Thank you. table, just the table.

[09:51]

An unsurpassed, penetrating and perfect Dharma is rarely met with, even in the hundred thousand million Tapas, having it to see and listen to, to remember and accept. I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. An unsurpassed, penetrating and perfect dharma is rarely met with, even in a hundred thousand million kalpas. Having it to see and listen to To remember and accept, I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words.

[11:59]

An unsurpassed, penetrating and perfect Dharma is rarely met with, even in a hundred thousand million Kalpas. having it to see and listen to, to remember and accept. I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Good morning. Welcome. Welcome. Thank you for coming on this rainy day. A young monk performs the tea ceremony, hanging kettle sways slightly.

[13:13]

A young monk performs tea ceremony, hanging kettle sways slightly. So as the new year is approaching, I thought it might be nice to share with you some stories about the Zen-inspired ritual of making bowls of hot green tea. The Japanese word for tea ritual is cha no yu, meaning simply hot water for tea. So on January 1st, New Year's Day, my good friend Mea Wender and I will be making bowls of tea for our guests up at Enso Village. And later on that day, we'll all be sitting together, as you will hear, for those of you who come for the New Year's celebration. Having spent a great number of years in my youth celebrating the new year in a rather raucous and intoxicated fashion, I was really grateful to find the Zen Center and to be able to discover a new way of celebrating a new year.

[14:18]

The way begins in the late evening of New Year's Eve with silent meditation, just sitting. And then at midnight, we hit the bell 108 times. that big bell out there on the lawn, the wonderful sound. And then in the early morning of January 1st, after a short sleep and a short sit, we process together to the Suzuki Roshi Memorial site where we offer a toast to our founding ancestor and to the well-being of the world. Those of us with the fondness for ritual complete the celebration later in the day with bowls of hot green tea. So as far as I can tell, offering a bowl of tea is all about feelings. Those exquisite feelings that come from being with old friends, from learning new things, from honoring age-old craft. But mostly, it's the dance.

[15:22]

It's the dance. The meticulous attention to movement and to detail that got me hooked. on practice of tea, and of Soto Zen as well. The motto of Soto Zen being Mamitsu no Kafu, attention to fine detail, such as you saw us performing this morning together. Remember? That's how we are. We try very hard to get it all right, and then we help each other. Makes me so happy. So the instructions for making a bowl of green tea have been kept alive for centuries by a huge consortium of tea practitioners, of tea growers, of highly skilled craftsmen, architects, merchants, and their patrons. So the story I'm going to tell you this morning is about Sendo Rikyu, who is the 16th century Japanese tea master who pretty much created the tea ceremony as we know it today.

[16:28]

attention to fine detail. So Riku was invited by a tea grower to come to his home for tea. The tea grower was very fond of the tea ceremony and he practiced as often as time allowed, which wasn't terribly often. At the appointed time, Riku arrived at the old man's rustic tea house, bringing with him one of his promising young disciples as a second guest. Being very nervous, his hands visibly shaking, the farmer made a number of obvious mistakes. And yet, as he finished, Riku said to him in all sincerity, this tea you have made for me is the finest. On the way home, the disciple asked Riku how he could have made such a comment given the amateur performance of that man. Riku replied, he made tea for me with his whole heart. When you can perform in the way that he did, you too will understand the true meaning of tea.

[17:35]

So I would like to propose that the experience of tea ceremony, as with all of our experience, is situated within our bodies. And in particular, within that mystery that we call our heart. Being heartfelt, and wholehearted are perhaps the qualities that we most value in ourselves and in one another. And I think we can all remember times when we have been with wholehearted friends and how joyful those occasions have been. So I would further propose that wholeheartedness is something that we can learn and that the practice we call Zen is one of the ways to do that. And so for that reason, I would like to offer a few simple instructions which might be of help in finding the roots and the ground of wholehearted practice, whether in tea or in our life. So it might not be a surprise to you that the ground of our practice is literally the ground, the ground on which we place our very own bodies as we stand and walk, as we sit, as we sleep,

[18:52]

And therefore, the only ground there is for wholehearted engagement with the activities of our daily life. When the Buddha sat under the Bodhi tree, he sat on the ground. He found a very stable position for his lower body, as you all have this morning, whether in a chair or on a cushion. And then beginning with the lengthening of his spine and the balancing of his head on his shoulders, he relaxed his eyes and allowed all of the tension in his body to flow back downward into the earth from which he had come. So this upright posture, the posture that is being demonstrated by the figures on our altar, are visible instruction for how to meet our life, literally, face to face, such as we're doing right now. How to welcome the myriad things continuously coming forth to greet us.

[19:55]

Welcome. Welcome, myriad things. Welcome, myriad humans. Welcome to this upright posture that expresses not only our integrity and our dignity, but in the best of moments, our kindness and our innate curiosity about the world around us. The ritual movements of tea as of Zen begin from centering within that upright posture. The very same bodily and heartfelt posture that we engage in when we are just sitting, just cooking, just driving, or just spending time with our friends. By doing these practices together, as we do here in the Zendo, or across the lawn in the tea house, we not only renew ourselves, but we bring to life the true beauty of the Zen tradition. which is the beauty of doing what we do together. We work, we sing, we sit, and we drink a bowl of tea together.

[21:04]

The I, the small I we call the self, quite naturally for a time anyway, simply vanishes. Suzuki Roshi said that forms are not a means of obtaining the right state of mind. To take this posture is the right state of mind. Because you can only exist right here and right now. It is impossible to organize the things around you if you yourself are not in order. And that's because you yourself are the boss. So the boss, by utilizing ritual, evokes a world of mysterious and invisible forces. such as we do each morning at the Zen Center by offering incense and light and flowers and gestures to an awakened being, Chakyamuni Buddha, whose body has long since vanished. Ritual doesn't alter the so-called natural world.

[22:10]

However, it can alter how we think and how we feel about the world. And it can allow us to express our feelings, especially feelings of respect and of love. So ritual itself doesn't need to be reduced or interpreted as something other than itself. Specific forms have no life of their own until they are enacted by the doers of ritual, like the doers of music or the doers of magic, both of which are hard to describe but very easy to recognize. Isadora Duncan, a famous exotic dancer in the late 1900s, created dance movements, as she said, from whatever pretty little thing came into her head. She was once asked what her innovative dances meant, to which she replied, if I knew what they meant, I wouldn't have to dance.

[23:12]

So the truth that's being transmitted is by doing the dance is the truth of the Dharma. Dharma means truth, the truth of our lives. And we humans like to express that truth through the rituals of theater, of music, and the activities of our daily life. The truth that's being transmitted by the elements of ritual performance include the players, the play, the audience, and the names of things. And that means that none of that can exist by itself. No player, no audience, no play, no thing. They simply arise together as they are arising right now in this one and only unique and present moment. And that's the simplest truth, also known as the ultimate truth, in which person, object, and action

[24:15]

are one, are dependently co-arising. John Dido Laurie, the former abbot of Zen Mountain Monastery in upstate New York, in speaking about Zen stories, the ones that we call koans, said that Zen teachers don't analyze koans in terms of psychology or philosophy, structure or dynamics. We do koans. We enact koans. And we also do koans here at the Soto Zen Center through the rituals of daily life. Our cooking, our gardening, our maintenance, how we eat, changing beds, sending emails. Meaning that once again, that the manner or the way of saying and doing things is inseparable from what is being said and done. The manner in which we teach and learn the ritual gestures of Zen, as with tea ceremony, is by repeating and rehearsing those gestures again and again.

[25:22]

This is called behavior that is twice behaved, and therein lies tradition, tradition of every kind. Through repetition, or what we call our practice, feelings and ideas are driven into the body. They're informed and given form. The Zen school is grounded in the physical enactment of the words and the deeds of our ancestors, the how-to of the Dharma teachings. Dr. Robert Scharf of UC Berkeley in an article about Zen rituals says that we are not studying Zen to become enlightened. We are practicing the ritual perfection of Buddhahood. In other words, he says, one doesn't sit Zazen as if they believe they are Buddha. They sit as if it were the case. So as I said at the beginning of my talk today, ritual is all about feelings, feelings that lead us to know how wonderful it is to simply be alive, to be standing and walking and sitting and thinking and speaking.

[26:36]

So back in 2015, I was invited to speak at the city center on the occasion of Suzuki Sensei's 100th year of life. Suzuki Sensei, the widow of Suzuki Roshi, had been patiently teaching us the tea ceremony for many, many years. She had also written an award-winning book of haiku poetry called The White Tea Bowl, which was being published that year in honor of her very long and precious life. So when I first heard the title of her book, The White Tea Bowl, I thought to myself, well, I've never seen a white tea bowl. And I thought, how very much I would like to see one. So that's the kind of thing that tea students do and think. And we love to see and touch and talk about the objects that have been brought into the tea room for that day and to hear what are called the transmission stories, stories about how and when this object was made.

[27:39]

what kind of clay or glaze was used, who the artist was, who acquired the object, and who is taking care of it now. It's these stories that empower those objects, revealing to us their aura and establishing the strength of their presence. For example, there's a tea bowl, a chawan, that my teacher allowed us to use that her mother had given to her over 90 years ago when she was just a little girl. And there's the one that was memorialized by Suzuki Sensei in a haiku written for her husband after he had died. I pour sencha into the white porcelain tea bowl he loved. I pour sencha. That's the kind of tea. I pour sencha into the white porcelain tea bowl he loved. And then there's the tea scoop, the chashaku. Some of them were carved by Suzuki Roshi's son, Uitsu Suzuki, the tea whisk, the chasen, the lovely tea caddy, the natsume, inside of which is this little mountain formed by the tea teacher from a powdered green tea.

[28:53]

During an afternoon of tea, we also talk about the items that are in the alcove of the tearoom, such as a lovely woven basket, that Suzuki Roshi had repaired for their very good friends, Mr. and Mrs. Nakagawa. Very good friends, indeed, who were kind enough to accept Mrs. Suzuki's students as her own. Hanging above the basket is a scroll, often written by a famous Zen teacher, in celebration of the season. There's an incense container, and the kettle, and the charcoal fire, and so much more. Week after week, year after year, as a guest, you enter the tea room sliding in on your knees and then bowing to one another as you watch the host rebuild the charcoal fire. You bow again at an offering of handmade sweets and at the skillful whisking of the thick green tea. Following bows of gratitude and appreciation, you slide out the door and back out into the room behind the screen.

[30:01]

And then it's your turn to be the host, the one making tea. As your guests are seated once again, you enter the room to take your place by the fire and the hot iron kettle, Chano Yu, hot water for tea. Once you've taken a few breaths, you completely let go. And that's because there is utterly no way to remember what you are supposed to do next. It's just like riding a bicycle. You have to rely on your body, the body which has been carefully taught over many years of repetition, an intricate pattern of exquisitely linked movements of your eyes and your hands. If you miss one step in the sequence, you will quickly discover there is no place left to go, and you become frozen at your seat. Frozen in the tightly woven net, of the tea ceremony choreography from which there are only a very few elegant ways to escape.

[31:06]

Mostly your fellow students giggle when you drop the whisk or you forget to add the water to the tea. My favorite story about making big mistakes as a host is one that occurred in front of a very large audience, maybe about the size of this one. The woman who was performing the tea ceremony, I had been told, was a venerable tea master. The particularly challenging seasonal form she was demonstrating involves unhooking the kettle of hot water, which is hanging from a long iron chain above the fire, and moving it up a few lengths on the chain. After adding more charcoal to the fire on its thick layer of ash, the kettle is then moved back down the chain again. This is the same seasonal form that the young monk was practicing in the poem that I read to you at the beginning of my talk. A young monk performs tea ceremony. Hanging kettle sways slightly.

[32:10]

So there's a teaching in tea that you should lift heavy things like a hanging kettle as if they are light and light things like the tea whisk as if they are heavy. So this old woman lifted the heavy tea kettle skillfully However, she couldn't see very well, and she missed hooking the kettle back on the link below. The kettle fell into the fire, and a great cloud of ashes rose up in all directions. Without changing the expression on her face, she reached down, lifted the kettle, hooked it correctly, and continued making tea. Now that's what I would call supremely disciplined theatrical. intelligence or emotional intelligence as the martial artist Bruce Lee once said under duress we do not rise to the occasion we fall to the level of our training so when those of us of somewhat lesser intelligence make mistakes and become frozen during tea kindly or not our teacher will remind our body of what it needs to do next

[33:25]

I can still hear Suzuki-sensei's voice ringing in my ears. Fusan, many times I tell you, little front, saido, saido. Referring to the placement of my fingers on the tea bowl, one of the most basic and simplest of instructions. Fusan, many times I tell you, to which I would reply in my best Japanese, Hai-sensei sumimase, please forgive me, again and again. So if all goes well, which on occasion it does, it takes about 40 minutes to navigate the minute instructions required to produce three tiny sips of bright green tea. And all the while, you're on your knees, and the knees of your comrades as well are on the tatami mats at a level of discomfort that is hard to imagine anyone would voluntarily endure. And yet, for unknown reasons, you stay there until you're done.

[34:26]

until the utensils are put away and the host has left the tea room. It's especially at times like that when the famous saying written on the scroll comes to life, tea and zen are one. As in stay where you are until it's done, until we all rise again from our seats together. So as I've said, it's all about feelings, feelings that are all too easy to forget. And so we practice them again and again. We practice having feelings, all kinds of feelings. When I first decided to ask Suzuki Sensei if I could study tea with her, my motives were less than pure. I had no idea that tea was what it was, and I wasn't really interested in that matter. I wanted to get close to Suzuki Roshi, who had already died and whose memory... and reputation at the Zen Center was the living basis for the community.

[35:28]

Everyone was grieving who had known him. And there was his wife, Suzuki Sensei, who we call Okasang, who had known him best of all. And I wanted to hear her speak about her husband, which she rarely did. She didn't have to. Suzuki Roshi, as with the Buddhas before him, wasn't gone. He was embodied in those who loved him, and he still is. And so is she, and that's how it works. We love our teachers for all the things they have given to us through their selfless practice, lifting heavy things as if they are light and light things as if they are heavy. I love Suzuki Sensei because she was my teacher, and the parts of myself that I love best have come to me. from people like her. I think all of us can think back on those people in our lives who have opened us up to the light of the world.

[36:31]

And of course, our parents who gave us our first boost with language and walking and hopefully cleaning our rooms. And then we went off to school. My first real teacher in the big world, once I'd left my family, was Mr. Brown, my third grade teacher. He took our class out beyond the asphalt playground and into the field of weeds behind the chain-link fence that encircled our play field. And then he turned over a very big rock. And wow, there were all these tiny little creatures that scurried away from the light. Creepy little things. And it was so disorienting to experience the world as more than what it seems, more than an asphalt playground, more than human and deeply mysterious. So thank you, Mr. Brown.

[37:33]

And thank you, Suzuki Sensei. And thank you, Baker Roshi and Tenshin Roshi. And thank you, everyone, for disorienting me again and again. There is so much for us to learn. among them how to be good hosts and good guests, a profound social form which among all the world's cultures I think the tea ceremony may know best. It's also what Zen practice may know best. The host and the guest are not two, yet they are not the same either. There is something in that relationship that each needs to learn from the other by taking turns and by altering our points of view. So here's another good story. This is one from the Zen tradition about a tea gathering of two Zen monks and a local samurai lord by the name of Sendai. You can find this story, it's been published in Tenshin Roshi's book about the Bodhisattva precepts.

[38:37]

It's called Being Upright. One day a monk named Tesugyu invited Lord Sendai to tea. At the appointed time, Tesugyu Dharma brother Chowan dropped by for a visit. Lord Sendai invited Chowan to join them for tea. Tetsugu, as host, had chosen an especially precious antique tea bowl that Lord Sendai had given to him, which he set down on the tatami mat as he began to make tea. After drinking the tea, Lord Sendai followed the tradition of admiring the bowl and after which he passed it on to Cho'an so he might do the same. Cho'an suddenly reached out with his ceremonial stick and smashed the t-ball. Now look at the authentic t-ball that exists before birth, Cho'an said. Tetsugu turned pale and nearly fainted.

[39:41]

But Lord Sendai remained upright and present, saying to Tetsugu, I gave you that tea bowl, but I would like you to give it back to me now. Before you give it back, please have it glued together and have a box made for it. On the box, I ask that you write the name of the bowl which I now give as the authentic tea bowl before birth. I will reverently pass it on to my descendants. So this story is about tradition. And whether or not we are holding on to a tradition without understanding its essential meaning. For a Zen student, the essential meaning of things is they don't exist. That their fundamental characteristic is a lack of inherent existence. Or as it says in the Heart Sutra, empty of own being. So do we break the tea bowl? Like in the Zen saying, the cup is already broken?

[40:43]

meaning nothing lasts forever. Or like Gollum and the Lord of the Rings, do we try to possess it for ourselves, you know, my precious tea bowl. So the essential meaning is that there is no essential meaning that refers to something other than itself. While making tea, make tea. While eating lunch, eat lunch. While washing the dog, wash the dog. It's so simple, and yet almost no one can pull it off, can pull off the veil of concepts through which we continuously evaluate and view the world. You know, that's my lovely tea bowl that you just broke. Practice is not a matter of time or of duration. It's not a matter of mine or yours. It's simply and exactly what is happening right now. And what's happening right now? is each of us as both the host and the guest of the present moment.

[41:47]

Whether we are walking or kneeling, serving or receiving the offerings, the practices of awakening appear as a boundless stream in which you and I and the world appear inseparably together. There is nothing to hold on to. There is nothing to break. There is no one to protect or to hate. And so how about you? Would you like a bowl of tea? So I'll end this morning with three of Suzuki Sensei's haiku, the poetry form for which she became quite well known, not only among her American students, but also back home in Japan. The first is in honor of the tea ceremony itself. On many years, ash, I light the charcoal for tea ceremony. On many years, ash, I light the charcoal for tea ceremony. And the next two are in celebration of the new year.

[42:52]

First calligraphy of the year, today again I write beginner's mind. First calligraphy of the year, today again I write beginner's mind. I bow to my ballpoint pen and throw it out. Years end. I bow to my ballpoint pen and throw it out. Years end. The last time that I made tea for Suzuki Sensei before she returned to Japan in 1994, about 30 years ago, I guess, I was having a pretty hard time because I kept crying. So when I had finished, whisking the powdered tea, and I looked into the tea bowl, there were lumps floating all over the surface. So I bowed, and I told Sensei once again, Sumimasen, Sensei, I am so sorry.

[43:59]

Please forgive me. I am so sorry about the lumps. And when I looked up, she was smiling at me, and she said, Fusan, enjoy the lumps. Thank you very much. We talk now? Question? Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. If any of you would like to offer comments or have questions, I'd be very grateful to talk with you. You can raise your hand and I'll come around with the microphone. Hi, Fu.

[45:01]

Hi. Always good to see you. Good to see you, too. One of the stories I like to talk to young people about is how would you describe riding a bike no-handed to a Martian who's never ridden a bicycle? And I asked them, could you do it? And obviously, you could not. And the same must probably be said for the tea ceremony. To write down how to do it so that one could read it and do it first time? Not happening. Not happening. No. Yeah, well, I think we all, do we all ride bikes? Everybody ridden a bike, probably? No. How'd you learn? Terrifying. At some point they let go, right? And then you're flying. Trying to remember the brakes. You have to, it's experiential. You know, you can't ride a bike thinking, you can't think a bike ride or a tea ceremony.

[46:07]

It really is, you know, it's kind of a wonderful thing. And one of the things about tea that is kind of characteristic of how I understand Japanese teach, because you teach by watching how other people do the forms. Remember, Greg Anderson said that They once asked Suzuki Roshi when they were just beginning to, he was just beginning to ordain monks, giving them robes and so on. And they asked him, well, how do you put this on? Can you show us the right way to put on our robes? And then he moved, he walked away. And they were all going, oh, I guess he's not going to talk to us. And then somebody said, well, look, he's putting it on. So, you know, that's the style of learning is to really watch and see how it's done and then do your best to. to do that way. Thank you for all your work with the children. You are an inspiration to me. Oh, thank you.

[47:08]

You to me. Thank you, Fu, for your delightful words of wisdom, the deepness of your words. Can you talk a little bit more about what it means to live With your whole heart, wholeheartedly? Yeah. Well, again, it's about feelings, right? That word meaning is interesting. What it means, right, is what does it mean? I once tried to find the root of meaning, and what I found was to moan. That sounds about right. Are you okay? What's your moaning? Why are you moaning? You know? So I think it's in the living of it. It's in the experiencing of it. Like you have your own reference to feeling wholehearted. When are those times that you've had that feeling of expansion and gratitude and awe and all that stuff that makes us feel very big and makes our heart feel really big?

[48:18]

We can try to set that up, do various things that induce awe or joy. But the real secret is in finding that in your everyday life. You know, not the special vacation to, you know, Puerto Vallarta, but washing the dishes. Which is the thing about tea that I am most grateful for is how I've learned to wash dishes. Because the same way you handle little front side-o side-o is the same thing you do when you're putting the dish in the dryer. You know, it's the same, it makes the same physical sense. to do those gestures carefully with both hands, you know, taking care as you do it and enjoying it. The water, the soap, oh my God, the bubbles. You know? Yeah. So I think we forgot what it was like to be a little kid up on the stool washing dishes for the first time, you know?

[49:23]

There's such joy that we've sort of like let slip back. do what we can to bring it forward. Okay. There's a question from the Zoom room. It's a couple paragraphs, but maybe I'll start with, I'm confused by the purpose of the tea ceremony. Maybe you can start there. The purpose? Yeah. How do we look at things like tea ceremony, which seems to be pushing us towards attempting some unattainable perfection?

[50:29]

Indeed. Do you hear that about unattainable perfection? Anybody have a problem with that? I think it just heightens our awareness of how much really we strive or don't strive. I mean, there's two approaches to everything. Either, what the heck, I don't care, whatever. Or, I do care and I want it done my way. And, you know, we have these qualities among us. Some of us are more tending toward the more passive approach and some of us are more like leadership style. But either way, there's something we need to do to kind of, perhaps if we recognize, there needs to be a bit of a corrective. Like we're overcorrecting when we're too stiff and we're undercorrecting when we're too loose. So someone once said that the stiff ones in the community help the loose ones and the loose ones help the stiff ones to lighten up. So, which is one of the reasons doing these things together is so helpful.

[51:34]

You know, you don't get an award for doing the best tea that day. In fact, I think it was, I maybe had been practicing for 10 years when my teacher, at the end of the tea, you thank the teacher for teaching you and then you leave the room. And so that's the usual thing. So I had done tea and I thanked the teacher and she said, very nice, Kusan. I was like, could you say that again? But I haven't forgotten. I mean, it was so wonderful to have her, you know, and I've also heard that in Japanese culture, if you compliment someone too easily, it's not really a compliment. It's kind of a, you know, it's kind of, what do you call that when you're patronizing? Oh, that was great. Oh, my God, what a beautiful, you know, that kind of thing that we tend to fall into.

[52:35]

But if you're really being honest and truthful and reflecting your real feeling about something, you can find something wonderful. And as Riku did in that man's tea that was probably really bad in terms of perfection and beautiful in terms of heartfelt. So I think it's the heartfelt that wins. not getting the temai right, because hardly anyone ever does, you know. So the purpose of tea is, well, to make a bowl of tea. And they're not kidding. That's the whole point. You make a bowl of tea, you have some sweets, you spend time together, and then you leave. And there's such tremendous joy that comes from that time spent together. in what becomes a rather sacred space, as does this room when we sit here together and bow together and chant together.

[53:38]

And we're so different, and we all have different ideas about everything, right? I mean, oh, my God. I remember standing in the circle in the kitchen when I first came to Zen Center. We were getting ready. Our little crew was getting ready to make the meal. And I thought, I thought, it wasn't true, but I thought, I don't have anything in common with these people, you know? We all looked so different and different backgrounds and behavior, but we were all bowing to the figure of the Buddha. I have that in common. Something, some feeling, some feeling of respect for something that's opened and wise and kind. So maybe, maybe that's the purpose is just to help us to find our hearts, open our hearts. I remember one of the things you say as the host, after you've seated yourself and everyone else is seated, you say, please make yourselves comfortable.

[54:44]

And I said, well, that's very funny. There's no way you can be comfortable in SESA. Well, for a while you can. And then I thought, oh, make yourself comfortable with the way things are. Don't try to get out of it. Meet it. Meet your difficulties. Embrace your difficulties. Learn from them. I think that's the gift of tea for me, because I kept going back. And I still go back. I will go back. I get to sit in a chair now, which is kind of cheating, I guess. But I still very much enjoy the whole thing. Amazing. I hope you all take advantage sometime. Maya Wender offers tea here. I think every month there's a monthly tea and guests, anyone's welcome to come. And I know people enjoy it. I've been there. It's really wonderful. Long answer. Do you want to hear the whole question?

[55:51]

Sure. Well, yeah, sure. Yeah. Oh, dear. I lost it. Well, maybe I'll ask a question from Frederick while I'm looking for this person's whole question, if that's okay. Frederick has a question about form. I spent more than 20 winters at Green Gulch and now practice in the wintry gray of the coast of Maine. I still enter my zayn with the form of green gulch entering and bowing, lighting the candle, bowing towards the seat of Buddha and then to the world. I recite the vows before and after I read the Dharma lesson, then I leave the zazen period with familiar gestures from our soto practice. Please comment on the power of rituals in our practice. I just found the other question too, but please comment on the power of rituals.

[56:53]

Well, that was my talk. So, yeah, that was my comment. Yeah. I mean, I'm a true believer in the power of ritual and the joy, really. When I first started studying Buddhism, I felt like Zen was a little too wacky. You know, I couldn't figure out what they were talking about. It was all non-duality and the pinnacle rising, all these emptiness and You know, things I've learned to appreciate a lot more. So I was reading a very old meditation manual called the Vasvidimaga, the Path of Purification, which is an old Theravadan manual for practice. And it's very strict. All these practices you do, they're very detailed, how you eat, how many times a day you eat, what you wear, and so on. But at the end of each chapter, it says these practices are to bring joy to humankind. which really surprised me because it didn't sound very joyful.

[58:02]

It sounded like discipline, which it is. But discipline brings joy to humankind. Taking care of things, doing the work, showing up, being on time. Those things, they take some learning and they take some commitment and they bring great joy to our lives. A job well done, that kind of feeling. So that's my response to that question. Do you think the other one is helpful to read? Does it have some new content that you'd like me to hear, like us to hear? He was referencing Alan Watts and why Zen may have taken hold in Japan because of... Being a nervous culture focused on proper behavior and suggesting Zen was a release.

[59:03]

So it's a little short talk. Maybe you can let me read it later because it's written to me. Yes. So why don't we do that? I'll send it to you. Okay. Thanks. Sam, here we go. Good morning. Hi, Sam. Hello. Hello. A few words of encouragement on being gentle with feeling bad about myself. You're not... That's not where I'm at, but I could always use some help with that. How long have I known you now? 25 years, maybe? Something like that.

[60:08]

All that time, have you been feeling bad about yourself? No. I know. Hardly, though. So do that part, the not feeling bad about yourself part. Okay? That's my advice. Okay. Thank you. nice to see you thank you for your talk I love how you said that the harder ones help the softer ones and the softer ones help the harder ones that's sort of the theme of my relationship and I'm just wondering it's sort of sort of related i'm i'm the harder type i'm the more disciplined type um and um i noticed that um when i'm you know meditating um i guess the longer i meditate over the years like the the more i feel an actual like pain in my heart and

[61:15]

I wonder as far as being the more disciplined type and kind of my, my edge being not to, to push harder, but to pull back a bit, like with that type, how do I know when I'm, when I'm stretching that too much? Like when it's, when it's not, it's not helpful to, to keep stretching it where it's literally like the, the actual like organ of my heart, you know, the physical heart, not the metaphorical heart, like aches. You know, is that I've had a hard time lately knowing when to soften that and maybe back off or maybe just sit with it more. And that balance for me is that more get-or-done type is difficult. Well, I had a medical response. You know, I was saying, make sure you get that checked if it's your actual heart. Okay. The metaphoric heart is your whole body and your whole relationship to the world.

[62:22]

That's our metaphorical heart. It's like how we meet the world, how we come forward in this body to meet that body that's coming forward to meet us. So right now we're having a heart connection. My whole body is here and meeting your whole body. And then there are feelings. You know, my feelings happen to be very pleasant. How are you doing? Okay. Okay, so that's so far so good, right? So all day long we go through those transformations of consciousness. And being stable, the posture, the body posture has to do with finding a stable container for those feelings, which, as we know, are not stable. They're wild, you know. But if you can sit with, if you sit upright, learning to sit with feelings is what we do in meditation. I'm having a lot of feelings right now. I want the bell to ring right now, and it's not.

[63:24]

I've wanted to throw things at the person who occasionally falls asleep at the bell. It's like, does anyone know he's asleep? So those feelings are very strong. You know, if you just let them run, they go away. Nothing lasts. That's the most good news ever. Nothing lasts. Nothing. So, you know, we just, we're patient. We practice patience with our feelings. So be patient and kind and gentle. And I like the word hug. Give them a hug. You know, like, oh, sweetie, what's going on? Are you afraid? Are you anxious? Are you out of control? That might be scary for the boss. So then you befriend those parts of yourself.

[64:28]

That's it. Thank you. You're welcome. Last question. Yes, hi. Good to see you. Good morning. Good morning. As I was here today for a moment, and I apologize, I left and thought about a time when several years ago you played John Cage. And this had some of the same quality. Thank you for the lumps in my tea. Thank you for the grace. Thank you for the humor. Very nice, Fusan. Thank you. Thank you.

[65:34]

I felt that one. Okay. Do we chant again? Do we chant now? May your intention equally extend to every... ...in a place where the truth may come throughout this way. It is unnoticed, but it is unnoticed. to reach the soul of the world, [...]

[66:43]

. . . But we all know that we've seen today, and that we've seen these sounds of sentences, so... I'm also going to have a great day to go on, and that's what we've seen today, [...] and that's what we've seen today. Thank you.

[67:58]

Thanks for coming. The bookstore is open. and we can answer your questions, and you can buy things. We have a donation box outside of that door if you want to support the temple. We also have tea and muffins out there, and you can talk to the speaker, Fu. If you're able to, you can help restore the Zen.

[69:38]

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