This podcast is offered by San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good evening. Welcome. Good to be here with you all. My name is Dan Gudgel. I'm a priest and a resident here at San Francisco Zen Center's Beginner's Mind Temple. Thank you for finding some time in this busy world to gather together, be in community, and explore the Dharma together. I do intend to leave some time for discussion at the end, and I'll be outside in the hallway after the talk. So if there are any questions or comments come up for you, take note of them. There will be time for that. And if you have any general questions about the temple, about San Francisco Zen Center, about what we do and why we do it, feel free to ask anyone who has a robe or a rakasu.

[01:12]

Rakasus are these sort of small rectangles hanging around the neck. Those folks can at least direct you towards an answer if you have a question. And please... stay comfortable tonight. So if you need to adjust your posture, get an additional cushion, get up and get a drink of water, please do whatever you need to to take care of yourself. So I think that what we are collectively trying to do with our spiritual practice is here at San Francisco Zen Center, is to reduce the overall burden of suffering in the living world. And I think that my role up here tonight is to encourage us all to keep trying.

[02:14]

There are lots of teachings, lots of teachers, lots of practices. I would encourage... anyone who has dipped into practice, who has met a teacher or heard some of the teachings of Buddhism, if those didn't connect with you, keep looking. There are so many teachers and so many ways to explore the Dharma that there's quite likely something out there that will connect with you. And whatever practice we might engage with, Nothing will happen, suffering will not diminish, if we don't keep trying, if we don't actively keep doing something in our practice. So I want to talk tonight about my favorite fuel and inspiration for practice, and that is joy.

[03:17]

This Joy might be a little challenging to define sometimes, but I think we know it when we feel it. The body is at ease but energized. The mind is alert and engaged. The emotions are open and receptive. We experience the healthy possibilities of existence. And this is not a selfish satisfaction. but it is a happiness that connects us to all existence. And I find a first thread of this joy in the simple fact of being alive and conscious in this moment. I know that I will not always be alive and conscious. So this moment is already precious.

[04:20]

And in that preciousness, I can find joy simply in having the opportunity to experience being alive and awake right now. For me, joy quickly flows into gratitude. There is so much that could have turned out differently, and I am incredibly lucky that I am in the situation that I'm in. Not only am I alive and conscious, but I am also capable of feeling joy. And I find that joy emerges out of curiosity for me quite often. To simply look around and notice things, to become familiar with the world that I live in. the mundane and the wondrous.

[05:23]

For instance, did you know that you can see Venus in the middle of the daytime any time that Venus is out? We think of it as something we see in a dark sky. But in fact, it's brighter than a blue sky. And if we know where to look, we can see Venus in the middle of the day. These simple experiences of this world for me can be a reminder of how wondrous it actually is to be embodied in this world. The physical world is a marvel and the living world is a miracle. I have said this before and I'm going to say it again and I am sure I will say it again and again in the future because I think this is important to everything that we do and important to every moment that we experience.

[06:36]

Life is the most precious and rare thing in this universe. And really, Think about that for a moment. Be with that for a moment. The atoms that make up this body-mind complex that I think of as myself were created by a series of stars blazing and exploding over millions and billions of years. And those materials drifted and condensed and are now here. this place combined in this way for a very short period of time there are many many more ways to be non living matter in this universe than there are ways and opportunities to be alive every living thing even the living things that we find in

[07:48]

frightening or disgusting, they are rarer than anything else that we call precious in this world. An amount of gold, roughly equivalent in mass to our sun, is created every day in this universe. But how many fruit flies come into existence? It rains diamonds continuously in the atmospheres of Neptune and Uranus. But how many living beings get to feel liquid water rain down on their skin? When I deeply feel and really understand how unlikely it is to be a living human being, I can't help but feel joy about having this opportunity.

[08:52]

And this energy of joy, for me, is one of the strongest animating principles in practice. The rarity of life, my love of being alive, love of the activity of living, and love of the one great life of this planet. All of this raises appreciation and gratitude and joy for me. It's a delight to see other living things happy, healthy, and thriving. It's a delight and a rare treat to be in this room with all of you. And it's a terrible sadness to see living things harmed or ill or hindered in some way. By deeply connecting with the existence of all life, I can begin to feel a sympathetic joy for the lives of beings that I don't think of as myself.

[10:16]

to cultivate this ability to have sympathetic joy, to see something good happen for someone else, and to not begrudge them their happiness, to not wish that we had it instead, to really deeply and honestly be as happy about the happiness of others as I can be about the happiness for myself, I think is a mark of really deeply connecting with this source of joy in life. And because I recognize the truth of the Buddhist teaching of interbeing, which we sometimes call dependent co-arising, and is fundamentally the way that we are all inextricably in this mess together, by really recognizing the truth of this interconnection, I can hold multiple ways of being alive as valid and equal and worthy of celebration.

[11:43]

If any part of this universe is sacred, then all of this universe is equally sacred because no peace can be removed from the whole. There is one undivided being of existence. Neither my pancreas, nor my brain is more or less Dan than any other part of my body. In the same way, no planet, no living being, no star, no gas distributed through otherwise empty space is more or less existence than any other. What we perceive as separate elements living things all have the same relationship with the one livingness of this planet.

[12:52]

They have the same relationship with the planet as we have with the parts of our body. And as a sentient being capable of making choices and taking action, I also see and feel that I have an even more rare ability, and related to that ability, a responsibility to try to reduce the suffering that's experienced in life. Every action that I take, every choice that I make, will echo through all space and time, and other living beings will be subject to the consequences of my choices. In recognizing this, I try to behave now how I would have wanted those who came before me to behave if they had been thinking of my welfare.

[13:57]

This is really basic golden rule stuff. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. But it is extending that to a longer, larger view. In thinking about the welfare of future generations, I hope to be creating and spreading joy into the future. And having considered a larger view, I can share somewhat in this anticipatory gratitude and joy of those future generations because we are inherently linked. interconnected. And so the joy that I am attempting to perpetuate into the future is also part of my world. So being aware of the reality of the experience of other living beings makes me very cautious and very gentle about the actions that I take.

[15:14]

I think we should be truly conservative in what we do to the one and only living planet that we have ever found in this universe. This life and the opportunity to live are so precious that we should carefully consider every choice, not just looking seven generations ahead, as some say, but I think 10,000 years ahead, 100,000 years ahead. And I think shared joy is a healthy guide here. If we think that our actions will create the opportunity and the access to joy for living beings in the future, then those are likely kind, ethical, and compassionate actions that we're considering. And I want to point out that joy

[16:18]

for a single being that causes suffering for others is not really joy. That is greed and confusion. The joy that I am talking about cannot be intermingled with the creation of harm and the perpetuation of suffering. As human beings, we are very easily intermingled confused about the true nature of reality. We are always in reality, but our brains also create a useful summary of reality for us to use as a tool. That summary is necessary for daily activity, but we can get confused into taking action as if Our individual brain summary actually describes the true conditions of the world around us.

[17:23]

When I stay close to the joy of curiosity and continue to look closely at the world around me, I notice that I can zoom in anywhere. I can zoom in everywhere and find that the summary my brain has created is not accurate and is not complete. The forest is actually trees. The enemy are actually human beings. Objects are actually atoms and molecules and atoms and molecules are actually energy. The oceans are actually one Great ocean. And this planet teeming with living things is actually a single living thing. A few months after I moved into city center here, four or so years,

[18:43]

three or four years ago now, I had ants show up in my kitchen. And I responded to those ants first directly out of habit and cultural conditioning. I put out poison traps. And I watched the ants scout around my kitchen. I made sure that All of my food was locked up so they couldn't get to it. And I watched these ants swarm these poison traps, take this poison back to their nest. And over time, the ants diminished and disappeared. And the next year, the ants came back. It was about the same time when the cold, rainy season had started. I watched the ants again, watched what they were doing.

[19:45]

I put out poison traps and the ants mostly ignored them this time. They couldn't find any food around my apartment because I had closed those things up carefully and successfully. But I watched their scouting and their exploration around my kitchen. I noticed that they were clustering and eating places where I couldn't even see anything to eat under the dish sponge around the dish around the soap dispenser so I did a little research on these ants these are the very small black ones and it turns out those ants in addition to eating whatever food of ours they may find lying around they also are very fond of bacterial and fungal growths lots of good nutrients and minerals in those so the ants were showing me where I needed to clean in my kitchen I scrubbed the countertops I dried out the mat underneath the dish rack and I realized the ants were no longer a problem they were my housemates they were a curious wonder to watch

[21:08]

following their strict trails, rubbing antenna with each other as they passed. And these ants became a source of joy. And one morning, I accidentally left my compost container open after breakfast. And the next time I came into my kitchen, my compost was swarming with ants. And I didn't... I didn't begrudge them taking this opportunity. It was a rare and wondrous gift I had given them, this vast trove of food. And I thought, okay, I'm going to have to take the compost out to the big bin and shake it all out and start fresh. And I looked at these ants and I just couldn't do it. These were my friends in some way. I shook the compost container and tapped on the side of it and a bunch of ants came rushing out thinking, oh my goodness, something's wrong.

[22:13]

And then there were a bunch of ants who wouldn't leave the compost container. So I just put the lid on it so no more would get back in. And then every time I came back to my kitchen, I'd take the lid off the compost container, shake it a little bit, and some ants would leave. And once no more ants were leaving, I'd put the lid back on. I figured the ants that were in there had plenty to eat. They weren't really going to be in trouble. And the ones who escaped, good for them. And over the course of a few days, I kept doing this. And eventually, my compost was ant-free again. And I hadn't had to shake any of them out into the big bin. I hadn't had to kill any. I hadn't had to isolate any of them from their home nest. No harm had been done to anyone. And I felt a real joy at this expression of gentleness. And I felt a deep sympathetic joy for these ants who had narrowly escaped a dismal fate that they had no idea was even so close at hand.

[23:24]

So now each year, the ants pop up in my kitchen. They explore a little something. They find nothing or almost nothing. And within a few days or a week or two, they move on. And I've come to consider these ants kind of like the migrating birds or the migrating whales. They help me keep track of the progress of the year. In fact, I even find myself sometimes kind of looking forward to it. Oh, it's almost ant time again. And I know that these ants are also part of of the cycling of the ecosystem. It's not just that I have developed this weird fondness for ants. By becoming deeply familiar with them, I'm also aware that they are part of the bedrock of the ecosystem of this planet. If we didn't have ants, our natural world would collapse and we would be in deep trouble and it would take

[24:37]

a lot of years of struggle and evolution for the planet to figure out what to replace the good work of the ants with. So this joy in all living things, this love of life in all its forms, leads me to a hope that future generations can have it a little bit better, and a deep gratitude and honoring of the efforts of our ancestors who have brought us to this place. Yes, it often seems as if things are a terrible mess in this world. And in many ways, they are. And if those who have been working for the common good for millennia hadn't been doing so diligently throughout history, we would be much worse off than we are now.

[25:48]

We might have lost access to things like this spiritual path that we are engaging in. So I've been talking a lot about concepts, about world-sized, universe-sized, ecosystem-sized systems. But I want to end by talking a little bit about how to actually practice with this joy. One of my favorites within this Zen system of practice is to connect in zazen meditation with the joy of returning to the present moment. In meditation, as we do it in this style of Buddhism, we're encouraged to notice moment after moment when we've drifted away from awareness of the present moment

[27:04]

and to simply return to right now. And I have noticed that because of my human condition, it is very easy for me to put a judgment on that returning, to subtly or explicitly criticize myself for having lost focus and to need to return my awareness to the present moment. And I have noticed that when I am criticizing myself over and over in the midst of my meditation, denigrating myself for having lost focus, I am not inspiring myself to keep trying. So what I have found lively and encouraging in meditation is to rejoice each time

[28:05]

that I return to the present moment. To meet that experience of returning to the present moment with a feeling that I learned and associate with this Christian parable of the prodigal son. To celebrate the returning and to not worry about having been gone. So functionally, it looks like this. I'm engaged in a period of meditation, and I notice that my mind has wandered into rumination, into worry, into regret, into list-making. There are endless places my mind can go. But I notice, ah, I have lost focus. I don't think I am meditating right now. And I choose to return my awareness to the present moment, to notice my body, to notice my senses, to notice my mind as it is right here and now.

[29:17]

And I say to myself something similar to, thank goodness, I'm back in the present moment. I have another opportunity to be here and now. I have another chance. to keep trying. Thank you, Dan, for noticing and returning. What a gift. What a rare opportunity. And then my attention will wander again, and I will return again, and I will do this over and over again. Often, I do this without quite so many words. I just bring that feeling of joy, that feeling of gratitude into my heart, into my body. And I don't waste time regretting about the wandering. It's already happened, so what am I going to do about it anyway? I just rejoice at the returning.

[30:21]

And I have noticed that as I become more familiar with this process, during zazen, during meditation, as I make this into an embodied habit and not just a trick or a gimmick, I can access this same feeling off the cushion in the rest of my day. I can be driving or doing dishes or in the middle of a difficult conversation and I can realize that I'm not fully present and I can make the choice to direct my effort towards being fully present in that moment. And I can experience this joy at being reunited with the present moment. And then that joy radiates out into the world, into my driving, into my dishwashing, into the difficult conversation that I'm having. It becomes

[31:27]

a legacy of joy instead of a legacy of suffering or of just indifference. So we are alive right now, and we will not always be. This planet is alive right now, and it will not always be. Life is possible in this universe and exists in this universe right now. And life will not always be possible in this universe and will not always exist here. This is a rare and wondrous experience that we're having, an incredibly rare opportunity to be alive and to take action in this world. I think we should treasure any expression of life anywhere that we find it.

[32:32]

We should rejoice for all good. We should weep for all sorrow. And we should work for all peace. Because we are deeply, inextricably in this together. So this is my encouragement today, not to diminish the reality of the great suffering in this world, but to also acknowledge this incredible opportunity and the deep well of joy that is available at recognizing the opportunities that we have And we've got about 10 minutes to talk about that. So if anybody would like to comment at anything, please feel free. Michael will bring the microphone around so the folks online can hear you.

[33:39]

And if anybody online has a question, raise a Zoom hand. And if technology allows, we'll get you in. Hi. I really appreciate what you said tonight. And it's so easy to feel the sorrow of what's going on in the pressure, political and all over the world, so not just our country, and to not feel like giving up. And I appreciate that you said that we just have to keep going. We must keep endeavoring to go forward, and that you're right. Others have done that before us, and that's why we have the feeling. I appreciate that you said that. that we're carrying the torch with them in our own humble way, in our own way that we can, and just not give up. So I thank you very much. Thank you. Yeah, I think, for me, I think I feel the sorrow of the terrible things in this world because I know the joy is possible.

[34:55]

because I know what a beautiful and rare thing this is, and because for human beings to be so confused that they have lost sight of that joy and that wondrousness is a sign of their own deep suffering. Yeah, and thank goodness that we are not the only ones who have been working on these problems and trying to make the world a better place for all of these centuries. Thank you. Thanks, Dan, for talking about joy. It's a joy to practice with you. You said that this joy that you spoke about can't intermingle with harm. And so sort of along the same lines of the question that was just asked, I feel like it has to intermingle.

[36:01]

It has to become intertwined. The joy somehow has to be able to exist in an environment of so much harm. Some of us are harmed all day long. And there needs to be a way, I feel... for there to be an intermingling, for there to be an intermixing. And I don't have an easy answer for that, but they're not separate for me. Thank you. Everything is intermingled, inescapably so. And I think what I was noticing and trying to remind myself of in that statement is that my selfishness, my self-centeredness, my focus on my own experience

[37:21]

doesn't spread joy. That if I focus just on my own self, my own experience, without taking the bigger world into consideration, I will be creating harm. I will be creating suffering. And so in that sense, I think this, you know, there's a kind of, there's a, sort of a cleanness to this joy when it's no longer related to my own self, to my own experience. So yes, I think these things, I think joy and suffering are deeply intermingled in this world, partly because these labels of joy and suffering are just mental categories that I'm putting out there into the world and aren't... they aren't fundamentally solid.

[38:25]

And I think if we pay close attention and notice that something that makes us feel provisionally good is actually creating harm and suffering elsewhere, I'm not actually going to be able to find joy in that. I may find comfort or some temporary relief, but it's not this deeply rooted joy. Yeah. It's a tricky topic. Thank you. Good evening. Good evening. Thank you so much for the talk. When you spoke about your mind wandering and then noticing coming back, and you said sometimes you bring in joy.

[39:32]

And I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit of the how to do that. There was a part of me that inherently knew how to do it, and then there was the other half of my mind that was like, how? Thank you. Yeah, thank you. For me, there are a couple of methods there. One is that in returning to the present moment, most of the time I have this experience of feeling a little bit energized, a little more awake. I was having this experience this morning in the meditation hall because I was... very tired. And I was occasionally dozing off a little bit. And I thought about this practice and I said, let me put this into action. And so just returning to the present moment and extending some gratitude for myself for remembering to return to the present moment had a kind of

[40:44]

waking up, opening my eyes, giving me a little energy kind of feeling. And I think as an embodied being, when we feel an increase in physical energy, we often associate that with sort of a happy, pleasant state. And so that can kind of nudge me in the direction of joy. Once I've been kind of nudged in that direction of joy by having prepared myself by being aware of what I take as the rare wondrousness of being alive, if I'm nudged in the direction of joy because I have thought about and practiced with these things, that pathway is really accessible for me. I think another way that... I see joy entering in that moment is in just a pure delight in the senses.

[41:56]

We have these eyes and ears and nose and skin. We have these chemical, mechanical devices that allow us to bring in all of this information from the outside world. That's totally weird and wonderful that certain wavelengths of light bounce around in these physical structures in a way that creates electrical energy that's interpreted by this brain and that I can do all this stuff with it. Just to have that moment of, oh yes, I'm in a body and I have this incredible array of sensory input flowing into me in this moment. can be a real joy. And this morning, because of the time of year, we were getting sunlight on the windows and the pattern of the leaves of these trees out here.

[43:00]

So to have this transition from being sort of starting to doze off in my mind probably thinking about something I wish I hadn't done 15 years ago or worrying about something I might have to do next week, to transition from that sort of interior closed-eye dark space to remembering I'm in a body, I'm in this present moment, I'm seeing the sunlight through the trees at 6.30 in the morning. that contrast for me can also open the doorway to joy. So I think we sort of prepare the ground a little bit so that these opportunities are available to us when we need them. Thank you. And it looks like we are at the end of our time. So thank you all again for being here and for engaging with this practice.

[44:08]

May it be helpful and beneficial in your lives. And if anybody wants to chat further, I'll be outside. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma Talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, please visit sfcc.org and click giving. May we all fully enjoy the Dharma.

[44:41]

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