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 morning. My name is Allison. I'm one of the resident priests here at Beginner's Mind Temple. Thank you all for coming here. such a beautiful summer day. And I thought you'd all be outside. So I'd like to start off by expressing appreciation for my teacher, Norman Fisher, Abadad Sadizan, my other teacher, and David Zimmerman, the head of practice. So if I say anything intelligent, In this talk, I probably learned it from them.

[01:03]

And if I don't say anything intelligent, then, you know, they tried their best. So I just finished teaching a four-week class on metta, which is, you know, a term that's usually translated as loving-kindness. And it can also be seen as friendliness. goodwill, cherishing without jealousy or possessiveness, and kind of having that outlook towards all the human and non-human beings that I come across in my day-to-day life, and even ones who maybe I don't know but are out there somewhere. So the basic practice is to develop this friendly attitude, this wishing well for four people.

[02:14]

And it's a beloved person, a neutral person, a difficult person, as well. And I began this loving-kindness practice probably more than 10 years ago. I was having a very bad time with nightmares. And I asked my then-teacher for advice, and he suggested doing this type of meditation meditation before I went to bed. So it does say in the introduction to the sutra on loving kindness, it does say that one of the benefits of this practice is that you will sleep well.

[03:16]

And I'm not sure if it's, you know, the benefit of loving kindness practice or if it's just kind of You know, if I don't do that practice, then when I lie down in bed, my mind thinks, well, this would be a really great time for us to think about all the times you familiar-ed yourself in public, starting from second grade. You know, and I remember Paul Haller gave a talk a few years ago. He was doing some landscaping. And his grandson was about three at the time. And his grandson wanted to help, so Paul gave him a little shovel. And he said, take the dirt from that pile there, put it on that pile here. You know, not bad for a day's work, right? So I do kind of hope that there is a greater benefit than, you know, giving me something.

[04:28]

less upsetting to think about, but I guess maybe I'll convince you or maybe I won't. And one thing that happened to me recently, touched me very deeply, my teacher Norman, I don't get to see him very often. And when I do, he tends to scold me for not being very good at keeping in touch. So this last time I spoke to him, I said that I was turning over a new leaf and I was making a commitment to be a much better correspondent from now on. And Norman said, I think that's a very good idea because you know, a lot of people love you. And when you spend, too much time alone, you might forget that.

[05:32]

And that just totally changed the situation for me, that it wasn't so much fulfilling an obligation, you know, to think of it as reminding myself that I'm loved. You know, get to the end of the day, and someone sends me a text. hey, do you want to go do this fun thing? And my first thought is, I have to put my shoes back on, you know? And, you know, I don't always go out, but, you know, seeing it, you know, oh, this person is reminding me that I'm loved and I can do the same for them. So I'd like to share a very short poem. It's probably my favorite poem. And it's a late fragment by Raymond Carver. He wrote it as he was dying.

[06:36]

And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so? I did. And what did you want? To call myself beloved. To feel myself. beloved on the earth. So I think what Norman was encouraging me is to begin to feel myself beloved on the earth. And I do have a lot of challenges with the first part, to call myself beloved. And I have a couple of that I'd like to share on that topic. I've never practiced in Tibetan tradition, and I really appreciate a lot of the teachings from Tibetan teachers about things like loving kindness and compassion, because it's, you know, very clear and to the point.

[07:55]

And, you know, Compassion is the absolute foundation of our Soda Zen practice as well. And the teaching is kind of more subtle. And people who know me have probably noticed that subtlety isn't really one of my gifts. So I've got a short excerpt from... Machi Ricard, who is the Dalai Lama's French translator, and one from Thupten Jimpa, who's the Dalai Lama's English translator. And they're both teachers in their own right. But it was Machi Ricard's job after one of the interviews with the Dalai Lama to explain self-hatred to the Dalai Lama, because I guess that's not something that he did.

[08:58]

So then he and the Dalai Lama talked about it a lot, and Mathieu came up with this synopsis. When one speaks of hating oneself, hate is not really at the core of the feeling. You might be upset with yourself, but this could be a form of pride. Frustration arising from the realization that you don't live up to your expectations. But you can't truly hate yourself. That would be against the basic wish of any living being to avoid suffering. You may feel you hate yourself because you want to be so much better than you are. You may be disappointed at yourself for not being what you want to be, or impatient for not becoming so fast enough.

[10:03]

Even someone who commits suicide does so not out of self-hatred, but because of thinking that it's a way of escaping a greater suffering. And... When I first read that, I thought it was very helpful for me to read. And then Sultan Jimpa put out a book much more recently, kind of on this same topic, that lack of self-compassion manifests in a harsh and judgmental relationship with ourselves. Many people believe that unless they are critical and demanding of themselves, there will be failures, unworthy of recognition and undeserving of love. When something good does happen, we may feel deep down that we don't deserve it. We're terrified of letting go even a little because we think we'll lose control of our lives.

[11:13]

Something bad might happen and we'll blame ourselves. We're afraid that if we were to be gentle and kind with ourselves, to relax our grip, we might not accomplish anything at all. And I know that's very true for myself. I've had several conversations with Norman about this. And Norman really encourages me... over and over again to be a little bit less harsh and judgmental. And the problem with that is that I hurt people. And I don't want to. And the people I hurt the most are usually the people that

[12:18]

I least want to see hurt. And, you know, if I cause so much pain when I have this relentless voice, you know, constantly scolding myself, then, you know, if I didn't do that, well, wouldn't that just put the fox in the... And amongst the chickens, you know, I mean, who knows what I would do if it weren't for that constant scolding voice. And then Norman said, OK. Maybe try being a little bit gentler for two weeks. And if you really go off the rails, then stop. and I'll admit I was wrong.

[13:19]

But just try it as an experiment. And, you know, made it past two weeks and still experimenting. And I thought, because I do have such a long experience with this technique, I never taught a class before, so I thought it would be a good decision. And I also thought, you know, loving kindness was probably, like, not controversial. And it would be an easy start to giving classes. So things didn't go exactly the way I planned. And actually, you know, when I thought about it a bit more, it does make sense. why a lot of people maybe aren't keen on loving kindness because I just think about all the times that I was having a really rough go of things and very kind spiritual people with the very best of intentions said exactly the thing I least needed to hear.

[14:46]

and that situation. And I think some of the teachings on loving kindness probably also come across that way. You know, I've heard some teachings on suffering. It's like, well, you know what suffering is? It's like when there's this big plate of chocolate chip cookies and you don't get a cookie. And it's like, okay, And people are dying, you know. I mean, that's also suffering, right? And I think sometimes loving kindness sounds like, you know, niceness. And, you know, not to underestimate the importance of cookies, though. You know, a real place where I put my loving kindness... meditation into practice, I was doing a meditation retreat with this person who's not among the people listening to this talk.

[15:56]

And a perfectly ordinary person, maybe even above average. And, you know, he was my friend until the meditation retreat. And after, but not really joined. And, like I said, perfectly normal guy. It just... found out that he's a compulsive throat clearer. And I sat next to him for an entire retreat. And like at least once each period. But it was totally unpredictable. So I was sitting there, I was like on edge, just waiting. And then, you know, I'd finally forget and think, well, maybe he's not going to do it. As soon as I thought that, he'd be like, ahem, ahem, ahem. And I would go, ah! And I think that that same meditation retreat, I was being encouraged to meditate on my breathing.

[17:03]

And the teacher said at this particular retreat, or maybe just this particular day of the retreat, to... pay a special attention to the pause between breathing out and breathing in again. And the teacher said that, and I said, what pause? And I think it's a lot the same with dealing with my emotional reactions, you know. The person next to me makes a weird noise. And I get irritated. And then I think to myself, he is literally the worst. And then I spend the rest of that period of meditation plotting how I will get my revenge. And it seems like all these things just happen at the same time, right?

[18:11]

And when I started doing a little bit of loving-kindness meditation, which was not in the retreat guidelines, but, you know, it was extenuating circumstances, I started to notice, you know, yeah, I still get annoyed. And... There's a little bit more spaciousness afterwards. Maybe it's not a great idea to sit here and send invisible death rays towards my neighbor for the rest of this retreat. Maybe I could do something a little bit more pro-social. And it's not only meta-practice that can make this pause evident.

[19:21]

We had a lay initiation ceremony here last night. And what that ceremony involves is making a commitment in front of my teacher, and the community that instead of being guided by my habitual patterns, I'll be guided by the ethical standards that I'm publicly committing to. And that can be There's other practices as well. It would be very helpful in seeing like, oh, you know, I would usually go here and maybe I'll experiment with not doing that.

[20:22]

And an actual real Zen master named Empty Clout, he had an awakening experience. He had this when a tea server missed his cup and poured hot tea on Empty Cloud's hand. And Empty Cloud jerked his hand away and dropped the cup, and it broke. And at the sound of the cup breaking, it kind of, like, knocked something loose in him. And... something became clear to him. As this tradition, he wrote a poem. A cup fell down and struck the floor with a loud crash. Empty space was broken into pieces and the mad mind stopped on the spot.

[21:30]

I think that's I mean, I don't know, I wasn't there, but that's kind of the pause I'm thinking about, you know, where all this chatter gets quiet for a minute. Because, you know, our conscious mind actually isn't allowed access to most of the everyday things going on inside our brains and our bodies. You know, for very good reason, because it's not all that responsible. And when all of that weird chattering quiets down for a bit, it becomes apparent that even though there's a lot of things I don't control, within my small area of control, I actually have

[22:34]

a lot more freedom than I'm aware of most of the time. But like I said, there are worse things than not getting cookies, and there are worse things than sitting next to somebody annoying for seven long days. And actually, Empty Cloud wrote a second poem about the same experience. So, you know, there's a very famous poem by a poet named Dongpo. And Dongpo was in a valley at night. And he looked at the hills, you know, I guess the moonlight, and he thought the shape of the hills looked like the body of the Buddha lying down.

[23:37]

So the Buddha in this Buddha hall is sitting, but there are some depictions of the Buddha lying down. It usually shows him giving his final lecture when he was dying. So Dongpo saw the shape of the Buddha in the hills, and there was a stream running through the valley, and in the stream he thought he heard the Buddha's golden voice, lecturing sutras all night long. So Empty Cloud's poem references that poem. And what he says is, the hand let go and the cup was shattered. Family is broken up. People have died. It's very difficult to talk about these things. Spring arrives and flowers bloom.

[24:41]

Everywhere is infused with splendor. The mountains, the rivers, and the great earth itself are just the Buddha. So part of it's from Dong Po's poem, because that's the end of Dong Po's poem. And family has broken up and people have died. And flowers bloom in the spring even though people are dying. And families fight even on a beautiful day. And all of it together, this whole horrible, wonderful, sticky mess is the form of the Buddha.

[25:46]

You know, I find it really difficult. Sometimes I think, you know, flowers bloom in spring just to spite me, you know. Everything's terrible. And then, you know, they mock me with this beautiful day. And sometimes everything's going great. And then, you know, someone has to give me bad news. Or tell me something I did wrong. And it's like, it's such a beautiful day. How could you do this to me? Of course, if it's a terrible day, I say the same thing. And I think... You know, that's sort of the difference between loving kindness and niceness, is it does take in these both sides.

[26:54]

It's a story a friend shared with me about the early days of Zen Center. It's... A student, Stanley, wrote about his meeting with Suzuki Roshi. He was at a lecture, and Suzuki Roshi said during the lecture, you know, all of you here, you're my friend. And Stan was kind of confused because, you know, he... only been there for a couple of weeks. So he asked if he could ask for more, you know, get some more clarification on this statement. So he said, what did you mean when you said I was your friend?

[28:02]

Suzuki Roshi says, you know, Stanley, I look at you And the little bit I know of you, I know that you suffer. So do I. Therefore, we're friends. He said, of course, when it comes to Zen, I've had a lot of experience, and you've had very little. And therefore, I'm your teacher, and you are my student. And Stan said... That really cleared it up. I didn't have any questions about our relationship for the rest of his life. Also, Suzuki Roshi famously said in a lecture, you have no idea how hard it is to love some people.

[29:05]

So even though We're all friends. It's difficult to love some people. And there's a line in the Dhammapada, which is the collection of sort of pithy one-liners from the Buddha. And it says, when we remember that we're going to die, we stop fighting each other. And I know I had a really difficult time with a co-worker. Again, not listening to this lecture. He had, like, a very short fuse. And so I was, like, really felt very edgy when I was around him.

[30:13]

And he kind of liked having that effect on me because, you know, he kind of gave him a sense of control. So to prove that I wasn't scared of him, I would purposely antagonize him so that he loses temper again. And so that was, the whole office loved it. It was wonderful. And so, like, I really did not like... going in to talk to him, which I had to do a couple times a week. And one time, I walked into his office, and he was lying on the floor. And he looked really embarrassed, and he started to get up, and I said, no, it's okay, what's wrong? Do you want me to call someone? And he'd thrown his back out. So I told him, you know, stay where he was.

[31:14]

And I took off my shoes and I sat down on the floor next to him. And we had our meeting like that. And just doing that, all of the frustration I'd felt towards him just kind of melted away. Because it was like, oh yeah, you're a vulnerable, hurting person. human being like me. And then it got better and we fought again. And, you know, I did remember that encounter and that feeling. And, you know, again, loving kindness isn't niceness. And it is... It involves meeting the situation head on.

[32:17]

Another thing my teacher Norman said, I don't even know the context of this quote. A friend of mine put it on her Instagram, so it must be true. Said, if you want to have a full and happy life, In good times and in bad, you have to get used to the idea that facing misfortune squarely is better than trying to escape from it. And I think it also involves not setting up this false duality that either I need to fight against an enemy, or someone who's doing something wrong, somebody who's hurting somebody I love, that either I have to hate them, or I sit back and let them just walk all over everyone.

[33:27]

I don't think those are only two choices. I have a very small sphere of influence, And within that sphere, I have a lot of freedom to choose my responses and my actions. And to make an effort in that moment that instead of hating someone, instead of wanting to see them beaten and humiliated, or the parts of myself that I don't like. Not wanting to destroy them, but to make an effort, as much effort as I can make, knowing that there's not so much I can control, to try and find an outcome

[34:44]

to whatever situation I'm in, that is beneficial to all the four people that I perform loving-kindness meditation for. For myself, my loved ones, for people I don't know, and even for my enemies. I want to end with a short quote from the Book of Joy. This is the same thing. What I was saying, but of course, you probably believe Archbishop Desmond Tutu more than you believe me. It's talking about how living in South Africa, he is

[35:49]

He did not accept the inevitability of apartheid, and he did accept its reality. And when he said about acceptance, we are meant to live in joy. This does not mean that life will be easy or painless. It means that we can turn our faces to the wind, and accept that this is the storm we must pass through. We cannot succeed by denying what exists. The acceptance of reality is the only place from which change can begin. So, I'd like to end by saying that I wish for all of you to call yourself beloved and to feel yourself beloved on the earth.

[37:00]

Thank you all very, 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 Dharma.

[37:29]

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