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. Nancy Petran. And can you hear me okay? Great. Thank you. My pronouns are she, her. And I am speaking with you this morning from the unceded land. of the Ramatush Ohlone here at City Center, 300 Page Street. I would like to thank our abbot, David Zimmerman, who suggested that I speak today. Thank you, David. And to express gratitude for my teacher, Rinzo Ed Sarazan. As I was preparing for today's talk, I was aware of so many teachers who are influencing me right now, who are here with me in this talk, whether named or not named specifically.

[01:10]

And I want to uplift their voices and thoughts and teachings. And I'm going to put their names in the chat now because it was quite a long list, I realized. Oh, they all stream together that way, don't they? Wow. That's amazing. Looks like when we chant the ancestors. Quite a lineage there. So during today's Dharma talk, I would like to invite you to uplift. This is a technique that many of us participating in the Soto Zen Buddhist Association, SZBA, training or course called Many Communities, One Sangha. It's something that we were taught by teacher Mushia Makeda. She learned this in a writing course that she was taking. So the way that uplifting works is that our Eno, Kodo, or perhaps Eli or who's ever hosting today, will make it possible for us to use the chat.

[02:21]

And if you hear something that is said, my words, words of someone that I'm quoting, I encourage you to put it in the chat. And for example, if I were to say each moment holds an opportunity for healing, that in the chat to everyone, you would put uplifting, quote unquote, each moment holds an opportunity for healing. So I'd like to invite you into the Dharma talk this way. Here, I'm going to put an example of what it would look like if I were uplifting those words. So I'm going to go to the chat. And I would put in uplifting. Each moment holds an opportunity for healing. So... I wanted to invite us to engage. We're so separated in a way by Zoom, you know, we're so cut off in a way.

[03:28]

But I thought that this would be a way to have affirmations, you know, like in many cultures, it's like you hear something when you're in a group and everyone's participating and there's an affirmation, you know, it comes from the body. Yes, you know, yeah, you know. So... as we weave this together, you know. Yes, I'm the one speaking, later we'll have Q&A, but during the talk, mm, yes, I want more of that, or mm, yes, ooh, ooh, that's tender, that strikes a chord, that strikes a chord. So to begin the talk, I would like to invite everyone, just for a moment, as Abbot David has been doing, during this practice period to turn on your videos just for a moment if you feel comfortable enough, if you feel safe enough. And to just go through the screens and take each other in and let yourself be taken in by the sangha that has gathered here.

[04:39]

So wonderful to see you all. Yes, uplifting each of you. So good to see you. Great, uplifting is happening. So if you are participating from 300 Page Street, I now invite you to turn off your video. I think there's more of a chance that I won't freeze during the Dharma talk if your videos are off. And also any of you who are at all, you feel at all uncomfortable having your video on, please turn it off. and return to a posture of comfort. You know, I see a friend of mine here who just went through a major surgery, and they are sitting upright, and I want to invite them to please be comfortable, all of you. Please be comfortable. Take care of yourselves.

[05:46]

So today's Dharma Talk is a continuation of the theme of the city center fall practice period that's being led by our abbot. David Saranen. And today, it's on the theme of karma. So if you've been joining for the last three weeks, most likely you've been hearing teachings on karma. And what I'd like to highlight today is karma and healing. So David named, Abbot David named this practice period, becoming unbound. Understanding, working with, and ending karma. So, as I mentioned, for three weeks we've been studying karma. The Buddha's teaching of karma came as a response.

[06:48]

Came from Buddha having penetrated deeply the truth of their being. and that of all beings. So when the Buddha awoke to the boundless nature of their being and of all beings, this was the compassionate teaching that the Buddha offered all of us, this teaching of karma, the cycle of karma that we are all caught up in, in every moment, and the opportunity to change that, to awaken in each moment. So this was a teaching of compassion, a teaching of... I'm sorry, I'm getting uplifted. Okay, sorry. Went to the chat. So yes, a teaching of compassion, a teaching of wisdom.

[07:54]

So karma literally means action, specifically Volitional action. And the Buddha's explanation of how each of us finds ourselves in this current situation. You know, do you ever ask yourself, how did I get here? This is my life, you know? Yes, this is the Buddha's explanation of how each of us is here in this moment right now. how our thoughts and actions of the past determine our character, our personality, as well as where we are headed, the trajectory of our future. And therefore, we ourselves, taught the Buddha, are largely responsible for and agents in the way our lives unfold moment.

[09:01]

In this teaching of karma, the opportunity exists in each moment to change the trajectory of our karma and to become unbound from it and to heal it. So, Abbot David spoke about at ease. He talked about eddies and skamsaras, samskaras. So the mental formations. This is in his October 6th Dharma talk. If you haven't heard it, I recommend taking this up in your study of karma. You can find it online in our Dharma app, October 6th. So karmic eddies and samskaras, you know, the momentum. the momentum and the formation of mental activity, mental formations, which create habit patterns, you know, that we engage in moment after moment.

[10:17]

And from here that our character, that our personality is formed, this sense, this relentless sense of I, and how the eye navigates this world. So these patterns of body, speech, and mind are very familiar to each of us. And when we start studying them, noticing them, we understand how uncomfortable our habit patterns can be, how limited, how bound, We know this through the dis-ease that we start noticing in the study of the self. And we reinforce our habit patterns, our samskaras, with our stories, with our records, with our LP eddies, the stories that we reinforce over and over.

[11:30]

of who we are, who they are, what happened in this moment. I feel uncomfortable. A story arises so quick, reinforcing our karma. Our stories are very believable and they carry an energy. They have a trajectory. a hard word for me to say. So as Buddhist practitioners, we are committed to looking at the I, the study of the self, the study of these habit patterns, these skamsaras, these eddies, these LPs and stories. And this is what lies at the heart of the study of karma. So we can look closely when we start studying what is arising moment after moment, as we do in Zazen.

[12:37]

We can start studying and coming back to the moment of where did the discomfort arise in this being, in this body? The moment that we have an inkling that something is off. Sometimes it's not just an inkling. You know, sometimes our whole world drops out from underneath us. And how do we take care of ourselves in the midst of that? But for the more subtle karma study, you know, in Zazen, we're given the opportunity of noticing what's arising in the body. We're noticing the discomfort in the body. We're noticing the thoughts and the practice of letting go over and over again, letting go of the story, you know, before we glue another little bit of the story to it and then we are lost, you know, but just noticing, coming back to when, what was I thinking?

[13:46]

What was the thought just before that discomfort? You know, so this is the opportunity when we sit on our cushion, when we take our seat, you know, In zazen, you know, this is the opportunity to engage in this practice of letting go of that story, letting go of that thought, letting go of that karmic habit reinforcement with the healing, healing balm of the breath and the spaciousness, the vastness of our being, you know. In zazen, this is where it comes together. you know, the discomfort, the vastness, the holding of these two truths that are happening at the same time, moment after moment. So as our 12th century Japanese ancestor Ehe Dogen so succinctly said, to study the Buddha way is to study the self.

[14:52]

To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. Or to study the Buddha way is to study the I. To study the I, the self, is to heal the self. And to heal by turning the light of awareness on the story of a separate being. of a separate self and thus to awaken with all beings. So we simply cannot study the self without acknowledging the society, the culture, all causes and conditions, conditioning of the past which have brought us to this very moment.

[15:54]

So part of our study of karma is looking at who we as Americans, North Americans, in this moment of time, who we, what we are called to heal. So in a recent conversation that I listened to, thank you to Denise Leary, Dharma friend, Chico. who shared this conversation with the resident sangha here, between Ezra Klein and Richard Powers, the author of Overstory, and most recently, author of Bewildered. I was struck by Richard Powers' frame for understanding the times we live in. Richard Powers was a scientist, lived in Silicon Valley, very, very successful. And actually, his life was profoundly changed when he started studying the trees in the Santa Cruz Mountains near Silicon Valley.

[17:05]

And he went to an old growth forest. There's 2% of the old growth forest is what is still growing. intact, still thriving, still alive. He went to this old growth forest in the Smoky Mountains, and he was so deeply changed by his experience of entering that old growth forest that after a year of continuing his life in Silicon Valley, he moved there. He moved from Silicon Valley to the Smoky Mountains, and that's where he resides now. He's deeply impacted, deeply informed by living in that place. So Powers in this conversation with Ezra Klein says, invites us into the question, what if the experiment, this collective experiment of life that we are moving through together, what if the experiment is sacred?

[18:14]

If our life together were sacred, and we moved through life with that knowing, how would we engage body, speech, and mind? And it led me to think, how would this guide our collective karma to be steeped in the sacredness of life, in the sacredness of every interaction? It would be a very different reframing for me I can say. You know, how would we engage each other? How would we live on this planet? So Ezra Klein turned the question and eventually in the conversation, he said, you know, to go from terror into being and into that sense that the experiment is sacred. is to immediately transform the way that you think, even about every fundamental social and economic and cultural thing.

[19:27]

If the experiment is sacred, how can we possibly justify our food systems, for example? It's only the belief that we do not share kinship meditation or emotional life with cows that allows us to run the kind of food systems that we run. If the experiment is sacred. The other morning I was pouring milk into my coffee and I started thinking about the cow, the cows who gave me that milk. And I was wondering about the conditions that they live in. And I felt quite a twinge. And I would say maybe a bit of nausea. In her book, Breeding Sweetgrass, Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants, Robin Wall Kimmerer says, speaking of native culture,

[20:43]

deeply rooted in cultures of gratitude, cultures of gratitude. This ancient rule is not just to take only what you need, but to take that which is given. This is in the chapter, the honorable harvest. To take what is given, to take what is being offered. to be in relationship with plants, with the natural world, to actually understand what is being offered in this moment. So in the study of karma, I look at what is it that I turn a blind eye to? What am I not willing to understand of the systems that surround me and that I continue

[21:45]

perpetuate that I am caught in and that I do not understand or cannot bear to understand the harm that I am keeping in place. Teacher Larry Ward's most recent book, America's Racial Karma, an invitation to heal is a manifesto. Not only in this manifesto, in this book, does Dr. Ward lay out the history of our racial karma, but he also offers us an invitation to heal from it. So for 246 years, from 1619, to 1865, slavery was legal in America.

[22:49]

And then there was another 100 years to end legal segregation. Money and the fear of losing money and privilege for white Americans made it so white America could stand by and witness this horror. bound by karmic patterns of greed, hate, and delusion. So this trajectory of our karma, of our racial karma in this country, continues seen and unseen, mostly unseen in insidious systems that we are keeping in motion. So until we as Americans can fully understand and acknowledge our past, what has brought us to this moment, what are the systems that are in place in this moment?

[23:54]

Until we understand this, we actually are not going to be able to heal from our collective karma. We won't even actually understand how to engage that, how to repair that until we take up this study. So again, I ask, what am I not willing to understand of the systems that surround me, that keep my life in place? What am I caught in and what am I not understanding about the harm that I am repeating. So to study our karma, to experience the fullness of our human experience points to a profound truth that nothing is separate from us.

[25:00]

We are separate from nothing. There's no experience of the past or of the present. There's no being, not human, non-sentient, from which I am separate. The moment that the thought arises of I is an indication that separation has occurred. That I am believing this upside down, inverted truth, that I am a separate being. As we chant, as we vow, delusions are inexhaustible. Returning to me, returning to I, it's relentless, it's inexhaustible, and I vow to be with it. I vow to end this lie, to see to the bottom of it, to see through it.

[26:02]

and to meet that with vow, intention. So breaking the chain of habit disrupts the pattern. And as in Zazen, invites me to open to vastness. So speaking on Robert Power's new book, Bewilderment, Ezra Klein observes, We can live in the time of wonders, but a time also of horrors, of climate crises and mass extinction and poverty and violence that doesn't need to be there. So how can we live in this time and see nothing but normalcy? nothing but ourselves. And somehow this is about limits of cognitive empathy, he says, and what it takes to change that.

[27:16]

So as practitioners of the way, our vow is indeed to see the horrors and the wonders. The horrors and the understand what is here in this very moment. And as with Larry Ward's book, here is the whore, the truth of our past, whose trajectory is here alive now, and here is an invitation to heal. Thank you, Dr. Ward, for inviting us all in. Here at City Center this week, We renewed our vows in the full moon, monthly full moon ceremony, the oldest ceremony in Buddhism, the full moon ceremony. And as we do daily, but in a more elaborate ceremony, we called in our karma.

[28:19]

We call in our karma, all my ancient twisted karma from beginningless greed, hate, and delusion born Karma born from body, speech, and mind. I now fully avow. I avow. I confess. I open to. I welcome. Before all beings. I confess. I open to my karma. Before all beings. May I see you. May I understand you. Heal you. Live with you in harmony. Embody my full humanity. And then we call in, after calling in our karma, inviting our karma, then we take refuge. Quick! Take refuge. We take refuge in Buddha, the awakened one.

[29:21]

We take refuge in Dharma, the teachings, the truth of our vastness. We take refuge in each other in sangha, for we cannot awaken without each other. You know, I was also struck this week when David was chanting that echo and extending the merit of our practice of this intention, you know, to the unborn nature through, wait, how does it go? Through... world systems to the unborn nature of all beings. And I thought, wow, you know, this ceremony has been going on for how long? It's the oldest ceremony in Buddhism. So that intention has been coming to me, has been coming to you for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years.

[30:23]

We are supported by the merit. of the Buddhas and ancestors who came before us. So yes, there is a trajectory of the karma that we have inherited. And this is part of the trajectory. The vows, the steadfastness of our teachers, of our ancestors have been with us forever. And they're here with us right now. So we invite all of this. We invite all of this. into the house of Buddha. We sit in Zazen. We are the house of Buddha. We are enacting this ceremony each time we take our seat of inviting in our karma, inviting in the truth of our being, you know, into the house of Buddha. We are supported in this difficult, wondrous work.

[31:24]

So the power of our intention, the power of our vows, guides us and walks with us compassionately as we take up this study of karma, moment after moment, right here. It is here, right here for you, right now. In your belly, in your heart, in your breath, in your being. So we turn towards understanding the moment of separation, the reaffirming of the I, the belief that we are independent from each other. What is here right now? What wants to be healed? Karmic consciousness believes there's a separate self.

[32:33]

Karma is how the self propels the self forward. Yet the arc and momentum of karma is interrupted by a vow-powered life. So what is powering you in this moment? Your karma, your vows, your intention, What is here right now? So there's currently a revolution afoot that perhaps you're aware of. A doctor by the name of Suzanne Simard, who many of us have mentioned, actually, I've heard their name so many times in Dharma Talks in the last year or so. And the work of Dr. Simard is is revolutionizing our understanding of the underground world, the subterranean life of forest floors, and how resources are passed back and forth symbiotically in fungally, yes, mushroom fungal, fungally connected forests.

[33:59]

And her work continues to gain momentum She was very much shunned and poo-pooed by her fellow scientists. And yet her work is getting more and more sophisticated. The more data that is gathered, it just reaffirms her work that between species, that the way that the forest is connected is absolutely new. to our understanding. And it's becoming more and more sophisticated and reified. In connection with her work, I've heard the terms reciprocal interdependence and describing how essential nutrients are shared between species of trees.

[35:03]

in the forest, reciprocal interdependence, just knowing what the other needs, offering it. No separation. What do you need? Oh, I have that. Let me send it your way. So such terms as radical interdependence, startling interdependence. You know, these are foundational teachings of Buddhism. And somehow as it becomes mainstream, it's described as startling, you know. So Dr. Martin Luther King described his description or his imaginative beloved community, you know, the sacred experiment. Dr. King's beloved community, includes the whole planet of beings.

[36:10]

No separation. So for us earth beings, it makes sense that the way that we are looking to our imagined, looking to the future, looking to what our karma right now, what we are what seeds we are planting for the future, as we imagine societies, as we imagine our sanghas, our towns, our organizations, that we ourself are ripe for our imaginations to revolutionize where we are going, the trajectory of our karma, and to examine, not skip over, but to examine from the roots to take into consideration the repair, the direction in which we are headed, you know, into a more sacred understanding of this experiment, into the mind of love.

[37:23]

So Dharma teacher Kaira Jewell Lingo, the title of her new book, which I have not yet read, is called We Were Made for These Times. And Kyra Jewel will be speaking with us here at Zen Center soon in the next month. So I look forward to reading this book, but I'm even just inspired by the title of this book. It's so encouraging. We were made for these times. We're ready for it. this revolution, we're ready for this deep work. We're ready to take up this deep work with compassion, with wisdom. And as Buddhist practitioners, it's our vows and it's our bodies that will serve us as guides as we move into these new realms, the realms that we must explore

[38:31]

if we are to acknowledge our past, to understand this karma, and to respond with the requested forms of repair so as to move together in this profound sense of kinship with all beings. You know, one of the versions of our vows has a very kind of foggy kind of rhythm that goes with it. But I don't know, I might sing, but I don't know. We'll see what happens here. But the way that these vows are phrased is, I vow to wake all the beings of the world. I vow to set endless heartache to rest. I vow to walk through every wisdom gate I vowed to live the great Buddha way.

[39:32]

Dharma teacher Mushinaketa, who I mentioned earlier, who taught us this practice of uplifting, which I see people are doing in the chat. It's so wonderful. I'm not reading them, but each time I see the chat flash, I feel uplifted by you feeling uplifted. So Mushin says of these vows that living the bodhisattva vow to free all beings, points towards a journey that requires courage, conviction, support, and an unwavering commitment to learning. Mushom says, and my hope is that it is also a joyful journey, a journey of spiritual deepening, and opening and renewal. Because when we move from spiritual contemplation into the wisest action accessible to us in the moment, we can know for a fact that our lives are happier when we stop making it possible for oppression to happen.

[40:55]

And if we mess up, which is inevitable at times, that this gives us the opportunity to learn and to grow. So yes, we are vulnerable. We are vowing to become more sensitive, sensitized to each other, you know, willing to say, oh, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Thank you for sharing, sharing. how I just impacted you, you know, being willing to be changed by each other. We do not wake up alone, you know. So to become more sensitive to each other's experiences, to each other's differences, to our differences, to be open to that conversation, that knowing, that learning. So inevitably we will mess up And this is where the courage comes in.

[41:59]

So in order to know my full humanity, I cannot without understanding the differences, without being willing to learn, you know, to have me be changed by you, to give myself over, my story of who I am and what my intentions were. Or, you know, to put down my defenses and to allow myself to be changed by you. So I ask myself, what keeps me from living a sacred experiment? What keeps me from living in the mind of love? And when I notice that I'm not there, you know, an opportunity to heal something. Am I willing to be vulnerable to take a leap into the unknown?

[43:02]

You know, to do this before all beings. Oh my goodness, that sounds vulnerable. You know, am I willing? You know, in the unknown, I think this is where we meet the sacred. As Suzuki Roshi said, not knowing is most intimate. So I want to thank all the POC teachers who are leading the way with truth and with courage, with forgiveness and with healing, with beauty, for offering teachings and offering resources. And I want to thank all the white-bodied teachers who are taking up these studies, who are learning, to thank them for their vulnerability, for their courage, and creating conditions for us to take up the work of healing our collective karma, our collective liberation together.

[44:04]

Again, from Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. If grief can be a doorway to love, then let us all weep for the world we are breaking apart so we can love it back. to wholeness again. If grief can be a doorway to love, then let us all weep for the world we are breaking apart so we can love it back to wholeness again. Thank you, everyone. We are going to transition to Q&A. Actually, that's Kodo's line. But before we do that, and before we chant our closing chant, I would like to put a question to you. You may already have something brewing that you want to bring forward in the group. But my question for you is, how are you able?

[45:15]

No. How are you made for these times? How are you made for these times? In this moment, What calls you to heal? And what practices support that work? How are you made for these times? In this moment, what calls you to heal? And what practices support you in that work? Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. 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.

[46:13]

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