This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. Is anyone here this morning for the family program? because it's happening in a different location. Maybe we should all head over there, in fact. I'm so touched that you all took the trouble to come out here. No fair weather Zen students today. So thank you for making that treacherous drive and avoiding newts on the long walk to this endo here.

[01:10]

And of course, to those who stayed home, you had the right idea. And thank you anyway for logging in and being here to join the Sangha. It's kind of cozy, actually. to be together. This morning I've been enjoying and drawing sustenance from and grounding and clarity and energy Through the practice of kindness. So I'd like to recommend it this morning.

[02:18]

Because why not? Why not practice kindness? Why not allow the kindness of our naturally intimate, open, tender, connected human heart? Why not let that be who we are? Let that be how we move. There's plenty of reasons why not, but none of them are good reasons. So I've been thinking of and exploring kindness, the practice of kindness as a kind of posture. Posture for those of us practicing formal Zen is sort of a touchstone. We have our physical posture, upright and still.

[03:26]

Our mental posture of... open, not knowing, and this heart posture of warmth and kindness. So as I'm practicing, trying to deepen into the practice and encounter and expression of kindness, I don't mean it, and I'm not working with it as an overlay, like... Cut off your closed and cold and resistant and complaining heart. And then just paint a layer of sweetness on top of that. I think those of us, you know, some Zen students and maybe some of you in this room feel like, I don't know about kindness.

[04:30]

Do we have that problem here? Some very serious Zen students. Kindness. No time for kindness. We crave authenticity. So to paper over some kindness is like not the point. But the kindness that I'm offering, the kindness... of our Buddhist tradition is the kindness that is totally aligning the deep ground, the deep root of our being with our expression as kindness. It's the most authentic thing possible. It's what we actually are and what we long to be and what manifests when we just stop being so confused about our relationship to the world, namely the confusion of feeling like I'm over here,

[05:31]

And it's out there. So I'm noticing, you know, what is the kind of effort or opening or release or invitation that allows a kindness to be in the feeling body? but not like floating in the feeling body independent of the deep root of my being, but a kindness that is the expression of my actual life that includes everything. That's the acknowledgement or the enactment of the way that we are so intimate with everything that's here. So intimate.

[06:32]

You might say, I'm not so intimate, but the teaching is we are so intimate with everything that's here. It's nothing but our own life, our own body, our own being. So settling in together, maybe you might invite this kindness. Notice in the body and the heart what this door of kindness opens for you. What is right here? And is there kindness towards it?

[07:37]

Of course, your neighbor sitting next to you. And you feel that kindness towards that friend in the Dharma. Maybe there's an ache in the body. Some unpleasant sensation. You feel what it is to bring kindness to that encounter. To meet this ache with kindness right now. What a relief. Maybe there's restlessness or impatience or judgment.

[08:45]

Like, I don't want to hear about kindness today. What is it to open to that? With kind heart. Intimate. The sound of the rain welcomed with kindness. The light. There's a way of talking about kindness and practicing kindness. And maybe in these words that I'm offering, you might feel like kindness is something that you do as a response to something. Something comes up and then we're kind towards it.

[09:52]

To have a kind response. So I'm over here being me. The outside world is over there being all of you. And this light and the sounds out there. Now and then, or all the time, things come up. This outside world impinges on myself. Something happens. And then I say, oh yeah, I should practice kindness towards it. And then we muster some kindness and apply it to that thing that just happened. Does that make sense as a way to practice kindness? Here it comes. Now be kind towards it. In the Zen view, I would suggest that's too late. That's too late.

[10:58]

So that's pretty good. You know, it's better than what seems to be popular nowadays. Something arises. We find the most cruel possible response. mustering cruelty together. This wholehearted practice that our society seems engaged in. This tidal wave of cruelty that we're standing in, trying to muster a little sprout of kindness and feeling it slammed. We need deep root kindness. And the deep root kindness is not something that after after something happens, you find that's not deep enough. If you can grab it after something's happened, it's not deep enough. So when I say the posture of kindness, this is like the kindness is here before anything happens.

[12:01]

Everything that arises is arising into the space of kindness already. It's also not, you know, something arises and then I figure out what would a kind thing be to do theoretically? That's also an excellent idea, but not exactly our way as meditators, as practitioners of Zen. Suzuki Roshi has this wonderful comment. about Dogen Zenji. So Suzuki Roshi is the founder of San Francisco Zen Center and Dogen Zenji is the 13th century Japanese founder of Soto Zen. And we have this precept, the fifth precept, which is to not sell intoxicants.

[13:04]

And Suzuki Roshi loves this precept because he talks about all the intoxicants that We're selling to each other all day long. Like Buddhism is one of his favorites. Stop selling that intoxicant. And maybe a kind of shallow kindness, you know, that's bought and sold. And bought again. So Dogen says about intoxication, his comment is... practice the precept of non-intoxication before the liquor arrives. This is very wise. And Suzuki Roshi affirms the wisdom of this. He says, actually, when you try not to drink liquor that you already have, it is too late. If you want to keep the precept, keep it before the intoxicating liquor comes.

[14:08]

It's wonderful. Keep the precept before actually anything happens. So then something happens and it's happening in the space where the precept is already being maintained. I don't know if that sounds abstract or if that's accessible. To just be in the body practicing kindness already. Feeling this tender open heart. Being in the world. Moving through the world. With this tender, open, kind heart. And letting our life, the whole field of what we call our life, just be this space of kindness. So our zazen practice of just sitting is to be completely still and open, not involved in things that are coming.

[15:19]

So it's not like things come up and then we get involved in them with kindness. It's that our sitting, and then as we extend that sitting into our daily life, that sitting is just this field of kindness that everything is arising together in. There's a story I was remembering this morning, a wonderful story about the 18th century Zen hermit poet, Ryokan. Maybe some of you know his wonderful, deep and lighthearted teaching. Ryokan was known as Taigu, or the great fool. He was so foolish that he was kind.

[16:21]

He didn't know, you know, that there were things. So he was just could be that field of kindness. He had beginner's mind, you know, freshly arrived on the scene of being a human being. Natural kindness right there. Once we've carved up the world into things and good and bad and me and you and this and that then we're in this realm of now kindness is another thing and now we're trying to apply the kindness to the thing but the violence is kind of already done of that separation so the kindness will be like a band-aid so the practicing before there's a world before anything arises practicing kindness won't be band-aid kindness will be the great fool's kindness so um He really was very foolish. And there's a story that I wanted to share. One spring afternoon, Ryokan, this is according to, as told by the translator, John Stevens.

[17:30]

One spring afternoon, Ryokan noticed three bamboo shoots growing under his veranda. Bamboo grows rapidly and soon the shoots were pressing against the bottom of the veranda. Ryokan was quite anxious for he did not like anything to suffer, even plants. He cut three holes in the floor and then told the bamboo shoots not to worry. He would cut a hole in the roof if necessary. He was happy once again. Then in another version of the same story says, one day a bamboo shoot sprouted from below the floor of his hermitage and grew up to the ceiling and As Ryokan used a candle to burn a hole in the ceiling for the bamboo shoot to grow out, he accidentally burned the hut to the ground. I love that this made him happy.

[18:35]

And that's what kindness does. I shared some weeks ago around my mother's passing, some of her final... Offering to the family was this teaching of, you know, as someone who had resisted the world's call to cruelty, despite hearing it loud and clear, you know, she said, don't let anyone make you cruel. There's no joy in that. You know, even if there wasn't, it would still be a good idea. But the joy is in the connection with our basic nature. The joy is in the intimacy that we are. So, of course, the kindness is the joy. So he's so happy. And he's so foolish that he doesn't even realize, you know, where she's going to sleep. So... Don't try this at home, you know?

[19:40]

Don't copy... Ryokan, you know, especially those of you staying here for a time at Green Gulch. Please, you know, this kindness that includes everything. Someone could say, you know, Ryokan was pretty kind, but his kindness didn't include everything. His kindness didn't include, where am I going to sleep tonight? Because he didn't know there was tonight. Because he was just. Completely himself. One with the field. Of ungraspable. This moment. Presence. With this deep trust. That. That. Will take care of him. until it doesn't nothing to fear this is our teaching of wisdom the wisdom teaching of our school says to practice wisdom is fearlessness when we practice this wisdom we have no fear having no fear we can practice the kindness so now um

[21:11]

We have here at Green Gulch some farm apprentice applicants who I'm sure will be told to weed. So I'm sorry, Brian. We don't have a problem with weeding here at Green Gulch, generally speaking. So we're not trying to imitate Ryokan. We're trying to embody the kindness that manifested in Ryokan's way through Ryokan. By the time we're thinking it's too late. By the time something has arisen, it's not exactly too late. You know, we can start over, but it's kind of too late. Start from zero then, you know, go back to before anything arose and reestablish the posture of kindness. So this is on my mind in part because, um,

[22:12]

A day or two ago, I got a message from the elementary school that my youngest child goes to. And it reminded me that last week was kindness week at Tam Valley Elementary. I thought, I did not notice. That last week was kindness week. I've been checking the news every day. And I did not see kindness week. I saw dehumanize, erase, cruelty week. And I wish that these Tambali folks, you know, had gone the word out. With a little more, I don't know, some consultants or publicists or something. It was, it is kindness week.

[23:26]

This tidal wave of cruelty. That's what it feels like. So it was so touching to see somebody thought it was kindness week. I would like to practice kindness week. Not because the administrators said, you know. Like when they say it's pajama day, often we ignore them. But when they say it's kindness week, I feel like, yeah, it is kindness week. It is kindness week. That's also what the Buddha ancestors said in their weekly email to me. Hey, Jiryu, did you remember that last week was kindness week? And also this coming week is kindness week. And actually every day, Until the end of the eon. At the end of the eons. Is kindness week. And then it all starts again. You know. In this Buddhist cosmology. And then it's kindness week again.

[24:28]

Eons. Endless kindness week. And that's what my heart wants. And that's why the joy is there. When I touch that. And that's why the closing. And the. You know, it's okay to feel this heaviness and rage meeting the greed, hate, and delusion. To be kindness towards that. To be the posture of kindness meeting that tidal wave of cruelty. Coming from outside and coming from within. heard this phrase last week this phrase this gleeful phrase to remove the criminal alien dirt bags i actually heard that phrase expressed by people who lead us supposedly and my kindness uh wasn't so deeply rooted

[26:18]

I thought, oh, you want to talk about who that is? Feeling that white hot rage, feeling that heavy sadness, that fatigue. So to feel this kindness is not deeply rooted enough. This little kindness that I'm applying, trying to do like Ryokan did and paper over my cold, greed, hate, and delusion filled heart, you know, with some expression of kindness that will not stand up. That does not stand up in the tidal wave of cruelty. I need, we need the path calls us to this deep rooted kindness, kindness down to the bottom of our being. So how do we nourish the deep root of this kindness?

[27:20]

You know, even when we're in the wave of cruelty, even if everyone around us is encouraging cruelty, even the good guys, you know, taking up cruelty. The Buddha way is the path of kindness and liberation. and intimacy with every single thing that arises, no matter what anybody says. Anything, this teaching is old and ancient and universal. Any action that has the cruelty in it, even if that action has a good result, the result is tainted by the seed of that cruelty and will soon enough blossom again as cruelty. any action even the most ineffective and subtle and seemingly washed away that has in it the seed of kindness will blossom as kindness you heard that before like from every single sage who has ever walked the earth so how do we live from this deep kindness

[28:41]

His Holiness the Dalai Lama, you know, no stranger to cruelty and deep suffering. He famously says, my religion is kindness. Raise your hand if that bumper sticker is on your car. We could do, you know, a walk through the parking lot and would be delighted to find that bumper sticker probably on more than one in our parking lot longing to practice kindness tenderness for every single thing for the air for the water for each other for this hatred for this ache for this sound not as someone separate from it but as it My Buddhist studies professor and now a good friend has this marvelous, I wish he were here to do it himself, rant about the Dalai Lama's phrase, my religion is kindness.

[29:56]

He says, the Dalai Lama consults an oracle before making major decisions. He has actually like medieval worldview. He is consulting spirit medium before making decisions that he sincerely believes is manifesting this kind of wrathful element of this ancient deity that was like captured by Tibetan Buddhist ancestors. That's also his religion. So I'm picturing, you know, the bumper sticker doesn't quite express the depth of the Dalai Lama's actual religious practice. I thought it would be cool if it did. You know, my religion is kindness, asterisk. Also, before making major decisions, I consult a spirit medium that's channeling an ancient deity.

[31:01]

You know, I don't know much about Tibetan Buddhism, so I looked this up. This is at Nechong Oracle. Totally far out. So they go and they do these ceremonies and this guy, this oracle, puts on a costume, an outfit that weighs 70 pounds and then a helmet that weighs 30 pounds. And they're doing all this ceremony and he goes into this trance where he manifests this thing and is like out of his mind manifesting this and answering with precision these questions that are coming from the Dalai Lama and others. And then he collapses, you know, and the ceremony continues and then wraps up. But that's so cool. So what does that mean? My religion is kindness.

[32:03]

You know, it's this rant of my friends is not to say that that his holiness is not a deeply kind person who understands kindness as the fundamental expression of his vow of, of the path. The point is that it's not enough. It's not complete to just say, practice kindness. There's a whole system. There's a whole universe of practice and study that And teaching, there's a whole life of devotion to being a mature human being that is underneath that practice of kindness. Kindness isn't just something you can do independent. It's like calling for this whole transformation of your life through all of these different tools and teachings. So he's tending through all of these teachings and practices.

[33:11]

He's tending to the deep root of the kindness. So as someone who also kind of like puts on weird clothes and does weird things and studies weird teachings, you know, in order to nourish the root, seeing what I'm up against, you know, in my separate experience, and restless and hateful and self-centered heart to just have the idea of kindness and try to put it on is totally inadequate to have a whole practice from the bottom up that allows them the kindness not to be like slapped on top of this basically greed, hate, and delusion system, but the kindness to manifest like the fruiting body of this mushroom that's deep and wide underground. So I wanted to talk a little bit about the practice of emptiness and the teaching of emptiness as a way in our school of Zen that we nourish the root of our kindness, that we train our being in intimacy so that kindness will be manifest in our life.

[34:44]

But maybe that's too complicated and maybe there's not time. But trust me, study emptiness. To maintain this fundamental duality, this fundamental delusion that I'm over here and everything else is over there, that is not a foundation for kindness. The kindness cannot make it up through that maze. The kindness at the bottom of our being is trying to come up into our action. But encountering that fundamental division, you know, it's stifled. So we study these teachings to soften this fundamental delusion we have about what's happening here. Maybe you feel this delusion right now. You're over here.

[35:46]

The rain is out there. You're over here. The cruel people are out there. In the immediate presence of this moment. Coming into our body and our belly. Relaxing and opening. Turning the light to see what is this actual moment. Of being alive. Not what do I think it is. Not what do I remember that it is. Not what do I call it. But what is it right now actually like?

[36:50]

Everything arising together, total intimacy. So we have this sutra that we chant every day here in this temple, and in Zen temples really everywhere, the Heart of Perfect Wisdom Sutra. And a practitioner recently was expressing great joy in noticing that the sutra on emptiness is being expressed by the bodhisattva of kindness and compassion. You all know what I mean and how strange this is? So in the morning we chant this very cold text. It's like Pretty weird. Those of you maybe encountering it this week for the first time might be finding that. What am I saying here? We say things like no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind.

[37:59]

Sound familiar? Emptiness. It doesn't mention kindness, if I remember. But if you look at the first line, the one studying that emptiness is the bodhisattva of compassion. Many people are leaving kindly to take care of things. And perhaps because they've had it. The kindest thing I can do here is just get up and get out of here before he starts talking anymore about emptiness. So just to say, I won't unpack this heart sutra for us today.

[39:11]

There's not time. but that the study of kindness needs to be joined with the study of who we think we are and what we think the world is. And this teaching of there's no eyes in the world. There's no ears in the world. There's no suffering in the world. There's no end of suffering in the world. This kind of radical pointing wisdom teaching is trying to get at the our fundamental relationship with life to crack it open a little bit so that that natural kindness and compassion and care and intimacy can manifest. So if you want to practice kindness, please also study who you think you are and what you think your life is.

[40:12]

And the teachings of the Buddha Dharma, have many tools through which we can do so we can deconstruct these dualities and separation that confine and obstruct the flow of that kindness this is what the Dalai Lama is steeped in that his kind of mushroom fruiting body can say it's just kindness you so much for your kind attention this morning. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support.

[41:26]

For more information, visit sfcc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[41:37]

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