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. As I was preparing for the talk this morning, it kept going all over the place. It was a very unruly topic. And as I was contemplating this, I thought part of the reason is that this is a question that I'm very actively involved with on a day-to-day basis, that I'm debating with myself and with other people. And so it keeps having its own branches and streams and questions that keep arising. So I thought I would explore it. a bit together with you today.

[01:00]

So you may have noticed in the world in general this word mindfulness keeps popping up. Have you noticed that? Mindfulness in a lot of different places and there's even a new magazine called Mindful which is put together actually by the people at Shambhala who also produce Buddha Dharma and Shambhala Sun. And so they do Buddhist offerings of dharma and practice, but they're also now offering this, whatever it means, non-Buddhist offering of this practice of mindfulness. And this is a question or a practice that I'm involved in quite a bit because I teach here, but I also go out into the world and teach... all kinds of places, corporations and schools and different organizations. And part of what I teach is mindfulness.

[02:05]

And it's an active question for me, what does that mean to bring these practices that are based in Buddhist practice, largely based in Buddhist practice, to bring these out into the wider world? And what are the possibilities of that? But then also... Are there any dangers? Are there any dangers to it? I have a suspicion. This may be too glib, but that Buddhism is busting out of Buddhism. That we can't hold on to it. Someone who practiced quite a bit in the Vipassana tradition, where there's a lot of focus on mindfulness, etc., was practicing here for a while and she had the question, she said, does Zen do mindfulness? Does Zen do mindfulness? And in a way you could say yes, in a way you could say no.

[03:09]

My thought is yes, in that it is integrated into everything that we do. So we may not talk about it in the same way. And as you may know, the practice of mindfulness and the four foundations of mindfulness are very fundamental in Buddhist teaching. But even as we stop and we bow to our cushion and sit down, or as we are sweeping, or as we are working in the kitchen, or we are bowing to each other on the path, all of these things are mindfulness. All of these things are mindful presence and awareness. There's a quote by William James. Do you know who William James was? Yeah, so lived in the 19th century, considered the founder of modern psychology.

[04:13]

And he had a quote. He says, and the faculty of voluntarily bringing back attention over and over again is the very root of judgment, character, and will. No one is compo sui, master of him or herself, if he have it not. An education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence. So he's writing this. He's not Buddhist, but he's writing this in the 19th century. And then there's a second part of the quote, which often does not get quoted, but I love. And he says, but it is easier to define this ideal than to give practical directions for bringing it about. So he had a sense of this is kind of important. that we'd be able to pay attention, that we'd be able to be present, that this is a very important, fundamental human capacity. He recognized this.

[05:13]

But he didn't know how to help people establish this. He didn't know how to teach it. Part of what I see happening now, or one story one could tell about this, is there was this insight, which as you start looking throughout Western and other traditions, you see it all over the place. So we had this insight, and now, in a way, we have an offering of practices to how do we actually develop this. So it's this wonderful meeting of West and East. question that comes up too, though, is how does mindfulness, as we start to teach it out in the wider world, what is the danger? What can get lost? Are there deeper pieces of Buddhist teaching that maybe aren't being addressed?

[06:16]

It's a question for me too. Why are we here? Why are we here in this Zen temple right now versus in some corporate meeting room or a yoga studio or somewhere else. What does it have to do about being in this space? What are the traditions and teachings and deeper legacy that we're connecting with by being here? And are there pieces of that that also need to be brought out as we think about how do we work with this wider awareness in the world? I'll give you a couple of definitions. This is from a sutra for the Buddha. It says, And what is right mindfulness? There is the case where the monk remains focused on the body in and of itself, ardent, alert, and mindful, putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. He remains focused on feelings in and of themselves, the mind in and of itself, mental qualities in and of themselves,

[07:23]

ardent, alert, and mindful, putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. This is called right mindfulness. Okay, well and good. And this is where the talk starts to get unruly. I was looking up, I found this, and this is from Muhonoki, if I say it right, who is the abbot, he's German-born, but the abbot of Antaiji, a temple in Japan. And he says... If you are mindful, you are already creating a separation. I am mindful of. Don't be mindful, please. When you walk, just walk. Let the walk walk. Let the talk talk. Let the eating eat, the sitting sit, the work work. Let sleep sleep. But then over here... it says, about mindfulness. This is the direct path for the purification of beings, for overcoming sorrow and lamentation, for the disappearance of pain and distress, for the attainment of right method, and for the realization of unbinding.

[08:36]

So how do we reconcile these things? Be mindful. Jon Kabat-Zinn says, pay attention in a particular way, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally. When you receive the cup of tea, Notice. What does it feel like? Can you feel the warmth? Can you bring it? Can you notice the scent, the aroma? Can you feel it on your tongue? Can you feel it going down? Pay attention. Or is it just, just accept the tea, just drink the tea? I'm going to leave this as an open question, as a kind of study. But I think there may be a way that we have to pay attention first. We have to actually say, this is my practice. I am going to pay attention when I drink the cup of tea. And maybe it's a Zen master handing you a cup of green tea. Maybe you are at home in your very own kitchen and you are boiling the water and you are pouring it into your tea cup and you've chosen the tea bag and you're picking it up.

[09:37]

Can that be your practice? Can that be your practice for the day that starts your day? And do that enough And then maybe even at lunchtime, when you pour a second cup of tea or coffee, you're already present with it. You don't even have to think maybe, I need to be mindful here. Maybe you just will be mindful. So we can build this over and over, just as we bow over and over. Someone is singing to us. There was an article in the... Huffington Post opinion piece by David Loy, who's a Buddhist scholar, and someone who, Ron Purser, also studies Buddhism and works in business. And they were concerned about this question of Buddhism going out. And the title of it was Beyond Mac Mindfulness. We don't want Mac Mindfulness. We really don't. But there's part of a response to that that I thought was very thoughtful by my friend Jeremy

[10:45]

Hunter, who teaches at the Peter Drucker School of Management down in Southern California and has quite grounded himself in Dharma's practice and for the past 10 years has been teaching mindfulness practices to executives. And he said, the executives I've had the pleasure of working with over the years include talented men and women who make sure that water comes out of the faucet, the electricity is on, and someone's grandma is cared for. There are those who manage cardiac wards, neonatal units for premature babies, quality control for major hospitals, and one who builds probes for exploring outer space. There are single mothers managing complex engineering programs on a shrinking budget, IT managers laboring to provide for three kids while trying to satisfy the tyrannical boss, stewards of family businesses shouldering the duty to maintain a treasured legacy, and first-generation immigrants who worked hard, found material success, and are wondering whether this is all there is.

[11:50]

They are also people with mortgages to pay who are caught in broken organizations seeking better tools than a bottle of alcohol. One former student, an Iraq war vet, struggling with debilitating PTSD, found himself transformed by the practice and subsequently dedicated his life to researching and disseminating methods for trauma healing to fellow veterans. A lot is happening out there, and it also echoes my experience. He says, yes, there is a mindfulness revolution going on, and it is sorely needed, and it cannot remain confined to the Buddhist corner of the room because the world desperately needs what it offers. And then also, and I think this is important to remember for us, though it possesses a vast and evolved treasury of practices, Buddhism doesn't hold the copyright on the basic human birthright to cultivate attention, compassion, and open awareness.

[12:59]

So can we imagine a world where cultivating attention, compassion, and open awareness are simply part of the curriculum, are understood as basic human skills. And like William James, who was bemoaning not having a way to do it, a practical way to do it, we actually have some ways to help cultivate this. And it's happening in schools, too. And this is not theoretical. I was thinking... You may have heard of the woman, Zen Monk, who was killed in the park in San Francisco. And Christy, she was with her child, almost one-year-old baby, and her dog simply lying in the grass in a park in San Francisco. And a city worker in a truck was driving very fast off the grass where he was not supposed to be driving. And he ran over her.

[14:03]

And she was in the middle of her life. And I knew her. She ordained in a different lineage, but she was a Zen priest. And we had many things in common. Even though we didn't know each other well, we kept feeling we needed to get together because we had so much in common, that we had both followed our hearts into Zen, and then we had also gotten married and had a child, and also had found meaningful work in the world that was based in Buddhist practice, but went beyond... certain notions of Buddhist practice. And I couldn't help but think when I heard of this, if the person driving the truck had had some of these practices, simple practices of paying attention and cultivating awareness and being present, could that have been avoided? Could that have been avoided? Another question that comes up as we talk about bringing mindfulness out more fully is do we trust the basic practice?

[15:31]

Is there something simply in sitting down, being present, noticing what's going on with our body-mind, that starts to open us in certain ways. And my feeling is yes. There was an interesting study done of people who had taken an eight-week class on mindfulness, and one thing they found was that, compared to a group who hadn't done that, that when the subject of death came up, questioned about death, then they were more open to it. They were more willing to tolerate the question of their own mortality. And they were also, apparently, when faced with death, one human response is to become more set in who you are. Say, I am this, I belong to this group, I live here, etc. And they didn't do that as much.

[16:34]

So by simply opening up to the, by simply practicing, there was less feeling of I have to defend myself. And then there was also a study which was very small, but it was, they had people who were practicing mindfulness, and some people were, the point of the study was to discover if people became more compassionate. by simply studying mindfulness. And so they had a room, and three people went in and sat down. Let's see, I'm trying to remember how it goes. Basically, if someone had come into the room with crutches, the question was, would the person who had been practicing mindfulness be more or less likely to actually get up and let the person sit down? And the good news is that they were. that they were. So if you've been practicing mindfulness, it seems to be that simply by practicing, we're able to open more fully to others.

[17:40]

And it could have been simply that people were paying more attention, but there's some thought that you're actually creating parts in your brain that open to empathy, that support our sense of empathetic response to others. So by sitting down, we're actually working with our brain, working with our body, and changing them. But what can be lost? I think it is important that we are here in this place and not somewhere else, that there are deeper questions and teachings that need to be cared for. I talked with a friend recently who studies in the Tibetan tradition, and she was talking with various Tibetan masters. And one said, you know, it used to be that there were plenty of qualified teachers and not so many students. And now there aren't so many teachers, but lots of students.

[18:44]

And she was saying, you may think that, oh, well, over in Asia, they're taking care of the practice over there. They're taking care of the monastic practice, the deeper teachings. And it's not so clear. It's not so clear that that's happening. And this is a very important question as Buddhism, just like everything else, has Western influence. I feel like there's something really, really positive in what's happening that we're starting to bring it out in different ways and bringing in Western psychology and bringing in the neuroscience and bringing in all of this. But who's keeping care of the deeper pieces? And we need to be savvy on this, especially... especially when it comes to the science, and the science says that this is one big, big reason that there's so much openness to this in the world, because the number of scientific studies has gone up exponentially around this question of mindfulness. And we can actually read in the brain what's happening. But as someone gave me an example, it's like... Is it Van Leeuwenhoek, the person who discovered the single cells through the microscope?

[19:47]

So he looked down, and he called them actually cavorting beasties. But it was a long time. So there was a noticing, this is a whole different world, right? There are these tiny little things we can't see. They're out there. But it was a long time before the electron microscope was developed, and we had a deeper sense. So in terms of the science, we're just starting to look a little bit, just starting to get a tiny piece. We're actually in the idea of a big gymnasium, and you walk into the room and it's dark, and there's a small light, and you see one little piece, but you know there's a bigger piece, and we don't know what all's there. So to know, to notice... And it says, the science says, we know a little piece, but we don't know so much. A friend of mine who actually had studied neuroscience and was also an MD, when he heard Thich Nhat Hanh speak, he was kind of blown away.

[20:52]

And he felt that there was so much that practice offered that the science wasn't speaking to. And so he became not so... He wanted to explore other ways. So now he's very interested in when you simply sit down and study yourself, what can you find? And this is part of the Buddha's quest too, to simply sit down and look inside. What can you find? One of the things you may find as you start to sit down more and more is opening to some basic questions about what's really going on here. The word Dharma, one root of it is the law or how things are. So as you start to sit down, you may start to notice things like, oh yeah, things are impermanent.

[21:53]

Things don't last. Or maybe my sense of self is not what I thought it was. In Buddhism, it was called three marks of existence. So one is impermanence, one is the sense of no self, and the idea of suffering. I keep coming back to this over and over. Because if you don't understand that everything is changing all the time, so you can think about your own life, Think about your life now. Think about your life when you were ten years old. What's similar between those lives? How much has changed between now and ten years old? Even this building, as solid as it looks, is it going to be here five years? Do you think so?

[22:55]

Ten years? Fifty? Five hundred? so so we have a sense of stability in the world because we need that as human beings but when we start to look closer even things that seem very very settled lasting really aren't i had a chance to go to the chicago the art institute of chicago recently lots of wonderful lots of wonderful paintings there there are you know Rembrandtson, Mary Casalson, all sorts of things. But I thought, you know, as careful as we are for preserving this amazing art, there will come a point where it's not there anymore. Again, 100 years? I hope so. 500? It's conceivable. Is it going to be there in 1,000? Are these paintings, just this canvas and paint, is it going to survive? Are they going to survive in 5,000 years?

[23:57]

Probably not. So as we start to look and realize we can't actually hold on to things, are we prepared for that? Or how do we prepare ourselves to actually look at the world that way? Or as we start to look inward, the sense of, well, who am I? Who am I? Who are you? Am I the same as I was when I was 10? How did I get here? This language that I speak, is it mine? The views that I have, are they mine? How are we connected? How are we interconnected? And it's just like how Thich Nhat Hanh very famously held up a piece of paper and said, when you see this piece of paper, do you see the clouds? Do you see the water? Do you see the trees? Do you see the earth? Do you see...

[24:59]

the person who packed it at the packing plant? Do you see the person who shipped it to the store where it was bought? Do you see what they had for breakfast this morning? Do you see who cooked it for them? Do you see where the eggs came from? Do you see, where do you stop? So as we start to look and we look at ourselves, how are we connected in this web? And when we have problems is when we don't see the world this way. And we try to hold on to things as if they were going to be permanent. Or we have a sense of myself that I really have to protect. And when we do this, we have problems. This is where we suffer. It can be easy to get glib about this too, though. I was giving a talk once at Tassajara this summer, and I was talking about emptiness and a kind of liberation that can come from understanding this sense of things aren't solid or they're connected or they're impermanent, and you can roll along with that quite nicely.

[26:17]

And someone later said, I was so enthused about your talk and I felt so great. And then he said, but later he had this feeling, but what about when you really lose someone you love? What about that pain? What about when someone is suffering? What about that? And I thought, oh, yeah. How do we cultivate this awareness, which is liberating, but also honor our human life and connection, honor our human heart? So for Christy and those that she left behind, her husband, her child, I think everyone, you feel that. You feel that. It's not enough just to say, oh, everything's impermanent. Oh, there's no self anyway. That doesn't feel right. How do we hold these two wings, instead of, in Buddhism, two wings, a wisdom and a compassion? And they hold each other together, hold each other up.

[27:21]

And we feel differently if we learn that the person driving the truck, as was the case, had lost his own 20-year-old daughter to a car accident just four months before. Does that change our sense of it? How do we even begin to see the whole picture? As Longfellow said, if we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each person's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostilities. If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each person's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostilities. Where this brings me back to is, again, this very basic question.

[28:46]

What are we to do? What are we to do? And I think this was the Buddhist question, too. Given one way it was put was given that death is certain and the time of death is uncertain, how am I to live? But also given our human connection given this human life, how are we to live? This is an important question. Is this mindfulness? How does it relate to simply being present? How do we ask these questions? But also, just as importantly, how do we support each other to ask these questions? And I think that has a lot to do with why we're here. In Buddhism, as you may know, there are three jewels. three treasures. So one is Buddha. So the historical Buddha who discovered all of this, but also the Buddha, the potential for awakening, the awakening that's already within us, each person.

[29:51]

But then there's also Dharma, the teaching, the law, how things are. And then the third one, very important, is Sangha. And this is one of the hardest things to really help cultivate as these practices go out, there's something very important in coming together and practicing together and supporting us to ask these deeper questions. So this question of, how then should I live? Also, Zen is known for going straight to the point. Now. What's happening now? Who are you now? And that means you. And you. And me. And then we jump to poetry. Dogen Zenji, who is the Japanese founder of this school in the 13th century in Japan, he writes an essay, a fascicle, called One Bright Pearl.

[31:04]

And he says, the entire universe, In ten directions is one bright pearl. My name, actually, my Dharma name is Bright Pearl. So I am a bright pearl. I am one bright pearl. And you are one bright pearl. And maybe we're the same bright pearl. This is a poem. I'm still in poetry band, by Wordsworth, William Wordsworth, a British poet, 18th century, from the prelude. And he says, magnificent the morning was, a memorable pomp, more glorious than I ever had beheld. The sea was laughing at a distance. All the solid mountains were as bright as clouds, grain tinctured, drenched in imperial light. And in the meadows and lower grounds...

[32:07]

was all the sweetness of a common dawn, dews, vapors, and the melody of birds, and laborers going forth in the fields. It sounds a lot to me like out there, what's happening. And then he says, Need I say, my dear friend, that to the brim my heart was full. I made no vows. I made no vows, but vows were then made for me. I made no vows, but vows were then made for me. Bond unknown to me was given that I should be, else sinning greatly, a dedicated spirit. A dedicated spirit. On I walked in blessedness, which even yet remains. What am I to do?

[33:09]

How am I to live this life? In a way, we can come here and take vows of different sorts. But we may find for ourselves that a kind of vow is already made for us. Have you ever had a moment like that? Where there was a sense of lining up with something deeper, something alive, something bigger, something you didn't totally understand that was utterly compelling? And can we be awake? Can we be present in those moments? And how do we respond? When I read this, I thought of a particular moment back in 1994 when I was 27 years old. And just right out there, on the outside of this building, on the other side of the Han, through the door, on the path that goes down to the dining room.

[34:20]

And I had just arrived as a new student at Green Gulch. And I had an interaction, a meeting with a teacher. And it felt like a door was opening. And the way I've always thought of it to myself was, I made a choice. I stepped through that door. I decided to turn my life 180 degrees, leave graduate school, and study Zen. And have not regretted it. As I read this now, I think, even though I did that, and I came and I made certain vows, received certain vows, maybe they were already made for me. Maybe the door was already open in that moment. And it felt like I was stepping through. But maybe it was blessedness. Maybe the gift had already been given. I just had to notice to receive it.

[35:22]

So we practice and we ask questions and we try to be present as we drink our cup of tea. Well, maybe we just drink our cup of tea. And we ask, what is beneficial? Is it beneficial to continue to come sit in this room? Is it beneficial to step out and wade in this kind of complicated question of what is practice? Is it Buddhism? Is it Dharma? Who's it for? Is it useful? I was thinking of Christy again, and she had written that she felt it was not just enough to have an idea of saving all beings. That can be just like, it can be rather theoretical, just like the idea of emptiness or impermanence can get rather glib of save all beings, benefit of all beings. And she stepped out and was quite active in her life, teaching and teaching. coaching and continuing her Zen practice.

[36:40]

But she said she felt it was her responsibility to try to do as much as possible to make this world a kinder, gentler place for our sons and daughters to live in. Do we feel like that's our responsibility? And how might one go about it? Maybe sitting down is a good place to start? One bright pearl. I'll end with a poem by Anne Sexton called Welcome Morning. There is joy in all. In the hair I brush every morning. In the cannon towel newly washed that I rub my body with each morning. In the chapel of eggs I cook each morning. In the outcry from the kettle that heats my coffee each morning. in the spoon and the chair that cry, hello there, Anne, each morning, in the Godhead of the table that I set my silver plate cup upon each morning.

[37:49]

All this is God right here in my pea-green house each morning. And I mean, though often forget, to give thanks, to faint down by the kitchen table in a prayer of rejoicing, as the holy birds at the kitchen window peck into their marriage of seeds. So while I think of it, let me paint a thank you on my palm for this God, this laughter of the morning, lest it go unspoken. The joy that isn't shared, I've heard, dies young. In a way, isn't that Isn't that why we're here too? And to share in this joy, this present awareness on this bright pearl morning. Thank you.

[38:53]

Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

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