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. Well, good morning and welcome to Zen Center. My name is Wendy Lewis and my Dharma name is Kyoshin. means abode or home of truth. So we'll see what you think. What I'd like to speak about today, this morning, is transience or impermanence and how that's related to faith practices. In Buddhism, there's three bodhisattvas or enlightening beings that are associated with the Buddha. There's Manjushri, who represents wisdom, Samanta Bhadra, who we call the bodhisattva of shining practice, and that's what applied faith is.

[01:06]

And Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion. So these bodhisattvas operate separately, but their functions are inseparable. So that term faith and... faith practices or applied faith, is complex. And talking about it often makes people uncomfortable. And I think there are good reasons for that. Our history, our sense of how that's worked. But there's also other aspects to it, but it often makes people uncomfortable. And it's difficult to pin down or define what or understand even. And it's hard to know what I mean by it or what someone else would mean by it when they say it. It can be associated with fanaticism or unquestioning belief.

[02:08]

But I think that one of its most confusing or complex aspects is that deep faith is accompanied by healthy doubt. And that's very mysterious and seems contradictory. Now, my understanding of postmodern culture is that it generally assumes that what can be measured or explained is true. What can't be measured or explained then is often considered to be suspicious or else we romanticize it. Love is romanticized because it's so unmeasurable. But then if it's romanticized, how do we find its truth? And I think that's one of our big question. And nevertheless, most of us continue to be sort of superstitious, you know, about where we put things and that kind of thing. And we continue to rely on our cultural assumptions and to bargain with reality when we're stressed or when something goes wrong or we're afraid.

[03:20]

So in Buddhism, the understanding of transience or impermanence as like a given, you know, impermanence is a truth, can be interpreted as a kind of passivity in the face of change. But actually, it's a very active acceptance and a continuous adjustment to the endless unfolding of reality in our daily lives. This is often a problem when you... Talk about rebirth and reincarnation. Well, if there's impermanence, what does that mean? But they don't deny impermanence, rebirth and reincarnation. They're part of its continuity. So people can have memories of past lives, but they can't be remembered totally in that minute-to-minute lived aspect or as a whole. There's just little bits and pieces which... really are the patterns that are the basis of karma, this continuity.

[04:32]

So an interpretation of karma actually goes beyond the idea of rewards and punishments, like do something good and somehow something good will come to you, do something bad, somehow something bad will come to you. And although that's a part of karma, and it's good to remember, there's Another understanding of it more subtly of karma as habit patterns. And each person's habit patterns, this is also an aspect of karma, deflects and supports the habit patterns of others. So whatever we do, there's consequences to it, basically. And whether an act of body, speech, or mind is harmful, helpful, or ineffective is not always clear. But through the awareness of the unfolding results of our actions, karma becomes informative on the level of ethics or our relationship to others, which is what ethics is about, and to all the things that make up our world.

[05:52]

And ethics is applied faith. So our discernment of the unfolding results of our actions or karmic habit patterns becomes more subtle when it's viewed in this context of applied faith. Like, I'm consciously deciding to look at it in terms of my relationship, my actions. of body, speech, and mind. There's this story of a Zen monk, and when he went on his begging rounds, whether people offered him something or abused him, he would thank them. And he would confuse people by this profuse thanks and gratitude when they abused him particularly. And what he was doing, what he was intending is... he was thanking them for helping him to burn out his karmic effects.

[06:55]

Now, I think that also kindness and generosity and friendliness, positive, things we think of as positive, also help to burn out karma. And they strengthen both those who receive them and those who give them. But our actions of body, speech, and mind... flow out from us through this context, our internal context of conditionality or how those actions arose in us. And we know all that story, but other people don't. So when we do something, it's coming from this whole history, this whole karmic unfolding. But on a daily basis, you know, we can sense that in each other and we either dismiss it or appreciate it or tolerate it and just guess that there is a kind of conditional backstory for each person.

[08:02]

And we have, I think, actually a fairly high degree of interdependent tolerance and appreciation for each other. However, a lot of our habitual actions of body, speech, and mind are something like irritability or wit or even generosity, things that are habitual, can hook into our respective habit patterns and kind of move beyond that tolerance and appreciation and push those limits. So at both the level of tolerance and intolerance, I think we balance at the meeting of pettiness and transcendence. As what I'm calling pettiness is our sense, we're convinced of our version of conditionality. And on the transcendence side, we're convinced of the power of forgiveness or letting go.

[09:08]

So these two poles that we... rely on in a certain way. And yet, the results of all these actions of body, speak to mind keep on unfolding. You can't just say, oops, okay, that's over and I can just erase it because forgiveness and letting go works. They're already flowing out. And they do this both implicitly by giving permission for everyone else to respond to us from that place in the same way and to others. And also establishing the tendency in ourselves to repeat those actions. So one of the teachings in Buddhism is to do good and avoid evil. And what I think that means is we just keep kind of nudging and pushing towards

[10:09]

actions that are not harmful. We can't, like, leap into complete harmlessness because we're part of everything, but we just nudge things. There's the Soto Zen abbot Obara in, it's in, I think it's in the second Zen reader. I should have written that down. He has a commentary on the Heart Sutra, and he addresses this difficulty. He writes, we set ourselves not to weep, but life brings us toward tears. We set ourselves not to be angry, yet anger arises. It cannot be escaped. The attitude of spiritual practice is to discover a power in the very midst of the sufferings of life. And intellectually, I think we can understand that and accept that. But when something arises in our lives to remind us of transience,

[11:12]

or impermanence, it often seems like an interruption. It disturbs our sense of eternity or continuity. We always say, oh, then I'm going to do this, then I'm going to do this, then I'm going to do this. Everything is going to be normal. That's our assumption, and that's helpful. But when there's that interruption, then what? So I'm sitting here. I'm not wearing my ukesa. I didn't do my full bows. And the reason for that is that recently an old neck injury of mine got reactivated. And it affects my arm and my shoulder and my back and my face. And I'm watching it because I had already started writing this talk before it happened or before it got bad. I've been thinking, well, here's the pain. Then there's the fear that the pain will never go away. The fear that my life has been totally interrupted.

[12:15]

There's nowhere to go. I don't want to talk to my friends or my co-workers about it too much because we're all caught in the karma of normalcy, right? And our expectations of each other and so on and so forth. My expectations of myself. I'm not putting this outside of myself. And I want to avoid sympathy and judgment. All these things are coming up. And so it's my karmic patterns, the karmic patterns of others, and the whole karmic patterns of our culture that are in this one simple thing that's happening to me. And so in the midst of shock, annoyance, fear, pain, all those kinds of things, It's possible, I think, to experience an awareness of transcendence at the same time. But it's hard to remember it.

[13:15]

What is letting go of me now? What is transcendence of me now? But it's there. And I think that one of the examples of that is that I'm sitting in front of you, that I decided to give this talk anyway, even though I'm very embarrassed that I'm not wearing my okesa. that I couldn't do my full bows. And that's my stuff, right? But I thought still, this is what I agreed to do, and I'm going to see how it works when I'm limited. And my sense of transcendence is mostly very far away, and it seems like, you know, I just want to escape. I want to make some deal where, okay, if I do the talk, Does that mean I'll feel better? Anything, anything. But here I am. So now you know why I'm not wearing my case. One of the theologians that I read during a Master of Theology program that I just finished is David Tracy.

[14:30]

And he's very interested in interreligious dialogue, and he's engaged in it and particularly addresses Buddhist-Christian dialogue and how that can inform both traditions. And he refers to the Buddhist attitude towards transience or impermanence as terrifyingly other. And he says that the value of the attitude, however, for him is is that dialogue between Christians and Buddhists can inspire the retrieval of Christianity's great mystical traditions. I think that's very interesting. And the predicament of mystical experience, though, is the return to the world as it is. You're always in this. And he writes, and this is... partly what I think is addressing his sense of the otherness of the Buddhist attitude as he understands it. For the Buddhist, there is, strictly speaking, no self to return and no world to return to.

[15:37]

But the question of some return to the world is a real, an existential, and a troubling question. And I think that sense of return is what Abbot Obora is referring to when he says the very midst of the sufferings of life. And this can be deeply informed by an understanding of karma. If you think of the Buddha's enlightenment, where here he's had this profound insight and sense of transformation, and he's wandering in the forest trying to decide whether to return. Should I return? Should I teach? And he does decide to return, and then what happens? Well, he decides to, you know, promote this movement. And there's all kinds of rules. There ends up being a hierarchy of authority and all these things that get activated. And he's often supported by family, friends who are wealthy, or by people who know that he's from a noble background.

[16:46]

And therefore they provide him with shelter during the rainy season, that sort of thing. So as deep as his insight has gone, his return is still determined by some kind of karmic continuity or unfolding. And there's the circumstance of his own life, of his time and place, of the very experience that he's had, and how he's going to explain it or encourage it in others. And these karmic patterns go from the past through the present and towards the future. So they're always in movement. So our transcendence means we have to keep also karma in mind and a sense of the sort of patterns.

[17:50]

of the unfolding results of our actions and of our ordinary human experiences and context. So the Buddha describes this sometimes as the middle way, and then there's also this term equanimity. So in some ways I'm going to equate those, and I think they are equatable, but there's particulars about them as well, but I hope you'll excuse me for equating them in this talk. So the Buddha describes as the middle way. It's not, you know, a sort of holding on to the status quo. Like, oh well, you know, I'll try this, but I'm not going to disturb anything. I think of that as sort of our middling sense of uncertainty and dependence. But it's actually a participation in a rising and falling of reality.

[18:51]

And it's from the perspective of balance or finding equanimity between transcendence and pettiness. So Abhita Bora, in his commentary on the Heart Sutra, tells this story. And I'm just going to read it to you. Life is so uncertain. Where can we find a firm footing? Human life is always quivering with uncertainty. When the circumstances are good, we do a little good, and when they are bad, we may do anything. For some three weeks of each month, I am away from the temple. When I come back, I send a postcard a few days ahead saying exactly what time to the minute I shall be at the tram stop. Then I anticipate that I shall be met. I descend at the stop and look around, but no one has come to meet me. And where has gone the pleasant feeling that I will be met?

[19:53]

Where has faith gone? Where has Satori gone? I told them the exact time. Surely someone could meet me. These ignoble hell feelings arise. I scold myself at making all this fuss and walk to the temple. As I get to the gate, someone comes out. I was just coming to meet you, but there was an emergency, so please excuse us. And my hell heart disappears. Suddenly angry, suddenly at peace, where can one find a firm foothold? And at this point in this story, of course, we think we've found our solution. We just keep going back and forth, and we're hoping that he will explain that. But instead, he extends the story to what if no one was at the gate? And his annoyance getting... more and more extended. And eventually, it comes back to him. He elicits that response from everyone around him.

[20:56]

And he comments, isn't it pathetic? And we might realize that this story is describing completely normal and everyday human interactions. He says... I preach about human conduct and I am supposed to be practicing spiritual training. Am I then so pitiable I cannot swallow one word without an upsurge of anger? When I am brought to penetrate to the truth of that I, which is the truth of myself, when I realize what the self really is, then renunciation appears of itself and there is already freedom from the body and heart. So this is a commentary on the Heart Sutra. It's the great teaching of wisdom by Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion. And the only way that Manjushri's wisdom and Avalokiteshvara's compassion can work together is when they meet through Samantabhadra's faith or applied practice.

[22:04]

And applied faith and practice are intended towards things like transformation, humility, freedom. peace, and love. And as much as we think we want those things, we're not necessarily willing to make the effort or sustain the losses that are required because these losses are questioning our normal behavior and our power struggles, which happen in all of our relationships. So in Buddhism, There is a response to the problem of transience or impermanence, and I think maybe David Tracy's sense of it is terrifying, maybe more accurate than we might like to admit. The middle way or equanimity, which sounds so calm, is not actually reaching some sort of passionless state of imperturbability or something, but a very deep awareness of our...

[23:12]

interactions with everything and of our part in our interactions, our participation, and this continuous negotiation of pettiness and transcendence that also informs all the transient and impermanent moments of our day. But I think that the middle way is also joyful, and it's marked by beauty and humor and gratitude, as well as things like embarrassment, fear, and pain. And to me, that's a mystery worth investigating. So 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.

[24:19]

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.

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