Good morning, everyone. Can everyone in the physical Zendo hear me okay? And in the online Zendo? The Maha Sangha. about to say it's good to see you to see you all and I was just noticing that seeing everyone in the Zendo is seeing all your myriad masks and your expressions which include those and to see all the folks in Zoom Zendo

[01:13]

in a different configuration that really puts the seeing in a new light. What is it really to see and be seen? Well, here we are on our concluding day, amazingly, of our five-week aspects of practice. this annual time that we take to study and in studying, practicing the basic Buddhist teachings, and this year being the Eightfold Path, the so-called Noble Eightfold Path, which we've been reminded of throughout this time. There's also fourth noble truth.

[02:19]

Thich Nhat Hanh spins that a little bit, reordering those truths, but essentially that truth also being path. And it's clear, given that this was the Buddha's first talk, and also in his last, so they say, that it's important, it's foundational. And we've been fortunate to hear many different and wonderful explorations in the talks and classes and really our song and conversation about this path.

[03:32]

And today what I would like to explore together is how the Eightfold Path connects to who we are at BCC. Who are we? We're in the Soto Zen lineage. And that means, for one thing, that who we are is expressed through, if you will, a Soto Zen understanding, a Mahayana understanding, articulation, emphasis of this path, path of practice.

[04:44]

And at the core of that is to respond to this question of who are we at BCC? We are bodhisattvas. After all, we had our first bodhisattva ceremony in two and a half years. On this day. That's important. And I wonder how it was for you, those who were here for that, to bow, to vow. For some of us, it might have been the first time. And for all of us, Each time, there's the first over and over and over again.

[05:55]

Beginner's mind. So, what's the deal with we are bodhisattvas? What's that got to do with the path? Well, first of all, bodhisattvas are awakening beings. What are we waking up to? We're waking up to our wholeness. And there's an important recognition there, which is that the path of wholeness is actualized in each step. So it's not a path to get somewhere. It's a path that's blazed as it's walked. And recognizing our wholeness, we respond from wholeness, as bodhisattvas, together with everyone, or as we say, together with all beings.

[07:10]

And we do that with kindness, with compassion, with joy, and with equanimity. And we've heard these aspects. Fitnahan, for instance, refers to as love, and we've heard others express it. That way too. Please. Many of our teachers. You could say that how it connects to who we are here, now, is that the whole path is having an appropriate response.

[08:16]

What is that? How do we meet our differences from our recognition of homelessness? What's that got to do with really having some clarity around Who are we? So I wanna tell you a story. Right here in this Zendo, I was gonna say in the before time, but we're going to hear a little, heard a little bird saying that we are exploring returning to the form of oryoki to the practice. And for anyone who hasn't experienced that practice, it's basically our formal eating practice.

[09:27]

And here in this endo, it has all these different elements. And I was a server during one of these sishin oryoki. And the way it worked out in the choreography for whatever bowl it was, I think it was a second bowl, three bowls. I was coming up on this side over here to serve Sojin Roshi. And I get up there. I kneel down. I've got my bowl. And, you know, he's the first person you serve with that bowl on that side. And so I've got it, you know, head server puts the serving utensils in there, got the bowl go up front, Sojin brings his bowl out, and I look down and I realize that spoon is way big, and I don't know how I'm going to get that food.

[10:39]

in there without touching his bowl, which is not in the game plan. So I'm doing my best to finesse with this, and I really, I don't want to make a mistake. So I'm trying to navigate what feels like a spoon that's too big with this, in my memory of it, something sort of... I'm pausing because I'm aware of what we tend to put in the first, second, and third bowl, so my mind is kind of, oh, which bowl was it? But in any case, whatever bowl it was, something about that utensil felt like it was too big for what I was trying to navigate.

[11:43]

And so it felt like somehow a kind of gloppy food, and I was trying to get it in there without making a mess. But what I ended up doing is I was going from some kind of height And so it kept dropping. When it would drop, it would kind of splash. And I just was perplexed. And just then, Sojin leans in close and he says to me, don't drop it, lay it down. And just like that, Everything shifted. And suddenly I was able to just do that. No problem. So what was going on with that?

[12:47]

How was it that I was able to see everything differently and go from dropping it to laying it down? And I realize now that he saw something in that moment. Maybe he saw some fear. After all, when I was there, I had this loop going. He's the teacher. I'm a student. I have to keep a distance. I have to get it right. Can you relate to that? I have to get it right. I mean, we could say it now. It's like, well, I'm not coming to Zendo often enough, or my practice is this or that, or whatever it might be. Or maybe you're in a position today, and it's your first time doing it.

[13:56]

And maybe sometimes you might have an experience. I have to get it right. And it comes from the body, right? It's not necessarily a thought, but it's just this kind of, hmm. But he saw something. He saw that. And he invited me in that closeness. He invited me to do something different. And actually what he invited me to do was to get close. How do we do that? How do we get close? How do we lay it down? The right, you know, it's really interesting. And we've explored this, right, which is what right, you know, right view, right thinking, right action, right effort, right livelihood, right mindfulness, right concentration.

[15:15]

What am I forgetting? Speech. Right speech, right? The very one I'm doing my best to practice. But, you know, because that word can get tricky, getting it right. I'm often reminded of, you know, Dogen told this story about A monk goes to, Yashan was his name, right? He goes to him and he says, when sitting, Dogen's talking about Zazen, so this is an illustration. The monk goes to Yashan and he says, well, you know, teacher, when you're sitting, you know, what do you think? And he says, think not thinking. That's a familiar tale, you've heard it before. And the monk says, well, how do you think not thinking? And depending on how people translate it, it says non-thinking, or sometimes it's translated as beyond thinking.

[16:25]

So we could say right view, you know, we heard it expressed as no view. Also we could say beyond view. and that's the beauty of that the poetic spin of how that stops you like when i was with sojin it stopped me that getting close so what's it like to um you know touch into beyond view for example at the same time that we need to really keep it real in who we are So how do we get close? And how do we lay it down? Those two. Fast path. For instance, how can it open up difficult conversations about shifting perspectives?

[17:36]

for instance, about topics that are relevant here in the Sangha, not only in the Sangha, but in the Sangha, like health and safety, like how do we do this hybrid practice, like What's our decision-making process like engaging anti-racism here? Gender fluidity, gender identity. How about hidden bias? What's that?

[18:38]

How does that connect to who we are in the difficult conversations? Because fundamentally, just like that path is fundamental, fundamentally all of these conversations are about being close and inclusive in Sangha. without getting caught in separating ourselves any more than I was separating. I thought I was separate from Sojin in that moment of serving and being served. So how can the Eightfold Path support us with that? Again, I return to the Bodhisattva ceremony that we had this morning because we recommitted to that particular practice.

[19:43]

And we did it remarkably. I believe it's, we're one week out from our annual Jukai. Students will receive the precepts. And what are those precepts, if not genuine intimacy? Expressed as our life, including the difficult conversations. With kindness and compassion, joy, That's an interesting conversation, because what do we really mean by joy? Let's say the intimacy, the joy of being intimate, of keeping it real, keeping it close. And with that, interwoven with that real equanimity, or what Sojin called composure, or I think connects to a number of things,

[20:54]

what Suzuki Roshi called constancy, keeps showing up, keeps showing up. It really, I think, has to do about right relationship, beyond ideas of relationship, and actually practicing this path. And so who we are at BCC and how it relates to the path also relates to our relationships, you know, inside, outside the gate in our, you could say, our Maha Sangha, you know, more Maha. And that includes connecting to tomorrow being Indigenous Peoples Day, which is a day that It's a holiday, actually, that's being reclaimed, you could say, along with reframed, to recognize and appreciate the generosity of the first people, this land, having this land, caring for this land, this land where we practice.

[22:13]

And so it's important to name the Chechenyo Ohlone people. There are actually eight different languages, only eight, the Ohlone people in the East Bay here, the Chechenyo. But because when we do that, when we acknowledge and honor and appreciate their right effort, things like a legacy of wisdom, They connect to our environment, to the impact of climate change right here, like having regular contained fires to take care of the brush, things like this, to prevent kind of massive scale wildfires you may have seen.

[23:17]

And revisiting that in relationship with those people who are here today, not gone here. What's our relationship? That's part of who we are. That's expressing the Noble Eightfold Path in right relationship. And so there's, you know, there's no recipe. It's just step by step by step showing up at the time. I've got a bowl, I've got a spoon, you've got a bowl. You've got a hand. And we offer that hand. We say warm hand, a warm hand. And that warm hand, this path, in many ways, really, it's been said in many ways that fundamentally, we're not really innovating. in a certain way we're changing because you know it's like that old line uh the only um the only thing that doesn't change is change right um but you know the buddha himself shankyamuni said that he discovered the ancient path and then he walked in

[24:47]

And so are we, blazing it anew. And that connects to the truth, the lived reality, that true reality of all beings, as Dogen calls it, that Buddhism has always responded to the particular suffering, the particular challenges of time and place. We're doing that now as we continue the practice of looking at things that are relevant now that we need to talk about openly and openheartedly. Try some new things. And remember that sangha is the practice of harmonizing. So sangha practice in a way is redundant. because practice is nothing more than harmonizing.

[25:49]

Sojin would often talk about harmonizing. When I think about it now, I think about it or I approach it from, yeah, how do you harmonize with dissonance? You include that as a hear it, see one another, as saying something important. And that they're not two. Of course, all of this is not just happening here. It's happening everywhere. And that's very encouraging to me. So maybe a simple way to say that is what Sojan pointed out.

[27:02]

Framed as a question. It's live now. How do we relate to each other? How do we approach know like this new many communities one sangha practice whatever you think about that openly and open-heartedly which also was framed in introducing it to the Sangha. A lot of care went into framing that in terms of the Eight Pole Path. It's relevant for right now, who we are. So I'll pose it to you just once more as a question, and then I'd like to open it up for a little conversation.

[28:08]

Just how do we do that? by laying it down and not dropping it. So I'm gonna stop there and see what's live in the room for you or us right now. Something to say? I guess here you can raise your hand online. Can you raise a digital hand? Here.

[29:16]

How do we incorporate the word care into this whole path and everything we do every day? Because I felt a lot with Sojin, how do you care? And we also mentioned once that instead of seeing the value and things, we should look at virtues. But how do we, care is important, but how do we incorporate it? Did you repeat that? Did everyone in Zoom hear that question? Yeah, okay. Oh, we did not hear it in the back, is that right? Okay. So, how do we care? It's important to care, but how do we care? You're saying that Sojin cared? How do we incorporate it? How do we incorporate it? Yeah, yeah. You know, I...

[30:19]

I think I'm remembering this, that I was talking with Hosan Roshi one time, and I think I asked something about being careful, how to be careful. And I think you said, to be careful is to be full of care. So how do we incorporate being full of care as being careful, as being right mindful? Are we really listening? Are we really seeing? Where are my feet? Where's the breath?

[31:20]

In other words, like that moment with Sojin, it's a live moment. So how do we care? How do we integrate it? How do we incorporate it? Is completely showing up with whatever is here right now. And because we're blessed to have teachers have good friends on the path one of the ways that we show up i believe in my experience is that this space here coming face to face one to one and this space here is um you could say we're creating a safe space for that not knowing It's also a brave space. It's a courageous space.

[32:22]

So we need to be stepping that path as sincerely as possible in each moment and then keep showing up. And as I think you experienced Kabir, when you keep showing up, you get tapped on the shoulder and you say, hey, I noticed you've been coming around the Zendo for a while. You want to play the Le Cougueo today? We need a Le Cougueo. And then, next thing you know, you're wearing this funky bib on your head. So thank you for showing up, for caring. Thank you. It's more of a thought than a question.

[33:27]

I don't remember where I heard this, but I heard that walking is actually kind of controlled falling. And I was wondering what you thought about laying down as sort of a controlled dropping. So who's controlling whom in that framework? In your experience? Gravity is doing the controlling, I think. We're sort of just conditioned to react to it in certain ways. So I hear that word controlling as... facilitating the conversation between this body and the body of earth and moon and all these things that are being pulled together.

[34:48]

And we call that network of falling into one another, gravity. It's a word that scientists came up with to point, it's like the finger pointing to the moon, like the word control. To me, your comment or commentary also It reminds me that right speech is about playing with language, not just verbal language, but also verbal and written language, because particularly in English, we're navigating subject-object relationships. So if you say the word control,

[35:50]

it's creating, it's reinforcing that subject-object relationship. And how do we penetrate that relationship? So how does the turn of a word from say control to facilitate, shift that? It's also one of the reasons I think people can get very frustrated with the poetry of Dogen. You just can't lock into it. You can't really control that. So I like, I like, though, what you were saying about falling. You know, it's kind of like when we're bowing. Thich Nhat Hanh calls that same practice of the Bodhisattva, as touching the earth. So We're drawn to the earth.

[36:55]

The earth is drawn to us and we just bow and we touch in. We let go. But that let go, we have to be careful so we don't hurt ourselves or anyone else. So it's something like that, at least to me, from all of your experiences Well, I just thought it was nice that you said, well, I guess what came up for me was controlling ended up kind of becoming being careful. So not to hit the ground, not to just drop it. And so in that process of what you said, that sort of became for me. I'm not sure I heard you right. Did you say soften? Control, so the careful. No, not that part. Not that part. You said something about impact.

[37:57]

So that we don't hit the ground when we bow. So we don't drop the food when we eat the surface. So would it be fair to say, not put words in your mouth, but that would soften the impact? Yeah, sure. So softening the impact, falling together, being careful. That sounds like a great way to walk the path together. Thank you. I like how our dialogue really brings out the heart of it, the heart of the teaching. To continue, just to present the other side, there are some things that one doesn't do softly.

[39:27]

There are some things that one does all in. But think about musical analogies. If you're playing drums, you don't strike them softly. Your job is to produce a certain tone and a certain beat. If you're playing guitar in certain circumstances, you really put a lot of energy into it. So just not completely to valorize The soft, careful means the appropriate way of approaching any activity. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for that reminder. Yeah, and appropriate is always me and you and all of us.

[40:34]

It's a live improv. And it's interesting, because in the exchange with Sojin Roshi, you were being careful, but your care was conditioned by your set of circumstances. And he was showing another way to be careful. Yes. And that opened the door. That opened. And I think particularly what he was being careful was the presence of fear. Probably he picked that up, yeah. And not thrown by that. Right. Yeah, it's just something to incorporate and turn. Well, it's good because you didn't have to do some activity that somehow unpacked your fear. He just had to show you a different way to do it that wasn't going to be conditioned by fear.

[41:40]

So it wasn't like, we're going to analyze this and, you know, what are you afraid of? You're not supposed, you know, there's nothing to be afraid of, all of that stuff. It's just like, sure, let me just, you can just lay it down in the pool. Yeah, you're reminding me that, uh, um, you know, when we would do this racetrack pattern in this endo, it's a slow kin-hin, that I really have this sense of when I would pass right beside him, of just really feeling just a step by step. It's just continuous. It's just all right there. um simple not necessarily easy but yeah the the simple practice thank you judy uh relative to laying down the burden how do you discern laying down the burden to with

[43:03]

taking up the burden or a question that arises. So you're hearing that it is a burden. Well, it depends how we look at it, whether it's a burden or it's an opportunity, right? So it sounded like it was a burden, something you were holding onto that was restricting your relationship or intimacy with Sojin, and then the same activity transformed into, I'm just doing this. So when we are presented with an opportunity to take up some question like Sangha harmony, which is a very complex issue, how does one discern whether it's a burden or an opportunity, and we get stuck in one side or the other, maybe too naive or too careful, trusting the process and keeping it going? How do you do that? Well, the first thing that came to me is when you were saying, lay down the burden, what do you take up?

[44:06]

You take up the opportunity. I was talking to somebody recently about, you know, sometimes I'm having an interaction with someone and things are moving quickly, you know, they can't, you know, like things can be not always a soft impact, sometimes it's hard, so things can move quickly too, so it's just going slowly. So the interaction happens, and then sometimes even a millisecond later, I have this sense of there's residue. So I lean into that, and I could say that that's the burden, you know? But I don't bypass it. I don't judge it, but I just notice it. something feels, we can always say things are incomplete, but there's a certain kind of incompleteness in there, which I think is about really being in integrity with the truth of that interaction.

[45:10]

And, you know, for instance, I might say something and then realize a millisecond later, that's not really what I meant. And it feels like that had an impact and I want to sometimes even make amends around that. but sometimes just clarify or check in. Hey, I didn't ask you this, you asked me, whatever. And so to notice as I'm walking along or walking away, wait a minute, and it might not be the right time, condition, place, degree to follow up on that sense of residue, but sooner or later, then I'll return to that. Or somehow it'll mysteriously come up again because like, for instance, here or here, we just keep showing up. And in a way, that opportunity will present itself again anyway. And if that residue, if I'm really mindful of that, then I might go up to someone and say, hey, here's what I wanted to ask you, or something like that.

[46:15]

And so taking care of that residue, to me, is seeing the opportunity and treasuring it in all the whatever stickiness, tension, difficulty that it might present. And then that whole thing gets transformed from, let's say, burdened to being close, I guess. Yeah, so thanks so much for your question. Sure. Is residue like something extra? know if it's extra, because it's sort of like, how can anything ever really be extra? I mean, everything's included. But it's more like, you know, when the Buddha talked about Dukkha as the cart that's kind of got the wheel that's not quite in the track, or, you know, you're in a band or an orchestra or something, and you're, or here, in Hartohanryo, right?

[47:16]

And something isn't quite in sync in rhythm, in pitch, whatever. And we find our way in the midst of that. So I think it's always relational. It actually brings forth a really lived sense of including everything. And I'm changed and you're changed in the process. Time for one more, Preston. The more that I get intimate with my own fears, my own unease, the more that I feel like I can pick up on or tender to the fear and the unease of people around me.

[48:17]

And I'm wondering how do we support people in our lives who are afraid and then maybe they're not even connected to their own cure or unease. And I suppose that's kind of an abstract question and it's probably going to be situation specific. So maybe you can share a story or a moment where you're trying to figure out how to support someone who's He's afraid in a way that special was able to support you in that moment. Can everyone in Zoom hear that question? So-so. Okay. So, aware of being able to, I'm going to paraphrase, but tell me if it catches the spirit of it.

[49:20]

Aware of how fear shows up in me. being intimate with that. How can, how can we support someone we sense is in fear? And then would I share a story about that? Well, I'm chuckling because I was thinking, well, what about the parts of ourselves, like my inner terrified? So, very briefly, I now work at a school, a private high school, where part of my job is to, I'm a mindfulness educator, that's the title, and part of my job is a couple mornings a week to get in front of about several hundred students and teachers and so on, and offer a couple of minutes of mindfulness that's part of the whole

[50:22]

20-minute program. And on news, I'm not quite sure what that really should look like, but I think one time, what precedes it is a 10-minute presentation by somebody. And that particular day, someone was coming in to talk about her experience of 9-11. And I didn't know this in advance, but it turns out she was a direct survivor of 9-11. And so she starts telling this story that to me is landing this trauma on these teenagers. And I was like, oh boy, what am I going to do in just a few minutes? And what I noticed is I'm a native New Yorker. And so the first thing that came up for me was um i lived in new york right after 9 11 for 10 years so all of that was there and i would say i touched into to to the fear or the trauma impact of that still in my body but it became you know like residue it became a bridge to to notice as i scanned the room i couldn't be sure

[51:48]

but what I would consider to be different kinds of, in trauma speak, dysregulation in the room. And my job was to help us co-regulate in just a few moments. So the first thing that came to me was to put a hand on my heart and I said, you know, I just have to say, I'm a native New Yorker and this is very close for me. So I've got my hand on my heart to really notice how that's landing in my body. And all of you, all you students here, you're not born when that happened. But still, we've had a lot of tough things going on the last few years. So if you want to put a hand on your heart, I invite you to join me in doing that and so on. In just a few minutes, we sat quiet.

[52:53]

So who knows? Who knows really? But that was a live moment where I really didn't know what to do. But I, to the best of my ability, I stayed in right relationship. And I think that that's all we can do. And share these stories to encourage each other. How do we work with those moments and show up? Thanks everybody for showing up and I think it's time to transition.

[53:23]

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