to have a 90th birthday occasion to here in his dorm. But there are family and friends and old BCC friends here to partake of that. Megan has been practicing here at Berkeley Zen Center since around 1976. Autumn Moon, Wonderful Zen. When she moved away from the Berkeley Zen Center in Byron, she practiced for quite a while with Mary Mosine in Vallejo, and she was the first Chuso, or head student, at Clearwater Zen Do.

[01:17]

And in 2009, she received this Green Rock and a grandmother, and a storyteller, a harpist, a writer, and a wonderful inspiration to all of us. So, thank you for being here today. Thank you, Ozan. How's the volume? All right in the back? Good. So, well, I am just... this is such a heartwarming occasion for me to be with my Sangha. And... it's... too loud? Hmm. Oh, he knows it.

[02:20]

Okay. Anyway, who would have thought getting to be ninety? Really. So, I'm not going to give a talk today that's got a long... Uh-oh. That's not good. Let's see. I think I better not try to put all these books on there. Why don't I leave these to the side? Yes. Okay, well that was a dramatic beginning. I'm not going to give a talk today that has a single long arc to it. Sojin, in his talk last week, spoke of the whole and the pieces.

[03:24]

So today I'm going to give you the pieces. I was always the kind of beginning student who would ask the teacher, if you can boil it all down into one sentence, what would that sentence be? And I have, over the years, just had some lab notebooks that I copied down sayings that, and even before I got to be a Zen student, I was kind of a seeker. And things that seemed to me to help you know how to live a good human life. I would copy, and at the residence hotel where I live, there is a man, I can't say he's a friend. cantankerous, and they call him the curmudgeon. That gives you an idea.

[04:26]

But he has made a lot of cutouts of some of these sayings that I have hanging on my kitchen wall. And I brought one example to show you. This is a Danish word. And I gave, I mentioned it to him because he's kind of fond of doing these things for himself that are kind of off color. And so this is a word I saw. It's Danish for to clean things up so that they are appropriate to talk about in the living room. Squaring. Lina, you speak Danish, don't you? Is that right? Stuerend, yeah. Well, I want to believe this is right.

[05:28]

So, I'm going to start. These things have been Dharma lessons for me, so I'll start with the more physical, mundane ones and move on out from there. The first one is bien dans le pot. And that's French for to feel well in your skin. And that sums up my health plan. We live in a very health-crazy world right now. Everybody is at the gym and, you know, it's wonderful. Although I get a little tired of the fads about eating. There was a while, maybe 20 years ago, nobody would touch yeast. And of course, you can't eat salt and you can't eat fat because of cholesterol and you have the paleo diet and the South Beach diet and every kind of diet and yoga.

[06:38]

And from dawn to dark, where I live near Lake Merritt, there are people out running around the lake. And so I take reasonable care of myself because you don't get to be 90 being stupid about your health. I eat sort of reasonably, and I try not to... I get enough sleep for sure. That's very important to me. I walk. You know, that's it. I'm bien dans la peau, and that's all I need. But I am also very lucky in my health because I don't have a whole lot of arthritis, and that's really a scourge for people. But it's that balance.

[07:38]

The second one is Leur Bleu and after that we're going to be finished with the French. I grew up in Manhattan and there's an hour when you're walking sort of close to Central Park where the lights come on, the buildings are all black, the lights come on, all golden grid, But there's enough blue in the sky that the buildings are all silhouetted against the sky, and it's called the blue hour, l'heure bleue. I hope and think that we all have some moment of connecting with, usually, nature, I think, in our lives. There may be many, there may be few, but it's a moment when nature

[08:42]

comes close to you and you feel that the veil between you and big mind is not so dense. And that is, you know, we notice that when that happens to us and it's precious to us and we remember it, maybe for years, some little thing. And so that's what the Leur Bleu means to me. And I'll have to say, when I have the blue blues, there's nothing that's better for me than to take a walk out in nature, particularly when you live in the city. There's so much concrete that to see green or trees or something, it's that moment of intimacy. And it's valuable to us. We should look for it. Okay.

[09:49]

Now we come to the late great Nora Ephron said that her mother's best advice to her was everything is copy. And I have that hanging. up on a wall. And of course, for a writer, what that means is that even though lousy things happen in your life, you can always write about them. And that's what Nora Ephron did, and she would make all that stuff very, very funny even. So everything is copy, is a writer model that's very useful. But in the Dharma's perspective, Sogen has said to us more than once that our problems are our blessings or our opportunities.

[10:53]

Something, I'm close. Whatever you say. I've come to see the truth of that, that when everything's peachy creamy and we're just rolling along, it's nice, but we don't learn the way we do when we have something to practice with that's coming up against us. And I ran across a Rumi poem that, to me, really says this in a wonderful way. It's called the guest house. This being human is a guest house. Every morning, a new arrival, a joy, a depression, a meanness. Some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.

[11:58]

Welcome and entertain them all, even if they're a crowd of sorrows who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture. And still treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. the dark thoughts, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing and take and invite them in. Be grateful for whatever comes because each has been sent as a guide from beyond. So that's Rumi on Everything is copy. Okay, the fourth one is from the great jazz stride pianist, Fats Waller, and I'm sure a lot of you know this.

[13:11]

One never knows, do one. This is, of course, that open, questing, flexible, alert quality that we call beginner's mind. And to me, one of the fruits of practice has been understanding what a partial view that we have It's, you know, it cannot help but be partial, what we see. And our views are only opinions. And it's, I think a lot, most Zen students who are mature have come to that understanding. And another thing, that it seems to me about beginner's mind is that one of our basic causes for discontent is that we want to control things.

[14:25]

Not to know how things are going to turn out is a cause of fear, understandably. But we can't control things. things, it happens. And so we just accept it. One never knows, do one? And another aspect of this is how little we can know about people. We try to be empathetic. We try to when our friends are having a hard time, try to understand their feelings and be with them for their feelings, and we try to learn to be observant about other people and their feelings.

[15:27]

However, people that we know the best can surprise us, and we just One never knows, do one. So how many times a day we come against the unexpected, and I like this saying because it's a slightly humorous vibe to it, takes the edge off what's really a profound unknowing that we live with all the time. So, one never knows, do one. So the next one is a one word, magnanimous. The first of the six paramitas is generosity. And of course, words are just words, especially abstract ones.

[16:33]

So I'm just going to give you my understanding or feeling about what the word magnanimous means a lot to me and contrasted with generosity, which I'm not knocking. Generosity is a good thing. But to me, what that means is giving something to someone else. Well, magnanimousness is allowing, allowing something or somebody to be the way it is or be the way they are. Again, we want to control, but sometimes situations come up. You just have to allow them to be the way they are. And as far as people are concerned, have you ever noticed, especially here in the Sangha, that people who, when you first met them, they had mannerisms or some way that kind of was annoying to you, but after you get to know them and practice with them and be fond of them, then you

[17:51]

you begin to see these quirks. You begin to be able to be magnanimous about them. Mary Mosene often quotes from Dogen. It's, give yourself to yourself and give others to others. So when, you know, after we have learned to see this person no longer annoying because we're fond of them, and we just say, you still see it all, you just say, oh, you know, good old Algernon, that's just the way he is, and accept that. So, We can learn to be magnanimous for others in that way and also we can give ourselves a break from that carping voice in our head that's always on our case. Take a vacation for Pete's sake.

[18:58]

So the last saying is the most important one to me. It's not a cutout. It's a quotation from Mary Oliver. This is printed on a piece of paper that I have up in the kitchen. To pay attention, that is our endless and proper work. to pay attention. That is our endless and proper work. One time I was in a class of Sojins and something he said kind of passed by me and then it caught my attention and I raised my hand and I said, Sojin, did you say that the best way to connect with Big Mind was just to do the next thing with full attention?"

[20:09]

He said, yes, I did. I said, and that's it? And he said, yes, it is. And I said, well, why didn't you tell me? So, well, everybody in the class laughed just like you did. And of course, I was really kind of being playful because I do know that that's what Sojin has been trying to teach me for 35 years or more. But I thought about it a lot and I was asking myself, you know, why is that? Why is that? That the way to connect to big mind is to do the next thing with full attention. And of course, the answer is,

[21:11]

It's the only place that we can meet that inexpressible, incomprehensible flow of the universe that Suzuki Roshi called, things as it is. The only way we can touch that is just where we are doing what we're doing now. And so I have another poem I'd like to read you that, to me, is a wonderful expression of this. It's called The Little Duck, and it's by Donald Babcock. And I cut it out of The New Yorker before I ever became a Zen student. Now we are going to, now we are ready to look at something pretty special.

[22:14]

It's a duck riding the ocean a hundred feet beyond the surf. No, it isn't a gull. A gull always has a raucous touch about him. This is some sort of a duck. And he cuddles into the swells He isn't cold, and he's thinking things over. There's a big heaving in the Atlantic, and he is part of it. He looks a bit like a mandarin or the Lord Buddha meditating under the bow tree, but he has hardly enough above the eyes to be a philosopher. He has poise, however, which is what philosophers must have. He can rest while the Atlantic heaves because he rests in the Atlantic.

[23:21]

Probably he doesn't know how large the ocean is, and neither do you, but he realizes it. And what does he do, I ask you? He sits down in it. He reposes in it as if it were infinity, which it is. That is religion, and the duck has it. He has made himself a part of the boundless by easing himself into it just where it touches him." So, that's it. Doing the next thing with full attention. And I'll repeat Mary Oliver saying, to pay attention is our endless and proper work and I want to thank you.

[24:31]

So, Jin, I'm going to try not to cry. for all your teaching through the years. And thank you all. And that's what I have to say of my pieces today. Are we out of time or not, sir? About nine years. That's a long time. Time for a little Q&A. Okay. So if anybody has anything they want to ask or tell me. Jeff. Thank you so much, Megan. You're welcome. You were one of the first personalities I was drawn to here. And with you, like somebody I know who used to hang around with Ferlinghetti, I look at you and I think, how much life there is.

[25:32]

One day, I don't even remember what I said to you, but it was something around an experiential zone. And you kind of stopped walking and you turned to me and you said, well, why else would you be here? And you always put such a plain sheen on such a deep truth. And you always teach me what it's like to look at life and to wear it loosely and to see it deeply. And these are eternal gifts and I thank you for all of them. Well, thank you. Yes. To you. Thank you. I have my usual question that wears different dresses. But really, Megan, everybody's sitting here in a lot of love for you, and that's enough to say, I guess. But this is just the question I always ask in some form.

[26:36]

So if we can't hear the question. OK. The statement from Sojin that the next painful attention to the next thing is it. That's it. That's the way to do it. So, do you understand or can you help me understand or do I need to understand why in that moment, and then there's the thing, the next thing, the this thing, and I say, no, I will If I say no in my mind, I will not pay attention to you, and I turn and do something else, or I just, you know, I just resist. What is that? I know what you just said, so what is that? Well, when you turn away and do something else, you're doing the next thing. I hope with full attention. But the resistance... We've got a lot of garbage in the basement, don't you think, that brings up resistances to what we know we ought to do?

[27:58]

And then we practice and maybe do it. Maybe not. We're coping. Okay? Yeah, we're at red. You'll have to be louder. I'm so hard of hearing everybody. I'd be interested to see if you could tell us when you first As a small child. Became aware. Aware of things as a small child. I do, I have a memory. I was born in New Orleans where there are a lot of mosquitoes.

[29:02]

And I was out on a sleeping porch. I had to be under two years old. And the kind of crib they have there for children has screens on the side and a top over it so you avoid the mosquitoes. And I remember crying because it was a mosquito. And somebody came out to see what was the matter with me. And I, of course, couldn't talk and they didn't know. And I guess I just had to live with the mosquito. I don't remember anything much after that. But I have just little memories of one moment like that before. Now, when do things begin to get consecutive? It's around maybe kindergarten, I think. Yeah. OK. Yes, John?

[30:06]

I'm still dealing. I mean, we stay Amazingly the same, let's see. You know, John, one thing that I'll say is that the years and years of Zen practice have given me more equanimity. Just more equanimity. I can remember when I was over at Dwight Way, I was afraid I was going to be late for Zazen. And I came in, and May Lee Scott looked at me and said, calm down.

[31:13]

And I think I was more of an anxious person when I started to sit. You know, I am a little kinder to myself now than I used to be. I mean, I try as hard as I can. And when I have some repetitive thing, I don't berate myself too much anymore. I think maybe that's one good thing about getting older, maybe. You want to know something good about it, right? Okay. No way!

[33:03]

I feel like... One of my... My stepson had a girlfriend who, when she visited, would repeat everything I said as if it were some kind of quaint museum of obsolete And I really, I do feel like I'm kind of a relic of the 19th century and have all kinds of ideas that have just gone with the wind. I mean, I like to write with a fountain pen. I don't want to go into the younger generation at all because they're living in a very, very different world and a tough world, I think. I'm a depression child, which I didn't personally have such a terrible, terrible time, although it wasn't great.

[34:09]

But now we've had a revolution that's just equal to going from handwriting to print with the Internet. And young people now, Even from five and six, know stuff I'm never going to know and don't even want to be bothered with. So it's really, really a different world. And I don't see any, well, I mean, of course, they're in children like people. Some you really feel sympathical with right away and others not. When you talked about magnanimity to others, how do you then have magnanimity towards yourself?

[35:11]

Well, essentially, that's kind of what John asked, in a way, wasn't it? A little bit, I mean, with how do you deal with your stuff in a magnanimous way? What is magnanimity? Well, I really do feel that there is a committee in your head that's always telling you, oh, you did that wrong. Look, you start your talk by dropping the books all over the floor. And I just have to... It's a practice of letting go. of berating yourself all the time. And of course, I think the great thing always is to notice. Sometimes we're such in the grip of something that's bothering us or something we've done, that voice takes over, you don't even remember yourself.

[36:26]

And it's that step back to look at it is a magnanimous act, I hope. Yeah, hi. Hi. I just happened to be here and saw a happy birthday sign and had no idea it was a happy birthday. Thank you, Miriam. No, you're not Miriam anymore, I know, but I... With the various changes, everything doesn't stay the same. Very young. Peter. Hi everybody, my name is Peter and I'm Megan's son. I wanted to let you all know that she's always been like that.

[37:27]

I couldn't hear you, Pete. She's always been like this. I've always been like this? Yeah. I can remember back when I was 11, 12 years old, we were living Later on as a teenager she'd make good coffee and we were the one place where all the teenagers who were friends of ours would come and feel safe and feel like, and Megan was just kind of a, just a wonderful figure of, just kind of a teacher in our lives. I love you a lot. What can I say? Yeah, Jake.

[38:28]

Megan, you used to be on the board and I always thought that your ideas were so full of common sense. Well, thank you, Jake. That's lovely to hear. There was another hand somewhere that I didn't... You're not, you're not nominating me, are you? Forget it. Okay. Yes. Well, thank you, William.

[40:01]

Let's see. One thing maybe I didn't say in the beginning about bien dans le pot is that when you're old, it's not good for you to be isolated. You need stimulation of other ideas and other people. And I think to grow old well, you need to keep your curiosity, which I do have, and it doesn't hurt to be in love. But that's not all. I mean, who could expect that at 90? And I am happy. I am happy. But I just feel life is very good to me.

[41:03]

But I really value Sangha because I I feel that it is important if you have a spiritual path to be among people who have the same, you know, they're on the same road that you are. It keeps you from forgetting what you're doing, to be around people of the same spirit that you have. So thank you, I see the, what Ross is holding there, and I won't stop. There's chocolate in our future, I hear.

[41:51]

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