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, everyone, and thank you for inviting me today. Good to see everyone. I've been told that I can talk about anything I want to at these talks. But I have a vague suspicion that based on the date and the fact that Dr. King's birthday is being celebrated tomorrow, that the expectation is that I will talk about Dr. King. I have no problem with that. Not really. It's just being clear. you know, about what we're doing.

[01:02]

Maybe some of the why. And understanding the ins and outs, the good and bad, the true and untrue about all of that. What we really need to talk about on a day like today, on any day, is what's right here in this room room, this moment. So I'm going to talk about Dr. King a little bit later. Dr. King died in 1968. That's a long time ago, or it feels like a long time ago. My suspicion is that there are people in this room who weren't even born at that time.

[02:09]

It's that much far away in our little brain. There's some people whose parents weren't even born by that time. And there's some people who've seen a whole lot, including Dr. King. There's a whole range of people. time in the thin room. I was born in 1963 and just a few months after Dr. King sat in a jail trail in Birmingham and wrote his famous letter from a Birmingham I was born just a few months after. I imagine at the time that Dr. King was going through this, I have a picture of my mother, who at that time was a 22-year-old woman, not too long, having moved from

[03:30]

the south to the north, as many folks in that time were doing. She came north looking for work, looking for more money than she could have made in the place where she was. She came here for opportunity, for safety, looking for a few good friends that she could share her life with. She was from a small town in North Carolina where she had been the salutatorian of her segregated high school class. There's a picture of her in a blue prom dress, and the story is that she bought that dress with money she earned from working in the fields. and cleaning houses as a teenager.

[04:33]

Most likely, you know, I don't remember any stories of my mother joining protests or anything. She was way too busy raising children and working and trying to find the means to take care of herself and her family. So most likely, She was reading about Dr. King in the New York Daily News or listening to the radio. WWRL was the station back then. It all seemed such a long time ago. It all appears to me in black and white. We didn't have colored TVs back then. Y'all can do the math. You can figure that out. We didn't have colored TVs back then. So all the images of this time come to me in black and white. The newsreels.

[05:37]

I can remember, I was five years old when Dr. King was assassinated, and I can remember images of Corita Scott King and Mahalia Jackson and Abernathy and this one and that one on the TV during the funeral, the crowds of people during the funeral. those black and white images. I was only five, so I'm not going to pretend I was probably aware of anything at the time. And maybe some of these images are not even things that I saw at that time, but things that I've seen over the course of, you know, these 60 years almost to accumulate as to my idea of the Civil Rights Movement, Dr. King, and those personalities. And in a sense, that kind of separates me from that time.

[06:47]

It's not a time fully remembered. It's not a time that I can say I fully experienced. I didn't experience Dr. King. with a real cognizance of what was going on. I can't say that. So it feels far away and it feels separate. And I have to ask myself, you know, in thinking about that time then and this time now as separate, What separates me from Dr. King, that man sitting in a jail cell in Birmingham? The only thing that separates me really is my own delusion of time. What does that really mean?

[07:56]

How do I honor Dr. King with that big separation that comes from my delusional mind? Dogen says, each moment is all being. Each moment is the entire world. Reflect now whether any being or any world is left out of the present moment. Yes, unfortunately, here we are. It's with Dogen and Uji. Big sigh. Uji is difficult. The time being has a characteristic of flowing. So today flows into tomorrow. Today flows into yesterday. Yesterday flows into today. And today flows into today. Tomorrow flows into... Tomorrow. It's like bad beat poetry, Doug.

[08:59]

And I say that with frustration because it's one of those things that I know deeply that I don't understand, that I misunderstand, that I misconstrue. And it's one of those things that is right on the tip of your tongue. You kind of know what he's talking about. It's kind of right there. You can take it, but you can't swallow it. That's my relationship, but okay. So what I get from this is that what we like to call the past, now, and future is right here in this moment. It always is. That man writing a letter in prison almost 60 years ago is long gone and has everything to do with me and you right here today. We're all part of the waters that ripple and rise and fall. And in the delusion, I wrap up, in my delusion, I wrap it up, separate it and call it history, when reality, it is just this moment, this now.

[10:12]

Antipopations, our intent, Dr. King's life, are just as immediate as it was when that black and white film was first made. Dr. King was a Christian, and there are a lot of places where Christianity and Buddhism meet, but I'm not talking about King's ideas or philosophy or his accomplishments, but with his connection to this moment, to us sitting right here in this film room. A lot has happened between the 1960s and now. We're sitting on computers using technology that didn't even exist, you know. This was Star Trek back then. We experienced a lot of things that we couldn't even imagine then. Things have sort of changed. There are laws on the books that make it possible for things that weren't possible in Dr. King's day.

[11:20]

Was it possible for some people to vote? It wasn't possible for people to live in certain places. It's still not possible for certain people to live in certain places. And we know that. And we know the connection there. I exist in this new world. with you. I exist in that world where Dr. King sat on the bunk and wrote his essay, where my mother flipped through the pages of the Daily News, and so do you. The 16-foot golden body of Dharma of the Buddha is born and gave birth to all of these moments. this one, and the ones of the past, and the ones we can't yet see in the future.

[12:27]

So the dampness of that cell permeates this body and yours, the water hoses, the gunshots, the burning cities, the bombed-out churches, because self and other are already timed, and are informing every molecule of this reality we're sitting in. It's hard to swallow that. So what does that mean for us in this moment? Yogan says, Although the views of an ordinary person and the causes and conditions of those views are what the ordinary person sees, they are not necessarily the ordinary person's reality. Reality merely manifests itself for the time being as an ordinary person because you think your time and your being is not reality.

[13:37]

You believe that the 16-foot body is not you. However, your attempts to escape from being the 16-foot body are nothing but bits and pieces of the time being. Those who have not yet confirmed this should look into it deeply and try to amputate myself from that 16-foot body from the Dharma that encompasses past, present, future, that encompasses every being, all beings on this planet. and other planets maybe, and this whole universe, throughout time, beings I see, beings I can't see, beings small, beings large. And trying to remove myself from that connection, I cause suffering. And trying to remove myself from that connection to that jail cell six years ago, I caused delusion.

[14:52]

Some people were surprised at the event that happened last year and the year before. People were surprised at the violence. the injustice, the fear that creeped up in everyone who watched the TV and watched those events. If we're talking about George Floyd, if we're talking about the Capitol, Black Lives Matter, all of these things. The surprise. But that's the flow of time of which we are part. And it surprises us when the world that we thought had changed doesn't seem so changed. We talk about change as if it happens and everything is different.

[16:10]

But everything that was part of that moment of change is still here. The hard part is the real transformation. What changed in 1968, 1963, 65, whatever, the 1960s, with some words on a piece of paper. And I'm not going to, you know, dismiss or belittle those changes because people died for that ink and paper. People spent long days. People lost jobs. People lost friends, and family to those changes, to affect those changes.

[17:23]

It's really funny. I'm talking about these black and white images. In preparing for this, I turned on a lot of Dr. Martin Luther King. And what I look for was not his speeches, because we've heard those a lot, but those images, trying to reconnect, trying to connect myself, not reconnect or connect. It's already connected. Trying to cut through the delusion of my disconnectedness to that time, those time and places and faces. And what struck me when watching those, I watched a film about the, showing the funeral of Dr. Martin Luther King at Morehouse College. And looking at that crowd of faces, and Coretta King, their children, Abernathy, Ralph Abernathy.

[18:34]

I don't know why. I called some of these people by their first name, like I knew them sometimes. you know, Wyatt T. Walker. People who, some of them are long gone. Time has taken them. They arose and fell like the flowers. And the thing that struck me was how young they were. They were in their 30s. when Dr. King was assassinated, he hadn't yet turned 40. I am now older than most of the people on those films. It's like looking at pictures almost of they were at an age where they could have been my children. think about that.

[19:42]

And something in my heart breaks a little bit. And something in what Dogen says about time is it possible for these people to feel like my children? Dr. King would have been 92 years old this year, or 93, maybe. I can't count. Still can't count. And yet, there's my, a young man could be my son, could be my child. Does it sound a little coiny?

[20:44]

Does it sound a little magical? That was bad poetry. It's not bad poetry, I'm sorry. But, yeah. That's the little taste. what Durgan is talking about, that I can't quite put my mouth around, that I definitely can't get my mind around. And so what does that mean for me? What does that mean for me right here and now, at my age, at this time, in this now, in this moment? Each moment, has this deep importance. When I talk, I think I sound like I'm stuttering because I do a lot of pausing.

[21:54]

And even though I've written something down, I'm still wondering, is that the right thing to say? Is that the right word? Right speech, right talk. I'm not so... What do you call it? So disciplined. I'm always doing that. Obviously. I always say the wrong thing. So when it comes to the Dharma, each moment is important. There is no next moment in this moment. There is no last moment. It's this one. Dr. King is in this moment. My intent in this moment is not to divert from what should happen here, what we need to do right now as people of the Dharma. What do we need to do right now?

[22:59]

Dr. King's moment in the jail cell. in this moment right here. If I'm to honor him, I need to do as he did. I need to speak the truth as clearly as I can. I need to sacrifice my time. I need to sacrifice my safety. I need to sacrifice all comfort and be in this moment. That's what it calls for. So Dr. King is here now.

[24:02]

He's right there. Right there. And it looks like I'm pointing at my own picture. But, you know, I'm pointing to him. all the beings that are represented in these digital thingies, the magical digital stuff. Point to the people out there. We're all here in this now. What is our intent? What is our action? What wisdom do we have to share? What compassion can we express? Okay. So the abuse of an ordinary person...

[25:08]

To come back to Dr. King, you're talking about, you know, there's a lot of talk about freedom and what that is. He was a passionate worker for justice and freedom for all people. It's in his words. It's in his deeds. He was a human being with flaws, making bad choices sometimes, like I do. Making choices that sometimes endangers himself and his family. Making choices that taught him a lot of praise. and a little, and a lot of fame, because we're still talking about him right now.

[26:20]

But what is the freedom we're talking about that he fought so hard for? We have a wacky idea of what freedom is, in my opinion, in this conversation. culture. Freedom somehow means that I get to do whatever I want to do and that no one else has anything to do with that. And for anyone to interfere with what I want to do or to have or to be is It's time to fight. It's conflict time. That's kind of... I always wonder how, you know, I can't... You can't really... Let me see.

[27:30]

I don't want to say this. Four Noble Truths. How does that connect with the Four Noble Truths? The Second Noble Truth says that we are... responsible for our own suffering. And that suffering comes from us wanting what we think we want, fearing that we won't get what we want, expectations of how we think things ought to be, what I should have, and ignores the whole following concept of emptiness, and change, and know self. So what does freedom mean? What is real freedom? In the instance of freedom as described, you know, as I formally described as being what I think,

[28:44]

this culture, mistakes is freedom. The implicit in that is that in order for me to have what I want all the time, someone else has to be deprived of what they want. If not, what they actually need. One man's freedom is another man's slavery, is bought with another person's wants and needs, sometimes with another person's life. If I want to, you know, protect my children, why does that very often mean that other people's children are endangered or disregarded altogether and not even taken into account?

[30:03]

If I want to eat, why does that mean somebody else goes hungry? Because I want to eat what I want to eat when I want to eat. Why is that such a conflict? And it's written as if this is how it is. This is the world. This is this. Because life is suffering. Yeah. Made by guess who? Dharma says that what we mistake is freedom, getting our wants and needs. It's our own slavery to those wants and needs. That harmony is, we believe that, you know, this is the way the world is.

[31:15]

There's no way to avoid that conflict. And harmony is a pipe dream. Why the heck are we doing this? What does this mean? What does it mean when I sit down on the cushion and say, you know, life is suffering. I want to go beyond suffering. Suffering, freedom is shared by all. None. My freedom doesn't exist without your freedom. Dr. King said this somewhere. A lot of people said this somewhere. My suffering can never be alleviated as I make you suffer because, you know, here's suffering.

[32:22]

If I get what I want, my life is full of fear. I have to have thanks and faith and guard to guard all the stuff that I want, that I think I want. So the people that don't have it can't come and can't come for me. I can't live a life of freedom. Because I've just built a golden house full of change. Change to the stuff that I want. To the people I want. And those people over there are now a danger to me. There's an odd dynamic in the American culture between the races.

[33:36]

Race system is not... It's just built completely on fear. It's built on the fact that a group of people, groups of people, were mistreated, were tortured, were kidnapped, were killed, and the expectation is the folks that did the killing, that did the mistreatment, the folks that kidnapped, the folks that benefited from all of that violence will have violence brought back to them.

[34:47]

It's an acknowledgement that something was done and retaliation is imminent because We know what we've done. And if this happened to me, yeah, I would be coming for me. So, you know, slave plantations and voting laws and reservations and internment camps and all of that comes from a knowledge that something is wrong. how this came to be and how people benefited from it. Whether they were the descendants of African slaves, Native Americans, Asians, whether they were the Mexican

[36:02]

whose land was stolen. Just like those of the Native Americans and whose rights to be in the land of their ancestors or all states. Or at least That's all history, right? That's nothing to do with now. Way, way in the past. It's been black and white. And yet we're always surprised when these things come up. When they, you know, this is the same ocean. The same puddle. So when we sit on our cushions and we try to practice the Dharma, what does that have to do with Dr. King?

[37:20]

What does it have to do with this history that is way back there, at least in our lives? The purpose of God is that reaching inward and out, to go through and come back out, is to make that connection. It's to understand even for just a few minutes in that stillness. And that that real freedom doesn't exist without the person sitting next to you, without the person, the beings that are all around you, every day, on the bus, in the woods.

[38:34]

flying in the air. It's that, how do I explain this? Feel the car moment, that little moment before you make the distinction between the self and other. And even if you can't hold on to that moment, to practice with that understanding, even if we don't really deeply understand it, the way the Buddha maintained, the way the Buddha experienced when he reached nirvana, when he sat under the Bodhi tree. So... I know this is not clear because the words, I can't form those words and deal with correctly, but there is a 16 foot golden body and

[40:02]

I don't want to say that I'm a part of that 16-foot golden body. I am that 16-foot golden body along with all of the beings, all Buddhas, all Bodhisattvas, all the birds and bees, 16-foot golden bodies. That is the Dharma. That is the Buddha. That is all of us. That is Dr. King. that is past, present, and future, to which I, from which I am, quote-unquote, from which I arise and into which I dissolve, from which I am born and into which I die, which is a bad wording for that, but that's what I can do.

[41:03]

We have to, in this dharma that we're practicing, continue to try to find that connection that is real freedom. To let go of that constructed self that thinks it's separate from time, from history, from history. other beings that are suffering around us and other beings that are also here to help us and who we're here to help. Enlightenment is not for one person. I've written something down. Hold on. Let me find it. From Thich Nhat Hanh.

[42:11]

Okay. It's right there. Okay. I watched the video from Thich Nhat Hanh. I tried to transcribe what he said. I remember what he said. And he describes this connection. And he brings it back to how we behave here. how Dr. King behaved, how we behave, if we are, if we accept and hold the Dharma in the way Dogen describes. Thich Nhat Hanh says, you know, He says, look at my two arms. My right arm can do the calligraphy.

[43:11]

It has written hundreds of poems. It can invite the bell. And yet my right arm is never proud of itself. My right hand will never tell my left hand, you're good for nothing. You don't write poems. You don't practice calligraphy. Why? Because my right hand has the wisdom of equanimity. It knows that it is the left hand at the same time, and it behaves according to that wisdom. The right hand and the left hand are the same hand at the same time. To honor Dr. King and understand that life and its relationship to this life, this moment right now, is to recognize that that hand that existed 60 years ago and did the best it could 60 years ago, who wrote that letter to us, it says it's to the clergy, in response to the clergy, that's the letter to all of us.

[44:31]

They did those speeches. who marched, who put himself and his family's lives on the line, and all the other people around him. One of the reasons why it's hard to talk, I find it strange that we just pull out one person all the time. There are plenty of people around him who did the same, who's the same, who don't speak. as often if we speak to him at all, or we don't even know at all. And that could be all right, but still understand. He wasn't alone, and neither are we. If you're to really honor him, you need to understand that he is our right hand, and we are his. We continue this flow of time because and with him.

[45:40]

We continue this attempt at going beyond suffering because of him and with him. And There are others who this moment, our choice, our treasuring of this moment, for whom we are doing the same. In doing ordination, there's a bloodline that's drawn. It has certain names on it. It has names of the ancestors, some of the ancestors, the patriarchs, most of the time. At some point, it may include the matriarchs.

[46:46]

Well, I don't know. We'll figure that out. But that bloodline is, as it's written, is not complete. not that singular. The bloodline exists through all of the dialogue in my mind. It exists between all the people sitting here regardless of whether we believe the same thing or not. Regardless of whether we agree or not. It's a bloodline of suffering and trying to alleviate that suffering. And we can sit on our little cushions and try to alleviate this little bit of suffering right here, which we do have to do, but it'll never be finished if all the other people connected to that mind.

[47:53]

The disease continues to flow until we stop it. Freedom is not really free until we free ourselves from that idea that we are, we don't share this freedom. Until we free ourselves from the idea that we're not a part of all this good and bad that's happening. is if it has nothing to do with me because I was too young or I didn't do that or, you know, that's not how I feel. Doesn't matter how you feel. This is what it is. What do you do now? What's your moment? And it doesn't mean that everybody has to go to jail or, you know, get beat up by the police or whatever.

[49:02]

It means that And the prescription is right there in the Dharma. It's in the Four Noble Truths. It's the Four Abodes. It's Compassion. All of the things that we talk about. And most importantly, it's in love. Dr. Martin Luther King was all about love. And I'm not saying he perfectly practiced it, because none of us do. But it's all about that effort. You don't sit in a jail cell. You don't, you know, put yourself out there. And in the danger. That was absolutely real.

[50:03]

We know it is. Absolutely real. It's without love. It's the Buddha's love as well. The life of the Buddha was not one of separateness from the world. He touched the earth and then he stood up and he walked with us. He walks with us. I'm sounding like Jesus but he walks when you walk. He speaks when you speak. Make it so. Listen to yourself. What is this moment? What do I fill this moment with? This time with?

[51:05]

Do I sully it with my delusion? Or do I break free of that delusion and offer the truth? Do I sully it with my greed and anger? Or can I put that little self down and reach and Just generosity, compassion, loving kindness. Fulfill. Use this 16th good body to make it better. So I think that's all I have to say. I hope that you understood a little bit through my confusion and my inarticulate way of expressing this.

[52:37]

Again, I thank you for the opportunity to speak, to do this practice with you, because it is a practice, it's my practice. And if anybody has anything they'd like to say, any question you'd like to ask, any correction or expression that you'd like to give, as long as we have time. not would it keep me up with time. Please do. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Domo.

[53:46]

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