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, everyone, and welcome to Zen Center, or just thank you for being here, if you are usually as a resident and so on. I've been thinking about aging because, as you see, I am aging. And the people around me are aging or they're people much younger than I am who are becoming mature members of the community and that sort of thing. And so I've been thinking about the relationship between... people of different ages, and how we negotiate that in community. What are the criteria for how we treat each other, how we see each other?

[01:08]

And of course, it's the same anywhere you find yourself. So I'm thinking of this talk as being about ageism, aging, and community, in a sense. I think there's many issues that concern us about life and about our quality of life. And it's impossible to fully sort of uncover all the aspects of them and solve them or come up with ideas about how things could work. But I hope that something that I say will... sort of touch on some other issues as well in our lives in terms of diversity and our sense of ourself and our sense of others and our judgments of ourselves and others.

[02:10]

So about a decade or so ago, this sort of panic and concern arose because all of the baby boomers, were suddenly aging. And what was going to happen? You know, how are they going to be taken care of? And not only was this group of people aging, but they were living longer. They were much healthier than the previous generations. And so... Oh, and there, you know, these discoveries... in medical research, help people to recover better from heart attacks, stroke, cancer. And so people were living even longer and developing other diseases and needing long-term lifetime, aging, long-term care at the end of life.

[03:13]

So I think that this is a dilemma that is... true for all the following generations. The next generation might live a little bit longer and a little bit longer. And what is that going to mean in terms of the relationships between the generations and so on? And it's very reasonable for us to wish to live longer, healthy lives. So that isn't the real problem. In a book called Buddhist Ethics, the author is Hamaloa Sadhatisa, and he comments on the 12-fold chain of causation, which is one of the teachings of Buddhism. He says, the term consciousness, as used in the chain, refers to the general sense, as one might say, that a person is conscious if he knows what is going on around him,

[04:18]

unconscious if he does not. Having established contact with an object or event, one registers judgment on it. One may find it pleasant, unpleasant, or one may be indifferent to it. In the first two cases, that's the pleasant and unpleasant, one wishes either to perpetuate the liaison or to destroy it. In the third, one is merely not interested. Yet though in the main there are no fixed standards of pleasantness or unpleasantness, there are certain states which human beings, irrespective of time and place, dislike, and certain others which they ardently desire. The outstanding example of the first is death and of the second, life. Yet, in existence as we know it, at present, life is followed by death.

[05:21]

So many Buddhist teachings, you know, attempt to address the fear of death and the desire to extend our lives. So one of the problems of extended lifetimes that occurred to me is that, you know, it requires... more drinkable water and food, and where will the water come from? Who will produce and process the food? You know, who will grow it? And then, you know, as well as these issues of housing and care and medical support, So I think it's very interesting for me to consider, you know, how this will affect the relationships between the generations. The affection between the generations, the expectations, and the resentments that we just naturally feel in between, you know, between the generations.

[06:29]

It's just very hard, you know, to... when you're younger, to imagine that you're going to be older or what it's like to be older. And when you're older, you sort of forget some of the things that people go through when they're younger. We have just this limited capacity. And so our efforts to communicate, how do those work? So... At the same time, what's interesting about this generation, this large, the baby boomer generation that's aging and starting to die, is that there's also this popular trend right now of having children and celebrities with the baby bumps and the little videos of cute kids doing cute things on MSN and everything. So, you know, I just... I'm just touching on all these things. I don't have any solutions. I just, I don't have any, you know, sort of judgments about it, but it's just kind of curious juxtapositions.

[07:36]

So, what, I'm somewhat bothered by the cute videos. I think of them as the munchkin videos, you know. Little kids. And we laugh and it seems so cute and everything. And then I get uncomfortable because it's sort of this entertainment using these kids. And then, of course, there's always the kittens and the puppies there too. Anyway, I find myself very uncomfortable with it. And it's not that there's not that adorability aspect. I admit that that's there. But I... kind of wonder if some of it is a reflection of, you know, a sort of parental vanity. Like, look at my cute kids. And nothing wrong with it. I'm just sort of curious about how we sort of look at these children and, you know, how we use them in a certain way.

[08:41]

Anyway, I'm just curious. So there's also, you know, that joy and that that you get from watching parents and their children or thinking of, you know, your own relationships with children. And then the children go older and the parents grow older and things shift. And there are a lot of, you know, each, all these... people of different ages are facing their particular challenges of the human condition. And my wish, I want to think of the best of circumstances for everyone, but almost everyone I've ever spoken to or known has complained about their parents in some way. And that's completely understandable.

[09:42]

But at the same time, I don't think they expect their children or the next generation to think that about them. And so it's, again, this forgetting and not being able to see the future and not quite understanding the past. And so I think this continues through our lives. I sort of think of the 20s as this time of kind of vacillation and trying to figure out what you're going to do. Some people have made decisions by then, but that's how I think of it. And then I think in sort of the 30s, 40s, and 50s, we sort of enter our years of what you might call productivity or failure of productivity, whatever it may be. And those are the years of heavy lifting. You know, you're... When they need someone to move something, those people are the ones who show up, you know.

[10:44]

And then the more symbolic way, those are the people who are keeping the schools going and colleges and universities and Zen centers, you know. And then there's actually a physiological thing that happens in our 50s is that our immune system starts to break down. And people will start to think, like, why am I so tired? I didn't do that much, you know, and that sort of thing. And it's not just about being susceptible to flu and colds, although that's the way some people experience it. But there was a woman from the nursing school up at UCSF came to speak to the group of chaplains that I was in. And she said that that's the time when people start to develop... whether they know it or not. It's just the immune system is breaking down. And so, you know, here you are in your 50s, kind of, your organs and your cells are not being regenerated as quickly or as thoroughly.

[11:54]

And what does that mean? Well, it's the shift towards the end of life, really. Yeah. And so I think, you know, the intimations of moving towards what we can only call death, and I don't mean to be gloomy, but that's what it is, you know, they're usually accompanied by sort of a combination of fear and denial. And those are not necessarily conscious, but I think those are there. So there's this sense of some alienation between age groups and a certain amount of lack of understanding that just goes without saying. It's not like we should do it, we have to do it differently. But right around the 40s and 50s, there's usually some kind of a midlife crisis.

[12:58]

And it's... The way I experience it and why I sometimes see others sort of dealing with it is that there's this kind of tendency to identify with people who are younger and kind of sort of criticize people who are a little older. Those intimations, you know, they're subtle, and yet on some level we're conscious of them. And so clinging to this, the young, you know, sort of not... sort of being a little critical of older people. And the way this came to my attention is I was living at Tassajara, and I was in my mid-40s, you know, menopause stuff happening and all kinds of things like that. And I worked in the kitchen, and I was a Fukaten. And these older women, you know, all during the summer were... came into the kitchen because they were GPs and the GPs come and they work half a day and then they have the other half of the day off and then they eat in the dining room.

[14:10]

And so these women, I mean, they were often very charming. I'm not, you know, but it was my, I'm talking just about my experience and how I was projecting onto these women. And so they would come in in the morning and be very enthusiastic and everything and they were irritating me so much. And I couldn't understand it. I thought, what is going on? And I finally realized that they were evoking my fear of being a gray-haired, aging lady. So I also noticed that when the younger people were sort of critical of them, I kind of sided with the younger people. And that didn't feel so good either, but it was that place, you know, of that clinging and fear or whatever you might want to call it. And, you know, now I notice my attitude towards people who are like five or ten years older, and I'm just watching it and watching it.

[15:14]

And it's different from that earlier experience because that was a little, that was the midlife crisis part. where it's not quite in your awareness yet. But I still struggle with that sort of projection and fear, denial stuff about it. And I carry many regrets about my life, but I don't want to die. I still want to go on. I want to see what happens next. And even though I know that's the way it'll happen. So one of the things I've noticed in aging is that my doctor and her assistants are calling me dear. Oh, yes, dear. You know, that kind of thing. And I'm like... And I was reading this review, in the London Review of Books, of a book by an older woman, reviewed by an older woman.

[16:21]

And so she was talking about her experience, and what people say to her is, ah, bless. In that same, it's a kind of a way of talking. So it's awkward, because I don't, on the inside, know what I look like. I know what I look like because I can look in a mirror and stuff like that. But on the inside, that isn't the image I have of myself. So it's awkward, and it's funny, too. It's actually very funny. Another thing that starts to happen that this woman, Jenny Diskey, who wrote the review, talks about is that older people are often seen as hypochondriacs. So at the same time as your health is kind of deteriorating, you're also seen as a hypochondriac. And I think they are somewhat related. But my experience was that I... I developed this terrible pain in my hip.

[17:23]

That was where I experienced the pain. And I went to my doctor, and at the same time, around that same time, my 16-year-old niece had been killed in a car accident. So my doctor said, oh, you're just having psychosomatic symptoms and hypochondriac symptoms, and it's all about your niece. And so she said I should take antidepressants. Well, I thought she was wrong, you know, but anyway, she sent me to these other people and they only looked at my hip. And then eventually it turned out this chiropractor suggested I have an MRI and I had a bulging disc and it was pressing on the nerve. It goes down my leg. And in the meantime, all this peripheral kind of pain and twisting and All this other stuff happened in my foot. My right leg was always numb, so I didn't realize I'd injured myself on and on. And I think she, I have always been very healthy, and I think she just couldn't grasp that something could be wrong with me.

[18:31]

And so that's, I think, partly what was going on there. But to call me a hypochondriac, that was interesting. I don't think she would have done that if I'd been younger. So I think, you know, and she is about 10 years younger than I am. So I think that was part of it too. So, you know, it may be that both the young and the old, you know, can't clearly see the future and can't clearly see the past. It's just that way. And I think Buddhism is asking us to try. you know, to make that effort and sort of beyond our tendency toward these limited views where we just don't really notice. Like, it took a huge amount of effort for me to notice what was happening that summer at Tassajara. I was uncomfortable and something felt wrong.

[19:35]

But I think, you know, I could have just been like, oh, well, you know, the summer will end and then I'll do something else. But I do think our community practice, the fact that we sit in meditation together, and in meditation we're fairly innocent and causing very little harm, I hope. I think that there's a way that that helps bring these things to our attention better, and that's a place where we can examine them. And I think that that's what I was doing. in that situation, and I still do it. So to just keep bringing these things down below the surface, you know, what's going on? Why am I upset? Just keep bringing it down below the surface to see where it's coming from. And so as you'll mostly know, the basic teaching of Buddhism is suffering and the end of suffering.

[20:38]

We usually think that as being experiential and somehow belonging to us, and that the way to end suffering is to come up with some means of control. And what that happens when we start practicing Buddhism is we may think that control will be enlightenment. Once we're enlightened, this won't be a problem. But that couldn't be what Buddhism is trying to tell us. That wouldn't be very revolutionary. Oh, here, you just have this revelation and all is well. And it also wouldn't require all these sutras and all these interpretations of interpretations. So I think that this sort of gloomy-seeming aspect of Buddhism can be discouraging. we may try to compensate by focusing on enlightenment and compassion, particularly.

[21:44]

But I also recommend sort of keeping a sort of sense of humor or perspective. And in a way, that has a pinch of wisdom in it. So you're... Watching what's happening, you can't stop and hang around and figure it out, but you can give it your attention. And so you can start to see it as the human condition. And for some reason, that has some humor in it. And mostly it has perspective in it, because then you can start including the fact of all you don't know. be completely aware of your limitations and the limitations of, you know, your sort of horizon of reality. And I think one thing to remember is that what's called our suffering and our personal limitations and our conditioning are also the resource for our freedom.

[22:53]

They, you know, like they say, you know, it's... It's the mud at the bottom that makes the lotus grow. And so that's what I think that means. That's our resource. All the things about ourselves. And I think there are two questions that we can ask ourselves as we're negotiating our ordinary lives. And one is, who am I? And the other is, what am I doing? So what those are pointing to is developing self-understanding and our ethical relationship to the world. And I think these two questions are inseparable. I know that ethics and morality often seem like, you know, a kind of context for judging ourselves and others, but they're actually just about our actions or our karma.

[23:58]

It's how to look at our actions in a different way, in a more conscious way. And then how our actions arise, what their effect is, and how we address the consequences. And this is the consequences arise from the past, move through the present, and into the future. So these, you know, our actions arise out of our preferences and compulsions and addictions. And, you know, this is just basic Buddhist teaching. And it's also basically the human condition or the first and second noble truths. And the noble truths are just descriptions.

[25:00]

They're not trying to make you feel bad. They're not trying to, you know, say, oh, life is suffering. Isn't it terrible? But just these are descriptions of how, you know, our preferences cause us to see the world in a certain way, mostly very selfish way, just human nature. So kind of back to my theme, there's been this plan floating around for several years at San Francisco Zen Center to build or either Zen Center to do it on its own or join another faith community to build a retirement home for all these aging baby boomers. And it's... It's not a bad idea, but it's complicated.

[26:03]

And, of course, there's the cost of it, too. But somebody was describing the vision for this retirement home, or I'm not sure what you would call it once. And I don't know if this is absolutely the way it's going to be, but the vision at the time was that people who, residents or non-residents who could afford it, would have these private accommodations and, you know, special care and everything. And then those who were not able to afford that would live in a sort of communal area. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to laugh. Would live in a sort of communal area and, you know, sit zazen together, ring the bells. And I just thought... I mean, you're talking to me, I'm a person, and this sounds kind of silly. That isn't the way I want to live my life, you know, as I age.

[27:06]

And I think that it's very, it's not wrong, but it didn't take into account the fact that people are different, their needs are different. personalities of people who live close together. I was a little... Anyway, for a moment I almost thought he was kidding. But I think that not all of us want to spend our last years and die, you know, in a retirement home in the country. And some people do. But I don't think all of us want to do that. I was in... Massachusetts for a couple of weeks, Joan Amaral's Marblehead Zen Center. And it was very odd as I was traveling around. People didn't seem so rude to me as they are here. And what I mean by that, I've noticed that as I age, people seem to be, I seem to become less, sort of more invisible.

[28:13]

And someone else told me they had the same experience, so I know I'm not making it up. But when I was there, it was different. And it wasn't like people were friendly, but it was almost like they were more courteous to me, not as an old person, but just as a person. And I had conversations with strangers, and this young man sat next to me, and we talked for like, we were waiting for the train and stuff. And it just felt different. And people in shops, you know, they just, you know, no matter what their age was, they just talked to me like just another person. And I don't know why, and I came back, and I noticed the same thing. I tried across the street, and people just zoom, you know, right past me. But then if somebody young, and this other person was telling me they had the same experience. And in shops, you know, and anywhere. So, anyway, I think...

[29:15]

I'm not sure how I went there, but I think it's that thing about how I'm seen is also kind of how I respond. Because when I was there, I could be more friendly because people were more courteous and friendly to me. And then here, I find myself getting sort of huffy, kind of irritated when these cars zoom by and that sort of thing and how that affects me. So when we think about community and all the variety of people who will probably be in the community, what's our vision of it? Is it people who are like us and share our values and our backgrounds and so on? Can it be inclusive and complicated? And can it accommodate...

[30:20]

chaos, you know, and difference? And does it require an articulable shared vision in order to survive? So I think there's other questions to ask as well, such as at Zen Center, you know, one of the factors of complexity is that the point of joining a community and participating in it and living in its housing is to be a Buddhist practitioner who is being trained and training others in the forms and in work practice and in Buddhist teaching.

[31:21]

in the context of Buddhist ethics or what you might call the hopes of what Buddhism teaches. So recently someone asked me, this was when I was in Marmohan, if I knew any enlightened people. And I had to think, what would that mean to me? And what were they asking me? And as I thought about it, I said, you know, I don't think it works that way because no matter how deep our insight, we still have to do the next thing. And that unfolding of our life keeps happening. So you don't get to this place where you're kind of enlightened. There's no place there. It's called that. But my suggestion was that I thought that you should be careful about projecting enlightenment onto somebody and instead try to find someone you can trust.

[32:30]

So Dogen writes in the Genjo Koan, enlightenment does not divide you. And that's what I think that means. You know, it's like you don't stop being you You don't stop being part of this contingent reality. And then he goes on, when dharma does not fill your body and mind, you think it is already sufficient. When dharma fills your body and mind, you understand that something is missing. Though there are many features in the dusty world and the world beyond conditions, you see and understand only what your eye of practice can reach. I quoted this recently in another talk, and it keeps coming back to me. Something is important there for me because it implies, as I said, that we're never finished. And we always need to be looking beyond this horizon of our assumptions.

[33:37]

Yeah. And that... the variety of our surroundings is conducive to deeper insight. And the reason for that is because I think we need difference to know ourselves. We need to always be challenged in our assumptions and even our hopes of comfort. Those need to always be challenged. I went to one of the sermons at St. Andrews and the person who was speaking, I'm not sure of his title, was saying we have to get out of our comfort zone in order to know ourselves. And so, you know, I call it facing our complacency. Like we don't, you know, it's just like, oh no, not another thing I have to do. But it's just that

[34:42]

that will deepen our self-understanding or widen it, whatever you want to say. And as our self-understanding and our understanding of our limitations develops, then we can extend that to others, understand others, offer compassion based on self-understanding rather than compassion based on what we think would help someone, that sort of thing. So one of the first revelations of the Buddha is that all beings are subject to old age sickness and death. And his response was to adopt this ascetic spiritual life and practice and then to refine it through his experience and what I think of as the humility of his enlightenment.

[35:53]

his first teaching is the Four Noble Truths, which is in a statement of humility. Suffering, cause of suffering, cessation of suffering, but then the Eightfold Path. How would you be more humble than to give yourself rules after you were enlightened? Okay, enlightenment requires these rules, these decisions that you make about right conduct and right livelihood and all those things. So that humility, it's not exactly the kind we usually think of. But it's something like this. Covencino, a teacher from Japan, was visiting Tassajara several years ago when I was living there.

[36:55]

And one day during Zazen, he said something like, all of the people in the world, the variety. That's all he said, and it went right to my heart. I was just like, he is a very complicated person, and people had questions about how he lived his life, and yet there he was saying this. thing. And all of the people in the world, the variety, that's all he said. And of course I thought, well, here I am. There I was. I'm a complicated person with lots of I've done lots of things that people would criticize and will criticize. And I'm just like him and everyone else, the variety. And there was something there about this kind of valuing myself and extending that value to others.

[38:04]

Anyway, one of those moments. And that's a kind of humility. It's not me. my enlightenment, my practice that's important, something else. And it's not possible without that variety, that sense of variety. So how can we make sense of things in a community in terms of diversity? How do we support each other's and each person's life path and spiritual path? And do we tend to assume that we can do that? And, you know, I don't have any answers to any of the questions I'm asking. And I, you know, I've become senior enough, so I'm often in these circumstances of decision-making.

[39:08]

And I've tried to develop a way of seeing things as widely as I can, not playing favorites. So if there's a person who I have some association with, I just set that aside and try to consider the whole community as well as individuals who are... involved in whatever sort of decision-making it could be. And I don't think that this is good or necessarily any more consistent than other views or methods. It's just this, all the people and all their needs and all their hopes. How can that all be in there? And can we accommodate all of it? you know, in this San Francisco Zen Center, can we? And I'm not sure if that can be answered.

[40:16]

And it makes our decision-making very difficult and kind of fraught. You know, your heart, your wish for people's happiness, you know, it's always sort of in there. And yesterday I was in a meeting where we were discussing something difficult, very emotional and significant. And during the discussion, you know, there were sort of people were expressing, you know, perceived agreements and disagreements among us, you know, and you said this and you said that and that sort of thing. But then this morning, I spent the afternoon and evening kind of thinking it through and thinking about this particular person and then my relationships with all the people in the room, my relationships with people outside the room.

[41:21]

And this morning I woke up and I felt absolutely peaceful. I don't know where it came from, what combination of aspects were there. But I thought, okay, thanks. And that lasted and lasted. And I think that there is something about our difficulties that if we give them... a certain amount of attention, or a certain type of attention, I should say, they become this vehicle for shifting the way we worry or the way we kind of split ourselves in trying to decide what's the right thing and what's the wrong thing. We have to do that, but it doesn't have to get

[42:27]

so, um, painful. I guess that's it. I, I can't quite describe it, but I, I, um, I, um, know that those moments of peace, those times of peace are rare and they pass there, but that doesn't make them false or, you know, not useful. Um, it was very useful for me to feel that way. Um, and to go to the zendo and have that container. So my intention this evening was to address ageism, aging, and community. And I'm not sure how successful I've been. For one thing, I found out I was going to give this talk just a few days ago.

[43:34]

And so I kind of went all over with it. And I hope that what I have conveyed is that the issues that arise in community... are always accompanied by uncertainty and chaos. They have to be. That's what sort of brings everything up to the surface. And it can be very uncomfortable and make us feel like we're not important or not being considered. But I think if we can stand it, then... our decisions will be different. What I'm trying to see is how this process of our decision making and its difficulties can sometimes, on the one hand, end up with us avoiding making decisions, and then, on the other hand, hoping that it could also

[44:50]

be a way for us to make thoughtful ones. And I'm not sure which one serves the community most effectively. Whether it's this kind of not really making decisions and sort of hoping everything's okay, or whether it's kind of making a decision with this kind of a pointed mind. Thank you very much, and on Wednesday evening we usually tape a couple of questions, but I don't know what time it is. Okay. You think two would be okay, or should we just end? Either way is okay. Okay. The Eno has spoken.

[45:52]

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 Dharma.

[46:20]

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