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Serial: 
BZ-02582
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good morning everyone
great to be with you this lovely late fall morning
some high clouds moving in rain forecast for tonight tomorrow
and special welcome to interview if this happens to be your first time at represents her
i remember my first time
so lately i've been thinking a lot about home
i've been thinking about the millions of refugees round the world who have been driven from their homes ah
and their homeland
do do war political strife
ethnic cleansing
i've also been thinking about recently
the millions of people who have been
driven from their homes made homeless through natural calamities
earthquakes
hurricanes floods fires storms including our own recent north bay fires just last month
i've been thinking about our home planet
which is currently under so much stress
largely due to
humans
myself including
i've been thinking about the dreamers
who
are currently under great fear of being
forced to move to a country they've never lived in
this is their home
i've been thinking about the homeless and our streets and our parks including the folks who live in makeshift shelters on the median strips on adeline
the one on
russell and adeline which i walked past each monday morning when i come here to set
i've been thinking how so many of the homeless are being forced to live leave their homes
these ten shelters
and how
difficult that is for them
i've been thinking about the sierra nevada as my home mount diablo where i hiked so often as my home
i've been thinking about pleasant hill for i lived with leslie and are two cats
i've been thinking how home
can be a place of refuge for many of us
including this place this temple whole plum mountain
i've been thinking how zazen his home how this cushion his home
how this one is home

how everywhere we go
his home
i checked the etymology for home
and the old english says it's from hm hum
for dwelling place and out of curiosity i checked the etymology for house the old english is a us coast meeting same thing dwelling place today these words are usually not used ah well
they're often used interchangeably
but as the saying goes our house is not a home
as that suggests there are different connotations how's typically refers to a shelter a building a home includes that certainly but also
memories and feelings and emotions associated with that place
i did a google search for home and i found literally hundreds and hundreds of instances in which home appeared in titles of films titles of books titles of poems plays essays
there are many aphorisms with home as a theme
they're also of course famous lines and books and movies and plays and songs
that contain the word home
who can ever forget
dorothy and the wizard of oz
watching her toto to her bosom and at the prompting of glinda the good
dorothy closed her eyes tap the heels of a ruby slippers together three times and said

maybe that's one we'd all like to forget but not me
well as mary said i am retired a happily retired schoolteacher
and one of my favorite references to home in children's literature is found in a book that my sixth graders and i would often study together
kenneth grams the wind in the willows
now most people are familiar with the story and certainly the disney version
most people are quite familiar with toad and as motorcar
ah perhaps not so much familiar with the characters of mole rat
badger potter
i'd like to read a selection from the chapter in the wind and wills titled dolce damen or sweet home
the context for what i'm going to read as that mall has abandoned his own
sweet home underground home which he built and a during a fit of spring housecleaning here
burst from his home and made his way toward the river the wild river and that his friend to be ready and took up residence with wrap and the part i'm going to read is were more
is enron are returning from bajor seeing badger in the wildwood
it's getting dark
there's snow on the ground it's late winter
and rat and mole are making their way back to their home ready so
so if you'll indulge me
they plotted along steadily in silently
each of them thinking their own thoughts the moles ran a good deal on supper as it was pitch dark and it was all a strange country to him as far as he knew and he was following obediently in the wake of the rat
leaving the guidance entirely to him as for the rat he was walking a little way ahead as his habit was his shoulders slumped his eyes fixed on the street grey road in front of him so he did not notice poor mom
poor mall when suddenly the summons reached him and took him like an electric shock
we others who have long last the more subtle other physical senses
have not even proper terms to express and animals into communications with his surroundings living or otherwise and have only the word smell for instance to include the whole range of delicate thrills which murmur in the nose
of the animal night and day
summoning warning inciting repelling it was one of these mysterious ferry calls from out the void that suddenly reached mall in the darkness making him tingle through and through with it's very familiar appeal even well as yet he could not clearly remember
what it was
he stopped dead in his tracks his nose searching hither and thither in its efforts to recapture the fine filament the telegraphic current that had so strongly moved him a moment and he had caught it again
and with it this time came recollection in fullest flood home
that was what they meant those caressing appeals those soft touches laughed through the air those invisible little hands pulling and tugging all one way why it must be close by him at that moment his old home that he had hurriedly force
bacon and never sought again that day when he first found the river and now it was sending out it's scouts and it's messengers to capture him and bring him in
the home had been happy with him
and was missing him and wanted him back it was telling him so through his nose sorrowfully reproachfully but with no bitterness or anger only with plaintive reminder that was there

hi characterize this and way as moles way seeking knows
well most experience i reminded me and has reminded me when i once felt my own home calling me to return
i was twenty two living in san francisco very lonely disconnected with them
pretty much everything
dreadfully unhappy
pondering the meaning of life as twenty two year olds will do and what was i going to do with mine
to this day i can recall and graduate school sitting in an an anthropology class when i began to daydream in the strongest of daydreaming terms
i was on a greyhound bus somewhere around work if you know where that is on highway one a one heading north
heading north toward my boyhood home of gasquet which is a village of few hundred people nestled on the banks
at the confluence of the north fork and the smith fork of the smith river
not far south from the oregon border
i have lived in gasquet on a ranger station when i was little my father worked for the us forest service on the six rivers national forest we lived in a small cabin maybe four five rooms and was literally just a stone's throw from the smith river
a
this was a very happy time for me
before my mother went into a great depression
he was a time when i would spend summers climbing trees is great fun specially pine trees
and falling out of tree sometimes it was a time of the building rafts with my friends can floating down the gentle smith river in july and august it was a time of me riding my bike carefree on the backroads with no cars in the winter
we're big storms torrential rain rain that i'd never experienced before this last season gasquet had one hundred and fifty six inches of rain some forty inches in one month
it comes down in buckets this was the time i first experienced snow
buildings know people film him i attended a one room schoolhouse that was divided by pulling a curtain across the room so that the first through fourth graders could be separated from the fifth through eighth graders was called mountain school
my favorite recess activity was capture the flag which all grades play together
first grade through eighth grade
i made my first real friend there fella named roger neeson
so a few weeks after my anthro class vision i found myself getting off the greyhound at gasquet
with no idea with what was going to happen
no idea whether i could find a place to stay
but i had my own way seeking mind
and i had great trust in what i was doing confidence
well walking meandering the backroads of gasquet looking for possible places i could crash maybe rent
i was surprised when a boy came up and over this one lane road i was on smiled and waved at me
can i sort of half-hearted i
now just coming from san francisco of course that just doesn't happen by strangers anyway i took this to be a propitious sigh
well i didn't end up reading a one room cabin
with a few other cabins nearby in the woods on a bank above the middle fork for the smith river not a quarter mile from where i'd grown up the ranger station
i recently came across across a book of poems titled the place that inhabits us
this title well describes my relationship to gasquet
i did various things while living there when i was twenty two i studied the trees are in their names
i discovered trails to walk
i learned the names of the stars and constellations with the dark skies
i smoked hmm i had crosses our browser it did smoke some pot with a high school buddy he would come up and see me
i picked up a lot of litter this was my self appointed job at the time
i also read a lot of books one paperback stands out
zen mine beginners my i really liked it i began
setting zaza
it was during my sojourn to gasquet to that i decided to become a teacher
so the following summer
i remember just before i moved back to san francisco to try to get into school for
getting a credential that's another story
there is as big forest fire that erupted this was in july and actually threatened to burn down to a good section of gaspe including boss play my little kevin
but fortunately it was contained at the villages edge

as many of you know we have to we chant the heart sutra together during service there's often an echo o n piece in which the co-ceo the chat later makes a dedication and then encourages us
to continue our practice even in adversity and to avert the destruction of fire water wind and earth
last month the north bay the wine country did not avert the destruction of fire
i found myself during that time going on line frequently to check the status of the fires like many of you i suppose i had friends and former colleagues who lived up in sonoma
napa and mendocino counties
i tried to find out if they were okay including her dear dharma brother walter keizer who's in geyserville as home was not far from the pocket fire
he was okay and he is okay and his house survive
over one hundred thousand people were forced to flee their homes in that complex of fires and they had to wait many days before they could return to their neighborhoods to see if they had a home to return to some of the worst hit areas where in santa rosa which i know well including the coffee park
neighborhood which was ravaged by the tubbs fire in the end more than six thousand people returned home
in the north by to find out they had no place their own a charred ruins scowl to brick fireplaces remnants of seared appliances ash covered bits of pottery burn out hoax of cars
nick nolte a row at the time about the fire victims in his native some son collin the san francisco chronicle he wrote the most difficult thing is not being able to go home that's where you always go when things are not going well you go home to sit in a chair to go to your kitchen to be in your own
bedroom to have no home is to be like a fish out of water
now i've never been homeless
but i did feel like a fish out of water during my early twenties it was sort of a homelessness of the mind i really recalled the time liking bob dylan's lyrics how does it feel to be without a home like a complete unknown like
a rolling stone
gucci amaro she recalls that his own teacher code a walkie roshi said this about homelessness this is from the book design teaching of of homeless cotto
people call me homeless cotto but i don't think they particularly intend to disparage me they say homeless probably because i never had a temple or owned a house anyway all human beings without exception on reality homeless it's a mistake to think
this certainly rings true nothing is permanent
life is tranche him
as an aside my former cabin in the woods has long since been torn down and replaced now by a string of new homes make it and now impossible to access the river where i once lived in gascony
the saying you can't go home again comes to mind and that's true
after all places are turned down family members die neighbors move away friends are gone but this is only one way to look at home in then we sometimes hear you are always home wherever you are it's just that you don't
realize it so how can we be home wherever we are
in her book seeds for a boundless life zen teachings from the heart a blanche hartman rights
find your home wherever you are this means to realize that wherever you are his home not to be seeking for some special place gaspe to be making some cozy nest pleasant hill but to find yourself at home wherever you are and whatever circumstances you may
may be right here in this very body in this very place
his home
she continues can you meet your life as it is and say just this is enough or
are you always looking for something more
that's where suffering comes in
this isn't enough i need something more
then it always feels as if something were lacking how can we meet our life as it is wholeheartedly just like this
this is what our practices that is finding our home in the midst of homelessness right here
blanche is referencing the second noble truth when she says this isn't enough i need something more
this yearning for something different for something more perhaps at times even for something less
is are what i call existential homelessness as i mentioned earlier at gasquet i began sitting zazen i found it was a good practice for me
of course i'm not alone
in the view that it's a good practice in her book blanche rights those of us who have chosen zen practice had discovered that sitting zazen is a good thing
this is how you can find your home right where you are this just sitting just being this one as it is finding yourself at home and at peace with this one
she's asking us how can we meet our life as it is wholeheartedly just like this right here
right now
when sitting zazen we have an opportunity to meet our life right here right now we have an opportunity to resume what suzuki roshi cause big mind
in not always so suzuki roshi says when we practice zazen it is not that big mine is actually controlling small mine but simply that when small mind becomes com big mind starts it's true activity
most of the time in our everyday life we are involved in the activity of small mind that is why we should practice dasa and be completely involved in resuming big my
so when i said it's not that i am doing zazen zazen is doing size it
suzuki roshi has more to say about big mine
to exist in big mind is an act of faith which is different from the usual faith of believing in a particular idea what or being it is to believe that something is supporting us and supporting all our activities including thinking mind and emotional feelings all these things are supported by something
ing big that has no form or color it is impossible to know what it is but something exists there something that is neither material nor spiritual something like that always exists in space and we exist in space that is the feeling of
you're being
the sentence that grab me it's impossible to know what it is but something exists there that's a good car
suzuki roshi also talks about direct experience which i think it relates very much to home direct experience will come when you are completely one with your activity when you have no idea of self this could be when you are sitting but it could also be whenever your way seeking
mine is strong enough to forget your selfish desires when your practice is good enough whatever you see whatever you do that is the direct experience of reality
i'd say correctly experiencing reality means that there is no separation no gap between myself
and what's out there between the doer and the doing consider riding a bike
there's a bike a rider a road
but the direct experiences just writing writing not separating oneself from the bike and the road i'd say that's home
i recall the boy and gasquet riding his bike seeing me and smiling and waving
i'd say he was home
sojourn roshi wrote on the back of my rocker sue a quote from dogan which i like because it reminds me that i am always home
the true person is not anyone in particular
but like the deep blue color of a limitless sky
it is everyone everywhere the world
thank you for giving me her
inclusion in conclusion i'd say that study is important in having a teacher is good
our practice though is its to find out the what is this for ourselves the various what's our coins for us as suzuki roshi says to accept some idea of truth without experienced
sing it is like a painting of a cake on paper what you cannot eat
to find out for ourselves our zen ancestors and teachers have encouraged us to sit zazen which has been good advice for me and i'm grateful for it i really doubt if i would have discovered this practice on my own
thank you
surgeon roshi and you have any comments

ah
i think we have some time for questions was theirs or don't give five o'clock in you have o'clock okay so if you have a question you'd like to make ross

thank you for your question
well
my middle age loneliness manifested when i was in my early forties
ah fei living in pleasant hill and happily married
and i was in grad school getting a doctorate
can i enjoyed it immensely going to school at yourself
but at our lunch break on the weekends i remember going up to the top floor
add looking toward moran where i could see the golden gate nails and les les was sitting at getting hot and doing classes over there and that got me to thinking you know i'm really unhappy now well something's missing in my life i don't know what it is
there was a dissatisfaction and
the fact that she was over there i thought i would i want to go back to trying city and so ah when i was down with my doctorate and ninety five i did when to first attempt spirit rock and then ah green gulch and i remember walking in the zondo
there was one of those days with at brown and patricia sullivan and he merely feeling
this is where i wanna be plopped myself on the kitchen
and then we were facing the laws at brown walked around i don't know he's going to this putting his hands on my shoulders and adjusting my posture
and that reawakened my but way seeking mine and prompted me to find this place which was closer
and the rest is history
right now i don't i don't consider myself to be a middle aged ten and more almost seventy
i feel very at home
paddy's
yeah
hassan

hmm

this mysterious
i don't know that i i have a and off the hand cancer to them but i know what you mean
i have that same experience when i go to the mountains pitches same thing
ah
yeah and so rather than try to figure it out i just
sop it up joya
it is
no
yeah
ken
yes

retina

oh
that's great
ah i see
penelope put don't want to see your other own heart
luminous heart thank you

hmm

hum

yeah
breath pressure home
this one wherever we are
i see the striker is being held so what zapping five mins stop
just mean stop you have a question
judge
okay

hey