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, everyone. Thank you all for coming. It's wonderful to see all the faces of many people that I love and appreciate. So I've now been here a year and a half, and it's been a delightful stay for me. And many people didn't think I would make it in the city after living for almost 30 years between Tassajara and Green Gulch. And I say this every time, it is just lovely to walk out your door, walk down the street, walk up the street, walk back the street, and be where you want to be. You don't have to think about traffic in the same way, and how are you going to navigate at Green Gulch, and with the holidays coming up, or tell Sahara, oh, do you really want to do that hour drive just to get over the mountain?

[01:12]

So I'm having a delightful time. And I also love and appreciate my flatmates. It's been, we've had a delightful time together. the three birds living together. It's been great fun. However, I think I have a fairly important topic to talk about tonight, which I have done this before in the summer at the various centers. And tonight I'm going to talk about forgiveness. I think with how the world is, what we're hearing, what we're listening to, what we're feeling, that forgiveness within ourselves and others is a very critical point to bring up. We talk about it, but I'd like to just express some of the teachings that I've learned. And there's many types of work with forgiveness, so this is not particularly specific, but it's about the teachings, as we always do here, about forgiveness.

[02:23]

how we understand them at this time. And it changes all the time, each one of these teachings. The Oxford Dictionary defines forgiveness as to grant free pardon and to give up all claim or account of an offense or a debt. Now there's a very linear legal type of belief from that book. We know that most religions all have their point of views and teachings on the nature of forgiveness. My understanding in the Buddha Dharma is forgiveness is seen as a way of cultivating wholesome thoughts. It recognizes that feelings of hatred and ill will are afflictions that create negative or harmful karma, hurtful to ourselves and to others. Instead, we're encouraged to cultivate a mind free of afflicted emotions and the willingness to work with our negativity in our relationships with others as an ongoing process and teaching.

[03:31]

This is one of the first things I think that we start working with when we all come to sit and have a sense of, oh, I'm looking at my life. No kidding. Am I really ready to do this? It's not easy. But I think that this is a topic we can keep reminding each other of its importance and that there is such a value of forgiveness. If we can learn tolerance of forgiveness according to these teachings and to forbear in the face of false accusation and misunderstanding, that helps us possibly work to a state of liberation or freedom as it is taught in this school. The other part is sometimes it's a good question if you're holding on to something, what am I doing here if I'm not working with these? And I also think one of the things that I wrote is if we have doubts about the laws of karma as they are taught in the East, we realize that it's practicing metta.

[04:42]

or loving kindness and forgiveness towards the one that offends us that is needed for the one perceived as the offender is seen by the bodhisattva as the more unfortunate one. So in other words, forgiveness is an aid to salvation from needless suffering from both the offender and the offended. This is what I have taken away from my years here. And also through meditation and insight practice that if we haven't forgiven, we keep creating an identity around our pain. In other words, what we talk about, we're holding on to our stories. And we talk about those stories a lot in this practice. And they're reborn moment after moment and keep causing us a great deal of suffering. And we practice this one way is through the... the four measurables, loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity.

[05:50]

Those are a wonderful teaching in the wider world of Buddhism. And practicing them as a means to avoid resentment in the first place. How do we meet these things as a teaching? How do we meet it with some loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity. How do we face that when we're startled with something getting at us that we perceive as an injustice? In the Dharmapada, we read, he abused me, he struck me, he overcame me, he robbed me. In those who harbor such thoughts, hatred will never cease. In those who do not harbor such thoughts, hatred will cease. hatred will cease. And we learn this in taking and following our precepts is another way of training ourselves to let go of the ill will and all the harm to oneself or others that follow in that wake.

[06:57]

Did you follow me? Yeah, I see your eyebrows are furrowed. So the other thing is we all know from modern research that that feelings of hostility produce stress, depression, and a decrease of vitality because it's so alive and eating at us, those injustices or hurts, whether they're minor or whether they're major. They just eat. At least that's my experience when those feelings have come up. And there was a study of victims of violence in war-torn countries that revealed that people who could not who could forgive, became less angry in trying situations as their life went on. They learned about they didn't feel such personal hurt. They were more optimistic and lived healthier lives than those who cling to resentment and ill will. We know that within ourselves, and we've also met many people who've held on for grudges months, years, lifetimes.

[08:04]

And it seems that the greater the hurt, the greater the resentment, and the hatred. The greater the resentment and the hatred, the greater the need for forgiveness. Not easy. It's not easy to forgive those who have robbed us of our security or taken our loved ones away. Car accidents, drugs, all kinds of things have come into people's lives that could carry on hatred and resentment. And the daily news especially of late that I've noticed, highlights the role that revenge plays in our world. And even in our most ordinary circumstances, we all encounter petty resentments rising up around something as trivial as a mere cross look or a word seemingly aimed at us. One of the questions one time at the children's program at Green Gulch is,

[09:06]

What's the most harmful thing? What is the most harmful thing? We asked these 50 or 60 kids in the front at Green Gulch. They all came up with great things. Being beat up, being this, being that. And our answer to them was words. And I think that that carries us through our own life from the childhood. Our childhood is words are the most harmful. And our tendency in society is to grind our teeth and smolder and oftentimes think of payback. How are we going to hold on to that resentment? How can we non-person them? That is a very strong thing in my other business life is how easy it is to non-person somebody. And those in business understand that they're invisible. You get into an elevator. What's around you? You don't even look.

[10:07]

Everyone, it's a non-person kind of experience. Right? You know what I'm talking about? And then there's this wonderful story that His Holiness the Dalai Lama tells. And it's the story of an old monk friend who was imprisoned and tortured for 20 years by the Chinese who said that three times he nearly lost it. Lost your anger, asked His Holiness. No, came his answer. Not of losing my temper, but of losing my compassion. And I think that's what happens when you hold on to deep-seated anger. The side of you that has compassion and caring is just banked down to almost invisibility. And then there's the story of the meeting between the children of the survivors of the Holocaust and the children of the guards and the officials which took place in the mass murder.

[11:09]

They found that there can be forgiveness without condonement. Many of you maybe saw that show or saw that series. And one helpful instruction in such cases is to direct our dislike and hate at the situation rather than at an individual. So with the intention to work through attitudes engaged in blame and resentment and feelings of revenge, gradually we can learn to forgive. We can relieve our hearts of this heavy burden. And we have a chance to live free and in the midst of whatever curve comes our way. Because at 71 years old, I can say the curves keep coming our way. And we handle some things very well, but this teaching of forgiveness is ever present in front of me. So I share that with you. And then we have to want to. We have to not be in the place where it just feeds us.

[12:12]

It gives us that negative energy. We have to want to forgive and pass through and let go of those, even if it seems insurmountable. And I feel I had some experiences as a child and some intrusive experiences that stayed inside of me for years and years. And anything came close to disrupting me in that space, that space that I knew of when I was violated as a child. I had just a door and it could go this far and then it just shut down. And it was a steel hard door. And it took me a long time in practice to realize that wasn't ever going to happen to me again. I wasn't that person. But I had lived with that simmering rage and resentment, not necessarily because of the abandonment, but as I started sitting zazen, I realized it was because I wasn't protected, nor was I comforted after the incidents.

[13:21]

And... It was a hard thing to let go of that hurt and resentment. But when I finally saw where I kept it as a defense and as a fuel, and somehow it just was gone. I think it might have been in a sachine where I finally, something clicked somewhere. And I thought, oh, that's not in there anymore. And it's been in there for 40 years. Maybe 30, but a long time. So... We also understand when we slander in our minds to someone. And that often happens when we feel put down, ignored, dismissed, or betrayed by having our trust violated. It's a big thing to have your trust violated. And I'm always very tender about trust because it's a big thing for me is trusting. And I ask myself the question,

[14:24]

Is it even possible for me to really trust? Because if the trust comes, is it underneath this? Is there an expectation of that person that I expect them to be a certain way or respond in some way? And when they don't, that trust is violated? And out comes the old defense mechanisms? Oh, oh. Instead of looking... with the bodhisattva mind of this person comes as they are with all of the things that they do. And then if I can go back and say to myself or the person, it's the situation and not landed on the person. And then the next step to that in my practice has been, what's the habit energy I have that I carry that? So I invite you to possibly consider that as those feelings arrive.

[15:30]

And I'm not dismissing things have happened. I'm not dismissing that you have not had injustices, violations. They're there. It's our choice on how we want to work and be in the world. to not hold that and fuel us. There is a time when it can give you energy to succeed. It can give you energy to be really good at something. It's done that. Many people have said that. We've heard that, right, in motivational speaking of different things that happened and how their incident carried them, but the wound, the bitterness, the resentment, the caution, the lack of trust, is still lingering in there. And it's a lot of work. I am almost 71 years old, so I don't want to say that this hasn't been a lifetime of work in my life.

[16:33]

And then to actually see the part of it, in the gentle way I use the word, the ever-threatened ego. And I say that as a sense of... There's a lot of things that happen that aren't okay in our world. And there's a lot going on today that aren't okay in our world. And we can feel that pain without fueling the resentment, the hatred, the anger. We have a way of holding it in this practice so that forgiveness can happen mostly to ourselves. If we forgive ourselves that side of ourselves, You know, Thich Nhat Hanh has always spoken that. He's written many poems. I think most of you know I Am the Rapist, the poem he writes about being on the boat and raping the young women. I Am the Pirate. It's a very... I can't recite it anymore.

[17:37]

I used to know it. Yeah, that's the name of the book. But that poem is about each side of us that is doing things. So I just... possibly want to give you the opportunity to assess your thoughts and feelings about a specific incident, person, that you want to measure your forgiveness towards. Pinpoint your feelings. Ask yourself how you want to deal with the matter. Do you still want to get even? Do you want to still make the person pay? Replay the offense in your mind. Dwell on it. Think about him or her with anger. Act and live as if he or she doesn't exist. Those are real. But then see if you can see a good point either in them or in the teaching for you.

[18:38]

In the teaching for you. It's always an ongoing teaching. And I... haven't been so happy about having some of these teachings. I wasn't so happy. How dare Diagon die on me? What do you mean? Where are you? How could you do this? What do you mean? I mean, that had nothing to do with he was an 84-year-old man. He had lived a good life and he would be really not easy to live with if he was still alive today. But they arise inside of me. How could he leave me? How could this happen? But look for the source of the problem. and want to correct it. Shift it in to another place of teaching. I see these teachings every day with what I still carry with Daigon in that part of him, and I have to shift it. I have to actually physically sit with my body and open up and bring it in as a teaching instead of just the loss and the grief.

[19:43]

It is my practice, not every day anymore, but almost every day. And we also don't know what forgiveness entails. Because of the specific situation, it depends on the severity of the insult that was seemingly dealt us in our response ranging from simple dislike of someone or burning hatred. I wrote, humans can find so much to dislike in self or others. What an easy thing that is to do. And I'm very familiar with the picking away of finding fault and going around with hurt feelings from the time I was little because of what happened. I think that I knew that. And there's a lot of energy stored up in our stories about that and our projections. And I think sometimes we relieve the pressure and the pain by directing it at both others and ourselves. There's another fuel in there. These fuels are amazing.

[20:47]

And it's not news that one must learn to forgive oneself for one's own transgressions before we can truly forgive others. We have to forgive ourselves. We have to just, without it being indulging, where it's actually a sincere effort to come through our life with equanimity. That what is your intention? I said this in the talk I gave before. Ask yourself, what is your intention How do you want to practice with it? It is something I ask myself every single morning when I first get up. What is my intention for today? What are the things that I'm still carrying around that I need to just work on to let them just dissipate? Just self-forgiveness is no easy matter. It's a lifetime of work. And there's the choice that's involved, right?

[21:49]

Forgiveness has been likened to a gift you give yourself. So look at all the situations that involve resentment. Ask yourself if you're really willing to waste more energy on the matter of what your family, when they weren't there for you, what they expected of you, of your partner that didn't quite hear you or see you, and then ask yourself, what was the expectation? And did you ask that person to be someone they weren't? I certainly did that in my children's father. I mean, it was conscious and unconscious for a lot of years. And then I realized, oh, wait a minute. I mean, I had lots of battles. The side of my brain going, and the side saying, wait a minute, that's not how you want to live. I mean, they were really active in my life for a number of years, and they were alive and well.

[22:56]

And finally I went, wait a minute, what side do I want to, where do I want to go? So I came to face a wall for three weeks. Almost 30 years later, I'm still facing that wall, looking at those things. And it is easier. It is easier. I can't hold on to my stories. And that has to do with loss, with death. That has to do with that. So I think you forgive in order to release yourself from having hard feelings. Also from feeling like a victim. It's an internal matter. And I don't think any kind of getting even or finding justice will ever actually make you feel better because a lot of times it's still not enough because you've just... you've cultivated that feeling inside of yourself. And I think it creates a negative pattern that's very difficult to undo. It has been in the parts of my life that I've kept those things, those fires burning.

[23:58]

And I don't want to wear a chip on my shoulder and read insult or blame into every situation. to become touchy and feeling envy and ill will towards such a degree that our way in the world becomes one of barely masked hostility. And at the same time, uphold any number of ways and reasons to justify our attitude. It's a wretched way to live. The times that I've kept that alive and well, certainly during the time of... of my first marriage, it was a wretched way to live. So I think I understand. Because the other thing is we wait for the other person who's done us the wrong to apologize before we can forgive. I'm sure everybody in this room notices when someone has come up and something has happened, it's very valid, and they come up and they say, I mean, you're kind of sitting there. You're like this.

[25:00]

And they come up and say, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean that. And you can watch it melt away because they had, but you had an expectation again. There's that word. There's that word. You had an expectation or you didn't feel you were valued and you needed to be valued. Maybe they changed their attitude. see their mistakes, come hat in hand, ask our forgiveness. I mean, you know, there are times in our lives we would remind if somebody crawled at various times from young, old. Teenage years are really good for that, right? Most of us can remember those years for different things. But we practice forgiveness for our own well-being. We practice forgiveness. And also understand that when we sit down and talk, clarify and understand our misunderstanding, it's necessary to forgive or at least discover if we're up to doing so, we more often than not end up still holding ill will in our hearts even if the situation seemingly has been smoothed over.

[26:21]

We still have a little kernel sitting down there, lingering in there. But our practice, I believe this, I sincerely believe this. As I wrote this, I thought, oh yeah, this was a good line. Our practice is to put an end to the karma of feeding our hurt feelings or revenge fantasies. And there's no healing without forgiveness. Now, most of the time, when teachers get up to speak, they're teaching what they need to work with. And when I originally wrote this talk, that was very true. That was very true. Everything was coming to a big head. And the final kernel of releasing that didn't come to a head until Diagon died. And I somehow, I got it as I looked at him and I thought, nothing else is important but that you've loved me for 21 years.

[27:23]

Nothing else is important but that you're dead and you're not coming back. And there was a huge internal shift. And when I say that, I say that because I took care of three of the four parents. This wasn't new. I did hospice work for a number of years. I've done a lot of grief counseling. But the final turn for me, so far, that I've seen is when he died. That was, that's, What I said by it's taken me a long time. And then when those old things came up, I have a good story that I'll share with you. So the other day I was coming down from the flats and there was a man walking his dog. And the dog was pooping outside right in front of the bookstore. So I'm walking down and of course that eagle eye side of me is like... Has he got his bag? And it was big.

[28:25]

It wasn't little. He didn't have a bag. I said, first, I said it in a fairly decent tone. First, do you have your bag? No, it's a plant. Of course he can poop on the plant. I said, what do you mean? Well, it's a perfectly natural thing to do. Well, I can still feel that color. That's what I said about retaining. I can feel that color coming up in my neck. And I said, people weed, water, rake, walk across this, and it's okay for your dog to poop? And he said, well, it's natural. And I sat there for a minute. I did not have any equanimity. And I looked at him and I said, I am amazed at your audacity that you think you're entitled to let your dog poop somewhere else that someone else is taking care of.

[29:42]

Do not come back here again, please. He said, well, I won't walk my dog here. And I said, see that you don't. And I said it just in that tone. Maybe even a little stricter. So I turned around, I was walking into the bookstore, and I was just... I mean, you know, how dare he? I mean, it was alive and well. And I went, oh, whoops. I think I didn't hold on. I think some of my own past behavior came right out. And because I could, I literally could... Watch the righteous indignation coming up. And I got into the bookstore and I thought, uh, whoops, whoops. And it was the tone I said inside of myself, the story I told inside of myself. Not what I said, but how I said it.

[30:47]

Because I went from saying, you have your bag with you. immediately to say, I cannot believe. I cannot believe just what, like, you know. And, I mean, he was a little stunned and I didn't care at the moment. And I thought, okay, I don't want him back to walk on our side of the street. I don't want him to walk on everybody's side of the street and let his dog poop in anybody's yard. But I didn't have to hold on to it because it was fuel that I was... I was feeding a fuel that my nature has. That kind of really took some time to keep saying what a teaching that was. And it wasn't impossible, but it took a moment for me to have some gratitude that the dog pooped in front of the bookstore. In fact, I think I went to Paula, wherever you are. Paula, I think you were here. Maybe you didn't.

[31:49]

There you are. To say... you know what someone did? I went right into Paul and told her. And she was like, oh, oh. She was so surprised at the energy that I had around it. So... So, and that was a minor thing. But how many other things can I think of, can I reflect on in my life that I haven't worked on? You know, I fueled myself to keep myself in a state of... A state of unwholesome intensity. And it did happen. It was rude. But I could have stayed in another place. Doesn't mean I couldn't have said something else a little bit more skillfully. And I liked getting, afterwards I realized, oh, I didn't mind letting him see my unwholesomeness. Seeing my...

[32:51]

ill manners. So I think our practice is to put an end to the karma of our hurt feelings. I really think it is. And here's another practice again that I want to share with you on the big things and the little things. Because sometimes there is a difference and sometimes the energy that comes up with big or little matters is the same. And actually, Norman said this to Dagon about 40 years ago. And Dagon was in a really hard time and he passed it on. And many of you in this room will remember it because, and you might too, because he said, go into a quiet room by yourself and do 108 bows. And in this 108 bows, every time you went down and you lifted the feet of the Buddha, I forgive you.

[33:53]

Not saying yourself or someone else. Just saying the words, I forgive you. You're actuating it physically. It's a yoga practice and of course you're going to do it without an expectation of a payoff, a result. But I think our yoga master here, Victoria, would probably agree that bowing is a great practice for working on forgiveness. And I do want to tell you, I'll tell you the next story part of it is one time we walked down after Rahatsu at my first sushin at Green Gulch Farm and we walked all the way down to the beach at Muir Beach and we all decided to do 108 bows and don't do it there. it's not so good for your knees and your shins because you keep going deeper into the sand. Just a few little tips.

[34:56]

And the other thing is, get a Zabatan or a lot of blankets because it's about 15 minutes. The Korean Zen practice does it every single day. And Norman came back from a world cultural, the world prayer, what was it? The peace... What is it? Started in 1900. Anyway, it was in Chicago and he went... Yes, Parliament of World Religions. Yeah. And he said he sat with the Korean Zen group in Chicago and I was there too and so we met up and every single day he said they did 108 bows and he said by about the fourth day he was tired. So it's a lot of energy but it's a really wholesome... It's a really wholesome practice to do and good for things that have lingered in there. You might try it without an expectation. And then another exercise is visualizing the person you dislike and working your way to those you feel that you have around you that have arisen intense feelings.

[36:07]

And you send them the message. I forgive you again and again, breath by breath. And this is a practice that can be done at any time or place throughout the day like a mantra. And oftentimes, you will see it's you that needs to be forgiven by you. Oftentimes, if you do this as time goes on, So I have a few quotes for you that I always enjoy. The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong. Gandhi. Sorry is not enough. Sometimes you have to change.

[37:09]

David Luke. Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it. Mark Twain. Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future. And this also, though the words lie heavy upon your heart, The murdered is not unaccountable for his own murder. The robbed not blameless in being robbed. The righteousness is not innocent in the deeds of the wicked. You cannot separate the just from the unjust and the good from the wicked. Kahil Gibran. I read that when I was 18 years old. 17 or 18, and it was one of those turning points in my life that sparked something.

[38:12]

Only took me 30-some years to come here from that, but it was a big spark in my life. So to conclude this talk, there's a wonderful thing on codependently arisen world. In the dependently co-arisen world, empty of inherent existence, we would do well to remember we are all equally at fault and all equally blameless, all in the same boat, a troubled voyage in calm weather. Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma.

[39:16]

For more information, visit sfcc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

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