I'm Paul Sampson and I'm concluding that I'm projecting that actually Fenpack just works. Maybe not in every... ... [...]

[01:02]

... [...] So anyway, in the koan that Nyogen Senzaki tells, he says, there's a monk who goes to the master and says, what about the monk who's been at the monastery and leaves and never comes back? And the master says, he's an ungrateful ass. ... And what about the student who comes to the monastery

[02:07]

and leaves and then comes back again? You know, to visit or whatever. And he says, the teacher said, well, he remembers the benefits. Then the student says, well, what are the benefits? And the teacher says, heat in the summer and cold in the winter. ... So this is a marvelous answer, don't you think? And these are the kind of things like heat and cold and sweet and sour and light and dark. These are the kind of things that we kind of think it might be nice to get away from and have some freedom from these kind of things. And actually, these are the benefits. And somehow it takes doing Zen practice or, you know, something like that sometimes for us to realize that these are actually benefits. So anyway, I will tell you a little bit about what

[03:17]

I've been finding out from people who have left and, you know, I've invited them back. They've come back. It's pretty nice. ... ... So it's interesting what we were, you know, we started out to practice Zen and in a lot of ways we thought that we would become Buddhas and we would get enlightened and we would have great realization and people would recognize us after a while, you know. ... ... Nice to meet you, Buddha. And wouldn't that be nice, you know? And so as one person described this kind of practice, you know, to do this kind of practice you have to look good, okay? What's important is looking good, you know, that you look

[04:19]

like a Buddha, okay? So as this one woman described her practice, she said, I think what I was doing was making a really beautiful brick wall that kind of covered up everything that might not look good. This is pretty nice, huh? So you put on a nice robe and you show up at all the right occasions and you have the right posture and you look really good. And it's pretty nice for a while, you know? You have a new life and all that other stuff that was so troublesome, you can put in a nice closet and you have this beautiful door on the closet. And unfortunately once in a while something sort of leaks or spills out of the closet and you try to stuff it back in before anybody notices. You know, this is important. That it doesn't show

[05:23]

and that other people won't find out that maybe you're not really a Buddha. And when you're really good at this and successful at this, you not only hide it from others but you hide it from yourself, okay? So it feels pretty good for a long time, you know, it can be pretty good for a while. Then, you know, but little things happen, you know, and you kind of get reminded that you're maybe not a Buddha yet. You know, so for me, for instance, like I was being a nice Buddha and, you know, I noticed that at Tassajara, for instance, before we had the backdoor kitchen, the backdoor cafe, you know, where you can go and get a little snack at the backdoor of the kitchen. It was real important, like the food and the zhendo was really important. And any kind of tea treat was really important. And there'd be like one cookie per person. So then it was really important

[06:23]

what size cookie you got. And I told myself, it's not important to me. That's those other people. They're really into getting the largest cookie. Okay, let them go for it. I am serene. I am beyond that. Then one day somebody gave me a present. It was Mrs. Suzuki and she gave me a box of mixed salted nuts. I think they were planters. And I thought, isn't this nice? You know, somebody has recognized what a Buddha I am. And not only that, it's Mrs. Suzuki herself, you know, the master's wife. Great. And what a fine recognition this is. And I had the nuts in my room.

[07:23]

And I thought, well, one of these days I'll bring them out and share them with my friends or whatever. It would be really nice. And, you know, weeks went by, I don't know, two, three weeks anyway. And then one day, it was in the afternoon and I was kind of a little tired and a little kind of depressed maybe. You know, I opened up the nuts and I thought, well, I'll just eat a few. And, you know, I should try them out. And then I'll share them later. So I ate the nuts and I was very careful about it. You know, I had like four or five nuts. You know, like one of each kind. A Brazil nut and a pecan and a walnut and an almond, you know, and a couple peanuts. They were very good. They were salty. And greasy. They were really exquisitely delicious under the circumstances.

[08:25]

They were so exquisitely delicious that I decided to postpone sharing them with everyone. You know, for another day or two. And I carefully ate that box of nuts over the period of two or three weeks, you know, a few each day. It was very disciplined. I wasn't really greedy about it. But after all that, I kind of had to acknowledge that I hadn't ever shared them with anybody else. Not a single nut. Not even a single nut for a bird or, you know, a squirrel. You know, I had hoarded them. And so I had to kind of admit this was sort of too obvious, you know, to overlook. And it wasn't very easy

[09:28]

to hide it from myself, you know, that maybe I was, that I also had some greed, you know, and some sense of trying to, you know, accumulate something for myself that others weren't going to get. So, you know, the little brick wall, the nice beautiful brick wall there, it sort of slips at times and falls apart. And then you try to put it back together, you know, so you can look good in your practice and carry on. And so you look like a Buddha, okay? So, this is interesting, you know, so we actually did this for a long time, and so we didn't want to you know what, another place, one of the places where things get messy is like if you have a friend or a lover or a spouse or marriage or kids, you know, somehow you can't, when you're

[10:29]

doing that, you can't, it's not so easy to look like a Buddha, okay? So, if you want to do this, look like a Buddha practice, it's better to leave, you know, that life and come to the monastery and then not have those kind of relationships with people that might get a little messy or sticky, you know, because those will spoil your, that will spoil your image. So, we followed the schedule, you know, and we did all this kind of practice. And years went by. And then for various reasons we tended to, you know, leave Zen Center. And it seems like, actually what happens is that by doing this kind of practice, pretty soon you begin to realize that there's something else going on, you know, there's still this old life

[11:33]

and there's all these, there's these kind of feelings and actually we begin to notice that we have this, something inside that wants to express itself, wants to be with people and work with people, relate to people, connect with people, you know, heal with people. And so, that means that you know, that means family and friends. A couple of the people who came started doing 12-step programs. They could actually talk about what's going on in their life and actually begin to honor or treasure or realize that what's inside and not being expressed and what used to be something you hid and didn't let other people know about is actually this treasure

[12:36]

that you can use and express and offer to others and share with others and it becomes a great gift. Okay? Very interesting, isn't it? And yet we couldn't do that right at the start. Couldn't do that right off. We needed to sort of close up for a while and begin to find out that this was a treasure actually and not something we needed to keep walled up. Okay? So, in thinking about this, I was reminded of a couple other stories that Nyogen Senzaki tells about some koans. One is, he says, one time a priest from Japan came to visit his little zendo in Los Angeles and while they were in the meditation hall, the priest said, what is Zen? And Nyogen Senzaki said, excuse me, but here in the meditation hall we sit,

[13:38]

this is where we sit in silence. And so, a while later they were in the library and the priest started to ask again, what is Zen? And he said, shh, this is the library. This is where we sit and read in silence. And when they got to the kitchen before the priest could ask again, he said, this is the kitchen where we work in silence and we eat our food mindfully in silence. And then when the monk was leaving, when the priest was leaving, he gasped, what is Zen? And then he was gone. And so, this is one sort of feeling about, one kind of flavor about what Zen is. We don't talk about it. And in a way, you know, we took this kind of literally for a long time. You know, doing Zen practice, like

[14:40]

we're not going to talk about it. We're not going to talk about ourselves and, you know, our feelings or, you know, and so on. But there was another story that Nyogen Senzaki tells and he says, what is Zen? And a student asked the teacher and the teacher answered with a you know, a Chinese term. I'm not, you know, up in my Chinese, but it's something like Zen. T-S or Z or Zen. And Nyogen Senzaki says, the meaning of this word is as a noun, it means mother, father or self. That's pretty close to home, isn't it? And then as an adjective, he says, it means what is, you know, most precious or most valuable. And then as a noun, it's to love,

[15:40]

to see constantly, to know thoroughly, to understand through and through. It's what's most intimate. What's closest to the heart. This is what we're trying to know in our Zen practice. And at some point, you know, it becomes much more important to begin really to express it and to act on it and to actually manifest it in one's life. And sometimes that's possible to do by staying at Zen Center. Sometimes we have to go out in the world to manifest or express this heart, you know, the feeling that's there. So one of our, you know, former students, Tony is, Tony Pacho works now as a, he said, somebody asked him, well, why did you stop doing

[16:44]

Zen practice? And he said, well, it was really good medicine. But, you know, after a while, you keep taking the good medicine and you're already cured. And then pretty soon, it's making you sick. And he says, I got bored. I got bored being at Zen Center. So I went out. And, you know, he did various things. And now, finally, he's working as a therapist for the city of San Francisco. And his clients are street people, homeless people who primarily are IV drug users with AIDS. It's very difficult work. But you can see how this is, you know, this is a real work of the heart for him. And also, it's very clear, you know, that he sees in each person what they say about a bodhisattva, seeing the Buddha nature in each person without exception. You know, no matter how, in other terms, no matter how

[17:48]

bad the person looks, these are people who aren't able to cover up much of anything. No nice brick walls here, you know. No nice smooth exteriors. You know, it's much more raw than that. You know, often with, he said, you know, I didn't realize, but there's actually people, you know, homeless people who have maggots falling out of their stomachs and, you know, often foot problems and maggots in their feet because they're on their feet so much. And he mentioned one person that they had to go to the hospital and take him out of the hospital because the hospital wasn't treating him. You know, they just have him off in a room someplace and they're not, and they're abandoning him. They're letting him starve to death, basically. You know, he should be, this is somebody who's very dehydrated, you know, and he should be on IV. And they had to take him out of one hospital and take him to another hospital where he would actually be treated. So Tony, you know, so Tony told us about his work

[18:51]

and, you know, the kind of caring, deep, you know, caring and, you know, non-abandoning of sentient beings is very obvious there. Non-abandoning of sentient beings, seeing what is most precious, Buddha nature or, you know, some light, some value in each person and respecting that, knowing that, meeting that, trying to bring that out and help, you know, people realize that. And he said, oh, well, sometimes now, when he practices meditation, it's very different. Now, he said, it's like a cool drink on a hot day, you know, and you're very thirsty and it's so refreshing to be able to sit. And before, he was

[19:56]

much more in that kind of mode of, make it look good. And he said, you know, he said, you know, accomplish something, have something to show for it, get others to respect you, you know, by your good-looking practice. Another one of our former students, it was really, I enjoyed it very much and it was kind of funny because, you know, now he says, I hate that Buddhism stuff. And he's very involved with his family, his children. He works fairly short hours so he can spend more time with his family. Even though he's running a restaurant now, you know, he limits the amount of time that he works. It's not as successful as it would be, you know, if he worked 12 or 14 hours a day. He works about 6 hours a day so that he'll have plenty of time

[20:59]

for his daughter and his wife. And he said a while back he had bought some tapes by Jack Kornfield and he thought he would listen to them, get a little enlightenment on the way to work, you know, to and from work. And he listened for a little bit and then after a while he just threw them away. He said, I hate that Buddhism stuff. It was very refreshing. And somebody asked him, you know, you have a family, you have a daughter, you have a business, don't you find that this is sort of like these are attachments? And do you try to have some detachment with these attachments? And he said, no, I don't think about that at all. Why can he say that, you know? Why he says that, he's very clear about it, is because he did Zen practice.

[22:02]

And by doing Zen practice he says, now I actually have confidence in myself. What's going on with me? I know what's going on with me. And then I act on what's going on with me and if there's a problem, then I'll relate to that. I'll do something about that. I'll do something about that. But I don't dream these things up. Or that somebody else says would be good, you should have some detachment with your attachments. Why would I put that on myself? He's a very good example of don't put another head above your own head. Don't make up these kind of things about, oh, I should be more detached. Oh, I should be this. Oh, I should be that. I should get it together. On and on, all this stuff. He says, I hate that stuff. So he's and it's very clear he has a real feeling for the fact that practicing Zen, sincerely doing meditation, living in Zen center all that time, has given him this kind of confidence.

[23:08]

You know, in his own life, in his own feelings, and that he can actually now you know, these are, and what was before kind of contained and enclosed and you know, you were looking good on that, this is now something that you use in your life. This is the treasure. Now he just spends his treasure. You know, with his family, with his friends, in his business, with the people he works with. And he uses that, which is himself, you know, and his sensibilities and his feelings. And he can use them, you see? And the same with, you know, we have a school teacher Laura now teaches fifth grade or something. She says, I try to see my kids as luminous beings. You know, like, sit down, you little luminous being.

[24:10]

We were joking about that. So, it's interesting now that, you know, I look at this, to see actually that this, that kind of, you know, practice, which in some ways, you know, we can laugh at. This practice of looking good, and you know, I made an exquisite brick wall that covered up every, you know, all the problems from my life, so I wouldn't have to relate to them. And actually this was, you know, developing a new way or structure of how to relate to what's really going on in one's life. Actually, there's a place for this kind of practice, you know,

[25:21]

making a nice wall, you know, isolating yourself, sitting facing the wall. There's a place and a value for this, and it helps us actually to find, you know, confidence and to actually know how we feel, what we really think, what actually our heart is, what really is of value, and to find out that we want to, you know, know and express our heart. And then to meet others and to, you know, have difficulties and pains and work to resolving them, you know. Whether it's with school kids or homeless people or customers at your restaurant or, you know, Peter Vandersteer, also who's the, you know, head of our construction crew here, came and talked. So he, same thing, you know,

[26:22]

he's found a way to really express what's in him, in the world, in activity. But it may very well be that he couldn't have done that, you know, without taking this time to settle himself. And he had to make a real decision at some point. After doing that for some time, he very clearly came to a kind of decision of, you know, wanting to connect with others. He could see his tendency was to isolate himself. Nice place. Waiting for people, he said, to recognize me. My understanding. So now he can do, you know, relate with people, and it's hard for him sometimes, you know. But it's also very, you know, clearly

[27:23]

very fulfilling for him. There's some real fulfillment there in meeting with people and working with people, family life. Although very difficult, very painful, also very fulfilling. And so it very much is that what started out like to be these places where you don't look good is actually the benefit. You know, the place where there's a problem and where you're exposed, where you're vulnerable, where you look bad. This is actually this treasure and this benefit. This place of treasure and benefit and value and fulfillment, well-being is coming to us through those places. ...

[28:33]

... [...] But, again, it seems to be sometimes necessary to have some ... opportunity to not have to be in the midst of all of that stuff all the time, right? To have some opportunity for a kind of quiet, to digest things, to absorb things, and to stabilize yourself, strengthen yourself, know yourself, to be able to see and realize, appreciate that those actually are the benefits, the places where we're hot and cold and

[29:37]

where we're overjoyed and in tears and so on. These are real benefits and that we have this treasure in our heart of all of our feelings that we want to express and relate to others around. ... I'd like to close my talk then with a short quote from Stephen Levine that was in one of his little announcements. Stephen Levine is someone who you may know, he and his wife, Andrea, worked for many years with dying people, people with diseases, life-threatening diseases. Before he did that work, he was a meditation student for 10 or 15 years in the Vipassana tradition. ...

[30:39]

So, this is what he says, this short thing, which I appreciated. We're all in the same boat. Sometimes the heart is wide open and all seems perfectly attuned. At other times the mind is clouded and it's very difficult to find the path of healing. But when the mind is clear, we see all the way to our heart and know it well. Each of us is approaching the healing we took birth for. May all beings be free from suffering and may each of us discover the light of our true nature.

[31:44]

And express the treasure of our heart. Thank you very much. ... Things you'd like to bring up, you're welcome to do so. ... [...]

[32:57]

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