Well, good morning, dear Sangha. As you see, everything these days is quite an operation with me to get around. There's a plaque downstairs in the hotel that says, still young at heart, slightly older in other places. That more or less describes how it is. I thought I'd done that so it would be efficient to open. Well, this morning, I'd like to talk about inspiration.

[01:17]

Because as Ron said, I've been practicing with Berkeley Zen Center for 40 years now. And first and foremost, of course, are the teachers, Sojin from the first and not too long after, Alan, and Mary Mosine has also been a teacher for me. And I want to mention a wonderful Zen teacher from the East Coast named Maureen Stewart, who used to come out here and give retreats in the summertime. And she was a wonderful teacher too. And also the temples that I have practiced in have been an inspiration. This zendo that we're in is just such a beautiful example of Japanese architecture.

[02:29]

And I especially have enjoyed it when I've been by myself in here. I used to do a lot of cheating activity before my balance got so dicey. The first place that I sat with Sojan was the Dwight Way little Victorian house with a Zendo in the attic. And you had to be kind of mindful when you got up or you could bonk your head on the slats, you know, the roof. That place was my first experience of sitting and waking up. I'm opening my eyes wide and wow, the wood grain in the floor just was a miracle of random design.

[03:33]

So I think it was, Of course, not as Zen-like as this, in being Japanese-like, I should say, but it was a very inspiring place to practice. Other members of the Sangha have been an inspiration to me, and I really believe In Sangha, if you're on a path of spirit, you need to hang out with people who have your same direction and frame of mind. It helps a lot. And one person I want to speak of today is Maile Scott, who, for those who might not have known her, I began to practice just about the same time she did and she became a respected teacher and would be that to this day if she had not sadly died too young.

[04:47]

Nature is a refuge, I'm sure for all of us. I particularly like looking at water. I've been lucky enough in my life to live a lot of times where I was looking at water. I grew up in high school years in the Hudson Valley in a little town called Nyack, and our house was right by the river. I lived for 28 years with my late husband in Benicia, and our house had a very fine view of the Carquina Straits with the Contra Costa Hills across the way. Then books have always been, I just like to read.

[06:04]

I've always read since I was a first grader and I get a lot of inspiration out of readings and literature. But I will have to say, it seems like Pema Chodron and Ron, who's that we're reading? Chogyam Trungpa. Even though he wasn't not a Westerner by birth, he'd spent a lot of time in the United States and he understood about Western ideas. And so even though they're not in our lineage, I learned a great deal from reading their writing. Then there's a little book, I don't know if all of you know it, but I sure do recommend it. It's called The Four Agreements, and it's by a Mexican shaman named Don Manuel Ruiz.

[07:15]

And I'll tell you what the four agreements are. One, make no assumptions. Now that, I wrote down something that occurred to me once and I think it's very true. Assumptions are the throw rugs of life, always there waiting to trip you up. And two, is be impeccable with your word. Now that I'm going to come back to later because that has a lot to me. Do your best. Well, okay. And don't take it personally. And I think that's a very difficult one.

[08:22]

We have a tendency to take things personally. It's a good thing to just kind of watch. I just, well, old friend ego. is there. And I love, one time Sodren said, ego is the office boy who puts his feet up on the desk when the boss is away. And that, I just think that's quite apt. Now, I'd like to talk about Be impeccable with your word, because I feel like the truth is in very precarious state in our public life these days.

[09:33]

And I brought something I'd like to read. This, a quote, this is a magazine called The Week. 17, I know. No. Yeah. 17. This is a quote from Hannah Arendt. in an article in the New York Times. If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything. I, there's a little excerpt from a column that was in the New York Times also that is also from the New York Times.

[10:53]

It's Chernobyl's Warning for America by Bret Stephens. HBO's miniseries, Chernobyl, made me think of Donald Trump, said Bret Stephens. And then he goes on that he is not comparing this, oh, Donald Trump, I'm not comparing Donald Trump's administration to an open air nuclear reactor fire, but there's one disturbing parallel, the insistence the institutionalization of lie. The 1986 catastrophe in what is now Ukraine revealed the Soviet Union's relentless lying in the face of irrefutable evidence, as Chernobyl depicts

[12:03]

In scene after scene, Communist Party officials immediately attempted a cover-up, first insisting the explosion never happened, then concealing who was to blame, how serious the nuclear fallout was, and how many died because of it. At the same time, the official death toll they listed as 31. thousands below the, thousands below, where I've lost my place, the credible estimates. The engineer Anatoly Dyatlov tells a scientist investigating the explosion, do you think the right question will get you the truth? There is no truth. To Soviet officials, their belief is that every official lie is a noble one and truth is whatever happens to serve the party in a particular moment.

[13:18]

In the U.S. today, we have a president who will say anything to a base that will believe anything. But what happens when we have our own Chernobyl? or another 9-11 and the credibility of the president becomes essential to our survival. That's kind of scary. So another, another inspiration. to me in practice has been a trip that I took to Hawaii two or three years ago. I went on a ship and we went to all the islands and then a day in Honolulu where I have a cousin who took me all around and showed me

[14:30]

sites of Honolulu. But what impressed me when I was in Honolulu was there was a kind of a goodwill, kindly attitude coming out of everywhere, everybody and everything, it seemed to me, a kind of warmth and Just, well, kindness. And that, somebody explained to me finally, was the really true meaning of aloha. Aloha doesn't just mean hello and goodbye. It is this feeling in the heart of beneficence and goodwill to everybody. And I wish we could import that over here as well as pineapple.

[15:36]

Although there's no more pineapple in Hawaii. They don't grow sugar cane, they don't grow pineapple anymore. Their whole business is tourists. It's just very pleasant to be a tourist in Hawaii. I would move over there if I didn't have such a lifelong network of everybody I love here. Actually, that's about what I have to say. And I know it's kind of short, but I'm feeling a little short right now. But I would love to talk with you some more. Yes, Ross. the people that you encounter outside of here.

[16:56]

Do you meet them in a different way than you meet people here? What do you find in your walkabouts and chats? Well, there are two kind of sections to that for me, Ross. One is that one way I met people outside of here in the hotel is to start a sitting group We meet every Monday and Friday at five o'clock for half an hour. And I, of course, I can't, I keep it very non-denominational because we have all kinds of people. It's a small group. It's about five of us, which is, but that's a 10% of the population of the hotel. And none of them have sat before. And I, of course, we can't have a lectures or class or anything.

[18:01]

So what I do, Charlie, gave me for a present last year, a little Zen calendar. It's one big number in the middle, and there's a saying at the top, and you tear one off every day. And I use those as little half a minute sermons for beginning the group. Did I do something bad? And for instance, one is, I don't know if I'll be able to remember it. It's not what you see that matters, it's how you see it. Little sayings like that. And so my group comes, they come very steadily, so I'm pleased with that.

[19:11]

Now, I hope I'm going to be able to remember the other part of what you asked me. Oh, I just spend so much time with my people that are either from here or like-minded, that I feel that I'm among people who are on the same wavelength. But also, the other thing Maybe I'll just have to let that go. If it comes back, I'll tell you later. Yeah, Alan. I'm interested. I'm going to look for that book before I start. Okay. I got it at the place that has, I'm thinking Pelican, but that's not the right name.

[20:19]

Yeah. your speech should be guided by principles. What you speak should be true, useful, and timely, and beneficial. And that all sounds great, right? Until you start investigating So what I'm asking is, if the first agreement is make no assumptions, and the second is be impeccable with your word, can you rely on, is truth

[21:26]

Well, I'll answer that in a roundabout way, Alan. I, close down, pardon me. I used to feel that my motto, if you can have a motto, was what's it all about, Alfie? I just wanted to just figure everything out. But of recent, Just in the past couple of years, I realized, and if you just step outside at night, it'll tell you, we don't know anything. And so part of practice is being satisfied or accepting of not knowing. And What is impeccable with your words?

[22:36]

Oh, well, right speech is the hardest, I think, of the things that you're supposed to do. Right, right. The right, noble, eightfold path. Right speech. We can't really do it 100%. Try. Yeah, Charlie. Thanks so much, Megan. What a joy it is to see you up here. And any other questions? Charlie, I'm really hard of hearing. Yes. Nice to see you. Good to see you, too. What is your idea of reconciliation between rights I've never thought of the two in conjunction, but I'll try to do it now.

[23:45]

Well, gossip is the hardest one to give up. And reconciliation. Is that what you said? Between right speech and what? And skillful means, yeah. I have to tell you, Charlie, I don't think much in my life about skillful means. Because I try to be just honest. If I can, and that's hard enough. Is a skillful means?

[24:51]

Okay. Well, that's my answer then. Dean. I am. The thing that I spend my life being caught by is that everybody has their own interpretation of what a word means. If someone is impeccable with their word, well impeccable means one thing to one person, it means something else to every other person. And with your word, you know, each of those can also So, I mean, it means that for me, I'm confused a lot.

[25:53]

I don't know how they work because I'm having an agreement that I don't have a clue. Well, talking it out is the only way. If you don't understand what somebody, that you think they're saying, You have to say, and I'm understanding that you're saying we should never have a quarrel. Is that what you're saying? And I think you can back and forth get it together with honest talk. Well, that's about it. Yes, Peter.

[27:23]

Thank you, Megan, for throwing open the doors to this question and inviting us all inside. Yeah, one thing we always have to keep in mind is that we're looking at it from our point of view, and we can't see everything. And other people are looking at it from their point of view.

[28:24]

And as Dean pointed out, they may mean something different by the word prompt. then arrive half hour while you're standing on the corner. But, okay. Oh, I'm sorry, Sue. Thank you, Megan. You've got me thinking. And I think one of the things you addressed with that list of four was something about keeping our word. Oh boy, I'm sure glad you said that, because that's absolutely so.

[29:28]

I just didn't think to add it to what I was writing about. But if you're close, you've got to keep your word. My mother used to say that she tried very hard never to promise anything to anybody that she wasn't really going to do. So that's... Well, the one side of that is that, you know, you can count on yourself and other people. But when you make promises, really big ones, and you don't know how to keep them, sometimes that's a new place of exploration. Yes. One thing, particularly between couples, a source of friction is often, well, I assume that you would know how I felt, and you should know how I feel.

[30:41]

How can anybody know what anybody else feels? So you don't want to put that on your partner. Okay? Yes, Tom? Maegan, every time I see you I'm happy, every time I see you I think I'm picking up some of your beautiful practice. And as I'm looking at you I think, well, if I could live and be as well and happy and generous as you are in spirit, 87%. When I came into the practice, I wasn't unhappy or really anxious, but I do have a lot more equanimity. than I used to.

[31:48]

And I was always kind of rushing around. And Maile Scott, once I came in, I was anxious because I thought I was going to be late. And she said, calm down. So she was already a teacher two weeks into the practice. Yeah, Penelope. Well, I appreciate that. Life goes better all around with a little humor. Shake it on. And another thing, I did have it on my little list here, but I don't think I said it, is the Dharma group.

[32:54]

I have been in a Dharma group twice a month in the morning. It's mostly older people. And it's all people who have practiced a long time. And I really don't think, one thing that I think about every now and then, we all know what we mean when we say, there's a lot of words that you use in practice that Everybody here would understand what you say. Nothing's coming to me at the moment as an example. If you think the one, tell me. I would think someone who had not practiced Zen a long time would not enjoy our Dharma group because there are too many things about practice that you have to know to be in

[34:00]

a Dharma group, I think. Okay. Yeah, or Ross? When I came to practice, I was kind of leaving behind the religion and stuff that I grew up with. And as I've gotten older, I'm kind of looking at what I grew up with as part of who I am. Well, as I said, we just meet and I read my little Zen calendar saying, and then we sit.

[35:09]

And sometimes afterward, someone will bring up something that was either bothering them or pleasing them about their sitting. Yeah. But at dinner, there's a lot of really snifty people in that hotel, and sometimes at dinner, It gets off onto a sort of maybe psychological discussion. Yeah. Well, my parents said they were Episcopalian, but the chief tenet of their faith was never on any circumstance to go to church.

[36:17]

Not Christmas, not Easter, not nothing. They were jazz babies from the 20s, and it just didn't interest them. And it makes me wonder sometimes because ever since I was about 12 years old, I have been a seeker. I wanted to know. So my family religion doesn't figure largely in my life. Okay. Let's see. I think... Are we, is there anyone else? Might as well enjoy the beautiful day. Oh, Ron. Say it louder, Ron. I gave Megan a ride to Skip Night one year, and my sister from Eugene was visiting.

[37:34]

She has three daughters. And I said, Lori, this is Megan Collins. And Lori said, Megan Collins? You wrote my daughter's favorite book in the world. Yeah. Well, I've written two published books. One was a children's fairy tale with beautiful illustrations by a Canadian illustrator. He works for the Canadian broadcast or TV.

[38:35]

It's just a kind of classic, kind of a Cinderella type of a fairy tale. It's called The Willow Maiden. And the other one was what they call a young adult book. I didn't novel. I didn't write it. to be a young adult novel. I wrote it as a novel for adults, but the agents that I tried to connect with told me it was not long enough and it was not sexy enough. That was the year that Shogun was published, if you remember that. Think about it. Compared, he was right. The name of that? The Willow Maiden and Maiden Crown, it was called.

[39:41]

It's about Denmark in the 12th century. There was the first king of the whole country. Before that, it had been tribal chief. But Voldemar the Great was the first and the plot came from a ballad. of the queen comes in from Russia. She's a political marriage. And there's a mistress already. And the queen is very, does bad things to the mistress. And of course, that's very sympathetic to the mistress. And I thought to myself, well, what about poor Sophie? Here she comes in. ready to get married and her husband has his blonde already, what are we going to do? So I wrote it from her point of view.

[40:45]

And I see that it is time for us to say aloha.

[40:52]

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