Good morning. Good morning. So this morning, I'm going to talk about something that has been going through my mind for a couple of days. It just keeps recurring. I thought I would talk about it. Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had the great fall. All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty back together again. So that's what's been going through my mind. And I'll give you a little entomology about the story.

[01:03]

It seems like Humpty Dumpty was a canon. And it was used in a British revolt around the 1840s, something like that. Somehow Humpty got knocked off the wall. He was up on a wall. Got knocked off the wall. And so that seems to be the origin of the story. Nobody could get him back up on the wall. So the story has evolved. And to where instead of being a canon, Humpty is an egg. An egg. which adds a lot of interest to the story.

[02:09]

or one comment on this story is that it's a story of risk, of failure, and of perseverance. Three qualities that characterize Zen practice. It's a great Zen story. You know, when we sit tazen, We take a risk, especially when we're new to zazen, new to the practice. Sitting, I remember when I first started sitting, sitting one period of zazen was a very significant experience. And it was really hard to get through one period of zazen. without moving.

[03:33]

I remember when I went to my first time, I think I told you this story recently, when I went to Zazen for this first or second time, and I said to my neighbor, I said, this really hurts. And he said, it always does. And I thought, well, I like doing it. There's something that drove me to do this. I don't know. I had to do it. And so I just continued because, well, since everybody's legs hurt, why should I be the exception? So I continued. And I looked forward to sitting, but then when I got there, I realized, oh, this is going to hurt.

[04:49]

This is going to be painful. But at the same time, I was taking a a chance, so to speak. I was putting myself in a position that felt risky, actually. The whole thing felt risky, you know, like this foreign practice, Japanese practice, the priests were all wearing robes. There were only two, actually, Suzuki Roshi and Katagari Roshi, wearing robes. sitting very still but what I really liked about it was that I was sitting I felt that I was I was alone and at the same time I felt totally supported I brought a friend who was actually a very famous musician now I won't tell you what his name is

[05:59]

We went together the first time to Zazen, or the second time. I brought him to Zazen early. And he had to crawl out of Zendo because his legs hurt so much. So that's the kind of, you know, I would have wished that he would have come back, but he didn't. It was a kind of failure. on his part. And so I didn't feel so good about that and he didn't feel so good about that. But failure is a big part of our life, our life's practice. It's important to fail because it really helps us to understand that things are not one-sided.

[07:02]

Success and failure are both important. And our failure helps us to work for our success. If it's only failure, that's unfortunate. You know, we... really appreciate the person who has a difficult time in their practice or in their life. But when we see that they're making a big effort, the effort is the most important thing. Not necessarily the success. Effort itself is successful because each step of the way is our practice. There's no We say don't put another head on top of your own or don't work for some kind of gaining experience.

[08:10]

To gain something is fine, but to work for some kind of exceptional experience is not so good because then your effort becomes oriented toward a goal that may or may not be achieved, but it's somewhere in the distant future. It does in practice or our practice, is to appreciate every step of the way. So if we can appreciate this moment's step, you've already reached the goal. If you can... So we go from now, our practice goes from now to now.

[09:19]

It doesn't go from now to then. Or someplace in the future. It goes from now to now. So we just simply experience every moment as it occurs. And that's our success, to be able to do that. So how we exist in this moment and this moment was nothing but this moment. Nothing but a succession of this moment. That's hard to do. The most difficult thing is to be here. It's easy to be in the future, because that's in your head. But it's really hard to just be here with this, with this, whatever is going on.

[10:22]

That's called living our life, moment by moment, which is simply this moment. You think that there are successive moments going from past to future. But it's all just this moment. That's all there is. And that's what Zazen teaches us. Zazen teaches us to just be present. Because there's nothing but this moment. There's the past, which is... This moment in our head, in our mind, there's the future which we're making up as if there was one. Where does the past and the future meet? Where is that place where the past and the future meet?

[11:25]

It's called the present, right? the past and the future meet in the present. But where is the line? It's really hard to find the line where past, present, and future meet because it's already gone. So the only thing that doesn't change is the present. So there's the ephemeral present, which we think of as now, and there's the eternal present, which is nothing but present, present, present, present. So what we appreciate in Zen student is perseverance.

[12:25]

You fall down. We're all Humpty Dumpty. And the egg is important. If Humpty Dumpty was still just a cannon, it wouldn't be so interesting. But because it's an egg, it is interesting, because the egg holds its future within itself. So, you know, the egg contained... We all have an egg there. This is our egg, and we're nurturing our egg all the time, just like a chicken, you know, or a vulture, or...

[13:29]

Peregrine pilgrim. So perseverance, you know, taking a risk, falling down, and getting back up. Dogen has this phrase, When you fall to the ground, you use the ground to help you get back up. That's wonderful. Because instead of being used, we're using. When we make a mistake, when we have a big problem, and it turns into a big problem. We use the mistake to help us.

[14:33]

That's why making mistakes are really healthy. For one thing, if we don't make excuses and justify ourselves and humble ourselves, the mistake becomes a treasure. Because we learn from it. We learn from our mistakes. If we can't learn from our mistakes, we're in trouble. So mistake is valuable. Failure, you know, failure... gives us a sense of perspective, and helps us to find our direction.

[15:36]

The sixth ancestor, Daikon Eno, in his platform, in the platform Sijak, says, when you make a mistake, you do a little repentance, whatever is necessary. Acknowledgement, basically. And then you turn around and go the other way. In the right direction. Turn around and go in the right direction. May not be a total turnaround. It can be half turnaround. Maybe all is needed. It's like the four horses. From a sutra, which I can't remember the name of. Suzuki Roshi liked to use this. Of the four horses, and most of you probably know it already, when the driver wants the horses to move, he uses the whip.

[16:48]

The best horse, or the most, you know, I don't see what best, the quickest horse, the most mature horse, just seeing the driver with a whip out of the corner of its eye will move without being cajoled. The second horse, just feeling the whip on its skin, won't move. The third horse, when the whip digs into its hide, will move. The fourth horse really struggles. Stubborn, stupid, whatever. And she said,

[17:55]

So which horse do you think is the best horse? Or the horse that... He says, when Buddha sees the fourth horse, that's the horse that he loves. The most difficult. So... And it's the hardest one to love, often. So risk, failure, and perseverance. Right now, we have this interesting change in our lives.

[19:14]

This pandemic has just changed our lives. You know, some people's lives have been changed dramatically, and some people's lives maybe not so much. If you've been practicing Zen, Zazen, once or twice a day for a long time, Sunsis genes, so forth, done Zen no practice, your life doesn't change that much because already you're living in a kind of simplicity and confinement. You know, to sit seven days at seven-day Sashin is a lot of confinement. You're sitting in a posture that's the most confined posture, and you're doing a practice which is confined to a room.

[20:26]

So you're kind of used to this. I run into many people 10 students who said, what a great relief to, you know, be able to just do this simple practice called pandemic. It's not a big change for so many people and actually make use of it. So I think to be able to make use of it, to be in a position where you can make use of it, is how we practice with it. As I said in a few lectures back, we have an opportunity to look at our space, our environment, the environment that we live in, and

[21:33]

relax into it and look at what we've neglected for so long. All the things that we overlook and take care of things in a way that we wouldn't otherwise. We've become so used to our routines that we tend to walk past things, you know, without really paying attention to them. And somehow, when you have the opportunity to not do all those, as many things as we ordinarily do, we begin to see what's written around us. When we take a walk, Berkeley is so great, we're taking walks. I mean, the trees and the bushes and the flowers, which we just often just bypass.

[22:42]

That's the background, right? And we allow it to come into the foreground. We allow all the stuff that we think of as the stage set for our life becomes a real part of our life. And we think that these... wonderful gardens and wonderful living beings that we're surrounded with, they come to the forefront. I'm just amazed, you know, after it rains, when we have the first rain after the summer, all this life is... shining in our faith and supporting our life. You know, my wife and I were talking about sourdough starter and how you preserve sourdough starter without having to put it in the refrigerator.

[24:00]

And you just dry it out. And it's just this dry stuff, you know. It's like sand or something. And then it's alive, totally alive. You put it back in the water and it comes back to life, so to speak. But it's never been dead. So there's all this life around us that's continually supporting us. And we're always thinking about other things, which is okay. We have a variety of interests. But this is our support. When we allow our surroundings to be our support, this is the king's men and the king's horses that actually support us.

[25:02]

Although all the king's men, horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humdi together again, but they do support us. When we allow that to happen, we're supported by all of our surroundings. Then there's the egg. The egg is our legacy. All the animal kingdom, without exception, the goal of all the animals is to reproduce itself. And the same with humans. Except that we have all these other things because we have a certain level of consciousness which creates curiosity and our brain is highly developed in comparison to the brains of other species.

[26:21]

Anyway, we think that's true. It's hard to know if that's true or not. The species with the smallest brains are maybe the most advanced. They don't need to go through all this stuff that we have to go through. Their life is very simple. advanced societies realized all this. And every animal had a place in the hierarchy. Or? Not hierarchy, but in this hierarchy. Pantheon, if you want to call it that. Every...

[27:22]

every animal, every bug, every living thing, because the whole, all of their surroundings was teeming with life. They understood this and were supported by, they supported the ground and were supported by the ground. And when they would follow the ground, the ground would help them back up. I've always felt that if we persevere, if we really make a big effort, that life meets us halfway, Buddha meets us halfway. That's why people pray. One good reason why people pray, so that, you know, to meet life halfway, the source.

[28:40]

And then the source responds. So what we appreciate in this incident is perseverance. And we don't take umbrage when people fail. Because we know that we all fail. When somebody fails, we're reminded that we all fail. We don't laugh at them. as some do. So, oh boy, leadership comes through example.

[29:42]

It comes from the example of a leader. If the leader doesn't show example, there's no leadership. So when you have a criminal at leading, then people become criminals. When you have saints leading, people become saints. I'm not saying that we're either one. We're somewhere in the middle. We try hard. But if we don't try hard and become lax and just become... lackadaisical, that's when things fall apart. So we have to be very careful, because it only takes one generation to lose everything. Actually, it takes less, but...

[30:55]

So the purpose of sangha is to encourage, for everyone to encourage everyone else. That's the main thing for our sangha, is to encourage and be encouraged. And to... take up the challenge of difficulty. So right now, although I was talking about how we encourage ourself, when we encourage ourself, it encourages others.

[32:04]

And that in turn encourages ourself. It would be wonderful. Right now I'm sending in Zendo, which is off limits. But it feels really great. So, At some point, we all hope that we'll all be able to sit in the Zendo. There are new people who've only been here for maybe a year or less than a year. They don't know. They don't have the experience, or you don't have the experience, of sitting in the Zendo with everyone. It's very different than sitting in Zoom. But I appreciate our Zoom. I think Zoom is really very helpful.

[33:09]

And there are certain advantages to it. So there's a question of, I may be diverging, but there's a question of how will things turn out when the pandemic hopefully is over? What will the changes be? Will everybody think, well, it's more convenient to just sit on Zoom? For some people, that's probably true. But actually, I think we'll all want to get back to Zendo and practice together in person because it's three-dimensional. And the interaction we have of moving harmoniously together is a rare opportunity.

[34:13]

I think most people will come back to Zendo and sit in Zendo. As I can tell you, when I look at this room I see it in a way that I see it in a renewed sense. It's also shiny and clean and the sun is coming through the windows. So Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great ball. all the king's horses and all the king's men and women. Couldn't put Humpty back together again. That's true. Humpty had to find himself after the fall.

[35:20]

And his perseverance is what makes him, what energizes him and constitutes his practice. And then Sangha supports him. Her. Dumpty Dumpty is kind of a masculine name, but... we maybe find a different variation for women. Our practice. Practice leadership at Sun Center is mostly, largely women. This practice is so sincere and wonderful.

[36:27]

You know, I don't know, I think I have a little time. But there's a koan about the chick and the mother hen pecking at the egg and the chick inside the egg pecking. And it's like when the... the mother chick realizes that the baby chick is pecking at the egg, at the egg shell, that they do this simultaneously. And if they do it just the right moment, the egg cracks and the chick pops up. This is also like teacher and student, right?

[37:47]

When the teacher sees the chick at just the right moment, when the teacher seizes the right moment to educate the chick and allow the chick to pop out of the shell. That's a wonderful moment. So the teacher has to be very patient. The mother hen has to be very patient sitting on the egg. And the chick has to struggle to find their way out of the egg. And the teacher can help. But it's not the chick to do the work. So that's Humpty Dumpty is his successor, who is himself.

[38:56]

I succeed myself in here. It's called The Birth of the Chick is like Rebirth for a student. So Humpty Dumpty is all cracked. All the scars have had cracks and faults, but manages to hold it all together and come out renewed. So when we talk about enlightenment, The chick is the renewed ham. The renewal of the ham is the chick.

[39:58]

So it's a nice little story. So maybe you have a question. Who's in charge of questions? That would be me. And thank you, Sojin Rishi. So it looks like we just have a few minutes for questions. And if you'd like to ask a question, you can either enter it in the chat box or raise your virtual hand like Joel just did. And we just have a few minutes for questions. Joel, take it away. Sergeant Roshi, thank you for an absolutely wonderful talk. I hate to be kind of a downer here, but when you told the story of Humpty Dumpty, I couldn't help but think of the political situation in this country right now.

[41:15]

And so, you know, in the story, my understanding would be that the egg cracked prematurely, and probably the vital life within was not able to survive. So if you can encourage us in the current situation, or guide us, yeah. In the current situation, I was avoiding... I know you were. To be apolitical, but... You know, politics, you cannot avoid politics because politics is interaction. It's all politics. But in this situation, it's a difficult situation. And it gets alarming. Yes.

[42:17]

You know, all these... lies and accusations and the fact, so this is a frustrating, you know, over 20,000 lies and growing every day, you know, 25 by now. And there's a whole group of people which ignore it. So it makes you think that the world is It is, actually. And that's not only frustrating, it's demoralizing. Yes. So how do you deal with knowing that this is happening and knowing that you have a feeling that the future will

[43:19]

Your future's idea will be better at the end of the year. That's not my idea of the future, unfortunately. Well, we do. There's hope. That's okay. Hope is good. Hope is great. But hope is good. Yes. But... You don't want to say at the end of the year, if only I had done this, right? Right. You don't want to be able to say that. No. Do this. Do something.

[44:26]

Do something. There are things that you can do that help you to ease your mind and say, well, I did contribute something. Yes, that helps a lot. Yes, that does help a lot. I didn't just stand by and not do anything. Right. I wish. Yeah, or just bear. Just do something. Just do something, yes. Thank you, Suchi. Okay. It looks like we have time for one more question, and there's a question from Peter E. How should we think about the fragility of the egg? Should we balance the desire... to protect it with acceptance that one day it will break.

[45:27]

I wouldn't say break, I would say open. Yes, we should protect it. Do you know when, I think, I don't know if you're familiar with this or not, but in the Cloisters, which is a church in New York. There are many tapestries, beautiful tapestries, big tapestries, and one of them is a unicorn. The unicorn is encircled by a fence, and it's a very narrow space. It's got a tree, a unicorn, a tree, and the grass, and the fence, the white fence, And it's like when something is growing, you need to protect it. You need to take care of it and protect it and not let it get out and roam around and get corrupted.

[46:37]

So the egg is like that. The baby is like that. Mothers take, you know.

[46:46]

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