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. So I'm trying out a new cam camera. Can you hear me okay? Yeah. Okay. So let me know if it stops working. I'll just switch back to my laptop. The notion that's been coming up for me in the last week is the notion of paradox. And I was inspired by that notion. in a couple of ways it came up.

[01:01]

Here was the principal one. It was, there's a workshop at Zen Center this evening, or sponsored by Zen Center, and the paradoxical practices of racial justice by Claire Whitmer in Casa Paglia, in both wonderful, Bodhisattvas in the realm of justice, social change, diversity. Those issues that seem to be heightened in our society. Here in the U.S. and I think in other places too. And I wanted to read. So they sent us questions. And I want to read just the first question. Questions for contemplation. in preparation for the workshop.

[02:04]

Can you identify one or two paradoxes or opposing views that exist inside yourself? What connections do you make between these personal paradoxes and the paradoxes that you witness in the collective? I assume the collective there means society, community. What does paradox feel like in your body? How do you make room to hold it? When I read those questions, I thought, okay, if you can exhaustively and thoroughly answer those questions, you should be probably teaching warp shocks on the subject. They're wonderful questions. It reminded me of the first time I read Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. I read about six pages, and then I paused, and then I closed the book, and I thought, okay, it's going to take me quite a while to get, to engage what's proposed right there.

[03:24]

And at the same time, dare I say, paradoxically, I was deeply impressed by these questions that they proposed. And then there's four more sets of questions, many of them equally as formidable. It's such as the times in which we're living, right? I think if we had any one of the challenges we have now, global warming, pandemic, the economic impact of the pandemic, the turmoil in the politics in the US and in many ways globally, then this great social unrest around diversity, institutional prejudice, racial prejudice, and injustice.

[04:47]

If we had any one of them to confront, we would feel challenged. And we have them all. It reminds me of the bodhisattva vows. Okay, this is impossible. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to practice with them. Countless sentient beings, I vow to awaken with them. there is an extraordinary way in which the challenges confront us.

[05:50]

And then I think there's a way in which they can intimidate, overwhelm, or they can draw out of us more than we thought we were capable of. And of course, the paradox within us is this innate wish for well-being. Our own well-being, the well-being of the people close to us that we're intimate, that we love. The well-being of... societal identities we have whether it's our nationalism our race or zen center or whatever and i would say it's it's my experience that we have an inclination a deep tendency to promote that well-being

[07:03]

And maybe we could say our practice is straightforward. Just sustain that well-being, just expand it to include everyone. And yet, I think there's a profound challenge there for us. I think of the paradox of... the story of how Shakyamuni awakened, you know, the trajectory of it, that he left all the physical luxuries and abundance of his life and entered the unknown, apparently an apt student of the way, He became proficient in many skills.

[08:09]

And yet, still felt obliged to go beyond those skills and discover something profoundly authentic. And one version of this story is that quite literally... he brought himself to the brink of death through his own stubborn misinterpretation of what it is to practice. And only through the coincidental generosity of a younger was he able to turn and shift out of his ingrained way of being and realize the true nature of all existence. You know, whether it's true or not, it has become, for many of the Zen religions and sects, it has become the definitive story of his awakening.

[09:32]

It's somehow stubbornness, failure, set the stage for radical shift. And then that enabled and you would be... Maybe this is at the heart of... paradoxes of our life. Maybe this is at the heart of the challenges that arise in our life. I have a friend, and many years ago, she's a Jungian analyst, and she decided to go and interview people who had somehow survived through many disadvantages and challenges and thrived.

[10:47]

And for each of them, according to her explorations, there was some capacity to turn the challenges and find the resources to respond in a, maybe we could say, courageous way. One story that sticks out. And then some of that were profound and inspirational statements that we could all hear and think, oh, yes. if I could take that to heart and live that, I could see its transformative power. But some of them were almost quizzically trite. Like one I think of was one lady who was a human rights lawyer and successful.

[12:01]

But in her childhood, her mother, Her mother was a single parent. She had two sons and her and the daughter. She was the eldest. She was three or four years older than the boys. Her mother was addicted to crack and died when she was about eight or nine. And she not only raised herself and her brothers, but somehow she managed to go to college get a law degree and become a renowned public activist. And when my friend interviewed her, she said, how did you do it? How did you not just succumb to the adversities and sort of somehow collapse under their weight? And she said, when I was in school,

[13:08]

I think it was when she was about nine, the teacher said to her, believe in yourself and do your best. And she said, every time an adversity would come up that felt overwhelming or impossible, I would recall that phrase and it sustained me. There's something about that that I find extraordinary. I think we can all understand and resonate with powerful, inspiring stories or statements of wisdom. But this sort of everyday phrase, do your best.

[14:09]

And maybe as a question, within the paradoxes, within the challenges of your life, what is the vow, what is the intentionality that sustains you? Maybe we can even offer ourselves the notion that without the challenges, the engaging the vow of life might not become apparent and we might not learn how to engage it and let it be our true story. So when I read this opening statement of their workshop this evening, Paradoxical Practices of Racial Justice, in this time of social, racial and ecological turmoil, we're faced with the need to act urgently and slowly and to activate and to pause.

[15:42]

This is just one of the many paradoxes we are practicing as we seek to show up for racial and environmental justice. How can we apply this framework to engage with social change? I would say, how do we apply it to engage in personal change? And I'll talk in a moment. how that's considered within, to my mind, within Zen practice and Buddhist practice. And how the personal and the interpersonal are woven together. That's why I was struck by the skillfulness of saying, can you identify within yourself, What are the paradigms that operate within your own being?

[16:55]

Because quite likely you take them forward to operate within the collective being. What we learned in our family of origin and how it influenced us is both in a way our guide and for many of us, maybe all of us, Our challenge. How many of us have thought, and maybe still do think, I'm not going to do it the way my parents do it. And of course, our parents lived in the time and culture they lived in. My parents lived in a time and culture where smoking two packs of cigarettes every day, was kind of average. Nowadays, I think most of us would see that as quite awful.

[18:02]

As someone who doesn't smoke, it occurs to me that way. But this notion of a relationship between our vow, our intentionality about our being, the adversities, the challenges, difficulties that are in our life, and the process of liberation. And then this added notion that comes up in the description of this workshop, that it has societal application. I had the good fortune to be one of four teachers who teach a course on Buddhist chaplaincy.

[19:16]

And it's a year-long course, and we started... last weekend, and I was thinking, and there's 32 people, I mean, that's how many people we can take. As we were sitting there beginning the course, I was thinking, how amazing, all these people have come to do this, not to rule, some sense of material gain, but from some sense of being of service. And I was thinking, isn't it amazing that we have that capacity? In the midst of being hardwired in terms of ensuring and endeavoring to ensure our own survival,

[20:20]

our own well-being, our own security and safety, and similarly with those who love, as I mentioned before. And yet, in the midst of that, this nobility of spirit can rise up. We can generously say, I want to be of service. something in us can turn. That it can turn from being singular or limited to collective and in a way unlimited. And within Mahayana Buddhism, this is...

[21:21]

the bodhisattva. And we have our prescribed way, which we will chant at the end of this talk, of expressing it. And I would say, there's a challenge for each of us who ascribe to this way of practicing, with the human life, to take it and to translate it into a feeling, an articulation, a set of activities that enacts it and deeply informs us, maybe even inspires us. I would say, actually, personally, much more than inspires us.

[22:24]

Sometimes the sustenance of our life, sustaining our efforts and our engagement, we learn as much as when we're puzzled, confused, and unclear, and we still engage. As we do. when we're inspired and our heart is open and light and engaging comes readily, easily. Or as the Buddhists, one of the Buddhist koans says, it's as natural as reaching for a pillow in the night. You're half asleep and you just reach for the pillow to make your head a little bit more comfortable. So these people have signed up for this course.

[23:29]

And so far, as far as I can tell, we're a lovely group of people. Not really much of a surprise given that they're willing to devote this much time to being of service to others. And as I was contemplating this being of service, and how does Zen hold this? Here's the notion I came up with. There's threefold way of thinking about it. One aspect is immersion. that we rather than settle for living in the world according to my narrative, or maybe more accurately, living inside my narrative and the concerns and responses and desires my narrative creates,

[25:02]

We live in the here and now. We coexist with what the world is. And I think the challenges of our life, in a way, they make that demand of us. Can you live in the world that you're part of? albeit imperfect, albeit at times frustrating, worrisome, what will we do in response to global warming? Here on the West Coast of the United States, we're coming, hopefully, we're coming to the close of an extraordinary set of wildfires, forest fires.

[26:15]

This seems to be our reality. This seems to be the environment in which we have to deal with. pandemic, the racial, the systemic racism, and the accompanying injustice. Is it foolish to think that meeting them courageously, honestly, and endeavoring to with them can teach us wisdom and compassion. I would offer you that question as a card.

[27:28]

But of course it's a paradigm. Of course, as the Bodhisattva vow says, the interconnectedness of being is vast. To consider that you can resolve something or fix something is foolish. And yet, do we have a choice? We have a choice if we wish for our collective existence to flourish. If we wish for our individual being, if there is such a thing, and the ways we can live inside our old habits.

[28:43]

if we wish to discover the path of liberation, we have a choice other than to meet it. Brings to mind a poem by Amelia Earhart, a female aviator in a time when women weren't allowed to do such things, and she decided to fly around the world and actually disappeared somewhere over the oceans. She wrote a poem about the courage of trying and how it's the price you pay for being alive that you give yourself over to the challenge that's presented to you. In the realm of chaplaincy and social work, there's a notable figure who about 30 years ago came up with the notion of the wounded healer and renowning.

[29:56]

And the notion was that you're not of service and of beneficial service to others because you're so wonderful, because you have everything figured out. you have all the answers in in in your supreme wisdom and compassion and you can take pity on others and tell them what they need to be doing or help them do what they need to be doing but it's a more interactive process that you you join with them that from your own woundedness, from your own struggle, from your own sense of limitation. Out of that, the nobility, the expansiveness of being of service arises. And I would say, existentially, spiritually,

[31:09]

There's that question. How does it? And to me, it's so intriguing that in the story of Shakyamuni, that it's almost coincidental. He studied diligently the wisdom and the techniques of the traditions that existed. He went off and went on this journey into the unknown. And then a coincidental generosity turned to me. To me, it's an intriguing paradigm. And I think when we look at the epic stories,

[32:12]

of many wisdom traditions, and I would say wisdom and compassion traditions, there is the epic journey, there is the moment of deep trial, and something turns. How do we do that? in the chaplaincy course that we teach. And I would say this, each of us has this in life one way or another. There's certain skills that we teach. Okay, you need to have a rudimentary knowledge of these kinds of dynamics that come up for people as they go through their grieving, as they go through their stress. It's good to have a rudimentary knowledge of these kinds of interpersonal dynamics.

[33:16]

It's good to have a rudimentary knowledge of how to relate to people, how to identify people's distress and relate skillfully. Who of us doesn't need those skills? Who of us doesn't have places within themselves, within their friends and family, within their wider scope of society where those skills aren't being asked? And the morals and the ethics that support them. So in a way, there is something quite definite. Not to say that it's easy to apply it, not to say that we don't then need to take the principles and find out how to apply them.

[34:37]

Well, of course we do. Life is not a theoretical proposition. Life is an existential lived proposition. So how do we do that? But then there's something else. Something I think that's akin to this notion of being of service. This notion of being of service. that something within us attunes to, aspires to, an experience of greater being. Something in us that knows that the self-concerned preoccupation is a limitation.

[35:41]

Yes, almost all of us, maybe all of us, have our wounds, have the things that happened in our lives that caused us pain and difficulty and challenge. And within us, the impulse to contract, the impulse to create our coping mechanisms, our defenses, and then the psychological dimension of it, our resentments, or our fearful memories. And yet, very same experiences can be a basis for greater meaning in what is the alchemy that creates it and it's interesting because in Zen practice and I would say most spiritual traditions

[37:15]

whether they're religious or otherwise, attempt to take up those questions. It is in practice this notion of immersion. The deliberate endeavor to notice, acknowledge, and experience what's going on. Inside. Interpersonally. And as this workshop this evening. Is proposing societally. Within our society. And how wonderfully it matches. You know. The. Statements. Beings are numberless.

[38:18]

I vow to awaken. So immersion, be in the here and now. Otherwise, we're caught in the intrigues of the narrative we're creating. We're caught in living out, reliving, our habitual emotional patterns, the patterns of memory that we have of our fundamental development and how it's still influencing us. Our ingrained psychological being that we tend to overlay

[39:19]

onto the experiences we're having on an everyday basis? Can we have a sustained practice that brings us back into the here and now? It makes a distinction between this is the experience and this is the response that's arising within me in response to that experience. we start to make that shift, then we start to learn. We start to learn our own conditioned being and the conditioned being of our shared existence. But then interestingly, within the realm of Buddhist practice, we can call this You know, one way to think about purification is gold is purified by becoming itself.

[40:36]

If you take away the impurities, you take away what's not gold and you end up with pure gold. And in the realm of being, Experience what is and let what is be itself thoroughly. It has a kind of a purification. And then psychologically, we have a challenge that the agitation, the distress, the resentments, the fears, the sadnesses. There's a way in which we can forgive.

[41:42]

There's a way in which we shift from no to yes. oh no, I don't want this to be reality, to yes, this is reality. And this, of course, is a daily practice. This, of course, is a daily challenge. And each time we turn it, we turn the dharma wheel. Each time we turn it, something of the path of liberation, the path of compassion is rebuilt. And the very willingness to explore it supports the fragility.

[42:54]

of life with its limitations. I have a beloved mentor and he says, this relationship of meeting life just as it is with all its limitations, He says, it's hopeful. It's not hoping that it'll all turn out the way we want it. It's hopeful in that it's willingness to engage it. And in that willingness to engage it, We start to live something.

[43:57]

Like those folks have come to be part of the chaplaincy course. Then we say, okay, and part of the course is to do 100 hours of service. It's beautiful. You come with the intention to be of service. Now actualize it. Do it. It's beautiful to say, I vow to save all sentient beings. Now do it. The alchemy of the engagement and its way in which we literally give over to greater beings. to more inclusive being. The alchemy of it is supported by the intentionality that grew out of our woundedness.

[45:11]

One of the images in Buddhism is the lotus growing out of the mighty water. that the lotus needs the muddy water. That's what the nutrients that allow it to grow. But when the lotus grows and blossoms, it's a beautiful flower. So this process of immersion, in the process of purification, Deep acceptance, deep forgiveness, and actualization. Each of them the practice of a lifetime.

[46:15]

Each of them supporting the other two aspects. And they can, together, they can form a basis for us in our life. They can, with wisdom and compassion, they can hold our inadequacies. They can hold our stubbornness. They can hold... our reluctance to face, to acknowledge and face the challenges of our life. And they can also help us with the Bodhisattva God.

[47:18]

They can help us to see, yes, this is how it is. And yes, it's asking to be practiced with. And yes, like that nine-year-old girl, after her mother died of addiction, raised her true voice. Yes, I will live this life. Thank you. For more information, please visit sfzc.org and click Giving.

[48:24]

May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[48:27]

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