Good evening. This evening I'd like to talk about something that I've thought about a lot, and lately it's been coming up a lot more, just sort of as a reflection of what my role now is at Zen Center. And the topic is ambivalence. Ambivalence. That word ambivalence is often used in a negative or critical way, or because you're so annoyed at somebody that they can't make up their mind. But ambi means both, and valent means having worth or value. So the reason that you can't make up your mind is because both things do or do not have worth or value. So it's actually... has this trying to balance feeling about it.

[01:05]

I've kind of hung out in ambivalence quite a lot in my life. And I think it's a lot of it, it's based in that my family is such a mix of cultures and backgrounds and values. And like my, I know I've said this before, but my family is a mix of Jewish and German and Irish and Welsh and wealthy, poor, lots of racial uncertainties or ambiguities, like where I come from, or either side of the family comes from. But what it seems that I managed to do, being caught between all these things, was I never thought that any part of it was innocent.

[02:09]

And that was often frightening because of that mixture. I'm both. What do I do if I'm both? What side do I take? And how will people see me? Which one will they identify me as? And so on. So... This ambivalence and seeing other things that way because that's part of my body and my experience. Then recently we had a memorial service for Katagiri Roshi. And I thought I was going to have to say something because somebody asked me to. So I thought, what do I think about him? And I realized there's two books of his teachings. One is called Returning to Silence. And the other is called, you have to say something. And I thought, yeah, there's that ambivalence, you know. And what is the value of that then? Returning to silence, you have to say something.

[03:11]

Hmm. And it started to occur to me that that ambivalence actually can be something else, which is equanimity. So equanimity is the fourth of what are called the brahmaviharas. And these are the divine abidings according to the path of purification, the vasudhimaga. And the first one is metta, or loving kindness. Karuna, the second, compassion. Mudita, which is sometimes called sympathetic joy, And in Path of Purification, they call it gladness at others' success. And then upekka, which is equanimity. So these are, the four are all related.

[04:14]

So I wanted to just give you a short background on what the Sudhimaga says about them. I'll read it to you. But there are four of the 40 meditation subjects. So in Buddhist teachings, something like a teaching of the divine abidings is not given so that you can use it as a judgment of yourself or others. It's an instruction for meditation. So if you can look at the Buddhist teachings that way, then you can return to silence and say something and return to silence and say something. And that's what they're for. Loving kindness is characterized as promoting the aspect of welfare. Its function is to prefer welfare. It is manifested as the removal of annoyance. Its proximate cause is seeing lovableness in beings.

[05:18]

It succeeds when it makes ill will subside, and it fails when it produces selfish affection. Compassion is characterized as promoting the aspect of allaying suffering. Its function resides in not bearing others' suffering. It is manifested as non-cruelty. Its proximate cause is to see helplessness in those overwhelmed by suffering. It succeeds when it makes cruelty subside, and it fails when it produces sorrow. And then gladness is characterized as gladdening produced by others' success. Its function resides in being unenvious. It is manifested as elimination of aversion or boredom. Its proximate cause is seeing beings' success.

[06:22]

It succeeds when it makes aversion or boredom subside, and it fails when it produces merriment. And that merriment, I thought about it, you know, that often sounds like a lovely thing. But sometimes it made me think of sometimes at the end of a sishin, when things start getting a little wild, you know, that kind of merriment where we lose control. And so I think that that's kind of what one piece of what they mean by this kind of merriment. And it's not wrong. I mean, again, this is not about judgment. It's just knowing it fails when it produces merriment. So that's not gladness at other's success, in other words, merriment. So if you're going for the gladness at other's success, it's something a little different. And then equanimity, if you've managed all that, equanimity is characterized as promoting the aspect of neutrality towards beings. Its function is to see quality in beings.

[07:24]

It is manifested as the quieting of resentment and approval. Its proximate cause is seeing ownership of deeds or karma thus. Beings are owners of their deeds, whose, if not theirs, is the choice by which they will become happy or will get free from suffering or will not fall away from the success they have reached. It succeeds when it makes resentment and approval subside, and it fails when it produces the equanimity of unknowing, which is that worldly-minded indifference of ignorance based on the house life. So ambivalence is more that kind of indifference or passivity. That equanimity is not. Equanimity is equal feeling. equal passion, equal courage.

[08:27]

So it has a both, the both of ambivalence. I don't want to get rid of ambivalence because it's very valuable. But instead of the passivity of ambivalence, it's about humanity and engagement. Now, I still don't know what enlightenment is, just so you know that. But I was thinking about how, you know, it's often seen as an escape. I'm going to be enlightened or someone else is going to be enlightened and somehow things will be better. But for me, that kind of escape seems sort of horrible because it means that you basically have to eliminate yourself and everybody else. Eliminate or reject. Because escape, it's impossible, is really what it is.

[09:34]

But I think we can be learned, you know, sort of by that idea of escape. Because it seems easier than engagement. And the discomfort of engagement and always being with everyone and with yourself and all the things that come up in yourself. But I think that that uncomfortableness of engagement helps to put things into balance and into perspective because it keeps you alive. It keeps the situations you're in alive, your questions alive. And inclusion allows us to stay in the middle of the things that will actually give us our real freedom and our real answers. there's a Jewish scholar named Abraham Heschel, and he wrote a book that's called God in Search of Man.

[10:38]

He switched it. And what I think he's talking about is a kind of openness or listening. Usually we're looking around searching for God or for somebody or for an answer or for meaning or something like that. But he's talking about listening for a different voice, waiting for an answer or meaning. And I think that that is the function of meditation as it arises in the midst of the imperfections of our life. In Buddhist teachings, there's this repetition of hearing, hearing this, hearing the teaching, hearing the teacher, hearing the sound of water, hearing the sound of a pebble hitting bamboo.

[11:44]

So listening is prerequisite to hearing. I think most of us who live at Zen Center, and especially, well, maybe also those of us who live and work at Zen Center, as well as those of us who visit Zen Center, have a kind of ambivalent relationship with Zen Center. There's a certain amount of dependence, and then there's a resistance to the conditions of that dependence. There are expectations and a resistance to the conditions of those expectations. It's normal, it's natural we do this. This is our, that's our, sort of this ambivalent thing that we're always sort of struggling with. And I find that in my role as director, I often represent Zen Center.

[12:52]

And it kind of pushes me and pulls me and confuses me and I'm, you know, listening to people's needs and thinking of things people might need. At the same time, you know, it's not just coming from outside. It's also trying to think forward. And so push, pull, think, worry. And I think that a lot of that results in really wonderful things and good connections and happiness. But some of it is very challenging and... Sometimes discouraging, not usually, but sometimes disconcerting. But I have to say something, and I have to do something, and I'm involved in making these decisions, or I have to make decisions that will make some people happy and some people unhappy. And I never know who that's going to be.

[13:54]

But lately this reminded me of a Zen story. And this, I was walking, thinking about all these things. And there's a story where a student goes to the teacher and he says, please teach me so that I can be liberated. And the teacher says, well, who has bound you? And the monk says, I don't know. So the teacher says, well, then I have freed you. And the monk is enlightened. And so I was thinking, who has bound you? Who has bound you? Why do I feel so wound by these things? So equanimity requires us, actually, to be pushed and pulled and confused. But it includes something called serenity. That's in there as well.

[14:58]

And I think this is not about being sure, but it's confidence, which means with trust. So pushed and pulled and a sense of trust. And I think that engaging with others will always bring up disagreement at some point. And I think that all disagreements are... to a certain extent. It partly has to do with the difficulties of communication and misunderstandings about how we say things or how we joke even, all that. So there's some correctness to it, but I think that if our disagreements can be absorbed as truths, then they can actually shift us kind of rearrange our assumptions, our desires, and shift us to new perspectives and a different way of balancing and dealing with the discomfort of never quite getting it right in a certain way.

[16:27]

I know that when I have a really strong thought or idea or opinion, I have to be careful. And yet I still often say it. And then I hear it and I feel it and I see its consequences. And those things I let go through me, my body, my mind, my emotions, and do their work. That's what I have to do. I have to say something. You don't have a choice. But then, it can always be taken back to this place of silence. So, this saying, having to say something, having the courage... the sense of passion, the sense of honesty, or whatever you want to call it, to blurt something out, or say something very thoughtfully, either way.

[17:29]

And then to take the consequences of that back to some level of silence. And that's meditation. For me, that's often walking. It can be whatever you do for that, for yourself. Solitude, even. And I think that that Balancing saying something and returning to silence gives vitality to our activities, to the meaning of saying something, to the meaning of meditation, and teaches us to trust, even though things will remain uncertain. You don't know if everything will be fine or come into some balance outside of your own equanimity. So to conclude, I'd like to read one of Kenko's essays in idleness.

[18:31]

This is a bedtime story. You may intend to do something today only for pressing business to come up unexpectedly and take up all of your attention the rest of the day. Or a person you have been expecting is prevented from coming, or someone you hadn't expected comes calling. The thing you have counted on goes amiss, and the thing you had no hopes for is the only one to succeed. A matter which promised to be a nuisance passes off smoothly, and a matter which should have been easy proves a great hardship. Our daily experiences bear no resemblance to what we had anticipated. This is true throughout the year and equally true for our entire lives. But if we decide that everything is bound to go contrary to our anticipations, we discover that naturally there are also some things which do not contradict expectations. This makes it all the harder to be definite about anything. The one thing you can be certain of is the truth, that all is uncertainty.

[19:39]

So to be certain that all is uncertainty is equanimity. You're always listening. You're holding both things, and yet it's not passive or indifferent. And in the midst of all that, everything keeps happening. So it just keeps moving. You're saying something, returning to silence, even while you're in the midst of all the activities of your life. So thank you very much, and we probably have time for a few comments or questions if you want to use anything. Yes? Well, as I was actually reading them, I thought, yeah, you know, one of the hardest things for me was loving kindness.

[20:48]

I didn't know what it was in a certain way because I had thoughts about what I thought it was. So when I read about it, I thought, that's not what I know how to do. And for me to go back to the teachings and tell me things, listen to what they're trying to tell me. And I listened about metta, love and kindness. wishing, you know, may so-and-so be happy. May they be filled with kindness. May they be well. May they be peaceful and at ease. May they be happy. And for a very, very long time, I chanted that during my meditation. And I suddenly noticed I wasn't doing that anymore. It wasn't naturally going over and over in my mind when I would think of difficulties. And I thought, And I didn't say I'd gotten anything or anything like that.

[21:50]

But I do believe that I care about everyone in a different way. I don't know what that is about. But what's interesting about the teachings is they also teach you that You're never done. So, but you have to move on. So what's compassion? So, you know, you move on to the next one. Well, I knew what compassion wasn't, which is basically pity. And I knew what I didn't like coming towards me that was called compassion. So again, undo, undo, undo. And I ended up Finally, trying to answer this from some part of myself, during a year as a chaplain, and there's no time for being like a nice person or, you know, fixing something for somebody when you're doing that kind of work.

[23:04]

You just have to walk around and be bombarded and find your way in it. And I think... My life as a meditator and in community and everything made that possible for me. So I think I know something there. And happy for others, success. Well, we all think we are. But again, here we are in this community. Somebody gets up and we don't. How do we deal with that? So, you know, you don't get to success with your own you know, work on this, but what does it feel like when you do that? And starts to undo stuff, starts to undo stuff, and you think, well, I think I want that thing, but if I really got it, would it be what I wanted? Okay, let them have it, and I'll be happy for them. You know, and to stop relating everything to my own happiness or unhappiness, and thinking about...

[24:07]

Well, you know, they also have the responsibility of that, whatever it would be, so that I could teach myself to be happier for others. And so I thought it was really interesting that it is manifested as the elimination of boredom. Boredom is narrow-mindedness, you know? It's inability to include things that keep you awake. So it's, you know, just keep opening and opening and opening. I saw... Well, do I really want that thing? And, you know, the whole thing about envy and what that feels like and the whole thing. So just keep touching it, you know. So equanimity, I think, is kind of based in those. And it's also based in going through that process with each. Because you say... Love and kindness isn't what I thought it was. Compassion isn't what I thought it was.

[25:10]

Gladness or sympathetic joy isn't what I thought it was. So neither is equanimity, but... Oh, I see. Does that make sense? It's like it just slowly kind of... That's what these teachings are for. They change you, but they don't make you right. Thank heaven. They don't make you right. So... But I think equanimity ends up being the information you need to have authority of any sort. And that's any level of authority for yourself or another, so that's how I understand it. Did I answer your question? Okay. Yes, Tara. When you have to say something, and you say something, you realize that it wasn't as skillful as it could have been or you wish you had said it a little differently.

[26:12]

Do you ever go back to the conversation to say something again and redo it or take it from where you left off? And I find sometimes I regret something I've said and that I feel like it isn't too late in most cases to do some repair. I wonder if you have some experience with that. Well, a few things came into my mind. One was that the drama is yours. That's what I realized. The drama about worrying, like whether I said was the right thing or not, is mine. Who has bound you? Who has made that a source of anxiety or binding? And I do get bound. It's actually, I find it very informative that I get bound in that way. And sometimes I'll try going back to the person and often they forgot about that, but it's something else that was bothering them.

[27:19]

So what I've tended to do is not go back anymore and try to fix things and try to trust that things will keep going. and not try to run around and fix everything where I dropped this or said that or something like that. Because what that does is it doesn't just bind me, it binds the other in my thoughts about them and in their sort of winding them into something, too. So I know what you mean, and I actually try not to do that so much. Ambivalence is both.

[28:40]

Both things of work. So you can't decide. So it actually has a positive aspect to it. But it ends up having this passivity to it, because you're holding both. Now, what equanimity does is it says they're equal. So you're actually saying something about the two things. You're not sort of saying... Well, they're both kind of okay, and so I don't really know. You're saying, well, they're of equal value. Exactly. And that's that kind of indifference. And it's kind of a fear of choosing or a fear of touching. William, sorry.

[29:41]

I blame for a second. Please. How does that relate to... How do you... The harvest. tempted to say that's a good question, but I think like all of the teachings, you know, they're not the only teachings, but like all of the teachings, they ask you to be precise. So, again, you're not perfecting something in that sort of escapist way.

[30:43]

You're trying to perfect something towards vitality, towards So that's body and mind. When you actually arrive, when you're present and, you know, you are affected by things and affect things and aren't scared of it in the way that you want to escape. So, is that? Ask again. to get caught up in thinking, you know, there's no escape. Just as you are is how it's going to work. Well, I thought it was pretty striking that under equanimity it says ownership of deeds or karma.

[33:17]

So beings are owners of their deeds. Whose, if not theirs, is the choice by which they will become happy or will get free from suffering or will not fall away from the success they have reached. So in the dynamic, you are also releasing that other person from being part of your stuff. You know, it's like... So what I was thinking as you spoke, something I didn't say that I had thought about, was how this... where everything is included or something like that, where equanimity is part of the equation, if you want to call it that. It's fun. It's scary and it's fun. It gives you vitality. It's wonderful and it's terrible because you never know what's next. Complete uncertainty.

[34:18]

But you enjoy it. And that's, I think, what equanimity gives. I knew you were gonna argue with me. Well, there's no escape from making mistakes and that sort of thing. Yeah.

[35:25]

Well, I think it's, maybe what I was saying sounded like separation. But I actually think that it's highly respectful of another person to allow them to own their own karma. That's highly respectful. So to sort of assume that they need your help and your something to... sort of get it right or whatever you think your engagement is about. That's what I think you have to let go of. Your part is your part. And of course the other person is there and you're affecting them and they're affecting you. But you can't sort of grab them into your karma. I think that it's very disrespectful to do that. But also allow the other to have their karma. It's very difficult.

[36:27]

I would say it's almost impossible. It's almost impossible to understand. And one of the, you know, the basis for that has to be metta, or loving kindness, compassion, karuna, murita, sympathetic joy, in order for that equanimity to make sense. You have to see others as lovable. You have to be willing to make cruelty subside. see cruelty subside, and you have to not be bored or envious, and then you can do this thing called equanimity. And so that it won't sound like separation. Once you've got all those, sort of the groundedness in place for it. But lovableness is a really important one, seeing everyone as lovable. and yourself as well. Okay.

[37:31]

Thank you again.

[37:35]

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