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, everyone, and especially to the young people who are here. The first part of the lecture will be especially for you, and then you'll get to go out and play and have a program in the garden, I think, yes? So, did you, young people, did you celebrate July 4th? Yes? Did you do picnics? To Mount Shasta for July 4th? Fun. Did some of you go to a beach or a barbecue or be outside?

[01:03]

Did you? Did you have summer fruits? Did you have peaches and nectarines and plums? Yes. Well, I wanted to tell you a story today that's an old, old story that has to do with a special peach. Okay, are you ready? Once upon a time, a long time ago, in a country called Japan, some of you may know about Japan or have been there even, there lived an old lady and an old man who were married, and they had been married for a long time, and they loved each other very, very much. And they were very good to each other. And they had always wanted to have children, but they never had children. So they took very good care of each other. Well, the old man was a woodcutter.

[02:03]

So he would go off to the forest and cut wood every day and sell it and use it at home. And the old woman took care of the farm and the house and did things like wash clothes. the family. So one day, the old man went off to the forest, and the old woman went down to the river to wash some clothes. And this was a long time ago, so there were snow washing machines. She rubbed and scrubbed the clothes in the river using stones, which is a way to get the dirt out. So she was scrubbing and rubbing down by the river, and she looked on the river, and she saw something very strange. And it was floating in the river, and what it was, was a giant peach. Not giant like this, but a big-sized peach. She could carry it.

[03:03]

And she thought, oh my goodness, that looks like a delicious peach. What a nice treat for me and my husband. So somehow she was able to get that peach to float over to where she was washing the clothes. She got a hold of it, and she just marveled at this big peach and carried it back home, put it on the table, waiting to share it with her husband when he came home. So finally he came back from his day's work, and she said, She called him Old Man. Old Man, look what I found in the river. What a delicious lunch we're going to have. And they were just about to cut this big, rosy, orangey peach open when it started to move on the table and kind of shake and shake around. And they didn't know what was happening. And all of a sudden, it burst open. And what should be inside but a little baby, a little baby boy.

[04:09]

And he was also kind of plump, like a peach, and very cute. And they said, oh, we've always wanted to have a baby, and we will take care of this baby just like our son, and we will name him Momotaro. Momotaro. That's a Japanese word. Momotaro. Momo means peach and taro means boy. So he was named Peach Boy. And Peach Boy was a very sweet little boy, just like peaches. And he grew very, very nicely. They fed him. He played. And it says in the story he had plump feet. I wonder what those look like, little plump feet. Well, one thing about Momotaro, he was very, very kind and gentle. And at the exact same time, he was very strong and courageous.

[05:10]

These two things together, gentle and kind and strong and courageous, that was his nature. That's the kind of a little boy he was. And everyone in the village knew him and liked him very much. Well, there was a very sad thing that was happening in the village. And it upset Momotaro very, very much. And this was the fact that there were monsters, greedy monsters, monsters who took things that didn't belong to them called the oni. And the oni would come from their island where they lived, the island of the oni. And they would come into the village. And they would take things that didn't belong to them, from the houses, and they would also do things just for fun that would be harmful, like stamp on the crops and knock down fences, just for the fun of it. The oni thought it was fun, but it was very harmful to the villagers.

[06:13]

And they were very frightened of these oni coming. They would come every once in a while. Momotaro was very unhappy about this. He knew that he wanted to do something. So when he got older, he was like almost a young man. He was about 15 years old. And he was very gentle and kind and very strong and courageous. And one day he said to his old mother and father, I am going to go to the island of the Oni and get back all the things that they have taken and make sure they don't harm them. anyone anymore. He made a strong promise. And his parents were very worried, oh dear, this is dangerous for our son. But they also knew he was very strong and very gentle, and they trusted him. So he said, please make me some rice cakes for my journey. So his mother baked and put together delicious rice cakes, put it in a sack for Momotaro to take on his journey.

[07:21]

So off he went to head off to the island of the Oni. So as he's walking along, who should come up to him but a little dog. And the little dog was barking and barking and saying, what do you have in your sack, Momotaro? And Momotaro said, I have rice cakes. Would you like a rice cake? and he shared one of the rice cakes with the little dog. The dog said, where are you going? Momotaro, he said, I am going to the island of the Oni to get back everything they've taken from our villagers, and so they won't harm us anymore. And he said, can I come along with you to help? And Momotaro said, sure, you can come with me. So the dog, Momotaro, headed off down the road, and they traveled, and... Lo and behold, they saw coming out of the trees a little monkey. And the monkey came up to him and he said, where are you going, Momotaro? And Momotaro said, I'm going to the island of the Oni to get back all the things they've taken from our village.

[08:24]

Do you want to come? And the monkey said, yes, I'd like to help you. What's in your satchel? What's in your bag? And he said, I have rice cakes. Would you like one? So he fed the monkey a rice cake, and he munched his rice cake. He was very happy to come along on the journey, on the special journey called a quest. And they walked further a couple more days, and out of the trees, came flying this very colorful bird with big long tails and multicolored outfit, multicolored feathers. And it was a pheasant. That's kind of a wild bird, a big bird called a pheasant. And the pheasant said, where are you going, Momotaro? Momotaro said, I'm going to the island of the Oni to get back everything that they've taken from our village. And the pheasant said, well, I'd like to come along and help. And Momotaro said, okay, you can come. And by the way, would you like a rice cake to eat?

[09:26]

Oh, yes, indeed. So they all shared the rice cakes and they headed off, getting closer and closer to the island of the Oni. Well, they finally got there. They could see the island. And there was a big castle on the island. Momotaro was very clever and he was able to make a boat from wood and things that were nearby. And they set off. on the boat to the island of the Oni. And they waited until nightfall because the Oni were very big like giants and very mischievous, very mean and greedy. And they wanted to be clever and see what they could do. So as night fell, the pheasant, Momotaro sent the pheasant to fly over the castle walls and he landed inside and he began making all sorts of noises and flattering his wings and flying in and out. And the oni didn't know what it was, what has come.

[10:27]

And they got very confused. Meanwhile, Momotaro and the monkey and the dog found a little door and made their way inside the the castle and the dog began nipping at the oni's legs and Momontaro had his stick and he began swinging it back and forth and making noises, making all sorts of noises. And the oni got so confused and so upset, they ran away from the castle. Some of them jumped into the sea and swam away. Others ran as fast as they could. The only one that was left was the king of the oni. And he bowed down, which is a tradition in Japan. He bowed down to Momotaro, said, please, please, what is it? I surrendered to you. What is it that I can do? And he said, we would like to have all the treasure and all the things that you've taken from the village to bring it back. And so the king of the oni brought all the different things that were there.

[11:33]

And there were many things over many, many years not only from their village, but other villages. So there was a big bunch of things that belonged to other people. So Momotaro gathered all those things up, and they figured out a way to haul them back to their village. Well, they came back to the village. Everybody was so excited, was saying, yay, Momotaro, Momotaro, you've succeeded. did what you said you were going to do. And his parents were so happy to see him again that he was okay. And that was Momotaro's adventure with his friends. So the one good thing to remember about Momotaro was not only was he brave and strong and courageous, but what else was he? He was powerful? Yes. And did he share things with his friends? Yes.

[12:34]

He shared those cakes? And did he care about other people? Cared about the villagers? And this caring about people and his kindness helped him to be strong and courageous. The two things go together. You can't have one without the other, really. So that's your story of Momotaro, the peach boy, okay? All right, thank you so much for listening, and off you go on your adventure. So you can all come get your shoes on out here and out into the sunshine. Did you enjoy the story of Momotaro?

[14:24]

In a lecture, oh, I wanted to say welcome again to you and especially to those who've never been here before or your first time at Green Gulch. Could I see a show of hands for first-timers? Oh, welcome, welcome. Thank you for coming. This reference to Momotaro I came upon I think I had heard that there was a folk hero named Momotaro before, but I came upon it in a lecture by Suzuki Roshi from 1970, June of 1970. And Suzuki Roshi, for those of you who don't know, was the founder of the San Francisco Zen Center and the teacher for many, many people. And in this lecture, he brings up he's actually talking about a very core teaching of our practice, core teaching of Buddhism, that I wanted to bring up as well, which, for lack of a more creative name for it, I'll call the harmony of difference and equality.

[15:43]

This is a very, very core teaching that when you hear that phrase sounds probably not so interesting and kind of abstract. I think that's one of the problems with this core teaching is there might be a tendency to kind of skip over and want to get to something a little more juicy, like a big peach or something. But actually, the more I practice year after year, the more I see how central, essential, and lively and juicy is this core teaching. So he was talking about this in a lecture, and he brought up Momotaro as a kind of archetype, you might say, or a Japanese ideal, kind of the ideal folk hero, and this quality of courage and bravery along with gentleness and caring and kindness.

[16:48]

Those two qualities, he was saying, is kind of the ideal archetypally for the ideal Japanese person, according to Suzuki Roshi. And often these ideals are embedded in our myths and folk stories. So these two qualities of gentleness and kindness, along with courage and bravery. So in describing this, he was talking about if you have just one or the other, just kindness and gentleness without an accompanying kind of fierceness, really, the fierce side of compassion and empathy and sympathy. It's very one-sided. And the same is true of courage and bravery without gentleness and kindness is not real.

[17:51]

It doesn't work. One image that you're probably familiar with is, and this happens every year at Tassajara, we have some years a lot, a lot of snow, some years just a little bit. But almost every year, the snow piles up on the branches, the limbs of these big live oak trees that are very sturdy and thick and been there forever, it feels like. And they get laden with snow and eventually these limbs just crack. You can hear them sometimes in the zendo. You hear crack of these limbs that are breaking because they can't bear the snow anymore. So that's one of the things with strength and, you know, a kind of fierceness or... bravery and courage, one can break if there isn't also pliancy, flexibility, soft, a soft mind, an ability to flex.

[18:54]

And the tree that exemplifies this, two plants, two trees, the willow and the bamboo. And those trees, you know, they bend. You know, the willow bends and the bamboo bends. Even with a heavy load of snow, all the way down to the ground can bend with that burden. And then the snow, when it falls off or melts, up comes bamboo. And willow also. So these two trees exemplify this strength mixed with... a kind of pliancy, flexibility, softness, which we need for our lives. If we're, you know, I can do it by myself, I don't need any help, I'm not going to ask, that we can break. And then the same is true of flexibility, softness, if there isn't a way to

[20:00]

meet our life, the difficulties, distress, and suffering of our life with courage. But where we're just flattened, that doesn't work either. So we need both of these. So Momotaro is the kind of folk hero that exemplifies both of these. And Suzuki Roshi brought this up. So that's one of the reasons I wanted to bring it up for the kids. So back to this harmony of difference and equality. So there's many, many, many teachings about this, what this is, this harmony or the meeting or the interpenetration or the togetherness, interdependency is a word that Sugiroshi coined, the interdependency of

[21:05]

Difference, difference is just an English word for the 10,000 things. Every single thing that arises, every single thing that we see, hear, smell, taste, touch, think. All the 10,000 things, the myriad things, the bammotsu in the poem in Japanese about this, the myriad things. So the myriad things are not separate from, or the other side of the coin, there's just one coin with these two sides, this 10,000 things. And then on the other side is, in the poem we translate it as the equality, the difference and equality. The equality is another way of talking about sometimes We say the universal or the absolute, these kind of big words that we don't even know what it's pointing to necessarily, but they're contrasted, partial and universal, form, 10,000 forms, and emptiness, or no separate abiding forms, no separate things.

[22:28]

So these two things you might think of as two sides of the same coin and always go together. There isn't the 10,000 things or the myriad things existing on their own separately. They are always really an expression of the other side of the coin. They're how the other side of the coin or the universal or the absolute functions. It functions completely through the 10,000 things, dynamically functioning. And the 10,000 things are not separate things, but are always expressions of this one interdependent whole, or Suzuki Roshi called big mind. Sometimes it's called, these are very boring words.

[23:31]

That's why I think I used to skip over these chapters when I was studying. Sometimes it's called principle. What is principle? So this dynamic two-sided coin that's really just one coin and that's functioning as I speak, as we sit here, is functioning all the time. there's many stories, Zen stories, that do their best to and do a good job at illuminating this teaching, which one might say, I'm not interested in it. That's really, I must say, for me, for many years, I didn't want to hear about this. I didn't know what it was talking about. It had nothing to do with me because I was just a... terribly suffering being that, why are you bringing up partial and universal?

[24:35]

It has nothing to do with me, or so I thought. And you might think that too, which is fine. So there's a story that illuminates this or shows this that has been a story that's brought up in and alluded to in many different writings and has been a story for me for many years. So I thought I would bring that up with you today. There's several very well-known collections of Zen stories, Blue Cliff Record and the Book of Serenity, and there's other collections. This comes from a collection of Lamp, the Lamp stories, And there's many things in this story that I find sort of useful to turn, not just the kind of culminating event of the story, that kind of last part, but who the person, who the protagonists are, who they are.

[25:37]

So I wanted to say something about who is in this story. So the main person in this story is named Xian Yan. Zhixian. This is a Chinese Zen teacher from the 800s. So we have these stories that have been passed down for centuries and centuries. So this is a long time ago. And this story, the wonderful thing about stories, if they're true, if they speak to us, is they're told over and over and passed on and not forgotten. So we don't have his birth dates, but he died in 898. And he was a very intelligent person, and he studied with a very famous teacher named Bai Zhang, who supposedly set up the rules for Zen monasteries, all the different guidelines and so forth.

[26:43]

And he was with him for about 20 years, and then Bai Zhang died, and so he went to study. with Bai Zhang's teacher, his disciple, named Guishan. And he studied with Guishan for many years. And one day, Guishan said to him, you know, you're so clever, you have about 10 answers for any question that's put out, but tell me... I'd like to hear something from you, something that you can say from before you could discriminate, before your parents were born. What do you have to say? So Xian Yan was taken aback by this, and he kind of... didn't know what to say, and it was like the wheels were turning, like, what can I say, what can I say? And he couldn't think of anything, kind of mumbled something, and Guishan didn't accept his answer. So Xiangyang went back to his monk's quarters, his room, and he began looking at all his books that he had, and the notes he had taken, and the lecture notes, and he tried to find something that would meet this question that his teacher gave him.

[28:01]

which was just say something from before you could discriminate, when you were a baby before your parents were born. What can you say? And he looked in all his books trying to find something. He couldn't find anything. So he went back to his teacher, and he told him that he couldn't think of anything. He didn't know what to say. And then he said to his teacher, please, you tell me. you tell me what it is. And his teacher said, what would be the purpose, what would be the use of you hearing something from me and me telling you? That's what I have to say. What do you have to say? I could tell you something, but later you would not be happy and you would scold me. So his teacher didn't say anything. So Xianyang said, Hunger cannot be satisfied by looking at the painting of a rice cake.

[29:09]

That was one of his very famous sayings. Hunger can't be satisfied by looking at a painting. Certain kind of hunger can be satisfied that we have for arts. But this kind of hunger, a reasonable facsimile, is not going to meet what he needed. So he went back to his room, And he said, I can't do this anymore. I'm not going to study anymore. I don't have what it takes. I'm just going to leave this monastery and be a wandering mendicant monk and just leave. And he burned all his books, all his notes, all his notebooks. Just burned them. And then he had, it says, a tearful goodbye with his teacher, Guishan. He left him. But sadly, and off he went. on his own. And he ended up finding a place near the hermitage of a teacher from a couple hundred years before called the National Teacher.

[30:15]

His posthumous name was National Teacher, or when he was alive it was called that, a kind of old hermitage. And he fixed it up and he stayed there and he just begged for food, took care of the grounds, weeded, swept, and just lived there in a very, very, very simple life, really, just very simple life. So one day while he was sweeping the grounds, sweeping, sweeping, sweeping, his broom kind of lifted up a pebble which went kind of flying and hit a bamboo stalk, hit a bamboo tree, and there was a sound. And at that moment, Xian Yan had a great awakening, a great awakening at that sound of the pebble hitting bamboo.

[31:23]

And he went and bathed and offered incense and turned in the direction of Guishan, his teacher, and did prostrations. and said, how can I ever thank you? Had you have told me before, I could never have realized this. So he understood his teacher's refraining from saying too much, or doing it for him, or this is the answer. And he became a wonderful teacher. There's more to this. He wrote a poem upon this, which is a traditional thing. There's several translations, but this is one translation by a contemporary teacher, Shohaku Okamura. Here is Shanyan's poem.

[32:26]

With one blow, subject and object vanish. I no longer practice to solve things on my own. In all my activities, I celebrate the ancient path and do not fall into passivity." And this story, this simple story of a pebble hitting bamboo, is referenced by many different Zen teachers and comments on the poems and, you know, different poems to answer his poem. So this story reverberates and is alluded to in various ways. How is that, you know? And this has been a question for me, you know. So there's several parts to the story that

[33:29]

that resonate for me. I think starting with the first part of his wanting to know the answer and find the answer by his reading and memorizing and his notes and saying back what the teachers told him and struggling in this way, which is a part of our... I am not... I don't want to be misunderstood. I'm not putting that down in some way. Deep study is part of our practice life. It is one of the three legs of the three-legged stool. The first is zazen, or not even the first. All three are necessary. Zazen, study, which includes listening to Dharma talks, in any way that you listen, online, coming places, or reading, studying the sutras, studying the teachings, studying one's life.

[34:36]

This kind of study is completely necessary. However, if that's all, or if that's all we rely on, or if we try to find answers through what somebody else experienced, or said, or did, that will not be, it'll be like a painting of a rice cake. And we won't be satisfied, you know, we won't be content. But it's necessary. The third of the legs is zazen, our practice of not only on the cushion, but daily life zazen of presence and upright in all our activities. And then the third of the legs of the three-legged stool is talking with someone, speaking with a teacher, Dharma friends, reflecting together, listening and talking, bringing up.

[35:41]

If you're just sitting all the time but never talk with anybody or never read, your three-legged stool will fall over. If you're just studying all the time, and never sit, or just studying and talking all the time, which sometimes people do. Lots of big conversations go on at the dining room table about the truth, you know. But is that tempered with meeting with someone, studying the self? So all three are necessary. So in Shanyang's case, he was very attached to... partially because he was such a clever person, he was the smartest one in the room. And this is why great intelligence, great wealth, and great beauty are thought of as hindrances to practice, because the world treats you a certain way and we get attached in a certain way to those things.

[36:43]

So he had to let go of that, and he did it pretty dramatically by burning. And there's other Zen teachers who burned all their commentaries because they realized they were clinging to that, and it was getting in the way of meeting their life. It kept coming in the way of meeting what was right there. So that was one part of the story. The other thing is that he fell into a kind of... despair, you might say, or a kind of existential doubt. And, you know, I'm just, I got to leave here. I can't do this. It wasn't actually giving up. He continued his practice, but in a new way. And he didn't know where to turn. The old ways were not working for him. And supposedly...

[37:46]

His teacher wasn't going to help him make it easier for him. And this was really difficult. And we do find ourselves in that situation, in our lives, in our practice life, in our life of relationships and work life, where we can't do the stuff that we used to do. It doesn't work. And we don't know where to go or how to take up our life freshly. And we can fall into despondency and despair. or great, you know, really not knowing what to do next. So I think he was in that. He didn't know, so he did a very simple thing, which is a good thing to remember, coming back to something very simple like, in this case, sweeping, taking care of his space, you know, simple activities. probably practicing meditation in a very simple way.

[38:51]

Somehow this was a kind of grounding activity for him. And then, so here we have this story of he's just doing a daily activity, nothing special, right? He probably had done it hundreds of times. He'd been living there, sweeping. Many of us sweep. That's one of our activities, taking care of the zendo and the temple is sweeping. And how many times did a eucalyptus button or a rock hit a tile and make a sound? Countless, probably, right? It's just nothing special. And yet, for Xian Yan, he's sweeping away. And his broom lifts up this pebble and it hits bamboo.

[39:54]

Sound. And there was nothing, no conceptual overlay that got in the way. This was a direct event manifesting the entire universe, which each and every single thing of the 10,000 things is, right now, expressing and appearing and manifesting I wanted to tell you a story about me and Suzuki Roshi. This was in 1971. Suzuki Roshi, I was at Zen Center for the last year of his life.

[41:01]

I arrived January 1st, 1971, to live at Zen Center, and he died in December 1971. So it was just a little less than a year. And he was sick during that year and got sicker. But he was around the building. And so one day, it sounds like a koan. It is a koan. One day, this person, Linda, was going up to the roof garden of the Page Street building. That's 300 Page Street, Zen Mein Beginner's Mein Temple. And there's this beautiful building. Julia Morgan, who was the architect for Hearst Castle, was the architect for this building, beautiful building, the inner courtyard and a roof garden. And we would go up there and be in the sunshine, look out over the city. So I went up to just be in the sunshine, and I come up the stairs and go out onto the garden.

[42:05]

And who should be there but Suzuki Roshi, all by himself. And I say all by himself because what arose in my mind at that time was, now's my chance. I don't even know what I meant by that, but it was like, Suzuki Roshi is all by himself. It'll be like one of those stories, right? Because it's just me and Suzuki Roshi. And I was like all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, you know, like Suzuki Roshi and me, you know. So I went over to say hello. And we were standing by looking north. So Zen Center is on the corner of Page and Laguna. And one direction, you look north all the way up to, well, you know, North San Francisco. It goes up a hill. And I'm standing there kind of looking out.

[43:08]

And he said, look. And, you know, this thought of, now's my chance. You know, Suzuki Roshi says, look. And I look, you know. And I'm looking. And I'm looking. And it's like, what does he mean? You know, what is he? And I said, oh, the church? You can see St. Mary's, the washing machine church? You can see it from the church? No. He said, look. And I said, I'm looking. I'm looking. There was glass around. And I'm looking. And I said, those trees? And he said, look. And I didn't know what he meant. And then he said, look here. And on the glass was this kind of sparkling reflection of...

[44:13]

a kind of wind bell with a little kite tail to it, a little paper tail that was like a shiny paper that was reflecting on the glass and making sparkly reflections. Right there, like right there. And he was saying, look, it wasn't a koan exactly, it was just, but it was a koan. It was the koan of everyday life. He just said, look, at this lovely little reflection right there in front of us. And I, with all the conceptions and all the, I'm going to be a good Zen student, and he's asking me to look, and I'm going to say the right thing, and what am I looking at? And I was looking as far as I could, like up north into who knows where, far away to get the right thing. What does he mean? What does he want from me? And it was like a netting, netting, you know, it was like I couldn't, I couldn't see, I couldn't really hear what he was saying.

[45:17]

I was completely wrapped up in self-centeredness and what's in it for me and now's my chance thinking, right? Now's my chance is about me, not about meeting Suzuki Roshi on a beautiful sunny day in the roof garden and, you know, being together. It was about me getting something special from the Zen master and then what? Then I would be special, right? Or whatever. And that is a kind of koan for me. It's like, and it reminds me of this story. It's like I couldn't see or hear the pebble hitting the bamboo the lovely little light show that was going on for us right there on the window, on the glass, because I was somewhere else caught, caught in activity where I was wanting something, you know?

[46:31]

So back to our friend, the sweeping Xionyan, my sense is he wanted nothing. He was just carrying out the life of the self, the self meaning this particular appearance, this one of the myriad things that isn't separate all by itself, a separate guy sweeping. His sweeping was brought brought into being by everything in the universe, the broom itself, the bamboo growing, that sound that was made, that was a very particular sound, never to be repeated. It was that pebble, that size, how he lifted it, how it got carried, where it hit the bamboo, what part of the trunk, fat or thin.

[47:34]

It was unique, unrepeatable, this very moment that was at the very same time the 10,000 things of a man sweeping and a pebble hitting bamboo. And all those things are constantly changing. together, relating, changing, and flowing as one body, one body. So in this lecture that Suzuki Roshi was bringing up where he brought up Momotaro, he's bringing up the importance of knowing and remembering this, he calls it the background, the background of each thing, the background of each, background in the biggest sense, not our, although our personal background is part of background, but the wide, where things are rising out of, out of emptiness and form and emptiness, those are two sides of the coin as well.

[48:54]

Remembering each thing is coming from, arises from, is a gift from, let's say, emptiness. And in this case, prajna, or wisdom, and opening to the way he actually existed, the way we all exist. In this lecture, Suzuki Roshi keeps going over, we have to not forget, he calls it the background. We end up going to one side, the 10,000 things, and comparing and relating and measuring and getting caught by, or there's also getting caught by oneness or according with sameness. But that is not what Zen practice is either.

[50:00]

It's not to get to some oneness or some idea of universal. It is the meeting of each of those 10,000 things and the oneness, the interpenetration, the interdependency, the meeting or the harmony. That's our middle way. We often think, oh, I want to get to oneness, you know, or, you know, that'll be specialness. That'll be, I'll be, they'll be bowing down to me, you know. That is more delusion, you know. According with sameness, one of our poems, teaching poems says, is still not in alignment. Each side is partial. It's how they come together, and they come together in each moment, in each one of us.

[51:01]

So that's the story that I've been turning for years and will continue to turn. It's still turning with me, and this understanding of this background and what comes, this wider sense is, is the kind of understanding that will relieve suffering and help us to act in the world according to circumstances in an appropriate way. If we're just caught in the 10,000 things and try to act and do and take care, it's not wide enough. So... I think I wanted to end with this kind of homage to simple things and also brooms. This is a poem that I've learned by heart, and I'm going to try to recite it to you, called Guilty.

[52:12]

And it points to sometimes our regret at not taking care of the simple things of our life. the most basic things. This is by Pablo Neruda. It's called Guilty. I declare myself guilty of not having made with these hands they gave me a broom. Why did I make no broom? Why was I given hands? What good were they to me if all I did was watch the stir of the grain listened to the wind, and did not gather straws still green in the earth for a broom, did not set the soft stalks to dry and bind them in a gold bundle, and did not lash a wooden stick to the yellow skirt to make a broom for the paths.

[53:21]

How? So it goes. How did life get by without seeing and learning and gathering and binding the basic things? I cannot deny I had the time, the time, but the hands were missing. How could I aim for greatness when I did not... I was never able to make a broom, not one, not even one. Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support.

[54:23]

For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[54:32]

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