First, I would like to thank some good friends who came quite some distance this morning to be here with us. And I said I will be your guest. You can't hear? Is that better? Whoa. How's that? Is that better? Okay, so... I said, I will be your guest lecturer this morning. I said that kind of facetiously, because this is the first time that I've sat up here. And I lived at Zen Center for about 16 years, about half my adult life. And until recently, until just a few short months ago. and some of the folks here I've lived with all that time.

[01:09]

And so it feels kind of peculiar to be a guest speaker. And I noticed that on the Green Gulch website, in the City Center website, I'm listed as a guest teacher. And I think... What did I do wrong? Don't you love me anymore? I'm not family anymore. And I know that that's not true, but still that feeling comes up. And as I was sitting in the guest house, settling or trying to settle for this talk, I looked out the window. I'm in the guest house, by the way. Yeah. I looked out the window and I saw this white van with a blue rack on top. And I said, that's a Green Gulch vehicle. What's it doing here? Oh, yeah, I'm a Green Gulch. I'm visiting Green Gulch.

[02:13]

So anyway, Valerie gave me a check, and I feel a lot better now. Is that better? So anyway, yeah, I had that feeling. And, but not only did I get a check, I also know that it's not really because I'm not loved that I'm a guest teacher, that I was sent out with, as we say, bliss bestowing hands. Did you hear that, Alex? Bliss bestowing hands. I'll tell you more about that in a little bit. It's so that the... I don't want to sound pretentious here, but it's so that the Dharma may flourish, that I'm a guest speaker now. We do things like that. We set things up. We shave people's heads, not because we think it's cool, but because we hope the Dharma will flourish.

[03:25]

We do it so that the Dharma will flourish. We dress kind of weird sometimes because we aspire to help the Dharma flourish. Check out these sleeves. These are pretty big sleeves. And if you look carefully, you'll maybe notice that some are longer than others. That's so that the Dharma can flourish. Yeah. I mean, some go all the way to the floor. Those are really cool. I'd like to have one of those. My birthday is next month. So the Dharma will flourish that we do that. Sounds kind of wacky and weird, maybe. So they gave me this brown robe. They gave me this nice stick so I can sit up here like Yoda.

[04:27]

Dharma will I teach. Listen, you must. All so that the Dharma may flourish. All this costume, all this bizarre stuff. Enough about that. I should probably get into the talk, huh? Barehanded, empty-fisted, a thousand changes, ten thousand transformations. Though this is making something out of nothing, what can you do? You employ the provisional to symbolize the real. But tell me, is there a fundamental basis or not?

[05:31]

That's the introduction to this case, this Zen story. Feng Shui said, if you set up a single atom, the nation flourishes. If you don't set up a single atom, the nation perishes. Shui Do held up his staff and said, are there any mendicants who will die together and live together? I'd like to leave the introduction and the case once again. bare-handed, empty-fisted. A thousand changes, ten thousand transformations. Though this is making something out of nothing, what can you do? You employ the provisional to symbolize the real. But tell me, is there a fundamental basis or not?

[06:35]

Is there something real? Feng Shui said, if you set up a single atom, the nation flourishes. If you don't set up a single atom, the nation perishes. Shuedo held up his staff and said, are there any people who will die together and live together? So there's a further citing of this case because the commentator says that it wasn't said in full. But the record has a more expanded version of this case. I'd like to read that. If a single atom is set up, the nation flourishes and the peasants frown. If you don't set up a single atom, the nation perishes and the peasants take it easy.

[07:39]

If you can clearly understand here, you have no separate part. It's all this old monk. Me. I am just you. You and I can enlighten everyone. And we can also delude everyone in the world. Do you want to know you? It's right here. You want to know me? Here it is. So that's the expanded tale of the case. So that's our case for today. It's called Feng Shui's Single Atom. I have a confession to make. I get really annoyed when people are uptight about Zen forms. It kind of bugs me. You know, there's this very esoteric word. Listen carefully. I'm going to explain a very... secret word called gasho.

[08:41]

I'll explain what that word means. First, I'll tell you how it's done, at least how I think it's supposed to be done. Palms are together, about nose level, about six inches away from the face, fingers together, not splayed apart. This is called gasho. Now, the secret meaning of that word gasho His palms together. What's the fuss? Why so picky? And then some people get really uptight if it's not done correctly. This is why the old peasants frown. You're making something out of nothing. What's the big deal? And, you know, I feel that way. I'm that old peasant a lot of the time. I'd really get, you know, like sometimes people be walking in Shashu all solemn and serious.

[09:44]

I want to grab them by, whoops, I want to grab them by the lapels of the robe and shake them. Get over it. You're making something out of nothing. So the peasants frown when they see all this fuss and bother. But if you don't set up a single Adam, the nation perishes. we have to find a way to express our heart, the depths of our heart. It's not so easy to do, to get really down deep into the heart. There's a lot of superficiality, a lot of preference, a lot of whim and fancy, a lot of capriciousness. That doesn't get to the depths. If you set up something, if you set up a single atom and give yourself to it, even though it's not of your choosing, you have a chance to flourish, for your heart to flourish, to discover the riches of your heart.

[10:49]

And the very precision of the form, the very not of your own choosing of the form, is what gives you access to deeper layers of the heart. Because you have to let go of how you would like to do it. you have to let go of what you would rather be doing surrender give yourself fully and then you can uncover some depth that in our busy life we might miss so if you set up a single atom you might uncover depths of your heart if you don't set up a single atom The nation perishes. You might live your whole life and face your death not having actually lived. So that, I feel, is what the case is saying to us.

[11:50]

Got to do something. Got to take a step. Got to risk your whole being. It's not a matter of right or wrong. It's a matter of your sincerity. and the quality of being you bring to it. And these forms, because of their precision, because of their apparent arbitrariness, can help you discover qualities of being that you're thinking and your attitudes and your predilections might not lead you to. If you set up a single atom, the Dharma can flourish. If you don't set up a single atom, how do you bring forth the Dharma? So the other day, Alex and I were working on a flyer for Sashin that Eyes of Compassion Zen Center is going to offer in May 16th, I think.

[12:59]

There's copies of the flyer out there. We were trying to determine the name of the Sashin. And I wanted to call it Bliss Bestowing Sashin. I mean, after all, when I left, they said I was leaving with bliss-bestowing hands. And the idea of a socially engaged Buddhist center is to extend benefit, ostensibly, to the world. And this is a classic phrase. It comes from the Ten Ox Hurting Pictures, when the person forgets the ox, forgets emptiness, and becomes ordinary and enters the marketplace with bliss-bestowing hands. So I wanted that name. Alex was concerned that it might set up what we call in Zen Center a gaining idea, that people might think, hey, I'm going to go to Salinas and get blissed out. And they may not, probably won't. And so we discussed this rather rigorously for some time.

[14:05]

He proposed socially engaged sashim, and I told him that I didn't care much for the term socially engaged. kind of ironic since we are starting a center that is in service to, words are a problem, the poor, the marginalized. That's why I don't like the term socially engaged. There's an inherent dualistic quality to it. There's an inherent us-them thing going on. And it bugs me. Even though I support the spirit, I hope to be part of the spirit of what we call socially engaged Buddhism, I have to confess I'm not terribly happy with the terminology. And I used it on the page of our website, and I use it in correspondence, but for a statement of deepest intention, I found it inadequate.

[15:08]

And I offered to Alex an image of why I was unhappy with social engagement as a paradigm for what we were trying to do. A tale from a movie called Francesco, a scene from that movie, that I felt embodied the spirit of what I think we're trying to do, what I would like to try to do, and hopefully inspire others to do. And the scene, I can probably remember it, the scene is... One of Francis's old noble buddies, called Rufino, follows him. Francis has already given his father back his clothes and is living with the lepers, and a disgrace to his family. But his buddy Rufino is intrigued a little bit by what Francis is up to, and so he decides to follow him, kind of like stalk him a little bit. So he looks in this door and he sees Francis sitting among these lepers,

[16:11]

He kind of shyly comes in and Francis says, welcome, please come in. And then Rufino comes in. And Francis says, this is my mother. Her legs are sick, she can't walk. This is my sister. She's lost a child. Forgive us if we are sad. And so I said, that's what I feel we are trying to do, be brothers and sisters to the people on the street, to be family. And Alex said, well, we can't really be family. We've got the keys to the place. We don't sleep outside.

[17:13]

At that point, I got a little pissed off. Can I say that? My equanimity practice was challenged. And I said to Alex, now you're just being argumentative. And this is not constructive at all. But you know, he's right. He's right. I brought a little show and tell today. See these? These are the keys. Yeah. This bad boy right here is what we call the A key. Yeah. This key opens the door to the kitchen, to the day room, to the back door of the day room, to the office. It has the toothpaste, the tampons, the deodorant when we have it. So this is the A key.

[18:14]

You want some toothpaste? You got to see me because I got the A key. This is the nail key. You want your check? You want your check? Do you? Be nice to me. Maybe you'll get your check. Yeah. Hear that sound? That's the sound of inadvertent Participation in social oppression. Yeah. It's true. We cannot possibly realistically call ourselves family when we're oppressing them. And we're part of a cog in the machine that's creating this marginalization. The word marginalization is marginalizing. How do you escape it? How do you escape it? It's impossible. It's impossible for us to pretend that we're family with the people we're serving.

[19:20]

Well, I'll tell you something, we're going to do it anyway. Okay? I don't care that it's impossible. I don't care, we're going to do it anyway. We bow a lot in Zen Center, you may have noticed. And each bow expresses one of our fundamental Buddhist vows. The vows are, sentient beings are numerless. We're going to save them all. Our desires are limitless. We're going to end them all. Buddhism, the teaching is limitless. We're going to master all of it. Buddhism is unattainable. We're going to attain it. Suzuki Roshi says, to think because it is possible we will do it is not Buddhism. Even though it's impossible, We have to do it because our true nature demands it of us. But actually, whether it is possible or not is not the point.

[20:24]

If it is our inmost desire to get rid of our selfish, self-centered ideas, we have to do it. When we make this effort, our inmost desire is appeased and nirvana is there. Before you determine to do it, you have difficulty. But once you start to do it, you have none. If it is our inmost desire to see the people on Soledad Street, where we work and live, as our brothers and sisters, we have to do it. We have no choice, even though it's impossible. So I have a secret to share with you about how to fulfill this impossible mission. Do a little time check here. The secret, so don't tell anybody, okay?

[21:29]

The secret to fulfilling this impossible mission comes from a tale about Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion. You may know that there's images of Avalokiteshvara, a transgender, Bodhisattva. Sometimes she's a man. Sometimes he's a woman. But there's an image of him slash her with a thousand arms and a thousand hands. And each hand has an eye on it. And eleven heads. This is Avalokiteshvara. Now there's a tale about how he got all those arms and hands and eyes and heads. And I'm going to I'll try to relate as succinctly as I can that tale. First of all, Avalokiteshvara was born from a beam that emanated out of Amitabha Buddha's head. Just zoop, there you are, Avalokiteshvara.

[22:31]

And then he looked and he saw all these beings in hell, in realms of torment, in misery, in suffering, and moved deeply by compassion for these suffering beings. Avalokiteshvara made her vow to tirelessly work to liberate all of those beings. Not to stop till the hells were empty, till the realms of suffering were empty. Not to stop, ever. As long as there was a single being in hell, in torment, sleeping on the streets, tirelessly work that vow. And, Avalokiteshvara said, should I ever grow despairing of this vow? Should my heart grow faint? And should I consider relinquishing this vow? May my head blow into a thousand pieces.

[23:32]

And so, you maybe can kind of conjecture where this is going. Avalokiteshvara worked very, very diligently, teaching Om Mani Padme Hum to all of the beings to liberate them from their suffering. And doing quite well, she thought, because she saw so many beings, millions upon thousands of beings, liberated from their torment, feeling maybe, dare I say, a little pleased with himself, herself. And then Amitabha Buddha said, hang on, wait a minute, I want you to look back down. Look back down at those hells and those realms of torment. And he saw that for every hundreds of thousands of beings that got out of hell and out of realms of torment, hundreds of thousands of beings were falling in. So seeing that, Avalokiteshwar grew dismayed and said, maybe it's better if I just go into nirvana.

[24:37]

Maybe it's hopeless. Maybe I can't really do this. And sure enough, kablooey. Her head blew up into a thousand pieces. Fortunately, Amitabha Buddha was not too far away and quickly came onto the scene and said, you know, this is really great. This is cool. This is wonderful. That this has happened, that your head is blown up is really an auspicious thing. And it's happened because of your deep, sincere promise, your deep, sincere vow that your head is blown up. You are worthy of veneration. I bow to you. Amitabha Buddha bows to Avalokiteshvara for having her head blown up. And now I can put your head back together. And when I do so, I'm going to give you a thousand arms, a thousand eyes and eleven heads, so that your deep love for beings will be even more effective in liberating them. So that story reveals

[25:38]

the secret of living the impossible dream that I referred to. You have to put your heart on the line. You have to risk. If you don't risk, it's not real. Okay? I carry these keys and I'm kind of shy about them. You know, I get out of my car and I quickly put them in my pocket. And then when I get to the door, I wait to the last minute to take them out and open that door as if I'm, you know, I'm like doing something illegal or something. I'm kind of ashamed of these keys. It hurts to have these keys. I vow to live with that hurt. I vow to live with the pain that

[26:40]

of the injustice and unfairness and the harshness that those keys represent, even if it shatters my heart. When I drive home, I'm driving to a nice, warm room, pictures of Suzuki Roshi and the Dalai Lama on the wall, a sound system computer, microwave popcorn when I want it and I'm driving away from folks who may be sleeping on concrete and it's getting colder it hurts to drive home leaving people who I am endeavoring to call my brothers and my sisters to sleep on concrete while I go home to my bed that hurts I vowed to live with that hurt even if my

[27:41]

So there's another example of how to live this impossible life from what we call the Metta Sutta. The Metta Sutta, it's a Meditation on loving kindness. And there's a line in it which goes, even as a mother at the risk of her life watches over and protects her only child, so with a boundless mind should I cherish all living beings, suffusing love over the entire world, above, below, and all around, without limit. That sounds pretty groovy, doesn't it? Yo, suffusing love over the entire world, above, below, and all around, without limit. All you need is love. Womp. Yeah, really groovy.

[28:41]

What about that? Did you hear that first part? Even as a mother, at the risk of her life, watches over and protects her only child? Do you see the danger there? Do you see the risk there? That's kind of risky. It's kind of dangerous. I want to read something about a mother's love. This book is called Blue Light Jazz, and the subtitle is Non-Religious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality. And just a page here about a mother's love. I was watching one of those news shows on television several months ago about a woman whose son was on death row.

[29:46]

He had killed a man and buried him in the woods. The television show followed a woman around during her son's final days. The cameras were there for the last visit when the son, a young black man, sat across from his mother in the prison visiting room. And the mother had tears in her eyes and was trying so very hard to disguise the fear and regret and confusion and panic. I sat on the couch uncomfortably and I wanted to jump through the screen and stop it all. I remember saying to myself, I hate this. But I kept watching. And there was a little girl there, the man's tiny sister. And she was sitting on his lap and she didn't know he was going to die. But he was saying to be good and do homework and don't tell any lies and obey your mama. Then the television showed the mother in her apartment a couple of days later, a sort of run-down hotel room in the ghetto, in the projects, and they didn't narrate anything.

[31:00]

They just let the cameras roll as the woman paced up and down in front of the bed. The kids, the three beautiful children, ran in and out of the open door, in and out of the heat where there was some sunset light happening. Then the phone rang, and the woman went over and sat on the side of the bed and picked up the phone. She held it kind of shakily and listened without saying anything. She just said yes in a sort of gut whisper, and then she put the phone back down, but it didn't hang up right. She fell to her knees and then got up and screamed and shook her fists at the ceiling. She turned and ran out the door into the courtyard of this run-down apartment complex, and as the camera pulled to look out the open door, they showed this large black woman collapsed to the ground, screaming into the dirt and pounding her fists.

[32:07]

Even as a mother at the risk of her life watches over and protects her only child, so should one suffuse the world with love. I want to tell you a story about my brother Billy. My brother Billy, he has Parkinson's disease. He walks with difficulty with a cane. His legs are sick. They don't work so well. Sometimes when Billy is getting up, he'll put his hand on my shoulder to help himself up. And he does it with such ease and such comfortableness that I feel blessed. I can't explain why. One day, I was sitting out on the sidewalk with Billy, and he sneezed and said that he wished he had some paper towels to blow his nose.

[33:25]

Well, I got the A key. So I said, hey, I'll go get you some paper towels. So I opened the door to the kitchen, got some paper towels, He came back and he was contracting a deal. He is in the process of buying some crack. And then he saw me come out the door. He looked up at me and shook his head and says, man, I don't want to do this in front of you. With such tenderness and such embarrassment. And I said, well, I'll go away and I'll go someplace else if you want me to. And he said, no, I kind of like you here. It feels good. And I know why you're here. My ear pricked up when I heard him say, and I know why you're here. And I said, tell me, why am I here? Maybe I could hear some cool things about myself.

[34:28]

And he mumbled some things about watching out for people and trying to help them do the right thing. And then he looked at me directly and said, we'll talk about it some other time. And then we sat there together for maybe 15, 20 more minutes talking about this, that, and he imagined how it was getting harder and harder for him to get around. The legs seemed to be getting, you know, worse. The disease seemed to be, you know, progressing. And he told me that last night he couldn't get himself up off the sidewalk to walk across the street to the Victory Mission where there's an inn shelter. And he slept right there on the sidewalk. He just couldn't get up. And then in the morning, he just couldn't get himself up off the sidewalk till the sun started to come out because it was cold. It was pretty darn cold that night. And I thought about him sleeping on the sidewalk. And then he gestured to the crack still in his hands.

[35:35]

And he said, well, nowadays, it's more about pain management that about getting high. So I said, well, I'll go check in with some other folks and I'll come back before I leave for the day and check in with you. He said, what time do you go home? I said, oh, 3, 3.30. And then I went and I took this key, the key to my friend Robert's office. I went upstairs. And I cried for a while. And then when I went to go home, I looked for Billy. And I saw him across the street smoking more crack. And I got in my car and drove home without saying goodbye. Another tale about... I bought this watch with a black face because I thought it was cool and I can't even read it half the time.

[36:51]

A tale about my daughter, Sally. Sally's a young woman. When she's straight... She has such a sweet, sweetheart and such a tender personality. When she's straight, when she sees me coming, her eyes light up and she stretches her arms out. Last week, she seemed to be doing really, really good. Before Thanksgiving, Several days in a row, she was in the kitchen volunteering, and she had her smile on, and that just makes me so happy to see her when she's that way, when she's straight.

[37:54]

But when I feel that happiness, I get scared, because when she's on crack, she's like a... She's a tweaking, jittery, fearful, haunted animal that's being pursued, like she's being pursued by some vicious carnivore. She doesn't make eye contact. Her sweetness is not accessible. And that could very easily happen. It's happened before. These cycles of being straight, and the sweetness of Sally being available to my heart, and then the times where I see that she's sweet and jittery and restless and scared. If your heart's on the line, the impossible is not so impossible.

[39:02]

Billy knows I love him. He loves me. And I think that his love is more important to me than if I knew that Suzuki Roshi loved me or the Dalai Lama loved me or something like that. Because it's cost him more. It costs him his pride to love me because I've got the keys, right? Hear him? I've got the keys. He knows I've got the keys. He doesn't care. because he knows that my heart is on the line for him. So, are there any people who will live together

[40:11]

and die together. Is there a fundamental basis? How do we uncover the fundamental basis? How do we uncover our hearts? How do we live together and die together? I have an image for the ultimate meaning of Zen practice. I told this image to a Christian friend of mine, and he said, oh, that's rather bleak, so prepare yourselves. And so if I haven't done enough trauma to your hearts yet, more is on the way, maybe. And this image is about 9-11. There was pictures of people falling from the towers.

[41:13]

There's one picture of two people falling from the towers together, holding their hands together. So we have, ultimately, we have two choices. We can live and die alone. where we can live and die together. I feel very, very honored that I can share a journey with people who a lot of their daily life feel alone and rejected, pushed to the margins of our community.

[42:19]

I can hold your hand. And I get so much from that. I get so much meaning from that. I don't know. It's a mystery as to why. It's really a mystery as to why that enriches my life more than anything that I've ever experienced. The fundamental basis of our shared humanity comes through with such radiance, such power. We have to set up a single atom of Dorothy's place, our hospitality center. We have keys. volunteer name badges, and the peasants may scoff and say, isn't that cute? They got their own little name badge. They may scoff and say, hey, the oppressors have the keys, and they're oppressing the marginalized.

[43:26]

But if you lift up a single atom, no matter how impossible, can uncover the fundamental basis you can uncover you can uncover the deepest part of this human life if you don't risk doing the impossible the nation perishes if you don't risk doing the impossible being family to those who you cannot be family to then the isolation and loneliness just continues I think I'm done. And please, I thank you for your attention, because I felt it, and I feel the tenderness in the room, so you allowed me to say these things and receive them kindly, and I'm gratified by that.

[44:37]

And we'll see you in just a little while.

[44:43]

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