This podcast is offered by San Francisco's Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. Welcome, everybody. My name is Keith Bauer, and I am the resident monk, and I've become deaf. So I'm still learning and practicing being deaf with my colleague here, Oshin, and we're friends, and he's a monk from... From where, from where? From Washington, D.C. It's called the Village Zendo, is that correct? Yes. and he has his own practice working with people with various disabilities and various differences and diversity and increasing their access.

[01:23]

Okay. So it's up to you. Thank you, Keith. Okay, thank you everybody for being here. I would especially thank the group here who we've been practicing with this weekend. It's been great to see all these deaf people here with us. It's been amazing. So I'm very appreciative of that. I'm blessed. And I believe it's very interesting this world where we have two deaf monks, and that's it. And both of us are here, the two deaf, which is what better place than this? Temple, right here. And this is called Beginner's Mind Zen Temple, where we are here. So it's beautiful, it's perfect. And to have a short retreat this weekend with all of you, and to practice this concept

[02:32]

Beginner's mind. So my theme, basically, is to not know. Just to say, I don't know. That's it. And that's how we sign that. Don't know. Don't know. And what's interesting, if you don't know something, the opposite way like this is to know something. You know, your mind is closed. As you can see, the way we perform this gesture. And if you open it up, the signing of don't know represents that your mind is actually open at that point. Which actually really is appropriate and fitting with Duff culture. So, and my challenge to you during this retreat is to bring something home and I'm gonna bring some of this to my home practice at my home temple. And that is called True Expressions Temple, that's my home temple, which is also fitting this theme.

[03:42]

It's interesting to watch, you know, just over a short few days, the softening that I have observed. during your meditation or zazen practice. I see a softening in your face and in your emotions. And even how you line up your shoes out in the hallway is getting better. Yeah, so it's a start, it's a start, right? Just the little things. So we've been talking about zazen, which is how I sign that. So what is that? What do we mean by zazen? when we hold our hands in that mudra. And what is our practice here? And what is my practice? How can I teach people who are deaf, or blind, or autistic? How do we accomplish that?

[04:50]

And more importantly, how do we, all of us, include everyone in our practice? And what is the experience like for deaf practitioners? What is that? And how do we make room for people with disabilities of all sorts? How do we have the space for them? How do we make room for our brokenness, basically? Which leads to the theme. The practice of reality is to sit in serenity, to look inside yourself, and to understand that we can't be, we're gonna be confused by outside the circumstances and situations and to keep our minds wide open and to let that be our inspiration.

[06:05]

We're illuminating. So, and what does that mean? How do we illuminate then? How do we illuminate ourselves? This is taken from a person called Hongzhi. And Hongzhi established a technique that is sometimes called, it's a concept that we have no stages, no levels, no concept of what is trying to be accomplished. Freedom of trying to, freedom from arising. Of arising. And the point is to be completely free. And we, sometimes we call that method the Shikan Ataza method.

[07:07]

But we don't. He actually used that, he didn't use that word himself. Hongzhi didn't use that word. It appeared after his time, after his death. Now this term shikantaza, what does that indicate? What does that mean? It tends to be an expression of, it's expressed in different poems. and using the term sometimes to know without touching may be one way of expressing that, which makes sense to me. To know something without actually touching it. I tend to use the term serene illumination or silent inspiration.

[08:11]

So the term serene inspiration, that means we're feeling cool or inspired and feel something in our hearts, which is why I signed it that way. Because that tends to be the feeling associated with that. Now Hongzhi was famous for using this term, the empty field. So the empty field was his term and we'll be talking more about that today. Tangier wanted us to realize that our enlightenment is something that we can take advantage of, we can arrive at, it's attainable. It's waking up to our own nature, our own true nature, and that's it, that's all. Our foundation.

[09:15]

And our ideas and concept interfere with this. They interfere with that enlightenment or awakening. It's interesting I've noticed that in the Zen culture we tend to talk about attachments. That tends to mean external things, attachments to external things. However, for myself, I've noticed that the issue is more attachment to internal things, such as identity, or my health, or changing health, the change of health, or even it could be my disability. In that idea itself, it's like I'm not allowing my concept, my... Interfere with my sereneness and my nature.

[10:24]

It allows my nature to express itself here and encouraging that process. Serene awakenings is really exciting or allowing that to take advantage of. Really, this is upsetting with a goal, not at all. And it helps me to actually detach. I think one mistake that many of us tend to make arriving at this practice is trying to, you know, take away from ourselves. Really, my issues and my struggles is attaching from and not recognizing what's there.

[11:27]

And what the practice allows me to do is not to ignore it. And that's not possible. We need to actually include it in myself. When we have the practice... In those situations, it involves my life to really control that. The real emphasis in that is a deep and a really overwhelming feeling of inclusion and being involved. And that's what we'd like to see. My teachers tend to say about Intimacy. And saying there's intimacy, intimacy, and using that sign, intimacy, intimacy. And those two things are close, becoming one. They're so close, they are one.

[12:28]

Like my teacher's telling me, becoming close with your life, becoming close with your pain, becoming intimate with your anger. becoming intimate with your joy, all of those is not disregarded. That, going back, it talks about function. And that concept of emptiness in the field is very impactful to me. That kind of thought, establishing that acceptance without whatever arises in my practice, my practice environment, my field, whatever arises. Hung Shin says that teaching field will actually gain

[13:38]

The Dharma field is the root source of 10,000 forms germinating with unwielding fertility. So we feel that we can respond with complete awareness to what is actually manifesting in our lives right now. In front of all of us. In all 10,000 forms. My new Zen practitioners here, top tier, there are 10,000 things. You see that word 10,000 things? That means everything. That means everything. And how do we practice that? My heart is wide open. And that sign for I don't know, that's the sign, I don't know.

[14:45]

That's how we practice, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. And keeping my mind open and free, my heart is open and free as well. I'm talking about in curiosity. Keith, your experience, for you, your practice, the Zen progress. We've already practiced these items and it struck you, you became deaf. And what is that like? How do you practice that? Okay. You see, my practice now, a large impact on my bringing the hard of hearing, but the hearing people, the hearing factions, there's 13 years ago

[16:07]

when it began. I learned a lot then. I loved the beginning. It was nice. But we love to talk about the beginning in the beginning's mind and a few years of difficulties and you stay with that in your mind as well with myself. Continuing Moving forward, I became more deaf and my hearing was degrading. And I started to actually change. My hearing aids became actually inclusive and big around my ears. And one day, It was five years ago.

[17:09]

My hearing aids didn't work, and I took them off, and I don't use them any longer. And that was different, very different. I mean very, very different. And I was studying sign language and preparing for the day I became totally deaf. And what you see is my signing. and my struggles. It's hard to really accept the language enough. And I, I fell. I was still trapped and stuck. Practicing Zanden or working with the deaf culture. Which one do I choose? And for many years, many years, I tried both, incorporating them.

[18:12]

And it seemed to work okay. I was practicing maybe two or three years in this, and I went to Gallaudet, and I studied sign in the summer, in the sign program, and it was fun. And I had two weeks in total immersion in signing. I lived in the dorms. turned off my voice, everyone, all the hearing people during that summer turned off their voice. And it was forbidden to use their voice. And I liked that idea because I chose to turn off my voice and it was enough to be deaf. And people didn't understand that. And some here in my family, some of my family were waiting for me to start speaking again. And maybe, you know, it's difficult to explain this to individuals or different people. I felt, you know, speaking, I couldn't really actually hear myself.

[19:18]

And I felt such this feeling in my throat. You know, I said, okay. And I just still, you know, I wondered if it was like speaking, if I could do that myself, you know? It was like... That was where I was telling myself to still analyze and search for the deafness that I... So my problem for the many years was to actually change this and this. Signing, being deaf in the head, or being hearing in the head. Which one is controlling? And you go through all your different friends who are deaf. And there's the deaf brain. And then you go back and you write down what's going on. And you go to hearing people and you change it to the hearing brain. And you become a little fatigued. Because it's not because they're not the same.

[20:24]

And I was stuck on how to separate the two. The deaf and the hearing. I was saying that I know in my mind, in my head, but not in my... I'm deaf, yes. Well, and you, you're not born deaf. And people love to tell me who they wanted, who wanted to talk. They said, no, no, you should actually speak because you're not born deaf. And it was a stupid idea. I thought that... I know that I would never, I was not born deaf, I was never born deaf. So I thought about that in the sentence, and I couldn't actually go back in time and change how I was born. And they know that, and I know that. So I thought it had a different meaning, and there is a difference. And I still analyze and try to figure out what the meanings are, what they're saying.

[21:30]

They wanted to believe that I was learning how to sign that was good enough. But it wasn't connected to the deaf community. And that was wrong. Because I saw a lot of people doing a lot of work. And what I had to do was, as a priest for deaf people, as a hearing, in a hearing temple, the first I needed to do is to understand the practice of my deafness. Zen, they couldn't actually change. And they couldn't actually go back and forth and back and forth. And that was difficult. That was very hard.

[22:33]

And I loved to study the books. I was like a nerd at doing this. I went over and over and over again studying my way out of the difficulties and the problems and preparing for the problems before they arrived. And I loved to do that. And sometimes what I would do, and I would think about the goodness and what was right and what was wrong. And the two questions that I had was, that I asked myself, there's only two questions. They were always having the same answer though. The first question is where I, where am I? And the second time I went to ask why am I here? And what time is it now? In the past, if I died and arose again, would I be here?

[23:41]

Maybe I had arrived. And if I arrived, it was always not how I imagined. It's never how you would. So what do you do with that? And those are habits. And I just want to continue on my practice today, being deaf and learning to be myself, to become a one person, the whole person and not two. And that is difficult. It is not an easy job to become two, changing for people. I love... to have people like me becoming a priest would help, but because helping myself at the same time, I'm trying to enjoy people and what they say and the hearing and the deaf.

[24:54]

the hearing people for being hearing, and the deaf people for being deaf. And then two days ago, I met a lot of people, a lot of deaf people. We went to the movie Star Wars. It was really cool. There's like 300 deaf people all gathered for this event, and they're all talking. And then when I signed Understanding Faster, And my signs, and my hearing is going down, and I'm getting used to signing more and more. And I didn't stop and look away. And I wasn't fatigued from signing. It was always new people that I encountered. And they weren't angry, they weren't mad. And I had to learn how to sign, and that's where I am. But one difference, and one individual who was signing, they asked me if I was losing my hearing, if I was hearing... or deaf, if I'm using sign language, and you weren't born deaf, and I said, they were kind of shocked.

[26:04]

And I didn't understand what I was going through. But all, all the deaf was very, very supportive. There was only one that wasn't. And why? To focus on the one. And that should be wrong. For hearing people who are actually most supportive, and one or two, it's, They're talking. I need to focus on the two and the one. And why was I doing that? So my practice for myself for the next year, this year, is not to compare, analyze myself, and find out the meaning to be deaf. And only, then only, a priest A Zen is one person. The Zen priest. Thank you for listening to me.

[27:08]

It's an amazing story. That's how you can be deaf and a Zen priest. Then a deaf Zen priest or monk. It's very interesting. Very inspiring to hear your perspectives. They're very different than mine. It's beautiful how you've been able to internalize that. I wanted to add a little bit about working with deaf students now. I'm a deaf student myself. I'm deaf, and I have some who are also blind. So deaf-blind people It's, you know, they're out there as well. So I do have two deafblind students I'm working with now. So how do we work with each other? We have to communicate through tactile means where, let's give an example for some people in the audience, where you would sign and they would put their hands over your hands as you are signing and that's how they would understand you.

[28:21]

Now, that's how you transmit the Dharma through tactile means, right? That's an interesting approach. Our deaf-blind student came up to me for the first time and, you know, I said, you know, teach me how to meditate, so I taught him. And the next day, the student came back and I taught him some more. Things were going well. The third day, he came back to do zazen with me, and he said, I think I understand what you mean about detachment. To letting go, to letting go. I think I understand what you mean. And I see, you know, I'm watching my own thoughts. I understand that, watching my own thoughts. But what do you do about whoever is watching me watching my thoughts? I'm going, whoa!

[29:26]

This is the third day. Chill. Yeah. I should give him some Braille books here. Keep him busy. That was a lot of trouble. So how to live our life as a deaf person. How do we do that? or a transgender or a gay person or a person of color? How do we do that? How do we stop excluding ourselves from the Dharma? Do we have a concept in deaf culture? We call this deaf gain is one way we express this, deaf gain. Maybe you've heard of this. So TVs have captions, closed captions for example. You're aware of that, so deaf people can watch TV shows. And we had to fight for that. Yeah, we really had to fight for that.

[30:31]

And finally we won. And now everything has captions on it, on TV. It's a legal requirement. But when you go into a sports bar, what do you think they're doing? They're watching the captions too, right? So deaf people benefit, but everybody benefits. And hearing people get benefit from this as well. You're walking outside on the sidewalk. You know, you see the curb cuts. Right? It's a standard thing. So people with wheelchairs, they had to fight very hard to get this. And now you're walking around with your baby stroller. You know? It's great. That has benefited you as well. It's a benefit for everybody. Now in terms of deaf gain in Zen practice, at my home temple in New York City, there's some, we have some signs, some specific signs for some chants that we do.

[31:43]

We have some chants that we do and we've learned how to sign them. So for example, the robe chant, right? We call it the vast robe of liberation, right? And we have worked out a way to sign this. It looks like this. The vast robe and then free, vast robe free are the signs we use. And some hearing people have learned that, how to sign that chant as well that we do in the mornings. And I've noticed some are practicing and they've come up to me and they said, hey, how do you chant? I've been chanting that for 15 years, the same chant, but now I finally understand it. Vast, vast, okay, it's great. They spread out their hands and they have a new understanding and how to become vast.

[32:45]

And they say, I understand it now. That is deaf gain there. And using American Sign Language, First, it's an accessibility. I had the issue of fitting into a hearing temple, and how would I access that? I didn't want to bother people too much. And now, the hearing people are getting an advantage from us, from my deaf game. It's very interesting how the tables have turned. There was an old Zen expression You see with the eyes, but nothing is known. You see with the eyes, but nothing is known. When you see with the ears, nothing is hidden.

[33:50]

And the point of that is it's how we take in information through our senses, right? But what is that like when something comes into my empty field? And how do I practice with that? It might be different for me. I'm gonna tell a little story. I have a friend who's a park ranger with the, you know, working in the national forests. And that person is a researcher. That's his job. He researches all day long. And every time I visit him, he's like Zen master. He's like a Zen master because, and he doesn't know anything about Zen, but it's perfect.

[34:56]

I ask him, so how do you study the whole forest that's so vast and you have to, there's everything included in the forest. So how can you look at that? And he says, I just look at whatever's right in front of me. I take care of that. And I take care of things all day long and then I go to sleep and I'm fine with that. I go, okay. It's like one of our chants or prayers. I say, tell me more about your job, I told him. And he said, well, one thing that he would do in terms of his research, he has a metal hoop that he would, you know, he held up the hoop and say, this to me right now is the whole forest. And I'm going, what? So this is attention, this is basically focusing.

[35:58]

He had my attention. And he said, what I do with my research is I close my eyes, put my hands over my eyes, then I spin around, right? And then I let go and I send the hoop flying to wherever it might land, could be anywhere. And then I go and I look at what's inside the circumference of the hoop. And I count how many blades of grass, how many leaves are there, what kind of bugs are there. And I make careful notation of all of that, focusing or paying attention to those individual details. I said, wow, that is interesting. And what's the hardest part about your job, I asked him. He said, Sometimes I lose the hoop. Because I'm spinning around, I'm throwing the hoop, and where the heck did it go? I have no idea. And I said, what happens next when you lose your hoop? And he said, well, I give 10 minutes to look for it.

[37:02]

And then if I can't find it, I quit. I go fishing. Amazing. Yes. And thinking about my empty field, what happens in my sphere of practice. So I want to encourage all of you, you know, you're my little new group of people that I'm working with here. It's sort of like you have your hoop. And it might be a little bit bigger. You know, it might look like your practice sphere might be expanding to some degree.

[38:04]

It includes you, and it might include the next person, or it might expand enough to where you include this whole center, right? And what would that be like if your sphere of practice could expand in that way? If your hoop could include the full Bay Area, what would that be like? What would it be like if you lose your hoop? Yeah, you're spinning around, you send it flying, and you just can't find it. What would that be like for you? And I encourage all of you to let go this weekend to really let go of your hoop and try to include everything. Yeah. And thank you for listening and for your attention to both of us.

[39:08]

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. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, please visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we all fully enjoy the Dharma.

[39:36]

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