This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Perhaps you've already taken time to sit quietly with the recent sorrow, tragedy, and our our lives here in America with the shootings in Connecticut. But I would like to take a little time now to sit quietly holding this event inside in our hearts. It seems useful to sit right in the middle of things.

[01:01]

So I'd like to take a few moments to do that. There was a well-known Tibetan, Marpa, who was a great master. I think he was the teacher of Milarepa, who was a great Tibetan saint. And he had an eight-year-old child who died. And he grieved. He was, you know, loudly. I'm not sure what the nature of that loudly is, crying, wailing, screaming. At some point, one of his students said, but teacher, you always say that this is the world of illusion.

[02:08]

So what are you crying about? And he said, yes, this is the world of illusion, and the death of a child is the cruelest illusion of them all, the most painful. So I'd like to acknowledge in my own language, you've heard the first noble truth. Life doesn't work the way we'd like it to. And we all have, you know, such pure, good, wonderful hearts, loving hearts, full of goodness.

[03:21]

And, you know, this is analogous to, in Zen we say, you know, true nature we have, a true nature that is undefiled, pure. But we don't always, we can be estranged or disconnected from that, from our good heart. And sometimes we can find it difficult to find our way back to our good heart, to our goodness, our kindness, our caring. And we get very confused sometimes what to do. And one of the things that is also then most painful is that not only do we get disconnected from our goodness, our love, our compassion, our good hearts, but it seems like people in the world around us don't see it either.

[04:35]

So we don't always, sometimes we don't have support or others who see our blessedness. And when others see our blessedness, then it helps us to see it as well. And one of the, another, one of the most Touching qualities also in our life or characteristics of this good heart we have is that we can take in the pain and suffering of the world into our hearts and hold it there. And holding the pain or tragedy or the harm or hurt in our heart that we see in ourselves and in others, we can come to some healing with it in our own world, in our own heart.

[05:47]

This is different than trying to sort things out with your head. Our head asks, why did this happen? And our heart doesn't need to know as it just can breathe it into your heart and hold it with some tenderness. And we begin to realize that grief is out in the world, and it's in here, and it's ongoing. And it's been ongoing for... as long as people have been here. Sometimes we have a grief or tragedy or pain that breaks our heart. It is, and it's heart-breaking.

[06:52]

And of course, in this case, the amazing thing is that a new heart comes in its place. It's even bigger and larger-hearted. and can hold bigger pains and bigger tragedies. So if you haven't already done so, I recommend or encourage you to bring pain, tragedy, hurt into your heart, into your good heart. Sometimes, of course, it will stir up your own grief. In some way, children are always our children. Children are our own inner child, the child that we were who went through the pains that we had. And any grief opens up all griefs.

[08:03]

A year after 9-11, I happened to be in... London and I was at the Globe Theater for a production of Shakespeare on 9-11. And they said before the show, we want to take a minute to honor the victims of 9-11. But not just the victims of 9-11, but the victims of terrorism every day, everywhere. that it happens. It's happening every day. So we sat quietly. That was interesting to be in England. They didn't have quite the same view of the poor Americans. Our righteous indignation about the fact that we suffer from

[09:06]

terrorism. They wanted to acknowledge that all of the world people suffer from terrorism. So in thinking about, or sitting with, not really thinking. When you hold things in your heart, you're not really thinking. But things can come to you. So while I have been sitting with this, a poem of Rumi's came to me. So I want to share this poem of Rumi's. It's related to that we have a tender, soft place in each of us in our own hearts that we might be able to remember, realize, abide in, express. The poem is, you know, Rumi poem. It's, of course, a translation by Coleman Barthes, you know, who's given many years of his life, of his heart, to putting Rumi into English, working with people who know Farsi or the language of Rumi, and putting it into free verse.

[10:30]

American free verse. So in Coleman's English, it says, outside the freezing desert night, this other night inside grows warm. Kindling. Outside, the freezing desert night. This other night inside grows warm. Kindling. Let the landscape be covered with a thorny crust. Inside, we have a soft garden in here. Let the landscape be covered with a thorny crust.

[11:43]

We have a soft garden in here. Continents blasted, cities and little towns. The whole world a scorched, blackened ball. The news we hear is full of grief. But the news inside here is there's no news at all. The news we hear is full of grief, but the real news inside here is there's no news at all. It's so important to grieve. Over the course of our life, we rarely have opportunities to grieve.

[12:46]

When we're small and our pets die, mom and dad are likely to say, don't cry. We'll get another one. And if your child dies even, people will say, oh, he's in a better place now. God must have wanted, you know, and people have all kinds of explanations why it's, why not to grieve. So we have a chance for sorrow and to actually welcome into our life, you know, the deepness, the depths, to welcome the depths of of human life into our hearts. Solzhenitsyn once said, wouldn't it be, it would be so simple and workable if we could just draw a line between good and evil and eliminate the evil.

[13:59]

But he said that line goes right through the middle of each person's heart. And who would want to cut off half of their heart? And grief will bring you in touch with your heart and with all the sorrows of your life. Often we can remember, if we think about it, if you think about it, you can remember times in your life when it was really sweet, really wonderful. When I've asked people about this, often it's actually a food experience. I remember my mom's spaghetti. It was so good. Or the strawberries down the road.

[15:01]

we picked, and the juice ran down our faces. Or the popsicles on a summer day. People have certain memories of when I felt really happy and at home in this world. And then if you think about it, you maybe can remember, you know, when did you first realize that it doesn't work here? It doesn't. It's not, you know, like I remember when I was about seven, I opened up, I used to read the San Francisco Chronicle, The Sporting Green, check the baseball scores. It was 1952. And the front page said something about war in Korea. And I said to my dad, what is this word, war?

[16:05]

And he said, that's where people get guns and they go out and shoot each other. And I said, but why would they do that? People could get killed. And he said, I don't understand it either. But, you know, people have never figured out how not to have wars. Little by little we begin to realize that things don't always work. I've had people say, well, you know, I was, that they were three or four and Mom and dad were screaming at each other. And they were worried that one of them could be killed.

[17:10]

And they didn't dare come out of their rooms, and they hid. And what was going to happen? It's not, and then the feeling of maybe this isn't the safe place, I thought it was. that I'd like to think it is. But each of us, of course, has the capacity to create our own, to stabilize ourselves and have our ground, have our well-being, and make our way in this world, not knowing what might happen. and keeping our awareness bright and awake and seeing what's going on here, how I would like to respond to it, how I choose to respond.

[18:20]

So there's these, it's both important to work in the outer world and then to work on your inner world I mean, it does make a difference to live in a safe place most of the time. And again, at the same time, we can work on establishing our ground, finding our feet, finding our bodies, establishing our presence of mind, which is literally also presence of body. So we work on these things in various ways, and both outwardly and inwardly. And then we see if we can find some way to connect my heart with the heart of the world, my goodness expressing it. Sometimes we miss the mark, and we don't express it so well.

[19:26]

Many years ago, it must have been about 1968, we were doing a sesshin with Suzuki Rishi. And of course it's quite painful. We just, I say we, I wasn't here for it, but Gringotts just finished a sesshin. The seventh or eighth? Finished on the ninth. Finished on the ninth. The eighth traditionally of December is Buddha's Enlightenment Day. There was also Sashin in Berkeley, one in San Francisco, all over the world. The first week of December traditionally is the time for intense Sashin practice. I know sitting 10, 12, 15 periods a day and sitting for the meals. One of my students was at the Sashin in Berkeley. said, it never stopped being painful.

[20:33]

And then he laughed. Some people have a strange sense of humor, you know. It didn't stop hurting. It never got any better. So I was reminded of the sushin we were doing with Suzuki Rishi in 1968 about, and One day in his lecture, Suzuki Rishi said, the difficulties that you are now experiencing will continue for the rest of your life. Right up until the end of that, we were all thinking that he was going to say, the difficulties you are now experiencing are just illusion. The difficulties you are now experiencing will continue until you have more compassion or enlightenment or awakening. So this is something about the nature of our lives, actually, to sit with this, to be with this, how painful it is.

[21:43]

And then my student said, but I realized the one thing I could do was to care and to be tender-hearted with myself and to feel some tenderness and warmth towards my experience, towards the eating bowls, towards my pain, towards my difficulty. I could feel some warmth and tenderness. This, of course, is basic Buddhist teaching, like the example of if there's an uneven rocky road, do you want to cover the whole thing with leather or do you want to just put the leather on your feet? What shall we do?

[22:44]

And, of course, Buddhism leans towards the side of put the leather on your feet. rather than thinking, let's fix the world. And people sometimes object to this as an approach. And I wouldn't eliminate other approaches. I'm already getting emails from some dear friends who say, I just wrote to President Obama. I want him to do something about gun control. He's the president. He can have a voice. He should use his what they call bully pulpit. He should use this to bring about some better gun control. And he said, why don't you see what you want to do? Maybe something will come to you that you want to do, whether it's sometimes it's art or music or poetry or writing.

[23:53]

Sometimes it's something out in the world. It's not obvious what might make a difference. But it seems important to me that we, you know, what we can do is study and find our own way. Study carefully, see what we can find out and find what moves inside us and moves us to do and express ourselves in the world. So lately I've also been remembering a Buddhist saying, a Zen saying, you know, that was used by especially, I think the person who might have started using it was Zen Master Basso or Matsu. And he said, he was saying, would say to his students, mind itself is Buddha. Mind itself is Buddha. It helps here to kind of remember, of course, that mind in Chinese and Japanese and in kanji is also the word, the character for heart.

[25:03]

And it might be that, you know, it would be better for us to say heart itself is Buddha. Or we could say, you know, consciousness, awareness itself is Buddha. Sometimes, of course, you know, as it goes and sends, somebody would come and say, I hear you teach mind itself is Buddha. And Basa would say, not mind, not Buddha. What do the words refer to? One time, Suzuki Rishi gave a talk about this, and he said, mind, consciousness, is Buddha. We use the word Buddha here for something precious. Worthy, wise, compassionate, luminous, diamond-like, sparkling.

[26:11]

Mind itself is Buddha. Mind is Buddha. Our awareness, our consciousness is Buddha. Our heart Is Buddha something precious? And of course, we're in a world that says, this is precious, this isn't. What's going to be precious, finally, in our culture, in our world? We have the argument with health care, you know. How much are we going to spend? And of course, some of us are figuring out how to make more money on people's sickness and coming up with more expensive machines. And we spend some huge percentage, of course, of our health budget keeping people alive, so-called unnecessarily, because family members don't want to let go.

[27:23]

because I love you, so I want to keep you alive even though you're not able to breathe, you're not able to eat, you're not, you know. When my mother in 2003 had a stroke and she was in the hospital, I had the power, health advocate or something. She had said, I don't want to be a vegetable. Let me go. And after a few days they said, we're going to put a feeding tube in your mom. I said, no, you're not. And they said, what? Of course we are. I said, no, I'm her son. I have the paper here. It says I get to decide. What, you don't want your mom to have a feeding tube? You're just going to let her die? I said, it's what she wanted.

[28:26]

And my brother came. My brother's now a Catholic. And he said, you know, we believe it's really good for people to suffer. It helps them become closer to God. Or something like this. So I got, oh, what do I do here? So I called up my mother's brother. My uncle. And I said, they want to put a feeding tube in Ann. And he said, right away, he said, Annie wouldn't want that. Don't let them do that. So I got back up. Because it's so hard in the face of our culture. People in the hospital. Of course you should have a feeding tube. You get a feeding tube. How is she going to stay alive if you don't give her a feeding tube? Exactly. That's not what she wanted.

[29:28]

She didn't want to be kept alive. And, you know, we had meetings with the neurologist and he said, you know, even if she survives and we get her through this, you know, she's going to be paralyzed on her right side. And it's affected her... communication center of her brain, so she's not going to be able to read. Reading was the last thing that she loved doing, large print books. So I sat, you know, by her bedside and I said, thank you. Thank you for your life and thank you for all you've done for me and for our family. And, you know, you worked hard at this, didn't you? I really appreciate it. And you can go now.

[30:32]

You can let go now. And she was unconscious, but I was talking to her anyway. After she died, I actually discovered We had a memorial service and then my uncle was there, the uncle I talked to on the phone. And he said, do you know the great tragedy in your mother's life? I said, no. And he said, well, when I was 12, your mother was 18, I watched out the back window of the house while the bankers presented our parents with eviction notices. It was 1932. And they'd had a five-acre raspberry farm in downtown Palo Alto. And they were evicted. Her mother was so upset that her mother went out in the backyard to a gardening shed and hung herself. The beam in the gardening shed broke.

[31:38]

So it didn't work. Then she was in and out of mental institutions. People said she has a mental illness. Is that mental illness? To be grieving, to be upset, to be worried, to be scared, to not know what to do. That happened with other people in 1932. But the irony of all of that is that my mother decided, I don't want to pass on mental illness to my children, so I'm not going to have children. I'm going to find somebody who already has children and become their mother. So that's how I got my second mother. Because of tragedy. Mind is Buddha.

[32:42]

Mind is something precious, heart, consciousness, awareness, something to be cherished, venerated. Here we have a statue to indicate that Buddha. Mind is Buddha. And, as Suzuki Rishi said, itself. Itself represents things. Things are Buddha. Things are Buddha. Things of the world, physical things, objects of mind, they're Buddha. So, as my student said, he realized I could have a tender feeling for all of these things. And is, Suzuki Rishi said, this is activity, action, movement, doing. This is also Buddha. And Buddha is Buddha. something precious, worth honoring, worthy of your devotion.

[33:51]

And then of course we say in Zen, and there's no Buddha. There's no fixed thing Buddha. So Buddha is actually the capacity, the capacity we have In a sense, we could say Buddha is the capacity we have to find things precious, to find our life precious, to have grief, to have sorrow, to do our best to find our way in this world we live in. All right, thank you. Thank you for your effort. Thank you for your good heart. I have many blessings. Thank you for listening to this podcast. offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support.

[35:01]

For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

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