Good evening, everyone. Thank you, Koda, for the introduction. I just want to thank, once again, Nancy Petrin, our Tanto, our head of practice, for extending the invitation, which I understand actually comes from our abiding abbot, who is David Zimmerman. And as always, I want to thank my teacher, Minzo Ed Sadasan, Who sees me? I'm really glad you're all here today. I don't know how many of you live in San Francisco or in the Bay Area or Northern California. I can just speak for this part of the country. It was a very strange day today. It was we had this huge layer of smoke that are coming from all of the terrible, terrible fires that are happening.

[01:11]

Tens of thousands of people are under evacuation orders. We give our good wishes to them for their safety and all the firefighters and all the support people. um the fire is actually getting very close to our monastery that many of you know uh tasahara um hopefully it won't won't get that far um but yeah it was a very strange day but in some ways it was uh beneficial for us in our practice to have this environmental catastrophe brought home to us. Everything is practiced, unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on which side of the practice you're on, for us in Buddhism.

[02:15]

We're reminded though, especially in days like today, with our smallness, our vulnerability. as human beings and what a precious gift this life is. It helps to sit during times like this. It helps to sit meditation. I sat several times today while trying to get the final bits together of this talk that sometimes didn't seem quite so relevant compared to what was going on. But sitting helps me a great deal. today that's always recommended in times of great stress and disorder. We say in Zen, wash your balls as a way to decide what to do after you get up from sitting.

[03:17]

If there's a lot of anxiety or if you're fixated on something in particular, like today I was, and feeling some anxiety. And that comes from case 39 in the Book of Serenity. This is a koan. A monk asked Zhao Zhu, I have entered the monastery. Please give me some guidance. Zhao Zhu said, have you had breakfast yet? The monk said, yes, I've eaten. The judge said, then go wash your bowl. And this used to be interpreted as a very profound teaching. It's not to me anymore. It's just, just go wash your bowls. I came to San Francisco's Zen Center a couple of decades ago. I had just gotten into 12-step recovery.

[04:21]

I am a... deeply experienced drug addict and alcoholic, and I've just gotten into recovery. And in 12-step recovery, we have a similar saying, which is do the next best thing. Just do the next best thing. When you're not doing drugs and alcohol anymore, after you've been doing them for a long time, living normal life is filled with anxiety, and you just don't know what to do. So... That's what my sponsor said to me and I've been trying to do that ever since, whenever I feel overwhelmed. Just wash your balls. And these are getting back to the basics, basically. And that's really what the teaching of Buddhism is for me in times like this. And that's what it has been for the last really, to be honest, a couple of several years where there's been a lot of overwhelming things going on, but particularly these last few months during the COVID crisis, I've had to focus on just living my life at the most basic, working if I can.

[05:43]

And for those of you who can, this is a really basic way of being for most of us. but just doing one thing at a time, which has been sort of a new way of trying to mindfully work, just doing one thing at a time. Eating, preparing a meal, having a simple day where I focus on meals, going for a walk, trying to sleep properly. These things alone are essential for giving extra attention to in order to maintain some kind of presence in life. Try not to watch too much news. I probably still watch too much news, but I'm cutting back on it. Although it gets difficult sometimes when new things happen, and I find myself fighting that once again.

[06:43]

Returning to basics as far as formal Buddhist teachings are concerned. for me has meant the Satipatthana Sutra. And this is one of the Buddha's basic teachings. And it's a wonderful sutra to read. It's a short sutra. And what it is, is really sort of a basic guide to have to be. And it acts kind of as a tour guide of the universe inside of us, of how this unendable universe that we have inside of us is connected with the external universe outside of us. It shows us, it gives us a technique to go on this epic journey

[07:49]

And it begins with the breath, this life-giving phenomenon, this life-giving activity that we do most of the time, not thinking about it at all. But it asks us to begin to pay very close attention to this amazing activity that so many of us are having a relationship with right now in so many different ways. The smoke, you know, it's been really hot. You want to have the window open. The window open means there's smoke outside. Breath has been taken away in front of our eyes. It's been brutal to watch the death of George Floyd. So this essential thing, the Satipatthana Sutra asks us to really pay attention to this, and that's how it is that it begins.

[08:52]

It goes on to take us through the body, to ask us to do a scan in the body, and to be honest about what it is that's going on. One of my favorite parts, which I always like to read, is... Again, monks. He reviews this same body up from the soles of the feet and down from the top of the hair, enclosed by skin, as full of many kinds of impurity thus. In this body there are head hairs, body hairs, nails, teeth, skin, flesh, sinews, bones, marrow, kidneys, heart, liver, diaphragm, spleen, lungs, bowels, mesentery, contents of the stomach, feces, bile. phlegm, pus, blood, sweat, fat, tears, grease, spittle, snot, oil of the joints, and urine.

[09:59]

Looking very closely at every part of the body and not leaving anything out. This is what the Satipatthana Sutra asks of us to pay attention to everything. Sometimes it's called the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. And the four foundations are focusing on the body, on feelings, the mind, and on dharmas. And by learning this practice, we proceed on this tour to see what it's like to be alive. What is it like to be a human being in this body, in between birth and death? What does it mean? to really investigate it in great detail without leaving anything out. It's an investigation of both joy and of suffering. The investigation that Dogen asks us to do, Ehe Dogen is our 13th century founder of the Soto Zen School, where he takes this training into account and sums it up by asking us

[11:16]

by saying to us, to study the Buddha way is to study the self. And to study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by myriad things. But in this, we're not trying to really figure anything out. We're not trying to come to a conclusion about what it is that we see. We're just going deeper and deeper into what it is what it is that it means to be alive. We're trying to recognize the nature of the mind. What occurs in the mind, in the body, our feelings, and even in dharmas is not permanent. It's not fixed. It's passing. We have to be careful because some things are very unpleasant to look at. We have to be relentless though. Because there's no conclusion, that means there's no end to the tour.

[12:22]

When I priest-ordained, there were six of us who were priest-ordaining at the same time. And so we were very lucky to have Mel Weitzman, who's the abbot of Berkeley Zen Center, come and give us our final talk the day before we were going to be ordained. asked what it meant to be a priest. He said, you stay in one place and go deep. You stay in one place and go deep. And for me, that's what the Satipatthana Sutra trains us to do. We can see what it is by looking in this way. We can see what's ingrained and what's conditional in how it is that we're experiencing ourselves and the world around us. We become aware of self-deception. And dishonesty is sometimes the place that we go to when we're faced with our own what at first appears to be ugliness.

[13:35]

And this book is a fantastic book. And if you... One to study the Satipatthana Sutra, Paul Haller, who, a former abbot, says this is the best book right here. And it's an amazing book. It also has a study guide. And it's by Anilo. He's a Theravadan monk. And he says, the task of mindfulness is to remain receptively aware by clearly recognizing the state of mind that underlines a particular train of thoughts or reactions. Such uninvolved receptivity is required because of one's instinctive tendency to ignore whatever contradicts or threatens one's sense of importance and personal integrity.

[14:38]

The habit of employing self-deception to maintain one's self-esteem has often become so ingrained that the first step to developing accurate self-awareness is honest acknowledgement of the existence of hidden emotions, motives, and tendencies in the mind without immediately suppressing them. Maintaining non-reactive awareness in this way counters the impulse towards either reaction or suppression. contained in unwholesome states of mind and thereby deactivates their emotional and attentional pull. In contemporary Buddhist communities, anger has been seen mostly, I think it's changing a little bit right now, but anger has been seen as bad. We want to be calm and we don't associate anger with calmness.

[15:42]

Many of us, that's why it is that we come to Buddhism to try and become calm and equanimous, to become stable. Anger is not associated usually with that. But it's important for us to understand our anger and also Connected to that is our reaction to other people's anger. Now, reaction to other people's anger, our reaction can come from trauma, and it's very important to identify that if that's the case for you. You need to be careful and kind with all of the investigations of the Satipatthana Sutra. I'm going to focus mostly on anger here. But we need to look both at our own anger, how it arises, and what's it like inside of us, and our response to other people's anger.

[16:46]

What does that feel like? What's happening when I have a certain kind of response? I've come across, in some of the Buddhist communities that I've been around, a kind of anger phobia. Sort of... turning away from anger, not wanting to look at it. And this can do so much damage. It's a reality that's not being looked at when we experience anger. It's a normal human experience. It's there usually for a series of reasons. And when we don't look at it, when we don't look at the reality of anger as we experience it, both in ourselves and as we respond to it in others, It shuts down dialogue and when dialogue is shut down, transformation is stifled. It's through interchange and interaction with one another that we are able to heighten our transformation.

[17:53]

That's one of the reasons why we focus on monastic practice in Zen. We say it rubs, you rub the rough edges off by being in close proximity with each other. So we value that. that dialogue, both verbal and physical dialogue that we have by being around each other. And Buddhism asks us to transform our suffering into wisdom and then to apply that wisdom to the end of suffering. So looking at anger, both our own anger and our response to others' anger is actually about ending suffering. even though counterintuitively it seems like facing it is actually deepening our suffering. The opposite is true. Now, I might as well tell you, tragically, I am a straight white male, and now is, to say the least, an interesting time to be a straight white male.

[19:04]

um we've we've had power for uh a minimum of 10 000 years in western culture um and uh as we just take the most cursory look around uh we see what a mess has been made of the world um and so in many ways that can be summed up to the leadership of straight white males This is a time of great power shift, though. Things are changing. How deep they change and how broadly they change, we will have to see. And it's up to us to continue investigating power dynamics. And this practice is a part of that for me. I feel like this era of change kind of started historically around gay marriage.

[20:09]

Up until that time, I feel like many of the power controls that straight white males had had were very much entrenched. And although they were changing, they were changing very slowly. But with gay marriage, there was a sudden shift that happened for a whole... range of different fascinating reasons and important reasons. But I feel like this period began then, and then being very brief about this, the MeToo era made it so that we're going once again on a deeper inspection of patriarchy. And now we're looking once again in a deeper way around racism. And as we do, I see, I can't help but see, and I'm taught by one of the great things that's come out of this COVID shelter-in-place situation is more study.

[21:26]

And studying has shown Almost everything that I have in my life has come to me in part because I'm white and because I'm a male. And this is a massive shift in perspective, and it's very painful in many ways. I've had a sneaking suspicion that that was the case for a couple of decades now, but... Now I must look at that squarely and fully face it. And it makes me angry. It makes me angry, not the loss of power, because I think that's long overdue. It makes me angry because of what it is that I have to witness. and be a part of, with this new perspective, the injustice for everyone who has been oppressed by straight white males and the power institutions that have been controlled by that group.

[22:46]

Anger is not a new investigation for me. suddenly angry for the first time. I didn't really think I was that angry until I got into recovery a couple of decades ago. And then 12-step recovery has a wonderful sort of pre-satipatthana sutra preparation training in that it teaches you to look at your anger. And it's called resentment very politely there. But it's a wonderful introduction to Buddhism, in my opinion, 12-step recovery. And very quickly in investigating my anger, it was shown to me that I have trauma that is a very common kind of trauma and that it comes about from childhood neglect. My father was an alcoholic and my mother died when I was very young.

[23:51]

Absolutely no one touched me, and very few people spoke to me for sometimes years on end, and it caused lots of problems. And there are now problems that I feel genuinely grateful towards, mostly because of therapy, 12-step recovery, and Buddhist practice. And they are now... This is trauma that although it's not gone, my understanding of it inside of me connects me with other people in many ways that are very much in line with this Buddhist practice. So if you're working with the Satipatthana Sutra technique, By identifying internal experience of anger, you see that there's heat.

[24:55]

You identify the physiological experience of it. There's heat. There's constriction. There's something other than heat that's sort of a kind of a shame of warmth. But most importantly, what I found is that it fades away. So I'm not permanently angry, and I don't believe anyone is, although we sometimes refer to people as such, and we sometimes respond to people as if they were permanently angry. It's something that we are trained in Buddhism to notice arises, comes into being, and then fades away. And it's very important to over and over again investigate that process of anger. to see then that it's connected to other things. There's something behind it. And for me, what's behind anger is fear.

[25:59]

And, you know, my early investigation identified the trauma that I just spoke about. And there's some of that that's left over as embodied trauma. that is from my childhood, that's brought into the present time. But what is left is fear that I experience now mostly as an adult male whose position is changing. And for an excellent contemporary investigation of anger rage and love is uh lama rod owens uh which was uh going to be a much bigger part of my talk but i strongly recommend this uh for people it's a uh he uh co-wrote with angel kyoto williams uh radical dharma uh we've studied that uh book a great deal and studied with

[27:03]

Angel Kyoto Williams here at San Francisco Zen Center. But this is a really fantastic book. He is African-American. He's an authorized lama in the Tibetan tradition. And he's very experienced as a political activist and many other things. And for him, what is behind anger for him is is hurt. He calls it hurt. And hurts is very similar to fear for me. But I identify what's behind mine as fear. It's different for everyone. Anger is different for everyone. Its responses to it are different for everyone. The point is really to have a method, a technique for discovery of how it is for you. And by seeing what anger is made up of, and seeing that it's not permanent, that it has a life, that it rises and passes away, I'm able to connect with other people's experience, even though it might be different.

[28:18]

Meditation itself is actually really, in my experience, the best place to experience anger, to sit and be angry. And it's very easy to do. you know that you're in a safe place and you just touch the anger a little bit and learn to make it proliferate and make it become really powerful. The most powerful anger I've ever experienced, in fact, has been during meditation where I got to a place to where it was safe enough to go deeper and deeper and deeper. into it, always returning to my breath, always returning to the cushion and the safety of sitting in a safe place. But in this way, I was able to no longer become, to no longer be afraid of anger. And

[29:21]

seeing its impermanence, I can see how it is that it comes into being, it arises, it comes into being, and it fades away, I can be in control of my relationship with anger. It's no longer a threat to me. It doesn't become rage, and Lama Rod Owens, he co-authors, he... He splits up, he differentiates between rage and anger. Rage follows anger. And that's no longer a threat if you're able to investigate it in this way. And so this has softened my aversion to it, my wanting to push it away. I can let it live and I can begin to investigate What's beneath it? I'm probably never going to be without my anger.

[30:24]

It's not something that I want to be without. It's something that is, as I said already, is a human response to myriad situations. And it's taught me a great deal and will continue to do so. There is fear that's embodied as trauma underneath my mind. my anger, but it's quite specific. That old traumatic fear is very specific. It has a particular kind of feeling to it, and I'm acquainted with that now. Then there's sort of a generalized fear that I have about my, which is my response to the world as it is right now, running out of money, getting sick, getting old, what's happening in the world. But then there's this other deeper fear that is Somehow a part of my being a mammal, I really notice it when I watch squirrels for some reason.

[31:24]

I really relate to the squirrels. Boy, that squirrel is really expressing the same kind of mammalian fear that I have. But that's a topic for another talk, I think. So by seeing all of these previously hidden dimensions of my anger come into being, and then disappear, I can relax around fear, which is very important to do and was a new experience for me, relaxing around my fear. And when I can relax around it, I can begin to have some mercy on myself and have mercy on the different kinds of fear that I have and then to allow it to come up again, the anger and the fear that's behind the anger. So by investigating anger, I see that this darkest thing, this thing which, coming to Buddhism, I wanted to cover up, hide from people, this secret that I had for so long, actually becomes the way in which I connect most deeply with others.

[32:37]

Because as I learn about the anger that I have inside and the fear that is behind the anger, I see how it is that I share that fear with everyone else. as it's expressed in so many different ways by other people's different kinds of anger and fear. And it's four minutes past when I was supposed to stop. I'm going to finish with this wonderful poem from K. Ryan called Yeses. Just behind the door, a second, but smaller by a few inches. behind which a third again diminishes, then more and more, forming a foreshortened corridor or niche of yeses, ending in a mouse's entrance with a knob too small to pinch. Thank you all very much for your attention. And Coda was going to put my...

[33:40]

email in the chat for those of you, along with thank you very much, those titles. Kodo, what a wonderful MC you are. And I would like to invite anyone to give me any feedback privately that we don't have time for here that you would like to give me or questions. And now we have time for, I think we're going to do the chomp first. Kodo, over to you. Thank you so much, Tim. Yes, let's do the closing chat, and then we can move into some Q&A. It looks like we'll have almost 10 minutes for that. And if you can see it, there's Tim Wick's email. Awesome. Great. May our intention equally extend to every being and place. with the true merit of buddha's way beings are numberless i vow to save them delusions are inexhaustible i vow to end them dharma gates are boundless i vow to enter them

[35:01]

Buddha's way is unsurpassable, I vow to be coming. Floor is open for questions or comments. Feel free to click the participants button, raise your blue hand, and Tova Green is first. Thank you, Tim, for your talk. I really appreciated it. And I appreciated your talking about your own anger. And under that, you said there's fear and that you can relax around your fear. And I'm wondering how you do that. How do you relax around your fear? Sometimes I can't relax around my fear. It sounds like sometimes you can.

[36:03]

Yeah. So that's how you relax around your fear. By looking at those times when it is that we can. The Satipatthana has taught me to differentiate between all the different kinds of fear and all the different situations in which fear is simply by looking at it over and over and over again. And so during... that process, I come across times when I'm not afraid or I'm relaxed around my, or my fear is, as he says in that part that I read, I have a non-reactive response to it. We're vast and we're not just fear when we're experiencing fear. There's a spaciousness that Lama Rod Owen speaks a lot about in his book that comes with this realization. So seeing fear, identifying fear, and identifying all the different kinds of fear, and there's different strengths of fear and depths of fear.

[37:14]

And this all has to do with our relationship of fear. And in that process, there becomes more spaciousness around it. which has allowed me to be mostly, I won't say completely, but mostly relaxed around it. Thank you very much. Thank you. I really, really appreciated your sharing your own experience so honestly and deeply. Thank you. Thank you, Tova. Thank you. terry and then johan and fatima and that may take us to the end hello tim hi terry um yeah it was pretty uh wonderful to hear you

[38:20]

I feel the same as Tova talk in such a personal way. And for me, acknowledging anger as just part of us is a very big deal. And I think it's a big transformation for Buddhism. As you said, there has been a tendency that I've seen sometimes, you know, to think that it's illegitimate. Sometimes I feel, in terms of different anger, sometimes I feel what I experience as righteous rage, which seems different from other anger in that it is I have always felt good about just expressing it direct.

[39:20]

In other words, I've never had any bad feelings about when I feel that thing rising in me, just expressing it as it is. I mean, it's a particular thing. It doesn't happen very often. But I'm wondering if you can see that if you think that there's an anger that doesn't have anything behind it except, you know, a desire for justice in the world. if that also can be part of the spectrum of anger. It is. Yes, you're quite right. We call it justified anger. And the important thing is to look at it. And like I said, the Satipatthana Sutra helps us to do that stage by stage, to look at it in a way that's very safe. And if it's true that there's nothing behind it, it's just pure anger, then uh i'm sure that's fine but lama rodowens who's a gay african-american and he actually calls himself fat all the time which means that he does not uh uh follow the heteronormative uh idea of what physical beauty is and this is a big source of oppression for him and uh so he speaks a lot about um

[40:46]

what we would call justifiable anger, anger against oppression, anger against inequality. And once again, there's an invitation to really look at it and see, is it pure? Because that's what I heard you saying. It's just anger only. And if that's the case, then that's something different. I have found, and I was a political activist since I was very young, since I was 16 years old, and very militant and very angry, and had a lot of what I considered to be justifiable anger, there's a lot more behind it there was for me. And so I've had to look at that and see what it is, and still I'm angry when I see what I see, that we all see, that we get angry about. But I have a different relationship with that anger now.

[41:48]

And I know more about what there actually is. It's not a pure anger for me. So investigate, investigate, like I know you're always doing, Terry. Thank you so much, Tim. I just appreciate so much what you said. Thank you. Very helpful. Thank you. One final question from Jan and Fatima. Hi, Tim. Hi, Fatima. Nice to see you. Good to see you both. Good to see all three of you. Thank you. There we go. All right, you're back. You're back. I just wanted to say deep appreciation for your talk and your vulnerability and honesty.

[42:53]

It was really lovely to hear. And my question is, when you say that you relate to your anger differently, I'm curious how you practice... with anger the moment it arises because we hear that you know you should know this and you might notice that fear is underlying it but anger and other feelings can be quite overwhelming sometimes so I'm just wondering like a step-by-step guide how you deal with it well the step-by-step guide is in the Satipatthana Sutra And Paul teaches it sometimes. He did a whole practice period at Tassajara once based on this practice. And keep an eye out for it. In the meantime, you know, just watch what it is that leads up to anger.

[43:55]

And, you know, I mean, I found that just simply by looking at it, it... never gets out of hand I mean it's been like two times in the last 20 years where I felt like I've been enraged and those were very instructive times where I learned such a great deal about the anger but it's extremely rare now to where you know, I do more harm to other people. The harm is, once you start looking at it, the harm is usually in ourselves. It's a terrible, terrible, toxic thing to have uncontrolled running around inside of us, and it just does so much harm to us. So just simply start by watching what leads up to it. And, you know, make sure you're not tired and you've eaten. Sometimes it's as simple as that. But just start watching, and then if you harm others or yourself, learn how to make sincere and substantial amends to them.

[45:11]

And as you go through the process, your relationship changes so radically. I mean, it's such an amazing thing. And keep an eye out for Satipatthana Sutra classes. I'm hoping to do one at some point soon, but we'll have to see. Thank you, Tim. Yes, yes, thank you. Tim, I'm ready to sign up for that Satipatthana Sutra course. I know, okay. I've already received permission to do it, but... We need a facility first. And I've got to check with the new Tonto, too. She's pretty strict, so you never know what she's going to say no to. Well, shall we call it a night? Thank you so much for the talk this evening. Is there a closing word you'd like to offer the Assembly? I would like to, on behalf of the Assembly, say thanks to you, Cotto, for always doing such a wonderful, beautiful job in looking after us all as we try to figure out what it means to be alive.

[46:21]

And I think the best closing words are wash your bowls. Thank you so much. Thank you. Everyone should now be able to unmute if you wish and say good night. Thank you, Tim. Hi, Tanto. Thank you, Tim. Thank you. Hi, May. What a beautiful hat you have, May. Oh, you ruined it. Thank you, Tim. Thank you so much, Tim. Hi, Tim. Who else was that? Thank you, Tim. Hi, everyone. Hi. Good night, Tim. Thank you all so much for coming. Tim, I'm still looking forward to coffee. Okay, Vicki, yes. I tried. Yes, I was preparing for this talk.

[47:24]

Okay. Thank you, Tim. I appreciate it so much. Thank you, Emily. Thank you. You know, I haven't put my video on in probably six months, and this was the talk tonight, and I was like, yeah. I was starting to think there was a cat behind there who'd maybe eaten you up or something. Oh, that's so funny because... If I can swap my video, I'm here with Batman. Oh, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Good night. Batman lives. Good night. Good night. Thank you. Good night. Good night. Thanks so much. Good night. Bye. Thank you, Patsy. Bye, Eli. Thanks, Tim. Keep coming back. It works. Yes, yes, I will, Joe. Thank you. Okay. Thanks, Tim.

[48:25]

Okay. Bye, Miles. Bye to you. I bought the book. All right. Okay. All right, everyone. Bye, Eli. I can't hear you.

[48:42]

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