This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. I'm kind of a last-minute guy, and usually that's fine. This morning I... So I printed the notes for this talk from the staff office that printer was not working. This was bound to happen sooner or later for Dharma talk. When you heard the haunt over at the Abbot's cabinet, the last two pages were still in the printer. So it's a close call. And those three prostrations before Dharma talk are always the best. It's so good, just total surrender. What I wanted to talk about is not unrelated, actually.

[01:07]

I have been noticing and encouraged by watching a practice expressed by others and also finding myself constantly being challenged and having difficulty fully picking up this practice. myself, and it's a practice of vulnerability, of when we find ourselves in a vulnerable state, to really embrace that and take care of it, and not go to either blaming others or shaming ourselves, but to stay present and close, to get to hear A fellow human being express how they don't have it all figured out. They realize they can't do it all on their own. To see somebody embrace their vulnerability in this way and not to shy away from it is one of the most beautiful things we get to witness in this practice, I think.

[02:18]

I walked back to my cabin after the Wayseeking Mind talks the other night and I felt real proud to be part of a... a sangha where we can be vulnerable with each other. And over and over again I get to see how deeply rooted my own tendencies are to suppress my feelings of vulnerability and to hide them, especially from others, you know, and for myself as well, when at all possible. So I'm not going to give a way-seeking mind talk. myself, but I was just reflecting on what are the roots of these difficulties of me embracing my vulnerability. And I think you see a few different places in my life. I think one main one was when I was 13 and my family moved to a different city.

[03:21]

And as a boy, I was somebody who would cry all the time. And I made a very conscious decision to not do that, to come into the new school not knowing everybody. It would not be safe. And I was remarkably successful, and it's only in the last few years that I really sort of started to develop the capacity to shed tears. Something I'm still working on. And, of course, this unique personal experience happened within a cultural setting as well, which I imagine many of us have grown up in a similar one where vulnerability is seen as a weakness and a sense of failure and something to get away from and something to transcend.

[04:25]

The ideal in our dominant culture seems to be that of invincibility, of power, control of our situation and our emotional landscapes. So I want to challenge this cultural ideal of invincibility because I think it's really unhealthy and will lead to feelings of separation from the world around us. And I think it will greatly distort the way we approach spiritual practice. The first noble truth is the truth of suffering, and we need to be able to embrace that and open up to it to really set forth on this path. Fu was sharing with me the other day what appears to me a quite credible theory of evolutionary biology, explaining that part of the reason why species of human beings are currently wrecking the Earth, pointing to how human species have in the last 70,000 years or so, largely through our use of concepts and abstractions,

[05:53]

been able to elevate itself in the food chain from a place closer to the middle where we'd be both a predator and prey to sort of the top. We're the tools and coordination both to kill and protect ourselves against any other species. And the problem for us is that we'll adapt at handling this elevated position Other species that have evolved as apex predators at the top of the food chain, they seem to have some ways of self-regulating, of not taking more than what is necessary. Tigers don't trophy hunt. Only humans do. Even though tigers can, to do so would be against their own best interests. So even though they're on top, they appear to have understood their embeddedness in their surroundings.

[06:56]

And human beings, on the other hand, seem to become much too intoxicated with the apparent power and control brought about by our scientific developments and technological advancements, striving for independence and a false sense of safety. And we're wrecking this beautiful world in the process. And as we're causing harm to the world that we live in, we're causing harm to ourselves. So in this light, I like to consider Buddhist practice and teachings as an antidote for this intoxication that comes with this elevation as a way to bring us back down to Earth, make us humble, and discover our deep inventiveness in the world around us. And also as a way to encourage my own courage as well as much as anybody else's, I really want to point to this willingness to be vulnerable as a key component on the spiritual path.

[08:08]

And I want to bring up some of the teachings of the first turning to convey how the Buddha is teaching a path that's... really about embracing this vulnerability. And it's not just a path where we don't pick up weapons or build walls, but actually actively, instead of doing those things and responding to the world around us and threats or challenges, we're as an active path of practice. And he still taught ways for us to protect both our bodies and minds from harm. as well as protecting others. So I hope you all have had moments of vulnerability so far in the practice period and found some

[09:24]

embrace of this. I think Thassa Hara practice spirit is really designed to bring this up in so many different aspects of living relatively simple life in touch with the elements and being down in this little mountain valley with these big mountains around sort of helps us not feel too grand. Perhaps sleep deprivation can bring up some vulnerability certainly as endo jobs and send forms that allow us to make mistakes and get to experience what that's like what that brings up for us and most of us have new jobs we haven't done before and even those of you who may not have changed your job going into practice period, might not have felt totally confident in what you were doing before either.

[10:29]

So all of this is helping us to ensure that we don't feel, we feel less than invincible. And then if we can willingly take up this rather vulnerable and exposed positions or mental state that we're finding ourselves in? We might still want to... What do we turn towards when we refrain from blaming others, shaming self, or lashing out, etc.? How do we protect ourselves without losing our tenderness or our engagement in our surroundings? the Buddha's own time practice there was a similar design for the monks and nuns simple life begging for your food going into the forest with the many creatures in there to practice the root of a tree was seen as the supreme place to meditate

[11:58]

And this included the exposure to some dangerous animals. The Thai forest tradition has reinvigorated this practice and had the practice of Tudong, of going out for 10 days or so, leaving the monastery and just going out with your bowls and a mosquito net and begging for your food and sitting in the forest. just needing to rely on the world around you to help care for you. In the Pali Canon, there's a sitra called the Khandha Parita Sita, a short sitra. It's a sitra for the protection of the aggregates. And it's given where there's a group of monks that go to the Buddha. for guidance as one of the monks have died from a deadly snakebite.

[13:01]

And so Buddha's response is, assuredly, monks, that monk has not suffused with thoughts of loving-kindness, Metta, the four royal tribes of snakes. Had he done so, that monk would not have died of snakebite. What are the four royal tribes of snakes? And he goes on to list the four royal tribes of snakes. He's aware of the species, all the species living in the forest. He's well educated and aware of his surroundings. And he goes on to say, monks, I enjoin you to suffuse with thoughts of lemming kindness these four royal tribes of snakes for your safety, for your preservation, and for your protection. So he goes on and gives them a verse for extending Metta to these four tribes of snakes, to the footless beings in the forest, the bipeds, quadrupeds, and many-footed.

[14:05]

Part of it is, Let not the footless do any harm, nor those that have two feet. Let not quadrupeds do any harm, nor those endowed with many feet. All beings, all living creatures, may good fortune befall them all. may not the least harm on them befall. So a few things to observe in here. Had this monk practiced Meddha, he would not have died. It might sound like a judgment on the Buddha's behalf. Or it might be, or maybe he's taking on the blame himself for not teaching this. There's no such judgment exposed in the sutta, actually. I think this is more like what Fu shared from the Visuddhi Maga. When you stop doing these practices, it means that you stop doing these practices. This monk had not practiced loving kindness towards the snake, and so therefore he died.

[15:11]

There's no good or bad there. It's our tendency to add that. Buddha wasn't so interested in pointing fingers, but just... pointing the way forward, pointing to a path of practice. Another thing is just that just to abstain from killing is not enough. We can see first that the Buddha did not respond by saying, oh, we need to armor ourselves, we need to carry weapons to protect ourselves, or didn't say, oh, the force is bad, we're not going to go there. said, let's go back to the forest and let's really fully be in relationship with all the beings in there, and that will provide for our safety. So, Buddha is not just merely a path of non-doing in this way, it's also an active engagement.

[16:16]

There's another short sutta where as a general comes challenging the Buddha about teaching a path of passivity. And his answer is something like, I teach passivity in regards to unwholesome actions of body, speech and mind. In regards to deeds, wholesome deeds of body, speech and mind, I teach activity. And another observation is, you know, for myself, you know, I'm mind trained in sort of Western materialistic science. It's like, really? You know, this sounds like mere superstition. It's like, maybe back then, you know, that kind of belief in magic was the best thing they had to provide for some sense of, false sense of safety.

[17:21]

I don't know. but it's, you know, how could extending loving kindness to the snakes have any benefit, you know, provide any safety for you? However, I think our Western science is getting... It's changing, and new discoveries are constantly being made. How many of you know about mirror neurons, familiar with mirror neurons? It's these neurons that get activated in our brain when we perceive somebody else doing an action, the same neurons as if we were doing this thing ourselves, triggered and similarly seem also capable of picking up the intentions and emotions of another, being pointed to as our capacity to feel empathy for one another, having to do with these neurons mirroring another's behavior.

[18:32]

And as I was having the capacity to Google things, I was just looking up mirror neurons to see that I wasn't misrepresenting any of these teachings. And as you get these little questions, one of them is this great scientific koan, which is, do dogs have mirror neurons? And it seems like the jury is still out. But so far, the signs are quite positive. And actually, this might not be limited to even just to mammals either. So it's quite possible that reptilians such as snakes might be able to mirror our intentions and mental states somehow. some way it's certainly an enticing thing to imagine right and I think for myself if I'm going to embrace my own vulnerability which is a challenge to let my shield down I do want something to to rely on to have faith in

[19:47]

the words of the Buddha is probably haven't found a better place place to go yet I think as long as science doesn't prove the Buddha wrong I'm willing to try on his words even if it challenges some of my prior conditioning and in fact I would rather live in a word world where those that teaching is true then one word where we turn our intentions don't really have an impact so we already do we do our well-being ceremonies and memorial ceremonies do they reach the people that we're doing for them not I certainly would like to believe that they do that's the world I want to live in Another one of these protective teachings of the Buddha, and I brought this up here in the work period already, so I apologize for those who were here.

[21:08]

Most of you weren't. I guess there was very few of us here. But there's a collection of 29 texts for the Theravadan collection that have certain protective powers or protecting in certain ways. And one of them is the metasuta, the loving-kindness meditation. We chant the version of it as the loving-kindness meditation. And I just realized a few weeks ago that it was like, this is the suta, but it doesn't have, where's Ananda in here? Like, where's the, thus have I heard? So I looked up what the context is, and supposedly... This was the teaching given around the range retreat. And 500 of the Buddhist monks were going into this forest to spend the three months in there.

[22:09]

And the setup seemed so good that the local population were really excited to have the monks there. And they were going to be able to receive food on alms round without any... difficulties. And there were these tree devas, tree spirits living in the trees, who were first very friendly and accommodating when the monks came and they didn't want to be above the monks, so they moved down and sort of out of the way. But then after a few days, I felt really inconvenienced by this and started getting irritated. and decided that they were going to scare the monks away to try to push them out of the forest. And they did this by creating some frightening sounds and sights and some extremely distasteful odors.

[23:11]

And the monks became quite terrified. Some of them developed fever and pain and dizziness, throwing up, and it was just impossible to concentrate in there. So they left, they went to the Buddha to let him know that this was not a good place to practice. So if you can imagine maybe sitting in Thangaria with a septic being worked on and then some really crazy, frightening sounds and sights going on, you might have the thought that, oh, this is not a place to practice. However, the Buddha's response with his all With all perceiving eye, he could see that, no, this was the best place. He was open to hearing what they had to say. With his eye of wisdom, he discerned that this was the best place. But he said, I didn't offer you enough protection when you went in there. And I'm going to teach you the loving-kindness meditation as an antidote to protect yourself.

[24:18]

He taught him that. verse to recite and as a practice to cultivate and they went back to the woods and these devas came around and instead started caring for them, helping to bring them food and they lived in harmony for the three months of the range retreat after that. And how I how reading this encouraged me myself in my practice was this, oh, when I see my peace of mind being disturbed and in relation to someone else, there's something I can do, actually. There is a practice for me to do. I don't have to feel that I'm so quiet.

[25:23]

just at loss and it depends on somebody else and what they're doing or not doing for my peace of mind is dependent on that. There is a practice to cultivate and try to pick up. And trying to do so also seeing how challenging this can be. It's one thing to, as we, our preset is to not harbor ill will. not do something and but and that is quite another thing to actually actively be wishing for somebody's well-being nurturance freedom from suffering and peace it's another another step to go and again I I do want to live in a world where that practice will have some resonance where there's a practice for me to pick up when I find my peace of mind being challenged in relation to another and to see what that does.

[26:47]

another one of these protective practices is to take refuge Buddha Dharma and Sangha being what we what we rely on and I realized in effect I had one very powerful experience taking this up a few years ago where it's living a Green Gulch and the person in the room next to me was about to move out, and late at night I'd just gone to sleep, bed, I think I'd just fallen asleep, and then I'm hearing all this activity from the room next door, and, you know, I've been feeling agitated, and the situation, this person was such that I didn't have a great deal of faith in me going knocking on the door and pointing out they were disturbing me, it seemed like it was likely to backfire. I lay there being just frustrated, not knowing what to do.

[28:07]

And then somewhere just came, like, I take refuge in Buddha. I take refuge in Dharma. I take refuge in Sangha. Buddha am sarana am gacchami. Dhamma am sarana am gacchami. And almost immediately, just, my mind just settled down. It was peaceful. It was still activity going on next door for another ten minutes or so. And once that was over, I went to sleep. I was pretty sure that I would have stayed in the agitated state that I was in, had I not done this. And I've never really tried that practice since. I don't know if I just want to have that memory and just sort of rely on that, or if I don't really actually believe it, or I don't want to challenge it. It's a sweet and perfect experience right there and then. But maybe it's time to try once more.

[29:08]

If a situation appears, that's necessary. I think that's what I was planning to say this morning. I didn't bring a watch, but I imagine we might have time for a few questions, if anybody has any. the topic of vulnerability and it's interesting how it you talked a lot about how it goes along with feeling protected. So sort of because I think of vulnerability in some ways being unprotected or at least not clinging too much to comfortable space and at the same time you know not going into that panic but not being so unprotected that you can't

[30:16]

stay present. And then you talked a lot about these kind of ideas that we don't, they sound kind of superstitious and it would be nice if they're true because they're nice ideas. And so I'm kind of wondering like how do we discern like when those ideas are kind of helping us in that place of vulnerability rather than kind of console us and become a belief that then I kind of cling to, like, oh, you know, I'm afraid of death and so I'm going to believe in this particular type of reincarnation as like a consolation or something. Yeah. Yeah, that's a great question. I think one way when general answer might be like is it helping us to be present to what is and be in relationship to the world around us or is it it's this sort of protection we're taking something that's sort of shutting something out it's creating some division yeah is it and I don't know where

[31:43]

what one's experiences with reincarnation, I imagine it could go both ways. I think in general, like these protective teachings of the Buddha's practices is to try to be stay vulnerable, open to the people and the world around us and not shut ourselves off in some way, which is our a common tendency to not get into fight or flight, but find a middle, just staying right here. Does that answer your question? Yeah, I think it's, I still have a little bit of a question around kind of How can I discern when I'm starting to cling to a belief out of consolation and then it's limiting me in some way?

[32:56]

Yeah. And I think something that might be helpful in the moment, too, if we're sort of... Getting into the panic zone, something to rely on that sort of brings us back down to the stretch zone, could become then something that we cling to and then get stuck in as well. Yeah, it's tricky. Yeah, holding whatever it is. lightly might be one way actually not I've got it you know that sort of sense of security okay this is it it's maybe a little too rigid it sounds like when you talked about taking refuge like that's not like a belief sort of like oh there's this thing that I it's just more like kind of practice of taking refuge it's an act yeah

[34:08]

Yes? Have you found in your process of being able to shed tears as something that has to be present in order to be vulnerable like that, a sense of security or safety? Yeah, I think definitely it's like recognizing, oh, I'm not in that junior high setting anymore. Like, I'm somewhere where I'm safe. I'm not. yeah it can really open up and i trust there's you know there's something little happening in my body i think practice too and being more attuned to what's going on in my body so noticing the little impulses and actually not shutting it off but just allowing uh the process to uh to happen I feel fortunate to be and spending actually most of my, if I think about it, I think I'm spending most of my time, awake time in settings where it would be okay to shed some tears actually.

[35:35]

You're saying to wander off, to be by yourself, or something to process some sensitive emotions and maybe shed some tears. Is that what you mean? Sometimes I feel like it's shedding out my life. And sometimes I can see that it's actually just, yeah, more closely.

[37:35]

Yeah, what's the genuine, actual genuine expression? What's not just the condition being, you know, habituated patterns? being re-enacted once again. I think it's just sending a question to stay close to and see what is your body want. And trusting, having some trust in that. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered free of charge and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit SSCC.org and click Giving.

[38:36]

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