day out there. Great. Well, the Zendo is full, and it looks like it's going to be a warm spring morning. The sun is out here in Berkeley. We are having a one-day sitting. That is the opening of our spring 2023 practice period, which I think is our 32nd. Does anyone know for sure? 33rd. 33rd. Okay. 33rd. That's amazing. It's a long, many practice periods. And some of us have been here from pretty much the beginning of those. the practice period beginning today with one day sitting uh later in the afternoon we're going to have uh the practice period opening ceremony and the installation of our 33rd shoe so or 34 it's another no 33rd anyway sue osher uh is going to be our shoe so for the practice period

[02:36]

And I know you will support and be supported by her in the course of the next six weeks. We're very happy to join the seat. We're also going to be doing something we haven't done for four years this afternoon, in a little while. We're going to have oryoki lunch. and we're going to do it outside with some social distancing and with a lot of care being taken by the by the servers and this is a great experiment and it feels like the time has come for it and also i'm aware the uh the infection is still all around us You know, I heard this morning that Roshijo in Halifax, who had just been, she'd been in Japan for a month, and she was great there, and she came back to Upaya, and in a couple of days she got infected.

[03:57]

And I, you know, I hear about people all the time. It's somewhat anecdotal, but it's, it's, Not very willingly. The disease is kind of digging in its heels. So we're going to try this and see how it works today. And I'm excited to do that. Just more housekeeping this afternoon. I'll be offering Doka-san, and that'll be in the Abbott's office, which is right in the courtyard here. And Ryushin, Andrea Thatcher will be offering doksan. Are you going to be in the hut? In the hut. And so please, I'm going to begin during work period. So you may be called out by my teacher Karen.

[04:59]

But if you're on the list, think about to ask think about your your question at the moment and if it changes when you actually sit down that's fine uh-huh or if it doesn't arise till you sit down that's fine but um let's get right to interchange okay so my subject for the practice period we're going to uh we're going to dig into the zen mind beginner's mind and i'm going to start with that today we'll we have a five we have a i think a either five or six session classes five five sessions on thursday evenings and that's available in person and online uh and i've got to still zero what

[06:09]

what chapters to, to tell you to study. But for today, I want to ruminate on the chapter of Zen Mighty Gatsuk, Impermanence. And I was thinking about it from various angles. I was thinking about it just a moment ago. I used to pride myself on, and it was probably not an admirable quality, but it happens in us, on being able to do my bows and get up without using my hands by, you know, I had a whole way of throwing my weight

[07:09]

and getting some momentum so I could just stand, and it was relatively easy. And that worked just fine for about 30 years. And now, not only do I need one hand, I need two hands to get up. And I'm not always doing all the bows. It's kind of, I'm judging. the moment-by-moment impermanence of my knees. So, you know, impermanence impinges upon us in every way. This week, Laurie and I went down to Tassajara. We went down a day, really. We drove down on Wednesday and drove out on Thursday.

[08:14]

And the purpose of that trip was some point, probably this summer, we're going to install a memorial stone for Sochin Roshi. There's a hill in back of Tassajara where there's a memorial site, which is presently Suzuki Roshi, Kagari Roshi, and Trudy Dixon, who was the person who edited in his mind. Zen Center has decided there's space for three more stones up there, which would be for the three abbots who were direct disciples of Suzuki Roshi. Sochin will be the first. And in time, there'll be a stone for Richard Baker and for attention Reb Anderson.

[09:21]

But we went down to kind of go stone shopping around Tassajara, which was really fun. It was beautiful down there. But Tassajara is different. You know, for those of you who have been down there, there were only 13 residents. In the summer there would be 50 or 60. And they're not having a guest season, they're having Sangha Week. So we have two Sangha Weeks coming up this year. I think they're fully subscribed, right? Ours is, Susan Marvin's and mine is, I don't know, Ours is September 5th. But is it subscribed? Are there spaces yet? Oh, no. Ours is not subscribed. We're still accepting. Okay, so just to say yours is when? June 27th until July 2nd.

[10:25]

And that one is fully subscribed. Yours, you and Jerry, is it? Yes. When is that? September 5th through 10th. September 5th through 10th. The students who are coming down for Sangha week are working very closely with the small staff. They, you, are making this happen yourself. And Tassahara is different than it was when some of us did practice periods there. And so it's, everything is subject to And it's challenging. It's really challenging. In my... I wrote about something that I remembered happening, Sojin.

[11:38]

So one day during Saturday lecture, Sojan paused and he looked around the zendo. And he was taking the whole form of the place and the attentive faces that were ready to absorb his teaching. And he talked about how much he appreciated the beauty of our zendo and the steadiness of our 50-year practice. It all appeared. And yet, he said, it could all disappear in a moment. And he waved his hand dismissively. And some smiled knowingly. Buddha's teaching of impermanence. We all know that. But we didn't know and could never have imagined the way things are right now.

[12:41]

It just seemed the forms of Sashin, the forms of , the forms of our practice seemed so set. They just unrolled day by day, week by week, year by year, and they seemed like very just process unchangeable process and then in a moment in march three years ago everything changed and all of a sudden we had to reconsider and rethink make decisions about every step of our practice again and We don't know how things are going to be in six months, or in a year, or five or ten years. We do know that we don't.

[13:47]

That is for sure. And that everything is changing. So in the Buddha's teachings, in the early teachings, Buddha talks about three marks of existence. And often, I'm sure it's familiar to many of you, impermanence, that things are changing, non-self, that everything has a, is of a nature that is co-constructed of other elements and causes and conditions. And in the early teachings, suffering dukkha that there's a feeling of unsatisfactoriness in the late teachings often instead of the third mark being dukkha the third mark is nirvana which is a kind of interesting to think about because

[15:07]

What it implies to me is that suffering, suffering, or the absence of suffering, that's contingent upon how you feel about impermanence and non-self. If you think impermanence and non-self is a bad idea, which actually we all do, then you're going to be bound to suffer. If you think it is and you find yourself being able to accept impermanence and by implication accept non-self, then one can abide in And nirvana, in a certain way, just means the absence of suffering.

[16:15]

So, to turn to Suzuki Roshi, actually the chapter, called Transiency in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. And he says we should find perfect existence through imperfect existence. The basic teaching of Buddhism is the teaching of transiency or change. That everything changes is the basic truth for each existence. No one can deny this truth and all of the teachings of Buddhism is condensed within it. Wherever we go, this teaching is true. This teaching is also understood as the teaching of selflessness, of non-self. Because each existence is in constant change, there is no abiding self.

[17:27]

In fact, the self nature of each existence is nothing but change itself and the self nature of all existence. There is no special separate self nature for each existence. This is the teaching of nirvana. When we realize the everlasting truth of everything changes and find our composure in it, we find ourselves in nirvana. to be able to stand up or to sit down right in the middle of that change. Not to flail around, not to look for the exit door, but just to be able to rest there.

[18:36]

Before we move on, We keep moving, but we can find our ease in each moment. Suzuki Yoshiko goes on, without accepting the fact that everything changes, we cannot find perfect composure. But unfortunately, although it is true, it is difficult Because we cannot accept the truth of transiency, we suffer. So the cause of suffering is our non-acceptance of the truth. That's what I was saying, that whether you suffer yourself in nirvana depends upon your attitude about impermanence. Now, frankly, this is not

[19:41]

an abstract question. You know, this is like, oh, I can't do my bows, or I can't run the way I used to, or I can't think the way I used to. Everything goes away. It's changing. Can I accept that? The teaching of the cause of suffering and the teaching that everything changes are two sides of one coin. Then he says, this is an interesting and challenging sentence, Dogen Zenji said, well, oh, he says, but subjectively, transiency is, okay, so repeating, objectively, this teaching is simply the basic truth that everything changes.

[20:56]

It's a teaching. And then he quotes Dogen, he says, Dogen Zenji said, teaching which does not sound forcing something on you is not true teaching. That's, you know, what I love about Suzuki Roshi is the book is so warm and inviting and you read it and you want to say, oh yes, oh yes. And it's, what the hell does that mean? That's really hard. The teaching which does not sound as if it is forcing something on you is not true teaching. The teaching itself and in itself does not force anything upon us but because of our human tendency we receive the teaching as if something was being forced on us.

[22:00]

Get me out of here. Get me out of this failing body. Out of this world filled with disease and war and violence and racism and hatred. You know, this is being forced on me. This is not who I am. We really have to what our direct actual experience is, like it or not. Because of our human tendency, we receive the teaching being forced on us. But whether we feel good or bad about it, the truth exists. We should find perfect existence through imperfect existence.

[23:05]

Perfection in imperfection. That's also really hard. What is the perfection of the terrible things that we see unfolding in our world? If there's something I can do about it, I will. If not, I have to accept it. I've been reading a... I can't remember the name of this book right now. I'm reading a wonderful book by a naturalist writer, Bill de Buys. And this is his latest book.

[24:14]

And it turns out it's really about The nomad clinics that Roshichon Halifax and others organize for the last 30 years or so that go to very remote Dolpo region of Nepal, where it's really high altitude, it's difficult to get to, and they bring a large crew wonderful medical practitioners and medicines, and they set up these clinics in places every few days for a month or more. And one of the people on the team raises this question for the writer, Debris.

[25:15]

the point of what we're doing you know really go to a place where there may be acute injuries a lot of chronic illness a lot of just difficult circumstances and almost literally what they can provide is a band-aid you know they can provide some some some medicines for remission of pain, some medicines that will temporarily provide some relief from, say, a chronic condition. But they're going to leave. And those people remain. And so, what's the point? It's a really good question.

[26:25]

It's a really hard question. I'm coming around to think that the acceptance of impermanence, in the face of impermanence, the best we can do is to be in relation. We cannot remove, say, the chronic medical circumstances of the people that these clinicians are visiting. What they are injecting mysteriously into the entire system is the fact that these people cared enough to make this really difficult journey just to offer something to be in connection with people whom we would not otherwise see.

[27:38]

And that may be the best we can do. Just as in the face of transiency, maybe the best we can do is gather here on a beautiful spring morning and sit together which doesn't necessarily does not necessarily help my niece you know it doesn't necessarily resolve any of the crises that we may experience or people around us may be experiencing. To recognize that we can do this, that we're not alone, that we can do this together, maybe that's nirvana.

[28:43]

And it's very different. There's a subtext. that we get about nirvana, even as Mahayana practitioners, we have this idea, and it's in the literature too, it's like, nirvana is something I can accomplish. Nirvana is my relief from suffering. And maybe nirvana is something that only we can do. That we do by placing ourselves, by committing ourselves to each other. To doing simple things like sitting and walking and eating together and working. For us, complete perfection is not different from imperfection.

[29:56]

We should find the truth in this world through our difficulties, through our suffering. Every week at resident meeting, we have the residents here meet and have a meal and check in weekly on Tuesday evenings. And for the last while, what we were doing was reading, we sort of pick up one of Suzuki Roshi's books and opened it at random and read a passage. which is always energizing. For the last period, we've been picking up the manuscript for Sojin Roshi's book, which will come out in the fall.

[31:20]

It's actually, by the way, it's actually in production, so it will be out. we read this week, this section, and it's apropos for Sashin, although we are not that long in Sashin, so I don't think anybody's having a tremendous amount of pain yet, I hope. So Sojin writes, one time around the fourth day of Sashin, when there was enough pain and discomfort to go around, He, Suzuki Roshi, began his talk by saying slowly, the problems you are experiencing now will go away, we were sure he was going to say. We'll continue for the rest of your life, he concluded.

[32:24]

So the next sentence is, the way he said it, which just happened. This seems like the last thing a student wants to hear from a teacher. You are doomed to be who you are for the rest of your life. So that's interesting. You're doomed to be who you are for the rest of your life. The problem you have is the problem you always have. And then the question is, well, how does this relate to impermanence, right? And I think I'm not going to explore that back at you in the form of a koan. But at any rate, Sojin writes, Suzuki Roshi wasn't against

[33:29]

He was simply trying to help us understand that if we neglect to live fully in each moment, sacrificing this moment for a future time, we miss our life, which is only this moment with its joys. Our present problems are our equipment or our tools for practice. You go back to Suzuki Roshi again. This teaching doesn't get any easier. He says, so enlightenment... Well, this is the basic teaching of Buddhism, Suzuki Roshi. Pleasure is not different from difficulty.

[34:33]

Really? Good is not different from bad. Really? Bad is good. Good is bad. They are too ongoing. So enlightenment should be in practice. What that means to me is enlightenment is actually the activity of our engagement with whatever circumstances that's what we mean by practice practice can be it can be somewhat abstract but if we think of it is like how do I do this how do I mean whatever whether in the moment it seems good or bad. But, you know, in this wonderful, warm teaching, it gets to another really challenging point.

[35:45]

To find pleasure in suffering is the only way to accept the truth of transiency. Without realizing how to accept this truth, you cannot live in the world. Even though you try to escape from it, your effort... So until we become strong enough to accept difficulty as pleasure, we have to continue this effort, this effort of practice. Actually, if you... or straightforward enough, it's not so difficult to accept this truth. You can change your way of thinking a little bit. It is difficult, but this difficulty will not always be the same. Sometimes it will be difficult and sometimes it will not be so difficult.

[36:56]

If you are suffering, you will have some pleasure in the teaching that everything changes. That's actually, I recommend that practice to you. It's, I literally do this. You know, when, when I get really upset or angry about something, I now have a And I ask myself, this feels really bad right now and it feels really urgent. I have to say something or do something right now, you know, which may mean run out and talk to somebody who I'm having a problem with or dash off an email and send it. Nobody's done that, right?

[37:59]

And what I inject, and this is practice, is to stop and ask myself, just to own, this feels really bad right now. How is it going to feel in an hour, or tonight, or the next morning? what will just kind of the the bomb of time do to this feeling of fierce urgency. Now it doesn't mean that whatever is or whatever is troubling goes away but almost always what happens is it It sits back into a different context of my body and mind.

[39:00]

And then I can actually decide, is this something that I ought to do something about? Is it not? If I'm going to do something about it, how do I want that to turn out? Not on the basis of righteousness, but on the basis of relationship. Sometimes this will be difficult and sometimes it will be not so difficult. When you are in trouble, it's quite easy to accept this teaching. So why not accept it at other times? Sometimes you may laugh at yourself discovering how selfish you are. That's another thing I've learned. If there's something I've learned over roughly 40 years of practice, it's to laugh at myself, to be amused at my foibles, to be able to say, there you go again.

[40:22]

If I make a mistake, if I make a mistake while I'm doing service, if I forget to make an offering, or if somebody else forgets a bell, you know, it's like, oh, where was I? This is, this is just a human activity that's not to beat myself up about. It gets harder when actually one may have done harm. That's a harder, not so easy to laugh at. But at the very least what we can find is a commonality in our experience with other beings. And we can lean on that. Sometimes you may laugh at yourself, sometimes discovering how selfish you are. But no matter how you feel about this teaching of transiency, it's very important for you to change your way of thinking and accept the truth of transiency.

[41:35]

So I'm going to stop there. Yeah, perfect. And leave some time for questions or comments. Who's got the microphone, by the way? Joe is going to bring the microphone around here so everybody can hear the questions. I don't know if Ross is stretching or is raising his hand. Both. OK. You can have the first hand. Out there in Zoom land, if you have a question, please Raise your digital hand, okay? I can't see you all. Who's on? Yes. Can people hear me? No. No. No. I want to speak up well. Um, a zombie member ran into Soji Roshi at a fancy carpet shop here in Berkeley.

[42:45]

And she lamented, you know, so why am I buying a carpet? And Soja said, I'm going to die, so I'm going to buy a carpet. I have a question, which is, you composed a CD of music called Everything is Broken. And I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how you perceive brokenness. and impermanent or transiency? Thank you. That's a really good question. There's a wonderful Japanese art. What is it called? Kintsugi, where you take broken cups, vessels, and you gold solder.

[43:50]

And when you do that, there's a new beauty that appears. Things get worn when I look at my instruments. there are places where just the natural use of the instrument wears out the wood in places and to me that makes it much more beautiful to see something that is used and worn there's something true about that and that may be true of us too that may be true of us as people and I mean, I really do think and I'm sure many of you experienced that there was something really deep about Sochin Roshi's last year of teaching.

[44:57]

You know, it wasn't grim. In fact, it was light. And while he and all of us were swimming in the seas of impermanence. But as far as, so I'll tell you my conundrum. I'm really thinking about this. It's like, um, I'm trying to figure out whether to get a tooth implant, which is going to cost like $5,000 or something. It's like, well, If I amortize this, over the number of years I have left, is this a wise expense? I mean, it's kind of, maybe this is sort of silly, but, you know, it's... Think about that. Actually, I'm probably going to get it, but I've been putting it off for a couple of years.

[46:05]

Of course, the more you put it off, the more you put it off, the more you put it off of your life and the, you know, the amortization It gets a steeper angle. So there you go. Buy a rug, buy a carpet. You know, the people who come after you will enjoy it. I understand brokenness as a quality that is already inherent in the very thing. You know, that's the story that is in the liner notes to that album is about a dialogue with Achan Cha who is holding up a cup and is

[47:11]

same cup that he would use every day. And I think the question was like, well, why do you like this cup? And I think it was chipped. And he said, well, because I can see the cup is that it is already broken. And so I enjoy it so much. Other questions out there? Anyone online? Wait, is that working, Joe? It's not. I'll check the battery. Anyway, be loud, Mary. Maybe people can say this with me, quoting from the great sage Leonard Cohen. Yeah. that still can ring. Ring the bell that still can ring.

[48:12]

Forget your perfect offering. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. There's a crack in everything. That's how the light gets through. That's how the light gets through, yeah. I was about to quote that there, but... Yeah. Beautiful song. Anthem, I think, right? Yeah. Judy. Thank you, Hozon. I was wondering how this relates to Dogen's teaching, depending on how it's translated, beyond thinking or beyond thinking, because there's a viewpoint, or if you will, a practice that trusts what's coming through the body. So, for instance, first responders, they train in method scenarios and at the same time there's a live moment and one could say that you trust what comes through the body or we get up from Zazen the bell rings and someone looks seriously unsteady and because you're present you can catch them their leg fell asleep so one could say that's just coming through the body there's a moment of not thinking

[49:37]

just, one could say, a pure response in relationship, right? And at the same time, I heard you speaking to what I heard was right view, right action, right thinking, and that relationality. And so I could say it's a device to say in a moment of activation, whatever it is, anger, anxiety, ask myself a question. I could say that's a skillful means, that's a device. How do you understand that relationship of thinking and what is an immediate response? It's a little hard to repeat this question. Did you all hear it? Yes? Good. On non-thinking, which is non-thinking.

[50:50]

So, how we respond goes back to, for example, the koan of Avalokiteshvara with her... reaching back for a pillow in the middle of the night. And we relate to that because we know what reaching back for a pillow in the middle of the night is like because we do it every night. And we don't think about it. We're trained to do that. We're trained to set ourselves at ease and we naturally know how to do that. And we never think, we never wake up and sit and adjust the pillow and think, do I deserve this?

[51:50]

Do I deserve my neck to be comfortable? We just do it. So non-thinking is dependent upon both our physical, well, our training physical beings. So if I see somebody, I may instinctively go to help somebody whose legs have fallen asleep when they're getting up. You know, I do that because my understanding is such that I instantly recognize that something is happening there. That's what a first responder does. They know what's happening because they train for this. A doctor trains for this. Every kind of endeavor, we train by sitting down again and again. And this is how we create knowledge.

[52:54]

Not active thinking, but what we... This is a discussion that I had with Sojin. It's like instinct comes from some place. intuition and instinct they they're not coming from outside they're coming from inside according to what you've done in your life that's that's non-thinking to me you referenced a false sense of urgency and then the intervention for that I didn't say it was a false sense of urgency when you said that when Well, what I remember is that in a moment of whatever it was, anger or anxiety, right, that you applied thinking. You asked yourself a how question or a what question. Yes. And what I remember you saying is that somehow that activation connected to, say, or can connect to a false sense of urgency.

[54:03]

But you're checking it out. Is this really urgent? I think I said a false sense of urgency. You said... Urgency. Urgency. Yes. Which is not... That's just a feeling. It's neither false nor true. Okay. The basis for it or the action upon it may be appropriate or not appropriate. You know, so... Another thing that we look at I've learned from working with Roshi Jo in Halifax and in the Upaya chaplaincy program, we talk about being upregulated. That activated and can I regulate myself? Can I set myself, create a space where I can be at greater ease and then see really what I feel is going to be useful to do.

[55:04]

There's nothing I have made mistakes of urgency. But I don't feel they were, I don't think, you know, I regret doing them because what I regret is acting on the urgency. I don't regret having that urgency. That's just what comes up. Does that make sense? So, if you're applying the thinking in that moment... Sometimes you have to think. That's the fourth foundation of mindfulness. The fourth foundation of mindfulness is mindfulness of the dharmas, which means dharma systems, actually. The Four Noble Truths, Eightfold Paths, Factors of Enlightenment, the hindrances. And we use them. We actually actively put them in place to look at our experience through those lenses.

[56:05]

And... That's active, that's thinking. But it comes naturally, I think, is what... Well, it comes naturally. It's not natural until you make it natural. You know, you train in something. You do it over and over and over again. A lot, you have to think. You have to bring forth that thinking. But I don't want to distinguish between... And Dogen was really great at this. doesn't disparage thinking. You know, he's not distinguishing between thinking and not thinking. But he's also honoring, I think he's honoring this dimension of what I'm calling training to bring it forth. Two more. Barbara Jones? First, I want to thank you because unwittingly you spoke directly to what was what from that from which I'm suffering.

[57:24]

So thank you for that. And I wrote down what you said. You said, because I like taking notes. You said, what will the bomb of time do to fierce urgency? And I think that that was the word fierce, not false. But what I'm struggling with is in that fierce intimacy, the urgency is sometimes an intimacy and it's a projection and it's... So I just had to move my mother from a room in which she was comfortable to a room in which I am sure she will be far less comfortable. And she was really angry and she's very far away. And yesterday when I spoke with her, she was.

[58:27]

Didn't understand she has issues with dementia and memory and. I'm really struggling with this, like, which is her anger and her fear and her, like, at the same time as we are at once, how do we also allow the distinction so that we can function within time? I don't know if that's a clear question. I was trying to clarify it before I asked, but... That's as far as that got. Well, you may have to grieve for the dynamics of the relationship that you're in with your mother. Grieve for her and grieve for you being in that position. In both those dimensions,

[59:33]

can allow you the space for understanding and connection with you. You can't fix it, just like you can't fix, you can't go to remote and solve the illnesses. There's grief there. If you allow that grief to rise, then you can allow yourself to proceed in as connected relationships as you can. But all I can say is, from what you've said, I'm feeling it. Okay? And it's good to share it so that you're not carrying it alone as a personal conundrum. So, thank you for that. One more question. Yes, in the Metta-sutta it says, may my senses be controlled.

[60:41]

I was reading it and I was like, controlled by whom? By you. You know, even though there is no one that we can definitively point our finger at oneself, for me, still there's the workings of one's mind. I mean, I don't want to go into detail, but I am painfully aware of a circumstance where I had very strong feelings And before I had any modicum of control over them, I blasted somebody with them.

[61:46]

I have real regret about that. It was not helpful in any way to that person, to the third person, to myself, to our relationship. And if I had just stepped back, of that feeling, I would have come to something else. Practice would have led me to something else, which would have been more conducive to our connecting. So, and have a good rest of the day. And I just want to encourage people, please come to the Zendo. sometimes we have this peculiar experience during practice period where people sign up and they make their practice commit and all of a sudden the zendo is has fewer people in it than before practice period so let's not have that happen please come and enjoy each other's presence and enjoy uh

[63:06]

It ensues warm stewardship of us all and let the wild rumpus start.

[63:25]

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