This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. I read an article about the presidential election that had just happened. And the article was about some Republicans who felt that given the calamity of Barack Obama being re-elected, that they should leave the country and move to Canada. my own thinking, not being inclined in that direction, was kind of struck by that sentiment.

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And I was thinking of it again recently. At the time I was struck because I was sort of incredulous in a way. How could that be so? How could something other than my perspective be valid? How could someone actually think about things differently from what I do? So much so that they leave the country. However, our own version of reality and with all its preferences and implications, can present itself with a kind of an authority that seems utterly appropriate.

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So that's my prelude to a Buddhist notion called shunyata. Shunyata, in the abstract, it seems abstract, but it's actually about the very stuff of life. In the abstract, you know, For a long time it was translated as emptiness. That everything is empty. And sometimes certain Zen statements were translated as opening to the great void. Thich Nhat Hanh, a wonderful, for those of you who don't know, a wonderful Vietnamese teacher with a marvelous life.

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He was in the States. He was in California in the early 80s. He stayed at Green Gulch with us for a while. And then he gave a series of talks in the Bay Area. And they were all the same talk. I must have heard him give the same talk maybe four or five times. And here's the opener to the talk. What is this? Anyone here witness Thich Nhat Hanh give this talk? Well, this is a very second rate version of it. He'd hold up a piece of paper, blank white paper, and he'd say, what is this? And my mind would go, that's a piece of white paper.

[04:46]

And actually, I had heard a comical joke about an interaction between two Buddhist teachers, Kala Rinpoche and Sang Sanin. And it was kind of a staged, Dharma event. And Song Sanim was a Korean Zen teacher. It's a very energetic, almost confrontational style. And so they sat down and it was... And Song Sanim pulls out of his sleeve an orange. He sets it on the table. And he says, looks at Kala Rinpoche in the eye and says, What is this? Father Rinpoche looks at it, looks at him, calls over his attendant. And he says, don't they have oranges where he grew up? So I have to confess.

[05:53]

When he held up that piece of paper, humorous interaction came to mind. I once heard Thich Nhat Hanh described as a cross between a piece of heavy machinery, like a bulldozer, and a cloud. So he sat there with this graceful ease and this gravitas. What is this? And your mind saying, well, I know it's just a sheet of paper is not the right answer. But it is just a sheet of paper. This is...

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rain cloud. This is a forest of trees. This is the lumberjacks who cut down the trees. This is the driver who drives them in a truck to the mill. This is the mill worker who grinds them up into pulp and turns them into paper. This is the ship that transports the paper to the factory that creates the sheet. This is the driver that drives it to the store, the store attendant who sells it. You know, this startling way in which whatever you pick up demonstrates, manifests, expands the nature of shunyata.

[08:17]

And apart from being an extraordinarily dedicated practitioner, an extraordinarily dedicated Thich Nhat Hanh is quite the scholar. He reads the texts in Vietnamese, French, English, Sanskrit, and Chinese. In this way, in an accessible, direct way, he was talking about shunyata. And he was taking the term in English, emptiness, and turning it inside out. And the term he came up with was interbeing, you know.

[09:24]

This interbees. with the loggers, the clouds, the earth, the trees, the oceans, the ships. As does everything else, everyone else, all being. And when you take the term shunyata and change it from emptiness to this extraordinary event of life that we're part of, with all its dimensions, you know, in how

[10:27]

one of the ones that's in the foreground for many of us is the political. And how it evokes, it evokes perspectives. How could someone think that four years ago? How could they feel that? How could they be compelled to think this is so awful, so terrible, so inappropriate, so lacking in virtue that I'm going to leave the country? And now, four years later, I would dare to say there's another group of people with the same sentiment. I came across this old Roman poem by Catullus.

[11:46]

I hate, I love. Ask me if you wish why this is so. I can't say, but I feel it. And I am in torment. And when I was thinking if I would quote this poem, I thought, We've all toned down the word torment. This is, after all, just a translation from the Latin. So it was the translator's prerogative. And I was going to replace it with turmoil. Maybe something we would all identify with more, or would be less scary for us. But in its fierceness, the word challenges us, you know? The same way when I read that article four years ago, I was challenged.

[12:54]

Really? Somebody could think and feel like that? About such a dignified man of such incredible integrity? that my belief structure is utterly in contradiction to others. And it's kind of a surprise, you know, because I grew up in Northern Ireland, which was a divided community along religious lines, both Christian, but the distinction, the terrible, awful, tormenting distinction was some of us were Catholic and some of us were Protestant. And we rioted and we bombed and we shot and we burned people out of their houses.

[14:08]

Thousands of people killed. Tens of thousands of people displaced, had to move somewhere else. Who knows how many traumatized. And I left. And I remember sitting in the market in Bangkok. It was about 4.30 in the morning. And I thought, I suspect... If I chose any one person in this market and I tried to explain to them why in my home country we were so impassioned and so committed to those distinctions, I don't think they would get it. They'd say, okay, you're all from the same DNA. You're all sort of Celts. You all...

[15:13]

have the same culture, ethnicity. You're all Christian. You believe in the same God. But you hate each other so much that the only appropriate response was violence. this amazing world, where even a sheet of paper authoritatively tells us this existence is interbeing. And yet within, in contrast, in denial to that, we assert our dislikes, our perspectives, our judgments.

[16:21]

And then we could say within the consideration of spiritual practice, to look at this and think. What is it to not be ensnared in the constructs of mind and the constructs of emotions? What is it to be not ensnared by the collective values of our own religion or culture? Last week someone sent me a photograph of a... There's an extraordinary civil rights activist, John Lewis, who's in the news now.

[17:34]

In the photograph of him, he's sitting as a young man. Looks like he's about 18 or so. And he's sitting with a friend who's also African-American. at a lunch counter. And just about to pince on him, the person's hand is about two inches from his collar from behind. With a look of absolute rage and disgust is someone about to grab him and throw him out because he had the audacity as an African-American to want to sit at the lunch counter and be served lunch. And the interesting thing, to my mind, is even though that's utterly explicit of itself, its own time, its own place, it was in Alabama, it was like in a certain city, I can't remember which one now.

[18:44]

When we compare that to a Catullus thing, I hate, I love, it's like, yeah, I love. the human condition on display just as much as the piece of paper Thich Nhat Hanh holds up. This is not who they are. This is who we are. How comforting and reassuring it would be to say, to think with conviction. That's them. They do that. And that's why we should relate to them with violence. Or move to Canada to get away from them. But the life we live inter-bees. We influence. We contribute. We're influenced by.

[19:52]

This is the human condition. I went to visit someone a couple of days ago and they have a very serious cancer and they're up at UCSF on the 12th story. And as often is the case when you're getting treatment for a serious cancer, it's hard to know which is worse, the treatment of the cancer. He's a long-term practitioner. And we were both laughing at the fact that the view out his window in his hospital room is breathtaking. He's on the 12th floor and he has this extraordinary panoramic view of the bay.

[20:57]

And he was saying, well, you know, I would exchange the view for better health. He also said that the chemotherapy, he's there for intense treatment of chemotherapy and stem cell therapy too. The chemotherapy distorts his perspective. He's inclined to look at mundane things and think, that looks awful. And then, given his long years of practice, he goes and he sits down there. And he says, now he sees and feels the nature of refuge.

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How is it in the midst of the intensity, the inextricable, unavoidable intensity of interbeing, what is it to take refuge? What is it to sit down and feel the earth and feel the spine and open up and let the body breathe and let the thoughts arise just as they are, be experienced just as they are, and pass on just as they are? as they are part of the impermanence of being. Because the nature of interbeing is that it's dynamic. It's utterly interactive and intertwined in its expression, and that keeps changing.

[23:21]

And he said, well, it's like I'm doing a sashin, an intensive meditation. He's there for a little over three weeks for his treatment. And to have that. So today, the zendo downstairs is full by a number of us sitting in the midst of being. Suñata expresses itself in two characteristics in sitting. One is a willingness to allow what is to be what is.

[24:33]

Which if you think about it, it's not that hard to do. I mean, it is what it is. And so the request is simply, Let it be what it is. And then the other request is to experience the experience that's being experienced. Experience the experience that's being experienced. And in the precision of engaging that, the convincing perspectives, the endorsement they have emotionally. Rather than that, dictating what is in the moment, it becomes an attribute.

[25:43]

When we experience the experience that's being experienced, something more immediate, more fundamental than the commentary we create about it starts to be realized. The capacity to notice, oh, I love, I hate. Ask if you wish why this is so. I can't say. When we sit and pay attention, we see this tumultuous arising. This powerful authoritative expression of a human life. whether that human life says, thank goodness we've had a change of administration, or says, oh no, we've had a change of administration.

[27:03]

Whether that human life is in hospital for cancer treatment, or the other day Lauren had her baby with her, eight months old, you know, sitting there, with all the authority and utter directness of an eight-month-old person. However, and whatever is arising, is what is there to be experienced. And in that radical proposition, the incessant commentary that's produced as if our life depended on it. You know?

[28:07]

Well, I wouldn't, you know, debate Catullus' comment. I am in torment. I would say just one of the vast arrays of passionate expressions of being. I am in torment. I am in delight. I am in disbelief. I am in gratitude. My friend said, the person in hospital says, and now It's about thankfulness and gratitude. I'm thankful. And I'm a little incredulous. Thankful.

[29:12]

You're in a hospital bed. Going through a powerful mind-altering treatment. And how amazing that within us, within the human organism, there's this capacity to attend to the moment. However and whatever it is. And there's a wonderful line at the end of Wallace Stevens' poem that is called The Mind of Winter. And the last line is this. And to see nothing that isn't there. To meet the exact particularity of the moment, just as it is.

[30:15]

To see nothing that isn't there and to see the nothing that is. It's just the sheet of paper. But this sheet of paper is part of everything. It's completely itself in its particularity, and it's part of everything. Conceptually, we can grasp it. However, when the very stuff of our human life comes forth, it's a mystery. Ask me to explain it, I can't. But we can realize it.

[31:19]

That within Consciousness is the capacity to experience the experience being experienced. With intentionality, with presence, there is the capacity to notice the point of view, to notice the emotion, to notice the impulse to extend out the world they create and declare it as reality. Dogen Zenji, the founder of this style of Zen practice, said, when the self goes out and defines the world, that's delusion. When the world is allowed to be what it is, that's awakening. So this is the...

[32:27]

the request, this is the activity of zazen. This is the activity of awareness, mindfulness. And everywhere we turn, it presents itself. Everywhere we turn, it's asking us to see both the page and to see the interconnectedness of being. But then there's another mysterious but marvelous human capacity. It's something in us knows this. Something in us knows the wisdom, the virtue of this nature of being. Something in us knows that to be trapped in hating this and loving that

[33:35]

to be trapped in an adamant version of good and evil, to be trapped in an adamant version of us and them, doesn't nourish. And then when we reflect on it and we think, I suspect maybe everybody in this room has similar political inclinations, which maybe should scare us a little. Maybe it's not so.

[34:42]

Maybe, tragically, those who don't have what they consider, what most of us consider, the appropriate political perspective, maybe they hold their silence. When I was growing up, I grew up Catholic. And one of the saving graces was, that was the oppressed minority in the Catholic-Protestant situation. But one of the saving graces was that we all had white skin. So as long as you kept your mouth shut, as long as nobody knew your religious identity, you were okay. How terrible it would feel. How terrible to think that someone might come here and think as long as I keep my mouth shut, I'll be okay. I hope that's not the case for any one of you.

[35:48]

And from the perspective of opening the mind, to remind ourselves that to hear something that confines our perspective Like when I read that article about the dismay of Barack Obama being re-elected. I was surprised, but then I thought, what a gift to be able to consider. What if the polar opposite of my preference, how do I take that in and consider it? And I don't think this means that we abandon as mere sophistry our point of view. I think that we pursue it with the added conviction that this world is all about us.

[36:55]

That our actions are not in opposition to someone else's rights or point of view. They are to uphold their rights and their point of view as much as our own. And this way of acting will endure because it's inclusive, because it lets go of the unrelenting, destructive dichotomy of us and them. Interbeing dissolves the static notion of us and them, the right point of view and the wrong point of view. In Japanese, there's a term that's new nanshin, and it's flexible, adaptable mind.

[38:02]

That we have our point of view, we have the courage of our own convictions and the willingness to act on them, and we are open to learning more. And this is the mind of Zazen, too. that we sit and we are being taught the nature of the unique person we are, we're being taught the nature of self, we're being taught the nature of the human condition, and we're being taught the nature of interbeing. The zazen awareness Meeting the moment is always an open book teaching us more. And then hopefully we can relish that which seems to confound our convictions.

[39:12]

That which seems to challenge what I want it to be so. want it my way. Can we see that? Can the very activity of being challenged open us to a new inanshin, you know, a more flexible, a more engaging, a more adaptable, a more inclusive way of being, that we can include all of ourself, in our practice and not divide ourselves into our own virtue and our own demise. And can that inclusiveness of interbeing, can it include all of everyone? And as we start

[40:25]

to open to that possibility. That will help us release something tied inside of us. Some way that we're holding back because the world is not behaving itself. That the people in the world are not behaving themselves, that our own mind is not behaving itself. Amazingly, within the physiology of our own being, within the physiology of letting the breath breathe the body, of letting the body sit upright and settle.

[41:29]

The enactment of the nature of what is is starting to be realized. Not that we'll figure it out, not that it'll fit within a concept, Experienced. The word Zen comes from Jan, which comes from Jan, which comes from Jana. Absorption in what is. This is the practice. Experience the experience. It's being experienced. And so today, almost 80 of us are spending this beautiful sunny day in the basement. And each of us will have an amazing unfolding of being alive.

[42:47]

Some people at the end of the day will say, that was so blissful. And other people will say, that was like hell. And many of us will say, it had some of both. And actually sometimes I couldn't tell which let it be, whatever it is, however it is, in any particular moment, to let it be a singular as Thich Nhat Hanh's sheet of white paper. And as multiplicitous as when we sit together like that and we settle in, we can feel each other.

[43:59]

When you come into the Zen, though, you can feel the awareness. Don't ask me to explain that. That's just the nature of interbeing. And if you're not one of those who are sitting in the basement, well, interbeing is everywhere. Everywhere you look, everything you feel. everyone you speak to. So enjoy. Thank you. 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. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving.

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May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

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