Good evening. My name is Christina. The Tanta said, tell them who you are. And I said I would ask him. Right now I'm sitting here thinking about what to talk to you about. I do live generally in Marin County. Been a resident at Zen Center for many years. Still work a lot at Zen Center and with Zen Center. And right now I'm here to coordinate Sangha Week, which is started about 20 years ago, something like that. Originally it was thought of, or the idea was that people from affiliated Sanghas could come to Tassahara before the guest season so that the students here could practice on them how to treat the guests.

[01:19]

Feed them and house them and also The Sangha Week people participate in their community work in the morning, in the morning schedule, go to Zazen and work with the students, and eat lunch with the students, and then in the afternoon, they go off and have their own program or time off, and in the evening, they're guests. So of course, over the course of the years, that has changed a little bit. We're still helping a lot launch the guest season, but also the guest season has already started. And so we are all here, a big mix of guests, continuing students, people that have done practice periods and stay on through the summer, maybe already several years, gone round and round with practice periods in summer. which is actually in itself an absolutely transformative process, if you get a chance to do that.

[02:32]

I always, when I came new to Zen Center, I always felt I could tell the people that had spent years at Tassajara from the other people who hadn't had the possibility to do that. There's something deeply transformative to be in this valley through season after season. To me, it always felt like the whole year was also like one day, like 24 hours, like a night, the winter practice periods, and the day, the summer. It always felt to me like an analogy of what happens. And you could also turn it around and say, you know, the practice periods are the summer and the summer season is the winter because it's... Somebody once said, in the winter, the practice is outside.

[03:40]

It's visible. In the summer, it's internalized. But we all came here, so summer helpers, people that come for a few weeks, for the whole summer, out of curiosity, because they don't know what else to do, they want to do something else, or they want to come particularly to this place to practice. So people who come for the Tai Chi retreat, people who come for baking bread, visiting teachers. So we're a mix. And the mix will keep changing and changing and changing. And we all come with some ideas or some desire. We come here. And in a movie I just saw recently,

[04:45]

at the introduction, the person says, we're going to do our usual job, and so we expect it to happen like all the other times. And then he says, but life has a way of changing the foreseeable, and then the unforeseeable becomes your life. And that's in some ways a good way of describing practice. And I think we all have already experienced this innumerable times. I was here last week, we had mosquitoes, we had heat, there wasn't the space for me to stay over, so I went home, took all my warm clothes with me because foreseeably would stay warm and get warmer. I come back here and I'm freezing. All my warm clothes are there and all my summer clothes I haven't even worn last week because it was a little too cool for them or in my closet.

[05:53]

Plus, my heater doesn't work and my toilet doesn't work. So my mind, of course, goes, what am I doing here? Why did I come here? Is this a terrible place? I think this is a terrible place. Get me out of here. And There is Mark and Mateo, and I don't know the other person's name. Are you here? Joel? You know, working away, trying to get my toilet to work, trying to get the heat to work, just continuously. I'm in the dining room. you know, and I hear Ed teaching, you know, three fingers of olive oil or salt, and it's like in your hand, and I mean, who would have foreseen that you bake bread and use your hands as measurements?

[06:56]

And three fingers and two fingers, and you know, it's all unforeseeable to some degree. So, how do we practice here? And one thing I thought when that happens, you know, so where do I put my foot down internally when my mind doesn't like what's going on and my body goes cold, cold, where can I get warm? So, in that poem, Faith in Mind, it says something like the way is simple and clear for the one who has no preferences, or easy, you know, just no problem. When the least like or dislike arises, later on it says, the mind is lost in confusion.

[08:01]

So do I pay attention to my mind that gets activated by me not particularly liking what's going on? I do have heat. I can use my toilet. It's not fixed, but we figured out how to use it. No problem. So where do I put my weight? Do I notice that actually dislike has arisen and I can just forget anything what I'm thinking? because it's born of confusion. It's just not worth anything. Can I just not go with it? And we can pay attention to our body because we can feel if the thoughts that we have, whether they close us down, make us irritable, bring up anger,

[09:13]

aversion make us tight? Or do the thoughts that come up or the responses that come up open us up, make us more kind, tolerant to every creature and plant and everything that's around us? So When aversion or irritation or dislike arises, it actually immediately creates an out there and an over here. And the out there seems to be not very friendly. Rainy, cold, windy, all those things. But if I actually pay attention, then there are all these beings that actually come to help.

[10:18]

And there's no separation. They spend hours trying to make this work. Kind, with patience, you know. So it's only a shared world and not a separating world. So because we're all faced with unforeseen, unexpected, unwanted moments, or wanted moments that go away after a while because they change, we can do a few things. So in Sangha week we had an opening circle today. We just arrived all yesterday. And a few things that people said, what I asked them is to say a couple of sentences.

[11:18]

What did bring them, what in their life did bring them to practice? Because they're practicing, they're here today. And some of the things they said, the simplicity, sit down and shut up of this practice. Or the silence, the desire for silence. Somebody said pause, the space before, having space before you respond. And so two practices that can greatly help through the summer, which are practiced a lot in the winter and some in the summer in those moments at the work circle when there is silence before we start talking. At the meals we have five or ten minutes of silence when we serve ourselves and sit down.

[12:26]

In the zendo we have silence. In the bathhouse when the students have bathing time, it's silent between 4.30 and 5.45. So it's built in. But we can actually extend that a little bit. And one possibility is when we get reactive, when we get triggered, when we feel not seen, not heard, not respected, or misunderstood, or just something to just be silent, to just refrain from talking. Also refrain from talking internally to ourself. And Hafiz has a wonderful poem in which he says, a day of silence can be a pilgrimage in itself. A day of silence can help you listen to the soul play its marvelous lute and drum.

[13:33]

is not most talking a crazed defense of a crumbling fort. Is not most talking a crazed defense of a crumbling fort. I thought we came here to surrender in silence, to yield to light and happiness, to dance within in celebration of love's victory. So of course, when we get irritated, we start thinking it's out there. There's an out there and an over here, and that out there is not behaving the way I would like. What happens is an imaginary self that is actually absolute imagination gets created and manifest, and that is always

[14:35]

connected with a tightening. You can feel the constriction in your body. You can feel the constriction in your mind. It tenses you up. So can I just not go with that? Can I just cease? Kosho used the word cease today at our circle. Kind of refrain from from talking, from creating a story that makes it always more and more true that this is really what's happening, and that this is really, really, really, really the truth, because we're confused. Because a dislike or even a like has arisen, and we have attached to it. Then I think to live in community, we can't get away from each other.

[15:39]

If you live outside and you have a difficulty with somebody at work, in the evening you can go home and be with your friends and be with your family and you don't have to see them until the next morning. Here, they cross you. you on the path, they sit beside you in the zendo, they are at the dining room table, they are in the bath, they go on the same hike you're going, you know, like you can't get away from each other. So you're living like a little bit in a pressure cooker, which is wonderful for practice, but it's also really challenging. So the second thing that I thought for this summer as an encouragement, one is to really practice silence, not speaking, till you can speak from an open, tolerant, kind place.

[16:41]

And that may take days, that may take weeks, that may take a few minutes, That could be because the way we speak to others, what we do to others, we also do to ourselves. If I am speaking from irritation, my body is irritated and the other person gets irritated energy. So we're both suffering. So the other thing that helps is forgiveness, which is an other nice poem by Hafiz, if I can find it. called Forgiveness is the Cash.

[18:05]

Forgiveness is the cash you need. All the other kinds of silver really buy just strange things. Everything has its music. Everything has genes of God inside. We would say everything is teaching us something, is teaching us the Dharma. Everything has its music. Everything has genes of God inside. But learn from those courageous, addicted lovers of glands and opium and gold. Look, they cannot jump high or laugh long when they are whirling. And the moon and the stars become sad when their tender light is used for night wars. Forgiveness is part of the treasure you need to craft your falcon wings and return to your true realm of divine freedom.

[19:12]

So when we are not silent, when we can't shut up, when we are so reactive that it comes out, can we practice forgiveness? Can we practice to forgive ourselves, which of course we do after we apologize? Can we forgive the other? Can we start fresh? And that can be a real practice, which is in some ways what also Hafiz in this other poem about silence says, has something to do about surrendering to your deeper intention of being kind, being friendly, taking care, being present.

[20:19]

And it's kind of not such a a simple thing to forgive because it's actually letting go of the self that wants to hold on. So that's what I have to say tonight. It's really wonderful to see how place is taken care of and how everything is, how you all are working together. So every time I come here I very much appreciate that and it's wonderful to come here early in the spring because you might feel all the sand in the

[21:25]

engine and stuff, how it's not working. But we're kind of on the deck of the ship. You're in the gallows, and you're in the machine room, and you're shoveling coal and running around and sweating in the kitchen. And we are on the deck of the ship, and it's just smoothly. And people are working. So some people here in Sangha Week have snorers in their room. And we tried to figure out, could we put the snores together and the others, could we separate them? But there's no space, so we can't do it. So I went and said, we're sorry, we can't find a solution. And they were, the three of them were just joking with each other and saying, you know, if we strangle her, it's not because we don't like her, we love her, but, you know, it's not personal. So there was a humor and there was a willingness to work with this. And the other person also in the other room And that is so encouraging.

[22:28]

We can wish for something else to happen, but can we stay flexible? And everybody would say, yes, of course, we try to make it happen. But if we can't, can we work with what is? And they just blew my mind. And it's so inspiring. And they talk about it to each other. It's not like, oh, we're not going to talk to you. You snore or something like that. I can't sleep. And that's already a kind of a forgiving. A forgiveness is also kind of a being soft around conditions that you might not choose. If somebody says, would you like this or would you like that? You would say, well, I like that. But if it's not negotiable, then how do you negotiate that with an open-hearted way? So it's ten past nine, soon time to go to bed.

[23:37]

If anybody has a comment or a question, this is the time. Yes? difference between forgiving someone who's asking for forgiveness and forgiving someone who is not asking for forgiveness? So two things come to mind. One is it's a wonderful practice to ask for forgiveness. So we often go and say, I'm sorry. What we don't go and say, I'm sorry, do you forgive me? If I say, do you forgive me, I ask for forgiveness.

[24:39]

If I say, I'm sorry, it's just not exactly the same and you can feel it. But I think you can forgive somebody who never asked for forgiveness. You can forgive even somebody. It's possible to forgive somebody who continues to be obnoxious and terrible and doesn't get it, in your view. But it's a different process. It has more to do with your intention. So part of this practice is... How we become flexible in some ways and interconnected has something to do how we become independent in terms of our intention. That our intention is not dependent on what we perceive the other person's behavior to be or motivation or

[25:41]

So then if your intention is to be forgiving, then it doesn't matter whether the other person says sorry or does it again or not. It's your intention and it becomes independent. you know, it's good you ask the question because it just brought back how you helped us with the putting together the computer and the projector and everything. That kind of availability and willingness to help and make it work is just phenomenal. So thank you so much.

[26:45]

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