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. I'm very happy to be here. Three years is the last time. Oh, I see. I have to be. Is that better? And... But time flies when you're having fun. So here I am again. Here I am again. And today, this is more a book reading than a Dharma talk, but I'll say a few things. But mostly I'm just reading from my book. So thank you all for being so hospitable, welcoming me. I never practiced here. I practiced at Sakoji on Bush Street. The old Sakoji, the Jewish synagogue, which was turned into a senior citizen center.

[01:04]

And last time I was here, I went and visited. So I'm going to read from my book, not say too much about it, a little bit. And then when we go into the other room, I'll take any questions and I'll have some books to sign. So this book, my second Shambhala book, was not my idea to title it Zen in the Age of Anxiety. It was Shambhala's idea. My idea was to title it Hearts Undivided. But they read it and they said, no, this is Zen in the Age of Anxiety. And I said, well, what about Hearts Undivided? They said, this is Zen and the Age of Anxiety. So I decided, we're in the Age of Anxiety. And I went along with it, and the book has sold quite a bit better than Nothing Holy About It, which people thought, what? But this one has attracted many more people, I think because of the title.

[02:13]

So in this Age of Anxiety, and it is an Age of Anxiety, in a way I think, 1968 was an age of anxiety. Alan Watts wrote about an age of anxiety, which was in the 60s. W. H. Auden wrote about an age of anxiety, which was many years before that. But we're in another one. It's an age of anxiety. And in an age of anxiety, we very likely fall into a trance of unhappiness. It just happens to us as human beings. So I'm going to dip into one of the early chapters in my book where I talk about that. This is called Surfing the Great Ocean of Life. When I was a teenager in Northern California, my friend Jerry and I would go to Santa Cruz after school to surf. Surfing was pretty big in Southern California where the water was warm, but had not yet become popular in Santa Cruz. Jerry and I were usually the only ones there surfing the cold water with no wetsuits.

[03:18]

Jerry had a surfboard and I body surfed. When the really big waves came, they often knocked me over and took me under. The ocean is a good metaphor for our interconnected life. With a regular meditation practice, we can learn to surf life's waves. But chances are good that we will sometimes be overpowered by them for a while. A technique like following your breath is a great surfboard for riding these waves. But when the surf is up and you're being submerged in wave after wave of fear, anger, and anxiety, you may need a more specialized surfboard, possibly adding counting your breath. repeating a mantra or phrase that is meaningful to you, or doing walking meditation rather than simply sitting still. Suzuki Roshi gave me a mantra at Tassahara, and I was surprised. I thought, we don't do mantras in our school, but I was having a really hard time, and he gave me one. Sometimes Jerry and I felt as if we were wasting our time trying to surf.

[04:21]

We were just getting knocked over by one wave after another. Days and sometimes even weeks went by when we weren't making any progress at all. Very discouraging. Life can be like that, but with a regular meditation practice, you learn to experience each wave, not as an obstacle to your real life, but as your real life. Eventually, you may learn to enjoy the surf directly, with no board at all, experiencing the joy of being fully immersed in the water, regardless of its turbulent energies. Each wave has its own unique nature. It also has the nature of the entire ocean, because a wave is not separate from the ocean. You learn to be patient when you're riding the energy of the entire ocean. Jerry and I surfed on calm days and on stormy days. Surfing on stormy days isn't easy, but the storm is never separate from the calmness down below. Even so, for every... thrilling swell that lifts you upward toward the sky, there's a trough that can send you reeling into the darkest depths.

[05:26]

Troughs are part of the ocean too. When you're in a deep trough, you can't go forward and you can't retreat. Nor can you predict what will come next, because you can't see beyond the trough. In the troughs, you learn to trust, to have courage, and to be patient. Qualities that come naturally if you're committed to surfing the entire ocean. Wave by wave is how we engage with life. It's the only way to experience the immediacy and vigor that real life offers. Sure, it's raw, but we don't need to protect ourselves from the moods and nuances of life's great ocean. We can stay right with it in placid times and in turbulent times. Life is always offering us the energy and vitality we need. Just let the salt water seep into your pores. Can you learn to surf the chaos and uncertainty that real life includes without falling into a trance of unworthiness?

[06:28]

You can. A surfer is powerless to change the towering waves rushing toward her. But she doesn't want to change it. She wants to surf it, and she learns to feel safe in the immense ocean of being, even when she falls. She confidently gets right back up to meet the next wave. And when we do extended practice and retreat practice, sometimes we fall into a space of quietness, which is quite wonderful, but which can have two sides to it. Buddha says, In the thick of the forest is where you will find your freedom. A few years ago, during a long retreat, a student came to see me for a private meeting. She said, I think it's going well because my mind has gotten very quiet. But it's kind of scary. Who will I be if I lose myself? How will I function in the world? As she spoke, she churned up more and more doubt until finally she exclaimed, I think I should go home now.

[07:30]

This frequently happens in Zen retreats, at least in the retreats I run, maybe not here. When you finally experience some stillness, these questions become relevant. How do you identify with non-being? There is nothing there to identify with. It can be disconcerting at first, but it's right here in the thick of the forest that we discover a wonderful freedom that our movie-making mind cannot reach. I encourage the retreat, participant to stay with her anxiety and ride it out. She agreed to give it a try. When she came to see me a couple of days later, her mood was quite different. She spoke of the stillness and peacefulness she was experiencing. When the bell rang to end a meditation session, my body rose on its own. My body knows what to do. This was quite a discovery for her. Whatever you experience in Zazen becomes your teacher if you just stay with it. Even asthma can be your teacher, as my friend Eleanor discovered.

[08:35]

Eleanor was planning a long retreat with Katagiri Roshi, then the guiding teacher of Minnesota Zen Meditation Center. She was worried about doing the retreat because she had to use an inhaler so frequently. That meant she would have to use it during meditation, but she was clinging to her idea that she should not move during meditation. Katagiri Roshi encouraged her to do the retreat. He counseled her to be with the stress in her throat if she could and to use her inhaler whenever she needed to. Use the stress in your throat as the object of your meditation, he said. Eleanor began the retreat knowing that she could use her inhaler any time. But as the retreat went on, she was able to relax into the stress in her throat more and more. She stayed for the entire seven days. By the end, she noticed that her throat muscles had relaxed and her breath was not so shallow. By being with it, rather than trying to avoid or escape it, asthma had become Eleanor's thick of the forest.

[09:41]

It became a place of freedom where before there was only limitation. So now I'd like to move to the center of my book. where I talk about three major causes of anxiety in our culture. Sex, money, and failure. I'm not going to read about sex and money because I want you guys to all buy the book. But I will read about failure. I will read about failure. So let's see, the chapter on failure. Actually, I don't care if you buy the book, but I would be very happy if you read it because it might give you some support in your practice. So let's see. Failure. J.K. Rowling, the novelist who created Harry Potter, says, and I don't know if any of you have read her autobiography, but it's really wonderful.

[10:48]

She says, failure stripped away everything inessential. It taught me things about myself I could have learned no other way. Unfortunately, our culture takes a dim view of failure. Americans live in a very competitive culture, so much so that life often feels like a contest filled with big winners and big losers in business, sports, and the arts. We tend to worship winners and marginalize those who fail. So how do we cope with failure? Perhaps we need a cultural shift in the way we think about failure. When I was a kid, I had to do an hour of work a week. People look at me and think, oh, that was easy. Well, I know it was easy, but at the time it felt hard. I had to do it on my weekend. In the summer, my job was pulling dandelions from the lawn in Palo Alto. And it seemed to me that every week before, there were twice as many dandelions as the week before. Surprisingly, dandelions fail to germinate five times more often than they succeed.

[11:53]

That is an extraordinary failure rate. However, based on diversity and perseverance, they also have an extraordinary success rate. Botanists have identified about a hundred different types of dandelions. You'll find them sprouting up from foul dirt or rich soil. and they thrive at both sea level and high altitudes. Consequently, the humble dandelion has been around for 30 million years. So what's the deal with dandelions? What about human beings? Ernest Hemingway wrote the end to his novel, A Farewell to Arms, 47 times. Ernest Hemingway seems to flow so naturally, but read about his writing 47 times. That means 46 consecutive failures. But he persevered. Thomas Edison failed with a thousand different filaments before he found the one that enabled him to create the first incandescent bulb. We humans have an extraordinary failure rate, but we also have an extraordinary success rate.

[13:00]

When Michael Jordan tried out for his high school basketball team, he didn't make it. Then he started practicing every day. When he tried out in college, he still didn't make the A team, but he kept practicing. Michael Jordan finally became Michael Jordan after he failed, adapted, and persevered. And here's a quote from him. Whenever I was working out and got tired and figured I ought to stop, I'd close my eyes and see that list in the locker room without my name on it. That usually got me going again. So maybe failure is a prerequisite for success. Maybe dandelions survived because of their extraordinary failure rate rather than in spite of it. They were forced to adapt, to venture into new territory and diversify. Likewise, perhaps the most successful people are those who fail the most. You could say that persistence and failure is what success is all about. The research of Jonathan Hay, a psychologist at the University of Virginia, suggests that happiness may require adversity,

[14:08]

setbacks and even trauma he says if you don't get the kind of information failure provides you will end up with unrealistic expectations so now i'm going to dip into the next chapter which is on humility because if we keep failing and getting up and trying and failing and getting up and trying we've developed some natural humility natural humility Humility comes from the Latin root humus, meaning earth or ground. In English, humus means soil. Human beings came from the salt water of the oceans and from the richness of the soil. The philosopher and author Alan Watts used to say that the earth is peopling, producing human beings the way an apple tree apples by producing fruit. The humus is aerated and moist because it's not separate from the air and rain. It supports us, but not in the way we're accustomed to think. It consists of fire, air, water, and all manner of decomposing beings.

[15:12]

When you think all the way down into the humus, beautiful wildflowers can bloom right where you are. But there's no security in being a wildflower. It feels much safer to be a polished stone to look good to others and stand out in the world. But very little glows on a polished stone. Besides, if you think about it, you may realize that you've been stony for too many years already. Try something different. Sink down into the earth. All the nourishment you need is there. With natural humility, you go all the way down into the humus rather than sticking up like you're some big deal because you've got something. that others don't have. When you sink all the way to the ground, you actually are a big deal. Not because you're you, but because you're not you. You've touched the ground of all being, which is not a solid ground at all. It's completely aerated with all life. Instead of trying to be somebody special, inhabiting a natural humility allows you to be something much more.

[16:17]

It allows you the freedom to be nobody in particular. nobody to defend or uphold, nobody to judge good or bad, and no one in need of redemption. So now I'd like to read a little bit of brain science stuff. Not too much, but a little bit. There's quite a bit in here. Because it's been wonderful for me, after practicing all these years, to finally have scientists sort of affirm the legitimacy of what I've been doing. I'm trying to get my father's spirit to come back so I can show my father that he thought I was just crazy 50 years ago. I'd gone off the edge with this meditation stuff. I want to show him a recent article in the New York Times and even the Wall Street Journal about mindfulness. I've got it out on my altar just in case the spirit shows up. Maybe some of you guys are shamanic, have shamanic powers, can help bring my father back.

[17:20]

So, flow. No, I'm going to do flow now. I'm going to do, when we practice with failure and humility, we naturally move into flow. And I'm going to talk a little bit about the research on flow. But flow also, it's like Western psychologists, and I'm one, 10 years ago, I think they discovered this new phenomena, flow. Well, all I had to do is read Chuangsa from 2,500 years ago, or some gen seizures, and they would have found it. But they discovered it, and they did a lot of research on it. So here you go. Humility and flow. Our evolutionary coping mechanism, the fear response, fight, flight, freeze, has outlived its usefulness for most situations that we face. It has become the problem rather than the solution. It evolved to protect the body, but our body is rarely in danger in this modern world.

[18:22]

Now the fear response is mostly about protecting our self-image. We have another mechanism that may be even more rooted than the fight, flight, or freeze response. It allows us to thrive in a complex world. Most commonly, it's called the flow state. If you're a runner, you may know it as runner's high. If you're into team sports, you may call it being in the zone. If you're a jazz musician, it's in the pocket. If you're an activist or caretaker, you may have experienced helper's high. If you're a Taoist, you may call it riding the clouds and following the wind. Like fight, flight, or freeze, a flow state arises unbidden. We can't command it, but we can create the conditions for it. In sports, Michael Jordan is a great example of someone who knew how to promote a flow state. There was a certain quality of mind that Jordan brought to the basketball court. He concentrated on the ball and his moves, not the crowd or even his opponents.

[19:24]

He was immersed in the intrinsic pleasure of the game itself. I call the deep kind of concentration Jordan brought to the court bear awareness. Others call it mindfulness. I've been trying to insert the word mindfulness into as many talks as possible the last five years because mindfulness has caught on. People are interested in mindfulness. So I'm trying to minimize bear awareness, but a term that I prefer. With bear awareness, you don't get stuck on a goal. You're not trying to achieve something through your concentration. When Jordan went into a flow state, he seemed to control the whole court. even those watching in the stands and from their living rooms participated in the flow state. And we used to feel that way about Suzuki Roshi. Now, is this just our own projection or not? Maybe it was our own projection, but it doesn't matter. We gave ourselves to it. In those moments, we were able to suspend our judgment and concern and become our participant in the wonderful synchronous activity unfolding on the basketball court or in the Zen doll.

[20:31]

Who is really the center if everyone together is in flow? It's a multi-centered flow. Chuang Tzu said 25 years ago, flow with whatever is happening and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate. So now I'd like to just do three more readings. First, a little bit about brain science, and neuroplasticity. Norman Doidge, the psychiatrist, says, even though the brain is fluid and plastic, through brain noise, habit, and addiction, the soft play-doh nature of the brain hardens. We know that the brain is completely open and without fixed boundaries. Even so, our incessant mental chatter, habituated thought patterns, and other addictive behaviors create an unnatural rigidity within the plaidotecture of the brain.

[21:36]

It gets hard. It gets hard. So much that often when we're hanging out with elderly people, and I actually am entering the stage with an elderly person myself, they're just all in the past or in the future. They're not in the present at all. Their brain has lost its plaidotecture. They've gotten so hard. So luckily, Zazen is a corrective to that. It's not age, but repetitive thoughts and behaviors that inhibit our brain's ability to grow new neural pathways throughout our lifetime. Plasticity gives rise to flexibility. Yet paradoxically, plasticity can also lead to rigidity. If our new behaviors become locked in through repetition, the brain's natural reward system can become a hindrance to the brain's natural plasticity. The organic chemical dopamine, which is part of the neural reward system, is the primary cause of the brain's deterioration over time. Dopamine acts as a mediator between neurons.

[22:40]

When it's released by the brain and kidneys, where it is synthesized, we experience a surge of pleasure and confidence, strong motivation to repeat whatever we did to initiate the release. When dopamine is released in excess, it becomes an intoxicant. locking us into addictive behaviors and hindering the brain's fluidity to respond in fresh new ways. Our primary addiction is to the chattering mind, in case you haven't noticed it. Just do a little more zaza in case you haven't noticed it. Which sustains and reinforces the belief in a separate self. But mental chatter doesn't have to activate a dopamine... dopamine release. Because we're in pain from that addiction, we turn to secondary addictions for the dopamine. In the 21st century, our two biggest secondary addictions are computer-related, computer porn and electronic games. We see these addictions all the time in adults, children, and grandchildren.

[23:43]

I just had my grandchildren who live... in Europe, spend seven weeks with me, and their mother was there too, and she monitors their screen time very carefully. They're allowed an hour a day. But I noticed that they spend really a lot of time in the bathroom. And I said to Erin, I said, well, you know, Ethan just spent 45 minutes in the bathroom, and she said, I wonder, is he constipated? And she said, no, I know what he's up to. Screen time, screen time. Many neurologists have now recommended two activities to maintain brain plasticity, novelty and meditation. Novelty means learning new skills like dancing, writing a bike, or a new language, anything you haven't done before. My son-in-law Eric is from France. When he and my daughter Aaron got married, they had a big wedding in France. At the reception, my wife Linda and I were expected to dance the first dance, along with Aaron and Eric and Aaron's parents.

[24:46]

Eric's parents. This was a very formal wedding, and the first dance was to be a waltz. I hadn't danced in years. And even when I did dance, it wasn't ballroom dancing. So Linda and I took lessons. Once a week, for several weeks, and between lessons, we practiced at home. Of course, Linda caught on right away. She always seems to learn new things easily. She was actually an Orioki teacher at Tassajara in 1967, or 68, I don't know. I was a klutz. My dancing was awful, but I didn't want to let my daughter down or embarrass myself in front of hundreds of people, so I stayed with it. Life is always offering opportunities for us to create new neural pathways. All we have to do is to say yes more often. But learning new skills involves frustration. Learning to waltz involved a lot of frustration. Here is where the second recommendation from neuroscientists come in.

[25:47]

Zazen. Meditation. They don't say zazen. Meditation. When we meditate, frustration and discouragement are common components. We learn to recognize them as they are arising. We get to know them intimately, so we're not blindfolded and overwhelmed by them. Not blindsided and overwhelmed by them. They become like distant cousins who we don't particularly enjoy, but whom we treat kindly when they visit. Monkey mind is the leading cause of symptoms related to aging, like the diminished ability to find words, diminished short-term memory, and the inability to sustain a focused attention. But we now know that it's not age, but the atrophy of our attentional system that is responsible for many of these symptoms. The capacity to focus and sustain our attention is like any other ability. If we don't use it, we lose it. As our capacity to focus deteriorates, we rely more and more on habituated behaviors, a reliance that increases brain rigidity and decreases plasticity.

[26:52]

Do you see the vicious cycle that we get trapped in? Meditative awareness allows us to see our patterns as they are forming before they become deeply ingrained. The key to freeing ourselves from habituated behaviors is to see in the moment what is actually driving us so we can intervene with a mid-course correction. Two more chapters to dip into. The first one is on the new science of post-traumatic growth. I write about that and I'm dipping into that because in the last 16 years at our Zen Center, we've had many, many people... come to see me one-to-one who are suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome. I don't know if, it must have been around when I was young, but I never even heard the term before about 15 years ago. No, many people really suffer. So post-traumatic growth, research on post-traumatic growth. And again, Ernest Hemingway, the new science of post-traumatic growth.

[27:55]

Ernest Hemingway says, the world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. The term post-traumatic stress disorder came to use in the 70s and was officially recognized by the APA in 1980. And when I wrote this book, I said it affects 7% to 8% of Americans. I think it's way up from 7% to 8%, way up. Until recently, the APA focused primarily on identifying diseases and maladies. But that has begun to change due to the influence of people like the Dalai Lama. he challenged scientists to devote their time to studying qualities that create well-being. It makes sense, doesn't it? Today, a new way of thinking is emerging, and along with it, a new science, the science of PTG. The term was coined in 1995 by two psychologists, but the phenomena has been recognized for centuries. Finally, scientists are looking seriously at why some people not only bounce back from tragedy, but actually bounce higher.

[29:01]

than they were before. It turns out we are hardwired to grow in the wake of tragedies and traumas, not from the events themselves, but from the personal struggle that comes afterward. According to the psychologist Tedeschi, the most fragile among us are often more open to positive changes following a tragedy. He says, if someone is already resilient, he doesn't need to change so drastically. PGG involves big change. These psychologists identified five forms of growth involved in PGG. People become more open to new opportunities. They have an increased sense of inner strength. Their relationships deepen. Their appreciation for life increases. They often report a renewed interest in spiritual lives, which is probably why so many people have come to our Zen Center. in the last 15 years with PTSD symptoms.

[30:05]

Some people grow in all of these areas, others one or more. PTG is a natural phenomenon, not a technique or an avoidance strategy. It's not about avoiding the painful feelings of loss, anger and grief. The grieving process is difficult but necessary and a supportive environment is important. You need a mentor, teacher, or a wise friend who can help you be kind to yourself, who can help you cross the threshold of your painful emotions again and again until you're flowing with them. Bringing kind awareness to your broken places invokes authentic compassion. You begin to trust yourself, and trust reignites your aspiration. Instead of wallowing in your pain, you slowly move back into the flow of your life. When you experience a big failure, it often feels like everything stops, that there is no moment to flow into. But the current is there. Maybe it's an undercurrent pulling you deeper than you want to go.

[31:09]

If the undercurrent is strong, you can do turtle practice. When a turtle rests, it draws in its legs, tail, and head. inside its shell so there is no contact with the outer world. In turtle practice, we draw in our senses of sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. As thoughts arise, we just let them pass over and over until we enter into a state of quiet. Take time every day to do your turtle zazen until you begin to see things with radiance and clarity. No, I want to finish with my chapter on living and dying in a state of readiness. Oh, I see there's some water there. I hadn't noticed that. And I'm left-handed, but I'm going to do my best to have a little water. I was taught... When we first had Oreoke, they didn't... Left-handed people were not... We had to do it the right-handed way.

[32:13]

But there were... three or four of us who couldn't do it the right-handed way. Talk about failure. And so finally Suzuki said, oh, okay, you guys can do it the left-handed way. And I said to him, well, aren't there left-handed people in Japan? He said, yes, but they're not allowed to be left-handed. So thank you for allowing me to be left-handed, Suzuki and all of you. living and dying in a state of readiness. As Zen Cohen says, medicine and sickness heal each other. All the world is medicine. Seeing medicine and sickness as opposite sides of the same coin is a non-dualistic approach to healing. The fact that medicine can both heal and kill

[33:17]

is the basis for homeopathic medicine and for vaccines. A vaccine introduces our immune system to a small amount of a specific type of disease, so it can learn how to deal with it. Meditation works the same way. We experience agitation when we sit still and try to focus on our breath, constantly having to bring our awareness back again and again. Moment by moment we bring our gentle awareness to the bodily sensation associated with agitation. We don't try to avoid or deny the unpleasant sensations and emotions that arise. Over time we learn to deal with agitation caused by distraction and mental noise. Then, lo and behold, when a big agitation or a strong emotion comes along, our body has learned. and it knows how to deal with it without becoming overwhelmed. We have been immunized through familiarity. Meditative awareness allows us to deeply see into the circumstances of our life.

[34:24]

We learn something about ourselves. As we become more and more familiar with our responses, we learn to recognize those that empower us and those that imprison us, trapping us in repetitive patterns. Learn how to experience frustration, agitation, and emotional disturbances without being controlled or overcome by them. Empowerment is not about freedom from the chaotic energies of life. It's freedom within those energies. Medicine may also induce sickness. When I was young, I was allergic to poison oak. I used a homeopathic remedy, which means on a regular basis I took a small amount of the poison I was allergic to. But once I was distracted and took too much. My entire body swolled up and I was swollen up for three days. Even experience where the sense of a separate self drops away can be a source of illness. On the one hand, we feel a deep and joyful connectedness with everything that is.

[35:27]

On the other hand, letting go of our separate identity can be extremely disorienting. These experiences are a natural outcome of meditation, but they also may arise suddenly through other circumstances, like illness, trauma, or drug use. Living and dying heal each other. To cling to life and avoid death is fundamentally unnatural. Of course, we feel sad or grieved when we lose a loved one, or when we find our own health and youth fading. But if we can let this sadness enter our hearts completely, we have an opportunity to develop a deep acceptance of the natural ebb and flow of life. Denying the way of things keeps us on the wheel of reacting, regretting, and rehearsing. Reacting, regretting, and rehearsing. The wheel spins so fast, we don't have time to love or to grieve. On the deepest level, medicine and sickness heal each other means that life and death heal each other.

[36:27]

It points directly to the non-dual relationship between them. It says that life is death and death is life. A breath includes an inhale and an exhale. One provides the means for the other. In meditation, an appreciation of this reality begins to permeate our being, to penetrate down to our bones and marrow, inoculating us against our greatest fears. One final two or three paragraphs. The courageous person knows that living fully requires the willingness to die to each moment, giving oneself completely to every exhale and then allowing the inhale to happen on its own. Each moment becomes like a torch burning at both ends, releasing tremendous energy. Then when the last inhale comes, releasing tremendous energy. Then when the last inhale comes, it's not such a big deal.

[37:32]

because we know how to exhale completely. We know how to meet death because we've learned how to meet life. There is no attachment to the barrier we create between life and death. No walls to uphold and nothing to defend or impose or oppose. Instead of investing so much energy into hope and fear, maybe we should aspire to cultivate equanimity. In Buddhist terms, the balance that arises from clarity and wisdom. Equanimity is not born of hope or fear or from indifference and apathy. It's born of clear seeing. Practicing equanimity means that we don't invest so much time worrying about the future. Instead, we work from right here in the only moment that matters, even when this moment or that moment is our last one. Can there be just a leaving of the body when the time is right? You may ask, how do I know if the time is right?

[38:33]

What if I freeze and freak out? I sometimes say to my students that the ultimate test of a meditator's life is how he or she dies. At the moment I say this, I often think, well, maybe I'll freak out myself. Who knows? We don't know. All we can do is just be here and open up to what's happening with a little... a little kindness, a little goodwill, and discover the deep reservoir of stillness that's always abiding, right in the middle of the whirlwind. The first page of my book, I quote, T.S. Eliot, who's one of my favorite Zen masters, the still point of the turning world. So thank you very much. 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.

[39:38]

For more information, please visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

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