in your own isolated rooms and some across the country and in the Sierras and in Europe. It's really a marvelous thing, this internet that allows us to take care of ourselves in the midst of this pandemic and still be in connection to everybody. So wonderful to see you all. Thank you for joining me this evening. I hope you and your families and all your friends are safe and well. This Zoom meeting is an offering to members to update you on how Zen Center is doing and answer any questions you have. I'm happy to say at this moment, no one in our residential community has gotten COVID-19. I hope that is the case for you and your friends, too. I think back when I look at our members over all the ways in which the members have supported Zen Center from the many years I've been at Zen Center.

[01:12]

I remember when I was director of Tashara in 1977 and we hit the Marble Cone fire and we reached out to our members and they provided tremendous support for us then. This time is a little different because we're not just isolated in a fire. The rest of the world is OK. The entire world is suffering from this pandemic and will take all of our efforts to take care of it. So Zen Center is here to support you and encourage your practice. Practice is so difficult in times like this. I might even say essential. Suzuki Roshi would say, practicing with difficulties is when you really understand practice. So this is, from some point of view, a tremendous opportunity for us all. So I would like to review a little bit right now what we've been doing at Zen Center. On March 5, we formed an internal health and safety task force representing the three temples and how to respond to COVID-19.

[02:22]

We have been meeting regularly in coordination with the San Francisco Department of Public Health and the CDC. Soon after we formed that task force on March 7th, we suspended all our on-site public programs at City Center. And on March 8th, the Sunday programs at Green Bilge Farm were suspended. It's amazing to think that was only, what, 10 days ago or 15 days ago. The Tassar practice period It was ended earlier, which was on Sunday, March 22. And Tassara students are safe down there at Tassara. At this point, all three centers are closed to the public, and we are practicing social distancing, which is very difficult in our residential practice. We're so used to being close to each other, sitting, having dinner together. And actually, we're mostly isolating in our rooms. We're not sitting in a Zendo at the city center. And it's the same at Green Gulch.

[03:25]

We're sitting through the internet. And we have special seats marked in the dining room to make sure that people don't stick closer to six feet, giving a six foot separation. And we have ways of having servers serve the food. in the serving line and then setting the bowl down and people come and pick up their bowl. So we're being very careful to practice social distancing while at the same time keeping our spiritual connection. So one of the questions people came forward and asked me is whether we canceled Tassar for the summer. So we have canceled Tassar. the spring work practice period at Tashara. And at this point, we are hoping we can open the guest season on time, although it is becoming more probable that it will be delayed. As you can imagine, the guest season is on our mind as it is the major financial support for Zen Center and a great refuge for many guests.

[04:35]

But we want both our guests and our students to be safe. So we're following the course of this pandemic. day by day, and we will keep you apprised of what our decision is about the guest season. We closed Green's Restaurant in response to the city's request on March 16th. What a shame. For any of you who have been at Green's recently, we had a new chef and we opened after we had been closed for four months because of a fire, and Green was doing as well as it's ever been doing. And of course, this is a tremendous loss financially to us and a tremendous loss to the 80 employees that are no longer working there. When we do reopen Greens, I certainly hope you all go and visit it. I want to thank our executive chef, Denise St. Ong, and our general manager, Min Kim, that have been doing such a great job there at Greens. So in order to make the Dharma available during this time,

[05:39]

We have moved all our offerings online. We have an online Zendo where 80 people plus sit every morning at 5.50 for two periods of Zazen. Our Wednesday lectures as well as our Saturday lectures are online. And our work practices intensive we are offering now is all online. So please go to our website and click on the online offerings button to see the full extent. what we're offering. And I've been really pleased and surprised to see how many people have been connecting to us. On March 18th, 227 people attended Norman Fisher's online talk. And you can go to the website. Our website blog has a connection to that talk. And you can go to our, we also, if you have all of our talks, as you know, archived. So if you'd like to see a talk with Paul Hallard Dave while he was leading the winter practice period this winter, you can go there.

[06:42]

Or if you want to see what Linda Cutts is talking about at Green Gulch, you can go there. So our many teachers are offering their Dharma talks online and you can go and listen to them. So I think, you know, we feel that I bring this to your attention because it's so important to have the support of Dharma, to have the support of the teachings, to have the support of Zazen, to have the support of the Sangha and the support of Dharma Friends. I hope you have found Dharma Friends that you can Skype or Zoom or phone call or maybe write letters to. And also, if you have a teacher at Zen Center, I encourage you to reach out to them. and see if you can do practice instruction with them. I know they would be willing to meet with you, depending on how many are emailing at once.

[07:43]

It may be a slight delay, but they will find a way to meet with you. And I would encourage you to do that. I'm reminded of a talk Suzuki Rishi gave on June 9, 1971. That was the summer just before he died. It was actually the last day of the last sashimi led. And he was talking about a time two years earlier where he almost drowned crossing the Tashara Creek at the Narrows. This was two years earlier. It was the end of the winter practice period at Tashara. And they went down for a day off. Tashara Creek usually runs pretty strong in April at that time. And everybody was swimming and enjoying the sunlight. And Siddikrashi thought that he would cross over the stream to the other side and sit with the students. And he misjudged how fast the water was moving and he swept over the narrows and down into the deep part, any of you who know the narrows. And he was underwater and he doesn't know how to swim.

[08:45]

So he was commenting that he became quite afraid and he could see women's legs, but he couldn't reach them and he couldn't reach to the bottom and walk. And he thought to himself, he wasn't very calm. And, of course, somebody noticed that he wasn't there and dove in and fished him out. And he talked that night about how he felt his practice wasn't that good. He didn't have the kind of composure he should have faced with that kind of difficulty. So he was recommending that we all go back to basic practice in Zazen of following our breath. And, of course, that story is always very heartening to me, to think Suzuki Rinpoche, at that time we thought was the wisest, most composed, most alive, most centered person we'd ever met, encouraging himself to practice harder and to pay attention to his breathing and sit better Zaza. So anyway, in this lecture he gave on June 9, commenting about that story, he said, and of course, by this time he was dying.

[09:48]

He said, I am dying because of my sickness, not because of water. When I am dying, various demons as well as beautiful women will be with me, and I will be very happy to be with them. Everything is with us, and without being disturbed, we are happy to be with everything. When you are not thinking you have another moment, then naturally you can accept things as they are. You can see things as they are. You can have perfect wisdom at that time. When you are able to sit experiencing zazen, then the meaning of everyday life will be completely different. You will have freedom from everything. You will truly enjoy your life because you are not attached to anything. So I think it's very important to hear Suzuki Rishi's encouragement at this time when many people are suffering. We need to have as much composure as we can get and to be reminded that Zazen is such a great support for us.

[10:49]

enabling us to see life more clearly and to find the freedom and joy in our life in the midst of everything that we're experiencing. I'm isolating myself here in Mill Valley, and although I miss being with the Sangha at City Center, I have the many birds here reminding me of the glorious spring. We just had the spring equinox a couple of days ago, and I read a verse from the first koan in the Book of Serenity, which I thought I would just share with you. The unique breeze of reality. Do you see? Continuously, creation runs her loom and shuttle, weaving the ancient brocade, incorporating the forms of spring. So we have been enjoying some beautiful spring. days, at least here in the San Francisco area.

[11:50]

I hope you're finding beautiful weather wherever you are. So we had offered some questions to people, and I have a couple of questions to answer, which I will start with first before opening it up to you. Here's one from Betsy Appel. What practices do you do to extend compassion to the world during this time? I'm thinking in terms of service chants or a personal attitude or mantra, et cetera, that keeps your bodhisattva spirit strong. Well, of course, we have many chants that we do at service, and they're all listed on our website at the Tan Center. I always like the Nmei Juku Kanan Gyo, the 10-line sutra for boundless life that I chant whenever someone... that I know is stick and I want to send well-being wishes to them. I think it's wonderful to chant the loving kindness meditation sutra, which also is in our chat book.

[12:57]

And I also have a little personal chant that I do sometimes, which is adopted from that metasutra, which is, may I be filled with loving kindness, may I be free from suffering, may I be happy and at peace. And then if I'm thinking of someone, I say, like if it was my wife. May Max be filled with love and kindness. May Max be free from suffering. May Max be happy and at peace. And then I always end it with, may all beings be filled with loving kindness. May all beings be free from suffering. May all beings be happy and at peace. If anybody would like that, you could email the membership office and I could write it out for you. But I think kind of When I really think about that, I'm always reminded of David Stendler-Ross' gratitude practice, which he sort of summarized as stop, look, and go, which you can apply any time during the day.

[14:00]

Whatever you are doing, devote your full attention to being still or slowing down. Pay attention to your breath for a moment. And then look at what is... offered to you right now. Become awake to your surroundings. Recognize opportunities available to you. And then the goal part of that is to do something, to offer something to the world. Maybe you thank a friend or to extend yourself for someone. And I always liked Steve Stuckey's, so that's stop, look and go. It's like a child when they're crossing the road, they stop and they look both directions. and observe what's happening, and then they do something. But Steve shared during the last part of his life his practice of gratitude, which I've always loved, and this is from that lecture. For some years, I've been doing a practice of waking up with gratitude. First thing, sitting up at the edge of the bed and putting my hands together and just saying the word gratitude.

[15:07]

And then there's an open question, for what? And whatever comes up in my experiences is that for which I am grateful. And whatever comes up in my experience is that for which I am grateful. To have this meeting, whatever it is, is who I am. And whatever it is, is supporting me and this life completely beyond judgment and preference. And I bring this forward as I think gratitude is the ground upon which we stand when we are offering generosity to the world when we are offering or finding a way to help the world. So I would definitely suggest that as practice that will help you know how to help other people during this time. So thank you, Betsy, for asking that question. I think it was a beautiful question to ask. This second question I thought I would address is from Anonymous.

[16:11]

which is, what can I do to support Zen Center during this time? How is the residential community? This must be a difficult transition for them. Well, thank you very much. Obviously having you have Zen Center and its community in your heart is a very important thing and sending us your best wishes is crucial. It is a difficult time for the residential community. We have quite a few older people in the community and people that have special circumstances that make them more susceptible. And we're doing everything we can to maintain the community healthy and safe. And as I mentioned earlier, it's very hard for us to separate ourselves spatially. Many people have had to leave the community to go to their home and address their family's needs. And of course, the management of Zen Center has been zooming all day long, day after day for the last 10 days to figure out all the different ways that we have to organize.

[17:19]

We're reorganizing Zen Center to address this problem. I also might as well study, especially since I think we will probably lose a few days or more of the guest season. And we stopped all our programs that give us revenue and greens, which gives us a lot of revenues closed. that if you could financially support Zen Center, that would be greatly appreciated. You can do that through going to our website and going to the giving section and make a donation. We're also having our Zenathon right now. And that's the usual way we have our spring fundraising. And for some reason, it's not going so well this year. I think people are so distracted with their own issues that they haven't had a chance to make a donation there. And of course, if anybody... would like to talk to me personally about helping, I would certainly be available to do that. And you can send me an email at centralabbott.sfcc.org.

[18:20]

So I appreciate that somebody brought that up and I wanted to extend that offer to all of you. We will, when we get a better handle on the scale of the... problem we're going to be facing probably send out a wider, if not probably, certainly send out a wider appeal to the larger audience in a little bit. We don't yet know how much the guest season will be affected by this event. So in the eight remaining minutes we have for this time together, I'm hoping to Open to questions from you. Somebody said, are some of our most people currently at Totsar leaving now? Some are leaving and some are not. We have about 25, maybe 30 people at Totsar now.

[19:21]

So there are some that are leaving after the guest season and some have decided it's the best place for them to stay. So we're... And that is one of the decisions we're making at all three centers is what makes sense for which some people to stay in because it's best for them and also which ones would be good to leave. So I see Timothy Wicks has a question. Are you unmuted, Timmy? I think so. Can you hear me? I can. Yes. Yeah, it's less a question, and I just really want to thank you for doing this and making yourself available and providing a summary. It's very, very important for those of us who are not able to come into any of the temples right now and have strong connections. So I hope that as things change, you will be able to do this at a reasonable level.

[20:29]

sort of gap. I know that you're very busy, but I hope you'll be able to do this again as things change, as it looks like they're going to. So thank you very much. Well, thank you, Tim. And I certainly miss seeing you around the city center all the time. So it's wonderful to see you here tonight, and it's encouraging me to figure out ways to do this more often. Thank you very much. Can someone else have a question? You can push your, the way you can do this is go down to the manage participant section and put your hand up. And that way they'll know that you have a question to ask. If you know how to do that, raise your hand using, go to the manage participants, you see the list of all the participants, and then you can put your hand up. Oh, hello.

[21:33]

This is Pasha. Pasha! Yes, how are you, Pasha? I'm here with my whole family. Excellent. And it feels like we are more there than ever before because we are all together. And I just want to say I so deeply appreciate those online offerings and online Xander. I went there. I'm adjusting to do everything remotely, but I'm deeply grateful for this offering and for this call, too. You're welcome. I would encourage all of you to try the online. Go click on our website and sit with us in the morning. It's quite wonderful. It's strange, but still quite wonderful. Yes. Yes, and it's good to see so many participants on this call and see their faces. It feels so much included, and it's so good to see familiar faces and the people I know.

[22:44]

And now we're like, it's a whole family and a child. I'm sure, you know, this is where the path goes. Yeah, it's wonderful to see everybody, really is. It's just such a wonderful thing to see everybody. I can see Kate and Paul there in the Sierras. I hope you're safe and getting some snow, maybe. And I see Inryu, too, over there in the East Coast. So, oh yes, we have another hand from Miles. Yes, Miles. Can you hear me? I can. Oh, it's Nancy.

[23:45]

Yes, Nancy. I know, more exciting. Much more exciting. Although you're wonderful. Well, it's kind of funny. I feel the same way. It's funny because mine was more of a comment, actually. And it was along the same lines as Pasha's comments, which was with the online events, with the online Zendo in the morning, and then the Dharma talks. And it's so wonderful to be able to just scroll through page after page and see everyone's faces. And that's just what... everyone just did, you know, to say hello to each other. And as you were saying, Ed, it's so hard for us to stay away from each other. And it's also so wonderful to be able to include everyone who lives further out from the temples who aren't able to get here on a regular basis. So I was just going to encourage everyone at the end of your talk to stay online for just a little bit.

[24:52]

And if you hover or you see the arrow on the right-hand side of your Zoom, if you just kind of scroll through there, people who have their video going, you can see their faces. So just to be able to take a moment and to enjoy each other at the end of your talk, Ed. Yes. And of course, I love the gallery view because then I can see on my computer 25 people at once, which is the best way to do it. And I have a question from Lou. Where are you, Lou? Let me see if I can. There you are. Yes, Lou. Hi. Thank you for this meeting and for the opportunity to ask questions. This is sort of a practical one. Because of the changes of schedule at Tassajara, which I anticipated were taking place, I hesitated to apply for work practice thinking nobody knows about dates and when they need people and all of that. Is that the best approach to wait until your next announcement? I think that's the best approach. I mean, we did cancel the work practice at the time of schedule, but if we were to open a little later, we might have a work practice time prior to when we'd open and we would send that out.

[26:00]

And we will, I think you can always send an email to someone saying, if you did apply, you're interested and we'll keep you on a list. But we just don't know yet. And so someone else asked, uh if we we're not taking anybody into any of the three temples right now guest students or anybody from any because we're really trying to practice isolation and and and not and keeping ourselves safe and also not having anybody else get anything so and it's just going to be we're just following this thing day by day but yes thank you for your support over the years and stay in touch Well, I believe we have a couple more minutes if someone else has a comment or question. Love to hear your voice. Well, all I can say is it's very nice to see 53 of you here tonight.

[27:31]

I remember the last time I did a membership meeting and it was at City Center. There were like 15 people that showed up. So maybe this is the time to hold membership meetings when we're all in our rooms and have nothing else to do. So membership meetings are not a big draw usually, but it's very nice that you could all tune in. And I look forward to having a chance to talk with you. again, and I think this is a good time to end it. And then you can just take a look around and just see each other for a little bit. So thank you all very much. Stay well.

[28:09]

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