and unsurpassed, penetrating and perfect dharma is rarely met with even a hundred thousand million palpas, adding it to see and listen to, to remember and accept. I vow to taste the truth of the Tatarita's words. Good morning, Berkeley Zen Center Sangha, here in the Zendo on Russell Street in Berkeley and online. Today's speaker is Susan Marvin. Susan grew up in Vermont and came to the Bay Area when she was in her late 20s. She came to practice here at BCC with Soja Roshi when she was just 39. and she received both lay ordination and lay entrustment from him. Susan taught English as a second language at the community college level for 30 years and retired almost a year ago.

[01:22]

She lives here in Berkeley, close to BCC, with her husband Victor, and they have one daughter who lives in New York City. Susan presently practices here in the positions of co-tanto and co-tenso, and with a lot of compassion, people. Welcome to you today. Thank you, Ross. Hello everyone and welcome. Welcome to everyone online, wherever you are. Hi, Stan. I see people waving. And welcome here in the Zendo. Especially welcome to people who are new.

[02:24]

I saw a few people at SOS and instruction. So we're all glad you're here. And first off, I want to say that I was not supposed to give the talk today. Laurie Sanaki was supposed to give the talk, and she was a little reluctant when we invited her, but Ross and I encouraged her, and I said to her, I'll be your backup, don't worry, and then kind of forgot about that. And, you know, some of us know that Hosan's been in the hospital again and moved around some and he's back in skilled nursing now in San Rafael and a few days ago Laurie said I just don't think I have it in me I just don't think I can give a talk this Saturday so I'm not the lead I'm the backup and we're all disappointed and we all look forward to when Laurie can give a talk

[03:32]

perhaps during practice period. So, you know, our circumstances here at Berkeley Zen Center are changing, and we're well aware of how they're changing. It's a time of uncertainty here in our practice place. And actually, it's always a time of uncertainty, but we forget that when things seem to be rolling along. in a certain way. We're maybe more keenly aware of how circumstances are changing when something big happens. And circumstances have changed in a big way for the Sanaki family, for Hosan and for his family. There are day-to-day changes and probably hour-to-hour changes that they're aware of.

[04:33]

And we get some idea of how it's changing and we get used to that and then it changes again. And we might feel uncomfortable with that uncertainty. We might feel worried. We might feel anxious. We might be worried about the future of BCC and about our abbot's health and well-being. And we may not like the uncertainty. It may bring us some anxiety. I've been hearing some folks at BCC talking more about feeling anxious. Not all, but some folks. feeling anxious and having worry. So today I want to talk about anxiety and I want to talk about it from the perspective of Zen practice.

[05:39]

How do we practice Zen with anxiety? And I want to say right off that I'm absolutely no expert in any way on anxiety from a clinical point of view. So I'm not going to address kind of that side of it. I want to simply focus on how do we practice with what comes up, whatever it is, including anxiety. I myself, when I started to think about this topic, thought, Well, I feel like there's a difference between anxiety and worry, but those words get kind of interchanged. And when I talked to a couple of people, we decided, well, for the purpose, at least, this talk doesn't really matter. I'm not going to get into big definitions.

[06:42]

But I myself feel anxiety in my body. I notice it right away in some kind of body changes. And then I notice that a thought can arise that gives rise to worry, concern. And if I'm not careful, if I don't practice with it, then those thoughts start to take off and develop their own story or help me develop ideas and opinions about what might happen or what I think should happen. So they're kind of tangled together in my experience or can be anxiety and worry. And it's not to say that they're not helpful at times. They can help us in certain situations to take up action or come up with plans, but left to their own.

[07:49]

without practice, they can overwhelm us and they can really cause us to react in ways that we may not want to react. And I also want to say that there may be a range of experience with anxiety, that some people may feel it in strength and frequency more than other people. There may be a wide range, right? And I don't want to, I'm not here to belittle or judge anybody's experience of anxiety, however small or big it is. I simply want to talk about how to practice with it in our day-to-day lives and especially here in these circumstances we find ourselves in at BCC. And I have a little confession to make and that's that I started to work on this talk just maybe midweek and I put quite a bit of time into thinking about it and writing down ideas and yesterday around four o'clock I went back to it and I was going to kind of finish up and

[09:14]

take a look at it and I was at the computer and suddenly the whole thing disappeared. It just vanished, shown at the computer, just completely gone. And I had this immediate feeling in my stomach of kind of like butterflies in my stomach. And then the thought like, oh my gosh, what am I gonna do? And then I just burst out laughing because I thought, well this is really great. You're giving a talk about how to work with anxiety and you lose the talk the night before. Well that's a good place to be in. So I spent the next hour trying to retrieve it in different ways that I looked up and I called my husband who was at work, much more tech savvy and walked me through all these things I could do and sent me a video and I sent the blank page to him.

[10:22]

Nothing worked. It was just gone. By then it was five o'clock and I still had ahead of me to make cookies for this afternoon. We're having an entrustment. ceremony and so I thought okay I'm gonna go make the cookies and take a break just take a pause right and so I did that and that went well and I came back to the computer and just started writing again trying to remember what I wanted to say today and probably forgetting many things but you know it was just fine actually kind of a mystery that turned out to be just what it was. So I met midweek with Lori and I told her I was going to give a talk about anxiety and she really was happy about that.

[11:31]

She said she had a few things to say about that so we began a kind of conversation about anxiety and I wanted to share with you two or three things that she said, and kind of how our discussion evolved. She said, and I wrote these down, so I'm going to try to read her words because they were important to me as she said it. She said, it's important to feel what we feel, all of it, including anxiety, not to repress anything. Then it's important to guard our speech and action. And she used that word guard. Important to guard our speech and action, to pause so as not to react. And then she said pausing helps draw a line between what we feel and how we act.

[12:36]

A little bit later, we were laughing, and she said, you know, many of us have been practicing for decades, and she was speaking about herself, but she was saying, you know, I've been practicing for this very moment, for something like this, in this very moment. And I told her, well, yeah, we all are practicing for these very moments, right? And she said, but you know, sometimes We actually think, well, this is not the time to practice. We do that. We get some idea about what we think we know, or what should happen, or we listen to our worry and anxiety beyond a point where we can find that calm place inside. We know how to practice, but somehow we don't trust it because somehow our anxiety can take over.

[13:46]

It's challenging to stay right where we are. You know, just this, just what's happening right now. She said it's important to connect to our deep faith. My feeling is that for the Sanagis they're very aware of how each day is different. What happens in each day is different. We're living that. And that's true for us as well, but we don't always realize it until we're in this kind of heightened circumstance, heightened situation. Sojin Roshi has something to say about anxiety and I would like to read that to you.

[14:50]

As human beings, we tend to suffer from two kinds of anxiety. One is the day-to-day dilemma of our life or the problems that come up moment to moment in the relative realm, which are the dilemmas or which cause difficulty. And this kind of anxiety is caused by circumstances, so kind of like what I'm talking about in our practice and with our habit and his family. And the other kind of anxiety is a little bit deeper, much deeper. And this is basic, kind of basic anxiety which underlies our life. and comes about through not knowing what life is about. We may feel that we know what life is about, but when you face extinction, then the problem comes up to you very closely. And then you say, well, do I really know what life is about?

[15:58]

So this kind of underlying anxiety, the anxiety of the problem of birth and death is very basic. And even though we may be having a wonderful life in the relative realm, underneath there's some basic anxiety. So it's important to clear this up, to find some way to know ourself through and through and come to terms with this deep koan of our life. So birth and death. is the basic koan of our life. And then the events of our life are little koans. But they're based on this big koan. So here he's really pointing us towards zazen and our practice, right? And what he always called our ultimate question, right?

[16:59]

The question of who are we? What is this all about, birth and death? So he's telling us this deeper question, this deeper kind of anxiety. Who are we? What is our purpose in our life of birth and death? If we bring our attention to this through practice, then it will help us with the other daily circumstances that are always changing in our life. This is really our field of Zen practice, isn't it? Otherwise we get pulled around by the challenges that we face and we get distracted

[18:02]

from that deeper question about our life. So I want to read to you a very short famous koan that I'm sure many of you know and some of you may not know. I've read several versions, but here's one I like. A man was traveling across a field when he encountered a tiger. He fled and the tiger chased after him. Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, The man looked down to where far below another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him.

[19:07]

Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away at the vine. Just then, the man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other hand. How sweet it tasted. Sojin says about this story that the strawberry is like our life at the moment, at this moment. This ripe strawberry is life, our life. right at this very moment. He says, how wonderful, whether you're falling or failing or hanging, this is our life and what are we going to do? He says, the strawberry tastes as if the tiger wasn't there.

[20:18]

Isn't that an interesting sentence? The strawberry tastes as if the tiger wasn't there, as if there was no tiger underneath. It's all connected, everything. And he says, if we know ourself, if we really know who we are, then whatever happens will be okay. That's really complete trust, isn't it? So we seem to focus on the tigers of our lives, and we can forget the strawberries when we do that. So I was thinking we might ask ourselves, what are the strawberries of this very time here at BCC? Are we enjoying or are we missing the strawberries in our worry, in our anxiety?

[21:29]

We need to pay attention to see and enjoy the strawberries. Pause. Take time to appreciate what we have. Lori told me that in the middle of all that she's going through, back and forth, back and forth every day to San Rafael, you know, all day long there, that she finds great joy in driving towards Mount Tam, seeing the beauty of the mountains, seeing it different every day, crossing the bay over the bridge and seeing the water and how different it is every day. And... taking in all the love that she's getting in so many directions from so many people. She enjoys these pleasures and they nourish her.

[22:33]

So our Zen practice is to be aware and to sit with whatever arises. be aware of who and what is around us. You know, in a strange kind of way right now, I'm feeling that we're swimming in a kind of, a certain kind of abundance, right in the middle of the heartache of Hosan's challenges. Everyone is pulling together doing what we do, following our practice and stepping up. Everyone is doing a bit more, right? And this supports not only the practice in each other, but it supports Hozan and his family as much as it does us.

[23:43]

And let's face it, we're all hanging on that vine of life. And there's always going to be mice to worry about, right? Those little worries or doubts always nagging at us. The things that life throws our way. He's holding one hand on the vine and picking the strawberry with the other hand. Maybe that's the middle way. Holding both. Meeting his challenges, but enjoying his life, not knowing what's going to happen. How do we hold both? He's loosened his grip, right, on the vine to reach for the strawberry. How can we loosen our grip?

[24:48]

How does he know he'll have another chance to taste a strawberry? How do we know we'll have another chance? Sometimes when anxiety comes up, we think we shouldn't feel that way or we feel bad about it. But what if we just feel it? Just feel it, let it be, not comment on it. Notice where it resides in the body, the sensations, and feel the sensations. And where do the thoughts come? And are there images? And everything we feel is always changing too. Can we notice that? Even if it comes back, even when it comes back, how is it different?

[25:53]

How is it the same? It's always changing like the weather. And we don't rage over the weather, or maybe sometimes we do. Generally, we don't rage over the weather. We don't have to rage over what we feel. Zazen is about being with whatever exists right now. We include it all. Anxiety is about the future, what's going to happen. It builds up compulsive thinking and thought patterns, fears. Pema Chodron says that everything is workable. Everything is workable. How can we live with that vow to approach everything as workable?

[26:55]

Zazen's about returning, right? Returning to what's here when we get far away. And I think in that way it helps us untangle anxiety. Where's the breath? Where's the posture? And Zazen's about resting the mind, finding the still place in the activity, right? So active mind, come back to stillness. Training the mind to follow. Follow that, that way of returning, not follow the thoughts. Follow the body and feel the body. Sometimes with anxiety we can lose sight of the body.

[28:04]

And thoughts that come up as a result of anxiety can really overwhelm us. They can take over, they can seem true. We can remind ourselves that thoughts are just thoughts, that's it. Zazen is about slowing down, pausing, pacing ourselves, not panicking, not speeding up. My feeling is that in Zazen, stuff moves around, like anxiety can move around, get unstuck. It can move to the back where it's not so potent. I kind of liken that to the compost pile, which I often talk about.

[29:13]

You put all that stuff in the compost pile, and some of it is pretty potent. And over time, it moves around. You help it move around. You turn it, and the worms get at it, and they turn it, and everything gets moved around, and nothing leaves the compost pile. It's all still there. We can't get rid of it, but it's there and somehow its form changes. And it turns out to be beautiful stuff, nourishing stuff. Maybe the stuff of our worries and anxiety is similar in that way. Another way to say it might be like this. We have here a priest many years ago, Maylee Scott, who has passed away.

[30:22]

And early on, when I met with her, she told me this. She was talking about herself, but she said, everything about this personality is perfectly intact. and ready to be unleashed at a moment's notice. I've always remembered that sentence, word for word, because it just moved me to no end. It made me laugh like you're laughing, but she had practiced for decades when she said that, and it was so reassuring to me. And she said, but we find we don't have to do that. Okay, we mess up, but we come back to that pause. Sojin Roshi always used to say, when you see that there's something you want to do or say, and you see that it's not appropriate, so you don't do it or you don't say it, that's a moment of practice.

[31:34]

That's kind of another way. to say what she was saying. So whatever our edge is, including anxiety, you know, we can trust that zazen will take care of it. And what I mean by take care of it is like nourish it, comfort it, hold it, not push it away, just accept it. Accept it wholeheartedly. I think we can also talk to ourself, like coach ourself, like give herself some kind of instruction. Sojin Roshi used to always say, when you sit down to a period of zazen, give yourself zazen instruction. You don't have to wait to go and get.

[32:38]

Saza instruction. Once you know how to do it, give yourself instruction. And you know, I worked as a community college teacher for 30 years and every single semester in the few days leading up to the first day of the semester, I would get all that butterfly stuff in my stomach. And the first day before I walked into the classes, I would have you know, just this uneasiness, I guess you can say anxiety, nervousness. It wasn't like outward nervousness, but it was just a bodily sensation, and my family used to laugh at me like, you've been doing this for so long, what's the big deal? But it was something about, it was new, and I was gonna be going into those classes and meeting a whole room of people I had never met before, And how is it going to go?

[33:39]

Were they going to like me? Was I going to like them? Were they going to like each other? What was the energy in the classroom going to be like? So I used to give myself instruction walking down the hall to each of the classes. I would say to myself, okay, you know, the minute you walk, you know, get it all out now. The minute you walk in the classroom, focus on them and stop thinking about yourself, right? upright position, right? Look around the room at every person, right? Smile, welcome them, you know? And the minute I would go in the classroom, all the butterflies would just disappear, and I was on my way. It was fine. Even if there were problems, it was fine because I took the focus off, you know, this all-important person, right? My feelings, my worries, my anxiety.

[34:43]

Anxiety can also take over in a way that creates panic. It could be short term or long term. It can be overwhelming. to keep following anxiety and not trying to return to some kind of training. I've been in several dangerous situations high up in the mountains and felt that kind of anxiety come over me. One summer, Victor and I were hiking in Virginia in the mountains, and we were crossing a very long mountain range.

[35:44]

It was low, but long, and out of nowhere, a big thunderstorm hit, lightning storm, and there was absolutely nowhere to go because we were only kind of halfway across the range, and we were the tallest things. There were bushes all around us but we were taller than the bushes and we were terrified but we helped each other remind ourselves of our training we knew what we were doing we took off our packs we laid down under the bushes on our backs not too close to each other in case one of us got hit the lightning was everywhere above us all around us began raining really hard. I think we cried, you know. I think we professed our love for each other.

[36:45]

I think we thought that we were absolutely gonna die, you know. And we just laid there. And the storm passed, and we weren't struck. And, you know, it's easy to say now in retrospect, but we were... We had some sense that we were part of some big event, that we were just one little part of it. When there's nowhere to go, what do we do? Something turns when there's nowhere to go. And then I was thinking that anxiety can actually help us in a situation to help ourselves. And what came to mind was during the pandemic at our school, we were online for something like two and a half years, and teachers really got burned out.

[37:56]

There were lots and lots of workshops about how to become a... an effective online teacher and people got really tired of them and they asked for what they call wellness workshops. So I started once a week giving meditation instruction online in a chair and people would show up. And one day a man, maybe around 30, showed up, a man I'd never met, and I asked him, you know, what's your experience? Do you have any experience with meditation? He said, well, I've always wanted to do it but never gotten around to it. But he said, I have a large brain tumor and I'm gonna have surgery in a couple of months to remove it. It's actually not cancerous, it's benign but it's big and it has to come out. And he said, I feel so much anxiety and so much fear

[38:56]

and I thought this might be a good time to start meditating. He was just a wonderful person and he came every week up until the surgery and we talked about how he could continue doing that as he went into surgery and when he came out and he told me I won't be able to come right afterwards because I'll be recovering but I'll start coming again when I can and he did. It was very moving to see that he used his anxiety in that way to do something good for himself, right? So it can have that benefit. I think I'm going to stop shortly so we might have some time for discussion or questions. I wanted to say that today's a special day.

[39:59]

We're having a lay entrustment ceremony this afternoon. Mary Moseen will be giving lay entrustment to Ellen Webb, along with the support of our Abbott, Hozon, and our senior student, Ron, who will be on a monitor here in the Zendo. It's kind of unusual, but it will be a joyous occasion, and Ross and I will be here in the Zendo. And there's a list of people who've let me know they want to come, but if you haven't and you want to come, would you just speak to me after the Saturday lecture so that I can add your name to the list because we do have a limit to how many people we can have in the Zendo. And I wanted to say that next Saturday begins our practice period with a one-day sitting that will be led by Carol Paul, and as we move into the practice period, I want to encourage all of us to bring whatever it is we're feeling, including any worries and fear and anxiety that we have about these times, and our time here, and our Abbott, right into the practice period.

[41:16]

Not to push it away, but to bring it right here where we can practice together. Thank you all very much, and I'll stop here so that we'll have time for Q&A. Any comments you might have? I want to know, will the entrustment ceremony be televised as well for Zoom? It will not. It won't. Thank you. So I think online you can put your digital hand up and in the Zendo here, Marco will be passing the, oh Alex, sorry, Genpo will be passing the. I have a question.

[42:19]

Okay. There's another story about a tiger that I thought you were gonna tell. Can I share it? It's very short. Please. There was a group of monks who were walking in the forest And one of them fell down a steep hillside into a tiger's den. And the tigers were circling the monk. And he called up to his brother monks and said, what should I do? And the brother monk said, keep paying attention. So I wanted to ask if you think those two stories are saying the same thing or something different? That's a good question. You know, it strikes me that in both stories, the person in the middle and the person on the vine have no clue what's going to happen. So in that way, they're the same. And keep paying attention. What does that mean in the middle of chaos or in the middle of disorder or in the middle of catastrophe?

[43:22]

I don't have an answer, but I have that question. How about you? Thank you. Ross. Hi. Can you hear me? Yeah. Okay. The story of you and Victor in Virginia at a near-death experience, it sounded like, and that story that you relayed that Kempo was referring to. What was the taste of the strawberry that you and Victor had? Yeah, that's a good question.

[44:23]

That's a long time ago. You know, everything was just pared down. That moment of being right there with each other and everything else. We're aware of all of it. Maybe that's what it is. Alan? Uh-oh. No, this is just coming to my mind. You know, I did a lot of performing in my life, and I always got anxious before. Not always. Occasionally I didn't. But when I didn't, the performances tended to be quite flat. And I'm just wondering, really wondering, because I never really thought about it, what that was about.

[45:25]

Oh, I've thought about that a lot as a teacher. You know, I... It used to bug me that I got all that butterfly nervousness, but it helped in some way. I don't think I can say how. It doesn't seem like you can say how. There's a mystery to that, but it's something about paying attention. Yeah, it is. It's about being present or being organized. It's something that really helped. It really helped. Yeah, thank you so much for saying that. Margo? Well, I had a question about Sojin's quote, but I was wondering if you could reread it, so I'm reminded to make sure my question actually... Can you remind me which quote you... The quote with you is kind of talking about the kind of fundamental anxiety of...

[46:28]

Who am I? What's going on? Do you mean that part where he says it's important to clear this up, to find some way to know ourself? Maybe I'll ask my question if that helps. I think there was some way with unawareness of taking this quote completely out of whatever context it was in, that this fundamental anxiety is reified in a little bit of a way. It's there, always underlying. What I'm kind of curious about is like the self-liberating quality of anxiety in the same way that like thoughts are self-liberating.

[47:31]

Like in the moment of like yielding into it instead of being like, no, I shouldn't feel this. Does it just kind of like, that anxiety of like, what am I? Does that go away too? Well, perhaps there are people that don't need to practice this way, but I don't think I could, I don't think I did in my life meet that deep anxiety in the kind of positive way you're talking about until I came to Zen practice. So I'm sure that there are people that do, but I am not one of those people. I don't know if that answers your question. I think so.

[48:33]

It's an encouragement to practice. Well, that's good. Could you reread what he wrote? You said there were two different kinds of anxiety. Could you read it? Sure. We tend to suffer from two kinds of anxiety. One is the day-to-day dilemma of our life, the problems that come up moment to moment in the relative realm, which are dilemmas or which cause difficulty caused by circumstances. And the other kind is deeper and it's basic. It's this kind of basic anxiety which underlies our life. and comes about through not knowing what life is about. So maybe some people, Margo, know precisely what life is about without practicing Zazen. Jerry. What I feel is this idea of stepping off the 100-foot pole.

[49:37]

It's that great amount of energy that comes up And it seems to me that what we learn with practice, what we get from practice after a while is faith. The faith that after that anxiety, if I just lead it, if I just take that step, then I start to have faith in myself. So you knew that when you faced a class, you were gonna have this, And then you also knew that every time you walked into the class, you had the experience, you just took that step, that scary step, and that required faith and the building up of faith over time. Yeah, that's well said. Thank you. Yeah. We're not always aware of faith until we're using it, right?

[50:39]

Drawing on it. Yeah, thank you. Preston. There's this idea that on the level of sensation, anxiety and excitement are maybe more or less the same. We have this language of living in a nervous system. And I think about the more I practice, the more I get to deepen my relationship to this. kind of underlying pulsating, buzzing, throbbing quality. And I don't know what emotion word to use to describe that. And so it just makes me wonder about the overlaps between other emotions as well. Like if anxiety is a kind of fear,

[51:44]

what's the relationship between fear and thrill and also just being alive. Yeah, thank you for that, because certainly our language paints positive and negative with our feelings. And I think that truly zazen is about trying not to do that, right? To feel it and notice it and not immediately go to words that have to Judge it, right? But also, excitement also can get in the way if there's overexcitement, right? So to me it's like, oh yeah, what is the middle way? Whatever it is, right? I also think about conversations I've had with people who are incarcerated and being inside of a prison can be a very scary situation.

[52:48]

I've heard people describe to me the kind of vigilance they have to bring to their life and how, so again, overlap between something like fear and heightened senses, for example, and moving through the world in a more intuitive way because of fear. Yeah, and they're in that place of nowhere to go. So that heightened experience of their feelings is right there close, right? Thank you. Someone in the back, and I can't see who that is. I'm not sure if I know you. What's your name? Hi, I'm Gabrielle. Hi Gabrielle. So I wanted to ask about this repression part of your talk. Because last week I realized that I'm somebody who represses it.

[53:51]

I clocked that I'm somebody who thinks of myself as brave. And so I tend to, when fears come up, go, actually I'm not scared. That works for a while but it's suing down there and there's a freedom in admitting it. But then also I had this weekend experience of being so relaxed for a few days and then basically I'm potentially at risk of eviction and so I was full of adrenaline and cortisol and I thought well at least I'm not bored. Because the boredom, I hate to be bored. Boredom almost feels, like, torturous or some sort of. What's the question in there? It's like, what is bravery, maybe? Like, does it take bravery to eat the strawberry if you're dangling above the tiger? Or is that a form of repression?

[54:54]

And Preston's question made me think, like, is the... is the difference between thrill and fear, that the stimulus that produces it is varying degrees of horrible. So the prison situation, there's a lot of atrocities that might unfold, or war, or scarcity, as opposed to like a fun, a fun, great thing that we think of as really good, stimulating it. Wow, there's a lot of questions packed in there. You know, What comes to mind is bravery is a concept, and it's not that we can't have a conversation about what is bravery, but the practice is to notice what's there and to really accept it wholeheartedly and not to categorize it.

[55:59]

to notice it and to feel it and to come back to the breath and the posture and then observe what happens, which is going to be different for each of us because we all have different backgrounds, right? Different experiences. And I don't mean to not answer your questions.

[56:20]

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