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. Good evening, everybody. Welcome again. It's good to see you. Very happy you're all here. And for those of you who don't know me, my name is David Zimmerman. I'm a priest resident here, and I am also leading the spring practice period. We have a six-week spring practice period, which we just started last week, so this is the second. We're going into the second week of the spring practice period, and our particular focus of the practice period is what's called the Four Brahma Viharas, or the often kind of they're called the divine abodes, or the four immeasurables, or the heavenly abodes.

[01:05]

And these are four tremendous qualities, or states of mind, and they are kindness, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity. And these are basically, these four brahmaviharas are called the Buddha's heart teachings. The essence of his heart teachings and the ones that point us most directly to true happiness. And they are aroused, brought forth, cultivated by specific meditation practices. So that's what we're studying. These four particular hearts, love spaces, capacities within ourselves, and how it is that we can connect to those, cultivate those, and then extend those qualities outward to others so that we feel our deep sense, the truth of our interconnectedness at a much more fundamental level. And tonight, I want to talk about the first of the four Brahmaviharas, which is metta, which I've been translating as kindness.

[02:17]

And let me just read you a brief quote. This is from a book called On Kindness. by Adam Phillips and Barbara Taylor. And the quote is this. The kind life, the life lived in instinctive sympathetic identification with the vulnerabilities and attractions of others, is the life we are more inclined to live and indeed is the one we are often living without letting ourselves know that this is what we are doing. People are leading secretly kind lives all the time, but without a language in which to express this or cultural support for it. Living according to our sympathies, we imagine we will weaken or overwhelm us. Kindness is the saboteur of the successful life, we think. We need to know how we have come to believe that the best lives we can lead seem to involve sacrificing the best things about ourselves and how we have come to believe that there are pleasures greater than kindness.

[03:32]

Kindness has become our forbidden pleasure. The book is basically about how our culture no longer appreciates and celebrates kindness. We have kind of... turned away from it, valuing it in some way. And metta, this is a little rocky back and forth here, so we'll see what happens. I'll be doing this all night, just rocking back and forth. It's kind of soothing, actually. Maybe I'll just continue doing this. Okay, so Stay focused, David. Metta is the necessary foundational attitude for developing all the other Brahma Viharas. So it's considered the primary in many cases, not always. Sometimes equanimity is considered the fundamental base for practicing the four loving abodes.

[04:35]

But oftentimes we start with metta. And it's not so much described as an emotion or a transient state, but as an abiding, a home where our hearts and minds dwell. So there were some reasons I titled the practice period, at home in the boundless heart, coming home to our true nature, coming home to the sense of presence and whatever it is that home evokes for us at a deep heart-opening level. The word metta is a Pali word. And the other word that's often used is maitri, which is the Sanskrit word. And they are variously translated in different ways. Kindness, goodwill, friendliness, benevolence, or loving kindness. And often the word, also the word metta is derived from the Pali mitta, M-I-T-T-A.

[05:36]

And mitta means either friend or gentle. Sometimes it's translated as gentle friendliness or friendly gentleness. And so metta, you could translate it as immeasurable friendliness as well. And I found it interesting, the word mitta also can mean son. So this idea that we depend on the son's warmth to survive, and we also depend on friendship to survive. This quality of extending outward the warmth of friendship from all beings externally, but also turning the light of friendship inward and nourishing ourself in the same way. Mitta draws on an earlier Sanskrit word, mit, M-I-T, that translates as growing fat with kindness. Wouldn't that be a lovely thing? We could all grow fat with kindness. or spreading out, spreading out in the sense of spreading out in the world kindness, reading it and out in some ways.

[06:44]

And metta can also be a verb in the sense of befriending. Can we befriend? So metta is kind of all-inclusive befriending, a fearless kindness rooted in both mindfulness and insight. And with the spirit of Meta, we learn to befriend ourselves and all people who come into our lives, all events, all circumstances, even those that are difficult or challenging. As an aside, as I was kind of just looking up the word friend, a curiosity, I found that the etymology goes back to kind of the old Gothic or East German, Frigions, and that word means to love. So even in the etymology of the word friend is love. And even more interesting to me, in the old English, freogon, F-R-E-O-G-O-G-A-N, means to make free, to free, to honor, to love.

[07:55]

And I think this is something that's essential about true friendship. In true friendship, it's liberative. We free others from to be exactly who they are, and we free ourselves also to be exactly who we are. So that's kind of the basis, this foundation of, I think, what we could say is true love. A sense of respect and honor, and this is what, when we talk about Dharma friendship, this is what the Dharma friendship is all about. Supporting each of us to find our true freedom, our true liberation. So, Loving kindness, you probably have heard, is most frequently used in translation of metta. But it has a tendency, just the word loving, to have a sense of affection and love, almost a romantic love, that was not actually in the original early Buddhist teachings in terms of how that metta was being referred to.

[08:58]

I actually appreciate the word kind, the sense of kindness, because its etymology is derived from the word kin, K-I-N, which includes the sense of family, belonging, relationship, right? And so the spirit of metta is opening the heart and extending the sense of belonging and inclusion to a wide circle of concern and care as if we would our own family. So how do we see everyone as our family, this family of deep belonging, and relate to everyone from that sense? Metta is basically an act of goodwill towards beings, including oneself, and sincerely wishing for their welfare and happiness as we would for our own beloved family members. And regardless of however you want to translate the word metta into English, metta is metta.

[10:03]

I'm finding myself just wanting to use the word metta because it frees it up to have its own kind of deeper felt sense in my being. And what's most important is that we actually seek to know and understand experientially what it means to embody metta. What does that embodiment feel like? And how do we then expand that sense of deep feeling and share it with others? There's an old friend that I want to share with you. And I think a number of you probably have met this friend before, heard them speak. And this friend is a poem. And it's called Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye. And so this is how this particular friend speaks of kindness. Before you know what kindness really is, you must lose things. Feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth.

[11:08]

What you held in your hand, what you counted and carefully saved, all this must go. So you know how desolate the landscape can be between the regions of kindness. How you ride and ride thinking the bus will never stop, the passengers eating maize and chicken will stare out of the window forever. Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness, you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho lies dead by the side of the road. You must see how this could be you. how he too was someone who journeyed through the night with plants and the simple breath that kept him alive. Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. You must wake up with sorrow.

[12:11]

You must speak to it till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows. And you see the size of the cloth Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore. Only kindness that ties your shoes and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread. Only kindness that raises its head from the crowd of the world to say, it is I you have been looking for. And then goes on with you everywhere like a shadow or a friend. So the sense that to really know kindness, we need to know suffering. We need to know sorrow. We need to know loss. We need to know difficulty, loneliness, regrets, hopelessness, despair. The full range of our humanness, we need to know.

[13:14]

I think the deepest, the most kindest people are those who have experienced, in some cases, the deepest sorrow, the deepest loss. And I'm thinking of the Dalai Lama, who I know has said many times, his religion is kindness. And that's what he believes in. He believes in the power of metta. And he expresses it and he practices it over and over again. And observing him, you can actually just see his embodiment of kindness, his embodiment of metta. I had the honor of meeting him in 1995 when I was in Damsala and actually got to shake his hand. And I have to tell you, I was floating on clouds for days afterwards. You know, this energetic quality, you know, of these hits, of these awake beings.

[14:20]

deep practice and kindness. It was just this powerful thing that has stuck with me. You know, the sense of friendliness and benevolence and light which he lives his life. And I think he, again, he embodies it so deeply because of everything he has, all the suffering he has lived through and the transformation that he has made of that suffering. So, each of the Brahma Paharas, has what's called both a near and far enemy. And these are obstructions to the correct of elements. So the near enemy of metta is selfishness or a conditional attachment of some sort. So this idea of you're coveting the happiness or the well-being for yourself, right? You'll only be kind to another person on certain conditions. If you do this for me, then I'll be kind for you. So something in exchange.

[15:21]

So there's a holding on in some way that's not a full expression of kindness, the generosity behind kindness. And the far enemy of metta is ill will, hate, or anger. So again, the far end of the spirit of generosity. Metta is a way to face anger, ill will, and aggression when those aspects have arisen in us, when those emotions have arisen within us, and also when we are confronted with others who are under those influences. So how do we meet anger and ill will in ourselves, and how do we meet it in others? I understand that the Buddha's first teaching on metta and how to express metta was basically a teaching on protection against hostility and fear. And to really say to another, I really wish you well.

[16:23]

And if you say that to another person, the other person is able to relax a little bit more. Because they have a sense that there's less for them to fear or protect. And fear, if you study it, is often the root of anger. Anger, I think, is always a masking emotion. There's always something below anger. And so to really look, what is the root of my anger, gives you a lot more information about what's really going on here. What belief or deep concern do you have? And we can be protected by genuine goodwill when we wish it to another person who might be angry or fearful in some way. So the first example of the Buddha teaching metta is from the Jakarta tales. I said that wrong. Jataka tales. I lived in Jakarta, so I always get those a little mixed up. In the story, a group of monks, Buddhist monks, were meditating in a forest during a rainy season, during an ongo, practice period, basically.

[17:33]

And there were also a number of forest spirits, sometimes they're called spirits, sometimes they're called devas, sometimes they're called demons, who were very, who felt displeased and displaced by the presence of the monks. And so they were very unhappy, upset, and angry. And therefore, they started tormenting the monks. And they would torment the monks while they were meditating by conjuring up all kinds of ghost-like images and scattered corpses around the forest in order to frighten the monks away. Right? And seeing these corpses, seeing these angry images and smelling the rotting flesh of the corpses, many of the monks fell ill and scared and they ran off. So they went back to the Buddha and told the Buddha what had happened. And they described the experience to the Buddha. And the Buddha said, well, you went without protection. This time, I will give you some protection.

[18:39]

some way to be armed. You need to be armed. And actually, it's a little bit, one of the translations I said, I read about protection actually says, you went without a weapon. For some reason, I can't quite see the Buddha saying that, but maybe he did. But this idea of something to protect yourself. So he gave them a weapon or a protection, which was the Discourse on Loving Friendliness, or basically the Metta Sutta. The full title was the Karaniya and forgive me if I'm butchering the Pali. And so he gave them this remedy and advised them to return to the forest to face the spirits or the demons and extend loving friendliness to them. And so the monks went back to the forest and they sat down. A lot of them were still very afraid. But when they were approached by these fearsome demons, the monks simply offered goodwill and benevolence, as the Buddha had taught them.

[19:43]

And he instructed them to say the following, May you be happy. May you be free from suffering. May you be happy. May you be free from suffering. And to the monks' surprise and relief, the spirits were transformed. They changed their attitude. And instead of causing trouble, they began actually to protect the monks from the other dangers in the forest. So once they were enemies, and then through offering metta, they became benefactors, protectors. So the practice of metta protects us in some way. And the thing is to recognize here that when facing aggression, either by angry spirits or other human beings, The emphasis isn't so much on protection as offending off literally physical attacks from others, although that's important. It's wise to take care of that.

[20:45]

And sometimes there are stories about how that does happen. But more so how metta is conducive to de-escalating the emotional and mental energy and views behind the other person's aggression. It de-energizes it. as well as it de-energizes our own fear. And also, probably the most important aspect of metta is that it's conducive to protecting our own mind from becoming destabilized and ending up, for us to end up reacting ourselves from a place of aggression or fear, disturbing our own clear mind and clear view of metta. that's probably the most important thing that the Buddha teaches. Protect your own mind from causing any kind of harm. The Dalai Lama described an exchange that he had with a Tibetan monk who had been in prison for 18 years at a Chinese labor camp.

[21:53]

And some of you may have heard this before. The monk described his experiences to the Dalai Lama And the Dalai Lama, on a few changes, I should add, the monk said that he had really faced some tremendous danger. And the Dalai Lama asked him, well, what danger? What kind of danger did you face? And he was expecting it was probably some kind of physical danger, abuse from the actual prison guards. And the monk replied, many times I was in danger of losing compassion. for the Chinese. I was in danger of losing compassion. Can you imagine the depth of practice? To be beaten and really still think that that would be the most horrible thing that could happen to you, to lose your sense of compassion for another human being. In the Kakakupana, I think I've said that right, Sutta, the parable of the Saul, is the translation of it, the Buddha tells his monks that even when bandits

[22:58]

are savagely severing one's limbs with a double-handed saw, one should not allow ill will to rise in them. Otherwise, they will truly lose what's most important, their clear presence and stability of mind. So, aim not to forsake the abode of love. Ah. Metta is a love that can never become hatred. The love-hate dichotomy actually simply does not apply in this situation. Metta is ultimately a protection against the dualistic perception. The perception such as self and other, subject and object.

[24:03]

And It's really a protection against any kind of dualistic perspective inhabiting the mind. So when we don't see other in the sense of someone who is separate, and we don't believe in this sense of a separate self, ourselves, our own being being separate, then there's not a schism. There's not this distance. that arises between us. And constantly, we don't need to feel the need to protect or defend ourself or one side or the other. And instead, our actions, when we don't have this minor duality, come from this deep sense of interconnectedness, of interbeing. There is a classical four-part way that Metta is taught in terms of how it is offered.

[25:07]

And this is actually a little bit of a later teaching. It's not offered in the early Buddhist teachings. It's offered in the fifth century by Buddha Gosa in the Vasudha Maga, the path of purification. And the practice traditionally begins with ourselves, reflecting on our own deep wish to be happy and at ease, and remembering that other beings also share in this wish. And we say to ourselves, may I be happy. May all beings be happy. But starting with ourselves. And then as we kind of radiate this quality of wishing for happiness for ourselves, we radiate out kindness and goodwill and compassion next to those we care about, to family members, to people we love, to friends, to people we have a connection to. And then next, kind of the next... circle of sphere extending outwards is those we might feel neutral to.

[26:10]

Those we don't really know, we don't have one feeling one way or the other about them, but we include them in extending our metta. And then finally, we extend it out to those we have difficulties with. Those who, if you will, feel the furthest from the radiant sunlight of our hearts. How do we include those in the far reaches that we feel the most distant from? And the sense is to basically remove all barriers that we might have between us and another person. Between us, our own heart, and the opening of our heart in a way that's porous and deeply inclusive. And so we operate on a wish to see everyone as Buddha. Everyone shares in our Buddha nature. Everyone shares in this this light quality of awareness and lightness that we are. And an important aspect, therefore, of practicing and understanding metta is that it's done so without discrimination between friend or foe.

[27:22]

Metta is practiced without self-attachment as well. So if you start practicing metta, probably one of the first things you begin to recognize is there's some resistance for you, some form of resistance. It might be a sense that feeling of unqualified, that you feel unqualified for a sense of goodwill and kindness to yourself, or that you feel someone else is unqualified to receive that kindness and friendliness in some way. So it's often easier for us, perhaps, to first include those we care about most, we feel connected to. And that's probably usually not a problem. And we can do that, but sometimes we may have some qualifications about our friendly members just do the right thing, then we'll be willing to offer them metta in some way.

[28:24]

As long as they don't annoy us or try to compete with us in any way. And then, or if our particular circumstances aren't negatively going to be impacted in some way, if we extend loving kindness to another person. It might be more difficult to extend loving kindness to someone who is arrogant or rude or selfish. That's a challenge for us. And also, particularly for those who have hurt us or harmed us in some way. That's probably the most difficult. I want to just clarify that metta isn't about condoning the harm or disrespectful behavior of another person. So we're including the other person in our wish for their goodwill and happiness and well-being. But that doesn't mean that we are saying their behavior, if it's harmful, is okay in any way.

[29:26]

And so I, as a gay man, generally for me to condone those people who have harmed me, who have spitted me, physically abused me, who have disowned me, who have tried to take away my human rights as well as my legal rights in some way, I may find it very difficult to want to extend metta to them, to feel a sense of closeness and friendliness with them. I can still do that even if you know, they have acted in ways that are harmful because what I'm looking for here is really this aspect of can we all share in a sense of creating a society and conditions that are supportive of all of us to be happy, well, and free in some way. And part of doing that is really also clarifying what are healthy boundaries. How do we take care of ourselves and how do we take care of each other?

[30:28]

By establishing healthy boundaries. Healthy boundaries are loving kindness. And when we can be clear on what our boundaries are, then we're able to actually be, in many cases, more intimate with each other. And so our desire to influence someone's behavior for their own good or for the sake of others... If that's our desire, then that's a good place to start in terms of metta. But the Buddha advised against withholding metta in some way in order to punish another person or to manipulate them in some way. So he taught that each person is heir to their own karma. And that karma is the result of their own unwholesome actions in some way, as well as their own wholesome actions. So our job, we leave their karma to them. The universe will take care of that in some way.

[31:30]

Our job is to clarify them what it is that we need from them in order to be fully seen and included and to work for the conditions that is equally done for all of us in some way. For me, one of the places that I really have to practice metta is when driving. I have, I confess, and it's a little embarrassing, this thing is I get in the car, I get behind the wheel, and it's kind of a, what is it, Dr. Jacqueline, Mr. Hyde situation? And I'm always puzzled by what is happening when that comes up for me. But I get really kind of selfish and self-absorbed behind the wheel. It's kind of about me. I have a place to go. I have to be in a certain time. I want to go somewhere. And if you're not... supporting me to get where I want to go in the time and the speed that I want to go, you're in my way, right? And you're against me and this is bad and I get, and I just like, my mind just turns, you know, into this, I hear myself kind of, you know, saying things to myself in the car and I'm like, oh my God, I can't believe I just said that to myself, right?

[32:36]

And I'm so happy no one else can hear me, you know, because I would be really shocking, right? But these feelings of annoyance and aggression come up And I really study, what is that about? And it's something, I think the root is, where's the place for me? There's something, somehow getting behind the wheel brings that up for me. What about me? Am I going to be okay here? And I don't know why it happens in a car. Maybe it's because I'm in this little cocoon and it just kind of reifies this sense of separation. But to study that, and actually actively, I actively try to do meta-practice when I'm behind the wheel because I know this aggressive part of me comes up, this ill will, that underneath there, there's this fear that I won't somehow be regarded on the road. I won't be included and taken care of. My needs won't be seen and supported. So it's really quite fascinating. And I have to kind of work on befriending myself in the process to say, oh, there's that again.

[33:41]

OK. It's OK, David. You're OK. Calm down. Shamatha, calm abiding here. Practice, relax. And really focus also on not seeing other people, other drivers as jerks. Not try to point out everything they're doing wrong. And not actually noticing the ways that I'm actually not being respectful on the road. So it's a great mirror for me. I don't particularly like it as a mirror, but it's a great mirror. So... It's said that the proximate cause of metta is seeing the lovableness of beings and their good qualities. And Buddha nature is our fundamental goodness. It's beyond measure. Walt Whitman said, I am larger, better than I thought. I did not know I held so much goodness. Are we aware of our fundamental goodness?

[34:43]

Do we connect with that first? Do we honor that? Do we acknowledge it in some ways? So metta is a form of love that's not contingent on the other person being lovable. It's not conditioned on them being lovable. Can we love the other person like we often say, as a parent will love their child. Even though they're a parent, the child makes lots of mistakes and acts in ways that we don't approve of, we can still love them even if we don't love their behavior. And one of the most difficult aspects, though, of this unconditional love is to send it towards ourselves, to love ourselves unconditionally, to really treat ourselves as we would a beloved. And we can be very unkind, harsh, judgmental, and unloving to ourselves. And to truly practice, we need to heal the divisions within ourselves first.

[35:44]

So whatever lack of friendliness we feel for ourselves because of our sense of pain or suffering, anxiety, depression, fear, loathing, scarcity, all those feelings, any sense of lack within us, anything that keeps us from feeling whole needs to be somehow resolved. And probably the most common manifestation of internal unfriendliness and hostility is is what you probably know as the inner critic, right? It's this kind of inner demon or kind of spirit that constantly harangues us with messages about not being good enough or not doing things right, right? And I, from my own childhood experiences, I've had a very strong inner critic that I've, over the years, have learned how to befriend, you know? And really trying to study what does this inner critic want? What is it really? What do they want?

[36:46]

And one of the things that I've discovered is the inner critic is really, you know, it's a misguided approach to wanting the best for us. You know, the inner critic is really trying to protect us, take care of us, look out for the best of us. But they don't do it in a very skillful way, right? So rather than treating us with kindness and encouragement, they berate us in some way. We might have probably incorporated in some way whatever voices of criticism that we heard as children from our parents or from others somehow. And so we kind of repeat that in some way. So even though the inner critic may wish for our deepest happiness and well-being, it just kind of, being unskillful, recreates a sense of harm and trauma. And doesn't actually allow us to... Acknowledge our best effort, what we're trying to do. So one of the things that we're encouraged to do is turn around and face the demon of the inner critic.

[37:52]

Turn around and meet it. And befriend it. Get to know it. Talk to your inner critic. Ask it, what do you want? What do you really want? How do you really want to support me? What's your greatest concern? And send it. Send your inner critic metta. Send it loving-kindness, just like the monks did in the forest to the demons. Send your own inner demon loving-kindness. And I was telling the tea group tonight, sometimes to just stand in front of a mirror and do loving-kindness, doing metta to ourselves in the mirror as we look at us can be very healing, very beneficial. Okay, I'm going to wrap this up. there is a, in the mythology of Buddhism, there have been many Buddhists throughout time and space. And we're probably, we are in the current age of Shakyamuni Buddha, the historical Buddha that we know about, the sage of the Shakyas.

[39:01]

And he is said to have predicted that the next Buddha will be Maitreya. And Maitreya's name comes from the Sanskrit Maitri, which also, as you know, means friendliness or metta. And so this future Buddha will rise out of the friendliness that all people feel for each other. The Buddha of the next era will be the Buddha of universal love, compassion, and kindness. And this Buddha won't be necessarily personified by one figure like the historical Buddha has been Thich Nhat suggests that the next Buddha will be Sangha. And the next Buddha will be all of us in our practice of loving kindness, of compassion, of appreciative joy and equanimity, bringing forth this space, this sphere, a society, a culture, a culture, a world that is expressing Buddha qualities.

[40:08]

So as we're practicing now, we are laying the seeds for the next Buddha. We are the ancestors of the next Buddha. We are simultaneously the next Buddha. We are Buddha, practicing to become Buddhas, practicing to support everyone to realize that they're already Buddha, and then to manifest Buddha in all conditions of the world as best we can. And I'll wrap up with a quote from Jack Kerak. Practice kindness all day to everybody and you will realize you're already in heaven now. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma Talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive.

[41:17]

Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, please visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[41:32]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_96.49