Good morning. It's really wonderful to be with you all here on this beautiful autumn day. This is the day of our fundraising event, so we will have food, music, various activities after this talk. in the midst of the whole world unfolding in ways that we appreciate and in ways that bring us sorrow. So Lori and I returned the other day from two weeks in New Rochelle, New York, just north of the city, where we were visiting teachers at the Empty Hand Zen Center.

[01:03]

And I knew that the situation that we were entering there was one that was marked by grief. The founder, founding teacher of that center, Jian Susan Postel, who's a Dharma disciple of Darlene Cones in our family. So she's, gosh, she's a great grandchild, a Dharma great grandchild of The time goes, the generations pass. And Susan was a friend to a number of people here. Anyway, after a long illness, she succumbed to cancer in February.

[02:04]

And so that Sangha was feeling that loss. And then it turns out that her own immediate Dharma heir, Myosan Dennis Keegan, who's now the head teacher there, also has but a few months or possibly even weeks to live. So they were experiencing loss on top of loss. And part of it was just to be there and hold the environment, which was not hard because they were really wonderful people. and they had a lot of stability in their practice, which very much resembles ours. So while we were in New York, I learned that another teacher, an old friend and somebody I consider a teacher, somebody, Sojin Roshi was close with, Kyogen Carlson, the abbot of, co-abbot of Dharma Rain Center in Portland, died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 65.

[03:20]

And I really, that hit very hard. Kyogen and his wife, Gyokuko, I feel like they've been voices of sanity in the Soto Zen community for 30 years, and also just very, very welcoming to their community, people in other communities, and really they shared a feeling of connection among us all. And I was looking forward to seeing him, both of them, next week at the Soto Zen Buddhist Association meeting. So this came as a blow to many people in our wider community. And then, I think many of you know of this, but some of you perhaps not, so I want to be careful how I share this, but last Friday, our Dara Sangha member and friend, Nancy McClellan, coming out of the clean-up and the great joy of

[04:43]

Karen Sondheim and Nancy Zub's wedding, I think they're here, which was by all accounts quite wonderful. And the community really threw in and put on the event, cleaned up the event, and Late that afternoon, as she was going to her car across the street, Nancy McClellan was attacked in what seems to have been an attempted carjacking, and she was stabbed. The alleged perpetrator was quickly captured because there were people on the block who actually saw the attack and there were people who could identify him and track him.

[05:53]

The police have him and he's now in custody. Is this cutting in and out? It is. In custody and is facing arraignment. I don't think that's happened yet, has it, Mark? He hasn't had a plea. Right, right. So anyway, this is all in process. But meanwhile, Nancy is in Island Hospital in critical but stable condition, and we really will not know the prognosis for her healing or recovery for quite a while. So we're also aware that the effects of an act like this ripple out in all directions.

[06:55]

First of all, for Nancy, and most drastically, and also, if I can say, for the young man who perpetrated this act, and for his family, and for Nancy's family's friends, including many of us here, and for those who were really close to this act as it happened it's it's traumatizing it's traumatizing for individuals it's traumatizing for communities uh and so we're holding all this loss and i i had something else in mind to talk about today but it seems like this i felt it was important to speak to this And two, I don't have an explanation.

[08:00]

There's just all of this loss. And the weight of it immediately is on my mind. But really, this is also the condition of the world. This is the way it is everywhere and always. At the same time, we need to remember that that's not the entirety of reality, the reality that we live. It doesn't just add up to loss. The Buddha taught the three marks of existence, impermanence, non-self, And in the early teachings, the third mark was suffering. Suffering is related to the fact that we have some difficulty, you may have noticed, accepting impermanence and non-self.

[09:15]

It's kind of a sticking point. And in later Mahayana, the turning of the wheel in Mahayana, sometimes those marks were reframed as impermanence, non-self, nirvana. It's all a question of how we look at it. But when the Buddha taught from the beginning, from his first sermon, He was speaking to the fact that our minds move in the direction, they tend to move in the direction of loss. That a loss, unfortunately, will overbalance a joy or a birth. Because we're aware as we get older of the loss that we encounter in ourselves, of the loss of those whom we love,

[10:20]

of their passing, their diminishment, whatever it is. And it's not so strange that we don't like that. So that's really one of the points of this suffering. When we think of impermanence, as the Buddha framed it, we tend to think of things going away. but it also means that things are born and that they arise. And so along with the grief that we're carrying, it's really helpful to notice as a balance, as bringing us back into harmony, that the joy also exists. It may be in moments and we may forget about it, but if we pay attention, we can see that it exists.

[11:23]

Thich Nhat Hanh expressed it very clearly when he said, suffering is not enough. So this afternoon or later after this, we will be able to experience joy in the context of the loss that we are also sharing. We saw that last night there was a community meeting that was organized by a few people from our next door neighbors and we had it down the block at the Thai temple. And there were about 60 people there. And there was expressed, and Lieutenant Randy Files from the Berkeley Police came and spoke. And you know, there was fear. There were some strong emotions.

[12:27]

But there was also the appreciation of our connection. as neighbors and, you know, we had a wonderful period of mingling afterwards where, you know, I've been living in this neighborhood for 30 years. There are a lot of people I didn't know or didn't know their names of and I feel like now we recognize each other. So, it brings me to this kind of overall perspective I'm trying to generate for myself, and I'll share it with you. If I try to make sense of all these events, if I try to make sense of the loss that my Dharma friends have experienced of a violent attack, my mind fails to encompass it. I just can't take it all in.

[13:33]

I can find my thoughts going around in painful circles, almost like I'm caught. But because with you I take part in this day-by-day practice where the practice is to meet ourselves in what we may consider dark or what we may consider light. I feel like we have a way to expand and to accept our perceptions, even including the pain. I don't know how long I will live. We don't know how things will unfold at empty hands, Zendo.

[14:40]

I remember not so long ago having a conversation with Sojin Roshi, who was appreciating the vitality and complexity and energy of our Sangha. And, you know, he was sort of reveling in that. And then he said, and you know, all of this could just go, which is true for any number of completely unforeseeable reasons. So we don't know how Nancy's life will be, how fully she will be able to heal. We don't know what will happen to the attacker, who will very likely spend many years, at least many years in prison. And this not knowing is the true condition of our life.

[15:42]

I've spoken of this koan before, but it's one that I keep coming back to. 20 of the Book of Serenity, one of the main Chinese koan collections. Two monks met, Di Cheng asked this visiting monk, Fa Yan, where are you going? And Fa Yan replied, I'm wandering about aimlessly. This is what monks did. They just went from place to place on pilgrimage. And Dijon said, so what do you think about this wandering about? Or like, what are you doing? What do you make of it? And Dijon said, I don't know. No, Fayan said, I'm sorry.

[16:46]

Fayan said, I don't know. And Dijon said, not knowing is most intimate. I spoke of this, actually I think the last talk I gave was about these principles I want to speak of briefly now. Not knowing is the first step in our wandering. If we hold on to it as a principle, then it can seem like clinging to ignorance. It's also true that we can meet not knowing with anxiety, which has certainly been a pattern of my life. And I can say that in the context of this practice, or maybe it's just like I'm just running out of steam,

[17:56]

I don't hold on to the anxiety as tightly as I used to. At least I don't think I do. You can correct me. So we can hold on to it with anxiety or we can examine it with a kind of curiosity or interest. Like, okay, what's going to happen next? Maybe I'll think it'll be good, maybe it will not be good, but can I pay attention to it? So I want to offer you two further practices, again, which I've spoken of before, that flow from not knowing. One is then bearing witness, and the third is loving action or actions that arise from our understanding and our perception of oneness, the oneness of life.

[19:16]

So these are the three tenets of the Zen peacemakers which is These tenets were formulated by Roshi Bernie Glassman and a group of his co-practitioners. I come back to them today because, as I was talking with Lori yesterday, I realized they seem to me the tools that I need this week. the tools that I need to respond to the wide range of feelings just in myself in response to this violence against Nancy that comes so close to home. It does come home. the way it's been framed by the Zen peacemakers is not knowing, giving up fixed ideas, means entering each circumstance of our life and of our community's life without a fixed idea of what will happen or what should happen, without

[20:43]

the creation of a whole story or an interpretation. It's simply bringing open ears, open eyes, and an open mind to the moment. I think it's another way of expressing that core teaching of Suzuki Roshi's that In the beginner's mind, there are many possibilities. In the expert's mind, there are few. Beginner is naturally in a position of not knowing, and so the world is wide open. Now, it's much easier to put these words into practice. It's much easier to put this into words than into practice. we see ourselves again and again fall into making up a story or having an opinion.

[21:55]

So this is just the way human minds tend to work. Can we honor that, not reject it, and still set it aside? Just as in Zazen, thought after thought, perception after perception comes up. We don't reject them. And we don't embrace them. We may notice whatever we have to do, but we let it have its life and set it aside. So this bearing witness, which is kind of a next this circular process. Of course, it naturally flows from our mind and our senses. Yesterday, Lori and I went to visit Nancy, sitting by her bed, holding her hand, touching her head,

[23:13]

offering words, chanting. It was at once natural, not difficult actually to do, and very painful to bear witness to that pain, to bear witness to her pain. which we can only imagine to bear witness to our own pain and seeing a friend or seeing actually any human in that situation. So we see as we're sitting there how there is a unification or oneness of suffering. It comes together in our meeting, meeting in the hospital room, meeting our friends in joy or in suffering, whatever the occasion, and it's in that meeting that we embody oneness.

[24:32]

Again, I like to think we embody oneness when we come here. We embody oneness in this room. And we enact that day after day, period after period. And so, even without speaking words, we know each other in a peculiar way really well. So we bear witness to ourselves. We also, as we note in the world, we bear witness to, say, the suffering, the wounded community of Ferguson, Missouri. Last weekend, Lori participated in the People's Climate March, joining with everyone there, but particularly meeting our sisters and brothers from San Francisco Zen Center and from Brooklyn Zen Center, which have the effrontery to call themselves BZC.

[25:49]

Terrible. I think we're going to have to launch some guerrilla action. So bearing witness to the earth and all beings in circumstances of pollution, in circumstances of global warming, in climate change, and to unite in this huge activity, 400,000 people, that's oneness. And of course bearing witness to our own cycles of delight and suffering. And then we arrive at loving action, action that unites people. That's what the Climate March was. That's bodhisattva activity in line with the vows that we'll chant at the end of this talk.

[26:54]

So I think about something that I heard without designating without giving you details. But at the end of the first legal hearing for the defendant in Nancy's attack, a Sondra member took an opportunity to talk with the young man's mother, who was herself consumed by grief. To me, this is loving action, action that flows from oneness. There's enough suffering to go around, and that act encompasses all sides. So this loving action comes out of our

[27:59]

unity with all beings. It's a positive expression of the interconnectedness that's at the heart of our practice. And I'll say we'll have other opportunities to explore this. There's a series of council meetings which are very horizontal and the creation of a sort of horizontal sacred space in which people can speak and listen. Maybe somebody will say more about that at the end of the talk, but there's sign up for those on the bulletin board, and I hope anyone interested will feel free to participate in one or another of them. We're creating several opportunities. So this morning, I invite you to hold Nancy McClellan in your hearts and in your mind.

[29:05]

This is her photo. I put it at the front of the altar because if any of you know Nancy, you probably don't want her looking over your shoulder. But she's very much alive. even in her very difficult circumstance. She's still fully alive, and she's present with us in our sorrow, in her suffering, and even in our joy. So I'd like to stop there, and I'd like to leave just about five minutes or so for questions or comments. I'm aware of what the time is and the timing of our events today, but if you have something you'd like to share, please.

[30:09]

Megan? As we go outside, I encourage everyone to look around at our beautiful garden, which has so much been a part of Nancy's work. Right. How many years has she been gardener? Long time, yes. Indeterminate sentence. Anyone else want to Nancy, she wore a gown. This was her refuge, actually. Maybe a little too much, you know. But when it got dark, she was out there mowing the lawn. Everybody else was going home, she was mowing the lawn. She was really, has been, really. But the work that she did was tireless, even though she did get tired.

[31:35]

But she made our gardens, our grounds really flourish. And this was the positive side of her nature was expressed in that way. But she was very troubled, has been. I don't want to say why she's still around. She has been kind of a troubled person. But, you know, she has a great spirit. And in all the interactions we've had, when push comes to shove, all the love comes out from her. Even in exasperation, one felt her great heart, which is true for a lot of us.

[32:51]

But one of the things that was really quite wonderful is that we, in this emergency, we discovered all these other communities. You know, wide circles of people who Nancy was close to, who she was really connected with, who she was doing creative stuff with. And it's like, each, every one of us has, you know, we have these other circles of our lives and it's amazing to find out about it and how widely that reaches. Yeah, she was involved with improvisational theater for many years. Stuff that was not really apparent to most people. But she's a very creative person. Yeah. Is it Katie? Yeah.

[33:53]

I just want to say that I'm trying to make a practice of remembering and holding Nancy in her wholeness. time to remember that Nancy was someone who did not hide her difficultness and perhaps it was easier to perceive than with many of us. will perceive and hold her incredible honesty and creativity as well.

[35:04]

I think Nancy is someone who I could never help but see as completely alive. She had that Maybe one or two more. Gabriel? Thank you. Thank you for mentioning Marnie Roshi Glassman. First time I hear from Maezumi Roshi down in Los Angeles, the White Plum Sangha. And I think what you made me realize is he basically showed no fear. I mean, sitting at Auschwitz and Rwanda, bringing people together. street retreats and just being aware of, as you had mentioned, what's in front of us and bearing witness to it.

[36:07]

Thank you. Yes, thank you. Jake? I just wanted to say two things. Many of you know that Nancy likes cats and she herself has a cat named MacArthur. Nancy is here in MacArthur. The other thing I want to say is that today, right after this, if you would like to participate in the making of a card for Nancy, that will be taking place in the community room. Austin A. will be monitoring that. And so if you can't stay for the party, I encourage you to please go into the community room, take time to add your name to our well wishes for Nancy. Thank you, Jake. I think we should end there, if that's OK. Let's end there because we need to get on to the next activity.

[37:13]

And thank you very much, and I invite you to participate in the council meetings over the next two weeks. Thanks.

[37:23]

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