Good morning. My name is Yvonne Rand and I live down the road where we have a small retreat center. As I was waiting to come into the Zen Do this morning, there's a bouquet of roses near the altar where I was standing and there's a rose that I recognized, alchemist, it was like seeing an old friend from this garden, which is quite wonderful. What I'd like to talk about this morning is the practice of generosity and in particular the practice of appreciation as an aspect of generosity. And I'd like to begin with saying a few words specifically for the younger members of our gathering, including that one.

[01:06]

Bye. It's very nice to hear the sound of a young baby. I remember many years ago when in many meditation centers throughout the United States, children were welcome if they could be quiet and still, which is, of course, not in the nature of being a child. So it makes me very happy to see the children here as well, as all of us older children. I want to invite you to consider the cultivation and expression of appreciation as a way of counterbalancing or as a kind of antidote to whatever habit we have to be grouchy and

[02:09]

to be unhappy with things. Because of course, particularly beginning when we're children, we can begin to form a habit for seeing what's wrong or what we don't like. And after a while, that habit becomes so strong that we don't see or don't notice or in a way don't even experience what we appreciate and what we're glad to have happen in our lives. I also can imagine that for all of us, no matter what our age is, that when we are on the receiving end of some appreciation, when our mother or father or teacher or friend tells us how much they appreciate what we have done or how we are in some situation, how happy we feel in the face of that kind of message. So isn't it interesting that we can so easily forget that maybe that would be true for other

[03:15]

people as well. So I want to suggest to those of you who are of the younger set that today you see if you can say something to someone, another child or one of the adults in your life, say something about what you appreciate, what you are grateful for with what the person does or says or how they are with you. It's interesting to think of that as a kind of practice, that you actually have an intention to express appreciation and then express the appreciation and see what happens inside, see what happens with the heart when you tell someone how much you appreciate their kindness or their keeping you company or their making you breakfast or lunch or helping you get your

[04:21]

shoes on. And for the rest of us, we will be grateful for all those things as we get older and return to needing that kind of help. So that's what I would like to invite you kids to do this morning, is to spend a little time not just thinking about what you appreciate but actually telling somebody what you appreciate. Okay? And now, just in time for you to go do your next thing, the sun came out. And most of us always appreciate when the sun comes out. So, see you later. Bye.

[05:36]

Thank you. Yes, thank you. Thanks for taking care of them. This last weekend, my friend Trudy Goodman and I did a retreat on the judge, the inner critic. And, of course, the practice of appreciation is a remarkable counterbalance to habitual judgment, which many of us seem to experience, that inner voice that yaps on and on about

[06:40]

what we don't like or what's wrong. I'm not talking about the kind of judgment that arises out of our everyday life where we find ourselves needing to gather information and make some appraisal of something or some situation, or even another person, where we, with some intention and awareness, make a judgment. I'm talking about that kind of judgment which is a habit, which has a kind of life of its own, and which sometimes, if it's a significant pattern in the mind, we aren't even aware of. Some years ago, when I was doing a retreat with this focus, I had everybody do a little automatic writing of what the judge says, and just for ten minutes writing what the

[07:42]

judge says. One woman, after she read what she had written, said, I wouldn't speak this way to my worst enemy. So it was news to her, as it is for many of us, that we speak to ourselves about ourselves, and then that gets projected onto others with great harshness. And of course, when we have a strongly established habit for seeing what we don't like or what's wrong, the heart closes. And when we begin to have some awareness of that particular mental habit, our initial impulse is to want to get rid of it. And my experience, so far anyway, is that it doesn't work. Wanting to get rid of something about myself, some patterning, some conditioning, rarely

[08:45]

if ever leads to that pattern or habit dissolving. So what I'm proposing about the practice of appreciation is that this is a way of not putting any additional energy into the patterning of habitual judgment, but establishing a different groove, if you will. That I sometimes actually have the sense of picking up my attention or inattention from the groove of habitual judgment and place it on the groove, hopefully established groove or potentially established groove of generosity and appreciation. If there is a relationship that you have with someone where the dominant feature of your

[09:50]

inner dialogue about that person is critical, you might try whenever that kind of judging comes up, note the judgment, label it, and then quick, ten things you're grateful for with respect to that person. They can be very small, best very specific. We did that during our weekend with habitual judgment, and it was interesting to me how initially the members of our retreat had a hard time coming up with ten things. Seemed like an awfully long list. But by the third or fourth time we did it, it became easier. That's what we mean by doing a practice, doing something over and over and over again so that we get used to doing it, so that we develop our capacity, a kind of feel for whatever

[10:56]

it is we're doing. To express our gratitude, to express what we appreciate in any given situation can open up the landscape of that experience. Not that we don't still see what we don't like, what we wish was different, what is challenging, but that all of that comes more into some balancing, which is of course in service of seeing things more accurately. It's all right to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into this practice. You just know resistance. Don't feed the resistance. Don't feed the habit of crankiness.

[12:00]

Quite a number of years ago, I used to walk up through the fields of Green Gulch to come here for a meeting on Wednesday afternoons, and by the time I would get here, I would often be quite grouchy. There'd be this dribble of coffee cups along the ranch road and piles of cardboard boxes that had been rained on, and rusty tools, and wah, [...] wah. Why don't they learn mindfulness when I was an institute? Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. I sometimes think that I was given or introduced to the habit of judgment with my mother's milk, so it's a pretty strong tendency, has been for much of my life. And one particular day, I was really unhappy with my own company.

[13:14]

I just had this flash of, this isn't fun. And in that moment, what arose for me was the possibility, what do I appreciate? That question arose. And I looked around, and of course there were kill deer flying in the lower fields, hoping to distract me from their nests. It was a foggy afternoon, so the colors of the valley were quite pronounced. All the different colors of greens and reds of the lettuces growing in the fields. Extraordinarily beautiful valley. And in the arising of that question, what do I appreciate, I had no problem answering the question, none whatsoever. And I saw the landscape very differently.

[14:20]

I still picked up the coffee cups and noticed the rusty tools, but that wasn't all I noticed. And I actually could thoroughly and completely enjoy the beauty of the valley. And after letting that question arise intentionally for some while, what then came as a kind of companion piece, the next scene in the first act, if you will, was then what's possible. And I began working those two questions. What do I appreciate, and what's possible? Over and over again, whenever I was aware of that critical voice arising. And it's not that the critical voice went away, but it was not the primary focus.

[15:28]

And I noticed that I could see more clearly. I had this kind of working thesis that maybe I will find myself in some situation or circumstance where I will say in answer to what's possible, I don't see any possibility. But that has, in all of the years I've been doing this focus, I haven't yet come to a situation or circumstance where I've not been able to see some possibility. I still may, but I haven't yet. So what has happened is that that tendency to be critical has softened and is as though the voice is at a greater distance. So I don't pay attention to it like I used to.

[16:33]

In Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg has a chapter on the editor. It's less than a page long. And she describes the editor really as the habitual judge where when you're doing some writing and this voice comes up, this is a piece of shit. What are you doing? You can't write. Who are you kidding? And her advice is pay attention to whether you stop writing or not. Because if you stop writing, it means that the editor is in the driver's seat. But if you keep writing, then it's just blah, blah, blah, blah. And the part I love the most is that eventually she said that voice will be like laundry hanging on a clothesline, flapping in the wind, and maybe someone else will take it in. But I think that's actually quite an accurate description

[17:39]

of what can happen as our relationship to that conditioned patterning in the mind begins to change. That's a very different goal, if you will. It's always very risky to talk about goals in spiritual practice, but it is a kind of aiming. The difference between changing my relationship to this critical pattern versus getting rid of. I think the impulse to get rid of comes up for many of us with respect to various patterns or habits that we recognize in ourselves. The impulse to turn away. The impulse to disidentify.

[18:40]

I'm not that or I don't want to be like that. And in a curious way that wanting to get rid of may have the effect of strengthening the habit. But imagine the possibility of coexisting with some of your reactive patterns and in fact in time cultivating the willingness to be present with whatever that pattern is. And cultivating whatever qualities would be a kind of counterbalance or, if you will, antidote to the particular pattern you're working with. Some of you know about the perfections, the so-called six perfections.

[19:42]

In some systems in Buddhism there are ten perfections, but there's always six at least. All these wonderful lists that seem to be the hallmark of the Buddhist tradition. And I am, to this day, struck by the remarkable wisdom in the arrangement of the perfections. The first one being generosity. With the understanding, with the teaching that it is with the ground of generosity that we can then go on to cultivate the other perfections. Generosity comes even before virtue or morality. One leads to another. Enthusiastic perseverance, patience, concentration,

[20:45]

wisdom. But generosity is the ground on which everything else becomes possible. And one of the ways to express the quality of generosity, one of the ways to actually develop a capacity for generosity is with this practice answering the question, what do I appreciate? And to give voice to what we appreciate. To not withhold the gift, but to actually say to someone, this is what I appreciate. When we give thanks, we're expressing our appreciation for something. Very, very powerful to actually do that. This practice of appreciation can be like the oil

[21:50]

that keeps the wheels in our human encounters working smoothly and effectively. Every once in a while, my husband and I talk about our experience of the rapidly shrinking village called Mill Valley. And I, on a regular basis, think about all the people who help our lives work, if you will. The people in the grocery store, and at the laundry, and at the gas station. Tony, who's been there forever, who fixes shoes. And how much over the years that I've lived out here and gone to Mill Valley for one thing or another,

[22:53]

I've been willing to let the people who help us know something about our lives and we get to know something about theirs. I appreciate that sense of human community in what is seemingly a diminishing sense of our village or our town. The expression of appreciation helps us not be so anonymous with each other. So when I go to the grocery store and one of the several people who does the checkout looks in the basket and knows what we're up to, oh, you're having company. Or, very often, oh, Yvonne, you're having a retreat. What's the focus? How many people will come?

[23:56]

How long will it last? Or I can ask the woman who is the checkout person, how's your little girl? In the process of our expressing our interest in each other, we express that quality of open-heartedness that makes these small but very important encounters have a kind of depth. A great antidote to the more and more anonymous quality that comes with the world we live in. So right now,

[24:57]

may we express our appreciation for this old hay barn, now made and dedicated and refined for many years as a place for meditation. May we express our appreciation for all of the people who had some vision about the possibility of this place where gardening and farming and meditation and spiritual life and enjoyment of this beautiful watershed could occur. We can appreciate this beautiful spring day We can appreciate

[25:59]

that all of us are gathered together because there is, of course, a kind of support in spiritual life when we have good company with people who are like-minded. I appreciate this wonderful, old manjusri on the altar and my old friend who drove that manjusri across the country in the back seat of her VW many years ago. The beautiful Shakyamuni Buddha in front of manjusri. These two magnificent and inspiring bodhisattvas of compassion, Tara and Jizo.

[27:01]

I appreciate the bench that I sit on that means I can still meditate even though I can no longer cross my legs. I could very easily be quite riveted on I can't cross my legs anymore. Of course I can, but then I am likely to be unable to walk. It's been a very, very good teacher for me because if I get caught with I can't cross my legs what happens? Sinking. I have never appreciated walking in the way that I have in the last three years since I am not supposed to walk but being what it is walking up to the top of the ridge

[28:10]

has never been as interesting as it has been in the last three years. I commented to my husband this morning having a different appreciation about the statement that youth is wasted on the young. How many of us really appreciate being able to walk where we can't walk? There is no end to what we can get sunk with. A couple of years ago I was in the hospital for some surgery and was taken care of by a young Tibetan woman who was a nursing student in the hospital and we subsequently became friends and she was telling me about this old woman that she was taking care of

[29:10]

who lived in Sausalito a woman who was at the time in her late 90s and I asked the young Tibetan woman who was helping her I said, what do you think and this woman said well, I think it's because she focuses on what's possible she focuses on what she appreciates and what's possible on a sunny day when she could be out in her front yard she would wave tourists in to the garden to see the flowers and if it was cold she would sit in the window in the living room and enjoy the light and read and nap The practice of appreciation

[30:22]

may be the elixir of a long and happy life I'm beginning to think so to make that choice to see what is possible rather than what isn't can lead to a kind of energy rising rather than sinking but find out for yourselves please find out for yourselves I can tell you what has been so for my own experience but in the end my experience will not be of any use to you unless you take on what I have tried and find out for yourself Is this beneficial? Is this helpful? Some years ago

[31:27]

in a retreat that Stephen Levine was leading he was talking about what would happen when he'd start talking about Buddhism to his teenage children and they would very quickly say Ah, put it on tape Of course we do that, don't we? We put it on tape and we listen to the tapes but the Buddha himself the historical Buddha is sometimes described as a great doctor whose medicine is his teachings but of course the medicine doesn't do us any good unless we take it unless we try it for ourselves You can come here on Sunday morning and hope that something will rub off on you but it probably won't What teaches us

[32:31]

is our experience It's what we actually experience in our ordinary lives We can be inspired by a spiritual community or by someone who's been practicing for a long time but that inspiration will in time, fade if we don't pick up the possibility for a practice in our own hand and find a way to do whatever the practice may be There is a kind of erosion of open-heartedness from negative habits negative thinking So whatever you do I would encourage you to

[33:32]

find for yourself practices that help you counterbalance those tendencies for negativity For those of us who live on this side of the ridge we have the continual opportunity for practice of open-heartedness with driving with other drivers I'm doing a ceremony this afternoon for born and unborn children who have died We'll start at 2 o'clock and anyone who wishes to join us is welcome to So I brought many things to make a kind of altar that will be a focal point for the ceremony So I drove up and as I pulled out of our driveway onto Highway 1 right behind me was a very large truck

[34:33]

going very fast and he came to very close behind me before he slowed down nudging me all the way And what is the mind that arises in that moment? It wasn't appreciation There's a great teacher from the 9th century in Northern India whose name is Shantideva who invites us to appreciate our so-called enemies and so-called obstacles because they are our teachers

[35:36]

in the sense that when we have some so-called obstacle or enemy for me, the truck driver this morning I get to see what's actually so about my mind stream rather than what I wish was so And in time you can actually come to appreciate seeing what is so about your mind stream even when you're not thrilled because that's the mind stream that arises So I can appreciate that when I signaled to the driver of the truck behind me to make a bigger distance behind me he did Encouraged by the fact that I also had my turn signal on which meant that I would be getting out of his way soon

[36:41]

But there's that judging voice Well, he sort of did it It takes constancy and a kind of determination to stay with a focus like this and to work it as often as you can in any and all circumstances And if you do that even a small practice like this can become quite penetrating and have some significant effect Habitual grouchy mind may arise but may not last quite as long as it has in the past May arise a little less often One's capacity to act or not act on such mind patterning

[37:46]

the kinds of thoughts that arise like this begins to change And please do not keep your appreciations to yourselves Find out what happens when you actually tell someone what you appreciate You may be surprised Of course all we have to do is to think about what happens when someone expresses something they appreciate to each of us Oh Thank you Like having a little spritz of warm water or sunshine So I wish you well on your exploration of appreciation

[38:47]

and your own exploration about what's possible And I'd like to thank you all for being here this morning And I hope that you have a lovely day Thank you very much May our intention

[39:07]

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