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. Sitting long. Zazen is... the practice of fearlessness. You may not notice it exactly like that, but Zaza in itself is fearlessness. It may also be a kind of learning fearlessness. To sit with what arises and not flee, not run out of the room, itself is a significant accomplishment.

[01:13]

So just to keep showing up here day after day is cultivating a capacity in your sambhogakaya body. that is practicing deeply and practicing prior to and beyond your conceptual understanding of who you are. So it's maybe not so easy to have confidence in this sometimes. And maybe even just a little something's happened maybe five years later. And you may think, oh, the situation I'm now in would be, would have been really upsetting to me five years ago.

[02:13]

And now it's just, just merely difficult. And something like that is what I mean, actually, by fearlessness, that fearlessness is It doesn't mean to be without fear. It means to be willing to be present with fear or whatever shows up. I remember someone asked Katagiri, what if a bodhisattva finds herself in hell? And Kadigiri said, just continue. Just continue practicing. Hell is a good place to save all beings. So this vow that we're immersing ourselves in goes beyond our capacity for evaluation and for knowing exactly what we're doing.

[03:27]

So it's pretty difficult sometimes. I know there's a lot of grieving going on in the room. There have been maybe more deaths than usual for people involved in this practice period. People are very close to people here, whether a relative or a very close friend. Clearly it's been one of the themes of what's coming up. So how to respect and appreciate this practice of impermanence, of this being presented with this fact in our own bodies, because our bodies are connected to each other. By body I also mean mind.

[04:38]

And heart is all connected with each other, so we feel it. We feel a loss in many ways. And so to sit and be present with the waves of the kind of disturbance and confusion, when there's something that one is depending on and it's taken away, then you realize how you depended on it. maybe just to be there, just someone to be there. And sometimes it's not a death, but it's just some change or some relationship that's rocky or difficult or ended. Some relationship ended.

[05:40]

Now there's still some relationship. But what is it? Don't know. That's scary. And the world is a difficult, chaotic, tremendous amount of suffering. I was... just learned yesterday that France, the government of France, formally recognized the rebel coalition in Syria as the new government of Syria. And so now other countries are wondering, is France now going to arm the rebel coalition? And I don't know if people are aware that Assad's government is heavily bombing areas that are now held by rebel groups. France has a long history of supporting rebels, supported the American rebels.

[06:49]

1770s and 80s. And Israel just attacked Hamas and killed some significant leaders and so this is my thought is oh they're trying to take advantage of the right now Egypt's weakness politically so there's all this strategic violence going on in the name of security people trying to be more secure and people trying to be more free or people trying to get power. It's very complex. So in a way, we're spared some of that here in this valley.

[07:56]

And yet it's part of the fabric of our lives as well. But we may notice it. Similar kind of things we may notice in very small ways. By the way, who's this chair for? Okay, okay. You have a seat in reserve. Someone said there's... feeling of, oh, there may be someone else here in the valley where you don't feel so, your relationship is so smooth. Someone said, it feels like, when I'm near this other person, it feels like sandpaper.

[08:59]

Oh, okay. Sandpaper on soft skin. I was wondering, well, what grit? What grit of sandpaper? How do I meet someone? How do I understand the relationship when there's grit in there? What's the coarsest? I don't know, 15? I'm looking at you because you're a carpenter, right? There's much coarser grades than 80. You're a very fine carpenter. I think when we ground down the Zendorf floor at Green Gaul, it's a big belt sander. I think Reb was in there for days grinding it down. I think it was about a 15 grit or something. It's like big rocks on the drum.

[10:03]

It was a drum, I think. And... But yeah, it makes a difference. Makes a difference, doesn't it? But it's maybe good to have some curiosity about that. Oh, this relationship feels like sandpaper, so what good is it today, right now? Is it 80? Or is it 120? At some point the grid gets so fine, maybe when it's 200, 250, something, it gets so fine it actually feels smooth, right? Oh, still a little something, a little catchy, you know. A little slightly abrasive, maybe. But still, could be kind of nice. There has to be something, you know, to even feel, even to feel this, there has to be something that catches a little bit, right? Even to feel smoothness, there has to be some, something.

[11:06]

that fires those synapses. So we can attend to that and attend to it within ourselves as well. There are different parts of ourselves that may not be so comfortable. Since I've been somewhat sick, Variably, the last few days, it's like, okay, there's some parts of me that don't feel so comfortable. How to make friends and take care of that is ongoing. But, you know, Dogen, in the poem I was quoting a few days ago, was saying, you know, in our non-thinking, there's completeness in non-merging. So even though we think of it as separate because one side of the sandpaper is different from the other, we think of it as separate.

[12:16]

We experience it. We actually experience it as difference. So what does he mean? He says, this is already complete and non-merging. I wanted to thank the Tanto-sama, Greg, and ATT-sama, Leslie, for your talks. And it partly came from me being sick, and then I thought, well, this is actually wonderful to have different voices. perspectives, different perspectives so we can see how wisdom is revealed, different facets. And so I've asked a shuso to give a talk tomorrow.

[13:25]

And we'll see. But I think it's one of the great, I say, benefits of having a nine-day session. more space for different voices to be heard and also for silence to be heard. So the silent day yesterday, I'm wondering, how is that for people? Is it just me that likes silent day? Anybody like silent day? Yeah. Looks like a majority. So I think, well, maybe we should just have Silent Day. But it's interesting. Having a little variety, we appreciate it, I think. But I really appreciate being able to just sit, not doing Doka-san.

[14:27]

Of course, doing Doka-san is wonderful, but having a time that all the practice leaders are sitting here together with everyone, I feel. has a real strength and supports me in my own practice. So, yeah, silent day. Not so much entertainment then. Still, there's quite a bit of entertainment. The serving crews are particularly... so thank you all lunch time breakfast Lisa you were particularly at that moment very unusual moment

[15:35]

When you're just about finished serving and everybody's ready to bow out and start eating and then someone drops something. And I was watching Lisa over there. She just poised at the door saying, should I go pick it up or should I bow out? There was still a server over there coming back and the timing was, I thought that was beautiful. You held your ground. for you know two seconds there or something which then meant okay we can all start eating tough decision and Greg in his talk gave you know some time to venerating and respecting teachers and So we've had Sojin Weitzman Roshi here.

[16:40]

By the way, the word Roshi, interesting, interesting term. And we're not so comfortable. I should say, we've also invited, I have, I have invited Zen Tatsu, Richard Baker. Roshi, to come and visit in a few days. So I just thought I'd give you a heads up. This will be a family visit. Just be here for a day, for one full day, two nights. So after the Sashin ends, we have a personal day. And toward the end of that day, I think, Richard Baker and family, his wife, Marie-Louise, and daughter, Sophia. Daughter of Sophia is 11. and has never been here. And her father, of course, has spent many years here, and she's heard a lot about the place.

[17:45]

So I thought, okay, this is an opportunity to invite them while they're in the Bay Area for some other Thanksgiving. And then, so after I did that invitation, then the request came, well, could we have a couple more? So Elizabeth Baker, who hasn't been here, I think it was since she was four, four years old, and also Richard Baker's daughter from previous marriage. So I said, I consulted with the practice committee. And we said, okay. So I hope it's not too disruptive. I think basically you'll just come and follow the... schedule and for a day. So I think for my old teacher, Zentatsu, it'll be just interesting just to see what does it feel like to be here in the Zendo now for a day of practice period practice, which I know he hasn't been able to do since 1983.

[19:02]

If it's a problem for anyone, you can let me know. And then we'll work with that. And we'll see. I wanted to mention the word Roshi then. I remember when I was studying with Robert Aiken, once I said... This word Roshi seems to be causing some trouble for people. He says, I think we should have never started to use it. But now we have. The cat's out of the bag. He said something like that. But... So I use it sometimes just in context, not as a title.

[20:07]

At Zen Center or San Francisco, we don't really use it as a title. We don't give anyone the title Roshi. But we do use it in context of respect, say, of respecting an old teacher. old, not necessarily means years, but doesn't necessarily mean old in years, but means there's some sense of seniority. And someone is maybe farther on the path. And it is recognized as a teacher. And so this This seat here is for the... Sedo seat means west side.

[21:14]

West side Roshi. That may bring up a whole lot of associations, right? West side story. Yeah. I've got to stop. I've been working with pretty well. I used to have a lot of music that would just kind of play subconsciously or consciously. But I learned if I actually attend to the present moment and the soundscape now, then that's completely sufficient. But I do, since I do like music, and if I'm careless, and not just attending to the soundscape now, then, oh, something may pop up and take over.

[22:33]

So little things trigger it, you know, West Side Story. So Sojin Roshi. So now actually, with Beika Roshi, with Suzuki Roshi and Beika Roshi, we used the last name, Suzuki Roshi and Beika Roshi. Now we tend to use their Dharma name, the person's Dharma name, and Roshi. Like we say, Sojin Roshi. Some people refer to me. I just got an invitation to go to Texas and it was addressed to Myogen Roshi. So now I'm thinking of Zen Tatsu Roshi. By coming back to Sojin, one of my teachers, just one little vignette. I asked him, you know, we have this whole teaching of not thinking of good or bad.

[23:43]

This goes back to, well, we don't know where it goes back to. But there are many cases, you know. And for example, in the Platform Sutra, when the sixth ancestor was going away with the robe and bowl, And he's pursued. And the former warrior general who's on his tail catching up with him can't pick up the Roman ball. Hoi Nung puts it on the rock. It can't be picked up. And so then he says, can you help me with some Dharma teaching? And so Hoi Nung says, don't think of good or bad. And then he waits a while. He says, now your mind, you know.

[24:46]

Now your mind is this mind, true mind. So given that, I asked Sojin Roshi, he said, so we have this teaching of going beyond good and bad. but isn't it better to incline toward the good? He said, our practice is upright. And that really was helpful to me, really clarifying at that time. This can be This can be confusing, you know, wanting to incline toward good, incline toward being helpful without realizing a true mind, without realizing being upright.

[25:50]

So you can't actually be helpful unless you solve that, resolve that, you know, being upright. Um... So I wanted to venerate another of my teachers today because this little book showed up in the mail last week. This little book, Walking in Beauty. This little book has been a long time coming, I think anyway. This is some stories by Harry Roberts. So Harry Roberts was my teacher, one of my teachers while I was living at Green Gulch. He came and stayed and visited and lived at Muir Beach at Yvonne Rand's place and would spend a lot of time at Green Gulch consulting.

[27:03]

and teaching, and he knew a lot about everything. He knew, like, here we are, you know, we have mountains and trees and water. He knew a lot about mountains and trees and all the plants. And so Harry, Just to give a little bit of background. I'm going to read the story. So in a little bit it'll be story time. But the preface to the story, just to say, Harry, a unique individual, he was Irish-American. His mother and father actually were living in the East Bay. His mother actually was raised in a pretty wealthy family.

[28:07]

Owned most of the East Bay, actually, at one time. But then, that's a whole other story about how that changed. But his father got a job working for a big canning, salmon canning. company. And so they had a base of canning factory up near the mouth of the Klamath River, Northern California. The Klamath River was the place that the Yurok people, Yurok lived there for a long time before the 49ers came. and wiped out most of the indigenous people in California. But because it was kind of remote up there on the Klamath, those tribes still continued to be able to survive.

[29:14]

And actually, it was Harry's mother. Harry's mother recognized that the Yurok were a more highly evolved culture than her own. That's the way she felt. The Yurok were more highly evolved. Spiritually, she really encouraged Harry. He started going up there when he was seven or eight, maybe six, seven or eight years old, something like that. And they would spend the whole summer up there, at least, maybe six months out of the year, like the Tassajara summer season here, they'd spend up there from that time on. And there was an elder teacher named Robert Spot. And so the family of Robert Spot became Harry's family.

[30:30]

He learned how to be a true person under the tutelage of Robert Spot over a long period of time, starting quite informally when he was young and when he was just a little boy. And then when he became more an adolescent, then he began doing serious, what he called high medicine training. And then... Harry's... I think he was married when he was 16. And his wife died, I think, when she was 18. I think they were both the same age. They had been down in Brazil and came back, and she had some tropical disease that she died from. And then he was... really in grief from that loss.

[31:35]

And so from that, he really then became a very serious student of Robert Spott and completed his training. So I studied some with Harry at Green Gulch from maybe 75 until he died in 1981. He always said, well, I'm sorry, I can't really teach you so much here. We'd have to be up there on the Klamath River. And so there's something about this indigenous teaching that involves connection with the land. I have another little side note. I asked Little Bear, our local Esalen teacher here, to ask him about how long does it take to become indigenous?

[32:46]

I just asked him a few weeks ago. And he thought a moment. He said, you Zen people are already indigenous. because you respect the land. So he's just being very kind. Because the Yurok lived in that place on the lower Klamath for at least 10,000 years beyond our usual frame of reference, even beyond our Buddhist frame of reference. 10,000 years of continuously being the people There's the blue jay, there's the woodpecker, there's the bear, there's the salmon, there's the river, and there's the people, the human beings in that whole mix.

[33:50]

So feeling over thousands of years, having a stable presence as being this part of creation as the people. Pretty hard to imagine. Pretty hard for us to imagine. The profound sense of place. Anyway, Harry stepped into that culture and absorbed a lot of it. Of course, things were rapidly changing in the early days. 20th century, early 1900s. He was born in about 1906, I think. And this story that I'm about to read has become part of our own American Zen lore. This is the brush dance story, and it's been printed in the San Francisco Zen Center wind bell.

[35:00]

It's good to read it once in a while. And this story took place when maybe Aries 11, been around there a few years. He translates, and of course this is in English, but his teaching is, he's translating it into English. The word he uses here for man, I just want to explain, pegark, yurak pegark, means person. usually means man, but also it can mean a developed or complete person. So it can mean, it can go beyond gender and mean woman, whose functions like a healer or priest. So man, when he says man, you might keep that in mind.

[36:05]

So this is Harry's story of the way he learned something. Uncle. So when he says uncle, uncle is referring to Robert Spot, his teacher. Uncle was sitting in the morning sun in front of his house, fixing the feathers on the long head wands for the brush dance. He had made a pot of sturgeon glue and was very carefully smoothing the feathers down and gluing new feathers in where the old ones were damaged or torn loose. He was working very carefully and slowly for this was very fine, difficult work to do. I looked over one of the wands that he was repairing and I could barely see where the feathers were damaged. I told him that I didn't think that he had to repair that one, as I could barely find the damage.

[37:08]

Uncle just looked at me for a while, and then he asked me what it was that the wand I held in my hand was. I said that it was a brush dance wand. Uncle waited for a while and then asked me what it was for. And I told him it was for wearing in your head ring when you danced the brush dance. And that since one danced at night, no one could see that I was very slightly damaged. He looked at me some more. And finally he said, But I know. We sat in the sun and I helped him. fixed the wands, and after a while he said that it was about time that I should begin to study to be a man.

[38:10]

He would start asking me the questions that a man must be able to answer so that I could understand the law. I asked uncle what was so hard to understand about the law. It seemed very simple to me because there was but one law, and that was merely, be true to thyself. Uncle asked me, if you understand the law, why do you not understand why I am fixing my wands? This I could not answer. So he said to me, let us start over again. What is it that you are holding in your hand? I answered, a wand. Uncle made no answer. He quietly kept on repairing his feathers. After he had finished, he put them away and went to work chopping wood for the fire.

[39:16]

When he had finished his wood, he got out the dip net and mended it and started down to the beach to see if he could catch some fish for breakfast. He still spoke not a word to me. I asked him if I could go fishing with him. He merely looked at me and said nothing. I could not understand why he wouldn't speak to me. Finally, I asked him what was the matter. Had I offended him? He smiled and said, No. It was he who had not wished to offend me by interrupting my thoughts before I had finished answering the question. I said, but I answered the question. I told you what it was. He just looked at me some more and said nothing.

[40:18]

So I thought and thought and thought. And finally I told him, it is a head wand for the last night of the brush dance. He looked at me and slightly smiled and said, by which I knew that he meant, yes, that's a little better. It will do as a start. Now let's go after the answer. So I said, it is to show how rich you are, because it is the best and most expensive of all the wands on the river. Whereupon Uncle looked upon me with disgust. and said, I thought that you wanted to be a man. Why don't you start to think like one? After having so expressed himself, he left and went fishing.

[41:22]

Now one more word was addressed to me that day. The next morning, Uncle was again sitting in the sun in front of his house. This time he was making some bone arrow points. He had been soaking the bone for several weeks in the creek, and it was nice and soft and just right for cutting into shape. I sat beside him to watch how he carved the bone and to see how he cut with the grain so as to cut more easily. Finally, he looked at me and said, Well, this was very bad for me. For uncle only spoke this way when he was very, very angry. I had seen big grown-up people cast their eyes aside and blush when he so addressed them in council meeting. I had even seen important men leave the council and start out a long pilgrimage to the high places when so addressed.

[42:33]

I was only a small boy and so I just cried. So his uncle says, well, yeah, I was only a small boy and so I just cried and ran and cuddled up with my dog and told my dog how hard it was to be a little boy. to have such a great man for an uncle. And my dog understood. And licked my face all over, and especially my ears. Presently, Uncle came to me and inquired if my ears were now clean enough to listen with. And did I still wish to be a man? I said, oh yes, I did. Uncle said that since I was such a little boy, he would help me a little more, so I should tell him again what it was that the brush dance wand was.

[44:07]

This time I told him that it was the wand which one wore in his head ring on the last night of the brush dance for the final curing of a sickness in the person for whom the dance was being held. Uncle smiled and said that was a little better. But what was the brush dance really all about anyway? I said that it was to drive out the evil spirits which were making the person sick. Uncle looked at me and shook his head and said, You sound like a superstitious old woman. I shall be kind to you this time and tell you all about it. So he spoke. When a person is sick with a sickness that people cannot see, It is then for that person we hold a brush dance. In the brush dance we sing funny songs and make jokes to let that person know that there's fun in the world.

[45:09]

While everyone dances around the sick person, the doctor talks to the patient about what it is that troubles him. When that person sees he's surrounded by friends who are singing happy songs to make him feel better, Then he feels that people care for him. He feels safe and tells the doctor what it is that bothers him, and the doctor tells the patient what he can do about his troubles. On the last night of the dance, everyone brings out their very best costumes. These costumes represent hundreds of hours of very careful work. They are made of the rarest and most difficult to obtain materials. They have been kept in absolute perfect condition. Never does a costume ever show any wear or that it has been used before. Everything is perfect. These costumes are the most beautiful things we have.

[46:13]

Thus, when one dances before the sick person in costume, it means that the dancer has cared enough for the patient to go to all that trouble in the hope that he can help the patient. Now, how could I respect myself if I only went halfway or three-quarters of the way to help someone? If I'm not going to help all the way, it's better that I don't go to that dance at all. So when I make a brush dance, the patient knows that I am all the way for him. Then he feels reassured and will quite likely get well. This is what the brush dance wands represent. This is the way to be true to yourself. Now let us see if you can think like a man the next time we have a question.

[47:16]

Then it was that I saw that the law was not quite as simple as it appeared. I realized that to be a man meant to be proud to yourself in everything. You could never be less than all of yourself without breaking the law. When I finally understood what a person who entered a brush dance was doing, I then wanted to know just what the dance meant, why it was danced the way it was danced. I asked why the dancers did not all dance up and down in unison. Uncle said, the dancers do not all go up and down together because the world is like a canoe. If everyone leans to one side of the boat together and then the other side together, they rock the boat and pretty soon it turns over. I asked what the solo dancers were doing when they jumped in the middle and acted so strangely.

[48:21]

He said, don't you remember the story of how when the world was reborn, creation appointed the giant woodpecker to go around the world and report to him how things were going? So in this dance, men who have a pure spirit jump in the middle and jerk their heads back and forth like a woodpecker and spread their arms and fly around and sing the woodpecker song and everyone wears woodpecker scalps and this is to remind the great woodpecker spirit that there is someone who is sick and he should go and report it to creation so that creation will lend his strength to the doctor so that the sick person can get well. So that's the Fresh Dance teaching story. And this is maybe another pointer to what I've been talking about, about being a friend, making friends with yourself in Zazen.

[49:39]

It means to be all the way with yourself. And being friends with each other is to not abandon them. To show up completely. What can be clearer? Thank you for listening.

[50:37]

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