This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Hi, everybody. My name is Chris Fortin. I practice... With the Everyday Zen Foundation, we're Norman Fisher. I'm a senior teacher. Norman Fisher is the guiding teacher. I also have a sitting group in Sebastopol. That's a little context. But the reason I'm here tonight is because of all these amazing women sitting here in the Zendo who are current era women veterans. So seven years ago, Lee Lesser and I founded what we're calling, although it's soon to have a new name, we think, Honoring the Path of the Warrior.

[01:15]

It was post 9-11, and the wars were starting to... They were starting... And they've never ended. And though neither one of us supported the war, we both have children, young men and women who were the age of those who were going to war. There's a line in the Metta Sutta, the Sutta on loving kindness. To love the whole world the way a mother loves her only child. That's always, I know how much I love my son.

[02:24]

And I just, I also know that a hair's breadth He could have been one of the ones going to war. So I think they're all my children. And we're sending them off across the sea to this foreign, unknown land. And what's the appropriate response? So Lee and I kind of cooked up this idea. that we had our bodies and our hearts and our minds, and we had these tools, these practices. I've been practicing meditation and Zen for many decades. Lee's also a Zen practitioner, but primarily a sensing teacher in the lineage of Charlotte Silver. So we thought, what if we could offer these practices

[03:28]

to veterans when they come home. Is there some way, you know, it's, I mean, we know more now than we did then, and we still don't know very much, but we prepare to send our young men and women off into war, and we send them into the unknown, and many of these women have been in combat situations. The women in this room have served in, I'm probably going to leave some of them out. Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Somalia, all those places that we read about in the newspaper. Well, here they are. And the illusion or the story that women aren't in combat and they're not on the front lines is just not so. So... Lee and I, we began, we offered one retreat at Green Gulch.

[04:30]

And one vet showed up. And we sat in the room and we looked at each other really nervously and squirmed around and kind of made it through the day. And then we offered another and another and word started to spread. But what we found was that if you asked in general, a veteran who's been trained in high adrenaline, maybe by nature, maybe by training, to sit down and do meditation and mindfulness, it doesn't really work unless... What we found was that if you offer some kind of adventure, or we started offering whitewater rafting retreats that we then... taught meditation we sort of snuck in we were really kind of sneaking it in meditation and mindfulness and and and then we did rock climbing and we'd sort of use the rock wall as these metaphors for life and you know again again i always sort of felt like in the beginning we were sneaking it in the back door and then lo and behold we found out we didn't have to sneak it in the back door that people really really want these tools and practices

[05:48]

And in fact, my experience is that maybe in many ways, I think many of us come to practice because of suffering. The greater the suffering, the more practice isn't just some nice idea. It becomes a necessity. It becomes a lifeline. So men and women were coming, and over time, we began it seven years ago. This is our fifth year here at Tassajara offering a women's veterans retreat. There's 21 veterans here. We also still offer the whitewater rafting retreat. We don't sneak in the meditation and mindfulness anymore. We say up front, this is what we're doing, and we're going to do it on the river. And men and women come. It's grown into that once a month we do a one-day retreat. We offer it because the intention is, and it's really happened, is to build sangha and community.

[06:53]

One of the things in the military is there's community. There's a really deep sense of bonding and of caring for the person next to you. And I think and I've heard that when you... leave the military and go into the civilian world. You're all by yourself. You're holding all this all by yourself. So to have a sangha with other veterans where you can practice together and speak your experience and feel your pain and feel the camaraderie of the beauty of this experience for many people and the heartbreaking just heartbreaking quality of what people are holding all by themselves. We also then began because when you begin practice, you want, as we all do, I mean, people who are here at Tassajara and guests who return over and over, is some place that you can come back to to reaffirm and root your practice and find support.

[08:01]

So we now offer once a year a three-month women's practice period, and we're about to start a men's practice period. Gil asked at dinner. Gil has been very generous with his place. We've met there. We try to meet in places that embody, that hold a sense of practice. Because when people walk in, then you can feel it. So Gil, it's been wonderful to meet there. And Green Gulch. Shambhala Center and other practice centers have been very generous with us. And here we are at Tassahara. I should say, this program, Honoring the Path of the Warrior, the San Francisco Zen Center is the fiscal sponsor. They've been enormously generous and supportive of us. I want to read you a quote by Thich Nhat Hanh.

[09:07]

veterans are the light at the tip of the candle, illuminating the way for the whole nation. If veterans can achieve awareness, transformation, understanding, and peace, they can share with the rest of society the realities of war. And they can teach us how to make peace with ourselves and each other So we never have to use violence to resolve conflicts again. So we've been sitting in the retreat hall in a circle since Sunday evening. We'll be here through Friday noon. And the form that we use, grounded in practice and mindfulness, is each veteran has a chance, 10 minutes to tell a story.

[10:29]

A story that they've been carrying, whatever is important in this moment to tell, but often the story is often stories they've been holding. People have been telling stories this week they never have told anyone before. Carrying it alone and isolated. We ask veterans to carry a tremendous load for all of us. And I feel an incredible privilege to be able to sit in the circle with them and to hear their stories. And it breaks my heart. And it makes me angry. And what an amazing thing to be here in Tassajara, in this valley, with all of you supporting and holding a place of trust where people can finally begin to put down their load and to speak the truth of their hearts and not have to carry it alone anymore.

[11:42]

And in a circle of veterans, because while Lee and I have the privilege of sitting in, And being part, they kindly include us in the circle. I feel like this is such a deeply mutual... I can't tell you how much they teach me about my own humanity and my own limitations and my own... And about war and things that I really didn't want to know, actually. I mean, I did, but I don't want anybody... to have to know and witness and hold what they're holding. So we've been telling stories, they've been telling stories sometimes about family trauma before going into the military and before going into war that led more than one person in this group to enlist at 17 because there were no choices

[12:49]

of a way to find someplace else that maybe was, might be safe, might be different. 17, my goodness. We've been hearing stories of what's called MST, military sexual trauma. which in the way we would know it is the language of rape. It's been one of the most shocking and disturbing and continues to be aspects of the stories that we're hearing and what our women carry and experience. And the carnage of war.

[13:59]

But the amazing thing is... Oh, we've also been hearing stories about suicide. Loss of friends. Contemplation of it's just too much, it's too hard to bear. People who have lost friends next to them. But the most extraordinary thing to me about it is, is that as we sit and people tell story after story after story, is that what keeps arising is just an incredible sense of love and kindness. The capacity of letting their hearts break. letting our hearts break. I was thinking yesterday, I looked around and we're so many different shapes and colors and sizes and all these different lives that came together.

[15:14]

And what's in the room is just this incredible feeling of shared heart and humanity and a deep, deep sense of kindness. It kind of glows. So we've... We've cried together, we've laughed together. I've cried harder with the vets than I've ever cried, but I've also laughed harder with them. It's kind of a great paradox. And the awareness that all we all really want, fundamentally, all over the world, is we all just want to be happy. We all want to be safe. We want to keep our family safe. But there's this deep heart of love. And we all just, the world gets a little confused and tangled up.

[16:17]

And sometimes more than a little confused and tangled up. And we all get tangled up in it, in case you hadn't noticed. Because we all know suffering. I heard that Gil was going to give some talks on the Four Noble Truths, and I actually, that's what I wanted to bring here too. But maybe in a slightly different way, I don't know. I've been practicing a long time. And I used to think the Four Noble Truths were kind of beginning Buddhism and that maybe Zen was, well, maybe we'd gone beyond that. And I'd have to say at this point, I am just, I am so blown away and moved by the depth of the understanding and compassion and the clarity with which the Buddha expressed himself.

[17:20]

The Four Noble Truths is the heart of our practice. So, first noble truth, there is suffering. There is suffering. There is suffering. It was why I first loved Buddhism. I couldn't believe that there was actually a teaching that acknowledged it, because I grew up with everybody pretending it wasn't so. I always knew. We all know there's suffering. I think in practice, we can more and more face and be with the what it is to be a human being what it is to be in these precious human lives the more we can turn towards it it's amazing we all have a life it's amazing and it's doubly amazing that we're all here practicing together and in this valley together and that we found some place of refuge

[18:25]

to be in the midst of this lifetime, in these teachings, in whatever way we pick it up or take it up. So there is suffering. And with the veterans... practice over and over to not turn away. I feel there is suffering. There is suffering. And there's beauty. And there's a cause of suffering. Second noble truth, there's a cause of suffering. The wonderful thing about the way this is phrased is that there is a cause of suffering, but

[19:27]

There's no personal pronoun before it. That it's not personal and it's not our fault. It's not your fault. that there is a way that we as human beings, this self we have, and all the ways that we learned to protect it, to keep it safe, and we wrap ourselves around it, and we set ourselves up one against the other, and we set ourselves up inside of ourselves against ourselves, so many different layers and levels of the ways that we divide and separate. And of course, the most extreme example or acting out manifestation of it is war.

[20:39]

But we all have little wars, small and big. So study it. Pay attention to it. Our nature is one of goodness and love. I have no question about that. And it's each of our jobs and our joyful responsibility to... Study our own suffering and the suffering of the world so that over and over again we can make different choices. We can study the cause of suffering and see and watch where and how we close down and where and how we divide.

[21:42]

I'll bet that might even happen at Tassajara sometimes during the guest season when things get pressured or difficult. So please, for the sake of the whole world, study your mind, study your heart, all of us, over and over and over again. I was thinking today, can we imagine a world without war? I think we have to imagine a world without war. Because this just ain't working. And if we can let that possibility in, then it becomes each of our deep and profound responsibility to wake up in this body and mind to over and over again use our suffering to wake up to a world that's alive and connected and flowing and dynamic and whose very nature I'm completely convinced

[22:54]

is kindness. It means being willing to grieve. It means being willing to cry. It means being willing to laugh. It means being willing to over and over again just keep going beyond. And this valley is such an amazing place to do that. So much practice here. going beyond over and over and over again of everything we think we are and the way the world is and should be and shouldn't be, is just keep letting go over and over, giving yourself to whatever you want to call. I'd say giving yourself to Buddha, giving yourself to Dharma, giving yourself to the trees and the wind, giving yourself to love. And knowing you can't leave anything out I'll practice with this I can stretch this far but I don't know about that I think this world is so beautiful and so alive and so heartbreaking that we have no choice but to really let our hearts break over and over again wide open with all of it and the vets help me

[24:26]

because I get scared and I get stubborn and I have my own ways and my own likes and my own dislikes. And then they come in and they tell their stories. And I think, for the sake of all beings, this precious gift of a life and practice, this precious gift of breath, this precious gift of our shared humanity, all wake up. So that brings me to one of my other most favorite things is the bodhisattva vows. I really appreciated that Trungpa and I think the Tibetan tradition bodhicitta

[25:30]

which is the awakening heart of a bodhisattva, is named as the genuine heart of sadness. The more that we can let our hearts grieve, the more what arises is love and kindness. Then we want to act in the world to help make the world the way we want it to be, the way it already is. We more and more want to live in accord with our own deep hearts in the heart of the world. I want to read you a poem, and then I'll end, and I think we'll have a few minutes for discussion, which would be nice. This is a poem by Naomi Shihab Nye called Kindness. Lee and I both really like this poem.

[26:31]

The more I practice with these veterans, the more this poem comes alive. Before you know what kindness really is, you must lose things. Feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth. What you held in your hand, what you counted and carefully saved, All this must go so you know how desolate the landscape can be between the regions of kindness. How you ride and ride thinking the bus will never stop. The passengers eating maize and chicken will stare out the window forever. Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness, you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho lies dead by the side of the road. You must see how this could be you. how he too was someone who journeyed through the night with plans and the simple breath that kept him alive.

[27:37]

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. You must wake up with sorrow. You must speak to it till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows and you see the size of the cloth. then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore. Only kindness that ties your shoes and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread. Only kindness that raises its head from the crowd of the world to say, it is I you have been looking for. And then goes with you everywhere, like a shadow or a friend. So what these amazing, resilient, courageous women teach me over and over again, what arises naturally out of the telling of stories and the grief is kindness.

[28:54]

So may we all, in ways big and small, practice kindness. Wherever we are, it's right here. And when we forget, Get back up by the ground and come right back. Because I really want to, need to, imagine that someday there can be a world without war. I don't want my children going into war zones anywhere, no matter what their color or nationality or what they call themselves. Let's all imagine that someday that could be possible. And we start right here, in this body, this breath, this mind, this heart. So... Well, actually, we don't have much time. I really hope we're going to be here.

[29:59]

Everybody, just turn if you want. all bow to each other. I'm not going to put anybody on the spot. Let's just bow to each other. I really hope you take the opportunity. They're kind of shy. I don't think they'd walk up to you. But I think they'll tell you if they're in a place where they can't say hello back. They'll let you know. Vets are pretty clear. one thing I really like about them. But please, if you want to, just go up and say hi. I think breaking down this great divide between civilians and veterans is one of our deepest hopes. Oh, and one thing I didn't say is we don't do politics. No politics.

[31:00]

Just shared heart humanity. That's a fundamental rule. Please, I hope you get to know each other. I really thank you for letting me be here with all of you. 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, visit SSCC.org and click Giving.

[31:32]

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