This podcast is offered by San Francisco's Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning and hello to all of you. Welcome to San Francisco's Zen Center. Introducing myself, my name is Jordan Thorne. I'm a staff member here. I'm a priest at the Zen Center. Excuse me. And today it's my privilege and my challenge to speak to you. I hope I can say something helpful. I have a kind of love-hate relationship with Dharma Talks.

[01:02]

I love them when they're finished. And I hate them when I prepare them. So I'm kind of in the middle zone here. Let's see. Yeah. You know, I... mean it when I say it's a challenge, an opportunity and a challenge to offer a talk like this because I ask myself, you know, what do I have to say that's actually useful to other people because, anyway, I don't want to be presumptuous or pompous or, anyway, whenever I give a Dharma talk, the last thing I want to say is something kind of casual or misleading. It's always possible to say misleading things. But I try to reflect ahead of time and I prepare my talks, always.

[02:06]

Actually, I write them out ahead of time. Whenever possible. Whenever possible, I write them out ahead of time. And then after I write them out, I read them over. It's the curse of word processing software. You can so easily change it, make it better, and then sometimes you think, well, boy, this has gotten worse. What's that earlier version? I go back and forth on this, and generally this works for me. But what it means is I start early. When I know I'm going to give it to you, the week before, I get it in my head and I start thinking about it. Sometimes things intrude. I think I have a Dharma talk figured out, and then something happens. And I realize that that's not what I want to say.

[03:10]

I have to say something about what just happened. And something happened in this past week, which is the Senate report on intelligence was released, sometimes called the torture report. And I thought, well, I've gotta throw away what I imagined I would say and see if I can say something about that. What I was gonna talk about, just so you know what you're missing, and maybe I'll put a little bit of it in here, I was gonna talk about loving kindness, meditation, and a training that I'd gone through recently about how to have difficult conversations. I was gonna try to put those two together. But then on Tuesday, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a study of the CIA's detention and interrogation program.

[04:15]

And I realized that's what I want to talk about, really. You know, I don't have a watch. at least with me. Does someone have a wife's ticket borrow, that loan me? I can sit up here. Thank you. It would be helpful then to keep track. Thank you. This report was released Tuesday, but let me back up a bit. Let me go all the way back to 2001 when Osama bin Laden and his friends accomplished an attack that killed thousands of people.

[05:32]

Because on that first Saturday after that 9-11 talk, I was scheduled to give the Dharma talk here. And just like this week, I had something else figured out to talk, and just like this week, I realized, now I gotta talk about that. And then, strange, small world, whatever it is, whatever karma this means, About three years ago, when Osama bin Laden was killed, I also was giving the talk that week. And that was a very complicated thing for me when he got killed. So I thought I had to talk about that as well. And then I realized that this Senate report, I wouldn't call it a bookend because this story is not ending, but these are points. When 9-11 started, when Osama bin Laden was killed, when Osama

[06:35]

The nation heard about some of the things that we've done, quote, in defense of ourselves just this week. Somewhere there's a weave for me. So I've set myself the task. I'm going to talk about 9-11, Osama bin Laden, interrogation techniques, and I hope in the midst of it I can weave in some Dharma, some Buddhism. Buddhism, Buddhism, Buddhism. Something that I most appreciate about the Dharma, about Buddhism, is my faith, my confidence that this practice can teach us to face the insults and sufferings of our world with equanimous eyes, without righteousness.

[07:45]

without falling into some fixed views of enemy and friends. I have that faith, that this is kind of the core of the Dharma. Simply having the aspiration to equanimity is not the same thing as finding it, though. And I have to say, back in 9-11, that messed with my mind. That was a dramatic, dramatic, traumatic time. It was kind of a watershed event. Maybe if we live our lives fully every moment, every instant is a watershed instant, but anyway, I think that was, especially obviously so. You know, the world is always changing. That was a moment when the world changed. But what was the first teaching the Buddha gave us?

[08:56]

He taught us about dukkha, taught about the truth of change, and he also talked about how we experience that as suffering, or maybe suffering is extra, but we certainly have reactions to things changing. Back then, when this all kind of like got set in motion, the 9-11 time, one thing I remember was on the cable news networks how they were all showing an endless loop of the World Trade Center towers collapsing. And then in front of that they had newscasters who would, you know, reading the news or press conferences happening, you know, there would be in boxes in front of that. And this catastrophic event of thousands of people dying in this collapsing building was screened back, like a 15, 10% filter, so that it was behind this, but it wasn't obtrusive. And I thought to myself, has there been ever a time when art directors strategized how to aesthetically present deaths of thousands of people in a program that then has commercials, you know, intermittent, interspersed?

[10:14]

And asking myself this question, I thought, well, yeah, this sort of thing is done before. Maybe not the TV commercials mixed in. But this presentation of catastrophe in a way to promote our indignation and upset is something called propaganda. It's the news. It's also propaganda. And I felt back then that what I was watching was a kind of preparation. As the violence was reported, I felt that I was experiencing a preparation for more violence. And it followed, violence followed. Two Gulf Wars, the Afghan invasion, Guantanamo, prisoners of war, drone attacks on isolated caravans, drone attacks on wedding parties with suspicious, bearded individuals in attendance.

[11:31]

All of it televised. Some of it televised. The violence continued. I actually started, I feel like I learned a new vocabulary. Improvised explosive devices, IED. And these IEDs were sending soldiers back without their limbs. Enhanced interrogation techniques, sanitarily described as EIT. I read that word. I understood even what the abbreviations meant. I didn't actually know what it meant. This week was a time I could have perhaps, if I'd been of an acquiring mind, maybe had a better sense than what that meant. But this week, it was just... It was really stunning in some way for me to read the Senate report, which I didn't read entirely, but I spent time with it. I think in the world, the history of the world,

[12:47]

Fighting and wars and armies is kind of like, well, the common denominator. There's been a lot of it. And in the United States, we have a holiday we call Memorial Day. Memorial Day is a memorial to American soldiers who have passed away. And I remember a couple years ago, actually some years ago, it was a while ago, Zensene takes that as a holiday. There was an announcement on the front door, a little poster, police paper put up, saying that Zensene would be closed for the Memorial Day holiday. And it was illustrated with an image of the U.S. flag waving in the wind. And I saw that and I just felt something unfortunate.

[13:52]

I'm grateful to have been born in the United States. I'm the sort of fool that if I could pick where I'd live in the world, I'd pick to live here. Tuscany's getting a little crowded. And I think the United States has enormous and has been something meaningful, not just to the U.S., but to the world. Sometimes. But also, I think that the San Francisco Zen Center is a place outside of the United States. I know that the health department doesn't agree with this, and the department of... urban planning or whatever, or in the city, but there is a sense I have that this temple is a safe sanctuary outside. And there's a long history of this in our culture, and I think most cultures, of churches being a sanctuary.

[15:06]

I wasn't alive back then, but I read... that up until the 17th century in England, if you had committed a crime but managed to make your way to a church, you couldn't be arrested while you were there. You had to leave. The law didn't cross God's boundary or whatever. Kind of the right of asylum. So that flag on the front door troubled me and I asked the office if they could change it. Well, it turns out that in Microsoft Word there's a little app or something where you can make birthday cards and Christmas cards

[16:13]

Memorial Day, and the flag was just like the thing that was mostly evident in that application. You type Memorial Day, you get that. But if you type Memorial Day and look down a little further, you get an image that shows gravestones. And I said, yeah, that's it. That's what we put on our front door. Gravestones. Because... Not to be pompous about it, but the matter of life and death is the matter of our practice. And I felt completely comfortable about announcing Memorial Day with images of graves. Putting a tombstone on the front door of Zen Center somehow made perfect sense to me. And why? Well, because I think the focus of a place like a Zen Center is to help the living be ready for everything that comes up in life, and that includes our death.

[17:22]

And we could usefully be reminded of that. That moment will, for all of us, be like, well, a special moment. So I just said, the focus of a Zen center is to help the living, find a way to be ready for the mystery of our death or something. I said, you know, you might think that I'm kind of like a sensitive soul, a nice guy, you know, just coming forth with words like that. Well, maybe, maybe, maybe not. I want to tell you something. When I heard, three years ago or so, when it happened, on the news, the news that Osama bin Laden had been killed, I was thrilled. A kind of like, I felt a sense of, yeah, at last. I have to acknowledge this.

[18:28]

I want to share, I want to say this is kind of the front edge of the koan of my practice, my life, to recognize that I said that to myself. The thought was so simple, it was actually so direct, but what wasn't simple at all was that feeling it didn't make me feel good. It didn't make me feel good. So I think, you know, I actually reflected a lot of that. I thought personally, kind of privately, I thought, You know, I'm not going to be able to change the world. These things are going to happen, but maybe I can change my reaction. Maybe I can change something about me. And I hope, I believe, in fact, that yes, things have changed. That story about that saying, oh, you know, the glee and happiness of Bin Laden's death...

[19:34]

I don't think I would feel comfortable or brave enough to tell you that if it, in fact, was where I stood now. Maybe I would, who knows. But my feelings have ripened. Maybe it's some regret, it's some wisdom, maybe some foolishness, but my feelings have changed. There's a teaching in Buddhism about loving-kindness. These are the four practices known as the Brahma Vaharas, four noble abods, and they are loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. And I believe that they are transformative. practices to bring into your heart.

[20:37]

So I tried to bring that into my heart and include that in my awareness of the whole mess in the Middle East and my reactions to it. That's one thing that helped me change. Another thing that helped me change It was at that time, and at other times, but this is something that happens. I saw ecstatic, kind of happy people in public places. When Osama bin Laden was killed, people were gathering in central squares and waving flags and saying, USA, USA, USA. And I love the USA, but I don't like that. It's just me. I just don't, just couldn't. Are we really innocent? I mean, why don't we say, God bless America, why don't we say God bless Brazil or Indonesia?

[21:45]

Why would we think that God blesses America and kind of like doesn't have blessings everywhere, including Iraq, Iran, and Palestine? Around this time, back then, after the Osama bin Laden murder, capture, whatever, I heard a commentator on TV, he was some eminence, a gray-suited eminence, and he said, this is not a time for partisan politics. We don't need to argue whether Bush's policies or Obama's practicality resulted in this victory. This is a time for patriotism. And I thought, is there anything more partisan than patriotism? Did he hear what he just said?

[22:48]

It's not a time for partisanism. It's a time for patriotism. And that... You know, to a very large extent, the story of history is reserved for those who prevail. There are always alternate stories. Back in 1776, George Washington was branded by the British Army a terrorist, and he was on a death watch. If he'd been apprehended, he would have been hung. And that goes for most of the founding fathers, those people that get themselves on the $5 bills. Terrorists in the eyes of the British army. Thank God there weren't drones back then. Thank God there weren't drones because then we'd maybe be singing God Save the Queen at a baseball game.

[23:56]

Who knows? Maybe not. But... So my heart in all of this stuff from 9-11 forward has sometimes been reactive and sometimes been reflective, and it's changing. And one thing, one change happened, well, I don't know if a change, but one affirmation of the necessity of us, Things not continuing like this happened for me when I read about, when I read the Senate report on interrogation and detention policies of the Central Intelligence Administration. Ice water baths, waterboarding, which I kind of heard about, but people chained up into fixed

[25:03]

forced positions even though maybe they had broken limbs. People tortured toward their death. People tortured by mock executions. And no real intelligence data. Many cases individuals swept up just because they happened to be on the wrong corner or at the wrong moment. Their lives forever changed and may be now gone. I think, I feel ashamed. This is my personal talk, this is, the San Francisco Zen Center has a, I don't know if it has a policy on this, opinion on this, but I want to make clear that this is my opinion. and I don't speak for all of the Zen Center, but I think there's a whole group of American leaders who ought to be arrested and sent to the International Court of Justice at The Hague, and they say they didn't do anything wrong.

[26:13]

Well, then I'm sure they'll be found innocent if there's a full investigation. They should have nothing to worry about if that's so. But I think they crossed the boundary of what this world expects a civilized nation to do. Nobody will be able to see this. I'll just hold it up and I'll tell you what it says. From the Miami Herald, but I didn't see it there. I saw it on our website. Dick Cheney, you know that because it's his face, but also he's got a little button. Cheney, red, white, and blue. He's holding in one hand torture report, and the little text of dialogue says, at times, torture is necessary to protect the interests of our country. And then next to it, there's a drawing, almost a caricature of an Islamic jihadist.

[27:19]

And his button says, easel. And he says, we're with you, brother. You know, in China, they restrict the internet. Lots of keywords you put in. You don't get anything back. They are featuring this report. Front page of all the websites. This is what America is. And in Russia, the same thing. Russia does not have a free internet. But all of the Russian news stories are leading with this. And not just there, not just those two places. I feel ashamed, and what would make me proud to be an American is if we arrested those people. It won't happen. But again, if they didn't do wrong, No problem.

[28:21]

They've got nothing to worry about. Let's find out, though, because I think they're war criminals. Now, it's tricky, actually. I'm surprised to find myself saying these things because it's not really for me to pass judgment or to figure out the culpability of people I've never met, okay? I'm actually much more comfortable with forgiveness than with judgment. I think, you know, forgiveness, yeah, that's the way to go. But this world, this country at this time is fractured somehow. Leaving alone, I'm talking about one particular aspect of it, but you know, leaving aside, The violence, the police violence against black men that suddenly is...

[29:25]

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