Once again, I'm a little surprised to be sitting up here giving the talk, and you know, I think it must mean that I'm somebody besides the person I usually think that I am, because I don't usually think of myself as having much worthwhile to say, and yet many people come if I do a talk. But maybe you were just coming anyway. A while back, somebody told me about some research, and you know, I don't know if this is true, but it makes a good story, right? But they did a survey of people who had heart disease, and they asked the people who didn't have heart disease, and they asked the people, do you have an intimate relationship in your life? And some people said yes, and other people said no. I guess

[01:09]

implicit in that is do you have an intimate relationship with another person? But they also found, you know, that people who have pets have less heart disease than the people who don't, right? The people who have a heart attack and then have an operation of some sort and they come back home if they have pets, then they don't go back to the hospital for the next one as soon as the people who don't have pets. But this was, so do you have an intimate relationship? And so it turned out that the people who had an intimate relationship had less heart disease than the people who didn't. So I thought that was interesting, and then when I talked about this, I mentioned it to a friend of mine who said, I guess that means that for all the heartache of a relationship, it must be good for your heart. This is very

[02:12]

interesting, isn't it? about, this is one of the things I think about, you know, how is it that we can, or I can, strengthen and open my heart and actually, you know, in some way benefit or become more whole by having the heartache that goes along with opening one's heart.

[03:14]

Because sometimes, this last winter for me has been pretty difficult. And it's, you know, some days I seem to be fine, but then, and it's a nice day and everything, and then I'll just start crying. And it's no particular reason, you know. So I don't, you know, how can I, and then people say, well, what is it? I wouldn't know, you know, just being alive, it seems like. And, but it reminded me after a while of a poem, there's a wonderful sonnet by Rilke, where he says, be ahead of all parting, as though it already were behind you. Like the winter that has just passed by, for among these winters, there's one so endlessly winter, that only by wintering through it, will your heart survive.

[04:23]

There's more, but I'll leave you with that for now. Somehow we tend to think that there might be some better way to open our hearts or to enjoy our life or to be happy in our life, without having to have the heartache that goes along with life. Someone said to me recently that, well, I heard that Rilke at one point in his life, you know, couldn't write. So his, one of his women friends, who had apparently also been the lover of Nietzsche and Freud, said, why don't you have some, you know, you should have some therapy, should get some analysis.

[05:31]

And he refused. He felt that the angels that gave him his voice came from the same place as the demons that kept him from talking. So he worried about getting rid of the demons, that then he would no longer have a voice either. That's quite interesting. But it also shows a tremendous, you know, level of kind of confidence or trust, just in the process of being alive, only by wintering through it, and just wintering through it when it's winter. And not trying to create a kind of instant summer. I think when I started practicing Zen, I didn't,

[06:48]

you know, I didn't understand that good and evil were in me. I thought that other people had those problems. And I thought I would be, you know, a good Zen student and just do what, you know, good Zen students did. And so at tea time, other people would rush for the cookie. So I would compliment myself on the fact that I was restrained. And those people were so greedy. Of course, things have changed, you know. Now I spent the fall at Tassajara, and when I was first at Tassajara, we had a tea treat and it was like one cookie per person. Something like that, you know.

[07:55]

And they would be different sizes, so you could get a little one or a bigger one, depending on how fast you were. Now, the tea time at Tassajara, there's cookies and granola and bread and butter and peanut butter and jam and honey and some leftover salad and maybe some fruit from breakfast and some yogurt. And it's kind of like a fourth meal. So you don't have to worry. You can come in to tea anytime and, you know, enjoy plenty of food. It makes practice easier. But I remember one of the first times that I noticed that I had something like this in me.

[08:56]

I had been the cook there at Tassajara, and one time Mrs. Suzuki came to Tassajara to visit her husband, Suzuki Rishi, and visit Tassajara. And so somehow while she was there, she gave me a box of planters mixed salted nuts. This was a big deal, you know, in the context of one cookie a day. And I thought, gee, you know, I must be doing something right. I must really be, you know, this is really nice. The wife of the abbot has given me a box of nuts. Of course, I'll just, you know, I'll be sure to share these with everybody. So I kept them in my room, waiting for the time to share them, you know, a good time.

[10:06]

You know, some occasion or something. And so they stayed there, you know, a week or two weeks. And about three weeks later, I hadn't found any occasion to share them. And I thought, well, you know, maybe I'll just sort of try them out. I'll just have a few, and then I'll share the rest. So one day I had a few nuts, you know, in my room. And they were really good. They were salty, and they were greasy. They had a lot of nice oils in them. They were toasty. They were exquisitely delicious. I savored every mouthful.

[11:13]

I just had a few mouthfuls, though, and I thought, now I'll save the rest, and I'll, you know, tomorrow, I can. So I just had a few nuts each day for about two weeks. Until the box was gone. And I thought, well, it looks like maybe I'm not the person I thought I was. Maybe I am greedy, too. It was a little hard for me to admit, you know, but I couldn't come to really any other conclusion. In those days, we, you know, often would emphasize this kind of fact of when you're, when one

[12:23]

is in a kind of community as small as a Tassajara or a Green Gorge, you know, there's a lot it's much more obvious that things, everything belongs to everybody. In some sense, that it's not mine or yours alone. The food isn't mine or yours, or I can make sure that I appropriate my share of it. So it's quite obvious in that situation that if I eat the whole box of nuts, well, nobody else got any. But we're all part of the same community, you know, sharing what we have. And this came up again a few years later. Actually, not so much later, but a couple of years later, there was a lot of rain one winter and, you know, the road washed out that comes into Tassajara.

[13:30]

There was a huge rock about the size of a small cabin that slid down onto the road. And the bulldozer couldn't push it off. So they decided to wait until everything stabilized before they dynamited it, the county road crew. So that meant that the road was blocked. And then there was another part of the road where the water had been coming down the hill and instead of going down the road, it went right across the road. And pretty soon the road went along and then it went down 12 feet and then back up to the road level like this. And it was about 10 feet across. So it was fairly impossible to drive. And there were other places the road was out. And so there were trees down on the road. We hadn't understood at that time that this might happen. And so as the cook, I had neglected to put in a lot of food for the winter.

[14:34]

So we didn't have much to eat. Now, then that situation, I felt like, well, this food is everybody's. We should, you know, all share in it. But not everybody seemed to think that way. They would come into the kitchen at night and take food. So I decided it was up to me to defend the communal food. This is a very well-known story, actually. I hear this story from more people. So now I'm going to give you the official version. You know, people say, is it true that you had a knife in your hand? Did you actually threaten that person? What did you do? So it was an unusual winter.

[15:47]

And we went out and gathered wild greens. And now two or three people each day spent several hours out picking miner's lettuce and curly duck. So most days for lunch, we had a miner's lettuce salad. And then oftentimes for dinner, we would have cooked curly duck. Curly duck is a, it's a very rather, it's rather like spinach, but it's more lemony. And it's pretty good. Anyway, I thought in the kitchen there, there was a griddle in the corner of the kitchen. And we used to keep a piece of plywood on top of it so that you could use it as an extra counter space. We had a very small kitchen until the new one was built. And so I sat there. After zazen at night, and it didn't take long, you know, in a few minutes, somebody came into the kitchen, the kitchen was dark.

[16:51]

So the person went right over to the stove. And in those days, we used to keep the, this was sort of stupid, but we'd put all the leftovers in a pot on the stove overnight. This was our gruel, you know, so we could eat up the leftovers. And we'd heat it up in the morning and serve it for breakfast. Anyway, so the person came right over to the gruel pot and started, you know, just reaching in and grabbing out clumps of rice and, you know, whatever was in there. That's how hungry he was. And I just sat there. He was only about three feet away from me in the dark. And then he looked up at me and he said, shit man, this isn't fair. And I didn't say anything.

[17:58]

And I didn't have a knife. Then he left. He went out. But that was unusual. I thought, I mean, it was an unusual time because it actually seemed like we could run out of food. And to, and it was quite obvious that the food we had belonged to everybody. We turned out, it turned out we did some things that weren't particularly practical. We'd had a hundred pound bag of whole wheat berries for grinding into flour. But the grinder never really worked very well. So we started serving the wheat berries.

[18:59]

And we would cook a sort of a gruel with white rice and some wheat berries. Anyway, if you're familiar with wheat berries, they're kind of a little hard to chew, even if you cook them a long time. And later on that spring, it turned out there was a plumbing problem outside the dormitory. And Reb was the plumber in those days. Our vendor. Abbot. So he opened up the drain there and it was clogged with wheat berries. Oh, my. So,

[20:14]

I mentioned this kind of story. You know, not so long ago, I was doing one of my, I did one of my one day retreats here. Afterwards, I had a fairly long talk with a fellow who was at the, who had, who had been at the retreat that day. And he was telling me a little bit about his relationship he'd been having with a woman and that he hadn't been in a relationship for some time. But now he was in a relationship with this woman, but he didn't feel as though he had, you know, he loved her the way that he ought to or the way that she would like him to. And it was pretty obvious, you know, that the reason why he hadn't been in a relationship for five years was that, you know, he wouldn't be able to do it the way that it should be done.

[21:21]

And make it come, you know, make it be the way it ought to be. And he said, well, I feel a lot of affection and I feel this is someone I can live with. But I don't feel the kind of love, a strong kind of love. And I don't feel the kind of commitment. And yet it's important to me, you know, this relationship. And I kind of wondered, well, what choice do you have? He said, you know, I don't want to be experimenting on somebody. Do you understand? I don't want to be pretending. I don't want to be experimenting. I don't want to be in this relationship where it's not a real relationship or it's not, you know, it doesn't,

[22:32]

it's not what it should be or could be or I could imagine. Do you understand? Here's the, you know, kind of problem for the heart. And somebody who, like all of us, you know, is wondering, well, shall I have the heartache? Shall I be in a situation that isn't, isn't, might not work? We might end up, you know, hating each other. I might make a real effort here and it might not work out. So what shall I do? Well, you know, there was a pretty stark contrast that he had been so worried about it for five years that he hadn't been in any relationship. And now he was just starting to take on this kind of, you know, to come up to this kind of contradiction

[23:42]

or this kind of, you know, question of the heart. This kind of question of, you know, if you, if I trust and if I make a commitment, does that mean everything will be all right? You know, and we know sometimes it, it isn't all right, you know, and we struggle and we have a heartache and pain and we find out, you know, I'm, I'm also the greedy person. You know, I'm the, I'm also the protective person. And sometimes in those, you know, situations, it's hard to see one's own,

[24:50]

to know one's own heart. What is it we really want in our life? And what is it we'll make a commitment to or for? Yeah. Also, when I was a cook at Tassajara, I, we used to have a lot of rice. We had, we were trying to be good Zen people, you know, so we had rice every day. And in fact,

[25:55]

because there was many Zen macrobiotics, you know, so-called Zen macrobiotics. I don't know if you, how familiar you are with macrobiotics, but, you know, the ultimate in macrobiotics is the number seven diet, something like that, you know, 95 or a hundred percent brown rice. This is an attainment. Anyway, setting aside macrobiotics for the time being, we ate a lot of brown rice. And then once every five days on the four and nine days, we'd have white rice. And then we'd have cereal in the morning. And as I've mentioned, sometimes, you know, we, so one morning, like we had oatmeal, and then I put raisins in the oatmeal, and then the macrobiotics come and say, how could you do that? You know, you're poisoning us, all that sugar.

[26:58]

And then they say, macrobiotics is to purify your heart. And if you eat right, then you'll be peaceful. But if you don't, you know, you might get sort of hot under the collar about what else is, you know, serving you. So I knew Suzuki Roshi liked potatoes. So Sesshin one time, at the end of our seven day meditation, I thought, let's serve potatoes. So we baked potatoes, we had baked potatoes, and I had them all washed, and we put them in the oven. And there's certain things, you know, if you just don't do them regularly, or you know, you don't understand, right? But here were these dozens of potatoes in the oven, and it turns out, it takes a really long time to bake those potatoes. I couldn't believe it. And as you know, as you know, in Zen, when the bell rings, the food is served.

[28:04]

So even though these potatoes had been baking for two hours, you know, if you put a lot into those big ovens, it cools the oven way down. And it takes a lot of heat to get into all those potatoes. If you just have a little oven at home, and a couple of potatoes in there, it's fine. So the cookbooks don't tell you what to do. You know, they don't tell you like, if you're cooking for 50, and you want to fill up two or three shelves of your oven with potatoes, you know, turn the heat up higher, whatever, you know. So I watched Suzuki Roshi try to eat his potato. You know, everybody was so delighted. He was obviously delighted. Potatoes. And we probably served a little sour cream with them, maybe some butter. And then he took his, you had your choice of a spoon or chopsticks.

[29:18]

So he started with his spoon, and it kind of bounced off the potato. He was fairly undaunted. I had really wanted to, you know, please him. He didn't seem quite so happy at that point, but he was still, you know, kind of undissuaded. And, you know, he worked with rocks, right? So the next thing he did them in his garden and, you know, made walls and things, you know. So the next strategy he used was the chopsticks. And, you know, if you make a little series of holes across the rocks, then maybe it will split in two. So that was the next strategy, to make this series of holes.

[30:32]

I felt kind of badly afterwards. But somehow I didn't feel, you know, too badly. I mean, I could appreciate that I'd had a good intention, you know, that I had wanted to, you know, that I had this something I wanted to offer to people, and that I had made a good effort, you know, to do this. And somehow in spite of that, you know, things happened. We don't know what that is. So the next session I tried again. And I thought, well, let's do mashed potatoes. Let's not try to bake all those potatoes. Well, there was something I didn't understand about mashed potatoes, just like I didn't understand about baked potatoes. Do you know, and it's the same thing like when you serve scrambled

[31:46]

eggs, when you serve scrambled eggs somehow and you have, if you're eating in the meditation hall, you have these bowls. And then it seems like, you know, if you have eggs, well, you should have a bowl full of eggs. You know, it just, otherwise it sort of looks like there's almost nothing in your bowl. So somehow when you serve scrambled eggs, people will eat four to six eggs. You know, if they were fried eggs or hard boiled eggs, hard boiled eggs, somebody might eat one. Fried eggs, maybe two. Scrambled eggs, four to six. It's amazing, you know. And so it turns out that's what happens with mashed potatoes too. When you mash the potato, you can have all these potatoes, but suddenly people will eat instead of one potato, they want to eat two or three potatoes because it should make a nice bowl full. And it's all nice and creamy and smooth and easy to, you know, eat and you don't have to chew it.

[32:47]

And then you can eat suddenly many more potatoes. So as we began serving the potatoes, again, everybody's really delighted. And the people at the front have these nice heaping bowls. And about halfway down the row in the meditation hall, the servers begin to realize there's not that much potato left. And it's kind of impolite to go back to the people at the front and say, okay, you know, give it back. I don't know. So down the road, people got, you know, smaller and smaller amounts of potato. So again, it was like this little disaster. So what is it, you know, that's important?

[34:12]

Finally, you know, that the dinner was a big success and everybody said, oh, how wonderful. That was magnificent. And then you say, oh, well, it was nothing. It's, you know, in the long run, it's really hard to know what is it, what it is that nourishes our heart. In some way, it's hard to know. But on the other hand, it's not so hard to know, you know, what nourishes us. Although it was, you know, kind of painful and embarrassing at the time

[35:18]

to serve stone potatoes and then, you know, a paucity of mashed potatoes. I think actually it was kind of nourishing, you know. And in the same way, meditation practice, you know, or other events in our life, often what is nourishing is, you know, what was difficult, what was painful. And because when we encounter that, we stop to look, well, what is important in my life? And what is my real heart's desire? And what's actually possible, you know, for me to do? Because it turns out, you know, none of us are going to be perfect cooks or perfect meditators or perfect husbands or perfect wives or perfect citizens.

[36:23]

So then what? And still we have to go along, you know, and we go on breathing, you know, walking and talking. You know, so the Buddhism, you know, or like the Dalai Lama suggests, Tibetan Buddhism makes a big point of, and Zen also, you know, the kind of bodhisattva vow, a wishing happiness for all beings, a wishing for some, we say, enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. But it's not so different. I, you know, as I said in my last talk here, I'm not a big fan of the word enlightenment or the notion of enlightenment. It seems so much more direct, you know, to talk about being kind or

[37:30]

compassionate or understanding, warm-hearted or good-hearted. And to make, at least in one's heart, this kind of wish to extend this kindness and good-heartedness to all beings. And it's important also that we acknowledge, in that sense, our own good-heartedness, which is there whether or not, you know, we have success stories. I always appreciated, I went to some workshops with Stephen and Andrea, Stephen Levine and Stephen and Andrea Levine, who worked with dying people over the years and people who are quite sick. And they said, you know, we have a lot of people who are dying, if they make a big point of the fact that just because you die doesn't mean you can't heal. Otherwise, everybody who dies is a failure. So are we all going to be failures eventually?

[38:31]

So if the point is just to stay alive, you know, we've missed something. What will be important somehow is that we acknowledge, you know, that we look into our heart and acknowledge our good intention, our good-heartedness, our kindness, our wish for our own happiness and the happiness of others. And that kind of, you know, wish is, because it's easy to get confused. I know for myself, it's quite easy. Yeah, when I started thinking about how to get out of this world, you know, I spent, because I spent years of Zen practice, you know, just trying to be a good Zen student.

[39:37]

It wasn't about being happy. It was about, you know, sitting still longer than somebody else. You know, and then it's sort of like after a while, you sort of dance and you're like, wait a minute, what's the point? Does it actually matter if I sit still longer than anybody else? Is that going to make any difference? And what is that, you know, and then at some point you go like, well, what does that say about, you know, what is my actual heart's desire, heart's wish? And actually, I found that because I was as bad as Zen student as I was, you know, I couldn't succeed at sitting still longer than the other people and doing all the things that, you know, I couldn't follow the schedule better than anybody else. So I kept coming out on the short end of all these competitions. So the only help for it, you know, is to, you know,

[40:41]

get into some competition where you're, you know, to change your area of competition and stake out some little territory where you can be the best. Some obscure field. Anyway, I couldn't see myself doing that. You know, I couldn't figure out what it might be. So the only other alternative, you know, if you're not going to find your little area is, you know, to kind of come to some other sort of understanding about what life is about, right? And, you know, growing in one's being, growing in one's heart, becoming larger hearted. Having some warmth and compassion for somebody who is, you know, not the best. I think I mentioned the last time, you know, in the question and answer after the lecture here,

[41:41]

I might do some cooking videos. And so the first thing these people I'm working with, they are sending out this letter saying, that Ed Brown will teach even the most inveterate meat eaters how to produce vegetarian masterpieces. So of course, that was my, I said, look, I don't care about masterpieces. You know, I'm not, I don't want people to think that they need to produce masterpieces in order to eat or in order to cook, or you shouldn't be in the kitchen cooking if you can't make a masterpiece. And you shouldn't be in there, you know, making potatoes that are too hard and, you know, mashed potatoes that won't go around. You know, you shouldn't be doing that. You know, you should only be in there cooking if you can make a masterpiece that pleases everybody and there's plenty for everybody and it's just the way it should be. And then it's all right if you're in the kitchen. Isn't that the way so much of our life is in America?

[42:44]

You know, you're supposed to be the best. And that's what our school system does. You know, it teaches everybody how to fail because who goes on to get the, all of them, you know, I'm a dropout. You know, we all didn't, you know, keep dropping out. You know, so what about having some, you know, larger heartedness and some warmth and kindness for somebody who has a good heart and some, you know, who's making a sincere effort and who's, you know, even though it's all a kind of, in some sense, experiment. You know, what do you want to call that? Where we don't know that it's going to come out the way we want. And there's, so there's this kind of risk, you know, that we take and we put, you know, our heart into things, into our life and that's pretty good. So,

[43:47]

so no more worry about not being perfect, right? and interestingly enough, you know, it's, it really helps to enjoy things. You know, the, when I do cooking classes, the people who were least interested in food or the taste of anything

[45:23]

were people who had, you know, eating problems. And I wanted to try to say, you know, just, can you just taste something and appreciate the taste and enjoy the taste? And actually to enjoy something, we have to be present. We have to pay attention. We have to open ourself and we have to receive something and we have to let it touch our heart. And then we have joy. So the simple things in our life in that way can be refreshing and energizing and nourishing. A poem, a short poem by Ryokan,

[46:28]

he says, the mind, Buddha is your mind and the way goes nowhere. Isn't that nice? Buddha is your mind and the way goes nowhere. So don't point your card North when you want to go South. You don't need to chase after so many things. You know, I don't, I don't really think of myself or feel that I have, you know, any answers particularly.

[47:29]

And because, you know, life seems pretty difficult. It's pretty much a struggle. But I do have this kind of, you know, confidence or trust in acknowledging one's heart and what one finds in one's heart and to know one's heart and acknowledge, you know, our good heartedness. Then even if we don't have, you know, the answers or the solutions to the problems, the inevitable kinds of problems of in our own life and in the world, at least we have, you know, and can share this warm heartedness or good heartedness with one another and with the parts of our own being that are in distress. Okay. So thank you for coming today and sharing your heart this way.

[48:34]

I got tired of telling my cooking classes to shut up and listen to what I have to say. So now I bring a little bell and I give the instruction at the beginning of the class. When I hit the bell, then everybody has to, you know, we do that little mindfulness thing that so you have to be quiet, stop moving and breathe three breaths before you start again and give me the first chance to talk. But that seems much, you know, nicer than trying to get quiet. Well, what's news? How are you doing? It's a nice spring, huh? It's been so wet. I have a little poem here. I thought I'd bring you a little poem today. I came across this poem yesterday. I don't know whose it is. It's on this piece of paper and doesn't say, you know, the title or where it's from or anything. Crying only a little bit is no use.

[49:50]

You must cry until your pillow is soaked. Then you can get up and laugh. Then you can jump in the shower and splash, splash, splash. Then you can throw open your window and ha, ha, ha, ha. And if people say, hey, what's going on up there? Ha, ha, you sing back. Happiness was hiding in the last tear. I wept it. Ha, ha. I thought, I like that. Well, what's news? Yes. You told some very funny stories this morning and everyone was sitting there laughing and having a good time. But I was thinking, and I was laughing also, but I was thinking to myself, if I was eating hard potatoes or at the end of that mashed potato line. You wouldn't be laughing. You have to view these things from the right place.

[50:51]

But the trick is, and this is what I would like my practice to be, is to be able to see the humor in the moment instead of having to hear it secondhand or appreciate it a week later. Well, that may be a little too idealistic. I don't know. I think if you, I don't know, it does help me to look for and acknowledge my own, as I said, my own intention or effort in other people's, you know, in the situation. You know, to just to look for virtue or, you know, good heartedness. Even so, sometimes I'm able to do that anyway at the time. And it may not be that it's funny at the time, but I can see that I can acknowledge,

[51:54]

oh, somebody has made a sincere effort. Do you understand? I mean, it may not be funny, but I can notice that and I can feel or know my own, that I made that kind of effort and acknowledge that or somebody else did. Do you see? And then, which is not the same as, you know, being able to enjoy a good laugh, but it's still, you know, healing in the situation and keeps me from further sufferings that might arise. Such as, you know, anger, resentment or various things. But this is the boat we're all in, you know, is that we can't, you know, we can't control what happens. So we don't know what will happen,

[52:56]

what will come our way in our life. And so sometimes we're tempted to try to organize everything so that we get only the good experiences and not the bad experiences. Or we get, you know, it all works the way it should. And we're trying to organize it like that. And at the same time, we're trying to be ready for whatever comes and to meet it with our, you know, our best wish or our good heartedness. So in some ways, they're a little bit different, those two agendas that we have. And so to be noticing one's good heartedness or acknowledging that and trying to practice that, it doesn't mean we should stop trying to plan and organize and, you know, create a good situation. But we can see that our effort needs to be a little larger than just making it perfect or making it right. Yes?

[54:06]

I have a question brought up about the man who you talked to after... The sitting? I wasn't quite sure where you were going with that. And was your point to say that he was looking for this perfection in this relationship that he had that he wasn't accepting what was or he wasn't taking the risks? Or we look for that perfection instead of being what he is? What I was trying to bring out by that, talking about the person that I talked about who came up to me and we talked after the retreat, who was in a fairly new relationship. But he was concerned about not having the appropriate kinds of feelings that he should be having or that he thought the other person wanted him to be having. And so he was hesitating to be in the relationship.

[55:08]

And what the point I was trying to make to him and then, you know, bringing it up here was that, well, what's the alternative? The alternative is the five years he spent not being in any relationship. And so all we can do is, you know, be honest and clear, as honest and clear as we can about what's happening with us and then put it out into the world. And we don't know. And then he said, you know, I don't want to be experimenting on somebody. And implicit in that is just that, you know, this may not work and this, you know, and this may not, and what I have to offer may not be what this other person wants or expects. But if we're not going to, I mean, somehow we need to be able to trust in life to, you know, that we're going to, we're going to put our heart into things and then all kinds of things are going to happen that we didn't know about.

[56:11]

And then, but that's, but otherwise, we're going to be, you know, holding ourself back all the time and isolated and never involved in anything. Which seemed, and I could appreciate the person, you know, this is somebody who's rather sincere and in some ways rather sweet person, you know, and rather careful and in a sense too careful because he wants it to be, you know, more tidy than it can be. But there was a real honesty there about here's where I'm at and I don't see any alternative but to, you know, to share that with the world. Here's where I'm at. Instead of trying to, I mean, because I've done it, you know, I've tried to pretend the kind of love that I'm supposed to be having. What if I'm found out? And I've tried to talk myself into those things

[57:17]

because it was, you know, and that has ended up being awfully, you know, painful and embarrassing, you know, much worse than what would come of being honest and, you know, being who you are or in the situation and actually acknowledging your good heartedness and your good wish and not wanting to hurt. But also, you know, you're only a human being. You don't know what's going to happen and what else can we do? Partly this came up for me again because I had this dream recently of, I was at a dinner party and there was a woman I know who was there and she's written a book and it's been very well received and so we're having an enjoyable dinner party. And then her husband comes and they go off on this motorcycle that has no handlebars. And I'm going like, wait a minute,

[58:18]

like, how can you do that? And she says, don't, you know, it's okay. You know, if you just trust, it will go where you want it to go. And then I see them, you know, going along here south of Stinson Beach, you know, along this, you know, along the cliffs here. And I go like, wow, that's really true. It really works just like that. It just stays right on the road. That's amazing. And then the next thing is, I see her coming straight towards me and going right off the edge. And her husband's no longer with her on the motorcycle. And then there she is going straight over the edge and screaming, right? But it seems to me that's what our trust does. You know, to be able to trust means that, you know, what we're trusting finally is that we can go over the edge and that that's actually the direction we need. That's what we need to do in our life is go over the edge. There's not much support around that. No, there's not a lot of support around that. And you actually have to be

[59:22]

rather careful about that, you know, and you want to be in a, you know, and when you're going over the edge, you want to try to be in a situation that's supportive. And also you try to develop enough of your, you know, you try to have a strong enough or, you know, enough of a practice, so to speak, that you take care even though you're over the edge. You know, so that's what monastic practice does is that you have a whole support of a whole community and you get up in the morning, you wash your face, you put on your clothes, you go to the meditation hall, you have your breakfast, you do your work, and you're over the edge. And it's okay to be over the edge, but you're also functioning. And the usual idea of over the edge is that you're no longer capable of functioning. You stop functioning because you're over the edge. And in just in your daily life, so it means you can go over the edge in your daily life, but you still need to be eating and, you know, sleeping so that you have the strength and wherewithal to meet

[60:23]

what you're meeting over the edge. In my dream, it's not clear what's over the edge. You know, the dream stopped there. We don't know what's down there. You know, what's in store for us in the depths of our being. We don't know that. And yet when we, if we put our heart into things, then we're putting ourself into a situation where we can meet that. But I can feel like safe here over the edge, but not in the world where my work is safe over the edge. Yeah, exactly. So that's why we actually set up places like meditation halls where it's safe to go over the edge because it's so hard in other situations. But how do you, all I'm saying is how do you bring that more to your daily work and, you know, stay aware and yet be over the edge. I mean, you're over the edge with awareness. I'm saying when people around you are not giving that awareness back.

[61:26]

Well, we have to, you know, we have to learn how to be, you know, the, you know, it's a skill. It's a skill to, you know, depending on what it is. But for instance, like to, to talk about your anger in such a way that it's constructive rather than destructive and where it's, where you're over the edge, but you're making it, you know, the analogy sometimes in Zen is just that simple one of let's exist like the, you know, with purity, maybe exist in the muddy water with purity like a lotus that our roots are in the mud. You know, that there's a, that there's a depth to our being, which is the so-called over the edge and it's in the mud and it's all very dirty and messy. And our, and our, and our practice in life is how do we transform that into this blossom? You know, with this, this kind of purity and beauty. And so, yeah, that's not some simple thing. That's what we're working on all the time. I can't tell you

[62:27]

in two or three words, you know, how you do that. But I can just say, yes, that's what we're, that's what we're working on and that's what we need to work on. And it may be that, you know, in the situation and practically speaking a situation you say, well, other people don't let me be like that. Well, that's true. And then you have to find out, you know, the next step, you know, how to, how to express, how to express something in a way that actually works in the situation, which also, you know, which also honors your own heart and your own being and what's going on for you. But it's just like, I work in hospitals. Yeah, well, that's difficult. I'm a medical social worker. Right. I, I find isolated, my connections are with the patients, the people I work with, but when I have to deal with bureaucracy, doctors, a lot of the craziness of that,

[63:28]

when it's not just one incident that I have to center in, but it's like 10, you know, each minute or something. It's like, I'm amazed how quickly I lose my perspective. Well, I feel like what, where's my meditation? Well, again, it seems to me that that means, I mean, that also is to say we can't always do it in our daily life. And so we need, you know, to set aside some time where we can be reflective. We can return to a kind of stillness or quiet. Then we go back out in the world and lose it. And at that time, well, let's be, you know, another one of the points I'm making in the talk today is, well, at that time that you lose it, how about being patient and kind and good-hearted with yourself and acknowledging your wish or intention to be able to bear it, to be able to be there and acknowledging and support that attention and not just be hard on yourself.

[64:28]

You know, I guess you still don't get it together, do you? Well, you still can't take that. Well, geez, you've been practicing all this time, you know, so that doesn't, that's not, you know, I mean, I think that's just the way it is. I think we have, you know, for me, I know for me anyway, I have to just be, you know, patient with myself and try to be kind with myself and not too hard on myself about the fact that I don't have somehow, you know, greater, you know, a skillful means, et cetera, to in the world, in the worldly sense, in various situations. Excuse me, yes, yeah. I've heard you speak twice, both times here and both times you began by saying, I don't know why I am Christian as opposed to just about anyone else. Yeah. It was a wonderful beginning. Well, I felt it again today. I say it because I felt it.

[65:30]

And I can't believe it. My question is, in both instances, it created in me an expectation that you were going to address the hardest, most difficult aspects of life in your own experience. That is, those times when it was the hardest, when you were on the verge of losing it in some sense, like saying something horrible to someone or having a complete breakdown at some time. I'm wondering if you could just address that, how your practice helped you in the most difficult periods of your life. Well, I think the simplest thing is that the most basic thing

[66:37]

I learned very early in practice is that probably the worst experiences are the most, you know, I found out that I could survive the worst. And that ended up being much more important and useful than having some great meditation where I was really concentrated or really clear or this other thing happened or whatever. And I also found out that, you know, for a long time, well, I tended to think that practice was about, I tended to think, you know, I set out to produce what I thought of was a really good mind and being a nice, you know, good person. And I was trying to produce this person or this mind or this body that was like the way it should be or a likable one or a good one, right? And then no matter how hard I tried,

[67:40]

I kept failing at that. And there I'd be having failed at that. And I finally realized that, I mean, at some point, like, well, it wasn't the point to do that in the first place. And that it was much more to the point that actually when I failed at that and then there I was and I'm no longer even capable of making the effort to produce the acceptable, beautiful person. I can't even, I don't even, you know, I'm not even, I can't even try anymore. And then the world all comes to me and supports me and I'm another person without even having to try. The story I like a lot, which I use oftentimes, is the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara one day decided to save the beings in hell. So she goes to hell and it's very hard to save them and convince them to go anywhere else because that's the only life they know. She says, no, there's this other world,

[68:41]

you know, you don't have to stay here. So finally she gets them together and they're going out of hell and then they're all out and she turns around, innumerable more beings have wandered in. And it just literally, you know, it blows her mind. She's gone to all this trouble, all this effort, and it's for naught. There's innumerable more beings and literally her head explodes. You know, under those circumstances, and this is what you're saying, right? Under those circumstances, she comes apart. This is the Bodhisattva. This isn't just you or me. So what does she do? You see, she decides, well then Amida Buddha, you know, realizes this and gives her another head. And this is the way our life is,

[69:44]

you know, and so what I found out in practice was that, you know, when I lose it completely and I blow it completely and it, you know, and my head explodes, my body comes apart, you know, I can't do it what I wanted to do. I can't be the person I wanted to be, you know, that actually this new body shows up without my having to do anything, without my actually having to create it or make it up or make sure that it's the right body or the right mind or the good body or the, you know, it's just there without my having to do anything. And then at that time, the Bodhisattva decides she'll go back again. She doesn't say, okay, well, I've had enough of that. I think, you know, I'm just going to go and, you know, those people don't appreciate it, you know, you know, whatever. She goes back again, see, and the same thing happens and her head explodes. So would you say that

[70:46]

when it comes to the most difficult priority should be being aware of the lessons that are there with the idea that it can deconstruct in some sense as a result of that experience. If you're aware of the lessons that are there, you'll be reborn as some newer, stronger thing. I, you know, you're reborn, you're reborn, you know, without having to be aware of the lessons. It takes care of itself. So the bodhisattva's intention there of, you know, helping beings, of bringing some kindness to other beings, of associating with other beings and being in the predicament that they're in, you know, putting yourself in the same predicament as others other in, you know, being. And the fact that she does that is, you know, and continues to do that anyway and comes apart. You know, this is what we're doing. And so it's not as though, and we do have lessons,

[71:48]

but, you know, but that doesn't stop us from coming undone and receiving a new body and coming undone and receiving a new body. And, you know, and our intention sustains us. Our basic kind of, you know, good heartedness is what sustains us through that, you know, and carries us to the next place in our life. I think that's another school. We try to say things like that in Zen, you know, the passions are enlightenment, you know, samsara is nirvana. Yeah, we try it that, but, you know,

[72:49]

I'm not sure how good we are at it. Yes. I once had a figure in a voice in a dream saying to me, you're confusing the struggle to have ideal thoughts and ideal feelings with the gift of divine bliss. And I realized how much I could engage in that and make that kind of confusion. And just to leave a space for those two things not to be synonymous, gave me a lot of space. But one of the things I was wondering, I had a little bit of a different take on something in the dream that you mentioned. And I thought, well, can't there be a level of trust that's like self-deception, you know, where you get on a motorcycle

[73:51]

without handlebars, you know, it doesn't go with common sense. It's like, if you know you're going to go off the edge, you know, do you? I'm not sure. There seemed to me to be maybe just like a little something in there. Yeah, I think you're right. And that's the kind of difficulty. I mean, that's one of the difficulties we have in our life is to have an appropriate kind of container. That's what I was trying to say, appropriate kind of container or space to go over the edge. Because otherwise, you know, you're in a destructive relationship or you're, you know, or you're just, you're going to be in a situation where you can't come out the other end. So you need, and in some way, so it has to go with some kind of common sense or just still taking care of your situation at a very basic level. You know, one of the priests here, Ison Dorsey,

[74:52]

who, you know, died a year or so ago, a couple of years probably now. Everybody really loved him. You know, people really loved him. He was an very unusual person because he could be with anybody. And, you know, he spent years as a, you know, taking all kinds of drugs and he was a female impersonator, traveled all over the country. But, you know, even at that time, you know, he had a practice. He didn't have religious practice, you know, but he had a practice like he always put his clothes away at night. You know, he's always hung his clothes up in the closet, no matter how smashed he was. And you see it in his life, you know, his room, things are always in their place. And that was a practice, you know, his practice, without knowing it, you know, he had a certain level of practice of putting, of keeping, you know, a certain orderliness, even though he's in a lot of ways over the edge here.

[75:53]

And, you know, it's just, who knows, a lot of other people, he could have been dead, you know. But somehow he had, you know, something there that sustained him through that. You know, he actually had this kind of, there's enough, there was enough little bits, pieces of structure that are sustaining him through this kind of just mess. And then he found Zen, you know, one day he was walking down Haight Street and he looked in the window of this bookstore and there was a picture of Ramana Maharshi and he said, I've got to start meditating. And so the next day he came to Zen Center and then he used to do meditation and then he would wash and wax the floor of the main Zen Center there every day just for something to do. But that was like his practice, you see, it's like you keep things in order and you,

[76:54]

and he, and see, and that, that sustained him through, you know, his life is going through tremendous changes and, you know, and re, you know, where do we go now? And he said, you know, I never stopped like liking to do those other things, I just like meditation more. So we don't, you know, but yeah, so you're right, you know, to go over the edge you do need some kind of structure or some kind of practice or it's one of those, I mean, as I say, that's what, you know, meditation practice or religious practice, you know, it should give you enough structure so that in some way, you know, because you take care of that much structure, then in another way you can be kind of free or you can fall apart or you can, you can actually, but if you do it, because if you do it without that structure or without that support or whatever or in situations that are not,

[77:55]

you know, set up to do that, then yeah, you get attacked and you get you know, and it won't be, you know, and it will just end up being destructive and you can go off into spaces, you know, that are real psychoses because you're not also, you don't have your, it's like not having your feet in both worlds, you know, and then the idea is that it's not so much that you can say, well, how do I just stay in this world where it all works? How can I just stay there? How come I have to go to this other world that doesn't work over there? So our, the idea in Zen practice is enter, you know, be in the world that you find yourself in, find out a function there, but don't, you know, but that doesn't mean that, you know, you abandon the other world completely. No, you should be, so you can come and go from realms and you don't end up just staying in this one strange place.

[78:58]

You know, you should have some connection to these other places that, you know, sustain you and support you. I don't know how to say this, but I'm trying. And that's what, that's what happens, whether it's a meditation practice or in a relationship with a teacher or, you know, lots of marriages or, you know, families, you know, what that's, that's what would be, you know, because we're actually able to undergo a kind of transformation because there's, and have the difficulty because of the support that's there in the situation. And it feels painful and everything, but actually we're growing in the situation. And we can do it because there's a kind of, there's some kind of support. And there's a love that is bigger than, you know, what have you done for me lately? Yes? In a way, I picked up on what was said about trust

[80:00]

and risk taking. Actually, I had a dream where somebody, young boy, who actually had a disease that took a giant another five years, was leaning on a piece of rotten wood over this precipice. And so I landed him, and I said, you can't do this. You lean on rotten wood, you're going to fall. And let me show you how. So I leaned on the wood and he began to fall. And I said, this is it. It was the sea. I was going to die. But I said, no, wait a minute. I can go in slow motion. So I landed. And my husband and child looked at me and said, foolish mom. You know, you didn't think this would be obvious, but when we were talking about that dream, first to know what's on there, they saw that edge. You're risk taker. Somehow, I felt somewhere in my life, even though I was in this horrible situation, something came to me. And I also have to tell you, this has never happened before.

[81:00]

When we were sitting, I came quite early and I saw the seat. This is, I had been to this place for 16 years. And I thought, 16 years? And I imagined myself going up there, sitting on your pillow and looking at everybody. Would I be embarrassed? What would I say to people? What are you doing? It was very strange. And then when you sat and said, well, well, people do that occasionally, you know? Yeah. And then we asked them to leave. Mm-hmm.

[82:03]

Yes. And then you wind up not getting the cookie yet. And then it's tough. She was talking about how there was a tendency, the university seems to have a tendency to be passive, you know. So you get a large amount without the cookie, but that happens to be a bad person. Well, I think you've stumped me.

[83:41]

I might be able to help you out. Yeah. I think that the way I see it is that if it comes from your heart, it can't be, it won't be, it won't ever be resentment. If you're thinking that you should do something because you're projecting that other people think you should in order for you to be a good person, then there's going to be resentment. But when it truly comes from your heart, that's compassion. But I had to call to check on my daughter.

[84:44]

I didn't want to do that because she's at her friend's house. And I was thinking, well, if I can make a phone call, I know how to make a phone call. But, you know, I made the phone call, and she's okay. I came, there was no rush. I thought I made the right call. And I did get a microphone. You sort of, you know, you sort of reminded me of, I guess I know, I guess for myself, you reminded me of a couple of things in raising the question, which doesn't necessarily mean, I'm not sure I can address your question directly. But I know for myself how important it is to acknowledge my own wish for happiness. You know, may I be happy.

[85:47]

May I be healthy. May I be free from suffering. And may I grow in wisdom and compassion. And because it seems to me, I mean, anyway, so from my experience, it seems as much as anything, I have to be willing to give myself a cookie too, as well as the other people. And that the cookie comes if I'm willing to give it to myself. And that when I, if I'm just, you know, trying to be this good person or this kind person and give the cookies to everybody else, and then when I've proved to myself that I'm good enough, and I've done that well enough, then I can have a cookie. I can wait a long time for a cookie. So I have, I'm familiar, I think, with what you're bringing up, you know. And that for me is anyway, you know, what it revolves around.

[86:52]

And it also means, you know, it also then depends, to some extent, I think it will make a difference, you know, your companions, who you're with. Because some people will notice that you haven't gotten a cookie, and then they'll actually, you know, encourage you to have the cookie. They'll say that you're passing them out and that you're not getting one. And they'll say, gee, you've been passing out cookies, why don't you, you know, you should sit down and let us serve you now. So it does, it does make a difference. You know, it's not, and even people who love you, they don't always notice that you haven't gotten a cookie. But, you know, but there is such a thing as good friends, and, you know, you, and that you, and also, so anyway, sometimes that makes a difference. Even though, as I say, sometimes even if you just keep waiting

[87:56]

for the person, the other people to notice that you haven't gotten a cookie, then they can also take a long time to notice. So you, you know, that's really not fair at some point. If they really loved me, they'd notice that I hadn't gotten a cookie yet. I guess they don't really love me, I guess they don't really care about me, they just care about themselves. But anyway, sometimes people, people will notice. So again, I, it does, it does make a difference to find, you know, a good group of people that you like to be with and that will at least sometimes notice that and encourage you to take some time and have a cookie for yourself. Yes? I had a friend tell me that the heart is a very selfish organ, that it takes oxygen and nutrients for itself first

[88:56]

and then pumps it out to the rest of the body. And if the heart doesn't take care of itself, then the heart dies and the rest of the body dies. And that it is necessary to take care of yourself so that you can have compassion and give to others. That seemed like fairly decent advice. Yeah. Edith, I wanted to tell you something. I trust you because you were honest with me. One, first time, one of the first times I met you. I still remember you at the event center and I wanted a page for you. And you were sitting behind the desk. So, I wanted to share a few things with you. I'm lonely, and that's normal for me.

[89:58]

And that's okay, I'm 45. But I wanted to share a joke because I can't really solve anybody's problem, including my own. So, I wanted to make a joke, which is a true story. This morning, I wanted to go somewhere instead of just moping around or doing something endlessly. So, I thought, well, what about the center center? And I thought, oh, I don't want to go up there. I've been going up there so long. And then I thought, I'll motivate myself. So, I thought, oh, this will be beautiful. And if I tell anybody, I'm going to say, this is what I was thinking. If I say that, why I came up here, I'm going to have Google search me at lunch. But there were two beautiful young women that they left. So, I felt like, well, there's some angel or God. That's what I like to think. I don't really know. But then I wanted to ask one question. I believe in tradition. I believe in tradition.

[90:58]

And I believe in the Buddha's teaching. From what I've heard, that he discovered the ancient law, which I like to translate as the old, timeless, or something like that. Very old. And I wanted to ask you this. This might be a tie-in. Suzuki Roshi used to say, the whole universe is a classroom, and every phenomenon a teacher. I don't know.

[92:00]

I believe in tradition. I encourage everyone to have good traditions. That's what I was asking. Thanks for letting me be here. Well, yes. I have a question about a story that was in a book. It has to do with being attached to a physical being. And it was about a woman who was so beautiful. She wanted to be a nun. But they wouldn't let her be a nun, because they thought that she wasn't really serious enough. She burned her face with an iron, to prove that she wasn't attached to her own being.

[93:08]

But it seems like most women make a big effort to be attractive. And so, is this a contradiction? I mean, how can you let go of caring about how you look? Well, I think there's kind of different ways to look at it. But one of them is the way we've been talking about today, what is your real wish? And to acknowledge your real wish, or your deep wish. And to keep looking for what's finally important in that sense. How you look, or how you feel about yourself.

[94:09]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ