Well, I almost wasn't here. Because at my house, it's nine o'clock. Anyway, I came early. When Dharma does not fill your whole body and mind, you think it is already sufficient. When Dharma fills your body and mind, you understand that something is missing. For example, when you sail out in a boat to the middle of an ocean where no land is in sight and view the four directions, the ocean looks circular

[01:17]

and doesn't look any other way. But the ocean is neither round nor square. Its features are infinite in variety. It is like a palace. It is like a jewel. It only looks circular as far as you can see at that time. All things are like this. So this morning I want to talk about a small part of this essay by Dogen Zenji called the Genjo Koan or Actualizing the Fundamental Point. He wrote this in 1233 to a lay disciple. And part of my reason for talking about

[02:21]

this essay and about Dogen is that I am looking for a way to feel closer to him. So I'm also going to talk about myself and see if I can find how to bring these two together. The great 13th century Zen master and me. Because it really does seem, from where I sit, that there are a significant number of gaps that separate us. You know, there's the obvious gaps, like 800 years. And then there's the gender gap. There's language and ethnic and cultural

[03:23]

how he was brought up, his religious upbringing. I'm sure he wasn't an Episcopalian to start. And there's also his intellectual prowess, which from any point of view is quite spectacular. One of the great thinkers of any age. And yet on the other hand, my people of the modern era have flown to the moon and walked on the bottom of the sea. So how is it that we will meet? How do we meet? How do we meet Dogen and me? Or Shakyamuni Buddha and me? Or you and me? How do we close the gap? So it's my very good fortune that this is the question that has been asked by people, all of us, for all time, and has been answered again and again by the teachers of us for all time.

[04:44]

There is a gap, a gap that separates us from one another and from everything around us. In Buddhist teaching, this gap is called ignorance. And it's the very source of all the troubles in the world. It all starts with ignorance. Because the good news is that there really is no gap. The gap doesn't really exist. We're not separate. It's just that we don't see it that way. So the gap is a creation of our mind and of our perception. It's a trick. The great ocean looks circular and not any other way.

[05:52]

It's a trick. But that's how it is for us humans. We're tricked. And so from where I sit, you're over there and I'm over here and there is vast spaciousness between us. Don't you think? What about those people next to you that you haven't been introduced to? Kind of creepy, huh? Way over there. Separate. So I think the spaciousness might be fine if it weren't for the horror that it engenders in us in the face of isolation. And to say nothing of our gut-wrenching fear of the dark, of the grave.

[06:56]

Whereas, I think it was Mr. Yates, I hope so anyway, He so nicely put it, and I used to recite when I was a young monk, Tassajara, alone and afraid in a world I've not made and fastened to a dying animal. Felt right. Yeah. A lot of young poets have made their fortunes on this kind of perspective, you know, dread. But it's not an uncommon way for us to think of the human condition. I mean, we all know what it's like to feel under attack, you know, from unseen or seen forces, to feel isolated or unwelcomed or unliked, unwanted, you know, particularly now with so many people who are actually experiencing being fired.

[08:08]

We don't want you here. We don't need your help. We can't afford you. You got to lighten the ship. So if that's all there is, then that is precisely what brought me to this old hay barn in the first place. You know, kind of like Noah sitting in the ark waiting for the water to rise. I hear that this building will float But despite the horror, or perhaps because of the horror, Dogen Zenji and I have found our common thread, an abiding and sweet devotion to the teaching of the Buddha, our sponsor. I gave my first lecture long ago in the city center.

[09:16]

It was about eight minutes long. My teacher said, that was very nice, but could you mention the Buddha? Or practice? So I try to put it in whenever I talk. So devotion to the teaching of the Buddha is basically the crazy glue that holds us all together. It's the big love. It's Dogen and me and Shakyamune Buddha and me and everything in me. We're all together. It's very good news. And I really have actually loved Dogen Zenji since I was a young girl in my 20s. And I first heard his teaching.

[10:18]

I was over in the city center. I was kind of adrift. I felt pretty unqualified for life on planet Earth. What do you do? Where do you go? What's my job? And who am I? So his words arrived like, a combination of stainless steel and light, sharp and penetrating and luminous and transformational, potentially beneficial and potentially dangerous. So consider yourself warned. Dogen was brought to California by the discernment, the wise discernment of beatniks and hippies and poets, insurance salesmen, and university scholars.

[11:29]

And from his side, I kind of imagine, actually this morning I imagined Dogen like a big benevolent spider, you know, shooting these golden words of wisdom and compassion out into space, you know, across the ages, for the generations that were to come. Pretty long shot. Pretty strong spider. Again from the Ginjo Quan. Though there are many features in the dusty world and the world beyond conditions, you see and understand only what your eye of practice can reach. In order to learn the nature of the myriad things, you must know that although they may look round or square, the other features of oceans and mountains are infinite in variety.

[12:35]

Whole worlds are there. It is so not only around you, but also directly beneath your feet or in a drop of water. Whole worlds are there. So I recently took my daughter snorkeling down in Baja, California, where it's warm. And... Some of you may know my daughter. Most of you probably don't. But she uses a wheelchair. So getting in the water is a big thrill. Not only that, we were snorkeling. So between gasps of air, she was saying, oh, my God. Like, where did this come from? All these fish and things. She was so ecstatic. The joy of it was seeing her, seeing this new world open.

[13:39]

just beneath the water. So I understand this teaching of Dogen somewhat like a trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium or the Museum of Modern Art. You know, when we go to visit the world of other creatures like the jellyfish and artists, you know, I think it helps us to grow bigger. When Dharma fills your body and mind, you understand that something is missing. And I think we all know that feeling. Something's missing. It's right there on the tip of my tongue. What is it? What is it? And then out of nowhere, seemingly miraculous appearance. Dragonfly, hummingbird, hawk, now, your mom, whatever.

[14:40]

There it is. Wow. Where have you been? Where are you going? It's quick. I don't know how many of you have seen Ron Howard's wonderful film, In the Shadow of the Moon. Have any of you not seen it? Oh, too many. Well, please run to the video store. It's wonderful. And it's wonderful not just because it's truly amazing what happened there in creating rocket ships to go to the moon. Most of them blew up. The Atlas. So there's long scenes of these huge multi-million dollar rockets blowing up. There wasn't anyone in them at that time. They were trying to get the one that was going to send the people. And then finally they do it. And you see these guys in little thin ties, 1950s. in the control room smoking. And they're like, whoa, whoa, it's going.

[15:45]

Anyway, it's a thrill. It's truly a thrill. Whatever you think about rockets and gasoline and all that, it's amazing what happened there. But the most amazing thing in this film is what happened to the people who were shot to the moon. They were, without exception, transformed by a shift in their perspective. And in the film, they're all old men now, these astronauts. I just remembered them as young, but they changed. Me too. And they're very thoughtful. And they talk about the experience they had when they were young, flying to the moon. And one of them mentions how he put his hand up and he could hide the earth behind his thumb. And it literally blew his mind. He's never recovered. He's a real spiritual guy.

[16:47]

He's like babbling like me. So I think it would be great. Anyway, I am recommending that you see this film because you can experience the shift of perspective for yourself. in viewing it in the shadow of the moon. Remember Ron Howard when he was TV? He's quite a wonderful director. And the more often that we look under the water and we look through the inspired perspective of others, I think we get bigger and bigger yet. Unlike our free market economy, this kind of growth never ends. Unlimited. potential. And it's really what we're built for. We're built to grow, to get bigger. There is no limit to who we are, what we can know and what we can feel and see beyond our imaginations, beyond what we think.

[18:04]

However, Along with this capacity to grow, there is the capacity to shrink and to forget and to collapse our perspective down to that circle of water that doesn't look any other way. And then we get scared. We forget. And I think... We've all gone through these experiences over the years. For me, starting somewhat in the 60s, but I think I got pretty disappointed before that. Probably by third grade, I'd had my first crashing blows. So we go through these decades of rising and falling, of expectation and disappointment, right up to the present moment. I think we are all pretty stunned by what's happening so fast.

[19:04]

to our financial and commercial institutions. Holy cow. I mean, based on the ads, you'd think they were really solid. The Bull, Merrill Lynch. Like, whoa. So it's an illusion, isn't it? That's the gift. It's an illusion. So in what do we place our faith? I was noticing, I was driving in the city yesterday, and I was looking at all these businesses. There's some extraordinary things that are for sale along Van Ness Avenue. And I was imagining the lights going out, one after the other. And some of them have already luxury furniture. It's like, no lights, no furniture. Very nice cars for sale.

[20:07]

And, you know, I'm thinking, well, maybe this is going to be a Great Depression, like my grandmother and my mother talked about. It wasn't so easy. But, you know, they had food and they shared food. And my grandma said she would, any time a man would sit on the front porch of her house, she would bring him something to eat. That was just the way. And my mom had cardboard in her shoes. Lasted a long time? Not so bad. Not really. At least not for them. And may it not be so bad for you either. Any of it. The waters of the ocean are beginning to roil. And yet it's not unlike the way we breathe, you know. First we... Inhale, and then we exhale.

[21:14]

Expand and collapse. Life depends on contrast. Remember and forget. Without contrast, there is no life. Without darkness, there is no light. Without good, there is no evil, and so on. No yes, no no. Each side depends upon the other, the shadow of the moon, the light of the moon. And Shakyamuni Buddha and Zen Master Dogen and all of the great teachers were well aware of this dualistic element at the core of human life, you know, the twos, the two things. And they thought about that. Almost the entirety of their careers was... teaching about the two things and how to find the middle way. The middle way between the extremes of there is something and there isn't anything.

[22:22]

Nihilism and eternalism. When one side is illuminated the other side is dark. So where are these two things coming from? in the first place? Well, they come from the same place as the gap. The gap is between the two things. They're products of our imagination. We make them up. You and me. Up and down. The astronauts didn't have an up and down. That's pretty weird. Where'd it go? So because of this tendency of our minds, the teachers encourage us to remember how we think. Please remember that you forget. And then you'll remember again.

[23:26]

Please remember you forget. Please remember you forget. That's the teaching. That's kind of it, really. If you remember that, you'll be fine. The ocean is neither round nor square. Its features are infinite in variety. It is like a palace. It is like a jewel. It only looks circular as far as I can see at this time. All things are like this. So it might not surprise you what I meant to mention earlier so that now I can say what I'm going to say is that one of the great tunes from the 60s that is kind of emblematic of the situation we're in right now, of collapsing of our perspective. My favorite tune is, you know, Stuck in Lodi Again. You know that one? Stuck in Lodi Again.

[24:26]

You just see those road musicians, you know, out of money, out of gas, and stuck in Lodi Again. There we are. What worst nightmare could any of us have? Okay, so I was going to say that. And then I was going to say, now, if you can stay with me. You might be surprised to hear that Lodi is actually a rather wonderful town. My mother lived in Lodi for a number of years toward the end of her life because she could afford it. In Lodi, she had a house with some fruit trees and a garden and... fairly nice neighbors most of the time. There were no kids, lots of dogs, and the rent was $500 a month. Can't do that in Mill Valley, as you all know.

[25:27]

So it also might not surprise you that while I was typing up my notes for this lecture, My daughter, Sabrina, was in the other room vomiting. So every 15 minutes or so, she'd call, Mommy, you know, in that voice. And I'd go in and she'd throw up again. So I'd hold her shoulders and, you know, wipe her mouth and take the little bucket out and rinse it out, take it back to her, and then I'd go back to my computer, try to find my train of thought. I didn't know what was wrong with her. She didn't have a fever. She had no rash or any visible signs. And I was trying not to worry. And she says, I worry too much anyway, which is probably true.

[26:30]

But her other mother who I think most, I don't know, some of you may have know or heard about what happened to her other mother. Her other mother, Grace, my partner, who's a physician, used to take care of all this stuff, the throwing up and... Ah, the bills. A number of other things. And I would work on my lectures. It was a good arrangement, all in all. Um... But last May, Grace was in a very bad automobile accident on the Golden Gate Bridge. And she's still in the hospital. And although things are getting better, we're back on track and she's climbing out of a really deep hole. She's got a great spirit. Many of you know her, some of you do. She's got a great spirit. I call her the tank. She just came right out of that hole and she's going forward.

[27:35]

hoping to get her back on her feet any day, any time, any month. And she may be able to walk again. She's gaining some use of her arms again. She really got banged up. So, you know, so I try not to worry. features of the ocean are infinite in variety it's like a palace it's like a jewel it only looks circular as far as your eye can see at this time so I get really scared sometimes and I hope you know enough about all of us and Zen and so on not to be at all surprised by that

[28:45]

We get really scared and mad and stupid and everything. So I kind of wonder, you know, well, how am I going to do this? How am I going to take care? How little me? How am I going to take care of my daughter also uses a wheelchair, by the way? How am I going to take care of my little train of wheelchairs? And they need me. They need my help. And, you know, and... Are you scared? Can I do this? So it really helped me at the time, maybe a month after the accident. In the beginning, I couldn't be scared. There was no place to be scared. It was just things were wild. The ocean was roiled. And I couldn't see anything, just another wave. Yeah. So I think the help that came to me was a voice from inside my chest.

[30:01]

It's kind of familiar. It says male voice. It's very suspicious. I don't know who it is. But it could be my therapist sneaking in. I don't know. He is the guy. But anyway, so this big voice said, This is a test of your manhood. You know, and I don't know what the female equivalent of that phrase is, actually. I tried different things. Womanhood, you know, that sounds like you should be changing outfits or something. I don't know what it is for us women, and I think we need to find it out because we're doing it. We're all doing it. So I'm being tested, and it's the big one. It's the big test. We talk about practice. Well, this is not practice. This is it. This is what I practiced to do, to take care of my loved ones with all my strength, with all my heart, all my soul, if I had one.

[31:13]

I want to take care of them. And I... I'm not sure I know how. Maybe that's the fear. I'm so little. That's a circle of water. When I was single and living in the monastery down at Tassajara, I used to wonder if Dogen had a cat. I'm kind of curious about his humanity. And now I wonder how he paid the bills. And... fixed the repairs in the monastery walls and fed the monks. He didn't say. He doesn't write about that. Maybe somebody else was taking care of that business for him so he could work on his lectures. I don't mean that to be unkind. So what I do every morning is I make a list.

[32:18]

And at the top I write, some of you don't know, my name is Foo. I write Foo-do. Which I thought was funny, a long time ago, but I keep doing it anyway. Foo-do, colon. And then I put, in order of intensity, the things I need to take care of today or soon. So right now it's got taxes, disability insurance, There's another insurance, probably car insurance was the other one. And, oh, health insurance, only three insurances in between, taxes, insurance, and then the last one is, I need a new can opener. So it helps, you know, that list. And I check them off as I get them done. So this circle of water is actually my real life.

[33:27]

And it doesn't look any other way. So I say, hallelujah. I have no complaints. And that's not completely true. I have a few. But they're minor. I have never been more engaged or more alive or more grateful for the opportunity I have to share myself and to feel needed. Because I am. For real. They need me. When I was young, I had no plans to have a family of my own. I wanted to travel forever. gypsy. And then a monk. But plans or no plans, my family came and found me.

[34:32]

Not by blood or by marriage. That's not allowed. But by reality. We're a family. My friend Grace, my daughter Sabrina, the dog, the two cats, the houseplants, the garden... my community, all of you. We are family by reality. No way out. So I have one more story about outer space. Since I named this lecture In the Shadow of the Moon, so I'm going to talk about the moon one more time. Last summer, I took Sabrina to the new Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, and we went to the planetarium to see the show. And what I was thrilled by was that opening segment.

[35:37]

Have any of you not seen it? Same people that... Guys better get busy. Okay, so in the opening sequence... It's very much like the experience, you can have yourself this experience that the astronauts had of, you know, leaving the Earth. So they take you, this big thing, sky, goes dark, and then they take you to the roof of the planetarium, which is a green roof, and there are all these little flowers. And you start with the little flowers on the roof, and then you start rising. It's a little bit more like a balloon than a rocket. You start rising slowly up. until you can see the whole building and then the Golden Gate Park and then San Francisco and Green Gulch Farm. I really, I looked for Green Gulch Farm. And Northern California and Oregon and Washington and Mexico and Canada and Hawaii and the whole side of the earth.

[36:41]

One side illuminated and the other side dark. It's great. It's beautiful. And I got worried because the thought that arose at the time I was lifting off and began to see the curve appear on the horizon. It doesn't take you have to go up very high to see the curve. Maybe from an airplane, it's possible. I think we're seeing the curve, you know, and then that curve is a ball, a little ball, a tiny little ball. From the moon, you know, just put up your thumb, it's gone. And I thought, I was struck in my heart by the vulnerability of life, of our tiny, fragile little planet, our home, for real. And, yeah, it was painful, that feeling, you know, like I forgot, something I forgot.

[37:51]

So even though it's kind of hard for me to imagine taking on any more tasks at this time, I did add Save the Planet Earth to my list after insurance. And then I came up with another list of how to do it. So I'm going to share that with you. It's kind of in order of intensity. So here it is. Here's how we're going to save the earth. Okay? First of all, we need to slow down. Way down. Way, way down. Way down. And one of the great things that Grace has learned from this experience, and she's learned a lot. I mean, it's fun to visit her. She can pop these insights out. You know, like, whoa, Grace, that's cool. got a ton of them.

[39:01]

And she said, it really helped me to stop moving around. You know, she's not paralyzed, but kind of close. She can't feed herself or walk yet or anything. So pretty much everything's done for her. And she's healing. So, you know, we burn too hot and too fast. That's That's step number one, slow down. Slow down. So the other thing Grace has observed and glows from when she's in that observation is how precious is this life? That's the golden thread that runs through all the wisdom, traditions of the world. How precious is this life? And you can see the golden thread in a couple of ways.

[40:03]

One is to go up in a spaceship. I think that works. And the other one is to, you know, sit on the earth. Quietly. Don't move. And you can feel that precious life coming up through your spine. That's you. That's you. That's Shakyamuni Buddha under the tree. That's Dogen Zenji. That's it, right there. That precious life, this one precious life that we share connects us all. Crazy blue. In order to learn the nature of the myriad things, you must know that although they may look round or square, the other features of oceans and mountains are infinite in variety. Whole worlds are there. It is so not only around you, but also directly beneath your feet or in a drop of water.

[41:04]

So the next five items on my list of how to save the earth are basically byproducts of item number one, which was to slow down. So once you slow down, then you need to see more clearly. You need to listen. speak, walk, and think more carefully. And you need to love more deeply and unconditionally. And if these simple things don't save the planet Earth, then I don't know what will. And yet my teacher, Reb Anderson, once said to me, when I... Went in to see him. I pulled on my okesa and I said, how is this going to save the world? And he said, well, it might save it from you.

[42:07]

Thank you very much.

[42:14]

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