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. Good evening everyone. Am I on? I'll keep talking. Oh, there we go. See what happens. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Tenzin David Zimmerman, and I am a student and resident of San Francisco Zen Center. The current temple I live at is City Center, a temple in San Francisco. And in March of this year, I stepped into a new role there as the abiding abbot. So I'm trying to figure out what that exactly means. and how one takes up that role and what are the responsibilities and the full scope of it. And it's very much a deep and stretching learning experience for me.

[01:05]

So I appreciate everyone's great patience with me, including the Talented City Center. Mary, thank you very much. And anyhow, it's a joy to be here. I'm here with my friend Paul Irving. We are co-leading a four-day retreat together called Finding Ease, a Zen and Mindfulness Approach to Meeting Life's Challenge. So it's always a joy for me to return and reconnect to this very sacred place. I was fortunate to have been able to spend eight years here fairly early on in my residential practice from 2002 to 2010. And I Near the end, served as the director for three years as well as the head student. And so coming back is always this feeling of coming home. These mountains, these valleys are deeply in my body in a way that I just feel like I'm coming back together in some way when I'm here.

[02:09]

Thank you. And I particularly appreciate the wonderful cycle of how it is that we alternate practice periods, our formal, traditional, intensive periods of study, with the dana, the generosity offering of the guest season, and how it is that we can offer this beautiful valley and practice to all of you who are here as guests. So welcome again, everybody. Often when I'm at Tassajara and walking the path with retreat participants or students, I recall a particular old Zen story that comes to mind. It's from the Blue Cliff Record. It's case number four, in which the Buddha, in this case called the World Honored One, was walking with the congregation. And at no place in particular, he stops. and points to the ground with his finger and says, this spot is good to build a sanctuary.

[03:11]

This spot is good to build a sanctuary. And Indra, the emperor of the gods, who just happens to be walking along with him, takes a blade of grass, plucks a blade of grass, any old blade of grass, and plants it down in the ground. sticks it into the ground, and says, the sanctuary is built. And then the Buddha, the World Honor One, simply smiles. So this case brings to mind for me the story of when Suzuki Roshi and Richard Baker first came to Tassajara to check out this particular property as a potential site for the first Zen monastery here in North America. And the story is that after their visits, they started driving up the road. And at a point on the road called Ashes Corner, which is both the first point and the last point in which you can see into Tassajara Valley, Suzuki Roshi told Richard Baker to stop the car.

[04:21]

And he got out of the car and started dancing around very happily, saying, just like China, just like China. He was so excited about finding this kind of sacred place that for him evoked the mountains and practice places of the ancestors and sages of old. And so how wonderful to find the perfect spot. for the first Zen monastery here in North America. So how lucky we are to still be here. In the Koan, Buddha says, this spot is good to build a sanctuary. And a sanctuary is defined as the innermost part of a temple. So what does that mean? What is a temple and what is a sacred place? the concept of a sanctuary refuge are often kind of used synonymously. And so we can think of, well, what kind of place is it that offers true refuge, for example?

[05:26]

What is refuge? And where do we find refuge? Think for a moment for yourself. What are places of sanctuary and refuge for you? Where are they? What is their nature? What is their quality? How do you connect with those places? How do you find yourself returning to those places whenever you need? So Indra in the story just picks up a blade of grass and sticks it into the ground saying the sanctuary is built. Is it really that easy? So I think we often seek places that allow us to step outside of our normal habit patterns, to gain some measure of space and a new perspective in some way, right? To get in touch with what is essential to us, to get in touch with our body, with our minds and our hearts, and settle into who we truly are, into the quality of being, right?

[06:40]

to step out of our habitual habit pattern of doing all the time and experience what it is simply to be, to allow being to be enough. So while we might appreciate external manifestations of sanctuary, such as here at Tassajara, Or perhaps in nature, a lot of people speak about when they come here, just the quality of being able to be out in nature for them is a deep place of refuge and sanctuary. Or our own homes in some way, right? I think what we really yearn for is internal sanctuary. It's not so much finding an external place. one that's dependent on external conditions being a certain way, but finding within us a place that we can identify and connect with, that is deeply settled, deeply quiet, deeply open and trustworthy, and a sense of easefulness with it, that's innately luminous and joyful.

[07:53]

So, Inner sanctuary is this place that we always have a sense of being able to return to, no matter where we go in the world. It's a place that we carry with us. It's never far from us. We may leave it, but it doesn't leave us. So how is it that we can turn to be in contact once again to this innate sanctuary? Define an inner sense of freedom and stillness that is our birthright. to experience our ground of being, to experience that which is what we truly are. What is that experience? It's warm water for a warm evening. So the Buddha points to the ground and says, this is a good place to build a sanctuary.

[08:57]

So he doesn't choose a special place, right? It wasn't a beautiful or holy place or anything like that. And Indra just picks up a blade of grass, not the best blade of grass, not a special blade of grass, but any old blade of grass, right? And he plants it. In doing so, he acknowledges that with this mundane object, this nothing special, this very spot right here, this very moment, is worthy of being considered sacred. In other words, every place is sacred. And everything we give our attention to is made sacred just by bringing our awareness to it. And seeing it not as separate from our lives, but an integral part of our being. So it's not the object or the place but how we treat it and relate to it that makes it sacred.

[10:01]

Give everything it's due and it's a respectful measure of attention and it becomes holy in some way. So that's why paying attention in Zen is so important. Attention is what makes everything sacred. And the truth is attention is in the form of directed awareness is the only thing that we can truly give. Attention is love. Attention is an expression of devotion, of seeing the sacred in each and every person. Love, as I've been trying to define it for myself, is the knowing of our shared being. is the knowing of our shared being, the felt knowing that we are all one being, one life together, with multiple manifestations at the same time.

[11:04]

So love is knowing that we are all of the same Buddha nature. I have been reflecting recently on what it means to offer a place of sanctuary, not just here in a monastery, but also in the larger world. And this has been particularly in my mind due to the recent issues around immigration that have been coming up. And some of you might be aware that yesterday there were a series of worldwide rallies called Lights for Liberty, a vigil to end human concentration camps. and that these vigils brought together thousands of people in various locations, including former concentration camps, to protest the detention and inhumanizing conditions faced by migrants, immigrants. And next week, on Saturday, July 20th, there will be a Buddhist memorial service in Oklahoma that will be held as part of a protest against migrant detention at Fort Sill.

[12:13]

which is also in Oklahoma. Fort Sill is the site of a former World War II internment camp that held 700 people of Japanese ancestry, 90 of which were Buddhist priests. And the Sotizen Buddhist priest Duncan Ryokin Williams recently wrote a book titled American Sutra, A Story of Faith and Freedom in the Second World War. This recounts the history of how the Japanese Americans interned in the camps in the 1940s kept their faith and their Buddhist practice alive despite the deeply oppressive conditions. Reverend Williams recently called for other Buddhist leaders to support a direct action non-violence project called Tsuru for Solidarity. Tsuru in Japanese means crane. And this organization is meant to give voice to the moral outrage of the Japanese American and Japanese Latin American community at the ongoing mass detentions in the United States.

[13:22]

And those who are unable to attend the memorial and protest in person at Fort Still are invited to participate by folding origami cranes, which will then be sent to Duncan Williams and delivered to the memorial site as part of the ceremony. And from what I understand, there are students here at all three centers of San Francisco Zen Center who are in the process of making their origami cranes to have them sent to the memorial. And there might be also a few practitioners here who will go to the memorial to participate. So now, regardless of your personal perspective on issues of immigration and border security, perhaps you share with me the wish that all beings have humane and safe living conditions in which they can thrive, have a sense of belonging, and be supported to be contributing members of whatever community they find themselves in.

[14:28]

But establishing such an environment isn't just a matter of creating certain physical conditions. It also entails establishing in our own hearts and minds an environment that is respectful, loving, and inclusive. A month ago, we completed at City Center a six-week practice period on the four loving attitudes or balanced states known in Buddhism as the Brahma Viharas. And for those of you who are not familiar with the Brahma Viharas, they are spoken as the four aspects of love, or the boundless heart. And the Brahmavihara, the word Brahmavihara itself is usually translated as divine abodes or heavenly abodes, or sometimes also as the four immeasurables. And these abodes are described as limitless, immeasurable qualities or states of the mind.

[15:34]

So their names in Pali are metta, karuna, mudita, Anupekka. Anyone familiar with these? Poor Brahma Viharas? A few of you? Yeah? So metta is kindness, sometimes treated as friendliness, goodwill, benevolence, among other things. And it's defined as the strong wish for the welfare and happiness of others. So it's considered the kind of the foundational component of the Brahma Viharas. Karuna or compassion is the ability to feel the distress or pain of others as if it were one's own. So when we practice karuna or our compassion or empathetic care is directed towards sentient beings with a wish for them to be liberated from their suffering or for their suffering to be somehow transformed or enlightened in some way.

[16:38]

The third Brahmavihara is mudita, translated sometimes as sympathetic joy, empathetic joy, also inclusive joy. And this is in a joy at the success and good fortune of others. So it implies recognizing and marring what is good in them and wishing for this goodness and their happiness to continue unobstructed. And the fourth Brahmavihara is upekka, which is usually translated as equanimity. It's an even-mindedness and a balance of mind that arises from non-attachment and wisdom. So the Brahma Viharas, these four loving abodes, are considered the Buddha's primary heart teachings, the ones that connect us most directly with our desire for true happiness. And they can be aroused and contained through specific meditation practices. So if you haven't had a chance to study the Brahmaharas, I would highly encourage you to do so.

[17:43]

They, in many ways, balance the wisdom practices that often Zen emphasizes. They're a good pairing and complement. So the theme of the practice period that I chose was at home in the boundless heart. So what might it mean to be at home in the boundless heart? to embody such a heart. What is it to be at home, as a matter of fact? I think for many of us, when we think of home, it conjures a place of belonging, of affirmation, of refuge, of shared being, of deep, deep connection. Another way of describing home is a place of the heart, a place of love and belonging. But many of us have not experienced in our lives a place of refuge or home, one of love or safety or affirmation.

[18:48]

Perhaps our own childhood or family homes were not places of love. My own initial experiences of home were often the actual very opposite of affirmation. Home for me was often tended to be a place of uncertainty, unsettledness, disruption and anxiety, and even physical and verbal violence. After my mother fled my home when I was five years old, my father had threatened to kill her, and the next morning she just disappeared, and I didn't see her again for, I think it was 30 years. I ended up, my brother and I ended up being put into children's homes. It was a Mennonite children's home. And so for the next five years, I spent time in a children's home as well as a couple foster homes. And after about five years, my brother and I eventually were returned to my father's home.

[19:52]

But even then, this kind of... experience of disruption of home continued because later on he divorced. I went to live with my stepmother. Then I went to college. When I came out as gay, they ostracized me and wouldn't speak to me. I wasn't allowed to return home again. So this constant disruption of a sense of place of belonging was something that I continued to experience again and again. So it wasn't until later in my mid-30s after I had spent a number of years traveling through Asia and living there with this intention of trying to find myself at home in the world. What would it mean to be at home in the world, where every place I went was a place of belonging and inclusion in some way? And so after I had spent... A year traveling around, a little bit later, I spent about two years living in Indonesia. I came back to city center and decided as part of my re-entry that I would do a sashim.

[20:56]

And this was in August. And the sashim was being led by Blanche Hartman. And at the end of the sashim, there was a show song ceremony, a particular question and answer ceremony to conclude the sashim. And the question that I... made of Blanche, was, in a world of impermanence, unreliability and oppression, where is my true home? And she responded, really quickly, right here in this present moment. And so, in the intervening years of Zen practice, I've come to understand that true home is not an external place, but it's a state of the heart. a state of mind or citta, a state of awake presence that we can choose to both reoccurring ourselves with as well as cultivate. This is what the practices of the Brahmaviharas essentially offer.

[22:03]

And again, the word Brahmavihara means divine abode, but it can also be translated as royal abode or royal home. And so we might think of this as our true home. It's what we come home to when we truly understand who we are. It's a way of understanding how the heart functions when we are truly at home, when we are resting and not lost, when we are resting in presence and not lost in thought or busyness. So when we cultivate and abide in the qualities of kindness, compassion, inclusive joy, and equanimity. They reaffirm and reconnect us to our fundamental wholeness, our sense of interbeing, as Thich Nhat Hanh says, our innate connectedness. And they serve to heal any experience of separation that we might have in regard to others, our world,

[23:11]

as well as in ourselves. There's a particular poem by E.E. Cummings that has kept me company for the last several months, particularly in regard to the study and practice of the Brahmaviharas, and I thought I'd share it here tonight. Love is a place, and through this place of love move with brightness of peace all places. Yes is a world, and in this world of yes live skillfully curled all worlds. Love is a place. And through this place of love move with brightness of peace all places.

[24:16]

Yes is a world. And in this world of yes, live skillfully curled all worlds. So love as a place, love as an abode, a realm, one in which all places and all beings move peacefully. And again, I would propose the Brahmaviharas are such places. They are called immeasurable because there is no limit to them. They are boundless, unquantifiable, unconditional, and radiant. it's said that the Brahma-viharas are kind of like light, sunlight, that just radiates out and shines on everyone and everything. Indiscriminately, everything is illuminated by each of the Brahma-viharas.

[25:21]

And so in this way, they are profoundly inclusive, able to extend toward, include, and brighten all places of the human heart. And so from a Buddhist perspective, the phrase in the poem, the brightness of peace is the light of our Buddha nature, the luminosity of awareness itself. It's the quiescent, silent, luminous heart-mind of our true nature. All beings, when at rest in their true nature, are naturally at peace. And it's this peace that we can touch, and convey through our practice, particularly in our zazen. Recently I stumbled on a YouTube video in which the Benedictine monk, Brother David Stenleross, was being interviewed by Oprah Winfrey on her, I think it's Super Soul Sunday.

[26:25]

I don't know if any of you have ever seen that. And some of you might know that Brother David used to live here at Tassajara long ago. I think it was back in the 70s, if I remember correctly, for a brief time. And he was testing out Zen, and eventually he decided, no, I'm going to go back to being a Benedictine monk. But he's always had a close relationship to Tassajara and has, until recently, come back each year and done retreats with Paul Howler. on Zen and Christianity, a dialogue between the two practices. So in this short clip in which Oprah asks Brother David about his definition of love, and he responds that love is a lived yes to belonging. Love is a lived yes to belonging. Isn't that beautiful?

[27:25]

I would propose that the practice of Zen is also the practice of a lived yes. A lived yes to the world of being human and to all that we experience in being alive. As such, Zen practices a profoundly inclusive engagement. And how is this so? How might we discover this to be true for ourselves? Well, as all things Zen, first we start with Zazen, right? We can start by taking our seat in the Zendo, right here, and attending to our present moment experience. No matter what it is, good, pleasant, unpleasant, hot, lots of flies, irritating people next to me, whatever it is, can we say yes to it, you know?

[28:30]

And as we practice and get some skill at being with the present moment experience in whatever way it's showing up, say, hey, can I just sit here and be okay in the midst of my maybe knee pain, right? Or in the midst of the many irritations that I experience. Or in the midst of my aching heart, right? When we can do that, then we realize just this. But the capacity to be mindful and aware means having an open heart. Just being mindful and aware in and of itself, that capacity requires having an open heart. So it's not a conceptual thing. It's a felt insight, one that is visually known in the body-mind. So when in zazen, we sit here, just sitting, or maybe lying down if that's what your body requires.

[29:37]

Period after period, we slowly learn to say yes. We drop our resistance to our experience. We eventually surrender. Maybe give up. Give up negotiating. give up trying to control, give up wanting things to be different. We say yes to both our internal experience, our internal world, as well as to the external world. So we might say yes to our irregular breathing, or yes to our itchy back, or yes to the noise of those stellar jays squawking and scraping around on the roof. Or in the evening, the crunch of the gravel as people are walking outside the Zendo. And we can also say yes to our pain and grief and shame and self-importance and our fear.

[30:43]

And we say yes not because we want to act on these things, but because they are true. They are what's real for us. in this moment. And we recognize when we stay with it that they are fleeting. They are simply part of who we are, but they are not what we ultimately are. They don't define us. So as we sit here, not acting on the impulses, but letting them pass without being re-energized, our nervous system, begins to relax. We relax because at last we're acknowledging the truth of things, the truth of our reality. And at a fundamental level, truth is relaxing. Because we no longer have to sustain the effort that is involved in resisting the truth.

[31:49]

When we open to truth, we can let go even more deeply into belonging to yes. So saying yes means attending to and surrendering to our experience, whatever it is. It means attending to the feeling of the body when in the midst of strong emotion or reactivity, which is something that we've been studying in our retreat, you know, when habitual activity, habit pattern arises, how do we be with it, right? and simply let it be what it is without trying to change it. It means coming back to whatever we might be, whatever might be our touchstone in the present moment. For example, our breath. Again and again to regain a sense of equanimity and composure. It means noticing that all experience, including thoughts and feelings and sensations, come and go. Everything is impermanent.

[32:52]

We just need to let it flow without grasping onto it or identifying with it in some way. So saying yes is a very inclusive practice. A vastness of absolute yes means that nothing is ever left out. And so it's radical in that way. So we can say yes to our pride, our stupidity, our self-righteous anger. Naturally, we don't act on our anger. if it's harmful, but we allow it to be true within us. We discover that if we are pushing away any aspect of our experience, even ever so slightly, our mindfulness is not fully realized, not fully present. It is limited by aversion, even if just subtly. And of course, sometimes we truly can't say yes.

[33:53]

For example, to the dehumanizing forms of oppression that we may have experienced in our lives, but that we continue to witness here and now. Or to the death of a loved one who has died, maybe perhaps due to violence or some terrible illness. Then we try to say yes to the no. I hate that I am being treated less than a human being or that someone dear to me is God, but I'm actually okay with not being okay about these truths. It's not that we necessarily need to agree with the situation or the moment, nor that we would wish it on anyone or not to do something to try to rectify the situation. particularly if it's an injustice case. However, we say yes because whatever life brings is just that, life as it is.

[35:02]

And saying yes, by saying yes, we allow ourselves to let go and relax deep down inside. And when we can do this, when we can step forward into the next moment, then we can step forward into the next moment. into the next response, the next action, with some measure of being upright and equanimous. And also include a measure of creativity that allows us to bring a mindful, considerate, careful solution to whatever the particular problem that we might be encountering. For example, climate change, you know, or racial oppression. or social and economic inequity. All these ways that we can just bring our whole heart and mind to saying, yes, this is what is, then we can come forward in a way that is beneficial.

[36:05]

So if we can fully take up this practice of yes and be willing to embrace each moment with an unreserved acceptance of things as they are, Then we have the capacity to be with the entirety of our life, both the inner and outer worlds, exactly as it unfolds. The various worlds of inner and outer, of self and other, become skillfully curled, interwoven, nesting in each other. And then... Yes to that too. It may be that in time we'll be able to realize that our heart is bigger than we thought, that it has the capacity to be a sanctuary in which everyone is equally regarded and welcomed, seen as deserving of respect and care, and as ultimately

[37:15]

We realize that the sanctuary of the aware, open heart is vast, beyond any measure which we might use, any gauge we might use to measure it. As Walt Whitman said, I am large, I contain multitudes. The true nature of our heart is vast, spacious, and it's waiting to be broken open. so that it can expand to its true size, which is boundless. So I'll close again with the poem. Love is a place, and through this place of love move, with brightness of peace, all places. Yes is a world, and in this world of yes live, skillfully curled all worlds.

[38:18]

Thank you for your kind attention. 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 and For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving.

[38:53]

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