Good morning. Good morning. So this morning, I'm going to talk about something that has been going through my mind for a couple of days. It just keeps returning, recurring. So, I thought I would talk about it. Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had been grateful. All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty back together again. So that's what's been going through my mind. I'll give you a little entomology about the story.

[01:02]

It seems like Humpty Dumpty was a cannon, and it was used in a British revolt around 1840s, something like that. And somehow Humpty got knocked off the wall. He was up on a wall, got knocked off the wall. And so that seems to be the origin of the story. Nobody could get him back up on the wall. So the story has evolved to where instead of being a canon, Humpty is an egg, which adds a lot of interest to the story.

[02:06]

One comment on this story is that it's a story of risk, of failure, and of perseverance. Three qualities that characterize Zen practice. It's a great Zen story. You know, when we sit Zazen, we take a risk, especially when we're new to Zazen, new to the practice. Sitting, I remember when I first started sitting, sitting one period of Zazen was a very significant experience. And it was really hard to get through one period of Zazen without moving.

[03:32]

I remember when I went to my first, I think I told you this story recently. When I went to Zazen for this first or second time, and I said to my neighbor, I said, this really hurts. And he said, it always does. And I said, well, I like doing it. There's something that drove me to do this. I don't know. It was just, I had to do it. And so I just continued because, well, since everybody's, everybody's legs hurt, why should I be the exception? So I continued. And I looked forward to sitting, but then when I got there, I realized, oh, this is going to hurt.

[04:48]

This is going to be painful. But at the same time, I was taking a chance, so to speak. I was putting myself in a position that was, felt risky, actually. The whole thing felt risky, you know, like this foreign practice, Japanese practice, the priests were all wearing robes. There were only two, actually, Suzuki Roshi and Kadagiri Roshi wearing robes, and sitting very still. But what I really liked about it was that I was sitting I felt that I was alone, and at the same time, I felt totally supported. I brought a friend who was actually a very famous musician now.

[05:54]

I won't tell you what his name is. We went together the first time to Zazen, or the second time I brought him to Zazen. And he had to crawl out of the Zendo because his legs hurt so much. So that's the kind of, you know, I would have wished that he would have come back, but he didn't. And it was a kind of failure on his part. And so I didn't feel so good about that, and he didn't feel so good about that. Failure is a big part of our life and our life's practice. It's important to fail because it really helps us to understand that things are not one-sided.

[07:01]

Success and failure are both important. And our failure helps us to work for our success. If it's only failure, that's unfortunate. You know, we really appreciate the person who has a difficult time in their practice or in their life. But when we see that they're making a big effort, the effort is the most important thing, not necessarily the success. Effort itself is successful because each step of the way is our practice. There's no, we say, you know, don't put another head on top of your own or don't work for some kind of,

[08:05]

gaining experience. To gain something is fine, but to work for some kind of exceptional experience is not so good, because then your effort becomes oriented toward a goal that may or may not be achieved, but it's somewhere in the distant future. It's us in practice, or our practice, is to appreciate every step of the way. reach the goal, if you can.

[09:11]

So we go from now, our practice goes from now to now. It doesn't go from now to then, or someplace in the future. It goes from now to now. So we just simply experience every moment as it occurs. And that's our success, to be able to do that. So how we exist in this moment and this moment and this moment was nothing but this moment. Nothing but a succession of this moment. That's hard to do. The most difficult thing is to be here. It's easy to be in the future because that's in your head. with this, with whatever is going on.

[10:21]

That's called living our life moment by moment, which is simply this moment. You think that there are successive moments going from past to future, but it's all just this moment. That's all there is. And that's what Zazen teaches us. Zazen teaches us to just be present, because there's nothing but this moment. There's the past, which is this moment in our head, in our mind, and there's the future, which we're making up as if there was one. You know, where does the past and the future meet? Where is that place where the past and the future meet?

[11:24]

It's called the present, right? The past and the future meet in the present. But where is the line? It's really hard to find the line where past present and future meet, because it's already gone. So the only thing that doesn't change is the present. So there's the ephemeral present, which we think of as now, and there's the eternal present, which is nothing but present, present, present, present. So what we appreciate in Zen student is perseverance.

[12:24]

You fall down. We're all Humpty Dumpty, and the egg is important. If Humpty Dumpty was still just a can, it wouldn't be so interesting. But because it's an egg, it is interesting, because the egg holds its future within itself. So, you know, the egg contained, we all have an egg. This is our egg, and we're nurturing our egg all the time, just like a chicken, you know. or vulture, or peregrine pilgrim.

[13:33]

So perseverance, you know, Taking a risk, falling down, and getting back up. Dogen has this phrase, when you fall to the ground, you use the ground to help you get back up. That's wonderful. Because instead of being used, we're using. When we make a mistake, when we have a big problem, and it turns into a big problem, we use the mistake to help us. That's why making mistakes are really healthy. For one thing, if we don't make excuses and justify ourselves,

[14:47]

the mistake becomes a treasure. Because we learn from it. We learn from our mistakes. And if we can't learn from our mistakes, we're in trouble. So mistake is valuable. Failure, you know, failure, gives us a sense of perspective and helps us to find our direction. The Sixth Ancestor, Daikon Eno, in his platform, in the platform sutra, says when you make a mistake, you do a little repentance, whatever is necessary, Acknowledgement, basically.

[15:58]

And then you turn around and go the other way. In the right direction. Turn around and go in the right direction. It may not be a total turnaround. It can be half a turnaround. Maybe all that's needed. It's like the four horses from a sutra, which I can't remember the name of. Suzuki Roshi liked to use this. Of the four horses, and most of you probably know it already, when the driver wants the horses to move, he uses the whip. The best horse, or the most, you know, I don't see what best, the quickest horse, or the horse that's more, the most mature horse.

[17:03]

Just seeing them drive it with a whip will, out of the corner of its eye, will move without being cajoled. The second horse, just feeling the whip on its skin, will move. The third horse, when the whip digs into its hide, will move. The fourth horse really struggles. Stubborn. stupid, whatever. And Suzuki Roshi said, so which horse do you think is the best horse? Or the horse that, he says, when Buddha sees the fourth horse, that's the horse that he loves.

[18:08]

So it's the hardest one to love. So risk, failure, and perseverance. Right now, we have this interesting change in our lives. This pandemic has just changed our lives. You know, some people's lives have been changed dramatically, and some people's lives, maybe not so much.

[19:30]

If you've been practicing Zen, Zazen, once or twice a day for a long time, Sun Cischines, so forth. Done Zen, no practice. And life doesn't change that much, because already you're living in a kind of simplicity and confinement. You know, to sit seven days at a seven-day Cischine is a lot of confinement. You're sitting in a posture that's the most confined posture. And you're doing the practice which is confined to our room. So you're kind of used to this. I've run into many people, said students, who said, what a great relief.

[20:35]

to be able to just do this simple practice called pandemic. It's not a big change for so many people, and we actually make use of it. So I think to be able to make use of it, to be in a position where you can make use of it, is how we practice with it. as I said a few lectures back, that we have an opportunity to look at our space, our environment, the environment that we live in, and relax into it. and look at what we neglected for so long, all the things that we overlook, and take care of things in a way that we wouldn't otherwise.

[21:51]

We've become so used to our routines that We tend to walk past things, you know, without really paying attention to them. And somehow, when you have the opportunity to not do all those, as many things as we ordinarily do, we begin to see what's really around us. When we take a walk, Berkeley is so great for taking walks. I mean, the trees and the bushes and the flowers, which we just often just bypass. That's the background. And we allow it to come into the foreground. We allow all the stuff that we think of as the stage set for us. wonderful gardens and wonderful living beings that we're surrounded with, they come to the forefront.

[23:16]

I'm just amazed, you know, after it rains, when we have the first rain after the summer, all this life is, shiny in our face and supporting our life. You know, my wife and I were talking about sourdough starter and how you preserve sourdough starter without having to put it in the refrigerator. And you just dry it out. And it's just this dry stuff, you know, it's like sand or something. And then it's alive, totally alive. You put it back in the water and it comes back to life, so to speak, but it's never been dead.

[24:21]

So there's all this life around us that's continually supporting us. And we're always thinking about other things, which is okay. This is our support. When we allow our surroundings to be our support, this is the king's men and the king's horses that actually support us. Although all the king's men, horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again. But they do support us. When we allow that to happen, we're supported by all of our surroundings. Then there's the egg.

[25:29]

The egg is our legacy. You know, most all actually, exception. The goal of all the animals is to reproduce itself. And it's the same with humans, except that we have all these other things, because we have a certain level of consciousness which creates curiosity, and our brain is highly developed in comparison to the brains of other species. Anyway, we think that's true. It's hard to know if that's true or not, whether the species with the smallest brains are maybe the most advanced. They don't need to go through all this stuff that we have to go through.

[26:36]

Their life is very simple. You know, the American Indians, the Native Americans, and their... Advanced societies realized all this. And every animal had a place in the hierarchy, or in the, not hierarchy, but in this hierarchy, pantheon, if you want to call it that. Every animal, every bug, every living thing, because the whole, all of their surroundings was teeming with life. They understood this and were supported by, they supported the ground and were supported by the ground.

[27:48]

And when they would fall to the ground, I've always felt that if we persevere, if we really make a big effort, that life meets us halfway. Buddha meets us halfway. That's why people pray. One good reason why people play is so that, you know, to meet life halfway, the source, and then the source responds. So what we appreciate in this incident is perseverance.

[28:59]

And we don't take umbrage when people fail. Because we know that we all fail. When somebody fails, we're reminded that we all fail. We don't laugh at them. So, leadership comes through example. It comes from the example of a leader. If the leader doesn't show example, there's no leadership. So when you have a criminal People become criminals. When you have saints leading, people become saints.

[30:04]

I'm not saying that we're either one. We're somewhere in the middle. We try hard. But if we don't try hard and become lax and just become laxadaisical, that's when things fall apart. So we have to be very careful because it only takes one generation to lose everything. Actually, it takes less, but... So, the purpose of Sangha is to encourage for everyone to encourage everyone else.

[31:06]

That's the main thing for a Sangha, is to encourage and be encouraged. And to take up the challenge of difficulty. So right now, although I was talking about, you know, how we encourage ourself When we encourage ourselves, it encourages others. And that, in turn, encourages ourselves.

[32:10]

It would be wonderful. Right now, I'm sitting in Zendo, which is off-limits. So, at some point, we all hope that we'll all be able to sit in the Zen Dojo. There are new people who've only been here for maybe a year or less than a year. They don't know, they don't have the experience, or you don't have the experience of sitting in the Zen Dojo with everyone. It's very different than sitting on in Zoom, but I appreciate our Zoom. I think Zoom is really very helpful. And there are certain advantages to it. So there's a question of, I may be diverging, but there's a question of how will things turn out?

[33:21]

When the pandemic hopefully is over, What will the changes be? Will everybody think, well, it's more convenient to just sit on Zoom? For some people, that's probably true. But actually, I think we'll all want to get back, Zendo, and practice together in person, because it's three-dimensional. And the interaction we have of moving harmoniously together is a rare opportunity. I think most people come back to Zendo and sit in Zendo. As I can tell you, when I look at this room, I see it in a way that I see it in a renewed sense.

[34:28]

It's also shiny and clean. The sun is coming through the windows. So Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. all the king's horses and all the king's men and women. Couldn't put Humpty back together again. That's true. Humpty had to find himself after the fall. And his perseverance is what makes him, what energizes him and constitutes his practice.

[35:35]

And then Sangha supports him. Her. Humpty Dumpty is kind of a masculine name, but... we maybe find a different variation for women. At our practice, practice leadership at Sun Center is mostly, largely women, whose practice is so sincere. You know, I don't know, I think I have a little time, but there's a koan about the chick and the mother hen pecking at the egg and the chick inside the egg pecking and it's like,

[37:08]

when the mother chick realizes that the baby chick is pecking at the egg, at the eggshell, that they do this simultaneously. And if they do it just the right moment, the egg cracks and the chick pops out. So this is also like teacher and student, right? When the teacher sees the chick at just the right moment, when the teacher seizes the right moment to educate the chick, Make, allow the chick to pop out of the shell. That's a wonderful moment.

[38:12]

So the teacher has to be very patient. The mother hen has to be very patient sitting on the egg. And the chick has to struggle to find their way out of the egg. And the teacher can help, but it's up to the chick to do the work. So that's Humpty Dumpty, his successor. Who is himself? I succeed myself. It's called, the birth of the chick is like rebirth for a student. So Humpty Dumpty is all cracked, has all the scars and cracks and faults, but manages to hold it all together and come out renewed.

[39:33]

So, when we talk about enlightenment, the chick is the renewed hen. The renewal of the hen is the chick. So it's a nice little story. So maybe you have a question. Who's in charge of questions? So it looks like we just have a few minutes for questions.

[40:38]

And if you'd like to ask a question, you can either enter it in the chat box or raise your virtual hand like Joel just did. And we just have a few more, a few minutes for questions. So Joel, take it away. Thank you for absolutely wonderful talk. I hate to be kind of a downer here, But when you told the story of Humpty Dumpty, I couldn't help but think of the political situation in this country right now. And, and so, you know, in the story, my understanding would be that the egg cracked prematurely and probably the vital life within was not able to survive. So if you can encourage us or, in the current situation, regardless.

[41:39]

Yeah. In the current situation, I was avoiding... I know you were. To be apolitical. But, you know, politics, you cannot avoid politics. Because politics is interaction. It's all politics. Right. in this situation, it's a difficult situation. And it gets alarming. Yes. You know, like, you know, all these accused lies and accusations and the fact, so this is a frustrating, you know, over 20,000 lives and growing every day, you know. that there's a whole group of people which ignore it.

[42:41]

That's the one, that's them, you know. So it makes you think that the world is crazy. It is, actually. It's nuts. And that's not only frustrating, it's demoralizing. So how do you deal with knowing that this is happening and knowing that you have a feeling that the future will be better at the end of the year? No, that's not my idea of the future, unfortunately. Well, we do, you know, this hope. That's okay. Hope is good.

[43:43]

Well, hope is great. Hope is good. Yes. You don't want to say at the end of the year, if only I had done this. Right? Right. You don't want to be able to say that. No. Do this. Do something. Right. Do something. There are things that you can do. that help you to ease your mind and say, well, I did contribute something. Yes, that helps a lot.

[44:46]

Yes, that does help a lot. I didn't just stand by and not do anything. Right. I wish. Yeah, or just bear, just do something. Just do something, yes. Thank you so much. Okay. Okay, looks like we have time for one more question. And there's a question from Peter E. How should we think about the fragility of the egg? Should we balance the desire to protect it with acceptance that one day it will break? I wouldn't say brick, I would say open. Yes, we should protect it. Do you know when, I think, I don't know if you're familiar with this or not, but in the Cloisters, which is a church in New York,

[45:53]

There are many tapestries, beautiful tapestries, big tapestries, and one of them is a unicorn. The unicorn is encircled by a fence, and it's a very narrow space. It's got a tree, a unicorn, a tree, and the grass, and the fence, the white fence, and it's like, When something is growing, you need to protect it. You need to take care of it and protect it and not let it get out and roam around and get corrupted. So the egg is like that. The baby is like that. Mothers take, you know, of course, there are different kinds of different attitudes with different mothers, but But basically it's like taking care of this precious thing and not letting it get damaged or corrupted.

[47:00]

Because, you know, we are, we do come from eggs. So we take care of ourselves, take care of them. Nurture, nurture our eggs. so that when we pop out, we have all we need to mature. In a sense, popping out is our maturity. So, Sojin Roshi, it looks like we just have two more questions. That's okay with me. Okay, Kabir is next then. Hi Sojin. Thank you for the great talk as always.

[48:02]

The shame and guilt of mistakes. Very easy to get caught in it. It even tastes delicious at times and it's sort of addictive. So that's sort of what I have a question on. Yes. Well, you know, in Buddhism, Theravada Buddhism, shame and remorse are called the protectors of the Dharma. In other words, you feel that what you did was wrong. That's important. What is also important is that you make repentance and you free yourself from that. If you don't do that, then you just carry it around.

[49:06]

And in modern psychology, we're not supposed to feel those things, you know, blah, blah, blah. But actually, they're very important. The key is To repent, in other words, to acknowledge this was wrong. And then, as the sixth ancestor says, turn around and go in the other direction. Don't dwell on shame and remorse. Acknowledge shame and remorse. That's the only way you can free yourself. So free yourself and don't get sunk back into captivity again. So that's why, you know, people, it's nice to have a preceptor who

[50:10]

will help you do that. We have every twice a month or once a month, we have Bodhisattva ceremony, which is a repentance ceremony. It's not so personal, but it is personal. But you don't repent of every little thing you did. But in early Buddhism, that's what the monks did, twice a month. And they would acknowledge their transgressions. And then they would receive some kind of, I don't want to say punishment, but something like that. So everybody was encouraged to, all the monks were encouraged to stand up in front of the assembly and talk about that.

[51:16]

So, but you can do this by yourself. There's a, you have an altar and you have, you know, whatever you put on top of the altar. And then you, Talk to Buddha and acknowledge your transgressions, and then you continue without having to drag it all around. You unburden yourself. You know, it's the only ancient tank of karma, right? Yes, yes. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Okay, Ed Herzog has a question. Ed, could you unmute yourself?

[52:24]

Is that better? Yes, that's better. Yes. I'm curious as to why Buddha liked the fourth horse. Because he had a very sympathetic mind. He had a compassionate mind. His compassionate mind was much, he had compassion for every living thing. And not just selective. His compassion was not just selective. He had compassion for the result, which was the horse getting whipped, but also he had compassion for the horse's stubbornness as well? Well, you know, getting whipped. He had compassion for the whipper.

[53:31]

And he had compassion for the horses. But the focus is on the horses. You have to be a little selective when you're talking about something in particular. So, you know, He had compassion for Hitler. That's difficult. Yes. He has compassion for Trump. You know, he's a little boy. He's a little boy that grew up, that grew too big, you know, for the size of his brain. and he needs all the love he can get. But Buddha's love is personal and impersonal.

[54:49]

So, you know, If we want to really bring peace, we can't be so selective. But then, we have to know what we mean by love. We have to know what we mean by compassion. So these are hard things to deal with. How do you bring the world to peace and harmony? Not through divisions, no matter how painful it is. No matter how painful it is to, you know, forgiveness doesn't mean that everything's now okay.

[55:58]

That's not what it means. Forgiveness means freeing yourself from your feelings. Right. So that you can see things in a rational way. So the worst horse, so to speak, is not the worst horse. And the worst horse is not the best horse. But we have to go deeper. What do you mean by peace?

[57:07]

What does that mean? Thank you. Okay. Okay, Susan Moon has a question. Susan, could you please unmute yourself? Hi. Thank you. Thank you, Sergeant. This isn't exactly a question, but it's a comment on Ed's question, and I want to quote you, Sojin, and my own memory of you teaching about this same story and saying that one of the great things about the horse that only runs, doesn't run until the hip hits the marrow of its bones, and your story can be about different kinds of Zen students, and that the student, the one who struggles and tries hard and keeps on practicing, even though they don't, it's much harder for that person to get it.

[58:13]

This is a story I've taken comfort from myself. If you're as slow at getting it, but you keep on trying, then you are, there's something wonderful about that. But he's the shadow of the whip, is the horse for whom things come very easily to that horse. And maybe it doesn't get as much credit for trying so hard. At least the effort is really important. And that's maybe one of the reasons that Buddha has such compassion for the fourth horse, that it keeps on trying. Of course, that's the whole idea. And you've said that. I learned that from you. teaching you, I'm just reminding Ed of that side of it too. Yes. Also, you know, we really appreciate the new people who come to practice and they face all the difficulties of entering the practice. And they're the most encouraging people.

[59:15]

Those are the ones that encourage me the most because they don't have the experience of seeing what's next. And so they're taking up the challenge of practice without knowing what is really going on. And that's really encouraging. It's like children, you know, when you see the child beginning to walk and all this, It looks like we have one final question from HECO. Okay. Thank you, Tom.

[60:17]

Thank you, Sojourner Roshi. What a beautiful talk. My goodness. A couple of times today you referred to the six ancestors process of repentance and you referred in the first time only to he did an act of what I've translated act of understanding. He did something physical to make amends or to make a statement of amends. I wonder if you could talk about what you think might be more important of the acknowledging or the action of understanding or how would you look at that act to emphasize it a little bit? Well, basically I would say, you know, I just want to say a little something about the Platform Sutra. The Platform Sutra is built around a repentance ceremony. The heart of the Platform Sutra is the repentance ceremony, which leads to ordination.

[61:22]

So you have the repentance ceremony, and then you free yourself to take on the ordination. So that whole chapter is about, and the whole sutra is built around that chapter. So it's a matter of freeing yourself. Repentance means finding your freedom. Because as long as you're carrying guilt and remorse and all those things with you, it's a burden. So Shakyamuni says, lay down the burden. I've laid down the burden. That's the main, his main statement, lay down the burden. So laying down the burden means freeing yourself, acknowledging what was not right, and letting go of, okay, now I can work, now I can actually work with this,

[62:34]

because I acknowledged it. And the act of turning around and going the other way means that you're doing something about it. We carry our karma around with us. Although we can be free from our karma, karma doesn't go away. Karma and the fruit of karma. The karma is simply the act, what we carry around is the result. So, repentance is the act of letting go, acknowledging and letting go, and then not falling back into the same situation. But we do, you know.

[63:37]

It's hard not to keep falling back into our habits. But it's possible. Like Suzuki Yoshi said, he enumerated all of the mystical, magical, acts of the arhats. But he said the one thing, they're not the only ones that have these. Like in India, it's very common to have magical properties. But the most magical property is the ability to be free from karma. free from the effect, to free yourself from the effects of karma through repentance.

[64:49]

Just like the Catholic Church. Well, the Catholics get a penance, an action of prayer, but should we undertake something specific? We should look up the etymology of that word, penance, but every discipline has its own characteristics. So one of the characteristics of the Catholic Church is penance, and so I think like for the sixth ancestor, penance was not necessary. Simply turning around and doing what's right. Because penance can be helpful, but it can also be an impediment because you're still carrying around

[65:59]

It's a burden. And so the idea is that carrying around the burden of penance keeps reminding you, you know, so that it can go one way or another. I don't want to criticize that. And I think there's a little penance going on in Buddhism, too. But it's not as emphasized. I like to just turn around and go the other way. Free yourself. Thank you, Sergeant Rushing. You're welcome. Thank you, Sergeant Rushing. You're welcome.

[67:00]

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