This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good evening. Welcome to Beginner's Mind Temple. My name is David Zimmerman, and I serve here as the head of practice, or the Tonto. And I want to dedicate tonight's talk in honor of Pride Month, and to all those who have fought bravely for truth, freedom, and equality, and particularly to all the women, the self-identified women in the room. And I'm going to begin by telling you a story. So when I was about 9 or 10 years old, I used to play superheroes with my brother, who was about 10 months older than me.

[01:11]

And this period of time was a little bit right after I came back from a number of years in a children's home and a foster home. which happened because my parents separated when I was five years old. And so my brother and I were placed into these particular homes. So coming back together, beginning to reconnect with my brother, and as young people do, playing. And sometimes play becomes a way of acting out particular experiences, trying to make sense of, express, give definition to. What my brother and I would do is, often after the Saturday morning programs, cartoons usually of some sort, sometimes after school shows as well, we would play superheroes. And my brother had this tendency to want to be kind of these, if you will...

[02:15]

damaged masculine superheroes or creatures or animals of some sort. So he would be the hawk, he'd be Godzilla, he would be some alien creature from outer space. I, on the other hand, wanted to be Wonder Woman. The feminine embodiment of everything that I thought was beautiful, loving, caring, compassionate, and honoring truth. And so while my outfit, my wonderful outfit, didn't look anything like, you know, you currently envision, I had to make do with what was available. So I would wear a bed sheet, wrap it around me, kind of toga style, because, you know, it was flowy, you know. And then I would put on a towel over my head to pretend I had long hair. And then I would get my grandmother's jewelry. and put on clip-on earrings, and she had a little tiara.

[03:18]

Anything else I could do to imagine that I was Wonder Woman in some way. And obviously, I'd look nothing like Wonder Woman in the least bits, but who cares? I was having fun. My brother would be, in our play, very interested in an intent on destroying humankind. So he would be taking our toys, you know, Lego bricks and buildings, and he'd be stomping on them, you know, and taking toy soldiers and pretending killing toy soldiers after toy soldiers, you know. Sometimes he would take matchbox cars and burn them up, you know. Anything he could do to create havoc and cause destruction on all of humanity and the planet's. And I, on the other hand, would, with as much capacity as I have, try to deflect his destructive power and energy. And I would do this in a myriad of ways, pretending I had my magic bracelets that would shoot out rays of light.

[04:22]

Or... you know, Wonder Woman has a magic lasso, I would use that, you know, and sometimes I would say a mantra as I would spin around, you know, defending, changing into this superhuman person that would be able to divert, you know, all the evil that my brother was trying to, you know, place into the world. And I sometimes wonder, you know, in hindsight, what the citizens... of this fantasy world would have thought had they known that their sole witness and protector was this, you know, young, gay, kind of fat, you know, boy, you know, dressed up as a woman, you know, a, if you will, a tar in bed sheets, you know, who transforms in order to save the world, you know, protected from destruction and put everything right again in some way. So here I was, a childhood bodhisattva in drag, struggling to save the world, struggling to save my brother, struggling to save my family, and struggling to save myself.

[05:37]

I used to want to save the world, to end war and bring peace peace to mankind. But then I glimpse the darkness that lives within their light. I learn that inside every one of them there will always be both. The choice each must make for themselves. Something no hero will ever defeat or take away. And now I know that only love can truly save the world. So I stay, I fight, and I give for the world I know can be. This is my mission now and forever.

[06:51]

Can you hear the Bodhisattva vow within those words? The steadfast intention to remain in this world of suffering and delusion, striving ceaselessly and heroically to help all beings ultimately embrace and manifest their inherent goodness and light of wisdom. Does anyone recognize where these words come from? Where? The movie, right. It's the new Wonder Woman movie. How many people have seen it? It's pretty great. If you haven't done so already, I highly encourage you to do so. Yes, it's good summer blockbuster fare. But it's also very inspirational. So if you have a chance, see it.

[07:59]

It's well done. And I've seen it twice. Might see it a third time. We'll see. So for those of you who haven't seen the movie yet, I'll give you a spoiler-free summary so you're kind of in the mix here with us. Most of the new film is a origin story, a superhero origin story. So before she was Wonder Woman, she was Diana, princess of the Amazons. which is an advanced civilization of warrior women. And Diana was not born of men. Instead, her mother, Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, shaped her out of clay and then asked the god Zeus to bring her to life, which he did. And Diana was raised on this island of Amazonian women called, if I can say it right, Themyscira,

[08:59]

And she was trained to be an unconquerable warrior, like her mother, her aunt, and the other Amazonian women around her. However, one day, an American pilot lands on the shores of their island, followed by a whole group of German soldiers who are planning to capture him in some way. And this pilot, by the name of Steve Trevor, tells Diana and the Amazonians about a mass conflict that's happening in the world, what he calls the war to end all wars. And so Diana chooses to leave her privileged life and go with Steve Trevor out into the world in order to see what she can do. Because as an Amazon, she has made this vow to defend all beings in some way. And in the process of fighting alongside man, she ends up discovering herself and her own powers and her own destiny.

[10:10]

And in the end, she helps to end the war, but not exactly in the way that she thought she was going to initially. So that's kind of the summary. I'm not going to tell you anything more, but I think most of this you can get from seeing the previews, if you've seen them. And if you listen to this summary, you can actually hear kind of the, if you will, the same great foundational story of Buddhism. Prince Siddhartha leaves a privileged life in which he was being groomed to be a warrior king by his father. And one day, he chooses to leave the palace grounds. and in the process encounters suffering. And this compels him and inspires him to begin the path of finding out liberation from suffering. And he succeeds in the end.

[11:15]

And in the process decides to take up teaching for the benefit of all humankind. And so even though these stories have similar parallels, parallel aspects, there are also quite a number of differences. So I hope you'll indulge me tonight as I kind of walk through the story of Wonder Woman and also how particular Buddhist themes resonate throughout this movie and the character. So as you can probably guess, Wonder Woman has had a very strong resonance for me, even though she's a comic book character. I don't really know why. I can't quite explain it. I might say it's because she represents for me the mother I never had in some way. It could be because she's a paragon of values that I hold, the values of love, peace, and trust.

[12:17]

It could be I really appreciate her principles. and her qualities of strength and grace and beauty and the dedication of fighting on behalf of those who are vulnerable. It could be that as a queer man, I identify or see within her my own powerful feminine qualities and can embrace them more easily in that way. It could be it's her confident sexuality that no one actually questions. And it could be that she just looks pretty amazing, saving the world, and basically what is a glorified swimsuit with high heels. Anyhow, I could say she represented and fueled for me a nascent bodhisattva aspiration, particularly in my early years. I think it's not a stretch to see Wonder Woman, understand Wonder Woman as a superhero, as an illustration of the Bodhisattva ideology and the embodiment of the Bodhisattva of compassion, Avalokiteshvara.

[13:32]

And Avalokiteshvara is known in a number of different forms. One of those forms, the feminine form, is Quan Yin. Does anyone know Quan Yin here? Okay. Abalokiteshvara is protein, if you will, fluid, sometimes male, sometimes female. And part of the, if you will, the wonderful power and craft of Abalokiteshvara is this capacity to change and transform in order to meet the particular needs of whoever comes forward and needs to be attended to in some way. This is called upaya, or skillful means. And bodhisattvas do not teach so much as they lead by example. And so Quan Yin and her various names and manifestations actually helps people to realize their potential through example of choosing to delay enlightenment in order to walk through the world helping everyone

[14:42]

helping others become heroes in their own lives. The word heroes comes from Greek, heros, which means demigod. And the origination of that actually means defender or protector. So it's kind of this root variation of meaning to watch over, to save, deliver, preserve, protect. And protect from what? darkness, calamity, ignorance, injustice, falseness, oppression, and all forms of human suffering. In the seminal work of Mahayana Buddhism, the Lotus Sutra, Avlaka Tishvar in the form of Kansayan is someone who is said, here's the cries of the world and says, out of his great compassionate love for all beings, acts to deliver them from suffering.

[16:00]

William Morton Marston, who dreamed up Wonder Woman in 1941, created in her a warrior who fought for the greater good of humanity through altruistic love. And Malston felt that what he called blood-curdling masculinity, his words, exhibited by men, was detrimental to society. And he believed that women fundamentally were different than men. And that women, therefore, should rule the world. Because they are women. And so... he developed this character, Wonder Woman, who took the characteristics that he saw in women of love and compassion and in the process made them heroic by giving them a superhero of their own. So that was the creation of the Wonder Woman character and myth.

[17:01]

Whether as children pretending to be superheroes or... teenagers trying to figure out who we are, or young adults taking action in the world. What we are constantly embodying and living out is our values in the form of identity. So it's helpful to understand that identities are narratives. Stories that we tell ourselves and others about who we are and who we are not. And this is something that I think is the power of the stories of superheroes. And we can see this in novels, we can see this in other movies and so on. This capacity and opportunity to live out other identities and values and capacities that we may not be able yet to embrace and hold as our own. However, oftentimes we're living out identities

[18:10]

that we're not conscious of. And because we're not conscious of them, they in some way can create harm for us or for others. And one of the most powerful forms of identity in our culture is that of gender, of male and female, man and woman. And the force that keeps this particular narrative of binary gender in place is called patriarchy. The writer, Bell Hooks, in her book, The Will to Change, defines patriarchy as political social system that insists that males are inherently dominating, superior to everything and everyone deemed weak, especially females, and endowed with the right to dominate and rule over the weak and to maintain that dominance through various forms of psychological terrorism and and violence.

[19:10]

And elsewhere she says, patriarchy has no gender. So it's not a matter of one's gender, but in other words, of one's view and use of power in relationship to others. You could say that patriarchy is a state of mind that's enacted in the world and systematized in the world. I think one of the wonderful things about the character of Wonder Woman and how she's also portrayed in the movie is that she doesn't easily fall into gender roles. And she doesn't automatically accept when gender roles and stereotypes are placed on her. And she doesn't let people stop her based upon their ideas of gender. And so in this way, she's an inspiration. to, if you will, little girls throughout the world, you know, who can grow up to be, who can believe and gain the idea that they can grow up to be free of the distorting influence of misogyny.

[20:21]

And this type of world, free of misogyny and patriarchy, is also one that frees men and boys alike. So that I know as a gay man the ways in which because of my sexual orientation, I have been oppressed, marginalized, assaulted, attacked, judged, because somehow I'm not man enough. And in that you're not man enough is a critique of women and femininity. To not be man enough is to be female and therefore not enough, period. So I kind of live and exist in these two worlds, male-identified, and at the same time identifying with feminine aspects. Myself, but also what culture placed on me in some way. So it's interesting to be kind of straddling these two worlds in some way.

[21:28]

In contrast to patriarchy, Bell Hooks describes visionary feminism visionary feminism, as a wise and loving politics, one rooted in the love of male and female being, refusing to privilege one over the other. The soul of feminist politics is the commitment to ending patriarchal domination of women and men, girls and boys. So in other words, to undo patriarchy, we must undo our participation in the and in the maintenance of gender binaries, and focus instead on establishing ways of being together that are based on love, wisdom, equanimity, and justice. What would that look like to not participate in binary genders? So back to the new Wonder Woman film.

[22:37]

So Diana leaves what's called Paradise Island with Steve Trevor, goes to London, and then heads off to the war. And as she's on her way to the war front, this woman who has been sheltered, lived a sheltered life on an island for many, many years, finally is exposed to the cruelty of war and the horrors that men bring upon themselves. And like the Buddha, once she's exposed to suffering and injustice, what arises in her is this deep, deep vow and wish to alleviate other beings from suffering. And not only to alleviate other beings from suffering, but in the process, eliminate the root of suffering itself, the root, in this case, of war itself. One of the most, I think, defining and inspiring points in the movie comes halfway through when Diana Boley enters into what is called No Man's Land at risk of life and death in order to free a village that is being held hostage by the Germans on the other side.

[23:59]

And Steve Trevor, however, actually tries to dissuade her from crossing into No Man's Land. And he tells her that this is not something you can cross. It's not possible. And Diana responds, so what? So what do we do? Nothing? And which Steve says, no, we are doing something. We just can't save everyone in this war. This is not what we came here to do. To which Diana retorts, no, but it's what I'm going to do. And I think you can see no man's land here as a powerful metaphor for the realm of dualistic perception and conceptual division. So it's both a barrier and a bardo state of sorts in which we delegate people and things who don't fit our conditioned, narrow views.

[25:05]

So it's a place of invisibility. of stagnation, of ruin and death. And it's a place where we put those who we don't regard as human or not man. Of course, this is the place where women are put by patriarchy. It's also the place where we put people who don't fit into gender normative descriptions. You know, those who are queer, transgender, transsexual, those who have sexual expressions of love that are different from our own and which we feel uncomfortable with in some way. And it's also the place where we put people of different race, social economic class, ethnicity, religion, physical and mental ability. I think you get the picture.

[26:07]

It's the place... the land of the other. And anyone who tries to cross this land to reach the other side, that is anyone who transgresses boundaries of binary black and white thinking, will be attacked with great force, as Diana is in the movie when she proceeds to enter into no man's land. But rather than do nothing in the face of insurmountable suffering and odds, a bodhisattva perseveres. Nevertheless, she persists. And so I find a certain irony in this scene in the movie that it's a woman who finally has the courage, determination, and strength to enter into so-called no-man's land. and ultimately lead the charge to the other side.

[27:10]

Not only to just save a few, but to save everyone. And in doing so, she inspires others to follow her. One of the central narrative lines in the film is also Diana's quest to find and vanquish Ares. who you might know from Greek mythology, is the god of war. And he's also, if you will, the paragon of patriarchy at its worst. So Diana has this, if you will, naive story that once she finds Ares and can destroy him, that then all of war and all this aggression that human beings are doing upon Ares themselves, and the planet will end because he's the sole cause. There's this way in which I think we can see parallels between Aries and Mara.

[28:18]

And Mara in Buddhism is, you will, kind of Satan figure of some sorts. And he's often associated with unskillful emotions and also death. And he's known for trying to prevent the Buddha on the night of his enlightenment from actually seeking liberation. And he tries to use the weapons of desire and fear and self-doubt in the process, just like Aries does in the film. And I don't think I'm giving too much away by saying that in the process, Diana realizes... that the seeds of human aggression and war and oppression already lie within us. And that it's Aries or Mara's particular skill in just cultivating the right conditions for the darkness to burst forth into flame.

[29:24]

So how is it that we are attentive to the ways in which others trigger us to be... more aggressive. As black feminist activist and writer Andre Lord reminds us, the true focus of revolutionary change is never merely the oppressive situations that we seek to escape, but that peace of the oppressor planted deep within each of us. I'll read that again. The true focus of revolutionary change is is never merely the oppressive situations that we seek to escape, but that peace of the oppressor planted deep within each of us. So each of us has the dark capacity to be Aries, to be a jealous god, or what's it called Buddhism, an Asura, who is always at war, at war with the world,

[30:33]

at war with others, at war with everything we don't understand or accept, and particularly at war with ourselves. So Aries and Mara are, if you will, manifestations of the mind of separation, the mind of division, tempting us to not even bother seeking peace or liberation. how is it that we can not be tempted by these antithesis of the bodhisattva vow, these antiheroes, if you will, and allow ourselves to actually be ignited, you know, to change our hearts and minds for the benefit of all beings. Diana in her, Wonder Woman in her, particular arsenal, if you will, of superpowers and instruments, has a number of particular things that are very helpful to her.

[31:46]

There's a magic shield, which offers protection. There's bullet-deflecting bracelets. There's a sword that she uses. This wasn't shown in the movie, but her tiara actually comes off and acts as a boomerang. But the one tool that she has that I find most interesting is her golden lasso, or golden lariat, the lasso of Hesia, it's called. And she'll use it in the traditional way to wrangle villains, you know, anyone who tries to resist. But the particular power that it has, I find most engaging is the fact that, oh, actually, before I say that, Taigandan Layton, in his book on Bodhisattva archetypes, says there's actually a manifestation of Avalokiteshvara called unfailing rope or lasso Avalokiteshvara. So there's actually, if you will, a version of one woman in the Bodhisattva archetypes, you know, who has a lasso.

[32:54]

And this lasso's particular power is that anytime it's wrapped around a person, it compels them to tell the truth. And its power is described, Steve Trevor, in the film at one point, Diana uses it around him to get him to tell the truth about something. He describes it as searing hot. And it kind of burns through, if you will, any will towards deception or lying. And you could see it in some ways as a tool that's powerful related to the fourth precept of not lying in some way. And it's also, I think, in service of, you will, the ultimate truth and relative truth in some way, cutting through and bringing forth the truth of things as it is, not deceiving ourselves about reality. In the beginning of the film, Diana lets us know that the story of Wonder Woman is not going to be a traditional tale of good and evil.

[33:59]

And she says, I used to want to save the world. But the closer you get, the more you see the great darkness within. What one does when faced with the truth is more difficult than you would think. The Buddhist first teaching was on the Four Noble Truths, which included the truth of suffering, the cause of suffering, the possibility to cease suffering, and the path out of suffering. And once we actually take up this practice of sitting down and clearly seeing who we are and facing the truth of our own identity and the ways in which we've crafted it and made a story and made it a narrative and act out of that narrative in habitual conditioned ways that bring suffering for ourselves and for others,

[35:03]

once we sit down and discover this truth, we're able to actually begin to make some kind of change. And how one reacts when faced with the truths, you're not going to really know what you're going to do until they actually hit you, until you see them. And with different truths, we're going to react in different ways. We're going to have to find for ourselves what a skillful means in this particular situation. Difficult choices are going to have to be made in the face of truth, each and every moment. It's not a one-time-you're-done thing. It's a continuous path. And so sometimes the most heroic choice and action that we can do is to sit down. Sit down on our zafu, sit down on our chair, and embody the superhuman courage and will to clearly see and embrace who we are beyond our personal narratives and stories.

[36:15]

And what compels us ultimately in this endeavor is love. It's a love born out of embodied awareness and the experience of our interconnectedness. And this is the Bodhisattva's ultimate superpower. And in time and with persistence, we discover that we are already the superheroes we always yearned to be. So I'll close with another line from the movie, spoken by Wonder Woman. It's not a matter of what we deserve. It's about what you believe. And I believe in love. Only love will truly save the world. And this kind of echoes what Fresh White had spoken about on Saturday. Can we discover self-love for ourselves and from that grounding of self-love and the sense of connectedness meet others from that same place?

[37:29]

So that's all I have to say tonight. Thank you for bearing with me. I think we have just a little bit of time. Are there any reflections, questions? Anything that you saw, particularly if you saw the movie, or anything that this evokes for you in your own practice? Why is that? Mm-hmm. Stuck in our views, stuck in our habits.

[38:49]

Yeah. Confused, not able to see what's going on. Yeah. Yeah, I appreciate it. It was based in World War I, very much a time of confusion. Thank you. Miguel. that you know this idea that i think many of us have that we're not worthy in some way we're not worthy of salvation we're not worthy of protection and so on some deep part of us believes that story that narrative you know that we don't deserve in some way liberation you know and that is i think the deluded mind you know the mind that wants to keep the idea of a narrow

[40:13]

in place because it's familiar. And to open up to we're all worthy of being saved and open up to the fact that we're in the process of practicing together saving each other if you will. Saving ourselves and saving each other through this deeply held faith that we all equally deserve salvation. to be seen, to be loved, to be embraced for who we are. How do we live from that place? How do we engage in the world in that place? How do we maintain, if you will, a constant connection to that faith? And that, I think, is what we're constantly cultivating in practice, to see this one as worthy, to see this one as good enough. And in seeing this one, see this one mirrored in everyone else, and that each of us deserves to be met equally as a manifestation of love itself.

[41:25]

How do we, if you will, defend that vision? Any other questions, sharings? Yes. I appreciate your sharing about your daughter. And it's amazing how children teach us to hear the cries of the world. They have deep listening already. in many ways, that if we really watch and observe and mirror them, we would be such better adults in some way. Thank you, everyone.

[42:30]

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