Good morning everyone and welcome to our Saturday lecture. I have the good fortune to introduce today's speaker, Megan Collins, whose Dharma name is Shugetsu Myozen, translated as Autumn Moon Wonderful Zen. Megan began sitting at Berkeley Zen Center in 1977 when it was located on Dwight Way after many years of soul-searching and exploring different disciplines. And it was while she was at Tassajara with her daughter, who's a long-time practitioner and resident at San Francisco Zen Center, that Megan realized right under her feet was a place to begin practicing Zen. So that's where it started, in Tassajara, and she sat with Mary Mosin at the Clearwater Zen Dojo, and she was the first Shuso there in 2005. and received lay entrustment, or a green rakhisu, and a green rakhisu, which empowers her to give teachings of this sort, as well as lead sitting groups.

[01:08]

She leads a dharma group here at Berkeley Zen Center, and she's also a writer and editor, and has published a few books. And with the absence of a script in front of her, I think that she has many stories to share from her long, long years of practice on this planet. She's a storyteller, and she likes to say that she's older than the abbot, which may be a story, it may be true, I'm not sure. But in any case, please welcome our speaker today, Megan Collins. Thank you, Ross. It's true. And I know you've had it happen to you that somebody says something or you read something in a book and it's just pow, that's just what I need to know.

[02:10]

And one such thing, I think I mentioned the last time I gave a talk, which I was in a class of sojourns, and he said, you can't get it unless you be it. And you can't be it unless you do it. And I thought, ah, that's all we need to know. We can go home now. So I had another such little lightning bolt this year. I went to a wonderful sleigh. at Aurora called Wittenberg. And the theme of it was that Hamlet was going to college there at the time, and Martin Luther and Dr. Faustus were vying for being his mentor. And at some point, Dr. Faustus said, Eligio ergo sum.

[03:16]

I choose, therefore I am. And it was another yes, kind of a moment for me, because I choose, therefore I am. Now, I know that has not anything to do with the Zen master whose name I can't remember, whose sutra begins The great way is not difficult if only you refrain from choosing. That's choosing in the realm of I want, I want, [...] as in Judy's wonderful poem. By the way, is the volume OK in the back? Are you hearing me? OK, good. So this is just that it Our life as it is now is the result of the choices that we have made to get up here and what happens from here on out is going to be the result of the choices that we make.

[04:26]

So I'm going to follow what Ross said to you and be in my storyteller hat today. I'm going to tell you a story that I think is a Dharma story. I hope you will too. And it's called The Story of the Widow's Son by Mary Lavin, who is a wonderful Irish short story writer of, I believe, the 20s was her major period. So, once there was a widow who lived in a small neglected village at the foot of a very steep hill in one of the counties of Ireland. And she had but the one son, and he was the pearl of her life. Every day she bent her back and made a thousand sacrifices to see that Paki, her son,

[05:34]

went to a good school in a town not far away instead of the stupid schoolmaster in the little village where they lived. And she would walk miles grazing her cow on the side of the road to use the grass there instead of the pitiful grass in her own stony fields. And she would take bags of cabbages to the market town to sell to pay for Paki's books and his clothes. And she had great plans for him, but she never let him know that. She was just always threatening him that if he didn't do well, she would put him to work on the roads or in a quarry under the hill. But he did do well.

[06:36]

He did do well. And by the time he was 14 and in his last class at the school, his schoolmaster there was hoping for a scholarship for him to a big college in the city. And so all the village by that time had come to respect him. And he had become a strong, tall, young boy coming to be a man. Under his mother's harsh treatment, he had some character. But everyone knew that he was her darling. Even he knew it. She would wait for him every afternoon when he was going to appear on his bicycle at the top of this hill.

[07:38]

And every morning she saw him off to go. So one day, it was a very hot day in June, and the air was so heavy that the scent of the grass was just rising in the air. And it had been some days since there's been a rain. So all of the... All of the chickens were running around in the road, pecking and trying to find some stray something to eat. And this old neighbor came walking by, an old laboring man, and he said, waiting for Paki, are you? And she said, yes. And the old man said, oh, it's a hot day. He'll have a time riding that four miles on his bicycle on this hot day." And she said, well, Paki would go twice that far if there were a book at the end of the way.

[08:41]

And the old man said, well, the heat's better than the rain, maybe, and she said, Yes, and he'll have a breeze coming down the hill on his bicycle. And the man said, yes, yes, he will. He'll have a breeze. There's not a hot day in the world where you wouldn't get a breeze coming down that hill. That hill is worthy of being called a hill. And he picked a piece of grass out of the stones and put it in a draft. And he said, it's my belief. that that hill is marked with a name on the ordinance map. And the woman said, well, if it is, Paki will be able to tell you all about it because if it hasn't a book in his hand, he has a map. Oh, that's a great thing. A map is no ordinary thing.

[09:41]

It's not everybody who can read a map. But she wasn't listening to him then because just at that moment she saw the flash of blue of Paki's jersey and the bicycle spokes glinting. And he started down the hill, he was waving, and he was coming fast, fast, a steep slope, and yelling, shoo, at all the chickens, and the woman was yelling, shoo, for them to get out of the road as well. Well, later, after the harm had happened, she thought, Maybe it was her own flapping of her apron that startled this old clocking hen. And all of a sudden, as Paki was hurtling down, this old clocking hen appeared on the garden wall and flew distractedly into the middle of the road. And Paki yelled and slammed on its brakes, and the old hen

[10:49]

scurried into the ditch, but Paki was thrown over the handlebars. Now, it looked like such a simple accident that the old man and the woman ran to him, but they just, you know, were not expecting the worst. But his head was at this strange angle, and when the neighbors came in helping to pick him up, the boy was dead before they carried him into the house. And the woman couldn't believe it. No, he's just in a weakness. Somebody get a doctor. The doctor will bring him around. But the neighbors coming in were dropping to their knees and crossing themselves one by one because they could see amidst the dirt and the sweat of life on this boy's face that he was dead. And when the widow realized this, the women had to hold her down there.

[11:54]

She was screaming, why didn't he do it? Why, why? That old hen, she wasn't worth about a few shillings. She was going into the pot. Why would he give his life for this old clocky hen? And over and over, and the neighbors didn't know what to say. They would just pat her on the shoulder and say, there now, there now, there now. They said it over and over. There now, there now. And in years to pass, when one of the neighbors would come to drop in of an evening to sit by the fire and keep her company, as they were rocking, the widow would say again every time, why, why did he do that? His life was worth everything to me, and that old clocking hand was worth nothing.

[12:54]

But as they sat there, the neighbors might have been looking into the fire. You know these people in these little places, they know everyone very well, and they know what they might do in one circumstance and do something different in another circumstance. And as they're sitting there thinking, it might be easier to invent something than it is to remember accurately. And if that weren't so, there are two great arts that would die out immediately. The art of the storyteller and the art of the gossip. So as they sat there, they might think, what would have happened if Paki had run over the ham? So now I'm going to tell this story again from the same beginning.

[14:01]

We have the widow. She's breaking her back, carrying cabbages, walking the cow on the road, proud of Paki. watching for him as he comes and goes. Again, it's the hot, hot day in June. The old neighbor comes along walking from his work and stops and he says the same thing. Waiting for puppy, are you? She says, oh, yes. Yes, it's a hot day today. He'll have a hard ride home, but he won't mind it. And the old man said, well, maybe the heat's better than the rain. And she said, ah, rain. Paki wouldn't mind the rain. I've seen him come home with his claws so stiff from the rain that they stand up on the wall when he took them off. And just at that moment, she saw him coming at the top of the hill.

[15:07]

Here he comes now. He came down so fast, it looked to the man and the woman as if his bicycle were standing still and all the trees and the shrubs were rushing by. And the chickens were running and squawking and the owl clocking him lands in the middle of the road. Well, Pappy yells and there is a burst of feathers and blood and he He whirves his bicycle, he drags his feet on the ground to stop it. He runs back up the hill to where the hen's body, the carcass, is lying. And he stoops over it as though he's expecting a blow. And the woman throws her apron up over his eye. He's killed the clocking hen! He's killed the clocking hen! And she starts to run out, have you killed it?

[16:08]

Have you killed it? And the boy is saying, I couldn't help it, mother. I couldn't help it. I didn't see it until it was too late. And she picks up the body of this hen and looks at it and takes it by his feet and begins to beat the boy on the back with feathers flying and blah, blah, blah. And he says, mother, mother. I didn't see it till it was too late. And she said, you're lying. I saw you yell. You could have stopped. It's that you're just getting too full of yourself, is it, now? You're too important to stop for the hens and keep the crows on your back. And he said, but Mother, if I... And by this time, all the neighbors were gathering around because of all this shouting. And he said, Mother, if I... Jen, on my brakes, I'd have gone over the handlebars. He said to her, she said back, well, and what harm would that have done you?

[17:11]

I've seen you take a toss many of the time. When you wrestle with Jimmy Mack, you come in with your face like a gridiron and elbows and knees are bleeding and you've fallen out of a tree and no harm done to you but a few bruises. No, no, I know, I see you, you're getting to. too big for your britches there, boy, and you don't care enough about my hands." And she said, he said, well, but Mother, the reason I was coming down so fast, didn't you see me waiting? I got the scholarship. And she just stopped. The neighbors were all looking to see what would happen next. And here was the moment she had a choice to take the boy into the house. But with the neighbors looking, and the disappointment she felt that the scholarship news would be spoiled by the killing, this rage just rose up into her.

[18:25]

Resentment, like screeching animals. anger and spite, and she began to yell at him. Ah, scholarship! Ha! Scholarship, is it? Now, you think you're independent now, do you? You think you can leave your old mother, your old slave of a mother behind, who's half killed herself to see that you've got where you've gotten? But you're not as independent as you think, my lad. You still have your clothes on your back, even though they may be giving you your books. And what pays for the clothes? It's my hens and the packages I take to town. And who's going to buy your boots and who's going to buy your pants? And she's looking around and he's beginning to wilt, you know, not answering anymore. And the thing came to her.

[19:29]

She wanted to say the most shaming, hurtful thing she could say to him. She said, who's going to buy your nightshirts? Or are you going to sleep in your skin? And the neighbors began to laugh at this. And she began to laugh. And suddenly, she felt all this tension go away. And she looked at Paki. The look he gave her made her cold in her heart and she said, oh, get yourself inside. And what she was going to do, she thought, was make him a nice bit of potato cake and everything would be all right then because he loved potato cake. And so he sat down and he wouldn't look at her. and he wouldn't eat his dinner. She kept thinking, he's going to want to go outside, I don't want him to go outside, but he made no move to go outside.

[20:37]

And so, after a while, they went to bed. And when she woke up in the morning, she went to wake him up to go to school, and his bed hadn't been slept in. He wasn't anywhere in the house. She ran from house, little cottage to cottage in the village. Nobody had seen him. She was frantic. She went to the town to talk to the schoolmaster. Had he come there? And the schoolmaster said, no, he hasn't been here. And I think you should get the police to look for him. That boy is the most sensitive boy I've ever met in my life. And he takes a strange notion sometimes. But the police couldn't find him. And in a few days, there came a letter from Paki saying, Mother, I'm not going to take the scholarship.

[21:43]

It can go to some other boy. And when I get a hold of some money, I'm going to send it to you to pay for the ham." And that was the end. And then from time to time, she would get a letter. The first one said that he was on a trawler going to see, and he enclosed some money from his first pay. And every little while, she would get a letter from him enclosing some money. with a note saying, this is to repay you for all the sacrifices you made for me and all that you did for me. But none of the letters ever had a return address on it. And he never ever came back to the village. And so from this story with just two endings, we can see

[22:45]

that our lives have this double quality to them, that there is always an alternative. And we need to be so attentive to see that space. I can only call it a bardo. A friend of mine and I were reading Tibetan Book of the Dead a few years back together. And we decided that a bardo was not only the space after you die, but there are spaces in life that happen where you can make these choices one way or the other. And it is only by Seeing that little moment when you have the choice to say or do the hurtful thing, or say or do the compassionate thing, that we find our proper destiny.

[23:57]

Because no matter how hard that is, it's not as hard as the calamities that we bring upon ourselves. Thank you. Thank you. So, that's my story and does anyone have anything they'd like to... Yes? It's a wonderful story and it's the right one for me today. It's a wonderful story and it's exactly the right one for me today. Oh, well, that's unfortunate. I'm glad to hear it. OK? Anyone else? All right, well. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Katie? Was it Katie? I was wondering if there's a third ending where she

[24:59]

made the compassionate choice. There is not. There's not. In that story, there's not. But that's a good idea. Maybe the next time I tell it, I'll write one. What would you think that might be? It's hard to know, because I can't imagine that everything would be perfect. No. Maybe not quite so disastrous. Well, there was the moment in the story where she She stops and after he's told her that he's got the scholarship, when she could have taken him into the house right then, that would have averted the runaway. Because even though she would have been gruff and maybe not saying how wonderful he was, he would have known that she was proud of him. But she got overwhelmed. with her feelings.

[26:05]

Sue? Could she have made that choice then, being who she was? Was her choice at that moment or was it earlier? Do you make yourself, pardon yourself, into what you are so that there is no choice at some point? I'm not sure I heard everything you said. I should turn knees up a little bit. That'll help. Why don't you say that again? Help me out. At that point, when she had that choice to make, could she, as she was at that moment, with all that she was then, could she, in fact, have made that choice, or was Had she hardened herself too much through the years to be able to make that choice? Well, I believe, Sue, that the intent of the writer is to say that she had become as tough as an old thorn tree and she had made herself that way and it was this combination of her always having been tough with him and seeing the neighbors

[27:27]

and not wanting them to think she was soft. And all those, those were her hardening characteristics that brought her, I think, Mary Lavin intended to say, brought her to be the way that she was. Because she says in the story, the neighbors who sit by the fire with her, they know her, and they know Paki, and they can guess what she would do. in a certain circumstance. Ross? Thank you, Megan. A lovely story. It reminds me of another story that is a tribute to Sochinroshi and his teacher, where Sochinroshi was sounding the Mukugyo, and there was a spider going across, and there was this momentum of the Mukugyo, and the karma of the coming together And perhaps Sojourner Moshi could finish this story about, because it seems like we make choices, and we live through the results of that.

[28:36]

It kind of also speaks to Sue's question about, we do something, and is there any other way that we can be other than what comes about? Are the three tied together, or not, perhaps? That's a good story. I'll tell you. At Kasahara, before we had the fire in Nisendo, He had a mercubio the size of this altar. And he hit it with a big beater. And so I was doing that, doing service, and a spider was crawling across it. And when you beat the drum, the vibrations, the vortex of vibrations would bring the spider into the beater. He couldn't escape. the vibration of driving him into what I was doing. So I asked Suzuki Roshi about that, what to do in that case.

[29:38]

It was afterward, of course. I didn't make him. But he said, well, in a case like that, it's OK to stop, even though you threw everything into confusion. But that would take a lot of presence of mind to do that. So you have to decide, should I do this or should I just let it, you know, disrupt the whole thing and let it all fall apart? Yeah, it's that same kind of a moment. Jake, hi. Thanks for having me. When you were telling the story, I began thinking, I want to know more about the widow when she was growing up. And what brought her to this position of being so critical of Paki and with the neighbors and all.

[30:48]

But that would be another story that I hope you tell sometime. There could be various sorts of stories. Well, let me guess. She would have been a poor, barefoot girl. Girls not considered very much in those days. She would have known from her childhood that you have to be tough to survive. And she didn't want Paki to be soft and not not win through in some success in his grown-up life, then she would have married. Let's say her husband drank a lot. That could happen in Ireland. And sometimes then when somebody comes home drunk, they might beat you up.

[31:49]

She might have had a very, very, very hard life. Left a widow, what's that? No social security, no anything but what you could do for yourself. And of course you can't remember every single thing in the words. One thing it said in the story that she made from her thrift and industry that she did as well as some of the more prosperous farmers who had better land than she did. But I think it's that hard wind that blew on her all her life that made her stunted like a tree. I'm guessing. And then the other story, which maybe you'll tell. All right. She has some sort of aha realization what she's done. Yes, I can't see who that is.

[32:56]

I'm thinking about that question and our understanding that many people are toughened by their hard lives. And when you concluded the story and spoke of the bardos that will happen as these little opportunities to do something different, and then Sue brought us to realize that sometimes those opportunities aren't really there. I think of causes and conditions and almost a kind of collective karma, not our personal karma, but that we are just carrying on how unevolved human beings are. So given that, the story almost sounds as if it's not really about the opportunities that we have as individuals, but about the weight that we carry. of the causes and conditions. It's almost a story of samsara. And I love thinking about those of us who are kind of in the human realm instead of really stuck in the hungry ghost realm, that we do have Buddhist practice, and we do have.

[34:07]

So I can take it as a cautionary tale that we need to be looking for those bardos all our lives in order to be ready for when the really important ones open up. Well, thank you, Catherine. I agree with you. Causes and conditions is really the thread of this story, but then we all have choices as well that we can make. So, do I see... Yes, Christy? You know, there's a lovely story, thank you. Another piece I'm hearing about this Bardo moment I think is when we're more in the realm of the mundane, how could you kill my clucking hen? But when a space opens and we're kind of holding the elemental or aware of it, there's more perspective and I think room to perhaps reorient to something more compassionate. And I just wonder what your thoughts are about that. I'm sure we've all been through it, like there's some terrible

[35:10]

diagnosis, near-death thing, and it opens a space where we're not just thinking, that hand was worth a lot of money. But in day-to-day, how could you cut me off in traffic is a big deal, and that seems like another challenge. This is true, and my answer to that is practice. Because after a while of practice, you get to see what you're doing better, I think. and maybe have more space around yourself. OK? All right. Well, thank you very much. Oh, wait. Is there someone? Sue, are you doing? I can't see. Kelsey. Hi. My name's Kelsey. And I just, you opened your story and talk with a quote from Sojan. which was, you can't get it unless you beat it, and you can't beat it unless you do it.

[36:12]

Yeah. And I'm wondering where that, for you, connects with your story. It doesn't, really. With this story, because she didn't get it. She wasn't it. She didn't do it. But I just wanted to bring in, as I started, these moments when you have this saying. I mean, it happens to me all the time. A book will fall off the shelf and hit me on the head and open up and there's a sentence I need to hear. Or someone will say something. A wise friend will say something very smart that I put in my head for usefulness. And that, what Sogen said, was a major, major, major for me. I think that's what we're doing, in a nutshell. And the other one, this thing that happened at the play when he said, Eligio ergo sum, that was just another moment when this, I thought, yes, that is something that I can see is vital to life.

[37:29]

Am I missing anybody else? OK. Hi, I'm Hava. I was thinking, if she had done such a great job raising Paki so tough, wouldn't he have had that choice to say, to stand up for himself against his mother and in front of the neighbors and say, you're being completely unfair. And here we have a perfect opportunity to make delicious chicken soup and invite everybody to dinner. And what's the matter with you? And as this growing young man who's been raised in this tough way, you know, choose to stand up for himself in another way this story could have gone. We have a lot of creative writers here. OK, I think I'll stop there. We can always talk in the courtyard, too.

[38:33]

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