Good evening. Good evening. My great privilege and honor and pleasure to introduce Brother David Stahler-Race, a longtime friend of Tassajara Zen Center, a luminary in the world of Catholic faith practice. Sorry. It's bigger and bigger. Let's stand a little bit. He's a truly wonderful and inspiring human being.

[01:10]

He thinks that we're so blessed that he comes each year and offers his thinking, his vision, his insights into practice. And having had the privilege of teaching beside him each year, I marvel that he's days away from being 90 and looks like he's 60. But even more of that, about that's plenty. I marvel at his searchable beginner's mind, his curiosity. I listen to how he relishes new ideas. He takes them. with a sense of wonder and deep curiosity. So for the last week, we've been disgusted with that idea.

[02:14]

One way I could just say, we're kind of tired of hearing each other speaking. We want to hear of you. What we did in the courts, in the workshop, we asked the questions and then took them. wonderful array of questions. And then we categorized them and we broke them into categories like the practice of spirituality. The archetype of Buddha is... Then we looked at... And we looked at fear, and death, or life and death. And these kind of emerged quite organically, but they really represent, in many ways, the typical areas of concern within spirituality.

[03:20]

So we're going to fly by it so fast your brother's looking over. But hopefully enough to spark some of everything and death. In the service of Spark, I'm going to read the sort of fish of a poem called All Living, which I wrote today. Living is no laughing matter. You must live with great seriousness, like a squirrel, for example. I mean, living must be your whole life. Living is no laughing matter. And I'm gonna skip right down to the end. This earth will grow cold. A star among stars. And one of the smallest. A gilded boat on blue velvet. This earth will grow cold one day.

[04:23]

Like an empty walnut, it'll roll through the pitch black space. It was grieved this right now. You must feel the sorrow now, for the world must be loved this much. If you are to go on saying, I love it. This mysterious interplay of spirituality. Is it trying to take our life away? Or is it giving our life? Does it ask us to give everything up? Or does it ask us to embrace everything? From his end perspective, it's not so much getting the answer to those. It's more living the question.

[05:25]

Learning the question. Keep you curious. Learning the question. Keep you turning and saying, yes, that way is right. Yes, that way is right. That your mind stays open and your ability to open your arms and say yes to literally, it comes again. Okay. That's my piece. We asked our group, who's only lucky now, if they had particular areas that they were interested in, and you listed before, I guess, one was authenticity, and practice, and community, and relevance. Particularly the relevance, how can a wise Buddhist

[06:30]

practice so relevant today in Christian practice, particularly in Christian teaching, probably because it lacks the emphasis on practice not so relevant. And when you have such a variety of questions, I always find it helpful to find sort of a common denominator. And I find this in a well-known form by John Cage, which, if you bring it into one word, whatever the question, the answer is yes. My summary of that poem. The poem goes like this. When you let it, it supports itself. You don't have to. Teach something. is a celebration of the nothing that supports it.

[07:33]

When we move the world from our shoulders, we notice it doesn't drop. Where is the responsibility? It leads up to this last question, where is the responsibility? being a celebration of the nothing that supports us, that is practice and that is authenticity. And for that we need community. But the relevance of it all comes when you ask yourself, where is the responsibility? And that doesn't say, look, when you read it, it supports itself, so don't worry about any responsibility. But that's where is the responsibility.

[08:37]

It seems to me that it implies that we are responsible to our own authenticity, to the community, to the practice, by letting it, when you let it sit, whatever it is, And I think that sets the scene for many further questions because many good questions leads to many more questions. The whole responsibility is there with the question, what is it? And it has something to do with directing it to its thing. So anyway, what we're asking you, what is your relationship to spirituality? And you take it off.

[09:41]

Does something contract? Does something expand? Does something have a fixed formula? Does something open into not knowing? And how do you explore that? What questions come up for you now? community, in terms of religious traditions, in terms of authentic being as you move forward with them. In your tradition, Brother David, is there something as contempt of prayer, or is it more faith-based?

[10:59]

As the essential process. Or scripture-based. Or scripture-based. There is, throughout the history of all 2,000 years, there is a strong tradition of contemplative prayer or of meditative practice. And it has three forms. three big forms. One form is what we call prayer of silence, and that is really not distinguishable from Zen except in the bells or the ipses and the cushions, but otherwise it is the same. You let yourself down into the silence of it, so into that nothing of which everything is a celebration.

[12:00]

Then there is another world, the whole world of meditation and prayer. And that is, we call that living by the word of God, living in the sense of being nourished by the word. And everything there is, is word that comes out of that silence. And the strongest emphasis is on that form. But in recent years, I think under the impact also very much of Buddhism within the various Christian traditions that prayer of silence has been rediscovered and repopularized and so forth. Living by the word is simply taking everything there is as a word that is addressed to you, that celebration of the nothing that supports everything, that celebration, celebrate it, let it speak to you, answer to it, interact with it.

[13:18]

And then there is a third form, and that's called contemplation in action, or Finding the mystery in the doing, understanding it through doing. And so anything that has to do with action, the dynamism of doing something, you do it in love and so you experience love from within. That can be anything from cooking to social protest or social action or whatever, the whole spectrum. But there the meditation, which we do in the prayer of silence, but on the caution, is then done in the action. Understanding is through the action. And those would be the three meditative, there are three meditative practices.

[14:22]

Only one looks much more like the Buddhist practice than the others. When you wrap it, it supports itself. You don't have to eat something. It's a celebration of the nothing that supports it. When we move the world from our shoulders, we notice it doesn't drop. Where is the responsibility? He doesn't say forget about the responsibility, it all supports itself.

[15:26]

For the last, where is the responsibility? It ends with the child. You have them. Mr. David, could you speak about the value and worth of the verbal word or the power of verbal word and sound to you? The power of the verbal word. The verbal of the spoken word. in contrast to the science. I think the first thing that we have to remember in this context is that a word, we all know it, but we need to remember it, that a word is only truly a word when it comes out of science.

[16:29]

when the silence comes to work, because everything else is just chit-chat. And we know that very well because we make a clear distinction when we speak about it between an exchange of words. We say, I had an exchange of words, then something quick and superficial. And then we say, I had a real dialogue with somebody, a heart-to-heart talk, etc. And when you look closely in contrast to an exchange of words, a real dialogue is clearly an exchange of silence with silence. The silence within you comes to word. Word is just a vehicle that serves to make the silence in you meet the silence in the other. Silence with silence. The closer you come to one another and the more you love somebody and understand somebody, the fewer words you need.

[17:38]

With a relative stranger you feel uncomfortable when you have to say something. You feel uncomfortable just sitting there silently. But friends, I've been friends for many years, they can sit together and say absolutely nothing and there's a lot of communication going on between them. In that sense, word and silence intimately belong together. One is the outside, one is the inside, so to say. And the third element is the understanding. And the understanding in order to make sense or to give meaning. You need silence because, in other words, you have no word. And word can be anything, not the spoken word only. But you are asking about the spoken word specifically. And then you have understanding. And understanding is a process that comes about when you so deeply listen to the word that it takes hold of you and it takes you where it comes from.

[18:46]

That is the silence again. So it is kind of a round dance, it's a kind of movement. All of silence comes to word. Word takes hold of you, that makes you understand. And when you really understand, there's nothing to be said. That is another description of that celebration. Every something is a celebration of that nothing that supports it. Every word is a celebration of the silence out of which it comes and into which it turns. Are there any small actions that we can take throughout the day to develop that understanding? And any small actions that can be taken throughout the day that support that? Yes. Well, we always come back, small actions or big actions, we always come back to this pattern that is necessary in spiritual practice.

[19:56]

Stop. Look, go. Just these three words. Stop, because if you don't put some sort of a stop sign into your daily rush, you will rush by what life offers you at that present moment. You just rush by. And sometimes we even like to rush by because we're afraid of what life is telling us at this present moment, so we don't want to hear it. and we are busy otherwise. So don't hit that stop sign, tiny little bit, need only be a fragment of a section, of a second detail. And then look, and that of course means not only look with your eyes, but listen, especially when you speak about word, the listening is very important, but everything is word, so the tasting, the smelling, the touching, all that comes in, all your senses.

[20:57]

And in the earlier Christian tradition, this has gotten a little lost, but they were speaking about the spiritual senses. And that meant simply senses that are not only bodily senses, but are so alive that they touch the mystery. That's fully alive. So you want to cultivate every sense that it gets so strong that it becomes a spiritual sense. The clues are that it can hold and then touches something that it cannot hold, but can only be touched by. And then the understanding is that process of which we spoke. For that, in order to really understand, you have to do something.

[22:00]

Teachers know that, but really want children to understand something, they make them do something with their own hands to get into the process, not only talk about it, not only show them a picture, but make them do something. And so, real understanding comes only about when the word, whatever that word, maybe a situation or a person, a relationship, when that demands something from you and you do it. In the doing, you understand. Is that all? So then the Buddhist tradition and the Zen tradition, like the Gata, like the saying we have outside the bathhouse, If you recite it, you have the word, you bow, you do it. So you have the word and the doing, both taking you back to the ground of being, the sound.

[23:02]

And then from that place, the bath, taking a bath, becomes the expression, another doing, another doing practice. In each round of activity, you have such a voice. you engage it, and then it helps us enter that place and that activity with that state of being. That's so beautiful and so typical. Every time when I describe something from Christian practice, Paul can say, yeah, the Buddhist practice and the Buddhist practice is the same, or the other way around. And that is because... Both traditions are expressions of something deeper. It's not a superficial similarity. Often the similarities externally are not even that strong, but the inner meaning is strong because both are expressions of a common human spirituality.

[24:10]

And what we try again and again is to find access to that basic human spirituality. and look at each one was our own tradition as an expression of it, and the deeper you go into it, the more you find what is being expressed, and so you come closer to one another. This is going to be a little bit of a story and a question, but I was raised Catholic. So he was a recovery. Yeah, he's Catholic. I felt it very repressive, and I rejected it, running around as a teenager, and of course discovered a new religion, which was drugs. And then 20 years of that, I found myself in a recovery program that was deeply spiritually Christian-based. In fact, they used sermons now before they came up with their own path.

[25:13]

And then I discovered Tostohar of 88, of course, resonated with Buddhism. And now I found myself working with a mentor who spent seven years in the seminary, and he's getting into centering prayer. Could you speak a little bit about centering prayer? Because is there something about the Catholic mystics like Merton and those guys? And did Jesus possibly study in India? Did Jesus possibly study in India? Historically, it's pretty well ruled out that he did that, but this is something that keeps creeping up again and again because we see the deep connections and It's not necessary that he started in India. He tapped the same subterranean water source that he tapped in India.

[26:19]

And that is important. He could have gone to India and come back and it didn't affect him at all, but he can stay at home and go to that deep source of spirituality where in India the people who are spiritual take their water from. it's more like this because I always try to use not use the imagination where it is proper place but when it comes to history we have good evidence and much research there has been more research linguistically and historically and in every respect about the life of Jesus in my lifetime as much more than in all the centuries before. There's a great body of scholarly, serious scholarly work.

[27:28]

But your question was really about the centering prayer, and that's a wonderful thing, and is typically one of those forms of which I spoke when I said that the contemplative aspects were, in recent history, in the last two, three centuries, overshadowed by believing this and that, by dogmas and so forth. In recent years, especially since the Second Vatican Council in the late 60s, that deep spirituality is being rediscovered and one of the best ways is to center in prayer and there are centers in teachers in the whole world and it is a way of Christians to come back to their meditative practice very close to working with a mantra or to send I'm glad you

[28:36]

I've always been interested in Christianity, the distinction between soul and spirit. We're going to talk about that. The distinction in Christianity between soul and spirit. You know, different authors will have very different definitions with these different terms. But... Spirit... I give you my definition for spirit. I don't use that word very much, except in the context of spirituality. And spirit means originally, the Latin word spiritus means originally breath or life breath, breathing, life breath. And so abstract spirituality means aliveness.

[29:42]

So the life principle, that very mysterious life principle, and our own aliveness that is very mysterious to us, we cannot truly understand it, that this would be spirit. Being in the spirit, moving, living, and having our being in that great mystery to which we belong. which we can also have a personal relationship with. Soul is a very different word that means actually what is defined in the scholastic Christian philosophical tradition as that which makes you to who you are. And soul is is not some little something that sits in you and then comes out when you die or something like that.

[30:50]

It is a very abstract term. It's what makes you you, as distinct from everybody else. And why this has to be so emphasized is that all of us has another aspect of our being, and that is the self. And the self is one for all of us. In Buddhist tradition, it's called the Buddha nature, and the Christian tradition is called the Christ in us. That is not the individualized, but it's one for all of us to hang together in that. And now, the question is, how does that relate to this particular ally? I, myself, how do I how does the self or the eye relate? We say, well, that is the soul. The soul is this unique expression of this eye, of this body, of this entity in the space and time of that great reality that we all share.

[31:59]

And it is not something that's just in the imagination, but it's something that you see every day because it's what makes anyone themselves. And when you, I think we said that last time here already, when you haven't seen someone for 10 or 15 years and then you meet them again, usually you recognize them right away, but not one atom in their body is the same. Everything has changed. This is what is called soul, the uniqueness of a person, what makes this person person. And that is, of course, connected then with spirit, because the spirit is your aliveness, and the more alive your soul is, the better. And there are degrees of aliveness. And there are degrees of aliveness we also all know, because most of us...

[33:02]

I'm more alive later on in the morning. There are exceptions, but most of it. There are ways of aliveness. We want to have an aliveness that is, first of all, the whole physical aliveness, and we also say, I am alive too, to this. I'm not alive too. It's not in my preparation. So, alive too, As much as possible, and particularly when I speak about spirituality, alive to that mystery with which as human beings we have to be. That is spirituality. For the life is so alive that you are also aware and awake and alive to that great mystery. Do you have any feedback about how to deal with difficult emotions?

[34:07]

Feedback about how to deal with difficult emotions? There's a progression, you know, I mean... First of all, it's helpful to ask ourselves, what do we try to find as a difficult moment? Because there can be challenges in the world. Like in the poem that I read, he says, well, this whole planet is going to end its life. And we've got to play the night. That's a difficult emotion. That's a challenging emotion. As the poet Nancy McMahon says, it stirs within us a deep sense of loss and grieving for that loss.

[35:13]

But then he says, however, that initiates love to the challenging emotion may not be something we really want to be able to separate from, to quell, It may actually be something that we want to turn towards. And whether we're talking about a difficult emotion, as in maybe our anger, or something like that, where there's an element of reactiveness, where we're caught up in a fixed way of thinking and feeling and in opposition. to the way things are in that moment, on the interaction we just had in that moment. The first challenge for us there is in a way to step, to not run away, to not get lost in the reactiveness, to not spin off in blaming and other ways that we can try to separate or deny

[36:29]

that moment's experience. And it's something in that patience we can say. It's really asking us to suffer with that experience. In a Bible, it's in different places. He suffered with those people. Can we suffer with our own pain of the moment. Can we stay there and let the potency of that moment register? Because no matter whether it's pleasant or unpleasant, it's a powerful teaching. If nothing else, our own subjective sensibilities and vulnerabilities And then as we can do that, we can start to feel the resonance of it in our own meeting.

[37:38]

How is it that it impacts me when someone speaks to me like that, or when I have that thought, or when I have that anticipation? And then as we start to feel it, the emotion has its own. form of communication. That our cognitive mind, that our rational mind, very well may have a different interpretation. Oh, it's all just fun. It'll all blow over, and in that moment of turmoil, our emotions say, this is terrible. This is devastating. So, We learn something about ourselves. We learn to cultivate our emotional intelligence. We learn to see and acknowledge the terrain of our psychological being.

[38:43]

And then as we stay with it a little longer, then we can start to see what's implied but not emotional absurd. And as we see it, we see two things. We see the simple truth that this is difficult for me. Compassion is very simple involvement in human experience. This is difficult for me. This whole event is a difficult challenge. It distresses me. And in those simple terms, beyond blame, beyond figuring it out, beyond any other implications or inferences, we can start to have compassion.

[39:49]

And as otherwise, we do start to see the details of our own emotional, and psychological love. Because we do have a challenge in being the person we are with the patterns of being and emotion and motive and how we think and where in the situation and what references we have. It does ask us, our life asks us to learn something about that and to learn how to be skilled with it. And those emotions or give it emotion, give it energy. We have a thought, and if that thought is neutral, it doesn't mean a whole lot. If that thought is charged by an intense emotion, that's a very significant thought. To be able to see that helps us. And then as we can take ownership of our own emotions,

[40:53]

We can allow the other person to be themselves, but they're not just a play in all emotional drama. And that's very helpful and important in our communication and in our relationships with others. We will understand, we will see them more clearly, and we'll start to get, how is a black person? their existing, not just as an extension of what I want and don't want. Their existing is their only being. In that wonderful way, when we can both exist as ourselves, then we can meet in a dignified and respectful way. And then when we have that as a basis, we can even find we can disagree, sometimes we can even have difficult emotions between us and the bond.

[41:57]

It isn't destroyed. Thank you. Yeah. Did you talk about how the concept of enatma relates to what Brother David was saying a question ago about the soul? He asked him, I could talk about a knife man. Do you mind if I defer to Brother David? Thank you. Talk about a knife man at the soul? Yes. As you may know, or maybe you don't know, but there is a popular saying attributed to Jackie when he was asked about his soul, about what happens beyond this life, and things like different aspects of the cosmology of being.

[43:19]

And he simply said, I'm not going to talk about that because It's different from focusing on the practice of lessening suffering and liberating integrity. And that's what I teach. And so in early Buddhism, at that period of time, there isn't much written in that regard. And then as Buddhism evolved, especially Tibetan Buddhism, that became out of other aspects of Mahayana, these terms are some version of, I'm not using the same words, but the Zen scope is that I was quoting to someone earlier at dinner, right after dinner, quoting something from Suzuki Roshi, where he said,

[44:24]

It's important to believe in nothing. Very important. In that Zen school adheres back to that Shakyamuni's attitude. We adhere to lessen suffering and realize liberation. And crafting any notion cosmological way is in itself problematic so if we call that and we say okay we're not building a system of belief and that's very important because as human beings we have sensibilities but we have ways of experiencing presence, we have ways of experiencing human artism.

[45:32]

In that regard, sometimes the word, especially if it's linked to silence, the word can heighten our perceptiveness of sensibilities that run through our existence. Didn't that hear you say it is very important to believe in nothing? I did. I called it Suzuki Roshi. You called it? Suzuki Roshi. And I think this is the first sentence in the Christian creed. I believed in the Father. That is the nothing out of which everything comes. There is still nothing that supports everything. Nobody thinks when you say believe in the Father.

[46:36]

We know that it's an image when you think of a Father with a long beard or somewhere. It's an image. It's a healthy image. But you can't request an image. It's the nothing, the no thing out of which everything comes. You didn't say it is very important not to believe in anything. That's a completely different statement. That's right. It is very important to believe in nothing, to put your whole trust in that nothing that supports everything. Everything is a celebration of the nothing that supports it. Now that nothing that supports everything, Christians happen to call the father. They could also call it the mother. It would today be a little better. It's an image. It's an image. What are we talking about? That's what you're talking about. And to believe it, and believe in that nothing, trust it.

[47:38]

And I'm sure that was at least an overtone or an undertone word. Suzuki Roshi. Yes. So when we give it word, we give it access to experience We're not setting up an existing entity. So then, if we say, okay, how about we give that sensibility of being the word atma. Then we talk about the sensibility of being. Now, the nature of what we say, we give something a word, and now in particular, And when our language is structured, it's very enticing for us to say, well, that's a thing, right?

[48:39]

It's a knot, but, you know, it's a certain size, weight, color, whatever our mind conjures up. It's important for us to bring it back to the word, connects to the silence, connects to the mystery, connects to the nothing. which all sensibilities are being rough. And whether you want to say, well, that's up, or you want to say that's so, or you want to say that's no-self, or you want to say that's lunatic, any one of them can lead us to strike. Or any one of them can hide you, the experience of moment. And I would add this, when the word is in close conjunction with the silence, with no thing, and when the word is in close conjunction with the activity of experience, if you said experience of being sometimes called

[49:57]

and that one. Then we might save ourselves from solidifying, reifying, and then keeping the old independent love. Thank God. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you. I feel like the poem is an invitation to to step aside from the constant projecting that we do as part of our human nature and to allow the expression of things as they are to happen. It's an invitation to let go of trying to control, you know, to grasp onto or avoid seeing everything as separate and inherently and just getting out of the way of that so that things can express themselves as they are.

[51:00]

And the responsibility feels like, to me, it's to practice. Because when I practice, then I'm more likely to be able to get out of the way and allow what's in front of me to be the celebration that it is. Yeah, I was wondering, could you see yourselves representing each other's tradition? Could you be Brother Paul and could you be Abbot David? And follow up, are there other traditions that you have interest in or admiration for? I just learned today that the word Allah means the nothing. And that really feels like it ties in what you're saying. Good sense? That Allah means... Abba.

[52:04]

Did you say Allah or Abba? Allah. Allah means nothing. Abba. Abba means nothing? It means father. That is what Jesus called Abba. That's what we call it father. I see. And another question was, could we see ourselves swapping traditions? I had a dialogue once with Biko, and he said, well, in order to level the brain field, try for a while to think that this whole Christian thing is all wrong. I don't know. Come on, it's so hot. I'm sorry, I can't.

[53:06]

I can't. But that doesn't mean that I don't feel very deep in my practice then. I can get completely into it. But that doesn't deny any other. That is the problem. You don't deny it. It's just another expression of the same reality, of that same deep spirituality, of the liveness. If you see it's a different expression, sure, you can tell any of them. Usually, life is too short. We can get deeply into it. Theoretically, yeah. Once I met the category Roshi and I said, Roshi, I think Zen is really terrific.

[54:07]

I think it's just like a great form of practice. And one of the same was, you know, I can see my own prejudice, but I'm still prejudiced the way I'm prejudiced. And he said, it's okay. Don't worry. It's part of being enthusiastic about what you do. Yeah. But especially, of course, when we come to practice. And then, practice is more practice. It's the practice of being in the present moment and interacting with life, taking that opportunity that's offered to us. And that's one of the things I admire about Zen, that it always bypasses those, it has lots of these you know, theoretically, explanations and structures, but when it comes down to it, it bypasses it and goes to me directly through the face.

[55:08]

I remember when I was here for the first time at Tassajara, there was a big event, there was a full moon, and for the first time in history, there were, I think, four planets Four Roshis together in the same place. And one more. Was that what you might have known? You might have known one? No? I don't remember who the fourth one was. But anyway, there were four Roshis and so everybody was making we were going to give talks and what are we going to talk a lot and then Thorn Roshi was the first one and this is how he opened this big talk and this big occasion he said I've just come from the bath and I notice you let the soap soak in the soap dishes this is not what we asked to do laughter

[56:21]

I was right to the point. I think what Bob was saying, it's helpful to have roots in your own tradition. And then it's helpful to explore other traditions, not just to kind of loosen up the narrowness of your thinking, but they actually teach you about your own tradition. You know, you learn something, a new perspective, a new way of practicing, a new way of describing things, and it tells you, you see your own tradition in a new way too. So, it's a very helpful to do. And his brother David was saying, when he delved on, they draw water from the soil.

[57:29]

So... For one tradition, two spiritual teachers, the exchange is less exciting than an executive, a big entrepreneur, the exchange Rolls with an abbot for a week. And there's even a film about it in Switzerland. It's Tony Gunzinger and an abbot in Frankfurt. I forgot his name. I think it's just quite tight. And they were both giving lectures at some event. And somebody challenged them to exchange rolls for a week. And they actually did. And it was much more difficult for the executive because he had to learn everything, how to sit, how to walk, how to eat, and how to get the sign. And he was totally confused. And the Buddhist abbot was meeting clients.

[58:33]

And Tony says, to this day, he has one or two clients. LAUGHTER So we need to stop. So... I think our practice lives have taught us both that there's something marvelous and amazing in our human existence, that it attracts us the same way flowers, that being is attracted to the flower, that we're attracted to the sense of being.

[59:42]

We want to live. And we want to be life in that movie. And it's also somewhere in which you look up at the sky and you see 16 million years of light and space that are struck by. what we find ourselves. And those two together, in a way, that's all we're talking about. We can go and look at them right now. Thank you very much.

[60:32]

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