This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. I don't know if you've been upstairs, but on the steps on the way to the second floor are lilacs. How many of you are from the Midwest? Not so many. I was East Coast too, East Coast and Midwest. Yes, and there in Switzerland, there's something amazing about the smell of lilacs. And so I was thinking that I hope tonight's talk is like the springtime of our relationship. So you heard what the talk is meant to be. There was a very specific request. So some of it will involve telling you actually what I do.

[01:03]

And I hope that this talk will be both encouraging and informative and intimate. I'm going to mention just some phrases to give you a context of how I practice with what I do. and I'll be going more into detail later on, but just to give you a flavor of what I work with. And it goes like this. Too much, too little. Too fast, too slow. Too hard, too soft. Too aggressive, too passive. too confident, too unsure, too results-oriented, too process-oriented, too granting, too grasping.

[02:13]

These are my koans. I wouldn't be able to even begin to do what's been requested of me to do if I wasn't focused somehow on balance. Balance in the middle of all of these ideas and states. One word, I'm going to do a little promotional piece on the importance of work practice for those of you who have any doubts. Work practice is incredibly integrated into our Soto Zen way. When Buddhism came to China. It was not possible for it to integrate into the society without the monks beginning to actually join the community in work. They would not have been accepted into the society in the state that they started in India. So work and a famous saying, a day without work is a day without eating, came from that time in China.

[03:20]

So all the way through our lineage, work practice, work practice, is very held up. And Dogen, Ehei Dogen, has written many things about this, including entire instructions on how to practice in various work positions. He talks in the Tenzo Kokkyokan about putting the mind of the way to work. And to me, this is why I think this practice is going to continue to find its way into our culture because the request of how to be in life, and most people have a working life, comes to us and we need to be able to not just tell people about work practice, we need to show them work practice. I met this wonderful man recently, Jacob Needleman, an amazing philosopher. And he has just a couple little paragraphs that I'm going to read you.

[04:25]

It's the only thing I'm going to read, so I won't do this again. But please listen, because I think he talks about the importance of this. He says, spiritual practice brings us to the direct experience of another condition of ourselves. A condition that we know is closest to what human beings are meant to be. In the practice of meditation, the inner being begins to open forward an energy and a capacity that we deeply wish for, and that brings us closer to the power to see, love, and serve the good. But what, in fact, is our condition in the situations of everyday life, in our business lives or jobs, with our families, in our day-to-day ethical aspirations? To know about this unfathomable inner freedom and to touch it only with the privileged conditions of meditation is not enough. Surely, the next step of the spiritual search in our culture is the capacity to search for this condition concretely in the midst of life and activity.

[05:35]

Thank you, Mr. Needleman. So what do I do? fortuitously, I'm preparing for a job review. So I've actually been reading my job description recently. And this is what it says I do. The vice president models the qualities of generosity, inclusion, and non-possessiveness in developing the material resources of our community. She builds the foundation of culture of Donna, as expressed through the careful and respectful cultivation of relationships within the three wills of giver, receiver, and gift. So that's how my job is described. Who my boss is, is the president. I report to Robert Thomas. And I report to him. He is younger than I am. And when we first actually got into these positions, which was...

[06:41]

somewhat around the same time, it was kind of like he was Obama and I was Hillary. You know, if you think about it, he has that kind of Obama quality and I'm from Hillary's generation. So I report to Robert and I also partner with Robert on many things. And I am responsible for guiding all of the fundraising and in collaborating with the other officers and the directors and the abbots in creating our plans for sustainability and staying aligned with the plan. So it's one thing to be part of creating what we think is a good direction forward. And it's another activity to keep checking in with those plans and seeing, are we staying aligned? Is it still appropriate to stay aligned? So these are the kind of conversations that we have in addition to the specifics of raising money. And I oversee a staff of seven people.

[07:47]

I was going to list all the meetings I go to, but I didn't have enough pages. So I just can say that every week I have five and a half hours of set meeting times. So those are several meetings that I go to. I don't know if you all know, but the four officers and the director of each temple get together every week and go over how we're integrating, help each other in making decisions. So that's one two and a half hour meeting every week. And there are many others. Those are just the weekly meetings. There are monthly meetings. The board meets once a month. Sometimes it's for four and a half hours. Sometimes it's all day. Sometimes there are three day retreats with the board. So I have a very active relationship with the board of directors. And the Abbott's executive group, which is a group, it may be mysterious to you, it's a very wonderful opportunity for the spiritual leadership and the administrative leadership to get together and turn the decisions in all directions.

[08:58]

So how is that affecting, that decision going to affect the person and the practice, and how is it going to affect the institution and the financial stability. And those things come together and we turn those together. I think it's a very, it's an innovation. Steve Stuckey started it maybe three years ago. And it's very, very helpful. So I'm part of that once a month. They meet every week, the central abbot, the president and the board chair. And then they're joined by the other abbots and the other officers once a month. I'm also on the Senior Living Committee and the Elderment Policy Committee, and I've been working on that for a very long time. And I'm involved with all of the benefit events that we do. I go out to lunch a lot. I go out to dinner a lot. I go to people's homes a lot. I go to events where there are like-minded people and we're enjoying something that's maybe similar to our practice but not our practice.

[10:05]

And I have many phone conversations, sometimes very early in the morning with the East Coast. I'm often working every day. Not all the time, but often. So what do we do in these meetings? We talk about budgets. In my area, we talk about how to thank donors, how to understand how the donors are connected to different temples, different teachers, different interests. We figure out how can we connect the donors with the things that they might be interested in or have already expressed interest. We discuss among ourselves how to talk about money with ourselves, how to understand the need for resources and the relationship around giving and receiving.

[11:10]

We talk about how to strengthen our communication with the entire extended Sangha, so in this room and beyond. We plan events that will give us the opportunity to gather together and share our enthusiasm for the Dharma and have the sense of community. And I, in particular, and a few others, talk with people about giving. When I'm through talking, giving you sort of a presentation, I'm going to stop and have an opportunity for questions. So I put that out there. That is often something that people have a lot of opinions about and concerns about and questions about. So we'll have a chance to talk about that. So what are the challenges in my work? As many of you know, we in this training, in this practice, have an opportunity to do something that we don't know how to do.

[12:19]

It's really, really helpful. It helps with the beginner's mind. So in coming into the Sangha, we're put in positions where we're sort of thrown in a little bit with some guidance, but we have to figure it out. And often it isn't something that plays to our strength. In my experience, that often happens maybe for the first five years that we're in training on staff. We're moved every year or two years into a new... Just when we learn how to survive in an area, we stop and we're moved into a new area. And it's very beneficial. I see, I've seen my habit mind come up, my survival mind come up in that situation. And then you can study it. So after a while, however, I think the next challenge, and certainly the challenge I'm having now, is being asked to do something that you think you know how to do. So I came to Zen Center with a life before I came here, and part of that life involved talking with people about money.

[13:31]

It wasn't a nonprofit situation. It was independent films where I was talking about investments. But often the films didn't make money and people chose to get involved because they were connected to the content of what we were doing. So I had this experience and... I was gonna tell you what it was like to work in the kitchen. Before I get into that, I kind of think I know how to do this, which is a problem. When I was asked to be Tenzo at Green Gulch, I had never even chopped a carrot in the kitchens here. They just said, here, plop. You know, the Tenzo. Luckily, I remember I basically, I don't think I slept for the first month because the thing about Tenzo is the food train is always moving. It doesn't stop. There are three meals a day. So luckily I had a wonderful, Pucatan, a wonderful assistant who actually knew how to cook.

[14:34]

And he and I together figured out how to meet that challenge. And the teaching of that was this kind of how to work in a tidal wave, how to work in a situation that you cannot control. It was very clear you can't control that. But you just respond, and you keep going, and you make mistakes often, and you then move on to the next meal. So you drop that mistake because there's no time to dwell. You learn, hopefully, but then there you are. It's lunch after you burned the oatmeal. So I discovered, do you know that fava beans have to be peeled twice? I had no idea. And I found that out half an hour before the meal. We had to peel them all by hand the second time. So that was a practice. That was a wonderful opportunity to be inadequate. So in this situation where...

[15:36]

I think I know how to do this. It's more subtle. The learning is more subtle. Years ago when I was in this situation and relating to people around money, I have to look at what was different then from the way it is now. What's different now? And what's different is my vow. So I think what I was doing before was wholesome. The content of what I was putting together was wholesome and helpful to people. But my way of working with it was to say, this is a really good idea and it's going to help you. Now please move out of the way so I can get it done. You know, just get out of my way. really oriented towards the benefit of the end product and pushing aside the relationships.

[16:46]

Not all of them, but some of them. For sure, some of them. So in this current situation, I am committed to meeting each person each person in the process, not just the donor or the potential donor, but everyone I work with. And that's basically all of you, because we're all actually working on this together. I work with some people every day, and I see them, but we're all doing this together. In order to do this, in order to shift my habit of... trying to just get something done that I think is beneficial and harming people along the way, I am sure. I need to raise up, you know, in those couplets, in those koans of too much, too little, too process-oriented, too goal-oriented.

[17:54]

I am very much a doer. So I am going to move towards an outcome with a lot of energy. So in my life, I need to raise up, even above the middle, the qualities of listening. Just listening. With no end. No goal. Caring about where that other being is right then. Whether or not it accords with what I think needs to be done next. Stopping in the midst of a lot of pressure for outcomes. We are not immune from pressuring each other to do something by a certain time. That's part of the process, too. We can't completely drop that. But in my life, it's really important for me to raise up the

[19:00]

Atmosphere, basically, of listening. That's the most important thing, I think, for me. Stopping. Just even stopping right now. I'm listening to my body and rain and creaking on the bench. I want to get through the talk. What happens if I never turn my eyes back to the paper? What if I just sit here and listen? So that's what I work with. I should say, in my current situation, there are things that I don't do well, which are very obvious to me and others. And I'm not a very good planner. I just hit the ground running. And so actually, one of my chief...

[20:01]

Helpers is here tonight, Lisa Hoffman. We asked her to come in and help me plan so I can just keep doing. I don't like to fit, you know the Excel sheets where you, like, those rectangular boxes? My mind is more of a vision mind, so to actually cram my mind into that shape in those little boxes in that chart is painful. It really, it hurts my mind. And I will do it if you ask, but probably you want me to get some help doing that. And so Lisa helps me in many ways, and that's one of them. So I'm not so good at that. And I've had to learn how to manage people. In my previous existence, I had my own company, so I could choose who I worked with or not. And I could do sort of, I could shape my... my activities towards what was comfortable for me. Here, as most of us know, this is not about being comfortable.

[21:07]

It's about meeting every being and every situation in an open and relaxed way, but that's not necessarily comfortable. People have needs that I don't understand, because they're very different from me. So again, to stop and consider the value of those other ways to be able to meet someone else's needs, which is completely different from mine and could be considered to be in the way if I didn't watch myself. So learning more how to do that, I would say I have a lot more to learn about that. I think I've been taught by the people I work with and by the people who help me. the senior teachers and the other officers and directors who I work with. Challenge number two in my current position is understanding the difference between being busy and being fully engaged.

[22:18]

I am I have this idea, and I don't know if you agree or not, but I think that we can't actually know our limits until we reach them. So I tend to go way out to the edge to find out where that is. I'm not someone who will pull back before the edge. That's not my style. So I will go to the edge of what my limit might be and see if it's there or not. And sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't. In part of my job qualifications, one of the sentences that I pulled out says, this person will know how to take care of his or herself and her practice in a position that often demands more than can be accomplished each day. That's the job. It can't all be done.

[23:22]

So I burn hot. I've been using that phrase recently. I feel like I burn hot. And I tend to burn up all the energy that's available to me in a day. Whether that is the best way or not, I don't know. I've done it all my life. In this situation, I am being nourished all the time by the activity itself, by the relationships I have, by the... I get tickled by creative possibility. It gives me joy that there's something being made here and we don't know quite what it is and we're all doing it together. And all those many pieces coming together, I love that. And that... helps me, I think, replenish when a lot of energy is being expended.

[24:25]

So somehow it's being expended, but it's also being replenished at the same time. Enthusiasm, love for the people, respect for the practice that we're engaged in. And there's a little bit in there, and this is tricky, there's a little bit in there of the Bodhisattva vow. is to save all beings. So I want to do that as best I can. I want to meet every situation as best I can. Perhaps I am burning too hot, and I want to keep studying that. There's an element of this burning hot that is around excitement, and I think excitement is something that can shield me or us from suffering if we're excited. So I have to watch whether or not this engagement makes me too high, if you know what I mean.

[25:32]

The first lesson I received, the first teaching I received when I moved into Zen Center, and it was within a month after I moved in here, was... All my life, I had equated excitement and happiness. So I led a very exciting life. But I kept having to turn the heat up, right? Because it wasn't exactly happiness, but I had equated those two. It occurred to me, I think I was standing in the lobby right here, and this idea occurred to me that happiness and peace are the same thing. Big difference, a big difference. So how much of this engagement that happens every day in these very full, engaged days, how much of that is excitement that's masking a kind of fear, a kind of concern, a kind of an anxiety, trying to make up for that by being high?

[26:37]

And how much of it is a kind of joyful, peaceful engagement? That's one of my other koans, one of my other questions. So too much, too little, too excited or too detached. That's another way we can run from suffering is to Quickly, let it go. Just let that go. Let's not care so much. Too quick, too slow. I've learned when I feel... So some of you... I've said this in a class that Robert and I gave on work practice.

[27:39]

I'm a person who's solution-oriented, so my mind works really quickly. You give me a problem... I got a solution. And I will offer it. But if I offer it out of an anxiety that is building right here, it is not a good thing. I have just shut down all possibility of anyone else coming up with something, for one thing, if I'm too quick and I'm too forceful. And it's forced when there's anxiety. It comes out with energy. is a convincing kind of energy and a dominating kind of energy. And I've learned that that comes from my anxiety of not wanting the situation to be unknown. I want a solution. I want to get rid of the anxiety. And so I found out that that's my way. And I'm in many meetings where that is visible to me and to others. I've had great feedback around that.

[28:43]

I continue to commit myself to work on that. Christina asked us, but me, since I was first, to talk about what did I give up to do this job? You asked me that. So I've been thinking about that. I was... living in Green Gulch with my teacher, with other teachers, with friends, and with known difficult relationships. So familiar, I wouldn't want to call them enemies, but familiar difficulties that I had, you know, learned. learned were going to keep coming. They were going to keep coming up, but I kind of knew them, and I was willing to work with that particular pain.

[29:45]

And great support system and friends. And I was studying with my teacher and going to weekly priest meetings and having weekly dokusang. When I was asked to take this job on, it meant moving to the city and away from my training relationship with my teacher in that direct way. And so... For a while I was able to maintain going out to Green Gulch and going to the priest meeting, but it just wasn't realistic. It's basically half a day. So I've made some adjustments and I do other things, but I did give that up. I did give that up. And so I just want to be honest about that. That doesn't make me happy, but I was willing to do that for, to respond to the request to do this job. I've also given up being able to drop my engagement with my work at the end of the day.

[30:57]

My work is with me all the time. As I go to sleep, I don't, I stop myself from doing emails most of the time. by 10. Occasionally, if you catch an email from me after that, please remind me not to do that again. But I do try to stop at that point. But then it starts again at 7. So mostly, I don't dream about work. But pretty much, that's the only time that I'm not. And this is not a painful situation. I enjoy. the process. I'm feeling really good about being part of the team that's working on wanting Zen Center to be here for future generations to appreciate and study here and be exposed to the teachings. But it's pretty much what I do all the time.

[31:59]

And And the other thing is that because of that full engagement, I am not as fully engaged in the formal schedule. So I'm not at Zazen every morning. I work at it several times a week. I try to get there, and I took up the Thursday night open sitting group and discussion group because I felt like, here's a way. I can participate. I can probably do this. And I've been doing it maybe for two, two and a half years every Thursday night. So I found that way to participate and contribute. But I am not with you all the time in the mornings at Zazen. So what is my, besides these various couplets, what's my, I have a current question that came up for me actually in a practice discussion that I was having with someone, and I found myself suggesting this to the other person, but of course, it was for me.

[33:05]

And what came up was the question, not what are you enthusiastic about, or how do you want to help, or what do you want to do, or any of those, but what is it that warms your heart? What do you love? What do I love? Because if I can continue to touch that, because at a point in the next year, I will not be doing this anymore. We're looking for a new group of people to take on the leadership. And I'm pretty settled with not knowing what I'm going to be doing. Because nothing matters, really. The content of the work doesn't matter to me so much. It's being clear about what about it. What about the way in which I'm doing what I'm doing do I love? What is it that warms my heart? So some of the things that I know warm my heart, my puppy.

[34:10]

It was really helpful for me to get my puppy when I started working on the fundraising. I actually made it a condition. I said, I'll do the job if I can have a puppy. And he's been very important to me, caring about someone else. It is somewhat of a, actually, I don't think about work when I walk my dog or play with him or throw the ball, those kind of things. My heart is warm, actually, when I'm in these relationships around practice, whether it's in a small discussion group, whether it's in a one-on-one meeting where I'm with a teacher and I'm having practice discussion, whether I'm part of practice discussion with someone else. I love that. My heart loves that. I feel pretty good around my granddaughters. I love that. That's warm.

[35:13]

I can feel it. And I think I love listening. think I do. I'm still checking that out. I need to get better at it. There's something warm in there, not moving. Actually, all of those relationships I just mentioned are about listening. The warmth comes from me getting out of the way and receiving. And then the heart kind of warms up, heats up. And I love What I was describing earlier, it's hard to feel it as a particular thing, but when lots of disparate pieces of some big thing come together and make something new. I love that. I love that. So I just finished what was written.

[36:22]

I'd like to see now for a few minutes, as long as the Eno, wherever he is, says, to open it up to any questions that you have, and I'll see. I can meet them. Does anyone have any questions about what I do or what? You're pointing. Oh, yes, David. I, too, . Things of that, thank you, so I have a lot of it. And I find that, that the times, you know, have such conflicts, and to keep the tributes that we met before are so very important.

[37:26]

But also, you come from a visionary. Yes. This has been an opportunity to be part of a team. The process started maybe 10, 12 years ago when Vicki was president. And there was a visioning process. It was a time for renewal. And as we're coming on to 50 years, that's an appropriate time to look and say... What are we doing? How are we doing it? How shall we continue it? Are there some new ways of seeing things? So I came along as a part of that after it began, and then I was asked to be a part of that, and it was a privilege and a joy. Vicki? Yeah, so unless we're careful. I don't sense that, but I'm wondering if there's a particular set of jargon teachings or phrases that come up with you regularly.

[38:48]

Sometimes there might be just a phrase from teaching or a particular teaching that someone is giving you. that's particularly helpful in this role? I'm just wondering what's going on. When I think about the study that I've been doing over the past few years, it doesn't have a lot of catchy phrases. So I've been studying Dogen with Shinshu, with a group, and we've studied Uji for a year and a half, and Busho. And it lends itself to word-by-word study as opposed to wonderful catchphrases. And then I've been studying the Samhdi Numarjana Sutra with Reb for about 12 years. And so, you know, I don't think that that really, the kind of words that I think you're talking about, I think the words that I used here of too fast, too slow, you know, too detached,

[39:57]

too excited, those mean a lot to me. And I think that the wish to study equanimity is what's feeding those phrases. And that has, I think, and I think that for the first several years that we're here, we receive lots and lots and lots. And then at a certain point, it's like, oh, Maybe I should give back for a while. And that's the turning from the kind of why I came here and then doing administrative work. That's how I see that. can't be done without that. Tova?

[40:59]

You said a couple of times that you're working on listening, that you really value listening, even talking to the granddaughters, to the donors we talk with, and that you could be a better listener. I'm wondering what you think would help you become a better listener. What just came to mind, and I don't know why, is being willing to lose I mean, a lot of times it's not everybody gets along with everybody.

[42:03]

And a lot of times, someone will do something a certain way, and someone will still go that way. You know, they don't do it that way. So I think it's important to me to get along with Don't take a poll in this room. There are people that I don't get along with so well, that I'm not so skillful with. And one of the things about... Because I think for me, the key where some of my failure is, is around the kind of too hard, too soft. So... in a situation with a group of people, and it's mostly in a kind of a group situation as opposed to just meeting someone one-on-one, but like talking about what we're doing together and having different opinions on what to do.

[43:07]

Because I perceive this as a culture that is conflict-averse, we will kill each other with kindness, you know, to a fault sometimes. We will avoid difficult conversations. I'm not so afraid of that. So I err on the other side. I will bring something forward probably too soon or too harshly. And so in a group dynamic, there's usually one person who does that. And it has been me a lot. So noticing that and getting feedback on that, I... What I've tried to do is I've tried to ask other people to come forward and join me so that I don't have to do that alone. I think it's a valuable function in a group to be willing to bring forward a difficult comment, for instance. But it's not healthy for it always to be the same person.

[44:13]

So I just have to study through mistakes. I study through mistakes, and I make them. Mimi, I'm working my way this way. I don't know if anyone over here has a... I made a mistake at the board meeting last week. And it was that anxiety that I wasn't paying attention to and something was building up and I said something that was out of alignment with the other officers instead of being lined up with them in front of the whole board. And it felt terrible. And I was able near the end of the board meeting to raise my hand and apologize.

[45:17]

And in the board meeting, I got additional feedback that that was not appropriate, what I did, in a very kind of harsh way. And I went up to the person who gave me additional feedback afterwards, and that person turned to me, said it again, and then gave me a hug. So later, I went to the other officers who I had not been aligned with, and I apologized again, and I asked for a hug. I needed a hug. because I was embarrassed, I felt badly, because I wouldn't want anyone to do that to me, and it wasn't helpful, and so, yeah, it's painful, but I have a commitment with the other people I work with to keep working it out, so that really helps. To go away and not have a sense of being able to apologize and have it met and accepted would be very, very painful. That's not what we have here.

[46:18]

more visible. So I think it's your position that's very visible when they're representing that center. And I wonder if you've had the experience where the personal relationship of the moment or the personal relationship history with someone takes a backseat to their experience of Zen center of the moment or their experience of Zen center of the institution or other people who have represented the institution. in their history and whether you've experienced that kind of gap? And if so, what did you pick them? Nothing specific comes out into personal history with Zen Center and my personal relationship, but personal relationship with someone and a financial relationship with Zen Center. So, and does one go back so that one comes forward? How to work with that I think is something that I've, I have a couple of good friends I've had for a long time, and it has taken me all the time we've been in the Capitol campaign to figure out how to be balanced enough in that shift to be able to actually say to them, would you please consider making a gift to this thing that you know is

[48:18]

and it was also wonderful for me. I'm almost there, but it's a very difficult shift. So having a friendship with someone who has maybe a difficult relationship with Zen Center would be similar, I think. I can't think of someone like that right now. There might be. But that financial and friendly relationship is a similar challenge to be... I want to be authentic, 100%. I don't want to be leaning. And so how can that be? It's hard work. I don't know if there's one more question. If not, we can... want them to be aware that it's possible, and I'm going to weep a little bit, I think, to find something that you can completely devote yourself to, that you're totally lined up with, and that's vast, you know, vast, and

[49:58]

and that will use all of you up. I want all of me to be used up. And this practice does that. The practice alone does that, let alone the challenges of the organization and working together and living in community. It uses me all up, and then there I am again. So that kind of possibility, if I can show them that, and then they can find that for themselves, that would make me happy. Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click giving.

[51:08]

May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[51:11]

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