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. Something of an intimidating introduction. Unsurpassed. Perfect. Teaching rarely met with. In 100,000 million lifetimes makes it sound like I'm supposed to offer you that teaching. That's so rare. And when I first started giving dharma docs, I had a lot of anxiety about that, about having to kind of speak the truth. And who was I to do that? But one way I've come to understand that is that the truth is always coming. Whether I speak it or not, or however I speak it, the Dharma is always coming.

[01:03]

The truth is always coming. So what makes it so rarely met with is our capacity to meet it. It's our capacity to receive it. Which I'm... reminds me of the theme of the Zen and Yoga Treat I've been co-leading the last few days. It's called communion, and I think that comes from, in part, from this idea of spiritual communion or sympathetic resonance, kind of key concept in Zen about how we receive the teaching, that it comes in response to our inquiry. That's our sincere inquiry that brings forth the teaching. enables us to receive it. So we've been working with that the last few days and I've been leaving lots of time in the Dharma portions of the retreat for question and answer so there can be response to inquiry and so I hope tonight as well there will be some time for that.

[02:22]

I wanted to thank the Tonto Greg Fein for inviting me to give the talk this evening here at Tassajara. It's the first time I've ever given a Dharma talk at Tassajara, the first time I've ever sat on this seat. And I've noticed my time here these last few days, the primary experience, the primary feeling I've had is of gratitude. Just like almost immediately... arriving just really profound feeling of gratitude. And there's always gratitude coming back to Tassajara. I imagine we all feel gratitude for Tassajara, but this is kind of at some other deeper level. And so I've been kind of reflecting on that and much more vivid to me my memories and experiences of Tassajara, the way it's nurtured me and encouraged me in my practice. As we were driving here, I think pretty much literally as we turned on to Tassajar Road off of Carmine Valley Road, my daughter Elizabeth had a mix of songs going in the car, and just at that moment, Paul Simon's mother and child reunion came on.

[03:43]

And we started laughing in the car because it felt so much like that, turning onto Tassajara Road and heading to Tassajara, and it felt like that mother and child reunion returning to the source. This was the place where I first came into residential practice at Zen Center just over 22 years ago. In April of 1995, I came in the beginning of the summer as an all-summer student. after struggling for a few years about feeling called to practice and resistant in a lot of ways too. And that moment just kind of giving myself over to it. And there was this feeling of I was headed off to the monastery and I may never come back. That's kind of feeling, just tossing myself in completely. And there's a way in which that has turned out to be true. I've never left... residents at Zen Center since that time. So I've either lived here at Tassajara or Green Gulch Farm Zen Center or City Center continuously.

[04:49]

I haven't even taken a leave of absence. But my life hasn't exactly turned out to be monastic in the traditional sense. I also met my wife here at Tassajara that first summer, Meg, who's sitting over there. So another in the way in which I've kind of been gifted by Tassajara. And I hope it doesn't embarrass too many people to say our daughter was also conceived here, Elizabeth, who's now here and will be staying on after Meg and I leave tomorrow. So, so many gifts from this place. And so when I had that kind of really profound sense of gratitude for Tassajara, it wasn't just for Tassajara, the feeling was for all the people here, so all of you. Whether you're very long-term people here who have been supporting Tassajara for a long time or summer students or guests or retreatants, just that you're here at all supporting Tassajara means so much to me and is really such a gift.

[05:55]

When Greg invited me to give the talk, I asked him if there were any themes or anything he thought it would be good for me to talk about. And he said, well, he generally just tried to encourage the students. So I'm taking that as my main intention. And I do think of these talks as, you know, a Zen talk as being kind of like a shout of encouragement. And I thought about actually giving kind of a Zen shout tonight, but I'm not quite in the shouting mood. And I thought, what do you want to shout? You want to shout? Right, here comes a Zen shout of encouragement. A little wake you up in the evening, just for the tanto. But I was about to say, I thought my hair was shouting enough that you didn't need me to do the thing with my voice. The Zen tradition is sometimes talked about as a special transmission outside, you know, words and letters outside scriptures, kind of pointing directly at the human heart.

[07:11]

So that was more what I was hoping to do tonight, was maybe point directly at my heart. Maybe that shout was a point in my heart. And maybe in that way, meet your heart too. And if maybe we pay attention long enough, we'll actually find that we have the same heart. I didn't prepare... a lot for the talk tonight in terms of like planning out a talk. I really wanted to speak as much from the moment, from the seat with this quality of inquiry and response in real time. What is coming to me that I want to offer to you? So one thing that's occurring to me now is Dogen's teaching of when we find our place where we are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point.

[08:13]

So I guess that's what this is about. How do I encourage us all to find our place where we are so that practice will occur? So I do have some thoughts about that. Some ways that are sometimes helpful for me to kind of find my place where I am. And one was kind of just what I was talking about, this kind of feeling of gratitude. It's very helpful to... kind of experience what is coming as a gift or at least be able to contact some aspect of your life that you feel is a gift or that you feel grateful for. So I guess I would encourage us all to do that right now. Just take a moment and feel into your body, mind and see what arises that you feel that you feel grateful for. And sometimes we have ideas of things that we feel grateful for, that we should feel grateful for, and beyond the idea of it, I really encourage you, if you can, to feel into the feeling of gratitude.

[09:30]

Actually feel into that heart space of gratitude. And notice what that feels like in the body. How your breath responds. The sensations in the body when you're in touch with that feeling of gratitude. And in some ways that leads me into another practice that I find helpful in terms of finding my place where I am. which is accessing the felt sense of my current experience. So not some idea of what's happening now, but a deep, somatic, emotional feeling for what's happening. So I encourage us all to do that as well, and maybe starting with attending to the body.

[10:33]

And this is also an opportunity for me maybe to encourage you to Take something of a zazen posture if you haven't already. You know, so feeling yourself grounded in your seat, in your chair, connected to the earth. And also pulled up through the crown of the head connected to the sky, the dark night sky above us, magnificent stars. And now, just attending to the body. What does your body feel like now? What are the sensations in your body? Any tensions, vibrations, places calling for your attention? Any information or wisdom that your body is sharing with you?

[11:37]

telling you anything about how you feel currently, and also attending to any emotional sensations, any feelings that you have. And do these give you any information about your life or about this moment in time, about how you're feeling about being here? what is or isn't coming your way. And beyond the feelings in the body and emotions, any background moods that you're aware of. Sometimes we move through our life in a certain mood and we don't even know it's there. Some moods of optimism or fear, dread. resentment, gratitude, ennui.

[12:44]

What's constituting your experience now? And having kind of felt into this current experience something else that I find helpful in terms of deeply finding my place is then dropping any agenda I might have. So if there is any agenda you have, like wanting to get something out of this talk, for instance, just drop that right now. Or wanting to get out of the room because it's so hot. Anyway, whatever it is, just dropping whatever agenda, your plans for tomorrow at Tassajara, what you might have to do once you leave Tassajara tomorrow. So you're just fully here. And then that's often what I think of as a way to find my place where I am. But now I also want to invite you to notice if there's any sense of wonder or curiosity that you have.

[13:55]

Or maybe just the experience of completely engaging your body and mind, completely being present with this current experience. You notice something is missing, Dogen says this, when we completely engage body and mind, we notice... Something is missing. It actually isn't complete. So is there some sense of wonder, some sense of curiosity, some sense of what else? And it just occurred to me to kind of add this piece in, in this context of inquiry and response. Because I think when we truly find our place where we are, then there is this kind of inquiry that happens, this kind of questioning about our life. And... This is another way of talking about zazen, which is talked about as the kind of self-receiving and employing samadhi. So we find our place in this way, and then there's some quality of inquiry that opens us to some information that we can then respond to.

[14:58]

So as I said, this has been a theme of the Zen and Yoga retreat that we've been doing the last few days. And one way that it started to express itself in the retreat is my co-leader, Parisha, asked everyone to think over the course of their lifetime and name maybe four pivotal moments in their life, like key moments when their life turned. And maybe turned in some way related to this quality of inquiry and response. Maybe it was a kind of clear sense of direction that someone wanted to take. but maybe it was also some sense of calling or some question about their life that kind of led them in a certain direction. And for me, I realized that probably the key pivotal turning of my life was that decision to come to Tassajara, was the decision to go off to the monastery and never come back. And so I think that combined with...

[16:06]

kind of feelings of gratitude and memories I was having about being here and also the fact that this was my first talk led me to want to just share a little bit more about myself, a little bit more about my own story. So I think I've been talking all this time and haven't introduced myself. So my name is Jeremy, Jeremy Levy, and my Buddhist name is Ocean Sound Deep Compassion or Oceanic Sound Deep Compassion. And I currently live at the city center. I'm the secretary for Zen Center. And I've been living there about a year and a half. And prior to that, I was living at Green Gulch Farm for about 13 years. It's a little bit about my current situation. But I also thought it was an opportunity maybe to give like a little just like tiny itsy bitsy mini kind of what we call ways seeking mind talk kind of story about how I came to practice, how I made that decision to go off to the monastery. And I guess I want to focus on just key elements of loss.

[17:12]

The conversation in our retreat has kind of been turning toward kind of impermanence and loss. And so someone was asking me today about how one works with that or how I've worked with that. And I said, well, wait for the talk because I think I want to talk about that. So for me, there were, I think, kind of two kind of deep, traumas or kind of experiences of loss or grief, maybe unfelt or unexperienced grief that really kind of turned me toward practice. So one was growing up in a family where my father was a refugee of the Holocaust. It was never talked about in the family. But he was born in Amsterdam and left and moved to New York and Right, September 1st, 1939, so just as the war was starting. And again, it wasn't talked about, but I think there was just some background grief, like this kind of background mood that I was inviting you to see if you could notice or feel into.

[18:22]

I think growing up, there was just some dark cloud in the background that I didn't understand. Of course, I knew something about the Holocaust, you know, what had happened historically. But... It had some sense of it. It must have had a big impact on him, but didn't really know what that was. Later, actually after he died, I went to visit some relatives of his who I mostly didn't know and learned that his mother had been one of maybe 10 or 11 siblings, all of whom had stayed behind in Holland and none of whom had survived the war. So he and his immediate family got out, but all of his extended family, most all of his extended family, was lost during the war. So there was some tremendous, I think mostly unexperienced grief, unfelt grief in the background of our family that I'm sure impacted me in some way as a child.

[19:22]

Another way, and this might have kind of turned me toward practice or in some ways a gift for my finding practice, was not the emotional impact that I had on me, but was kind of an intellectual question that it left me with, which was knowing the history of the Jews in Europe during the war and knowing that there were some people who had protected the Jews, who had kept them in hiding at great risk to themselves, risk of their own lives. I had this question about how is it that someone can maintain that sense of moral clarity when the entire conventional world that they're living in, the entire society they're living in, tells them some other truth, you know, frames the world in some other way with dire consequences. How in the face of that does someone maintain their own kind of moral compass? So I think this was like one of the... deepest, earliest kind of moral questions that I had for myself. And I think it was like, how could I be like that?

[20:27]

How can I live with that kind of clarity? What do I need to do to find that kind of clarity? And in some ways, that question feels more relevant to me now, these days, more than ever. How do we maintain our own moral clarity when the world seems to be going mad? So that was kind of one loss and one question, you know, that came from my childhood. And then when I was 21, I learned that this father, who's suffering in one way or another I'd been kind of grappling with my whole life, turned out not to be my biological father. It was a complete surprise to me. I had no reason to think this was the case. But in various circumstances, I... was revealed to me. And it had the quality of just like my world just kind of completely flipping over, the rug kind of being completely pulled out beneath me in a visceral way, like this quality of like felt experience, felt sense, like it literally felt like a kind of like punch to the gut.

[21:41]

But it also had a kind of intellectual kind of repercussion, also kind of in alignment with Buddhism, which was that I had the thought like, Well, if that's not true, if who I thought my parent was turns out not to be true, then anything I think might not be true. I mean, that was the foundation of my cognitive world, right? So anything I think might turn out actually not to be true. So what I think is not a reliable indicator of reality. And I was realizing, so that was always the kind of teaching that I took from that, that came home for me in real world. I'd been studying philosophy, and so I had also been kind of engaging in skepticism from a kind of Western philosophical point of view, and it always had some feeling for it. But it was much more real in that way. But in preparing for the talk, I realized that there was something else that this event did, which is, it wasn't just that kind of my sense of my cognitive...

[22:48]

capacities for knowledge of the world were kind of completely shaken, but that my own sense of identity was completely shaken, right? It wasn't just that what I thought about the world wasn't true. It was who I was wasn't true, who I thought I was. I wasn't that person. So who was I? Who am I? And again, I had some feeling for that. I'd did a lot of acting, and so as an actor, you inhabit lots of people, and then you start to realize, to what extent am I just enacting myself? You know, is there a real person there? But this is another way of kind of a realized sense of what is the self? So I think these were the two main traumas, I say, or losses, that really, in some ways, I think, knocked me off pursuing some more conventional... path with my life. Of course, there were other slings and arrows of, you know, outrageous fortune and other sufferings, but those were the two big ones.

[23:52]

And so it was really in the face of those that I arrived at Tassajara as, you know, I think a kind of confused, fairly lost, probably somewhat arrogant young man, but also, I think, very sincere, probably more sincere than I realized at the time. and with tremendous aspiration. So, like, totally lost and confused and really no idea what I was doing, but some sense of, like, actually, this is a word that's, like, a little bit tabular in here, but, like, I really was interested in enlightenment. I really was interested in, like, Anottara Samyak Sambodhi. Like, what is it to evolve oneself to be the most supremely helpful being possible? there was that kind of aspiration, I think, that lived in me. So, great loss, great aspiration.

[24:59]

Another, one of the main images or memories of being in Tassajara that's been with me the last few days is actually sitting on that taun over there during a sashin. I can't remember which practice period. One of my first practice periods, first or second practice period maybe. And just weeping, just weeping during such, just felt like a bottomless well of grief. And I was trying to remember Lou Hartman sitting next to me, I don't know how many of you know Lou Lou. was a real kind of steadfast pillar of Zen Center I'd encountered in the city where I first came to practice. He was the husband of Blanche Hartman. And I knew Lou was completely feeling and experiencing this weeping I was doing. But there was nothing ever said about it.

[26:02]

I mean, he was just bowing at the end of the period or doing kin-hin or just kind of being with me in it without... needed to comment on it at all. It was deep, silent support. So if I had one other thought about what I wanted to do in this talk other than offer some encouragement, it was I wanted to say something about the truth. Kind of going back to that first thing I said, like, but what was it that I wanted to say about the truth? What truth? Which Buddhist truth? And so then as I realized that the kind of conversation in the retreat was turning toward these themes of loss and I was remembering this experience of grief, I thought, well, the four noble truths, of course, right? That's, I should say something about the four noble truths. Make sure I also get some clear dharma in the talk. So I've actually been reading a book by David Brzee called The Feeling Buddha, where he sometimes reimagines or reconceptualizes the Four Noble Truths.

[27:15]

So for those of you who don't know, the Four Noble Truths were the Buddha's first teaching that he gave, where he kind of outlined his insights and the path to kind of freedom and realization that he was offering. And the first truth is the truth of... dukkha of suffering. In fact, just as I encountered loss, all of you have encountered loss as well. We all inevitably as humans encounter some loss. We meet impermanence, sickness, old age, death. We're parted from those we love. We're forced together with those we don't love. All these things inevitably happen to us. And sometimes the Four Noble Truths are described as kind of like a diagnosis, like somehow that's the symptom, like that the suffering from those things is the symptom. And then there's a cause of the suffering. And so sometimes the cause is offered as self-clinging.

[28:17]

So clinging to some self or some imagined sense of self. And then the third... Truth is offered as kind of a prognosis. The Buddha says, well, there's freedom from this. There's nirvana. There's release. And the fourth truth is offered as kind of a prescription, like this is the medicine to get healthy. But David Brzee in his book kind of questions this layout of the Four Noble Truths and particularly questions the second truth as somehow the cause of the suffering. He says, no, no, it's that The suffering is inevitable. We're not going to get rid of that suffering. It's not like there's anything you can do. So that suffering is going to go away. And in fact, it's fully meeting that suffering and embracing it, engaging it in a skillful way that makes it ennobling. That's why they're noble truths. It's not just that Buddha was trying to do a little ad campaign with his teachings and calling them noble.

[29:21]

It was that the truths are ennobling. So this acceptance of suffering, this acceptance of loss, of impermanence, if we fully accept it, which is hard to do, you know, there's always some part of us that doesn't really want to accept it. But if we fully do that and engage it, there's something ennobling about it. And so his take on the second truth isn't that it's the cause of the first truth, that the Sanskrit is samyudaya for the second truth, and it means arises with. So I think some people understood arises with as the cause, but Brazier's take is actually arises with as the response. So the second truth of what's sometimes described as craving or thirst, clinging, some kind of affliction, is actually our response to the unsatisfactoriness of our life. It's the response to... our suffering and our loss. And in some ways, completely natural, completely understandable.

[30:24]

So it's not actually a problem in a certain way. The idea is that you're not trying to undo that or get rid of that or make that go away, which is kind of a relief because if you're someone like me who's been practicing Zen for 20 years and you kind of notice all that stuff's still there, it's like, am I just totally failing? So his understanding is, no, no, those feelings are a natural response. to the suffering. And as with the suffering itself, the skillful way of engaging them is to completely feel them. So this kind of weeping that I was doing, this grieving in some ways, was the appropriate response to the losses in my life. It was the appropriate experiencing of the second truth rather than... the kind of loss of vitality or capacity in my life if I hadn't been able to feel those things, which so often happens to us.

[31:27]

But it takes a certain kind of container, I guess, a certain kind of capacity to completely feel our responses to our life. Yeah. So in some ways, that's his understanding of what nirvana is. Nirvana isn't a space where there is no suffering, where we've completely gotten free. Nirvana literally means without wind. So it's some kind of container where the wind is no longer fanning the fire of our suffering. The fire still burns, right? That's the fuel for our life. But it's not getting blown into some huge conflagration. And so I was thinking about Tassajara, that way people sometimes refer to Tassajara as a kind of nirvana or paradise. And it's not nirvana because there are no problems here, as you all know, because there are no difficulties. But it is a kind of nirvana. And it's a kind of nirvana because it's such a beautiful container for us to fully feel, fully experience our lives, to fully meet our lives.

[32:38]

including meeting all those feelings in response to the suffering of our lives. So I think if there were some encouragement that I wanted to give to you tonight, it would be precisely that, not to have some idea that, some Buddhist idea of non-attachment or non-clinging or not craving or not thirsting or any of these things somehow meant not feeling. or somehow feeling like I shouldn't have lost, or if I just got rid of myself, then it would all be better, you know? I think I've practiced many years with some vague notion like that. I could just get rid of the self which isn't really there anyway, then it would all be okay, right? But rather, how do we completely experience the reality of our life? How do we completely feel our life to its depth? I should have expected that I would take much more time than I thought I would. I can't quite read this talk, but is it almost 9.20? Am I like within a few minutes of... Yeah. Yeah.

[33:39]

Oh, well. But I got the best of it, I think. Maybe just a couple words, because there was something else I wanted to say around this idea of inquiry and response, and then maybe I'll read a couple poems. So I really felt encouraged by this exercise of looking at our lives, at these kind of pivotal turning moments, And particularly for many of the people in the room, there was some sense of being called in some way, of something in their life turned, not so much because they had some clear idea of where they wanted to go, but they were responding to something. And, you know, just as I was saying earlier, that I feel now more than ever is a time to be asking this question of how do we maintain kind of inner moral clarity when the... The society, the kind of social world that we live in is very confused. I would also say now more than ever is a time to respond to those calls. So if any of you here have come to Tassajara out of some sense of calling, there's something calling you beyond your understanding, beyond that, you know, I just want to spend a year here and get good at mindfulness.

[34:53]

But there's something else to really listen to what that is. And... and not shortchange it. And perhaps give some space to the possibility that there's some big aspiration there, some big aspiration that can get lived out to live a life in truth. I just want to encourage you to think that way, to think that's possible, to listen in that way. And I think what happens when we do that, when we enter into a life of vocation like that, our life really does stop being about ourselves in a certain way. We are just answering a call at that point. So up until that, maybe everything we're doing in some ways, this is kind of about what I want. And then that's a big turn that can happen in your life when it's no longer about what you want. The universe is asking something of you, and your life really becomes, how do I meet that?

[35:57]

How do I respond to that? How do I answer that call? So I just want you all to hold that as a possibility for your lives. Okay, so an encouragement of the new understanding of the second nimble truth, Samyudaya, the natural emotional responses to the loss in our lives. Here's a poem by David White. The Well of Grief. Those who will not slip beneath the still surface on the well of grief, turning down through its black water. to the place we cannot breathe. We'll never know the source from which we drink, the secret water, cold and clear, nor find in the darkness glimmering the small round coins thrown by those who wished for something else. Those who will not slip beneath the still surface on the well of grief,

[37:00]

turning down through its black water to the place we cannot breathe. We'll never know the source from which we drink, the secret water cold and clear, nor find in the darkness glimmering the small round coins thrown by those who wished for something else. And it may be a little much to give you one poem on top of another, but I'm going to do it anyway. Here's a... poem by Rilke, kind of in the vein of aspiration. You see, I want a lot. Perhaps I want everything. The darkness that comes with every infinite fall and the shimmering blaze of every step up. So many live on and want nothing and are raised to the rank of prince. by the slippery ease of their light judgments.

[38:02]

But what you love to see are faces that do work and feel thirst. You love most of all those who need you as they need a crowbar or a hoe. You have not grown old and it is not too late to dive into your increasing depths where life calmly gives out its own secret. You see, I want a lot. Perhaps I want everything. The darkness that comes with every infinite fall and the shimmering blaze of every step up. So many live on and want nothing and are raised to the rank of prince at the slippery ease of their light and judgments. But what you love to see are faces that do work and feel thirst. You love most of all those who need you as they need a crowbar or a hoe.

[39:05]

You have not grown old and it is not too late to dive into your increasing depths where life calmly gives out its own secret. 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.

[39:43]

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