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. I had this great insight about crowds of people, and that is there's just one of you So I'm talking to you. I have a refrigerator magnet at my house that I got in Calistoga a couple of years ago.

[01:07]

And on it, there's a picture of Oscar Wilde. And he's dressed to the nines. It's a silk tie and a velvet jacket. And he's dangling a cigarette off of his wrist, like that. And he looks very proud and very enthusiastic about life. And the quote on the magnet says, be yourself. everyone else is already taken. So that's what I want to talk about today. About what it might require of us to really be ourselves and what kind of a self that might actually be. But first of all, I wanted to tell you that we have started our annual spring practice period here at Green Gulch Farm.

[02:14]

We started on Thursday morning with an opening ceremony. And there are about 25 of us who are going to be spending a lot of time together for the next couple of months. A lot of that time in this room. We'll be meditating, we'll be studying Buddhist teaching, and we'll be working in the various places around Green Gulch. Some people in the office or in the kitchen, in the shop, down on the farm, in the garden, taking care of the kids, but most importantly, washing lots and lots of dishes. So I thank you, practice period, for that. But really, a practice period primarily is an opportunity for us to reveal and to manifest our concern for one another and for all of you and for the entire world.

[03:21]

Because that was Buddha's vow. He vowed to live for the benefit of all life. So that's what practice period is really all about. And practice periods began a long time ago, 2,500 years ago, when the Buddha spent time with his students during the rains. They camped together, they meditated like us, and studied the teaching, and they studied communal life. For them it was a way of life, They stayed together for many, many years. Until at last, the Buddha's great decease, Parinirvana. We actually opened this practice period with a very grand ceremony, Parinirvana, to commemorate the passing of our amazing teacher.

[04:27]

So... After the Buddha's deceased, the monks traveled to far-off lands, and with them they took this template of community life into China, into Tibet, and Mongolia, and Korea, Southeast Asia, Japan, until finally with Suzuki Roshi by jet plane to the coast of California. So... I do recognize that it's quite a large responsibility for us to imagine that in a few months we can produce a full-blown monastic community. But we can make a start. We can offer our own bodies, our own hearts and minds. And we can do our best to enact the Buddha's enlightened vision. So I've chosen making a start as the theme for the practice period.

[05:35]

This idea of starting off on a journey into what at first may seem like an uncharted pathway with ever-changing scenery. You know, sometimes the scenery looks really delightful and we are very happy. And sometimes the scenery is hellish and we're scared. And other times, as though from out of nowhere at all, the scenery becomes lustful and wild. I think that probably sounds pretty familiar to all of you. You know, this is our human life. A journey on an uncharted pathway through ever-changing scenery. One of the most common mistakes that we humans make as we head off into new territory, in this case as represented by our practice period, is that we imagine we are going off alone.

[06:40]

I pack my bags and I get ready. I find my room and what I'm supposed to do and so on and so on. I say goodbye to my friends. And it's kind of ironic because the word monastic does come from an old Greek word which means to live alone. But what's happened over the centuries is all of the great religious traditions have confounded this meaning by collecting monastics into one location, into monasteries. The Christians, the Hindus, the Buddhists, The Sufis. And I think you all know that we have a monastery. Zen Center has a monastery called Tassahara. Down near Carmel Valley. Many of you have probably been there already. Maybe in the summer.

[07:45]

Or maybe for a practice period. A lot of us have done our practice periods at Tassahara for a number of years in a row. And as great Zen... poet and former abbot of Hartford Street Zen Center, Philip Whelan, once said, Tassajara is a great place for loners who can't stand to be alone. So I don't know if it's surprising to you or not to hear that there's a lot of tension in a monastery. In fact, I would assert that is the core of the monastic curriculum. And the reason I think that's so is by looking at my own behavior and how I experience monastic life. You know, I really have no trouble being alone when I am alone.

[08:47]

But when I'm alone and there's other people around... You know, things start to happen, and they happen pretty fast. And what I seem to notice is that it has to do with preferences. You know, it's either too hot in here or it's too cold. There's too much salt or not enough salt. You chant too fast and I chant too slow. And on and on and on, all day long. You know, it's exhausting. And we don't get a lot of sleep. Well, the Buddha understood human beings pretty well. He knew about how we think and how we prefer this and that. But he went ahead and established a monastic community anyway. And he did this so that he could help his students to become free.

[09:56]

from the imprisonment within their own versions of reality. He put them up next to one another in a tight squeeze. Very kind. And then to help us on our way, he taught this wonderful, sweet sermon called A Better Way to Live Alone. Buddha said, well, this is actually his assistant who memorized his lectures, speaking, and his name is Ananda. Ananda says, thus have I heard, referring to the Buddha speaking, thus have I heard, at one time when the Lord Buddha was staying at the monastery in the Jedha Grove in the town of Shravasti, there was a monk named Tara who always preferred to be alone. Whenever he could, he praised the practice of living alone.

[10:57]

He sought alms alone and he sat in meditation alone. The Lord Buddha told one of the bhikkhus, please go to the place where the monk Tara lives and tell him I wish to see him. When the monk Tara heard the Buddha's wish, he came without delay, prostrated at the feet of the Buddha, stepped to one side and sat down at a distance. Then the Blessed One asked the monk Tara, is it true that you prefer to be alone, that you praise the life of solitude, you go for alms alone, you come back from the village alone, and that you sit in meditation alone? The monk Tara replied, it is true, blessed one. Then the Buddha, speaking to Tara, taught the monks as follows. It's obvious that Tara likes the practice of living alone. I do not deny that. But I want to tell you that there is a better way to be alone. It is the way of deep observation in order for you to see that the past no longer exists and the future has not yet come so that you might dwell at ease in the present moment, free from all desire.

[12:18]

When a person lives in this way, they have no hesitation in their heart. They give up all anxiety and regret and let go of all binding desires, cutting away the fetters which prevent them from being free. This is called the better way to live alone. There is no more wonderful way than this. And then the Blessed One recited this in verse. In observing life deeply, it is possible to see clearly all that is, not enslaved by anything. It is possible to put aside all craving. The result is a life of peace and joy. This is truly to live alone. Hearing the Lord's words, the monk Tara was delighted. he prostrated respectfully to the Buddha and departed.

[13:21]

Now what it doesn't say is whether he went back to living alone or not, which I kind of like, you know. The Buddha gave them options. He didn't tell them what to do. He just tried to help them to see for themselves. So for all of us who have entered into the practice of Buddha's way, It is exactly this vision of ourselves in isolation that we have come here to confront and to dispel. And it's this confrontation with ourself, or maybe more accurately, with this idea we have of ourself, which is the way that we can approach and free ourselves with great courage, It takes courage and it takes tremendous sustained effort to break out of this imprisonment. But we know and we've heard that it's happened many times throughout history that people have broken free.

[14:34]

They have accomplished the journey from self-concern to regard for others. To a great amazement at Communion with all life. This great journey is really actually rather small. It's a shift in perspective. A tiny pivot through which we may see just for a moment in a flash who we really are. How it really is. The snap of a finger. We snap out of it. the same time we snap into it again and [...] again moment by moment by moment if you forget just snap your fingers you'll be back back where back here a better way to live alone had an idea for another magnet refrigerated magnets like if you're not in awe and

[15:45]

You're distracted. So I wanted to talk a little more about this theme of starting out on a journey. There's two reasons that I picked this theme for the practice period. The first one is that there's quite a bit that the Buddha had to say about path, about the way. In fact, it's a key element of his teaching. In his very first sermon called The Turning of the Wheel of the Law, the Buddha gave us the burden of the Four Noble Truths. I think you all have heard them before. The first one is the truth of suffering, which isn't hard to understand. The second is the truth of the cause of suffering, which is quite difficult to understand. It's hard for us to see what's causing our pain. The third noble truth is cessation of suffering.

[16:49]

This is the good news. And the fourth truth is the path that leads to the cessation of suffering. This is the way, the path, how to. So it's this path that leads to the cessation of suffering that I, most of all, I want to follow myself. That's... first priority is me but along the way I want to share all that I see and hear with those who travel with me you know that's everybody as we move along you know how is it for you how is it for me what do you see you know what's been helping you along the way so the second reason I chose this theme of the path is that there's so many great stories about journeys. Odysseus sailing out on the waters, there's Moses climbing up the mountain, Jesus walking out into the desert, and then there's the Buddha sitting forcefully under a tree.

[18:03]

Great heroes, great heart heroes of our human lives. And some of these stories, most of them actually, end quite happily. Although not in the way I think that the person who sets out had in mind. We don't usually get what we're looking for. It's something much more amazing than that. But this morning, the particular journey I want to talk about has to do with fairy tale creatures. Jack and the Beanstalk. Cinderella and the Prince. There's Red Riding Hood and the Wolf. And oh yeah, the marvelous and ever wicked witch. For many years, my therapist would mention to me elements of this play called Into the Woods.

[19:08]

Do you all know Into the Woods? Some of you know Into the Woods? Anybody not know Into the Woods? Okay, good. Well, I didn't either. And it's a Stephen Sondheim play that was very popular on Broadway. And so finally I ordered the DVD of the original Broadway cast. And it is quite marvelous. And I realized I'd seen little snippets of it because schools often put on parts of this play with the kids, which is how I'd seen it. Because it's such a simple story. on the surface. Fairy tales are like that. They're very simple stories. But I think we all know that there are these great dark secrets embedded in fairy tales, secrets that have been passed on to us from our elders for many, many generations. So in the opening of the play, there are these three tableau.

[20:10]

Is tableau plural? Tableaus? It's already plural? Thank you. Three tableau. And the first one is Cinderella at the hearth. And the second one is Jack trying to milk his poor dried-up old cow. And the third one is the childless baker and his wife who, to their misfortune, live next door to the wicked, wicked witch. And the narrator introduces us to the characters and then each of them starts to sing. the refrain, the primary refrain of the play, which is, I wish. I wish. If only. And then we get to hear from each of them what they wish for. Cinderella wishes to go to the festival. And Jack wishes his cow would give milk so he wouldn't have to sell her. And get those magic beans.

[21:11]

And The childless couple are wishing for a baby. So it seems to me that naming our wish is one of the most important elements of starting off on the path. What is it you really want? What do you want with all your heart? Not just our material longings, which are just so cheap and easy to come by. What do you really want? What are you longing for in your heart of hearts? And how are you going to get it? This is the toehold on the path to liberation. Now what's interesting is that when you begin to articulate your wishes, it doesn't really matter what it is because everyone, everywhere, always wishes for something that they don't already have. what wishes are for and the irony of that is that wishing for something you don't already have is the mechanism of separation from the present moment if only I wish that's what this play is all about yeah that's how they all get to such trouble

[22:42]

So this mechanism of separation is also the very mechanism of our suffering. First noble truth. Suffering, second noble truth, the cause of your suffering is wishing for something you don't already have. Something that's not here, right here, right now. So this is the key by which we lock ourselves out of communion with us. balance of the universe and then we peek through the keyhole where'd everybody go I'm sorry it's not funny I mean this is really painful so the reason I say that this is the first step on the path is because if we don't see how this mechanism of separation works then we can't become free of it so we have to look at it again and again and again how our minds produce you know almost as if by a spell of an evil witch these fantasies of things that we long for if only if only be yourself everyone else is already taken

[24:11]

So in Buddhism, the master of illusion is called Mara, the evil one. And Mara reminds me a lot of kind of a rabid teenager. He's just tormenting the Buddha constantly. Why don't you get up? Why don't you get a job? Do something with your life. You're worthless. You're not a very good parent. He's just constantly harassing him while he's trying to sit there. So finally, the Buddha, after a week of tolerating this, he gets this knowing and kind smile on his face, the final day, just at the moment of his awakening, and he says to Mara, I know who you are. And Mara shrieks in terror. You don't know who I am. Buddha says, but I do. You are myself. And with that, Mara vanishes.

[25:21]

Now, not unlike the Buddha, the characters in this play are all driven by their own karmic histories and their beliefs to head out into the woods. under the trees, to try and satisfy their own personal longings. And amazing things happen to them while they're there. Each one of them comes back from this journey, back to the beginning, but changed. They're not the same as when they'd gone out, when they'd set off into the forest. What's even more amazing is that somehow, miraculously, they don't come back alone. They come back together. By having given and receiving help to one another, by being honest, by suffering tragedies together, by sharing their stories together, they form a community.

[26:34]

They are no longer isolated selves. a community of fellow travelers. So I think this is the actual and real alchemy of the hero's journey. I go off to get what I want and we come back together. We come back to the true place and to the true person that we've always been, the one who is never alone, was never alone. I can't be alone. So I asked my daughter permission to tell this story about her. She's old enough now where I have to ask her permission. I used to just tell her story. She said, you told people that. I said, oh, I'm sorry. Anyway, around Christmas time, we were having dinner with...

[27:39]

the Anderson family, who live down the lane from where I live. And we were celebrating Taya Anderson's birthday, as we do every year. And my daughter did something very kind and thoughtful for one of the other people at the table. So Reb Anderson turned to her and he said, Sabrina, you are becoming a bodhisattva. And Sabrina looked horror-stricken. And she said, but I just want to go to college. Dear, dear child, you know, into the woods. So we'll send our best wishes with her along her way, along her journey. I want to end with a poem, a roomy poem, you may already know.

[28:42]

This is one that was written for me on a box of chocolates about 20 years ago. The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don't go back to sleep. You must ask for what you really want. Don't go back to sleep. People are going back and forth across the door sill where the two worlds touch. The door is round and open. Don't go back to sleep. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[29:43]

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