It's Mother's Day today, so I want to wish you all a very happy Mother's Day, and I want to wish the appropriate people a happy Mother's Day. I have two, so I'm thinking of them as well. On my way in, someone said, well, you get to be our mother today, so maybe so. Some people have concluded that I'm living the karma of a woman in a man's body. That means when I read about women's lib and things, I understand right away what they're talking about, and I wonder, like, was that so different than me? But anyway. Over the last year or two, I've been thinking actually a lot about love and relationship

[01:35]

and my mother's. My birth mother died when I was three years old. She had cancer. She was 41. So it was, as you can imagine, a big loss. And I spent, after that, four years in an orphanage. So when I came to Zen Center, I was right at home. Nice institution. Last fall, I talked to my brother. We hadn't talked in many years. He's several years older

[02:38]

than I am, so he actually remembers our mother. He remembers the day she died. He remembers that our father and mother had thought we would just forget about her, and we'd transfer over our feelings for mother to another woman that my father would marry later. And we weren't supposed to know that she was dying, so my brother pretended he didn't know, to be a good boy. So then the day when the phone call came from the hospital that she had died, it was about 7 or 7.30, he went ahead and got ready for school. No big deal. He wasn't supposed to know in the first place. And then our father said, what are you doing? He said,

[03:43]

I'm getting ready for school. And he said, you don't go to school on the day your mother died. It's confusing, you know, to be a child. And then my brother and I were in separate areas of the orphanage. It was actually right here in San Anselmo, Sunny Hills. It's now for, I visited a few months ago. It's all different buildings now than it was. And it's for kind of emotionally disturbed kids, mostly teenagers, I think. Anyway, I was in the nursery. My brother was in a separate section of the orphanage. So within three days after my mother died, I was completely by myself. And my father

[04:54]

once told me, he said, you sat in a rocking chair all day long. You wouldn't play, you wouldn't do anything. For more than a week, they were worried about you. So I guess that was my first Sishin. I didn't know I was already practicing Zen, but it came naturally. And my brother wasn't allowed to visit me because that was against the rules. Unless I was having a temper tantrum, and they couldn't calm me down, they would call him in to comfort me. And then once I calmed down, he had to leave. This is adult logic. So anyway, over the years, I've spent a fair amount of time being three. I'm very familiar

[06:03]

with being three. Just last week, I had an interesting experience, two weeks ago. You know, for years, I tend to be rather emotional, moody. Maybe that's a guy thing. I don't know. But we have different habits. I put my problems or stress at the emotional level of my being and other people have backaches. And you know, it's safer to put your problems at a physical level if you can. And it's more societally acceptable. It's not your fault if you have a physical problem, just because you put it there. I mean, still, it's like physical, that's okay. But if you put your problems at an emotional level, then that's a problem.

[07:07]

It's much more, you know, you're making it up or something, you know. Anyway, just a couple weeks ago, for the first time, I've been feeling a lot of sorrow, grief, terror, shame, fear, dread for years. And a couple weeks ago, I thought, this is my mom. These feelings are my mom's. They're not actually my feelings. And I'm still feeling them for her, even though she died, you know, more than 50 years ago. I'm still, you know, being true to her, feeling her feelings for her, and not letting go of them, and not forgiving

[08:11]

her. So today, I want to forgive my mother for dying, for being scared, for being afraid, for being ashamed, you know, for being terribly sad that she was leaving me. And I think, you know, forgiving her for being who she was, you know, devoted and loving, and also scared, ashamed. You know, I think we can both, you know, go forward in a new

[09:21]

way. I think each of us, you know, carries a lot of, you know, trauma, you know, trauma of karma. We don't always know, you know, whose karma it is that we're carrying. I think it's accurate that those feelings are my mom's feelings. You know, when you're three, or two, or one, you don't distinguish where the, whose feelings they are. You just feel them. You feel what's ever in the room, you know, what's ever in the air. You feel it right away. You don't need to see it, or understand it, or recognize it, or know it. You just right away feel it. You're connected with everything and everyone, especially those close to you. So right away, you feel what everybody in the room is feeling. And then,

[10:25]

you know, we try to do what will work, what will make everything all right, what will solve things, and we come up with how to be a human being. You know, in a way that works for what's going on in our life, we come up with how to do it, you know, before we even have language. We figure out whether to talk or not talk, you know, whether to be assertive or passive, whether to be sad or outgoing. We figure it all out, and we find out how to do it in an effort to make everything all right. You know, we basically, we make every effort to find out, of course, you know, one hand

[11:48]

it's how to get along, but it's also how to not be, you know, attacked, have somebody get mad at you. And it's funny, you know, we learn about love then, and we pretty early on mostly have an idea of love is to control. You know, I did with my daughter, I said the same thing. You know, my, as a daughter, you know, I have a baby and she's fussing, and done all the usual things, you know, feeding, and changing, and burping, and what's it about? You know, at some point you want to say, and you do sometimes, but I love you, so stop that. I love you. You don't have to feel that way. Don't feel that way. So we have the idea that love will make a big difference, and we start looking for people who will make

[12:53]

a big difference. Partners, spouses, you know, teachers, therapists, somebody who will make a big difference, and love us enough, you know, so that we don't have to feel sad, or terrified, or dread, or shame. Everything will be okay because they love us. And we forget we're being controlled. You know, actually we're not allowed, when somebody loves us most of the time, we're not allowed to feel sad. Cheer up, I love you. What can I do for you? Let me make it all right for you. Anyway, we get confused about love. And in another sense, of course, love won't do anything. Love allows you to feel. It's like mindfulness or compassion. Love allows you to feel exactly what you're feeling, and doesn't

[14:01]

abandon you, doesn't shame you, doesn't distance you, you know, doesn't push you away, doesn't push you away. Love keeps you company, and lets you feel whatever you're feeling, and whatever you leave, you know, that it's okay to feel that. So, I'm going to tell you some stories. I've used these stories before, so some of you have heard them. Tough luck. The other night I told a story at Tushar, and they said,

[15:02]

and somebody in the audience said, we just heard that story last night. Uh-oh. So, for most of you, it's been at least a day or two since you heard the story. The first is about a three-year-old and his grandmother. It's a story Alice Miller tells in one of her books, Thou Shalt Not Know, probably. There's another one, you know, For Your Own Good. The story is about a woman who was going to go to the dentist, and she was going to wait for the weekend, and she wondered whether or not to leave her three-year-old with the boy's grandmother, her mother. She was a little worried about it, because she knew her mother was really big on manners, correct behavior, and she was a little afraid that grandmother would inflict this on three-year-old Daniel in her absence. But she also knew that her

[16:07]

mother loved her grandson and read him stories, and that mostly they had a great time together. So she left her son with the grandmother for the weekend. When she came back and they got out to the car, Daniel said, I don't want to come here anymore. Grandmother hurt me. So, little by little, mother figured out the story and talked to her mother. And what had happened was they were having dinner, and the grandmother had made one of Daniel's favorite desserts, a cottage cheese souffle. And Daniel, who was at home, very proud of his ability to help himself to seconds to food, reached out for seconds to help himself. And his grandmother put her hand on his, and she said, first you have to ask the others

[17:09]

if it's okay. And Daniel looked around and said, well, where are the others? And then he had a little fit. He couldn't understand this, you know, and he threw down his spoon. He had a temper tantrum. His grandmother tried to calm him down, and finally he calmed down. And he said, you hurt me. Why did you do that? And she said, well, you have to ask the others if it's okay before you just help yourself. And he said, why? And she said, well, you have to ask the others. And he said, well, it's good manners. And he said, why do I need good manners? And she said, so the others will like you. And finally he said, I don't need good manners. When I'm at my mommy's, I can eat when I'm hungry. In case you don't

[18:10]

know it, you know, ironically enough and poetically enough, this is famous Zen saying. What is sleep when you're tired? Well, over the years, it's been very interesting for me to tell this story because everybody will hear something different and relate to something different. When I first read this story, I right away identified with a three-year-old, and I kind of assumed everybody would. But it turns out that actually probably more, a majority of people identify with a grandmother. You need to teach kids manners. There's so many kids these days who have no manners and don't know how to say please or thank you or anything.

[19:13]

And their parents should have taught them manners. And our society would be a lot better if people had better manners. And nowadays, so many kids are growing up and don't know how to behave. So that grandmother was doing the right thing. So this is fascinating. We all have a three-year-old and a grandmother, you know. We're all going, you know, backwards and forwards in time, feeling six or eight or 10 or 16 or two or one or, and then being present here. It would be kind of useful, you know, in some sense if we could clear this up. You know, and someone said that when he heard the story, you know, right away,

[20:29]

the tears were coming down his face. But then a little while later, you know, the people in the Zendo weren't following the decorum as well as he thought they should. He wanted to correct them. He started feeling claustrophobic. They were fidgeting too. He wanted them to sit more still. But he couldn't say anything because it was the Zendo. What will you do? Just straighten out these three-year-olds that you have to live with, these people who don't behave the way they should. How will you handle it? Finally, because it was the Zendo, he decided, I'm just on a train in a foreign land and they have strange customs. I don't even speak the language. But in Zen, of course, we say the disease of the mind

[21:39]

is to set one mind against another. So usually we side with the three-year-old against the grown-up or we side with the grown-up against the three-year-old. I'm right. You're wrong. You need to behave better or differently. And of course, from the grandparent's point of view, from my adult point of view, my little three-year-old is really a pain. He throws tantrums. He's moody. He gets scared for no reason. He's full of dread at times. He's ashamed. He screams. He throws fits. Sometimes he plays dead. And it's very humiliating, you know, from an adult point of view, to have this kid around and to have people think that I might be him. From the point of view of the three-year-old, the adult is always trying

[22:44]

to get something done, would like to accomplish more, would like to be famous, well-known, well-thought-of, in good standing with everyone, excellent, adored, admired, because of his great achievements and accomplishments, his wonderful manner. And he never has any time for me. He doesn't know how to play. He doesn't know how to have fun. He doesn't know how to enjoy his life. He's really a pain. Do you think these two need each other? Do you think one needs to get rid of the other? I don't think so. You know, they need to find out how to be friends. Most people, when they start to meditate, you know, we have

[23:45]

the idea we will get rid of the one who's obnoxious. Most of us spiritually-minded people, we try to be a good adult and get rid of the little three-year-old. And I think that's true. Of course, sometimes we're turning around and saying, how do I shut up that voice that keeps telling me what to do all the time and keeps criticizing me and keeps correcting me? You know, in Zen, we say it's better not to have that head over your head. So how do I get rid of that head? Sometimes we side with the three-year-old. I want to get rid of that head that's always telling me what to do. Already you can see there's a problem just in the language. How do I get rid of? Not like, how do I become friends with? How

[24:50]

do I have a good relationship? How do I get to know and understand and appreciate and have gratitude and forgive and accept and love and meet and know that head or that three-year-old? It's just, how do I get rid of it? Because my life would be so much simpler if I could just get rid of it. So, you know, in meditation, you will meet three-year-olds and grandmothers and fathers and grandfathers and ancestors and all kinds of voices telling you all kinds of things. And, you know, we're studying how to have everybody get along. We have the great vehicle, the big bus. We're going to all sit together, see if we can enjoy, you know, like the family Thanksgiving. One another's company. Of course, at this point, you'd say, oh, my

[26:01]

God, you've got to be kidding. But this is, you know, this isn't just Buddhism. Or, you know, this is also Buddhism. How really to love, to be able to love, to be able to love to meet, to accept, to forgive, to know yourself and others. And mostly, it's you. You know, it's each of us. We have a big, you know, terrible time just accepting ourself. And we think, I'll accept myself after I get it together. After you get it together, then I'll accept you. Once you stop being so fussy and angry and irritable and sad, then I'll accept you. Once you kind of measure up. Once you become a spiritual person, enlightened, joyful and buoyant, brilliant and wise, then you'll, of course, be acceptable. And then

[27:14]

you'll, and so, you know, like this, we withhold our acceptance, appreciation, gratitude for others and also, of course, for ourself. This is not something that you learn by studying up for a lot of years. And so, you know, I think, you know, I think, you know, I think it's, you know, it's something you just decide you want to do or it's in your heart. You know, it's the intention in your heart to accept yourself and your wish, your heart's desire to finally meet and know and accept, appreciate, enjoy yourself. This is to meet, enjoy, accept others, to let you and others be exactly who you are. And once you're exactly who you

[28:14]

are at that time, you can also, there's the possibility of change. You know, if you reject yourself and try to change, it's called repression or denial, rejection. It's just adding another layer over the many layers you already have. So as much as anything in meditation, you know, we're studying how to just meet this moment, this person who we haven't met before that we don't know, who may be feeling or thinking any number of things. And so, you know, it's just, I spent a lot of years, you know, studying how to be calm and patient and concentrated.

[29:19]

I got to, well, I thought I, you know, would learn how to sit still. When I started practicing Zen, I thought I will be more sincere than everybody else. I will try harder. So I will easily surpass them. Of course, I didn't understand that the harder you try like that, you know, the less you notice. When you're busy trying really hard, you don't feel anything. It's one way not to feel is to try real hard. And I spent a lot of years moving very quickly. Quicker you move, the more you can avoid your feelings. And, you know, the more you move,

[30:29]

the more you can avoid your feelings. For several years, I had trouble sitting still. I would do various movements, which were involuntary, of course. That wasn't me doing that, except of course that I have high standards. And I know how things should be. So I imposed them on myself. And then, you know, when you sit in meditation, you're not busy doing something physically, active. And you're not talking. So you're not using energy. You're actually saving up. It's really quite sweet. And the energy kind of accumulates. And then, once the energy is accumulated a little bit, you know, it's not like it wants to just do this all the time, which is what's right and Zen and spiritual. It would rather, you know,

[31:33]

like move or do something. And depending on how you have yourself wired, I had myself wired pretty tight. So the energy had no place to go except let me out of here. So it took me many years to finally agree that maybe I could just feel my body and, you know, let my breath do what it wants, rather than my telling it, because I know what's right, how to breathe. And I became a teacher at Zen Center and president of Zen Center and chairman of the board. This is back in the 70s. You know, I had come to the mountains to attain true realization, and I ended up, you know, this top executive in this, you know, millions of dollars a year organization and tried to learn how to read financial sheets and things, you know. And so strange, you know, the spiritual life.

[32:38]

I went to Tassajara with nothing, and I left with a wife and a daughter and a carload of stuff, and this is Zen in America. So after 18 years, you know, back in 84, I was the head of practice at Tassajara, and I'd been practicing 19 years of Zen. Kind of gotten pretty high up there, you know. I was somebody at last. People had recognized that. And I was sitting in the Zendo there at Tassajara one day, and I thought, why don't I just touch what's inside with some kindness and warmth and tenderness? And right away, the tears

[33:44]

started streaming down my face, because I had never done that in all those years of practicing Zen, doing something spiritual and right and good, rather than just feeling and sensing and receiving the experience of a human being, you know, here today. Once in a while, Suzuki Roshi would talk about this, you know. He said, you have a pretty good understanding of practice, but you know, if you don't have a kind, warm feeling in your practice, it's not good practice. You know, to follow your breath or to count your breath is, or why we have some rule or way to practice or form is so you can be kind with yourself, like a mother is kind, like

[34:46]

a mother watches her children and cares for them. You know, we all are doing, in this sense, you know, we can do mother's practice to, you know, let ourself come home to our heart, welcome ourself home, the way a mother, you know, welcomes children home. Of course in studies, you know, they found that, you know, in studying many people, there was various studies, but they finally divided mothers, you know, into the mothers who welcomed their children home, inquired after them, what was, you know, how was your day? What was it like? What did you notice? What did you learn? What did you find out? And mothers who were kind

[35:46]

of indifferent, and then the mothers who said, oh, you're home again? Oh, it's you? What are you doing back so early? And guess what? You know, people who have the so-called, you know, more responsive, caring mother, you know, are more happy and satisfied in their life. But this doesn't change the fact that any of us now, today, can practice, and how to be a mother, a mother who welcomes, you know, the child home. Welcome yourself home to your heart. How are you? How have you been? What's news?

[36:46]

And, you know, in the long run with Zen, we're studying how to trust our heart. It looks like we're studying how to follow some rules or forms, but actually, of course, we're studying how to trust our own heart and to respond from our heart, not because it's the right thing to do or the good thing to do, but because it's our heart's wish to do it, to be kind or generous, to be caring, you know, to be warm-hearted. It's just in our heart. As soon as you have to tell yourself, be kind, don't be selfish, do this, don't do that, it's not actually responding from your heart anymore and finding out how to trust your heart. You follow the rules because you don't trust your heart. It's what people do when they cook, you know. If you want to make sure it comes out okay, then do exactly what the

[38:04]

recipe says. Just follow all the directions, it will come out like it should. If it doesn't, that was a bad recipe. You did your part, you're not to blame, you're not responsible for any failures. If it's a success, thank you very much. I did very well, yes, you're right. But you know, in the long run, we want to be able to walk into the kitchen or move forward in our life and meet, let things into our heart and respond. It's not any recipe for it, there's no right or wrong about it and we let things touch our heart, we let our heart go out to things and respond to life. And sometimes it works pretty well and sometimes it doesn't. Most of us have had some heartbreak and some things have gone wrong, you know, so we feel like, I can't trust my heart. And then, you know, you think the rules and the directions and what to do and what's right

[39:13]

and what's wrong and doing what you should will protect you from more heartbreak. And it not only protects you, but it imprisons you. This is the big problem, that we, for the sake of being protected, we end up in prison. This is the three-year-old and the grandmother. Grandmother wants to protect the child, the child experiences it as being imprisoned. She wants to protect him from others, she wants to protect him from being disliked by others because of his bad manners. And he experiences it as prison. He's being imprisoned, he has the capacity to help himself, but he can't. So, we're all studying, you know, how to get out of prison, how to actually be willing to not be so protected, to be vulnerable, to let things touch our heart, to allow for

[40:18]

the possibility we could be touched and our heart could be broken. And actually, this is how hearts grow larger. Hearts don't grow larger, they don't grow smaller, they grow larger by having everything go the way you'd like. And by being safe and imprisoned and careful and doing the right thing, your heart actually shrivels up then. Because you don't allow it to touch anything or be touched by anything. This is, of course, you know, I haven't been talking exactly about Buddhism today, but it's actually Buddhism. I'd like to remind people at some point that this is Buddhism. Dogen Zenji, in the instructions to the cook, gives some advice, and you have to understand

[41:22]

you know that mind, of course, is not just in the head, and the word in Chinese and Japanese that we usually translate as mind is actually heart, or heart-mind. It's the mind that, you know, is centered or resides in the heart as opposed to the mind that likes to hang out in the head. What we think about as mind is generally, you know, something in the head. If you're sitting there, you can put your awareness in your right hand or your left or in one of your legs, and when you let go of, you know, relax, putting the awareness there, where does it end up? Usually somewhere behind the eyes, or sometimes like in the jaw. Zen says, don't set up a nest or den. That's a place in the head where you like to hang out. It's safe. It's also disconnected, not intimate, not caring. It doesn't have

[42:29]

the qualities of the heart. Three-year-old has more of the qualities of the heart. The head has more of the qualities of the grandmother. Ideally, you know, they become good friends and eventually we can't tell the difference. We don't know whether it's a three-year-old or a grandmother. Anyway, Dogen says in the translation that Kaz did, let things come and abide in your mind. So you could just as well say, let things come and abide in your heart. Let your heart abide in your mind. Respond and go out and abide in things. Let things come and abide in your heart. Let your heart return and abide in things all through the day and night. There's something finally, you know, that's this kind of practice. This is something if

[43:53]

you want, you know, if you wish, you can practice. It's not something you attain or realize exactly. It's something you practice. And to practice it is to attain it. Suzuki Roshi also said, this kind, warm feeling, you know, is nothing but Buddha's mind. This is, in other words, enlightenment, Buddha's mercy, Buddha's mind. And this is your own heart that has the capacity to grow, to connect, to be intimate, to meet, cherish, love yourself, others, you know, to have gratitude for your life, for your friends, for your parents.

[44:56]

Thank you very much. So again, there's something, you know, very sweet about this, finally. Very direct, very sweet, very immediate. You can do it, you know, with your own breath, with your hands, with your face. You can do it to your heart. Anyway, I have more to talk about, but I think I'm going to stop. I guess I'll tell you one

[46:24]

of my favorite poems, because it kind of fits today, and you've, many again, many of you have heard it before, but it bears repeating. Some of the people in my Thursday night meditation group in San Rafael keep telling me, we're very slow, so it's okay if you repeat things. In fact, we just finished Sangha Week at Tassajara, where people from different little groups can come to Tassajara for five days. We've been trying to figure out a name for my group for many years. It's been ten or twelve years, and we don't have a name yet. So some people say the No Name Sangha, but that's just another name, you know. And I took to calling it the So Fa, So Good Sangha, because a lot of people in my group sit on couches, you know, so it's the So Fa, the So Fa, So Good Sangha. And then, you know, I think it's very important

[47:26]

one woman has decided it's the Two Dogs Bowing Sangha. You know, Two Dogs Bowing to Each Other Sangha. She has two little dogs. So for a while I've been thinking we could just, everyone in the group could have their own name. But while we were at Tassajara, we thought of another name, which was the Slow Pokes Sangha. We could be, or just the Pokes. Or maybe the Pokey Sangha. I don't know. Maybe we can think of a nice Japanese name that goes with that. Anyway, the poem I'm thinking about is a poem by Derek Walcott called Love After Love. So I'll tell you that poem and we can finish. I guess there is one more thing

[48:44]

I want to say before the poem. If you are practicing meditation, I've been working a lot the last two years. After more than 30 years of meditation, I've started studying hands. You know, how to hold your hands. This is partly because a lot of times I look at my hands and I think, whose are those? So a couple of weeks ago I was doing a kind of work with someone and she said, well, whose are they? And I said, some adults. I mean, you know, guess who was three? And so she said, where are your hands? And I checked and I said, they're in my elbows. I could feel these little hands in here. So she said, do me a favor and see if you can extend those little hands into your big hands or shrink

[49:45]

the big hands down to your little hands. There's many ways, you know, we immediately can become one and the three-year-old meets immediately the grandmother. Anyway, when you have your hands like this, this is traditional, you know, for Buddhist meditation, your left hand, for Zen, your left hand is on your right, the fingers come just to the edge of the fingers and your hand forms this oval shape. Well, it turns out that if you actually do this, the energetics of this go to your heart. If you sit like this, you know, your palm up and your thumb and first finger touching on your knees, this goes to the crown chakra. And if you sit like this, like the Tibetans suggest, this is very stabilizing, very grounding,

[50:46]

helps your energy settle down into your body, your palms face down on your knees. And the posture of sitting in Zazen is like this, this goes to your heart. For years, I've been sitting and, you know, after the first minute or two, you know. And do you know what this is connected to? It's the chest. These are your collarbones. This is the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth rib, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth. So if you open your ribs by your fingers, your chest also opens and your heart opens. So isn't that interesting? So when you sit like this, sometimes people say, oh, when I sit like this with my hands like this, it's really hard. Well, you know why it's really hard? It's because, so one of the things I've just been noticing last year too is I have a habit

[51:53]

to go like, here's the heart, right? So I'll just take this part, the collarbones and the first, second, third, fourth ribs and kind of press them down a little bit. That's a nice way to, so it's not to feel what might be some heartache or pain. So one of the things that will happen if you hold your hands open like this, either you're going to have to let your ribs open and your chest open and your heart open or your habit of closing this down will take over your hands and get them to do something else. So we're just, we're not trying to just be insistent about some form, but if you can allow it, holding your hands like this, you can allow it to extend up your arms and open your ribs and your

[52:58]

chest and your heart. So I've been studying this a lot lately. It's finally, as I said, after more than 30 years, become of interest to me. We can get busy with a lot of things. Even us spiritually minded people. Even here in good old Marin County. All right, I'm going to stop. Derek Walcott's poem is One Day. One Day You Will Be Free. So I'm going to start. 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

[54:04]

who was yourself. Give wine, give bread, give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who's loved you all your life, whom you ignored for another who knows you by heart. Take down the photographs from the bookcase, the desperate notes, peel your image back from the mirror and sit, feast, feast on your life. Let it come home to your heart. Let your heart respond. Thank you.

[54:39]

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