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. Good evening. One said, without attachment... you cannot love anyone, but still you have to love someone, then what will be your love? So this will be the central koan for this evening. And I see this is kind of a vital predicament to deepen our practice. So again, it's without attachment, you cannot love anyone, but still you have to love someone then what will be your love?

[01:00]

How will we love? How is our love diluted and attached? How is it wise and free? How is it suffering? How is it awakening? How is suffering and awakening separate and opposed, and how are they intimate? How is our love embracing our lives and accepting? How is our love endlessly engaging in the world? What is love in the light of Buddhism, and in the light of our lives, and how do these converse? In early Buddhism, attachment is often taught as a basic cause of suffering, and it sounds basically antithetical to awakening. When we grasp or attach onto things, we become subject to them. And because of holding on, we get tossed about and turned as things inevitably change.

[02:07]

And maybe if there was something permanent and actually reliable, we could attach to that and not get tossed about. But basically the teaching is there's nothing we can grasp like that. And so whatever we grasp, we're going to suffer. And so attachment and the things we do out of attachment drive cyclic suffering. And you could think of it like a merry-go-round and there's these handles and you grab onto the handle. It's kind of fun at first, but then we get sick and it changes and we get thrown off and then we just keep doing this. So there's a big emphasis on non-attachment, non-grasping in our practice, in this tradition. Sometimes it's said it's the essence of practice.

[03:14]

And we can distinguish some different dimensions of non-grasping. One is kind of clinging or grasping to things or people as sources of happiness or fulfillment. And this is kind of emotional grasping. Kind of pertains to sensuous attachment. Another kind of dimension of grasping is grasping at ourself or anything in terms of what we think. And thinking and grasping our ideas as how things are or what they are. Suzuki Roshi said, without attachment, you cannot love anyone. And it might be that even giving up these two forms of attachment, there's kind of maybe a more subtle type of attachment that he's talking about here. Are there subtle bonds that form even basically when our love is quite pure?

[04:28]

Sometimes the Buddha talks about love or love and kindness. In the Metta Sutta, he talks about a broad and universal love, a heart that embraces all beings. Even as a mother at the risk of her life watches over and protects her only child, so with a boundless mind should one cherish all living things, all living beings. And we could say that all of Buddha's teaching activities enact love. They manifest a heart of love, a deep, open, compassionate regard to everyone he met. And we can wonder, is there attachment in this love? And if there isn't, is it really love? And can we have a religion of freedom that's also a religion of love and engagement? Near the end of his life, the Buddha was leaving the city of Vishali for the last time.

[05:41]

And this is a very beautiful city. He went there many times over his teaching career. And it was kind of famous for its beautiful gardens and groves and shrines and ponds. And as he's leaving, he looks back and he does this thing called the elephant's look. He turns to Ananda and says, this is the last time that the Takata will look upon Vishali. So this elephant's look is he turned his whole body around. So he didn't kind of just like, oh, but kind of like turned his whole body, faced his whole heart, his whole being towards Vishali. And I don't know what, you know, if the traditional commentaries say about this, but I feel like he's saying goodbye and that there's some grieving. So is there attachment? Does a Buddha grieve?

[06:43]

And part of what's also kind of stirring here for me is this word attachment. So in this Buddhist context, it has a negative connotation of a cause of suffering. But in developmental psychology, attachment is positive. It refers to an emotional bond. than a sense of connectedness. And to some extent, there's a feeling like we need attached relationships to become people. And actually, in Buddhist teachings, the word yoga has a similar kind of multivalent quality. So most basically, yoga means the act of joining, attaching, or harnessing. And it's probably etymologically related to the word for yoke, like to yoke something. And so yoga can mean bringing together, connecting, union, and in that sense is used as a positive image of practice and realization.

[07:57]

But yoga can also mean a bond or a fetter, and it refers to attachments that keep us sunk in suffering. So a bond is something that can trap and ensnare us, and it can also express this deep sense of connection, kinship, marriage, the truth of relationship, the truth of how everything that we are happens through relationship with everything else. In a sense, it may be that we get involved with grasping and attaching to things as a kind of confusion about how to realize this truth of relationship. This truth of relationship, or this intimacy with everything, with all things, is ungraspable. And we can't know it, but we kind of need to know it.

[09:00]

We need to realize it. And so... where things go awry is when we try to realize it through grasping. And then this also gives our grasping a lot of potency because it's acting from a deep need, a need to realize our true nature. In a sense, we could see how we could love without attachment, where attachment refers to grasping. Attachment or grasping can be, in a sense, unloving. I have two children, and one of the challenges and joys of having children is to love them as changing miracles

[10:06]

And this is a challenge because when they're these little babies, they're so wonderful. You don't want them to grow up. And my son right now is a toddler, and he's so free. And I don't want him to take on the weight of the world. Anyway, it's some attachment. And this kind of challenge is true in any relationship. If we grasp onto some version of anyone we love, we can't totally meet that person as they are. Because we're always changing. So we have ideas about each other. And in our practice, we study our ideas. We see our ideas. We try to see how we're grasping our ideas and find a sense of spaciousness. we do need our ideas.

[11:08]

We don't try to get rid of them, but when we grasp them, we miss a world beyond our ideas. If we don't grasp them, we can open to each person in our life as an ocean, as a changing sky. And our non-grasping, in this sense, is one of the greatest gifts we can give to anyone we love. And studying our attachment is one of the greatest gifts we can give to anyone we love. Still, Suzuki Roshi says, without attachment, you cannot love anyone. So some kind of attachment, some kind of bond. Um... We could say also that non-attachment is not detachment. Our non-attachment needs to be coupled or balanced with non-detachment.

[12:10]

And so this is, you could look at this like a middle way, a middle way between grasping, clinging, and attachment, and pushing away denial and detachment. And this middle way, it's not necessarily like the average way or the halfway point, or kind of a 50-50 mixture. It's actually kind of inconceivable middle, or you could say a contradictory middle, or a middle of unobtainable depths. So it's not necessarily kind of a gray area. It might be like an unspeakable chasm or a verdant valley buzzing with life. a middle way of non-attachment and non-detachment. And it's filled with life and love and joy and the bond between all beings. And it's filled with loss and tragedy and grief.

[13:14]

And it's embracing our actual lives. Genjo Koan. writing by Dogen, Ehe Dogen, opens like this. When all dharmas are the Buddha dharma, there is delusion and realization, practice, life and death, Buddhas and living beings. When the 10,000 dharmas are without a self, there is no realization, no delusion, no Buddhas, no living beings, no birth, no death. Since the Buddha way by nature goes beyond abundancy and efficiency, There is birth and death, delusion and realization, living beings and Buddhas. And yet, flowers fall even though we are attached to them. Weeds grow even though we are averse to them. So I want to focus on that last phrase. There's a lot happening in the first three phrases.

[14:27]

basically you could say they're unfolding truth or kind of like a realized vision of everything. But I want to focus on this fourth phrase, and yet flowers fall even though we are attached to them. Weeds grow even though we are averse to them. And that this and yet is kind of, it's a pivot point in this opening. And it kind of pivots to another mode of expression. The first three sentences are kind of abstract, and this fourth one has a kind of different kind of concreteness. And it kind of, in a way, you could say it takes us from the ideal into the actual, or from something more philosophical into something more like poetry. And you could say from objective truth into subjective life. From impermanence as birth and death, which is also empty and non-dual, to the following blossoms. to the loss of what we in our actual lives love and cherish and growing weeds, the stuff that we actually really don't want to arise.

[15:40]

And so part of what you could say is happening in this pivot is how do objective truths or the truths of the tradition live in our subjective lives? How do they live in our hearts? So I feel like Suzuki Roshi, so he says, you know, we cannot love without attachment. You cannot love anyone, but still you need to love someone. So in this, but still I hear this same, this end yet, and yet flowers fall, even though we attach to them. Flowers fall and it's heartbreaking and there's a loss and grief And weeds grow and it's distressing and vexing. New tragedies unfold every day. And we let ourselves be touched by these things. And we need to love even though there's attachment in that love and it's a setup for suffering.

[16:48]

Um... We can find, there's another and yet, that's kind of famous, and a poem by Isa. He wrote a poem on the death of one of his children. The world of dew is the world of dew, and yet, and yet. So this first part, the world of dew is the world of dew, I hear this again as this more kind of an objective truth. or impermanence as a fact, universal, no grasping, no escape, unavoidable. And then there's these two and yets, and they could take open into a big space or big spaces, a big space filled with grief, a big space filled with love. The world of do is the world of do, and yet it's heartbreaking.

[18:00]

and yet we are made deeper and more whole through living through brokenheartedness. The world of dew is the world of dew, and yet it is perfect, and yet it is almost unendurable. I've heard a contemporary Japanese Zen teacher named Tangen, Tangen Roshi was something like, is the world really perfect just as it is with so much suffering? And he replied, yes. And as he said this, there was a tear in his eye. So this and yet, or this but still is a kind of a pivot from the light of the tradition, the light of the teachings, the light of the Dharma, to the light of our life, to the light of our truths, or you could say, to the light of the self.

[19:12]

Or from perfect truth to imperfect us. And we see various things happen in this pivot. Isa just leaves this big open space where you could say his actual life is. And Genjo Koan gives this poem, flowers fall even though we attach to them. And Tangen Roshi offers a tear. And Suzuki Roshi says, still you have to love someone. So how does the teaching meet our lives? How is there a conversation or a dialogue? And how are we turned and how is the teaching turned? And I can hear the same pivot in Dogen's, what they call Dogen's great doubt. You know, we all have Buddha nature. Yet, why is it that we need to practice? The Chinese Zen master Yunmin taught, every day is a good day.

[20:19]

And Reb, one of the teachers at San Francisco Zen Center once said about this. Every day is a good day to suffer. In terms of practice, I would offer that this is to be as vulnerable as we actually are. To basically choose to be a sitting duck in the inevitability of impermanence. to embrace being a sitting duck. Or you could say commit to being a sitting duck as an expression of engagement and love in the world. And it's also, it's basically to choose to let ourselves be set up for suffering because this is a path of love, a path with heart, the deepest way through life.

[21:23]

We're vulnerable. We're vulnerable to everything. But particularly, we're vulnerable to impermanence, to change and loss. Impermanence is not really something that happens to us and everyone we love. It's actually our nature. And when we, you know, a denial, like an urge to escape, to squirm away, we live in a partial version of our lives. And that, as a way of life, is not fulfilling. Sometimes we need to take breaks, but taking a break is not a way of life. When Sachujo, a great disciple of Hakuin, was old, she lost her granddaughter, and this grieved her very much. An old man from the neighborhood came and admonished her.

[22:31]

Why are you wailing so much? If people hear this, they'll say, that lady was once studied with Hakuin and was enlightened. So now why is she mourning her granddaughter so much? You ought to lighten up a bit. And Satu Jo glared at her neighbor and scolded him. You bald-headed fool, what do you know? My tears and weeping are better for my granddaughter than incense, flowers, and lamps. The old man left without a word. So I hear this as saying that non-grasping does not mean that we don't mourn. We do mourn with great feeling. and we cry, and we laugh, and we're human. And Satya Jo says, she says, my tears and weeping are better for my granddaughter, or you could say they're for her granddaughter.

[23:36]

And, you know, as a dad, I feel like my children have awoken a love in my heart that I never knew of before, and I actually don't feel like I did it. I feel like they call it forth. I feel like they call it forth because they need it. They need this total love to live. In some versions of the story of the Buddha, we're told that he left his son to go off and seek awakening. And To some extent, Buddha leaving his home becomes a prototype for ordination. The term for ordination is going forth, pravraja. And I participate in this tradition when I shave my head as a priest practice, cutting the hairs, cutting through attachments, which can include, you could say, attachment to family.

[24:46]

And my parental heart has a problem with Shakyamuni leaving his son. I can't get around it. It just... It feels like irresponsible parenting. And I... But I... Anyway, I feel encouraged by the tradition of Buddhism to live with it critically. So what is this cutting through attachment? And is there love implicit in renunciation? And love could be the heart of renunciation. but we might need to underline this.

[25:52]

How do we love without reservation, with no holding back, as the way that awakening lives in the world? And to really live with our vulnerability our practice and our awakening are not an escape, but totally in the mess of being human, being a person, being in this world, being in this country, in this culture. We give our hearts to each other. We love our children, our friends, our lives, our world. And yet, This is a setup for suffering, a setup for pain, for loss and grief, and yet it's the life of awakening, a life of truth. We love, and there's attachment in our love, and we do our best to love with our eyes open, knowing that our vulnerability and our life are so intimate.

[27:15]

And so we work to embrace our whole life. We don't seek freedom from pain, grief, and suffering, but a freedom in suffering, a freedom in grief, or freedom as deepening engagement in the realm of suffering, a freedom of embracing our lives. The awakening that we need is an awakening that lives in the world completely here, that lives in suffering. A nirvana that's not the tiniest bit apart from samsara. Suzuki Roshi asks, what will be your love? And love's kind of a messy word. There's spiritual love, selfless love, romantic love, passionate love, platonic love, parental love, sentimental love, free love, falling in love.

[28:22]

In Zen, we often don't hear love very much. It's often not mentioned. And actually, my wife Sarah, she said, you should call this talk the L word. But anyway, you know, Suzuki Roshi used it, and somehow, you know, of his, you know, all of his teachings, for whatever reason, this is the one that I was drawn to. Sometimes when we talk about love, it might be a feeling, or we might talk about it as something that happens to us. Love can be a truth of our hearts. It can be a bond of attachment. Love can also be caring and taking care, caring activities, a form of engagement, giving. How the truth of our heart is actually lived in the world through what we do.

[29:27]

And for many of us, a good life or a meaningful life involves loving relationships. Loving is a great gift of life, a deep source of meaning. And our hearts have unlimited capacity to love. We can give all our love and never use it up. And we need to find ways of meeting the difficult stuff in our lives and ourselves and others that does not push love away, that allows love to deepen and grow. And love brings us into a deeper engagement in the world. You could also say it enacts our ungraspable nature, or love is how awakening acts in the world. Suzuki Roshi also said about love, with big mind and with pure sincerity and respect, the love could be real love.

[30:35]

Just love separated from those factors will not work. So maybe we could say, you know, a small version of love will not work. A limited or simply emotional version of love won't work. Love needs to engage the whole truth of what we are. It needs big mind. It needs sincerity coming from the deepest parts of ourselves. It needs respect. Respect lets each person and each thing be itself. Don't hold onto our ideas too tightly. So it might be that without attachment, we cannot love anyone, and it's a love with big mind and sincerity and respect. It's a love with attention and creativity and insight.

[31:37]

It's not just a blind love. It's a love informed by our practice, and it's still a love that hurts. There's no invulnerable love. We are knowingly and willingly vulnerable. Suzuki Roshi asks, what will be your love? And I think I call this a koan Because I feel like we can let this question become endlessly deep and subtle and alive. This is a path of freedom and non-attachment. And it's also a path of love and attachment. talking about a koan, it might be like shining a flashlight into the night sky.

[32:52]

And in a sense, like, nothing's illuminated, except the extent of the darkness. And we can see, like, this is not a small room. This is not a big room. This is the vast sky. Suzuki Roshi also said, you are perfect just as you are and you could use some improvement. Our world is perfect just as it is and it can use a lot of improvement. The universe is perfect just as it is and it needs our practice. Freedom grows wings, love grows roots. Is there a contradiction between a path of freedom and a path of love? And can there be a contradiction and no conflict?

[33:58]

And in Zen, we often like impossible binds. If you speak 30 blows, if you don't speak 30 blows. So can we let this contradiction and this... inconceivable middle, breathe. Impermanence is truth, impermanence is loss, death, impermanence is freedom, beauty, sorrow. Can we let this contradiction live? What will be your love? Can you let this question work? Enjoy it. Let it be your good friend. You could say holding a question like this is like beginner's mind. If we figure it out and we close the inquiry, we lose the contradiction and we use the life and the creativity of the contradiction.

[35:09]

Can we let this question go deeper and deeper into our presence with our whole life? And then can we let it be expressed through everything we do, manifesting more and more broadly? So how does truth meet our lives? As our lives constantly unfold, this encounter between truth and our life constantly unfolds. It doesn't stop turning. We need to endlessly unfold the depth of this practice. Realization needs to be renewed ongoingly and dynamically. You could also say constantly going beyond. making impossible vows to save all beings.

[36:25]

No end to falling flowers and growing weeds. No end to suffering. No end to practice and realization. No end to love and freedom and awakening. Thank you very much. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving.

[37:21]

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