1999.05.09-serial.00051

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the mine

it's mother's day to day
so i want to wish the appropriate people happy mother's day
i have to
so i'm thinking of them as well on my way and someone said well your you get to be our mother today
so maybe so
some people have concluded that i'm living the corner the woman in a man's body

that means when i read about women's lib and things i understand right away
what they're talking about and i wonder like was that so different in me
anyway

over the last stone year to i've been thinking actually a lot about love
and relationship and my mother's

my birth mother died when i was three years old she had cancer she was forty one
so
it was dumb as you can imagine a big loss
and i spent after that for years in an orphanage
so when i came to aunts and i was right at home

nice institution

last fall i talked to my brother we hadn't talked to many years
he said several years older than i am so he serial numbers our mother
he remembers the day she died
he remembers that our father and mother had that you know way would just forget about her
can we transfer over our feelings from other two
i wouldn't other woman that my father wouldn't i layer
and know and we weren't supposed to know that she was dying
so my better pretended he didn't know
to be a good boy
so then the day on the phone call came from the hospital that she had died
well here it was about seven or seven thirty he went ahead and got ready for school
no big deal he wasn't supposed to know on the first place
are you doing
he said i'm getting ready for school and he said you don't go to school on a day or mother died
it's confusing you know to be a child

and then my brother and i were in separate areas of the orphanage
he's actually right here in san anselmo sandy hills snell for i visited a few months ago it's not it's all different buildings now than it was a plane
and it sam for kind of emotionally disturbed kids from mostly m teenagers i think
anyway i was in the nursery my brother was in a separate section of the orphanage
so within three days after my mother died i was completely by myself
and then i father once told me said you sat in a rocking chair all day long he wouldn't play you wouldn't do anything
for more than a week they were worried about you so i guess that was my first session
i didn't know i was already in a practicing zen but
it came naturally
and
my brother wasn't allowed to visit me because that was against the rules
unless i was having a temper tantrum
and they couldn't come down there would call him in to comfort me and then once i calmed down he had to leave
this is a dont logic

so anyway over the years i've spent a fair amount of time being three andrei
familiar with been three
i had just last week i had an interesting experience two weeks ago
you know for years i've
i have tend to have rather
in know i tend to be rather emotional
i'm moody
maybe that's a guy thing i don't know
by ten
we have different habits
i put my problems or stress and emotional level of my being and other people have backaches
and you know it's safer to put the your problems at a physical level of you can and it's more societal the acceptable it's not your fault if you have a physical problem just because you put it there i mean it's a physical that's okay but if you put your problems at an emotional level then that said
a problem probably know here
it's much moreno it making it up or something you know
anyway am
i just a couple weeks ago
for the first time i was feeling i've been feeling a lot of and sorrow grief terror shame fear dread
for years
in a couple weeks ago that mrs my mom
his feelings or my mom's
we're not actually my feelings
i'm still feeling for her
even though she died in her more than fifty years ago
i'm still in her being true to her
feeling her feelings for her
i'm not letting go with them
and not forgiven her

i so today
i want to do today i went to forgive my mother for dine for being scared
i've been afraid
for being ashamed
for him for being terribly sad but she was leaving me
i fear
can i think

i think you know forgiving her for being here she was
you know devoted and loving
and are so scared
ashamed
you know i think we can both come and go forward and a new way

i think each of us are you know carries a lot of our karma
we don't know is know you know who's com it is that were carrying
i think it's accurate did those feelings or my mom's feelings
you know when your three or two or why you don't distinguish
well who is feeling say are you just feel that you feel whatsoever in the room
you know whatever in the air you feel it right away you don't need to see it
ah or understand it or recognize it or know i just try to i feel that you're connected with everything and everyone especially those close to you so right away you feel when everybody in the room is failing
then you know we try to do what or work
what will make everything alright
grandma's sort of things and we come up without a big in the name
you know in a way that works for what's going on in her life they come up with how to do it and and before we even a language
we figure out whether to talk or not talk
you know
whether to be assertive her passive whether to be sad or outgoing
i figured all out and we'll find out how to do it
in an effort to make everything all right

yeah we basically we make every effort to find out of course you know one one hand it's how to get along but it's also how to not be know attacked
have somebody get mad at you
it's funny and we learn about love and in way
we pretty early on most they have an idea of love is to control
you know i did with my daughter i said the same thing
i know right as a daughter you know i have a baby and she's fussing and done all the usual things you know feeding and changing and per opinion
what's it about know at some point you want to say and you do sometimes
when i love you so stop that

i love you you don't have to feel that way don't feel that way
so we have the idea you know that love will make a big difference and we start looking for people who will make a big difference partners spouses and your teachers therapists somebody will make a big difference
and love us enough
he knows that we don't have to feel sad or terrified or dread or shame everything will be okay because they love us and we forget were being controlled
we'll actually run out loud when somebody loves as some as to the time were not allowed to feel sad
cheer up i love you what can i do for you that me make it all right for you
anyway we get confused about love
and in another sense of course love is an elaborate won't do anything
your to fail it's like mindfulness or compassion and and allows her to feel exactly what you're feeling
and doesn't abandon you
desert a shame you doesn't distance you
on
doesn't
push you away from keeps your company
and lets you feel whatever you're feeling
and what are we leave you know that it's okay to feel that

so i'm going to tell you some stories i've used these stories before so
some of you have heard them
tough luck
the other night i told the story test harness and and somebody in the audience and wages turned at story last night
oh
quick so for most of you has spend at least a day or two since he heard history
the first is about a three year old in his grandmother
sister alice miller tells em
in one of her books thou shalt not know probably
there's another one you know for your own good
ah the story is about him one the new was going away for the weekend and shoe
wondered whether or not to leave for three year old with the noise grandmother her mother she was a little worried about it because she knew her mother was really big our manners correct behavior and she was a little afraid that grandmother would inflict this on three year old daniel
in her absence but she also knew that her mother loved her grandson and read him stories and
whitmore say they had a great time together so she left her son with the grandmother for the weekend
when she came back and make out to the car daniel said i don't want to come here anymore grandmother hurt me
so little by little mother figured out the story and talk to her mother
and when it happened was
they were having dinner and a grandmother had made daniels on a daniels favorite desserts a cottage cheese souffle
i'm daniel who was at home very proud of his ability to help himself two seconds to food now reached out for seconds to help himself and his grandmother put her hand on his and she said first you have to ask
the others if it's okay
and daniel looked friends and where where are the others
and then he had a little fit
he couldn't understand this you know and he threw down his sparingly had a temper tantrum
his grandmother tried to calm him down and finally he calmed down and he said you hurt me a ride and you do that and she said well you have to ask the others if it's okay before you just help yourself
and he said why
she said well it's good manners he said why do i need good manners and she said so the others were like you
from finally he said i don't mean good manners when i'm at my mom is i can eat when i'm hungry
case you don't know it you know ironically enough in poetically and up this is famous insane
but is sin to eat when you're hungry to sleep when you're tired
oh
well over the years it's been very interesting for me to tell this story because
kevin body will hear something different and relate to something different
when i first read this story i right away identified with a three year old
can i kind of assumed everybody would
well it turns out that actually probably more a majority of people identify
great grandmother you need to teach kids manners there's so many kids these days who have no manners and don't know how to say please or thank you or anything and their parents should have taught them matters
and our society would be a lot better if people had better manners and nowadays so many kids are growing up and know and have don't know how to behave
so that grandmother was doing the right thing
so this is fascinating
we all have a three year old and a grandmother you know
we're all going backwards and forwards in time
feeling six or eight or tanner sixteen her to or why now
and then being present here
it would be kind of news from you know in some sense if we compare this app
getting end

someone said
that ring
he heard this story know right away the tears were coming down his face
but then a little while later than other people in the zendo weren't following the decorum as well as he thought they should he wanted to correct them
he started feeling claustrophobic
they were fidgeting to he wanted them to sit my still
but he couldn't say anything because it was the zendo
what will you do to straighten out these three year olds that you have to live with his people who don't behave the way they should how will you handle it
finally because it was the zendo had decided
i'm just on a train in a foreign land and they have strange customs
i don't even speak the language
the
but in zan of course we say the disease of the mind is to set my mind against another
so usually we side or the three year old against the grown-up or we side with the grown-up against the three year old i'm right you're wrong you need to behave better or differently and of course from the grandparents point of view from my adult point of view my little three year old is really a
pain
he throws tantrums he's moody he gets scared for no reason at his fallen dreaded times is ashamed he screams he throws fits sometimes he plays dad
and it's very humiliating
you know from the adult point of view to have this kit around and to have people think that i might be him
from the point of view of the three year old on the endowed this always trying to get something done would like to accomplish more would like to be famous well known and well thought out of and good standing with everyone excellent
an adored admired because of his great achievements and accomplishments is wonderful manner
he never has any time for me it doesn't know how to play it doesn't know how to have fun he doesn't know how to enjoy his life
he's really a pain
do you think these to meet each other or
do you think one needs to get rid of the other i don't think so
in know they need to find out how to be friends
most people when i started to meditate
we have the idea we will get rid of the one who's some noxious
most of us spiritually minded people we tried to be a good adult and get rid of
of course sometimes we're turning around in same how do i shut up that voice that keeps telling me what to do all the time and keeps criticizing me and keeps correcting me you know and then we say it's better not to have that head over your head
so how do i get rid of that head sometimes we side with the three year old i want to get rid of that head it's always telling me what to do
to already you can see there's a problem just in the language
how do i get rid of not like how do i become friends with how do i have a good relationship how do i get to know and understand and appreciate and have gratitude and forgive and accept and love and meat and know
that head or that three year old insist how do i get rid of it because my life would be somewhat simpler if i could just get rid of yet
so you know in meditation you will meet three year olds and grandmothers
and fathers and grandfathers and ancestors in all kinds of voices telling you all kinds of things
engineer were standing how to have everybody get along we have the great vehicle a big buzz
and then you all sit together
see if we can enjoy
you know like the family thanksgiving
one another's company
as at this point to say oh my god you've gotta be kidding
but this is an
this isn't just buddhism
where are you know this is our symbolism
how really to love
add to meet to accept to forgive to know yourself and others
mostly it's you know it's each of us we have we have a big in a terrible time just accepting yourself
and we think i'll accept myself after i get it together
after you get it together then i'll i'll accept you
once you stop being so fussy an angry and irritable and sad the i'll accept you once you kind of measure up once you become a spiritual person
enlightenment
joyful and bryant
brilliant and wise or then the old course be acceptable
trim then so in like this rate withhold our
acceptance appreciation gratitude for others and also course for herself
this is not something that you learn by studying up for a lot of years

you know it's something you just decide you want to do cards in your heart know it's intention and your hard to accept yourself and your wish your heart's desire to finally meet and know and accept appreciate and enjoy yourself
this is to meet enjoy accept others to let you and others be exactly who you are and once you're exactly who you are at that time you can also
there's the possibility of change
you know if you reject yourself and tried to change it's called repression or denial rejection
it's just adding another layer over the many layers you already have
so as much as anything in meditation and overstating how to adjust need
at this moment this person
who we haven't met before that we don't know
may be feeling or thinking any number of things
i spent a lot of years and
in know studying how to be calm and patient
ah and
concentrated
i got to
well
i thought like you know would learn how to sit still and i started by susanna i said i would be more sincere than everybody else i will try harder
so i will easily surpass them

cause i didn't understand that the harder you try like that
you know the last year notice
i knew busy trying really hard you don't feel anything
so why not to feel is to try real hard

ah and i spent a lot of years moving very quickly quickly move to more you can avoid your feelings
and do
for several years i had trouble sitting still
i would do various improvements
which were involuntary of course
that wasn't made during the hat
except of course that i have high standards and i know how things should be so i impose them by myself
and then you know when you're sitting meditation you're not busy doing something physically active and you're not talking so you're not using energy or actually saving up
it's really quite sweet and you in the energy kind of accumulates and then
when the once entered she's accumulated a bit you know it's not like it wants to just do this all the time
which is what's right and then and spiritual
it leopard lather you know like room or do something and
i'm
the on how you have yourself wired i had myself why pay tied so
mj had no place to get to accept let me out of here

so it took me many years to finally agree that maybe i can just feel my body and in regret my breath do what it wants rather than my telling it because i know what's right how to breathe
the
i'm and i became a teacher it's and center and president lives and center and chairman of the board this is back in his seventies now i had come to the mountains to attain true realization and ended up in this topic second evan this you know millions of dollars a year organization and
try to learn how to read financial sheets and things now and
so strange you know the spiritual life i
i went to just sahara with nothing and i left the wife and daughter and a carload of car and you know carload of staff and since then in america
hmm

so after eighteen years of you know back in a eighty four i was the head of practice it as on i've been practicing nineteen years i'm sam
i've gotten pretty high up there you know i was somebody at last people who recognize that

and i will stay in the zendo their test i went then i said why don't i just touch what's inside with some kindness and warmth and tenderness right away the tears started streaming down my face
because i hadn't ever done that and all those years of practicing sin
during something spiritual and right and good
as then just feeling and sensing and receiving
the experience of a human being and now here today
henson arouse suzuki roshi would talk about this you know he said
you have a pretty good understanding and practice match you know if you don't have her
kind warm feeling in your practice
it's not good practice

you know to follow your breath or to catch your breath is
oh why we have some rural or way to practice or form is so you can be kind with yourself
like a mother is kind i can mother watches her children and is cares for them
no we all are doing in this sense you know we can do mother's practice
i to can lead it ourself come home to her heart
welcome our home the where your mother you know welcomes children home
course in studies you know they found it
can in many people there is
a daddy's but they finally divided mothers you know him to mothers who welcome their children home inquired after them
what was you know how was your day what was it like why didn't you notice where did you learn why did you find a hug and mothers who were kind of indifferent and then the mothers who said career home again
oh it's you
when are you doing back so early
and guess what and hope
people who have the so-called you know more responsive caring mother
ah you know or more happy and satisfied and and their life
but this doesn't change the fact that any of us now today can practice how to be a mother
her mother who welcomes you know a child home
welcome yourself on to your heart
how are you
have you been
hudson news

and you know people in the long run i would say we're studying how to trust our heart
it looks like we're studying how to follow some rules or farms
right actually of course we're studying how to trust our own heart and to respond from our heart not because it's the right thing to do or the good thing to do but because it's our hearts wish to do it
to be kind
or generous to be karen
to be warm hearted
it's just in her heart
as soon as you have to tell yourself be kind don't be selfish do this and do that
it's not actually responding from your hard anymore and finding out how to trust your heart you can follow the rules because you don't trust your heart
thread people do when a cook you know you want to make sure it comes out okay then do exactly what the recipe says
just follow all directions he will come out like it should if it doesn't that was a bad recipe
you did your part are not to blame the not responsible for any failures of six ng says thank you very much i did very well yes right
right you know in the long run may want to be able to work and dedication or move forward in our life and meet let things into your heart and respond
it's not any recipe for it there's no right or wrong about it and we let things tend your heart for that are hard to things and respond to live
and sometimes
it works pretty well and sometimes it doesn't
most of us have had some heartbreak and some things have gone on
and so we feel like i can't trust my heart
and then you know you think the rules and the directions and what to do and what's right and what's wrong in doing what you should will protect you from more heartbreak
and it not only protects your buddy imprisons you this is the big problem
and we for the sake of being protected we end up in prison assisted three year old and a grandmother grandmother wants to protect a child the child experience it has been imprisoned
she wants to protect him from other she wants to protect him from being disliked by others because of is bad manners
and he experiences as prison
he's been in prison he has the capacity to help himself but he can't

so we're all standing you know how to get out of prison how to actually be willing to not be so protected to be vulnerable to let things touch your heart to allow for the possibility we could be touched and are how can be broken and actually this is how high
arts grow larger
how it's don't grow larger i have been everything go the way you'd like
and i been safe and imprisoned and careful i'm doing the right thing your heart actually shrivels up then

because you don't allow it to touch anything or be touched by anything
this is of course or money you know i'm having been talking exactly about buddhism today but it's actually medicine i like to remind people some pointed it says buddhism
dogan zingy in the instructions to the cook
give some advice and you have to understand you know that mind of course is not just in the head and the word and chinese and japanese that we use the translate his mind is actually heart our heart mind
it's the minded you know it's centered or resides in the heart as opposed to the line that likes to hang out in the head
aren't we think about his mind is generally in or something in the head
if you're sitting there you can do
you can put your awareness in your right hand we are left are in one of your legs
and when you let go of in a relaxed spreading the awareness there where does it end up
here's this somewhere behind the eyes
or sometimes like in the jaw
then says don't set up a nest or den that's a place than the head where you liked to hang out it safe
it's also sad it's also disconnected
not intimate not carrying it doesn't have the qualities of the heart
three year old has more of the qualities of the heart the head as more the qualities of the grandmother
ideally you know they'd become good friends and eventually we can't tell the difference
we don't know whether it's a three year old or a grandmother
anyway dogan says and the translation that costed
let things come and abide in your mind so you could just as well say let things come and abide in your heart
let your height
respond can go out and abiding things
that things come and abide in your heart let your heart return and inviting things
all through the day and night

or something finally know that's this kind of practice it's a something if you want and know if you wish you can practice
it's not something you attain
i realize exactly it's something new practice and to practice it is to attain it
suzuki roshi also said this kind warm feeling
his mind this is in other words enlightenment goodness mercy good his mind
this is your own heart it has the capacity to grow
to connect to be intimate
to meet cherish love
for south others
no to have gratitude
how for your life
for your friends for your parents

so again there's something in a very sweet about this finally very direct very sweet
very immediate
you can do it you know with your own breath rate your hands with your face
yeah
add to your heart

anyway i have more to talk about but i think i'm going to stop
i guess i'll tell you i wanted my favorite poems because it kind of fits to the end if many again many of you a pretty before bed
it bears repeating
some of the people are right
thursday night meditation we have been centerville keep telling me we're very slow so it's okay if you repeat things
in fact we just finished song the week at tassajara where people from different little groups can counter tassajara for five days we've been trying to figure out a name from my group for many years it's been ten or twelve years and we don't have a name yet
so some people say the no name saga but that's just another name know
and i took to calling it the so far so good sanga because
there's a lot of people my group sit on couches and as as this sofa
is so far so good
saga and then one woman has decided it's the two dogs bowing sanga and her two dogs bound to each other sanga she has two little dogs
so for while i've been thinking we can just everyone in the group could have their own name

and but while we were it has higher with that of another name which was the slowpoke sanga
we can be are just that the pokes
or maybe the pokey sanga
i don't know maybe we can think of a nice japanese name that goes with that
anyway the palm i'm thinking about his upon by derek walcott called love after love sir i'll tell you that poem and make him
oh
finish

i guess there is one more thing i want to say before the palm
if you are practicing meditation i've been working a lot last two years after more than thirty years of meditation have started studying the hands know how to hold your hands
this is partly because a lot of times i look at my hands and i think whose arthur's
so a couple weeks ago i was doing a kind of work with someone and she said well who's are they when i said some adults
i mean know guess it was three
and so she said where are your hands can i checked and i said they're in my elbows
i could feel these little hands in here
so she said do me a favor and see if you can extend those little hands into your big hands or a shrink and big hands down dear little hands
there's many ways you know we immediately can become one and the three year old meets read it is a grandmother
anyway
when you have your hands like this this is traditional and for buddhist meditation your left hand for then it left hand is on you're right that some the fingers come just to the edge of the fingers in your hand forms as oval shape
well it turns out that if you actually do this
the energetics of this go to your heart
if you sit like this you know your palm up and if i'm in first finger touching on your knees this goes to the crown chakra
and if you sit like this like the debate and suggest this is very stabilizing very grounding hamster energies settled down into your body your palms face down on your knees and the posture of sitting in zazen is like this
this goes to your heart
for years i've been sitting and you know after the first military now
and you know what this is connected to its the chest
reserve your collarbones this is the first second third fourth fifth sixth rib seventh eighth ninth tenth eleventh twelfth so if you open your ribs
by your fingers your chest as app opens your heart opens isn't that interesting
so when you sit like this sometimes people say oh and i sit like this with my hands like this it's really hard
we know why it's really hard it's because
so one of the things i've just been noticing that researchers i have a habit to go like here's the hard night
so i just take this part the collar bones and the first second third fourth ribs and kind of press them down a little bit
that's nice way to so so as not to feel i might be some heart ache or pain
so one of the things that will happen if you hold your hands open life is either you know you gonna have to let your rims open and your chest open in your heart open or you know your habit of closing this town will take over your hands and get
them to do something else
so we're just we're not trying to just be insistent about some foreign but if you can allow it holding your hands like this you can allow it to extend up your arms
and
open your ribs and your chest and your heart
so i've been studying this a lot lately it's finally as i said after more than thirty years become of interest to me
we can get busy with a lot of things even as spiritually minded people
even here in glow marine county

right i'm going to happen
penn derek rockets poem is one day
one day you will with elation
treat yourself arriving at your own door in your own mirror each will smile at the others great insane sit here eat
he will love again the stranger who was herself give wine give bread get back your heart to itself to the stranger whose loved you all your life from you ignored for another who knows you by heart
grasp and a bookcase the desperate nodes peel your image back from the mirror and said feast feast on your life
let it come home to your heart let your heart respond thank you