Good evening. So I want to follow up again on the talk that Alan Sanaki gave last Monday evening about a blessed community. He was talking about Sangha, partly from the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King. For any of you who did not hear that talk, it will be on our website and podcast fairly soon, and I recommend it. I want to talk about Sangha or community. and self, and our practice of studying the self, as Dogen says. So the intimate connection between community and the study of the self, and how our practice of zazen is basically about practicing together.

[01:11]

So when we do this practice of zazen, many people are here. Of course, as we practice together in the zendo, in the room, we are supporting each other to practice, just sitting facing the wall, being upright and present. Each of us supports everyone else to do this practice, to be present, to face ourselves. But how we do this, this is intimate and complex. We each have stories about ourselves. We each have ways we identify ourselves. Just sitting, on our cushion, actually, whether we are here in this room or when we sit at home in between times of coming together.

[02:16]

There are stories about ourself, but there are stories about many beings. Many beings allow you to be yourself. All the beings you've known in all the contexts of all the places you've lived, all the people you've lived with, are part of how you are on your cushion. So we chant at the beginning of our service, All My Ancient Twisted Karma. And we each have our own ancient twisted karma from beginningless greed, hate, and delusion. We each have our own personal memories, regrets, joys, confusion, influences. But also, we share that. We have the ancient twisted karma of our country, of each other,

[03:22]

of human beings that impact us. We can't actually sit alone. We might feel alone or lonely sometimes, but actually even when we're just sitting here quietly in this room, and some of us don't know each other, but we each have our own stories, but even when we don't know each other, if we don't know each other's names or stories, each other's stories are part of what's happening in this room. We deeply influence each other beyond our ideas of that. beyond our ideas of our stories. We share the oxygen in this room. We share the uprightness of this room. We share the wall that surrounds us in this room and we look through the wall and see ourselves and see our connection to all beings.

[04:34]

So I want to share some words from Suzuki Roshi about this connectedness, about how we are connected through Sangha. These are from a book that he wrote. This collection, Not Always So, there are a few collections now of Suzuki Roshi's teachings. Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind is the best known, but just a few quotes. We say that I am here and you are there. It is okay to say so, but actually, without me, you don't exist. Without you, I don't exist. This is very true. Since I am here, you are there. Since you are there, I am here. You may say that even though I don't come to Tassajara, you exist here waiting for me. Maybe so." So he was probably speaking to students at Tassajara. Maybe so, but that is not perfect understanding. I have been at 300 Page Street in San Francisco, which is related to everything, and you are also related to everything.

[05:41]

I couldn't say goodbye to the building that is related to the freeway, trees, air, stars, moon, and sun. If I am related to the sun and moon as you are related to the sun and moon, then how is it possible to say that I am here and you are there when we are always related? It is just your mind that says you are here and I am there. That's all. Originally, we are one with everything. If someone dies, you may say he is no more. But is it possible for something to vanish completely? That's not possible, and it is not possible for something to appear all of a sudden from nothing. Something that is here cannot vanish completely. It can change its form, that's all. So we are always one. Well, we are always one, but we're also always each a particular form of that one. We're not the same. Bo is sitting over there, and I'm sitting over here.

[06:42]

And yet, there's this deep connection. So another part of this talk, Tsukiroshi said, when I was flying back from the east coast the other day, I saw a beautiful sunset. The sunset lasts a pretty long time if you're flying towards the west. People on the ground think it is dark and there's no more sun, but if you're flying high up in the sky, you still have the sunset, and you can see beautiful clouds. It is wonderful to see, but at the same time, someone may feel very lonely, yet Wherever you are, you are one with the clouds and one with the sun and the stars that you see. Even if you jump out of the airplane, you don't go anywhere else. You are still one with everything. That's more true than I can say and more true than you can hear. I'm not talking about something that is strange or mystical. If you think so, it means that you are not truthful enough. You are not feeling deeply enough to feel what is true.

[07:47]

Be sincere enough to be yourself. That's the direction of our effort. Again, Dogen said that if you want to attain renunciation from birth and death, don't try to get out of birth and death. One of our chants says, don't separate from this skin bag here and now. Birth and death are our equipment for this life. Without birth and death, we cannot survive. It is our pleasure to have birth and death. That is how we understand truth. So, we have this problem that we have this self. And we do have this self, we have this identity, this story, we have an address and a phone number and an email address and all that stuff. We know who we are, on some level.

[08:51]

And it works, you know, we can leave our living place and come and get to Ancient Dragon's End Gate or wherever we're going, we get to work or wherever it is, you know. That's true, we are somebody. But that somebody, when we come and sit together, is a somebody that is connected to every somebody who's here and every somebody who's not here. So this interrelationship between self and what I can call community and the ranges of community is complex and intricate and intimate. So he says, most of us want to know what the self is. This is a big problem. I'm trying to understand why you have this problem. It seems to me that even though you try to understand who you are, it is an endless task and you will never see yourself.

[09:55]

You say that to sit without thinking is difficult, but it will be even more difficult to try to think about yourself. To reach a conclusion is almost impossible. And if you continue trying, you become crazy and you won't know what to do with yourself. And then he has this whole rap about self-improvement and how we want to improve ourselves and how that's part of our culture and part of our approach to psychology and therapy and so forth, and this idea of progress. And, of course, we do have those ideas, you know, we want to get better, you know, we want to be better people. all that. We have this idea of self-improvement or of progress. This is very deep in our culture. And maybe it's not even our culture. Maybe it's just part of how the human mind works. But then he has this thing about Dongshan, who's Jomar Samadhi we just chanted.

[10:59]

Dongshan, the founder of the Chinese Soto Zen School said, don't try to see yourself objectively. In other words, don't try to seek for information about yourself that is the objective truth. That is information. He says that the real you is quite different from any information you have. The real you is not that kind of thing. Dongshan said, I go my own way, wherever I go, I meet myself. Suzuki Roshi is referring to the story that's part of the jewel mare samadhi that we just chanted and that we talked about a lot in the practice period a year and a half ago and I'll just read the basic story which is that Dong Shan was leaving his teacher after studying for some time and He said to his teacher, later on, if I'm asked to describe your reality or your dharma, how should I respond?

[12:05]

And Yunyan, his teacher, said, just this is it. And the story goes that Dongshan Didn't know what to say, he left and as he was crossing a stream, he looked down and saw his reflection and awakened to the meaning of what Yunyan had said and he wrote a poem that said, just don't seek from others or you'll be far estranged from self. I now go on alone everywhere I meet it. It now is me, I now am not it. One must understand in this way to merge with suchness. So in the Jalmera Samadhi, it says, you are not it, it actually is you. Paraphrasing that. But he also said, I now go on alone and everywhere I meet it. And Tsukuroshi said, I go my own way, wherever I go, I meet myself. Thank you, man. So everywhere we go, everyone we see, everything we think of is a way of meeting ourselves.

[13:17]

Of course, it's not that everybody else is me. I'm not it, but it actually is me. All of our experience is about is beyond the story I tell myself about myself, but it's how I learn. This is what song is about. We learn from everything. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Every situation is an opportunity to see this wider truth. So again, Dong Shan said, just don't seek from others or you'll be far estranged from self. So it's not that you try and get something from others. It's not that you try and get something from yourself. It's not that you invest in yourself to become something better.

[14:23]

It's not that you try and improve yourself. But how do we actually see others and learn about this deeper self? How do we learn about this deeper Sangha? How do we learn about this wider Sangha? So Sangha means community, like the community of practitioners. But it also means, in a sense, the community of all beings. It means that we are connected. It means that we can't really block out some people because they're a different religion or a different ethnicity, or a different color, or from a different country, then we're blocking out part of ourself. So to really fully meet everything, to really fully meet ourself, is to include this wider story, to see that this wider story is about ourself.

[15:37]

Dongshan said, one must understand in this way to merge with suchness, to merge with reality. So Suzuki Roshi says about this, Dongshan rejects your effort to cling to information about yourself and says to go on alone using your own legs. Whatever people may say, you should go your own way. And at the same time, you should practice with people. This is another point. It means that to meet yourself is to practice with people. We can't really do this practice alone. So Alan, last week, was talking about community and how important it is to have community. And it's something that our culture doesn't provide, pretty much. There are substitutes for community. There are politicians who say, oh, we should hate those people, and that will give us a sense of community. But actually, to have community is to be able to be together and look at ourselves together and look at each other and hear each other and listen.

[16:47]

So I'll just read a little more of what Suzuki Roshi says, and then I want to hear what everyone else says. Have some time for discussion. Suzuki Roshi says, when you see someone practicing sincerely, you see yourself. If you are impressed by someone's practice, you may say, oh, she is doing very well. That she is neither she nor you. She is something more than that. What is she? After thinking for a while, you may say, oh, she is there and I am here. But when you are struck by her practice, that her is neither you nor her. When you are struck by something, that is actually the real you. Whatever it is that inspires you, that's something deeper than some story about self or other. What is it that inspires you? Who is it that inspires you? How is it that some inspiration arises? Suzuki Roshi says, tentatively I say you, but that you is the pure experience of our practice.

[17:56]

And then he says, as long as you are just trying to improve yourself, you have a core idea of self, which is wrong practice. That's not the practice we mean. When you empty your mind, when you give up everything and just practice zazen with an open mind, then whatever you see, you meet yourself. That is you, beyond she or he or me. So, you can have this kind of experience wherever you are. As Dongshan said, wherever I go, I meet myself. If he sees the water, like in the stream, that is to see himself. To see water is enough for him, even though he cannot see himself in the water. So, you know, the question is, how do we practice with each other and all so-called others? How do we study others? to really see ourselves. If we think there's another, we need to appreciate this other and really study what that is and meet that.

[19:04]

To really see how we can live a life that is inspiring for each other. And we do this together. We can only do this together. So I can keep talking, but I'll stop, or pause at least, and see if anyone has some reflection or response or comment or question or anything else. Please feel free. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the question, yeah.

[20:13]

So there are concentric circles or something, or I don't know if they're circles or rectangles or, you know, trapezoids or whatever, but yeah, I think we start with, you know, a particular small intentional community. So when the people here are all intending to do this practice of sitting upright and paying attention and trying to see. how to care about our life. So that's, you know, we have a common starting point. And of course, people are, you know, different people come and go here, so it's not like a monastic practice where it's the same people all the time. On a given Monday night, it's different people, and that's fine. That's what we're doing here. We're open to the city. But when you go outside, there's all kinds of people. Well, you know, so this is challenging practice. How do we express

[21:14]

our sense of being together in the complicated life of our family and relations and work life with people who don't realize that they're part of sangha, or don't think that way, necessarily. And yet, you can see people, ordinary, quote, unquote, ordinary people in the world, people who don't think that they're practicing, who are doing kind things. You can be inspired by people who are not send people or whatever. There are people just walking down the street or bus drivers who are kind. How do we encourage that in the world? That's one way of thinking about extending Sangha. But yeah, you're asking the right question. How do we see this in this country that's torn apart right now? That's another reality.

[22:17]

So I don't have answers. If anybody here has the answer to all this, please let us know. So we look at it. We see, OK, how do we give our best to this world? Thank you for your question. In anybody who we think of as the other, who's not doing what we think they should be doing, how do we listen to what their fears are? We may not be able to agree or meet them or even whatever. Where is, sometimes there's possibility of healing.

[23:23]

How do we support that? And that doesn't mean we don't, we have to accept bad action. We can speak truth to power and the powers that be and talk about the harm that's being done. But how do we, I don't know. Even just how to phrase the question is not easy. But we're connected. It's impossible not to be connected. Other comments? Yes, Jen. It's really obvious if you start reading about this stuff.

[24:29]

We're all made of exactly the same stuff. And it's just sobering. I'm not sober. Well, it makes you feel kind of strong. And I just want to know. Yeah, there's a reality there. But that also means there's possibilities. Yes, Michael. A little louder, please.

[25:57]

When she was saying her finger feels soft, I was just thinking that that's a reaction that I would have. And then I thought that it was fine. I was just thinking that it was kind of mostly just a reaction to letting go of all the things that I'm being punted. It's not good. I try to realize things that are these greater truths, but not sometimes. It seems like something sad, as you can see it, and I have to realize all of the things. And I want to turn that over. So having to let go of stuff that we want to hold on to is sad.

[27:01]

But the other side of that is that there's a possibility for feeling inspired. That there are other possibilities. That letting go of that which we might be holding on to or might believe means that something else might be possible. And it doesn't mean we have to let, letting go doesn't mean we have to forget or get rid of everything. It means that how we see the stories we have and that we have had, we can change what they mean. So there are other possibilities. Change is hard, often. It means loss, loss of things we like, loss of people we love, loss of connections, loss of places.

[28:07]

But also, so right now I'm, many people I know and love are in Sonoma, California. There's a big fire and people I know, at least know, have lost their houses and so it's, you know, there's that kind of change that happens. But change can also be good. There are good changes that happen in the world. So, I don't know. We can't control reality. Reality is not a function. So the outcome of our efforts is not something we can control. We can make our best effort. And there is some effect of that. But if we're trying to hold on to some outcome that we think has to be the outcome, that causes lots of suffering.

[29:26]

Indeed. And today I got a message from my son that ash is falling like snow here. He lives in Santa Fe. And a little bit later he sent me a note. He lives in Lucas Valley. Yes, Kayla. But she was in one side of the mess of whatever it was, whatever the issue was, and we're not willing to listen to people who have different viewpoints.

[31:40]

And it really bothered her. She really wanted people to listen to each other. And that just swelled. Really, especially in this world right now, is all these subdivisions are to be blessed. And partly because nothing will do it, and now my experience says nothing comes out of it.

[32:48]

There are reasons why things happen. There are reasons why we think what we think, and why we do what we do. And we can't necessarily water the way the rain is watering. We need to have some compassion and understanding about that. And it's also really good to hear another friend of ours, but in Chicago, say, when I'm mad, if I'm doing it, I can't declare it. Because I know what I'm going to do. I deal with people. I'm not one of those people who could be a diplomat. I'm very reasonable. That's what I'm like. Oh, I'm an idiot. And that's not going to help the situation anyway. Yeah, people on all sides are suffering. I confess I am... I don't know, if I was going to say I'm angry, I don't even know if it's that.

[33:56]

Maybe I'm angry, maybe I'm heartbroken just knowing about climate breakdown and friends in the Pacific Northwest who are suffering from fires and now in the Bay Area and people on the Gulf Coast and Southeast suffering from hurricanes and of course people all over the world and South Asia. I mean, the climate is not something that's going to happen in the future. to the next generation. It's happening right now. And the people, and I could use some epithets, who in power continue to call it a hoax, and they're profiting from it. So yeah, it's horrible and needs to be called out. It's not just denial, it's vindictive. And yet, the people who voted for those people did so out of a particular kind of suffering and particular kind of, you know, anyway, so we have to listen.

[35:08]

You're right. And being self-righteous about things doesn't seem to help. But that doesn't mean we can't state our truth. So it's really difficult. It's really difficult. And what to do about it all is really not clear. But not talking about it doesn't help either. Anyway, this is the practice of Sangha. This is the practice of being together and feeling what we're feeling and being willing to talk about it and not having answers. And each of us has our own story about who we are and what's going on. And we have this ancient twisted karma. We each have our own particular regrets and stuff that we feel bad about and stuff that we feel good about. And then we have this as a collective in our culture and for our species and how can we each and together give our best efforts to try and help and try and be aware.

[36:23]

So we can't practice alone. Being, doing sadhana is to be present and upright and pay attention and not try and fix things because we can't necessarily, but to be aware. And there's a tremendous dignity in just being present and upright and relaxed in this way. So what we're trying to do here is to build a community of sorts to be able to look at this together and to be part of the wider community of Chicago and humanity. So thank you for being here.

[37:18]

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