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 evening, everybody. We chant the name of our ancestor, Tendo Nyojo, and this was the poem that he spoke upon his death. I've given you my all, tossing it your way with a hearty laugh. I entrust it all to the spring wind. There's nothing more that I need to do. Tendo Nyojo. I'd like to talk tonight about the importance of having humor in our practice. I hope that our practice comes with a lot of laughter. But first I'd like to tell you, I've been attending some bi-monthly improvs by the humorist and monologuist Josh Kornbluth at the Marsh Theater.

[01:09]

And Josh was an artist-in-residence at the Zen Hospice Center, and now he's working at the Memory and Aging Clinic at UC Med Center, where they're studying prefrontal dementia. And... One of the symptoms of prefrontal dementia is that a previously compassionate person suddenly loses their empathy. Well, over time, they lose their empathy. So he gives the example of a very loving grandmother who suddenly doesn't want to hold her grandchildren. And the loved ones of these people find their way to the memory and aging clinic, and these courageous people, mainly elderly, a volunteer to be studied, there's no cure for prefrontal dementia, but we've learned more about the brain in the last 10 or 15 years than the whole previous history of humankind. So they're learning a lot about the brain through these brains, through MRI imaging.

[02:15]

And the MRI imaging shows that the empathy centers in these people's brains is literally dark. and the empathy is in the prefrontal cortex. I don't know if you know Josh. He's a wonderful performer and a really great person, a very heartfelt person. When he was growing up, his father, who was a communist, told him that Josh would grow up to lead a worldwide communist revolution. Apparently that hasn't happened yet, but he has chosen for his project that the... Memory and Aging Clinic, to see if he can lead a worldwide revolution in empathy. Not too ambitious, right? So he asked one of the neurologists there what we can do to deepen our own empathy. This thing. And the neurologist told him that if a person has had a deep abiding prejudice against someone of another religion,

[03:21]

And perhaps he or she has never even met someone of that faith. If that person has a transformative experience with one individual of that faith or race, they can be transformed. This friendship can light a spark of empathy within them. You've heard stories of former gang members or white nationalists who've been transformed by the power of love and friendship. And the neurologist gave another example, storytelling. She said that when I tell you my story, your brain is transformed. When you tell me your story, the neurons in your brain include me. We include each other. We literally, our brains are transfigured by relationship. And with an open heart and mind towards each other, we're transformed. This was good news for Josh because he's a professional storyteller.

[04:24]

And somehow he manages in these improvs that he does to share the pathos and tragedy of these people as well as their courage for volunteering to be studied in this way. And he extols the virtues of these volunteer people while at the same time bringing a lot of light into the humor of the situation. This is an invitation for all of us to listen to one another's stories with open minds and hearts. And in this political climate, sometimes we're hearing stories of people that were swept up in white nationalism due to deep wounds within their own being. They're finding some kind of family within that circle and then turning their backs on it and working for social justice. So I think if we can listen to one another and transform ourselves through our storytelling and sharing, we can participate with Josh's worldwide revolution of empathy.

[05:31]

I love stories of every tradition, and a story that I heard very early in my practice, which you might have heard as well, was two monks were walking through the woods, and they came to a stream, and there was a lovely young woman standing by the stream, not sure how to cross. So one of the monks offered to carry her across. So the three crossed together, and when they got to the other side, the monk put the woman down, and the two monks continued on their way. And after they'd been walking in silence for a while, one of the monks said to the other one, I can't believe you broke your vow and carried that woman. And the other monk said, I put her down an hour ago, but you've been carrying her all this way. And I find that these Zen stories, some of which didn't make much sense to me when I first started practicing, they flowed up to help me in my everyday life in really interesting ways. You might have found that as well.

[06:33]

I think you'll agree that humor is essential for getting through this messy thing called life. And certainly having a sense of humor in this political landscape might just help you keep from losing it completely. Even the Queen of England has her rough days. I remember a number of years ago, part of her palace burned down and her children were misbehaving and being portrayed very unbecomingly in the press. And the Queen of England gives a New Year's address every year. So in her New Year's address, she said, "'Looking back, it is not a year upon which I will look back with undiluted joy.'" English understatement. I came to Zen Center shortly after Suzuki Roshi died, but I know from his students that he could be very fierce and also very playful and childlike. And he laughed a lot.

[07:36]

I understand that at the beginning of a sushin he said, the problems you are having now are the problems... you will have for the rest of your life. And he threw his head back and laughed. And he also liked to say, life is like getting on a boat that's about to sail out to sea and sink. So then he'd throw his head back and laugh, you know. So one of the invitations to lighten up and have a sense of humor is that everything is constantly changing. Whatever we're upset about may change completely by tomorrow. And I remember the story of David Chadwick. He asked Suzuki Roshi, could you sum up Buddhism in just a phrase? And Suzuki Roshi said, everything changes. Except Jennifer Aniston. I think you have to agree. She never changes. You might have noticed that. Sometimes things are so outrageously bad that all we can do is laugh. Even when we're going through the darkest of times, we can find comfort in laughter with those we love and trust the most.

[08:43]

And I remember when my dad was dying of lung cancer. He was a very funny man. And he was funny even when he could no longer speak. And it was such an honor and a joy for my brother and me to midwife him through that period of his life. And... Weirdly enough, we just laughed a lot, you know, and it was very healing. Around Day of the Dead, I have my students talk about a person or a pet who's died. And one year, one of my students, Chris, told us this story. She said that she'd gone to a soccer game and she left her hamster running around in her bedroom. And when she came back, she saw this scene of carnage. And she figured out that what must have happened was the hamster got up on top of her bunk bed and somehow fell or jumped off the bunk bed into her fishbowl and the hamster drowned and all the fish fell out and died on the floor.

[09:47]

And when she told this story, we all started laughing, including Chris. And I said, it's okay, it's okay. Sometimes things are so bad, all you can do is laugh. And, you know, we all were a little bit embarrassed, but at the same time, that was the worst thing that could have happened. So humor conveys our affection and connection with one another. Sometimes you meet someone and you can tell from their sense of humor that there's immediate affinity. I also find that humor can transform an argument that you're having with somebody you really care about. In the midst of that argument, you might just look at each other and laugh or... refer to something in your past that brings you back together. Sometimes we have a moment when we notice we actually have a choice. David mentioned that I teach kids and sometimes I'm right on the precipice. I could either get angry and irritated with them or I could make a joke and laugh with them.

[10:49]

I was out at Point Reyes a while ago. I went out to see the movie about our Dharma sisters, Fu and Grace. And this young woman came up to me and she said, are you Laura Burgess? I said, yeah. She said, I don't know if you remember me, but my name's Anna Wiley and I was in your class. I said, Anna, not only do I remember you, I remember when you raised your hand and said, Laura, what happens after you die? I forget. And it dawns on me now and then that I might stop being surprised when third graders act like third graders and Or when people act like people. You know, my friend James likes to say, people, they're not what they're cracked up to be. So I also might stop being surprised when the world acts like the world. Humor can point to a larger truth. I think comedians often show us this.

[11:50]

And humor is often based on making surprising connections between seemingly unconnected things. Humor can take us by surprise. I was walking behind a couple of my students one day, and Talia said to Tess, I don't know why they were talking about this, but Talia said to Tess, would you rather be buried or cremated? And Tess said, I don't know, surprise me. I also feel that self-deprecating humor has its place. And... We find humility when we don't take ourselves too seriously. And sometimes, you know, in the metasuta it says, let us be wise but not puffed up. Sometimes we notice ourselves getting a little puffed up or a little full of ourselves, and then we can feel kind of silly. I read about a woman who was practicing with humility as a spiritual practice, and she caught herself looking around the room and thinking, I have more humility than anybody in this room. And maybe part of humility is to even have a sense of humor about our own shortcomings.

[12:57]

We can stop expecting ourselves to be perfect and transform that negative voice inside our head into a loving inner witness and go easy on ourselves, lighten up a little bit. There's also the humor of identification. And this is really important for people in recovery. People in recovery tell their story. And I think people who weren't in recovery would find it very surprising some of the things that are laughed about in those rooms. But it's the laughter of identification, you know. Gee, I did those crazy things myself. And it normalizes and makes human the mistakes we've made. And it helps us see that every single thing we've done in our life has led us to this moment and is part of the path. Even things we feel ashamed of or wish we hadn't done, you know, they've brought us to this place. Humor is very subjective.

[14:01]

You know, something that I might find funny might even offend you, you know, or hurt your feelings. Humor is not always in good taste. It's not always politically correct, but may be necessary to let off some steam. Alice Roosevelt famously said, if you can't think of anything nice to say, come over here and sit by me. That's not a very good advertisement for right speech, I understand. Humor gives us the freedom to be outrageous or even offensive. The editor of The Onion can get away with things that other journalists can't. And I remember the day after Obama was elected, the headline in The Onion was, Black man gets worst job in America. I wish I'd saved that. It would have been a collector's item. Subversive power of humor. With our precious freedom of speech, we have political cartoons and comics who can speak truth to power, especially right now.

[15:07]

But humor isn't necessarily benign, and in fact, it can be quite aggressive and quite startling sometimes. A comedian who does well, who does well on stage, might say she or he killed or she destroyed. And if they don't do well, they died or they bombed. This is the parlance of comedians. I've listened to comics talk about their craft, and a huge number of them were paralyzingly shy as kids. And they developed humor as a defense. They talk about... using a sense of humor in order to make a depressed parent laugh or in order to disarm a bully on the playground. This is skillful means, isn't it? Using humor to defray or to deflate aggression. I grew up in a household where there was a lot of teasing, most of it affectionate, and I learned to give as good as I got.

[16:12]

But I notice that sometimes I might avoid a person whose default position is to mock me when we meet each other. And I've certainly done that to other people as well. Though I do notice that I tend not to tease people unless I already like them and I feel comfortable with them. But still, it's worth asking if this teasing is genuinely affectionate or disguised hostility. The word sarcasm literally means to tear the flesh. And children pick it up from adults, and when they do, they seem less innocent. And then you have to wonder, maybe they learned to speak and think this way because they needed armor in their home of origin. They needed that kind of humor and developed that verbal skill just in order to survive. Comics talk about As I said, learning how to be funny, to distract a bully on the playground.

[17:15]

Chris Rock has talked about that. And he has an interesting pattern, I've noticed, in his shows. He starts out just being very lighthearted and maybe even gross or provocative. And then slowly he gets into his political material. So he has a way of getting his audience with him before he hits them with these... this humor that points to a larger truth. And I remember him saying, you know, after George Bush was elected, he said, George Bush was so bad, he made it impossible for a white man to get elected after him. Of course, George Bush seems kind of cute by comparison now. I think it's a good practice to think about right speech in regards to humor. Am I using humor to mock and belittle? You know, we can ask ourselves these questions if we find ourselves being sort of habitually funny.

[18:20]

Am I using humor to keep people at a distance or to disguise my real feelings so they can't see who I really am? Do I use humor when I honestly don't even know how I really feel as a kind of fallback position? Am I using humor to connect with others? To diffuse a tense situation? To relieve stress and make a connection? These are sort of the positive or wholesome uses of humor. Am I using humor to build bonds of affection and identification? So I think we can take the backward step and shine the light on our humor and ask what its use is or what its what its motivation is. Is humor a reflection of joy and love and delight and a sharing of the craziness of the reality we find ourselves in? Or is humor used to shame and diminish?

[19:25]

And if we're using humor in that way, again, we might cast our memory back to the way we grew up and what kind of speech we grew up with. This is a really important exercise in terms of right speech. What were the voices I heard in my home of origin? What voices did I inherit? And what voices can I let go of in my adult life? So I can see in myself how I'm sometimes funny is an effort to protect myself. I can use humor as a defense and a way to keep people at arm's length, to disarm them, so to speak, or to keep them guessing about me and not know who I really am. So how can I use humor in a wholesome way? Can I find humor and at the same time avoid doing harm? Of course, we should take our practice seriously, you know, as we say, as if to save our heads from fire and be grateful to all of those who came before us.

[20:32]

This is important. But I hope in our practice we can also lighten up a little bit When my daughter was a teenager, I was sitting in the living room, and I had Pema Chodron's books spread out on the coffee table. And, you know, the wisdom of no escape, when things fall apart, the places that scare you. And Nova looked at those books and said, geez, what a drama queen. But actually, Pema includes a lot of humor in her discourse. One of my favorite quotes of hers is, holding a grudge is like eating rat poison and expecting the rat to die. Holding a grudge is like eating rat poison and expecting the rat to die. In other words, holding a grudge and nursing our resentments poisons us instead of the person we're resenting. So we can cultivate a sense of humor, of lightness, stop taking ourselves and our opinions so seriously,

[21:38]

And I think this is a form of detachment, actually. Not a cold and cynical detachment, not a refusal to engage with the world, but rather a kind of warm-hearted detachment that comes from recognizing the truth of impermanence and that the difficulties that we're experiencing, the dark time we may be going through, is just another part of the path and will pass away like everything else. One of the very first Zen stories that I heard was about a man who was running across a field, chased by a tiger. And he came to the edge of a cliff and looked down. There was another tiger waiting for him down below. So he grabbed a vine and hung on to it, and two mice came and started nibbling on the vine. A white mouse... and a black mouse started nibbling on the vine. And he looked over, and he saw a strawberry hanging there, and he reached out and grabbed it.

[22:44]

How sweet it tasted. And I think this is such a wonderful metaphor for our lives, which are tenuous at best, and ultimately fatal, but also sweet, and mainly just grabbing those moments when they come. So I think in these troubling times, we look for good stories of connection and generosity. I notice right now I'm really craving stories that are positive about human beings. And so this is a story. There was a young man who was at the World Series at AT&T Park. And he looked down, and in the third or fourth inning, he saw a man, an elderly man, sitting by himself. there was a seat next to this man that was empty for those few innings. So the young man took a chance and he went down.

[23:48]

I don't know why this isn't working. It doesn't fit my ear, I guess. The young man went down and he saw this elderly man sitting there and he said, you know, I can't help but notice that this seat has been empty and I wondered if I might join you. And the... Older man looked it up at him with such warmth, you know. And he said, please, please sit down. And he turned to the young man and said, you know, this is the seat my wife would be sitting in. We were married for 30 years, and we came to many, many World Series together. And so thank you for taking her place. I really appreciate your company. And they watched the game for a while. And then the young man turned to the older man and said, well... I'm just curious, didn't you have any family or friends who could come and join you for the game? And the old man looked at him and said, well, yeah, but they're all at the funeral. So, shall we close with the words of Tendo and Yojo?

[24:58]

I've given you my all, tossing it your way with a hearty laugh, I entrust it all to the spring wind, for there is nothing more that I need to do. So thank you very much, and I think there's some time for some comments or questions or jokes. You know, I think for all the reasons I talked about, I think I used humor both in wholesome and unwholesome ways. But I remember the very first joke I ever told. I think I was about five years old, and I heard that some neighborhood kids had put a hose inside a car and turned it on. And I said, maybe they wanted a carpool. But then I started crying because everybody started laughing.

[26:02]

I thought they were laughing at me, so I didn't quite get it that when you make a joke, it's okay if people laugh. But certainly humor has been a big solace for me in my life. And, you know, I noticed right after the election in 2016, I was just voraciously listening to comics. I was just seeking out funny books and funny stories as a kind of antidote to the... real dismay that I felt. So I really treasure humor and I always look for that in friends. I think it's a touchstone of our communion when we laugh at the same things. Yes, Phyllis. Was it laughter is the best medicine?

[27:17]

Was that it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I refer to my dad's dying, you know. I remember seeing a French movie about a family that was going through the same thing, and I thought, there's really something missing from that movie. And I realized it's because nobody was ever laughing. And I think that's such an important thing that we find with one another when we're going through a dark time. You know, the American poet Theodore Rothke said, In a dark time, the eye begins to see. And I think maybe because... In the case of my father dying, it was sort of like grabbing that strawberry.

[28:25]

This man that I loved, who was such a wonderful and very mysterious person. He was not a simple person. That I knew his death was imminent. And so every moment was precious, you know. And I remember thinking... We should feel this way about each of us, every moment, precious, you know. And in fact, when my father died, I cleared some wreckage of the past with people I loved because I didn't want to wait to have those moments of laughter and affection and clarity with them. So thank you for that. Heard any good jokes lately? Yes. What happened?

[30:19]

I'll tell you another couple of funny stories about my students. Every year I have my students teach the rest of the class something. And it's just a wild range of topics, from basketball to how to make French bread to the history of flight. One of my students did the difference between... This is third grade, right? The difference between Jungian and Freudian therapy... and I asked that boy before he taught I said what are you going to say exactly he said well I'm going to tell him that if you dream you die you actually die I said please don't say that so this year one of my students taught us about DNA and he got the idea for teaching us about DNA from a poster in his father's office and It was an incredible talk.

[31:37]

One of my previous students, when the topic of DNA came up, one of the kids said, what's DNA? I said, does anybody here know what DNA is? And Paul raised his hand and said, isn't it kind of like the recipe for yourself that's in your cells? Yeah, that's what it is. Third grader, you know. So Sachin did his talk about DNA and... I thought this was a wonderful example of our interconnectedness with each other when he said that, you know, we share 98% of the DNA of chimpanzees. So how much more so are we more alike than different? And then he said, we also share 18% of the DNA of a banana. Who knew? So if you eat a banana, you're 18% cannibal. And we went down and we shared a little, you know, a fun fact with the second graders.

[32:40]

So Sachin told this to the second graders. And then I heard that at snack time, none of them would eat a banana because they did not want to be a cannibal. You know, and another story, this is really my favorite story from a third grader. And Blanche, by the way, loved this story. This was many years ago, and Nathan's a grown-up now and probably has kids of his own. But we were having silent reading, and... Nathan walked by my desk and he did this little dance. And I said, Nathan, what were you thinking about right then? He goes, Laura, do you ever suddenly remember that you forget you're alive and suddenly you remember again? And I said, yeah, that's happened to me too. So I was there for his enlightenment experience. So thank you very much for your kind attention. And may we all have much laughter in our lives as we practice seriously the way of Zen.

[33:41]

Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dorma.

[34:08]

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