This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning, everyone, and good morning to those of you who are streaming the Dharma Talk. It's Labor Day weekend, and I hope you're able to have some recreation time, some rest. Labor Day is a pretty old holiday. It was established in 1894 as a national holiday, and some years before that, In New York and in Oregon, there were municipal ordinances or state ordinances maybe to have this day to recognize and honor the workers and also to give them time to enjoy some recreation and rest with their families and friends.

[01:24]

So it's... Something all of us have, or those of us who have grown up in the United States have had this holiday. And for me, it always meant school was going to happen the next day, Tuesday. Now the schools start, some start after Labor Day and some start in August. Okay. So this morning I wanted to continue with a discussion and offering that I began again. I've taught this and studied this particular teaching over the years. And I had a class this week with our work practice apprentice group who meet together weekly.

[02:27]

And I brought it up again with them. Teaching is about the teachings that have to do with upright speech. So, my eyes watered, just to let you know I'll be daubing a bit. So, upright and noble speech. the Buddha, and many teachers, the Buddha spoke about speech, upright speech. In Sanskrit, that's samyak, vak, and that word samyak or sama in Pali is not, it's translated as right, the eightfold path, right view, right intention, right speech, right livelihood, and so on. That word right, is not the right and wrong.

[03:29]

It's not like right speech and wrong speech. The right of samyak is really more like upright. Upright, complete, all going in the same direction, sometimes translated as wholesome. So it's right in that sense rather than judging what's wrong. So... right speech is one of the eight folds of the Eightfold Path. It's the third one, right view, right intention, right speech. And the Eightfold Path is divided for its study purposes into three kind of gatherings that are wisdom, concentration, and ethical or morality, ethical teachings, morality, and right view and right intention are part of wisdom or prashna, and right speech, right livelihood, and right action all come under shila or the moral ethical teachings.

[04:52]

And then Right. Mindfulness and concentration, which are the last two come under concentration. In terms of looking at the Eightfold Path and dividing it up in different ways. So the Buddha spoke about upright speech, and there's lots of stories of people asking him about speech. But basically... You could say it's distilled into what we let go of in terms of our speech and what we look at when we speak. And what we look at meaning, how come I'm saying something now? What is my motive? What is my intention? How come I want to say what I'm saying?

[05:55]

What's it about? And we can fool ourselves quite a bit around that. So I wanted to go over those. There's five keys or things to look at when wanting to speak and four things to let go of. And I've found these to be very... of handy to to reflect on when there's should I say something or not or when it's difficult to say something how can I come to a way of saying something that will meet the situation that will be in accord with the conditions that I'm in right now so there's no formula for when Right speech always will be happening if you do these things.

[06:58]

It's not that simple. It depends. It depends. And the Buddha, when asked about that, said it depends. It depends on the situation. So the four things to let go of or abandon, around our speech, our abandoning false speech, abandoning divisive speech, abandoning or let go of abusive and harsh speech. And the fourth one, which sometimes people say, wonder how did that one get on the list? But the fourth one is letting go of or abandoning frivolous talk and idle chatter.

[08:00]

So I'll say something about all four of those. I did want to, I'm going to mention the five things to be aware of, and I want to go back a little bit to our precepts around speech. The five things to be aware of when speaking, are number one, is it true? You can ask yourself these questions. Is it true what I'm about to say? Which goes along with abandoning false speech or the precept of disciple of Buddha does not lie. They're redundant. They come up in different places and they're extremely important for our lives. and the lives of everyone we come in contact with. So, to consider, when speaking, is it the truth? Is it the right time?

[09:03]

Might be true, but is now the time to bring this up with this person, or to say something? Will they be able to hear it? Are they... calm enough? Do they trust me enough? And time, that second one, which it says time, is the time right? It's time and place, really, because you don't really have time by itself. It's time and place at the same time, at the same moment. So it's not clock time, really. It's time and place. Is this the right time and place? The third one, and there's different ways these are listed, but I'll say the third one is, is it beneficial? So it may be true. It may be fine, right, time and place. But is it beneficial for this person, for the situation, for the group, for the world?

[10:08]

Is there any benefit? It may be true. However, does it... Is it beside the point to say it? So this question, is it beneficial? Will it be a beneficial action on my part? The fourth one is, does it come from an affectionate mind? Are you speaking from some place of loving kindness or affection, kindness? It may be true. It may be fine time and place. It may be beneficial. But what's my motive? Why am I, is this, is there any shadow there that I'm not looking at? Is it coming from affection? And the fifth is similar to that. Is it coming from a mind of goodwill? I feel like the mind of goodwill, beneficial action, loving kindness are all very,

[11:15]

close in some ways to each other, but you can also tease them apart. So those are something that those four abandonings, letting go of false speech, divisive speech, harsh and abusive speech, and frivolous talk and idle chatter, that's those four. And then, is it true? Is it the right time and place? Is it beneficial? Is it affectionate? True affection? And is it from the mind of goodwill? So these are practices. These are things to consider that we can turn and ask ourselves about. And in the service of living our life in accord with our vows of living for the benefit of beings and the great earth and becoming a trustworthy person, that when you speak, people trust your words and listen and

[12:44]

And also, you know, the power of speech is such that, as Dogen says in his Guide for the Bodhisattva's Way of Life, one of those is kind to speech. And in that writing, Dogen, for those of you who don't know, is an ancestor in this lineage, Japanese. wonderful teacher, and we study his teachings a lot. And in this particular teaching of kind speech, he talks about how when you hear kind speech, your whole body, you're delighted and your countenance is brightened. And also, that's if you

[13:46]

Not even if someone's talking with you kindly, we feel the effect of that very strongly and can feel the healing power of kindness. But even overhearing someone talking to someone else in a kind way, we can be affected strongly. Or even if we didn't hear it ourselves but heard about it, a kind word. kindness being offered. So it has a lot of power. And at the end of that essay about kind speech, Dogen says, kind speech can turn the destiny of the nation. So, you know, I began to study upright speech at a time when the discourse I felt was so painful to hear.

[14:52]

The kinds of words people were using, name-calling, lying, alternative realities, and so forth, at a level I had never experienced before. And it's still going on. And I felt the power of that kind of speech as well. and wanting to study for myself and with others about speech and the practice of speech because it has such a strong effect on our life together, our life in community, our life on this planet. So just... Flowing from this discussion, I wanted to turn towards our precepts. And we have in this lineage 16 precepts, many of which, you could say all of them, you can study them in the light of upright speech.

[16:06]

But some of them in particular are talking about speech, especially in the group of the ten grave precepts or major precepts. So just to name some of those, there's the precept, the wording that we're using now is a disciple of Buddha, and then it often does not do a certain thing. So a disciple of Buddha, the speech precepts, disciple of Buddha, Does not lie. That's the fourth of the ten. A disciple of Buddha does not slander. Slander is speaking about another person in order to have people think less of them, ruin their reputation. Often the slander is lying also.

[17:09]

So those two go together. maybe speak about someone's or have a critique of someone, speak about their shortcomings in a way that isn't slanderous. It comes from wanting to be of benefit, wanting to help a situation. But slander, the purpose of it is to have other people lower their opinions and for someone to lose their reputation. It's associated with libel. So disciple of Buddha does not slander. Disciple of Buddha does not praise self at the expense of others. So this is also praising ourselves. It's not that we don't speak about our strengths in terms of a job interview or, you know, wanting to do a particular job, what I can offer.

[18:11]

We're not talking about that. We're talking about praising ourself. At the expense of others by often putting someone else down or for the purpose of showing that we're better than others. So praising ourself, there is a place for that. To talk about our practice in both our strengths and our weaknesses or areas of development, that's fine. But is there more to it? So there's a precept about that. Disciple of Buddha does not praise self at the expense of others. Those are very specific about speech, and also Disciple of Buddha does not disparage the triple treasure, meaning Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, no disparagement, putting down, speaking disrespectfully about

[19:15]

the teachings and those who are practicing. So those are very specific. But the other precepts of the list of ten also could be about speech. For example, the disciple of Buddha does not kill. So we can figuratively kill with our harsh, abusive, with our criticism and put-downs and sarcasm and so forth. It can kill the spirit. It can kind of slash someone's creative impulses, you know. So there is a way that we can kill with speech. Also, a disciple of Buddha does not take what is not given, And in terms of speech, for me, I've noticed, and you probably have as well, that there are people in our lives who fill up the space with talking and their words.

[20:29]

Sometimes there's no pause. It's just one story after the other. There's no give and take. It's like taking what is not given by sucking all the air out of the room. So that's another way to think about that precept. Disciple of Buddha does not take what is not given. How we might do that with our verbal habits and ways of interacting. So all of these precepts, can be turned through this lens of upright speech, upright and complete and noble speech. I looked at my clock, my watch, when I first came in here, and it stopped.

[21:36]

So I'm going to need to ask. I can't. for myself, it said 8.20. Oh, now it says quarter to 8. What time is it? It's about right. Okay, so it's working, but it's not telling the right time. Yeah. Ooh, okay. Well, I'm going to set this right now. Okay. So... I feel like there's so many things I want to tell you, stories, and I'll do my best to share with you some things around this study that I want to share with you. I was recently speaking with someone who told me about... It was a very... brief story.

[22:39]

They were just telling me about their sister who got into this altercation in a parking lot with these other people, and it didn't turn into fisticuffs or anything, but it was unpleasant and yelling, and this person I spoke with felt they had to kind of get out of there. And as they were driving away, her sister kept saying, I didn't do anything wrong. I didn't. The sister was saying something to these people about, I don't know, their car, something. I don't know the details. But she kept saying, I didn't do anything wrong over and over. And her sister was, like, getting annoyed. It's like this big altercation happened. And where is there the self-reflection? Like, what just happened there? How might have I acted? in a different way, or did I need to say such and such?

[23:39]

Because it ended up in something, you know, rancorous and unpleasant, and, you know, in certain circumstances, it could have risen to danger. This wasn't, didn't go that place, but as we know, road rage and so forth. But the sister just kept holding to I didn't do anything wrong. Like, it was all them. And that, it was a difficult, like, how do you say to someone, well, what about reflecting on what has happened here, your actions, your speech? But it was really holding to this fixed view. They're to blame. It was all them. And I'm blameless and innocent and, you know, and in this person telling me this story, because I've been turning right speech, I've thought about this holding to fixed views and the inability often to step back and often to calm down maybe and to ask, what happened?

[25:00]

Where was I? Was that necessary to make the comment? Could I have walked on by? What was going on? Why did I get involved? These are questions because it's never 100% the other person. It's in terms of difficult conversations and conflict. There's contributions that we make. And we may not be so aware of our contribution. So it's worthy of our attention. What was going on for me? What body language was going on? Maybe I didn't say anything, but I expressed something. So I think that really came strongly to me about how we turn... especially when difficulties happen like this, where we contributed and how.

[26:04]

And maybe we don't know. I don't know what happened there. And then we can ask. You know, sometimes we've been offensive. There's microaggressions. There's cultural insensitivity, all sorts of things. And we say, but I didn't do anything wrong. When actually... What happened there was our eye of practice did not reach to this situation. We weren't as aware of what was going on and who we were speaking with, maybe, or the situation. So it's not about right and wrong. It's about skillful means. So to be able to ask, What happened there? I'm not sure what happened there. Can you tell me? Rather than, well, I didn't mean it.

[27:07]

I didn't, you know, this falling back to our intention is extremely important. If we intend to be cruel, intend to be, you know, divisive and create fractions, if that's our intent, that's something to know. But often our intent isn't that. but we're not skilled enough. Or, as I said, our eye of practice doesn't reach. So to be able to ask, maybe the person you're with can't say, but maybe talking with somebody else, they can reflect on it with you. And in this way, I think we grow and develop really the art of living. this life together with one another. So I wanted to tell this story that I heard in July.

[28:16]

I was in Sweden leading a seven-day sesheen. And after the sesheen, I went to a wonderful museum in Stockholm. a modern museum, and they had a show, an installation, by Laurie Anderson, the artist and singer and, you know, visual artist. And she, it was a full installation with video and immersive kinds of experiences. And one room where there was, it was a, painted black walls with white writing all over the ceiling, all over the walls. And then there was these home movies. So I watched this part of the installation and heard her tell this story that struck me so strongly.

[29:18]

And I wanted to... And I've asked myself now, why did this... hit me so strongly, this story. And in terms of speech, I... And I think I have an insight or a sense of how come, but I'll tell you the story. So Lori Anderson is from the Midwest. I think she grew up in Chicago, and I grew up in St. Paul, so the winters are cold and... The lakes freeze and the river freezes and people skate. Anyway, she used to go to the movies and then take a shortcut across the lake, the frozen lake near her house. She was with her twin three-year-old brothers. She was eight years old. She was with her twin three-year-old brothers who were in a stroller.

[30:19]

And she had been at the movies with them, I think. And it was later in the day, and the moon was rising, maybe a full moon. And she wanted to show them the moon. So she cut across the frozen lake with the stroller. And as she's going along the lake, on the lake, the ice broke, and the stroller went in. And her first thought was, my mother's going to kill me, was immediately. And then she threw off her coat, and she dove down into the icy water, and feeling around, and she couldn't feel. She came back up, and she went down again. And she felt one of them, and got him out, brought him up, put him on the ice, and then she went down again. and couldn't find her second brother.

[31:20]

And the stroller went down again. Finally, she found the stroller, unhooked him, got the second brother out, and carrying them, screaming under her arms, she ran home. And her mother looked at her, and she told her the story of what happened. And her mother said, What a good swimmer you are. What a good diver you are. I didn't know you could dive. What a good swimmer. That's the story. And she didn't mention. The mother did not mention. I mean, you can imagine somebody else, what they might have said. and how they might have interacted. Somehow that story just went so deep in my heart, the life-changing words from her mother, and how it could have changed her life into such a traumatic, horrible event, but instead she was the...

[32:44]

She was the hero. She was the heroine. She saved the day with her courage and her skill and was praised and lauded and thanked. But how easily it could have been something totally different that she, the burden of that, she would have carried her whole life, right? So Thinking about this story and thinking about the mother, it's an amazing story to me, you know, that the mother went immediately to words of kindness and praise and to the heart of the matter, which was, what a good diver, what courage, that's what happened rather than... How stupid, how could you? You almost killed your brothers, you know, and screaming.

[33:46]

No, she went to the heart of the matter and dropped off all the other what could have been said and went right heart-to-heart, intimate language with her daughter about and out of love. So this kind of speech, you know, can we, you know, I find it so heartening and so that human beings have that possibility to speak those words that are true and upright and complete. Nothing was left out. and the power of those words. I wanted to read you something by the Dharma teacher from the 100s, 1091, Hongjir.

[35:00]

And he talks about people of the way. And... You know, I don't know Laurie Anderson's mother in terms of People of the Way, capital W, Dharma practitioner. Laurie Anderson is a Dharma practitioner, and I don't know about her mother. But anyway, People of the Way journey through the world, responding to conditions, carefree and without restraint. And I'm going to come back to this restraint in a minute. Like clouds finally raining. Like moonlight following the current. Like orchids growing in shade. Like spring arising in everything. They act without mind. They respond with certainty.

[36:04]

And when I read that, I felt like that was... was what happened there. There was certainty and responding and nothing special, just like orchids growing in the shade. So in this first part where people of the way journey through the world responding to conditions, carefree and without restraint, all those precepts that I mentioned at the beginning of the talk or in the talk, They're called the collection or precepts of restraint. These are restraining from our habitual way of doing things. And, you know, we don't like to be restrained often. I think there's a negative connotation to restrain. Like, I want to be free and carefree. Why are you restraining me? However, If we're going to develop skills and cultivate our life in such a way that we can meet and respond to conditions carefree and with certainty, we do need to work with our tendencies, to work with our habits.

[37:28]

And that often means a disciple of Buddha does not. But there's a... different and deeper meaning to the word restraint, which is what I want to add to this. So this is thinking about the kind of connotation of restraint as being bound in some way. In this marvelous sutra called the Avatamsaka Sutra, or the Flower Sutra, Garland Sutra, it talks about when the Buddha woke up. Actually, the whole sutra is spoken from the Buddha under the Bodhi tree when the Buddha awakened to true nature. And when the Buddha awoke to the Buddha's true nature in the Avatamsaka Sutra and other sutras also, it is said that he said,

[38:34]

I together with all sentient beings and the great earth awaken. I together with all sentient beings and the great earth awaken. And this is the original enlightenment of Buddha's wisdom. This saying of the Buddha, this teaching that All of us and the great earth are completely awakened. The teacher, who's pretty contemporary, 1900s, who Suzuki Roshi studied with, or studied with his teacher, named Oka Sotan, said, Out of this, I, together with the great earth and all beings, attain the way.

[39:38]

This is the precepts of restraint. The restraint is that I am not separate and I together with all beings and the great earth. Everything are together. These are the precepts of restraint. To me, that's a kind of remarkable way to think about our precepts and the precepts of restraint. It's not Don't do this and no, no, no, and you shouldn't and you shouldn't. It's because I, together with all beings and the great earth, am interconnected and together out of that teaching, out of that truth, I do not take what is not given. I do not lie. I do not misuse sexuality. I do not slander. Not because I'm being a good girl. And, you know, doing, you know, keeping the precepts because that's what good little girls and boys and non-binary beings do.

[40:51]

It's not about that. It's because I, together with all beings and the great earth, am awake. These are the Buddha. That's why they're called Buddha's precepts. All those precepts that are, couched in the language of a disciple of Buddha does not. These flow from this teaching of I together with all beings and the great earth are not separate and are one great suchness. And so I do not harbor ill will. This is a very, you know, it's a kind of wider view of our Mahayana precepts. And I think we can learn the literal disciple of Buddha does not, but not forgetting the context of where these are flowing from.

[42:03]

For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[42:28]

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