This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. So yesterday was the 21st. It was the solstice. The world is going to be getting a little more light now. And Christmas is about to come after that New Year's. So as usual, there's beginnings and endings, endings and beginnings.

[01:09]

The holidays are often stressful for us because it's a time when we think about family and friends. Sometimes we have warm-hearted connections with people that we get to see over the holidays, and sometimes we don't. So sometimes this time of year people can be lonely, sad, scared. And sometimes a new year brings promise, and other times it seems like it's going to be more of the same. Which is usually not good news. I mean, when our life is going well, we don't think more of the same. We think it's only going to get better. So pretty positive. Excuse me. I have these sleeves here, so things come out of them.

[02:24]

And personally, many things are going on for each of us. As most of you, I think, know, Zen Center's abbot, Steve Stuckey, Mio Gen, has pancreatic cancer. He's been taking care of his affairs and passing on Dharma transmission to his most senior students and saying goodbye to people. sometimes on Skype. So it's unusual for us to have an abbot who's about to pass away at a fairly young age. I think he's probably a year or so younger than I am. So very poignant, and he's devoted so much of his life. He's quite an unusual man, remarkable man. I think his family growing up in Kansas was Mennonite.

[03:39]

So he's always had a spiritual life and an interest in benefiting people. He's one of the few Zen-centered people who, after many years of Zen practice, studied for three years counseling. You know, from a more Western point of view in psychology and very interesting, you know. Because oftentimes Zen teachers don't necessarily study formally psychology, counseling, how to talk with people, how to listen, how to respond, how to draw people out, how to be supportive and not shaming. So pretty interesting, quite a remarkable man, and he's dying. Does that make sense? Right now, also, I'm working with my senior disciple, Valerie.

[04:51]

We're doing a ceremony called Dharma Transmission. We're doing it over the course of two weeks. So we finish on the morning of the 24th. And we have a ceremony tonight and another ceremony tomorrow night. And Valerie has written over several days of these rather elaborate scrolls that you write for receiving the Dharma from your teacher. And then I write on them and then we seal them. And then she will have these documents of transmission becoming a Zen teacher. And each of you has something, some story, what is going on in your life. So in thinking about all this, I decided to, I wanted, first of all, well, basically I want to talk to you, I'll tell you, I want to talk about Zen and creativity.

[06:06]

I'll let you know this ahead of time in case you don't pick up the theme. right away many of you I know so you know that this is unusual for me to have a shaved head even though it's you know traditional for Zen teachers to have a shaved head so this for me is creative now Suzuki Roshi said it's the original hair don't instead of a hairdo So some of you might think, I'm a Zen teacher. We'll see. So I wanted to tell you a story.

[07:07]

Some of you, I'm sure, have heard me tell this story before, but it's a story of about my Zen practice. I think a time or two back at a Green Notes lecture, I told you about the time that I ended up crying because I had trouble sitting still. So this is many years after that. And in 1984, I had become head resident teacher at Tassajara. You know, you start out, you're just a beginning sense student, and then eventually you're somebody. I just heard a story recently, though, which relates to this. Sometimes, of course, when you become somebody, you really think, I'm somebody. And then you worry about if you're still somebody or not, because you're only as good as your last person.

[08:12]

And do people still recognize you as somebody, or are they starting to treat you like you're not anybody anymore? Somebody told this story and said, sometimes people in the spiritual world are like somebody who sets out for the Grand Canyon, and it's a big pilgrimage, you know, and they finally... after traveling across country or maybe even across the world, they get to the Grand Canyon, they drive up to it, they get out of their car, and instead of going over and looking at the Grand Canyon, they turn and start bowing to their car. Because the practice, the car, is what's become important rather than the destination. So this is... My story is something about the destination. So here I was, the head resident teacher.

[09:14]

There was only 22 people at the Tassara practice period that winter. It started in January and went until April. And somewhere about the middle of it, we were getting up, of course, whatever the time. I forget, but 3.30. 315 get to the zendo by 4 you know for meditation and of course well I excuse me I'm not going to go into all the side trails here I'll see if I can keep to my story otherwise it's going to take way too long all right so one morning I came into the meditation hall and everybody is already seated because the teacher comes in during the third round of the Han And then the Han ends, and you come up to the bowing mat and bow at the altar. And then in the morning, the teacher leading it does three bows at the altar, and there's three big bells.

[10:15]

Bong, bong, bong. Then the teacher walks around the meditation hall. It's a morning greeting. It's called Jindo, morning greeting. there's different kinds of jindos this is when we're doing the teacher does in the morning and then when the teacher passes we're all sitting facing the wall so when the teacher passes behind you you put your hands up like this to greet the teacher so I got around and I and then I come back to the altar and I bow at the altar bow to my seat bow facing away from my seat and for that there's three small bells that's the official beginning of meditation I sit down like I did this morning. I tell people, you know, you're thinking about becoming a Buddhist priest? It's all cloth management. Are you crazy? You want to spend your life managing cloth? Jeez. Okay. So you got to get your stuff in place.

[11:17]

Do you see how nice this is? So then you, and I'm still following. I don't, you know, mostly I think this practice has disappeared from Zen Center, but when I learned meditation from Suzuki Roshi, from Katagiri Roshi, from Kobanchino, they always said, you sit down, you cross your legs, you know, get yourself positioned, and then you want to find your seat, you know, help your pelvis be stable front to back, and then especially they would say you lean way over to the side, And then you lean to the other side. And you lean four or five times to each side, carefully finding your balance. The more balanced and stable your hips are, the more easily you grow tall inside, right up to the crown. And then when you grow tall inside, your chest lifts a little bit and you lengthen the back of your neck instead of

[12:24]

See if you can find your ground, establish your ground, your roots, grow tall. So you're connected all the way to the core of the earth, all the way up to source. So I carefully do all of this. Then I start, and then you take, after you lean from side to side, you take two or three deep breaths. Especially if you're out of breath at all. Or your breath feels tight or tense. You can breathe once or twice, especially through your mouth. It's relaxing, like you're sighing or yawning. Or I smoked cigarettes for a while, and then I found I could just breathe, and I could do the same thing. I didn't have to have the smoke to go. You can just do that without the cigarette smoke. So that's good to know. So then I start sitting, and then I think, What shall I work on today? Shouldn't you have a project, a plan, a recipe, something to work on?

[13:40]

Maybe I could work on concentration, equanimity, compassion, following my breath, watching my thoughts. What shall I do today? What are you up to? Is it working? Are you getting where you want to go? This is a very interesting point, you know. Come back to it. So I'm thinking, like, what shall I do? I've been practicing at this point for 19 years. 1984, it started in 1965. What shall I work on today? And then... from, you know, the classic expression is, from outside creation. Where did it come from? I don't know. A voice said, why don't you just touch what's inside with some warmth and kindness?

[14:41]

And as soon as I had that thought, the tears were just pouring down my face. Why don't you touch what's inside? You know, rather than having a project. of what you could accomplish, your work, your career, your family, your activity, rather than having a project, why don't you just touch inside? And the tears were pouring down my face. I didn't even have to agree to this thought. I'd already agreed. I didn't have to think about it. When you have an insight like this or an intuition, you know it's true. You don't have to think, is it true or not? that a good idea or not it's just like of course so I just sat there the tears pouring down my face and so then I started this I started doing this each time I come to meditation I'd start I start to feel what's inside what's what's what's there rather than follow the breath

[15:56]

Rather than, if a thought arises, let it go. If you do this long enough, your mind will become quiet. So I practiced this for a number of, a month or so, each period of meditation, just feeling inside. I'd never done that in 19 years of Zen practice. I've been busy practicing Zen. You know, following the recipe, following the program. Isn't that what you do? You do what you're told. If you're a student, you do what the teachers say. Isn't that right? So then Kadagiri Roshi was the interim abbot of Zen Center at that point. Kadagiri Roshi came to visit. So I went to have Doksan, you know, meeting Kadagiri Roshi. I do the prostrations and then I'm sitting down.

[17:01]

You know, Karagiri Roshi is a couple of feet away. You know, the cushion is here, cushion. So we're face to face. And I said, Karagiri Roshi, I'm doing what for me is a new practice. I'm just, during meditation, I'm just feeling what's inside. Excuse me, but you know, is that okay? Or is there some more Zen thing that I should be doing? Is that Zen? Is that okay? Is that a Zen thing you can do that? Or should I be doing, is there something else I should be doing that would be more like Zen, more Zen-like? Kadagiri Rishi used to be, you know, he was a kind of low-key in a lot of ways, kind of very straightforward, dry humor. And he sat very straight. And he said to me, Ed, for 20 years, I tried to do the Zazen of Zen Master Dogen before I realized there was no such thing.

[18:14]

And the little voice inside me said, oh, right on schedule. I'd been sitting for 19 years. He said he tried to do Zen practice for 20 years before he realized there's no such thing. What are you up to? What was I up to? What were you thinking? So this Grand Canyon, in a sense, there's not much to look at. But it means you stopped actually thinking that there was a Grand Canyon to get to. And that if you followed the directions, you would actually arrive there. And then you wonder, why haven't I arrived? My life doesn't seem to be working as well as it ought to by now. However old you are, you know, probably ought to be working better. I mean, you start to think, we all sort of think that way, you know.

[19:21]

If I really knew what I was doing, I would have been doing better by now. Whether it's in terms of personal relationships, my health and happiness, my well-being, my spiritual life, my material life, my job, my family. It would have been going better by now if you were a better person. And if you somehow knew better how to follow the directions and do what you're supposed to do, you would have gotten better results. This is a very interesting point, isn't it? What are we doing? And Kadagiri Rashi said, yeah, I tried to do that. I tried to do the right kind of practice for 20 years so I could have the authentic experience that you were supposed to have. What do you do to have an authentic experience?

[20:40]

So again, I want to remind you about Zen Master Dogen, his instruction for meditation. He talks about crossing your legs. having a round cushion on top of a flat cushion. Not everybody does that, you know. And when my friend Ravain went to Burma, he walked into the meditation hall with his round zafu. The first day he'd become a monk in Burma. They said, what's that? He said, that's my zafu. And they said, what's it for? He said, well, so I can sit on it. You know, have a little height to sit on. They said, Buddha didn't use no zafu. LAUGHTER Sit on the floor like the rest of us. So he sat on the floor. It's really harder when you sit on the floor to balance your pelvis front to back and then grow tall inside.

[21:45]

It's a different understanding of what you're doing in meditation. So Dogen talks about the Zen tradition of having a cushion and leaning side to side, taking a deep breath or two. And then he says, settle into steady, immobile, upright sitting. You've established your core of being, your balance, your stability, grow tall inside. Settle into steady, immobile, upright sitting. And then he suggests your hands. And then he says, think not thinking. How are you going to do that? And then he says, what is not thinking? And he says, the translation for many years was non-thinking. I never found that very helpful, the difference between not thinking and non-thinking.

[22:47]

And there's a lot of stories about it. And Tanahashin, his new Dogen translation, he translates it beyond thinking. Think not thinking. What is not thinking? Beyond thinking. Beyond thinking has a wonderful poetic quality to it. Your experience could come to you from beyond. Where did the thought why don't I touch what's inside with some warmth and kindness? I didn't think that up. It came to me from beyond. It comes from beyond. It wasn't something that anybody had said to me. Where does it come from? And then Dogen has one other sentence. Then the sentence after that, Dogen says, this is the essential art.

[23:49]

meditation and I never noticed that he said art there until about a year ago art he said this is the essential art of meditation he doesn't say you know meditation is something you can do according to a program of study and you can follow the directions like you paint by numbers and then you'll get the picture will come out the way it should In a sense, he's saying, you know, all of life, all of your life is a work of art. The world is art. This is a big, you know, this is a creation. And we participate in the creation, you know, moment after moment. And this is a different view than the world, your life as a mechanism. mechanical you know it's a system it's a school it's it's a work of art we're creating our life and this is what Zen emphasizes creating your life as a work of art

[25:09]

along with or, you know, and more emphasis on your life as being the work of art rather than your painting or your sculpture or your music. Some of us do that too, but there's also the possibility of your life itself being a work of art. And it's very curious because Dogen first wrote his Instructions for Meditation in 1229, and in 1229 he said, He didn't say, think not thinking. He said, if a thought arises, notice it and let it go. If you do this long enough, your mind will become quiet. 1229. In 1246, he rewrote it and he said, think not thinking. He took out that instruction. Before that, he was telling you, he was going to tell you how to do it. And then? He said, no, you let things come to you and create your life.

[26:16]

Let what comes be creating your life. So this was a kind of big, important shift for him. I used to think about this a lot. I think about this a lot, of course, in terms of cooking, because mostly as a culture, and until we develop some skill at cooking, maybe, we think there is a way that something should come out. And if you follow the recipe, the instructions, it will come out the way it should. And then, of course, you can debate with other people how that should be and then what the instructions are and who's got the better recipe and how many stars is it? And you can get all stressed about that. And then if you're not measuring up in terms of stars and performance, you can be ashamed of yourself.

[27:22]

You know, and so on. I've had my share of fiascos. But does this actually make sense to you? You know, that that's what cooking is or that's what your life is? that somewhere out there there's recipes. There's no recipe, though, for how to be you. Nobody's written that recipe. Your life is creating how to... In your life, you're creating how to be you. So there's an important shift here. The usual idea is... you dream up what the end is first. What's your objective? I want to make beef bourguignon. Or, you know, what would be a suitable dish to make on this occasion that would suitably impress the guests and friends and visitors and satisfy those who are picky, etc.

[28:28]

And for all these people who, oh, these people can't eat gluten and this and that, you know, and no dairy and no... And then some people don't like spicy, and pretty soon, what do you do? Very challenging, you know, how to get this all right. But usually we think of a picture. We have a picture of the dish, or we have a picture of the person, the kind of person that would be a good person to be, and so I want to become that person that is certifiably good, zen, Whatever it is, you know. Loving. Good-hearted. Kind. Compassionate. Friendly. Are you there yet? So usually we dream of that picture first and then we think, and then I better get out my recipe that will lead to that picture coming true. What should I do step by step so I can manifest that picture?

[29:32]

And then... It doesn't work. The Abbot of Zen Center is dying. We've all been practicing and doing what we're supposed to do. We've been following the schedule. We've been meditating. We've been doing everything right. We're giving our heart. And then things aren't coming out right. So the shift here is rather than dreaming up the finished picture first, then you need the ingredients. You need to go out and look for the ingredients that are necessary so that you can make that come true. And you think, if I made that come true, good for me. And that would reflect well on me, making my picture come true.

[30:40]

And we think that freedom is... my capacity to make my pictures come true. That's freedom. And I could get better at making my pictures come true. But mostly, you know, the pictures that we dream up are not... We dream them up so that they would reflect well on us, but they're not actually, you know, realistic. They're called wishful. headstrong you know so this suggestion here is look at the ingredients first since what's inside since the world since what's inside dream up what to do with the ingredients that you have dream up what to do thing with the ingredients that are coming into your life from beyond

[31:43]

let things come as though from beyond and dream up what to do with them. And that's creativity. That you dream up what to do with ingredients, not that you get better at making recipes come true. And then what you dream up to do is not something anybody else is It's not somebody else's recipe. It's not somebody else's plan. You're free. You dream up what to do that comes to you. Of course, right away, if you haven't heard this before, you start to think like, oh, but I'm not creative. How could I do that? No, I need to just do what I'm supposed to. That's the best I can do. But you do it anyway. Hmm. One of the best dishes I ever made was when I burned the greens and I was like, oh my God.

[33:17]

Then we just took the greens off the top, left the charred greens on the bottom of the pan, and then everybody said, oh, they're smoked greens. These are so good. You never quite know. But we didn't set out to make smoked greens. This is creativity. So it's curious how creativity is connected to your mistakes oftentimes. Or recently, you know, people say, oh, Ed, your food is so creative. Well, you know, it's not really creative. Recently, I got a package in the mail from my friend, student, Danny in Florida. It's a box, priority mail, five giant avocados from the tree in his backyard. So suddenly I'm having, I'm What comes to hand? What comes to hand are these giant avocados from Florida. What do I do with them? Okay, well, so I'm just dreaming up what to do with these avocados. So I'm having avocados for breakfast, avocados for lunch, avocados for dinner.

[34:22]

You know, there's avocados with the scrambled eggs. You know, there's avocados on the cheese sandwich and there's avocado on the, you know, whatever. And then at the same time, my neighbor shows up and she keeps leaving these persimmons. Personally, I don't like these persimmons particularly. They're the kind that are big. There's the flat persimmons, which you can slice, and they're great in salad. And there's these others that you have to let them get really ripe. Or they're kind of, you know, they do that funny chalky thing in your mouth. So you have to let them get really ripe, and then you scoop out this sort of orange goo. And that's supposed to be good and like a great... But apparently not everybody loves it because they keep bringing them to me. Why don't you do the work of using these things? Because we don't know what to do with them. So this is really creative. I'm suddenly having avocado and persimmon meal after meal. So now the avocados you can arrange on the plate with the spoonfuls of goopy persimmon.

[35:26]

that you can't slice because it's the other persimmon. It's not the Fuyu persimmon. It's the soft, gooey persimmon. And you have glops of persimmon. Oh, I get some lemon olive oil with the Danjou pear vinegar, and okay. And then maybe some chopped salads or green onions, and oh, maybe that's going to be pretty good now. Oh, and so on. So it's really creative. But no, I didn't dream this up. Like, wow, I'll get some avocados and persimmon. No, they just come into my life. Things come into your life. What will you do with them? And then some people say, well, those things don't come into my life. Nobody brings me avocados from Florida and persimmons. But stuff comes. And if they don't come, then when you go to the store, do you have a plan already or do you let things talk to you? I used to think about this, but you go down certain aisles in the store and all the packages are bright and colorful.

[36:35]

And they all say, buy me, buy me, buy me. And they're like, buy me. And it's hard to listen to all that. It's this barrage of sensory data saying, buy me, buy me, buy me. So one day I thought, well, wait a minute. Why should I buy you? And the package says, I'm quick, I'm easy. I'm quick, I'm easy. Put me in the oven and I'll be there. Set the timer and I'll be there for you just the way you want me to without your having to relate to me at all. So this is happiness. This is American idea of happiness. Happiness is never having to relate to anything and everything just appears for you just the way you want it to. But actually, you know, in Zen we have the understanding like, no, you work. You work to relate to things, to bring out the best in them, and to have things come forward, and you're bringing out the best in yourself and one another and the things and the world.

[37:42]

How do you do that? It takes your awareness and your focus, and it's not that you already have a plan for things. Excuse me, but would you be willing to be part of my plan for you? It's very frustrating because things don't seem to necessarily want to be part of your plan for them. I find this all the time. But on the other hand, and we don't sort of go saying to the radishes, excuse me, but I don't like you being a radish. Could you be an eggplant today? And the radishes don't do that. The radishes don't say, oh, what's wrong with me? I'm so small and red and I can't be big and purple. I'd much rather be big and purple. That would really be great. And that would be really impressive. I'm so small and red. And, you know, so the ingredients and the things, you know, in the flower ornament suture, it says this wonderful thing, you know, beans teach.

[38:47]

Lands teach. Things teach. Continuously without interruption. This is part of what they're teaching. It's OK to be you. A radish is a radish. And it's happy being a radish. An eggplant is an eggplant. And then how will you work with it? And you don't try to make it over. People in the culinary world understand this, too, by the way. And I'll finish up on this. But I met someone years ago, Dennis, who was the cook at Esalen. He'd come from the CIA, the Culinary Institute of America. to Esalen and become the cook. So at the Culinary Institute of America, everybody says, chef, would you wash the spinach? And you say, yes, chef. And then at Esalen, they say, I don't know what I feel like doing now. Could we have a weather report? We need a timeout so that we can all talk about our feelings. So he got used to not necessarily cooking during the time to cook.

[39:51]

And they would have all these breaks, and everybody sits there. So that's a different world than, you know, chef. But he said he had one cook, one chef, one of his teachers used to always come around and they'd say, chef, what are you making? And you'd say, carrot soup. And then the teacher would say, and what should carrot soup taste like? And then you were supposed to say, carrots. Because if you're not careful, you make something really delicious. It's carrots with ginger and green chili and pineapple and fresh basil. And pretty soon, you don't know, is it carrots? Is it yam? Is it winter squash? Tastes delicious. Because you put in all this flavor on top of the carrots. Because you had a plan of what tastes good. You know what tastes good. And you're going to make those carrots taste good. You're not going to make them taste like carrots. You're going to make them taste the way they should and the way that will really impress people and astound them and move them and delight them and, you know, invigorate them and they'll love it and they'll say, congratulations, you made a great tasting dish.

[41:03]

But the carrots, nobody knows that they're carrots. So it's a different style of cooking. You taste the carrot and how do you bring out the best in it? Salt, lemon, honey, sugar, thyme. What do you do? How much do you cook it? How do you cook it? And there's different... Depending on what you do with the carrot, it will taste different. All right. Excuse me for going on and on like this. I say excuse me because already people are leaving in the back. They need to go make tea. Thank you for preparing tea for us. But I wanted to tell you one other Zen story and talk about that just for a few minutes, if I may. And this is a story that's related to what I've been talking about.

[42:07]

One day the Buddha and his assembly were out walking and the Buddha stopped. And he said, this place would be a wonderful spot for a sanctuary. And apparently Indra, the king of the gods, was along for this walk and he bent over and he picked a blade of grass and then he planted the blade of grass in the ground and he said, the sanctuary is built. And the Buddha smiled and said, wonderful. So be it or something like this. We actually had this kind of experience here at Green Gulch. I wasn't here, but some people were here when Harry Roberts was here at Green Gulch. I met Harry Roberts and I knew Harry Roberts, but he was a half Indian and half Irish, I think, and he studied in his Indian tradition with a medicine man, I forget his name, Spotted Owl or something.

[43:18]

And his teacher used to, you know, people would come to the teacher and the teacher would say, and somebody would come, a young man or woman, I don't know if both women and men could say, but say, you know, I'm interested in becoming a medicine man. May I study with you? I'd like you to be my teacher. And he'd say, where's your gift? You haven't brought me any flowers or any gift. Bring me some flowers. You want me to be your teacher. If the person moved at all, You could never study with him. You had to get the flowers from the ground or the flowers from the sky. Flowers for you. Harry Roberts one day when he was working with a whole group of students, I just heard this story, whole group of students, And he had a similar thing.

[44:22]

You want to study with me? Bring me six plants. And then they all started going different places. And he said, no, no, no, no. No. Six plants on the spot. Reach down. Don't go out looking for them. They're right here. This is the feeling of this Zen story. So there's a poem about this end story. The boundless spring on the hundred flowers. It's not spring now, but excuse me. The boundless spring on the hundred plants. Picking up what comes to hand. Picking up what comes to hand. What comes into your life now? It's all from beyond. You're not in charge of the ingredients. Picking up what comes to hand, he uses it knowingly.

[45:23]

The 16-foot golden Buddha, a collection of precious virtues, casually leads him into the red dusts. Able to be master in the dust, from outside creation a guest appears. Everywhere life is sufficient in its way, even when you're not as clever as the others. Even when one is not as clever as the others. There's so much more I wanted to talk about today. But just in a short way, I want to share with you this sense of beings teach, lambs teach.

[46:26]

How do you receive teaching? Because most of the time we're saying, when something comes into our life, we say, I like it, I don't like it. If I like it, how do I get to keep it? If I don't like it, how do I get rid of it? And then we say, doesn't Buddhism help me with this? Grabbing on? Pushing away? No. How do I get to keep what I like and get rid of what I don't like? And then the other thing we do is, is it right? Is it wrong? Is it good? Is it bad? Are things coming out the way I want them to? What's wrong with me when they're not coming out the way I want to? I can't get this recipe to work. When you can't get the recipe to work, do something else. Probably the recipe doesn't work because that's not a recipe that works.

[47:33]

Use what comes to come into hand. So when you can receive things immediately and directly, Then you have, well, you know, it's a famous poem by Sung Tung Po in Chinese. The sound of the valley streams is the pure, clear voice, the color of the mountains, the great body, universal body. What's appearing is not just what's appearing, but you know, something big, something vast. Siddhartha said, something big, something vast, big mind. What's coming? What is it that thus comes from beyond? We're immediately and intimately in connection.

[48:39]

Spring on the Hundred Flowers. The 16-foot Golden Buddha, this is a metaphor for the fact that all these mundane, you know, they say a leaf of cabbage is also a 16-foot Golden Buddha. 16-foot Golden Buddha is a leaf of cabbage. The 16-foot Golden Buddha is also, you know, your... your feeling, your anger, your frustration, your discouragement, 16-foot golden Buddha. These golden Buddhas are leading you into the dust casually. You're always ending up in some kind of less than pristine place. In this poem, it's called The Red Dust. And then how do you sit? Able to be master in the red dust with all of this. be present able to be master in the red dust from outside creation a guest appears everywhere life is sufficient in its way even when one is not as clever as the others this is a work of art your life is a work of art

[50:20]

And it's ongoing. Sometimes your work of art... I should have known better. And other times your work of art brings you great joy. You know, vitality. so I sometimes think about this as just to finish up here I sometimes think about this is in the course of our life we start out in a way with an image of perfection something we could attain become have and at some point we let go of this image of perfection and we shift to being present working with what comes to hand show up be present

[51:40]

receive what comes to hand, work with it. And we shift from being in control, being in charge, knowing what needs to happen, getting it to happen, we shift from control to compassion. Compassion of being in connection with and resonating with and bringing things forward and listening. The bodhisattva compassion listens deeply, intimately hears the cries and whispers. You start to hear the small voice inside, from control to compassion, from performance to presence. And you're shifting from unknowing to not knowing, from having the recipe, the picture of what should come out and letting go of your image and meeting what comes with some enjoyment, ease, softness, receptivity, rather than, oh no, it's not what I wanted.

[53:06]

It's not what I've spent all this time. trying to establish and make happen. So, perfection to presence, control to compassion, knowing to not knowing, or wisdom. Wisdom is not to know. I had so much more to share with you. But you'll have to do the rest. This is what's come to hand. Now it's up to you to do with it what you will. All right. Thank you. Blessings. Happy holidays. 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.

[54:10]

For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[54:22]

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