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. It's wonderful to be here. See some familiar faces and many new faces. And so I want to thank the Diversity Committee and Leigh Lipp and Romy Senderos for inviting me here and for your hospitality. The theme of my talk, as Tova said, would be the other myself.

[01:13]

And I thought of this topic based on the invitation from the diversity committee. And a sub-theme would be not one, not two. To say we're all one may raise important... cultural differences that we may have, and on the other hand, despite the differences, or by recognizing our differences, then we may in fact make all things one. So this is the mother temple of our school. and the place where Suzuki Roshi practiced. And all of our ancestors continued to live in the temples where they practiced.

[02:17]

And so I can really feel Suzuki Roshi's presence here. And his spirit continues to inhabit this temple and where the Buddha Dharma continues to be practiced. So there are suns and lights that shine in the temples of our mind. It is not that our personal mind is like a temple, but that a temple is like our big mind, and our ancestors live in it. So a temple is built or inhabited out of our big mind, or what we in Buddhism call the Alaya Vishnana consciousness. And this consciousness is the one that we share with all beings, and particularly with those in our lineage. And our lineage is very long and wide and includes people across different cultures and languages. I'm reminded of this by the Greek-style Buddha you have here in this wonderful hall.

[03:35]

there's a kind of openness to the semblance, to the original face, which I think is inviting. Everybody can recognize themselves in that face, no matter how different you may be. So it's a very wide space that is all inclusive. I could say that today, I am sitting on my father's shoulders and I'm also sitting on the shoulders of Sojin Roshi. And I'm invited here because of both of them. At the same time, I speak for myself and I speak in my own name. We become one with our teachers. I become one with my teacher by becoming myself, not by imitating him or identifying with him. And my father grew up in a poor working-class family in Chile, in a port called Valparaíso.

[04:47]

And it's because of him that I come to speak to you as a member of the Latino community in San Francisco. And as Tova mentioned, I've been training director at a city and county clinic in the Mission for over 20 years or so. And I lived in Chile and Argentina until I finished my university studies in Buenos Aires. I'm actually Chilean, but I went to university in Buenos Aires. And there, while I was studying psychology in the early 70s, I came across D.T. Suzuki's book on Zen and the Unconscious. And that was the beginning of the link to Buddhism and Zen. And as many of us, I think, were brought into practice through the books of D.T. Suzuki. And then after I graduated, I left for Europe, where I lived for two years.

[05:55]

And it was in Paris where I first sat Zazen. at the Paris Zendo of Taizen Deshimaru Roshi. And the first time I sat there, he was giving a talk on Buddha nature and dog shit. Just like that. And I thought, I've never heard anything like this before. writing-your-face teaching about the non-duality of the sacred and the profane. So that really sparked my interest in practice, actually. And then I came to the U.S. in 1978, and actually came to San Francisco Zen Center, because I was staying with a friend for two weeks when I first arrived in San Francisco, and I came here.

[07:02]

And that was 33 years ago. And I forget the person. It was a very wonderful person I met. And she said, well, where are you going to be living? I said, well, I think I'm going to be moving to Berkeley. I said, well, you have to go to the Berkeley Center then. It's one of our sister temples. So I ended up living on McGee Street, right around the corner from Dwight Way. And I think some of you started sitting at Dwight Wei with Sojin. And that's when I started formal practice. So we could say the spirit of the Buddha, it's like water that descends to the lowest place. feeling comfortable with descending to the lowest place of the earth and from there nourishing the earth.

[08:08]

And so the lowest place of water is also the lowest place or the depth of our mind. As Dogen said that in practice we walk in the ocean with our feet touching the bottom of the ocean and our heads above water. But we don't always see the bottom of the ocean. Or we can't see all the way to the bottom. Or we don't see what is right under our feet. And so sometimes it takes an other to recognize the depth of our own mind. Here's the title of the other, myself. And maybe this is certainly the case with Suzuki Roshi, who was the Japanese other who stood for our true self. who showed us the way to the depth of our own mind. And because otherwise, our deep mind can be other to ourselves.

[09:11]

And so we need another to bring our mind back to ourselves. And this other can be a teacher, a psychotherapist, or a cultural other. Somebody who's different, looks different, speaks a different language. So Berkeley Zen Center is my spiritual home, and the mission is my cultural home. And so I left Latin America, but living in California and working in the mission still feels like Latin America. I work in Spanish basically every day, both with the clients and with the staff and the clerical staff. Now I consider myself continental American. And so the continental America is the place where the north and the south meet. And so I think of continental American as being equivalent to the difference between, in Spanish I would say, Chilenismo, I'm from Chile, Chilenismo and Chilenidad.

[10:31]

Chilenism is nationalism. And I think of nationalism as equivalent to the ego, whether it's overt or covert, because one can be overtly nationalistic or covertly nationalistic. Whereas chilenidad reveals what in Spanish you say, talidad. Talidad is the translation of suchness in Spanish. So chilenidad reveals the suchness of being Chilean. or the universality within particularity, which includes recognizing difference, or the specific circumstance. So in the same way, well, what's the equivalent for America? There's the America being number one, the most powerful nation on Earth, the most powerful nation that ever existed on the face of the earth. And it's almost that you can't become president of the United States unless you utter those sentences.

[11:36]

And the one who doesn't is accused of not being patriotic enough. So there's an inherent identification with this form of one. And then there's the one that equals includes everything, or a one that is not one, or is one by including the many. And this is what I refer to as continental American, or American. American. So we have to find a way to be a northerner without being a northerner, being American without being American, or to be a southerner without being a southerner. And of course, the theme of the North and South is very rich within the North America. And we know it says in the Sandokai that there are no northern or southern schools in Buddhism.

[12:41]

Although in China, there were northern and southern schools. So even though there are northern and southern schools, there are no northern and southern schools. So we become truly American by not being American in a small way. And it doesn't mean a denial of being American, but being American in a true sense. So in the same way we may stress being Latino, or having an ethnic identity, but this is not to stress an ego identity. But the place where we find the universal, or the emptiness of being Latino as the experience of not being Latino in the US and speaking English instead. So the fact that we are not in a Latino or Spanish-speaking country helps bring out the emptiness or the universality of being Latino.

[13:44]

At the same time, having Latinos in the US helps bring out the universal identity of being English-speaking or from the US. So this is like emptiness meeting emptiness, the one meeting the one, the place where the one meets the one. I'm following right now, there's an American cup of football in South America going on. That's the translation, Copa America. but it translates into American Cup of football. And this could be said in the U.S. as well, but it would have an entirely different meaning and refer to two different forms of sport. Also, there was an article in the newspaper yesterday, in the Chronicle, about the American Cup in San Francisco, referring to a boat race. So two American Cups are taking place simultaneously in the North and the South.

[14:48]

Another example of the one meeting the one. So this one meeting the one, is that one or two? And perhaps this is the same principle that Suzuki Roshi gave us with not one, not two. Latinos and Anglo-Americans are not one and not two, in the same way that monks and lay people are not one and not two. Monks can practice like or among lay people, and lay people can practice like or among monks. And perhaps this is the standard of our school that Suzuki Roshi left us when he said, you are neither monks nor lay people. And because we are neither, then we can be monks and lay people, or Latinos and Anglo-Americans completely. So the different directions in space also represent different forms of consciousness, according to Buddhism.

[16:07]

And we can associate these different forms of consciousness with directions and with the ancestors. So we could say West is reason, East is intuition, North is discipline or leaving home, and South is passion or compassion and hospitality. Mi casa es su casa. My home is your home. So west as reason means India is the west for China and Japan. The Greeks were influenced by India. And We have our ancestors, Nagarjuna and Basubandhu, who were realized monks, but they were also scholars. And sometimes people wonder, well, are they real Zen ancestors? These real intellectual types in our lineage, what are they doing in the Zen lineage?

[17:14]

These are the different types of consciousness that are embodied in different ancestors in our lineage. So in Buddhism, clarity is realized with the passions and with insight, not without them. And this is a basic teaching of the Vimalakichi Sutra. The moon of feelings is the basis for the moon of realization. So the two can either conceal or reveal one another. Now when they conceal or eclipse each other, nothing is concealed or eclipsed because passion goes into compassion. And when compassion is revealed, nothing is revealed because there's really nothing there in compassion.

[18:21]

So in the same way that realization is realized with the passions, in the transmission documents it says that Buddhas and ancestors first realized that sentient beings and Buddhas are not two. And then practice wisdom mind, which is the practice of the two not being one. So in formal practice, there are differences between Buddhist and sentient beings, ordinary people and monks. The two are not one. And traditionally, in formal practice, involved giving up secular relationships, turning away from the world, leaving home, turning away from filial duty, duties to parents and children, and practicing in seclusion away from the world. But neither is formal practice one without ordinary life.

[19:46]

It's not one because to have formal practice requires organizing your life around practice and putting other activities aside. So to keep a schedule, you have to leave other things aside, other things that people are interested in. And often this may make other people or family members upset because it seems like you're neglecting ordinary life and using practice as an escape. That's often a critique. On the other hand, it's also important to pay attention to the secular and to samsara, or the samsaric world of relationships, and making a living, because otherwise these will come back to bite you. Issues of money and relationships become the samsara within nirvana.

[20:54]

Right in the nuptas core of nirvana, samsara arises. So we have to deal with ordinary life and use practice to help us with it, rather than to use practice to avoid it. at the clinic where I work or with my clients, we're not one because I have a different orientation to the same activity and yet we're not two either. We're doing the same work but coming at it from different ends or from different worlds.

[21:57]

So I practice big mind, which is the ground that we all walk and live in, but not everybody realizes what this is, even though it's very intimate. And I don't discuss it with them in terms of Buddhism. So it's completely ordinary. And since this big mind doesn't have a mark, or it has no mark, It doesn't look like anything in particular and can blend and include all things and help all things from the inside of their own being or particularity. This is how... practice for me manifests within my ordinary life and work with people even though we're not sharing the context or the language of Buddhism.

[23:10]

So I think that's All I have to say, I'd like to open it up for discussion. I know I've talked about a series of different things. This question of not one, not two, in relationship to cultural differences. Being able to recognize cultural differences, not try to make everything one. And at the same time, being able to, in recognizing our differences, then being able to come together. as one, whether it is across culture, across languages, or across the different faces and manifestations of practice within the Sangha. Thank you very much. recognizing differences, to appreciating differences.

[24:47]

And really laying in that, as we need to get to know people who are different from us, that will become rich. Sometimes it doesn't, you know, feels like it's so high to really get to know someone from a different culture or class background. Well, I think hospitality is something that helps. And that's an aspect of, I think, Latino culture that could also benefit something of the South. And I think in the South, people also, Southerners from the US that I speak to sometimes, they say that they don't feel the Southern hospitality in the North. And that there's something, we think of the South as more retrograde, having a more retrograde mentality, but they see that as something very positive that they have to offer.

[25:52]

So this kind of hospitality and warmth, reaching out to people, I think that's the way I felt that I was received today. So I think that's a good example. Sometimes we, are focusing on our practice and very intent on practice and not making eye contact and not speaking. And that's an important side of practice. That's the northern face of our practice, being very serious and austere and very focused and no idle talk. But sometimes you have to condescend into idle talk as a form of practice. and engage in idle speech at times as the skillful mean in order to put people at ease and make them feel welcomed and reach out in a way that's not too invasive, but sometimes people can overdo it.

[26:55]

They're so intent in reaching out that people feel kind of, you know, makes them feel more other than otherwise they would like to. But there is no other. That's like one of the coins. It's only our self, our big self, but our big self looks in many different ways and sounds as the sounds of many languages. That's the response to that question. Yes. Talk about difference and separation and how you recognize the difference about separating. Does that make sense? By recognizing difference, it's almost like you're pulling apart, but you're going to come together with the same.

[27:57]

Right. Well, you're differentiating the parts of the totalit. So it's important to be able to differentiate. or discern the differences among people so people can feel recognized and understood and not assume that everybody's like us. Well, separation is not necessarily a bad thing. Separation in Latin means to give birth to yourself. So it's like children have to separate from their parents. And we have to separate from our teachers. But in separating from our teachers, we become one with our teachers.

[28:58]

That's the koan. We don't become one by becoming like them. for trying to have everybody look like us. Yes? So, yeah, you're talking about, I don't know, I guess you could say like the mystical or spiritual aspect of diversity or something like that, diversity as practice. I'm just wondering about, like, I guess how you reconcile, like, our main practice is to stare at the same patch of wall for years and years, and not longing for anything different or for any, yeah, any variety or color or anything else.

[30:08]

So I'm wondering, do you think at the same time I talked to people who've studied languages and moved into other cultures and they found that was somehow spiritually transformative for them? Yeah, I don't even know how to phrase this. Our one practice seems to, or like our main practice seems based around or accepting the same thing to activate. And I'm just wondering how you think that works in diversity as part of it. Well, Sando Kai said, according with safeness, it's not yet enlightenment. And there's four wisdoms in Buddhism. And one is the wisdom of Sataness, and the other one is the wisdom of difference.

[31:12]

So recognizing Sataness is as important as recognizing difference. My question is, how do we feel we are perceived? And I would like to say that we are more

[32:15]

Okay. Okay. So she's saying, how can I relate to the discipline of the North without getting scared? Because I come from the South, and the South is a place of warmth and hospitality. And the discipline that I find in the North and, I guess, Zen practice is scary.

[33:19]

So that's what I was saying. You can have discipline and rigor and practice with compassion and hospitality to help somebody like you be able to feel at home. in the practice that needs a little bit more of that compassionate expression of the Dharma. It's like the bodhisattva with, I forget it's a hundred arms or a thousand arms. And at the same time you have to step right into the discipline. and not see it as something different than your own compassionate heart, but precisely what supports it, what sustains it, what will give it strength.

[34:25]

You don't have to abandon yourself or your culture in order to enter practice. also to get it to not practice and become... I think it's... I think it's not... you know, it's not a point or so, and... but that is... that the ones I want to be that will be supposed to... will be supposed to... We have to ask. So you don't think they can be a Latino expression of practice? Yes. I think it's possible. I think that it's difficult. It's not difficult for us that maybe should like other people.

[35:34]

And that is what I think will make. With people that maybe are bizarre, we can do. Yeah. I think that's something that we have to learn from the north and from the discipline of practice. I mean, I remember when I led a practice period in Chile, people were not used to getting up so early. It was really difficult for them to get up so early because they were used to sitting on Monday afternoon or Saturday at 11 or something like that. And not that there's anything wrong with that. We have to be careful because we have people whose practice is based on that schedule here too. So it was a real kind of shift for them to, you know, because everything starts late.

[36:37]

People work until 8. and they don't have dinner until 10 o'clock, you know, and then that's the time for socializing with family and all that. And then you have to kind of change all that and set all that aside in order to be able to go to bed early and get up early. So there is an adjustment there that needs to take place. Fletch. There's an adjustment for North America. Japanese. Yes. Yes. But the US has a culture of early to bed and early to rise. It's the Protestant ethic. So I think there's a kind of nice fit there between those two. I mean, you walk down in Berkeley at 9 o'clock, there's nobody in the street, hardly anybody. And just things are getting started. Santiago, Buenos Aires, or in Europe too at eight o'clock or nine o'clock.

[37:42]

Oh, hi. On the topic of diversity, the sort of light side of the Anglo-American Latino, it seemed to be like the common in people. to look for difference and to look for savings, to sort of form a club that they can be in, no matter where they are or what their situation, even if there's only a handful of people, they'll look to form the clubs. It looks like this is me, my friends, that's you and your friends, and we are just different. And whenever meeting people who are looking for that sort of security and sinness or have that fear of difference, what can we say to them to encourage them to sort of drop those preconceived notions and to loosen that idea of concrete identity?

[38:58]

Because it's hard. Well, it's for you not to tighten up or close down. when you experience that difference. Or they're closing down into their own particular language or identity. You know, I tell people when they come to the clinic, you have to feel you're in the United States, but you're going to come to this environment. And it's Spanish being spoken everywhere. Are you comfortable with that? You want to understand some of it. And then sometimes in the lunchroom, people are speaking Spanish, and there are a few people there who don't speak Spanish and speak English, but I say to them, you know, okay, you're speaking Spanish, but there's a few people here who don't understand what you're saying. So can we translate? So that being able to create the bridges across that difference so that the difference doesn't become

[40:02]

an ego or an ethnic identity in that sense. In the sense of ego as opposed to in the sense of universality. A place where you can be yourself but everybody else is included in that as well. So it's really important not to create that cliquish mentality. Italy is the south of Europe, right? It's the warm weather. I come from Rome, so I'm just in the middle of it.

[41:05]

But anyway, my feeling about your speech is that maybe it's just another layer in some way. Because I think that in some way, let's say the absolute level of the life, everything is one. And then there is another level which is maybe more superficial, but it doesn't mean that it's less important. It's more like the ,, which forms in different ways, not sound, different expressions. But this is the expression of the same .. I don't know. Also, it seems to me that the basic means, the basic nature, are the same for everywhere, for everyone, everywhere.

[42:09]

So I don't know, it seems to me that... They're saying that they're different, right? Because people are divided, right? They think this is who I am and this is what I think, and that's not really who they are or what they think. But that's what they say. deeper level, you can just appreciate this creative, the creativity, like just the beautiful differences of the same stuff. I don't expect the stuff of flowers, and then flowers and shapes. And you can prefer a flower or . As long as it's an inclusive one.

[43:12]

So it can be a north, but that also includes a south. But if the north develops an identity that has one that excludes the south, then that divides rather than unifies. Is there any hospitality in sitting quiet? Is there any compassion in scheduled life? It's great compassion, because the scheduled life is what allows us to break the habits the hindrances that make us suffer. Then the hospitality and kindness you were talking about with the eyes, what does that mean?

[44:27]

Yeah, so they can be great compassion and discipline. And So what may look like severity may not be. But there's also a severity that may be weak on the compassionate side. So we often say, right, Be strict with yourself, but compassionate with others. We lead by example. But we have to balance those factors, right? Those are the two sides of Buddha. Wisdom on the one side, the discipline side, and compassion on the other.

[45:35]

And so depending on who who you're relating to when you emphasize one thing or the other. So we have to know the nature of difference to be able to see which aspect to emphasize in any particular moment or circumstance according to the people we're relating to. So that's where you're relating to people that are different or come from different cultures. You have to be mindful of that. Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered free of charge and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, please visit sfzc.org and click giving.

[46:40]

May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[46:43]

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