Good evening. My name is Tim O'Connor Frazier. My dharma name is Gyokito Itoku, which means Jade Lantern, Solemn Virtue. It's our custom to welcome new people to the city center. So if you are new here, please extend, I welcome you, I extend the welcome. Thank you for being here. And I also wanna thank the Sangha

[01:04]

this practice container together. It's been an amazing experience to disintegrate the self that I was in Ohio with my family and to reintegrate into this sangha over the past month. So thank you for supporting this process and It's kind of an amazing experience, particularly when we put the focus on the body. What is the body here for me now? I've been noticing aspects of the body that I experienced in Ohio that I don't have an experience of here. For instance, the family body, the dad body, which is different than the dad bod,

[02:04]

But it is a body. And just the transition from rural Ohio to San Francisco. It's quite the experience. So thank you for supporting me in this practice. And I look forward to continuing with our practice together. I'm thirsty. Excuse me. going to read a little bit from the book The Hidden Lamp, which I highly recommend. This is the Stories of 25 Centuries of Awakened Women. It's a book that in the group that I study with in Ohio that we've recently been studying, and it's been one of these things, you know, there's books like this where

[03:15]

We read the case. There's a book of koans, and we read the case. We will maybe read it through a few times, and then we'll reflect on the case. And it's amazing what comes up as we discuss that. And then we'll read the reflections by the teachers, and they'll reflect on their reflections. And I'd highly recommend it for small groups as a study of self and Zen. So this is case 74, Ling's question, and it probably comes from the 9th century in China. Ling Zingpo visited Master Hubei Heixiong to pay her respects. They sat together and drank tea, and she asked him, if a true word can't be spoken no matter how hard you try, How will you teach? Fubei said, Fubei has nothing to say.

[04:21]

Ling was not satisfied. She placed her hands inside the opposite sleeves of her robe and cried out, There is grievous suffering even within a blue sky. Again, Fubei had nothing to say. Ling said, To be a human being is to live in calamity. So I want you to put that aside for a second. We'll come back to it. The first version of this talk that I was going to give changed. I mean, this is not the first version of the talk I was going to give. Tomorrow being Halloween and we'll celebrate Sijiki, I had a ghost story to offer. And I was working on how to... how to integrate Sujiki and the hungry ghosts and the classic Zen ghost story, which is also a book.

[05:24]

Senjo and her soul are separated because it pointed to the experience I was having of separation from my family. But then something altogether more frightening happened early Sunday morning. trying to get a good night's sleep, as we are encouraged to do. At around two or three in the morning, there was a loud boom. I was just startled from sleep. And I didn't know at that moment whether what I'd heard was a dream or whether it was real. So I thought for a second, and I thought, well, if it's real, it'll probably, I don't know. I don't know what to do. I just decided to settle down, go back to sleep. And then, boom! So that was real. Okay, so I got up, and I wasn't sure if the boom was coming from inside the house or outside.

[06:30]

And so I walked over to the window, and I looked out across the north of the city to see if there was any sign of explosion or anything. And while I was looking out, a third, boom! It's inside the house. Okay, so what does that mean? So I put on some clothes. I walked over to the door. I looked outside and I saw a student down the hall fastening closed the door, the window at the end of the hall. Oh, okay. Another student popped his head out, looked at me. I pointed back the other way. We all seemed okay. That was fine. So we all went back to our rooms. This happened again. Still, whatever the first student did didn't Didn't secure it. Boom, again. Second student tried. How many Zen students does it take? I don't know. Anyway, the second time, still again. So third time this happened, I got up, I went down there, and I MacGyvered this rubber band from some hair bands that my son had in my backpack, and I secured it shut.

[07:38]

But that morning, that in some ways sleepless morning, was... kind of literally a wake-up call. Because what would happen throughout the rest of Sunday is the thing that many people are still talking about, which is the impact of the wind blowing through the city and the fires that were being fed by it, the evacuations that were increasing. I had some friends who were celebrating a wedding anniversary in the East Bay, near the Karkinas Straits, where the Karkinas Bridge is. and a fire broke out there. That fire jumped the carquina straight over to the other side where they were and forced them to evacuate. So I'm sitting here with this occurring and knowing and hearing from friends who are reporting how they're living without power, no electricity. And then Sunday turned into Monday with the power still being out and the fire's growing, smoke in the air here.

[08:43]

in the city in the morning, you could smell it. So the world is saying something to us. Even in this bubble of San Francisco, things are coming through. And so Tuesday, more fires break out in the South, even more fires today. So this fundamentally changed what I was expecting to talk about because I no longer felt like the thing that was alive last week was alive now. And I made a mistake when I gave my way seeking mind talk to not talk about what was alive for me. So I said, okay, I got to drop the old and work with what's here. So the story of living in California had already been a story of wildfire for 10 plus years, I'd say at least. But I mean, of course it's a lot longer than that. We've had wildfires in California all the way back, but in the more recent years, they're getting bigger. and more frequent.

[09:45]

And it's hard to believe that it's been 11 years since the fire that swept through Tassajara. The new element, the new wrinkle I feel to this is the power outages. Millions of people for days without electricity. And what I started to see was that that experience of wildfire, which has wiped out towns, has encroached on cities, has caused mass evacuations, is impacting people on a scale that we haven't seen. And it's not just the wildfires here, but you have hurricanes that are happening in other parts of the country, other parts of the world. They're getting stronger and more frequent. If you haven't listened to Domio Burke's talk last month... I highly recommend it. I'm not going to attempt to do what she did. It was an amazing talk, and I'm sure many of you heard it, but if you haven't, please check it out. It's available on the web, on sfcc.org.

[10:51]

So I feel like part of what was difficult with this experience, though, is that here we had electricity. Here we weren't being threatened by fire. Even though the first power outage earlier this month, there was a fire that broke out in Brisbane that was under power lines that were feeding the city. So to me, this speaks of privilege. A word that I've heard probably three or four, maybe five times in different contexts since I've been here this month. It's a word that I've heard from people in terms of the movies we've seen or even the Q&A. that happened after my way-seeking mind talk. Privilege seems to be up, and so I noticed this. And I noticed that the privilege of being in the city is that, A, we have electricity, we have the relative feeling of safety that comes from being here. But we're insulated from what is happening in the world beyond.

[11:56]

Even though we get signs, we have people come here to take refuge. The experience, though, that is happening beyond the city and other parts of the state is where families are questioning whether it's safe to be where they are, whether it's safe either physically because of the danger of fire or whether it's safe because of the air quality. And then they're experiencing loss of employment or loss of hours, money, due to the loss of electricity. We have home health care systems that require electricity. And so people who don't have power, their lives become a danger. My aunt, for instance, is 100% reliant on oxygen, which she requires electricity for that. I saw a story in the New York Times from Monday that was saying how farm workers in Sonoma Valley were picking grapes because it's also harvest.

[12:57]

That's their work. while the fire was encroaching on them, the smoke and the ash and all of this happening around them. And so we have happening this experience of impact. People are being impacted by this in a disproportionate way. Some people, their devices are without power, and so they gotta figure out what to do to keep their devices going or food going bad, things like this. For others, it could seriously endanger their livelihoods. And so we have this wealth divide in this country that we've identified as growing worse and worse, and then something like this happens, and it exacerbates that problem. So at some point on Monday, I realized that this was the talk I needed to give, and being the student,

[13:58]

I thought, well, how can I relate this to the teachings of the practice period? So how does this relate to awake body, awake mind? I was feeling, as the koan says, the grievous suffering even within the blue sky. That as we go about our lives here, we aren't necessarily impacted by the calamity that goes on. We might feel it through the stories that we hear, but how does it really come in? And it made me ask this question is, what is our practice container? What is the body of the practice period? It's like all bodies. It's immeasurable and incalculable. For me, I've experienced being with Michael Warner, who Vicki spoke about last on Saturday. And so for me, he's part of this practice period.

[14:59]

The people receiving breakfast outside of St. John's Evangelist Church are part of this practice period. Everyone you meet, even for a moment, even if they don't realize it, they have become part of the body of this practice period. And even if you haven't experienced the intensity of wildfire or had to ask this question, should I stay or should I go, which I had that experience, And I don't, it was a terrifying night. You might have an objective view of what it's like to be in that situation. You might think, oh, this is just part of the natural cycle of things. Perhaps you see the frequency and intensity as a consequence of human activity and the global climate change, and think, yeah, these things are gonna happen. They're gonna happen more. and you'd be half right. But as it's said, when one side is illuminated, the other side is dark.

[16:02]

The other side is the actual experience of wildfire on people, on animals, on the land. So there's that stress of not knowing that the fire is coming or is it not? There's making the decision to stay or to leave. There's the question of how do you take care of yourself, perhaps your family and your community? Perhaps this is also part of the natural process. What is the impact of people who are living with these conditions? What is the impact of people who are living without electricity? So I've been here through the week listening to people, and this is coming up in the Sangha, and so I felt like I wanted to bring light to this. This body is vast, it is wide, it is beginningless and endless. I wanted to say a few things that kind of coalesced here around the things that Christine has been talking about in her class. This week, she introduced the topic of objective and subjective relationships.

[17:07]

She's been explaining for those who are not in her class, how the brain and the nervous system have evolved and have become this complex relationship of different levels. of biology, where our brain's nervous system relates to different information in different ways. So for instance, she was talking about that when we're very young, pre-language, early language, everything is subject, subject, subject. It's an experience of the thing. Before we can imagine a concept, we see the thing as it is. And with language, we develop the subject-object relationship. where we're relating to concepts as things. If I say book, you think book. If I say fire, you imagine fire. The words create a concept you can relate to. As an aside,

[18:12]

when Sharky was very young, I realized that he was very close. Sharky's my son, by the way. And so I realized he was very close to that early mind of before language. And so how we have a telescope, and they take telescopes and look deep into space, trying to find the beginning signs of time, the earliest light, I would ask him questions to see what he would come back with to kind of give me insight to the earliest mind. And one day he said, Dad, you always ask me how my day was, and I never know what to say. That's because it's all too much. And I basically took that to mean that for him, everything is happening in such a subjective way, in such a like, it's just always happening. I was asking him to objectify his experience when I would ask him how his day was. And he just wasn't able to see the world in that way.

[19:15]

And so we do, as we get older, we objectify everything. And I would have to say, this is at the core of our climate crisis, the way in which we objectify things. We saw it in the film that was offered in the practice period here at The Biggest Little Farm. It was the first movie that was offered to watch. And we saw examples of how... the people, the farmers of that film, would look at a problem. For instance, they would see how birds were eating the fruit of the trees. And a common thing would be to maybe kill the birds. How do we take care of that? Well, we've got to kill those birds. That would be an objective way of looking at it. Or commonly in our system, there's pests, pesticides. How do we take care of them? We kill them. And... The people in this film, the farmers in this film, they looked at the problem from a subjective perspective. They looked at it from the perspective of how do we address this takes care of the whole.

[20:21]

And so they found other solutions. Those solutions sometimes created new problems, but then they would find other subjective solutions to those problems. We are studying, in Christina's class as well, a text from Reginald Ray called Touching Enlightenment. And in that class, there is this, or in that book, there is this quote, we find ourselves in a pattern whereby every person, everything, every situation, and every occurrence in our life, even the earth itself, is viewed as an object, that could serve or thwart our interests, our ambitions for fulfillment. Nothing has any value on its own, but only insofar as it serves us. Rather than being a subject with its own integrity, it falls into the category of object to be manipulated, used, and abused, to be exploited in order to satisfy our misplaced cravings for comfort, security, self-aggrandizement, and fulfillment.

[21:35]

To be disembodied is to be disconnected. The objectifying mind knows things only as lifeless concepts, as mental realities with no life, worth, or integrity of their own. When we objectify something, when we turn it into an object for our use, we lose touch with its reality as a subject. So this privilege that I speak of in the city, it supports and is supported by objectification. And I'm not saying the city is bad. I'm saying that this experience of this way that the fire has impacted things, we can see it as something out there. We can see it. We have the privilege of being in the city in a way that we don't have to necessarily address it. And so the other night while I was pondering this, the voice of Suzuki Roshi came to me, not in a godlike way, more like some of his teachings that I've heard.

[22:44]

His voice literally was playing back in my head as he was talking about this teaching that he gave on the Sandokai. The words objective and subjective just like came to me at this point. And from the fourth lecture on the Sandokai in 1915, June 3rd, 1970, he's talking about the portion of Harmony of Difference and Equality where he says, all the objects of the senses interact and yet do not. Interacting brings involvement, otherwise each keeps its place. So I want to share a little bit from that because in this kind of two paragraphs of this talk, I feel like he kind of brought together this area of body, the body, the expansiveness of the body, and this objective, subjective aspect of the teaching. He says, we think our mind pervade everywhere.

[23:46]

So our mind is, you know, not our mind. Our mind is something greater than the mind, which we think is our mind. This is Buddhist thought. So in Buddhism, mind and being are one. not different. And I would say being and body could probably be looked at as similar here. So there is no limit in cosmic being. Our mind, you know, our mind, there is no limit in our mind. Our mind will reach, you know, everywhere. And our mind and outward being is one. So if you think this is mind, you know, that is mind. If you think... This is some other being. That is very much so. But actually, when we say this, you know, when Buddhists say this or that or I or that I or this or that include everything. So again, he's talking to the expansiveness of the body-mind.

[24:48]

And then he says, so he must, you know, listen to the sound of it. You know, the other day I explained what is sound. is different from noise. Sound, you know, your practice is, sorry, I skipped a, sound, you know, is something, you know, which comes out more real. So sound comes out more real and which comes from your practice is sound. Noise is more something more objective. You know, something, you know, will bother you. Noise is more of an objective being. sound is both objective and subjective. So you know, if you hit a drum, the sound is, you make is, you know, the sound of your own subjective practice. And it is also the sound which will encourage, you know, all of us. So sound is subjective and objective.

[25:51]

Sound is subjective and objective. Objective and subjective are oneness. And we see here, he's talking about, so when he's talking about sound, he's talking about our relationship to the subjective, the things that we do that are, the way in which we relate to each being is a subjective experience. The way in which we conceptualize things is the objective. And so he's saying, yeah, our practice is subjective and objective. When you hit the drum, It expresses your practice. That is a subjective and objective expression. So when we go beyond the subjective and objective world, he says, we come to understand oneness of everything, oneness of subjectivity and objectivity, oneness of inside and outside.

[26:59]

That's the harmony of difference and oneness. So I think I've been pretty heavy tonight. And I want to talk a little bit about what we can do because there's some good news. And that is that the things for us to do are the things that we are doing. We have in our practice the vow to save all beings. And embodied in the three pure precepts are, don't do evil, do good, and save all beings. So we say, I vow to refrain from all evil. And I would say, find ways to subjectify the world. Find ways to see the world beyond the objective, beyond its concept. Find a way to relate to each person, each thing, what is happening, because even the thing that you think of is maybe against you or something that you would hate, there is a subjective experience of that that you can have or you can connect.

[28:13]

We say, I vow to make every effort to live in enlightenment. So see what is happening in this body-mind, this body-mind, this body-mind. this body-mind, the body-mind of everything around us. We say, I vow to live and be lived for the benefit of all beings. And to me, this is the crux of it. This is how we get beyond privilege. It is how we connect with the suffering of the world. We respond to what is happening now. We take care of all beings, all of them. We share ourselves in what we have to offer. So I do refer you back to Domi Oberg's talk from September 14th in terms of the seriousness of our situation, that what we're experiencing right now, what we've seen in the last 10, 20 years, is the beginning of what is to come.

[29:19]

And it's a situation that I think really calls upon us to engage in the practice. I believe that our practice, this practice, and there are many others, but the challenge we face is one of, can we connect? Can we find ways for people to come back together? Interconnection, to me, is how we make it through this together. So fundamentally, we need a different way of being in this world where we are the model, of connection as much as we can be, where we embody caring for everything just as it is, and we do this endlessly. Fortunately, our vows are deeply rooted in the impossible nature of what we vow to do. So that koan where Ling says,

[30:28]

There is grievous suffering even in a blue sky. To be human being is to live in calamity. I feel we see it when we look. We can touch it when we feel it in our body, when we are willing to connect with others. Are there any questions? us connecting and feeling and developing our subjectivity without participating in the actual work, changing what we are doing, or do you feel that that will naturally rise out

[31:49]

In other words, we have to do some vast things to change how we're living. And I wonder how we get from what you're talking about to the actual work of those changes. I think that's embedded in our bow. I think each person has to answer that question for her and himself. We... As Christina talks about, we all have different capacities. We all have different levels of tolerance. What can we enter into? And I think this practice challenges us to find what's that window of tolerance and how can we meet the circumstance that we find ourselves in. For some people, it's one path. For others, it's gonna be different. And you may not even be aware of what that is until the circumstance arises. And in that moment, you respond.

[32:51]

And you respond with your vow. I think that the danger is in thinking that our practice is good and perfect as it is. I think we need to challenge ourselves to find out what our edge is and live there. Does that answer your question? Yes, but not in a very hopeful way. Yeah, well, I think hope is a double-edged sword. I think hope is helpful if you're not able to get up in the morning, if you feel the pressure is so strong. that you can't respond. I think there's what can you trust in that circumstance.

[33:54]

When you think about the wheel of trust and play that Christina offered from Reb, find what you can trust and build from there. I think the circumstance, though, is if you're hopeful that things are gonna get taken care of and you can step back and just let it be, then that's the other side. That's the danger of disconnecting and hoping other people will take care of other people. And I think we need to, we can't rely on that. We need to step forward and hear the cries and offer our eyes and our hands to take care of those that need it. So that's how I see that. Thank you for that question.

[34:55]

I mean, I feel like I would engage his creativity in saying that we... He is a big thinker. And he... he likes to solve problems. He likes to fix things by building things. And I would encourage him to, as I have, because we've talked about this, I don't know, I mean, kids today actually have a lot of stress related to what they're hearing about in terms of the climate. And when he was in California, actually, when we first moved to Ohio, the first questions he asked were, are there wildfires? And is there a drought? And when I told him no to both of those questions, it changed his complexion, his whole posture. But he still hears about climate change, and he knows that things are happening. And what I tell him is that your creativity and the way you look at the world, that's what the world needs of you, is it needs you to find your way and express it as much as you can.

[36:05]

And I just encourage him to do that. What's that? In the spirit of the colon, I quote it. Yeah, I mean... How would you communicate that with those words? I think I messed up there. I think I used a lot of words. Christina, do you have a question?

[37:12]

Yeah, so I actually wrote one down, because I knew I wouldn't remember it, and I anticipated you might ask. I didn't print it out, though. Yeah. Yeah, well, there was the one time when he asked me if he could pee on the Christmas tree. And I said no, and thank you for asking. Oh yeah, absolutely. That's why he thought it was a possibility. Okay, well, we have a few minutes left and I'm happy to give it back to you as I went long last time.

[38:29]

And I, anyhow, please continue to engage in the way, like I said at the beginning, I've been encouraged, I've felt lifted up by all of you, and I know the world has some major difficulties now and ahead, and I hope you continue to take every effort to take care of us. So thank you very much.

[39:06]

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