It's my pleasure to introduce today's speaker, Ross Blum. Ross began sitting practice some 30 years ago with Bernie Glassman in New York. He's been at Berkley Zen Center now since 1987. He was Shuso in 1996. And his name is Seishi Tetsudo, which is pure determination, penetrate way. Over the years, Ross has held almost all the positions he said, except for Abbott. I must say, I first thought he was the Abbott. So he wasn't there. Ross is currently a co-zendo manager with Christie Killane. He's on the board's building committee. He's the point person for repair and maintenance around here. I call him our go-to guy. Ross retired from working at Pete's a few years ago, after some 25 years there.

[01:03]

And as a personal note, Ross was the first person to learn my name when I came through the gate. I believe he was at the book table, one of his many positions over the years back then, and made me feel very welcome, and very soon encouraged me to extend my practice from coming at 9.30 then to maybe coming at 6 o'clock on Saturdays, which I did. Jake, right? Forgot to mention his sense of humor. Good morning, everybody. Happy Thanksgiving weekend. Happy Omos Ratsu coming up.

[02:07]

Happy Buddha's Enlightenment Day coming up. Happy Fourth Night of Hanukkah coming up. Christmas Kwanzaa. And happy 30th anniversary to me, stumbling into Bernie's temple back in New York, not really knowing what I was getting into. Well, people come to Zen centers for numerous reasons and find inspiration or joy or excitement for different reasons. Some of it is about Sangha and community. building up social ties and friendships. Some of us having a quiet place to sit away from the flurry of the world. Some of us for the good food that we serve on Saturday mornings and retreats.

[03:14]

Some of us do something special to belong somewhere. So there's numerous things that we point to, but ultimately the reason that we're here is because there's some dissatisfaction in our life and we're trying to get to the root of that suffering. And as the seasons turn and anniversaries come into focus, it's quite natural that one looks back on, well what am I doing here? Why do I continue to practice here? So the first couple of years of my practice at Bernice Temple in New York was a time of great learning for me, learning about myself and where I had come from and this dissatisfaction that I had in my life.

[04:27]

And there the emphasis was really focused on having enlightenment experiences. quite often when people come to a meditation practice, they start focusing, sitting still, and maintain the position of a zazen, what arises is states of consciousness and settledness and focus that are transformative. I mean, they're entertaining on a very simple level, and on a much deeper level, they're actually transformative. So I was having these experiences there, nothing earth-shaking but just quiet sitting and I really enjoyed that and I was looking for enlightenment experiences which I was not having. But I continued to sit there and it came time for me to leave. Nothing big happened, it just felt like it was an appropriate time to go.

[05:30]

and both Bernie and my girlfriend at the time suggested Sojourn Roshi in Berkeley as a place to continue my practice. So I came out here about 27 years ago and it took a while for me to kind of adjust to the rhythm of BCC, to California, to Berkeley, to Sojourn Roshi, and now the New York experience is rather dim. But I know it's a part of me and I still have a little yearning for these experiences. So in preparing for this talk, I was thinking about various books that have been inspiring to me. And this one, The Hazy Wood of Enlightenment, by Bernie and his teacher Taisanmaizumi Roshi, is what came to mind.

[06:32]

And the teachings in this book are the, numerous teachings, but one of the central teachings of the book are the eight awarenesses of an enlightened being, or an awakened being. And these are the last teachings. that Shakyamuni Buddha offered to his community, and these are the last teachings that Dogen Zenji offered to his community. So I thought there must be something here and some reason why these teachers chose these teachings as the last thing to utter before passing away. So the title page is a quote by Keizan Zenji, who is a few generations after Dogen.

[07:39]

And along with Dogen is the two focal points for Soto Zen, who is a great popularizer of Zen in Japan in the 14th century, I believe. So the quote is, though clear waters range to the vast blue autumn sky, how can they compare with the hazy moon on a spring night? Most people want to have pure clarity. As sweet as you will, you cannot empty the mind. So this really struck me quite strongly when I read this, not 30 years ago, but just a couple days ago because it really addressed what I have, what's kind of defined my life and the inspiration to get going and then where I found myself today. That while I've had a desire for strong enlightenment experiences and transformative experiences, actually my life has been more of

[08:52]

hazy moon, that the moon is symbolic of enlightenment, but you only see it through the haze of delusion, the haze of this Saha world that we are all kind of mucking around in. My ego arises from time to time. And in anticipation of this talk, I was hoping to see a full Zendo. And they're still coming in. And there are empty seats here. And I had a moment of disappointment, a little let down, like, oh, man, come on. Where are my people at? You know, the Zapatons aren't doubled up as they usually are on Saturday, and there's empty spaces and all that. Well, this is just, you know, this is my hazing moon, right? This is my delusion of wanting a full house and actually having a great full house of people who are actually present.

[10:03]

And as the art critics describe Asian scroll work, that it's this space on the scroll that defines the depictions of mountains and valleys there. It's a space between the words that define the poetry. And so the space here, I look at the space between each and every one of you guys and how grateful I am that you're here on a really beautiful day where you could be doing so many other things. So there's eight awarenesses of an enlightened being, and the order is having few desires, knowing how to be satisfied, enjoying serenity and tranquility, exerting meticulous effort, not forgetting right thought, practicing Samadhi, cultivating wisdom, and avoiding idle talk.

[11:12]

has lectured on these awarenesses from time to time over the years, and I'm not going to lecture on them today, but I felt that the first two, having few desires and knowing how to be satisfied, were the key to helping me and helping all of us, and I want to talk a little bit about that. The first noble truth of Shakyamuni Buddha's teaching is life is dukkha, which is translated various ways. It's unsatisfactory, suffering, something's askew, something's amiss. So we all have this experience in our life and in part it's what brought us here.

[12:20]

So when we think about, when I think about Why am I dissatisfied? Why do I think things are askew? I look at this first awareness that I have a desire for it to be different and it's not. And in Zazen practice, we breathe in and take in the world. There's a pause and we exhale, we let go of the world. So in this practice, daily practice in Zazen, we had this moment after taking in the world and taking in our expectations, absorbing all the wants and needs that we have and feeling dissatisfied. Before we let go, there's a moment there. There's a moment to reflect. There's a moment to actually change it.

[13:23]

to turn our lives in a very, very different way. Every moment there's an opportunity to let go and to wake up. I didn't think about the theme of this talk playing out at this time of year, but as you all know, this is the time of year to consume. Consume food, consume gifts to give, consume gifts to keep in one's possession. So it's an opportunity to pause before we make that purchase or before we take another helping of food. Do I really need this? Am I satisfied enough with what I have or do I need more? Each month on the full moon we have a bodhisattva ceremony and we avow to look at our karma and change it.

[14:41]

At least that's how I look at the ceremony. and the opportunity to turn things differently and to lessen my suffering. So it begins with an avowal or acknowledging the karma, the tangled karma of our lives. All my ancient tangled karma from beginningless greed, hate and delusion, born through body, speech and mind, I now fully avow. Simple enough. easy content or stanzas to memorize but very difficult to do. So I started looking at the first two awarenesses of having few desires and knowing how to be satisfied and how that relates to this tango karma that's born from body, speech and mind. So strictly speaking, when we're sitting Zazen, we're not creating karma.

[15:48]

So we're not creating suffering. Suffering is not coming up. And then when we start thinking and attaching to the thoughts that arise, we start suffering. When we get off the cushion and we open our mouth, we start suffering. when we start acting out our thoughts and our ideas that we've spoken about, we create suffering. And sometimes it's graded in that the thought isn't so bad, speech is a little less or potentially worse, and then doing something is even worse in the fact that You can control your thoughts, we don't really practice that, but they naturally arise and pass away. Speaking, we can kind of control what we say, but the doing, sometimes we're just so, I kind of do that.

[16:52]

And we can look back and see the effects of body, speech, and mind, and how that is causing our suffering, perpetuating difficulties in our lives and others. So when we look at having few desires as a way of practice and a way of not suffering so much. We can look at the karma that's caused by having desire. And the teaching isn't have no desires, it's have few desires. And there's no template for how much one person needs versus another. We all have to look and see what are our particular needs or my particular needs. But I really feel that by looking closely at my desires and what I act on physically has affected how I express myself verbally and ultimately my thinking.

[17:58]

And as I've kind of gone this toward here, I feel that My life is quieter and I feel a greater deal of satisfaction and I still have desires. Of course, I had this fantasy that all that would go away when I had some experience, but they didn't go away. They kind of transformed. You get to see them for what they are. So it feels to me that by practicing these eight awarenesses, that it was a tact that Shakyamuni Buddha and Dogen felt was very accessible, not so esoteric.

[19:04]

Some of the teachings, especially of Dogen, they're really hard to grasp. But these are like fundamental teachings, fundamental practices that we all can do. And they point us in a direction not out there, but they point us here, they point us back to ourselves. And we can see by practicing them that it leads to a particular state of mind and being that will lessen one's suffering. This also seems like a season of fairy tales and I have a fairy tale to share with you. It's about this fellow who was in his maybe forties or so, fifties.

[20:18]

And he lives in Japan. And it goes something like this. All my life too lazy to try to get ahead. I leave it all to the truth of heaven. In my sack, a bundle of sticks by the stove. I'm sorry. In my sack, a measure of rice by the stove, a bundle of sticks. Why ask who has Satori? Who hasn't? What would I know of that dust, fame, and gain? Lazy nights, here in my thatched hut, I stick out my two legs any old way I please. So this story has been an inspiration for me for a long time when I first read it.

[21:35]

And I initially thought, well, that's a long time ago and a very different life than the lives that we all live here in Berkeley in this age. And then I thought, well, no. The appearances are different, but fundamentally this fellow's story can be our own. We can make it our own. Because if we can't, then we should get rid of all the literature that we recite and study from centuries ago. So how does a monk's life in a rainy night in a funky little thatched hut in Japan somewhere compare to our homes in Berkeley?

[22:45]

How does the electrical line connected to PG&E's base of power relate to a bundle of sticks for a stove or a refrigerator full of food compared to one measure of rice. So if we get caught in the word, you think, well, no, that's someone who's left home and just living on a sort of a bare subsistence level. This is nothing that I could do. We don't have to, but I think it would be helpful if we thought about what this person discovered and made out his life that way. It feels like the embodiment of having few desires. I've never talked to this person.

[23:55]

It feels like the embodiment of knowing how to be satisfied. But I'm speculating. But I do know for myself, my own experience, that my strong desires and wanting the carrot that was dangling up in front of me when I came to practice in New York, It appears from time to time, but I am less likely to get caught by it as when I did when I first started sitting. We all need inspiration. We all need carrots of some sort. It could be the person in front of us, a teacher who is very inspiring and we just want to be around him or her and just absorb and what he exuded that it's almost mythical.

[24:58]

It's like, but apparently that's what it was like for the Sankhya back then. So what do we have now? Well, we got this guy here banging around for 30 years and sharing a story that's hopefully inspiring and quoting some old texts. and some shared experiences that have been helpful for me. And as much as I still have that desire arise from time to time around just this clear, clear mood of experience, slowly, slowly learning that it's within the mud that the lotus blooms and it's within the hazy clouds that fill our life that the moon illumines.

[26:03]

There are usually discussions after lectures in the back of the Zendo by the speaker and whoever can come and would like to share some more about what was spoken about. I can't stay today. Some friends of mine are getting married on Buddha's enlightenment day, December 8th, and they asked me to officiate. So I told them that I'm going to be in Sishin next week. Today is the only time that I can meet with them about the the ceremony, so I won't be able to stay But there's we have about 10 or 15 minutes or so to have a Discussion about what I brought up what's come up for you To Bring closure to what I've what I've shared and hopefully I brought some openness for the rest of the holiday season.

[27:50]

I'd first like to call on Sojiroshi to comment or query what you heard today. Yeah, what struck me when you were talking about the story of the man in Japan, what he said, if I can remember, at the end, that he was free to come and go. Everyone lives a moment by moment in time. And we can only do one thing in one moment, because we try to do more than one thing all the time. But whatever our activities are, we're just doing one thing in one moment. suffering and happy.

[28:54]

You're just doing one thing at one moment. And that's our freedom. Yes, yeah. When you were talking, I was thinking about sometimes people say, you should do more. There's people out there that you can help. And it's like when we get ahead of ourselves and have an expectation of doing more than what the one thing at a time is, we get caught in thinking, well, we start suffering. When in fact, if we just do one thing at a time and help someone, help this, that and the other, we find our freedom. But if we take on too much, you can kind of feel the flurry of energy around people trying to do too much. The fellow in Japan is Ryokan. He had his enlightenment experience and transmission from his teacher and was heading his teacher's temple after the teacher died, and he had enough of it after about a year or two, and he left and wandered for like 32 years.

[30:04]

And so the poem that's attributed to him that I recited is a mature old man who's kind of found the freedom of seeking his two legs out any old way he pleases. But to me it felt like to get down to the simplicity of a measure of rice and a bundle of sticks, we tend to have more freedom and we move more freely, but we accumulate and get encumbered by things. One thing at a time. It's so simple we trip over it when we hear it. Thank you. What was there?

[31:06]

Yeah, there was a dissatisfaction. I was there at the tail end of traditional sitting practice with Sashins and Dokasans and all that. And as the years were going there in 84-87, Bernie was getting involved more and more in social action projects and wasn't around so much. So the upside of it was that one was able to reflect on, well, am I here to sit for Bernie or am I here to sit for myself? But because I was new to practice, I didn't really have that perspective. I still needed the nourishment of basic sitting and the virtue of just sitting upright without having to do anything special. And looking back on it now, it was many years, and Bernie's karma and his vision for his own life was very different than my own.

[32:16]

And so I got laid up with mononucleosis and was just thinking, this isn't working for me. And someone kind of quietly suggested you might think about an alternative without saying what I should do. And then Bernie and my friend thought that Sojan and Berkeley would be a fit. The lesson was that I was so caught up in what I wanted for myself, I didn't actually have the perspective to see what I needed for myself. And I think that's a trap that a lot of people fall into. Because, oh, if I just let go, I'll get it at some point. If I just keep sitting, I'll get it. And I got mononucleosis. And a teaching, and a teaching from it, you know? And, hey? Would you be so kind as to say that poem one more time?

[33:26]

Yeah. All my life, too lazy to try to get ahead. I leave it all to the truth of heaven. In my sack, a measure of rice. By the stove, a bundle of sticks. Why ask who's got satori or enlightenment? Who hasn't? What would I know about that dust, fame and gain? Rainy nights here in my thatched hut, I stick out my two legs any old way I please. When I was looking back on the poem and trying to sort of create this talk, I was thinking about the translation is the truth of heaven, not the truth in heaven, and that's so contrary to Judeo-Christian thinking.

[34:31]

And in putting it with Kazan's quote about the hazy moon, you think about here we are on earth in the relative world and suffering, and then there's this sort of figuratively speaking, the sort of dome of heaven around us that kind of holds us in this sort of absolute, completely accepting realm of whatever befalls us. And I think that if we can sit in our homes when the rains come and hear the rain and reflect on that, it always gives me a lot of encouragement and joy to hear the rain and to feel that I'm being held by something bigger than my mundane world of this and that, the things that cause me suffering. Yeah. Kika.

[35:38]

Thanks. I really like these discussions about needs and desires and wants and satisfaction, and I'm just wondering if you recognize in your life a time when you didn't need so much as you had in the past. Was there a big kind of change or was it a gradual change or just your attention to it? No, I think it's, for me, I never really had it. I think I was predisposed for this life. Though I remember having a desk full of model rockets and having a lot of excitement about all the rockets that I had that I could put together and fire off into the sky. And I remember at a certain point, I didn't want to do that. I just broke it all up and threw them away. It wasn't very difficult. And then there was a time when I collected a bunch of teapots, and I had all these 18 or 19 teacups.

[36:48]

And I'm thinking, our apartment isn't even big enough to serve 18 people. What am I doing with all these teacups? But they just kind of came my way. And as Sojin has taught about receiving gifts, sometimes the gifts get passed on. And as Suzuki Roshi said, I don't own these glasses. borrowing them from the universe until they get moved on to the next phase. With zazen and with study, it's becoming more and more clear that while there's a desire to have nice things in my sphere, not being able to really own anything and seeing things moving through and perishing, that it doesn't quite have that same fixed view, that desire and having things and all that is not as fixed. So to bring it back, I think my basic disposition is this way, and then the teachings really illuminate it to enrich it and validate what happens on the cushion.

[38:08]

while I haven't had big enlightenment experiences that I read about in New York and Three Pillars of Zen type of stuff, that it's the basic teaching of one thing at a time, breath by breath, offering a stick of incense, keeping the back straight, that are extraordinary. Yeah. It's something. There's a quote attributed to Yasutani Roshi, who was one of my three Roshi's teachers, after sitting for 30 or 40 years or something, says, I'm finally learning how to breathe. I'm finally able to taste the air. And I really, you know, when I heard that, what do you mean? It's like breathing is so natural, but

[39:11]

It's like the facility that we have in the various livelihoods that we express ourselves. After a time, it becomes this natural thing that defines us in a way, whatever the thing that we're doing, moving coffee beans across the counter and whatnot. With breathing, this fundamental thing of just being able to kind of taste air and really get intimate with the rising and falling, I was thinking about Dogen's encouragement to have few desires, and it seemed to imply that I'd be better off if I had fewer desires. I wanted to ask you if there's some connection between that and just acceptance, if not appreciation, for the desires that we actually do have, perhaps rather than the ones we'd like to have.

[40:27]

But it's kind of a tricky question there. Well, it's like wanting what you have and not wanting what you don't have. It's kind of like that, yeah. I think it's hard to see as a child, a young person, but as we get older, as I've gotten older, I can see and feel the fire in my body when I want something. And I can actually see it either dissipate or turn in some way after I so-called have it. And I think enough experience of that when one realizes that This wanting more is just not where it's at. And actually wanting less is the best. Wanting less is the most. And it doesn't make sense, but it really feels right.

[41:36]

Wanting less is the most. I think I've been fortunate and blessed in many ways within my family of origin, that pang and discontent that some people carry. It's not that it's not in me, but it's less, so it makes it a little bit easier for me. I remember speaking with Sojan Roshi about when my parents were still alive and how I probably my strongest desire was just to show them that I was okay and that they did a good job raising me and that even though they didn't understand what we're doing here and that their son turned out okay. And after they died, I still think about that and I look at their picture on my altar and all that, but it doesn't quite have that same sense

[42:43]

that I can live a little less encumbered by that baggage of needing to please, that even though I think it's a natural thing to want to please your partner, to please your teacher, to please your boss and all that, but ultimately you have to please yourself. And the only way to do that reliably is sitting in a vasa. I mean, it's the only thing that we can control. You know, when I was at Pete for 25 years, very frustrating relationships with all these things, so-called outside of us, are very difficult to harmonize with. But sitting on that, I realized it's the only thing that I can control. And actually, as I said at the beginning of the talk, I have a desire to speak tersely and pithily.

[43:58]

And I apologize for going on in response to the questions, but I forgive. It's a little after 11. Oh, last question. Thanks for your talk. I was glad to find you were talking when one of my few time that I visit here. Can you, or a person, do you feel that there can be a danger of not only getting attached to enlightening experiences, but you get past that, and then you start noticing, as you mentioned, that when you're in Zazen, you can get to a point where you're not creating karma and suffering, and then you get up and you do something, you say something, and you notice karma and suffering are created. Is there a sense where you can have too much desire for Zazen because you're not creating permanent suffering at that point? I think it's a good desire to have.

[45:02]

And I think there's our life off the cushion, which is how we spend most of our time. And there's a state of mind that we cultivate as one of the awarenesses of an enlightened being, where off the cushion, that's the orientation. And it actually is that there's a somewhat of a seamless quality between the formal sitting and just what we're doing in our life. And it's easier to see the mistakes or missteps off the cushion than on the cushion. they fill heaven and earth, the mistakes that we make. Our intention is to wake up, and so formally we see this as a person is making an intention to wake up. The Buddha sat under a tree for seven years. It's a little bit more subtle and mysterious to see someone who has this intention

[46:16]

Well, you're a musician, you know, holding a guitar and singing, you know, you have this intention. It doesn't look like they're, you know, what's their, I think, what are they doing? They're trying to wake up. They're just entertaining me, but actually what's really going on. And that's what's going on for you. It's that desire to, to wake up and, um, and not create, uh, create suffering and the suffering that we create. And so she said the other day, you know, we get up, we push ourselves off the ground where we fell. and we come up toward heaven and are kind of absolved of that karma with the next intention of waking up and bringing forth compassion. That's not what he said, that's my take on that. Falling to earth into the mundane and then standing up again. So Zazen, when you're not sitting Zazen, is to keep the intention of Zazen no matter what? Well, if we're thinking about it, then we're not there.

[47:24]

There are subtle ways of being reminded of it. One that comes to mind before we end was, I was riding my bike up Russell Street and my mind was God knows where, and then I look over and there's this little blade of grass and this light is coming through it. and I was just so taken by this little four-inch piece of grass bursting with life and the light coming through it, I realized that this is the universe illumining through the mundane grass to bring forth Buddha. It's right there. It's just like right there. I had to stop and I took a picture of it, you know, had a little caption and had it in a newsletter, all excited, and now when I ride by that garden, not there anymore, and the garden is like full with all kinds of stuff. It's like, well, what happened to that? Well, that's sort of the ethereal quality of it. It's just so slippery, and then it's in a moment, it's gone.

[48:25]

But we get to taste it. And as is often quoted here, Zazen makes you accident-prone, that you actually get to bump into yourself and bump into these things that illuminate us and illuminate the world. So Morzazan, there's definitely something to it. I don't know what it is, but there's something there. Thank you all for your attention. Colleen will have a number of announcements about Rahatsu and people being able to come for lectures and all that.

[49:04]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ