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. Welcome to Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. Is anyone here for the first time? All right. Special welcome to you all. to everyone else also. I want to thank Rosalie Curtis Latanto for the invitation today and of course to Blanche, my teacher. I know Vicky is listening from somewhere. As I was fiddling with these robes, getting on the seat,

[01:01]

I was reminded by a talk I had with Blanche when I asked to be ordained. Besides, you know, what does it mean to leave home and put on these robes? She also said two things. And she said, you know, are you ready to manage these yards of cloth? And it takes about five years. they say, to manage the cloth. And the other, which I think is probably much more a Western discussion, is are you ready for all the projections that will come when you put on these robes, right? How to handle them, how to be with them. So it's been almost 10 years now that I've had I've left home and put on the robes, and in that time, it's a change, kind of patina to it, and I've also, as they say, ascended these eight inches, and become a teacher.

[02:21]

So of course, what Blanche was asking, is, am I ready to take my position in the community? I remember in one of my first, I think maybe my second year at Tassahara, the practice leader leading the practice period said that, you know, the zendo is a mandala, right? The altar in a Soto Zen temple, in the meditation hall, the altar is in the middle, and then there, specific seats, right, in the zendo, and they all hold a function. And in a practice spirit, you're assigned a seat, and with it comes function. We all have positions that we hold. So today, today it really feels to me is a day in which...

[03:28]

I'm called to take on this function of the seat and the power and the power and access that comes with it and also the position of these robes, which is, in my estimation, only one main role. And what is it to approach harming and non-harming. So from this place, harm and the causes of harm is what we talk about, in my estimation. Therefore, today, I only believe there's one topic that I can talk about, right? And so,

[04:29]

it feels like it's something that needs to be said. So last Friday, March 6th, there was yet another shooting of an unarmed, biracial, African-American and white young man, Tony Robinson. On Sunday, the 8th, a video surface of members of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity on a bus celebrating their Founders' Day, going to a country club to celebrate their Founders' Day, singing a racist song. And sandwiched in between these two known and well-publicized events is the 50th anniversary of SOMA, And Selma took place on March 7, 1965.

[05:36]

And in the history of the United States, it's called Bloody Sunday. And here's a little description, excuse me, here's a description from blackpast.org. And the source that's on the blog is from Eyes on the Prize, civil rights reader. So between 1961 and 1964, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee had led a voting registration campaign in Selma, the seat of Dallas County, Alabama, a small town with a record of consistent resistance to black voting. And Martin Luther King, in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, worked with the local activists, right? to work on getting blacks to be able to vote. So on that day, Sunday, March 7, 1965, 600 marchers assembled in Selma, led by John Lewis and other leaders and activists, and they tried to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge over the Alabama River en route to Montgomery.

[06:54]

They were blocked by Alabama state troopers and local police and were told to turn around when they refused. The officers shot tear gas and went into the crowd and beat the non-violent protester. They hospitalized over 50 people. This day again became known as Bloody Sunday and was televised all around the world. And so Martin Luther King Jr. called for a civil rights supporter to come to Silmar to march. So on the second protest, on March 9th, they did start to cross the bridge, and then they decided to turn around. And just as a note to history, on March 21st, it says the final successful march began with federal protection, and on August 6, 1965, the Federal Voting Rights Act was passed.

[08:00]

So, hearing these events made me shake. Reading these events, thinking about what I needed to talk about today when I was asked to give a talk. You know, in Zen, this is why, you know, when I give Zazen instruction, often I say afterward there's a Dharma talk, right? And people always say, well, what was the topic? And I said, oh, in Zen we don't say because it needs to arise from our life, right? That's what I was told. And so whenever I'm asked to give a talk, my first response is usually, oh, I have a talk in mind. and wanting to say, and then I sit with it and I try to see what might arise, and I would say that this one came, was not one of my first jump to, and then how to frame it in this group.

[09:06]

Of course you know the impetus for this talk, because all my life in the United States and on a certain level was energized, by of course the events of last August, right, the shooting of Michael Brown and Ferguson. So this talk has been in the making, and I want to be very clear, right, that this talk is not something I need to say. This talk is that something needs to be said. And something needs to be said, and I did give a talk, with a group of people of color in downtown Oakland. And now it's time, I think, that something needs to be said with a different sangha with all of you here. And it brought trembling because, you know, I would say, my experience downtown Oakland, there's a certain sense in here.

[10:14]

And so in my... Shaking, you can see probably. I was reminded of these lines from Pema Chodron. It's from When Things Fall Apart. Heart advice for difficult times. Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth. Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth. And the truth that's rising in me, has arisen in me, continues to arise in me, is this. What is the Selma that's right here and now? And that's what I want to explore with you today. Paramah Chodron also says this from the places that scare you. She says, A further sign of health is that we don't become undone by fear and trembling, but we take it as a message that it's time to stop struggling and look directly at what's threatening us.

[11:28]

And I'm trembling because it seems to me that what threatens us from really engaging about race and race dynamics in the United States is compassion, or what we think of as compassion. Recently, in my sitting group, Sangha, we've been exploring the four divine states, right, in a class series called Love Supported by the four divine states. The four divine states are the four Brahma Viharas, classically known, are four mental and emotional states taught in Buddhism that are thought to help us access and be more easeful and open. That's why they're called divine. And Blanche spoke very well from her position of metta last week.

[12:39]

And metta is loving-kindness, unconditional friendliness, or these days I like to say goodwill. Karuna, or compassion, is typically considered the second. Mudita is the third, sympathetic, joy. And the last is upekka, or equanimity, or balance of mind. So today I'm gonna talk about karuna, compassion. and how perhaps our common understanding of it and the teaching on it. So again, this cluster was called Love, supported by the four Brahmaviharas, or the four divine states. And so I wanted to be clear that the topic, the title of the talk today is Love and Compassion. And it's from love that I really want to let you know that I feel compelled to talk about this today.

[13:45]

Love for all of you and for all beings. And many of you have heard this definition that I appreciate from Bell Hooks on love. It goes like this, and it's from All About Love, a book that came out in 2000. To begin by always thinking of love as an action rather than a feeling is one way in which anyone using the word in this manner automatically assumes accountability and responsibility. Let me repeat that. To begin by always thinking of love as an action rather than a feeling is one way in which anyone using the word in this manner automatically assumes accountability and responsibility. She goes on to say, we are often taught we have no control over our feelings, yet most of us accept that we choose our actions, that intention and will inform what we do.

[14:58]

We also accept that our actions have consequences. To think of actions shaping feelings is one way we rid ourselves of the conventionally accepted assumptions such that parents love their children or that one simply falls in love without exercising will or choice. So first I want to explore with you how we perhaps learn about love, or excuse me, compassion. And this is from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, the definition of compassion. And I think it's a good starting off point to show what is, you know, kind of the popular language reflects society, right? It says, compassion, a feeling of wanting to help someone who is sick

[16:02]

hungry and trouble, et cetera. And compassion defined for kids, simplified, says sorrow or pity caused by the suffering or misfortune of another. Sorrow or pity caused by the suffering or misfortune of another. And this is interesting to me, this wording, because in the, you know, the four Brahma Vaharas are also taught as as what's called the antidote, discern opposite mental, emotional states, and the opposite of compassion, which I think we all can understand as cruelty. And in the teaching, there's something called the near enemy, something that you should be careful about that you think is the quality that you're trying to cultivate, compassion, but really it's a near enemy. It's the one that masquerades as what you think it is.

[17:04]

And for karuna, or compassion, that's pity. And the reason for that, is that I think we all can understand, is that it really kind of makes this separation, an uneven separation. I'm better than the other that I'm giving sorrow and pity to. So it points to one of the two things that I think is where we might get stuck in compassion, especially around race and race relation. And again, so one is the separation of object and subject, or myself and other. And the other is that it's difficult to stay with your own suffering. So in stories like Selma or Ferguson, all of our hearts go out to the ones being beaten or shot.

[18:10]

So that's a sense of love and compassion that we all can access. It seems to me that when it comes to the doing, that's where it gets a little stickier. And by doing here, I actually also mean speech. So it seems to me that guilt and shame that often follows such knowledge of such incidences from non-people of color, so the guilt and shame is that comes from the inability to stay with their own suffering. It's easier to focus on something outside of yourself, you think, as suffering as opposed to identifying with the people you see who are the cause of the pain and suffering, who are inflicting pain and suffering. Gil Fransdell in... Gil Fransdell in Cultivating Compassion writes, because people sometimes confuse compassion

[19:30]

I'll start again, it's from Gil. Because people sometimes confuse compassion with feelings of distress, it is helpful to clearly distinguish these two. Compassion doesn't make us victims of suffering, whereas feelings distress on another's behalf often does. Learning how to see the suffering in the world without taking it on personally is very important. When we take it personally, it is easy to become depressed or burdened. We can avoid taking it as a personal burden or obligation if we learn to feel empathy without it touching our own fears, attachments, and perhaps unresolved grief. This means that to feel greater compassion for others, we need to understand our own suffering. So I wonder I wonder if the reason why race relations in the U.S.

[20:39]

is often framed as a people of color issue is due to non-people of color difficulty in staying with the pain and sorrow of how their privilege and entitlement support and foster a system which promotes and continues harm. So we often speak of compassion as having empathy for another. The common expression, I think, is to put yourself in another's shoes. So here again is a definition from the Merriam-Webster dictionary online. Empathy. The feeling that you understand and share another person experiences and emotions, or the ability to share someone else's feelings. And then they have this section called A full definition. So the full definition of empathy. One, the imaginative projection of a subjective state onto an object so that the object appears to be infused with it.

[21:52]

Two, the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner, the capacity to do this. So I appreciate the wordings in these definitions because it points out that empathy is an imaginative projection and vicariously experiencing something that hasn't been fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner. So ironically, in a wish to connect with another out of love and compassion, in a wish to show compassion, I think that often we forget we cannot know the experience of a person.

[23:01]

We can imagine and infer, but we cannot know. In fact, this is so explicit in our teaching, right, is that mostly we misperceive because we tend to see something and then immediately identifying with the identification, keep on bringing our own association to it to keep verifying what we believe is happening. So we frame what's happening within our own experience. And yet, you know, I think in race, in race somehow, there's often a setup as a way to understand another. So many of race training, I think, is how can you understand, you know. I pause and I laugh because it's always called the minority, right?

[24:07]

So. Often people think that if I could only understand what blacks or Asians or Native Americans or Latinos' experiences are, then somehow I'll be less white. And somehow if I dress like them or speak like them, appropriation, cultural appropriation basically, then I can know better their experiences and show others that I know. or I can relate. And yet in another, I would say, ironic twist, is when a white person feels misunderstood, for example, when the impact of what they've said or done doesn't meet their intended intention, it often becomes about how that person of color just need to be, or just didn't understand me and just need to be explained to a bit more what I meant. So my premise is that until each of us are able to take our position, fully able to take accountability in this place of our interdependently co-arisen world, which has manifested right here and right now, that we can't move past our conditioned ways of feeling and behaving.

[25:40]

In our teaching, you know, from the Avatamsaka Sutra, there's a metaphor called Indra's net, or the jewel's net of Indra. So in the sutra, it describes a vast net that reaches infinitely in all direction. And in the net, there are infinite... number of jewels at these points. And each individual jewel reflects all the other jewels. And the reflected jewels also reflect all the other ones. So there's this, the metaphor illustrates the interpenetration of all phenomena. This is from Buddhism, about. Everything contains everything else at the same time each individual thing is not hindered or confused with all the other individual things.

[26:47]

So it's a beautiful image, don't you think? This wide net of sparkling, I always think sparkling jewels reflecting each other. So in thinking about today's talk, I was reminded by the matrix of domination. or what can also be called the matrix of oppression. And it was set forth by sociologist Patricia Hill Collins. And this is from the George Mason University website. So basically, the matrix of domination says, in order to truly understand oppression, we must understand its counterposition of privilege. Moving beyond the decade, old tradition of focusing only on the oppressed, like African American, women, poor, LGBTQ, the concept of the matrix of domination forces us to confront two key truths.

[27:53]

That oppression is created by privilege, and that we all occupy some status of privilege, regardless of our status as oppressed. Providing a framework for understanding oppression as an outcome of privilege forces us to examine the role that individual actors and institutions play in both creating oppression and benefiting from it. For example, during slavery, it was masters who benefited economically from slave labor, and thus they had a stake in maintaining the system slave plantations. The second key point is that this concept of the matrix of domination challenges us all to examine the ways in which we hold positions of privilege and benefit from these. So, in my mind meld of the two, I have this vision.

[29:00]

Let's see how it works for you all. So imagine that we're all jewels in this big net. And due to privilege, the jewel with the most resources swells up bigger and bigger, becoming heavier, stretching the strings that make up the network that holds us all together. So at some point, When these swollen jewels, right, cause enough strain, perhaps there'll either be a tear in the net, causing other jewels to fall. Or perhaps, as it swells up bigger and bigger, it takes over a larger and larger space, pushing out the other jewels, covering up their ability to shine. So when we're not willing to see how the size of our jewel and the largeness of the reflection it becomes, then when we think that that's more important than the integrity of the net, then eventually the whole thing falls apart.

[30:27]

Often, when discussion on race and race relation occurs in mainstream convert Buddhist circles, people of color are often told to let go of our sense of separation and get on that bandwagon of oneness that's supposed to be what our teaching is about. So today I want to propose to you this as another way See if it works for you. A practice isn't about that we all should be the same size jewel. A practice to see when we swelled up bigger and bigger, causing more stress than can sustain the whole. The net is the wholeness that we're trying to create or maintain, not

[31:33]

that we should all be the same jewel. So our practice is not to become something or someone, especially as envisioned by a set group of people. This is to become aware of how we harm and contribute to the causes of harm. So what needs to be said today, I say, is how is the Selma being reflected right here and now? Not just, you know, in Ferguson or Selma or outside these walls. To even begin to answer this question, each of us has to be willing to stand up in our position, or sit in our position, take our position as it is, not as we want it or wish it to be.

[32:40]

We practice to be aware of things as it is, how it has come to be and what it is right now. And I wonder how it is that we cannot see and be aware that things as it is right now is full of inequality. where young black lives are often gunned down, or black lives can be sang and jest and fun about hanging from trees. I will admit that often in discussion of race relation in America and the United States, I'm often frustrated, because it's often framed as a black and white issue, and being, you know, Asian American, often we're left out, you know, we're supposed to be the model minority, right?

[33:47]

Which was contrived, another concept. And yet, as a person that's not African American or black, it's my responsibility in this spot right here, right now, of access and privilege to say what needs to be said. Not what I need to say, but what needs to be said. And that is Black Lives Matter. So today, I've spoken from a place my truth and what I see as my responsibility. And it comes from love and it comes from a sense of wanting healing. So for myself and for all of us because we all inhabit different positions on the net

[35:03]

at different time. I want to invite you to say these lines with me on a practice of forgiveness. I actually learned this at an insight retreat at the end of one. You know, I remember Norman Fisher saying that in Mahayana Buddhism, we're not so explicit about compassion, we don't talk about it so much, it's kind of implicit. And yet I think at times it needs to be explicit. And I think perhaps forgiveness is maybe one of those also. So I learned these two lines from a retreat again. And it goes like this and I'll say it and then I'll invite you, we'll do it together, anyone who wants to do it with me. And classically it goes, If I have harmed you in any way, intentionally or unintentionally, I ask for your forgiveness.

[36:10]

Usually there's a bow there. If you have harmed me in any way, intentionally or unintentionally, I now forgive you. So I want you to invite to say those lines with me, and I like to put a little twist on it. Instead of if, I would say when. Just for a moment, what might be if we take on the responsibility that we do cause harm, right? We can't get away from that. That's what we learn is that we do it and how is it that we can not do it so much, not to beat ourself up that we do it, not to vow that we're not gonna do it because it is an impossible vow and it's a great aspiration, a great dream, a great dream, but not reality. So let's say, say however you wanna say, I'm gonna say when. So, those who want to follow with me, if I have harmed you in any way, intentionally or unintentionally, I ask for your forgiveness.

[37:23]

When you have harmed me in any way, intentionally or unintentionally, I now forgive you. My apologies if I've caused any harm. Thank you for your attention. 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.

[38:16]

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