All right, long time no see. Would you let me see if the mute button has been pushed on the transmitter here? Let's see if the mute button has been pushed on the transmitter. Let's see. Power on? On? On. On? Not on. On? On. Good morning. Good morning. It's a beautiful morning. Isn't it beautiful? It's really pretty. If I sit here long enough, I won't have time to give my talk. I don't know very many people here, it turns out. Can you still hear me? Okay. I don't know many people here, so I'll introduce you.

[01:11]

This is our new paraprofessor here at City Center. Please, go ahead. Tia. I was going to say my name. My name is Tia, yes. Tia, yes. My Dharma name is Dancing Thunder, servant of truth. More, even still? All right, all right. My name is Dancing Thunder, servant of truth. I'm the new tanto here. Tanto means tan. It means head of the tan. Tan are the seats in a zendo. So tanto means head of the tan or head of the practice here. And when Blanche, a while ago, asked me to talk, give a talk, I said I was going to introduce myself because I was new here. And she said, no, why don't you give your teaching?

[02:13]

She said. I laughed inside. My teaching, very cute, Blanche. And so I really started thinking about it. I was trying to think, well, what would it be? And what would I actually say that would be that important? Because actually, fundamentally, I feel like there is nothing to say. And the most, well, I'll say, I'm not going to edit. I will say what I was thinking. The most wonderful place is a place of really deep and vast silence. And from that place, there is nothing to say. To settle in that place is a great relief. However, we do speak and there is suffering. And so when asked, one responds. And in this case, I must say something.

[03:15]

So what I chose in thinking, what I chose to talk about was something like the dream of the self, which I feel is fundamental, don't you think? It's a fundamental teaching and one that is our, should be, actually. Here's a should for you today. It should be our practice, our focus in our practice. And out of which, this place of no self, out of which compassion comes, true compassion comes. Because compassion from a place of the self is only self-serving, ultimately. Compassion from a place of no self benefits all beings. So today, I want to look a little bit about this no self. Is that the sun or you can't hear me? Okay. So I also wanted to take the opportunity to thank people

[04:22]

for the transition from Green Gulch to here. My welcome at the city center so far has been very kind and very helpful, so I really appreciate that. And I did want to say that. And the other thing I wanted to say in way of introduction to myself is that, just for your information, I started sitting in 1967 in Los Angeles. And in 1968, I met Suzuki Roshi and then started coming up from Los Angeles here in this building to have doksan with him. And I have altogether lived for almost 11 years at Tassajara, which is our monastic retreat. And I have also lived for a while in Minneapolis with Ketagiri Roshi and Trungpa, Rocky Mountain Dharma Center, a Tibetan teacher, and also have some experience in Vipassana in Barrie in Massachusetts.

[05:27]

But yesterday in service right here where I was doing service, I had the thought that this is my home. I felt like I was coming home to this place. And it surprised me because I hadn't been here since the early 80s and had been living mostly in the country and not in a city. So I was really surprised. But this was my entrance. And so I feel home, and I'm happy to be here. However, I do have a transition, a kind of initiation transition, and I want to share it with you. The first thing that happened when I was here was that my car got broken into. The window was smashed, the radio was ripped out, there were wires all over the place, my backlighter was gone, my really good sunglasses were stolen, a war jacket and a war blanket, among other things, were taken. And when I went to the car and looked,

[06:30]

it was, of course, done, right? So I looked, and it was just a mess. It was really ugly. And my first thought was, don't touch anything because the police are surely going to want to come and take fingerprints. And of course, in the moment I thought that, I thought, that's ridiculous, you know. So then, from that point on, I sort of put on my city head a little bit. And that was my first kind of initiation. My second initiation was quite the other end of the spectrum. The Tuesday, last Tuesday, I think, I went to the opera. I saw The Marriage of Figaro, Mozart's Marriage of Figaro. And it was fabulous, just fabulous. Of course, I love music anyway, but it was really good. And for the first time they had, that I've seen, they had super titles on top of the stage

[07:31]

so you could actually follow the story as you were listening to music. I was totally engaged. These wonderful costumes and emotions were happening, and it's a fun and complex kind of story, and it was really wonderful. So that was another kind of initiation. And in fact, the illusion, I was so totally into it, I was completely there. It was a four-hour lecture. I mean, a four-hour... And away it was, because the next day, and here's the really interesting part, the next day I was at practice committee, right? And there they were in their costumes, you know, with shaved heads and their little beards and with just as complex emotional events. And I thought, well, what is the illusion? You know, was it last night? Or was it this morning? So that was another kind of initiation.

[08:31]

And then the initiation actually that was the most significant was the following day I sat Tongariro, Day of Tongariro, which... which is really the most important initiation because it is there that we really find that in fact both the meeting and the opera are both dreams, are both a kind of an illusion. Both are transparent and graspable and without independent existence. And now comes my favorite part of the talk is my... This is a quote from Shakespeare from The Tempest. I'm sure you'll recognize it.

[09:33]

This is how Shakespeare tells it. Our revels now are ended. These are actors, as I foretold you, were all spirits and are melted into air, into thin air. And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, the cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, the great globe itself, yea, all which it inherit shall dissolve. And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff as dreams are made on and our little life is rounded with a sleep. This quicksilver world, this world of apparent reality so rich in joy and sorrow,

[10:37]

we believe to be substantial. And therein lies our anguish. We solidify and cling to our points of view, our judgments, our objects of desire, and, as we know, the most damning belief is the one in our own vaunted selves. At this point, I could talk about, you know, non-duality and no separation and two truths and so on and so on and so forth, but I just want to talk about this little saying from Zimbabwe. If you can walk, you can dance, and if you can talk, you can sing. In fact, when I was teaching music in Africa, it was actually Kenya, not Zimbabwe, there was a game that people would play. They were in these concentric circles, and in the midst of these circles,

[11:40]

they would be singing and so on and so forth, and in the midst of the circle, somebody would go into the middle of the circle and they would dance. And then the outside people, they would clap. And I couldn't tell for ages what in the world they were clapping about because they weren't clapping for the person I thought was the best dancer, not at all. So I couldn't figure it out, but then after a while, when I was there for a long time, I got to know the people. It was easy to tell. They were dancing for the person they were clapping for the person who was dancing, who was the most, not dancing necessarily, or whatever they were doing, that showed who they were the most. It was really great. So they applauded the person who was being the most themselves in that situation. It was great. It was totally great. But anyway, I think actually, you know, Blanche talks about that all the time. Being yourself is the most important thing. So what I want to do is I want us to sing a little bit. So what we will do is

[12:42]

we're going to sing Ro, Ro, Row Your Boat, which everybody knows. Am I wasting too much time? I think so. Shall I begin? Row, row, row your boat Gently down the stream Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily Life is but a dream Well, all right, you know it. So now we're going to divide it right in the middle and you can choose what side you want to be on, Jeff. You can choose. And we'll start on this side. One, two, ready. Row, row, row your boat Gently down the stream Row, row, row your boat Gently down the stream Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily Gently down the stream Very good. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily Gently down the stream Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily

[13:42]

Life is but a dream Very good. Very good. Okay, now we're going to do it in four parts, but now you have to really be listening. Here's the most important thing about life. No, just about music. You've got to hold your tune, okay? You can't not know your own tune. Yes, it's about life. You have to really... No, no, I'm serious. You have to really be who you are. You have to really hold your place. In a relationship, it's the same thing, right? You can't dominate the other person. That's not a relationship. And you can't wimp out either. You know, always acquiescing to whatever the other person wants. No good, right? Now, you have to hold your own tune. Then, when you share your own tune, then you have to really listen to the other person so that you can get together. So, four parts, okay? You can choose. And you can choose right in there, okay? Okay? One, two, three.

[14:42]

Row, row, gently down the stream Row, row, gently down the stream Merrily, merrily, merrily Row, row, gently down the stream Merrily, merrily, merrily Row, row, gently down the stream Good. Merrily, merrily, merrily Row, row, gently down the stream Merrily, merrily, merrily Row, row, gently down the stream Merrily, merrily, merrily Life is but a dream Oh, you are good. You're very good. And good for you. I'm not even going to have time to finish my talk. I had, you know, six pages. I better really hurry. But I've already told you the most important thing. I was just going to tell you how to practice with it, so. Now here, the thing about, the reason I wanted you guys to sing, because really, think about this boat situation. This merrily, [...] life is just a dream. Life is just a dream, okay? So there are two kinds of dream boats, kind of,

[15:47]

that were rolling down the stream. One boat, I'm serious, one boat is the dream boat of my dreams. This is my dream, I want this. I want this, this person is my dream, I want that person, that's my dream boat, I want that person. One of the boats is a wanting boat. One of the boats is wanting, and through this wanting, we grasp. And after grasping, in fact, not after grasping, grasping itself is suffering, not after grasping. Grasping itself is suffering, okay? So the wanting boat, the grasping boat, is one of these boats, one kind of boat. The other kind of boat is the boat that is this illusory, this ungraspability, this kind of, that at the end of the Diamond Sutra, which we recited, I think, yesterday, here, for service, at the end of the Diamond Sutra, it says how we are to understand

[16:48]

what we think of as substantial things, including our ideas and thoughts, okay? So here's how it says we are to understand things. As a fault of vision, a lamp, a mock show, dew drops or a bubble, a dream, a lightning flash or a cloud, so should one view what is conditioned. Now, there's nothing wrong with the boat of grasping. It's just that if you grasp all the time, first of all, you suffer, and ultimately so do other people. There's nothing actually wrong with it, it's just that the consequences for your life are really different, grasping and not grasping. In fact, even if you grasp after religious experiences, okay? It's the same thing. So... It's the same...

[17:51]

Yeah, it's the same thing. Well, you know, we can talk about that more... That's okay. You know, that's a really good example of a certain kind of impulsive, right? It's good, it's good. We can talk about that more, okay? So anyway, the thing is that we forget the groundlessness underneath the grasping. So, you know, in general, I'm skipping all over my talk because we've only got like, you know, 15 minutes, because Suzuki Roshi in Zen Mind Beginner's Mind has a wonderful fascicle called Attachment and Non-Attachment, and this is about beyond grasping or not grasping or attachment and non-attachment, and it's my favorite one in the whole book. What he says is that actually it's okay to grasp

[18:52]

if you are not grasping. Let me explain it to you. If you're fully one with grasping, grasping is fulfilled in the non-duality sitting settled in grasping, then you can have space around it, and then you don't have to actually manifest the grasping. You just sit and feel what it feels like to grasp it. So if you don't hold on and actually do the activity, you have freedom in the grasping. It's non-dual grasping. That's Buddha's grasping, and that's what he talks about in his fascicle. It's not easy. It's very difficult to understand, but it really is true. It's like the same as with desire, sexual feelings, and so on and so forth. We think all the time. We have a sexual feeling, and we're immediately compelled, propelled to do something, and very difficult to take care of, but if you really, really can settle and be still

[19:58]

in the midst of that feeling, it's fulfilled. Desire is fulfilled in itself. I know the first time I heard that, I thought, that is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. But it really is true. It's completely true. If you really sit in it, desire is filled in itself, because it's just a feeling. The problem is that we feel like our feelings are too much for ourselves, and in the beginning, it's true. That's why you have to sit, because when you sit, you sit there, and all your feelings and thoughts come up, blah, blah, blah, and you don't do anything with it. You don't push it. You know this. You don't push them away. You don't grasp them. You're told this constantly, all the time. You can just sit there and feel it, and as you do that, year after year after year, the feelings that you deal with get deeper and deeper and deeper, and you have to deal with the ones that, for you, are the really stronger difficulties in your life,

[20:59]

and what happens is you begin to see their dependent co-arising. If I'm using words that you don't understand, we can talk about it over there. You get to see how they're created by all of everything, and then, for some reason or another, it allows you some freedom from them, actually, because you know you're going to end up suffering, really, and you can sit there with the ones that are the most, and deeper, deeper, deeper ones that you're the most afraid of, that have been controlling your life all the time, like doubt, failure, image, you know, grasping after images, feelings of lack, feelings that your life aren't enough. You know, the things that, for you, are deep down in there. You learn to be able... You learn to see how they arise, how they... Actually, you see how the self arises. The self is the grasping.

[22:01]

It is the failure. It is the doubt. That is what the self is. That's how it makes itself up. It is the struggle. The self, the definition of the self is struggle. That's why, if you seek, you're fighting all the time, and your real self, Suzuki Roshi calls it the small self, your small self is very happy with your struggling. Bob gave a really good talk about it the other day. It was exactly what I'm saying. The struggle itself is what is the suffering, but we don't believe it. So, we can't just let go of the struggle. We can't let go of the seeking. We think we really have got it now, I'm going to make myself better, or I've really got it now, I'm going to do this religious life, I'm going to be awake, I'm going to be enlightened, everything's going to be fine. You know who's talking? You know who's saying that? That's your little conditioned self that frankly, I'm sorry to say,

[23:02]

but I'm going to say it, I'm sorry to say this, but it's true. I'm really sorry. It's going to come right out of my mouth. It doesn't give a damn about you. It doesn't. It doesn't care if you are suffering, it doesn't care if you hurt, it really does not care. It wants to be alive. And what I mean by it is, I mean the sense of separation that we feel. And it will take anything. It will take the religious life, it will take being a good person, it will take having status, it will take being a failure, it will take your happiness, it will take everything to keep itself going so that it doesn't die. Because in order to really experience this being, not experience, it's not an experience, in order to be, because experience,

[24:05]

you're still separate from the experience, right? There's a new experience. That's why religious experience is just great, it gives you a kind of a... it gives you an idea, but you have to integrate it. I'm getting off my track. So in experience, you're still separate. So it will even take experience, because it wants to live, because when this little separate feeling sense dies, then you're just alive. That's all. It's kind of boring. You don't have all the stories that you're used to telling yourself, the excitement of your life, your achievements, whatever it is, you know? No, you don't have any more, you're just doing life, you're present, right? And it's fabulous, it's wonderful, sometimes it's great, right? And sometimes it's not so great. So what? No problem. Not a problem. So right in the middle of your problem,

[25:07]

if you're completely there, and don't make up a story about it, don't separate yourself from it, but just completely be your problem, it's not a problem anymore. I used to see Suzuki Roshi up there, Blanche and I were talking the other day, and about that room, it's a potent room, potent room. May I call you Blanche? I mean instead of... Thank you. Because... I respect, you know, very much the position of Blanche. It's at Abbess Zen Center. It's a wonderful thing. Anyway, we were in that room, and I am past menopause now, so if I have a thought, and I don't immediately say what that thought is, I have forgotten the thought. Am I right? So that thought is completely... What's that thought? I have no idea what that thought was. What was I talking about?

[26:10]

Thank you. Thank you. Suzuki Roshi. And what was it just before that? Oh, no problems. Thank you very much. I used to go... I used to go visit Suzuki Roshi in the Dixon Room. I would come... I was the most... Not the most, but one of the most neurotic people around. I applied. In 1971, I applied to go to Tassajara. I'm a little bit too proud of this, I'm afraid. I can feel it myself. Pushing up, right? What am I pushing up about? This is the real deal. I'm pushing up about my failure. That's my thing, right? So what happened in 1971? I applied to go to Tassajara, and I was rejected. That's what I'm proud of. Isn't that weird? It's bizarre. Anyway, in 1971, I was rejected. So I, you know, I must have been really... That's my paper. It says I was really cuckoo.

[27:14]

So anyway, I would bring him this very, you know, twisted, entwined problems. I had real, you know, problems then, real difficult... I did. Yeah, I did. I did. I had problems. And I used to go to him in this room. I used to go to him in the room, and I would bring him these real difficult situations. And for some reason, as I was talking with him, they disappeared. Because he was so settled, you know, so deeply settled, it was so vast, the non-self or the emptiness, I'll use that word, the emptiness of his being, that whatever your problems, you know, there was nothing to reverberate on. There was no wall there. They just went into this hole, you know, and disappeared, kind of like. Isn't that so? And so where were they, you know?

[28:21]

And I wouldn't feel them at all when I was with him. It was a tremendous sense of peace that you could sense, feel. This is not the talk that I was going to give, so I don't know where to pick it up now. Oh, I'll tell you something. So the thing is, you can't do whatever it was that I was talking about today unless you're present. And of course, we have all of these reasons. The small self has all these reasons why it's not going to let you be present, right? You're going to be restless, and you're going to be seeking, and you're going to be distracted, and whatever it is, you're going to be doing all these things to prevent you from being present to notice that all you have to do is be present in your life, and that's enough. So you must be present. You must be mindful, and you must be present. And the best way to practice doing that

[29:23]

is in the Zen Do. Because the things that prevent you from being in all the hindrances, the doubt, restlessness, greed, hate, and delusion, and this sense of a separate self, all come up during Zazen, and you practice not doing anything with them so that you can be present in your life. Besides, why wouldn't you want to be present? Well, I know why, but why wouldn't you want to be present in your life? Because if you're not present in your life, you miss your life. Really. I mean, you've missed it. Goodbye. It's over. And your life, you will die these little deaths all day long. I remember, Katagiri Roshi used to say to me all the time, not I, he was talking, he said, you, you are responsible for making your life alive. Nobody else. You are responsible for making your life alive. Nobody else.

[30:24]

So it's about Zazen, and it's about doing Zazen together. Not that you can't do it alone in your house. I did Zazen for years by myself, and it's a very, very, very wonderful way to practice, but it's helpful to sit with other people because it encourages you, and it's easier. In fact, it's easier. So, I am here to sit Zazen with whoever wants to sit Zazen, and also to walk with you through whatever comes up in your life that makes it difficult for you to do that, for you to settle in your life, to settle in your life, to deeply settle in your own life. I'm going to throw, I'm going to not even look at this anymore and just...

[31:29]

So, let's see. What else do I want to say? You know, it's actually interesting for me to be back in the city. I now live in an apartment. I haven't lived in an apartment by myself for thirty-some years, and I have a kitchen and a bathroom, and I have my flute again, which I haven't played in a very long time, and I exercise sometimes and so on, and I lived that kind of life a long time ago, and I know what it's like to live that kind of life, and it wasn't enough. It was the thing that I most wanted to do,

[32:33]

music, I was doing music, and I was doing music, and I loved it completely, so I didn't understand why it wasn't enough. So now I have an opportunity to be in almost exactly the same situation, the only difference is that I have a different relationship with my mind. It's the only difference, and I'm wondering, actually, if my life will be enough. Just this. Just this. So, sitting in the midst of problems that are problems, for sure, and no problems, being aware, present and aware, in the middle of our life,

[33:34]

without doing anything about it, not pushing it away, not making it better. This awareness, this non-dual, no-self awareness is the ground of everything. It is what Satsang is about, it's what our Soto Zen way is about. So, those of you who are part of the Sangha at the city center, please accept me joining you to do this practice together. I'm looking forward to it, and looking forward to meeting you. And, at this point, I would like to dedicate this talk to the end of struggle

[34:36]

and to the end of suffering for ourselves and for all beings. And, please help me to do this with you. Make me walk my talk, you know. And if I can help you in some way, it will be my joy to do that. So, let's practice together.

[35:07]

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