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. Good evening. I'm going to back up a little bit so I can see to the side. My name is Judith Randall, and I'm the treasurer right now at Tassajara. And I want to thank the Tonto, Greg Fain, and Leslie, the abiding teacher, for inviting me to talk with you. After they did that, I began to think about work and work practice. how to be of use, what it is to be of use, both practically speaking with our work and also with our spiritual selves, our hearts.

[01:12]

And I thought about the difference between work and work practice. And I thought about what is it that brings us, some of you here, Year after year after year. What is it that I love so about work, period? What is this practice? Work as practice? Work is practice? What does all that mean? I think before I encountered Zen practice, work was a means to an end. a way to support myself and, at the time, my family. I was in social services and other nonprofit work, so it was certainly well-meaning and it was the work of service, but there were struggles with feelings of inadequacy and staff

[02:27]

struggles and who makes these decisions that impact me and sometimes boredom. And then Greg used the phrase in a class recently, Witbo, wanting it to be otherwise, the biggest struggle of all. And so then I thought, well, what changed? When I encountered Zen practice, I encountered intention, bringing intention to an activity. Work became an expression of practice and a willingness arose to study in the course of work the self. all out there as well. It became an end in itself.

[03:30]

It was for its own sake. And that was certainly different. And that change came about in part because of being introduced to the bodhisattva vows and the paramitas. And the paramitas are practices of the bodhisattva or the awakening one, the one who takes up willingly the activity of helping this one and all beings and suffering and their suffering. So these paramitas or perfections, or I like to think of them as wholenesses, help us to do that. And we can cultivate them. We can literally take them up and practice them. And also they arise in us as we sit in Zazen over time. And I think at some point they meet, you know, the outer cultivation and the inner arising in Zazen.

[04:39]

And then they're kind of part of us. Is it impossible to save all beings? Yes, and we do it anyway. That's part of the vow. I was talking to the Tenzo at Green Gulch on Sunday, and we were talking about this subject, and she said for her, work is relaxing into impossibility. And as... Boxes and boxes of produce, unexpected produce, come in from the gardens at Green Gulch to the kitchen, or unexpected people show up. She's training and relaxing into impossibility. So the six practices are generosity, discipline, patience, energy, meditation, and wisdom.

[05:40]

And I've been thinking about them in relation to work and work practice. So generosity, we are the recipients of generosity here. All the people that have come before us that have created this place, the generations of practitioners that have endowed us with this practice, the mountains, the creatures, the plants, all of it, the sky, all of it is creating this place, and we are the recipients of that. And so generosity engenders gratitude, and it also is a source. Gratitude is also a source of generosity. So when we feel grateful, that spills over. we can express generosity.

[06:44]

We continue in that cycle. You all come here and offer your energy and your skill and your wholeheartedness, your love for this place. And I see it happen in people who are even just here for the first time so quickly. They're turned into just... fountains of generosity in the work. And that benefits and infuses all the people who come. And the place I hear this most is in the work circle when people say goodbye. All the time there is this deep, deep sense of gratitude and a kind of wonder about what they've found here, often in themselves. but certainly in each other and in the place and in the work. In the winter, we have a longer... The little meal chant we do is just a tiny part of the long meal chant we do, and we eat our meals in the zendo.

[08:01]

And in that chant... It talks about the emptiness or the complete interrelatedness, I would say, of giver, receiver, and gift. That there's no distinction among them. There's no hierarchy. There's no separation. No difference in status, in giver, receiver, and gift. And I feel us in that wheel together as we work here. We're giving... it seems, with no expectation of reward except maybe a bath and a good meal, engaging in the work for its own sake. So to me that's the generosity of our work practice. Discipline, also ethical conduct or morality or in our tradition the precepts, the guidelines we follow,

[09:02]

or the shingi, the monastic guidelines that we follow, all of these could be called behavior conducive to awakening. So how in our work do we behave with one another and with the things that we handle in a way that is conducive to awakening, our own and others? These precepts or... I think if you're brand new, you may have had an orientation and we may have told you certain little things to do and not to do, ways to behave here, ways that we've discovered as we do work periods that help us kind of stay aligned. And these are guideposts or reminders to help us align with our awakened nature. That's their... basic use.

[10:04]

Another tradition calls it our basic goodness, to line up with our basic goodness. So in the workplace, maybe kind speech, right speech, is a practice we take up. Speaking and treating others with respect and dignity. I'm part of the diversity group of the Zen Center, and one of the areas of right speech that's so important is as we experience each other's differences, to be mindful of the speech we use with each other in that way. And one very specific way this comes up is in remembering another person's name and specifically how to pronounce it correctly, how they pronounce it, and then using their name.

[11:05]

It's a way of bringing us all into the circle. The practice of patience is a pretty big one in our work. And what is that? For me, that is... If I'm in a situation where I feel agitation arising, which is something I work with, or impatience, if I can use that as a signal to stop, to pause, to let it register, to breathe, to soften into it, there is a space created a little bit then around what's just happened. So you don't automatically go into reactivity. you can instead maybe respond rather than react. And that kind of slows down the action and gives you that chance.

[12:11]

So what do we practice patience with in our work? Perhaps if you're brand new here, you might feel like an outsider. A lot of people have come for a long time. The students kind of cluster together, and maybe it's hard to break in. Usually that lasts for about 10 minutes because we're a pretty friendly group, but not always. Some people are shyer and don't feel so easy to get into the group. So being patient with those feelings in ourselves is a practice we can take up. If we don't know what we're doing, we may be thrown into work that we don't know how to do, might feel incompetent or even stupid or embarrassed. Then seeing those feelings arise, stopping, pausing, breathing.

[13:16]

So a lot of it's working here. Or we can be really sure of ourselves. We can know. We have a better way to do things than they're doing them here. And we can get irritated or angry when things don't go as we think they should. Or we may be feeling tired or lazy or resistant or not liking the kind of work we're doing. All of those are occasions for bringing patience practice to work. In terms of energy, This is arousing or realizing the energy of practice, not just the physical energy of working. It's about sustainability and balance, balancing rest and work through the day, stopping when it's time to stop, taking a break. A lot of times we just keep right on going, and that's not...

[14:23]

necessarily sustainable in a way that allows us to bring practice to what we're doing. We can probably keep going, but we'll just get depleted. I'm reminded today is the equinox, the autumn equinox, so we're in a time of balance, light and dark. So not too much energy, not too little. Either one of those can create discouragement. We can burn out or lose heart. So remembering that the work is for its own sake and just staying with it. And that leads into meditation, the paramita of meditation. And how do we bring that to work? I would say through mindfulness in each thing that we're attending to, attending wholeheartedly and completely with care.

[15:29]

I think of some of you as craftspeople, craftsmen, craftswomen, and I think that's one of the things that that's about is the kind of care and attention that one brings to what's in front of them. So if we're on the cushion, we're attending completely to this breath, this sound, this physical posture. And in the work, we can bring that mind to exactly what we're doing. And then to be compassionate or kind-hearted to ourselves if we can't, or if we lose it, or if somebody else loses it. That's so important. There's a little song from the Shaker tradition that also is part of the Quaker tradition, which I was part of for a long time.

[16:33]

And it talks about this turning again and again back to attune with the moment. And if you know it, Please sing it with me. It's called Simple Gifts. Tis a gift to be simple. Tis a gift to be free. Tis a gift to come down where we ought to be. And when we find ourselves in a place that is right, we will be in the valley of love and delight. When true simplicity is gained to bow and to bend we will not be ashamed to turn to turn it will be our delight till by turning and turning we come round right and naturally then we lose it but we can keep turning and turning and turning back to align

[17:43]

with our true nature. The sixth Paramita practice of the bodhisattva, and you are all bodhisattvas, is wisdom. And that is simply seeing things as they are without adding anything. Impossible. Seeing things, or as Suzuki Roshi says, seeing things as it is. We tend to see it, and then we start embellishing or interpreting or adding our story, and then we believe all of that, and then we're in our suffering. So just seeing that and coming back to... What happened? Just what happened? I'm reading a book called Mindful Way Through Depression, a wonderful book by Williams and Kabat-Zinn and two other people.

[18:52]

It talks about what the video camera would see if there were a camera there in the experience. So just what's happening. And then our interpretation. which happens so fast, we don't think it's two things, but it is. And then our action or our speech that comes out of that. And so to cultivate the willingness and the skill of seeing just what's happening, that's the practice of wisdom. I use a... what I call a breath mantra to help me with this sometimes. So breathing in just this, breathing out as it is. Just this as it is. Helps me try to see in that way.

[19:57]

In that... tradition of my teacher, Paul Haller, I have a poem to share, Marge Piercy, speaking about work, I think work as practice, and describing so well the work at Tassajara. It's called To Be of Use. The people I love the best jump into work headfirst without dallying in the shallows and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight. They seem to become natives of that element, the black, sleek heads of seals bouncing like half-submerged balls. I love people who harness themselves an ox to a heavy cart, who pull like water buffalo with massive patience, who strain in the mud and muck to move things forward, who do what has to be done again and again.

[21:23]

I want to be with people who submerge in the task, who go into the fields to harvest and work in a row and pass the bags along, who are not parlor generals and field deserters, but move in a common rhythm when the food must come in or the fire be put out. The work of the world is common as mud. Botched, it smears the hands. crumbles to dust. But the thing worth doing, well done, has a shape that satisfies. Clean and evident. Greek amphoras for wine or oil, Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums.

[22:24]

But you know they were made to be used. The pitcher cries for water to carry and a person for work that is real. So jumping in, regardless of ability or skill, jumping in together, moving in a common rhythm, bringing up the recycling, bringing in the dry goods. I see the... Serving crews in the winter start out all awkward, and halfway through the practice period they're moving like one body. Same in the kitchen crew. The question is sort of, what needs to happen here? And then, how can I help? We work together till everything is done, and then we bow.

[23:26]

Our practice is also to love those who can't or won't jump in to work headfirst. And ourselves, when we're feeling grumpy or resistant or bored. So including everyone and everything is our Zen practice. And what is work that is real? The pitcher cries for water to carry. and a person for work that is real. It's no particular kind of work. Any work is real if we bring our wholeheartedness to it, our practice to it, our just this as it is to it, our breath to it. Then it is realized. Work we're connected to engaged with in each moment and when we're not, practicing with that.

[24:34]

So please take up the paramitas. I think you already do. I would love to hear your questions or your ideas about these ideas or about work practice. Is it ever appropriate to say this needs to be changed? Yes, I think so. When you say that, I think I visualize being with a group and saying, does this need to be changed? You know,

[25:41]

working together with others in that way. And sometimes we do need to try to bring about change, but I think the struggle or the suffering in that would come if we had an attachment to a particular outcome. So can we try to bring about change and be... detached from the outcome. So earlier on, I just realized what you have to say about it.

[26:47]

If you practice those first three, the three energy-giving parts of the platform, where they sort of ease and worry and make it easy for the other three that give you the energy. Sounds good. Energy and meditation or mindfulness. There's a watch in here somewhere. Yeah. What encourages you to keep coming back to the practice? Way back when I was in the beginning of it, Diane Banaj, the teacher at the time, said, keep doing it and someday it will do you.

[28:07]

And I think somewhere in the last couple of years, I feel that way. so grateful because I just want to sit I want to practice I want to practice mindfulness that it's kind of a I feel the images of the little teeny nuclear cell that runs a submarine or something something like that and then To see, like I said, to hear at the work circle or to see in students the sort of coming to embrace this newly is very inspiring.

[29:13]

What keeps you coming back? Yeah, that's important. A lot of you are not here all the time and may be part of a sangha or some kind of spiritual group or some kind of... The Buddha talks about noble friends and noble conversation. That takes many forms, but I think that's really important for cultivating these virtues, is to have people that... are doing that, too, in some way. Might be a book group. Might be a softball league. Anything else?

[30:20]

Discourages me. My own when I believe my own ideas about inadequacy or when I believe my own fear. Well, I don't at first. sitting here. Something about just doing it. Something about, and taking encouragement from others. Seeking encouragement. Stating that I'm afraid. We talk about, interestingly enough, in this tradition, we talk about confession and repentance.

[31:32]

If there are any Catholics in the group, it's not quite the same. But to me that means saying it out loud with a teacher or a Dharma friend. Just saying it out loud, being witnessed, can help kind of loosen it up. And then it doesn't have that grip. Yeah, yeah, that too. How do you do it? That's another thing around fear or anxiety.

[32:36]

Well, actually, my sister's been in Buddhist practice for about 42 years, and I was talking to her about this subject, and she said when I get into a mind state, she didn't specifically say fear, but if she feels like she's been unskillful in something or... She goes out and weeds or goes to work. And that or helping another person can loosen that up. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Say about using work as a distraction, the pitfall of like overwork or... We certainly do it. We use anything as a distraction. Just in terms of what you just said about getting out of yourself. Getting out of yourself so much that you're no longer in touch with yourself or something deeper.

[33:48]

I think for me, I... do that, and then I wear myself out or I notice that I'm really grouchy with people. And then that's like a little wake-up call. What are you doing? What are you doing? Go swim or something. But I don't know. Maybe there's a hope that the time of seeing that it would shorten, you know, and that maybe even we could see it coming. Oh, we have a mouse. Maybe one more, if there is one. Yes, Kim. Sometimes, I've been at Zen Center 10 years, and sometimes I want to leave and go practice in another way.

[35:08]

Mainly, perhaps, a long silent retreat. As strange as that sounds, I mean, I know we have a lot of silence here, especially in the winter, but it's not, there are traditions where, you know, you're silent for three months. pretty much literally. So that appeals. I don't think... You know, I was born a Methodist. I was in the Evangelical United Brethren Church for a while. I was an Episcopalian. I was a Quaker. And then I was a Buddhist. And so I think, what's next? So I don't know about that. Who knows? Who knows? where we'll go, what we'll do. But this really feels... I can't imagine leaving it.

[36:17]

I will leave Tassajara. We all leave Tassajara, except maybe Leslie. So that will happen. And so I'm grateful every day to be here because I know that will happen. We could say that about our lives, too, by the way. That would be really good. But we don't tend to remember that. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma Talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[37:06]

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