surpassed penetrating and perfect dharma even in a hundred thousand million kalpas having it to see and listen to to remember and accept i vow to taste the truth of the in Berkeley Zen Center of Sangha. Good morning, Karen. The next speaker today is Karen Sundheim. Karen has practiced at the Berkeley Zen Center since 1976. She received lay ordination at BZC in 1990, with Shuso in 2006, and received lay entrustment from Sojo Roshi in 2010. During her nearly 48 years at BZC, she has held many practice positions. as you might imagine, machine director, Tenzo, librarian, and she currently is a president, which is a really important position in this time in our history, as you can imagine.

[01:40]

She leads a Dharma study group and has taught Dharma in prisons and libraries. She worked for many years at the San Francisco Public Library, where she was program manager of the James C. Hormel A&T Center. She lives with her wife, Nancy, right there. And her cat, Bella, in Oakland. Unfortunately, Bella has passed on. This will be revised for next time. Yes. But Bella lives. Thank you, Ross. Thank you all for being here today. A welcome to anyone who happens to be new here for the first time. I'm reading a Zen story. This story is called Dijon's Nearness.

[02:48]

Interactions between monks and teachers in the Golden Age of China. This is probably 8th, 9th century. So here's the story. Dijon asked Fayan, where are you going? Fayan said, around on pilgrimage. Dijon said, What is the purpose of pilgrimage? Fayon said, I don't know. And Dijon replied, not knowing. I'm just going to repeat that. Dijon asked Fayon, where are you going? Fayon said, around on a pilgrimage. Dijon said, What is a . Fionn said, I don't know.

[04:00]

Dijong said, not knowing is nearest. And then there's a short commentary. I'm just going to read a couple of lines of this. Nansen. The way is not in knowing or in not knowing. So we're talking about the Buddha way here, our path of practice. The way is not in knowing or in not knowing. Knowing is false consciousness. Not knowing is indifference. Now when people hear it said that not knowing is nearest, and that this is where Fionn was enlightened, they immediately go over to just not knowing. not understanding, is it? They hardly realize that a phrase of the ancients covers everywhere, like the sky, supports everywhere like the earth.

[05:08]

If not knowing is nearest, then what about the saying, knowing is the gate of myriad wonders. Just affirm totally when affirming, but don't settle down in affirmation. Deny totally when denying, but don't settle down in denying. In Zen practice, we don't settle down. We settle in Zazen, We settle, we practice settling our minds but we don't stay anywhere. We often think we know something and that's often when trouble arises.

[06:13]

I'm going to tie this to what's been happening here in our sangha for the past nine months. A lot of you are familiar. I won't spend a lot of time on it, but nine months ago, our abbot Hozon had a serious health crisis. As I speak, he is off having a dialysis treatment. did not know that this was going to happen. Basically, he had kidney failure and a heart attack, and he spent a month in a medical coma. And during this time, we, as the Sangha, a lot of us didn't think he would ever come out of it. Not knowing what would happen to our abbot,

[07:19]

And also, who would be leading us? So, there are a lot of questions here about what's going to happen. We talk about not knowing all the time in Zen practice. When I started, we talked about not knowing, but all of a sudden, when this happened with our abbot and what appealed to some people an absence of leadership. Not everyone felt that way, but some people did. All of a sudden, practicing with not knowing was a lot more than just a phrase. This is for real. So, we talk about practicing with beginner's mind.

[08:26]

And this is real beginner's mind. There's nothing we can really be certain of. We had a service this morning for our long-time member, Barbara Strauss, who passed away. I think a week ago when I was going to Japan for a month. We talk a lot about wisdom and what is wisdom. I'm going to quote another Zen teacher. Wisdom comes from understanding what we don't know. We often work with koans.

[09:33]

This story is because it's something that we can investigate, this story. What does it mean to go on a pilgrimage and not know where you're going? And here we are. We're on a pilgrimage. I wouldn't say we know exactly where we're going, but we've done a lot on this pilgrimage. Many people have stepped in as leaders. We have our Tantos, our Eno, senior students, people who hold positions, who have been working very hard, priests. They've all been leaders. In Buddhism, we talk differently about knowing than we do often in the world, because often we say what we want is information.

[11:03]

Usually that's what we're talking about. For example, as the board president, I'm the recipient of opinions and thoughts and ideas. all that. They want to know who the next abbot is. However, we have an abbot. We have an abbot who is working half-time, providing wisdom, advice. We have people asking what the process is for deciding on leadership. They want to know what's going to happen next. And truthfully, they ask me because I'm the one who knows all this because I'm kind of on the inside, so to speak, president of the board. Truthfully, I don't know very much.

[12:05]

And then this question comes up that's somewhat charged. It's the word . people want transparency. Now that's a very important democratic principle. So I really support transparency, but there's often nothing to show that it's still all a mystery. So in Western thinking, Knowing is a lot about analyzing and gathering information, experimenting, reporting, explaining, endless explaining. But in Zen, we don't explain very much.

[13:09]

We encourage people to have inquiry. Now I have to say that my personal journey, this has been a big challenge for me too because it's a bit scholarly and my to be read pile of books has been this high since I was 13. I'm very drawn to book knowledge. And then I became a Zen student when I was 21 because I knew I was searching for an answer. But all I got were more questions. So Sojin Roshi, my teacher, gave me a koan.

[14:16]

where are you going? But his question to me was, what is it? Now that's a very common koan question that's given to students. So he says to me, here's your koan, what is it? And it's, I have to say I didn't like it. First of all, I knew I would never get it right, which actually is part of the point. But I knew whatever he said, he would say, no, that's wrong. And of course, he did say that's wrong every time. But that just brought me in deeper into not knowing. At the time, my job was being a baker.

[15:21]

I was a pastry chef. I loved not totally knowing how the bread would turn out because it was different every day. There were so many factors in making the weather, the humidity, the sound. So every single day, It was a mystery. But then, like most people who do that kind of develop back problems and had to find another career, so I became a librarian, which is totally about finding answers for people. So I spent all day at a reference desk for about 20 years answering people's questions, and it was very satisfying. but that's still not quite the same as what I'm talking about, this kind of inquiry we're doing.

[16:23]

And then, I kept feeling like there was something I couldn't get to, like with this koan, what is it? To get there, I went into psychoanalysis. I thought, you know, if I just ride down on a couch, something would come, and this was another vague thing, that I would discover something. But that was also like peeling an onion. We had a talk last night, which Mira Queen gave, and one part of the talk was how practical you're doing an onion. Except what I would add to it is I don't know if there's a center there.

[17:24]

I think an onion is just layers and layers and layers. So Zazen can be like in that our thoughts and experiences arise in us when we sit and we try and let go of our attachments to what arises. And we hope to find some kind of . I like the way Dogen talks about finding a center. He doesn't use that word. to study the way, study the self. So to understand the Buddha Dharma, first one looks at oneself, because that's all we have. Everything we know comes from our minds, our self, our experience, our senses.

[18:33]

That's how the information that we use to create our idea of ourselves comes from. through the sense doors, sound, sight, tongue and taste, the body sensing, and the mind. In Buddhism, the mind is a sense door, which is different from how Westerners think of it because the mind is a sensing organism and the thoughts are objects. So he goes on, to study the way of the self, to study the self is to forget the self. So here, we're not talking about finding a solid layer under the layers of the onion, but we're actually forgetting, letting go of this idea

[19:34]

So back to where we are here. What's going to happen? Hozan is doing very well in terms of his thinking mind. He's given wonderful talks. Yet, Physically, his progress is incremental. He's not able to get out of bed on his own. He cannot do a lot of the daily functioning that would be required to work full time. So we don't really know what's going to happen. One thing we didn't know a month or so ago is that we'd have our friends, Greg and Linda, who are sitting with us now, Greg is in the back corner, Greg Fane and Linda Gallion.

[20:50]

Many of us, everyone is thrilled that they're here. They're going to be our guiding teachers, visiting teachers for a while. And they will be here as a continuous thread of leadership. And that is something we didn't know. So while there is so much uncertainty, I ask, what is it that we do know? Now, we could say, I just said we don't know anything. but I'm going to contradict that and say there are some things we know.

[21:54]

For example, we know what the Eightfold Path is about. And despite not knowing what the future may lie, or where we're going to end up, or how we'll be, how the leadership will be, how we will function as a Sangha. Even not knowing all that, we know how to practice. For me, the Eightfold Program provides structure for my life and I want to give some examples of that. There's a lot of anxiety over the past nine months around not knowing.

[23:03]

And people have come to me and I'm sure they've come to other senior students, Dharma friends, and expressed an anxiety. not knowing our future. However, despite our anxiety, we can practice tranquility. So, the Eightfold Path, most of you are familiar with that. I'd probably forget if I tried to list them all, but this is part of the Four Noble Truths. This is the way we handle suffering as the practice of the Eightfold Past. So it means engaging in right speech, right mindfulness, right action. There's one that's called right concentration, which I think means concentration develops tranquility.

[24:11]

So you can be anxious and still practice tranquility. You may not even feel calm and you can practice. We do this in Zaza. few other things that are what I would call true. One is our aspiration to awaken. That is true.

[25:13]

So no matter what is going on, we have our aspiration. We have our commitment, our vow. I'm going to go back to your way-seeking mind talk, Mira. I hope you don't mind. Last night, Mira gave a talk which brought up some very interesting things, Mahdi states, which I'll generalize to mean as a state of deep calm. In our practice we often say, don't aspire to have a particular state arise during Zazen.

[26:22]

Whatever you experience, welcome it. Don't fight whatever emotions arise. If you're angry or you're scared or sad and it's not the happiness that you wished you got when you came in, be open to that. Now, it's true that our minds are going to do whatever they do. But the practice of samadhi is important. It's not something you can grasp. So I think that's what's meant when it's said in Zen practice, don't aim for states of mind. It really means it's not something you can grasp or achieve or count as your own. It's not yours.

[27:27]

If you happen to experience samadhi, you don't own it. It's not something on your list of credentials. And it will pass at some point and other more karmic habitual states of mind will arise again. But what's true is our presence. our cultivation of tranquility. I brought all these other notes, I don't know.

[28:29]

I know this is kind of short, but I'm not one for monologues. Perhaps someone has a response, question, like to bring forth. Do you want to bring me this here so I can see who's... Yes, I know you. Thank you. Thank you. Before my questions, I just wanted to say the reason I came here, I had an incident this year, early this year, that was really shocking.

[29:51]

Maybe it was big enough for me that I was swung by, washing, almost done. I always thought about what the heck are human beings. When the anger started to come to me, I had to do something. So I found this place. I just started to come. It's been nine months. Nine months. Eight months. Now, I see an incident more objectively, which means less emotion. I don't know why, but sitting here and listening to a lot of teachers talk will help me.

[30:53]

I really appreciate this location and people who have been devoted to this place. So I just wanted to show my appreciation. So my question is, I started so early recently. I'm like a one-year-old baby. That's good. And I understand. I read some books. Like you said, I started to understand unknown and contradicting. But anyway, when I sit, like you said, or the emotion, let it go.

[32:00]

Just sit. But I think if you let the emotion just get going all the time, I don't think that's... I have a feeling that some kind of intention, but you can't control it. So when I sit like today, I see people coming in later. Then I realized that, oh, I was somewhere. It happened a couple of times. And then one point I realized again, I was going somewhere else. So I started to count slowly five times of breathing. counting, and after five, the words came to me.

[33:02]

Words? Yeah, some kind of, somebody said something, well, I thought about something, because there were words. That means I had only five times concentration. So just, I just wonder that the way I'm doing is I don't know if it's right or wrong, or I don't come here for high stage or enlightenment or something like that. I don't think I can do it. I have too many attachments, but if you give me that comment on people who are so, just the beginning, what's the... No matter how many breaths you're able to count the important coming back. So it doesn't matter if it's eight breaths, six breaths, even one breath.

[34:06]

What happened was you noticed that your mind had gone off into some kind of daydream talking to somebody or some scene. And you remembered. and you came back, and you may only come back briefly before it starts up again. First of all, that's what our minds do. It is an organism, organ, and some teachers say it seeps thoughts. Thoughts come out. No harm. You're just seated on your cushion. Just come back. It's important not to put yourself on perhaps how much time you may have been daydreaming because you remembered to come back and that's your vow. And that's what the development of tranquility is.

[35:11]

It doesn't just happen and now my life is perfect. It's a practice. So I think you're doing very well. Thank you. so short. There's just a voice in the room. Thank you for your talk, Karen. What this practice brings and all of the people who have physicians and are ordained in various fashions and levels and that

[36:16]

We come here to this sacred space is what it feels like. And thank you because your being there and doing what you do encourages me. We encourage each other. And I don't know that we have anything else we can do. But thank you for being here. And the person going on pilgrimage, I thank you for that view. It's all of us. We're on pilgrimage. And we can't grasp, we can't know an outcome. We don't know. And that's damned uncomfortable. It's a hell of a lot of fun sometimes. So what's the most important thing that you're being here today? You're asking me? I am. Sorry about that. Well, I'm just going to say what Sojin told me when I was starting to give Dharma talks.

[37:23]

He said, your only job is to encourage people to practice. Thank you for encouraging me. I hope I did. I see online Heather. Am I supposed to, oh, you can unmute yourself, right? Yes, now I can. Good morning. Good morning. You spoke in your opening story. It talked about not knowing. Yes. Some days not knowing. is the most liberating thing that happens for me. And some days not knowing is the most terrifying thing that happens for me.

[38:28]

And it might even be the same subject matter. It's just a different moment. How might one relate to not knowing? Say that again. How might one relate to not knowing? Curiosity. Talking to other people about what their thoughts are brings up a topic. First of all, Heather is a very important person. And I'm sorry, Heather, but we'll talk about that. Part of what we're doing in not knowing is learning from the Sangha, learning from all of you about what your concern is on leadership.

[39:36]

So Heather created the survey that you received back in probably June. And fortunately, about 65 people responded to this survey. And Heather has put it into a summary, which will be sent out. And that is going to be presented next Sunday night, September 15th at our all Sangha meeting. So I did not want to forget to mention that. Heather is dependent upon for her incredible skills and organizing information and facilitating and many other things. So I can see how you feel this burden because she's someone who's supposed to know. Now, when I became, I was asked to be board president.

[40:42]

in a meeting where I nearly fell out of my chair because I had never thought of it in my life. I said, actually, the first question in my mind was, why me? And I said, I don't know anything. Why do you want me to be board president? And a couple of people said, that's why we want you to be board president. I'm sorry to disappoint anyone who thinks that I have this huge amount of knowledge of running boards, but mostly I'm learning from other people. I probably . Do you want to articulate it anymore? I think there's a part of me that wants to be able to control my response to not knowing.

[41:51]

I want a handbook of knowing you can take the red pill or you can take the blue pill. How do you make a better choice? I know you don't have this answer, but I wish that you did. You know, like when Hozan became sick, I'd wish there was a pill to take. But actually, I don't know how this whole thing evolved with Greg and Linda. It kind of was organic. It arose in a few people's minds and came articulated and discussed and actually brought to Greg and Linda and discussed some more. I can't even say exactly how that happened. There was no handbook for that. So I would say we're doing well without knowing very much.

[42:59]

I don't know if Greg and Linda even know quite yet exactly what they're going to be doing. Greg is confirming that. We don't even know that. Linda? I can say that we're very... we'll do whatever we're asked to do. That is so, that's her bodhisattva vow, right there. Thank you. Do you have any idea how easy that is? I mean, if you know that that's what you're going to do, then it's just figuring out how you're going to do it. It's different here than it is from what we're used to. You know, it's just needing that moment. So I think sometimes there's a There's something about finding some orientation that will get me oriented just enough to let go. Well, that's a very wise comment. I don't know if you heard all that online, but Linda is saying that for her, not knowing and offering herself to do whatever is needed is liberating.

[44:14]

that all she has to do is figure out how to do it here, but other people are going to tell her and Greg what to do. Fortunately, we're going to get to hear a lot more of her wisdom over the next . Could you put me back in gallery view, please? I can help. Oh, okay. Thank you. Hi, Yoni. Hi, good morning. Thank you for your talk. This morning, first period of Zazen, I was supposed to hand out or sign the role of Kokyo, or Kokyo and Fukudo, and everyone I went to for Fukudo. Fukudo is the wooden drum. Yes. For anyone who doesn't know. Everyone I went to is like, no, I can't do it. I'm leaving. have another role.

[45:17]

And I went to Lori, who was sitting at the Tato spot, and she said, you can ask Greg. I was like, oh my god. And when Greg accepted to be Fuku Do, I was like, oh my god, what a relief. So yeah, thanks for doing whatever we ask of you. Certainly helpful this morning. I was wondering, what does leadership look like in this community? I would just like to hear your thoughts about that and how it helps us deal with not knowing. Leadership. Yoni is asking, what is leadership in this community? That's a really good question. I think it's evolved over time. Back in the old days, Sojin Roshi was the boss. I mean, complete boss. When I started, you'd see signs on the bulletin board.

[46:18]

If you want this, ask Mel. If you want to know about that, ask Mel. There was just nobody else to ask about much. But slowly, things changed where leadership, early students developed into leaders. For example, there were more priest ordinations, There were shusos starting in 1988. I was there for Mei Li, our first shuso. We have committees, for example, the practice committee, coordinating committee, priest committee, all sorts of committees. And since Hozan has been the abbot, he's been interested in a more horizontal And truthfully, that's probably as far as I can go in answering your question, because we're still talking about it.

[47:24]

In fact, that leadership survey was about asking people in the Sangha, what kind of leadership would you like to see? Do you want to see term limits, which was never done here? Do you want to see co-abbots or vice-abbots? So all that stuff, please come to our September 15th meeting because we want to hear your voices. This whole process, when Hozan first became ill, I spoke to a lot of teachers, abbots from different Zen sanghas, for example. Santa Cruz, city center, all over the country. And I asked for advice. I mean, I said, well, what do we do now? Our leader is in a coma.

[48:27]

People are, we're carrying on. We're having zazen. We're having periods. We're having talks. We are actually doing almost everything. But how do we proceed? And they all said, number one, proceed slowly. Do not make any rash decisions and do not act out of anxiety. There's always going to be an urge to just want to make a decision or want to have a solution. But anything that comes out of anxiety is not going to work. So what you do is you continue your practice. you continue zazen, inspiring each other, you study the Dharma, you sit sashims, you cook, you clean, all those things you continue doing. And meanwhile, the Sangha needs to talk to each other.

[49:32]

And so we have had quite a few so far. We've had maybe three Sunday night meetings as well as other kinds of ad hoc discussions. But we want to have everyone's fingerprints on our moving forward. That's the not knowing, knowing the answer. There is someone online and then Maria Theresa. Mark Copethorn. I can't hear you, Mark. You're muted or... Okay, I just got unmuted. Karen, thanks. You said in Zazen we should welcome what comes up.

[50:33]

You said, well, let thoughts come and go. Just don't serve them tea. What do you think the difference is between welcoming what comes up and serving a tea? Welcoming is allowing. Suppose angry thoughts come up. You can't kick them out. You can't say, get out of here. I mean, that just brings up more anger. So you let them come up like clouds. You let them arise and pass away. But serving tea means engaging with it. You know, you hear someone's voice and, you know, inside your mind, that's serving tea or that's indulging in it. You don't grasp. You just let it come up, let it arise and let it pass. And similar thoughts may come up and pass away or completely .

[51:36]

It's somewhat amazing how One emotion is there one minute, five minutes later it's completely different. You don't want to be in opposition to your mind. That causes trouble. Okay, Mark? Maria Theresa? So my comment has to do with something that was said earlier on. some years ago I read a book, The Three Pillars of Zen, and in that book there is a description or a difference between and capital mind.

[52:37]

And I have been intrigued by this for all this time. And I keep asking people, what is mind? You know, find me mind, show me mind. Anyway, in my search I came across a book about revelation. And in that book there was something that was said that at this moment in my life we're going through a lot of changes and really not knowing has helped a lot, which speaks of knowledgeability. I can't decide what knowledge is, but there is knowledgeability in emptiness. In other words, emptiness has that wisdom in it. If I can quiet myself enough and work really enough towards the answer without really knowing but you know doing my very best to answer the question without knowing exactly what the answer is in a moment of silence unexpectedly there it is there's a there's a

[54:08]

clarity that comes as to what needs to be done. And I have to say that, and experiencing it in my everyday life, it's been incredible to realize, oh, there is this available to each and every one of us. You have to be really, I can't remember the word, but really clear as to, you know, and also open. Well, I think you're bringing up a good point, which is we have to drop the things we think we know. When we try and solve a problem or try to investigate or figure out what a koan means, we start with, well, I know this, I know that. That's the problem right there. What you think you know.

[55:10]

So some people get frustrated in Zen. They think there's this kind of silent essence somewhere that they're trying to get to and stay in. But that actually is an idea. What it's really more about is letting go. Recently, someone said, of course we talk about in Zen, not having a gaining idea. You know, we're not trying to acquire things, status, states of mind, achieve peace, all that. It's a losing idea. We're letting go of things. And I think that's a lot of what we're getting at when we practice Zazen. When we study koans, interactions with sangha, all this sangha practice, that's the hardest arena, I think, is sangha practice.

[56:14]

Let's find ourselves at one time or another in some kind of disagreement. And it's often about the need to let go of ideas.

[56:31]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_90.59