Good morning, nobody's sitting over here, right in front, are you comfortable there? And I think you're going to have to talk this way, that's okay. It feels good to be here, I'm happy to be back. I just arrived from Mendocino and I'd like to bring you greetings from the Pacific Central District Spirit Camp, there's 75 Unitarian Universalists up there having quite a nice time. They've been meditating in the morning and chanting in the evening and eating good food all weekend, doing spiral dances and making dolls and necklaces, so it's something you might want to think about for next year and they all send their love and their greetings and wish you well, so that's an opening greeting. I wonder if there are any people here visiting, do we have visitors? And you are? And you're from?

[01:00]

Welcome, I see your two sons, and they are? Hi Matt, hi Sam, aha, welcome, glad you're here, have a good vacation, I take it you're vacationing, welcome. We usually take time out at this point in the worship service to share milestones, does anyone have something they'd particularly like to say or share, and if you do, Bob will bring the microphone over to you. Andrea Carlton is here somewhere, but I think she's still drinking a cup of coffee, she's recently come back from Medellin, Colombia, and is moving to Sevastopol today, or maybe this week, but I think that when she comes in, ah, there she is, Andrea, I was just introducing you as a returnee, welcome back Andrea.

[02:02]

Any other milestones, yes? My name is Al Pisk, our youngest son Dave will be leaving tomorrow with his girlfriend, they're going back to Baltimore, he's entering Johns Hopkins Medical School, which is a great joy for us, but we will miss him, and that is not so nice for us. Thank you. Linda? First of all, I just want to say, Clovis really introduced herself already, I'm really happy she's here with the children, and also, Monica Maguire has been here before several times

[03:06]

to play for us, but it's been quite a while, and she plays with the Santa Rosa Symphony, and we're real fortunate that she can be here today. I hope you aren't disappointed that we didn't follow the order of service, so I'm going to light the chalice at this time. Whoa. And I'd like to go ahead with our beginning congregational song, Singer of Life, it should be in your order of service, and I don't know this song, so I'm going to be following along with everyone else as Linda plays it. She's going to play it once through and then we can join her. Singer of Life

[04:47]

Singer of Life Singer of Life Who breathes an enjoyable breath while hard at work Knows riches that money does not bring Yet we knot our breath and work under stress What hunger is this that we feed If we were to eat half as much meat Drink half as much liquor Then everyone could eat well, worldwide Yet we feed the stress we build And overlook the price we pay Animals we pen and cage No fields for these four-leggeds No earth to peck, no dawn of day

[06:23]

No dawdling in midday heat No rest of darkness What kind of life is this? They too grow stress Impulse to move and graze is caged All this pent-up in meat we eat Yet we do the same to ourselves Battling to succeed May we let up Step in open space Free from our own imprisoning Making wise and proper use of structure Filling hearts' desire We have another song that's listed for us to sing at this point, All Creatures of Earth and Sky. All Creatures of Earth and Sky

[07:34]

All Creatures of Earth and Sky [...] Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

[08:44]

All Creatures of Earth and Sky [...]

[10:07]

All Creatures of Earth and Sky Alleluia! [...] Well, there are a few more people here since we started a few minutes ago and I heard someone mention that they might like to share a milestone. Was it you, Joe? Or were you just... I didn't say that because I had one. Okay. If anyone wants to meet Joe during the coffee hour, you can fill him in on the milestones

[11:07]

you missed. If there's anyone here that feels the need of sharing at this time, I'll invite you to do that. Anyone else? Great. I'd like to introduce our morning speaker. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to preside over this morning's service because I've been using this gentleman's cookbook for a number of years. And I'd like to say that when I first opened it up, I found it rather vague and difficult to use only because it was a different kind of cookbook. And what it offered was a way of being with food and that was not comfortable for me at the time. I wanted specific directions. And this cookbook offered me and others the opportunity to really come into relationship with food. So to me, it was a revolution just being in that kind of situation with my cooking. And over the period of years, I've begun to really respect what those first cookbooks were all about. Ed Brown grew up in a Unitarian household in San Francisco and in Marin County.

[12:10]

And I like it that he was exposed to some world religions and religious education, that having been my work for the past nine years. He began studying Zen Buddhism in 1965 and was ordained as a Zen priest in 1971. An abiding interest in cooking and writing has led him to author three cookbooks, the Tassajara Bread Book, Tassajara Cooking, and Tassajara Recipe Book. He's also the co-author of the Greens Cookbook. He was the head cook at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center for two and a half years and worked at the Greens restaurant for four and a half years and has been teaching Zen meditation since 1975. This is quite a wonderful experience for me to stand next to a good teacher. And so I invite you this morning to open your heart to what we can share together and learn from a fellow traveler. Welcome Ed Brown. Good morning.

[13:17]

Does that sound good? Terrific. I don't have microphones stuck in my face very often, so it's kind of a new experience. I guess I don't get to look over here while I talk. Look straight ahead. Keep your head straight ahead and then I can... I noticed on these notes that I sent to Bob Oppmann originally, there's a little note down the bottom that says, I need directions at some point. I didn't realize that this was not, you know, just, I thought at the time it was just like I needed to know how to get to the church, but now I see it has a much more profound spiritual meaning. And that it applies much more frequently in my life than just how to get to the church. I do need directions now and again. And then that reminds me of a little note I got. Someone was letting me into another place and they left a key for me to get into this little

[14:24]

center down in Santa Cruz where I was doing a cooking benefit. And it says, dear Ed, here's a key for you. It will unlock all that you need. That was another, that was another deep spiritual insight here. These things come along, you know, unexpectedly. I'm going to, well, actually, you know, a friend of mine just turned 50 this year. I don't know what that seems like to you, you know, young or old. But I never, you know, and then I realized like I'm going to be turning 50 pretty soon. Do I look like that anyway, you know, a year or so. And I never thought it would happen. I never thought, you know, like we'd all be here this long. I mean, you know, there was all that stuff with the nuclear wars and, you know, bombs and missiles.

[15:24]

And then they, you know, about 1965, I read that the oceans were only going to last ten years and somehow we're all still here. I don't know. It's pretty amazing, isn't it? Just that. Anyway, you know, 50 years and then I thought, you know, when I was younger, I build this talk by the way, why it's rambling like this is because I explained in this talk is a personal odyssey. You're getting the personal part? And also the odyssey part, right? I mean, we're sort of going here and there, right? Okay, excuse me. You know, it'll go somewhere eventually, don't worry. But anyway, just to fill you in a little bit, I did grow up in the Unitarian Church and I ran around the Unitarian Church in San Francisco for a while with the minister's son, Harry Meserve's son. We were the misfits, you know, who didn't actually attend the class. And that church is big and vast and there's lots of places to run around and hide and

[16:28]

do different things. And then in Marin County, when I was 10, and the Unitarian Church in Marin was at the women's club or something, you know, in Kentfield, I don't know if you remember that. But when I was 10, Alan Watts came and talked there. And I got to go and I don't remember anything about what he said, except that he was just a very impressive speaker. And then I used to watch him on TV once in a while. Anyway, one thing led to another and I started practicing Zen, you know, sitting meditation. And I thought I was going to, you know, go someplace with my life, right? I mean, don't we all, right? And then I just ended up being kind of an ordinary person. That's the way it goes, huh? I need some directions. But anyway, along the way, you know, I feel like I've learned a few things. So I'll just share a few stories with you and, you know, see what you get out of it.

[17:32]

Speaking of which, you know, there's one of the stories I like in Zen, there's a number of them, but one day there was a, someone was sitting meditation and his teacher came up to him and said, what are you doing? And he said, I'm sitting meditation. The teacher said, but what are you doing? He said, well, I'm not doing anything, I'm meditating. And his teacher said, well, if you're not doing anything, you're wasting your time. And the student said, if I was doing something, I'd be wasting my time. And then the teacher said, well, what is it you're not doing? And then the student sort of got himself off the hook there and he said, even a thousand sages couldn't say. Anyway, most of us aren't up to much of anything and hopefully we're not, you know, up to much of anything, because most of the people who are up to stuff, you know, are getting themselves

[18:38]

and the world kind of in trouble, you know, with exploitation and various things. But anyway, what I wanted to talk about today, I thought, I noticed in my notes to Bob, I quoted a Zen, one of the most famous sayings in the Soto Zen school is mind itself is Buddha. Mind, you know what mind is? This is a famous koan in Zen. What is mind? Because you can't really grasp it, what mind is. You know, it's not something you can point at and say, well, that's mind and that isn't, because in some ways everything is mind, you know, and then there's no way to describe mind that, you know, apart from mind anyway. But in this case, we say mind itself is Buddha. This means you yourself are Buddha. And, you know, maybe Buddha is not such a good term, so we need to use, like, who cares whether you're Buddha or not? You know, I don't know if that makes any difference to you. Might be a little bit like saying you yourself are Jesus or, you know, God or something,

[19:44]

which you don't get to do in Christianity, you know, because you would be, you know, that's not humble enough. But anyway, the idea is that mind itself is Buddha is just that, you know, each of us has a deep, you know, deep and valuable preciousness. We're each precious. Mind is precious. Things of the world are precious itself. And activity is precious. Life itself is precious. And we tend to forget this. And we also forget that actually, you know, it's not just, it's the kind of truth that it's not true unless we actually do something that indicates it. Because if we're doing things in our life that don't acknowledge the preciousness and basic fundamental goodness of life, then it gets lost that life is good. And this is something like, for instance, I forget this when I get on the freeway.

[20:48]

I don't remember that life is good. All I think about is, you know, how I want to get someplace. And then I don't, I don't remember that I'm valuable or precious or, and then certainly the people in those other cars have no value or preciousness. And you know, so we forget. And anyway, so what I'm going to want to talk about today is a few stories that kind of bring us back a little bit to the sense of life is precious or there's some basic goodness. And at least certainly from a Buddhist point of view, and it's a little less obvious in Christianity, you know, from a Buddhist point of view, fundamentally in our life is goodness. You know, sometimes we worry like if people get to know us, they won't like us because they'll find out our secrets that we've been trying to hide from ourself and from other people. And mostly, you know, when we try to hide things from other people, all we do is end up hiding them from ourself. And other people know, but they're not going to say anything, right?

[21:51]

They don't want to blow your cover for you, it wouldn't be polite. Anyway. But anyway, so the sense of this is just that really when you get, you know, to a fundamental level of human nature, if things are good, it's basic goodness, the nature of mind fundamentally in that sense is compassionate and warm hearted. So we don't have to worry about going deeper in our life because we have this fundamental reassurance that it's good. Do you understand? This is nice from my point of view. Otherwise, you'd have to worry all your life about whether you're doing the right thing or not and doing what you're told by somebody who's, you know, like God or somebody outside authority, right? If you worry about what the outside authority wants you to do, then all your life is there looking outside for the directions instead of like, well, what do you want to do with your life? What do you feel like doing? What is your deep inmost wish in your life? What is that?

[22:53]

Because and then how else would we spend our time except trying to realize that, our deep fundamental wish? Wouldn't that make sense? It's something to do with your life? So I've tried to do this. I haven't gotten anywhere, but then where was there to get to? And I just keep doing this, you know, trying to find or realize some fundamental wish. Hence these stories. I also, one other sort of, you know, thing to frame these stories with would be one time my Zen teacher, Suzuki Roshi, he wrote that book, you know, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. Some of you may be familiar with it. But one time we were having a ceremony where we each come up in public and ask him a question then he answers. One time somebody asked, what do you feel when I serve you food? And he said, I feel like you're giving me your most perfect love.

[23:59]

And it was true, you know, because when people served him, they offered him food in that way. And it's interesting that when you serve food in silence, like we do in the meditation hall, it becomes about the most intimate thing you can do with another human being. There's something about it that is so deep. And when it's done in silence, like we do, and you come up in silence and offer food to somebody, what we do is we bow to the person and the person bows to us and then they hold out their bowl and you serve them food. It's very simple, but all of a sudden you notice a lot about somebody, how they offer something and how freely it's given and how somebody takes something and if they're grabby about taking it or if they just let you give them whatever you're going to give them or they want more or they want something rather than something else. And you notice very much about a person when it's quiet like that and you're exchanging food. But anyway, the story that I also wanted to mention to you is one time I asked him a question

[25:03]

and I don't even remember what I asked him and then he answered that question and I got up to leave. We would walk up in front of him and then we would bow and ask a question and then after we had answered, we'd walk away. So I started to walk away. And then he said, the most important thing, that caught my attention. And I stopped walking away and waited to hear what he would say and he said, the most important thing is to find out, I thought, what? And he said, what is the most important thing? And I was a little disappointed, you know, but I thought I was going to get, find out what is the most important thing, but he didn't really say anything except that it was important to find out the most important thing. But this is very similar to this, you know, what is our inmost desire, our deep wish of

[26:09]

how to live our life, what to do while we're alive. So in that time I was the cook at Tassajara, this is in the late 1960s, you know, at that time a lot of us, we followed that, I didn't even know I was part of the mass culture, but you know, turn on, tune in, drop out or something like that, right? And I was just doing it anyway, and then it turned out I was a part of a whole generation, they sort of got lost there for a while. And you know, some people went on being lost and other people got found and whatever. But anyway, I was cooking and when I first went to Tassajara to cook for the monastery, you know, I got there and a lot of people had been living there all winter and the first thing they said to me was, you know, we don't use any salt in our cooking. That got me worried. Uh-oh, no salt. And I said, well, why not? And they said, well, it's bad for you. You know, nobody can explain these things, you know, all this stuff comes and goes on

[27:09]

the hit list, right? I mean, walnuts are good now, right? Now you get to eat walnuts again and they reduce cholesterol. And now you can have an extra glass of wine because it helps your heart, only maybe if you have the extra glass of wine, you know, they also say that that alcohol ruins the effect of the cancer, the cancer preventing, you know, qualities of the vegetables. So it's always like, you know, like, well, what are we going to, which, who are we going to listen to? But, you know, so I got worried and went to Suzuki Rishi and I said, you know, well, they tell me I can't use salt and he said, you're the cook. I think it's pretty normal to use salt. Take it from a spiritual authority, right? I mean, that's, this helps, this makes a big difference, you know, if you get to do it on this, you know, for spiritual reasons. Anyway, there was also a lot of people at Tessahura, I don't know if you remember, but, and it's still kind of around, you know, Zen macrobiotics and you eat brown rice and

[28:11]

the, you know, well, they have this scales of diets, you know, the number one, number two, I think they have a zero and minus one, two, three, two, but then you go up to number seven diet, the number seven diet is like 100% brown rice and that's the goal, the life goal is to attain the number seven diet, right? And then you will be a perfected being and you'll have peace in your heart and whatever. So there was a large contingent in those days, this was very popular and big and a lot of people thought it was Zen, just like they said, but it's not really Zen, it's very typical of diet plans, they like to give themselves some credibility, so like, why would you follow the diet, a lot of the diets here, they say, well, it's God's way, or it's nature's way, or it's more natural. And so the macrobiotics say, well, they started this in Japan, right? So then they said, well, it's Zen. That's good, right? You sell more diet plans that way. Anyway, we were supposed to be eating, according to these people, lots of brown rice, so we had to, so I serve brown rice every day as the cook, because one time, for instance,

[29:16]

I served oatmeal with raisins, and then three or four of them come into the kitchen after breakfast, they say, you're poisoning us, raisins, you know, it's like, oh, my God, and you're poisoning us, how can you be serving dessert for breakfast? This sort of thing. Okay, well, this is all an introduction to my story here, because I had done a lot of cooking of brown rice. This is to explain this to you, I want you to understand this, and then we were having a meditation retreat for a week, where we sit 12, 14 hours of meditation, cross-legged sitting, we sit for meals, we sit for lectures, get to walk 10 minutes in between things, and then after the meals, there's a little break. Anyway, it's pretty challenging, I don't know if you've even tried just sitting in a chair all day, it's pretty hard, you know, let alone if you cross your legs. So, at the end of this retreat, I thought, well, I'll give people a treat, I'll serve potatoes. I hadn't cooked potatoes in years, you know, all this time we were cooking brown rice,

[30:21]

and then on the off day, we'd have, like, white rice, and potatoes were another thing that was on the macrobiotic hit list, nightshade family. I think potatoes are really great, you know. But anyway, they didn't think much of potatoes, so I had avoided serving them, because I didn't know how to stand up to these people. One of the reasons I practiced meditation was because I thought, if you practice meditation, then all this sort of interpersonal conflict goes away. You just practice meditation, you don't have to talk to anybody. And then at some point, you know, the power of your personal spiritual aura sort of just goes out there and solves everything for you, and everybody agrees with you. We sort of thought this sort of thing in the old days, I think sometimes today people still think this about spiritual practice. Anyway, I thought I'd make, well, let's have baked potatoes, right?

[31:23]

So I made the baked potatoes, and I baked the ovens full of baked potatoes. I had, like, 50, 80 potatoes in the oven, and I started them, like, an hour and a half or two hours ahead of the mealtime, and as the time got closer and closer to the mealtime, I realized the potatoes were not nearly ready. What I didn't understand is, like, if you put a lot of potatoes in the oven, it takes even more heat and more time than you might think, because those, you know, like, if you put one potato in the oven, it takes just a little heat to heat it up and bake it. Pretty soon, if you start putting 50 potatoes in the oven, it takes a lot more heat, so you really ought to turn it up. Also, somebody recently said propane, when you cook with propane like that we do at Tassajara, it's not as hot as gas, so you should turn the oven up higher. I didn't know. Well, in our tradition, when the bell rings, the food is served. There are other spiritual traditions. This is, you know, you might think, like, oh, yeah, that's really spiritual, but there's

[32:27]

other spiritual traditions, when the food is ready, the bell's rung. I went to one retreat center, and the meals would be, like, half hour late, one hour late, two hours late, and we just, well, when we, you know, when it's ready, the bell will ring. You got a problem about that? You know, like, can't you put up with this stuff? Like, are you some kind of fanatic about, you know, about time, and what's your problem? So, they believe in a sort of auspicious coincidence and crazy wisdom. That's their lineage. Our lineage is when the bell rings, the food is served. And this way, you see, all the sort of worry and everything is just the cook. Cook gets that. Other people just get their food on time. In the other tradition, it's sort of like everybody shares that sort of anxiety. Oh, gosh, there's no food now. So, many, many people get to share in this sort of feeling of where's the food and how come it's not ready yet. And in the Zen tradition, one person carries this for everybody.

[33:29]

So this is a lot of kind of stress. And I got kind of worried when the potatoes weren't ready to serve yet. But when the bell rang, we had the potatoes in those serving things, and we took them into the meditation hall, and we served the potatoes. People were delighted at the sight of potatoes and the smell of potatoes. And then we served little dishes of sour cream to pass down the row, and, you know, maybe some onions or something, I don't remember. Maybe there's a mushroom soup in the second bowl. So, there was a lot of delight in the room momentarily, and then everybody bowed. And I was kind of watching my teacher, Suzuki Roshi, like, what would he do? And you also have to understand that to eat, the utensils we got were a spoon and chopsticks. This is traditional eating implements for the Japanese set of bowls we were using, you

[34:30]

know. So, spoon and chopsticks. So, he took his spoon and went to cut the potato, and it kind of bounced off. And he had a slightly bemused look on his face. And then, but he wasn't, he was, in his own way, rather persevering. And somewhat, you know, indomitable, as it were. So, and he'd done a lot of work over the years with rocks. So, he knew a little bit about, like, working with rocks, and like, if a rock, like if you want a smaller rock from a bigger rock, you, he took his chopstick, and he made a little hole in the potato, and then pulled it out and made another hole, and he made a whole series of holes across the potato, and then took the spoon and chiseled it off the piece of potato. This is life in the monastery.

[35:32]

This is spiritual. These things only happen in spiritual places. I mean, at home, you just cook the potatoes longer and delay dinner. I don't know, but we all have our fiascos, right? Where you really try hard, and I was, I had made a really sincere effort to make something that would delight people. In this case, it would be pretty simple, after all that brown rice. And it ended up being this fiasco, and then by the end of the meal, but people seemed to take it pretty good, naturally. After a week of meditation like that, people laugh pretty easily. So they started snickering. And I was kind of disappointed. I felt kind of badly that I hadn't been a success and done something really great that was really pleasing to people. So what does this say about me, basically, though, fundamentally?

[36:36]

Is it all right to like somebody who just made a fiasco, or can you still appreciate someone who messes up like that? Do you have to be perfect in everything you do to have some kind regard for yourself or for others? And I was working at this time, you see, on, well, what is the most important point? To make the perfect, the world's best potatoes? I don't think so. And in this case, the most important point seemed to be the fact that, to me, seemed to be the fact that I had made a sincere effort. I had fundamentally good intention. I'd done the best I could. I didn't know better how to cook potatoes. And I had to let it go at that. And you know, it can still rest easy and not worry about people not liking me anymore because I'd messed up the potatoes. We worry about these things, you know. It's pretty hard.

[37:41]

It's pretty hard trying to go around being perfect. I mean, look at Bill Clinton, right? Boy, people are so hard on him, don't you think? Boy. I mean, obviously, he's not perfect. So the next meditation I thought, next time we had this week of meditation, I thought at the end of it, let's have potatoes. And I thought, well, couldn't do the baked potatoes, let's have mashed potatoes. Anyway, I discovered something about mashed potatoes. I didn't know I cooked up all these potatoes and I allowed like one or, you know, one and a half baked potatoes like per person, which if it was baked potatoes, that would've been great. But it turned out when you mashed all the potatoes down, it didn't look like very much. And sure enough, like we get the serving the potatoes, it was, we go down the row and then about half the people get it and then, and they're all like, they want more. And they're sitting there like, fill the bowl up higher.

[38:46]

And the poor servers are trying to save some of the potatoes they know, like down the row, there's more people to serve. People getting the potatoes are not aware or not wanting to notice that there's more people down the row there. But the servers notice. And so the servers are trying to like, just like, just one little scoop and the people eating like, no more, more. So some people were really happy and then other people's were kind of, didn't get much in the way of potatoes that night. Anyway, it turns out, see, so it was another fiasco and it turns out that baked, that mashed potatoes is like scrambled eggs. I mean, most of us, like, we won't eat more than like, if it was hard boiled egg, what do you eat? Maybe one hard boiled egg or soft boiled eggs, one or two, right? Scrambled eggs, people eat three, four, six eggs. It's amazing. It doesn't look like much. So suddenly people will eat three, four eggs. People, people who would never eat three or four hard boiled eggs or soft boiled eggs

[39:49]

when you could just see that it was, that's an egg. It gets all scrambled up and then it doesn't look like much. That's why restaurants have to serve like three eggs, scrambled eggs, three egg omelets, and they get to just give you two eggs over easy or a soft boiled egg. So this is the same with potatoes. I didn't know that. So people were pretty forgiving, I guess, I'm still alive. These are my potato fiasco stories. And it's interesting because of over the years, I've cooked a lot of things that people say, oh, that was really great. Oh, you've outdone yourself and all these various things. And I always think that really the food in your mouth is better than the food you can remember. Don't you think? For the most part. But anyway, it's a little bit like a friend of mine was down in Tassajar and with a friend of theirs and he said it was a really nice person to go someplace with because his friend

[40:51]

would say, oh, this dessert is the best. It's the best tart I've ever had. Then he'd have a little sip of coffee. This coffee is the best coffee I've ever had. So everything was the best he'd ever had. Isn't that wonderful? And then someone that was at this dinner party and he said to my grandfather was just the opposite. Everything he had was the worst ever. Does this tell you something? You know how much of what we like and dislike is. It's just kind of arbitrary and what's good and what isn't good and what is pleasing and what isn't pleasing and what might make us happy and what might make us sad and a lot of it is kind of like, well, what are you going to hold out for? I mean, what are you waiting for? Today is a pretty nice day. In fact, we have a saying in Zen, every day is a good day. Well, if every day is a good day, what are you comparing it to?

[41:54]

Every day is a good day. So then it's a pretty nice day today. The sun is shining in the trees. There's a nice portable toilet outside. What more could you want? But usually we're sort of waiting like maybe it's going to get better or like it's not good enough yet. So I didn't get enough mashed potatoes. Of people that want to get together to talk about building a common agenda coalition in Sonoma County and trying to put this kind of a referendum on the ballot in Sonoma County. And Adrian, if you forget that information, Adrian can give it to you. So, you know, I didn't get enough mashed potatoes. Those other potatoes were too hard. So when we're a little more sort of open hearted or forgiving, or noticing our basic wish, fundamental

[43:02]

intention, what's really important, we realize that it's pretty nice. We have a lot to be thankful for. We try pretty hard in our life to make things work, to take care of ourself and people who are close to us, friends. It's pretty amazing. And we go through a lot to do it. So I wanted to tell you anyway, why, so interestingly, those, to be able to fail like that was probably, you know, more important to me than all those successes. And if you want to do anything, whenever we want to do anything in our life, we have to be willing to fail. Otherwise, you can't do it. You don't even go in the kitchen. You don't even start cooking. You don't pick up a vegetable. You don't pick up a pot because maybe it won't be good enough. Somebody's not going to like it. It's not going to be up to standard. So if you can fail, then you can go out and do, you can go out and cook.

[44:03]

You can go out and garden. You can go talk to somebody. You can do any number of things. So it's very important. It's very important to have some failures. Failures, those were two that were important to me. And speaking of something like failures, I want to tell you a story my teacher told us when he was a little boy. His father was a Zen teacher, Suzuki Roshi's father. He grew up in Japan, of course. And his father sent him when he was about 10 to study with another Zen teacher. The father's disciple. So the father wasn't going to train his own son. He sends it, the father sends his son to the disciple to study with. So as a fairly young man, he lived in a kind of monastery or temple setting and they would do a little meditation and they would work and various things. And one of the things they used to do in the spring, they would make pickles from white

[45:07]

radish, daikon, you know the daikon, big long white radish. And the way this is done, and we used to do this at Tassajara, you'd take salt and then rice bran, which is in Japanese nuka, but it's the bran from the rice, and you mix the bran and the salt together and then you put a layer of that in the bottom of a barrel, then put the radish in. And then another layer of salt and nuka. And you layer up a whole sort of barrel or crock. And over time, the salt goes into the radish and I'm not familiar exactly with the chemistry, but you understand the salt goes into the radish, the water comes out of the radish. It's osmosis. It has to do with the osmotic pressure and the equalization of the water and the salt. And so then you have radish sitting in wet, it's now all wet, this pasty rice bran and salt and the radishes are salty and have a little flavor from the rice bran. But one year when they did this, they hadn't put enough salt in a particular batch and they came out somewhat rotten.

[46:08]

So what would you do? Well, most of us, like, we throw them out, right? They're not good. That's what I did at Tassajara. Well, Suzuki Roshi's teacher was more in this sort of strict Zen tradition of not to waste something. There was, you know, I guess the most famous story to me that I remember about this is there's a couple people who are walking to a monastery that's way up in the hills and they've heard this is a really great place and they're walking up this creek bed by the side of this creek and they see a cabbage leaf floating down the creek and they go like, oh, this is not some place to visit. Look at this. There's a cabbage leaf floating down the creek. And then a couple of minutes later, there's this monk running down the creek with a stick trying to catch the cabbage leaf and they say, oh, I guess we'll go here anyway, after all, it is the kind of place we heard about. So Suzuki Roshi's teacher served these pickles anyway.

[47:12]

Well, 10 and 11 year old boys, they don't care about religious or spiritual significance teachings. They just like, they know those pickles aren't good. So they didn't eat them. And the teacher would serve them each meal and they wouldn't eat them. They would eat the other things at the meal. And there was kind of this pressure on them to eat the pickles. And so finally, Suzuki Roshi had a little bit of a brainstorm. Like what do you do if there's something that is distasteful in your life? He took the pickles out to the far end of the garden, dug a hole and buried them. That's what you do, right? Something's distasteful, you dig a hole, you put dirt over it. You put what you don't want to taste, which is distasteful, and you put it in there and you put dirt over it and you hope the dirt will stay there. And that what's distasteful will stay there, right? This is very good. Unfortunately, you know, things that were buried years ago tend to even tend to come

[48:14]

up later. If you're lucky, that's the idea that well, it will turn to compost and nourish your life. But some of these things seem to stay in little time capsules and they sort of, they don't decompose. They just sort of stay there. Anyway, these particular pickles were back on the table the next meal. Wouldn't that be embarrassing? And so there were the pickles back and his teacher didn't say anything about like, I saw you bury them or what did you do that for? Or there was nothing about that, just like, excuse me, but these pickles, we're going to eat these pickles and we're not having anything else to eat until you eat these pickles. This is the severe tradition. So they ate the pickles.

[49:15]

And Suzuki Roshi said he had a very profound experience, said it was the first time in his life he had what in Zen is called, experienced what in Zen is called no thought. He said it was just chew and swallow, chew and swallow. Because if you had the slightest thought, this is good, this is bad, this tastes awful, this is yucky. I hate this. Why is this happening to me? This is unfair. I can't stand this. If you thought any of those things, you'd have to spit the pickles out. You know, you'd choke, you would choke. You know, they would. So it was just chew and swallow and he had to concentrate on that. You know, most of our, most of a lot of our life, we, we always have some comment about what's happening. It's good. It's bad. And we need to be able to do that. We need to be able to decide which mushrooms to eat and which ones not to. And we make discriminations, but mostly we over discriminate. And then we tell ourself how awful things are and how they could be better.

[50:23]

And we make up all kinds of plans for how to make it better in the future, better than it is now and not have to get any rotten pickles. How will you do it? And then we think carefully about how to never have to deal with any rotten pickles. And we isolate ourselves after a while. And pretty soon we won't take in anything of life really deeply because it might turn out that it's rotten. It's a bad pickle. And then, because that's what happens in like, doesn't that happen in a marriage too? I mean, if you get close to somebody, it might turn out there's some rotten pickle in there someplace and then you discover your own rotten pickles too. And at some point life is about chewing and swallowing it's, you know, whether it's you, yourself, or the person you live with, or your children, your parents, it's just chew and swallow. And here we are, folks. And we're not going to be able to just meet people who are nice and always nice.

[51:28]

And we're not always going to be the perfect person. Sometimes we also will be a rotten pickle and we'll have to chew that. We'll have to digest that fact. We'll have to digest, you know, one another and ourself, the life we've been living. So it's pretty good work, pretty good effort to make, to meet these things and taste things carefully and be able to digest that too. Anyway, I'm not like that when I cook, but I understand how in life we can't avoid all the rotten pickles. It's inevitable that we have to chew and swallow, chew and swallow. Life is painful and difficult that way. And there are many in the world, we see it all around us in the world. It's hard to go on, isn't it?

[52:29]

Bosnia and Somalia and everywhere, even here, people who are homeless or hungry. And then in our own being, in our own hearts, there's something rotten at times that we have to chew and swallow, chew and swallow. And it's how we grow. This is interesting, isn't it? That's the diet that's nourishing, is to be able to chew and swallow finally. And it takes a kind of concentration or a kind of fierceness to be able to do that in our own life. But again, to come back to, like, well, what's the important point? The important point is to grow, to develop as a person, to be able to meet things, to be with things, to be intimate with our own life, to be intimate with one another. It's not so easy. And there's no way to do it without meeting some rotten pickles along the way.

[53:36]

So I'd like to tell you one more story. This is about another radish story. I do cooking classes sometimes at a friend's house in Berkeley. She's a lawyer and he's an orthodontist, but then on the side they have a cooking class at their house. This is California after all, right? We don't have to be typecast in our usual jobs. I have a friend also, a woman who's a dentist, and then on the side she reads tarot cards for people. This is the way, what we get to do here in Never Never Land. So I had been doing cooking classes there for some time and then they said, well, we want you to meet our friend Robert, Robert Reynolds, who's another chef. And I thought, sure, people are always wanting you to meet somebody, like they think you're going to like them or something. But I kind of go along with it to be polite.

[54:44]

Okay. This time it turned out pretty nice. Robert at the time was doing a restaurant in San Francisco called Le True. It's a little restaurant. It's still being run by some friends of his. It's on Guerrero. I think it's Guerrero. It's either Guerrero or Valencia. A fairly small restaurant. My daughter, who lived in France for about nine years, she's 20 now, she was here visiting. She moved back here, actually. And so we went there for my birthday for dinner one time and she lived in France all this time and she thought Le True. And in French apparently it means the hole. And she thought, Le True? The hole? Like, why would you call a restaurant the hole? And Robert said, well, it's the hole-in-the-wall restaurant. So anyway, Robert turned out to be a rather enjoyable person. This is an example of his humor. And it turned out we were all going to go to his restaurant for dinner and then it turned

[55:46]

out his restaurant was closed that night. It was a Sunday. So he invited us to his house for dinner. My girlfriend Patty and I and then my friends from Berkeley, we were all going to meet and go over to Robert's house. So I thought I would be polite and try to be gracious. I kind of went through my limited wine cellar and I found two 10-year-old California wines to take to dinner. And I was a little reluctant to do this because when you take wine to dinner like this, it doesn't mean you're going to get to drink it. They might have some other wine planned. So I knew, well, this is goodbye to these wines. Well, we got over to his house and we finally found it. It was a little hard to find. There wasn't very good lighting on the street and there were very tiny numbers on the houses and it was cold and dark. And then we got in his house and then we went up the stairs and his house is warm and there's

[56:48]

light and there's wonderful things on the wall, pictures of places he's visited, Venice and different things, California hillsides, very cheery kind of place. And then I gave him the wines and he kind of gestured to the fact there was two wines sitting on the mantelpiece that were two 20-year-old Bordeauxs. So I thought, oh, well, I've come to the right place for dinner. And I happily parted with my two 10-year-old California wines. So that put me in pretty good spirits, looking forward to those wines. And then we went and sat down in this little room off the kitchen where there was some low couches and then a table in the middle there. And on the table were radishes, platters of radishes. And they were the ones that were red and round and they still had their little rootlets on

[57:52]

and the little green topknot at the other end. They looked very happy to be radishes. I don't know if you ever noticed it, but a whole bunch of radishes sometimes like that can be, they can really look happy. It's really something bountiful about radishes, more so like than a bunch of carrots. Carrots don't look quite as happy as radishes. You ever looked at a bunch of carrots, they're just not as like happy. They're in good spirits, but they're not like, radishes are like, they've been like those kids that have been out playing in the dirt and they're really happy to have been playing in the dirt. And then when you scrub them, they're all red, but they still feel like, well, these have been in the dirt. These are from the ground. And there's something, they're round, maybe it's the roundness and they're red. They're very like jewel-like. Jewels are things that you get out of the ground and then you polish them, get the dirt

[58:54]

off and you polish them and they're shiny and they kind of glow and glisten. And then there were some radishes that were red and then they had, they're more rectangular and then they have white tips, white rootlets. And so they were all washed. And they really look nice. And I was, something about these whole platters of radishes, I was just thrilled. And I'm not usually one to get thrilled so easily, like, it's more like me to think, oh, radishes, sure. Expect me to eat this rabbit food? It's a little bit like President Reagan, I never know whether to say Reagan or Ray-Gun. Is it Ray-Gun? Is it Ray-Gun? But he said, you've seen one redwood tree, you've seen them all, I mean, haven't you

[59:56]

all, we've all had radishes, I mean, who cares, right? I mean, shouldn't you have something like new, dramatic, magnificent, never before? And he was just serving radishes. But I was so thrilled, these radishes look so wonderful. And then with the radishes, there was little dishes with sweet butter and little dishes of salt. We also had sparkling French cider. Do you know that sparkling French cider and it's a little bit alcoholic? And then it's not as sweet as just sparkling cider because a lot of the sweet is turned into alcohol. So it's just a little sweet, little alcoholic, little bitter, and the radishes are crunchy and a little spicy, mustardy or hot a little bit, very refreshing with the sparkling cider. And after a little sparkling cider, the radishes looked even more sparkling. And I had radishes with salt, radishes with butter, radishes with butter and salt, and just plain radishes. And it turned out to be really delightful.

[60:59]

And the more I thought about it, the more profound I found this because a lot of times, and the more I respected right away, what I remember about that whole evening is the radishes. I mean, I know those 20-year-old Bordeaux's were good, but they weren't as good as those radishes. And we had roast lamb and Robert sort of forgets when we come over to his house that Patty and I are vegetarians, primarily, except for when we go to his house. Patty's eating red meat twice in the last 18 years, both times at Robert's house. We're going to remind him next time he invites us to dinner. The last time we went there, the second time we went, we had five-meat lasagna and followed by roast rabbit. This is hard for vegetarians, but we try to be polite. But what I remember most about that whole evening is those radishes. And mostly as cooks, we think as a cook or as a person, how are we going to impress somebody?

[62:08]

And what do you have to do to impress somebody or delight somebody or please somebody? What does it take? And are radishes good enough to do it, or do you have to really do something with the radishes to show how skillful you are and what a great cook you are? So to me, here's somebody who's really developed as a cook enough to know that radishes, if they're good radishes, he went to the farmer's market to get these radishes. Most radishes at the supermarket, they aren't going to delight you like this. It's one of the things about shopping a lot of the time at supermarkets and big stores. By that time, the radishes have been jammed into boxes and the leaves are kind of bruised and wilty and the radishes, they don't have the kind of delight. They're not capable of delighting us the way that they are if you get them out of your own yard or from the super, the farmer's market or something, you know, it's sad. But here's a cook who could appreciate a radish. And this is very powerful to be able to appreciate the importance of a radish being a radish,

[63:15]

because it's also the same as you being you. If a radish is good enough at being a radish, then you're good enough to be you. And if a radish isn't good enough and you have to fix it up to make it edible or to make it enjoyable or to make it worth inviting somebody over for dinner, well, you better do the same thing for you too, right? Better get fixed up, better make a better dish out of yourself, better make a better presentation of yourself. So to me, this is extremely vital to be able to appreciate anything. And in this case, I take radishes. You can appreciate a radish and the wonderful virtues of a radish and how sincerely and joyfully a radish is a radish and what, you know, wonderful pure intention a radish has and how it offers itself to the world without apology.

[64:19]

Gee, I'm sorry I'm not an eggplant. You know, they don't do that. Sorry, I'm not a tomato. They don't get involved in that kind of thing. They're just purely, joyfully, deeply, sincerely radish. And each of us, we make this same kind of effort to be who we are. And when we see it in radishes, we can see it in ourselves and we can see it in one another. The same kind of virtue, even though, you know, we can't be all things to everybody. Radish is very distinctively crunchy and red and mustardy, hot, juicy. And it's not like an orange or it's not like an apple. Radish has its own virtue. So we say in Zen about the ocean, if you go out on the ocean, look around, see the line

[65:25]

on the horizon, it looks circular. But the ocean isn't circular or square. You just see it that way at one time. The ocean has infinite characteristics and boundless virtue. So this is also true of a radish and of you yourself. Even though at any particular time you see some problem with yourself or with somebody else, we should also understand that each of us and each thing has boundless characteristics, infinite virtue. This way we can touch the heart of things and be touched by things and allow life to nourish us and we can be someone who nourishes ourself and other people. Don't you think so? I think so. So I appreciate your efforts in this direction to nourish your own deep and most wish and

[66:30]

request in your life and to find out what is the most important point. Also in Zen we say, when you are you, Zen is Zen. Mostly we think when I get myself together or I get better, when I improve, then I'll be, I'll have arrived. But we say, when you are you, Zen is Zen. So it's the same as when a radish is a radish, okay? So I'm going to stop now. Again, thank you very much. I'd like to invite you now to make a gift to this community. Thank you.

[68:20]

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[69:49]

Thank you. [...]

[71:44]

Thank you. [...]

[73:05]

Thank you. [...]

[74:16]

Thank you so much. Food is not matter, but the heart of matter. The flesh and blood of rock and water, earth and sun. Food is not a commodity which price can capture. But exacting effort, carefully sustained the life work of countless beings. With this cooking, I enter the heart of matter. I enter the intimate activity which makes dreams materialize. Thank you so much for being here this morning, all of you, and the wonderful music and Ed Brown, and I wish you a good day, blessed being. I would like to offer a closing word also.

[75:25]

I'd like you to participate in the closing word. Here's the way it works. I hit the bell, and then you take three breaths. And while you're taking the three breaths, you enjoy them. Think you can manage that? Okay. Thank you.

[77:03]

Thank you. Enjoy it. Thank you.

[78:31]

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[79:56]

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[81:33]

Thank you.

[81:48]

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