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, everyone. I can feel, I must look as red as a beet. I'm feeling extremely warm, and I know that it's very noisy on Page Street, so I guess we'll keep the windows closed, but I'm sorry if it looks like I'm in a sauna or something. I recently returned from Indonesia attending the 14th Buddhist, International Buddhist Women's Conference and

[01:02]

The organization is, everybody's opening windows, called Sakya Ditta, Daughters of the Buddha. And some people have gone to that conference in the past. The organization was started in the 80s. And I did not... very embarrassingly, I think, or I would say embarrassed. I don't think I could have found Indonesia easily on a map, actually. And when I wrote to a friend of mine that I was going to Indonesia, she wrote back saying, have fun in Thailand. So I realized this is a part of the world I was not that familiar with, even though there's a a member here who lives at City Center, who's from Indonesia, that I've spoken with.

[02:06]

The conference was called Compassion and Social Justice. And one thing, we were in Java, which is a beautiful country, And it turns out, even though Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world, and a large Muslim population, there's also Muslim, Hindu, Christian, and Buddhists, and maybe other religions. And at least now, in 2015, what we saw was great harmony and convivienza In Spain, before 1492, the Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived together in Spain very harmoniously for a long time until 1492 when the Jews were expelled.

[03:13]

But this kind of convivienza, or we don't have a word for it in English, but harmony, convivial quality, that's what we saw there. And even though there's a small percentage of Buddhists, because it's so populous, the country, there was many Buddhists there who were helping with the conference. But mostly it was women monastics from many Asian countries, Mongolia, Malaysia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and then East Asia, Taiwan, China, Korea, Vietnam. there wasn't a contingent from Japan. So hopefully I'll do a report back here in the city about some of the things that happened there, but one thing I wanted to mention is that in the ancient history, Indonesia was a center of Buddhism, Mahayana Buddhism, which I didn't know, and we visited an old temple from...

[04:24]

built in the 900s, late 8th, 800s, 900s. Huge monument, huge structure, and it's basically a three-dimensional mandala with bas-relief all the way around as you climb higher and higher with storytelling, the stories of the Buddha's past lives, and then daily life in Indonesia is at the bottom then, Jataka tales, and then you keep going, and there's the Gandavyuha, which comes from the Avatamsaka Sutra, part of the Avatamsaka Sutra, and the ten stages of the Bodhisattva, all the way up to the top of the monument, which is a gigantic stupa. And we visited it at dawn, as the sun was just coming up, surrounded by mountains, and then... About 500 of us went to this, and then we all sat meditation, the various kinds of meditations that the different people do, perched on this stupa with Buddha figures all over.

[05:36]

So it was quite remarkable. If you have a chance to go, it's a wonder. And it was rediscovered in shambles and rebuilt So, I wanted to, there was something that came up at the conference that I wanted to bring to your attention, and I want to reach that point in the talk by first talking about altruism. And I think altruism, somehow, it's not a word that perhaps resonates very strongly or maybe we think of it as a little bit lofty and not something that speaks to us. However, our bodhisattva vow, the vow to live for the benefit of beings and non-harming, and so much of our Buddhist practice turns around an altruistic life.

[06:45]

So I wanted to start there and then come back to... all the forms that this can take and how we ourselves can respond to beings in all realms. While we were at the conference, right before I left, there was the horrific shooting in Charleston, South Carolina at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. seeing the result of ignorance and violence and cruelty and the result of thinking of beings as the other or not part of our own life can be so horrific.

[07:46]

And I just wanted to, from this seat, name the names of the nine people who were killed their, Cynthia Marie Graham, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lee Lance, Depayne Middleton Doctor, Clementa C. Pinckney, Tywanza Sanders, Sanders Jackson, Daniel Simmons, excuse me, Tawanza Sanders, who was the nephew of Susie Jackson, Daniel Simmons, Sharonda Coleman, and Myra Thompson. This terrible event happened right before I left for Indonesia, and it, you know, colored and reverberated through me.

[08:54]

the whole time I was there. Also the Supreme Court decisions, both the wonderful decisions and the not so wonderful decisions came to this conference and were announced from the podium about same-sex marriage has been legalized in the United States. And you would think, now how is it that a mostly monastic, celibate, nun group from all these Southeast Asian countries, how would... Why would they be interested or care that much? But actually, many of the papers that were given were about gender issues and oppression that nuns are experiencing. And so to me, it felt very interconnected with the issues back in the States and that people are facing all throughout the world. One of the papers actually was about a Taiwanese nun who did a same-sex marriage in Taiwan, which made the front pages, and this was all talked about among the nuns at the conference.

[10:13]

So altruism, the word altruism comes from the Latin alter or other. It's about care, concern, for the other, not just for ourselves, or self-concern, selfishness, self-centeredness. It's caring for another. And at another conference I was at recently, I used the image of bees and a honeybee hive, which at Green Gulch, there had been a beekeeping workshop and there had been a swarm, right, that very day. And the whole beekeeping workshop went to see the swarm and the beekeeper, Mikael Tila, some of you know him, with his bare hands went into the swarm and lifted it and put it into a new bee box. And what he said about the bees is their temperature is 99.6, you know, they have a human temperature.

[11:15]

So when you place your hands inside of a swarm of bees, it's like going into the flesh of another being. and lifting it. And this being is many, many, many thousands of individuals, each unique, each with their own past, present, and future, and yet they make up one body, one unique body that works for the benefit of the whole. And this... what this beekeeper was saying, and other beekeepers would say, is that it's almost a perfect altruistic entity practicing the bodhisattva vow, living for the benefit of beings. And for us too, because the bees of course pollinate and give us the benefit of so many foods. And some say if the bees disappear,

[12:18]

all the different food products will disappear, both domestic and wild plants. So the importance of bees. And they do this work for one another without self-serving. So this kind of image of altruism is a strong image for me. So altruism has two faces. One is called loving-kindness or altruistic love. And the other face is called compassion. And altruistic love or this part of altruism wishes that all beings without exception would find happiness and the causes for happiness. That's altruistic love. And this strong wish is steady, unwavering.

[13:20]

And the happiness that we're talking about is not fun and kind of fun and games or frivolous happiness. It's the deep and lasting happiness of a life that's where the true causes of suffering have been realized and uncovered and that we've let go of other things that we thought would bring happiness. We let go of them, we have renunciation of them, but not like you can't do that, I'm going to cut this out of your life. But we see that we're ready to let that go. That doesn't bring happiness. And I think many of us over the years have realized certain things, even though the media or our education or whatever said this will bring happiness, just do this, we've found that it's not true, and we let that go. So altruistic love has this strong wish for beings to find happiness, true happiness, and the causes of happiness.

[14:26]

And this kind of altruistic love is characterized by inner strength and an inner freedom, and as well as an accurate view of reality, not fooled. that this will bring happiness and this is the way to find it. But it has an accurate view and addresses ignorance in the most basic way. So along with this readiness and inner strength is a kind of determination to do everything one can to help beings find happiness and the causes of happiness. Now, just to say a little bit more about this, this is not, the strength of this is not found when we have a kind of generalized wouldn't it be nice if all beings were happy and found the causes of happiness.

[15:35]

The power of this kind of reflection and meditation comes from actually having a particular being in mind. And His Holiness, well, first of all, I'll say I did a course at Stanford called Developing Compassion or Expanding Compassion, an eight-week course that's been developed. And one of the practices that we did was to think, and maybe some of you have done this with loving kindness, to think of a being that you care for, that you love, and how much you have benefited from their friendship or their love, and then imagine, or maybe they are in some trouble, some physical trouble, or mental trouble, or they're sick, or have had some setback, and you imagine that very person, and feel how you care for them, and feel their troubles, and want for them to find happiness,

[16:41]

So I did this at this, and it was an actual physical sensation in the heart, imagining this person, and it was very, very strong. This is available for anyone to practice in that way. So His Holiness says we must use a real individual as the focus of our meditation, of this kind of loving kindness. You imagine some real, not just... Even though we say may all beings be happy as a wish, the power in this, I think, begins with someone in your life that matters to you. So we focus on someone and enhance our compassion and loving kindness toward that person so we can experience it in the body and then work kind of one person at a time This gives this practice power and a way to enter, rather than some abstract general, wouldn't it be nice if.

[17:47]

Now, the other face of altruism is compassion, and there's a difference between this altruistic love and compassion, or loving kindness and compassion. Compassion is a form of love that arises when confronted with people's suffering, and the wish arises to relieve that suffering. And not only to relieve it, but you want to do something about it. This arises in you, the wish to relieve it. to do, to act. You wish this person to be freed from their suffering and the causes of suffering. And in the same way as this wish to have people be happy and find the causes of happiness, the causes of suffering may at a glance look like one thing or another, but they are deep-seated causes of suffering that are hard to see, that we all share actually,

[19:06]

So wanting beings to be relieved of suffering and the causes of suffering, and not only that, but wanting to act in some way, to help, put it into action, to alleviate ourselves, our very selves, this wish that comes up. And these deep-seated causes of suffering, maybe the deepest, is ignorance, the fundamental ignorance. The fundamental ignorance is not just our knowledge or lack thereof of our geography or various things, but really not understanding how we exist. So that's our basic ignorance. And out of this ignorance flows actions that cause suffering. So this ignorance is the beginning of the wheel of birth and death, the wheel of samsara, out of this ignorance of how things really are.

[20:23]

And this ignorance centers around a belief in a separate self, an abiding self. And not realizing the reality of how we exist leads to actions. Actions of body, speech, and mind that cause harm, suffering, and perpetuate suffering and cruelty in the world. Not only in ourselves, mental states that are harmful to ourself, but actions that harm others. And these actions are usually talked about as the three poisons of greed or compulsive desire Sometimes we hear desire, but there are good desires as well. So a kind of compulsive desire and hatred and delusion. So altruism has these two faces, the loving kindness that wishes for happiness and the causes of happiness, and compassion that wishes for the alleviation of suffering and the causes of that suffering.

[21:35]

So they're very... these faces of altruism are very, they're connected, but they have different objects. One is the happiness, the other is the alleviation of suffering, which of course come together in one being. At this conference that I was at earlier this year, a conference about compassion and the science of compassion and contemplative practice. And many scientists where they're talking about, and there've been many research, a lot of research done on this, talking about compassion and empathy and what is, what are these things in the body, you know?

[22:37]

One particular story from Mathieu Ricard, who some of you may know or have read his writings, he was at the conference. He was connected to devices that measured his brain activity, and he was asked to meditate on empathy, to just meditate on empathy. Empathy being feeling and resonating with other people's circumstances or situation or... their feelings. And he was doing this for a while, and they said, stop, stop, stop meditating on compassion, but we want you to meditate only on empathy. So they could see a whole different brain activity when he was meditating on compassion. And there's a difference between empathy and compassion. Empathy is resonating with, in an emotional way, in a cognitive way, people's situation, understanding what they must be feeling and going through.

[23:38]

But it doesn't necessarily also engender, it's more a catalyst for compassion, which is, and I want to relieve this suffering if the person's going through difficulty. And that's a whole different event in the body-mind. And they could see the way he was hooked up, I don't know what the Machines were exactly that, were noting all this. But they could see, and they said, stop doing empathy. I mean, stop doing compassion. Just do empathy, which looks very different. So he tried, you know, as a monk and a practitioner, his mind went to alleviating suffering, not just resonating with the feelings. So... the alleviating suffering and the causes of suffering and finding the causes of happiness points us to our ignorance about these things and the ignorance of how we exist together.

[24:47]

And I just wanted to say a couple things about our practice and opening to the teachings that directly respond to this kind of ignorance, which are not easily... not easily just like, oh yeah, I get it. Because this is such deep-seated ignorance of the way we exist, and we carry with us strong, strong imprinting and educational, societal, cultural teachings that we exist in a certain way. So, This ignorance, one way of talking about phenomena, and when I say phenomena, I mean right now, this very moment, is in, this is from the Sandhi Nirmocana Sutra, that there are three characteristics of phenomena, each thing, and phenomena would be, you know, the forms of our life, hearables, seeables, tasteables, touchables, visibles,

[26:04]

the thoughts, our emotions, and the physicality, what we sense, hear, see, touch. Each phenomena has three characteristics. And the first one is the imputational. And the imputational is what we impute on others. And I want to come back to this in terms of our... this talk that was given at the conference, and empathy. So we impute on others a kind of existence. We could say we project is another way of saying it. We kind of have a dream that we exist in certain ways, and that dream comes, that imputational thought comes before we know it. Based on our past karmic life and imprints and formations, we see someone and they look a certain way, they're dressed a certain way, they walk a certain way, they're a certain age, race, sex.

[27:20]

We impute and we think we know. And we think we know a lot about them immediately. This is kind of called the imputational, and not only that, that's one level. We impute separate self, that this being or this object exists by itself alone without being connected particularly. This is the imputational, and we do this all the time. We impute a kind of reality on the world, on each other, on things. The second characteristic of phenomena is called the other dependent. And the other dependent is just a way of saying that nobody exists alone. Nobody's all by themselves. Everybody came from something. Everything came from something like this little lectern.

[28:21]

It didn't appear out of nowhere by its own, you know, agency. It was designed and made and the trees grew and So it's other dependent. It depends on all sorts of other things, including, well, really including the entire universe, but including how this wood grew and the rain and the stars and the sun. So it is other dependent, and each one of us is other dependent. We depend on others. We are not by ourselves alone. We couldn't exist without the kindness of others, And we are made each moment by, like right now, you are making me into a lecturer. Because why? Because you're listening, or maybe you're listening, but there you are. And that means that I'm giving a Dharma talk. If I were here by myself, that would not be a Dharma talk. You create me, and I'm creating you as Dharma talk listeners, right?

[29:25]

This is, we're other dependent. And when I leave here and go out, and do this, that, and the other, I'm created anew each moment, dependently co-arisen. This is called the other dependent. And each thing has that characteristic, each phenomena, each appearance. And you can meditate on this. The third of the characteristics, we have the imputational, where we impute basically essences, and separate selfnesses on everything, plus the stereotypes and all that. And then the, so there's the imputational and the other dependent in each thing. And then there's what's called the thoroughly established. The thoroughly established is the third characteristic of each phenomenon. And the thoroughly established is basically when you take

[30:28]

The imputational out of the other dependent, what you're left with, is kind of the ungraspable mystery inconceivableness called the thoroughly established. Empty of separate self, empty of anything you think it is or anything anybody else might think it is. It's empty of our conceptions. It's beyond that. This is called the thoroughly established. And each phenomena has that. It has three characteristics. What we impute on it and walk around thinking all the time, the actual how it comes together codependently, and then this further kind of when we take away our imputations about how things are out of the other dependent, we have suchness. the thoroughly established.

[31:30]

So this imagination that we have about who people are and, you know, we're often proved wrong, right? And we often, it's embarrassing because we said one thing when actually it was different. or assumed something. This is where a presumption and assumption stereotype come in to this imputational. And it cuts empathy, actually, because we've got so much of our own story about who someone is with our imputations, which is our ignorance that we lose a chance, based on our own held views, to feel another person's situation emotionally or cognitively. And it's not just enough to emotionally feel. That's wonderful to feel, but to actually understand more the background, how someone came to that situation needs cognitive understanding, and we can act more thoroughly, more accurately then, not just we feel something.

[32:54]

So, I want to come back to a particular talk that was given in the Sakidita conference, which I found absolutely fascinating. It was given by a Taiwanese professor named Xiao Lan Hu. And she studied, teaches in Taiwan in gender studies and religious studies. and she also was at Temple University in the States. And she was bringing up the Bodhisattva of Infinite Compassion, who we call Avalokitesvara, or Guanyin, or Kanon. And for those of you who are familiar with this Bodhisattva, this Bodhisattva has, all Bodhisattvas have this altruistic mind that wishes for happiness, wishes to alleviate suffering, and practices for the wisdom and compassion are the way that bodhisattvas make effort to exist in this world.

[34:09]

And some bodhisattvas carry what's called the wish-fulfilling gem, which is this wish for the happiness of others and to relieve all suffering that's steady and strong and free to... Respond in any way that's necessary. This is a description of the Bodhisattva of infinite compassion, who I'll call this morning Guanyin, or Avalokiteshvara, either way. So in the Lotus Sutra, there is a chapter devoted to this Bodhisattva of infinite compassion, and that chapter is called the all-sidedness of universal compassion. All-sidedness, meaning this Bodhisattva can turn in all directions at will to respond to beings. Now in that chapter, Avalokiteshvara, Guanyin, Kanon, it's the same. Avalokiteshvara is usually male. Guanyin is a female.

[35:11]

This infinite compassion takes any form. male, female, or, and what I'm going to talk about is the other forms that are, you can't say they're male and you can't say they're female, which in terms of our gender issues and ways that we can open to each other more thoroughly and more compassionately, Avalokiteshvara is an exemplar of this. So in the Lotus Sutra there, and there's different translations of the Lotus Sutra, it started out with 17 different forms that Avalokiteshvara took to help beings. But in a later translation, which is mostly used, she, he, she, took, and not even he, she, not binary he, she, because Avalokiteshvara takes any form, and in this sutra,

[36:15]

In the 25th chapter of the Lotus Sutra, there are 33 forms that are named, but there's really 84,000 gazillion forms. It's whatever form will help you, will relieve suffering. The Bodhisattva Vim Vigenic Compassion responds to the cries of the world and responds quickly to, in the form that one needs. So in the sutra, it says if you need compassion, the bodhisattva to come in the form of, and then it names kind of regular things, in the form of a Buddha, Avalokiteshvar or the bodhisattva will come in the form of a Buddha. If you need this bodhisattva to come in the form of a bodhisattva, and then it goes, you know, an elder, a citizen, a self-enlightened Buddha, a pratyeka Buddha, a bhikshuni, that's a nun, a bhikshu, a monk, a lay woman, a lay man, wife of a minister, names all these things.

[37:22]

And then it begins naming other beings. And these are also found in other sutras. And these beings, I've always skipped over these. It's like, I don't know what they are. If you need the bodhisattva to come in the form of a maharaga, the Bodhisattva will come in the form of a Maharaga. If you need the Bodhisattva to come in the form of a Gandharva, a Ishvara, a Maheshvara, a Kinara, a Yaksha, a Garuda, all these words that refer to various beings. And in looking, and this is what her paper was, Avalokiteshvara not only responds in the usual ways that we understand, and takes those forms if you need it. But Avalokiteshvara Guanyin responds in the form of a kinara. Well, what is a kinara?

[38:23]

A kinara is a mythical celestial being who is a beautiful musician, sometimes shown as part horse, part male, sometimes part bird, part female, who loves very, very much, devotedly to their partner and doesn't produce offspring. This is a kinara. And then maharagas are like earth spirits that turn in the earth and love the outdoors and have wonderful fragrances of bark and flowers and sap. And they're protectors of the dharma. And then the garuta is a fantastical bird. If you need this infinite compassion to come in the form of a Garuda, it will come in that form. It will come in the form of a Yaksha, who's another kind of being that's protective, but also sometimes is a little unusual and scary, and anyway.

[39:24]

So, this professor was saying in this sutra, the Lotus Sutra, beloved, beloved Lotus Sutra, What was it that the authors of the Lotus Sutra were saying there when it brought up not just the regular kinds of beings, human beings often named and often elite, the elite part of society, you know, a king or a minister, but other beings that have different names that are hard to understand put into kind of binary, you know, male or female, but are something else that can bring compassion. And in this sutra there's complete respect and understanding that compassion takes any form. It takes any form.

[40:27]

Even of these although it doesn't have the forms of insects, animals, or plants. It's beings that talk and sing and can be there with us. So in this chapter 25 of the Lotus Sutra, I was helped to see another layer of what infinite compassion might be saying traditionally. we don't know for sure, but the possibility that all beings were included that maybe are marginalized, left out, not respected, actually harmed or hurt, that this Bodhisattva who takes all forms, taking those forms is a teaching for all of us of respect and empathy. People, if you need in this form, compassion will come in that form that you need, whatever it may be.

[41:36]

So that was, I found that to be a very enlivening way to think about the practice of compassion and also to address our imputational qualities the way we impute and, you know, these horrific things that happen, there's imputation of otherness, fear, hatred, anxiety, you know, all these imputations imputed upon the other dependent, meaning the mysterious, inconceivable appearance of each one of us in this form, unique, never to be repeated, and different from everybody else, even if you're in a group, let's say, that's marginalized or not the normative or the dominant group in a society, or even that maybe

[42:56]

the group gets respected, but then kind of lumped together as if everybody's the same. So this goes further. Each being is completely unique and can transform their life and practice according to what works for them. And to live into wisdom and compassion for the benefit of all beings. So... this kind of respect and empathy for one another and also working with our ignorance and our imputations all the time, I think, to work and ask ourselves, what am I imputing? What have I slathered and projected on top of this being? Because I think if we begin to meditate in this way, we can also bring wisdom and clarity to this disturbing and harmful way that we can look at one another.

[44:02]

So that's our job. And the more we learn about one another, the more we make steps in the direction of understanding and putting in place ways to make known that we are studying issues of gender in particular, which, you know, not in particular, issues of gender, race, sexism, ageism, all the isms can benefit from studying our imputations, and taking a form through empathy. We can't take the forms like Avalokiteshvara and become this, that, or the other at will.

[45:07]

That's infinite compassion. However, when we empathize with another, we can take the form as best we can, emotionally empathize, and then altruistic love and compassion has a chance. So our empathy itself is our transformation, how we transform to meet another's suffering. Thank you very much. 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.

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