I have a sense of nature to you as I can work there through the power of the world. The end of this is the very beginning of that question. The end of this is the very beginning of that question. The end of that matter of thousands, normally in half of us, I have to get this to see you and listen to, to learn on your own mistakes. Good morning. Sound good? Yeah. Welcome to the San Francisco Zen Center. I want to start with a story. So the The topic, what I want to talk about, a topic that happens to be the name of a book that I've written, which I have right here, called Finding Clarity.

[01:24]

But I'm not going to talk very much about this book, but I'm going to try and talk about the topic of finding clarity. I think clarity maybe is a synonym or a nice word for maybe what we... Here in the Zen tradition, maybe use the word awakening or freedom or enlightenment. But clarity, I think, is either you could think of it as a close cousin or part of the path, or maybe a more secular way of talking about this freedom. I want to start with a story. And this is a story of... Not that long ago, I was asked to facilitate part of a three-day retreat that was happening actually out at Green Gulch.

[02:27]

It was a group of 16 business people, 16 CEOs that were on the board of a non-profit, and they were there at Green Gulch for three days trying to come up with strategy. And I was asked to do a short, whatever I wanted to do for a few hours right in the middle of this retreat. And as I was walking in, someone, one of these business people came out to greet me and said, this retreat is going really badly. People are frustrated, angry, unhappy. Welcome. And... I walked in, and I could feel the tension. And I was not sure what I was going to do, but I thought I would do what I like to do at the beginning of meetings. I said, why don't we do some meditation? And right away, about a third of these people leaped right to the front of

[03:36]

interested in sitting meditation. A third were in the middle, kind of interested, and in the back were a group, I think mostly men, who were like, why are we doing this? And we sat for a short time. And then I suggested that they break into small groups and that they each have five minutes each to talk. And the suggested topic was that each person would talk about why are you here on the planet? How's it going? And what changes might you make in your work or your life, depending on how you've answered these first two questions? And there were groups of four. There were four different groups, and they were spread out around different parts of Green Gulch. And I went around And they really entered it.

[04:37]

I could see there were even tears. People were going deep. Their hearts were opening as they were really taking on addressing these questions. And 10, 15 minutes later, they came back into the room. And you could feel, it just felt so different. There was more lightness. There was more connection. one of the women raised her hands and said, we should have done this at the beginning. We tried to go right into problem solving, into strategy, and we hadn't really connected. We hadn't really gone deep, and now we can. And I heard that the rest of the retreat went quite well. I got a call from the woman who had invited me in who told me that one of the men who sat at the retreat, who was quite skeptical of me coming in, said to her, I was really concerned about Mark and the woo-woo factor.

[05:53]

He said, if what Mark did was woo-woo, let's do more of that. And... In some way, this has been and continues to be, I feel like my life's work, my life's journey is to find how to bring Dharma into the world, into the world of work. And I think we're all, whether we admit it or not, I think we're all on that path. How can we bring heart and depth into our work and to all parts of our lives? And I've been studying Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, the collection of talks by Shinryu Suzuki. I don't know how many times I've read it, many, many times, and every time I read it, I keep learning, I keep finding new things. And there was a sentence where he says, if you seek for freedom, you cannot find it.

[06:59]

freedom itself is necessary before you can acquire or find freedom. And I would probably add to that, if you seek clarity, you cannot find it. Clarity itself is necessary before you can acquire or find clarity. And I think that, I'm hoping that you get, the connection for me was this group of CEOs they were trying to get something done. They were seeking something. But they hadn't gotten to a place where they could stop seeking and start kind of finding, start accessing their own hearts. And in some way, and maybe at least they were moving in the direction of kind of the core dharmic tenets of I like how I've also been reading a book, a newish book by Thich Nhat Hanh called Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet.

[08:12]

Highly recommend it. And in the beginning, he's kind of talking about core Zen principles. And he suggests that in order to save the planet, you have to start by engaging in these core principles. And he says there's four things that you need to throw away. And he says it's not just let go, but throw away. That you should throw away your idea of self, the view of self, and who you think you are. That you should throw away your idea of human beings as being separate from life. That we should throw away our ideas of human beings as being separate from inanimate objects, and that we should throw away our ideas that we are temporal beings, that our lives are somehow limited to this particular time, and even I would add this particular time and space.

[09:18]

And to some degree, I feel like I... in that meeting, without talking about these, what could seem like very difficult intellectual ideas of self and human beings, throwing out these ideas and throwing out the idea of us being temporal beings, just by asking people, why are you here on the planet, is a way to, to get people to let go of their usual sense of self, to come back to these larger, more heartfelt questions. And I think this is also our practice, our meditation practice, is to come back and have a way of letting go of self, letting go of our usual self,

[10:25]

ideas around greed, hate, and delusion, our usual ideas of scarcity. And this is, I think, the practice of Zen is about finding real freedom. And I noticed that I... There's a few models that really interest me and attract me as I'm... as I'm engaging with Zen practice and as I'm engaging with how to bring Dharma into the world of work in a way that has depth and yet is translating Dharma into language and ways of being that are not using the language of Zen or using the language of Buddhism. And I find there's a very practical view there's a psychological view, and then there's a kind of dharmic view and how to blend these, how to bring these together.

[11:36]

And that's what I attempted to do in this book, Finding Clarity. And I want to just name the kind of seven different practices that I hope that answered the question, well, how do you bring dharma? How do you meld together the practical, the psychological, and the dharmic or spiritual views into something that is more actionable, something that anyone can practice with, can understand and engage with, whether they're a... a Zen practitioner or not. And the seven practices that I came up with are, the first is to be curious. And I like the phrase, be curious, not furious. And I think we should all have that sewn in our clothing somewhere, especially, you know...

[12:43]

at work or driving or any places that are challenging. So be curious, not furious is the first practice. Drop the story or loosen your own story is the second practice. The third practice is the practice of listening. And listening is really hard. It's really hard to actually... Let go of our own perspective and viewpoint and really listen. Mind the gaps or be aware of the gaps is the next practice. Cultivate a clear vision. Transform breakdowns into breakthroughs. And the last is don't wait. And I think I just want to say a little bit about a couple of these practices, and then we'll see what happens from there.

[13:51]

I think it's an interesting... You know, we human beings are so paradoxical, right? So... You know, these statements that I mentioned, right? If you seek freedom, you can't find it. Freedom itself is necessary before you can acquire or find real freedom. Very paradoxical. And yet, how to make that practical? How to find enough sense of confidence? How to find enough sense... of not living from a sense of security. How to bring a sense of self-compassion to ourselves, right? How to be more compassionate with ourselves. For many, many people, for most of us, this is an ongoing kind of lifetime practice. I like this practice that I call Mind the Gaps. Mind the Gaps. Very practical.

[15:01]

This is... Noticing what we aspire to be in the world. How do we aspire to show up? And I think this practice, this finding freedom before you find freedom, is like an instruction for once you sit down on the cushion. Once you sit down on the cushion, once you do meditation, It's letting go of that there's any gap. There's no gap. But before you sit down, there's some motivation. There's something that we want that gets us there. And I think it's useful to have a sense of what is it I'm trying to cultivate? Am I trying to cultivate more self-love? Am I trying to cultivate more awareness, more curiosity?

[16:03]

I'm always bringing these into the world of work where, to me, the question is often, what does success look like in your workplace? Both. Usually the focus when we think of success is outwardly about financial objectives or growth or creating new things. Those are all... And I'm often surprised how rarely even that gets... talked about and aligned with. But there's also, what does success look like in terms of how we're working together? How are we doing with appreciating each other? Do we want to cultivate an environment of appreciation? And how's it going? Do we want to create a culture and environment that is healthy and effective? And the practice that I talk about The subtitle of this book is How Compassionate Accountability Builds Vibrant Relationships, Thriving Workplaces, and Meaningful Lives.

[17:17]

And in some way, all of these practices that I named are ways of engaging in a combination of compassion and accountability, or to have... Accountability is a way of aligning around what success looks like. And I think this is an important quality in our communities, in our practices, and in our workplaces. To aspire to have a love relationship with practice, to aspire to have a love relationship with our families, to aspire to have a loving and healthy relationship with the people that we work with. And minding the gaps is being as vulnerable, open, and clear about noticing what work needs to be done to close those gaps.

[18:21]

Do I need to be better at having real conversations? Often those gaps are... are in the compassion realm and are in the accountability realm. So in our workplaces, a lot of accountability without compassion means that the workplace is going to be pretty cold and difficult. But a lot of compassion without accountability is not going to work out so well either. It might feel good, but it's going to feel... people won't know what success looks like. It's hard to work together when you're not clear about what success looks like in your role. And I think this is true even... It's interesting how rarely these discussions happen in communities, in groups, in families. What does success look like? What is it? What does a healthy relationship look like?

[19:25]

What work do we need to do to close those gaps? And the one other practice that I want to just touch on is the, well, maybe the last two. The next to last one is turning or transforming breakdowns into breakthroughs. there's always going to be difficulties, failures, pain. And this, again, is a core Buddhist practice, not turning away, not suppressing, not turning away, and having the courage and the skills to work with what's challenging, what's difficulty, what feels like... failure. I did something this morning that I've never done before.

[20:30]

I took an Uber in from Mill Valley. And I got to practice all this with my Uber driver, who, young woman, two young kids, a lot of debt, impossible, she said, to get out of her current current situation. And I said, well, why don't you try imagining what it would... Like, what could it be? What would... What does success look like in your life? Like, if you say it's impossible, then it's impossible, but why not... What's the risk of imagining what might be possible? And I think... I think even given the state of the world today, it's hard to not be depressed, anxious, give up hope with the events that we read around us.

[21:41]

And I make the mistake of, I read the New York Times every day. Man, I don't really recommend it. I keep telling myself it's good for my practice. But I think it's important, actually, to, you know, in some way, to not turn away, to not turn away from the world, the many worlds, right? The world of our inner world, right? Our world of... family, community, friends, our world at work. You know, cynicism is easy. It's, you know, I think, I don't know where this came from. It's funny when you look, like I looked this up, you know, if you're not cultivating trust, you're cultivating cynicism.

[22:45]

And when I Googled it, it said Mark Lesser, not helpful. But I think it's good, despite that I couldn't find where it's from, that it's easy to be cynical on all fronts. And it takes work. It takes practice. And that's what I love about Zen. I'm completely in love with Zen practice. And I have been... I realized it was, I think for me, it was probably around the same time that Paul walked in the door. I walked in this door 49 years ago. About the same time. And still, I'm still working and struggling, but I completely love this.

[23:48]

If you seek for freedom, you cannot find it. Freedom itself. is necessary before you can acquire or find freedom. And in some way, this is the seventh practice. Don't wait, right? So it's don't wait. Don't wait to find freedom. Don't wait for things to get better. Like, what can we do now? What can we do now? And what we can do is we can imagine peace. We can talk about peace. We can aspire for peace. we can let go of our limited views about who's right and who's wrong, who's evil and who's good. Those are not going to get us to where we want to be. And I think the same is true, you know, in your workplace. You can go home and talk about your horrible boss or your horrible workplace or your, you know, whatever it is. But don't wait is like, I love the rule of thumb that I think I've got from

[24:51]

My therapist, who for many years was a broken record. Whatever you want from another person, you go first. You want more recognition? Recognize yourself and others first. You want more appreciation? You want more peace in the world? Make yourself peaceful. Make yourself peaceful. I think this is the real work. And it's hard. It's really hard. I was thinking how... I was living at Tassajara. I had been living there for a year and a half when I got tapped on the shoulder and was told that my next job was going to be figuring out how to work with horses, how to farm with horses at Greenbulch Farm. I knew nothing about horses or farming. But... The reason I bring that in is that what I learned, horses are really skittish.

[25:55]

You have to approach horses with a clear mind and a clear heart, or they will know. And I think humans are very similar to horses in that way. I think we are all extremely skittish. And that we need these practices to calm the skittish nervous system, to calm the brain. so that we can enter, so that we can keep coming back and entering these practices. I also made the mistake of not bringing my watch. What time is it? Someone have the time. Excuse me? 10.45. Okay, perfect. So I think what I want to do is have you... Could everyone stand up? And so I'd like to suggest that you very quietly and quickly just find another person in the room.

[27:01]

You can turn to the person next to you if you want, but someone you don't know, ideally. And we'll do that first. Quietly, quietly, quickly find someone. And if you don't have a partner and would like to have a partner, raise your hand. Anyone else need a partner? If not, three is a... Yeah, just turn next to you. Okay, so here's what I'd like to suggest. Just take a moment and notice this other human being. Just notice. You don't have to stare, but just notice. Notice what it feels like to see and be seen by this other human being. And then what I want to suggest is... a very short conversation. And maybe try where one person says a sentence and then the other person says a sentence.

[28:06]

And go back and forth. We're going to do this just for a few minutes. And the suggested topic is how are you? What are you bringing to this morning? And And what is your aspiration for what success or effectiveness or health or happiness looks like for you today? How are you? And what's your vision? And just back and forth for three minutes, and then we'll come back. Try it. See what happens. Just try it. Try it as though you've done this your whole life. Just start. talking to each other, a sentence back and forth. Go ahead. It's good.

[30:14]

It's good. It's good. Okay. Okay. Did someone ring the bell? So please thank your partners and come on back.

[31:50]

Thank your partners and come on back. So I'd like to just open the floor for... I'm curious about what that experience was like for you. So any questions or comments or reflections about... Yes. And if you could wait for the microphone. Hi, it's Mark. I just wanted to comment on how amazing this place is just in that this is exactly what I needed to hear today. I was having a rather difficult week and and was thinking about changing some things and needing some guidance. And so there you were.

[32:52]

So when the student's ready, there's the teacher. And so to be able to share this with another person made it even more clarifying, put it into words, and to take out those feelings and examine them. So that's about it for me today. Thank you for sharing that. And I think my son makes fun of me. He says, what I do for a living is get people into pairs talking to each other. And it's true in a way. But I think there is something about the combination of you know, just bringing in some dharmic ideas, creating a safe space, at least I hope, that's my aspiration, and then just sharing that with another person.

[33:53]

I think that we are, we have no idea how connected we are to each other, actually. You know, often I, doing this in different settings, if like, I love looking around and you can start to see those mirror neurons starting to work, people starting to mimic each other in certain ways. Because we are, we're so, again, there's something about, you know, being our own sense of, you know, independence and yet the way that we connect and connect to each other. So thank you. This was just right for me too, being here this morning. Other questions? Questions, comments? There's a hand in the back. So I just want to also begin with gratitude. And for me, this is a really powerful message that you share, Mark, because for 30 years I've been in a journey around abolition and understanding the soul wound of slavery.

[35:02]

And the elders in prison are giving us messages And they're sharing with us messages of love, not fear. And it was so powerful to me, a political prisoner in person for the first time after so many years, who shared with me when I talked about his freedom. He looked at me and said, it's really your freedom. And we spoke about the relationship to ego. And he brought a... about an understanding from a relationship of contact and perspective, where we kind of like, almost like the human existence dissolved in relationship to nature. And it was like, he was saying that these messages were coming to him from his ancestors. So for me, this has been a big part of my journey. And I'm grateful that these messages around understanding freedom are aligning with the messages that are coming from our elders. Gratitude. And thank you, Andrew, for being witness. in this, you know, beautiful and quick connection that you created.

[36:06]

Yeah, no, thank you for that. And there is something. I've gotten to know a man named Jarvis Masters, who's on death row in San Quentin, and he wrote a book called Finding Freedom. And a really amazing, amazing human being, and he... I can see when he calls our home, I can tell that it's him because it's a call coming from San Quentin. And suddenly my life changes and everything gets put in a different perspective. It's Jarvis. It's someone calling not only from prison but from death row. And there's a sense of don't wait. Whatever I'm doing suddenly becomes less important than I need to connect with Jarvis. Anything else anyone wants to say or ask?

[37:07]

Thank you for your talk. I have a question. Yeah. You spoke about not just the futility of seeking but the way it kind of works against us. And I'm wondering about the difference between seeking and asking, because we do rely on having burning questions, and that also is a kind of seeking. So what's the difference between those two, one that helps us and one that doesn't? Yeah. One of my favorite passages from... If you haven't read the book Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, it's worth reading. And if you haven't read it in the last couple of years, it's worth reading again. But there's a beautiful passage in there. So Siddhartha and his friend, Gautama, oh no, I forget his friend's name, but Siddhartha and his friend have spent their whole life seeking and experiencing.

[38:31]

And at one point... they both were following the Buddha around and were learning from the Buddha. Siddhartha went off and left the Buddha and did all kinds of other things, and over time turns into an old man. I've heard that happens to people. And he's taking people across the river, which is beautiful. So he's found a place where his whole role in life is helping people. take people across the river. And one day, his old childhood friend shows up, and it's been so long that his friend doesn't recognize that it's Siddhartha. And his friend, Siddhartha says to his friend, what are you doing? He says, well, I'm following the Buddha. I'm a seeker. And there's this great speech that Siddhartha makes, which is something like, when you're only seeking, it can narrow your viewpoint and you only have in mind what you're seeking for.

[39:38]

It's important to also find. The practice of finding is important. And I think that's what this freedom itself is necessary before you can acquire, is a kind of finding. But seeking is also necessary. I wasn't trying. I think we have to be seekers. And in some sense, it's a little bit like really being a seeker until you sit down on the meditation cushion and also cultivate finding. So I think we very much need seeking. And in a way, seeking freedom, seeking peace, seeking healthy workplaces, these are all I think, important and beautiful aspirations, but not to be caught by seeking and to be able to find, to be able to find.

[40:42]

We need to find, and I think it's finding that relaxes the nervous system. It's finding that changes how we seek and how we view. So I think we very much want to be lifelong seekers, really, really deep seekers, in whatever way works, for meditation, therapy, friendships, community, body work, in a way these are, you know, and within each of them to seek, but within each of them to have those moments of finding as well. So playing, playing with the distinction or lack of distinction between seeking and finding. I'm glad you asked that. Glad I told you to ask that question. Thanks. Yes, and a time check again.

[41:43]

What time is it? 11. Beautiful. Thank you for your talk today and the topic of clarity. And I love the question that you posed to your retreat groups. If you could speak a little bit more about the question of instead of why were we put on this world, put on this earth, how do we discover why we're put on this earth? What is it you're asking, actually? I'm not sure. Are you suggesting that that would be a better question, or are you asking how to discover why you're here on this earth?

[42:53]

I'm not sure what your question is. Well, if I ask myself, why am I here? Yeah, yeah. Because I was plopped here. Right, right, right, yeah. It had nothing to do with it. You know, it's not me. You know, I'm here. Why, how do I discover? You've been practicing Zen too long, it sounds like. So... I think it's okay to try on what if there were some reason why I'm here, what might it be? What might it be? There's no right answer. It's just completely... Yeah. I mean, I might say... I'm here... One of the reasons I feel like I'm here...

[43:56]

is to create safe spaces for people. I aspire to create safe spaces for people. Is that why? I don't know. The why is an interesting question in different contexts. The why question. But you're bringing up, I think, equally, and maybe, is the how, right? The how question. And I think... maybe I'm suggesting that the how to that why is to play with it and experiment with it and try on some different whys and see what happens. See if any of them are useful or fitting. As opposed to... It's easy to say, oh yeah, this is too... I mean, the real answer is, of course, for most of us, we don't know. And...

[44:56]

But it's interesting to play with. What if you did know? What if you did know? And it then seems impossible. Yes. So how do you do this? Yeah. It does seem impossible. One of the things I do most nights as I'm going, as my head hits the pillow, I kind of ask for some insight or some teaching. And it's amazing our subconscious world. I mean, we are amazing creatures. And, you know, so you could say, I think we're all here to discover and find our own real freedom, our own real freedom. I mean, that's, I think, the core.

[45:58]

Why do we practice? Of course, there's Dogen's great question, if we're already enlightened, why do we practice? Why do we practice? And yet, and yet, we practice. Thank you. I want to end with a poem by Thich Nhat Hanh. And this is a poem that he wrote during what we call the Vietnam War. In Vietnam, of course, they call it the United States War. And apparently he wrote this poem after he was told about an American soldier who killing, wiping out a village in Vietnam and saying this was part of, he had to do this because this was his orders.

[47:06]

He was ordered to do this. And Thich Nhat Hanh's amazing in that he, during the Vietnam War, he refused to take sides with anyone. And so the North Vietnamese and the South Vietnamese both intensely, you know, did not like him. And his life was being threatened by both sides. And he came to the United States and was trying to work, trying to do what he could to broker peace in the United States. And Martin Luther King nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize. And this is a poem that he wrote that then got turned into a song. Some of you, I bet some of you are familiar with this song. I hold my face in my two hands. And I even thought I might crazily even me sing the first line, but then the rest I'm going to just recite the poem.

[48:08]

But the first, and you can go, there's a woman named Betsy Rose who beautifully, beautifully sing this. It's easy to find if you want to, if you just look up. And it starts with... I hold my face in my two hands. I hold my face in my two hands. To catch what might fall from within me deeper than crying. No, I am not crying. I hold my face in my two hands. to keep the loneliness warm, to cradle my hunger, to shelter my heart from the rain and the thunder. I hold my hand, I hold my face in my two hands, preventing my soul from leaving me in anger.

[49:16]

I hold my face in my two hands. Deeper than crying, to shelter my heart, from the rain and the thunder. So I think it's in this time, I think, whether it's holding our faces or putting our hands on our hearts or whatever we need to do, I think, to not turn away, to not turn away from the pain and difficulties and challenges of our life. of our world. And I think it really does start with... It starts with each of us, right? We each have to have our own. We need our well-being practices. I think we need our relationship practices. We need our... How can we create healthy communities, workplaces, cultures?

[50:21]

And that through line, I think, to me, the... to keep coming back to the aspiration. What does the aspiration for inner well-being and health look like? What does healthy relationships look like? And what does a healthy world look like? And we're not helpless in that way. There is something that we can do. We can practice. We can practice together. Thank you all very much. and I'm sure I'm going to change for 30, 80 days. I don't know what's right, but really, really, really, really, really get this. But it actually will be a little bit of a little bit. I don't know.

[51:23]

I don't know. [...] ... ... ... ... ...

[51:58]

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