Good morning. For those of you who'd like to sit down, there are some seats in the front row if you want to come sit up a little bit closer. I have for this past month been paying particular attention to all that I have some gratitude for in my life. I've been struck in the last week or so by the number of times I've heard people say something to the effect that the Thanksgiving holiday makes some kind of sense to them. for us to, at this time of harvest, to have some attention with expressing gratitude,

[01:06]

being thankful. And I think that for any of us who pause for a little while to think about what we're grateful for, especially if we can do it in very particular detail, what we begin to discover is that our state of mind is improved. When we can put our attention on that which we give thanks for instead of what is too often the case, putting our attention on what isn't so or what is so that we wish wasn't. So this holiday season, I think, for all of the pulls and strains and tensions that arise for many of us during the holiday season can also be a time for attending to the cultivation of a joyful and calm mind and wholesome states of mind.

[02:14]

In particular, the cultivation of gratitude and the cultivation of generosity. So Hanukkah and Christmas can be considered the next phase of our practice with the holiday season. What I'd like to ask you to join me in doing this morning is to take a few minutes, each of us, to think about everything that comes up in our minds easily for which we have some sense of gratitude. I've been doing that every morning now for the month of November. And so my list has become a little bit more refined, if you will, but it's also interesting that what arises on one morning may not be entirely what arises on another morning.

[03:18]

But then there are some constants. And my list is, of course, influenced by the teachings that I've been listening to and studying. The first gratitude for me that arises, that arose this morning as I was sitting and thinking about exactly what am I grateful for, was this human life, sometimes called the precious human life. Because, of course, there is the proposition that we need a human life in order to receive and understand and follow the teachings, the Dharma teachings, and to cultivate a fully realized mind.

[04:21]

Although sometimes, I have to admit, I wonder. So, the other gratitude that arose for me was my meeting the Dharma, the Buddha way, which has become a little bit of a mystery to me this week because I was looking through a text that I bought in 1954, one of the volumes of the Harvard Oriental Series that was a text for several classes that I took when I was an undergraduate at Stanford. And I was really struck as I went through this one volume at the evidence of my having read the material quite carefully. And I wondered, as I saw the trackings of pen and margin notes, et cetera, at what was the

[05:34]

effect for me in having the teachings of the Buddha, the teachings from the early sutras, for example, drop into my mind stream in some way that laid the groundwork for my recognizing what I could recognize when I first met Suzuki Roshi 12 years later. So, whatever the causes and conditions, not all of which I am fully aware of, I'm grateful for whatever they are that have led me to meet the Buddha Dharma. I feel deeply grateful for having met and been able to practice with and receive teachings from and realized practitioners and teachers. Because there's a way in which the path became a possibility, really because I could see

[06:42]

the flowering of what this path is about in a particular person's expression and way of being, way of walking and speaking. I can remember, for example, when I first met Suzuki Roshi, watching him as he would pick up his cup before or during lecture on Saturday morning. The way he would pick up his cup and take a drink of water. And the way in which he was not doing anything else at that moment. He would smack his lips with that swallow of water in a way that was clearly, it was a delicious drink of water, nectar. I thought, boy, how great to be able to have a drink of water and have it clearly be so wonderful. I am grateful for being in good health, being vividly aware of the aging process

[07:53]

and as a result of that, enjoying what I can enjoy while I can enjoy it. Things like being able to read or hear music or the sound of the birds or the sound of the motorcycles going by on the road. Because, of course, if I want to hear the birds, I must be willing also to hear the motorcycles. To be able to walk. We don't enjoy any of these abilities until we are not able to do something. To whatever degree, however small it may seem to me, of being a little bit more awake than I was five or ten or twenty or thirty years ago, for that I am deeply grateful. I'm especially grateful to have a dear friend in my husband with whom I can live and practice.

[09:02]

Someone who is willing to look at whatever is so with me and in his own life in a way that makes it possible to practice much more easily than if he were not so inclined. So I feel a kind of blessedness in having such company with my spouse. Gratitude for those teachers that are called my children. Who have been teachers for as long as we have known each other but have now also become friends, dear friends. And for any of us who are parents, there is also that aspect of having a child which is having the gift of a kind of treasure in one's life. Recently I was talking to someone who was thinking about whether she was ready

[10:10]

or able to have the child that she is now carrying. And I was struck by how much having a child is not something you can think about rationally. Because, of course, all the reasons for having children only show up later after they've arrived. If we think about it ahead of time, there are so many good reasons for not having them. They're expensive. It's a pain. I won't be able to go out at night so easily. Whatever the list is. But oh, what a treasure they are after they've arrived. And, of course, that's true not just for those of us who have had children in our own lives but the children that are in our lives because we've borrowed them or they've stumbled into our lives for whatever good reason has arisen. I feel particularly grateful for having spiritual friends.

[11:14]

People with whom I have some sense of our practicing together, keeping each other company, encouraging each other. And it makes a lot of sense to me as I think about the spiritual friendships which I enjoy. It makes great sense to me that the community of practitioners is called one of the three treasures. And, in fact, I think it's one of the treasures that snakes up on us. There is a way in which it's almost beyond comprehension how important it is to have good friends in our spiritual life. I also feel great gratitude for poetry and for art, both spoken and unspoken. Every few days it seems some jewel from this realm drops into my lap.

[12:22]

I'll share one of the jewels with you in a few minutes. I also feel, and I'm sure that all of you would join me, great gratitude for our being here in this wonderful watershed, in this place we call Green Gulch, Green Dragon Zen Temple. This place where the dragon of the Dharma teaching has its head in the clouds and its tail in the ocean. If you ever see a map with the outline of the part of Green Gulch that Zen Center is taking care of, you'll see that on a map it almost looks like a kind of dragon. So the surveyor helped us out. Teachings come to us all the time if we are open to receiving them.

[13:36]

So as a result of actually of my husband's pulling out one of the volumes from the Harvard Oriental Series, he and I have been reading some sections, nosing around in some of the early texts. And I'd like to share a few of them with you. There's one quote which is quite well known and which I've always been very fond of that has to do with the image of the blind turtle. And I'd like to read a description of this story. It's really a story about the preciousness and rarity of birth in human form. And I think it expresses this sense of the treasure of a human life.

[14:45]

A human life which is such that we can in fact be awake to the true teachings. This is how it goes. At the bottom of a vast ocean of unfathomable depth lives a blind turtle that surfaces once every hundred years. It remains on the surface for only one instant and then sinks back down to the ocean bed. On the surface of the ocean floats a golden yoke constantly in motion, driven hither and thither by the winds and tides. The turtle symbolizes any sentient being. The surface of the ocean, the fortunate realms. The turtle is blind, as is our wisdom eye, which veiled by ignorance cannot discern right from wrong.

[15:51]

Just as the turtle is encumbered by its shell, so obstacles created by our body, speech, and mind hinder us when we try to practice Dharma seriously, rather than just to read books and recite prayers. There's the hook. Can't read about it, you have to do it. The turtle lives at the bottom of the ocean, symbolizing that we usually dwell in the lower realms. It surfaces for only a second and then sinks again. And it seems almost impossible that it should ever succeed in passing its head through the floating yoke. Similarly, it is even more difficult to obtain this short human life and to have the will to practice the Dharma. So it's that combination which is so precious. And which brings us all together.

[16:55]

As I was thinking about the fact that I'd read a lot of teachings nearly 40 years ago, and kind of marveled at how slow the process of understanding and awakening is. Forty years seems like a flash, like that. As I pull the book down from the shelf and open it up and see the little chicken scratchings in the margin, I can remember the situation, the class, the seat at the library table where I sat and read those texts. But what I wonder is, where did all that teaching go? That it is only so recently beginning to be awake for me. And I understand more directly why it is stressed that we must be very patient.

[18:13]

We need to be very patient. Because we go at exactly the pace at which we can go at. You know, in many of our verses, we talk about a hundred thousand million kalpas, these unfathomable periods of time. I think understanding the reference to these long passages of time that come up in many of the verses that we recite and in many of the sacred texts that we study, I think it's important that we understand that it takes a long, long time for us to cultivate realization. So in this poking around that Bill and I have been doing over the last few weeks, two descriptions of these very long periods of time have come forth.

[19:20]

And I'd like to share them with you. One description is from the Samyutta Nikaya, one of the early texts. And it goes like this. Suppose, O monks, there was a huge rock of one solid mass, one mile long, one mile wide, and one mile high. Without split or flaw. And at the end of every hundred years, a man should come and rub against it once with a silken cloth. Then that huge rock would wear off and disappear quicker than a world period. But of such world periods, O monks, many have passed away, many hundreds, many thousands, many hundred thousands. And how is this possible? Inconceivable, O monks, is this samsara not to be discovered,

[20:26]

is any first beginning of beings who, obstructed by ignorance and ensnared by craving, are hurrying and hastening through this round of rebirths. Interestingly, there's another description that's very close to this one in one of the Grimm's Tales. I always like to find Dharma teachings that come from our Western context. So in one of the stories about a little shepherd boy, it's really an interesting story, because the king hears about this shepherd boy who's very wise and calls him to come before him and asks him these three questions and says, if you can answer these three questions, then I will make you something comparable to the heir to his realm. And the first two questions are of the sort that the Buddha himself says,

[21:27]

no, no, I'm not answering that right now. What we're talking about is our conduct right here. The little shepherd boy does something very similar. Anyway, that's a side aspect of the story. The section of the story that I think is, again, another description of deep slow. In farther Pomerania, there is the Diamond Mountain, one hour high, one hour wide, and one hour deep. There, every hundred years, a little bird comes and wets its little beak on it. And when the whole mountain is ground off, then the first second of eternity has passed. This is a different frame of reference than most of us are used to living with. And I think when it comes to spiritual practice,

[22:28]

it's important to, at least every once in a while, visit this much vaster sense of time and space. As I've said so many times, one of the things that I love about the Buddha Dharma is the wonderful lists and the pickiness, the specificity of the Dharma. If you really want to find out what to do, this is a tradition which is very practical and very specific. As some of you know, at our house we have made a, or actually been willing to have made, more accurate,

[23:35]

a practice room where we do retreats and various practices. And as an adjunct to that practice space, we've made a walking meditation garden. And I had a very clear image in my mind's eye about what this pathway would look like. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that there was a very specific map for how to do it. In the introduction to the Jataka Tales, there is a description about Sumedho, a Brahmin Sumedho who met the Buddha Dipamkara. And Dipamkara prophesied that in a future lifetime Sumedho would become a Buddha known as Shakyamuni.

[24:43]

So, you know, we sometimes chant the seven Buddhas before Buddha to remind ourselves that there were Buddhas before Shakyamuni Buddha, the Buddha of our era, of our time. So, this is the story about the pickiness having to do in particular with the walking, how to have a walking path, arises out of the story about Sumedho. Distraught and perplexed by the misery of the prospect of endless rebirths, Sumedho left his comfortable surroundings for the homeless life. And made his way to the Himalayas where he began... I think I can't do this without my glasses. This is one of the points of appreciation that I can see at all, right? A gratitude just arose. So, he made his way to the Himalayas where he began a retreat.

[25:53]

Subsequently, he left his hermitage and not long after setting forth encountered the Buddha Dipamkara who inspired him to embark on the Bodhisattva path. And as I said, it was Dipamkara who prophesied his eventual realization as Shakyamuni Buddha. So, here is the verse of Sumedho's going off into the mountains. Not far away from Himavant, there was a hill named Dhamaka, and here I made and patterned well a hermitage and hut of leaves. A walking place I then laid out, exempted from the five defects, and having all the virtues eight. And there I gained the six high powers. All right, now, if you have a mind like mine, you say,

[26:56]

Aha! A walking place exempted from the five defects. What's that mean? It's all laid out. The five defects in a walking place are hardness and unevenness. This tent floor doesn't qualify. Trees in the midst. Dense underbrush. Excessive narrowness. Excessive width. Now, what's this got to do with our lives? What's this got to do with any of us going out and doing walking meditation? What does this have to do with our making a walking meditation garden where we live? It's all in the detail. If the walking place be on hard and uneven ground, then anyone who uses it hurts and blisters their feet,

[27:58]

so that that one fails of concentration of mind and meditation is broken up. So we want a path which is even, but not too hard, because that will be conducive to concentration, to the cultivation of mindful awareness. At an experiential level, that makes a great deal of sense, doesn't it? Well, one who walks at ease on a soft and even surface succeeds in meditation. Therefore, hardness and unevenness of surface are to be reckoned as one defect. If a walking place have trees in it, whether in the middle or at the end, then anyone who uses it is liable, if not careful, to strike his or her forehead or head against them. It says something about one's mindfulness.

[29:06]

Therefore, trees in the midst are a second defect. If a walking place be overgrown with a dense underbrush of grass, vines, and so forth, anyone who uses it in the dark is liable to tread upon snakes or other creatures and kill them, or they may bite and injure the meditator. So we're concerned about us and them. But of course, here we don't have so many snakes. We have creatures, though. Creatures we don't want to, if we possibly can avoid it, don't want to step on. So thus, a dense underbrush is a third defect. If a walking place be excessively narrow, say only a cubit or half a cubit wide, then anyone who uses it is liable to stumble at the borders and stub their toes and break their toenails. A cubit is this dimension from the elbow to the tip of the finger.

[30:11]

So I immediately went rushing out to the meditation garden and got down on my hands and knees, and there I am, measuring. Shucks! Our path is too wide. It's two cubits wide. But then we don't have this extra border, which is part of it. Therefore, excessive narrowness is a fourth defect. If a walking place be excessively wide, then anyone who uses it is liable to have his mind wander and fail of concentration. Thus, excessive width is a fifth defect. Not too narrow, not too wide. A walking place should be a path, a cubit and a half in breadth, with a margin of a cubit on either side, and it should be 60 cubits in length, and it should have a surface soft and evenly sprinkled with sand. I haven't yet measured the length of the path, but I'm sure it's longer than 60 cubits. It's quite picky, isn't it?

[31:17]

But if I read this description and I ask myself, what does this have to do with my life today? What does this have to do with this walking path that we have in the garden? What does this have to do with our making a good place for walking meditation here at Green Gulch? It has to do with our paying attention to the circumstance that we have here. And of course, it is true that if we are walking in an area which is hard and uneven, it is not conducive to a kind of concentrated walking meditation. So some of us have a favorite place in the garden where we do walking meditation that is not too hard, but is not too soft, is not too uneven. Can we also pay attention to the width, the narrowness or width of the path,

[32:20]

and what is conducive to a kind of cultivation of mindfulness? So that we not only are paying attention as we're walking to the walking, but attention to the impact of our walking on other creatures and their impact on us. This particular passage about Sumedho goes on to describe the virtues of his hermitage. And I'd like to read it to you because I think that although it's hardly a description of the way maybe any of us live, it certainly is inspiring for considering a way to make our lives perhaps a little bit more simple. This is a description of the consequences of radical simple, if you will.

[33:27]

The eight advantages for a monk. To have a hut of leaves, which therefore admits of no storing up of treasure or grain. This is not shopping for a week at a time. It favors only a blameless alms-seeking. So this description of Sumedho's hermitage is one that keeps him on his toes and keeps him in relationship to those around him who will give him food every day. He has to go out and ask to be supported. There one can eat his alms in peace and quiet. There no annoyance is experienced from the reigning families when they oppress the kingdom with their levies of the precious metals or of lead and money. Taxes. This is a guy not worrying about taxes.

[34:33]

No passionate desire arises for furniture and implements. I think maybe we need to go and get that extra big, extra soft sofa. He's not thinking about that at all. There is no fear of being plundered by robbers. I have a friend who drives a very old beat-up car with a great engine. But the car is a wreck. It's dented. It doesn't need a paint job. It doesn't have a paint job. The upholstery's got big holes in it. He leaves the windows open. He never locks it. He said, nobody would steal this car. And if they did, they're welcome to it. In marked contrast with my friend who, one time when he went to buy a new suit,

[35:37]

left his keys with his fancy four-wheel drive. I don't even remember what kind of fancy four-wheel drive it is, but it did everything short of talking. He left the keys with the parking lot attendant. The parking lot attendant sold the keys to a thief. So my friend came out after getting his new suit, no car. He then got a new, another fancy four-wheel drive car. A replica of what he had just lost. And was afraid to go anywhere in it, because if he parked it, of course, maybe someone would steal it. So it's pretty interesting to think about how to live our lives with no fear of being plundered by robbers. Not intimacies are formed with kings and courtiers. Stay out of politics. And one is not shut in, in any way, of the four directions.

[36:42]

It's very easy, I think, to idealize this kind of picture or description of what a monk's hermitage would look like. And it feels very far away from the lives that any of us lead. But I would argue that we might, in fact, think about this description from the standpoint of where we are caught. Where are the cares and concerns of the world holding us in such a way that we don't ever live our lives? We're not present in the moment because we're so worried about what did happen or what might happen. And in small ways, to ask ourselves, how can we, at least for a little while, let ourselves have this kind of environment which is conducive to deep cultivation of our inner lives?

[37:50]

Over and over again, when great teachers these days are asked, how can we bring about peace in the world? The advice seems to be repeatedly the same. Simplify our lives. Do what we can to be less busy. Practice the Dharma in whatever way we can. So I have a deep gratitude for this tradition which presents the yoga of a spiritual life, the how-to-do-it of a spiritual life in such detail. There's a section of the garden down near the windbreak on the ocean side of the garden that's fairly level, that's grassy,

[38:55]

that's fairly smooth, where one can practice walking meditation in very much the way that Samedha's path may have sponsored. I'm sure each of us has a part, an area here at Green Gulch which is our favorite for walking quietly and letting ourselves be supported by the earth. And of course, what is so wonderful about this place is that it gives us a taste of that possibility which we can then take home with us. And perhaps inspire us to create such environments throughout the world. I said when I presented my list of the things that I'm particularly grateful for this morning that I'm grateful for poetry,

[39:57]

all of the arts. But these days, particularly for poems, I have a friend who is part of the Poetry in the Schools program in a small town north of here. And he started something he calls Mail a Poem. And if you give him ten dollars for the next year, he'll mail you a postcard with a poem on it. And you never know when they'll come. They seem to come often. And I have had these jewels drop out of the morning mail over and over again this past year. Many of these poems are really great Dharma poems. So I think it is because of my friend's Mail a Poem project that I have become particularly grateful for poetry this year.

[40:59]

Thanksgiving Day, a friend of ours came to have dinner with us. And he brought a kind of bedraggled Xerox copy of a poem by Michael McClure. And he said, I read this poem at every Thanksgiving. Can we read it today? He kind of stuck it under my nose. A little timidly, I realized later he was afraid I would say no. We say other prayers. But fortunately for him and for me, I didn't question his offering. So I'd like to close with this prayer. Goddess of Mercy, Kanon, Go to that shrieking mouse with broken foot and dragging trap in the darkness. Cause her great pain to cease

[42:02]

and bring comfort to her mate or friend who squeaks in the shadows. Let them find an empty house filled with cakes and grain in some spacious heaven. Let your radiance settle like a swirling silver jacket of relief upon all the myriad beings in all the dimensions. Goddess of Mercy, Kanon, Go to that shrieking mouse with broken foot and dragging trap in the darkness. Cause her great pain to cease and bring comfort to her mate or friend who squeaks in the shadows.

[43:03]

Let them find an empty house filled with cakes and grain in some spacious heaven. Let your radiance settle like a swirling silver jacket of relief upon all the myriad beings in all the dimensions. A friend of mine called me up a few days ago and she said, I need your help keeping one of the precepts, the one about not killing. Because there's a rat in my house and my landlord thinks I'm crazy because I don't want him to kill the rat but I want the rat to go away. She said, I have big trouble because I don't think if I get a have-a-heart trap I'll be able to catch him because this rat is very smart and very sneaky. What shall I do? And I immediately thought

[44:07]

some years ago we had, when I first lived in the house where I live now, there was an apartment at one end of the house and a young couple lived there about to have their first child and there was a big streak, rats in the walls and the soon-to-be father was afraid the rats would come out at night and munch on his baby's nose. He wanted that rat and its friends out of there. We had quite a ruckus because he got a have-a-heart trap and he was quite lucky in catching all of them and we really went through it. I kept saying, you don't know who you're killing. Or my grandmother. So, in this case it was not the landlord thinking that the tenant was crazy, it was the tenant who thought the landlord was crazy. We have these kinds of problems

[45:12]

all the time. But of course the gift of this kind of problem is we immediately begin to see how connected we are and how this life may cost another life and taking this life may be what sustains my life. How much just walking on the ground means that I squash some bug, some worm. Eating lettuce is the consequence of disking and cultivating in the fields to create harm and dying for the critters that live in the earth. There is this great cycle of birth and death. So, Michael's poem helps us remember that connection for a moment. Helps us remember

[46:15]

in a way that can be the sponsoring of gratitude for that life that ends so that our life may continue. ...about whatever arises for which you feel gratitude. And notice what happens to your state of mind when you do that. It's a great antidote to worry and anxiety. It is a great source of generosity. And it is, after all, the time of Thanksgiving. Thank you very much. May our intention... Thank you.

[47:40]

Anything come up for anybody that you want to talk about? Yes. What we were looking at when you were talking. Oh, the back was open? No, that's the shadow. Oh, yes, it was gorgeous. The big tree. Oh, how wonderful. It was huge. The joys of a tent. Yeah. You know, a few times when I've come up to sit here since we've been using the tent, in the early morning when the first light just comes and you get all that sense of shadow coming through and filtered light coming through. It's wonderful. If we were all a little tougher and dressed properly, we could just have a year-round tent meditation spot. Hello.

[48:40]

Yeah, please. You were talking about the four directions? What are those? North, south, east, west. I figured it was something simple like that. That sounds so American. It's universal. I mean, you know, around the world peoples are interested in the surround. Sometimes there's also some referencing to not only the four directions and the midpoints, but also this direction and this direction. But this description of the leafy hut and his hermitage is of an environment where the distractions and encumbrances of the world are reduced down to the bare minimum. And that kind of razor edge that not keeping any food from one day to another, if you think about

[49:44]

what that would do to your state of mind and your relationship to those supporting you, it's a real balancing act. And in those countries where begging as a means of supporting oneself in a monastic life has been traditional for a long period of time, it's one of the ways it would be up to the lay community that surrounded a monastery or a hermitage and was sponsoring in that sense of feeding and taking care of the monastic practitioner, they would have some real impact in terms of how authentic the practitioner's practice seemed to be. So paradoxically very much the authenticity and all the thing about the rules of conduct and all of that

[50:45]

were really enforced, if you will, by the surrounding lay community. Yeah. Or there would be some question about, you know, what are you doing? So there is a way in which the practitioner would have to be accountable. And particularly in monastic communities after they've been established for a long time, that kind of watchfulness is very necessary because a monastic community can become the center of a lot of power and impact and decline. You know, you look at the history of religious communities, not just Buddhist ones. We see that over and over again. As much as there is in the human world, anywhere. There are protections

[51:51]

and there are guidelines and there are practices for keeping an eye on one's practice and on the practice of the community. But, you know, you can hide in a religious community just as much as you can hide anywhere. Us human types are pretty tricky that way. And this is, after all, the description of this great practitioner who, once he took the Bodhisattva vow, actually became enlightened as Shakyamuni. So, what we have here is the description of his entry into the Bodhisattva path, an exemplar of practice. But what I love is the description of the detail of where he lived and where he did his walking practice and the attention to detail and how that shows us something about the relationship between this particular practitioner and those around him. Not just humans

[52:52]

around him, not just the people feeding him, but the creatures that he might step on or be bitten by or, you know, whatever. Patricia. You know, something that came up for me when you mentioned about your life not being afraid of being robbed, that I'm not afraid of being robbed, but what came up was that I noticed yesterday a neighbor planted a tree that's going to be ignored in front of my view. And I'm I haven't obsessed about it, but I have to deal with it. And I think it's such a You know, we have to deal with things that come up when you leave a life. I mean, and I would First of all, we're staying in a place that we don't have to deal with it. And it's a thick energy and it's what I put

[53:53]

focus on. And yet you know, how do you balance out dealing with stuff and not have it take you totally away from a life of practice? Well, I know you can use it to practice. Sure. It just seems like these things take a lot of time. They do. I remember one time when my teacher was visiting and walked around the garden and said there's too much garden here. It takes you away from your practice. I was appalled. It was true. I don't think I would have been appalled if it hadn't been. But also to the degree that I use working in the garden as a place for doing mindfulness practices. I mean, you know, he was talking about something very particular, but yeah, I think it's a good question. You know? I mean, the minute you own anything you're entangled. There's a kind of entanglement. And I think,

[54:54]

at least I know for myself, what's been interesting is to ask myself what is the consequence of this thing I'm owning? What happens if I buy a car that everybody else wants? Well, there's a whole lot involved. And I begin to make different kinds of decisions about what I own, for example. Less and less becomes worth it to me because I'm paying more attention to the cost of having something. Yvonne? Yes. I would like to say something that might help her. I'm not sure. Some years ago when we bought our house, the previous owner had planted a few fast-growing pines right where

[55:55]

the neighbor's view was. And I wasn't aware really of what the consequences were going to be. I didn't even realize they were fast-growing pines. I just wasn't thinking about it. And she didn't tell me. I think she thought about it for many years until it became so unbearable because the trees were right there in her view. And then she was all worked up after all these years of having cut that inside. And that was very difficult for my trees. I didn't want my beautiful trees to be cut down. So eventually we windowed the pines and there was a very nice compromise. But if she had told me early enough when the trees were young, I most likely would have placed the trees somewhere else. I'm not sure if that might be a solution but it seems a possibility. Well, there's also this wonderful verse from the Shantideva

[56:56]

teaching about why be unhappy about what you can do something about and why be unhappy about what you cannot do something about. But immediately what comes up with neighbors is connection or the absence of it. And the energy that it takes to cultivate some connection with one's neighbors they're actually very old friends who aren't we just aren't as close as we used to be not because these arguments our lives have gone in different directions but we're all from Tulsa so it's real. Thank you. Lurks with opportunity. What I've been happy about is I haven't obsessed and when I would start obsessing I would come back and say I can't do anything right now everything's fine and I know I can call people in the council find out about I mean there's some things I can do call a tree man

[57:57]

and I didn't immediately call him which is much to my benefit because my impatience sometimes is so I've been working with it and I keep wishing that they had a plan. Why worry about what you cannot do something about. It's there. But this is where DT Suzuki's advice about don't worry be grateful. Gratitude is the antidote to worry to anxiety which doesn't mean you just abandon ship and don't at some point hopefully skillfully engage with your neighbors about what is what has become a mutual concern but I think most of us don't think about gratitude as an antidote practice in that way but it really is. Yes?

[59:01]

I have a question that has to do with have minutely thought out and laid out path and my question goes like this I'm very much interested in the art of right relationships of exquisite relationships spatial or whatever which is only a dream for me because it's something that I feel that it's possible to live like that and it would be reflected in an atmosphere

[60:44]

of exquisite relationship in my present state for example to fumbly with that I usually find myself trying to find the right place and being very fussy about Well I actually think that the description of Sameda's walking path around his little hermitage is very interesting to ask ourselves What's this got to do with the life I lead? I mean what's laid out there is a description of a very particular way of doing a walking path but with an articulation about what the concerns are and maybe I respond to that particular story about Sameda and his hermitage because I do a lot of walking meditation because we actually did make a walking path and a lot without having

[61:45]

the blueprint ahead of time a lot of the considerations that are enumerated in this description were actually the things that came up when I thought about making a path that would be wide enough for someone to walk comfortably but not too wide that would be of a duration of a length so that it could be repeated so that you didn't have the sense of going somewhere which would be conducive to walking one step at a time in a way of being present with each footstep so it's not a description of something that's perfect in a kind of ideal way but a description of the characteristics of a path that will be conducive for walking meditation such that it's conducive to the cultivation of mindful awareness and concentration I mean all you have to do is for me

[62:46]

this is what came up when I read that passage all I have to do is think about all the times I've done walking meditation through the ranch road that goes through the garden which is very uneven it's quite hard because it's used by trucks a lot it's been used for years it's actually very difficult to do walking meditation on that roadway and be concentrated because it's hard and uneven so that description immediately I thought oh that's right here's a place where paying attention to the specific detail in service of what one is aiming towards makes a difference so what is my intention if my intention is to make a small meditation walk what are the things I need to think about I want it level not too hard with a little give but not too soft if it's too wide

[63:46]

maybe I don't pay quite as much attention as if it's a little bit modest in width and length I get it like architecture something practical yeah and I know for myself part of what has always pulled me repeatedly to Buddhist practice is the very practical description of how to cultivate certain mind states for example what are the practices that are conducive to mindful awareness or to concentration sure there's a very strong focus on what is checking motivation and knowing what one's intention is and developing an ability to be clear about what one's intention is so if I'm doing walking meditation and I'm clear about what my intention is in doing walking meditation that will inform the kind of path I make for practicing

[64:47]

walking meditation so for example when I went to visit Thich Nhat Hanh one time in the little hut that he has at the monastery down near Watsonville he has the roof overhangs the walkway and there's a walkway that goes around the little cabin that's just wide enough for him to walk do walking meditation even in the rain it's not big enough for two people to walk around side by side it's just wide enough for him but it's worked out so that he can do it except maybe in very fierce wind which would blow the rain onto him he could do it in all different kinds of weather well for someone who has a significant practice of walking meditation that level of detail is very important if you're doing um prostrations you don't want a rug on the floor

[65:48]

you'll get rugs you'll get burns so it's it's that very practical how to do it but in service of some intention in terms of cultivation and I actually think that um it's it's a tradition which discourages a kind of idealization we tend to get very dreamy about perfection my dear teacher Tar Tulku once said um it may not be that the world is imperfect it may be that your perception of the world is imperfect nailed right to the wall yes well everything is sort of hitting on all these things and something that is not exactly disturbing but um trying to find find a way to do it is

[66:48]

um relationships relationships with my mother or sister or sons or husband um get real tricky and so I've been trying to practice minding my own business on certain things and finding out what that is you know and you know really being detached not just acting out you know and then I try I want the contact so I want to be I want to do things with them and that always becomes difficult and so then there's going from being involved to being going off by myself because that's more restful and relaxing and I don't have to deal with that so there's like there's sort of like the swinging pendulum going back and forth between these two places so part of the practice that you were talking about how each thing is practice is working on these things especially around

[67:50]

the holidays and how we can be together I was told today well make sure you discipline your children you know if you're going to come see me make sure that they're disciplined so I said well okay my children are going to be my business until you know you're around and then you know you do what you have to do and you know I just kind of set up that I know what my job is and I'm going to have to take care of my job but it's difficult for me to do my job while somebody else is telling me what my job is you know and so I'm just finding that I'm a little bit happier in seeing that when I mind my business and I take care of that you know if the kids are fighting with each other and I say okay that's their fight I'll let them have you know I'll let them find a way to work it out and give them support to do that that I don't have to preoccupy myself with

[68:50]

their fight and so I'm you know I'm able to take care of myself and they're able to take care of themselves and yet it just seems like even though I'm doing this there seems to be more coming at me every minute it just gains momentum because I don't just go off by myself which is what I think I used to do all the time just avoid it all well you know in Buddhism there is this description of the path as the middle way and um complete immersion or isolation doesn't is like two ends of the spectrum the trick always is in how we understand the specifics of the middle way in any given situation let me just respond to one one word I heard you use in a lot of the teachings

[69:50]

there is a lot of talk about the cultivation of detachment and how um unwholesome it is for us to be attached particularly to another person for example I actually think that the maybe more accurate word in English for the teachings on this point is the word non-possessive because of course your attachment to your only child your newborn child whatever is appropriate it's when that child begins to be an extension of myself I begin to treat my child like my possession that's where there's clinging that's where there I begin to get into what I describe as the sticky peanut butter territory and start responding and reacting without seeing clearly

[70:52]

what is so so anyway I just want you to play with suggest that you might play with whenever you hear yourself using the word oh I should be more detached think about is there some element here of possessiveness is that where there's some hook or stickiness and lots of times finding our way particularly in our relationships with other human beings particularly our familial relationships that can be quite complicated what we need to do is do less be observant be a little quiet listen learn how to observe what's going on rather than getting caught by a lot of expectations because we have so many stories about the people we're close to and particularly about our families I think it's one of the reasons why the holiday season is for many people

[71:52]

a time of great suffering we have these stories about how it's supposed to be my children for example have for a long time just wanted Christmas to not happen let's just can't it just go away because it's the time of expectations and expression of feelings that kind of come out of a book and may or may not have anything to do with what's actually happening and I've encouraged them for a long time let's just think of as the holidays as a time when we have a chance to spend some time together it isn't about giving each other stuff let's just forget about drop out of the whole commercialization around particularly the Christmas holidays we've been talking about this now for maybe 15 years 20 years

[72:52]

this year they got it and there's I can feel a kind of collective and individual sigh of relief there's a whole whole another way of relating to each other between now and the second of January a whole series of occasions for practicing generosity that doesn't depend on spending a dime but has to do with energy has to do with attention has to do with listening has to do with if anything slowing down not speeding up but the suffering that comes up around the holidays is so much about expectation and stories recently I had dinner with Angelus Arion and we were talking about I don't know what we were talking about but anyway one of the things that came up was

[73:53]

the difference between being in touch with how I'm feeling and the story that goes with it and how caught we get by the story and we aren't present with the feeling that's arising in the moment just present with that so a friend of mine recently told me that he said this morning I decided to be as present with and in touch with the detail of my physical body as I could be it happened to be a day when a whole lot of intense emotional stuff came up and what happened for him with that vow was that he was in touch with how he was feeling as it registered in his body the anatomy of what he was feeling so he was completely present in the moment and the story kept coming up about how it's supposed to be what it was like as a kid endless stories and he just

[74:55]

kept coming back to mindfulness of the physical body and the breath and he was liberated from those stories they were just he suddenly saw oh the story doesn't have to do with what's coming up right now and of course in our relationships especially with our families especially with our mothers especially with our mothers about our children lots of stories about how it's supposed to be how I did it when you were little you just wait till your children grow up and they treat you the way you're treating me I mean just endless you know I feel like I have this ball and chain because I'm pregnant you know and I just both physically feeling and then just everything is so slowed down I mean and then you know you can't just sit down on the floor you can't just go through a crowd you kind of have to you know make your way and prepare

[75:57]

for everything and so I feel not victim but I feel very acutely aware of how everything makes me feel and I'm able to not wait until the tree gets real tall I'm able to say just a minute I've been trying three times to say something to you and you've cut me off all three times it's real important for me to let you know what I'm thinking and so I'm not getting quite so irritated to the point where something else blows up so each thing I'm kind of realizing either let it go because I can't do anything about it or try to do something that I can do about it Shanti Deva would be thrilled with what you're saying but of course you're also describing the benefits of slowing them well I'm just well my mom's probably the slowest because she's this big all the time and then she has a heart bad heart so she kind of wants to be the pampered child

[76:57]

but so we're going to have a shuffling between the two of us there can be two pampered children in the room at the same time but pay attention to what you're describing and what you're noticing as a consequence of slowing down because in this society we are featuring these days the fast pace we feature being busy this time of year is about being busy people get fritzed from it so there's a great gift in the slowing down that comes for example with being pregnant or comes also from not being so well there's a great gift in that I'm used to being caught up in the very very fast lane way too much so so that a day off where I can do the house work seems like a vacation and then after being pregnant

[77:58]

it's like you're out of life you're out of these things are you out of life or are you in life? well they're way a lot of things happen way ahead and I can't catch up with them so that's ok I'm kind of having this life that's anonymous autonomous a lot of things which it for me has been helpful I guess because it's a little bit more peaceful that's right but it like I say it's almost like through us everything's just coming in and I just can feel it all that much more because of the hormones and because of the ability to hear it all and to see it all and um so enjoy it I don't know I guess it's just there you know maybe it's a gift yeah sounds like it yes I wasn't clear on what you said around the guy who made the vow to pay attention to his body during the day and then a lot of stuff came up for him that day was it as a consequence

[79:00]

of making that vow or things were just happening no it was because a lot of stuff was coming up for him in his life and because he'd made that vow that morning he was paying attention to what I would call what's the anatomy of your feelings rather than the story that accompanies the feelings I just wondered if the vow itself allowed him to get all the stuff and look at it without the story I didn't I didn't know what came first the chicken or the egg that's just well it's an example of how the practice of clear intention can be very helpful and and of course particularly in Zen practice where the focus is so essentially on the details of attending to physical body and breath as a kind of home base your frame of reference begins to shift than if it's primarily with thoughts and feelings which is what is so for most of us yeah can you say a little bit more about the story

[80:01]

that comes that you carry along with the feelings is it the story of how you were last time you felt that and how did you feel about that well I think for a lot of us we have a lot of stories about how it was when we grew up and what happened to us and and that's why we're the way we are now or why we're unhappy etc etc and don't let ourselves see the degree to which every time I wake up and tell myself the story I'm recreating it and so keep myself from the direct experience of in fact the person that woke up this morning is not the same person who went to sleep last night and and and so um we keep ourselves in a kind of prism of what's familiar even when what's familiar leads to suffering and I think

[81:04]

that's that's true for for people in many different situations I don't think it's particular to our culture for example I think it's quite human to go for what's familiar and by telling ourselves the story about what happened in the past we keep whatever that story is about familiar but it keeps us from seeing what is so in the moment um some while ago I had a conversation with someone whose story is that as a child growing up nothing was ever right or enough so her story is about nothing is right or enough it is about what's wrong and so her experience as she describes it is of great isolation and fear

[82:06]

and loneliness and so a crowd of people who care about her standing in front of her offering what she keeps saying she wants she can't see it because what she's practiced is seeing what is not good enough is not right it's actually affected her ability to see what she wants which right there in the moment is being offered I was really struck by this particular situation where I felt a kind of helplessness to give this person what she wants because the ball's in her court this is where Tara Rinpoche's comment about maybe it's not that the world is imperfect but that your perception of the world is imperfect rings very true for me I had a dramatic experience of this

[83:07]

some few years ago when I was cleaning out and packing up my mother's house I came upon a whole box of 8mm home movies taken from the time I was about maybe 10 months old until I was about 12 and then there was a gap and then you know grammar school and high school graduation pictures etc and so it was wonderful because of course every 50 feet the film would break because it was so old and brittle anyway one evening my daughter and I we got one of these an 8mm projector and sat down and looked at all these films and I know that when the movie camera is on everybody behaves differently even taking that into account the movies didn't fit the story that I've been packing around all these years and at the end of five hours of looking at these home movies I thought

[84:07]

I don't have a clue about what's so the monsters called my mother and stepfather I don't see much evidence of those monsters what is true? and there was a way in which I thought give it up who knows I certainly don't know the home movies are only a piece of it but forget it and I realized I had these suitcases I've been packing around with all these stories of cruelty and abuse that I just kept recreating in my mind stream and what was the consequence of that? what was the effect in my mind stream? sinking grief anger disappointment you see what I'm driving at? and of course what's current is what's arising in the moment so if some intense feeling

[85:07]

arises in the moment and I can be really present with the detail of that in my physical body I'm right now I'm not back there in ancient history I'm right now and how much of that response somebody says something to me and I have a response how much of my response is in this moment and how much of it is the consequence of that suitcase I've been dragging around with me you know I keep referring to the is it the Andalusian Dog by Luis Buñuel where the protagonist hauls a baby grand piano with a dead donkey draped over the top of it like a kind of lace shawl here he is with his toe line dragging it around through the whole movie well that's our story is the baby grand piano with the dead donkey on it you know hauling it around and it's such a tremendous relief to put it down or to get on the donkey and see where it takes you I've told

[86:08]

some of you this story but some years ago in the days when I was definitely in the kind of archetypal role of the mother at Zen Center I had a dream and in the dream this is really in answer to your question in the dream I was inside a 35 foot tall figure I think it was made out of cement of a woman with big breasts and it was dark in there and at some point I'm kind of feeling around and I found a little door in the skirt and I just took one step like this and I was through the door standing just outside the figure and the rest of the dream I was standing just next to the figure watching all my friends in Zen Center relating to this 35 foot tall figure thinking it was me

[87:10]

only I had stepped out I proceeded to tell everybody who would listen about the dream as my resignation dream yeah it was you know it was it was completely about being liberated from trying to be this 35 foot tall mother of all beings you know give it up such a relief that's not who I am you know we're so trustworthy you know we just don't trust ourselves enough yes I think I'm a little confused about why you shouldn't trust your you know your experience or why you should you know have your experience be invalidated

[88:11]

your experience of abuse or whatever went on in your childhood why you should let that be evaluated you know devaluated or erased by you know seeing a film in which you can't see it in the film I mean obviously everyone's going to be on their you know in grave I didn't say I didn't say that I didn't say that I didn't say I was discounting my experience I was talking about the story and that when I looked at these films I saw there were other stories there was another side there was another set of pictures that were also true yes and that it was a kind of tangle and mix that I could have some I mean what I did understand was that whatever my experience is now that has been informed by earlier experiences is utterly trustworthy but I can know

[89:13]

that by paying attention to the physical detail of body and breath paying attention in the way of noting as in the mindfulness tradition of feelings and thoughts that's not the same as the story I've told myself about what happened that those are not the same thing it's much more complicated than the story begins to suggest so for example a kind of hunch I had that my mother had probably been abused by her father you know I was fifty years old before I finally was able to have a skillful enough conversation with my mother where I could have her tell me about what it was like when she was a little kid and I was of course completely right what I had smelled there in terms of

[90:13]

the causes and conditions that led her to behave in the ways that she did with me I began to have a sense about what was the ground that spawned her mind stream and her mode of being a parent there were no longer good guys and bad guys there were these patterns passed along from one generation to another very complicated patterns of behavior and the story in the way that I told it to myself for a lot of years just wasn't complex enough was not round enough that's why I love Rashomon the story of Rashomon something happens and there are five people who observe something happens and you ask each of those five people and you have five completely different stories how do you understand what really happened we just want the facts man it's complicated

[91:16]

yeah I mean I think it's just so complicated that if you know if the part of the story is true about the negative side and the abusive side and then also the other side is true that there were nice parts of your parents or nice parts of the whole thing it's sort of like it seems to me in my experience that sometimes that good part is you can't experience it totally because you know it's just shadowed by the fact that you know in a moment or later or you know in your memory there's the other negative side that's always going to creep up and hardly erase that but all I'm saying is that if I'm present in the moment rather than in the past what is so arises and actually what arises in the moment I can trust and my ability

[92:16]

to see clearly seems to be related to being present and there's a way in which I'm not so present if what dominates is the story about the past and I'm not in any way talking about negating what my experience has actually been because what my experience has actually been informs the mind stream that arises in each moment there's no getting away from that but it's hard to like accept a you know supportive comment or a compliment or something from someone who is later going to be criticizing you or has spent a lot of time before criticizing you it's like I mean in every moment you go oh great that feels good but it's like you know but what do I do then with the fact that for 50 years my experience with my mother was that she well what do I

[93:13]

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