I feel touched to be in a room with people sitting quietly and looking closely at their lives, your life. I want to tell you, you know, various things and in my usual way it won't be very organized but, you know, one thing will lead to another and pretty soon it will be 30 years from now. I partly mentioned to you how much I appreciate being in a room with, and feeling especially at certain times during the meditation, the stillness in the room, and it feels to me a lot like good-heartedness. I think that's what the Dalai Lama sometimes calls it, you

[01:04]

know, that we're studying how to realize our good-heartedness and to express our good hearts. And I think sometimes, you know, we don't always, if you're anything like me, we don't always appreciate our good-heartedness. I wanted to tell you, first of all, a story about this. This story goes back to the 60s when I was a Zen student at Tassajara and I was working in the kitchen and my friend David Chaddock was head of the dining room. I was quite introverted and intense, David was quite extroverted and outgoing, so we were in the right position, you know. Wouldn't have worked very well if he was in the kitchen and I was trying to do the dining room. And David was and still is an unusual person. I think we all are in our ways. He used to

[02:12]

enjoy, I have sat with David even just a couple of years ago at Tassajara and almost everybody who came by stopped to talk with him. They weren't stopping to talk with me. And in those days David used to, we were very understaffed, so he would kind of be wandering around Tassajara in the afternoon and get to talking with guests and then say, you know, I have to go set the dining room, why don't you come with me, we can continue visiting. So he kind of recruited help each afternoon and then at some various times during dinner he would no longer be serving them, but especially if they had wine, he would be sitting down and having dinner and wine with them. And then as the evening wore on, certainly if he hadn't sinnered, he would sit down and have dessert with them and then he would be going back to their cabin and having scotch or whiskey with them. Or maybe some brandy. You know,

[03:13]

that's not allowed for students, but we allow guests to bring alcohol if they want. This is a kind of, you know, American thing. It's a hot springs resort. No, it's a Zen center. So David didn't always get to meditation the next day. And in the morning there would be meditation, one or two periods, and then there's bowing and chanting. Then there's breakfast and after breakfast there'd be a meeting with Suzuki Roshi of the officers of the monastery. I was one of the officers of the monastery as the head cook and I almost never went because I was so busy. And David would often go, and often he would go even if he missed the rest of the morning schedule. He'd get up in time to go to the tea with Suzuki Roshi.

[04:14]

And one morning, I wasn't there, but David tells a story in his, David finally is the one after all these years, you know, David is the one who wrote the biography of Suzuki Roshi and collected stories about him. But David says one morning when he'd been up very late the night before and drinking, against the rules, he did get up in time to go to tea with Suzuki Roshi. And it's fairly formal at the beginning and tea is served and we're sitting quietly. And then we bow and pick up the tea with two hands. You know, you always hold your tea with your other hand here and then you pick it up. The idea is that, you know, that's different than, hi, how are you? You know, it's different than sitting at a cocktail party, right? You're focused because you bring both hands, you know, to

[05:25]

the teacup. And then you bow, you know, before the first bit of tea and then you drink. And then you put your tea down. Sometimes we'd have little cookies. And then after we've had a little bit of tea, Suzuki Roshi would talk. If he had something to tell us, you know, maybe we had a visitor or something he wanted to bring up. And then after that he would say, well, anything you would like to bring up. And one morning the director said, Suzuki Roshi, what do we do with someone who's always breaking the rules? You can smell the alcohol in his breath. And Suzuki Roshi paused and he said, you know, I don't know but everybody's making their best effort. And the director said, but flagrantly, flagrantly

[06:25]

over and over again, he's breaking the rules. Shouldn't we do something? And Suzuki Roshi said, well, it's better that he does it in the open than hides it from us. But shouldn't we do something? We can't just let people break the rules, can we? And Suzuki Roshi said, well, you know, sometimes someone may be following the spirit of the rules even though they're not following the letter of the rules. And the director said, wouldn't it be best if you followed the letter of the rules too? And Suzuki Roshi said, well, I don't know. Suzuki Roshi said, of course, that would be best. So this is very interesting to me.

[07:27]

I think it's pretty challenging for most of us, you know, that kind of spirit and appreciating someone and, you know, I don't know, how did Suzuki Roshi know, you know, because of all of his disciples and all of his students, you know, David was determined that the tapes of Suzuki Roshi's lectures would be preserved. They'd been recorded on, you know, these little tiny diskettes, little tiny tapes, some, you know, cassette tapes, and sometimes little miniature ones. And David was determined to have them put on, you know, on reel-to-reel tapes by Mark Watts who'd worked this out for his father's tapes so that they would be of archival quality, so they would last. And he just kept after Zen Center for years that we had to do this. And then he spent, you know, we finally said, okay, all right, all right, we'll do it, you know. And we had to raise money to do that and then David collected

[08:34]

stories of Suzuki Roshi, you know, years. He, you know, his book of the biography of Suzuki Roshi is five or six hundred pages. He has three or five or eight times as much material as that. Anybody could go to the archive now and write, you know, a different book of Suzuki Roshi. And he went to Japan and, you know, got stories in Japan. And then so it was David's spirit that actually went into the fact that there is a Suzuki Roshi archive. None of the other disciples who are busy, you know, teaching were interested in this. So, you know, we don't quite know. You know, we look at people and it's very easy to judge others or ourself, you know, that we're not good enough or we're breaking the rules or we're not doing what's right. And we don't appreciate someone's, you know,

[09:35]

good heart or good intention, their wonderful spirit. And so I don't know what Suzuki Roshi saw, you know, when he just let David break the rules. You know, because other people he didn't always do that. But so it's interesting this way, you know, we're not necessarily trying to, this is more complicated, you know, to see how do I know my good heart rather than, you know, how do I get it right? How do I know and express my good heart and my

[10:39]

love and devotion for Suzuki Roshi rather than how do I stop, you know, staying up late at night and not drink and, you know, what's going to happen to me if I do and they're going to punish me and, you know, there's a little difference here. And often we're way more involved in the rules and getting it right and doing what we should and what we're told rather than appreciating our good heartedness, our spirit, our devotion, our love. So this is interesting and I wanted to share with you a quote then from Zen Master Dogen. Zen Master Dogen is the, you know, the founder of the Zen school in Japan, one of the Zen schools in Japan. And he says, when you first enter the gate to study the Buddha way, listen to the teacher's instruction and practice as instructed. When you do that,

[11:43]

there's something you should know. Dharma turns you and you turn the dharma. When you turn the dharma, you are leading and dharma is following. On the other hand, when dharma turns you, dharma is leading and you are following. Sometimes I think, you know, when you're on top of things, dharma is underneath. When dharma is on top of things, well, you know, you're on the bottom. Getting a little instruction, are we? But we have the idea sort of like, we should always be on top of things. And Dogen says, Buddha Dharma originally has these two modes. Sometimes you turn things, sometimes you're turned by things. Buddha Dharma originally has these two modes, but those who are not true heirs have never understood it. Without knowing this key, you cannot yet judge how to study the way. How could you determine

[12:46]

the correct from the mistaken? On the other hand, those practicing Zen and study the way are always given this key, so they do not make mistakes. Other schools do not do this. Little sectarianism there. But this is, you know, encouraging to me. And this is very much like, you know, I mentioned at the beginning of the evening, we're studying how to be ready for anything, but we could also say, whatever happens, study closely and see what you find out, because we're just not in charge. You know, as far as making our minds a certain way, making our life a certain way, various things will happen. And so how are we going to be ready for it? How will we, you know, can we study closely? Some situations are

[13:48]

painful and difficult. Some situations are more easy. And just because something is easy doesn't mean that we study closely. Sometimes because it's so easy, we're careless. We don't pay attention. We don't listen to others. Everything seems to be easy. And then when it's difficult, we may study carefully. Or sometimes, you know, if it's easier, we're studying, and when it's difficult, we go like, I just don't want this, so I'm not going to study it. You know, I just want to get rid of it. I don't want to study it. I don't want to be with it. I just want to get rid of it. So this brings up another one of Dogen's pieces of advice or instruction. He says, practice in such a way that your heart goes out and abides in things and let things come and abide in your heart all through the day and night.

[14:50]

This is extremely challenging. I don't know if you've ever tried this. And just as an example, you know, I spent 20 years doing Zen practice intensively, you know, seven-day intensive meditations and three-month practice periods. And after, you know, 19 years, I thought I was pretty good at all that. I was the head teacher at Tassajara. And one day I was sitting there in the meditation hall, and I thought, huh, what shall I do today? And I thought, you know, huh, why don't I actually just touch what's inside me with some warmth and kindness? That was new rather than like establishing Zen mind, getting enlightened, calming, quieting, stilling, you know, awakening. Where is it? And anyway, as soon as I thought,

[16:06]

why don't I just touch what's inside with some warmth and kindness, tears started pouring down my face. And a little voice inside said, you know, it's about time. That was 20 years ago. And I went to talk to Kadagirishi about that. I said, you know, I changed my practice. I'm not trying to do, you know, Zen anymore. I thought I'd just touch what's inside. Is that okay? You know, rather than trying to follow the instructions and get them right, I was breaking the rules. I wasn't following the instructions. The instructions aren't to touch what's inside. The instructions are to follow your breath, to count your breath,

[17:07]

to note this and note that. Is it possible to just be with something? You know, just be with what's here, what's going on. Let things come and abide in your heart. Let your heart go out and be with things. Could I just be like that? Is that okay? And I asked Kadagirishi, what do you think? Is this all right? And he, Kadagirishi could be very straightforward, kind of understated, kind of dry. And he said, Ed, for 20 years, I tried to do the Zazen of Dogen before I realized there was no such thing. And then I thought, of course, right on schedule. It takes us so long, you know, to do this kind of obvious things. You know,

[18:17]

in retrospect, it's so obvious. Could I just be with what's going on with some warmth and tenderness and meet myself? You know, meet 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. Do you know the Derek Walcott poem? It's in Roger Houston's book. Give wine, give bread, give back your heart to itself, the stranger who's loved you all your life, whom you ignored for another who knows you by heart. Anyway. So, you know, we have kind of, you know, pretty strong tendency. And I think, you know, our modern life here in America, especially, you know, capitalizes on this. You know, happiness is never having to relate to anything. And

[19:28]

if you have enough money, you won't have to relate to anything. And you could be happy. Because you won't be aware of anything out there misbehaving. So, you know, when you go to the store and some of you have probably done, you know, long meditation retreats, you get to the supermarket and, my God, there's 20 feet of toilet tissue, 8 feet high. How do you know which one to buy? And the toilet tissue and everything in the market is going, like, buy me, buy me, buy me. And a lot of those packages, when you start conversing with them and, tell me again why I'd buy you. And, you know, I'm quick. I'm quick.

[20:33]

I'm easy. You won't have to relate to me at all. You can put me in the oven or the microwave and I'll be there for you. Set your timer and I'll be just the way you want and you won't have to relate to me at all. You won't have to look at me, smell me, taste me, touch me, clean me, wash me, chop me, cook me, decide when I'm done or any of that. This is happiness. Not, you know, actually relating with anything. The vegetable department, you know, the vegetables go, you know, they're all talking with each other. Or they start talking to you and they say, oh, you don't know what to do with me? Oh, you know, I've been dying to get together with the leeks across the way, if you don't mind. And, maybe, you know, I'm a little bit, also those beets over there, that would be, we would be, no, I haven't been with

[21:37]

beets for a while, you know. It'd be kind of fun. And help us out here, why don't you? Give us a hand. And this is also known as, Dogen says, to go forward and realize all things is delusion. That things come forward and realize themselves is enlightenment. So, when you, you know, so you turn the Dharma, sometimes you turn the Dharma, sometimes the Dharma turns you. Sometimes you know what to do and sometimes you're at a loss. Sometimes you're following the rules, sometimes you're breaking the rules. We don't quite know. And, we keep, you know, studying. What is the way? How do I live my life? So, there's

[22:45]

a kind of, you know, concentration where, you know, you can invite things to come forward and, you know, we help vegetables or something, you know, realize itself. We can do this with our own body and mind. How do we realize, make our life, our hearts, our good heartedness real? You know, what do we do to make it real? To manifest it? And how do we bring things together and allow them to realize themselves and become real? Rather than just on the shelf at the supermarket. And, hands. I was just down at Tassajara doing a cooking workshop and I try to explain to people about hands, you know, when it comes to cutting. And there's a difference between putting your awareness in your hands and telling them what to do

[23:46]

because, you know, I know what to do. In fact, I know better than you do. I know you're the hand, but I'd like to tell you what to do. This is mostly how we use our bodies. Rather than put your awareness, let your heart go out to things. Let things come and abide in your heart and let your heart go out to things and help them realize themselves. Help them be hands. And you know what? Hands love to do things. They like to do things. They like to cut and wash and feel and touch and chop and handle stuff. That's what they're for. And then we want to tell them what to do. Do this. Don't do that. And cut like this. Don't cut like that. Watch out. You might cut yourself if you're not careful. And it's

[24:50]

kind of like, your hands didn't know that? And then your eyes get involved and your eyes go like, no, no, don't do that. And then your hands get nervous and they're going like, no. Couldn't you just help me feel like, feel out what to do that's actually enjoyable for me? Couldn't you just kind of give me your awareness and with some generosity and good heartedness and let me try this and let me try that and let's just see what actually works here, why don't we? Oh, no, I'm sorry, but you have to do this. Because that's what I'm familiar with. So we confuse, you know, what's truly easy in studying, what could be easy and what would help us become real and, you know, have some ease in our life and what's familiar. And what starts, what eventually is easy starts out as being awkward because it's unfamiliar. Am I making sense here? Anyway, so I try to explain this to

[25:51]

people in cutting, you know, that you could study how to move the knife back and forth. You could study, how do you hold the knife? Do you hold it on the handle? And where do you hold it? And what kind of, how do you cut? How do you have your other hand? And your hands just love to do all these things. And if you let your awareness go out into your hands, which your awareness is what we're calling in this case, heart. You let your heart go out to your hands, go out to the things and study how to do something. And it's not about, you know, doing it the way you know how. And if you just do something the way you know how, now we're talking about drudgery. We're talking about work. It's drudgery, it's work. It's just trying to do something so that you don't have to relate to anything so that when you finish it, you could like take a break and not relate to anything. Let's just get this stuff done so that we could not relate to anything. And then we could be

[26:52]

happy once we got this stuff over with. This is, and pretty soon it's going to be 30 years from now. Anyway. Well, I wanted to share one other thing with you. Actually, two other things. One is, you know, I want to remind you in a slightly different vein that your life is up to you. It's not up to anybody else. It's not up to the instructors. It's not up to the teachers. Your life is up to you, and you use the teaching or not. And I love that, you know, there was a woman up in Portland, I think, and she decided to study who actually has lost a lot of weight

[27:55]

and kept it off for five years or more. And she identified a number of people who had done this, and it turned out they had one thing in common. They'd each figured out for themselves how to do it. And she wrote a book about this, because it's notorious that diet plans don't work. So what we do, though, if we are interested in losing weight, we think, I need a plan that I'm going to impose on myself and tell myself to follow it. And then if it works, I can say that was a good plan. If it doesn't work, I can say, that was a bad plan. Or, I have too much resistance, and I'm bad. Or, you know, it's not that I'm bad and I have too much resistance, but chocolate cake is sinful. And some of these things are sinfully delicious. And that's the problem.

[29:01]

And you know, I just, the problem is like, well, you didn't take on the responsibility to find out for yourself how to do this. You turned all of your inquiring mind, you know, your curiosity, your interest, your trying this and trying that and sensing this and sensing that and letting your heart go out to things, letting things come to your heart and learning, you know, whatever happens, can you study closely and see what you can find out? No, you're just trying to do what you're told. And then it didn't work. Anyway, the woman in Oregon wrote a book about this, sent it to New York. She's been turned down by 13 publishers who told her to write a book about dieting. Nobody wants to hear that they have to do this themselves. So that book is called, I don't know what it's called, the book isn't out there yet. But in this vein, I want to tell you, you know, the Zen

[30:10]

version. In Dogen's Instructions to the Cook, he says that when he went to China to study Zen, one day he was at the monastery and he was walking out to some, one of the sub-temples and there in a courtyard was the head cook, drying mushrooms in the noon-day sun. And Dogen said, his back was bent like a bow. His eyebrows were snow white. He was sweating profusely. Dogen went over to him and he said, how long, venerable monk, have you been, when were you ordained? And he said, I've been a monk for 68 years. We're talking about somebody who was probably like 80 or more then. If he'd been a monk for 68 years, maybe he was ordained at 10 or 12 or something. And Dogen said, you know, you're kind of getting

[31:15]

on here and you've been doing this for a long time and isn't there somebody younger who, you know, one of your assistants who could do this for you? And the cook monk said, they're not me. And Dogen was taken aback slightly and he said, isn't there some other time of day you could be doing this when it's a little bit cooler? And the cook monk says, that wouldn't be now. And Dogen said that he walked away somewhat, you know, put in his place somewhat humiliated with a newfound respect for the office of the cook. And he said, if I know anything about cooking, it's because of this monk. And then he met another cook monk, which a whole other story, which we don't have time for tonight because I have

[32:21]

some other things to tell you. But I'd like to emphasize this point where, you know, not only your good heartedness, but the teaching really is for you and up to you. This isn't just about, you know, following the instructions finally. It's also how do you, how will we realize, how will you realize your life? And this is extremely challenging, you know, to know our heart and to trust our heart and to go forward in our life, which I think is something I could tell you a lot about. But yesterday was Mother's Day. I have two mothers. My second mother died last July. She was 89. She became my mother when I was seven. So

[33:25]

she was my mother for over 50 years. And as I was getting older, I was getting older, and apparently I actually, you know, I felt very connected with her. My older brother didn't feel so connected with her. And she said she remembers when I connected with her, when I bonded with her. I had been climbing in and out the window of our bedroom, which was in San Francisco, to the backyard, and I got stuck. And I started crying, and I started screaming. She said, bloody murder. And she came and rescued me and then got me ready for bed and got me in bed. And she sat on the side of the bed there, and she said, you stared at me for a really long time. And then you said, no more brown eyes. My birth

[34:25]

mother had brown eyes like mine, with these same eyebrows, with the same scars. And my mother said that I said, no more brown eyes, but I have you. Her eyes were hazel gray. So this is my first Mother's Day without my mother. So it was a bit sad, thinking about my mother. She used to say, if I ever called her my stepmother, she said, I adopted you. I am not your stepmother. So I finally learned that the language is, this is my mother, and then the other mother is my birth mother. And interestingly enough, you know, finally

[35:26]

after about 45 years, I got up the nerve one day to ask my mom. I said, she used to come to my meditation group in San Rafael, and she was the most reliable member of the group, more so than me. I mean, I used to go places and have other people substitute for me, and my mom was there every week for, you know, the whole 10 or 12 or 15 years that I was doing that group. Every week, she missed, I think, three weeks, two for theater openings and one for when she had the flu. And so after, you know, at some point I thought, I would like to tell this group about my childhood. And I was kind of anxious because my mom is in the group. And I said to my mom, so I said to my mom, you know, Anne, I don't know if you know, but when we were little boys and my father married you, you know, he used to

[36:29]

say my birth mother had died when I was three. And then when I was seven, my father remarried. This is how I have two mothers. And I told Anne, I said, you know, and my father sat us down, my brother and I, and he said, I don't want you boys talking about your mother Frances again, because it makes Anne nervous. And I said to Anne, well, what do you think? Would that have made you nervous? Did you know that he told us that? And she said, well, I wouldn't think so. I would hope not. It would be pretty normal for you to talk about your mother. And I thought, huh, I guess the person that would have made nervous is my father. But he wasn't going to take responsibility for that. You know, it would make Anne nervous.

[37:31]

So I said, would it be all right with you if I tell the group about my childhood? And she said, yeah, that's fine with me. And I don't have to be there if you would, if that would make it, you would be more comfortable. I said, no, if you're all right with it, I'm happy to have you there. So here's my mom and everybody in the group knows she's my mom. And I told them that actually my mom died when I was three. My mom had had cancer, my birth mother. And you know, it's a fairly long story, but I just want to, you know, the short part of it. And then, you know, after my third birthday, about two weeks after my third birthday, my mother died. And three days later, my brother and I were in an orphanage, which is in San Anselmo. It's still there, Sunny Hills. It's now a residence for emotionally disturbed adolescents. But back in 1948 and for many years after it was an orphanage. And so I was suddenly separated from my mother, my father, and my brother, because my brother

[38:35]

was in an older section and they told him he wasn't allowed to visit me. And except that they used to call him in if I had a really bad tantrum. And then when I calmed down, he had to leave. And after a while, my brother still apologizes to me sometimes. He said, you know, after a few months, they told me, one woman told me it would be all right if I visited you. But I was, I had kind of thought that, you know, to really be good and to follow the rules meant that I really wouldn't, actually. Do you see how confusing it is, these rules? I don't want you boys talking about your birth mother. But of course, we weren't going to forget her. Well, and my mom used to, my birth mother used to tell me, you know, when I was a birth mother, used to write, type, single-spaced letters to her sister, Hattie, in South Dakota,

[39:41]

where she was from. And this is page five of a six-page letter that she wrote two weeks before she died. And I wanted to share a little bit of it with you, because it's, it turns out, I'm my mother's son. We got one homemade mimeograph card at Christmas, which has an excerpt on it from that ultra-smart magazine, The New Yorker. And this excerpt, I have simply loved. Alan Hunter and Dr. Thurman and the young co-minister of Dr. Thurman, Bob Miners, all liked it so much, too, that I typed off copies for them. And here are some lines for you. Now we are ready to look at something pretty special. It is a duck riding the ocean a hundred feet beyond the surf, and he cuddles in the swells. There's a big heaving in the

[40:48]

Atlantic, and he's part of it. And what does he do, I ask you? He sits down in it. He can rest while the Atlantic heaves. He can rest while the Atlantic heaves because he rests in the Atlantic. Probably he doesn't know how large the ocean is, and neither do you, but he realizes it. And what does he do, I ask you? He sits down in it. He can sit down and he reposes in the immediate as though it were infinity, which it is. That's religion, and the little duck has it. I like the little duck. He doesn't know much, but he has religion. From The Little Duck by Donald C. Babcock in The New Yorker. And then the next part paragraph says, there you are, Hattie, my aunt, Aunt Hattie. He reposes in the immediate

[42:00]

as if it were infinity, which it is. That's religion. In other words, rest today, rest calmly, without worry, without fear, take no thought of the morrow, in the sense of worrying about it, parentheses. Well, after you've made all the constructive plans you can for it, end parentheses. Rest today as if it were infinity, for today is part of infinity, part of all time and space, part of God. I find that thought so very specially helpful. Rest in the immediate as though it were infinity. That's religion. Accept the universe. It's big and many disturbing things happen in it, but all will be well. In a sense, all is well, if we wait for a little more time. Let's settle down into

[43:07]

the ocean and let the waves carry us along and hold us up. Thank you. Blessings. Could we just sit quietly for a minute or two and then I'd like to, I'd like to chant ho if we could all chant ho. We could chant a number of things, but ho is the Japanese word for Dharma and when we chant ho, it seems to be a good way to let sound wash through us and let our body resonate with the sound. In Buddhism, that's considered a cleansing practice. You're cleansed by the sound of bells and the sound of chanting, something else resonating in you rather than your own thoughts, feelings, habitual constructions. While we do this, we can turn over the blessings and merit of the evening and our own practice to others. If you have anyone you'd like to share your heart with, you can share your

[44:13]

heart certainly with your neighbors and yourself and let the sound resonate through you and share your heart with whatever you'd like to bring to mind. All beings and people out there and whoever. It doesn't matter, and especially perhaps mothers, and some of you must be mothers. We can, anyway, we'll chant ho for a minute or so. I'll hit the bell to begin and then I'll hit the bell to end and just enter the sound, whatever tone or level you'd like, okay?

[44:46]

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