Last week, November 7th, Donald Moyer died. And Donald Moyer, I guess I think he's the founder of the Yoga Room. Is that right? Yeah. He started teaching yoga and called the place he taught the Yoga Room. Did it start at the Julia Morgan Center? Yes. So, yeah, so he was a great yoga teacher and a refined and gentle and creative, very creative yoga teacher. And had many students who became great yoga teachers.

[01:04]

So he had a very generative and beneficial life. And I don't know exactly when, but somewhere between, I would think between 35 and 40 years ago, he invited me to offer classes on Zen meditation. And the first classes were, you know, I gave instruction in posture and, you know, a lot of instruction on posture because it was a yoga room. And gradually, in the early classes, we started out with meditation and then we had some teachings and discussion and then we'd end with meditation.

[02:05]

But lately, we haven't been ending with meditation in a sense of we started with quiet sitting, then we had kind of rambunctious discussions and then quiet sitting. And lately, we have not had the quiet sitting at the end. The class has became a community of a lot of people coming for many years. And one of the people who came for many years was Donald. He came, I think, until he physically didn't work for him to come. But he came and he was a very sincere student of the teachings. So, with profound gratitude to Donald, we continue our life together.

[03:16]

The theme of this series was stories of enlightenment. And as we have already discussed, enlightenment is not a story, but there are stories of enlightenment. And a lot of the stories of enlightenment seem to be about becoming free of stories of enlightenment. Living beings are those who have delusions about enlightenment. Or you could say, have stories about enlightenment which they believe and attach to.

[04:36]

Buddhas are those who are greatly enlightened about the stories. All the stories, but in particularly, Buddhas are greatly enlightened about the stories of enlightenment. In other words, they're enlightened about any delusion in relationship to enlightenment. And the delusions that we have about enlightenment often appear as stories. Sometimes the stories are quite short, like, here's a short story of enlightenment. This is not enlightenment, period. Or, he is not enlightened, period. Those are two short stories. Or, I am enlightened, period. That's another short story about enlightenment. Or, that was a really great enlightenment we just had.

[05:39]

So, stories are fine, but the problem with our stories is we tend to believe some of them. We don't necessarily believe other people's stories, but we have a strong tendency to believe our stories, the ones that occur in our consciousness. And then other ones appear in our consciousness which are called other people's stories. And we believe some of those. Anyway, believing in the sense of apprehending a story as the truth of our life, that's delusion. Or, you could even say, in the spirit of, what do you call it, Western philosophy, there's this period of Western philosophy called the Enlightenment.

[06:42]

And during that period, part of what the Enlightenment was about was about becoming free of stories, which are called sometimes superstitions and myths. However, that Enlightenment of Western philosophy, I don't know if it had fully exercised not believing in the stories of the Enlightenment. I think the Enlightenment still needs some help not to get stuck in the Enlightenment. And so there are modern people, some of whom have died not too long ago, like in the 60s and 70s, who criticized the Enlightenment

[07:47]

and pointed out, for example, that if you strongly adhere to the Enlightenment, which frees people from superstition and makes them kind of at peace, if you strongly adhere to that, it's really, it's really, what's the word, it's totalitarian. It's, it's uncompassionate. Some people have worked to save the Enlightenment from, the Enlightenment from shying away from self-criticism. Some people, some kind of people have worked and criticized the Enlightenment

[09:04]

to help Enlightenment not shy away from criticizing itself because philosophy can get stuck in itself. So we've been talking about some ancient stories, fairly ancient stories that occurred several hundred years before the Enlightenment, like almost a thousand years before the Enlightenment. We've been talking about stories like that. A thousand is too much. It would be more like eight or nine hundred, eight, nine hundred years before the Enlightenment, there was a lot of Zen stories were being remembered

[10:05]

and we've been talking about them. And so for the last class I sent out, I don't know if it was clear, a suggestion that you just think about the last six weeks and see if any stories of Enlightenment happen to pop up in your neighborhood consciousness. And again, you don't have to worry about whether the stories were about a real Enlightenment or not. But if it just seemed like there was some Enlightenment going on, that would be enough perhaps to tell a story about what seemed to be kind of an enlightening turn of events or an enlightened turning of events. Because one of the stories I tell about Enlightenment is that Enlightenment is turning. Enlightenment lives in crisis.

[11:09]

Did you hear me say that before? Yeah. Enlightenment lives in crisis. The definition of crisis is turning point. Where sometimes people get healthier or sicker. And I often mention the Chinese compound for crisis is made of two characters. One character is danger. The other character is opportunity. So, Enlightenment lives in where there's danger, the possibility of slipping into delusion this way or that way, but also the opportunity to not fall into delusion. Or as we said at the beginning of the class, there's an opportunity to not fall into the secondary.

[12:11]

On the path of a Buddha, there's a possibility to not fall into stories about Buddha. And there's a danger of falling into stories about Buddha. And that danger is ongoing. And the opportunity to not fall into the wonderful Buddha way is ongoing. And that turning is ongoing. It's a question of how to join it. And it's been going on for a long time. And for example, it's been going on for six weeks. The last six weeks. And it is unceasing. It's unceasing, open-ended, ungraspable and unavoidable.

[13:14]

So anyway, I once again invited you, if you happen to have been visited or been given some stories of enlightenment for the last six weeks, you're welcome to express the story. And then you're welcome to express a poem about the story. Because the story, the meaning of the story won't be in the words. But still, knowing that, without depending on the words of your story, we can talk in a way that's free from the story we just told. Yes? Is that just a story of adjusting your glasses? Don't be afraid to adjust your glasses. Glasses, right? Three people with glasses. Go ahead and adjust your glasses.

[14:17]

You won't be required to give a story. You don't have to give a story. You don't have to give a story. No, it's okay. It's all right. Okay, who wants to tell us some stories? Yes? I was thrilled to learn that exchanges between an artist and art, a writer and words, singer and songs are a conversation, confirming my experience that creating art and writing are the wholehearted moments I know them to be. It's enough to be in these conversations, but hearing my teacher confirm the enlightening quality is a great gift for creation by all it is, sharing the edges. Thank you for this. Well, although I have to say

[15:27]

that I got pretty excited about this experience when realizing how attached I got to it. You got excited and attached? We have one of our poems in our tradition is if you get excited, you fall into a pit. You know, if you get excited about the teaching. So, here she is telling us that happened. Okay, we're ready to hear something. The phone rings. She is in the hospital. Again. No, no, no, no, no. Not again. A blaze is ignited with one match. Being burned so hot, I believe I am living it fully.

[16:31]

But in truth, I fight everything in this moment. Her suffering, my suffering, the canes of this chair beneath me, the watch's sun on the carpet, these gray walls enclosing me, all separated, bent by the prism of no. Until a remembering to turn toward even this, how to describe the stillness of inhabiting activity, how to describe the spaciousness of this chair, this sunlight, these walls, this breath, how to describe the soft treasure of living this pain. It is impossible. I turn toward this too. Thank you. Hello. The paper rustles. Can the people behind her here...

[17:41]

Would you mind standing up? And would you stand... Yeah, you could either stand here or go back, stand there. Maybe you'd better stand here, because then people can see your enigmatic countenance. Awakening. The stick hit the young monk and I felt the sting on my cheek, thigh, back. We discussed his journey, how the monk at Yunmen's temple asked whether the stick broke. Still, the still impulsive rage of my aging parents lingers on my skin, a broken promise of protection.

[18:42]

As I listen, these stories invite me to look above the weeds of sorrow for the broken rod, to see beyond, into the inclusive thus. Clearly observe. Thus. You have two of them? I do. Okay. Can't wait. Yeah, yeah, that's a good idea. Come back. Let that one settle and come back. Thank you.

[19:46]

Could you stand and read yours too? Can you hear? Fran, could you maybe stand over by Ron and talk in that direction? I've been meditating with Rev and members of this class on and off for about 17 years. Over the years, I've had moments where I've experienced clarity, although I'm not sure I would go as far as to call those moments enlightened. What is surprising to me is that with each class, including this one, I seem to go through a similar process. It goes something like this. In class one, I have a hard time sitting still. My feet go numb. My body aches. Monkey mind rules.

[20:50]

I find myself unable to concentrate, even counting the stripes on a classmate's shirt. Illness. Impatient with the process. Impatient with my ability to grasp the concepts of teaching. And even impatient with Rev. My boy, who was often meeting friends this evening, is a very cheeky athlete. The experience is similar in class two, class three, class four. By class five, though, something begins to change. My body and my mind are set for practice and remember the experience of the prior weeks. By the last class, I'm relaxed in practice and often find that I start to remember things from other classes I've learned over the years, and the information begins to synthesize. My aha moment last week was realizing this pattern. A pattern of having to teach my body and my brain every week each time I come to a new series of classes.

[21:52]

Clearly, the remedy is to sit more often, to engage with the sun more often, and to engage with our... Could you hear her, King? Great. Thank you. As some of you have heard me say before, when we have our... This is like... We have sessions spread apart by a week, but still, something like Carmen said happens. But sometimes we do five days or seven days in a row of sitting. A similar thing happens. Usually, the first day, there's some resistance, but not so much. Usually, second day, the resistance becomes stronger.

[22:55]

Third day, often a little stronger. Fourth day, not necessarily more. And the fifth day, people start to let go of resisting. What? Resisting being where they are. And the sixth day, often, people are pretty much just there. Unfortunately, there's only one more day. But usually, the fifth and sixth day, people are pretty settled and accepting where they are. And I also mentioned that when I sometimes... During those situations, I sometimes adjust people's posture. Not really adjust, but like check the posture

[23:55]

to sort of feel what's going on with their back. But even when I touch their back, even though I'm not pushing them around much, still, there's a little bit of a response. There's a little bit of sense of the hardness or the suppleness of the back. So I make enough of a touch so I can feel, but that sometimes is also enough of a touch for a person to feel maybe some other possibility. But at the beginning of the sitting, the first day, people's backs are kind of hard. And there's not much give. And sometimes, because there's not much give, I maybe put a little bit more pressure on to see if there would be any give.

[24:57]

And then sometimes there isn't. And I let it go at that. But as the week goes on, the bodies get softer. They become more tender. And many years ago, the image of watering a potted plant came to mind. If you have a potted plant and the soil is dry, if you pour water on it, it basically runs off. But not completely. A little bit of it sinks in. But if you spray it lightly, then there won't be much runoff and the surface will get moist. If you spray it again, the surface will get moist and the moisture will go down.

[25:59]

And after repeated application of the moisture, the soil is pretty moist. And then you can pour water on it, not just spray, but pour the water, and the water goes right in, goes right through. So that's another story of enlightenment. So part of the thing is, if we don't water, if we don't put ourselves in a situation where the moisture can touch us, or the situation has a chance to touch us and penetrate a little, but then if we wait too long before the next touch, again it'll be dry again. So we need to find out how often,

[27:03]

how often we need to touch it so that the soil is moist. But most people do not do it enough so that they're ready to have it just like pour right through them, right away. So that's why we need sessions of training where we can feel the resistance. If you feel the resistance, that means that it's working and that it can work more. So then you do it again and you feel the resistance, and you do it again and you feel the resistance. But little by little, if you keep doing it, we do become porous, and it does flow through us. So this is part of our... Each of us has to keep in mind how much we need to keep it going,

[28:11]

how often we need to expose ourselves so that it can go in. That's the story of enlightenment, of the process of enlightenment. It requires that we are in some situation where we actually can feel the resistance, acknowledge the resistance. That's part of the program. And again, if you wait too long to do it, you won't even notice the resistance, which is really sad. So if you feel resistance, something's happening, and then you say, hmm, and okay, when am I going to

[29:12]

give my body and mind another chance to be touched and to accept or resist? But again, resisting is part of accepting. And we are in this process. And we are adults. So we have an opportunity to accept the responsibility of keeping in touch with this issue of are we being touched enough that we feel the resistance? Yes? It's not really a story of enlightenment, but it's something you said reminded me of something in my own life, something that you mentioned there, just a story, a question about my own processes.

[30:16]

I've had a lot of stress in my life recently, a lot of stuff, sadness, stress, pressure, and I've noticed a lot of times being really tense. I'm noticing some resistance. I think that's what it is. It's my body tending up, and I'm almost on the verge of being upset or sad and irritable and all these things. And the one thing I noticed recently is my husband was making jokes about it. One thing you noticed recently was? My husband was joking about something, about the situation, and in the middle of all this tension, I would laugh, and it would be a scream of relief, and that's fantastic. And so I think that felt a little bit like what you're talking about, this coarseness. It's like I could see the tension, and then it was getting permeated by the absurdity of what was going on.

[31:19]

But I still had it. It was still there, but it was like, how do you get rid of this? Yeah. The program of getting rid of resistance is a form of resistance. Well, trying to get, having an agenda or an intention to get rid of resistance is another kind of resistance. So there was a moment there where there was, excuse the expression, a breakthrough, an opening. There was a relaxation. The relaxation allowed the laughter. But it's even more funny, I would think, if the tension did not go away. It's even funnier. It's more ironic that I'm tense,

[32:20]

this is not funny, I'm tense, there's no humor in this, and then, oh, see how silly that is. At that moment, you relaxed with how, that it wasn't funny. Relaxing with it isn't funny is the punchline. And then it's even funnier that the tension is still there. And, you know, and part of the funny thing about Buddhism is that Buddhism has a lot of talk in it. You know, I don't know a lot, anyway, I frequently see in the Buddhist literary output, I see the word get rid of and eliminate, you know, destroy. You know,

[33:22]

in a way that's really silly. And, yeah, it's really funny, and it's also kind of sad that people actually believe it when a Buddhist teacher says get rid of something. That's really like the funniest thing a Buddhist teacher could ever say. Like the Buddha said, get rid of something. Did you ever hear a Buddhist teacher say that? Say what? Did you ever hear a Buddhist teacher say get rid of something? I don't remember any particular Buddhist teacher saying that, but in reading I've seen it. And I've seen it in the teaching of very respected teachers.

[34:24]

And I've had a problem with it for quite a while, that kind of talk. And now I'm a little bit more, I have more of a sense of humor about this kind of talk and my problem with it. And I'm not trying to get rid of the people who are saying get rid of. And I'm trying to learn how to be open to not getting rid of anything, which includes not getting rid of people who are trying to get rid of a lot of stuff. So the ridding people are welcome. The not ridding people are welcome. The people who get the joke are welcome. The people who get the joke are, you know, those are the Zen masters. They get the joke. And from my early, my early attraction to Zen was it seemed like these people got the joke

[35:31]

of this universe. But not by putting it down, not by putting down all the difficulty, but actually by being so intimate with it that they relax and see the other side and it just, it breaks into laughter. And one of the, what's called archetypal stories of Zen, which I translated with Linda's husband one time. It's called, it's a fascicle called Face-to-Face Transmission. And in that fascicle there's a story. The fascicle is what I translated with cause. And the beginning of the story is once Shakyamuni Buddha, we have stories about him. He couldn't get the flower out of the vase. He couldn't get the flower out of the vase

[36:34]

and several people laughed. But back in the old days, he got the flower out and you could say he twirled it. This is a twirling, right? And this is a turning. Twirling? Okay, so he twirled the flower and one person in the assembly smiled. But what he said was actually the face of that person broke. The face broke into a smile. We say that. We say broke into laughter, broke into a smile. Yeah, so that's what attracted me to Zen is people breaking into smiles,

[37:35]

breaking into laughter, leaping out of rigidity. But leaping out of rigidity without getting rid of it is more funny than leaping out of it and then leaving it behind No, leaping out of it without doing anything. The Buddha way is basically leaping. I never thought I could love him, but I do now. Oh yeah, work to be done. So that was a story and a poem at the same time.

[38:45]

Today someone told me about an elderly person who was quite a bit older than him who lived near him, who was his neighbor. And he helped this person for 20 years. He assisted him doing various things around his house that he couldn't do by himself. And he asked his neighbor, who he really took good care of, one big favor, and that is, if you ever sell this house, please don't sell it to somebody who will then, you know, rent it out to, you know, renters. And the man did sell it to somebody who did rent it out. And after all those years of caring for this person, he felt betrayed. And he kept taking,

[39:51]

you know, after the man sold the house, he felt betrayed. But he kept visiting the man in the, what's the word, assisted living and nursing home and so on. He kept visiting him and taking care of him. But deep in his heart, he still felt betrayed and angry. And then a couple of days ago, at a place called Green Dragon Zen Temple, he was sitting in the meditation hall and he broke. He broke open and found his love for that man. The man didn't do anything. His own vision of him broke and he saw the love that he always felt for him. And I, you know,

[40:58]

I didn't say, would you give me a poem about that? I thought it was a lot what he told me. But the next time I see him, I say, would you write me a poem about that story? I won't tell him it's an enlightenment story. I'll just say, would you write a poem about how you got this other perspective and could get in touch with your love for him again? Okay. May I please stand up? I think it does help. Especially if you maybe talk this way. I walk east along University Avenue,

[42:05]

which spits out a sweaty din of car horns, fast-talking pedestrians, and the lusty beat of hip hop from the Korean barbecue joint. This chaos happens to be matched by the state of affairs inside my brain. I am ashamed of my worrying thoughts and their random trajectories until I remember to accept them, to refrain from rejecting life in any form. Suddenly we turn together, the cars and bodies, the thoughts and I, in a state of accord, no questions, no needs, only the perfection of this, until I reject another thought and must turn once again, opposites arising and turning together. Barbara Joan, this is now a good time to do the next one? It might be.

[43:07]

You can wait a little longer if you like. I think I'll read it. I think I have some problems with it, but that's typical of pieces that I write, so I'll just end up there. Yes, I think that was good, when you stood here. Could you hear? Can you read it again? Okay. Grandson. You may have heard Rev's sorrow is palpable. My grandson died six weeks ago. In one story, Rev was on a hill in San Francisco and his young grandson wanted to dart into the street to see the truck firsthand. So Rev took his grandson's hand and together they went. How to pivot the insistent child.

[44:12]

And perhaps his grandson, in a different story, sat at the table not listening or hit Rev in the face. And now this young monk angel child is our teacher. He has entered the very Dharma lesson we always need to learn. That we too are in life and we are in death. That our teachers hover near, across all time, in their perfect stories. The ones they left behind. Thank you. Silence.

[45:33]

Silence. Yes. This story is called What Falls Away is Always. As evening drew to a close, I took out the dog before going to bed. Armed with a flashlight,

[46:57]

I scanned the backwoods for the glaring eyes of predators. Dracones, foxes, melon plants. A strong warm wind was blowing from the northeast, rattling the trees. Diablo went. I glanced to the north from our ridge to top peak. A massive fire was advancing along the ridge line in the distance like a marching prospect rally. Turning away and touching were both wrong. The fire department explained that in the darkness, the fire appeared much closer than it actually was. It was moving aggressively, but there was still time to contain it. Assuming another spot, fire didn't flare up nearby. Two years before, when the call came to leave in the middle of the night, we may not have just done. Now there was time for deciding what to take and what to leave. But when the moment itself is a memory, everything reveals itself to be one of our loss. We spent a sleepless night

[48:00]

listening to the 80 mile per hour Diablo winds shake loose the leaves from the trees carrying the morning. In the morning, the power was out. Then, over the cell phone, came a news story. It was time to join the leaves in the wind. Only down from the mountain, we found stillness in the wind. The roads gridlock, the gas stations, markets and eateries stank with long lines of people waiting, waiting in the wind. Danger on peaks. A few days after the smoke started to clear, the cell phone rang again. It was the doctor with the news story. The biopsy had revealed a fire burning within. It was moving aggressively, but there was still time to contain it, assuming another spot fire didn't flare up nearby. Turning away and touching are both wrong. Danger on peaks. An opportunity to awaken

[49:00]

gratitude for the work at hand. Refraining from various evils, not clinging to birth and death, working in deep compassion for all sentient beings, personally clarifying the story. I close with an excerpt from a poem I hear in the road you probably waited. The shaking keeps me steady. I should know. What falls away is always, and is near. I wait to sleep and take my waking slow. I learn by going where I have to go. Thank you. Yes.

[50:00]

Yes. Years later, I can still feel the spot where you touched my back. Laughter. Laughter. Laughter.

[51:11]

Yes. Across the earth, a butterfly flaps its wings, causing a rat to converse with us about weaving particular threads into universal fabric, or is it the conversation that causes the butterfly to flap its wings? Thus comes the turning of the wheel and the flapping of wings and the conversation of student and teacher calling out, butterflies. Thank you. Yes.

[52:19]

This is called, One Class. In the class, I was enjoying your thoughts and mine. Then, not a pebble hitting bamboo, but the news of a grandson's death and a sudden sadness pushed these thoughts from center stage. And for a moment, they floated wispy. Ah. Ah. Yes.

[53:57]

Breaking open together. Yes. Yes. Yes. I play a piece with Liam,

[55:05]

12 years old. We play Wendell's Cry by Prince. His hands pounding forcibly into the keys, our voices merging in harmonic beat. After we stop, he turns to me and we just look and hold each other's gaze, hold the energy and the tenderness of the song. He asks, Why? Why did you write that song? I think and I wonder. Maybe he wanted to share some small beauty. He says, I think he wanted to share his confusion with us. I hope I can actually read this.

[56:51]

It's called Casting the Movie. I am in a cafe telling a story to friends. A tale so compelling, my delivery so dramatic, a casting director sitting nearby hears me. She calls the movie director on her cell breathlessly. She cries, I think I've found her. When I audition, the room is so moved, everyone weeps. If the studio says no to casting me, the director swears he will quit. I become best friends with the star. I become best friends with the star's best friend. I win an Oscar. My speech is terrific. And even though I am a dumpy woman in her 60s, with gray in her hair and a sagging chin, I am in huge demand. This has never happened before in the entire history of movies. It's such an amazing story.

[57:54]

You may well ask, what happens next? What happens next is nothing. There is no next. And if there were, it would be more of the same, or less. Words and phrases so compelling, so dramatic, you could call the director, you could say, I think I've found her, and you would be right. I sleep, dream, and awaken to air that is fresh, a room that is neat and cool. Dreams, generosity, vanity, are words on a breeze. Phrases make the curtains rise and fall. Oh, what wind, such a storm out there brewing, such stories we tell. Thank you. Thank you.

[59:04]

Thank you. A question has arisen, and it is the following. What have you learned in this series of meetings? What have you learned in the series of meetings this fall in the yoga room on Thursday night? What have you learned? Clearly observe. Clearly observe.

[61:14]

Clearly observe. Could you hear him? He's alive in the class. Louder, please. That turns. Why is he asking?

[62:27]

Why is he asking? Enlightenment is not a story, but it's easy to get attached to stories about enlightenment. It's easy to get attached to really good stories. He's asking because he'll miss us as much as you'll miss him. We have a couple minutes left. Please tell another story so I'll have another chance. You face breaker.

[64:38]

Yes. Yes. Did you say vision? Notion. Well, one notion is in the endless future. So she's putting on a calendar every day. You know what? I wish I could share all the love in my heart. I think Nina Simone

[66:07]

feels the same. On the way over here, I heard on the radio, Mr. Rogers said, look inside yourself and find your love. And that's important because if you find it, then you can show it to your neighbors. And your neighbors are everybody you meet. I pray you remember that.

[67:30]

I pray that you remember that. That love. This has all been good for nothing. Thank you. You're very welcome. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you.

[68:24]

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