I love to taste the truth of the Tataka's words. It is a pleasure to introduce Lynn Zemke. Lynn is a priest living at the San Francisco Zen Center now and is in Suzuki Roshi's lineage and a student of Mel's. has been over the years a good friend to Berkeley Zen Center, to many of us individually, but especially to those people who have been sewing their offices and doing other sewing. She's sort of the golden needle for risotto. So, let us see. Good morning. Good morning. An introduction like that, it's... It's nice to see some of the people I know and some of the people I don't know.

[01:01]

And it's nice to see the Shiseo. Good morning. Good morning. When I was Shiseo with Mel at City Center, he gave me three instructions. Brevity is Mel's blessing sometimes. You can tell the long-term students, they laugh. But I'm still trying to follow him. The first thing he said was, of course, follow the schedule completely, right? The second thing he said, because I'm a resident at City Center, was do everything that a resident's supposed to do, which means doing your bathroom job on time and taking the trash out and all those favorite chores that all of us just love. And when you live with 40 other people, That's an interesting relationship. And then the third thing he said, and that probably was the hardest thing that he said to me, was he said, be kind, everyone.

[02:03]

And I'm still working on that one. And I include myself in that, be kind, too. I think maybe that's one of the biggest stints in things that I have yet to accomplish. Forgive me, also, I have a cold or I'm just getting over it, so I'm a little foggy still from antibiotics and everything else that goes along with it. I think when I was coming over, someone asked, and maybe some newer people here always have a tendency to ask, what's the lecture going to be about? I keep envisioning that we'll have one of those boards, you know, like churches have. You know, the little white letters on it that you can put. But we would never have to change the title, you know. Zen in my life, you know. We could just do that and leave it up there. Because I think that's probably what most of us talk about, is what's going on right now, or what has happened, or what's on your mind.

[03:12]

But I just really thought that would be good out in front. I mean, then we could more be look more traditional or more Western. I don't know, but that's one of my fantasies. There's a little story, and actually I don't know where it comes from. And I'm not metaphorically inclined, so I tend to take some of the koans and some of the teachings very literally and concretely, and I want to know more about them. And the story is, you're riding along in your boat, and you run into another boat, and you turn around and you're really angry, and you turn around and you start yelling, and you look, and there's no one in the boat. And everyone goes, ah, yes, of course, it's your own mind, and all this. I sort of understand, but I want to, my question, and I guess the question I want to bring to the lecture,

[04:14]

today is what do you do when you turn around and you look in the boat and there's either someone in there who's drunk or who's really maliciously has run into you or how about a young child that got left there and you don't know what to do with them because they didn't know how to do it. So my question for this lecture when I was thinking about it is I mean, I understand relatively well the concept of running into the empty boat and how much your own mind drives you in circles. But how is it that we take that teaching and use it in relationship with each other? What does sitting on a cushion alone looking at the wall have to do with our relationships in the world? And I had, actually, I hesitate to use this.

[05:17]

Sometimes I like to tell what I call urban koans, things that have happened to me in my life. And they usually tend to be funny. I mean, we've had a number of, I've had a number of humors. I've walked outside of the door at five in the morning to go to work, and someone wanted money, and I give them my tofu sandwich instead. And they weren't even sure what tofu was, but they decided that was better than nothing. You know, those are kind of funny, but this story happened to me last week and it wasn't... it was a very unpleasant experience for me. And it's kind of like... running into that boat that's got someone in it who... who... You enter into a relationship that you didn't really want to enter into. It's not a friend or someone you know, but it's someone who impacts on your life in a way, and how do you deal with them? Particularly if it's an unpleasant experience, what we would call unpleasant.

[06:18]

I took a week off. Hilary went away to retreat, and I decided I would just have fun at home and paint. I paint, and we have a small apartment. when I'm by myself I can spread everything out. So I was thoroughly enjoying myself and I was spending time with some friends and doing various things. And we have a small bedroom, a small living room in the bathroom, in a line, right? And the living room part has large French doors that open out facing east. And there's nothing in front except the roof of another building, so that's perchance what happens since I don't sleep with anything on. I've gotten in the habit of walking from the bedroom to the bathroom with nothing on, you know, and at night it doesn't seem to make a difference. But I took a nap on a Friday afternoon, which was very nice. And I had done some paintings earlier in the morning that I was particularly satisfied with. nothing worse than an artist when you do something that you really like, you know, you're very attached to that piece.

[07:26]

I mean, you're very, it's kind of, you're very, it's just, you can taste it. It has a satisfaction for you. Okay, so you're very in love with it, I guess is the word. Anyhow, so I got up around noon, And I picked up my clothes and do what I usually do. I was walking to the bathroom to go get ready to go meet someone. I had nothing on, except my clothes and my hand. And my perchance, I stopped to look at the painting on the table, because again, I was very happy with it, right? And of course, the table is right in front of the open double doors, right? Which I always keep open, because I like it cool. And all of a sudden, I hear this laughter. And I hear some rather scurrilous remarks about size. And I look up and there's two men on the roof across the way with binoculars. And in that moment, I felt so humiliated and so ashamed of myself.

[08:35]

And I could hear them clearly. There's really nothing between the two. And the next thing I felt was fear. And then the very next thing, as one was laughing so hard, standing up, I noticed that my next wish that I was hoping that he would fall off the roof, which upon reflection was not a very good thought, but nonetheless it came up. And I was shaking. It was... And the thing that went on through the day with me was I had had this very good week. I mean, I had had a very, I mean, I'd seen a lot of friends. I'd gone away with someone. You know, I mean, it was the perfect time off. I felt rested from, I have a relatively stressful job. I mean, it couldn't have been more perfect. And yet this one incident of two minutes in length took my whole attention

[09:37]

out of the whole week. Why? That's the question I kept asking myself. Why is this? Is it because it's painful? Why am I still, why can't I let it go? What can I do? What can I do to change the relationship of feeling humiliated? without wishing them falling off the roof, because on retrospect, I didn't feel like that was actually a good idea, but nonetheless, it was in there for me. But what is it that I could do to make that change? What could I do when I ran into this boat that had this jerk in it, excuse me, this person who caused me to feel bad? What could I do about it I certainly couldn't change him. I mean, I didn't think that that was going to be a successful attempt.

[10:41]

And also it concerned me that I was spending so much time on one five minutes of my life that was actually in the midst of everything that was good, and I thought, I learned, one thing that I learned about how I treat people, and why I said the thing about being, she said when Mel said to be kind to people, is that how many times in my interactions with people have I been rude, or sharp, or unkind, and affected them in the same way that that five minutes affected me? Where in myself and my own behaviors had I done that? Because I do it. I'm not saying that one has to be perfect. It's not my intention in saying that. But where I might slow my response down and not be so abrupt and be kinder, how would that affect someone?

[11:47]

So I thought about this. I went down and talked to the person in our fundraising office at City Center. City Center is a large building if people don't know it. We have 40 people living there and the Zen Center main offices are downstairs. So there's a lot of activity. So I went down and talked to Olga, who's the woman who runs our development office, our fundraising office, and I said, do you know the people who own that building? She said, oh yeah, he's a lawyer and he just donated us this large sum of money. And I thought, oh God, now I can't go and say something. I'm gonna cause problems. And she actually encouraged me to call him. And I said, well, you know, I gotta think about this. Because I was still shaken. Again, it was for me an interesting episode, because I usually don't feel that bad about how I look, and I actually... It doesn't... I was surprised. So I thought about it all weekend, and I finally... I called their office on Monday, and I still couldn't quite get the story out without being upset by it, but I talked to the office manager, who said yes, in fact, they had had roofers on the roof, getting an estimate.

[13:01]

And she was appalled at their behavior, which made me feel good. And then I thought, now why am I feeling good? See, this is the problem with Zen. This is where Zen gets you into trouble. You start seeing your thoughts come, and you actually can look at your reactions. You know, it sounds great, but sometimes it's a mixed bag. And I think it's a good practice, I think ultimately it helps you, but I think it can confuse things sometimes, because you see the self, yourself, grasping at things more easily than you see other people sometimes. and you have more judgment about yourself. And I think the point is not to have judgment, but to see. It's just like when the thoughts arise when you're sitting, it's to not judge it, but to let go. So at first I thought, what do I want in this situation?

[14:02]

And what I said to her was, I really don't want anything punishment-wise, I said, or reprint. I said, what I would like you to tell those two men was how much they hurt someone. And I said, obviously, I'm still shook up by it, because my voice was still, I couldn't quite, I'm telling the story better, so this must have helped, but I was having trouble telling her the story. And I said, really, that's what I would like you to do, if you could convey to them the pain, and it felt humiliating to me, and that perhaps they should think about that, and their actions. Because I said, punishing them is just going to make them hate me even more, and that's not really what I want. But I did want them to know that it hurt. So how does that help us I mean, it's always a struggle to explain to ourselves and to other people why we do this practice.

[15:11]

I mean, how does it help when we're sitting on this cushion in situations like that? And I think one of the things it does is it lets you see your own reactions and be able to reflect on them and pick the one that you think is appropriate. Because I don't think the part of me that wished the person to fall off the roof really would mean that. I mean, that would be an immense amount of suffering for someone and someone's family. But I think it was okay to feel it. But it didn't have to be furthered along. And there's an interesting thing that sitting does, if you do it long enough, and particularly when you do it with a group of people, and you sit and sashay, or you do one day sitting, I think you all are doing a work day today, is you rub up against each other and you become intimate in this really odd way, you know, because I think in our culture that we often confuse intimacy with sex.

[16:21]

sexuality where in fact some of the intimacy that you have sitting next to someone in a session is some of the most intense relationship you can have and some of the practice relationships you have both with with a teacher and with other students and How do you take that? in your busy life and Take it into your job into the bus stop into the grocery store. And my suggestion is, and in my own experience with it, is that after a period of time you understand that you're reflecting all the time and that your interaction, that this intimacy of Zen, has to do with the interdependence of all of us. And I don't mean some far out Woo, we're all connected everywhere. I don't mean that. Because at that moment when I looked up and saw that man on the roof and felt, we became karmically connected.

[17:28]

You know, probably if I ever see him I'll know him. Because, I mean, it was just like, and it, you know, and I have very strong feeling and very strong reaction. And there's a connection now between us. And how can that connection be turned away from evil and to good? That's the trick to me, is that, you know, you come up against something and your reaction is to cause harm, and how do you turn that for yourself to good? Because you know, if you harm someone else, you're really harming yourself. And I know that sounds annoying, but it's really true, because you're creating a relationship that's not helpful, that's not wholesome. So how do you turn harm, and towards yourself too?

[18:31]

I mean, that situation for me was very humiliating, and I felt humiliated, I felt hurt. And I certainly didn't expect an apology. That I don't even think would have helped. But for myself, what I did is say how I feel and say what I wanted, which was for that person to understand how painful it was for me. And I think that's what we all want, is we all want to be heard for our true emotion. And not judged on it. And sitting helps you do that. Sitting helps you interweave a certain kind of intimacy that you don't find any place else. It allows you to understand in your own pain and in your own letting go, in this posture, the connection with everyone else.

[19:31]

And you just got done doing the full moon. which is a repentance, and it's also a reestablishing of your connection with everyone else. It's a form, it's true, and the words are old and kind of, may or may not touch you a lot on a conscious level, but somehow in the process of doing the bows of taking homage, of taking refuge, of redoing the precepts, somewhere your body picks it up and you're able to understand what it means to avoid all evil and do all good and save all beings. Everything that you do, every step that you take that you don't harm yourself means that you don't harm others. Everything that you turn in yourself, where you turn yourself from evil towards good, you turn it for all people.

[20:43]

And it's hard to see it. I mean, I have this great, I have this joke that says the great karmic washing machine in the sky, but it comes out one way or the other. You may or may not be able to follow the thread of it. But the more you sit, the more you experience that the teachings are accurate. I mean, Buddha never said, believe everything I'm telling you. No, Buddha said, sit and find out for yourself. And I think that's one of the most important features in Buddhism, is that Buddha didn't say, here it is, believe me. No, he said, here it is, I've done it, you can do it. But you have to experience it yourself. And just to either confuse you or bore you a little longer, there's a koan that I'd like to end with. This is the, the Mooloo Koan is the Gateless Gate. It was the first set of koans that I read when I started studying Zen.

[21:52]

It was one of the few things that was being translated 25 years ago. This is Robert A. Kidd's translation. He translates it as the gateless barrier, which I like because who's the gate and who's the barrier, and which exists on which side, but that's Lucas and Wilson. This is case 45, and it's called Who is the Other? And these are set up with the case, which is kind of a statement, a comment, and then a verse. And the case is, Shakyamuni and Maitri are servants of another. Tell me, who is that other? Woman's comment is, if you can see this other and distinguish her or him clearly, then it is like an encounter with your parent at the crossroads.

[22:59]

You will not need to ask somebody whether or not you're right. And then the verse is, don't draw another's bow, don't ride another's horse, don't discuss another's faults, and don't explore another's affair. But if you go back to the case about tell me who is the other, if you see everyone as separate from yourself, as not connected, You'll never reach to help someone, and you'll never feel the pain of separation, or the love of someone else. You need to understand that you are separate and the other, and that the inner connection, that intimacy, is what Zazen teaches you, or tries to at any rate. And it's a very, very bumpy road.

[24:04]

That's all I have to say. Thank you. And I know you do questions. You do, up until about 11 o'clock, which is 12 minutes. Good. So. Well, it has some impact.

[26:30]

And I think the more you sit, the more that kind of, you feel the impact more sometimes, because you don't subvert it as much. The reactions come quicker. I guess one thing that I was thinking is, you know, the sense of strong connection is the way in which, that's the bridge, I mean, that's the path to actually approaching somebody, is this understanding that you have that strong connection. When this happened, it's funny that you're here, because, Connection, I thought about your story about the guy who took your bicycle, and your negotiation with that guy, and paying you to get your own bicycle back. But, you know, in some ways, but it was the relationship that existed between the two of you, and you both knew what was happening. I mean, he wasn't taking, you knew it, and he knew it, and it was the relationship and the economy of exchange that went on. But isn't that better than him just being knocked over the head and dragged off by the police?

[27:36]

I mean, I'm not saying that the guy should be stealing, but at least there was some understanding. There was an acknowledgement of the relationship. We had somehow to get through it. But it's funny, I thought about that story. I thought of a number of things when you were telling your story. The first thing was, I had a similar incident happen to me nine years ago. And, you know, he was saying, why did it upset you? It's like, you feel vulnerable. And one of the things that I got upset about was, well, I got angry. That was my reaction. First of all, I liked having my window open, and now I was going to worry about closing it off. And when I saw the person looking at me, he also had binoculars, my first thing was to walk right up to the window. I was like, I couldn't believe that that was his dog.

[28:37]

Really, it was like a penthouse that was across the way. And then I wondered how long had he been doing it and that kind of thing. And so then I ripped the curtain closed. And then all I could think about was finding him so I could tell him about himself. I mean, so it did. I thought about it for days. I tried to find out what is. apartment number was and where he lived and that kind of thing and I finally had to go. But then it sort of crushed my life down because I couldn't open the window. It's like something you enjoy doing. Somebody else has encroached on it. And then when you went further into it and you were talking about the kindness part, wanting that person to understand how they had affected you in some way made me think of some stories that I had been hearing over time about people whose, someone in their family had been killed, murdered. And what they did in response to that, one was, I believe it was Sharon Tate's mother, who decided that she was going to, and there were a few women that had done this, go into the prison system and meet people who do crimes like this.

[29:47]

And say, you know, this is, this is how you've affected someone else. You know, it's not just the person that you've killed. It's the person's mother. It's the person's family. And because when people do something like that, they have a facility in compartmentalizing their emotions. I mean, because when you talk to them, they say, well, I just don't think about that. Because if they thought about that, they couldn't do it. So they take something, like they take drugs, or they get drunk, or whatever it is, so that they're able to go and do this. And then they compartmentalize it, and they don't think about it. And it also made me think of the whole revenge thing of the gangs that get even with each other. You know, like, you kill my brother, so I kill your brother. And it just never stops. And so there is a karmic relationship that doesn't end until someone commits an act of kindness. And it's really something to think about now, you know, because it's happening so often. One reaction is anger.

[30:50]

One way or the other, you're connected. and you don't have no control over them. But what you have, what you can do is understand your own motivation and your own thing. And I think anger's very healthy. I'm not saying, but at some point, that's not even satisfying. Actually, to get to a point where you can say, it really hurt. And just... Yeah, and that's the whole point of the mothers because And that's the beauty of it, because it's also approaching this person in a way that they've never been approached before. Right. Because it's from a point of love. Right. And it always surprises them, and it really does make a shift in that person. I think so. I think it does. You may or may not see it. See, that's the whole thing, is that we can't be attached to the idea that it's going to change someone, because they may say, you know. My own experience of the things that people said to me 30 years ago, when I was really out there, I remember.

[31:57]

I remember all of their words. I remember the people who tried to help. I remember them. I remember what they said. And that's why I think that, you know, to try and be as kind as we can, but in order to be kind, I think you have to be conscious. And that's, I think, the thing. And what's really neat is that you, what's beautiful is that you allow yourself to open up to whatever pain was inside of you, and the fear, and then things, then you knew how to deal with it, and so you were allowing So, I don't know, it's just that opening up that we have to do, because we've all got things in our past that we didn't open up before.

[33:10]

Well, I think that that's what practice... I don't think that you can sit zazen and not open. If you don't open, you can't sit. I mean, this is my experience. I mean, it takes many years, I'm not saying that it's like... Zazen is not a quick fix. But, matter of fact, it's not. I mean, it's just, you know, you keep opening doors, and you keep opening doors, and you keep, and it's just a mess. But eventually it helps, I think. Yes? Yes, I'm interested in this. apartment. And I was rather cavalier, you know, and it was the 70s, and friends would come and we'd sunbathe naked on the roof on the third story, and someone called in because their children saw us.

[34:17]

So now I'm 45 and I live in a house in Montclair that's hidden up the long driveway. And when I first moved there, there were like huge, I guess, oleander trees, yards and yards of oleander trees, and very tall, and I only clipped them for a long time, and I felt very unsafe, and secluded. And so, I cut everything, you know, back, way back, for my safety, and I noticed all the neighbors started gathering with me, and cutting all these oleanders back, and it was this great thing, you know, where And they put up light-sensitive, motion-sensitive lights where they needed them up the driveway, and I put some up too. It was sort of like the attitude now is taking care of myself. There's no more cavalier so much, it's just watching out for myself and being aware of the realities.

[35:19]

It feels like the right attitude for now. Well, it also connected you with your neighbors. Well, it's just interesting, those random acts of kindness, you know. But it seems to me the issue is what's the role of mindfulness in this walking around our houses naked? Well, yeah, I think it's convenient. Well, I warned you early on that I'm not metaphorical, but I tend to be. I actually am quite literal. I am, so I really meant that. And it's convenience. It's convenience. Well, I was just thinking metaphorically, this occurred to me in this last question, that walking around in our houses naked is not only with our clothes off, but with our true selves out there in the open, with our defenses off.

[36:33]

And it seems like the ultimate test to be walking around in that state and have people examining you and laughing the ultimate test as to where you stand in your practice in being able to drop off everything and just be yourself in front of the world such as it is. Yeah, and I think that's true and I think that we also are who we are. I think the juxtaposition of the invasion feeling of it had to do kind of because they were actively looking. If I had, if actually I had, I think it would have been a different event for me if I had looked up and someone was just by accident looking. But the intention, which is a whole nother lecture. But the idea of intention, their intention was to catch someone unaware without clothing on, and they did.

[37:38]

And, you know, I mean, if they had been just up there and they had turned when I had turned it would have had a different impact on me, I think, than being actually actively, and actively, you know, they're doing it because, well, I don't know, I can't say why they're doing it, it's not my place to read someone's mind, but that's what they were trying to do, and that's, you know, this is the whole thing in practice, that I feel like Zazen teaches you to understand your intention of your actions. Maybe that's the answer to mindfulness, is that we can't always be 100% mindful, but the more we bring intention into our life, the clearer it is what we're doing. I think. It's my opinion.

[38:22]

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