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. So, good evening everyone. My name is Wendy Lewis. And tonight I am going to be addressing the role of passion and karmic tendencies in our practice life and in our general experience. I've been thinking about this for a long time, comes and goes, and how do we talk about this? So recently there was quite a lot of feeling for me and for others around the election. Now, to some extent, I thought this was a form of entertainment, like the bombarding us, you know, with information, but there was really deep anxieties, fears, concerns.

[01:14]

And I felt quite a lot of that myself. And For some reason, one of the images that came to me as I was in this anxiety was of the Tibetan monks that had been imprisoned by the Chinese army and were tortured. And one of the ways that they managed to maintain their sanity was to feel compassion for their captors and torturers. Now, I don't think I'm there. But I just was... wondering why that came to me, you know? And so I've been looking at that. When we're pushed to that edge of our fears and our concerns about ourselves and others, you know, people we care about who are affected by things, where does that go?

[02:16]

How do we address it, deal with it, tolerate it? So other things have also happened around this sort of sense of passion, strong feelings. And that is that, you know, our relationships with each other and in the temple and in the world. And these, you know, the ways we can get to have such strong feelings for... another person, and they can be positive, they can be negative, they can be sort of confused, but they can be very strong. But at the, you know, what is this sort of passionate energy that we, that arises for us and is often confusing or exciting or inspiring or whatever it can be? Well, I think this energy is kind of essential to our survival, to our sense of how we work, how we express ourselves.

[03:32]

And it's also a resource for developing discernment and generosity of our heart and mind. So these strong things, they can... show us the depth of ourselves, even if they're uncomfortable. So what I think is the way that these kind of negative and positive passionate energies can work for us is that they need to always be in conversation. And Stephen Batchelor talks about this in his book, Living with the Devil. And he, in Buddhism, Mara is very much like the devil in Western tradition. And Stephen Batchelor describes Mara as representing Gautama's own conflicted humanity.

[04:40]

So here is this figure who we think of as evil, or destructive, and yes, he's all those things, or that figure is all those things, and yet that's part of us. And so what is this figure informing us about? So Bachelor addresses the subject of passion partly as our sense of being right. And he says, so certain are we of being right that our convictions feel embedded in our flesh. Yet, to be ensnared by them locks us into fixed dogmatic positions, which are a form of intellectual and spiritual death. So, you know, this need to be right in our love, in our hate, in our...

[05:43]

convictions and our ideas and our opinions. What it does is it kind of tamps down our ability to see the full reality of what's happening. To see what is, as they say in Zen. And, you know, we're sort of pulled around by trying to keep things familiar or keep them within our preferential interpretations. Why shouldn't we? It's because this need to be right and its accompanying aspects is also the resource for our self-understanding and understanding others. So it's not like wrong to be right. You know, that... that intensity is necessary, but it also requires some sort of reflection.

[06:53]

So that we can negotiate our conflicted humanity. So in our understanding in Buddhism, this is addressed by mindfulness. So mindfulness, we often think, is awareness of our breath and our body and the arising of thoughts in our mind and the passing away. But in a wider sense, you know, it's awareness how we perceive and interpret the world. Where is that coming from? And how is it being put out in front of us? And then how is it returning and reifying itself and then going out again and having this kind of action. So these mindfulness of how our thoughts are sort of coming from a limited perspective

[08:12]

And it might be a completely valid perspective. It's not, you know, you shouldn't be doing this, you should be doing that. It's how we negotiate our place in all of this coming and going, arising and passing, passion and despair and all of that. And this is all related to our karmic inheritance. Right. and the tendency to reinforce that inheritance. So very early in my practice here, I realized, and maybe this came from sitting meditation, I realized that I had suppressed my anger for most of my life, really pressed it down, and I was a good girl, you know, went to school, was very quiet, blah, blah, blah. And because I had done that, I didn't really understand it, how it worked, how it functioned, and it seemed to me that here, at Zen Center, and particularly at Tassajara, was a good place, and I thought maybe a safe place to examine what my anger was doing, or where it was, and how I could find it,

[09:40]

bring it to the surface and let it grow up. Because what I felt had happened in that suppression is that the activity of my anger, the intention, the function of it had remained at an immature level. So it was very awkward, you know, trying to work with it because it was kind of, you know, it had a kind of childish quality to it. I didn't know how to express it. And what was very interesting is some people started to see me as an angry person, and that was both embarrassing and kind of liberating. Ooh, they see me as angry, how interesting. And so, you know, this kind of attention to these aspects of ourselves is... very unusual that we have a chance to do this. I think it was partly intuitive, as I said on my part, and partly I think that meditation was kind of revealing some of these things.

[10:50]

But one of the things it also showed me was that because my anger was pressed down and unconscious, it was controlling me. It was making me more vulnerable to others' anger and more judgmental of people's anger. And I was overly defensive, and as I said, I was kind of a goody-two-shoes because I was so afraid of expressing it or being, you know. I actually think I sort of know some of the origins of the suppression, getting in trouble as a little girl. My mother not liking me very much. It's scary. You don't know what's going on and whether... These survival techniques that we develop. So what I found after several years of working with anger and experimenting, a lot of it was experimenting, was that I became more comfortable with my anger and with others' anger.

[11:58]

And it seemed to help. Like... I didn't get so, you know, what do you call it, upset or feel pushed around when someone was angry. I sort of, there was a different way I could absorb it. And it didn't, but what I also learned is the limits of it, like just how much, how brave I was. And also just how much I could tolerate of someone's anger or rage. And so that was also very interesting. It wasn't like, oh, suddenly I'm this, you know, I can handle everything or something like that. But it was very different. And I'm very grateful for all that embarrassment and effort that I made. Along with that, I paid attention to, you know, all the...

[13:00]

workings of desire and attachment. See, this is kind of the strange opportunity of living in a spiritual community, is you sort of get to do this stuff. And you can do it elsewhere as well. I don't mean that. But here we all are, you know, in this container. But I came to Zen Center when I was about 36, and I'd had a pretty intense life and full life already. So I... I actually was kind of reluctant to sort of get involved in all of that. And it was always, always wonderful to me when it wasn't happening. When there was no one around that caught my eye or whose eye I caught, I guess you could say too. But things come up.

[14:03]

You know, there's odd little things, too, when you start to work with these things, like the way someone turns their head. You know, the... I remember just noticing the slant of someone's shoulder and finding myself, you know, sort of moved by it. And that sort of thing. So you notice all these little things. But then, you know, there are these times when... you're attracted to someone, and it seems so real, and they wouldn't even notice you. I mean, they don't even know you're there in a certain way. And then there's times when people feel that way about you, and you're like, you know, I was told a couple of times about people who had these, you know, crushes on me, and I'm like, what? I didn't notice, I didn't know, I was completely unaware. So, and that was true, you know, when I felt that way about, so, So here are these intense emotions, longings that come up for us and where are they coming from?

[15:10]

These sort of, this kind of karmic inheritance and then we get a little, it gets a little tweaked and we start going with it. And nothing's happening, we're just caught in something. So one of the main instructions for the spiritual path is to stop. Stop going with and stop resisting, you know, the pushing and pulling of our thoughts, our emotions, and all of these thoughts and emotions that seem to make life interesting and meaningful. Now, this instructions to stop isn't a judgment. It's actually a kind of promise, I think. Because we can't separate ourselves from all these things that are arising and falling.

[16:17]

All this will happen, the circumstances, the situations we get involved with, you know, in our personal life, in our public life, in our concerns about the world. Yet, this stopping allows us to see and become familiar with how we respond, even to apply a little humor to the whole thing. Oh, here I am again. How did this happen? Or, oh God. You know, I'm sorry, there I am again. Whatever it can be. And also though, there's this little tricky part of that is that this stopping and the awareness that arises from it can sometimes push us into a kind of arena of dullness and complacency.

[17:27]

And so it's You know, you get this instructance to stop. You start examining what that's like. Then you kind of slide into sort of avoidance and dullness and, you know, I'm above it all kind of thing. But that's not the point. You know, how do we do this? Get pulled around by things. Still maintain some sort of centeredness. and even develop strength for the next time we get pulled around, the next time we start manipulating others. Does this awareness kind of work on us, just like physical exercise? We sort of exercise our awareness until it gets stronger, more settled, and... You know, you go out for a run, and then you go out for the next one, and after a while, it gets easier, and you go farther.

[18:36]

So can we do that same thing through our awareness of our emotions and our thoughts? So one teaching of the Yogacara school is the concept of alaya vijnana, or storehouse consciousness, it's called. In the development of the basic Buddhist teachings on the five skandhas, which are form, feelings, perceptions, formations, and consciousness, and you can look those up and study them. They're really foundational and wonderful to study. The fifth, consciousness. got divided into different aspects of consciousness. And Alaya Vishnana is the aspect of consciousness that has accumulated and continues to accumulate karmic qualities or seeds, they're called. Because there's this seed of karmic tendencies and then they get acted out and it plants the next seed.

[19:45]

and then the next seed, and the next seed. And so it's very difficult to be aware of the functioning of the Alaya Vishniana because it's always in motion. It's always the seed is being planted and replanted and replanted so quickly that it's hard to notice it. But when we understand that there's something like that going on and its implications, you know, we have this opportunity to shift this kind of codependent karmic tendencies and transform them, I think, towards interdependent functioning. So... In Buddhist teachings, interdependency is, you know, this, it's the way that emptiness functions.

[20:49]

And emptiness is the context for the interactivity of the relative and the absolute. So this relative and absolute are moving and functioning and informing each other. And that's our independent reality. But In our codependent reality, we cling to either the relative or the absolute. Both of them are completely compelling. So how do we keep these in conversation? And how do we keep them in conversation when we have strong emotions or fears or these passionate responses to things? But I think this interdependent functioning is the source of the peace that Buddhism sort of promises or teaches. It's not the kind of peace of things going our way or being comfortable or reflecting the world back to us the way we want it to be.

[22:04]

I think this piece works because it's fraught with our anxieties and our desires. And these make it vital, gives it vitality, and makes it useful and real. And when that kind of piece is functioning, it develops deeper and deeper wisdom and compassion. And when we're in that state of Mara-infused kind of experience, this piece kind of supports us and reminds us. Like those monks, you know, what were they doing? So... At the same time, when we are in the midst of these very strong feelings or when something happens and we're in shock or something frightens us in terms of our place in the world, it's not necessarily the best time to look at Buddhist teachings that imply acceptance and peace.

[23:26]

Because they will seem so conditional when we are in that state And a kind of form of denial. They'll feel like denial. Like, well, I'm a Buddhist, so this is how I speak. This is how I see things. And I think that that can be very hurtful and feel like a rebuke to people who are in a state or a response that is not sort of quiet and serene or whatever you might want to call it. And there's a way that we can use those Buddhist teachings to kind of avoid the complexities of hearing and being in the presence of those who are upset.

[24:33]

Just like when I worked with my anger and worked with it, and so then when I was around people who were angry, it wasn't so difficult anymore. Well, same with these, you know, larger issues. The more... The more our peace can include all that passion, I think, the less... we will take refuge in these ideologies that seem more like denial. So as I was thinking about these, the ways that, you know, these passions of all these various kinds kind of define and direct our lives and sort of pull us around and also sometimes center us.

[25:39]

And some of the lines from the Song of the Jewel Mirror Samadhi kept coming into my mind. And one of them was, it is like facing a jewel mirror. Form and image behold each other. You are not it. In truth, it is you. So it's... It is like facing a jewel mirror. Form and image behold each other. You are not it. In truth, it is you. And the other line was, communing with the source, travel the pathways, embrace the territory, and treasure the road. So communing with the source, travel the pathways, embrace the territory, and treasure the road. So this mirror, you know, we look in a mirror and we see all kinds of things about ourselves or we don't see them.

[26:40]

It's very interesting to me that I, as I've gotten older, when I look in the mirror, I don't see a different person than I've been seeing my whole life because I've looked in the mirror again and again. But then once in a while, I'll see a reflection of myself like, just randomly, and I'll think, who's that, you know? And it's very funny, because when I'm standing in front of my regular mirror, I just don't see it. So, but this jewel mirror is the reflection back to us of our, it's our more subtle reflection. And it's the arising of our thoughts and our feelings. and our habits of repetition and how we interpret them. So this is the mirror, the jewel mirror that we're looking into. And you're not it because everything keeps arising and passing and arising and passing.

[27:40]

And yet it is you in the sense of self-knowledge and recognition, you know, that I think is the essence of transformation. And then the other part, communing with the source. You know, what is our path then? How do we find our way? How do we take in the teachings? And how do we use these teachings as the source through which we can question and confirm our place in this world and the unfolding of reality?

[28:51]

Because there's no place to go. This is the road, you know. This is the path. There's not... You can't like sidestep over to another dimension. So... You know, things will continue to happen to us and to others. And situations will arise that please us or frighten us or affirm us or dismiss us and those we care for.

[30:05]

And will continue to respond in skillful and unskillful ways, and we won't always know which one we're doing. In some way, both skillful and unskillful responses can be appropriate. In a certain way, we're all informing each other of how things work. And each one of us is very limited by our view. So when something attracts us or we feel aversion towards it or we feel neutral, if you can, towards it, I think there's a teaching there. We're always in the presence of a teacher. our own feelings, other people's feelings, thoughts, all of those things are teaching us in some way.

[31:13]

And our karmic storehouse is basically this collection of survival techniques. It's funny, I feel... Sort of like crying or something. As I was thinking about all this, I thought, our fragility, you know, this fragility we all have. Can we... Acknowledge that in ourselves and see it in others. The fragility of our conflicted humanity, you know. And then see our karmic tendencies as these survival techniques.

[32:19]

And our survival techniques are rigid and full of anxiety and preferences. And so how do we question those? Because they're very useful, they're often very well informed, but they're habits and they just keep reinforcing themselves and sometimes they make us miss something or force us towards something that's not really there, fantasizing. So, how instead can these karmic tendencies and passions lead us towards some kind of transformation? I think it would be nice if our transformation didn't have to be accompanied by embarrassment and mistakes.

[33:31]

But I think that those are part of the lesson, the teaching, you know, they're kind of like, again, like learning anything. You know, when you're cooking, when you're learning to cook, you burn stuff, you know, or you put too much salt in, and those mistakes, then the next time you don't do that. You, something, and so can we do that, those kind of simple things that we learn, can we learn to do that with this other stuff? So I feel like in some way I've gotten to the point where I kind of trust change even though I also sometimes sort of want it or resist it. I just feel like I have to trust it because it's inevitable.

[34:39]

So trusting change, can we actually invite it? And trust that our invitation will actually move towards this kind of transformation that we don't quite know what it's going to be like, probably won't be recognized in any way, or maybe a little bit, but probably not much. And in a way, you know, as I thought about all this, like what could I recommend? What do I do? I realized that the only clear one I can find is the most difficult, fulfilling, contradictory one that is also filled with both anguish and joy. It's about paying attention, engaging in contemplation and reflection, which I think includes prayer.

[36:10]

Help me, what shall I do? And sustaining a kind of radical hope in the possibilities of transformation for ourselves and others. And this is along the lines for me, and what I find very helpful is the teaching of the Four Noble Truths. Very simple, one of the first teachings of the Buddha, and not all that exciting when you think about it. It's just steady, attentive, reflecting. Thank you very much. And I think we probably have a couple of minutes for questions, comments. Yes, Miguel.

[37:15]

is love I feel it but I'm so afraid to let it out because it's like a little tiny chick and can't fly and what I heard in your talk was this kind of a I don't know courage to just feel and I'm just wondering how I guess my question is your practice, how did you learn to deal with your anger and how did you learn to deal with your love, romantic and otherwise? Well, one of the reasons I can't sort of prescribe anything is because I had to do it by intuition. I mean, I have my own complexity of stuff, right? So I experimented. I noticed people who were habitually angry, and so I thought, well, they won't notice if I express my anger around them.

[38:43]

I'm safe, you know? So that's what I would do. I would choose them as my anger partner, basically. And it was very helpful because they didn't notice. In fact, they sort of appreciated it in a way because, you know, there I am meeting them where they are. So that was one aspect of it. Another one was just making mistakes, like feeling this wave of anger and saying something mean and then thinking, oh, how interesting. That's how that works. So that I understood what my anger was for and how do you deal with the consequences? Because there are consequences no matter what. Sometimes the consequences are... more intimacy. That was another thing I found out about anger. Sometimes expressing my anger increased my connection to somebody. It's not an easy sort of line.

[39:46]

And the same thing with love and affection and appreciation. Like finding people who were very friendly and kind and hanging around them and You know, just kind of trying to learn what is friendship like? And one of my suggestions actually for people who come to Zen Center is the first thing you do, go to meditation and make a few friends. That's my advice. Because those are the places where you can work on those things. Your friends will. You know, even if they're not like close friends like you go out with or something like that, they're just people like you meet. Like we used to have a small group that would meet that was very much like Saturday Sangha, but we just did it ourselves. And we would talk about the Dharma talk, you know, that sort of thing when I was first coming here.

[40:47]

So that's where you sort of, it's not quick. But those are the things I did that I found helpful. kind of Dharma friend kind of things. An anger friend and a friend friend. Anything else? One more, okay. That's the question you ask yourself. Like, how will I respond when someone, you know, I have this very strong feeling and the person there feels hurt by it.

[41:54]

Do I just keep going? Do I listen? You know, and you deal with the consequences, right? You can't, nobody can tell you what to do. That's actually... what I was saying, you know, from both sides. You know, should there also be the possibility of the person who feels rebuked thinking, oh, and here I am holding in my place this kind of not wanting to be involved, feeling like there's too much energy around this issue, and why don't you just leave me alone, and that sort of thing. But that's completely valid for someone to feel that way, and yet then that makes you feel bad, like you imposed on them, right? So it goes around and around and around. I'm sorry. But we can do it. You know, that's another thing. I think that's another piece to this strength part, is that wherever you have chosen to land, you can also, you know,

[43:07]

Just realize that that's where you are. Anyway, we should stop. 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 Dorma.

[43:41]

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