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. Good morning. Aligning all activity with the heart of Buddha is the theme we're living with for 10 weeks here. at the city center. It's the theme of the practice period, which is particularly focused on all activity. That means everyone's activity wherever you are. So we also said late practice. Suzuki Roshi said quite early working here with Americans and after ordaining some people at some point said you are neither lay people nor are you priests.

[01:10]

Because here in this culture it's still evolving but it's not how it is in Japan. It's not how it is in China. It's not how it is in Korea. It's not how it is in Vietnam, where Zen exists. So it's an evolving process of what form this practice here is taking. And how do we practice together what we are? So we don't have to have a definition. We already are in that process. It's happening. every day, every moment. We chose Samantha Padra, who is depicted here on the elephant on the altar, as a visual help.

[02:17]

We call it almost our, we call him sometimes our mascot. And if you look at his posture, Actually, what I particularly like about this figure is it's a little beat up. It's an everyday life Samanta Bhattra with scars, with blemishes marked by life, by work, by practice, not kind of pristine, gorgeous, forever young, untouched by life. So if you leave after the lecture, go look at him closely. It's quite an ordinarily, extraordinary Samantha Bhatt. So it's an example of how basically everything is out of our control. You know, it fools us for a while and we think now we got it or it is and then boom, something happens.

[03:24]

and so if you look at Samantha Padra's posture it's relaxed and it's at the same time ready she he could step up any time when needed the elephant is lying down. And Samantha Vajra is a depiction of manifestation, of the embodiment, of the action of practice, that which brings our intention into action, into the world, how we do things, how our understanding and our intentions actually translate into how we are with what's happening here, what's happening right in front.

[04:43]

Today, we're meeting all the time in various ways, and I almost knocked him of his feet with opening a door, which I can't see through, and he was right there. So, there's always things happening that we don't anticipate, know were there in us outside. So, the line of relativity with the Heart of Buddha, the Heart of Buddha is the heart-mind of being ready. In one of his lectures, in the Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, Tsukiroshi says that the readiness of the mind is also its mindfulness and is also wisdom. To have that open, soft mind that is not fixed on particular views

[05:48]

ready to see, as he says, things as they are, is what this practice is about. And that's not so easy for us, because the way we perceive things seem so substantial. And I want to read something also Suki Roshi said, because... Rather than paraphrasing him, I think it's wonderful to just hear his words, even though they're also slightly paraphrased. And probably today he will put them a little bit different. But he says, in the Heart Sutra, the Prajnaparamita Sutra, which we chant every day, the most important point, of course, is the idea of emptiness. Susan O'Connell spoke a few weeks ago about emptiness, and it's something you encounter here everywhere.

[06:57]

And actually, the Heart Sutra, when you go down in the corridor and look before the steps, you go up, there's this big calligraphy, which is the Heart Sutra in Japanese. And because we're having a one-day sitting, you won't be invited for a key, which usually is right there, but you are invited to On your way out, go and look there. And just stand a moment in front of that calligraphy, piece of calligraphy, and see how it touches your body. The person who did the calligraphy was preparing himself by fasting and meditating nine days before he sat down to do the calligraphy. And it comes through, I think. So it talks about emptiness. So before we understand the idea of emptiness, everything seems to exist substantially.

[08:00]

But after we realize the emptiness of things, everything becomes real, not substantial. It's such a wonderful way of putting it. But it's like, what is that? After we realize the emptiness of things, everything becomes real, not substantial. When we realize that everything we see is a part of emptiness or is part of emptiness, We can have no attachment to any existence. We realize that everything we see, that everything is just a tentative form. So you are a tentative form.

[09:02]

I'm a tentative form. This is a tentative form. Everything is tentative. It's provisional. It's in continuous movement and flux. It's not fixed, even though to us it appears quite fixed before we realize the emptiness of all things, that they're empty of independent, existence and substantiality. When we realize that everything we see is part of emptiness, we can have no attachment to any existence. We realize that everything is just a tentative form and color. Thus, we realize the true meaning of each tentative existence.

[10:08]

When we first hear that everything is a tentative existence, most of us are disappointed. But this disappointment comes from a wrong view of man and nature. It is because our way of observing things is deeply rooted in our self-centered ideas that we are disappointed when we find everything has only a tentative existence. But when we actually realize this truth, we will have no suffering. He mentions colors in here. And it's really interesting that struck me today reading it now the first time that, you know, we go, a tree is green. These are green, you know, shades of green, but they're green. And we keep thinking of a tree's green, but if you look at the tree at night, it's not green.

[11:16]

If you look at the tree in the fog, it may not be green, but gray, shades of gray. But we think it's just green, period. That's how it is all the time. Actually, we don't even see it all the time. And the cat probably doesn't say the tree is green or a dog. It sees something else. So is now the cat wrong or is something wrong with the tree or is the tree actually as tentative a form as we are? Not a substantially independently existing thing. So how do we align all activity with the heart of Buddha, with the nature of being, which is Buddha nature, which is compassionate, open, unobstructed, soft, flexible, available mind, heart, heart-mind.

[12:41]

And it takes an effort to uncover that. It's not that it's not there. It's there. It's basically, you could say, almost always there for us to be uncovered or realized. Because it's just how it is. So what helps us And what we're doing here and what the people that came to participate in various ways in this practice period is to make space to be still. So Sylvia Borstein, it's a saying I keep repeating and you may have heard already innumerable times is, it does not matter. what state your mind is in. What matters is that you know it.

[13:50]

So Thich Nhat Hanh would then add to that, it matters that you know it, and then that to acknowledge that it's there and embrace it. Surround it with acceptance. Don't argue with it. Which is very hard for us to do. We keep arguing this. First of all, it's hard for us to actually take the time and the willingness to find out what state our heart, mind, mind, heart is in. We're busy. We have to do the next thing. It will make it harder, particularly if you have an inkling that your mind, heart, heart, mind is actually in a state that you don't particularly like. We have so many things we have to do, and we are so convinced it will get in the way that we will...

[15:09]

have resistance to really avail ourselves to it. I'm a prime example of that these last days. In the Metta Sutta, it says, which we're chanting every day during the practice period at noon, and which I will put out copies after the talk if you want to take it home and join us in reading it out loud every day, independent of Not thinking too much, well, do I agree with this or not? Just read it and see what happens when you do that every day. So it says, do not be submerged by the things of the world. And I failed big time. I feel completely submerged by the things of the world to a degree that I don't know what to do. And I... So I had no idea what I was going to talk about today.

[16:15]

I had no idea last night. I had no idea this morning when I woke up at 3. And I knew that if I force it, it will get worse. If I don't force it, I am afraid I'm going to sit here and say I have nothing to say. which will happen one day, I'm sure. So I went and sat in the Zendo. My mind went, I'm not fit for this job. I should have known better. I hate this. How can I get away from this state of it? I shouldn't be in this state. I have, you know, my practice is worth nothing. And this is the proof now that I am so frazzled and totally out of it.

[17:17]

And I feel like a hedgehog, you know, don't get near me. I can't stand anything more. But I shouldn't feel that way. Who is to blame? Why is this, you know, looking for something out there that is to blame? Because feeling it, just feeling, allowing it to be as it is without putting a story on it or an explanation or a why or, oh, what is it going to do with me in the future, is almost unbearable. Because it feels like it's going to kill us. going to kill me I will just be paralyzed for the rest of my life which of course once we once I'm willing to surrender to that it's so and also surrender all the you know in another sutra it says like a trap a rat what does it say like a

[18:37]

Yeah, you know, scurrying around trying for an exit. That's what we do. And that, of course, keeps feeding that if we stop, we're just going to die. There's going to be no exit and all your worst fears are going to be true and manifested. You don't even really look what they are, but that's what pushes us to either look outside for blame or reasons or inside. Or if only I had or didn't. So to allow yourself to just be in some ways stopped by it and not move in the midst of maybe the rat running around looking for an exit or trying to dig yourself out. and not know, to not know, to stand not knowing.

[19:41]

That is what we need to do and what we need to train ourselves. And it's not like after 20 years it's easier. It's each time actually as difficult as it was before. The one thing I think what changes is While this is happening, you know that you've been there many times before and you have survived many times before, so the possibility, even though it seems impossible, is theoretically here because of that past experience that this time you might survive it too. That's getting better. But the actual feeling of being stopped Something is taking over and what you usually can do about things doesn't work. You know, there's also psychological truth that if we run into a difficulty, we try to solve it with more of what actually is part of what causes the difficulty, because it's our habitual patterns.

[21:01]

So we just up our pattern, which of course makes it worse, which of course makes us feel like we have to do more. So it really is stop. Just give in, not give up. Give in. Surrender. And surrendering means you are willing to meet it on its terms, not yours. So what are its terms? We don't know ahead of time, but we have to actually be willing. So if we have a difficulty with another person, that would be a really interesting practice to meet that other person on their terms, not mine. Make space for that. And we train that by needing our own stuff

[22:07]

on its terms, on the terms it's coming up, how it is manifested. Is that going, oh, I know that, or I don't like it, or that can go on, but can we then say, well, maybe, but maybe we just are willing to find out what about it we know already, and maybe we don't, or maybe there's more to know. So my koan these days is, you know, I agree. Don't be submerged by the things of the world. How on earth does that happen? How do I participate in being overwhelmed? And what means not overwhelmed? I can't stop the world out there, so it has to be some other solution.

[23:11]

And I don't know it. It's a koan. It's a puzzle. But am I willing not to know And in some ways, trust it with my life. So give up that life-preserving, struggling, and having it my way to feel safer, less exposed, less vulnerable. Making space, repetition, to do it every day, helps us to develop that capacity. The taste of what it is to be still and know what state you're in, because when we know what state our heart or mind is in, then we have a chance to

[24:16]

meet it also with our intention. So if I know I'm a hedgehog, I will be more careful. Because actually my basic intention is not to poke everybody who comes close, who doesn't even know I'm feeling in that way. So this morning my chisha says to me, how are you doing today? Because she probably has picked up over the last few days that I'm getting frazzled at the edges. And I say, well, not great. And we'll see during the day how it evolves. Do I say, I'm okay? Which is very quick. We could say that. And if somebody says, I'm not so okay, that doesn't mean everybody now has to be, oh, what should we do? Or what did I do wrong? But to just acknowledge, actually difficult.

[25:30]

So... Norman Fisher has a new book out, which is really fabulous. I mean, he says something about beginning, which I find really helpful. The book is called Training in Compassion, and he uses a Tibetan teaching and looks at it through the Zen practice lens. which is the basic teaching in the Tibetan tradition is exactly the same as in the Zen tradition. They just choose different forms in how to work with the teachings, how to make them accessible. And the first one, the first point of Zen mind training includes only one slogan, train in the preliminaries. You can understand and practice this slogan three ways.

[26:41]

First, the preliminaries includes everything difficult that has happened in your life up until the moment you begin the training. The divorce you are going through or have gone through but never digested. The inexplicable breakup from out of the blue the unexpected death of someone close to you that has shaken you to the core, a terrible childhood you might have thought you'd gotten over but now realize you haven't, an illness, a job loss, or some other present or past disaster may be the preliminaries for you. The difference between just suffering these things and trying to cope. And training, the difference between these things and trying to cope and training has to do with how you view them, with your sense of resolve and personal responsibility.

[27:54]

Even if what happened to you was not your fault, taking responsibility for it now that it has happened owning it as the stuff of your present life, rather than seeing it as a tragedy that shouldn't have happened and that therefore there's someone to blame, even if there is someone to blame, or bemoaning your sad fate and life's terrible injustice, is training in the preliminaries. In other words, to train in the preliminaries is to stop moaning and feeling sorry for yourself and to recognize instead that regardless of what has happened or why, this is your life. And you are the only person, the only one equipped to deal with it.

[29:02]

So, that's part of taking a little moment, even if it's only five minutes when you get up in the morning, to check in with yourself and see with what mind, heart state did I wake up and how can I keep that in mind as I go through the day so that it doesn't spill out, that it doesn't... run my life rather than me knowing them or finding out or experimenting with how do I take care of myself when I'm overwhelmed or when I'm upset or when I'm angry or when I'm in a blaming state or when something just happened to me from outside that upset me or hurt me or how do I know that and acknowledge that and take that into account in how I do.

[30:06]

I am, how I act with others. And you know, Charlotte Selva, which was one of my teachers in sensory when she said, for her, the most important question was not, who am I? How am I? How am I acting? And Samantha Bartra is about the how. How wisdom and compassion come into the world. How we express our intention. How we open the door when we can see through it. There might be another being on the other side. How we let go of the door by the kitchen is really a wonderful place to pay attention when we get our food.

[31:11]

You know, do we just let it go and it bangs into the next person who is right behind us because we don't look back? We're busy looking where do I want to sit and with whom? Or whatever other distractions. So it's the how that actually is the manifestation. And... of our practice, not what we know in our heads, not the abstract knowledge about Buddhism, is how is it translated into our everyday activities. And they're not the everything. It's how you open the car door, how you drive, how you enter your workspace, how you handle your computer, your cops, your co-workers, your everything is the how. So I also wanted to bring something up.

[32:19]

We all, in different ways, the world have been we all have received big wake-up calls. With the incident at the elementary school in Newtown, with 20-some children losing their lives, somebody who was consumed by something that led to destroying lives. with the rape of a young woman in India who died from it, with bystanders just looking, seeing it happen. And in the Zen community right now, there are ripples going all through with a teacher being accused for sexually molesting female students for decades.

[33:35]

And I think these are all wake-up calls. If we look at, so there are two parts to what I want to say. The wake-up calls, because I also read in the Marine Independent Journal, somebody maybe two weeks ago, that after 9-11, where 3,000 people died. We have spent billions of dollars to, or billions of dollars were spent to create a security, homeland security. And since then, since 9-11, in that time span, 260-something thousand people have died from gun incidents. So 260-something plus thousand people have died since 9-11 in gun incidents in this country, and we have such a hard time to relate to it.

[34:47]

And I think they're cause. They're not easy answers. But are we willing to grapple with the questions, How am I participating? If everything is interconnected, if I really see that and realize that, then what is my participation? Where am I willing to pull a trigger if I had a gun? There are many ways how we can pull triggers. We can do it with our eyes, with energy withdrawal, with energy output with so and and do we keep being puzzled and being this unsettled by it and find where we is there a way where we can participate to make it better I with the story with the Zen teacher I think it I want to say that we are talking about it

[36:00]

in the leadership here, Steve Stockley is going to, there will be something put out on the website, but I wanted to say here that this sexual misconduct is completely not acceptable to us. And we invite everybody who feels they are being put in a situation or they have been put in a situation where they feel their boundaries have not been respected or they're not sure or they feel they've been harassed to please come forward and talk to us. We want to cultivate and create a culture where that is possible. Because for me, the question is, too, in a Dharma group, we talked about this because it's been out in the LA Times and in the New York Times, and some of our people knew about it that said this has been known since decades.

[37:07]

And then for me, the question is, how? How is that possible? I mean, and what do we do? You know, how am I, where do I not step forward and say something? Do I encourage somebody who comes to me and tells me about such a thing? And that can be sexual harassment or another kind of harassment. And do I support the person to go speak up? Help the person by finding out where would be the appropriate place? Or go with the person? Speak up if they, you know, it's quite difficult to speak up, actually. And, or do I... and speak up for the person. And how do we, so I want to encourage you and we are also working on a statement for residents and non-residents how we think about misconduct, sexual misconduct and what

[38:19]

What we are adhering to for safe environment for everybody who wants to come practice here, and that will also be on the website so people who come here also know what they can expect and hopefully feel encouraged if they encounter something else to step forward and speak. But I think that's the only way we can learn how to create safe environments. It's a shared responsibility, even though the level of responsibility is not... It's very difficult to talk about that. I think on some level, the level is not equal. And at the same time, what Norman says, it's your life. So if you are trespassed upon... Even... You have to speak up, so for yourself and for everybody, because then is a better chance that it doesn't happen to anybody else.

[39:32]

And a student-teacher relationship, no student-teacher relationship, no student-teacher relationship, no student-teacher relationship allows for trespasses. There is never, ever a justification for that. However it is coached, couched, thank you. It wasn't quite right. That is not, that is a misunderstanding. It is a destructive misunderstanding for everybody. So I just want you to Also, come forward if you think there are things we could do to make it more safe, or we could present this, or I just felt I wanted to say something because it's right now out there. And in the past, Zen Center had its share in there, and we're all human.

[40:38]

So it's not something, oh, it's done and we're, you know, it has nothing to do with us. It's actually not so. It keeps having something to do with everybody, and it affects everybody. And so we are taking this very seriously, and we want to make sure, you know, we set out rules, we have rules, but then we, for example, we realized actually before this all came out, we realized we have to keep saying them each time new people come in. You know, we have gotten used to them, we think they're known, but actually do we really keep talking about them and make them raise our awareness? So we're working on that. And we really are, our commitment is to make this a safe place for everybody to be here.

[41:40]

So the incident in Newtown woke up a lot of people to how do we... How does the Second Amendment kind of relate to gun control? The rape in India woke up, I think, a lot of people in that country to look at how women are treated and changing old cultural patterns. And this I hope is waking us up to look how are we supporting somebody who goes through something like that in speaking up and bringing it to the right place and making sure it gets And that is part of aligning the heart of Buddha with all activity, or aligning all activity with the heart of Buddha.

[43:15]

So I want to read with you, a few days ago was the year anniversary of me being installed in this position, right here. And my last statement was, here I am, standing on this mountain, surprised, curious, joyful, my heart wide open, and feeling completely supported. You might think it is just I who is standing here, who is taking this leap. But whether or not you know it, you are all standing here with me. You are about to leap with me into this great inconceivable adventure, now and every step of the way. Please, let us all remember this and support each other wholeheartedly on this path of everyday activity, upright, with patience, generosity, zeal, wisdom, and compassion.

[45:00]

And that is still true today and tomorrow. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[45:27]

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