Good morning. Good morning. And welcome. My name is Linda Gallion, and I just moved here from Tassajara, our mountain monastery, ten days ago. And thank you. I have lived at Tassajara for a total of nine years. The last four years I've been the director here, and I also spent five years here at City Center. so I'm returning as well as coming.

[01:02]

And I moved here because I was invited to be the president of San Francisco Zen Center, and I'm very excited about that, and I will take up that role in January. And I want to thank David for our tanto, our head of practice, for inviting me to give the talk today and allow me to introduce myself, in a sense, to all of you. So I hope that I can be of service as president. And I very much look forward to meeting many of you. Many of you I know. How many of you are here for the first time today? Just raise your hands. Lots of people. Welcome. We can all be kind of newcomers together. So this is our Zen center. Whatever it is is what we make it. So I look forward to hearing from all of you, and I am very open.

[02:07]

I invite your feedback. So I'd love to hear from you. So when we were doing the opening chant, expressing the deep appreciation for being able to receive the teachings, I felt that particularly strongly. this morning in this room. Once Suzuki Roshi was asked to explain Buddhism in a few simple words. And he said, everything changes. And I think that has particular meaning at this time. We experience the truth of everything changing very deeply this past week. And the responses to the results of the election have been very strong, and they vary widely.

[03:08]

Some are in shock, grieving, angry, feeling it in different ways, in their bodies, in our bodies. And the suffering experienced by So many people, particularly groups that have been targeted recently, Muslims, immigrants, people of color, women, those in the LGBTQ community are particularly feeling it. But everyone suffers and What I've been so aware of in recent months is the suffering of many people who have felt that their suffering hasn't been heard or seen for a long time. And I think for many of them, they're really celebrating the results of this election, feeling seen and heard.

[04:22]

So... The differences of the worlds that we live in is felt very deeply, not just individually, but on wider bases. So I want to say explicitly today that everyone is welcome here. Whatever your response is to the outcome of this election, everyone is welcome. I don't want to make any assumptions about who is here and who is seeking the Dharma or why. You're welcome. So what does Buddhism have to offer us, to teach us, to offer the world, really? For me, the first things that come to mind are wisdom, a way of knowing, seeing, understanding that frees us from suffering, because our suffering is caused by how we see the world.

[05:29]

With our thoughts, we create the world, not just our inner world, although that tends to be the focus of our practice, is how the worlds that we make in our mind create our inner worlds. but it also creates our shared reality together. What people take as real is real in its consequences. It actually has an impact in the world for good or for harm. So the events of this past week I don't think anyone could have truly imagined a year ago. And yet here we are, this is the reality that we're living in, and there's a sense that the world is somehow different. But whatever we imagine, we can't actually predict what is going to happen. There may be excitement or fear and dread, but with our thoughts we create the world.

[06:41]

So let's take good care of our thoughts. Let's take good care of the world that we want to create. What is the world we want to create together? And compassion. In Buddhism, compassion is not only a feeling or experience of the heart. It's a manifestation of wisdom in our words, in our actions, in our relationships. Ethical and moral conduct, which also, in a stronger way, has an impact on the world. So wisdom and compassion are considered to be the two wings of a bird, and a bird needs both wings in order to fly. So it's not just how we see the world, but it's how we act in the world.

[07:45]

And the Dharma offers us practices to support and guide us on the path of liberation. So how do we meet whatever may arise? The Buddha taught that we have a choice and a responsibility in how we meet this. So as I was thinking about what I wanted to share this morning... I came back to what for me has been a really foundational teaching in the Four Noble Truths. And this wasn't a teaching that I originally resonated with at all. I came in the door of Dharma through reading about Zen and kind of paradoxical sort of crazy wisdom and I was really looking for that and I did not resonate with the notion that everything is suffering. which is the first noble truth. And I eventually realized how cut off I was from my own suffering, how difficult it was for me to experience that.

[08:57]

So for some people, this is a teaching that resonates immediately, and for others, it takes a while to practice. For me, it took quite some time. So I'm deeply familiar with it because it was a hard gate for me to enter. I know it very intimately. There are four noble, or we could say ennobling truths. It ennobles us to be able to meet our experience in this way, to hold it. The first truth is that there is suffering, or the word is actually dukkha, which doesn't have such a good translation. One of the translations I like best is stress. things not being the way that we want them to be, things out of kilter, out of balance. So this is not a description of life.

[10:00]

It's not life is suffering. It's just a statement that there is suffering, there is stress. This happens. And what we tend to do with it is to try to get away from it, try to avoid it. But the request of practice is actually to turn toward the suffering that we experience and toward the suffering of the world, to meet it fully, to open to it and become intimate with it, to not turn away. This is why Buddhism has talked about as being against the stream. To go with the stream is to go with our old habits, our conditioning. But to go against the stream, we actually open to what is difficult. We open to what is unknown and uncertain. And the second truth is that the cause of this suffering, which is really the suffering of the mind, it's not just what's happening, it's how we relate to it.

[11:15]

How do we relate to what's happening? So when we're, this attachment, it's like if we're holding on to something, or equally we could say resisting, pushing away, it's really two sides of the same coin. They're not different. If we're holding on to one thing, we're pushing away another. So when we're having some argument with things the way they are, some conflict, some difficulty being present with it, we suffer. So the request of practice is to open, release, let go. How do we let go in this way? If everything changes and we try to resist that, we try to

[12:18]

make it so that our bodies aren't changing or aging, that impermanence doesn't affect us, then we can't see things the way we are and we become defended and hardened in some way. Our hearts are not truly open. So this is challenging. But letting go doesn't mean pushing away. This is a very important distinction. It's not that we shouldn't be attached, that we shouldn't care. One of the great koans that I watch parents work with in practice is how do they manage their deep, deep love and attachment for their children? With letting go.

[13:21]

with release. But one of the ways that it came up for me was during the Sober Honest Fire this summer. I was the, as director, I was the incident commander, so I was kind of the face of Tassajara. And there was a period when I was getting a lot of calls from reporters. And one of them asked me, so how do you reconcile the teachings of impermanence with trying to protect Tassahara. I said, well, just because something's impermanent doesn't mean you have to throw it away. But as I thought about that more, it's like... The other side, another aspect of impermanence is that we're completely interconnected. You know, there's no fixed self. We're all deeply interwoven with each other.

[14:23]

And because of this, we have deep care. And we take care of one another and we care for things. We care for Tassajara. So we took good care of it. And we didn't know what would happen with the fire. You know, we can't... I mean, you really can't stop a fire. It's gonna do what it does. It's like water. It's like a wave. It's going to go where it goes. You can meet it in different ways. But you can't just stop it. You can't decide this is going to happen. You do your best. You meet it. You meet the fire that is arising in that moment. You make plans. You do the best you can to manifest your plans. But fire behavior is based on... weather, and we all know exactly how predictable weather is, it does what it does and fire does what it does.

[15:30]

And then we just keep meeting it and meeting it and meeting it. And to argue with it is useless and really kind of dangerous in the case of a fire because then you're fighting against what you think is there instead of what's actually happening. It should be doing this. It's not. So how do we find that mind? How do we cultivate that mind? So the third truth is the cessation of suffering. Letting go of fear and attachment, we actually find liberation. moment by moment, can I let go? Can I find freedom on this moment? And the fourth is the path, is how to see the world in this way, how to speak and act in the world, and how to cultivate this way of being.

[16:41]

So one of the particular teachings of that I have recently started studying and have found very, very helpful, it's a little different view, is the Anapanasati Sutta, which is the teaching on mindfulness of breathing in and breathing out. It's very similar to the four foundations of mindfulness, but it has some elements that I think are really helpful at this time. So just as in our zazen practice, we start with the body and the breath. And then to experience the whole body. And then to release the bodily formations. So here's this release again, this letting go. So we practice this. We take it up as a practice.

[17:45]

First we experience things just as they are How is this body? How is this breath? Is there contraction? Is there resisting? Is there wild energy? Is there sleepiness? Whatever it is, just being with that. And then, is there anything that we could release, that we could relax into, that we could let go of? Anything extra? And then the next part, the next four, have to do with Vedana or feelings, mind states, states of mind. It's really how we're responding to things. And before we look at what's actually happening in our minds, and this was what struck me as so powerful,

[18:53]

We undertake the training to experience joy. And the next one is to undertake the training to experience happiness. So just as we sit and take our zazen posture and find a stable base from which to open to what's arising, So the Buddha encourages us to have a stable base in our minds from which to open to our experience, to our mind states. I had never considered this before. I thought you were just supposed to dive in there and be fearless. You know, just be fearless. Just drop it. Just let it go. And my practice had a little bit of a hard edge to it, a hard on myself.

[20:00]

But to hear the Buddha encouraging us to cultivate experiences of joy and happiness and to give us this instruction even before saying, and now how is your mental state? What's arising? So that we have this stable base, we have this home base we can come back to. And part of cultivating that, of course, can be cultivating friends and family, connection, practice, gratitude, appreciation. There's so many ways to do that. But that's an important part of our practice. So when we can meet what arises... when we can open to what is arising in our mind, we develop fearlessness. And this is one of the great gifts of practice, is this deep, settled fearlessness, this confidence, this faith that we can really meet whatever arises.

[21:12]

We can meet what comes. It is said that that is that there are several gifts or offerings. There are material goods, there are the teachings, and there's fearlessness. And that's one of the main things that our practice has to offer is this fearlessness. And we actually have to go through this offering to get there. To try to get to fearlessness without meeting the suffering, is false. It closes a part of our hearts to ourselves and to each other. But to be open in this way means that we can have a deeply tender heart because we can handle whatever comes up for us.

[22:16]

And if we can meet it in ourselves, we can meet it in others. We start with ourselves because it's close, because it's intimate. And then it pours out so easily with others because we found that deep place of tenderness within us. So another way of expressing this teaching, also from the Buddha's early teaching, is from the Dhammapada. So these are the opening verses of the Dhammapada. Mind precedes all mental states. Mind being how we respond, our initial reaction to things.

[23:21]

Is it pleasant? Is it unpleasant? Is it neutral? Do I move toward it? Do I move away from it? That initial response precedes all of our mental states. They elaborate from there. If a person speaks or acts with an impure mind, suffering follows them like the wheel that follows the foot of the ox. If a person speaks or acts with an impure mind, suffering follows them like the wheel that follows the foot of the ox. So impure. My teacher, Sojin Mel Weitzman, likes to talk about purity as... Purity is when we can see from a non-dual point of view that there's no separation. Impurity is just our usual mental state. with self and other, subject and object, separate distinctions.

[24:25]

So it's not to get rid of anything. It's an impure mind in the senses. Are we excluding things? Are we reacting to things? So mind precedes all mental states. If a person speaks or acts with a pure mind, happiness follows them. like a never-departing shadow. Happiness follows them like their never-departing shadow. So instead of being pulled along, happiness follows us. So to speak or act with a mind that is settled, calm, connected, open, peaceful, loving. Happiness will follow us.

[25:26]

I think we've all experienced this, sometimes with ourselves and sometimes with others, those who give us courage. He abused me. He struck me. He overpowered me. He robbed me Those who harbor such thoughts do not still their hatred. I've read these verses many times before, but reading them again, they entered me on a very different level, realizing how close those experiences are for many people. He abused me, he struck me, he overpowered me, he robbed me. Those who do not harbor such thoughts still or quiet their hatred.

[26:31]

Hatred is never appeased by hatred in this world. By non-hate alone does hatred cease. This is an eternal law. The translation is non-hate, freedom from hate. But I like to say love, to put it on the positive side. By love alone does hatred cease. This is an eternal law. But we can't get there without going through what is true for us. Can't deny our experience or the experience of others. We can't turn away. We can't cheat. Two of the most loving Buddhist teachers that I'm aware of are Thich Nhat Hanh and the Dalai Lama.

[27:39]

And for both of them, this deep compassion was forged through war. and through terrible suffering. Thich Nhat Hanh practiced for a long time with his anger. He once said, it still comes up. Once I got to meet the Dalai Lama many, many years ago and there was a... I was standing next to him at an exhibition of... photographs of Tibet, and there was a picture of the Potala Palace, which of course is where he grew up. And he was looking at it, and he hadn't seen it since he was, what, a young man. And he was peering at it, he was looking at it. And I was thinking, oh, that must be so painful for him to look at his home that he can't go back to, he's never been back to.

[28:43]

And he said, this road, it goes up. So many cars lost their transmissions on this road. Wow. So that's what this practice offers us. It's not easy. It requires a lot of courage and persistence and support. We need each other. The three treasures of the Dharma are Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, the teacher, the teachings, and the community.

[29:46]

We can't do it on our own, but no one can do it for us. We have to take this up ourselves. So the mission of San Francisco Zen Center is to embody express and make available the wisdom and compassion of the Buddha. So these are tools, in a sense, with which to live our life. And what will we do with this life? How will we live this life? How will we benefit beings? what form will our action take in the world?

[30:55]

How do we want to be of benefit? I think what our teachings have to offer is a place to start. To start from the ground, from presence, from openness, stillness, compassion, and to find love and fearlessness. It's a good place to start. Start with the breath. We start with the body. Those are always available to us. whether your breath is long or short, open or contracted, your breath is always there. And you can just be with that. We can learn to let go of our frightened or repetitive thoughts.

[32:08]

We can learn to encourage ourselves and encourage others. These are skills. We practice them. They're learnable. But you have to do it. One of the things about being at Tassajara for so many years was I had developed a tremendous faith and confidence that things would be all right. Because several times a year we kind of completely start over. Two practice periods in the summer guest season and pretty much everyone is in a new position. So it starts out looking like chaos. And you wonder, how is this ever going to come together?

[33:10]

And year after year it does. When I was first... Eno, the head of the meditation hall at Tassajara, was my first senior staff position. I'd only been there two years and it was just overwhelming. There's so much to do. It's relentless. So much to learn. It's non-stop, absolutely non-stop. And I was just saying to myself, this is wrong. It shouldn't be this way. There's something wrong here. I think there were eight ceremonies in the first 11 days. It's crazy. And at some point it occurred to me that Eno's always started in the fall, just like I was starting in the fall. It's like, this has happened before. This isn't the first time around on this. And as far as I know, no Eno has ever died in their first month. So there's a lot of suffering in the world. And it's not the first time. This is not the first time.

[34:16]

There's always suffering in the world. But even these manifestations, depending on how old you are, may be familiar. You're like, oh yeah, I've been here before. So, maybe we've learned something about how to come through. What we pay attention to, what we attend to, what we give our time and our minds and our attention to gets our energy and creates our world. So what do we choose to attend to? So that's a practice we can take up any time during the day. What am I giving my attention to? How am I creating my world? how do I choose to create my world?

[35:17]

So this is the world I want to create. One with all of you. One with all the world. But you're right here, so I want to start here. One in which we can be connected to each other. We can speak our truth to each other. We can maybe take some risks. find out just how deep the trust can go. One in which we can make mistakes together, come through it, find a deeper place from which to ground ourselves. One in which we learn and grow and help others. That's the world I want to live in. So it was very encouraging to me to have to give the talk today. I had an entirely different talk planned. And I realized, you know, I think I have to say something about what happened this week.

[36:28]

So I started over. So it was encouraging to me to think about coming here and encouraging you. So that's a help. and I very much look forward to continuing our practice together. 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.

[37:17]

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