This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Okay, well, this is embarrassing. Just found out how old my eyes are. I actually can't see what's printed on my page here. Can somebody turn the lights up? Just a little. Ooh. Yeah. Thank you, David Bryan. That's good. Much better. Good evening. So I understand the... microphone was fixed, but if it starts to pop, let me know and I'll just take it off and talk loud.

[01:01]

Okay. This evening I would like to take up one of the fundamental propositions of our practice, and that is the idea that we can end suffering This is the Third Noble Truth. It's prominent in the Heart Sutra, right there at the beginning. It's either implied or explicit in almost everything we chant and is the subject of countless sutras and commentaries that we can, in fact, end suffering. This is perhaps the fundamental principle of Buddhism, And by any measure that you care to name, this must be considered as one of the most foolishly optimistic principles to ever come down the spiritual pike.

[02:09]

That we can end suffering is ridiculous, right? Have we read the headlines? But, but, Avalokiteshvara seems to think this is possible. She sits down deeply practices Prajnaparamita, and by the end of one poorly punctuated run-on sentence has somehow managed to relieve all suffering. Now, I don't know about the rest of you, but it doesn't quite work that way for me. It takes a little bit longer than one sentence to figure out how to end my suffering. So what I would like to do tonight is to share with you my top 10 list of how I have managed to cause suffering in my life and what I have attempted to do about it. So the first thing to do is to back up to the second noble truth and to look at the causes of our suffering.

[03:10]

And so I'd like to share with you my top 10 list of how Valerie has managed to cause her own suffering throughout her life I do have to make an editorial comment here and say that number one so eclipses the other nine that it's almost in a category by itself because it is far and away the biggest way that I have caused my own suffering throughout my life. So two through ten sort of pale in comparison to this first one. So here we go. Number one, the major way that I have caused suffering in my life is is by measuring my self-worth by how much I get done every day, by the length of my to-do list, not only the length of my to-do list, but how many things I can cross off it. This has caused major suffering not only for myself, but for a lot of other people. It's called suffering by being really, really busy. Number two, believing others when they tell me that I shouldn't be feeling what I'm feeling.

[04:17]

Number three, saying yes to everyone's needs except my own. Number four, not being able to even ask what do I want, let alone being able to answer the question. Believing that if I could just get it right, they would love me. Believing that the reward, the rest, the heaven is in the future or somewhere else. Continuing to work when I'm sick, tired, and have no more to give. Forgetting to play and worse, forgetting how to play. Not crying when others are around because I might upset them. And finally, being afraid to say, I'm afraid.

[05:24]

I need you. I love you. So these are 10 major ways. I'm sure there's millions of others, but these are 10 major ways that I have managed to cause suffering for myself and probably for a lot of other people throughout my life. So now that we have the list, of how we've done this. Now what do we do about it? Well, Avalokiteshvara suggests that we deeply practice prajnaparamita. And I don't know about you, but for most of my study of Buddhism, I haven't had a clue as to what to deeply study prajnaparamita means. I understand some of those words, but... You know, what is that? So I'm going to offer a definition of Prajnaparamita that the Buddhas and the ancestors may not agree with, but as Ikkyu would say, it's good enough for me. So here's the definition that I would like to offer of Prajnaparamita. Prajnaparamita is the willingness to stay with the question, what is it that thus comes?

[06:35]

Prajnaparamita is the willingness to stay with the question, what is it that thus comes? I have heard it said, and Agent Roshi, please correct me, that of Avalokiteshvara's thousand hands and eyes, that if she actually focuses on something or grasps something, she actually loses the ability to be compassionate to all. So to stay with the question of what is it that thus comes, in a sense, keeps us open. It helps us to not form fixed beliefs. The other day in the Heart Sutra class, we were talking about a cup. and how that looks like a fixed entity. I actually don't think the cup is the problem when we get into fixed beliefs or firm discriminations.

[07:43]

It's more when we have those fixed beliefs and firm discriminations about each other, about other people, about we know what an Allison is or a Becca is or a Devin is or a John is or a Schuyler is. And we kind of get locked in to what's coming through the door or to what our spouse is. for example, of what our child is, rather than perhaps waking up every morning and saying, what is it that thus comes? So I find this question really helpful, especially when I'm suffering about someone, to realize that I really don't know who they are and I really don't know what this collection of them is. To be able to stay with the question, what is it that thus comes, helps us to not form the fixed beliefs and the firm discriminations. It helps us to not fall into what I would call the tyranny of should.

[08:49]

I'm going to get back to should in a minute. I think it's a major cause of causing suffering. And it helps us not to become sort of tight and narrow about what we think the truth is. So what is it that thus comes? If we don't stay there, if we don't stay with that question, then we do get fixed discriminations. Here's what might happen. This is a rather graphic passage from the Lankavatara Sutra that I like a lot. This is Bodhidharma's favorite sutra. So long as these discriminations are cherished by us, we go on attaching ourselves to them. And like the silkworms, go on spinning the thread of discrimination and enwrapping ourselves and others in it. And we are charmed by their poison. Ooh, what a lovely phrase. Not only do we cause our own suffering, but we like it.

[09:51]

That's something to investigate. Nagarjuna says it a little bit more prosaically than the Lankavatara Sutra, where he says... If you want to avoid the suffering caused by firm discrimination, stop making firm discriminations. Easy for him to say. So this is such an interesting question of not only how do we cause our own suffering, but then, maybe not to put too fine a point on it, we actually like it. Because it helps in some way. That it perhaps is not particularly useful, but it perhaps keeps us from having to ask, what is it that thus comes? I want to use one example before I go into talking about how I addressed a couple of these items that I just read to you about how I caused my own suffering. I want to use an example of where we can stay with that question in a very mundane task that we all know inside and out, and that is the dishroom.

[10:54]

So the dishroom, well, is that a place of suffering? I don't know. It just is something that kind of has to get done every day. Why in the world would we need to stay with the question, what is it that thus comes in the dishroom? Well, let me give you an example. So it's 7.10 in the evening, and you've just changed the dishwater, and you've just put up the sign that says, please scrape your own dishes. And out of the small dining room, which you forgot, comes a 20-person conference with all their dishes. This is called suffering, okay? It is, right? And right at that moment, right at that moment, when you are tempted to use some very un-Buddhist word right there, you can come up with your own. I won't say anything into a recording. Right there is a perfect place to say, what is it that thus comes? and not rush to the firm discrimination of these people are late, didn't the guest program tell them they had to have their dishes, da-da-da-da-da-da, you know, whatever, blame.

[12:03]

This is kind of where we go when we get a fixed discrimination is we tend to go to blame pretty quickly. So staying with this question, what is it that thus comes even in the dishroom? So I applied this question to a couple of the ways that I had caused my own suffering that I read to you earlier, and I want to tell you about what the result was on that. So the first one, measuring my self-worth by how much I can get done every day, the length of my to-do list, and how many things I can get crossed off it. So what is that? What was that about? What is it that thus comes in this need to be busy? all the time in the need to have lists, in the need to check stuff off, which actually in some cases becomes more important than whatever it was I just got done, just the checking it off. Well, the first answer to that question was that I needed to stay busy so I would look competent.

[13:06]

Now, I do have to say that I had a lot of help in causing my own suffering with this getting a lot done piece. I worked for corporations, and probably many of you have worked for similar corporations or similar organizations that have rating scales on their performance measures. You've all probably seen these and lived through them and suffered through them. And the middle one, which has an awful lot of connotations for grading in school, tends to be meets customer expectations. Remember that one? Meets customer expectations. Well, since it's in the middle of the scale, What grade does that equate to? Let's see. Right. So to meet customer expectations, at least in the corporations I worked for, was almost to fail. You really needed to get the next one up, which was exceed customer expectations or the next, preferably the next one up from that, which is like to really exceed customer expectations or to outlandishly or fantastically exceed customer expectations.

[14:15]

So I did have some help in this, I must admit, in getting a lot done so that I would be perceived as competent and people would think well of me and they would think that I was indispensable so they wouldn't fire me. So I got into this trap of getting a lot done, but it began to sort of nag at me that that wasn't the real reason. that I was trying to get a lot done. So to return to the question, what is it that this comes? What is this need to stay busy? And for those of you that were here for my Way-Seeking Mind talk, you might anticipate the answer, and that is that the answer was, I stayed busy so I didn't have to feel. because it was too scary to feel. And as long as I stayed busy, I didn't have to look in here.

[15:17]

I didn't have to look at the dark places, and I didn't have to be quite so afraid. There was some fear about being perceived as incompetent and getting fired and all of that, but that wasn't nearly as scary as having to look inside. So that, in fact, may not be the final answer for me on why to stay busy. But that was really helpful to stay with that question of what is it that this comes in this busyness? Why am I doing that? So when I woke up to the fact that I was staying busy to anesthetize myself so that I didn't have to feel, that was actually kind of a relief. And actually just to know that relieved some of the suffering. Just just to realize why I was doing it relieved some of the suffering, which was just amazing. There was actually some sort of a lightness of being able to say, okay, I understand a little bit better why I'm doing this.

[16:23]

I'm staying busy so I don't have to feel. So that was very helpful to know that. Two of the others that kind of come together, all of these, of course, are related, were saying yes to everyone's needs except my own and believing if I could just get it right, they would love me. Those two are quite intertwined, and they have... again, sort of the presenting symptom of saying yes to everybody and thinking if I did that, that they would all love me, was all kind of wrapped up in some of the same reasons as the first one, and that is that I wanted everybody to like me and to perceive me as competent and helpful and all the normal stuff that was listed in number one. But when I got to staying with what is that about, what is it that thus comes in saying yes to everybody what I discovered was that a fundamental core answer to that was that I didn't believe that my own needs deserve to be met.

[17:29]

I didn't think that I deserved to say yes to me. And I actually have a Green Gulch story that goes along with that that took me quite a while of living here, actually, to get over. I would very often take a walk to the beach at sunset because it's a lovely time, as you know, to go down to Muir Beach at the sunset. And there were times, realizing at this moment that this is still hard to admit, there were times when I would turn away from the sunset right at its most beautiful moment because I didn't think I deserved that beauty. It's pretty bad, isn't it? to not think that you deserve beauty that is just there in front of you. But I was so out of touch with my own needs, and I so didn't think that they deserved to be met, that I turned away from the sunset.

[18:34]

So I had some help in getting into this one of what is it that thus comes. and finally letting my own needs come up. But it took a struggle. I was in therapy for a long time, and one of the exercises that my therapist asked me to do was on the weekends when my daughter wasn't with me, he asked me to go into the bathroom and ask the person in the mirror, what do you want to do today? And it was six months before I could answer that question without a should. It was six months before I could actually finally touch what I wanted to do. Because I had this huge list of shoulds, like you should go to the grocery store, you should get the laundry done, you should cook for the week, you should do, you know, mend Bonnie's clothing.

[19:45]

The list was huge. of all of the shoulds, which of course is also related to the anesthetizing myself so I didn't have to feel, right? I mean, all of this stuff that we cause our own suffering is all related. So it took a great while to realize that I actually had some needs. And my needs were around needing to be in nature, needing music back in my life because it helped me to feel. and just needing to be able to sit and not do anything. What a luxury to do that. And what I discovered when I finally began to look at my own needs was that if I could give myself the gift of meeting a need or two of my own, then it actually gave me some more space to say yes to other people and not develop the dreadful and almost incurable disease that one tends to get if you ignore your own needs for too long called the resentment flu.

[20:56]

Anybody had resentment flu? Anybody want to admit that they had resentment flu? This is where you say yes and you do what other people want with a smile and you hate it. and you resent them for asking and you resent them for having needs. This is a terrible disease, and it's insidious. It grows and it grows. So basically what happened was that I was saying yes to way too many things for some very unhelpful reasons, some reasons that didn't... let me look at myself, didn't give me the space to look inside, didn't give me the space to turn the light inwardly to illuminate myself and find out what was going on. So I'd like to share two of my solutions with you. One you can already guess, and that is that after reading a book by Marshall Rosenberg on... Nonviolent Communication, in which he calls should one of the most violent words in the English language.

[22:01]

I actually made a vow to get that word out of my vocabulary. I really did. I made a vow to get the word should out of my vocabulary. Should is a judgment. It's an imperative. It covers up what you really want to do. And I learned to replace that every time I had a should, I learned to replace that with what is it that thus comes? What is behind the should? Is it to do it to gain approval and love and appear competent in that whole list of all those ways that I was causing my own suffering and probably making other people miserable too? So what is the real word that should is masking? This was a really helpful exercise for me to get that word together. to deliberately get that word out of my vocabulary. And to this day, there are still some times when I struggle, when I go, but it fits, but it fits.

[23:06]

I need to use that. But in most cases, I've discovered it actually doesn't. And what is the request there? What is it that thus comes? What is the request? And what I discovered was when I actually took a look at the shoulds, like you should do the grocery shopping and you should do this and you should do that, what I actually discovered was my shoulds were in most cases wrong. So the worst time actually during the week to go grocery shopping is on Saturday morning because all other parents, single parents who don't have their kids or parents who do have their kids are all at the grocery store. And it's a terrible time, actually, to go shopping. So Saturday morning was not a good time. I discovered, actually, that Tuesday evening is a really good time to go to the grocery store. So my initial should, that I stood in front of the bathroom every morning on the weekends and said I should do this, actually wasn't even true. It wasn't even right.

[24:07]

It wasn't helpful. It wasn't any of that. The should actually caused suffering, right? So it was really good to kind of get rid of that word and to find out what really needed to be done. You know, I should go to the grocery store. Well, is the refrigerator actually empty? Did you look? No, right? Okay, it's not. I have plenty of food. So an examination of should was for me a very helpful thing to do. The second thing that I did was I learned with much fear and trepidation to develop what I call the art of the wholehearted no. which means that it really is okay, I discovered, to every once in a while say no. Now, let's examine this. What is it that thus comes, right? So what was my fear in saying no?

[25:07]

Remember the list? Appearing not to be helpful. Appearing to be incompetent. Is this beginning to sound like a broken record? Yeah. Yeah. Right. So all these reasons, for all the reasons I was saying yes and resenting it and being crabby about saying yes, I thought, well, what would happen if I said no when I really needed to? And all I can say is a lot of very wonderful things happen when you really have a wholehearted no, meaning you actually don't think about it. A few days ago, Agent Roshi was clarifying about when we might come to the zendo or might stay in bed because we're sick or we're tired. And I think what she said or what I heard was that if there's any doubt in your mind, just go. But if you really are too sick or tired to be in the zendo, you know, right?

[26:16]

You just know. That's the wholehearted no. When you just no, and there's not any sort of internal debate, it's just not the most effective thing for you to do at that moment. And what's even more helpful that I found out was a friend of mine said to me, well, remember that every no is a yes to something else. Now, this is really helpful. Right? So if you decide that you are too sick or tired to come to the Zendo and you have this wholehearted no about just staying there, what are you saying yes to? Yourself. Right? And your own needs and what might help you actually become stronger to be able to come back wholeheartedly into the Zendo. So I discovered some very nice things about a wholehearted no. And that is... that it's obvious to me now as a bodily sensation when I need to say that. It's not a mental exercise up here.

[27:18]

It's actually a bodily sensation right about here, a certainty that no is the right thing to say, because I am willing to take the flack that I might get for saying that. And that's kind of the metric, in a sense, that I can use is, am I willing to take with somebody arguing with me that I have just said the no? And the delightful thing is, is that when I have said a wholehearted no, the person on the other side perceives it as that, and they don't argue with me. And they say things like, oh, okay, I'll ask somebody else. In other words, it turns out to not be this humongous deal that I thought it was going to be to say no, and they were going to hate me, and they were going to think I was incompetent, the whole list, right? So what I've discovered is that people are very accepting of the wholehearted no, and they can figure out some other alternative and are quite willing to do that in most cases.

[28:21]

Or they can come back with a question of saying, I understand you can't help me now, but how about later can I check in with you? And that actually seems fine because the wholehearted no is not going to last forever. So this ability to say the wholehearted no has been a gift because what I've discovered is that every once in a while, if I can say the wholehearted no, that actually gives me a much bigger capacity to say the wholehearted yes. So it was very helpful in some of these ways that I caused my own suffering to really stay with that question of what is it that thus comes? What? What is it? Not here, but here. Or maybe down even in here.

[29:22]

What is that about? Where is the fear? Where is the shame? What is it that thus comes in our suffering? Not rushing to try to fix these things. I mean, one of the things I could have said in keeping my humongous to-do list, I had a Franklin planner. Any of you old enough to know what a Franklin planner is? I mean, now it's, yeah. Okay, so now it's like they have electronic versions of this, right? But it's like I had pages of to-do lists and prided myself on that. Of course, one solution to that, if I had jumped right to the solution, was to get a bigger planner, right? Okay, so, you know, just more space to write down more stuff. But to stay with that, what is this need to stay busy? What is it about causing my own suffering? How am I doing that? And what is that about? What is that about? What is that about?

[30:25]

What is that about? And then when you get into it and you can deeply answer that question, then some real solutions begin to come up. The solution to anesthetizing myself was not to get a better planner, it was to feel. and to allow that. So we actually have lots of suggestions right here in this room that will help us to examine our own suffering and to stay with this question of what is it that thus comes. And I'd just like to read some of them to you. I think they'll sound familiar. Do nothing that is mean or that the wise would reprove. Cease from practice based on intellectual understanding.

[31:27]

Do not administer pros and cons. Take a deep breath. Move slowly and quietly, calmly and deliberately. Concentrate your efforts single-mindedly. Do not use your time in vain. Quietly explore the farthest reaches of causes and conditions. Cultivate infinite goodwill. Wholeheartedly sit. We chant these every day. And back to the me that would make a huge to-do list, so the Valerie of 15 years ago would have taken all of these, put a little checkbox by them and said, oh, check, do nothing that is mean at the wise or reproof. Check, sit wholeheartedly.

[32:30]

Check, do this. Check, do that. Check, take a deep breath. Well, I can't because I'm just, you know, doing too much. I'm so out of breath. So how about taking one for a week? Do nothing that is mean. Or that the wise, actually the whole metasuta, right? But that's way too much, right? And then you could just kind of check them off. Be strenuous, be upright, be sincere, like a mother, like a child. You know, you can do all that. In a way, the metasuta is great. In a bad way, though, for people like me, it's one big long to-do list. And it's like, ah, how do I do this? So we have help right here in our own chant book, actually. We have help in lots of books out there. I'm sure that you have your favorites. I have two. Pema Chodron has two, When Things Fall Apart, and The Places That Scare You are two good ones for examining the way you cause suffering for yourself and others. I'd like to recommend one more book to you. It's cheap.

[33:31]

It's on Amazon. But it's not on any... Buddhist reading list that I found that it is one of the most succinct graphic descriptions of how we cause both all joys and all suffering in our life. The book is Harold and the Purple Crayon. If you're a parent, you probably read this to your kids. Catherine clearly did. Yes. If you're a kid, maybe your parents read it to you. It was written back in 1955. Crockett Johnson, this is the 55th year of printing. So Harold is a toddler, and Harold has a purple crayon with which he literally draws his existence. And Harold wants to go out for a walk, and so he draws the walkway. And he wants to have a forest, but... since he's tiny, just a little forest. So he just draws one tree, and because Harold loves apples, he draws an apple tree, and it's full of apples.

[34:36]

But he's really afraid somebody's going to come along and take the apples, so he draws a dragon to protect the apple tree. But unfortunately, the drawing of the dragon turns out to be kind of scary. So Harold's crayon begins to shake, And that shaking motion creates waves, which then Harold falls into the water that his crayon has created. And he goes under. And for a moment, you know, almost all is lost. But then he remembers and he draws a boat. and he climbs up onto the boat, and he draws land so that he can get off after he's done sailing, and he's kind of hungry, and he likes pie, so he draws a picnic blanket and draws, you know, nine kinds of his favorite pie, but he can't finish them all, so then he draws a porcupine and a moose, I think, to come along and help. So this is our life, right? We draw the picture just like... Harold is, or in most cases, or in some cases, we not so much draw the picture as we paint ourselves into a corner and then forget that we're holding the paintbrush.

[35:38]

So this is called suffering, right? If we draw a picture, that of the scary dragon, and then forget that we drew it. So I find the story of Harold very helpful. It doesn't even have page numbers, 25 pages. Maybe as a reminder, so I realized that I drew the picture called Busy Valerie. And I drew the picture called Undeserving Valerie. And the point is not to get rid of the pictures. Maybe that's the job of the Buddha. I'm not sure. But I think us sentient beings, the job is to be careful and mindful about which picture we choose to draw. We all probably know some people who, in some very tough circumstances, have chosen to draw a hopeful picture.

[36:41]

And I'd like to just raise one perhaps fictional example and one non-fiction example. A movie that touched me very deeply that was made 10 or 15 years ago, Roberto Benigni, an Italian filmmaker and actor, made a movie called Life is Beautiful. I know you probably saw that. And it was about a father and a son who ended up in a concentration camp in World War II. And the father chose to draw a picture for his son that this was a game. And the picture was that if they played the game just right, at the end they would win and the American tanks would roll through the gate. So the father created this elaborate game. of redrawing all the things about the concentration camp into pieces of the game. Now, you get the sense in the movie that the little boy knows exactly what's really going on, but he plays the game.

[37:50]

And what happens at the end? The American tanks roll through the gate. So... It is possible in dire circumstances, even then, to paint a picture that will help us get through it, perhaps to lessen the suffering, if not to end it. Another example, this one was actually, it was from the headlines. You might remember several years ago that a gunman, I think this was how it was done, came into an Amish school and killed nine little girls in the school. Do you remember what the parents did? The parents of those nine little girls went to the family of the shooter and forgave him. They elected in one of the most tragic moments of their life to draw a picture of forgiveness. I'm not sure I could have done that as a parent.

[38:57]

And that has really struck with me, that they chose to draw a picture of forgiveness in the midst of what can only have been unspeakable sorrow. So it seems that it is possible, and you have done this probably in your own lives, to draw a picture that helps. Is it a delusion? Well, maybe. we can draw a different picture. On the other hand, the other side of the coin of the stories that I just told are people that we know that seem to have everything and yet choose to draw a picture that causes a lot of suffering. Paris Hilton, Eliot Spitzer, Tiger Woods come to mind. So The ability to stay, the willingness to stay with the question, what is it that thus comes?

[40:07]

Prajnaparamita. The willingness to stay with the ability, what is it that thus comes? Helps us to do two things. It helps us to deeply examine the pictures that we have drawn. And it also helps us to remember that we're the ones who hold the crayon that draws it. And then to perhaps draw a more helpful and compassionate solution. I invite your comments. Is that Sonya back there? Okay, sorry. I can't see that far.

[41:08]

Yeah, right. Yeah, the no didn't work or the to-do list really did help. Yeah. No. And I would actually even take the necessarily out of your statement. It doesn't work right away. It doesn't work right away. But in my own experience, what kept me going was that I was in so much pain that I was willing to stick with it because I didn't want to be in that much pain anymore. And I think I don't have a better answer than that. That's what kept me going, was that I was tired of suffering. And I was willing to stay with something that seemed to be helpful, if only, you know, sporadically and incrementally at first. So the antidote... It does take a while. We took a long time causing our own suffering and getting ourselves into that groove of doing it and not even thinking it was suffering.

[42:45]

It's not an overnight cure. This is why I think it's important to stay with the question of what is it that thus comes, because then you're not tempted to apply overnight cures, which in a sense just makes it worse. But yeah, it's hard. But these two things, the making the vow was really helpful. The vow not to use the word should. That was... Somehow for me, the power of saying I vow is even better than I promise or anything like that. That was helpful. But yeah, it does take a while. And I will say that on this end of those couple of things, it feels a lot better. I would say perhaps the suffering hasn't entirely gone away, but it's really come down. No, I didn't feel guilty. I was afraid. I was terrified.

[43:45]

I was really afraid I was going to lose love, just to bottom line it. I really was. I was afraid that they weren't going to like me and that they wouldn't come back. But right away, that was not the case. I can't actually remember anybody who ever got irritated with me because I said a wholehearted no. I can't. But it took me a long time to do it because I was afraid. I was really afraid. So good. Well, a to-do list is sort of by definition separating, right?

[44:46]

Because I'm more focused on doing than relating. So that's one that sort of instantly comes to mind. And if I'm trying to meet all of your needs and haven't got a clue as to what I need, then how do we relate on a shared need level? We don't, right? And if I'm doing things in order to get you to love me, then what capacity does that leave for me to load back? You know, it's, these, they seem, this whole, I mean, I could make a case, I think, for all 10 of them feeling, you know, they were separation devices because if I relate to you, then I have to feel. It kind of all comes down to that. I'm sorry, I'm sounding like a broken record or broken CD or whatever it is these days. Anyway, but yeah, it's not having to feel, not having to feel, oh, I want to feel, I want to feel, I want to feel, yeah. Yeah. there of living a happier and more satisfied life.

[45:56]

But I guess I always thought that what Abulakidesha was what we referred to in that teaching is more that as long as you can, as long as you still think that you can add your own suffering, It's still not a big problem. So I'm kind of surprised at the beginning when you talked about how you would end your own suffering, because I guess I wouldn't quite understand it. I never understood that it was something that was possible for me to end, but rather that the thought that I had could either cause It seems to me that things that I have done and thought and said have caused some suffering.

[47:18]

So I'm sorry, I'm not at the stage yet where I know how to take the I out of that equation. I get it that it's not just me and that I need help to do this, but I guess the only way I can say that is that I still have a sense that there are some things that I do and there are some things that I can stop doing. So I... I don't know how else to answer that question. It's not just me. It's a lot of help, and it's the reconnection, and it's the reestablishment of relationship. But just where I am, it just seems like I can contribute. I can be one of the 10,000. I am one of the 10,000 things that both causes and helps. That's just kind of where I am right now. I don't know how to better answer the question. I'm sorry. Yeah, I would agree. that once we do that, then we need to study that very idea.

[48:37]

Yeah. I don't disagree, and what I'm saying is that I'm not there yet. I'm still working on this new part. Yeah, but we're never going to be there. I mean, that's kind of, right? I mean, we're never going to be some other place. At least, I think I've never been there, except that I think I'm going to be... So maybe a different way to say what I just said is that I don't know how. I don't know how to do what you're asking. So what is the question again from your perspective?

[49:38]

What is the question again from your perspective? Well, the question that I had for you was whether you were considering that level of question. Because it sounded to me like what you were thinking that you could kind of make this list and then get all these problems and so forth. And I think The fact that I'm really not understanding your point just says that I really don't know what to do about it. I don't know where to go with it. Sorry. Please accept my apology. I'm sorry. Alan. Oh, I'm sorry. Alan and then Lucy. Just a question.

[51:03]

Yeah. I don't have an answer to that, I'm sorry. Catherine? The sign was, you know, positive, negative, emotional.

[53:04]

When I looked at what it was, I couldn't talk with you, but let me just talk to you now. I could do you think you were a little bit. I was really glad I slept with you. Just because Thank you. [...] Yeah, as they say in poker, I'd see your hand and raise you one.

[54:14]

And that is that I would say that quite often there's not a logical connection between that. And my own experience has been that sometimes the feeling isn't even quote-unquote mine. It's just what I've picked up in the room or just the feeling. So again, sort of not to necessarily kind of clamp onto it and say that it's my sadness or my anger or my irritation or just maybe even to just drop the I and then begin the question of what is that? I think once we say, you know, this is my feeling and that it's I, that's where that tightening of discrimination begins. So that's a really nice place right there, I think, where you did the sort of off into the windy feeling as a nice place to just see if you can slip the question in there to keep from getting tight.

[55:18]

Thank you. of the things that was both so difficult for me to do, and as I discovered so freeing for me to do, because I'm actually feeling it right now, is to allow myself to be incompetent. That is such a wonderful feeling. It's like, oh, thank goodness. I'm feeling totally incompetent right now to address Maya's issue, and it actually feels very freeing. So, I have no desire to rush up and find an answer. Melissa. Yeah, this sort of need to have an answer sometimes and a need to know rather than staying with the openness of the question.

[56:39]

I do think we go to the how and the why pretty quickly and kind of insert the question as one of those things that holds the door open, what do you call them anyway? Yeah, but I do think we have that question too, that question. tendency to kind of want to get to the answer. Can we stay with the question? That's hard. I don't know anything about the teaching of no suffering. I'm not qualified nor feeling anything the next time. but I'm just so on my next life show. ... [...]

[57:52]

And by the point of Harold or Life is Beautiful, you could paint a different picture about that. Call it something else. Get out of the way and let the crayon do the drawing. Get out of the way and let the crayon do the drawing.

[58:54]

See where it goes. I feel like I haven't seen you in weeks. Also through our attention is how outlandish that seems. Based on that info, I kind of expected it off that it was going to be against all . I'm not convinced.

[59:56]

I think this is actually related to the I don't know about myself. It's like, I don't know. I don't know. And just because it might be impossible doesn't mean it's not worth doing. If that's the picture you paint, it can also be very freeing. So I choose now to draw a picture of incompetence as freeing. I did draw it as suffering. Jean. Jean. Is this one of those I'm going to fall into 500 lifetimes as a fox questions?

[61:17]

Can change happen without? I'm having trouble imagining that right at the moment. Because that would be, in a sense, self-caused change, which is not making sense to me. So I guess I'll have to say a tentative, possibly wrong, most likely incorrect, no. Thank you. Alan? Yeah. Kind of the job of the bodhisattva, isn't it? To be in the midst of suffering and yet to still be helpful.

[62:20]

I was having a lunchtime conversation with somebody today who the question was something like, do bodhisattvas suffer or something like that? And it's like, you know, I don't know, given sort of the technical definition of a bodhisattva, but the bodhisattvas I'm around all day, which is all of you, seem to somehow... be able to still be pretty helpful even in the midst of suffering. So I don't know about the bodhisattva archetype, but it seems that we're all really doing our best and we are somehow managing to be helpful even in the midst of our own suffering, which seems pretty good. Maybe the best we can do right now, I don't know. But yeah, I think you can be in suffering and have pieces that aren't and could still be helpful. Thank you for your question. Is that Sarah over there?

[63:22]

I can only see about half of you. Exactly. Exactly. What is it that thus comes is a reminder of emptiness. Yes. Yes. The willingness... Another way to say what I said was the willingness to stay with emptiness.

[64:23]

The willingness to stay with the question. 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 sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[64:57]

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