I vow to face the truth of Antarctica's words. Good morning. We are very happy this morning to Well, you know, Alan, as you were giving that introduction, I was thinking, this is a sorry pass that I'm coming home and it's been so long since I've been here I have to be introduced like a stranger.

[01:45]

Anyhow, so I need to be here more, I think. Anyhow, I just noticed when I was sitting in Satsang this morning, we really have the Sendo stuffed now. It didn't used to be quite so full, it's great. And we have young people with us today. I'm really glad. Hi everybody. My name is Blanche. I'm glad to see you. And we'll talk a few minutes and then you can go do something that may be more fun for you than having me talk to you. Anyhow, as I was arranging all these robes I was thinking, do you like to wear costumes? Do you dress up for Halloween? Do you ever dress up any other time in a costume? Well, I was thinking as I was adjusting my monk's costume here that you might think it's a little funny, but it's sort of... Actually, this robe connects me with monks who have been practicing for a long time, 2,500 years.

[02:55]

It's hard to even think of that long a time, isn't it? And so I like to wear it because it makes me think of all of the people through all of the hundreds and hundreds of years in all of the many countries that have Buddhist practitioners who've worn robes like this. Actually, this robe is like the one worn in India where Buddhism began. And this robe is like the ones worn in China where our stream of Buddhism went when it left India. And this robe is like the ones worn in Japan, where our stream of Buddhism went after it from China to us. And then underneath there, you know, I have my American underwear. I wanted to talk a little bit today about

[03:57]

about love, about loving-kindness. We sometimes chant a teaching of the Buddha called the Metta Sutta, which means a loving-kindness teaching, a loving-kindness meditation. And I want to talk about it a little bit because Don't you think it's kind of great when somebody loves you? Don't you kind of like it when somebody loves you? When somebody tells you that they love you? Do you ever tell your mommy or daddy that you love them? Do they ever tell you that they love you? About your grandma or grandpa? It's kind of nice, isn't it? I have a friend, his name is up here on the altar, because he died recently. And the reason I wanted to talk about love is that he was particularly good at it.

[05:06]

He loved everybody, and he told them so. And it made everybody happy, and it made him happy. That's the thing about loving people, you know. It not only makes the person you love happy, it makes you happy. So, it's kind of a good idea to cultivate the possibility of loving somebody. Is there somebody special that you really love? Any one of you? No? Do you ever tell them that you do? Oh boy, I bet that makes them happy. That's neat. Anyhow, the thing that was really moving to me about John, and I checked this out with a lot of other people who knew him, is that every time you'd see him, he'd give you a hug and he'd say, I love you so much.

[06:18]

It was great. It was really great. It made my day every time I saw him. So I thought, I'm going to have to learn how to do that myself. I could do that. I don't have to be so shy. When I met Suzuki Roshi, did any of you know who Suzuki Roshi was? He was Mel's teacher. He was my teacher's teacher. Mel's my teacher. He was my teacher too, Suzuki Roshi. But the thing I really, really liked about him was it looked like he could love everybody. That's pretty hard. That's pretty hard. Sometimes we get mad at folks and we don't love them so much. So that's... I would really, really recommend that you kind of remember to tell people that you love, that you love them. It's kind of like magic. So you guys are sitting on these big round cushions.

[07:25]

Do you know what that is? Do you know what the Japanese word for that is? It came to us from Japan. It's called a safu. Can you say that? Safu? Yeah. Underneath that, there's a square with it. And that one's called a zabutan. And what I wanted to just talk about a little bit was the way in which we are so much alike, like everybody likes to be happy. You like to be happy, don't you? You like to be happy? Do you like to be happy? Yeah. And guess what? Everybody likes to be happy. That way we're like everybody. We all like to be happy. And the more we can work on being happy, the more the people around us will be happy.

[08:33]

And the more we help people around us be happy, the happier we'll be. And I think you guys would be happier if you went and played some more. So thank you very much for coming in and joining us. And you can go and do whatever you plan to do after this talk. Okay? Good. Good. It works like a charm.

[09:36]

It's amazing. I don't know why it's so hard for us to remember to do that, you know? I do remember that when I first met Suzuki Roshi, one thing that deeply impressed me about him was that he found everybody completely acceptable. including me, which at the time I was having a hard time doing myself, finding myself acceptable. And I wondered, how does he do that? I want to be like that. And I've been trying for about 40 years. And sometimes I can, but you know, that critical mind creeps in and there's something about somebody, you know? Pity. I mean, it wasn't that he wouldn't correct us when he thought we were off course.

[10:43]

I remember one time I was sitting, maybe it was my first one-day sitting, maybe not, anyhow it was a one-day sitting, and I had been trying very hard to count my breaths and it seemed to me that I had counted every breath, you know, I hadn't missed a one. So I went to him and doped some and I said, Roshi, I can count my breath now, you know, I don't miss any at all. What do I do next? And he got very stern. Usually he'd been really sweet to me and encouraging because he saw I was a little uncertain and unsure of myself. And he suddenly got very stern. I've never seen him like this. Don't ever think that you can sit Zazen. That's a big mistake. Zazen sit Zazen. Oh yes sir. I've been practicing with that ever since. What is that? Who is it that goes and sits down on the cushion while Zazen sits Zazen?

[11:47]

How does that work? But even when he was being strict, you always knew that he could see Buddha in you. He told us all the time, see Buddha. You should try to see virtue. someone was complaining to him about the people he was working with down at Tassajara once. And he said, and son, you should try to see virtue. And he said, oh, how can I see virtue? And he said, to see virtue, you have to have a calm mind. Well, by the time I had met him, Suzuki Roshi apparently had a calm mind, a calm enough mind to see virtue in everyone. to see Buddha in everyone. And I decided I want to be like that. And I'm still trying.

[12:48]

I'm doing my best to see Buddha in everyone. And I recommend it as a practice. Beginning here, to remember, we often forget that Buddha is right here. Buddha is not somewhere outside. In his poem, Dongshan, the founder of this particular stream of Buddhism we call Soto Buddhism, the Chinese founder, said in the poem that he wrote when he had a big wake-up experience, you know, don't look outside. where you'll never find it. I go on alone now and everywhere I look I see myself. So you look for Buddha right here and in everyone you see.

[13:53]

This is where we find Buddha. Not somewhere out there, but right here where we are. You know, this verse that we chant before the dharma talk, an unsurpassed, penetrating, and perfect dharma is rarely met with even a hundred thousand million kalpas, having it to see and listen to, to remember and accept, I vow to taste the truth of the sthaga's words. It sounds like I'm going to say something miraculous up here. That's not what that means. No. Unsurpassed, penetrating, and perfect dharma, the truth of what is, is right here all the time right where you are all around you just this is it is the punchline in a half a dozen koans what's right here in front of you but it's rarely met with we rarely see it directly we're always looking for something special not just this as it is

[15:01]

So we say, I vow to taste the truth of Satchitaka's words. Tasting is a very intimate, very intimate sense. We taste the truth. So we vow to see completeness. We vow to see virtue. We vow to see the truth of things as it is. right here where we are, moment after moment. Not something exotic, somewhere else, travel halfway around the world. I mean, we might want to go on a pilgrimage and travel halfway around the world, but still, the truth will be right where we are, right here, not some fantastic something or another that we may imagine. So one of my teachers once said to me talk about what's right in front of you.

[16:16]

And as I mentioned John King whose name is on the altar John's dying and death is what's right in front of me because I've been with him constantly until he died last Tuesday. And he was quite remarkable and he just You know, it says in the Buddhist teaching, it's always talking about dana paramita, the perfection of generosity, the perfection of giving. And in the teaching on dana paramita, it says, a monk gives fearlessness. A monk gives dharma and a monk gives fearlessness. And when I read that, I thought, I don't know anything about fearlessness. Oh, well, I'm going to have to study this. And I've been trying to understand what is fearlessness ever since I read that, because I'm supposed to give it to everyone.

[17:27]

Well, I don't think fearlessness means not ever experiencing fear. I think it's more like not being cowed by it, not being chased around by it, not having to run off into some fantasy world to avoid it or make up stories to avoid it, but just acknowledge it when it arises, be with it with kindness and attention, see it arise and see it subside. And what I most appreciated since John had this sort of warning that he was going to die in the end of January and he had until the 8th of August before it actually happened. He had a lot of time to work with that fear and to show us fearlessness.

[18:28]

That was the really important thing about being with John during that period And he made enormous effort to be with people, not to just go off and hide and die by himself. He used to teach zazen and yoga at the county jail in San Francisco and in San Bruno and at San Quentin Prison. You know, he went every week, and he went every week up until about a week before he died. The last time he went to San Quentin was a real stretch for him, but he was determined to go. He hadn't been able to go the week before because of that heat wave, and it just wiped him out, and he wasn't able to go, so he went in a wheelchair to San Quentin the last time he was there.

[19:33]

And again, what he was doing was loving everybody. One of the prisoners at San Quentin sent him a letter saying he was so sorry he missed his last visit and he didn't get his hug. how important it had been for him to know John he says when I see what you're going through it really makes me sit up and take notice and makes me really want to do the best I can with this life and you know just talking about what an inspiration you know you came out here and you loved us and people people who most people just just push aside and don't pay any attention to You made an effort to come out here and you showed us that you loved us even when you were in the middle of what's going on in your life.

[20:38]

And I really love you and it really means a lot to me and it's really an inspiration for me. And I was just blown away by that letter. And I got another letter from someone who worked with him in the jail downtown. one of the people who helps to teach Sāsena Yoga there with him. And she gave me a note to take to him and I read it to him. And she was talking about what an inspiration he had been to her and how encouraging it was for her work in the jail to see John's devotion to the people he was working with. So, And you know, when he was first diagnosed, he had been scheduled to teach a class on Dogon at Zen Center, and he thought, hmm, that doesn't make any sense. I think maybe I'll teach a class on death and dying. So he taught a class on death and dying, starting about a week after this diagnosis he had of two to four months to live.

[21:48]

Actually, it took six months, which we're all grateful for, That's what he was working with when he decided he would teach a class on death and dying. And he had us all sit down and visualize going into the doctor's office and having the doctor tell us that we had an inoperable cancer and that we had from two to four months to live. And we would sit with that and visualize our going in and doing that. And then in small groups we would talk to each other about what that was like for us. To really try to put ourselves in his shoes. Another night he had us write our own obituary. What do we think our obituary would look like? And what would we like our obituary to look like? We were supposed to write two. Things like that. He's getting right down to the nitty-gritty to face the fear that we have.

[22:53]

You know, there was a quotation he brought in from Socrates that said, to fear death, gentlemen, is... I think I'll read it exactly. Oh shoot, of course I can't find it when I want it. So the fear of death, gentlemen, is just... I can't... I was trying to remember the particular word he used. But it's a big mistake, he said, because it acts as if you know something you don't know. It's as if you know that

[23:58]

death is something to fear, is something... He says, you don't know, death may be the greatest benefit to human beings that there is. And to fear it just means that you are making up some idea that it's not. You don't know. That was kind of interesting. We don't know what death is. We don't get to find out till it's our turn. But you know, the poet Mary Oliver, whom I really love, wrote a poem that I've always liked. It's called, When Death Comes. When death comes like the hungry bear in autumn. When death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse to buy me and snaps the purse shut. when death comes like the measle pox, when death comes like an iceberg between the shoulder blades, I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering, what is it going to be like that cottage of darkness?

[25:16]

And therefore I look upon everything as a brotherhood and a sisterhood. And I look upon time as no more than an idea. And I consider eternity as another possibility. And I think of each life as a flower, as common as a field daisy, and as singular. And each name is a comfortable music in the mouth, tending, as all music does, towards silence. In each body a lion of courage and something precious to the earth. When it's over, I want to say all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom taking the world into my arms. When it's over, I don't want to wonder if I've made of my life something particular and real. I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened or full of argument.

[26:21]

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world. I especially like the line, I want to be full of curiosity. I really hope that I can be. It's a great mystery to us. What is it? We don't know. As I like to say when I do funerals, as I will say to John next Sunday, next Saturday, the great mystery is no mystery to you now, You're already on your way. You know what it is. But nobody can come back and tell us. You know, there's a story about a Zen master and his student asks him, what happens when you die? He says, I don't know. What do you mean you don't know? Aren't you a Zen master? He says, yeah, but I'm not a dead one.

[27:24]

So we don't get to find out till it's our turn. And I hope I can keep that curiosity. I hope I don't get caught by this fear of death just because I don't know what it is. One of the things, I came to practice actually at a time when my best friend had suddenly a bad headache and was diagnosed with a brain tumor and died very quickly. And I was terrified. And then Paul Disko told me about the Berkeley Zen Do, and I went there because I was in instruction. And I started sitting every day, right away. It was kind of like grabbing on to a life preserver. You know, this big question came up for me, well, if you know you're going to die, how do you live? And so I was searching to find out who knows how to live if you know you're going to die.

[28:34]

And I have to say when I met Suzuki Roshi, he used to come and lecture at the Berkeley Sendoh every Monday morning. I thought, he knows. He knows. I need to know what he knows. You know, Suzuki Roshi used to give about five lectures a week. He gave a lecture on Saturday morning. at Sokoji Temple and, you know, a bunch of us would get in our cars and go over there and hear his lecture there and do that whole sort of half-day sitting that he did every Saturday morning. And then he'd lecture on Wednesday night there and they did lecture here over on Brightway on Monday morning and then he went down to Los Altos and lectured once a week and he went over to Mill Valley and he lectured once a week. Wow! I mean, think of the generosity of spirit that that required. I mean, he was so generous with us.

[29:40]

And he was strict. Can I tell a story on you now? One sashin, one sashin at 8th Street. I wasn't there, Lou was sitting in that sashin. We had to take turns, you know, because we had kids at home. So, it was his turn to sit. And Mel got up an hour early and rang the wake-up bell. And they said, oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it's an hour early. Well, Lou was up, so he went on down to the Zen bell. And another person went down to the Zen bell. And Suzuki Roshi came down to the Zen bell. And they sat. And then when the right time came, Mel rang the bell again. Everybody came in and sat down. And then Suzuki Roshi jumped up and he started hitting everybody in the Zen bell. The person who was sitting in the first seat said he was really hitting hard when he started. It was a big session, but by the time he got to the end, it was not so hard. He was tired out. But he was saying, when the bell rings, get up, go to the zendo.

[30:44]

And I never forgot that. When the bell rings, get up and go to the zendo. Never mind looking at the clock, just get up and go to the zendo when the bell rings. When life presents you with what you have to do next, Do it. Just do it. That's what I got from that. So we don't know what life is going to present to us. But I want to be there for it. I want to find out what it is, whatever it is. And that kind of... That's kind of greedy a little bit, you know. I want to know everything, I just want to know about everything. Don't guess it'll ever happen, but of course. But I want to know what this life is. And death is an essential part of it.

[31:49]

Anyhow, at that time when I first went to the Zen Dojo, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, either had just come out or came out soon after. It was right about that time that I first came to the Birthday Sendo. And in it there's a talk called Nirvana of the Waterfall, which to me was, you know, because I was in this time of being just terrified of death and terrified that I was going to die, like my friend Pat, just any minute could drop out of the sky, you know. And I really, really like the image that he... How many of you have read that, Nirvana, the Waterfall? When... Is there anybody here who hasn't read it? I recommend it. He uses the metaphor of... He went down to Yosemite and saw Yosemite Falls, and he was really impressed by it.

[32:54]

And he saw the falls falling all the way down the mountain, you know. So it's one whole river approaching the cliff and then it falls down the mountain and the river breaks up into separate streams and droplets. And it must be so hard being all separated from the river like that, falling all that way. It takes a long time to fall that far, you know. But then, when it gets to the bottom, it gets back to join the river again. It must be so wonderful for the drops of water to rejoin the river again, be one whole river again. And I love that metaphor. And when, in it he says something like, whether it's the river or the waterfall, water is water. And when a couple of days before he died, Paul Hallard dropped by to see John on his way to Paso Hara.

[34:00]

And he said to John, I'm on my way to Paso Hara, do you have anything to say to the people down there? And he says, tell them all I love them so much. And then Paul left and then John said, call Paul James where you can tell him to tell them, water is water. Another familiar metaphor is waves in the ocean. We're all part of the ocean of life, every one of us. we're water. But sometimes we appear in this particular form as a wave and we travel along the water for a while looking like this and then we just go back into the ocean again and rejoin the ocean of life. And somewhere another wave will start and another and another.

[35:03]

These kinds of metaphors are important, I think, for us to have some sense of what is this life death and how do we live our life and how we live our life I think John taught us a lot by loving everyone and telling them so and really conveying that so that when he got this this diagnosis I put up a sign-up sheet for people who wanted to be on his care team taking care of him when he got too sick to take care of himself, when he finally was bedridden. And so many people signed up to be on it, it was just ridiculous. It was about 40 people. And so I said to John, well, do you want to go through here and sort of select those people that you would feel most comfortable with?

[36:07]

I mean, I can see it's too many, so he picked about 25. Well, that's still a lot, you know. When he went into the Kaiser hospice, they said, you can't have that many people taking care of you, you know, it won't work. So, you know, there was kind of a core team of four or five who were really there a lot. But we tried to get everybody on that list that he had found acceptable an opportunity to spend some time taking care of John. Some people came over and brought DVDs that they watched together. Some people came over and read to him. He really loved to have poetry read to him, particularly haiku. And he had me reading Zen Mind and Beginner's Mind to him. I said, wait, any particular one? Start at the beginning. So I started to do it.

[37:10]

He made room for as many people as he could to be there with him. And then he asked that we prepare his body so that people could sit with him if they wanted to after he died. And many people came and sat with him for an hour or two or more before he went to the crematorium. And everyone, everyone came because they love him, because they felt loved by him. They knew they were loved by him. So the way to surround yourself with people who love you is to love everyone. And that's what I think the Mettā Sutta is about, you know? We chant the Metta Sutta regularly at Zen Center, and I think here too, it's in the Sutra book, so probably you chant it pretty regularly.

[38:15]

Maybe it's a good idea. Those of you who know it can chant it along with me, and I think I'll just read it to you. This is what should be accomplished by the one who is wise, who seeks the good and has obtained peace. May I be strenuous, upright and sincere, without pride, easily contented and joyous. May I not be submerged by the things of the world. May I not take upon myself the burden of riches. May my senses be controlled. May I be wise but not puffed up. And may I not desire great possessions, even for my family. May I do nothing that is mean or that the wise would reprove. May all beings be happy. May they be joyous and live in safety. All living beings, whether weak or strong, in high or middle or low realms of existence, small or great, visible or invisible, near or far, born or to be born, may all beings be happy.

[39:35]

May I not deceive another nor despise any being in any state. May I not by anger or hatred wish harm to another. Even as a mother at the risk of her life watches over and protects her only child, so with a boundless mind may I cherish all living things, suffusing love over the entire world, above, below, and all around without limit. So may I cultivate an infinite goodwill toward the whole world. Standing or walking, sitting or lying down, during all my waking hours may I practice the way with gratitude. Not holding to fixed views, endowed with insight, freed from sense appetites, one who achieves the way will be free from the duality of birth and death. So the Buddha has given us very precise directions for how to live a life that we know is going to end.

[41:03]

May we all continue to practice together and cultivate this possibility of loving everyone. Thank you. Nidār

[41:21]

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