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. Good morning, everybody, and maybe good afternoon or good evening, wherever you are. And I'm very, very happy to be here in front of you. And also the thanks to David, David Siverman-Diabot in San Francisco for the invitation and Nancy and also Kodo for helping me to be connected with all of you. So today I'd like to share... The thing that you were practicing on a story and the last angle, I think I heard that you just finished and it's about karma.

[01:08]

And then I'm going to share my thoughts and my own experience and maybe a personal stories. And then I think after a Q&A. And so first of all, very honored to be here. I'm very, very grateful. And talking about karma is, we are here just very straightforward for our karma, our individual karma and our collective karma. My karma with Zen started in Mexico City, in Mexico City, and my relationship to this place to San Francisco Center. Maybe you've heard this before, many times for many speakers or teachers. There was through the book of Suzuki Roshi, Send My Beginner's Mind.

[02:14]

And there was a book that being in Mexico started my practicing and sitting monthly, sitting weekly, every Saturday. We didn't have a Dharma talk because there was no teacher, official or authorized teacher. So we were just a sitting group in Mexico City. And then I found this book, and that was quite my Bible in sense, so to speak. It was a book that really inspired me to come back to the practice. And then I read many, many, many times. And then I read in Spanish, obviously. So that bully was getting me into the Dharma and to wait for once a year to have a Dharma talk from my teacher, from my first teacher, the Korean Zen Master Samu Sunim. And another important piece that brought me to trust in the Dharma, I tried to remember

[03:25]

who was the teacher who said, but I guess, maybe I am wrong, it was Suzuki Roshi. There was this interaction with his teacher, and his teacher said, you have to go to the United States to teach Zen. And then Suzuki said, well, I don't speak English. And the teacher said, to teach Zen, you don't need to speak English. And that, for me, it was so inspired because I didn't speak English at that time. And then I had the invitation for my teacher to go to a Zen training in Chicago. And then I said, OK, if you can teach Zen without speaking English, so you can learn Zen without knowing English. So that was quite, for me, the inspiration to trust in the Dharma and keep going.

[04:28]

And as you know, as you heard many, many times, the word karma, so karma means basically action. And then there is a good karma and there is a bad karma. And then every day, if you are living in a Zen center, when a monastery we reside in the morning, the gatha of the atonement, all my ancient twisted karma. From beginliness, basing greed, hate, and delusion, body, speech, and mind, I vow to atone. So from the beginning, just of the day, we recognize our karma. And then karma, karma is, like I say, is action. And this action, it could be good or it could be bad. But also, karma is really, really connected with intention.

[05:34]

With intention, connecting our behavior. What is our intention when we interact in our everyday life? And this karma, sometimes what we call the bad karma is based on ignorance or based on our three poisons. of the mind, this greed, hate, and delusion. Or it could be an awakened mind or actions when we are really awake and we are clear, and then we act from sense of connection or intervene of compassion and wisdom, loving kindness. And we cause a good karma, so to speak. And for me, related with karma, with the past of the years, practicing, I really, really, really getting more convinced, convinced with the practice of the precepts. I think for me, the precepts are the foundations, is the foundations of our path, or the path to awakening.

[06:45]

Without precepts, we are not going to get anywhere. even if we can sit a lot, even if we can be hermits, so to speak, and sitting and sitting, and not to have the other side of the equation, they are the precepts, the ethical training. And then in my own experience, when I was in Mexico City after, let me tell you a story, when I was in Mexico City practicing for around two years, I needed to get my visa to come to the United States. So it was not easy and it was denied at the time. So I needed to have quite financial stability and that way I could apply again and then to get the visa to come into the States. So In that time, I got the offer to work for the government, thanks to a friend, and the border in Ciudad Juarez.

[07:58]

Ciudad Juarez is just the border with El Paso, Texas. And so I said yes, and went to this job and working in the customs, for Mexican customs. And then I spent two years When I decided to accept that job, I was already into the Dharma for practicing for two years and weekly seating and maybe two or three sessions. And then I thought that I was going to handle. I told them that my practicing was strong enough that I could quite survive doing this work. doing my practice by my own without the support of community. And then I was quiet, really. I was completely off, completely off. And then, so I went into this town, into the border town, and then I had already the vows of the precepts.

[09:01]

And then the conditions and the way my work and the environment, really, really, really, I was... Basically, I brought the precepts. So I went to this samsara realm. And then I didn't forget about the practice. It was just lazy to go into my practice. So I was not sitting enough. And then I lose contact with the sangha. And then... After maybe one year, and maybe if I was sitting once every two months in my home, that would be a lot. But really back in my mind, that was just the experience before being in Mexico City and practicing regularly and with a sangha.

[10:02]

And then I decided, I find out that there was a sesshin and a spring sesshin and in a town in Michoacan, in the state of Michoacan in Mexico. And then I went back, took some holidays and went back. And then I went to do that session. It was quite, it was five days session, short session. And then really it was, it has been the worst and the most difficult and painful session I ever had. And the reason it was the whole karma show up right there in the cushion. all these wrong behaviors that I was doing in the border town. And then it was just, it was so hard to concentrate over and over again, over and over again, seeing all these actions, all what we call really, really big karma. And then I went to the Busan and then nothing, nothing was helping me. And then I just was tortured

[11:06]

physically and also mentally, because I was really out of shape physically. So sitting for so long, those who have been sitting, and you know about the pain in the neck and the back. So here, I saw the consequences of my actions. I really saw about my karma, and then it was the bad karma. And when I get up from Dase Shin, I... I just realized I went to a different state of mind, of being, and then joyful. I said, wow, that was good to be here. It was very painful. And then I tried to go back to my practice regularly. And then in the summer of the same year, I went to Chicago for the summer session with my teacher. After getting my papers and that... I decided to resign to my work and then to pursue the residential training with my Korean teacher.

[12:15]

But here, this story where I try to explain or to show is how the bad karma works and how the good karma works. And the bad karma was just not to do the practice and just to really go into my senses. and be into pleasant feelings and bad behaviors, breaking the precepts. And then the good karma was the two years before. How the dharmacy was planted in my mind and my heart, they didn't forget. I was looking there. I didn't forget. I was looking over there. I was safe and didn't get into big troubles. And they had a good karma came and told me, you know, you need to go back to what you usually used to do. And what was interesting in that time of my life?

[13:19]

The working, and then I have no resources. I have money. I make quite good money. And then I have a house, car, and everything that everybody would say, you have a happy life. But that was not... That was not really what's happening in my heart. And then when I was in Mexico and struggling to live, but I was with my daily practice and be supported by the Sangha, I was really, honestly, I was really happy. I was with so much contentment. So that was what made the difference about how I felt, how was myself and my being. And then Deku Karma really helped me, or those machines that I spent before having this for my job. And then later I came to, I decided to do residential training. And then suppose the plan was to be one year doing residential training, and then I spent 12.

[14:26]

And with... four with my teacher, Korean teacher, and eight here in Upaya. And then another important piece that I see related with karma, with karma is a beside of collective karma. The individual karma is the collective karma. And then the collective karma as a society, but also I would like to share a little bit more related with family karma. the people in our family, you know, there is generational karma and there is karma. And then I, for me, when I be away from my family, from the nuclear of my family and not interact so much with them because I was in Canada and being here in the States and obviously

[15:28]

I was not visiting them often. I could see how that karma was manifesting and passing on, passing on through generations. In this case, passing on to my nieces, to my nephews, and the way how we educate people, educate young people, and how certain values, certain ideas... of my parents passing through us and later through the grandchildren. And how to see the grandchildren when they were teenagers, my nieces to questioning, to questioning if there was the right thing to do or it was the right value to hold. And that for me, and then for me, I saw One of the things in my family, I'm very happy and grateful the way how my parents, they rose me, and they really put the seed of integrity and values.

[16:43]

But at the same time, there was quite a lot of taboos, especially taboos with relationships, with romantic relationships. There was something quite... I didn't have good mentorship, so to speak, in the family. And then there was so much values of Catholic, of the church, that they're putting in place in our psyche. So when I saw that, the new generation, my nieces, you know, they were dating and seeing different ways and know about people. about seeing, you know? And then I saw like, wow, okay. So with the perspective to be outside there, I support them. I support them where I thought it was the right thing, you know, to be able to feel those feelings when you are teenagers and then when you want to date and to meet somebody else.

[17:46]

So, and then for me, To see this karma going on and our families, we need to look at it. And in practice, here is what is so important, the practice. Because what we are doing in Sazam, in Sazam we are cultivating the wisdom. We are waking up. We are becoming Buddhas. We are really becoming Buddhas. We are waking up and to see clear. To really be... To see clear, not to see based on the ignorance. To see the mind where it's clear. And then to cultivate in the practice of sasen, of sitting, that is going to manifest in our behavior. That's why we are going to go to embodiment and to remove that karma. I remember reading a long time ago one of the same books. One teacher said, when you do zazen, you are burning your karma.

[18:51]

And that was quite a strong sentence. I said, how, how, how, how does that happen? And which is totally true. And you can experience, you can experience when you, when you sit in zazen, and then whatever happened in your zazen, when you come out from that zazen, I have never seen somebody grumpy about this zazen. Somebody say, oh, that was bad, see, you know, like to have a regret. Oh, I spent half an hour wasting my time. For whatever your experience it might be, and on the cushion. And then, and here when we do sasen, we, beside the practice, the pure practice of sasen, is coming the practice of the precepts. The precepts that are mindfulness trainings that allow us to navigate with the reality world, with really the practicality of living.

[20:00]

And then besides, maybe you know that the precepts have three perspectives, the fundamental and the compassionate way, and also the intervening from the awakened mind perspective. But the presets are going to allow us not to create bad karma, so to speak. And the presets that help us to really cultivate the soil, so to speak, where our sarsen is going to grow. Because when we cultivate the presets, our mind, I would say, is more purified, but has less struggle to deal with our bad karma. that when we are sitting, we settle down. So that's what the precepts are so important to cultivate. And then we have the system precepts and our tradition. But I think just holding the three pure precepts, I think there are the core, the root of the other ten, but the not to cause harm or not to cause evil, to do good and to do good for others.

[21:11]

If every intention or every action that we do, we come from that place, not to cause harm, to do good and to go to others, we are really, really contributing a lot to our personal karma and also to our collective. And this collective karma, we can escape because we are so connected. We are so interrelated. And that's what we can know. We are not isolated. So every action that we do has some consequences for good or for bad. In the same way, behaviors of other people, we have the consequences. And myself, when to share my personal story, that was when I applied for for my green card.

[22:13]

And it was so interesting that, you know, you are being judged, judged by just papers. You had to fill out a bunch of papers. And that's by whatever the person, you can never have contact with the person who's going to decide you enter into the country or stay into the country. It's a big decision. So I understood about like, wow, those consequences with these people, they're holding a lot of power. You know, if the guy depends how was his day or her day, we'll say, no, it doesn't, I don't approve. And they're going to have a ripple effect completely like in my life, so to speak. And that was very, interesting for me to experience that you know i cannot control anything and then i just send in bunch of papers to the homeland security and somebody that i don't know is gonna decide about what is gonna be the next for my life and then i'm really happy and then i guess thanks to the good karma they turn well they say yes and that's why i stay here now but so

[23:41]

We can see that way. We can see that way. One thing that I share a lot with people, don't undermine about your practice and don't think that you are not contributing good to the war. Because we can think that this practice is quite isolated. You know, we do Sazen, and right now we are doing Sazen most of the time in Zoom, in our own place. But it has a ripple effect. And then the ripple effect is in your relationships, in your closest relationships. That's going to be the people who benefit. And those people, if they benefit from your practice, they're going to be benefit to others. And that's that the Dharma reign goes into the society.

[24:43]

And then not to lose hope, especially now when we are coming to very interesting times as human beings and exploring different ways to interact. Like now minorities or people that has been marginalized by the system. I think we are having voices now. So we are getting strong. And then one of the good things is about the technology, about how the information goes quickly. And we are to start getting more connected. And we are start analyzing. We are start reviewing. Hey, I think we have done something wrong here. You know. And then for me, being... person of color being immigrant and coming here to this state. And I was very, very lucky to be in a wonderful place, the Yisuke Payasen Center.

[25:49]

Right now I am here in quarantine, just preparing for Rohatsu. And a few days we are going to start and be here and spend my whole training here in the Dharma and be quite protected. And then getting out, I started meeting really, really, really United States, so to speak. And I started seeing the work, the issues we have to do just to heal, just to heal our karma, our own karma. And for me, for me, I've been, you know, in Mexico and then teaching the Dharma in Mexico and also in Bogota, I've been very fascinated.

[26:50]

And to teach the Dharma in the United States, that's a little different. It's a little different perspective, perspective to the approach. There are different needs. There are different needs. And then one thing, just to get my point across, what I tried to say, when I came here to Paya and been as a world leader, I had the fortune to meet Ada Frances Roshi. And she used to come here for us as a guest teacher. And I was having a hard time because my tendency, the way how I am, is to be nice to everybody and please everybody. And it was missing quite lack of leadership as a world leader. And it was very hard for me to say no to requests.

[27:56]

And I was struggling. I talked to Roshi, to Edo Roshi, and then she pointed out, I said, you're coming from different culture. You are coming from a culture that always you, it's okay to be, to say yes. And she used the word, you are coming from submission, submitted culture. And they say, now you are here and your practice is to say, No. And then she said, and the people here, the American people, has to say yes. It has to open up more and extend to get out from this selfish self-centered. And then start learning about community, about learning about connection. And that was really interesting to look at it because I was not aware.

[29:02]

I was so naive. And that And in that moment, I start to really honoring my heritage. I start quite selling power. Empower. And then not to get, not to act based on my condition. And I start breaking that patterns and conditions. And then, and here is, for me, it's the same, you know, like being in, and diversity groups, and I had the opportunity to do some workshops, inclusivity with the IBME, with the organization that I work for teenagers. And then for me, my own experience, and just coming to the end of this sharing, at some point, I think each group, each group, we need to do our own work. We need to do our own work, our personal work, our collective work as a group.

[30:04]

and later to come together. Because we can all, I have a sense there, that we can all have this interaction. We are not ready to really mix up, so to speak, the groups that we want to work on. At the initial level, we need to go in and separate rooms, so to speak, and to do our personal and collective work that we need to heal and to come from that. So when one, I have seen the problem when we go into this interaction, sometimes one group wants to dominate the other group. And that's why we don't get along. Because each group thinks that we are right. You know, whatever interaction or behaviors, they have the right thing to do. That's the rightness to do. And then we don't understand each other. And we are completely, completely different. completely different as individuals, but as a collective is to understand our diversity and to really understand our humanity and understand that we are living in just one place, this world, and to have this global mind or inter-being mind, so to speak.

[31:28]

And just to end, coming back to the karma, So I heard the sang in San Francisco is coming to Rojatsu tonight. And that is the good karma of one person over 2,500 years ago. He had this experience, this event in his life. And thanks to that experience, now through many generations, we are honoring and we are celebrating the Buddha's enlightenment. And in our tradition, in our Zen tradition, in our Japanese Zen tradition, we are, we are, we are sitting, many, many Sanghas, many Zen Sanghas are sitting to celebrate that. And then that is what

[32:30]

For me, karma is the good karma and it has been, well, this is a good and very big, big karma. It's good karma from Shakyamuni Buddha that tends to his practice. We are here connected and practicing and continue, continue to honoring and celebrating and to, I would say, reclaim what is us. Us is what we call true nature or Buddha nature. or Buddha mind. And so when I used to, in the beginning of my practice, I was sitting these sessions with a clinging mind, with greed and I wanted to achieve something. Until suddenly my practice shifts, and it's not anymore about clinging or achieving, it's more about receiving. It's more about allowing because there's something that is inherent in us as a human being and this Buddha nature.

[33:38]

And then I'm going to stop here and then open to comments, questions, anything. And thank you for your attention and listening. 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 sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[34:17]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_94.55