as I've been told, is usually meant to be encouraging. And so to set off us on our journey of this practice period together, I just want to offer some encouraging words, set the context, set the stage for what it is that we're doing together and how we might enter in. And I'd like to begin with the patron saint of poetry of Zen Center. Anyone know who that might be? Mary Oliver, correct. So, in honor of one of Jodi's favorite mentors. So, the title is The Poet Dreams of the Mountain. And some of you who heard my Dharma talk at City Center on the one day sitting September may be familiar with it, might remember it. Sometimes I grow weary of the days... with all their fits and starts.

[01:00]

I want to climb some old gray mountains, slowly, taking the rest of my life to do it, resting often, sleeping under the pines or, above them, on the unclothed rocks. I want to see how many stars are still in the sky that we have smothered for years now, a century at least. I want to look back at everything, forgiving it all. And peaceful, knowing the last thing there is to know. All that urgency, not what the earth is about. How silent the trees, their poetry being of themselves only. I want to take slow steps, and think appropriate thoughts. In 10,000 years, maybe, a piece of the mountain will fall.

[02:07]

Sometimes I go weary of the days with all their fits and starts. I want to climb some old gray mountains, slowly taking the rest of my lifetime to do it. So here we are. having climbed and entered the mountains. And any number of reasons or circumstances may have led us to come to this place, this practice, to take up this path. What was it that brought you here? And if you've been here for some time, what is it that keeps you here? Well, I imagine that each of us will answer the question differently and at different times in our lives, below the diversity of causes and conditions we all might offer, below the various manifestations of fits and starts.

[03:13]

We may have experience in our life. I think that we would most likely find a common impetus, a growing recognition of some deep, seated weariness, dissatisfaction, dis-ease, suffering, what we often call in Buddhism dukkha. Dukkha within our lives that simply couldn't be assaged by anything else we have tried thus far. Perhaps we felt compelled, understandably, to leave behind the condition, often manufactured, urgencies of society. All that urgency, not what the earth is about. And here, the more fundamental urgency, an urgency we call in Zen the great matter of life and death.

[04:17]

But this fundamental urgency, unlike the urgencies of our busy lives, and its everyday relentless demands, this urgency requires of us a different pace, one in which we slow down, come to stillness, and unwind into a deeper expression of rest. It requires that we reacquaint ourselves with the ancient light of the stars. and even more so with that timeless, ever-present, internal illumination in all of us. An illumination which we have crowded out for decades with distractions, with the clutter of habits and thoughts, glaring reactivity, or simply turning away in disregard or ignorance.

[05:21]

It also requires a return to silence. to be silent like the trees, nature's sentinels whose communication is wordless, subterranean, radically embodied. The wordless poetry of trees is nothing more than their own being. And at the root of all being is an indivisible radical presencing. A presencing that we are most able to experience when we are still in silence. I first visited the base of the mountain called Zen in 1991. I was seeking a way to cultivate authentic and loving presence for myself and others. A healing presence that I had yearned for while growing up.

[06:21]

but was seldom available from those around me in the circumstances in which I found myself. In my late 20s, I had read that meditation would help. And so I came to City Center at a friend's recommendation and took the Saturday morning zazen instruction. And over the next nine years, I would come for occasional zazen and dharma talks, but I never quite fully entered in. It took until 2000, you know, after nine years of playing in the entryway, if you will, that I finally decided to get serious about my practice, and I moved into City Center. And I just realized the other day, on October 1st, the opening ceremony day, that it was 19 years since I've been here in this particular practice realm. So I lived at City Center for a year and a half before I finally moved to Tassajara.

[07:24]

And I came the summer of 2002 with the intention of earning two practice periods because I had the thought in mind that maybe, maybe I might want to become a priest someday. And that was a requirement, two practice periods. Well, as it happened, I spent a total of eight years here ordaining during my time here and serving in a number of roles, including including Shika and Ino and director, and then right before I left Shuso. And I left the spring after the winter practice period of 2010. And I decided at that point it was time to leave the mountains and return to the city. to be able to kind of take my practice and test my practice in the wider world in this kind of urban context where things weren't quite so sheltered and protected, to see how it would serve in a wider field. Coming for refuge is traditionally the first stage of practice.

[08:34]

Often we come seeking a kind of shelter or safe space in practice. and a meditation center in order to gather our wounded and broken hearts, minds, and bodies and begin on a path of healing and to return to wholeness. But in time we discover that Zen practice is ultimately about training for liberation. And true liberation requires a deeper commitment. It asks us full renunciation and surrender of the very last thing we want to give up, our sense of a separate self. We must have a full willingness to surrender and enter into all the way into the mountain and spend some time becoming one with it. So I often tell students at Tasahara when they ask me, how long should I be here?

[09:37]

I say three years. That's my, for whatever reason, it's just in my mind. Three years is a good time. Because I think it takes three years for these mountains and this wilderness, this upright presence of nature and the flowing knowing of nature to enter into the pores, into your body, become digested, and infuse your whole being with their teachings and their wisdom, right? Their way of presencing, stillness. silence, stability, constancy in the midst of restless change. They have everything to teach us about what it is to live this life. Are we open to hearing their teachings? So it's my not-so-secret wish for all of you that maybe you'll have the opportunity to be here for three or more years. And receive the gifts of these powerful teachers.

[10:40]

I appreciate the kindness of whoever thought of warm water. Thank you. So I imagine most of us are familiar with Dogen's instruction in the Fukan Zazengi, the Universal Recommendations of Zazen, to take a backward step to turn the light inward and illuminate the self. This is the way of describing our practice of Zen. The Japanese words for backward step are taiho, and they can also mean withdrawing. So we can think of going into the mountains as an external form of taking the backward step, of deliberately withdrawing from the world's fits and starts and mere distractions of our so-called worldly lives and society in order to study what is most essential to us, our happiness and liberation, or at least I would assume that would be the case for all of us.

[11:54]

In other words, this stepping back is also a form of internally studying ourselves. As Dogen says in the Ganjo Cohen, the study of the Buddha way is to study the self. And this phrase, to study the self, is a backward stepping, to inwardly illuminate and study the self. Both the karmic conditioned self with the small s and the unconditioned self with with the big S. And that's what we're doing here in the mountains, studying both of these expressions of self and how it is that they provide either some measure of joy, ease, and freedom from our fundamental weariness, or contribute to it. And I assume most of you are here for that, but if anyone thought they were here for an extended vacation, which you get to get up at 3.50 in the morning and eat oryoki meals and be sleep-deprived most of the time.

[13:00]

Okay. Good luck with that. Shohakokomara writes in his commentary in the Mountains and Water Sutra, which is the text we'll be studying, that taiho, or stepping back, can also be called jogu bodai. Joe means go high up. Gu is seek and bodhi is bodhi or awakening. So we might go into the mountains with an intention to wake up to our lives. So we are seeking, as in way-seeking mind, because we are drawn to some inconceivable waking up. So we practice going higher and higher up the mountain, endlessly traversing to seek the insight, to study the Dharma, and to awaken to the reality of all beings. This is stepping backwards.

[14:02]

But this is only half the story. So we go up the mountain, but we don't stay there, unless we're Leslie James, who's been here apparently 36 years. And maybe Greg has been here also quite for some time. So having stepped back, we eventually need to step forward. In Japanese, stepping forward is called geikei shujo. Gei is go down. Kei means teach, though its root meaning is to transform. And shujo is living beings or many beings. So having ascended the mountain to study the self and seek awakening, eventually we come down from the mountain. transforming and sharing our life and teaching living beings using the very skillful means or apaya that we've kind of cultivated during our time here. And this could be a teaching or service or another way to determine once we leave.

[15:06]

That's for each of us to discover what is our expression of what it is that we've received from the mountain and how it is we want to extend it out and share it with the world. Okamura says, Gei Kei Shujo is stepping forward. Stepping forward is to study myriad external things and conditions and to work together with other people in our sangha and in society to foster beneficial transformation on a broader scale. If you're doing this just for you, I almost want to say stop it. You need to be doing this for everyone. because you are deeply interconnected with everyone. Don't make this a selfish practice. Stop now if you're doing that. Shakyamuni's own way-seeking mind and path of practice led him to ascend the mountain, to eventually awaken to the fundamental truth or reality of all beings.

[16:11]

And then to descend the mountain again, in a fugitive sense, because I actually don't think he was really practicing on the mountain. I think the area that I was at was mostly flat, from what I understand. In order to share, and initially, reluctantly, I think many of you might know that when he first awoke, he actually didn't want to share what he had discovered. It took a while, and many divas and other gods to say, please, please, do share what you have discovered with others. And finally he agreed. So he decided to share what he discovered on the liver path, a practice and a way of life. And it's said that after Buddha's awakening, one of his favorite sites for training and retreats with his monks was the mountain known as Vulture Peak. And sometimes it's also known as Holy Eagle Peak. Isn't there an Eagle Peak around here? Anyone know? Hawk Mountain, there you go. Close. And Vulture Peak was located in the kingdom of Magadha, which is near Bahir, India, modern Bahir.

[17:20]

And it was the scene of many of Buddha's sermons. So if you read the Pali Canon, it often says, on Vulture Peak, the assembly, and so on. Okamura notes that just stepping backward and stepping forward are the two sides of our bodhisattva practice, that of wisdom and compassion. It's important that both of these practices are fully functioning. Wisdom and compassion together. And Dogen says, the blue mountains are constantly walking both ways. We take the backward step and clearly see the emptiness of all things. This is Avalokiteshvar in the Heart Sutra, practicing and coursing in wisdom and realizing emptiness. And we also take a forward step to help living beings in need. This is the practice of Avalokiteshvara in the Lotus Sutra, the great compassionate bodhisattva using her thousand hands and eyes.

[18:27]

This is Kuan Yin, one who hears the cries of the world and responds during what is necessary for suffering beings. So we can each examine If both of these ways of walking are operating in our own practice, do they include each other? Are they interpenetrating? So now, having entered the mountains and entered the monastery, it will take us some time to settle, to arrive in this place, in this particular environment. And some of us are making a big shift in our life in order to come to the mountains, right? It took a lot of us to organize our so-called external lives to be here, even if just for three months, much less a longer period of time. And making this big shift, it's going to take a while for a whole system to re-regulate. There's a little bit of a culture shock or a physical shock going on.

[19:29]

It's like, whoa, what is this? Where am I? What's going on here? Our system gets energized in some way. And we have to find some time to kind of settle. allow it to kind of calm itself and re-acclimate to this particular place and the rhythm, the cycle of this environment, right? And so we're all experiencing a lot of changes, even those who've been here for quite some time, right? We all have new jobs, new housing, right? We're meeting new friends and having to discover how it is to work with them, to practice with them and to socialize with them. particularly on a personal day, one of the hardest things to do, right? So it can be a little overwhelming at first. And we just simply make our best effort. And even though I lived here for eight years, it's actually been nine years since I did my last practice period. So it's hard for me to count that. It's like, really? It's been that long? And so even though there's a lot here that I'm familiar with, I was just telling Leslie and a few others the other day, it's like,

[20:36]

There's this deep familiarity. Things just keep coming back to me. There's a knowing that comes out of my whole body about, oh, this is how we do it. This is how we do it. This is the form. Okay. And then there are changes that just kind of throw me off every now and then. Like last night in the shingey, what? We don't iron the oreochi cloths? That was, you know, that was almost sacrilege. Really? You know? And those who have been trained with Linda Ruth here, you know, it's like you ironed, you know, the Oriyuki Clause. Everything is pressed clean, right? Little things like that. We no longer have the Jikido who is lighting the lamps, the kerosene lamps in the morning. We used to have kerosene lanterns lighting the pass, you know, and then Firewatch would blow out the lamps at night. It doesn't happen anymore, you know? So these little changes that I have, like, oh, okay, you know? So it's just kind of that... It's familiar enough for me to settle in, but at the same time, different enough for me to stay alert. I have to be awake here, you know?

[21:38]

Or the Tonto or Leslie are going to slip one in on me, right? Some change or something, right? So, anyhow. And the biggest change, of course, is me being the apparent leader, right, of the practice period. I'm used to sitting over there going, I don't have to give a Dharma talk, right? And I'm supposed to know something and share something. And I'm like, okay, good luck, you guys. So we'll see what happens. So we're all together making the effort, right, to settle anew, to transition together, and to create a supportive practice container, right? This is a container that we together are responsible for. We make this. Each one of you making your effort are weaving the basket of this container together. If any particular thread or whatever the basket is made of is loose or not holding up its end, things will get a little shaky, right?

[22:44]

So together we really see how can we integrate to support each other so we can be strong and subtle and the space of our practice can hold all things that are placed in it in some way. So we depend on each other. Are you dependable? Are you dependable for yourself? And are you dependable for everyone in this room? I sometimes imagine that the mountains equally support us in creating this container. I envision the mountains as kind of this valley created by the cupped hands of the mountains, holding us in this way, right? inviting us to cradle in, to settle and relax and turn inward for a mysterious process of transformation that is not ours to determine or control. I often think of the valley as a chrysalis of sorts, and we are little monk caterpillars, entering in, entering in and taking refuge.

[23:57]

in preparation for a long-awaited transformation. And already the process of dissolution has begun. You know how it is, caterpillars go into their chrysalis, and actually they turn to mush inside. It's really kind of weird. They just turn to this mush. They lose all form. All duality, all boundaries are just... softened and giving way to this other mysterious thing that comes forward, undefinable, inexpressible. But within that mush, there is an intelligence, there's something that was always there that is now meant to come forward and is taking shape within the chrysalis, allowed the space and time to find its new way of coming forward, right? and unfolding into something we always were meant to be but didn't realize was possible.

[24:59]

So it's okay to turn to Mashiach. This is what the container is for. Allow yourself to soften, to be deeply who you are, to come undone so you can come into what it is that you truly are. We're all going through this. It's not pretty at times, believe me. It's not meant to be pretty. Zen is not a pretty practice. Despite the robes, you know, and all the forms, everything else, it's not pretty on the inside. But it's fundamental. It's fundamental. So I think many of you already know that the duration of a three-month seasonal practice period is over 2,500 years old. What we're doing now is over 2,500 years old. Can you imagine that? Because all the way back to Buddha's time, when the mendicant community that had grown up around the Buddha stopped wandering during the rainy seasons and settled down for a few months of intensive practice and study together.

[26:06]

It just wasn't practical for them to be trumping through the jungles and the muddy fields during the rainy season. The Japanese word for practice period is ongo. And it translates as peaceful abode or peaceful dwelling place. So how do we do this? How do we create a peaceful abode together? And part of what makes our living together unique is the commitment to learn how to live together, right? Which is, in my mind, one of the fundamental foundational aspects of Zen training, to learn how to be together. to live this life which is one of profound intimacy and togetherness. In the opening ceremony, the Ino shared one approach of living peacefully together that was suggested by Suzuki Roshi, who said, all students should be like milk and water, more intimate than that even, because we are all good friends from past lives, sharing eternal Buddha nature,

[27:16]

as each one's own. I hope you can remember that when you're having some conflict with each other. You're all good friends from past lives, right? So come back to that memory, that knowing that you're already good friends, and let that be the foundation with which you work out your particular conflicts or challenges. Those are usually just surface, right? Connect from that deeper place of knowing So it's a lovely analogy of the way we are together in Sangha, this milk and water. Milk and water mixes easily, right? And smoothly, appreciating each other's company, right? Like good friends. So the phrase milk and water originally comes from the Buddha in the Pali Canon, in which he was describing a group of monks that we're peacefully, harmoniously living and practicing together, sharing the task of preparing food and washing up and taking care of the community and so on.

[28:22]

So the Buddha said, wherever monks are dwelling in Concord, harmoniously, without disputes, blending like milk and water, viewing each other with eyes of affection or friendship, I am at ease about going there. So it put the Buddha at ease to be in a Sangha with others who were practicing in this way. And so this feeling of easily coming together like milk and water with a warm regard is emblematic of the basic feeling of a practice period. And yet there isn't to say there won't be conflicts and challenges and disagreements among people. It's what happens when humans get together. It's just what we do. But understand that these conflicts and challenges happen within the context or in the pool, if you will, of milk and water. It's what we swim in.

[29:24]

So it's holding us all together as we try to express this reality of oneness and togetherness. So how do we do this? How do we abide peacefully like milk and water? To live together like this, not just in the monastery, but actually in the wider world. So some guidelines for how we might peaceably abide together were offered in the Shingyi, the pure standards of conduct, which we reviewed together last night. It's a little bit of a dry document, isn't it? I kind of want to... spruce it up and add something more to it. I'm thinking about it. Can this not be so dry? Can it actually have some joy in it, some inspiration? So we'll work on that. I need some help. And also to quote a statement that the inner read during the opening ceremony, to thoroughly engage the monastic guidelines with body and mind is to go beyond the karmic afflictions of greed, hate, and delusion.

[30:36]

and to realize the emptiness of self-nature. So the Shingya offers us numerous practices for how we might go beyond our selfish nature and be together in a mutually supportive and respectful way. So we are together creating the body of the practice period. And one of the fundamental skeletal structures holding this body together and upright is the Shingi guideline to follow the schedule. Number one, follow the schedule. Doing so will help us wake up and realize our habitual ways of being and doing things. So following the forms and the schedule in Shingi are actually skillful means. The ways of working with our own karmic consciousness to awaken to our life together. You really can see this, you know, when you just hear the wake-up bell.

[31:41]

How is it just to get up? Does anyone have trouble here getting up when you hear the wake-up bell? Am I the only one? At least a few people here, okay, right? This was the first morning that I woke up and went, uh. My body was like, right? Anyhow, you know, so what is it just to respond to the call of practice, right? Just saying yes before the habitual mind kicks in and says, uh-uh, no, I don't want to, not this one, right? Before our mind conjures up some form or reason for resistance, right? And this practice period is going to be different for each one of us. Each person will have different challenges. and sorrows and concerns and learnings and openings and insights. And for some, some of us, the hardest challenge will be waking up with a wake-up bell, right?

[32:42]

And for others, it's going to be not so difficult to go to the zendo when Wuhan starts, right? And maybe that we have other kinds of challenges. For example, getting along with others, being on our crew together. or observing how the person next to us is eating arioki and making this smacking noise with their mouths. Little things like that. That might be our biggest challenge. Who knows? But each of us are working with our own karmic conditioning to discover what is it that I'm resisting? What is the nature of that resistance? Who is it that's resisting? And what happens if I... soften that resistance. And let go of these deeply ingrained, entrenched habit patterns of mind and body. So the schedule and the shingi is a mirror for us.

[33:44]

You've heard this before. It shows us where we're sticking. Any form of contraction is stickiness. Any form of contraction is selfing. So the minute you find any form of contraction in the mind or body, that's a, okay, selfing is happening. Where do I notice it? What is the root of this selfing? How do I want to work with this? So study that. Study contraction in your mind and body. I'm going to probably repeat that a few times throughout the practice period. I want to see everyone for a dokosan in the next couple of weeks, at least once. to really kind of hear what it is that you're working with. What practice intention have you taken up? What are the particular challenges or the inquiries, koans that you're working with in your own internal life? Just get a sense of where you are and what you're engaging with, right? And so I'm going to ask the jisha to call you all in to have a kind of conversation, exploration.

[34:49]

What's going on for you? What are you bringing forward, right? You probably have heard, for those of you who have heard practice with senior Dharma teacher Paul Haller, he often frames it as, what are you asking of practice, and what is practice asking of you? What are you asking of practice, and what is practice asking of you? Another line from Mary Oliver's poem near the end. I want to take slow steps and think appropriate thoughts. So that's one of the gifts of the practice period, to be able to slow down, to have the space for slow steps. And not just in kin hymn, but when you're walking through the valley, what is it to slow down in your whole being and walk with mindfulness? To feel your foot touch the earth with each step, right? That kind of slowness. Can you feel the dissonance between the sense of wanting to settle and connect to the earth and this kind of...

[35:53]

impulse to kind of move ahead or lean forward. What is that impulse that wants you to get somewhere? What is it to simply slow down and settle more deeply? You can move quickly and still be slow on the inside. I don't know if I meant it like that, but slow in your internal sense of being. And then there's the wish to think appropriate thoughts. What appropriate thoughts and how do we have them? Maybe this is pointing us to Yalshan and Dogen's counsel that in Zazen, we should think, not think, thinking. Think, not thinking, or practice non-thinking. So we'll probably explore that a little bit later. And during this practice period, and especially during Sashins, I want to look at the forms of practice that we do together. including some of the nuts and bolts of zazen and its transformative quality.

[36:56]

So we can say that zazen is the practice of the mountains. These mountains are doing zazen all the time. They don't stop doing zazen. They don't have an interval bell. They're always doing zazen. How is it that we learn to sit like mountains? Unmoving, but not unmoved. Each of you may be practicing differently in zazen, slightly different from what your neighbor is doing, you know, and that's fine. Some of you may be doing just sitting, shikantaza. Others of you may be practicing a concentration practice of some sort, following the breath or counting your breath. Some of you may be attending to awareness of your posture, upright, the external posture, you know, the frame of your body. how your hands are, your back, your alignment, and also the internal posture.

[37:57]

Are you in line with your deeper intention? Are you in line with the mind of awareness itself? Studying your posture inside and out. So whatever you're doing in your zazen, the awareness itself is the most important thing. Whatever you're aware of, awareness is the quality of our zazen. Either awareness with an object or objectless awareness. Awareness itself is a transformational, transformative quality. And awareness is always the constant. It's always present. Even when the conscious mind goes away and is drifting in thoughts of past and future, awareness is always still present. All experience is itself a manifestation of awareness. Our experience is a modulation. of awareness. So can we remain aware of the constant, ever-present quality of our experience, which never comes and goes?

[39:05]

A lot of things are going to come up for you during this practice period. I guarantee it. I promise you that. So please treat yourselves with kindness and treat each other with kindness, with respect and great care. Each one of us will be engaged in our own process of settling, opening, encountering deep layers and knots of karmic conditioning and habitual beliefs. It takes great courage, tenacity and true kindness to stay with our experience, particularly when it's painful or something we are afraid to recognize, meet and release. But in the process, we can maintain awareness and let the moment that's arising be engaged as a teaching. What does the moment have to teach you about liberation? If it's painful, whatever the experience of pain is, that is a teaching about liberation.

[40:17]

How do you see that and understand pain of any sort as a teaching about liberation. This is the spirit behind the line in Mary Oliver's poem, I want to look back at everything for giving it all. So I'm going to guarantee you all also that you're going to make lots of mistakes. I have already made numerous mistakes in the week that I've been here, right? It's just part of what it is to be here. It's unavoidable. And I'm sure you're familiar with the adage that Zen practice entails one continuous mistake. Dogen said, stepping forward is a mistake. Stepping backwards is a mistake. Taking one step is a mistake. Taking two steps is also a mistake. Therefore, one mistake after another mistake. So whatever we say or do with a divided karmic consciousness is a mistake.

[41:22]

And yet, we need to make single-minded effort. We make our best effort. That is our way. So whether you're a dohan or in the kitchen crew or general labor or a member of senior staff, we're all going to make mistakes. It's expected. And it's particularly challenging for us when we have an ideal of how we're supposed to be and how things are supposed to be. But the way that the bell is particularly supposed to sound or the soup that we're working on and the way it comes out. We have this ideal and then we do it and then it's not what we thought it was going to be. I remember when I was a Doan. I liked being a Doan. The only thing that terrified me initially was Makugyo and it still kind of scares me. And I was just, the second time I was on the Pukugia, I was really anxious. And when I get anxious, I kind of get really fast. So if I'm talking really fast, it means I'm probably anxious, you know, if I'm moving really fast. And for whatever reason, I, what was it?

[42:24]

I think it was the morning chant. things in the morning, but I started, oh, maybe it was the evening, I can't remember. Anyhow, I started hitting the kookier really fast like this. And, you know, everyone couldn't keep up. I just came out of the gate, really, and I couldn't stop. It was like my hand had its own, you know, it was just like going, I was just watching in terror, right? And then Tata's over here going, because she was kookier, it was like, slow, and I was like, it won't stop. It just keeps on going, you know? And I was just horrified afterwards, you know? And I was almost in tears as we were having a check-in afterwards with the Doan Ryo. I was like, it's so terrible. But in time, I learned to befriend the Makugyo and be okay with, yes, it's not always going to be perfect, and that's okay. So bringing this idea of curiosity, I wonder what's going to show up this time. I wonder what I'm going to discover this time. And that's, you know, it's this kind of setting a positive attention and then noticing what happens.

[43:27]

And sometimes we deal with that with each other. We set a positive attention to connect and say something and then it lands differently for the person. It has a different impact. Can we accept that? Can we acknowledge that? Can we go, oh, I see. Okay. You know, rather than brushing it aside saying, well, my intention was this. But to acknowledge, oh, I see. The outcome was different. How do I accept that? And then meet it at that point. So be kind to ourselves when we make mistakes. Be kind to each other when we make mistakes. It's really endearing. It's really endearing when people make mistakes now for me in the Zendo. There's a part of me that just my heart just opens, you know, and I just kind of like, oh, how sweet. Oh, look at them. They're trying so hard, right? But no, not like that. But it really is. It really softens me. It allows me to, there's something in me that settles. Like, oh, we can be messy together.

[44:28]

Okay, right? There's still a form we're trying to follow. There's still a way that we're trying to open into discovery. So what is it to look back and forgive ourselves for all the mistakes we've made in the past and all the mistakes we're going to make going forward in the future? So glean some wisdom from them. Don't use them as reasons for self-flagellation or self-judgment. The self is always going to look for something to beat you up with or to hold on to or to tighten around. Don't give mistakes. Don't give it mistakes as fuel. Just work with our karmic conditions. View our mistakes as opportunities for illuminating, acknowledging and avowing our human karmic consciousness. And practice compassion. Practice compassion.

[45:29]

And some of you are going to experience pain. Maybe a lot of physical pain. Maybe you're in pain now. You're like, when is it going to end this talk? My knees are really hurting. And other types of pain, emotional and so on. So the practice is to cultivate the ability to stay with the experience, to tolerate the experience of pain. Develop a capacity to simply be aware of the experience rather than pushing it away. Not grasping or averting. the capacity to be aware within the awareness of each moment and experience. This is kind of an open, receptive, non-judgmental awareness itself is transformative. And the kitchen, for those of you who don't know, at a certain point, we'll need to get up to go back to the kitchen to prepare. It's basically a signal for the speaker that I'm going on too long. It's okay. I can continue. But it just gives me a time check. So thank you, Kitchen, very much for your practice.

[46:31]

I'm going to tell you the secret to everything at the very end. Sorry, you're going to miss it. The thing is, we aren't being aware of our pain and our difficulty in order to make the experience change. That's not what awareness is about. Awareness is not about changing our experience, right? The practice awareness is itself the transformative process. We are already bodies of transformation. Can we allow ourselves to settle into that transformation by maintaining continuous awareness? So please take up the kindness, the practice of being kind to ourselves and gentle with loving hearts. And this may not be so easy for some of us. We may have been conditioned in ways that actually we don't give ourselves permission to be kind. That we somehow feel like if we're not judging or being self-critical, that somehow we're going to fall behind or not be good enough or measure up or whatever it is.

[47:38]

So it really is important to let go of that aspect of our conditioning and not judge ourselves and criticize. And recognize that we're each doing our best. And this is one of the things that you can bring forward to a practice leader. If you find your inner critic is really alive and active, how to work with that one, working with the judgment, how to cultivate compassion for yourself. Okay, so I'm going to conclude in a moment. But first I want to say a few things about what we'll be studying, which is the Mountains and Rivers Sutra, Mountains and Waters Sutra. Sometimes as rivers, I actually prefer waters because I think waters includes the whole expression of the thing called water. As I think you know, the text I will be getting is the Mountains of Modern Sutra. When it was suggested that I leave this practice period, as a way to break in the new abbots.

[48:39]

And I was like, oh, it's your first year of practice period. You should go to Tassajara and lead a practice period, right? No time to settle into the city, but here I am, right? So they were telling me, you really don't know what it is to be abbot until you've done a practice period of Tassajara. I was like, okay, but couldn't I have waited a year? But here I am. So the first thing that came to mind when it was suggested I lead the practice period was the Mountains and Waters Sutra, right? And I find this a very moving and beautiful fascicle of Dogen's. And yet, at the same time, it's one of the most impenetrable. It's really, you know, I confess that I've made a diligent effort to study it and delve into what it is that Dogen's trying to say, and I still find it intimidating. And at times, it's really hard to grok. I'll let you know that now. It gets me off the hook, you know, for pretending I know something I don't know. But what better place to study this sutra, you know, this profound text, than amidst the very mountains and waters, which Dogen says are the true Dharma I, the realized truth of the universe.

[49:55]

So we could say that the study of nature, both the nature of the wilderness that surrounds us, as well as our own human nature, will be our sutra of study during this practice period. The profound beauty of the Tassahara wilderness, combined with the dynamic silence and stillness of a traditional Zen monastic practice period, make for ideal conditions in which to take up this study. My hope is rather than me telling you what Dogen is saying, that together we make the effort to bring forward the teachings and bring them to life in ways that are particular, enlivening and relevant to each of us. So our form of study is going to take not just that of a class together and Dharma talks, but actually walking into the mountain, into the body of the environment around us to engage it with our whole being.

[50:59]

So we'll explore the mountains and waters of our posture, our breath, our zazen, our work, our bathing, and so forth. We'll sit zazen outside on the Ngāwa, perhaps even elsewhere, you know, on the grounds, in the woods maybe. I may do some excursions or exercises where we go further afield. And we also have in the schedule, an exercise period each day, which is an opportune time for us to go for a walk, right? To be the mountains walking themselves, to swim, you know, to do yoga, or whatever other movement that is helpful for you to take care of yourselves by getting our bodies moving as a kind of counterbalance to all the hours of sitting still together. And I've asked if the chiseaux, And maybe some others might offer us yoga at particular times as well to support us in our practice.

[52:04]

So please avail yourselves of these activities of going into and engaging the mountains and waters physically with your whole being, right? See what it is that they have to teach you that is beyond words and phrases. So here's the last line of Oliver's poem again. In 10,000 years, maybe a piece, on the mountain will fall. In 10,000 years, maybe a piece on the mountain will fall. So whether we're here for three months, a year, 10 years, or 10,000 years, it's almost guaranteed that some part of us that was long fixed and seemingly unmovable and enduring in its habituated persistence and grasping suddenly will finally give way. A piece of the mountain, maybe just a sliver, and maybe the whole slab of one side of the monolithic mountain known as the separate self, will drop away.

[53:15]

Shinjin Datsuraku, the dropping off of body and mind. In the space that opens up, may we recognize that that which was always present within us, as us, and beyond the forms of human and mountains and waters. This is the practice of a lifetime. And then some. Sometimes I grow weary of the days with all their fits and starts. I want to climb some old gray mountains slowly, taking the rest of my lifetime to do it, resting often, sleeping under the pines or above them on the unclothed rocks. I want to see how many stars are still in the sky that we have smothered for years now, a century at least.

[54:18]

I want to look back at everything, forgiving it all, and peaceful, knowing the last there is to know what is the last thing there is to know all that urgency not what the earth is about how silent the trees their poetry being but themselves only I want to take slow steps and think appropriate thoughts in ten thousand years Maybe a piece of the mountain will fall. Thank you very much for your kind attention. not.

[55:37]

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