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 for coming here today. I want to thank the leadership of of City Center to invite me to speak today. And maybe some people are here for the first time. Maybe if you are, would you mind raising your hand so we can see you and welcome you? My name is Kiku Kristina Lehnherr. I used to be a resident at the Zen Center for 18 years maybe, many years, many different positions.

[01:05]

Now I'm living with my partner in Marin, but continue to meet with students, and occasionally I'm sitting in this seat, each time with a little bit of pounding heart and not quite sure what ultimately will come out of my mouth, so we'll find out together today. I would like you to maybe take just a brief moment to look around the room and see who's sitting behind you, beside you, because sometimes we come in and we just look only in front of ourselves. And to maybe exchange a smile or just, you could even say each other your name if you wanted to. And then see how that feels, just for a moment.

[02:15]

Maybe something settled down a little more, or arrived a little more, or maybe got unsettled a little, who knows? But just to, it's not one is better than the other, just maybe a little different, and notice the difference. Today I would like to attempt to speak about practice, practicing in challenging times. I think it's an assumption, and maybe it's a wrong assumption, but my feeling is that probably for all of us, these are challenging times one way or the other. There is the change in climate, the hurricanes, the storms, the droughts, the fires. There is the change in political climate that may affect us one way or the other, but to some degree we are all in that soup.

[03:26]

So I would like to think what can Buddhism or this practice offer us to practice? You know, some of us are challenged health-wise. We discover we have an illness or a friend has an illness or a child has a problem at school. So I think all of us have some challenges that kind of have arrived unasked for, unwanted, or just here, and here they are. I want to start with a vow that Pema Chodron, I didn't write down in what book it was a long time ago, but I know it's from her, and that is probably aspiration and invocation from the path of the warrior in the Tibetan tradition.

[04:32]

which is a sacred path and doesn't mean you're walking around with a gun or a sword fighting. So it's the internal meeting challenges which is meant by that kind of warrior. May the roots of suffering be diminished. May warfare, violence, neglect, indifference, and addictions decrease. May the wisdom and compassion of all beings increase now and in the future. May we clearly see how all the barriers we erect between ourselves and others are as insubstantial as our dreams. May we continue to open our hearts and minds. in order to work ceaselessly for the benefit of all beings.

[05:37]

May we not turn away, but have the courage to go to the places that scare us, or we could say to become intimate with the places that scare us. Throughout my life, until this very moment, whatever virtue I have accomplished, I dedicate to the welfare of all beings. And maybe when you hear this, you can feel that you may not have different wishes. They may look different if you try to say what they should look like. But I think they're pretty... universal wishes in our hearts, in our human hearts. So practicing in challenging times, there are always outer circumstances and inner circumstances that affect us.

[06:49]

The weather, which right now is gorgeous from one standpoint and frighteningly dry from another standpoint, ecology, economy, politics, we could call outer circumstances, and many more things, I can't name them all. And then our inner circumstances that affect us, that is our current state of health, mental state, are we worried, are we happy, are we calm, are we agitated? the views we have of what's going on and of ourselves and around us and others, concepts we carry around in the emotional states. We could call those inner circumstances plus many more. And practice is always every moment occurring.

[07:55]

And that means we always are practicing something. We're doing something, that means we're putting energy into it and it's practicing something. And that is either governed by physical, mental, emotional habits and reactivity, or may be governed by that, or it may be governed by intention, vow, awareness, and cultivation of mindful response. So, this is, I'm talking right now in kind of a dual way. One is

[08:59]

practicing more habitually, just what we always do, how we make the coffee in the morning and how we get upset when we can't make it that way because of some reason, or how we approach or meet things that we do or that come towards us with intention and awareness and mindfulness. So war and peace start in the human heart. And if our heart is closed or closing, or whether our heart is opening or open, has global implications. That's hard to see, but it's a little bit like the butterfly kind of creating a storm somewhere down the line because it...

[10:01]

does have global implications. And so does our closed, open, closing, opening, partly closed, partly open heart, has global implications all the time. So a closed heart is connected to inclination for fighting, for defending violently, for neglect of self or others, of indifference, for addictions, which kind of shut us down to overwhelming feelings or overwhelming situations.

[11:02]

So to smoke or to take a pill kind of numbs us a little bit, or a lot. Judgments, righteousness, self-righteousness, dividing things in right and wrong and good and bad. An open heart or heart-opening practice encourages the courage of to not do the habitual thing. To not do our very individual habitual thing. Even if we all would smoke, we would all smoke slightly different, for slightly different reasons. There's an individuality, even though there's also, you could say, a same manifestation, a similar manifestation. So not to do my very, very own habituated thing.

[12:04]

Be that a thought pattern of tending to look for whose fault is it, or it's my fault, or all the time, or whatever it is. It's the courage to not do our individual habitual things to a sense of threat or fear or a sense of helplessness or powerlessness or anger arising or hate arising or resentment arising, we will have the courage or we practice the courage to not have then the habitual reaction, which is kind of like a... a way of avoiding to actually be with what is arising, the fear or the threat or the hate or the resentment.

[13:12]

Heart closing also promotes and supports fixed ideas, fixed designations, fixed identities or identification. And fixed means they're just like set in stone. So Hafez has a beautiful poem about that, and it's called I Have Learned So Much. I have learned so much from God that I can no longer call myself a Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew. The truth has shared so much of itself with me that I can no longer call myself a man, a woman, an angel, or even pure soul.

[14:16]

Love has befriended Hafez so completely it has turned to ash and freed me from of every concept and image my mind has ever known. So in these times, it's really difficult not to fall into fixed views, into, I find personally, you know, if I listen to MSNBC, I get supported in one view, strongly, If I listen to Fox News, I get supported in another view, as strongly and as convinced of having the right view. And what is missing for me is the field of deeply listening and trying to understand.

[15:22]

Fixed ideas and designations or identifications are a futile attempt ultimately to create a predictable, stable and secure world which does not truly exist. But it gives us the illusion. But if we have fixed views about anything, ourselves, outside ourselves, others, we are boxed in. And that has long-lasting implications and impacts on us. Because it promotes prejudice, it promotes aversion or attraction, and those... Impacts live for a long time in us and through us, around us.

[16:28]

So when we try to practice open-heartedness or what helps us to look at our closed heart when it's closed could be patience. So, and patience doesn't mean you suppress something or you push it away. You just make space and make time. So you maybe pause. You take time out from acting, from speaking, from even thinking, and you turn to... what has arisen. So it is actually a very honest practice that does not suppress anything, but slows things down, creates a space and a kind space around it. So you are interested in how exactly you are feeling.

[17:38]

So it's also what Dogen says, take the backward step and turn the light inward. So something outside arises that creates a lot of reaction in you, reactivity and thoughts and ideas. Here he goes again. It's always the same or she. And so when we can catch that and pause and turn inward, it's more like what is the feeling? Where is it? What is the energy of it? Where in my body is it residing? Not engaging into the thoughts. You can watch what thought patterns are activated by a feeling. So if I'm afraid, a particular thought pattern is engaged. So if I'm afraid, I either tend to fight or to run away or to get frozen.

[18:39]

that are three natural instinctive reactions to fear. So it's interesting to, for example, find out which one do you engage. And maybe you engage different ones in different situations, but to know that is already opening up your heart because you open up your heart to your own instinctual reaction to the situation. So we all have those three principles Sometimes we tend to engage one mostly because that was the one we survived with as children. Sometimes we are very flexible between the three. But when we know what it is, which one is arising in response to a threat, something we perceive as a threat or gives rise to fear in us, then we can actually... We are connected to ourselves rather than running a story outside.

[19:44]

Then we can check out what is maybe the most helpful response in this situation. And to see what kind of thoughts are running through my head. So it's very easy for me to have recurring thoughts about my partner, Marcia, at home. And it's really a continuous practice of not going what I think is evidence on my side that supports my thinking. Right? And it ends up in, oh, of course, I can't expect anything else, or here she goes again, or something like that, which is... kind of stabilizing my world because then I can kind of find a position to either manipulate it or to resign to it. But it's not really looking what is going on in me and taking it back.

[20:51]

It's stuck there and it's stuck in those thought patterns. So not engaging in those impulses to mentally kind of spin my story or to... acted out or to so when we allow that more space around it and really becoming more intimate with what is going on inside we can expand our window of tolerance because we are not very tolerant to intense feelings intense energy but And so now, in this situation, so many fears are activated in many different realms that the heat is rising, and so if we have the capacity to make space for that amount of energy in our bodies.

[21:56]

So someone in a training once said, you know, you can think of your body like a balloon. So when you have a very intense feeling, it feels like pressure inside. So go in your body and just think you can make a little more space in your arms and in your legs like you would a balloon. You could expand your arms and legs a little bit so that that pressure kind of lessens a little bit. So your body gets a little bigger to accommodate the pressure so it doesn't have to come out in an unconsidered action. It's actually working. You can try it. When your child drives you crazy and up the wall, if you sit down and just see if you can just make yourself so big that you can feel and stand the intensity of your feeling and not make it about the child because it's your reaction. So you own it, you feel it, and what can you do to make space for it?

[23:02]

without exploding. So trying fixed ideas, trying to identify and define a person and say that this is what we can expect, this is who it is and that's it, is... creating a kind of false sense of stability because we can then position ourselves also in a fixed way. But if we only see our own side, so you know, we all know that you... You know, a friend has a problem, we have a problem, we go to a friend.

[24:04]

Do we go to a friend and find out and talk with the friend about what do you think is my contribution to the problem or do I go to the friend to commiserate how the other person is causing the problem? It's a completely different approach. And we often want to have friends that are on our side, which is absolutely not helpful if they just confirm our view without looking how we participate in the problem, because there is nothing that happens singular and one-sided. It's all interdependently arising. So we are always part of a conflict that's arising, even though we don't see our part. but we can start being curious about our part. We can even ask the person who we have a conflict with, what do you think I'm contributing?

[25:08]

What about me is making it hard for you? And then listening and then thinking about it. So, for example, you know, I'm all for regulating the environment and think that's very important and wildlife and not have the... oil pipeline come through all these countries and in danger so much, but do I think about what if that comes true, so the pipeline is not being built or the mines are being closed, what do we do to make sure that the people whose livelihood that was, that they find another livelihood that they can... that they don't just lose their jobs and everything is gone. The environment is a little bit better, but another environment is much worse off. So then it's a whole other picture.

[26:10]

How do we take care of all the sides and the collaterals that are arising with a very good idea? So where are those conversations happening? how can we promote this kind of conversations when we have to make a decision in our lives? Do we include everybody that's involved, that is impacted by whichever way we're going? And how do we learn to do that? And I don't have the answer. So it's not, oh, there's an easy solution, but there is an awareness that can help when there are possible solutions and that somebody else might have a great idea coming from so-called the other side. So there's a practice period going on right now that has just started with people...

[27:23]

joining Zen Center for eight or nine weeks or more, is it more? Ten weeks? Ten? Ten weeks with a head student who for a whole ten weeks shares the teaching seat, runs around or walks around in the morning. Running is not necessary to do that, but waking up everybody and everybody making space in their life to... take time to study themselves, to get intimate with themselves, to know themselves a little bit deeper and a little bit more profoundly. And the topic of the practice period is the Genjo Koan, actualizing the fundamental point, which is from a fascicle of Dogen Senji. And in there he says... For example, when you sail out in a boat to the midst of an ocean where no land is in sight and view the four directions, the ocean looks circular and does not look any other way.

[28:37]

So, it's just round. But the ocean is neither round nor square. Its features are infinite in variety. It is like a palace, it is like a jewel. It only looks circular as far as you can see at that time. All things are like this. Though there are many features in the dusty world and the world beyond conditions, you see and understand only what your eye of practice can reach. In order to learn the nature of the myriad things, you must know that although they may look round or square, the other features of oceans and mountains are infinite in variety. Whole worlds are there.

[29:39]

It is not only so around you, but also directly beneath your feet or in a drop of water, and I would add inside you. There are also whole worlds there, infinite in variety. So if we can keep that in mind, that yes, we see a shape, and that's what we see. That's our true perception. But to understand and hold that perception in the understanding that there is myriad shapes immeasurable many other things participating in what I perceive, and that I only perceive a tiny little aspect at the very specific angle of what's happening. That might help us to step back and move slower, not be so quick to judge, maybe not be so afraid, but more curious.

[30:50]

Because sometimes that limitation is also, you can feel it in your body. When your heart closes, your body has an immediate response. It tightens up. Nothing can function freely and relaxed when your heart is closed. When your heart is open, your body relaxes and your inner organs can get nourished better, your breathing changes. So your body is your best ally finding out how it is when your heart is closed, how it is when your heart is open, and helps you navigate that. So fixed ideas make the situation so dire, because if it's fixed, it can't be changed, or it only can be changed by force. If we understand that everything is basically in continuous movement, Nothing is stable, which there's no ground to stand on besides the moment now.

[31:56]

So that's when it says a bodhisattva has no abode. There's no fixed hut somewhere and it's always there. So if we understand that there's so much more to everything than we can perceive at any given moment, we might be much more curious, much more able to just see how things, which way are they tending to, and which way are they moving, and do they need a little bit of help, and what is the best help we can give them to go in a life-affirming, heart-opening direction. I find it very humbling in these times because I can watch my mind wanting to take up fixed positions or to hold on to a view or to justify it or to judge.

[33:39]

It's so quick and so convincing. You know, when I was, many, many, many years ago, I worked for a while at the kiosk in a train station in Switzerland. And it was an eye-opening experience. I worked at the kiosk who, in Basel, there are two train stations side by side, one where the trains come in from France and the trains come in from Switzerland. So at that corner was the kiosk I was working, so the French people came in and the Swiss people came and they went to work early in the morning. So after a little while, you know the people that come every day. You know which paper they want, which chewing gum they want, which cigarettes they want and what else. It's always the same package. It's always the same price. So after a while, you know them and you have their package ready and they have their money ready and they go on the train or they go to work.

[34:41]

And it's really easy. And every morning... Tons of newspapers because there were newspapers all over the world. All of Europe, all of the world were newspaper at that kiosk. So millions of people work for those newspapers. And what became so apparent? The task of the newspaper is... I wonder whether it is really to inform people or to support people in their fixed views. Because everybody took that newspaper that supported their views and cemented them. They wouldn't take... So like, we might only watch Fox News or we might only watch MSNBC or only NPR or only... Why do we do that?

[35:42]

Because it's soothing to have your views confirmed, but it's also so dangerous to have them confirmed because it makes us close off to what is the view of other people who are as convinced as we are, and we don't step into each other's shoes and really try to understand where that's coming from. Or what feeds that? So that was kind of interesting to see. And so I make a point of trying, failing often, to really look at other new stations and not look at them to confirm that mine is better. Because I can look at it with that. with that stance, so I'm going to listen to whichever one just to see how wrong they are, right?

[36:46]

And which wrong views they are supporting. That's not what I'm talking about. But being willing to be unsettled, to be thrown into, wow, there's so much, I don't even know where to start, or how does this all work together or something like that. So I don't know if any of this you can take home and play with. The important thing is also that Suzuki Roshi used to say, you are all perfect as you are. And you can use a little improvement. And that's true with everything. We are all perfect as we are. So it's not about, oh, I'm bad if I don't do it this way.

[37:47]

It's more like, what is driving it and what feels like life-affirming? And if we make a mistake, it's not a problem. We just... can we just move forward with it? Can we say, I'm sorry, if it's something we would like to say I'm sorry about, or can we do it better next time? So this is not to discourage you. And I think when we get discouraged, we're trying too hard and too one-sided. There's also a nice way of when we get really discouraged, we may have a very fixed view or we may try something that's just not working that way. So then can we find a better way so that our interest and engagement is activated? So Hafez has another nice poem.

[38:59]

There is a wonderful game. There is a game we should play, and it goes like this. We hold hands and look into each other's eyes and scan each other's faces. Then I say, now tell me a difference you see between us. And you might respond, Hafez, your nose is ten times bigger than mine. then I would say, yes, my dear, almost ten times. But let's keep playing. Let's go deeper, go deeper, for if we do, our spirits will embrace and interweave. Our union will be so glorious that even God will not be able to tell us apart. There is a wonderful game. We should play it with everyone, and it goes like this. So I think if we can all remember to loosen up when it gets so tight that we can't play anymore, to engage things that help us be playful, because then we can maybe transpose that to other areas where it's a little more difficult to be playful.

[40:30]

So that in the midst of... these challenging times, we cultivate that spirit of openness that allows for play and playfulness. So that's it for today. you very much for listening take what you can use with you and just leave here what didn't resonate there's no no need to try to do anything with it aside from what resonates with you and comes back to you I wish you a very

[41:33]

good rest of the day and weeks and months to come. Thank you. 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 dormant.

[42:03]

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