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. It's very special to sit here today. Special because This has been my destination on the left for more than 10 years until 2003. There's a gap in between five years. And so it's... bringing up a lot of old memories of the past, and some faces that are from that time.

[01:09]

And also, maybe we will use new faces, toys, The fabric of my life has just been driven over these threads of the past, threads of the present, and the new thread of today, which is our whole day. Changing its pattern forward as the day goes on. Can everybody hear me? Do you hear it? Not enough? Can you make it louder? No. Is this better? Yes. OK. So we could raise this if my voice goes down. And I do? Yes, thank you.

[02:13]

Sorry, thank you. Yes. And anybody else, just raise your hand because while I Speaking in life as well, Peter. I know. Even though I may not say anything for him. But then you have a choice of business to decide on it, isn't it? Again, please. Each time I sign up, I say yes to the invitation to take a call. I'm waiting and I feel really fine.

[03:21]

Honored and happy. willing. And then, as the time comes closer, my being kicks in. That is the way in Switzerland we say we are needed a particular way. You know, we all are needed by your arm, but everybody has a very difficult pattern, you could say. So, my being, which has been given the darkening room of emptiness, the living room of emptiness, kind of, I'm confronted by it. Nothing sticks. Any thought about what I could talk about has a

[04:24]

short lifespan because it gets into the loom of emptiness and gets replaced by the next thing that comes in. So today I got up before and I managed to have five pages of notes that may have still some light while I'm sitting here, but I don't know. And it's for the self that wants to be in control and wants to know what it's going to do and what it's going to say, it's quite challenging. And so we've seen what happens today. What always helps me is that any talk, any conversation actually we are having is not

[05:25]

by one person. It will always be created by you all today, and what you bring here today, what kind of energies you are bringing with you, your lives that you are bringing with you is kind of affecting all of us, even though we don't. Can't put our finger on it or say what it is, but it's very effective. So you are co-responsible for the talk, for co-creating the talk today, because I didn't plan to start out this way, for example. So going to what I have planned is I want to start out with breathe hard, The deep part of an essay by ,, who was the director of this school of Zen Buddhism, which we chant once a week, and often during sessions every day, once.

[06:45]

And it's called . And the introduction to the rules of . You have gained the difficult opportunity of human form. You have not used your time in being. You are maintaining the essential working of the Buddha way. Who would take wasteful delight in the spark from Flintstone? Besides, form and substance are like the dew on the grass. Destiny like the dart of lightning. Empty in an instant, vanish in a flash. And not use your time in gig.

[07:52]

You have gained the pivotal opportunity of you before. So, pitiful means transformative, capable of change. We have all gained the pitiful opportunity to live this life as a human being. So we have the opportunity for transformation, for change. What comes with it? When Shaka only attained enlightenment, we not know it, under the Bodhi tree, after sitting for several days, not moving, after he had tried everything else he could possibly imagine, and all the teachers had come up. So he decided to just sit still and not move till he understood life. And the reality of this mystery, this miraculous event that there is a new

[09:01]

first, and that in this universe there's a planet called Earth, and that actually we got bored. Can you imagine that? It's an unimaginable action. So he said when he woke up, how amazing that all living beings have the basic nature of awakening, yet they don't know. So they trace on the ocean of great suffering, life, time, and afterlife. So we saw that we all have the basic nature of awakening. It just comes with being born. Just a gift. And we can engage that and wake up to that so that we do not continue lifetime after lifetime, you can also say day after day, our suffering.

[10:06]

The world from which it will be free. It cannot be free from getting ill or breaking a leg, possibly, or having the pain of losing somebody. That would not be free. We should not attend to that prayer. That would make us be given. But we can be free from of the suffering that we create by limited views, fixed views, fixed positions, habitual positions, those who can change. So, are maintaining the essential working of the . So we all have the capacity to wake up, to meet reality as it is, without trying to manage it or bend it to our views.

[11:26]

And that is helping us to meet the reality of life, that everything is impermanent. So I recognize the place here, but so many things have changed. There's nothing, there's a lot that is not anymore the same as when I used to think. There's a bell tower, there's a welcome center, there's a, what is it called, Skyhawk? Yes, Skyhawk. Yeah, and there's another one. Klau, help me. Stillwater one. Stillwater one. You know, always changed. So I, my current experiences of changes and transitions have been that when I stepped down from having a position at Zen Center, City Center, and kind of left residential life,

[12:31]

work which I had left before, invited back and left again. I started to wake up a few weeks into that. I started to wake up in the middle of the night with this kind of physical state of panic. It just washed over me and then after a while it would fade I would get up and read something or distract myself or and then go back to sleep. So that went on for a few weeks. And one day, I realized, in the true sense of the word, my life has entered the dead end. I have entered the days of my life that I don't know how to walk to the dead, how to wind, or to which kind of Landscapes, it's going to move.

[13:33]

But at the end, it's dead. There is no new career waiting for me. I kind of said I retired. Dead end. It's a wonderful term, much. Because dead deep from behind the horizon on to the horizon. It is now always dead. So how? And it changes everything you see, feel, think, do, want to do. It's just you're suddenly in a totally different environment. I didn't choose that. I didn't decide how I want to do that. It told me I am here. Surprise. Here I am. And I'm not going away. And I can't get people away either, really.

[14:36]

So not wasting our time in vain. There's the same reason that we should practice as if our head was on fire right now. because you can't postpone it later, because one of the also quite surprising events was that what I saw, oh, once I have more time, I will do this and that and the other, and I was looking forward to it. Now that time has arrived. And to my surprise, this and that and the other, some of them more interest anymore. Again, nothing I have chosen to lose interest or to not want to do anymore, happy life, ooh, there, then I will be able to do it.

[15:48]

I will enjoy it. It doesn't interest me. And that's going to happen Probably to all of us, to some degree, unless we have a very sudden early death or an early death. So then that's a whole other challenge, right? We have to face time while we're young, and all the interests are totally removed in the light. That's a whole other challenge. But I'm now 70, so I'm getting to have the other challenge. So we have to, we are invited to not postpone what is really important for us. To not think we have time later, because we may well have the time, or we may not have the interest, the energy, for it later.

[16:59]

So it's another kind of invitation to live in the here and the now. Because that's where the paths and future are leading. Live here. While some interests are failing and I feel like my life just wants me away from certain things, whether I want to or not. So, for example, I feel further away from the institutional, formalized practice I've been in for so long, for so many years, and then Interestingly, I'm being called back.

[18:02]

So on one side, I feel like I'm moving further away in my interest games or housekeeping. And on the other hand, I get invited to perform a Dharma transmission for somebody, for a disciple, to perform lay ordination ceremony for students that have been working with me, to speak at the wedding, to be part of the memorial service. So the ritual or the core center is kind of, to do a Dharma talk, or kind of come at me. and engaging, something says, yes. And then, there's no way out of it.

[19:08]

So, and they're all incredibly, they're all initiations. And they all have a transformative, all pivotal, they're transformative. And they transform everybody that's in it. It's not just the officiator, the one that does a lot of stuff. It's actually everybody that's in the space at the time of the ritual. So we're all doing a ritual. What do we go with or not? You come in and you take your seat and then you Put your hands together or keep them in your lap. And we all chant. And even if you're not chanting, your body is being touched by the sound of the chanting. And do willingly shake your day so that it can be spiritual with all of us.

[20:16]

Let's sit here. So rituals are a support for not wasting time. They can also be a support for wasting time. So whether we recognize it or not, we are immersed in secular rituals all the time. They are an integral part of all life, human life and by the Lord. Like, for example, have you ever seen bees? People did a little dance to tell the other bees in the night where exactly they can find what specific kind of nurture. It's amazing. It's a ritual. So bees communicate, we communicate with rituals.

[21:21]

Animals communicate with rituals, how dogs show each other how they accept dalliance or how they want to be dalliance. But it's really, it's everywhere. It's an inherent aspect of interaction. And rituals have the function, one function of rituals is to make it visible, visible. When I come here to face the talk, I put on these robes. And these robes make visible to me and to anybody who wants to know that I have taken the pre-spouse, which when I walk around in my regular clothes, which is my painted toenails, I see myself.

[22:26]

So that's a ritual to put on the ropes. We would chant before we put this rope, not when we put this on. Then I bow here to the ritual, which makes it visible also for me. My bow, my intentions, and everything that has gone into them since I've taken them. many years ago. So rituals made invisible, accessible to all our senses, sight, smell, pace, touch, mind, heart, they connect us to something internal.

[23:39]

So if you all take a moment to think, what would help you today to shape your day today in such a way that now you are seen here? And make yourself actually visible to all of us. You're here. So something in you, compelled you, and made it visible and turned into an action that affects you today, in the way that you are here. So can I touch that in you? Identify that in you? Well, you must have had the intention on some level.

[24:43]

We don't know what exactly the intention is, but that may be wrong. An intention comes from the Latin intensio, or intensione, which is stretching out, exertion, effort, attention. So we all have to stretch to get here. We all get to make time, we all have to put on the appropriate clothes, and they have to drive here most of the time, because it's not to walk in here. So it makes visible intentions, and all our actions to whether or not we know the intentions behind it. So rituals shape our lives, our bodies, our minds, our emotions, and our spirit.

[26:02]

So we have rituals that are habits. There's a wonderful poem by Jane Hirschfeld, which I would like to. It goes. It's called Puppet. The shoes put on each time, left first, then right. The morning potion's teaspoon of sweetness stirred always for seven circuits, no fewer, no more, into the cracked blue cup. Touching the pocketful wallet, for peace before closing the door. How did we come to believe these small rituals promise that we are today the selves we yesterday knew and tomorrow will be? How intimate and unthinking the way the toothbrush we shave and dry after use, the part we wash first

[27:11]

Which habits we learned from others, and which are ours alone, we may never know. Unbearable to acknowledge how much they are themselves our fainting life. Open the traveling suitcase, there the beloved red sweater, bright tangle of necklace, earrings of anger, Each of us, I choose this, I. But habit is different. It chooses. And we, good horses, open our mouths at even the sight of the day. So Thich Nhat Hanh says that When we are born, even before we are conceived, in the April, in the newborn, there are ancestral transmitted habits, sins.

[28:27]

They come from the past, invading us. And they go on into the future. We'll pass them on unless we actually start investigating and paying attention how they affect us and then deciding whether they align with our intention. Whether they wake us up or whether they put us to sleep. If they just keep going on, that's called karma. there's intentionality. We can create rituals. So what she's describing as habits are forms of rituals, like stirring the exact same way every morning, calling your friend every morning, and the opposite habit. So this body, which is also one of the

[29:40]

Classicals by Enidobel and Fine Health School. He says, this body is the fruit of many lives. Save this body, meaning this body, your body, which is the fruit of many lives. It's where past and future meet. Where is the here and now. All the time, the body is always where you are. It's never somewhere else. So it's your vehicle. It's the vehicle of the city of greatly. It's the vehicle of all your habits. It's the vehicle of intentionality and living the way we want to live, rather than being lived by habituating, inheriting, self perpetuating patterns.

[30:42]

We can stretch and we can effort. We can connect, create our own visuals. We can collect, help us connect to our capacity to be fully human, to develop a full human capacity, which is and visitors living or manifesting under nature and await you. We can make visible for us our deeper intention, our values, By making it visible for us, we make it also accessible and connected to the capacity of us.

[31:44]

So we can watch what we do habitually, continue to doing the program and training the path of this practice. We gave the people the task for one week or two weeks to observe how to get dressed in the morning. And once you're familiar, you actually are conscious because you don't even know it. You have to often do it to remember how you do it individually. Once you recognize how you do it, we ask them to change it. To flip it around, start with the other layer, with the top instead of the bottom. Because that helps us be present. Because when we are so habituated, we can leave somewhere totally else, because I don't want to get dressed. And we think that's sufficient. But that's actually not living your life as it lives itself every moment.

[32:52]

It's a difference. It's a huge difference. So we can become aware of what you do when we change it around. You can participate in existing rituals that are offered here, other places, walks in nature, whatever it is that helps you be connected, nurtures your inner intention. You can create a designated space in your house where you put up a picture of every body that has inspired you. in your life, whether they be alive or not alive at you. But they inspire you because they manifest something that is in you, otherwise you will not be able to recognize it in them, be inspired. So they hear something that's in you, and by having a designated space where all these beings are visible, making them visible and tangible, and stand there

[34:07]

in the morning and look at each one and feel what it is, the quality that inspired you. And doing that in the evening before you go to bed will change your life. And will keep that energy that they brought into the world alive and flowing and continuing. It's not gone, it goes there. It's actually our task when you had a friend, a close being that meant something in your life and brought something to your life, and they gathered, they passed. In some ways, we have to put paths to keep what they have given us moving forward by expressing it in our own way. We can't express it exactly how they did it because they're needed. So our expression will be different, but it may be the same quality.

[35:10]

And we have to stretch to do that. Because it was so easy. We had it because they were present. They didn't. So now we have to stretch and hold this in our life. can speak out loud for your intention for the day, every day. When you say that out loud, it becomes tangible and audible to you. When you think it in your head, it's not the same thing. We can have a thought that gets interrupted by another thought, interrupted by another thought. When you say that right, we have Change the sentence. You notice, or you don't. You don't notice what's happening now, OK?

[36:13]

It's a connected ritual to make it tangible, visible. So you say, I thought the intention is for your day. And then the evening, you revisit the day and see how that intention has shaped your day. And you may find out first for weeks, oh, I forgot, oh, I forgot, [...] did you keep doing it to work again? Oh, I did it for twice. And even remembering that you forgot is possible. Because you notice. You do not notice that you got. Mexican press. So when you do something like that, it's very important to keep it with a life that is out for success or failure.

[37:20]

It's about stretching to change. Stretching to manifest how we want to live. It's moving from being linked to living. And that is a slow and constantly transformed the process. That's why it's a poor class. So we appreciate everything we notice. Oh, I forgot. Great. I noticed. Oh, I didn't once. Great. I noticed. The one example that is one of the most obvious to me is somebody who, and I think it's also in one of his books, and I'm sure I've said it, Jim, is if you imagine somebody who every day remembers what was to be appreciated every day as a practice.

[38:33]

It's just every day appreciating what we have a roof over the day, that we're actually capable of coming here, that we can go to the bathroom, that we're not sick or not sicker, that whatever. The sun's shining or the fog's finally and so forth, whatever. Imagine that person who does that for I think my mom suggests to imagine that for two years. I then imagine a person who all the time is busy with us didn't go right. The schmuck that caught me off on highway, the person who didn't show up without cancelling, all the things that changed all the way I had life or felt painful or not. And then imagine a person doing that every day. they end up being fundamentally different.

[39:40]

The one person will feel supported, and the other person will feel utterly unsupported. And we can actually feel it in our body how different the effect is of those two somewhat opposite or different positions these are the things we have in our power to do and to influence so suzuki roshi said suzuki roshi is a person who I think it not waste his time. He says, and this is how I'm connecting it today, I don't want to die.

[40:50]

I don't know what it is going to be like when I die. Nobody knows what that is going to be like. When I die, I will still be the kupa. I may be the Buddha in harmony, or I may be the Buddha in bliss, but I will die knowing that this is how it is, not to be still the Buddha. So he has engaged. You see full dimension of awakening. Doesn't matter whether it's fully ultimately engaged, partially engaged, a little bit engaged, totally engaged.

[42:00]

What matters is that we engage in. And that we can do Any move, as long as we live, it's never too late. Even though for some things, it's too late, so don't most hope. But that's where I feel inspired to talk Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[43:00]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_87.71