This podcast is offered by San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. It's good to see all of you here. Are any of you here for the first time? Yeah, there's a few of you. Welcome. Good to have you here. This is our community temple in the middle of Hayes Valley. at Beginner's Mind Temple, and it's good to have you here. How many of you are aware of what happened with the women's soccer team in the last week? It's amazing what happened.

[01:04]

It's amazing what happened because in some ways it just felt normal. It felt like that's what should be happening. You have a grand event, you have the best of the world coming together, and they're all playing in the best stadiums, in international television. best athletes and we're celebrating them and that seemed normal and what struck me in the last week was this contrast of what things were like 30 years ago and how much change has taken place since then how grateful I am for this small social revolution if you will that in regard to women's sports in America. And when I say small, I don't mean to diminish it.

[02:09]

I just mean in the scope of all of the other human suffering on the planet. But this is a significant revolution, and it took a lot of effort. It took a lot of change, because there was injustice going on. In 1985, the women's soccer team played their very first game. 1985. Many of us in this room can remember 1985. This isn't something that took place, you know, a hundred years ago. This is 1985. And the only reason they were able to put together a team to play in 1985 is that they had women's college sports. And they culled from the different colleges around America and they found the best soccer players in the college arena and playing women's soccer at the college level. Because many of you might know that in 1972, Title IX passed, which guaranteed that all federally funded institutions must have equal men's and women's support for training facilities, for clothing, for equipment, for all of this.

[03:21]

And so 13 years later, now we actually have a robust program going on in America. And in 1985, we were able to put together our first team, and we barely put it together. The night before they went to play their first game against Italy, where we lost 1-0, they got their uniforms. And this is like a big event. If you've ever played on a sports team, you get your uniform. It's like you see your number. You see your name. You're like, I'm a part of something. I'm a part of a team. So imagine this. You're going to play a historic game that no one is going to watch. And you're getting your uniform. And they actually at that time didn't make women's soccer uniforms. So these, or if they did make them, they weren't really made to fit women, let's say.

[04:23]

The uniforms they gave them that were from the national team were actually men's uniforms that were the small sizes. And they just sent them to the women. So they spent the last night, before they went and played their first game, they spent their last night cutting up the uniforms and resewing them so that they could actually wear them on the field the next day and not have them be ill-fitting. Contrast that with what we saw last Sunday. A big change has taken place. The expectation has shifted where it seemed normal that they would show up in good-fitting uniforms in the best stadiums in the world on international TV. That seemed normal. And the second generation of women playing soccer in America... Megan Rapinoe, our star forward, was born in 1985, the same year that we played our first game. And our coach, Jill Ellis, she actually couldn't play soccer in her country.

[05:28]

It's called football in England, a much bigger game in England than it is here. But she couldn't actually play there. Her mother said, soccer is not ladylike. And there weren't any organized... club-level school teams, college teams at all. Her family happened to move to the United States in 1981 when she was 15, and she first got to play soccer at an organized level at that time. And so that is one of the reasons that this English woman was so proud to be our coach, was that this was the place that we gave her an opportunity to actually play a sport that she loved and that she was really good at. She even won a state championship in Virginia by the time she was 18. And now we have people growing up like Megan Rapinoe and like Rose Lavelle and other people on the team where we've always had a World Cup since they can remember. This seemed normal. A big social change had taken place.

[06:32]

A migration, if you will. A reversal of an injustice. that took a lot of people's time and effort and energy. And when we see injustice, when we see things that are adversity, that we are beset by, we want to change these things. And I know that there are many adverse things oppressive situations going on in the world right now. But the reason that this one struck such a chord with me was how much of a joyous occasion we were celebrating last Sunday, how great it felt, and how normal it felt, and how glad I was that somebody exerted effort to help this change actually take place. And then I thought about my gut reaction to wanting to change things.

[07:40]

I mean, how many times do you find adversity in your life? Things that you say, this needs to change. And sometimes it's just an instantaneous thing that you feel inside. It's like a gut reaction. It's reactive. It's like, this is wrong. This is wrong. You feel it in your body. This is wrong. This needs to change. And you want to do something about it. You want to take action. And then you look at the Buddhist teachings on cultivating tolerance, patience, forbearance, long-suffering. In many cases, non-action. Is this at odds with fighting for justice in the world? What actually is being said here?

[08:48]

We have the six perfections, as we call them. They come from the Pali Canon, which is a Canon, a collection, which is the oldest collection of Buddhist documents as far as it's... you know, extant breadth. And it was first started to be recited about 30 years after the Buddha died. Never really written down until about 450 years later in the first century AD. And in the Pali Canon, what evolved was this set of perfections. Originally 10, the six that we talk about in Mahayana Buddhism, the school of what the school comes from, is the perfections that we, as far as a heart and mind transformation, a perfection would be literally translated the other shore to transcend, to be somewhere else.

[09:53]

Like if I want to transcend this moment, what would the mental qualities be that I would need to take on in order to not escape this moment? But to not be overwhelmed by this moment, actually be able to be in this moment. You know what it's like when you have something that overwhelms you and you just can't take anymore, but you have to be an adult on the outside. So you kind of like, you know, inside you're like, you know, really stressed, but you're spilling over. You can't actually take it. And it's causing you stress. But what is it like when there's actually a transformation where you're transcending the moment? And these transcendent qualities that people try to cultivate in Buddhism are called the paramitas or the perfections, if you will. And like many of the lists that you find in Buddhism, as far as the three this and the nine this and the eight this, they end up culminating in the last one, which all the other ones support and all the other ones support each other.

[10:53]

And the last one is the perfection of wisdom. But the one I want to talk about this morning is is the perfection of tolerance, forbearance, and patience. Many Buddhist scholars and teachers over the years, going way back to Nagarjuna and even the time of the Buddha, talk about this as the fundamental starting place from which the other perfections rest. A certain way of being in the world with adversity, with injustice. The things that happen to us and happen to others and happen around us that are not fair, that are not right. How are we with those? It's what this perfection is actually working with, is cultivating inside a person to actually be with the thing that's happening.

[11:54]

where you don't have to be forced nice, let's say, but you can actually be nice or just be upright or just be somewhat calm. Now there's many ways in which this is talked about and it's talked about in a way in many Buddhist scriptures that can sound fairly extreme when read in today's modern context. This is a dialogue that goes back and forth between Shakyamuni Buddha and a monk. And this monk was going to be going out to a place where people were fairly hostile and he was worried and it was likely that there could be some adversity, some affliction, and maybe even some violence. And so he's having a discourse with the Buddha and about what might happen when he goes there.

[12:57]

What's his state of mind going to be against adversity and injustice? This book I'm reading from is written by Dale Wright. I highly recommend it. It's The Six Perfections. Many of you might have heard of it before. A brilliant book on some of the fundamental practices in Buddhism, subtitled Buddhism and the Cultivation of Character. So a monk asks permission of the Buddha to go to a barbarous region to teach Buddhism to cruel and abusive people. In interrogating him, the Buddha asks, If they abuse, revile, and annoy you with evil, harsh, and false words, what would you think? And the monk says, In that case, I would think that the people are really good and gentle folk, as they do not strike me with their hands or stones. So then the Buddha says, but if they strike you with their hands and with stones, what would you think?

[14:02]

And the monk says, in that case, I would think that they are good and gentle folk. As they do not strike me with a cruddle or a weapon. And the Buddha says, but if they strike you with a cruddle or a weapon, what would you think? And the monk says, in that case, I would think that they are good and gentle folk, as they do not take my life. And the Buddha says, but if they kill you, what would you think? And the monk says, in that case, I would still think that they are good and gentle folk, as they release me from this rotten carcass of the body without much difficulty. Freedom. And the Buddha says, monk, you are endowed with the greatest gentleness and tolerance. Go and teach them how to be free as you yourself are free.

[15:08]

These are Buddhist scriptures about tolerance, patience, forbearance. It doesn't feel like fighting for justice. what is the contrast that's actually going on here? One of the key things has to do with, as I'm sure that many of you have heard, the self and how the self is viewed as not a fixed entity or an independent entity, but a fluid entity constant arising that is different one minute from the next minute from the next second from the next minute. I often think of that saying that's on the rearview mirrors of every car.

[16:14]

Objects may appear closer than they are. Is that what it is or is it the opposite way? Closer than they, yeah. So, you know, The Buddhists were onto this a long time ago in regard to things that appear solid. But if you break the chariot down into its nine pieces, then you have nine pieces. But then if you break those nine pieces down into it, you keep going. And then, of course, now we know with our microscopes that are so powerful, you can get down to the smallest quarks and everything is moving and there's tons of space between it. I often think there should be a sign that says this universe appears solid and it's not. you might appear to be a fixed entity. Do you notice that when the Buddha was asking the question of the monk, the monk's response started with, I would think. I would think. That's where I will go.

[17:17]

I will go to a place. I will think this. Now, I really like the way that Dale Wright in this book unpacks this a little further because he says, okay, suppose that this monk is out there and he's being attacked. It looks like he might even be killed. But let's say you're another monk and you're watching this. Now, with all of our teachings about generosity and compassion and empathy, is it skillful action to stand there and just... Be like, well, you know, he's not a fixed entity. And based on the karmic conditions of his life, he was probably reborn and deserved this. And, you know, I could do something, but this is kind of the natural order of the universe. So, okay.

[18:23]

That's kind of sad. He says, these stories present for our reflection the image of selfless, non-retaliatory saints who under no circumstance respond to severe abuse with anger. Their extreme tolerance, however, pushes us to raise questions about the limits of tolerance and about whether there may be occasions when anger is appropriate. In order to get a slightly different perspective on these same situations of injustice, imagine that another monk observes this. If the monk passively tolerates this situation of cruelty to another, can we regard this as an image of the perfection of tolerance? Clearly not. Our reaction to it will not be one of admiration. but what's the difference? Obviously, the stories differ only in who is being treated with injustice.

[19:28]

And what we are trying to set as far as our intentions in Buddhist practice has to do with our response inside when injustice happens. It does not embrace passivity in the moment of needed action. But if I am guided by an independent self, that I never think that this could be a teacher, that this could be a gateway for understanding, that all adversity... is against my basic rights as a human being because I have the right to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. The unalienable rights of our country and the Declaration of Independence. And this is a guiding principle to a lot of our individualism when I am afflicted by something.

[20:36]

The universe is wrong. we saw a child that was being abused in their family home we would not think well this is what they deserve because obviously they must have done something really bad in a previous life but if me myself have something that happens to me I know that number one my view of the world is not 100% 2020 And if I am guided by a reactive force, and if I have not cultivated the ability to be with what's happening, I will have a skewed response and I can very possibly feel that I'm doing good and justice to the world and actually be packing harm back into the stream of life.

[21:43]

And that is the illusion. The illusion that we see. and that there are fixed objects, and that I know. When we embrace the fact that we do not have 20-20 vision, when we embrace the fact that adversity can be and is a teacher, then we start to be able to cultivate a certain humility around our place in the universe that can allow us... to understand an appropriate response as opposed to simply being reactive? How many times have you done something in your life where you thought, this is going to work? And then, like, oh, wait, that was not the thing at all. But based upon what you could see from when you first took that first action, it appeared to be,

[22:52]

the right thing to do. And of course, the more power and the more leverage that you have in this situation, the more harm you might actually do. When the Buddha asks this monk what he's going to do when he is afflicted, he says, in this case, I would think. He's setting... his mind, he's setting his intention to be in a place of being receptive to the moment. And this is what I want to get at. It's not that the near enemies of tolerance and patience are what we want to embrace, passivity, being disassociated, non-action in the face of necessary action.

[23:54]

These are not the things that we are looking to cultivate. But we can very easily do harm with our action unless we're cultivating a sense of being with what we are being taught in the adversity. And so we're trying to think not of adversity as a threat to our peace of mind, but the very means by which patience, tolerance, and endurance is actually attained. We think not of adversity as a threat to our peace of mind, but the very means that patience, tolerance, and endurance is attained. And don't get me wrong, many times adversity is a threat to our peace of mind. But it's setting our intention that adversity is a teacher. It's setting our mind that it is an opportunity. It's one of the things that's almost become a catchphrase if you've ever spent any time around a Buddhist temple, certainly in this temple, when something goes awry and we feel afflicted and we talk to a friend or a practice leader and they say that this is a practice opportunity.

[25:16]

And it's kind of funny. It's funny because the anger that it sometimes arises inside us when someone says that to us. Because that is not how I am feeling. This person did this thing. It was grossly unjust. It happened to me. I now want to tell my teacher and... I want my teacher to give me some basic guidance, but then I want my teacher to go and fix the situation with that person. I'm not actually doing practice discussion. I am actually getting an ally for my anger because the world is unjust and it needs to now be just. What if it really was just a practice opportunity? What if I embrace the fact that I don't even know how to engage with that person at all because I'm reactive right now and have been for a month.

[26:23]

And when I see them, I really can't think straight. And when I'm in the shower, I think of four other things I should say to them. And now I've gone to my teacher and I've said blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they said, oh, that's a practice opportunity. An opportunity. And the Buddha asks the monk, what will happen when adversity comes upon you? He says, I will think. I will think that this is an opportunity to be with what is going on. We tend to think... an experiment it's like a separate thing let's say like a scientist does an experiment in a lab now if you're doing an experiment it's because you're trying to understand something and so you put an experiment together and then you study what happened and you're open to the results now when you do an experiment what is the teacher all the failures

[27:54]

All the things that didn't go right. All the ways in which your experiment fell apart in the lab. All the suppositions that you had that were not actually on course. These are the teachers. This is how the scientist learns how to get through the thing to the other side, to transcend, to get to the place of actual understanding of where this should actually be and to be able to embrace it. It's through all of the failures, all the ways in which the experiment went awry. all of the learning opportunities that the scientist had, you can come across your experiment and start to study them, look at your experiment, and see the first way in which it failed, and you can be like, oh, oh, all that time, all that effort, all that good planning, but no, I was wrong. Or you can be curious. Hmm.

[28:56]

Okay, this is not how I wanted it to go. But there's something to learn here. The gateway to cultivating patience, the kind of patience and tolerance we were talking about before, the kind of patience and tolerance, not when you're gritting your teeth, like when you're six years old and your mom says, be patient. Not that kind of patience, because you're not actually patient. You're just mad at your mom. But you aren't. moving or doing the thing that she told you not to do. Be patient. That's not a cultivated patience. That's just non-action in the face of anger. But if we want to cultivate patience and tolerance, there is a certain openness that we have to have toward the failures in the experiment. the adversity and the afflictions and the ways in which we get upset and where we feel that things are unfair.

[29:59]

Until we can be with them openly as a teacher, we can't actually start to cultivate these things to where we can actually hold them. When I say hold them, to be upright with them, to be able to be clear. You know what it's like when you're in an argument with a friend, a friend you really respect and you aren't intimidated by at all, and you're just arguing over something, and it's not terribly heated, but you're disagreeing? You can think. You can actually think. What's it like when you're in an argument with someone that you don't really respect, you don't really trust, and you don't even think they've got your best interest at heart at all? There's almost no room between the molecules in the air at that point. You can't think clearly. You might be able to access some parts of your brain, but most of it just feels like there's no oxygen in the room.

[31:04]

Through cultivating... patience and tolerance and endurance, we broaden the reservoir that we have to actually hold what's going on in that moment so that you don't have to be forced nice, so that you don't have to struggle for oxygen to your brain while you're in the midst of adversity. But you start to be able to be more clear and more calm, and this allows for us to be able to see a skillful response. as opposed to a reactive action. This is what I feel like doing. This is what I feel like saying to that person that I don't trust. What if we were able to have a skillful response in the midst of a storm? How comforting that would be to actually just be able to be there and be with what is happening and to be clear and to be calm. Now, of course, that's a direction, not a destination. And it's just like if you go to the gym and day one you've got that 50 pound weight and you haven't worked out before.

[32:18]

You can't lift it. Now it's still a 50 pound weight five years later. And it still causes you adversity or struggle. But it doesn't overwhelm you. You can pick it up. And you're actually, through engaging it and being open to the fact that it was overwhelming you at first, and that it was hard then a few years later, and that now you can work with it, but it's still hard, but you're open to it. And you expect that you're going to actually become stronger. The expectation, I think in my head, Buddha, when I have the adversity of the 50-pound weight, I will just keep trying. I expect that there will be adversity, and I will expect that through this, I will actually have some sort of benefit to being open to this 50-pound weight as my teacher. It's setting intention to use these practice opportunities as our teacher.

[33:26]

That life starts with the fundamental principle that there is suffering. Rather than, I have a right not to suffer. The human condition has suffering in it. And if I am fighting moment after moment after moment that the world is getting in the way of my pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness as an unalienable right, I will be miserable. There is nothing wrong with life, liberty, or happiness. But it's about where we set our mind when adversity comes. Are we open to it? Do we view it as a gateway? Is it really an opportunity? In Buddhism, there is a cultivation of the perfections, of patience and of tolerance, so that we can actually be with things that are fairly frightening.

[34:37]

And we start with things like practicing zazen. I'm just trying to be with what's going on in here. Now, many times when people start sitting zazen, there's an adverse reaction going on where I sit down, my mind is all over the place. I'm like, oh, I'm not doing it. Oh, come on, I need to get back to that calm place. Let's go back and do the zazen thing. You know, I'm not a good Buddhist. I found this quote online in a forum that I was in years ago. I don't even know who the woman is, but her name is Julia Jonas. And she stated this thing about going into meditation, and I just thought it was beautiful. She said, going into meditation, in order for it to calm me down, pits me against myself. going into meditation, accepting the momentary flawed state of my mind and reality, and not to try to change it, but to rather simply be curious about it allows me to be present.

[35:44]

We go and we sit and we practice being with what is coming up, what is happening. And I don't know if any of you have ever sat meditation and not had adversity. But I would say that most of us, when we sit, deal with some degree of adversity. Everything from, I don't want to be here, to sleepiness, to thoughts of revenge and pettiness, to daydreaming, and how come I keep thinking? And then the whole regressive thing of, how come I keep escaping and thinking about going and getting a sandwich? Or, oh, I always do that. I can't really focus. Oh, no. Then you beat yourself up. Then you beat yourself up. We're sitting there in the face of our adversity and trying to be right there with it. Nagarjuna, who was a Buddhist scholar, teacher, writer in the second and third centuries, said that the cultivation of patience and tolerance is the gateway to a pliant mind.

[36:52]

It makes the mind pliant and receptive. Pliant. The nuances with how we approach a situation are so important. And can we cultivate a pliant mind? How lovely would it be if we had a pliant mind in the midst of adversity, in the midst of that conversation, in the midst of that thing at home or at work, if we felt some sort of nimbleness, if we felt some sort of freedom in order to be with that 50-pound weight and not have it crush us? Viktor Frankl was an Austrian psychologist and neuroscientist, and he was captured and spent many months in three different concentration camps during World War II.

[37:58]

And before he was captured, he was working on a theory in psychology called logotherapy, or what eventually became logotherapy. Now it's called reason therapy, and it's all over the world. But it culminated with his understanding in one of the most extreme places of adversity. And what he had been working on culminated into this thought. As he watched the fact that every right he had had been taken away from him except for one. Every bit of control that he had had been taken away except for one. And he came to the conclusion that we have the freedom to find meaning in what we do and what we experience, or at least the stance we take when faced with a situation of unchangeable suffering. He realized that he still had the opportunity to choose the stance he would take when faced with a situation of unchangeable suffering.

[39:03]

What? am I going to take later today when I am faced with some form of adversity every day I am faced with some form of adversity some unfairness some injustice injustice 35 years ago we couldn't even get our women's soccer team decent uniforms and now They're being celebrated as world champions, and it seems normal that this is happening. A great change has taken place. We want injustices to be eradicated, but we can also do lots of harm if we are living in a reactive place and not being with the opportunities in front of us every single moment to study what it is like to be with that 50-pound weight. the scientist that's looking at the failures and actually learning from what's going on, from not being disassociated from the body, but actually having the courage to be right there in the middle of it and feel the pain of what is going on and allowing ourselves to be the curious scientist or the curious artist, watching it unfold and allowing ourselves to be in the midst at times of uncertainty and not having to solve it right now.

[40:30]

not having to act on that urgent feeling that I must change this thing right now. Being able to effect appropriate, not reactive change in the world and in our lives starts with an openness to adversity as a teacher, with an unselfish intention to pack justice back into the world. For more information, please visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we all fully enjoy the Dharma.

[41:22]

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