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. Good morning. Thank you to Mary for inviting me to speak with you today. It's always a mixed blessing. It's wonderful to be able to spend the time or to make the time to make sure that I'm sharing with you something that I think is important. So today I'm going to start. My name is Susan, by the way. How many of you are here for the first time? Hello, hello, hello. Hello. Hello, hello. Oh, goodness. Oh, good. Well, welcome.

[01:01]

Welcome. So my talk today is about patience. And when I was researching patience, oh, it looks like that was like hit the spot, huh? It hit the spot. Okay, good. When I was, you know, looking into it and sort of turning patience in various ways, I came across this children's story. And I'm going to read it to you. It's called Betty Bunny Loves Chocolate Cake. And it was written by Michael B. Kaplan. And the illustrations, I'm not going to turn around and show you every picture. It was Stephanie Jorisch, I think. Okay. So, here we go. Betty Bunny Loves Chocolate Cake. Betty Bunny was a handful. She knew this because her mother always said, Betty Bunny, you are a handful. And her father always said, your mother sure is right about that.

[02:05]

Betty Bunny knew that her mother and father loved her, and so being a handful must be very, very good. One day, after a healthy dinner of carrots, potatoes, and peas, mother said, who wants dessert? I have chocolate cake. Betty Bunny, who was... not very good at trying new things, announced, I hate chocolate cake. Chocolate cake is yucky. What's chocolate cake? So her mother gave her a piece, and Betty Bunny tried it. It was the yummiest thing she had ever put in her mouth. When I grow up, I'm going to marry chocolate cake, said Betty Bunny. You can't marry a dessert, her brother Henry said. You could marry a baker who makes chocolate cake, added her sister, Kate, the rational one. Or you could just buy your cake at the store and then you don't have to marry anyone, said her older brother, Bill. Betty Bunny thought about it for a while.

[03:10]

No, she finally said, I am going to marry chocolate cake. Whatever, said Bill, but you're going to have really weird-looking kids. That night, Betty Bunny's mother kissed her and tucked her in. Good night, Betty Bunny. I love you, she said. Betty Bunny looked up into her mother's eyes and said, Good night, Mommy. I love chocolate cake. Next day at school, Betty Bunny's teacher said, Good morning, Betty Bunny. How are you? Betty Bunny said, I'm a handful, and I love chocolate cake. Her teacher said, A is for apple, B is for ball, C is for cat. Betty Bunny said, A is for chocolate cake, B is for chocolate cake, C is for chocolate cake. During playtime, Betty Bunny tried to make chocolate cake by mixing water and dirt. It looked a little like chocolate cake, but it didn't taste very much like chocolate cake. Betty Bunny started to cry, I want a chocolate cake, she said.

[04:15]

Her teacher told her that they had no chocolate cake at school. Betty Bunny said, I hate school. School is yucky. After school, her mother drove her home. How was your day, she asked. I ate mud, Betty Bunny answered unhappily. I want chocolate cake. Sometimes, her mother explained, you can't have what you want right away, so you need to wait. And that's called having patience. But I don't want to have patience, Betty Bunny protested. I want to have chocolate cake. That night at dinner, her mother told Betty Bunny she could not have dessert until she ate a healthy dinner. Usually, Betty Bunny liked healthy food. Not tonight. Tonight, all she wanted was chocolate cake. Her father told her, don't come to me hoping to get a different answer. Henry said, if you were smart, you'd eat some peas. Kate said, you should try some carrots. They make cake out of them, too, you know.

[05:16]

And Bill said... Why don't you have some chocolate cake? That's what you really want. Oh, no, wait, you can't. Ha ha. Betty Bunny picked up some peas and she threw them at Henry. And she threw some carrots at Kate. And worst of all, she threw mashed potatoes at Bill and they stuck to his forehead. Everyone was shocked. Even Betty Bunny was shocked. She hadn't really meant to do something quite so awful. Mother was not happy that Bill had teased his sister. She was even less happy with Betty Bunny. She told Betty Bunny to go straight to bed. There would be no chocolate cake tonight. Betty Bunny screamed, this family is yucky. Then she remembered she was hungry, so she crammed her mouth full of peas, carrots, and mashed potatoes and ran off to bed. When her mother came to her room to kiss her goodnight, she told Betty Bunny, sweetheart, you know that I still love you. Mommy? Betty Bunny said, you know that I still love chocolate cake.

[06:18]

Just thinking about chocolate cake she was not eating made her cry. Then it made her scream. Then it made her kick the wall, which hurt her foot, which made her cry all over again. Betty Bunny, her mother, said as she rubbed the little bunny's foot, I'm going to put a piece of chocolate cake on a plate in the refrigerator. It will be your piece of cake. You can eat it tomorrow. after a healthy dinner. And maybe if you know it's there waiting for you, it will be easier to be patient. Betty Bunny stopped crying. She liked this idea. So she wanted to say something especially nice to her mother. Mommy, she said, you are a handful. The next morning, Betty Bunny wanted to say goodbye to her chocolate cake before she left for school. So she opened the refrigerator and saw her piece of cake sitting on its plate. It looked so lonely. Betty Bunny knew that the cake would miss her all day while she was at school. Aren't these great rationalizations?

[07:21]

So she picked it up and put it in her pocket. At school, her teacher said, Betty Bunny, you seem very happy today. Betty Bunny just giggled. There was chocolate cake in her pocket, and no one knew but her. As Betty Bunny finished munching her last carrot at dinner that night, her mother smiled. Betty Bunny, she said, you were patient and waited all day for your cake. You ate a good dinner. I am very proud of you. Would you like to get your cake now? Betty Bunny reached into her pocket. Her cake was gone instead of cake. Pocket was filled with brown, goopy mess. My cake, she screamed. Henry said, I can't believe you put cake in your pocket. Kate said, Betty Bunny, food doesn't go in your pocket. Bill said, guess you can't marry that piece of cake now. Her mother got her a new piece of cake, and she explained that putting cake in your pocket is not really the same as being patient.

[08:27]

Betty Bunny finally understood. She promised from now on she would be patient. And so, the next morning when Betty Bunny opened the refrigerator to say goodbye to her new piece of cake, she remembered that she couldn't put it in her pocket. And that is why she stuffed it very carefully into her sock. LAUGHTER I want what I want when I want it. I don't want what I don't want when I don't want it. How many of you people in this room have not heard about the Buddhist teachings of the Four Noble Truths? Are there some people who don't know what they are?

[09:29]

Okay, well, the Buddha, who was a human being just like us, noticed... that there was suffering, and he wanted to really study what it was and basically how to free us from it, how to free all humans from suffering. So he sat down for a very long time, very still, and he discovered these four truths. And when I use the word truth, one of the best parts of Buddhism, the part that I like almost the best, is that when anyone says something is true, The underlying statement is, but go check it out for yourself. You know, don't believe me. So anyway, the Buddha discovered these four truths. One, that there is suffering, which we're all pretty aware of, I think. But there's a cause. This is what he saw. A cause that can be understood, which is about craving, desire, wanting, and clinging. That's the cause of suffering.

[10:31]

And because there's a cause, there's a way that suffering can end. And there's a path. This is the fourth truth. There's a path that supports this ending of suffering. So I want what I want when I want it is both the definition of suffering and a clue to the cause. These wantings, these loud complaints come from our desire for pleasure. And our intolerance for and resistance to anything physically or emotionally uncomfortable. We have a belief that there is something wrong with the way things are right now. Something wrong right now. If the moment includes discomfort. And I have to say, I'll talk about this more later, almost all moments include at least a subtle moment. So even if the moment doesn't include any overt discomfort, we still really want things to be different so that they can be even better.

[11:45]

And even though in our experience we know this isn't true really, we are sure that by doing something to alter our situation, things will be permanently good. In other words, we're delusional. By stubbornly or habitually sticking with this delusion, we're robbing ourselves of the opportunity to see the ultimate cause of suffering and thereby realizing its release, otherwise known as freedom. So to help us, the Buddha suggested a path, the fourth noble truth, that there is a path. And that path has eight elements. right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. Today I'm going to talk about right effort.

[12:50]

So when we use those words, right effort, often people, what does that mean? What's the appropriate? What is right? How much effort is right? And I would say, I think the appropriate effort with which to meet these delusions that I was just describing, to meet the suffering of being attached to pleasure and resistant to change, I'm going to call this patient effort. Patient effort. So patient effort. Patience as defined as acceptance of things as they are. Patience that is both wise and compassionate and energized and persistent. So that's easy to say. It's easy to describe, right? But how is patience developed? I'll give you some of my thoughts on that now.

[13:58]

I think it can often start with its, I call, younger sister relationship. And then it can deepen by stopping in that tolerating, by not trying to move off of the moment, tolerating and examining what is. And in that stillness, in that stillness of examination, being kind and warm-hearted to ourselves moves us towards equanimity. which watches discomfort come and go without interfering, because true equanimity arises when the truth of the nature of suffering is deeply understood and embodied. So I'm going to break this down for you a little bit. I'll repeat that. Tolerance, examination, warm-heartedness,

[15:04]

developing into equanimity, which is, to me, another synonym for patience. So tolerance. The breeze of emotional or physical pain is blowing. What do we do? We can feel the pressure on our body, the pressure of this discomfort, the yearning to be in a different state. So those are two different things, the sensation of discomfort and the wishing for it not to be so. Can we tolerate the yearning? If we use the energy of patience to stay present, because this kind of patience is not passive, it is energized. It's motivated by active tolerance of and compassion for the suffering. rather than a desire to eradicate it.

[16:06]

So in this process, we're also developing our compassion towards ourself and others. Once we adjust our urge to move away from the tension and make the effort to pay attention to the tension, we're more able to stop and examine. So we turn our attention to the tension, not the object of the tension. So then we slow down. And we can focus on the sensations and the emotions and the nature of the discomfort and the desire to change it. Instead of trying to block that desire or feed it, we simply examine it. We focus our attention on the desire to change the situation. rather than on the object.

[17:07]

Does desire have a shape? A color? Where does it come from? Where does it live? Where does it go when it vanishes? Is it burning like a fire? Is it pulling us like a rope? What is desire? Here's a personal example. getting up for zazen in the morning. I'd been away for a while. I had gone through some health issues and went away, and I came back, and I was, okay, now I'm ready to go back and sit in the zendo. And I set my alarm. Oh, and I made a promise to somebody I was going to get up, which is helpful. Set my alarm, and when the alarm went off, the level of discomfort that came up for me, I was not prepared for.

[18:09]

I just thought, oh, well, I made the commitment, and I'm rested, and I'm going to get up. It was so strong. It was really strong. And there I was in the warm bed, soft, warm bed. And I turned the alarm off. So... Was I moving away from the discomfort or towards the pleasure of the warm bed? You know, I don't know because I didn't examine it. I just capitulated. And yes, the discomfort was gone for a moment, but I missed the opportunity to tolerate this small discomfort because there are a lot of bigger discomforts out there. And one of my jobs... is to be able to be with that in myself and others. So I missed the opportunity. I was impatient with the discomfort. So the next day I shared the failure with the same friend to whom I had promised to get up and allowed myself to, you know, have made a mistake because mistakes are a necessary part of the process.

[19:22]

And I renewed my intention. And the next morning when I woke up, I was ready. I was ready for like a big discomfort. And it wasn't there. I don't know why. It could have been. It wasn't a cause and effect thing. Don't expect just because you can repent and get ready. It's going to be better next time because it may not be. But I was lucky. And then it was easier for me to get up. So the practice is to stay with attention, to tolerate it and study it. Don't elaborate. Don't even name it. And this is not about sheer will. It's not about resisting discomfort. It is the soft acceptance of tension. And in the practice of examination, we see if there's a way to turn down the stress response, like maybe breathing, right? Or just turning towards it without deciding if it's good or bad. So, again, I said the next morning I was up for it.

[20:28]

I was up for it, with a reminder of what my vow actually is. So stage next step, or another stage, and of course these all happen at the same time, but in order to talk about them we have to segment them. So this offering of compassion to ourselves. Generosity and intention are necessary parts of patience. Because we're often not patient like Betty Bunny. How many times have we put chocolate cake in our sock? So can we practice being kind to ourselves, nonjudgmental? If we can, it helps us relax. When a need for relief from discomfort arises, we can feed that need with acknowledgement and confidence kindness to the sensations of the need.

[21:30]

We don't have to go have a piece of chocolate cake. We can be, I remember one time I was wanting to lose some weight because it was becoming hard on my hips and knees. And at the beginning, you know, at the beginning of a diet, you're really hungry, really hungry. And it occurred to me when that hunger arose to say, oh, hunger is my friend. In this situation, hunger is my friend. So somehow the label of, now I need to go do something about this and this is bad, fell away and it could be reinterpreted. There was a kind of a generosity and a kindness in there. I'm not saying I did this, I'm saying it occurred to me. And I offer that to you as a tool, not just about hunger, but about many things. So... Here's another personal example. This health issue I've been going through involved some chemotherapy and radiation.

[22:38]

And part of the radiation, they had to put catheter in my body. And when they did that, a panic started to rise up. And I can still, I remember what it's... felt like and in my mind's eye what it kind of looked like started to come from behind my head it was about this big and it was coming about towards my front of my face and it got to about my ears and there was a moment in there and in retrospect I thought I made a mistake and I'll tell you now why I think that's not so but there was an opportunity when that panic was arising to turn towards it And to say, what is it? And what's the nature of the panic? And I'm pretty sure if I had done that, it would have dissipated the panic. Because when you turn the light on it, it becomes something else. It's not the same anymore. But I wasn't able to do that.

[23:40]

And so what I did do is I took, and again, I can see the shape of this. I took my mind and I concentrated it over to the right and in front of me. And I made it smaller. I made my awareness territory compact, like kind of over here, away from the panic that was coming. And I was able to maintain that for the seven days the catheter was in. And this is just, you know, we practiced this in zazen for many years and your muscles of concentration get developed. So that was a gift that I was able to do that. But instead of seeing that as a mistake, which is what I saw immediately afterwards, I can see that what I was doing was acknowledging the sensation of panic and finding a way to tolerate it. The turning towards it might have been more advanced practice, but I wasn't up for it.

[24:44]

So I mitigated the panic so that I was less likely to do harm, to myself, or to others. And that's where the compassion is in there. So for whom are we doing all of this work? We're doing it for each other. And I needed to make sure I wasn't going to be harmful. And then I renewed my vow, and I will try again. So the next maybe phase of developing patience is this part of examination and of asking not just what is true right now, but what is ultimately true. Patience is not repression.

[25:47]

It is gentle forbearance, calm, endurance, And it is acceptance of the truth with a capital T. Now remember, that's a tricky word. Go check it for yourself. A lot of people have checked this out. And so that truth with a capital T includes knowing that everything changes. And that suffering... is actually to be expected. And that thoughts are empty of reality. And that there's no permanent person to please. So another recent example from my medical journey...

[26:52]

I was in my fourth round of chemotherapy, and I was beginning to hear the thought in my mind that was really negative. And it was something like, and I was feeling quite rotten at that moment. The thought was, it will always be like this. It will never get better. So maybe you've had these kind of thoughts, right? And it was heavy. having thought it was deeply disturbing and quite unpleasant. But somehow, right after that thought arose, another thought came. And that one said, this is only a thought. So the thought released itself with another thought, influenced by studying the truth with a capital T. Our thoughts are empty of reality.

[27:57]

So it may be that things will never get better, or it may be that they will get better. In any case, in either of those cases, the effort of resisting negative thought or grabbing a positive one is extra. It's just extra. So when that second thought arose, I was released back into the steady stream of change, which is actually quite pleasant. It's actually quite pleasant just to be in our life without resisting it or wanting more. As Leonard Cohen once said, if you don't become the ocean, you'll be seasick all the time. So that kind of being in the flow of of one's life, of life, not one's life, of life, is freedom. So, a little bit more.

[29:06]

Ready for some more? Remember when I said at the beginning that almost all moments include at least a subtle discomfort? The word that we translate as suffering, and I think, I don't know if this is Sanskrit or Pali, so someone can tell me. Dukka, is it Sanskrit or Pali? Sanskrit, okay. So duka is the word in Sanskrit that we say is called suffering. But duka is this onomatopoetic word, which is, it means a wheel that is out of round. So it makes this sound. Dukka, duka, [...] duka. because it's out around. And our human mind, it functions in such a way that we're wanting to lock in permanence, which we can't, but we want to.

[30:06]

And that effort, that discomfort with the fact that it's changing all the time is dukkha. Dukkha dukkha. want it to be different. I want to be permanent. I don't want to die. I don't want anything I love to die. I don't want it to change. I don't want my two-year-old to start talking. So when we sit very, very still, it's possible to notice that vibratory sense of anxiety, do-ka-do-ka. I propose that this baseline of anxiety is a condition, no, is a result of the deeply held belief that we're separate entities whose permanence is constantly threatened. We're physically vulnerable as animals, but more basically, we're constantly unable to stop the time-space continuum.

[31:13]

We're unable to hold on to something and make it permanent. The foundation that we so much want to be there cannot be found. The center where we can live safely without relying on the unreliable nature of change will not hold. There's a new Sleater Kinney album and a song that has words that are so apropos of this. I just... Saw it in the New York Times the other day, and I went, yes, yes. So I'm going to give you the lyrics to this song. Do you know this group? It's a wonderful rock group. And there were three of them together from the beginning, and the drummer just left. And that was before they named the album, The Center Will Not Hold. And The Center didn't hold in that group. So this is the lyric. It's sort of a Betty Bunny for grown-ups. It says...

[32:15]

I need something pretty to help me ease my pain. I need something ugly to put me in my place. I need something holy to give me a little taste. I need something muddy to cover up the stain. And then the chorus, the center will not hold, the center will not hold, the center will not hold. The center will not hold. I need a little money, so I got something to save. I need a quick injection to get you out of my way. I need a real affliction, gives me a reason to stay. I need a new reflection, don't want to see my face. The center will not hold. The center will not hold. The center will not hold.

[33:15]

And it goes on at the last minute until they're screaming. The center will not hold. So that scream that's their baseline of the center not holding is the mechanism from which desire arises. I want a little more of this and a little less of that because I'm noticing that the center will not hold. And if we keep wanting it to hold, we end up screaming. I love that song. So a little bit more about this truth, capital T, truth. Gil Fronsdale, who's a wonderful teacher who has lineages both through Zen Center and through the Vipassana teachings, wrote about it in this way, about patience, about ultimate truth and patience. And he says... It's a willingness to see deeply without resistance the truth of the moment and the truth at the deepest levels of reality.

[34:25]

This includes living with the insight that at our core there is no self to deepen or build up, and I add, or to please. Seeing the luminous emptiness at the center of all things means that we can begin to let go of grasping to a self-consciousness and fixed idea of who we are. This requires a kind of patience because deep insight is an affront to the ego. I'm just going to read part of that again. Seeing the luminous emptiness at the center of all things. So the center may not be holding, but when it doesn't hold, it is luminous. Trust it. It means that we can begin to let go of grasping to a self-consciousness and fixed idea of who we are. This requires a kind of patience because deep spiritual insight is an affront to the ego.

[35:35]

We really want this practice to work in a practical sense. But are we also interested or even committed to the touching of the deeper truths? Because I propose that this practice of patience, of patient acceptance, is too difficult without a deeply rooted intention to realize ultimate truth. And also, the level of compassion that is needed as we fail Time and time again requires the widest possible heart. A heart without boundaries of possible or impossible. And this is where intention comes in. The Buddha said, we all want to be happy, but do we all want to be free?

[36:39]

No. What allows us to tolerate failure, disappointment, defeat, unpleasantness, and confusion without giving up? We need both wise and kind, patient effort and persistent intention, renewed intention, right in the middle of each failure. That's the purpose of failure, by the way. It gives us an opportunity to renew our intention. So, a final little story. And this is a poem called St. Kevin and the Black Bird by Seamus Heaney. There's a part of it when I get to it near the end that I'm going to read a couple of times because the words are dense, but to me they represent the kind of realization that the Buddha had when he sat still and touched the earth for acknowledgement.

[37:55]

So, St. Kevin and the Blackbird. Oh, and I wish I could do this with an Irish accent, but I won't. I won't because I can hear it now. And then there was Saint Kevin and the Blackbird. The saint is kneeling, arms stretched out, inside his cell. But the cell is so narrow, so one turned-up palm is out the window, stiff. Stiff as a crossbeam, when a blackbird lands and lays in it and settles down to nest. Kevin feels the warm eggs, the small breast, the tucked, neat head and claws. And finding himself linked into the network of eternal life is moved to pity. Now he must hold his hand like a branch out in the sun and the rain for weeks until the young are hatched and fledged.

[39:09]

And since the whole thing's imagined anyhow, imagine being Kevin. Which is he? Self-forgetful? Or in agony all the time from the neck on down throughout his hurting forearms? Are his fingers sleeping? Does he still feel his knees? Or... has the shut-eyed blank of under earth crept up through him. The shut-eyed blank of under earth crept up through him. Is there distance in his head? Alone and mirrored, clear in love's deep river, to labor and to not seek reward, he prays. a prayer his body makes entirely.

[40:13]

For he has forgotten self, forgotten bird, and on the riverbank, forgotten the river's name. 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 Dharma.

[40:55]

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