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. I think I know just about everybody in this room. I think for those of you who don't know who I am, I don't know so many that don't. My name is Arlene and Luke and I have moved here from... Green Gulch and Tassajara after 27 years, and I've been here four months. And as everybody, I have to say, I really like it. I really had a great time. It's such a joy to walk out your door and have a city and walk to the store. You're not getting in the car at Green Gulch and making this concentrated effort to have to take 15 minutes over the hill just to get to the foot of Tam Junction and then try and figure out how you're going to navigate around the traffic.

[01:02]

So while there's a lot of people here, there's something really wonderful about this life I'm finding. So thank you very much, Mary, for inviting me and encouraging me to come and Ed for accepting me. And tonight I am going to do the Tibetan style, which is no script. You know, you come in and face your own self and however that's going to look. And I have some frame thoughts and we'll see. Hi, Susan. And when you do these Dharma Talks, I think everybody, if you don't know, and haven't heard it before, you're really speaking to what's arising inside of you and how you're practicing or studying. And oftentimes they're the same thing. You're studying because there's something that you want to investigate as I understand it.

[02:03]

And so I've been working for the last four or five years with what is the teaching. And that's a powerful, powerful statement to me. and it's been how I've gotten through these last four or five years. And for those of you who don't know, I won't talk about this much, but my husband died 14 months ago, and then my sister died four days after he died. So the greatest teaching, well, one of the deepest teachings that I could have as he was the love of my life happened. And so all the... 26 years before that came in to come very close. And I had to keep looking at it closer and closer. And also, as I understand these teachings from these years, is it's all about deconstructing, constantly deconstructing. What is it?

[03:04]

What does it look like? How deep can you go? How much can you go? And giving yourself also the permission to say, stop, a little respite here for a bit. And what is your intention? Again, what is your intention in stepping in to this world of examining the unexamined assumptions of your life? What is your intention? And how do you look at it? And what happens to you when it gets to be too much? And that's a very fair statement in this practice for those of us who primarily came out of a Judeo-Christian background. So I'll share a few things, if I may, with what I've been working with, and perhaps maybe that might be of some interest, and maybe not. But it's been very beneficial to me to have a mantra through the years I've been here, something that whenever difficult things, as well as great successes, great failures, great successes, Ed talked about that the Dalai Lama said a couple weeks ago when he gave the Wednesday night talk, that

[04:16]

Sometimes the greatest teaching is when you don't get what you want. Is that a fair paraphrase of it? Is that pretty close? Good. And also failure. We've read this many, many times, that failure sometimes rises you right up out of those ashes, what your true nature is, with all the assets and benefits. I usually say... that this practice for me is all about watching when your assets go into your liability column and when you can use your liabilities and bring them up to bring them into an asset column by what is the teaching. What is the teaching? And each one of us are so individual and there's so many streams and metaphors are kind of an important thing in how I think. And one of the metaphors that I think about all the time is from Green Gulch.

[05:17]

And in the back of Green Gulch, there's all these seasonal springs. And it can be bone dry, and then you can have two or three good rains, and you're sloshing deep in the boot of the mud and the dirt, and all the way up to mid-calf. And they dry up. But underneath, they haven't dried up. Because in the Spring Valley shallow springs, they go into a culvert, and they go into a pond. And that pond starts and looks like it's going in one direction. But in fact, in the middle of that garden, it takes a quick left to where it was originally, and then it goes right straight through the farm. And Liz Malazzo, who's the head of the farm, used to say all the time, I just wonder why this field is always so wet. Do you remember that? So we found that we had water there.

[06:20]

We put a well, and all of a sudden, we went down 40 feet, did a well, and all of a sudden that field was very dry. It was very dry. Kind of like we have to keep nourishing something inside of ourselves. We have to keep the questions alive. inside of ourself. What's the teaching? What's my intention? How do I want to live? How do I want to step into my life? And how do I want to live my life? And what happens when I fail? What happens when I realize that I'm the same old schmuck I've always been? How do you honestly look at that and then get back to a mantra and say, what is the teaching? What is the teaching? What is my intention? And sometimes you don't look so good as you're getting through that stream. And then you go through the stream and all of a sudden you come back and you're in this wonderful little riverbed. And the next thing you know, you're going down and you're, let's see, 3,480 steps according to your Fitbit or your Shine.

[07:32]

And it's gone into the ocean. So you're in the vast. And to me, that's how this practice has been. That I came for three weeks thinking, oh, I'd kind of get my act together. This would kind of straighten me out. And I got there and I thought, oh, boy. I think I've had a big surprise. I didn't know I had so much to uncurl or roll out or whatever it happens. I didn't have any idea that I was... even a worse schmuck than I thought I was, to use a friend's term. And then various things come up in your life with your expectations and the I want or I need or I must or I better do this, I better do this, I better do this. And pretty soon you have to find a way to come back to breath. Because in this practice, as I understand it, the breath is the main part of how we sit. And how do we clear and settle the mind and the body?

[08:38]

And how do we really actually get it that the mind and the heart, those characters that we hear that are the same characters in calligraphy, how do we bring it together? How do we settle and how do we rest so that we can come from a place of a heart place? And the heart place isn't always sweet. It is always gentle. It is Manjushri sword. Is that correct? To the best of your knowledge? You're going to cut through that nonsense within yourself or whatever the circumstances are. So what's the teaching? What is the teaching? What sounds convenient? Because I like it. I don't like it. I don't know whether I like it or not. How do you find your center? How do you get upright? How do you go back to your breath? How do you sit? How are you going to take that next step?

[09:41]

And these are such difficult times right now. I mean, maybe this has always been throughout history. Maybe this has always been throughout history. And maybe all of our grandmothers said to those of us at 70, well, the world's just not the same. It's just going to be a mess. But Is it because I'm 70 that I feel that? Maybe so. Maybe so. But with all this media, I just have to turn it off. It's too hard sometimes. Do we have, you know, a respite. What's the teaching? The teaching is giving yourself permission to take the respite with the intention of stepping back into it with both feet. Because how many times have you possibly had the experience of you have... One foot in and one foot out. Norman said that to me years ago. Well, you've had one foot in, you've had one foot out. It's worked for us, it's worked for you. So what are you going to do with your life? What do you think I did?

[10:44]

Think I left? I did. I did. And watch the clock. You know, it's kind of like another teaching. Oh yeah, the cell phone is my watch now. And I haven't had a watch since I was in Eno. And, well, Allison, is this working? Yeah. She had to go find a watch for me. It was very kind. I said, I mean, believe me, I was going to get a watch from one of you. But it's very tiny numbers. So I mostly wanted to say thank you and to come here on a Wednesday night. and express gratitude and share with what I'm stepping into as I really feel like I'm stepping into the last part of my life. I'm very well aware that 70, and many people have heard me tell this story here, but the first group of kids that Susan and myself and a few others in this room really were when they were born,

[11:58]

are turning 17 this year. Nancy Petron's daughter and Mikael Tila's son and even Rick. And I know, but she is not 17, right? She is mid-range. She's older than Lila, but Elizabeth is, and she was born in the city. She wasn't born at Green Gulch, too. She was born in the city and came two or three. Did you come to Green Gulch, Meg? Two. But anyway, these kids are turning 17, and Frank turned 6, and he's also at Green Goats, the current director's son. And I said in a typical Arlene way, oh, wow, Frank's going to be 16 in 10 years, and it's going to fly. And then I, I mean, as I said this, I went, and I'm going to be 80. It was, it was sobering. It was one of those O.M. And I don't like that term one bit, but it worked.

[13:03]

And then I thought, oh, I have to really pay attention. What can I do? So the first thing I did is David asked me, unfortunately, the third time to give a talk. And as a priest, I couldn't say no. The third time when I come and ask you, you have to say yes. And I did. And then... Then Jeffrey came and asked me the third time to go to the jail and to give meditation. And I was like, okay, what's the teaching? What's the teaching? What's my intention? How can I go into something like that? How can I step into the jail and actually be respectful and be fully who I am in these vows? Because what I do know 20 years later is almost everything, even when I fail miserably, and I do it all the time, good at failure, is about these vows.

[14:08]

These 16 bodhisattva vows. And that's what my intention has to be for this last part. I mean, I may get lucky. As Emily would say, I may get lucky and die first. If I'm lucky, I'll die. young early maybe i will maybe i won't but what what do i want to do these last 10 years so i called my 47 year old son and i said well i have a little something to tell you two things he said what i said i'm gonna march in the gay parade he goes that a girl and uh and then the second thing is i said i'm gonna go and lead a women's group in the jail he said way to get out of your comfort zone mom and uh i thought yeah It really is a big stretch for me to get out of my comfort zone. And I'm going to step right into it. Hi, Vic. Anyway, so what's my practice? What's my intention?

[15:10]

Always back. Always back. Always back. I went to the bookstore. I've had a damning time with Darcy. fixing up the bookstore. I mean, it's right up my alley. That was one of the things I did in my other life. And Mary kind of said, well, you know, we want you to do this in the library and that in the library. And I said, oh, that'd be fun. I like projects. And next thing I know, I was in with Rosalie, who was absolutely just so gracious in helping me. It still is. Still is very helpful in the bookstore. And Darcy came in and said, I'd like you to go up to Accounting. and take a look at this cabinet, because otherwise I'm going to put it on eBay. Well, it's this very nice, if you haven't seen our bookstore, it's this beautiful cabinet done in Japanese joinery by, what was his name? Do you remember? Who? No, no, it wasn't Paul. Who was it? Vicki?

[16:13]

It's not Issei, but it was someone like that. Yeah, yes. I don't know, you'd have to ask Linda that, but she and Steve lived in it. So anyway, he brought it down, he put it in, and it's so nice. He had such a good vision. What is my intention? What is my practice? How am I doing? What am I doing? Well, I'm really having a good time. I'm having a really good time. But then it also has to work. And then I have to find out what the books are. What this is. What am I doing? What is my practice? What is my intention? It always comes back to that. Every minute. Every minute. And I've done a lot of the jobs at Zen Center. A lot of the jobs. And here I am, back to square one. And I'm pretty happy about it. Pretty happy being in the city.

[17:18]

So I... I just want to invite you to find a mantra that resonates for you. Find something that you can say to yourself throughout the day. You can use your mala beads. How is it when you're at work? How is it when you're having a bad time? And then there was another practice that I used to say in my other life, and I've changed it a little bit when I would do public speaking, and that's on those days that it's really hard that you quietly stand up from your desk wherever you are. Stand up very quietly. Just turn around as if you're just kind of stretching, but turn around and breathe in. Just kind of quietly. It takes 60 seconds. And come in and find your space in the job, in when you're walking home. I'm always interested to see how many people when I walk up that street will not make eye contact.

[18:19]

I'm always interested in seeing when I won't make eye contact. I like it. I don't like it. I don't know whether I like it or not. What is my practice? What is my intention? And there's many ways to get to the source. So that's kind of what I wanted to share with you tonight is just really looking at how we live our everyday life. Nothing fancy. Nothing complicated and yet absolutely incredibly difficult. Incredibly difficult. tired are you do you want to go to sleep do you want to do this do you want to what is it i like it i don't like it i don't know whether i like it or not those are those are really good little i mean i found them to be very very helpful and um there were a couple of other things i have to kind of scan back into i framed it how am i doing mary

[19:52]

I'm honoring Mary's Tibetan early practice of 20-plus years. I've seen. And then the second part of that usually is the question and answer, or how did the other nuns come up? And there's hand gestures. For those of you who know anything, there's various hand gestures that mean certain things. Isn't that right, Mary? There's a whole body. Did anybody know about that besides Mary? I'm quite intrigued by that. There's a whole dance to that. How's that dance? We just sit and stare at a wall. What's the matter with us, Ed? Why are we staring at a wall? We got this. You know, we just... An inch below your belly button. Pull your back up, sit straight, get your chin in, tuck your chin in, enjoy your double chin.

[20:57]

Make sure you're totally lined up and they're out there going like this. What's your practice? How are you doing? What's your intention? How do you want to live each day of your life? Because you know what? You're going to be 80 or you're going to have the alternative. You won't be 80. really is that simple but we want to make it complicated and i'm i'm really i like complicated i mean you know i like complicated i kind of enjoy that kind of that gin you know juice things kind of not so interested in that right now so now i think we can have if we i want to read you a poem one poem i don't memorize so well anymore Catholic school I love to memorize. That's long gone. So, here's a poem that has been, it's a little tiny bit dark.

[22:02]

But the girls in the office said it wasn't too bad. Maggie and Raven. I screened it. Listen. some night when all the faces that you love are no more, and you shiver on some cold floor and watch a piece of moonlight slide along the windowsill and hear the north wind shake the door. Then you will begin to know what you have dared not even dream before, and you will press the palms of your two hands close together. Oh! very close together. There is barely time to bury sorrow in the mud and look dead winter in the eye before the rain flowers spring up relentlessly, before the horses start to paw and prance faster and faster. I think that sums up kind of the space that I've been paying attention of

[23:14]

and I wanted to share with you tonight. And now I'm happy to take questions and answers for just a few minutes. Yes. Listen. Some night when all the faces that you love are no more and you shiver on some cold floor, and watch a piece of moonlight slide along the windowsill and hear the north wind shake the door. Then you will begin to know what you dared not even dream before, and you will press the palms of your two hands close together, oh, very close together. There is barely time to bury sorrow in the mud and look dead winter in the eye before rainflowers spring up relentlessly, before the horses start to paw and prance faster and faster.

[24:23]

What is the teaching? What is the teaching? We say it, awake, awake. Great is the matter of birth and death. Don't waste time. And that doesn't mean to indulge yourself. It doesn't mean to deny yourself. In my experience, it means open yourself up to your awakened mind. Allow yourself to step in to what's in front of you and meet it. Examine it. Deconstruct it. Come in and look and hold great gratitude for the teachings that you're allowing to hear within yourself. And know there are many streams that get to the ocean. Many, many streams.

[25:31]

Nothing is an absolute including Buddhism. Best thing I ever heard. That's what kept me here. Nothing is an absolute including Buddhism, but it's a pretty good darn teaching, I thought. So, anything anybody has to say? You have to sneak up a little louder. and being in the community as a... What was my path? Oh, suffering, honey. Real suffering. And I am not being cute. I mean, I ended my life as I knew it for the first 40 years of my life before I came. And I didn't want to be a bitter old woman.

[26:34]

And I watched it keep trying... This before, I kept watching it trying to come in and grab and grab and grab and grab. And I've watched it before. I've watched it again. Try and come in and grab and grab and grab. Sometimes it's lasted more than a year trying to grab, trying to grab. Not so easy to be around me. Every ordination I've had, every single ordination I've had, I've had an absolutely miserable year or year and a half because I am going into the dungeon. I'm going in to dig out... muck, muck the shit out. It just, it's not easy for me. This practice is not a, like, kind of a blissful experience. It's kind of hard. And it was accepted that you all spent, and the community accepted you.

[27:35]

Oh! necessarily accepted it at various times. I'd say it was pretty difficult for all our sides. And I think causes and conditions actually made both sides stick with it. It doesn't always, doesn't always, you know, doesn't always, doesn't always work. Doesn't always work. Residential practice, this is the hardest thing I've ever done is living closely with this many people. I love living up Now, I like living four doors up. But I, you know. But you stuck with this. Oh, I didn't have a choice at times. Yeah. I understand. Yeah. Yes? I found your repetition of those phrases really helpful. And I found fairly early a way of thinking about it. What is your intention? What is your practice? How are you doing? Diana.

[28:37]

Diana, you were in the kitchen with me. No. I have been a girl wondering times, and I have been a miserable failure at times. I have been, it's been everything. I mean, when I came to the kitchen here, I mean, I was the tento, and I, poor John, it was a little ironic to have me in there. I mean, I was still in the midst of the grief. I was still awkward. I came in, and I had to come in and be nothing, you know, which was kind of okay. It was kind of nice, because nobody was so interested in me. It was like, oh, nice to see you, and that was nice. I liked that kind of, because I knew something was going to come up, and then I went in the kitchen with y'all. Oh, Lord, have mercy for all of you. But you all stepped with me, didn't you? Yeah. I think the one thing I have noticed is if at all possible, you can be clear about your intention to go through, and it is a hell realm here sometimes.

[29:56]

It's not easy. Aaron was telling me that when I was the tantra at Green Ghost, And everybody, she was a farm apprentice, and now I'll come through the top of the top to have a pre-interview, and she said, you really scared the daylights out of me. Allison might be the only one that I didn't scare. And I said, how did I scare you? And she said, wow, you just spoke with such force and such, and you said I was going to meet everybody in my life here. Everybody was going to be right here. in my life. And I was like, do I really want to do this? And it's true. You meet everybody here. Every relationship you've had, every great love, great hate, great everything. It's right here if you step into residential practice. And it's, you know, so that's the way I say it. And the nice way of saying it, it's the rocks. You know, it's the rocks smoothing out the edges.

[31:00]

That's the other way. So you have to have something that gives you, as I said, that rested. How are the edges doing? Are they softening up around here? Am I bolting because I'm the bolter? I'm a good one. I don't let the door hit me enough on the way out. I could do that one well. I know how to do that. And I have to close my door and not show up. Not very successful. Somebody else said that. Thank you for your talk. I just found that it was totally spontaneous, but it was also really fun to be encouraging and encouraging. And I'd like to start practicing your questions of what has been practiced by intention. So I want to ask you, for the process of giving this talk, what is your practice and intention while you're giving the talk? to be as authentic as I possibly can in the midst of the awkwardness of I'm up in front of a room again.

[32:07]

And I have a lot of experience with public speaking in my other life, and I'm very comfortable. I could get up in a room of 600 people and talk about marketing, talking, you know, I don't know any of the trends or anything anymore, but I could get up and talk about work and be very comfortable, have a very sure noise, get you involved, bring you in. I know how to do that extremely well. When you come up to talk about the Dharma, you've got to keep digging in every second sentence. Is this authentic? Do I need this? Am I working on to look good? Can't do that. You're thoroughly exposed. I mean, they might go out the door and say, oh, geez, I had another one of those boring lectures. Yeah, it's true. We've all been there. But I have to be trying to speak my intention to practice. My intention to step into this community a little bit closer, a little bit closer, a little bit closer, not too close, a little bit closer, not too close.

[33:16]

All those things. Mimi? I appreciate it when you stepped close to me. One afternoon when I came down to you to ask for quarters and in the process of griping to you and trying to work out what was going on, you echoed back to me what was going on in my heart. And that really helped make the shift and I'm grateful. Thank you, Mimi. Thank you. All defenses All the fences go away when you lose everything. And I lost everything from my first marriage to the 86 market, through my husband making some decisions, my children's father making some decisions. And that was hard. That was really hard because, you know, lots of people had more, lots of people had less, but it was kind of all gone.

[34:19]

And there was a part of me that said, oh, well, we're only 38, 39, and that's how old I was, so we can get back up on the horse. Anyway, the horse didn't come back to the corral. And so, and thank goodness it didn't, because I wouldn't have stepped into this life. I wouldn't have stepped into the unexamined assumptions of my own kind of arrogant way of being. And this time, with the loss of my husband, of the level of my life, of my friend. And I didn't just lose him when he died. I lost him when the seizures kept coming. I lost him. I mean, he'd come back and then he'd go away. He was not so easy to live with those of you who have known him for 40 years. I mean, he was a wordsmith. That was his poem. And he was a great painter.

[35:19]

He was the most interesting man. I mean, he was really interesting. And that was nice. That was nice. Mary can tell you that. She liked it ever so much. And five minutes. Is that the end of the Q&A? Oh, good. He asked me how long I wanted to talk. And I said, 8.30 and we're done. Okay, do we have any more questions? Any more? Are we done? Yes. Second. So thank you for your humility and honesty. I'm not so humble. I think that's mostly Samuel. Come on, we do our dishes every Thursday. Thank you for that. My question, though, is, is there one of the 16 that you have particular difficulty with? I pick and choose on failure. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[36:41]

May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[36:44]

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