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Good morning.
This morning I felt scared.
Do you suppose there's any reason to feel scared?
This morning when I felt scared, I didn't know why I felt scared.
Certainly, there's been a great tragedy in our lives with the terrorist attacks.
So that might be a good thing to say, I'm scared.
But, you know, I've been scared for, frankly, years.
And more often it seems like it has not much to do with anything about today.
Certainly, it seems to be some residual sort of terror from when I was little.
You could call it conditioning, but many of us have had, you know, some trauma in our
early life.
So my trauma started at birth, I was premature.
I just found this out a few months ago.
My mother went home from the hospital a week later and I was there another two weeks.
And in those days, 1945, they didn't have volunteers come to the hospital and hold you.
So I tend to feel most of my life a certain disconnection, certain impossibility of anyone
else being there.
It's kind of scary, if you could be scared.
And it's kind of sad and it's kind of angry and resentful.
So, did I get over that?
Happy childhood.
And then shortly after my third birthday, my mother died of cancer.
I really find three-year-old boys rather annoying.
I wonder why.
The poor little three-year-old boy that I was must have done something wrong, bad, that
mother died.
It's good to have an explanation, you know, for bad things happening.
It's called, then you feel as though you have control.
If I behaved better in the future or differently, these things wouldn't happen again.
So, and then three days after my mother died, I was in an orphanage without my mother, without
my father, and without my brother.
And I've been told, well, you know, the first week you were there, you just sat in a little
rocking chair, rocking back and forth all day long.
You didn't play.
You wouldn't do anything.
We were all worried about you.
And then I decided to join the club.
I attempted to join the, with the activities going on.
And now they tell me, oh, you really liked it there.
When we brought you back after a little outing on Sundays, you would run off to play with
your friends.
You couldn't wait to be back.
You just loved it there.
On the other hand, I've been told, I have about four memories for those four years that
I was there.
On the other hand, I've been told, if you don't have very many memories, there's probably
some things that happened there that you don't want to think about.
I don't know what they were, but after my dad remarried and I went home, you know, my
teddy bear suffered a lot.
This week, I've been reading Lenore Teare's book on Too Scared to Cry.
It's a book about childhood trauma.
The backbone of the book is about the Chowchilla kidnappings that you might remember.
1976, a busload of kids was abducted and they were buried alive in a tractor trailer.
And they managed to dig their way out, finally.
So they were gone a little over 24 hours.
And you know, it's hard to know if any of them have gotten over it.
And you know, a lot of us may never get over it.
And is it so bad not to get over it?
And here we are.
And a funny thing I was reading in that book about post-traumatic reenactment, that's what
kids do, often extremely literally.
There was a little girl after the kidnapping who put the kitchen chairs up on the, you
know, dining room table and had her little three-year-old sister sit up there and she
played bus driver.
And when she was asked, well, isn't this reenacting the kidnapping, she said, oh, no, no, my bus
gets there safely.
It makes all the stops.
But it's a way to redo, you know.
So what have I spent my life doing, you know?
I found a group of people who like to sit.
You might think this is spiritual practice, you know, but, you know, you could also see
it as post-traumatic reenactment.
If you sit facing the wall, nobody's there.
Everybody keeps their distance.
Nobody connects with you.
Nobody comes over and touches you.
It's just like, you know, being born premature.
There's no possibility of connection.
You're all on your own.
You're just out there.
And the whole world is there and, you know, you're just connected and isolated.
Or you're connected in, or what, you know?
What is the reality of any moment of our life?
Or you could see it as, oh, I just got to sit there like in the rocking chair after
mom died and I got dumped in the orphanage.
My dad was overwhelmed and scared and frightened and couldn't handle things.
Couldn't handle.
I met, I saw somebody recently who I've known for years and he's told me, oh, the last three
years I've been taking care of my boys.
I said, well, what happened?
It turned out his boys were exactly the age of my brother and I when my mother died.
And he's been taking care of his boys the last three or four years.
And he said, oh, my wife, it turned out, was living a double life.
She'd been living with another man since before I met her.
And she went right on living with him as well as with me all the time we got married and
had kids.
And he didn't find this out.
You know, for seven or eight, for 10 years after he knew her.
Do you think that's not traumatic?
And then your whole reality shifts, right?
How do I believe my reality?
What did I think was going on?
And then it all falls apart, doesn't it?
Reality as we knew it is gone.
And he decided, I'll figure out, you know, how to do this and take care of my kids.
Beautiful day today, isn't it?
Amazing day.
This is, I think, this is the warmest I can ever remember it.
The warmest and balmiest, sweetest day I've been at Green Gulch.
The feeling in the air, you can smell now the rose blossoms.
It's unreal.
Or is it?
What do you suppose reality is?
I came, I found a little gata on the front desk at Zen Center a month or so ago.
It says, don't chase after the past.
Don't lose yourself in the future.
The past is no longer here.
The future is yet to come.
Dwelling, living mindfully in the very here and now, the practitioner dwells in stability and freedom.
Living mindfully in the very here and now, the practitioner dwells in stability and freedom.
Death comes unexpectedly.
How can we bargain with it?
We must be diligent today, tomorrow will be too late.
The sages call one who dwells in mindfulness, one who knows the better way to live in peace and harmony.
Mindfulness is the quality of here and now.
Oh, and I forgot to tell you the third thing that I might be afraid of today.
I was going to have to give a talk in front of hundreds of people, and I'm supposed to be a Zen teacher.
And you might be looking to me for some guidance, or reassurance, or faith, or salvation, liberation, awakening.
I don't know, you might be looking to me for something, and I have nothing to give you.
I wish I could grant you immunity.
Protection.
Stability and freedom.
But I'm afraid that's not my job.
And, you know, several people lately, they've told me, well, what we like about you, Ed, is that you're real, and that you're ordinary.
Oh, shit.
I guess that's the best I can do for you, huh?
Maybe it's the best I can do for you.
So that brings me to, you know, one of my quotes here.
I was reading recently, I'm going to get to the subject of my talk eventually, you know, to introduce.
Oh, by the way, while I have it here, and then, you know, yesterday I just, I was cleaning up a little bit.
This is New Year's greetings from the Stone Creek Zen Do, that's in Sebastopol, Jisho Warner.
And it says, the rain over, the clouds drift away, revealing clear, washed sky.
It was always there, but I forgot.
Each of us, you know, has a mind that is clear, washed sky, and it's easy to forget, isn't it, and pick up things to scare yourself with.
I read this recently, I was reading Andy Ferguson's Zen Chinese Heritage.
I was down at Tassajara, and it was on the sale bookshelf, so I got a copy.
And I went down to the pool, took off the plastic wrap, and started reading.
And mostly I find these old Zen stories kind of annoying, because I don't get it, you know.
What are they talking about?
And then I read this story, and I thought, I'm in the right tradition.
Deshan entered the hall, and addressed the monks, saying,
I don't hold to some view about the ancestors.
Here there are no ancestors and no Buddhas.
Bodhidharma is an old, stinking foreigner.
Shakyamuni is a dried piece of excrement.
Manjushri and Samantabhadra are dung carriers.
What is known as realizing the mystery is nothing but breaking through to grab an ordinary life.
Bodhi and Nirvana are a donkey tethering post.
The twelve divisions of scriptural canon are just paper,
for wiping infected skin boils.
So, this is the lineage, the tradition that I'm in.
I wouldn't want to give you something, you know, for you to grasp on to, and cling to, and hold to.
Against what? The enemy? Against your resistant self? Against...
So this is all interesting.
And what I really want to remind you about today is that, you know, there is no fixed reality.
Whatever you think, this will happen, that will happen.
We don't know.
We don't know.
I'm doing well, I'm doing poorly. Who can say?
I'm a good person or a bad person, I'm ashamed of myself, I'm disappointed, I'm sad, I'm scared.
Who knows?
And there's no reality that you need to hold on to and keep and have.
Reality is completely fluid.
And we are all creating it.
This is the amazing thing, we all create reality, each of us creates reality.
Mostly we try to figure out a reality, a way of being, that will defend us,
and protect us from harm, and of course we don't wish anyone harm.
It's very basic to human nature not to wish harm, and those who wish harm are confused.
When we wish harm, we have lost our way, we're confused, we're not, I don't think, in touch with our true heart.
Not to cause suffering is basic to human heart.
So we create reality and mostly we try to figure out what will be a good way for me to be,
that will make sure none of these terrible things ever happen to me.
This is mostly how we organize ourselves, organize our bodies, our minds, our speech,
to protect ourselves from harm, from anything terrible happening.
And then when something terrible happens, you know, we try to figure out how to do it better.
So many times, you know, for instance in the book I've just been reading,
and obviously I have personal reasons for reading this,
a book about childhood trauma, which I didn't dare read until, you know,
a few buildings collapsed in New York and many people, hundreds and thousands of people lost their lives.
Then I thought, maybe I should read this.
But what people of, victims of trauma do, kids especially then, is,
you know, many kids who are outgoing, bright, bubbly, friendly,
decided it would be better to hide, to be small, to not talk in class,
to not be there, to duck across the street,
to hide from people, to get out of their way,
to make themselves sometimes literally invisible.
There are kids who play that they've become invisible
and get others to join in their game of being invisible, literally,
not just making yourself small and indistinct and fit in and blend.
And it's often difficult without, you know, and most of us never had any real,
you know, sense of how do I get out of this?
You know, I came up with this strategy and it may be it served me to protect me
and to have me fit in and blend in and be accepted
because I feel if I stood out, that's how I come, I got hit.
So why don't I blend in?
Disappear into life.
Once in a while, somebody gets over this or past this,
and once in a while, and sometimes we realize that the way we have of living our life,
although it's been very useful and very helpful and gotten us through
and gotten us to here is now our prison.
What our way of life that protected us is now imprisoning us.
I used to say, oh, they don't want me to talk to them.
How's that?
Is that reality?
No, that's what I tell myself, you know, to protect myself from being seen.
And being known and being met.
They don't want to hear it from me.
So I've, you know, I in my way learned, you know, many things.
Now, as I mentioned, I still don't know is Zen practice,
you know, a really spiritual path?
Or is it traumatic reenactment?
And then maybe what's so bad about traumatic reenactment?
And maybe all of our life is that.
We're going back, you know, we always, there's always some difficulty or issue in our life.
One theory of consciousness actually is that what is consciousness is,
you know, we think consciousness is about reality.
But there's now scientists are guessing
that consciousness is actually about things that are an issue.
But we take consciousness to be about what's real.
You know, for instance, now they've done studies that show that,
you know, if you decide to scratch your head,
why don't you decide to scratch your head and then scratch your head?
The part of your brain that says,
I'm going to scratch my head now is the last to know.
Your brain is already doing it and you've already started the action.
And then another part of your brain goes,
Oh, I think I'll scratch my head now.
And it just got informed about the same time that you noticed you were going to scratch your head.
And it was already happening.
Your being is already responding.
You know, our being, our life is already responding to things even before it's conscious.
And then consciousness, we come up with some story.
I'm scared because.
And, you know, why would we want to go?
I'm scared because.
Then we think I could control.
I can control the things that make me scared.
How will I control them?
This, of course, runs counter to basic, you know, Buddhism.
Or I don't know about basic Buddhism, but certainly Zen.
How do you control the wave of the 10,000 things?
You know, what do I do when the wave of 10,000 things washes over me?
And the Zen teacher says, don't try to control it.
Easy enough to say, right?
So how will you control?
And, you know, the weekend before the, the September the 11th, by the way,
was the 30th anniversary of my ordination as a priest.
And I can tell you that is no way to celebrate.
I was looking forward to my 30th anniversary as a priest.
Now, I was looking forward to my 30th anniversary as a priest.
Now, I don't know.
Anyway.
But that weekend, I was telling people, you know,
this is, this is, nothing has changed.
I was teaching the First Noble Truth, the Four Noble Truths.
The Four Noble Truths.
The First Noble Truth is we don't know what will happen.
Did you get it?
And we can't control what will happen.
So what will you do?
You know, what will we do?
What's the alternative to trying to control?
This has been, you know, from the start,
the aim of Buddhism, the aim of Zen.
What will you do instead of trying to control?
What will you do instead?
And what the, and the instead to do is,
is there some way we could, you know, actually be in our heart,
dwell in the present,
deeply,
mindfully, here and now,
acknowledging one another,
meeting our friends,
you know, smiling at our companions,
feeling our life,
being in the midst of our life,
you know, letting go,
that it can't be controlled.
And letting go, we have some freedom
and possibilities, and we're not caught by
the past or the future.
Here's a little poem.
This is
a secular poem,
or is it?
I don't know.
Oh, I'll find it eventually.
Here it is.
This is called The Way It Is.
It's by William Stafford.
There's a thread you follow.
It goes among things that change,
but it doesn't change.
People wonder
about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain
about the thread.
But it's hard for others to see.
While you hold it,
you can't get lost.
Tragedies happen.
People die.
And you suffer
and get old.
Nothing you do
can stop times
unfolding.
You don't ever let go
of the thread.
So it's another way
to talk about
the clear, unwashed sky
that is the essence
of each of us.
So I'm also reminded
this last summer
I was reading Soulmates
by Thomas More.
It's a book about
relationships
and soul.
And he says, you know,
there's a lot you can
study and learn
about relationships
and you can do therapy
and you can learn
communication skills
and if you're lucky
you can get somebody
to teach your spouse
some communication skills.
Laughter
But the point of his book
he says is
why don't you expand
your poetic imagination?
You know,
we get so concerned
about how to
control things,
how to make the outcome work,
you know,
how to make things
come out the way
I want them to.
I know a lot about this.
It's what you do
when you're three.
It's what my neighbor's
son has been doing
for the last several months.
He's three.
Mom, pick that up.
No, I don't feel like it.
Pick it up, Mom.
Laughter
Etc.
Who's in charge?
Anyway, poetic imagination,
expanding your poetic imagination
so that it includes
what's happening,
actually happening
in your life
rather than
bemoaning the fact
that you can't control
things so much
that these things
don't happen.
So,
you know,
what will we do?
This is,
to me,
as good advice
as anything,
you know,
expand your poetic imagination.
This reminds me,
you know,
of Suzuki Roshi's,
you know,
many of us
started practicing
at Zen Center
in the Vietnam War.
The FBI
came and
talked to
Suzuki Roshi
about me
because I was
applying to be
a conscientious objector.
He said I was
a very sincere student
because I came
to meditation
at five in the morning.
Must be
a sincere student.
Anyway,
I didn't know that
until years later,
you know,
when I got the file finally.
They talked
to the people
I did gardening
for in high school.
How did they find
these people?
Amazing,
you know.
But we were
practicing Zen
during the Vietnam War
and, you know,
if you said to Suzuki Roshi
I'm going to the
Peace March
so I won't be
at the sitting
on Saturday,
he would say fine.
And if you said
I'm not going
to the Peace March,
I'm going to come
to the sitting
here on Saturday,
he would say fine.
Why don't you
do that?
And then,
you know,
there's that famous
story about
the student
who said
shouldn't we
be out
protesting the war?
He was way
in the back
and Suzuki said
what?
And the person
in the front row
said shouldn't
we be out
fighting against
the war,
protesting the war?
And Suzuki
jumped up,
you know,
and started
hitting the person
who wasn't
even the original
questioner.
You know,
in the front
row with his
stick,
with his little
stick,
and he said
the war is
right here,
it's right here,
don't you
get it?
It's right here,
right here.
And then he
apparently sat
down and said
I'm not angry.
But,
you know,
we don't
know what
to do.
And so
what's
in your
heart?
You know,
where does
your love
go?
What
is your
expression
of your
true heart,
of your
nature,
of your
love,
of your
life?
I think
it's pretty
nice to cook
and garden.
My next door
neighbor has
a sign up
in her kitchen
dull women
have immaculate
houses.
But what
did she do?
You know,
the day
the day
those planes
hit the
buildings,
she started
cleaning.
Started
cleaning her
house.
I don't
know.
I think
it's pretty
nice to clean
and garden
and...
But,
you know,
maybe there's
other things
you're moved
to do.
And there's
no right
answer.
This is
poetic
imagination.
It's
always
been time
for poetic
imagination.
What
can we
dream up,
you know,
to do
in our
life?
And
that's
rather different,
isn't it,
than the
prison we've
all been
in?
How to
behave so
that nothing
terrible
happens?
How to
get it
right?
How to
be good
so that
I won't
get hit?
This
is the
big,
you know,
challenge
for any
of our
lives,
how to
get out
of our
own
confinement,
confinement
we put
ourselves
in.
So,
I have
another
Zen teaching
for you.
For
what it's
worth.
This
is in
Tom Cleary's
book,
The Teaching
of Zen.
It's
by,
from a
Zen master
named
Liao An,
who lived
in the
14th century,
early 14th
century,
a little
less than
700 years
ago.
This
is Tom
Cleary's
translation.
The essence
of mind
is unpolluted.
Basically,
complete
in itself.
Just
detach
from
false
mental
objects.
And
there is the
Buddha.
The
Buddha of
being,
as is.
Just
detach from
false
mental
objects,
and there
is the
Buddha of
being,
as is.
Clouds
wash
away,
and you
see
here,
clear,
washed,
vast,
being.
When
deluded,
you deviate
from the
real,
and you
pursue
the false.
When
enlightened,
you
abandon
the
false
and return
to the
real.
After
you've
reached
the point
where reality
and falsehood
both
melt
and
delusion
and enlightenment
lodge
nowhere.
Then
you
use up
your old
karma
according to
conditions,
trusting
in essence
and enjoying
natural
reality.
Exercising
kindness
and
compassion.
Helping
out
the
orphaned
and the
unsheltered.
Forgetting
subject
and object.
Annihilating
shadow
and form.
Becoming
a person
beyond measure.
Living in
a realm
of experience
beyond measure.
And
doing
a task
beyond measure.
So
the task
that I call
beyond measure
today is
you know
having an
ordinary life,
not knowing
what to do,
dreaming up
what to do,
stepping out
of
your own
prison.
What would
be the right
thing to do?
What would
be the best
thing to do?
How can
I protect
myself?
How can
I defend
myself?
This is
all
you know
false
mental
objects
because
there's
something
in our
heart
that
can
go
forward
and
expand
and
be
vast
and
spacious.
I'm
working
on this
and
I want to
encourage you
in your
effort too.
There's no
you know
this is
as he says
when reality
and falsehood
melt
what will
you stick
to?
It melts.
There's no
right to
stick to
and defend
and attack.
There's
no wrong to
get away
from.
There's no
right that
you can
stick to
and be
safe and
secure.
And then
he says
when you
let go
of that
what
happens?
Your
heart
comes
forward.
You
use
your
karma
according
to
conditions.
You're
and it's
not because
you told
yourself to
do it.
It just
you just
dreamed it
up.
It just
occurred to
you.
What will
you say?
What will
you do?
How do
you stand?
Do you
believe you're
about to
be attacked?
The
children who
have been
in trauma
you know
believe
they're
about to
be
attacked.
So
do you spend
your whole life
you know
being
suspicious?
And
will that
help?
Do you
spend your
whole life
being
defended?
Does
that
help?
Does it
help to
be
scared?
Does
it
help to
be
timid
or
shy?
Does it
help to
be
brash?
How
nice to
see you.
Great
being here.
What is
going to
help?
You know
is there
some
behavior
that would
get you
through?
And then
we say
you know
that's
that's
the one
that you
know
you know
the clay
Buddha doesn't
go through
the water
you know
the wooden
Buddha doesn't
make it
through the
fire.
The right
behavior
you know
is not
going to
get you
through.
What
about the
behavior
that
you know
is beyond
measure
that you
don't know
of?
You haven't
conceived of
it's the
inconceivable.
We
have a
chance to
you know
live a
life beyond
measure
and to
do things
that are
just
inconceivable.
What
will they
be?
I don't
know.
I can't
tell you.
Now
could I?
And
so you
know
this kind
of
thing
you know
I'm telling you
this is not
something you
can just
oh I get it
I'll just
do that
you know
it's something
that you
sit with
and you
you breathe
with
and you
let work
on you
and things
will change
you know
for you.
This is
what they
found now
and I
should probably
stop
you know
it's probably
been long
enough talking
but I want to
tell you about
another book
I've been
reading.
You know
I do read
more books
now than I
than I used
to for a while
there but
you know
most of
them aren't
Buddhist
but I
I've been
reading this
I was reading
this great
book called
Hair Brain
Tortoise Mind
have you
science of the
brain
and the
mind
and
physiology
of the
brain
and the
subtitle of
the book
is how
intelligence
increases
when you
think
less
and
science
is now
science
is now
figuring
this
out
and
they're
proving
this
you know
that
what he calls
D-mode
which is
deliberation mode
figuring things
out
is
for most
situations in
our life
that's only good
for a few
things like
math problems
you know
but for
most of
our life
you can't
figure out
you know
deliberate
and figure
out
like
who do
I marry
do I marry
this person
or not
checklist
pluses
minuses
add them
up
give them
a point
value
you know
most of
our life
we can't
deliberate
and get
to the
answer
deliberate
so he calls
that
D-mode
which is
also
default
mode
we tend
to fall
back on
thinking
you know
inappropriately
to figure
things out
when they
can't be
figured out
so we're
just out
there
you know
beyond
the capacity
to figure
out
beyond
measure
you know
beyond
beyond
conception
and we
do things
and we
can
and we
can be
you know
we can
create
and we'll see
what we all
do
won't we
we'll see
what happens
and so
you know
according to
science
now
this is
scientific
now
the real
problems
of your life
you know
can't be
figured out
so when you
go to figure
them out
you know
if people describe
what's happening
when they do
problem problems
where you're
adding up
and subtracting
and you're
doing that
you can
tell the
person
what you're
doing
but when
you're
figuring out
something
that can't
be figured
out
that you just have
to dream up
or you have
some insight
or intuition
or sense
of what to do
and you
hit on it
and it pops
into your
mind
and it
pops up
there
to get
to there
what is
going on
people describe
it as
I don't
know
what's
happening
nothing
seems to
be happening
does that
sound like
meditation
and you
thought you
were just sitting
there and nothing
was happening
that's what's
supposed to be
happening
that's the
other side of
post traumatic
reenactment is
you know
nothing's
happening
and you
dream up
you know
and something
pops about
what to do
in your life
over and over
again
something pops
something
something
occurs to us
and it
flashes into our
awareness
out of
we don't know
where it
comes from
and it's
not about
you know
what's right
or what's
wrong
or what's
good
or what
we should
do
or shouldn't
do
it's
our
response
to life
boom
boom
you know
last
year and a
half ago
I went to
see my
doctor
I told him
I was
depressed
he said
well
the good news
is that
if you
don't
kill yourself
if you
don't
commit suicide
you know
if you're
not that
depressed
you're not
that depressed
are you
checked with
me
he said
if you're
not that
depressed
then the
good news
is
you
live just
as
depressed
people
live just
as long
as people
who aren't
depressed
and of
course
for a
depressed
person
I
said
well
that's
depressing
but
I
decided
about
a year
ago
now
I
realized
that
for me
most of
depression
is
is
the
passion of life
and
you know
the heart
the heart
the passion
the enthusiasm
vitality
this
this
free
response
to life
you know
gets told
that's
wrong
if whatever
you dream up
to do
you tell
yourself
that's
wrong
I can tell
you
that's
depressing
you see
that's
judging yourself
am I good
am I bad
is this the right thing to do
is it the wrong thing to do
is this the best thing to do
you just go ahead and do it
you do it
and you manifest your life
you know
and we don't know
you know
what the
result will be
but you will have
expressed yourself
and it's something about your heart
it's connected
you know
to let your heart
come forward
to the great heart
of compassion
the vast sky
that we all are
oh well
there's more to talk about
but
you've heard enough
so thank you
for being here today
and I wish you
certainly prayers
and blessings
and
I find it really wonderful
to be here with all of you
today
so thank you
cheers
cheers