Good evening, everybody. It's my great pleasure to welcome you tonight to the 11th and final lecture of our year-long series, Buddhism at Millennium's Edge. And tonight, I'm standing in for our abbot, Norman Fischer, Zokatsu Norman Fischer, who, on account of a scheduling snafu, is in Vancouver, Canada, leading a meditation retreat this weekend. So he can't be here tonight. He told me that he feels really badly about this, especially this is the last of the lecture series, last evening of it. And he really wanted to be here for this final event, and regrets that he's not here to thank you all in person for being here tonight, but also many of you who have come throughout the whole year to all of the lectures. Many of you have told us how important this series has been for you, and it's been important for us at Zen Center as well. It's not only for the funds it's raised, and it's

[01:05]

been successful, very successful in that way, but also it's been a time to be together, sharing the Dharma. And it's been encouraging in many, many ways. When Norman called Ed to apologize for the fact he wasn't going to be able to hear to introduce Ed, Ed said, well, he didn't mind, but he did think those introductions that Norman made were pretty good, and he would kind of regret not having a proper sort of like welcome. So Norman wrote out an introduction, and I have it right here. So as all of the veterans of this series know, the introduction always begins with a few words about the San Francisco Zen Center. So there's no way to talk about Zen Center, and what it is, and what it has been, without

[02:05]

talking about Ed Brown. Ed actually preceded the Zen Center at Tassajara. He was already a cook there in 1967 when Suzuki Roshi and his students arrived to begin the first Zen monastic training center in the West. He was soon ordained as a priest by Suzuki Roshi, became the head cook of the monastery, and began to bake bread. Out of that work came Ed's first cookbook, The Tassajara Bread Book, which is about bread, but it's also about Suzuki Roshi's mind, and Ed's mind as well. That book became unexpectedly famous. Did you expect it? It became unexpectedly famous, and it launched the Zen Center on its path as the great American dharma food cult. Later, there were other cookbooks by Ed and others, as well as the tradition of the Tassajara summer guest cooking, Green's

[03:09]

Restaurant, which is the first gourmet vegetarian restaurant in the world, we think, and the Tassajara Bread Bakery. One of the key elements of Suzuki Roshi's teaching is everyday mind, the warm and open mind that approaches everything with calm wonder and without too many ideas as well. No one has expressed that mind over the years more fully and more wonderfully than Ed has. Through his teaching and writing, he's been able to share this with many people, showing us all that cooking a meal with wholehearted mind can be the essence of the Zen way. His latest book, Tomato Blessings and Radish Teachings, combines, I have to say, that would make an excellent Christmas present for everybody, and for your friends and family as well. His latest book combines recipes and cooking lore with some wonderful dharma stories and practical wisdom. If you haven't read the book yet, you'd better. One of the most enduring and

[04:10]

endearing features of Ed's teaching, as you're going to see in a moment, is his humanness and his humor. Some teachers inspire us with the loftiness of the dharma, but Ed's way, like his great teacher Suzuki Roshi before him, is the way of wide permission for all that's human and vulnerable. It's most fitting that we end our series tonight with the treasure of Zen Center, Ed Brown. Good evening. Am I, are you hearing me okay? It says keep back 15 inches from Mike, so we'll see how this works. Well, I wasn't sure if I was going to be nervous tonight. I don't

[05:16]

feel too nervous, but just in case, I brought along some advice from the newspaper. I'm Alice Waters' newfound ease of public appearances, writes Lee Glickstein in Be Heard Now, tap into your inner speaker and communicate with ease, is that she imagines her listeners to be heads of lettuce. The author says he told the restaurateur to treat her audience the way she treats the food that she is about to prepare. When facing a head of lettuce, he said to her, I'll bet that you place it gently on the board and honor it with respect and love before you

[06:21]

cut into it. Glickstein told her she should look at the faceless mass in the audience as she would regard a room full of a head of lettuces. To take at least 15 seconds of silence before speaking to honor those lettuces. To honor those fresh faces and appreciate their beauty and to breathe with them. Then speak to them. I don't usually actually talk to the lettuces or the tomatoes or, you know, whatever it is. Anyway, according to the coach, at least the technique worked and, you know, now Alice is comfortable, you know, talking with larger audiences. Well, setting aside lettuces for the moment, I thought that I would also offer you an ode to tomatoes. You'll see why. This is

[07:31]

by Francisco Alarcon. Ode to tomatoes. They make friends anywhere. Red smiles and salads. Tender, young, generous, hot salsa dancers. Round cardinals of the kitchen. Hard to imagine cooking without first asking their blessings. Anyway, I'm asking the tomatoes, but I'm also asking you for your blessing and I'm offering you a blessing. It's really sweet that we can all be here tonight. In fact, we had a lot of traffic to get here, you know, coming across the Golden Gate Bridge. So, it was with particular devotion, you know, that I arrived here tonight in order to be here with you. And

[08:40]

similarly, you know, we've all, you know, made some effort to be here. And at the same time, you know, there's some gift or grace in our being together here and being in more or less good health and able to listen to a talk or give a talk. And, you know, it's pretty nice. And blessings, you know, and by the way, you know, I'm not going to be talking, you know, like from beginning to end or it's kind of roundabout the way I talk. You've noticed that already, right? Okay. So, I want to encourage you not to worry about it too much and to kind of just let go of the thread and see where life takes you and where the talk goes. And, you know, I will find out with you and I'm talking to myself as well as you and I will find out what I need to say to myself in talking to you. In a certain sense, that makes you my therapist, but it also makes you my collaborators, you know, in this endeavor. Because when I give a talk,

[09:46]

I want to invite all of you into my being and see what, you know, I have to say in response to all of you being here. And I don't have particularly anything to say that you haven't heard before or anything particularly profound or anything particularly, you know, I don't know. We'll see what it is. But I wouldn't sit there on the edge of your chairs, you know, waiting for the great word that you haven't yet heard, you know. So, you may as well like just settle in and relax and enjoy your breath and, you know, being here. Anyway, I do want to mention I've met John Marsh, who's the minister here at the Unitarian Church, and my parents were members of this church when I was a child. And from the, you know, the ages of eight or nine, I knew at that time all the back

[10:47]

alleyways and passages of the whole church. Because Harry Meserve's son, the minister's son and I used to on Sundays, you know, make our way any place we could, because we would cut the, you know, we played hooky from Sunday school class and wandered around the church. So, you know, this is the first I've been invited back here to actually, you know, like in a, as like a real person and not just a renegade and misfit. So, here I am. And blessings, you know, as far as that goes, of course, you know, Unitarians are famous for, the famous story about Unitarians is the person who wanted to have a, you know, his Ferrari blessed. And he went to his Catholic priest and the priest said, what's a Ferrari? And he said, it's a really nice sports car. And the priest said, no, I don't think so. We bless houses sometimes and boats, but not sports cars. And he went to an Episcopalian, what's a Ferrari? No, we don't think we could bless a Ferrari.

[11:54]

And finally, you know, as a last resort, he went to the Unitarian minister and he was quite exasperated at that point. And he said, I would like to get someone to bless my Ferrari. You do know what a Ferrari is, don't you? And the minister says, yes. And what's a blessing? Out in my, in Marin County, where my mom is still a member of the Unitarian church. Actually, you know, they're not church in Marin County. They're a fellowship because some people, don't want to belong to churches. But anyway, I did lose track there of what I was going to talk about. But I do want to talk a little bit about blessings. And my understanding of blessing is that it's, you know, to be blessed is to be sanctified with blood. And, you know, my understanding of that is kind of wide. So my understanding would be that to be blessed is to,

[13:01]

you know, is that we're blessed by living life. You know, that we're actually made whole or holy by living life and that all the ups and downs, all the joys and sorrows, the whole bloody mess is sanctifying us. This is kind of, you know, an ungraspable concept, but I'm going to put it out there at the beginning of the talk for you to sit with for a while here. You know, somehow our life is a blessing. And I want to, you know, the idea of my talk tonight is to, you know, help you think about or to think with you about, you know, how this could be possible. And what is it actually that makes life a blessing or a curse? You know, what is it that, you know, that makes it that I come in and I can be up here and I could be terrified of what you

[14:01]

might think in the audience? You know, that you might throw the tomatoes at me or, you know, that tomatoes, we could invoke the blessing of tomatoes and feel some sustenance or nourishment. And, you know, what it is in Buddhist understanding is, you know, that we create the world, each of us, and we, in our understanding and through our beliefs, we're ready, you know, we're envisioning a certain world surrounding us. So, I want to think with you about, you know, how to envision, if you want to, a different world, because I'm not interested in having you envision a different world if you're quite happy with the world you have, right? So, I have a poem here by E.E. Cummins. And I think about this, you know, I'm always interested in when I find language that to

[15:08]

me is about Buddhism without being about Buddhism. So, E.E. Cummins is not particularly Buddhist, I don't think, but here's the poem. My mind is a big hunk of irrevocable nothing which touch and taste and smell and hearing and sight keep hitting and chipping with sharp fatal tools. In an agony of sensual chisels, I perform squirms of chrome and execute strides of cobalt. Nevertheless, I feel that I am cleverly being altered, that I slightly am becoming something a little different, in fact, myself. Hereupon, helpless, I utter lilac shrieks and scarlet bellowings. I like the idea here, you know, to me, you know, this says something about the fact that each of us is not only, you know, I like this big hunk of irrevocable nothing. Do you ever think of yourself

[16:10]

like that? This is kind of like my teacher Suzuki Roshi said, each of us is Buddha and we're an extraordinary person. You know, each of us has some unconditioned nature and we have a very particular nature. You know, each of us is inherently wise and compassionate, kind and generous and we also create a world where, you know, we have various problems and we see people in various ways and we understand that I'm a particular kind of person and I have particular problems and men can't be trusted and women are, you know, what is that that women are always pictured as? They allure men, you know, those poor men that otherwise would be so good. My mind is a big hunk of irrevocable nothing which touch and taste and smell and hearing

[17:15]

insight keep hitting and chipping with sharp fatal tools. You know, life impinges on us and yet, you know, this is, you know, I feel like for me, you know, E.E. Cummings has the same idea of the living of life as a blessing because he says but somehow I'm becoming a little more me. Through all these interactions with the world and things coming and impinging on me sight and sound and hearing. So, I feel like and then, you know, at the end not only is he himself but helplessly I shriek utter lilac shrieks and bellow scarlet bellowings. Do you ever find yourself screaming? I do. You know, that's the kind of person I am. I'm not, you know, very, you know, perfected by any standard, you know, that you could imagine and I've kind of set out that way. You know, I kind of decided, you know, not to be good.

[18:18]

And, you know, part of my job tonight is to encourage you in that direction too. So, if this is a problem for you, it may be that you want to, you know, excuse yourself soon. Suzuki Roshi said, you know, it's good for this Zen teacher to encourage his students to be mischievous. Just like as a parent, it's good for your parent to encourage the children to be mischievous because, you know, being well behaved, you know, what Suzuki Roshi used to say is when you try to follow the directions and do, you know, follow the instructions, the directions and do, you know, what you should, this way you will narrow your facility. You will make yourself and your capacity very narrow. So, you're just doing this thing you've been directed to do or that you direct yourself to do and life gets very small and narrow and then you wonder, like, why is life so small and narrow? I'm doing what I should. I've followed all the right

[19:25]

rules. So, where would, when you follow and you narrow down like this, where would inspiration come from or discovery or creativity or buoyancy? You know, so Suzuki Roshi said, don't try to be such a good student. Why don't you just be yourself? I'll get to know you better that way. And this is so hard, you know, sometimes. So, and the same was with Thich Nhat Hanh. When Thich Nhat Hanh came to Zen Center, you know, we have a lot of serious people at Zen Center. And Thich Nhat Hanh came to Zen Center and he said, why don't you practice smiling? And we thought being a good little Japanese person, you know, industrious, hard-working, you know, impassive, you know, that that was the way to be. That was Zen. And then it turned out that these Vietnamese people smiled a lot and then for them that was Zen.

[20:25]

And Thich Nhat Hanh came and did these retreats with us and he'd say, I remember one day at Green Gulch, you know, we were doing walking meditation and he said, some of you are not smiling. You're wasting your time. And this was hard for us, you know, because we thought, well, suppose I don't feel like smiling. And then wouldn't it be insincere to smile? It's sort of like the television announcers, you know, where they say, the key thing is to be sincere. And once you can fake that, you've got it made. But it was interesting, Thich Nhat Hanh, you know, would say, you know, even if you don't feel like smiling, can't you have a slight smile for somebody who doesn't feel like smiling? In other words, to begin to regard yourself and the circumstances of your life with a slight smile instead of, you know, identifying with the object of your

[21:29]

awareness as you, the object being like if it's anger or I don't feel like smiling, instead of identifying with that and say, yeah, that's right. That's me. I don't feel like it. Just like have a slight smile for that person. You know, have a slight smile for somebody who doesn't feel compassion or for somebody who's not so kind. And we can all use it, you know, so little by little over the years, you know, and I had thought even before that, I thought it would be really good for me to practice smiling. I think it would be really terrific because, you know, this place is really dead. I mean, you know, it's, they're serious. And I thought this smiling is a serious business. I'm going to work on it. So I began to study, you know, how to smile at least now and again. And I'm a slow learner. I don't know about you, but, you know, I'm a slow learner. So I'm just getting now to where I can smile a little bit.

[22:29]

And a lot of the time if I'm home, you know, I get into such places, I don't know, you know, I get kind of moody. But with all of you here, I'm going to do my smiling practice. Well, I do want to, so I want to talk to you tonight. I have a quote from a Zen teacher named Ru Jing. Ru Jing was, Ru Jing was the teacher of Dogen. Dogen was the founder of Zen in Japan. And Dogen thought very highly of Ru Jing. This is the quote. And then I'm going to talk about it some and see what we think about it. What Ru Jing said was, the great way has no gate. It originates in your own heart. The air has no marked trails, yet it finds its way to your nostrils and becomes your breath.

[23:37]

Somehow we come together like troublemakers or bandits of the Dharma. Ha! The great house tumbles down. The autumn wind swirls. Maple leaves astonished fly and scatter. So, I'm going to go back over this and then tell you some stories and, you know, talk about it. I love the beginning, you know, and, you know, anything that Zen teacher says is partly because it's probable that we're thinking something else. The great way has no gate. Usually we think, something's not working in my life. I need to figure out how to make it work. I need to figure out how to get into a more spiritual life. You know, and it's as though we're outside. You know, we often have the sense of being outside of

[24:40]

the truth or outside of spirit or outside of religion or outside of my true being. Thich Nhat Hanh suggests, why don't you re-inhabit your life? You know, move back in. This is not, so this is not about gates. You know, the great way has no gate. It originates in your own heart. And the great way has no gate. Also, you know, Dogen Zenji said, the first thing in Buddhism is to trust your life is already the great way. You know, that our life already is the path. There's not some path outside of each of our lives that we need to get on. But somehow it's like to live our own life fully. Or the saying of Suzuki Roshi is that I have loved so much for years and years, when you are you, Zen is Zen. He didn't say, when you get it together and you finally become a Zen kind of a person, then, you know, you've arrived. He said, when you

[25:43]

are you. And this is not so easy for any of us to be, you know, who we are, to express our own being. And to own our own truth, to own our own reality, to own our own thoughts and feelings, sensations. The Zen master Tenke, he said one time, he's a Japanese teacher, see with your eyes, hear with your ears, smell with your nose, taste with your tongue. Nothing in the universe is hidden. What else would you have me say? And yet, you know, when we go to cook, you know, like, well, I need a recipe. I want to be able to do something so it comes out the way it should. Because we don't trust, you know, like I could taste something, I could put it in my mouth and I could taste it. And I would know whether it's cooked or not cooked. Do you know, when, it's

[26:48]

really funny, actually, about the Tassara bread book that Jordan mentioned, you know, became a bestseller. I wrote the whole thing in Suzuki Roshi English. Originally, I left out most of the articles and pronouns, because that's the way we all talked around Suzuki Roshi. Put bread on board and knead with hands. And in 15 years, nobody mentioned that to me until, you know, 15 years later, I went to revise the book and I discovered like, oh my God, I'm talking like this Zen student. And people said, oh, we thought that was your special language to speak directly to us. It's just an accident, you know, of history, of being a Zen student with Suzuki Roshi. And when Debra and I worked on the Green's Cookbook, I helped Debra do the Green's Cookbook, and we worked on it for months, and she edited my writing, and I edited her writing, and then we worked with an editor for a month, and then we sent it in, and it still came back with all these little

[27:51]

pink labels sticking out the side. And you know what they said? It would say, where we said, cook the onions until they're translucent, the editor said, how long? And then it said, season to taste with vinegar, and the editor's comment was, how much? And we tried to explain to her, you know, we're trying to teach people to cook using their senses. You know, like, you could look and see, like, when are the onions translucent? They start out, why you cook them? After a while, they're not white anymore. And you could actually add a tiny bit of vinegar and taste it, and you could taste it without the vinegar, and then you could add a little bit, a little bit more, and you could keep tasting it. And so it's to your taste. And we, so we went back, and we said, cook the onions until they're translucent, about two to four minutes. Season to taste with vinegar, beginning with half a teaspoon.

[28:56]

And it was kind of like, we were so frustrated that, do you want to cook by watching the onions or the clock? You know, what's, you know, how do you want to live your life? Do you want to do what's right? Or do you want to, like, be in your being and taste for yourself what life is, and know for yourself? And then it got to the pasta section, and it said, cook the vegetables until they're as tender as you like. And the editor said, how long? How do we know? And this is, you know, like, what we're really all up against. You know, what would make you a good human being? What would make you a good Buddhist, a good Christian? You know, you do A, B, C, D, and you don't do E, F, G, H. And then, you know, we'll stamp you, give you a stamp of approval. And what good will that do? In the meantime, you know, we narrow ourselves down so we can do the right thing, not do the

[30:03]

wrong thing, and we make ourselves very small. And then pretty soon we wonder, well, why is my heart shriveled up? Why don't I feel anything? Where's the vitality of my life? Where's the exuberance? Where's the mischief? You know. So, anyway, somehow we come together like troublemakers. So, I appreciate Rui Jing here. I mean, this is a classical Chinese Zen master. And he says, we come together like troublemakers. Now, that sounds to me like we don't have to be on our best behavior. Not in my school of Zen, not in Rui Jing's school of Zen, you know. But we don't have to be on our best behavior, and we don't have to, you know, we can more explore or notice in our own experience what's what. And we can actually taste something and know for ourselves, and begin to trust our own sensibility and our own taste, and start to have confidence and trust, you know, finally in our heart, the way originates in your own heart. And we've all, you know, gotten here with our life. We've all created a life.

[31:09]

And, you know, anyway, I'm going to go on with this because I'll get to this point later. So, you know, the ocean of air, the air has no marked trails. The air doesn't have a direction where it's supposed to go and has to go in order to be a certain way, and yet it finds its way to our nostrils and becomes our breath. And, you know, the air is moving through all of us, and we're all moved in some way. Somehow we come together like troublemakers, and we don't have to be on our best behavior, and we can actually taste, you know, with our tongue and see with our eyes, and we can sense our thoughts and know our feelings, and, you know, move into our life and into our heart. Suzuki Roshi also said that Zen practice is to let things come home to your heart,

[32:14]

whether it's tomatoes or thoughts or feelings. You know, there's not actually a particular mind that we need to establish or produce or create and then try to keep. That's how we get a great house. You know, the great house in Buddhism, usually this is about self, and you get a great house by following all the regulations and the rules, and then it's a big edifice of how our life should look. In some Zen stories, then you move up floor by floor because you have a little dog down, and you put your dog down in the basement, and when it barks, you keep moving up another flight. So, finally, you live up in the attic, and the dog is down in the basement in your great house. And then every so often you wonder, like, gee, that puppy was kind of exuberant and wonderful at times. I wonder how he's doing. But up in the attic, you can't hear the dog barking, usually.

[33:19]

But sometimes, you know, we sort of end up having this feeling like, wouldn't it be nice, like, to have some of that vitality again, that energy, enthusiasm, playfulness? And when you try to re-meet your dog that's down in the basement, you know, it's kind of surly. Wouldn't you come back into my life? Where have you been all these years? There's one Zen teacher who used to talk about this, and she would say, you may have to push the food to your dog, you know, with a stick, so you don't get too close. Or then you sit there, you know, like Robert Redford in The Horse Whisperer, and wait, you know, for the dog, the horse, to come to you. This is like meditation, you know, you wait for your vitality to come back to you and your voice to come back.

[34:23]

And your voice is often like a distraction, you know, your real voice, your true heart. Anyway, I want to also, I want to tell you a story now about when I was the cook at Tassajara. We ate a lot of brown rice in those days, because there was a fanatical, you know, contingent at Tassajara known as Zen Macrobiotics. Do you remember them? They wanted to eat brown rice and cooked vegetables, and even like yeasted bread was like, oh, that's two yen, because it's like expands too much. So they wanted to have unyeasted bread, brown rice, and potatoes and eggplant, deadly nightshade family, you know, can't eat it. Doesn't matter like what the Italians do, or that plenty of people seem to survive fine with eggplant and potatoes and tomatoes, but that's off their scale, that's off their chart. It's interesting, you see, diet plans are all like this too. Diet plans will basically say to you,

[35:27]

you have no intelligence or capacity to figure this out for yourself, why don't you just do what we tell you, because we know what's right and you don't. So just follow the plan. This is science also. We know the answer, you don't, so do what we tell you. And to me, you see, this is, I've always felt like there's something, what's wrong with this concept, like, because we all have the capacity to know our own life and to experience for ourself what's what. And if you want, if you're interested in what to eat, you start to notice, like, how do I feel when I eat these things? Why don't I try eating various things? Why don't I start to notice? I'll pay attention. Why don't I taste what I put in my mouth? I tell people sometimes, how did you learn to cook? I taste what I put in my mouth. It's not so complicated. Didn't you go to school? And no, I just taste what I put in my mouth.

[36:29]

Anyway, there was this huge contingent of macrobiotics and they used to say, if you eat the right thing, you will be completely peaceful. So apparently this was true, because when they didn't get the right thing to eat, they were very angry, you know, and they would come storming the kitchen. Why are you poisoning us? You know, one day for April fools, I served sugar smacks for breakfast. And, you know, about two thirds of the people at Tessera, they loved it, like sugar smacks, this is great. And we had sugar smacks in the first bowl and then milk in the second bowl and sliced bananas in the third bowl. And, you know, everybody's, you know, most of the people are excited. Then the macrobiotics are going like... And we have a rule, you should take at least a little bit of what's offered. Because, you know, originally Buddhists went out begging for food and you didn't say,

[37:35]

oh, no, no, I have an allergy to wheat. Or I'm a vegetarian, no, I can't eat pork. In fact, the Buddha is supposed to have died of eating bad pork, you know. So originally Buddhists didn't pick and choose, you just held out your begging bowl and you took what was served. So in Zen we say, well, take a little bit of each thing that's offered. So the macrobiotics had to take this little bit of... And the signal is, you know, like this, you know, to say a little bit, you bow to receive your food and then... They would try to get just one or two sugar smacks in their bowl, you know. Just to be sure they'd be calm. You are what you eat. You know, this is the famous macrobiotic slogan. And Suzuki Rush used to say, you are the way you eat.

[38:36]

Anyway, so for months, you know, we would go and we'd have brown rice and then on once in a while we'd have white rice. That was a splurge. So I finally decided after several months of this to serve potatoes one night. And I had heard Suzuki Rush loved potatoes and I wanted to make potatoes. And then I happen to really like potatoes and I figure like there's other people here who must really like potatoes. So I decided to, we went to bake potatoes and we had all these potatoes and we washed them up and scrubbed them and we put some butter on them. We may have wrapped them in foil, I can't remember. We put them in the oven and we had about an hour and a half to bake them. And then about 20 minutes before serve up, I checked them and they were just getting warm. I mean, they weren't even near cooked. Well, what's important to understand here is that in this Zen tradition, when the bell rings, the food is served.

[39:44]

You know, if you're at a restaurant, I mean, I would, Jordan and I worked at Greens, you know, and if something like this happened in Greens, we'd go out and we'd say, the quiches aren't, you know, setting up just yet and would you like another glass of wine and it'll be a few minutes and why don't you relax and, you know, look at the bridge and nice moon out there, isn't it? But if you're at home, you know, you could offer something or you go for a walk or whatever. But in Zen, when the bell rings, the food is served. I met another cook from another Zen monastery and she said the two most embarrassing minutes of her life were the two minutes the food was late one day when she was the cook. Everybody was waiting. There's something interesting about this, you know, which puts all the stress on the cook, right? Because there are other spiritual traditions, when the food is ready, the bell is rung. And then, you know, if you're, where's the food?

[40:51]

And then they say, is that a problem for you? Relax. That way everybody gets the problem. In this Zen tradition, only the head cook has the problem. Everybody else feels like when the bell's rung, the food will be here. No problem. So in this case, there was this little disaster in store, you know. We turned up the ovens all the way and then there was no help but to serve these potatoes that were kind of like little rocks. And people were really excited. These are people who hadn't seen potatoes in months. And, you know, we had these three little bowls to eat out of. And then we had a spoon, a metal spoon, and we had a pair of chopsticks to eat with. And normally after serving the food from, you know, the people from the kitchen would serve the food and then we would leave. But I stayed to watch Suzuki Roshi eat his potato to see what would happen. And he picked up his spoon and it kind of, he looked really happy, you know.

[41:56]

And then his spoon kind of bounced off his potato. It was kind of impenetrable. And he looked slightly bemused. And then, you know, he's somebody who's done a lot of rock work in his day, you know. He picked up his chopsticks and he poked a hole in the potato. And another hole. And he made a series of holes. And then he took his spoon and he chiseled, you know, off a piece of potato. And he managed to eat the whole potato that way. Someone said recently, you know, this is parental love. You know, when you put up with your children's mistakes like this. You know, when you go to all those bad concerts and things your children are doing. Anyway, originally my book was going to be called Potato Fiascos and Radish Teachings because of this fiasco. So now is that an experience that's nourishing? Or an experience that's humiliating?

[43:00]

Or, you know, what kind of experience is that? How do we take any experience that happens? What's the framework we put it into? I had really made a, you know, honest, sincere effort to do something. To cook some food to delight people. And it didn't work. And it was embarrassing. And at the same time, how could I say I didn't, you know, make an honest effort? One time a student asked Suzuki Rishi, why haven't you enlightened me yet? And, why haven't you enlightened me yet? And, you know, Suzuki Rishi said, I'm making my best effort. He was very sweet. So I actually find that, you know, having over the years, you know,

[44:06]

what's actually nourishing often is the failures rather than successes. And when it turns out that I don't have to be as perfect as I thought, and accomplish or produce all these wonderful things. Because I know, you know, and that was an example of it. I know what's in my heart. And I have confidence in that. You know, to go ahead and offer something. And to go ahead and receive. One time a student asked Suzuki Rishi, what do you feel when I serve you food in the meditation hall? And he said, I feel like you're offering me your most perfect love. And we felt like that when we were offering him food. So what is food? You know, some people say it's just stuff.

[45:07]

And yet food is also, you know, air and sky and water and earth. And it's also something to nourish us. And it's sustenance. And when you walk, how is it that you walk? And does the earth support you? Can you receive the support of the earth? So you feel you belong here? So part of Zen, you know, is like, how is it that we can feel like we belong here? That the earth supports me, people support me, the world supports me. It's okay for me to be me. It's okay for me to be here. Well, it's about time for me to tell you my favorite Zen story. Because it's about this, you know, the great way has no gate. It originates in your own heart. The air has no marked trails. Somehow we come together like bandits.

[46:08]

The great house falls down. So there are these two monks walking along. And then one of them stops and says, this is the summit of the mystic peak. Do you feel that way? Or is this just the Unitarian Church in San Francisco? This is the summit of the mystic peak. And the other monk says, yes, indeed. That's a pity, isn't it? I think this is an example of dry Zen humor. This is the summit of the mystic peak. This is as good as it gets. You can't go up from here. So what, you know, where is it that we're living at any particular time? How is it that that world is like that? In this story, the monk says, this is the summit of the mystic peak. This right now is the summit.

[47:12]

So there's a wonderful commentary, you know. And one of the commentaries is about a story about a monk talking with his Zen master, Zhao Zhou. Zhao Zhou is a great Zen master, Chinese Zen teacher. And the story says that golden light came out of his mouth when he talked. Whether, you know, you or I could see it. Anyway, we can understand he could, had a way with words, okay? So one day a monk asked Zhao Zhou, how do I get to the summit of the mystic peak? And Zhao Zhou said, I won't tell you. So, of course, the monk wants to know why not? It's kind of like, aren't you a Zen master? Why haven't you enlightened me yet? Why don't you tell me? Why won't you tell me? And Zhao Zhou said, if I was to give you an answer, you would continue to think that you were on level ground.

[48:15]

Where is it that we think we are? Why is it like the way it is? You know, it has something to do with originating in your own heart, originating in your own mind. We create the world. The world is a friendly place. The world is a hostile place. And it comes through our experience. And we understand it a certain way. And then, you know, we're stuck in that world. But we can actually change it when we choose to. And if we want to practice or, you know, we can cook and garden and, you know, go for a walk and, you know, breathe. And we can just see if we can like, what is it like to just experience something, taste something, smell something, you know, think something. What is it? What is our life about? So we can actually, you know, go more deeply into our experience and sense, you know, the world. And we can sense the way in which we create the world.

[49:22]

And then we can choose. Can we have some experience that's outside of our conception or not? And it's scary, you know, to experience something outside of our conception. To meet something finally, you know, to actually meet anyone, to meet, you know, anything, to be intimate. You know, this is a challenge. So also, you know, sometimes Zen is known as attaining intimacy, not this enlightenment business, not this, you know, special realization, not this special state of mind, but is it possible just to be intimate with this moment of our life? And then, you know, what happens? The great house comes tumbling down. The wind swirls. Maple leaves astonished, fly and scatter. You know, there's life, there's vitality when we experience something,

[50:23]

when we just taste something, when we know something. Should I just keep talking until about 10 or so, or, you know? You know what I think I'd like to do? This isn't in my notes. I just came up with this now, but would you be willing to do, like, a little brief guided meditation with me? You know, and I'll guide you a little bit, and then we'll just sit with ourselves, and, you know, enter into our being, and, you know, and, you know, and come home.

[51:24]

Come home to your own heart and to your own being, and re-inhabit yourself. This is kind of based loosely on a meditation that Thich Nhat Hanh suggested, that when you inhale, you let your chest, your heart, fill with compassion, and when you exhale, you pour it over your head. Nobody in the Japanese tradition ever said that was Zen, but... And the idea is, at least to begin with, when you, you know... I'm not sure, actually, what it feels like to let your chest fill with compassion, so I kind of give myself a lot of latitude. You know, warmth, spaciousness, openness, or, as Thich Nhat Hanh suggests, when you inhale, you know, can you have some compassion or warmth or forgiveness for somebody who doesn't seem to know, have the slightest clue what compassion is? So, some soft feeling.

[52:27]

And soft mind, as Suzuki Roshi said, Zen is to practice, you know, with a soft mind, because when you have a hard mind, you're busy, you know, trying to make sure things are one way or another, and you're busy with control, and maintaining a hard mind. So, to practice Zen is to see if you can allow your mind to soften and be with things, rather than... So, this is to shift from control to compassion. From hardness to softness. And sensing just the life that's in your chest. And then, as you exhale, you know, see if you can just let it pour over your head, over the crown of your head, and spread out over your head. And inhaling, and then on the exhale, pour some more over your head, and let it come down into your forehead.

[53:31]

And soften your forehead. Soften your eyebrows. And inhaling, and exhaling, and pouring this over your head. Letting it come down into your eyes. And you can also do this just as you inhale, to be aware of your eyes. As you exhale, let your eyes soften. And inhaling, bring your ears into your awareness. And exhaling, see if there isn't some way to enjoy your ears. Let them have their vitality. Let them have their mischievousness. And inhaling, and exhaling.

[54:34]

Inhaling, let your awareness come to your nose. And on the exhale, you let your nose soften, and be alive. Soften your nose. And inhaling, pour this softness and compassion or warmth over your head. Let it stream down your face and into your teeth, your tongue, your jaw. And inhaling, you can be aware of your jaw, and you can let it soften. So it doesn't have to be a particular way. You don't have to hold it one way or another.

[55:35]

The jaw is often associated with a lot of judgments. So as you inhale and exhale, aware of your jaw, you can let it soften or smile slightly. Because when you smile slightly, you let go of the judgments. You let go of the views that keep the world in place. So another world can be born. And inhaling, and when you exhale, you let this warmth or softness, compassion flow down through your whole face and into your neck, into your sternum, into your collarbones. If you hold your collarbones tightly, it's often about not revealing yourself,

[56:42]

about hiding. You let your collarbones soften. You can be seen. Others can see you. You can see others. And you don't have to hold yourself apart in quite the same way, or defend yourself from being seen. You can let this warmth and vitality come down through your head and into your neck and down your arms. Oftentimes, spiritual people, we cut off our hands, especially because we don't want to do the wrong thing. So then we just don't do anything. We disempower or disconnect from our hands sometimes. So you can let your awareness go down into your hands

[57:46]

and appreciate the capacity of your hands. Feel the life in your hands. Feel how much they love to do things. and again, inhaling, your awareness can come to your chest. And the exhale, pour this over your head and let it come down through your face. Reminding you to let go of your face. And then let it come down into your chest and into your heart. So your heart can soften. So your heart can be touched.

[58:46]

So you can touch your own heart with warmth and kindness. And you can let this warmth and softness come into your lungs. You can give your lungs to the air. Somehow the air finds its way to your nostrils and becomes your breath. And you can let the air breathe you, invigorate you. And inhaling can bring awareness to your liver.

[60:04]

Be aware of your liver, the area of your liver on the right side, below the ribs. And exhaling, let your liver soften or smile at your liver. The liver stores the blood, nourishes the blood, puts the blood into circulation, activity. And inhaling, be aware of your spleen or digestion on the left side. Exhaling, let it soften, let it feel this vitality, which is you. And the root of the internal organs is the kidneys, the lower back, just up under the lower ribs.

[61:06]

Inhaling, you can bring your awareness to your back. And then exhaling, let it be warm and soft. In this way, you can continue, if you want, down through your body, your hips and thighs and knees, your shins and ankles and feet and toes. Each time that you let go of your body a little bit and your habitual way of holding yourself together, you have a chance for some, we have a chance for some vitality,

[62:13]

some nourishment, chance to possibly restructure ourself or reorganize how we put ourself together. So, while you're still in this place, so to speak, I have a couple, I have another poem for you. and then a few other odds and ends. This is a poem by Rumi that I like very much. It's called Story Water. A story is like the water you heat for your bath.

[63:15]

It brings messages from the fire to your skin. Then it lets them meet and it cleans you. Very few of us can sit down in the middle of the fire like a salamander or Abraham. We need intermediaries. A feeling of fullness comes. Usually we need some bread to bring it. And we're surrounded by beauty, but usually we need to walk in a garden to know it. The body is a screen to shield and partially reveal the light that's blazing inside your presence. Water stories the body. All the things we do are mediums that hide and show what's hidden.

[64:18]

Study them and enjoy this being washed with a secret we sometimes know and then not. All the things we do are mediums that hide and show what's hidden. Study this, study them, and enjoy this being washed with a secret we sometimes know and then not. To be able to be with yourself and enter your own being is also to be able to be with others. To nourish others is a way to nourish yourself. And our activities can be in this way,

[65:24]

nourishing and sustaining simple activities. And we can be kind because it's in our heart to be kind, not because it's a rule to be kind. And we can feel the sweetness because it's our heart's desire to know what is sweet in our life, not because it's a rule or a practice or it's Buddhist. The way originates in your own heart. Suzuki Roshi also said, to practice zen is to purify our love. We get so confused sometimes. So to come back to our own heart and our capacity to nourish yourself and others is really important.

[66:27]

I also have here another saying by Dogen, which I came upon recently. And I think with that, we'll end this. The practice of benefiting others is the total truth. Thus it liberates self and other far and wide. To realize this is to serve friend and foe equally, to see that even grasses and trees, wind and water naturally reflect this sacred activity. Thank you very much. I have a few odds and ends of announcements before we,

[67:47]

whatever's next. I don't know what's next. One thing is, I don't know if any of you have copies of the hardcover copy of the Tomato Blessings and Radish Ditchens. Some of the recipes don't work. This is, you know, when I first found this out, I was quite chagrined for about 24 hours. But I've kind of gotten used to mentioning this to people. But I've created a, you know, what's known as a rata sheet, you know, like the corrections. So I left some of these out on the table where the Clean Well-Lighted Place is selling books. So if you happen to have the hardcover, all these corrections, we made all the corrections in the softcover, the paperback that's now out. But if any of you want the secret key for the hardcover, it's in a rata sheet, not a radish seed, but in a rata sheet. It's a piece of paper, especially the ginger muffins, if you don't follow the corrections,

[68:52]

come out like soup. They do not come out like muffins. I found all this out when I was, well, I found out about the ginger muffins almost right away because a friend's mother made the recipe and it didn't work. It was soup. And the computer, it's the computer's fault. Anyway, I didn't catch all the errors that when I changed computer programs and was switching from one thing to another, it dropped some of the integers in front of the fractions. So instead of like two and a half cups of flour, a half a cup of flour, you know, that sort of thing. And I don't know, Patty, Patty Unnerman caught these things right away. You know, she did a nice story about my book in the Sunday Chronicle and she said, what recipes should I use? And everyone I mentioned, she said, well, that doesn't have the right amount of salt and that doesn't have this. And she spotted these things right away.

[69:54]

I mean, I should have just sent her the book in the first place. I did send her the book, but she didn't look at the recipes until she was going to write the story about it. Anyway, that's that. And I had some other things to tell you about. Oh, here we go. I decided to do, I haven't been doing this for quite a while, but I've decided to do some cooking classes in the near future in Mill Valley. So I thought I would let you know, and you have the opportunity to put down your name, address or phone number on pieces of paper that are out on one of those front tables. Or you can just drop a business card. There's a basket to drop your business card in. So this is if you're interested and you want me to contact you about possible cooking classes in December and January. Then you can sign up or drop off your business card. Also on that table, I left a few copies of, this is really kind of an aside.

[70:57]

So don't mind if it's not your cup of tea or whatever. But I'm real interested in a company that's out in West Marin, which is called Wind Harvest. And they make wind turbines. And so if you're interested in buying stock in this company, I put, you know, or you just want to read about it or whatever, you know, they're making wind turbines and I think it's a great thing. And Patagonia has said they're only going to use wind power, et cetera. So it's a kind of practical way to make a contribution to the environment, maybe. Or maybe it's just a way to give your money to somebody. We don't know. But potentially, you know, it could turn into an investment or it could just be whatever. So if you're interested in that, there's some things about that. Now I have one other thing to talk about. I wanted to encourage you to support the Zen Center. I've been associated with the Zen Center since 1965. And I think it's a wonderful group to support.

[72:02]

So I'm hoping, I wanted to encourage you that if you, you know, find it in your heart to make an offering, you know, I know that you've all paid to come here and everything, so that's fine. But if you find it in your heart to be generous or to want to support the Zen Center further, then you can also make that donation on your way out. Is this right? You would be happy? You wouldn't mind? All right. Okay. Well, I have one other little poem then to end this part of the evening. Do you know this poem, Bugs in a Bowl? Han Shan, that great and crazy wonder-filled Chinese poet of a thousand years ago said, we're just like bugs in a bowl, all day going around, never leaving their bowl. I say that's right. Every day, climbing up the steep sides, sliding back, over and over again, around and around, up and back down, lessons.

[73:05]

Sit in the bottom of the bowl, head in your hands, cry, moan, feel sorry for yourself, or look around, see your fellow bugs, walk around, say, hey, how are you doing? And say, nice bowl. Thank you once again.

[73:29]

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