This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. This is what I wanted to talk about this morning. I wanted to talk about how does our Buddhist practice our Zen Buddhist practice, support us to relate to turmoil in our society, racism in particular, with African Americans being subjected to inappropriate behaviors. How does our practice help us relate to that? I think in a way if we don't ask and answer that question they'll feel like two different things.

[01:12]

We're talking about this and we should be talking about that. And also I think Practice has a lot to offer as we look at these things. I think is that notion of appropriate response. The challenge for us is like how do we bring that to anything and everything life presents. And this morning I'd like to reference it from the six paramitas. In particular, the sixth paramita, prajna, or insight. So I want to do a certain kind of experiment. We'll just see where we get with it.

[02:16]

But let me preface it by saying this. our Zen training asks of us that whatever arises in our life in particular what's arising has for us an energy a kind of intense engagement where another positive negative or just intensely interesting or versatile a telltale sign that there's something there that we would learn from if we explored it. And I think this particular issue of racism and the other issues that intersect with

[03:28]

they have a lot to teach us especially maybe most importantly about our own being you know part of that's what prompted me the last time I gave a talk to talk about my own history what can I learn from that what are my biases I started the last talk by mentioning an experience I had where I was with another a group of teachers four of us teach a course year-long course and we were thinking asking ourselves well how can we help us all and the people take the course to be more attentive to the influences of racism and one of the teachers said well there's this marvelous thing called uh... the Harvard Inclusive Bias Test.

[04:35]

Then another teacher, who I think is relevant, is half Mexican and half Native American Indian. He said, I don't mean to be offensive, but I need to say that if I told my family, who are half Mexican and half American Indian, That's how we were going to explore diversity. They laughed. I thought, oh, so we're displaying implicit bias as we talk about taking a test to explore implicit bias. don't think we have to be filled with consternation or guilt about such things. I think we should be educated, informed about them, but surely Buddhism teaches us that conditioned existence, however it has come into being for us, will assert a conditioned response to what's going on.

[06:00]

which makes wisdom, or again that vajrayana, wisdom beyond wisdom, a particular kind of challenge. And I think for that reason, that prajna comes as the sixth paramita. The paramita is as hard as usually formulated as We have generosity. A sense of engagement. It's not about scarcity. But more about that. Life is abundant. Life is rich. And as such, giving and receiving promote our general well-being. And then the second paravita is cultivating the positive qualities of practice.

[07:16]

And then the third one is patience. Despite our good intentions, despite our earnest notion that poverty is An implicit bias test would be a good thing to do. Someone might come along and say, well, maybe and maybe not. Despite our good intentions to behave and act in a certain way, our biases bubble through. Our fixed patterns of thinking and behaving and emoting assert themselves. flips us over in agitation, you know, towards ourselves or towards others, I think the conversation becomes dangerous. And in a more practical way, I think it gets misled by a feeling of danger.

[08:27]

I think most of us, I know certainly for myself, have a lot to learn about many things and this topic is one of them I will make mistakes others will make mistakes that's part of learning and then the fourth parameter is um How do we engage with the constancy and energy? Maybe it's in practice we would say, give yourself to it.

[09:39]

Not because of self-excellence in our being, because that's the very nature of being. The blue jays give themselves to trying to get food from our plates, whether we like it or not. They're fully committed ourselves to the life we're living. Give ourselves to the society we're part of, whether we like it or not. Is there any other way to facilitate transformation? And then the fifth power of Vita,

[10:40]

is entering deeply the merciful ocean. Be immersed in, be part of. Yes, we can learn a certain amount in the abstract. But really, we are part of something. And I think this is why My co-teacher was talking about, oh, you want to do something abstract to learn about something that's intimate to being alive? And then the sixth paramita, wisdom, insight. How in the midst of subjective being, how in the midst of being so thoroughly immersed that we can't see the totality of the influences that are acting upon us and the consequences of our behaviors.

[12:12]

How could we come to the answer? So here's the experiment. I thought up of some responses to that last question. How do we calculate the insight? Or how do we realize insight? And I thought we could break up and try and discuss. I created two things. category I called reflections and the other one I called practices and I thought we could break into triads and in the triad try them on discuss them maybe there's an emphasis on try on you know if you just become abstract and philosophical we could say all sorts of things

[13:17]

I totally endorse that, and I'm gonna give my whole life to it. Yeah, right. If you poke around in your being, how does it appear to you? So here's one way to think of the process of insight in Zen, and I would think in spirituality. There's a category that arises with contemplation. We contemplate something. And as we bring attention and energy and engagement to it, the contemplation teaches us see the implications of it.

[14:25]

I was reading an article, a transcript of a dialogue between Rishmaa Manakin and Robin DiAngelo, both current luminaries in the world of attaining to racism, the impact of it in particular, what the angels are especially currently is, how that takes shape within a white heritage. And one of the things that stood out for me, in what Rejman said, he said, any identity subject to pathology. Now, when he was talking about identity, he was saying any fixed way of thinking, you know, you've got a certain identity, a certain way of categorizing people, categorizing yourself, categorizing any aspect of society.

[15:41]

He was saying racism, classism, ageism, sexual orientation, any of them can become a pop-out. Any of them can be. That way of thinking, that way of categorizing, can get stuck, and rather than serve to open a dialogue, it sort of reinforces a presence. And then Robert DeAngelo, she added it. And in engaging that, does it take you, the question is, does it take you in? Or does it let you out?

[16:46]

And what she was getting at was, does it invite you into a more thorough engagement with what's represented by that concept that identity that way of thinking is there a way to go in and explore it what is it what are the implications of it what are the assumptions of it what's the skillful relationship to it how do I as a conditioned being, have my biases in relationship to it. What are the challenging questions it presents that I'm moving out of? And that's where she got the out. We avoid this. We move out of.

[17:47]

engagement that can inform us. It can also act out. Our thoughts, our feelings, our behaviors are the product of our own relationship to that fixed thinking. That's reactive. rather than insightful. When I read both of their comments, I thought, sounds like Buddha's teaching to me. So how do we act in? How do we become insightful? And so I thought, first one is contemplation.

[18:51]

And I tried to offer some reflections. It's important. And I would say mostly that it is a cognitive process. It's a process of thinking. And then the second category, is where we go beyond ourselves, where we go beyond our judgments, our ideas, our usual ways of thinking about something. As Mary Oliver would say, a silence in which another voice speaks. It's more like it speaks to us rather than we tell it what in terms of that.

[20:03]

I was thinking of moments of something registers wordlessly. Or maybe a moment when instead of being in the throes of our usual patterns, we see our usual patterns. We see ourselves thinking and feeling about something in a particular way. that moment, we just allow that observation to inform us. In many ways, that stepping out of the conditioned self, if you think of Dogon talking about dropping off body and mind, and how extraordinary

[21:36]

Significant. That was for him. How throughout the Shubha Gangsa. He. Referred his mouth. To that. And as a seminal moment. Contemplation. Going beyond the self. And then the third one. Especially in the Mahayana. wisdom beyond wisdom, that we give over so thoroughly that, to use Thich Nhat Hanh's term, we experience the consequence of interbeing. There's something about a state of being communicates to us beyond any conceptual or cognitive process we're capable.

[22:48]

To my mind, this is particularly interesting when we start to think of in a riff of Menachem's book, it is the body of trauma, you know, how something is embodied. When you add into that the Buddhist notion that all existence is one Buddha that we sometimes often to Buddha body. It's something that opening and feeling to be able connects and communicates in a way that goes beyond our thinking.

[24:03]

So I need one, two, four, four. Exactly what I might do. And you will see, starting at the file at the front page, reflections. Can you recall particular instances when you had an insightful clarity. Consider what it is to be open to and live the wisdom of practice. What helps and what hinders your access to clarity and wisdom? Are there things you can do that help you step out of your habitual ways of being and acting? Considering the three kinds of wisdom, how have you experienced them? And how are they clarified and realized?

[25:14]

So, I thought we could break into threes. And I would say respond to the questions in a nonsensical way. Just see what comes up for you. It doesn't have to be so rational. It doesn't have to be you know, logical. Insight, that's very nature, tends to lift us beyond just what we can reason out. Okay, so if you can go tonight and maybe just for this sake of convenience, you could join with the people closest to it.

[26:24]

So the bottom of the first page, you'll see it reflected. Let me go through the questions one at a time and then each person answer. So let's do this for 15 minutes. So I think of that as a exercise in contemplation.

[27:30]

One of the usefulness of contemplating the activities of the self is that almost always it's an intriguing subject for us. Regardless of whether we think we're wonderful or terrible, it's still intriguing. What a terrible person I am. I'm so bad. I'm so ashamed. I'm so wonderful. I think I'm kind of enlightened. Maybe I'm the best practitioner ever. One thing about contemplation, when we accept the invitation to go in, to explore deeply, to engage, it can take us into the modification of thinking that's more spacious.

[28:46]

And then if it's in relationship to the self, then the way we're relating to the self is invited to be more spacious. And that spaciousness has an affinity for a kind of an accepting equitivity. How do we bring that, can we bring that to each of the isms? I was born in poverty. And up to this age, I was deeply ashamed. grand age of eight, I said to myself, I didn't make this economy.

[30:01]

Why should I feel ashamed? It's not my doing. I just got born into it. But still, it had a hook. At some point, that dissipation helped, I think, by the marvelous privileges that life was then presenting me with. Contemplation. Is that so? not to draw conclusions, not to reinforce, to use Rejman Menachem's term, not to reinforce the pathology of malady thinking.

[31:23]

Maybe so. It's more like to put the emphasis on The insight, the sense of space, the balance of mind, the non-grasping of thoughts and feelings. To let that be the teacher. insight sweeps back into the the other paravittus and they have a collective benevolence we offer

[32:34]

a generosity to ourselves and others. We offer them the okayness to be who they are. We have a more astute notion of the request of practice. Patience with the human condition. Recognize. The willingness to engage. Yes, I will. Be drawn to

[33:37]

Immerse in the merciful ocean. And in a way, what in a more karmic, wanting what we want, we want to avoid what we don't want, starts to be related to in a different way. Yes, there is that in a hidden condition. And as Robin DiAngelo said, turning towards

[34:38]

This has a lot of energy. Oh, this is challenging. This is frightening in scope. This is shifting the ground from underneath all my fixed ideas. Sounds like a lot to learn now. All of us have kind of gratitude. Ah. Look at me being tweaked. All the Pyramidhas support us in that term. from reactiveness acting out you're wrong I'm right to kind of what are you doing what's this about who am I in this dynamic what do I think and feel that the person is

[36:11]

What is this society we're living in? What are the prevailing wings of opinion and prejudice? And within us there's less of a need to have all the answers. There's us and there's that and of course us are right and by extension that makes me right it seems kind of the right bear in sparse Maybe so.

[37:25]

What's going on? What's this about? I would say to you, that's the heritage of the Zen school. Nothing to know, everything to learn. reflection can help. And, as Resma says, you can also get stuck in it, conjure up some idea and think, that's it. So that was the experiment. I hope it helped in some way or other. And if it didn't, there's lots more teachings coming around today.

[38:35]

Thank you very much. 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, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

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