voice recently and it sounded like they said your singing was good I thought what a lovely story I was surprised to hear it But I don't feel that attached to the story. I don't... That story, but it was... I felt... Well, I was surprised, anyway. When I'm surprised, when I'm relaxed and I'm surprised, I'm happy. I feel whole. I was surprised recently...

[01:02]

Somebody came to talk to me, and I looked at her, and I thought, she looks kind of nervous. And so I said to her, are you nervous about something? And he said, yeah, I think I am. And I said, what do you think it's about? He said, nervous that I might hear the truth. I don't know if he might have said that you might say the truth, but I think, you know, we're a little nervous about hearing the truth sometimes, even though it's kind of what we most want to hear. Would somebody please tell me the truth?

[02:03]

even though I'm nervous, which reminds me of another story which I could briefly mention, which I tell the children once every few years. I don't tell it every time I talk to the children because the children don't tell that story again. But I can tell it every maybe five years because then the children who heard it last are gone. They moved on. So it's a story about the elephant and the butterfly. It's about an elephant who lived at the top of a hill and he did nothing all day. He just sat and did nothing all day. And then one day a butterfly came to visit him and, you know, knocked on his door and said, hello, is anybody there? But the elephant was so nervous that somebody was coming to visit him. They just couldn't speak. But he was very happy that somebody was coming to visit him because he sat and did nothing all day.

[03:11]

But he was also nervous, so nervous he couldn't talk. So then the butterfly, with the butterfly wing, knocked again. He still couldn't answer. And then finally, the butterfly did it a third time. He said, is anybody there? And the elephant said, I'm here. The butterfly said, can I come in? And the elephant said, please do. A butterfly went in. That elephant was already very tender. So he really could, he could really welcome the butterfly and see the truth of the butterfly. Is there anything you want to discuss? Yes. Yes, Tracy.

[04:14]

Do we have our? Is it? When you heard me say, Yeah, I don't even know if you said it, though. I'm just saying. That's what I mean. The whole thing could be in my head. There was a teaching about it. Taking it easy, doing Zazen.

[05:28]

That made me panicky. You know, I'm afraid if I take it easy, I'll just... to my old easy life and that I come here for rigor and I come here to do hard things so when you talk about being tender it just froze it's like I don't know how to I don't I feel like there's this space that I don't even know what you're talking about but obviously it's something I should realize I don't know about but I'm just saying the emotion was panic if I can't count on keep going being tough And making it through, I can't imagine what I would do here, or how I would do it here, or really what everyone else is doing here. I hear you. I'm perplexed and baffled. You moved from panic to perplexity? Now that I'm talking to you, it's moved into perplexity.

[06:33]

Yeah, yeah, like really not understanding. Sounds like a job opportunity for me. Great. How should I respond? When doing a hard thing, I guess I usually think, when I'm doing a hard thing, to do it in the, yeah, to relax with doing a hard thing. I have confidence, usually, I have confidence. Doing a hard thing, I have confidence in doing it in a relaxed way. I think of Michael Phelps, this swimmer.

[07:33]

You've heard of him? He does a hard thing. It's quite hard to win 20 gold medals in the Olympics, or whatever he won. It's hard to swim faster than any other person in the world, because there's a lot of other people who are doing this hard thing of swimming. And he worked really hard when he was swimming. Can you imagine? Yeah, do you think his coach told him to be tender? I don't know but if I was his coach I would have told him to be tender but it looks like either his coach told him or his mother told him his mother is a big figure in the picture he loves his mother I think maybe I dreamed this but I thought he said I do this because I can swim like this because of my mother maybe he didn't say that but anyway When he's swimming, the people watching, I can't see so well because of the Olympics, but the people watching, they say, I can kind of see it, they say, he's the most relaxed of all the swimmers.

[08:48]

The world champion isn't always the most relaxed among the people that the world champion is. So I can't say as a definite rule. Somebody might say, well, that guy was world champion or she was world champion, but she wasn't relaxed. But to be world champion, it's hard. These people are making a heroic effort. Right? Are they relaxed? The champions are fairly likely to be relaxed. at ease. I also saw a picture of the face of a, you know, one of those 10,000 meter runner. I saw a picture of his face when he was winning the 10,000 meter Olympic medal, gold medal. And he looked like this. Totally relaxed.

[09:58]

Effort down below. You know, so when we're doing a hard thing, in some ways that's easy to, not necessarily easy to relax, but easy to have confidence in relaxing, for me. So that's why I like to climb the mountain, because if I climb the mountain, so I relax climbing the mountain. That's the best, I don't always relax, but the best way to climb Mount Everest is to be relaxed, obviously. fly up the mountain so the nice thing about coming to this retreat is that if you enter the tree and go sit in that seat over there period after period and then the retreat ends you did you worked hard you don't you can't do almost nobody well not very few people can do this retreat and not have a little difficulty especially somebody who is you know over 26

[11:01]

But when I was 23 or 22 or 24, when I started practicing Zen, one of the things I liked about it was that it was really hard. I thought, this is, I had done some other challenges in my life before. I thought, this is really hard. I like that. It's like it's hard and I'm just sort of like, I can see it as an almost endless horizon of difficulty. How wonderful, what a great challenge Zen practice is. And I realized I needed help. I needed help. And it took me that relaxing with this difficult practice was necessary. So that's why I tell you. And the difficult practice is the difficult practice of being yourself. That's the most difficult. And we have a laboratory where we give you a seat in this room. And right now, all of you have a seat. And this seat is for you to be enlightened. which means it's a seat for you to be yourself and that the most difficult thing to be is yourself once you're yourself you're enlightened so you could say being enlightened is really difficult because it requires being yourself but to be yourself and do this difficult thing you're not going to be successful you're not going to be successful at being yourself unless you're relaxed about it if you force yourself into being yourself you kind of show

[12:37]

that you're not yourself. When you relax, it's kind of like you surrender to being yourself. Okay. Okay. Are you being yourself? I think so. Okay. Okay. Then I am. I feel like in this intensive, you talked about relaxing, and I feel like I have a new appreciation of it. A place I don't have appreciation for is this panic place called... Well, like this, you know, so the bell rings in the morning. It would be more tender to stay in bed. Maybe. It's possible. I don't know how to make that choice. It's possible to stay in bed, but not necessarily. For me, if I was to stay in bed, that wouldn't necessarily be tender because my attendant would come and knock on the door. And then what do I do?

[13:39]

He's tender for me just to sort of stay there and he's knocking on the door. As a matter of fact, he won't just knock on the door. He'll come in and then he'll go over to my bedroom and he'll knock on the door there. And if I don't answer, he'll come into my bedroom and turn the lights on and ask me what's the matter. Probably, maybe not. We never got that far. But if I'm leading the retreat, I get an attendant. It's a perk of the job. Because when you're leading the retreat, you get an attendant. So if you oversleep, the attendant comes and knocks on your door. And then you wake up and do your job. If you're really sick, you can say, I'm too sick, blah, blah. But you have to deal with that. And it's not very tender to like, it's not tender to like push away. your responsibility, that's not tender. But you can let go of your responsibility. You can say to your attendant, I need to rest this morning.

[14:42]

You can do that. How do you decide when it's better to rest? That's what I'm trying to ask. Your knees hurt, you're tired. I don't know where to stand. You decide, you decide every single, you learn, you train yourself to decide every moment. every moment. That's how you train. And when you first start practicing, and then when you second start practicing, and you third start practicing, and after a while you're not starting anymore, you're just practicing moment by moment, then you're in the game of deciding what being gentle is. called come here every single time and don't ever vary from the schedule. That's the game I've been in. So this opened up a terrifying area for me. That's the game of coming here. But I'm saying to add into that is to look at yourself when you do this and say to yourself, are you being kind? And then if that makes you panic, then I'm going to say be kind to the panic.

[15:49]

and it makes you panicked at the idea of being kind to panic, I would say be kind to that panic, the derivative panic. I didn't come to Zen Center to practice meditation because I was afraid not to practice meditation. I came because I wanted to and I felt like I needed help to do something difficult. And I thought if I did it with other people, that would help me do it. I wanted to... I wanted to sit still because I heard, I read stories which made me think that sitting still would help me be like free of suffering and also help me respond like that elephant to the butterfly, you know, that would help me actually respond skillfully, that you needed to be able to respond compassionately. And here was a practice to train yourself at being yourself, and if you can be yourself, then you can respond skillfully. I wanted to do that, but I noticed I wasn't doing it.

[16:52]

I wanted to, but, you know, there would be big spaces between the meditation periods. And I Come and sit with me, because I thought that would help them, but they didn't come. They thought, you know, they had other things to do. I thought, well, maybe if I went someplace where there's other people practicing. And I came here, and sure enough, it does help to have other people around you. So here you're in this intensive, and with that help, you're able to come here and sit every period. But I didn't start terrified what would happen if I didn't sit. I wanted to sit. And do you want to sit? Yeah. So you want to sit. And then if you want to sit, then check to see if you want. Each time, do you want to go? And sometimes you say, I don't know. You say, and sometimes you don't always go. Sometimes I'm sick. I think it's better not to go. And many mornings, let's see, about 350 times 10, that's 3,500, right? Times four and a half.

[17:54]

That's how many days there have been since I came to Zen Center. Every morning, when I wake up, early in the dark, you know, there it is. Should I go? And sometimes I think, I don't feel very good. Like this morning, for example. I was starting to feel kind of sick. And this morning when I woke up, I felt a little bit of a sinus headache, I thought. Oh, I'm kind of sick. I didn't feel very good. But what I usually do is I get up anyway and then go and sit and then see how I feel after I'm sitting. And 99% of the time, after I get up and put on the robes to come and sit, I think, well, it's not so bad. And usually, this is 99% of the times when I'm feeling sick. Occasionally I don't feel sick when I wake up. For a while I feel like, whoa, this is great, I want to go.

[19:02]

This is like, sounds like fun to go down there and meditate. Once in a while that happens. And, you know, that works, that's okay too. I usually don't cause too much trouble in those days, try to hold myself back. It's kind of early. Now, once in a while here, we get up like an hour later than usual, and then sometimes I wake up and I feel, wow, I feel quite awake. I don't feel so tired. Woo-hoo. But I just kind of go anyway, but I don't force myself. I kind of feel like, and also now I feel like oh I'm leading the practice I'm leading the intensive so they probably would like to see me come there they probably like to have me come in and walk around the room and they're probably watching some of them who are awake are probably noticing you know it fits me a little bit even though they don't I'm walking behind them I think they feel good that I'm doing this hard thing that they're doing is that right?

[20:07]

Kind of encourages you. You're having a hard time, right? Occasionally. And then the fact that the old man's still doing it is kind of like, well, if he can do it, maybe I can do it. But he's doing it too, so I don't always... ask, do I want to go? But I often feel like, this is kind of hard. And I don't force myself. I'm gentle with myself. I gently support myself to do this hard thing. And as you see, I'm often here. I've been here for 45 years. Because I'm gentle. At first I was sometimes a little rough with myself, but I got over that. Now I'm gentle with myself. Generally. Sometimes I push a little too hard. And then I say, that was too hard. And the next time, I maybe do it just right. Sometimes a little easy, and I say, that was too easy. Next time, I do a little bit more. So, yeah, so, I'm not, yeah.

[21:18]

This is sort of a non-sequitur. Somebody said to me recently, you're pretty good at something. But that's something you're pretty good at. You're not supposed to be trying to get good. But secretly you're trying to get good. Nobody laughed. That's interesting. Did you forget the punchline? No, that was a punchline. Well, there was two punchlines. One is somebody says, you're pretty good. And then they said, but what you're doing is you're not supposed to be trying to get to be good. That's first punchline. Second one is, but secretly you are trying to get good. But that wasn't fun. It didn't work. I thought it was funny. For some reason, it's very emotional in, I think, a good way, this conversation. And I think the idea that I could be here not doing the rules, because they're the rules, but to have compassion and...

[22:19]

person doing it yeah it's never crossed my mind and it's until this moment until this moment wow i'm glad i was here yeah i support that it's a big deal for me it's a whole i would also encourage you to ask if you'd like to follow this rigorous program to look to do that hello tracy yes um would you like to do this program and then see what the answer is. And, you know, you might be afraid she might say no. No, it's yes. She might say yes. Well, ask her. Ask her and ask her in a sweet way. Tracy, I have a question for you, sweetheart. Yes. What is it? Do you want to do this kind of meditation thing? Yes. Yes. And some days it might be no, but we welcome that too. So people come to me, sometimes they say, I don't want to do this anymore. I try to welcome that. But I also say, I hear you. So, you know, and then I sometimes, I don't say you have to, but I sometimes say, I'd like you to like, see if you feel that you can be kind of calm and relaxed about, I don't want to do this anymore.

[23:37]

And then if you'd like to say, I'm completely patient with not wanting to do it anymore. I'm relaxed with not wanting to do it anymore. And I actually don't want to do it anymore. In other words, it isn't that you get this thing, I don't want to do it anymore, but actually that's kind of an emotional, impatient reaction to the difficulty. But sometimes people do settle down and they don't want to do it anymore. But usually when they settle down, they realize, well, actually I do want to do it. But we sometimes... aren't kind to ourselves. And one of the ways we're not kind to ourselves is when we're not patient with our stress. That's not being impatient with our stress is not as kind as being patient. Be in the present moment with your stress and be generous and so on with your stress. And then sometimes you say, I'm generous, I'm careful and I'm patient with my stress and I'd like to do something else. Have some other kind of stress. Like to be an Olympic swimmer. and be a cook.

[24:41]

These are all potentially stressful activities. The question is, do you want to do them? And if you do, you'll be more successful if you're kind to yourself while you're doing them. So I'm glad you heard this, and now that you've heard it, do you want to do it? And what is it that you're going to practice? I'm going to practice asking myself, I'll say being in the moment each moment and having the opportunity to come practice in the support of this group and coming here and being gentle with myself along the way. Great. I'm happy to hear you have this intention. So I ask you, do you have such an intention? Please consider. Just an invitation to consider how you are concerning the practice of being present in the moment and being kind.

[25:59]

present moment, wherever you are. Yes. Can I ask Tracy something? Your earlier upset was that you suddenly heard you need to become Buddha, and you were very upset with that. Does that have to do with this upset? Probably. Does what have to do with the upset? When she thought she had to do something. Oh, had to do it. That she was forcing herself to become a Buddha or somebody was forcing it. She couldn't do it. There was no way she could become a Buddha. But she felt like she had to force herself to do it anyway. When you said you need to become a Buddha, this is half.

[27:04]

But I didn't say you need to become a Buddha. She heard that. When she heard you need to become a Buddha, when she said you need to become a Buddha, then she felt she had to do it. She freaked out. So the question is, do you want to become a Buddha? Now we're in the same situation. That's my question. Is this the same situation that I need to force myself to do this practice? Is it the same fear as... You know, it's... Yes. Well, in the case of following the schedule, she can do it. She is following it. So she knows she can. But now she's thinking of doing it as she has been, but not because she has to, but because she wants to, and she's thinking of doing it in a gentle way. And that would make her a Buddha, yeah, along the way. But still, I did ask the question, do you want to become a Buddha?

[28:09]

And if you want to become a Buddha, then the way Tracy's talking about it, that she's going to do now, that is the path. Does that make sense? That's the path to Buddhahood. Follow the way you wish to follow and do it in a gentle way. Be yourself in a gentle way. That is the path of Buddhahood. Does that make sense for everybody? Yeah, it does. By the way, how are you? Are you feeling pretty relaxed? Good. Do you want to practice Zen? Wow. Do you want to be completely yourself? All right then. Anything else today? Well, since there's nothing else, I thought I might do something.

[29:33]

To do the ceremony, since there's... Okay. Here's the ceremony. I'd like to ask you to say your first name. And then, after you say your first name, I'd like everybody to say your first name. Are you willing? Is that ceremony okay for you? Okay. Would you start? My name is Krista. Krista, Margaret, Fred, Timo, Carolyn, Austin, Grace, Susan, Simone, Hayley, Diana, Fran. Jean. Carol. Kathy. John.

[30:36]

Deneen. Lori. Claudia. Mary. Sarah. Sonia. Lydia. Miaoli. Tess. Laura. Vexie. Fran. Judy. Sasha. Marjorie. Marina. Mary. Janet. Maggie. Michael. Abby.

[31:39]

Bert. Arlene. Carolina. Kate. Catherine. Scott. Allie. Shukpi. Patty. Patty. Patty. Amanda. Chini. Chini. Amanda. Chini. Chini. Raven. Raven. Shivan. Shivan. Pir. Pir. Mansire. Mansire. Mansire. Sarah. Tracy. Julia. David.

[32:43]

Maya. Oscar. Connie. Richard. Paul. Gianni. Natalia. Aaron. Charlie. John. John. David. [...] Rebbe. Rebbe. Let me say again, dedicating our effort to all of you, wherever you are, so that you will be

[33:58]

being yourself, wherever you are. We'll be trying to do that here. That's what this temple is for, is for us to do that practice, and we're doing this not just for ourselves here, but for all of you, wherever you are, to be present in the moment, being yourself. And if you want to merit that effort to us, we would appreciate it. But most important is that you do the job. And then after you do it, you can decide what to do with the merit. hopefully you'll give it to a worthy cause. All beings are the worthy cause of our practice. We donate anything good about our practice to all beings. And I feel that us facing ourselves and being with ourselves with all the difficulties of our life is such a precious opportunity. Human beings can do it. Even though we can also distract ourselves, we can do this practice with the support of the ancestors and each other.

[35:09]

So please let's not waste this precious opportunity. Let's not waste this precious opportunity. Thank you very much.

[35:22]

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