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 morning, everyone, and welcome to San Francisco Zen Center. My name is Kyoshin Wendy Lewis, and today I'll be speaking as I... and many other speakers have before, about freedom or liberation. And this is considered to be the goal of Buddhist and Zen practice. So to be free of suffering requires taking on a variety of difficult and direct instructions for meditation, And ethical behavior.

[01:01]

And at the same time, recognizing that those are interactive, that they are always in conversation, those studies. So meditation is supposedly the one pleasure the Buddha allowed himself. And it offers this context, pleasure he's talking about, of a kind of spaciousness. through which ethics can be understood and applied to the body and mind and emotions and integrate it. And then ethics offers a context of relatedness that can energize and deepen meditation. So that's the connection there. So, you know, when we think of freedom, there's different ways that, We examine it or think about it or want it.

[02:03]

And often these are from a point of view of pleasure or success. You know, that is desire or misery and failure, which is aversion. So what is our actual focus when we think of what freedom is, how it all shifts? I think that in general, our personal freedom is sort of based in the sacrifices of others, our sort of conventional freedom, where we get our food, where we get other things, clothes, all these things are based on other people sort of serving us. And then the... So then in... Buddhist ideology, rather than it being the sacrifices of others, personal freedom requires our own sacrifices.

[03:08]

And that could be considered sort of relinquishing or giving up on our reliance on servants. And, you know, this sacrifice doesn't have a great impact. Interestingly enough, so it's not like we're doing this to be some great heroes. It's something more subtle. And so the point is, you know, not sort of self-confirming results, but a sense of ease and peace. And that includes this deep sympathy with the human condition and our place within it. And when I use the term sacrifice, there's different ways that it's used, but basically it means making an offering. It's a kind of a bargain, you know, in the context of holiness, like we offer flowers and all those kinds of things to benefit oneself or others.

[04:18]

So it's not like, anyway, it's not selfish. It's just a bargain of sorts. But it also has a sense or context of foregoing or forfeiting. And that's usually at a cost to oneself and for the benefit of others. So all those implications are included in my usage of it. There's a film that there was someone here who was very excited about it because it was about C.S. Lewis. And I. put it off for a long time, and then I watched it. It's called The Most Reluctant Convert, the untold story of C.S. Lewis. And the narration of it, including, you know, the actor who's playing him, is based on his own writings. And it's about his conversion from kind of atheism and materialism to Christian belief.

[05:23]

So he was... sort of his education and everything were very practical, classical education, well-educated, actually. And that, you know, that sort of practicality put him in that mindset of, you know, intellectualism, which nothing wrong. It's actually very wonderful. But it tended him towards this, Atheism and materialism. So his conversion was complex. And he talked about it. That's what someone from his background would do. But there were a few comments in it that really struck me. One, he speaks about spiritual joy as not being without grief. Or not excluding grief.

[06:24]

And I refer to this as poignancy, this quality of a kind of a pinprick or a little pinch that is about contingency in the midst of our joy or our freedom. And the balancing factor for that is equanimity. It kind of means balance, but that's how it works. And that is, in Buddhism, one of the primary qualities of liberation. So he further said that this joy is never in our power. But pleasure is. So that's why we prefer it. So I think the same is true of freedom and something like control. There's, you know, as we think of freedom. liberation and everything, there's this little pinch, you know, well, I'm still in the world.

[07:27]

And there's a little sensation of that. So as I was thinking about all this, for some reason, I remembered an experience when I was the head cook or the kitchen manager here at City Center. And our coffee supplier said, had some problems and didn't get the coffee to us. And we started to run out and everyone started panicking. And I was a little disconcerted, but I thought, okay. And I went out and I bought some coffee and some people didn't like what I chose. And, you know, there's something, see, people understand. But what struck me, you know, was this kind of, oh, well, this combination of my being expected to serve this need and being blamed for not taking care of people.

[08:30]

And again, there's nothing wrong with people feeling that way, but there was also this division among the, there were a few people who didn't drink coffee between siding with the coffee drinkers and being sort of, you know, what do you call that? Smug. Well, they, you know, So all of this, as I said, was a bit disconcerting because no one was right and no one was wrong. I mean, it's just a fact. This is kind of our life. And, you know, coffee, as I was, you know, with all kinds of beverages and foods and clothing and all these things we take for granted, requires a great number of servants. People, animals. land, plants, air, water, and all those things are things that are kind of invisible to us as we drink our wonderful cup of coffee and talk about coffee and going for coffee and that sort of thing.

[09:37]

And then, of course, this pleasure of the substance itself, whatever it might be, has to be repeated. And so the servants have to stay in place. And here we go. as with all things like that. So this simple daily life experience also kind of spreads out into the larger cultural habits that we have. And sort of this underlying addiction to repeating them. I think that these are... about our cultural ideologies and, you know, some of which are racism, antisemitism, homophobia, and all these familiar things that they kind of make us feel bad maybe, but they're also hard to speak to, to address,

[10:46]

befriend in a certain way so that we can have a conversation with where they come from and how they affect us. So this also includes the habits of our institutions and our organizations to, you know, how they apply and ignore and violate their own principles and policies. It's these habits, you know? So I think part of the issue is that human beings are not really made to hold power, particularly as individuals. And it's not about good and evil or right and wrong, but it's about the shadow side of power being narcissism. And the characteristics of that are kind of a loss or a lack of empathy and sort of intolerance of questioning or criticism, aversion to self-reflection, and a deep resistance to change.

[12:04]

You know, narcissism isn't like bad. It's just like, oh, you know, this is, it's very close to us. So I think that this means that in our power structures, there's often a kind of a not so clear sense of who has power and who will be given power and who will be disempowered. It's just not clear. It's very confusing. And people who do offer some criticism are often disempowered. And this is a pattern. It's not like, you know, It has to do with how structures work and that sort of thing. And so on it goes. So I find myself, you know, in the midst of all this. Because I care and most of you care, too. I think Buddhism attracts a lot of people who care about things.

[13:05]

Is, you know, where do I go? How do I enjoy? my freedom, my peace, my ease, when all this is happening to, and it's happening inside me as well as everywhere else. Well, I recently read Humanly Possible, 700 Years of Humanist, Freethinking, Inquiry, and Hope. Those are interesting things to remember, freethinking, inquiry, and hope. by Sarah Bakewell. And besides those three characters' title, the author describes the humanist tradition as having three pillars, moral philosophy, historical understanding, and good communication. And these are all best practice in the world, in the midst of everything.

[14:11]

And she said, the true humanist temperament delights simultaneously in the world and in the book. Moral philosophy, historical understanding, good communication. That's the book. All these records of our human condition. So this includes, interestingly enough, gratitude for all these gifts. of the world, you know, the pleasures of life, while simultaneously seeking wisdom and remaining aware of avoiding harm. And humanists are often found in universities, and they're often the target of any sort of dictatorship or totalitarian regimes, but the people they get rid of first because they Try to combine these things, which are not very convenient if you want to have power.

[15:19]

So it's always this kind of this conversation. And the humanist tradition is has characters in it for that reason. It's just like in the Zen tradition. We have all these characters. And one of them was Petrarch, who lived in the 14th century Italy and France. And his father wanted him to be, I think, a lawyer, and he didn't want to do that. So he ended up just being a kind of a diplomat and secretary. And because that was his job, he traveled a lot. And wherever he went, he would halt if he saw a monastery in the distance. He would go in and rummage. If he found a text of value, he sometimes stayed for days or weeks. to make his own copy of it. So these types of people, we remember them, but usually in their lifetimes, they're not, you know, sort of conventionally successful.

[16:26]

They have jobs like diplomats and secretaries and that sort of thing. But Petrarch invented a sonnet form that people have used for centuries since then and other things that he did. And he had... all these friends who are interested in the same things. And so they would talk about things and share books and all kinds of stuff like that. And so as I was reading Humanly Possible, which you may already suspect, I realized that I was probably attracted to that book and another one that I'm going to mention because I kind of have a humanist personality and humanist values. You know, it just happens to be how I am. And books and journals and, you know, reviews of books and all that kind of thing, to me, are about this great conversation with the world. All these amazing ways to put things together and share them and try to make sense of things.

[17:38]

You know, whether I agree or disagree or like a book or not or whatever, it's just this great variety of ways people think. And many of the people who are mentioned in this Humanly Possible are people who've been significant to me in my personal and intellectual development. And also I've mentioned some of them in my Dharma talks. Virginia Woolf, Christine de Pizan are a couple of them. I think, you know, this humanist perspective is not the correct one, but it's one of the balancing ones. So these various perspectives within all of those is this humanist perspective of this consistent sense of hope, you know, in the midst of this sort of complex, uncertain world. And so a Buddhist humanist perspective can mean, you know, that you study and apply teachings and practices of Buddhism in the context of what arises in the unfolding of reality.

[18:57]

Like here we are. And how does this Buddhist or Zen perspective pertain and apply to our current events? and topical concerns. And there's various ways to approach that. You can take Buddhism and Zen and overlay them on things that are meaningful to you. And you can also consider how they inform and kind of help us, you know, kind of demystify our own human nature and all those habits underlying these concerns and topics. And all those habits also kind of mirror both our egocentricity and our tendency towards empathy. If we are interested, you know, I was reading somewhere that apparently reading novels increases our empathy because we're so interested in what happens to these people.

[20:05]

We sort of want to know, you know, if that happened to me, how would, you know. And I think that this engagement like that does increase our empathy. And so we have reminders all the time about both how we abuse power and how we try to ameliorate its consequences. So in my last talk, I talked about the... month that was dedicated to women's history. And May celebrates and honors the accomplishments and contributions of Asian American and Pacific Islander community. And it's also Jewish American Heritage Month, which celebrates and honors the accomplishments and contributions of Jewish Americans since their arrival in the 17th century.

[21:06]

June. is Pride Month, celebrating and honoring LGBTQ plus lives, accomplishments, and contributions. And June also includes Juneteenth, the anniversary of the sort of official end of slavery of African Americans in this country. Included in all these celebrations is also the acknowledgement of our prejudices and our exploitation and crimes against humanity that pertain to these groups. And I think, you know, some of you and maybe all of you have given or give or are giving attention to the ways of noticing and appreciating the great variety of people that you know, who have loved and enjoyed and struggled through and shared and lost either through old age and sickness or violence their lives.

[22:22]

So the kind of addictive, repetitive, habitual, of these kind of dividing divisions among us, I guess you could say it is, that includes this hatred or exclusion of the other or even a kind of satisfaction that people can feel when they hurt someone else. It's just this little odd little power thing. And I think that this results in a mutual loss of freedom. So it also hints at the potential of sharing freedom. In another book that I sort of alluded to that includes many humanists called Magnificent Rebels, The First Romantics and the Invention of the Self by Andrea Wolfe,

[23:31]

One of the philosophers she mentions is Johann Gottlieb Richter, who argued that only those who tried to make others free were free themselves. In a way, that sounds like a bodhisattva, but slightly different, because a bodhisattva reaches liberation and then decides not to sort of achieve it and instead stay around and help others. But this says your freedom is dependent on the freedom of others, which is just slightly different. But it makes it a little more acute, I think, immediate. And it requires a moral context. And a moral context or perspective, it's not so much about rewards and punishments and that sort of thing. It's basically a commitment to awareness of what one is doing and not doing and what the impact or result of that can be.

[24:41]

And also, you know, this awareness of our capacity for both selfishness and selflessness and for justifying ourselves. So morality is really about developing self-understanding. with its revelations and embarrassments, joys and sorrows, and trusting this development or cultivation as a key to understanding others and to forgiving ourselves and others. And so this unfolding empathetic process never ends, and I think it becomes more fluid. And it includes these absurdities and this awe. about the irresolvability of the human condition. It's always interesting when we get a promotion or receive a position or get an award or something like that.

[26:02]

get our dharma transmission or presordination or whatever it might be, there's often this little extra feeling that comes in. It's not, I don't mean that in a judgmental way, but I think that it's about power or perceiving ourselves as having power or maybe a little bit of superiority or something like that. It's just part of the mix. There's gratitude in there as well, but just... And I think one moral exercise for anyone who has been given authority is how to react or respond to challenges, criticisms, and feedback. You know, there you are. You're an authority. Well, what if someone... you on something, how do you respond?

[27:03]

And the power response is usually defensiveness and trying to make it the other person's responsibility. And that's what most of us expect, actually. But there's this intuitive alternative that I think it's worth experimenting with, which it may not be as satisfying to our ego or to our comfort, but it's This odd thing of just affirming the person's experience, listening to their version, and considering how to not cause that same experience again. At the same time, not to sort of get into protestations of innocence or confessions of guilt. Now, that's a lot. But... And there also has to be a true feeling of regret. So start there and then try those other things.

[28:06]

And it's very rare. So it's difficult, you know, to find an example in your own life or anywhere of people who have done that. But I have experienced it. And interestingly enough, it was from professors and Catholic priests and nuns. where I've experienced that acceptance or openness. It's going to make you feel a little emotional. But you sort of have to try it, you know, and see what happens because it's not what we would usually do. There's this, you know, fear that comes up and a kind of defensiveness. And, of course, our intentions, of course they were good, you know, or of course they didn't mean. But that ends up, if you say that, it ends up making the person feel like it's their fault for upsetting you. And then you just are in a loop, you know.

[29:09]

Okay. So, you know, our cultural kind of habits undermine everyone's freedom, our own included. And interestingly enough, you know, when we have power or those with power, I'm not so interested in people having freedom. So it's this whole combination of things that happen. And so we're stuck with it. And in some ways, even if we want things to be different, we can't quite decide how they should be exactly. And even if we can, that's never how it will be. So all these things are moving and not quite absolute. But as I mentioned, equanimity is the primary quality of freedom. And I hope that was in what I just said in some way. And in Buddhist teaching, equanimity is the fourth of the four Brahma Viharas or four immeasurables.

[30:17]

And the first three are loving kindness, compassion, and sympathetic joy, which are Very familiar. And Bhikkhu Analayo, who's, anyway, I'll let you look him up if you like. In his commentary on the teaching of the Fort Ramavaharas, he says that the first three are easy to become attached to. That loving kindness, compassion, and sympathetic joy. And you can understand that, I think. And so the function of equanimity, is to kind of wash back over those and bring them to maturity. Equanimity, or equipoise, conveys an awareness of whatever is happening combined with mental balance and the absence of favoring or opposing. To be at ease and lack nothing comes about precisely through letting go of wanting to have things one's own way.

[31:25]

And Mu Sung, in his commentary on the poem, Trust in Mind, says that equanimity is not something that people generally want. And that the poem's purpose is to bring us back to the basic issue of addiction to preferences and the way in which that addiction hinders equanimity. So as I said, most of us care about what happens in our lives and in the world. And in the midst of our relationships, in our personal lives, in our work lives, and the state of the world, how do we reconcile equanimity to our ability to respond and be involved? And Musang says, equanimity is not a rejection of anything. Acceptance here is not opposition to rejection, but rather the sense of letting things unfold according to their self-nature.

[32:35]

So that spaciousness, offering that spaciousness is that equanimity to allowing things to unfold according to their self-nature. And if you've ever had an experience of purposely or accidentally allowing that for somebody... It's kind of sweet. It happens a lot in the kitchen, I think. This kind of letting go of precise things and suddenly letting someone bloom. It might not be clear how to be effective, particularly if you're looking through the lens of And so I think one possibility is something along the lines of anarchy and anarchic sort of attitudes or actions.

[33:40]

And part of the context for that is the sort of method of that Martin Luther King Jr. developed, along with some very extraordinary people and friends, on how to address civil rights. And he called it nonviolence. But it's not quiet, and it's not apologetic, and it doesn't wait. So I was watching a TV series. You know, I think this is another funny thing about my sense of what a humanist is and what sort of is a conflict inside of me about it is that you're just interested in everything. Like, what's happening in culture? So watching Netflix and stuff like that is not so much a retreat as it is a curiosity about how people are expressing themselves.

[34:49]

And some of the acting is brilliant, you know, and stuff like that. So I was watching a TV series. And it's about a journalist who's always getting in trouble for exposing malfeasance in government and business. And at the end of one season, a war is about to begin. And this will be of great financial benefit. to a bunch of politicians who've invested in military equipment. And so they've kind of invented a whole background to cause things to move in this direction. And the journalist has evidence that this is the case. So one of the politicians who hasn't been in on it but will be held responsible... Maybe it's time for a little anarchy. And so the journalist releases the evidence and you don't find out quite what happens, but you have a feeling because they show the people who are finding this out and who they are.

[36:03]

So anarchy means without a leader or ruler or chief. And I think that acts of anarchy are not necessarily trying to pull down those who are, you know, holding those types of positions, but bringing to their attention the inclusion and consideration of all those from whom they expect and receive support. So reminding, how do you remind? And I think this kind of holding to account is an act of love and hope, and it encourages mutual maturity and mutual authority. And in a sort of humanist sense, that's about hope being informed by understanding. So freedom requires and is characterized by sacrifice, but not in a punitive sense, but this sense of relief and purpose and dedication and joy.

[37:21]

And I think relieving oneself of addictive prejudices and habits is grounded in morality, understanding, And it's so enjoyable, the equanimity part. That's what I think is hard to understand. And in a sort of odd way, I think that this is what C.S. Lewis was referring to when he said, it is a load so heavy, only humility can carry it. So that morality, you know, comes into it. Because it is so hard to be effective. So many of the humanists, inhumanly possible, write about the pleasure of being in good company. And Erasmus in the 15th and 16th century lived for a while in, oh, I don't know how you pronounce it, Basel or Basel, Switzerland.

[38:32]

which was a great city for humanists, apparently. They all know Latin. They all know Greek. Most of them know Hebrew, too. One is an expert historian, another an experienced theologian. One is skilled in mathematics, one a keen antiquary, another a jurist. I certainly have never before had the luck to live in such a gifted company. And to say nothing of that, how open-hearted they are, how gay, how well they get on together. 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. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click giving.

[39:32]

May we fully enjoy the doymo.

[39:35]

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