in
i am so grateful that
i actually you don't need to be told anything this morning
heck i
he
really the only offering care you've already been offered and you've taken it up and are proceeding in that way and an
and i'm happy to be doing that with you and
can't feel off the hook about what i might say
partly as a seventh day of machine i couldn't imagine they're getting out books and studying at this point and
hartley and
few days ago i thought of something that i wanted to say and then grade gave his talk and it i want to kill incorporate something that doesn't shine had said and van yesterday melons z russian set at all
so that's fine i'm going to fail her again today at the point that i wanted to make and it may not take so long and if that's true after that i if you have questions that good and m if you don't i have the thought of telling of stories
and
so out came about that later we get there sadly
i
the thing that danke schon said that fit right into when i wanted to remind us of was the first part of his poem and
hi
earnestly avoid seeking outside lest it received far from you
and i think this is such a m
basis you know of our practice and so a little bit complicated what does it mean what is seeking outside there's one and when i was and presidents and center i was living in san francisco and i would come to tough for her regularly and
it seemed to me that the people at tough horror were al
quite naturally in a slightly different place than even the people at san francisco and bring out in terms of this seeking outside or not and the way that it showed up was in the problems that people were having that we have a we have a tendency to look for where's
the cause of the and i think of a natural human tendency is to look outside
wayne but it has a horror almost without exception
the people were blaming themselves
now that i know that doesn't always happen know we can blame each other and the schedule and the food and we can blame find lots of things outside to blame but almost always along with that goes some self reflection
so i think you know on the continuum of seeking outside person seeking inside that somewhere over you know it's it's turning toward me and what's going on with me in this situation
oh which is helpful because it listed in the area of
an effective study
know if we're studying
i let me it we're studying out there that's finally might get to know something about it but it doesn't actually impact in the way that studying in here impacts
of course the boundaries are not that simple
because what happens in here is totally affected by what happens out there so as we're studying this karmic body and mind
of course we're we're constantly being impacted by each other and by events and you know by everything right oliver it's so interesting to me that one of the main poems or teachings of photos in the merging of different communities such a big part of it has made up for these kind of like know
nothing phrases like eyes and sites ears and sound now so what is the talking about but actually i think it's that crucial
in our practice is actually that's what our experiences made up of this
supposedly outside coming in and also inside of a meeting those senses and then our response to them
so in the studying as we
learn to turn our attention
quote inwardly
i think a further confusion happened
ah
we look inside and we see a math right
and various times sometimes we see things we like but a lot of the time we see things we don't like and we think there must be some mistake
they couldn't have meant
this is what i'm supposed to like walk around with and work with
so there must be some other me
there would be better for steadying
and without even thinking that we it comes up kind of naturally and in my personal experience it's usually
i don't have to call it vague
but or maybe it's so innate that i don't even notice i'm just discounting this one and somehow leaning toward that one
this one that would be more presentable or more helpful or we'll better to practice with and again we're actually looking i don't know if it could be called outside because of this thing we've made up in our mind but we're not looking at what's actual
lee presented to us
what arising moment by moment in the karmic body and mind
so identifying that movement of our attention which is sometimes called judgment you know your goes hand in hand with judgment maybe
is very helpful to our practice to be able to see when when we
i feel the urge to practice
or you want to use our effort and then we look and said and then the feeling that comes up is
yeah now or as a dungeon said i still have some habits that haven't been eradicated
and that they're great does that sound familiar i still have some habits that haven't been eradicated
cause he went on to say
you know i had this conversation with his teacher and at the end he says basically i
you know it's it would be a lie to say i'm not joyful it's like i'm grasping a pearl in shit which is a good clue to us about when we noticed that we have habits that are eradicated yet what to do with them you know like kid in there and
it's not exactly get in there and mess around in the shed it's more like and it's more like open your heart or like open your heart to the shit
what is the buddha nature of this
okay i'll tell stories about him in a minute he'll wake up
the
thirty
the that anything up i want to say about that
m
i think this is really hard for us
didn't give me too
believe
and
somebody mentioned asked something about the the other day and
i do not think that faith in buddhism is trying to talk ourselves into believing something
so the fact that it's hard for us to believe that my particular problem our problem our
really what i'm supposed to be studying
yeah i think our or if we do believe that we think well if i study them hard enough for in the right way they will go away
oh so to actually just be hearted to these problems and what is the buddha nature what does it mean that they are buddha-nature
is very hard for us to believe that that's what we're supposed to do and i would suggest and instead of trying to convince yourself of that that you try at once in awhile
i on something simple
and see what happened and if in fact it turns out that that problem was
you know what happens to it does it actually turn out to a bit in the situation is it beneficial does it transform if that happens then i think your faith or confidence or courage will grow
and i think you know that's one way of talking about what's happening here during a practice period or during a period of zazen even
in some ways i think it was the stars and as one of the biggest acts of faith that we do you know to go sit in a room facing a wall for forty minutes and let our life run a muck without are controlling it is like you know according to some
a state of mind that we can be in it's totally crazy like shouldn't you be calling people and making sure the case you know they know where you're going to be and what they should think about you and but they should do and you know keep them in line and you're going to ghosted in this room and let it all happen so you know we sort of destroy
act ourselves from that by thinking well i'll go sit in that room and make myself into a better person and then i'll be better suited to call them so but really you come in here and you don't know if you're making yourself better person or not and you're just sitting here
you know while the world goes on and i think one of the things that happens is by that are
they confidence courage to live in the world without controlling it
increases
but you don't have to believe me try it out
as you are

and what happens to these problems
in in my experiences is quite varied you know sometimes if we
our open-hearted to them if we essentially do zazen with me know if we take a stable position physically no standing sitting lying or walking down we try to be stable walking down
standing sitting walking or lying down
the evil so that we can handle what come and then we have an open eye attitude you are we have an open hearted open minded attitude
and if we do that than what happens to the things that we call our problems are our habits a very it was sometimes they just fade away that some of them
some of them we see them and they're like so weird that we dropped them know there's such like wrong ideas
some of them continue you know even when we see them
and we see what we're doing and we see that it really doesn't work
and it's causing suffering for me and others and it still goes on
if we keep watching it
we usually learn more of the same now oh really i'm causing suffering for myself and others but if we are then if if that's true for causing suffering perception others and we're trying then perhaps not to do that particular thing
your let's just say for saying balanced so however if whether we're doing it or not there's not like total jumping in with both feet to the
energy going to it starts to ebb a little bit so even if it continues and it often continues as a thought or an emotion and where was we might stop doing the action but the emotion gruden might still arise or the that thoughts about this might still arrive
for quite a while
but if we if we're seen it and we see what through what the nature of it is
how it comes about the energy to it
wayne's now whether it ever goes away or not you know i don't think that's up to us that's up to dependent cauterizing i guess you know how deep is that how deep is the habit energy but it can
happen
actually as a almost as a benefit like
i probably i should just make a general apology for having said that everything i'm gonna say before so if you've heard it before i'm sorry so i've probably said this before to but at one of my problems which i have really not liked
and is
a sense of panic when
you know now keith
well actually you know for like thirty years keith
i mean the various forms
is angry at me look the other way disagree you know some way he stopped validating me and my response to that which right these days you know having been together for thirty years is not so strong but in the beginning with like terrible you know he he
wants to i don't know what you know go somewhere with a friend of his and i'm like just devastated maybe some of you have experience
and i hated that hated being that kind of a person now it's like dependent to terrible word and dependent
and was so that made it worse but it didn't make it go away the feeling was still there was terrible and it oh yeah i went on for years years and years
and and it slowly abd for lots of reasons lots of practice and know many permutations on my path but still years later once in awhile with he'll come up like this
am
sometimes panic sometimes just like dread or a whole you know someplace where i don't know who i am or i'm not anybody maybe
and at some point it could come up as
almost like a welcome old friend
believe it or not like oh here's a clue to a way that i have that this comic body and mind
manifest self clinging
no are manifest look looking for self and it's not there all the time anymore
so i'd better look at it while it's here
it was very very interesting to have this you know terrible demon turn into something that was actually and i feel it wasn't pleasant never got to be pleasant but it did get to be a real teacher no teacher
huh okay i think i i want to stop there and ask if you have a questions
her

boy

do you hear him
i think coming i think he said the last part was how do we keep from falling into the trap of coming to the zendo and doing zazen with the goal of convincing ourselves that this mind and body as buddha
and i would say just turn it just a little bit into a question
just come to the zendo with the question is this mind and body buddha
and with a question about these
you know habits problems
is this buddha so we don't have to go all the way to it is there it isn't just
because if you're honest you don't know
i mean when we know we know but there's a lot that we don't know
and sometimes one wherein the middle of a problem we really don't know but we also don't know that it's terrible which is what we mostly keep calling ourselves

yeah slim
over here
how does it how does it arise for what is it
what is that what would i feel he is
well i think if
freedom to love freedom to act
freedom to live and how does that arise
freedom to be
who we are
how does it arise
well you know in some ways i think it's always happening fight
here we are a comic a karmic comic comic
commonly carmack
sometimes
body and mind
sitting in the world with these senses rate and this mind that interprets the senses and things come at us and responses happen it just happens like somebody here's a blue jay and it hurts and somebody else here's a blue jay in it's like pretty
many people have different karmic bodies and minds and a so no response
response response responses happening and the only problem in that in terms of freedom i mean that freedom
as a human being to have responses are the living being even have responses that the problem is i think we have
i wish i start
i was the first we have as humans we have an idea we have a sense
that i'm a separate self
we just were born with that but were nervous about that because we can tell right away that there's something fishy here i can't exactly get a hold of what it is and with more keeps changing and what's more i hear it's going to die and all the you know all the proof is going towards that and as we live longer and
it's more and more kind of evident going to happen so we're uneasy we have this sense of self but it seems a little vulnerable
right so we immediately start by building
edifices you know and we take this idea and if we do this than we do know like cures me and i'm okay i'm really here really year when here and if i can't be this okay i'll be this and we were very very very busy yeah
all the time by reality and by the responses that are happening know internally and externally so so we're we're we're busy and were afraid and those are the that the hindrance to freedom so as we for instance sit here and see
the the world goes on when we walk out of the zendo forty minutes later or seven days later three months later
if when you get out there you find out your life is still there
then your i think than we have a little more ability actually capacity to act freely because fear has
to settle the look at its dwindle the little bit just by experience
devin

yeah
oh well
let me see if let me repeat it and see if i gotta write she said i think that she finds that she's often motivated to stay open to problems with the hope that they will be solved
oh that you will be a better person she'll be a better person
and now she's hearing me and other people say that that might be a mistake

well
it might motivate you to stay open to them so that might not be a mistake because you know that they are out of your control
there you know they're happening the quote problems are happening these facets of your personality right are happening i and saying open to them
will make you a better person well you know know you know you don't know
you'll just have to like try it and see
i don't know that such a bad motivation i mean it's it's so
i think that it's probably at base another ego trip
no like i know what a better person would be and if i watch this closely i might be able to buy directed in that way
but
for cake as you probably won't be able to
so while you're there being open with this
lie motivation know still you might learn something
you might stumble into
freedom and lack of fear and less fear of the problem more understanding of them and therefore more compassion
are you are been quiet for tell story
okay then i'd better hurry because i have a lot a know the reason that i thought of telling stories were probably numerous one male got to tell stories for for at night
a
and and mike and he still not finished and who knows you might do it again tonight and a and my experiences differ
and my experiences and a little different than his
the lab brought up mm oh boy what about my story
and this practice period seems to me in some ways to be kind of like an ode to mel in a good way
or of a celebration in a way of mel and melt teaching in some ways i think that's what it is and and i'm really happy to be here for it
really happy and grateful to you for being here and hoping that you will return
and so i thought well
maybe i could just lay out some of my life with mel
and
i might have to throw in a few other things to balance it but we don't have very long so maybe i won't have time
and and what's more he can sit there and if he can hear me but we aren't sure i e can
he can either shake his head yes or no
if he disagrees because one of the things that i think has been really apparent in our relationship is i think it's very easy for us to disagree
here's the there isn't a problem with it their way i mean we because of a bait i think of base of agreement
about a lot of things a lot of dharma and a lot of experience and and besides that
my experience of mel is that he
in some way he can say almost anything but when it comes down to it he relates to the person
kind of open heartedly that my experience of mill and therefore
and i think i'm a little bit the same way and so i think we've never actually felt threatened by disagree i think that's true on my side that's true and he's shaking his head yeah so
when keep an i first came to them thinner and nineteen seventy one just before suzuki roshi was died he was sick already
keith went off to los angeles to visit a friend and i was left to decide how we were gonna be in the bay area and we will we came from the midwest where we'd been sitting to the bay area because we'd read about tassajara but we couldn't come to toss a heart wasn't allowed that we were going to zen center but we knew that was as and
the send to and berkeley and were san francisco's in there and i was supposed to go check these things out and try to decide i can't even imagine that keith always decides but somehow i was supposed to so i took my little assignment and went to berkeley the first place i went
no no i think i went to city center first because we were in the city so i went to city center and and i went in and it felt really overwhelming you know kind of cool and i was met by the secretary at the time and sheep's that down with me and that means that alcohol right in the front
the next to the buddha hall on the benches there and she sat like this and my problem i don't see like this i definitely notice that she was like three you active
i was a little overwhelming and i went to the doesn't and i believe and that was overwhelming but it but the good thing was nobody bothered me like nobody seem to care whether i was there or not
so i went to berkeley where i don't know what i think mel was probably at tassajara
i met a layers is arriving today i don't know where they were in their thing but he was at the berkeley than center with peter over to
i know maybe none of you do
and they invite i just went knocked on the door and they invited me in for tea in a homemade pottery cubs and tea and cookies and they were nice and they talked to me and they seem to like want me to be there and
me being who i was which was the in a closet lutheran from idaho or the midwest both are trying to come to california and if you from idaho you you know that california to really dangerous
they com and they steal your land and your water is terrible and you don't really want to mess with them and then besides that they would a real hippies and i was like a fake hippie
so and i was worried where was this leading with my husband going to become a route map my husband my boyfriend going to become a real hippie and then and i'll have like a lovers and new drugs and i don't know anyway i was nervous about the whole thing so when we got hurt when i got to berkeley and they were nice and welcoming and i had the feeling
i was going to have to relate with them i scurried back to zen center and i was so relieved you can go to them thinner and nobody noticed for months we went to zazen and out the backdoor thousand
huh
huh

what to say
because i offer one i'm just put in a little bit of bad teachers so i just want to mention that right at that time sources accura he died
and before he died we were sitting at zen center richard baker came back from japan and gave a lecture and then center other people were lecturing to because the security wasn't well enough but he gave a lecture and keith and i went and he was wearing and okay and blue jeans
and this was great we love this this this really field that we had come to the right place
and i then he became the abbot suzuki she died and many many people left and center with that point and we didn't really know them but we can tell there were fewer people around and again we had no context for what had gone before so this was
baker russia's kind of he was becoming the abbot and was a and this is where our experienced really differs melzer mine because mel was was richard's pier and had a whole other experience of him for me i i just have to say i am so grateful to him he was so open
to me and too many people and i think are really incredibly intuitive
compassionate person as long as you don't disagree with him
i think that he has they are
the real belief in his on wisdom that doesn't leave much room for a perspective for other people's but since i rarely did disagree with him and when i did i was very very
ah woody call it capful about it
my basically experienced a tremendous amount of support from him and am grateful
so probably the next time that i actually remember much interaction with mel was in nineteen eighty three i happened to be on the board i mean before that i was on the board for a little while of zen center mostly the board was
the people who suzuki roshi had appointed to the board as lifetime members to be responsible for zen center mel and rab and other people of their seniority
where did you guys is like number ah really richard baker appointed them as lifetime members to take care of her
and then later he appointed some of us
me linda i can't really remember who as board members in some ways i meet you know you could say stalking the board in his favor because we were his students
the and that might be true but that prides that i can also a lot of them were no longer so involved with them thinner
perhaps because they couldn't be but also they weren't so those are there were some of it there who were more involved with center so for whatever complicated reasons i was on the board when i the whole thing with richard baker happened which is a whole other long story and you can read books about it
but at that point the board and then center or such a
boy the trauma was just incredible because this vision of what sense for those of us who were richard students this vision of them and or which we have been pouring our life into and had been going along with suddenly like not what was happening whole other avail
and and
i just want to say that i my feeling about wise isn't that or survived is because of tassajara because we even though as maybe mel or somebody who said recently that a lot of our practice relationship was going toward richard at that time still we practiced with each other at tassajara
in the same way that you do now and the bonds whether you realize it or not are very very deep sitting here with each other in this valley
going through that kinds of things we go together i was talking to somebody yesterday about this and they said you know i think the people i'm going to end up being the closest to other ones i had the most trouble with and in some way that's true you know you go through these things and anyway so winds and center kind of totally
shifted a there was still this network of trust because of tassajara and in the midst of that the board was really struggling now god i can't do this i have to cut this down and mel a
was right there with i mean week and like long long long stories of decision after decision after decision that was incredibly painful and for me as someone who hadn't been here at the beginning those and center
you know some of the old board members came back to the board and it was like opening a door on a family house or opening a window in a house that you think is your house you're like living in the house but you go outside and you open the window and there's a whole other family there and whole other you know they're your family your related to them
i'm you know them but it's like a whole other story is happening and was so interesting to watch their relationships with each other and sort of become part of that
so we went through that together all of us and
there's a lot that could be said but i won't
and out of that also grew my relationship with rab who i also didn't know very much before that know
and watching he and lou rich man who was both revenue with the tonto said zen center at that point city centre in green gulch and so they were sort of the most connected to the students at zen center and their attempt to be there in this chaos and true
i'm up for the students of sense that it was really
i just heart opening and there and the mistakes they made you know just mistake after mistake after mistake
because they were working with people who are traumatized you mean they can do anything right and yet to come back everybody just kept coming back and going through it so many of my much of my feeling about my teachers came from that time of their effort and
how they stayed there with each other in and with really disagree with each other and also right at that time i sort of got yanked into a lot of responsibility as oh one of the assistant toronto's in the city center and also very soon about a year later
as the president of zam center so once i was the president and center then was soon after that male joined reb as the abbot of seventeen on which was also a huge big thing you know then thing was struggling for what is the religious leadership
was then thinner and we had lots of different ideas you know six abbott know abbott
three abbott's than anyway at this particular point in history that i'm thinking of it slowly narrowed down to two choices one abbott rab or to abbott's ribbon mill and
anyway eventually rib
invited mel to join him and together they were the additives and center and i was the president and i felt their support so thoroughly during the years that i was president them just
really being there and working together on this crazy thing called town center
i at the end of that and nineteen ninety i came to tassajara the whole family came to touch the horror and with here for the summer and really had no i stopped being president had no idea we had no idea where we were going to be what we were going to do it we all came to tatar for the summer didn't know where we live in terms narrow what the end of that summer
our ribbon male asked me whether i wanted to be shoe so and so that
the fall foul of ninety male lead the price period and i was the shoe so with him it was a little bit strange to our family and since we didn't know where we were going had decided we were going to go to yellowstone for two week vacation in october
so when they asked me what could i did i want to be she's so i said well you know we have the plan for they said okay
i was you so and left for two weeks to go to yellowstone
that he didn't have attended and twelve year old child who would make a little that so
it did that she's still period and again didn't know at the end of that what
where we were going to what we're going to do and they asked me at the end of that to would i beat the tonto here so then i was the tonto till the end of the summer when we moved when it was too much for the girls to be here they've been out of school for a year and a half and really needed to contact with their peers so we moved to jail
berg
and i thought i was just going to live at james berg but
i came in for the talk about secession that was happening here and that you know could i come during the week and they said yeah you can keep being the tonto so for the next five years so over six years i was the tonto here and
i do have to get back on track that's what i have this note
again oh and during that time for the first
for or would i guess most the time i was tonto basically reb and mel alternated practice periods so they were here so during that time
we got much closer
am
just a couple of things about
i remember one shows how the ceremony
with mel one of my biggest questions back then was one that some of you have asked me how do you if you have to make a decision and you don't know what you want to do what do you do and he said
if you're standing with one foot on the boat and one foot on the dock and the boat starts to move something will happen
and it was very helpful
very helpful
and as it was true it is true
another interaction that we had with them
ha
one of our disagreements i think is that i think that i think that mel has often thought that i should be ordained
i think that's because he's often told me this and one
one he started trying to convince me of it in a meeting
i thought there was a little over
i said who to talk about it privately
that would be said okay so then the next time we kinda tough ahora i went to to time and i said so would you want to the ball i can consider your goal and i said whoa
if i don't want to be or do you think i should be again the well no i guess not and then that was it ever
as i remember it that time anyway and when anyone so
ah
okay that's my life with mel
i
and in a way it's my life with my teachers who sit when you know i've mentioned the main one except for
three
very strong jewish women by chance jewish women i think i can do these women who are on
no my best friends and also and join the pantheon of my teachers linda emma and tia
and i i'm always are
i'm always but i i want to be careful with these all these features that i'm not avoiding
letting someone being a teacher
for me and i've really tried to be careful about that but i also feel like in some ways my biggest teacher
biggest definitely biggest but also at deepest and truest is tassajara
and and you know that means all of you and all your predecessors and the things we do together and the way it works in
i feel so grateful to have been here all this time and feel really pot and as
mel was quoting suzuki roshi and on the search for a teacher i think it's a little tricky it can get grasp even very easily that the
the account to be treatable
to be able to be taught he kills them
is really good practice really good practice to try to be taught by everyone and everything and then teachers come along
hearing it and go the ar
so i want to remind us that the pet trade isn't over yet
that we have the rest of today too
hum
no enjoy if possible but if not possible to explore what is going on here know what's going on in the practice what's going on in this karmic body and mind but going on in the universe and then we have a few more days to do that before all hell breaks loose
put them in all the myriad ways that's going to happen i am yet
and you know the rest of bills on com
i'm sorry to go on for long or is really also kind of relevant earnestly avoid seeking without it received far from you today i am walking along yet everywhere i go it said i meet him and he he's speaking of his teacher i would just
i couldn't insert it for tough ahora
tottenham are excellent practice period because at the end of practice grade when we go when the next day dawns and we do whatever we do which is either you know some are leaving some the world of coming here
okay i wanted to think of walking out across the stream and saying this poem earnestly way avoid speaking without less that recede far from you today i am walking along yet everywhere i mean it i mean talk to her practice period
it is now no other than myself but i am not now it
everywhere i go i needed it must be understood in this way in order to merge with success
the i think it's it's really true as a richard baker said to me decoration sydney the first time i left tassajara after being here living here for six and a half years
it's popular out there too it really is the world the nature of reality is the same
here as it is there if that isn't true it doesn't do us any good to be here so
as we're walking alone everywhere we needed and maybe so