This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. You mentioned when I was welcoming all of you that it's Labor Day weekend and I didn't actually myself know so much the history of Labor Day, and I thought if I was speaking on Labor Day weekend, I might want to know the kind of context of, you know, the weekend. So I did a little history. So I guess Labor Day was started in 1894 after the Pullman strike. There was a big railroad strike that started with the Pullman Company. Pullman was a... railroad company that made kind of passenger cars and dining cars for railroads. And they had a kind of, I guess, a factory near Chicago.

[01:04]

And Mr. Pullman, whose company was, also kind of created like these kind of worker communities around the factories where the workers would live. And they were supposed to be kind of like these ideal kind of utopian communities where everything was provided workers had to pay rent, you know, based on what they were paid, but they were kind of like these worker communities. But in 1893, there was a panic in the US, a bank panic, and there was kind of a depression. And there wasn't a market for these kind of passenger cars and dining cars, which were somewhat kind of luxurious, I guess. And so they decreased their production and consequently had to decrease what they were paying the workers who were living in these kind of Pullman communities, but they didn't decrease their rent. So they still had to pay the same amount to live there, but they were getting paid less. And so there was some kind of upset about this. And the American Railroad Union kind of got concerned about the Pullman workers who weren't unionized and decided to help them.

[02:15]

people were sent to the camps and to the communities to see if they would enlist in the union. And then in order to kind of support their plight or their situation, basically the American Railroad Union organized kind of strikes on all railroads that carried Pullman cars, which affected, you know, huge amounts of kind of railroad transit all over the country and had a huge impact, economic impact and whatnot. And eventually the government felt like it needed to intercede and kind of forcibly kind of ended the strike and disbanded the union. And shortly thereafter, kind of in response to that, in response to the kind of upset of organized labor, they started Labor Day as a way to kind of to honor and show some regard for unions and organized labor. So that's kind of how Labor Day started in 1894. And then about 15 years later, in 1909, the American Federation of Labor, I guess, voted and maybe was supported in other ways, too, to make the Sunday before Labor Day called Labor Sunday.

[03:30]

And Labor Sunday was a day where, I guess, in church, because most people were supposed to be in church on Sundays, people would speak about the kind of educational... and spiritual benefits of labor and organized, organized labor. So probably unbeknownst to most of you, you have arrived at Green Gulch on Labor, Labor Sunday. And while I don't really intend to say that much about organized labor, it did kind of put me in the frame of mind of thinking about labor and work and how it relates to our practice. So I'll have just kind of a few things maybe to say about that. That's mostly what I'm interested in talking about this morning. But I found as I was thinking about this that I really didn't, there were kind of two main approaches I felt like I could go at the question. One was how do we practice in our work?

[04:35]

We all work in one way or another. And sometimes we have some sense that our work is a burden or our work is separate from our practice. Our work gets in the way of our practice or something like this, or we have to work instead of practice. But of course, in Zen, there's actually a lot of emphasis placed on work as practice and the kind of non-duality of our everyday life and our practice. So I thought I could say some words about, well, how do we see our work as our practice and how do we practice in our in our work life and I may say some things about that but the more I turned it actually the question I actually was more interested in in some ways is what is the work of our practice you know or just more generally what is the work of this life this human life what what is your true work and what what do you feel truly called to do and and with both these questions I am

[05:37]

Yeah, I didn't feel like I had answers, really, for either of them. They just kind of stimulated more questions for me and more thoughts about it. And I thought, well, in some ways, that's a good response. I mean, I feel like maybe that actually is the heart of our practice is just inquiry and questioning, being willing to just continuously ask, what is this life? Who am I? what am I here for? What is practice? And to continue to kind of ask these questions with kind of an open mind, or Suzuki where she says beginner's mind, you know, maybe is the most important thing about our practice to have that kind of inquiring, kind of questioning spirit. And maybe if we start to feel like we have answers to the questions, We should maybe actually get a little bit nervous that we think we have an answer, you know, because often where we think we have an answer, we may feel we have something to defend.

[06:45]

And where we feel we have something to defend, you know, suffering and difficulty is not far behind, you know. So maybe that's kind of an initial response to this kind of... question of what is the work of our life and maybe it's to continually question what is this life? Who am I? What's possible? I was sitting in the tea house that we have out here a few weeks ago just as I was starting to think about the talk and just as I had this thought about, oh, it'll be Labor Day and put it in that context and I was taking a tea class and Tea is a really kind of beautiful practice, and the tea room has just kind of this really kind of austere, simple beauty to it, and a lot of emphasis placed on the kind of aesthetics of the practice, the calligraphy and the flowers and the way the tea is prepared. And I was mostly just there as a guest that day, and so I was sitting on my knees in Seiza on the tatami mats, which can get a little bit painful after a while.

[07:56]

So I was having this experience of kind of being in actually quite a bit of pain and also just really appreciating the beauty of the tea house and the ceremony, which I hadn't been in the tea house in a long time. And I guess in the background, I wasn't actively thinking about this talk, but it was starting to enter my mind that I should start to think about it. And this poem came to mind, which is a kind of poem I really appreciate called Adam's Curse. by William Butler Yeats. I want to share it with you and then maybe talk a little bit about him. We sat together at one summer's end, that beautiful, mild woman, your close friend, and you and I, and talked of poetry. I said, a line will take us hours maybe, yet if it does not seem a moment's thought, our stitching is and unstitching has been not. Better go down upon your marrow bones and scrub a kitchen pavement or break stones like an old popper in all kinds of weather.

[09:06]

For to articulate sweet sounds together is to work harder than all these, and yet be thought an idler by the noisy set of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen. the martyrs call the world. And thereupon, that beautiful, mild woman for whose sake there's many one shall find out all heartache, and finding that her voice is sweet and low, replied, to be born woman is to know, although they do not talk of it at school, that we must labor to be beautiful. I said, it's certain there is no fine thing since Adam's fall but needs much laboring. There have been lovers who thought love should be so much compounded of high courtesy that they would sigh and quote with learned looks, precedence out of beautiful old books. Yet now it seems an idle trade enough.

[10:08]

We sat grown quiet at the name of love. We saw the last embers of daylight die. And in the trembling blue green of the sky, a moon Worn as if it had been a shell washed by time's waters as they rose and fell about the stars and broke in days and years. I had a thought for no one's but your ears that you were beautiful and that I strove to love you in the old highway of love. That it all seemed happy and yet we'd grown as weary hearted as that hollow moon. wondered why this poem kind of came to my mind, you know, at this point, kind of sitting in the tea house. And I kind of gravitated to the line about, you know, although they do not teach of it at school, to be born woman is to know, although they do not talk of it at school, that we must labor to be beautiful.

[11:20]

And... So again, thinking in the context of Labor Day and our practice, I was thinking, well, that's one way of framing our practice, that we must labor to be beautiful. And by beautiful, I don't mean kind of outward physical beauty, although maybe that too, but the kind of beauty of being open-hearted and compassionate and wise and kind and responsive that, although in some ways this is our birthright, this is who we really are. You know, it's just a matter of, as I was saying, kind of becoming who you are, that there's a kind of labor involved in this too. And I think I was also kind of resonating with Yates' own kind of expression of his work as a poet, you know, that a line will take us hours maybe, yet if it does not seem a moment's thought, our stitching and unstitching has been not.

[12:30]

And then likening that to kind of hard to hard labor and actually saying it's harder than all that for to articulate sweet sounds together is to work harder than all these. And yet be thought an idler by the noisy set of bankers, schoolmasters, clergymen, martyrs call the world. And thinking of that too as a as a way of talking about practice, really, articulating sweet sounds together, both literally the effort to express ourselves and the difficulty of truly, truly expressing ourselves. I think that was kind of on my mind, too, as someone who was called to give this talk. How do I express myself? How do I call forth my voice? How do I articulate sweet sounds together, but also for all of us, how do we find our voice and bring forth our voice in a world that needs us to kind of be expressing ourselves as fully as possible?

[13:34]

And also the way that, in this case, being a poet, but one can easily maybe liken it to having a spiritual practice that in some ways isn't regarded as work by the world, that we somehow don't think of that as work, that that's kind of idling in some way. And for me, personally, I think this has kind of been maybe one of my greatest kind of personal struggles with kind of now this kind of 18 year long Zen practice that I've taken up, you know, mostly residential Zen practice is this kind of inner kind of struggle I've had about is this real work? Does this count as real work in the world? I certainly wasn't brought up, wasn't raised. You know, when someone asked me, what are you going to be when you're I never would have crossed my mind to say Zen monk, you know, Zen priest. That didn't seem like a... I didn't even know such a thing, but even when it started to come into my mind as a possibility of something I might do, it didn't feel like that's real work in some way in the world.

[14:38]

That's some marginal thing, you know? And so how do we kind of see our practice and give merit to our practice as... as real work. So I think all these things kind of spoke to me in the poem, although in a lot of ways, you know, it's not, it's kind of an unusual poem maybe to bring up in a Dharma talk because it doesn't feel particularly like a Buddhist poem. It's kind of a love poem in some ways, a disappointed love poem. But even the kind of poignancy or sadness of the poem in some ways spoke to me about our practice little background on the poem. Yeats wrote it shortly before Maude Gunn, who is this woman that he was kind of passionately in love with all his life, although at the same time kind of used as his muse for his poetry and consequently kept something of a distance from, didn't kind of consummate his love, but was quite in love with her.

[15:40]

He wrote this poem shortly before she was to get married. So there's something in it, some resonance for him of the of the poignancy or the sadness of her marrying someone else. And while this might be a simple romantic affair, I was thinking too about, really, this is the, for many of us, the path to practice, what brings us to practice the trajectory that we are in some ways disappointed by the world. We have various desires and wishes for who we may become or how we may be satisfied by the world, how we may be met. by the world, and inevitably, in some ways, the world fails to meet us. It disappoints us. We're dissatisfied, sometimes quite devastatingly. So it's really kind of just the Buddhist first noble truth, and it's often in response to that dissatisfaction, to that maybe feeling of dislocation from the world that we come to practice.

[16:43]

And practice is often a way of I would say kind of finding our way back into the world or coming to be at peace or at home again in the world after this kind of dislocation rather than kind of further separating ourselves or kind of taking revenge on the world. Practice is a way for us to find ourselves at home again in the world, although in a way probably differently than we were the first time with some understanding of its impermanence and instability and that it doesn't offer us any. firm ground to stand on. So I felt this too, and Yates writing a poem, and in some ways his practice, his way of responding to that disappointment. So you could kind of see that the poetry making as, as I kind of stand in, at least the way I'm thinking about it, as for spiritual practice. So even though... poem has some poignancy to it. It ends with some kind of hollow heartedness.

[17:44]

I thought, how could I offer a poem in a Dharma talk that ends with being weary hearted? We place so much emphasis on being whole hearted. But in some ways, he's transformed the weary heartedness in writing the poem. He's made something of his weary heartedness that is a gift to all of us and that actually, I don't feel weary hearted reading. the poem. There's something beautiful that's been made out of the disappointment or out of the sadness. So for us, too, I think practice is a composting in this way of our how to make something beautiful out of our disappointments and sadnesses. You know, and there are other ways, too, in which it's unlikely to be offered as a Buddhist poem and the explicit kind of biblical references to kind of Adam's fall and Adam's curse, which to also to kind of bring up the question of of work, and in this case, work as a burden. We have this kind of idea, you know, in Western culture coming from the Bible in some ways, that the fact that we have to labor by the sweat of our proud, you know, kind of feed ourselves is a kind of curse or something that comes out of a kind of fall.

[18:55]

And I think we often relate to work in that way as a kind of of burden i think for all of us there's or for many of us there's uh there can be actually a lot of suffering around work not only because we often see it as a burden but because also as i was saying earlier especially in our culture we identify so strongly you know with our work you know as we all know it's invariably the first one of the first questions you're asked when you meet someone new is what do you what do you do you know as i was talking to someone recently who said he was meeting someone from france and um and he kind of started the conversation with that way you know what do you do and she said oh you americans you know you always start with that what do you do why not like what's something interesting that you've read today or what's what's the most you know beautiful thing you've seen lately or what are you what are you thinking about why is it always you know what do you what do you do you know but anyway that is our our curse our fate in some ways that in this culture we are so strongly identified you know so i think for us They're suffering because we often actually don't maybe don't feel that our work fully does express who we are.

[19:57]

It's not the entirety of who we are. And yet we're so identified with it. And we also spend so much of our time doing it. And and there is often so much dissatisfaction around it. You know, either there's there's too much work. We have too much work to do. And that's a burden or there's too little work. And we feel kind of underused or concerned about not supporting ourselves or our loved ones. So, yeah, so how do we, how can we kind of transform our kind of relationship to work so that we don't suffer, you know, in this way? But I was, you know, I was also thinking about this kind of biblical story of Adam's fault. It's in some ways not that different from the Buddhist story about why we have to practice, you know, in some ways, why we have to work, you know, in terms of our kind of fundamental ignorance, you know. So the biblical story, of course, is that they, you know, Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge, you know, when they weren't supposed to and kind of punished, you know, by having to work and kind of felt shame, you know.

[21:07]

And I thought, well, actually, you know, that's very similar to this kind of Buddhist understanding of our kind of fundamental affliction being ignorance. you know, and ignorance is, you could say, it's actually a kind of knowledge. I mean, it's kind of a false knowledge, but it's a kind of knowledge. It's a kind of deep, kind of innate, you know, view we have of the world and thinking that we know, you know, what it is and how it's made up, mostly that we're apart from it in some way, that we have our own kind of separate, inherent existence and are kind of apart from the world. So this is kind of the Buddhist kind of ignorance. This is very similar to kind of what happens to Adam and Eve when they eat the apple and they're kind of awakened in knowledge and there's an immediate feeling of shame, which they didn't have in shame is of course a very kind of separating kind of feeling. So it's very, it feels very similar to me, the kind of feeling of Buddhist kind of ignorance, the way that one becomes separated from the world and separated from others.

[22:08]

So... So I thought, well, yeah, there's a parallel there, too. So we do need to work in response to this fall, or we do need to work in response to ignorance, to somehow kind of undo the ignorance in some way, or again, as I say, kind of find our way back to being at home in the world. thinking you know what what are the what are the various things that we um consider work or don't consider work or what what might what might we consider work in our practice or how is our our practice work and um you know again in some ways one could again take up the question of like well how do we how do we practice in our you know work but i was i was thinking about all the all the aspects or ways in which we um

[23:13]

aspects of our practice that we don't commonly think of as work, but I think actually are kind of work for us. You know, do we consider kind of letting go, you know, work? I mean, I guess we talk that way sometimes. Like, I'm working on this. I'm working on letting go of this. And I was talking with someone who kind of was thinking about this talk, and they mentioned, like... letting go of the idea of being a failure, for instance. Do we consider that our work, you know? Or forgiveness, or is forgiveness work? Is that labor? Do we think of that as our work, the work of our life? Dogen says the Buddhist way is to study the self. Do we think of that as as our work to study ourselves. Is self-knowledge a kind of work that we aspire to?

[24:20]

Of course, in Zen monasteries, on the Han, the kind of wooden board where the mallets sounded to call people to meditation, there's traditionally a phrase written, great is the matter of birth and death. All things are impermanent, swiftly passing. Awake, awake, each one. Don't waste your life. Great is the matter of birth and death. All things are impermanent, swiftly passing. Awake, awake, each one. Don't waste your life. So I guess some ways you could say our work, you know, the great matter, kind of penetrating the great matter of work and death is our work. We talk about that as waking up. Of course, you know, as I said before, I feel like there's there's the work of finding one's voice, learning to express oneself, which I think is not apart from this this great this great matter.

[25:28]

I was in Buddhism, there's human birth is often this phrase kind of. precious human birth, because the idea is that you can only practice in a human birth. And this idea of cosmology of kind of rebirth, that one needs to be born as a human being in order to practice. And so there's a kind of preciousness to this human birth. And I was recently actually watching a conference that Dalai Vama was at in Portland earlier this year in May on the environment. Environmental Conference, and someone asked that question about given the kind of overpopulation of the planet and the kind of impact on the resources of the planet and the health, the environment of the planet, of having so many people, it doesn't still make sense to talk about a precious human rebirth. Do we still kind of wish for there to be more people born as humans so that they can practice the Buddha way?

[26:32]

I kind of really appreciated the Dalai Lama's response to me. He said a number of things about, you know, what it meant to kind of realize precious human rebirth, which is, you know, we often kind of live our lives as if what's important is, you know, as he said, like, you know, having some good food to eat and, you know, having a nice place to live and he said a little sex and, you know, and these are basically, this is actually basically like being an animal, right? You know, good food and safe place to live and nice clothes and these kind of, creature of comforts, but to really have a peaceful mind, to kind of realize a peaceful mind, peaceful heart. That's to realize precious human rebirth, precious human birth. And then he said, don't actually worry about nirvana. I don't know if he said enlightenment. He said, don't worry about nirvana. Don't worry about enlightenment. Just to create kind of harmonious human society, that would be realizing enlightenment. Precious human birth. So I kind of appreciated that redirection from these almost otherworldly kind of transcendent aims of Buddhism, of nirvana, to, well, how do we just work together?

[27:48]

He's been emphasizing lately kind of one, how do we realize one human society, one human world as a realization of our human rebirth. And it, you know, it wrinkles to some of the, We actually do a lot of work too. It's a kind of ripe, it's kind of topic of labor is kind of a ripe topic as we kind of the summer season is kind of our working season. We've got the farm billions who are producing lots of vegetables and taking care of guests and in conferences. And it's a question that often comes up in our community. Are we working too much or how is our work practice? But in addition to doing, you know, all those kind of the physical labor of taking care of green gulch and welcoming guests and raising produce, you know, this summer we've also been studying the paramitas, generosity and ethical discipline, concentration, enthusiasm, patience, wisdom. So these two are our work. And in some ways, our true work, the other things are kind of vehicles that kind of give us opportunities to kind of express, you know, to express this real work.

[28:54]

And I was talking to someone here recently about that who said they actually really appreciated our work practice for that reason, because they felt like on the cushion, you know, meditating, they could be fine. You know, they could feel like things are all going quite well, but it was actually really when they were in their work position, working with others, having to do things, it was the real test of their state of kind of heart and mind. So in some ways, our work practice is our opportunity to kind of integrate, you know, what we feel like we're learning in our Buddhist practice into our everyday life. day life. There's kind of a well-known kind of Zen koan kind of to that effect as well. It's case 21 from the Book of Serenity called Yunyun Sweeps the Ground, and it's the story of these two monks, Dao Wu and Yunyun, who are actually both Dharma brothers. They were both disciples of the same teacher, Yao Shan, but they were also biological brothers, so they were very, very close, one imagines, you know.

[29:57]

And this story kind of feels like it has a very kind of friendly, playful kind of relationship to it. But Yun Yun is sweeping the ground. And Dao Wu, I think it was his older brother, kind of sees him sweeping the ground. And we don't know quite what Dao Wu sees in Yun Yun. Maybe he feels like he's taking the work too seriously or really focused on really getting things clean, really focused on the results of what he's doing or or whatever, he just maybe seems distracted or something, and he comes up to him, one might imagine even kind of like sneaks up behind him and says, too busy. So Talbot says, too busy. And Yinyan says, he's kind of ready. He's ready to respond to this kind of challenge of, oh, am I not practicing? Am I too busy? Am I working? And Yinyan says, you should know that there is one who is not busy. You should know that there is one who is not busy.

[30:57]

So I think that's kind of the instruction for us, you know, in some ways in terms of our work practice. How do we find the one who is not busy in the midst of our work? How do we feel that our work is actually coming from a place of stillness or some very spacious kind of open mind? Yeah. But Djawab is not satisfied with Union's response. And he says, oh, so are there two moons? He says, you should know there's one not busy. He says, oh, are there two moons? So he's kind of challenging him. Oh, are you saying that there's a reality where there's the one who's not busy, where maybe things aren't happening, kind of nirvana or the ultimate realm, and sweeping, brooming, kind of the relative world, the everyday world, the conventional world. So are you saying there are these two moons, these two worlds? And again, Yunnan's kind of ready for his response.

[31:58]

And he holds up the broom and he says, which moon is this? So which moon is this? So Yunnan isn't fooled. He sees that the ultimate and the relative are completely together, are non-separate. And how do we... see that? How do we understand that our everyday expression of work as the expression of the interconnectedness of all things, the stillness? You know, Suzuki Roshi said at the beginning, you know, it's recorded that he said at the beginning of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, that Zen practice is considered difficult, but often for the wrong reason, not because it's difficult to kind of fold our legs and sit in a cross-legged position, but because it's difficult to keep our practice pure in its truest sense, to keep our intention pure and our practice pure in its truest sense.

[33:07]

Then he goes on to talk about beginner's mind, this mind that doesn't fall into duality, that has this kind of self-sufficient, this kind of open self-sufficient And I think that's part of what's maybe difficult for us about work is that it's actually, that's what's difficult is it's very hard to keep that open, self-sufficient mind, that mind that feels like it doesn't need to gain anything, that mind that feels complete in itself when we're working and when we feel there are things we need to do and things we need to accomplish. And so often it seems I should speak for myself, you know, I feel like, you know, my work is about just kind of keeping up with what I need to do, that the work is kind of just a matter of kind of like self-sufficiency. I'm just working to kind of get through the day and kind of check off the things on my to-do list, or we often think of work as what we need to do simply to kind of support ourselves or, again, support our families.

[34:10]

But there's a kind of poverty in that, actually, in that kind of limited view of working merely to be kind of self-sufficient. self-sufficient. And there's actually another poem I wanted to share with you kind of about that by Patrick Cavanaugh, who also happens to be an Irish poet, maybe the next most highly regarded poet after Yeats, you know, in Ireland in the 20th century. And he's written a poem called The Self-Slave, which is kind of about that, the kind of limitations of self-sufficiency or working only for self-sufficiency or needing to break that through that. And I'll just read. Read the poem. Me, I will throw away. Me, sufficient for the day. The sticky self that clings adhesions on the wings to love and adventure. To go on the grand tour, a man must be free from self necessity. See over there, a created splendor made by one individual from things residual with all the various qualities hilarious of what hitherto was not

[35:18]

a November mood as by one man understood, familiar, an old custom, leaves falling, a white frosting bringing a sanguine dream, a new beginning with an old theme. Throw away thy sloth self, carry off my wrath with its self-righteous satirizing blotches. No self, no self-exposure, the weakness of the proser, but undefeatable by means of the beatable. I will have love, have love from anything made of, and a life with a shapely form, with gaiety and charm, and capable of receiving with grace the grace of living, and while moments too. Self, when freed from you, Prometheus calls me. Son, we'll both go off together in this delightful weather. Me I will throw away.

[36:20]

Me sufficient for the day. The sticky self that clings adhesions on the wings to love and adventure. To go on the grand tour, a man must be free from self-necessity. See over there a created splendor made by one individual from things residual with all the various qualities hilarious of what... Hitherto was not a November mood, as by one man understood, familiar, an old custom, leaves falling, a white frosting bringing a sanguine dream, a new beginning with an old theme. Throw away thy sloth self, carry off my wrath with its self-righteous satirizing blotches. No self, no self-exposure, the weakness of the proser. but undefeatable by means of the beatable. I will have love, have love from anything made of, and a life with a shapely form, with gaiety and charm, and capable of receiving with the grace, the grace of living, and wild moments too, self when freed from you.

[37:39]

Prometheus calls me, son, we'll both go off together in this delightful weather. So Kavanaugh talking about the need to throw off this limited self, this separate self, this self that's only working for its own sufficiency to kind of get through the day in order to go on the grand tour. The grand tour apparently was something that kind of aristocratic... young men in the 18th and 19th century after they'd kind of finished their kind of schooling, their normal schooling education, the Grand Tour was the custom that at that point they would go around the continent, they would visit France and Italy and meet with all the kind of great thinkers and artists and tour the museums. And so that's the Grand Tour. Patrick Havanaugh is actually kind of doing this kind of wonderfully kind of self-ennobling kind of thing, you know, because he himself actually was kind of poor as a church mouse.

[38:43]

His, I think, father was a shoemaker, and he kind of grew up on a farm and spent his early life just farming, doing these kind of practical labors before developing an inspiration as a poet. But this idea that throwing off this small self is what opens us up to the possibility of taking the grand tour of love and adventure. you know, in a way of saying that the labors that make us beautiful. I remember when I was in college and the friend of my girlfriend at the time kind of mentioned to her that, you know, I really needed to go to a finishing school. There was a kind of roughness, you know, in a manner. And I think at that time, I had a certain idea of what it meant to, like, be oneself or express oneself, you know, that I should act on my desires and say what I had to say. But there's a certain kind of roughness or crudeness in that. And I feel like Zen practice is its own kind of, you know, finishing school, that there is a kind of refinement, you know, of being that we...

[39:49]

that we, that we aim at, you know, and ultimately we're kind of like completely finished, right? The self just drops away. Body and mind just drop away. We're completely finished off. Um, I feel like I, in some ways I could go on all day and, um, I notice it's already 10 after 11. Um, what, what I want to say before we leave today, um, I guess in the midst of kind of thinking about work and labor as practice, you know, maybe somewhat ironically, I went off on vacation. I went up to Ashland, Oregon, to see the Shakespeare Festival there. And the week before I was there, or maybe several weeks before, there were these kind of really extreme fires in Oregon. And, I mean, there have been fires. I think we're aware of kind of like many kind of extreme fires lately. You know, all... many different places but the air the smoke from the fires was so bad the air quality was so bad that they were having to actually cancel some of the outdoor the outdoor shows there and um so there was uh there was something a little unreal about being there in that kind of smoky kind of situation by the time we got there the smoke had lifted and we were you know they weren't they weren't canceling any shows but there was a kind of haziness in the air and it um

[41:13]

really felt as if the world was on fire. You know, the Buddha talks about that, that the world is burning, the world is on fire, kind of expression of kind of the impermanence of everything in our kind of continuing to cling and attach to things just kind of doesn't get us free from from the fire. And it felt kind of like that metaphor made real in some way to have the air so so smoky and and but I was still able to see the plays, and I was kind of reading on the plays, and I was reading about this kind of common kind of tripartite kind of structure in Shakespeare's plays where the characters kind of start out in some kind of worldly realm, often the court, you know, some kind of civilized, you know, setting, and then through the course of the play, in the middle of the play, they move into some middle world, what Northrop Frye, a literary critic, called the green world, because often it is kind of in nature, some wooded, outdoor, rural place away from the court or away from the city.

[42:21]

One of the plays we saw is Midsummer Night's Dream, so this is a kind of classic example of this, where the lovers kind of go off into the woods. So these plays often have this characteristic moving off into the green world before the characters often kind of come back, return to the kind of civilized world, having been transformed, you know, in some way. And then I was kind of reading about that and watching the plays. We also saw King Lear, which has its own version of that, you know, where, of course, the play does start in the court with the abdication scene. And then, you know, the play, you know, Lear kind of gives over his kingdom to his daughters, who then essentially kind of evict him, you know, don't take care of him. And he ends up out on the heath in the midst of a storm and literally kind of strips down and kind of goes mad, goes through some period of kind of madness. That this also in kind of the tragedies is also the form of this kind of green world before there's some occasion, some kind of transformation.

[43:26]

And I was... kind of resonated for me a little bit with Zen practice in some ways, this kind of, you know, well-known kind of Zen slogan of, you know, before I practiced, mountains were mountains, you know, and then when I started to practice, mountains were no longer mountains. And after practicing for a long time, again, mountains were mountains. Again, it seemed to have the same structure. And I realized that's in many ways what Green Gulch is. You know, I know I personally kind of spent a lot of time kind of wrestling with what is Green Gulch? Is it a monastery? Is it a retreat center? Is it a community temple where people can come? Is it an organic farm? And it's easy to kind of want to settle on one of these kind of one of these kind of paradigms, and kind of currently in my role of head of practice, I feel like I should, if anyone should know, I should know, you know, what Gringold's is, because I'm supposed to be supporting it to be whatever it is. And kind of encountering this kind of description of kind of Shakespeare's green world, I realized, well, Gringold's is a kind of green world.

[44:31]

It's a kind of place where people can go, where they can kind of leave the world, leave society, leave kind of civilization, and kind of drop their... habitual, you know, identities. That's what's kind of typical about these kind of green worlds and Shakespeare's is often a kind of place where there's kind of mistaken identity or there's a kind of temporary kind of social leveling. It doesn't matter if you're kind of an aristocrat or a peasant or whoever you are, when you kind of enter that middle world, that kind of green world, everyone is in some ways kind of the same. And in the comedies, it's often a place of kind of art and imagination and costumes and disguises. you know, that allow this kind of transformation, you know, of mind. And I was thinking, well, that's really what Green Gold is, is this kind of green world where we can kind of drop for however long we're here, whether it's a morning or an afternoon or a day or three months or, you know, a year or 10 years or 20 years, you know, are this kind of self that we've kind of constructed for the world.

[45:40]

and transform, you know, in some way. It was kind of helpful for me in thinking about my work here in terms of kind of maintaining the green world of Green Bulge. Well, I felt like I had so much more to say, which I didn't get to, but hopefully that all will... be food for you in asking this question of what is your work or what is your true work? Suzuki Roshi used to ask the question kind of in this way, what is your innermost request? And I think as I was thinking about the talk today, I think that's what I was hoping would most kind of come out of the talk thinking about or asking is what is my innermost request or what is. What is my true work?

[46:43]

Maybe one final Irish poem to close. This is just to kind of bookend another Yates poem, which many of you are familiar with, The Lake Isle of Innisfree. I will arise and go now and go to Innisfree and a small cabin build there of clay and waddles made. Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee, and live alone in the bee-loud glade. And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings. There, midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow. and evening full of the linnet's wings. I will arise and go now for always night and day.

[47:45]

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore while I stand on the roadway or on the pavement's gray. I hear it in the deep heart's core. I will arise and go now and go to Innisfree and a small cabin build there of clay and wattles made. Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee, and live alone in the bee-loud glade. And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings. There midnights all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, and evening full of the linnet's wings. I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore.

[48:47]

While I stand on the roadway or on the pavements gray, I hear it in the deep heart's core. 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. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[49:30]

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