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 evening.

[01:21]

So good to see all of you here. Thank you for coming. Thank you, Tantosan. Oh, I discover if I turn my head this way, it's going to get louder. Okay. This is not the microphone when I lived here, so I'm getting used to it. It's an election year. The practical implication of that for everybody in this room is that it's a tough time to be a Buddhist. Compassion is in short supply. Wisdom is nowhere. Separation and division is running over. We're all one. The precepts are dropping right and left.

[02:28]

The candidates, their supporters, the media, hopefully not anybody in this room, but many others, are speaking ill of others, praising self at the expense of others, lying, and indulging in anger, among other things. so what's a Buddhist to do in an election year? How to practice in an election year? Well, the short answer to that question is, don't make it worse. There is a classic question in Buddhism that asks, what makes a Buddha? What makes a Buddha? And the answer is all beings. The question this year is, what makes a politician?

[03:31]

And the answer is all beings. We make them. So now, what to do? They didn't rise. full-blown, from the head of Zeus. They rose from us. We make them. We make each other, even in divisive times. So what to do? Well, the precepts give us a pretty good guide, and I named some of them, To Not Speak Ill of Others... to not praise self at the expense of others, to not lie, to not indulge in anger. Isn't that interesting wording? To not indulge in anger in an election year. Good luck with that. But I think that there is another precept that actually is more important in an election year.

[04:44]

Precept number five. A disciple of the Buddha does not intoxicate mind or body of self or others. Now, usually in this day, when we think of intoxicants, we think of substances, drugs, alcohol, etc. But in the Buddha's time, views were considered the most dangerous intoxicant. to not intoxicate mind or body of self or others, the precept says. And to not intoxicate the mind was the most important interpretation of this precept at the Buddha's time. In an election year, to not be intoxicated by our own viewpoint, is really important.

[05:47]

So here are some signs of intoxication of views. I won't ask for a show of hands. All of your browser tabs are for websites that are of your political persuasion. All of your friends vote the way you do. you don't understand what's wrong with those other people. Signs of intoxication of the mind are dualism. This is what happens according to the ancient scriptures, the ancient sutras. When one is intoxicated in the mind, one becomes intoxicated with dualism. I'm right, you're wrong. I'm right, you're left.

[06:52]

I'm good, you're bad. I'm smart, you're deluded. So this is very important to pay attention to how we get intoxicated, especially in an election year. We get intoxicated by the rhetoric. We get intoxicated by the fervor. And sometimes we get intoxicated by the anger, by the divisiveness. This is the poison, according to the Buddha's time, in terms of that precept, to not intoxicate the mind and to not let our minds be intoxicated, to be aware of when we are being intoxicated by views and what our intoxicating behavior is around that. It's only April. We have another five months of this.

[07:55]

We have another five months to get drunk and stoned on all the rhetoric. Or we have another five months to make compassionate and wise politicians. This intoxication of the mind is very dangerous, according to the Buddha, and according to Suzuki Roshi. In one of his lectures, he basically says that this is the worst kind of intoxication of the intoxication of views. And this has been going on for a very long time. If you think that this is a problem of the election of 2016, I would like to tell you a story from the Pali Canon, one of the ancient scriptures from Buddhism called the Kalamas of Kesaputta. The Kalamas were, say, the elders or the city council, if you will, of Kesaputta, which was a town which was on the trading routes in that particular section of what is now India.

[09:08]

And the elders or the city council were just beset by... traveling teachers, traveling politicians, traveling this, traveling that, selling their ideological wares. So the Buddha comes to town, Shakyamuni Buddha, comes to town, and the city council says, oh great, another one. And they go to the Buddha and say, well, why should we believe you? What makes you any different? than all the rest of these traveling people who think that they have the answer and they have the right way and they can take us to the promised land, whatever. And he said, find out for yourself. Don't believe me. Don't believe any of them. Find out for yourself what makes you feel aligned in your heart. What you know in your heart reduces suffering.

[10:13]

And by that reduction of suffering, he didn't mean ethnic cleansing. He didn't mean getting rid of your enemies. He didn't mean deporting them. He meant learn about them. Learn about all the views that are coming at you, holding your own desire to furiously argue back at them and just listen. According to the Buddha, the antidote to intoxication of the mind is to listen. So the Buddha's recommendation about intoxicating the mind is the first step of the Noble Eightfold Path, right view. And this takes some forbearance, especially in April, especially with the California primary less than two months away.

[11:24]

Right view does not mean right versus wrong. Right view means from a stance of uprightness, I have a 360-degree view. It doesn't mean that you have to agree with everything. It doesn't mean that nothing matters and everything's okay. But it does mean that we have a clear view, a clear view of all perspectives so that then we can choose what is most aligned with our heart. and that we can choose that from what the Dalai Lama calls a stance of equanimity. So right view requires the first two steps, the first two factors of enlightenment, attention and investigation. We have to be willing to go to a website that doesn't agree with our views, to find a commentator,

[12:37]

from the other side that we can hear. We won't be able to hear all of them, but to find someone who can broaden that view for us and help us get to right view. The problem with intoxication is that it makes us tipsy. And if I spend too much time over here, only listening and hearkening to and getting drunk on my point of view. Eventually, I'm going to say, I'm upright and you're all crooked. So right view brings us back to uprightness so that we can look around so that we can listen to other points of view and make up our own mind.

[13:42]

As the Buddha asked the Kalamas of Kasaputta to do, find out for yourself, he said. Don't take everybody else's word for it. Don't listen to the loudest, most strident person. But find out for yourself. Be willing to listen. to another point of view. See what it means in the heart to that other person. I got a smack in the face lesson about this just a week ago. I was on a phone call with a student in Sacramento, someone I treasure very much, and he had told me about someone who had argued with him about the stars and bars, the Confederate flag. And this particular person in Sacramento was very sympathetic to people who wanted to fly that flag, to which I went, because that pushed a button for me.

[14:57]

And then I asked him to tell me his story about that. And he told a story about friends of his and their family members and the heartfelt personal reasons that they had for honoring that particular flag that had nothing to do with the social order and the social chaos that was going on at that time and had everything to do with honoring loved ones from their ancestry who had fought and died. I don't agree with that position, but I understand and respect his position about that because it was said in a heartfelt manner and I see where he's coming from. That was a hard one. Can we open ourselves up to right view in an election year? Can we make

[16:05]

wise and compassionate politicians. It's not too late. Can we be wise and compassionate voters? Can we not get intoxicated by everything that is coming at us? Can we be willing to go to a red website or a blue website and see what they say? And can we leave that tab up until the 9th of November? Can we find an acquaintance who doesn't vote like we do and sit down and ask them about their views? not to argue, but to listen.

[17:08]

Can we find out for ourselves? Please, I beg of you, get right view about this election, please. This is very toxic, what's going on. Can one person make a difference? One of my Dharma brothers says, if you think you're too small to... Make a difference. You've never been asleep in a room with a mosquito. You can make a difference. G.K. Chesterton called these tremendous trifles. Can we calm down the debate? Can we calm down the discussion? Can we hear that a candidate... is giving voice to millions of people who feel that they've not only not had a voice, but that they've been told to shut up.

[18:14]

We don't have to agree with them, and we don't have to agree with the candidate, but can we have some compassion for the perspective? Can we hear and understand the perspective of those who believe that radical change is necessary that does not involve money in this country and that it needs to change and it needs to change now. Can we find the gems in their logic that will help us to say, I hear you. Because more than wanting to be agreed with, what we really want is to be heard. Can we have some appreciation for an older woman like myself whose grandmother was a suffragette and whose mother founded the local League of Women Voters and who desperately wants to see a woman president?

[19:22]

Can we just hear that? To not be intoxicated. by our views. We are afraid that if we open ourselves up to the 360 view, we might have to let go of our cherished position. Maybe, maybe not, but that's really not the point. The point is to be able to have calm uprightness in the midst of this craziness that goes on during an election year and all times, but for now it comes out. This intoxication requires us to look deeply into our heart about the ways that we shout out and close our ears to those other points of view. Zen Center, for example, has done a job of trying to be more inclusive.

[20:35]

There's the Cultural Awareness and Inclusivity Committee trying to make this more an open place for a very diverse number of people and kinds of people. But I would suggest to you that even Zen Center is not welcoming to a particular kind of person, and that is a person who is a non-Democrat, shall we say. I was at a practice period two elections ago during the fall, and the leader of the practice period, announced the election results in this manner. I have bad news. John Kerry lost. Even here, even here, there is an intoxication with a particular viewpoint. Even here, our mind is intoxicated.

[21:42]

with a particular view? Can we come up with right view? Can we take that leap, especially in an area where pretty much everybody's thinking and voting alike? What would that be like? The Apadana is a part of the Pali Canon, the old sutras, that describes various Buddhist worlds, or Buddha worlds, if you will. One of them is called the Buddha Keta, K-H-E-T-T-A, which is kind of a forum, if you will, a discussion place. And here's the description. The Buddha Keta is a forum where everyone is a teacher and everyone a pupil. Here the Buddhas question other Buddhas about their own sphere and on matters deep and subtle. The disciples too ask the Buddhas and the Buddhas the disciples about things to be known by the disciples themselves.

[22:50]

They question each other, they answer each other. The Buddhas and the disciples, the masters and the attendants, the speakers and the audience, the teachers and the taught, all are seekers after truth in this grand temple of learning. Frankly and rightly, they do discuss the things for their self-edification. Skilled in the maintenance of constant self-possession, they dwell harmoniously in peace and exert themselves to know the unknown, to realize the unrealized, and to master over what they have not yet mastered. The sphere of knowledge being infinite and boundless, even the enlightened ones are eager to be more enlightened, nay, to be most enlightened. Now imagine if the debates were conducted in that environment. Imagine that. CNN wouldn't know what to do with themselves. We are intoxicated this year, in particular, by political views.

[23:56]

We have a special set of skills in the Buddha's teaching. to come to right view. Not the right view, but right view. Right view is otherwise known as appreciation, one of the antidotes to intoxication. A 360 degree view from which you can then, with an open heart and an open mind, select your stance of equanimity. And that stance will be listened to better than all the shouting. I remember our dear former abbess, Blanche Hartman, telling the story of going to some of the peace marches in the 60s and 70s, and one day she found herself down there waving her banner and yelling, I'm fighting for peace. And then she realized what she was saying.

[25:00]

She was intoxicated with her fight for peace. Intoxication is naturally divisive. It separates us. And then when we get sober, we see the carnage. So please, be like the Kalamas of Kasaputta and go find out for yourselves, as the Buddha said. What makes a Buddha? All beings. What makes a wise and compassionate politician? All beings. I invite your comments and questions if we have time, or not.

[26:05]

OK. OK. Yes. Hi. Yeah, well, you don't find the compassion because you're sitting in this room and I know that you've been practicing long enough to realize that you are the compassion.

[27:19]

You don't have to find it. You are the compassion. Now, from that stance of I am the compassion, you are the compassion, then from that, what is the tremendous trifle? Chesterton's phrase. What is the tremendous trifle that you... from your aligned heart. And let me give you a clue. It might be to just step back from that person who's in your face and thank them and leave. Going forward between now and November, from your stance of compassion, what can you do? I would suggest you just sit with the question and have trust that the answer will show up. and that you will do it. You will do it. You will. see as other, but in order to garner momentum for a section of the population or for the environment, what have you, it feels like you have to make your best guess about working with your energy.

[29:40]

And sometimes that would need to try to garner support from the people around you to get that momentum going. How do you navigate with that if you're living in a sauna and the people aligned with or move in a certain direction are part of the thought that in your track, not through your vision, but yet at the same time, you feel compelled to do something. It's moving people in a certain direction. Yeah, yeah. So basically what you're talking about there is you're talking about Dhanaparamita. Dhanaparamita, usually we think about stuff, right? Giving stuff in generosity, but actually that's not the main point. Dhanaparamita has three parts. material goods, the dharma, and courage. Okay? Courage is, according to the ancient sutras, the most important piece of generosity that we can give. So what I would suggest that you do is you find the courage to find the right speech that can be heard, as Blanche did.

[30:47]

She really realized that I'm fighting for, doesn't quite work, right? Ultimately divisive. So find with your Sangha mates or with others of like ilk the right speech courage to go forward. And what I would suggest you do is find some people who are right, kind of maybe not quite buying your story yet, but are friends of yours, and find out what they could hear. Ask them and then listen to what they could hear that would motivate them or, said differently, that would give them courage. Right speech plus courage. Thank you. Yes, hi. I'm old enough to know who Frank Zapp is.

[32:08]

Uh-huh. Uh-huh. I haven't, but I can imagine. Uh-huh. Not a gentle show to begin with, yeah. Yeah, it does. Yeah.

[33:39]

Yeah, so, yeah. Yeah, so, so it's not enough to do stuff, okay? It's not enough to do things in this type environment. What we really need to do is we have to be diligent about stopping doing stuff, okay? Stop watching Crossfire, okay? Stop, stop it. Stop watching this divisive stuff. Stop this, okay? And then if you stop that, that intoxication with that level of hype and rhetoric and excitement and go get them, right? Stop that. And if you stop that, there will then be space, 360 degree view.

[34:44]

There will be space to start the empathetic discussion. And I would say it's already started because we're all right here. So it's already going. And if we stop doing the intoxicating stuff, it will be more obvious where the right view stuff is already happening. You might be surprised to discover that there are those conversations already going on. Don't give up on this, all right? The only way evil wins in the world is for people of good conscience to do nothing, right? Just do it. But to do that, we have to have space, which means that we have to stop watching and listening to, if you have, do this for me please tonight when you go home, if you have a politically divisive tab on your browser, close it and make a vow that you won't reopen it.

[35:51]

There are plenty of non-divisive websites up there that have a particular point of view, but they tend to have it from a stance of uprightness, or at least Closer to a stance of uprightness. So thank you for your question. Because what it brings up is that we not only need to do, we need to stop. Yes, one more. Thank you. That's interesting.

[36:56]

I don't know, but it might be interesting to find out. But I would like you to lose the label of them being intoxicated before you go have that conversation. But this is something to all of your points is get people registered to vote. Don't tell them how to do it, how to vote, but to get people registered to vote. That's a courage-giving thing to do. Yeah. But don't assume somebody else is intoxicated. This is all about our own intoxication. Thank you. All right. Okay. Thank you all. 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 Dorma.

[37:57]

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