This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning, everyone. How many people are here for the first time? A few. Great. Well, welcome. This temple is named, the English translation is Beginner's Mind Temple. So while we might have something that's of interest to you, you definitely have something that's of interest to us. We can see that's not going to work. So my name is Cynthia Keir and I'm delighted to be here today. I'm here as part of the Meditation and Recovery Group, which is a pretty large affinity group here at San Francisco Zen Center, people who are looking at inquiring into the dual practices of recovery and meditation.

[01:13]

And it's a pretty robust program. We have a number of offerings, but we also, through the kind graces of Zen Center, meet in this room every Monday night and have been doing so for 14 years. And if you have any questions about it, the people that I'm co-leading the retreat with, Patsy, you want to raise your hand? And Tim, and I don't know if anyone else is here from the steering committee, but you can ask them about our programs that we offer throughout the year. I want to take this moment, which we rarely get, to publicly thank Zen Center and the residents and the leadership for allowing us to have benefit of this beautiful Buddha Hall and to incorporate us into their programming. We greatly, greatly appreciate it. It's been a big Dharma gate for many, many people, and I'm sure we'll continue to be so.

[02:20]

So the meditation and recovery program that we're having today is called Sometimes Slowly. And it is... I want to say just one thing first about meditation and recovery as opposed to people who are just in meditation practice. I don't want to be snide or snotty about this, but I think we have a big leg up on you all in terms of suffering. There is nothing like a blatant, unavoidable addiction that not only you see, but other people see in you and are very happy to bring to your attention that encourages on this path of trying to transform our suffering. So we're very lucky and sorry that you can't join us. Don't help, you know. But it's an open meeting. And one of the things that I like very much about the programming that we put together with recovery And meditation is that unlike, you know, I know you're a very sophisticated crowd because you're in San Francisco and recovery is talked about everywhere and plus it's everywhere in sitcoms and bad movies and things like that.

[03:30]

But often the programs are siloed, you know, Alcoholics Anonymous, Al-Anon. you know, overeaters, food addicts, sex addicts. I mean, there's a program for everything. But when we get together at Zen Center, we all get together in an unsiloed fashion. And it's really very helpful to see, oh, yes, we can be, we can grasp and cling at virtually everything, whether it's credit card debt or relationships or substances such as alcohol, pot, which happens to be one of my seasonal afflictions. But anyway. And these meetings are open so that you would be very welcome to join us or encourage any of your friends to join us. So what we're doing during the context of this particular weekend retreat is the space that we're kind of looking at is the intersection of some recovery literature called the Promises and then some Buddhist literature called the Brahma Vaharas.

[04:41]

And this is, God bless you, and this is pretty typical in terms of how our program goes. We look at the way in which these two... I'm going to go out on a limb here and say both are wisdom traditions. They inform each other in terms of and reinforce each other in terms of some very, very basic principles. So I want to start first by taking a moment to read to you the promises, which are very short. I'm going to warn you that there is the G word that is used in this. If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are halfway through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale of suffering we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.

[05:45]

Kind of sounds like a bodhisattva vow. The feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things, some falling away there, and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them. So pretty significant that they're such overt, such are labeled so overtly as promises. They've been very encouraging words to many people now for well over seven decades, something like that in terms of recovery. So let me just also put down the other bookend, which is the Brahma Vaharas.

[06:50]

How many people here are familiar with the Brahma Vaharas? I'm sure a fair number. Yeah, once again, a very sophisticated crowd. So the Brahma Vaharas are also called the four immeasurables, the divine abodes, or the sublime attitudes. And they consist of four specific... states of mind that we want to systematically inculcate and cultivate in ourselves. And I'm just going to read some brief descriptions of these. And the four states are metta, which is loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. So just a very, very brief overview of each one of them. Metta translates both as friendship and also gentle, as in gentle rain that falls in indiscriminately upon everything. Metta practice is a steady, unconditional sense of connection that touches all beings without exception, including ourselves.

[07:51]

The Buddha first taught this as an antidote to fear. Compassion is our caring human response to suffering. A compassionate heart is nonjudgmental and recognizes all suffering, our own and others, as deserving of tenderness. Sympathetic joy is the realization that others' happiness is inseparable from our own. Yes. Apologies. Yes. Okay. Shall I go back to my name is Cynthia Keir or are we further along that? Okay. Thank you, Blanche, for bringing that to my attention. I appreciate it. All right. So we're talking about metta, loving kindness. We're talking about compassion, sympathetic joy. And then the last one is equanimity, which is that spacious stillness of mind that provides the ground for boundless nature of the other three qualities.

[08:55]

This radiant calm enables us to ride the waves of our experience without getting lost in our reactions. So that's just a brief overview of kind of where we are in terms of the intersection of these two topics. You know, I love Camus, and I recently picked up a book of his lyrical essays. And in one essay, The Nuptials at Tunisia, he said, it is not easy to become what one is to discover one's deepest self. And I think that whether we're in recovery or in practice, this is true for all of us, that it is not easy to necessarily fully actualize ourselves. What these promises do are to encourage us that it's possible, first and foremost. And what the Brahma Vaharas allow us to do is to provide a very systematic,

[10:00]

spiritual paradigm and methodology to work our way through this process of trying to be fully human in the best sense of the word. We have so many different things that we deal with as humans. Of course, first and foremost, we're born into a particular crucible of our karma, i.e. our families. And that's where we get a lot of early training and where a lot of that habit energy of ours is set that very, very deeply settles into us in a very, very deep way. But beyond that, we just are human, and we have all of the tendencies that people have and all of either the afflictions or the hindrances that we have to deal with. In recovery parlance, we might talk about these as character defects or character traits. whether we're inclined to be selfish people, whether we're inclined to be fearful people, whether we're inclined to be judgmental.

[11:08]

We're all trying to deal with these things. In a very fundamental way, what our practice in particular allows us to do is to help us find a corollary to this very, very stable posture that we come to know through zazen, where we have stability, where we learn stillness, where we learn to gather ourselves, to stay with whatever might arise. And the corollary of this in practice and in recovery is to cultivate an equally corresponding internal posture. that allows us also to have great stability, great equanimity, great openness of heart as we live our lives to the fullest. There is, of course, a tendency to, when we're dealing with any of our hindrances, to think about them as just great difficulty, and that in and of itself might cause us to avert our gaze.

[12:23]

Or a lot of times we're dealing with very difficult, hot emotions, jealousy, anger, rage, fear, whatever, that are hard to confront head on and meet them immediately. And yet it is the irony, yet again another paradox that we see, that it isn't by meeting them, by actually entering into them, that they turn out to be a Dharma gate for us and a pathway toward our own transformation and liberation. So this is not an easy process for any of us to do, whatever traits we might be dealing with. And these traits can be things that we experience in ourselves or perhaps other people. Perhaps you know a few other people that might be working your last nerve. So under any conditions, this is not necessarily easy work to take on. But it is absolutely fundamental.

[13:24]

It is absolutely essential that we do take on this work. Habit energy, whether it is something like addiction or whether, you know, in a certain way, what we see from a recovery perspective and why I jokingly but seriously say that we are fortunate to have this is that we get to see in a very bold and pronounced way what our addictive inclinations are in terms of how we respond to life. And from there, once we have learned how to transform that and work with it, then the field is open for all of our other types of addictions and afflictions to come forward and to work with those. But we learn the basic technology and we start to cultivate a certain faith in the process. Habit energy is very, very hard. It really requires a lot of virya, effort.

[14:27]

to work with this, to work against our own inclinations. So for many of you I know are not in recovery, but nonetheless it's probably not a far stretch for you to think about some area of your life where this habit energy comes up over and over again. Very often it is around fear, but perhaps it's something else. Judging mind, critical mind, delusion mind, desire to step back from life too much as opposed to meet it. Everyone has their own particular habit energy or thought patterns that we just keep spinning. And sometimes the nature of them is so subtle, they're so finely woven into the fabric of our mind, that we can't distinguish that they're not true. If you ever have a thought arise, and of course, that's not an idea of mine, that's just truth, right? I'm not being arrogant, I'm just being right, you know?

[15:29]

And so we have to, this process of really studying ourselves is a lifelong commitment to really try to tease this apart and to... pull out of what seems like perfectly fine cloth, all of those areas that might be unfortunate and hindering habit energy for us. Another problem that we face in this process is that we live in a society that is highly characterized by speed and acquisition. Or is that just my impression? And To do this work not only takes courage and commitment and faith, but it also takes space. It takes time. And most of us lead lives that feel like a pile-up on I-5 from one event to another, day after day after day. So what some of us are doing over the course of this weekend is to really...

[16:32]

definitely take that step back to enter into a quiet meditative space where we can open up and allow our heart minds to come forward and to really take a deeper look at things, to give ourselves that time. It's an enormous gift, and I encourage anybody who has not done it to give yourself the gift of retreating time. The four Brahma Vaharas are... are a particularly gentle way to start to approach working with some difficult aspects of self or of others. And this sense of loving kindness, which is one of our sutras here, that I'm sure many of you are familiar with, specifically talks about this notion that I was trying to identify of cultivating an internal posture in addition to an upright, wholesome physical posture.

[17:36]

So with a boundless mind should one cherish all living things, suffusing love over the entire world, above, below, and all around without limit, so that one cultivate an infinite goodwill toward the whole world. In their talks later this afternoon and tomorrow, Patsy and Tim will be talking more specifically about the associated technology and methodology with the Brahma Vaharas and the four elements that I mentioned. Because there is a very, very specific process for doing this. For those of you who don't know about it, just Google it, of course, and you'll instantly be put on the path of truth. But there are some pretty good sources out there. I want to focus a little bit on loving kindness and the last one, equanimity. Loving kindness is a challenge for many of us, and it is yet a very, very powerful posture to learn how to cultivate.

[18:44]

And the thing about loving kindness is that... We talk about, in this process of systematically working through the Brahma Vaharas, that we offer loving kindness first for ourselves and for somebody who's close to us that we care for so it's not so difficult to say, oh, I'd like to offer loving kindness for Blanche, for instance. And then we go to somebody who's neutral and then we go actually to somebody who's working that last nerve, that difficult person. But... In point of fact, I think that the first one, offering loving kindness for this being, is usually where a lot of people get, you know, kind of, it's difficult. It's very challenging. Our society tells us that that might be narcissistic, that we shouldn't be focusing on ourselves. Well, actually, maybe our society doesn't say that. But certainly, a confused understanding of practice could say that we should be offering loving kindness to you, not to me.

[19:46]

And yet, this is the very, very place, the very, very first step where this loving kindness must happen. If I cannot offer loving kindness for this being, for this mind, heart, how can I genuinely offer it to you? And even if I do nothing else in my life but transform suffering within the container of this being called Cynthia, I've done quite a lot. because I've created stability and clarity in a non-narcissistic, skillful, wholesome way. I've created an internal posture that is less likely to create negative karma. Does that make sense? But it is very difficult to do it, and we don't think necessarily that we are worthy of it. So I want to just allude to a Pali sutra, very short.

[20:48]

This is my offering proof to the court. This is from the sutra, the king. I have heard that on one occasion the Blessed One was staying near Jetta Grove. And on that occasion, King Pasenadi Kosala had gone with Queen Maliki to the upper palace. There he said to her, Malika, is there anyone dearer to you than yourself? No, great king. There is no one dearer to me than myself. And what about you, great king? Is there anyone dearer to you than yourself? No, Malika, there is no one dearer to me than myself. Then the king, descending from the palace, went to the Blessed One, and on arrival, having bowed down to him, sat at one side. As he was sitting there, he said to the Blessed One, Just now, when I had gone with King Malika to the upper palace, I heard her say, Malika, is there anyone dearer to you than yourself? When this was said, she said, no, great king, there is no one dearer to me than myself.

[21:54]

When that was said, I said to her, no, there is no one dearer to myself. Then on realizing the significance of this, the blessed one on that occasion exclaimed, searching all directions with your awareness. you find no one dearer than yourself. In the same way, others are thickly dear to themselves, so you shouldn't hurt others if you love yourself. This is truly the essential ground of practice for each and every one of us, is cultivating a friendly relationship with this one, first and foremost, one that is shot through with loving kindness. that's informed by forgiveness and generosity of spirit. When I have that in place for myself in a way that is genuine and authentic, then I have the space to genuinely offer it to you. So this is not about, by the way, perfection.

[23:08]

We don't want to get tripped up on that. In recovery, we say it's about progress, not perfection. These processes are the work of a lifetime. Some of my character traits that might cause me problems or cause other problems are on the fur, and a little haircut will do me just very well, and I'll be much improved as a person. And others of my character traits feel like they're more on the skin. They're more deeply entrenched. Perhaps as a result of that early conditioning in that crucible of family when so many things are set in place. Or perhaps we just have a strong inclination. So we have to realize that this is not a process that is an overnight process of becoming somebody who's perfect. It's not even about perfection. It's really just about more and more the fact that we continue to ripen and awaken in a way that's skillful and that's upright and that's aware and that we have more generosity of heart for ourselves and as a result of that for others.

[24:25]

I had mentioned the paramita of virya as effort. because this does take a lot of effort to continue to do this. But another very helpful tool in all of this is another paramita called kashanti. And kashanti is forbearance in the face of suffering. But also the important nuance of kashanti is that we include ourselves. We have compassion for ourselves in the face of of what it is just to be a human, which is both wonderful and miraculous and magical and sometimes a little difficult. So compassion for this one as well. If as a result of all of this, if we are painstaking in our process, if we continue to engage with this, and again, we don't have to do it

[25:34]

perfectly all the time. One of the things about practice that I think that is so very generous is that we don't have to perfect anything. It really is about as much learning to be with ourselves, but equally important is learning how to return to that commitment, that intention, time and time again. I want to offer loving kindness to myself and to you, but you know when I'm when I'm feeling under pressure, when I have a plane to catch, and it's a two-hour drive away, and it's taking 20 minutes to get the cab. I mean, to get my car, rather. And I find myself getting a little short with the valet who brings it, right? So we don't do these things perfectly. But with awareness, realizing and tasting that I... was not able to be skillful and kind with the valet, I return to my vow, to my intention to try and infuse my life, my internal posture on this heart-mind access of loving kindness so that the next person that I meet, I will have the generosity and I'll be reminded of my commitment.

[26:56]

So again, not perfection. The potential... May all beings live in safety. The potential benefit and outcome of this is that we will find ourselves more and more inhabiting a territory called Upeka. which is the last of the four Brahma Vaharas. And it is a field of equanimity. I want to read from a book. There's a wonderful poem, which in many ways, I think, echoes and supports loving kindness, which is called Trust in Mind or Faith in Mind, the Xin Xin Ming. And I'm reading now from Musong's book about that.

[27:59]

But this is what he has to say about... equanimity. When they, and he's alluding here both to the author of the poem, Shen Kang, as well as the Buddha, when they seemed interested in this, what they seemed interested in is pointing to an equanimous mind which is a quality of being in the world. Again, not a particular external but rather this internal posture that we want to cultivate and stay in touch with as we travel the world. What they seemed interested in pointing to is an equanimous mind which is a quality of being in the world in which the mind has become pliable, stable, flexible, not fluttering, concentrated, without blemish, purified, cleansed,

[29:00]

and free of all defiling tendencies. This is the awakened mind and the resulting functioning state of such a mind as one of clear, unprejudiced perception. This is the quote-unquote good and the peaceful attained by the Buddha under the Bodhi tree. And this is the beginning of our loving-kindness sutra. This is what should be accomplished by the one who is wise, who seeks the good, and who has obtained peace. You know, when I first started practice, it seemed very, very far-fetched to me that that would actually be possible as a result of my own particular causes and conditions, as well as the addictions of many things, including the various substances. It seemed a bridge too far. I just really didn't think that that level of equanimity could be possible, that I could honestly inhabit this body, this bag of skin, with as much peace and ease as I've come to inhabit it with.

[30:05]

And yet over time, as Suzuki Roshi talked about in terms of enlightenment, you know, it's like a gentle rain and we just keep walking more deeply, more deeply into it, getting wetter and wetter. And the benefits that accrue are really quite miraculous. You know, it's hard to, it might be hard to imagine what this state is like in the face of difficult emotions, in the face of difficult life experiences, our own sickness, old age and death, the sickness, old age and death of others. But this is the promise of the Four Noble Truths, the cessation of suffering, this ability to stand up in all the moments of our lives, moment after moment, and to be fully present for what's happening, for who we are, for who we are becoming, and to do that in a field of wholesomeness and wholeheartedness and great connection.

[31:15]

Pema Chodron kind of encapsulates it and uses the phrase, relax, as it is. To just be that relaxed in our lives. I remember when I was first interested in practice, I read the Three Pillars of Zen, right? And in that, Philip Koplow talks about his teacher saying, you know, if you have this level of equanimity, you actually would be able to meet an atomic bomb and have a sense of equanimity. Possibly. I haven't been challenged, presented with that practice experience yet. But I've been presented with many others, as I know other people have. And it's amazing the great stability that this practice gives us. this ground of groundlessness. The last thing that I want to say is that, you know, as I was saying to our group of retreatants last night, if you remember nothing else, please just remember introducing loving kindness to yourself.

[32:23]

And just, you know, try to hold an awareness, particularly as we have this constant conversation with ourselves to pay attention to what that conversation is. Oh, Cynthia, you screwed up again. Oh, that wasn't good enough. Oh, that was great. Whatever it was. And to actively train yourselves... to try and push back against that habit energy and to enter something else into the conversation. Oh, yes, it wasn't as good as I would like, but I did my best, right? May I have loving kindness toward myself, right? Dogen is very, very encouraging in all of this. One of my favorite fascicles of Dogen in Kaz's book is called The Awesome Presence of Buddhas, but in another translation through Shasta Abbey is called The Everyday Presence. practice of the everyday activity of Buddhas doing their practice.

[33:26]

And what I love about this fascicle is that Dogen sets in very clear terms that we don't need to go to that mountaintop. We don't have to be the perfect person that we're not. We don't have to study countless sutras. We don't have to read countless books. We don't have to even formally take vow. All of those things can be enormously helpful. But what Dogen says is all Buddhas without exception make full use of their everyday behavior for their practice. Becoming proficient in one's daily conduct while on the path toward Buddhahood is what is meant by a Buddha just doing her practice. So we don't have to go looking far and wide. We just have to be that present with our lives and have that much intention to try and practice as wholeheartedly and wholesomely as we can. The other piece that I want to remind you about is that in addition to because I'm going to start a new recovery program called Perfectionist Anonymous and

[34:38]

There won't be an empty seat in the house, I know. You all might like to be the first group. But apart from not whipping yourself, not taking this practice in any way and making it a cudgel to yet again beat yourself in terms of not being perfect, apart from that, the other thing is that we all have our own spiritual pedometers or odometers and travel at different speeds. And there is no rush. in any of this. As I said, that metaphor of just walking consistently, constantly into that rain, that damp mist and getting wetter and wetter, is what our commitment to our practice is all about. And sometimes these things happen quickly. Satori, Kensho, and we're transformed, and sometimes they're slowly. And it is when that... that some of these intractable issues that we're dealing with in our lives are happening slowly, that I think we most need this loving kindness toward ourselves.

[35:44]

So, in the spirit of slowness, I will offer a new poem that I came across fairly recently. And this is by somebody called Dana Fowles. Anyone familiar with Dana? I wasn't either, but I like this poem very much. It's called Walk Slowly. It only takes a reminder to breathe, a moment to be still, and just like that, something in me settles, softens, makes space for imperfection. The harsh voice of judgment drops to a whisper. And I remember again that life isn't a relay race, that we will all cross the finish line, that waking up to life is what we were born for.

[36:51]

As many times as I forget, catch myself charging forward without even knowing where I'm going, that many times I can make the choice to stop, to breathe, and be. and walk slowly into the mystery. So I wish you all a day of walking slowly into the mystery of your own lives, your own Buddha nature, and do so, please, with lots and lots of loving kindness. Thank you. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving.

[37:58]

May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[38:01]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_97.81