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. Thank you for... Can you hear me okay? Is this good? Thank you for coming to Green Gulch for the Dharma Talk. I wanted to see how many of you for whom this is your first time here. Great. That's wonderful. Thank you. So for those of you who don't know me, my name is Linda. And I've been living at Green Gulch for 30 years, believe it or not.

[01:06]

So I wanted to mention that our abiding abbot, Jiryu Rooshman Beiler, just had a laws In his family, his mother passed away. Her name is on our altar. And so I've been giving a few lectures that he has not been able to offer due to the family needs. And we offer our condolences to him and his whole family during this time. So next week, next, just in a few days, we have this event that takes place.

[02:25]

every four years of an election, presidential election. And I've been thinking about what do I want to say just a few days before this momentous election this year in particular. So I first wanted to encourage everyone to vote. If you haven't already, please vote. And everybody online who's watching, please vote. And Zen Center's mission doesn't have a political mission, but it does have the mission of studying our life, studying reality, studying ourselves, and living for the benefit of all beings. with that as the underpinning.

[03:26]

How do we vote? How do we express ourselves in a way that's in alignment with the teachings, with our deepest wishes for this world, for each other, and how do we practice in this situation of great turbulence and turmoil and emotions running very, very high. So I've certainly been feeling a lot of, you know, there's been some nights it's been hard to fall asleep if I've watched something online, a clip. And then there's not feeling anything at all, or I don't, you know, ostrich, is it ostriches that put their head, yes, ostrich practice, and then opening again, and, you know, what is our practice?

[04:39]

And I imagine, I mean, I've gotten emails from people saying, I'm panicking, what can I do? And to me, this is having strong, feelings, strong emotions, strong body responses is not unusual. And along with that panic, there's fear, there's distress, there's, you know, disquiet, foreboding, alarm. All these things maybe you might be feeling or those you know are feeling. So it prompted me to go back to some very basic teachings in Buddhism and also some teachings that were given to me directly that I wanted to share with you.

[05:52]

basically how to practice with some of what we might be feeling, foreboding and alarm, fear. So in 2000, I was, I'm not sure what the word is, installed. I was invited to take the mountain seat and become sit in the abacial seat for San Francisco Zen Center, along with my co-abacial seat holder, Blanche Hartman. So the two of us shared the co-abacial seat. And during that ceremony, which is a big ceremony, and people are invited to speak, people inside the community and outside the community. And I invited Pema Chodron to attend.

[06:58]

She was not able to attend, but she sent these words, which I wanted to share with you, that were read on her behalf at the ceremony. Reveal your inner thoughts. Approach what you find repulsive. Help those you do not want to help. Anything you are attached to let it go. Go to places that scare you. I hope they didn't get scared just now. There was also directions of how to read this.

[08:00]

So after reveal your inner thoughts, it says pause. And then go to places that scare you. After that, it says pause slightly longer than above. Go to places that scare you. If you do not grasp with your mind, you will find a fresh state of being. And then there was a little commentary. This was the advice given to the Tibetan yogini, Machiglapdroma. And it has so inspired me throughout the years that I pass it on to you, the gift of Dharma on this auspicious occasion. And then I think later she wrote that book, Go to the Places That Scare You. So I felt this instruction was just right.

[09:01]

Because I really want to practice Buddha Dharma. I want to practice it with the depth of my non-being and being... And I also know that I can be overwhelmed. I can be angry, irritated, confused, fearful. And, you know, approach what you find repulsive. I... And you can ask yourself about your own practice. I get repulsed when something is repulsive. And of course, what is repulsive to me may not be repulsive to someone else. What repulses me does not repulse someone else.

[10:04]

And remembering that, practicing with that, and walking in the depths of the ocean floor, even though there's waves and tsunamis and storms? How do I walk on the ocean floor and not only walk or have actions, but all the actions, all the karma of body, speech, and mind? And when I'm unable to, then the practice is to acknowledge, admit, and say, this is not how I want to act, and come back to Buddha Dharma. These are very, very basic practices. But I do feel these times, for me, call for the most basic.

[11:10]

Help those you do not want to help. Let go of all attachments. Go to the places that scare you. So, flowing from that, I began to look at some of the most basic teachings that I I have trust. I have confidence. You know, all trust and all teachings are unreliable, untrustworthy, because they are impermanent. Everything that comes together will come apart again. This is our life. This is human life. This is the teaching of impermanence. And without forgetting that, Where do I place my provisional, knowing it will go away, confidence, confidence with faith.

[12:28]

And the confidence comes from practicing with them and seeing what happens. So I wanted to offer again, some of you may have heard these practices, practices before, very, very basic bodhisattva practices of the four, they have different names, the four divine abodes is one name, the four immeasurables. And these are loving kindness, compassion, Sympathetic joy and equanimity. And I just want to stop here for a moment because those four, one might say, yeah, but I want to do something.

[13:37]

How's that going to help me do something in the face of fears? unwanted outcomes, as well as unspeakably horrific wars and destruction of peoples and countries and our climate and the earth that are going on right now. What do you mean, you know, loving kindness, compassion, equanimity? You can't have equanimity in the face of that. one might have that kind of response. And I think if we're too much on the surface of what these practices are, if we, you know, confuse compassion with being nice or loving kindness with kind of liking people or...

[14:42]

sympathetic joy with, I don't know, I'm just making these up off the cuff, having a birthday party for your friend or something. So these practices go very, very deep, and they flow from the teaching that all dharmas, which means all things, all beings, are empty of separateness. These teachings flow from our interconnected life and our self, which is no self, and our vows to live for the benefit of beings, the impossible bodhisattva vows. boundless bodhisattva vows.

[15:45]

So these four practices, I think that's why they're called the immeasurables or the divine abodes. So each one of these loving kindness is wishing for all beings to be happy. to be safe, and to have the causes and conditions for their happiness. This is this loving kindness and friendliness. And acting so that that may be in our own little sphere where we shine a light in our own, all those who live with us and speak with us, we practice in this way. through our actions of body, speech, and mind. And for each person that may look slightly different.

[16:48]

Each one of these four abodes has a near enemy and a far enemy. The near enemies sort of look like loving kindness, but actually if you look closer, it's not, there's something extra And it doesn't lead to a fresh state of being, as Pema said. So for loving kindness, the near enemy is clinging, clinging to someone, our loved ones. And these relationships, the three relationships that are named as particularly intense, are relationships. parents and children, partners, loving lovers, and teacher-student relationships are three that are named as, you know, having this possibility of attachment, clinging, and a kind of self-involvement that may not be true loving kindness.

[18:06]

And I think We know this from our own family life and our own, just through our own life. We know when this happens, a grasping attachment such that, you know, love is blind, right? Where we can't see or we don't want to see that this isn't so healthy, maybe, and yet we're so attached. and calling it loving-kindness. That's the near enemy for loving-kindness. The far enemy is envy, hatred, aversion, right? The kind of opposite, you might say, of loving-kindness is hatred, aversion. Sorry, it's not envy.

[19:09]

Envy, it goes with another one. Hatred. The second of the abodes is compassion, which in kind of reading it... You can say compassion. You can also say may all beings be free from suffering and the causes and conditions of suffering. So compassion completely goes along with suffering. The near enemy of compassion is pity. Oh, the poor thing. Oh, I feel so sorry for them. And we also know what it feels like to be on that end. Compassion is even in a parallel to suffer with someone. Compassion is suffering with, rather than, I'm up here looking down on you, poor thing.

[20:12]

We don't want that or need that, but to have someone with us and understanding and wishing for our well-being and our... life to be freed from suffering and the causes and conditions of suffering, we can benefit from that. So this near enemy is pity and also overwhelm. We get... We see someone's situation or hear about someone's situation, and it's too much. We can't bear it. And so we can't be with them, suffer with. We have to turn away. So pity, overwhelm, where we can't do anything, and then there's the kind of...

[21:24]

too much compassion, where it's not based on truly trying to meet someone where they are, but it's jumping in there when no help is, oh, they're helpless, I'll be the helper. I'm the savior, let me in there to help. That's the kind of compassion that leads to or can lead to fatigue, compassion fatigue. We're always the one. I'm the helper. Look to me. I'm going to help. Those are all near enemies of compassion. In the sutras, it says that we need to have a true assessment of what's going on to be able to meet it with compassion our full capacity and accuracy, clear comprehension of purpose.

[22:28]

And it also says in the sutras that our heart, when we hear about suffering or see suffering or meet it, our heart quivers in response. We have a physical response. So to include this quivering heart that cares, that loves, that wants beings to be freed from suffering and the causes of suffering without overwhelm or without this really compassion that isn't really helpful, that's jumping in. before needed. Where is the clear comprehension of purpose and what's needed? And for that we need to be clear ourselves. The far enemy, so we have the near enemy of pity, overwhelm, and this undifferentiated kind of compassion.

[23:45]

And then the far enemy is cruelty. Actually, not by mistake having something land in a way that was unkind, you didn't intend, but actually wanting to hurt, wanting to cut down, wanting to destroy. And we can say, oh, no, not me. But I think in all these practices, it's up to us to thoroughly look and see what's there in our own hearts. Even vestiges of cruelty can be there, can be part of our shadow. And definitely we see it in this political life. Right now, the level of not innuendo at all anymore, but actual promises and statements and threats at a level I have never seen before.

[25:08]

And... that flows from the three poisons of greed, hate, and delusion. It's not just somehow this happened. You know, this comes from all the causes and conditions in our collective life. And so, you know, what is our response? Clear purpose. Clear comprehension of purpose. The third of the four, so we have this loving kindness, compassion, the third is called sympathetic joy, mundita. And sympathetic joy is rejoicing in the good fortune of others, both in just their life's

[26:16]

accomplishments, they're graduating from high school or college or getting a good job or whatever it is that people are happy with, proud of, work to accomplish to be happy with them and have joy with them. Sympathetic joy, joy with others, responding with joy to the good fortune of others and also in the Dharma for people's vows and for their their ways of dedicating their lives to find joy in that and this joy is your joy you feel it in your own body to rejoice with someone means you feel joy as well this is a wonderful divine a bold, sympathetic joy.

[27:19]

I always use the example for this of like a child, a baby, a toddler who begins to walk, and everybody around them is just overjoyed. Here they go, oh, and everybody's just like... And nobody in that... circle of family or friends is saying, oh, what about me? I walk all the time. Nobody's clapping for me. It's just like not there. Everybody's. That's like a beautiful example of sympathetic joy. It's just total joy without any of the near enemies, which are one is over excitement. I suppose you could get over excited, but lots of excitement about something and a kind of manic, actually Pema says manic, you know, running around and, I don't know, with joy about something or other, but it's too much, you know?

[28:24]

So we don't want to be separated from the great happiness of others, and we also don't want to kind of overdo it. And the other near enemy, besides the overwhelm, is not really connecting with people with their joy, kind of going through the motions. Oh, that's great, you know. But not really feeling it. And then the far enemy comes up, which is envy and resentment. And I imagine as human beings, we all know and can remember times of, why not me, why them? And I wish it were me and the word covet, you know, wishing things that belong to somebody else belong to me. And from that envy, from all the near enemies, I mean, from all the near and far, our practice of the precepts can be...

[29:40]

You know, we can stop observing our precepts with envy, cruelty, hatred and aversion, of course. Those are the far enemies. So resenting someone or something that they got and I didn't, what about me? And it's a very poisonous feeling. Resentment... If I'm not mistaken, the root of the word is to, like, smoke something, you know, over time or roast it. It's like resentment. It really can fill our body for years, you know. We don't forget that, and there it is again, and we feel it over and over. So it's a very powerful thing.

[30:42]

And its antidote, you know, is this rejoicing in others' joy, which is our joy, too. So the last of the four is equanimity, upeksha. And this equanimity... is a kind of underpinning for all the other ones because it allows us to have a clear purpose and to see clearly and to not be thrown or overwhelmed, a kind of balance and a calm. However, the near enemy is what looks like balance and calm, but is actually indifference. detachment, not the detachment that's healthy, like not grasping and clinging, allowing things to be without grasping after them, that kind of detachment.

[31:59]

But this near enemy for equanimity is who cares. And it might look like calm. That's why it's a near enemy. It's like, what are they? Are they this wonderful, calm person, or they just are indifferent? Whatever happens, happens, so who cares? The far enemy is prejudice, prejudgment, bias, and acting from there. So rather than this clear, clear sense, and out of the clear sense, finding one's clarity of mind and purpose and acting from there. Instead of that, it's already prejudged and biased. And this prejudice includes a closed-mindedness,

[33:10]

self-righteousness, taking sides, strongly taking sides, and having enemies. It kind of comes with the territory, you know, this kind of biased, prejudged way. And I have to really look at this. Is there self-righteousness there? I know what's right and you're wrong. Is that so? Is that where I want to come from rather than clearly observing what I see and wanting the Buddha Dharma to guide me as I speak and act?

[34:13]

Or is it self-righteousness? I know what's right. And they might look the same, but there's quite a difference there. And also in this enemy of equanimity is enemies, even a little bit, feeling like they're out to get me or they don't. Really? Is that true? And we're hearing about enemies. How can we clearly observe this kind of talk that is, that sows fear, that touches our most vulnerable parts, that creates conditions for confusion, overwhelm?

[35:13]

And am I partaking in that even without knowing it? Self-righteousness, taking sides, closed-minded, and enemies. where I want to be acting from, thinking, have it be flowing from this metta, loving kindness, karuna, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. Can that meet this world right now? Because we will need to meet it.

[36:20]

I will need to meet it. Pamela, in talking about these, she calls them the four limitless qualities. And she writes about them in the form of prayer or in the form of strong wishes, may it be so, which, you know, in our practice, in our dedication of our chanting, in many, many Dharma statements, it's may, may we, may all beings be free from suffering. So... May all beings enjoy happiness and the root of happiness. That's the first of these.

[37:23]

May all beings be free from suffering and the root of suffering are the causes and conditions of suffering, which is, you know, the primo root of suffering is self-cleaning and belief in happiness. the ignorance about our true, the true nature, our true nature. The third one, the mudita, our sympathetic joy, may we not be separated from the great happiness devoid of suffering. May we not be separated from it. And the fourth, may we dwell in the great equanimity, free from passion, aggression, and prejudice. 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.

[38:30]

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.

[38:44]

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