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. Good morning. Is this a little loud? Is this okay? Can you hear me in the back if it's more like this? Okay, good. What I would really like you to join me in this morning before we begin is to get settled again in your own body, your own posture. close your eyes or turn them down to 45 degrees?

[01:07]

Where is your breath? What is the feeling? What did you come here for? Were you seeking for something outside yourself? Can we be here together? Just celebrating being here together without trying to get anything. If you notice that you're slouching at all, whether in a chair, On your Zafu. The Zoom world in a chair lying down.

[02:10]

Can you sit upright? Take a breath. There's some cool air in the Zendo. How is it in your space? just offered an opening chant which I'm going to repeat but just a little bit differently as an invitation an unsurpassed and penetrating moment. Just this moment is rarely met with, even in a hundred thousand million opportunities.

[03:24]

Having this moment to sense, to see, to listen to, to register, in the body. I vow to taste the truth of this moment. This passage of time, what we call time, is the ultimate lot. what passes, what stays, and what doesn't. Unsurpassed, penetrating moment is rarely met with even in a hundred thousand opportunities.

[04:35]

Continue, however you need to, to stay present in your place where you are. You can quietly or carefully gently open your eyes and join a wider moment. So again, good morning. Welcome. Welcome everyone in this room. And thank you. Thank you for those that drove from afar to be here. Thank you to the Zoom world. That Zoom world that came out of our COVID, sort of a dark and a light all at the same time.

[05:48]

And thank you to the teachers, to this amazing all that's hosting us, to the electricity that's giving us light, to your ears, your body. Thank you to the teachers in this lineage that have kept this practice going from a far shore, bringing it closer to home. Now you're invited to bring it into your home, your heart home, your belly home, your spine home, your posture. And maybe I forgot to say to the residents, welcome to the residents. Anyway, I appreciate all of your attending, and Although I don't speak very often in the last time or two, I've opened with welcome or good morning, welcome, and thank you.

[06:57]

And I've made that part of a practice, which I confess I don't do all the time, but I would like to. Maybe after today I will. That when you open your eyes in the morning, you can say greetings or good morning to yourself, to the day, to whatever thus comes, and say thank you. It's a gratitude. It's a moment to really appreciate what it is to be alive. And one of my Dharma sisters was up here at another time, and at the end of her talk, she said, you know, no matter what you hear or what is said, the most important thing is that you showed up. So I really appreciated hearing that. Whatever it took for you to get in your car or to find someone to ride with or your bicycle or your walk or the gift of having a computer to be able to get here is an amazing opportunity to open yourself to what comes.

[08:10]

And one of the In one of our koan stories, it says, what is it that just comes? What is it that thus comes? And I think right now what's thus coming is I want to... I'm sorry, I hope not to cough in your ears. Thank you, Eno. Welcome to our new Eno. If I started coughing, maybe she could turn the volume down. Anyway, what is it thus comes? What are you attending to? Attention, attention. What are we stretching towards? What is your intention? And what we need to attend to shapes our attitude. What we attend to shapes our attitude, and our attitude is made visible in our posture.

[09:15]

how we use our hands, our voice, how we meet and greet people. You can check on yourself right now, what's happening, how's your posture, and what is it saying to you or anybody who might be watching you, not watching, witnessing, coming into their field of vision. And then we return again to our breath and a pause and not dwell in our thoughts, our judgments, and then be open to what thus comes. So, I'd like to say that I have three pillars that I am using for this talk, and what I'm inviting you into, all of you, whether you're here or on Zoom, is into a conversation. So conversation in my world at this time is really two, three, four, or more people.

[10:27]

I'm telling you ahead of time, there's time for conversation at the end, and you can comment or have questions or whatever you notice that is registered for you that might broaden the conversation for all of us. And the three pillars, today that I'm talking toward are Zazen just sitting being present for what is arising or arriving Zazen as a way of getting to know who is it that's sitting here who is it that's cooking soup who is it that's farming making beds Who is it that's writing books and letters? Who is it that's wanting something other than just this? When we sit or the formal practice, which we started with ourselves, begins with two basic activities.

[11:36]

We sit and we breathe and with awareness. And what I'm remembering right now is I came across an invitation. Excuse me, I think I need a little something to drink. It's how to say something in 10 sentences instead of 10 pages. So I might be just giving you some bullet points in a way. So returning to just stillness, to our breath, and to awareness of what's coming up. And even though we can forget to appreciate our life, but really it's a collection of small moments. Small moments where we're not looking for something else. It might be when you look at a tree. I mean, just stop.

[12:39]

There's a couple of trees here. I'm on the path to the dining room. There's one in particular. I just look at it in awe and amazement. It's just kind of, wow. Anyway, Zazen. The other pillar is going to be about impermanence. The third one is about awe or amazement or miraculous. So this Zazen that we speak of, it's not sitting, it's not lying down, but it's about presence and cultivating that presence. Mostly we're very busy trying to do something, but we have an opportunity when you're not moving around to just check your posture. A moment you could close your eyes, create a little gap. You can do that in the middle of stirring the soup.

[13:42]

Put your knife down if you're cutting carrots. You can plant your hoe in the ground. And create a gap. A space where something new can come up. So this practice that we do, it's a discipline, it's a training, and it's not exactly simple, or I should say it's simple but not so easy. But I found that playing the guitar is kind of simple and not that easy. And you have to practice many hours and dribbling a basketball or lifting weights. making a soup, all of them include little, little, little micro-moment steps. So just being present for that.

[14:46]

And when we stop moving, we cultivate an opportunity to notice. I can notice when I'm moving off. When I first came here, when I first sat down, it was like coming home. And it was pretty straightforward. And then my mind got very busy, and you might notice that for yourself, where you're wandering here and there, looking at things and discovering things. And now I find that I'm really attending more and more to my posture. I think some of you are new here, so I apologize. I forgot to say my name is Sonia. And I've been living in Green Gulch or in Zen Center actually for more than 30 years and started practicing a little bit before coming to Zen Center. So when I say to you, it's a discipline of learning how to watch yourself move around, come back, whoops, here we go, come back and feel the space in the gap.

[16:03]

I find that more and more, this kind of, my teacher Tenshin Roshi has been calling samadhi, or concentration, or today I'll just say sopping. It takes time. It takes time to cultivate that. So, zazen is, well, maybe I would say differently, When you all have arrived here, you came with some intention or something that you were wanting. And maybe if that intention is something of a vow, your meditation is a time to make contact with that again, to touch that with your stillness. The next thing I want to say is I want to turn to is impermanence. And I know, or I believe that all of you have heard of that before, and it's on our Han.

[17:08]

And life is swiftly passing. And I've lost my pages. But what I want to say is I've been hearing about impermanence. I've known about impermanence. And Suzuki Roshi turns us to how everything changes. And that is the first of the three marks of existence. But what I want to say is that even though, after hearing about it for years, knowing that everything changes, knowing that all of you woke up this morning, you were in one place or one state, and then you had some coffee or tea, maybe brush your teeth, And then it changed into breakfast. It changed into deciding what you were going to do with this one amazing day. Maybe you had to get into a car, get on your bike to get here.

[18:13]

So many things have happened before we actually got here. So you know this, and I know this, and yet. And yet. There's a little excerpt from David White's poem, A House of Belonging. When I woke, I thought, this is a good day. This is a good day. You could meet your love. This is a gray day. when someone close to you could die. This is the day you realize how easily the thread is broken.

[19:14]

I thought, this is a good day you could meet your love. is a good day I could meet what I wanted to do with my full presence this is a good day this is a gray day where someone close to you could die this is the day you realize how easily the thread is broken. I bring this in today because this practice of impermanence, even though I've known all along everything is changing. Not so long ago, I was trying to reach someone who was important in my life, who was a teacher, a mentor, a great friend.

[20:25]

someone who encouraged me to think, to dream beyond the small room that I had put myself into, that I lived into, that I live into. And I'd been out of touch with him for a while and his wife. And I tried to reach him. And I tried and tried and couldn't get a response. And so I called a third person, and I said, what happened to my friend Anna? Is my friend Jonathan taking care of Anna? Did something happen? And finally at some point, this person called and said, oh, you didn't hear. Anna died in January, and your good friend, your mentor, your team member.

[21:30]

He died in February. This is a gray day when someone close to you could die. This is the day when you realize how easily the thread is broken. So I bring these two people into this gathering so that I too can be more awake and aware of this precious moment and that maybe one or two of you have had a similar experience and you might be able to join me in honoring and respecting that everything changes. Everything is changing here at Green Gulch and some of our friends this year, some people that we have been practicing with we'll be moving on. And when we lose friends and we lose people we've been practicing with, it can be that we lose the dreams and the thoughts and the experiences we shared with them.

[22:47]

And this loss is not only that loss, but but it can bring up all the loss of things that are left unfinished over here, of all the things that you did not yourself complete in this lifetime, of all the wishes that you thought were just right and were never accomplished. We can return, close the eyes, pause, return to this moment. These people, these moments brought something awesome into our life. Things change. I came across a little part in a story in Suzuki Roshi's teaching where

[23:51]

He'd given some big teaching. And then someone in the, I said, any questions or comments? And someone said, I've listened to the whole, everything you've said, and I don't think I understand. Can you help me? And he said, everything changes. So sometimes that change brings up grief. again, for what we never had lost or what we might have never come to pass. I invite you, right now, I just feel this breeze coming through. What are you? Who are you? What are you feeling right now? we slow down, we have the opportunity to really register what thus comes as we wake up into our life.

[25:04]

As I'm sitting here feeling the spaciousness in this room, feeling the loss and also the blessing, that my friend brought to my life. When we lose something, we can honor and respect it by devoting ourselves to something that they cherished, to something that mattered. And we can take that blessing and bequeath it as an act of generosity to someone else. Our practice is warm hand to warm hand. Warm hand to warm hand. This lineage has come down from warm hand to warm hand. Say in ten sentences rather than ten pages.

[26:15]

Just sit in stillness, presence, this breath. Breathing in is giving us a life. Breathing out, we're sharing that. You know, this Zen practice is sometimes referred to as an autodidactic or self-teaching project. So when we sit, we have a way to study ourself, integrate ourself, and become one. with what we're doing and what we're wishing for and how we're being and how we want to be in this world. To realize impermanence is to accept and appreciate when you look into somebody's eyes. They're amazing. They're a miracle. I think we see that much more with babies or little animals, you know.

[27:20]

They're so cute. But can we do that for ourselves? Look in the mirror and go, oh, so sweet, really trying. So to remember that. And then this amazing thing, this miracle, this opportunity, this saying thank you, this greeting, this welcome. It's being an apprentice to what's unknown. How to be an apprentice to what's unknown. And this year, the Sashin, our senior Dharma teacher Fu, gave a Dharma talk and she opened the talk with, if you're not in awe, you are distracted. If you're not in awe, you are distracted, not in the present, not paying attention in the before and after imagination and missing the amazing, awesome complexity of what is in this miraculous moment, the vast, ungraspable moment.

[28:48]

I actually don't really know how my voice is coming to you. There's this thing here, and there you've got these ears here. How they work is kind of amazing. I heard a story about a teacher asking a class, what's the oldest thing that you see in this room? And they guessed the teacher. And maybe they had guessed a dusty old desk. And anyway, whatever it was, they didn't guess right. She said, what's the oldest thing in this world and is a miracle is this glass of water. So there before us, so giving us life. It's amazing. It's a miracle. Our Buddha ancestor, Albert Einstein.

[29:54]

I just elevated him to Buddha. There's only two ways to live your life. Maybe your wife too, I don't know. That might be good. Think about that. There's only two ways to live your life. One, as though nothing is a miracle. The other, as though everything is a miracle. What would that be like? Zazen, just sitting, it's a miracle. Having a good friend, not forgetting to call them up, not forgetting to say, I love you to your friends, to your spouse, to your children. It's a miracle. Or Buddha Socrates. Buddha Socrates said, wonder, I'm saying amazement, is the beginning of wisdom.

[31:01]

When we sit down and begin to fall, sit, allow, open to not knowing and welcoming is the beginning of wisdom. Remembering the miracle of our possibility to move, to see, to hear, appreciating, and having gratitude is amazement. It's amazing that we have this body that can move, that we're alive, that we can walk. It's amazing. I sort of can see you. It's amazing. Remembering our breath and walking that one day, even breath, one day may not be ours.

[32:07]

It's awesome what we have right now. Thich Nhat Hanh is appreciating that he can stretch. He doesn't exercise to get stronger or get anything. It's just this amazing thing that he can move. So I'm watching the time because I also want to be present with the kitchen. And if you have the courage to look this up, on the internet I wanted to find a way to bring it in here but I didn't know if it was the right song or the right thing to bring in or if it would get stuck in your mind so that's the one disclaimer this might get stuck in your mind if you do google this it's a song called may I stay amazed for all of my days it's a

[33:13]

acapella group, I believe, and Linda Hirshhorn. May I stay amazed for all of my days. I wish I could sing, but you don't want me to, I'm sure. May I stay amazed for all of my days and all of the ways of the world's turning. May I stay amazed for all of my days and all of the ways of the world's turning. Amazed at what I've got. This temple. These friends. This breath. This pause. These trees. Bird sound. amazed at what I've got and not what I've not, all soon forgot in the world's turning.

[34:24]

May I stay amazed for all of my days and all of the ways of the world's turning, amazed at what I've got, amazed at what I've had, amazed at what I'm being given, amazed at what I've got and not what I've not, all soon forgot in the world's turning. I'm going to give you a little exercise, if you choose to take it up, if I can find it, to practice with, to stay in amazement. So while I'm looking for my little note, since I don't want to give it to you inaccurately, you could just return to your breath.

[35:29]

I fell out of order here. You know, one day when I was listening to David White, he was reciting a poem that he knew very well. He has all his poems memorized. And then he said, maybe it was amazing. It was a poem that he did. I think it was from the House of Belonging. And he had spoken it many times. And he said, and this is the day when I forgot what I had memorized. And he had to go through all his papers to find it. Oh, no. Oh, yes. Okay. One more round. Otherwise, you're just going to have to rely on your memory. Amazed at what I had. Amazed at what I got. And amazed at what we're not. No.

[36:36]

Yes. No. Yes. All right. One more chance. Okay. Now we're going by memory. At the end of the day, take 10 minutes and write down Three things that inspired you. At the end, and the practices to go backwards from the time you start writing, maybe at dinner, and you checked your email, talked to a friend, all the way back to the beginning of the day when you woke up.

[37:44]

What inspired you? Then start over again, going from the back of the end of the day and what surprised you. And then going back again at the end of the day, what amazed you? What put you in awe? What did you notice that was a miracle? May I be amazed? So in closing, or closing this part, before maybe some of you could help me,

[38:50]

help all of us in giving, to have some question or comment, because the conversation is where the learning actually comes. Some of you may know about St. Teresa of Lisieux, and she lost her family. She was Christian, well, saint, obviously. And from the time she was very young, she realized that she wanted to be a nun. She wanted to go to the convent. You weren't allowed to do that. She had a sister that was in the convent. You weren't allowed to do that until you were 21. And so she was sent to the convent when she lost her family situation. I think her mother died, and they determined that a father could not take care of a child. And she wanted to go to the convent, and they wanted to be ordained. They said, no, you're too young.

[39:51]

And at 12, she said, I want to be ordained. No, you're too young. You have to wait until you're 21. And at 16, she said, I want to be a nun. I want to devote myself to the tradition. And I said, no, you're too young. And then the whole convent went to visit one day the pope. And when there was a gap in a moment, she ran up and said, I want to be ordained, I want to be a nun, and they won't let me. And he recognized in her that kind of inspiration, that miracle. And he said, yes, let her in. So even though she wasn't 20 when, she knew what she wanted. And then... she lived a sort of charmed life, as you can see, but then she ended up dying at 24 from TB.

[40:55]

And I want to tell you these words that she said, and I want to offer these to us for our sitting as we go in and learn and... breathe to be with ourselves, and be with others, and what it is to understand impermanence. My little story, my little story, which was like a fairy tale, has turned into a prayer. a beautiful movement from fairy tale into prayer. Life is a dream just carried along by my life and whose life is it? Tuned into the wrong channel for a while, something can deepen and then the fairy tale can become a prayer.

[42:08]

what would our prayer, our inmost request be? What is the light? My teacher, Tenshin Roshi Reb, might ask, what is your heart concern? My little story was like a fairy tale, and it had taken a turn into a prayer, into amazement, into presence. beautiful movement from a fairy tale into a prayer. A beautiful fairy tale. Now. Life is a dream just carried along by my life and whose life is it? Turned into the wrong channel for a while? What would our prayer or inmost request be? An unsurpassed and penetrating perfect moment is rarely met with even in a hundred thousand opportunities.

[43:21]

Having it to see and listen to, to taste, to feel, to see, to register. Do we vow to taste the truth of just this? I'm not even going to add moment. Just this. Thank you for your attention. I don't think that was 10 sentences. It might have been 10 pages. And I offered myself and some of these words. to my lack of attention to the loss of my friend. I wish for it to be different for you. How many times I've heard that and did not respond.

[44:22]

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. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[44:48]

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