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. So good evening, everyone, and welcome again to San Francisco Zen Center's Online Zendo and Uta Hall. As Kodo said, my name is Kyoshin Wendy Lewis, and this evening I'm going to be talking about the end of the year as a beginning. I often give a talk at the end of the year, so there's something about the transition that I really appreciate. There is just... Many of you know there are lots of traditions and different calendars for something that would be called the New Year.

[01:06]

So in the Judaic tradition, there's Rosh Hashanah, which is New Year's, and then 10 days later, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. And the way that works is the... End of the year is time for repentance, atonement, and forgiveness. And this is both regarding monetary debts and then personal disagreements and difficulties. So what happens is God writes your fate for the next year on Rosh Hashanah, and then 10 days later on Yom Kippur, it's sealed. So this is the changing of the year is accompanied by the sound of a ram sworn called the shofar. And what the verse, I guess you would say, that goes with that is sleepers, wake up from your slumber, examine your ways and repent and remember your creator.

[02:18]

So transition, you're noticing. what you're doing with your life. So in the Chinese New Year tradition, there's rituals that include deep cleaning the home and then setting off fireworks before there's a celebratory meal. And at this time, the time of New Year's, there's more fireworks set off than at any other time of the year. And then in Japan, New Year's is now celebrated based on the Western calendar, but there's also the Lunar New Year and similarities to the Chinese celebration where there's house cleaning and special foods. And we include that in our celebration by eating buckwheat noodles, which is one of the traditional foods. And at midnight on December 31st in Japan, they...

[03:22]

at Buddhist temples, and we do this also, the bell is rung 108 times. And one of the symbols of that is for the 108 earthly temptations. Again, we're reminded of some sort of our relationships with each other. That's sort of where morality comes from, how we care for ourselves and others. And they also... the bell is sounded as calling for this renunciation of worldly deciders. So all of these celebrations or acknowledgments of the churning of the year, and this is true in a Western tradition, are accompanied by noise, loud noise. And the purpose of the noise is partly to call the attention of God or the gods, and to call the attention of all of us to this transition, to pay attention to the passing of time and how we're living our lives, and also it's to chase away evil and demons.

[04:40]

There's also an agricultural aspect to New Year's celebrations, and in the Western tradition, The big feasting was based on eating the last food that was in storage before it went bad. And then drinking beer and mead and those sort of things when they were at their later stages of fermentation. So they were much stronger. So we think of, you know, like at New Year's in the Western tradition, there's lots of drinking. But it's actually, that's the source of it, is this, just because everything was so fermented by then. So at the end of the year, again, you're familiar with this, you know, there's a tendency to review our lives and what has happened over the previous year. You know, its impact, its meaning, personally and, you know, collectively.

[05:46]

And to consider... how we're going to move forward. So, you know, whether it's been a good year or a not so good year or a terrible year, there's a tradition of, you know, making our New Year's resolutions, planning to finish projects, hoping for things to improve, or, you know, thinking of improving one's health or wealth and happiness. Those are things that often go together with New Year celebrations. But it actually turns out that being too positive or optimistic is not as great as we think. Our brains are actually wired to respond to our environment with enough critique of reality to learn new ways to address challenges.

[06:47]

particularly related to survival in a historic sense, but also to refresh our viewpoints and our sympathies and our understanding. So this critique is stimulated not so much by things going well as it is by various types of discomfort, such as sadness, fear, loss, guilt, and apparently feeling a bit gloomy actually encourages us to be more generous to others. So this, of course, is nuanced by things like chronic pain and systemic injustice and similar things like that. Yet there seems to be evidence that being overly optimistic can impede healing and recovery and a bit of pessimism and expression of anger can help prevent heart disease and stress-related health conditions as well as to help reduce the time required for recovery from illness and surgery.

[08:10]

So it's interesting how Like I think of it as kind of almost our lazy way of wanting to be so comfortable and happy and have everything we want and how that turns on us in some way. So, you know, you sort of get lethargic and sort of discontent without knowing why. It's just a kind of low energy or something like that. And actually these kind of... things that happen to us that we might not exactly like are actually stimulating our brain to consider how to respond and how to create some new energy and involvement. So I just find it wonderfully mysterious how unconscious we can be

[09:12]

about all the things that are going on in our body and mind. There's all these subtle processes, talking to each other, your nervous system, your digestive system, all this stuff, and we're just completely unconscious of it most of the time, and it doesn't even need our attention. But all of this is happening, and it's affecting us, affecting how we see things, how we respond. So one way, one instance of this that I've experienced or thought about is when, you know, you're studying or trying to learn something or doing research or writing. I've done a lot of these things. And so I've been curious, you know, like, and I read that. you actually use a lot of caloric energy when you are doing things like that.

[10:17]

I mean, you can sort of imagine that that's the case. But we don't usually think that so much in terms of something where we're sitting and reading and considering and writing and that sort of thing. We do think of it if we're involved in some sort of physical activity. We think, oh, well, there's a point at which you need to stop or you need to rest so that you can take the next lap of your bike ride or something like that. You need to drink water. You need something to eat. But we don't usually think about it in terms of doing something like studying. But it really does help if you don't sort of let it be a distraction to drink some water or eat a piece of chocolate or something like that. while you're doing these seemingly sedentary activities. So I think caring for this body-mind, rather than splitting our attention between the body and the mind, can actually help in developing a productive practice and meditative life.

[11:31]

So a significant part of our body-mind is our emotional practice, life and interpretations of our experience. So our New Year's resolutions tend to emphasize kind of idealized versions of happiness and success and losing weight, that sort of thing. And that's very reasonable and understandable. Having some goals, having some intentions, you know, you can do that at any time, but we sort of this is kind of a time where we think about those kinds of things just conventional way. And yet, you know, we're very complex social beings and our happiness and success are intertwined with everyone else's and with the wishes and expectations that others have that are sometimes in contradiction to ours or very unlike ours.

[12:33]

And yet we're all, flinging to these ideals of how we would like things to be and what our happiness looks like. So recently, I visited a friend in Carson City, Nevada, and I saw a book about Kit Carson, who Carson City is named for him, but he didn't actually live there or or even visit, as far as I could tell. But he was famous. So they used his name to name their city, like a lot of places are named for people. But the book itself was a historical biography, and it's called Blood and Thunder. And this was a term they used to describe these fictional accounts of his life. Blood and Thunder novels, they called them.

[13:37]

And he once kind of wryly commented about one of them. Well, those things may have happened, but I wasn't there when they did. So they were just these fictional adventure stories. And they described him very unlike the way he actually was. He was very small. probably because he grew up poor and didn't get a lot of nutrition. But anyway, they described him as this, you know, big muscular guy and stuff like that. But he was actually born on a fairly poor farm in Missouri. And then he ended up going west to work as a trapper when he was pretty young, a teenager. And then he became an extraordinary guide and tracker. He was friends with Native Americans and Native American tribes, particularly the Utes.

[14:45]

And his first wife was Native American. And they had two children, and she died young. Out in those circumstances, a lot of things can happen. and people died young often. And his second wife was Mexican Spanish, and he lived in the area of the United States around Texas, and that area that was actually part of Mexico at the time. And he spoke and understood Spanish and several Native American languages, he seemed. He had a facility with that. And so he often served as an interpreter. So here's this... very complex life. He negotiated between working for the U.S. government, particularly for the military as a guide and interpreter, and also living independently out in the frontier. That was very precarious and dangerous.

[15:49]

And because of those circumstances, he was often torn by his sense of loyalty to the United States, to other trappers who he knew and worked with who were from a variety of backgrounds, particularly to the Native Americans who he considered to be the true owners of the land that the United States was trying to take from them, along with their sort of understanding of and way of life. So our lives often hold a fair degree of moral ambiguity. And there are choices we make about how to navigate that ambiguity. And that's usually through the lens of what is most beneficial for ourselves and reflects our own values and benefits those who are like us. So how do we both question that and appreciate it?

[16:51]

One of the main instructions in Buddhism is to examine how the functioning of the mind can be cultivated to the point of ease that is not dependent on circumstances. So the emotional aspect of a spiritual path is referred to as faith, and the social aspect is referred to as morality. And shraddha, which is the word for faith, is etymologically, implies the necessity of engaging the heart, the center of our life, and the sort of courage, core, heart, core, and willingness to follow a path that includes transformation. So faith has both mental and physical components.

[17:55]

For Kit Carson, I think faith was a form of self-confidence and this ability to juggle a bewilderingly complex situation of the meetings and misunderstandings among several cultures. The trappers, as I mentioned, the people who we refer to as settlers, Native American tribes, those living in the Mexican-Spanish territories in the U.S. military. All these people he was close to, supported, and also was at some kind of odds with off and on. So I think it'd be easy to judge him, you know, from our sort of armchair perspective on how he handled all this, because he sometimes, you know, would guide the U.S. military to go and attack Indian tribes and that sort of thing, or Mexican settlers.

[19:01]

And then on the other hand, he would do the opposite. And it was a very interesting mix for his reality. But I think people who, like my impression of me, is that who care about fairness in a certain way. He was concerned about the devastation of Native American lands and culture. And people like that rarely have a lot of power. It's sort of because of that nuanced sense of reality. And so it's hard for them to make a difference in some sort of policy way or governmental or legal way, I guess you could call it. So I think his morality was both nuanced and hindered by his circumstances.

[20:12]

And morality is reflected in the aspect of our New Year's resolutions that asks us to re-examine our our values, and ideals, and the impact those have on both our well-being and the well-being of others. So the Buddhist proposal requires an effort made by a person, me, you, everyone, the result of which is surrender, to an insight into non-self. So surrender, though it sounds kind of passive, actually requires a great deal of effort and renunciation, as well as spiritual humor. As we let go of things, actually we can see some humor in our clinging, in our fear, and so on.

[21:15]

So it's kind of an insight. into our resistance of our mind and our heart to revelation, particularly because change is inevitable. So our spiritual endeavor begins with awakening and continues through humility and application of mindfulness to awareness of how non-self functions as liberation. with a combination of pleasure, relief, and this poignancy. So the Zen master Yamada Muman commented, intrinsic wisdom begins when there is no longer anything strange or unusual. So...

[22:16]

the strictures and limitations of conventional reality shift into the arena of play, of freedom. So insight into non-self is to no longer base one's life on aspirations, desires, aversions, or worldly feelings. So I think, you know, Kit Carson, in this... You know, I was so surprised to read this historical biography and sort of get this sense of him as a very unusual person, but also unusual in the way he responded to the circumstances of his life. So he was uneducated and illiterate, and he only knew those stories of the novels that were written about him because people read them to him, including his children. And he lived in the wilderness and learned how to do that in a very respectful way, as well as a very practical way.

[23:27]

So he always rode mules rather than horses. And he traveled thousands of miles back and forth across the United States because he was very trusted by so many people that they asked him to be a courier. for very confidential news going to Washington, D.C., for money, for reports, for maps, and all kinds of things. So he just went back and forth and back and forth across the United States. And in the course of all these things, he learned to navigate this world, his world, through being able to read directions, and landmarks and have a feel for those things. So this sense that he had, I had of him as not just taking from his environment and his circumstances, but also listening and observing and learning something about what was going on.

[24:38]

And he didn't seem to have any aspirations to fame or power, anything like that. And he actually avoided them as much as he could. And he was known for that wry humor and for not being a big talker. So I thought that there's this Zen saying that I think is kind of appropriate to his circumstances. So it goes, before one begins to practice, Mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers. As one continues to practice, mountains are no longer mountains and rivers are no longer rivers. And then mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers again. And of course, again, doesn't mean they're the same as before.

[25:40]

So you can go into the mountains. And then they start to speak to you, if that's the right word. And so they're no longer what they are, and then they are again. So I think awareness in that sense of mountains being mountains, then not being mountains, and then being mountains again, is what emerges. as pure wisdom. Whatever it encounters, it sees it for what it is without the interference of vexation, which is kind of how I was interpreting Kate Carson's relationship to it. He didn't relate to things in that way in order to be famous or in order to get something out of it. That was just the way it worked for him. And this incredible wisdom he had,

[26:43]

This facility with languages, this facility with being able to track, being able to guide people through the wilderness and that sort of thing. This listening and observing ability. So in Buddhism, faith is not about believing or not believing, but a willingness to doubt or question one's preferences and prejudices. And part of the reason for that is to open oneself to other views, wider realities, that sort of thing, but not in a negation and sort of switching way, but having those things relate to each other. So I think that what Buddhism and Zen teach, is that the beauty as well as the suffering of the world can only be truly related to from the perspective that goes beyond our self-centered and self-relating views and preferences and ideals, yet not negating them.

[28:02]

And this is the dialectic or conversation of our limited view with these greater workings of reality that we can't, completely accessed, but they're still working, and we can know that and allow ourselves to listen for that response to us. So, in terms of the theme of my talk, at the end of another year, we can look backward and forward. I think, with deeper intention and awareness and make our vows and our resolutions that can refresh us and the world and offer this sense of beginning again. So this effort is difficult, but it's also playful, as I mentioned. And within, it's playful within the workings of emptiness and non-self.

[29:09]

And the beauty as well as the horror of the world as it is. So I would say, you know, let us dream about the possibility of everyone having food and drink. Even that, you know, to celebrate this new year and this wish for a good year and good health to all. to people talking and listening differently to each other and to the world. And I think not to be discouraged by anger and pessimism and anxiety and pain, but to include them as information and as hints to an access to information and part of this never-ending conversation between art limited view, and greater reality.

[30:14]

So, thank you very much. 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.

[30:40]

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