This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. I don't know whether to sing or talk with this music stand, but I do practice compassion, so I will not sing. I want to thank you all for being here. and welcome you all. And it just fills me with joy to be with you. It's a good day when I'm at City Center or Tassajara or Green Gulch. And I wonder who today is here for the first time? Oh my God, John. And who hasn't been here for a while? I want to extend a special warm welcome to you. And I want to thank Tato San Tim for inviting me, and Abbot San David, a dear friend, for taking care of all of our temples in this sangha.

[01:14]

And we co-lead Transforming Depression and Anxiety together along with Paul Irving, which is just a real joy. Oh, I also want to say hello to our friends, our Sangha on livestream. I promise I'm not going to forget you. And a warm welcome to you also. This is a difficult time. What's happening in the world and in the country, along with whatever in our own lives we might be dealing with, challenges, hopefully joys, not just difficulties. And so what I want to talk about this morning is taking refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Teacher, teaching, and community.

[02:20]

This community this morning, a beloved community of practice, I know not everyone here considers themselves Buddhist, so I invite and encourage you, whatever community or practice that you find refuge in, bring that into the room, and hopefully some of my words will resonate, whether you consider yourself Buddhist or not. So I wanted to... begin my talk by expressing gratitude for my teachers and mentors. And the first one is my heart teacher who passed away in 2011, Darlene Cohen. I really wanted to bring her into this room

[03:23]

And her Dharma name, and I want to say it a couple of times, it's Great Spirit Manifesting Dharma. Great Spirit Manifesting Dharma. Sue Ray Kent Po. And the first time I heard her talk in this building, I certainly didn't consider myself a Buddhist or expect to become a Buddhist. And every word, her energy, her presence spoke to me. So here I am. Who knew? And I also want to express gratitude for one of my mentors, the founder of Transforming Depression and Anxiety, Lee Lip. I wanted to really bring her into the room as well. I hope you see the warmth.

[04:26]

and the joy. And her dharma name is River of Patience, Singing Heart. River of Patience, Singing Heart. Nin Sen Ka Shin. And the first thing I want to suggest is that each of us can be great spirits manifesting dharma Some of us are meant to do that in a big way. Most of us, we do that in our corner of the world, in our own way. And I just hope to share a few words about how we can all lift our corners of the world just a little bit by how we live, by what we say, by how we take refuge. And we can all be rivers of patience, singing hearts.

[05:32]

Some of us maybe have little work to do on the patience part. It's okay. Some of us, like me, as part of our compassion practice, only sing in the shower. But our hearts can sing at times. So the next thing that I want to do is invite all of us to bring our teachers, our mentors, our guides into this room, to invite the Buddhas and ancestors into this room. And close your eyes for a moment and bring into your mind's eye your heart, your teachers, your mentors, your guides, whoever they are. One of my mentors, was Miss Giannati, my eighth grade English teacher, who at a time I really needed, needed it taught me kindness, especially with my very obvious, very huge crush on her.

[06:40]

And my Jewish grandmothers were teachers of deep compassion, generosity, unconditional love. Bring your teachers, bring your mentors into this room. so that we fill this room with their wisdom, their presence, what we have learned and what we embody from them. And then I want to ask you to open your eyes and reassure you it's okay for you to talk at this point in mind. my Dharma talk. And just as a Sangha, name your teacher, your mentor, your guide, all together, out loud, just say the name of a mentor, a guide, teacher.

[07:48]

Excellent. And let's bring them into the room. Let's sink into their wisdom, compassion, and teaching, because that's what our practice is. So in thinking about this talk, I reflected on the word refuge and what it means. And being an English major, I looked it up in the Oxford Dictionary. And the literal definition is... a condition of being safe or sheltered from pursuit, danger, or trouble. And that's so powerful and interesting to me because there's no guarantee of safety in this world. We just need to pay a little attention to know that. And yet there are moments and places of safety

[08:56]

and of comfort, like this moment, I hope. So we take refuge in these moments of safety and comfort and learning so that we can sink into and ground those moments and move into the world that's often not so safe, being upright, lifting up and offering compassion when we can. And also in reflecting on this talk and the meaning of safety, the meaning of refuge, I reflected on the Buddha's first teaching of old age, sickness, and death.

[10:04]

I think of our Caroline, who we lost in Tassajara, whose memorial is at Green Gulch tomorrow. Some people we lose sooner than others. And this teaching is very heavy on my heart. because of what's happening with some of our friends. Progressive MS. Bringing one of our friends to a rehab home that's not the best. My 93-year-old father, who is struggling with end-stage kidney disease and... It's very difficult. I'll just say he's a fighter from the Bronx and leave it at that. So we all grapple with all manner of old age, sickness, and death.

[11:09]

And we look, I think, and yearn for safety. And that reminds me of the first teaching I received from Darlene taking refuge in teacher teaching. It was in a meditation group that she had invited me to join. And after a talk, she asked us, what can you trust? And we said lots of things. And when we were finally done with our ideas, she said, what you can trust is Is this moment to be exactly as it is? And I have to tell you, I did not like that answer very much. Because with what was going on in my life at that time, I wasn't liking the moment too much. I kind of wanted the next moments, or maybe even the next year, to come a lot sooner.

[12:16]

And yet I felt the truth of that at the same time. Not one, not two, right? And so if this moment is really all we have and what we can trust, sometimes it's joyful, sometimes it's heartbreakingly painful, how do we sink into it? How do we meet the moment? And what comes up for me, what came up for me in preparing this talk was is the image of the Buddha sitting under the Bodhi tree for 49 days. Can you all bring that into your mind's eye? Not moving, even though there were all manners of temptations, fears, anxieties, thoughts, all kinds of emotions threatening to knock him off his seat.

[13:27]

I see them as the same experiences we have within us and around us every day. And sometimes they knock us off our seat. Sometimes they don't. And yet we have this meditation seat. We have a ground of being, a place of refuge together that we cultivate within ourselves. to return to. So I was very shocked early in my practice to discover that equanimity didn't mean you were calm all the time, and I have to admit I was pretty disappointed. That was my idea. And then I began to learn equanimity is meeting the moment as it is, including when we're knocked off our seat, and noticing and we get back on our seat knocked off back on sometimes we waver a little bit quiver and we keep meeting the moment as best we can that's our practice right and that's what we learn one way or another from our teachers and the teachings and I'm

[14:59]

I'm glad to share with you that these days I'm okay that what I can trust is this moment as it is, even if I don't like it. Because that really is all we have. It really is. So if I don't meet this moment, I am not living my life. We are not living our lives. And Darlene was completely knocked off her seat in her mid-30s when she very suddenly developed very virulent rheumatoid arthritis and was bedridden. And that became her practice, and that really generated her beautiful teachings. meeting that moment of being in excruciating pain after a lifetime of strength and really no illness to speak of, bedridden.

[16:10]

And what Darlene did after seven years of practice is meet the moment by noticing. What are parts of my body that aren't in pain? What can I move with ease when people visit me? What does my body tell me? From whom do I receive energy? And who takes energy? What are these moments telling me about my body and my practice? and what the next thing needs to be. I'm gonna check my watch, because I promised, Tim, I usually don't give long Dharma talks, so I better stick to that promise. I wanna talk a little bit about Leigh Lipp, my other main mentor, and her teachings.

[17:25]

And I had known her for many years. And then she invited me to co-teach Transforming Depression and Anxiety with her. And one of the things I noticed right away was how joyfully she met everyone who walked in to our workshop room and how open she was about her own struggles with depression and anxiety. And how she encouraged everybody by saying, you are doing the best you can. You really are. So keep doing the best you can, whatever that means. And then one of the things that I think we all love so much about her was City Center would baked cookies, which we would have in the afternoon.

[18:26]

And she was like a PSA for cookies all morning because it gave her so much joy. One of those little things, it's easy to miss, that gave her so much joy. And from both Darlene and Lee, one of their teachings, one of the things to notice and learn about both of them was the joy they took and the little things, and the big things. In Darlene's book, Turning Suffering Inside Out, there's a chapter called The Disinterested Pursuit of Pleasure. Isn't that a great title? And that means to notice the little joys and pleasures that are all around us, even in moments of great suffering in the world, in our lives, they're still, they might be very small joys and pleasures to notice and take in.

[19:35]

So one of Lee's main teachings was cookie joy. And taking refuge in Sangha, that's what we're doing now. We come together, we meditate, We're encouraged not to move or wiggle when we meditate together. So that's a gift. And we learn together. And hopefully we receive kind, honest feedback when perhaps we're not so skillful. That's something that Darlene really encouraged us, that within our sanghas, we can help each other by holding up a mirror with compassion and kindness and honesty. And so we take refuge together as a Sangha in the Buddha and the Dharma, learning joys, pleasure, sorrows.

[20:49]

the women's sangha, which Tim mentioned I've been part of for many, many years. And we used to joke that we would grow old together, and now it's happening. We are growing old together. And what a gift, because it's unavoidable. So why not do it together? So I want to close my talk with what I think of as an embodiment of teacher teaching and sangha. And both Lee and Darlene passed away from cancer. Lee passed away about eight years ago. 2016. And she was in coming home hospice. And... all kinds of people were visiting her, and just about every person who visited her brought cookies.

[21:52]

So I went there, and there was the most unbelievable little mountain of cookies you've ever seen. And there was, sitting there, her death doula, someone who escorts, supports us through that process, a member of our sangha, and she was encouraging everybody, leave a cookie, take a cookie, because that's what Lee would want. And I was so struck that even at that moment when Lee was unconscious, she was teaching. She was teaching. So I want to end my talk with that feeling and image. And I... questions and comments I would love anyone who would care to share the name of your teacher and a sentence or two about a teaching you received from them we can learn together from you so thank you thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center

[23:10]

Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[23:30]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_98.25