penetrating and perfect karma. It is true, but with even a hundred thousand million Kalpas, having yet to see and listen to, to remember and accept, I am now to taste the truth of the Tatars. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to BCC. The lecture today will be given by Ellen Webb. Ellen is a Berkeley native. When she was 20, she moved to New York City to pursue a career in dance. She went back to the Bay Area in 1984 and built her own dance company and studio in Oakland, often collaborating with her husband, Sandy Walker, who was a visual artist. Ellen started her sitting practice with Joko Beck in 1992 and was later a student of Diane Rossetto.

[01:07]

She came to Berkeley Zen Center in 2002 and was Shuso in 2018. Sojin Roshi gave her the name Maiko Kaishin, dancing, light, open heart. She is the mother of two 30-something children and the grandmother of two children. Thank you, Ellen, for coming today to give a talk and share your practice with us. Thank you for your introduction. How's the sound in the Zendel? Pretty good? Okay, and what about on Zoom? Not to rattle my papers too much. So today I'm going to talk about the fruits of practice as I see them. And I think that we all come to practice with some at least niggling idea that we're going to get something or that we want something from the practice.

[02:20]

And I certainly did, although it's a little hard for me. what it was but I didn't get what I wanted and I did get something else so that's what I'm going to talk about and of course very early in our practice we hear the word no gaining and we realize that sort of wanting things to be different or grasping at some outcome is actually a hindrance to our practice. I'm going to start with just the beginning of a poem called The Song of Zazen by Hakuin and I'm sure many of you are familiar with it and maybe a few of you are not.

[03:27]

know there's many water images in Zen literature and could probably do a whole talk on water images. Two that kind of come to mind are a wonderful chapter in Zen Mind Beginner's Mind about the waterfall and also the ocean and mind waves. But this is a little different and I'm just going to say a word about Hakuen since He isn't sort of one of the ancestors say that we chant in the morning. And because also I had sort of a lot of difficulty placing these ancestors in various places and times. So just very briefly, Hakuen is a Japanese teacher and is really thought of as a forefather of the Rinzai tradition and he's thought of as sort of a kind of restorer of Rinzai Zen in its vibrant form and he also developed a koan practice that's generally done in Rinzai temples.

[04:51]

And this very poem is chanted regularly in Rinzai temples. So he sort of historically, when we think of our ancestors, we sort of think of our Japanese ancestor, sort of a major one as Dogen, who taught in the 13th century. And Hakuen is also Japanese, but he taught really in the 18th century. later, much more contemporary. And he started his practice at a young age at a time where Rinzai Zen had become sort of part of the, almost part of the government or the bureaucracy of the and had sort of gone into a spiritual decline and for, you know,

[05:57]

maybe a couple hundred years. And he sort of broke free of that and kind of started practice in a remote part of Japan and very small, very poor. He welcomed women and lay people as well as monks as his students, which was quite unusual at that time. built up a large following and a number of disciples. Aside from being a teacher, he was also a highly regarded artist, calligrapher, and I think poet. I'm not sure how a poet he is, but certainly even outside of Zen tradition, he's sort of known as a significant and kind of unconventional and iconoclastic artist.

[07:03]

So I'm going to read the beginning of this poem, which begins. All beings by nature are Buddha, as ice by nature is water. Apart from water, there is no ice. Apart from beings, no Buddha. I'm going to read it once more. All beings by nature are Buddha, as ice by nature is water. Apart from water, there is no ice. Apart from beings, no Buddha. So, This is a strong image for me and it also addresses that kind of constant question of, well, if we're Buddha, why do we have to practice?

[08:12]

But I'm going to leave that and just talk a little bit about the power of this image for me. Because I feel that we are sort of often frozen or stuck in our separate selves, in our sense of separation, and in our stories about ourselves, our identity, and even construct our worlds. And we lose touch with our kind of sense of oneness. And I'll just talk a little bit about how I think this happens. I have a new grandbaby and I spent quite a bit of time with her right at the time she was born and for a couple weeks after.

[09:21]

I've had the feeling with her, but I have a newborn that they come sort of directly from the absolute or oneness or Buddha. And they just open their eyes and it's like they're just completely part of everything. And I have an amazing experience just to be with them and to watch them. And they, of course, don't have concepts and they don't really have preferences in the sense that we kind of one minute they're like completely relaxed and sort of smiling and happy and then, you know, their little faces scrunch up and they just start crying to break your heart. kind of like sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha, or... come, and they go, and then tears come, and then the sun comes out, and it's life as it is, and really letting it come and letting it go.

[10:44]

There's like... the sense of impermanence and flow. And still, it's not idyllic. I don't want to say it's idyllic because newborns cry on average between three and six hours a day. They sleep a lot. In waking hours they cry a lot. So there's a lot of discomfort and pain. But as I say, it's like it just kind of... It goes from one thing to another and there isn't that kind of holding on and planning and sort of that we do. But pretty fast. They learn how to get their needs met. Food, clean diapers, sleep, love, all those things. They figure out how to communicate their needs and what works and what doesn't and hopefully

[11:47]

They have a caregiver that's attentive to their cues. And this is just absolutely essential for survival. We wouldn't survive if we didn't figure out how to get our needs met. They realize eventually that they're separate from them. And they become their own little people. And they build their own identities and their own stories about themselves. I also have a two and a half year old grandson. And he's learning how to manage the world. He can be charming. He can be adamant. He can be sort of seductive. And he hears what other people say about him. And he sort of absorbs that. And has little stories that he sort of tries on about himself. He says, he watched the World Cup and now... player.

[12:49]

I'm a striker! And he says, I'm a nature detective. And he says, I'm a bunny. So some of these things will last and some of them won't. The bunnies kind of held on. So in my own case, I came from a family of three children and It was a fairly functional family, I'll say. But when I look back, and I've actually talked to my siblings about this, I feel like we kind of divided up the quality you could have between the three of us. My sister was very smart, a good student, and very dramatic, kind of moody. My brother was rebellious and kind of bad all the time, kind of a problem. and I was good all the time and sort of contented and happy and people said that about me and I believed them and it worked in my family well to be that person.

[14:03]

My father said I was the light of his life. I was a people pleaser and a performer and Those are the things that I held onto as I became an adult and moved out into the world. And in a certain way, you could say I was stuck with that. That were hard for me to manage like grief or sorrow or so on. When I started sitting with Joko back, I actually started I decided I wanted a sitting practice for my own reasons. I started sitting weekly up at a small gendo near my house in Oakland. It was in Diane Brissetto's house. And four times a year, Jill Gobeck came up and led a session. And I had not ever done a session.

[15:12]

But I signed up for it. And nobody suggested maybe I should do a one-day session before I did a four-day session. So it was quite a challenge for me physically and all the ways that... And Joko really encouraged people to kind of talk to her. And so I went and sat in the, what we call, Dokusun line. I waited my turn, and then I went into the house, and I sort of arranged myself. And I'm sure, just knowing me, that I had some good question to ask her, or at least a question, maybe not a good one. But when I looked up, I just looked up, and I looked into her eyes, and she was looking into my eyes, and I just started crying. And I didn't ask my question.

[16:15]

And she leaned over and put her hand on my knee and said, you're doing very well, Ellen. Now go back in the Zendo and sit. And I think she saw that I was, and I didn't see this, of course, but that I was maybe starting to melt a little bit. And at the end of the session, she suggested that I start a daily sitting practice in my house and I find a quiet place to do that and sit maybe just for five or 10 minutes a day. And so I found my spot and I got a Zabutan and a Zafu and started my sitting practice. And very soon, I mean within days, I just was awash in sadness.

[17:21]

And it was such a shock. I had no idea that I had any of this. Really, really walled it off. And you could ask, I think, this a fruit of practice? Here I thought I was happy and suddenly I'm like really filled with but I would say yes. For one thing it felt like a huge relief. It was just like I have been trying not to feel this my whole life and it is just a relief. I also kind of felt like disintegrating in a way, almost physically. But again, it was liberating for me. And there was some funny joy in it, even though I was really holding this sorrow.

[18:26]

And I guess the last part of this is that If you don't feel sorrow, there's probably a lot of other feelings that you don't feel. And this was kind of a beginning of being aware of that and opening to it. So in our zazen instruction, we're taught to bring our awareness to our breath and really to kind of habit our breath in a certain way. I mean, we begin sometimes by counting it, but then we just sort of almost become it, I think. We attend to our posture and kind of how our sit bones feel on our cushion or our bench or our chair.

[19:36]

where our pelvis and our head are in relation to each other, and maybe the place that our thumbs touch. And we also are aware of the emotions that we have, those feelings in our body, and then the sounds in the room, what's going on in the room, and even outside the room. So it's a kind of expanded awareness. And when we attend to those things, it's like we break away from our sinking, which is generally pretty consistent. And when we make that shift from sort of whatever our thought is, and bring our awareness back to our body or our breath or the sounds in the room or just more expanded awareness.

[20:45]

We disrupt kind of our way of thinking and our stories about ourselves and our stories about the past. We break them up in some way and they begin to get a little bit less solid. And it's not, again, that we push our thoughts away, as we say so often, but they live in this sort of expanded awareness. So they're part of it, but they don't have the solidity or the constant vigilance that we put into planning our lives and making our lives work for us. we sort of crack something open. And I want to emphasize here that we don't give up our practical thinking completely.

[22:01]

Both Joko and Sojin and actually Hozon are very practical. All of them have encouraged me to kind of continue to be practical in the world and get my problems solved in one way or another. But there's something left in the balance of power between our thinking mind and our more expanded awareness. And we begin to bring more of this other part of ourselves to our lives. a kind of responsiveness of our feeling and of our physicality. People would use the word intuition. And there's a kind of relaxing in that. And the mind gets maybe softer, more flexible.

[23:05]

I don't really mean to often use it, but kind of bigger, like it encompasses more of our awareness or our possible awarenesses. And there is a trust in this that everything isn't just going to fall apart. I think we have to give up a little of our knowing or thinking we're right all the time. But in a way, it's like an opening. It's just like bringing more of ourselves to the table. I'll read a little quote from Suzuki Rushi. You know how to rest physically. You do not know how to rest mentally.

[24:06]

Even though... your mind is still busy. Even if you sleep, your mind is busy dreaming. Your mind is always an intense activity. This is not so good. We should know how to give up our thinking mind, our busy mind. I'm just going to take my time here. So another way that I've kind of looked at other possibilities than normal, or normal for me, of kind of being what I think of as my mind through koan study, which I started, I don't know how long ago, but many years ago with Sojin. Somebody

[25:07]

Ron and Ryushin and I were going to lead a study group about koans, reminded me how much I hated them when I first started studying them and how much I complained about them. And I kind of came to them with the idea that I could solve them and kind of like an They sort of looked to me like algebra problems. You know, there's this, and then there's this, and then there's this. Kind of like the train goes 25 miles an hour, and the bus goes 25 miles an hour. Those always looked impossible to me, but I could figure them out if I really worked at it. So that was kind of my approach to koans. And so I took these classes with Sojin. And Sojin was very sweet to me a lot of the time. But in that class, he got pretty... because I just couldn't let go of this.

[26:12]

And so I stuck with it. I'm not totally sure why, but partly because I could see that I just couldn't use my logical mind to do this. And I had to use something else. And I had to bring something to this that I was unfamiliar with working with. I mean, it was really like hitting a dead end. It was like I couldn't get there. So gradually I kind of used what I was sort of was kind of my emotional body, my physical body, my sort of expanded body, my bigger mind maybe.

[27:19]

I asked Hozon kind of what language he would use for this. I liked what he offered me which was to bring your whole self to it. And so anyway, over time I've become kind of to really love the koans and to feel kind of like there are in our tradition. The other thing about them is that in these interchanges that are sort of recorded between these monks and teachers is this amazing spontaneity and kind of unpredictable behavior that really just like this amazing response to the situation or to the statement that's been made and that's always kind of exhilarating for me. So I will say that

[28:38]

In my world, this kind of open-mindedness is creative and open to new possibilities. As I said, Hakuin was a great Zen teacher, but he was also an artist and a calligrapher and a poet. And he was very, again, in a very unusual way for his time to his subject matter. He painted beggars and Zen masters and fish, dogs, cooking pots, really embraced that as it is. And I think creativity kind of requires breaking free of kind of convention.

[29:47]

I once heard a story, somebody just told me this, that when Einstein was stuck and he couldn't solve one of his great problems or questions, he lay down and And he wouldn't go to sleep, but he would just kind of open himself all the way up to letting the solution come to him. And I like that image. I'm gonna segue here to a few sort of parallels between my creative life, my dance life, and this practice. I'll just say a couple of things. One is that I worked for a time with really one of the great dance improvisers who just was so kind of present and

[31:06]

spontaneous, very surprising in the work she did. She was also a good dancer, but just completely inventive really. And she was interviewed by someone once in a magazine and asked her kind of how she did what she did. And She used this image. She said, you know the chihuahuas of your mind, the ones that bark at you all the time? She said, you know, the ones that say like, oh, the critic from the New York Times is here today. Or, I don't have the right clothes on. Or, oh my gosh, that was awfully good. Or whatever. That just keeps going all the time. She said, I asked those chihuahuas, before I start, I say, you need to sit and stay and not bark. for the next hour.

[32:08]

Go into the space and be present. And that was what she did. When I began to make my own dances, I had been both studying and performing for many, many years with teachers I thought were Of course, the best, the greatest. And so not only did I think their work was wonderful, but actually their work was in my body. That's the way they move. And so when I went into the studio, I was just like, who am I? And what's my movement? And so I had this practice of my own where I would like have to escort people my teachers out of the studio before I would put my arm around Merce Cunningham and I would say, I really appreciate everything you've taught me, but you need to leave me alone and that was done.

[33:21]

It's been wonderful, but I need you to leave. And then I would figure out who I was and what my movement was. And I feel like in this practice also, we have wonderful teachers. I've had wonderful teachers, and I have wonderful teachers, and many of them are in this room. But at a certain point, I think we need to sort of think about what our practice is, what we're doing on the cushion, who we are here. And I'm actually up there and just finish up with one more watery poem. And this is by Uchiyama Roshi.

[34:26]

And it's called Life. Water isn't formed by being ladled into a bucket. Simply, the water of the whole universe has been ladled into a bucket. The water does not disappear because it has been scattered on the ground. It is only that the water of the whole universe had been emptied into the whole universe. Life is not born because a person is born. The life of the whole universe has been ladled into the hardened idea called I. Life does not disappear because a person dies. Simply, the whole universe has been poured out of this hardened idea of I back into the universe.

[35:37]

So for a moment, and then if people have questions, how does it work on Zoom, Gary? Do you know? They raised their digital hand. Okay, you should raise your digital hand if you have a question. Yeah. Yoni. Life and death. Water isn't formed by being ladled into a bucket. Simply the water of the whole universe has been ladled into a bucket. The water does not have been scattered on the ground. It is only that the water of the whole universe had been emptied into the whole universe. Life is not born because a person is born.

[36:44]

The life of the whole universe has been poured into the hardened idea called I. Life does not disappear because a person dies. Simply, the life of the whole universe has been poured out of this hardened idea of I back into the universe. Do you have a question on that? I do. First of all, thank you. And the point that you were making at the end is something I have a lot from my own Zen training and my musical training to really honor those who led us here and respectfully invite them to leave the room or because we have to find what's authentically our self, not what's imitated.

[37:55]

But the question that I had, and I don't think we're going to, I don't, there's some play in my logical mind, which is what you warned against, and go on. In the Hakuin verse, this, without Without water, there's no ice. Without beings, there's no Buddha. Is that correct? Correct. The logic there, or the syllogism, it's kind of flipped when you talk about frozen. So which is frozen and which is unfrozen? In terms of Buddhas? Yeah. I'm not sure that is straightforward.

[38:57]

I don't think it is. Initially it appears to be, oh, this makes sense. Yeah, it does. I got caught there. I don't think they're entirely parallel. For me, the kind of kernel of it is that... Again, that we are Buddha. And we don't realize it. I think that's the kernel of it. We realize it.

[40:00]

Thank you, Alan. When you were describing escorting your dance teachers so you could perform more openly and be yourself in the studio, I could understand that. And yet, in your movement, Outside of the studio, there's probably some residual teachings that you learned from dance. Likewise, in our drama practice, we don't just practice in the Zendo. So how do you let go of or escort, along with maybe, your teachers in all the forms that you've as an adult and also find your own way, your own expression. How do you balance that? Well, actually, you asked a slightly different question than I thought you were going to ask, so do you mind if I answer that one first?

[41:05]

So I thought you were going to say, well, how do you get rid of this, you know, physical learning that you've had for 20 years or whatever? in terms of dance and I would say you don't you never ever ever do that you know if you're going to see what I created my teachers were you would just know even if I really tried not to let you know which I did a lot so again I just think it's that bigger self you know it's all there you don't shed any of it But sometimes you need to make a little space for yourself. Thank you. Yeah. Mira? I think the point that you made about starting to practice and not knowing the sadness in you, I think that resonated with me and maybe with other people.

[42:15]

When I started practicing, all this anger came up in me. And I thought of myself as someone who didn't have anger. I would have actually told, I think I told you that I'm angry. That doesn't happen to me. And all of this I recognize from practice. So practice really opens us up to these emotions that I guess we've been suppressing. Like you said, we have a human-filled space. So then we become I really want to thank you for that because as I say you know I was sort of stuck in this persona of being cheerful all the time but everybody has their own way of being also you know everybody has their own thing and you know my

[43:17]

A lot of what came up for me was sadness, but maybe I haven't tapped into my anger yet, but it could be there. But I think it's really different. I just thought I was a nice person. Ellen, it's really hard to hear the questions in the Zendo. Oh yeah, I thought maybe it was. So Mira, I'll try to say what Mira said. if I can, and Mira, please correct me. But she sort of agreed that in the sitting practice, she really related to what I said that a lot of sadness came up for me. But she said that for her, a tremendous amount of anger for her and that she'd always thought of herself as a very nice person. And it was a bit of a shock for her, just like it was for me. you know, to have these other feelings sort of break free in practice.

[44:22]

Joe? I was wondering in relation to the Uchiyama poem, how the ideas that he's expressing about the whole universe being ladled in or the whole universe being emptied out, how that affects your interactions with a newborn or your interactions with those who have passed away. The poem sounds great, but actually relates in your everyday life with, you know, the joy of life coming in and the sorrow of, life emptying out? Thank you for the question. Yes, yes, okay.

[45:30]

I heard that one. I would say, and there's of course many, many writings and poems and so on about life and death. is another great example of that. And I think what I would say for myself is that in some way, and it is kind of mental, although it's somewhat physical, the waterfall in particular is sort of physical for me, but that it sort of eases it for me. It's sort of, you know, kind of, I guess I would use the word believing. Allows it to be more kind of acceptable or I'm more accepting of it.

[46:40]

And in the particular That's just not how it is for me at times. And I have to accept that too. That I totally resist it. I mean, we're talking about more guests than life. But I don't want it. I don't like it. And so on. So it's really, it's like, let me explain it. It's like both those things are completely there for me. And I don't want to pretend like I'm not. You have a question from Janae online. Hi, Janae. Ellen, hello. Thank you for a wonderful talk and really evocative.

[47:43]

I love both of the poems. To go back to the Hakuen and actually Hosan's question, when I was hearing you respond to that, It seemed to me that the part about, not the part about water, but the part about there's no Buddha without human beings. What came up was, you know, we can say there is such a thing as Zen Buddhism. We can say there's Soto Zen and Rinzai Zen, but actually that doesn't exist from us. It's that It's that notion, that book, you see the Buddha on the road kill him. It's really just each one of us that embodies and enacts and personifies and hopefully, you know, becomes.

[48:46]

And there's nothing abstract outside of that that we can point to. That's what came up for me. And thank you very much. Actually, that came up for me, too. I'll say, I also just want to point out, because somehow it's important, and I'm not even sure I can buy this, but he says, not that all human beings, but all beings. All beings, yes, that is important. Very important. Thank you. Yes, Tara. I said that exact same sentence before the, ah, I just never, I don't get angry, it never happens. And I'm actually in the place right now where, kind of like you were describing, the sadness, anger is suddenly emerging. And I, I'm almost a little ashamed to admit, I literally thought, oh, maybe I should have never started cravings.

[49:50]

And I know that wasn't better. So my question is, when you notice that you are resisting the thing that's emerging, and what I'd really like for it to do is just go away, What do you do with that? Here's the question. So Taryn said that she too was noticing that in her practice that she had thought of herself as a very unangry person. And she suddenly noticing quite a lot of anger coming up. And she's sort of saying when something comes up that you're that you basically don't like, what do you do? How do you handle that? And I think, I'm hoping she's asking me personally because that's the only way I can answer. I think I'm really good at repressing. So for me, it's almost, again, this funny word comes up, it's this joy.

[51:01]

when I realized that, oh, I feel that. It's like, and it's kind of this almost like bemusedness. Like, really? That's there for me? And I have to say, with you, I'm a little bemused and amused too. So, just because I know you. There's a question from Sandeep online. Hi, Sandeep. Hi, Ellen. How are you? Welcome back. Hi, I just got back from Green Gold. I know. And your talk, I feel things are really moving and strange. I really thank you for that. And I feel I'm going to confess and hopefully you sense um a painting um great block to connecting with you aha yes and words matter and i feel like i was hanging on to wounds my heart is a bit open and i'm so grateful

[52:27]

I had such an awakening with Rev, so I could cry for how grateful I am. We really are in it together. And I do feel I was born in this brown body woman in America for a reason. And I'm finally cultivating the strength to hold the energy of the karma that we all need to cleanse of America. And how can we do that together? Yes, thank you so much. I just really, really appreciate hearing that from you and it brings tears to my eyes too, actually. It really does. And yes, hopefully, you know, we can be close. Let's grab tea sometime. Yes, let's. Thank you so much for our Sangha as well.

[53:30]

And thank you.

[53:32]

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