This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. My name is Mary, and I was told by Nancy Petron, who invited me to give this talk today, to announce that I am the director of City Center. Usually I say I'm a resident and I've lived here for a while, but I don't necessarily say what I do here because what we do here seems to change on some such regularity that it doesn't seem often to make sense to say what position we're involved in. And I can talk about that a little bit more in a minute. So today we're hosting people in a slightly different way. It's the public program, so there are many people that are here to hear a Dharma talk, and maybe you've sat zazen, maybe you had breakfast, did a little work in the temple.

[01:10]

There's also people here, I'm thinking, who have been invited to the open house, new neighbors who are curious. So is there anybody here that is here because... they were sent an invitation to come to an open house at City Centre. If you'd raise your hand, that would be great. So, welcome to you folks. I also want to welcome the people that are listening in the dining room. It's always a tender moment to find out if the sound's going to work there or not. So we'll see if that's happening. And then there are people that are watching this via live stream. So welcome to all of the people in all of the various ways that are participating in this talk today. I'd like to say that San Francisco Zen Center is extremely fortunate to have three different types of temples.

[02:19]

We have a mountain monastery called Tassajara. where people go to a remote place to do dedicated Zen monastic training. We also have another place called Green Gulch Farm, which is nestled in Marin County. It's an organic farm and garden and also a temple. It is not as isolated as Tassajara, but it's relatively remote and... People visit there, but it is very different from this temple, which is an urban temple. This temple is called Beginner's Mind Temple, and our position as an urban temple is kind of interesting for us all. I think traditionally most serious practice, or we think of most serious practice in

[03:22]

practice that happens by hermits alone in the middle of the mountains who don't talk for a long time, years and years, right? That's sort of what we think of. And then we have this thing we have called city center, which is not remote. It's not quiet. We hear sirens. We have street noise. The city engulfs us in many ways, and we practice in the city in many ways. So I think for many of us who are involved at San Francisco Zen Center, we practice in the way that touches our heart. Some people spend a lot of time at Tassajara. Some people spend a lot of time at Green Gelch. Some people have exclusively practiced at the urban temple here. Some of us have practiced at all three places and lived at all three places. So there are many possibilities for all of us.

[04:24]

I wanted to talk a little bit today about what happens here specifically. I went to the doctor. I had a doctor's appointment on Monday. And it's the first time I saw this person and we were having one of those conversations where she's trying to figure out who I am and what I'm doing and why I'm there. And... as a very casual question, she said, where do you live? And I said, well, I live at a Zen temple. And that's where the conversation got very suddenly interesting, because she answered in this voice that was a little bit worried, like, well, what do you do there? And it's that kind of question, like, I'm not sure I want to hear the answer because it might be too weird, you know?

[05:27]

And I think for people walking by this temple, for people driving by when they see some of us go up to our housing dressed in this, they're wondering, like, what is going on in that place? Some of us who live there, here, ask the same question almost every day. There are many, many things we do, and I thought as a start to this talk, particularly for those of you who either live here and don't know what's happening here, or are coming for the first time and would like to have a little picture of what goes on here, I thought I'd just say some things. I would like to say that the most important thing we do here, and I don't think... One of the things I have to say is, as a community of residents, there is very often no agreement on anything at any time. But I think this is one thing I can safely say, that if not all of us agree, then most of us agree.

[06:33]

That the primary thing we do here is we sit zazen together. So in the morning, we get up, we go downstairs, and we sit zazen, which is a Japanese word for seated meditation. And we do that over and over again. and over and over and over again. People from the public are welcome to join us for that time. And that is our basic and most important offering to both ourselves and to the people that join us. In the late 50s, Suzuki Roshi, who's the founder of San Francisco Zen Center, started sitting in a temple in Japan town called Sukoji. And what he said was, I will be sitting Zazen at 6 o'clock in the morning. If you want to join me, please come. He would get up every day. He would go to the Zendo, which is like the place where we sit.

[07:40]

And people started joining him. And more people started joining him. And then they moved to, they made this radical choice to buy this mountain monastery, and they called it Tassahara. And then they purchased a city center in 1968, and Green Gulch was acquired after that. So this idea of sitting together has been, I would say, the foundation of the practice for all of us. that was encouraged and supported by the founder of the temple and is still supported by all of those of us who are in leadership positions, let's say. So that's one thing we do. We offer classes and workshops and programs on various aspects of Buddhism.

[08:48]

both to residents who live here and to people from the outside that are curious about those things and want to take classes. We have a number of affinity groups that meet here either weekly or monthly. I can mention a few of those and pardon if I miss some of the folks that meet here. Meditation and Recovery happens on Monday night. Young Urban Zen happens Tuesday. A group called Transforming Anxiety and Depression happens on Thursday. A group meets on Saturday called Saturday Sangha. There's a queer dharma group that meets monthly. And I am sure that I'm forgetting some groups. So we offer a venue for people to meet to explore relationship and relationship around and with the idea of being a Buddhist. In this building, we have a number of guest rooms.

[09:50]

So people who are either interested in being waken up at an ungodly time in the morning by a wake-up bell and then explore the city, come to stay here, or even people that want to live for a few days in a very great location in the middle of a very wonderful city rent rooms from us. So we offer hospitality to people that come here. San Francisco we have a conference center it's the building next door which we rent out to people groups either by the hour or by the day and it is a I would say very beautiful Victorian building and people rent that space from us and they they do whatever they do let's And then there is a community of Zen practitioners who live in residence in the five buildings on Page Street that San Francisco Zen Center owns.

[10:59]

We live here. We receive trainings around Zen. We live as students, and we support the various offerings that we make to the public. I'd like to mention that this building in particular is a building that was designed by the architect Julia Morgan. She built it in 1922. We acquired it in 1968. Every day I work in this building, every day I admire the architecture of this building, the light, the structure. I'm... I'm kind of in awe of the fact that I get to work here. So this afternoon, if you're going to take advantage of the tours that are being given, please have a place in your mind and heart for Julia Morgan.

[12:03]

I think we're really lucky. So there are many, many things that happen in this building. I think it's an interesting place I think it's an interesting place for the wider community to come to because it's kind of a private building for those of us who live here. It's a public building for those of you who visit. There's often this very subtle or intense tension between those two things, the idea of a public place versus a private place. And that's something that we all... get to think about when we're here. And then the other thing I wanted to specifically say is that we live on Page Street in the middle of a neighborhood that also is changing. In 1968, when this building was first purchased by San Francisco's Zen Center, this was an incredibly rough neighborhood.

[13:13]

I was told that in the early days, there was an agreement by all the students that were sitting in the zendo that if they heard somebody scream, everybody would leave the zendo and go out through the Laguna door in order to find out what was happening and help the person that was in difficulty. So as I say, it was a difficult neighborhood. Now, because of what's happening in San Francisco, this is becoming a very gentrified neighborhood. There are lots of expensive new buildings, Rents have gone up. People are leaving the neighborhood because their leases are going. There's, again, this tension between an affluent neighborhood and a neighborhood that was and continues to be in crisis around finances. People come to the door asking for food often. There are people in difficulty in the neighborhood all the time as people practicing students, we get to live with this situation and work with it every day.

[14:24]

So I would say that that's something else that's going on here all the time. So I think we practice here, whether we live in the building or whether you come once in a while, and... We work with our bodies and minds in a way that is probably different than the way you grew up practicing with your body and mind. And I think for some of us, that practice becomes the core of our life. Many of us know what critical self-talk is. And so the idea of Zen practice is that we are open, gentle, curious, and upright.

[15:26]

And that, for many of us, is a deep longing to treat ourselves differently. and painful sometimes, it takes a very careful approach, let's say. And so many of us are curious and come to this place to find out what that means. What is it to have a curious approach about yourself? What is it to treat yourself differently? So I think that's all I want to say about the practical things that we do at Zen Center, and I'm sure I've missed many things.

[16:33]

But... The lucky news is that at lunchtime you'll be sitting at a table with various people that have lived in residence for a while or have practiced here for a while and you can ask them any question you want. And there will also be tours offered so you can have somebody show you around this fabulous building. The other intention around my talk was to... give you or explore what a teaching of the Buddha. So this is pretty typical of a Dharma talk. Somebody sits up here, says something that they're throwing around in their mind. And it might be interesting to you. And it might not. So one of the things that I've been thinking about

[17:35]

is, so people come through the door here for whatever reason, because they've been invited, because something in their lives has set them to a point where they don't know if they can stand it anymore. So what do you do? And I think the teachings... or the dharma, as we call it, the teachings of the Buddha, offer or can offer some relief. So I'd like you to consider this statement. With our thoughts, we make our world. So I'm going to say that again. With our thoughts, we make our world. And I'm proposing... that this is a radical statement.

[18:35]

So I'm going to lay out a scenario which some or all of you might be familiar to illustrate this. So let's say you've had a really busy, crummy day. You don't have anything in the fridge at home. You decided to stop in at Whole Foods. you picked up something, you're really hungry, and you're kind of grouchy. Anybody happen? Has this happened to anybody? So there you are standing in line, and you can hardly wait to get home. And then somebody cuts you off and goes to the next available cashier. So what do you do? Let's keep in mind this idea with our thoughts, We make our world. So one scenario is that you flip out. You go up to the person, you tell them how wrong they are, how rude they are, how they just cut you off, how they need to go to the back of the line, that they're being irresponsible and totally, like, terrible people.

[19:49]

You can go on with this scenario, right? You could imagine... a time when somebody was so angry about this rude person that they actually hit them. That's probably happened. So then it just kind of plays out in this awful, getting worse way. The other possibility is we can say, somebody cuts you off and you stand there. You take a breath. and you think, wow, I wonder what just happened. You allow your mind to have the question, I wonder what's going on for that person. I wonder if they didn't see me. I wonder if they don't realize that this is where the line is. I wonder.

[20:52]

That wondering changes everything. In our lives, I think it's true that we carve pathways in our mind of behavior. We think certain things over and over and over again. We react to certain situations over again. and over and over again. You know that experiment with Pavlov's dog? The bell rings, the dog drools. This is how we are. The bell rings, something happens. Somebody does something, we do something. So I think what I am learning, what I learn every day is that Zazen, or seated meditation, allows me that possibility of stopping, taking a breath, and having some curiosity.

[22:14]

Instead of rolling along in the groove that I've created for my lifetime, which heads me off in that same direction, it allows me to question whether that's the direction I actually think is appropriate for this moment. This is not an easy thing. When I first started practicing, one of the things I realized was I couldn't bear to act the way I had in the past, but I didn't know how to act. It was excruciating. So the path of practice isn't full of promise or ease. It's an invitation to check things out. Hmm, what do you think about that? It gives you the space to go, hmm, what do I think about that?

[23:21]

What am I going to do about that? How am I going to proceed? in a direction that we always seem to go. So I think this may sound radical. It may sound like not such a big deal. But it is very curious that over... Years of practice, we come face to face over and over again by the fact that we are controlled by our habitual patterns. And we think, I'm a smart person. I'll just figure that out. And even while we're thinking it, we're five steps into having the same reaction we had the last time.

[24:24]

We're treating our kids in the same crappy way we treated them before. We're treating our co-workers in a way that we don't want to treat them because we're already down that road. This is why what happens here is called practice. Because there is no 10-minute fix. I've said this before, but I've... I remember reading this sign that said, lose 30 pounds in 30 days for $30. And then you call the number. And I wondered how many people called the number. Probably a lot, because a lot of us want to lose 30 pounds in 30 days for $30. We want that, you know? So we come here and... we're frustrated or we've had a really, like, an unimaginably painful experience in our lives.

[25:32]

And we don't know what to do about it. And we want help. We want to be changed. And so we walk in the door and somebody says to us, well... go downstairs and be quiet. You're like, what? So by going downstairs and being quiet, what's happening is you're adjusting yourself into the proper position. And from a proper position, you can make an appropriate response. So those of you that know anything about martial arts or who have pursued a life of dance or sport, there's this idea of practicing and training and how you can attain a stable position.

[26:50]

And from that stable position, you have flexibility and grace, and you're able to respond to the situation. So by sitting downstairs in a posture that is stable, we adjust our mind to a stable place. And from that stable place, we start being able to respond rather than react. And I think that's pretty useful. I was going to tell you a bit more about the idea of work practice positions, which I mentioned in the beginning. So all three of the temples, there are many jobs that

[27:55]

that we kind of cycle through. I was a carpenter by trade. I worked with wood and saws and fairly gruff men for about 20 years. That was my, I would say, passion. I enjoyed it very much. And I did it for a long time. I find myself the director of a temple. I don't get to touch wood very often. I don't think Darcy lets me touch a saw. And I talk to a lot of people all the time. I sit in front of a computer. It is unlike any job I've ever had in my life. I would say that there's nothing that could have prepared me for this job. And there's nothing in my life that did prepare me for this job, aside from the fact that I sit Zazen and have been associated with San Francisco Zen Center for a number of years.

[29:06]

So I wasn't put in this position because I would be good at it. I was put in this position because it would be good practice for me. I would get to respond to the requests of people. or I would get to react to the requests of people. That is my choice. That's the task. It's the task of all the people that work at City Center or Green Gulch or Tassajara. Somewhere in there, we learn that we can respond or react and that it's our choice. And sometimes that idea clicks into us and sometimes we forget it and it's really painful when we forget it I was I found myself almost yelling at somebody on Friday over the phone it's very humiliating for me to have those moments where I lose my flexible mind and I yeah I'm just like a jerk and it happens to me

[30:22]

It happens to all of us. It shouldn't be surprising that it happens. I think the important thing is when it happens, there's a moment after I've lost it that I think, oh, I could have done that a better way instead of believing that the way I did it was the only possible road that I could have taken. So, I think the idea of this training that we get as Zen students is that we're not here to be employed by Zen Center, we're here as Zen students training to become Zen students. And if we get good at the job, we often get moved to another job, just to make it interesting. And this is pretty different than the world outside of this temple, which often, particularly now I know as a carpenter, instead of getting the breadth of the skills that a carpenter used to get, people get trained in one specific thing, and they do that over and over again because it's profitable for the company.

[31:49]

So I think this happens not just in the trades, but in many, many areas. The idea that in order to make money you have to be good at something, and to be good at something you do it a million times, then you know how to do that thing, and then you're profitable. So here I would say, although it can be completely frustrating for all of us who are doing jobs we don't know how to do, This is the idea around it being a training temple. So again, I say, with our thoughts, we make our world. And this comes up as an opportunity over and over again. Can you imagine yourself to have gentle thoughts, both to yourself and other people?

[32:50]

I think some people mistake practice as being nice all the time, kind of like this nicey-nice thing. I think when I think about practice, it's a bold willingness. Through the years, this bold willingness starts to show its face more clearly. There was a teacher here, Steve Stuckey, who was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer in the fall of 2013. And a couple days after he was diagnosed, he gave a talk about how he felt grateful for

[33:56]

not about having cancer, but about the fact that in his life he had all the benefits he had received and that he could face this illness in the way he could face it. A teacher of mine, Trime, recently found out that she has esophageal cancer. And I was talking to her and she said, so I'm kind of curious. I'm kind of curious because I know so many people that have had chemotherapy. I know so many people that have had radiation. I know so many people that have been in pain. And I'm kind of curious about how this will all be. I was amazed by that. And of course she's... got a thousand things going on around the fact that she has cancer.

[35:01]

But her mind is shaped in such a way that she can say, I wonder. I wonder. That's the kind of mind I want. So today, I invite you all to open up to the idea that your thoughts make your world. And instead of thinking that you have no choice and that your boss is a jerk or that the sales lady is rude, or that you don't understand how people can be so careless, you start imagining a world where your reactions are changeable.

[36:30]

flexibility of mind is a possibility. And that zazen or seated meditation moment after moment and year after year supports this. So to all of us that have been here for a long time, And those of you that have come here for the first time today, welcome. And thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost 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.

[37:39]

May we fully enjoy the Dorma.

[37:42]

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