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. So the funny thing, one of the many funny and unpleasant things about giving a Dharma talk is that it feels important to not sell short the Dharma. As our former avid Steve would say, don't sell short the dharma. And yet you can't not sell short the dharma as soon as you open your mouth or as soon as you don't open your mouth. There you go, selling it short. So I'm feeling today especially like there's two sort of creatures on my shoulders whispering and even shouting different things at me about what I should talk about today. And one of them is saying, you have to talk about Donald Trump.

[01:05]

You have to talk about Donald Trump. Everybody's talking about Donald Trump. That's all there is to talk about is Donald Trump. Have you thought about anything else in the last three weeks? No. So why would you talk about anything else? But the Dharma. And so this other one is saying... well, not only does nobody particularly care what you think about Donald Trump, but anything you say about Donald Trump is going to alienate some people who might disagree. And we want to include everybody. And then the other one says, well, not saying anything about Donald Trump, you're alienating a bunch of people who want you to say something about Donald Trump so that they know that you're So I turned to the koans, the koan collections of our great Zen tradition.

[02:18]

This is very much a koan situation. One of our classics is the pithy and violent phrase, 30 blows either way. Do something, but either way you do it, we're going to hit you 30 times. So that's another way of sort of imagining a Dharma talk. Or this teaching that speech fails and silence also fails. I feel that it's so clear that speech words divide, but it's also clear that silence doesn't bring together. So here we are in this column. We also teach and study that when one side is illuminated, the other side is dark.

[03:20]

And that's the thing about saying or doing or thinking anything. When one side is bright, when you can see one thing, the other side is dark. This isn't like a problem or something that's not supposed to be happening. This is the nature of reality. It's called the dynamics of disclosing something and concealing something. It always happens together. So you reveal something, you're concealing something else. Well, anyway, in the midst of that koan, I thought I would just be true to myself, I guess, true to my conditioning, true to my particular no-self that manifests here based on all the conditions that have made me and continue to make me.

[04:22]

And to express some things about how I see Buddhism as guiding and illuminating and inspiring and supporting us as we think about and step into a country that's led by Donald Trump. And I think it will be clear, if it's not already, that I'm not optimistic about that. It's not something I'm looking forward to. so what does Buddhism have to say? Buddhists have been asking each other this a lot. And so I thought I would offer a couple of thoughts. And it's really just two thoughts, and it's just the two thoughts that we always offer. So if you've ever been to a Dharma talk before, it will be the same two thoughts that you've heard every other time you came here.

[05:29]

And then the third thought, will be that you need both of those thoughts together. So it's two thoughts plus one I want to share to you. Maybe this can be short. I thought as I was looking over my talk, another colon came to me as one that might frame or express, kind of get at these two things I want to talk about. It's another favorite koan of mine. It's a story of Ditsang and Shueshan called Ditsang, Planting the Fields. It's in the Book of Serenity. So Ditsang asked Shueshan, where do you come from? Shushan. Shushan said, from the South.

[06:33]

Ditsang said, how is Buddhism in the South these days? And Sushan said, there's extensive discussion. And Ditsang said, how can that compare to me here planting the fields and making rice to eat? And Sushan said, well, what can you do about the world? And Ditsang said, what do you call the world? What do you call the world? In that expression, in that exchange, is I think the two truths, basically, of Buddhism. The first being that there is no world at all, except that we call it something.

[07:38]

And the second truth is that we call it something. So this first principle is that everything is totally empty. That anything we say or think about the world doesn't reach the world. Even these really, and this is just an endlessly deep thing to study. because we're always thinking something about the world. For example, I am. I am not non-existent. There is something or there isn't something. Even these most basic thoughts, these most basic concepts, these most basic ways of carving up the world actually don't stick anywhere in the world. They have no traction. They have no referent.

[08:39]

Understanding this really is the core of Buddhism, Buddhist teaching. And then the second principle, the second truth, you could say, is that there are some things that are true and some things that are false. That there's a way of living that's the right way to live, and there are ways of living that are the wrong way to live. If either one of these points is neglected, then the way is lost. So here at Green Gulch, every day, unless we have a really good excuse, Every day we sit zazen. We sit upright in meditation. And in that zazen practice, in that still silent sitting, we're expressing and training ourselves in and sometimes even actually feeling or tasting the kind of freedom that comes from this emptiness.

[10:00]

From knowing that the presence the spaciousness, the sort of brilliant fact of this moment is completely untethered from everything I think about it. We sit and we think about stuff, but the reality of the sitting is undeniable. We learn to sort of reorient ourselves towards the inconceivable reality and notice that none of these things that we're thinking and feeling about the reality are really touching it at all. And since they don't actually touch it, we don't need to be afraid of anything that we're thinking or feeling. And we don't need to be pulled around by anything we're thinking or feeling. Because the basis of our life is planted in this still sitting body.

[11:03]

It's planted in something that's totally beyond all of our views. And we take refuge here. This is a refuge for us to sit and to notice that even our thought, there is a world, much less our thought, oh my God, the world, are totally untrue, irrelevant, and empty. Another great Zen expression is, show me. I don't know exactly where this comes from, but it's in the... It's in the teachings, you know. Show me. Show me the world, right? Oh, the world. What about the world? Show it to me. Show me. Show me. Bring it. Or, Jiryu. Bring me Jiryu, you know. All these things that we're so used to thinking about as though they actually exist, or bring me your mind. That's maybe the classical expression of this.

[12:06]

The teacher asks the student, well, just bring me your mind. Just bring it to me and I'll take care of it for you. But you can't find it. You can't find the world. You can't find yourself. You can't even find your body. We say be in your body. Being in your body means that you have no idea what a body is or isn't. You can't find any of this stuff. You can't get your hands around any of it. And we call that being free. That's clear. You know, aspiring at least to sort of to understand and express and realize that that emptiness is what Buddhist practice is about. So then after we sit for a while, we chant some things. And one of the things we chant pretty much every day for some reason

[13:14]

are these lines. She is a source of light and from everyone in the triple world she removes darkness. Most excellent are her works. She brings light so that all fear and distress may be forsaken and disperses the gloom and darkness of delusion. Sounds great. Show her to me. All of the gloom and darkness of delusion and greed and hatred and confusion, there is someone, there is something that removes all of that. We actually chant this. It's a wild thing to say, but we chant it every day. Something can actually disperse all of the fear and distress and all of the gloom and darkness. And what's the thing that does that? The thing that does that is prajnaparamita, perfect wisdom, great wisdom, emptiness.

[14:21]

So we say these lines in our hymn to Prajnaparamita, our verse in homage to the great wisdom of emptiness. We say, this thing about emptiness, as Ajahn Chah says, about how all your thoughts are garbage, didn't take that too far, but it's a good, it may be just the right medicine. that truth that none of the ways we see the world are at all true, that is freedom from all fear and distress and delusion. So this perfection of wisdom who we honor in this way says things like, no eyes. You don't have eyes. You don't have ears. You don't have a nose. You don't have a body. You don't have a mind. You don't have a you. And the things that are true about Buddhism, like that there's suffering, and there's liberation from suffering, and there's a cause of suffering, those things aren't true either.

[15:24]

There actually is no suffering, and there's no cause of suffering, and there's no end to suffering. Also, there's no old age, and there's no death, there's no impermanence. So not only all the ordinary stuff that we take for granted isn't actually there, But even the Buddhist truth, the Buddhist teachings are not actually true. And there's different ways, if you'd like to get your head around that, there's different ways to do so. Which maybe we can talk about some other time. concepts all just point to other concepts and anything you can find in the world is just everything else that's around it. You know?

[16:26]

So this emptiness is the kind of terrifying and also liberating core of our practice. It's at the center. It's a terrifying thought and it can also be a sort of reckless thought, especially if it's misunderstood or attached to. The great Yun-men has this expression that if you're going to attach to something, better attach to the regular random stuff that you attach to than to this view that nothing exists. This view is about detaching, it's about renouncing. Better a whole mountain of views... of existence than a speck of a view of non-existence. Love that. If you're going to make a mistake, better to make the mistake of thinking that things really do exist rather than thinking that they really don't exist. But the bottom line of Buddhist practice and teaching is that things neither exist nor don't exist.

[17:30]

Existence and non-existence is irrelevant. It's an idea. It has nothing to do with anything. So getting back a bit to this question that I'm wrestling with, with you all, and with the wider community, about our politics. Since the election, I've been rethinking my relationship with this thing called engaged Buddhism, right? This kind of Buddhism that is this sort of Buddhist modernist movement that takes Buddhist... and couples it with a kind of Western social action, engaged Buddhism. And insofar as I've hesitated to completely identify with that or put my arms around that, I think it's out of caution around exactly this point. No matter how righteous or vital or true my social or my political viewpoint

[18:38]

do I know that it's totally empty? It's totally dependent on the specifics of my conditioning, my situation, and it doesn't actually correspond with the world. So this idea that in our righteous endeavors, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that we're making up stories about a world that's totally beyond our stories about it. Does that make sense? That seems like a danger. It's easy to see that danger in other people. Like, hey, you think we're all evil, but we're not. Please notice that you just have a view. Slow down on the doing the right thing here and notice that maybe there's a bigger view than the one you are currently committed to. Does that make sense? So this, as I think will become clear, I'm excited by the possibility of this engaged Buddhism that really is close to emptiness, you know? But I think it's easy to... It's hard to hold both together.

[19:40]

I feel like what can, in myself and in the world, is there... No matter what I do or think or how I act, can there always be that voice that is reminding me that... world is wider that basically there is no problem and can that energize and inspire so can there be some spaciousness in whatever I'm doing whatever I'm thinking can there be some space around like my vision of reality my clarity about what needs to be done can there be a little bit of space around that?

[20:45]

It's not that I need to lose that clarity, but can I see like, oh, and yeah, that's just what I think. I'm not going to back down, but yeah, that's just what I think. It's the humility, you know. So this basic truth of zazen, of prajnaparamita, this basic truth that will... free you from all darkness and delusion, is that everything is empty. All thoughts, all views are equally empty. One way to think of it, which I think is useful, is just in terms of language, anything we say or think about the world is like the dictionary entries chasing around the other dictionary entries. It's like, oh, what does that mean? Oh, that means it's other things. Oh, what does that mean? That means it's other things. It's like, wow, when did this ever touch? What did it ever touch? Nothing. And it's interesting to note that that logic, that teaching, has a kind of strong resonance or correspondence with this current sort of post-truth, kind of totally relative, all perspectives are equal, cultural situation that we find ourselves in.

[22:08]

So I have this feeling like, wait, Buddhism, we've been here before. We know what to do. We can work with... We can plant something on the ground of nothing is true and everything is true. We can plant a path on that. And we do. That is our path and that's where it's planted. So this idea that there's like nothing is true, all perspectives are equally valid, this sort of kind of... Buddhist-y sounding sort of total relativism. It hasn't just been the subtext of, like, the politics around, but it's actually been named as such. So I came across this thing recently that somebody said, a Trump surrogate called Scotty Nell Hughes said, one thing that's been interesting this entire campaign season to watch is that people that say facts are facts. They're not really facts. It's kind of like looking at ratings or looking at a glass of half-full water.

[23:11]

Everybody has a way of interpreting them to be the truth or not true. There's no such thing, unfortunately, anymore as facts. So Prajnaparamita, you know, says, I know. There is no such thing as fact. There never has been, there never will be. But it's also clear what the drawbacks are of this kind of extreme, either in the sort of secular false equivalency that we've been hearing so much about, where you have to treat a non-fact with as much respect as you treat a fact, because all perspectives are equally valid. And in this Buddhist teaching that all concepts are equally empty also has... significant drawbacks that the Buddhist tradition itself has pointed out. And since we can say that everything is empty, all my thoughts about the world are empty, and I'm really insisting that we must realize that.

[24:19]

But if that's so, then how can I, what's the difference between it's raining and it's not raining? So if all concepts are equally empty, it's equally true for me right now to say it's raining or to say it's not raining. Prajnaparamita can't really help us with that. And Buddhist teaching, other Buddhist schools have pointed that out, that this everything is equally empty doesn't give you a real way to figure out whether it's raining or not, because it's neither raining nor not raining. Show me rain! You can't. all just words. That's another thing. Oh, that's just words. A great way of talking about this problem, slight digression, but I think it's a lovely teaching.

[25:30]

I think it points away here. There's a Buddhist scholar named Griffith Folk who has a lovely commentary on a famous koan, which is the Does the Dog Have Buddha Nature koan? Remember this koan? There's... Question is, does the dog have Buddha nature? And the answer is no. Griffhock says, it's like asking, does Santa Claus wear a red hat? It's a beautiful, it's a beautiful commentary. Does Santa wear a red hat? Speak, speak. You know, that's the Zen, that's the Zen cons. Does Santa have a red hat? There is a right and a wrong answer to that question. Santa has a red hat. Everybody knows that Santa has a red hat. These kids could have told you that Santa has a red hat, and they're right. Or another example, I got into a conversation with my son, Frank, who's quite into Pokemon, which is like, wow, a thing.

[26:42]

There's the Pokemon game and the Pokemon cards and whatever else. So there's like rules at school now about Pokemon, like when you can and can't do Pokemon. It's a thing. So there's the actual Pokemon characters. And then with one of Frank's friends, they found some program or some way to create these fake Pokemon cards. So they're cards that seem like they're Pokemon, but they're actually fake Pokemon. So it's the same question. So we see a Pokemon, and I ask Frank, Was that a fake Pokemon or a real Pokemon? There's a huge difference between a fake Pokemon and a real Pokemon. It's clear, right? And for someone who's into Pokemon, for someone in the Pokemon arena, the difference between a real and a fake Pokemon is like a life and death situation. There's a real. A fake Pokemon has no traction, a fake Pokemon can't play, and a real Pokemon can play.

[27:44]

There's a difference. So we can say, hey, there's no Pokemon at all. It's something somebody made up and is making a ton of money on. It doesn't have to do with anything. But within that, we can accept that. And within that, there is actually a difference. that we can uphold, that we can agree on, that we can even be sort of fiercely clear about, which is that is a fake Pokémon and that is a real Pokémon. Santa's hat is red. Stop saying Santa's hat is blue because it's not, it's red. So how do we distinguish right and wrong, true from false, you know? Or, geez, one of the words coming up as I was thinking about this talk were... good and evil, which we hate, right? We hate all this stuff. We don't want to get into right and wrong. We don't want to get into certainly good and evil. True and false is also sort of problematic. I think part of what I'm suggesting is that we need to sort of get over some of our discomfort with right and wrong.

[28:47]

To understand that as Buddhists, from the ground of emptiness, we have a right and a wrong, and we can talk about it. And there's no, like, dialing that back. And there's no being afraid of anything, of expressing that some things are right and some things are wrong. Buddhism teaches that some things are true and some things are false. And yes, it's all Pokemon and Santa, but it matters, these differences, and we believe in them. So that's this second principle, which is that there is... There's a right view and a wrong view. There's wholesome conduct and unwholesome conduct. The right way must be cherished and upheld, and the wrong way must be censured and uprooted. This is basic Buddhism. The right view is a view based on dependent co-arising. The right view is that nothing exists apart from any other thing.

[29:52]

That the world is completely, everything is completely interdependent, interconnected. That teaching, that truth is actually deeper than the truth of emptiness. The truth of emptiness is like derived from the truth of interdependence. Emptiness is just a way of talking about like, well, Jiryu is empty because Jiryu is nothing but dependent co-arising. So emptiness doesn't like mean that you can't say, yes, things are interdependent. That things are independent is why you can say that they're empty. That makes sense. I don't mean to get too far into that kind of discussion, but just to be clear that to be a Buddhist is to strive to celebrate and understand and honor the total interdependence of all things. That's our religion. That's what we do. That's what we're about. We think that's true, and we think that a worldview about self is not true.

[30:55]

And so we think that the right way to live is to think and speak and act in a way that affirms and honors interdependence. And we think that the wrong way to live is to negate and defile interdependence. Make two more points and then end, maybe. One is just to elaborate a little bit about this view that we have, this This principle we have of right and wrong is expressed in our practice as the precepts. This understanding that everything is totally interdependent leads us to an ethical life based on the precepts. The precepts are things like to not kill, to not steal, to not misuse sexuality, to not lie, to not intoxicate, to not slander, to not praise the self at the expense of others.

[31:57]

to not be possessive or to harbor ill will or to disparage triple treasure. And the precepts are great because it's lovely to watch people come towards the precepts because you think from a distance the precepts look very easy. Not to kill, I totally sign up for that. No problem, I can do that. Sign me up. And then you get a little closer to not killing, you start like I'm looking around at your life and you say, I'm killing all the time. How can I possibly take this precept? I can't take the precepts. So even these kind of precepts, the way that I've framed them or phrased them, and we often hear them, are precepts of restraint. I will not kill. I will not lie. I will not steal. But sometimes when we take the precepts and when we talk about the precepts, we also emphasize the positive aspect of the precepts, which is that we encourage and cultivate life and that we encourage and cultivate generosity and openness and honesty and clarity and respect, mutual support and loving-kindness.

[33:13]

So the idea that... the idea that Buddhism is like apolitical it's kind of like the idea that the precepts are just something to avoid doing right like just don't kill anything you don't have to like say anything about anything just don't kill anything you know whereas in the positive form it's like oh my gosh cultivate and encourage life and like advocate for the humanity of people like that's that's not just something to like to try to get through today without killing. It's like it's an active call into the world to speak out for the good and to speak against the wrong. There is even a minor precept that makes this very clear. It's actually one of our minor precepts that we don't formally take but that we sometimes consult or use in our study.

[34:16]

There's actually a precept about failing to counsel others to repent for their violation of the precepts. Not only is there this positive sense of the precepts where we are actually not just avoiding killing, but really wherever we can, however we can, supporting and encouraging life. There's also this teaching in there like, and if someone is violating the precepts, you're breaking a precept by not helping them repent of that, helping them turn that around. Okay, one more point. So if this first principle is that all your thoughts are garbage, that all views are empty, and the second principle is that there's a right way and a wrong way, there's a good way and a bad way, there's a true way and a false way, there's true things about the world and false things about the world. The third principle is that...

[35:20]

that these two truths work totally together. These two truths don't obstruct each other at all. They live right on top of each other. A teacher of mine said, they eat the same breakfast and they wear the same shirt. They sit on the same zafu. Maybe they even chain themselves to the same bulldozer. Now, these two truths are exactly on top of each other. My insistence that there's a right way and a wrong way, and my understanding that right and wrong have no traction, those are exactly on top of each other. We call this the harmony of difference and equality. That everything is equal, that everything is just a perspective, is what equalizes everything. It's the source of our great compassion. Hey, I'm just a conditioned guy with some thoughts. You're just a conditioned person with some thoughts. There's no difference in that.

[36:21]

We're totally equal. The difference is that, by the way, there's true things and false things. And then the harmony is that these two things work together. They live together. So my wife Sarah, the director here, made this lovely point that I'd like to close with, which is that it seems easy for us to have a misunderstanding about this harmony of difference and equality thing, such that we think the equality part means that all the views are equal. And maybe even that the difference part means that people are unequal. So we say, oh, we believe in the equality. To misunderstand that, to think that it's the equality of all views. The truth is, the true meaning of this teaching of the harmony of difference and equality is that the equality in all things is the nature, is the livingness. We are all totally equal in our livingness. That is... That is where our equality is.

[37:22]

The equality is not in our views. There's a difference in views. There are true views and false views. There are right views and wrong views. That's a difference. And I think what's so important about this distinction or understanding this harmony in the right way is that it lets us love completely. It lets us keep our love completely. and respect and wish for the welfare of all beings, knowing that all beings are totally equal in their nature, but it doesn't take away our power or our clarity of making the differences between views. So all people are equal, all views are not equal. And that is exactly the point that's been getting confused. It's like, oh, well, hey, you guys say... that all people are equal. So shouldn't all of our views be equal? No, actually. We say that all people are equal and that there are true and false views, that there is right and wrong.

[38:28]

So we need to... to hold all three of these truths, I think. And I think if we turn to them and let them inspire us and inform and guide us, I think we can find a kind of a Buddhist action, Buddhist engagement that is not at all separate from the teachings of emptiness or the deep love for all beings that the Buddha so beautifully expressed through his his life and his walk. I am optimistic. I have a feeling about the San Francisco Zen Center especially of being a place where we come together around these two, these three teachings of emptiness and of interdependence and of the harmony of the two, that the Zen Center can be a place not of some kind of inclusive worship or inclusive practice

[39:43]

that's therefore apolitical, but that it's some kind of inclusive practice, inclusive worship that's totally grounded in the ethics of interdependence, and totally centered on the affirmation of the truth of the precepts and of dependent co-arising, our total dependence on and need for each thing in the world, and our call to respect each thing deeply. So Shushan says, what can you do about the world? And Ditsang says, what do you call the world? Thank you for your patience and your presence today. I sincerely hope that our practice together, our study of the Dharma and our sitting brings good to the world as a force for that which is true and right.

[40:47]

May all beings be happy. 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. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[41:23]

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