We're very lucky to have Joan Collison here with us this morning. She's an old friend of Berkley Dent Center. She lived here for a while, maybe about 10 years ago. And she's recently moved back to the Bay Area. She's been living for the last several years Springwater Center in upstate New York, which is Tony Packer's retreat center, or was started by Tony. And Joan has visited back and forth with Berkeley Zen Center a lot and kept up a connection with Zen practice. She may hold the record for starting a raksu more times than any other person, which is quite a distinction, I think. She's been a great inspiration to me as a person with tremendous focus and intensity in her spiritual practice.

[01:09]

She also has recently had a wonderful book published called Bear Bones Meditation, Waking Up from the Story of My Life. It came out a few months ago. And you can read about Berkeley Zen Center and mail in it, among other things. And there are 12 copies available. I urge you to get it, it's a really great book. So, I guess I can't think of anything else that you need to know about Joan, but without further ado, let's welcome her. Thank you. It feels really wonderful to be back at the Berkeley Zen Center, which always feels like home to me. And I want to express my great appreciation for this place, and I want to thank Meili for asking me to talk this morning, and I particularly want to thank Mel for the beautiful job that I feel he's doing in transmitting the Dharma, and for being

[02:33]

a very wonderful teacher for me over many years, and I've been not an easy student, I might add. And I want to thank all of us here who are the Berkley Zen Center at this moment, and who are the succession of ancestors at this moment. Even though we might only come here once a year, or maybe this is the only time we will ever come here, or maybe we come here every day. Maybe we think of ourselves as part of the Berkley Zen Center, or maybe we like to think that we're off in the distance kind of observing the Berkley Zen Center. But at this moment, here we are. We are the Berkley Zen Center, in all its wonderful perfection and imperfection. I feel very, very blessed to be here and to have this place and this community which in some ways is always the same and yet every moment is new and always changing.

[03:44]

So it's a very grave responsibility to be in the succession of ancestors I'm not sure if this is heresy to be saying this, but I think it's okay. No, I think it's a very grave responsibility to realize the impact that each one of us has every moment and the power that each one of us has every moment But the good news is that it's absolutely easy and absolutely simple Zen practice or being here right now because we are here right now. We can only imagine that we're not here and that something is missing and that we have to do something to get here.

[04:52]

And if there is the slightest sense of complication or difficulty or straining it's because we have some picture in our minds of how what's here right now isn't quite right, isn't the way it should be and how we imagine it could be different and we want to get to some better experience some better state, some better place. Or we want to get back, like we remember that on the fourth day of the last Sashin, on the third period, we really were there. It was great. And so we want to get back there. And we kind of, maybe we think we can remember sort of what we did to get to, we think we did to get there. So we kind of try to go through those steps again and it doesn't work. And in doing all that, what we're missing is that we're already here.

[06:02]

That this is it. This is here. So it's completely simple and completely easy. And anything that we add on to it is extra. And what we seem to do when things arise that we don't like, for example, anger or some habit that we have that we've been trying to get rid of for a long time like overeating or smoking or biting our fingers or whatever it is, or some obsessive train of thought that we think we shouldn't be thinking, or our neighbor being too noisy. or whatever it is that we imagine needs to get, we need to get rid of. We go to war with it and we try to get rid of it.

[07:05]

And we give it meaning. We think that it means something about who we are. We think that if we're angry, it means I'm a bad person. If I'm overeating, it means I'm a bad person. So practice as I see it is just to be here with whatever comes up and to meet it completely openly without any judgment or any resistance or any attempt to get rid of it or to know what it is. Because as soon as we label it, as soon as we say, ah, this is anger, this is overeating, we already have a whole idea about it, that it means I'm bad, that it means whatever it means. And we have a whole story in our minds about it, about how long this has been going on and how it's hopeless, how I've been trying for years to get rid of this and here it is again.

[08:12]

And it probably won't ever go away. And these stories, these thoughts that we have are very, very, very powerful. have tremendous power to create the reality that they picture. And so we can perhaps adopt the opposite thought, which is what we do in affirmations or something. We can say, I won't ever do this again, or whatever. But that may or may not be true. But if we can just not know whether we'll ever do it again or not. Not know whether I'll ever overeat again or not. Not know whether I'll get angry again. Not know what anger is. And really begin to listen to it and explore it. Not with the intention of getting rid of it, but with a kind of curiosity and interest to really

[09:19]

See what it is. It's never been here before. This isn't yesterday's anger or last week's anger or last year's anger. This is a completely new moment. And to really not call it something, not unfurl a whole story about it, but really see, what is this? So not to get into a story about it or analyzing it. I'm doing this because of what my mother did to me when I was three years old or if only I could do this and this, it would go away. But just to experience it in the body really as physical sensation. And then to go right into the core of that sensation, right into the heart of it and see what's there. And if we do that right now, if we close our eyes and just be here as pure sensation,

[10:22]

Where are the birds? I mean, where am I? Where do I begin and the birds end? And isn't it all one whole happening, happening right now? And so meditation, as I see it, is returning to this. Not even returning isn't really the right word, because it's always new. It's always right here. It's not going back to something that happened on the fourth day of the last Sashin. And this kind of open not knowing what anything is and just being here is love.

[11:29]

It's freedom. Because we don't know what's going to happen. We don't know who everybody is and what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman and what it means to be at the Berkley Zen Center and all of this. What it means to be Joan Tollefson. We don't know We're just here. And then there's space for something entirely new to happen. Because if I think I know who you are and what you're going to do based on how you've behaved in the past as I see it, then I've already boxed you in and we know how we affect each other.

[12:31]

We know what it's like when somebody thinks that we're a certain way or when we think we're a certain way. We create each other and in this open listening we can see that We're not even here in the way that we imagine that we are as separate little people, as divided up from each other as these separate little people with our separate little histories and steering our separate little ships through life. It's not like that. It's just one whole happening. And the mind, the amazing capacity of the mind, can make up this whole story and this whole picture, which we learn from early childhood. We learn, this is a table, this is a chair, your name is Joan, you know, this is your brother, this is your sister, you're this kind of person and not that kind of person.

[13:36]

So meditation is returning to, not returning, I keep saying that, because it's really discovering anew every moment. this that is, which we are. I love the Bodhisattva Ceremony. It was really nice to be here for the Bodhisattva Ceremony. You can't really understand, well you can understand the Bodhisattva Ceremony. I mean I'm sure there are books written on it and so on but But really you can't understand it, it's, because it's always new, the flowers on the altar and the person who happens to be standing in front of you and the birds that are participating.

[14:45]

So we like, we want to be kind of, get everything all wrapped up, like we want to kind of get somewhere where we finally understand it all and we've gotten rid of all of our bad habits and we've banished all of our obsessive thoughts and we're not overeating or smoking or biting our fingers anymore and we're finally, and the world is fixed up and we're finally here, everything's okay. But there really is no once and for all in Zen practice. It's really moment to moment. It's not something you do once and for all and then it's done. It's every moment. Listening. and realizing the freedom and the love that truly is here.

[16:13]

Do people have any questions or anything they want to look into? I always like to talk with people. Yes? I'd like to know what kind of a difficult student you were. What kind of a difficult student I was? Well, I spent a lot of time looking for the perfect situation and the perfect teacher and the perfect place and so, and being extremely critical, not to say that I don't do this at all anymore, but, and being extremely critical of everything. So, I was very critical of Mel and critical of the Berkeley Zen Center and So then I went to Springwater and was very critical of Tony Packer. And, you know, finally I started to notice that this seemed like a pattern. And also as I kept, well, as Sue mentioned, I kept starting Rakusus and then stopping them. And I never did finish my Rakusu. you know, so poor Melite would come to him and say, I want to sew another rock suit, and he would say yes, and then I would tell him I was throwing it away and going back to Tony Packer.

[17:37]

And, you know, we had some arguments and hard times. But there was always this love between us, and always I was welcome to come back. I mean, here I am after all that. And, you know, I went through the same thing with Tony Packer, and we had a lot of arguments, and... And then, it's like a marriage, I guess. I've never been married, but it's like any intimate, long relationship, where you... You realize that it's not... You know, we want it to be the way we want it to be. We want the person to behave the way we want them to behave, and understand us the way we want to be understood, and everything else, and they don't. And so it's allowing that to be as it is and really beginning to see each other as these wondrous beings instead of something we want to be a certain way.

[18:53]

And I, you know, I really finally realized it doesn't matter whether you have chanting or you don't have chanting. You know, I was always arguing with Tony that she should have chanting and then I come here and argue we should get rid of the chanting. And, you know, it really doesn't matter. I mean, meditation has absolutely nothing to do with whether you have chanting or you don't have chanting. You don't have to have it, you don't have to get rid of it. It's here, so if you're here you might as well enjoy it, or if you're not enjoying it, feel irritated, and then just experience irritation, go really deeply into the sensations in the body that we call irritation, and see what that is. Does that answer it? Yes. obsession into a state of curiosity. Is that different than a state of inquiry?

[20:00]

Does it have a goal? Does it seek an answer? Or does it simply seek to enjoy? For instance, the pattern that you described about your raksha, which was, I guess, the same one about the chanting. Is there any sense that there's a deeper explanation that should be obtained, or is it simply a question of finally, ultimately finding it ridiculous? I think just enjoying, if that's what you mean by finding it ridiculous, just... I mean, curiosity, inquiry, these are all words, but to me they point to a way of being that is not seeking a goal or an answer. Not curiosity like to find the right answer or, you know, to finally kind of figure out what emptiness is or something like that, which is what the mind always wants to do or what anything is, but just to just to listen to it without trying to get anything out of it, without

[21:15]

trying to understand it or figure it out. I mean I can have all kinds of ideas like I should finish a Raksu or I should never sew a Raksu but really there's just this moment and maybe I'm sewing, maybe I'm throwing it away, whatever I'm doing. Well, it sounds good, but there's also the Rahkshu. There's also a decision about the Rahkshu. There's a lot of things there, people. There's decisions about people, about how to behave and not to behave. So if you push the person away or pull the person back, it has an impact on the person. So what you described with Mel was also hard on Mel, and Mel's a good teacher, so use that I'm sure, but there are people, most people, not quite so open to being pushed away or pulled back.

[22:34]

sense of altering it? Well, I would say that if we're truly curious, if we're truly listening, that that is love, and that in that open listening, in that curiosity, you don't hurt somebody. You don't... We do hurt each other all the time, but it seems to me that we do those things when we're operating out of some kind of trance-like behavior, some kind of habitual pattern, some kind of thought. And I don't, in my experience, having an idea that I'm going to behave differently doesn't do very much. I mean, I can say, okay, from now on I'm going to treat my housemate really nicely. what happens in reality.

[23:47]

So, then, so, if there's just that willingness to see whatever does happen, and, I mean, I'm not suggesting that it's okay to just go out and mow people down, but how does that, how do we, how does that actually change, or how do we... Yes, in the back. Yeah. Well, I think the barrier between self and others is imaginary. I mean, it's not really, as we experienced, you know, a little while ago when we closed our eyes, it's not really, I mean, it's something we learn and practice and come to believe in.

[24:52]

Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, what we see going on in our own minds during a period of sitting and just how we're thinking about the person sitting next to us or something is the same. It's the root of, you know, how the world is at war with each other and how one group of people has decided to exterminate another group. I mean, it's just a more magnified version of the same kind of thinking. And it doesn't seem to really work to try to fix that by exterminating it back or giving it the death penalty or locking it up. Although we try that. We try it in the world and we try it in our own psyches. Yes.

[25:56]

I'm not quite sure I get the question. process of writing the book or being being really honest or How does it feel to be so public no I Well, one of the main feedbacks that I've been getting to the responses that I've been getting to the book, and I've been getting letters from people, you know, from all over the world, like from Singapore, and I mean not like bags of mail, but, you know, letters.

[28:00]

And the thing that really strikes me is that people say they see themselves in the book, you know, people whose lives on the surface are very different from mine. And it seems to me that that's a lot of what I've come to in recent years, that going to Springwater, I mean, I went there as, there was almost all men on staff when I went there, they were all straight, I was the only gay person, I was the only disabled person, you know, so here I went from Berkeley to this place where I felt like I was in this completely alien environment. And what I found out was that they weren't alien at all, that there's something much deeper than all that. And I'm not trying to say that we shouldn't celebrate diversity or that there aren't differences between people or something, but just that the differences are very much on the surface

[29:16]

there's something deeper that we all are. So I don't know, it doesn't feel, I mean there's no one way that it feels, I mean different, second by second I have many different feelings come up. did you know but I mean being being really honest and out with stuff is kind of natural to me it I mean for some people it might be the most horrible thing they could think of but for me it it you know it's almost more of a challenge for me to keep my mouth shut so so so but I think what I discovered in doing it was that we're not so different. And every time I'd reveal something that I thought was, oh, this is really horrible, and no one will ever speak to me if I reveal this, it would turn out that everyone else had the same experience, maybe in a different shape or a different form.

[30:30]

But the basic situation that we're all in is pretty similar. and the stuff we go through is pretty, and we all have our particular little systems and patterns, but the underlying pattern of believing in a separate, having this sense of being separate from each other, this sense of being identified with this body and being separate from the rest of life somehow and struggling to get connected again or feel whole or feel at peace and that to get away from something, to get away from what's here in imagination by going towards something that can be imagined or remembered seems like it's our basic human situation. Sue. Well, thank you for writing it down. Well, thank you.

[31:31]

Well, I think this question is related. In your book, you talk a lot about, well, the title, the subtitle, Waking Up from the Story of My Life, refers to a kind of idea of letting go of these names and labels and identifications and stuff that you've been talking about this morning. But how do you write a book about yourself doing that and do it at the same time? In the book, you talk about being nobody and spring water, the sense of just being elevated. And then here's a book, and it says, by John Thomas, and it tells about who you are. What about that? Well, that's the great mystery. No, I mean, Well, I'm not really talking about letting go of the story or letting go of different aspects, but more about seeing what's deeper.

[32:58]

Okay, the book is by Joan Tollefson, but if I really look deeply, I can see that that's not really true. I mean, I don't know who wrote that book. The universe wrote the book, you know, and many people participated in writing it with me. And I think in the old days, they didn't even put the author's name on books. And so it's kind of made up to say that somebody named Joan Tollefson wrote this book, but, and I can see all kinds of, like I wrote about in the book, I mean, when I sort of imagined how I would feel if my name wasn't on the book, and I could see that I didn't like that as well as if it was. But, so that's okay. So you just can see, well, that's interesting. There's, there's, there's a desire to get credit for this. Yes?

[34:04]

So much of the discussion that's been going on and studies of consciousness have to do with intentionality. I'm just wondering your experience of meditation. Is meditation, as you say, going into precognition? There's a lot of books out on that. Well, I haven't read all the books on precognition and everything, but it seems like it's sort of a big debate in meditation whether there's intention, you know, how much the role of intentionality and whether there's choice or choicelessness. And this was a big sort of koan for me, actually, choice and choicelessness. What I see is that, first of all, they're words, and we get so easily caught up in words and taking words to be serious.

[35:12]

I mean, words are fine. I'm not saying we shouldn't use words, but to recognize that they are words and that any word automatically is off the mark. And again, that doesn't mean we shouldn't use words or that words aren't beautiful, but a word can never really express this that is, I mean, because any word turns it into an object or something that has boundaries somehow. And so choice and choiceless are words. And I think that they both can be helpful. Because we don't, we're not in control in the sense that we're not, that there aren't, we're not these discrete little Entities that we imagine that we are steering our little ship like the ghost in the machine through life And everybody else is steering their little ships through life, and we're all To be held responsible for everything that we do because if we wanted to we could do it differently It's not really like that.

[36:23]

It's not happening like that but on the other hand we do have total choice in a sense. In this moment, in this exact moment, there is always the possibility to just be still and be, be. I mean, we are here. It's not even a choice, we're here. And there's always the possibility to simply open and to see what's imaginary. So, it feels like, you know, we could kind of get all caught up in the mind trying to think about this or figure it out, but... Stan? I first knew you many years ago, I guess in the 70s, in a different lifetime, when we

[37:39]

And is there any use in thinking about it? I know in your book, and so far I've only read the excerpt that was in the tricycle, you do think about and you deal with some of the past. So you're not just being here now and experiencing the present time and trying to do that, but you're also looking at where you've come from. But see that can be part of it. That is happening in the moment. That's happening now, that reflection, that looking back. And so again, I'm not trying to say we shouldn't think about history or we shouldn't... that meditation means we shouldn't think about history or we shouldn't ever think about how the world or how some situation in the world could be changed. It's more about not... I think the mistake that I feel we made was that we really thought we knew the answer. We thought we knew how the world should be. And we thought we knew what was wrong with it. And it was very simplistic in my, as I look back on it, it was very black and white, you know, it was very dogmatic.

[39:17]

And I'm very, I feel a lot of, I don't just feel critical. I mean, I feel a lot of, I feel like people sincerely wanted to, were responding to the suffering and the injustice that is obvious in the world and wanting to, wanting to do something about it. I feel very glad that people did that and are still doing that and I think it's wonderful and very important and I would be very sad if it wasn't happening. I think that when it happens, and we're almost out of time here, I know, but I think that when it happens out of that place of openness or curiosity or not knowing, how it should all be, then I think that it's going to happen very differently than when it happens out of a place of really feeling like we know, you know, these people, these people are the bad people and they're totally bad and there's not a good thing about them and

[40:30]

you know basically what we're going to do is exterminate them is what it boils down to and we're going to take over because we know how it should be and we're going to do it and we're going to create a good world and I don't think it works and not to say either that we should you know, try to be perfect before we engage in political work or something. I mean, it's, again, it's just moment to moment, I think. It's not like something you finish and then it's done. But just as we're doing the work, and people work, I mean, this is political work in my, as I see it. And so, I mean, I feel like I'm doing political work right now, if you want to put it that way. And I'm not, but so, whatever kind of work we're doing, whether we're giving a talk or marching in the streets or organizing some kind of demonstration or whatever kind of political work it is, and every moment is political, whatever we do is political.

[41:40]

I think that was one of the lessons from that period that is very true. Can it happen from a place of love and of openness and of really giving, not knowing who the other people are, giving us all the space to change and the space to... Because it's not going to be the new world that we imagine if half the people have to be exterminated in order for it to work. You know, that just isn't going to be it. So we made a lot of mistakes and a lot of us are sitting in this room now. And I don't know. I guess our time is up. So I just want to say again that thank you for having me here.

[42:42]

And thank you all for being here. And have a beautiful day.

[42:51]

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