Good morning and welcome. So this is not the Dharma talk I planned to give this morning, even early yesterday afternoon. Things change. So a little more than a week ago, we had a leak in our apartment. The old pipes in our building leaked from the bathroom in the apartment above us, actually into the wall, one wall of my office. Long story short, during this week we had workers in our apartment opening up the ceiling of our bathroom and one wall of my office, which required me to clear away from the wall of my office papers and various other things that had accumulated over some years.

[01:11]

I ended up taking out four big bags of recycling and a couple of bags of trash, which was a good thing and needed to be done. So I want to talk today about impermanence and resilience and how this has to do with our practice. So this was an inconvenience, relatively minor. You know, things happen. People receive diagnoses. People in our sangha have had to move their whole house or apartment or are preparing to do so. People lose their jobs or get new jobs. People get diagnoses or friends do of various kinds.

[02:12]

Impermanence change is basic principle of Buddhism. Anyway, yesterday, midday, I realized the talk I was planning to give, which was part of the series of talks I've been giving about the background of Japanese Buddhism in our practice. I hadn't had time to prepare and wasn't going to, and so I'll do that some other time. Yeah, things change. Unexpected things happen. And we've all experienced that or will experience that in many ways. So this practice of zazen that we do, sitting still and upright, not moving, sitting, being present, being attentive, is a wonderful training in the practice, one of the traditional bodhisattva practices of patience, of tolerance.

[03:32]

When things happen, unexpected things that change our plans that get in the way of what we hope to do. How do we find this practice of patience? This is a wonderful, important practice, central practice. So as we sit, we need to be patient with, oh, I don't know, sometimes we sit for a day at a time or for more than for half a day or whatever, with physical discomfort. How do we tolerate that? Maybe more to the point is when we feel

[04:37]

discomfort with our thoughts and feelings when we see our own patterns of grasping and anger and confusion. How do we pay attention and be patient and just study, we say, these, we could call them negative emotions, but they're just our feelings, reality. And an important part of our practice is to become familiar, to become intimate with ourself and our own stuff, to use the technical term. How do we get to know our own graspings and desires and frustrations And the more we become intimate with that, the more we don't need to react to it, the more we can have some space around it, the more we can remember to breathe.

[05:47]

And it's not necessarily that it goes away and they become, over time, more subtle. But we have some space to respond more skillfully to the frustrations. and not be overwhelmed by some unexpected difficulty that arises. So this practice of patience is really central to the Bodhisattva practice, the practice we do here of not of awakening together. So we practice together and we realize that we are practicing together with all beings. So this is true in terms of becoming resilient, becoming steady, becoming able to

[06:53]

just pay attention and do what needs to be done when something happens that derails our expectations. Then to see that actually, as I realized last week, okay, well, this is something I needed to get done anyway. It's not what I wanted to do this week, but okay, here I go. It was inconvenient. how do we practice with beyond our convenience, beyond our usual expectations. So this is true in terms of our own lives and the lives of people around us, family and friends and neighbors. But it's also true in the sense of bodhisattva life, where we realize we're not just practicing by ourselves.

[08:01]

This practice of zazen is not something we do alone. In some ways, we do. In some ways, we're each sitting on our own seat facing our own piece of the wall. But we do it together. So the Bodhisattva practice is about universal awakening. And this is a communal practice. Even when you're sitting at home facing the wall, and for people who are here for the first time and just had meditation instructions as an instruction, even when you sit at home alone, many people are there. Many beings are on your seat right now. All the people you've ever known, family, friends, teachers, are part of what is on your seat right now. And we don't just practice for ourselves. It's not just a self-help practice. We benefit. But as we sit, part of the practice of patience is studying our impatience, wondering if the dawan fell asleep and forgot to ring the bell.

[09:05]

All the things that we may feel in our impatience is how we learn patience. And we do this together with all the people in our world. So our world also suffers from difficulties. not just a burst pipe in the apartment above us, but massive earthquakes in the Caribbean recently that devastated not just one apartment, but a whole masses of people in our own society. There are communal sources of upset and difficulties that, you know, Our whole world, our whole society is facing inequality, injustice, racial discrimination.

[10:10]

I mean, there's a long list. We all know this. Attacks on women particularly, on gender injustice, environmental decay, climate. the challenges to our democratic and electoral systems recently. So we can talk about patience or in other words, resilience. How do we find steadiness? So this is true for each of us, for our own lives, sitting on our own seats, studying ourselves, but how do we do this active practice of patience, this attentive practice of patience together for our world. How do we not succumb to impatience?

[11:13]

How do we keep paying attention and see how we can respond with a positive attitude? So patience is about finding our energy to be responsive, to say, oh, OK, well, I needed to clear away all of this stuff that I recycled anyway. I wasn't going to do it this week. I had been planning to do it for months and months and months. And here I am. So there's more that I need to do along those lines. But anyway, how do we take care of the difficulties? How do we find our persistence in the face of, you know, the difficulties facing our world, difficulties facing our communities. Again, we practice together with each other and, you know, on so many levels.

[12:19]

So how do we support each other in Sangha community? Sangha means the Buddhist community, but actually it could be the community of all beings. So this particular Ancient Dragon Zen Gate Sangha is, you know, pretty lively and a lot of experienced people. And we come together various times during the week to sit and do formal practice together. And how do we support each other? So part of that is just showing up, as you all have done this morning. And there's all the people who might have showed up this morning who aren't here. And I'm aware of a lot of them who are also in this room in some way. How do we find our steadiness and flexibility? And we each have our own difficulties, our own burst pipes, our own diagnoses, our own situations of challenge.

[13:27]

And then we have these together. How do we persist? How do we find our steadiness, our willingness to face all of these challenges in our world? And we don't necessarily, with these big challenges, know what to do. But we look at these. So patience has to do with being aware, being attentive, being willing to just keep our eyes open and face the wall. So there are walls everywhere in our life. And the walls don't block us, and they don't keep certain people out. The walls are windows and doors to open us to our connectedness to everything in our life, to everyone, to all beings.

[14:29]

Everyone's included. So in the SOTOS and teachers lists that I am involved with, there's been much discussion about how to respond in our communities, particularly to climate issues. And there's mass extinction of species now. I think you all know about this. Some of you are responding to it in various ways. People on the West Coast particularly have been subject to fires enhanced by climate, are particularly sensitive to this, and are trying to organize their sanghas to act together. I feel like this sangha is People are acting in various ways and there are many challenges.

[15:32]

In our city, there's gun violence and there's inequality and many people here are acting in various ways. I want to encourage people to let everybody else know what you're doing and people can join together and that's happening in a lot of ways. Chris Fortin, who's a friend of mine who's a teacher, Zen teacher in Sebastopol, Sonoma County. I read her account of having to, a while back, of having to abandon her temple, of being displaced by the fires. She sent out a Ikasatva vows that she and her sangha chant together. not instead of the bodhisattva vows that we will chant, but I think they do this in addition. So I thought I'd read these ekasattva vows that they chant.

[16:43]

Based on my love of the world and understanding of deep interdependence of all things, I vow, To live in earth more lightly and less violently in the food, products, and energy I consume. To commit myself daily to the healing of the world and the welfare of all beings. To discern and replace human systems of oppression and harm. To invite personal discomfort as an opportunity to share in the challenge of our collective liberation. to draw inspiration, strength, and guidance from the living Earth, from our ancestors and the future generations, and from our siblings of all species, to help others in their work for the world, and to ask for help when I feel the need, to pursue a daily spiritual practice that clarifies my mind, strengthens my heart, and supports me in observing these vows.

[17:51]

So, numbers of things in this seem important to me. To invite personal discomfort, to go beyond our comfort zones. Sometimes when something happens, when we have to take care of a friend or family member who's received some diagnosis or who's in trouble, we have to go beyond our personal comfort zones or when we want to respond to some difficulty in our world and we feel driven to or are moved to take some action. It means going beyond our comfort zones. We can draw inspiration and guidance from the living Earth. It's very clear that the Earth itself is in some sense alive. you know, the fires devastating Australia, these massive earthquakes in the Caribbean and elsewhere.

[18:57]

The Earth is a living biosystem and, you know, like the Amazon biosystem, it's being devastated now. And peoples and many species are being destroyed. Many, Probably Kiyoshin can tell us the extent of species extinction going on now, but it's massive. But also to pursue a daily spiritual practice. So this Zazen practice we do, I encourage every day Zazen, or several times a week. So I don't know. Would anyone like me to read those again? Yes, Dylan. Eko Satva Vows. Based on my love of the world and understanding of deep interdependence of all things, I vow to live on Earth more lightly and less violently in the food, products, and energy I consume, to commit myself daily to the healing of the world,

[20:07]

and the welfare of all beings, to discern and replace human systems of oppression and harm, to invite personal discomfort as an opportunity to share in the challenge of our collective liberation, to draw inspiration, strength, and guidance from the living earth, from our ancestors and the future generations, and from our siblings of all species. So the guidance from the living earth recalls the bodhisattvas coming out of the earth in the Lotus Sutra. To help others in their work for the world and to ask for help when I feel the need. To pursue a daily spiritual practice that clarifies my mind. strengthens my heart and supports me in observing these vows. So I'll post these out front and I can send copies to anyone. If people want to chant these here, we can try and do that.

[21:10]

So again, there's no real separation between our own personal practice on our cushion in our own everyday life, and how this applies to all the different, many different aspects of how things are going in the world, in our world. How do we find patience? How do we find steadiness? How do we find flexibility to respond? With kindness, not with judgment and not blaming certain people. I mean, it's easy to do that, but it's not about particular people. It's about the actions of greed and hate and confusion and fear. And certain people maybe manifest those and spread those, and so we can speak against those actions.

[22:14]

But how do we find our own patience, our own steadiness? And this practice of zazen and the practices we do here are, you know, not the only practices that can help to support this resilience and steadiness and patience. They certainly can help with that. So maybe that's enough for me to say. Any comments or responses or questions about this, about any of this, about patience and resilience? Yes, Kyoshi. and walking and connecting with each other and with a very beautiful, natural area.

[23:32]

If that is something you're interested in, please talk to Adrienne or Dylan. We need helpers. It's quite a transformative experience in some of the specific ways that those vows Thank you. Yeah, going beyond our comfort zones is in a way is at the heart of our practice. It's not, you know, most people, you know, just, you know, if we took a survey out on Irving Park Road or, you know, on Lincoln Avenue, would think that sitting still and silent for 40 minutes was not a comfortable practice. So to go beyond what we think of as our comfort zone is a way to actually expand our capacity, our ability to actually be responsive

[24:46]

and to be helpful to ourselves, and to the world, and to each other, and to the people we want to help, and the beings we want to help. And there are many beings who need help now. So yeah, thank you for that, Kiyoshin. So in announcements, I'll talk about more opportunities to be uncomfortable. Other comments or responses? Yes, Asha. but also in the face of life's impermanence. I used to lie awake at night worrying about various things, and how I was going to make some mistake and lose my job, and that was going to lead to losing my house.

[25:56]

And one night, I just went all the way down. And when I got to the bottom of losing everything, I discovered that I probably could still get a job working in a soup kitchen, and I would still be able to help people. I haven't been that worried since then. But it was recognizing that what was at the bottom of that was wanting to still connect with others and wanting to still be helpful. And when we can practice for a while and develop some of the ability to tolerate a lot of discomfort, we can really use that very thing And we find that what we think of as discomfort is not that uncomfortable. In fact, we can learn to enjoy some of what we thought might be really uncomfortable. But actually, there's some joy in doing what's difficult.

[27:04]

other responses or questions or if you disagree. Yes, Belinda. Yes. but it's the lack of control. I don't know when or how this is going to happen, it just happens at an inconvenient time. So it's also a way for people to practice letting go. This is not quite the time.

[28:15]

What would happen if there were more events? Yes. Thank you. I think that's very important. Yes, this idea of being in control. Of course, there are things we can control. You all managed to control your circumstances enough to show up here this morning. Ultimately, on some level, there's nothing we can control. Things happen, and it's all beyond our control. And nothing happens according to our expectations. Whatever we expect, you know, the dharma talk I expected to give this morning is not what happened, you know, for example. But everything is because the world is alive, because we are alive, what actually happens is not what we thought would happen a day before or even 10 minutes before.

[29:16]

The world is alive, and we are alive. And to enjoy that means giving up our idea of controlling everything. So thank you, Belinda. Yes. Did you want to say something else? Okay. Well, thank you everyone. I mean, we can stop early if nobody else has. Dylan. couple of years ago our relationship ended and we were together for a couple of years and we thought we were going to be friends after we weren't in a romantic relationship anymore and that hit a serious

[30:28]

You know, I was going to be losing this person in my life. months ago that basically was just building a bridge between us again. It was because, I think, that we had taken that much time. we'll get together and have coffee sometime.

[31:48]

And just the fact that we had given each other that much space that made it possible for that healing to happen was really wonderful. That's great. Thank you for that story. So that points to a couple of things I wanted to say in relation to that. Part of patience is time. taking time. So being resilient means to just allow the time to be present and attentive and to wait for the bell to ring, to wait for the next thing, to wait for... It also has to do with creativity, to be flexible. to allow something different beyond our expectations, beyond what we think should happen, beyond our control. So part of resilience is this sense of openness to what we don't know, beyond what we think should happen.

[32:57]

beyond our programs, beyond what we expect, to go beyond our comfort and usual patterns. So this is opening up the idea of patience and resilience, to be flexible, to be open, to be creative about how we put something together or allow something to come up. Creativity is not about control either. It's about allowing something new, some accident maybe or some new situation. So thank you, Don. Thank you for all the comments. Are there any other reflections? Yes. that I don't like is that I tell myself everything's working on my behalf.

[34:08]

In spite of what I think. It's so like, I'm going to say, oh my God, our job together ended.

[35:18]

And I started respecting that, that these situations are working for the better of all. And that gives me some peace, that I feel like, okay, it's okay. Let me add something to that, which is that I think, of course, there are situations that are tragedies, that are difficult, that are things that are happening in the world now that are really horrible, where there's massive harm happening to the children in cages on the southern border, for example.

[36:43]

There's so many examples. But I think in terms of responding to them, what your attitude you're pointing to is maybe And rather than feeling overwhelmed or overcome or like, oh, no, there's nothing we can do, to have the attitude you're talking about then, how can we have that positive attitude? Not that everything will work out in sort of Pollyanna way, but just, OK, I'm going to bring that kind of positive attitude that you expressed to how can I respond to whatever the situation is. But it's not that everything, you know, it's not that there are not horrible things that happen. So this is a difficult world and a difficult time. And still, and difficult things happen. And, you know, people we love get, have bad diagnoses and, you know, and things happen in the world that are horrible and tragic.

[37:43]

And yet, rather than just feel overcome and just, oh no, there's nothing to do and this is horrible. To have an attitude of how can I bring my most positive, creative, resilient love to the situation is how we can make things better. So maybe unless there's some burning response, anyone has, maybe we'll stop there. And thank you all very much.

[38:18]

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