This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzz.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Well, my plan is to just yak a little bit And then hopefully leave plenty of time for interactions to respond to whatever you want to bring up. It's very nice to be back at Tassajara in the rain where I belong. And I'm really sorry that I missed great stuff that I know occurred while I was gone. Most of it I don't know about. But I do know that I missed a pretty fabulous skit night, I heard.

[01:07]

You missed it too, right, Leslie? Yeah. I heard a few, only a few tales from the skit night. And I heard I also missed another super great Chousseau talk. I heard a few pithy quotations from it that Sounded really good to me, and I won't forget them. I guess I must have missed some great wayseeking mind talks, which, hasn't this been great, the wayseeking mind talks? I guess it's unusual this time. There's so many of them. We won't even run out, I don't think, by the end of the practice period. And I'm especially sorry that I missed Ruth's talk. She and I had a lengthy discussion about it. But I suppose it's possible I can hear these things later, right? Yeah. I can hear them later.

[02:09]

Yeah, they were recorded. Yeah. I'd like to hear it. Yeah. I was thinking to myself, you know, wouldn't it be, honestly and seriously, wouldn't it be something to have an archive? of all the wayseeking mind talks given here that have been recorded. No, no, it would be fabulous. Imagine a scholar of religion hundreds of years from now wanting to know who are these people. It would be fabulous. It would be because I don't know what you think, but I have felt that every single one of the wayseeking mind talks that I've heard was Absolutely brilliant. Even though people were just talking, you know, they weren't, like, trying to make a deathless prose statement of their lives. Still, they did. They did. And it was just brilliant. Just wonderful. And I'm glad that there's a record of them.

[03:13]

Well, We arrived in the Bay Area just in time to go shopping for our grandchildren. Actually, Kathy went shopping for our grandchildren. She dropped me off to visit Lee de Barros, who's almost at the end of his life. So one of my jobs when I was there, a wonderful job for me, was to visit him. as often as I could. So she dropped me off while she was shopping and I visited with Lee and had a wonderful visit. She picked me up. We unloaded a tremendous trove of groceries and then she went off to the airport to get them. And we spent the next week in chaos and joy and delight with our three grandchildren, one of whose birthday is today. He's 10 years old today. So we went on a giant, big... And the weather cooperated.

[04:23]

The weather was very sunny and nice the whole time, somehow. And we went on hikes. Our little four-year-old granddaughter somehow could manage this very steep, arduous hike that I found quite hard, but she was joyfully... She said, as we were clamoring over boulders in a very steep path up on Montaigne, she said, it's just like a playground. I guess some playgrounds, maybe they have boulders or something. And we saw elephant seals have hauled themselves up on Brakes Beach. We saw elephant seals. Then we went tide pooling. It was a super low tide at Duxbury Reef. I don't know if you've ever been there, but in the low tide, it's a very extensive reef. You can walk way out. And we were there until the sun set. It's beautiful. It's really a lot of work.

[05:29]

It's a good thing that people have children when they're young instead of old, because Kathy is tireless, but I myself was worn out because there are many meals to cook, And many food preferences, so there have to be many choices at every meal. And there are many dishes to wash again and again and again. And then we have a whole world of toys and amusements for our grandchildren that are kept stashed away and all come out at once when they appear. And they're all over the place all the time. I'm cleaning and cooking and cleaning dishes and picking stuff up all the time. And I fall into bed at the end of the day, really tired. It's nice to be back here for a rest, finally, after all that very hard work.

[06:34]

But it was quite wonderful. We do have probably the best grandchildren in the world. I think. Objectively, I would say. Some of us might quarrel with that. Yeah, well, we can talk about that afterward, but I do think, I do think. And so we had great fun, and one of our sons was there, and one of our daughters-in-law was there. While we were away, the mice in the house realized there was no one around. and that they could do lots of stuff that they usually don't have a chance to do when they're interrupted. So they did a lot of stuff that required a tremendous amount of work after the grandchildren left and all the toys were all over the place and had to be all packed up and put away and the house was a real wreck and had to be cleaned up.

[07:38]

Then we had to turn our attention to the things that the mice were doing and among many other things, The mice had found a way to get into the closet where I keep my robes. Fortunately, they did not eat any of the robes, but they had eaten the hole into the closet and there was just mouse poop all over the place. It was just really foul. So the whole closet had to be unloaded and all the robes taken out and find the hole where the mice came in and plug up the hole. figure out a whole alternative way of storing the robes for the inevitable return of the mice. But I was grateful to the mice, too, because on the day we left, we were leaving, Haksha was picking me up at 4.20 in the morning, and I had gone to bed quite late because

[08:42]

someone's coming to stay at our house so the sheets had to be washed and everything had to be cleaned up and the garbage taken out and all these things have to happen. So I was up till maybe past midnight and I went to sleep. And somehow in my day's state of mind it made perfect sense to me that since Hakusho and I were leaving at 4.20 that I would set the alarm for 4.45. I thought, I am so together. I am taking care of everything. I got the whole thing done. It's not even one o'clock in the morning. I got the alarm set. I'm going to bed. I'll just pop up in the morning. So I was sleeping away there. And in the middle of the night, I hear a mouse loudly munching on the bedroom closet, I guess.

[09:43]

Figuring, well, since I can't get into the closet upstairs where the robes are, there's a lot of nice clothes over here. I'm coming over here. So this is really like, can you imagine loud enough mouse munching to wake you up? Yeah, you can imagine that. Right. So it woke me up. And by now, I was really put out about the mice. So I got out of bed. And I yelled at this mouse, giving this mouse my point of view about home invasion on the part of rodents. And I jumped up and down and figured this would make the mouse go away. And it did for about five minutes. Then again, the munching. And I got up this time and yelled again at the mouse. And I said, I wonder what time it is. And I looked at my watch, and it said 4.20. 4.20?

[10:47]

That's the time Hakusho was coming to pick me up. So it only took me about two minutes to actually leap out of bed, throw my clothes on, and I was brushing my teeth while I was hauling my bags down to the car. Hakusho didn't even realize I was late. He were a little late, too, thank goodness. So... Anyway, so, yeah, no mice to wake you up. One of the things, you know, we live at Muir Beach, so if we want to go anywhere with the children, it's a drive. And it's a thing to drive in a car with three young children. It's a thing. If you've never experienced it, you don't know what I mean. If you have, you know what I mean. You must play the Beatles. A lot. Over and over again. They like repetition, little kids.

[11:49]

So we were playing a lot of Beatles songs. And one line, I can't get it out of my mind. I forget the name of the song, but You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches far ahead. Isn't that a wonderful line? It reminded me of just life in general and how I've been feeling living here at Tassajara, which is a timeless place. We're actually, in a way, in our own imperfect way, we're living a life of the 14th century or something like that, some medieval life.

[12:59]

That's the thing about monastic life. It's a timeless life. It's not of the times. Secular means of the times. This is not a secular life. It's an ancient life. And every time you hear the bell, every time you see the monastics, who I guess is us, going back and forth in their ancient robes, You're not in this time. We have memories, all of us, human beings, we have memories, deep memories of our humanness that go all the way back, way before our parents and their parents and their parents and their parents were ever born.

[14:04]

And you feel it, I think, in the midst of the quiet of monastic life. You feel that ancient, ancient past that's actually in you. It evokes that feeling in you. And in a way, like the song says, you know, the past goes further back in the road ahead. Nowadays, I think, We human beings feel like the road ahead is quite uncertain and troubling. Maybe we could think the same about our own lives. If we're old, we think, uh-oh, what next? If we're young, we think, yikes, got to get a life. How am I going to do that? We're concerned about the road ahead, but actually, Our memory goes back way, way farther than the road ahead.

[15:14]

And the refrain of the song is, we're going home. Back home. That's where we're going. going home. We maybe lost our way and we're fumbling around here and there. And we may wonder where we're going, but we're going home. We are on our way back home. So the wise Lennon and McCartney teach. Yeah, my grandson was asking, do you remember when Paul McCartney was shot?

[16:20]

I said, yeah, I remember. Yeah, in 1980, in front of the Dakota. John Lennon. Who did I say? Paul McCartney. Yeah, John Lennon, right. That was sad. Very sad. Forty years old. We were here at the time, yeah. So... Of course, I stayed longer than I otherwise might have so that I could be there for the ceremonies at Zen Center. As a former abbot, I felt that it was my duty and my pleasure to have a special seat in the front row for these ceremonies. And I wish you could have been there. They were so beautiful. So I will just say to the Eno and to the Doanrio who work so hard with all these picky little details that must seem like such a pain sometimes, they are so wise because they produce a possibility for people to express themselves in a way they otherwise would not be able to do.

[17:45]

They create a moment express gratitude and love. And that's what we saw. Linda Ruth's ceremony was quite spectacular because when she climbed up the mountain with her big mountain staff, she somehow lost control of it. Were you there? Yeah, she lost control of her staff. big heavy staff and went crashing down into the altar next door, smashing over the candle and making a big crash. Yikes. But, you know, this is Zen and Zen Center, so they just picked up the staff. Nobody even batted an eyelash and just went on with the ceremony. And that Linda Ruth, I so admire, I have depended on Linda Ruth cuts for 40-some years.

[18:47]

She is so great. You give a lot of formal statements in these ceremonies, and so you compose these statements. And she just composed the most exquisitely poetic statements. Beautiful. And then there's a mondo, and people ask questions, and somebody said to her, what is your hard-won wisdom? after all these years, and she said, not to hold my staff in an unstable position. But the person would not accept that for an answer and said, that was not hard won. And again, Linda, without batting an eyelash, then said, to go on practicing with you forever.

[19:53]

Breathtaking moment. And then all the former abbots who had worked with her stood up and gave words of congratulation and appreciation. And each one of them, I think it was Reb and Paul and Ed and Phu, every one of them had known her for so many decades, practiced with her from youth. And all of that was behind their words. And the occasion just made you feel the whole complexity and depth of the connection. And then the penultimate person to speak was Rusa Chu, who is one of the few people in the world who understands the practice of being a spouse of an abbot.

[21:09]

So she stood up and gave a very full and lengthy speech about not only Linda Ruth as abbot, but all about Steve and how Steve had supported her and their family. Linda's grandson was there, peeping up every now and then in the ceremony. And Rusa had this wonderful little gimmick. She said, every time I raise my hand, she said to the audience, every time I raise my hand, you should say, how many times? How many times? So her speech was sort of like... Linda, how many times have you gone to the Zendo and done this, that, and the other, and then she would raise her hand again, and everybody would say, how many times, how many times, and she'd say, how many times have you done this, and how many times have you done that, how many times, how many times, it was really wonderful. Anyway, great ceremony, just to give you a little flavor of what it was like. Hopefully you'll ask other people who were there who could give you, saw other things that I didn't see.

[22:10]

And then on Sunday, in between, I did a little retreat at the... There's a Tibetan Buddhist temple in Rich Point Richmond, Anand Tubton, a wonderful Tibetan Buddhist teacher. He and I and Trudy Goodman, who's a Pasana teacher, we did a three yanas retreat. And I left a little early on Sunday to go to David's installation ceremony. There's lots of problems in Tibetan Buddhism. Did you know that? Yes. Very difficult. And the non-tubtum is one of the few people who manages to avoid those problems. He sort of doesn't get too enmeshed in the confusion.

[23:22]

And he said something to me that I thought was really lovely, because he's now a layperson, married to a Western woman, has two children, lived in the West a long time, but he grew up as a monk, fully indoctrinated into the tradition. And he said to me, it took me a long time to realize that the sacred narratives of Buddhism are sacred narratives. They're narratives. They're stories. Just like the story of your life, it isn't true, exactly. It's a story. And it's important that you know the story. and embrace it in the right way. But obviously it's not the only story of your life. So he said, in Tibetan Buddhism, I think a lot of us have forgotten that the sacred narratives are narratives and we've taken them to be really absolutely true.

[24:39]

And I thought, well, that's how they got into trouble, you know? They call that like fundamentalism. When you take the narrative that is a beautiful narrative and an essential narrative, and you take it to be absolutely true and therefore exclusive of the many other narratives that we also need. And Anand Tipton said, it took me a long, long time to realize that. And I said, but Anand, doesn't it say in the book, all dharmas are empty? Didn't I read that somewhere? He said, yeah, I know, but still. Still. I like to do those retreats because we have fun in the breaks chatting, and I learn a lot. So then David ascended the mountain, and it was very inspiring and wonderful.

[25:45]

David used words in his dharma statements and in his answers to questions that were never heard from the mountain before. He repeatedly used words like feedback and accountability. Whoever said feedback and accountability on the top of the mountain before? He used words like diversity. and inclusiveness. Whoever heard such words before used from the top of the mountain? So, although he said, he said, I feel a little bit amused at the age of 55. I had no idea that David was 55. I thought he was 45. He said, I feel a little amused at the age of 55 to be the younger generation. But yes, it's the new generation. And it feels like another generation.

[26:52]

So it was very, very joyful, especially for the old timers to see him fully embodying that role. And you know, Huitzu Suzuki Roshi always comes to the ceremonies. And I love, I love Huitzu Suzuki. I always tell him, I said, to me, You are Suzuki Roshi. I don't know about this Suzuki Shinryu guy, but I have faith in Suzuki Huitzu. He's a wonderful Dharma teacher. So full of heart. I first met him. Now he's almost 80. I met him maybe, I don't know, in the 80s. And I remember he used to be very outrageous and I remember being with him and he said, I'm 54.

[27:56]

That's the age when Dogen Zenji died. I think I better get serious about my practice. So from then on, he actually changed his practice and became much more focused. on the depth of his practice. Because, you know, he was born into it, right? So, you know how it is when you're born into something, you take it for granted. But I think his 54th year woke him up. And now, at the age of 80, he travels once, one week a month, three hours on the Shinkansen to Okayama, I think that's the name of the town, where there's a monastery, New Sodoshu Monastery called Toshouji, and he's now the Sado there. It's actually quite funny because he's the Sado, Suzuki the Sado, of Toshouji, and the abbot of Toshouji is named Sado Suzuki.

[29:04]

Another guy named Sado Suzuki. So the Sado is Suzuki, but Sado Suzuki is the abbot. Anyway, he said, it's half men, half women, half young, half old, half Japanese, half Western. So I didn't know he was doing that. He had been, when we visited Japan about 10 years ago, he had been the Sado at Eheiji. So we were able to go and be in Eheiji with the ability to move around in a way that you're usually not able to do. if you're not a monk there, when he was there. Anyway, I was able to have tea and hang out with him, which was delightful. And I'm so sorry that he was not able to come down, because you would have been thrilled to hear his talking. But he plays the role of Manjushri in the mountain seat ceremony.

[30:11]

You know, the Manjushri in the Book of Serenity case who says something like, the dharma of the dharma king is thus. You know, that's koan. So he says that and whacks the sweet chain. But he chants it in formal Japanese way. He kind of first gets himself in character and then whacks the sweet chain and does this beautiful chant. And then the questioning begins. And afterward, he said to David, in Japanese with translation, he said to David, he said, your face and your body are very soft, but I see in your eyes a strength. He said, this is very good for the Dharma of America now.

[31:16]

Beautiful. thing that he said. I went from my last dramatic goodbye for Lee, because I think Lee is probably going to die any day now, and I walked in you know, very tired at the end of my retreat. And the Warriors game was on. So that was our dramatic last goodbye. We watched the entire rest of the Warriors game, three quarters. He was sitting up in his chair. He looked like he was dead already, you know, sitting up in his chair, really skinny. But then he said, you could barely hear him, he said, because it was a close game, he said, got to see it through.

[32:26]

And they won in the last 30 seconds. So he was very happy. And then he went to bed. And he was so tired, we couldn't have a conversation, even though I had been there for over an hour. So I said, okay, well, maybe you'll be here when I come back. I hope so. But just in case, you know, goodbye. I'll see you soon. So say goodbye. And also I just got word that, do you remember Kath Ward, Kath and Jeff from the Vancouver Sangha? Yeah. Kath Ward just died. Yeah. Yeah, very sad. This was a couple who practiced with us in our Vancouver, British Columbia sangha, wonderful couple, and not so old, younger than me. And she got ovarian cancer and just died, and we'll chant for her this evening, I guess.

[33:34]

She was such a really positive, upbeat person, constantly skiing and hiking and She was a high executive of some, like, government branch in Canada. And she really was practicing hard because she thought, I really want to learn how to be kind and effective and communicate and be a bodhisattva in my job. And her husband also was, he was in the forestry service and he also was an executive. And both of them were very focused on how to be good leaders in a Dharma way. And I always so enjoyed, they moved away a couple years ago and I didn't see them much anymore, but I so enjoyed seeing them at every retreat and every session up there. So that's who we'll be chanting for today. Well, just the last thing I'll say, I had all kinds of things I wanted to tell you about, but time is short.

[34:40]

But I'm reading two great books right now. One of them, in manuscript. One of them, many of you would love this to read this. This is Philip Whelan's journals. Several years of which were written here at Tassajara when some of us were here. And many of us are mentioned actually in these journals. It's fun to read them and hear about Leslie and Keith and Alan is mentioned. Everybody's mentioned in these journals. However, he in these journals has the best definition of monastic life that I have ever read. You should memorize this. You ready? Monastic life is a strange mixture of high idealism, paltry intrigue, and contagious delusionary systems. This is exactly what monastic life is.

[35:44]

Isn't that great? Monastic life is a strange mixture of high idealism, paltry intrigue, and contagious delusionary systems. It's wonderful, right? This life. He has one section in there which is called The Bubble Machine, in which he lists all the people who have just had or are going to have momentarily babies, including Leslie. And the way he would say it, Leslie is about to pop any day now, he would say. That was Philip. Yeah, maybe you don't know, Philip was a great Beatnik poet who became a Zen priest and was one of my dearest, dearest friends in all the world, and my teacher and mentor.

[36:52]

Okay, we're over time, but let's take some minutes to, in case anybody has anything they want to bring up. Yes. Timeless, yeah. Monastic life being kind of timeless, yeah. Yeah. Did you all hear that? Did you hear what you said? Yeah. Well, there you go. That's the job, right? That's the problem. That's the very delicate balance. And we don't know how to do that. There are not a set of rules and guidelines. Yes, it would be.

[37:55]

My poem book about our trip to Japan, Escape This Crazy Life of Tears, is all about how in Japan, Zen is 100% about the past. honoring the past, living in the past, bringing the past up. And here, our practice is mostly actually about the present and the future. How to balance these things is really hard. And religion is always trying to figure that out. This is the problem of, you know, authentic religious life can't just be the latest trend, right, of the society. That's secular life. Religious life has to be referenced, what's ancient in us. But at the same time, just like you're saying, if you think that secular life, everyday life of the moment is unimportant and should be ignored, you're going to lose your way altogether. So they say in the Dharma that an abbot's job is to abide and maintain.

[38:56]

Abide meaning hold the fort down with the past. Don't ignore the tradition. Uphold it. Maintain means bring it up to the present. That's why each generation finds a way to do that. In fact, there's no way not to do that. Even if you think you're ignoring the present, you can't. But you can do it better or worse. That's our job. In fact, every person's life is an example of that. Every person's life is a study in the way that the past and the present and the future meet in this person. Everybody's life is that story, right? And the life of a religious community is that story. And that's why there's so much paltry intrigue. Because we're all the time trying to disagree about it and work it out.

[39:59]

And we always have trouble. And somebody thinks you're doing it. much this way. No, that's too much that way. Somehow or other we muddle through together. There's no way. There's no rules. So, I mean, I think we do respect, I hope we do anyway, people who have a long experience in the Dharma. But that doesn't mean they always know the right thing to do, right? So, we're doing this together. Yeah? What is contagious delusionary system? What is contagious delusionary systems? Oh, it's like the sutras. The sutras. The teachings. I heard, I was so moved the other day. It was yesterday when we were, I guess it was Hakusho was reading...

[41:03]

Bodhidharma's teachings. And I thought, wow, did you notice that? Maybe you didn't notice. I thought it was the greatest teachings going. But again, if you were to take them literally as the only story, they would soon become a contagious, delusionary system. All the sutras, all the teachings would soon become Contagious delusionary systems. And this is one of the things about this kind of life is that we are swept away by the contagious delusionary system. And that's a really good thing for us. For a few minutes there, we really believe that we're Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. And that's good because to not ever believe that makes our life too small. So that's in the midst of monastic silence, hearing these teachings, you really hear them.

[42:14]

And that's good. But when they become, you attach to them, right, and you become literal about them, and then you go around like complaining about everybody else because they're not doing it right according to the contagious delusionary systems, they become contagious delusionary systems. Contagious because we... We catch it from one another, right? We catch faith and dharma from one another. I think that's what he meant. Alan, yeah. Let's pass the mic. Let's try to do it. Yeah. It seems not to be. No. No. We'll talk loud. serious about the forms, but he had a way of making fun of the forms. Yeah. He always made fun of the forms. He always had a little caustic comment or a renaming of something.

[43:15]

Yeah. And I wonder how you see the balance with Philip between those two holes. Well, Philip was 20 years older than everybody else. Now there's a diversity of age in the sangha. We have all ages. In those days, you were either 25 or you were like one of the three people who was in their 50s. So I think Philip had a hard time with the youthfulness, the kind of youthful enthusiasm of the whole group. And that was a lot of what he was reacting to. Not so much the forms per se, but the way that we as young people were earnestly holding the forms. Because he had lived in Japan and seen these slums in a whole other culture. So he actually knew them and respected them, but I think that's mostly what he was reacting to. But also Philip had a lot of suffering and so struggled with the Dharma too.

[44:24]

He was very faithful to the Dharma and struggled with it all the time, all the way to the end. Yeah, he did radios. I think he was a radio expert in the war. Yeah. Right. He's a wonderful person. So colorful. Yeah, he had his names for everything. Paul and Malady. Paul and Maladie. Yes, John. Maybe the other mic's not worth it. Try to stay out of trouble if possible. To practice together with you forever.

[45:33]

All conditioned existence is unsatisfactory. How's that for originality? Yes. Well, I'm not memorized, so I couldn't... I have many, many favorite poems of his. I guess his collected poems are in the library. They should be. I guess they are. Yeah, it's a big book, yeah. Speaking of how our lives, our narratives, stories, do you think looking at... the narrative of our personal lives during a practice period is a worthwhile activity?

[46:37]

Up to a point. I actually think that she was saying that if narratives are important, is it worthwhile to look at our own personal narrative in practice period? And I said, up to a point. Because I think that the Tassahara practice period is a unique thing. And so for me, my practice is different here than it would be somewhere else. And the way I understand and speak about Dharma is different here than elsewhere. Because here, I think, we could profit by entirely, if it were possible, to entirely throw away our personal narrative. That would be fine. Here. I don't think that means for our lives we should do that. But here we have a chance uniquely to go very, very deep with our heart, with our mind, with our sitting. And so I think to muse over our lives and our life stories and stuff like that, I mean, of course, a lot of that comes up spontaneously in our sitting.

[47:48]

And when it does, we shouldn't be avoiding it. We can let it arise and let it pass away. But to me, I think, no, this would not be the best place for that because something else is possible here that that would be a distraction from. But I think if you present Zen practice only in the Tassajara model and you think that that's the most true practice or the only practice, that also, to me, would be a mistake because we have to integrate the whole of our lives into practice. And there are different ways of practicing appropriately in different situations. Yes? Yeah. Whenever I take it wholeheartedly, it also feels that I'm holding irreverence at the same time.

[48:55]

Holding irreverence? Irreverence. Irreverence, no. Yeah, and the way I've been thinking about it is that it's like when we honor form an emptiness together. It's like we're not victory, but maybe not oppositional, but just arising together. I'm just wondering if you can speak to that, because I've been working with it, sometimes struggling with it. Sometimes it's difficult, sometimes it's despair. Uh-huh. And here, of course, it tells art it's coming up a lot more. And that where religion arises, it's like, if I believe the higher case I'm sitting in front, or if I believe, in an exclusive sense, the importance of one form as opposed to all other things. Yeah, well, I think this is a really important point, right? The art of taking something very, very seriously and doing your best to uphold it as it has been given. at the same time not reading yourself into that equation. Like, I'm a good boy if I got it right.

[49:58]

I'm a bad boy if I got it wrong. Like that. But taking it very seriously, completely seriously, doing it to the best of your ability, when you make a mistake, apologizing and doing it right the next time, understanding that in some ways it's arbitrary. The next practice period they may do things slightly differently. So it seems like a contradiction, but this is a great thing to learn for your life, right? I mean, how to take your life totally seriously without getting stuck on it, right? I mean, I think that in a way we take our lives too seriously in a bad way. We get messed up in our lives because we don't know how to just do our lives fully and not take them that seriously. Life goes by very fast, I can tell you. Really fast. It's not that big a deal, being born and dying, you know.

[51:00]

It happens fast. Somebody else comes along, they do the same stuff that you did, you know. Don't worry about it. Really, don't worry about anything. There's nothing to worry about. Nothing whatsoever to worry about in this life. Life absolutely takes care of itself. 100% of the time. But take seriously what you're doing. And try to do it a good job. And try to give your whole heart to it. And don't worry. So that's the balance, right? I'm really doing this. I did it wrong. I feel bad. I'm so sorry. I'm going to do it better now. And it's all okay. It's all okay. That's the form of the emptiness, right? Everything is all okay, no matter what. But if I read myself into that... Then I say, well, what the hell? I don't really have to worry. These stupid people, you know, telling me to do it that way. That's when you read yourself into that form and emptiness.

[52:03]

You think it's form and emptiness, but it's not form and emptiness. It's you. No, you take it totally seriously and you do your best. And you don't worry. Oh, is it working now? Oh, yeah, it's working. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I guess the word feedback has been coming up a lot recently, and you mentioned it. And I'm wondering, it seems like there's a lot of fear around giving and receiving feedback. Yeah. I want to say here especially, but I think maybe just in general. Well, we're all so sensitive here, you know? Yeah, we're really sensitive. One little funny look and you go to pieces, right? Right? Yeah, I know. Yeah, you, you're the only one who does that.

[53:06]

And I'm thinking about what you were just talking about, not reading ourselves into it, and I'm wondering, practically, how do you give feedback without being a self? In any moment. Right. Well, it's easy. All you have to do is be a Buddha. Then Buddhas always do that. So all you have to, that's just that simple. So in the meantime, while you're waiting, no, I mean it. In other words, imagine you're giving feedback to somebody and in your heart there literally is not a shred, not even a hint, annoyance, not even a hint of correcting them because they did something wrong. Nothing like that. Not a hint of worry that you're going to offend them. Nothing like that. Only loving concern for that person. That's the only thing you feel. Then it's easy to give feedback.

[54:08]

There is no feedback in that sense. There is no feedback. There's only are lovingly communicating with each other. There's no such thing as feedback. Already when we use the word feedback, we already are implying something difficult and bad that I need to tell you now. If somebody says to you, I have some feedback for you, just the word feedback strikes terror into your heart because feedback means this is a bad thing I'm going to tell you that's about you. Right? That's what the word feedback means. So there is no feedback for Buddhas. There's only lovingly communicating. So in the meantime, until we are at the Buddha stage, we're just going to have to deal with our, you know, tender hearts. And we're going to have to, I mean, one thing you could do, for instance, is if you had to do that, to spend a few days in advance literally meditating on that person with loving kindness. Literally.

[55:09]

And meditating on yourself with loving kindness for yourself, for your fear over this conversation. And then starting by confessing to the person how trepidatious you are about saying this and how you've been trying to say this in the best possible way and you'll probably flub it, but here's what I have to say. That would help maybe a little bit disarming your own suffering. But I don't think there's any way we can avoid ruffling each other's feathers. And in some way, that's good for us, right? That's good for us to have that problem of giving feedback and receiving feedback and feeling bad and all that. I think that we must all assume. And here, thank goodness, it is an absolutely safe assumption. Safe meaning literally safe. It is safe here to assume that every single person here is a really sincere. good person who means the best for us. That's a good assumption here. It's a safe assumption to make.

[56:11]

It's actually a good assumption all the time, but it's less safe to make that assumption in the rest of the world. Here, it is safe. So I think we have to return to that. Whenever you find yourself in a snit with somebody because they're mean or whatever, remember that. If they're mean, if they behaved in a mean way, of course people do around here. People say mean things. It doesn't take much to say a mean thing here. Could be just one of these. It's already mean. But if somebody says a mean thing, why did they do that? Because they're suffering, right? They're suffering somehow. That's why that happened. And they couldn't get a purchase on their suffering. So naturally, they took it out on you. It's like we're one big married couple here, right? Taking it out on each other as married couples always do.

[57:16]

And it's good. It's good for us to go through that. Yeah. Well, you already spoke, so if there's one more that somebody who hasn't spoken, then we can do one more. But otherwise, it's probably a good time to stop. Yeah. Greg, you're going to talk? No. No. He's holding the mic. OK, in the back. Matt, in the back. And then Matt will be the last one. Can you hear me? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I guess this is in reference to something you mentioned. I kind of off-pan. Maybe I'm taking it a bit, too. but it's a teaching that I've heard before in my better moments I think really resonates with me and I find myself preaching sometimes and other times I find something that sticks in my heart when I regard the idea that in this life there's really nothing to worry about and that life takes care of itself and that there's nothing real to worry about how do you hold that

[58:36]

or maybe in peace with something like trauma with people who have lives of fear and paternity who could be brutalized at any moment and like really do have something to fear and have had things to fear happen to them and you know you can't tell a person like that you don't have anything to worry about because it's like oh yeah I do bad things happen to me you know I can't even go through that again it would break me you know death is almost preferable. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, very dramatic, but I guess that's just, yeah, that's a question that sometimes, because I see the truth of that. Yeah. So bodhisattvas, when they see beings that are suffering, they help in whatever way is possible. And you're absolutely right. If someone is suffering and traumatized, to say to that person, don't worry, everything will be fine and life takes care of itself, that's not helping them, right? That is not a helpful, skillful bodhisattva response.

[59:39]

The helpful, skillful bodhisattva response is hugs and love and affection and making that person's situation better. Sometimes a bodhisattva might be fierce in overcoming the conditions that are making an individual or a class of individuals suffer. So that's not in contradiction at all to the fact that life takes care. Now life takes care of itself always. There's a little footnote there. The footnote says, however, not in the way you would prefer, perhaps. Right? So, of course, part of this life is suffering. We all suffer. People who are very advantaged and privileged suffer a lot. People who are not advantaged and privileged also suffer a lot.

[60:40]

Everyone suffers. That's part of this life. And that's part, seeing that picture, ingesting fully that picture is part of what it takes to see that everything is okay. That doesn't deny suffering at all. Not at all. However, if you don't see this bigger picture and only see the small picture of the suffering and the trauma and the overcoming of the trauma, you'll always be traumatized. People who are traumatized, we hope in this lifetime that they could actually fully heal, right? Not only overcome the conditions of the trauma and stop being re-traumatized, but actually heal from the trauma. In order to heal from the trauma, you have to have a bigger life that affects the healing. And that bigger life is the life in which we recognize that life is good and always takes care of itself, even though this happened to me.

[61:43]

And even though it happens to other people, life is good and takes care of itself. If we don't look at life that way, how will we look at life? As a hell? To be endured? This is no way to live. We can't live that way. Right? We can't. So in that cheerful Happy note. We shall disband this royal, lovely assembly. And what are we going to do next? Zazen is happening next. We'll just jump back onto the schedule wherever we are. By now, I've gotten to know every person here. At first, I was very scared because I didn't know you and I didn't know if you would be mad at me. But now that I know you all, I don't even care if you're mad at me.

[62:43]

Because I love you all anyway and you're all really quite remarkable people. How does it happen that the Tassajara practice period assembles exactly the right people that we need? that practice period how does this happen time and time again I don't understand it but it happens so I thank you very much for your questions for your listening for your practice we are beginning the Shiho process as you might have noticed and so we're all nervous and running around like crazy trying to figure out what we're doing there's so many details to take care of We apologize in advance for all the inconvenience we have caused and will be causing you. Thank you for accommodating us. So take care. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma Talks are offered free of charge and this is made possible by the donations we receive.

[63:49]

Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

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