Good morning. It's one of those overcast midsummer days here in the Bay Area. Thank you all for coming out. There's a pretty good crowd in the Zendo. Our numbers seem to be increasing. So please take care of yourselves. Some housekeeping announcements before I get into the substance of my talk. First of all, just to let you know that tomorrow evening, seven o'clock, I'll be part of a Dharma Music Circle at the Berkeley Buddhist Monastery on McKinley Avenue, a half mile from here in Berkeley. I think that information on that is that you can find it online at Berkeley Buddhist Monastery.

[01:11]

Maybe somebody can find that and put it in the chat. And it'll be in person and also it'll be live streamed. And it's quite a wonderful sort of musicians aside from myself. There's Reverend Humsher, who's the abbot. Betsy Rose, Eve Decker, and James Barras. And we're going to be sharing songs and actually, hopefully doing some singing along together with everyone. So that's tomorrow evening at seven. Beginning in the fall, We're going to have the second round of our Many Communities One Sangha program, which is a program in investigating the way we think about our community, the way we think about ourselves, about diversity, and to have some really

[02:29]

frank and deep inquiry about our, the way we see the world, which of course is to me, that's, that is at the heart of our Buddhist practice. So we've done one round. We did a, it was about 10 or 11 months and it was led by a wonderful teacher, Rhonda McGee, and we had meetings with her every other month and meetings of small groups. And we're going to use roughly the same format. And you can find more about that on the Berkley Zen Center website. The signups are hopefully where people will sign up by September 10th, and we'll begin sometime in October. Starting on Wednesday, I'll be offering office hours in my office on the courtyard from 1230 until about three.

[03:41]

And that's basically there's no format. If you want to come by and talk and visit, it's very informal. Just knock on the door and come on in. And I'll be doing that, there'll be a sign on the porch on a bulletin board and also on my door. I'll be doing that on Mondays and Wednesdays, starting this Wednesday from about 1230 to three. And so you're welcome to come by and chat, visit. We can share our arts and so forth. I'm observing, I just saw in the newspaper and was reminded that today is the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington, the Civil Rights March on Washington in 1963.

[04:47]

Were any of you there? I can't see who that is. Hannah. Yeah. I was there. Uh-huh. That's how old I'm getting to be. I was in... I was going into 11th grade. And me and my friends, we were all there. And I remember where I was standing when I was listening to the speeches, but just 16 years and we're still working on the same stuff. There have been changes in progress and there are areas where we're still wrestling with the dynamics of race in our country and of equality, equal rights, voting issues.

[05:57]

March was before the voting acts of 1964 and 65. And now, frankly, in my estimation, we're seeing new attacks on the dimensions of democracy in our country. And so it always has to be defended. And so it's good to remember what happened in 60 years ago. I want to say it was really exciting. I remember we were bussed. We took buses from New York suburbs down through the Jersey Turnpike, then driving through Washington and everyone was out in the streets. And then when we got there, it just were more people than any of us had ever seen in one place and the energy was was just so positive and warm and uh we need that we needed it then we need it now so okay take a breath

[07:19]

I want to talk today about Shikantaza, our practice of just sitting, of just being, and what I think that, what that means to me and what it means in the circumstances, the ever-changing circumstances of our life. So I was thinking about this morning, just now, before the talk, I was sitting in my office. And some of you have been in there. You know, when you come in the door, there is a tall, skinny, bony tree that was given to Sojin quite a long time ago. cutting from the Bodhi tree in Bodhgaya, which is not the original Bodhi tree that Buddha sat under, but it's been there for a very long time.

[08:45]

And this is a cutting and he's carefully taken care of it. And I really appreciate Lost plum comes in and waters it regularly. So about a month and a half ago, every leaf on that tree fell off, turned brown and fell. And my recollection was that this had happened before. but I wasn't quite certain of it. You know, we brought in people to look at it. It was startling. And we sort of wondered, what now?

[09:47]

Is this the natural lifespan of this tree that we loved and appreciated? And maybe now we have to let it go. And there were various opinions about whether it was plot bound or whether this was a natural cycle or some mysterious tree disease. And after a couple of weeks, if you looked carefully, there seemed to be some very tiny green growth. which gave me a little hope. If you go in there now, there's profusion of, there are more leaves that were on it before.

[10:48]

And they are bright green and flexible. And also there's a, I don't know Ross, if you saw it, there's a new shoot coming out from at the base of the tree. it's alive. It just had to go through some cycle of regeneration. This is the nature of our lives, of our existence, that things are born and they die and maybe they're born again and they just go through this cycle.

[11:57]

But for those of us who are standing or sitting, and watching, it's not so easy to just sit there. Not so easy to take it in. So in late July, after quite a long period of studying and preparation, I gave Dharma Transmission to two of our members, our priests who are here, they're here now, to Carol Paul and Hannah Mera. And that was an incredibly joyous occasion. It really marks the recognition of the maturity of their practice

[13:01]

and how much they've offered to the Sangha over a very long period of time. And we also hope that we will be the beneficiaries of more years of their offerings. And I was honored to officiate in these ceremonies because I feel very close to Hannah and Carol and I admire their practice. Last year, while I was planning for this, my dharma brother, Zeng-shin Huertfeng, who lives at Tassahara, was ordained here, asked if there was any possibility that he could do a dharma transmission for

[14:02]

do his first arm of transmission for one of his students because he had no real, there was no place that was really suitable for him to do it. And I suggested that he throw in with us and we would all do this together. And his student's name is Curtis Fabens. great resolve, complete openness. And just to say, I invited Greg because I really feel that this place, this Zendo and this community that was founded and shaped by Sojin Roshi is a home for all of

[15:03]

students and disciples. And I want to make it available to them. And so Greg was totally welcome. So Greg showed up and Curtis showed up on the 23rd of July. And we had a week of ceremonies. Curtis had some chronic illness, which limited his capabilities. And so we drew around around a number of senior students to help him with his calligraphy and with other elements of the ceremonies. And it was just a great, I feel like we all made a great connection with him and together. And it really felt like something we were doing all together. And so on Saturday, 29th of July, all the ceremonies were complete.

[16:08]

And if some of you were here that day, three of them gave a talk about their experience, which is very wonderful. Two weeks, less than two weeks after that, Greg called me to say that Curtis had died a few days earlier, which shook all of us to the core. And so we had the really challenging experience of having the joy of these transmissions and having the great sorrow of losing a friend in an untimely way.

[17:11]

His death was a result of this very serious chronic condition that he had. And it's not exactly that it was expected, but It's something that can happen. And he was pretty young. I think he was less than 50, wasn't he? And left a family, a wife and a daughter. So as I said in a talk about Dharma transmission, just before we started the process, There's a, the scholars point out that our transmission process and in fact, the whole structure of our practices, it mirrors the way East Asian families look at

[18:29]

Usually cultures look at family. It's a family model. And, you know, it relates to those really deep Confucian roots. And it's really the transmission of family values, honoring the ancestors, honoring our parents, honoring our sisters and brothers. And we see this not just in, it's not just a matter of transmission, it's also in all of our ordinations. But also, it's in the spirit of our practice. To me, it is there in a way at the heart of the just sitting that we do.

[19:31]

So I was looking, the other day we were at a residence meeting here. We read from, read an excerpt from what's going to be in Sojan Roshi's book, which is coming out in December. And it was a piece that he wrote on Shikantaza. And so I want to read that as kind of some context for what I'm talking about. So Surgeon writes, we call our practice Shikantaza. Shikantaza means something like just to sit. To just do means acting without self or ego or some extra purpose. This is the opposite of a materialistic way of life. Much of our usual effort is materialistic. to have or accumulate or to improve.

[20:49]

Chikantaza is the other side, which is just to be. What I would interject here is that what I'm thinking is It's the just being side of doing. So you think about, go back a moment, think about the Bodhi tree. The Bodhi tree is just being, but it's also doing something. It's generating and regenerating itself. as it has the capacity, the natural capacity.

[21:53]

So it's not just me. The being is manifest in doing. And the doing is manifest in being. I hope that makes some sense. I want to explore it a little further. So, Sultan writes, when we practice to be, sometimes our materialistic side, desire, raises questions like, where is this going? What do I get from this? Those are natural questions to ask. But if we want something in a materialistic sense, we should not seek it in zazen. There may be many things to accomplish, but Zazen is just to be. If you can settle on just being, you can experience your completeness.

[22:56]

But if self-centered desire takes over, we are easily pulled off our seat. Shikantaza is a total, this is again quoting. Shikantaza is a total offering, holding nothing back. Merge completely. Be complete. Sit with your whole body and mind. The full function and complete intention. It's hard. It's very hard to be here. Completely awake and merged with reality. moment after moment. But if you're completely emerged in Zazen, you won't be pulled by desires. Your body and mind will be refreshed, ready and open for the next moment.

[24:04]

He says, and I think this is a pivotal point, We have to live our life in the world of desire and the same time being free from it, choosing to continue our act of Samadhi. I would rewrite this a little bit. There's something in the expression to be free from it, which seems to imply not to be touched by it. So what I would say is we have to live our life in the world of desire. And at the same time, be free in it. And here again, he doesn't say this, but

[25:19]

I think he's bringing together what I was speaking about as just doing and just being as one thing. He says, when we're engaged in selfless activity, our Samadhi is very strong. And we come to enjoy pure activity more than we enjoy selfish activity. We practice Zazen and learn which is which. The Bodhi tree letting its leaves fall and regenerating is selfless activity. There's an effort. Somehow the tree has to draw all the nutrients up through its trunk into the branches out to the stems and the buds and generating something alive and new and amazing.

[26:28]

When you look at our children, you see the same thing. How does that happen? How did they grow from these small beings who live in And literally the wonderful world, bewildered to come to have a sense of competence, a sense of self, a sense of function and purpose in their lives. That's us. We were those children. We still are those children. So look at the joyous celebration of our sisters and brother in Dharma transmission. That is an arising Dharma moment.

[27:36]

And it's the manifestation of selfless activity. And maybe in a way you could think that Curtis's death is also a moment of selfless activity for him. I don't know. I don't know how to think about death. But certainly it's the dropping away of the immediate concerns of his life. But how is it for us? How do you carry it? How do I carry it? So I want to suggest that I was thinking this morning and think of Chikantaza on the micro level and on the macro level.

[28:50]

On the micro level, what we're learning as we sit is to, so shikantaza, let me just say, the practice of shikantaza, what's unique to, I think, our style of practice is simply allowing thought after thought, perception after perception, feeling after feeling, to arise, just naturally, unobstructed, not to make, not to construct things of it, to allow it to arise, allow that moment to arise and allow it to fall away and make room for the next moment. It's a practice of open-minded meditation.

[29:58]

It's a practice of a very complete kind of receptivity, moment by moment receptivity. So moment by moment, we have perceptions, we hear things, we feel things, we see things, we think things. We have rapid tides of emotion that may come over us. And we accept it. So this is the selfless activity of it is not to build a structure of self on whatever it is we're perceiving, but just to say, this is what's happening now. And you may like it, you may not like it, but it's happening.

[31:06]

And to understand, as we go on in practice, to understand it's essential impermanence. So that moment is going to shift. So on a micro level, we understand this We're examining this moment by moment as we sit in the zendo. The zendo is our laboratory for really experiencing the nature of mind and the nature of our experienced reality. On the macro level, I think What we can draw from our zazen practice is how do we meet the events of our life?

[32:10]

Those moments may not slip away so quickly. They actually may condition us. And yet we can still understand this is a conditioned reality. It's not something permanent. It's not something fixed. Right now, I mean, when you look at, this is a practice that I do when When I get triggered by something which does happen, I'm sure it doesn't happen to any of you, but it happens to me. When I get triggered by something, I actually tell myself this feels really bad right now.

[33:18]

I'm angry or I'm hurt or I'm grieving and I ask myself, literally ask myself, let's see how this feels in an hour. Let's see how this feels tonight or tomorrow. And then I revisit it. It hurts a lot right now. And actually what I may have to do is step back from it. I may have to just step back and breathe or step back and do something that is nurturing, you know, rather than confront. Step back and allow for the possibility, or not the possibility, allow for the likelihood that it's gonna feel different.

[34:21]

with the passage of time. And to examine that, if I can, to examine, even look at the process, how does this shift? So, we celebrate, you know, the transition for Hannah and Carol. And we grieve. the loss of our friend. And all of us are experiencing this in all kinds of dimensions of life. Some of you who are younger may not have had a lot of loss yet. Some of you may, but all of us, as we move along the path of life, there is no avoiding. The sense of loss, the loss of loved ones, the loss of these unfolding generations, our parents' generation, our grandparents' generation, our parents' generation.

[35:39]

And for some of us now, it's like, oh, it's our turn to leave the stage. This is fucking hard. I don't like it. And we see also losses that we experience ourselves, health conditions, all kinds of circumstances, which are totally, they're natural. How do we hold them? How do we hold them with an engagement in selfless activity? recognizing that we are living in the world of desire. And at the same time, how do we find freedom in it? One more little story, and then I'll open for comments and questions.

[36:45]

For quite a long time, I've been teaching at the at the Upaya Zen Center's chaplaincy training program. And we just had our, one of our training intensives for the year. And we were doing an intensive on a unit on social justice, chaplaincy and social justice. And they asked me If I could set up a meeting online with Jarvis J. Masters. Some of you may know of him. Jarvis Masters is an African American man who has been on death row for 42 years in San Quentin. And I've been visiting him

[37:50]

And I count him as a friend since 1998. He's a writer. And he's a Buddhist practitioner. I mean, also, he's innocent. I'm not going to go into the details of his case, but I'm totally convinced of his innocence. And we've been working on his appeal, which is hard and anxiety producing. At any rate, we set up this thing and he talked with people. And in the midst of that circumstance, he seems to have preserved a kind of basic sanity. And actually the first book that he wrote is entitled Finding Freedom.

[38:58]

So it's like finding freedom in this world of desire, finding freedom in this world of repression and injustice. And everyone was incredibly moved. To hear somebody report from the actual conditions of their lives is very important. We need to do this for those we care about, to tell them how things are, and we need to listen to them. And just to close, we took a lot of questions and answers And Jarvis answered them just with such remarkable clarity. I was really moved.

[40:03]

And one of the questions was, what do you most wish for? You know, what is your deepest desire? And what he said was, to walk out at night under the stars and to feel the grass beneath my feet. And for 40 years, he has not had that capability. There's no grass at the same point. And every night, they're locked away in their cells. So this simple desire that we may not even be thinking of can be someone's deepest desire.

[41:08]

And we hold that. That is folded in, that's now folded into my sense of being. So our being is not just enclosed in ourselves. It's what we learn from others because our being is not just solitary. Our being is collective. Our being is how we are involved with each other. And that goes for how it is when we're sitting together. That's why the form of our sitting is we sit next to each other. We don't sit in caves or cells.

[42:13]

We sit next to each other because we're manifesting the fact that we are actually together and that our Shri Kantaza is a collective act. So I'm going to stop there. And we have some time for questions and answers and comments. And you can pass the microphone. Wait till the microphone gets to you. And if those of you online, feel free to raise your digital hand and I will look for you and try to call on you kind of in sequence with everyone else. Good morning, Hosanna. Morning. You spoke about the world of desire, and I'm wondering if you could comment on the other two worlds, the world of form and formlessness, and how they inform each other and help us with our desires.

[43:22]

The world of desire is something we create out of the world of form. It's just kind of, it's our habitual nature. The world of form is always there. And as we know from our endless reciting of the Heart Sutra, the world of form and the world of formlessness do not act, do not exist independent of each other. Each one is creating the other, but our human. Pattern. The pattern of clinging to self, which is also one of the. One of the great, the problem of finding yourself is in the great teachings of the heart sutra. Is that we create this world of desire. which is neither real nor unreal.

[44:35]

We have to live with it. But we also have to see through it. We have to see both the form and we really need to see the formlessness within the realm of desire. Yeah. I don't know how other people felt, but I just thought it was like miraculous that Curtis got transmission and died two weeks later. I just kept thinking about that. He was waiting for that transmission to leave this world, and it just made me value transmission. It was like his life had come to some point of completion and then he could move on.

[45:42]

That's how I thought about it. I didn't know him personally but I don't know how other people thought because I know another one of our senior practitioners had wanted transmission and was dying and we gave her transmission because that was her last desire. Yeah. But in this case, he reached that and that was the end of what he needed to accomplish on this plane. So I thought it was very beautiful. Thank you. And his wife appreciated things like that. Right. So I think what comes up to me as you're speaking is this other fundamental human activity. We think that desire perhaps as a fundamental manifestation of our humanity.

[46:42]

The other thing which is really unique is that we are story making you beings. So you made up a little story, right? Instead he was waiting to complete this. And I don't have any criticism for that at all. That's, that's what we do. And you can, there's all kinds of stories. And the thing that I'm grateful for is that I don't know what it means. But what I do know is that, and this is my story, I'm happy that he completed this. I'm happy that he got to see that process that he was in to the end.

[47:43]

And that's, we can't wish any more for anyone. And there's so much that he left incomplete and we will leave incomplete. But we also have to honor the things that we do complete. Thank you. Thank you. What's your name, by the way? Monique. Monique. Sorry, I got really fixed on what you were responding, so my question kind of faded a little bit. But it has to do with sitting. I haven't sat for a while to really think about my own process of sitting. But I guess my question has to do with how long I sit with the thoughts that come to me and then let them go or let them pass.

[48:59]

Because for me, I'm thinking like, okay, well, how long is too long? How long is a moment in which I'm sort of like relishing too much? And then how do I come back? I do think when I'm staring at the wall, this is really hard for me. When I'm staring this way and I sense the community around me, I think it's a lot easier. But I'm just wondering like, how long is a moment? How long is a moment? What does your inner dialogue look like if you have something and then you guide it away or you let it go? I don't have a particular answer and I never put a stopwatch on it. I think that This is an ongoing, this is the experiment of Zazen. There are meditational techniques and methods where you're given a very clear instruction as to what to do.

[50:17]

That's not what we're doing. I've been thinking a lot about this expression of Suzuki Roshis, we have formal practice and informal mind. So informal mind means each of us has to find out for ourselves and we develop our skill and our depth by exactly exploring the question that you're asking. You know, so If the thought is really, or the feeling is really present for you, let it last as long as it needs to. And, you know, if keeping the background, I think, in the background or move to the foreground, your breath.

[51:25]

your breath and your posture. So as soon as you, if you put your mind, if you move your mind to your breath and your posture, then you can find out what kind of hold that thought has on you. And if you find that the thought or perception has a really strong hold on you, well, you'll discover, you know, I can't really attend to my breath and posture right now so I have to attend to this thought and maybe what I need to do is make an effortful is breathe into it in an effortful way so this is it's just a big experiment so just keep at it is there anyone out there uh uh Joel Oh, I'm sorry. Carol was first, and then Joel. Thank you, Hozan.

[52:30]

Hozan, I have this ongoing thing in my mind, and sometimes it's clear, and sometimes I end up confused. But it's very clear with Zazen that we're not cultivating thoughts. We're not sitting and thinking, and that is not Zazen. But in the study and practice of Buddha Dharma, there's a place for contemplation. And sometimes I'm not sure where the proper vehicle, what's the vehicle for contemplation? And can it fit into Zazen sometimes without getting wrapped up? Where does one end and the other one begin? And isn't there a place for contemplating Dharma? Yeah, there is. And that's also, that's also one kind of practice. And again, that's not where our emphasis is.

[53:33]

So for me, my contemplation is when I'm sitting and thinking or studying, but sometimes I have to do that contemplation while I'm sitting, Zaza, sometimes. There's nobody who's gonna tell you what to do. That's the problem. The problem is that we yearn for somebody to tell us, please tell me exactly what to do. It's not gonna happen. So, but we're given, we are given an instruction and shikantasa is an instruction. So see if you can give that primacy. Joel? Hi. Thank you so much. That was really beautiful.

[54:35]

One thing you said, which really struck me and surprised me, actually, was at one point you said something like, I don't think about death. No, I didn't say that. Something like that. So I felt that that was very surprising. It had nothing to do with that. What I said was, I don't know what to think about death. Oh, sorry. That makes so much more sense. I don't know either. Okay, that's reassuring. Well, anyway, while we're on it, obviously, I mean, we've all been totally immersed in our thoughts about Curtis. And you've studied and practiced Buddhist chaplaincy. So maybe you could enlarge about how you don't think about death or something like that. It's endlessly there in our lives.

[55:38]

Well, it is. And all I can, you know, what a chaplain does is a company. A chaplain comes alongside of a person who is suffering, whatever form of suffering it is. But they can't become that person. They don't merge so much as they feel empathy with. And when it comes to death, you know, a hospice chaplain, can accompany somebody only so far and no farther, they have to cross that threshold by themselves. And you stand there and watch in grief, in awe, in whatever feeling arises.

[56:48]

but you're not going to travel with them right there until it's your turn to walk over this threshold. And yeah, that's all I'll say. I think it's time for one more in the room. Yeah. Something over the past two days have been missing in practice, and I'm curious if you have any suggestions on how to know this or how to practice with this is on the co-arising of suchness and impermanence. Like you're talking about the Bodhi tree until like with practice really in an embodied sense recognize that the trees die and the leaves die and will come back.

[57:49]

you know, but also that like in this moment of death, we're just completely burned up by dying. Yeah. And I guess this question is a little bit informed by my reading of some commentary on how to cook your life. So just a question. So what's the question? How do we like work with noticing this? Noticing. You'll notice it. You'll get it. You should excuse me. You're young and you have a deep soul. And you can't avoid thinking about that, coming to it, because it's going to come to the life of those around you, and you'll experience it yourself.

[59:04]

Dogen says, I think it's something like the experience of Buddha nature is seeing into the essence of impermanence. Something like that. I may have got the words a little wrong, but that's it. So this is another way of describing our practice, is really experiencing and investigating impermanence.

[60:15]

And I will say, I'll leave you with my also, my completion of my favorite Dogen quote. Dogen says, when Dharma fills your body and mind, you realize that something is missing. You realize that something that thinks are impermanent. My completion of that is, when Dharma fills your body and mind, You realize that something is missing and that's just fine.

[60:56]

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