This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. I'm honored to be here in this grand hall. It's been a while. There's... This big new building wasn't there when I was out here last. It's beautiful. It's beautiful to see the care that's being taken of our home. I think this is one of the hallmarks of Green Gulch, and of course, it's a hallmark of our practice, the care for our common home. And that happens to be the English subtitle of Pope Francis's recent encyclical on the environment.

[01:10]

It's called On the Care for Our Common Home. The Latin title is Laudato Si, Praised Be. And I think I'd like to begin with what his point of inspirational departure was when Pope Francis began to draft that encyclical. It's from a wonderful, it's called a piece by Saint Francis of Assisi, and this is just an excerpt of it. It's called The Canticle of the Sun, and I encourage you to read it. very beautiful and I think really in resonance and harmony with our view, the Buddhist view of the environment that we inhabit and, for better or worse, are creating and influencing.

[02:19]

So St. Francis writes, Be praised, my Lord, through all your creatures, through brother sun who brings the day, through sister moon and the stars, through brother's wind and air and clouds and storms, through sister water, through brother fire, Be praised through our Mother Earth, who feeds us and rules us. And in his encyclical, which is, the entirety of it is really a commentary on this prayer of St. Francis. Pope Francis writes,

[03:23]

In the words of this beautiful canticle, St. Francis of Assisi reminds us of our common home, that our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us. Praise be to you, my Lord, through our sister Mother Earth who sustains and governs us and produces various fruit. with colored flowers and herbs. Now, why am I talking about Pope Francis? It's because I recently, about 10 days ago, returned from a Buddhist-Catholic dialogue in Rome at the Vatican at the invitation of the Pope and Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.

[04:30]

And the subject of this dialogue was suffering, liberation, and fraternity. And it was not meant to hash out theological perspectives, but to emphasize and explore both the connections and the differences that we might have within the traditions, within our Buddhist traditions, or between our Buddhist traditions and Catholic traditions. And so I had a very rich, about 10 days there. We had this dialogue, which I will talk mostly about dialogue and some about the social context for the dialogue. Also I was there when there was a large climate march in Rome, quite international, and there were some of my friends from Buddhist Peace Fellowship who had come from the States, and some Buddhist friends also from the International Network of Engaged Buddhists, friends from Burma, Thailand,

[05:53]

Sri Lanka and India. And I got to visit and give a talk at Doshin's Zen Center Arko, which was a wonderful experience. I'm glad to see you here. I wondered whether I was going to see you there. And I ate a lot of really good food. I'm having a report back tonight in Berkeley and I'm going to show slides and sort of interspersed through all this serious stuff is like, well, you know, here's a fresh pasta with cheese and pepper and here's a nice wood-fired pizza which we take as a great rarity and you can find it on any website. just about on any block.

[06:54]

I really enjoyed it a lot. And I also say, and I walked around Rome a lot, I was staying near this kind of central place, Piazza Navona, and it's like you could walk out there, and there were these three fountains created by Bernini hundreds of years ago. And it's like the past and present are coinciding in Rome. You can see it as visibly as you can any place in the world. But centrally, I came home inspired, which is actually not an everyday occurrence for me. But from time to time, it happens. And I'll explain why as we go along. So there were roughly 25 Buddhists, all from the United States, and a like number of Catholics, also all from the United States.

[08:02]

And the Buddhist participants were much... The majority of them were from Asian and Asian-American communities that have practice centers in the United States. So from... Sri Lankan, Thai, Japanese, American, Korean, Tibetan, and so on, from communities that are really, the practice is more rooted in those ethnic and immigrant communities, which are, of course, in transition and change. And then there were a few of us who might call ourselves Western Buddhists, which is, I'm comfortable with it, but it turns out, and this is a whole other discussion, that not all of the other Buddhists were comfortable with that definition.

[09:06]

But in any rate, that's part of what dialogue is. What Pope Francis, in the introduction and invitation to this dialogue, said, was respectful and harmonious exchange of views leads to attitudes of kindness and love which in turn generate authentic and fraternal relationships. This is something I resonate with deeply just from my own experience. You know, when I see friends In this audience, when I see Abbas Fu, I think back on when we met, when we began to practice together, which was 30 years ago. And that connection, even as I say it, it brings up great emotion and joy for me.

[10:15]

It brings me close to tears. But they're tears of joy. They're tears of the kinds of connection that we can cultivate in our lives. So it reminds me of a dialogue that you find in the Upada Sutta, the Pali canon. The Buddha's attendant, Ananda, goes to him one day and says, basically, I figured this out, Buddha. This is half the holy life. Admirable friendship, admirable companionship, admirable camaraderie. And the Buddha looks at him and shakes his head and says, don't say that, Ananda, don't say that. Admirable friendship,

[11:18]

admirable companionship, admirable camaraderie is actually all of the holy life. But we have to create these friendships. They come from practicing together. When I met Fu, she was the Fukuten. No, were you Zenzo? We were in the kitchen, anyway. And I learned from her. And some of that friendship is based on working side by side, sitting side by side, talking and exploring side by side. And those are various methods of dialogue. This word dialogue is interesting.

[12:23]

I had a misconception about it. I was sort of, dialogue as the root of it, of dia, was sort of paired with monologue. And actually it's a different root. Dia is not the die or duo of two. It means, actually the root means through or across. And logos is the word or speech, so it's speech through. It's not just a conversation or an exchange between two people, but it can be that. It can be circular. It can be in the form of counsel. It can be in the form of discussion. It can be in the form of taking a walk with friends, as Plato describes when he's describing the Socratic method, the method of these peripatetic philosophers who just means they kind of wandered about talking.

[13:43]

And we have it in our deep, in our... Buddhist tradition, almost all of the Pali suttas are basically dialogues involving the Buddha and an effort among people to bring out wisdom and the truth by inquiry, by respectful inquiry. And we have the same thing In our Zen tradition, in the rich koan tradition, koan literature, almost all of these koans are stories in which the truth is brought forth in the context of dialogue. And then moving forward, we have it in the Western philosophical tradition, say in the work of Martin Buber,

[14:47]

where he speaks of I and thou as one connected entity. So the Catholic Church has been in formal and informal dialogue with other faiths for about 50 years now. It began with the Second Vatican Council in 1965. And continues in kind of the unfolding of what they might call a social gospel, which is interpretation of Christian religious teachings in a social context for the betterment of society. So there can be a purpose to dialogue. In his... Encyclical Pope Francis writes about dialogue.

[15:52]

We dialogue about relational ills and the social problems they cause and look for ways to speak out against the injustices that cause so much suffering and look for how to work together to heal and reconcile our broken world as brothers and sisters in the spirit of fraternity. I should say we had in a big discussion about that word fraternity is it for the some of the the Westerners it it I don't know for me it brings up images of animal house and of course the and also sorority doesn't work that's that also has some negative college But evidently, we had a big discussion about it because people were not so comfortable.

[16:54]

It has a different meaning in its Latin root and in its Italian root, I think. It's really more like fellowship, if you like. We would have preferred friendship, but when it came right down to it, this was the Pope's word. And, you know, so... There's certain limits you don't transgress. So he said, okay, we'll go with fraternity. I'm trying to see what he actually said to us. He used the word fraternity. So... First of all, again in the encyclical, there's something that I resonate with very strongly towards the end of it.

[17:58]

The Pope talks about the kind of presence we need to have in order to practice taking care of our environment and our home. He says... No one can cultivate a sober and satisfying life without being at peace with him or herself. Actually, he actually writes him or herself. I'm not just gender correcting there. An adequate understanding of spirituality consists of filling out what we mean by peace, which is much more than the absence of war. Inner peace... is closely related to care for ecology and for the common good, because lived out authentically, it is reflected in a balanced lifestyle, together with the capacity for wonder, which takes us to a deeper understanding of life.

[19:06]

Nature is filled with words of love, but how can we listen to them amidst constant noise, interminable and nerve-wracking distractions, or the cult of appearances. Many people today sense a profound imbalance which drives them to frenetic activity and makes them feel busy in a constant hurry, which in turn leads them to ride roughshod over everything around them. This, too, is how they treat the environment. An integral ecology includes taking time to recover a serene harmony with creation, reflecting on our lifestyle and our ideals. I don't think that anybody would be in this room if that was not part of our quest this morning.

[20:11]

Why else would you come here? You know, it's ridiculous. You've got other things that you really should be doing. And I'm sure in the back of your mind, there's a dialogue that we're having with ourself. It's like, oh, you know, what am I going to do later? Or what do I have to prepare for work tomorrow? You know, that nagging voice, which is actually the expression of of dukkha in our lives. Dukkha, sometimes we translate it as suffering, but it's perhaps more accurately translated as unsatisfactoriness. It's like that nagging voice, you know, in our internal dialogue, which is almost always going on, almost always. I'll get back to that.

[21:14]

We're in dialogue about what we might think we should be doing, which distracts us from where we are and what we are doing this moment. This moment we're sitting here, breathing, supporting each other and being supported by our mutual presence, as well as by the presence of the Buddhas and ancestors as represented by figures on the altars, but it also is represented by each of us, surrounded by this beautiful building, surrounded by the splendors of the environment that's around us.

[22:19]

So when we take this in, the dialogue softens and we can be in harmony momentarily with ourselves. And as we do this, I think this is the practice of our practice, of our training, we learn that this is a place that also exists within us. That what Pope Francis describes as constant noise, interminable and nerve-wracking distractions, are not what it all boils down to. And that actually we have some agency in this. We have the choice to make. We can choose to be distracted, and in our distraction, consciously or unconsciously,

[23:44]

create a cloud of distraction around us that affects all others, or we can choose to just stop ourselves for a time and sit. And that means not that the distractions necessarily disappear, but that we recognize them as part of the arising of our conditioned human life. And they're not in control. Who has responsibility for the environment that we live in? who has responsibility for my mental environment?

[24:52]

If we think of friendship as the whole of a holy life, we have to take this interesting step and apply it to ourselves. For some of us, I think in some cultural context that's not a difficult thing. When you do a traditional metta meditation, it begins with may I be well, happy, and peaceful. You know, it begins there and then moves in widening circles outward to, you know, may those I'm close with, may my family, those are my friends, those I don't know, those who I might perceive as my enemies.

[26:13]

In the widening circles we extend loving kindness. But actually, for some of us, the hardest places to start is, may I be well, happy, and peaceful. But I think that that's part of, if you will, that's part of the maybe religious or spiritual conversion experience. take that into yourself and to have respect and joy for one's own life, and thereby to have responsibility for what is around us. And this is something that...

[27:16]

why I went to this dialogue, because in the call, I quote a message on the Buddhist New Year, a message from the Vatican to Buddhists saying, you are also convinced that the root of all evil is the ignorance and delusion born of greed and hatred, which in turn destroys the bonds of fraternity. As Buddhists and Christians, we live in a world all too often torn apart by oppression, selfishness, tribalism, ethnic rivalry, violence, and religious fundamentalism, a world where the other is treated as an inferior. a non-person, or someone to be feared and eliminated, if possible.

[28:23]

Drawing on our different religious convictions, we are all called to be outspoken in denouncing all those social ills which damage fraternity, to be healers who enable others to grow in selfless generosity, and to be reconcilers who break down the walls of division and foster genuine brotherhood between individuals and groups in society. The more I read in this, the more I am moved. And yet the experience of dialogue is not easy. I think that the necessary practice in dialogue is patience. patients in Pali or in Sanskrit is kshanti, K-S-A-N-T-I, or K-S-H-A-N-T-I.

[29:30]

And both Thich Nhat Hanh and Suzuki Roshi have creative glosses on that word. Suzuki Roshi speaks of it in Zen Mind Beginner's Mind, when he speaks, it's in a chapter called Constancy. And he says that we always, I've always said that we must be very patient if we want to understand Buddhism. I think it is better to translate it as constancy. Constancy means the constant faculty or ability or possibility to accept things. And then Thich Nhat Hanh talks about it as inclusiveness, really the same notion. He says the capacity of a bodhisattva's heart is very big, the capacity to receive, to embrace, and to include. The reason why we suffer is because the capacity of our heart is small.

[30:33]

So our teachers, Pope Francis, the whole of the teaching of Friendship is urging us to be able to include all that is, what we like, what we don't like. And I will say, in the process of dialogue, it's really boring. We had like six hours of people reading papers every day. It's like, oh, jeez. I was reminded of a story about Obama, when he served his first day, he went to the Senate for his first day as a senator. They were kind of droning on and on, and he wrote a note and passed it back to his aide. His aide opened it, and Obama said, shoot me now. But this is the practice of patience, to be there and remember...

[31:44]

I have relationships with a number of these people, which I did, and also I have the potential to be in relationship with all the people in the room, which means hearing them out. It also means talking with them over and taking walks, eating together, and gradually coming to understand the different ideas that we have. It was very clear. that after about day three, what we really needed was an intra-Buddhist dialogue because there were real differences among us. Differences of understanding the Dharma, differences of social involvement and social principles, and we need to be talking about this. We need to be talking about across all these lines in order to work together.

[32:48]

I'm thinking about what inspired me and what it inspired me to do. I will say we had a audience with Pope on our second day. We were meeting at Castel Gandolfo, which is about an hour from Rome, beautiful town on the top of a hill overlooking a gorgeous lake. It's a place where traditionally the popes have their summer residence, but Pope Francis doesn't go there, which is interesting. It's a disaster for the town. because the tourists don't come. They come because the Pope is there. And it's like the restaurants, everything was empty. And we went into Rome on the second day, and we had an audience for about 45 minutes with Pope.

[34:01]

And he offered us these comments. Let's see. He said, thank you, this is a translation, literally, thank you for this visit. that I have so much in heart, the visit of brotherhood, dialogue, even friendship. This is good. This is healthy. In this historical moment, so wounded by war and hatred, these small gestures are seeds of peace and fraternity. Thank you so much. God bless you. Well, there's nuances and nuances. What I saw when he was giving these comments was, it was really interesting to me. I saw he spoke very slowly in Italian. But it's like I could see the wheels turning in his head as he was forming, looking for just the right words. And I could understand that effort.

[35:05]

When we got back, it was a big discussion over lunch. Did the Pope give us a blessing? You know, to the Buddhists, it's like, well, what? What does that mean? You know, do we care? And it was, you know, of course. He said, God bless you. Okay, God, you know. You know, but to the Catholics, it was a big deal because, oh, the Pope was giving a blessing to the pagans. It's like, we don't know how to think theologically, and I'm not sure I'm all that interested in thinking theologically. There was a big moment at our exchange when one of our Buddhist participants, a woman named Arki Tejuja, who works with youth at risk in Chicago in the Shambhala tradition, she approached the Pope.

[36:09]

We were giving him, as we met him, We were giving him gifts and exchanges. And she had a kata, you know, a white silk scarf that you would give to a lama and then he or she would give it back to you. It's like she took this kata and she put it over the pope's shoulders. And like his guards like stiffened. And it's OK, you know, and. The newspapers the next day was basically, Buddhist gives a blessing to the Pope. Evidently, this was, you know, unbeknownst to us, a radical act. But people have asked, and I said I would say this, people asked yesterday when I gave a talk at Berkeley, well, what was he like? You know, I don't know what he's like. But I know... When each of us met him, I bowed to him, we shook hands.

[37:15]

I gave him a book and a letter. And in that moment, I have some photos which I can show during the Q&A. In that moment, I felt his direct attention. So for a lot of the Catholics, it was like all these whistles and bells and fireworks were going off. But my experience was Here's somebody who is really capable of being present, listening, looking you in the eye. Here's somebody who is deeply ordinary. And that is not... That, to me, is kind of the... That's the highest value. Our teachers... all of our teachers are deeply ordinary, that when you meet them, they're present, you can speak with them freely.

[38:22]

And I felt this is a person that you could sit down and share your deepest thoughts with, and he would share his in dialogue. And it comes, he's been tempered by suffering. And in that suffering, he's come around to have a vision of what it means for him to be the Pope, which means to have the Church serve the poor, serve those who are most in need, to serve the environment which is at risk. All of this is radical, not completely unheard of, but radical in the history of the church. And what it inspires me to wonder is, what will I do? What will we do? What can we do in our Zen tradition?

[39:28]

We're thinking, what can we do for the environment? How do we handle, thinking in Berkeley and in discussions, that have been taking place at San Francisco Zen Center world. Like, what do we do with the resources that we have? What are they invested in? How do we, I seem to recall that Green Gulch was developing a 500-year plan. Is that right? You know, it's like, yeah, this is the way we need to be thinking. We need to be thinking about the care for our common home. which is not just the environment, you know, it's actually all of the beings that live in it. So I want to close. There's much more I can say, and we can talk about it more in Q&A. And I want to close with some words that resonate with me from Dogen.

[40:34]

We're always... You're always talking about Dogen here, right? It's kind of one of the, certainly a fountainhead of our Soto Zen tradition. So in this piece that he writes about giving, about dana paramita, he says, give flowers blooming on the distant mountains to the Tathagata. offer treasures accumulated in our past lives to living beings. He says, we offer ourselves to ourselves and we offer others to others. And he says, entrusting flowers to the wind and entrusting birds to the season is the meritorious act.

[41:36]

So I just would leave you with the question, how will we give? What will we give? What will each of us give? And joining together, what can we do? Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast. offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[42:33]

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