Good morning again. My name's Lori Sanaki. I think I know everybody here. And I think everybody knows that I'm giving the Monday morning talk because I'm the shoestow for the practice period. First thing I would like you to know about me is that when I was a little girl, I was extremely shy and introverted. I was the kind of kid that was always kind of hiding behind her mom's skirts. And I was scared to be alone too, so I just really liked to have my mom or my dad or my sister close by all the time. And I think I think I was like in an altered state all through kindergarten.

[01:05]

I mean, it just was inconceivable to me. And then I gradually, you know, got used to that and got really good at school. But there was one thing that you did in school that I could never do, and that was oral expression. The minute, from the minute the teacher made the assignment, you know, we're going to do oral expression, I would get a stomachache from that moment until the time that I gave my little speech. And when I got up to give my little speech, it would, I would like be seeing stars and feeling faint and my, I would be sweating all over. And it would, you know, voices would be coming from a great, my own voice sounded like it was coming from a great distance. And so somehow it just feels like a long journey just to be here.

[02:10]

And I guess how much of me has made that journey, we'll find out. I was born in Portland, Oregon in 1954. And my family scene was pretty benign. My sister and I, pretty early, you know. in our young adulthood started to refer to my parents' parenting style as benign neglect, with the little spin on the neglect. But now that I've been a parent and heard many Monday morning talks about people's experience, I have it with the little spin on the benign. My mom did most of the caregiving and she was, she's a very fun, fun-loving and fun person.

[03:17]

And my, I had a real kind of wordless communion with my dad who, he was a warm man, very, he was, both my parents were older and hadn't, had already sort of faced they might not be able, they might not end up having family. So he was very happy to have children and had a little twinkle in his eye a lot of the time. And I, my kind of connection to him was really important to me. And my sister was a year older than me, and I just really liked to follow in her footsteps, kind of stand right behind her and shield myself, just going right behind her for a long time. And my parents grew up in the midst of religious Christians. On my dad's side, born-again Baptists.

[04:23]

My mom's side, one little package of born-again Methodists, and then my grandmother and her sisters were into this Christian mystic Emanuel Swedenborg, very obscure, and they kind of went to mediums occasionally. just read sort of book, a certain kind of book, I can't even explain what it is. But it was part of the conversation, Lost Ten Lost Tribes of Israel and stuff like that. It's part of the conversation. And I feel like my parents' attitude towards religion was very Buddhist. I mean, it was kind of like, well, I don't know if Jesus was God's only begotten son or not. but also kind of looking for what might be helpful about Christian teachings. So my An example of this is that my aunts would notice that my parents weren't taking us to Sunday school and they would ask if they could take us to their Sunday school.

[05:42]

And also one of my aunts had this little Bible study class after school that we would go to, all the kids in the neighborhood would kind of go to. And my mom was kind of worried about this. And she kind of, I heard about this later, said to my dad, do you really think this is okay that they're kind of getting into this born-again Christian thing? And my dad just, they'll figure it out. And I think that anyway, that they'll figure it out is kind of like that's the big nine neglect is right there. You can hear both sides. My dad died suddenly of a heart attack when I was nine. And we were pretty unmoored, I think, for a while. My mom, that was very hard for my mom.

[06:45]

But we also kind of drew together as a family and had to help her and that made it so that certain kinds of rebellion and dynamics that you have between your parents often didn't really happen exactly. When I got into high school, I was just always a real seeker and a real weirdo. When I was a freshman, they dropped the dress code, and I just scoured my mom's house, my mom's clothes, and goodwill, I mean, for just the weirdest clothes I could find. And, you know, my mom's evening wear and beautiful velvet things, and I wore them to school. And I had kind of two circles I moved in. I had one set of friends that were already sort of into Eastern religion, and like those Kenneth Rexroth poem books, the hundred Japanese poems, the hundred Chinese poems, and...

[07:56]

just a bunch of other things, renaissance music and little strange things that all seem to go together. one of my, one of the friends in that group, my parents had a big library and one of my friends pulled the book, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, off my own shelf. And that was kind of my first taste of Zen. It's a book by Paul Reps that has little, it's kind of koans, but just the story, just the little story, not any of the commentary or anything. So that was my first taste of Zen and I also really like those Zen telegrams, there's another Paul Rep's thing where it's like he's got a little drawing and then a little thingy, a little quote there. And then there was this, then I was into this other set of people that was into leftist politics.

[09:03]

And the sort of focus for that group was this young man who He came to our school, I think in second year or something. Anyway, he became my sister's first real boyfriend and a really good friend of mine. And his whole family had gone from being devout Catholics to devout atheists to devout pacifists to, like, pick up the gun for the revolution. He was a really wonderful person. I think of him as kind of an old soul or a Bodhisattva. He had this real zest for life and this ability to connect with anybody. He had friends among all the different cliques at my school. somehow he made the whole thing make sense. And also my parents were, I didn't mention this before, but my parents were also liberal and my mom had been radical from college and my dad wrote letters to the editor about, you know, like the House Un-American Activities Committee, the things that were happening at that time.

[10:25]

And so I had already worked on the Eugene McCarthy campaign, so it wasn't just him. It was like that was a direction that my life naturally took. But he sort of led us into this, a little bit further into this get ready to pick up the gun for the revolution way that I might have gone on my own anyway. But not that we ever did anything, but we kind of studied mail and things like that. So I kind of went back and forth between these two groups and feeling very unhappy too a lot of the time, which is hard to compute, although it's probably how everybody maybe felt, but it's like I wasn't just expressing myself, I was trying to understand, I was looking for something that would make it make sense. So I think if I could have just done those two circles and just sort of been expressing

[11:28]

them, that would have been fine, but somehow I was looking there for something meaningful that would just make the whole thing make sense, and it wasn't there. And another thing about me is that I kind of cope with my life by going into my head, I pull into my head and withdraw from everything else and so I kind of, I was very alienated and in my head about these things and suffered, you know, it's kind of like I would pull into my head and then why do I, why do I feel so alienated? Kind of lack of understanding of what was happening. I, uh, after I graduated from high school, uh, I was doing this babysitting job and my mom drove up with my sister and a friend of ours and got out of the car and sat me down and said, David was in a bicycle accident and he was killed.

[12:43]

And that was a very hard... thing, of course. And, uh... You know, now I think there's this understanding of that grieving, that you have this grieving process and you do things to support the grieving process. But of course at that time, it was just like I just started college anyway. And I really, really already kind of didn't really know why I was going to go to college. But this just made it even more bleak, my first year of college. And I finally dropped out and Sorry, I'm trying to think if there was something else I wanted to say about that. Anyway, I think I'll think of it. And I sort of entered this period, it was sort of like seeking unleashed or something, it was... And I, it started out as

[13:51]

as just trying to get out of Portland. That was my first thing, was just get out of Portland. But then it gradually was honed into looking for some kind of body-mind training. I think because of this thing about going into my head, the things that really feel real for me are the things that I do with my body. So I was gradually looking, I was looking for something. I went from like organic gardening to holistic healing I worked for the Forest Service and got into sort of healing nutrition diet and I also There was sort of mate-seeking mind and way-seeking mind kind of duking it out in some way. So I would start something, leave town, start something, then feel so incredibly lonely, so immediately fall in love with somebody. But then if I got into a real relationship, I immediately felt this incredible bleak, I mean that my future I had no, it didn't make any sense, so it just was very intense.

[15:05]

But in a certain way, at least the way-seeking mind part was honing towards something that did make sense. The last thing I did before I came to Zen Center I want to tell you about because I think it really mediated my experience at Zen Center a lot, which is I did this year-long apprenticeship at this sort of macrobiotic Japanese slash Japanese restaurant in Boston. And the restaurant was set up supposedly like apprenticeships in Japan, like a sort of condensed version of the apprenticeship in Japan. It's like, I think in Japan, you're like a year as a dishwasher, a year as the different things. So in this restaurant, we were like a month as the dishwasher, a month as the salad maker, a month as the short order cook. And you just sort of train the person after you and then went on to the next one. It was like a chain. You just kind of moved up through and then you were the baker, then you were the head cook of the restaurant for a month.

[16:12]

And it was like a, it was a real, like, lifestyle, because we lived, we kind of lived there, we lived together, we lived at the restaurant, or we lived nearby, and we got up and we did yoga together, and then we worked, and we also had classes. It was run by this really great Japanese guy, Hiroshi Hayashi, and he was a real visionary, and he had set the whole thing up, and he taught classes, like, in chopping, really nice chopping, And we also went out to eat with him and talk, you know, he'd talk about that. And he had kind of come to be part of the macrobiotic community in Boston, but then he couldn't deal with that, so he'd kind of spun off. And a lot of the people who came to do the restaurant appreciation also had come to be part of the macrobiotic community in Boston. And then we kind of got derailed over to this thing. It was, you know, people who do macrobiotics also think that that's Buddhism.

[17:20]

They call that Buddhism in some way. And so there was a sense of it's kind of like samurai sport or something, you know, getting up and You're just supposed to jump out of bed, you know. And you know, whenever anybody told you anything, you were supposed to say, thank you. And whenever anybody asked you to do anything, you were supposed to say, yes. And as an example of how you can sort of go wrong, if you do this a certain way, we had have-a-heart traps in the in the restaurant for the mice and the guys who I was doing this with would take the Havahart trap and they were going to free the mice, take them out of town to free the mice. And what they were actually doing was they would take them onto the freeway somehow, pull over and let them out on the freeway and they termed this Zen training.

[18:27]

So anyway, They meant for the mice, but yeah. So there was this kind of samurai thing and you know, it just, it worked for me somehow. That's what I can say. It was like what people do when they go to boot camp or something or do a sport. It's like I got into my body in some way and like I mustered some energy and It just worked for me, even though there was something really wacky about it at the same time. And after that year ended, I... Oh, and also, Hiroshi would like... admonish us to like if we because we worked we often work the whole shift the morning day shift and the night shift and so we were tired and complaining and whining and he would say there's plenty of time to lie down after you die and stuff I'm so it's like that you know like

[19:46]

And we were all young, obviously, so, you know, there was a way that you could do that, actually. So anyway, I left Boston and then quit pretty soon. I moved to San Francisco to be at Zen Center and I had already come as a Zen student previously in one of these other bouncing things. So I liked it and I moved in and so there was a kind of similarity between the thing at the 7th Inn, the restaurant, and what was happening at Zen Center. I kind of, in a way, it's weird, I kind of missed for a while what was really happening because I thought we were doing the samurai sport thing.

[21:07]

But it was good in a way, it was good, there was like a way I sort of was protected from something, something. So, you know, we Similarly, we got up, we did Zazen, and I worked at Green's. I pretty quickly got a job at Green's. And we would ride together in the car. We'd be talking about the lecture from the night before and working together. The senior students were like the managers of the business. And then we'd come home. We'd try to go to Zazen again and have dinner together and take a class or go to lecture. You know, I'm not... I read Shoes Outside the Door and I think it was pretty accurate and I'm not... and I think that Sojin just has a better sense about how to organize a community in a dharmic way.

[22:13]

So, I'm not disloyal to say that it was just really neat. It was like a big body-mind university. And people who, for me anyway, it was neat. For people who were in town would like come and give a talk at Zen Center, neat people. And it was like kind of cutting edge artists and stuff like that. It was, it was sort of like the Seventh Inn, only there was more depth, the kind of depth and feeling was so much more that I really, it was a good time, even though, again, it was, it was, there was a wacky side to what was happening. I remember Dan, Ed Brown at some point heard that I had been into macrobiotics and he said to me,

[23:17]

Zen students love gamasyo. And it was like he was saying, I mean I got it, it was like about the only thing about that samurai sport, the whole thing that makes any sense is gamasyo. So there I was at Zen Center and so I was, the lifestyle was really, was kind of working because again it was like pulling me into my body more. So that was, that felt very real for me, the zazen and the working in the restaurant. But I mean, you can tell from my story that settling was not something that came real easily. I was really unsettled and so I sort of focused my unsettling on whether Buddhism was really for me. And, you know, I had, in these travels, I'd met people into all kinds of different religions, and so Sufism, and I was drawn to these other things too.

[24:25]

And things that kind of had more bhakti, devotion to God, love, you know, that kind of thing. And it just seemed very dry, Buddhism seemed very dry. So I really like the Zen stories because they have this kind of spark, but when I tried to read other things, it just seemed so dry and philosophical, and particularly the Heart Sutra. I just didn't, it seemed so dry. And I thought, is this really the heart teaching? I mean, how can I, I couldn't see how I could like settle with a religion where that was the heart teaching, you know. So I went to Reb, that was my first practice instruction, and I said, I just want to learn how to treat people better and better. What's that have to do with no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind?

[25:26]

And he said, there was a pretty long pause, and he said, well, it's when you have eyes I don't even remember what else he said, but the gist of it was that the Sutra is talking about all the things that get in the way of you being who you want to be, and it's saying that they aren't real. So, it was just a, it was a really big thing for me. It's like, oh, that's their question too. It's like my question was their question somehow. So, it's not like I understood the Heart Sutra or I understood anything anymore, but it was kind of like the well. It was like digging, digging, digging down and then hitting the water and the water just kind of spurts up and everything's wet suddenly. And so, I mean, at that point I pretty much jumped on the Buddhist bandwagon completely and just felt like even, and I still, you know, if I don't understand something I read, I always just know, well, someone thought this was helpful for the same kind of problems I have.

[26:49]

I don't see how they did, but they did. They wouldn't have passed this on if, they wouldn't have passed on if it weren't. So, that was, and then I sort of, that's when I really started to ebb away from this whole samurai sport and just kind of let go of that whole part and get into the what, really what Suzuki Roshi was really talking about, whatever that was, which I still don't understand. So how's time doing? I've got three minutes? Wow. I don't even know. This is kind of a first. I usually have like this ten minutes or something. So I went to Tassajara. That was when the whole apocalypse at Zen Center happened after my first practice period at Tassajara.

[27:52]

So I just kind of stayed there and processed that with people. left. Rev asked me if I wanted to be the Abbott's assistant, so I did that for a while. I met Alan when I was doing that and fell in love. And even more than being in love, I think, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but there was something about, there was like this There was this sort of sense of inevitability about it almost from the beginning. It was like, this obviously is what's supposed to happen. And then, huh? Well, I didn't. His beginning is different from my beginning. I don't even know.

[28:55]

Maybe I should do questions. I was going to talk about moving here, but it's not going to happen. Yes, Kelly. I already had come. I had a friend way before that. Oh, and that reminds me. Oh, boy. I have a little show and tell. I have a picture of myself on Page Street in 1978, and I have A Mother's Day card I just got yesterday. I always wanted to meditate. I mean, that was one of the things. I just always wanted to learn how to meditate. And someone had taught me how to do Muktananda style meditation. And then a friend of mine had already come down to San Francisco and said, oh, you can go there. They can really teach you how to meditate. So I came for a month in 77 as a guest student.

[29:56]

You can talk a little bit about how you got here. Should we let the people who really have to go leave or something? Well, you know, it seemed like it made sense for us to move here. I was kind of relieved to escape from Zen Center. There's sort of this intense politics. And I really, I really honor the people who stayed and made that work because it was really hard and it was really about all these people that had never worked anything out with each other. They were always just relating to Richard Baker. And then when you took him out, they had never tuned this. And even people who had said we should be tuning this were like made fun of and stuff, saw music. So anyway, I just really honor the people who worked through that. It was about their sense of practice prevailing over everything else. Anyway, So we moved here and then things happened really fast for both of us.

[31:03]

Babies and jobs and it was very intense. I had a really hard time with my tiny little baby, you know, being introverted again and having this being that just wanted to relate to me 24-7, literally. I mean, it was really intense and hard. Again, pulling me into my body, which was good, and my heart, which was really good, but also kind of excruciating. And I think parents generally can relate to what it was like. Very lonely. The day was really long. Actually, Baika was one of the people who really put it together like she had the insight to how hard it was, what I was going through, and she had time and the energy, and she also connected with Sylvie in a way that almost like modeled for me a way to relate to her, so it's really... And, you know, I had left my whole support system, and then it turned, you know, really, Al and I didn't know each other that well, so we hadn't... And I think Al has a much better sense of what marriage is about, so...

[32:13]

he was kind of holding that, where, you know, it just was very, it was just hard. I was just, I mean, practice was just really, well, I mean, there's the great part, which is just that you have this being that you have to act for their benefit only, and that's the main thing you're doing. So that was good. That's good. It was really good. The first child, they say, bears the brunt of the parental karma. So the first kid kind of comes through and like clears, like a mind sweeper, clears everything out. And by the time the second kid comes along, it's like you're a family and you totally don't even remember what it was like not to be. And they kind of sail in. So I was like the second kid too. So I just kind of sail in there in the wake. of the first person.

[33:16]

And I did want to say actually that, so my main practice has been to be with my kids and act for their benefit, act for their well-being. It's hard to say, I don't know how much I can say about that practice. I mean, I'm afraid that I will err, I will get into sort of like making it sound like I know what I'm doing or like I'm doing it right even or something which would like cause lightning to strike me dead or something. So we'll see. I mean, we'll see how much, we'll see how much I can say about that. You can, I mean, we can talk about it in teas, but if I'm going to be able to work it into my talks, we'll just have to see. Should we stop now? Thank you. Things are numberless.

[34:14]

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