Morning. What shall we tell today? There's a depiction similar to the one I'm holding in the community room. So in the community room right before going to the bath, if you look up above the coat rack, you'll see this depiction. This is done by a friend of mine, Tiffany Sankari, who is a student of Feldenkrais work. And she lived in the Bay Area for a long while, and then she moved with her family back east. And when she was leaving, she gave me these two depictions of meditators entangled. So I'd like to pass it around and just enjoy it.

[01:05]

So we just finished the bodhisattva ceremony and the first line of this repentance ceremony that we do each month is all my ancient tangled karma from beginningless greed, hate and delusion born through body, speech and mind I now fully avow. When I came to Zen practice, the practice of the precepts, which is very central to our study and our growth, the first five precepts tend to carry more weight, not killing, not stealing, not lying, not misusing sexuality, not getting drunk on delusive drinking and such, that sort of thing. And they're all very good guidelines for following the middle path in practice. But there are more precepts on this list.

[02:27]

And the one about not being avaricious or stingy is one that I think covers all these bases. And we tend to think of killing, stealing, lying as things that we should not do. And stingy is kind of, you know, maybe somebody when you were a kid said, don't be stingy, be generous to people and that sort of thing. But it doesn't have that same kind of weight. And there's a different way to killing something versus just being stingy and withholding. But for me, looking at stinginess seemed to really get to the center of my tangled mind, and when my mind is tangled, it restricts my expression into the universe, and then I'm more likely actually to falter in not killing, not stealing, not lying, and the rest of those precepts.

[03:30]

So I want to talk today about not being stingy. The three poisons in practice are greed, ill will, and delusion. And greed is something about taking, wanting, I need this, I want this. Aversion is pushing away. And delusion or confusion is not knowing whether I want it or to push it away. So there's this practice of wanting what you don't have and not wanting What you do have causes a lot of discontent. So how do we just accept whatever it is, whether we want it or not? So the practice of not being stingy is not so much about money. I think that's an easy way of looking at stinginess.

[04:32]

And if someone is asking for help on the street or a friend, I habitually think, can I do this? Do I want to do this? And there's I, it's about me. So there's a request for help or assistance, whether explicit or implicit, and immediately I go to me. And that creation of a self sets up a separation, and then I have to evaluate whether I want to do it or not. And that's kind of how we often default in our life and make our choices accordingly. In practice, I've discovered that if I don't think about what's in it for me or what does that person want, there's less separation between me and other in saying yes to whatever's being asked, whether explicit or implicit, whatever the need is.

[05:36]

Some people don't have the ability to actually ask for what they want because they're embarrassed or too shy or they don't have the words. So how do we intuit where the need is and how do we practice with that? So withholding myself in an offering of myself to help or assist another creates a separation. But if I come forward and offer help or see that something is needed even before something is being asked of me, then the sense of self and other is diminished and sometimes actually eliminated. no self and no other. There's just freely giving and receiving without what's in it for me and let's see, you got more than me this time and I want more this time so we can balance to be even. But it's not about the quantitative value. It's about the something deeper.

[06:37]

Something deeper. So this tangled picture that's circulating around is a depiction of how our minds work. We get tangled and we get entangled with each other and we get entangled with ourself and our true self and better self-interest of how do I want to manifest in this world and getting caught up in that. And when I've thought about that tangled feeling, I've thought about, well, how does this feel in my body? And generally, tangles feel tight. There's a tautness in one's shoulders, and like this. And as we're encouraged to sit in zazen, we don't sit like this, we sit open.

[07:40]

And by creating an open space, lifting up the sternum in an upright position, we actually get to see little spaces in our knots. N-O-T and K-N-O-T, knots. And when we get to see the space in the knots, then we can work with these tangles. There's an old sutra from the early days in Buddhism called the Jata Sutta, the Tangle. Quite simple. A tangle within, a tangle without. People are entangled in a tangle. Gautama, I ask you this, who can untangle this tangle? The Buddha said, when a person is established in virtue, discerning, developing discernment and mind, a monk, ardent, astute, that person can untangle this tangle. Those whose passion, aversion, and ignorance, which are these three poisons I mentioned a moment ago, have faded away.

[08:49]

Arhats and their outflows or leakages and not being upright, all that's ended. For them, the tangle has untangled. Where name and form, along with perception of impingement and form, totally stop without trace, that's where the tangle is cut. So we think about tangles, like a tangling of a knot, a string, and trying to untangle it. But this sutra ends with, that's where the tangle is cut. Because a tangle is actually one string, one simple string. But the tangle, the knots and all that, it's like, well, how do I get out there? Well, sometimes we just have to cut through it. And in Buddhism, we talk about Manjushri's sword cutting through delusion. Sojin wrote she likes to use the story of the Gordian Knot, that who can cut through the Gordian Knot, which was a myth that was associated with Alexander.

[09:53]

Alexander, Alexander, there's two Alexanders here, around 300 or so BC. So it's actually not too long after Buddha's lifetime, in about 500 or so BC. And the stories of the Buddhist sutras, I wouldn't be surprised if there was some tangle between these two traditions coming together as a teaching. Who can cut through that tangle? So I would like to share a personal story about my tangle and entanglement that occurred with Sojin Roshi some years ago. So I'm a lay practitioner, and I'm really devoted to lay practice. And there are part of me that wanted to be seen and acknowledged for that, for myself. And part of it was about

[10:57]

I wanted to share with my parents that I was doing something that they could be proud of, that even though they couldn't understand my practice and what this thing was about that I was so into, because very contrary to their upbringing and their friends' children and what they were doing, they had to be kind of mute when they would say, what was Ross doing? So I thought, well, if there's some way to be acknowledged in some kind of form, I can share that with my parents and they would see I've been acknowledged in this world as someone who can be trusted and encouraging to others and all that. And that would be something to schlep naches, which is a Yiddish term for like, what does schlep naches mean, Alan? Right, thank you. Yeah, carry blessings. So, I was speaking with Sojourner Moshi about, we should have an acknowledgement for laypeople.

[12:01]

In priests, there's dharma transmission as a sign of maturity, and there's plenty of mature laypeople that have been sitting here for decades supporting the practice. And I said, well, we don't have that. Let's create something about that. He says, well, you know, that tradition is is reserved for the priest practice, but lay people support the practice and we love them and we encourage them. I said, well, you know, so we went back and forth on this. And in New York, my first teacher, Bernie Glassman, had a recognition of lay practitioners, and they sewed brown ruckus suits or were given brown ruckus suits. So the priest in lay had the same color robes that were seen in the community. So I wanted to be like that here, but this isn't there. This is here. And this is where I got stuck. And this is where I got really entangled. And I got upset and angry. But in the midst of that anger and upset and frustration, Sojourner Russia and I, I felt came very close because we were enmeshed in dialogue. It wasn't so much about agreeing or disagreeing.

[13:05]

It was about the conversation. And that's why I've discovered that even in conflict, there's a richness there that we should not avoid. We shouldn't be conflict avoidant. Now, it doesn't mean like hitting and yelling and screaming and calling names. I mean, that's kind of an extreme, but just having disagreements is okay because that's where we learn. We learn where we're stuck. We learn where other people are stuck and we can hopefully grow together. So I didn't think about, oh, so a Green Rakeshu practice was started about 17 years ago. And Sojourner Moshi invited me to do this along with Karen Dakotis, who was a longtime lay practitioner here. And she said, yes, thank you very much, Sojourner Moshi. And I said, no, thank you very much, Sojourner Moshi. And I didn't think too much about it after that. I was here for the ceremony.

[14:06]

Karen and I are deep, close friends, and it was so great and happy to see her fulfill this thing that Sojiroshi and I had begun a dialogue about, and there was a little disappointment. because I still didn't have something to share with my parents. And I couldn't tell them the subtleties as if I shared with you what my life and practice was about. So, 16 years later, in February, I happen to be the Jisha for the month, and I'm attending Sojourn Roshi. during Sachine, and we have a couple exchanges that to me felt very intimate and reflected back to that time long ago when we were discussing things and there was an intimacy there. And it felt very nice, as it does when we have a closeness with someone we admire and are supported and encouraged by.

[15:11]

And I said, well, this is a nice opportunity to connect. So after I returned to his office carrying the books from his class for the last time, he turned around and he said, I would like you to sew a green rakasu. And I immediately went back to that place of Sojomoji. We went through this before. Thank you very much. I really am honored that you've asked me to do this, but I just... It just doesn't feel right to me in the form that I had in my mind how it should look. And the details of that aren't so important, but there was something there for me that was still sticking, that I was still entangled by. And the really interesting thing about it was that even though I hadn't really thought about it for 16 years, when he asked that simple question, I would like you to sew a green ruckusuit, nine words, I went back 16 years and felt this stuff in my body. So I'm carrying it in my body.

[16:12]

I wasn't conscious of it. And it was like, that's very familiar. That's really familiar. But 16 years of practice, a lot of Zazen and all the rest of the stuff that's happened in my life in this decade since, my response to him was more open. Even though it was declining, I said, you know, he finally said, well, think about it. I said, okay, I'll think about it. And so the Jishu washes the Doshi's teacup after an event like that. So I went into our mutually shared kitchen. His office and my apartment are side by side. I wash the teacup and I come out and I say, okay, I'll do it. Now I was not thinking about doing it. while I was washing the teacup. I wasn't thinking about doing or not doing it on the way to the kitchen or back from the kitchen. But there I was with so much, okay, I'll do it. Well, where in the hell did that come from? Where in the hell did no become yes?

[17:15]

In a sense, so seamlessly just in that moment and that all my ancient tangled karma How long is ancient? Well, it's longer than my 62 years. I do feel that. It's a long, long tangle. So I met with Jean and I'm sewing a green rakisu and Susan Marvin and I will ordain as lay entrusted students on Monday, May 6th in the morning. Hosan sent out a nice announcement for that, for those who were on the listserv. And as a result of that, my life has kind of turned in a nice way. Sewing a different rakasu. I sewed this in New York. It's a different form, and the rakasus we sew here are very challenging. So in the process of sewing, I was getting tangled.

[18:20]

my thread was getting tangled and I was revisiting this tangle and I was feeling in my mind and in my body what was going on as my string, my thread was getting caught in needles and knotting up and whether to like try to tease it out or pull it apart and all that stuff. So we think we're sewing a rakisu. We think we're sewing a robe, and in fact, we are sewing a robe, but we're actually sewing a relationship. We're sewing a relationship back to ourselves. Actually, whatever we're doing, we're building a relationship back to ourself. There is the rakasu that is sewn. There is a sidewalk that is built. There is a zabutan that is sewn and put in place. But what's really going on? What's deeper? Well, it's this relationship thing. Jean Selkirk is our sewing teacher here.

[19:26]

And when I was, there's one step in the rakisu or lay robe sewing where there's all these needles that are sticking out and you've got to sew in between them to get your lines right. And she, As I said, this ruckus when I sowed, there was none of that. It was a really easy thing to do. And this was like really complex. And I realized it shouldn't be easy necessarily. This is a hard practice. Cultivating an awareness of self and helping to save all beings, which is our vow, is not an easy task. as much as I might have wanted to have a rakasu made somewhere and given to me, this is what I had to go through. And Jean's thought about this is like sewing on a pin cushion. So a pin cushion is these little fluffy things and the needle stick in there.

[20:30]

And they're typically, you don't sew on them, you sew on your robe or your dress or what have you. And the pin cushion is just a storage thing there for just the pins as you're done with them. But what's it like to actually bring these two together? The thing that you want to have happen and the stuff that's kind of left over, the things that you're done with. You're putting these two things together. That's what our life is. We get tangled by wanting it to be like this and going this way and getting caught and tangled by needles or by people. So the sewing process for me has been a really great experience in opening and just saying yes has been very helpful in loosening up my body and meeting situations more seamlessly.

[21:35]

It doesn't mean that I or anybody else should say yes no matter what is asked. So there is a place where we discern and see, well, what's the appropriate response here? And sometimes yes is no. Like, and no is yes. No, I can't do that. Yes, I am taking care of myself in this moment by saying no. And the reverse is also true. So we have, it's not, there's no method or system where we can just kind of predict how we're going to be. I like Soji Roshi's encouragement to us, which is, it should be yes. The initial thought should be yes. And then there's a reflection on, well, you can have some of my time if you have a request to talk, but you can't take all of my time because I need some time for myself. So the inspiration should be yes, with some qualifications. I was in L.A.

[22:42]

for a week and I flew southwest and I'm on the airplane going down and I'm working on my talk and the steward comes by and drops off the beverage and the proverbial napkin. Those old napkins, right? And there's some kind of advertisement or message on it supporting Southwest Airlines or whoever you fly. So this napkin had two sides to it, and they're two different messages. And the message that was laid in front of me with the juice says, in a world full of no, we're a plane full of yes. So, it's pretty good.

[23:43]

I thought it was on the other side. We don't play games with your fares just on our napkins, those little tic-tac-toe things, they can play tic-tac-toe. That's transparency. I like the other side more. I will not give a talk about transparency. One last story. As a resident, there's an expectation of being open and hosting people as they come to the temple. Obviously, non-residents do that also, but as residents, because we live here, people show up and we try to be a welcoming presence.

[24:48]

And I live on a ground floor, so I tend to get more hits than the people living in the upper reaches. But that's okay. This is where I live, and it's fine. When the weather's like this, my door is typically open, and so my cats can go back and forth, our temple cat and my personal cat. So I'm sewing in my rakasu. It's a nice afternoon, and I go outside to tend to something, and there's a mother and a child by the lemon tree here. The child's about four, very active and whatnot, and the mother's kind of quiet. and respectful. And he said, oh, good afternoon. Can I help you? He said, well, my son said, I want to go in there. So he came in. Is that OK? I said, of course, it's OK. So they came in through the gate, and that's where I found them at the Lemon Tree. And I said, yes, this is the Berkeley Zen Center, and you're welcome to walk around here and admire the flowers and whatnot.

[25:53]

The boy was kind of hiding behind the mother and the mother was upright and being a presence, but she didn't want to intrude. I said, no, please, it's fine. So I said, would you like to meet my cats? So the little boy was kind of excited. So I bring them back to my apartment, and they get to meet Rocky and Sweet Pea. And Sweet Pea, of course, is very friendly and comes forward, and Rocky's kind of standoffish and sitting in a chair there. But anyway, they're both inside. So now these two strangers are in my apartment. which for them is unusual. For me, it's not at all. But they're like a little, you know, the cat, the kids all jumping around. And then the mother's like kind of concerned, says, really, I love doing this. Please enjoy yourself. So we're talking and chatting. And then the boy, Vinny is his name, he has his shoes on and he gets up my chair. And I'm thinking, I feel my body.

[26:55]

I don't want dirty shoes on my chair. But that thought didn't even form completely. There was just this acceptance. There was this untangling of my habit energy of like how I want my place to be. And the little kid's there, he's just playing around on the chair, the cat and whatnot. And then he goes outside, he picks up the hose, and he starts watering the stuff. And the mother, of course, is really freaking out, says, no, it's okay, the garden needs watering. And he's like watering around on it. And he puts it on it and then they're about ready to go. And so they go off and I go back to my sewing and say, please come back anytime you want it. next day. The door is open, and I'm sewing on my squares, which is the four squares on the Raksu, the four guardians, the four spots on the bowing mat that's represented there.

[27:57]

So I'm sewing on my four squares, which is a very slow, tedious process. It's really hard, but it gets done. And I feel this presence come around the corner and I get up and it's Vinny, mother, and a gentleman who I took to be the partner of the wife and it was his husband. His name is Gabor. He said, like Zsa Zsa. Okay, it's easy to remember. Zsa Zsa Gabor and Vinny. So I said, hey, you want to come in? Meet the cats. And of course, Gabor is a little hesitant, the husband, but the wife and son, they already know the drill. So they're already inside. Vinny knows he's taking his shoes off by now. And they're running around playing with the cats and the whole thing. And it's really quite a fun moment for me. And after a little while in my apartment and getting to know the parents and talking about what they do and where they're from and such, I said, you want to see the Zendo? So they're curious, so I bring them to the Zendo. We walk in and they're all kind of enamored with this place, of course, and I show them the bells and then Vinny picks up the little striker and he's sounding the bell and he's like really into it.

[29:12]

And the mother says, you know, he started crying listening to classical music like it two months or two years, I can't remember now, but he was a very sensitive child. And you could tell just by this kid sounding the bell that I come over here and he starts playing with a candle snuffer. And the mother says, don't pick it up, don't pick it up. And that's okay, just hold it. And then I light the candle and he's here and I bring it down for him to put out to show him how this thing works. And he starts reciting the Jewish prayer for lighting candles. And I join in with him and put the candle out and put it up there and he's put the snuffer back and then we go over to the Makugyo and I demonstrate, bop, [...] bop. Here, you do it, Vinny. And he's going, bop, [...] bop. And he gives it back to me and I'm doing it. And then he starts spinning his legs like a cartoon character really, really fast.

[30:13]

And he says, now you do it. I said, I can't do that. And then we go to the back, and there's that bodhisattva there where the light is coming in. You can see in the corner. Now, this isn't a soft, fluffy teddy bear. This is an old, ancient piece of wood. It's got some sharp angles, some broken off arms, not the most cuddly thing that you can imagine looking at it. And Vinny gets up on the tan, and he gives that Bodhisattva a bear hug. Just hugs it. He just hugs the Bodhisattva. And he gets off. And then we go out the gate. We go out the door. So I bid them, you know, good day. And they go. And I just think about what happened today. Or all this family comes here, comes inside and they just get exposed to my world and I get exposed to their world.

[31:21]

The sense of stinginess and holding back. is something where we keep our doors closed, we close down psychically, but by keeping our doors open and being open to whatever arises, well, the whole universe is right there. It's right there with that family, right there with all those expressions around here. Along with this napkin coincidence, Gabor, I said, what do you do? He said he works at software. He works for Square, that register company that some of you may know about. And I'm like sewing on my squares. What is all this? So, you know, one could develop a whole story and movie about all that, but I tend not to. But the synchronicity and the timing of all this stuff, it just really feels like there's something here about maintaining an openness and just letting that thread go and see where it finishes versus getting all tangled up and not being able to express itself and extend itself outward.

[32:31]

So, how do we untangle the tangle? What's a tangled feel in our body and what's an untangled feeling in our body? How do we hold discomfort and pain and suffering in our body? How do we recognize it years later and seeing it differently? My teacher in New York, Bernie Glassman, he did this demonstration and it stuck with me. He says, the things that you have to deal with, it's like you're on a spiral and you hit it each time. It's like a record with a little skip. But each time you hit that, you're in a deeper place. So it's a familiar little trip, little blip, but you're at a place where you actually can see it. with more openness. Initially, it's just a distraction and something you don't want to have in your life. But after a while, it's okay. Come on in and let's talk.

[33:35]

Well, let's talk. We have some time for some questions or comments. Ken? And then, there was some debate about that. And then many years ago, you started doing the Green Rocketsuit thing. I would have thought that, yeah, that's what I was, so apparently you had some different idea that the Green Rocketsuit did not exactly fit with what you were asking for. Well, I have a green watch band in place of that. Well, actually, the short story is that my feeling is that we all come together, we all start at the same place in practice. And then for whatever reasons, we either become priests or laypeople, and then there are these parallel tracks.

[34:45]

And my thought was that if we want to recognize people as mature or trusted or whatever the description you'd like to put to it, we can come together and be kind of the same in a way, the same color. So Brown Rockets seemed consistent with that, in my view. That sort of discernment or distinction did not come up back in February. I still have that thought, but it's not tangled up with my ancient twisted karma around wherever, you know, wherever my mind has gone. So that was it. And it's been a really interesting process around that. And in a way, I can see that, you know, we're all together, we're all in this one room, and we're all different in the way we each manifest. That actually maintaining a so-called separation by color is a way to kind of

[35:47]

honor people that have chosen a lay life. Yeah. Yeah. That's how I'm thinking about it now anyway. I'll get back to you in 16 years and see where I'm at. Sue Moon. Hi. There it is. Yes.

[36:54]

Hmm. It's true. So what comes to mind is there's one of you is separating those tangles, they're going to impede each other's growth or what have you. And the other one is embracing or enjoying the entanglement or the synergy or the collective energy of these two plants.

[38:00]

So thanks for highlighting those two observations that are really consistent with what we're doing here. Really good. Thank you. Penelope. Yeah, yeah, it's a lovely story. Yes. It is.

[39:06]

I thought about not being stingy with the Dharma. That's another rendering, of course, that I was kind of highlighted in New York. In the last precept, or the tenth precept, not disparaging the three treasures, it kind of goes into that a little bit. One other thing that happened with the stinginess is I don't like having things extra that are just lying around, so I kind of get rid of things. So what's around is what I'm using. So when Jean said, okay, get a threaded needle with some thread for this stage of the sewing, I said, well, how much? How much thread do I need for this? So she says, enough to do the thing. So I'm like, okay, now how much is that? So my stinginess and not wanting to waste and have a bunch of extra thread that's not gonna be used is, okay, I can probably about this much. I wasn't thinking I was being stingy, I was thinking I was being practical.

[40:10]

So I'm sewing along. Oh shit, there's not enough thread to finish the line. I got caught by this invisible needle up here called being too frugal, too practical. and not being generous enough with what's being offered, which is just a spool of thread, and there's room for that. So I had to take the needle off the thread and then do all these little things in order to get that last knot and get it done. I said, I'm not going to do that again. And a little later, I did the same thing again. So the difference between miscalculating and having extra and being deliberately stingy and not trusting that nothing's wasted. The thread that's balled up that you're done with is going to go into the ground. It's going to come up as a twining vine on Mount Diablo. Nothing is wasted. Jose? Well, that reminded me of a funny experience I had here with Ted.

[41:17]

What I wanted to ask is, I'm really bothered by the idea of cutting through a knot. How much of it is metaphor and how much of it is an actual scissor cut? So the Gordian knot, you know, it's cutting, the metaphor of cutting, which is the, we're not going to deliberate any more about this, we're just going to cut through it. But it's more of a, like this Manjushri, is he actually cutting? Or is he actually kind of showing the path to to an opening, and sometimes you have to cut. So, untangling, it's not working. But I found that actually with patients, what looks like it's too tight, it's not.

[42:43]

It's just, let's take a little more time. And then it's like, boom. There were a couple of times Jean just went like, oh my God, how did she do that? It looked like it was not going to be untangled and it did. So good luck with not cutting and cutting and when it is appropriate to cut. You know, it's like a relationship. You know, it's not so much about the string or the knitting material. It's like, when do I cut off this relationship that isn't healthy for me? And when do I stay, or how long do I stay with it to cultivate this relationship? It looks like we're out of time, but we can speak a little more over tea. Thank you all for your attention and passing that picture around. There it is. Okay, cool. All right. Thanks.

[43:42]

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