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 evening. Thank you very much for coming tonight. Is there anyone who's here for the first time? Welcome. My name, for those who don't know me, is Tova Green, and I'm a resident in the building and participating in what we call a practice period that started about almost two weeks ago. It's an 11-week period where we intensify our practice, and the theme of it is living in harmony with all beings. And... I want to thank Christina Lane-Hare, the abbess, and our head of practice, Rosalie Curtis, for inviting me to give this talk tonight, following on last week's talk by our Eno, head of the meditation hall, Valerie Beer.

[01:17]

Valerie spoke last week about harmony of body, speech, and mind, and I'm going to focus tonight on speech. I was invited to give a class this practice period, and my class is on kind speech. And so I'm going to talk about how I understand kind speech, particularly how we can speak with kindness to ourselves, even the parts of ourselves we don't like so much, and also how we can speak kindly to one another. And particularly, as my class goes, goes on, I want to focus on how we speak kindly to one another when we have differences of opinion and differences in orientation due to our age, gender, sexual orientation, culture, race, class, physical ability, all the many ways in which we may have very different experiences from one another that

[02:24]

can make it sometimes harder to speak kindly and with understanding. So how do we create connection through some of these differences? And I think kind speech actually comes from an intention to connect with ourselves and others. rather than to hold ourselves apart or separate, and to connect also with those parts of ourselves that may be, as I said, a little more difficult for us. I thought I would start out with some words of Ehe Dogen, who is a very important... figure for us in the school of Zen.

[03:25]

He was the founder of Soto Zen. And although he lived from 1200 to 1253, his words can seem so current and relevant now. And he wrote a piece called The Bodhisattva's Four Methods of Guidance. A bodhisattva is a being who is awakening. I think as all of us are, or we wouldn't be here in this room, just kind of trying to understand what our lives are about and how practice can be helpful to us. So of the four methods of guidance that Dogen wrote about, one is kind speech, and a few of the lines I find very moving. He says, when you see sentient beings, you arouse the mind of compassion and offer words of loving care.

[04:27]

And in Buddhism, there is the phrase, please treasure yourself. And I think if we could remind ourselves of that phrase many times during the day, our days would be a little easier. Please treasure yourself. And I'll come back to that Dogen also says, it's kind speech to speak to sentient beings as you would to a baby. And by that, I don't think he means talking baby talk. I think he means with the tenderness that we often feel and manifest when we're holding a baby or with a baby. And... Someone in my class last night when we were talking about this said it's like really recognizing the vulnerability that each of us has, even if we may have a tough exterior.

[05:30]

So there's a baby in each of us, and can we speak to that baby kindly? He also says near the end of the section on kind speech, you should ponder the fact that kind speech is not just praising the merit of others. It has the power to turn the destiny of the nation. So I think it definitely has the power to turn the, I don't know if destiny is the right word, but the quality of life in a community like ours. I want to go on with a poem because I think this really illustrates the quality of kind speech as we can develop it when we speak to ourselves.

[06:32]

The poem is called Love After Love, and it's by Derek Wolcott. The time will come when, with elation, you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror, and each will smile at the other's welcome and say, sit here, eat. You will love again the stranger who was yourself. Give wine, give bread, give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes. Peel your image from the mirror. Sit. Feast on your life. So can we develop the voice that speaks lovingly to ourself, the voice that expresses appreciation?

[07:48]

Lane here, our abbess, in her class last week gave some wonderful homework, which was to focus on appreciation each day and maybe at the end of the day to think about all the things that you appreciated that happened that day with others and not to forget yourself. And thinking about, I think, making it a daily practice can really help develop this ability to speak kindly to ourselves. And I think it's very similar to, in non-violent communication, there's the idea of self-empathy, developing both an ability to empathize with the feelings of others, but also develop empathy for one's own feelings and needs. So one way of working with this is in our meditation practice, When we find our thoughts wandering and we may want to bring our attention back to our breath or to our posture, can we do that or notice how we do that?

[09:00]

What voice do we use when we address ourselves? And can we develop gentleness or kindness rather than, oh, there I go again. off on a tangent or, you know, I'm worrying too much about work or, you know, that kind of self-criticism and instead just simply, oh, breathe, you know, enjoy your breath. So I don't think that's easy, but I think with practice we can do it and it can very much help us when we are talking to others and developing that ability to, you know, I think if we're able to be gentle with ourselves, and especially if we're feeling self-critical, it may enable us to be more spacious when we're talking with others, remembering that others are also vulnerable and tender.

[10:09]

So I thought I would also bring in some of the teachings of the Buddha about speech. The Buddha, in one of the suttas addressed, this one was addressed to Kunda, the blacksmith, spoke about skillful verbal action. And his comments, I think, can be summarized by four questions. And he went through what is four aspects of speech unskillful speech, and then four aspects of skillful speech. And I think the questions are, is it true? So is what you're saying true? Does it promote concord is the word he used, but I would also say, does it promote connection? Is it kind? And words that are soothing to the ear, affectionate, that go to the heart? And is it spoken in season? That's what... the Buddha's phrase, or is it timely and is it factual rather than something like gossip?

[11:16]

So if we think about those things when we're speaking with others, and particularly those questions I think are helpful if we are wanting to give some feedback to others about something we've noticed. Is it true? Would what I say promote connection? Is it kind? And is it spoken in a timely way? So I want to move on to talking about how can speech connect us when there are differences in our experience, which can lead to different perspectives and points of view or beliefs. And I think here the Buddha's teaching about no fixed self or anatta is very helpful. This is also something Christina brought up in her class. Noticing how we change from day to day, even from moment to moment, how when we sit, pain may arise and then recede, or how our emotions may be very strong and then subside, how our thoughts come and go.

[12:36]

And Dogen says, we see and understand only what our eye of practice can reach, but our eye of practice is constantly changing and how it evolves and our eye of practice may help us to widen or deepen our perspective on things. And I think each of us is conditioned by so many factors. Our families where we grew up, our friends, our experience with work, where we live, what we read, it all affects how we see things. And in addition to that, our race, culture... economic status, religion, gender, sexual orientation, and physical ability.

[13:41]

All of these things affect how we experience the world. So how can we begin to fathom another person's experience? Even when we're speaking with someone we know well or someone we think is like us in some significant ways, we may be surprised by some way we view things differently or do things differently. I became aware recently with one of my friends of how sometimes I'm not so very well organized, and this friend is extremely well organized. And I could see in one task we were trying to do together how my disorganization really irritated her. It was just a way in which we're very different. And so I think being aware of that, I can try to be a little bit more organized if we're working on a project together.

[14:44]

But also, then how do we communicate about that difference and manage to do it in a way that we can appreciate each other and not, the word just came up, not drive each other crazy, but actually work together together with our different ways of doing things and come out in the end feeling we've accomplished something and we've been able to recognize that we have a different way of going about doing something. But it doesn't mean hers is better than mine or mine is better than hers. It's just different. And I would say given how easy it is to have misunderstandings with people we're close to, how can we communicate with people with whom we disagree about something that's important to us, who we may not be as close to? And I think an important part of practicing kind speech in such a situation is to be able to listen.

[15:51]

with kindness. And this may mean recognizing that we have a fixed view, an opinion that might have hardened into certainty, and being willing to listen to the other person's perspective, and to have what can be called a learning conversation. There's a book that I find really helpful, it's called Difficult Conversations, and the authors refer to three elements that are in every conversation. what happened, what actually happened, how do we feel about it, and how does this conversation affect our sense of identity, of who we are. And that part of the conversation can be the most difficult one. You might think, I'm not the kind of person who, whatever it is. And you realize, well, you have maybe an attachment to not being that kind of person. And can you create some space around that in a conversation so that your sense of who you are isn't at stake?

[17:03]

And often, I think, when we have a disagreement with someone, that is very much a part of where we don't connect. because each person has an idea of who they are that is hard to not totally let go of it, but to be a little more at ease with it or open to the possibility that you could change your idea of how you are. So this can be To have a conversation with someone with whom you disagree can be even more difficult when there's a power imbalance between two people, and that may make it more difficult to have a learning conversation. And this power imbalance could be due to different roles, such as a crew head or a crew member, or to differences in power and privilege that we may not be aware of

[18:11]

especially if we have more power and privilege in a situation. And so I'd like to talk a little bit about this idea of power and privilege. I think all of us have been members both of groups that have more power and privilege and groups that have less power and privilege. For example, as a white woman, I have more power of privilege as a white woman. person than people of color, but I may have less power and privilege than men do. And this is in thinking about groups that have been historically marginalized, that historically have less power and privilege. So that, for example, women over the years, over the centuries, even in recent times, for example, couldn't vote and had less... Well, I can give you a concrete example.

[19:18]

When my sister was finishing high school, she very much wanted to be a veterinarian and applied to vet school. But this was 1960, around that time. And in the school she applied to, there were only two places for women. And since she grew up in New York City and they wanted people who also had experience working with farm animals, she didn't really stand a chance. I think things have changed in that profession and in so many other professions now where women are given equal places. law school, medical school, some of those professions that were at one time predominantly male-dominated, you could say.

[20:21]

And it may be hard to see this. It's in center now because we have so many positions, so many women in leadership positions, but it hasn't always been this way. And so just in thinking about... power and privilege, when we're in a situation where we have more power and privilege, we may not be aware of it because it's just like the air we breathe. And I think part of learning to communicate about difference is beginning to recognize when we do have power and privilege. And one thing that can help with that is having conversations with people whose life experience is different from ours and seeing how they may view us and listening to people's stories.

[21:27]

So about six weeks ago, Mushim Ikeda gave a talk here. It was a Wednesday night talk in the Buddha Hall. And she called it Daylighting the Hidden Streams, Why Our Stories Matter. And I really appreciated that talk. By daylighting the hidden streams, daylighting is a way of bringing to light actual creeks or streams that have been paved over often by concrete. I know in Berkeley there are a number of streams that have been opened up. and cut across people's lawns, and some streets have been really changed when these streams have been opened and brought to light, and you can then hear water running in neighborhoods where you couldn't before. So I think the hidden streams that...

[22:34]

is maybe an image of stories that we may not have shared or haven't heard. And she proposed in her talk, adding to, often we talk about right speech, or I prefer wise speech, but right, If we think about right speech, she suggested adding right storytelling and also right listening. And such an important part of speech is listening and learning how to really deeply listen to one another. And in that talk, Mushom introduced a term. It was new to me. I don't think it's a new term at all, but she introduced the term cultural humility. And... For me, that really helps me think about all that I don't know about someone else's culture and awaken my curiosity.

[23:42]

And she defined cultural humility as an attitude of respect when approaching people of different cultures, which entails engagement in a process of self-reflection and self-critique, requiring an ability to move beyond one's own biases. So when we listen to stories, if we can do that, particularly stories from people who have been traditionally marginalized, if we can listen, aware that these stories are sacred stories and to hold the stories and learn from them, In her talk, Mushom also quoted Bell Hooks, who's an African-American writer and activist. And Bell Hooks said, Beloved community is formed not by the eradication of difference, but by its affirmation, by each of us claiming the identities and cultural legacies that shape who we are and how we live in the world.

[24:50]

And Mushom talked about a new face of the Dharma. in the U.S. that brings together traditional Buddhist meditation and teaching with the assertion that if our spiritual sanghas are to become truly beloved communities, it will be through each of us claiming the identities and cultural legacies that shape who we are and slowly beginning to reclaim the wholeness of our precious human lives. the restoration of lost histories, and the potential for a world inhabited by whole, profoundly awakened human beings. So I'd like to say that, just checking the time, this is a vision that I think many of us hold at Zen Center and that we're working towards it. There is a committee that... It started out as the Diversity and Multiculturalism Committee. It's a committee of the board, and recently we changed the name of the committee to Cultural Awareness and Inclusivity Committee.

[25:59]

There are many members of the committee here at City Center. Blanche and Vicki, Daigon, Lee Lip, Judith, who's here from Tassajara, has been a member of the committee. from Green Gulch, Yuki Kobayama, Charlie Corny, and so a number of us who have been working for a number of years to help Zen Center, and this is from our vision statement, to work at every level of Zen Center's organization to uproot all forms of oppression, subtle and gross, especially towards people who have been traditionally marginalized, so that our differences can be celebrated and enjoyed in harmony. So I wanted to share that because I think this work is part of creating harmony in our Sangha.

[27:02]

And it goes beyond being welcoming I think we've gone a long way at City Center in welcoming people who come for the first time. But how can we engage people in our practice so that they want to stay and eventually become leaders here? And so the faces of people who sit in this seat would be very varied. And I think that's a vision many of us share, would like to help to bring about. So I'm going to come to an end of my comments pretty soon because I'd like to leave some time for questions. So I'd like to come back to Derek Walcott's poem and just change it a little bit and say, the time will come

[28:04]

when with elation we will greet one another arriving at our own doors, in our own mirrors, and each will smile at the other's welcome and say, sit here, eat, sit, feast on our lives. And to return to Dogen's words, please treasure yourself. And by practicing kind speech, we can turn the destiny of our sangha, and perhaps of our nation. So thank you for your attention, and I'd like to see if there are any comments or questions. Yes, Valerie? So the people who came to your talk tonight perhaps wisely decided to come and listen to you and not to a certain debate that's going on. And one of the, you mentioned several differences that we sometimes have among us, orientations of this, that, and the other thing.

[29:08]

And one that you did mention was biblical orientation, which kind of seems to be right at this time of the year. And I was wondering if you might have any kind words for the next month of speech behavior in particular around being welcoming to Democrats, Republicans, and every other orientation of that bill can be clean. Can you say something? Yeah, I think, you know, that's... I got a piece of literature from someone who was running for the Board of Supervisors from our district in which she... disparaged another candidate who was running for the same office in our district, and I thought, well, this is not kind speech. I'm not going to vote for this person. But I think that's how often political discussions go, one person putting down another person.

[30:11]

And I think to the extent that we cannot disparage others' point of view, I mean, we might have strong... feelings about our own or a candidate. And a lot is at stake, you know, in a national election, particularly who's going to be the next president. I'm sure we all have a lot of strong feelings about that. But can, if we meet, if we have a conversation with someone who has a different perspective, can we meet them with respect and listen and be curious? Well, why do you think that? And what about that candidate? appeals to you or that proposition. It might not change our mind, but at least we might have a learning conversation. It seems like that idea goes out the window when we turn to politics. I don't know if that is helpful.

[31:12]

Thank you for being here instead of listening or watching the debate tonight. Any other questions? Yes, Sandy. I've noticed that many religions throughout the world, within the clergy, there are separations based on a hierarchy of study or certain accomplishments in the monastery. And I wonder, it seems that the circumcision that we practice here has I just wonder how that affects the feeling of inclusivity.

[32:14]

How do you see that has cut some of those? I think there is a fair amount of hierarchy. Hierarchy and community. You know, there's both the truth that we all have Buddha nature, and each of us has a total, what do I say? I'm thinking of the chant we just did tonight, the Sandokai harmony of difference and equality. So... Each of us is unique. And one way my teacher talks about this, Linda Ruth cuts, and I think I forgot to thank her at the beginning of the talk, so thank her now, that each of us has our dharma position. And in our dharma position, you know, there may be hierarchies, certainly that we have an abbess, we have a director, we have...

[33:24]

people who've received Dharma transmission who do wear different color robes and priests, people who receive lay ordination, we have different colors. But I think that doesn't mean that we aren't each totally worthy and totally worthy of respect and appreciation and to be listened to. But, you know, I think in order for our community to function, we've worked out this way of doing things and various groups that make decisions that affect other groups. But how, within that, can we listen to everybody's perspective and make space for people to be heard? So I don't know about other religions so much, but I think that hierarchy isn't necessarily bad. It's just how do we hold it and how do we live together with that and with an awareness that everybody's voice is important and everybody's contribution is needed.

[34:34]

I mean, I see that every day. It's just amazing how just thinking about the flower arrangements, how they get done, how all, you know, what happens during Soji. It's incredible. Fifteen minutes and... Temple gets cleaned because everybody participates. So there's that way in which we really need each other and support each other. None of us could live here without all of us. I don't know if that answers your question, really. Is that helpful? Christina? having taken the precepts, either as a lay person or as a priest person, doesn't indicate anything about a level of your intention or the level of your practice.

[35:37]

A person who has not received the precepts can practice as deep or deeper as a lay person who has received the precepts or has a position. So it's not an indication that you're better. It's just the conditions of your life. Maybe I've put you on that path and it just resonates. And sometimes people say, I need to become a priest because I need extra help. It helps me actually to have to deal with that world and all that stuff. So I think it's easy to confuse that because it may look that way but it's really true with no indication and there's all of those came together in 10,000 directions. They tried to measure what versus. So I said they would not be able to do it. So this could not say. Thank you.

[36:41]

So I saw Kim and then Dacca. Could you just think a little bit about connecting or whether or not you should try to connect? Did everyone hear that question? How to connect with someone who's whether to and how to connect with someone who may have hurt you or has hurt you? I would say yes, it's helpful. And you may have to do some other things first before you're able to connect or even want to. you know, if someone, if you feel hurt by somebody to really be aware of that feeling and maybe talk about it with someone else before you talk about it with the person who's hurt, who you feel has hurt you.

[37:47]

The reason I say you feel has hurt you Often there's, you know, you don't necessarily know what was going on for the other person, and that person may not have intended to hurt you at all and may not even be aware that he or she hurt you. So I think if you can get to a place where you can have a conversation with somebody who you feel has hurt you, it can be really helpful for both people. That person might not have, you know, as I said, might not. There's a real difference between intention and impact. And the impact of something we do or say on someone else may be hurtful when we didn't really mean it to be. But it takes some, I think, strength and support and maybe strength and sometimes support from outside to be able to do that when you're feeling hurt. I don't know if that's helpful.

[38:49]

Yes, I think there are times when you have to stop connecting with someone who continually hurts you and it's not beneficial for you. You know, I think of when I, at one point in my work as a social worker, I worked with women who were abused. And there was a time at which, you know, it really was better for them to leave and to sever that relationship. And sometimes it was very difficult, but it was necessary. for their survival. It may not be as dramatic as that. Sometimes people in our families or friends, we feel they continually hurt us and there's no way to change that situation. We may need to take some time out or maybe just not communicate or be in communication. It could be for long periods of time.

[40:08]

Sometimes that is actually helpful. So, yeah. I don't think there's a rule about this. I think we have to work it out with each situation. Okay. Do you say something about violence? Can you say more? Silence in what context? Yeah, I think silence in a conversation. Sometimes just hearing what somebody's saying and not responding right away, but just feeling it, being in that space together.

[41:10]

I think can be very helpful. Or silence that gives you time to take a breath and think, okay, what am I feeling? What do I want to say in response? Breathing room is, I think, often very helpful. I think silence can also sometimes I think if the silence has openness in it, it can be very helpful. I think sometimes, you know, silence can maybe be a way of protecting ourselves or of not really meeting the other person. So again, it feels like a really, well, in some context, silence could be really wonderful and in some context, maybe not so helpful. So it's hard to... answer that question because I think it would depend on the situation.

[42:14]

How do you feel about silence? No, it has to do with whenever I hear people speaking about speech, one of the things that comes to mind is silence not being the opposite of speech. Right. Silence can communicate a lot. Silence can communicate quite a bit. We're choosing when and where to speak and when and where to be silent. For some reason, this isn't really silence, but Pablo Casals refused to play his cello in Franco's Spain. That was in a way, you know, not offering his music, which was his way of speaking. And so using that, that was his political statement.

[43:21]

So I think there are many dimensions to that question. Thank you. Maybe that would be a good place to stop. So thank you. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[44:01]

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