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 evening. Good evening. Is this signed okay? You read it at the back? Yes? Good. Okay. Welcome. Welcome. Let me first introduce Brother David Stendelrust, who is here teaching a workshop, a fact which is a delight for many of us. I do want to say, you know, often when Brother David comes here, which he has done there each year for several years now, Many of the students ask to talk to him and they talk about this interface between Christianity and Zen.

[01:10]

The workshop we teach is on the spirit of practice, really looking at how the spirit of practice is the common grind of both of these traditions and many other traditions too. It's in the particularities of their rituals and other things where they find their unique expression. But I notice that many students, and I would say wisely so, wish to talk to Brother David, and often this interface comes up as a question for them. And for me it's somewhat humorous because when they talk to me, they never bring it up. We talked like this, and what we'd like to do is talk briefly and then have a Q and A. The other evening we talked about maybe the structure of both of our practices, Zen and Christianity, and tonight we'd like to focus on the practice

[02:27]

What is the way of actualizing or bringing the recommendation or the request of the tradition or the spirituality of the tradition? What is it to bring it forth, experience it directly, let it shape and guide and inform our lives? We're going to do that in five minutes or less. Because we're intrigued by how it is for you. This is our delight. The word Zen comes from the word Chan, comes from the word Dhyana, which means absorption, non-separation. Absorption, like the way a sponge soaks up water. They become the same thing.

[03:29]

They're not separate. Our individual human consciousness is such that it predominantly experiences itself as separate. The practice of Zen is to rediscover, to realize this non-separation of existence. of awareness, of becoming aware of the moment with a thoroughness of attention that there is no separation within that awareness of self and other as two separate objects. No separation. That they are just the interplay

[04:32]

of how the moment can be experienced. And this has within it its own dilemma. Some part of us says, wait a minute, I'm me. I feel me. I talk me. I experience me as separate from other. Zen is not trying to obliterate that or deny that or suppress that. It's simply saying it's an expression that is part of this all being, that all creation, all being is part of.

[05:33]

The practice of Zazen is dedicating the attention in the moment to experiencing this directly, this singularity of all being, no inside, no outside. There are recommendations about how to deportment of the body, the engagement in the breath, even the engagement and the thoughts and feelings of our being to facilitate this. It's an all-inclusive awareness. It's so all-inclusive that in that all-inclusion, nothing is left out. Nothing is separate from it. And then we get off our cushion. into this world of this and that of self and other.

[06:41]

And informed by the all-inclusiveness, we see within this world the uniqueness, the particularity of each experience that illustrates the multiplicity of the all-inclusiveness. And engaging that experience thoroughly, completely, its uniqueness is experienced, and its inclusiveness in all being, and they come together and are seen as not And that's Zen practice. Thank you, Paul. I was wondering how you would do that elevator speech about Zen.

[07:45]

Rather than responding right away, I think I will present the core of our practice in the Benedictine monastery, at least one way of explaining it, and then we can interweave it in the discussion or in response to your questions. I would start with the question, what is the goal of practice? And I think in a very broad sense, we could say joy. We want joy. Every human being longs for joy and every human being has some way, sometimes more skillful, sometimes much less skillful, but some way of finding this joy in life.

[08:51]

And that is what one could call their practice. And the particular practice that we that I want to present to you tonight is grateful living living gratefully and that is a way to joy and we all can check out that it is a way to joy because we all know first of all we think there is a connection between gratefulness and joy or gratefulness and happiness and that would be that when you are happy you are grateful for being happy. But that is a mistake because all of you know people who have everything it would take to be happy and they are not happy because they are not grateful. They want more of the same or something different and they have everything it would take but they are not happy because they are not grateful.

[09:56]

And at the same time we all know people who have lots of misery and in the midst of their misery, are really joyful and radiating joy. And when you look closely by, the answer is they're grateful. They're grateful for what they have, and that makes them joyful. And joy is that kind of happiness which doesn't depend on what happens. And that's really the happiness we want. We don't want the fleeting happiness. The human heart longs for a happiness that... is lasting. And joy is that happiness that is lasting because it doesn't depend on what happens. Now, since gratefulness is the key to that joy, we ought to look what is it really? What is that gratefulness? And when does it arise in our hearts? And the answer is whenever something valuable is given to us,

[10:58]

It has to be valuable, otherwise we don't appreciate it. But if it's something that's of some value to us and is really a gift, not bought, not traded in, not gotten by some great effort, but gratuitously given to us, then spontaneously that joy arises in our heart, which we call gratefulness. The step from there to grateful living is the insight that every moment is the most precious thing that we possibly can have because everything else that's valuable to us is only available to us because this present moment is given to us to avail ourselves. And this present moment is purely freely given to us by life. We cannot add one moment to our life.

[11:59]

The next moment is again a free gift. So grateful living is the realization that every moment is a totally free gift of the most precious thing that could possibly be given to us. And so we can be grateful in every moment and we can be joyful in every moment. But that doesn't mean that we can be grateful for everything. Because immediately people say, well, do you mean you can't be grateful for everything? Not at all. There are many, many things for which you cannot be grateful. You cannot be grateful for a loss of a friend or breach of confidence or unfaithfulness or any misfortune on a larger scale for war and violence and depression and exploitation. degradation of the environment, all these things you cannot be grateful for. But in every moment when you are confronted with any of these things for which you cannot be grateful, you can still be grateful for the opportunity that this moment gives you.

[13:08]

And the real gift for which you are grateful is always opportunity. Opportunity is the gift within each gift. And most of the time it's the opportunity to enjoy, which we overlook before we start practicing gratefulness but when we start we notice 99% of the time the opportunity given to us is to enjoy, enjoy every breath, enjoy that we can stand and that feet to stand on and eyes to see and ears to listen. Every moment offers countless opportunities to enjoy and once in a while an opportunity that is much more difficult, for instance, to learn something that might be very difficult to learn, like patience. We want to accomplish something and we have to learn patience. That's a hard task. Or grow. Growing can be an opportunity to grow by an experience for which we cannot be grateful as such, but the opportunity to grow by it can be very painful, like growing pain.

[14:20]

or the opportunity to stand up and protest and stand on our feet against something that ought not to be as today, that can be dangerous and, again, very difficult. But in every moment, an opportunity is given to us. And if we take this opportunity, we will be joyful because we will realize this is a gift that is freely given And it's a most precious gift. And to learn that is a real practice. How we practice it, we can discuss that later on again. But the essence is to learn to live gratefully is a practice in itself. And it is a practice that can be combined with every other practice because every practice that I've come across has for its same condolence.

[15:24]

You have also a blessing for that right now, Paul, to be in the present moment. And gratefulness brings you into this present moment. In fact, it is the appreciation of this present moment. Thank you. So really, as I said before, what we like to do Is this all printed up to you? You can question, ask questions directly about what either of us said, or you can ask what that sparks for you, and you can even ask about aspects of practice that maybe you feel haven't been pointed towards in our comments. So please. I have a question for Professor David. I have a question for Brother David. In Benedictine practice, is there anything specific that you do to cultivate that sense of appreciation?

[16:28]

Like, what do you actually do to go about feeling that way? Good. That's the best question you could ask people. Because they're very eager to tell you, oh, yeah. Yeah. It's a very simple process, extremely simple, and we discovered today in our discussion in the workshop that it really has a perfect parallel in trend. We call it stop, look, go. Paul called it pause now, what's happening now, and Now what? And the reason why we're calling stop, look, go is that before you can appreciate the gift of the present moment, you have to stop taking it for granted.

[17:33]

And most of us tend to sort of rush along and not pay attention. So take simply everything for granted. You have to build into your day stop signs. And that can be a barrel. It can be remembering certain things. Somebody in the workshop suggested you wear something and you train yourself with everything you touch. Every time you touch it, like your glasses, and it's simply... you get into the habit that every time you start your glasses, you remember, stop. You can do anything. You've got to train yourself to stop every time you turn on the light. It can be a very energy-saving affinity. Or every time you turn on the water, every time you put the key into ignition of the car, very good times to stop our pandemic.

[18:39]

Before you do this, when you open your computer, when you put on your shoes, when you open your eyes, all these beginnings of any activity, or the end of an activity, before you go over to the next, what a wonderful thing it was to have a meal to eat now. So you get up from listening, and you bow, and you're grateful that you have a meal. End. Or middle. Here you go. Just in the middle. So anyway, you don't get it. So that's the stop. And when you have all the stop gifts, the gift stops that they're given to us, when we have to stop and something holds us up, waiting on a line or waiting on a traffic light, these gift stops are really gifts of life. They're wonderful gifts that make us stop. And if you pay attention to that, we won't stop. Then comes the look. That, of course, means a lot more than just look with your eyes. It means Open your heart, open all your senses from the lines of your senses and appreciate the smell and the touch and whatever is in the present moment.

[19:52]

And when you are in the habit of appreciating what is given to you, the opportunity to breathe, the opportunity to see green, bloom, the opportunity to touch something soft or something warm or feeling a cool drink. When you are in the habit of that, then you would, when something difficult comes along, also ask yourself, what is this now the opportunity for? It's not the opportunity in short. What is it the opportunity for? And you would avail yourself of this opportunity. That's the most important thing. The second is, find this opportunity, stop, so that you are even ready to look for it. Look for it. and find it, and then avail yourself of it, and that's the goal. Do something with it. And that is respond to the opportunity, avail yourself of the opportunity. One of the words, life is so generous, if you miss this opportunity, the next moment is going to give you the next opportunity, and then you miss that one, you get another one.

[20:56]

But if you avail yourself of this one, it will enrich your life, and you will find another one, another one. We admire the great people for having availed themselves of opportunities which other people would have missed. That's what makes a great person, a very great person. They avail themselves of opportunities others missed. We should learn from that, that we ought to avail ourselves, make something out of the opportunity, go, do something with what is given to us. And one last thing that I might... I want to mention on the goal is how important the opportunity is to ask questions. We overlook that. We think a question is when you don't know what the opportunity is. Yeah, that's right. But if enough people ask a question, somebody will find a way to do. And the very opportunity to ask a question is a tremendous gift.

[21:57]

So if you don't know what to do, say, what shall we do here? Climate change, what can I do? What can I do? No idea. Ask somebody else. The friend says, I don't know. Can you ask me tomorrow? Can you ask another friend? What can we do? Imagine if the whole world started asking what can we do. It would have been a totally different job, just by asking questions. So asking questions is one of the real opportunities that are offered to us in digital reality. But I say, stop, look, go. You see? It seems like oftentimes, at least I do this... Oh, sorry. It seems like oftentimes, at least I do this, I take kind of my thinking mind to be the guide or kind of navigator of my spiritual life.

[22:59]

when actually, you know, thinking about it is very flimsy, it's constantly getting to, you know. Is there, do you have any kind of recommendation grounding, you know, one spiritual life in something other than, you know, when every teaching, you know, is, you know, seemingly often comes as concepts, you know, how we can ground our spiritual life into something that's not so just, you know, flimsy. When we pay close attention to the thinking mind. when you take close attention to the thinking mind, there's both the content of it and the construct of it.

[24:10]

So, we see not simply what we're thinking about, but we start to see how we're thinking. And rather than, when we're just within then it's like it has its own assumptions and in that way it becomes a smaller picture as we start to see the constructs and the context it's opening up and there's more information And so in this way the mind has more to offer. And not only that, when we see the context, we can see, okay, this is a way to think, this is the way to think that's occurring to me now, but there's possibility.

[25:19]

And then the very way we're thinking, becomes more like a proposition. This is a way to think. So it has within it a kind of inquiry. And that inquiry, that question, it draws our attention. It draws our involvement in what's happening. It's a little bit like, oh, at how I'm articulating this. What an extraordinary hypothesis about this. Let's see how this goes. I would slice it differently. It's the same thing. I'd slice it differently by saying that the thinking moment as such is okay. If we use it as a tool, then all of it's prismos.

[26:26]

And this rushing, which we have to interrupt through the stop, is precisely stopping our being thoughts, or not being able to stop the thoughts, that the thoughts run away with us, they're carrying away with our thoughts. Now, if we manage to stop this, which is very, very difficult, sounds simple, but if we are able to stop it, then we can use the thought constructively. So it's not for thoughts for it. It's all for it to be a sumptured to another illusion. Thanks. I have a question about joy. I'm wondering is joy some sort of necessarily some sort of feeling? that we're supposed to have?

[27:27]

And if that's the case and if that's the goal, don't we become kind of confined by our feelings? Is it just a feeling? I would say the joy that I was speaking about, the joy that comes from appreciating every moment as that pure gift that is given to us, the joy that arises, is an attitude towards life. And it implies trust in life. It implies openness for surprise. And it implies a yes to get the action with whatever the present moment offers us. That is a lot more than just a theory, and it's not a lot of confining, but on the contrary, very liberating.

[28:34]

Trust is liberating, the openness is very creative, and the law is what it's all about. Yes. And I would add to that, in Buddhist terms, we would say the joy is the sukha and the piti that arise in this giving over to the gift of the moment. So it's not a joy that is conditioned by I'm getting what I want. That would be happiness. That would be happiness. It's going beyond that to experiencing the original vitality of being that's in the moment. Thank you.

[29:37]

Are dogs and grids and cheese joyful, or is this just a human capacity? It's joy, I think, and I'm thinking about it. Sorry, is it also a child? Oh, have you ever washed a dog? It takes him for a walk and he's just sitting in an apartment and he's sad. What if the dog's just sitting in an apartment and trapped by the circumstances of his life? What? It's very sad, and what we do to pets is very sad very often. But the way the pet lies, even under the worst circumstances, it is really inspiring.

[30:39]

It's very inspiring. On the circumstance in which humans would break down, and these pets are so joyful. They make the best of the situation. And I would add to that, as human beings, we have this great gift of self-awareness. We're aware of the experience we're having. And when that comes in, we can intentionally turn ourselves towards the gift of the moment. Turning towards it and giving over to it. the stop in the myriad ways that can arrive. Now, whether a dog can do this or not, it's very hard for us as humans to speak exhaustively of what it is to be a dog.

[31:42]

If Brother David said, we can watch carefully and often it's evident to us they're having the joy of having. As humans, we can interact with this conditioned existence in a purposeful way. And this notion of purpose and this notion of purposeful is extraordinarily potent and significant for us as humans. Just a second. I think there was... I don't know who had someone over here. Yes. When I'm feeling really miserable and upset, then I remember I'm supposed to be grateful. It's like, I don't think I'm doing wrong. I'm grateful and I'm not appreciating this moment.

[32:46]

I'm an even worse person than I thought I was when I got miserable in the first place. LAUGHTER Beautiful. Very well said. It's part of the skillfulness of our practice. It's how to enter into the moment. how not to let the teachings about doctors be employed as ways to stay separate. When they become like a concrete notion, this has to happen.

[33:50]

the moment happens. It isn't under the sway of the dictates of our opinions. So anything we present as a dictate of our opinion is going to do us a disservice. No matter how honorable and virtuous it is, and what you're offering up is, well, here's an extraordinary clear example of how that can be what to do with it, I would suggest bring compassion to it. If catch being caught up in our thinking is doing us a disservice by causing suffering, here's another opportunity of suffering. Being with suffering, compassion.

[34:56]

And sometimes we might start with a simple phrase. This is difficult for me. This is painful. And just we start with the acknowledgement and that starts to shift this from the previous mindset. Starts to turn us towards the opportunity of being a servant. as we're with the suffering that stops that mindset that was being fueled with whole other direction and adamant definition of what is. Thank you all so much.

[35:57]

My question is, Brother David mentioned about not being able to cultivate gratitude for situations like environmental destruction or great suffering with the world. And I'm just wondering, I'm having all these questions in my head, so I'm trying to make it into one, but how do you work within that? Because for me, I personally get very overwhelmed by all the, like reading the news, you know, having things coming in different directions about all this suffering happening everywhere. And I'm working in crisis intervention right now. And how would you give of yourself to help be positive in that way and also take care of yourself, if that makes sense? Does that make sense?

[36:58]

Yeah, I guess to help where they're suffering, but also to take care of yourself so that you're not just giving and don't have anything to give. If I understand correctly, the core of the question is how do I not get overwhelmed by suffering? Yeah. And if you're really sensitive, it is very easy to get overwhelmed. And you have to know just how far we can go and, for instance, not listen to the movie after a certain point. Or not do our little thing and not... keep looking around for how much more that would be to do. To limit ourselves to accept our limitations.

[38:07]

When I feel overwhelmed by the suffering of the world, and that happens very frequently, I always find that it's just my stupidity of thinking that I'm responsible for it all and that I can do it all. That's Just not right, it's not true. So I remind myself, do your own little thing, and that's your share in helping the suffering of the world. It's a humbling experience, but humbling is good. Humble comes from tumors, and that means earth, and it means down to earth. It's just down to earth, down to it. That much I can do, and I will do it. And then you don't get older. It's difficult. It's not very kind of yours, but it's better than having a nervous breakdown. There's a flurry of hands over here.

[39:19]

Wait. Father David, you... I haven't used the word God, but you have used the word life and moment. Is God synonymous with life and moment? Is God synonymous with life and moment? In our conversation this week long, Sometimes use the word God and sometimes don't use the word God. And we always remind ourselves that the word God can be dangerous because when we talk about it, you get the impression that it's a thing or it's something. And it stands for the ultimate mystery, for the unfathomable mystery.

[40:20]

mystery and everything that is a mystery to us participates in that mystery so life is one of the greatest mysteries and you can say when you are in touch with life when you trust life let yourself down into life you are letting yourself down into God when you are creative which is also totally mysterious, the creativity of life that flows through us. It's the creativity of God that flows through us. So the most important aspect about using that word God is that we keep ourselves open to the realization that we are totally immersed in it and it is totally in us. And it's not something out there. And therefore, it's something that... is a reality in which every human being is involved and immersed.

[41:26]

And the difference between people who believe in God and people who do not believe in God is simply that those who believe consciously let themselves interact with this mystery. And the others do it Not consciously. Everybody does. I have a question about death. So how do you integrate in both tradition death? Integrate the concept or the concept or reality of death. The concept. Integrate the concept of death.

[42:28]

And then we say the great matter of birth and death. Given that life is always in a state of transformation. within that in our propensity to individual consciousness in our propensity to repeat the habits of thinking and feeling and through that create for ourselves a sense of continuity of being which if we go too far with it, saying this is permanent, then we are in contradiction to the impoundings that's utterly evident, right?

[43:32]

So there's this way in which we have this strong intensity. In the example, we know that the earth goes around the sun. But each day our experience is the sun goes around the earth. And in this morning, this is the subjective world we live in. And the subjective world we live in is there's me, and I'm me that was yesterday, and I'm me that's tomorrow. But when we look at it a little bit more carefully, we see that this is not true, this is always changing. This is not the body I had when I was one year old. I know that for a fact. So, when we bring to the subjective world this more thoughtful perspective, we can see that there is actually within us the imprevalence that removes what

[44:44]

our notion of thought. So there's a kind of a life and death there. And then there's a much bigger scale in where this human body dies and this construct, you know, that's being held together, which is not just about me, it's about space and time. And all that will go. And the great mystery will be the pervading experience. And what can we say about that? Nothing. It goes beyond what can be said. What an opportunity. We were talking about this in our workshop. And one aspect that I always find very helpful or controlling, if you want, is that this change, which we are so aware and which is constantly going on, is of two different kinds.

[46:00]

There is the change that we usually have in mind when we speak about change, and that is a rambling and unrabbling and rambling and unrabbling that is constantly going on. But there is another kind of change that is enriching and enriching and enriching. And you can always add more and you can always add more. That's an art of change, continuous change, but not unraveling. And we belong to both realms. On the level of time and space, we belong to... the rambling and unraveling. And there was a time that we hadn't yet rambled and there would be a time when we totally unraveled and we'd come and go just like a little flash. But on the level of enriching, we are contributing through our faith, through our hope, through our love, through our creativity.

[47:03]

We are enriching the universe. And that is not being unraveled. that is in a different realm that doesn't belong to space and time. We have access to it in our memory, for instance. And so this unrambling happens when my time is up. But this other enriching isn't in time, and therefore it's in the now. And therefore... That's a consoling thought for some people. Would an example be classical music? Would an example of this accumulating be classical music?

[48:04]

Classical music in general, yeah. your vocabulary, your memory, your life story, which is intertwined with all other life stories. There's no answer. There's no answer. As long as there's anything, you know, comes from before we do it. It's only before we do it. The interesting star does. Thank you. Recently, I've been having kind of flashbacks of memories that are very beautiful, but they're also very sad because I miss being in that time that I was experiencing that. I just wanted to know what your opinion was on how you deal with memories that are very precious to you, but you don't want to go around them too much to accept it too sad.

[49:06]

flashbacks of memories that are very beautiful and how to relate to them in a way that just doesn't leave you constantly dwelling on the past. Oh yeah. To be grateful for these memories and not to try to go back to them, but to be grateful for them, celebrate them, rejoice in them, let them give you energy for the present moment, especially when it's a difficult moment. Mervyn has a wonderful poem, which I most clearly know by heart. Basically, the idea is, what has helped us has helped us enough It goes away and doesn't look back at us. It sits there with its friends, all with long legs, and they laugh at us.

[50:13]

And every time they've run something from them, they just laugh at us. As we get smaller and smaller because of the melting of our bones. If we go there, we go back to it, all that is going to help is that they're shivering up. But if we celebrate the blasphemous of all names, it will be enriching for all of us. And really, we can't go back. It can come here. It's only an illusion or a delusion that we can go back to it. And when it's here, it's an opportunity for a now experience. And then it's a gift of now. And when it's engaged in that way, it will express itself as it expresses itself.

[51:17]

It will burst forth and it will become part of whatever comes next. I have a question about the context of thought as opposed to content. So you're saying that you can increase the amount of information available to your thinking or the way you think by considering the context of your thought and say you were thinking along some default line and you found having looked at the context that there's another way to think which might be more helpful to you. How do you get from the line of thought that is not helpful to the line of thought that is helpful without pursuing some gaining idea that I need to be here in this other place, thinking this way?

[52:23]

And that wasn't quite what I said, right? What I said was that when we see it as a now experience, we see that the statement implicit in this thought is like a hypothesis. In all of this I say this, how extraordinary, how wonderful that this is my creation. Let's explore it and see what it has to offer. Let's explore it and see how it finds its place, its relevance, its accuracy, its appropriateness in all of this. And we put forward a hypothesis and then we discover. We discover, oh, this is extraordinarily accurate. Or we discover it's not.

[53:23]

And then in that way, either way, Something is left. You know, we can say, oh, well, that was wrong and that was limited. But it's what came forth. What comes forth from our being, that's our offering of the moment. That's our way of engagement in the moment. One last question. you end suffering personally because I kind of struggle with thinking about this because you can kind of think about ending suffering as ending suffering within yourself and that's really all you can do but then also if you try to help others end their suffering it's hard to think how much you can help them

[54:30]

and have intolerance of what they might believe, because what works for you might not work for other people. So I'm just very confused. How do you end suffering? How do you end suffering? Apparently suffering is a zen thing. If you're Christian, you live in joy. If you won't, I'll let you off the road. And neither you nor I have to give the answer because I remember a situation at Green Dodge

[55:32]

When the daughter of Lama came, he came for the first time to this country, he was a pain doctor. And he gave a doctor, who was not slaughtered in the year now, and somebody asked him this question. And it was very pointed against Christians. The question is something like, the Buddhists have had this wonderful way of overcoming suffering, and these Christians have been wallowing in suffering for 2,000 years. What do you have to say? And he, very, very careful, he said, wait a moment, wait a moment, it's not all that easy. And then he said, suffering is It's not overcome by leaving pain behind. Suffering is overcome by bearing pain for others.

[56:37]

And that's the Bodhisattva idea. That was such a simple and powerful answer I've remembered ever since. Suffering is not overcome by leaving pain behind. In other words, pain is a given. Suffering is optional. Suffering is overcome by bearing pain for others. And that's the Christ ideal, the Bodhisattva ideal. It's exactly what we need. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit SSCC.org and click giving.

[57:40]

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