So I'm going to introduce myself. My name is Sue Osher. I've been here since 1990. I was lay ordained with Sojin Roshi. We had a really great crop of Ordinese in 1995. Every crop of Ordinese would say that about their cohort. got to be the head student in 2003 when we, after Sojin Roshi died and we came back from COVID closure, somewhat closure. And Hosan Roshi led that practice period and I got to help him a bit. So I've been around a long time. I don't know if I'm going to say anything else, that's probably enough. So before I speak about my topic of, believe it or not, emptiness, which is a very important part of our Buddhist understanding, it's a non-duality, I'll go into it a bit more and hope that you all will help me with that topic.

[01:19]

I want to just certainly say that what's very present for many of us is the fact that our abbot Hosanna Roshi died. Alan Sanaki, his picture's up there. And on December 22nd, his family, he and Mori, was here and his children were raised here. And this house of Buddha was all of our house of Buddha and I think their connection with everybody really helped it make us everybody's house. I just wanted to acknowledge that. Okay. So today I'm just going to bridge to my topic.

[02:23]

with this little memory of, and we will have opportunities to remember Hosan, I think tomorrow night, as a group on Zoom at seven. If you do that, enter the Zendo. That won't be in person, will it? No, just on Zoom. Okay. So, that's another opportunity to speak about him. The day after he died, He was living in the abbot's office which is the room right across from the zendo here on the lawn. His body was washed and prepared and put into a casket and flower-strewn and dressed in his abbot's robe and brought into the zendo and lay in the center. we had the opportunities to sit with him for a day and many people came in and out and there were ceremonies but a lot of it was just quiet sitting and an opportunity to offer flowers or perhaps touch his hand, you know?

[03:41]

So it's been hitting us off and on deeply and I just want to say I'm so glad to see all of you here, and Happy New Year. I mean, it's an odd combination, but really, Happy New Year, including everything. That's our practice, including everything. And I think many of us, when we were sitting quietly with Hamzong, we thought of the rope jam, especially seeing his body, him, in the rope. the robe chant, great robe of liberation, filled far beyond, form and emptiness, wearing them to Tataka's teaching, saving all beings. It's profound. So many things are profound sometimes, and sometimes we're just gone through the motions, but then

[04:51]

Deepness, vastness, boundlessness opens in. I think that when somebody dies, or we've had a great loss, maybe we're more open to that boundlessness. So, let me see how much of this talk, I'll get through and still be writing it. No, don't do that. So what happened was, I've been in a study group with 10 of us, a Zoom study group led by Karen Sunheim, who's our board president and also sitting in the back. And for many years, And we meet by Zoom monthly.

[05:54]

And lately we're wrestling with a book, well, with a teaching, actually. Could be several books, but what we've been wrestling with. This is trying to help me remember things. It's called The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way, Nagarjuna's Mula Madhyamaka Karika, and the translation and commentary are by Jay Garfield. So you get to hear some of my thoughts about that and I think it's important. And being in the group last November or last May of 2024, it occurred to me how much I wanted to share this amazing group with the whole Sangha. Not that it's more amazing than any other group. I'm only in that one right now.

[06:54]

But people are in classes. The classes are available to everyone. Some people are in study groups. And there's a connection. Again, Hozon's Great Strength is connecting. That was really important. Stay connected. And this does it. You know, studying with people. So we marvel, all of us marvel that we still have not finished this book after five years. You know, it's sort of like mind boggled by it. Maybe some people might be ashamed. I'm sort of proud of it. And I think Karen Marbles said we even agreed to start it. But we didn't know, I did not know what we were getting in for.

[07:59]

So, I'm just deeply grateful to this experience. And so, when our outgoing scheduler of speakers, Ross Blum, said, okay, who's, ask senior students and priests who's gonna Who wants to give a talk on Saturday, you know, certain dates? And I thought, well, I really want to share about my group. And so I said, yes, I'll do it. Because I do. But what I realized after that, as I dropped into a total hole of hell, was that you actually have to talk about something. Not just, isn't this great? It's not good enough. So... I've been going in and out of this for weeks, and we've all been going in and out of a whole heck of a lot of stuff here. And I'm sure that's true for our lives, everybody's lives inside and outside the gate.

[09:02]

I want to thank Libby Potter, who's on the screen, I think. Where are you, Libby? There you are. Thank you. She came over twice to my house and helped me. So you'll find people giving talks here who are incredibly experienced and just really talk and it's wonderful. And then you'll find people just fighting their way into the talk. So I make this as an offer to you to open your hearts to your own practice, whether you're brand new and welcome to those who are brand new here or whether you're reopening your beginner's mind. I was talking to my daughter about, or my sister, about doing this talk.

[10:06]

And she said, why don't you look up chat beep or AI and get a talk from that? And I tried. It wasn't, I didn't even know how to do that, you know, when my daughter explained how to go to Chet and GBT. And there was something, that a summary, you know, that was helpful, so let me just, it's a little short thing here that I copied. Nagarjuna's middle way, the Madhyamaka, is a central philosophical concept in Mahayana Buddhism that he elaborated in his seminal work, the Mula Madhyamaka Karika, fundamental verses of the middle way. The middle way refers to a path of wisdom that avoids the extremes of nihilism, that is, denying existence altogether. Like you can't prove anything exists, so therefore nothing matters.

[11:11]

You know, some of you may have had a little philosophical understanding of that. And the other extreme of eternalism, asserting that things have an inherent, unchanging essence. Nagarjuna developed this idea as a way to understand the nature of reality, emphasizing emptiness or shunyata as the key to understanding the interdependent and transient nature of all phenomena. So that sort of rings even to this former preschool teacher as a true, interesting, nuanced statement. But then, let me just get back to the real guy. Now, Nagarjuna lived in the first or second century CE. He was an Indian Buddhist monk, teacher, philosopher, and influenced He is an ancestor of ours, very important, that I never knew about until this class, the study group.

[12:19]

So I guess we all need support to do many things in our lives, and this is one of them that I needed. Nagarjuna writes in four-line verses, with 10 to 25 verses for each chapter. And so he has... different titles like conditions, fuel, life and death, the Four Noble Truths. So there's these sort of basic Buddhist things that over the years I could connect with that kind of understanding. And his style is called dialectical criticism, I guess, dialect, for those of you who, dialectics, for those of you who've taken philosophy, maybe you would understand that better, and our retired philosophy professor can chime in with any corrections or additions whenever she wishes.

[13:30]

So Garfield translates all these verses I hadn't even looked at the structure of this book until Libby reminded me about it. And it's like, oh, now that I'm looking at this again, there's something opening up for me. So I think that a lot of you're hanging out here in this community, you see things newly, freshly. Oh, new understanding. So it's very exciting. So he then translates all of the lines and then he goes into each line with commentaries in the second part of the book. And so, of course, it's taken us five years and we're not done yet. Just want to give you a sense of Garfield. He's a Tibetan Buddhist, a practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism. He's a scholar and a translator and a really bright guy.

[14:36]

I have no connection with him or with Nagarjuna. And this life is very different from what either of those, how Nagarjuna lived and thought, and how I live and think. But we make those, again, it's the concept of connections. We're connecting with our ancestors, and some of us need a group to be able to do that. So, I'll give you a little taste of it. I'm going to read two versions of the dedicatory verses. And every time we meet, we read Garfield's version of the dedicatory verse. It's short. We also recently, well, I'll talk about that later, maybe. Here's the first Garfield's translation. I prostrate to the perfect Buddha, the best of teachers, who taught that whatever is dependently arisen is unceasing, unborn, unannihilated, not permanent, not coming, not going, without distinction, without identity, and free from conceptual construction.

[15:51]

So, the dialectics of these verses are that he has an opponent. You know, he postulates an opponent. And the verses in the first part of each chapter are his opponent's views. And the verses at the end are his interpretation. Now, for those of you who have that kind of legalistic, perhaps, or philosophical, academic mind, please go for it. You will love it. He says, Garfield says, his assertions are not, they're not ordinary. They're not dependent upon conventions, so it's hard to understand. Nagarjuna will deny that it is possible to assert anything from the ultimate standpoint.

[16:56]

He will urge that all truth is relative and conventional. In fact, as we shall see, each pair is significant in its own right. To say whatever is dependently arisen is unceasing and unborn, is to emphasize that dependent arising amounts to emptiness, and emptiness amounts to nonexistence in the ultimate sense. But Nagarjuna defends the conventional existence of phenomena. Anyway, so this is the kind of thing that we get into and some of which sticks in my head and some of it mostly not. But the meaning at each time has an impact on understanding my own life. Briefly, the other translation is by Thich Nhat Hanh and this book is called Cracking the Walnut. We just recently People started really raving about it.

[17:59]

And I eventually, after I borrowed Mary Duvier's, I bought my own copy. And it's a beautiful book. I'm being distracted now, but that's what I did. This is a beautiful book. It is a joy to hold and to open. And reading it at random, I just hit over and over. And I think people find that when they read many Buddhist books like, oh, you know, and then you're left in one sentence or one paragraph and then you carry that around with you and it shows up and hits you beside the head over and over again, if I can talk that way. But here's Cracking the Walnut version. Thich Nhat Hanh, who many of you know and have read, is a Zen master. who died recently. All phenomena the Buddha taught arise due to causes and conditions, also known as conditioned co-arising.

[19:04]

And this chapter looks deeply into this matter. We may already have a notion about conditioned co-arising, but our notion may be naive and largely mistaken. These verses help us to free ourselves from our notions. Unborn and undying, neither permanent nor annihilated, neither the same nor different, neither coming nor going. The Buddha thus proclaims conditioned co-arising that puts an end to all speculation. I bow down to him, the supreme and excellent teacher. So what? That's... That could be a question, you know, because it's just out of the blue here for so many of us. So what?

[20:09]

I'm going to say so what in a little bit. Nagarjuna understands emptiness. as meaning empty of inherent existence. Inherent existence is the fixed, unchanging, independent essence of something. For example, a tree. We, and I have said this, ah, there is a tree. What? You know, my husband said that. Look at the trees. They are beautiful. They are not. My connection with the trees is profound. Where's the tree? Where's the essence? What is tree? You take the acorn and you cut it up and there's no, you can't find it. You know the tree needs soil and water and clean air and there's no separate tree.

[21:23]

There's nothing independent. Everything, everything. is dependent. But this emptiness is dangerous. The Buddhists would argue with Nagarjuna in the first and second century that emptiness is a dangerous philosophy. They say, you're saying there's no morality, there's no three jewels, there's no three treasures, there's no Four Noble Truths because it's not, there's no essence of it. You can't cut open and find Buddha or Dharma or Sangha. There's no separate entity.

[22:26]

Everything is dependent. And sometimes that's pretty mind-boggling, it seems obvious, but also pretty mind-boggling. There was something I learned to read from Cracking the Walnut, I'm 75 here. I'll just read a couple of these verses. So the opponents are saying, if everything is empty, unborn, undying, the teaching on the four normal truths cannot exist. And then another verse, if the Dharma and Sangha jewels don't exist, there is no Buddha jewel. Therefore, the teachings on emptiness undermine the three jewels. The teachings undermine the teaching of causality, as well as that of merit and demerit.

[23:37]

It also undermines worldly conventions, you know, like courtesy, kindness. This is what I hear, have heard in some churches that I visited, or lectures from spiritual teachers, you know, this is, you believe this way or the highway, you know, you're wrong. This is how you do it. There's one way to do it right. And what Nagarjuna says and what I'm still plumbing the depths of and will never succeed is, you really do not understand emptiness and the reasons for teaching emptiness. You do not understand the meaning of emptiness and so are troubled by it. And I was deeply troubled preparing this talk.

[24:44]

Because of the fixed view of a self. And I probably will continue to be troubled by fixed view of self. We're human. We don't have a vast perspective of boundlessness, or at least it's there, but we access it occasionally, some of us. But I am not an expert in this topic. I'm just exploring this. I wanted to share some of my experience of exploring it, but it just impacts me deeply whether or not you want to, you know, explore this particular book or not. Just the point is the process. This stuff impacts daily life. Mary, can you tell me how much time we have left?

[25:50]

Because I could go on for a very too long. It's quarter too long. Oh good. There will be tea and cookies. Wow, good. So to talk about self. I recently, well, I was in a solstice reunion gathering and a woman said we were sharing, we have movement, we have song, we have It's sort of fun. It's a gathering of people who've been around for decades in movement, dance, you know, central motion. And one of the women said, I know who I am. I know who I am. And I'm so happy. And it's like, I actually, didn't particularly like the person.

[26:52]

I was really happy that she was happy because she sure was a hell of a lot easier to be with. And I hope it lasts. I mean that's true for all of us. You know how like your teenager suddenly is happy and the whole world expands in joy and somebody finds a way to manage their life where it's productive and you know life is easier to be around that way and there's a hell of a lot of things going on in the world that aren't happy and how do we deal with that and support it and be a benefit to all beings because that's our vow so anyway she does this group and i can listen to her that's that's what i was up to And I can remember when I found the answer to a problem with my kids or my husband.

[27:56]

And it was really great because it really worked for a while. You know, I felt like a good mother or a good wife. And then that sort of faded away. So what do we do? We come as Buddhists. Everything changes. That's the first noble truth. Everything changes. And that change and our clinging to how we want it to be is suffering. It's discontent. There is pain in life, but we do have suffering. And our perspective, our sense of self, I could see, especially preparing this talk, what is this that is so, I'm so scared. Like my blood pressure just went up.

[28:58]

What's that about? I'm not sure I can tell you. But at moments the perspective would expand and I wasn't paying attention to that. And everything was just fine until it closed in again. promising anything with this understanding, but I do think we developed wisdom with this practice. What Sajin used to tell me when I came into practice discussion, Dokusan, you know, it's like, oh, listen, this is really a great idea. I understand this. And he said, maybe so. And I thought he was agreeing with me. Well, he might have been. But it was also, I think, and I probably was oblivious to most of his pointers over the years, maybe so, and maybe not. We have a limited view.

[30:00]

Our perspectives can always expand. I do hope. I don't know what it is after you die, but what I wish in this 49-day morning for Hosan is the rest and joy and peace. I don't know if that's possible because, you know, he's going back to component parts, but whatever. I don't know what happens, but I wish, you know, there's some sense of a broad vastness there. when this body is done. So one of the sections of the Middle Way is the examination of self and entities. So that was one of those things while I was preparing this, I'm like, ah, aha, I want to share this.

[31:07]

So maybe it'll be useful. One who does not grasp onto I and mine, that one does not exist. One who does not grasp onto I and mind, he does not perceive. And then verse 4, when views of I and mine are extinguished, whether with respect to the internal or external, the appropriator ceases. birth ceases. This means it's not that we don't exist and there's not conventional reality. It's just, to me, a way of holding it more lightly. And there are people in this room who have a much better understanding of this kind of teaching than I ever will.

[32:07]

So, when one completely relinquishes the view, Jake Garfield comments, It relinquishes the view of entities and the self as inherently existent, like I am. Well, yes, you are. And when all habits of reification have been eliminated, and I learned that reification means when you're clinging to a fixed view. That's, you know, a lot of suffering comes from that. When all habits of reification have been eliminated, Nagarjuna urges liberation from cyclic existence and suffering have been achieved. So, it's the sense, and probably you've all had it, where you can let go sometimes of something you're just ruminating about, and it's still a bugger, and then something happens, and you can let go of it, and it's like, well, where did that go?

[33:19]

I've been cultivating that resentment for years, you know, what do I do now? Do you know what I mean? So I don't think I can explain this more deeply, but we'll still persist. Many of you probably have this experience where you've done this over and over and you're just, you don't know the way out. And then there's a moment where you realize you can be gentle with yourself and how important that is. That's something Hozon really promoted and many teachers who do. Be gentle with yourself. And out of that comes solutions or just a way to go on, just go on. You know, I worked really hard on this campaign or my project failed.

[34:25]

So take the next step. In a talk in August of 2020, Sojin said that one of the three doors of liberation is emptiness. Emptiness is what the Heart Sutra is about. All created things or dharmas are empty of their own being. Everything is dependent on everything else. There is no eternal solid essence. How do we practice this? He said we are contained within our circumstances. We can experience being trapped or experience them as doorways to liberation. Sotin said we put ourselves in jail and then he said that we free ourselves. And those doorways are everywhere. And I'm having a logistical moment. Here it is. So one of the moments was I opened my mail before the end of the year, and there was this beautiful card from the Berkeley Zen Center from our board president and our abbot, Hosong.

[35:49]

It was New Year's greetings. It was just for a good year and an opportunity to donate money. You know, people can donate lots of things. And what was such a gift also was the metasuta phrase. You know, it just hits you sometimes. Sometimes you just chant it and you don't pay any attention. Standing or walking, sitting or lying down, During all my waking hours, may I practice the way with gratitude, not holding to fixed views, endowed with insight, freed from sense appetites. One who achieves the way will be free from the duality of birth and death. This practice is about liberation, but it's not anything you can imagine. How much time?

[36:59]

I don't know how much longer I should do this. Three minutes to 11. Okay. A couple things I want to do before I open this up to comments and questions. How does this apply to your own life? What is it you do helpful you know whether it's maybe finding out another way to do things and one way to do that is and also organize your life that was a big one that Sojin used to say you're going to sign up for practice period to organize your life and here's what you do here's the schedule align it with your own calendar and show up so show up here if that's what you

[38:00]

think you want to do, you've got to schedule it. And this is my participation pitch, which I can't resist. One way to explore your fixed view of yourself, I think, is to sign up for a practice position. Is that right? So I've told this before, but I used to love serving and I was asked to be head server and I said yes. And the first time I was going to do it, I burst into tears. And I did it. Anyway, I mean, we get trained to do these positions. You watch and see what other people are doing. If you're coming for a Saturday program and you go for the whole program, Do it, you know, first period is I was in at 6 a.m., and then there's another period, and then there's service, and then there's breakfast.

[39:07]

And talk about changing your fixed view of yourself. Learn oreo-ki meals, right? It's like, oh, I got through, I survived a mistake, and nobody shamed me, right? We're just glad you're here. And the people who are cooking sure want to have you eat and help wash dishes and all that. So I used to tell Sojan, I said, this place is like a big preschool or playpen, you know, you just keep finding things to participate with. I don't want to read about that. I don't even know if I want to read that. So, Linda, you read at Sojin's memorial last Saturday. You were the one who read the poem, Like Water. And Greg, thank you for sending it to me.

[40:11]

I think I have to read it if there's time after we do comments and questions. And if there isn't This can get posted on the bulletin boards because it's really cool. Oh, it is there? Okay, then go read it. So it's a wonderful poem about a Zen student is like water. It's our practice. Filling the container, flowing. And I love the part about, and you'll have to read this strong, Water needs strong plumbing, good pipes, so that is our practice. Anyway, let me stop. Oh, I just want to say that this book, Zen students get way too many books, and you may or may not read them, but some of them are in the library, and if you're a member, you can take them out.

[41:23]

My granddaughter looked at the book, When she came over, she was an art student, and she held it. And other people in our group, our study group, looked at it, and it was just like we went, oh! It's so beautiful. It's brown paper for, this is gonna maybe be recorded in, it won't be video, but it's brown paper with this beautiful gold, art and lettering. Very cool. And Sabrina said, oh, and she looked, and Nancy Sue will appreciate this, and she was a book dealer. The small publisher and the paper and, you know, you don't have to even read it, right? You can just hold it. Okay, I give up.

[42:24]

Okay, I need that. Yes, Peter Overton and Colleen, if you would like to see. Thank you for introducing us to this text. Okay, so did everybody see this? This is pretty good. It's official. Okay, can you hold on a second? Just for those online. Holding this microphone is one of the hardest parts of Zen practice. It turns out that I have a relationship with this book as well. Someone recommended it to me. I think it was Andrea. I have been reading it every day. And I don't read a lot, but I find myself reading it every day.

[43:40]

And we'll see what happens. Keep us informed. That might be an article for the newsletter or for the listserv, right? A little comment on how it's going. Okay, thank you, Peter. Colleen was next. Marley, did you have your hand up? Okay, after calling, we'll give our Saturday director, our co-Saturday director, some exercise with the microphone. Okay, how's this? Perfect. Okay, can you guys hear what's being said on the microphone? Yes, thumbs up. Okay. I just want to thank you, Sue. I love you. I love your Sue-ness, and thanks for showing up as you. And how are you now? Oh, I've been having a good time. Off and on. I don't hear your breath anymore, so I'm wondering what transformation has happened as you spoke to us.

[44:43]

Well, I was reminded before the talk that this is an offering which helps get out of the head. That's what I forgot to do. Oh, well, okay. Yes, thank you. Get into the body. And I don't get into the body, but we put ourselves in the place where the being in the body and breath arises. It's not like you make yourself do it, but you do enough stuff where that is practiced and it arises. Okay. Thank you. Okay. And before I, after Marley, I should see if there's, Blake, can you help me with this? See if there's anybody with their hands up who wants to talk online. Okay, but let's hear from Marley. Hi. Hi. Marley here. Sue, thank you for bringing up what happens to be one of my very favorite texts in Buddhism.

[45:56]

and for bringing your very honest response to it, and keeping it down to earth, because that's the point it is, I'm down to earth. Down to earth, Marlee's saying that it's her favorite, your favorite, it's actually a model. Your favorite text, I mean somebody, oh my god. I'm weird, but what I will say, Maybe what I will share in this down to earth the way as I can is why. In this down to earth the way as I can is why. I think when I first encountered it, I ran into a verse or two about how if things weren't empty, if we were fixed and we just had one thing, we were an essence. It'd be frozen, stuck. We couldn't change or be changed by the things we do or encounter.

[47:01]

But how fortunate that we can be changed and change one another by the people and things we encounter, including your talk. Thank you for your insight. Yeah, I mean, we all need to have understanding this stuff. Yeah. Let's see. Do I see any hands up? I can't tell. Here, you look because your eyes are better. Are they? And I do would love to hear from some of the folks in the class, or the study group, if they would like to share. They don't have to. No hands on the... I see my study group mates in there, you know, so. Yes, I forget your name, I'm sorry. Jeff. Jeff, of course, thank you. You mentioned that Sojin Roshi said that MDS was one of the three doors to liberation.

[48:01]

I was wondering if you could share that or two. No. I actually forget. I'm not good on that. There are a number of people, probably priests who know that. Help me out. The three doors of liberation. One is emptiness. Buddhism has a lot of numbers, right? Three jewels, four double twos. Go ahead, give me some more. So I apologize. Maybe you could look it up and let me know. This is really embarrassing. It's not even embarrassing. It's just so typical. Okay.

[49:01]

Okay. Well, it's been really fun having you all in the Buddha Dharma Sangha Playgroup. Do I have time to read this poem, if I can find it? Okay. It really hit me when you read it at Sojin's memorial service. Like water. Someone asked me, what is the practice of a Zen student? I said, like water. Water always seeks the lowest place. It comes with gravity. It takes the shape of whatever boundaries it meets. Sometimes it looks like a cup or an ocean, the sweat on your hands, the snot in your nose, clouds, raindrops, lifeblood, constantly flowing in and out of your body.

[50:08]

We meet it with plumbing, strong pipes with tight joints, Water is truth. Plumbing must be honest. Water can't be fooled. Water makes everything truthful. That is its pure activity. Sometimes it appears as swine or poison or tears. It goes through infinite transformations. When it dries out, it appears somewhere else. It is never lost or gone. It is purified by coursing through rocks and boulders. Water is drawn to the rarefied realms by the sun. Gravity pulls it to earth. It has the qualities of spirit and matter. Water becomes vapor, becomes cloud, retreats from earth, loses its shapes. Let's go, returns to the dusty realms to nourish all beings.

[51:14]

as drops, mud, hailstones, snow, dew. The monk is called unsui, clouds and water. The unsui sits upright, doesn't lean right or left, backward or forward, gravity pulling down with all its force, spirit rising with all its strength. Mind open, vast a space, the life force blooming like a flower. equilibrium of all the forces and powers, the unconditioned realm in the midst of all conditions. The lowest place is the highest place. The shape of the cloud and water person is determined by the direction of the wind. Water has no special shape or form. It responds to prayers. Its love pervades everywhere and is not limited by self-interest. Eno said, says, that one is like the sun, shining its light in all directions, illuminating the way, facing challenges, not turning away from difficulties, with purity like a lotus in muddy water.

[52:30]

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