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 and good day, everyone. There are, wow, 114 of us and 115. The number keeps going up on this online gathering. of the Sangha, the community of mindful harmony. This morning, I'm honored to be with you. My name is Mushim, M-U-S-H-I-M. That's a Korean Zen Buddhist name, Patricia Ikeda. My pronouns are she, her, and hers. And I live on the occupied land of the Lishan, Ohlone people, the Confederated Villages of the Leishon Ohlone, Oakland, California, in the United States.

[01:05]

Today, the title of my talk is Impermanence Happens. So I'm talking about that aspect of impermanence where, you know, shit happens. And that's normal. Things happen. Things change. And So the title is Impermanence Happens, but how do we make change? Meaning, how do we make needed change? I work mostly with spiritually and Buddhist-based justice activists, agents of change and social transformation. And I've been a socially engaged Buddhist for, I don't know, for a long time, maybe from the beginning. That's how I was formed. So I'd like to start with a true story, getting back in our time machines and going back to the spring of 1988. And we are in the Sudoksa, S-U-D-O-K-S-A, that's one romanization, temple complex.

[02:24]

in the northern part of South Korea, where I did monastic training for eight months, starting with an international English-speaking-based group under Sungsan Sunim, and then transitioning briefly into the monastic system on that mountain. So the international group left, and I was there living with a very large temple of Korean nuns. I am not fluent in Korean. I was doing my best, however. I'm not at all fluent. I was just kind of babbling along. And, of course, I had read many, many stories of... probably like a lot from the Tang Dynasty in Zen stories from China of our ancestors where there's just a lot of very eccentric behavior.

[03:35]

And it all seemed, well, that's very quaint and poetic and so forth. However, this is a true story. So I'm going to share this story. this true story with you. So I'm in the temple and there are no, really no other English speakers around. This is full immersion. And because of my Japanese ancestry, I'm Japanese American. And because of the way I look, if I just stayed quiet and blended in with everyone else, the Koreans actually felt that I looked very Korean. And my name comes from a Korean Zen lineage in North America. So they were very accepting and very welcoming. And I just kind of blended in, which was great. I believe what happens there is that like on the new moon and the full moon is when the entire monastic sangha, the word sangha, of course, originally meant only the monastics.

[04:49]

These days, it's bigger than the monastics and lay practitioners. And the full moon and the new moon, I think, is when the full monastic sangha would gather in the Buddha Hall at Sudaksa, which was the headquarters temple on Toksung Mountain, where there were about 10 temples of varied sizes and hermitages and so forth, would gather in the Buddha Hall, which is very old, and there would be a Dharma talk from the high seat. Most of the time, it would be in Korean, so I would just meditate. However, on this spring day, there was a visiting very, very highly placed, high-ranked Sri Lankan. Bhikkhu, a Buddhist monk, teacher who was visiting.

[05:51]

So he was giving the Dharma talk from the high seat and in English, he was fluent in English, and a translator was present who translated from English into Korean. So it was like a, there's a whole bilingual experience going on. and at least I could understand the English and some words of Korean. So this venerable Sri Lankan monk was, of course, from the Theravadin, not the Mahayana tradition. There was a cultural difference here. And he was giving a talk about, and he kept talking about the Buddha and... It was just a kind of a, it was a nice talk. However, very un-Zen.

[06:53]

And the monks and nuns were all just crammed together. There were a lot of us on this mountain. And we were just packed in like sardines in the Buddha Hall. And standing at the back, seated, and standing at the back, There were some of the hermit monks from the mountain. They had a lot more independence than other monastics. It was always monks. Only monks were allowed to live alone. There were several little hermitages on the mountains. And, you know, I think they were Zen monks. So this talk was going on and the monk is talking about the Buddha said this and the Buddha said that. And I could feel the sangha starting to get a little antsy, although they didn't move. Asian body language is often very subtle. However, I could just feel it.

[07:57]

This tension was starting to rise and it rose and rose. And after about, I don't know, 10 minutes, there was this electrifying shout from the back of the Buddha Hall. And one of the Herbert monks, who was, I think, a very accomplished artist, he did beautiful brush paintings, but he just shouted out at the top of his lungs in Korean, Who is this Buddha you are talking about? And there was this pause. And then, The Sri Lankan monk must have been thinking, who are these idiots? Like, what? This is a Buddha. But, you know, he was a teacher, so he began to explain, we're talking about Shakyamuni Buddha, blah, blah, lived in India 2,600, 2,500 years ago. And the poor translator was caught in the middle. So the translator was translating from English into Korean and was immediately cut off.

[09:02]

after a moment of this, by the hermit monk shouting, No! Who is this Buddha you are talking about? And the Sri Lankan monk looked even more confused. And then, this actually happened, I was there, without saying anything. entire monastic sangha rose as one body and exited from the Buddha hall. Now this is not an easy thing to do because there are only a few narrow doors and then you have to leave your shoes outside. They're these rubber slippers that they use because you can wash them very easily. And everyone's slippers look like everyone else's. So there's this challenge of finding which ones are yours, which if you have like more than 100 people in the hall, it's not an easy thing.

[10:06]

However, I don't know how they did it. It was like Star Trek. They just evaporated. They just evaporated out of the hall. They just ran as quickly as they could, and they all ran away. Now, I wasn't that good at going out as quickly as they were because I'm an American and I am slow. So I kind of just waited until the others whooshed out. And I could see that the guest Buddhist teacher was looking even more confused. So I felt really sorry for him. However, the main thing for me was that I was there and it did happen. And so it shows that when we want to, even without talking to one another, we can make change very quickly. Impermanence does happen, but how do we make change?

[11:13]

This is something I've been very interested in for a long time. Therefore, Of course, I'll start with myself. It's always easy to see how other people should change or need to change. Not so easy in my experience when it comes to myself. So there is, coming out any day, from Penguin Random House Publishers, a new and horrible book for which I provided a testimonial. It's by my friend, Dr. C. Pierce Salguero. He's a professor of Buddhist studies in the Philadelphia area, Pennsylvania. He's not Buddhist. However, he's done very serious Buddhist practice, meditation practice. I believe in Thailand.

[12:15]

And he's... extremely knowledgeable about Buddhism. His special area of interest is, I believe, Buddhism in medieval China, especially Buddhist medicine. Pierce wrote this book. It's almost out, called Budish. a guide to the 20 most important Buddhist ideas for the curious and skeptical. And once again, it's a March 2022 publication from Penguin Random House. And he says in the opening part, this is not for practicing Buddhists. This is for people who are not Buddhist, who are interested in Buddhism.

[13:18]

And he did ask me to read it and to provide a statement about it. So I thought, well, dude, you're telling me that, like, this is not for me, but you're asking me to provide a testimonial. Fine, be that way. So I read it. I think he's an excellent writer. I'm a writer and I appreciate good writing. Obviously, I think he had a great editor. It's extremely readable. And it's organized in a very appealing way. Again, the 20 most important Buddhist ideas for the curious and skeptical. So I'm reading. I know this book is not for me. And just immediately, immediately. Immediately, Pierce becomes, in my little world, that horrible hermit monk in the back of the Buddha Hall.

[14:22]

And I'm reading along, and I read, and he's a historian also. And I'm reading along, and I read that according to Pierce, so I'm just saying this is on Pierce, not me. According to Dr. Subgiro, that in the current state of Buddhist studies, that Buddhist scholar historians agree that the Buddha Shakyamuni did not exist as a historical person. I had never heard this before. So I messaged Pierce, we're on Messenger on Facebook, and I was like, what the heck? Really? I've never heard this before. I've been practicing Buddhism since 1982 and reading about it before then, and I have never heard such a thing.

[15:32]

And he was like, yeah, well, you know, scholars don't think there was a historical Jesus story. I said, that doesn't make it better, that makes it worse. What the heck? And he just said, you know, what can I say? That's the way it is. So then I contacted, I had the honor to be friends with quite a few Buddhist scholars and academics in the United States. And so I messaged my friend, Professor Justin Ritzinger, who teaches Buddhism in Florida, and who is a friend of Pierce's. We're all friends. And I said, what the heck, Justin? Pierce says that there was no such thing as a historical Buddha. When we say the Buddha, thus have I heard, and the Buddha did this, and the Buddha did that, that there was no such basis.

[16:37]

in historical record. And he said, so Pierce is not Buddhist, Justin is. So Justin messages me back and he says, well, you know, Pierce is a historian, so they have a very high bar for evidence. And I said, Exactly. That's what I'm talking about. If I want to know about Buddhist history, I would go to the Buddhist historians. You are not helping either. Go away. So this did not help me at all, and it made me very angry, and it made me really upset. And then I thought, you know what? I've got to live up to my own values and try to be open-minded, and open to new information.

[17:37]

This is 2022. I have seen some and not all of the devastation that has been caused by what used to be called fake news and which is now so prevalent it's no longer even called fake news. It is misinformation that is being propagated on a massive scale for political reasons. Science has been politicized, and we live, in my opinion, in a polarized and warring world. in which we are in daily conflict while the planet itself burns.

[18:48]

Therefore, it is important to me to try to be open to new information, especially information I don't like, And I decided that if I live in a world in which everything, including myself, is always changing, which is subject to birth, to aging, to death, to happiness, to sorrow, to gain and loss, that I could become open to an idea in Buddhism that had never even occurred to me.

[19:57]

So I changed my attitude. I myself don't know what the truth is. I'm not a scholar. I'm not a historian. I'm just saying it is in this new book, Buddhish. So check it out. It's going to be out any day. I like to situate the talks that I give in time and in place. Those of us with spiritual practices in probably any tradition might agree that in the spiritual realm of what is sometimes called deep time, perhaps the realm for us that might be called samadhi,

[21:04]

that conventional designations of time and space are often not that relevant. For me, it's a both-and. And one of my favorite teachers, the Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh, who passed recently as his teaching, I believe we all do live in the realm of the ultimate, the spiritual realm, and simultaneously the historical realm. Therefore, today is February 26th in the year 2022. And as we know, at this very moment, Russia has invaded Ukraine.

[22:22]

And the consequences of this action are now unfolding. As people flee from their homes, And photographs of this massive suffering have begun to arrive to us through our news media. At this very moment, I'm having to skip it because I'm here. My friend, Reverend Duncan Yukin Williams, author of the much-praised book American Sutra, a story of faith and freedom in the Second World War. And it says on the back by George Takei, actor, director, and activist, one of my favorite actors,

[23:35]

George says, American Sutra tells the story of how Japanese American Buddhist families like mine survived the wartime, meaning World War II, incarceration. Their loyalty was questioned, their freedom taken away, but their spirit could never be broken. A must-read for anyone interested in the implacable quest for civil liberties is social and racial justice, religious freedom, and American belonging. So at this very moment, my friend Duncan Williams is giving an online presentation. So I hope I can see the recording. I hope there will be a recording for... an exhibit that he has helped to organize for the Japanese American National Museum.

[24:40]

And this exhibition is titled Sutra and Bible. And it explores the role that religion played in saving the exiled Japanese American community from despair. The description looks so wonderful. So I urge you, if you're interested, we can look for a recording of this talk and presentation. It's a presentation that evidently shows some of the religious objects that were created by the members of these concentration camps in World War II. Japanese immigrants and Japanese Americans, like myself, who were citizens of the United States, born in the United States, who were put into these camps after Executive Order 9066, and we just passed the anniversary.

[25:53]

of Executive Order 9066. It is the 80th anniversary. February 19th was, I believe, was that 80th anniversary. These are only two of the things. The invasion of Ukraine, the Sutra and Bible Exhibition, at the Japanese American National Museum. And I'll mention something else. I know that I am located on the land of the Confederated Villages of the Lishan Ohlone because we have a wonderful organization in Oakland called Segoriate Land Trust. And I hope that if you have a moment, if you're not familiar with them, I will put the link in at the end of this talk.

[27:02]

I'll put these resources into the chat. That you go and check them out. It is an organization led by indigenous women. Their slogan is rematriate the land. That means... That is a call to action for all of us to come into respectful relationship to this part of planet Earth on which we're living. And if you're not in the Oakland and Bay Area, I do invite you to, if you haven't already done so, to find an indigenous land map, not that they're all perfect, Start with what we have and find out the names of the indigenous peoples who have stewarded your home for many thousands of years.

[28:05]

So at this moment, my local organizations, the Sigoriate Land Trust, is, I think, attempting to purchase a house from... which they can make into their offices, and I have contributed to that effort. Going back to the title of this talk, Impermanence Happens And, or But, or And, How Do We Make Change? I'm trying to figure that out. What's my part in it? What's my responsibility? call it, I think, kind of a koan. There's no easy answer. There's a lot going on right now. And once again, change is constant.

[29:11]

Impermanence, anicha, or anitya, happens. It's all going on. And For many of us here, I venture to say there is the horrible, horrible, horrible fact that many of us have taken bodhisattva vows, which commit us. I mean, they don't commit us. We commit to it. No one's, as far as I know, bending our arms saying, you got to do this. I mean, those of us who've taken them, presumably of our own free will, it does commit us to quote-unquote saving, whatever that might mean to each of us and to our Sangha bodies, to saving all beings. That's a translation into English, like all translations, very imperfect. A lot of people don't like the word saving, sometimes translated as, I vow to awaken.

[30:18]

with all beings. Beings are numberless. Beings are innumerable. I vow to save them. I vow to awaken with them. In order to do whatever it is we do for and with quote-unquote all beings, the many beings, the 10,000 things, I personally think that first we must recognize and acknowledge and honor the many beings as they wish to be recognized, acknowledged, and honored. This is a point, a process. So we have like a product or we have a goal. Yes, I wish to recognize, acknowledge, and honor the many beings. How do we do this? For many of us, myself included, this process, which is a lifelong process in my opinion, requires often a radical shift and a fundamental shift in understanding that let's start with people who are easier to communicate with than

[31:47]

maybe than some other living beings, we do have language, imperfect as it is, that this might start with deeply listening to and bringing in translation as much as we can, if that's needed, and saying, how is it that you wish to be seen, heard, valued, respected, and recognized? may feel I'm being respectful and I may certainly be trying to be respectful however we are different we are different and I want to learn from you I may not like you I may not like the things you are doing however I wish to learn from you and in my experience as a student of the Dharma, and also as a diversity, equity, inclusion, access consultant, here's where we might need to consider a deep dive into what it is that is needed in order to effect actual change.

[33:20]

Always imperfectly, by the way. to go in the direction of becoming more equitable and more inclusive, if that is our value. I am reminded that the word radical, radical movements, radical change, radical inclusivity, the word radical in English comes from a root meaning, I think Latin, that itself means root. Radical means root. For those of us practicing in or buddhishly, to use Dr. Salguero's term, or buddhishly adjacent to the Chan, Zen, Son, Tian lineages and traditions, there are many classical traditions

[34:25]

stories of sort of shocking actions and shouts and surprising sudden changes that precipitate or accompany. The radical, radical opening, the radical shift of insight and action that goes by many and no names. In Japanese, Kensho Satori English, enlightenment, a word I particularly do not like. However, there it is. Awakening seems to be favored more these days in English. And the many other words in the other languages of these traditions. So there are these which are held up for I don't know like study and information kind of poetry I guess of shocking actions and shouts and surprising sudden changes and pivots and openings and things happening from

[35:55]

the Chan, Zen, Zen, Son, Tian lineages and traditions. They're very colorful. So there are those. And Zen Buddhist institutions, in my experience, like most religious institutions, not just Buddhist, Buddhist and Christian other religious institutions, are often less than agile. I'm trying to be polite here. And it's very understandable, less than able to penetrate the roots of racism and misogyny, classism and ableism, when it comes to needed reforms and changes. And once again, this is very understandable. We try to create institutions, structures, homes, organizations that are refuges, that are places of education, that are places of safety.

[37:19]

So of course, of course, we keep building infrastructures. into which we pour our heartfelt communal wisdom. We try to consult others and we do the best we can to create something that is good, that is solid, that will have some longevity in order to do good in the world. I was trained to be a temple builder when I started training in the Zen Buddhist temple of Ann Arbor, Michigan, we were living in an old two-story, pretty big house in Ann Arbor on about an acre of land. So this was in the city. However, it was about an acre of land and had some other old...

[38:30]

buildings on it. And when we moved in, the foundation was good. The roof was not good. We had to have it replaced. And everything else pretty much needed to be thoroughly torn down and renovated. It was filled with cockroaches and had been probably an illegal managed care facility for elderly people so that the wallpaper in all the rooms was stained by the smoke of thousands of cigarettes and the basement was filled with old wheelchairs and walkers and sad reminders. of the former occupants of our temple.

[39:32]

And we started to renovate it, trying again to create something that had some solidity, that had some lasting value. So thus we have this dialectic, again so understandable, between on one hand this world of constant change, to which we're adapting or trying to adapt some of the changes we like, some we don't care about, some we absolutely detest. So we're always trying to adjust, to adapt, to change, to flow along with. And we're also trying to make needed changes and sometimes trying to make those needed changes to go in the constructive direction result in creating structures. which then begin to essentialize, solidify, and become less supple.

[40:39]

Let's put it that way. This is all very normal. And what I'd like to point to this morning is my own, and this is just me, Mushim, my own understanding of my own spiritual roots. I do believe that I need to accept change on one hand and also to help to create change on the other hand. And this acceptance and this creation are not two things but one. We even have the phrase in English, so on one hand and the other hand. And you put those hands together, and then for us, of course, what do we have? We have gasho. So whenever we do gasho, yeah. Acceptance. Accepting change, creating change.

[41:42]

Accepting change, creating change. It's not like I'm that good at this. The biggest change I've ever been through in my life, of course, in the largest sense, was two years ago, March 2020, when here in the Bay Area, in California, in the United States, we were told that we would be entering lockdown because of the COVID-19 global pandemic. And that changed everything. And I have been changed many times.

[42:52]

My background and my roots are in the arts. I'm one of the earlier published Asian American poets, and poetry, including that of Zen practitioner and poet Gary Snyder, led me directly, it was like a direct pipeline, into the study of Zen Buddhism, first by reading, and then in... starting around 1981, 1982, because all of the books said, it will be useless for you to read all these books. You have to find a teacher and you have to practice. And I thought, since the books all say that, not just one or two, it must be true. Therefore, I must find a place to practice. And causes and conditions were good in a 1982

[43:57]

is when I moved. I finished graduate school in poetry writing from the University of Iowa and not knowing what else to do with myself at the time, I went to live in Ann Arbor, Michigan where I had an old friend and that's where I first encountered Zen practice in the Korean lineage. That's just the way the dice rolled and went on from there. And that path eventually led me to the roots of my lineage in Korea, once again at the Sudaksa Temple Complex, which is in the northern part of South Korea, kind of going towards the demilitarized zone, or DMZ. And that spring day in 1988, when I was part of this very sudden,

[45:02]

and shocking evacuation of the Buddha hall when the teacher who was present could not answer the Dharma challenge of who is this Buddha you are talking about. That experience changed me completely because I actually experienced it and now I know that The Zen phrase, all beings, one body, is actually quite literal when the Sangha, through whatever means, acts in unison. We are capable of basically just leaving the house or leaving the Buddha Hall if our precious human lifetimes and skills are better placed elsewhere. although it may not be probable, it is completely possible and it does happen.

[46:08]

It is, in fact, part of my own experience of Zen training to not gain, because that's impossible, but to realize and try to embody this fluidity. Again, one of my great teachers, Thich Nhat Hanh, who recently passed away, declared the same in one of his most famous poems, Please Call Me by My True Names. In this poem, Tai, or Te, as he is called by his students, says, I am the mayfly. Metamorphosing on the surface of the river. And I am the bird that swoops down to swallow the mayfly. I am a member of the Politburo with plenty of power in my hands.

[47:21]

The Politburo. And I am the man who has to pay his debt of blood to my people. dying slowly in a forced labor camp. It's a beautiful poem. I read it, in fact, when I was in Korea. Somehow I got hold of a copy of this poem in English, and I read it. And it ends, as many of us know, by Thich Nhat Hanh saying, all of the names of all of the beings are my true names. Please call me by my true names so that the door of my heart, the door of compassion, may open. To me, this is a totally radical call to action. And perhaps not so hard to understand. I had the good fortune around 30 years ago

[48:28]

maybe a little over, to live for a year and practice at Green Gulch Farm Zen Center, which is part, as we know, of San Francisco. Zen Center's three practice centers. At that time, I was a penniless single mother, and my baby, whom I've been calling the associate for a while because he is my associate, we're still living together, And also to keep his name out of social media. So he was with me there at Green Galt Zen Center. There were three babies at the time. So we did have child care in the morning. And so my associate understood everything. However... It's not uncommon, at least in the United States, for there to be differences in language development between girls and boys.

[49:35]

And I also want to completely acknowledge that gender is a construct and it is fluid and on a spectrum. So my baby... said everything. However, he was what one of the Zen students who babysat the three babies, once called him, said, he's a man of few words. He just, he didn't really talk that much, or when he did, he was really annoying because he'd say the same word over and over and over again. He just, I don't know, he just, he didn't really talk a lot. Whereas Oldest baby, Elisa, who was a daughter of Wendy Johnson and Peter Rudnick, who lived at Green Gulch for a long time, was speaking in three-word sentences when she was 12 months old, one year old. They were just different. So anyway, the kids all played together. So anyway, mine didn't really talk a lot or not in full sentences or just didn't talk a lot, though he understood things.

[50:48]

However, when he was highly motivated to say something, he would and he could speak. So he was sitting in his high chair around two years old at Green Gulch. We lived up in Spring Valley. And he was sitting in his high chair, probably with food smeared all over his face. And I don't know, we weren't talking about anything in particular. But suddenly... He was, like, seized by the spirit, and he had a manifesto. He wanted to declare something. And he literally, he shouted out at the top of his lungs, I am not a Buddha, and I am not Buddhist. And being a student was then, I thought, fine. You want to do Dharma combat? Fine. So I was very surprised, but I was trying to rise to the occasion, so I said, fine, then what are you?

[51:54]

And he immediately shouted, anything. I thought, you're probably going to do okay, kid. Just don't forget this. So how is it that we do make change? How do we become anything, including the change that is needed? And today I want to emphasize that collective change is needed, that justice movements and coalitions are, I think, needed. The answer to how we might need to radically change in order to align with our stated values is not one thing. It is many things. Among them, in my point of view, the hardest is to arrive at a collective and clear understanding of what it is we need to give up,

[53:08]

to use a spiritual and Buddhist word to renounce what act of renunciation, what acts, plural of renunciation, we might need to do, what it is that we might need to leave behind in order to align our actions with our stated values. Currently, in the United States and beyond, there was a clear call. to center BIPOC, Buddhist indigenous people of color, black indigenous people of color leadership, if we are to transform white supremacist characteristics present in all organizations in the United States. Currently, there is a clear call from the Black Lives Matter movement, the Movement for Black Lives, and from other people of color organizations to center black indigenous people of color BIPOC leadership if we are to transform white supremacist characteristics present in all organizations in the United States.

[54:30]

Is this something we want? Is this something we understand? Is this something we agree with, that we're having conversations about? Is this something we need, that we're willing to do? How do we do it if this is what we want to do? How do we do it? How do we make this change in this burning world? 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. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[55:26]

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