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. My name is Torine, and I'm co-leading this six-week practice period that we're in the middle of now with David Zimmerman. Thank you for inviting me to speak, David. I'm curious whether anyone is here for their first Dharma talk. So special welcome to you and to our Beginner's Mind Temple. We all try to bring Beginner's Mind whether we've been at times, but for you it's probably easier. Thank you. I was speaking with a friend who has been participating in the Contemplative Caregiving course at City Center.

[01:05]

It's a year-long course divided in three parts. He was taking the course because he didn't think he was very compassionate and he wanted to develop that quality of compassion in himself. As he was as we were speaking, he reached into his wallet and brought out a small button with a thought bubble that said, just like me. And that had been given to him by the leader of the contemplative caregiving class, Jennifer Block. And she gave it out in a class on compassion. And he... talked about how thinking that other people were just like him helped him develop compassion both towards himself and towards everyone he encountered.

[02:08]

So tonight I want to explore compassion, and in particular in this practice period we're studying a text called the Xin Xin Ming, or it can be translated as Trust in Mind, And the theme of the practice period is cultivating the mind of radical trust. So what is that mind of radical trust? Zen practice is for living in an uncertain world. So as we explore the mind of trust and what trust means, how we conceive of mind, we're also looking at how we can apply what we learn to our lives, our work, our relationships, and our relationship to the wider world. So in exploring some of the qualities that we may cultivate in order to live this with a mind of trust, we've been investigating equanimity.

[03:25]

And equanimity is, I'll get to compassion and how it's related to compassion. Equanimity is often viewed as a balance or stability. And the Sanskrit word for it, upekka, means to view from above or to get a perspective on things as you would perhaps from the top of a mountain. So it may sound like it's kind of cool and detached, but actually it comes from an ability to engage with the world, but in a way that is balanced and not swayed by likes and dislikes, ups and downs, different moods. It's more grounded in our body and in our breath. in our ability to meet the world with some, I could say, composure.

[04:31]

So as we were talking about equanimity in class and relating it to the text, which is a poem written in the 6th century, the Xin Xin Ming, and it's one that requires... to understand. Some of the lines speak to us immediately, but others need a little bit more work. Someone in the class said, well, where is compassion in the Xin Xin Ming, in this poem? It was easy to find lines related to equanimity and mind and trust, but where was compassion? And I was intrigued by that question, so that's why I'm talking about compassion tonight and where we... can find it in the Xin Xin Ming, kind of investigating what compassion means. And I'm going to share a koan, a Zen story, and also a poem related to compassion. So equanimity and compassion are two of the four Brahma Viharas, or the evodes of the Buddha.

[05:48]

Loving kindness, compassion, Sympathetic joy and equanimity are the four abodes, and they're all very closely related. And it's said that equanimity is the ground that supports the other three. But they can all be cultivated and practiced with and enable us to live a life that is more connecting and developing these qualities which our really positive mind states can enable us to actually be happier and meet one another with openness and appreciation. So I did find two passages in the Xin Xin Ming that I think relate to compassion. And I'm going to start with

[06:52]

with the first one that I found. In this world of suchness, there is neither self nor other than self. To come directly into harmony with this reality, just simply say, when doubt arises, not to. In this not to, nothing is separate, nothing excluded. So I'm going to read it again and then talk about each line because it might not be immediately obvious what this means. In this world of suchness, there is neither self nor other than self. To come directly into harmony with this reality, just simply say, when doubt arises, not to. In this not to, nothing is a is separate, nothing excluded.

[07:53]

So commonly, we often think that we are separate, that we are unique individual beings, and this is true in one sense, but in another sense or another way of looking at things, we are all interdependent. And when we can experience that, we touch the world of suchness, which is a world of It's sometimes hard to put it into words. Some ways of describing it are Buddha mind or great mind or awareness. It's the inconceivable. But in that realm, there's no separate self. We are all interdependent with other beings sentient beings, and also with nature. So it's a kind of direct connection with the world.

[09:01]

And to come into harmony with that reality, sometimes saying or thinking, not two, not separate, is a helpful tool to help us reach that awareness. And there's a commentary that we're studying written by an East Coast scholar named Musang. It's also called Trust in Mind. And he talks about this sense of interdependence and not having a consciousness that it's so expansive as like the consciousness of a baby within the mother's womb. I think that's a powerful image. The baby has consciousness, but no self-consciousness in the sense of being separate from the environment in which it floats. So that's something we lose when we're born, but we can find it again.

[10:07]

And to find a way of being in harmony with each other and all things. which is the meaning of not to. So one way we can access that mind of connectedness and not to is through meditation practice when we are able to sit, return to the breath, and sometimes just feel that sense of separate self-dissolving. or an awareness of how we are changing moment to moment, and how, in a way, I sometimes feel this in the zendo, I'm very aware of the other beings, the other people sitting in the zendo, even though I'm not, well, I'm now sitting facing outward, usually we face the wall, but because I'm co-leading the practice period, I do have a,

[11:17]

a visual sense of not being alone in the sendo, but even when I face the wall, I can be aware of those sitting to either side and all around, and feel the concentration, the quiet, the stillness that can fill that big space. So... abiding in that space, that sense of interconnection, interdependence, is a way of experiencing compassion. Compassion literally means feeling with, or feeling the suffering, or the pain of others, but not only the suffering, it can be feeling anything, but in particular, compassione is the Italian or the Latin root, particularly the pain of others and being able to respond to that pain.

[12:37]

There's an image of... bodhisattvas are awakening beings, and there's a bodhisattva that embodies compassion. The original name in Sanskrit for this awakening being is Avalokiteshvara, and literally that means the hearer of the cries of the world. So one who can hear the cries of the world is one who embodies compassion. And in China, that name became Quan Yin. And Quan Yin is described as having a thousand hands, each one with an eye in it. So to be able to not only hear the cries of the world, but respond to the cries of the world. And there are some statues of Quan Yin that have many, many hands, each one with a different tool in it, as a different way of responding to the cries of the world.

[13:44]

And there's a phrase call and response, so when one hears the cries of the world without thinking about it, there's just a response, and usually the phrase appropriate response, because Kuan Yin seems to know what tool to use and what way to respond to someone's distress. There's a koan about Kuan Yin that I really love. It's... It's about two Dharma brothers, Yunyan and Dao Wu. Yunyan is the younger brother, and Dao Wu... Yes, one of them is younger and one of them is older. I'm not sure which is which. But Dao Wu... No, it's Yunyan.

[14:45]

asks, what does the bodhisattva of compassion do with all those hands and eyes? Why a thousand hands and eyes? And Dao Wu answers, it's like reaching back for a pillow in the night. So that sense of comfort that you get when you reach for your pillow, and it's always there. And you know you can count on that pillow being there. And Yun Yan says, oh, I understand. And Dao Wu says, what do you understand? Yun Yan says, all over the body, hands and eyes. So I'm covered with compassion, these hands and eyes. And Dao Wu says, well, that's a good answer, but you've only got 80%. And this union says, well, what's missing?

[15:51]

Tell me, what do you see? And Dawu says, throughout the body, hands and eyes. So the idea is that in every cell of our body, we can respond with compassion. It's not just skin deep. It goes all the way through us. So I wanted to give an example of compassion, that it might not immediately sound like compassion to you, but it's a poem. It's in a poem by Naomi Shihab Nye. Naomi Shihab Nye is a Palestinian-American poet. She gives a retreat every May at Tassajara with Paul Haller, and I've had the great good fortune of attending a few of them. have come to think of her as a friend as well as a teacher. And recently, a few years ago, her father, who was Palestinian, died, and she wrote many poems.

[16:55]

And some of them used... Her father was a journalist. He moved to the States, and they lived... Actually, she grew up in Ferguson, Missouri, and now she lives in Texas. And... She wrote a number of poems using lines from her father's journal. His name was Aziz Shihab, and this is one of those poems. It's called, I Hate It, I Love It. I was grabbed by the title because the Xin Xin Ming, the poem we're studying, starts out with the line, the great way is not difficult. for those who have no preferences, or for those who have no likes or dislikes. And of course, we all have likes and dislikes, and sometimes they can feel very strong, like I hate it, I love it. But how do we live with those?

[17:56]

How do we live our lives without being driven by our likes and dislikes? So here's the poem, I hate it, I love it. Sometimes working at the newspaper, Reading about my people's oppression, I wanted to shred the stories instead of print them. This is her father's voice. Then take a long walk down to the Manhattan Cafe and have a plate lunch with Dan, who owned the place. His people were from Greece. Ask Dan why humans are so mean to one another. But don't you love this country, he'd say. And I'd say... Sure I do. I hate it. I love it. He'd talk and listen anyway, then give me more butter for my bread. I liked how he shrugged his shoulders and found a smile somewhere inside to pull out.

[18:58]

That's what I tried to do too, especially in my business, the news dispensing business. It was always strange how one thing was news and another wasn't. Who's to say? Or what had been twisted by the time it reached me? Also strange. And what my mother, who never heard of it, might think about any of it, sitting in her stone house with hundreds of years in the walls, but not the real family home she loved so much, the one we lost in Jerusalem, which we didn't talk about often because it was like a person who had died in another country, and we had never been able to wash the body. So in that poem, there's this sense of Aziz Shihab's loss, his mother's loss of their family home, but somehow he was able to...

[20:07]

find a new life in this country. And although there were things that were very difficult, so I hate it, I love it. And his friend, Dan's equanimity, I thought, came out in how Dan would listen to him, give him more butter for his bread, and how Dan, he didn't he said, well, don't you love this country? But he was able to listen to his friend's ambivalence about the country, shrugging his shoulders and finding a smile somewhere inside to pull out. And that's what Aziz Shihab tried to do as well, even in his difficult business of reporting the news. And I thought Naomi's... Naomi Shihabnized equanimity in being able to tell this story in such a way that we can relate to it.

[21:10]

I'm sure there was, on the part of her father, at some time, a lot of anger, and yet he was able to... She described him as not an angry man, but a very loving, caring man, and a man who... really loved words and passed that on to her. Go back to the Xin Xin Ming and to share a second quote which is a shorter one. It's one thing, all things move among and intermingle without distinction. To live in this realization is to be without anxiety about non-perfection. I'll say it again.

[22:12]

One thing, all things, move among and intermingle without distinction. To live in this realization is to be without anxiety about non-perfection. So to live in this awareness of non-perfection, we also... often really hold up very high standards for ourselves and want to do things perfectly, which is probably impossible. And that can cause a lot of anxiety, or dukkha, which is sometimes translated as suffering, can also be looked at as anxiety, incompleteness, or non-perfection. And yet, if we... are able to appreciate ourselves as we are and also to have a sense that there is in each of us a Buddha nature or a true self, maybe a bigger self than we are ordinarily aware of.

[23:22]

In that true self, we can transcend the... fragmented, conditioned self that we are usually painfully aware of. And in that true self, everything is complete and perfect as it is. And I think that's another way of tapping into compassion for ourselves and one another. Realizing that we don't have to be any particular way in order to be good and worthy. So there's a story about the person who wrote this poem, the Xin Xin Ming, whose name was Sen San, who died in the year 606

[24:29]

this common era. We don't really know when he was born, but at some point in his life, some people think he might have been about 40 years old, he found his way to the second ancestor, a teacher named Weka, and made prostrations and said, my body is infected with leprosy. I beg you, O priest, to cleanse me of my wrongdoing. So he assumed that his illness, his leprosy, had to do with his not being a good person. And Weka, the teacher, said, bring me your wrongdoing and I will cleanse you. And Sensang paused for a while and then said, when I look for my wrongdoing, I cannot find it. And Weka replied, I have already cleansed you of your wrongdoing.

[25:32]

You must rely on Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. And there was a little more of a conversation between them, but then Vika decided to ordain Sengsan and gave him the name Sengsan. He didn't have that name before, which means jewel of the Sangha or community. And... Over the course of time, Sen San's illness went away, and he became a great teacher in his own right. This poem, Xin Xin Ming, is the only writing we have that's attributed to him. So that ability of Weka to see the sangha jewel in this man who came to him feeling not only physically ill, but feeling he was full of wrongdoing.

[26:38]

And to see that Vika could welcome him, face him, and see in him his true self, you could say, that he was a sangha jewel, was another expression of compassion. So just to pull things together, equanimity and compassion go hand in hand. And I think we don't have to only look to the ancestors or to people we may revere to find of how equanimity and compassion can be available to us and help us in difficult situations.

[27:44]

Today in practice period tea, we were talking about times when we've experienced equanimity, and a couple of people talked about experiences they had riding the Muni bus bus, where they could feel or contact their breath, their connection with their bodies, and find some stability to meet challenging situations on the bus with openness and lack of fear and... or to be able to appreciate someone's generosity in giving them a seat. Just to be open to people we meet in any circumstance with that ability to respond. I found for several years working as a hospice social worker that

[28:53]

starting my day in the zendo and having an experience there of stillness and finding, in a way, a way to open my heart really helped me throughout the day when I sat with people who were upset or frightened or in pain, and their loved ones who were also sometimes frightened, upset, or in emotional pain. so that these qualities can really come with us when we leave the Zendo and help us be open to whatever we encounter in our work, in our home, in our community, and in the wider world. So can we say, I love it, I hate it, and go on meeting each person And each situation with the mind of just like me, not to.

[30:00]

So there's time for some questions or comments if anybody would like to speak. That's again, son. Well, that's not the only way of looking at equanimity. And actually, I think looking at things from the top of a mountain, you may get a perspective that you carry with you when you come down from the mountain that can be very helpful. Or you may find at the top of the mountain some inner resources that carry you into your life. But there are other images for equanimity also, like... the even keel of a boat.

[31:04]

Someone brought that up in practice purity today. I think of equanimity as a way of engaging the world with balance, and another word is equipoise, not being easily swayed. But that doesn't mean being disengaged or disconnected. Well, I think of this... It says in the Transmission of the Light, the story of the third ancestor, that he was healed.

[32:08]

So somehow the practice that he did healed him, or even that first encounter with the second ancestor, Weka, was very... you know, didn't see his wrongdoing. That was healing on one level, but it said that his illness was healed. And, you know, these stories are... I don't think we need to take them literally. I mean, he had an illness. Maybe it was leprosy. We don't really know. But whatever it was, it was healed. So he passed something else on to the fourth ancestor, which was his own, you know... seeing something in the fourth ancestor that made him think he could be trusted and carry the Dharma on. Yes.

[33:12]

The mind of trust, yeah. It's very interesting. And it's not easy to put into words. We had a beautiful Dharma talk a couple of weeks ago by Kokyo Henkel from the Santa Cruz Zen Center just about the mind of trust. And he also referred to it as a mind of awareness. Sometimes we use the phrase big mind and small mind, so our everyday conventional mind, which we also need in order to function in our lives, is thought of as a small mind and this other mind as a bigger mind. It's all-encompassing and limitless in a way. I can try to find adjectives, but it's really not something that you can...

[34:32]

describe its... You could say that, yeah. And we sometimes can access it. There are moments, you might have a moment of watching a sunset on the ocean or a moment in zazen or a moment when you find this uncanny connection with someone where you just feel things opening up and not feeling that sense of confinement or separation that we often feel. I think that's a way of kind of sensing it. It's... Yeah, maybe that's all I can say, but I would encourage you, if you're interested, to read...

[35:32]

this book by Musang. It's called Trust in Mind because that's the mind we're trying to understand through this poem and the commentary and through our practice. Thank you. How are we doing? I think there's time for one or two more questions if there are any. Yes. I think that's a better way of saying it, that we can still experience fear but not be ruled by fear or that equanimity can help us meet fear, can help us meet

[36:58]

our likes and dislikes. It's a kind of groundedness in the body, in the breath, which I think also helps when you're feeling fear. I don't experience a lot of fear myself, so I may not be the best person to answer this question, but I think if fear is present for you a lot, that you can still have fear you can still work with cultivating equanimity as an antidote to fear. And, you know, sometimes fear, at least anxiety, has to do with breathing in the upper part of the body. So breathing deeply and filling the whole body cavity with air can sometimes help with fear when you feel it in your body. I don't know, how do you meet

[37:59]

Thank you. And I thought I just said, I don't experience a lot of fear. I don't think that's actually true. I do experience fear, but it's always fear of things that aren't happening right now. And then I realized, well, I don't know how things are going to go, so I don't really need to be afraid. I'm getting older, and there are a lot of unknowns in my life. as in all of our lives. Don't know when I'm going to fall ill or die.

[39:01]

But generally, I feel like it's not so helpful for me to be afraid of those things because I know they're going to happen. I just don't know how or when. And I think when they do, I'll be able to meet them. Thank you. Anyone else? Miguel? Thanks. I think in part because the teacher didn't see it.

[40:35]

Sometimes if someone sees you through the eyes of love or of appreciation of your unique, wonderful being, it's easier for you to take that in and see that in yourself at least than to that view you have of yourself as not being whole or not being well. I think that's what might have happened in that interchange between the two. That, you know, the monk was met by this person who didn't see any fault in him. didn't see any imperfection, just saw him as another person with the capacity to wake up.

[41:47]

You do think? I think there's also a lot of compassion there. So I think it's time for us to stop, and thank you so much for your attention, and may we all find equanimity and compassion for ourselves and others as we go back out into wherever we're going from here. Thank you. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[42:55]

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