Shuso Way-Seeking Mind Talk

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SF-01077
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our intention
a to taste the truth of the target hers words

good evening
traditionally that she sows first top
this about how they came to practice
so i'll be talking about my live in practice tonight
when i was growing up until the time i left home to go to college
i went to a church called unity
or unity society of practical christianity
and unity was founded by charles and myrtle fillmore
in the late eighteen hundreds about the same time christian science was founded
and the film yours
we're vegetarians believed in reincarnation
and they taught that the mind has power to affect the physical world
and they taught the power of positive thinking
when i went to sunday school i was taught
good god is love
that god is in in each of us that we can never be separate from god
in the jesus christ on
realized
imperfection the perfection of god and then each of us had the same potential her perfection
the priced him
and such words as evil and sin
ah hell and available
we're not used at unity in fact they were sort of taboo
i'm in
when i was six years old
my sunday school class memorized upon
which is the first thing i remember trying to memorize miss a big project for me
nippon
was the heart is a garden
and it goes the heart is a garden where thought flowers grow
the thoughts that we think i like seeds that we so
each kind loving thought bears the kind loving deed
well thoughts that are selfish or just like weeds we must watch what we think each moment all day and pull out the wheat thoughts and throw them away
and plant loving seed thoughts so thick in a row that there won't be room for the week thoughts to grow
on
later i realized that this is my first content that the law of cause and effect
group
it
so i participated fully in church i enjoyed it a lot and i meant a lot to me
however when i was growing up
ah the main
quality are feeling of my family
i was unhappiness i was the oldest of four kids and it seems like whenever my parents were together they were always fighting and often screaming and my brother and sister we're always arguing
and there's always a lot of noise and chaos and conflict and just picking
all the time
and i have is desired to get away from the all be quiet
so does the peacefulness
yes i grew older are inserted thinking about more about what i wanted to do with my life
ah and looked at how people live their lives
i didn't really see anybody doing anything that i wanted to do when it made sense
or had meaning or would make a difference in the world
and the more i looked at life it seemed flatter and platter
ah until i can reduce it to on
people are born they grow up they get jobs they were they have kids they get old and they die their kids grow up and get jobs and get married and have kids and work and they die
and it seemed like this endless pointless meaningless cycle
that never got you anywhere
and you put difference did it make
ah they're so and so was here are not here are ever had been born or alive
and
this feeling grew
so that i started to think of 'em
in caged
ah the i grew up in the suburbs and everybody lived in a house and it seemed like these houses were cages that people lived in their cage and then they left and got into a car neither cage which a word and stayed on another cage all day long
it basically people were caged ah i existence trapped in existence
reminded me of the lions and tigers at the zoo in their cages who paced back and forth waiting for life to be over
however because i had the idea of reincarnation
i had the idea that it wouldn't be over
ah that it seemed like this
really meaningless
a hopeless cycle
oh
and i was in high school i had a sunday school teacher for four years that i consider my first teacher
here's this intense abrupt man
who had almost a confrontation manner
and i don't know if he is capable of conversation
i i never saw him though i have conversations and he didn't really speak in sentences seemed either that he had these very poignant phrases that he would come out with
one of them that i remember ah was so that you come by a way for you know
and you know that you know
and for me he was a light at the end of a larp a dark hong tunnel
and he didn't change me a practice or away
but he really encouraged the idea for me that there was away or a practice that somewhere someplace somebody had a spiritual practice
ah that i wanted to find out about
during the same time i read jd salinger's books
and my junior year in high school i think i read franny and zooey four times and re read many of the passages
memorize them
that's how i found out about sin was in franny and zooey
and i liked very much with salinger said about sin but the way he wrote about it led me to believe that it was something that had existed long ago in a faraway country that was all over now and
so i didn't really have the hope of in findings in fact i didn't even realize you know there were books about sin just didn't occur to me
i'm in the same time period of high school years
i had heard that the founder of our church
used to meditate and that sometimes he meditated all night
and i had a desire to meditate
and i tried it several times
after i did my homework at night i propped up pillows set up in bed and lean back and shut my eyes
and tried to meditate i didn't know how
but every time
before i knew it was a sweet
a
and i found it really frustrating you know and i started to feel like a failure as a meditator is nothing happened
and
i really wanted some kind of mystical experience or vision or spiritual confirmation and i remember when i was seventeen
one night on christmas eve
ah
the desire of rose from mystical experience so to speak and i thought well that's good time in it's christmas eve and
so about ten o'clock at night i drove out to the world headquarters of our church with was about thirty minutes away
ah they're beautiful grounds there was an apple orchard and golf course and a rose gardens and fountains and
cottages there was a chapel their small room that was open twenty four hours a day for people to come in and be quiet or pray
so i went there for a while and became quiet they felt better but i had this idea that i wondered this encounter with christ and that he would appear as this white
vaporous thing
so i went out and walked around the gardens in the old fountain river
nothing happened
so i finally got back in the car and start driving around the grounds and pretty soon i noticed someone was following me and it was the near the campus security and i felt even worse you know keeping somebody up on christmas eve driving around following
ah you know at once again i came home completely frustrated nothing had happened spiritually
ah
then because i couldn't find anything more meaningful to do i went to college
at new mexico state in last christmas which is about forty miles north of el paso and juarez
and my first year there i read d t suzuki ah i found this in book and again ah i really liked that it took my church experienced church teaching
one step farther into non-duality the church i grew up with really recognized positive and negative even birmingham's and nine
oh that again the way d t suzuki road in this particular book i had no idea there was any living practice in the world today you know it's a wonderful philosophy you're teaching that i thought you know it all happened and was over with five hundred years ago
ah
so if i kept searching i was in new mexico for two years and then i went to university of oregon at eugene for three years when i was in oregon i finally came across a bulletin board on campus with the note about a zen meditation group
and i weren't
into my great relief i was given some instructions some method for meditation and i sat with a group and found that i could meditate as long as i have these people in the room with me
ah
it was a great relief
however the meditation was early in the morning and six or six thirty and it meant getting up in the dark and walking two miles cross campus in the dark so i gradually began sleeping in
and you know staying in bed and of getting up and walking in the dark
and over the christmas holidays ah
during the winter break you know instead of dawned on me that i had wanted to meditate for six years
and i had an opportunity and when i was doing instead with sweeping
and this might be a once in a lifetime opportunity
so i decided when the break was over that aren't start sitting every day
and that decision in a sense made all the difference after that i got up every day
and
in april nineteen seventy ah
i came to zen center for the first time soda a one day sitting
when i returned i started sitting i think four times a day
and i sat every day hemisphere
that if i ever didn't sit i might never said again
yeah if i didn't do it for a day quote if i never came back
so i have a thrill obsession and compulsion about sitting and i sat on i traveling i sat on i was at home visiting my family
in it represented to me ah you know a lifesaver
that is holding onto
ah in represented the difference between life as i'd always known it
and some other experience her way of living
ah and i came and visited since that or whenever i could go get rides from eugene oregon to san francisco and and from san francisco home to kansas city and then back out again three san francisco
and then i started coming down and sitting sessions
my first session as in february nineteen seventy one and it's my first memory of mel
ah
one morning bell rang the wake up though
and after he rang it this is my memory it may not be your memory
he went through the hallways as people were getting up and going to and from the bathroom and told them go back to bed
it's a mistake i rang the bell too early now i don't know if he told suzuki roshi are not fertile
as i put it together if you where she didn't go back to bed
ah my to an empty zendo
an hour later the wake up bell rang again and everybody got up in which the zendo and as awesome began to suki where she began talking his voice got louder and louder
and the really made an impact on
what i remember him talking about was that when the bell rings just get up
don't look at your quad don't think about what else there is to do don't think about the rest of the day just get up and go to the zinda that's are training
the bell rings your body goes to the zendo
ah
in those days i think says she got over around three or four two in the afternoon
what i would do well as some quickly pack my things go down to oak street and hitchhiked to berkeley and then hitchhiked from university avenue over the highway for and backup to eugene
if i was lucky i get home by midnight and i could go to classes and work the next day
and
help my daughter never die
hey it's heard of it amazing to me now but ah how different life was or how different it seemed twenty years ago
ah
you know at this point in my life ah i was twenty and twenty one
and
i'd gone to eugene because i've gotten married to someone from oregon and we broke up rather quickly
and i had this feeling of being sort of an orphan i didn't really know anyone or have any friends and i was a long way away from home
i felt very isolated and lonely and didn't know anyone less similar values
and i was very shy and nervous and especially scared of new people and having have conversations with people
and i was really embarrassed about this at the same time so i tried very hard not to look nervous and not to look scared
after it began practicing i have a sense ah it's suzuki roshi
taught it saw in was not a technique was not a way to use to try to change yourself or make yourself better or try to improve yourself
that we practice and for the sake of size in
and when we practice thousand we got to know the south
well we got to know who we really are
and when we found out who we really are we just accepted
without trying to manipulate ourselves into some better kind of person
and when i have that sense
i tried to stop pretending that i wasn't nervous and it took a something like courage to expose myself
a sent nervous shy person
but i grew to appreciate the stream it seemed to take when people expose their vulnerability or their weaknesses
rather than trying to be strong all the time
ah
in june that year i graduated from college and on
few days after classes were out i bought a backpack pack and sleeping bag and hitchhiked down i decided that i try to live at send center as an experiment for six months
i really wanted to be with other people who are practicing and meditating
and i wanted a teacher
but i knew that i would hate san francisco
but hate the buildings the concrete the broken glass on the sidewalks
and the lack
of greenery
i remember at that time there are a lot of kids in the neighborhood
and are these little boys who had a play on the sidewalks a lot and they get on skateboards and go from one end of the block to the other about sixty miles an hour and somehow avoid colliding with cars
ah
and it seemed like a pretty unfortunate way to spend your childhood
and i remember during evening saws entering five thirty sauce and every day
there was a fire alarm on the sidewalk down the block and a similar bunch of kids would get together and pull the alarm and day after day for months during five thirty sauce and the alarm would go off the fire trucks would come out the sirens would go off
mrs routine and this is what the city was for me a lot of noise and concrete ah hardness
but
you know coming to zen center was ah worth it
ah
zen center was different in those days to ah
most of the people who are here then
we're about twenty years younger than most of us are now
and there are about sixty or more residents and people lived everywhere ah the three rooms in the basement under the kitchen had resident send them in the closet or the room that used for storage and near the zendo door the laguna street door had someone living in
it and the rooms upstairs for all used as resident wings
ah the large rooms had two people in them
and there weren't classes in the evening so we headed for periods of thousand a day
and we didn't have one day settings instead we had a says shane every other month either a five they or seven days machine
and i worked cleaning house and most people had part time jobs are very flexible jobs house painting cleaning house
it was very easy it seemed much easier them to support yourself ah things didn't cost as much in there are lots and lots of people living in the neighborhood in flats shared flats and apartments
so lisa shames often have eighty or hundred people
and
ah think i sat ten says shames in two years before i went to toss a harm
ah
that fall of seventy one suzuki roshi became sick and died at the beginning of the december says sixteen
and then richard baker became the new abbott
ah
i practiced in the city for about a year
and they want to tassajara in the fall of seventy two
and
for me mel was director rob was she so baker roshi let us first practice period at a harm
i really love tassajara it was sort of like for me it was like going to kindergarten without all the uneasy fears and and shadows that were in the corners
ha i felt a real freshness
and on
ah
sort of innocence
ah like starting my life over again
and i felt a safety and security it made it much easier to open up
to others and to myself
there is the monastic schedule
it's every day we did the same thing the same time and the same place for the same people and more than any other time in my life there's a sense of shared reality or shared experience
ah
another aspect of tassajara for me was the natural environment the rocks and mountains trees and sky and stars had a very strong real presence as if they were alive and party
dissipating in practice
on
i practiced at tassajara for three years
and then in nineteen seventy five i came back to the city centre
they worked in the office for a year and a secretary in charge of the office for two and a half years and bay she's assistant for two and a half years
what i remember about that time
was how hard i worked and how hard everybody else worked
and it seemed like it was just real workings in
and during that time
i had the idea
if he were really practicing he never stopped practicing
hit your practice continued whether you were in the zendo or at work away or a sweet you're a practicing twenty four hours a day
however
i felt that i wasn't
but when i said thousand i had a sense of practice and i tried hard and even city went to three periods of thousand a day but when i left the zendo ah my life was very hectic and busy and i felt that i lost practice or left it
behind
occasionally i would think right now
i could be practicing
but i'm not
and i'd have the sadness of how i wasn't quite able to do it
also during this time when i returned to the city
i began studying t with suzuki sensei
and when i was in t class i did have a sense of practice how to bring practice into activity
when i went to t i had this almost tangible sense a setting aside passed mine and future mind and my tracking mine
and entering of my body or physical presence
with full awareness
and in t class there are many details and many different steps involved
if it had very precise ways of being done
and i tried not to memorize t
but rather to go in and just do it
until i got to the point where i didn't know what to do
and then mrs dasuki were quite to something or say something poke me
and i would remember and do the next though many steps until i reached a blank spot again
and it helped me feel more comfortable with not knowing what i was doing or probably a better eye to same
ah
it it helped me learn to trust my body
and it also taught me the usefulness of having a method or form for doing things
which for me gave me a release
from the dominance of my thinking mine
and i felt i felt and i feel quite clearly the practicing studying t
really enriched and continued my zen practice
ah
in nineteen seventy seven i was ordained as a priest by baker oshie it was a actually a two day ordination
where twenty five people were obtained thirteen on saturday and twelve on sunday
and
what i remember about on
my interest desire to be ordained
that it was coming forward with a commitment to r zen buddhism to zen center
zazen
to bake hiroshi
and
since then a lot of things have changed
ah
anna
i guess at this point i'm quite what to say about them
i am practice disappear east for five years
ah
before i became pregnant
and nineteen eighty two i had a baby
and when i became pregnant ah i had some joy and happiness of the idea and also fear that i would at last get into this very unhappy
a cycle know that i felt in my home life as a child
but after the baby was born i was surprised
and how much fun it was
and my baby liked to be held
and through the first six weeks any time i've put her down she would cry
so for six weeks i sat and held her
and when i held her i looked at her and what i saw
mrs perfectly pure been
who had no altar of cheerier modi's
i just thought this pure being all she did was just be
and i'd never felt such as you say thorough love before in my life and i felt nothing but love there is none of the other stuff that comes up or comes up for me in relationships
and it seems sort of like during that time my heart sort of melted and opened up
and somehow as a result of that i felt like my emotional life became much more integrated in practice
and also you know at some point on
it seemed as though i was able to bring on
my
in a serve whole hearted a willingness to face each moment
ah in that situation as a mother but i tried to bring to zazen
and for me the experience of being a mother a been apparent
i think has at last brought me this sense of how to practice outside the zendo in throughout the day throughout my life
and when i look at my practice life i think of things that stand out from me or sitting lots of sessions
and having a child or been apparent
ah
when i was in the last month or two pregnancy i stopped sitting zazen
and on
for several months when she was still pretty little i started sitting again about once a week
and slowly you know over a period of years
ah added more so that by the time she was three are sitting almost once a day that it stood in sharp contrast to my earlier zazen and again i had this fear that maybe i would never follow the schedule again
did she know i mean by that time i was about thirty five or thirty six and neighbors too old to get back in his office and schedule or maybe i was to warped from not sitting every day or something
ah
in the nineteen eighty six when she was close to turning for
ah i was asked to be she's so
which really scared me
at that time we were having saws and at five o'clock in the morning six days a week and my daughter was still waking up and waking me up every night
and i didn't really know if i could follow the schedule
and
also i was terrified at the idea of giving a talk i'd never spoken publicly before and i had a real strong fear of public speaking and i didn't know really how to articulate a practice
so it was very hard it's a real challenge for me but once i started being she's sewing and giving talks
although it's very hard i found was very satisfying
and a very important training
a few years after that a zen center
i focused a little bit on outreach on how to support people's practice or not sense in our community and began sending older students and priest to visit other groups
and for reasons that i both know and don't know i volunteered to go to north carolina
to visit a group
and i went out for two weeks and lead thousand and gave lectures and did one day sittings
and again i was really scared and nervous about going out unknown place i'd never had any interest at all really going to the south before
and i went and
really enjoyed it a lot
it was wonderful to be able to sit and study and work on lectures for two weeks with nothing else to do
and as it turned down i stayed with tom isn't he posted me during that time
and
it really
it was really a very supporting experience for me
and i visited couple of other times and the last two years and this winter on the group i made a request that i come stay on an ongoing basis
so ah i talked to my husband and are going to try to go to north carolina the summer and see if our
we can make the situation work for us
ah so after being at zen center for twenty years
ah it really feels like
i'm leaving home again
ha
and i can't think of anything else say

are there any questions
thank you
hey our intention