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. Good morning. Wonderful to see you all here, and I believe we have friends at home who are listening as well. Today we celebrate Father's Day. If you are a father, or if you've had a father, or perhaps you might have lost a father, this is the day that we acknowledge the profound contribution that every father makes to their child's life. So let's take a moment to hold in our hearts a father. It might have been your father or stepfather. Or it might have been a person in your life that was like a father to you.

[01:01]

My father's name was Terry Burgess, and although he died 25 years ago, He's with me every day. I'd like to talk today about the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to. In Hamlet's famous soliloquy, which begins to be or not to be, he cites the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to. It seems to me that everyone I've known well enough to understand why they came to Buddhism, that each person has had some profound experience of impermanence that brought them to practice a great loss, a complete upheaval of their point of view, a disappointment that might have left the taste of ashes in their mouth.

[02:25]

The thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Some thing that comes down the road in the middle of our life and knocks a hole in the middle of our life. You know, and at the time it can be so upsetting and disorienting, but it often leads to the path of practice. I was visiting a friend recently, my friend Robin. I grew up in Pleasant Hill, and I was visiting her. She's had a knee replacement surgery, so I've been spending a day with her each week. And I was going down some stairs, just a couple of steps leading from the kitchen to the dining room, and I stumbled and fell, and I fell right on my face. And Robin thought I'd had a heart attack. And I knew right away that my nose was broken because, I'm sorry to say, it felt like jelly.

[03:34]

There was a lot of blood. There was a lot of pain. And my friend's husband took me to the emergency room. I wanted to be screened for a head injury because that was a distinct possibility. So they did a CT scan, and that verified that I had broken my nose in several places, but that my brain was okay. So a thousand natural shocks that flesh is there to... And I met Robin when I was 11, and to give you the scope of our friendship, we watched The Beatles on Ed Sullivan on February 4th, 1964. And we were together when we found out that Donald Trump had been convicted of 34 felonies. So it's a long, long friendship. Allen Ginsberg said... It's not easy to be in a human body. All the ordinary, everyday suffering that we go through, the mistakes, the falls, you know, the broken bones, the broken hearts.

[04:41]

And it's understandable when we suffer a fall or when we do something that we feel like failed or that we let someone down that we feel a sense of shame. And, you know, that we've done something wrong. And we forget that these kinds of mishaps go along with living in a human body. I thought a lot about that fall and about how in an instant my whole life could have changed. I've been able to focus on my gratitude that it wasn't worse than it was. rather than compounding the injury by beating myself up about it, you know. I was lecturing about this negative tendency we have in our brains. We've learned more about the brain in the last 20 years than on all of previous history.

[05:47]

And something I've come across again and again as I study the brain, researchers say the brain is like Velcro, for negative experiences, and like Teflon for positive experiences. So you may sense this, that we often replay a negative experience over and over in our minds, something silly we said, something unskillful we did. Whereas if something wonderful happens, it can evaporate quickly unless we savor it and unhold it in our hearts and recognize it, you know. I was lecturing about this negative tendency we have, this tendency to blame ourselves for difficult situations. And a woman said, I thought I just did that because I'm Jewish. And I said, well, I thought I just did it because I'm Irish. But, you know, we might as well say we just do this because we're human. And so unless we practice being in constant contact, conscious contact with the present moment,

[06:57]

we're in danger of being unconsciously trapped in that kind of negative bias, replaying old events and rehearsing unfortunate things that haven't even happened yet. Unless we practice being in conscious contact, we can get stuck in this cycle of regret and remorse or dread, worrying about the future. doubting ourselves because of some mistake we made in the past. And for those of you who sat tzazen before lecture, that's exactly what we're doing. We're taking refuge, we're aligning ourselves with things that Suzuki Roshi would say, things as it is, with this present moment. I've fallen a couple of times recently, and what I'm trying to practice with Because I notice when I fall or when I get stuck in this negative loop, I'm up in my brain.

[08:03]

I'm not having conscious contact with the present moment. And so what I'm trying to practice with, and it's amazing it's taken me this long to come to it, but is to have my mind in my whole body when I'm walking. You know, this has been a wonderful... epiphany for me just to have my brain in my feet when I'm walking. And when my whole mind is in my whole body, then I'm in the present moment, not looking forward or back, except I'm trying to look where I'm going. So let's take a three deep breaths together right now. Feel your conscious contact with the Zafu or with the chair you're sitting on and the floor where it meets your feet.

[09:10]

Feel your breath as it comes in and out of your body, feeding and nourishing you. connecting you with all beings. Feel the collective goodwill in this room. Feel your mind in your whole body. Feel your mind in your hands. Feel your mind in your feet. Feel your mind in your heart.

[10:29]

Notice that right now, you are all right. When we slip into the past, we might find ourselves assailed by regrets and resentments. And if we travel into the future, we might fear what might happen. And when I find myself doing this, I can stop and just say to myself, not happening right now. Not happening right now. If we can align ourselves with the present moment, then we will be there with ourselves no matter what happens. We will be able to meet and work with whatever arises in our life when the time comes.

[11:46]

So by sitting still, following our breath, being in the present moment, we'll be much better prepared to meet life on life's terms. I'd like to share with you a chapter from my recent book, The Zen Way of Recovery. An Illuminated Path Out of the Darkness of Addiction from Shambhala Publications. And this book is a collection of Dharma talks that I've given that shows how work in recovery from addiction and our Buddhist path and Buddhist teachings can provide us with an incredible safety net and place to be in the world to help us. Meet the World. In this book, I share my own experience of confronting alcohol abuse. But I think that we're all recovering from something.

[12:50]

We're all recovering from that thing that came down the road and knocked a hole in our life. We're all recovering from some great loss or disappointment in our lives. Could be the sudden loss of a relationship or of a job. something we identified with as our identity, a profound experience of impermanence. Whatever thousand shocks, natural shocks that flesh is heir to may have come your way because you live in a human body, rather than turning away from these things, we can turn towards them and practice with them. So I'm going to share excerpts from chapter 9 from my book, and this chapter is called The Art of Losing. And you might recognize this as a line from a very well-known Elizabeth Bishop poem called One Art, The Art of Losing, One Art.

[13:57]

And I begin this chapter with a wonderful quote from Suzuki Roshi, who founded the San Francisco, Zen Center, and there are people in this room who have practiced with him before he died. Life is like getting on a boat. It's about to sail out to sea and sink. This chapter begins with a familiar story, one of the earliest stories I remember from my early practice. I came to Zen Center in 1975. Kisogotami was the wife of a wealthy man of Srivasti. One morning, her son awoke with a high fever, and by nightfall he had died. Overcome with grief and unable to accept that her son was dead, Kisogotami wrapped the boy in a blanket as if he were sleeping.

[15:05]

and carried him with her wherever she went, asking everyone she met if they could help bring her child back to life. You must go and see the Buddha, an old woman told her. He will help you. Kisakotami walked to a nearby field where the Buddha was teaching under the shade of a tree. She knelt before him with her child's body, cradled in her arms. Buddha, I have heard of your great wisdom and compassion. Do you know some special magic that will bring my child back to life? The Buddha regarded the woman with kind eyes. I can help you, but first you must do something for me. I'd like you to go to the village.

[16:07]

and bring back one tiny mustard seed. But the mustard seed must come from a family that hasn't been touched by death. Then come back to me. And so Kisoko Tami went from house to house, her dead child in her arms. She knocked at each door, but try as she might, she couldn't find a single household that hadn't known death. She returned to the Buddha, finally understanding that loss and death and grief are universal and part of human life. And she was able to place her son gently on a funeral pyre covered with beautiful flowers. From then on, she traveled with the Buddha, as his disciple. This is the story, in my words, of Kisogutami, the story that many of us know, but I've always felt that there was something missing from this story.

[17:21]

For one thing, on this Father's Day, there's no mention in the story of the child's father or of what kind of grief and pain he must be going through. But there's something else missing I think the Buddha trusted that Kisogutami, as she went from house to house, would be invited in to each household and offered a cup of tea. And that she would sit in that circle of family and they would ask her about her son. And she would tell them about him, about the twinkle in his eye and about the things he loved. And they would share with her stories of their loved one who had died. And in those family circles, Kisogotami would find empathy and compassion. And when she rose to leave, she would be embraced and comforted by each of those families.

[18:25]

I think the Buddha must have known that. Yes, death and grief are universal. And so is our need to give and to receive solace. with others who have lost those whom they have loved. This is the jewel at the heart of recovery from addiction. You know, in the rooms of recovery, we share our stories with one another. And we find out that no matter what we may have done or neglected to do in our lives, that our experience can benefit other people. And we come back to ourselves through this critical aspect of recovery. And clearly that's not something we can do alone. Kisogotami couldn't fully grieve the loss of her child by herself either. Kisogotami suffered a devastating loss that led her to Buddha's path. You may have experienced such a loss.

[19:26]

But ordinary losing is part of everyday life. When I start losing things, when I... start falling down, you know, it's a reminder to me to wake up. This kind of distraction tells me that something's amiss, that something is distracting me, troubling me on a deeper level in some profound way. I'm not present for my life. Kalidasa said, look well to this day, for it is life, the very life of life. But sometimes we have to let go of things, to make room for something new to come into our lives. Maybe that's why we lose things. Maybe it's a rehearsal for the letting go that is at the heart of practice and recovery, letting go of things we cling to, letting go of old ideas and habits, letting go of what we've outgrown, and then emerging like a butterfly.

[20:33]

breaking free from a chrysalis. Since I'm a bit of a pessimist, I like to say that when one door closes, another door also closes. But there can be a kind of grace in loss as well. There's something cathartic about taking inventory and getting rid of things we no longer need or use, clothes we haven't worn since the Clinton administration. broken appliances, friends who don't respect us or support us, of family members who frighten or abuse us, and letting go of old habits that threaten to slowly destroy us, taking off the armor that we may have developed in a difficult household we grew up in, a kind of armor that at one time served us well and protected us, but which we can now let go of.

[21:33]

and enter into a more rich and new life experience. Sometimes it is only in hindsight that we realize that some of the greatest losses in our lives were for the best. I grew up thinking I would become a professional actor when I grew up. Well, first I wanted to be an elevator operator, but... I'm glad that's obsolete and I'm glad I let go of that one. But then I wanted to be an actor and I was in community theater. I majored in drama in college and that dream did not come true. But what I did do was I taught third grade for 35 years and I feel like it was much healthier for me and for the world that I spent all those years teaching third graders where that part of me that loved drama was always a part of my work with kids and one of my favorite stories about third graders I was sitting at my desk during silent sustained reading and Nathan Miller walked by my desk and he did this little dance and I called him over and I said Nathan what were you thinking about just then he said Laura do you ever forget you're alive and all of a sudden you remember I said yeah that happens to me too

[22:59]

Another profound loss in life is when we lose people who have been dear to us. The writer Janet Malcolm points out, we are each of us an endangered species. When we die, our species disappears with us. Nobody like us will ever exist again. You know, this is a wonderful paradox to me that in Zen, we say there is no self, which means no independent self. apart from everything around us. And yet, there's no one else like us in the entire universe. When I lost someone dear to me, my friend John consoled me with the insight that in that profound loss, when a loved one dies, we feel the profound presence of an absence. And in this sense, my father, Terry Burgess, is still with me. When we lose someone we love, they are still with us every day, and yet it's hard for us to think of a world without them.

[24:12]

Along the way, the disease of addiction has claimed many of the people that I have loved. Maybe you could think right now of someone you've lost that you love. As painful as it is to lose people and things we hold dear, Loss can offer signposts that we can take to heart, new vistas that we couldn't have imagined, capacities within ourselves that we might never have glimpsed. At the same time, we might be haunted by the memory of something or someone very precious that we let slip away without recognizing their value.

[25:21]

There's a famous Chinese fable called A Blessing in Disguise. that relates to loss or letting go. This is my version of this story. An old man living on the plains of China with his only son, whom he loved more than all the world. This man and his son made a living by capturing wild horses by training and trading them. One morning, the door to their stable was wide open and they found that their most prized black stallion was missing. The neighbors, when they heard the news, came to offer their condolences. What a shame that your most valuable horses run away, they said, shaking their heads in commiseration. But to their surprise, the old man didn't chime in and agree with them. He merely said, with a twinkle in his eye, we shall see. A few days later, the stallion returned, and trotting along beside him was a beautiful white mare.

[26:22]

Again, the neighbors were at hand, what great good fortune that you now have not one but two extraordinary horses, and one of them you got for free. Again, the old man, smiling, merely said, we shall see. Sure enough, bad luck came again. The old man's son was paming the mare when she bolted and bucked, the son toppling to the ground where the horse fell on her. on him, injuring his leg. From that day forward, he walked with a pronounced limp. The neighbors visited again. How unfortunate that your son has been injured by the white mare. Perhaps you should set her free before she does more damage. The old man replied, We shall see. An invading army swept through the land, and all the young men for miles around were conscripted to serve in the army. But the old man's son was excused because of his injury.

[27:27]

You are indeed very lucky that your son has not had to go off and risk his life in this terrible war, said the neighbors. And the old man simply replied, We shall see. When we lose something, when we make a mistake, when something goes wrong, when things don't go the way we want, when we fall on our face, when we don't get what we think we deserve, when our heart is broken, we can't always see the blessings that might be embedded in loss and disappointment. When things seem to go well, we also don't know how they might ultimately turn out. Practice encourages us to throw everything up in the air, all of our cherished beliefs and limiting identities and ideas. For those who struggle with addiction, we know that we are on the right path because in the rooms of recovery, we see people around us who seem to be happy, joyous, and free, charting this new course of life lived without dependence on substances or self-defeating behavior.

[28:48]

But... We can also grieve for some of the aspects of an old way of life since we're in the process of dying to our old selves. Looking back, I can see that in order to fully give myself to practice, I had to give up alcohol and everything that went with it. The romance of it, the abandon it seemed to offer, my drinking companions, what William James in his book, Varieties of religious experience characterized as the big yes that alcohol at first seems to promise. And I'm fond of the wild woman that I was. Because of alcohol, I was brave enough to travel through the Mideast in the 1970s and visit Afghanistan. I could sing in front of large groups of people. I could dance all night and talk to anyone. And in the early days, I could feel more alive and freer than I ever had before.

[29:54]

This is the great yes that William James talks about in the varieties of religious experience. You know, some of us use drugs and alcohol as a kind of door to a higher reality. That's what it seems like. Because of alcohol, I could uproot myself and travel alone to Alaska and start a new life. But because of alcohol, I ended up in a cabin in the snow in Alaska contemplating suicide. I traveled to the heart of darkness, and in that cabin I had a moment of awakening. I sensed within me a glimmer of hope that if I stuck around, there might be more abundant life at the end of the long, dark tunnel. that maybe there was something about the way I was living, the way I was dancing with the darkness that brought me to such a defeated and terrifying place.

[30:56]

I came back to San Francisco and began to come back to life. But to do that, I came to understand that I couldn't bring alcohol along with me. And this is when I came to Zen Center. And later, I stepped into the rooms of recovery because I found that I needed that very direct and vital work that we do in recovery to directly affect the effects of addiction. There's a very particular kind of work we can do there with one another. Again, not by ourselves. There's a wonderful line in an E.E. Cummings poem, I who have died am alive again today. I who have died am alive again today. Losing alcohol, which had been my companion off and on for many years, was a kind of death.

[31:57]

And with it, there was loss. There was grief. Losing close friends. What I got in return for that loss was riches beyond compare. So yes, there is a kind of death and grief. that goes along with any big upheaval in our lives, the shifting of tectonic plates that demands much from us, but all is not lost. We find that no matter what our story is, we have something to offer others. We don't give up that old way of life. We transform it through identification with other suffering people. And that is truly a kind of alchemy. We find that the very places where we are broken and grieving are the places where we can connect with one another. It is in dying that we are born into a new life filled with the riches of recovery.

[33:00]

And it is stepping onto the path of the Buddha that our lives are transformed and that we have the chance. to manifest our bodhisattva vow, our vow to live and be lived for the benefit of all beings. So I hope that in hearing this chapter, whatever your personal experience is, whatever your thousand natural shocks are, that you found something to relate to in your own life and your practice. When I retired from teaching, I began writing books, and I've been very fortunate to find an alliance with Shambhala Publications. My two children's books that are out now are Buddhist Stories for Kids, and there's another children's book, Zen for Kids, and then, of course, the book I've been talking and reading from, The Zen Way of Recovery. These are available in the Zen Center bookstore from Shambhala, in independent bookstores, and in your libraries.

[34:06]

So thank you very much for your kind attention. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. 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.

[34:34]

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