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, everybody. I should say good morning, everybody, who I can see and people who I know you're here, but I can't see you because you're... in the dining room or in the other settings that you listen to the Dharma in. Thank you so much for your attention and your presence, your warm-hearted presence, and your basic wisdom and human fellow feelings. that makes you interested in this from the beginning.

[01:02]

I want to thank you, David, for stepping up to the seat of being the new city center abbot. That's what happened last week. I don't know if I can live up to that standard of excitement today. And I want to thank you my Dharma brother Ryushin for leading the practice period, focusing on the Heart Sutra, which is such an important teaching for all of us. It's a basic teaching by which we can understand how to progress beyond our limited habits of heart and mind. And how to really give ourselves to the universe and have the universe be able to give itself to us.

[02:12]

This is what makes life worth living. And the essential nature of this activity is love. So today I set for myself the task of speaking about love and power in relationship. And it's because for the last four years or so I've been speaking about the Buddhist practices of love that are based in friendliness and I've tended to focus on the nice sides of love. thinking, oh, that's the healing practice for everybody. But what are some of the problems and issues with love? And how do we deal with that? What are some of the inequalities in the context of which we try to love and fail?

[03:20]

And then how do we bring ourselves back to a practice... of love that actually creates peace and light in the world. Or surfaces the peace and light that's already there. So anyway I have about five hours of notes and texts here. So I give up. It turns out to be a very big and very demanding subject and so big and so demanding that I actually need you to help me understand it, let alone speak about it. A conversation about love and power could not possibly be complete without your voiced and felt experience. So the

[04:24]

the conversation, the lecture from the beginning is booby trapped by my smallness as a fellow human being. But because I've been practicing for most of my adult life, I can try to speak about it and then hear what you have to say after the lecture and for the rest of our lives. So, what is love? So I've been, ever since I started thinking about this topic, I've been trying to define love. And it's not definable, as far as I can tell. There are many types of love that are spoken about, I think, most capably by you know, Greek philosophers, by

[05:29]

the thousands of years of studies in Asia, both South Asia and East Asia, on relatedness and on community life. And by Sikhs, by Christians, by Jews, by people in many different ways of experience self and the world. But let's just say that love is the ability to give and receive in an intimate way. And that love can be practiced between the different parts of ourselves, between the self and another person, between ourselves and many people, between ourselves and the world, and between ourselves and the universe.

[06:48]

It's a way that the universe has of relating to itself through the vehicle of limited bodies and minds. So that's the best I can do right now. And what I want to say that's important about love is that for it to be authentic, I have a felt sense that it always has to acknowledge something bigger than ourselves. So it comes from and is of the taste of universal light or universal heart. And that it can't be encompassed by the intelligence of the head. Although the intelligence of the head can describe it and relate to love, it's the intelligence of the heart, the intelligence of enjoyment and appreciation and kindness

[07:59]

that actually experiences and gives love, as far as I can tell. Every single statement I make in this lecture is qualified by as far as I can tell, but now I'm going to stop actually saying those words because it could get really tiresome really fast. In our tradition, in the Soto Zen tradition, there are a number of transmission stories and there's a chain of them that are about love. And I want to give you the basic stories just so that you get a flavor of the transmission of this path about love. And then we can see together what this understanding might be able to do to relieve suffering, because that's the point of practice.

[09:02]

So this is a book. I'm looking at a book translated by Francis Dojun Cook, and it's called The Record of the Transmission of the Light. And the book was written in Japanese called the Denko Roku, which means Record of Light Transmission, by Kezan Jokin Dayosho. And Kezan was a very, very interesting person. He was one of the founders of Soto Zen, which is this lineage. Ehe Dogen Zenji was the other founder of Soto Zen. in Japan. The name Soto Zen comes from two very famous Zen teachers, Sozan and Tozan.

[10:06]

And Tozan's teachings are also important for us to understand love. So the Cliff Notes version is that Tozan Zenji, one of the founders of the whole school, talked about not seeing the self or the world as an object. And this came about in his transmission from his teacher. So Tozan Zenji acted as the jisha or the attendant for his teacher for a long time and that was his training. And then at a certain point his teacher felt that he was getting old. And he said, it's time for you to finish this job and go. And Tozan didn't understand.

[11:09]

And I imagine Tozan going to his little monastic room and saying, time for me to go. What? I'm just starting. But he asked his teacher at that time, well, you know, basically, I don't understand, but if someone asks you, asks me what was important about you, what should I say? How do you want me to remember your most important teachings? And Tozan's teacher responded, just this, just this. And I imagine Tozan going back to his room and scratching his head and saying, what? Just this? You know, I've been this person's attendant for so many years and the thing that's important is just this?

[12:12]

What? What does that mean even? Anyway, he didn't understand. The record says that he didn't understand. And he went and packed up his things and exited the temple. And at that time, though it's not true now, now there's a bridge, at that time there was just a stream with the fort. And as he crossed the stream he stopped to take a drink of water. He looked down as he was getting the water and saw his reflection and had an enormous experience of awakening. He was struck. And this is, I made a translation that was based on Suzuki Roshi's translation. Suzuki Roshi was the founder of this temple and this tradition, right? Our group and all of its affiliates came from him.

[13:15]

And Tozan's poem was a spontaneous exclamation about his relationship with the universe and with life. And he said, oh, don't see the world or yourself as an object, or far from it you stray. Today, as I walk alone, whichever way I turn, I meet myself. He is just me. I am not he. If you understand that you as an object is not you yourself, then you have your own true way. So, oh, don't see the world or yourself as an object. Oh, was his awakening. So fast forward several generations of transmission, each teacher transmitting to each student.

[14:19]

rolling across the generations into their future and our past. We come to Doan Kanshi, whose teacher was Doan Dohi. And so just like Tozan and his teacher, there was a young man studying with an older man. And the young man, Doan Kanshi, said to the old man, Doan Dohi, I've heard something about the ancients talking about love. They said, what worldly people love, I love not. I wonder what you love, teacher. What do you love, teacher? And Dohe said, I've already been able to be like this.

[15:22]

So here's the same like this or just this. Anyway, this student was greatly awakened by these words immediately. And when he was transmitting to his student, it was a very interesting moment because he took on a student 20 or 30 years later he took on a student and he gave his student the job of carrying around his robe and following him around. And one day when his student, whose name was Ryozan Enkan, was carrying his robe around, it was Ryozan Enkan's job to hand Doan Kanshi his robe. So Ryozan Enkan handed his teacher his robe. This is a robe. He's handing his teacher the robe. What is the business beneath the patched robe?

[16:27]

Okay, so it was just like that. So basically he said, he started out by saying, uh. That was his first and best thought. And then he tried to answer, but his teacher was quicker than I just was. And so his teacher said, okay, why don't you ask me? Intimacy. that's exactly what happened. That's exactly what happened at that time. Except that Doan Kanshi was so struck by this because it wasn't just a kind of a play acting or reenactment but the first time it happened.

[17:39]

So he was struck so hard that he started to cry and the tears wet his robe. He was so grateful at understanding this. intimacy as just this. He was so moved by this. And he started bowing and his teacher said, you've seen something, haven't you? And Ryozon Enkan said, yes, I have seen something. And then the teacher said, okay then, what is the business beneath the patched rope? And he said, and the teacher said, intimacy, intimacy. So it's not this thing called intimacy. There isn't a thing called intimacy. It happens in the context, the thing that is happening is happening in the context of the teaching of the Dharma.

[18:50]

the demonstration of Dharma. And this relationship, you know, it's not unusual, I mean it is miraculous, but we relate to people all the time. And so how can we demonstrate this? How is this demonstrated in relationship? Now if it happened in the context of power and It might have because you might have, I don't know, you might have felt forced to respond because the person on the seat is asking you, right? So it might happen in the context of power, in which case it can't be a complete response. Because I'm controlling then the response and making him say a certain thing for effect. So even if it's the same words, it's not the same thing. Does that mean anything to you? So love and power would seem to be mutually contradictory in certain ways if we're unconscious of the impact of power or unconscious of the needs of love.

[20:06]

You know, so this is why this lecture is so difficult to formulate because It turns out that there's a lot to say about this because people have made as many mistakes as there are people in situations in enacting love. So Dave Rico who's giving, he and I are giving a workshop this afternoon on love and power made a very important statement in one of his books. He said, since to love is to be vulnerable, what we are really saying when we love is, my relationship to you is so valuable that I am giving you the power to wound my heart. But my trust in you balances that.

[21:10]

So I also believe that you won't use your power that way. Can you say that to your partner without reserve? Can your partner say it to you? So these are very simple words that when we love, to love is to make ourselves vulnerable to something bigger than ourselves. It's to open ourselves up to the difference, to the painful qualities as well as the pleasurable ones of the difference between another person or another group of people and ourselves. But what we're saying is that the trust is big enough to hold that vulnerability. And so what we're really saying when we dare to love is that our trust is tall enough, wide enough, and deep enough to hold what comes up.

[22:13]

To dare to love is to make a vow that's more universal than the run-of-the-mill everyday experience. And when we make ourselves vulnerable to another person, no matter what kind of relationship it is, that person or that entity does have the power to hurt us. And... we can give that power in conscious and unconscious ways. Of course we can give it in unconscious ways because we're limited. We're not conscious of everything. So all of the places in which we've been hurt or haven't developed in the past become boundaries to the consciousness of our ability to give love. Does that make sense? So for instance, let's say that we were brought up by parents who were, I don't know, traumatized in some way and didn't really have the capacity to hold a child with tender physical affection, we might not know what tender physical affection feels like, what it is to give or receive that.

[23:34]

And so we might choose someone who touches us in ways that if we knew more about tender physical affection, we would have feedback to give them on that. But because we don't know what that is, we don't have the ability to give that feedback. We have to learn it painfully and over time. That's just an example. There's so many ways in which we're vulnerable, almost an infinite number of ways. And that's our very vulnerability is our greatest strength. Even though we don't see it that way. So the Heart Sutra says, gate, gate, paragate, parasam gate, bodhi, spaha. Gate means gone. Gone, gone, gone beyond.

[24:38]

Gone completely beyond. Awake, amen. That's what that means. So it means whatever standpoint we had, we're willing to give that up in the service of something greater than ourselves. That's called gone. But we're not done. We have to give that up. That's called gone. But we're not done. We have to give that up. That's called gone beyond. And we have to give that up which has gone completely beyond. And we have to repeat that again and again and again because that's the life in us. The life in us is to develop temporary standpoints and then to give them up in the service of the development and maturation. of our heart, towards our heart's desire.

[25:41]

Each time we give it up, it's an expression of vulnerability and of faith. Actually, there's vitamins that we can use to give it up appropriately. The vitamins are practice vitamins. And oddly enough, they're called powers in Buddhism. They're called the Pancha Bala. Bala means strength or power. These practice vitamins, if we think of them as power, they're kind of a strange sort of power, actually, because they're powers of vulnerability. That's weird. So... I'll tell you what they are. It's just like to think of our greatest vulnerability as our greatest power is a strange idea, but to realize that that concept is part of a religious tradition is even stranger.

[26:59]

It shows some of the unique characteristics of Buddhist practice and of Zen practice. that we have that idea. So the first one is shraddha, or trust. Shraddha is interesting because we often translate that word, shraddha, as faith. Right? But when we, in our Western mind, think of faith, we usually think of faith in something. Like I have faith in a rule or I have faith in God where God is outside of me and I'm inside here having faith in that thing that's outside me. We usually think that way. But in Zen practice, we just have faith, period. We don't have faith in something. We have faith and we practice faith.

[28:05]

It means we practice trust. Trust and truth are strongly related. Truth and wisdom are strongly related. Wisdom and knowledge are not strongly related. Wisdom and objectification are not strongly related. This is why I have five hours of notes because I can actually make a chain of argument that kind of quote proves end quote this. It doesn't make sense. So the best I can do right now in a short lecture is just to repeat what I'm saying again and again as a sort of a mantra and hope you agree and can personally relate to what I'm saying. So shraddha, not faith in anything, but shraddha as a pure expression of trust. or as an expression of pure trust, like that.

[29:08]

That's pure trust, right? We hold something out and someone puts their hands out. That's trust. Okay, the second practice vitamin is virya, strength or energy. zeal. It's kind of a life force applied with direction. Our word virile relates to that Sanskrit root. And it's without virya, our whole idea or understanding of practice, whether it's the practice of love or some other practice is just empty words. We actually have to do things. We can't just say things if we want to love.

[30:18]

So for relationship, varia is sustained exertion in the relationship. Relationships take work. It's not grim work. I once got a pencil that said, life's too mysterious. Don't take it so serious. So it's not grim work. It's just like that pencil. Love is mysterious. Don't take it so serious. But we have to do the work of the relationship. So for instance, we have to be attentive in a relationship. We have to start with the heart and mind of compassionate concern towards who and what we love. We have to actually do things that are loving and not do things that are not loving. It seems so simple-minded to say this. I hardly, you know, I'm saying it from the Dharma seat.

[31:24]

Yes, do things that are loving and don't do things that are not loving. But actually practice has that simplicity. We have to remember that we have to remember that we love, that we are loving. That's called smriti. The Japanese word is nen. The character for nen has heart and now. Okay, so it has now on top and heart on the bottom. So it's now sustained by the heart. So that's remembrance. It means that in the present, what we do has that heart. Okay, so that's the third practice vitamin. The fourth practice vitamin is absorption.

[32:26]

Okay, so settling what there is to be settled so that we can focus on our deepest intention. And the fifth practice vitamin is our basic wisdom or prajna, which is the teaching of the Heart Sutra. So those are the practice vitamins. And when we practice them, If we practice them in a controlling way, that's called patience. That's called power, I'm sorry. In an object-oriented way, that's called power. And if we practice them, recognizing our differences, but just practicing them as a practice, that's called love. Power means that we are conscious of those practice vitamins as strengths. and we use them as strengths to control our life.

[33:29]

But love means that we're conscious of those practices as gifts, and we use them to nourish our vow. Okay, so it might sound like I'm being general in this situation, but I'm not. I mean, just let's talk about self-care and self-concern as a demonstration of these practice vitamins. So how about this? If you take a moment to generate the mind of compassionate concern towards yourself right now, and understand whether you're physically comfortable or uncomfortable, By comfort I don't mean that you have a pleasant sensation, but that you have stability and an ability to breathe. And just take a moment to notice whether that's your state right now.

[34:37]

So I noticed that when you took a moment to notice whether it was your state, that I heard and saw movement in the room. So there was an adjustment. And if you don't feel stability plus the ability to breathe, take a moment now and create that for yourself. Stability plus the ability to breathe in an unhindered way. So I actually care whether you can do that. Without doing that, we can't express the Dharma. Without being stable, without being able to let the breath of life permeate body and mind, there is no practice. With it, there is. Now, Shraddha, or faith, is the rising mind

[35:49]

that allows us to connect with the possibility of stability and life. And you just depended on it. Virya means that you do the things and exert effort to make that happen. And you just did that. Didn't you? Sritti means you remembered yourself. And you just did that. You exerted yourself in the presence, in the present moment. Your concentration became more integrated. And all of this is an expression of your wisdom, not your knowledge. You didn't know what you had to do until you did it. So you've just demonstrated the five practice vitamins, not from a position of control, but from a position of may I be well, may I be happy.

[37:09]

Does that make sense to you? I mean it was so normal that we would hardly even notice that that had occurred. And yet practice is a collection and a sustaining of this kind of effort. So how are we doing for time? Can someone tell me? Five minutes to 11. So I have a few, a couple minutes to speak anyway. So love and power in relationship. Can we apply the practice vitamins in the space between us?

[38:15]

Can we understand that there are ways for us to be here for each other? without controlling each other? Can we understand that in our intention and in our lives? Can we do things that support that way of relating to each other? Can we express love not just in a kind of conventional or romanticized understanding, but as an actual for life. So I want to point out that San Francisco Zen Center is an unusual institution in the modern world. And that San Francisco Zen Center's mission includes embodying the wisdom and the compassion of the Buddha.

[39:24]

And when a community does this, it's called Sangha. Sangha is an expression of love. And I think that we noticed, anyone who was here last week noticed this in the invitation process for David. So when we're about to name an abbot, we can't just name the abbot. That's like conferring power. It's not like hiring a new CEO. We don't do interviews to determine who would be the best CEO. We don't weigh the pros and cons of the CEOs as the way of making the decision. We actually train someone into that role and we choose someone by consensus. It's even more than consensus.

[40:28]

It's a spiritual a form of spiritual discernment that requires and trains a community invitation. And to invite an abbot is to develop the heart-mind of the sangha towards love. And all of the activities that we do to make this, it's not just a big party, there's more to it than that. So I want to unpack how a Sangha demonstrates love as an expression of the path, just a little bit. Because if we think of our relationships as a form of Sangha, we won't go wrong. So the Buddha actually taught about this in the Kalama Sutta, and the Buddha taught a practice called the Six Concords.

[41:29]

So what do people have to share in order to be a Sangha for each other? Sangha just means together. But the Buddhist sense of the word means that you're together on the path. So there's different ways to love each other. You can love people for personal gain. You can love as part of a vow of intimacy. And you can also love for a more noble or universal purpose. And when you love in the conditioned ways, but it comes from your noble or universal purpose, and there's a sense of awakening or enlightening that comes along with that relationship, and it can weather more difficulties than a relationship that doesn't have that standpoint. So let me just name the six concords which are part of the practice. Buddha said that these were not half the practice, these were the whole practice. This is Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh's translation.

[42:34]

Sharing space, like we're sharing the Buddha hall and the online space right now. Buddha hall, dining room, online space. We share the temple. Sharing the essentials of daily life. So we share the light, the heat, the cushions, and so on, the resources. Observing the same precepts. So the main precepts are refuge, not doing bad, doing good, and spreading it around. And then there are other precepts that give specific voice to how to do that. So we share the precepts. We use words that contribute to harmony. We share insights and understanding.

[43:37]

And we respect each other's viewpoints. Those are called the six concords. And the Buddha taught that a community that practices the six concords of sharing space, the essentials of daily life, the precepts, harmonious speech, insights and understanding, and sharing tolerance and respect for each other's viewpoints, that a community that does that will prosper, and a community that does not do that will not prosper. I think that's true of a marriage, a friendship, or any other way in which humans try to be intimate. Those elements will have to be there. So I wanted to mention those and to say that the example of a community

[44:47]

inviting somebody to be an abbot is an intensification of those practices. And it's an intensification of the vulnerability to hurt. And the invitation to accountability and respect for everyone, not just for one person. So I want to say that a temple is not the only place where we invite someone to have authority in our lives. If we get married, if we take a teacher or a mentor, if we're friends with someone, if we are actually investing ourselves in our work life, all of those relationships need that spirit. So I want to say that I don't have a poem for you.

[45:51]

I don't have a little inspiring word that will hold it all together. But what I do have is appreciation for your presence and your practice and for what we can all mean to each other as we live our lives. Thank you so much for your attention and for your support. I walk with you in going, going, going beyond, going completely beyond, being awake together out of our basic desire for our own welfare, for the welfare of people we don't know, as well as we do know, for everyone and everything. Thank you so much. Please take care of yourself. I'll see you. 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.

[46:57]

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.

[47:11]

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