Ron Nestor:  Good morning! I’d like to introduce Linda Weintraub who’s a priest from San Francisco Zen Center. This is the first time that she’s given a lecture here. But she’s friends with Mel and Liz, so she’s been here several times recently just to visit them. She has a daughter who’s only three months older than Daniel, so she’s, you know, a kind of consultant with Liz. [inaudible]. Welcome!

Linda: Good morning! It’s very wonderful to be at the Berkeley Zendo. The first time I was ever here was (can you hear me alright?) 

 

Student A: Yeah

 

Linda: was when I was going to school at Berkeley and the Berkeley Zendo was at the other place, the other address. I hadn’t sat here until this morning for, maybe it’s about ten years now or, yeah, about ten years. It was a wonderful feeling of energy in the zendo. It was cold, very cold morning, and you could see your breath. It reminded me of being at Tassajara: everybody so full of a lot of vigor. The chanting was espcially energetic, I thought.

 

Happy New Year to everyone! On New Year’s Eve at Zen Center in San Francisco we did…the usual thing we do is sit zazen. The period of zazen lasts through twelve o’clock. At twelve o’clock we’d start the bell 108 times. And while that’s going on, San Francisco sort of bursts into noise: firecrackers and cars honking.Think the Berkeley Zendo does the same thing: sits. But we did something new this year, which was to have what was called a fire ceremony. We actually kind of invented it. We hadn’t done it before. After the sitting, we all came upstairs to the courtyard. If you’re not familiar with the Zen Center building in San Francisco, there’s a courtyard, and there was a big fire that was built in this giant wok, you know, the Chinese woks, big fire. We burned many things. We burned the zazen attendance records for the year [laughter] and all the little stubs of incense. You know that, after the incense burns down, what’s sitting in the ash itself doesn’t burn, so you’re left with a little stub.The ino, the head of the meditation hall, had been saving those for many years. There was a big bowl, literally, you could take handfuls and toss them onto the fire. We burned those. And we also burned the memorial cards of the names of people who have died are written on a card for a memorial service. The ino also didn’t know what to do with those because you can’t just, there’s something about that piece of paper that it just doesn’t work to just toss it in a wastepaper basket. So we burned those. And then anyone else who wanted to write something down on a piece of paper that they wanted to toss away, they could do that too. There was paper and pens provided and baskets. You could write something down and toss it into the fire.

 

Many, many people wrote things down, and wrote several things down. And something else would occur and they’d go back for another piece of paper. Meanwhile, incense is being thrown on and it’s all going up in big waves of clouds of smoke. It’s a very powerful ceremony. Actually, it had a very pagan kind of feeling to it in some ways.

 

I knew the ceremony was happening, and I tried to think what it was that I wanted to throw away or get rid of or finish in some way. Actually, when I thought about it in that way, getting rid of something or burning something up, that wasn’t quite what I had in mind, that didn’t feel so useful, to try to get rid of something. What I realized was that, the writing it down and then tossing it into the fire, was actually, rather than getting rid of something, it was taking something on or acknowledging that I want to work with this, and making something very conscious by forming it into a phrase or words, and saying, “I’m going to work with this now”.

 

So out of the five or six pieces of paper I threw in the fire, one of them had to do with, what is it to practice within busy, busy everyday activities?

 

As Ron mentioned, I have a daughter who’s pretty young; she’s nine months now. There was quite a big change from before (Sarah’s her name) before Sarah was here and now. Before Sarah was here, it was…I didn’t realize it actually, but it was very easy to get to the Zendo quite often, and schedule my day in such a way that I could actually get something done, be somewhere on time, participate with Zen Center in a way that was very full. But actually, before Sarah was born, in the nine months when I was carrying her around, everything changed. I wasn’t able to do, I could barely sit a period of zazen actually, just physically. I would get dizzy and my legs fell asleep and I couldn’t get up and I couldn’t get down and I couldn’t bow. So it was rather problematical. And then when Sarah arrived, the problems increased in terms of the strict, a strict understanding of formal practice.

 

I think that’s true for many people. It may not be that they have a baby to take care of or a child, that they have a profession or their life situation is such that it may be very complicated and demands all of your effort and concentration to take care of what you need to take care of. So I’ve been asking myself, what is useful to do in that situation? Well, the feeling that often sort of descends upon you is that it’s impossible and I can’t do it and it’s no use. There’s no use trying, that kind of feeling, sort of a downward spiral of thoughts.

 

At the Shuso Ceremony, the Tassajara Shuso Ceremony, there’s a phrase that the Shuso (the shuso is the head student for the practice period), and there’s a big ceremony at the end of the practice period in which they answer questions. Each student in the practice period asks a question. There’s a poem that they say right before the questions begin which says, “though only a mosquito biting an iron bull, I cannot give it away,” I think is what the phrase means. They have this responsibility and there’s nothing they can do. “Only a mosquito biting an iron bull”.  Usually you don’t want to be a mosquito trying to bite an iron bull, we want to be a bull fighter, right in there, equal to the task and winning out, actually accomplishing things. We want to accomplish things.

 

But that mosquito…Actually it occurred to me that the bull, the iron bull, probably gets rusty, and there’s probably these places where the mosquito gets in, but we don’t talk about that. The mosquito, that effort that the mosquito is making to bite the iron bull, find a place to bite, is very pure effort. Actually, what Buddhism is more interested in, or concerned with, is effort, pure, perfect effort, not perfect accomplishment or perfect attainment. The making of the effort itself, over and over again, that’s what it’s all about. It’s not getting things to such a point where it’s all taken care of and you’ve won.

 

When I hear that, when I’ve heard that before, perfect effort, not perfect accomplishment…I remember the first time I heard it was like a flood, the flood of relief came over me because perfect effort is something you can, you could actually…It kindles you, perfect effort. Perfect accomplishment is…It drains you more, to think about it even.

 

So then, what is perfect effort, or what is effort and then, what is perfect effort? 

 

There’s many things in Buddhist practice, Zen practice, that helps you in making effort. Now you may not realize that when you first hear about them. For example, our posture…Oh, I would say our posture, working with our posture is one of the main first and strongest ways to work with perfect effort. I mean our posture in zazen in the cross-legged position, and also outside of the zendo in everyday activity. In zazen, we’re taught…If you come to zazen instruction or have been sitting, you know that we’re asked to keep the spine straight, pull up on the back of our head, bring your chin in so it points…Actually those little points are these vast universes between chin out and chin in. It may feel like some technique..But actually if it helps you and if it’s useful and if you find it useful, it’s okay. So finding in your daily acticitvities, finding some way that you are, that you’re with yourself, and if you can remember to remember to put your consciousness in your spine, pull up on your head, and breathe…

 

When I first came to Zen Center, actually within the first month, a friend asked me to come to tea to her room at Zen Center San Francisco. She made tea and she sat in seiza. Do you know seiza position when you sit on your knees, sit on your heels? She sat very beautifully. She just drank tea and we chatted. I realized that, I think I was sort of half leaning on something with a leg up, kind of sprawled all over, and I realized that she was very concentrated on what she was doing, even though it was a little social gathering that we were having, just having tea. But she was very…she knew what she was doing. It made a big impression on me, that there was a way, that there was a way to do something that was more helpful, and more, that allowed you to be with people more completely. You could put yourself in that position. You could choose to do it.

 

The other very helpful, what I found helpful in finding your practice within everyday activities, busy life, is to ask yourself a question, a question that comes from your own life is the most powerful.But a question that says, if all day long, from morning till night, you asked yourself, is what I’m doing helpful to other people and helpful to myself? That kind of thinking, for every action that you do, whatever it is, that begins to work. It works.

 

As I listen to myself talk, it sounds like, oh, I’ve heard all this stuff before, and yeah, yeah, I know all about that. But I want to know how to practice…It’s interesting because It’s true. We hear the same things over and over again. But there’s a difference between hearing it and actually experimenting with it. An older friend of mine who’s a golfer, and was a very good golfer when he was younger, a champion of various places, began to lose his golf game as he got older. He couldn't, he couldn’t play the way he played before. He was working with this. And finally it began to come back again.

 

When I asked him about it, ”What was it? What did you find? What did you change?,” what he said was, “You know what the secret is? Keep your eye on the ball [laughter].” You’ve heard that before. I think he was about in his sixties, so maybe he’d been golfing since he was ten or so. He’d been playing for fifty years. So that was the revelation. It’s the same with zazen posture. It’s…watch your posture and watch your breathing and watch your own mind.

 

Well what does that mean? 

 

I think there’s a tendency when we do have busy, busy lives that toss us around, throw us back and forth, there’s a tendency to want to find some place where it’s quiet and some place where you can push that all away and just sit zazen or study. Actually that’s very useful sometimes, to set aside some time to do that. But within that, you cannot reject those things that come up, the daily events, to take those on, to enter those…

 

When Mel asked me to, I was talking with Mel about giving the talk, I was saying, I hadn't been able to work on it. There was just one thing after another would keep coming up. I would have it set up that there’d be childcare for Sarah so I could have a couple hours in the afternoon to think about it, and something would come up. And it just…that went on for day after day this past week. So I told him I was going to talk about that [laughter].

 

He knew what I was, what I meant. He had been up at three, I think, with Daniel the night before.

 

But I realized there were several months when I didn’t get to zazen at all, when Sarah was first born. But it was fine. I didn’t mind in the least. I didn’t resent her or wish it could be any differently. But when I went to the zendo finally and sat down, it was heart and soul amazing to be there, that there was such a place. Then when someone tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Can you leave? Sarah’s crying,” [laughs] that was all right too.

 

The pure effort is not that you got to finish that period of zazen with everyone or follow the morning schedule, but it’s being ready to take on whatever the next thing is, willingly, even if it’s kind of sticky, sticky business or not so fun, to enter it with your, pulling up on the back of your head, doing the next thing.

 

I was reading this poem, written to a layman, written by a zen master named [Dao Huiji?]. And the layman had written that he had found some joyful release feeling and quiet and opening up, and I actually can’t quote exactly what happened to the layman, but Dao Hui wrote back saying, joyous mind, in this pure joy’s mindedness makes people weary. Too much purity makes people go crazy. Come on, you know! Let’s get with it here. That’s not where it’s at.

 

The end of the poem was about water taking the form of whatever vessel it is in, be it square or long or short or round. There’s opportunity everywhere we are, from wherever we are. We don’t have to go any special place or be with certain people, although some people are very good friends and make it easier. Still, we have to find it on our own.

 

I think that’s all I wanted to say this morning. Does anyone have any questions or something they’d like to talk about?

 

Student B: I wanted to ask you…Mel had said one time that there are things we should,  to do is to cultivate, to seeing a state of mind in everyday affairs that one has in the zendo. I wondered if with the fragmentation of your life that you describe in the physical orientation of it, if you find that you are able, more and more, to maintain that quiet, even though you were obliged to go from one activity to another.

 

Linda: Did everyone hear the question?

 

Well, I, I have to admit it goes both ways. It changes. I’ve found…Someone once said to me that they felt they were a better person if they sat zazen in the early morning periods, if they fought with that sleepiness and got up when the wake up bell went off, they actually treated people in a different way and were less arrogant during the day and that kind of thing…they really saw the difference.

 

I’ve found that I’m able to take quite a bit in a certain…one thing after another, one thing after another, but then, I get [??30:58] or everything sort of dissolves, so what I realize, and within then, it’s sort of gathering up again within the dissolving, and that’s hard. Listening to the turning, what I’m doing, turning it in, and saying, “Boy, I really am being sort of fractious!” I’m able to listen to my tone of voice. It’s the state of mind that’s in the zendo, that state of mind of turning, turning in, that actually, that quality is there. That quality is there. But what’s happening may be, you know, quite extreme.

 

Student C: You said that.. you talked about the pure effort. I hadn’t thought of it before, what a release it is to have the purity of the effort, rather than result. Think effort! That’s quite a wonderful notion! But something that bothers me about that is that it seems to, although, a very strong effort seems to build a kind of strength, which gives you a certain kind of something to rely upon, but sometimes it seems to me that it can also build a kind of hardness, where you are trying so hard, and you’re so sleepy and you’re so tired, and it can go on and go on, and there seems to be a closing down that takes place, some part of you that closes down while making that kind of effort; that you’re in a way blinded to certain things that you might see if you were, not relaxed, but, in a way more in harmony with your surroundings, in which you didn’t have to make all that effort.

 

Linda: um, hmm..

 

Student C: There’s something of that sort; but I don’t know.

 

Linda: I know what you mean.

 

Student C: I wanted to keep from going the other side. I guess that’s a two point dilemma between being lazy and being wise.

 

Linda: That’s exactly right. Did you all hear his question? That effort that you describe, actually, has attached to it something extra which is what the effort is leading to. It’s got the accomplishment tied onto it, so it’s kind of…That’s very…it’s like that point is, it’s kind of a dangerous place because you may be practicing very hard, and to everyone else it looks like you’re practicing very hard and it may be an encouragement to other people, but parallel with that is this idea of the results of that, or I’m doing this for some reason. So that’s not pure effort, you know. Pure effort doesn’t..it’s dropped off…Well Suzuki Roshi says gaining idea, you know, gaining idea or goal oriented. So that’s a very…that’s why it’s so nice to have a teacher to point that out, because it looks…you look very good, you know, and you can’t actually distinguish. You’re making all this effort, but there’s some notion. So that’s true. At that point, you have to relax somewhat. Maybe pure effort for you at that point would be to not go to the first period of zazen, you know, or something like that, which someone can help you find. 

 

But then you, then along with that, the other kind of pitfall is the laziness. Well, I won’t make all this effort because that’s really gaining idea, so I’m going to sleep in [laughter], you know. So you have to, it’s like the razor’s edge, you know, you have to, you have to know yourself pretty thoroughly to not get fooled. 

 

But, but usually, if you’re with people who are practicing, somebody will cue you in if you’re fooling yourself. Show up in various places where people will give you some feedback. If you stick around long enough.

 

Student D: Linda, in this context, could you say something about anxiety? It seems to me that anxiety is a kind of notification that there’s some attainment idea attached to, that one of the real gifts that pure effort bestows is a lack of anxiety, release from anxiety. I’m not sure.

 

Linda: um, hmm…Well, I’m not sure. I think there can be pure effort within anxious feelings. I think anxiety…there’s the kind of anxiety about your practice itself. Am I…am I actually doing it, you know? Am I really practicing? But then there’s anxiety caused from…you don’t even know what. It just descends on you. And it doesn’t get dispelled very easily. So I think pure effort doesn’t…pure effortlessness includes the having anxious feelings and having…it includes all, everything! And being angry, and being those emotions, and within that you say, you say “Oh, there, there I am feeling very anxious all of a sudden.” Looking at it that way is making effort, pure effort within, rather than, “I must not be practicing very well because look at how anxious I’ve gotten. I shouldn’t be feeling this way.” That kind of thinking…Do you see the difference there?

 

In pure effort, rather than pure attainment or pure accomplishment, when I think about that, what comes up is the word “try”. Try it out or try it again. Try it on. It includes making baby steps and falling down, a lot! It doesn’t mean smooth sailing. It includes all the difficult times you’re going to have, and try it again.

 

Student E: Somehow I [inaudible] the notion of [inaudible] means that the amount of effort that is allowed to me [inaudble]. I guess maybe [inaudible] in the world [inaudible}.

 

Linda: Did you hear what he said? Ah, when he hears the words pure effort…Would you like to repeat it again, louder?

 

Student E: Pure effort sounds to me like…

 

Linda: Can you hear?

 

Student F: Speak louder please!

 

Student E: Pure effort…It almost sounds like a kind of effort that’s not real, that’s imaginary, that is not a part of yourself. It seems like a kind of real effort is just staying aware of the effort that you’re making, even if that’s no effort, or a lack of effort. Just being mindful of what’s real.

 

Linda: You going to hit me!

 

Well, that’s the turning inward and seeing, looking at what you’re doing. You know that baker, she always has the Morton salt container with the girl on it, the Morton salt container with the girl on it, the Morton salt container? Do you know that?

 

Student E: uh, huh.

 

Linda: Anyway, it’s like that, where you’re making effort, but then you look and see. You look at the effort you’re making from, to make effort, sort of…But that’s, that’s the way of pure effort, is looking at the effort that you’re making. (I wonder how I got into pure effort, because it started out as perfect effort in my notes [laughter] and in my mind! It was perfect effort, but pure effort!) Anyway, the effort to bring yourself back to where you are and what it is that you’re, what’s, that is going on, is the effort we’re talking about, be it looking at your effort, or looking at the way you’re treating somebody or listening to the inflections of your voice or realizing that you are slumping all over and daydreaming, you know, whatever it is…I’m just calling it pure effort.

 

Lisa?

 

Lisa: When it comes to [inaudible] to applying the notion of perfect effort, or letting go of attainment/accomplishment to something outside of formal practice, is it like what is work in the world? Is it a way of thinking, doing that within, look at some kind of a clear sense of what practice is or sitting or just sitting zazen, because I know what the results might be anyway. It’s so easy. Just do it. But if you have some sense of what you want to do, you know, as a career in your work and, you do this, then that will happen, you want something at the end. That seems to be the difficulty, even though it’s, even if you had a very clear idea, you can just keep going each day and doing the work you need to do. It’s hard enough to have an expectation that something is an accomplishment. So, do you have some words.on things to let go of accomplishment in terms of work?

[Tape ends]