, by historical standards, we have not got very far into the process of bringing Zen into the West. And for me, it feels like a very live question now when we're living in a time of such factionalism, and I use that word from the Dhammasi rather than slightly short to homophone, and a political system based on individual achievements of capital, of striving and ambition. And it seems to me still to be a radical proposition to build a community of practice, of people practicing together. held together by Zazen and by the precepts, both of which activities Suzuki Roshi was very keen to emphasize over and over.

[15:06]

And it reminded me that when I lived at Tassajara, I would be able to visit Esalen. This is one of the perks of living at Tassajara. You could take a vacation at Esalen. And I remember asking some of the people that were working there, well, what is it that binds the community together? And they said, oh, we do a lot of processing. And I thought, okay, well, at SNN you have processing. At Tassahar we have Zazen, and I know which I think is maybe a more sustainable and cohesive way to continue a community, to build a community. And we're still doing this, and we can still do this. And I think the key to it, and especially in this time of division and... you know, this illusion of separation that we have these days is to do it, as Suzuki Hiroshi says, one by one. You know, we don't have to make, we don't have to proselytize. You know, Zen is not a proselytizing religion, but we can work one by one.

[16:06]

And for me, there's, you know, something I think about a lot is the magical transformation that happens, which I'm sure many people listening, You know what I'm talking about. When the self-inquiry, when the way-seeking mind that brings us to practice miraculously transforms into this concern and compassion for all. And that we realize that we're not just doing this as an individual practice. We're doing it for the benefit of all people. And we have, you know, in the Buddhist tradition, we have the tools in the toolbox. And these are the things that I've been teaching during the pandemic, particularly because I think people with the practice have been able to find the resilience to endure the pandemic because of tools like the Brahma Viharas and the Paramitas. And then, you know, as I said, when I started writing this, I was feeling pretty down.

[17:10]

You know, I didn't get to go to Tassajara. I had a pretty kind of low time generally. And, you know, The question for me is always like, when things are tough, what is it that keeps you buoyant? What is it that keeps you going? And for me, one of the things is an everyday commitment to Zazen, an everyday commitment to seeing things fresh. So I got back to San Francisco and even though I had no social plans or anything, I was able to go out on my bike. And what struck me on my bike, apart from the fact that it was a beautiful sunny day, was spontaneous and random interactions with people on the street. I stopped to take a picture of a school and I started a conversation with somebody who obviously lived on the street and was kind of also admiring how beautiful school looked in that particular sunlight. Now, it's partly due to the holidays because people tend to be kind of not so rushed and a bit more friendly on the holidays. But my notion is that we can do that every day. And it's this, you know, I find as I go through life now, not living at the center, not living in the community in the same way that it's,

[18:15]

These random moments of connection are actually really important and very valuable. And while I was riding my bike, since I didn't write this talk, I wrote several chunks of it in my head while I was riding my bike in the last week or so. The notion came out that as we reach people one by one and we meet people one by one, every time we connect with somebody else as a human being rather than some other, then we win. Because people want to be seen. This is the common human experience. And it seems to me that many people in this country only are feeling seen by those who are trying to monetize fear and anger, which is very potent, but is also very divisive and separating. And my experience of living in the Sangha is that being in community doesn't mean that you have to like everybody that you're with. but you do want them to do well.

[19:16]

And again, this is the power of zazen, this is the power of the precepts, holding us to our bodhisattva vows that many of us have taken. And I was reminded of two quotes about bodhisattvas. One is from Uchiyama Roshida, 20th century Japanese teacher, who said that a bodhisattva is an ordinary person who has a direction towards Buddha. And I think that probably, I think, accounts for everybody who is at this talk today. We all have a direction towards Buddha, and we're all ordinary people. No matter what robes we're wearing or not wearing, we're all ordinary people who have directions towards Buddha. And as Norman Fisher said, I didn't find this quote, but I remember him saying, i think in his book on the parameters talking about bodhisattvas not trying to persuade people not arguing with people but leading by example leading by their conduct leading by their being by their presence in the same way that it was suzuki roshi's being and presence that attracted so many people to the practice 50 years ago and

[20:35]

You know, I have an ego that keeps me awake at night and, you know, balloons up to enormous proportions at times. But I know through my practice that I can put that aside at times when it matters and meet the person that I'm with, meet whoever I'm encountering and meet the moment that I'm with. And so in this new project that Suzuki Roshi undertook of... you know, establishing Zen in the West, establishing Dogen's way in the West, I think we can counterbalance, you know, the toxic legacies of some of the elements of the society that we live in and our own illusions of separateness through this kind of activity, through this bodhisattva activity. And it also occurred to me while I was writing around city and points further out that in my role as a Zen teacher, you know, how to teach Zen is always a life question for me, especially beyond the confines of giving a Dharma talk or giving classes as a Zen center.

[21:46]

How do I reach people? How do I meet people? How can I be as inclusive as possible? The possibility as a Zen teacher is to be a false multiplier that we can use some of the ways that the first parameter, the perfection of generosity talks about, can use the gift of Dharma and the gift of fearlessness. And we can give courage to others to work in the same way. And so in this way, we can establish a community. And two words that Suzuki Roshi uses a lot and that Sojin Mel Weitzman also used a lot, composure and constancy. And when I was traveling in the vehicle down towards Tassajara with three monks who were going back to the practice period, I didn't know any of them before I got into the vehicle, so we were just sharing our, you know, our Dharma biographies.

[22:47]

What struck me, even if they might not feel it themselves, was their composure and their constancy, the sense that they were in the practice. They were continuing their practice, and there was something about their presence that felt reassuring to me, even as someone who has been surrounded by many people like that over the years. It was reassuring to me that these monks going back to Tassajara were upholding the practice and would be upholding the practice through their lives. And so this, to me, is how we can meet these difficult moments, make an everyday commitment based on our practice and based on our vows. And I want to read Suzuki Roshi's quote again. And I think we should not try to propagate Zen in America, you know. That is not Dogen Zenji's way. One by one is enough. If you have good understanding between your friend, that is enough.

[23:49]

If you love someone, you know, you should try to make them understand you. That's all. I also want to invoke other wise teachers. I was reading an article by Rebecca Solnit in the New York Times today, and I find her approach to hopefulness and the possibilities of altruism in society incredibly encouraging. And also to the recently departed Bell Hooks, who every time I come across one of her quotes, I feel encouraged. And one that I particularly enjoy is... her quote, fundamentally to begin the practice of love, we must slow down and be still enough to bear witness in the present moment. And I think this is something that we can all do, and I think we're all training to do that. When we're in the temple, when we're in the monastery, the word love might not come up quite so much, but I think it is fundamental to how we practice and what we practice for the love that connects us as human beings.

[24:58]

So even though I didn't get to spend New Year at Tassajara and I didn't get to have that experience that I knew I was craving of just spending a few days at human speed, nothing faster than walking, which I think is something that we lack out here in the city. Whenever I go somewhere like Tassajara, where the fastest you can get anywhere is walking, it reminds me how to be kind of grounded and in my body in a way that being out in the world tends to make you forget. I didn't get to have that experience, but I still took courage from the monks who were going to Tassahara, from Tassahara itself, from practice, from Suzuki Roshi. So who knows what lies ahead this year? Maybe I'll be giving a talk a year from now and talking about it. But however it goes, I wish for all of us a year of composure and constancy. Thank you very much.

[26:26]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_93.94