This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. Wow. What a darn, my dog. I think it might be best if we just sit here and inside Zen for the next 20 minutes. but I promised Norman I would say something. Some people have asked me to do a way-seeking mind talk, but I don't think it quite fits the place and the time. So I'll give you some brief snapshots in chapters. Seeking the way is exciting, at least to me, especially in the beginning.

[01:06]

So many things happen, so many discoveries are made. But when time goes on, it's no longer so exciting. Nevertheless, this is where true treasures are to be found. And like I said, I love the wonderful talks that Ami and Jean and Robin gave, and this is going to be a little bit rougher. Chapter 1, Santa Claus, early 1960s. To make sense of all this, I will need to start with Santa Claus. There are two things I need to tell you. Number one, he can't handle all the gift deliveries in the United States and in Canada because he does Europe on December 6th.

[02:14]

Christmas gifts are brought by baby Jesus through an unspecified delivery method. Fact number two, my brother was Santa Claus. I did not wish this to be true. Even when they showed me the suit, was my brother still in it? My parents said that the rest of the Bible and everything was still true. And I said, so how about baby Jesus and those gifts? How is that happening? And they confessed to that, but the rest of the Bible was still it. So it was a short time after that that I found out about Abraham attempting to sacrifice his son because God told him to do so.

[03:28]

I went to my dad and I asked him if God ever told him to do stuff. I was quite assured when he said, not really. So it seems to me, in retrospective, that I had many questions about this Catholic faith I had been born into. I confess, it just never really took. I simply was not a believer. In spite of promises, threats, and bribes, Catholicism and I went just different ways at a very early age. I became a secular humanist and atheist, and that's the end of Chapter 1.

[04:35]

Chapter 2, K-16 of the Mumon Khan, year 2000 until about now, and no turning away. Yunmin said to his assembly of monks, The world is vast and wide. Why do you put on your robe at the sound of the bell? When my Zen practice started, I had to figure out how much of my life was conditioning, projection, habit. What was real? What was the illusion? what to keep and what to discard. And then there is dukkha, a deep, dark current running through everything.

[05:41]

Now, the automatic response of creatures when encountering suffering is avoidance, making this painful thing go away? Cover it up. Norman wrote in his book Suffering and Possibility, if we imagine somehow that our suffering will dissolve if we only do such and such, or if we are crushed by the weight of it, then we don't have the energy or resource to understand it. as a tool for greater consciousness. This is an improper response to suffering. The question is not, can we ameliorate or eliminate suffering?

[06:45]

The question is, how will we receive and make use of the suffering in our lives? Make use of suffering. End quote. This was from the e-book book, Suffering and Possibility. So I ask again, why do you put on the robe at the sound of the bell? Here comes the bell. Quick, quick. It has no snooze alarm. Each moment once gone, cannot be recalled. Why are we still standing around naked, waiting for the big black car? I think it's time for interlude number one. The Invitation by Oriya Mountain Dreamer.

[07:48]

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing. It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive. It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain. I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it. I want to know if you can be with joy,

[08:50]

mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human. I want to know if you can see beauty, even when it's not pretty every day, and if you can source your own life from its presence. I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, yes. It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after a night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

[09:52]

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back. It doesn't interest me where you are, where or what, or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you really like the company you keep in the empty moments. I titled Chapter 3, On Being Okay. In May 2014, I had an accident that caused a serious concussion. It was on a somewhat remote Canadian island, and there was no equipment sensitive enough to determine if there was a brain hemorrhage happening.

[11:06]

But I still decided against a helicopter evacuation. It just did not feel right. My body told me just to hunker down for a night. I spent that night meditating. I literally dragged myself along a malai or breath by breath. The meditation was amazing. That accident ended my work as a code enforcement analyst and my budding career as a consultant. I did take the opportunity to... something utterly different from working in enforcement for more than 20 years. I became a mindfulness facilitator and I was certified by the Engaged Mindfulness Institute.

[12:11]

What an adventure. I confess that ever since there has been cross-contamination between Zen and mindfulness. I remain honest in my mindfulness teaching. It is secular because that is the promise I do give. But the true teaching I give comes from this black, round cushion I sit on. Some of the things I have learned as a mindfulness facilitator have definitely made it into my Zen teaching. It has been fascinating to learn more intellectually about what the body does, what the mind does on the cushion. And in some ways, those skills have been very helpful.

[13:16]

In this line of investigating the mind, over and over I have met friends and clients and co-creators. And I find it so sad that so often people do not love themselves or like themselves. I often encounter I am not worthy, feelings of shame and guilt. The ones who are the most innocent ones, the ones who have suffered abuse, violence, they are affected most by these dark thoughts of unworthiness. It breaks my heart.

[14:23]

I see young people repeating patterns they learned either at home or through other relationships. And they repeat these patterns of allowing abuse when they should say, no, this ends right here, right now. My heart also goes out to the abusers because they also learned this often at home. When I was working for the police department, I would scan through old police reports and I would see that this guy who beat up his girlfriend is in jail today. He was in the hospital 20 years before because his dad beat him to a pulp.

[15:30]

So my compassion needs to go to both. But there's also the aspect of responsibility. So please, if you carry feelings of guilt and shame for things that happened to you, please look at them and whether you should truly hold on to them. Which brings me to chapter four of the talk. It is titled, You Matter. Or maybe I should be, nah, you matter. I love you. And me. I don't like everybody, myself included, all the time.

[16:35]

But there is love and gratefulness. Thank you for having Tassahara for all of us. So we can practice and learn living together. The world needs us. And I mean to my thank you speech. So I would like to thank each one of you, but I don't have that much time.

[17:45]

But special thanks to the serving crew. I could not be on the serving crew this time because I My body vetoed it. It was so wonderful to have food appear out of nowhere three times a day. Thank you to the Eno and the director and the Chisha and thank you to my teacher and to all of you as my teachers, all Mohammed in the bathhouse. He's still after me. I'm not quite perfect yet. So thank you very, very much. And now, Wild Geese by Mary Oliver. You do not have to be good.

[18:52]

You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile, the world goes on. Meanwhile, the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile, the wild geese. high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting, over and over, announcing your place in the family of things. Final words.

[19:58]

If you ever think what I do does not matter, my life does not matter. I ask you this. Which one job is the one that makes you roar? which drop is the one that makes the difference. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma Talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

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