Good morning. We are very pleased to welcome as our speaker today, Michael Wenger, who has been a student of Zen for more than 20 years, he tells me. He lives at San Francisco Zen Center, where he also serves currently as president of Zen Center. Welcome, Michael. Thank you very much. Interesting to be asked to describe yourself. I think I'll think about it a little bit more. Anyway, I was at Tassajara about a month ago, and I was meeting with someone who had been practicing for three or four years, and I met with him over that period of time. And he was telling me he was a little discouraged with his practice. He noticed that he had made some progress and that some things had changed, but on the scale of what he had hoped for or what he see could happen, he was somewhat disappointed.

[01:25]

Of course, when we talk about teachers and students, it may seem like that the The teacher is always doing fine, and the student isn't. But in fact, I appreciated his kind of frankness. And also, it was tempered with some appreciation of, yes, he did notice that some things had changed. And myself, at different times, I may be discouraged, too, about how slow and how much greed, hate, and delusion I still manifest. But as we were talking, even though all that is so, I was struck by, we wound up walking and we wound up in the garden. And I just had a flash and I told him, you know, it may be better to be a slow flower than a fast weed.

[02:34]

The way we kind of evaluate ourselves and look at our life and wanting to see kind of big, fast growth spurts, that may fit more with a weed or have a profile of a weed which often grows very fast. It's hardly turned around and it's three feet tall. But a flower takes some maturation, takes some care, and the flowering is part of a whole cycle of the plant. Often we use the image of the lotus. The lotus grows in the muck. It actually takes quite a long time to develop a flower. And even the lotus flower actually opens and closes for quite a period of time. I remember once, many years ago, listening to the radio in New York when Swami Sachidananda was being interviewed.

[03:53]

And he was saying, Many people come to me and say they are disappointed with their life and how things are going. And he said that he usually asks them, who made the appointment? How we think about our practice and the idealism in which we look at it and hope for There's a lot of good in that. If we didn't have any aspiration, we wouldn't be here. However, too much idealism or too much on top evaluation of your life and what it would mean if you were successful gets in the way. Of course, if we weren't disappointed and we always were contented with our practice and thought things were going swell, we would probably be deluding ourselves and being somewhat complacent and self-satisfied.

[05:09]

On the other hand, if we're too much always disappointed and nothing measures up and we're always running to catch the bus, That's not so good either. You know, Suzuki Roshi, a story I like Suzuki Roshi's very much, he says, each one of you is perfect the way you are, and you could use a little bit of improvement. So I think some of us like the perfect the way we are, and don't want to look at all the room for improvement. In other words, some of us often indulge ourselves in looking for all the improvement that needs to be there and not realize where we are. You know, sometimes I notice that those of us who practice, sometimes we look for the wrong things in our practice, the wrong measurements of how we're doing.

[06:19]

Or sometimes we go to a teacher because we want the teacher to be something we could attach to and feel, live our life vicariously through him or her. Or sometimes we go to a teacher for the teacher to transport us to some other place. And I feel a little bit of that is okay. but a lot of it is kind of yucky. The person I was talking to at Tassajara has some problems and is planted in the soil of Tassajara. And there are some weeds that have been pulled out. But there's also many buds of flowers.

[07:25]

Issan Dorsey, who many of you may have known, once said, each one of us gets what we deserve, whether we deserve it or not. Well, this is actually quite a con, this statement, and it's very easy to misunderstand the statement. But each one of us gets what we deserve, whether we deserve it or not. Sometimes people will say when they hear that statement, well, what about children who grow up in poor circumstances or addicted to drugs or something like that. Surely they don't deserve that. But I think this statement is about you, not about some other person. It's about me, not about some other person.

[08:37]

The law of karma says everything we do has effects. I believe that's true. Everything we do has effects. Now, whether they are as we understand them, oh, this happened to me because I was a bad person, I think that's a little bit extra. But maybe it's true. But more it's about accepting things and then moving on. Now, but this is very tricky, because if you say, well, it's my karma, and therefore I'm a victim of my karma, and therefore I can't change it, that's wrong. Because in effect, that will have effects. Each situation, how you act, how you understand each situation will have effects. So that's not the right understanding. That's not the right understanding. Or if you think, that karma is a mark.

[09:47]

Oh, that's the way I am. It's some permanent evaluation of yourself. That's not true either. But the other side of it is to say, well, I don't deserve this and the universe is wrong and something or other. Well, that may be okay if that motivates you to act in a wholesome manner. But maybe it'll just motivate you to feel sorry for yourself or angry at somebody else. There are many ways to look at this thing. But each one of us gets what we deserve. In other words, this is the way things are. Whether we deserve it or not, where do we go from here? So to be somewhat discouraged with the way we are, the way the world is, But to use that as a mark, to use that as an evaluation that you stick to, is a little bit of an indulgence, and it's just part of the story.

[11:04]

Because the flower that each one of us is, and the flower of the world as it is, is sometimes invisible. You know, in many ways, it's easier to see the weeds than it is to see the flower. And of course, some weeds eventually do have what we call weeds actually have kind of certain flower quality. But if we use that discouragement or evaluation to be discouraged, or not to do something, or to react in an angry way, or in a way which leads to more weeds, that's not so good. I think particularly in Zen practice, we sit with the whole field.

[12:30]

The weeds, the flowers, the birds, the mosquitoes, and fortunately sometimes even the pesticides. It doesn't mean that we don't work to improve the garden. Because being passive and not doing anything, that's not an improvement. That's being a victim. But to accept the whole field as it is, and move on from there, is very important. Usually we want to always move on, move on to how better we should be, or could be, or be so discouraged about how we are. And we're always moving.

[13:35]

And we're not noticing, respecting, appreciating the flower or the nascent flower to be. I think sometimes it's a little hard to be always looking at the weeds, and yet to keep going. And yet, if you ignore the weeds, the weeds provide the nutrients for the flower. Currently, being president of Zen Center, of course, a lot of people talk to me about Zen Center as some kind of entity.

[14:57]

And some people are very praising in a way which is not so realistic. And I say, no, Zen Center really isn't that good. Or some people say, Zen Center is terrible. And I say, well, it's not that bad. My own feeling is if Zen Center were a perfect place, I wouldn't be there. Because it would be filled with perfect people. If our practice was perfect, I don't know if we'd be practicing. Not that we should use that as an excuse or a way of being complacent. there's a lot of work to be done. But my feeling about, you know, even the terrible straits the world is in now, is that the world has always been in terrible straits.

[16:05]

And, of course, it's not as terrible straits as it would have been if people had been complacent about it and hadn't tried to improve. and work for it. We have one of our echoes, one of our dedications, is those people who work for the wheel of the world. But the perfect Buddhism, the perfect ecological world, the perfect society, is a matter of working in each moment. It's not of some golden age or some golden future. So when I was at Tassajara, I was noticing this person who I was talking to, both his weeds and his great flower, his great honesty with himself, his effort, his frankness, not holding back, his insight that he could see also that he had made some progress.

[17:16]

You know, with myself, it's very hard for me to notice if I'm making any progress in my practice. It could be quite discouraging. But I think it's hard for... it's actually probably pretty good that each one of us doesn't notice that we're making a lot of progress. But, you know, it's funny. I notice a lot of progress in the people I practice with. You know, Maybe there aren't so many golden lights coming out of their head or aren't some big wow changes in them. But the people I practice with have a certain kind of strength, endurance, and flexibility which I don't think they had when I first knew them. And perhaps maybe I may have those things too, though it's hard for me to recognize them myself.

[18:29]

Well, maybe that's enough. I think you can help complete this lecture by your comments and questions. What do you mean by progress? Progress. Well, what would you see as progress? What would be a positive? For me, I would say more opening. Softer and more open. You mentioned flexibility. I think a number of us have different ideas of what progress is, but we all have some idea of progress. It could be flexibility. It could be that I don't get myself in such terrible relationships. It could be that I'm more harmonious with people. It could be that I have greater insight.

[20:25]

It could be that finally my posture is correct. that finally you can sit still in meditation. I mean, each one of you can fill out. But I think we all, and they're kind of all related, and they're also kind of distinct. But I think, in Zen we emphasize just sit. Don't do it for any reason. But of course we have reasons, and of course we have measures. It's just the point is to always return to a space in which we're being in the present, and we're not so much looking for the future or the past, not so much involved in evaluation. Though, it's impossible not to have some idea. And it's very important to talk about what your idea is, rather than, oh, I'm discouraged with this practice, but oh, that's okay, because I'm not supposed to go anywhere.

[21:26]

But that doesn't get past your hidden feeling of wanting progress, or It's not recognizing how you're feeling. I'm chewing on the getting what one deserves. Yes, that's a cookie. I've thought about that a lot in the past. Everything that happens is always exactly right, kind of. And I don't know where I am with that because I feel on the one hand that's a privileged kind of middle class view and because what would you say to a baby who's in the middle of a famine or something like that? Or for me, I was raised in an extremely abusive family and so do I deserve that? No. And is that

[22:27]

fodder for practice, yes, but I have this, I don't mean to go on, I'm really struggling with this. No, no, I appreciate that. And it's like, I don't think that a baby who was raised, let's say, in a perfect world of complete loving kindness and compassion would necessarily not meditate, you know, or not seek out spiritual life. Would they deserve it? Perfect. Everyone absolutely deserves total love and kindness from the moment they're born. And so, to me, this is the most... What about the middle classness of that? Well, there are several ways it's middle class. Number one is looking down on others who aren't the way you are. And I think that way of looking at it is incorrect. But I also think there's a certain kind of middle class notion that we deserve things. No matter who it is. You know, that the world is supposed to be some way and there's some measure of it and that we're either shortchanged or not.

[23:32]

I think there's something middle class about that notion, too. I think we all get what we deserve, whether we deserve it or not, is pointing at our idea of deserve. It's kind of funny to say you deserve it over there, but it's actually the point is, what do you deserve? And if you grew up in an abusive environment, do you deserve that? Well, I don't think you deserve that in a certain way. But in another way, it doesn't matter whether you deserved it or not. If you're caught up with, oh, if I deserved it, it's all right, and if I didn't deserve it, it's not all right, there's something funny about that. I do agree that it's very easy to misunderstand that. And that's why I think it is a koan to be turned. Because I think if those people over there deserve, they should feel satisfied with what they have. That's a very, that's an inaccurate way of looking at it. It's a very kind of power way of looking at it.

[24:35]

Well, it's almost a semantic thing about the word deserve too. And I say, yes, there would. I agree, there would be too. But I think what Isang was trying to get at was exactly how you look at deserve. And if you feel that if you deserve it, then it's OK, and if you don't deserve it, it's not OK. That's funny. I mean, I don't think whether you deserve it or not, it's OK for people to be hungry. But in fact, if you're hungry, it better be, in a way, OK. It's, of course, completely not okay, but you better be able to move from there. Because if it's not okay, and you're a victim, and then the world is not okay, then I don't think you can do much with that. But on that one, on hunger, if it's okay, then it's possible that you wouldn't seek food.

[25:39]

No, no, no, no. That's... You see, if... you don't seek food, or that somebody, or I don't give food for someone because they've already got what they deserve. That's another jump. That's a middle class understanding of deserve. That people, that doesn't mean how you act. I think we're talking about accepting your circumstances. That's why he says, you get what you deserve whether you deserve it or not. You may not deserve it. But I agree that it's a very tricky, it's very easy to misunderstand this statement, and that's why I think it's a koan. It's not a straightforward... Anyhow, I appreciate your problems with it, because I think they're pointing out ways of misunderstanding that statement. Well, it's sort of... I remember hearing a teacher say that you never need

[26:42]

the money naturally comes. And on the one hand, that's a good way to unhook from going after money, and I like that part of it. But on the other hand, isn't that an incredibly middle class privilege? It's the same struggle. Yeah, I agree with you. I don't know if middle class should be on the front of it, but I agree with you entirely that all Buddhist teachings have to do with the context. So, Ajahn Chah used to say, if I see people going over to the right, I tell them to come to the left. If I see people wandering off to the left, I tell them to come to the right. If you feel, oh, it doesn't matter, I'll get the money, I don't have to worry about money, and therefore I don't have to look for a job, I don't have to do anything, then you better start looking for a job. If you feel, oh, I have to worry about money, that's the most important thing, everything else, otherwise I'll be starving, then you'd have to say, you know, cool it.

[27:51]

Don't worry about money so much, you'll get it. And for people, you know, I actually don't think that people who are starving are bothered by deserving it or not. I actually think that people, other people may say, well, they're getting what they deserve. That's other people's That's the person who isn't starving who may be making a rationalization about somebody else. Well, it's interesting because I'm now aware that I don't know anybody. So are you getting what you deserve now? My first response is I have trouble with the word deserve. Yeah, okay. But that's actually pretty good. If we're getting what we're getting, and then we move from there, that's pretty good. But when we take it as a judgment... See, I think the law of karma, there are a lot of things about the law of karma, but I always find if I can't accept what I got because I didn't do... That person said something and I didn't deserve that critique.

[29:04]

They said... I'll give you another chance. I didn't deserve that critique. They said something mean about me and I actually didn't do that. If I fight that, I just know I get into trouble. If I kind of accept what they say, not that they're right or I'm wrong, but accept that that's the way they feel and there's probably some truth in there. Maybe not the way they say it, and not the way I'm receiving it. I can grow from it. That's so simplistic though, you know, like getting a little criticism. You know, I'm thinking about, let's think about racism and sexism and homophobia, which are some of the major things. Let's talk about it in a specific, give me a specific instance. Okay, so let's say you have a black gay woman, who's been a bride of all three. She could either say, I accept this.

[30:09]

She could say, I feel righteously indignant. She could say, this is horribly painful and I've got to do something about it. There's all these levels of that. But there's so much more than that. I'm going to say that you're a white male who's receiving criticism. That's so minor compared to, you know what I mean? Or is it the same thing for you as, you know, I don't think so. Well, I actually think it's, I think it's kind of similar in that I'm not talking, when we talk about blackism or whitism or maleism or femalism, of course these are huge things that are very true. But they're not, but they're also overveiling concepts. Just like, I'm who I am, I am the karma of who I am.

[31:13]

One of them is male, one of them is, you know, I've got a lot of funny kind of baggage of who I turned out to be. Some of it I can feel, I can feel, there are a lot of ways I can feel a minority, and a lot of ways I can feel a majority. A white male is really the majority. But, you know, I grew up Jewish and Catholic. I grew up in a rather poor neighborhood. But, you know, there are lots of ways I could look at myself as ways in which I could get status points or lose status points. And what I say about other people and their status points, etc., that's that. I have to work with the circumstances I'm in. Just like you have to work with whether you're poor or not, My family was not, actually I was pretty lucky with my family.

[32:18]

I wasn't an ideal family in many ways, but it wasn't a terrible family. In many ways, my circumstances are much better than many people, and I really feel lucky. We'll give you another chance. Yeah, I just sort of want to participate in my own thoughts. And it seems to me that I've heard a variation on this cone, which is that it's OK even when it's not OK. And it's both not OK and OK at the same time. And I think for me, the difficulty I have with the word deserve is that when I hear that, I hear a particular bit particularity, and a sense of judgment, and a sense of this particular aspect, and sort of focusing in.

[33:22]

And it's very painful to say that you deserve something, when you really don't deserve it. And I think for me, when I hear the common phrase, the way it was phrased, with the word entering into that pain and experiencing that pain and seeing the lessons that can be learned from that. And there's so much purification and so much compassion and so much that can be learned by entering directly into that pain. Of course you have to know who Ihsan was, but he probably made that statement when he had AIDS and he was dying, actually. There's also that context to that statement. And he also once said, to have AIDS is to be alive.

[34:23]

So, of course it's easy to misunderstand that or to take that as... But there's something really kind of turning weeds into flowers. I'd like to say something. I'll go out on a limb and say a bunch of dualistic stuff. I have a lot of trouble with, you know, deserve at all seems to me like, even to talk about deserving, you know? It's like, who is anybody? Who am I to say what I deserve or don't deserve? And if I want to point a finger, who's anybody to say that? I mean, whether it's good fortune, bad fortune, feeling good, feeling bad, how can anyone talk about deserved or undeserved? I think that everyone has a share of each, and everyone is faced with the same dilemma, which is having it.

[35:36]

And so, having what's happening to them. And so, I never knew anyone who wasn't suffering, and I think that people who are experiencing suffering have the same always have the same choices, you know, to strive or struggle or accept and have hope or to despair or surrender. All the choices are the same regardless of the degree. And to say, I think, that I deserve or don't deserve is is to really, it seems to be placing some value on one's individual being. And so I think that judging of the self is, I mean, maybe at the root of a problem of some sort.

[36:49]

Also, I would say a couple other things. I don't think it's good to beat up on a middle class. The McDonald's ran that jingle, you deserve a break today. And the notion of deserve, I noticed, has emerged in commercials in recent months or what have you. And so it is a kind of, I'm sure Madison Avenue doesn't think of it as a koan. It's hey, a lot of people feel that way. A lot of people feel they deserve a break or a reward or what have you. And I remember, as you're talking, my mother used to use the phrase, Serge, you're right. And it was not because I was getting something nice. Come off it. Well, Serge, you're right for whatever I did. It's like instant karma, is how I think I could say that she was, that she wasn't thinking in those terms.

[37:57]

But if I may, I'd just like to shift to the other image and metaphor you used, when I first read Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, years ago, and I read Suzuki Roshi's use of the weeds being the manure or the nutrient for the flower or the plant that you're attempting to cultivate, that stayed with me. And I just wanted to make it, to say it again, that that has stayed with me a long time because I think it's true that most of us, most of the time, or some of us some of the time, are far more caught up with the weeds and the trash where we're trying to cultivate ourself, or ourselves, and to sort of bear in mind, if you can, know and bear in mind that you can pull those weeds, as he said, a bad habit or a bit of dishonesty with yourself or another, and instead of being ashamed and trying to look the other way, use them to

[39:04]

fertilize and further cultivate, learn from them, as you say. I've always found that very helpful. That's not what we need in our lives. What we know is what we are. So, let's help each other. Along with that idea, how does that come?

[40:06]

I often say that to go with the idea of what is it that needs to be done right now? Not what I want to do, but what is it that needs to be done at this moment? I appreciated hearing you say something about finally getting the correct posture, something like that. It's implied somewhat in the struggle that weeds around that. I'm fairly new at the meditating, but I'm very aware of back pain. And it kind of means to me right now that I must think I deserve it or something like that, I'll hold on to it.

[41:16]

Or I try, I have aversion to it, which is another form of clinging. And then sometimes I have these little pockets of moments where it's just okay. And pain, it may stay, it might go away, it may shift or whatever, but it's just not, it doesn't matter so much. And I think I learned a lot from that. That it seems to be a metaphor that whatever stays, you kind of let the pain, you learn from it. And the other thing I was thinking about too in this conversation So I was thinking about that and I was at Whole Foods, I think, and there was a person there, and I basically tried to do that as I walked by, not to try to go and do anything, but just to be aware and open up.

[42:38]

And he said to me something like, thank you, I was beginning to think I was invisible. And it was wonderful for me because I didn't need to do anything, And in a way it's okay, it's not fun to be homeless, but I'm not at this point. So anyway. Yeah, I think this is very related. I think we tend to look at things as objects. We look at a homeless person as an object, even to be given money to, or to be avoided. Or we look at our posture as an object. Oh, if I only had the perfect alignment of my posture, then it would be fine. But it's a living thing. It's a living relationship.

[43:39]

When I struggle with my posture during Sashi, There's a certain point of real kind of despair when I realize that I'll never be straight. I don't know if any of you have this experience. That no matter what you do, whatever I do, I'm either putting too much effort into it or not enough effort. And even when I think I'm doing it right, it's still not straight. But as long as I can't accept that, continue to struggle. But there's some point, even without letting go, with keeping that close, there's some kind of acceptance of that, which sometimes leads to our straighter posture. But it's beside that, it's like not looking at it as an object, but what do you have? This is the body you have, whether you deserve it or not. This is the body you have. And working with that,

[44:41]

Not as a judgment of something else or as an excuse. The homeless person is the homeless person before you. That's there. But anyhow, I appreciate all the points you've expressed. One more? Yes? go too far. So, I think it's important to realize, like, for instance, I would like

[46:06]

You can't cut a tree down with your hands. So each thing has its power. And so you have to recognize the different powers. You get too far, you get cracked up in the emphasis. You get too far in subjectivity and feeling. Yeah, big mind should include it all. Big mind should include Thank you all very much.

[47:28]

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