Unsurpassed, penetrating, and perfect dharma is rarely met with, even in a hundred thousand million kalpas, having it to see and listen to, to remember and accept. I vow Good morning. It gives me great pleasure to introduce today's speaker, Karen Sundheim. Karen is the coordinator of our current aspects of practice period, which I think we're like right smack dab in the middle, we're in the midpoint though. She started practicing at BCC in 1976 at the old place on Dwight Way.

[01:07]

She had Jukai in 1996 and Lei Entrustment in 2010. She's held just about every position. She's a Sheen Director, Tenzo, and is the current board president. She's also one of the organizers of the Many Communities One Sangha program, and she lives in Oakland with her wife, Nancy. Thank you, Laurie. Welcome, everyone. I'm happy to see all of you, including some people haven't seen them for a long time, both in the Zendo and on Zoom. So thank you for coming. Excuse me, can you move the mic a little bit away from your mouth so it's a little bit less loud? Thank you. How's that? Okay, is that all right on Zoom? Okay, good. So this talk is part of the aspects of practice, practice period, which we have every year, and it's led by the senior students.

[02:19]

And as you know, we are studying the Eightfold Path. And for the sake of some people who are new today or new on Zoom, I'm going to give a very short summary before I talk about right concentration and right mindfulness. So the Eightfold Path is one of the Buddha's earliest teachings. It is actually the earliest teaching. It is the truth number four. of the Four Noble Truths, which addresses the problem of suffering. So the first noble truth is acknowledging that we suffer. This could be in big ways or small ways. Suffering is everything from pain and agony and loss to chronic dissatisfaction.

[03:24]

Then there is the cause of suffering, which is, in the old way they used to say it, desire. But I would call it clinging. I like desire and aversion because the mind has a tendency to want to keep things the way they are or to get rid of the things we don't like. That's number two. Number three is that there actually is a path to the end of suffering. And the fourth is, what is that path? And the path is the Eightfold Path. So there are eight limbs. It's almost like there's one body to the Eightfold Path. It's mistaken to believe that these are actually steps you can just do one without the other.

[04:29]

It's like one body with eight limbs. And the limbs, they're not steps or compartmentalized, but we talk about them individually. So we have what is known as right view, right thinking, right mindfulness, right speech, right action, right effort, and right livelihood. Now these were divided into three categories. So the three categories are, some of these are about ethical conduct or morality, and that's right speech, right action, and right livelihood. Then there is the cluster of mental discipline, and that is effort or diligence, concentration, and mindfulness.

[05:40]

And the third is the wisdom group. So in the wisdom group, we have right thought or right thinking and right understanding. So it's important to know that to practice an ethical life, one needs to have some discipline and some wisdom. And wisdom is often the result or comes after some amount of mental discipline. So all three of these work together. Also, so often in what we read, the term is right thinking, right mindfulness, right effort.

[06:49]

Now, sometimes that word right can rub us the wrong way because it implies that it's right versus wrong. dualistic understanding. And so I did a little research on the different terms that are used because in different traditions, right isn't always the word. In Pali, the word is sama. And I think in Sanskrit, it's samyak. And there are various translations. The one I like best is perfect. So I like to think of perfect mindfulness, perfect concentration, perfect effort. But I want to talk a little bit about the word perfect, because what drew me to the word perfect was that it's mentioned several times in the Heart Sutra.

[07:57]

And the Heart Sutra is The Heart Sutra, as Sojin always told me, and as is practiced in temples all over the world daily, the Heart Sutra is really, it is like a kernel that contains all the truths of Buddhism. And the Heart Sutra talks about perfect wisdom. All these perfect practices require letting go of the self, letting go of the small self. So we all exist. We practice in the world where we're constantly coming up between our small self, the one that's demanding, complaining, craving, hating,

[09:00]

We all have that within us. And then there's also an enlightenment that we all have the potential to realize. And so it's really, this is how all the practices come together, that they require a dropping of self. And that's what we do in Zazen. In Zazen, it's a very intimate practice of concentration, mindfulness, effort. And in Zazen, we really experience the small self and the big self. as Mel used to, Sojin used to describe it.

[10:02]

In fact, one thing that Sojin said was the most important thing about mindfulness is being aware when we're self-centered or selfish. So I'd like to say a few things now about right concentration and right mindfulness, but it's going to bleed into the other parts of the Eightfold Path, the other perfect limbs. So, concentration is called Samyak Samadhi, and that word Samadhi may be familiar to a number of you. And samadhi, I would describe as a kind of stillness.

[11:03]

It's a kind of concentration where the mind is not wandering or getting caught in all of its little whatever it's craving and not wanting. There's a stillness, a settledness. And Samadhi is generally a happy state. People who experience samadhi really like it. That's part of the problem with samadhi is you may experience it, but then you like it. And what happens after you like it? You want to hold it and say, I want this forever, and then it's gone. But we still practice this, and it's very important that we continue to practice this. I remember I started, I got very interested in Buddhism when I was in high school, but I tried to sit, I tried meditation, mostly from books, and I really couldn't do it.

[12:19]

I mean, my mind drove me crazy and I had this idea that people who were practicing Buddhism or who really meditated, they just sat down and their mind was blank and they were happy. And I found out, I sat down, my mind was not blank and I was not happy. In fact, my first image, my first interest in Buddhism started at the World's Fair in New York when I was seven, I think. I forget what year it was. I was approximately seven or eight. And we went to the Japanese pavilion, and I was suddenly in heaven. I had never seen anything like it. You know, the vases, the plum blossom, images everywhere, and the Buddhas. I thought, I want that. And then when I was 19, I had since dropped this whole Buddhism idea since I thought it didn't work for me and it was just an illusion.

[13:30]

When I was 19, I took a driving trip with a friend and we drove around Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island in Canada. And we picked up this hitchhiker. And I remember so clearly he was a few years older than us, maybe 25. His name was David Highlander. And he was a really happy person. And he had hitchhiked around the world. And I had all these questions. Well, how do you feel safe? Don't you think people are going to harm you? And he said, you know, people are really great. If you have the right approach, people will welcome you. And they're going to, you know, they've been so kind to me. So we hung out with him for three or four days driving around Nova Scotia and talking.

[14:34]

And I really wanted to be him because first of all, he was very loving and open. And he seemed to have no fear. And he did what I had always wanted to do, which was to travel around the world. So I decided I would travel around the world and do what he did. So a year later, I dropped out of college and took my backpack and went alone. And I landed in Norway and hitchhiked. And the first thing that happened on the first day of my hitchhiking in Norway, which I mistakenly had a biased view that Norway would be like a safe place in Scandinavia, you know, I don't know what I was thinking. It was just a generalization.

[15:35]

My first day of hitchhiking this guy forced me to get out of the car and drove off with all my stuff. I'd only been there one day. I had saved all my money working, you know, at Woolworths at the counter making hot dogs. I had worked really hard to earn enough money to buy this tent and this backpack and all my supplies and everything was gone. The only thing was that I was thankfully not trusting enough that I kept my passport and my money, which it was traveler's checks at the time, I kept everything in my pocket. So I had those resources, but I had nothing else. I didn't have a sweater or a toothbrush. So all that happened. But somehow I took care of it. And

[16:38]

I continued traveling. I worked on a farm for four months in Norway, milking cows. And I went to a bunch of places, but the point of it is that I never became like David Highlander. First of all, there's that saying that wherever you go, you take yourself with you. So here I was taking myself, and it wasn't that happy of a self. I wasn't him. So I won't go through everything that happened that year, but I had a number of painful incidents, which were two relationships that I got into on the way. And I had never really been in relationships before. And they were very, both of them were painful, one in particular. But I started to realize that traveling around the world isn't going to really teach me about myself as much as close relationships do.

[17:52]

So I was in Morocco, where I spent a number of months, and I was extremely unhappy. And someone gave me this book called Zen flesh, Zen bones. And I started to begin to read the stories. And one thing I realized was that all these ideas I had about who I wanted to be, what enlightenment looked like, who this guy David Highlander was, that they were all images. They were all They were ideas, really. And so I worked very hard on dropping my ideas. And that led to me starting to meditate on my own.

[19:02]

And I practiced very hard And I would say that I developed some concentration and true, it was deep happiness. But I didn't really know what I was doing. I didn't have a sangha or a teacher or anything. I was just a foreign country reading some books. But I did think that I finally had it. Because here I was happy. I wasn't like David, but I wasn't this miserable person. I really found a certain truth. And then I decided I was going to go home and find a Zen teacher. I had thought I was going to go travel to India and Australia and all around the world, but I cut it short because I decided Zen, this was the path.

[20:05]

And I just turned 21. So I was very happy and very sure of myself. And so I got home, which was Philadelphia at the time. And all the anxieties and family dynamics and so many things happened. that all this concentration and peace is just gone. And I thought that this was my personal failure. I didn't realize that this is a practice. Also, I thought, you know, I wanted to hold on to it. You know, I wanted this peaceful concentration to be me, just in the way that I thought that David Highlander was just who he was. I didn't know him deeply. It was just an image. So I must have spent years trying to get that experience back.

[21:12]

And I didn't really talk to people enough. I had talked to Sojin a few times, but we didn't really connect around this. He just told me to just sit. And at that time, that wasn't helpful. So I went to study with another teacher, a Theravadan nun named Ayakema. And I don't know if any of you know her. Her name came up in a recent talk. I don't remember who it was. But anyway, so Ayakema was born in Germany, but she founded a Nun's Island in Sri Lanka. She became a Buddhist nun and the Nun's Island was a place for women, Buddhist nuns to practice. And the Theravadan practice was very strict.

[22:16]

So I went to a retreat, which was somewhere north of here. And she, it was five or 10 days, She sat on this platform and we were all, it was a large group of us. And she was so strict, she would say, don't move. Here we talk about not moving, but there's much more flexibility here. But she was really strict. Don't move, no matter how you feel, no matter how much your body hurts. It was very difficult, but fortunately, I was in my early 30s then. So I didn't suffer from the kind of body pain that I would imagine people would feel trying to do this now. Although the group I was with, there were a lot of younger people too. But some people were in there crying because they were in so much pain. And she sat there up on this platform.

[23:21]

She did not move. for hours and hours and hours, except she fell asleep once in a while. So I'd see her head go like this. And I thought of Sojin. But I had some interviews with her, private interviews as part of the retreat. So I said, well, how do you keep this? You know, I came here to be happy and I know that if I, quote, achieve this, you know, it doesn't seem to last. And of course, she had given a bunch of Dharma talks, you know, about impermanence. And although I understood that intellectually, I couldn't totally accept that in my life. So I said to me, well, what do you have to do, you know, to get this experience? And she told me, you have to sit a minimum of two hours a day.

[24:23]

I remember that very clearly, to develop concentration. And like Ron said in his talk, in a class Thursday night, right concentration, it's about 25% effort, 25%, well, it's 50% letting go, 25% effort. I thought you were going to say 50% effort. But it's a lot of effort. Then she asked me, this was really kind of an aside, but she then leaned towards me and she said, are you Jewish? And I laughed and in that moment, I realized she was Jewish, which I couldn't, you know, that never would have occurred to me.

[25:25]

at first, but then I asked her if she was Jewish. She was too. She says, I can always tell. In fact, it was the same thing Sojin said to me once when I first started practicing. Are you Jewish? So anyway, I'm just saying that partly because there was another side to her. So anyway, I just want to point out, this is a really great book by Ayya Kema. It's called Being Nobody, Going Nowhere, Meditations on the Buddhist Path. And she talks about really basic Buddhism, the Eightfold Path, the foundations of mindfulness, factors of enlightenment, the five hindrances. I really recommend it, but I should probably move on and talk about right mindfulness or perfect mindfulness.

[26:33]

So here we have the word sama or samyak again, and the word smriti, smriti. Linda Hess gave me a little lesson on how to pronounce these, but I'm not sure I'm doing it right. Smriti means actually to remember. So in mindfulness, we're remembering where we are right now. Luminous Heart talked about the four foundations of mindfulness where we're aware of the body within the body, the feelings within the feelings, the mind within the mind, and the objects of mind or phenomena. the things that we believe are separate from the self. So Thich Nhat Hanh in the book looking deeply

[27:51]

or vipassana. And what I like about that is that looking deeply into the body, the mind, our perceptions, we understand the truth of reality. We understand that all is impermanent. that things, including our self, do not have an inherent essence. So understanding know self is very important in practicing the Eightfold Path. I'm going to go back to the Heart Sutra for a minute.

[28:56]

I just love just the very beginning of the Heart Sutra. Avalokita Svara Bodhisattva, when practicing deeply, Prajnaparamita, perceived, understood that the five skandhas are empty and was relieved of all suffering. So the five skandhas, of course, are everything we experience. It's the whole psychophysical world of us. Body, perceptions, feelings, consciousness, all that mental discourse that goes on. They're all skandhas, and they all have no substance. So that's why I particularly like the fact that he points out that part of mindfulness is looking deeply, understanding.

[30:07]

Because here we have Avalokiteshvara, who is presented as a various genders, she, he, they, I actually like they. But Avalokiteshvara, it starts off kind of like a subject. They realized. She realized. And what did she realize? There's an object. Things. That they're empty. So it sounds like subject and object, but actually when one realizes that there's emptiness of self, then that falls away. I particularly love Dogen's Genjo Koan, where he talks about, we all probably have heard this before, but to study the way is to study the self.

[31:22]

We sit down in Zazen, We study the body. We study the breath. We study the mind. And by study, we don't mean analyze. We try not to have conversations about it in zazen. We hope not to have conversations, but just to experience it directly, without names, without labels. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be awakened by the myriad things. That to me is phenomena, but it could be. It's everything. And then later in the Genjo Koan, there's another statement. That the self advances and confirms the myriad things is delusion.

[32:31]

So when we look at things from the point of view of our small self, that's delusion. That the myriad things advance and confirm the self is enlightenment. So I want to mention a story I've told this before here, but there's so many new people that I just want to tell it again, something that happened to me in my career. I was a librarian for 25 years or more. Most of my career was at San Francisco Public Library, where I was a supervisor and in charge of the LGBT collections. And But the main library was really, it was a refuge for people who were the victims of the ills of society.

[33:38]

There are a lot of people who are homeless, poor, just out of prison. Anyway, people who, there were a lot of like people with substance abuse and mental health issues. So to me, as a librarian, I was doing a lot of what I would call adult daycare. And so one day I was at the reference desk where I spent probably half of my time. So I was the one people come to. And I was also, while I was at the reference desk, not only supposedly answering reference questions, but I was also monitoring, really being a security guard and correcting patron behavior, which I really disliked having to do.

[34:43]

So I had to, you know, tell people not to eat, not to shoot up. I won't even go into the... I won't even list here the things I had to tell people not to do. However, one day I was at the reference desk and I could see a man approaching the desk from a bit of a distance. He was very disheveled and he was bent over with a cane, did not walk well, older, heavy, and breathing, really taking a big effort to breathe. He was also drooling all the way. Now, the first thought that went in my head was, he's going to come up to my desk and drool all over my desk and my papers.

[35:46]

That was my first thought. So, I had to prepare myself. So I was worried about all the various personal things that I was going to contend with. But he came to the desk. He leaned over and he did drool. And he put his hand on the desk because he could barely hold himself up. And he said, I want happiness. And at first I didn't know exactly what this context was. I kind of drew a blank, but then I realized I'm a librarian. Maybe he wants a book. I also remembered that this was my bodhisattva practice, which it was. So then I said, are you looking for a book, sir?

[36:52]

And he said, it's yellow. Happiness. So I looked in the computer and indeed there was a yellow book and the title was happiness. And apparently this guy frequently took out this book. I just hadn't given it to him yet. So I went and found the book and I gave it to him. He was very grateful. I was able to let go of my initial reaction. Because, you know, the mind has a tendency to divide reality into pieces. You know, just the way I described him here, just now, it's like dividing reality up. And how am I going to react to that? And all the stories that might go on about it. But in fact, It was all okay.

[37:54]

But this makes me think of that part of Dogen from the Genjo Poan. The self, the myriad things. How are we doing on time? It is 10.58. I think I'll stop there. I think I've said enough. Maybe there's some questions or comments. And I'll check the Zoom room, too, to see if anyone has a question there. Hozon. Obvious question. What is that book? Happiness? Did you look at it? I did look at it. It's kind of a self-help book. Maybe it has the answer. Yeah. It's intriguing. It is intriguing.

[38:59]

I see Kurt. Kurt, you have your hand up. Would you like to unmute and say something? Yes. Thank you, Karen, for a wonderful talk. I was wondering about... that issue of kind of no-self, being part of each one of those things, right, in the Eightfold Path, and being part of the mindfulness, and then also the issue of effort. And for myself, you know, I've been practicing for quite a while, and what I've noticed or seem to notice is is that initially when I first started practicing, what myself wanted to do was move around. I wanted to move. I didn't want to sit still. I felt dissatisfied. So by being still and, you know, just staying with my breath and being present, I was doing something that was counter to what myself wanted.

[40:07]

And so that kind of allowed me to drop myself, right? Eventually it would kind of drop. But after all of these years, I've kind of got good at sitting still. So now it seems that what myself wants to do is sit still. And so that efforting or that trying to do the perfect practice has a lot of self in it. And I'm seeing that for me, sometimes... just letting go of that and that need to, and somebody, I don't know, it was years ago, someone from Japan, I forgot his name, came in and gave a talk at BCC, but he sort of talked about that we're never really still and that you're almost, to the degree you're trying to be still, The more I try, the more I push myself away from what I'm trying to get. And that letting go seems to be a big part of it.

[41:09]

But maybe I'm getting lazy. I thought of that, right? I don't want to sit still. I feel like I don't need to do that anymore. So I'm aware that that's kind of a possibility. But I think Greg maybe last week talked about... And Shinra Suzuki said this, that when you're you, then you zen. And so it isn't something that you're doing. It's something that you're kind of being. And when I can just be, because whenever I'm trying to do, I see that kind of self-seeking in there. And it just feels like things are getting more constrained or tighter. But I wouldn't advise... moving around for new people. I think there's a benefit to that kind of discipline early on. I don't know, what do you think of that? Thank you. Did everyone in the room here hear the question or the comment? Well, it's funny, Aya Kama was just so strict about not moving because as she said, this is the first way that you encounter your dissatisfaction and your suffering.

[42:21]

and you can't run away from suffering. So she's really big on that. But I understand what you're saying that I think a certain settledness happens after years of practice. And I think that wanting to sit is actually a good thing. There are subtle ways that the ego or small self rages on. So I think it's important to be aware of how that happens. It might not happen so much the way it used to happen in the body. But it may happen in other ways, as you're saying. But I do think over time with practice, We are training ourselves with big mind.

[43:27]

We're coming back, we're remembering, and that takes hold. Does anyone in the room have anything, Ross? Thank you. Could you say a little bit about the distinction between right and wrong? and perfect and imperfect. I was thinking about, Suzuki Roshi, you're okay as you are, and you can use your improvement, and maybe wording it, you're perfect as you are, and you can use your improvement. So the feeling between those two. Well, when I was saying perfect, I'm not thinking you're perfect, because that's a... I wouldn't say Ross is perfect, Karen's perfect, Hozon's perfect. That's kind of the individual self. I'm talking more about a practice here. The eightfold.

[44:29]

The eightfold practice. What would imperfect effort be, for instance, in your view? Well, I didn't talk about that, but... Imperfect understanding then. Well, I think I had a lot of imperfect understanding when I started out, you know, when I wanted to be like David Highlander, when I wanted to hold on, when I had had those deep, concentrated experiences and wanted to grab them. That was like a self thing. I wanted it to be Karen, the enlightened one, you know, but that's totally false because the enlightened one is selfless. But I did make it into myself, so I really think that if we're going to talk about imperfection, it's going to be when the self asserts, the self comes into the picture.

[45:33]

Now, that brings up another thought in my mind, of course, which is the thought of enlightenment, because There is a desire burning within us to be free from our suffering. So I don't want to make it any lesser things that the small self wants. I don't want to say that that's not, that that's lesser. It's like a dynamic between the two things. Thank you so much. I hope that's clear. I'm trying to stay clear of the dualistic good and bad rap. Joe. Thanks Karen. My question kind of related to what you finished on, the dynamic. I was wondering about the dynamic in your day-to-day life, being mindful.

[46:38]

How do you work with that dynamic between Karen and being Buddha nature, you know, this right view? How do we be mindful of both? Or is it just going back and forth? How do you do that in your day-to-day life? Well, first I try to keep the daily Zazen practice. That's the foundation. I have also recently, I take a break often many parts of the day and do a little bit of walking meditation because that's very grounding and pulls me away from all the mental things that might go on. And then the main thing really is remembering. For example, if I have a short fuse and I see myself reacting, this is where right mindfulness

[47:44]

comes in remembering. That's the most important thing. Like Sojin said, remember when you're being self-centered, remember when you're being selfish. Notice it and then come back and remind yourself of your vow. I see a question from either Rondi or Charlie, if you would like to unmute. Hi, Charlie. Hi, Karen. Very good to see you and hear you. You were talking about adult daycare, and I thought of the title of your next book would be Tales from the Library. Not tales of the city, but tales of the library. Well, thank you.

[48:46]

I haven't written my first book yet. Also, well, for better or for worse, there have been a couple of books by librarians that have been printed and became quite popular about what it's really like to work in an urban public library. I wouldn't really have anything unique to add, most likely. Au contraire. You have the stories of the Castro branch as well as the main library branch. And we've heard them and they're fascinating, but those stories also lead and amplify your practice. Well, as I said, I just felt like my work at the library was my bodhisattva work.

[49:52]

And you delivered happiness. That's true. In more ways than one. So part of the Bodhisattva work at the library was paying attention to people. And there were often people that it was kind of hard to pay attention to. And, you know, they had deep problems that were not really solvable by a librarian. or even social services for that matter, you know, systemic urban problems. So, but the one thing I felt I could do for people was listen and pay attention. And often they wanted really little things. Like one guy had to come up to the reference desk every day and ask for a Kleenex.

[50:58]

You know, I could have thought, well, can he buy his own? But that was his, That was his interaction for the whole day, was his Kleenex. So we would have this, you know, thing where I would, he'd ask for a Kleenex. I'd say, good morning, how are you? I'd give him Kleenex. And it was, I don't know, it was an important part of his day. And it gave me a lot of joy too. And I want to say that when I was, a number of years ago, I was, speaking to the Jukai group where we senior students go and they talk about some of the precepts. I don't remember at all what I was talking about. All I remember is that there was one woman there and she said that she had no money whatsoever. And she had nothing. And the only thing that she had to give people was the gift of her attention.

[52:00]

Sew it.

[52:05]

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