Good morning. My name is Tova Green, and I live in the building. And I want to welcome the children who are here this morning. And is anyone here for the first time? So a special welcome to you. It's good to see some old friends here this morning as well. So I wanted to start with a story for you, the children, and for everybody. This is a story about people who couldn't see visually and people who are blind. And just to give all of us a chance to connect with what it might be like to not be able to see, I'm going to ask you to close your eyes just for a couple of minutes. And take a moment to notice what you hear. And then I'm going to invite you to take one of your hands and put it on the top of your head.

[01:10]

And just see what the top of your head feels like. What does your hair feel like? Is it smooth, kind of curly like mine? Or maybe you don't have any hair on the top of your head. And then move your hand down to your ear. And just see how different the ear feels from the top of the head. It's softer, and you can feel the curves. Okay, so when you're ready, you can open your eyes, but if you weren't able to see, you would be relying on these other senses to get your ideas about what the world is like, your hearing, your touch, sense of smell, and even taste. So this story takes place a long time ago, in the time of the Buddha. So that was a very long time ago, over 2,000 years ago. And at that time, some of the Buddha's students came to the Buddha, who was a great teacher, and said to him that a lot of his students were fighting.

[02:23]

They were arguing over various things, and different ones thought that they were right, and the students just could not agree. and we're getting into a lot of very heated arguments. Maybe sometimes you've had an argument with someone in your family or a friend, and you think you're right about something. So the Buddha had a way of teaching about this, and this is the story that he told. He said, once upon a time, there was a certain raja, or ruler, this happened in India, who called his servant and said, and asked his servant to get six people from the town who had been blind their whole lives, born blind and never had been able to see, and show them an elephant. So the servant went and got these six people, men and women, together and took the

[03:30]

blind people one at a time up to the elephant. And the first, this is kind of what he did. So he took the first blind person up to the trunk of the elephant and asked the blind person what it was like. And the blind person said, oh, I think it's a snake. Feels like a snake. And then he took the second blind person to the tusk of the elephant. It's usually made of ivory. And the blind person said, I think it's a spear. And then the third person he took to the ear of the elephant and felt like a fan. And then he took the fourth person up to the side of the elephant. And that person said, oh, it feels like a wall. This is a wall.

[04:31]

And then the fifth person to the feet of an elephant, and each foot, it felt like the trunk of a tree. And then the last one he took to the tail. And this person said, it feels like a rope. So each of them were convinced that it was a rope, it was a fan, it was a wall, and they started arguing. And they could not agree. And the Raja said, So this is an illustration when you only see one part of something and you think that's what it is and you can't see any other part, you are quite sure that you're right. And actually, in a way, none of these people were right because they couldn't see or they didn't have any experience of the whole elephant. So... That was the Buddha's way of showing that sometimes we really need to see the whole picture in order to know what something is.

[05:40]

And there's another version of this story in which a wise man says to the six people, all of you are right because you all saw a part of it. So I just invite you to think about today when you go out with Janine, maybe you have some a chance to think about some time when you were in an argument and you were sure you were right, and maybe you only had a part of the picture. So thank you very much for being here. So that story, perhaps it resonated with you.

[06:49]

It certainly does with me. And that's my theme for today, kind of how we can take into account other points of view and realize when we're kind of stuck in our own point of view. And I'm going to illustrate that with some personal examples, but I also want to relate it to a text that I studied this winter when I was at Chasahara Zen Mountain Center called the Genjo Koan. And before I do that, I just want to say this theme of the blind man and the elephant is a story that's told in many religious traditions, not only in the Buddhist tradition, but the Jain tradition and the Sufi tradition. And it reminded me of a message of a I got from attending a Passover Seder this year. Passover is a Jewish holiday, usually comes in April.

[07:51]

And as part of it, there's a festive meal and a retelling of the story of the exodus of the Jews from Egypt. And the Hebrew word for Egypt is mitzrayim, which means narrow place. And as we retell the story, we think about the narrow places in our own lives and how we might be able to move out of those narrow places. So I think this theme is very important in our world today, and I'll refer to that also a little later. So the text that we studied, the Genjo Koan, it translated, It means actualizing the fundamental point. And it was written by Ehe Dogen, who lived from 1200 to 1253. And it's amazing to me in reading it how relevant this writing is to our experience today.

[08:55]

And so the passage I'm going to talk about is just a paragraph from this passage. work that Dogen wrote. And he wrote it after he went from Japan. He lived in Japan. I'll tell a little bit about his life after I tell the text. But he lived in Japan and he went to China at some point, he was 23, to find some teachers because he was dissatisfied with the teaching that he was exposed to in Japan. And in those days, traveling by sea from Japan to China was very dangerous, and it was a long trip. It took him about two months, whereas nowadays you could fly from Japan to China in several hours. So it's hard to imagine that this was quite a long and dangerous trip.

[09:57]

But the passage is... refers to his trip and it goes like this. When you sail out in a boat to the midst of an ocean where no land is in sight and view the four directions, the ocean looks circular and it does not look any other way. But the ocean is neither round nor square. Its features are infinite in variety. It is like a palace. It is like a jewel. It only looks circular. As far as you can see at that time, all things are like this. So what does that mean? That's what we're going to talk about today. I love that image of sailing out in a boat to the midst of an ocean. When I was in college, I went, I had an opportunity to study abroad and

[11:02]

This was 1960, and in those days, most students went to Europe in ships. So I had the experience of riding on a student ship for five days from New York to France, and had that sense of what Dogen describes, because you see the horizon, and it looks circular. but you know that the ocean is, I knew the ocean wasn't really round, but still a wonderful experience to have that opportunity to be on a boat for five days. So back to the text. I wanted to mention when we were at Tassahara, Linda Ruth Cutts, who led the practice period, talked about several ways three ways, basically, of studying a text. The first one, you read the text, you listen to it, and you become familiar with it that way.

[12:05]

And we recited the Genjo Poan every day during the practice period at noon. And it's like the first lines of the chant we just did, having it to see and listen to, to listen to a text over and over again, it kind of begins to sink in. And then the next level is reflecting on it, spending time with it, memorizing it, copying it, and the part to remember and accept. And because we recited it every day, it was easier to memorize it. I don't have a very, it's not easy for me to memorize things, but I did memorize it. And I also copied it. Many of us copied it. And I just wanted to pass around part of the text that I copied and illustrated, which is if you find that there's a text that you really enjoy reading, I would recommend this practice of copying it.

[13:05]

And you can make little books or whatever, but it's a really wonderful way to become very familiar with a text. And then the last level is making the text your own, incorporating it into your meditation practice and into your life. really thinking about how it affects you. And I found with this Genjo Koan that it did become part of my thinking and really helped me to open up to my changing experience day-to-day, moment-to-moment. So I hope that these lines will become alive for you also. So I'd like to give some examples of working with this idea that the ocean is circular and does not look any other way, and that it's only what you can see at that time, and at another time you might be able to see it in a different way.

[14:19]

Another line that Dogen of Dogen's in this book is that nothing at all has unchanging self. And what I took from that is that we're always changing, you know, moment to moment. And you can really notice that if you meditate even once to see that, you know, you may start out feeling comfortable and then you start having pain in your knee or your back or you, you know, You begin to have a thought, and your thought might grow, and then maybe the thought will pass, or a feeling might arise, or you become aware of a sound, and your experience is constantly changing. When you sit and you're quiet, you can really notice that. So similarly, our experience of people and places and things can change also. So I wanted to give an example of that, which is a little bit embarrassing, but I think it's a good example.

[15:22]

Sometimes those good examples are embarrassing. So when I came to City Center a year ago to be a resident, I had been living at Green Belch Farm for two years, and before that I had been living at Tassajara for four years. And before I left Tassajara, My job for a year was to be the Eno, which is the head of the meditation hall. And when I came to City Center, I knew that the appropriate thing was to go and talk with the Eno here about a job in the Zendo, the meditation hall, because all of the residents do two Zendo jobs every week. But I had some ideas about what jobs I wanted and what jobs I didn't want. And the Eno told me that she needed a door watch. And the door watch, when I first lived in the building, which was about eight years ago, that was one of the first jobs I did.

[16:27]

The door watch sits in the passageway to the Zendo and sits facing out. And you sit facing the door on Laguna Street so that when people come in, you can make eye contact with them. And if they don't know where they're going, you can show them. And it's kind of... a welcoming, but also just a presence sitting at the door. But I wanted to be the Kokyo, which is the person who leads the chanting. So, you know, asked me to be the door watch. I said, no, believe it or not. And I said, I didn't want to be the door watch. I felt in my body that I couldn't do it. And it was very embarrassing to me, partly because, you know, we have a practice of saying yes and of doing what's needed. And I just had this idea that that job was, you know, kind of beneath me. And I think that idea was, it was just an idea.

[17:30]

You know, it was just an idea. But I couldn't say yes. And then this winter when I was at Tassajara, My job was every afternoon we had a period of work, and I was kitchen manager, which meant that I worked in the kitchen, and we did a lot of chopping vegetables and prepping food for the regular kitchen crew that was there all day. And near the end of the practice period, we had a one-week retreat, or sushine, and six very experienced Zen practitioners came down to Tassajara to sit with us for that week. And they were all assigned to the kitchen for the hour of work we did in the afternoon. And it was my job to assign tasks to them. And, you know, I found that they were just totally willing to do whatever I asked, whether it was chopping onions, stripping gallons of chard, washing...

[18:38]

pots, whatever it was, they just did it and nothing was beneath them. They were model practitioners. It was a great joy to work with them and it felt very harmonious. So when I came back from Tassajara this time in April and I went to see the Eno and asked her for his endo job, she said, I need a door watch. And this time I was able to say, sure, you need a door watch? You've got a door watch. So I'm happy to say that fixed ideas can change. And, you know, I think what shifted in me was this just appreciation for harmonizing with the sangha and just doing what's needed and also realizing that it didn't really matter what job I did.

[19:44]

It had nothing to do with status. It was just doing what's needed. And some jobs you do need training for, and actually all the jobs you have to learn how to do. But it was fine with me to be the door watch. And I think many of us may have ideas about work, what work is appropriate and not appropriate. And sometimes we want to do work that fully uses our training and experience. But when you have an opportunity to do something that is very concrete and like chopping carrots or washing dishes, and all of us who live in the building take turns, we have a kitchen shift and we have a dish shift. It's really wonderful to do just what's in front of you and to do it with an open heart. So I'm grateful that I learned that lesson. Took me a long time to learn it.

[20:48]

But there's another way in which fixed ideas can kind of really get in our way of experiencing people in particular and being intimate with people, and that has to do with our judgments. And I want to give an example, again, from my own experience. At Tassajara, we had some classes, and we had a discussion at the end or during a class about whether a particular comment someone has made was a racist comment or not. And during the discussion, there was a young man, I didn't know him very well, And he talked about his idea that when we talk about racism or classism or any of the other isms, it only divides us, and basically we're all the same.

[21:55]

And I felt really uncomfortable when I heard his comment and wanted to talk with him about it, because I thought, you know, well, he's white. and male and has a lot of privilege, and so it's easy for him to say that. But I noticed that I avoided him. I had this judgment of him that was forming in my mind. And then during the course of the practice period, we had four diversity study group meetings. And I noticed that he came to all of the study groups, and he participated fully, and he seemed really open to learning. And then I finally did have a conversation with him, and it was a very open, productive conversation about how he had grown up in a place where he didn't know any people of color, and he was gradually really getting an idea of his white privilege and how that maybe separated him.

[23:04]

and that it was important to talk about these issues. And I was very grateful for that conversation and for seeing how he had changed, but maybe I had also changed because I was able to let go of my judgments about him. And I think these judgments really do isolate us. keep us from getting to know each other and to also, just like with the blind man and the elephant, we just see things in a certain way. And it's really helpful to have everybody's perspectives in order to have a deeper understanding of things. So I wanted to also give an example of how this can happen in an institution. The ocean can look circular and not any other way. because it's only what we can see at a particular time. And when I moved to San Francisco in 1990, I lived on the East Coast before that, and I joined a synagogue, because I'm Jewish as well as Buddhist, I found a synagogue where I really felt at home.

[24:18]

It was in the Castro Congregation, Sha'ar Zahab is the name of it. Since then, it's moved to 16th and Dolores because the congregation grew. But at the time that I started going, the congregation had been founded by gay men and lesbians. And at the time I started going to the synagogue, very few of the members had children. And services were very adult-oriented. But there were some parents who brought young children to the synagogue. synagogue and to services. And especially when they were preschoolers and they got restless or cried, some members of the synagogue were very upset and felt that they were disrupting the services. And it became a topic of discussion and it actually threatened to polarize the congregation. But as this was happening, more and more members

[25:21]

Oh, and I would say I think that there was a prevailing attitude in our society, which maybe some members of the synagogue also kind of internalized, that gay men and lesbians shouldn't be children somehow. They would not be as good parents. Excuse me? Sorry, shouldn't be parents. Thank you, Glenn. We're all children. No wonder I saw a blank look. That was what... That gay men and lesbians shouldn't be parents. And there was this stereotype that gay men were child molesters and I think was very, very damaging. But I think some gay men and lesbians actually internalized this point of view. But more and more members of the synagogue began having children, adopting children or having their own children. And the rabbi and his partner adopted a child. And the feeling in the synagogue began to change. gradually there was special programming for families and families with children, and the Hebrew school grew and became so well-known in the community that many heterosexual families joined the synagogue.

[26:36]

And now there are about 500 members in the synagogue, and on a Friday night when there's a baby naming, there's a baby blessing, the baby might come up with two moms, two dads, a mom and a dad, and all the families are equally loved and cherished. So there's been a huge shift, I think, in how the synagogue relates to families and children. And I find it very encouraging to see that an institution like that synagogue can change in a way. When you think about nothing at all has unchanging self. That's true of institutions as well. And although it's individuals that make the institution, individuals make the policies, which can kind of be more welcoming or less welcoming. And I just want to say that this is an issue that we're working on at Zen Center, working on being more welcoming and inclusive of all people.

[27:44]

And I have seen change over the years that I've been here. I hope we'll continue to work on this issue. I know we will. We are working on it. So coming back to ourselves and our own working with our own minds, just want to mention what what are some of the ways in which we could notice when we have a view that's circular or, you know, that doesn't lend it, doesn't feel very open. And for me, one of the signs of that is thinking that I'm right about something. You know, that I know what's right, and if you disagree with me, you're wrong. So I think that is one of the, you know, one of our human pitfalls, but I think it's also very helpful at a time like that for me to

[28:49]

think about this image of my view, my view is as it is because that's all I can see at that moment. And I think also remembering this story of the elephant and the six line people, I might only be seeing the ear. What about the tail and the foot and the trunk? I probably can't see it because I'm so sure that what I think is right. And when I'm in a conversation with someone and that comes up to try to remember that, to try to access my curiosity and interest in what the other person's point of view is and to open myself to the possibility of having a learning conversation where I'm able to learn about what the other person's perspective is. And I find actually that in zazen meditation, zazen is one of the best ways of first recognizing some of my fixed views, but also in creating a kind of spaciousness in the mind that allows different perspectives to come forth, both in myself and when I'm with other people.

[30:19]

So recognizing my own fixed views is the first step in holding them a little more lightly and spaciously. And recently I've been studying a book by Tension Reb Anderson, Being Upright. It's a book about the precepts. And he says something that I think is very relevant, that we make judgments about people that prevents us from being intimate with them. And to become intimate with someone means entering into a relationship where you don't know exactly what's happening, where you don't decide unilaterally what's going on. If your view is the only one that matters to you, then there will be no intimacy. I really appreciate that as I think about it, because intimacy really means seeing the other person as they are and as different from you and with their own unique experience, which you really can't find out about unless you're curious and open-minded and really want to know.

[31:33]

So I found those words very encouraging. So just to come back to the Passover Seder as coming to the end of this talk. At the end of our Passover Seder means order, and there's a certain order of things that you do in the Passover meal, and usually there's singing. It's a very joyous celebration. And this time, at the end of the Seder, the meal, We had a song that many of you will know, and our abbot, Steve Stuckey, was part of this Passover celebration, and he loves to change the words songs. So I'm going to sing this verse, and please join me after you hear the first line of it, if you like. I think you'll probably know this song.

[32:35]

I'm going to lay down my narrow mind Down by the riverside Down by the riverside Down by the riverside I'm gonna lay down my narrow line Down by the riverside Gonna study war no more I ain't gonna study war no more I ain't gonna study war no more Ain't gonna study war no more, no more. I ain't gonna study war no more. Ain't gonna study war no more. Ain't gonna study war no more. Thank you very much. Leave out our intention

[33:41]

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