Good morning. Someone has written a lovely gatha on the community room bulletin board. Something like, when I feel I have no time, I vow with all sentient beings to light a stick of incense and making my vows touch the place of no time." It's a very good gatha for my life. Probably, like most of us, I'm altogether too busy and frequently overwhelmed by the number of things that need to get done today or this hour, and the magnitude of the obstacles to getting them done, not the least of which is feeling so overwhelmed by the number of things one thinks one has to do.

[01:13]

And making one's bow mentally even, is the attitude that can get one through. I actually have no idea how people manage to survive this urban life without some kind of practice, some some sense of something sustaining beneath the surface flood of activity something that's clear in the midst of all this clutter physical and mental clutter that we have. Earlier this month I spent

[02:27]

ten days in the Canadian Rockies in Banff and Jasper and places in between and if you've been up there you know how beautiful it is. I was particularly impressed with the water. I remember Suzuki Roshi talking about his trip to Yosemite and how he was so impressed with the waterfalls and he had such compassion for each drop of water having to fall from such a height and how long a journey it must seem to the droplets of water and how alone they were and yet how they were also just one piece I was very touched by the speed and the force of the water that I saw.

[03:39]

Enormous waterfalls they have, and the parks are set up so that you can really get very close to just unbelievably huge water. I've never experienced that before. but the water is so big and the canyons are so deep that there are only a few places where you even can feel the spray and the size is so vast but the noise and the cool wind and just the sight of all this water rushing so fast Really, I felt it was this energy kind of drawing me. I kept wanting to go into the waterfalls. I kept wanting to be in these incredibly fast-moving rivers.

[04:46]

And there were also very still lakes, lakes that were formed by glaciers and which seemed to arise by themselves. with no obvious source of input completely still, mirror-like lakes reflecting snow-capped mountains or fields of wildflowers and all of them this unbelievable color of green that apparently is not algae and it's not the rocks, it's it's created by the size, solely by the size of the particles of rock that the glaciers have ground down. And the size of the particles of rock is just right so that from the bottom of the water it reflects only this green light.

[05:51]

When the sun isn't out they don't look green. I've never seen water quite that color or quite that calm And I wanted to merge with that water too. The average water temperature was about 38 degrees. So, swimming was certainly out of the question. And the waterfalls and rapids were too dangerous even for the most intrepid rafters. There are a few places where you can go rafting there, but Those look real calm compared to the real exciting water that's all inaccessible. And I was perplexed by this almost irresistible urge to jump in the water. And as I come back

[07:00]

and come to the zendo I realized that that pull is a pull to practice the way. It's the pull to merge with the power of the universe and the feeling of being connected to some some source of strength and life being connected to the force of life itself that I don't understand and can't explain but somehow the experience of being with that water makes more sense to me sitting here in Zendo than it did standing there in front of the water, although it was very clear that even though I didn't understand it and there was something that seemed unusual about

[08:30]

wanting to jump in a waterfall, that there was something that was very right about it. When it's my turn to give a lecture, I always hope that I will have something to say. And I know that everybody who has to give a lecture always feels this way. I've been reading Kadagiri Roshi's book, Returning to Silence, again. He talks about how having an opportunity to teach

[09:34]

a gift and that it's a gift. It's not really that the teacher is giving a gift to the Sangha, although it looks that way. It's more that the Sangha is giving a gift to the teacher of an opportunity to study and to express something. And that the teachers always want to wait until they understand something before they teach it, but if we really waited till we understood something, you know, we wouldn't ever have lectures. So periodically, you know, we just kind of have to take a stab at it anyway. And sometimes I think the gatha that we say before a lecture I like the gatha we say before lecture a lot, an unsurpassed, penetrating and perfect dharma is rarely met with, even in a hundred thousand million kalpas.

[10:43]

This is sort of the disclaimer, the warning, you know, drive this car at your own risk, it may not work. And I think that's really good. We don't usually take it very seriously, you know, We hear the unsurpassed, penetrating and perfect Dharma. And we all sit here, you know, waiting to hear it and hoping to get it and wrap it up and take it home and, oh, I got it, oh boy, the unsurpassed, penetrating and perfect Dharma. But we, you know, we don't listen to the rest of it. A hundred thousand million kalpas is a really long time. It's a lot of lectures. A lot of bad lectures. So, I think that the lecture, the gatha for the lecturer might be something like, as I prepare to speak, I vow with all beings to make every effort to join

[12:01]

with everyone in deepest silence. Where we really meet here is in the silence that we experience and that we create together. Where we really meet is in our mutual desire to understand the truth to understand ourselves to understand the problem of birth and death our own birth and death to find some meaning in our life and some way to carry on that works for us and we share some desperate need to connect with one another and some desperate caring about one another that's really beyond what we can express.

[13:19]

So the real lecture is always in between the words and before and after and in the silence. Suzuki Roshi used to say that it didn't matter if you understood what he was talking about and that you shouldn't listen with your thinking mind, that you should kind of check your thinking mind at the door with your shoes and kind of listen with your heart and that he would speak from his heart or from his zazen mind and whatever was of value to us would stick. And that was very encouraging because I didn't understand a word he said. I'd go out of there just kind of scratching my head, no idea what was going on.

[14:31]

And years later some of his words would just kind of pop into my mind for no apparent reason. So I guess it was true. The teaching, the moments of feeling that I learned something or that I was being taught or that something happened that had something to do with the Dharma have had to do with sitting with my teachers often in silence or against a background of silence stumbling around often both of us, to find some words and somehow each of us being able to drop that fear of not knowing what to say, of feeling like a fool to drop all that long enough

[15:58]

just to meet each other in that place of know me and know you and all the questions and all the confusion kind of drop away and there's just this moment of being together. just this moment of being together exactly as we are without it having to be anything in particular just this moment of being cold or hot or tired just this moment's experience

[17:27]

of the body. Coming back from vacation, I've been very aware of my aging body and its protest to getting back on the relentless treadmill schedule of my life, noticing its many protests and easy fatigue.

[18:58]

And coming to the Zendo this morning having been up altogether too late with visiting relatives I felt the encouragement of the continuousness of our practice. I haven't been here for a few weeks and the bells keep ringing and yesterday I was here and Dali was arranging flowers everywhere and so when we connect with the practice, we're connecting with that energy, that energy that powers the waterfall that could power the lights for many cities and we just have to, we just join in and we're carried along by the stream of life.

[20:20]

Because we have this unvarying schedule here and this practice which has so much repetition and ritual and every day it is carried out in the same way and every month we have the bodhisattva ceremony and every month it's the same with just, you know, different people playing the various roles but the drama continues and it unfolds and it's it's always different and yet it's always the same and it carries us along. And this is true the rest of our life as well but it's maybe a little harder to see because it's not so well structured and maybe more initiative is required on our part to

[21:41]

see the patterns and to see the rhythms and to find where we can join in and to remember to, whether it's mentally or actually, to offer that incense and to make that bow to stop. just for a moment to make that effort to actually experience each moment. Kadagiri Roshi also talks about despair and exhaustion and continuing one's effort in spite of that.

[22:46]

And it sounds almost too much, almost ascetic or self-destructive or something. But I don't think that's the way he means it. I think he just is talking about entering each moment completely, without holding back. Usually we're holding back because we know there's a next moment and a next moment, and how am I going to get through the day if I don't, whatever. And it's there that where we think we're conserving our energy, often that we're wasting our energy actually.

[23:50]

Sometimes, after a bodhisattva ceremony, especially if I haven't been here for a while about six or eight hours later, either my bowing muscles will cramp up or my knees will just sort of lock and cease to function for a while. And often somebody in my family will say, why did you do that? You knew that that was going to happen. It always happens. Mom, why did you do it? And sometimes when I'm doing all those bows, I think, Well, you know, maybe I won't be able to get up and down the stairs so well tomorrow, so maybe I should stop. But my body isn't saying stop now.

[25:02]

Sometimes it does. My old body will sometimes say in the middle of a bow, don't you do another one, I won't. And then I stopped. But if it's going to be sore tomorrow, well, that's OK. Then I can practice going up and down my stairs very slowly and holding on and just feeling. that effort in my bones. In the Bodhisattva ceremony we acknowledge all our karma our ancient twisted karma and we take refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha and we renew our vows to live for the benefit of all

[27:38]

We acknowledge our gratitude and our debt to each other and to life itself and we're really in that ceremony joining our individual personal effort and aspiration with the absolute. The same about the blue mountain and the white cloud.

[29:32]

All day long they depend on each other. without being dependent on each other, something like that old saying or maybe Tozan or somebody the blue mountain and the white cloud we're all the blue mountain and the white cloud depending on each other Can't have one side without the other. So we have some time together.

[31:21]

If there's anything you'd like to ask or tell or share, please struck me this morning. I hadn't come full Saturday in quite some time and getting used to sleeping in and liking that. But coming in this morning felt, you know, like just following the pattern again.

[32:24]

It's there. And since I hadn't seen her in years and she's here, I thought, you know, there's, that's just the beauty of this place, I think. There's a strength a comfortableness. So I really appreciate that. For the sangha being here, this angle being here. It's always nice to see you pop up like the flowers in the spring, just every now and then. saying that we were thinking we were serving other people, but we're not really. Say some more about that. I think that holding holding back part of ourself for later, getting that part that that moment of

[33:39]

there's a moment of kind of acknowledging being kind of overwhelmed or exhausted or kind of irritated. And then there's something extra. There's the kind of goddamn blah, [...] and how can they blah, [...] and why don't you, you know, do it yourself? That's the part that's extra. and where often we think we're just kind of setting a limit, protecting ourself. I think there's a fine line, but I think that particularly out in the business world, in the everyday world, it's very hard there's not a lot of encouragement to kind of keep this attitude of, this is the next thing, this is the next thing.

[34:53]

And there's nobody ringing the bells to give us that encouragement to do the next bow. And, you know, there's nobody counting to see that we don't do more than nine or ten or a hundred and eight or whatever. So we don't know if maybe we need to protect ourselves, maybe we need to kind of hold back, maybe somebody will ask too much of us. And I think that that holding back, you know, it's where we get everyday tension headaches from, and there's a lot of energy there that we could be using I was also struck by that same comment that you made about when you think we're conserving energy, we're really wasting it.

[35:57]

And I thought of what you just spoke of and the feeling I get when I do get myself here, particularly in the afternoons, and can touch that sort of calm place and walk out of here with a calm mind, I'm always struck how easy and relaxed that is, compared with the talk show that's usually going on in my head, and all of the effort, I can say, holding yourself like this. And we think that we're protecting ourself and saving ourself, but it takes an incredible amount of energy as compared to just being there. But being there also takes a lot of energy.

[36:58]

And... It's a different kind. Yeah, it is a different kind. It's more of a, I think, a renewable resource. Like the difference between gasoline and wind power or something. But... How do we take that calm? Can we take it and back home with whatever it is? You know, are you out on the road or to our office with whatever it is there that's gonna bombard us? One of the reasons we can do it here is that it is safe. And I think it's important to acknowledge that it is a relatively safe place. And although if you live here or if you had a lot of positions of responsibility you know that it isn't always as safe as it looks and you can get encroached on pretty easy.

[38:01]

There is a kind of, you know, kind of openness and a kind of safety here. that we don't have in the outside world. And that's where we need our energy the most. And that's where we need to be awake the most. And that's really where we can practice. That's really the cutting edge of our practice. It's out there. Rebecca? Because I've said it so many times before, but it's one of the things that most important things that I learned here. And that was being taught that the gassho is not the movement of going down but coming back, but it's that one second of zazen at the bottom. And through many, many years of teaching and turmoil in that world, that was, that

[39:14]

being able to actually do that sometime for myself, that one second, but also to do it in my head, in moments of temper and exhaustion, and knowing that everybody else was wrong, and you were wrong. Twenty-some years of chaos, and it's just great. Do you remember that car show? Everyone is joining that stream of life and energy. I like that when everybody else is wrong. Andrea? Well, this morning I was woken up early. By the sound of my car in the driveway. I also haven't been coming And I thought, God, maybe I must be going on a fishing trip or something.

[40:25]

It's like, what time is it anyway? At that point, it doesn't tick off. And then I remembered that we were going to talk today, and probably during the schedule, and I was feeling glad because I was going to help encourage a lot of that. But my question is, about your comment about... We've been talking about this all along. You wondered how people survive this urban life without some kind of practice like this. So my question is, what are we surviving? What are we doing here? So, why are we trying to be safe and where are we trying to be safe from? Well, what are you trying to be safe from?

[41:31]

I don't know, that's why I keep coming back here, I think. Well, one day I'll figure it out. Well, what I've noticed is it feels better some places than others. And one of the things I'm working on is not minding so much. Letting go of my preferences for one thing over another. Oddly enough, one of the hardest practices that I've done in my life is actually the practice of vacation. This vacation that I just had was the first vacation I've really enjoyed in many, many years. And I've always, for many years, have dreaded vacations. And I remember talking to Mel about this a number of times, and he confessed that he didn't like vacations much either, so he couldn't really help me with it.

[42:39]

And I just, the idea of a vacation just seemed odd to me. There's so much riding on it, you know, you're supposed to have fun. It's kind of like Christmas, you know, you're supposed to have fun, or your birthday. You're supposed to have fun, damn it. And, you know, they don't always come at the right time. You're too busy, or you don't feel good, or it's raining, or whatever. And there's just altogether too much riding on it. And I remember a number, many, many vacations where I really wanted to be here, is where I wanted to be. And that was my preference. I wanted to be sitting, I wanted it to be quiet. And I was in the car driving somewhere with two kids and very loud music of some terrible kind.

[43:45]

And I was asking myself, you know, kind of, how do I practice with this? Who could practice, you know, and feeling like I didn't really have a choice, I had to find a way to practice there, in that car, in that confined space with all that noise and all those personalities and all that stuff. And fortunately, I'm very short. And so I can actually fold up my legs in the front seat of a car if I'm not driving it. And I spent some period of time on Highway 5 between here and San Diego one summer with rock music going. This was before the children got walk things for their heads. Trying to let this music kind of just go through me and trying to kind of open my consciousness wide enough so that these very big vibrations could kind of pass through without ripping me to shreds.

[45:06]

There were moments when I was able to do it, not long moments, but little by little I learned to kind of get through these vacations and to stop hating them. And I don't know what was different about this one except that I didn't have any children with me. That may have been part of it. So there are a lot less personalities and a lot less noise. And I think that But I think that children are very good teachers because they show us so often and so strongly what our preferences are. And we're always trying to tell them, well, no, it's not time for this, and wait, and be patient, hang in there.

[46:20]

But really, we're telling ourselves that, hang in there and be patient. They'll grow up and they'll quiet down. We'll get through this. I don't think I really answered your question, but Ross says it's time to stop. We'll be saved by the bell. Thank you very much. Things are numberless.

[46:58]

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