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, guests from the online sangha. Am I audible? Oh, yeah, I am audible. Okay, thank you. As two birds were fighting over a frog, a monk asked his teacher, why does it always come to this? And the teacher replied, it's for your benefit, Acharya. Why does it always come to this? It's for your benefit, Acharya. So I've been wondering, actually more than wondering, I've been questioning my own ability or anyone's ability to say something or do something to relieve the suffering inside the hearts and minds of this deeply troubled human world.

[01:23]

Now we have this Zen saying that words can't reach it. And these past few months, with the many mass killings here in this country, around the world, Tops Supermarket, Rob Elementary School, Ukraine, Nigeria, words seem truly inadequate for expressing how bad we feel, how much pain there is inside my own body and inside the bodies of those who who I talk with. We are in pain. And yet I do know and truly believe that pain and suffering are the very things that the teachings of the Buddha were given to relieve. They are for our benefit, Acharyas. So it's with boundless gratitude that I turn yet again to the ancient texts.

[02:29]

for their compassion, solace, and wisdom. Recently, I've been studying a chapter in a book by Zen Master Kezan Jokin called The Transmission of Light, a book that was written in the 13th century in Japan as a tribute to the line of Zen ancestors that began with the awakening of Shakyamuni Buddha 2,500 years ago and continues through all of the teachers. who followed in his huge wake. Each chapter of the book tells a story of a conversion of a spiritual seeker to an awakened life. Something clicks in us, something almost audible, as human beings are released from the confinements of their self-made worlds, worlds of delusion, of avarice, and of hate. Once this release is set and stable, these newly awakened beings accept responsibility for showing others a pathway to freedom from harmful thoughts and harmful actions.

[03:45]

So the chapter I've been reading these last few weeks is about a teacher named Yun Zhu, who was awakened with the help of Chinese Zen master Dongshan. who's the founder of our school of Soto Zen. The gist of the exchanges in this story are the effort that Jungju's teacher is making to direct him back onto himself and to his own experiences of the world. But more than that, to direct him to his own responsibility for caring about the suffering of others. This teaching that we are responsible for the suffering of others is the hallmark of what's called the Mahayana, the great vehicle teaching, which became dominant throughout East Asia over many centuries. The hallmark of our wish to bring an end to warfare, to mindless killing, and to mindless rationalizations for warfare and killing.

[04:50]

Caring for the suffering of others as we endeavor to heal our own is summarized as the Bodhisattva vow. I vow to live for the benefit of all beings, which in turn is a distillation of the Bodhisattva precepts. Precepts that help us to understand what it is we need to do and not to do in order to fulfill the Bodhisattva vow. I vow not to kill you. to steal from you, to sexualize you, lie to you. I vow not to intoxicate you or slander you or praise myself at your expense. I vow not to withhold my possessions from you or to hate you. I vow not to abuse our true relationship as revealed by the teaching of the Buddha and the shared life of the Sangha.

[05:55]

So these precepts are like litmus paper, and they help to illuminate the patterns of harm that we as members of the human species perpetuate against one another. Patterns that are only possible because we fail to see, as the Buddha did at the moment of his awakening, that each of us is inseparable from each other and from the entirety of life in this world. We're inseparable not only from our own birth and death, but from the birth and death of all things. And yet, because we have such a limited view of the world, we have to use our imaginations and our intellects to study our life and the life of this planet in order to understand how it works, how it all works. Once we understand, the exquisite intimacy of it all, we can begin to care for everything that we touch, everything that we say, with the tender truth of this intimacy, of this inseparability.

[07:09]

I matter to you, and you matter to me. In the story about Yunju, a serious seeker after truth, he was endeavoring to know himself and to know the world in every way he could. And just like us, have been offered a long trail of teachings to guide him through the dark forest of human suffering. The conversations that Yunju is having with his teacher Dongshan are like signposts along that trail. You know, go this way. Now go that way. Turn right. Turn left. Straight ahead. Slow down. So Dongshan is both guiding his student and testing him to see if his orientation to reality is beginning to match his own, is beginning to sound like awakening, and therein the transmission of light, of understanding, of wisdom and compassion.

[08:20]

To benefit from this teaching from the ancient past of the Buddhist traditions, it's very important to me, and I know it is to all of you, that what I'm saying has some relevance to where we are in our own journey together right now. I have been offered and have accepted a teaching role in this community. As this community is confronting, yet again, a huge wave of suffering. suffering that is resonant with the culture and the time that we are living in. I, along with many of the elders of this community, came to Zen Center at the height of the Vietnam War. Today we're suffering the traumatic consequences of our growing awareness of racism, abuses of power, homophobia, transphobia, pedophilia, misogyny, to say nothing of the demands of acquiring money and what that has on the life of our families and of our communities.

[09:32]

So while bringing these specific types of suffering to mind, it still seems to me that there is a generic truth about suffering that the Buddha was aware of and addressed during his own time, several thousand years ago. He called it the noble truth of suffering. And the main distinction that he made about suffering was that there are two types. There's the suffering that comes along with simply being alive. The suffering from which, out of fear, he ran away from home. Namely, old age, sickness, and death. So this form of suffering, there is no remedy. They're simply the facts of life. And the primary practice in the face of the facts of life is acceptance. An acceptance that in Zen, we endeavor to cultivate through sitting quietly for longer than we would like.

[10:45]

Just as the young prince had done in the shade of a fig tree. practice of acceptance the Buddha called patience, the patient acceptance of the continual arising of transient and therefore non-existent phenomena. There's nothing to get a hold of. And yet we continue to try to have and to hold. Along with generosity, ethics, concentration, energy and wisdom, patience is counted in Zen as one of the six modalities or perfections for training a bodhisattva. Trainings that grow us up into adults who can withstand, as great master Shakespeare said, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Trainings that help us to cultivate the tensile strength that we need to face the smoldering

[11:53]

The other type of suffering the Buddha taught and for which he prescribed numerous remedies is the suffering that is caused by our own misperception of reality. This is the suffering that Dongshan is endeavoring to help his sincere young student to understand. This is the suffering that arises from how we think, what we feel, and what we do based on how we think and feel. This suffering is the one that is deeply personal and in the best of times, optional. The good news is that this second type of suffering can be changed, it can be dropped, and it can be transformed into compassion and wisdom. He called the truth of how we are causing our own suffering,

[12:53]

The second noble truth. The truth of the cause of our suffering also has two parts. The first is ignorance of how the world works. And the second is our wish or our desire that things be different than they are. Right now and on demand. As we all know, not getting what we want right now gives rise. within humans, world-round, the three familiar toxic reactions, greed, hate, and delusion. The third noble truth is that there is a cessation of suffering, and that's the good news. The bad news is that the path to the cessation of suffering, the fourth noble truth, takes a commitment, a great deal of effort, and continuous practice, just as it did for the Buddha and for generations of his disciples.

[13:59]

The truth of the cessation of suffering is not a single gesture or an amazing insight, but rather it's a way of living, described in the Buddha's first sermon as the Eightfold Path, a path that includes your understanding of yourself and of the world, your intention, your speech, your conduct, and your livelihood. It includes a daily practice of concentrated and mindful awareness. So while there is no easy way to the cessation of suffering, there is a way. A way that was given to this world to lessen our suffering and to enlarge our experiences of joy, and most especially, of belonging. And so to this end, Dongshan is speaking to Yunju as a wise parent might speak to a beloved child, kind and firm.

[15:02]

The focal point of their conversation is the Bodhisattva precepts, and in particular, the grave precept of not killing. In this case, the killing of one's parents and teachers, including the Buddha, which are common metaphors and Zen dialogues for killing our conditioning, our dependencies, and our attachments. Based in noble truth number two, the very cause of our suffering, optional suffering, arising from unwholesome attachments and ignorance. In other words, arising from how we understand reality. Although all stories, including these in the Zen tradition, are a mere sequence of sounds, we call words, lacking in any power of their own, Baba Wawa, is there anything said or not? Words and phrases are how we together are making this world with all of its joys and sorrows.

[16:12]

And so we are left to confront through language what each of us believes to be right and wrong with the world and to see how or if we can use language to free ourselves from a one-sided view of reality. In a me-centered world in which only this view of mine is right and all else is wrong. As we tend to do. So this chapter about Yungju is a good place to consider the matter of right and wrong in the face of what Dongshan is calling out as inhuman crimes. Dongshan says to Yungju, an incorrigible commits inhuman crimes. For example, killing one's parents, killing a Buddha, or causing dissension in the Sangha. Where is the caring in that? And incorrigible commits in human crimes. Where is the caring in that? Yungju responds, this is real caring.

[17:16]

When we talked about this chapter in our seniors meeting with Tenshin Roshi some years ago, he helped to clarify this story. And he told us it's about the beginning of practice. That first impulse that we humans have, perhaps when we were young, young children, to care about harm or pain that we see being caused to another. Maybe it was an animal for you or a grandparent or a friend. I remember when I was in grammar school quite young, one of our classmates was killed riding on the back of a motor scooter just up the block from my house. Another one died of a sudden illness. I don't think any of the grown-ups talked to us about what had happened, about the deaths. I don't remember hearing the word death. Although we heard them talking with each other in a great deal of stress and concern, the sound of that distress is the beginning of real caring.

[18:25]

We are all impacted again and again throughout our lives with the suffering of others. And each of us is aware of how it feels inside of our own hearts and minds. When we care for others, we are taking the initial step on the pathway of awakening. The first step is called the bodhicitta, the mind or the thought of awakening for the benefit of others. So this chapter then becomes even a little more tricky. when it declares that Yunju himself has repeatedly committed the crimes of killing the father and mother, killing the Buddhas and Zen masters and so on, with no thought in his mind of caring. So Dengshan challenges him to test whether there's any true insight in these sentiments. Where is the feeling of a parent for a child, he asks him.

[19:29]

And Yunju says, Only this is really the feeling of a parent and a child. So again, as my teacher helped us to understand, non-attachment is a true requiting of our teachers and our parents' kindness. My parents wanted nothing more for me than to leave home and find happiness for myself in this world in terms that they could understand. A husband, a home, children. And a good job. And my Zen teachers also wanted nothing more than for me to leave home and to find happiness for myself in this world in terms that they could understand. Terms that indicated that I had come to an acceptance of my complete independence. My complete independence as a person. And that that independence was equal. to my total dependence on the entire universe.

[20:32]

Total dependence, which neither turns away nor turns toward anyone or anything, including how my parents understand the way to happiness in this world. So each of us must walk alone in order to free ourselves from dependency on the past, on our karmic conditioning, our personal preferences, which are represented in this story by the metaphors of our parents, teachers, and Zen masters. Each of us is truly self-sufficient, relying on no one else for our choices and our actions in this world. And once we know this, we are both completely free and completely responsible for all that we are. For this non-dual, undifferentiated universe, filled to the brim with differences. If we believe that killing or stealing sends us to hell, then we will go to hell.

[21:39]

We will be bound by our karmic belief and conditioning with no possibility of release. If, on the other hand, we believe that killing is dependently co-arisen and that the effects of killing are dependently co-arisen, we are coming to understand how reality, works. We are coming to understand the working of karma, of how both good and evil come into being. The whole universe is creating those who kill, and the whole universe is creating the response to that killing. More guns or fewer guns? Bigger tanks and rockets or fewer tanks and rockets? More mental health resources or fewer mental health resources? We have to choose. In other words, we are all responsible for killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying and intoxicating.

[22:45]

It is creating the suffering in this world. Meaning that we are all called upon to respond by endeavoring to create a world in which life is not killed. Things are not taken. And sex is a consensual agreement between two grown-ups who are also, as one might hope, good friends. Doing good is our vow, as bodhisattvas, the second of the 16 bodhisattva precepts. And whatever good comes of it is not for ourselves alone, but for others. We give it away. and the negative result of evil we keep for ourselves. However, it's the pain of those actions that may lead us to enter the Buddhist path and abandon evil. And although we will still suffer the effects of our past evil actions, they will arrive in a different context, a Buddha field, in which the consequences will be somewhat dampened.

[23:54]

So the best story I know, to give an example of this, I recently told in my Sunday afternoon class, is of Angulimala, the mass murderer from the Pali Suttas. Angulimala, when he was a baby, received a prediction from a soothsayer that he would grow up to be a mass murderer. His parents were horrified and determined not to let that happen. So they named him Ahimsa. meaning non-harming, and they sent him to a private school with a learned yogi who was known for kindness and nonviolence. Ahimsa was the yogi's best student for many years, and as a result, the other students became jealous of him. So the students told the teacher that they had seen Ahimsa flirting with the teacher's wife. At first the teacher accused him of lying, but later when he saw his wife talking quietly with the young man, he began to doubt him, and so he gave him a test of his loyalty and his virtue.

[25:07]

He told Ahimsa to bring him a necklace of a thousand fingers to prove his loyalty, and then he would give Ahimsa a certificate of his enlightenment. Ahimsa fainted on the spot. But then when he came to, he made his own fateful choice to follow his teacher's commandment to begin killing people for their fingers. Many years past, Ahimsa is now called Angulimala, meaning a thousand fingers, a necklace of a thousand fingers. And he lived alone in a dark forest where he had nearly completed his task. The Buddha heard about this mass murderer, And although warned, he goes into the forest to find him. When Angulimala sees the Buddha approaching, he thinks, my last finger. And he chases after him.

[26:09]

And yet no matter how fast he runs, Angulimala cannot gain on the Buddha, who is walking calmly and mindfully along the path. Finally, he yells out to the Buddha, stop, stop. And the Buddha turns to him and says, you stop. And Gulimala suddenly awakens, regains his right mind and realizes the horror of his actions. And then he falls to his knees in remorse and begs the Buddha to ordain him as a monk. The newly ordained monk travels with the congregation to a nearby village where the villagers recognize Angulimala and they stone him to death. And yet he dies with a pure heart, having entered into the Buddha field where life is not killed. And yet he fully accepts responsibility for the consequences of his actions prior to his awakening.

[27:15]

This story resonated with me with that film a few years back called Dead Man Walking. Some of you may have seen. I think Sean Penn was the person about to be executed. In that film, there's a depiction of the power of confession and repentance on human consciousness, even at that moment of our death. Dongshan, in the story of Youngju's insights about killing parents and teachers, tests him again to see if he truly has achieved the ability to pass through the barriers and to escape conventions. And so Dongshan asks Yunju to tell him his name in conventional language, the language of relative truths. Yunju says, I am Yunju. And then Dongshan asks him to give his name on the ultimate, or transcendental plane, to which Yunju replies, on the transcendental plane, I am not Yunju. So this answer by Yongju indicates to Dongshan that he's been freed from his karmic-driven consciousness.

[28:28]

Free from declaring only this is right and all else is wrong. Free to see how both sides are true and that both sides are always to be questioned. Questioned in order to reveal any rigidity in our one-sided views, which are quite the opposite of how the Buddha saw the world. The Buddha saw the world as having two sides or two truths and called out for respect and for kindness for everyone, regardless of the current limitations of their understanding. So continuing with my own intention to find some relevance for us in this story from the ancient teaching manual, I wanted to share some Dharma or some truth that I have found in a modern day manual called Difficult Conversations, How to Discuss What Matters Most, which was first published over 20 years ago by what's called the Harvard Negotiating Project.

[29:30]

They studied thousands of conversations to see what goes wrong when we speak. So this manual is a highly regarded guidance system for how to talk with each other in the service of a more harmonious. world a manual for the bodhisattva's practice of right speech bringing harmony to everyone is one of the promises that we make each and every morning here the beginning of service i take refuge in the buddha before all beings immersing body and mind deeply in the way i take refuge in dharma before all beings bringing entering deeply into the merciful ocean of Buddha's way. I take refuge in Sangha before all beings, bringing harmony to everyone. So these three refuges in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha are the first three of the 16 Bodhisattva precepts.

[30:40]

These promises or vows set the course for undertaking a study of reality itself both from the side of the ultimate truth and from the side of the relative truth, with its innumerable fragments, such as seated meditation or dinner out with friends, scuba diving, warfare, Netflix, without which reality wouldn't be very real at all. So on my desk right now, I have these two texts. I have the transmission of light, and I have difficult conversations. I consider both of these studies essential to my own personal effort to think and feel how the Buddha's teaching is in concert with the request that is being made of me, and of course all of you as well, to talk about the painful issues that are arising within our community and around the world.

[31:42]

A world that is reeking with the toxic legacy domination in my case as a white middle-class female the legacy of white supremacy a legacy that appears to be clearly visible in the makeup of the leadership of this song while reading difficult conversations I began to recognize a great many ways that as a Dharma student and now as a teacher I have not understood the impact of my own unconscious biases, my aversion to conflict, and my preference for silence. Those aren't too bad for monastics or penitents, but for bodhisattvas who want to bring harmony to the world, they're just not good enough. In keeping with the response the teacher gave to the monk about the birds fighting over a frog, And that it's for your benefit, Acharya.

[32:47]

I recognize the benefit that is coming from facing the suffering together as a community in what will no doubt be an endless round of conversations and confrontation. Welcome. It is my hope we can have these conversations in the spirit of our bodhisattva vow and precepts. And for that we will need skills, and we will need help from those who have skills. According to the authors of Difficult Conversations, the ability to shift from argumentation, blame, and punishment is a shift to learning, listening, and reflecting on how each of us is responsible and contributing to what has happened and to what will happen next for where we will go and where we can go from here. From the chapter called Stop Arguing About Who's Right and Explore Each Other's Stories, it suggested that people almost never change their views or behavior without first feeling understood.

[33:57]

There is so much I found useful in what is being offered here. It's useful to be curious about another person's story. It's useful to acknowledge and share the feelings that are arising when we speak together. It's useful to remind ourselves about the tenderness that we have about how we are seen by others. What the authors refer to as our identity issues. White, female, middle class, abbess. There is a lot to unpack right there. Dealing directly, compassionately, and wisely with these common aspects of human relationships is what they call a sign of good health. in a community or a family or a partnership. It's my wish that we all find comfort and inspiration to go forward in our practice of conversation, of upright sitting, and of kindness.

[35:00]

The Dalai Lama said when asked to define Buddhism, my religion is kindness. To end, here's a poem. by Dogen Zenji, the 13th century Japanese Zen master, who carried the Buddha's compassionate teachings inside of himself to the very end of his all too few days. This slowly drifting cloud is pitiful. What dream walkers we humans have become. Awakened, I hear the one true thing. Black rain on the roof. a Fukakusa temple. Thank you 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.

[36:05]

For more information, visit sfcc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[36:14]

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