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. I want to continue with the next part of the story of Siddhartha. Gautama. And what happened for me was an unexpected kind of theme arose at this point of the story, which, unexpected for me, and so I am just going with it. I hope you will too. and it arose in a kind of circle, like a sphere, and I don't know kind of where to enter.

[01:14]

I suppose I can enter anywhere and it will all unfold. So at this point in the story, the Buddha, as you recall, Siddhartha, was practicing with five companions austerities and ascetic practices for a long time six long years with self mortification and starving themselves you know not eating also other practices like holding your breath and just all sorts of different things and what happened for me was not having read this or reviewed the story what arose in my mind was the rose apple tree. The Siddhartha as a young boy, about eight years old, sitting under the rose apple tree.

[02:20]

And then in looking at the story, that's what happened also for Siddhartha. He was in the midst of these austerities and he had this recollection of a time when he was a young boy and felt happiness and joy and peace while sitting under a rose apple tree watching his father begin with a ritual for the spring planting and plowing of the lands associated with their, you know, their estate. My recollection of the story is there was some suffering in that the young boy, Siddhartha, while the plowing was going on, was thinking all these animals and insects are being destroyed while the plow is going through the earth and feeling some sadness and suffering, pain about that, and settling himself under the rose apple tree and just watching this scene.

[03:36]

His father from... From afar he had a vantage point. And what came over him was a kind of settled, deeply settled, calm, joyful, and happy feeling. He went into a kind of meditative state that was joyful, happy, So right at this point where he's doing these very strong practices that were not taking care of the body and a lot of pain and suffering of the body and mind, right at that moment, at the kind of edge of his endurance, really, was starving. this thought, he was reminded, he remembered sitting under the rose apple tree and this joy and happiness.

[04:41]

And I remember that too, yesterday. So just backtracking a little bit, and this is the kind of circle As we recall, the Buddha lost his mother, Queen Maya, seven days after he was born. And this is almost like a little footnote in the story. It's never like addressed or looked at or how this might have affected, and I think affected this family or this child. And he had a good foster mother, wonderful. So it's never, it's just like her joy, I think it says something like, her joy was so great that she went to Tushita Heaven, you know, or something.

[05:51]

So coming back to this very, very early loss, pre-verbal body loss, and one might think, well, he was just born seven days, what's the big deal? But actually being carried being one with, actually one body for those months, hearing the voice all the time. The closeness and the connection is unfathomable actually. So he lost this and there was no that can't be replaced, really, completely. And in thinking about this, and this is where this theme came of, which we've brought up over the practice period with Peter Pan, and I know that Greg talked about Prajnaparamita as the mother of the Buddhists, this mother theme, which may be distasteful,

[07:11]

to many of us, but I want to think of it in the widest sense, not one's own individual flawed and, you know, good enough mother, but in the widest sense, our need for care, nourishment, attunement, mirroring, someone who's there, who knows us, whether it's a mother, father, caregiver, that this is very, very basic for our development mentally, our brain's development physically, all sorts of ways. So many of us, so Peter Pan, as we know, lost his mother. And all the lost boys, by the way, in Neverland, the reason they're in Neverland is because they fell out of their perambulators, their strollers, their buggies. when they were little and were not found again. So they were all gathered up and brought to Neverland.

[08:15]

So all of them have lost this connection too. So in thinking about this kind of a loss, and many of us lost our mothers. We lost our mothers to alcoholism, to addiction, to depression, to mental illness, to actual death or illness where they were unavailable or our mothers were lost in their own self aggrandizement and self-centeredness. I have a friend whose mother died when she was 12 and she was crying and crying and a well-meaning adult so-called adult family member said, stop crying, it upsets people. So we often lose this kind of nourishment and being in our life, and it's just like in the Buddhist story, it's never talked of again, it's never, we don't bring it up, it's too painful.

[09:38]

Let's not talk about this, and I think in the, earlier in the story of the Buddha when Chana, the first messenger, in reading a commentary on this, this detail, which I didn't know, this is probably one of these versions, when Chana and Siddhartha see a sick person, the Buddha says, what kind of a person is that? Doesn't he have a mother? Who is taking care of him? And that was a new kind of detail. Doesn't he have a mother? Who's taking care of him? And later in the sangha, you may know the story of there was a sick monk who was lying in his own excrement and no one was taking care of him and the Buddha personally with Ananda's help and others took care of the monk, cleaned him up and said, we take care of one another.

[10:40]

This is our practice. We often have distaste, disgust, avoidance for this kind of care. So in this first messenger, the sick person, who's taking care of this person? Doesn't he have a mother? and that resonating with seeing suffering and one's own suffering and loss, that connection there, connecting through this universal suffering that we all have and loss. Before I take up the story of the Buddha having this remembrance of sitting under the rose apple tree, I want to come to another theme, which is part of this circle, which is, as we know, Peter Pan did not want to grow up.

[11:56]

You know, he didn't want to be an adult. And I looked up the word adult. Well, what is an adult? isn't from the same root as adultery, it's a different root altogether. Adultery comes from, like, if you make a solution or something and add something that's not supposed to be in it, it's adulted, right? What? Adulterated. Adulterated, that's right. Adulterated, it's from that root. Adult or adult comes from another root, and it's... It's a fully developed and mature being, and adult is the past participle of the word adolescere, which is where adolescent comes from, and that adolescere means to grow up. Adult is the past participle of to grow up.

[12:59]

Adolescence, I thought, well, I'm going to look up adolescence. Adolescence is the period from a physical development from the onset of puberty to maturity. That's adolescence, you know, kind of strictly speaking. And the root of it, the etymology, is the Latin, ale sere, to grow, and also, which I found... really helpful. To be nourished. To grow is to be nourished, and to be an adult, to fully grow into maturity, we need to be nourished. It's not just chronological age to be an adult. We have to be nourished, have been nourished, and if we haven't been nourished in our younger time to receive nourishment now.

[14:10]

And it's connected with, in English, the word elder. So putting this together, what is an adult? When we think of an adult, a mature person, we think they are able to take responsibility for their actions. We cannot escape from the consequences of our actions, and rather than blaming somebody else, well it's your fault, it's Tassahara's fault, it's the schedule's fault, it's not me, it's you. That's a kind of blaming and not taking responsibility, which doesn't go along with our full maturity. I think taking responsibility for our actions, which includes, you know, others contribute too, it's not, hundred percent us that might be that's overdoing it but seeing our contribution seeing and taking responsibility and without blaming seeing others contribution and seeing the causes and conditions for that has a kind of mature adult you might say quality and that can be very hard to do you know it might be very easy pattern we might have to

[15:28]

blame somebody else for, you know, that our seshin isn't going well, or the practice period isn't what I thought it should be, or the teaching isn't what I thought, or the people that are here are really not up to snuff. And those thinking that way to me feels like not taking responsibility for our action and to this maturity going together with being nourished and deeply nourished and thinking of, you know, earlier in the practice period our ceremony of feeding the hungry ghosts, nourishing them with actual ritual food and teachings and Dharma and our loving and kind words and wishes nourishing.

[16:30]

We need nourishment. We can't really exist just, I mean there's an existence but it's a paltry existence or it becomes a very narrow existence without this kind of deep nourishment. So archetypally, the mother and nourishment kind of go together, and I think in the great goddess religions, all the pre-Christian and pre-Judeo-Christian, all the, you know, were great goddess religions, great mother or great goddess, really, because it was a tri-part goddess that was the maiden, the mother, and the crone. You know it included birth and youth and then mother and nourishment and birthing and then dying and decay and death and as one, really one life really.

[17:53]

We tend to want to hold on to different parts and stay away from other parts but it's really one life So the mother of the Buddha's, you know, Prashnaparamita, what gives birth to awakened ones is wisdom, and wisdom and compassion gives birth. So in that way, it's that archetype of giving birth. So I'll come back to this adult what is an adult and what is an adult, what is maturely practicing here at Tashara and in our lives in a moment. I want to come back to the Buddha. So he's with his five companions, struggling really, I would think, weak, but holding to the conviction that this is the way to go, and then he has this

[19:05]

remembrance, this memory of this time of peace and joy. Not that it was totally distant from suffering, it included realizing the suffering of these insects and small animals and the plow, but being able to rest, you know, like lotus in muddy water just resting there and his remembering of this. So he decides, this memory, it's like, wait a minute, I've been going this way pretty thoroughly with my friends here and having a little trepidation about, do I let this go? Do I turn my back on this thing I've been doing with companions for all this time? a little bit afraid. What does this mean, you know?

[20:08]

Is this a change here? Kind of facing this, am I gonna, and looking at that in this commentary, looking and examining his mind and mental, what he's turning over in his mind and asking, what's there to be afraid of here? I'm actually drawn to something else, but I have to let go of something. And I think we often are afraid to let go of what we think is tried and true, even at our own expense. It's so familiar, we don't want to let go of it because at least we know what it's about. So at least it's familiar, even though I'm killing myself, you know. wondering, oh, maybe there's another way. And it begins to grow in him. I think I want to try another way. This is a big change here in the middle of, you know, the influence of his friends and so forth.

[21:16]

And also what he remembered was nothing really not any big striving, any big accomplishment, any big fancy schmancy thing. He's just sitting there quietly under the rose apple tree and had this capacity, just his own young self, to feel happiness and joy. It's kind of ordinary, really. So musing or reflecting on this, he decides, I think I'm going to try something different. And he tells his friends that he's going to leave them and not do these practices anymore. And they are, what it says is, they're disgusted with him for giving up, for failing, for being a slacker, and not keeping the faith, and not doing this practice to the end, you know,

[22:26]

the big prize at the end that they're working towards and they just, ugh, you know, and leave him in disgust and go on to continue their way. So here's Siddhartha with this new, this new opening to this new way and he thinks, if I'm going to practice in a new way, I'm starving to death. I need to get some sustenance. And he bathes in the river, the Naranjo River near there, and he sits himself down to kind of rest. I imagine he hardly had any, he was pretty weak, and he sits himself down under a banyan tree. I don't know if any of you have seen a banyan tree. They get to be huge. Anyway, there was a tree there, and he, this is different from the Bodhi tree. It's just this tree there. And the story shifts because there's another character in the story who we chant every day when we do the acharyas, Sujata.

[23:36]

Acharya, Sujata. And Sujata was a young woman, mother and daughter of a landowner in the area, and she... years before had prayed for a life partner that would be you know a good match and have a spiritual practice the way she did and and and she wanted children and she prayed to the tree spirit of this banyan tree that was nearby where they were and she would make offerings to this banyan tree spirit which may have been a usual ritual at the time, and she was granted her wish. She found a good spiritual and life partner, and she had a son, more than one child, and sons were sought after.

[24:38]

She had sons, and she made a vow to give thanks every year. to the tree spirit that had answered her wishes by making an offering every year at the same time to the banyan tree and an offering of food. So it was that time of year again, time to make the offering to the banyan tree, and she sent her servant to make ready the ritual space. I'm not sure what exactly that means, but some kind of preparation. And the servant goes to the banyan tree and sees this kind of a specter, sees this emaciated being, but kind of sitting upright and resting under the tree. And she thinks that the tree spirit of the banyan tree has manifested. She runs back to Sujata and says that the tree spirit is actually there, sitting under the banyan tree on this day of all days when you're making your offering.

[25:47]

And Sujata prepared this delicious, sweet, thick rice pudding, milk rice, which is probably similar to a thick, delicious rice pudding that we might imagine. that we've had sometimes the morning of Buddha's Enlightenment Day right here in this very zendo. And she prepares it extra specially wonderful and puts it into a golden bowl, which she has, and she brings it to the tree spirit and makes offerings to the tree spirit. And here's Siddhartha starving, and he receives, can you imagine? receiving a bowl full of hot, sweet rice pudding, and he, I don't know if he ate it with his hand or not. I picture him with a spoon, kind of spooning it up, but he might have, I mean, in India they ate with their hands.

[26:49]

Anyway, he ate this rice pudding and was filled with strength, I mean, and ease and joy, just the way we are, especially in the morning after our pretty long fast, if we're following the admonitions, parenthetically. You know, that you can feel the food coming in and supporting our life energy and life force and the feeling of ease and joy. And this is what happened. This strength just flowed through him. He had had, you know, sesame seed a day for months, you know. This offering of Sujata is thought to be a very, very important offering that she made to Siddhartha right at the moment when he turned away from the extreme of these austerities and self-hurting

[28:01]

to start out on this new way of, in this middle way. And so she is lauded, you know, as one who truly supported the Buddha in his realization. And just a little bit more about Sujata and her sons. Her son, Yasas, was after the first five companions, I'm skipping. Anyway, he was the sixth person to take refuge and become ordained by the Buddha and became an arhat. And later, he was begging for, you know, doing an alms round and came with the Buddha to his own family's house and was given alms. And they gave a sermon at that time and Sujata herself, plus Yasa's former wife, upon hearing the Dharma, became stream enterers and Sujata later also joined the order, so that's kind of what happened to Sujata.

[29:08]

But she nurtured and nourished him. He needed nourishment. All bodhisattvas need nourishment of all kinds. We need that. We can't somehow skip over, like, I don't need anything. I don't need anything. I can do it myself. This is... delusion. This is, I would say, a kind of avoiding of our actual, the reality of our life. We need nourishment in all its different forms. Actual food, we need friendship, we need Dharma, we need many things to support us to practice. so she allowed him to gather his strength. So I think we'll leave Siddhartha there with renewed strength and bathed and he set out for Magadha

[30:31]

walking. After that he had enough, he had wherewithal, you know, to continue. So, coming back to what is an adult, you know, what is full maturity, I think when we do our coming of age program, the teachers in the Coming of Age program, some of whom are in the room, go through a curriculum that talks about what is maturity. Really, what is maturity in our life? Taking responsibility for ourself and our actions, taking responsibility for helping others. Not that we can do it for others. The Buddha do it for us, but can show us the way, show us the path.

[31:35]

Even, you know, the parable of getting the kids out of the house was really showing the path. This is a path. Do you see? Here's a path to follow. It wasn't taking away or, you know, now you're, everything's all done. It was, this is a vehicle for you. So, part of my understanding of maturity in our practice really has to do with this, what I talked about before about responsibility and blame. You know, we're in the middle of a seshin, and there are admonitions for the seshin, and it's interesting how we can And I can hear people talk about the practice isn't, it's not strict enough, it's not hard enough, and a kind of longing for, I don't know, us to have, that it be more difficult, you know.

[32:54]

Then maybe I'd come up to the task if it were more difficult. But it's, you know, it's, sit a little, dah, dah, dah. We're not carrying the stick anymore. We're not being, ah, nobody's shouting at us and pushing us around. But that, maybe then I would really, you know, I could really get my teeth into it. And maybe so, maybe this is not the right environment for many people. I do feel, however, that if we look at our, you know, what is maturity, what is adult, what is taking responsibility for our sasheen, and look at the ways in which ourselves and to examine are there ways in which I'm, and I often say this right about now, cutting corners or not fully involving myself completely or where there's a choice taking, going with a kind of karmic, it's familiar, I'll go this way.

[34:39]

And does that in some way not nourish us deeply enough? Are we not taking the opportunity to nourish ourselves with full exertion, full on exerting body and mind in our practice? And I would venture to say that human beings love to fully exert, fully throw themselves into things. We might say, no I don't, but I would venture to disagree. I think, you know, even if it's disagreeable, when we fully exert, disagreeable and agreeable drops away. It's not germane anymore. It's because there's only full-on exerting. We can't call it anything. We can't We can't even name it.

[35:45]

And are we short-circuiting? Are we giving ourselves the short shrifting by shying away from, by, I don't know, maybe it's fear. I know I had plenty of fear, plenty of fear in my earlier Monday sittings and sessions of pain and discomfort and So I want Tassahara and Tassahara life and our Sangha life here and our offerings to be nourishing. And I don't mean like pebble, you know, like easy sort of like an easy way, we got through that. That was fun. Wasn't it fun to be in the mountains for three months?

[36:48]

I think, and you can talk about that your whole life. To me, that is, that's, that has a sadness to it, and Tassar won't continue if that's, if that's what the practice is, because no one will really want to do that, we can go to another resort. So each of us has to look and examine our own practice, and nobody can do it for us. There's so many times during the day where we, what is our choice what choice do we make to fully exert or kind of step back let's step back and someone might say I don't know what you're talking about you know I am like at my edge which is great and I feel like that our session is going to our edge but for other people

[38:10]

You know, our rest time, it's called, sometimes we used to say break, but it's not a break. Our rest periods are the practice of rest period, the practice of cleaning our bodies and taking care of our bodies, nourishing the body through washing and stretching and then coming back. In a lecture that Suzuki Roshi gave, or maybe it was something he said personally to someone, but he said there's two kinds of people at Tassahara. One is here for themselves and their own, you know, what works for me and my practice and, you know, working it out for me. And others, he said, are here in a wider way to help others and to help the practice. And then he said, the second ones are my disciples.

[39:14]

And Tassar has always made room for everybody to find their way. It doesn't, you know, if you've got the prereqs, you're accepted if you want to come. But this point that Suzuki Roshi made, I felt when I heard it kind of, I felt some shame, you know, like would he, if he were alive, would he say, you are my disciple. not I don't know so our maturity and our responsibility taking responsibility for our practice for the thoroughness and what does that mean for each one of us to You know, sometimes people say, I want to test myself by going off to the dusty realms of other lands and see, well, I've been in this container for a long time.

[40:15]

I've been at Green Gulch. I've been the city center, and I know I can follow the schedule. But can I follow the schedule out when there's no Han? And wanting to go test that or feeling the need to test that, and that may be necessary. But I also feel... the test is going on all the time right now the test is all summer there's the big old test you know can I follow the schedule completely when it looks so loose I don't think we have to go very far to do that test you know or right now during my break am I following the admonition so all these To me, I see those as nourishment, practicing in that way, as nourishing us deeply in a way that can't be done.

[41:21]

Nobody else can do it for us, can nourish us in that way. We can be nourished in other ways, but that nourishment of full exertion is ours alone, each one of us. alone with support. So I think I got all the parts of the circle. adult and grown up and nourishment and what that means and letting go of what the Buddha did, let go of that which is not conducive to liberation.

[42:27]

He saw that. He let go of what and saw this is not conducive to freedom. Even though it's very familiar and there's a lot of pressure to stay doing this, it's, I have to go my way. Okay, so is there anything you'd like to ask or bring up? West Stream. practice for myself versus practicing for others.

[43:29]

They seem interchangeable. I think ultimately you're right. I think when we get to the place where self and other practicing for self is practicing for other, it's the more self-centered. I think in this one lecture he's saying if you think you're going to come to Tassajara and it's like your home in the mountains and your personal, you know, kind of like your personal, making it a personal home. This is for you and making it work for you. That, I'm trying to think of the exact words, that is not the kind of community we have here. It's one of the things he said. That, and then goes on to It's really bodhisattva vow, I think, which I haven't named or I haven't said very much at all, but we're letting go of our desires and all the things we want for ourselves and wanting to be just right for us and working with those things that really become bondage for us, really become

[44:45]

the way that we aren't free because we have so many desires and we want it this way, that way, and not this way, and not that way. And to be working with that, letting go of those, to be able to be available so that our preferences don't push us around so much where we're not available to anybody because of those small and big desires and wants. And he's saying, if that's what you're at Tessahar doing, if that's what it's for you, this is not what this place is about. So I think that's, and this thing about those are my disciples and those aren't, I think that might have been, I don't know, maybe that was a personal communication with somebody. I haven't seen that exact word. That's something someone told me. And that must have been, you know, that's hard to hear, you know, probably if you want to be Siddhartha Guru's disciple, you know.

[45:52]

But it helps us to examine, what is going on for me? How am I practicing? Which is a never-ending question, you know. Our practice never ends. We never get to the end. Thank you, because I forgot to bring it up, get back to it yesterday. I think what I was talking about was choosing to do austerities and ascetic practices that are for ourselves alone. that aren't shared, that the Sangha isn't privy to or doing, and how that separates you. And I think hermit practice, it's true, the Buddha did leave his companions and had to set out on his own.

[47:02]

He couldn't, I think had they wanted to go with him, he would have said, let's do this together. It wasn't that he was saying, don't follow me, guys. They were disgusted that he, that's the word that's used in English anyway for that, They didn't want to do this practice, which probably, well, let's all try this, you know. But the hermit practice, and he did practice with these hermit teachers, the yogic things. So he went to them. They were open to working with him. The hermit practice is, in different traditions, is something offered. you know, these long retreats, three years, three months, three days, three hours, and I know people have done them and have greatly benefited, although the person I know did it with others actually. Yeah, it was like three people did it together on a compound. What happens, I think, when we're on our own is we get to set things up the way that we like and eat when we want.

[48:12]

As I say this, I'm hearing the poem echoing of eat when hungry, sleep when tired, you know, walk innocent, relaxed. You know that poem of the grass hut? So it's like, are those diametrically opposed? Hermit practice in the sense of where it can be not conducive to liberation is setting up conditions where we don't, we're not working against anything. It's just how we like it. And we eat exactly what we like. We don't really like amaranth. We never serve it, we never make it. We just eat brown rice cream because we like that. So we never have to come up against annoying people, irritations of, but I'm in samadhi here and why is the bell, I don't want to get up for kin hin. No, you can sit as long as you want. We're never challenged in a way to let go of our karmic preferences.

[49:17]

I think that's one thing that can happen with hermit practice. And it may be really lovely, but do we, once those conditions are changed, are we angry and annoyed and fly off the handle and lose our temper and say, would you stop bothering me, I'm practicing? There's that wonderful story of the woman who was chanting the Lotus Sutra, and she had a practice of chanting the name of the Lotus Sutra, I think, chanting, chanting, for her freedom, and someone thought, I'm going to test this lady. She's chanting away, and he knocks on her door, knock, knock, knock. She doesn't answer. She's chanting, and he... Finally, she said, can't you say I'm practicing? Leave me alone, you know. So he tested her, you know.

[50:18]

And I think that can happen. Leave me alone, I'm practicing. So when we have sangha life, we're constantly being challenged in this way and have to let go of our agenda and our preferences and what we like. And does that open us to one another and to let go of self or not? I was thinking too about a tendency to withdraw as a hermit in the midst of sangha, of not liking certain things, and that tendency to want to withdraw and close down so that you know, for myself I can do it in the midst of people and it's a challenge sometimes to stay open and curious rather than judgmental or critical. Thank you for saying that to everybody, you know, that this is something you're working with.

[51:23]

Yeah, I think sometimes we need to take a break, we need to have some time out time out, but if our intention is, I'm gonna come back, this isn't forever, I'm not abandoning Sangha life, I just need to regroup here, because it's a lot for me. The challenges are a lot, and that I feel, there's room for that. I mean, in other situations there isn't, when you don't have your own cabin, for example, and you share living, sleeping, eating, like you all live in the Zendo together, then it's very hard to... I don't know if there's any spot, maybe in the bathroom or something, or the bath, maybe in a bath together, I don't know. So if the intention is I need to regroup and calm down, and now I'm coming back, I feel like that's skill, that's skillful.

[52:31]

And a number of us, I think, do need that, need to recharge a little bit by being by ourselves. You know, the level of social interaction, I think, varies in different practice periods, depending on just who's here and the inclinations of people. And sometimes, I know in one practice period, I had some... really fun, fun, fun friends. And they left. They stayed a year, and then they left. And I remember one of the reasons I asked to stay, I was invited to be Fukutan at Green Gulch after that year, and I, I guess I refused, right, to the abbot, because I wanted to be here without those really fun friends to see what Tassar would be like, because I was very caught in having fun And one of my practices was no frivolous talk and idle chatter.

[53:38]

That was my practice for the next year, because I had gotten caught in that first year. And that second year, I had no friends. Well, yes, I did have friends. But they were more introverted types, and they weren't into frivolous talk and idle chatter. And it was much quieter. So it does vary, I think. Thank you. Yes, Emily? I think you've talked on this a little bit already, but I'll ask. I was thinking yesterday that it seems like some people were born with the karma of maybe having a lot of preferences and in this life it's good to practice letting go of the self and letting go of preferences, forgetting the self. But maybe for other people they're very lost and don't know their preferences, but their preferences change all the time, and their karma in this life to work through is to find themselves rather than to forget.

[54:48]

So I was wondering if you could just speak. Yeah, thank you. Sort of correlated with what Suzuki Roshi was saying, and so I actually got this feeling like, well then I don't want to be his disciple, you know, like, well then I, this isn't for me, so anyway, just letting you know that that Yeah. I think everybody is born with preferences. However, sometimes they get, due to our suffering and situation, we, and sometimes very, very early, it's not safe. express them to let or to even know what they are because they're not going to be addressed or attuned to or met or mirrored or anything so better get better not have those so what then it's like I I'm not I have enough no I have nothing and and that has to be re recaptured we we what's the word not captured re what

[56:05]

integrated, has to be found, has to be rediscovered, actually, and it can take a long time. And this thought of, well, I have no self, really, it's just merged with everybody and I, whatever you say goes, I think is a kind of, you might say, emotional and psychological place that we can be in because of these painful things that have happened and the people around us and their their needs were was only their needs perhaps that was that was all that we so we do have to find ours in order to work with letting go you know that very famous phrase you have to have a self first before you let go of itself do you know that particular yeah it is I think um Oh, I can't remember.

[57:07]

One of the Buddhist psychologists, you know, brought this up, and it was hotly debated kind of for years. Like, what do you mean by you have to have a self before you let go of a self? But I think it has to do with this healthy... It has to do with maturity and healthy way of relating to the world. And when that's not in place, if we try to, maybe it's part of the spiritual bypassing description, if we try to skip over that to let going of self, or I don't have any preferences, I think it skips some developmental issues that are necessary. And the thing about you don't want to be Suzuki Roshi's disciple, or not that you said that, but if your path is, I need to rediscover and recover my sense of self, which has been distorted in some way, that's part of your path.

[58:26]

And the purpose of that is to really be alive and here and free. for the sake of all beings and everyone I love and everything I hold dear. And this is part of my path. So I don't know if it's that different from, if the purpose of that work is not selfish for myself alone, but has in order to be as full and whole a human being as I can be, then I don't think it's that different. Vincent? Is it a form to not eat before breakfast? I noticed you said that. You said if we're calling the admonitions, then when we break our fast to breakfast, we feel the nourishment. Well, I think the sachin form is to eat what's offered.

[59:28]

So if you have a hard-boiled egg that you took that was offered, and you have that before 1,000 in the morning because you need a little sustenance, I think it's about eating what's been offered in and usually I mean we also have the hot drink at night which is offered so it's you know but usually through the night we may not there may not be food offered but I think that's what I meant about eating the food that's been offered to the Sangha during sashim yeah yeah Just during sashim, the food that's offered, yeah, yeah, I think a number of people I know have something from the back door that they have before zazen in the morning with tea or something because they need a little oomph to get going or to feel some strength in the morning, which, so that's fine.

[60:31]

Even so, it's probably not a full meal, so the breakfast does come in, yeah. Okay, I see no more hands. And I, we're going to end now. Okay. I was thinking we might take a walk, but I think it's a little muddy. I think we should wait. What do you think? Should we take a walk? Okay, let's take a walk. I hesitate to say this, but I will. The last time we took a walk, it occurred to me that when I was little, it's one of those recovered memories, I used to like to play the game, follow the leader and be, I didn't have to be the leader, it was just to be in a line and do like flapping your arms.

[61:46]

And the first person in line, you know, does something, and then everybody, and then they change it, and it keeps changing. And I thought, we should do that sometime during sesheen. So now I've said it, but I don't know. I don't know. Anyway, let's chant, and thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered free of charge and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[62:30]

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