This podcast is offered by San Francisco's Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good evening. I imagine from the echo you can all hear me. Is that too loud? Nobody wants to sit in the hot seat, huh? So, first of all, I want to thank the Tonto, Rosalie, for inviting me to speak. It's always an honor to be invited to speak to you all. And so here I am. Unfortunately, you've come under false pretenses. The chant that we just did says,

[01:03]

an unsurpassed, penetrating, and perfect dharma is rarely met with even in a hundred thousand million kalpas. Ain't it the truth? So if that's what you came here hoping to hear tonight, you're going to be very disappointed. So if you want to hear that, what I suggest you do is that when you go back home, you open one of the sutras, okay? Because that's a lot to live up to, and I'm not even going to try. You know, the idea of the Dharma, that if I were going to tell you the Dharma, or if someone were going to preach the Dharma, what they would be telling you is something like the truth, something like answers. Because that's what the Dharma is. The Dharma is the way things are. And perhaps that's what you came here for. Perhaps that's what I originally, certainly it's what I originally came here for, to Buddhism, to Zen practice, looking for answers of a sort.

[02:04]

And, you know, what I found over many, many years of practicing and studying Buddhism is that what Buddhism has done is not so much provide answers, but as to help me sharpen and focus the questions. So usually when I give a talk like this, it's not really about answers. You know, in case two of the Blue Cliff Record, which is a collection of Zen stories very important in Zen. The teacher, Zhao Zhou, after an interchange with one of his students or one of the monks in his monastery says, it is enough to have raised the question, now bow and withdraw. Which is kind of like what I feel like doing. But sometimes, sometimes you can't do that. You know, sometimes you... In the words of Kadagiri Roshi, sometimes you have to say something. So what I'm going to offer then are some thoughts and some questions and some suggestions.

[03:11]

And it's not really a lecture so much as a rambling meditation on a theme. So when I was thinking about talking tonight, I thought, well, what should I talk about? And then, of course, we have a seasonal prompt. which on Friday is Independence Day, July 4th. And I thought, wow, we could talk about interdependence. How about that? And I thought, nah, give it to Thich Nhat Hanh. It's been done to death, right? But I was thinking, and not just recently, over a period of some time now, I've been thinking a little bit about something that Thomas Jefferson says in the Declaration of Independence. I'm sure you will recognize that. these words, most of you. What he wrote was this. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

[04:21]

I want to read that again. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Okay, this is in the Declaration of Independence, and it's beautifully written, it's a beautiful sentiment, it's a beautiful idea, and it's completely wrong. At least from a Buddhist point of view, I would say it's completely wrong. So let's look at what he has to say here. so that our rights, these rights, are both self-evident and God-given. And that's really the only thing he could say, right? Because he had to make these rights axiomatic and self-evident because, in fact, they are neither obvious, evident, or provable. And, of course, since they are neither obvious, evident, or provable,

[05:27]

they have to be backed up by something. And so Thomas Jefferson, the good deist that he was, decided to have the creator back them up, right? So the basis then of the rights that Jefferson speaks of only exist, are only backed up by virtue of a creator. Now, of course, we know in Buddhism that there is no such thing, no such being. Buddhism actually outright denies the possibility of a creator god, of a being who stands behind everything and directly intervenes in the affairs of human beings. So what does that leave us with? Well, when Emperor Wu asked Bodhidharma in the Blue Cliff Record, that book that I talked to you about, mentioned earlier, what is the highest meaning of the holy truths? In other words, what's it all really about?

[06:28]

Bodhi Dharma famously replied, vast emptiness, nothing holy. So from that point of view, we would have to say that these rights in the Declaration of Independence basically rest on air and hope. Not very solid. And in fact, I would like to say that in a Buddhist understanding, if we're going to take it as far as we can, we don't have rights at all. We can't really talk about human rights at all. We have karma. We have cause and effect. And cause and effect without either divine intervention or underpinning. Uh... And this, I believe, is both our terrifying freedom and our bondage as well. We can do whatever we want except escape the consequences of our actions.

[07:36]

So I don't know if this is so right, but it certainly is a challenge. It certainly is a provocation. It certainly is some level of freedom So we've just kind of, from a Buddhist point of view at least, sort of wiped out the entirety of rights provided by and protected by a creator. So let's go on to see what else he has to say, Mr. Jefferson. So the second thing that the Declaration says is that these rights are inalienable. In other words, that they are intrinsic and may not be taken away. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If only that were true. In fact, our life and our liberty are not inalienable. They are at, if nothing else, the mercy of the state. Or in fact, any person or any organization which has sufficient power to take them away from us.

[08:43]

We can be deprived of our life and our liberty. by anyone with a gun. Mao said that all political power comes from the barrel of a gun. I don't think he was being cynical. I think he was being clear-sighted. Because at bottom, all organizations that can comply conformity are ultimately based on violence or the threat of violence. And by the way, Buddhist organizations are not exempt from this. Of course, an extreme example, are the armed Buddhist monks of Japan who used to cheerfully burn down each other's temples in the Middle Ages, you know, probably singing gattas as they went, I imagine. So I believe that, and one of the things that I think that for my own practice and my own thought and my own exploration of Buddhism is important is to take something and see how far it can be taken.

[09:48]

and see if actually it holds up. See if it does not crumble under the weight of its own inner contradictions. So it seems to me that we are complicit always in violence as long as we rely on the power of the state. So if something should happen here and we call the cops, we're complicit. And so if somebody tried to break in or there was something going on, really scary or bad here, it would be Shunda's job to call the cops. And if he didn't do that, he wouldn't be doing his job, right? We would want him to do that. I would want him to do that. And yet, we are complicit in that violence, in that threat of violence. So we can't fool ourselves, I think, that our relatively specific religion of Buddhism, I say relatively, makes us not complicit as long as we use the services of the state that has the means to compel, restrict, imprison, or kill.

[11:01]

So this is what I was thinking when I was thinking about the Declaration of Independence. Maybe not what most people think of when they think of it. And I'm sorry if this sounds like a political screed. It's not meant to be. And maybe by this point you're wondering what this has to do with Buddhism at all. Well, I think, if nothing else, I think that a Buddhist understanding is one which seeks to penetrate to the very bottom of whatever it examines and not to be content with superficial platitudes and things that make us feel good just because they make us feel good. And our practice, you know, it's said classically that Buddhist practice is grounded on three trainings, shila, dhyana, and prajna. Shila being the practice of ethical conduct, ethical behavior, dhyana being meditation, and prajna being wisdom.

[12:08]

And, you know, shila is always spoken of first, and I think that's important. Because unless our behavior is grounded in ethical conduct, nothing else is possible. I always like to say it's hard to do meditation if you're worried that your boss is going to find you've been dipping into the till, or your partner or spouse is going to find out that you've been cheating on them, or are you trying to remember what lie you told to what person, right? So ethical conduct is both the ground and very, very practical. And the Buddha said, my way goes against the way of the world. My way goes against the way of the world. And I think that a Buddhist ethic implies a radical disconnect between from the assumed and shared values of society.

[13:11]

So, for example, the first precept, right, is not to kill. In fact, that seems pretty obvious. Like, I'm not going to pull a gun out of my sleeve and, you know, pop anybody between the eyes with it. But in fact, I think to follow through to the conclusion, not only would I have to not engage in outright violence, but I would have to dissociate myself from anything, any organization, any whatever combination of people that had violence at its root. So that would probably mean I wouldn't pay taxes or oblige the state in any way, you know, to cut off violence that ground of violence which the world is based on. So probably wouldn't have a driver's license, probably wouldn't vote, probably, you know, nothing, any part of any group that is supported by the state.

[14:18]

And, of course, this would have to include Zen Center because we are also supported by the state to the point that we are, you know, tax-exempt and they allow us to exist. So we are complicit in the violence of the state. So this is kind of difficult, right? This is kind of difficult to figure out. And without a god or a divine being underpinning the world to inform and sustain our practice, I have to ask, what can it rest on? What can it rest on? And so let's go back to Bodhidharma and Bodhidharma's vast emptiness. If it is indeed the case that the highest meaning of the holy truths is vast emptiness, nothing holy. Well, we have at least a few questions, I should think, right? On what can we ground or what should we ground our actions and our practice? You know, as I said earlier, as far as I can tell from a Buddhist point of view, we do not have rights.

[15:22]

We have karma. We have cause and effect. And this is the primary understanding, the sort of sine qua non for Buddhism. But I also think that we can go a little bit further than this. I believe that what we ground our practice and our behavior on, drum rolls please, is the Bodhisattva vow. I vow to live and to live for the benefit of all beings. This is a short and my favorite rendition of the Bodhisattva vow. I vow to live and be lived for the benefit of all beings. And I believe that it takes a whole lifetime to understand that. Once again, going back to the Blue Cliff Record, a monk asked Yun Men, what are the teachings of a whole lifetime? And Yun Men replies, an appropriate response. So our whole life of Buddhist practice can be seen as the effort to make an appropriate response.

[16:30]

to the bodhisattva vow. And you know, it's rather an odd thing, right? This vow. So we say, we say we take the vow. I take a vow. I take the bodhisattva vow. And yet, we create the vow by taking it. The vow is created when we take the vow. And once we have created the vow, by taking it, we give ourselves to it. And the vow takes us. So in a sense, the vow exists as an act of faith and an act of will on our part. And this vow, in my understanding, is what we have in Buddhism rather than some divine intervention. And for me, This is what stands as grace. And I do think that the vow, the bodhisattva vow, that we take and in taking create and in creating give ourselves to is what is inalienable.

[17:49]

Not our rights, not something to stand on, but rather the vow to live and to be lived for the benefit of all beings. And I kept this rather short, first of all, because I ran out of things to say and didn't feel like repeating myself, but also because for me, as I said, my understanding or my lack of understanding about these talks is that they're mostly an exploration So I would like to open for discussion now. We have a little bit of time. And the Eno told me that if we have discussion, only what I hear can be heard and recorded. So if you say something, I will probably repeat it in some form or another for the recording. So it's your turn. Judith. So Judith asks if there are other words that I could suggest for the word, as a synonym, I suppose, for the word appropriate, inappropriate response.

[19:12]

So, you know, the appropriate response, to remind you that the quote is, you know, what is the work of an entire lifetime, or what is the teaching of an entire lifetime, is an appropriate response. And I think the appropriate response is that which fits. So this morning, Judith and I and some of our other friends here had the opportunity to go down and offer a meal to some homeless men and women at a church in the Tenderloin. So this is a wonderful place. It's called St. Boniface. And they open the church every day and allow people to come and sleep in the pews. That's an appropriate response. Feeding people who are hungry is an appropriate response. Giving people a quiet, sacred, safe space to be is an appropriate response. Sometimes I think silence is an appropriate response. An appropriate response meets the need and meets the request.

[20:16]

Do you want to say more? Okay, that will do for now. Oh, wait, Judith wants to say more. So Judith reminds us, I feel like an interpreter, right? That a couple of people had to drop out because of illness. And she's very kind when she says there was some anxiety. What she meant was that I was freaking out. But other people that we weren't expecting to be there showed up.

[21:23]

And I think the appropriate response that I could not muster was trust that everything would be okay. Does that make my anxiety inappropriate? It makes it a waste of energy and probably putting more stress on my friends than I actually should have. I think this gentleman was next. Okay, so... The gentleman has just asked what I mean by karma in the context of the talk that I just gave. So karma literally means volitional activity, activity that we do of our own will that has consequence. So that's pretty much what I meant, that we are the heirs of our deeds.

[22:30]

We are the heirs of our deeds, whether they are deeds of thought, body, or mind. And they are, for the most part, inescapable. So we create, just as we create the vow by taking the vow, we create our life through the actions of our lives. And that can sound pretty scary and draconian, But I always remember, I always love to remember the story of Angulimala. This is in the early teachings. Angulimala, his name means finger necklace. And he was, without going into the back story, he was this guy who used to rob people and cut off their fingers and wear them in a garland around his neck. And the story is that he met the Buddha, he was converted by the Buddha, and he became an arhat. He became an enlightened person. in spite of his karma. So it's not that karma is our chain and inevitable, and I don't think we're looking at some sort of determinism, but rather that what we do largely creates what we become, largely influences the environment in which we find ourselves.

[23:54]

Is that good enough for now? Thank you. You had your hand up. Yeah, I did. Did you change your mind? You were talking about the stress that you might cause to other people through your anxiety, and I was wondering about the stress that you were experiencing. What about it? Oh, why was I experiencing stress? Oh, so he's asking about the stress that I mentioned that I was experiencing and that overflowed, unfortunately, onto my friends. My stress came from the fact that I wanted everything to be perfect, I wanted everything to be on time, and I wanted everybody to see what a wonderful planner and cook I was. My identity as a perfect provider was threatened.

[24:56]

Is that enough? I've heard your compassion. And thank you. You're welcome. Tova. Toe was asking about the beginning that all men are created equal. Well, you know, I was thinking about that this afternoon. I was thinking, like, he must have known it was a lie as he was penning it, as he was taking quill to parchment. Yeah. He was a slave owner. Women were not given the vote. All men, if they are white property owners, are created equal. Um... So obviously, historically, it doesn't wash.

[26:03]

What does it mean in terms of us now, aside from any sort of political thought we might have? I mean, we do believe that everybody should have the vote, everybody should be subject to the same laws, et cetera. But I think that perhaps maybe what Tova is alluding to, but does it have any any greater meaning for us in Buddhism than some sort of civic rights, rights of citizens. Would that be accurate? Okay. Please go ahead, say more. Mm-hmm. from the moment that we understand that.

[27:21]

But there is something that we all have in some nature or that spark that we put in the nature of. So for those of you who didn't hear, or for those of you who may be listening to this, Thobu is making a distinction between the equality of Buddha nature are, as she said, the equality of that spark that we all have. For me, the way I sort of think about it is the potential for awakening. That's the way that lets me hear it better. And of course, the obvious inequality, both in terms of environment, et cetera, et cetera. For example, Tova plays the cello beautifully, and I can't even sing on tune. So we are obviously not created equal. you know, she got the good music genes. So, yeah, I mean, so this is where the political comes in, I think.

[28:26]

You know, trying to create a world where each person has the best chance to nurture what is in him or her. Realizing, though, I think it is important to realize that it is my deep belief that that each of us has the potential for awakening, no matter what our circumstances, no matter what our background, either, you know, genetic or social or familial. Perhaps this is also a matter of faith. Anyone on this side of the room? Sir? Uh-huh. Oh, that was what I wasn't going to talk about. Okay, so the gentleman asked about interdependence. Is it a new concept to you? Oh, well, what do you think it means? You don't know.

[29:30]

Okay, well, there's a lot of ways to talk about interdependence. Maybe the easiest way is... Oh, let's do my favorite. This is a cup, for those of you who are listening and cannot see. So this cup exists only because of all the things it isn't. This cup exists because of the, it's mostly glass, I think. So it exists because of the silica that was harvested from someplace or mined, the heat that melted it, the mold into which it was poured. You know, the men and women who worked in the factory to create it, the men and women who work to create the factory. It exists because the sun has a certain distance from the earth, or vice versa, because the gravity of the earth is such and so, because the air pressure of the earth is such and so. It has its form because of the culture that we live in that was handed down from a very long time.

[30:36]

And ultimately, the heavy elements in the cup come from the detritus of exploding novas a gazillion, bazillion years ago. in a galaxy far, far away. So this cup exists only because of all of those things and many, many more. And just as this cup exists only as the sum total of everything it is not, so do you and I and everything else. We are dependent and interdependent upon all things that exist. It's like a house of cards. You take away the card at the bottom and it all collapses. So, you know, obviously, you know, if your mom or dad were taken out of the equation, there wouldn't be a U or, you know, anything like that. So that's one of the ways we talk about interdependence. Interdependence is a positive way of stating the teaching of emptiness, that all things are empty of own being, that nothing stands on its own independently in any way.

[31:44]

Is that good enough? Christopher, did you have your hand up? You talked about karma as the potential act of body, speech, and mind. You've also talked a lot about how we're not in control of the thoughts that come up in our mind. So I'm wondering what kind of intentional act of mind is there that has come up? Did I say that we're not in control of our thoughts? Okay. So Christopher says that, you know, when we talk of karma, body, speech, and mind, if we define karma as intentional activity, then what about the thoughts that occur sort of spontaneously that we don't necessarily will? Um... So I think in the strictest sense of karma, what's a good word other than crap?

[32:57]

The crap that's in our head most of the time may not be stuff we will. But if a thought that is conjoined with greed, hatred, and delusion comes up, and we notice it, we can decide to continue it or we can try to move the mind away from it. And I believe that's when karma arises because that's when it becomes volitional. So if I'm walking down the street and I'm sort of looking at something and I happen to step on a bug, say, and I kill the bug, I don't think that there is karma consequence because it was not a volitional act. Maybe the only volitional act involved my lack of paying attention. And it also says in one of the sutras someplace, the Buddha says only a thoroughly enlightened Buddha can truly understand karma.

[34:02]

So that's what you get from somebody who's not. I think Miles was next. What Miles said was life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, correct me if I am wrong, at least liberty and the pursuit of happiness can be understood from a Buddhist point of view as sort of the work that we do in our practice. You know, this liberty is the liberty of enlightenment, awakening, and the happiness is the happiness that comes attended upon that.

[35:12]

Would that be right? Yeah, and I think that's a perfectly, it's a perfectly reasonable restatement of Jefferson's thing from a Buddhist point of view. But I do want to correct something that you said. For those of you who couldn't hear, he said, it sounds like you're a staunch atheist. I'm not an atheist, I'm a Buddhist. There's a difference. To say that I'm an atheist would be to define myself in terms of someone else's belief. So I don't call myself a non-creationist. I don't call myself an atheist. It's apples and oranges, chalk and cheese. To say that Buddhism does not posit creator God is accurate. And that's Buddhism. I just wanted to make that distinction because I think it is an important one. Because if we set ourselves up in opposition, we will be in opposition.

[36:16]

If we state what we believe, what we practice, what we feel to be true, it's quite a different feeling. Is that all right? So in your example of karmic consequence and action, you said if you unintentionally step on a bug and kill it, that's not operational action and does not have karmic consequence for you. And so my question is, what is the difference between karmic consequence and material consequence? Because it certainly has consequence for the bug. Yeah, so the bug dies. So Caitlin said it's quite obvious that if I accidentally step on a bug and kill it, it has perhaps no karmic consequence for me because it was not a volitional activity, and yet it does have consequence for the bug. The bug dies. I don't think it's karmic consequence for the bug any more than if I am killed by...

[37:25]

An earthquake, you know. You know, if there's no, so, you know, the bug, just as I, just as you are, are subject to, you know, I was going to say old age sickness and death, but I'm not even sure. I guess bugs get old. Do they get sick? I guess they must. Anyhow, they die, you know. So we're all caught, right, in the cycle of becoming samsara. And our lives will always end in one way or another. So I don't really know where else to go with that. Do you want to say more? Well, I think that in our lives, our unintentional actions have consequence that also requires some, I don't want to say some responsibility thinking, but that it does have consequence that plays out later in our lives. just as karmic consequence plays out later in our lives.

[38:27]

Right. Right. So, and I think that's perfectly right. So what Kaylin just said is that even though we may do an action that has no intentionality at the time, the consequences may come back to confront us in some way. So I think that when the consequences come back, that's where intentionality comes in. So, you know, I may not have intended to, I don't know, open the door and let your cat run away, but the cat still ran away, and you're still really upset. And so how I respond to that, you know, what do I do? Do I shut the door and say, like, how could I lie about this? You know, do I go out and find the cat? Try. Do I tell you what's going on? Do I try to excuse myself? Do I, you know, do I try to, you know, smuggle another cat in and spray paint it to look like the one you lost? You know, whatever. You know, that's where I think, you know, volitionality comes in. So we're at 8.30, and I'd love to go on talking because I think this is, and listening, because I think this is really cool stuff, but I do hope that we...

[39:40]

our conversation together has provided some more stuff to think about. So I think with that, thank you all for coming, and good evening. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma Talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, please visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we all fully enjoy the Dharma.

[40:21]

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