And unsurpassed, penetrating and perfect. here. My name is Zenshin Greg Sane, but you can call me Greg. And I'd like to begin by thanking and acknowledging my teacher, Joseph Mel Weizmann Roshi, a past tablet at Berkeley Zen Center, San Francisco Zen Center, and a spiritual guide for life.

[01:04]

And to say that this talk is just to encourage you in your practice. I used to begin every single target talk I gave, I would say those two sentences. It's been a while since I've done that, so reverted back to that. I would also like to thank Hozan Roshi, our abbot, Alan, for inviting me to give this talk. And yeah, it's a pleasure. It's a pleasure to be here. to invite me and Linda to lead Aspects of Practice. So, what a joy, what a joy. Today is Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, actually. And we were talking about this fact in Practice committee, priest meeting?

[02:08]

Yeah, priest meeting. Okay, thank you. We're going to so many meetings now. Hard to keep them straight. And we acknowledge that, you know, it's kind of scheduling conflicts. Unfortunate scheduling conflicts are bound to occur because there's just always so much going on at Berkeley Zen Center, which is great. That's a net positive. And that, you know, when something like that happens, acknowledge it and try to fold it into the day in some way. Well, I don't know much about Yom Kippur. I asked Alan, I asked Hosan Roshi, what do you think I should say about Yom Kippur? And he said, well, it's a day of repentance and renewal. And I thought, oh, that's great. That's really consistent with our Zen practice.

[03:09]

You know, that's really consistent with social Roshi's Dharma. I spoke in the Zendo a while ago. I said, on the exhale, let it all go. This is formless repentance. You read all about that in the Little Sutra. Just let it all go on each exhale and each inhale. Renewed, refreshed, reborn. Absolutely new person. Free. That's the feeling. So, hey, let's try to bring that feeling into our sin together today. I think that might be nice. Might be a nice thing to do. Also, apparently, we're in the middle of a massive geomagnetic storm, which is cool.

[04:14]

Probably not news to any of you. I heard all about, you know, did you see the rolling lights? Have you seen them? Well, Linda and I went and looked last night. No joy. Too many city lights, probably. And as far as I can tell, All my chocolates are still in the same place at the moment. New as I can tell. Still pretty exciting, apparently. And today is Opening Aspects of Practice. This is the beginning of our four week, five weekends, Aspects of Practice, practice prayer. And then I am very excited about that week. give it a lot of thought, you know, I don't even know, were we still in San Antonio when we found out we were going to be doing this? Possibly. I think possibly.

[05:17]

We were still in Texas. And we got the gist of it, and like, okay, four weeks, four brown with your hearts. Hey! That might work. And Yeah, we've been co-teaching a lot in recent times, and we really enjoy that. So we will be teaching the class together, and lately, in our co-teaching, we've been most interested exploring what I might call practical Buddhism. What's the Buddhism that's actually doing people any good? Well, I think that's what Shaky Mooney was interested in too.

[06:17]

You know, you can get into all kinds of stuff, esoteric, exoteric, go on and study. How's it help? How's it help? And I'm not saying that esoteric stuff isn't helping. No, far from it. But we're really, we're really interested in, you know, so we call the name of this aspect of practice is Ordinary Bodhisattvas. That's us. All of us. Bodhisattvas in training. The Brahmaviharas in action. Zen is a religion of action. It's something you might hear me say a lot. if you hang out with me much. We are not so interested in what you believe. We're more interested in what you do. As far as I said before, you know, Sotan Roshi would always say, no, we said this in an email, Sotan Roshi would say, I don't care so much about what or why.

[07:21]

I want to know how. How will we practice? How will we manifest Buddha nature? How will we show up for each other? What's it like when the rubber hits the road or the rubber hits the designated bike path, if you will? Because I'm in Berkeley. Never mind. I really am enjoying the bike path. I've got my bicycle back and I'm very happy riding around Berkeley. Why? Why? It's because of the way the world is at the moment. I think a lot of people are experiencing a lot of anxiety and fear.

[08:23]

This quiet. We head up to this election. Everything that's going on in the world, it can be a bit much. No. It is a lot. It's not, it can't be a bit much. It's a lot. Just name it, you know. And we have to take care of ourselves. This onslaught of information, well, I'll just speak for myself. I do. I have to take care of that, you know? And I have to remind myself, and I'll keep saying this, that the internet is not a real place. I think that's important to remember, actually. So, yeah, how do we put these teachings to use, to good use, for ourselves and for others?

[09:31]

And actually, be some force for positive right action, we say, in the Noble Eightfold Path. Right action in this suffering world. Is that right? Is that about? Yeah. That's what we have in mind. So, we... talking about love, compassion, joy, and equanimity, right? These are the four Brahma Viharas. Metta, Karuna, Mudita, Beka. Love, compassion, joy, and equanimity. Brahma Vihara means the abode of Brahma, where Brahma hangs out. Brahma, the god of love. If you're looking for Brahma,

[10:33]

Try looking for love, compassion, joy, and equanimity. That's where you'll find her. Yeah. So, yeah, it begins and ends with love. You know, when we were having a chat with Lori, you know, we moved in up there. We're roommates with Lori now. Pretty joyful. And we were saying, this is what we're thinking of doing. And the Lord immediately said, love. I mean, it's all love, right? And we said, yeah, yeah, yeah. It begins and ends with love. Love is the first one. And these many lists in Buddhism, it is significant which one comes first in many cases. So yeah, it begins and ends with love. Recently, Linda and I, we went to Philadelphia for a conference, a biennial conference of the Soto Zen Buddhist Association, an organization with which we are members of Zen teachers primarily from North America, other places as well, but primarily North America.

[12:00]

And you know, when Zen teachers get together, do they hang out and talk shop? Absolutely. Absolutely they do. So, you know, I was talking to a peer of mine, a friend of mine, and she's like, so what are you teaching in Brooklyn? I said, love. And she's like, everybody wants to teach love these days. I was like, good. Good. Because it's necessary. I think so. I think so. And maybe, you know, I don't practice. I'm not so good at it. It takes work. It takes work to cultivate these. It takes commitment. It takes coming back to it over and over again. Yeah, so... also in Sanskrit, same word as Maitri.

[13:03]

That's where we get the name of Maitreya Buddha. When we chant that name, Maitreya, the future Buddha, or Maitreya Bodhisattva, you know, that name means the loving one. Buddha of love. And metta, the way it's been understood from the time of the Buddha until now, hasn't changed so much. So, in our class, we're definitely gonna be sourcing some pretty old school stuff. Old school. Taravatan, the School of the Elders. The original source materials, the Pali Canon, because it was written down in the Pali language before it was ever written down in Sanskrit. So Metta is a Pali word.

[14:06]

And we chant the Metta Sutta, right? It's a loving kindness sutra. That's part of our literature here in Berkeley Zen Center. And then next page in the chant book, 2,500 years later, Metta prayer, right? That's what it says in the chant book, right? Not a prayer. Yeah, thank you, Joe. Sometimes in the past, it's also been called peace prayer. And this was written by my Dharma sister. It feels weird for me to claim Maylee Scott as my Dharma sister, but she is, you know. We all received a Dharma transmission from Soto Roshi. In her case, way, way, way, way, way before me. And Linda and I did Dharma Transmission together in 2012.

[15:12]

I think May Lee did Dharma Transmission in 1998. I was here, I remember her first Dharma talk after Dharma Transmission because it really hit me. I'll back up a little bit. I want to talk about Maile because I was thinking about the left prayer and I was talking to Lori and Alan about this idea I had about talking about Maile and they were like, yeah, hardly anybody left here who remembers Maile. And then hardly anybody who remembers people who remember Maile. I remember Mary very well. She had a big, big influence on my practice when I was first coming here.

[16:14]

She was co-tanto with Alan. They were tonto together, as Susan and Lori are now. And I had a lot of practice discussions with Mary. She got me started doing prison outreach. especially impressed with her matter-of-factness, the Zen quality of just this is it. Nothing added, nothing fancy, no stink of Zen about Melee, no way. Totally matter-of-fact, totally to the point. So she'd come back after Dharma transmission, which she did in Tazahara. It's traditional to give a talk after your Dharma transmission. She's sitting right here. She said, well, I was part of a ceremony that was magic. I was like, what?

[17:15]

It was very funny to hear from May Lee that she experienced magic. That was really intriguing to me, just because of who it came from. May Lee was best known, I think, for her activism, her involvement in the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, the Buddhist Alliance for Social Engagement, a leader. the leader of this area, for sure. Many times protesting at the Concord Naval Weapon Station. Yeah. So that's just a little bit of background, you know. After Meili died in 2001, Wait, wait, wait, wait, way too early. I feel like she was taken away from us. Unfair.

[18:17]

Like it's not fair. I was in Tassajara. I started having this recurring dream about Mealy. I dreamed I was in a class that Mealy was teaching. She was teaching a class on the Vimalakirti Sutra. And she was trying to explain something about emptiness to us. And I was not getting it. And I would be like, ah, could you just... And then she started laughing at me. Not derisively, but just laughing. She'd just laugh. And she had a very pleasant laugh. And I'd wake up. I had that dream of, I don't know. four, five, six times, something like that. I don't know, enough. So the Roshi came to Tassahara as he often did in the summer.

[19:20]

Yeah, he passed away in May 2001, memory serves. So he used to just come and hang out, not to lead a retreat or anything in particular, just to be in the abbot's cabin and be with the students. Incredibly encouraging for us to have him come and visit that way. I told him about this dream and he got very thoughtful and he said, well, you know, in Japan, death is not considered a big interrupter of the student-teacher relationship. Muy interesante. Yeah. Yeah, I've felt that for a long time. That's a big teaching for me. And, of course, now the Sochi is no longer with us. It remains a big teaching for me.

[20:22]

It's very alive. Very alive for me. So, I was thinking in particular, also because I was doshi for a Wednesday evening service, and we chanted the Metapreneur. which is part of Brooklyn Center's liturgy. Yes. So cool. So great. And as I was doing that, being Doshi, it dawned on me that I also, I was in here when Mele gave a talk and she, I think it's the first time we heard this. And she did it as a kind of meditation. And it was so beautiful. So I would like to do that now as a guided meditation. And ordinarily, at the beginning of a guided meditation, somebody would say, you know, please find a posture which is stable and upright.

[21:31]

But you're all already doing that. So I think we're good. May I be well, loving, and peaceful. May all beings be well, loving, and peaceful. May I be at ease in my body, feeling the ground beneath my feet, seat and feet, letting my back be long and straight, enjoying breath as it rises and falls and rises. May I know and be intimate with body-mind, whatever its feeling or mood, calm or agitated, tired or energetic, irritated or friendly, breathing in and out, in and out, aware moment by moment of the risings and passings.

[22:35]

May I be attentive and gentle towards my own discomfort and suffering, May I be attentive and grateful for my own joy and well-being. May I move towards others freely and with openness. May I receive others with sympathy and understanding. May I move towards the suffering of others with peaceful and attentive confidence. May I recall the bodhisattva of compassion, her one thousand hands, her instant readiness for action, each hand with an eye in it, instinctive knowing what to do. May I continually cultivate the ground of peace for myself and others and persist, mindful and dedicated to this work, independent of results.

[23:38]

May I know that my peace and the world's peace are not separate, that our peace in the world is a result of our work for justice. May all beings be well, happy, and peaceful. So, Love, loving kindness. This is what we're going to explore in this aspects of practice period, in this class upcoming on Thursday. We're probably going to approach it from a lot of different angles. But at the moment, you know, I could say, love, a strong emotional bond,

[24:44]

Maybe that's something people can agree on. Something palpable. Something cognizable. In Buddhism we say we have six senses. The mind is one of the sense organs. You know love. You know love when you feel it. You know love when you give it. You know love when you receive it. You know. We are born this way, we're wired this way, as mammals. However, it doesn't happen automatically and it needs to be worked on. As I said, Zen is a religion of action. I particularly love the line, she says, may I recall the bodhisattva of compassion her one thousand hands, her instant readiness for action, each hand with an eye in it, instinctive knowing what to do.

[25:51]

And that my peace and the world's peace are not separate, but our peace in the world is a result of our work for justice. This is Mary's Dharma. She had a slogan, a motto. That's pretty cool. So I'm teaching with a motto. It was, it is. Devotedly do without attaching to outcome. This is how Millie lived her life. Fully, completely. No trace. What an inspiration. So, These bonds, even as a mother, at the risk of her life, watches over and protects her only child. So with a balanced mind, yet cherishing living things, succusing love over the entire world, above, below, and all around, without limit.

[27:01]

This is our actual practice. This is how we create peace in the world. I think so. coming from an understanding that Zazan really helps with. As Thich Nhat Hanh would say, we enter are. We do not exist independently. We are not the other. There is no perceived other. That is a delusion. We enter are. And all of our actions have consequences. May the consequences of my actions be positive. May they be aimed in the direction of the abodes of Rama. Love, compassion, joy, and equanimity.

[28:04]

And it takes work. Soon there's going to be a reading group here at Berkley Zen Center. I mentioned there's always something going on here. Studying my friend Leanne Schupp's book, Home is Here, really good book, had a big impact on me. There are many takeaways for me from this book. One that really made a huge impression on me is she brings up the image from the Avatamsaka Sutra, the flower garland scripture. of Indra's net. Indra's net, which is this net that encompasses the entire universe. And where the mesh of the net meets each crossing point, each knot, there's a jewel. And each jewel perfectly reflects every other jewel. Lian said that her feeling is

[29:10]

I'm not quoting her directly, but her feeling is that in Western convert Buddhism, we pay more attention to the jewels and not enough attention to the net, the actual fabric of the net. That's what we have to take care of. What connects us? There's too much of what divides us going on. What connects us? How do we find this connection? How do we actually maintain, support, maintain or repair? Repairs and maintenance on Inja's net ongoing all the time. I read an interview with a Zen teacher decades ago that had a big impression on me. Initially a negative impression. And I wish I could tell you who the, it was a 20th century Zen teacher, Japanese Zen teacher.

[30:16]

I want to say Kota Sawaki, but I cannot verify that. But the interviewer asked, what would you do about the crisis in the Middle East? And the teacher said, I would like to cover the entire Middle East with an okesa. This is an okesa, Buddha's robe. I would like to cover the entire Middle East within Okesa. And I heard that and I was like, what? P.S. That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. It just tried to sound all Zen. Rubbish. I rejected that. But I still remember it. Somehow it went in. These are how koans work, okay? It became a koan for me. And these days, I'm like, yep, let's do it.

[31:17]

It hasn't been tried yet. I feel like I get it now. I would like to cover the entire Middle East with an okay, sir. I'd like to do whatever I can to foster and remind us all that we enter our, that we are connected. It's unavoidable, just like this scroll. I'm so happy this is here. I already talked about it before the scroll was hanging. My favorite part of my favorite book, Monkey, Journey to the West. There he is, there's Monkey. And there's a big hand up there, Buddha's hand. Buddha said, how far can you fly? Monkey said. to the end of the universe. He said, okay, climb into my hand and jump. And he jumps and he goes, shh, [...]

[32:43]

And he takes some hairs out of his tail and makes a magic calligraphy brush. And he writes, monkey, what's here? On one of the pillars. I wish I knew what these scriptures say. I tried to find that many different notes. And then he walks up to another pillar and relieves himself. And then he jumps back. And he comes back and he lands back in Buddha's hand. And he said, well, how about that? Impressive, huh? And so he said, look at my hand. And the bottom of one finger, there's a little graffiti. This monkey was here. Bottom of the other finger, there's a little wet spot. He got a left. And it's like that. I love that story. Because that's how it is. That's how it is. You know? Letting go of it all on each exhale.

[33:44]

On each inhale. Back where we started. Right there. Always, always, always. So, thank you for your attention. I talked a long time. It's almost 11 o'clock. It's supposed to be done, right? Let's do it. All right, Joe has the microphone. If you're in the Zendo, you can raise your hand to ask a question or make a comment. And if you're on Zoom, please raise your digital hand. Thank you, Greg. This is Mark. You talked about practical Buddhism. That sounds really good to me. I know Soji would also often say, Zazen is good for nothing.

[34:46]

And I wonder if you could bring forth that side of things, too. Yeah. You know, because I kind of thought that story about the interview covering the Middle East entire, with a very big oquesa, I thought that must have been Kota Zawaki. So, I was trying to find out. I'd come through a lot of Kurosawaki stuff, material, teachings from him that Zen teacher might admire very much. Of course, that's what Kurosawaki used to say. Yeah. He would say, Zen is good for nothing. Then he'd also say, and until you realize it's good for nothing, it's really good for nothing. You know, Sawakti Roshi, Sojun Roshi, Suzuki Roshi, Ehei Dogen, all of them had a big emphasis on not attaching to outcome, like Meili.

[35:59]

Meili's motto, devotedly do without attaching to outcomes. So that's what that's pointing to. Don't get excited about what you're going to get out of Zen. And it can be a little tricky because guess what? You will get a lot of good things out of practicing Zen. You definitely will. I guarantee it. You're going to be calmer. You're going to be more receptive. You're going to be able to access these brahma vianas. You're going to get a felt sense. in your body that were not separate. That's not made up. That's just words I'm saying. I'm talking about actual experience. What you experience in your body. But you can't attach to it. You know? If you have a big enlightening experience, you know, you go to the teacher and say, whoa, this is brilliant.

[37:03]

Everything is everything. Whoa! You know? Any teacher worth their salt is going to be like, okay, good. Keep practicing. Go wash your bowl. Just do the next thing. Don't grasp it. Or Silden Rush might also say, don't be caught by it. I used to say that a lot. Thanks, Greg. That was beautiful. I wanted to ask you about formalist repentance. I've been looking at the , and he virtually equates practice with repentance, confession, and repentance.

[38:09]

And that really struck me. And it seems to me that that's I understand exactly what you're talking about in my mind. That's how it seemed to me. Yeah. And so, the question is how to return again and again to formal symptoms? So, we practice, actively practice, two kinds of repentance in solo Zen. We come together as a community, for example, really good example, full moon ceremony, and we have formal repentance. You know, we put our hands in God's show. And we chant, oh, my ancient tangled karma, from beginningless greed, hate, and delusion, born through body, speech, and mind, I now fully avow. Pretty formal, you know.

[39:10]

Say it out loud. Own your stuff. Don't be afraid of or run away from the shadow. Sajiki's coming up. Halloween. Sajiki. This is all about acknowledging the shadow. And acknowledging that we're human beings. Duncan said, the life of a sense student is one continuous mistake. Just like own it. That's formal repentance. Formless repentance is, well, I think Dogen got it from the Lotus Sutra, Chapter 2, I believe. It says, if you want to repent, the Buddha says, if you want to repent, just sit upright. Yeah, it says that.

[40:12]

Sit upright, depending on the translation. Something like, all sins will melt away like frost or dew in the sunshine. There's nothing to do. When you sit zazen. This is formless repentance. This is on the exhale, letting it all go. On the inhale, brand new person. new life, rebirth, over and over again, coming back to tabula rasa, blank slate, you know, our original nature. And as far as how to come back, well, you know, I'm going to say something, I'm in my land kind of goofy, but let Buddha do that.

[41:13]

Trust. Trust Buddha to do that. Meaning, your awakened mind. Your Buddha mind. Trust that. It will. It will. Yeah. Sojan Roshi said, like maybe, I don't know, hundreds of times, trust your practice. Trust your practice. So yeah. Don't worry about it. There's some hands up online. There's a lot of people I know online. Hey, everybody online. Zoom world. Yeah, go ahead, Ed. They'll hear you if you put that on. There. Can you hear me? I think I hear somebody else, too. Not here. Anyway, thank you very much for your talk. I... I really appreciated you reading and chanting Meili's Prayer.

[42:17]

And I just want to say that we chant that every day at our Buddhist election retreat. This year we're going to Carson City, Nevada. And every morning we sit, but we also chant that Meili's Prayer, and it always moves me. And so I just want to thank you for sharing that with everybody. Thank you, Ed. Our peace in the world is a result of our work for justice. Absolutely. Absolutely. All kinds of greed. That's right. Thank you. And I think Sue Osher is in the Zoom house. Hi. It's so good to hear you talk and see you. Can you hear me okay? I hear you great, Sue. Okay, great. Let me see if I can lower my hand. Okay. Echoing what Ed said, I am so grateful that you reminded us of May Lee and the Meta prayer.

[43:23]

And I did read part of it when I was at the internment of Gordon's Ashes in the Adirondack Cemetery. And I think that most people I never got any feedback about it, and I think it probably may not have been appropriate, but I needed to read it. It was really special to hear it again, and I also hope that people who want to print it out know that they can go to the Berkeley Zen Center website in the drop-down menu under Teachings, and you can scroll down under Chance. and print it out possibly. I find it really helpful to have it with me. So, thank you very much. Thank you. I should also add that although I did work closely with Meili, she was an important practice leader for me in my early times here at Berkeley Zen Center.

[44:34]

My very own Ryushin, Andrea, It's like, yeah, it's so tragic. After Dharma Transmission, and Meili was getting this beautiful practice center going in Arcata in the far north of California, and she was taken away from us. And Andrea Ryushin was one of only eight people who received the precepts from Meili. Is that correct? I don't know the number, but I was fortunate to be with you. It's a small number. So is there anything you'd like to say about Maylee? I'm sure there are a lot of us in here who could speak to her qualities as a teacher, but part of what stood out to me about her was her steadiness

[45:37]

willing to receive anything without adding an eye and her ability to see people deeply, a layer down from what they were presenting and respond to it in a very direct and unafraid way. Great. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Well said. Well said. Another thing I meant to mention for me was, you know, I'm kind of a junior feminist. I'm trying. I'm trying to be a feminist. And mainly really impressed me as being completely free of any gender stereotype, any kind of gender role or internalized patriarchy. None of it. Completely free. It made a very big impression on me. Yeah.

[46:44]

Yeah. Thanks. Thank you, Jane. I'm curious. First off, I appreciate you talking about Maylee because I really don't know much about her except that it's a name I hear a lot around BCC. And listening to you talk about her, I'm curious if she ever spoke to, I guess when I think about a protest, like the most conventional ways our culture tends to think of protests are, I think they're separate. There's us versus them, and we don't like what you're doing, we want you to change, kind of energy can be common. I'm curious if Meili spoke to that in a different way or related to what a protest is in a way that ties to what you were talking about meta and Yeah, yeah, absolutely she did. Absolutely. Like Martin Luther King, you know, with doing this practice.

[47:53]

Yeah, I, it actually makes it difficult to other people. You do this practice enough. You could have a hard time trying to slip into othering people, maybe like a little one-on-one interactions, you know, that person, you know, and you notice that and it passes, but like segments of populations, yeah, I don't see that happening. I don't see a whole lot of that going on with my friends in the Dharma, you know? Yeah. Even with the very difficult ones, which, We're going to talk about how you practice better. How you practice with the very difficult ones. Absolutely. Mele came from a place of the non-dual Dharma. She came from a place of we inter are. And that, you know, the suffering of one is the suffering of all of us. That's it.

[48:56]

I see you over there, Joe. Shouldn't you be picking up the striker? And you pick up the striker that I know, but we've talked a lot about it. A couple questions on Zoom. Oh, a couple questions on Zoom. I'm sorry, right here in front of me. Oh, yeah, Karen. Thank you, Greg. I just wanted to add two more things about Meili. We have... women's sashines once or twice a year, which many of us have taken for granted now. But back in the old days, we didn't have this. And Maylee Scott was leading the crusade to have them. And it was a very difficult struggle. It met with much resistance. So we have heard a thank for that, along with a bunch of other women. And also once or twice a week, she would go park herself on the tracks at the Concord Naval Station and with others protest the nuclear weapons or some weapon thing.

[50:25]

I forget exactly what it was, but some people didn't think that Zen and social activism. Had. a necessary relationship. And so this was also something she brought that was not received. It took Sojin a while to get on board with that. Although I have to say, even though he protested, after she died and stopped being like the voice of it, he took up where she left off somewhat. So he started speaking out too. Mm-hmm. Quite an influence. Definitely. Definitely. And Clay also has stand-up. Hello? I also, can you hear me? Yes. Great. I also remember Maile well.

[51:28]

So I became disabled by a very painful spine condition. In the late 1990s. And I was in my home. Housebound for. A time. And she used to come and visit me. And we would practice together. Meditate. Talk. You know. It was just a very. Difficult transition. And. The thing that I remember most was. She just was able to face suffering. So completely indirectly. And by her facing my suffering, by just looking at me and accepting me and encouraging me, she allowed me to face my own suffering.

[52:19]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_71.51