A lot of faces I know and a lot of faces I don't know. Those of you I don't know, this is actually my home temple and it feels like coming home even though this is the first time I've lectured here on a Saturday. I've spoken here other times and sat here a lot. I want to talk this morning about what's been up in my practice recently, it's all in the context of, I live at the San Francisco Zen Center, excuse me, I've been there for almost nine years now. I went off to Tassajara in September of 90, and I haven't been, and I've lived at various places at the San Francisco Zen Center since then. And this fall, Probably in September I'm leaving and going off to Vallejo where I have a sitting group and we'll see if it grows.

[01:13]

My hope is to simply say I'm going to sit every morning and join me if you like and see what happens in the mode of Mel and Suzuki Roshi and Steve Stuckey and many other people. And it's a difficult thing for me. It's kind of scary and it's exciting. And I have a lot of questions about it. Is it okay for me to do this? Am I being selfish? Am I leaving too soon? Should I stay for another five years at Zen Center? I know that I could be useful there, so it is leaving something or another, but this is so much, this leaving and starting a group is so much what I'm about that it feels okay to do it.

[02:23]

Almost feels like I don't have any choice. It also means, leaving also means that I get to spend a little more time here, which is also where my heart is. So in that context, my practice these days What keeps coming up is something about standing up in the middle of my own reality and I keep turning that phrase and wondering what it means. It sounds maybe kind of selfish or I think about people. There's a certain time when one is in therapy and it's really common to

[03:28]

to go around saying, well, that's just how I am. And act like a complete jerk. But it's part of some process of accepting yourself. And hopefully that doesn't end there. And there's something, you know, sometimes in practice there's that, oh well, so I'm not perfect. But it isn't just selfish, I hope. It's also, I think, something about being present for your own reality, for my own reality, and about standing in my Dharma position, so that neither pushing away in some aggressive way, nor submitting in some inappropriate way. So I keep asking myself, if it's okay to leave Zen Center, is that simply standing up in my own reality?

[04:32]

Or is that kind of leaning too far one way or the other? And last, at the end of Rahatsu Sashin in San Francisco, we had a shosan, you know, question and answer with the person that led the practice period. And I asked some question about this, I don't remember what exactly, but I know I used that phrase, standing up in my own reality, and Paul Haller was the teacher who was leading it, and he said to me, well, is that the most important thing? And I found myself saying yes, and thinking, was one of those times sometimes you say something you don't know exactly what you mean by it and it was like that it was a little koan moment is what does that mean what does that have to do with liberation or enlightenment or whatever it is that we're doing so i've been turning that um and i'll come back to this i want to um

[05:46]

change the subject a little to something that when I was thinking about this talk seemed unrelated. But I will relate them. In the Vallejo group we're reading Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, and talking about it sometimes paragraph by paragraph and sometimes section by section. And we just finished reading the one called Mind Waves. And it discusses big mind in relation to the waves that occur in our minds. And he's talking about including them and remembering that big mind includes everything. And it's when we set something apart from ourselves and call it other, and relate to it that way, as if it were separate. That is small mind.

[06:52]

And he points out, of course, that big mind includes that too. But the big mind basically experiences everything, all the experiences that come to it or within it, all of those are big mind. and that there is no other. I just want to read a little bit from it. The editor chose this sentence to introduce the fascicle. Because we enjoy all aspects of life as an unfolding of big mind, We do not care for any excessive joy, so we have imperturbable composure. And then in the body of it, he says, if your mind is related to something outside itself, that mind is a small mind, a limited mind.

[07:59]

Big mind experiences everything within itself. Do you understand the difference between the two minds? the mind which includes everything, and the mind which is related to something. Actually, they are the same thing, but the understanding is different, and your attitude towards your life will be different according to which understanding you have. Big mind and small mind are one. When you understand your mind in this way, you have some security in your feeling. As your mind does not expect anything from outside, it is always filled. He goes on to say that big mind does not fear death nor the suffering of old age. So that kind of including everything and even as he says enjoying it, that's equanimity.

[09:06]

reading this, one person in the group in Vallejo said, how could there be excessive joy? How could there be too much? And I wondered about not being afraid of death or the suffering of old age. Those seem to me part of being human, those kinds of things. And as we discussed it, One of my favorite Zen masters came to my mind, a man named John Muir, whom you've heard of, at least in terms of having heard of Muir Woods. He started the Sierra Club and he was a pioneer of preserving wilderness. And I think he was certainly a Zen master. And one of the books of his is called The Mountains of California, and it's a series of essays about the Sierras, which were probably his favorite mountains.

[10:24]

He was born in the northern Midwest, but he spent a good deal of his life here in California, and a lot of it in the Sierras. And in this book is an essay about a bird called a water oozle. O-U-Z-E-L, sometimes called, I think, the Mexican Dipper. And they live near streams. And I thought of this essay because, as he describes the Uzo, it's just, it's not pulled around by the circumstances of its life. There's a kind of enjoyment regardless of the circumstances. There's not dwelling on difficulties and there's not being pulled by excessive joy. It's just present. So I want to read you a little bit about the wire uzal. Among all the countless waterfalls I have met in the course of 10 years' exploration in the Sierra, whether among the icy peaks or warm foothills, or in the profound Yosemite canyons of the Middle Region, not one was found without its oozle.

[11:51]

No canyon is too cold for this little bird, none too lonely, provided it be rich in falling water. Find a fall or cascade or rushing rapid, anywhere upon a clear stream, and there you will surely find its complimentary boozle, flitting about in the spray, diving in foaming eddies, whirling like a leaf among beaten foam bells, ever vigorous and enthusiastic, yet self-contained, neither seeking nor shunning your company. She is the mountain stream's own darling, the hummingbird of blooming waters, loving rocky ripple slopes and sheets of foam as a bee loves flowers. Among all the mountain birds, none has cheered me so much in my lonely wanderings, none so unfailingly. For both in winter and summer, she sings sweetly, cheerily, independent alike of sunshine and of love.

[12:59]

requiring no other inspiration than the stream on which she dwells. While water sings, so much she, in heat or cold, calm or storm, ever attuning her voice in sure accord, low in the drought of summer and the drought of winter, but never silent. As for weather, dark days and sun days are the same to him. The voices of most songbirds, however joyous, suffer a long winter eclipse, but the oozle sings on through all the seasons and every kind of storm. Indeed, no storm can be more violent than those of the waterfalls in the midst of which he delights to dwell. However dark and boisterous the weather, snowing, blowing, or cloudy, all the same he sings and with never a note of sadness. No need of spring sunshine to thaw his song, for it never freezes.

[14:02]

Never shall you hear anything wintry in his breast, no pinched cheaping, no wavering notes between sorrow and joy. His mellow, flutty voice is tuned to downright gladness, as free from dejection as cot crowing. One wild winter morning when Yosemite Valley was swept its length from west to east by a cordial snowstorm. You have to understand, he loved storms. John Doerr loved storms. He climbed a pine tree once in the middle of a windstorm, like, you know, like 60, 80 feet up, and rode it. Because that's where I could stalk the grass. So when he says a cordial snowstorm, he's talking about a blizzard. I sallied forth to see what I might learn and enjoy. A sort of gray, gloaming-like darkness filled the valley. The huge walls were out of sight. All ordinary sounds were smothered, and even the loudest booming of the falls was at times buried beneath the roar of the heavy, laden blast.

[15:11]

The loose snow was already five feet deep on the meadows, but I found no great difficulty in making my way to a certain ripple on the river where one of my oozles lived. He was at home busily gleaning his breakfast among the pebbles of a shallow portion of the margin, apparently unaware of anything extraordinary in the weather. Presently, he flew out to a stone against which the icy current was beating, and turning his back to the wind, sang as delightfully as a lark in springtime. After spending an hour or two with my favorite, I made my way across the valley. boring and wallowing through the drifts, to learn as definitely as possible how the other birds were spending their time. The Yosemite birds are easily found during the winter because all of them, excepting the Uzo, are restricted to the sunny north side of the valley, the south side being constantly eclipsed by the great frosty shadow of the wall.

[16:17]

I found most of the robins cowering on the ice side of the larger branches where the snow could not fall upon them, while two or three of the more enterprising were making desperate efforts to reach the mistletoe berries by clinging nervously to the underside of the snow-crowned masses, back and downward like woodpeckers. Every now and then, they would dislodge some of the loose fringes of the snow-crowned, which would send them screaming back to camp where they would subside among their companions with a shiver, muttering in low, quarrelless chatter like hungry children. Some of the sparrows were busy at the feet of the larger trees, joined now and then by a robin weary of his unsuccessful attempts upon the snow-covered berries. The brave woodpeckers were clinging to the snowless side of the larger bowls, making short flights from side to side, pecking now and then at the acorns they had stored in the bark, and chattering aimlessly as if unable to keep still, yet evidently putting in the time in a very dull way.

[17:32]

The stellar jays were, of course, making more noisy stir than all the other birds combined, ever coming and going with loud luster. screaming as if each had a lump of melting sludge in his throat, and taking good care to improve the favorable opportunity afforded by the storm to steal from the acorn stores of the woodpeckers. I also noticed one solitary gray eagle raiding the storm on top of a tall pine stump. He was standing bolt upright with his back to the wind, a tuft of snow piled on his square shoulders. a monument of passive endurance. Thus, every snowbound bird seemed more or less uncomfortable, if not in positive distress. The storm was reflected in every gesture, and not one cheerful note, not to say song, came from a single bill. Their cowering, joyless endurance offering a striking contrast to the spontaneous, irrepressible gladness of the oozle.

[18:40]

who could no more exhaling sweet song than a rose sweet fragrance. She must sing, though the heavens fall. So, he goes on to say that the Ouzel song, he says it glows with subdued enthusiasm and he contrasts it with the gushing ecstasy of the bobbling song. And it seems to me that that gushing ecstasy is the same as excessive gladness. The uzo simply stands up in the middle of its own reality and enjoys it regardless. There isn't any fear of the storm. nor of the suffering, it actually dives into icy water.

[19:41]

There is also not the kind of, I don't know, I think of excessive joy as that kind of hysterical kind of joy. Sometimes after Sashin, sometimes during Sashin, there can be too much laughter. The uzo seems to me a being that's not grabbing after nor seeking to avoid the circumstances of its life. Thinking about standing up in the middle of your life, accepting it, I was just reminded of something, Mel quotes Suzuki Roshi, saying it affected Mel a lot. I think it was probably in the hallway at City Center. And Suzuki Rossi just approached him in the hall one day and said, just came up to him and said, just being alive is enough.

[20:48]

That's it. And that's been something that's sustained Mel ever since. How could that be? I think it's a con for him also. And I want to tell another story that I heard from Ed Brown years ago that sustains me. There was a monk years ago in Japan. It was during a session of some sort or a time of retreat and he went out on the water in a boat. And he was just floating on the lake and he heard the song of a bird. and it pierced his heart. And when he got back to the shore and he saw his teacher, he told his teacher about this experience. And his teacher said, that's good, but that's not quite the experience of the ancient Buddhas.

[21:55]

And the monk said, that's okay, it was enough for me. And his teacher said, That is the experience of the ancient humans. So, it seems kind of a no-brainer that I've got to stand up in the middle of my own reality. I have to find my center and my balance there. If I'm not centered there, and comfortable there, or at least willing there, then it's not the standing up of the ancient Buddhas. If there's aggression in it, or too much submissiveness in it, that's not really standing up, it's something else. If there's something grudging about it, it's not standing up.

[22:59]

And I think that from that centered place I can see others more clearly because I'm not protecting myself so much. I'm not concerned so much with my sense of self or my ideas of who I am. And I think that is liberation. So if that's, from that place I'm going to Vallejo, just going, that's fun. I want to tell you about an experience recently, and it's a little awkward, and those of you who know me, if you think you know who I'm talking about, you're probably wrong. I had a fight with somebody recently, and this person has an idea about me, which is not entirely wrong either, but at any rate, this person started telling me,

[24:07]

They told me they were upset with me over an exchange that had happened in a meeting. And I started to respond and my friend immediately started telling me about, oh, you're going to do da-da-da-da that you always do. And it felt to me, working with this standing in my own reality, I didn't need to respond in kind. I found myself simply saying this is my experience and just coming back to my experience and not feeling like I had to defend some particular position but just stay in my own experience. And we've had this argument, she and I, many times. And this time it came out differently and it felt like It had something to do, I think it had something to do with my own shift and not being quite so defensive.

[25:17]

It's also some work that this other person's been doing, it's not just me, and work that we do on the relationship. So it's a lot of things, but that sense of just staying in my own reality without having to defend it particularly, or insist on it, but this is my experience. Felt like, felt good. Now I want to do a little show and tell here. This book is about to come out. It's called The Crooked Cucumber, and it's a biography of Suzuki Roshi by David Chadwick, who you may have read Thank You and Okay. It's a memoir about his time in monastic life in Japan. Anyway, David was an early, early student of Suzuki Roshi's.

[26:22]

And he interviewed many, many, many people. And so to some extent this is kind of like an oral history. He also read a lot of lectures and so on. And it's actually not quite in the bookstores yet. I sort of finagled this one out of a friend because I said that I was coming to talk here and I wanted to be able to tell you about it. And it's more fun to tell you about it when I can show it to you than to just talk about it. This is the back of his head, as you may be able to see. It looks sort of like the Tofu Roshi picture. And then there's a picture of his face here. I've just started it. I haven't read that much of it yet, but I dipped into it. I was hoping I could find something that I could use in this lecture. And I did. And he talks about being yourself or staying with yourself.

[27:28]

being willing to be yourself a lot. So it was more a matter of choosing something than having any difficulty finding anything. I love there's a chapter called The Driver which had to do with a lecture that he gave when he knew he was ill and kind of telling them that they had to They might need to find another driver. The students didn't exactly understand at the time. But he was also talking to them about being themselves, being willing to be themselves. The introductory quote is, how can you practice Zazen? Only when you accept yourself and when you really know you exist here. You cannot escape from yourself. This is the ultimate fact that I am here.

[28:31]

And in the body of the chapter there's this wonderful exchange with a woman named Louise Pryor. Part of the chapter is about Suzuki Roshi wanting people to go off to Japan to study in Japanese monasteries and some of his students resisted that. So he's talking about Louise Pryor. He said, earlier Louise Pryor had been present when Suzuki Oksan, which is his wife and Suzuki, and an assistant priest named Ryogen Yoshimura were discussing her husband Dan Welch's future. Dan, a priest who spoke good Japanese from his Rinzai training with Nakagawa, was to go to Japan to live in a temple for two years. The discussion was proceeding as if she weren't there. What about me, she asked.

[29:35]

Yoshimura explained that Louise couldn't go because she wasn't Japanese and would be a burden on the priest's wife. She should remain in America for a year or two while her husband studied in Japan. Louise became angry. All of you think it's better to be a man than a woman. You think it's better to be a priest than a layperson. And you think it's better to be Japanese than American. But I will always be a woman. And I will always be a layperson. And I will always be an American. And here I am." Everyone was silent. Suzuki turned to her and said, What you have just expressed is the spirit of the Bodhisattva's way. The spirit of the Bodhisattva's way.

[30:36]

Here I am. I think that's a good place to stop so we have some time for some questions. So do you have any? I've understood, I understand Suzuki Roshi's admonition about excessive joy in this way. The excessive part is when we struggle for it, when we lean into it to get it. That's what's excessive, and that's misery. But to stand up in the middle of joy, is quiet gladness. Similarly, to stand up in the middle of grief and loss and fear is quiet gladness. I think so.

[31:39]

I think so. It's the extra that's the problem. I can't imagine that he meant that one wouldn't have some fear of death. I think he must have meant something about the suffering we add on to it obsessing about old age when you're 23. Correct me if I misquote you, but I believe you said that what's giving you strength to stand up, to be able to go That you want to see what comes, but you don't. Would you say it's good intentions? I don't think I'd use that phrase. Or just being aware of some of your intentions? Well, being aware of it is important because it's a big mix of things that are nice and things that aren't so pleasant.

[32:48]

And having to be willing to look at the no, at the other side, you know, am I running away? Because if I stay at Center, I will certainly be in administrative positions, or I would be in administrative positions for a long time, and I am now. And, you know, it's okay, but it's not my idea of heaven, to be polite about it. I'm a director at City Center, which means I'm responsible for the buildings and staffing and stuff like that. What I trust, I trust my body. I trust my process. And because I've done it, you know, the decision to go to Tassajara, the process of deciding that I completely wanted to be ordained as a priest, the decision to leave Tassajara, these kinds of things that I really, for me it's a very organic process. It's not a thought process so much. but I've come, and I've come to really trust myself in that way.

[33:54]

My question is, recently somebody said, I was saying, in a situation, well, it depends on what your intentions are, and you're going, but how can you trust your intentions? Well... I was wondering if you could tell me on that, if that's from experience. I trust myself when I am willing to allow everything to come up. If I am carrying a board, you know, if I only see my good intentions, then I think I'm in deep trouble and I may not only hurt myself but hurt other people. So it's not about what I think I'm doing, you know, It's something deeper than that. And it is about intention in some deeper sense, in the sense of vow. But that's something that's in your body, I think.

[34:57]

And it's something, you know, there's some place in your body where you know if you're telling the truth or not. I think it's right here somewhere. And when you say something that's not really deeply true for yourself, when you're quiet, you say it and there's something that says, And it's also something that just knows That's that kind of intention I think one can trust And it doesn't may have mixed feelings with it But there's a just that really deep place that Somebody asked me basically the same question yesterday Much the same answer that proceeds from, that when information proceeds from Val, then one can trust it. Otherwise, the intention can be that it's another, it's another

[36:01]

at the end of this lecture. And then that vow is refined by exactly the kind of interactions that you had with your friend that you were in conflict with. It's like when you have this conflict, then you have an opportunity to reflect, remember the vow, and actually act on that. When you get to act on that, then you learn about And it's not just in your body, and you could be convinced of, we have different ideologies, and we could be, different things could be in our body, but when these things are tested in relationships, then they're refined. Can you say something about how your involvement with the sitting group in Belale

[37:21]

It's pretty new, you know, it's only been since the middle of November. Do you feel inspired? I often, I feel inspired by people practicing. And it happens there, it happens at City Center too, or whatever. I think what's been particularly inspiring is just reading Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind again, really reading it slowly and with other people, and coming to phrases or sections that maybe I don't really feel like I understand. and all of us taking something or another, like this thing about fear of death, you know, taking it, because to me, I thought, what is this? And just turning it and turning it together and coming to something that felt satisfying.

[38:37]

That's a wonderful experience, doing that with other people. Only a Buddha and a Buddha, you need that contact. And then also other things that I feel like I do have some understanding of, but having to put it in my own words. Somebody asks some question and then I have to respond to it and make it my own in that process. Not just read it and say, no, no, no. That's, I don't know if I would exactly use the word inspiring, but it certainly is a challenge and it seems really, it feels really useful. It feels really good. because it's, then I do that and I'm a little lazy and if I'm not challenged to do it, I'm not so likely to do it. Yeah? I just wondered how the delay home situation came about. No. What time is it?

[39:39]

5 after 11? When are you supposed to stop? I'll tell you outside, I think it's too long a page. When I could say it just happened, I could say it was time for it to happen, I could say my friend Deanna moved to Vallejo and I could afford a house there. I've always wanted to have a sitting group and now I've been Shuso and so I felt like I could do that.

[40:10]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ