Master at us in the trading and perfect dharma. Good morning. Good morning. It's great to see you all. This is Jean, one day sitting here in the Zendo, and we have a full house. It's a lot of people and also quite a number of newer people, or at least people that I wish, I hope that I will get to know them.

[01:04]

get to know you, and then there's a good crowd of people out there online. Yes? We are... I thought we were... Let's see. Yes, we are. We are recording. Okay. Thank you. Voice from beyond. That's... You know, in Japanese Buddhism, you have self-power schools of Buddhism and other power schools of Buddhism. That was just the other power. Actually, that was the other power in my household. That was Laurie. So, since I've spoken to you last... ...come out, which I'm going to speak from. published by Shambhala.

[02:06]

It's called Turning Birds, Transformative Encounters with Buddhist Teachers. I'm not sure if it's backwards to you online or it's okay. Anyway, these are basically things that I've heard or seen or encountered over the number of decades of practice, and it includes people who are actually here, people who are online, people who used to, like Sojin, who used to occupy this seat, and stories about actual encounters with them. So I'm going to speak from two of them and weave them together for you. today as a way of really encouraging the depth of your practice, both your practice here in Segin, but broadly the function of our practice, which is to harmonize our lives and harmonize the world.

[03:30]

It's not just about what happens in this room, although this room is a really good place to encounter ourselves. So the first story, I'm going to read it and then maybe interject some things. So in the autumn of 1992, about 40 of us, mostly from across Asia, took the night train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, freezing in the excessively air-conditioned train, eventually arriving in a northern city at dawn. Vans took us to Wat Oumong, which is called

[04:36]

tunnel temple at the foot of to the west of the city. This was my first trip to Thailand and the first international network of engaged Buddhist conference that I had gone to. The friends that I traveled with and that I've met there have been brothers and sisters ever since, since going back. more than 30 years. An aging monk, diminutive and somewhat androgynous, took center stage in his orange robes. He spoke briskly. The smile on his face was audible. This was the first time I had heard Mahagosananda, the Cambodian patriarch in exile, first time I'd heard him teach.

[05:38]

Later I met Bhante Gosananda numerous times throughout the 1990s, both at conferences and in the Bay Area. Bhante Gosananda traveled alone, and his students and supporters often did not know where he was going. From time to time, sometimes someone would call and ask if I'd seen Ponte. We think he's headed to San Francisco. And he would show up in a day or two, completely calm, laughing easily, walking, and floating about two inches above the ground, always moving forward. So back to Chiang Mai. in 1992. Mahagosananda made himself comfortable sitting on stage.

[06:42]

He beamed at the assembly and asked, what is the most important thing? He called on young monks, on elders, on IMF notables. And it occurs to me, why didn't I do that? What's the most important thing? Does someone want to... If you know that answer from the story, don't say it, but please, tell me what you think the most important thing is. Come on. Dan? To be thoroughly present. Thank you. Susan? Showing up. Showing up. Come here. Let me start.

[07:43]

Compassion. Compassion. Anyone online? Love. Yeah, go ahead. Love. Love. Okay. Anyone else in here? Try. But I say every answer. he would, this is what he would do. And there were some very senior practitioners in there, senior monks in there. Anyone else? Yasu. Lunch. Okay. Couple online, Phil and Carol. Philip. The present moment. The present moment. And Ron. Phil said, now. Now. Okay.

[08:44]

Anyone else? Carol, go ahead. Okay. Follow your inner voice. Follow your inner voice. Good. These are really good. Not right, but they're really good. Mahagosananda. Your original self. The original self. Wait, that's your second answer, right? So make up your mind. So each person there threw out a good answer with a disappointed nod of the head. This went on for 20 minutes. It was a long time. And finally Bhante said, Sue got the closest. The most important thing is eating. So just take that in for a moment.

[09:47]

I'm going to explain more. So Mangos Nanda wrote a little book, which I don't know if it's still in print, It's called Step by Step, and Parallax Press published it years ago, actually, I think 1993. And Mahagosananda explains, Life is eating and drinking through all and life is keeping from being eaten. What eats us? Time. What is time? Time is living in the past or the future, feeding on the emotions. This is the pivotal sentence to me.

[10:51]

Beings who can say they are mentally healthy for even one minute in this world, Beings who can say they are mentally healthy for even one minute are rare in this world. Most of us suffer from clinging to pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral feelings, and thirst. Most living beings have to eat and drink every second through their eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin, and nerves. We eat 24 hours a day without stopping. We crave food for the body, food for feeling, food for volitional action, and food for rebirth.

[11:55]

We are what we eat. We are the world. and we eat the world. So, we're always eating. This is the nature of our mind. It's never without some activity, some taking in, whether it's thinking or feeling and usually we're driven by time so today you know we're sitting here and we're in a timeless space and yet i doubt there's one person that

[13:02]

has not spent or will not spend a moment at least thinking, when is the bell going to ring? You know, when is this going to stop and go on and do something else? Often we think, you know, we come here in some peculiar way because We understand this is really important and wonderful to do. We get here and we often think like, oh, this is really hard. I wish I could have some time for myself. As if this wasn't time for yourself. Who else is it for? Who else would do this crazy thing? So we are the world and we eat the world.

[14:10]

And I'm not gonna extend that metaphor out, but you could say, and we excrete the world. Time is also an eater. In traditional Cambodian stories, There's often a giant with many mouths who eats everything. That giant is time. If you eat time, you gain Nirana. You can eat time by living in the moment. Even if just in this moment, time cannot eat you. This is actually the practice of Sashin. It's living moment by moment. But be very careful.

[15:15]

This is another story in the book. You can't stay in that moment. Once I kind of offhandedly wrote something in a column with Buddhist Peace Fellowship where I was working. you know, just offhandedly as we do, I said, stay in the present. And the teacher, Nelson Foster, who's a Zen teacher at Ring of Bones Endo in the foothills of the Sierras, he called me up and said, and he said, you cannot stay anywhere. And this is what you will discover as we sit here. It's hard to see in the course of our regular life because things are moving real fast, because there are so many multiple stimuli and things that we have to deal with, things that we have to...

[16:39]

And so, sometimes the busyness, which is time, is eating us. But here, when things slow down a little bit, then we get to see the complexity of our internal life. And we try to simplify a little. We try to slow it down so that it's not so that... I would say it's not that so time isn't eating us, but also not that we're not eating time. We're just, we're actually walking side by side. We're walking along in this ever moving moment and so we are in time I often for some reason I think about a song title of things in terms of song titles but the song title that comes to mind for me right now is just in time

[18:12]

I found you just in time. Until you came, my time was... It's a great song. I was lost, losing, dice were tossed. My bridges all were crossed, nowhere to go. Just in time. This is our objective, if you will. Through this world, just in time, side by side. And we do this, you know, the wonderful thing about this practice is that we do it together. No one is doing this. So, as we sit here this morning, And every morning, every afternoon, we sit side by side, just in time.

[19:19]

And we support each other, which is very important because there's a condition Our world, there's a condition of our world that often leads us to feel alone. And that's the hardest feeling, is to be alone. And I think that part of the form of the practice is actually to manifest not aloneness, to actually support each other. We have somebody sitting on either side of us and even though they're in their own life, they're in their own body, there's a commonality of effort and intention that's mutually supportive.

[20:31]

And so we're just in time with each other and we're just in place with each other. some of us feel we really at a certain point in our life we kind of move from the stage of feeling sort of immortal to having a more acute sense of our mortality and age and I'm not saying this to be depressive, it's just like, I've come to this, I'm sure a lot of us have, and some of you are fortunately, and don't worry about it, you know, it'll, you'll get to that stage when you need to, but, you could

[21:59]

perspective on time and a different perspective on eating. What do we take in? What are the elements? What are the things that feed us and what are the things that make us feel ill? Ill in our body, ill in our mind. Breathing is a kind of eating also, of course. And now we actually have to think about what is the environment, what is the air that we're breathing? What are we doing to it? How are we toxifying it by other things that we and people are eating?

[23:04]

So I'm not proposing that eating is necessarily the most important thing. Everything that you said was really important to you at this moment. And that's the truth right there. Well, what I really appreciated about Nankosananda is that he was always ready to throw you off balance, to make you think of things from a different angle. The other thing is that he was a remarkable person. He spoke 13 languages. It happens that he was in retreat in Thailand

[24:14]

when the... took over Cambodia during the 70s. And a small number of monks who were outside the country survived. And inside Cambodia, three-quarters of the monks and the rest were forced to disrobe. So when he returned to his country, there was no monastic order. And his vision was, sometimes we think of Theravada Buddhism as, we think of it as Hinayana, you know, the lesser vehicle or the kind of personal vehicle. everything he did was for the entirety of his society.

[25:19]

And he got this idea in the 80s after being in exile that he was just going to go to the border and walk across the country. And he walked across the country in the midst of a terrible repression and that's what he did and everywhere he went he was met with love and interestingly he was met from the Khmer Rouge so you had this guy who was He was just the kind of the lightest, most ephemeral kind of that you can imagine. Once he came to visit and he wanted to give me some money that I was supposed to pass to someone else, and he was in my office at BPF and he had these robes on.

[26:34]

He looked kind of substantial, his robes, in the most innermost robe. And he kept peeling off these layers of robes, and it was like I was afraid he was going to get to the end and there was going to be nothing there. But with this ephemerality, there was some steel that led him forward. And he led, for quite a number of years, he led an annual Dharma Yitra, Dharma Walk, beginning in 1992. Actually, beginning at that, I wish I had gone on them. I knew many people who did. And they just, they walked across, they walked through Cambodia when it was still in the hands of the Khmer Rouge. And twice they got caught in crossfire.

[27:39]

Once, one of the Japanese monks who was with them on the walk actually got killed. And another time, a group of people, including a number of people that I knew from Ayaniv, were held captive by the Khmer Rouge. And Mahago Sananda had to go, met with them, talked with them, talked with the Khmer Ruch and got their release. So, he had a lot of passivity in his vision. But to come back to that beings who can say they're mentally healthy for even one minute while we are in the world.

[28:50]

This is a challenge to us. How can we do that? And I'm going to just tell briefly one other story from this that's in the book because I think it's relevant. And it happened here, in the zendo. And I've told this, I tell these stories, you've probably heard them before, this is an embarrassing function of getting older. Maybe it's like, this is my dharma, so I'm teaching it, so maybe that's good. The other thing is, maybe I'm just repeating myself and I'm in a rut. I don't know. This was in... This must have been in 1989, on a weekday evening. The Zen Do was full.

[29:55]

Sojan Roshi was in his... And Master Sheng Yan lectured from the teacher's seat. Master Sheng Yan... At that point, we were just knowing about him. He just had published his first books. And also, I think this was... I think he set up the event because Ron had been going to Sashin, some Sashins, with message again in Elmhurst, New York. As is often the case then and now, I have no recollection of his talk. And to be honest with you, often I don't even remember my own talk. Although some of them were somewhat written down, so I had notes. It was followed by questions and answers from the gathered students. Laurie asked one of those Zen questions.

[31:01]

What is the most important thing for a lay practitioner to remember? So that's like the question that Mahakosananda asked us. And Master Shenmian said, regulate your life. This reminds me of a Zen dialogue from China's Tang Dynasty. And Joshu asked Master Nansen, What is the way? Nansen replied, ordinary mind is the way. And this comes full circle. Nansen is telling Joshu to regulate, to put it in order, to make it ordinary.

[32:05]

And I think that this is the effort that we all, this is where we should apply our effort. there and leave time for comments or questions. And it's almost time so you can think about lunch. What are you going to eat? And knowing what your reflections or questions are about this. People online can raise your digital hands. And people here can raise your actual hands. Don't be shy. Yes, Devin? I'm wondering, the first story you told of the teacher, it seems like the life you led was far from ordinary.

[33:12]

So I'm wondering how those stories and practices were Well, that's interesting. I couldn't quite hear it. Yes, I'm sorry, thank you. The question was, it seems that Mahagosananda's life was far from ordinary, so how do you put that together? I think that there's ordinary from the external, and there's ordinary from the internal. And the ordinary, the application of ordinary to somebody like Mahagosananda, really his mantra was step by step. And that's the ordinary, that's the ordinary dimension of just placing one step

[34:17]

in front of another, and in that sense, moving forward, but moving forward in a deliberate, not in a hasty way, and in a regulated way. That's my understanding. presence and humility. So ordinary, for example. You know, there's ordinary and there's extraordinary. So the ordinary thing, I remember I once went with a friend to see him at the Nagara Dhamma temple, which is a Cambodian monastery, which is actually a house way out in the avenues in San Francisco. And he was in town. The two of us were there, along with him. And the ordinary thing is that he was the supreme patriarch of Cambodia, that we would make tea for him, right?

[35:32]

Just as a matter of protocol, we would serve our elder. But he sat us down and brewed up a pot of tea and came and served us. That was, I don't know if it's the ordinary manifesting as the extraordinary or the extraordinary manifesting as the ordinary. Ordinariness is really, to me, this is a very precious quality. I think it's a quality that our late teacher Sojin had. He was remarkably ordinary. You know, there wasn't a lot of, there was no , you know, he wore, I'm wearing one of his patch robe robes. And this is an experience I've had, you know, I had with Mahago Sananda.

[36:35]

I've, with people that I've met who are profound, and important teachers to us, very often they have a quality of ordinariness and directness that is something I value incredibly. So that's a longer answer to your question. Yes, Chloe. Being in time is really interesting and it seems to imply maybe there needs to be something that keeps time. Being in time, what is, I guess... Okay. What does... Maybe I'll just... Yeah. So, Chloe is saying that the question of being in time implies that there is something that keeps time, right?

[37:37]

Yeah. Right. You have to walk to the beat of your own drummer. In time, to me, is interesting. And I talk about this. This is a metaphor that I talk about often in terms of playing music. If you don't have a drummer, the music that I play don't have drummers usually, it's acoustic folk-based music. He said every individual is the drummer. Every individual has to keep time, and every individual has to be just in time with the other people. And that, of course, is conditional upon the piece of music.

[38:39]

So what the right pace is, there's no fixed right pace. There's just, what is appropriate? What's the most important? That's another koan. What's the most important thing? It's another most important thing. Or what is the meaning of the lifetime of teaching? I think that's the verse. And the Master answers. An appropriate response. An appropriate response means being just in time. Thank you. Anyone out there? Oh, Karen. Hi. Thank you for this wonderful talk. It was a great reminder. The part I want to talk about is lunch, is food, and how how beautifully you talked about all the ways we eat.

[39:45]

It's really helpful. I remember learning about Gurdjieff's teaching of the importance of the impression food we give ourselves, what we let in the sense gates. And it's a very strong reminder that we have more agency with what we eat that we should... take good care of, anyway. I just, I really appreciated that part of the whole thing, but that's a good reminder. Yeah. I think, yeah. Have you heard that? I think one of the things that I've noticed is that whether it's food or culture or sensory input, is different than it was and my appetite keeps changing the things that there are things that I used to enjoy that are no longer they don't feel good in my system that could be literature like I used to like to read certain kind of dark mystery novels and it's like

[41:09]

I can't do that anymore. Our family went through a bunch of people in the family really the wire. And I watched one episode and I said, I can't watch this. It's too much real world that I know. It was extremely skillful. But it's just like, no, I don't need to eat this now. But to let those things fall away is important. Nathan. Thank you, Hozan. A question about regular life. There was a story, I think it was in one of Reverend Anderson's books, about a sashin where the person who was ringing the bell for waking up rung the bell an hour early.

[42:13]

That was Mel. That was Sojin. No, no, it was Sojin who rang the bell. Well, and everyone went back to sleep, and when they came back down at the proper time, according to the story, Suzuki Roshi was very angry, and was angry because his lesson was the bell rings, you come to you come to sit. And in monastic life, a literal bell rings, and you literally go to sit. Outside, for laypeople, frequently there is no bell, and there is no thing to do. The question is about regulating your life and how to decide what it is to do when there is no bell.

[43:18]

There's always a bell. There's always a bell, and the trick is to be able to hear it. And Just as with playing music, you know, there's always a rhythm which may not be precisely laid out, but you have to find a way to attune to it. This is what we're trying to do. So, you have to listen. It's easier to hear because... And yet... A lot of people come in after the bell. It's hard for us to be in time, even when it's literally in time. But we do our best. Everybody is really doing their best.

[44:20]

Today is wonderful. And to find, to hear those bells, there's another song title, Bells Are Ringing. We could do the whole Dharma in the titles of standards, you know. So anyway, thank you. So when you were talking about in Sashin, walking side by side, I remember... People my age would remember called Side by Side. Do you know it? Of course. So don't know what's coming tomorrow. Maybe it's trouble and sorrow, but we'll travel the road sharing our load side by side. Side by side. Yeah. That's what we are.

[45:22]

Yeah. What if the sky should fall? Right. Of course. As long as we're together. It doesn't matter at all, right? Well, it matters, but good to be... That's the lyric. That's the lyric. I know. There's wisdom in you. Anyway, yes, there's another good one. Louisard. Thank you for the talk. I'm very focused on this. aspect of consumption and reminded of spending a summer in that was the topic for the summer, was consumption, what we consume and how we live with what we consume. And part of Tai's teaching was learning, you were addressing it before and talking about discerning not to watch the world, but he really was in part advocating to be extraordinarily mindful of what we were bringing in and to be conscious of the choices that we were making.

[46:33]

And he spoke particularly of watching violent movies, material, et cetera. And I came home from that retreat. It was very strong teaching. And I came home from the retreat and was tired one night and watched, made the choice, or didn't make the choice, or made a mindless choice to watch a violent... And what was really interesting to notice was how long, and he had spoken of this, how long that stayed with me. So that when I meditated, these images would come back up again and again for months and months. So part of his teaching was how long what we... negatively impact stays in the system a while. Could you hear that? Should I repeat the essence? Anyway, Luminous Heart was reflecting on teachings that Thich Nhat Hanh had given when she was at Plum Village about mindful consumption and talking about mindful consumption of media and information.

[47:51]

and noticing when she went home and by happenstance and thoughtlessness watched a violent TV show how long those images stayed with us. So I think this is part of the regulation of one's life is to regulate the input of all this sensory material. So it's like, it's not just violence. how we take in the news and what news we take in, and just recognize that anything that we take in is going to leave some kind of impression. Now, sometimes we need this information to know how to respond appropriately, but we have to find a good balance. It's all really about finding these this balance and being just in time.

[48:54]

I have a quick question. Yeah, Kabir and then Karen at the end, yeah. So when you get that phone call saying that you cannot stay anywhere, so what can we do then? Oh, so Kabir is asking, when I got that phone call saying one cannot stay, What can you do then? You can flow. That's another song. That was like Reb's favorite song, I think. Is that right? this Bob Dylan song, Watch the River Flow. You know, just sometimes we're in the boat and we actually have to go someplace.

[50:02]

You know, we have to row the boat across the stream. And sometimes we're just sitting at the side of the stream watching the river flow and recognizing, merging with that Because that flow is actually, that's the flow of our minds. Karen? I went off in a slightly different direction, but when you started talking about eating, I was reminded of privately with Sojin, where I was expressing frustration about all the greed in the world. And he said very matter-of-factly, well, it's a dog-eat-dog world. So what is one in a dog-eat-dog world?

[51:05]

So Karen is relating a conversation that she had with Sojin Roshi about her what pained her, what troubled her about all the . And he said to her, well, it's a dog-eat-dog world now. I've never seen a dog eat a dog. Does that actually happen? It's a dog-eat-dog world. It's all a dog's world. And if you want to eat, you go to the doggy diner. Remember the doggy diners? Anyone remember that? In San Francisco diners, there were about four or five of them. They had big dogs on top of them. Yes. We have the propensity to

[52:11]

prey on each other, to feed on each other. Ah, and I think we have the intention or aspiration to feed each other. To just reach across the table and feed each other. How can we do that? So, a question from David.

[52:41]

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