Good morning. You told me that I won the sweepstakes when I did Jukai. The name sweepstakes. So, um, Mary is the abbess of Clearwater Zendo in Laleo. And, uh, she practiced here for quite a while. She practiced in all the centers and she's been in Laleo for 15 years. 20. Make you feel old? Thank you.

[01:00]

So I have a title for this. I don't usually think in terms of titles for talks until afterwards if somebody comes and asks me what the name should be. But it's Give Up Hope. You know, you can say let go. Let go is a good phrase to let go because it implies that you were holding on to something. And that's what give up hope is about. Stopping holding onto something. Stopping hoping for something better or grasping after safety. In a way, Hope is worse than useless.

[02:25]

I think it often harms us. You could say it's included in the definition of the first noble truth. Life is suffering is one translation. I'm not a big fan of that one. Life is dis-ease. And we want ease, we search for ease, we grasp after ease. I want to be permanent. I joke and I say, I'm not gonna die. Well, probably that's not true. You know, but I hope, and I catch myself hoping, I want a safe, permanent, standalone self.

[03:29]

I want my teacher to be perfect. This is pretty much ancient history. Oh, I forgot, I forgot, he is perfect. So I don't have to hope. But he didn't used to be, now he is. I think this is a common thing and I got called on it and I had to work it through. So now when it comes up I can let it go much more easily but that's a common thing that we want our teachers to be totally 100%, 110% safe before we can open up to them. Well, that's not realistic.

[04:32]

But we want our teachers to be the good mother or the good dad. We hope for safety. And liberation, of course, is in hopelessness, in giving up that grasping after safety. And it's not always, I started to say it's not always easy. I avoid saying always anything, but maybe I can say it's never easy. Sometimes it's not as hard as others. And giving up, for example, giving up that one took a lot of work. Luckily, I had a good analyst. And then when it would come up again later, it was easier to give it up because I had done it before and I could recognize the signs of projecting onto Sojin Roshi that he'd be my perfect good daddy. I said once that I wanted sometimes when that was strong, it's like I wanted him to just sort of put me in his pocket and carry me around.

[05:42]

And I seem to recall our vice abbot saying me too sometimes. It was so long ago that I don't know if you remember that. But I felt so good because I felt, oh, I'm not the only one. Of course I'm not the only one. Yeah. So hopelessness, give up hope. Because I think that, you know, when we're hoping for something, we're grasping after it. You know, it's not that you can't wish yourself well or wish somebody well, but this kind of hope is a problem. Joko Beck used to say, give up hope, give up hope. And the good thing about that phrase is that it gets your attention.

[06:48]

One of the good things about it. Right, because if I say let go, you say, right, okay, well. But if I say give up hope, you're taken aback. I'm taken aback and I want us to be taken aback. Because that impulse after safety and after certainty is very strong. And I don't know that we give it up unless there's something that kind of shakes us up and turns us. I was thinking about this because I was looking again at this Pema Chodron's book, When Things Fall Apart, which I commend to you if you're not familiar with it. Yeah, this is an old book. It's actually available, I think it's available in a little pocket edition. You can carry it around and remind yourself how to practice.

[07:50]

It's called Heart Advice for Difficult Times. And she says that hopelessness arises out of, I don't know if she uses quite this phrase, but giving up, out of turning towards the Dharma and looking deeply at yourself, looking deeply at your experience, looking deeply at your grasping after certain certainty and causing yourself to suffer. And finally, finally getting tired of it. And just giving up hope. Just saying, you don't have, it's not a brain event, unfortunately.

[08:54]

But in some sense, your body's saying, all right, all right, I give. I give. I don't know. And that is our practice. I say, unfortunately, because Nada was so pleasant. She says, when you feel like a piece of shit. And I thought, oh, yeah, I know that. But to look at it and stay with it and smell it and so on. And it reminded me years ago, I was at Tassajara And I really had this sense that I was carrying around a sack of shit and it was right here in front of my belly. And I realized I didn't want to let it go. I didn't want to set it down because it was warm and it was protecting my belly.

[09:59]

You know, that part of that place where we feel vulnerable or open. It was protecting my belly and it was mine. And I realized I really did not want to set it down even though it was a sack of shit. That was one of those realizations that was a body event and in the process of realizing that owning it completely, I did set it down. Not forever, but it was an experience of that, a real visceral experience of just how much I was holding on to myself. And I let it go. There was another

[11:00]

the experience that was more of a struggle. I guess the other may have been a struggle that I wasn't aware of struggling until I really saw it and let it go, but I don't think those things happen out of nowhere. But at any rate, years ago, I sat for three days with Joko back down in San Diego and She advises people during sashimi, don't blow your nose. If you're crying, just let it go. So I was, and you're sitting on the floor at a sort of a, it was like a tract house with wall-to-wall carpeting. And so you're sitting on the floor, almost knee to knee with somebody else. And I was sitting beside a woman who was, I guess she was crying. I mean, I didn't turn and look, but all day long, she was sort of sniffling and snuffling. And I sat there and I thought, I can't stand, this is really disgusting.

[12:03]

Why doesn't she blow her nose? I didn't know that they had that instruction, but I would have thought that anyway. Why is she do, what is this? And also beating up on myself and saying, I should be kinder. I should have more compassion. I shouldn't let this bother me. I shouldn't this, that, the other thing. And that went on all day. And then it was dinner time and they have like a, for dinner, they did like a buffet and you get some food and then you go back to your place and sit down and eat and it's all in silence. And I sat down and I was starting to eat and the thought arose, I don't have compassionate mind. I have irritated mind. And with that, I let it go and let it go. And I think that that's an example and experience of just giving up. I just gave up. And I think that is our practice and it's not always easy.

[13:11]

And I tried, I was up here for a session not long after that and something happened and I was irritated and I thought, okay, I don't have compassionate mind, I have irritated mind. And I just continued having irritated mind. Because you can't legislate that. You can't just say, I don't have this. I have that. Or maybe I could say, I want compassionate mind. And some little voice would have said, well, whoop-dee-doo. Because you have to look at the sack of shit. You have to be with it until you get sick of it. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, but that's, I think that's, that's my experience. Every so often there's a moment of grace. Maybe it comes out of nowhere. I don't think so. But at any rate, that's the experience of it. But mostly you have to really be with it. As she says, Pema says, turn towards the Dharma.

[14:13]

And it's the dreaded patience practice. I think it's dreaded. I'm not a patient person. Many of you know this. So sitting still with hopefulness and the grasping and the trying, one of my mottos is trying doesn't work. But sitting still for that and watching it and watching it over and over and over again, it's patience practice. You know, we talk about patience often in terms of, you know, sitting still for slings and arrows. of fortune or there's stories about Buddha and various wise men wise yeah you know I think it's mostly men and you can have it you know having their arms cut off and their legs cut off and whatever and then just saying and I don't hate you okay a patient's practice is also just sitting still with what is

[15:35]

like it or not, turning towards the Dharma over and over and over again, saying, I want to be with what is, and if what is is not pleasant, I want to be with that too. And you'll find that eventually, I think, my experience is that eventually it becomes kind of an adventure, and it's not so bad, because it's really, it's interesting. What is this? What is this? What's underneath it? What am I afraid of? I just got sort of cracked open last night and I was debating if I wanted to talk about it or not, and I will talk about it because I need to, not because I want to.

[16:47]

Many of you know that my sister died in January after, as far as we knew, a 17-day illness. It was cancer. They never figured out what it was. And she had had Alzheimer's and I was her primary caregiver and it was really hard. And losing a sibling, I had no idea, no idea. Some of you have lost siblings, so you probably know it's like losing a piece of your flesh because nobody is closer than that in terms of DNA. Which doesn't mean that, it isn't about a comparison, but I just, I didn't know that. I knew that I would be devastated when she died. I also knew I'd be relieved. But I didn't know what a big deal it would be. And I've been grieving and I've had a lot of support and so on.

[17:52]

And it was, and it will continue I'm sure, it was lightening. I wasn't crying a lot or anything like that and I would think about it sometimes that I wasn't so torn by it. And then I went to a grief support group And I think just that process, it wasn't the greatest experience of my life, but just that process last night, all of a sudden I found myself first feeling how angry I am at her about various ancient tangled karma, but then just cracked open sobbing about how much I miss her and how much I loved her. And what a good time we often had towards the end. She was a painter and she would look at the trees and she would look at the sky and the color on the bay and so on.

[18:56]

And helped me see it more. I mean, I've always liked those things, but she helped me really see it. And now when I see the clouds piling up, I think of her. And I was trying to think about this Dharma talk and having a hard time getting it to kind of come together. They usually do. I do this in Vallejo just about everywhere. I do this a lot. And often I'm thinking about it and then on Friday afternoon I will write down some notes and then sleep on it and then Saturday morning it'll magically all come together. Well, it didn't. It just wasn't coming together. And I woke up this morning and I thought, you know, You're just going to have to take your own advice and just let it be whatever it is and be open about it.

[20:06]

So that's what I'm doing. I'm telling you that it's not easy for me to be with this and I'm, I don't know if this makes sense, I'm happy to be with it. It's nice to remember that I loved her or love her. It hurts, right? My heart hurts. But that's okay. I think that this is an example of what Pema said about turning towards the Dharma. This is my Dharma right now. I don't expect I'm going back to what it was like a month after she died. But right now, my heart hurts. And I think that's a fruit of our practice.

[21:08]

We get better, if that's a word I can use, we get better at being willing to just be there. We get better at being willing to be hopeless. We get better at not trying to get somewhere else or to legislate the kind of, you know, I'm going to be compassionate. Well, good for you. You know, I think you get compassionate by noticing what happens when you're not. And getting to what she says, you know, getting to the point of giving up. She says that hope and fear are two sides of the same coin, because the hope comes out of fear. The big one, of course, is fear of dying, but I'd say fear of no self, fear of impermanence. And so we engage in grasping after something or another, distraction or whatever.

[22:16]

And then she says, hopelessness and confidence are two sides of a different coin. Because when we give up hope, when we stop trying to get something or to get away from something, when we stop believing that there's something better or easier or safer, then our confidence can grow. when we experience that we can survive it, just being present with this sack of shit. Our confidence grows. And we develop the patience to be able to bear whatever it is. So, that's how it is here.

[23:18]

How is it out there? What's your experience of these things? I've been really working with, well, my family and I've done my weeping and done a lot of different things and I sat with it and I want to ask you if you had a similar experience not so long ago finally And it took a while, but I started to feel lighter and clearer and, in fact, more hopeful in a certain kind of way. But my point, my question is, did you not recognize after this was gone that you were hurt throughout your body? Or did you feel pain that was, you know, little pain behind the big boulder or anything like that? Me, when I realized that I was carrying around her sack of shit.

[24:22]

Is that what you're talking about? Well, I put it down. I put it down lots of times. You know, it's not like those things for me. I mean, it's in my bones. I had the experience, but it didn't, you know, I don't believe in those, you know, the people say they have, they're enlightened and they have this huge experience of light and lightening and bells and whistles. And I don't know what all. I don't know, but I don't think that it changes. And then people say it changed everything forever. But I know a lot of Zen masters, aside from Sojin Roshi, who is perfect. I don't know any that are perfect. And it doesn't make them not Zen masters. I think the people I have in mind are, but, or and, they're also human beings. And so we set it down and there's some process of opening the hand of thought.

[25:25]

There's some process that happens. And so we allow it to happen. And you can have an enlightenment experience. I'm not saying that we don't. But if you grasp after it, you just torture yourself that way. I had an opening experience, and I had to sit with that for another, I don't know how long it'd take. I was gonna say two months. It was a long time ago. But I sat here, here, and I tortured myself. I kept trying to get back to it, and I knew that that was stupid, but it isn't always easy to let it go. I wanted it back. One time in Tassajara for, I don't know how long lasted, Say a month, I don't know. Anyway, Zazen was a joy and it was just every period was just like flipping a page. And I wanted to go in the Zendo. And it was wonderful. And then things changed.

[26:26]

And that wasn't the case anymore. And now I have periods like that sometimes, but it's never been like that again. And I have a certain nostalgia for it, but I think I've finally, I did let go of grasping after it. So I don't exactly know how to answer your question. I don't know if that answers it. It wasn't such a simple thing. You know what I'm saying? But that giving up hope in relation to family is a really useful thing to do. And then you're open to other possibilities. Yeah. One, two, three. Linda. Oh, no, I'm sorry. Jerry, yes. Absolutely scary.

[27:42]

I think it is scary. I think it takes courage because, I mean, that's the base, right? That's the first noble, that's the noble truth is that we're grasping after, you know, it's the ignorance of grasping after permanence. And the dis-ease is that we know it's no good in our bones, but we're just terrified of settling into the dis-ease, settling into the impermanence. And it is very frightening. And that's one of the reasons I think we sit together, at least for me. Yes. It is hard.

[29:22]

It's very hard. There's a 12-step slogan, make your best effort and let go of the result. I think that's it. Rebecca asked me years ago, I know we were walking towards the community room and she said, and we were talking about social justice work, kind of that kind of work. And she said, do you think we'll ever get there, do you think we'll ever really succeed?" And I said, no, but we have to try anyway. And I think that's true. I think maybe things will change in this country soon, maybe, maybe not. But when we're attached to an outcome, that's when we cause ourselves and others suffering. I think you just have to do it, at least you have to and I have to, and I don't know if

[30:25]

a lot of people have to. And as I said, I think at one point, you can wish well, you can have, you know, Uchiyama says you should have a direction but not a goal. And however you want to think of that, but you know, it's not that you don't do bodhisattva activity, but bodhisattvas do it without attachment. And I'm not, I can't do that. But I can look at my attachment, you know, and look at the suffering I caused myself and others because of it. I can look at my anger and my hatred of Donald Trump and notice how much suffering I caused myself and others and how corrosive the bitterness is. So on and so on. But it is hard. And that's why we do it together. So I've been trying to cultivate practice of hopelessness for a long time.

[31:39]

I remember a talk that our friend Tisha Warner gave here about one of her teachers, Tozan Akayama, who's also spoken here, who used to refer to himself as Hopeless Tozan. And that really help me think about it. But I also recognize that one of the three doors, it's another one of these doorknob lists, the three doors of liberation, and one of them is wishlessness. But what I want to know is, what is the interplay between, I feel like I can sort of get my mind around hopelessness, but I still have faith. How do those two work together? Well, I think faith is maybe, as Sojan says sometimes, it's another word for confidence, or confidence is another word for faith, that we find the courage to look deeply without grasping after.

[32:56]

And it's hard, you know the story from the Lotus Sutra about the prodigal son and he, you know, he loses track of who he is and where he is and stuff and he winds up wandering home and his dad sees him and sends some retainers to bring him home and he freaks out and the dad says just leave, follow him into the village and find out where he lives and then invites him to come back and work in the grounds of the palace and he's given work shoveling shit. And he works and he does pretty well. And his dad works beside him sometimes and never tells him who he is. And then he gets better work and better clothing and paid a little more. And eventually he winds up the mayor domo of the whole event, right? And his dad takes him into the treasure room and says, Now you can believe this because you couldn't have believed it before, but now you can believe this. You are my son and this is all yours, right?

[33:59]

And I think of that, of course, he's talking about Buddha nature or whatever. He's not talking about lapis lazuli. But I think of that as the son was exercising his faith muscle. and then he could eventually believe that he was a bodhisattva. And so that's the relationship. The faith is what supports us to do the work. Does that make sense? Yeah. He was also, it seems to me, he was exercising his faith muscle, but he was also getting help. That's right. That's right. That's right, that's right. Let's see, one, two, and then we probably need to stop it because it's, oh, she's not, oh, the strikers, oh, okay, yes. They're different.

[35:55]

The kind of hopelessness I'm talking about is the kind where we turn towards the Dharma. We give up trying to make it into something else and just say, okay, okay, I will be here. I will feel what I feel, express what I express and open. Sojin said to me years ago, I said something about feeling vulnerable. And he said, you know, that's interesting. When you say vulnerable, it has the implication of an attack. You know, I'm vulnerable to attack. Whereas open, it's just open. And it's scary. And it's not about being depressed. As a matter of fact, I think just the opposite.

[36:57]

When you have experiences of opening and letting go of the grasping, it can become an adventure. Absolutely. I'd be surprised if anybody thought I meant that, but if they did, I'm glad you asked. And it's not a bad point to make. it's not what I'm talking about. And I use, I like the word, I like those kinds of words because they, as I said before, it gets your attention. If I say you should let go, you just say yeah. It's like translating the beginning of the Xin Xin Ming, the great way is not difficult as long as you're not attached to your choices. Okay, but when you say the great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences,

[38:03]

People hear that the first time, go, uh, and they laugh because they know that they have nothing but preferences, you know. So that, you know, and I believe in saying save all beings because it gets, it just gives you a little shock and say, what's that? Anyway, Judy, yeah. Because I caused harm, it's really difficult. Mm-hmm Well sometimes

[39:35]

We make too much of a thing of it. We reify it, if you'll pardon that word, we concretize it. When, you know, we say another 12-step thing is I went from I am a mistake to I made a mistake. And then you make amends and you go on. If you can make amends, you can't always. What is it? Except when it would harm myself or others or something like that. And you bear the pain first. You let it hurt. But then you move on. It's not useful. It's not useful to you or anybody to stay there. Because we all make mistakes. Except for Sojan. You're never going to be allowed to forget that, you know. Okay.

[40:40]

Okay. I mean, you know, it's just, I was telling somebody just recently that I, uh, we're talking about learning how to be a Doan or a Kokyo or something. And you, you're, you're learning, you make mistakes and it drives me nuts. I train people and they get, they make such a big deal of it. And I say, you missed a bell and say, Oh, I'm so sorry. I think for God's sake. You know, years ago at Green Gulch, my first practice period, they made me Noon Doan, and they were doing the Makkah Hanya. Well, we were chanting the Heart Sutra in English here that, in my experience, I had not sat up Sachine here yet. Anyway, they put me on it and I, I, missed a bell, and then we're going to lunch, and I was walking behind Blanche Hartman and the Eno, and I caught up with them and I started saying, oh, I'm so sorry, oh, I missed that bell, I'm so sorry, and they kind of looked at me and said, okay. And I realized that I was, and it's not the kind of pain you're talking about is bigger, but I realized that I was making a huge big thing of it, and it was about me.

[41:51]

Anyway, I hope that's useful. Yes. You could say that, yes. Giving up hope verifies hope. I think that's another way of saying what I've been saying, but it makes it into a koan, which is useful.

[43:00]

All right.

[43:02]

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