This is quite more than I could have imagined. And if I actually see you as over there, I get really scared. So how to not see you as over there is one of the points. So I would like to put two quotes at the beginning of this talk. I would like to put two quotes at the beginning of this talk.

[01:06]

This is a little too loud. So I'll try to talk louder than you don't have to. Turn it up so loud. Can you hear now? Okay. One is the verse of the first case in the Shoyeroku, the Book of Serenity. And it says there, the unique breeze of reality. Do you see? Creation runs her loom and shuttle, weaving the ancient brocade. incorporating the forms of spring. But nothing can be done about Manjushri's leaking. And the other one is by Suzuki Roshi, by a talk of his that's in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind.

[02:09]

It's in the epilogue, and it says in there, to resume your actions through practice, to resume the you which is always with everything, with Buddha, which is fully supported by everything, right now. You may say it is impossible. It's possible. Even in one moment you can do it. It is possible this moment. It is this moment. That you can do it in this moment means you can always do it. So if you have this moment, this is your enlightenment experience. If you have this strong confidence in your big mind, you are already Buddhist in the true sense, even though you do not attain enlightenment."

[03:16]

Why I put these two quotes at the beginning, there are many reasons, but a few stand out more for me. One is the verse of the Book of Serenity is, at the beginning, in the first case, which means, in some sense, it's encompassing. And it is pointing to this, this moment precisely, the unique life of this moment, the breeze of reality. That it... relates to my life here and my life, of course, before here and my life, of course, after here, too. And I'll speak to that a little later. Both of them seem appropriate to me in the sense that this is my first Sunday talk and is

[04:32]

probably my last Sunday talk here because I'm going to leave so you know in the conventional world this is like an exam right and the bad thing is you can't you know you can't do it over I mean this is just it and then you know, I can't make it better or worse. It's just, this was it. So in the Buddhist term, it is an opportunity to study the self. So there is no gaining or losing. So we'll see where I land. Thinking about this talk, I thought of at 10th century have a tradition that people that come to practice period, often we do give way-seeking mind, which is talking about how, what in our lives, how did we come here to this practice?

[05:48]

And I've been thinking of talking in a modified way about this. And an interesting thing is... You know, and that relates again to the verse of the Book of Serenity is, I have been weaving in my life, and when I got ordained as a priest, the Dharma name I was given was Loom of Emptiness. And a part of that first verse is on my rakasu. That's the smaller... little kind of beep we were wearing. It's a smaller robe. And I was thinking of this talk like, you know, what does it mean, loom of emptiness? And I suddenly had the feeling like we, this is the loom, all of us.

[06:58]

I'm going to weave a few sounds in that loom and there are a few kind of on the warp of that loom or a few kind of stripes that stand out maybe a little in color that show up a little stronger and that are like this moment, renunciation, giving, receiving. So this moment also brings me back to Oh, I want to say something more about the loom. Also, since it feels like the body to me.

[08:05]

And last week on Sunday, I had just come back from Tassajur, from three months at Tassajur. I walked in a zendo carrying the incense for Tenshin Roshi, who was his talk. And I stood up front here and I felt like you had all become my body over the years, and I'm going to go away from here. But you're all my body, so how is this? So that's, I think that is a part of how I don't see you as separate, because it's not a seeing, I still see you or you, but it's not feeling separate. And it doesn't have to do whether I have seen you before or whether I've spoken to you or, that doesn't really matter.

[09:11]

So in that sense you're, Actually, for me, the loom on which these words are kind of woven. So this moment also brings me back to when I came here first, which is almost exactly when I will leave, I mean, 10 years before I'll go, almost to the day. I came here on February 11th, 1988, to do a three-month study workshop with Charlotte Silver in sensory awareness, also the body. I had encountered Zazen in 1976 in the south of Germany and from then on I've been sitting on it more often and more on.

[10:22]

And then I had given up sitting like two years before I came here because I was sitting all the time in the train and on the chair. So I stopped sitting on a sofa for a while, but I wanted to pick it up again. So that her workshop, which I had started taking in Switzerland in 1984, was happening at Zen Center was what made me come so far. And I came for three months. And one day she, I went to the, We were doing the workshop in the Real Rights Center. So I went to the Real Rights Center and I was in a really bad mood, really bad mood. And she suggested one of her experiments. And I had this moment where it was completely clear if I actually

[11:30]

enter that experiment, something will come up, and then it will change, [...] and there won't be any space for me. It will just keep changing. And I could see like something in me turning around and clinging with all force and with all strength to this pissed off mood that I had. And it was, you know, it was so funny. I mean, I was watching some You know, something happened so fast and with such, you know, determination and energy, and it was so stupid.

[12:33]

I mean, it was so stupid because it wasn't even a nice mood. But it was carrying my spirit. And so... Then later I heard more teachings about this. So her work and the practice here for me have often bridged or been a bridge for understanding. Either the teaching has been a bridge for understanding experience or experience has been a bridge for understanding the word. So they didn't seem separate. And so I was here for her workshop, but I also started sitting. Fu was the Ino then, and I went and asked her if she would show me how to behave in this sendo, where I could sit, and I came and sat during the three months workshop.

[13:45]

And so it also reminds me of another two sentences out of Zen Mind Beginner's Mind in a chapter, right? Tsukiroshi says, not one, not two. This is the most important teaching. The most important point is to own your own body. We must exist right here, right now. This is the key point. To my first Tashin experience here, I was still in the workshop and I could sit for two and a half days over the weekend. And I was allowed to sit for two and a half days. And I sat on the floor someplace on the left and there were still the supporting posts here in the Zendo. It was the old Zendo. And on the second day, My knees just were hurting incredibly.

[14:55]

But I was determined to sit the two and a half days. So there was kind of a war going on. Like, I was wanting to sit the sesheen, and these knees over there were just, you know, disturbing me in that, and they were kind of just hindering me. And I was really, but I was determined, right? So there I was sitting, winning, winning. And then I had, I don't know why or how, but I had this real sense of war and this feeling like, Actually, we can get through this only together. I mean, me and my niece at that point. And I had this kind of inner dialogue going on. You know, I was just kind of hearing it or seeing it.

[16:01]

That talked to my niece and said... You have to tell me if you can't do this, and then I'll be willing to get up and leave." And then we sat the sesshin. And it was a kind of experience of being one, like body and mind becoming one, and a sense at what a war I was with it because I had no idea what I wanted to do and there was this body hanging on me that was kind of hindering me. So this moment in some sense is also And Suzuki Roshi says in the chapter on control, to live in the realm of Buddha nature means to die as a small being moment after moment.

[17:17]

And there's also, you know, if we study the first of the Four Noble Truths, the truth of suffering, if we actually meditate on it and study it and become more intimate with it. They say that it leads to a strong determination to get out of cyclic existence, which is the mind of renunciation. So what does that mean? So in the example of before, I had to, you know, I had to give up my idea that I was going to sit to Sashi, right? That my niece just had to go along whatever they were doing, right? And, you know, this morning during Zaza, and Lee DeBarros said...

[18:28]

The body sitting up. Whole heart. Flexible, pliable mind. I mean, there was probably more, but... And that's renunciation. So being wholehearted or being whole-bodied or being whole-minded is renunciation, but it's also giving and it's also receiving. It's giving oneself to the moment unconditionally.

[19:37]

It's giving oneself unconditionally to the thoughts, the feelings, the ideas, whatever's appearing. And so that reminds me of something else. So after three months here, I didn't want to go back to Switzerland. So I stayed for another three months and did the summer practice period here. At that time, it was the last one of the summer practice periods. They did the long ones. And after that, I wanted to go to Tassajara. And I had a talk with Tenshin Roshi about going to Tasar and I said, you know, the only thing that is a problem is I would have to borrow there.

[20:41]

And he said, well, I don't think that's a good idea to make debts to go and practice. And we continued talking and then I said, it's my husband from whom I've been separated that I would borrow the money from. He said, well, how about just asking him if he would give you the money? And then he added, you know, in Buddhism to want the opportunity for generosity is a great gift. So there I was sitting, you know, and then afterwards kind of walking around thinking, hmm, can I, you know, can I accept this? Actually accept? Can I ask and can I accept whatever answer is coming back?

[21:49]

So finally I went to the phone booth and called Switzerland and said, first I had to say, I'm still not coming home. And, you know, I want to go there and I would like to ask you if you would just give me the money. And over the phone came, I will be happy to give you the money. And so that's for me, it's like renunciation and receiving. Because I had to, the I had to be willing to ask. be willing to give up the practice period if he said no, be willing to just see what happens after, and be willing to receive the yes, and to receive the money, and to receive the practice period as a gift.

[23:03]

So that was just an incredible experience. teaching and he has you know i don't know but there's no way to measure that gift So after Tassajara, I went back for a year because I felt like I wanted to go and live in Switzerland and then only decide if I would come back here for longer because I didn't know at that point would I stay here partly because of fear of whether I was able to live back there, make a life back there or not. And I didn't want a basis of being here. So I went back and lived there for a year.

[24:06]

I had a great life. And it was really funny when I got home. All my old habits, you know, I felt like I've really evolved here. Things had changed, right? And I got home walking into a room where the fleas of old habits had been starving for a year. And they just jumped on me, and that was all I was, right? Old habits all over the place, and it was pretty terrible, actually. And then after a few months, There were moments where it suddenly felt, hmm, that was different. That feels or smells like the States. And then it started to make sense. It was like, hey, I'm here in these circumstances. isn't the way I can be in those circumstances exactly.

[25:08]

So going all underground and kind of like these little plants that come up through concrete, the little grasses that defy concrete and stuff, there were these evolved me's coming up. And I'm in for another of those events in a few months. So I tried whether I was going to stay there or come back. And I couldn't decide. I couldn't, as long as I was trying to make pros and cons lists, they all came out even. So I went to sit the Sashin there as it continued. And it became clear that it would continue here. So I came back in 1990.

[26:14]

And now here I look kind of back on nine years of living in this community. And in some sense, the practice for me has been foremost, it's hard to say, foremost physical in a sense of practicing the forms, sitting, bowing, chanting, following the schedule, sewing, embodying this body kind of practicing. And I haven't been studying much. I think one of the reasons why I felt, particularly at the very beginning, I just have to do it and not think about it, do it and not think about it, do it and not think about it, is that my thinking, I...

[27:30]

I started talking very early in life, and I started walking very early in life, so thinking was part of my survival patterns. So it was actually rigid and not flexible. So I felt like if I try to use my thinking, I just reshape the experience until it fits into my old patterns, and I don't let it just be. So Suzuki Roshi says in the chapter on control, to give a cow a large spacious meadow is the way to control her. He says him. And of course this applies to everything that occurs from inside or outside, feelings, thoughts, sensations.

[28:38]

And then he goes on and says, to ignore them is not good. That is the worst policy. The second worst is to try to control them, which I did plenty of, still do sometimes. Just watch them. Give them a playground. Watch them without trying to control them. The true purpose is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes. This is to put everything under control in its widest sense. And that reminds me of Charlotte Selver, who used experiments. Where does it want to go?

[29:43]

And I will just go blank completely. That was the most frightening question. I mean, I just was, there was nothing going on anymore, any place, any way. So it was really, they kind of met the game. So before I went back to Switzerland, I sold a rock zoo. And Norman and Mel ordained me here in Green Gulch on January 8, 1989. And they gave me the name Pure Faith Dharma Joy. relates for me also to an experience I had in the first year I was here.

[30:47]

When I decided to stay on, I got incredibly depressed. I was so depressed and there was no end to it. There was like that had no bottom. And there was nothing to do about it. And there was definitely not going to be an end to it. And it felt familiar. It felt like I had been kind of touching that place, but kind of dipping and getting out, dipping, getting out. And also, what was very interesting for me to realize was I wouldn't be that depressed if I were in Switzerland. Because all my friends, and I have many, kind of, I'm taken care of in a way that I never have, you know, never end up in that place. But it felt like it was a place that actually was very much part of my life.

[31:55]

And they were kind of like the safety net I had. So it's interesting to And so wonderful to feel that actually because I'd had them, I was able to see what they all were for my life and that they were willing to let me be here, disappear into this depression. So it was like they actually gave me something. So one day I heard myself in the dining room say to somebody, well, I just have to wait. It was like about three months. I have to wait till I get to the bottom of it. And then I realized, oh, there must be a sense of bottom because I just said those words. And then it changed slowly. It was like really walking out of the ocean, like walking at the bottom of the ocean and slowly out of it.

[33:01]

And what had changed to that was my basic distrust of life that I brought into this life with me. And in some sense, it wasn't a choice or it wasn't a conscious choice, but actually I've been thrown into what the teachings are talking about. There was nothing else. I mean, there was nothing I felt I could do about this depression. There was nothing. I couldn't even struggle against it. That was just all there was. And I was kind of, I had given up. And But when I came out, when it changed, what they also say, everything changed. It doesn't feel that way, but it is that way. I had experienced the support of life, and I had experienced it in a foreign environment.

[34:15]

So it wasn't that I hadn't established my life here with all my habits. And I was extremely dependent on that level. I could see how I was helped by everybody. I mean, I could just experience that. And that basic distrust of life as supporting my life and everyone's life had changed into trusting life. Now I'm working on trusting people, which are part of life. And when I say that, I also know actually This person has nothing to do with anybody out there. And trusting what? I mean, it's not trusting my ideas, who I am, but just the life that's supported, that's living.

[35:18]

So I came back and I thought I could become a sewing teacher. That would be a good thing to come here for a few years and then take back to Switzerland and do there, something to have. And then potentially Roshi discouraged that. He said, forget about it. Maybe in a few years, but forget about it. So I forgot about it. Like, I think it was in the fall of 94, or maybe the fall of 95, he said, now, if you still would like, you know, about sewing, you could, you know, you could go ahead. And it didn't matter anymore. It didn't matter. It wasn't anything I felt I had to have. I had to

[36:29]

take back but I also have it's not like it's very interesting it's I have been sewing people with sewing it's been a very important practice and but that place where I you know I wanted to have it to bring something to have something and bring it back it just wasn't mean anything But the sewing as a practice, the forms of this practice, I discover more and more how they actually transmit the teaching beyond words. well, the sitting and the bowing and the chanting, but also the sewing.

[37:36]

When I saw in 1992, I felt like that thread was actually the thread of my life. Pulling up with it, all parts of my life that needed taking care of or needed to be included or needed to have attention. And at some point, I suddenly felt I have to go to Switzerland. I thought, this is very strange. Why do I have to go to Switzerland? And for a few days, I didn't know. I just had this urge. I have to go to Switzerland. realized I have to go to Switzerland, take my okesa with me, and ask my parents and my siblings.

[38:39]

They would put in a few stitches. And I went to Wendy. I was working in the garden at that time and asked and told her, you know, I would like to go to Switzerland. And when is a good time? And she said, you know, actually, right now is the best time. So like seven days later, I was in Switzerland. And for me, what was amazing was when Tenshin Roshi told me, it was a funny event too. There was a phone call in the dining room. Someone called me and said, was Tenshin Roshi on the phone? And for whatever reason, I backed up before I picked it up. I mean, the receiver and then... And then he said, well, I'm on my way for vacation, but I wanted to tell you you can start sewing your orquesa. And I had this shock, you know, like this joy. I don't know what the word is, like fright or, you know, like both the same thing.

[39:47]

And I put down the receiver and I walked to the dining room. And I felt I had like this image. I can tell everybody but my father. And then I just saw our relationship. It was like this big island, and I was in a small little boat, and there was no place to land. And feelings of that all the sadness of that and all everything was just right in that picture and it was and there was no move there was no move to say but or why or why me or maybe I can change it or if I do this maybe it's different just like a still life it was just like and it lasted probably just for I mean, it lasted from one end to the dining room to the other while I was walking out.

[40:52]

So then when I felt like I have to go to Switzerland, which was like a few, that was a few while I was sewing, and I realized, oh, I have to go and ask them if they will put in a few stitches. there was this thought coming up, I don't know where it came from, definitely didn't come from my own mind, like, oh, I may even ask my father. So I did ask him, and he did put in a few stitches, and something in our relationship has changed. So I'm sitting here wearing this robe, which people from here and people from my family and my friends in Switzerland have put in stitches.

[41:55]

I wrap it around my body. And it's an image of the teaching of Buddha. So the pure faith, the name I was given, I realized actually that feeling of trust in the universe supporting life is that faith. And then when I got ordained on January 3, as a priest with Pat Leonetti and Tia, and she called us the weird sisters, which seems to fit quite well. Weirder here.

[43:01]

I was given the name Loom of Emptiness Dharma Joy. So the Dharma Joy I kept. And the other one, so now something and the names are very interesting i use them to help me remember and i think that is a big part of this whole practice is learning to remember to remember all the members remember the fundamental to remember this moment and that's all there is to remember that there is no alternative and if i put up one i suffer and the people around me suffer too then um and to remember that there is not getting anything out of it.

[44:12]

So in another training here has been very an amazing experience is like You know, the monastic structure with the schedule, and then there are these different positions that people can have, like guest student manager, you know, Tonto, Jisha, Abbott, all those, Tenzo, guest program manager, and so on. all those different positions. It's like the image I had is like you work in this valley and you work in fields for a few years. And then you get another position. And that means you're suddenly up on this ridge up there. And those positions have fit.

[45:19]

immediately have an impact, and you have a different view, and you have a different perception, and you see the same place in a different way. You see it from up there. Still the same valley, but you have a different view, a different angle, and that angle affects you back, and you have to... It rearranges, not you have to, it does rearrange your abilities and your... who you are in a different way to respond to that angle. And then you do that, you know, you're there and you get worked on. I always feel like these people work on us. It's not like we do something with them. They really do something with us. And then after a few years, you're suddenly up at Hope Cottage. Oh, you know, you suddenly have an ocean there and, you know, something back there too. And so... So I find just to be put in those structures is conveying the teaching.

[46:30]

And I start to feel like somebody could do this practice and not hear a word of the teaching. They would understand the teaching through it. through the body and through what happens, how it affects and how we get created and create simultaneously. So when I walked in last Sunday and saw that, you know, had this strong feeling that you were part of, you know, you had become my body, were in my body I also realized how much I appreciate you know how and how important it is for I think for us here that you are coming on Sundays because for me it always kept reminding me that you know it's not

[47:39]

better or worse out there than it's here. There is life there and there is life here. And I came from there and I'm going back there. And so you've been for me reminders so I didn't forget. I remembered. You were my remembrance. And the interdependence because you coming here made me put me here to talk by coming So now looking at going back and how I felt like renunciation was like losing something or having to lose everything, I feel actually I've been given abundantly.

[49:11]

I mean, I've just been given all the time. And, you know, we even say we take the precepts or are given the precepts. And they are our commitment to renunciation, but actually we're given something. We receive something. We receive life. We receive support of the universe. So now I go back and in some sense, you know, I go back and I feel like I've been given so much, but I know what I have. It's not like I know I have, but I know I have been given.

[50:11]

And so, you know, when I read those to things like the verse again, like the breeze of reality. Do you see? Continuously creation runs her lumen shuttle, weaving the ancient brocade, the forms of spring. But nothing can be done about Manjushri's leaking. and Suzuki Roshi's to resume your actual being through practice, to resume the you with everything, with Buddha, which is fully supported by everything right now. Can we feel it right now? You may say it is impossible, but it is possible.

[51:18]

You can do it. It is possible this moment. It is this moment. That you can do it in this moment means you can always do it. So if you have this confidence, this is your enlightenment experience. If you have this in your big mind, you are already a Buddhist in the true sense, even though you do not attain enlightenment. So try not to see something in particular. Try not to achieve anything special. You already have everything in quality. If you understand this ultimate fact, there is no fear. There may be difficulty, of course, but there is no fear. So I feel go home. And what is very funny is sometimes I get really afraid that I'm not afraid.

[52:26]

So I can't tell you why I am going back. It feels like I'm simply following my life. Maybe I told you something about how I'm going back to my life. seven brothers and six brothers and sisters, and my parents that are still alive, and a lot of friends that have supported me through this whole time here, and me in my body. May our intention

[53:09]

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