Okay. Do you want the mic for a second? Okay. Now I feel really old. Good save. Thank you.

[01:15]

Yeah, Sojin Roshi and I met in the early 1970s. I started practicing the week that Suzuki Roshi died. And I didn't want to practice. I didn't have any idea of practicing. But I had an experience that made me realize that I had to. And that my only freedom as a limited human being would be with this very weird practice that my family really did not appreciate, but which I had to do. So I did it and am doing it to this day and will practice for the rest of my life. And I see many of my lifetime practice companions are here and some representing people who are not here anymore.

[02:24]

and who we still love as exemplars on the way. So, good morning and happy spring. Did you know that there's a 50% forecast of rain for tomorrow? Yeah. Yeah, so I thought, because of that, that I might speak about spring rain and the rain that rains everywhere, whether it's raining or not. This is also a very rich time here at Berkeley's N Center.

[03:28]

Hannah and Lori, I think, are with the children. And isn't it going to be a 20s, 30s hiking session sometime soon? Next weekend, where are you going? Point raised. Okay, well get in a few Z's for me, okay? Next weekend I'll be in Baja. Yeah, but I won't be outside. I'll be in a room examining yoga teachers to see if we can make intermediate teachers out of introductory teachers in yoga. And Alan's been talking about the Platform Sutra. And you're about to start a practice period, I think. What are you going to study? What we're going to study during our practice period, we're going to be attending a book reading. Cool. We're going to be getting some advice from the book.

[04:33]

Yeah. We're going to be reading some books. Yeah. We're going to be reading some books. Yeah, so yeah, like 1579, the way that, you know, it cannot be named. Looking for the dragon's jewel, it's here in this wave and in the next, yeah. So actually, I hadn't planned to talk about this, but before Dharma transmission, it was very important to Sojin Roshi that I be the Tenzo, or the head cook. at San Francisco Zen Center, and I didn't want to do it. So I was his assistant, and I wanted to keep helping people with ordinations and kind of be in that realm. And I thought, head cook, no, not going to do that. And so Mel and I had a fight in the dining room of San Francisco Zen Center.

[05:36]

He said, I want you to be Tenzo. And I said, I don't want to be Tenzo. And he said, I want you to be Tenzo. And I said, no, I don't want to be Tenzo. And then he said, I want you to be Tenzo. And I said, if it's so important to you, why don't you be Tenzo? And then he just kind of dug in his heels and he kind of like this. And then he said, Tenzo. And I said, okay, I'll be Tenzo. And I was Tenzo for three years. And the very first week I was Tenzo, he came and gave a talk at San Francisco Zen Center about kitchen practice. and about cooking our life and nourishment that I still remember.

[06:41]

And then the next day after that, he was Abbott at San Francisco Zen Center and here at the same time, at the time. And the very next day after that, he came to the kitchen. He walked up to, he bowed and walked up to the Fukuten and said, I'm here. And the Fukuten said, oh, okay. And he said, what do you want me to do? And the Fukuten said, apricots. And then he said, how do you want me to do it? And the Fukuten said, oh, okay. And the Fukuten, he said, show me. And the Fukuten cut an apricot in the way that we were going to actually use. And then he started just chopping apricots, just one at a time. And everything in the kitchen, the whole activity of the kitchen stopped.

[07:51]

It wasn't that anything stopped. It was that the entire kitchen came into one pace. around this person shopping apricots with a musician's rhythm of... And then I realized, oh, you know, there is this rhythm of life that is expressed in the kitchen, you know, where ingredients come in, And we ask, what are we going to do with them? And then we look at what we're going to do. We wash the apricots. We purify them. And then we offer our work and the rhythm of what we're doing through all of the senses.

[08:54]

So not only is the food nourishing, but the sensory experience through the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and body nourishes the consciousness. And this is what's meant by spring rain or Dharma rain, the rain that rains everywhere without changing the shapes of everything. And I don't know if you've been in a spring rain, in a beautiful spring rain, which is more like a mist, and how all the colors of the rocks, the plants, the trees, the buildings, and the fragrances of everything become more vivid in that rain. It becomes a rain that makes of the mind a formless field of benefaction.

[09:57]

And this is the fruit of many years of practice. And it is the point of practice, how we live in ordinary ways that express the whole story of what it is to be human, the beauty of human life. What is that? And how do we do it? What is the nourishment that moistens the ground of our life so that it can flower forth as activity that benefits everyone? So this is really important. So I don't want to be Tenzo, you be Tenzo, is called small mind. But small mind has a meaning, which is our individuality. And small mind and big mind occur together. They're not separated. There's not one enlightened big mind and a stupid unenlightened small mind.

[11:05]

It's not like that. It's a process of intimate communion between small mind and big mind. That is the meaning of our practice and of our life. So, Suzuki Roshi kind of mentioned this in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. It was the point of the book, you know, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, Beginner's Mind, Zen Mind, Small Mind, Big Mind. The whole book is full of lectures and Trudy Dixon edited the book. made it clear that there was a theme that ran through every single chapter of the book, much like the rhythm of chopping apricots. There's this theme that goes through the entire book that's expressed in the last little bit. I think I have it written down here. Do you mind if I read you part of a book that you've probably read many times?

[12:11]

How many people haven't read Send My Beginners Mind? Okay, so you probably have read it, but I'd like to talk about it in a different way. So this is from the end, this is from the epilogue after all the lectures are given and now he's, this is the section where that's the summary of the book at the end. So there's three sections to this summary. One is about big mind, one is about activity, and one's about beginner's mind. The big mind in which we must have confidence is not something which you can experience objectively. It is something which is always with you, always on your side. Your eyes are on your side, for you cannot see your eyes. Your eyes cannot see themselves. You cannot project yourself as some objective thing to think about.

[13:16]

The mind which is always on your side is not just your mind, not just your mind, not just your mind. It is universal mind, always the same, not different from another's mind. It is Zen mind, it is big, big mind. This mind is whatever you see. Your true mind is always with whatever you see. Although you do not know your own mind, it is there. At the very moment you see something, it is there. Now this is very interesting. Your mind is always with the things you observe. So you see this mind is at the same time everything and in all things. Bodhidharma said, in order to see a fish, you must watch the water.

[14:18]

Actually, when you see water, you see the true fish. Before you see Buddha nature, you watch your mind. When you see the water, there is true nature. True nature is watching water. Okay, so we can enter big mind. by turning the inner eye backwards to illuminate it, we think that life is out there somewhere and that we are in here somewhere. But if we turn our attention inward, we'll notice that there is a, sense of contact and universality that's expressed as kind of a potential in everything that we see and hear. So Tozan Ryokai said, don't see the world or yourself as an object or far from it you stray.

[15:25]

Today as I walk alone, whichever way I turn, I meet myself. He is not me. He is just me, I am not he. If you understand that you as an object is not you yourself, then you have your own true way. So the he that is just me is this big mind. The me is the small mind. And everywhere I turn or everywhere I walk is activity. Suzuki Roshi said, watching water is big mind. So watching that which we swim in, that potential which we constantly swim in is big mind. Then he talked about activity. The only way to study pure mind is through practice. Our inmost nature wants a medium, some way to express and realize itself. You must put confidence in big mind, which is always with you.

[16:29]

You should be able to appreciate things as an expression of big mind. It's more than faith. Whether it's difficult or easy to practice, difficult or easy to understand, you can only practice it. Priest or layman is not the point. To find yourself as someone who is doing something is the point. Okay, so that's the activity. The activity is the excuse or the, it's not exactly an excuse, but the occasion on which the appreciation of big mind and small mind come. So when you're walking in point rays, each step or the rhythm of the steps, you can study stepping. who steps and where you're stepping all at the same time. You don't have to like pull them out as separate things or objectify or mechanize that process at all. It's studied through walking.

[17:31]

It's like in the Mountains and Rivers Sutra, Dogen Zenji says, He says all sorts of things about mountains, and he says all sorts of things about water. But the thing that he says about activity is that mountains belong to those who love them. So our activity is a form of love for big mind and small mind. Our activity can be a form of freedom. So then, of course, he says something about things or experience as it is, which could be small mind, but realize small mind is not exactly small mind anymore. He said, I feel Americans, especially young Americans, have a great opportunity to find out the true way of life for human beings. You begin Zen practice with a very pure mind, a beginner's mind. You can understand Buddha's teaching exactly as he meant it.

[18:38]

But we must not be attached to America or Buddhism or even to our practice. We must have beginner's mind, free from possessing anything, a mind that knows everything in flowing change. Before the rain stops, we hear a bird. Even under the heavy snow, we see snowdrops and some new growth. In the east, I saw rhubarb already. In Japan in the spring, we eat cucumbers. Okay, so that particularity. So what makes it possible? So the rain of Buddha nature is constant and flows everywhere. It appears different. It coats different objects in different ways. It doesn't actually coat them, but you know how rain sheets on different objects with different shapes.

[19:44]

So on a window, it looks like drops that are coming down. On a lake, it looks like plunk, plunk, plunk. Right? On hard ground, it pools, and on soft ground, it goes in to nourish all the plants and animals. And so, rain appears different depending on how it is received, on the qualities of the object or person that receives it. And this is in the Lotus Sutra, and it's also in the final section of the Platform Sutra. So as you study it with Alan, if you're doing that, you can ask him about it. But Huineng's final teachings in the Platform Sutra are about this rain and about how he wants people to practice in the future, which is us. So I don't have a very complicated message about rain.

[20:50]

It's just that it falls, the rain falls from the sky everywhere. We receive it differently, but it's always nourishing moisture. And we can use that moisture in the wholesome seeds of our life to have them grow, have leaves, flower, and bear fruit. It's a very simple thing. It's not easy, but it's simple. So, you know, you might say, oh yeah, well, simple means easy. But simple doesn't mean easy. Like for instance, let's say that you have any causes and conditions in your life that are difficult. Well, then our body is built in difficult situations to perceive and to respond differently.

[22:00]

So in an easy situation or in a normal or natural or realized situation, the parasympathetic nervous system is very well activated. So it means that when we're in a situation in which we feel safe and supported, that perception goes in and is appreciated in a nourishing way. But suppose that isn't our situation. Suppose that we don't feel safe or supported. Then the sympathetic nervous system is activated. And instead of taking in perception in a nourishing way, we take in a perception in a way that might encourage fighting, fleeing, freezing, or avoiding, you know, having compulsive activities so that we don't have to feel something.

[23:07]

So that's what's called hard ground. And it's very easy to have hard ground that the water doesn't sink into and nourish things. It's very easy. All you have to do to have hard ground is feel threatened in any way or want something really, really hard. Suzuki Roshi taught about no gaining idea. Suppose we wanted freedom so much that we thought we could get it. The sympathetic nervous system might be activated and we wouldn't be able to feel it, even though it's all around us. Like a very wealthy person who can't understand their birthright of wealth because they're poor now. So, for instance, I come from a family of Holocaust survivors, and so I received PTSD in my mother's womb, chemically.

[24:20]

And so when I was growing up, I was also acculturated to think of them, basically everybody, as people not to trust. I remember at one point my family was called together for a meeting with my father. And the lesson was, don't trust anyone because if you trust anyone, they won't be willing to die for you. Only the family is willing to die for you when they come knocking on the door to get you. And that's an example of the kind of thinking that creates a sympathetic nervous system way of perceiving. So without knowing it, I perceived everything as a threat and I had to make a decision that I was going to learn how to trust and have a trusting, integrated, free way of living in the world. And so I did that and I worked with that and I've been able to

[25:28]

understand how to let go of the untrusting, objectifying ways of seeing people and working with them. And I mention this not because, you know, I don't necessarily love it when people talk about personal things in lecture in Dharma talks, but I'm talking about myself so that I won't have to reveal confidential information about anyone else. Right. I just want to say that it's possible, even if you come even if you have a birthright of serious issues like that, it's possible to make a decision for freedom and to realize that decision. And it doesn't take very long, it only takes a lifetime. And how we can do that is because the rain keeps falling, the nourishing rain. keeps raining all around.

[26:31]

And because we have the seeds of goodness inside of us, everyone, everyone has that. And some of the things that soften the ground are just the basic practices of friendliness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. Or the bodhisattvas practices of giving, kind speech, beneficial action, and identity action that we can practice in our everyday activity. So it's not complicated. We know inside that if we become kind, and if we become realistically trusting, that doesn't mean unboundaried, it means to start from an attitude of looking for the Buddha in everyone and everything, to calm our mind enough so that we can see that when it's in front of us and relate to that person, even in situations of difficulty.

[27:45]

Then the Dharma rain moistens the ground of our existence and the seeds of our freedom begin to sprout. So anyway, just happy spring and happy rain. And whether you're cooking or driving today, whether you're seeing family or washing your car or doing taxes, sitting there with large piles of receipts that you haven't classified all year long but need to by Tuesday. Or, you know, whether you're reading the newspaper or whatever you're doing, notice and be with, please, the nourishing quality of that activity. Doesn't mean It doesn't mean that I'm asking you to stop doing your taxes or stop eating chocolate or to stop doing whatever you're doing.

[28:56]

I'm not saying that. I'm saying do it. Do it in a way that is nourishing and satisfying for you and for everyone around. Okay? So I should probably shut up now because there's all sorts of things happening like at 1115 and, you know, soon. And do you have any questions or comments or anything that that brings up? Linda, yeah. All right. Yes, that's a very interesting question, Linda, about whether learning how to trust meant becoming a stupid truster, one who opens oneself to harm.

[30:23]

I have to say that I wasn't skillful at trusting at the beginning. I didn't know how to do it. But I started educating myself in boundaries, the difference between boundaries and defenses. And so now I understand and gradually, well, I started talking to other people who had come from similar backgrounds or who had similar issues. And I find that basically anyone who's been minoritized or harmed in their life has some experience of this that's valuable and can be a teacher for me. So I had to learn the difference between defenses and boundaries and learn how to let down my defenses while developing skill with setting boundaries. The difference between defenses and boundaries is a defense is like a hard quality to the earth.

[31:25]

A boundary is like a channel that you dig so the water goes to the right place. So a defense shuts out everything while a boundary just shuts out harmful things or makes a decision point before a potentially harmful thing enters your life so that you can create conditions. So you can say something like, OK, you have such and such a history and such a such and such a history with me. If you do X, Y or Z and have this system in place, then I feel safe meeting you. And that actually is trust. Having good boundaries is a form of trust and intimacy because it allows people to know you. So the mountain of the temple of that relationship belongs to those who love it, right?

[32:30]

To those who actually engage with it and in an intelligent and wise way, wise, compassionate way. So I also have to be compassionate to myself. and understand that because I have that history, my boundaries might be different than someone who doesn't. Because I have vulnerabilities, I have to respect the quality of my life and understand what maintains it. It doesn't mean shutting anyone or anything out. It means acknowledging limitations and getting support as needed. So thank you for that question. It's a good one. It's a keeper. Yeah. Yes. Yes, I came to understand that practice would lead to freedom from this dilemma the very first moment I started to practice.

[33:47]

And how was that? Well, you know, so I was in a rock band when I was a kid, a teenager. And so the band dissolved when I went to college. And so we were having a reunion. It was Thanksgiving of 1971. And on the way back from the reunion, I was driving a very old car. My car was very old. It was a college kid's car. And it was sleeting. This was in New York. And so I stopped and then started accelerating to go through the intersection and my car completely died. But it kept kind of gliding or hydroplaning through the intersection because of its momentum. And there was another car coming.

[34:49]

And so when that car hit my car, and my car became airborne, I had a kind of an experience that was completely outside of any other experience I'd ever had. So it was as if the universe stopped and turned itself around and looked at itself through the lens of my structural being. How I had come to be became visible to me. And I looked at it, it was extremely petty and small. Like so small, so constricted, so like twisted and tiny. And I thought, oh no. And it was so embarrassing to be in that light and so, you know, like shiveringly tiny. And but what was amazing was that it was as if the universe or something very bright and big cracked a smile and was kind.

[36:02]

And so there was a kind of a sense of invitation that I could either jump into that experience or avoid it, run away. go back to how things were. And so I thought, oh, what the hell, I'm dead. And so I dove straight into the middle of that experience. And the next thing I knew, I woke up. And I was lying on the ground with the rain falling on me. But it didn't look like rain. It just looked like something beautiful and kind of dark and shiny. And it took a while to understand that it was coming from above me. And then I realized I was freezing cold and it was sleet, rain. It was falling on me from the sky. And then I realized I was alive. And please excuse my language.

[37:08]

I said, oh, shit. because the next thing was that I was going to have to follow through. I had already jumped into the experience. You couldn't, I couldn't go back. And so I started making deals with myself. They said, Oh, I don't have to practice. I'll just be friendly. I'll just be friendly to everyone. And then the very next thing that happened was that I had to go to, you know, when I got back to my dorm was that I had that thought, I'll just be friendly to everyone. I don't have to do these practices because I had asked around and it was yoga and meditation. And I thought, no, I'll just be friendly. And then the next thing that happened was I had to go to the bathroom and there's this white stuff on the counter and I looked closely and it was my new tube of toothpaste that my roommate had used from the middle and it was all over the counter.

[38:10]

And I had a thought of such profound and utter complete hatred And I said her name like, bleh, like that, with that tone of voice. And I thought, oh, no, I can't be friendly. I'm not a friendly person. I'm going to have to sit. And then I thought, okay, I'll just pretend. So I went to my friend, Mark, and I said, I pretended, I lied. I said, you know, Mark, you and I are doing political protests. We might have to go to jail. And I'd like to learn something free to do that when I'm in jail, I can do and it won't cost anything and I won't have to take anything with me. Would you teach me that Zazen thing? He said, what's Zazen? And I said, you know that seated meditation? He said, oh, Zazen. And he did, he taught me Zazen. And then I said, okay, okay, that's weird, but I'll do it.

[39:12]

But I'm just gonna do it in my room and no one's ever gonna see. And I'll just do it because I have to. And so I tried and it was so hard and I couldn't do it. You know, I couldn't. I would sit down and I'd want to get up. I'd sit down and I, this is boring. I don't want to do this. It's painful. No, forget it. And so then I realized, oh no, I'm going to have to go to a group. Anyway, my whole practice was like this for years and years until I got ordained and received Dharma transmission from the person on my right. So that's how I started realizing the possibility of freedom was because nature didn't give me any choice. And I think that it's like this. We already know where freedom lies. We're just not willing to do it. Do you know what I mean?

[40:13]

We know someplace. And I think all of Zazen and all of the path has to do with turning to things that we characterize as boring, too boring, too painful, too inconvenient to do. But we know perfectly well that they would lead to a satisfying, wholesome life of freedom. You know, we have that glimmer and then we shove it aside or do something else out of our habits or preconceptions. And simply dropping those habits and preconceptions and doing what our conscience tells us to do is freedom. You know, conscience being the link between big mind and small mind that we consistently forget about. So what time is it? Am I okay? It's time? Okay, I just have one more story. This is a story that was given by someone who's a human being who had problems.

[41:16]

It was my ordination teacher, Zentatsu Bakeroshi, had various things that happened in the community that were scandals, and yet he was my ordination teacher and So I pay homage and respect what he gave me. And he used to have a dream in which he was sleeping in the middle of the night and he had to work on some big problem and was like running around in his dream trying to figure out how to deal with the problem and couldn't figure it out. And it was worrying him and nagging at him and he was so busy. And the telephone kept ringing. There was this brown phone that kept ringing. It's like he'd do anything, like throw it across the room or ignore it, try to ignore it or cover it up with sheets and pillows and whatever he had to do. And then one day in the dream, the brown telephone was ringing and he ran over to it and decided and just picked it up and said, hello.

[42:24]

And it was the answer to his problem. You know, so anyway, just saying. So thank you very much for your attention. To be continued, okay?

[42:36]

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