Good morning, everyone, here in the Zendo and here on Zoom. I have the good fortune to introduce myself. The short story is that I grew up back east to Jewish parents. It always felt a little different. in that little town of Virginia from my non-Jewish friends. And even with my Jewish friends growing up, we feel a little different and a little uncomfortable at times. Thankfully, many years later, I stumbled into the Zen community of New York and studied with Bernie Glassman. I was there for three years, and I started to accept myself a little bit more readily using Buddhist practice as a way to integrate my discontent with my aspiration to be contented.

[01:05]

After three years there, it felt like it was time to go. And I asked Bernie and my girlfriend at the time, where do you think I should go to continue my practice? And they both said Mel and Berkeley Zen Center. So I drove cross country with my dad and arrived at my sister and now late brother-in-law's home in Oakland and came over every day, twice a day to sit zazen. And during that time, I was in the guest room, which is a little porch room above the community room, back porch. And I stayed there for six weeks. And during that time, Soji Roshi and Liz and their son Daniel moved from where the Smokies live now to a house they purchased in North Berkeley. So I slid into there and became a resident full-time. That was 35 years ago now.

[02:06]

And now I'm here. A while ago, Sojin Roshi gave a lecture on the original meaning of the swastika, and he wanted to reclaim it for its inspiration and origins of spiritual practice. And it inspired me to reflect on what black and dark represent in Zen. In this day and age, people's color has become a talking point and an important part of our culture in accepting everyone. And so this isn't a talk on social science and the meaning of being black as a race for skin color.

[03:24]

with the meaning of black in Buddha Dharma. And my hope is that we look at black and white a little differently after this talk. And I look forward to hearing what you may have to say or ask a question or comment after my talk, and to keep this dialogue open and continuing after we end today. Soji Roshi said, our aspiration to wake up shouldn't be called enlightenment, it should be called endarkenment. He only said it one time in my presence, but it stuck with me. He said that black is the highest and represents the empty, boundless potential of all dharmas.

[04:28]

We've heard the term form and emptiness. We live in the light of form. And we must cultivate an understanding of the dark of emptiness. Emptiness and form are presented in the Heart Sutra that we chant every day. Black and white, are represented in Dungshan or Tozan Ryokai's five positions of practice. And dark and light, the harmony of difference and equality in the Sandokai, is what we chant in our Founders' Ceremony, is yet a third instance of this duality of color. Dark refers to the absolute where there is neither material nor spiritual value.

[05:46]

The world of stillness, of equality. It's contrasted to the world of light, the relative dualistic expressions of activity both in our mind and in our body. In the Sandokai, we have a book called Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness, commentary by Suzuki Roshi on this old poem of Sekito from 1,300 years ago.

[06:50]

It says, if the causing conditions of our life, which are the branching streams which flow in the dark, Suzuki Roshi says we're okay as we are in that darkness. In the light, in the relative world, we can use some improvement. So we're okay as we are, and we can use some improvement. In the Sandokai, it says, branching streams flow in the dark, clear and murky phrases are distinguished in the light.

[07:50]

So we need both. We need to be able to distinguish or discern differences, and we also need to cultivate an acceptance of justice. In the Sandokai, it says clear and murky phrases are distinguished in the light. I like to think also of we need to distinguish the clear and murky phases of our life. We are both. How do we accept ourselves? If we do not honor the dark, we will be caught by the light and never fully accept our small self. We can have a show of hands.

[08:57]

I'm being rhetorical. We may have a show of hands who fully accept our small selves. I will not raise my hand because I have moments of not accepting my small self. So how do I get through my life? How do we get through our lives not accepting ourselves? Well, if I'm really accepting my small self and I'm like this, that I'm manifesting some kind of arrogance, which people construe as prostitute as being egotistical. And if I beat myself up in not accepting my small self. Well, that's ego also.

[10:02]

And in our practice, We have to have a healthy self to let go of ourself, that small self, and accepting our small self. So how do we do that? Zazen helps. Talking helps. Talk therapy helps a lot. I've done all three, and I think a lot of you all have done the same. Sandokai states, in the light there is darkness, but don't take it as darkness.

[11:12]

In the dark there is light, but don't see it as light. Light and darkness oppose one another like the foot before and the foot behind in walking. When I think about this in the world of inclusivity and our varying states of mind, I like to think of besides the foot before and the foot behind in walking, like the knee ahead and the knee behind in crawling. I think we've all experienced times in our life when we were crawling to get through life. I remember vivid instances of crawling. I remember more metaphorical instances of crawling

[12:14]

not accepting the cause and conditions of my life that brought me to an awareness of great despair and discontent. And I also think about, besides walking and crawling, rolling in a wheelchair, feeling the body move toward something and away from something else. So whether we're walking on our feet, crawling on our knees, rolling in a wheelchair, we are moving. Where are we moving to? Suzuki Roshi said, there is. Is it the best translation in relation to, in the light there is dark, and in the dark there is light?

[13:22]

That feels dualistic, or self-dualistic. There's this dark, and there's this light. It feels separate. He said, it's more like skin. In the light skin, there is dark. That's a very different feeling, a much more intimate feeling. Indistinguishable sides or parts. This reminded me of Bodhidharma's acknowledgement of his four students when he asked them to present their understanding of the Dharma. With one, he said, you have my skin. Next one, you have my flesh. Third one, you have penetrated my bones.

[14:28]

And the last one, you have attained my marrow. So the conventional understanding of that is varying degrees of understanding. Skin, it's got a surface. Flesh, a little deeper. Bones, deeper still. And Mera, whoa, whoa, okay, you get the prize. So, Venka, or Thaiso Eka, received dharma entrustment or acknowledgment or transmission from Bodhidharma, and his name is chanted in our liturgy. So in a sense, he got it. How does that help us? What about the other three people who had some understanding? Well, in Dogen's understanding, skin, flesh, bone, and marrow are one thing.

[15:30]

They are indistinguishable. Now, you may start thinking, well, if I'm picking up a piece of chicken, and I'm biting into the skin, eating that, then chewing on the flesh, and then gnawing at the bone, picking off the flesh, but that all feels very separate. However, if you are really eating that bird, it's one thing. Yes, we can talk about skin, flesh, bones, and marrow. But from a practice place, to see the dark side, to see the intimacy of this life, it's just one thing.

[16:33]

And when you're really into it, it's just that. I also think of... The line of skin, flesh, bones, and marrow is an allusion to our varying stages of development and practice. In the Sandokai, there's a line that says, some are clever and some are not. Now, when I first heard that, I thought, well, I want to be a clever person. I want to be smart. I want to be known for my smartness. I don't want to be not so smart and kind of dumb. But this is an acknowledgement that we are where we are, and we fully accept our understanding at whatever point we are at in life. It's okay to have an aspiration to be smart and understand, but we all cover, our shadows all cover the ground equally.

[17:45]

The light shines on our body, on this body, and it casts a shadow on the ground. When we look at the black shadow on the ground or against the wall, it's all the same. That's seeing into the dark. When you light a candle in a dark room, where does the light go? When you extinguish a candle in a light room.

[18:53]

I apologize, I misspoke. When you light a candle in a dark room, where does the dark go? When you extinguish the candle, where does the light go? Neither goes anywhere. There's an epithet for Shakyamuni Buddha called Tathagata, which translates as thus come, thus gone, which I understand that to be, I'm not going here. This person's not going here or going there. It's thusness, coming and going, arising and passing away, light and dark. It's more seamless, intimate quality of change moment by moment.

[19:56]

We are caught by our perceptions. So in my lingering desire to be smart and sharp and upright and encouraging to you all, I made a mistake a moment ago and misread my notes about light and dark and the candle. So the brain, my brain, this brain is very quick to go to the light. Oh, Ross, you just screwed up. Are you going to say something about it? Did anyone catch that mistake that I made? And then, eating my humble pie, I apologize. And I bring forth what's written down here on the notes, which hopefully is more understandable.

[21:06]

So, as Dogen said, it's one continuous mistake in the light. And if we see deeply into the dark, there are no mistakes. It's just the cause and conditions of our life. And what's been helpful for me, in the years of sitting Zazen, is exploring this darkness, which is Tsubikoshi, in his words, is beginner's mind. Where am I? Where am I? being fresh moment by moment. Well, how does all this talk help us understand our discomfort?

[22:20]

In zazen, our body sits on the earth. It connects us downward to the dark, still center of the earth. So is that literal or metaphorical? Do I have an auger on the back of my butt and I'm digging down to the center of the earth? Well, not really. But my intention is to go as deep as I can and be as still as I can. You can ask any dancer about their feet because they are moving And my sense is that dancers are very attuned to their feet and the connection to the earth.

[23:33]

Even if they are so-called off the earth and up in the air, because they have to anticipate, where am I going to land on earth? Where am I going to land into the dark after expressing the light? in this graceful movement of dance. So our upright posture is in the light. This is the trunk and branches as stated in the Sandokai, that share the essence of the dark. So the metaphor of a tree is really apt, a bright tree rooted in the earth.

[24:38]

Nourished from the earth, the roots nourish the tree. We get a nourishment from the earth. All that said, most likely we did not come to Zen practice because of our realization of emptiness in the dark. We came to Zen practice because of our realization of our discontent in the light and not harmonizing with the duality that is this light. So we have the activity of light and the stillness of dark.

[25:46]

When I feel discontent or agitated, I don't feel so light. Sometimes these words can be changed. I feel kind of heavy. and dark, but it's actually the light that is disturbing me, the world of the relative and the differences. Have you ever noticed when you are discontent, upset beside yourself, that you may close your eyes? You may take a deep breath What's that about? What's your body telling you that your mind can't tell you?

[27:02]

Go to the dark. Go to the black. Where the branching streams the causes and conditions of my life flow. Breathe with that. Take it all in on inhalation. Let it go on exhalation, all the while sitting upright to regain your composure. Susan Marvin told a story recently about being outside the Abbott's office during Sojin's time here, and he was being confronted by a Zen student in a strongly worded argument about something which she couldn't quite make out, which isn't so important, but Susan heard it outside.

[28:26]

And she wondered, how in the hell are you sitting there, Sojin, listening to this? So he spoke to him a couple days afterwards about that. And he simply said, I saw the other side of this person. What's that other side? This person is expressing the light, and the other side is the darkness, the stillness, the Buddha, that brought this person through the gate in the first place many, many, many, many years ago. So when we investigate the dark abiding nature

[29:27]

of life on our seat of stillness. When the bell rings, we get up and investigate the light abiding nature of life in activity. So our thumb goes like this. and our hand goes over like that. And we're in shashu, which is above the navel, below our chest bone. Basically, our arms are parallel to the floor. Looks like that. So behind the rakasu, this is what you would see. One finger wrapped by however many fingers one has around it. So that's called a mudra, and it demonstrates light and dark, the oneness and the myriad, the oneness of life, which is the thumb that is parallel to our spine and goes to the center of the earth and reminds us to keep upright.

[30:53]

the oneness, the stillness, the absolute of all things, just as they are, or just as it is, as Suzuki Roshi said. And the fingers wrapped around that oneness are the light, all the myriad things that we think and do and feel and express. So the harmony is contained within this mudra. So what am I doing with my hands? Is it on my side or scratching or making noise in the microphone? Or am I maintaining this posture in walking, in rolling, in moving from stillness, which is like this, this and this, the one and the many. So here we are on earth, in earth, so-called place of our life.

[32:13]

And the relative, what we have to deal with, and the heavens above, the vast open boundless space of heaven that accepts our small little self down there on Earth. Where is heaven? Is it up there? It's over there, maybe? Well, heaven, while classically depicted as the heavens, actually extends all the way down to below our feet. Heaven. Sky, horizon, all the way down to our feet. So we're actually walking, rolling, crawling in heaven. The compassionate benevolence of heaven is where we are living. Zen traces its ancestry back

[33:26]

to a story where the Buddha held up a flower. I'll hold up my watch, simulating. Buddha holds up a watch and blinks. And Mahakashapa smiled. So what does that story represent? For me, it feels like the flower is raised in the light, this activity here. Do you all see it? Mahakashapa saw it and smiled. And in that acknowledgement, he was entrusted with the practice to carry on for now 2,500 or so years.

[34:30]

But what about that blink that Shakyamuni Buddha expressed after holding up the flower? Well, for me, it means or demonstrates a moment of darkness, a moment of stillness within the activity. Activity of the flower and the stillness of just this. There's a saying, you maybe have heard over your years in life. You know, things aren't so black and white. Well, I think they are.

[35:33]

Things are black and white, according to Buddhist thought. And we get to live with that. in the gray, in the mix, so to speak, of black and white. In Zazen, we lower our eyes, not focusing on anything in particular, and maintain upright posture, and follow our breath. It's very, very simple. Well, when we lower our eyes and not focus on anything in particular, fuzziness comes into focus.

[36:44]

The distinction of black and white, of this and that, of cushion and wall, of cough and silence. All the things that we experience in Zazen come together in the fuzziness of lowered eyebrows and not thinking about any particular thing. That's where we're encouraged not to look around because that's just filling our mind up with more light. and more things. Now, it's important to look both ways before you cross, but we're in the Zendo and people are pretty good about, you know, not crossing the solid yellow line. And so I don't think we're going to get hit. So it's an opportunity to let go and just be upright and enjoy the stillness and safety in activity. You know, we get splashed occasionally by this and that, intentionally or not, by friends and by so-called adversaries.

[38:10]

So what do we do with that? When we're going along, what the hell was that splash? What was that about? Well, my feelings get hurt if I feel insulted, minimized, in the presence of some arrogant person who's trying to put me down. You know, the usual things that can upset us. And I feel sort of justified in my feelings of anger and upset and surprise and disbelief. quite often have the impulse to want to say something back. Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don't. It reminds me of something Sojin Roshi told me some time ago in the midst of a

[39:27]

a very strong disagreement about something. My apartment adjoins the abbot's office, and we share a kitchen. So I was in the kitchen, and Soja Roshi opened the door to carry on this discussion. And he said, in an upright posture, but not puffed up, You can spit on me. You can spit on me. You can spit on me. He said it once. I said it three times for emphasis. I was a little taken aback by it. I was not going to spit on him, but I understood the sentiment by which he expressed himself. My late brother-in-law was from England, and he used to use the term dear and sweetie, which I adopted because I kind of like saying those words to my friends who I felt an endearment towards or a sweetness towards.

[41:03]

And I would do that without even questioning it or wondering. Someone asked me not to use that term when addressing them. And I was kind of surprised. The light side of me, well, gosh, you know, I'm honoring my late brother-in-law. I like you. And I'm saying this to myself. I say it as a... as an affection or term of endearment. And they said, please don't say that. So I refrained from addressing them with that. I didn't judge it. I wanted to honor what they asked of me. Because the cause and conditions of my life are different than the cause and conditions of my friend's life who had that exchange with

[42:10]

So not knowing and witnessing the person's upset or discontent and request not to be called that was important. And so I had to unlearn this person, dear or sweetie, when I casually would see them around. So that's the light side and an important side. And we are very versed in what we train ourselves and we get the help from others who are versed in this field of speaking up and maintaining a safe boundary in our life and relationship to know when to express oneself and what one's needs are in life and in the light. Very important. Equal value.

[43:11]

to the dark, which is where I felt Sojin Roshi was coming from and saying, you can spit on me. Because when one sees deeply into the dark, unconditioned nature of all beings, there's no way to be spat on. There's nobody hearing dear or sweetie. There's no one present to experience, you asshole, stupid, all that. So how do we balance our histories? And the karma accrued from volitional action of others, as well as our own, to bring these two together, the light and the dark?

[44:14]

Well, I leave that question to you all to ponder. It's 11.04, so we have a few minutes to receive questions or comments. continue this dialogue. Thank you very much for your attention. I can check the virtual hands and the literal hands in the zendo. Bring the dark into the light and the light into the dark. Timber. Hiko. Russ, I thank you for a wonderful talk, and I really appreciated your effort to be very specific and how much value that added to the distinctions you were making.

[45:29]

Thank you for that. When you were talking about the Thus Come one, you might want to look at your notes. the Tathagata, you said that, thus come one, thus gone one. And then you made a statement saying, when the Buddha comes into, and I'm not sure exactly how it was phrased, this next thing, what is he bringing? Or something along that as I was hearing it, that's what I heard. And so my question for you is, does the Buddha ever move from one moment to another? And when I was posing that question in my head, a few minutes later, you said, you can also arrive fresh in each moment. So when the Buddha talks about, when I read it and think about the Buddha, to me, the Buddha lives and dies now, lives and dies in the next moment, lives and dies, and each moment does come.

[46:30]

because of blessedness and the nature of blessedness. That would ask you again, where does the Buddha come from when he arrives in this moment, and where does he go when he's done with this moment? And who is that? It's a challenge question. It is, yeah. Well, it's no different than where you come and where you go. It's no different. The Buddha was a person, so he came and went. And in this moment, it's just this. And the teaching of thus come, thus gone is just this. As Hosanna was talking last week about the geese overhead, where did they go? No different than the Buddha. We think, oh, well, they must be going south for the winter or whatever the people are thinking about.

[47:34]

It's just this. So the geese and the Buddha are no different. We tend to ascribe more importance to this person and where I'm going and where I'm going up the ladder or down the ladder, this relationship, that project. But actually, it's just what's going on. The abbot of our temple this morning mop the porches of the zendo. Now, if he was attached to, I am the abbot, and I have more important things to do because I am going here and have to do this and that, he wouldn't have received the request to mop the porches. He said, okay, that's an expression of thus come, thus gone. Thus come, the invitation to mop the porch. This goes out.

[48:36]

Yes. So it's all about attitude. And our attitude around our life, around this life, merges with the duality of I have more important things to do. It's just, what's the next thing? What is the next thing? Thank you for your question. I hope that helps. Nobody online that I see, so Helen, please. Good morning. Good morning. During our talk today, I found myself thinking, I really don't belong here.

[49:39]

And I'm quite confident that wasn't your intention. I wonder whether you would say a few words to sort of encapsulate maybe what Your intention was in your talk. The intention of my talk was, thank you for your question, is to express what I've learned, how I've lived a life that's changed from protective, slightly slumped, loneliness to a more upright meeting things moment by moment.

[50:44]

When you asked your question, I had a feeling of not belonging here, I thought, of 36 years ago when I was in New York and having the same feeling. I don't belong here anymore. And it was really sad for me because I felt I was. And it changed so much. The circumstances of my life changed so much. And all I know is about myself and what I've needed to do. So, When Sojin Roshi told me when I went through my divorce, now you get to practice alone. And the same thing came up about, but I'm in this community, and do I belong here? Practicing alone, I might as well just go back out in the world like I was before I came to Zen Center.

[51:55]

And I realized after crawling, on my knees and regaining my composure and standing upright, that practicing with you all enabled me to remain at home and to feel okay about being here, even though I felt alone and wondering about belonging. So that was my intention. Does that address or shed a little light on some of them? We can talk some more perhaps if inclined. Joel, can you?

[53:04]

Yeah, good to see you. Thank you. Beautiful talk. I find myself very worried about myself and others trying to emulate or embody to at least some degree one of my heroes, the bodhisattva who never disparages. I think my experience is, at this point, that's very hard, and I and other people seem to me to be very prone to disparage others, and a situation where it's very hard for some people to say things because they're perhaps afraid of being disparaged, or that it will be automatically assumed that they have feelings or positions, which in fact they don't.

[54:10]

So I just wondered what your thinking is, what advice you have, how can we all move closer in our present situation towards the bodhisattva who never disparages? Well, that's a really great question, Joel. Yeah. And my response is, accept your disparagement. Accept the thought that arises of disparagement. I remember before Soja's lecture, we did bodhisattva ceremony. And he commented at the beginning of that lecture that during the bodhisattva ceremony, he was having disparaging thoughts. And I kind of chuckled, because I have disparaging thoughts. Someone told me that they accompanied him outside the gate of the temple some years ago, and he mentioned this thought he had that was probably something he wouldn't want to be talking about publicly.

[55:25]

And in exchange with Sojin, once in our kitchen when he was having a difficult time. And it was in this sort of vein of not such wholesome or upright thoughts. And I said, you know, actually I feel closer to you because you feel more human to me, knowing that you express, you know, through words and whatnot, things that are not so upright. Because I had this idea that, well, of course you're not going to have disparaging thoughts. An enlightened person doesn't do that. Well, I think an enlightened person or an awakened person doesn't attach to the thoughts. It's when we cultivate the seed of disparagement feeds us, and then we create a story. And then we start hurting ourselves more and hurting others. How do we balance, oh, there's that thought.

[56:30]

There's that thought. Right. Well, I think what you were talking about is expressing such a thought. Or not. Or not. Like, you know, in your thing with Sweden, maybe the person had a thought disparaging you for using a word that was very skillful and you were very skillful in meeting that. And so how do we judge? We have a thought, and maybe we accept that indeed we are having that thought. But then, what do we do with that? And as you say, sometimes you express it, sometimes you don't. Well, I apologize. We're getting a little... Yeah, sorry. Just to bring it back to my talk and the intention of my talk? When something arises in me that is not so wholesome, it gets me into a little hamster wheel, and I want to get back at someone and create such, then I think, if I die in this moment, is this how I want to go out?

[57:53]

Or is this just my opinion? It's just my opinion. It's just my thought. And both of those, in my view, go back to the darkness. It's so easy to get caught in the light. In the dark, there's light, but do not be caught by that light. 1300 years ago, and it's still valuable today. We don't need to go any further. Thank you very much. Thank you. Joel, thank you all very much. I saw a note from the tech host, Blake. Blake, did you need me to do anything other than to cut it? Okay. That's a wrap. Thank you.

[58:56]

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