This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Happy Thanksgiving. As you might notice, or might have noticed walking in, the altar looks a little bit different than usual. And the secret is it actually looks something like that every Thanksgiving. But for the past several years, we've been decorating it like this and then somehow taking it down immediately after we eat. And then nobody gets to see it. So we decided to share this year. And this is a very pumpkin-heavy year, as you can see. Heavy on the pumpkins. But we have the farm crew to thank for this.

[01:04]

This is what happens here on Thanksgiving, that everyone spends all morning long preparing and decorating and cleaning and then somehow giving thanks or touching the mystery of whatever it is that's going on here today. And everywhere. And then we get to enjoy a lot of good food. And another thing that happens, we come in here all together and have a ceremony, one of our formals and ceremonies, and we give offerings of water and sweet tea and food and light and flowers. And then we go into the dining room and we have another short ceremony.

[02:04]

And then something really wonderful happens. The people who have worked all year, all during the growing season, the six months, to create the incredible bounty of this farm get to share with the rest of us what happened, what was produced somehow. And I won't read the whole list, but I thought I would share a little bit. So I got the cheat sheet. It says, this is actually, it says, read loud and slow. Green Belch Farm Harvest for 2011. And it goes, well, the first one is 28,492 heads of lettuce. That's impressive, I think. 615 boxes of baby lettuce. It goes on, 1,474 pounds of salad mix.

[03:04]

2,430 pounds and 948 bunches of spinach. 6,314 bunches and 194 boxes of chard. We go on, we have collards and dandelion and mustard greens and maizuna and bok choy, green garlic and nettles. 12 pounds of pea shoots, 2,015 bunches, and 265 pounds of topped beets. When I say it, it starts to sound like poetry somehow. 1,209 pounds of cabbage, 1,592 pounds of zucchini. And it keeps going. It's a whole page long. And it keeps going on the back. And then there's also all the garden, which includes 124 bunches of lavender, and lavender wands and lavender wreaths and lavender sachets and anise hyssop and 171 bunches of thyme and 79 pounds of rhubarb.

[04:06]

And this keeps going on and on and on as well. And then on the back, we have parsley, chives, dill, cilantro, spearmint, thyme, a few artichokes. 2,118 pounds of winter squash, 843 pounds of pie pumpkins, which we ate many of, and more than two tons of potatoes. And someone added also over 15,000 loaves of bread. Think about that. 15,000 loaves of bread. And over 300 boxes of donated, gleaned produce. So groups who come and take what's left over in the fields to share with others. And I think this was intended, a sheet intended for the farm crew, but it says in handwriting, thank you for an amazing harvest. And it has all the different people who've worked on the farm during the year. And then it says with Jack, our farm cat, Frank, our farm baby, plus ravens, rats, et cetera.

[05:10]

But this was our Thanksgiving. almost obligatory you know to give to give a talk at Thanksgiving this word thanks or gratitude comes up because it's the time of year to think about that but then we start to ask what does that mean gratitude and it's related to the word grace And they both come from the Latin root that means pleasurable, pleasing. So we receive something, experience something that's somehow pleasing.

[06:16]

The ceremony, community, the land, pie pumpkins. It occurs to me also, though, that the experience of gratitude itself is pleasing. Simply to open in that way has its own deep pleasure. And that gratitude may open us to the mystery or the way things are inconceivably interconnected. did all those pumpkins get up on that altar what in the world did it take what were all the factors that came together who can say and a roomy poem that I hadn't heard before that I'd like to share with you

[07:27]

It's called Every Tree. Every tree, every growing thing as it grows, says this truth. You harvest what you sow. With life as short as a half-taken breath, don't plant anything but love. The value of a human being can be measured by what he or she most deeply wants. Be free of possessing things. Sit at an empty table. Be pleased with water, the taste of being home. The value of a human being can be measured by what he or she most deeply wants.

[08:44]

Suzuki Roshi had this wonderful, a wonderful question that has come down to us, which is, what is the heart's innermost request. As you hear those words, take a moment, if you will, and notice for yourself what arises. The question might arise, well, what is my heart's innermost request? Do we know? Can it be answered? And now also the question, what was my intention in coming here today?

[09:58]

And are the two related? Woke up, had a thought, oh, I think I'll just come to Green Gulch. Maybe you've been planning it for a week. What was that calling that somehow manifested itself in you being here right now? So I've been getting interested in this question of intention. And it's one of those things that you start... You think you're talking about one thing, something called intention. And as you start to unpack or unlayer it, you realize it's just... one thread that, like everything else, connects to everything else. So this is never a definitive question. But it occurs to me that somehow as we open to the way things are, the way they're interconnected, that may shape our intention.

[11:07]

What do we think we're doing here? What would we like to be doing here? What should we be doing here? And then also as we shape our intention or direct our intention, we can put ourselves in situations where we can more fully open so we can hear our heart's innermost request. The right intention, sometimes it's called right thought or also right aspiration or right resolve. You may be familiar with the Noble Eightfold Path. which the Buddha gave as the fourth of the Four Noble Truths. So it's a really brilliant roadmap for how one might live one's life if what you're interested in is awakening. And right thought, it can be right thought, but the idea of right aspiration or intention has a little bit more of the volitional,

[12:11]

There's something active about it, dynamic. And in early Buddhism, it says right intention has three main characteristics or elements. And the first is everyone's favorite, renunciation. So we hear this word renunciation, and sometimes there's this, uh-oh, I'm supposed to give up something. Suzuki Roshi said that renunciation is not giving up the things of this world, but realizing that we can't hold on to them. So it's actually simply harmonizing with the way things are already, anyway. And right intention comes right after right view, or right understanding, which includes this understanding that... It's obvious if we think about it, but we tend to forget that things are impermanent, ever-changing, that things are completely interconnected, that when we try to hold on to something that can't be held on to, this is kind of the heart of Buddhism, then we suffer.

[13:34]

We have a hard time because we're out of alignment. We're out of harmony with the way things are. So we can have an intention that to bring this more into awareness, to live according to this understanding. And it's not easy because it's not how we're programmed. We're programmed to want things to be really solid and stable and safe and to do everything we can to keep them that way. We're programmed to have me over here and you over there and get everything neat and orderly that way. We're kind of programmed this way. Evolutionarily, it's a pretty smart strategy, but it doesn't make us very happy in the long run. So part of what we're doing is how can we create an opening to understanding what's actually happening. Again, Rumi comes up and he says, when you eventually see through the veil...

[14:39]

to how things really are, you will keep saying again and again, this is certainly not like I thought it was. The Buddha talks about it's like swimming upstream. In a way, we talk about the flow or relaxing into the way things are, but there's another way in which it's not what we were taught. It's not what our perceptions say. It's not common sense in some way. It's going against our usual way of thinking. So there's renunciation. And then the other two are, and they're said in a negative way, which sometimes is done in Buddhism, is non-ill will and non-harming. So for non-ill will, it's like loving kindness, metta, well-being. And then for non-harming, compassion, opening to suffering, non-cruelty, not being cruel.

[15:42]

And you can look at these three as, one, as a wisdom practice, the renunciation. Oh yeah, I can see how things are. And then when you see, and you see yourself and others trying to hold on to what can't be held on to, and the suffering that comes from that, the heart opens. The heart opens. And then as the heart opens and you... connect, you wish others well, you wish yourself well, you're with others suffering, you're open to your own suffering, then you ask, what is the good medicine here? What is the wise course? And this can motivate us to start to ask through study, through sitting, through talking with the teacher, through asking questions. What is this situation? What am I to do? What is my intention?

[16:47]

What is my heart's innermost request in this human life? You may know this from Longfellow, an American poet. He says, If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility. Think about that for a minute. If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility. And a core understanding that's often emphasized is opening to the realization that at base all beings wish to be happy and all beings wish to avoid suffering.

[17:59]

And we go about it in all kinds of upside down ways to be happy or avoid suffering. But whatever someone is doing or whatever you see yourself doing, opening to that possibility, that motivation, wishing to be happy, wishing to avoid suffering. And we could even look around the room right now, all these people looking at each other, each person in this room. And I invite you to actually look around at the other people in the room. All of these people, all of us together, each person individually, uniquely wishes to be happy. And can see that you wish to be happy. Each person wishes to avoid suffering. And each person has suffered. Each person in this room has suffered. working with intention, this balance between this idea of wanting and when does it become grasping?

[19:18]

There's a word in Buddhism called tanha, which means desire, a kind of grasping desire. And sometimes our practice can get twisted around a bit, like I want to get enlightened. I want to get something. but right aspiration, right intention coming not out of that confusion, or maybe starting out of that confusion, but where does it go? I was talking with someone recently, a Zen teacher whom I just met, and we were talking on the phone, and he said, what do you want to get out of your Zen practice? And I was trying to answer his question. What do I want to get out of your Zen practice? Get out of my Zen practice there. And then finally it's like, it's the wrong question. You know, it's the wrong question. What are we trying to get out of my Zen practice?

[20:22]

And I said a few things. And he said, oh, so it's a lifestyle issue. It's a nice life. Well, yeah, we get pumpkins on the altar and a nice Thanksgiving and all of these things. But that's not it either. So what is it? You know, this sense of volition or will or something compelling us in a very individual and particular way, and yet it's more than that. But if you look at, say, the story of the Buddha leaving the palace, something was calling him. He had some clear intention. This is also related to right effort, which is on the Buddhist path. Effort, some energy, some focus, some dedication. And we also have another lovely American Buddhist who says, I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately.

[21:23]

I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to put to route all that was not life and not when I had come to die, discover that I had not lived. It's a very clear, intentional statement. although it's open. It's not saying exactly what he's going to get, but he's going to find out what he can find out. So how do we work with this in our daily life? How do we start to tune in and ask ourselves, not just when you come to Gringot on a Sunday, but when you're in your actual busy daily life, how do we tune in? What do I think I'm doing here? What are my actual motivations? And this is where our basic practice of developing mindfulness can be very helpful. A friend of mine calls it a sacred pause, where you just stop somewhere in the middle of your busyness.

[22:29]

Maybe take a breath. Maybe feel your feet on the floor. Check in. What's happening here? What do I feel in my body? What do I feel in my emotions, my heart? What stories am I telling myself about what's going on? Does this fit with what I really care about? Am I in alignment with my deepest values? We're cultivating bringing an awareness, a live interaction, curiosity to every moment, every interaction. And also intention is closely associated in teachings on karma. And also this is like renunciation, and I think maybe in a slightly different way, people hear karma and they go, ooh, ooh, I don't know. What does that mean?

[23:31]

So karma means action. In Buddhist teachings, there's a strong emphasis on whatever action you do, what is your intention behind it? And that that has a huge... impact on the results that follow. So in a very simple example, taking a knife, if you're a surgeon, intending to heal, or someone intending to harm, perhaps similar actions, but very, very different intentions. Or if you're giving a gift, about to be in that season, is there a calculation of Now they'll think I'm really cool. Maybe they'll give me a big gift or a promotion. Or is there a generosity to it? And, you know, we'd like to say, oh, it's the generosity. But part of it is an honesty looking inward.

[24:33]

Well, what is it? I'm curious. Can I have a non-judgmental curiosity? What's actually going on here in my body-mind? And what's... Let's see. This is from the Buddha. What a person considers and reflects upon for a long time, to that his or her mind will bend and incline. It rhymes. That's nice. But the science is telling us this too. that when we think things over and over and over again, if we tell ourselves stories over and over and over again, we're kind of cutting a superhighway through our mind, in our mind, literally. We're laying down certain patterns. Certain neurons are connecting. The phrase that's become quite popular now, neurons that fire together wire together.

[25:33]

So we shape our minds by our thoughts. So if you're telling yourself a certain kind of story over and over, if it's a negative story, you're shaping your mind in that way. So that when some challenge comes up, some difficult situation, that person appears in front of you, you will tend to think in that way again, because that's the groove that's been cut in your mind. So part of the practices in Buddhism, maybe bringing up loving kindness, chanting, etc., You're learning new ways or mindfulness. You're actually cutting new neural pathways in your mind. So sometimes it seems strange and difficult because we have certain superhighways already, but it's like cutting a path through the long grass. And it's difficult, and we want to go on the superhighway. This is a new way. But this sense of intention or effort or commitment to, like, no... I'm going to, this is lining up with what I really care about here.

[26:37]

Let's go through the long grass. And then as you walk that over and over and over again, it starts to become easier. So in that challenging situation, that knee-jerk reaction, maybe there's a new way. Maybe you'll surprise yourself. Oh, I didn't blow up. I just maybe asked what was wrong. Or whatever else might happen. It's opening to a new way. And sometimes I work with people in work situations with a practice called attention, intention, and action. So in a difficult situation, attention, noticing, what's going on here? How do I feel? What's happening with the other person? And then asking intention, what do I really care about here? Do I really care about winning this argument no matter what? Or do I really care about how we're working together as a team or our long-term communication?

[27:40]

And then coming out of that, what action would I take? So starting to tune in to these bigger, bigger questions. But it takes awareness and practice. This is from the Buddha. All that we are is the result of what we have thought. It is founded on our thoughts. It is made up of our thoughts. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him. as the wheel follows the foot of the ox that draws the carriage. All that we are is the result of what we have thought.

[28:41]

It is founded on our thoughts. It is made up of our thoughts. If a man or woman speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows her like a shadow that never leaves her. If a person speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him as the wheel follows the foot of the ox that draws the carriage. If a person speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows her like a shadow that never leaves her. They say that in a way this seems very simple and we can also see how one thing leads to another.

[30:01]

But also we don't see really where it all goes. And this is also why intention is very important. Because we don't know the full impact of our actions. And it's our thoughts, if we think a certain way, then that influences the words that come out of our mouth. Is it kind speech? Is it harsh speech? Is it harmful speech? You know that phrase that children say? Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. And we all know it's not true. So what's our intention? What our intention is, the thoughts that we cultivate... will influence what we say, and they will also influence what we do. And in terms of what we say and what we do and how it influences everyone, we can't see.

[31:05]

It's like a pebble dropped on a lake, and the ripples go out and [...] out. And the Buddha also said this, that karma, the workings of karma are incomprehensible. So the best we can do is stay very close, very close here. What is the state of my heart as I think, as I speak, as I act? And they say also that our thoughts the way we perceive with our mind actually shapes, or some people even say creates, our world as we see it. The world is not out there the way it looks to us, the way we naively think it is.

[32:06]

This is going back to Rumi saying, it's not like I thought it was. I love this statistic that I just found. And this is a liberal statistic. They said that every second... Every second, we are taking in 11 million pieces of information in our senses. And some people of you might know this. This is a liberal one. How many can we consciously perceive? Any guesses? It's 40. 40. So what happens to the other 10,999, and 960? Right? or my favorite Hubble Space Scientist, Hubble Space Telescope Scientist quote, which is, not only is the universe stranger than you think, it's stranger than you can think, right? We kind of might as well give it up right here.

[33:09]

So we are shaping, we are creating almost our world with the way, with our thoughts, with the way we perceive things. And if we start to go into this, who is doing the intending? So Freud said that consciousness, the part of consciousness compared to unconscious, as he understood it, was like the tip of the iceberg. Consciousness was the tip of the iceberg. But there's some people now saying, well, it's more like the snowball on the tip of the iceberg, right? It's just a tiny little bit. that creates functions, works in the world, and there's all this other stuff going on that we don't actually have access to. So how are we supposed to practice with this? Luckily, this does actually meld pretty well with the basic Buddhist teaching that our sense of a core, stable self is illusory.

[34:13]

There isn't really an essential, unchanging self the way we sometimes feel there is. Yet this question arises, okay, now what are we supposed to do in this situation? Some people think that Consciousness, as we understand it, is like the executive branch. There's all this unconscious stuff happening. And then it filters up. And then there's an executive that kind of looks at the different briefs and then makes a decision and goes forward. That's one vision. But then there's another vision is that we're more like a press secretary. Like it's all really being decided down here. You think you want to get up and go make a bowl of popcorn while you're eating in front of the TV. but something else is happening.

[35:15]

You're hungry. You don't realize it. You just think you're making the decision. So the idea that there's almost a press secretary filtering this out. But they say, well, maybe it's in between, sort of like Ronald Reagan. Where you look at presidential and you act presidential and people think you're presidential, but you're not really as in charge as you think you are or as other people think you are. So we're in this sort of tenuous situation. We also talk about bodhicitta arising. This thought of enlightenment somehow arising in the mind. Now where does that come from? Is that my will? Is it all of these things coming together? Teachers, teaching, practice, people, life. This thought of enlightenment, of awakening, of possibility. And somehow it gets you maybe here.

[36:16]

Dogen, the founder of the school, 13th century Japanese teacher, said, it is beyond the power of the mind and beyond the power of the body, but naturally there is an expression of the truth. It's beyond the power of the mind and beyond the power of the body, but naturally there is an expression of the truth. This actually sounds like we can't do it. It's beyond my power. mind or body. Yet somehow the truth happens. The truth is happening all the time right now. We can't do anything about it. It can open, but we can open to it. This word discipline is a way to disciple, which means to teach.

[37:31]

Maybe one way to work with it is we're teaching our own mind. In these moments when we have this connection with our heart's innermost request, when bodhicitta, when something arises, some question, some aspiration, In that moment, can we make some decisions, executive or seemingly executive decisions, of how do I put myself in a situation that will support this development, especially if I can't do it all by myself? This was a big aha for me. At some point right after college, I moved to New York City. I was there for about a year. And I think New York was more dangerous than it is now. But it was kind of intense. And at some point, I lived in the Lower East Side, very close to Alphabet City. And I realized that I could do this.

[38:35]

I could adapt and learn how to put on a certain kind of armor and get through and adjust to my environment and survive, maybe even thrive there. But I suddenly realized there wasn't any knee that was stable that would survive that. You know, there may be certain elements, but I was a malleable phenomenon. And by staying in New York, I would be shaped in a certain way by that environment. And there was no way that would not happen. And so I decided, okay, years enough in New York. I think I'll go back to California and be shaped in a California way. I preferred the California way, to be shaped, because I couldn't control not being shaped. So this is a question for us. What environments do we put ourselves in to be shaped certain ways? And Buddha talks about the importance of good friends on the path, Sangha.

[39:39]

Who are you talking to? What are you talking about? You know, are you listening to teachings? or coming into a practice place like this, there are all sorts of bells and whistles that are basically saying over and over, remember, remember, remember, attention, attention, attention, wake up, wake up, wake up. You know, we have wooden boards, pop, [...] pop. We have bells, we have Buddha statues, bow to each other on the path sometimes, teachings, it's like, hello, hello, hello. It's all set out just for that. But if you're in a different kind of environment, your work environment or maybe your home environment, you may not have the advantage of everything being set up just for you to help you remember. So we can start to do that in our own environments. Maybe set up an altar in your house. It's a reminder. Mentally, it's like putting that pathway down. Oh, yeah. Or in the morning, what do you think you're doing in the morning? Before you go, how do you frame your day?

[40:43]

What do you think you're doing? Is it just like get to work on time somehow? Or is there a greater sense of how does this fit with my bigger sense of purpose? And this is from the Dalai Lama, his advice. He says, every day think as you wake up. Today I am fortunate to have woken up. I am alive. I have a precious human life. I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others, to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. I am going to have kind thoughts toward others. I am not going to get angry or think badly about others. I am going to benefit others as much as I can. You may use these words or other words, but what would it be like every day when you wake up to somehow bring something like that to mind?

[41:45]

What is my intention? What is my orientation for the day? And sometimes I think, ah, people going to get, the kitchen is going, we'll go soon. Intention can have such depth and meaning and urgency that it blossoms into vow. You want to express deeply, maybe even publicly, this is what I'm about, this is what I really care about, this more than anything. is how I want to orient my energy, my life, my intention. And we have the great bodhisattva vows, which are wonderful because they can't devolve into simply goals to be achieved.

[42:51]

They're kind of impossible. We do it anyway. We say, beings are numberless. I vow to save them or awaken with them. All of them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it. So we take on these big, big projects that are more than projects. And it's occurred to me also that Coordination, when someone takes on a robe, either a lay bodhisattva initiate robe or a larger robe, this is the closest expression of how do I actually say this is how I want to spend my life. This is what I want to manifest. Help me manifest this. So asking for support. I guess now the question is for you.

[44:19]

When we finish here in just a moment and you go into your regular routine and regular life, what life will these questions have for you? Is it just coming here or does it start to wake up in your life, whatever that may be? There's a really wonderful practice of getting an index card or several and writing down things that will help you remember, like mystery or wake up or what is my innermost request, and hiding them in places that you'll forget about them, like underwear drawers and sock drawers and kitchen drawers and your car glove compartment, so that you just find them. And they become your own little wake-up bells, mindfulness bells. I'll end with... Rune me again. Every tree, every growing thing as it grows says this truth.

[45:24]

You harvest what you sow. With life as short as a half-taken breath. Don't plant anything but love. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[46:07]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_95.87