Penetrating and perfect karma Is rarely met with Even in a hundred million kalpas Adding in to see and listen to To remember and accept I vow to taste the truth of the Tata's words. Hello, everybody. I'm very happy to introduce today's speaker today, Karen Sundheim. Karen has practiced at the Berkeley's Ed Center since 1976. Her Dharma name is Kisei Yokai, which translates as Radiant Vow, Ocean of Suchness. She received lay ordination at BZC in 1996, was Shuso in 2006, and received lay entrustment from Sojin Roshi in 2010.

[01:29]

During her 47 years at BZC, she has held many practice positions, including Sashin Duran, Tenzo, and Librarian. She is currently BZC's board president and leads a Dharma study group. She has taught Dharma in prisons and libraries and worked for many, many years at the San Francisco Public Library, where she was program manager of the JL LGBT Center. She lived with her wife, Nancy, and their cat, Bella, in Oakland. You're welcome, Karen. Thank you, Ross. And I'd like to thank our tantos, Laurie and Susan, for this invitation to speak during this practice period. I'd like to welcome everyone, and especially anyone who's here for the first time. Welcome.

[02:32]

You may not know this, or you do, but our practice period theme this year is the Genjo Koan. This is where we spend about a four-week period intensifying our practice and studying the koan. I'm assuming that some of you aren't as familiar with the koan, so I just want to say a few things about it before I go on to reading this section. that I was asked to speak about. So what does Genjo Koan mean? I'm not going to go into all the Japanese meanings, but I want to give a couple of translations. The first translation I ever read for the title Genjo Koan, actualizing the fundamental point

[03:42]

Now, personally, at that time in my life, that was confusing. I mean, what is actualizing? What is the point? What is the fundamental point? Confused by that. And later, I read another title. This is from Yasutani Roshi. The entire phenomenal world is the Buddha way. I also knew exactly what that meant, but I liked it. It filled me with some kind of inspiration and beauty. The entire phenomenal world is the living Buddha way. So by phenomena, both physical and mental. And phenomena in the Buddhist context is

[04:45]

all of our what we experience mentally and physically for example we live in this body and this we're who we are and it's everything we perceive with our senses so it's sights sound pain pleasure People or animals we encounter, or thoughts, emotions, they're all phenomena. So the entire phenomenal world is the living Buddha way. Sojin Roshi, my teacher for many years, said he called this title the reality of life as it unfolds moment by moment. the reality of our life as it unfolds moment by moment.

[05:51]

Now, I'm going to read the section. A bit of background. If you haven't read the whole koan, a lot of the beginning sections are kind of general. There's some distinguishing between delusion and enlightenment. There are some instructions to practice, to study the self, to forget the self. And previous speakers have talked about that. So I see those as kind of general, but then this section, there's a bit of a turn, so I'm going to... A fish swims in the ocean. and no matter how far it swims, there is no end to the water. A bird flies in the sky, and no matter how far it flies, there is no end to the air.

[07:02]

However, the fish and the bird have never left their elements. When their activity is large, their field is large. When their need is small, their field is small. Each of them totally covers its full range, and each of them totally experiences its realm. If the bird leaves the air, it will die at once. If the fish leaves the water, it will die at once. So that water is life and air is life. The bird is life and the fish is life. Life must be the bird and life must be the fish. So this is a very concrete verse. So as you may have experienced

[08:12]

by listening to this is us. The bird is us. The water is the fish's realm. It's the world. The fish lives in this world and the bird lives in the air and that's the world of the bird. And the line cannot reach the end of the water. This is like our lives. We cannot escape our lives. We cannot live in the water no matter how far there we are.

[09:22]

Sojin Roshi always said, we live in delusion. That everything is delusion. Disappointing. Because I was someone who wanted to escape into permanent happiness through this practice. But Sotun said, we live in delusion. We only know our world and humans live endlessly in samsara. So samsara is suffering. It's one way to translate it. Let's just say we live endlessly in samsara. So I just want to give a personal example. I'm going to talk about my mother.

[10:34]

My mother is probably what affected me the most in coming to who I am, I could say there was a lot of suffering. Her was extremely intelligent and beautiful. And she was charming, she was educated, and she was very funny. And she had lots of friends, they wanted to spend more and more, lots of time with her. They never got enough of money. But when she was home with the family, she was angry most of the time. I mean, practically all the time. And she flew into rages. She destroyed things. She shouted what seemed to me as a child endless vitriol.

[11:46]

about what was wrong with me and all that. Except me and my father, I had two siblings. They didn't seem to get this treatment, but they did get it. I'm not sure which is better or worse. But I was a target. And so I grew up feeling like, I actually believed my mother was a shark. So this particular metaphor of the fish in the water speaks to me. So I thought about her as a shark and I was a small fish. And so I was always kind of stuck there to be the victim. So I wanted to escape this world and escape both physically and psychologically. So when it was time for me to go to college, I grew up in Philadelphia, so that's the geography here.

[12:51]

When I wanted to go to college, I tried to get as far as I could. They told me I could go as far as the Mississippi River. But I managed to go to college in St. Louis, Missouri, which was just over the Mississippi River. So I felt that that was an achievement. So I went to college for two years. But despite crossing the Mississippi, my mother called me every day, usually angry or else convinced I was going to fail at school or something like that. But she called daily. So here I am, across the Mississippi. I can't get away from my mother. So then I dropped out of college, and I decided I was going to travel to all these exotic, foreign places.

[13:52]

And so I decided I wanted to be a farmer in Norway and because they were exotic and supposed to be beautiful and all that. And I wanted to be a farmer, which I think was just kind of a trendy thing back in the early 70s with some people who were really urban. decided to rebel and become farmers, I don't know. So I found this organization. I found a book that was like volunteer around the world. It was kind of like how you can travel around the world without any money and doing work. So I found a job on a farm in Norway. right where I wanted to be on the fjords. It was Western Norway, and I had to fly to Oslo and take a train across the country to Bergen, and then I had to take a boat.

[15:07]

It was like a five-hour boat ride up the fjords to another town, and then I had to take a bus for a couple of hours winding around the glacier. till I came to this little town where I was gonna be a farmer. A lot of things were very exciting, like picking blueberries at midnight. It was July and it was . But it came to my job, on the farm, which was fairly simple. I had to milk the cows, pick vegetables, and cook one meal for the farmer's family, kind of like a midday meal. But I got there and I found out that the cows were milked by machines. So this is 1975. And I was really disappointed.

[16:10]

It wasn't my fantasy. I thought I was gonna like... squeeze these teeth on cows. There must have been 30 of them. So I had this fantasy about that. So then I decided they weren't, this wasn't the real thing, you know? They were milked. So they were milked by machine and they all had horns except for one. And I took to the one that had no horns because I had to get them out to the pasture every single day. And I don't know how many of you have herded cows out of the barn and up a hill, up a ravine. Cows don't want to do what you want them to do. Worse than cats. So there I was milking these cows by machine and trying to get them to the pasture. And they wouldn't go. Or then I had to chase them or whistle and stuff like that.

[17:14]

And finally get them there, but they go up the ravine, the totally unnatural, turn around and look at me with their horns and all that stuff. And then there were sheep that, for the summer, the sheep are in the mountains. They're not in a barn. And they're getting, and they're growing their wool and all that stuff. But then it came time that we had to go chase the sheep out of the mountains and down into the barn. And meanwhile, it was pouring rain, it rained solid for six weeks straight. And being, and by the way, it was really funny because they had a washing machine and a dishwasher, which disappointed me. I decided that was too technological. But then I asked them when they were gonna turn on the heat and they laughed. So anyway, I tried to chase the sheep, but there was mud everywhere, and all I did was slide on my butt all the way down the mountain, and I was really unhappy.

[18:28]

So here I was, kind of the same old self that I was before I took off. I did see the northern lights. I do want to say, which was phenomenal. When there's a lot of clouds and suddenly the clouds disperse and the temperature drops, I knew that they were going to come out and it's winter time. It's mostly in winter and there was blue and green and red circles of light, like this, moving. And they came down to the ground. They come again. They start. Beautiful circles moving. And this went on for hours. So, anyway.

[19:33]

But there I was. I was stuck with my views. I criticized them. farmer for all sorts of things including, also I was a strict vegetarian and they would kill one of their lambs each year for food. And of course I had my opinion that that was wrong. So I was quite unhappy. It was clear that 4,000 miles away I was taking my mother with me. And all my other stuff, my views, painful opinions. So there I was in Norway, followed by a shark to places where the cows and sheep . So I came back home and I moved to Berkeley in 1976 and I met Sojin and I decided to study Zen because I knew that I

[20:36]

had to work in my mind, that what was out there was not gonna fix me or I wasn't gonna find some heaven. So, Sojin said, we live in delusion and cannot escape it, but we can recognize And by talking about the fish or our world, which is extremely painful, particularly now, and going back to my personal history about my mother, that's not swimming in these feelings that give us pain because there's practice.

[21:48]

When we practice, we make a decision that we're going to live by vow and not by our karma. We have the choice to drop opinions and views. and biases. Our world, our ocean is also its zazen and our life. Zazen is where with our thoughts. When we begin practice, there's often a lot of self. This is addressed in this koan. Bringing the self forward in an early.

[23:05]

So, Often we find ourselves caught up in our self-centered experiences and wants and hatreds and all that. Practice is letting go of self, breath by breath. Each breath in zazen is letting go. one at a time. And as the self, that small self, the karmic habit self, starts to become smaller, things, the phenomena, become bigger. So Dogen says earlier, when the self retreats, myriad things come forth.

[24:13]

So I'm not finished with my mother yet. Dogen says, to study the ways to study the self. And to study the self is to... Well, I began to study my mother, both as what I perceived as an external person going about doing what she did, but also internally, the mother that... in my mind. And... I learned, that's probably in my early 40s at this time, that my mother, with all her raging and all this throwing objects around and insulting and all that, she was actually afraid.

[25:24]

And her fear was the biggest motivation for all this anger. And being a fearful person myself, I felt a lot of compassion for her. I thought, wow, she feels like a little fish just like me. And this was not planned, but I forgave her. But seeing my mother I just couldn't help but forgive her, and then she was no longer a shark. This ocean I was living in, there wasn't a shark anymore.

[26:26]

So Sojin says, Enlightenment actually, I don't know who I'm quoting at the moment. I know he said it though. Enlightenment is right here. In your life, this life, we cannot be someone else or have another person. Just as the fish cannot be a bird and the bird cannot be a fish. And practice never ends. And I want to read a quote. I have a couple quotes from Suzuki Roshi's commentary on this particular section of the Ganjo Poan. This is one quote. If you understand what practice is, and if you are interested in practice,

[27:35]

The reason that you are is that practice never ends. Even if human beings vanish from this earth, Buddhism exists. This is something that's made me so happy in my life because no matter what has happened, there's always practice. And then here's one other paragraph from Suzuki Roshi. True practice will be established in defilement. Before we are aware of enlightenment, we attain it. It is impossible for a bird or a fish to know what air or water is before they move in it. So enlightenment should be attained before we are aware of it. Do you understand? True practice before we attain enlightenment, before we know what enlightenment is.

[28:43]

If you move in the practice, you cannot know the end of the air and the water. If you doubt it, you are trying to know what enlightenment is. If you are a fish or a bird who wants to practice, who wants to move realizing, wait, you are a fish or a bird who wants to practice, who wants to move realizing the end of the water or the sky. What I love about endless practice is endless practice and swimming in this ocean is that it never ends. It's never boring. So since I started practice, it was really 1975, I've never been bored.

[29:50]

Now, that doesn't mean that I have never felt boredom, you know, occasionally. but not with the Dharma. Dharma is never boring because reality is manifesting moment by moment. It's always new. It's always within the moment. Before I gave this talk, I was concerned about what I would use as an example from my life. And what always pops in my mind is my mother and me and our karma and all that. And I was saying to myself, are you going to talk about your mother again? And then I realized again is a meaningless word. You know, it's just a way to almost dismiss things by saying the same thing.

[30:59]

But it's never the same thing. Nothing is ever the same thing. So that's the beauty of practice and practice enlightenment for me. And I think I'll see and see how you respond. What are your reactions or feelings about this particular verse or anything that I've brought up, I'd love to hear it. Ross. Thank you, Karen. We're getting Ross the microphone. And if you're online, feel free to raise your digital hand and I will see you. I'm curious about your... and your forgiveness, and whether your forgiveness was expressed or offered after she had maybe demonstrated some contrition or awareness, or was it in the throes of all that anger and vitriol, and then maybe she changed in time.

[32:16]

So there was this forgiveness, and what precipitated it, and a little bit about after. What precipitated it, Things were just going on the way they seemed to always go on, the difficulty, the screaming, the fights, the criticism. But once I saw what was really going on in this poor shark, and it took, it was kind of a surprise. to realize that. I hadn't, like, planned it. But forgiving her made me want to relate to her because, as I said in the beginning, she was a lot of fun. She could be. And she was smart, and there was a lot of reasons to want to hang out with her. So I hung out with her.

[33:20]

And she would... I started calling her rather than her calling me. And then she made a comment once, boy, we get along great. She has no idea what my side. I didn't want to say I forgive you for all those horrible things, because I didn't want her to feel bad. Thank you, Kara. Yeah, it comes back to herself. Yes. Inner and other self. Yes, thank you. Pozon. Well, I was struck by something at the top of your talk that I'd like to ask about. You were presenting the different translations of Geicoan. The first one that we're familiar with is actualizing the fundamental point.

[34:24]

And I never thought of it quite this way, but it just seems to me the operative word is actualizing. You know, there's an the fundamental point is always there, but unless we act from it or upon it, then it's not alive. Yeah. And that's the, so like, the bird is swimming, the fish is swimming, you know, it has to do something. The bird has to flap its wings and do something. And at the end of it, at the end of it, you have Master Boucher Fanning, right? So this, You have to do something. Exactly. And I just wondered how you feel about that. That's so true. I mean, we talk a lot here about effort. Practice takes effort. In fact, I was going to read, Suzuki Roshi said something about that, but I might not have, maybe I shouldn't flip through the pages, but

[35:34]

He talks about effort. I mean, Sazen is effort. The posture is effort. Sitting still is effort. And when we're practicing, for example, in the kitchen and not being distracted, that's effort. Is that... satisfactory. Yeah, I just think it's useful to... For me it's useful because we distract that the important thing is the fundamental point. Yes. But the fundamental point is not alive unless we make an effort. Linda. I really like hearing about the cows, sheep, mud, horns, shark.

[36:49]

I see it all connected, but I'll just ask a specific question about something you said. You said we can choose to let go of our views and opinions. And right away, my reliable mind popped right up. Well, wait a minute. You know, like, that's not exactly my experience. I don't, I can't choose to let go. I've got these opinions and views and views. There they are. Opinion, view. What do you mean I can choose to let it go? Nothing is permanent. So moment by moment, for example, I'm really torn up about the Israel-Gaza situation. So it's hard, you know, it's hard to let go. But truthfully, I try to.

[37:56]

I have an opinion, which I won't share. But for me, letting go of views is letting go of blame. By letting go of blame, I open to the suffering of all. Deciding that one side is right, the other side is wrong. They're all suffering. Does that help? There's a questioner online. Oh yeah, I see, Ed. I'm going to get to you next. So when we say let go of views, it doesn't mean, okay, I'm going to lock my views in a closet, lock the door, they're never coming out.

[38:57]

We have views. That's part of... our world our ocean we have our views but it's how we handle our views i want to ed has had his hand up hi ed hi karen always nice to see you and you i always enjoy your talks as well and i was just thinking that um You're talking about your mother. My father died when I was fairly young, in my 20s. And I was just thinking, what a gift your mother gave you to be alive and allow you to transform yourself with her. Because our relationship with our parents are so important. And it was a great gift for her to be available to you.

[40:01]

I was thinking about that. Thank you. I totally agree. It really does help to have a parent that lives long enough that you can work things out with them. So many of us don't, you know, because I think this forgiveness occurred in my early 40s. Maybe I was 42, something like that. this change which was so significant. And she was in her 70s. So thank you, Ed. I've seen some hands. Helen? I appreciated that you said that since you started practicing, you haven't been bored.

[41:06]

My brother, I used to have a more, I used to travel a lot. And now I live and I'm mostly here. And my brother mentioned in a birthday card recently, I know we used to have more exciting lives. I hope you find some excitement. And I was so surprised because I thought, oh, you have no idea. My life is actually really exciting. To me, it is, actually. And I've had mixed feelings about it because sometimes I've thought, are these mind toys that I'm playing with and am I creating dramas? Maybe. But just hearing you talk about the excitement that's part of our practice. Thank you for your talk.

[42:15]

And I love the point that Hosann made, not only about actualizing, but actually also about what is the fundamental point. But that's another question. I just wanted to say that I could really relate to your story. There's something precious about moms, especially moms that make want life pretty difficult at times. And I felt pretty much like you when I was growing up. And then it came a time in which my mother had a stroke. And I returned to be with her. And I remember that for the first time I saw her as vulnerable. And that changed my perspective completely. Prior to that, she was such a strong personality.

[43:18]

And I remember going back home and realizing this is an opportunity for me to now give to her what I wish she had given to me. And it changed our relationship completely, you know? And it actually freed me from the anger and the fear and all that. Not that I'm fully free, you know? I still have to work with all of this. But it was very, very interesting to see that that change is possible in the present ways. Thank you. And I just want to say, you asked, what is the fundamental point? Well, we can't answer because it's whatever's arising.

[44:22]

I mean, We talk about form and emptiness, and emptiness includes everything. So nobody's ever going to say, this is the fundamental point. By then, it's just words and names. It's really practice where one realizes a fundamental point. See? Thank you, Karen. You and I would share both working on a farm and milking cows in the 70s. We have things in common. We do have things in common. And then there's our mothers, the depth of the we reside in in our lives. I like this particular passage.

[45:25]

I like the image of the fish is going to keep swimming and there's not an end and the bird is going to keep flying and there's not an end. It sort of gives me some kind of relaxation because I don't ever have to get anywhere, but there's always an effort. But the effort to be there, to keep moving is very evident to me, but I just don't have to go grab that. So I'm wondering with your mother, you know, you have talked a lot about forgiving her and getting to that place where you forgive her. And I'm wondering if during any of this time you shifted over into, instead of letting go of what she did, that it shifted to this thing of gaining peace.

[46:33]

If those two different sides were evident before you actually forgave her, you thought, I will gain peace and some freedom here, and that had to do, or was it present in your mind? I never imagined having peace. Now, when I practice Zen, it's because I do want to make peace with life and what I have. I mean, a lot of our practice is, it's all relating to our mind and to our world. But it wasn't how I pictured. The way it turned out wasn't what I imagined it to be. And I don't know if... Your question reminds me that I just want to say we had fights after I forgave her.

[47:40]

And my mother liked to fight, truthfully. And she liked me fighting back. I mean, we... We fought. And as she got older, she was very difficult, and more and more control. She lived to be 92, and she didn't like getting old, and she liked to say, kill me now, or I'm going to throw myself down the stairs, and, you know. But anyway, so an image of just you know, in the movies. It was a very complex relationship to the very end. Do you think you'll go back to Norway, or have you ever... Well, I spent four months in Norway.

[48:50]

And that was enough. I mean, it's a beautiful country, but I don't want to travel as much as I used to, and I want to go to places. I don't know places I want to go. But I'd certainly recommend people going there. I mean, it is beautiful. Thank you for your talk. You're welcome. Cheryl? In identifying with being either a bird or a fish, is there an acceptance of limitations? One thing I was gonna say in response to the part of this koan, this verse where he says, You know, if you're small, your field is small.

[49:53]

If you're large, your field is large. You know, most humans, I'm small. And I didn't like that. You know, I wanted to be taller and get to wear all the great clothes and, you know, people don't bully you and all that kind of stuff. But you just have to accept who you are. what you're made of. So, you know, you have to swim in the water. You don't survive by just being still and sinking to the bottom. You know? Why? It's amazing how hard that is. Flapping wings. I read somewhere that a hummingbird flaps something like 80,000 times per second, which is inconceivable to me.

[50:56]

I'd have to look, maybe Sue or some of the other birders in here know, but it's some unbelievable, inconceivable speed. And that's a lot of effort to be a hummingbird, or a fish, or us. Look at all the effort. It's time to stop. Do we have time for... Okay, Paolo. I see Paolo had his hand up. Yeah, online. Thank you, Karen. Can you speak on the seeming contradiction between ethics and gaining mind? Yes. Because they seem to contradict each other. Our effort, one way of looking at effort is letting go. And it takes a time to let go.

[51:59]

So often, for example, in Zazen, we get caught up with some emotional state that we're in. For example, someone we're angry at or we're fantasizing about love. It's a strong attachment. Letting go of attachment takes great effort. You know, some people want to be the teacher, you know. They say, oh, I want to get up there. I can do a better job than whoever's talking. That kind of stuff. Gaining. Or I want peace. You know, that's a gaining idea. You know, it's like we have to let go of wanting. to grab on to something called. I mean, gaining idea takes so many forms that it's quite subtle.

[53:05]

But it's all dealing with our karma and our emotions, and that takes effort. A little bit, but then it's like, you know, effort is required, right? And can be a wholesome thing. And it does strike me as being subtle that we need both, and they seem to contradict each other. And, you know, sometimes when it falls into place, it seems like, you know, almost obvious and easy. And then at other times, the two seem to be at loggerheads. And it sounds like a duality. You know, there's a duality. Let go and get something or get wisdom.

[54:11]

A lot of times we think, oh, I want wisdom. That's gaming when you say that. So there's a duality there. And this is where the middle way practice comes in. We have to walk the middle way. The Buddha talked about tuning an instrument. That the strings on a perfectly tuned, they can't be too loose and they can't be too tight. So letting go is not being resigned. And effort does not mean grasping like this. When I give zazen instructions, look at people's mudras because it's very telling. I explain the mudra, but sometimes you see people and their mudra is kind of like this, you know, their hands have fallen apart to indication

[55:20]

that they're drowsy or quite distracted, that there isn't quite the right effort made. And then some people are like this. You see people sitting like this and that looks like mental torture. They're trying, they're probably criticizing themselves or setting goals or something. But what we want is the middle way, this gentle holding.

[55:54]

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