Good evening. Good evening. Okay. I was just thinking, okay, is this okay? We'll see how that goes. First of all, thank you very much for coming tonight to Zen Center. Thank you. And I was thinking as we were bowing together and chanting together that Oh, this is the easy part that we do together. And then I have to start talking, but I'm also thinking that it's pretty clear to me looking out at you that we're going to create this together. It's not all up to me. I happen to be sitting here. My name is all over the place, but you're part of this, okay? My name is Joan. Joan Amaral. And I'm here to give my way seeking mind talk.

[01:03]

And the very first thing I would like to say is to express gratitude. Thank you Blanche very much for the opportunity to sit here like this. I'm not sure what's gonna happen. I really don't know what's gonna come out of my mouth. Maybe I'll put some water in there and see what happens. Let's see, so Way Seeking Mind Talk, I've been, I think the last time I gave a Way Seeking Mind Talk was about nine years ago. And I really have not wanted to give any others. But, and I found myself kind of avoiding it in the last few days. And then finally today, when I started to write notes for things down, I started to feel actually kind of sick, physically sick.

[02:09]

And it's moved. I'm not feeling sick now. I feel that there is something about, on the one hand, me, [...] me. So thank you for coming here to listen to me talk about me, [...] me. But then there's also something for all of us about taking time to just sort of look at this and something about developing trust in this mind that for all of us feels like maybe what this process is and that is really valuable. I am really wanting to develop trust and faith in this mind. Can you all hear me okay?

[03:14]

Okay. And there's this other thing about just reaching through to grab an ordinary person's life. That's what I'm feeling, that even though I'm on this platform and the robes and the bowing, still this is very ordinary. And yet again, I am so grateful that we have these forms and these ceremonies to hold us in something that's so ordinary so that we can see something. So when I think about a way-seeking mind, one of the first things I think about is what is my suffering? And I told a few people this story. It was pretty powerful. In this Buddha hall about 11 years ago, there was a young student who was giving his way-seeking mind talk, and he's since become a very good friend of mine. And I was sitting right in the front row,

[04:20]

He just listed these incredible credentials of India and Japan, and that was his way-seeking mind talk, was what he'd done in Buddhism. And I remember just sitting there going, oh my God, oh my God, what am I doing here? I was a new student. And then finally, someone, it was Butch. Actually, I've been thinking about Butch a lot today. For those of you who know Butch, Ballyut, who died a few years ago, he raised his hand during the question period and said, where is your suffering? And it just changed everything. And the person just opened up and, I mean, opened up, maybe started to cry a little. So that's kind of the feeling I have of the questions that we ask each other, what we bring out of each other. And so what is my suffering? And then maybe I started getting a little sick today because I started feeling like it used to be when I first began practicing, I'm not suffering enough.

[05:34]

That's what I thought. I haven't had any big glaring suffering events. Nothing huge and dramatic had happened to me up to that point. And I didn't think I had anything to talk about. Well, I was pretty quickly disabused of that. But today I was feeling, gosh, I don't even know if I really know my suffering, the particular ways that I'm suffering. But I did manage to come up with a list. So that might be kind of the points that I'll touch on. So... I had a feeling this wouldn't be so linear, but I thought I would just go back and say I was born in Concord, New Hampshire on the seventh day of the seventh month. And I weighed, guess? Seven ounces. Seven ounces. And then a funny thing happened a few years ago in 2007.

[06:40]

On my birthday, my mother said, you have got to play the lotto, right? It would be 07, 07, 07. And I was driving by a store with a friend. I was living in the building at the time. I moved out a year and a half or so ago. And I'd been living in the community for a long time. And my friend said, you've got to play the lotto. And I said, no, I don't want to play the lotto. What if I win? What would I do without any money? My life would get very complicated. People would start liking me just for my money. And I said, no, I don't want to do that. And she said, well, if you won, you could move out of Zen Center. Thank you so much for laughing. I think it's hysterical. It also got me thinking, you know, am I here for the reasonable rent?

[07:42]

in this fabulous city. Anyway, okay, so going back to Conklin, New Hampshire. Let's see, I'm gonna try to move quickly through those first 30 years or so because I actually feel that when I really start to think about my suffering and get really close to it and very familiar with it, it started about 11 years ago when I first began practicing, which is very interesting. So the first 30 years, Concord, New Hampshire. I'm very happy to be from New Hampshire. It sounds wholesome, and it is. And it also, you know, times when I'm living in community and feeling, oh, I'm a really private person, it comes in handy to say to people, you know, look, I'm from New Hampshire. We like privacy. You know, back off a little bit.

[08:44]

So anyway, one of the things in my childhood maybe I could just say is that I, from the time up until I was about 16, when I went to France for my junior year in high school, I think I really was interested in not being over-identified with any particular group. So I was a cheerleader, but I was also, I never dated any football players, which was weird for a cheerleader. And then I was also in the Latin Honor Society. And so I was kind of a geek cheerleader and kind of maybe a little bit sexy for the National Honor Society. And sometimes it made me feel interesting. And other times it made me, I realized I was lonely, just isolating. And that's been kind of a, a through line, I think, this sort of need to differentiate somehow and isolate.

[09:44]

So, let's see, I went to school in Washington, D.C., and I went to Georgetown, and when I think about being at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. in the late 80s, this was really about I think what I learned there was power structures. You know, that in any relationship you're in, you're either the subjugated or the dominant. That was what I feel like I learned at Georgetown. And, you know, it wasn't all bad. It was wonderful. Lots of people speaking all different kinds of languages and, you know, access to lots of interesting people doing really... wonderful work. But there's kind of some something there that I feel like I've had to work with.

[10:48]

And moving to San Francisco, I moved to San Francisco in 92. So after I graduated with a degree in languages and government, I You know, I had an internship at the Organization of American States and I was offered a job. And there was something about this nine to five mainstream kind of working thing that I just, it's not what I, I was surprised by that graduating from college. I don't know what I was expecting, but so what I ended up doing was I started to dance. I had been dancing all my life. My mother had me in dance classes from an early age. And so then I was, you know, with a degree from Georgetown and massive student loans to pay back, moving into a dance theater on the other side of town or working for $6 an hour, but happy.

[11:50]

And when I think about those times, it was my first experience of community. of really the need for community, a desire for doing something together, doing something bigger than me. But the difference, looking back on it, was that there was no . So that meant kind of like, who knew? There was no container. I was looking for a teacher-student relationship that was beyond the parameters of dance. But, you know, the whole dance experience was very present when I walked through the doors of those doors of San Francisco Zen Center. It was a rainy Saturday in January 1998. And I walked into the lobby for Zazen instruction and...

[12:55]

the altar and the tatami and there were bells and people walking around in robes and incense and flowers and I thought this place has great production values. I'm staying. It was like, you know, the dance world only with some, you know, what I feel now was the religious aspect. I'm a good believer in religion. I'm surprised as anybody, but I feel that, you know, in California, we sometimes might say, oh, I'm a spiritual person, but I'm not a religious person so much, right? I've been feeling this for a while. I feel like it's time to take back religion. Yeah. Does anybody feel that? I mean, thanks. Well, the thing about, you know, I know the thing about organized religion and you know, concerns about that.

[13:57]

But I do feel that it's offset by sitting with our own mind and taking responsibility for our own lives. And back in New Hampshire, I'm really sorry for the linear people about this talk. It's going to be like this. Elliptical is a word that keeps coming up. Anyway, back in New Hampshire, my family was Catholic. My grandfather is from the Azores, Portuguese Catholic. and he married a French Canadian, French Catholic. So my father had a very Catholic upbringing, and that was part of my childhood growing up, was going to church every Sunday. And, you know, I remember being at St. John's Church, and I like to sit up. We sat up on the balcony a lot, and just... At a certain point, looking out over the congregation and everybody was so white, first of all. Even in New Hampshire, I was surprised or not. I wanted something else. It just felt too, well, maybe it's just that they were pale or they were unhealthy looking.

[15:07]

I have an image up in the balcony of these little birds with mouths open feed me. And I felt like that's not. Even then I was like maybe 10 or 12 at the time. So it just feels like we've had millennia maybe of lost opportunities of this thing with religion. So moving to San Francisco was a wonderful event. Feeling I traveled when I was in San Francisco. I went to Portugal a couple of different times, and it's a very conformist country, Portugal, very traditional. And I just remember feeling so happy about San Francisco, feeling the individuality and the spontaneity of individuals just for popping up in their own particular way. That was the image I had in San Francisco.

[16:08]

And I was dancing. I lived in the Mission District. And I think it was when I was in that life where I just started to feel like things were catching up to me. And ironically things were catching up but at the same time I wanted to stop. I wanted to stop and I didn't really know how to do that. I was in financial debt. after putting myself through college, and many of you probably relate to this. And then living a lifestyle that really was not sustainable, trying to be a choreographer, which meant self-production, which meant using the credit card a lot. So I felt I was really getting tired.

[17:11]

And I also see another pattern in my life of I just got to get out. I got to get out, which always sort of disturbed me about myself until here's a good story about Mel Weitzman, dear Sojin Weitzman, who many people know here, who led a practice period at Tassahara. We got very close, I was his attendant, and just out of the blue, one day he said, I have got to go to the dentist. I mean, just out of the blue, and I said, what's going on? He said, well, I just had this pain, you know, and I just have to go. He'd drive me. So we drove into Carmel Valley Village, and we got him an appointment at the dentist, and I just dropped him off there and went to do some other errands for Tassajara, And I came back a little while later, and he was sitting in the waiting room.

[18:15]

And I said, are you still waiting? And he said, no, no, I already went in. And I said, well, is everything okay? And he said, yeah, everything's fine. Do you want to get some lunch? And I was like, okay. So we went and got sandwiches, and we sat in the park, and we ate our sandwiches. This is in the middle of practice period, right? And sitting there in the park eating our sandwiches, and all of a sudden he just said, you know, I think I just had to get out. Which has kind of rippled. It was since looking at my life, you know. You know, it's like sometimes it's okay to get out. And, you know, I've thought about that since then, you know. Like we all think in the container of practice period, what's he trying to tell me? That's the teaching here for me. You know, and I do feel now that he was having his own experience is fine, but for me also, there's this thing about pushing too hard.

[19:20]

Pushing too hard in relationships, in Zazen, right here for me, in the sacrum. And pushing too hard in terms of what I expect from life. So let me just stay with that theme of just had to get out. One of the big things that I want to talk about when I say suffering that I want to say to you here in the Buddha Hall is... I left residential practice in December 2007, and that was, looking back on it, one story has just had to get out. At the time, what I was feeling, and still seems to be true, feels to be true, is life energy, you know,

[20:29]

We keep our eyes open in Zazen, pay attention to this life, this precious life. What's going on? The cheap rent thing was coming up in my hair. It's very comfortable. This is my personal experience I'm talking about. What is Zazen? Big questions. And I can't really explain my behavior because even to me, I'm shocked. I mean, I thought I was taking a nice two-month transition, sort of transitioning out. But even to me, looking back, it was like, And I didn't know where I was going. I had no idea where I was going. And that began a very dark period, you know, that fruitful darkness thing, the long dark night of the soul kind of thing of total confusion, loneliness, no self-worth. This was my first experience of renunciation, actually, I can say. And I've talked about this before and, you know, I'm still working through what is renunciation.

[21:37]

But I do feel, I was thinking that renunciation, I have heard Suzuki Roshi saying it's not, we're not like actively me doing something, giving up something like a New Year's resolution. But more the acceptance that things just go away. They actually go away. This teaching of impermanence, waking up to that, turning to that. So Rose, in response to your question to me, which was great, what's my sense of renunciation now? This is how I'm seeing it. But first, what I felt like I was renouncing a couple years ago was what you see now, you know, wearing an okesa. I had been ordained when I left. I was already ordained and there is status. being in residence at San Francisco Zen Center, the mothership, right? And having all the benefits, all the teachings, the Buddha hall, this room available, being ordained, having a shaved head at the time, wearing an okesa, and then leaving Zen Center and not having any of that.

[22:54]

In fact, When I tried to find an apartment, a place to live, you know, I'm on Craigslist, I'm trying different things, and no one's responding to me. At that time, there was a glut of, or there was no housing available in San Francisco that's different this year. But I tried all different kinds of things, no one responded, and then I tried out of desperation, Zen priest looking for housing. Still no response. laughter When I asked someone about that, I was working at a yoga studio and I just asked the woman who I was working with, you know, I just told that story and she said, well, you know, maybe people might think you're trying to be more virtuous than them. Anything I'm saying is my personal experience.

[23:55]

my personal questions. So, you know, right now to Christian Minnesota, that's a big question I have, which is in there, you know, the suffering thing, it came up in our small group tea also that, God, you know, what, Suffering and what's non-suffering or even pleasure or even joy. They really do feel interwoven to me these days. So a place for this manifest, this kind of joy and liveliness and also like suffering is what is priest? What is woman priest is a big one for me. What is American woman? Zen priest. And if I were just, you know, left to my own devices, maybe it wouldn't be so scary or I wouldn't feel so tenuous, but I think this is something that we're all taking up and we all have our opinions and our ideas and our expectations.

[25:17]

But I do want you to know that in the last couple of years since Being out in the world, I'm feeling, as many of you are probably feeling, the world is very anxious right now. Our economy is not doing good globally. So many people don't have work. And this is no time to be coy. You know, this is time to, for me... to get to the heart of these questions. What is priest? And you know, I'm sorry, it may take the rest of my life, but I do wanna say that it's very close and this is why I'm here. And this is a source of deep gratitude to you, Blanche, for, and I think why I'm entering ceremony the other day, all this emotion came up. Because I do have the feeling

[26:24]

The image I have is Lance just sort of scraping me off the sidewalk right up front here on Page Street and saying, come back into the temple. So just like asking for ordination, which for me very clearly was a cry for help. a desire for encouragement to keep going. And I think encouragement is the most important thing for all of us to just keep going, to keep sitting, or even just to keep getting up in the morning. Being in this practice period, in this capacity, is a deep encouragement for me to keep going. So I do want to say that... the person who ordained me is Darlene Cohen, and many of you know her.

[27:26]

She has been my heart teacher from the beginning, and I'm not sure why. Some things happen, and I say, oh, yeah, okay. But we've stayed together the whole time, and it's been, you know, I've wondered if I've sort of kind of let myself off the hook in some ways. I lived at Tassajara for six and a half years and my teacher was not there training me. However, someone, one of our Dharma teachers leading the practice periods down there came up with the idea for me at the beginning of each practice period to ask whoever was leading it, will you please train me? So that was very helpful. And so... Darlene, as my high teacher, is not here during this practice period. Oh, well, I'm Shuso. And so when Blanche asked me to be Shuso, if I can say this, one of my first, I think my first, I was shocked, you know, and I said something like, qui moi?

[28:41]

Me? Yeah, I was very surprised. And Blanche said that, uh, that I might recall that she had made a commitment to formally train me at my ordination. In fact, I wish I had it. I've given all the copies away, but there's a picture just after the ordination, you know, in the courtyard where Darlene's on one side, Blanche's on the other, and I'm in the middle, and they both got whisks. And probably in the same posture, like one foot slightly out. And like two sentries, you know, one on either side of me. And Darlene actually has that in her zendo. But this feeling of being trained, I feel has been kind of a lifelong learning experience. yearning, a lifelong yearning to be trained. Oh, I forgot to take my watch out.

[29:49]

I'm committed to ending at 8.30, so let's see. Do you mind? I wasn't going to do this, but I'm going to just have a little sheet here. There's some things that You know, I guess I do want to say that this bodhicitta, you know, the way-seeking mind, the mind that aspires to awakening, you know, you could also say that sees into impermanence. One thing that I've been looking at in my own self in the last year or so is Without stability, if there's kind of a glimpse into the impermanence of things, without some kind of stability, you might just fall into paranoia or anxiety, which is what I feel that I've been working with for the last year, feeling very anxious, very...

[31:17]

So when I think about how to stabilize, I think about the three treasures. I think about the teachers, I think about the teaching, and I think about the community, all of you, us, practicing together, helping each other. And what a wonderful opportunity to do that in a container of a practice period. Whether you're living here or not, there are so many ways to help each other. It's been helpful for me to do dishes. And I know that's a great help for the kitchen. So you'll probably see me doing that a lot this practice period. But there are also other ways to help, which may be just listening to each other or sitting with each other, just in the zendo. I wanna say that I'm really aware of all my talking and the only thing I can say is that thank you for listening and I hope to have the chance to meet as many of you as possible either just casually around the building when you come for the schedule or have tea together.

[32:37]

So there's a lot of you here and that means a lot of cookies for the Benji but I really feel Accompaniment and solidarity is a word that keeps coming up for me. It's really important. I'd like to leave some time for some questions. If anybody has any, we have three minutes. Any glaring omissions from Jonna? Thank you very much for your talk. Did you win the lottery? Well, that would be a question too. Glovers and questions, well, you know, immediately I'm sorry, I was gonna say no, I didn't even play, but I do feel very fortunate. I do feel really fortunate there, in the last year,

[33:39]

I feel that, God, I look back on it and I feel like, oh, my God, I think I was proselytized. I left the building and I wanted everybody to sit, Zazen. It was subtle, but it was definitely there. And I spent a lot of time with someone who doesn't sit and really felt, you know, it's hard to sit and to even have the thought to sit. much less to venture up those stairs and ring the doorbell, you know, or make a commitment for the rest of your life, or at least for this period of zazen. I mean, this is a huge blessing for all of us. And for me, I am very grateful. You know, I have to say that it was an Englishman. I know you're Scottish, but it's close. It's not close, sorry. I was afraid.

[34:45]

I said something. Take it back. It's all in my life. Anyway, but I didn't want to, because there was a little accent, just my friend in 1998, I left the country. Got to go. Time to leave. Left the country and was away for three months in Portugal. Actually, with a strong interest in learning about my people, you know, taking up ancestry. Who am I? And, um, very important. And anyway, when I came back to San Francisco, completely at a loss, what is my life, my dear friend Andrew said, oh darling, let's go Zogman in the fetter. It's so great, I can still hear it so fresh. You know, I had no idea what he was talking about. And it's the last time I ever heard anyone make Zogman into a gerund. Thank you. But anyway, I want to say that it's a great opportunity to hear the doorbell ring here and open it.

[35:55]

You don't know who's going to be there. And it always takes me back to when I first came. I didn't have to ring the doorbell. It was already open. But it was really my first sense of refuge when I walked through those doors. Okay, Trevor. Trevor. What was it that made you not come here in the first place? I mean, out of all the things you could have done, what did you have to say? Well, I never had the fact, I never had the fact, you know, I used to take the bus at 71 from when I was living up by the park to go downtown and would come by here. And actually, the very first day in San Francisco, I walked from the Mission. I was working at Fort Mason at a theater there called Life on the Water Theater. Walked right down Laguna, very first day in San Francisco, right by Zen Center. Didn't give it a second thought. And had no thought of sitting Zazen or meditation. Never meditated before I came here. And, you know, it's very interesting because I don't, maybe this will change.

[37:00]

I did do some sitting around over the summer, but it was always within Soto Zen. You know, I was living in Mill Valley and I sat with Lou Richman's group and more men in very different styles, but that was as far as I would seem to want to venture. I don't know. I'm not saying, I don't know. I mean, I just feel like I've wondered if I need to stretch a little further, but there's also a feeling of there's so much still here that I want to just keep plumbing the depths, you know, San Francisco Zen Center? Yeah. What was Andrew? This is where he was sitting. Oh. I'm sorry. That's all it was. Yeah. He was coming here. He would go to buy produce at the farmer's market on Saturdays, and then he would come here to sit.

[38:02]

You know, it was the cookies. I'm actually pretty serious in a way that, um, in my own experience, sitting with my own mind has been very difficult. And, um, it feels that in the great compassion of, uh, I mean, I don't know if our ancestors used to serve cookies or, you know, what that, how that came to be, but these, um, little sweet moments, you know, to, um, I should say it wasn't just like eating the cookie, it was eating a cookie with other people, also eating a cookie, kind of a sweet, very simple, very connecting act. Someone made the cookies, someone's offering the cookies, you know, we have that little basket, you're supposed to put money in it on Saturdays, I don't know many people do, but, um, some feeling about the caring and some acknowledgement of how difficult this is, because it's really subtle.

[39:09]

Why do we keep doing this? You know, what that brings me to is this thing about what brought a person, what brings a person to practice, but what keeps a person practicing. That's what I'm interested in now. Because when I left for a year and a half, for a while, I actually, I was sitting, but I had a job. I was managing a restaurant, never done that before, new restaurant, 18-hour days. This was last year and wasn't sitting. And I'm really beginning to feel like, what is my life? This is not what I've signed up for. So again, as Mel would say, choose your pain. At least here, this kind of pain, the pain is the difficulty of sitting with my own mind. I'm in good company. That treasure, the sangha treasure. Yes. I'm curious about the transition from residential practice to live practice.

[40:11]

Yes. And just what your practice looks like now. Yes. I've lost my watch in these folds. Did anybody see where it went? Oh, I put a bad release. Okay. It's a really good question. I feel like this is a big question for a lot of people. And... I did have the sense in the last year and a half of coming in and out of formal practice. This is how I'm going to answer this question. I hope this will address it. But the vitality of coming in and out of formal practice, of feeling the virtue of all of you, whether you live here or not, just coming to sit. You know, I would come on Thursday nights and... and then really see my life here and then go back to my life. And there was something about that that felt vital. So I'm wondering, you know, if for the rest of my life there might be that coming in and out.

[41:17]

I'm not sure because I think if you had the opportunity to do residential practice, there's nothing like it, you know. Speaking as a person from New Hampshire who needs a lot of privacy, still, you know, at a certain point, connection became more important to me than privacy. And it was that, I feel like that only happened because I was living day in and day out with people. And, you know, several people in this room in the last few days, you know, Dharma, just like having people available that you just meet in the hallway or, you know, You're in the Zendo, you're in the Buddha Hall ceremonially, but then the ceremony of running into someone in the bathroom, you know, in the evening when it's kind of a quiet time and how we meet each other, we respect. We're not like, ha, ha, ha, ha. You know, there's some respect for this kind of quiet time now.

[42:19]

But that was a really important conversation I had last night. Just, we just happened to meet. And I miss that, not being in community. I didn't want to have to get out my engagement book to be able to have that kind of connection. But at the same time, being out in the world, how humbling to go to sitting groups where there's one sitting group in particular where you can tell that people are in high-powered jobs. They've got careers. You go into the Zenda before the bell rings, and it's like a cocktail party, and everybody's like schmoozing, and it's like, whoa, what's going on here? There's all this energy. The bell rings, and they are sitting, and it's steadfast. And, you know, these are not people who are monastically trained, but they're, you know. Anyway, I bow to that. There's no one single way. Monastic training, I'm all for it.

[43:23]

But for me, the way I understand it, it was actually love of training. It was learning how to give and receive love. And, you know, there is also something about the very clear container of forms and ceremonies. So, um, I feel like I, I would like, I am committed, okay? deroting my life to upholding the forms and ceremonies of this lineage because it helped me so much. Is that okay? All right. Thank you very much for coming tonight. Thank you very much for sitting with me. It's 8.32. Ino-sung, where is he? Is he here? One more question, is that okay? It's okay. Okay, I'm not going to ask for unanimity on that. Um, Jeffrey. Okay. Thank you so much.

[44:24]

It looks so perfect to see you there. Really? Which one? Which one? Okay. And I just have one question because I want to ask it now because I don't want to ask it in here. What do you regret? Oh, Jeffrey. I met him once. Hmm. Well, actually, do you want to sing that, or do you want me to actually talk about it? Well, when I was dancing, I did a choreography piece, a choreographed piece I called Regret Duet, which was a solo. Probably a little, thank you. It's really a bit too clever, I think, but it was about loneliness. Yeah. And I don't regret anything.

[45:25]

No, I do not. Part of the feeling of that piece was something about, are you fully alive if you don't have any regrets? Have you put yourself in a position where you had to give up something? Ooh, maybe back to that renunciation. That you had to turn away from something to turn towards something. Yeah, I'm feeling that strongly, but I still wouldn't call it regretting. Thank you for asking. Thank you very much.

[45:56]

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