Good morning. I haven't been here in a while. Things are different. But as is most often the case here on Sunday morning, wonderful feeling in the room, quiet and what I think of as sacred space.

[01:22]

Sacred space is where you can be yourself. And by that I mean you can feel what's going on inside. And it's okay to do that. And you don't have to worry so much about your performance, what it looks like to everyone else. And you can study and see what you can find out. See what you notice. see what makes sense to you, carefully observing how things appear and disappear. And how there doesn't seem to be anything you can count on

[02:28]

And yet, given that there's nothing you can count on, there's the possibility of being at home in your own body, in your own mind, and in this place at this time. One of our most well-known ancestors, Dogen, says when you find your place where you are, practice occurs and you actualize the fundamental point. You might think the fundamental point, it sounds like the fundamental point is, you know, something you could put your finger on. Have you gotten your finger on anything just yet?

[03:40]

Getting your finger on anything or a hold of anything is pretty much impossible. I say pretty much only because you might think you've done it for a few moments until something happens. allows you to realize you don't have a handle on much of anything. And what you thought you knew does no longer seem serviceable. This week, while I was... I do try to think a little bit about my lecture ahead of time. I'd like to tell you about another time of construction at Tassahara when we were building the new... We were working on the zendo.

[04:48]

It's the old zendo now. This is 1967. Tassajara had been a hot springs resort, and we were turning what had been the bar into the zindo. So we had to take out this big, long wooden construction that was the bar itself, and then the other end of the room had a fireplace, and we put a wooden platform over that, which became the altar, and you didn't see the fireplace anymore. One side of the zendo had a stone wall and then the other side was wood. This is the zendo that burned down, I think it was 1967. So while we were working on doing that, we turned what has since become the guest dining room into a zendo.

[05:52]

And we started sitting there and we started having meals in the zendo. This is a little background for my story. So up until then, we had been serving food family style, and we had tables, six or eight people sat at a table, and on each table we could have, you know, times have changed. We had milk, and we didn't have 2% milk and non-fat milk. We had milk half and half and cream, and we had canned milk. Because some people would like canned milk. And you should be able to have things the way you want. Don't you think? And there was white sugar and brown sugar. And then because some people didn't want sugar, we had honey. And then some people said they'd rather have molasses. So we had two, three, four kinds of milk, and we had white sugar, brown sugar, honey, and molasses.

[06:56]

you should be able to have things your way. I think now this has become a slogan, yes? Somebody, Burger King, says have it your way. Have it the way you want it, just the way you like it. So, one morning we served a tray then with these items and People were passing it down the row. There's nine, 10, 12 people in the row. It takes a long time to pass down the row. So it makes for a long meal. And then the next day we had trays, one for every three people or four people. It was still, when it comes back from the sendo, it was still like 40, 50, 60 little dishes. What do you do with them in the kitchen? So we thought, oh my goodness, this is a lot of work.

[08:00]

So the second or third morning that we had done this, I was back in the kitchen. In those days, we worked in the kitchen and we served the meals. It's not done that way anymore. Now people from the Zendo come out to serve the food. So we were cooking and serving the food. We were back in the kitchen with this... great array of dishes and somebody came into the kitchen and said, Suzuki Roshi would like to give a talk and he wants everybody to be there. So we put everything down and went in to listen to his talk. And essentially he said, I don't understand you Americans. When you put so much milk and sugar, On your cereal, how will you taste the true spirit of the grain? I don't know about you, but I had never heard that there was such a thing.

[09:07]

The true spirit of the grain. What did you think you could put milk and sugar on every moment of your experience and make it taste just the way you want it to? I don't think so. Why don't you taste the true spirit of the grain? Why don't you taste your own true spirit? Everyone you know has a true spirit, and you could taste, and we say in Zen, and as Roshi said various times, you'll be able to taste your own true spirit, and because we practice in silence, you'll get to know somebody else's spirit better than if they were talking. Because when people are talking, you get confused about the talk.

[10:15]

Where is it coming from? Is it coming from their true spirit or is it covering their true spirit? Is it putting out a picture and image for you to look at that so you don't have a chance to see behind it? So he said, why don't you taste each person's true spirit? Taste your own true spirit. Taste the true spirit of the grain of the cereal. This is, you know, a different kind of teaching than you should eat walnuts. No, you shouldn't eat walnuts. Butter's bad for you. No, it's not. We have now a whole, we have science to tell us what to eat and what not to eat. Why would you bother tasting the true spirit?

[11:17]

Just eat what you're supposed to. Just eat what's good for you. And so much of our life is about this, and it doesn't have to do with, do you receive and meet something? Or do you, as some people sometimes say, food is just fuel for the human body. It's just fuel for the body. And, of course, nowadays, now someone has come out with Soylent. You don't have to have food. It's a waste of time, you know, to have to cook and to have to eat. And you could have Soylent and have all your nourishment and go right back to work. And if you want to buy stocks, you can. I think he had his IPO recently. I don't know. This is an IPO. It's something anyway.

[12:18]

And bizarrely enough, he named it Soylent, which is the food from that old movie that turned out was made from human beings, discarded human beings. So I'd like to talk today about tasting the true spirit of the grain, tasting your own true spirit. After that, I started tasting things carefully because I wanted to taste the true spirit. Either way, then we went back to the kitchen and we said, thank goodness.

[13:26]

We won't have to serve and clean up all these little containers of milk and cream and sugar. Let's just serve sesame salt from now on. Sesame salt is, you roast sesame seeds and then grind them with some salt, different proportions, often about eight to one or twelve to one. It depends. So it's one of the main jobs, big jobs in the kitchen to this day to make the sesame salt, or in Japanese, gomashio. We sometimes joke that St. Francis apparently put ash on everything he ate so it all tastes the same. So you wouldn't get too attached to one thing or another. Everything just tastes the same. So we put sesame salt in everything to make it taste the same. I'll taste like sesame salt. So I'm not sure that was an improvement over milk and sugar, but something to step in the right direction, maybe.

[14:35]

But it is interesting to taste things and to see what they taste like before you add milk and sugar before you try to fix things and improve them and make them make something be the way you want it to be. What's that about? And then we think, well, I can afford it. I deserve it. I can have things be the way I want. And of course, this Buddhism says is why you suffer. That wasn't complicated, was it? You want things to be different than they are. And then, of course, you wonder, what's wrong with me? I'm a good person. I practice, and yet things aren't the way I want them to be. So I must have done something wrong. I must not be a really good person. I must be a bad person. Because if I was a good person, things would be the way I want them to be, right?

[15:46]

We tend to think if something is not the way I want it to be, and especially if it's unpleasant, I'm being punished. I must have done something wrong. So, of course, this is child thinking, but child thinking often stays around for a long time. So it's very interesting, of course, to, from a Buddhist perspective to see if you can taste something or experience things the way they are and meet things the way they are. Otherwise, and in this case, Suzuki Rishi was calling this the true spirit, the true spirit of the grain, your own true spirit. And of course, what is interesting about true spirit is it's not good or bad, right or wrong. It doesn't increase or decrease.

[16:48]

It doesn't appear or disappear. It's not coming or going. It's not increasing or decreasing. But we get confused and think, I need to perform better, I need to do things better, and then things would come out better. So we start trying to make things taste the way we want them to. Somehow in our culture, of course, the idea of freedom is the more free you are, the more you have money, the more you have success, the more you could make your life be the way you want it to be. And of course, you're only here in this room because you found some limitation in that large way of thinking in our culture. It doesn't work like that. So I started tasting things, and over the years I've been tasting things carefully.

[17:53]

It's curious. One of the things I noticed is that oftentimes we taste something, and then we taste it to make sure that it's okay, and then we can go on putting things in our mouth without tasting them. And in fact, we think... Something is good and tasty if we don't have to notice it. And this is comfort food, you know. You don't have to notice what's in your mouth. You don't have to experience it. When I worked at Green's many years ago, when Green's opened in 1979, we had some paintings on the wall by Edward Avedizian, who was a modern artist and friend of Baker Roshi's. It was his version of looking out the windows on the other side and seeing the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay and the Yacht Club and the boats and Mount Tamapais.

[18:58]

It was pretty wild. I loved it. I'd look at those paintings. I worked there for four and a half years. I'd look at those paintings and, oh my gosh, it's the inside of my hand. Wow. And I'd feel it inside. And some people would look at the paintings and go, that's so disgusting. You know why it's disgusting? Because when you look at the paintings, you feel something inside. And Edward Abidesian said, I'm not going to paint nice things that you can take it or leave it. If you look at my painting, it's going to go in you, and you're going to have to deal with it. So, of course, in not too many years, those paintings were taken down because there's too many people coming to eat who said, I don't want to have to look at the paintings. I want to be able to not feel things, not experience things, and I'll call that happiness and well-being and be able to have an acceptable experience that doesn't bother me in the slightest.

[20:08]

It doesn't really get to me, even though it's scary or But it's not going to get to me. I'll be safe here. So there's some different art there. There was Mayumi Oda for a while, and now there's Mike Dixon. Mike was also a student of Suzuki Rishi's. So this is interesting. When you taste something, what scale is it on? and I do sometimes cooking classes, and mostly the scale we have is, I like it, I don't like it. And oftentimes if I say, let's taste the blended canned tomatoes before we make it into tomato sauce, people say, what should we be tasting? This is another scale. I'd like to have the right experience and not the wrong one.

[21:10]

Can you tell me what the right experience is so that I could have that one and not the wrong one? Because I would like to have more and more right experiences in my life and fewer wrong ones. So tell me what I should be experiencing. I'll see if I can have my body mind come up with that. I keep trying to say, no, we're just going to taste this and see what you taste. And I'm going to give you some vocabulary in case you're lacking vocabulary. There is a category called sweet. There's a category called sour or tart. A category called bitter. I'm using the five classic ones because I still haven't come around to mumami, even if it's scientifically correct. Sweet, sour, bitter, pungent, and salt. So do you taste salt, sweet, sour? And I also have another flavor categorization for earth flavors.

[22:11]

That's sweet and bitter. Grains are earthy, meats earthy, cheeses earthy, butters earthy, oils earthy. And then stem leaf flavors. Beans, beans are earthy, lentils, black beans. You eat them and it's like eating dirt that you can actually have in your mouth. I mean, it seems that way, you know. And then there's flowery, fruity flavors. So kind of the three parts of a plant. There's root, earth flavors, and then stem leaf, and then flower fruit. So in class, we work on what are these flavors, and can you find them? Can you notice them? But then we're also working on what about the true spirit? Can you taste the true spirit? So tasting the true spirit, you need to kind of move past what you like, what you don't like, because then you aren't going to notice the true spirit if you're stopping at what I like, what I don't like.

[23:22]

That's all I'm going to notice. Do I like it? Do I not like it? Is it safe to eat it? Or if you're trying to find the right flavor or make it taste right, you can't taste the true spirit. And to taste the true spirit of the grain or you yourself, things have to be pretty still. And something in Suzuki Rishi's language comes home to your heart. When something comes home to your heart, then your heart... responds and notices true spirit. Something. And, you know, there's actually kind of a... I've heard, you know, at least in Tibetan Buddhism, there's been a centuries-old debate, and neither side has defeated the other.

[24:26]

You know, is emptiness empty? Or does emptiness have presence? So when you taste something, we have this wonderful word, it. What does it taste like? What is it? Well, it depends on what you're eating. It's hot today. It's cold today. Is that the same it? And of course, what time is the lecture? Oh, it's at 1015. Is that, are all these it's the same it? So things, of course, don't have, we say in Buddhism, abiding nature or self-existing nature. And something will taste differently on different occasions.

[25:29]

And you will be different on different occasions. But when you taste something and you come to stillness and you let the experience come home to your heart, then you will notice. I notice a kind of... It's a kind of a tone. You can sometimes notice a tone or a kind of vibrancy. You're noticing something beneath the surface. So in that sense, it's like the story about the 16 bodhisattvas who, one day it says, 16 bodhisattvas went into the hot baths, hot tubs. They got in the water, they were all awakened. And they said, subtle feeling reveals illumination.

[26:31]

We are all children of the Buddha. In the commentary it says, you know, plenty of people get in the water, they get wet, they're not awakened. What's the problem? And the commentary says they stick to their skins and cling to their bones. It's just, you know, a way of saying, mostly we're thinking like, what I like, what I don't like, what's right, what's wrong, what's good, what's bad. Is this coming out the way it should? Am I doing this right? Will people like this? So we're not, we're sticking to that and we're not, you know, we're not noticing beneath the surface. How are things beneath the surface? And of course the commentary also says, what about when there's no subtle feeling reveals illumination?

[27:37]

a lot of the time. What about that? Is that also subtle feeling reveals illumination and we're all children of the Buddha? And the commentary says, when you can see it, that's also subtle feeling reveals illumination. Suzuki Roshi, of course, talked about this mostly in terms of big mind, small mind. Big mind, he said, is always on your side. And you won't notice big mind when you're absorbed in small mind and how things are coming out and working. But when you show up and taste something carefully, experience your body-mind, your breath carefully, your steps, your sensations carefully, when you're in the midst of what you're doing, when you find your place where you are, as Dogen says, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point.

[28:39]

I once met the, years ago, I was invited to Esalen for a few days to work with the kitchen people. And the head of the kitchen at that time was a man who'd worked at the, who'd gone to the CIA, studied at the CIA. You know, the other one, the Culinary Institute of America. He'd gotten trained there. And at the Culinary Institute of America, everything is, you know, it's very hierarchical. chef, and yes, chef. And then if you want to mix something with your hands, you say, chef, may I use my hands? And then the chef says, yes, you may, or no, you can't. And then you put on your plastic gloves or whatever you do. And, of course, he'd had to adjust to esalen because At Esalen, anybody at any time could call, time out, time out, let's have a check-in.

[30:09]

So then you had to take time out and it didn't matter, you know, when, so the meal times weren't that crucial, you know, in the Zen tradition, when the bell rings, you serve the food, you know, we don't have time outs. Maybe it would be good if we had timeouts. So then you check in and then, you know, people might be anxious or upset or worried or stressed or, you know, and you go around and one person might want. So my friend had gotten used to this. I did that one time at a cooking class, you know. I've been working for many years how to have people be silent in my classes. And I say, I'm here to do a cooking class. I'm thinking you're here to have a cooking class.

[31:11]

For it to be a cooking class, you will have to not talk and let me talk. Otherwise, it will not be a class. It will be all of you talking with each other. I don't call that a class. Maybe that's the kind of class you were looking for, but it's not the class I want to give. So I've been working on this and working on it and working on it. This year, I finally said, I want to give you a tomato sauce tasting. We're going to add one ingredient at a time to do this. Would you like me to do this? Would you all like to do this with me? If you want to do this with me, you're all going to have to be quiet. Is this agreeable? Look around the room one way. Solicit agreement for behavior. Because I've been trying to say, you all need to be quiet. You all, you know, from I am the authority and you need to be quiet. So it's a way, it's like asking for help, you know. Help me, please.

[32:14]

But it's also saying if we're going to do something together, we have to do this together. Are you going to agree to this? So one year... And when people are talking, they're having a good time. So, you know, I don't want to tell people you shouldn't have a good time. I mean, what... If you're telling people you shouldn't have a good time, I don't want to... That seems kind of mean. You should not have a good time. Maybe you can find out how to have a good time with your mouth closed. I don't know what to say. So, many years ago... I had told people, I have this bell, and if you start talking, I'm going to hit the bell, or my assistant will hit the bell, and if you hear the bell, it's like a lip lever. Your mouth closes, and you let me be the next one to talk.

[33:20]

So as soon as I stopped talking, they all started talking. We were going to be cutting something. So you've got to talk about, how did he say to do that? No, he said to do this. And then they're looking at each other and talking, and they're bossing the person next to them, and all kinds of things. And then somebody asked me a question, and I started to answer that question. And then somebody else asked me a question, and I started to tell the second person, excuse me, but I'm talking to somebody else. Maybe you didn't notice because you were talking so much. And before I could tell the second person that I was already answering the question from the first person, the third person asked the question. And so I couldn't even tell anybody that, excuse me, but you all are talking. Then I looked over at my assistant to hit the bell. And she was busy talking. So I had... a fit.

[34:21]

Fairly mild-mannered as my fits go. Basically, I just said, I can't do this, and I left. I picked up my thermos of tea, my little teacup. I was in the student aid near at Tessar, went outside, sat down, poured myself some tea. After about five minutes, my assistant came out and said, I'm sorry, I apologize. I wasn't there, I was talking. After about 10 or 15 minutes, I went back in, and they were still sitting there. Stunned, as you might imagine. Sometimes it helps to be a little bit articulate. If you've listened to Brene Brown, you know, or tapes on the power of vulnerability, they're quite good. And she says, this is not productive. Let's reschedule. And she says, I've done this even in group therapy when I was the leader. You should always have a second leader in case you need to take a time out.

[35:27]

So I came back in, and before I could say anything, a woman in the middle, right in the middle, about three rows back, raised her hand. And I said, yes. And she said, Ed, if you're going to go on like this, if you're going to continue to behave like this, I don't think I can continue, because I had a very traumatic childhood. So then I said, oh, you too, Mom. I also had a trauma. Why don't we talk about our traumatic childhoods for a while? So we spent about an hour talking about our traumatic childhoods. Kind of cleared the air. And then I said, so do you still, we only have about 15 minutes left in our class time. Do you, want to go overtime and have a class, or would you like to just call it a day? I said, no, let's have a class. So we had a class. So we all got along pretty well after that. But anyway, my friend at Esalen, he said, the story, one of his main stories that I still remember is, when he was at the CIA, there was one cook, especially, would come around and say, chef, what are you making?

[36:49]

And then you would say, carrot soup. And you'd say, what should carrot soup taste like? And then you were supposed to say, carrots. This has something to do with tasting something carefully enough to know something about the true spirit or the... What do carrots taste like? And, you know, it's wonderful because carrots aren't trying to be radishes. Radishes aren't trying to be carrots. Carrots aren't trying to be eggplants. Oh, they're so big and purple. Maybe I could be like that. You know, they're not trying to be tomatillos. They're just going to be carrots. They're very sincere. And, you know, they don't have the capacity to...

[37:50]

to have a Facebook page or a Twitter account and put out tweets and solicit, arouse, attract interest. But the tendency is when you're cooking, I want to make this taste good, so I think if we put in some orange, some ginger, some green chilies, and some fresh basil, that's going to be real. Isn't that good? What kind of soup is it? Is that carrot? Is that winter squash? Or is that yams? Oh, well, it's carrot soup. But by the time we season things, oftentimes, to make them taste good, we actually don't know what we're experiencing anything more. And we don't know who we are when you try to make yourself... Basically, if you try to control everybody's

[38:51]

thought about you. Somebody will not like it. But if you are careful enough, maybe you'll be able to respond to their objections. Tell them they're wrong. Interesting. So this is also, by the way, of course, related to the time Suzuki Rashi said, some of you are trying to be good Zen students. Why don't you be yourself? I'll get to know you better that way, rather than the picture you're trying to present of who you are. Good Zen student. I want approval. I want recognition. But this is not just Zen students. If you're a cook, what will they think about your food? Will they like it?

[39:52]

Will they not like it? Do they like you? Do they not like you? Will they thank you? Not thank you? Do they appreciate your effort? No. What's going on? So if you study Dogen and his instructions as a cook, he doesn't say you should try to please everybody, which is more our aim. And if necessary to please people, of course, you should not reveal your true self and you should not allow the true goodness of God. food to come through. Allowing the true goodness of food to come through doesn't mean that you don't do anything to it. But, you know, like lettuce. Lettuce is pretty good, you know, just the way it is, but it would probably be nice if it had a little salt on it. And sometimes it's a little crinkly, too, and you have it in your mouth and it's kind of bouncing around in there. So if we put a little oil on the lettuce and then salt it, that's pretty good.

[40:56]

It slips into your mouth. Now you can really appreciate the lettuce being lettuce. But now it's a little greasy, so you probably want to put, you know what cuts grease? It's vinegar, oil. Cuts it is vinegar or lemon or lime, the tart flavor. Cuts through the fat. Pretty nice. But when you Put such a strong dressing on, then pretty soon you can't taste the true spirit of the lettuce. So we're aiming, you know, the Zen spirit of cooking is how do we bring out the best in things? How do we bring out the best in yourself? How do you bring out the best in one another? Sometimes we do pretty well, and other times we miss the mark. talked long enough.

[42:03]

I want to, but so I think I'll end with my favorite food poem, which many of you have probably heard before. If you've been to other talks of mine, I use it fairly often. It's one of the sonnets to Orpheus by Rainer Maria Rilke. The translation is a combination from Stephen Mitchell and also a friend of mine, Hermann Clausen, who grew up in Hamburg and later moved to the States. He actually was there for the bombing in the Second World War. He was a little boy, three years old. He survived. So the poem is, and I want to mention this because it's... It's somebody tasting the true spirit. It's somebody being quite mindful. Sometimes we use the word mindful like, oh yeah, you should be mindful of what you taste.

[43:12]

But this is a kind of level of mindfulness that is not usual. Our usual level of mindfulness is just, I know what I'm tasting, I like it, I don't like it. I don't need to give it any more of my attention. I know what's what. So Rilkasana is about apples, finally. You'll see. It starts out, round apples, smooth banana, melon, gooseberry, peach, how all this affluence speaks, death and life in the mouth. How all this affluence speaks, death and life in the mouth. I sense observe it in a child's transparent features while she tastes. This comes from far away. Instead of words, discoveries are flowing out of your mouth, astonished to be free.

[44:15]

Instead of words, discoveries are flowing out of your mouth, astonished to be free. Dare to say what apple truly is. Sweetness that feels thick, dark, dense at first. Then exquisitely lifted in your taste grows clarified, awake, luminous, double-meaning, sunny, earthy, real. Knowledge, pleasure, joy, immense. Right away, you can tell, you know, taste, you know, this affluence speaks death and life in the mouth. Most of us aren't noticing that, are we? Oh, this is good. But, you know, in every moment, everything is there.

[45:20]

Everything is there. You know, and we can... Be with everything. Mostly, you know, many things only come in certain moments. It's been there all along. You know, our loved ones pass away, our loved ones die, our pets, our friends, our family. And somehow it seems like a kind of mistake or... And it's a terrible grief. But often we've spent much of our life trying to not to notice that. So then it's all the more upsetting.

[46:23]

I want to say just one more thing and I would like to stop and As you know, I'll be back after tea for visiting if any of you want to come back and we can talk more. But I've come to think that in a very simple way, you know, we're working on as we grow older and especially, you know, past the age of 40. You can do this before you're 40. I started when I was 20, but, you know, we have a whole lifetime we're working on how do I... Realize myself and express myself, my true nature fully. How do I do that? Which is more about your true spirit rather than your performance. Does it look good or not? Does it pass the standards, meet the standards? And I've been realizing it seems to me a big difference between receiving information and then telling things what they need to do to be more the way you'd like them to be.

[47:40]

So, for instance, I studied sensory awareness. I'm with Charlotte Silver. It's very similar to sensory awareness and tasting. And she would say, I would like you to turn your head to the right and then back to the middle. Just slowly, you turn your head. And back to the middle. And even before we would do it, people would say, what should I be noticing? What am I supposed to experience? And she would keep saying, you know, why don't you do it and see what you experience. But a lot of the time, you know, most of the time, and we're oriented much more towards our performance, so our idea of turning the head to the right and back is, get it over, get over there, now get back here.

[48:49]

So a lot of what we're doing is, as I describe in my touch workshops, I describe Most touch is, go over there, come over here, calm down, straighten up. And how often are you touched and somebody's just receiving you? Or do you touch and just receive somebody and you're not telling them what to do or not do? You're not telling them how to be or not be, you're receiving. When you receive like that, you'll notice the true spirit. which is beyond our usual categories of language. But you notice something like Wilka says, this comes from far away. We're all from far away. True spirit comes from far away. One more point about all this. Suzuki Roshi used to say too, you should know whether to relate to the phenomena

[49:56]

the particulars and what you need to do with the particulars or to relate to the true nature and the true spirit and which to do when without thinking about it. You don't want to be, if you're driving your car, you don't want to be like, oh, true spirit, list out. You also want to notice the traffic. You want to notice what's going on and respond to things going on. And other times at some point, oh, and you receive your experience and let something touch you. Thank you. Blessings. Sorry to go on. 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.

[51:06]

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

[51:17]

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