Good morning. Today's talk is given by Kankamuji, David Weinberg. His Dharma name means Observe Ocean, No Sign. David has been practicing here for many years. And he was ordained by Sojur Roshi here in 1999 and was Chuso, or Head Monk, in 2000. This ceremony, I remember well, on an evening when all the lights went out. Except for David's. And he teaches mindfulness-based stress reduction in a non-profit of his devising called And he's been one of our senior students.

[01:03]

He's now studying with Steve Weintraub. And we're happy to have David give a talk. Thank you, Helen. Good morning. The topic of my talk this morning is surrender. Perhaps faith and surrender, or faith and commitment and surrender, but surrender. This morning I was looking at last week's New Yorker and in a book review, a book about

[02:23]

baseball called The Art of Fielding. Has anyone done this already? In the book, there is a book, a book within a book, And the book is called, the same name as the book that's being reviewed, called The Art of Fielding. And it takes the form of a collection of koans about baseball and life. And here are three of the koans that are cited in the review. Koan number three goes as follows. There are three stages, thoughtless being, being, and return to thoughtless being.

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Case number 33, do not confuse the first and third stages. Thoughtless being is attained by everyone. the return to thoughtless being by a very few. To field a ground ball must be considered a generous act, and an act of comprehension. One moves not against the ball, but with it. Bad The true fielder lets the path of the ball become his own path, thereby comprehending the ball and dissipating the self, which is the source of all suffering.

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My hope is that I can deliver this talk from the heart and the belly. It comes from the frontiers of my understanding and my practice. So the talk may not hang together so well. Just your attention and presence here will be a help for me. during the comment period and afterward at tea, we can explore further. Surrender is an elusive topic. We don't use the term very much. But I think it lies at the root of what we do here. Here are two examples of surrender. Surrender situations. The first is from the Blue Cliff Record, Case 16.

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For those of you not familiar with the Blue Cliff Record, this is a 1,000-year-old collection of public cases and comments on these public cases. And it's a very well-known collection and used quite a bit around here for study and practice. The case is called Man and Weeds. It goes pretty fast, so please listen, although I'll repeat it. A monk asked Kyosho, I am breaking out of my shell. Will the teacher please break in? Kyosho said, Can you survive? The monk said, if I can't survive, I'll be a laughing stock.

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Kyosho said, you are a man in the weeds. I'll do it again, just if you're not familiar with the case. A monk asks Master Kyosho, I am breaking out. Will the teacher please break in? Kyosho says, can you survive? The monk says, if I don't survive, I'll be a laughing stock. Kyosho says, you too are a man in the weeds. One translation says, you are a man in the weeds. The other, I think, significantly says, you too are a man in the weeds. I don't want to try to explain this case.

[08:27]

It's said if you do things like that, if you attempt to explain a case, and say much about it, your eyebrows will fall out. But a few observations. One is that it's clear that these two are very familiar with one another. They practice closely. And what we're seeing is some back and forth between them that has a lot of meaning for them, maybe seems impenetrable to us, but we can feel the intimacy, I think, in this relationship. And the trust, the willingness really of both parties to put themselves on the line.

[09:30]

There's also a certain ferocity in the case, particularly on the part of the teacher. The monk is requesting the teacher to help him break out, and the teacher just comes back again and again, you too are a man in the weeds, can you survive or not? Are you up to this? Maybe around here we might say, well, I don't know, but let's give it a try. I have nothing to lose but everything. You too are a man, Louise. Kyosho once lectured. In general, foot travelers must have the simultaneous breaking in and breaking out eye and function.

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Only then can they be called patchworked monks. It's like when the mother hen wants to break in, the chick must break out. And when the chick wants to break out, the mother hen must break in. A monk asked, When the hen breaks in and the chick breaks out, from the standpoint of the teacher, what does this amount to? Kyosho answered, good news. The monk asked, when the chick breaks out and the mother hen breaks in, from the standpoint of the student, what does this amount to? Kyosho answered, revealing his face. Or, you know, look, Ma, here's my face. So the analogy here is mother hen and chick.

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And as I understand this process of breaking out and breaking in, the two must be very attuned to one another. The chick is developed enough and strong enough to begin to tap from the inside. And the mother has to listen very carefully as she responds accordingly. And the chick taps from the inside. If she hurries it, If she breaks in too soon, the chick won't be ready to come out and may die. On the other hand, the chick needs help, just like the monk is asking for help from the teacher. So she has to be strong enough. And then, simultaneously, hopefully, they break open the shell together.

[12:53]

And the chief thrives. Commenting on the main case, Soto master Tenke from the Soto tradition, our Soto tradition, several hundred years later, said, Kyosho breaks through the monk's view with his wicked skill. But even as he says this, Kyosho himself is already another man in the weeds. Indeed, even the Buddhas of all times are in the weeds. The Zen masters throughout history are also in the weeds. However, there is a naughty complexity in the weeds. I take this as kind of code for, there's really for us to work on together.

[13:55]

And, quite obviously, we're all in the weeds. Let's not pretend otherwise. In the weeds is where the work gets done, not on some elevated plane somewhere else. Tengu comments that chick and hen do not cause each other to act. Neither is aware of the other. At the moment of breaking in and breaking out, who is it that breaks in and breaks out together? Tenke says the verse revolves around this who. The word who is the I of the whole verse. Who brings about the breaking in and breaking out and breaking in?

[14:58]

Who brings about the breaking in and breaking out? This might be a question. I don't know if there are question marks in Japanese. Or a declarative sentence. Who brings about the simultaneous breaking in and breaking out? This is spontaneous accord. The matching potential of teacher and student is entirely like this. Here's another account, a surrender situation. I'm borrowing it from the British psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott. and some comments by other analysts. At the earliest stages of infant-mother relationship, if all goes well, and that's no small thing, the mother fosters the myth of absolute oneness of infant and mother.

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This blissful state provides a necessary holding environment for the infant. The mother mirrors the infant and eventually the infant mirrors the mother. The mother takes in and digests infant terrors and turns them back to the infant in bite-sized pieces. The infant thrives. Then there's a period called transitional experiencing, in which there's a kind of free play of mother and infant. that loosens the bonds of oneness. This kind of complete identification, mother and child, at least for the infant, but in certain moments for the mother as well, as some of you know well. Another analyst, Eigen, writes, in the transitional area, self and other are neither one nor two. but somehow together make an interpenetrating field.

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Faith, surrender, the beginnings of creativity and simple formation all intersect in transitional experiencing when the infant lives through a faith that is prior to a clear realization of self and other. Beginning in this transitional stage and carried further in a stage he calls object usage, Not an attractive term. Ludicant paints the picture of concerted aggression, high stakes dharma combat. Here's what the infant might say to the mother, if the infant could give voice. I went all out, completely vulnerable, in the faith that someone was out there, And it turned out to be true, as I could only have known by destroying you with all my might.

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And yet, here you are. You survived. I love you. Winnicott, according to another analyst, Ghent, stresses that the destructiveness that creates the sense of externality and other out there is against self, is not essentially hostile. This destructiveness, rather than reactive anger, seems to be an inherent part of the developmental process. He recalls examples of violence intrinsic to hatching processes, typical of a chick breaking out an egg. For those of you who practice here continuously and wholeheartedly, this kind of developmental process may be familiar to you.

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There's a sense in which we at one time may idealize our teachers, imagine ourselves one with our teachers. kind of oneness. And this is very important for us. It may give us the confidence, the security to take a chance. And the teacher has to be willing to allow this myth, if you will, of oneness, absolute oneness to take place. And then at a certain stage, the teacher has to begin to Once the teacher on my right was asked by someone, what is your teaching? And he said, this is the double-edged sword that gives life and takes life.

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There's both great gentleness, allowing, in this process, and also a kind of ferocity. Continuing, Gans says, there is, however, deeply buried or frozen a longing for something in the environment to make possible the surrender, the sense of yielding a false self. Surrender might be thought of as reflective of some force towards growth, for which, interestingly, we have no satisfactory English word. Perhaps that's true, however, we have adopted a Sanskrit word which we use for this kind of force towards evolution, if you will, towards becoming completely human, called the bodhicitta, the mind of

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or the aspiration for awakening. The infant makes room for his own appreciation of the other and of externality by destroying the limiting myth, the partial truth of oneness. This can only happen if the mother stays connected to herself and the infant, does not interfere, does not retaliate, does not crumble, survives intact. If not, the infant winds up in the therapy room some years later. The news of difference and the freedom it brings, freedom from the myth, is the fruit of the infant's struggle and the mother's steadfastness. the surrender and the attunement required by both mother and child would be a miracle were it not so ordinary.

[22:56]

So, what is surrender? What is it like? Why might it matter? To begin, I'd say Surrender is a way, it's a stance towards the world, towards oneself and others. Surrender can be intended, wished for, prayed for. It can be talked about and thought about, but neither thought nor talking will cause Surrender happens, but it cannot be made to happen. It's not under our control. However, we can provide conditions that facilitate surrender. What might those conditions be?

[24:05]

Does anyone have a thought on that? Yeah, trust. Because we can't make trust happen either. Acceptance. Acceptance. Nor can we make that happen. Willingness to let go. Willingness. Yeah, willingness to let go. However much willingness we have to let go, and it may be more at some times and less at others, there's room for letting go, for surrendering. Beyond that, No. Beyond our willingness, surrender will not happen. Silence. Silence. Soft mind. Soft mind, yeah. Yes? Recognition.

[25:07]

Recognition. Comprehending, like in baseball. Comprehending the ball. Like surrender. Like recognizing, oh, time to surrender. Or recognizing surrender. I know you'll not say it. Well, we might have an aspiration or a desire to surrender. And we might just be real clear about that. There are boundaries on it, but I have a desire to surrender. However that came about. That might be an inner condition that facilitates surrender. Yes, Ron. Tired of conflict. What? Tired of conflict. Tired of conflict. Yeah. A weariness of defensiveness and resistance.

[26:10]

Yeah. Yeah. What do we do around here that might constitute a facilitative environment for surrender? Yes? I'm thinking of the word defeat, because in other contexts, we think of surrender as happening when you're defeated. And I think of the 100,000 ways our forms allow us to experience defeat. And that in those moments of defeat, again and again, when we find that we're still here, and that it's really okay, we are going to surrender. Yeah, so survival of apparent defeat. Survival. Experience of survival. Peter? Can't surrender. What? Can't surrender. Can't surrender. Can't. Can't. In some way I'm looking for a clarification of that distinction between what you're talking about and a kind of crumbling, as you mentioned, when you're talking about the mother.

[27:21]

Yes, it's not defeat in the sense that I give up necessarily, it's something more than that. If I understand what you're saying, yeah, can't surrender, somehow a realistic humble appreciation of in this situation, say, in this moment, I can't surrender. Yes? Well, in baseball, when you're fielding a grounder, usually when you coach, you say, play the ball. Don't let it play you. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, way in the back, please. And we do around here. Well, what we do is we just sit. Just sitting, that's surrendering. Well, there are a lot of things we do around here, but just sitting is one of the things we do around here, right?

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Just sitting is the engaged physical and mental yoga of surrender. Letting go of this thought, that breath, moment by moment. Yes, Peggy? It's a question. Do you think surrender involves knowing what you're surrendering and what you're surrendering to? What are you surrendering to is the question I hear. What's the answer? You're asking me? Do you want to ask me? Surrender. You're surrendering to surrender?

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Yeah. You should surrender to something. It's not surrender. That's something else. daily practice and relationships and everything you do? Yeah. Daily practice. Commitment to that and the carrying out of daily practice affords us opportunities over and over again to surrender to this, whatever is bright in front of me. Embracing everything, excluding nothing. That's another way of sending surrender. Yes. So we can have that aspiration. And again, that's something we can't do.

[30:34]

It's not under our control like closing a glass case and placing them there. It happens. How about the desire to change, to want to change? Well, yeah. Desire. Transcend the present. Well, transcend the present or really, really be in the present. Linda? I was interested in topic when you began and then I gradually got sort of abstracted and in the descriptive and defining nature of your approach. So I'd like to ask you if you could tell us how you personally have experienced this practice of surrender.

[31:43]

Yeah. Thank you. Surrender is really important to me personally. The way I engage with the practice of surrender is to become very aware of my resistance to surrender. We all resist in various ways to surrender. We are arrogant. We lie. We hide out. And so on and so on.

[32:46]

Mine is arrogance. In the sense... Example, please? Yes. Well, mine is not the usual breast-beating kind of arrogance, except occasionally. But a kind of holding myself apart from people and situations. So it could come up in my work as treasurer for the Zen Center. service going on somewhere in the organization and I get a copy of a copy of an email about it and I read it and I could enter that situation but I think now I'm going to stay away from it and protect myself. So that's a kind of, as opposed to curiosity and openness, a willingness to come forward and engage and help if possible. That's resistance. May I go one more step?

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Yes. Can you tell us about a moment when you were tapping on the inside of the shell and somebody was tapping on the outside of the shell? Yes. I would say I've been blessed numerous times with that. Sojin Roshi, once we were in here having Doan practice, and I was a Doan in training, and he requested that I do something in a certain way. couldn't do it or didn't do it very well and he said something about that and then he said, uh, you're resentful.

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And I thought at first, oh no, I'm not resentful. He's projecting. But he wasn't. Maybe he was protecting me, but I was resentful. This is tapping. Tapping from the inside, tapping from the outside. Sometimes the tapping is very soft and kindly. It's very gentle, very allowing. It's still tapping. So how do we get closer and closer to breaking out of this shell. So I'll go have lunch with Sojin. And it's OK to talk like this.

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And he sort of unaccountably sweet to me. And then the next day I see him around the place. And each time, you know, I learn something. I mean, if I pay attention, usually first I react, try to protect myself. But I notice that feeling, which I don't like, you know, contracting and defending and getting kind of small. And then I think, well, I don't like this. So there's a little impulse toward letting go. And so I let go and then I see, oh, there's something here for me. That was tapping from the outside. Oh, ways of facilitating surrender.

[37:03]

Bowing and bowing. Right? And we've talked about bowing a little bit. I vow to surrender, to let go, not to hang on and protect myself. And bowing, bowing is the physical and mental yoga of surrender. Many of us, particularly at the outset, resented bowing. I'm an American, I'm not going to bow. We got rid of the king. But something in us wants to bow, I think. Something in me wanted to bow. Thirty years ago, it was like a turning point. I used to duck out at the end of Sauser and San Francisco Zen Center in the early hours of the morning and go home. I didn't want any part of that stuff. And then I stayed for the service and then very quickly turned.

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advances or retreats. Surrender does not happen under conditions of dominance and control. It may be forcefully prevented, but not caused. Surrender may happen in the presence of another person, say a fellow practitioner, a teacher, But a surrender is not to another person. That's submission. That's like a mutant cousin of surrender. It's diminishing. Surrender may be accompanied by feelings of dread, terror, clarity, ease, joy. all of the above.

[39:21]

Is it time to end? Okay. Perhaps a good note on which to end my talk is this verse by another master cited by Engel in the Blue Cliff Record. It's the same melody but a different key. The chick breaks out The mother hen breaks in. When the chick awakens, there's no show. Chick and hen, both forgotten. Response to circumstance is unerring. On the same path, chanting in harmony, walking alone. This verse is more in the style of my teacher, Steve Weintraub. Quite gentle. Emphasizing harmony, like the harmony of difference and unity that we chant here.

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Not so much struggle to break out for the chick, the infant, or the person in the weeds.

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