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, and welcome to San Francisco Zen Center. My name is Kyoshin Wendy Lewis, and the month of March... was designated National Women's History Month. And of course, there is no National Men's History Month. So I thought I would consider some of the implications of that and how it might pertain to our Zen practice. And interestingly enough, the theme of the practice period is to study the Buddha way is to study the self. And this is a phrase from Dogen's Genjo Koan, which is his commentary on the Mahayana Buddhist text, the Heart Sutra.

[01:06]

And that's a list of basic Buddhist teachings, Mahayana Buddhist teachings. So you can consider Genjo Koan, where he doesn't really mention any Buddhist teachings, to be the experiential aspect of the Heart Sutra. And so he says things like, the boat going along the shore, flowers fade, weeds grow. You're in the midst of an ocean with no land in sight. It's all very experiential. Firewood becomes ash and does not become firewood again. But it's, you know, how do you live? How do you see the world and examine it after you've studied the Heart Sutra and applied all its teachings? What then? In a certain way. So this is conveyed partly when that phrase, to study the Buddha way is to study the self, is followed by. To study the self is to forget the self.

[02:09]

To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind, as well as the bodies and minds of others, drop away. No trace of realization remains, and this no trace continues endlessly. So what is it for our body and mind and the bodies and minds of others to drop away? How do you live that or experience it even? So, you know, each person's life basically is centered on this idea of a self that's defined and confined by aspects based in one's body and mind. And, you know, in a sense, there is nowhere else to go. All these things we've inherited that are our bodies and minds are what we have. So spiritual traditions, including recovery, which I often refer to because I so much appreciate its methods and its results, I guess you could say.

[03:22]

But spiritual traditions, including recovery, often have an aspect of self-understanding that's central to an or conversion process. So this sort of self-understanding, the study of the self, proceeds through ethics, reflection, contemplation, and the application of atonement, forgiveness, and service. And as one goes through that process, it becomes pretty clear that this core self or view of a self that we assume to be real and permanent and true to reality is completely interdependent and subject to both positive and negative and conscious and unconscious transformation. So whatever exact weird phase of human history or wonderful human history we happen to be in at the moment, the norm is somehow the basic white man.

[04:38]

This is somehow how we've ended. Now, other definitions of reality and experiences of reality often refer to this norm, which is why I call it that. And I think... Monotheism might have something to do with this, where the deity is male-gendered, and that extends to Buddhism, with the central figure being male-gendered and in many interpretations deified. So then Western interpretations and adaptations and appropriations of Buddhism can follow the power structures and familiar... systems that are in place, including spiritual authority, that are kind of centered on a white male gendered leader values system. And I'm not denigrating anyone. I'm just, you know, how did we get here?

[05:40]

What is it about? I think a sort of historical critical perspective can be very illuminating to oneself, to one's perception of others. what I'm actually going to talk about in this talk. And historically, women have often been deeply involved and supported in the development of spiritual movements. And eventually they somehow seem to be shunted aside into a side kind of role. And... That happens particularly as the institution becomes more established and has financial support and all that kind of thing. And there's this wonderful image from early Christianity of the soldier policemen in a city in North Africa who hear about this illegal meeting of Christians. And they go to raid the meeting and the people

[06:46]

The people there have been alerted, and they've all run away. But they've left their shoes, because in that tradition, you leave your shoes. And when this person who was writing about this said that by the types of shoes that were left, they could tell that almost everyone there was a woman. And these little sort of vignettes from history, what do they tell us? It was a... a lot of the women who supported early Christianity were widows who had money and homes where people could meet and that sort of thing. And where did that go? I mean, it's not something you generally hear about. So, in a way, women's history is a kind of history of gender definitions. So, over... You know, questioning these definitions has brought men and women fame, gratitude, ridicule, discrimination, heroism, death.

[07:52]

And interspersed and woven through this is the human condition and the repetitiousness of human behavior. It's like we get into this habit and it just keeps going. And we question it and then... comes back, something like that, including this kind of love and madness among us and between us. And I think unraveling that, you know, it's kind of fraught of, you know, where do you begin? Where do you find a place to stand and view it, observe it? So one of the difficulties from a female gendered perspective is that Addressing or questioning issues involved in the setup or the status quo means speaking as a complaint. You can say as a victim or the other. And this is fraught.

[08:54]

And that automatically makes power to the norm, whatever that happens to be held by. And power itself is... rarely, you know, limited by the structures and the laws and the policies of institutions because whoever is in power can set those aside whenever they feel like it. So again, you know, and that is not gendered, that anyone who has power can do that. So in thinking about gender, There's a science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin called The Left Hand of Darkness. And I've read it probably about 10 times. But in it, she creates and examines a version of a non-gendered humanoid culture.

[09:56]

And the humanoids on this planet are non-gendered, except during a period called Kemmer, when they take on either, male or female characteristics as we understand them. And then it's possible for them to have sex and procreate. So the Terran Earthling, whatever you want to call him, the Terran envoy to the planet Gethen or Winter is Genli Ai. And he's initially hosted and supported by the politician Estraven. So Le Guin's parents were anthropologists, and perhaps that kind of influenced the tone of the book. She creates this culture, and then she describes it, and she describes the social, then the political, the cultural, the gender aspects of Gethin Winter in a very detailed and intriguing way. So you really can ask yourself, too, how you see these things.

[11:01]

So eventually, Genli Ai ends up in this very remote prison, and S. Draven rescues him at great risk. And they end up traveling across this ice sheet for 50 days in order to get back to Karhide, which is where Genli Ai originally landed, and where his mission is much more supported. partly due to S. Draven's efforts. I hope that isn't too annoying. It's not bothering me, but I can hear it. Well, as they travel across the ice, after each day of travel or during stormy weather when they can't travel, they talk. And so they're really getting to know each other. One evening, after they had spent all day struggling and backtracking, and were tired but elated, sure that a course would soon open.

[12:09]

S. Draven grew taciturn and cut my talk off short. I said at last, after a direct rebuff, I've said something wrong again. Please tell me what it is. We were both silent for a while, and then he looked at me. with a direct, gentle gaze. And I saw then again, and for good, what I had always been afraid to see, and had pretended not to see in him, that he was a woman as well as a man. Any need to explain the sources of that fear vanished with the fear, and what I was left with was, at last, acceptance of him as he was. Until then, I had rejected him, refused him his own reality. He had been quite right to say that he, the only person on Gethen who trusted me, was the only Gethenian I distrusted.

[13:11]

For he was the only one who had entirely accepted me as a human being, who had liked me personally and given me entire personal loyalty, and who therefore had demanded of me an equal degree of recognition of acceptance. I had not been willing to give it. I had been afraid to give it. I had not wanted to give my trust, my friendship to a man who was a woman, a woman who was a man. He explained stiffly and simply that he was in Kemmer and had been trying to avoid me. I must not touch you, he said, and I said, I understand. I agree completely. For it seemed to me, and I think to him, That it was from that sexual tension between us admitted now and understood that the great and sudden assurance of friendship between us arose, already so well proved in the days of nights of our bitter journey that it might as well be called now as later love.

[14:17]

We were both rather stiff and cautious with each other for the next couple of days. A profound love between two people involves, after all, the power and chance of doing profound hurt. So when I think of this love and madness that I call it, of the human condition, how we kind of veer back and forth between times of relative peace and inclusion and coexistence, and then times of murder and destruction and many other things, It seems to me that the love, the type of love that mitigates the madness, it's not so much about being respectful and kind, or sometimes we call it compassionate, as it is about the unbearability of hatred and distrust. And this is my understanding of the use of the concept of love from a social justice perspective.

[15:24]

You know, it's perfectly reasonable and justifiable for those, you know, who are exploited and oppressed, abused and ignored and murdered by those in power or in the norms of power to feel hatred, distrust, fear, resentment. And sometimes when there's no real satisfaction in that, it sort of deflects itself onto others. who are in that same category. It's so amazing, confusing. And yet, paradoxically, that all destroys from the inside. And it becomes another way of empowering oppressors and power holders. All these paradoxes. So, you know, is there a way to accept from others and to express and offer love based, in that unbearability of hatred and distress.

[16:27]

And I don't think it requires passivity or demeaning oneself or being sort of extra aggressive or any of those sort of things. And I think that even when nonviolence is intended, there has to be some acceptance that there will still be some level of what might be called violence. Because in facing, questioning, trying to connect with those who are holding the norm or the power structure, there's often a lot of defensiveness or boredom. lack of interest. And so that is a form of violence. And so it's kind of tricky.

[17:32]

So historically, I thought maybe I would just look at a few particular women, some of whom are in our lineage. Zen Center created a women's lineage. We've been chanting the male lineage for years. Long, long time. And then some of the women got together and created this women's lineage. And one of the women mentioned is Mo Shan Liao Ran, who lived in 9th century China. And she was the only woman whose biography was included, along with 950 men, in a compilation of biographies of Chan teachers that was completed in 1004. And in her exchange with the monk Jiaxin, he asked her why she didn't change her female body into a male one, and she responded, I am not a deity or a ghost.

[18:37]

Why should I change? Miao Dao, in 12th century China, was abbess of a nunnery, and she was one of two women who were recognized in a later lineage of Chan teachers called, it was put together in 1183, called the Outline of the Linked Flames. And she was the first person to experience awakening in teacher Dahui's use of koans. And she became his first Dharma heir, a teacher, and an example that made acceptance of women teachers in the Chan lineage more widespread, which it was for a while. And now we've forgotten them again. Her awakening was based on, it is not mine, it is not the Buddha, it is not a thing. And then, from other tradition, Christine de Pizan, in 14th and 15th century France, is the first woman who is known to have made her living through writing.

[19:44]

And she actually may have run a scriptorium, which is where she might have gotten a lot of her learning, copying manuscripts. She carried out a very long and public argument along with her friend, the theologian Jean Gerson, with the author of The Romance of the Rose, arguing that it was misogynistic. And finally she said, I will write nothing further on this subject. for I have not undertaken to drink the entire Sen River. What I have written is written. I will not be silent because I doubt my opinions, but I prefer to devote myself to other matters that please me more. Rionan in 19th century Japan wanted to become a nun, but was required by her family to first marry and have three children. So she did so, and she was still quite young. And she was at first, so she had her permission, so she was at first rejected by all the Zen teachers.

[20:52]

She approached because they considered her to be too beautiful, and they were afraid it was caused trouble with the monks. So she burned her face with a hot iron and was then accepted as a nun. And her death poem is my favorite. Sixty-six times have these eyes beheld the changing scene of autumn. I have said enough about moonlight. Ask no more. Only listen to the voice of pines and cedars when no wind stirs. Zora Neale Hurston, from the end of the 19th to the mid-20th centuries, grew up in one of the first all-black self-government towns, Eatonville, Florida. And she attended black schools and colleges. And she was the only black woman student at Barnard College when she attended and earned her bachelor's degree there.

[21:53]

And she was a postgraduate student of anthropology at Columbia University. And her resistance to being categorized or limited was offers a view of reality, if you've ever read her work, that places her as an anthropologist and writer of literature as one of the central figures of women's history and of Black American cultural history. Virginia Woolf, in the end of the 19th to almost mid-20th century England, wrote fiction and essays, often feminist essays, from a feminist perspective, and she considered an alternate gender of androgyny and examined the definition of art and literature along with the Bloomsbury group, including her sister, who was an artist, based on and focused on what they thought of as the white male view.

[22:55]

So these women, a handful, they seem, you know, regarding their social and cultural circumstances to echo Christine de Pizan when she says, I will not be silent because I doubt my opinions, but I prefer to devote myself to other matters that please me more. And Rionan, I have said enough about Moonlight, ask no more. And I think to find themselves there, they did. and said things and tested their world for what it could hear and how it would respond. So a path of and towards a kind of peace and freedom with reality as it is and to experiencing, you know, when actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away.

[24:02]

requires renunciation and forgiveness. And I don't think there's any need to let fear insult our own intelligence or that of others. Again, the eye says any need to explain the sources of that fear vanished with the fear. And I think our view of anger is similar because anger is a part of things. In a review of a book, I found this very helpful, a book on the necessity of anger to the anti-racist struggle, the reviewer, Lady Hubbard, comments, Many of the negative outcomes associated with anger are, in fact, the results of its denial. Anger always has something to tell us. And sometimes, whether we like it or not, what it is telling us is the truth. So that comes from all different perspectives, too.

[25:06]

It's not like someone's holding it. It's part of our relationships and that, like at the end of the quote from Left Hand of Darkness, you know, our potential to hurt each other is also our potential to love each other. So, you know, negotiating that. So I often think of, you know, How do we look at things, particularly topical things, things that are facing us in our lives? And I have this image of holding this jewel, and I just keep turning it and trying to see everything from all the different facets and perspectives that anything offers. The teaching, who is it addressed to, all that. And so I think... You know, it's possible and necessary and wonderful in a certain way to both celebrate and grieve within our circumstances.

[26:13]

Examining the self in the way Dogen instructs, it's not so much about finding a place of safety in how we would prefer the world to be. You know, we're... We are the norm in a certain way, and what we prefer is how things should be. You all know this. But I think, you know, as we turn that jewel to all the different facets, each one reminds us that we can see and understand only what our eye of practice can reach. So in a way, we turn it and turn it and turn it and those things come together and they come apart and come together and come apart just as far as our eye of practice can reach. So fear and anger and the attitudes to which they're attached and to which they respond have the potential to kind of alchemically transform into a love,

[27:20]

and shared compassion that understands the unbearability of hatred and distrust. And this doesn't work as a formula. It doesn't work in self-congratulation or denial or anything, but in some sort of evidence from the distinctions in the mind and body regarding self and others. So as national Women's History Month comes to an end. Is there anything of what that is addressing, that we have this special month that can be taken with us into the upcoming Sashin, which starts this evening, which is based on Dogen's teaching on studying the self, and into the unfolding, you know... of our lives in these months and days and years that are to come. And which facets of this jewel of reality have meaning for you or for us at this moment.

[28:28]

So 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.

[28:58]

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