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 by people like you. Good morning. Good morning. Cheer for today. Also am I. You know, I always, the week before the practice day that I'm giving along with Susan Postel, next week I always talk about suffering. I come to Green Bulge and I talk about suffering because I want to interest the people that might be interested in that particular day. I want to reach the people who might benefit from the day that I do every year, every August, here at Green Gulch with Susan Postal, who is the head of the empty hand Zendo in New Rochelle, New York.

[01:16]

I have rheumatoid arthritis, and she has lupus. And so we do together a day of practice for people who think they can't sit because of pain or chronic illness. And it's been lovely. We've been doing it for a couple of years. And it always is so touching, so moving to meet people who thought they couldn't sit, thought they couldn't participate in practice because their bodies were non-compliant. So she and I have been practicing for about 35 years apiece, most of that time with our respective difficulties. And we've developed alternative laws and postures and meditation on movement and encouraging practices and so on. And so as I was saying, I always talk about suffering a week before. And I love to talk about suffering.

[02:18]

I really think it's hot. But I felt so good the past couple of weeks that I've decided to talk about pleasure instead. I know it's not as interesting. And I feel pretty good because, first of all, I just had a turn in my energy level since chemotherapy. My chemotherapy ended in February. And poor me. And being exhausted at 2 in the afternoon and that kind of thing. It shifted. It changed. So I wouldn't say I'm back to my own rambunctiousness, but I have a lot more energy, and I feel better. So it's always good to feel good, right? I know it's more important to look good. I'm getting there.

[03:22]

And then just a couple of days ago, I came back from a women's retreat. at the Empty Nest Zen No. Grace Shearson is the priest of that Zen No. It was a five-day women's retreat, and it's down near Fresno. And it was just really wonderful. We talked on a very intimate level about practice and zazen, about 30 women. And there was a scholar, a scholar, who is a Chinese but got sidetracked over the years by women's histories, women's part in our lineage. So she came with many stories, teaching stories, by women in our lineage, and who were students of famous men from Bodhidharma and others. And we also talked particularly about the

[04:26]

pitfalls that women and their male teachers fall into. For instance, it's just natural for a woman that she admires her teacher, be he male or female, he or she, to adore, very obviously adore that person, and to be ready to serve. This is her conditioning. This should be challenged, actually. It's not so important for men to be challenged. Of course, men feel that way, too. But it's more important for women and their teachers to actually challenge that idea. Not that she shouldn't serve, but to be very conscious and aware that it isn't just some conditioned habit that the two of them expect from each other. And we also wrote if you can believe it. It's much easier to write poetry in a room of other amateurs than to sit down in your own dimly lit room and try to have profound thoughts.

[05:31]

And we also, because we studied koans every day, the last day we were there, we wrote one. Each of us wrote a koan. And I led hours of meditation on movement over the week. so that we really were quite close with our bodies. And it was just a wonderful time. Very personal conversation, the kind of personal conversation that I don't usually have outside of dosa. So to have a whole group participating in extremely personal material about practice was very inspiring to me. So I'm happy. And then two weeks before that, I was down at Tazahara. I took 12 of my closest students down there, and we studied. We studied Dogon's Eight Awakenings of Great Beings. And Tazahara students sat in on it. And it's so stimulating.

[06:34]

Young people are just, now that I'm old, I think young people are just, not only are they good looking, but they're so stimulating and inspiring and ask The hard questions, the beginner's mind type questions. Well, how does that sense? How does that fit our modern life? Some of those eight awakenings or eight admonishments by the Buddha on his deathbed, they're hard, some of them. They're tough. So how do we do this? People were pushing me all the time. It felt great. So Ed Brown was there, too. He was there for quite a while. He was there the whole time I was there. And Ed and I have a very old, edgy kind of relationship. We both enjoy kind of verbal sparring. Now, I know I do it because I don't know why he doesn't. I do it because I adore him so much that if I don't keep him away by being a wise guy, I would just kind of fall into him.

[07:45]

to love him and respect his practice very much. So anyway, it was my turn to give a Dharma talk down there. So he came up and asked me, what are you going to talk about? And I said, Ed, I think I'm going to tell the history of your escapades. And he looked horrified. He said, you really going to do that? I said, yeah. Don't you think it would make it great? And I said, OK. So I went to the lecture, and he was there, and he was looking. And then I, of course, did not do such a thing. But he came up afterwards so relieved. He thought I was going to teach. I guess I've been too wise guy with him. Anyway, that was fun. into pleasure.

[08:45]

But it's difficult not to talk about suffering. Because suffering and pleasure are like this. They only have meaning, actually, in relation to each other. They just describe our experiences in a way that we decide. We decide which is suffering and which is pleasure. And they only... have meaning in relation to each other. They're not absolute definitions. You're just having your experience. If you want to call it suffering, fine. If you want to call it fun, fine. But anyway, it's hard not to bring suffering in when I'm dedicated to talking about pleasure today. So it is the first noble truth. Life is suffering. And I think that maybe it's not so much, or the Buddha didn't intend so much for for that to be a description of reality, life and suffering, as a very astute and accessible way to begin practicing.

[09:53]

Hardly anybody begins practice when things are going well. Hardly anybody says, well, gee, I have everything I ever wanted. Maybe I'll start saying Zaza after hours and hours. For most of us, we access practice through the First Noble Truth, life is suffering. And to the extent that you try to escape your suffering, to let pain chase you around, which it will do if you try to escape, your pain and suffering escalate tremendously to the extent that you try to run away. And pain will always win these battles. You've probably observed this yourself. If you can perceive your own suffering and turn toward it, question its sources, say, why am I suffering? What's going on here? Many different angles to look at this from.

[10:55]

Then you're on your way. Noticing your pain opens up the playing field. It opens it up indefinitely. It's counterintuitive to turn towards your suffering, but it's how to make suffering your teacher. Suffering develops our courage, our grit, our creative intelligence. You have to think of all these ways that you can deal with your suffering and what might be the thing for you to do. It's fairly creative. I've known people that weren't as creative in their pre-crime illness life as they subsequently became. That's a source of great pleasure for people if they can come up with ways to make their life worth living when it doesn't look like or feel like it is worth living.

[11:56]

So it shows us what we're made of suffering. And it also develops our capacity for joy and our gratitude for connection. You're never so glad. to see another human face is when you're going to hell. It's very comforting to see with two eyes, a nose, and a mouth, even on a non-human. That pattern is very comforting. So frankly, suffering is so beneficial for us that I think if you study it for a long time with a great deal of observation that you stop thinking that it's worse than pleasure. You stop preferring pleasure. I know this is quite an extravagant statement for me to make, but I think it's possible you stop preferring pleasure to suffer.

[12:57]

You study it very closely. So I'll elaborate a little on this. First of all, I think people have the wrong idea about how meditation helps with suffering. People think that their difficulties will go away, or that their emotions, their difficult suffering type emotions will go away. The painful ones will eventually recede. But even a Buddha experiences old age, sickness, death, and the loss of everything he or she holds dear, or the loss of many things. that we hold dear. Even a Buddha suffers in this way. So I don't think it's realistic. And I don't even think it's desirable to want your painful emotions to go away. I mean, as I said, they develop creativity and grit and an increased capacity for joy.

[14:01]

I think what meditation does do is give us tremendous stability, tremendous stability, the mountain on the earth that won't move. Whereas at the top of the mountain, all this stuff is going on, the storms and the rocks rolling down and the plants growing and dying and hikers throwing their chewing gum wrappers. And all that happens at the top of the mountain. completely stable, completely immovable. And I think meditation does this through our bodies. Through our bodies, our bodies themselves become very stable. And then the second thing I think the way that meditation helps with suffering is the refinement of consciousness. We learn to pay attention to the details of suffering and relief, suffering and pleasure.

[15:05]

I have talked about this at length before, so I won't go into this too much, except to just tell you the consciousness that sinning practice cultivates is open to every kind of experience, not just the pleasant ones. It's refined. It's not preferential in attitude, more allowing the myriad things to realize themselves in front of you to ask for a relationship with you rather than advancing toward the world with some agenda in mind. Being quiet enough to allow things to introduce themselves to you. Can inanimate objects seek you out to have a relationship with? Well, you have to be pretty quiet for that to happen. Just like animals in the forest, you have to be pretty quiet for rabbits and mice and other forest creatures to approach you.

[16:12]

So to this kind of mind, life becomes richly textured. Consciously putting a cup on a table, feeling the flat surfaces meet each other becomes a rare and satisfying just right kind of experience. Washing the dishes is not just about getting the dishes done, but feeling the warm, soapy water, seeing the pattern on the dishes revealed. I mean, you chose those dishes, and so you like the pattern. It's nice to see it come to you after the dirt, the grease, the old food is gone. So for people in pain, tapping into this wisdom beyond wisdom is simply how to survive. You have nothing left to hold on to. Then we must find comfort and support in the mundane details of our everyday lives, except that they're not so mundane when they're the reason you're willing to stay alive.

[17:25]

This is the upside of impermanence. The shining uniqueness of beings and objects when you actually notice their comforting presence. This is the upside of impermanence. Things change, and you're there when they do, when they shine and shimmer. So when it was clear to me some years ago that I was going to be miserable for the rest of my life because of my illness, I thought, well, I might as well have fun. I thought my life was over, meaning that I thought at the time that I'd never be able to hike again, to do the things that I really loved to do, to take tea ceremony again. I love that very much. Run along the beach. Now, I was wrong about a number of these, but that's how it looked at the time.

[18:31]

And even walk from painting to painting in an art gallery. We tried going to an art gallery. I think it was Linda Ruth who took me to an art gallery in a wheelchair. And it just wasn't as much fun for me. I discovered that part of what I like about going to a gallery is walking between the paintings. I actually like that little stroll around. That's part of it for me. So I thought all that was over. So at the time, I heard about this group, Environmental Traveling Companions, that takes handicapped people into the wilderness. So I called them up. I had never seen the wilderness. Here I was out in California for years, decades, and I'd only seen Green Gulch Tazahara in the city center. I mean, I never went to Yosemite or Big Sur or any place like that because I didn't have time.

[19:37]

I mean, for the first part of my life, when I was a young woman, I was always clawing myself to the top of what organization whatever organization I was part of, advancing my career. Then when I came to Zen Center, I was just trying to get enlightened. So I never got out into the wilderness. I knew it was close by, but I never was particularly interested. But now it changed. Now that my calendar was clear for the rest of my life, I could begin to explore these things. So I went to Dinosaur National Park in Utah and went down the river there. I don't know if you've ever been there. It's so beautiful. I mean, the big canyons and everything. So people said, well, if you love this so much, you have to go down the Grand Canyon. So I said, OK. So I went down the Grand Canyon on the Colorado River for three weeks in a raft.

[20:43]

And one rapid was so big, you know, the Colorado River has its own rating system. I mean, usually, rapids are rated one to six, but Colorado is so different from every other river that it's rated from one to 10, and all those, the rapids are. And one rapid was just a sheer drop, a waterfall about three stories high. Wow. The guides tried to train us for this, because we could die. And so they had us, for two days before, try to hold our breath for 28 seconds, because they said that's how long we got out of the raft it would take to come back up. And I never got there. So I was terrified. The day that we went to the top of that waterfall, I was just terrified. genuinely thought I was going to die. So they had our rafts in this little eddy while they went up and scouted from the top.

[21:52]

So we were right at the top, only we were tucked into this little eddy. And so we got to see all the other people come by. So I could see people go over the top of the waterfall. And then I could look like this and see what happened at the bottom. And so the kayaks would go over. And the kayaks are pretty good. Only about half of them you'd look over and see a kayak over here and swim over here. And then almost everybody who went over in a raft, a raft is over here and the person is over here. Oh my god. This is my last day on Earth. I'm really terrified. That's the closest I ever came to actually peeing on myself. sitting there shaking in this hot water with fear. And then I see what comes along, an inner tube shaped like a dragon, a spotted dragon with two kids, teenagers on it, wearing a bikini, and he wearing a rag around his long hair and trunks.

[23:06]

And they're just going along on their dragon. They had no thought of staying on this inner tube. all the way to the bottom. And I saw them. They went, whee! And I thought, of course! Of course! What have I done? Where was I? I completely bought the thing that I was going to die and the fear thing. And here they did it. They taught me just before we went over. So I, too, went, whee! And we stayed in the room. It was scary. I did a lot of screaming. But we stayed in the raft. And that is just a wonderful thing. So Joan knows that part of my priest training program is going on the rapid. She's been on the Salmon River with me. So with all these trips I went on with ETC, I had incredible pleasure.

[24:11]

and spaciousness and happiness and connection with people around the campfire. And so these years that I spent doing this, this, of course, is the meaning of non-striving. One of the admonitions that Bodhidharma left for us is non-striving, to never strive for anything, to live your life moment by moment. one of the three doors of liberation from the abhidharma, aimlessness, as Thich Nhat Hanh calls it, aimlessness. Doing things for their own sake, noticing each moment of our lives instead of using this moment to bring about that moment. So I've returned to this attitude over and over and over again through the years because, of course, it's very hard once you try to do things again, right?

[25:14]

Once you try to attain things or achieve things, I have to keep reminding myself of that deep happiness because those years of uselessness were among the happiest in my life. And so coming back to acquiring material objects and paying bills and spiritual enlightenment and saving all sentient beings to keep giving up goals and expectations again and again and again. And if I don't remind myself, I'll just strive. I'll just keep. So I always have to say, what is the most important thing? The person I'm talking to on the street or calls me up, what is the most important thing? This or getting something done? There's always all night to get something done. So pleasure. I'll now talk about pleasure.

[26:16]

So first of all, I'd like to distinguish between seeking pleasure and pretty, P-R-I-T-I, which is joy that naturally arises from practice. So I don't have to say much about seeking pleasure. You're here. You know about that. You've seen the pitfalls of that and looking for some Satisfaction outside yourself. And this is what is meant by craving, to think that that will make you happy, whether it's a material object or some kind of prestige or whatever it is outside yourself that you feel like you need to get to be happy. And the only thing I want to say about this, and you all know this so well, as human beings. You get attached to these cravings so easily, so immediately, so immediately.

[27:20]

I mean, it's just amazing. You're just there. Well, a student of mine was telling me she's a lawyer and works in a very difficult office and has trouble with her co-workers and is very judgmental of me. went two days, two days in which everything went smoothly, all her interactions with her co-workers were great, going home, everything with her husband was great, getting food on the table was effortless. It just seemed like she was in the flow. And she said to me, she said, I thought, this must be the fruit of practice. And now the rest of my life is going to unfold without acrobat. And she said, the next day, it went back to normal completely, except that she was attached to those two days, attached to the ease of them, attached to what it meant to her that she had achieved a certain level of practice, and so on.

[28:27]

It's just so easy. In a flash, the flesh just reaches out for these things. And bliss states, I mean, this ruins people's lives for a time. I always think of bliss states and sashim as the razor blades in Halloween candy. They're really, really powerful. Really powerful. How could you possibly go back to your underground life, to your depression, to your snits, to your annoyances? How could you possibly go back to that, from that incredible, all-encompassing light, airy, sunshine, bliss state? So the fact is, many people have a very difficult time going back to it. So we fall, though.

[29:29]

We fall out of heaven in a moment, just like a fallen leaf. from the heavens to the ground. And then someone steps on us. So my observation is when things are going well, like my student who was in the lawyer's office, is when I start to fall asleep. I get sleepy. Now, I don't mean literally sleepy, but I just flops, glide, and slide on that. It's a little different from being awake in the flow. In the flow, when you're awake, everything is interesting instead of falling asleep and getting things done quickly. So I want to talk about preaching, the joy that's cultivated by practice, by sitting for a time.

[30:35]

So I think that this kind of joyous attitude creates a person whose happiness is independent of circumstances. It's just an attitude. Everything comes, and your attitude is open. And I think that it breathes a kind of simple, simple consciousness. I mean, I call it refined consciousness. But what I mean by the simplicity of it is that it doesn't take much to make you happy because you notice things. It's wonderful to be in this room, for instance. This is a very light-making, joyous room. The light comes in. You can see the light change when you're in here. I've seen it change a couple times through the windows and the way the shadows move across the walls. And it's wood.

[31:38]

It's wood, a natural element. So this can make you happy if you're simple enough. It's just this. Being in this room can make you happy. And then when you step outside, whoa! Complete change of temperature in life. And that can make you happy, too, even if it's dark, the fog. I come from Ohio, so the fog, I've never gotten tired of. One time I went to Mexico because someone told me I would love Mexico. But day after day of relentless sunshine, day after day, very glad to get back to the fog. So very little is required to make you happy. That's because you're noticing. noticing everything, all the details of your suffering, all the details of your relief when it comes, all the details of your .

[32:44]

So you all know the story. I think of illustrating this as the monk and the strawberry. You all know that story, right? The monk and the strawberry? OK. So the monk is being chased by a tiger, and so he jumps over a cliff, but he sees there's lots of bramble there that he can hold on to. And he figures he'll just drop to the ground. Then he looks down and he sees there's another tiger waiting for him. So he's caught between the two tigers. Tiger up here, tiger down here. He clearly is going to die. But then he notices there's a strawberry plant right over here. Big, ripe, delicious strawberries. And they never tasted so good. So I think this is our situation in our lives. We've got a tiger at both ends and strawberry plants aplenty if we just notice them.

[33:48]

So I think another thing, another pleasure that Preeti develops in us is tremendous pleasure from activity and using tools And not only carpenter tools and plumbing tools and gardening tools, they are made for our bodies and for our hands. They even have mechanic tools for women now that you can buy smaller wrenches, smaller hammers, smaller. So tools really fit our strength and our hands. And that's deeply satisfying to hold this in my hand. It just fits perfectly. It has a very graceful curve. And my teacher, Michael Wenger, has the other half. So it's very satisfying to hold onto. And in a world of nowhere standing, it's all I've got to hold onto.

[34:55]

And the use of them is extremely satisfying to actually notice how they feel in your hands. And kitchen utensils, the same thing, spoons and pots. So all your activity. Computers, I always recommend that people bow to their computer before they turn them on. You know, that way you're included. And then you can curse it later. And at the beginning of this daily relationship, all is going well. And then you turn it on. It's your tool. Those keys are made for your fingers. The screen is made for your eyes. So to appreciate this about objects. and the things that you use. Feel your connection to them. Then you feel like we are doing this. We are doing this. So I wanted to tell you a lot more about pleasure.

[36:03]

I'll tell you another thing before I end. And that is another aspect of priti is that you're able to see Buddha everywhere. in other people, for one, but also, as I said, in inanimate objects. And some inanimate objects have been made by artists. This is indeed a happy circumstance for us. And it's everywhere. For instance, I have a very close friend who has been my medical advocate throughout my entire chemotherapy. And he always meets me for my appointments with my oncologist. And we'd meet him on Fillmore Street. And this particular time, my appointment was moved back. And so we had an hour to kill. And we looked around on Fillmore Street, stationary stores, pizza places, restaurants, mostly dress shops, clothing stores, very expensive.

[37:13]

clothing stores, like $400 for a blouse and almost $1,000 for a dress, that kind of thing. So we kept going and looking in the window. And then it looked like that was going to be our occupation for this hour because there were so many clothing stores. So we went in with one we were by when this occurred to us. And I explained to the sales clerk that we're just looking at the beautiful things, that we're not going to buy anything. And she said, oh, OK, go ahead. And this man, Keith Wiley, he's a member of the Crystal Springs Song in Burlington that I go to every week, or almost every week. And he had that same eye. Not only is he a doctor, but he made the altar through woodwork. He made the altar at the Russian River Zendo. And he also invented the covering for the lights along the wall, the sconces.

[38:15]

He has that eye and that mind to appreciate. So we went through, and we saw peplums, and we saw flounces, and we saw darts. And all these things, these dressmakers things, are to make clothes fit or flow a certain way. is an extension of the waist on a jacket. So a jacket might end at the waist, but a peplum might be a little ruffle. It might be a fitted piece. It's decorative. And they're very beautiful. And flounces is the ruffle either on the end of a skirt or in the middle or tiered or whatever. And we saw clothes material cut on the bias. If you cut on the bias, the wind catches it. in a different way than if it's just cut on the grain. And so we, you know, flounce skirts.

[39:17]

And this store also had trousers in it. So he showed me how pleats work on men's trousers, how they give you room to sit down and work to make the male hips look a certain way. Oh, we were ecstatic. We saw Mylar raincoats, and we just Oh, well, the sales lady was so impressed. She was so happy that we found all these things. We were very happy, too. And then when the time came, we went on to the doctor's appointment. So this is finding, maybe it's a stretch to say Buddha everywhere, but finding that things have their own offering to make. And of course, practicing priti, practicing joy, just flows straight into .

[40:18]

It's just seamless. It flows into offering and feeling that the world offers to you. And this is the greatest pleasure I can imagine. See, somewhere in the Dhammapada, it really discourages you from finding any pleasure or happiness in this body of flesh. I can't remember the exact quote. Anybody remember that in the Dhammapada? Anyway, but that there's no pleasure here that's lasting. But I do think that's wrong. I think that a life of service, a life of is absolutely a sure bet. I think it does keep the energy flowing through your own body, through everybody else's bodies, through inanimate objects, through the atmosphere, whatever.

[41:24]

So anyway, I'm sure. You prefer when I talk about suffering, but I just couldn't today. Thank you very much for inviting me. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

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