Gee, last year when I was here, you know, there was many more people here. Obviously, it wasn't such a good talk. Either that or it was so good, people still had enough, even after a year, still digesting it. Anyway, Bob and I made up a topic for my talk called Mindfulness in the Kitchen. Did you notice that? Is that what you came here for? You just came to hear me talk anyway, so it doesn't matter what I talk about, right? Good. We tried to make up a topic that was generic enough to include anything I might talk about. I would like to say a few words about mindfulness, because people confuse the word, I think,

[01:29]

some. Mindfulness, I think many of you, of course, know and are familiar with the term, but mindfulness is to be aware of whatever it is that's happening. Even if you're aware of being absent-minded, that's called mindfulness, right? When you recognize absent-mindedness as being absent-mindedness, that's mindfulness. People use the word mindfulness sort of like you're paying attention to something, but actually what you may be paying attention to is your lack of paying attention to something. Oh, I notice I'm not paying very good attention. That's mindfulness. Okay? Do you understand? Mindfulness is not where you create an agenda for yourself or a program that you have to live up to and succeed at, and now you're being mindful, just to be aware of whatever is going on. So, I want to mention that, but I also want to mention that in the kitchen and during work,

[02:40]

you know, it's not such a good idea, I think, to try to practice Buddhism. You know, as though it was something different than doing the work, because then you get sort of distracted. Then you have people who cut the vegetables very slow because they're doing it mindfully, and they go about half-speed or quarter-speed or even slower than that because they're being mindful of every millimeter of movement in their hands or whatever it is they're doing. I don't know. They figured out something. So, you know, and we had a term for that called Zen Slow, but I've noticed that Vipassana people can be even slower than Zen people, at least in their walking meditation. Vipassana retreats I've been to, especially coming back to the meditation hall, there's

[03:41]

this traffic jam outside the meditation hall. You know, at an IMS, they tried to have two lanes, you know, so you could have the slow traffic and then for passing, you know, people who were walking very slowly back to the meditation hall. I suspect it's because they weren't really ready to sit again, you know, it's not like they're eager to get back and sit again, they like walking. And then they tried to have a lane, you know, you could pass, so that was nice. But when it comes to work, it's better not to sort of try to add something, you know, and actually being engaged in the work than that is being mindful, without having to do it really slow, as though that was somehow better. And you could be more mindful if you were slower, because it's also mindful to be aware of, you know, it's also possible to be aware of faster movements, don't you think? I mean, our minds work like that, they can be aware of faster movements and not just

[04:49]

going real slow. In the Zen tradition, you know, Dogen, Zenji and other people, they say, don't, you know, you probably have the same sort of idea that there's this word called Buddha nature, everybody has Buddha nature. We all have Buddha nature, and in some way to say, like, God's in everyone, or, you know, everyone has this quality of something, you know, some part of being spiritual or blessed or precious, everyone is precious, each one is best. But, if you start looking for the Buddha nature as though it was something separate, then you can't find it. And Dogen says, and others say, don't try to add Buddha nature on top of the person who's already there, that's a perfectly good person already, why would you want to stick Buddha nature on top of them? So if you're working in the kitchen already, why would you want to stick something else

[05:55]

on top of it, called mindfulness, or paying attention, okay? Why would you want to try to do something besides what you're doing, see, this kind of idea. And in fact, in that sense then, to do exactly what you're doing and be thoroughly involved in it, then that is expression of your Buddha nature. That's how you express Buddha nature, and that's how you practice, is just to be thoroughly involved in what you're doing, right? But anyway, in this sense, too, you know, it's a little bit hard sometimes to talk about it, because what I want to say to you is something about not following recipes and learning to just live your life. I have a friend who was at Zen Center for 12 or 15 years, became a priest, practiced very seriously, was very dedicated, and after about 15 years of living at Zen Center, you

[07:00]

know, this is not just you live outside there and you come and sit, right? This is living at Zen Center, getting up at 4.30, coming to meditation at 5, working in the Zen Center businesses, coming to zazen in the afternoon at 5.30, you know, coming to zazen at 8.30, you know, sessions, et cetera, right? And so then after 15 years or so, he left Zen Center, and a couple of years ago, I did a series where I invited some of those people to come and talk to a group of students, right, and say, well, what was that about for you, and now what are you doing, and what's your life about now, and what was that you were doing then? And he said that he got these talks recently by someone named Jack Kornfield, he thought he'd listen to him on the way to work, and he listened to him for about 10 minutes and he got mad. Why is that person telling me what to do, as though he knows any better than I do? I just want, I'm just going to live my life, I'm going to live my life, and nobody needs

[08:00]

to tell me what to do. See, this is Zen, spirit of Zen, you know, and he said, very clearly he understood, the reason I have enough confidence to just live my life the way I want to live my life is because I practice Zen. That's why I know I can do this, and I don't need to look to somebody else to tell me what to do, as though I couldn't figure it out for myself. So now he has a restaurant downtown in San Francisco, it's right at the foot of California Street and Market, it's a very fancy restaurant, you know lunches are, entrees at lunch are about $15 to $18, dinner's a little more expensive, and he says, I work 10 to 3, because that's what I want to do. And I'm married, I have a daughter, I want to see them. Somebody wants to see me, they come between 10 and 3, I could make more money if I also

[09:03]

worked in the evenings, if I worked 14 or 18 hours a day, I would make more money. I don't care, I want to spend time with my family, I only want to work 5 hours a day, I have other things to do with my life, this is what I want. So he understands that, and he says, I can live my life the way I decide to live my life, and I have confidence to do that, because I did Zen practice, do you understand? Most of us would rather have a proven recipe. See, nobody knows what's going to happen, we don't know what will happen, just because he does that doesn't mean it will work. Maybe in a year or two his wife will divorce him anyway, maybe his daughter will be in a car accident, but anyway, we just make decisions in our life and then we act on the things

[10:10]

we decide. We decide what's important to us, what to do, how we want to do things, and we try to do that. But then if you decide, okay, I'm not going to listen to anybody, in Zen we call this cutting off your head. We have two terms in Zen tradition, one is you can put a head above your head that knows better than you do. Yesterday at our cooking event, nowadays it's fat, butter, olive oil, oh, isn't that bad? Then you say, and then who says so? Where did you get that idea? Do you have any experience of that? In your own experience or is that just something you read? Then you take this idea and you go around and you put it on yourself and you say, okay Ed, you have to eat this and you can't eat that. Then does that help you wake up and actually learn anything from your life where you taste something and you notice how it affects you?

[11:11]

Then you decide to eat based on what your experience is. This is how you wake up and you own your own body and mind instead of following somebody else's rules, somebody else's directions. You can have a head above your head or if you decide, I'm not listening to anybody, I'm not going to do any of those things, this is called cutting off your head. So what's the solution? This is life, isn't it? No guarantees. I used to think if you did spiritual practice, then it was kind of like insurance policy, right? If you meditate enough, then it's like paying on your insurance policy and then everything's supposed to come out okay, isn't it? Because I meditate and I have a vegetarian diet and it should all come out all right, but it doesn't. Then who do you blame?

[12:19]

You know, it's nice to be able to blame someone. Sometimes I just try to just blame the universe generally. I'm not going to tell you that story tonight, it's too long. But it's nice to be able to blame someone or something, you know, the universe is good. So anyway, see how it's difficult to say something about practicing mindfulness in the kitchen because why would you want to do what I tell you? So you couldn't figure it out for yourself. So I want to encourage you to figure things out for yourself and to actually do what you're doing and put your vitality and energy and engage yourself in the things you do in your life and find out what's going on. I have a friend who years ago she had difficulties overeating.

[13:21]

She used to binge, sort of like another friend I had who she realized years later that she was anorexic. She wasn't eating, and when she was a teenager it wasn't so well publicized, and it was years later when Karen Carpenter died and was on the cover of Times, she realized that she'd been anorexic, but she'd gotten over it because she also started being an alcoholic, and then she'd drink until she blacked out, and when she came to in the morning there were food wrappers all around the room. So she got over being an anorexic by being an alcoholic. But anyway, my friend who was the opposite, binge eating, she went to the therapist. She started seeing therapists. She thought, maybe the therapist can help me. And after a couple of years the therapist said, you have too much resistance.

[14:22]

I'm not going to work with you anymore. Do you know what that means? She wouldn't do what he told her to. So when you don't do what somebody says, then they say, well you have too much resistance because you should just do whatever I tell you because I know better than you do how to live your life. I know that better than you do. I know it's your life, but I'm going to tell you what to do because I know better than you. This is the way the macrobiotic diets work and the Dean Ornish diet, and there's all these people who have these diet plans that work that they know better than you do. And if you have a problem with it, oh, your body's just releasing toxins. They have an excuse and an answer for it. I'm getting off the track. I'm going to try to come back. But you know, I have a friend in California who after practicing Zen for many years, now she's a personal trainer and she got into weights. Never know. You might find that's good for you too, but now she's a personal trainer.

[15:23]

She lifts weights and she gives people training programs. So now a couple of times this woman came to her and said, I have no muscle tone. Can you give me a plan for developing muscle tone? And my friend says, well, what have you been eating anyway? And she says, oh, I'm on the McDougall diet. This fellow McDougall's on the radio all the time around Santa Rosa and he tells everybody you should have a vegetarian and no fat vegetarian diet, you know, no red meat, no dairy products, vegetarian diet. Maybe you get eggs, you know, like once a month or something. I don't know. And this will get rid of cancer. This cures everything. Everybody should be on this diet. And my friend says, you don't think it's what you're eating? She says, oh, no, no, I feel great. I just don't have any muscle tone. Well, okay. So what do you do? You know, do you follow your own sense? Like, I feel great, but I have no muscle tone. Well, it couldn't be the diet because obviously McDougall says this diet is great for everybody

[16:27]

under all circumstances. So it must be something else. I guess I need a training program. Anyway, it's hard to sort these things out. And to know. And you can't really know. So you have to just do something anyway, isn't it? Anyway, my friend decided after a while, you know, that was really upsetting for her when the therapist said, I'm not working with you anymore. She felt really badly. You know, I think the therapist could just as well have said, I'm not going to work with you anymore. I haven't found a way to work with you that's satisfactory with me, for me. I don't know how to, I don't know how to work with you. Okay. So I'd like to give it a rest. Maybe somebody else would be more helpful for you. But no, he puts it all on her. You have too much resistance. Therapists aren't very good at owning, you know, part of the deal. You're to blame for everything.

[17:28]

So she went to gurus. You know, the gurus are usually pretty good about telling you what to do. You know, some, most of the pastna teachers aren't very good at that, but you know, there's a lot of gurus that are very good at telling you what to do. Anyway, nothing helped her. And finally one day it occurred to her, I'm going to figure out what to do. I'm going to start paying attention to what's going on in my life. And I'm going to start noticing what happens. And I'm going to start noticing what happens before I binge eat and while I binge eat and after I binge eat, instead of going unconscious, I'm going to start paying attention. Not just when I happen to be paying attention, when I start paying attention to the crummy stuff too. I'm going to start feeling what it feels like to binge eat instead of like going blank when that happens.

[18:30]

And she said, I had no reason to believe that this was actually possible for me, but I decided to do it anyway because I'd never been able to do it, she said. So she had no reason to think she could, but she decided to do it anyway. I'm going to figure this out. This is Buddhism. And this is the basic fundamental vow that is essential to Buddhist practice. My life hasn't worked, the truth of suffering, things are a mess, I'm going to figure out how to do this even though I have no reason to believe I can figure this out. And then you don't have to, and then maybe you get some advice from somebody and maybe you don't, but basically you decide, I'm going to do this. And I'm going to learn how to, in that sense, I'm going to learn how to trust my own experience. I'm going to be able to trust what I see, what I hear, what I smell, what I taste, what I touch, what I think, what I feel, I'm going to trust that stuff instead of saying, oh no, I can't do that. Somebody knows better than I do what's going on with me.

[19:36]

You know, I find it really annoying when people say like, you're really angry with me, aren't you? And usually I wasn't until they say that. You know, it makes me really angry that somebody is telling me how I feel, like I'm the expert on how I feel, I know how I'm feeling, you don't have to tell me. So if you want to say that, then you can say, I feel like you're angry with me. Then you own it instead of saying, you're really angry with me, aren't you? Or I think that, I think you're really angry with me, I feel you're really angry with me, then you've just owned it, now it's yours. That's what you think, but that doesn't mean that that's what I am. Anyway, to practice mindfulness in this sense is to see if you can't, you know, just start practicing owning your own body and mind, owning your own experience.

[20:38]

You're the expert, you're the boss. And our culture likes to tell you, you know, we know better than you do. The culture says we have these experts, we'll have experts who tell you about your diet and you can go to the experts about your doctor and your body, and of course a lot of people don't like that. You know, that the doctor tells them things about their body and the doctor doesn't know. So I'll tell you a story which, you know, in a roundabout way illustrates this. Many years ago at Tassara I started, when I was cooking in the 60s, I started making biscuits and they never would come out right. Sometimes, you know, this is the story of your life.

[21:42]

Nothing seems to come out right. And I tried making the biscuits again, you know, and I did it with milk and with water and with eggs and without eggs and using butter and using lard and using vegetable shortening and nothing I did, they wouldn't come out right. Well, finally I started thinking like, right compared to what? You know, oftentimes there's some image, you know, what are you comparing it to? And this isn't just biscuits, right? I mean, this is like, what are you trying to get your life to look like? And I realized that I was, when I grew up, we made in my family bisquick biscuits and canned Pillsbury biscuits. This is my model. Bisquick biscuits, you open up the box and you pour some of that stuff in the bowl and

[22:53]

you add milk and stir it up and then you take a fork or a spoon and you just put it on the pan in these globs. You know, you don't even have to roll it out. And they come out in all these different shapes and they're all kind of jagged on top. And you just make these blobs of biscuit dough on the thing and then you bake them. Pillsbury biscuits, you know, you take the can and you whack it on the corner and you undo the can and you take out those little things and you pull them all apart and put them on the pan and you bake them. My biscuits didn't taste like either of those. I couldn't get my biscuits to taste like canned Pillsbury biscuits. I couldn't get my life to look like much either. And I tried, probably most of you, longer than most of you, many of you in this room

[23:59]

anyway, I'm going to be 50 in March, so I've been at this for a while now trying to get my biscuits to come out. My mom says to me, well, I'd sure like it, you know, to see you buy a house one of these days. And, you know, various things. And then I make up things too, right? Shouldn't, you know, I mean, if you're going to be a Zen priest, you know, shouldn't you kind of like be wise or something? Shouldn't you be a little more mellow than I am? I mean, here I am, you know, like a year ago in March, I was going to go to Hawaii with my girlfriend and I said, I'm kind of nervous about going. I don't really know if I feel like going. And she said, I think it's better if you stay home. Her parents, her parents live in Honolulu, you know, so she said, I can't imagine, you know, we're going to go there and I'm going to say this puddle here is my boyfriend. You know, I just, sometimes I just wake up in the morning or it's during the day and I

[25:08]

just, I would just be standing there about to light the stove or do anything and the tears would just start coming out of my face. Well, you know, I think, what kind of a person is this? You know, that's not very much like canned Pillsbury biscuits, you know, it's not very polished, it's not very together, you know. After years of expensive or actually rather inexpensive, you know, religious training, you're supposed to have more to show for it, you know, supposed to be a nice, neat little biscuit there, you know, like it came out of the mold. But anyway, it didn't look like that. So once it occurred to me that the biscuits that I was making, you know, that I didn't, why would I want to make Pillsbury biscuits? Why would I want to make Bisquick biscuits? Maybe I should see what these biscuits actually taste like. Besides the fact that they don't taste like the Pillsbury biscuits, they don't taste like

[26:14]

the Bisquick biscuits, but what do they taste like? How do they taste? What is this that's going on in the present moment? And as soon as I actually tasted the biscuits, boy, were they good. They were much better actually than those other biscuits. I mean, my biscuits, they're two cups of flour, half a cup of butter. How can you go wrong? And then I was using this method where it's sort of like making a pie dough and you have the butter in little lumps. So when you roll it out and then you fold it and you roll it and you fold it and you roll it and fold it, so pretty soon you have this very flaky. And then the biscuits, they bake and they puff way up and then they pull right apart and they kind of dissolve in your mouth. They weren't Pillsbury biscuits, but actually they were Pillsbury biscuits. They were pretty good. And this is true, you see, in your life too, in our life.

[27:18]

It's very easy to get some idea of what your life is supposed to look like. What your practice is supposed to look like. And this is, you know, putting the other head over your head. And this is telling yourself how to behave when your own body, your own mind is finding out what to do. And if you tell it what to do and what's going on, then how does it have any, how can your own body and your own mind and your own being have any kind of confidence that you could figure it out when there's already this voice telling you that's good, that's not good. I don't know if you ever met Maureen Stewart, you know, she used to be at the Cambridge Buddhist Association. Is that what it is? On the Spark Street, the one on the Spark Street. Maureen finally divorced her husband because she was seeing too many young ladies.

[28:22]

And she used to say, they used to say to her, but Maureen, you're a Zen teacher. You should have more compassion. You should have more understanding. You should have more sympathy. And she believed that for a long time. It's really easy to tell other people, see, you know, and put something on. Then you sometimes buy those things. Oh, yeah, I should. Then she finally decided, but actually, I'm a Zen teacher. I'm going to own my body. I'm going to own my mind. I'm going to own my anger and my resentment. And I'm leaving this person because he doesn't listen to me. He doesn't acknowledge the way that he's hurting me. So I'm leaving. He was surprised.

[29:24]

Anyway, this can happen in various ways, right? Where you get some picture or image you're trying to live up to. Sometimes you create it. Sometimes somebody else, you know, gives it to you. There was a Zen teacher who said one day, you know, a student came to the Zen teacher and said, Teacher, I can't cope. What should I do? And the teacher said, I can't cope either. That wasn't good enough for the student still. You know, the student said, What do you mean you can't cope? You're a Zen teacher. And the teacher said, If I could cope, I could cope with your inability to cope. I could do something about it. But actually, I can't cope. I can't do anything about that.

[30:42]

But one of the things that, you know, this is the, you know, there's many expressions like this for Zen teachers. You know, Zen master Yaku-san also said, Awkward in a hundred ways, clumsy in a thousand. Still, I go on. But we keep thinking, you know, I haven't gotten there yet. I'm not wise enough yet. I'm not smart enough. I'm not together enough. I'm not calm enough. I'm not concentrated enough. I'm too scattered. I'm this, I'm that. Well, it's me and, you know, then what am I going to do so that it comes out like Pillsbury biscuits? I did, by the way, hear another story about Pillsbury biscuits. I was watching, I forget. It was, I think it was David Letterman. And I think it was Gina Davis who was on and said that her aunt down in Alabama had been to the grocery store one day

[31:44]

and was driving home. It was a very hot day. She had the groceries in the back seat. And she heard this explosion and she felt something gooey on the back of her neck. And she thought, Oh my God, I've been shot. And she didn't dare touch it because she thought the back of her neck was all bleeding. She could feel this warm, gooey stuff on the back of her neck. So she drove straight to the hospital and went into the emergency room. And when she saw the doctor, she said, I think I've been shot. And he reached up and pulled the biscuit off the back of her neck with a biscuit. So on one hand,

[32:58]

it's very easy to get a lot of rules and have a head above your head. Add an extra head that knows better than you do, that has all the images for the Pillsbury biscuit, the biscuit, the perfect person, what a husband should be, what a wife should be, what this should be, what I should be, what you should be, and tries to go around making the world conform. Then we try to go around making the world conform to all these ideas that we have about how things should be and the way people should be. And when you're like that, it's very frustrating, don't you think? And this is different than just learning to work with, finding out how to work with whatever it's like. And sometimes, finding out how to work with whatever it's like means I'm not going to work with you anymore. But then you don't have to blame it all on the other person. You can say, I don't know how to work with you, too. I think you have this kind of problem

[34:00]

and so on, but also, I don't know how to work with that, I can't cope with that. Zen master can say it, you can say it, I can't cope. You don't necessarily have to put it all on the other person so that you feel you're impervious. On the other hand, if you were to say, I'm not listening to anybody. Now you've made a new recipe. You have a new program, which is, I'm not listening to anybody. This is called in Zen, cutting off your head. Why would you want to cut off your head? This is called cutting off your head so that, thinking that you can do without anybody else's advice or suggestion or information. In the long run,

[35:01]

whether it's the kitchen work or your life, if you're cooking, the point isn't just that you know all the good recipes. The point is you're willing to be in a situation and you don't necessarily have a recipe for it and you'll find out what to do. In a sense, it means, and this is true of Buddhism generally, we're not trying to learn how to follow the rules. As though Buddhism was like training your dog. Sit. No, I said sit. Heel. Get up. The bell just rung. Get up. The alarm just went off. Get up. The alarm comes into you and you respond. You take it all in and in a sense, you take it into your heart and from your heart you respond. You don't respond from the head

[36:02]

above your head. You don't respond with the recipes, with all the instructions you've been given. Oh, I think I should try direction 3A. They said that I should be patient in situations like this when you're trying to figure out like, uh-oh, I can't trust my response or I'm getting impatient here. I can't trust that. No, I'm supposed to be patient. Oh, the Buddhist thing to do is to be patient. How are you ever going to learn to trust yourself if you always tell yourself the Buddhist thing to do or the biscuit thing to do or the Pillsbury thing to do? How do you then trust? Oh, I'm annoyed, I'm angry, I'm irritated. Can you own that? No, is that something you can own and have and then actually it's possible to say that. It's possible to express that

[37:03]

and to learn how to express that in a way that other people can tolerate and accept and actually often they can do it better than you can. They say, oh yeah, I get irritated too. It happens all the time with my daughter. You know, I end up, I put my foot in her mouth all the time, you know. Not all the time, but a couple of years ago at Christmas, you know, my daughter was home for Christmas. We were going to go to my mom's for dinner. So in the morning we started making the dinner because my mom says, no, I don't want to cook anymore. No, I don't like to do that. So I said, okay, well, we'll bring the dinner. So we worked on it in the morning then we went to the circus and my daughter had a friend with her. So my girlfriend Patty and I and my daughter Liken and her friend Autumn. So then we got back from the circus and I said, 10 minutes. We're going to get back in the car here in 10 minutes, okay? This is like you solicit agreements, right? Heard of that, right? I'm trying to do it the right way. Everybody said, yes, okay, 10 minutes.

[38:06]

Because I'm worried about getting to my mom's in the traffic and she starts to worry when you're late, you know, and then she starts to fuss, you know. And so I want to get there. And about one minute later, my daughter and her friend disappear. They're gone. 10 minutes goes by. 15 minutes goes by. They're not back yet. So I think, okay, I'm going to try to calm down now. I'll have a little cup of decaf coffee. I make my coffee and I drink it and I'm just about done with my coffee and the door and they're all out of breath. And then I go into the room and I start explaining to my daughter that she'd made an agreement that she'd broken. You agreed to be back here in 10 minutes. And I did this right in front of her friend and I don't ask her first, like, could I talk to you for a minute? It helps sometimes if you,

[39:07]

you know, it usually helps if you say, could I talk to you for a minute? And could we go over here and talk for a minute? You know, out of the blue, it helps to like, you know, like, could we talk for a minute? I'd like to talk with you, okay? Maybe we'll go like over here, you know, so we can talk. You know, and I don't need to tell your friend about this. I just want to talk to you about it. No, I just attacked her because it was important. Had to straighten her out. Don't you think? Anyway, I was angry. I was annoyed about this. And I told her I was, and I also said, you know, if you don't like the agreement, you know, you didn't have to say yes. You could say no, 10 minutes doesn't work for me. That's all right. You could say that. You could say no, that doesn't work. I'd like more time, please.

[40:09]

Then you'd at least give me a chance to say yes or no or whatever, right? This is part of, you know, life. This is, you know, talking. You can say no. It doesn't work. And anyway, I was sort of mad for a while. And then, you know, at some point, you know, my daughter and her friend and Patty, they're all sitting around saying, gee, we hope Ed isn't like this for the rest of the evening. Sure would be nice if he could lighten up after a while and get going with that business. And then after dinner at my mom's, you know, we opened a present. And my daughter's present for me was this, was this self-portrait that she'd done in art, you know, an art class at college. And she, and it was in a plastic frame, you know, one of the little box, plastic box frame, plexiglass. So it was then apparent, you know, at that point that actually what she'd done was to run up the street five blocks

[41:12]

in the other direction to the bank and get the money and then run down the street 18 blocks in the other direction to the framing store and then run back the 12 blocks to our house during that time to get my Christmas present. And then I told her how irresponsible she'd been for loving me. Anyway, this is how stupid we are sometimes, right? But anyway, what are you going to do? You know, how can you avoid it? There's no way that you can avoid, you know, and act perfectly. If you're going to act perfectly, then pretty soon you're not opening your mouth at all because you're going to say the wrong thing and not open your mouth at all. Then people start making up what you must be thinking because you're not opening up your mouth at all. And then people say, boy, you know, you don't talk much, do you? What are you hiding? What are you hiding from us? What secrets are you keeping by not talking?

[42:14]

And you could at least say good morning to me. You know, but you're too afraid to open your mouth because you might say the wrong thing. Right? So there's no help for it. Now my daughter's in journalism class so every so often she calls me up and she says, I think I'm going to drop out of school. I haven't liked it here since I first got here. I'm going to drop out of school and it's too big and I've had enough of this. And by the way, I have a journalism assignment I don't want to do. And the problem with journalism assignments is you have to do them like every day. And then you can't, for any particular journalism assignment, you can't do the term paper that you would do if you had three weeks or a month or six months. You have to do what you can do and you have to do just the research you can do in a few minutes and then write the paper you can write in a few minutes

[43:16]

and then that's the best you can do. That's that. And then you turn it in and then tomorrow you have another one. And that's all you can do. You just do what you can do at the time. And then you have to trust that. But we keep thinking, no, I'm going to learn how to do all these things perfectly so I can never be criticized, so I can never be attacked. You can't do a journalism assignment at all and you can't cook a meal at all because nothing is going to be good enough and you can't say anything at all. Right? This is the sort of thing, if you start getting Pillsbury biscuits in your head and biscuit biscuits and these images and this Buddhist practice, I'm going to be a Buddhist. I'm going to be compassionate. I'm going to be patient. I'm going to be mindful. I'm going to be wise. Now or in the future. In fact, they might even adore me. They might bow. Anyway, none of that stuff works.

[44:22]

So you're going to have to just wing it anyway. You're going to just have to wing it and take your shots. Take the stuff that comes with the territory, being a dad, being a husband, being a wife and respond to things. You know, you might have to sometimes say, I'm sorry. I realize now that actually you were getting my Christmas present for me. And she said, I know, Dad. I know who you are. I've known you for more than 20 years now. And, you know, if you're not, you're not going to get it, you know. It's nice to be around people like that. Because sometimes you can start acting out so much stuff and then you say, oh, of course you're supposed to be able to tolerate this. You know, there's a limit to what any of us,

[45:25]

you know, we can ask other people to tolerate as far as our acting out stuff. So all of this is, you know, what we work with, right? To try to figure out how to live our life from our heart and respond from our heart. Things come into us. We take things in. You know, it's very much like eating. You take in all of your experiences and what people are doing and what people are saying. That's digestion. And so you take in experiences the same way. When you have good digestion physically, you also have good capacity to take in thoughts and feelings and experiences and digest them. And then you extract the nutritive essence and you respond. That helps you to grow. And you respond to things from your heart and it's not, and you don't try to tell yourself, you know, the Buddhist way to do it or what you should be saying or what you shouldn't be saying

[46:26]

as though you have this head above your head that knows better than you do. And at the same time, you want to listen to others. You want to listen. And consider all these things or you'll be cutting off your head. Does this make sense? I hope so. That's what I gave the talk for. If it doesn't, oh well. This is what we were talking about too. I'd like to tell you a poem to end the talk and then perhaps if there's time we can do questions, what have you. I came across a poem on a tape a while back which I liked very much and so I'd like to share it with you. It's by a man named Derek Walcott who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1992. I'd never heard of him and his books don't seem to be very available.

[47:29]

And he usually, he's from Jamaica and he usually writes apparently rather often long ornate poems which have many literary allusions and so on. But this is a poem that's rather short and to some extent at least is what I've been talking about tonight. I'd like to share it with you. One day, one day you will find yourself arriving at your own door in your own mirror. Each will smile at the other's greeting saying sit here, eat. You will love again the stranger who was yourself. Give wine, give bread, give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who's loved you

[48:32]

all your life with your heart. Take down the photographs from the bookshelf, the desperate notes. Peel your image back from the mirror. Sit, feast, feast on your life. Can I tell it to you again? One day you will with elation greet yourself arriving at your own door in your own mirror. Each will smile at the other's greeting saying sit here, eat. You will love again the stranger who was yourself. Give wine, give bread, give back your heart to itself, take down the photographs

[49:40]

from the bookcase, the desperate notes. Peel your image back from the mirror. Sit, feast, feast on your life. Okay, thank you. So do you let some people go before we have questions? Then if you need, you know, have other things to do, you've had enough, whatever, you know. You can go, but if you'd like to stay and if you have any questions or comments, I would be willing to entertain them. Yeah. Thank you. When you were talking, I had this tremendous thing

[50:40]

because I realized, truth of what you're saying, and I think about my college education or even early, I mean the whole idea of education in America. It's tied in with the capitalist system. Yeah, it's so. It's to train workers for the workforce, basically. I don't know. I'm sort of cynical about it, but largely the school system is to train people to, if you pass through school, it certifies that you'll put up with a boring situation, be moderately productive, and not sabotage the system. Congratulations, you're now employable. And the people who started public education in this country and other people here in New England who started public education, they were all capitalists and they wanted people for the workforce. So they wanted to get the kids

[51:42]

away from their family, away from the culture that they grew up with and make them American and make them beholden to the employers. So their families couldn't employ them and had nothing for them to do, and now you get them away from their families and their workforce. And then, of course, it depends on there being a certain percentage of people who are unemployed because the jobs are so lousy and because otherwise we couldn't boss you around as much as we did because if you don't want the job, hey, somebody else can have it. So our school system is part of that whole thing too. But nobody likes to say any of these things because capitalism is the greatest system ever. Don't you think so? Why, this is America and if you don't like it, go somewhere else. So that's why I decided to write my book and get them to pay me some money. I decided to join the system. Yes?

[52:47]

Yes. So I understand that kind of sadness in school and everything. Yes, that's why we come to Vipassana centers and Zen centers and you try to do something to develop that kind of trust and owning your own experience. Thank you. When I was in high school, the teachers used to say, Ed, would you please put that book away? Because I'd be sitting there reading the book and then I'd sit in the back of the class so as few people as possible would be seeing me, the kids, and they'd say,

[53:47]

I know that you don't need to pay attention in class to get good grades, but the other kids do and you're setting a bad example and they all think that they can read if you can read. So just put the book away and be bored, why don't you, okay? And they'd say, you can't do the job, you can't buy the house with a two-car garage and they actually told me stuff and they know in high school they actually said things like that. But I wasn't particularly buying it so I thought, I'll just move from, I lived in San Rafael and I thought, I'll move out to the coast to Stinson Beach and see what happens. But my dean, he said, college is a lot better, oh it's much better,

[54:48]

they have all these extracurricular activities and speakers and you don't have to go to class if you don't want to and blah, blah, blah. So you really ought to give it a try. So one thing led to another actually, that led me to Zen Center because when I was at college, my brother would send me Zen stories because he started going to Zen Center and one of them was the kid who writes home to his mother and says, I'm doing well in school, I'm helping other students, I'm getting good grades, we're writing papers, we're doing all these things and mom writes back and says, son I didn't raise you to be a walking dictionary, why don't you go to the mountains and attain true realization? And I thought, that's for me. And a couple years later I was at Tassajara. I don't know about the true realization part but anyway, 20 years later I finally got out to West Marin and there was my counselor from high school

[55:49]

who said, because of you it took me 20 years to move out here to West Marin. We thought that was pretty funny because now when he's retired he moved out to West Marin too. So this is another point, this is an interesting thing, so do you drop out or do you buy in? And which is which? At some point if you say, like people at Zen Center, we all went to Zen Center, a lot of us went to Zen Center, we were 18 or 20 or 23 and then we were at Zen Center for 10 years or 12 years or 15 years or 20 years being institutionalized, committed. You know, it took me 18 years to get out of this asylum. But anyway, and then you say,

[56:50]

oh well this is good, I didn't pay any income tax for 18 years, the IRS never sent me anything. I have friends who've never paid income tax but that just means like, you know, his girlfriend owns the car, his mother owns the house. When he gets money, if it's not in cash, he has these offshore bank accounts and the money goes straight to a number in an offshore bank account. So if you want to do that you can figure it all out because he doesn't want to contribute to the government. But anyway, among people at Zen Center there's sort of this feeling like, well yeah you drop out and you don't contribute to all that, you don't buy into all of that and at some point that's cutting off your head because then you wake up at age 35 or 40 and you're married and you have kids and you say now what?

[57:51]

And that happened to the people at the farm too. They were even more idealistic. You know at the farm they were exploiting bees and on and on and they were using only sorghum syrup because they were growing sorghum and then people were there for years and years and pretty soon they'd go into town and their kids wouldn't know how to use a payphone and they would be 10th on the list for the next pair of shoes and they'd think, well gee I'd like a little more capacity to actually buy my kids some shoes. So it's interesting but then you see if you say, oh well I'm not going to buy in at all pretty soon you're not taking care of yourself, you're not taking care of your life, you're cutting off your head and if you just completely buy in and are just on this track towards success as though you could actually arrive there

[58:54]

then you forget to be you forget to take care of your friendships and your community and your relationships and your heart and your spirit at some point because you're so busy with some agenda you may have. So somehow we try to balance our lives. Many people at Zen Center after these many years of dropping out that was one of the things that happened. People said, oh you know I have a friend who was at Zen Center 15 years and he did many things at Zen Center. We did rock walls at Tassara together at one point and then he did cabinetry and after 15 or 18 years of this room and board and $25 a month room and board and $50 a month you know he's getting married he's expecting a kid and then he's thinking am I going to live on room and board and then pretty soon you're saying

[59:57]

well why doesn't Zen Center take care of me better? What's wrong with them anyway? Because I'm such a spiritual person and I've given my life to them and actually Zen Center has only so much capacity to take care of you and all the rest of you. Anyway he thought about it and thought about it and thought about it and his father had been a dentist and his grandfather had been a dentist and that he could do that really fine cabinetry in people's mouths and probably would sell better doing that really fine cabinetry on people's teeth than it would doing really fine cabinetry out there. So you know he had to go to school for a couple years to get the things he needed to get in dental school and then whatever it is four years or six years of dental school and anyway now he's a dentist. So sometimes people say well gee you'll be 50 before

[60:58]

by the time you become a dentist and then you can tell them yeah in six years I'd be 50 anyway. But sometimes we get this idea that dropping out is somehow a spiritual life because we're not buying into that stuff but I don't know there's also something to be said for you take care of your life. I think of course of Swamiji there used to be on the institute here they're mostly moved out to Portland now but he always tells his students we're not taking care of any of you get your life together because we're not going to do it and just because you're practicing meditation doesn't mean we're going to feed you and all the rest of the stuff why don't you actually get some education and do something where you're in charge of the situation

[61:58]

instead of being at the bottom being at the bottom of this capitalist system where you look around for these jobs and could I please have this crummy job that you have because I really need it because I haven't wanted to buy in so now please give me this crummy job and so his students he has many students he has doctors and lawyers and acupuncturists and MBAs from Harvard and his students go out and he gets them out there getting real jobs and getting real education so they end up doing real things you know and they work at they work at Lotus and Microsoft because they were here in Cambridge so a lot of them used to work at Lotus so around Vipassana centers and Zen centers

[63:00]

you don't usually hear that kind of talk get your MBA I thought I'd practice meditation because that was all a little too much for me it was a little business I thought I'd just be a nice person I mean that's what I thought gee I have trouble relating to people and especially if things get difficult and confrontational and hey if you meditate that stuff also disappears doesn't it you don't actually have to learn communication skills do you don't you just meditate and then you don't ever encounter those things then people just talk nice to you and if they don't you say oh you're not being very Buddhist that's not Buddhist to talk to me like that you need to learn to talk nicer to me so I found out after a while

[64:03]

eventually I thought that stuff would just disappear you didn't have to deal with that stuff you just practice meditation you practice meditation and it clears up all the suffering you don't have to learn communication skills you don't have to watch your diet or anything everything just takes care of itself if you meditate Pooey I don't know maybe for some of you meditation will take care of everything do you think so I like meditation I just don't think it's going to solve everything I think meditation is wonderful but again to go back to Swamiji I used to go visit him on Martha's Island they had a summer retreat center I don't know if they still own it but sweet place they'd have retreats out there

[65:05]

during the summer you know Vipassana retreats right and Zen retreats are the same talking all day and meditating and their retreats get up and you have a little yoga and then you have an hour of sitting and then you have breakfast and then there's a talk and then at some point there's lunch and then all afternoon then you have about 4 hours off in the afternoon and you really should get some exercise you've probably read enough books by now so could you go biking or swimming or hiking go for a walk, go down to the beach go for a boat ride get some energy and joy and vitality and movement into your life and we'll have sitting back here around 7 and then some dinner a little relaxing evening and one time somebody said to him but what about Ed he meditates all the time and Swamiji said yeah that's because he likes to doesn't mean you need to and Banke the Zen teacher is a very well known Zen teacher named Banke

[66:07]

who I like a lot and he's like sitting all the time and he's famous because he got sores on his butt that were oozing and festering and he went on sitting anyway because that was what you did you had to sit and he believed it and then oh he got terribly sick so he's coughing blood and all this stuff and he went on with his practice and finally something happened and everything sort of broke open and was sort of cosmic or something anyway after that he told people you know I did all that stuff and you really don't need to and he used to tell people just realize your unborn Buddha mind now that's what I've been talking about tonight but you see it's too confusing to tell you realize your unborn Buddha mind but the fact is all of us can see, we can hear, we can feel

[67:09]

we can taste and we can you know life comes to us and we respond to it what more do you want? you know you want to do it perfectly you want to be able to do things and then have nobody ever criticize you you know I don't like what you just said to me oh okay you know I tried so anyway we sort of think you know we could do something that was beyond criticism instead of just responding and Bankai said then once you realize unborn Buddha mind and that you just you know you live your life like my friend since now that I did Zen practice I know I can just live my life and I have that kind of confidence because I did Zen practice and so Bankai said once you understand this then do what you want if you like meditating then meditate if you want to be a baker you want to be a business person be a business person

[68:10]

no problem you don't need to meditate all the time get on with your life express you know you express yourself we all have some gift or some you know something something that's in us you know the Chinese well-known sort of Chinese principle of health is if what's inside of you if you leave what's inside of you if you take what's inside of you and express it and manifest it in the world and bring it to life you know through whatever your work your relationships you know your activity you bring out what's inside of you then this is your great health and benefit and the benefit of others and you can't do that perfectly without you know in order to bring out what's inside of you sometimes it's sort of garbage that comes out tough luck I mean you know you can't do it any other way and it's all going to be rotting and so we have to keep trying to bring out

[69:12]

and manifest our life in the world and sometimes it works better than others and other times you know sometimes it works pretty well and other times it doesn't work so well sometimes people say oh thank you and other times people say oh I got going, look what you did you got me going now we just had one question and I gave you a whole other talk two for the price of one well any other quick ones comments, questions? so biscuits are good with lots of butter? well yeah biscuits are pretty good with lots of butter but you know I have I have found the older I get the less that personally I'm able to tolerate lots of butter and you know when I was a teenager

[70:15]

I could eat two, three bowls of ice cream with chocolate sauce and it didn't seem to affect me and now I eat it and I'm like ready for bed so you know so you have to if you pay attention to yourself alright well I'm going to stop talking and then if anybody wants to stay and visit or anything say hi, goodbye or you know what have you but I'll let you go home and on your way thank you

[70:53]

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