Good morning. Can you hear me in the back? It's nice to be back here with many friends, even on a day when the skies are looking a bit ominous. We're about to begin Sesshin tomorrow, our seven-day Rohatsu Sesshin. I'm looking forward to that. I've been gone for longer than I had planned when I saw you last. I think the last time I spoke was the last day of practice where he said right and then the following day I went to Thailand which I will talk about a little and I came back and Lori picked me up at the airport about 10 30 on a Saturday morning and an hour later her sister called and said that her mother was her 96 year old mother was failing which was not

[01:20]

entirely unexpected news, but you never fully expect this. There's never a convenient or right time for this to happen. And so, by early in the afternoon, this was the weekend before Thanksgiving, Laurie went up there And her mother passed away peacefully in the hospice, in the home that she was in, I think the next day. And then as soon as we could, Alexander and I flew up, and Sylvie flew in from Connecticut. And so we were up there. all together with Laurie and Laurie's sister in Portland for, I was there for about a week, and just got back on Tuesday or Wednesday.

[02:27]

And we were doing, you know, what we could do. Sometimes a death is in time, and sometimes it seems out of time, at the age of 96 going peacefully, it's about as in time as it's going to get, right? But it's never the right time. So, you know, when we can, in our tradition we do a cremation ceremony with the body circumambulating the body, chanting the Enmei Jukku Kannon Gyo, we set up the room where the body of the deceased person is actually, the body is the Buddha.

[03:35]

There are no images on the altar because that body is the image of the Buddha. And I must say that Helen Schley's body looked incredibly peaceful. And it was actually a very good experience. It was very helpful for Lori and for me. There were just three of us there with a cousin. But it settled the worry on the one hand to see the body that was so peaceful and the other to feel, oh, my mother is not there. She's not in this, you know, in this Buddha body that we're using as an altar. So that was a good experience and then a few days later we organized a memorial, essentially a non-religious memorial, basically people just speaking about Helen at Reed College where she had been in the class of 1938.

[04:50]

It was great. There were like 80 people there and it was her It was a mark of the kind of circle of community that she had had going back to childhood There was some really old people there But including there were four generations including The children of grandchildren of friends. And it was a lovely celebration and Sylvie and Laurie worked very hard to put together a slideshow which was terrific. Images from Helen's youth right up to pretty late to her 90th birthday party. So, that's where I was.

[05:58]

And I just thought, Laurie's coming home today, and some of the most pressing business has been taken care of, but we have to see how this loss unfolds, and how it affects us. But I just thought I would share that. A number of things converge for me in my thinking today. One, even as I was speaking, thinking about the really strong feeling of community that existed around Lori's mother, Helen. And I think about the strong feeling of community that room it's so comfortable to come back here and be among you it's so familiar and so much where where I like to be and I must say I had some of that feeling as well in Thailand and I I've really been thinking about

[07:25]

this notion of community and our communities, and also the kind of building blocks of these communities, which is friendship, spiritual friendship, which in the Buddha's terms is called Kalyanamita. to be a spiritual friend is to be a Kalyanamita. Have people heard this term? So that's what I'm going to talk about. I'm going to talk a little about how I experienced that in Thailand, but first I think I want to give you a little framework. In the Upadasuta. Ananda says to the Buddha, they would have these kind of friendly chats.

[08:36]

Ananda would make a proposition and usually the Buddha said, no, no, you don't get it. But that's how we learned. That's how we all learned. So Ananda says to the Buddha, this is half of the holy life, Lord. spiritual friendship, spiritual companionship, spiritual camaraderie, or he's spiritual or admirable, depends on the translation. The Buddha responds, I love the way the Buddha talks, he says, don't say that, Ananda. He says that again and again, don't say that. Spiritual friendship, spiritual companionship, spiritual camaraderie, is actually the whole of the holy life. When a person has spiritual people as friends, companions and comrades, he or she can be expected to develop and pursue the Noble Eightfold Path.

[09:42]

So this is the basis of our life, whether we know it or not. And this is also why the entirety of our practice is not just Buddha and Dharma, it's Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Sangha as this circle of spiritual friends. I think this is something that we feel, it kind of amps up and just in our society as these holidays come along and it also as as Tish'in comes along I was I was thinking this morning in the shower I was thinking back about 25 years around the time that when I started to sit here regularly

[10:45]

I'm looking around to see if there's anyone here that was in the room. Not now. Usually there is. Actually, maybe Megan. I'm not sure. Hi. walking in, I had been sitting regularly during the week, pretty regularly for a few months, and hadn't done any Sashin yet, and then Rohatsu Sashin started. And as you know, by the way, regular Zazen is available during Rohatsa, the usual time. Isn't that right? 5.40 in the morning, 5.40 in the afternoon, and you can come in and just sit, even though Seshina is going on. I came in for the 5.40 in the afternoon Dazen, and it's like, whoa, something's going on here.

[11:58]

There was a very, very different energy in the room And it was palpable and it really carried me along, this connection that people were experiencing in Zazen, together, sitting side by side, creating this community. As spiritual friends, who were just supporting each other. The energy was so palpable that I, you know, it's like, oh, I want to be part of this. I really wanted to stay, but I couldn't. And I just said to myself, well, I'm not going to miss another one of these. And barring unforeseen circumstances over the years, I pretty much haven't.

[13:05]

But that's one way that we manifest this community, that we manifest our spiritual friendship. In sitting together, in working together, and this is how we are good friends to each other and how we manifest our interdependence. I was reading, it was interesting, I was reading last week a very curious book. Do people know, do you ever listen to This American Life? Yeah. And Sarah Val, you know, who's a very quirky writer and commentator, very funny but really on the mark.

[14:07]

There's a book I picked up in the airport in Thailand called The Wordy Shipmates. First I thought it was going to be like one of these David Sedaris books that was full of wit and funny stories and pithy things to think about, but actually it's sort of a history of the Puritans in early America from roughly 1620 to about 1640. And it's very, I mean, it seems like very good, very accurate history. Of course, filtered through her voice, which is extremely interesting. But she was, I got this quotation from a text called Model of Christian Charity by John Winsrop.

[15:09]

He wrote this in 1630, not 1930. And he's the guy who came up with the phrase that the city on a hill has a kind of expression of the experiment of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and what their aspiration was. And so this really struck me as an expression of the kind of community that we're creating. We must delight in each other, make others' conditions our own, rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, our community as members of the same body.

[16:13]

We must delight in each other, make others' conditions our own, rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, our community as members of the same body. I think this is the Puritan version of Sangha. Now, of course, in the actual application of these words there was some unevenness and there are some big problems. But there are big problems in Sangha too. But I found that It's a wonderful model to aspire to, as a sense of what we're trying to create. I'm thinking about how I depend on that, which doesn't always show.

[17:24]

And I don't know to the extent to which you feel that dependence and the extent to which it shows for you. Some of you are more demonstrative perhaps than I am. So I was in Thailand and the reason I went there was for the 20th anniversary of the International Network of Engaged Buddhists and it was up in Chiang Mai in the north which is a relatively pleasant place although I must say it like a lot of places in the world in the 10 years since I've been there it's just kind of the traffic is mushroomed the development is mushroomed this kind of sleepy town that I first encountered you know 18 years ago has gotten very large and sprawling but still it's you know it's not a bad place to go and there were going to be a lot of friends and I've been involved with International Network of Biju Buddhists for about 18 years and it really is also for me a core community of spiritual friends people I've been very close to quite a number of them have come through here visited, some of them have spoken here and it's

[18:52]

It's an amazing network that we continue day-to-day on email and on Facebook, etc. I'm seeing your friends from Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam, Burma, India, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and all of us over time and over shared work being in relationship with each other. And a great joy in seeing each other and seeing over a long period of time, seeing our lives evolve, seeing our work evolve, seeing our families grow up. That part was was really wonderful and doing what I felt was productive work and also seeing which was really new and evolving and is something I think we need to pay attention to here.

[20:10]

Although I'm always wondering how do we do this? At these meetings there was a generational shift. There were a whole lot of young people some from here, from America, who had been brought by my friend Temple Smith, but a lot from various parts of Asia, and they were really smart, really tuned in, and really devoted to Buddhist practice. And to see them, it was like to be able to have a sigh of relief that It wasn't just this aging cadre of people who were interested in remaking the world, but there were people who were young and energetic, and we had to actually make room for them, really.

[21:14]

And they were ready to step forward. So that was really exciting. And so that was new relationships. But when I think about how I lean on the relationships, I want to be very particular. So I left here the day after practice period, and I was pretty tired from practice period. And I also had a mild infection for which my doctor had given me two antibiotics. which knocked the shit out of you, or me. And then there's this ridiculous chain of flights which, you know, involve for me who doesn't sleep on airplanes, like 26 hours of being awake straight, which I really don't like.

[22:20]

It's also dis-exhausting. So I was really drained when I got to Thailand, and because my sort of characterological bent is towards depression, I just fell into a really dark depression. And so there I was in this hotel room, you know, feeling like I couldn't get out of bed, you know, and just thinking, this is really, this is not good, you know, and thinking, gee, maybe I can't do this anymore, you know, at age 61. Maybe that time of my life is over. and thinking, oh, maybe I should get on a plane and go right home. And all of this, let me just say, these are very familiar patterns of thinking for me.

[23:21]

Whenever I travel, I have to go through this passageway, which is pretty difficult. Uh, and I recognize it. So my practice, I think, my practice in that context is just to say, okay, this is, you know, this is pretty bad now. And you're not going to stay here in bed because that's That's just, it's not going to work. You know, so how, I ask myself a series of questions. How will it be? First of all, just how will it be in two or three hours? And then the further question is, how will this be in two or three days?

[24:25]

and say, remember how you feel right now. This is maybe my version of the koan of Zui Gan calling to his master, you know, talking to himself. Zui Gan, yes master, don't be fooled by anything. So, don't be fooled by your own propensities. So I would ask myself these questions, and I'm in the habit of doing that, which I found generally is helpful. And it's a kind of faith in impermanence. But there was a further step, which is, okay, you're here with, and there are a whole lot of people that you love and are connected to, and who I know love me.

[25:35]

The thing to do is to get out of here and get around them, and be with them, practice with them, which is what we were doing, talk with them, and allow that to allow that spiritual friendship to actually transform the transitory and illusory notion of being caught in this dark self. Does that make sense? So that's what I did. I would get myself down and I noticed that during the day, oh, you know what, I'm pretty functional. And I'm glad to be with my friends. And then, you know, the next night, next morning was also really hard.

[26:37]

And I said, let's just keep doing this and see, see where it goes. And over a period, after about four days, especially when the antibiotics stopped, when I, I think that was a real factor. all of a sudden I noticed, oh, I'm at home. That was then, I was at home in my body, at home with my friends, and not feeling separate from myself. That separation from myself is actually the incapacity at that moment to be one's own spiritual friend. and I would sit Sazen, which was not a remedy but it was always settling in some sense but mostly it was just allowing ourselves to be doing useful, casual, productive things sometimes just, you know, eating food together

[27:59]

walking around, talking, leaning on this longtime friendship that we have. And so, it's a very powerful experience. I'm really grateful. I feel like I've really learned a lot. One of the things I did was I gave a number of presentations at this conference and one of the presentations I gave was about Buddhist community and as a model of what works in Buddhist community I talked about Berkeley Zen Center. Why I think this is a functional place, what I think our strengths and weaknesses are, mostly strengths, how I think they were organized, how we're organized in the sense that that allows us to sustain our practice life, and how the practice life at the core of what we're doing, zazen,

[29:25]

is what sustains our community life. And I talked about another organization and community that I'm connected with which I felt like didn't have these and so was really kind of on the rocks. And spent a lot of time talking with people from different countries about not just about our model here at Berkley Zen Center, but about how to extend that, how that works with the different cultural settings that they're in. And I came to, I was reminded of one of the core teachings of Martin Luther King, who talked about beloved community. And I'm just going to read a little bit about that and then probably end. So Dr. King said, it's much like this John Winthrop's words.

[30:47]

King said, we are tied together in a single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. Whether we realize it or not, each of us lives eternally in the red, in debt to each other for the creation of our lives. He was not talking about a community that was devoid of conflict, but a community that had a way an approach to dealing with conflict that was essentially non-violent and that recognized the complete humanity of each being.

[31:49]

We might say, you yourself are Buddha. If I say that, that can be just a kind of cliché. If I act and live from that place, then understandably, it conditions how I relate to you. I relate to you as part of myself. And so naturally, I'm going to try to respond in a way that is non-violent. So, without going into because of time without going into a lot more detail about this this beloved community is the community that I feel responsible to create and that I think we're creating we have to do it in a microcosm in a micro microcosm we have to create the beloved community of our own body in a sense that's I think what we're doing

[33:02]

we're accepting each interactive interdependent part of our body and mind as a complete expression of reality in the moment and accepting it just as it is from there we go outward to include everybody who's in this room in a literal and metaphorical way And then, since our practice is not confined to the zendo, our practice doesn't exist just in the zendo. The zendo is simply the place where we can cultivate it. We carry it out into the world around us. And in that way, we allow others to sustain us. and we are constantly trying to find how it is that we can sustain and help them.

[34:08]

So I think that's where I'm going to end for today and maybe we'll take five minutes for questions or comments. Linda? Well thanks for For what you said about your experience of depression and how you have learned to work with it, for me that was the most close or intimate moment of your talk. That's not what my question is about, though. When you were talking about Lori's mother, you said that in that ceremony where the body was serving as the Buddha, Lori's mother wasn't there. Lori knew that her mother wasn't there. So my question is, was she ever there?

[35:10]

What do you mean, was she ever there? Well, you know, we heard from Catherine when she was working on her koan, some quotes about how you don't lose a particle you don't gain a particle something you know that I won't say I won't say living or dead yeah so what's the difference between when her mother is there and her mother isn't there what's there? what goes? well I think what goes is the presence in the body that can actually respond moment by moment interact with you in ways that you can perceive that is embodied. Sounds like there's something there. Something where?

[36:16]

In the living body that isn't there in the dead body. Oh, I think there is. What is all this stuff? I have to ask Catherine again. Yes, good. Ask Catherine, don't ask me. I don't think Catherine ever said there was nothing there. She was quoting Zen Master about not a particle comes, not a particle goes. Not a particle. Living or dead. That may be true, but things are changing constantly. They're always changing. Not a particle comes and goes, but particles transform. Anyway, obviously there's a difference. They wouldn't have asked that question otherwise. But what is that difference and what is its meaning to you? And the question for Lori and her sister and us is, you know, how is her mother and how is she with us right at this moment? Ann? For me, what my mother passed away in May, what was most graphic for me was what was gone was the breath.

[37:34]

Literally. The breath stopped. And it reminded me of something I had once felt early on when I was sitting here, when I used to sit a lot more, a lot more. And one time I felt this incredible sense of connection that the breath was breathing me when I was sitting here sitting. The breath was breathing me and that when I died the breath would go back to the breath. Sort of like the big breath or the original breath. I mean, that's the way I saw it. And I think how in Christianity the Holy Spirit is sometimes conceived of as breath, sort of in the same way.

[38:40]

And it's non-corporeal, but it's not nothing. And I just throw that out. as something I once experienced. Both myself and then when my mother died. The breath literally went away. Thank you. Tamara? I was with my father's dead body after he died. And what comes up for me is what was missing was the love. You know, the body was still there, but the love wasn't. At least in the Love has a very specific form of one person and another. What Lori told me was her mother went very easily, peacefully and the room was actually quite warm and she had warm covers and they had sort of a big, like two beds pushed together because they had sort of spent the night together and they just

[39:51]

I'm not sure whether Lori and Debbie or just Lori just sort of climbed under the covers with her mother's body. And she said it was really, it was pretty amazing because she was warm, because of the condition, she was warm for a long time. So the love, that physicality kind of ebbed in a slow way. They were allowed that kind of opportunity. One more. Dawn? I just want to say how very touched I am by everything you're saying today. Everything, and especially your part about your dependency on this community and your communities. And I'm feeling more and more grateful to be just beginning to find this community because it is a very special one.

[40:56]

So thank you. Thank you. It's pretty good here. I think we need to end, otherwise people are going to get tired and we're going to be here for a week straight. And also, the talks, which will be as usual at 10.15, those are also open to the public. So regular Zazen times and the lectures. John? I think in the morning, because we're starting at 5, the second sitting is at 5.50. I think you're right. Somebody will meet you on the porch when you come. They'll help you get seated because their seats are assigned, etc. Thank you very much. Enjoy the day.

[41:47]

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