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. Please enjoy the clean and fresh air after the wonderful rain. I cannot believe it is already the end of November. This year went by so quickly for me. After the end of last December, I came back from a three-month practice period at Tassahara Monastery. Since then, I have been working in the Green Gooch Garden. Starting from pruning hundred roses in January, then pruning apple trees, sowing flower seeds in a greenhouse, preparing garden beds, making and adding compost, weeding after weeding, transplanting baby plants in a field, planting 180 daria bulbs,

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harvesting flowers, herbs, apples for the markets, restaurants during summer, making green goch salves, jams, and dried garden herb teas. Now we are almost finishing to sow the cover crop seeds to rest the garden until the next season. Yet we will soon have to plant 900 tulip bulbs for the next spring. When I started thinking about what I want to talk about in this Sunday Dharma talk, without choosing any specific subject, I just started typing. After I finished about two-thirds of the talk, I realized that this is my thoughts regarding winter, my winter contemplation 2018.

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I hope this talk will not be too abstract for you to listen. The traditional name of the month of November in the Japanese calendar is called Shimotsuki, which means the month of frost. This is quite understandable in our experience, although this global warming has been challenging to our seasonal and environmental norm. Shimasu is another traditional name in the Japanese calendar for December. It is written with two kanji characters, Shi as master, teacher, or priest, and Wasu as two run. There are several theories for the origin of this name.

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One of them is that December is so busy that even a priest has to run in order to go around the houses of Sangha members to chant Sutras for their ancestors. Our full practice period started on October 17th, and it will soon come to the end in December. Before we complete the practice period, We will begin a seven-day Sesshin on December 2nd until 9th. This Sesshin in December has a special Japanese name called Rohatsu Sesshin. I have heard many Western people translate Sesshin as touching the heart or mind.

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It is a beautiful translation. And I do not have any objection about this. And probably it is correct. However... However, growing up in Japan for the first 20 years, I have a different feeling for the first kanji character, Setsu. We don't use this character Setsu so often was something actually touching. We have another character for that, which is called shoku. To me, the word sesu means more like being very close to something or standing right next to. Also, there is another meaning of welcoming something.

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although this meaning is not used often. Therefore, my translation of Sesshin is very close to the mind, standing right next to our heart, or welcoming the mind. I like it. My experience of Sesshin is like that, although I am sure that Some people do not agree, and I welcome your feedback. Rohatsu is a Japanese word for eight days of the 12 months. December 8th has became the day Japanese Zen Buddhists observed the enlightenment of the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni. Traditionally, this observation sometimes called Body Day, was held on eighth day of Ae, 12th lunar month, which often falls in January.

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However, during the Mage Revolution in Japan, which I believe 1862 to 1869, Japanese adapted the Gregorian calendar as a result of the westernization. Japanese Buddhists also adapted fixed days for many Buddhist holidays, including Buddha's Enlightenment Day. Many schools of Western Buddhists have also adapted December 8th as Body Day. Body means awakened in Sanskrit, although we tend to say enlightened in English. On the last night, It is our tradition that those with enough stamina sit in meditation through the night. Two years ago, through summer to winter 2016, I was in a Japanese Sotoshu training monastery, participating in

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a practice period, and I sat over there. What I remember the most is that it was cold. We sat three periods of Zazen every morning, starting from 4 a.m. I felt the first period was always okay because... My body was still retaining some warmth from the bed. Then I felt colder and colder when the period progressed. I wanted to so badly cover my fingers and head, but of course it was not allowed. I could not think anything, but I was cold. I had never experienced that cold temperature even I was in Tassahara Mountain Monastery.

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I had so much mixed feelings in a practice life in Japan because I had so many expectations which I did not know until I got there. However, one of the simplest and the most straightforward teaching I received in Japan is that summer is hot and winter is cold. 12 years ago, fall 2006, I did my first practice period here at Green Goch, and sat my first Lohatsu Sesshin here. The practice period was led by Eijun Rinde Katsuroshi.

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The night before my first session, one of my friends told me that Daigan was looking for me. Daigan Luke lived here and Tazahara for many, many years. He was the husband of Erling Luke, a serious Zen practitioner and Zen priest, a pessimistic realist and great poet and painter and more. He died in 2015 at age 84 here at Green Goch. That Daigan was looking for me badly the night before my first session. Finally, when I saw him, I asked, is everything okay, Daigan? Something happened?

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He shook his head, then took a small package from his pocket, gave it to me, and said, I thought, you may need this. for your first session. It was a bar of Hussey's dark chocolate. I was so touched. Someone who was older than my dad, worried and cared about my first session, actually went to a store and bought a chocolate bar for me. I still have this wrapping paper in my treasure box. Unlike many people I spoke, I have not had any amazing or euphoric experience during sessions. My sessions so far have always been somewhat unexcitable.

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Yet, I enjoy it very much most of the time. I have a story about myself that I am an introvert. I mean very introvert. I am not shy. I don't get nervous about giving public talks like this or sharing my thoughts, feelings, or views at public space. However, I feel very exhausted in social situations and I find small talk incredibly difficult. Such a person finds session is an enjoyable social event. We sit together facing a wall quietly for seven days. We maintain silence as much as possible even when we are not sitting.

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We are not supposed to read check emails, or make phone calls. For some people, this sounds crazy. But actually, it can be very intimate experience with myself and with other people. We observe our mind. We observe our thoughts and feelings. We observe our same old stories, which makes us suffer over and over again. We observe each feeling, such as anger, sadness, boredom, irritation, pain, jealousy, and occasional joy, comes and goes. I try not to push it away when a difficult feeling arises.

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I try to welcome it, and if I can, I try to be kind to it, being with it for a while until the next guest arrives. Once I asked my teacher, Tenshinoshi, when I cannot be kind, to my anger, what should I do? My teacher asked me back, can you be kind to the person who cannot be kind to her own anger? Since then, I have been trying. I sometimes ask myself, here is Yuki, who cannot be kind to her own anger, Can I open to this person? Can I be kind to this person? Even without having any answers to my own questions, I keep asking.

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That is sometimes the closest place I can be with my difficult feelings. Some other time, because of all the causes of conditions, I felt enormous energy in my body when I welcomed my anger without knowing what to do with it. But no worries. That did not last long either. It passed. This simple process is not easy than you think. And everybody in Sesshin is observing their own mind. silently, facing a wall, period after period, and day after day. I think I cannot sit silently for seven days, or even one day, just by myself.

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However, I always have a quiet confidence that I can make through a seven-day session other people's presence and effort. Each individual's effort gives me the focus and energy to sit through and study the Self. During the session, at least once or twice, I think I am crazy. My mind is usually obsessed with some events happening in the past and or stories around them. Or I worry so much and try to make some plans and strategies for the future event which has not come yet.

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Sometimes I feel I am Totally crazy. Then I try to rationalize myself that it is better to notice my own insanity and imperfection than not knowing them. When I sit long time with other people with the minimum interactions, I start having an imagination that probably I am not the only one who think own self is crazy. We are all quite strange and deeply damaged one way or another by our parents, teachers, school or social system, which may or may not be intended. We all have lost our loved ones in our life. Parents,

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Children, a best friend, a partner, grandparents, a lover, a stranger who gave us a moment of inspiration to live. We all have or had physically and emotionally suffering people very close in our life. We all have experienced we had to helplessly watch people in pain without knowing what to do. All these events as well as joyful ones have influenced on becoming who I am and who you are right now. When I can remind this story, I find myself to be able to a little more gentle to the person who appear to be mean to me.

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For example, someone, let's say, more likely a senior person, did not like what I said or what I did, and this person appeared to raise her hand. his or their voice to express this satisfaction. After I explained my side of the story, this person became more upset and slammed the door and left the room. Normally in this scenario, the first story appears in my mind is, what a jerk. Then the second story arrives. How she can be so disrespectful to me, she must be the racist. Or, how he can be so arrogant, he must be the sexist. Having a female body, especially a tiny one, and being a person of color in this country, these stories often come to my mind.

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This is my confession. Then the third story tells me the person like him or her or them should not be in a power position. As soon as the third story finishes, the fourth story starts. I heard he, she, they have been practicing here over 20 years. Maybe Zen practice has nothing to do with the maturity of a human character. Stories go on and on if I don't catch them. If I don't recognize them as stories, what happened to next is that I start believing my stories as truth. That is very dangerous because they make me suffer. Can we think our stories as

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our thoughts as stories? Can we recognize the patterns of our stories? Can we intentionally place another story like we are all damaged in between a series of our kami consciousness? Does this create some space not to attach too firmly to our story, or not to react without a second thought. I am not telling you that. You should ignore your thoughts, feelings, or experience. Please, please welcome all your thoughts, feelings, whatever comes to your mind, and acknowledge them like very close friends. And can we still hold a space to our limitation of knowing something?

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A person can be disrespectful and arrogant, as well as being a victim of physical abuse and a wonderful father. There are unlimited stories for each person beyond our karmic consciousness. Our Japanese Soto Zen founder, Eihei Togen, talked about this in his Genjo Koan. He says, when you sail out in a boat to the midst of an ocean where no land is in sight, and view four directions, the ocean looks circular, and does not look any other way. But the ocean is neither round or square. Its features are infinite in variety. It only looks circular as far as you can see at that time.

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The Japanese Zen master, Kodo Sawakiroshi, lived 1880 to 1965. He powerfully revived and popularized the sotozen practice of shikan taza, or just sitting, by bringing the practice outside Japan's monasteries to its lay people. This Sawaki Roshi used to tell his students, zazen is good for nothing. What does this mean? Is Zazen useless? Just wasting of our time? If Zazen is truly good for nothing, why Sawaki Roshi had encouraged people to sit throughout his life? Why even we try to sit for seven days for nothing?

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Chouhaku Okumura Roshi, who is the translator and commentator of Sawaki Roshi's book, The Zen Teaching of Homeless Kodo, explained that. Zazen is good, but not for something. It is good in itself, and it is beyond our value and evaluation. when I told my teacher Tenshinoshita, I thought Zazen is a good practice to study our mind. However, this thought itself can already be a gaining mind. And if it is, it defeats the true meaning of good for nothing Zazen. Tenshinoshi told me that.

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Yes, Zazen is a good practice to study the mind. And if you study your mind carefully and wholeheartedly, you will realize that there is nothing to gain. You already have everything. You just give yourself completely to Zazen. When I sit Zazen for a long period of time, I think about not only I am crazy, but also I catch myself often asking this question. How do I want to live my life? This leads to the next question.

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How do I want to relate to the world? And ultimately, it almost always end with, what kind of relationship do I want to have with others, both humans and non-humans? It is a huge question to answer, and it is a lifetime practice for me to work on. This is a side story, but not. I was recently watching the YouTube video titled, On Love, by Alain Botten, Swiss-born British philosopher and author who discuss various contemporary subjects emphasizing philosophy's relevance to everyday life.

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I did not know him, this person, until I was looking for a good love story to read in this winter. Not a romance novel, but a love story. And his name came up through an internet search. Anyway, it was a very interesting, entertaining, and somewhat convincing talk. He talks about how we are all deeply crazy like my observation of myself through sessions. He also says we are all not easy to live with without any exception. He emphasizes we grow up not knowing who we are really. having very biased self-image because often people don't tell us what is wrong with us.

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He talks about the myth of love and compatibility. He says that love is not intuition or natural, but its skills need to be learned. And compatibility is not precondition either. but is an achievement of love, which is again skills we learn. After he talks about all the difficulties which comes with marriage, he asks us, is marriage still relevant? And he answers, yes, because some of our human character can only develop in an environment which neither of us can quit easily, like slightly caged in a situation. I thought this is very interesting theory and may apply not only to the marriage, but also to the community life or sesshin.

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I always wonder why many young people come here and try to live in a community like this. I mean, the community where we get up very early morning every day, start sitting at 5 a.m. We work hard, but we don't get paid much. We have so many rules and guidelines to follow. Most of us share bathroom and shower. We learn how to give and receive feedback to each other. And even when we don't ask it, some people give you anyway. And it is usually very, very painful. Many of us complain how difficult to live in a community and forget the fact that no one was forcing us to come here in the first place or

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No one is asking us to stay here. We all came here voluntarily, maybe to experience a slightly changed lifestyle. Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we even try to get ourselves into a smaller cage like Sesshin? I wonder if all came here with some gaining ideas, simply as wanting a break from previous job or relationship, looking for a new lifestyle or another way to deal with our sufferings, or not wanting to feel isolation in society, and so on. Whatever the reasons we came here, as we practice.

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Especially as we practice Zazen, like my teacher says, just completely giving yourself. We learn this is one possible way to express our life. Can I give myself completely to the community? without expecting anything? How about to my marriage or any other relationship I have? How about life itself? Someday, can I wholeheartedly say that life is good, but not for something. One period of Zazen is called Ichu in Japanese temples.

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This is not a typical Japanese word. It is a technical Japanese Zen phrase. And I did not understand the phrase until I asked the Japanese monk. He told me Ichi means one, as all Japanese know. means a pole, which is usually described as a long, slender piece of wood, like a telephone pole. However, in this case, the pole refers to as stick of incense. Before a clock was developed, one period of Zazen meant a period of time when one stick of incense was completely burnt. I thought that is amazing. My imagination quickly traveled to an ancient Japanese temple in wintertime.

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Dedicated monks are sitting together in an old and cold temple, period after period, until the last thick incense was burnt for the day. The Japanese Soto lineage have emphasized Zazen as the core of our practice, and we have been practicing since our first Japanese ancestor, Eihei Dōgen Daiyōshō, came back from China in 13th century. Since then, people all over the world have been practicing Zazen in different cultures and different countries. It is amazing to think that many people around the world are dedicating ourselves for the activity of good for nothing.

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Some of us even tried to sit for seven days in December, one of the most busiest months of a year. In some way, I think this is revolutionary in a capitalistic society we live. We are not producing or purchasing anything. We are not trying to be efficient or productive. We just give ourselves to sit together in silence. Pay attention to our intentions, our actions, and how The process of our actions lead us. Thank you very much. If you have any questions, comments, or feedback, there will be Q&A here after the tea gathering outside.

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Please join us. 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 sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

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