I've got it. Thank you. So this is the first time I've spoken publicly since an accident that I was in in September. I'm here tonight to say that the Dharma can be spoken by someone who has multiple physical injuries, brain damage and a cold. What happened was I was taking some people out to lunch and as I reached to put a quarter into the parking meter, a wall from the construction site fell on my head, smashing me to the ground and you know, ending life as I expected it.

[01:00]

So this has absolutely no effect on one's ability to do zazen or to study the great matter of birth and death. The equipment is different. This week on YouTube, there's a video that unfortunately I couldn't figure out how to show you tonight. which makes the same point. And it shows a group, a camp for a residence. I think it's called Camp Foothiller. Did you see it? Not sure it's on? On? Hello? Is it on? Is it on? Hello? Strangers in the night.

[02:03]

Nope? Can you hear? Okay. That's okay. The right dial now. Okay. So, I don't know if anybody's seen the video. I think it's called Can't Fulfill. Excuse me, people in the download system. I'm sorry, I have a cough. I think it's called Camp Foothill. And it's a residence for people from teenagerhood to about 60 who have developmental disabilities. And I highly recommend it. It's in this week's featured videos on YouTube. The point of the video is that when somebody has a disability, and they're talking about what you should, presumably the person without a disability should do, or the attitude that you should have to deal with a person with a disability, which is to look through the equipment

[03:28]

the person. But I think that's just as good advice if one has the disability, the illness, the feeling of sickness, old age, and death. That's the Buddha's message. Who is it who sits with sickness, old age, and death, but isn't subject to old age and death? And so it's very poignant today, in particular because of the passing of Rabbi Alan Liu, a rabbi emeritus of Congregation Beth Shalom, House of Peace. Alan was a student here for many years, for about 10 years, and He was getting ready to be priest ordained. He was actually sewing his okesa.

[04:33]

Part of the process of sewing the okesa is to, with every stitch, say, I take refuge in Buddha. I take refuge in awakeness. I take refuge in Buddha. As he was doing that, something in him said, No. Images from his Jewish upbringing kept interfering and coming up. And then he realized that that wasn't interference, that that was actually telling him something. Later, when he met and married his wife, they somehow had a Jewish wedding. They weren't even taking it that seriously, but he found that the forms became very meaningful for him. So he decided to go to rabbinical school and he became a rabbi. And he was hired, he came back to California and was hired by Congregation Bev Shalom, where he had been a rabbi for about 20, I think totally about 20 years.

[05:47]

But there, I think about five or six years as a hired rabbi before retiring due to health. And Alan Liu was instrumental. Rabbi Liu was instrumental. He brought meditation back into Judaism. So he and Abbot Emeritus Norman Fisher were best friends. Actually, I think that Alan had started studying Zen as a response to Norman's practice. They were in? Later school together. And Norman was talking about Zen, and Alan became inspired to do it himself. And that's how he started. But the meditative tradition of Judaism had been lost to a large extent.

[06:50]

It was part of the Kabbalah teachings that a lot of those rabbis had died. in World War II. And so Alan looked to Zen Buddhism to find the roots of his own life with God and with self. Norman and Alan remained best friends, and I imagine that Alan's death is devastating for Norman. But it's also a good reminder for us. I mean, Alan was fairly young, and he's gone. So I want to read some of his teachings and some of Roman's teachings. Reading is difficult for me, so if I stumble, please forgive me. I may have to read slowly or sound out words. So this is the story.

[07:55]

a story about Norman and Alan. The Jewish Geological Seminary required rabbinical students to spend one year in Israel, and basically Norman and Alan did part of that time together. Before they Norman was in New York and went to where Alan was training and started talking to him about it. Norman had often told me, he says, about the intensely Jewish life he had led as a boy. He had been his rabbi's favorite and had prayed and studied with him every day. This is Norman. When he was 11 years old, he had vowed that he would always remain faithful to Judaism. As far as he was concerned, he had never broken that vow.

[08:56]

He never missed high holiday services. It was only because of him that I, Alan, had begun to celebrate Passover again. He never felt alienated from Judaism. He did not see Buddhism as posing a conflict to Jewish identity. In fact, in a way that was often difficult for me to understand, he saw his Buddhist practice as fulfillment of his Jewishness. Okay, so I don't want to read too much more of this, but how could it be that Norman would see Buddhist practice as a fulfillment of Jewishness? Or that one might see one's Buddhist practice as a fulfillment of another tradition or one's own private life. I ask because a lot of times when I'm talking to people in practice discussion, it's very clear that they've given up or thrown out part of their life to be here.

[10:08]

I think that's true for many people. And there's actually quite a tradition of giving up one's life or renouncing, literally renouncing part of one's life. And there are people in this room who have renounced large parts of their lives for a long time. I'm not saying that's that. So I understand that everyone who's here, even if it's for an evening, has made a choice to be here and not somewhere else. So for instance, you could be sitting at home with your family or your friends and you've made a choice to be here. So there's something here that's quite important. So the Buddha, in the early tradition of Buddhism, there are many stories about people, for instance, leaving their mothers to come and practice and letting their mothers be supported by other people.

[11:10]

to do the practice at a practice center. And I know there are people here who haven't spent as much time as they otherwise would with their families at crucial times in their family's life for that reason. And it's a private decision. But how is it that even when there's renunciation like that, that one can see the Buddhist practice as a fulfillment of what's own practice. Maybe the old way, the Taravadan way, is a little bit strict for us. Like, for instance, I was thinking about renunciation in relation to caring for my own mother. And I realized that I need to care for my mother to the end. That's my renunciation. My renunciation is not to leave my mother to her own devices, as it says in the sutras. but to care for her in the beginning, middle, and end of her decline.

[12:13]

Not by leaving here, but by fully taking care of her to the best of my ability, given my commitments as a priest. So Alan and Norman have worked it through this way, in a way that's much more skillful. than I could ever hope to show you or to say. I want to read some psalms from Norman's translation of the psalms. It's called Opening to You. And where the psalms might ordinarily say opening to God, Norman has chosen opening to you. If you read these Psalms, again, the original translation of the Psalms, they're very Zen, and yet they haven't lost the quality of being Psalms.

[13:15]

So they hint to ultimate truth, and at the same time, they're Psalms. So they can be read by a Zen person, or read by a Jewish or Christian person, equally. So for instance, this one is called Two Paths, and it's an anonymous psalm, it's the first psalm. Happy is the one who walks otherwise than in the manner of the heedless, who stands otherwise than in the way of the twisted, who does not sit in the seat of his scornful but finds delight in the loveliness of things, and lives by that pattern all day and all night. For this one is like a tree planted near a stream that gives forth strong fruit in season, and whose week doesn't wither, and whose branches spread wide.

[14:28]

Not so the Hebrewess. They are like chaff, scattered by the wind, endlessly driven. They cannot occupy their place, and so they can never be seen or embraced, and they can never be joined. What you see is always lovely and remembered, but the way of heedlessness is oblivion. Did you hear the zent? Did you hear the song? So Alan came from the completely opposite direction, and he taught meditation in the synagogue. And it wasn't watered-down meditation. At the same time, it was definitely Judaism, and not them. for people who aren't that familiar with Judaism there's a time there's a time every year when one practices with one's own broken heart and it's a time every year when one avows and recants of what one has done it's called the High Holy Days um

[16:01]

So Alan talks about this. Meditation plays a particularly important role in preparing for the journey of transformation called teshuva at the heart of the high holidays. It's a turning inward. It's a turning towards awareness. A turning away from alienation. and estrangement from ourselves and from others and from God. Towards reconciliation on all these levels, that's from meditation. Meditation makes us more aware. Helps us turn towards the reality of our life. Helps show us the truth of our lives. So that's how he applied Zen to meditation, to Judaism, using Jewish terms, but using the heart of meditation.

[17:15]

So I don't want to water down Zen and say that Zen and Judaism are the same, because they're really not. And Zen and Christianity are not the same, not at all. They're a completely different tradition. And the Buddha's path of practice with thickness, old age, and depth has its own unique flavor. But where they're alike is that one comes into contact every day with the ultimate through daily life. So we call this Vemjo Koan in Zen. It's the actualization of reality in everyday life. So whether we're washing the dishes or going to the doctor, trying to sit when we can't sit, or hear when we can't hear, whatever it is, or even in doing things that we can do and don't remember that we can't do them completely, that's...

[18:28]

that's the taste of Zen. The taste of Zen is that we're always, we're always appreciating the reality of life through everyone and everything we need. So, but it's hard to remember when you're confronted with part of your childhood or part of your life but particularly with a pattern that has a lot of associations in it. I remember one time in my own life when I had to do this. There were many times, but since I'm trying to remember Alan and some of the flavor of the practice of Judaism and Buddhism, this particular part of my life comes to mind. So one day, my mother thought that I was in a cult.

[19:33]

And her friends were very worried about me. This was maybe, I don't know, 30 or 35 years ago. I can't remember exactly when it was. But she decided, she took out a contract on me and had me deprogrammed. And it was out of love. She was trying to... bring me back to my life and to my family and not have me abandon them. And so I heard that this contract was being taken out on me and called her and said, and this was a real leap into the unknown, please don't spend the $20,000. I'll go voluntarily. And I did. And so I was in a room with the head of the American Jewish Education Council, who was also a psychiatrist who had the right to commit me and put me away for being in a cult.

[20:38]

And so he was asking me a lot of questions about the tragedy of Jewish youth. And I was getting more and more threatened. But at a certain moment, I remembered I was about to receive the precepts. And I remembered my Bodhi mind. I remembered the desire for awakening, the heart of awakening at that moment. And I looked at him and said, you've been asking a lot of questions. Is it okay if I ask you a question? And he said, why, yes. He just stopped and said, yes. And, you know, so I said, I was looking around the room and saw all the beautiful ritual objects in the room. I said, looking around the room, I see how loved everything is. It's not often that I meet someone who's really practicing Judaism with all his heart.

[21:45]

Was there a moment at which you really began to practice? Or was it always that way for you? And he just stopped. He looked at me and said, why, yeah, there was a moment like that. And I said, would you mind telling me about it? And he said, no, I wouldn't. And it turned out he had gone through the entire Jewish education system by rote, he said. And one day he was reading a commentary that said, much like the Genjo Koan, the last few words of the Genjo Koan. It said, and you shall guard them and keep them. And in keeping them, the treasure store will be revealed. You shall guard them and keep them. And in keeping them, the treasure store will be revealed. And he looked at me and he said, all that time I guarded and kept them.

[22:52]

And only then... was the treasure store revealed? And I kind of went like that and backed, peddled. And then I said, well, was it that you guarded and kept them all that time and that led to the treasure store being revealed? And this was from Buddha's practice. This was from Zen. Or was guarding and keeping them itself the treasure store being revealed? And he went, huh. And then he just delightedly started talking to me. I can't even say now, remember what he said. But we had a real conversation. He jumped up, he opened the door, and he said, she's free, she's okay. I remember that. He went to my mother and said, would you be willing to have a few sessions on the subject of letting go? So something was transmitted directly from...

[23:54]

him to me, from me to him, about the roots of our tradition. Alan talks about this. Let me see if I can find the story. I checked it off, but my mind is a little dispersed with its injuries. So give me a minute. Oh, here we go. Sometimes, look at Alan talking, sometimes we can learn more from the misreading of a story than we can from the story itself. And so he uses the tale of Isaac, the son of Radjeko of Krakow.

[24:58]

So Isaac dreamed one night that he saw a great treasure hidden under the Praga side of the Warsaw Bridge. So he woke up, I believe the next morning, and went. And when he got to the bridge, he wanted to go to the spot where he had dreamed the treasure was hidden. But there was a guard standing watch there. So he walked back and forth on the bridge the whole day long, waiting for the watchman to go away, but the watchman never moved. So... Finally, the watchman, the guard, became aware that there was this man pacing back and forth and said, what do you want? And Ezek told him that he had come because he had dreamed the night before that there was a treasure there. And the guard said, that's odd. I had a dream too. I dreamed of a great treasure also, but this one was hidden in the house of a man named Ezekiel.

[26:07]

And so Zeke went, huh! And he turned around and went right back home. And he looked around the house, but when he opened the oven door, there it was, right in the middle of the house. Ovens were the middle of the house in those days. So it's a lot like the story of Enyadatta and the second head. He was looking for his head. Do you remember? He looked everywhere for his head. I won't go there. So it's true that we often look far afield for the things we value most, when they're usually close to home. But the story makes a number of other important points. Ezek has the courage to follow this dream and the wisdom not to give up. even when it seemed to carry him in the wrong direction.

[27:10]

He's open enough to learn from the dream of another, even when it comes from a different people, a different race, or as it was thought then, and a different tradition, in this case, the non-Jewish watchman. But in recent years, and this is political, the story's been myth-told to make a very particular point. In all the versions of the story I have heard over the last 20 years, Alan says, the treasure was hidden not in Ezek's oven, but rather beneath his house. These versions of the story usually end with Ezek's digging up the buried treasure. There is a reason for this recasting of the story. It's told as an object lesson for the many Jews who turn to other religions like Buddhism, Hinduism, and so on. The stories invoke to say to them, look, you have a great treasure buried beneath your own house. You followed your dream of spiritual riches far or wide, but the treasure's been hidden beneath your own house all this time.

[28:15]

Why travel elsewhere? Why travel far and wide when all you have to do is dig up the treasure that has been beneath your house all the while? Why the change in the ending of the story? I'm convinced that it's because of this analogy, the treasure buried beneath the house represents Kabbalah, the mystical or meditative branch of Judaism. The secret are buried teachings, the ones that have to be dug up. The people who tell this version of the story are saying, in effect, you don't need Buddhism, you don't need yoga, you don't need meditation, you have Kabbalah, treasure buried in your own backyard. But, Alan says, and this is important, The treasure is not buried beneath the house in the original version of the story. It's not secret. It's hidden in the oven, in the kitchen, the most frequently used spot in the house.

[29:16]

It's hidden in plain sight. I go out to the dusty realms of other lands. If you make one this step, you... lose the way directly before you. You gain the pivotal opportunity of human form. Do not use your days and nights in vain. You're maintaining the essential working of the Buddha Dharma, who would take wasteful delight in the spark from the Flintstone. Form and substance are like a dew on the grass, destiny like a dart of lightning, emptied in an instant, vanished in a flash. Okay, that's Doga. Making the same point. it didn't need to be dug up at all. You know, open the oven door, there it is. All one has to do is go to the most obvious, least exotic place in the house and simply open the door. In my opinion, this story reflects our spiritual reality. In the rest of the article...

[30:21]

much more than the altered version, much more precisely than the altered version. In the rest of this article and a lot of other talks, Alan talks about how he had to go to meditation to find himself so that he could understand Judaism. Norman even said that. I think he was talking to Alan one time And he said something. They were, oh, I know what it was. They were davening. They were praying in a synagogue. And then they came out. And Norman said to Alan, now that I've practiced meditation, I could do this all day. This really means something to me now. And Alan was saying that that's because Norman had found himself that usually when we... when we get lost in what we think of as the shortcomings of our original tradition, that we're not seeing the tradition.

[31:26]

We're just looking at the form. That prayers and all of those forms are a way to study the self and to find what's ultimately real. So there are different lineages. There are different ways. They have different beliefs and different structures. They're not the same. But the essential value of religious practice is this sense of order within the ultimate truth and the relative truth, that we understand that we're a flicker of form in the vast open sky. Okay, so what I really want to say by this talk is that if, Alan, with your life and with your study of Judaism based on Zen, you've opened up my life and made it possible for me to bring much more of my life to my practice.

[32:44]

that Alan, I really appreciate not just all the work you did, but who you were and who you still are for me. And there's no substitute for the, you know, kind of heft of Alan. You know, the beauty of Alan's life with his friends and with his family, with his congregation. and the sound of his voice. There's no substitute for that. But because of practice, because of the practice of Zen, because of my practice vow, intention, and deeper than intention, I can be moved by Alan's life. and it can move me. I can be moved by it and Alan's life can move me.

[33:56]

I can move my understanding of the life and his life can move me to be more than some habitual understanding of how it was when I was growing up. Anyway, I really appreciate your patience in listening to this talk. It hasn't been the usual Dharma talk I try to give, which tells the story and talks about how to practice. But I more wanted to talk about Alan as an example of practice and Norman and Alan as an example of friendship. Please, take the time to know the beauty of the people who we are practicing with. Each person has a story that's as moving as Alan's and has a hook right into the part of us that doesn't understand the truth.

[35:07]

So Maybe I'll just close with another psalm of Norman. I love these psalms. And this one is more overtly said. It's called Evening Prayer. It's a psalm of David. Because I called. Because I call, you answer. For you are fitting. Because I am small, you enlarge me. For you are gracious. You hear my song. How long will others darken my light? How long will they...

[36:09]

or I can say, appear to live in uselessness. Lies and seduction. Knowing you set aside good for your own and answer me when I call. People, tremble and be upright. Commune with your hearts in the deep of night, awake on your beds. Be still. Offer that. For it is fitting. Trust it. For it is the righteousness of all that is. People say, who will bring us what we need? Who will gain heaven's light on us? But already, My heart has more joy than full granaries and wineries could provide.

[37:16]

I will lie down to sleep with a deep peace, for in you I find my completion. Mighty night. May I...

[37:41]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_97.82