Let the Mystery Be

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BZ-02665
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they
do represent center on this rainy chilly late winter morning
ha
liking the rain ah man i'm sure there's some parts of the bay area that are ready for to be over
but it's what's happening it's
part of the mystery
that's what i'm going to speak about today
mystery bewilderment maybe signs
haven't
i keep coming back to the
ah the image of the cypress tree in the front yard that ross of last week ah i mean he just really drew
ah our attention to it totally my attention and ah
also this morning
when i after the opening when i went outside fear was as dorm of crows did people here that
and it was really amazing they were sweeping through the sky or about twenty of them and they were all growing as crows are wont to do and ah
they landed on building and then that didn't
sit right with them and so they they all got up together and flew off in a in a circle still really loud and landed in the tree crossed the street it just was such a striking ah it was a mysterious he
event

we've had a number of
more difficult mysteries too
in the last the last few weeks
ah
there's the passing of our to have friend
jed appleman tacos on java show
bob
who sat with us here for years and prickly was just so vividly here with us for for the last few months of his life
ah
and then
he was gone
with his family some of us were able to take care of his body
and job
he was buried
at fernwood high in marine said a green burial if you know of that ah so
oh
the body will
fully returned to the elements
ah that had come together to
forms the body informed the person and it just returns back into the the earth
a couple of days ago one of our ah
dharma brothers saito lead the bars that some view may know he passed away and in that case ah people sat with his body for three days ah a surgeon when to see
to sit with people
and i'm also thinking of ah
have a friend mary beth
who lost her partner chaos and not not so long ago also that of a month or maybe a little more
this is a great mystery
ah
in our
memorial liturgy
in the zen tradition there's a there's a line that i've always thought was very striking as a as a matter of poetry
i really appreciate the line
aha says sir
this person he or she has taken a leap and the great mystery is no mystery to her now
a great mystery is no mystery to her now
and i was thinking about that ha
yesterday
i'm coming to my own thoughts and
search and drop by to to chat in the afternoon and was talking about this line and does
i believe you said well i'm not so sure

right not sure sure sure that that person that the mystery is not a mystery to that person still a mystery and ah
you know then i was thinking further we were talking to take i haven't figured out this mystery
what are we doing here
ah and i haven't the slightest idea whether the having
taken either can consider it a a leap or you can consider it a small step over a threshold
we have no idea
whether that mysteries in history
to that person
so ah it's it's a lovely line of poetry ah
but it's speculative
so
when i talk a little about mystery better like to see us on
that off is really kind of nails
my point of view

this is buyer
wonderful
songwriter and singer iris dement people know of her

it's called
appropriately enough let the mystery be
going to start with a chorus and using the course through it happens a few times so you'll get a chance to sing

sorry

no

everybody is wondering what were they all came from
everybody is worrying where they gonna go when the whole thing's done no one knows for certain so it's all the same to me
i think i'll just let the mystery the sets of course will try that
everybody is wondering what were they all came from
everybody is worried about where the gonna go when the whole thing's done no one knows for certain and it's all the same to me
i think i'll let the mystery be
some say once you're gone you're gone forever some say you're gonna come back
some say you rest in the arms of your savior if from sinful ways you lack some say you're coming back in a garden bunch of carrots and little sweet peas
i think i'll just let the mystery be here's the course
everybody's wandering in one where they all came from
everybody is worried about where the gonna go when the whole thing's done for no one knows for certain and it's all the same to me i think cultures let the mystery be
some say they go into a place called glory i ain't saying that's not a fact
but i've heard him on the road to purgatory and i don't like the sound of that
as i believe in love and i live my life accordingly
i choose to let the mystery be
everybody is wondering what were they all came from
everybody is worried about where the gonna go when the whole thing's done but no one knows for certain and it's all the same to me
think just led the mystery be
no no one knows for certain and it's all same to me
i think i'll just lead to ministry be

wasn't really have any questions i think we're done for today
i actually have to go on for a while but probably i shouldn't
yeah

it was not unexpected it's in the nature of strain the instruments ah they always go ahead of tune and its nature of a guitar or a certain kinds of instruments the tuning
it is invariably a compromise your always compromising so you wanted i wanted to eat in tune for the court for the main court that it was plain ah
and i just had this stop
as listen
ah you know i listen really carefully ah
and come to a place where has as is often said it's close enough for folk music
a it was pretty close i think the musicians in the room you can tell me not perfect
so we like a mystery we like a good mystery right
and
the sinner better mystery
well the origins of the word go back to car
you know a religious truth it's not just that's not understandable by the application of human reason ah or something secret or unexplainable ah
and you know we we have a whole genre a literary genre of mysteries and
it's salt unimaginable numbers of books right
and the deal with it is that we read these books because the mystery is always gonna be figured out in the end
you know just like
the detective always solves the mystery them and what would happen you know if
the after fifty or one hundred pages sherlock holmes says you know
i'm just going to go back and hot and shoot up another type of government full of cocaine you know it's like that's enough for agatha christie says you know palms
i want to go back to this sweater that i'm knitting you know it doesn't work that way you know we got a we have to see it through
so
this is the mystery are
death is a great mystery
life
he's a great mystery even though sometimes we think we know what we're doing
zazen is incredible mystery so
i said thousand this morning and i haven't the vaguest idea what happened
if anyone can tell me what was happening but well if you can tell me what was happening from me then you know then i will do one hundred and eight past you but if you can if you can tell me what was happening for you have the one hundred and eight bow deals
i'm
this is all ah a mystery and from me
ah
i love
the mystery i'm quite content to let it be
you know and is something about a mystery that the call of that mystery is palpable
you know it's not so much that i need to figure it out
it's just that i love the mystery and love the way mind and body meet it whether it's in our daily life and relationship or
in facing facing the wall facing one's breath and one's posture

last summer when i was at you pious and center
we are
we had a course
a section of our chaplaincy training with wendy johnson people who wendy from green gulch she's a wonderful person a master gardeners and teacher and ah
he
was talking about wildness
and she read this line from a thirteenth century persian sufi text
ah effort vs lord increase my bewilderment
and ah
bewilderment means ghetto to in conventional terms to lead astray
the wild
and we're always there the mystery is that the wild is with us the wild is inside of us
it's wild in their right
ah sometimes we want to think it isn't sometimes i think we've got it under control
but it's wild
kendra is also an edge
what we call wilderness
has a line of demarcation from what we call
maybe civilization
we know where that line we know there's a line and we know when we've stepped over to over it
ah
gary snyder has a poem
short poem that
expresses the the mystery
of meeting
the wilderness
see you rights
it comes blundering over the boulders at night
it stays frightened outside the range of my campfire
i go to meet it at the edge of the light
it comes blundering over the boulders at night
it stays frightened outside the range of my campfire
i go to meet it at the edge of like

the wilderness is disorderly
it seems
ah it's not ordered by conscious mind by our conscious mind it has its own order it has its own hierarchies
and we see the death of our friends and loved ones
it's the place where
their bodies
returned to the wilderness
all of the systems that worked so well
to sustain us
to keep us thinking and breathing and walking
talking oliver functioning those systems
start breakdown
we can think of it in terms of ah
what will checked in the heart sutra the five scandalous forms feelings perceptions formations consciousness these are
the attributes attributes of what we provisionally call self
and i remember
really been struck this is quite a long time ago when one of our ah
early members so who was priest friend drive
when she was in the hospital and we went to visit her
ah
just a couple days before she died you know what she said was the five condors are dissolving
and that really struck me i had to think he said
true was at an idealization but what i've seen over time is that that's an accurate description
and you're not ever they're not gone until they're gone
and when you see your friend lying there
all that's left is
the form
skanda
and when you place that in the ground that form returned to its elements
the other elements of conscious the other elements of the five is presumably ah have dissolved

so
just as a dissolve there's also of course the other side
ah to we don't need to be too grim about this they also come together
ah dogan
rights are isn't this festival janky that we may study during the practice period this spring ah he says he talks about
can say life in or birth for different translations ah life is the manifestation of total dynamic working have everything working together so there's a there's a line there baby
i spent all this time in the womb
and then she emerges into the world and we call that
life we call that purse
ah there's obviously a lot of ethical debate about where life begins which we won't get into here but certainly ah
a line is crossed when the when the baby emerges from dawn
and then
in the course of
the years of its growth and development
consciousness and the various five scanned his are honed and shaped
hen turned into something that we recognize as itself
that
we perceive in ourselves as having some continuity
ah
i
that's a that's a very strong illusion
but it's coming together and at the same time as it's coming together things are also coming apart we stand right at the edge
of this wildness all the time
it's really i think it's really important to grasp that we have that within us
hand to honor it
ah
without the wildness they'll be nothing that we call civilization
and without civilization so-called we might not
we would have no means of comparison to recognize what is wild
so we set up these ah this binary definitions and move in those directions

it can we embrace the mystery has
ah paris the man rights in that song
i come back as i've been talking over the last few years about ah the three tenets that ah
bernie glassman another is developed
yeah and i find them very useful perspectives
the first ten it is not knowing
not knowing is really
being in mystery
allowing yourself to be in the wildness
to be in
ah can be crawling through the tangle of the underbrush
can be sitting
facing the wall
with no idea of what's going to come
just resting here not knowing
zazen is really resting in not knowing
and i'm so i'm so grateful for it here i'm grateful for like that this morning just the
the quiet of us in
if it wasn't for the quiet of zazen i would not have heard the sound of the crows
wondrous wild sound
a really it woke me up
yeah woke me up like
ross is view of the cypress tree woke him up
and i guess i placed some value one
being awake
ah i also believe
i placed a lot of value on having sleep but that's it
that's that's one of the that's one of the conundrums of this of this practice
you get a lotta time to v awake and not so much time to feed sleeve a
on
but that been awake is ah the second kenneth
bearing witness really seeing
what is in front of you really hearing the crows
really seen
your friend
in that hospital bed
who has deported
and returning
i don't know i don't know what just happened i don't know where he is
can i be okay with that
headland the third kenneth
is
the way i frame it is ah an appropriate response
walking through the wilderness walking through the mystery which of course as you do that home
you create a path
you know this inevitable if you walk in a direction you'll create a path if you work walk in that direction
ha
multiple times then than the path becomes clearly defined and others can follow it the buddha to find a path these ah the forest noble truth is the eightfold path
and ah
his whole way of life was just
wandering about north india
and where he went
ah he could see the path inside him and so it allowed him to to walk on wherever wherever it may lead for him and wherever it may lead for us
sometimes we stand at a crossroads
we don't know which way to go
hum we may have some data that points us in one direction or another we may not we just take a chance is not that ah
the path always leads you to
ah
the place you think you want to go
but it leads somewhere and can you be there in that mysterious place wherever that is

lord increase my bewilderment
the wonderful when of grapevine that his mom usually will be think is lord give me the truth or point me towards certainty you know ah but
increase my bewilderment means plans
opening your mind for taking the lid off your skull
hen just opening our minds to whatever is arising in that circumstance whatever is arising within us whatever is arising outside of us because they are not different
no this sort of
the digressions
i wish that we actually ah spent more time
is sitting outdoors
because it's a different character ha of mind and meditation when you sit outside lose for me ah it ah
it really feels like there's
there's just this expansive vast quality that are is very refreshing
so on

i'm not sure i have anything more to say ah
but
maybe seemed to islam day of the guitar again let's just seen the course again and then i'm would welcome hear your thoughts and questions i'm just sort of ah has become aimlessly rambling but
ah
i'm allowing myself to go for of form
everybody's wandering when one where charles dickens everybody is wondering what were they all came from
everybody is worrying about where the gonna go when the whole thing's done
no one knows for certain so it's all the same to me
i think i'll just let the mystery be
no no one knows for certain and it's all the same to me
i think i'll just let the mystery be

so any thoughts or questions
linda
yeah

god

right

come from
going
your
teacher
you'll get the secret mystery
yes how come here that was just it was so incredible to be there and to be listening to the songs and plane with them some and again been being
outside we were outside her on a farm and as just like oh different reality it wasn't exactly wilderness but it was
it was really different for a city boy like me ah i really i loved it there
pagan

well this you know there's a famous colon of right ah is it
ha
show me how your mother's face before you were born
is it yours or
your parents face yeah yeah
so that's a matter of of zen training it's there in our training
well you know what know this i meant to say to say i risk scripted harm
the turning words of that song
caryn the second verse where she where she says i believe in love and i lived my life accordingly i want to underscore that i meant to say that isn't
that's the touch the pivot of the song and i meant to say that because i can i read it i keep hearing this and i read it on somebody's you know somebody's zen chan zen facebook forum you know it's like people using why don't we ever talk about
love in the zen tradition and i
lately scratch my head because i think that that's all that we're talking about
it's just love all the way to the bottom
that's just my opinion man ah you know but ah
i think that's what that's what i was committed cities like how do you love
when your life
live and love is that just been letter apart
anyway i didn't really answer your question but
okay then
online

there

as
ah
harry pies

well wondering here the same place bed
sir
these things will
i have you have my
yes my
well
that
st been head and i was with my grandma died i was terrified
my mom
i gotta fill a panic oh my god
and when she died she just started
martha
he says
and says the experiences i've had around that since there have all been
so
the sell
time
like the pros either way this year your venture bros with randomizer
ha ha they will come from all directions and they had together model home instead senior yes ah ah thank you
is history
i to your health of humans disorder can clearly understand something then
make it a mystery or is there something this furious about
some guy
so is it something that
gotten worse era
well i think that each person has to answer that themselves for me i'm in i think that part of the mystery is in the fear
fear of the unknown
and this is why this first can it not knowing is it has to be a t it's a teaching because on we're
we're often driven to know what to think we know
ah and soda and sometimes not knowing it can be frightening to people ah going about them or
no it's not known about well it's
whatever we see become his us it become it's part of us what we're seeing ah so it's fundamentally about us everything's fundamentally about us ah but
it is a mystery you see someone that you love who you have been
only recently speaking with joking with whatever and they're not that person is not they're hitting what we're hardly that's
you good liturgy intimately call that a mystery it's also the way things are
and we can i think this is what what i was demented saying is like value know i really
i see that people are really bothered about this it it's like my concern is how i'm living so that's where she's going to do
but it's tough we have to find out who pali canon this you have it
they didn't
yeah
thanks man
yeah yeah it's get it out
for the lake grappling the whole misfit thing is like this guy has to be dissolving when their nature is
great
oh
it's the hum
that's really good
how he asked how could the scanned as be deserving when
they're already when they already don't exist ah they're just a new know this is a a provisional
it's a provisional theory of yourself ah but you can see what you can see i think is particularly you see people's ah
those ordinary mental processes that we that we count on ah or that we expect and our communication with each other and with ourselves they they loosen and you see you see that that capacity that capacity is not their helene you know it
and it's uneven i mean i think in in the case in debt situation was it was
interesting because he had a really bad week the week before he died not a bad week but he wasn't responsive particularly he wasn't able to put together sentences and then everything clicked back into focus and he was very clear from few days
days and that was pretty surprising and really encouraging and also visit i don't know how the fuck this works
how which is okay it's really okay with me but it's like don't make up a plan for how
how your life is supposed to go or how your death is most to go just can you meet it one by one thirty two more questions in is the lists
why
of
seventy

so
it's
doesn't practice
marshall yes
somebody asked
hi
said
is express
eight
oh
for such a

and then he was never seen again right
a i am i
i don't have any to say that that there was one other
the thief a bruce oh
how to follow that
i think exceptional this car
a wilderness a lot the
yeah there
hey
hillsborough county which is called oh yeah and he is the wilderness as
players is a survey and it's about
while
this as and it's an exploration of this idea of coming of age of how you know going beyond rules having this well we will concrete is so we don't really feel think of wilderness as associated with action
pledged that there's a good target is the history
so how do we have
away
that this
trusting the miscreants
yeah well i've got lots of notes for this talk that i did that i didn't use and here i'm reading the note if zazen represents one side of the mystery action is the other side ah the need to be in silence
in space has indeed to step forth
so
we rest and then we're always stepping force and are just leave you with one book recommendation for it was i strongly recommend ah
book by gary snyder called practice of the wild
ah which is a book of essays here and it was actually that book that convinced me to stay here in berkeley i had fantasies about moving to this place through that place and this is about thirty years ago i read this book and i realized everything
when i need
is here in berkeley i should stop
looking for some other place to to settle ah now that doesn't mean i don't travel i do but ah it also means
this is locus that i returned to and there's plenty of wilderness here to sustain me there's crows tis raccoons there's children there's marriage is my teacher there's all of you
totally wild
so let's get wild
cherish the wild thank you