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, everyone. Thank you for inviting me to give this talk. Thank you for leading the practice period and leading and being here for the practice at Beginner's Mind Temple today. So usually we ask how many people are here for the first time, but if we're talking about Beginner's Mind, everyone has to raise their hands. So I guess I want to ask, how many people are practicing beginner's mind today?

[01:04]

So, and we have to. We have to practice beginner's mind today. Because if we don't practice beginner's mind today, there isn't a chance. for this world. And if we do practice beginner's mind today, we may be able to help everyone across the world to take care of this world. There isn't any way to respond today unless we practice beginner's mind. And for the children who are born and growing right now, and for the children who are coming, this is what we need to do.

[02:20]

And it's not just like clapping our hands for Tinkerbell. You know how in Peter Pan, I hadn't thought I was going to talk about Tinkerbell today, so I didn't study Peter Pan. But I think there's a moment at which, at least in the Disney movie and the play, isn't there a moment at which Tinkerbell... is her light is dying out because people don't believe in fairies anymore. And so you're supposed to clap as hard as you can. I mean, we could do that. You know, but, you know, I think it's more the heart and mind of clapping than the clapping itself. The clapping is a way we communicate to each other that we have the heart and mind of love or of a beginner.

[03:30]

A heart and mind that's willing to not exactly believe in fairies, but to draw out the possibility of the creativity and love of this world. And so there's a sutra that's kind of like that, and it's in the Lotus Sutra. It's the chapter on Avalokiteshvara. And again, I didn't come prepared to talk about it, so I haven't memorized the section. But I think that the chapter says something like, if you're being pursued on a cliff by tigers, and the cliff is right up ahead and the tiger is right behind, Just think of the power of Kansayan, and you will be saved. And there's all sorts of situations in that sutra, and you can check.

[04:36]

Maybe someone who's listening online might be able to check and tweet us or something, and then we'll know what the power of Kansayan is. not just from the words about the power of khanzeon, but from the actual response in the moment. And that response in the moment we call friendliness or loving-kindness. Loving-kindness is one of the most powerful forces that animate us towards having a sustainable and good life together. And it is one of the vast, untapped, natural resources that we have to live and to wake up in a way that benefits everyone.

[05:47]

the Buddha spoke of loving kindness in a sutra called the Metta Sutta. And I was wondering if you would like to just shape the words of loving kindness this morning, right now. So we've passed out some copies of the Metta Sutta, and I wonder if we could just say it, chant it, think it. for a moment. Can you give us a bell, please? Hit it. This is what should be accomplished by the one who is wise, who seeks the good and has obtained peace. Let one be strenuous, upright and sincere.

[06:50]

Pride easily contented and joyous. Let one not be submerged by the things of the world. not take upon oneself the burden of riches let one's senses be controlled let one be wise but not puffed up and let one not great possessions even for one's family let one do nothing that is lean or that the wise would reprove may all beings May all be joyous and live in safety, all living beings, whether weak or strong in higher, middle or low realms of existence, small or great, visible or invisible, near or far, born or to be born. May all beings be happy. Let no one deceive another nor despise any being in any state. not by anger or hatred wish harm to another even as a mother at the risk of her life watches over and affects her only child so with a boundless mind should one cherish all living things of the entire world above the world and all around the fountains so that one cultivated good will toward the whole world standing for what it's saying

[08:19]

And may the positive energy of this chanting, this mind, this love suffuse the entire world evenly like rain on parched soil, like everything good that we have no word for, and may it reach every corner of everybody's life. So, The Buddha taught that this mind of love has the characteristics of non-objectification so that when we are in a relationship or in relationship with others...

[09:44]

We start out from a place of objectification. You look like this, you look like that. You have these characteristics in this kind of life. I have those characteristics and that kind of life. I idealize you. I look down on you. I have thoughts about you. I put words into your mouth. You want things from me. I want things from you and so on. Okay, and it goes on. It's gone on like this probably since we began talking. or competing, or making lives together. And the characteristic of this metta practice, this friendliness practice, is that we bring someone into our world, that we have a thought of welfare,

[10:45]

for that person, that we care about them, that we want them to be happy and well and free from suffering and what causes it. And when we're friendly or practicing loving kindness towards another human being, we can still objectify them, but the objectification isn't as deep as it were if we didn't care about them. You know, so even to have the thought of loving kindness, is to have the thought of care for the possibility of bringing someone into our world. And we can even go deeper than loving-kindness, which has the name of maitri in Sanskrit or metta in Pali. We can even go deeper into a non-objective view of another human being, an inclusive view. We can care about their pain. We can empathize with their hurts.

[11:45]

And that practice is called karuna or compassion. And we can go even deeper than that. Even deeper than caring about someone in general or caring about their hurts. We can be happy when they're well, when good things happen to them. And that is called mudita, sympathetic or empathetic joy. And we can go even deeper. We can harmonize friendliness, compassion, and sympathetic joy. And when they're harmonized and integrated, that's called upeksha, or upeka, equanimity, or the ability to see everyone and everything equally as related. to see the vast web of interconnection in each thing and each person that presents itself or themself to us.

[12:53]

It's kind of big words for her, don't you think? For you? I think so. Could someone please pass back a leaf for the kid? It's an autumn leaf from the tree in front of 308 page. So, you know, often in Buddhist practice, we talk about transmission or how the practice is given. There are various practices, but there's also a process of giving the practices to each other. And that way of giving we call transmission. And it happens both vertically from teacher to student or from student back to teacher. And it also happens horizontally between and among each one of us.

[13:59]

Transmission is face to face or side by side and not at a distance. And when we objectify people, when we hold them at a distance, that doesn't allow us to actually hear who they are to receive the message of their being or of their teaching. You know, so we yearn for meaning among us. for meaningful sense of relating and of relationship. We hurt when we distance or are distanced. And not only does it give us a sense of hurt in our hearts to distance other people, but it's scientifically proven to have a negative impact on our lives to objectify people.

[15:02]

And we have ways of relating, customary ways of relating. We have habits of relationship. And to practice is to bring those habits into view and see if they're what we really want. I don't know how to address the pain and suffering that's in the world except face-to-face or side-by-side. And the Buddha, you know, we talk about Buddha or Buddhism, but the Buddha was just after what we can do with the basic questions or problems of human existence. We've been thinking about this for thousands of years. So, anyway, I have this many words prepared.

[16:06]

But I'm not speaking from those prepared words. I just want to speak to you from my own 62 years of preparation or 46 years of practice. I was thinking in the wake of what happened in Paris, in the wake of what happened in Mali, I've been thinking day and night about our pain and about the distances that build up between or among us. And I haven't come up with any answers that I know will, you know, nothing that will work instantly. Only things that will work by addressing the cause. of the pain and separation that comes up between and among us.

[17:11]

I wanted to mention a sonnet by William Shakespeare. You know, when people think about love or relationship, they don't usually think about this particular sonnet. They usually think about like, shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Or, you know, let me not to the marriage of true mind, true minds admit impediments. So they usually think about those, right? About what's really... Hi. Or what's really, you know, the sonnets that are really about love. But I want to speak about a sonnet that I think that Shakespeare wrote when he felt abandoned. And you can tell that he felt abandoned when he wrote this one because the sonnets are written in a kind of an arc and there's a few that come around this that begin to talk about what happens when love goes wrong and about abandonment and frustration and so on.

[18:27]

And please forgive me, this is a difficult sonnet to understand on a moment's notice. But I just want to... recite it a couple times and then talk about it in relation to friendliness, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity. This one is 94. They who have the power to hurt and would do none. They that have the power to hurt and would do none. that do not do the thing they most do show, who, moving others, are themselves as stone, unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow. They are the lords and owners of their faces.

[19:32]

I'm sorry, they... unmoved cold and to temptation slow. They rightly do inherit nature's graces and husband nature's riches from expense. They are the lords and owners of their faces and others are stewards of their excellence. The summer's flower is to the summer sweet, though to itself it only live and die. But if that flower with base infection meet, the basest weed outbraves its dignity. For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds. Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds. Okay, it's a little bit dark, sorry. A little bit complex. So I'll say it again.

[20:38]

This time I'll try to not get it wrong. They that have the power to hurt and would do none, who do not do the thing they most do show, who, moving the others, are themselves as stone, unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow. They rightly do inherit heaven's graces. and husband nature's riches from expense. They are the lords and owners of their faces, and others are stewards of their excellence. The summer's flower is to the summer sweet, though to itself it only live and die. But if that flower with... base infection meet, the basest weed outbraves its dignity. For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds.

[21:41]

Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds. Okay. So why would I say that this poem is about love? Why, you know? I mean, and, you know, it is... kind of complicatedly about love. Shakespeare was kind of a complicated guy, actually. I think his life must have been really difficult in a lot of ways. Often the point or the moral of the story is the last two lines in these sonnets. That's the way the sonnet... structure works, that you have a bunch of rhymes and then you have a little moral or encapsulating phrase at the end. So sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds. Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds. So you might think, oh, this is somebody being sour about someone who betrayed him.

[22:46]

The Buddha says, you know, he beat me, he abused me, he defeated me, he robbed me. A person who thinks this way will not be free from hate. He beat me, he abused me, he defeated me, he robbed me. A person who does not think this way will be free from hate. Right? So you might think, oh, this is just hate. This is just someone hating someone else. Sweetest thing. I thought you were sweet, but you showed me you were sour by your deeds, and so you stink. You know, I think it has that feeling, but really it's a little bit more complicated than that. You know, I was talking with someone who really loves the person they've been with for their entire life, and they were telling me about something that happened, and it was, you know, it's a relationship, so there's a certain amount of confidentiality. And then finally he just said, ah, [...] ah. And that about encapsulated it.

[23:51]

So I think Shakespeare might be saying something like... Yeah. But something else that's interesting to me about this sonnet is at the beginning of the sonnet, Shakespeare uses kind of... There's a... there's a tone in there, right? Stone is not used in a complimentary way usually in Shakespeare. You have a heart of stone is not a compliment. Heart of stone, you. You would think, ah, really? But what's very interesting is after the first four lines, they who have the power to hurt and will do none that do not do the thing, they most do show, who moving others are themselves as stone, unmoved cold and to temptation slow. After those four lines, which would, they kind of sound like they're about someone unattainable, who you're really frustrated with, who is cool and standoffish and perfect.

[25:07]

Sounds that way. But then he goes on to say, they rightly do inherit heaven's graces and husband nature's riches from expense. So what's up with that? Rightly do inherit nature's graces reverses everything that we've been led to believe in the first four lines of, you know, there you are far away, standing, looking perfect, and completely unattainable to me. You know? I can't stand this. And then you say, they rightly do inherit heaven's graces. Heaven. Not just people's graces, but heaven's graces. And are the lords and owners of their faces and others stewards of their excellence. You know, in the Buddhist precepts, there are three levels of studying the precepts.

[26:11]

There's... single-bodied studying the precepts, which means that everything is one. In love, we often assume that everything is one or we want everything to be one. Or when we non-objectify, we assume, we project, we identify us as one. And there is something really wonderful about being one with somebody. But there are two other ways that the Buddhist teaching is understood. One is historical, historical truth. You and I are completely different, is true at a conventional level. And then there's what's called maintained, which means that everybody's difference reminds us of our oneness or gives us access to

[27:15]

to our oneness. So that's how I think that others can be stewards of a person's excellence. That everything that happens with someone else can bring us back to our truth together. Anyway, I think that Shakespeare has, in this sonnet, hints at, doesn't explain, something very deep about how we are with people, something very deep about care, something very deep about love, something very deep about loving kindness that could not be said by just positive words. So... Friendliness, compassion, sympathetic joy, equanimity.

[28:18]

We understand the world but little. But to turn the world into a field in which harmony, truth, life are actually possible, we have to practice not holding it at a distance, not objectifying it in some way. As part of my shock in relation to the events in Paris, I was thinking, is this the end of the world? Is this a signal of things to come? When I was growing up, there were two billion people on this planet, and now there's, what, seven? Is this it? Will we never be able to get along together as human beings? Will we never be able to live in peace?

[29:22]

And I was thinking about John Calhoun's experiments in a dark moment in the middle of the night. I don't know if you remember him from the 60s and 70s. He was a scientist, and he decided to study... what would happen if you gave mice unlimited resources? Is this ringing a bell? He built a little mouse world. So his mouse world was named Utopia. And the reason it was Utopia was because it was a, basically it was a box, but it was a very big box in relation to the size of a mouse. And in that box there were 16 openings, which were kind of tunnels, through which mice could get unlimited food or water. So there was unlimited food, unlimited water, unlimited temperature-controlled air, and unlimited nesting material.

[30:27]

And so I think that population would have held about 50,000 mice quite comfortably. Okay. And in the beginning of the experiment, it did. I don't know where my pages all are, although I wrote this down for you. But the mice actually started reproducing, and the population doubled every two months. And after a year... it stopped after about 600 mice, 600 mice, I think. The groups started to split off and just relate among themselves, little groups of about 12 mice. And all the mice started fighting, and female mice would eat their children, and male mice would attack each other or...

[31:35]

female mice or children. And eventually all the mice died off, pretty much, except there were some mice who completely withdrew from social contact and just ate and groomed themselves. And John Calhoun called these mice the beautiful ones. And they led completely meaningless, empty mice existences. All they did was groom themselves and eat. And so John Calhoun actually didn't see this as a cynical experiment. He actually saw this. He found that there were just a few very creative mice, mice, may I say, with beginner's mind, who survived. and began to make some sort of new mouse order. And so that was really what he wanted to prove.

[32:36]

He wanted to show that creative mice live. Five minutes. Thanks, Roger. And so, you know, my musings in the middle of the night ended up... I ended up thinking, no, actually, humans are different from mice. We don't have to live by our programming and by our habits. We actually have the capacity to not objectify other mice, I mean people, as the enemy or as the other. We actually have the capacity to practice non-habituated love. We actually have the capacity to develop ourselves through friendliness, caring about other people, compassion, feeling their pain, empathetic joy, celebrating when they're happy.

[33:45]

We actually have the capacity to develop equanimity, which allows us to see and live clearly. And so it's that possibility which I want to offer today as the way that we will be able to become just like a mother who protects her child to all beings. That's what I want to offer today is the possibility of actually looking at each other and caring about our differences enough to connect, not in a social way, but in a deeply appreciative way of everything that brought us here and everything that we can do together. And this is what I think the Buddha taught.

[34:47]

I look forward to practicing it with you, not just today, but... the rest of our lives. So again, I want to thank you for your patience and for listening. I want to thank you for your ability to tease out from my perhaps unskillful words what's important about the Buddha's teachings about love. I specifically want to thank... the people who are here for the first time. And I want to thank the people who make the practice here possible. And I also do want to thank, there is a special occasion that I'd like you to help me celebrate, which is that we have this relationship.

[35:50]

So the guy who is helping me up is named Roger. and who just gave me the five-minute notice like four minutes and 30 seconds ago. And Roger has been helping me for six years. And I was in two serious accidents, and he helped me the whole time and has been taking my names and serving in a position called GICO, which means carry the incense. Anyway, so much more than carry the incense. And I want to thank you for doing that and wish you a good time for your practice spirit at Tassajara. So thank you, everybody, and please take care. If you want, you can keep the metta sutta or you can hand it back and we'll reuse these metta suttas to help all beings, okay? Thank you. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click giving.

[37:11]

May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[37:14]

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