Tend to Your Spirit: Teachings from Illness

0:00 This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Report an error in the passage at 0:00 Highlight the passage at 0:00

0:15 It's lovely to be with you. Oh, it's quite loud. In this sun-filled room full of beautiful faces. Some I know, some I don't know. Report an error in the passage at 0:15 Highlight the passage at 0:15

0:31 And to the people who, many people who are listening, who knows, all over the world, greetings to you as well. Report an error in the passage at 0:31 Highlight the passage at 0:31

0:42 I think the last time I was on this seat was about, what did I figure out, 12 years ago when The Hidden Lamp first came out. And my co-editor of The Hidden Lamp, it's stories from 25 centuries of awakened women and I were here. As part of a weekend of celebration of the release of that book, and we had a whole bunch of the great women teachers from Zen Center in a panel that happened later that weekend. Report an error in the passage at 0:42 Highlight the passage at 0:42

1:17 So I feel the joy from that time and also the joy of being back. When I come back to San Francisco Zen Center, I always feel like I'm coming back home. Anybody who's practiced here has Report an error in the passage at 1:17 Highlight the passage at 1:17

1:52 A book event. I did a sneak preview at Enso Village in September, but the book wasn't actually out yet. And so it's wonderful, again, to be back and to be sharing. Part of my talk today will be about the book, but lots of other things too, because this is dharma talk, not a book talk. But during the Q &A, that'll be an opportunity. I'll talk more about the book and also do some signing. So I hope that some of you can come. Report an error in the passage at 1:52 Highlight the passage at 1:52

2:22 I know the bookstore got extra copies, so they'd probably appreciate having them go out the door. Report an error in the passage at 2:22 Highlight the passage at 2:22

2:31 So one of the things that has changed in 12 years, and this makes me very, very happy, is the change in accessibility for this building. Because as a person with chronic illness, A degree of disability as a person who works with other Zen students and people who are struggling with physical challenges, I'm really, really aware, as much as I love this practice, of how inaccessible it can be. Report an error in the passage at 2:31 Highlight the passage at 2:31

3:04 And this building was inaccessible in some major ways, or partially accessible. And so it moves me deeply. That Zen Center, maybe some of you donated to do the changes of this building to make it available to people who might otherwise not really be able to fully practice here or be a guest here. And also, of course, thanks to the pandemic, we now have this capacity to reach people all over the world. Report an error in the passage at 3:04 Highlight the passage at 3:04

3:39 I have been teaching for the last three years. Through Zen Center, a class for people with chronic illness called Dancing in the Dark Fields, and there have been hundreds of people who have been part of that over these years, and they would not have been able to participate in something like that in person, many of them, partly because they're not here or where I am, and partly because it's just not possible. Report an error in the passage at 3:39 Highlight the passage at 3:39

4:08 Some people are actually housebound. And I know that some of the people from the class are listening to this talk right now, and they're in San Francisco, but they can't come here. So huge, huge gratitude to all of you who've made that possible. Report an error in the passage at 4:08 Highlight the passage at 4:08

4:27 So today I want to talk about the ways that my life, the life of a student of Zen, of the Dharma, the life of a person with chronic illness, Report an error in the passage at 4:27 Highlight the passage at 4:27

4:43 Over nearly half my life now, how these have circled around one another, informed each other, danced with each other, sometimes seemed at odds with each other. Report an error in the passage at 4:43 Highlight the passage at 4:43

5:01 And I also want to talk about energy and confidence and faith and the healing power of the dharma. Now, some of you might be thinking, well, how is this talk related to my life? I'm healthy. I have a body that's strong. Report an error in the passage at 5:01 Highlight the passage at 5:01

5:22 If that's true for you, I hope you really listen, because someday your life will not be that way. Your body will not be strong. That is nearly always the case for Sometimes for a long part of our life, sometimes at the end of our life, Report an error in the passage at 5:22 Highlight the passage at 5:22

5:46 But these teachings, these understandings, can help us. And even if your body is strong, we all suffer in various ways. This is, of course, the first noble truth of the Buddha. And so the teachings of people who have lived with the challenges of chronic illness for a long time are teachings that can benefit anybody. Report an error in the passage at 5:46 Highlight the passage at 5:46

6:12 So I'm offering this to all of us here. Whatever your condition. But first, I want to talk about salmon. You might think, where is she going to go with this? So I live now on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, one of the most beautiful places in the world. And not long ago, a few weeks ago, I went up into the Olympic National Park, quite deep into the park, to the Soul Duck River. Report an error in the passage at 6:12 Highlight the passage at 6:12

6:47 And the Solduk River is a wild river that starts very high in the mountains, ends up at the Pacific Ocean. And so it's one of the places where the salmon come far, far up the river to their place where they came from, much like I'm returning to San Francisco Zen Center, actually, I just realized. Report an error in the passage at 6:47 Highlight the passage at 6:47

7:14 Through what is mostly old-growth forest, this mossy, moist, ferny, mushroomy forest, through clear, clear water. And there's this place where you can walk out to the edge of the river. And there's a series of cataracts. It's not huge waterfalls, but a kind of stepping stone cataracts. And below it is a huge pool. Report an error in the passage at 7:14 Highlight the passage at 7:14

7:44 And there are all these people there who've walked in on the trail through the forest. And it's very quiet. It's like you're in a sacred space. And in the pool, which you can see from the cliffs above, when we were there, there were, I don't know, maybe 40 or 50 big salmon that you could see down below the surface of the water. Report an error in the passage at 7:44 Highlight the passage at 7:44

8:10 They're dark shapes. And they're all turned the same way. They're all turned upstream with their noses pointed upstream. And then every once in a while, one of the salmon starts up towards the cataracts. And they get to where the white water is. And they make this big leap. And most of the time, especially that first leap, it seemed they don't make it. Report an error in the passage at 8:10 Highlight the passage at 8:10

8:39 And they go back. Maybe they even go all the way back to the pool and they rest for a while. And then they try again. And then you see one that with this just immense effort goes all the way over the first step of the false and gets to the next little pool, kind of small pool before the next big jump. Report an error in the passage at 8:39 Highlight the passage at 8:39

8:58 And people actually clapped for them when they did that. It was really great. We were all there. This process of sort of attempting and failing and going back and trying again and going back is very, very powerful. And that they were returning. I think about that line from T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets, you know, to return to the place where you began as if for the first time, in a way. Report an error in the passage at 8:58 Highlight the passage at 8:58

9:28 That's what the salmon are doing. And of course, they die there. Right? They go up and they spawn and they leave their bodies there and it feeds the forest that protects the river that made it possible for them to be born. And they bring the ocean deep, deep into the mountains and leave the vital nutrients and minerals of the ocean for the forest, for everything in the forest. Report an error in the passage at 9:28 Highlight the passage at 9:28

10:01 I speak about this because this year I do a lot of online teaching. One of the things that this change has meant is that people like me can do a lot of teaching without having to travel from place to place which is wonderful when your body isn't as strong as other people's. Report an error in the passage at 10:01 Highlight the passage at 10:01

10:20 I've been teaching through Upāya Zen Center a year-long program on the paramitas, or sometimes they're called the perfections, although that's kind of a tricky word. They're the deep practices of the bodhisattvas. And there are various numbers of them. We often think of, in Zen, we talk about six paramitas, but there are various, sometimes ten. Report an error in the passage at 10:20 Highlight the passage at 10:20

10:44 We're actually doing the ten. And one of them is this word virya. And this is the quality that I see in those salmon. That determination to keep going even when the challenges just seem quite literally insurmountable. And it's also the quality that I see in the people with chronic illness and chronic pain. Report an error in the passage at 10:44 Highlight the passage at 10:44

11:18 who come to my dancing in the dark fields class. They are practicing with this tremendous energy right in the middle of the challenges of their lives, as are all of you in your own way. I just wanted to read sometimes, so this virya word gets translated in different ways, sometimes joyful effort. Thich Nhat Hanh describes it it as as diligence. Report an error in the passage at 11:18 Highlight the passage at 11:18

11:46 diligent. Roshi Joan Halifax uses wholeheartedness. That might be my favorite translation, actually, wholeheartedness. And so I think that this feeling here of virya is really powerful. You know, virya shows up in our Zen practice. Really, we couldn't do this practice without virya. Report an error in the passage at 11:46 Highlight the passage at 11:46

12:17 We cultivate virya when we sit zazen in the morning, even though our legs are hurting and we're falling asleep and we're doing that nod that you see in the zendo in the morning, even if we'd rather sleep in. We cultivate virya when we make a commitment for a practice period or a sashin, or when we wholeheartedly weed a garden or sit by the bedside of a dying person, even sitting upright. Report an error in the passage at 12:17 Highlight the passage at 12:17

12:50 As you are now, this is a practice of virya. But when I, in some of the small groups that were studying these paramitas, there are people who are actually also have severe fatigue and different kinds of health challenges in those groups. And they were like, well, I can't really practice virya. I don't have much energy. And so we talked about how, in a way, it isn't about physical energy. Report an error in the passage at 12:50 Highlight the passage at 12:50

13:19 It's about that wholehearted. It's your heart. What is the energy of your heart that you bring to your life? And one of the people that was tremendously important in my own dharma journey, although she was never officially my teacher, was Darlene Cohen. And if you don't know her, I suggest that you take a look at some of what she wrote. She wrote an incredible book called Turning Suffering Inside Out, based on her life from the time she was in her early 30s of absolutely crippling rheumatoid arthritis. Report an error in the passage at 13:19 Highlight the passage at 13:19

14:02 I happen to share that illness with her, although luckily there are better. treatments now than there were at the time that she became ill. And she, if you knew Darlene, she lived her life with utter wholeheartedness. She was the personification of Virya, despite a life of disability, or maybe because of a life of disability. Report an error in the passage at 14:02 Highlight the passage at 14:02

14:28 Because nothing was easy. Everything was that leaping up the waterfall. And yet she embraced it. She embraced her practice of the dharma wholeheartedly. And the other word that I see with those salmon going up the Seoul Duck River, this one might be less familiar to even people who've been around the Zen world, but it's a great word, is Shraddha. Report an error in the passage at 14:28 Highlight the passage at 14:28

14:59 And Shraddha is a Sanskrit word that is sometimes translated as faith. And sometimes translated as confidence. So Shraddha. To have that feel, and I think it's a feeling. I don't think it's like up here in your head. I think it's down in your gut. To have that feeling that I will go on. You know, those salmon, they're following this scent. Report an error in the passage at 14:59 Highlight the passage at 14:59

15:32 Right? That's in the river. That they can actually smell way out in the ocean. They smell the current of their home river and stream and they follow it. They follow it from the ocean to the, you know, it's been years since they went out to the ocean. They were teeny when they went out and now they're huge. Report an error in the passage at 15:32 Highlight the passage at 15:32

15:51 And they're following it up and up and up and up to literally the very place where they came out of an egg. That's what we do with Shraddha. We don't even know, probably, maybe you don't even know why you're here today, why you showed up this Saturday morning. Report an error in the passage at 15:51 Highlight the passage at 15:51

16:13 But there's something, you're following a scent, you have some sense, and maybe you've had some experience in your life of how the dharma has... has been of benefit, has helped you. But we don't always even have that feeling. We just, we're just following. We're following that scent. So now I'm going to say a little more about my own journey. So my journey with the Dharma actually started as a young teenager. Report an error in the passage at 16:13 Highlight the passage at 16:13

16:52 I came across the writings of Alan Watts in the Midwest. There were no Zen teachers. I guess maybe Katagiri. No, I don't think he was even in Minneapolis yet. And I wasn't in Minnesota. And it was the first thing I felt like I'd ever read about the nature of reality that made sense to me. It was just a revelation. And I had lots of questions about the world. Those big existential questions that teenagers ask and then we get older and we think it's not cool to ask those questions. Report an error in the passage at 16:52 Highlight the passage at 16:52

17:26 But teens know that it matters. So I was asking those questions and I wasn't getting any answers. And I was really worried about the nature of humans and what we do to each other and the kind of suffering we cause each other and to other beings and to the world. And it broke my heart. Just broke my heart. But luckily, before my heart was completely broken, I actually did encounter a dharma teacher and I learned how to practice. Report an error in the passage at 17:26 Highlight the passage at 17:26

17:59 In my late teens, and I often say that the dharma saved my life. So one part of my shraddha is that part of what keeps me going is because I know that, because I know that the dharma showed me something that was a way, was the stream that I could follow. I won't ever leave this stream until the day that I leave my body on the banks of the stream. Report an error in the passage at 17:59 Highlight the passage at 17:59

18:28 Feed the next generation. And so I threw myself into practice wholeheartedly. First Vipassanā practice and then I met Norman in about 1990 and began to practice Zen, which was kind of a surprise to me because I wasn't all that attracted to all the Japanese stuff. Sometimes that's what brings people to Zen, but it wasn't for me. It was meeting a poet. Report an error in the passage at 18:28 Highlight the passage at 18:28

18:56 You know, a deep thinker and a deeply grounded person that did it for me. That's the other thing that's sort of sent. Like to see a person who inspires you. That's part of what can be our shraddha. That's part of what can give us virya and the energy for the practice. And that was really wonderful. And I would come down here. He became abbot. I would come down and practice at Green Gulch. I'd do practice periods and then at Tassahara. Report an error in the passage at 18:56 Highlight the passage at 18:56

19:26 I was living up in Washington State then too, and I would come and just experience such deep joy, such joy. And then I got really, really sick, and I was only 34 years old. And it's really hard when most people around you are still quite healthy and you are not. Report an error in the passage at 19:26 Highlight the passage at 19:26

19:53 Various autoimmune illnesses, I sometimes say people with autoimmune issues tend to collect them. So I have collected a number of them since I was 34 years old. And so the first thing that happened was that I was too sick to do this formal practice. I would come and try to do a zenshin and I wouldn't make it through. Report an error in the passage at 19:53 Highlight the passage at 19:53

20:17 It would actually, even if I came, when I arrived I was doing pretty well. At some point the rigor of the practice was too much for me and I would actually collapse physically. I had to leave a practice period at Tassajara because I couldn't get all the way through. This was real grief for me. This was deep, deep loss. Report an error in the passage at 20:17 Highlight the passage at 20:17

20:38 Actually, at the time that I left Tassajara, I was sewing robes to become a priest. Report an error in the passage at 20:38 Highlight the passage at 20:38

20:46 And I didn't know if that would ever happen, and I had to put those robes away for a long time as I struggled with what it meant to be a Zen student who couldn't actually practice formally, and I had to get very creative. But luckily for me, I had encountered Darlene Cohen's teaching around this is your life, whatever it is, whatever your limitations are, whatever your... Report an error in the passage at 20:46 Highlight the passage at 20:46

21:14 Whatever your capacities are, this is your life. Practice with it right now, wholeheartedly. And by the way, have a good time, too. That was a big part of her teaching, was the teaching of pleasure, of joy, no matter what, along with your grief and rage and everything else that's there. Report an error in the passage at 21:14 Highlight the passage at 21:14

21:34 So I'm going to read, I think, a little bit here. So this is this book, which I love the cover, Tend to Your Spirit, the one that just came out. And I just wanted to... So this book is full of readings and spiritual practices and journaling practices and poetry. But each chapter has a short essay written either by me or my co-author, Julie Lepp. Report an error in the passage at 21:34 Highlight the passage at 21:34

22:02 And this is actually from the last chapter, which is... So each chapter is on a different aspect of working with challenge. And... Report an error in the passage at 22:02 Highlight the passage at 22:02

22:13 And this is from the very last chapter, which is on acceptance. That's why it's last, not first. Report an error in the passage at 22:13 Highlight the passage at 22:13

22:24 So I'll just read a little bit of it. It's called Can I Love the Life I Have? Earlier this summer, I was struck by the realization that it has been exactly 25 years that chronic illness has been powerfully shaping my life. That's a quarter of a century. In fact, my first autoimmune illness began in the last century. If illness was a child, they'd be out of the house at this age, I hope, and working somewhere, renting an apartment. Report an error in the passage at 22:24 Highlight the passage at 22:24

22:56 Instead, chronic illness lives in this body, sometimes at the wheel of the car and determining the direction of my life, sometimes sitting in the backseat, temporarily quiescent, like like a child looking out the the window. window. Report an error in the passage at 22:56 Highlight the passage at 22:56

23:16 There is a tremendous humility in living a life so marked by chronic illness. I've had to learn to respond with compassion to the requests of the body, to treat the body as a partner rather than an enemy. This is most true when the lights go dark and we were once again whirling into the territory of pain and weakness. It's easy to fight and resist, but I've learned the hard way how resistance increases the suffering. Report an error in the passage at 23:16 Highlight the passage at 23:16

23:46 Instead, there has to be a kind of surrender. The body is firmly in the lead, and my job is to follow it. That's what this partner has taught me. We're Report an error in the passage at 23:46 Highlight the passage at 23:46

23:59 taught in Buddhism that the degree of suffering is directly related to the degree of holding on. Despite this teaching, most of us don't let go of anything very easily. Report an error in the passage at 23:59 Highlight the passage at 23:59

24:14 Like a new puppy who chews anything and everything in sight helps us get rid of things we thought we needed but really didn't. Somehow, miraculously, every time I lose some part of my self-image, something fresh and beautiful comes my way. Because of this illness, I'm way less impressive, but there's more room for grace. In some circles, we are told that illness is a gift. Report an error in the passage at 24:14 Highlight the passage at 24:14

24:43 I have found that the gifts of being sick are far more complicated than that. I can remember snarling at someone years ago when they suggested that my illness might be a gift. Don't ever do this to anybody. Don't ever say this to anybody. You can say it about yourself, but you can't say it to anybody else. Report an error in the passage at 24:43 Highlight the passage at 24:43

25:06 They won't thank you. Finding the gift of illness can only come from some genuine place far within, not from without. From without, it feels like a way of minimizing the tremendous suffering of the person who is sick. Report an error in the passage at 25:06 Highlight the passage at 25:06

25:25 So, actually, you know, most of the time, I felt like my illness was something entirely undeserved, unwarranted, and unnecessary. Report an error in the passage at 25:25 Highlight the passage at 25:25

25:37 I have to say that it still feels like a curse some days. And Darlene would have said the same thing all the way through. But there are gifts there too. And the greatest and hardest gift? The visceral, direct knowledge that life is not limitless, that tomorrow is completely unknown, and that literally there is no time to waste. Report an error in the passage at 25:37 Highlight the passage at 25:37

26:04 Like what it says on the Hans, you know, the sound that we hear, the wooden call to meditation. In various ways, that's what it'll say. No time to waste. Report an error in the passage at 26:04 Highlight the passage at 26:04

26:19 Acceptance is meant to me over these years, seeing both my times of health and my times of fatigue and pain as the life I have. I now see this particular life as a long dance with illness, though it wasn't the dance I would have chosen. Nonetheless, it has led me in life-giving directions. I am grateful for my times of relative well-being over these 25 years. Report an error in the passage at 26:19 Highlight the passage at 26:19

26:45 I'm in one of those right now, though it's a little shaky. Report an error in the passage at 26:45 Highlight the passage at 26:45

27:13 So, and then because this was the last essay, I ended with this. In writing this book, Julianne, my co-editor, author, and I have hoped to give you a taste of these possibilities and resources for your own journey through chronic illness or pain or life. Report an error in the passage at 27:13 Highlight the passage at 27:13

27:39 So because this is a Zen talk, it kind of feels like I should bring up a Zen koan. So here's one. There's actually quite a few of them about illness because, of course, it is a big part. of human life. So this is from the Blue Cliff Record, one of the great Tang Dynasty collections of koans. And this is case 87, for those of you who like numbers. Report an error in the passage at 27:39 Highlight the passage at 27:39

28:06 Yunmin said to the assembly, medicine and sickness cure each other. The whole earth is medicine. What is the self? So I'm really struck by this line. The whole earth is medicine. Wow. Because, of course, a huge part of having chronic illness is that you are searching for the medicine that will make you well. Report an error in the passage at 28:06 Highlight the passage at 28:06

28:38 I cannot tell you how many rheumatoid arthritis drugs I have gone through unsuccessfully. But what if the whole earth is medicine? What if this ground, you know how the Buddha touched the ground? So just for a moment, take your right hand. Touch the ground. This whole earth is medicine. It's there for you. And if you can't reach the ground, well then, just touch whatever you can that's near the ground. Report an error in the passage at 28:38 Highlight the passage at 28:38

29:07 Right? That whole earth is medicine. The whole earth is supporting us. We are not alone with whatever our struggles are, with whatever our challenges are. To remember this. We are not alone. Report an error in the passage at 29:07 Highlight the passage at 29:07

29:23 And then that kind of interesting question, which could be a whole other dharma talk, what is the self? I mean, if we're supported by everything, then what kind of separateness are we? Maybe not as separate as we think. So there's a really interesting commentary. So in the Blue Cliff record, there are these commentaries. Report an error in the passage at 29:23 Highlight the passage at 29:23

29:42 And I was really kind of fascinated with this. So I'll just read this little bit of commentary, and then I'll tell you a little bit about the background. One day, Manjushri, who's often sitting on a Zen altar, if you go to Green Gulch, it's Manjushri. One day, Manjushri ordered Sudhana to pick medicinal herbs. He said, if there is something that is not medicine, bring it to me. Report an error in the passage at 29:42 Highlight the passage at 29:42

30:15 Sudhana searched all over, but there was nothing that was not medicine. Every herb was medicine. So Sudhana is a really interesting character. He was a student of Manjushri. So Manjushri is the bodhisattva of wisdom, which is why Manjushri is often on the altar in a Zen place. Report an error in the passage at 30:15 Highlight the passage at 30:15

30:40 Sudhana was a pilgrim. So this is all happening in a somewhat magical world. And the Flower Ornament Sūtra, which is quite a magical sūtra, involves... Kind of the stories of Sudhana's travels as a pilgrim. And he meets 53 wise people. And Manjushri is the one who kind of sends him out on this pilgrimage. Report an error in the passage at 30:40 Highlight the passage at 30:40

31:05 So he goes from one person, and that person will say, oh, go talk to this person. And then that person will say, oh, go talk to this person. And in a way, they're all good friends that can help in various ways. One of them is actually a physician, which I think is interesting. Another one is a courtesan who actually shows up in The Hidden Lamp, who talks about awakening through the passions. So he meets a lot of interesting people on his pilgrimage. Report an error in the passage at 31:05 Highlight the passage at 31:05

31:33 And I think I appreciate Sudhana because I actually myself went on pilgrimage at one point, which seemed like a crazy thing to do as a person with chronic illness. I actually sold my house, gave up my job, which I was starting to fail at anyway. And started traveling around in my car because I was like, well, if I'm going to die young or be really completely incapacitated, there's a few things I want to do before that happens. Report an error in the passage at 31:33 Highlight the passage at 31:33

32:06 First thing I did was a two month silent retreat. But I traveled around for about eight years. I met a lot of good friends. And I went where I was needed. That was my mantra. I'll go where I'm needed. And a lot of it was in the wilderness. And so I appreciate Sudhana and this search for medicine and finding that everything in the world is medicine. Report an error in the passage at 32:06 Highlight the passage at 32:06

32:38 And another important story for me is actually from another early sūtra, Mahāyāna Sūtra called the Vimalakirti Sūtra. Vimalakirti was a lay... like brilliantly wise lay person and it takes place kind of in the time of the Buddha and it actually starts that that Vimalakirti is sick and and the Buddha says you know as you might if you had a kind of congregation of people says to the assembly well will somebody go and make a visit to Vimalakirti he's sick he's in his Little room. And nobody wants to go because every time anybody's visited Vimalakirti, he always makes them feel foolish. Even the wisest of the people in the Buddha's assembly. Report an error in the passage at 32:38 Highlight the passage at 32:38

33:23 So Manjushri, same guy, finally says, okay, well, I'll go. And then the whole rest of this book-length sūtra is about what happens in Vimalakirti's little, tiny, sick room. Report an error in the passage at 33:23 Highlight the passage at 33:23

33:36 Which, I mean, it's sort of described how tiny it is. It's much smaller than this room. But apparently the entire Buddha's assembly of 500,000, 10,000 people could all fit in this little room. And again, that's where the sūtra takes place. But one of the things that Vimalakirti says is, I'm sick because all beings are sick, because the world is sick. Report an error in the passage at 33:36 Highlight the passage at 33:36

34:06 And oh my goodness, doesn't the world feel sick right now, right? We are in a world that is so sick. It is running a very high fever. It is full of autoimmune illness. And we're all part of this world, right? So in that way, we're all sick. And so this world is calling us, really calling us to recognize that and to bring whatever wisdom we can bear to this situation that we're in. Report an error in the passage at 34:06 Highlight the passage at 34:06

34:41 Of a sick world. And here was Vimalakirti, you know, almost 2,000 years ago, reminding us that our sickness and the world's sickness are not separate. Report an error in the passage at 34:41 Highlight the passage at 34:41

34:55 So maybe some of you know that there, that, oh, I wanted to mention, so I was at the, how many people were at the Sajiki ceremony last night? Yeah, good number of people. That's what all this stuff is on the walls. If you walk around the building, you'll see more of them. They're fantastic. I particularly love this one with the demon and the monk. Report an error in the passage at 34:55 Highlight the passage at 34:55

35:15 So a friend brought me, picked me up from BART because I was coming from the airport. And she said, well, I'll bring you a costume because part of what happens in Suzuki is some people come in costume. So I had no idea what my costume was going to be. It's a Zen friend, but she's really wild, so anything was possible. It turned out what she brought me was a skeleton costume. Report an error in the passage at 35:15 Highlight the passage at 35:15

35:43 So I was like, okay, I guess that's what I'm wearing to the Tsujiiki ceremony. And it was pretty intense. It was a kind of long shirt that actually I think she used to work in one of the penitentiaries. And I believe that it was actually made by somebody, an incarcerated person in the penitentiary. And it was like the whole, you know, all the bones of the kind of torso of the body. Report an error in the passage at 35:43 Highlight the passage at 35:43

36:15 And it reminded me of the five remembrances that are... They're not chanted here regularly, but in some saṅghas, they are actually chanted every day. And the first three are the ones I kind of wanted to just remind us of. And I actually, I'm going to invite us all to say these out loud together. So I'll say it and then you can repeat it back, okay? Report an error in the passage at 36:15 Highlight the passage at 36:15

36:39 I am of the nature to become old. Report an error in the passage at 36:39 Highlight the passage at 36:39

36:46 I am of the nature to become sick. I am of the nature to die. I am of the nature to die. Report an error in the passage at 36:46 Highlight the passage at 36:46

36:57 Now you might think, and I think this is often the response of Westerners to these remembrances, that that sounds pretty morbid to say that every day. And in fact, James Ford, who's a Zen teacher and a friend of mine, said he made his Zen group do this every time they met. And they hated it. They just hated it. It was like, why are we starting there? Well, because it's a foundational reality. Report an error in the passage at 36:57 Highlight the passage at 36:57

37:25 Right? That's why. We are about reality. It's a foundational reality, and it inspires us to remember that, you know, don't waste time. Let's be alive. Let's be fully alive while we are here. So I think what I will do here... Report an error in the passage at 37:25 Highlight the passage at 37:25

37:51 I think I'm just going to read a couple last things. And then if you do decide you're going to come to the Q &A, I'll read a little more from the book. But I wanted to read a little bit from Darlene. Let's see here. Report an error in the passage at 37:51 Highlight the passage at 37:51

38:11 And a little bit from, and one poem to close that is not from a Buddhist person, but is a really great poem. So this is from Turning Suffering Inside Out by Darlene. The world that opened to me through engaging the physical suffering and the mental anguish caused by my disease has turned out to be inexpressibly, inexpressibly rich. Report an error in the passage at 38:11 Highlight the passage at 38:11

38:40 Because if we can engage with our suffering, connect with it, dance with it, tease it, coax it, curse it, as well as trying to change it, Just consider it our lives, experience it as our lives, the only lives we have. It changes the quality of the suffering. It's not just our suffering, it's everything. So can you hear the echoes of the whole world is medicine? Report an error in the passage at 38:40 Highlight the passage at 38:40

39:09 And then, so for the closing, I'll just read this poem. So this is by... Somebody I know who is a former Unitarian Universalist minister at the Oakland UU, if any of you have ever been there. And their name is Julian Hamaika Soto, and they have spent their whole life severely disabled in a wheelchair wheelchair, um, with, um, oh. Report an error in the passage at 39:09 Highlight the passage at 39:09

39:47 Oh, I actually, I don't want to say what the disease is, but one of the inherited diseases where, you know, that's your life, like from the time you're born. They're a wonderful, wonderful poet. And there's a collection of their poetry called Spilling the Light. So this is the poem. When I was a child, someone told me that if you hold a seashell, oh, and it's called Broken Shell Song. Report an error in the passage at 39:47 Highlight the passage at 39:47

40:12 When I was a child, someone told me that if you hold a seashell to your ear, you can hear the ocean. When I was in middle school, I learned that what you hear is not the ocean. It's just the blood rushing through your ears. And that's fine. But I still wonder if a broken seashell has any good kind of song. Report an error in the passage at 40:12 Highlight the passage at 40:12

40:34 The song of half a wave might be a measure of grief. The bay of Fundy when it is empty. The bacteria flats in yellowstone, steaming copper and blue, smelling of sulfur, and somehow a cradle for life. Anklets of kelp forest. Even mostly empty, the ocean cannot help but brim with tokens of aliveness, reminders of beauty, and the plain, unabashed assurance that broken things, seashells, people, and times of love, love have beauty all their own if we can dance in the offbeat if we can stand a little grit with the gorgeous gifts of this wide world Well, Report an error in the passage at 40:34 Highlight the passage at 40:34

41:31 thank you very much. Thank you for listening. And again, I hope that there's some part of this that if now is not a time of challenge for you, that... that if you find yourself in one, something will come back to you, maybe a little broken seashell to support you. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Report an error in the passage at 41:31 Highlight the passage at 41:31

42:02 Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the dharma. Report an error in the passage at 42:02 Highlight the passage at 42:02