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. Good morning. No question. And it is like this since many, many years. Because in Japanese style, it's kind of cut together. I was just talking. So I'll stay, Doris, just a little bit more. Okay. I think maybe I'll smooth that up just a little bit. Yeah. Okay, thank you. Is this better?

[01:03]

Yeah, that's it. Okay, if you can hear me, raise your hand or say something, please. Can you hear me? Because I think the sound system for the people that are working is not working. Is that right, Petra? I thought it was. So, if you have... who's hearing and can't hear me, please say something. And I'll speak louder. The walkiness. A little bit but how we are as beings, as we're not holding on to sight to ideas about ourselves or ideas of other people. I think it moves. very lightly, quickly. I want to read a poem to you today from Mary Oliver.

[02:09]

When I am along the trees is the title of it. When I am along the trees, especially the willows and honey locusts, equally the beach, the oaks and the pines, They give out such hints of gladness, I would almost say that they saved me and daily. I am so distant from the hope of myself, in which I have goodness and discernment, and never hurry through the world, but walk slowly and bow often. Around me the trees stir in their leaves and call out. Stay, my wife. The light flows from their branches. And they call again. It's simple, they say.

[03:13]

And you too have come into the world to do this. To go easy, to be filled with light, and to shine. easy to be filled with light and to shine. Stay alive. Stay alive. It's the instruction. What we do here in this practice is to learn how to stay alive. How to stop How to not hurry to the door. One of the clean guys, I don't know which one, said something about, or said something along the lines.

[04:23]

It's not the question of learning something new, but to remember what we already know. When we hurry, we can't remember. When we stay a while, when we stop for a while, we have a better chance to remember, to reconnect to the goodness inside and the discernment, which is quite different than judgment. Judgment puts a value, good, bad, better, worse, progress, failure of what's deserving is just a tree is a tree, a sadness is a sadness, a joy is a joy, a dog is a dog.

[05:24]

And it's not one is better than the other. So another practice we do to help us stay a while or be more present for the moment here is bowing. And later, I'm going to suggest you may pick that up at home and just every day do a few boughs in the morning and do a few boughs all the way to the floor if you can or standing in the evening. Because bowing is the practice of reverence and surrender, of treating everything in this phenomenal world with the same respect.

[06:27]

Because everything that appears, all phenomena, in this phenomenal world, you know, which is famous phenomena that we live in. And it's phenomenal. It's absolute mysterious. All these bodies in here, all these lives, all these beings, not one the same as the other. Not one leaf on a maple tree, on a beach, on any tree, is exactly the same as the other leaves. in old neighbors. There are no snowflakes, no trick snowflakes to say to be found anywhere. So that's, you know, that's just absolutely mind-blowing if we kind of allow that to sink in. It all comes from the same reality that's behind it, out of which

[07:31]

These things appear dependent on normal conditions and circumstances. When they change, we change wisdom because we were dependent on causes and conditions all the time. Some of the changes we can instigate, a lot of them we can't, they just happen to us. So, staying the way or stopping and allowing to be with what is there that we experience, that we see, that we feel, that we think, that we hear, and just let it be exactly the way it is. It's helping us to remember the goodness inside of us.

[08:38]

And the discernment, the wisdom that's inside. So it doesn't say stopping or staying around. Sitting down is learning something new. It's maybe learning but you have it. But what we learn when we do it is something people really actually know deep inside. The mystics in Christian tradition say God is not outside, God is inside. And not because that's what they think, but that's what they got in touch with, is that practice of staying for a while.

[09:46]

Paper Children says, to be fully alive, fully human, fully awake, for that to happen, all the ingredients for that to be able to happen, are always there. There's never gone lacking at any moment, and they're all there in the particulars of each of your lives in each moment. So that's another way, how we can, by staying with us, more open to actually let those ingredients support the goodness, the discernment, the ego wisdom, awakening to happy.

[11:04]

In our practice, we accept everything as it is. give to each thing the same respect given to a Buddha. So, how Fi says that in another way, you know, he says about battling, he, one of his poems that's called There, he says, There, by my head, at the feet of every creature that goes on. And at the end, he says, for when I bring my heart close to any object, I always hear the friend say, I am here. Friend in a feast world is God. In Buddhist terms, you could say it's the awakened heart, the awakened mind,

[12:10]

that we all are connected to, that is part of being alive, as a human being, with the nature. It has to wake up, to be fully present, and see everything as it exactly is, without alien, without distracting. Just being there. bowing with equal respect. I teach attention, what Madison used to say for a while, he has these practices that go on for a while, talk about them. So one was to internally bow to every experience he had, whether it was pleasant or unpleasant, whether in his body, in his mind, in his emotions, in what he saw, what he heard. He'd go, thank you, I have no complaints whatsoever. Even while the mind may go on, yeah, yeah, yeah, like that, like it to be different, just to put that beside it, not suppressing what's happening, but opening the space and the line that even if you can't really figure out how is that possible, how is that asking a person, how do I not complain about

[13:34]

It appears to me like a nasty person being unfriendly to me. Or the smell I don't like. Or the taste I don't like. Or my aging body that I have trouble with. Looking at it. How can I... to it with reverence and exploration. So when we sit down and stop a while or stay a while, in our practice we say there's a calling happening, a calling of the night that's basically It was a lot of things, a lot of planning, a lot of having to do.

[14:37]

So Thomas Merton actually talks about the violence that is in the way we live our lives in this culture. And he said that probably about, I don't know, like, 50 years ago? 66. 66, so that, yeah. I probably wrote this on the 49th. Must have, so... That's a long time for self-reflection, it was violence, and when you hear it, go, wow, what would you say about today? There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence, and that is activism and open work. The rush of the pressure of modern life or the form perhaps the most common form of its innate violence.

[15:41]

To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to life. That's not that he would be thinking about. We have a culture that thinks you can always do more well. You can always, you know, you have to help everybody. And that's being selfless. And that's being helpful. And that's being good. And he says that is a form of violence. The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys people. our own incapacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work because it kills the root of our inner wisdom, which makes work fruitful.

[16:52]

So to connect to the inner wisdom that we all have, it needs space, it needs time, It means no doing. Refrain it from doing. Not doing, but being. Being is a word. It's an activity. It's not to be, but being. So stay alive. Requisitology is necessary. So, stay around is your own experience. Mary Oliver doesn't say I'm in the mood with all these friends, and she's in the woods sitting by yourself with the truth.

[18:00]

Ask her, invite her to stay around. So, in this practice, when we say meditation, there is, meditation has like two aspects. One is stopping and calming the mind. And the other one is inquiry. And deeper understanding. So, The calm in the mind, what Thich Nhat Hanh says has five steps and three functions. So the five steps are first recognition.

[19:06]

What we need is stay alive and pay attention to what What's going on? How can we feel in our body? How can we feel in our feelings? In what emotional landscape do I find myself? What state is my mind in? When we just pay attention, discerning, not judging, which is not so easy to do things. between judgment and discernment. That's the first thing, recognizing what's happening. And then treating what we encounter, what we experience, what we feel and notice, we respect each of those things, the aching meanings,

[20:17]

upset or worried mind, the happy feeling, whatever it is, ask you to respect the Buddha. I think if we think of encountering a Buddha, recognizing that it's a Buddha, to probably just be in a receiving We won't just be there and think, oh, what's going to happen? What is this guy or his woman going to do? So this is, in some ways, the attitude you could have full of every little notice. Tell me, I don't feel the body. I can't feel anything. I thought, why treat that like a woman? Same treatment.

[21:21]

Regardless whether we like it or dislike it, it's pleasant or out pleasant, each treat it like a good. That's acceptance. That's the second thing. First, we know this one it is, we recognize what it is, and then we accept it. We don't go back, no, no, no, no, not here. Oh, God, chill. Life get better. I get going to distract myself, or get rid of this, or I get better, or anything. Oh, this is here. Okay, this is here. And then the God says, Embracing. And embracing, to me, our space is kind of a little bit like I should feel a particular feeling, you know, like I ought to really embrace it.

[22:29]

But I think what helps me more is, can I create the space for it? Can I give it space to be? Because it's here. So, rather than shoving it around or managing it, you cannot just give it enough space so you can just be. So, Kiroshi is already in St. Michael's mind says, give your cow a big feel. So, the cow that arises in your body, in your mind, in your emotions, give it a big feel. But, you know, so that you still can see it or feel it or notice it, That's, for me, another way of saying grace. And that's very common in itself already. Because we don't fight who we experience as being this Lord.

[23:38]

How this one feels this Lord and how My emotional state is like my state is in this moment. I'm not struggling with that. That's a practice because we all walk around with a lot of ideas that we have constructed over the time. being on this earth, put together by what we heard, what we experienced, and what we determined was the explanation or what was the best survival technique. So we have all these ideas about ourselves that, when we stay a while and are still, might get challenged, because things come up that we usually try not to notice. or we don't want to feel, or we don't want to be that way.

[24:42]

But the inner wisdom that we all carry around, the inner-awaited mind is To remember what we already know. It's what we already know. Thich Nhat Hanh says something pretty interesting where he says, Stop it. That's the first thing we need to do. Stay away. For other things to be able to surface and be noticed by us. And then we embrace it and accept it, which is calling. And then usually already we have more insight. We understand a little bit, he says, and then looking, what can you see?

[25:48]

Drop this up. Why are my knees hurting? Oh, I was on a long hike walking way, way, way downhill yesterday. Or... why is my life set? You may know, oh, I had this altercation with, at the capture register, at the store or something, you know. Something unpleasant happened. It took my gorgeous place. That's a little bit of exploration into What is it? How did it come out? How does it affect me? How does my physical perspective affect my thinking process? Or the feeling I have, what kind of thoughts does that bring forward?

[26:51]

Or which thoughts make me feel predictable? Last time I did a lecture at the Singh Center, I talked about, you know, I invited people to take a moment and think of somebody they love. And close their eyes and really feel how that affects you. When you think of somebody you love, what does that think to your body? you're feeling safe. And I think it's somebody that wants you. How that gets you, from all levels.

[27:53]

And so what we think about affects how we feel, but also what feelings get triggered affects what comes from each other lives, and how the body feels. These are physiological states in the body, biochanical compositions in our bloodstream. And then he says, resting is crucial. And how much resting time do we have in this world. On time off, we go and work out. We jog while listening to music. We're not necessarily paying the attention to this body. We often people listen to music so they can run longer and don't notice when their body starts to say it's enough, it's enough, it's enough.

[29:01]

more is better. And we, we probably, if you ask somebody, what are you doing in person, is there nothing? What are you thinking about? Is there something wrong with him? Are you okay? So there is having to do with this optimism that Norco talks about. and making everything worthwhile. In terms of that, you can say, I learned something, I pushed somebody else really further out, I succeeded in something, and when I succeeded in that, I put my expo, so there is this statement. But even early in Buddhism, they are stuck, but that's part of swimming in nature, so that it's almost punctured and intuitive.

[30:03]

It's almost swimming against the stream to stay wild and do nothing. Just be, not doing anything. So I would very much encourage you to look at your days and see if there is space. Some of you may have space in there where you do nothing, where you just hang out with yourself and don't do anything. If you don't, You could think about whether you would like to pick that up and create a little space, good as in the morning, before you go to work, and in the evening before you go to sleep.

[31:17]

You can do bows, and just bow to everything that is in your life that you have told to be, that you It's about being that lost you. That your feet carrying around will enable you to come here and sit down here and listen. That the sun's shining. That your body's telling you when you've had enough. Because, you know, thinking of how this resting is so important because Mind and our body have healing capacities. It should be if we don't engage. When we get sick, we worry. We go to the doctor. We eat pills so that we don't have to stop.

[32:22]

We don't let the body tell us it's time to stop. It's too much. And while you heal. So you can bow, you can sit down and just visit with yourself, with your body, with your mind, with your feeling, and practice allowing it just exactly the way it is, it feels. This is how it feels. This is how I feel in my body. It's nervous, it's restless, it's quiet, it's tired. It's happy. It's full of life. My mind, my feelings say you can walk. If you like to walk, you can choose to walk around the block or two blocks.

[33:25]

It's always the same track. And while you walk, Feel your body moving. Let sights come to you. Let sounds come to you. Not going, oh, this is a chord, this is it. But just move through your senses. Let your skin feel the air and the sun and the shade and how it shifts. Your feet touch the ground. If you walk the same route, you start noticing how it Everything is, every time, a little different. You're a little different. The light is a little different. The temperature is a little different. What's growing in the gardens is changing. Everything is changing, including you, all the time. And you go, whether it be trails, or it's foggy, or it's cold or something.

[34:31]

sun shining and it's cool, or there's wind, just not the same track. Whatever helps you to stay around. We have different things that help you. So, or, of course, you're always welcome to come to that center and sit with us. Some of you did that, Do that on a regular basis. At the city center, you can do it in the city. There are instructions for city you can visit, and if you do, I would encourage you to visit several of them, because everybody explains it a little different. And you might just get support to try that for yourself by hearing it from different people that emphasize it a little differently and meet you differently.

[35:46]

So it's not to question only something new, but to remember what we already know. And T.S. Eliot says that in his wondrous called quartets, he says in his word, or say that the end precedes the beginning, and the end and beginning were always there. Before the beginning and after the end, all is all new now. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started. know the place for the first time. Then he says, at the end he says, a condition of complete simplicity, costing no less than everything, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be right.

[36:54]

Costing no less than everything, that means it does need us to be present with it. To be available to the experience that presents itself. To give it a big feel and to not relish it and to not meddle with it, just to allow it to be. That helps us to learn, to allow ourselves to be. Just the way we all are. who thinks the way they are is okay. Totally okay. All the kind. Not so many hands.

[38:00]

That's what you are. And, you know, the name I was given when I received priest ordination is Louvre of Aptimus. And, It keeps working on me. Or it keeps helping me. Because it's so true. But it's... So when I signed up to this talk, I agreed to this talk a way a while ago. And I was here. The time I can prepare for a talk is shoulder and shoulder.

[39:10]

Because I can sit down and I think about what I want to talk about, to write it down. So this morning I got up at 4.30. I mean, before I had things fly by, that I didn't feel so light for where I lived, and thinking, yeah, that would be okay. So the event comes together, and I have a page at this. But it's very alive. And I make a coffee and then my significant brother wakes up. And I said, I've got it. I've got it together. And I'm very relieved. And then she says, do you want to tell me about it? Would you bear to say? I'm not so sure, but I also don't have a resistance.

[40:15]

So I take this picture. page has their calendar and instead has their name. It's completely wrote a lot when I get bored. I think it's a recurring experience when it gets bigger and bigger. For me, it's really, it comes together here, now. And when I walk out of here, I can barely remember what I said. So it's this, wow, room of emptiness, which means there is a room, there is a structure, even part of what? You know, the threats that

[41:17]

More people. [...] More people is unpredictable, how it weaves itself together, and what completely doesn't come alive, and what else comes alive. I don't know. So, of course, because it's getting stronger, I start wondering where I have the beginning of Alzheimer's. Which is possible. Which, I mean, I have to go past to find out. but now in status of storm, I'm not sure if I want to know. It's really interesting, he was aged.

[42:20]

But at the same time, I become more and more comfortable that this is just who I am and who I've always been. I could pass the exams, I could learn ahead of exams shortly before, and I didn't connect with would ask me a few weeks later, I don't know, I have no firing system inside myself. I always thought there's something wrong with me. And then I gave it this way, and my future. So in some ways, we are all exactly okay the way we are, and we're all different. We cannot compare. We always compare. We should be different.

[43:20]

So to stay a while and to learn to just be with everything like it, but everything that appears inside you, outside you, deserves the same around respect. And if we practice that, there's something over time easy. So I get a little more comfortable. The time I feel I have something gets shorter, so both of them, anxiety gets up. I always say one day I sit here and I will sit here and nothing will come together. And after half an hour, I'm going to say, thank you very much. I have no idea if I will be able to say that.

[44:25]

I hope I can. Because somewhere I know, I can make me my best daughter talk. You know, you don't. Because it's not just me doing this. But it's worth it. It's risky to say I got up at 4.30 and this is for forget. Is this distracting you? So the man wants to do all these stories. And it's what can come from from here today. So it's risky to move on. But it's also, it's very alive. And I feel like there's a very friendly atmosphere in here.

[45:30]

Nobody got up and left. They'll slam the door. So, Can it just be who we are, which is to suddenly be actually not loving? Not loving, in this moment, in this situation, love will come out by violence. And just stay connected. And it is connected in some ways. So you are my trees today, and you saved me. When I am along the trees, when I am along the trees, especially the willows and the honey locusts, equally the beach, the oaks, and the pines, they give up such things of blackness

[46:48]

I would almost say that they stayed me and they did. I am so hesitant from the hope of myself in which I have goodness and discernment and never hurry to the world, but walk slowly and bow often. Around me, the trees stir in their leaves and call out. Stay at one. The light flows from their branches. And they call the game. It's simple, they say. And you, too, have come into the world to do this. To go easy, to be filled with light, and to shine. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving.

[48:12]

May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[48:15]

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