Good morning. Springtime, huh? I don't know about you, but lately I've been feeling like a fraud. Do you ever feel like a fraud? Maybe this has to do with having had the fortune or misfortune to be ordained as a Zen priest. And that's setting the bar pretty high, you know? What a Zen priest should be like. How about completely enlightened? Cool, huh? Good.

[01:03]

Good aim. And liberated from all suffering. Set that aside. Takes care of that. And so, you know, I'm in this strange, I find it strange sometimes. By the way, it's hard to consider myself a fraud when, you know, when I'm away from here I can be a fraud, but then I show up here and then I put on my outfit, my costume, and then people invite me to give a lecture, and then I sit up in front of everybody, and then it looks like I must be a Zen teacher, huh? And then everybody here is so wonderful to me. And I have so many people I meet, one person after another,

[02:07]

and so genuine and so friendly and so welcoming and inviting. It's amazing. So, you know, is it true that I'm a fraud, or is it true that I'm actually a Zen teacher, and what difference does it make? You probably have something in your life that you wonder about, you know? How about mother or father? Are you a good mother or a good father? A good son or a daughter? Are you a good spouse? Successful human being, or, you know, how about that one? I think here in America, you know, I'm

[03:12]

convinced. I don't know, maybe you find it different. It's really hard to be anything less than a success here in America. And I don't just mean, you know, financially, but successful people here in America, I mean, do you have problems? No, you don't have problems. Or if you do, you're, you know, you're overcoming them, aren't you? You're fighting cancer. And, you know, it's not depressing, nothing is discouraging. No, you're not going to admit to any, you know, basically, we try not to admit to much of anything in the way of difficulties or problems. Is that what you found? That's what I found. And then it's even more of a challenge as a Zen teacher, I must say. Well, before I go on, I'm going to read you a story that is also, I read this story

[04:17]

recently, and then I thought, boy, what a fraud. What a fraud I am. Here's the Zen teacher. I was, I got my copy of the Sun magazine recently, and I opened it right away to readers right in. It was the section this month on gratitude. And I read through, and the last story, especially, in particular, struck me. That's the one I'm going to read to you. And I glanced down to see, and I noticed, oh, it's from Belgrade, Maine. And I thought, oh, I know people in Belgrade, Maine. And then I looked at the name, and it's John Gollar. And, oh, it's my ex-brother-in-law. And John Gollar is a really wonderful, wonderful person. And I've known John, you know, since 1970 when I got married. And he came

[05:24]

to my wedding at Tassara. And recently, well, it was about two years ago, John and his wife, Ellen, and their three daughters, he decided before they became teenagers and left home, one of them was a teenager, or two of them, but they were all still in high school, you know. And they took off from school, and they drove around the country in a camper, I mean, you know, in a truck with a camper behind it. And they all play music. At one point, the five of them came into our house. They parked in our driveway, you know, and camped out. At one point, they came into our house, and all five of them played guitars and fiddles and sang. And I was, it was just ecstatic, I must say. So I have to tell you this, you know, you'll understand why I tell you when I read the story. And that family felt so

[06:29]

wholesome, you know, after California. These are kids from Maine, who play folk music together as a family. And they are just such a feeling of wholesomeness and sweetness and love and, you know, warm heartedness. They had gone to San Francisco one day and they gave, you know, and they got out their fiddles and played in the park. They went busking, technical term, you know, and collected money so the kids would have some spending money on their trip. Anyway, so I had never heard this story. I've known John, you know, for more than 30 years now, and I've never heard this story. So here it is. As part of Project Troubadour, I traveled with three other New England folk musicians to the West African nation of Gambia to give 45 free concerts. Up and down the Gambia River, we took passage on an old cargo boat, bringing salt, lumber, oranges, and coconuts to the far reaches of the country. When the boat docked to unload cargo, we would

[07:47]

scamper off, make contact with the village chief, and find a large tree under which to give a free concert. The children would gather around first, curious to see who these strangely dressed people were, and then the grown-ups and the elders. We would play tunes like Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come Out Tonight, Down By the Riverside, and Oh Susanna, and This Land is Your Land. They all kicked up their heels and laughed and showed huge appreciation that we'd come such a long way to visit them in their tiny African village. While on board the boat, we met a remarkable woman from Sweden who was also traveling the river. Her name was Mary Lundberg. And each year she saved up her money and made a trip to the leper colony at Bonsang to bring supplies to the lepers and their families who lived there with them at the colony. Mary also had her own supply of potato white lightning, which she kept in glass canning jars and generously shared with us.

[09:12]

Before long, we'd agreed to give a concert at the leper colony. When our boat docked at Bonsang, we struck up conversations through our interpreter, and with the colony's residents, we decided to begin the concert at once. A huge crowd assembled. There was electricity in the air. Soon after we ripped into our first number, I noticed an old man with no hands or feet, only stumps, dragging himself toward us across the sand. He stood himself up in the center of the circle, looked right at us, and smiled with joy. Then he started to dance. He moved like no other person I've ever seen, as if on stilts, turning his fine head up toward the light spinning in circles. Tears streamed down my face to see someone so carefree and so happy.

[10:31]

Elliot, our leader and guitar player, was so overcome with emotion that he put down his guitar and ran out to dance with the man. I'll never forget the sight of the two of them twirling together. The man with no hands or feet turned out to be the village chief. After the concert, he invited me to come and have a cigarette with him on a large rock in a field. I don't smoke, but I couldn't turn him down. Conversation was difficult, but passing the cigarette back and forth between my hands and his stumps was a communion of the highest sort. The chief's inner light shone out of his clear eyes like a beacon of truth, and in his tribal tongue he kept thanking the Great Spirit for our visit, for his life, and for all the good things that he had been given.

[11:59]

The chief's inner light shone out of his clear eyes like a beacon of truth, and in his tribal tongue he kept thanking the Great Spirit for our visit, for his life, and for all the good things that he had been given. Stunning, isn't it? So I asked myself, you know, how could I possibly be happy? You know, dance on stumps. It doesn't matter so much, I suppose, in some ways, whether I'm a fraud or not a fraud. I may as well dance, huh? And smile.

[13:07]

Greet all of you. Thank you. I think, well, I don't know about you again, but I, in some ways, you know, I can consider the lepers are outcasts, and I was born an outcast. Right from the start I was premature, so I spent the first three or four weeks of my life in an incubator. It was 1945. I don't think, you know, in those days that they had volunteers coming into the hospital to hold premature babies the way that I hear happens now.

[14:21]

So I spent several weeks, you know, that's being an outcast. That is not being, you know, welcomed into a family, into the family of humanity. In some way, of course, and, you know, it gets to be biblical, doesn't it? We're all outcasts. In one way or another, by the time we're grown up, we will feel we weren't quite loved enough or honored or appreciated. We didn't quite fit in. We had to try to. We had to try to fit in. We worked at it. We learned how to do it. I think the, you know, the suffering in human life is so deep and so unacknowledged.

[15:47]

The suffering, you know, in all of our lives, the painfulness of having human life and wishing so deeply to be, you know, part of everything, connected, to feel accepted and appreciated and loved. Just, you know, unconditionally for who we are, not based on, you know, our performance of late, whether we've gotten enlightened or not, liberated or not, whether we're smart or stupid or, you know, financially successful or whatever it is, you know. But what will allow us finally to accept ourself, accept our life, feel our inherent fundamental connection with everything, with one another.

[16:58]

It's actually, you know, this kind of pain or difficulty that connects us. Robert Bly in one of his poems says, you know, how can I be close to you if I'm not sad? What choice do we have but to go down? But here, you know, for the most part in America, our life is up above that, and we try to stay above that, and we don't choose much to go down. So when you do go down, you know, as I've been down a lot, it feels kind of embarrassing. It feels kind of shameful to be so sad, so hurt, and there's not a lot of, you know, tolerance or acceptance.

[18:08]

I want to say more about that in a minute, but first I want to tell you another story, which I think I told here before, and I was trying to remember, but I can't remember, so I'll just tell you again. My friend Sharon works as a nurse in Boston for the homeless, so she takes medications and gives shots out to people, and she, you know, most people, even though they're homeless, they actually have a place where they hang out. So one time we were driving on Storrow Drive, you know, and we went under an underpass. She said, a lot of my clients live up there. She said, I don't actually go up there, but, you know, because it might be sort of dangerous for me to be up there, but I send somebody up, or I call up to them, and I'm here, and they can come down for their medications and shots and things.

[19:20]

Sharon had one client named Richard who, since then, this is about a year ago, a year and a half ago now, this story. Since then, about three months ago, Richard died, which is another story. Anyway, let's go on with stories, right? Anyway, the story I want to tell you is when one day Richard was taken to the emergency room, and Sharon heard that he had been taken to the emergency room, and so she headed over there. And when she got there, Richard was on a gurney, strapped down, face down, and he was screaming obscenities at the nurses. I guess he'd been upset, you know, and Richard, as most homeless people do, you know, has various issues and difficulties, so he's homeless.

[20:31]

But he has trouble trusting people, so he was screaming abuse, and what they did right away was to strap him down then so that they would, you know, he wouldn't harm anyone. They felt quite threatened, and they strapped him down, face down, and he went on screaming. And when Sharon got there, she didn't know what to do. She walked over to his gurney, and there was a curtain there behind her, which she pulled shut, and she sat down in a chair next to Richard's gurney, and she put her hand on his back, and she said, Richard, it's Sharon, and I'm going to rub your back now. And she started rubbing his back, and after a while, Richard said, he quieted down, and then he said, that feels so good.

[21:37]

And Sharon said, Richard, I'll stay here as long as you like, but please don't scream, because if you do, they're going to hurt you. And right about then, she became aware of some voices on the other side of the curtain. Did you see that? She actually touched him. She's actually touching that despicable, dirty, homeless person, that filthy-mouthed man. She's actually touching him. Can you believe it? It was the nurses. This is, you know, so I don't, you know, I like to think, you know, as a Zen priest, as a Buddhist priest, oh, yes, I'll just reach out and touch the pain, won't I?

[23:03]

I am so compassionate. I'm going to be compassionate. I'll just reach out and touch somebody who's screaming, but actually, you know what I do a good deal of the time is I strap myself down. I don't know about you, but this is America. People, you know, it's hard. You know, a while back, a couple years ago, I was really depressed, so I said to my sitting group, I'm really depressed. Now, is this a good thing or not to say to your sitting group? Hey, wait a minute. You're the teacher. What do you mean you're depressed? So, is it all right to have difficulty or pain or, you know, in your life, or should you just cruise through without any problem?

[24:08]

And maybe, you know, if I was a Zen teacher who could cruise through, then you could be inspired that if you practice Buddhism, you, too, could cruise through. You, too, could be on the Buddhist freeway. You know, and you wouldn't have to stop at all those stoplights and all those little towns, unhappiness, despair, depression, annoyance, frustration, anger. No, we're not stopping there. We're cruising through. Anyway, I got three phone messages the next day. Actually, you know, it was pretty nice. The first message was, Ed, I can't tell you how honored I felt that you would share with us and trust us with your feelings.

[25:13]

The second one was, Ed, so you're depressed, huh? You want to have lunch or something? And the third was, Ed, this is a medical problem. I don't want to hear about it anymore. Get some medications and get over it. And I, you know, I can't help thinking that that's, by and large, America. You know, this is a medical problem. There's some medication for this. This is not a human problem. This is not, you know, a spiritual problem or a problem of your soul or, you know. This is like chemistry. But as I say, I think, you know, in some way or another, we're all outcasts. I mean, with me, it's just obvious, you know.

[26:18]

Okay. And this is, you know, so this is very tempting. You know, isn't there some way just to eliminate these things? Depression, anxiety, terror, dread, fear, trembling, angst, panic, anger. And not just anger, you know, but rage. I had no idea, really, that, you know, my 50s would be this difficult. You know. But I guess, you know, I'm confessing. Technical term.

[27:19]

You know, can we just be where we are, who we are? Or do we have to cover it over, hide, perform, pretend? Nobody really knows us. Nobody really sees us. We can't tolerate. We'll strap ourself down, tie ourself up, shut ourself up. We're not going to scream. We're not going to cry. And there's somebody there crying. There's somebody there screaming. The person who's crying and screaming doesn't go anyplace just because you tie yourself up. And, you know, sometimes we can reach out and touch. You know, meditation is just to be where you are, to touch yourself, to receive yourself. I appreciate the Zen teacher who said,

[28:25]

realizing the mystery is nothing but having. Reaching through, he said, reaching through to grab an ordinary life. One's ordinary life. This is different than being, you know, in some amazing samadhi or being on the Buddhist freeway or cruising through somehow immune, safe and sound. There's no way to cruise through safe and sound, immune, you know, from life. And if that's your aim, then, you know, it won't be successful and it will be its own kind of suffering. So it's one thing to, you know,

[29:34]

reach out and touch someone who's crying, somebody who's screaming. But then also, what about reaching and touching the person who's tying you down? What are they up to? What are you up to? As Suzuki Roshi said over and over again, you know, Zen, Shikantaza is just to be yourself. Zen is to be yourself. Always yourself. Moment after moment. We're all those people. We're, you know, we're an outcast, leper,

[30:34]

hobbling and dancing, overjoyed. And we're, you know, tying ourself down and touching the pain and running away and looking within and, you know, we're all these different people. We're all these different people and, you know, because we're all these different people also we're not any of these people. Or what I mean to say is, you know, we don't have to identify and actually believe that we're just one of these people. Thank you.

[31:36]

I'm going to read you a passage from one of Suzuki Roshi's lectures. So in our practice we rely on something great and sit in this and that great space. Here we are now, you know, sitting in that great space. The pain you have in your legs or some other difficulty is happening in that great space. As long as you do not lose the feeling

[32:53]

that you are in the realm of Buddha nature you can sit even though you have some difficulty. When you want to escape your difficulty or when you try to improve your practice you create another problem for yourself. But if you just exist there then you have a chance to appreciate your surroundings and you can accept yourself completely without changing anything. That is our practice. To exist in big mind is an act of faith which is different from the usual faith

[33:53]

of believing in a particular idea or being. It is to believe that something is supporting us and supporting all our activities including thinking mind and emotional feelings. All these things are supported by something big that has no form or color. It is impossible to know what it is but something exists there something that is neither material nor spiritual. Something like that always exists and we exist in that space. This is the feeling of pure being. If you just exist there then you have a chance

[34:55]

to appreciate your surroundings and you can accept yourself completely without changing anything. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[36:11]

Suzuki Roshi also called this being true to yourself that you don't hide or run. He called it not being fooled by anything. Not being caught by something. Some idea of something you could attain. Some idea of some person you could become. What you will do next. Where you will end up. How to get there from here. Not caught. Not fooled. This is also to be sincere.

[37:15]

. I want to thank you for joining me in this great space. The room has settled into this great space where we can sit with our difficulty, with our pain and we can accept ourselves. We are human beings and to be completely human beings

[38:43]

is what we call being a Buddha. That's another talk. I am going to stop now. Thank you. .

[39:07]

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