Good morning. Good morning or evening, friends. Here's your friendly announcer. I have serious news to pass on to everybody. What I'm about to say could mean the world's disaster. Could change your joy and laughter to tears and pain. It's that love's in need of love today. Don't delay, send yours in right away. Hate's going round, breaking many hearts. Stop it, please, before it's gone too far. The force of evil plans to make you its possession.

[01:03]

And it will if we let it destroy everybody. We all must take precautionary measures. Peace you treasure, then you'll hear me when I say, I said love's in need of love today. Don't delay, send yours in right away. Going round, breaking many hearts. Stop, stop it please, before it's gone too far. Love's in need of love today. Don't. Send yours in right away. Hi, my name is Greg Fane.

[02:09]

Desension Greg Fane, if you want to be fancy. I'm really happy to be here. I'm so happy to be here. Can you hear in the back? Can you hear in the back? I think they want you to move it a little closer. Move what? How about now? Okay. A lot of folks here. So lovely. All that consciousness. Yeah, as I was saying, Linda and I are so happy to be here. And this is our home temple. So a certain level of astonishment. Wouldn't you think? Like, oh. Now this is what's happening. You know, we've been traveling around for the past year practicing various sanghas. Anyway, it's amazing. As Suzuki Roshi said, the world is its own magic, and this does feel magical.

[03:14]

I was here in 1998, Shuke Tokoro, priest of ordination, here in 2002, and married the love of my life, Lundi Gallien, here in 2005. So this Zendo is... ...to me, as you can imagine. Always been my art song. Well, along with Tassahara. I lived in Tassahara for a long time, but came back, practiced as often as I could. So that song... and maybe not everybody recognized it, Stevie Wonder, thank you, not only Stevie, from his magnum opus, his epic masterpiece, Songs in the Key of Life, which was released in 1976. And that's the first track on the album.

[04:21]

Intentionally, Stevie says so. And that is his dharma. You know, he said, I'm not quoting him, but basically it was important to him, that song, because love doesn't happen by itself. You can't take it for granted. It requires our energy. It requires our commitment. It's work, actually. Something all good sense students should understand about. Our effort. doesn't happen by itself. So it's something that Lynn and I have been thinking about a lot because we were invited to lead aspects of practice, which is coming this fall, later on. And we decided to make the theme, Ordinary Bodhisattvas, the Brahma Viharas in Action.

[05:24]

Okay. So, the Brahmaviharas being the divine above, Brahma, Hindu god, the abodes, or the sublime emotions, or how an awakened mind shows up. And they are love, compassion, joy, and equanimity. And it begins in So it's something I've been thinking about a lot. My teacher, Sojan Roshi, would say, I'm not so interested in what or why. I'm interested in how. My favorite question is how.

[06:26]

How do we make this happen? How do we enact and express love? We express how we are all connected. I'm not going to sit here and answer that question for you right now. In Zen, that's what we call a koan, a question to turn. in the forefront of our consciousness and practice with. But here's a little story I'd like to share with you. This is from classic Dharma book, Kosho Uchiyama's Opening the Hand of Thought. Alex told me This is Sojan Roshi's copy.

[07:28]

Oh, so sweet. So yeah, without further ado, Uchiyama Roshi says, the following story comes from the Edo period in Japan, 1500 to 1868. Behind the temple, there was a field where there were many squashes growing. One day, a fight broke out among them, and the squashes split into two groups, making a big racket, shouting at one another. Sound familiar? The head priest heard the uproar, and to see what was going on, found the squashes quarreling. The priest scolded them in a booming voice. Hey, you squashes! What are you doing out there fighting? Everyone, do zazen!

[08:29]

The priest taught them how to do zazen. Like this, sit up and straighten your back and neck. While the squashes were sitting zazen in the way the priest had taught them, their anger subsided, and they settled down. Then the priest said quietly, Everyone, put your hand on top. When the squashes felt the top of their heads, they found that some weird thing attached there. It turned out to be the vine that connected them all together. This is really strange. Here we've been arguing. We're all tied together and living just one life. What a mistake! It's just as the priest said. After that, The squashes all got along with each other quite well. I wish I could share with you, there's these little illustrations here, these little line drawings.

[09:44]

They're like cartoons. They're worth the price of the book for these drawings, actually. First, the squashes arguing, and then the best is the squashes serizazen. So, yeah, I guess I would say that my proposition is we all live one life. We're all connected. And love is the manifestation of that. For me, that's my story. Thich Nhat Hanh. called an interbeing. Or you could say suchness in Soto Zen. Suchness you could think of as sort of positive aspect of emptiness.

[10:45]

All one life. The priest taught the squashes to sit zazen. Hey, you squashes, sit zazen. And then they all settled down. I wish I could teach all the squashes to sit zazen. Now, I don't want to say that zazen is the be-all end-all of everything, but it certainly helps. Sojourn would say, when we're sitting Zazen, it's very easy to uphold the precepts. Just settle. Presence. We're practicing presence. I like to say my Zazen instruction in five words, just stay present.

[11:51]

Well, I added the just. Excuse me. Five words is stay present for whatever arises. Good or bad, I like it, I don't like it. Pleasant, unpleasant, neutral, be present for all of it. Whatever's going on up here in the body, in the body. This is body practice. And it's helpful. This continuous practice of staying present for whatever arises, it gives us capacity. We build capacity to be with all of it. And then we settle down. Yes, I do believe that there's this vine that connects us all together.

[12:52]

You can have a real palpable in the body felt sense of that. It's true. I say it's true. It's true for me. Maybe I should just say that's my strongly on opinion. I recall that our founder in Japan, Ehye Goen, when he came from China back to Japan, his own country, he practiced in China for a while. You see, Donald Trump, one of the first things he did, getting back to Japan, one of the first things he wrote down

[14:07]

He did a lot of writing. He used a lot of ink. Brushed paper. Much ink. Fukan Zazendi. Universally recommending Zazen. Or universally recommending the ceremony of Zazen. So, I think that Dogen did believe that Zazen was for everybody. The practice of upright sitting to me is the essential pivot of how. How do we bring this about? How do we bring our original nature, Buddha nature, whatever you want to call it, you know, the more you get into this the more the words start to fail, crumble.

[15:13]

Words. It's body practice. And it's for everyone. Everyone who has a body. If you were born in a human body, you have met the prerequisite for being a Bodhisattva. Definitely. Everyone here. Equally. Equally. So, yeah, for my money, the more people, the more we get the splashes to sit to us, the better. All that consciousness. So, sometimes I've heard Peers of mind. Peers of mind and all others reading Buddhist magazines.

[16:16]

Be a little contemptuous of how some people are practicing or presenting the practice of sitting or the practice of mindfulness. There's this expression you might have heard. It said cheapening or degradation. But that's not the real Buddha Dharma. But I didn't think that way. I think whatever gets people sitting, I'm in favor of it. I don't care if it's a Google or whatever. It gets people sitting. I'm a fan. This way isn't for everybody. This, you know, kind of fancy, kind of homey. I mean, I have a lot of Soto Zen. It's true, you know, but it's not for everybody.

[17:19]

It's important to acknowledge. I love the family feeling of Soto Zen. And particularly being back here in our home temple. Really, really, really soaking up the Soto Zen. is intimate practice and Susudu Roshi's way I like to say this is the warm-hearted school of Zen but I digress whatever gets people sitting I'm in favor when Jeremiah mentioned practicing in correctional facilities, right? Yeah. I've done some of that myself.

[18:19]

I got my start with Neelie Scott, who was a practice leader of mine here when I was first starting out in Berkeley Zen Center in the 90s. She was Tonto. I remember when she did Dharma Transmission. She did her talk right after Dharma Transmission. She was a very important practice leader to me. And I became aware that she was doing outreach in prisons and jails. And I asked her about that. And she said, ask me about that. And she got me started in, because I lived at the time, I was living in Fruitvale, East Oakland. There was this facility right close by, basically walking distance from where called the Community Reentry Center.

[19:21]

There was an adjunct to Santa Rita Jail, which is huge jail. Santa Rita is fierce. If these were offenders who were they were all either domestic violence or drugs and, uh, you know, not big time dealers, but not gang bangers, but just people like, oh dang, I'm in jail, you know, I messed up and, you know, to recreate. I like that recreation. Uh, and then they could have walked out the front door. Uh, if they did, I was told, I don't know if it's true or not. I was told that if they walked out the front door, it would be a year added to their table. So, a big, big exercise in impulse control, right?

[20:26]

Which is kind of criminal behavior. It's about impulse control. Anyway, mainly, everybody in this place adored. She could get anything she wanted. They just loved her. I mean, the corrections officers, the people in charge. I did it with her a couple of times and then she cut me loose. Let me do it. Let me lead the group. Meditation and Stress Reduction called it. She said, don't you mention the word Buddhism. Don't you mention the word Zen. This is just meditation is stress reduction. We're doing this to benefit from this practice, such as presenting it as that. Just now, we're going to sit quietly together.

[21:26]

There was nothing else. There was no forms and ceremonies whatsoever. Once in a while, one of the guys who came up to me, I'm like, you're a Buddhist, don't you? Yeah. Yeah, can you imagine? One time, she said, if everybody stops it. Well, one out of ten. One out of ten. That, I think, would be pretty remarkable. We don't proselytize in Zen. Hey, you, come do this practice. Because, you know, you may not like it. Sufuki said that too. If you're born in a human body, you can do this practice.

[22:42]

So I wanted to say something about when I gave my Wayseeking Mind talk, Reverend Hannah Meere asked me a question at the end of my talk, because I've been talking about, I experienced myself as this limited being, small, vulnerable, finite, which is kind of the human condition. And at the end of my talk, I was saying, though this is still the case, I'm so grateful to this because I feel that I can access any old time. This is not exactly what I said, but it's the gist of it.

[23:48]

I can access that I am held in the loving hands of Prabhupada Kiteshvara, Bodhisattva, the book of infinite compassion. And Hannah asked me, well, what does that mean? Or what did you ask me? You're right there. How is that? How is that? Yeah. How is that? Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Instantly, it wasn't long for me. I don't recall, I responded, but I don't recall what my response was and think that's because I didn't like it very much. So this became something of a koan and then turning that, then turning that question. When I was thinking about, you know, Linda and I moved in with Lori. It's so great.

[24:49]

Very family feeling. So I'm up there, Lori and Alan's place. Sitting down with my laptop, thinking about this talk. And I guess I was thinking out loud. And I said, it's unavoidable. And Lori said, suffering? And I said, But I was thinking of Buddha nature. I was thinking that our Buddha nature, our awakened nature, our true nature is unavoidable. Try as we might to push it away. Try as we might to hold to that feeling of being this finite thing, estranged from others. It just keeps coming up. It just keeps arising. This is, for me, the fundamental message of the Lotus Sutra.

[25:54]

We all are within nature. And it's going to show up in our lives. It's unavoidable. So, I'd like to share another little story. This is from in the whole wide world. Monkey by Wu Chang'an from Qing Dynasty, China in the 17th century, I believe. Also, Sojin Roshi's favorite book. And I could talk a lot about it, I'm not gonna, but the central character in Monkey is Monkey. It's also known as Journey to the West, the Monkey King, who helps that a pilgrim, Xuanzang, who was an actual historical person, go from China to India back with the Buddhist sutras, the Chupinaka.

[27:01]

That actually happened. But the monkey is a fairy tale. It's a Buddhist fairy tale. And there's all kinds of crazy adventures in it. I highly recommend it. It's a lot of fun. So towards the end of the book, Monkey is just this audacious, egotistical, just like unbelievable, unbelievably egotistical. I'm all that. I'm Monkey. I'm Monkey. For example, he meets a Buddhist teacher and he, you know, you take the precepts, you receive a Dharma name. And Monkey says, I'm going to choose my own Dharma name. Some people want to do that. Some people are like, can I choose my own Dharma name? Doesn't work. But for Monkey, you can stop it. I'm choosing my own Dharma name.

[28:04]

My Dharma name will be Great Sage Equal of Heaven. So he goes like that. Towards the end of the book, he meets Shakyamuni Buddha. is omniscient. So he knows about the monkey king. He knows about the monkey. And I think he's gently teasing him. He says, I hear you have great spiritual powers. And monkey is a little bit chastened in the presence of Shakyamuni Buddha. He's still his audacious self. And he's like, well, yes, I do. I have great spiritual powers. And Buddha says, for example, and monkey says, well, I can ride the clouds. I can soar through the heavens, riding the clouds, flying anywhere I want." And the Buddha says, really? How far can you fly? And the monkey says, I can fly as far as you like.

[29:04]

I can fly to the end of the universe. And the Buddha says, wow. I don't know if he said wow. He said, I'd like to see that. Can you do that? And the monkey says, yes. And Lewis says, here, why don't you climb up into my hand and use that for a launching pad, take off. So monkey does that, climbs into Lewis's hand, jumps and soars, flying, [...] soaring, soaring, soaring. Past the clouds, past the stratosphere, into outer space, into interstellar space, across the firmament. He picked the picture until he reaches the end of the universe. This vast emptiness. And he sees these pillars that are holding up the firmament, these gigantic pillars holding up the firmament. And Muggie says, well, here I am, the end of the universe.

[30:09]

I should do something to prove that I was here. So he plucks some hairs out of his tail and makes a magic clue. walks over to one of the pillars and does some graffiti. He writes, monkey was here. And then he walks over to another of the pillars and takes a leap. And then he jumps. Fly, fly, fly, fly. You get the picture. Back, back to where the Buddha is and lands. He says, well, I did it. How about that? And the Buddha says, that's very impressive. Oh, by the way, I've got a look here in my hand. And he looks at Buddha's hand, and one of the fingers, it's got some writing on it. It says, monkey bus here. And the other finger, it's a little wet spot.

[31:14]

I like that story a lot. We can't escape our awakened nature, actually. Soja Roshi, in Seeing One Thing Through, this wonderful book, it's come out pretty recently. Soja says, As a Zen student, you must have faith in your true nature and in the letting go. You can let go and have a free fall into Buddha's hand, which will always rescue you. When I read that, I was like, he was thinking about money. I bet you, because he really liked that book. You can let free fall into Buddha's hand which will always rescue you.

[32:21]

So, you know, Buddhism is a non-theistic religion, but it is a religion. And I think people have a little difficulty with the word faith, understandably. So, you know, you could say trust. In Chinese they have the same word, Faith or trust. Sojourn Roshi, I mean, he must have told me a thousand times, trust your practice. Felt like a thousand times. Trust your practice. And, you know, I can't thank him enough. Somehow he got me to trust my practice.

[33:27]

To trust in the awakened way. To trust that we all are held in the hands of Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva. You may not feel it all the time. I don't. When I feel it, I feel it. When I remember Noble Eightfold Path talk about right mindfulness samyaks nirthi it could also be translated as right remembering remembering to the body coming back to the breath and remembering is thine

[34:29]

that connects us all. We live one life. Hate's going around, breaking many hearts. It's up to us. It's up to us to practice, to manifest this one life that we all live together. I won't be too heavy about it. It's a joyful thing. It's a joyful thing to remember that. It's a joyful thing to live in, to be in love. It's universal love. Above, below, and all around without limit. So let one cherish an infinite goodwill toward the whole world.

[35:34]

Don't delay. Send your Zen right away. Or, as A. A. Dogen said, another thing that he wrote very shortly back to Japan from China, wholehearted practice of the way. And you should understand that Dogen got his start as a Tentai monk, which is all about the Lotus Sutra. He memorized the Lotus Sutra. In his bones, this teaching that we are all Buddha. We are all Buddha. We are all Bodhisattvas. We will become Buddhas. So, Dogen said, in Bendawa, although this inconceivable Dharma is abundant in each person, it is not actualized without practice.

[36:49]

It is not experienced without realization. I have spoken. I think I'm done. Thank you all. It's so lovely to be here with all of you and I have time for questions. I also wanted to thank Hozan Roshi inviting me to give this talk. In the excitement of singing, speak that bit. Hi. Hi. Thank you so much for your talk. And thank you for your karaoke. Thank you for being able to focus on. My question is about love.

[37:54]

Can love coexist with fear? Or can we love those who we're afraid of? Yeah. And if your answer is going to be yes, if your answer is yes, then my next question is how? Yeah. Well, this is the question. It's pretty meaty. I like it. What's your name? Reed. Hi, Reed. Um, yeah, you're right. The answer is yes. However, um, that's a, that's a big obstacle. You know, fear is interference. Um, as I said, love is work.

[39:01]

practices work. And it takes work. And so I'm segueing to the how. All right. You're not going to do it all at once. The Brahmavihara's metta, often translated as loving kindness, Linda and I lately, we've just been saying love. In this Buddhist text, the Vasudhi Maga, the practice of purification, it has exercises for practicing metta, right? And I think a lot of you may be familiar with some of these. There are many varieties of

[40:02]

guided meditations, metta meditations. A great Buddhist teacher, Ayya Kema, was talking about, she has quite a few, you can find them online. They say, start with what's easiest and work up to the difficult. Thich Nhat Hanh liked to speak about Kshanti, the perfection of patience and forbearance as inclusiveness. And he said, you've got to make your heart bigger to include what's difficult, to include the really difficult person. You know, start with what's easiest. Classically, the Vesugi Magga says, start with yourself. For a lot of Westerners, that's a little problematic. So maybe you don't start with yourself.

[41:04]

Don't forget to include yourself. My gosh. Don't forget. Don't forget to include yourself when you're practicing meditation. And you can do that anytime. I highly recommend it. You can do that silently when you're sitting zazen. I won't tell on you. Shoot. You might be in here sitting zazen any number of people. might be wishing you love. What a nice thought that is. So, yeah, I think for the sake of our own sanity, to work up to it is a good idea. The word courage comes from the French heart, la cour, of the cour.

[42:13]

Courage is of the heart. So accessing your heart, making your heart bigger, then you can, yes, You can. I strongly believe anybody can. It's not easy, but it can be done. It can be done. Courage is not the absence of fear. It's staying present when fear arises. Present, forward, whatever arises. It's fear, okay? I'm experiencing it. How is that in the body? Ooh, you know, tense, panty, shaky, fight, flight, freeze, whatever it is, you know, just being really intimate with those sensations.

[43:14]

Strong. Not turning away. Don't turn away from it. And then, you know, you can exercise those muscles and be present with the fear. That's my take. Thanks. Is there one online? Lots of people online. Taylor has his hand up. Hi, Jeff. Hello, Greg. Thank you so much for your talk. It's really wonderful to get to listen to you. The phrase trust in practice, trust in mind, trust in love.

[44:23]

Trust for what? Trust to what? And to expand a little bit. We sometimes treat the universe, we sometimes treat Buddha nature as a kind thing that's kind of lined up to give us a hug. That's not what nature teaches us. Sometimes the universe is a very cold and unfeeling place. I love the idea of trusting in love. We commit actions in love. When we act it out and we perform ourselves in love. Trust in practice and trust in the love of Avalokiteshvara. What does that mean? To me, it means whatever happens. You, I, and everyone else, we're gonna be okay. Yeah, of course.

[45:28]

There's a lot of cruelty. and pain. Hates going around, breaking many hearts. This is obvious. So the thrust of my talk has been, how do we respond to that? Say that it's all dog eat dog. You know, it's nihilism, and that's just buying into the vicious circle of fear and hate. Stop it, please, before it goes too far. I keep singing Stevie Wonder. A lucky guy. When I sit, you know, sometimes you get an earworm, right?

[46:33]

It's almost stuck in your head. It happens to me a lot. I like. I never get like commercial jingles. But anyway, does that help? It does help. Where it lands for me is that regardless of what I think is going to happen next, a bedrock faith in we're going to be... in all of its manifestations, the analog is my actions are my only possession. Yeah. What will you do next? What will I do next? And that's the moment of practice. Just so, just so. Hello. Oh, no, I'm looking at myself on TV. Calorie, yeah.

[47:39]

Calorie's good. Yes, Hannah. I want the people in Springfield, Ohio, all the people in Springfield, Ohio, to know that we care about them. Yeah. That we're with them. Thank you. I think you're going to say Sitzazen. I'm thinking about writing letters, but will they be afraid of opening these letters from strange people? How do we, I mean, of course, we pray. What do you say? Yeah, the praying is no small thing. Actually, that's a very important part of my practice. or when practicing metta meditation. That's all people of Springfield. Yeah, I guess I had that in mind when I was thinking about this talk.

[48:50]

Not that specifically, but you know, Haste Going Around, Breaking Many Arts. But please, And yeah, I meant to say also, the internet is not a real place. I don't know who needs to hear that. I need to hear it. I follow the news kind of obsessively. I don't think it's all healthy actually. On the other hand, We have this awareness. We're aware what's happening in Springfield, in Sudan, in Ukraine, in Myanmar. Just keep going. Just keep going. You know, all the suffering in the world. Yeah. It's a two-edged sword.

[49:53]

I remember my friend in the Ventana Wilderness, where Tassajara is Esalen tribal country. It's Esalen tribal land. And my friend Little Bear is . And he said that he was working with a shaman. And the shaman told him, you should read the news. You should watch the news. You should be aware of what's going on in the world. And I thought that was pretty interesting. If I were to meet the same shaman, he'd probably tell me, cut it out. You're doing too much. It's an interesting phenomenon. On the one hand, there's something in your pocket.

[50:56]

Access to all the knowledge in the world. On the other hand, somehow we've created the most effective tool for agitating and dysregulating people. And frankly, that's what I see happening. For example, maybe that's a really, really good example in Springfield, Ohio. So there's that. It's not real. Nobody's eating pets. I think if you want to write letters, that's great. Why not? Maybe adjust them to the city manager. There's various names, you know, that are quoted in the papers. So there are some individuals. Yeah.

[51:58]

Paulo has his hand up online. Hello. Thank you, Greg, for your talk. Can you say something about when it's discussed or presented, there's also kind of the notion of source. Mirror can be translated as source and what is the part of it could that be thought of as as Dharma of course it itself is empty but what is the Dharma of source and suchness that's a lot you know to me I can say a few words for sure but it's definitely beyond words.

[53:07]

Briefly, I believe I said earlier in this talk that you could think of sashnas as the positive aspect. Emptiness, you know, we say empty of what? Empty of own being. Empty of separate self. And sashnas being the experience the experience of reaching up and feeling that vine. Oh, we're all connected. We live one life. That's what it means to me. Difficult to talk about because it's in the body. It's not a concept. It's not something to intellectualize. And what is that source? then we're getting worse. It's just getting worse down this road of words. What do you want to say?

[54:08]

I said, Buddha nature. I said, your true nature. Interbeing. How we live one life and how it shows up. Yeah, that's about as much as I can say at this moment, this morning.

[54:29]

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