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, bodhisattvas. That means awakening beings. First, I would like to just appreciate... the untiring work of our abbots and senior dharma teachers as we're about to go into a big transition of renovating Beginner's Mind Temple for accessibility. So I really appreciate your invitation to speak on this occasion. Thank you, Abbot David, Central Abbot of San Francisco Zen Center. Thank you, Abbot Mako, abiding teacher and Abbot of Beginner's Mind Temple.

[01:09]

Without your efforts, my efforts can't be realized. So today, I would like to speak about accessibility as a practice. outside and inside, so as a practice of community in which we create the conditions for meditative ease, and as a practice for the committee project that is our body and mind as we attempt to build meditative ease. And... How many people here are beginners in meditation? This is not a trick question. Thank you. Because this is really important. And so I'm thinking back to the first time I ever sat Zazen in the community.

[02:14]

It was a Sashin. And the person on my right flipped his legs into full lotus. And then the person on my left flipped her legs into full lotus. So I kind of went. And that was that. No more meditative ease for the whole seven days. Why did you do that? You idiot. ow, ow, ow. That was my experience for the rest of the seven days. But that was not my intention, seven days. So let's start with our intention. So I would just like to describe, to summarize my intention in sitting Zazen, which I wonder if it's a shared intention, something that other people,

[03:22]

And my intention in practicing is to resolve suffering by awakening for and with everyone and everything. I don't know if that resonates with you or not. Let's see, we could spend the whole morning talking about it, but... I wonder if you would agree to my using that resolving suffering by awakening for and with all beings. Would it be okay with you if I use that as a working definition of an intention to practice? Okay. If there's anyone who needs me to change it, could you please tell me now or whisper it into Benjamin's ear and he'll give me a

[04:23]

This is Benjamin, my Chico, the person who's helping me. And then I'll change the words if there's something about that that stands out for you as not agreeing with your own intention. I'm not kidding. So it's more important to me that this be a true lecture than that it be a completely formal one where everybody sits like a stone. So let's just say intention is to resolve or relieve suffering by awakening for and with all beings. And that the external conditions under which we can do this, like we're about to put elevators in and bathrooms that individuals can use and lock the door. And this process will take a year.

[05:26]

It will cost, let's say, if I compare 1968 dollars to current dollars, it will cost more than three times as much as our original purchase of this building cost. And so it must be important to us to equip our community to wake up with and for all beings. So today I want to focus on external conditions that we can create communally and as individual to help us find meditative ease in which we can have the time and space to sit and wake up. So I want to focus on the community for a moment and say that I think that this community is And this time has a unique opportunity. And that historically there were people who were excluded from the Sangha.

[06:30]

So I'm just going to speak about the Buddhist time to contrast it with what we can do now. So in the Buddhist time, excluded from the Sangha were monks who had defeated their intention by having sex, by stealing, by killing, or by falsely claiming awakening. So those were defeats, and people who had done those things couldn't stay in the Sangha, which was alternately defined very tightly as ordained people or as the fourfold Sangha of monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen. So for nuns, there were more rules of defeat. And neither monks or nuns would teach people who were holding specific objects or, you know, sitting or standing higher than the teacher or were sitting casually or were walking ahead or hogging the path.

[07:39]

Okay, so no one could get taught who was doing those things. children, women, and the king's court had to get permission. Their admission was strongly limited. And the Buddha was originally reluctant to ordain women and forbade ordination for intersex people, trans people, and asexual people. And also trans people couldn't ordain others. or even give offering to monks, or meditate, or hear the Dharma. So I want to say that, and the other people who couldn't were people who practiced or internally referred to another religion while they were ordained. And so I want to contrast that with our situation now.

[08:41]

In the 21st century, it's not only that these... that all these people can practice, it's that all these people are necessary for our practice. All of us are necessary for each other. And I think that now we have the opportunity to practice together instead of excluding people based on how they're built or who they are. or I should say how we are built or who we are, because excluding people based on how we're built or who we are is excluding all of us. And so the social conditions for inclusion are here, even though our planet is in trouble, our cities are in trouble, and we're in trouble.

[09:42]

That's called suffering. And so here, our responsibility is to create a refuge in which people are welcome, simply welcome to practice. And how do we create the conditions of welcome? That is an ongoing question that we have to study. We have to study, particularly in relationship to impact. It's a lot easier to study by ourselves. than to study while being open to feedback about impact. That is an actual, you know, it takes some development in meditation to be patient with having had impact. Okay? Usually people who have privilege are unaware of our impact. We all have privilege in some way and lack privilege in others.

[10:43]

So this renovation that we're about to do specifically addresses the privilege of youth and ability. And also, to a certain extent, gender. Because privacy is offered. And the bathrooms are not going to be binary. They're not going to assume that a person is one or the other. I know we've already labeled our... Many of our bathrooms as gender neutral, but this is another step. So in the West, we also have possibilities like hi, people who are online, welcome. This online possibility makes the practice accessible even on a spare the air day like today. Today is a spare the air day. So I got emails from people who aren't coming in person because they're trying to spare the air.

[11:49]

And this is a situation that air quality is already worse this year than it usually is during fire season. So the cumulative impact of us on the air is being felt and people are sitting at home. And our sangha is prepared to support that practice. So the voice, we have the possibility to be the voice and the embodiment of sanity and moral compass in a world that's increasingly dangerous and difficult to understand. I know that every generation probably has thought that... The world is more dangerous to understand and deal with than ever before. But I really feel like that's true now, you know, having heard some of the radio conversation during the last week.

[12:52]

And I also think that this voice of inclusion, this presence of inclusion, is a living example of dana or generosity. To give the material resources and fearlessness for people to take on this huge project of relieving or resolving suffering. Okay. That's the beautiful picture. Let's look at what happens when we really start to sit. So I'm speaking from personal experience. Again, this may not be true for you. I first started sitting as a result of a near-death experience that I had. And so I felt a huge motivation to sit.

[13:55]

But at the same time, I really didn't want to. So I knew I had to, but I didn't feel like I wanted to. I hope that makes sense to you. So when I tried to sit, it was too hard because it was like I was sitting, but I didn't want to. So I want to say that inclusion addresses barriers and is a social gift. our buts in our practice, not this but, but our yes buts in the practice, or no because in our practice, when we can include those and respect them, that's a resolution of obstacles to practice that's internal and really changes our ability to practice.

[15:06]

So I want to go into some of the traditional external factors of shamatha or meditative ease. But I'm going into external factors. So this is not about the development of meditative skill. This is about preparing ourselves in our environments and in our bodies to be able to meditate with ease. So the barriers are the external buts, as I have said, the external yes buts. So let's say like your home environment or sitting environment is resource poor or toxic, whether it's for you or whether it's for everyone there. That's a but. I want to practice, but I don't have what I need to do it. I want to practice, but...

[16:08]

The air is bad in my place. Or there's another barrier is when there's so many possibilities or needs that you can't focus. So that's external possibilities or needs. Another barrier is, let's say, our community where we're trying to sit is In the midst of polarization, so people are fighting around us and that startles us or is a threat. And then there's internal buts, like I can't find the posture, I can't find the breathing, my conscience is bothering me, I just can't perceive what I'm supposed to perceive, or I get too excited or not excited enough, I don't know how to moderate my effort. Or I have epigenetic or pre-programmed challenges to the practice, like in my case, my family is a family of Holocaust survivors.

[17:18]

So every time I sat for many, many years, that's what came up, that suffering, though I didn't know what it was. So I want to just mention a very simple story. So... I heard this morning that two people sent emails like, I'm trying to get into the online Zendo for 925 Zazen, and I can't. That's an example of an external condition. And then later, the person who was going to respond responded, thank you. And I heard that the people who had been trying to get in said, oh, thanks for the quick response, and I'm in the Zen Dome now for the lecture. That's a really simple story. And, you know, there are certain events that we have the resources to, that the Sangha has the resources to host online, and certain events that we don't have the resources to host online.

[18:28]

So 925 Zazen today was one of the... ones that we didn't have the resources to host online. So I imagine that that may have been perceived as a barrier for a minute. And then perhaps the people who couldn't get into the online Zendo may have sat or their mind have turned towards meditation on their own, dealing with the internal barrier of frustration, the obstacle of frustration. Hope that makes sense to you, that distinction. Okay, so I'm interested in what might be the external yes buts about practicing here, about practicing in this Sangha. And I was just wondering whether perhaps we could take, you know,

[19:30]

not very long, but maybe three minutes just to turn to a couple people around you and just say what they are. And then, you know, it doesn't have to be complicated. It can be true. And then we have pieces of paper outside if any of those things are things about what the community provides or could provide. and doesn't, that's a barrier to you. So example is, it's hard for me to get up the steps, or zazen is too early. Now, I don't know that the community will have resources to take care of every single one of those barriers. Instruction is in English. Instruction seems to require you to be young and strong, you know, whatever it is. There's pieces of paper that are red, orange, and pink outside, and you're welcome to scribble a few notes and stick them into the box after the lecture if you want to give feedback about barriers to your practice.

[20:44]

And people online are welcome to write them in the chat, and maybe we can take a screenshot of the chat and receive those. feedbacks as well. So, okay, is that something you're interested in doing? Would you be willing to spend maybe three minutes or so and ring a bell at the beginning and end of the three minutes and just turn to one or two people around you? And you don't have to, but you can. Is that okay? Thanks. You want to ring a bell to start or ring a bell to end? What are your external buts? I want to practice here, but. people who are online, hear the music, the animation of this conversation.

[22:18]

It's pretty lively. Louder.

[23:57]

Louder. Little Bell? Little Bell? Hard to put that back in the box, isn't it? We're not going to actually put it back into the box because I'm really interested to hear whatever it is that you think needs to be shared can go on one of those pieces of paper or be brought up in the Q&A or on the chat. Okay, thank you so much for doing that. That was a very lively feeling. I felt a lot of energy for our practice. that was released. The energy of, you know, frustration is just energy we have that's blocked or has an obstacle or barrier.

[25:04]

I felt a lot of energy. So I want to tell just a few encouraging stories before we go into Q&A. And so I want to talk about, you know, part of practice. Of course, there's external conditions, but Also part of practice is like baking the brownies with the chocolate you have. So you don't need guitar to chocolate to bake good brownies. You can use any baking chocolate to bake good brownies. So the same with when we lack perfect resources to practice. So I want to tell a story about my prejudice in relation to resources. I was trying to create a community event of two parks, building two parks. And I was working for Al Price. Al Price was my mentor. He was the first African-American Masters of Urban Planning candidate at Princeton.

[26:08]

And I was in one of the early classes that admitted women. And so my job was to set up two meetings. One for the rich neighborhood, one for the poor neighborhood. The rich neighborhood was largely Caucasian. The poor neighborhood was largely African-American. And I went back to Al after the meetings and said, these are meetings about resources and the rich neighborhood has all the resources and the poor neighborhood has very few resources. There was a long, extremely awkward silence. So I was like a 20-year-old Jewish American princess from Long Island, right? And there was a long, awkward silence. And then very patiently, Al looked into my eyes and he said, did you ask them about friends?

[27:16]

And I said, no. Another long silence. Did you ask about family? No. Did you ask about faith? that time I was sinking and then he said have another meeting so that for me that was a moment at which I learned about prejudice and the impact of prejudice to actually see people who were very strongly resourced as not having resource is

[28:27]

prejudice and so I learned to acknowledge my prejudice and be more open to what was really going on and I think that's an example although it was a painful event it's an example of how we can adjust our perceptual life for meditation, for inclusion. See, I had thought that I was immune to prejudice because of the Holocaust survivorship of my family, but that's not true. I want to say that the process of learning to address our barriers and obstacles is an iterative one. It develops over time. So here's an example from the Kandaka, which is the Buddha's teachings about the customs and how they came to be in the Sangha.

[29:38]

So there was an incident in which a king bowed to a Hindu monk by mistake. He really meant to bow to a Buddhist monk. And then he got really mad and stormed back to the Buddha and said, I don't do this anymore. I want to be able to know who the Buddhist monks are. So the Buddha said, sure. And he was walking with Ananda. They saw rice fields. And the Buddha said, can you design a robe for us to wear that's like a rice field? And Ananda said, sure. Ananda was one of his foremost disciples. And Anyway, the rest of that kandaka is the part that I want to highlight. So the monks went, the Buddha said, okay, from now on we're going to wear these robes. The monks went to the Buddha and said, we don't have anything to make the robes out of. And the Buddha said, I want you to use cloth from wrapping corpses, menstrual rags, and stuff from the dump.

[30:47]

And the monks said, ew. And the Buddha said, well, wash it. And then the monk said, but when we put water on it, the water runs down into the ground and gets lost. And he did not roll his eyes. He said, use a bucket. Anyway, the story just goes on and [...] on with the monks coming up with every single possible barrier or obstacle to actually making the ropes. And the Buddha, who takes the position of awakening, hears every single barrier and responds with a useful suggestion for how it's going to happen to stabilize the practice of wearing Buddha's robe. It's just so cool that this is our method. It doesn't deny obstacles or barriers. It acknowledges them.

[31:50]

So that we can resolve them. And this is a practical way to resolve suffering. And an example from real life of someone who resolved an obstacle. So one time it was snowing very heavily in New York. And my twin sister was at home with her little kids. And she had to make dinner for them. But there was no food in the house. except some Nilla wafers and a can of frosting left over from a birthday party. So what my sister did, the kids were crying with hunger, and what my sister did was she used food coloring to make the frosting in different colors, and then they decorated the Nilla wafers, and they ate them for dinner.

[32:50]

that was such an important dinner for them that they speak about it to this day. They are both in their late 30s, and they are parents themselves. They still remember this dinner as a time of great joy. And I remember it as a time when there was an obstacle that my sister, who felt her task, she felt that her task was to... Thank you. She felt that her task was to create a stable emotional environment for the kids. And that's how she did it. That's how she resolved the suffering in that situation. So can we resolve our barriers and our inner obstacles? I don't want to boast about my sister, but in a creative way that makes use of the stale nilla wafers and frosting of our life. So in the community, we have various grievances or complaints that come up.

[33:52]

Can we meet them with joy? And that is, I feel, what the purpose of this renovation is. Can we have a practice of feedback in which we recognize that feedback is an investment in our intimate communion as Sangha members? So again, our intention is to resolve suffering by awakening for and with all beings. It doesn't mean all beings except the one who has a complaint. All beings except the one who has a barrier. All beings except me when I have an obstacle. It doesn't mean that. It means if my knee has an obstacle, I'm with my knee to sit in a chair or do whatever I need to do. So I just want to read a quote from Viktor Frankl. He wrote a book called Man's Search for Meaning right after World War II.

[34:57]

And I'm using examples that moved me as a child. So they're not necessarily thoroughly Buddhist examples. They're just examples from life. So I was moved by this when I read it, when I was maybe... 13 or 14 years old. So Viktor Frankl said that the difference between the people who can deal with suffering and find joy in life and people who cannot is that the people who can find their joy do it by finding their meaning. And in Buddhist practice, we do this by... allowing our deep intention to wake up for and with all beings, be at the center of our efforts and our experience. So what he said was, there are three main avenues on which one arrives at meaning in life. Okay, two more minutes.

[36:03]

Okay. The first is by creating a work or doing a deed. The second is by experiencing something or encountering someone. In other words, meaning can be found not only in action, but also in love. Most important, however, is the third avenue to meaning in life. Even the helpless victim of a hopeless situation, facing a fate he cannot change, may rise above himself, grow beyond himself, and by doing so, change himself. So the example I want to put forth now is the example of Matt Sanford, who was in a catastrophic vehicle accident as a very young man. And I first met Matt when I was learning how to offer therapeutic yoga. So Matt wanted to learn how to be a yoga teacher, even though he was a paraplegic.

[37:06]

He decided that being a paraplegic was not going to stop his meditation or his yoga practice. And so he asked me to assist him in various ways, so I did. And now he's a very experienced yoga teacher and an inspirational speaker. Really a dad... someone who has really resolved the suffering that he originally may have faced. So I want to close with a quote from Matt's teachings. And so his idea about both barriers and obstacles is that we can address them in a way that's transformative, interactive, and personal. We all live on a continuum of ability and disability. The process of aging guarantees this.

[38:08]

Everyone will eventually become less able. My vision is to make my principles of waking mind and body transformative for all of us. Simply put, the process of waking mind and body promotes a healthy use of energy at work, at home, in relationships with people and our relationship to the planet. So he says, there'll be many projects I embark on because waking mind and body is my life's path. I look forward to sharing them with you. Intention to resolve suffering, awakening for and with all beings, through compassion of working with externals, through insight of working with internals. Thank you very much. To be continued. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center.

[39:13]

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.

[39:33]

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