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. Good evening. Good evening. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Kyoshin Wendy Lewis. And I... Is that... Thank you. I know it's going to be loud. And I'm a priest at Zen Center, and I've lived at Zen Center for many years, including several years at Tassajara. What I was going to talk about tonight is ethics, and in particular I'll be focusing on the fifth precept on intoxication, and that will be also related to technology.

[01:05]

I think we often think of ethics as kind of limiting and implying something negative about our lifestyles and our choices. It seems like ethics or morality can challenge our self-expression and even our freedom. But what I think ethics really is, is giving a context to a few questions like, who am I? What am I doing? And how shall I live my life? So the book I'm going to be referring to about technology called The Great Reversal, How We Let Technology Take Control of the Planet, It's by David Tabachnik, who's a political scientist in Canada, and he's kind of political scientist philosopher, I would say.

[02:12]

And in that, he writes that the word ethos was originally used to describe the shared ancestral den or burrow of animals. So it's translated as a custom place, seat, station, abode, stable, as for horses or other animals, disposition, character, temper, custom, and morality. So what ethics can be understood... as a system for living together with other people in a small enclosed space. So how would we do that? Well, you know, this is how we are living all the time. And so the basic thought about that would be, well, you'd want, if you're going to be living so close together, it would be a good idea for people not to harm each other.

[03:18]

and also to take responsibility when they did cause harm. So that would mean that the group would continue. And I think this is also the basis for the Ten Commandments. They came out of these problems that this group was having, you know, traveling through all these places in the desert and everything. And so what are all the things that... challenge community or destroy community. And so that's what the list of commandments are, and that's what the list of the precepts are. These are the things that can harm or destroy community. So in a sense, it's this acknowledgement of interdependence, that what we do and how we live is always, we're always being impacted by others' behavior and impacting others with our behavior and our thoughts and our assumptions and so on. So I really like to work with the five original Buddhist precepts, and they are, I undertake the precept to abstain from the taking of life.

[04:24]

I undertake the precept not to take that which is not given. I undertake the precept to abstain from misconduct in central actions. I undertake the precept to abstain from false speech. And... I undertake the precept to abstain from liquor that causes intoxication and indolence. So studying and applying these precepts is always fraught with ambiguity because you are caught in this whole moving parts situation of life. But at San Francisco Zen Center, the fifth precept is stated... I vow not to intoxicate mind or body of self or other. So we usually associate that with substances like alcohol and drugs. And those two substances are harmful, but they're also healing. So they're used for treating illness, including mental, emotional illness.

[05:27]

And they're addictive, partly because they help. And they provide relief, and they seem to be or they can be cures. But then what I think happens in addiction is that masks pain, distress, anxiety, and the losses that are part of our human condition. And because of that, it sort of prevents us from addressing them in a developmental way. So my father was an alcoholic, and that was very hard on my mother and my siblings and me. And both of his parents were alcoholics. And he didn't really have an easy life. He had asthma and all kinds of other things. So, you know, in a certain way, I sort of got to a point where I felt like I understood him.

[06:29]

Unless... what do you call it, blaming and that sort of thing, even though there was a lot of harm, still I felt some empathy. So even though I've never been much of a drinker, there were a few times in my life where I actually purposely got completely drunk because of something that was happening. Once it was because... I was in a relationship that wasn't going so well. And so, of course, I fell in love with somebody else, right? And I just was torn and troubled and, you know, wondering what to do. So that's what I decided to do. I got absolutely so drunk. And then the wonderful thing was the hangover because in both states, I couldn't think about all the things that were bothering me. And that break... actually allowed me to kind of move on and deal with things in a different way. So this odd way that that kind of use of this substance actually helped me, which was odd in a certain way, but also true.

[07:44]

So we can be a little bit narrow-minded in working with this precept, and so we have to always be careful about that with the precepts, sort of squeezing things down and yet also understanding what they're saying. And I think there's many types of intoxication and addiction. I mean, 12-step movement has really made that clear. about all the different ways you get involved in avoiding pain and anxiety and extending pleasure and ease. How do we exaggerate the pleasure and dull the pain and negativity and boredom and distress, discontent? And I think there's also intoxication that can be part of our spiritual life. Sometimes we can look at teachers and sort of inflate them and almost become addicted to their teaching and their manner and their views of reality.

[08:57]

And also by our experiences in meditation, sometimes the elation or these experiences of peace or being kind of high and all that stuff. Wonderful as it is. I think it's important, actually. And also just by the idea of spirituality and community. Sort of get, like, think that that's the best way and, you know, get ideas about it and stuff like that. And there's hangovers to that. It's like, oh, oh, that's not what it... It isn't so... much like that. You know, the high passes and so I think this, you know, noticing that dynamic of how intoxication works and in the midst of the hangover, seeing what information there is there too, like not just clinging to those wonderful experiences and the wonderful teachers and teachings and that sort of thing.

[10:04]

And I think in spiritual life or experience that hangover is something that in a sort of formal way is called the dark night experience. And the purpose of the dark night is to kind of wean us from our addictive realities and from this drama. of our ego-based life and perceptions, our busyness, our habits, and so on, how we keep engaging with things in the same way and then finding the same disappointments, and then we try to change, but it turns out we're doing the same thing again, and all that kind of stuff. And this weaning can be unpleasant. And it can feel like loss rather than freedom, which it actually is the sort of movement of the dark night is towards freedom.

[11:12]

So one of the first insights of the Buddha was the middle way between self-torment and self-indulgence. And I think the fifth precept is a good one for examining that. So there's these positive aspects or applications of intoxication and negative ones, but we can examine when those become tormenting or self-indulgent and when we're in those things rather than saying, oh, no, I'm here, or oh, no, I'm here. Just say, oh, this is taking me this way. Now it's taking me that way. What can I do in this side? What do I do in that side? And I think the middle way can also be applied to an ethical perspective of politics and philosophy and culture.

[12:15]

And even though we can't move backward in time, it's always possible to apply a reconsideration of ethics. to the present and the future. And this is what Tabachnik is addressing in The Great Reversal. He examines how technology and its developments have become the basis for a definition of culture and living standards instead of being at the service of those aspects of life. And it was kind of interesting when I thought about talking about this coming down here, I thought, is this really something that they want to talk about or hear about? And the person who drove me down had been living at Tassajara for a while, and this is exactly what he was talking about. And I thought, okay, okay, you know. And then I came down and the IT guys were here, and I was working on the website of Zen Center while I was down here, and all that kind of stuff.

[13:18]

So I thought, well, you know, it's here, so... So I think technology sort of encompasses intoxication because it seems to be a solution or to have a possibility of solving our human problems and distresses and diseases. And at the same time, of course, it's technology, and technology always creates new problems. whatever stage technology has been at. And it also has its hangovers. So one aspect of increased emphasis on technology is that it shifts the type and level of stress in our lives as well as the environment. So it's created, you know, leisure time for some people, but it also... sort of increases our indolence.

[14:19]

You know, our work for many of us is sitting in front of a computer or we get engaged with our emails because we have responsibilities. And so we'll sit in front of the computer and, you know, be checking our emails over and over and over again. Oh, I've got to check my emails before they turn the, you know, power off. all this kind of thing. And this indolence of sitting, sitting all day long staring at the computer, and that's our engagement, I think is something to consider in terms of what is the meaning of my life, you know? And how do I also get away from this kind of intoxication and absorption? and see, you know, they say, you know, you should look out several times while you're doing your computer, but we don't, you know, we're like working.

[15:22]

So I think some part of the stresses of technology are related to meaning. To one thing, you know, is a constantly improving world and more leisure really sort of our most hopeful direction. And then, you know, if technology can solve a lot of our dissatisfactions and so on... How do we value those improvements in terms of our immediate and future life and the long-term future of all the people who are coming after us, hopefully, and the planet or the Earth? Martin Heidegger, who Tabachnik refers to, wrote an essay called The Question Concerning Technology.

[16:31]

And he posits that technology's main intention is the maximum yield at the minimum expense. Yeah, very practical, right? But the minimum expense includes human effort. So it's minimizing human effort for this maximum yield. And what Tavačnik is talking about is, he says, the great reversal... is that humanity is willing to sacrifice its judgment to technology's expertise without considering the cost of the loss of good judgment in relationship to technology. So he talks a lot about good judgment, and this is something related to virtue ethics and things like that some of you may be familiar with. So Tabachnik thinks that addressing the reversal or the loss of valuing good judgment in limiting the permeating presence of technology is imperative for the well-being of humanity and the planet.

[17:37]

He writes, of course in the real world we want the best of both. Yet unable to escape the overwhelming demands of our modern technological society, it often seems there is no choice at all. It is a reversal because we have flipped our priorities, placing the impetuses of technology above our judgment about what makes for a good life. The major consequence of the great reversal is the narrowing of human thought and action so that they fit within the confines of our technological society, leaving us unable to think and act upon new ideas that may stand outside of its powerful demands. Now, I'm not sure that's completely true, but it sort of sounds like that might be part of what happens. I think technology is mesmerizing and it's promising.

[18:38]

I used to work in publishing, and I thought, yeah, it's really great that you just press a button. You don't have to write all this code for... every single document from scratch. It's just you choose your font and the size and what margins you want, and you've got your document instead of all that. But I do think something's kind of been lost in publishing. I feel there's some sort of relationship to text... I can't quite put my finger on it, but I feel it when I'm working with documents that I receive and all that kind of stuff. So I'm not quite sure what it is or whether it's just the way the world changes. It could be just that, but it's different. So I think...

[19:39]

It's easy to imagine that even if technology doesn't have a lot of answers now, it will in the future. And on the other hand, ethics or living a meaningful life and how to live with other people is full of uncertainty and ambiguity. So how can technology and our kind of ordinary living with other people talk to each other? in a more creative way. So one thing I've thought about is how there's this desire to live longer lives and I've asked people who've talked about that. Okay, so we get to live to be 150 and who doesn't get to eat because the people who... can afford it, and these life-extending whatever processes or something have some kind of more access to it.

[20:48]

And more and more people whose lives are extended, then don't we need more water and food and everything? And so trying to understand, of course, we want to live longer and have healthier lives, but what is the... What is the cost of it? And the ethical cost as much as the sort of ordinary cost. And, you know, of course this is happening already, but... Tabachnik says, we live in various ways attempted... We have, in various ways, attempted to treat the ups and downs of the human condition... as simply a condition that needs some sort of cure. And I think in an ethical way, the difficulties and joys of our lives are kind of a source of aversion and longing, but they're also a resource for character development and self-understanding and meaning.

[21:56]

So again, how do we kind of want things to be our way and wonderful and good and satisfying, and yet also want that sort of edge to things that allows us to understand ourselves and develop some character and have meaning. And, you know, of course technology also... is developing ways of killing people. So that's the other side. And there are accompanying consequences, I think, to Heidegger's description of technology's ideal of the maximum yield at the minimum expense. Because most of us who have relatively good or high standards of living are not really generally thinking about people who are not doing so well.

[22:59]

And often the work that they're doing that's detrimental to their health and their life is to our benefit. And I read somewhere that almost no one is willing to reduce their standard of living in order to benefit others. So we're caught in this human sort of always sort of being pulled in these different directions. So Tabachnik writes, we can neither accept all new technologies nor prohibit all new technologies. We are forced to choose between them, yet lack the decision-making ability or the good judgment to do so. So these promises of technology are appealing and frightening, and there's this underlying addictive quality, you know, that it's going to provide consistency, stability, and progress.

[24:00]

And solve the human condition. So back, you know, talk about the fifth precept, intoxication. has qualities of both creation and destruction, and so does technology. So in a certain way, we can use this precept to kind of work with the qualities of technology that are beneficial and detrimental or destructive. So I think one of the reasons that's difficult to address intoxication is the loss we feel when we stop or interrupt any kind of addictive behaviors and tendencies. And in Buddhism, the medicine for that sense of loss is called renunciation. And I think there are the ambiguities in that as well.

[25:06]

And that is the kind of poignancy that... underlies our intention to stop or interrupt these addictive behaviors and tendencies. So the three questions related to ethics that I proposed, who am I, what am I doing, and how shall I live my life, I think can only be transformative in the context of the unresolvability of living in this world with all All these people, some who do and some who don't, see things our way. And there's a story, one of the stories about the Buddhist life, he says, I can do two things. I can meditate and I can wait. And when I find myself getting caught in...

[26:08]

sort of dramas, normal, you know, personal, habitual dramas. I try to remember that and remember renunciation. And renunciation is not about getting rid of anything or escaping avoidance or that sort of thing, but I think it's an attempt at humility. And it's an attempt at humility because You know, it's just... We don't really know what humility is because we always, you know, it's just, it's very elusive. And if you claim it, of course, you're being egotistical. So you're not humble. So anyway, that's kind of what I was meant by an attempt at humility. And that is basically accompanied by a lot of embarrassment and a certain amount of humor. Um... In the novel Pride and Prejudice, which I'm guessing most of you have heard of, Jane Austen, one of the characters who I think doesn't get very much sort of analytical attention, his name is Bingley.

[27:22]

Anyway, he says these very sort of sweet little things sometimes. And he says, nay, this is too much to remember at night all the foolish things that were said in the morning. Mm-hmm. And, you know, we are going to remember some of those things. But I think it can also have a lightness to it. But it's a very poignant sort of lightness. And poignant, I looked it up just today because I thought, I know that word feels like, but what does it mean? And it comes from the Latin and French word meaning to prick or what was the other word? Sting. So it's evoking some sort of memory, but it has this little pinch or sting to it. So sort of this little pain in it. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center.

[28:23]

Our Dharma Talks are offered free of charge, 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.

[28:38]

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