I'm grateful to be here this morning. Thanks to Sojin Roshi for inviting me to give a talk during the practice period. And I'm very happy to be here for this second half of the practice period and sitting with and in support of our sister Susan Marvin, somebody who's practice I've appreciated and whose family we've been close to for many years. I was thinking about her talk last evening where she talked about your work as an ESL instructor and your job of being encouraging and encouraging people to find their intention and to use their mistakes.

[01:08]

And I think there was something else. I forget it. I'll get to it later. But it helped create a context for me to think about. So I've been away. I'm just back this week. from being a visiting residential teacher at the Empty Hand Zendo in New Rochelle, just north of New York City, in a kind of urban environment just north of the city for six weeks. And that was a unique experience which I'll talk a little more about. It was kind of like running a small Zen store. uh one proprietor store where you know you lit the candles and changed the candles and did the flowers and took out the garbage and oh by the way you also sat saw them you know uh it was very wonderful and uh our friend Conan Cardenas is there now for two weeks and then Ryushen Andrea Thatch is going to be there for two weeks uh they are uh

[02:23]

Well, the context that I will present to you, they're in a process of change. So, I will talk about a number of things, but I wanted to set a context first. On Monday, a visiting monk came to meet with Sojon Roshi. And somebody, his name is Ekai Korematsu, and he began practicing here, right? About 35 years ago, I think. A long time. And he's been gone, he has a practice place in Australia, and he also is the Zen teacher for the Antioch College program in Bodhgaya. And I hadn't seen him in close to 30 years, and we fell into a really interesting conversation. And towards the end, he said, well, he'd been asked to give a lecture on what he saw about Soto Zen in America, about our practice.

[03:36]

And we'd been talking about our respective experiences. And he said, if you had to say something about Zen in the West, what's the first thing that comes to your mind? And I took just a very quick moment to reflect on what came up was, I just said, well, I see our practice as a path of sanity. And I don't exactly know where that came from. But the thought just kind of slipped out. And I stepped, you know, he thought about it and I stepped back and thought about it. And I felt, yeah, that makes sense to me, a path of sanity. And I did say a path, not the path, because there are other spiritual roots, not necessarily spiritual roots, just roots of secular inquiry that I think

[04:49]

can lead to a sane life. And the notion of sanity itself is a subjective matter. It's determined by the conditions of our life and by the culture and society. And that I realize it's not exactly the same as fitting in. or doing some kind of process whereby you normalize your activities so that you can be in sync with everybody else in society. Now, sanity is... Actually, Chögyam Trungpa talked about sanity. He talked a lot about... He was a Tibetan teacher who was very close to

[05:51]

Suzuki Roshi, and he often talked about basic sanity. And he also talked about the sanity you were born with, which is a wonderful notion. It's like you could think about it as like original enlightenment. if you will, but I don't want to make it grandiose, say there's something grandiose about enlightenment, whereas sanity seems more down to earth, at least to me. And it's also true that it's in accord with a life of the precepts, an ethical or moral life, and that that word So the precepts, shila, is one of the three foundational bases of our practice.

[06:56]

Shila, samadhi, which is meditation, and prajna, which is wisdom. And shila translates, interestingly, it means something like natural normalness. or normal naturalness. So I'll come back to this. But I think that what I'm talking about as sanity is very much in line with what Suzuki Roshi and Sojin Roshi often speak of as composure. And it's an interesting word also. So I was looking through, I often look through sort of Suzuki's archives, which are very rich.

[07:59]

They're kind of the more raw, unedited versions of what was then skillfully edited down for several of his books. And so there's a 1965 lecture, and this is something that was, I think it got folded into the transiency chapter of Zen Mind Beginner's Mind. And Suzuki Roshi says, the basic teaching of Buddhism is the teaching of change. That everything changes is the basic teaching. and this truth is eternal truth for each existence. No one can deny this truth. All the teaching of Buddhism is condensed in this teaching. This teaching is also interpreted as the teaching of selflessness, because the self nature of each existence

[09:10]

is nothing but the self nature of all existence. In other words, as Dogen Zenji said, all beings are Buddha nature. Everyone is a manifestation or expression of it. So, Suzuki Roshi says, there is no special self-nature for each existence. And this teaching is also called the teaching of nirvana. When we realize this truth, and when we find composure in the everlasting truth, which is that everything changes, we find ourselves in nirvana. What he doesn't say here is, if we resist this truth, or find ourselves in a position in which we want things to be different from how they actually are, then we will find ourselves in what conventionally we call samsara, or we won't like it.

[10:38]

Please, make it different. That's not nirvana. If we cannot accept this teaching that everything changes, we cannot be in composure, perfect composure. The circumstance that I went to, and I'll talk a little about this, in empty hand was that their teacher died a year and a half ago. Their teacher was a friend of mine. Teacher was also a good friend of Ross's. Sojourner, name was Susan Postal. Very interesting, creative person and a strong teacher. And she died, which left the Sangha in a great sense of loss.

[11:46]

She had been the founder. And the person that she chose as a successor, Myosan Dennis Keegan, is also dying. And so they are in the process of They're in a process of grieving. They're in a process of transition. And I mean, the reason that Conan and Andrea are going is they're also in a process of interviewing people who might be interested in being a residential teacher there. And I felt that my role, Lori and I were there in September. We had a very good time. but the job was just keep things stable not create things but just provide a steady non-anxious presence which people could relate to and feel that they were being met and that was actually a wonderful opportunity.

[13:06]

I recognized that there was loss, I recognized the reality, they were reckoning very immediately with the fact that everything changes and that there was no, my job wasn't to somehow shift that perception so that, you know, it's like, Well, I'm here now, so everything is not changing. No, it was still changing. And I was only here for a short time. But in that time, we were able to meet each other. And that was very rich. And I will say, there were other advantages for me of being on the East Coast. I spent a lot of time hanging out with our daughter, Sylvie, who lives in Brooklyn.

[14:14]

And we ate food, we walked around. I also saw our son, Alex, I don't know, three times, I think. I drove up to Connecticut where he's going to school, and I saw a lot of old friends. So I had old friends from high school and from college in the music scene and played a lot of good music and ate a lot of good food that was not necessarily good for me. I determined that a Nathan's hot dog tastes much the same as a Nathan's hot dog always did. So in the nature of the fact that, of the reality that everything changes, maybe there's some small things that don't change. Like the snap when you bite into the nation's... And I also enjoyed every Saturday.

[15:28]

Saturday was like kind of my day off. I had stuff to do every day. But Saturdays I would walk around. I'd pick a neighborhood of New York and I would just walk around, often by myself. So I walked all across Harlem, I walked through Flushing, which is now quite Chinese, and I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, and I walked through the Lower East Side, and I walked the High Line, if people know what that is, in Manhattan, on the West Side. It was really fun. So... I created a rhythm for myself and I got to do a lot of work as well. And it seems like I just felt very lucky because I had a nice place to come back to. Right above there, a nice zendo and then a loft, a living loft right above that. So it got to be coming home.

[16:30]

Coming back to that felt like coming home. And yet I also, I missed Lori. I missed our practice here, I missed you all. And when it was time to come home, I'm glad to come home. So, maybe for some of us as we get older, we can become more sane. The grounding was the fact that I was sitting every day. You know, we sat six mornings a week. And in the morning, during the week, as you said, three periods of zazen a morning, which is a lot.

[17:33]

And sometimes I was sitting alone. It wasn't like here, you know, it's like came in this morning with 30 people and last evening, you know, there were 40 people, you know, it's like on a good day, there were two people. But it's also Zazen is Zaza. and you sit down and you cross your legs and you breathe and you sit upright and settle into the reality of what our lives are. And I think that this is basic sanity. Basic sanity is actually meeting yourself moment by moment. that one of the advantages, one of the opportunities that we have in this practice is to meet ourselves unconditionally.

[18:41]

And, of course, anyone can do this at any time. But we actually have these teachings that have been handed down They're most immediately handed down from Suzuki Roshi to Sojin Roshi and others in our family and then to us. And this morning in service we chanted the lineage and the women ancestors. And this practice of sitting down, meeting each other, meeting ourselves rather, and that's been handed down for 40-something generations. And what that means is that we have a way, if you will, without seeming too instrumental about it, of working with ourselves.

[19:49]

And over a long period of time, we have an opportunity really to see what's going on in here. And how do I want to be as I engage with other people in the world? And in this context, for me anyway, the presupposition is If you're coming here, that's what we're doing. Uh, each of us is doing it on our own and each of us is supporting each other as we sit next to each other day by day. So, um, this basic sanity to me is There's a notion in Buddhism of the kleshas, which is sometimes translated as defilements or as the three poisons, which then can get broken down in many further dimensions into

[21:21]

unskillful thoughts and so forth. So the way I think about them though is often a traditional way of thinking about them is as coverings that are greed, hatred, delusion, all of our afflictive emotions are not, they're not necessarily our true self. They arise by virtue of causes and conditions of our lives. But when we're practicing, when we're following the path of sanity, our intention is to carefully remove these coverings so we can see who we truly are underneath it.

[22:33]

And so that work has two dimensions. I often talk about this and I've come to an age where it has been pointed out to me that I repeat myself. My children are really good at pointing. So I've often spoke about this because it started years ago. Two books that were written by Kategiri Roshi. And they're very good books. You should read the books, but you can reflect on the titles even. Then you should go read the books. But the titles, the first title was, Returning to Silence. And that is one aspect, critical aspect of our work. We need to be able to return to silence.

[23:38]

You know, I, before giving the talk today, I came down and I sat Zazen. you know, which is actually, for me, it's come to be my best preparation for a talk. It's like I take notes and I set them, you know, and then I set them aside and I come and I just sit. And I allow myself to return to silence. And it's really important to touch that root. It's important to know how to do that. That's one aspect of this path of sanity. And then the other, the second book that was published by category Roshi was, You Have to Say Something. So that speaking,

[24:40]

rises from that deep root of silence. And if it's coming from that, it's not tainted by our self-concern or our self-centeredness. It's saying something that arises from this depth. from the richness and the stillness. So that brings me to almost one of the last things that I did on this East Coast trip that some of you may know about. There was a gathering which about 125 people were invited to go to Washington, D.C. and go to the White House. to meet with the White House staff.

[25:43]

And I had some second thoughts about that, but I was sort of convinced, well, I was convinced by Lori, whose first response was, well, you have to go. So I said, okay. And but also I was convinced by looking at the breadth of who was going to be there and just to be with old friends and to meet new people. So, the point of this actually was to say something, to recognize that there were pressing concerns that face our world as Buddhists and as individuals. Primary on the organizer's agenda was the climate crisis that we're facing, but also as we played it out and talked back and forth, looking at the

[27:00]

the surfacing, painful racial divisions that we're building a fresh awareness of, at least in some communities that wanted to pretend that we were somehow post-racial, which we are not, obviously. And also to look at the effect of war and militarism that we might have responsibility for and to in this country. And so part of it was to have a discussion amongst ourselves about what we thought as Buddhists and then to basically listen to and be in discussion with staff people at the White House.

[28:06]

So in the morning we talked amongst ourselves and in the afternoon we went to these briefings and we asked some pressing questions. And I don't know that anything was much was accomplished there. But you also got to see, oh, the people in the White House, these people, these are good people. They want to do good. They may or may not cherish illusions about how change happens. In certain respects, certainly looking at the question of of the environment, of climate change, which is a discussion that, and it's a study that I want to take up in discussions that I would love to have more with any of you. It felt like what the staff was proposing was essentially kind of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic while the band was playing.

[29:20]

On the other hand, you had to recognize that this is a political environment that they exist in and there are only certain things that are possible within that political environment. So our responsibility as citizens is to push on that and to also help people think, is there a possibility or possibilities beyond what they are seeing? and I think a part of the agenda as well was for the first time meeting with the White House staff and to help them become aware that actually there's a Buddhist population that cares about these issues that's not necessarily unified in political view or even in direct interest, except in that we're human beings and that we're trying to find a path of basic sanity.

[30:35]

And that there are as many of us in the wider Buddhist community, there are as many Buddhists as there are Muslims and Hindus in this country. we would like to have a place at the larger table. And so that was a beginning. And it was interesting and it was inspiring to be with the other Buddhists who were quite wonderful. And then I'll say some of us organized a little action. After we finished with the official briefing, I had worked out with the BPF people and I had been talking and with some other allies and we went outside the White House and people in Oakland had hand-painted these banners. They were really nice. We stood outside on Pennsylvania Avenue and we had three banners and we held them up one at a time.

[31:43]

One said, the karma of slavery is heavy. I vow to work for social justice. Second was, US militarism breeds violence, not safety. I vow to work for peace and freedom. And the third was, the whole earth is my true body. I vow to work for climate justice. So, you know, we sort of had a photo op. And it was very interesting because there were a lot of tourists, and all of a sudden, The tourists were gathering around and taking photos as well. So, is this sanity or insanity? For the moment, we can do our best to express our views and to recognize that other people have other views.

[32:50]

and that in all of these areas there is room for discussion and debate. And we're constantly relying on zazen, we're relying on returning to silence, and then moving into the world. That's what we do, that's the environment here. The environment here is relatively quiet. And then when we're done, we're going to go outside, we're going to have tea, and we're going to talk, and we're going to move back into our lives. But we carry that root of silence and of sanity with us. And I think that's

[33:54]

We don't, again, we don't do this because this is a way to get sane, although it might be. We do this because when we look around at our teachers, they seem to be expressing basic sanity. Teachers and long-time practitioners, and it's like, oh, Maybe I have some of that too. Maybe that is in me. And maybe there's a way to uncover it and bring it forth so that we can live in a harmonious fashion. So I think that's where I will end. And I'm happy to take questions or thoughts or whatever. So thank you very much.

[35:02]

It's really nice to be home. Ed. Yeah. It's interesting that you use that term. My ears perked up as soon as you talked about that. Which term? Huh? Which term? Oh, sanity, yeah. You can't fool me. There is no sanity clause. I guess in my family, we're grappling with what is sane and what is insane. And my view of that has expanded quite a bit, and also accepting what is sane and what is not sane, I guess.

[36:03]

To me, it's a loaded term. I'm wondering if you see the alternative to sanity And in terms of our practice, you know, is being attached to greed, hate, and delusion as a form of insanity. And so it brings up this sort of dualistic thoughts around what is sane and what is insane. about what is sane and what is converse is everything else, or not everything else, but the converse of our practices being.

[37:03]

I think that's a really important question. And I think for me, what I mean by that is to cultivate a capacity of mind by which I can learn from anything that arises, which would include greed, hatred, and delusions. I don't want to think about this as too holistic. I want to be able to, you know, is there something to be learned from the experience that's arising or the emotion that's arising? And that's, to the extent that I'm capable of it, great.

[38:10]

If to the extent that I'm not, I would like to be more so. But this is one, actually, I'd like to ask Sojin if you had If sanity implies insanity, are we making a dualistic distinction that's not useful? We are. make a general statement. You can, but actually it's dependent on conditions. I would say that what I was thinking about was karma. Politicians, so to speak, people who want power at any cost, that's a kind of insanity because it leads to

[39:19]

So I think that what people in power need to understand is how the law of karma works. The conditions that we create cause harm to other people, and we don't care. That's the kind of insanity. Right. Yeah, that makes sense, and it's a human But to end, you know, I mean, one of the things that I think, and without getting into a lot of detail, it's like, whatever is arising in the situation that you and your family are in, that's what you're using to look at. That's what you're being given, and you're trying to do this in as useful way as possible, but you can only, but it's only the circumstances that are arising that you can work with.

[40:43]

If you have some idea of what you, how it should be, that's not, it's not real, and it's not useful. So sanity is in using whatever is given, I think. Other questions? Linda. Well, if you keep repeating the same you know, teaching through the decades, I'll just keep repeating my same question. You cited Suzuki Roshi on Nirvana, and was it something like accepting reality just as it is? Let me look, because that's... No, it's not accepting reality We have to be really careful, accepting things as they are. This is, in a certain way, an apocryphal teaching.

[41:44]

What he says is, when we find our composure in the everlasting truth, which is that everything changes, we find ourselves in nirvana. That's very different. Right. If you think that Nirvana is accepting how everything is, you are trying to put a pin into the present moment and pin it down. That's not what he's saying. It's very different. Yeah. Good. I think that's like, wow, that's something we don't get to do very often. I wanted to go back to sanity and insanity. It seems to me like insanity or even sanity, doesn't matter, signifies some kind of disintegration where one instinct sort of overwhelms

[42:58]

other instincts without bringing some judgment to resolving perhaps some conflict. So was there a question there? No, I just wanted to make the point that it does signify some disintegration. But disintegration is always happening. That's right. Things are always falling apart. Always going back to that starting point. Right, so I think when Suzuki Roshi talks about composure, just as I was clarifying with Linda, the fact that everything changes is the basis for nirvana and composure, but if you think of nirvana and composure as something solid, you're screwed. then you're not allowing them the same kind of fluidity.

[44:06]

So the fact that things fall apart, to find your composure, this reminds me of something that Aitken Roshi was saying about practice. He described the model of practice, it's a common model, it's like being on an automatic pilot. on a boat or an airplane. So the way that works is, it doesn't just line you up in one position and you go straight ahead. Because causes and conditions, wind, waves, tide, they move you off to the left, and the automatic pilot brings you back to the right, but it tends to overcorrect And then you're constantly in the flux, moving back and forth, so that on the average, you're going relatively straight. But composure is constantly finding your balance.

[45:10]

And so you're off balance, you're gaining your balance. Off balance, you're gaining your balance. And it's the ability to regain your balance. It's not the ability, this is like a teacher once, I had written something and he called me up, very angry, because I had somehow, I had said something about, the expression I used was, stay in the present. And he called me up to berate me and said, you can't stay anywhere. And I'll say, I never said that again. But he was right. So falling apart is part of it. Jerry. I just was responding to the idea of sane or insane. and I flashed on the Beautiful Mind movie, the fact that people can have different ways of perception, different visualization, different hearing, and so forth, but still staying in that in a calm way, as opposed to...

[46:31]

responding, out of fear or anger or whatever. So you can have these abnormal... So I think this issue of sanity and insanity can fit in that. Even what we call insanity is that somebody has a different way of perceiving. But that's not necessarily it. It's the response to that. So actually you can be sane and have these things. I mean, I think that it opens up a good discussion. And also, I think the time is for our meeting is complete. We can discuss it outside. But again, I'm happy to be here with with you. I'm happy to see our Shuso in her seat. And we're going to have a wonderful evening, tonight, and more of our practice group. So thank you very much.

[47:33]

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