This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. I said to my therapist once, I have to give a lecture. And he said, you have to give a lecture? Do you want to give a lecture? had to think about that. And what I thought and what I said was, yes, I do, but I'm afraid. I don't know why that came to mind. Anyway, I want to start with a poem by Emily Dickinson. This is the hour of lead, remembered if outlived, as freezing persons recollect the snow.

[01:10]

First the chill, then the stupor, then the letting go. This is the hour of lead. remembered if outlived as freezing persons recollect the snow. First the chill, then the stupor, then the letting go. So what I want to talk about this morning is this unremarkable experience that we share as students of Zen. The experience of sitting silently together in a darkened room. Zazen. The first time I was invited to sit was by a friend of mine.

[02:12]

I was living in a cabin in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. And my friend had just come back from trekking in the Himalayas. She was very excited about somebody she'd met there called the Karmapa. These were all new words for me. So my friend had said that she basically had to run away in the middle of the night from the Karmapa's monastery because she was afraid that she would never leave. And in some ways, I think she was right. She's still lighting butter lamps in Boulder, Colorado. Anyway, her name is Janice, and she was an amazing human being to me. She had been a rodeo queen, and she was a fierce downhill skier.

[03:15]

And almost anything she suggested I thought was going to be a great adventure. So she suggested I try sitting. So she gave me a little instruction. She said, cross your legs, sit here next to me on the floor, put your hands on your knees like that, close your eyes, and now wait for something remarkable to happen. Would you like to try that? after about 20 minutes of that, my friend's Alaskan husky came and put her head in my lap and went to sleep.

[04:50]

And I was hooked. So I don't know how it is for all of you, but I am particularly drawn to things that I don't understand. Things like sitting and love and life. And of late, I've been drawn to reading about something called the Higgs boson. Do you know what that is? Has anyone ever heard of it? I don't know. You know that big machine they've been building in Switzerland underground for billions of dollars? Has everyone heard about that? Well, that machine is built to find a Higgs boson. And how they're going to do it, they, is by shooting electrons at each other at near the speed of light, head on.

[05:57]

There is a little concern it may create a black hole, but apparently not grave enough to hesitate. So they call this boson, it's a subatomic particle, they call the god particle, because they think we will understand how life and matter came to be if they can find this tiny little event. So I don't understand. But I'm very curious. So I do read and I do study and I watch TV. I go to movies and to museums. And I attend lots of lectures. And for all of that, I have very little to show for it. and I'm not kidding in fact without these notes I'm afraid there would be nothing here at all you could all go home very thin being a person what have we got to show for it right now unremarkable

[07:26]

What I have noticed is that the events of my life seem to be passing by somewhat like a row of trees from a moving car. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. I mean, it's Saturday, right? This lecture was way long ahead. And all of a sudden, like, whoa, it's tomorrow. How'd that happen? And now it's now. And pretty soon it's going to be then. I've noticed that. So in my own defense, I want to say that most of this is not entirely my fault, that I haven't gotten hold of anything. Because I think we humans are ill-equipped for grasping objects, whether mental or physical. I mean, just look at how we're made, right?

[08:30]

Tiny little claws. tiny little teeth, no pockets, and a very unreliable and inconsistent brain. Now, at the same time that we are ill-equipped for getting things, we are overdeveloped in our desire to get things. We've got to get a job. We've got to get a house. We've got to get a partner. We've got to get a life, right? We are driven. Well, maybe I'll just speak for myself. I don't want to presume. Anyway, well, it turns out that this compulsion to get something, to get somewhere, was what the Buddha saw at the very core of his own suffering. He called this the first and second noble truths.

[09:40]

There is suffering. There is possessiveness, desire, greed, preferences, jealousies, objections, criticism, you name it. We all know the list, right? There is suffering. All the yucky things that we think and that we do. And what was more subtle and more difficult to see, maybe like the boson, was the cause of that suffering. But the Buddha did see the cause of suffering. He said it's two parts to the cause of suffering. The first is that we are mistaking reality for what it is not. We are misinterpreting the data. And he called this misinterpretation the fundamental affliction of ignorance.

[10:44]

Combining ignorance with desire, this desire to get something, results in basically a tremendous urge to go shopping. I mean, this is all the real stuff we're into, right? He wasn't talking about those people thousands of years ago. This is really about us, you know. We got a shop. Right on my desk, I have a list, you know. I say to my daughter, put it on the list. Whatever it is, put it on the list. So we really do believe that we exist, you know. I'm here. Therein lies the fear. And I am here and you're over there. And I really do believe that there's something out there that I can get.

[11:54]

It's going to make things better over here. And for the most part, we don't get tired of this. This cycle of Wanting and getting, wanting and getting, wanting and getting, over and over again. And the Buddha had a name for that as well. He said this is samsara, samsara. It means endless circling. So the first and second noble truths are in motion. This is about motion or the appearance of motion. Wanting and getting. think for all of us when we hear about this, it's kind of hard because most, if not all, of what we think and do is fundamentally wrong. It's just wrong.

[12:56]

One continuous mistake. But it really does seem as though somebody or something is out to get us, whether it's terrorists or capitalists, we can't be sure. Or maybe they're just trying to get us from getting what we really want, you know, a peaceful life. That's all we really want. But first we have to finish the capital campaign. That was a joke. I saw Susan come in, so I wanted to give her a tease. Where are you, Susan? Out there. This is the hour of lead, remembered if outlived as freezing persons recollect the snow. First the chill, then the stupor, then the letting go.

[13:59]

So in order to engage... in his own explorations of his mind and his body, the Buddha courageously took on a practice, a yogic practice, a very unremarkable practice of just sitting. He just sat down. And he waited. And he watched. He paid very close attention to the activity, the movement, the appearance of movement in his mind. I want. I got to get. I want. He saw that. He watched that turning. And he saw the suffering arise. I remember when I first took Zazen instruction back here in California, I think I was sitting right about where you are on the floor. And Linda Ruth was giving the zazen instruction.

[15:06]

And she said pretty much what my friend Janice had said, you know, cross your legs, although our arms are a little different. Make a nice oval with your hands. Straighten your spine. Keep your eyes open this time. There was no dog. And wait for the bell. So when I left here, I thought, that's it. That's all they have to give us here. That's what they have to say at the Zen Center. So I didn't tell Linda at the time or later that I really didn't believe her that that was it. I thought there was a lot more to it than that. It was kind of secret. And I really wanted to find out what it was. So I kept coming back every day. after work. And then I, you know, because I still hadn't figured it out, I moved into the building.

[16:15]

So I could look around, you know. And for a while anyway, I became what we call a good student. I remember that. Because in this building, I was a good student. Anyway, I was really pretty hell-bent on getting whatever it was. Getting to the heart of the matter. Now, the Buddha had figured people like me out a long time ago. And he knew that if we couldn't stop grasping, that perhaps we could... turn and have it feed on itself. So he came up with this tantalizing notion, you know, this is how he invented Buddhism, this tantalizing notion of getting enlightened.

[17:20]

I mean, who can resist that? No one in this room, I bet. Not me. In fact, my daughter said the other night, I asked her to turn the lights on and she said, oh, You want me to enlighten you? And she laughed. She thought that was so funny. Well, somebody better. How's that? He had a battery in his pocket. Who is that? He wasn't here when I arrived. Okay. So. Where am I? Oh, God.

[18:20]

Enlighten us. Thank you. I'm trying. She was. She was here. Okay. So. Oh, yeah, enlightenment. So I have another story. This is from another three of the great creative traditions of the world, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, an Old Testament story. The same night, Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his 11 children and crossed the ford of the river Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream and likewise everything that he had. Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him in the hip socket, and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as they wrestled.

[19:31]

Then the man said, Let me go. For the day is breaking. But Jacob said, Why is it that you ask my name? And there the man blessed him. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved. The sun rose upon him as he passed Peniel, limping because of his hip. heard this story for the first time two weeks ago at a lovely ceremony for a friend of mine who was being installed as the rector of St.

[20:53]

Stephen's Episcopal Church over in Marin. The Bishop of California was leading the procession, and I was welcomed to join them as we walked through the church. I even took Holy Communion, something I haven't done in many, many years. It was so interesting that I remembered how to put my hands. As a child, I was trained to be an Episcopalian. So it was kind of old home. The reason I took communion was it said in the program, everyone here is welcome to take communion, regardless of your faith. I thought, well, that's sweet. Yeah, okay. So I did. It was very nice. Very nice. So anyway, even though this story is from the Old Testament, from the book of Genesis, it didn't surprise me that major elements of the story resonated with the teaching of Zen and the practice of Zen.

[22:04]

And first of all, Jacob is left alone. And his wife and his servants and his children and all of his belongings have been sent across the river. So whether it's for a 40-minute period of meditation or whether it's for a span of your life, you know, in Zen, we put aside our possessions for a while. And we go alone. Alone into a dark place, the place of striving. And in that place, we meet the stranger. In Jacob's case, he met God. And in the case of the young prince, Shakyamuni, he met Mara. But either way, it doesn't matter so much who you meet, because it works very well.

[23:05]

The stranger works very well for the purposes of striving. We need something to... fight against. So it seems. So we might ask ourselves, you know, striving for what? What is it we're trying to get? Are we trying to get peace? Love? Happiness? Or maybe We just want to win. We want to be the winner, separate and special. But again, it doesn't really matter what drives us into the ring, because it's there in the dark with the stranger that we really learn and we really come to see. And the stranger, for their part, will taunt us

[24:12]

and will beg us to relinquish our hold on this tawdry version of reality that we are clinging to. Let go. Never. Mine, precious. So Jacob got a punch in the hip. And Shakyamuni was attacked by an army of demons. Maybe what both of them really needed was a hug, but that might be another religion altogether. I was recently sitting with some friends, one of them, Tony Patchell, who some of you know. He was married to Darling Kohn, a wonderful old friend. And we were eating and laughing, and all of a sudden, a small black mountain range appeared in front of my eyes, followed by a tiny black bat.

[25:24]

So I thought that it was an insect of some sort, so I swatted at it a few times. And then I realized that these insects were actually part of my eyeball. something new. So, you know, I kept kind of, while I was talking, I'm trying to see them, and they kept moving away every time I looked, you know, being part of my eyeball. And finally, the mountain range dissolved or disappeared, but the little black bat is still there. In fact, it's, every time I mention it, it shows up. There it is. It's kind of over here. Sometimes I can get it to sit in my blind spot. Then I don't see it. There we go. Anyway, so whenever the bat appears, it really does seem as though the stranger is about to fly into my eye.

[26:29]

And I'm under attack. Incoming. And I react. There's a startle. A little bit of a startle. Getting less. But... So I think this is a really good practice for the arrival of the stranger. I'm feeling kind of grateful sometimes. So I came up with some strategies for dealing with this new part of my life. My first strategy was to call the eye doctor and try to get it removed. But the doctor said, well, this is just part of getting older. Pat, pat, pat. He was a young guy. Excuse me. I'm not older. Anyway, you'll hear about it. They're called floaters. I have a floater. And so that wasn't going to happen. They can't take them out. They're just there. Then the second strategy was to just ignore it.

[27:33]

But unfortunately, it does jump at me. So even though I try to ignore it, it's always a bit of a surprise. when it shows up. So that didn't work. So my third strategy was to complain about it to various people. But the problem with that strategy is I ran out of people who didn't know about it already. And they don't really want to hear that stuff for very long. They've got their own stories to tell. So... Finally, my strategy was one that I want to recommend to you today, and that is resignation. I really appreciate this word resignation. Like a lot of really good words, it turns in two ways. In one direction, resignation means, you know, I quit. I'm out of here. You can keep your job, you know.

[28:39]

So that's one way. And the other way, it's like, I accept this. I accept this task before me now. I am resigned to the work I have. So I tried looking at both sides of this resignation. Took it to heart. Now, to tell the truth, this exploration of resignation as a possibility wasn't in relation to the bat in my eye. That was just a way of bringing up the subject. It was really in relation to what I think are the circumstances under which I am living my life. And some of you know me, but some of you, clearly some of you don't,

[29:42]

I live in a family and not one, but both of my family members are disabled. My daughter has cerebral palsy and has since birth and a few other things. And my partner was in a car accident four years ago and is pretty badly injured. so i do many things to take care of both of them almost all day long i run the errands i get the food i do the dishes i fold the laundry and what i began to notice about eight months ago now was that i was building up some resentment And it got to the point where I did not want to do one bloody thing for either one of them.

[30:49]

Only I didn't say so. But I was clearly cranky. And they commented on my crankiness, which made me more cranky. Maybe familiar to some of you. So the first noble truth. You know, suffering is caused by desire based in ignorance. A desire for things to be other than the way they are. So, well, that certainly explained my problem. But it did not do one iota to change how I felt or how I was behaving. You know? So much for theories. So what are we going to do? What are we really going to do when the stranger appears in the dark? Well, I think we have to meet it.

[31:53]

We have to meet it head on. Collision course. And it's painful. And it's horrible. Because not only did I know there wasn't really anybody there, Everyone else around me knew it too. If any of us had been watching the Buddha under the Bodhi tree, we would not have seen an army of demons or a chorus of dancing girls. We would have seen a young man sitting under a tree. That's all. Our struggles are not visible as much as we imagine they are. We are in the dark, alone, wrestling with a stranger. So when my daughter said to me, as I was complaining one evening about my workload, you know, Mom, it's really not that bad.

[32:56]

I knew she was right. It's really not that bad. In fact, I don't even know what that bad looks like. It hasn't happened to me yet. I think it happened to grace. I think it's that bad for many people. But not for me. And then one dark night, this word resignation appeared. And it was interesting because when I thought of it, I did think of it as comfort. Yeah, that's what I can do. You know, instead of resigning, quitting, running off to Canada, changing my name, you know, I could actually settle into this life that I have, like into a big, comfy couch. So I'm not sure what created the spaciousness, because it hadn't been there before.

[34:09]

But there it was, a spaciousness around the situation that I was in. And I do think it came from this struggle, this striving with the stranger. It broke me down. Jacob walked in the light with a limp. It hurt him. But that's the condition for a blessing. broken down. I once read a line in the Diamond Sutra that struck me as very odd at the time. It was, by this humiliation, you shall be liberated. You know, that's not what I came here for, humiliation. I mean, who does? But something about it stuck with me.

[35:12]

By this humiliation, you shall be liberated. I think when we're young and eager and beginning our practice, we imagine it's our strength and talent and all of that that's going to be rewarded and appreciated and honored and so on. And in some ways, it is. That's really nice. It's wonderful, actually. Young people. Things they can do. But eventually, as our lives go on, I think we come to appreciate these very subtle transformations of our views and of our unrequited longings. Those are my favorites, unrequited longing. So I also need to confess that this... Breaking down of some of my resistance wasn't a final step in a process.

[36:13]

It was actually a beginning step in what is an ongoing process. Because I couldn't really keep this all to myself anymore. I had to tell people. I had to tell my teacher. I had to tell my family. I had to tell my friends what I'd been going through because I hadn't been talking about it. And it was very hard. I mean... It was very hard on my family to hear that I was not wanting to do this anymore, that I'd been struggling with a stranger, with resistance, with resentment. It caused them quite a bit of pain, and I felt very badly for that. However, they have done so well with me. They've been so generous and helpful and thoughtful. I mean, it's almost too much. I'm feeling like I'm getting some of the care I needed to keep going. And I needed to say it.

[37:14]

I needed to let it be known in order for that care to break in. Giving and getting are a team. I like being a giver, but what about getting something? about what I need. Not what I deserve, but just what I need. This is the hour of lead. Remembered if outlived, as freezing persons recollect the snow. First the chill, then the stupor, then the letting go. So I think this poem is a good summary of what my family and I have gone through together. That's the good part, together. And it's a process I think all of us here will need to enter at some time in our lives, if you haven't already, to enter and to outlive.

[38:20]

And even though I really like to learn facts and dates and the names of the Chinese ancestors, I think it's this other kind of learning that we do in the dark that really transforms our lives and allows us to see what we really came here to see, who we really are. The news is good, I assure you. And I don't think that it's ever going to work for us as a community to teach or to learn things that we really don't know how to do. And that reminded me of another poem that my grandmother used to taunt me with. You may know it. There was a man upon the stair, a little man that wasn't there. He wasn't there again today. Oh, how I wish he'd go away.

[39:27]

Isn't that creepy? grandma what does that mean well I've kind of rethought the little man and I think really basically he too just needed a hug you know it's what he was waiting for the illusion of suffering colliding with the illusion of love I think that's the big bang we're really waiting for. Thank you all very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost, 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 sfcc.org and click Giving.

[40:31]

May we fully enjoy the Dormon.

[40:34]

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