This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. How is the sound? Okay, louder. My name is Doris Harder, Mioe Doris Harder. I am German. I'm telling you right away so that you don't have to guess. And I hope, I really hope that my English is good enough and that my accent doesn't distract you, so that it doesn't distract you how I speak, so that you can listen to what I or we talk about.

[01:01]

Because it is the so-called silent season, the holiday season, Christmas season, I would like to talk about silence. In preparation for this talk, I also learned that you call it the dull season. Is that true? The dull season? Or is that not so common? No? A dictionary said so, the dull season, and then just the hope came up that it won't be a dull talk about the dull season. So it will be about silence in many different ways. In everyday life we use the word silence if there is no sound, no noise, no outer noise, no traffic, no construction noise. And we say, oh, no sounds, it's silent.

[02:08]

There's silence. That does not prevent us from calling it also silence when we are out in nature and there are sounds, like the ocean can actually be really loud. birds, even birds, can be, you know, loud. But we wouldn't, I wouldn't, maybe you would, I wouldn't call that noise or disturbance. So there seems to be a differentiation between noise that we accept and noise we don't accept. Or we think maybe that a kind of noise belongs somewhere, like the noise that belongs to the ocean, to the big waves, or the sounds animals make, we usually don't call that noise, although it's not silent. And also, of course, concerning our mind, we would call it, we have a still mind, we are still, it's silent, when we don't think, or we're already happy when we think less, and we might call it

[03:23]

a still mind. In German, that's another point, we call breastfeeding a baby to still a baby. Do you say that also? No. In German we call it to still a baby when we mean breastfeeding. And that image I like a lot because it's not only about shutting up the baby to make the baby quiet, but In this sense, it also means to nourish the baby so that making somebody quiet or still or helping the baby to become quiet or still is also at the same time nourishing. And I find that a good image because also I know about ourselves or about myself that of course silence is nourishing. Silence we have actually in all different areas of life.

[04:32]

We have it in music, you know, there is no music without breaks or pauses in silence. We have it in dance. We have it in breathing, you know, when we do walking meditation, and that moment when both feet are on the ground, there's the breathing out. And there's for a short moment nothing at the end of the out-breath and also at the end of the in-breath. I don't know whether you experiment with that. I always enjoy very much this having both feet on the ground, breathing out, nothing, silence. The whole body, our organism, is all about, you know, it needs breaks, there's in-breath and out-breath, and the nerve, our nervous system needs breaks, pauses.

[05:34]

So it's going, and the more we go inside into the body, so I started with traffic and construction noise, and as you can tell, I'm going more and more inside concerning the body, thinking, feelings, the same thing. We need breaks from thinking, otherwise, you know, we would get crazy, and sometimes we do. We need breaks from speaking or listening, because otherwise you would get crazy, nervous. It's just too much. We do need silence. We do need pauses, breaks, silence. In Music in dance and in our life, I would say it's essential. It's not just something that is also great or nice to have. It is part, like the pauses, the silence is part of the music. The non-movement is part of the dance. The still point at the end of breathing in or out is part of the breathing.

[06:43]

It's not something extra, right? belongs there. It's part of it. We need it. And you could go through all areas. I think it would apply to all areas. So this pause, break, stillness is actually a point. I still call it point. Of course, it's not a point. It's not a place. But these are images we help ourselves with to describe something, what is going on for us. So that place that is no place or that point that is no point, it's actually a kind of being, being and listening. It's maybe a realm of being and listening, which I'm describing here, is refreshing us. We know when we...

[07:44]

go to bed, wake up the next morning, or we do know when we have to go to a retreat place and we know when we need a day off, an hour off, a week off. We know it will refresh us. So it's more than just nice and great to have a break. We really know that we need it. We really need it. And then when we come out of that stillness, when we come from that point that I still keep calling a point from that place. What comes up then is like a new thing. It's refreshed, you know. The sound, the tone, when there was silence in music, whether it's tender or strong, or the movement of dancers when they finally start to dance again, it's like new, refreshed, with a lot of energy, power. Also with our thoughts, you know, when we know how to not think for a while, when we can, when we learn to put it aside.

[08:56]

And thoughts that come later, afterwards, or during that time, are different. They are different thoughts. They are not so, you know, caught up, spinning around. Something new can happen after that pause. After and within, actually. Words are so tricky. Like within, that break, pause, is the option, the possibility that something new may arise the next moment. In the spiritual realm, silence is understood even in another way. So we are moving along here. During longer retreats, sashins, practice periods in monasteries, we have long periods of silence. We say we keep silence or we practice with silence.

[09:57]

And through our experienced teachers and other sangha members, we see that there is something else besides not talking that silence is. Those teachers or experienced sangha members embody silence. We will watch them, how they move, how they touch objects, how they speak, and we notice there is something different. It is as if they come from another point, from another place. They speak from calm, speak from silence. When I went to my very, very first Zen place in Austria many years ago, and I really, I didn't know anything. Now I know little, but then I was just interested, but I had no idea what it was all about. And I saw a man sweeping the floor.

[11:01]

I hadn't met him before, so it was during our temple cleaning in the morning, and he was sweeping. And I had to stop my little task because I had to watch him. I've never seen something like that. And I had no words for it. Now maybe we do have words for it. We might call it mindfulness or something alike. But then I was just fascinated how that guy swept. It was very tender. It was soft. And again, then I didn't put it into words. There was just fascination in watching him. And you can tell that I'm impressed and touched until today because it's like 25 years ago or so. And that story is still with me because it moved me. It touched me and it actually turned and changed my life because then I stayed with Zen.

[12:02]

I was just fascinated. Before that, I had never seen a male person sweeping a floor, let alone sweeping it with tenderness or with softness. But that was not it. It was this stillness, calm, his interest, you know, leading the broom, being soft to the floor. And I knew that he had something I didn't have yet. and I wanted to have it. Or he was in a way I was not, and I wanted to be like him. So that was that impression he made on me just with sweeping the floor. And that place did I say that it was called House of Silence? It's in the Austrian Alps. It's a little retreat house. So besides that, not talking and embodying silence, it's also possible, not only possible, that's what we are actually heading for in Zen, that we see the possibility that it is possible to talk and work and play and laugh and still not forget about that still point.

[13:34]

coming from there, we might call it. So it's not about not talking at all. It's okay to talk. Of course we talk. It's okay to think. Of course we have to think. We are not dull. Of course we want to love, to work, to run. So it's not that kind of stillness or silence that prevents us from doing certain things. It's just the kind, the way we do them, the way we are. with them, doing, we do them, how we are with them. So it doesn't prevent us from living, I hope. Silence in the opposite. And we know when we look at teachers, when we look up, but I don't know who you have, friends, parents, teachers, Some people just have it.

[14:35]

They have this kind of being composed, and they don't seem to lose it. As we say, you know, oh, did you lose it? They seem not to lose it. So there seems to be something like stable or a point or being they feel comfortable with. And maybe they lose it. I don't know. Maybe they sometimes lose it. We learn and remember, and this is a lot about remembering today also, the talk, to go back. If we have experienced that it is possible to speak, to dance, to laugh, to run, maybe even to get angry and not totally to lose it but come back, oh yeah, right, wait, breathe in, breathe out. There was another way, right? What was it? Right. Still point, silence. and then we start again. And I'm telling you that story with the sweeping because I think that all of us know moments, and we sometimes, we often, maybe not sometimes, I often forget.

[15:47]

And it's good to be in an environment that reminds us, we forget that we were touched in moments without speech, very strong moments. If you have ever done the Oryoki ceremony, like when we have sashims or longer practice periods, we have that ceremonial Japanese and Chinese ceremony of eating out of three bowls. And all that is in silence. We have two or three signs. We want just a little. We want some more. Thank you. I don't want anything anymore. And thank you very much. There's some... signs and everything else, you know, is in silence. And what I experienced during those ceremonies, and others do too, is how fascinated I am about that we feel what the other person wants or needs, even before their signs show up.

[16:56]

We try to understand and meet servers and the people who receive. We meet several times a day. And we get in touch, get in connection without words. And there's so much understanding of what is needed, what is given, what is received. And these moments, you know, don't have to be only in our ceremonies. Actually, our whole life is about meeting and being met. It's about breathing in and breathing out. Lifting the foot, putting down the foot. Foot, not foot. So this talk is also about... Seeing silence as a possibility for a richer life, not only a life that is more calm, but a richer life, a life without words or fewer words, that makes it possible to meet people in another way.

[18:05]

Again, it's okay to talk and to exchange and, you know, to entertain even. All that has its space and place. It's okay. And what we learn, or the possibilities we get at monasteries or retreat places, may they be Christian or Buddhist, whatever, is that there's a space that helps us, that supports us to try something new. So no talk, oh my God, how is that, no talk? And I know that it is not always comfortable or easy not to talk. I may say that because I'm a talker myself, and it took me years to enjoy silence, really. And I understand everybody who comes, and especially people who are new, I totally understand that it may take some time, because it's a habit, you know?

[19:10]

We know that. It's a habit. We meet somebody and we talk because that's the first thing what we learned. And it's okay, and I come back to the monasteries, it's okay, and monasteries and retreat places provide a space for something else. That these situations that I just described of meeting people, other beings, we have cats and dogs and birds and insects, and even objects to meet what is around us in another way besides talking. We say also we give space to each other here. And silence in the way of non-talking is of course a help. It's easier to experience these situations I just described that happened during an orioki meal, it's easier to experience that if there is not so much noise around.

[20:19]

So the outer silence, of course, or nature, of course, does support us. But then, you know, with some training, with some years, like ten years or so going by, maybe we are able to even keep that silence with noise around us. So actually our training would be about practicing here, yes, in silence, and as much or as less out of silence than possible. But what is actually freeing about this method or Zen way of looking at it is then we are able to go back to the marketplace, you know. We don't want to become dependent on that everybody around us has to be silent so that we can be in silence. We want to be free. We want to be independent of what is around us.

[21:21]

So it's a big thing, you know, this being comfortable with yourself, having that still point. And then you may have silence, alter silence, or you may not. And you may have it. And if you don't have it, you are not unhappy. You know, you can deal with it in some way. That's what it can lead to. So retreat places or monasteries and the silent retreats are booming, and that is good, and I think it's great.

[22:32]

May they be booming. They are booming because we know we need it, as I said before. We need silence, we need some, you know, we have to refresh, we have to rest, we have to restore, however you call it. And as I also said before, please don't be scared. We know it doesn't always be comfortable to be silent because we are not used to it. And I really, I'm not just saying it, you know, I helped in the house of silence. I stayed there when I went there first and I had no idea. I confessed that already. there were all these people around me in a sachin, and they were in silence, and I pitied them because they all looked so serious and sad, and I tried to cheer them up, really. So I had no idea, and the other side is I know that it might not...

[23:47]

One point is about not knowing, because I know myself there's a lot about not knowing how to deal with it. And then other part is when we finally do it and are open for doing it. Again, things might come up. It might be scary. It's not one of our habits yet. And it's maybe not the field yet where we jump in and jump out again, go in and go out again. But please don't get scared. Try it. And this silence, I said before, it's in music, in dance, in nature, everywhere concerning our breathing. It is part of it. It's part of life. It's part of the whole thing. And I would even say silence is us. It's part of ourselves. And when we are remembered,

[24:48]

So that's how I started when I said these retreat places are booming. So usually it goes like that we are reminded of, I need a break, I need silence, I need time off. What is calling us in that moment is actually the silence in us that we don't live yet. So actually the silence that is existing somewhere, maybe in us, I don't know where that silence is, but something is calling us, reminding us, you need it, get it, go there, be it. So for me it is that silence is calling us and remembering us, you are silence, or silence is good for you. So whatever take works for you, try to see it that way. And I'm doing this with my hands, like going inside and pointing always inside, as if the silence is there somewhere.

[25:53]

And we do call it going inward, turning your light inward, go inside, don't be outside, go inside. Again, for me, I think it's an image. And still, I thought, why do we do this? Why do we think it's inside? Maybe because the heart, we think of the heart being inside. Maybe also because of the breath being inside. So actually, these two images of breath and heart, breathing in, breathing out, and the heart, knowing that they are somewhere here, maybe that makes us feel like coming close to ourselves and... that lets us think that it's somewhere here, and it's okay. It's an image, it's strong, and it works somehow. I would say that this wish for silence is very healthy. It brings us somehow, when we don't have it, it reminds us that it needs silence for completion, for wholeness.

[27:03]

If we exclude silence for a long time, you know what happens then. We get nervous, unhappy. I don't have to talk about that. We all know it. And actually our Sunday gatherings or any session, yeah, but also these Sunday gatherings, I thought for me they are like reminding each other, you know, we come together. And it's not that somebody who sits here knows something you don't know yet. What could we talk about you don't know yet, you know? It's more, for me, it's more like reminding each other. Somebody speaks and brings something up, but it is in the room. And you came here and you come here, maybe even every Sunday, it's sort of remembering. Reminding, ah yeah, that's what I want to do with my life. Focusing, coming back, meeting friends, being reminded of silence, being reminded of kindness, being reminded of whatever I decided to do with my life.

[28:10]

Actually, the word remembering and reminding, again in German, is erinnern, what means to go inside. Innen, inside, inside. And we say it instead of, or for, remembering and reminding. So actually in our verb, it does mean what I described before, going inside. You might know that wooden block we have when we call for zazen, we hit that wooden block. Wooden, yeah, can you say a block? A wooden block, piece of wood. And sometimes the phrase... is written on it, like, life is short, remember that death is real, don't forget about death, remember, remember, wake up, wake up, come to Zazen. That's another way of reminding, remembering. In the House of Silence that I mentioned before in Austria, we also have that wooden block, and there we have a phrase by a Christian,

[29:24]

what do you call it, mystic. Angelus Silesius, in English it's probably different. Angelus Silesius, does that sound, Angelus Silesius? There's Meister Eckhart, Tauler, and Angelus Silesius, one of the three German mystics. He wrote many poems, and one of his phrases we used for the Hahn, the wooden block. And there it says, in Austria, Mensch werde wesentlich. Mensch werde wesentlich. Literally it means human being. Become essential. Become basic. Go to the ground. Or human being, we could say human being, there's the being. Become being. Become the true being. Become essential.

[30:25]

So use whatever word works for you. And in English, actually, it's really like in German because the word essential coming from essere to be. So it's really be being. Be being. That's all we have to do. Be yourselves. Be ourselves. Being human. Being our true nature. Be being. Be essence. Be the true you. Be truth. Be what is. Be being. Be what you are already. How could we be something else what we are not yet? It's just hidden. It's maybe not cultivated. But we are already perfect. We are already awake, enlightened. We are. The phrase has a second part. Mensch werde wesentlich, dann wenn die Welt vergeht, das Wesen, das besteht.

[31:33]

It says, human being, become essential, become your true self, be being, because if the world disappears, the essence remains. That's a Christian mystics and they are really close to our Buddhist. They experience somewhat the same. Yeah. And again, when we have some training in experiencing that stillness or going back to it, to that point, that is no point. or to that space that is maybe a space, I don't know. Then it might happen more and more often that other people who look at us, are with us, might experience what I experience when I meet my teachers, that they touch me because they have something that I have a resonance to,

[32:51]

I feel that they remind me of something I have already or I am already, but it isn't quite cultivated yet. And they remind me just through embodying it, whatever that it is at that moment, more compassion than I have or more love, more calm, can be different things that they mirror us. And we do that and are that for other people too. It's not that other people are great. Again, you know, how somebody opens the door for me or sees something I need, you know, we do that all day long. And actually it's really like a dance. In the moment, actually the whole last year, I think, we are studying here at Green Gulch the Jewel Mirror. And a big part of the Jewel Mirror Samadhi song is about this something arises, there's an inquiry, something comes up, and there's a response.

[34:00]

Somebody says a sentence, there's a response. There's an action, there's a response. There's a thought, there's a response. It's all about arising and answer. It looks like maybe question and answer, but sometimes The answer is even there because the question has showed up. There are all kinds of how these two relate to each other. And very often, of course, we have questions and we don't get the answers we want. I think we all have experienced that. So inquiry and response come up together, it says. So going through life, as I described it a little, responding to what is asked for, listening, listening to what the moment wants from me, and not knowing already what the moment wants from me, and also not sleeping, but being in this interested state of inquiry.

[35:21]

What moment? What do you want? What? What? What do you want from me? Is there anything? Is there anything? Is there something? What do you want from me? Maybe we do it for a minute. Yuki, could you hit the bell for us and just take the time that we just sit for a minute just listening Maybe follow the sound of the bell. What is now? And what now? Slicening.

[36:58]

Now just for yourself, reflect for a moment just for yourself what has happened that minute. If there has happened something, just reflect and remember. Don't forget. So let me look at the time. Oops. I said I'm a talker. Yeah, that is good. The other pages are for a next talk. There's more to say about silence, but I think for today maybe there are some impulses and we'll have tea and then I hope that

[38:36]

some of you will speak up as well. Thank you very much. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[39:07]

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