I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Good morning. For the benefit of those who don't know me, My name is Ross Blum and I came out here from a Zen Center in New York back in 1987. I've been practicing with Soji Roshi all these years and really enjoy practicing here and old familiar faces and new faces all together in this room. I'm somewhat shy and retiring type even though there's another side to me that is also very expressive and very communicative and personal.

[01:02]

So my practice for all these years has been balancing those two. And I wanted to talk a little bit today about Dharma friendships, both hidden and revealed. So we sit here in the Zendo quietly. We might not know a person's name, what their life is about, but we sit here together supporting each other in our practice. And while we may want to run away and practice alone or stop practicing, for me, it's been encouraging time and again when I've been a little down or very down. to look around and see other people practicing alongside of myself, with me, and feeling that support and being okay not knowing the particulars of what each person's particular challenge is, but the fact that we're all here together sitting.

[02:08]

Sojo Roshi encourages us not to look around, but you can still feel everyone here without even looking. This is our last week of Aspects of Practice, which is a practice period of sorts without a Shuso and without the direct leadership of the Abbot, though the support of the Abbot. And this practice period will end next Saturday at our Sashin. We've been studying the Fukan Zazengi, which is a text written by Dogen Zenji, the founder of our Soto school in Japan, in the early part of the 13th century.

[03:17]

And here's a picture of him here. So while I'm not going to be commenting on the Fukanza Zengi explicitly, hopefully from what I'm going to present implicitly, there will be material that you can see the connections. And this has been a an important part of my practice since I began. I'm not particularly drawn to practicing in a monastery and becoming a priest, though I support both those expressions of the practice. What's very important to me is how can I integrate this old time monastic practice into everyday life and what I do at home and what I do at work. And that's actually a question for all of us, even the monastics in monasteries, because it has to be real and alive and relevant to their life. A little over a year ago, I was given a gift of a bicycle by a friend of mine, two friends of mine down in Santa Cruz, Bob Paulson and Erica Delch.

[04:33]

They used to live here. And when I went down to visit them sometime before, Bob had found a couple old funky bicycles at a bicycle shop and he fixed them up and he and his wife were riding them around and conserving energy and getting some exercise. And when I saw these bicycles, I was really pretty blown away by the care that had been taken to refurbishing them and the experience and joy that was being shared by the two owners or borrowers of these bicycles. We don't actually own anything, but for a time they were the caretakers of these bicycles. So Bob must have noticed that I was pretty interested in these bikes and his wife happened to be walking down the street one day and somebody was putting one out just to give away to whoever. So she brought it home and told Bob about it. And he put a call into me saying he had found a bicycle and he was going to bring it up and give it to me.

[05:38]

Now as most kids growing up, one of their first sort of expressions of freedom from home is a bicycle and some transportation. So of course I had bicycles when I was a kid. I had a bicycle in New York, of all places, and I enjoyed riding it around, but I had been without a bike for many years. And then as an adult, I got a motorcycle, so I still have two wheels, but it gets around differently. So this bicycle came my way, and I... Just like they say, you never forget how to ride a bicycle. I remember going out to Russell Street, it was a little bit big for me, but I got on and started pedaling, and it had been many, many years, and all of a sudden I was riding a bicycle again. And I had a wonderful, warm feeling inside riding this old Raleigh bicycle from England. I had a wonderful, warm feeling inside that two friends had found this for me and had given it to me.

[06:47]

without really any expectations other than just a gift of friendship. Bob, in his inimitable way, put together a compendium of bicycle information and maintenance and references and things like that for me. So I have my little owner's manual, even though the bicycle dates from 1971. And one of the notes that he has in here is that the bicycle is actually older than most of the kids that are working in the shops maintaining them. So you might want to learn how to fix it yourself. So I started learning a little bit about that. So that's the background of this bicycle. And my attempt today is to talk about it as a vehicle of practice, no pun intended. For many years, in many parts of the world, the Raleigh Sports three-speed bicycle was considered the ultimate in human-powered transportation.

[07:52]

These bicycles were not toys, and despite the model name, they were not sporting equipment. but they were serious vehicles. The men and women who built them, by and large, also rode them as their primary means of transportation. Most modern bicycles are designed with the primary intent to catch your eye on the sales floor and persuade you to buy. That is not what a Raleigh Sports was about. These were designed to provide solid, dependable transportation for the British public at a time when only the upper classes had motor cars. These bikes were built to last 100 years with reasonable care. So there's a lot of history and care put into that 30 or 40 pounds of steel. Well, the first thing that struck me when I got that call from Bob and Erica was that I was being given a gift.

[08:59]

It wasn't my birthday, it was in June, my birthday's in December, for those who care to note that date. But I was really struck by the fact that there was a gift that was being given. And one of the tenets of Buddhism are the four guidances of a bodhisattva. which are giving, kind speech, beneficial action, and identity action. And in the six paramitas, also the first paramita is giving, or dana. So we talk a lot about giving. When we give gifts or when a gift is given, there may be some intention of wanting to get something back, like someone's friendship, kindnesses, a little kickback at a job or a project.

[10:03]

But this gift, as I saw, it was fairly selfless. And that endeared me even more to the act and becoming a new rider on this bicycle. The act of giving is an act of letting go. Bob actually told me, he says, you know, this bike is in pretty good shape and I was thinking about keeping it myself and replacing the one that I found earlier, but he let it go and he gave it to me. And it's a physical act, it's something in the body, you have something you're relating to something and then you're letting it go. So this act of giving and really establishing a foundation of, and a reminder of, we can't own anything. We can't hold on to anything, actually. Some things we give away while we're alive, some things we will.

[11:04]

With our estate, before we die, we plan on that. And then, of course, when we do die, things are gone. With the Bodhisattva's method of kind speech, there is yet a deeper commitment to that act of giving and carrying on the act of giving. By writing a letter and giving descriptions of the bicycle parts and what I need to do to take care of this bicycle, I felt even more connected to my friend. and when we spoke about it or when I went down to visit him and asked him some questions about repairing this or that, the act of speaking and bringing forth thoughts and ideas and feelings is a deeper opportunity to connect with someone. There's something that's interconnected when we sit silently, and yet when we speak or when we do something physical, it creates more of a connection.

[12:13]

with each other and with things. In Buddhism, we talk about first principle of the experience and second principle, which is like talking about the experience, and they're both very important. I think there's a tendency for us to lean a little bit more on the first experience or the first principle. That's my tendency anyway, because I tend, even though I can talk a lot, I tend to be kind of quiet. And so I work on second principle practice more, especially amongst my close friends who are asking me for my thoughts and feelings about particular things. The third act in the Bodhisattva guidance of the way, or guidelines for practicing, is beneficial action. the Bodhisattva practices to benefit all beings.

[13:19]

So in this act of generosity of receiving a bicycle, I can't really say what went on for the people who gave the bicycle, but the recipient receives the benefits of that. And it's not just me, actually. In riding my bicycle or choosing to ride a bike versus riding my motorcycle or riding in a car, It helps the environment. There's a bumper sticker or a top tube on a bicycle sticker, probably more appropriately, you know, one less bicycle or one less car, excuse me, one less car for people riding around. So there's this congestion issue that goes on in the Bay Area and there's anxiety and the pent-up energies that go around all of that. So the benefit of riding a bicycle is There's more space. There's physically more space when you ride down the street than in a car. You're actually more connected to the universe riding a bicycle than in the protection and safety of a car. Now, I'm not advocating getting rid of your car because cars are very useful.

[14:28]

Airplanes are very useful. motorcycles are very useful, but in the context of riding a bicycle your experience and meeting the universe is very intimate and it feels very, very connected. And I just thought of this, but maybe there's a feeling that children are very connected to the earth and the world and as we get older we tend to lose contact. It may have something to do with getting off of their little scooters or skateboards or bicycles and getting into cars. and kind of getting protected and shielded away from things, which is important because you want to be protected if there's other vehicles around going 60, 70 miles an hour. You don't want to be too exposed. So that beneficial action ripples out in all 10 directions. And lastly, there's identity action. An identity action is complete connection and devotion to the object.

[15:30]

When we initially are practicing giving kind speech and beneficial action, there can be a feeling of separation. And for a bodhisattva, it's actually purposeful because if you don't feel separate with things, then there's a tendency or a potential tendency to not do anything because all is one and I don't have to do anything. But if we feel a separation and a desire or need arises to help others, that's good. That sense of separation is actually good. So through these three, the first three methods, we're actually coming closer to this fourth, which is identity action. And we practice identity action moment by moment in our practice of Zazen. When we're sweeping, when we're cooking a meal, and when we're riding a bicycle. Sojin, encourages us to get our cup of tea or coffee at the tea table and then sit down and drink it.

[16:40]

Don't drink and drive. Don't drink and walk around. It's a feeling of disconnect and not really identity action with what you're doing. So when I'm riding my bicycle to work, which is where I ride it mostly up Milvia Street, it's a very different feeling if I'm just riding my bicycle and feeling really connected to it and the road and all things for those 11 minutes or so riding up to Vine Street. I do have a tendency to eat and ride, and so some of you may have seen me eating a power bar along the way with one hand and kind of steering with the other. And I've been doing it for, well, for a very long time. And in preparation for this talk this past week, I've been thinking of things to talk about. So when I check in at work in the morning, there's a little piece of paper with my name and the time, and then I scribble something down on it, some idea that I had for this talk that I'm giving.

[17:44]

And then I collected all these pieces of paper and kind of went through them last night. So one of them was eating a Power Bar. And there's a feeling of disconnect that I can feel in my body riding along. Now it sounds pretty obvious, but what's happened in the past year of riding this bicycle and feeling very connected as I ride, just like I feel very connected at times when I'm sitting Zazen, that if I'm doing something different and getting distracted, I'm losing the opportunity to experience identity action. I still get the nutrients of the power bar, the alleged nutrients that are on the label, but it's a very different experience than being completely present of just riding the bicycle and then eating the power bar at work with a glass of water. But that's just my impatience that's coming forward. And part of waking up is waking up to my impatience and not judging it as a bad thing, but I have a choice.

[18:52]

Do I want to save the power bar till I get to work, or am I going to continue to do this eating and running thing, eating and riding thing? And that's a choice I have. Peter Overton spoke about the three wisdoms a few weeks ago, which are hearing, reflection, and embodiment. And there wasn't a lot written down in the old days when Buddhism was beginning, so this oral tradition was practiced by monks and mnemonic devices were used for the monks to remember, the nuns to remember the teaching of the Buddha. So there's lots of repeats in our practice.

[19:53]

So in thinking about the three wisdoms, I thought about the wisdom of hearing, which can also be the wisdom of seeing and tasting and touching. So the five skandhas are taking in the world and there's a wisdom, there's an opportunity to wake up to the interconnectedness of things just from taking things in. And that's sort of the so-called first step of just taking it in. So receiving this bicycle, I get a letter, touch the bicycle, feel it, see what needs to be tended to. But it's a physical experience. It's like an introduction, if you will. Hearing. The second wisdom of reflection is turning the light inward and reflecting on what I've received, what's being experienced.

[20:59]

How do I relate to this thing? What kind of care does it need? The embodiment wisdom is like identity action. It's actually being with it and not being separate from it. As Sojin says, a car isn't a car until you actually get inside, turn the key, and drive off. Before that, it's just that. So similarly with this bicycle, when I hang it up in the bike shed that Doug was kind enough to build for the bike riders of our temple, it ceases to become a bicycle. And then in the morning, when I take it off the hook and get on, it becomes a bicycle again.

[22:07]

And I've been thinking about that and my daily practice of Zazen. I sit for an hour each morning and then I go about my day. And then when I come back to sit, it's very familiar and it's very different. And I ride the bike each day and it's the same route that I ride up Milvia pretty much. The same gears pretty much. Sometimes I feel a little different and I have to flip the gears. There's only three to choose from. So I try to keep it in second gear, which is a middle gear, the middle way, you know. And I can feel myself needing a little help. So I'll pop it into first gear to have a little bit easier ride of it. And sometimes I have a lot of inner power. And then I just pop it into third, and then I'm like cruising along. But it doesn't go very fast. It's not a fast bicycle. It's not meant to catch the eye, as the author of that piece said.

[23:07]

It's a practical piece of equipment. But because of the physicality of riding a bicycle, it feels very close to the practice of Zazen. So the other morning, I was feeling my feet on the pedals. And I take a moment just now and feel my feet and legs in this sitting position. I felt my butt on that seat, and I feel my butt on the Zafu. I feel my hands on the handlebars, or the power bars, and I feel my hands in this mudra. And if I sit upright, there's a particular feeling and experience of connectedness and groundedness and attention to the directives in Fukan Zazengi. And if I'm riding the bicycle, I disappear, and there's just

[24:08]

that identity action going up the street in perfect harmony. People always talk about bicycles being one of the most efficient machines and the sort of human powered ingenuity and all that that goes into it. And it always seemed kind of an abstract idea, especially as a young kid. It was just like riding around, getting away from home and playing with my friends. But as we get older, we can, we have the opportunity to return to, um, the toys of our youth, if you will, and actually see it in a greater context. So if I'm riding along, I remember, the memory arises, oh, they haven't cleaned up that glass spot there in front of the Berkeley sauna. I better steer around that. They haven't cleaned it up yet, day after day. I just gotta keep riding around it. And in Zazen, it's the same thing. If I'm really attentive in Zazen, the same, you know, the perennial thoughts keep coming up, the same ideas, the same samsaric things arise.

[25:16]

Oh, there's that demon again, or there's my friend again, you know, tempting me or distracting me from my practice. So the beauty in our practice of doing things mindfully and regularly enables us to actually have the opportunity to wake up and see the subtle differences that are taking place in our lives that actually inform our lives. If we're really distracted and caught off and doing all sorts of things and not really focusing in and really putting our cup of tea down and sitting with it rather than walking around or trying to eat and run, we lose a lot in many different dimensions. We lose a lot. Most importantly, we lose the opportunity to wake up. and see who we are. Berkeley has these pathways called bicycle boulevards.

[26:41]

And in practice, we keep our eyes lowered. And when you ride, on this particular bike anyway, my head is down just slightly, given it's a little bit big for me and the way my body has to conform to it. Even though it's an upright bike generally, unlike the turndown handlebar ones, I am kind of down slightly. So there's looking downward and that of course feels very familiar. And there's this repeating design on the pavement. There's a picture of a person on a bicycle, there's BLVD Boulevard, and then an arrow. So I guess I'm going the right way. Bike Boulevard, arrow, forward. Bike below our arrow. And someone up the street here put in a few letters in between the B-L-V-D, and now it says Beloved. And that's kind of spreading around to different parts of the city. That feels pretty good.

[27:43]

A little meta practice with the Donna practice. And then at the end of the corner, there's a stop sign. So it's just like our practice. We get on the cushion, we sit, we're going, and then we stop. It's a bell. We get off and do kin-hin, then we get back on and go up. I try to stop at stop signs, or at least slow down at stoplights. I try to stop. I'm trying to undo my habit energy of jaywalking. So this is a practice of stopping and starting, stopping and starting. Joko Beck has a beautiful image of Zazen being like riding in a train without sticking your head out the window and just seeing the scenery of your life pass by. And riding a bicycle is very much like that.

[28:46]

Walking can be very much like that. Actually, most anything has the potential to be just like that. But certain simple acts have the potential to make that happen a little bit more often. So needless to say, literally and metaphorically, the scenery of my life passes by me all the time while I ride. We talk about armor and peeling back the armor in our practice. We have to protect ourselves. There's a sense of self or ego that protects oneself and then there's also the sense of selflessness and just peeling away the layers and just exposing oneself to what is being offered by the universe. Yesterday it was raining fairly heavily and I had an appointment down in Emeryville at the roasting plant so I had a long ride.

[29:52]

on my bicycle from North Berkeley down south. And I was reminded while I was writing of Tozan's teaching of when it's cold, freeze to death. When it's hot, burn up or burn up to death. I'm paraphrasing. But the sense of it is, is that whatever is happening to you, from the so-called outside, don't separate from it, just be it, and find your freedom within that. So in rising to that challenge of riding in the rain, which isn't my most favorite thing to do, I put on my rain gear, which is a sense my armor or my protection, and feeling good about being protected from the elements. The Zendo for many of us, it feels very protective that we have a container here to practice our life and experience our life really intimately and be protected and supported by other people.

[31:01]

So I was riding along and I felt protected. And in a sense, that's sort of good armor or good protection. and taking care of myself while I was riding. Just like when it gets cold, you put on a sweater to contain or protect yourself with the heat inside and keeping it close. So we have to prepare, and sometimes we get caught off guard. And what do we do when we get caught off guard and we don't have our armor or protection? We might have to change gears. That's okay. I'd like to close with an experience I had here in the Zendo a few months ago.

[32:15]

which isn't about bicycles. But what it affirmed for me is that practice is not so far away. We just need to be open to it. We need to continue to sit, continue to study, continue to question, continue to cultivate practice has been handed to us, and we will get a glimpse of what the teachers of old have been trying to impress upon us. Butch Bellew passed away from cancer a little while ago, and he resided here. And when he first moved in, he sat here a lot, and as he got more sick, he wasn't able to sit here with us so much.

[33:22]

He sat in his room, but he would show up occasionally in the Zendo. And I was always very inspired by his practice, even before he moved in, because he sat upright. There was a certain poise and posture that he carried with him, and a certain way that he spoke and connected to me and other people that was very inspiring. and continues to inspire me. So, he was in the zendo one morning, sitting on the tan where Merrill is there, and I was sitting on the upper tan, and after zazen, we had service. And in service, we bow nine times at the beginning, we chant, and then we bow three times at the end. The Doshi initiates the bow, the Doan is right there with them and hitting a bell and then we're all bowing together and that's kind of the sequence, the timing of things.

[34:26]

So the first bow or two, peripherally and in my body, everything felt kind of connected and that we're all in fact doing it together. And then I noticed that Butch was having difficulty getting up and not bowing so fast. I didn't really think about it. I noticed that he was right there in front of me bowing, but I, I slowed down and I bowed with him in time with him, which was about a bow and a half or two or whatever behind everybody else. And what I experienced was a sense of deconditioning. that I have, which is following the forms and noting when things are right and wrong and reminding people to do it this way and not that way and all of that and letting go of all that and then just bowing with my Dharma friend. And I wrote that experience down on a little piece of paper and I kept it in my drawer, figuring that someday I'll be able to share that with other people.

[35:39]

in a context of a Dharma talk. So sometime after that I was thinking about this story of Laman Pong and his daughter and one of them falls and somebody else kind of they go along with them and what was that about? And then last night in preparing for this talk I went to my bookshelf and came across this story which I'd like to share with you. Lehmann Pong practiced with his daughter. He had a son and wife who, it appears, did not practice so much, or if at all, but it's a very famous collection of anecdotes from Tang Dynasty in China. Bill Lehmann was once selling bamboo baskets.

[36:45]

That's how he and his daughter made money when they were going around on pilgrimage. Coming down off a bridge, he stumbled and fell. When Liang Chao Saw this, she ran to her father's side and threw herself down. What are you doing, cried the layman. I saw Papa fall to the ground, so I'm helping, replied Lingxiao. Luckily, no one was looking, remarked the layman. So for me, that story evokes interconnectedness and helping other people and helping oneself. And while that was a very explicit expression of helping a daughter and a father and the filial piety that comes with that culture and time, there's something I think for all of us to learn from that.

[37:52]

that the act of generosity, the act of giving and connectedness can help other people as long as we get out of our notions of self-serving ideas and not worrying so much about others. We have about five minutes or so if anyone would like to comment or ask a question. Francesca? I was just thinking about when you were talking about eating the powder bar and riding your bike. And I'll go with the alleged nutrients version of the powder bar, because I know what it says on the label. But anyway, you were saying you get the nutrients anyway, even though your mind is not connecting to what you're doing. But actually the body also responds to that and doesn't really absorb it as well if you're not totally present with your mind.

[39:02]

So the whole thing is sort of pushing it away, in a way. Your body, your mind, the spirit, because food is such a metaphor. How much can we actually absorb and receive And whatever little there is to absorb and receive from a power bar, you're not going to get that as much as if you were to just sit down and eat it. Yeah, the full benefit is actually written on the bar. It says, eat 30 minutes prior to activity. So actually, I should go out at the clunk at 625 and eat it. But yeah, that's true. There's a sense of actually experiencing what you're eating or what you're doing and being mindful of that. And then there's the nutritive value. So I appreciate your reminder and I'll work on that.

[40:08]

So you're advocating being mindful and aware, which is, can't go wrong with that. Thanks. Yes. There's a story of Sun Tzu-Ning. He's drinking coffee and reading the newspaper. And one of his students comes and asks him, what teacher? You know, you're drinking coffee and reading the newspaper, and you always teach us to do one thing at a time. And he says, well, I'm doing only one thing. It's drinking coffee and reading the newspaper. With that, I want to ask you, has that bicycle Yeah, of the Dharma, a bicycle isn't a unicycle. It's a vehicle for practice. We're always doing more than one thing.

[41:13]

Thanks for that. It's really interesting. Right after 9-11 I was riding my motorcycle. down Alcatraz Avenue and I had very negative thoughts about who must have perpetrated those crimes and I had an idea of who it was. And then I spun out on Alcatraz and I kind of marked up my pants. Fortunately, I wasn't hurt, but it really kind of woke me up to trying to being careful about what I'm thinking. And then I got the bicycle shortly thereafter, and my experience is very different now around riding and consuming oil. And I do consume oil. We all consume oil.

[42:20]

But we can only do what we can do. Yeah. Mary? I was thinking about, you've been talking about identity action, and the Fukunza Zangi says, think not thinking, how do you think not thinking, non-thinking, and I was wondering about if you could comment on the relationship, if any, between non-thinking and identity action. For me, I related it to something I presented in class on Thursday, which is Breathing in, taking in the whole universe, there's a gap, a space, and then breathing out, letting go of the universe. There's birth and there's death. Thinking is taking in the universe.

[43:24]

not thinking is death and letting go, and non-thinking is that bridge between those two worlds. That's what I've been thinking about non-thinking lately. How does it relate to identity action? You could say they're the same maybe, but I don't know. Well, I think that non-thinking is an expression and a practice of identity action. the worlds of birth and death seemingly separate, self and other seemingly separate, are brought together with the practice and expression of identity action, non-thinking, just this. That's kind of how I've been non-thinking about it. Yeah, thanks. Well, it's 11 o'clock.

[44:27]

Thank you for keeping time, Richard, the striker there. And have a wonderful day. Thank you for being here. And give the bike riders some space on the road.

[44:41]

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