Good evening. And some of you I know and some of you I don't. So I'm trying to get a sense a little bit of who you are before I speak. And Vicky, who I guess is not here, she asked me to speak. And the person who asked me to come here is also not here. I guess, what's his name? The tanto. Jordan, right? The host. It's okay. So Vicki told me that she asked me to give a talk on loving kindness, since I understand the theme of the practice spirit is loving kindness and compassion. So coming here today, I was thinking, what might I say? And one of the things I could say is that I feel that it was here at Zen Center, partly here in this building here, and coming into this room, partly being in this room, in the hallways here, that I feel like I discovered some of the realms of compassion and loving kindness.

[01:44]

And I feel very grateful for that. When I came to Zen Center, I was not interested in either one. In fact, they weren't really in my vocabulary. Compassion, perhaps, a little bit, but not much. And loving kindness was just a, you know, I didn't even know a concept. And if somebody told me I was going to come to Zen Center to cultivate compassion and loving kindness, I would have gone somewhere else. And... But no one told me, so I came here, and it was my surprise to discover these qualities begin to kind of develop during the time I was here, the practice I was doing. And now I've come to have a tremendous appreciation, and I might say love for these qualities, and I kind of understand that... Zen Buddhism, the bodhisattva spirit, bodhisattva attitude, is really grounded in the warmth, the care, the compassion, the love that comes out of a sensitive heart, a free heart, a relaxed heart.

[02:57]

And what happened when I was here was this relaxing started happening. Sometimes I thought of the Zen practice as being kind of a practice to tenderize the heart. And so all that kind of, you know, the crust and tough stuff kind of eventually kind of fell away enough so that something which I couldn't really claim as my own, but certainly was within me, started to flow and radiate out. And for the early years of Zen practice, it was really compassion for the most part that was being awakened in me. And a lot of it was because... Luckily, I wasn't given any instruction here. And because I wasn't given any instruction, when I sat in the zendo, I just sat with my suffering. And it didn't occur to me it should be different. I wasn't very smart or, you know, I didn't know so much about Buddhism. And so I just was told to sit with what is.

[04:02]

That was my understanding of the practice, sit with what is. Kind of unconditional acceptance of what is. And it didn't occur to me that it shouldn't be suffering because I was suffering. And I suffered a lot. And the meaning of that kind of just simple presence and suffering tenderized me, kind of began to dissolve something. And from that started slowly developed some compassion. And the compassion that developed at first was not, I didn't think of it as being internal, but rather what happened was I started seeing compassion all around me. And I saw it in the other Zen students. I saw it in some of the art. I saw it in the wind as it kind of brushed against my cheeks or something. I just felt it, just externally. And I remember being drawn very much to drawings or paintings of Amalokiteshvara as an embodiment of compassion. So I kind of was projecting maybe what I needed myself, what was kind of beginning to kind of

[05:06]

show itself slightly. And then, with time, I started finding it in myself. And it was a big surprise to find it in me. And it was an even bigger surprise to discover that it was going to become kind of the underlying motivation for how I wanted to live my life. It wasn't even how I wanted to live my life. It was like how I was going to live my life. Or maybe I shouldn't even use the pronoun I. how life was going to be lived. It just seemed like so inherent in just what was here. And so slowly started growing this wonderful feeling. And the love part came afterwards. And the first inklings of that, I believe, that I started to really cherish it, was when I was assigned to the garden at Tassajara to work in the garden. And what I liked to do was, I guess, before the work period started, I loved walking around the garden. in a very paternal kind of maternal almost kind of way. Look at all the plants. Make sure were they okay and how they had me done overnight.

[06:07]

And I guess I just, you know, it wasn't something I was consciously, you know, planned to do. I just had this little free time in the day. So I'd walk around and tend to all these. And I used to feel all this, you know, kind of well-being myself. I felt really good. And it was kind of strange. probably oxytocin was being released in my system. And as I was sitting there, kind of just enjoying it. And so there was this kind of feeling of love, or love that was not compassion, you know, just kind of feeling a love that was caring, caring love, wanting to make something beautiful here. Maybe some of you have read the book... Social Intelligence by Danny Goldman. In there, he reports about an experiment that was done of some seminary students. I think it was Princeton Theological Seminary.

[07:10]

They had 40 students. Each of them had to go to the library and prepare a 10-minute talk, a sermon. Half the group was going to give a sermon on any random passage in the Bible. And the other half was going to give a sermon on the Good Samaritan. The Good Samaritan is this guy who stops and helps someone who's distressed, you know, on the streets, is falling down and sick or something. And no one else is taking care of them, helping. And this Good Samaritan stops and takes care of this person. And then they had to go one at a time, 15-minute intervals or something, from the library to cross campus to where they were going to give the... where they're going to give the sermon. And what the students didn't know was they were part of a psychological experiment, study. And on the way to where they had to give the sermon, in a doorway, in a path that they had passed through, was an actor who was lay down and out, kind of, you know, in the doorway.

[08:24]

And they were going to see... how many of them stopped to help this person who was obviously in distress, having a hard time in the doorway and the path. And what they found was there was no difference between, oh, 24 of the 40 stopped. That's, you know, my majority, but just barely. And what they found was that it didn't make any difference whether they were doing a random passage from the Bible or doing the Good Samaritan. The people focusing on the Good Samaritan didn't do better. But then they experimented a little bit differently. And they had them, I guess, people doing Good Samaritan, a sermon on Good Samaritan. And half the group, 10 of them, they said, you're going to be late. You're late. You better get over there quickly because you're going to miss this important sermon you're going to give. And the other half, they said, oh, you have plenty of time. You go over there. You have plenty of time. Take your time. You'll get there. Fine. And then they found that people in a hurry, something like two out of ten stopped to help the person who was in terrible distress in the doorway.

[09:30]

And of the people who had lots of time, it was a majority. I think it was six out of ten or eight out of ten or something like that. And so the correlation here, the only correlation they could find that was positive was time. If you had time, if you had time, then you're more likely to stop and help someone. If you didn't have time, if you were hurried in a hurry and had important things to do, then you're much less likely to stop and help. And so this, for me, points to the idea that time, giving ourselves time, to absorb things, take things in, give ourselves time so that we're not greedily or clinging to the future or getting someplace and getting a lot done, is really an important quality for the awakening or the expression or discovery of both compassion and loving kindness. And that was my experience here at Zen Center. was that I had lots and lots of hours in the zendo with my suffering.

[10:35]

Lots and lots of hours of time that wasn't productive in the usual ways of getting things done and running around. And from some kind of conventional points of view, it would be a real struggle for some people to slow down enough to do the kind of practice you're doing here. And what I would like to suggest is that it's essential to do that in order for these beautiful qualities to begin being a natural expression as opposed to something that we, a technique or an idea or an ideal, that we kind of add on top of one more thing we have to do. And so giving ourselves time, slowing down. And I slow down enough to let things register, to take in. slow down enough so that we can listen to something that I think is quite shy, that doesn't really want to speak or show itself to you, unless you're kind of quiet enough or still enough or spacious enough with time that you can hear this very shy motivation or voice inside of you.

[11:46]

And so the voice of compassion for me and loving kindness initially was very shy or very quiet. It was easily kind of droned out by my thinking, my selfish thinking, my desires, by wanting to do something. It got drowned out by trying to be a good Zen student. That was not helpful. It got drowned out by trying to get concentrated. It got drowned out by using meditation as a technique. What I found that was most needed was just kind of to just be present with a spacious time and listen, be present and just be and sense and feel what was there. I've also found that it was very helpful was to sense my life, sense life, through my body more than through my thinking. And sometimes I still find that's a little bit of a... interesting practice for me because it's kind of like if you're walking on a road and half the road is flooded in the mud and the other half of the road is dry and for some reason you're walking in the muddy part and you sink down to your knees it takes a lot of work to make your way through the road and maybe you have blinders on you don't see that just a foot away there's dry land but then if you kind of step out

[13:16]

pull yourself out of that mud and then walk on the dry side of the road, it's a lot easier to walk. And then we walk for a while on the dry side and then we put our foot back in the mud. It's so attractive. And some mud's more beautiful than others we put in. And then we have to kind of pull ourselves out. It takes a lot of effort to pull ourselves out. And I think of that as kind of an analogy a little bit in my mind of what happens when I get caught up in my thinking. And somehow my mind thinks that it's important to think. It's necessary to think. It's going to help me to think. It's interesting to think. Important things are being done when I think. And what else is there after all but thinking? And they think that how we kind of negotiate our way through life is through thinking. And sometimes the lawyers of the mind will come up and explain why it's important to think. And so it's kind of like I'm stuck in that mud. And it's such a relief not to be in the mud. but to kind of be on dry ground, to be in that place where we're present for it all.

[14:20]

We don't have to stop thinking, so the mud doesn't go away, but we don't find ourselves in the mud of thinking, kind of step out of it, have an overview of it, step back, in a sense. And one of the ways I've found to be very helpful for that process of getting out of the mud is to getting into the body and feeling the body. And probably you all know this, that Zen is very much a body-based practice. I was very struck by this when I was in Japan, the Zen monastery there. I was there for about five months. And somewhat simplistically, when I was about getting ready to leave, I thought, well, that was kind of a wasted time. And then I left. And when I left, I realized, only when I left did I realize how much the Zen training I got there had penetrated my body. My thinking hadn't recognized what had happened, but my body had, and I'd been changed through the bodily practice, being in my body, what we do in our body is in practice.

[15:24]

And so to experience things in the body, and one of them, again, within that, I find it very useful to yield to my body, to relax my body, to soften. And even when I sit and try to sit up straight in meditation, there's a way of softening a lot of the extra. And at least in my body, I... Still surprised by how subtle the tension can be. And gross as well. But I'm amazed at how much my shoulders can relax after I think I'm relaxed. Or little movements in my muscles and my arms where it's a little bit tightened up. I don't have to be afraid or anxious to be tense. I can be excited or I can just be engaged in email. And that's all it takes to get tight. And so to begin to kind of soften. and relax this body, and the more the body feels open and relaxed to this life, and I have time to digest, to receive, to process what's going on, it seems that the softness, the receptivity, or the sensitivity of the heart is right there.

[16:34]

And then it's a matter of giving expression to it, being able to act on it. And that can be a challenge because acting on it, generally compassion and loving kindness is something we act on or express or feel in relationship to others. It doesn't have to be. One of the beautiful things is to discover compassion that has no object or loving kindness that has no object. This is boundless loving kindness, a boundless compassion and this wonderful sweetness. But to begin finding how can we live this way. How can we, in our words to others, in our speech, our relationship to others, how can we express our compassion and our kindness? In the case of the Buddha, one of the teachings, some of the teachings around loving kindness has to do with its protective quality. That when you practice and live out of loving kindness, it protects you. And I've seen that in my life where situations where someone was really hostile to me.

[17:37]

was very tense and I thought actually it was maybe a physical danger. It was a possibility of it all. And as long as I was trying to deal with it in all the kind of logical, rational ways, trying to be, you know, trying to be, I don't know, sensitive and appropriate or whatever, you know, just kind of stayed in kind of a standoff. But when I said to the person, no, I really wish you well. And I said it because I meant it. The person just relaxed. And since then, I haven't had any problems. I mean, I don't know if the person disappeared, but that's pretty good, given what was going on. So I think that I was protected by having this genuine goodwill. It took a little bit to find that in me. How can I come to this place where this person who's hostile to me, how can I come to a place where I actually genuinely feel like I wish them well?

[18:39]

What fear do I have to confront in myself? What anger in myself do I have to confront and recognize so that I can somehow work through it or dissolve it or see through it? And I've been a person who had blinders on around my own anger. I kind of had a self-image that I'm not an angry person, thank you. And so I couldn't see it. People would say, Gil, you look really irritated. No. And so part of practice for me was beginning to recognize what's actually going on here. And it's that recognition, I feel, that allowed me to kind of begin touching into something that I think is really beautiful. I think kindness and compassion. So to have time... I think one of the great practice challenges, practice questions, is if you don't give yourself sacred time, if you don't give yourself time to really do things in a balanced way, is to grapple with the question, why not?

[19:52]

What is so important that you can't do it? Do things in a relaxed way? What is so important? Why do you think it's so important to get anxious or get speed up or cling or in a hurry to do something? What is going through your mind? And this is a really good question to ask. I propose right after, I don't know, maybe zazen or service or something. I hope that some of you, most of you, will come out of zazen in the morning a little bit calmer than you came in, usually. I hope that's the case. feel more settled, more connected, more present. And that it's a really interesting opportunity in that if you're a little more calm than usual, to kind of continue your paying attention and notice the first situation where you lose that. When you get kind of, oh, I've got to hurry, you've got to get to breakfast. Oh, there's just, you know, that person in front of me in line is taking too much oatmeal. Or whatever it might be that kind of gets you caught up or anxious or in a hurry.

[20:56]

So as you leave zendo or leave service or whatever you do, the first inkling of losing that ease or calm or openness or whatever it might be, concentration, stop. And look and see what happened right there. What did you believe? What beliefs are you operating under? What emotions are driving you? What are the motivations that are present? Because then you can look at that and grapple with it and question it. And perhaps you'll discover what's extra, what's not needed. And you can relax and come back to a place that's open. And then come back to the body. In the ancient world, in the ancient Buddhist world, there were, until today in this world, in modern times, there are people who are exemplars of loving-kindness. And you can just be around them, and you kind of feel this wonderful kind of vibe, this field of loving-kindness around them.

[22:01]

And what's interesting is that they're kind of like a, you know, you can be like a furnace almost. If you're a furnace... you don't need to bring a heater in to warm you up, right? But if you're not a furnace and you're cold, then you better get a heater to warm you up. You bring a heater in and warm up the room, warm you up. It's the same thing with love. If your love furnace, if your loving kindness or compassion furnace is off, then the strong tendency is to go look for someone else to warm you up with. And so a lot of people in our culture are really concerned about having someone love them. It's really important to be loved. And I don't want to knock the importance of being loved. It's a good thing. But for practitioners, I think, in practicing compassion, loving kindness, what's more important, I think, is to be loving and to cultivate love. And all these exemplars of loving kindness and compassion are never exhibited as wanting or asking to be loved.

[23:05]

They're just so full. There's such an abundance, such a surplus. And I've had that experience sometimes where my sense of loving kindness, of love, compassion was kind of like a furnace. Not a furnace, maybe the wrong analogy, but it just felt so full and boundless and radiant that it just became, you know, it wasn't an issue. It couldn't be a concern. It wasn't a concern of mine whether someone loved me or not. And then I've had times where I felt really busy, harried, lonely, depressed, anxious, feeling I'm no good, lousy kind of guy. And then sometimes I go looking around for some kind of affirmation or support from someone else. And someone else loved me or someone else liked me, who likes me. It's important. People should like me.

[24:06]

It's really important. And I was kind of neurotic around boring people to like me. And one of the beginning, what began to cure me of that was being a Fukaten at Tassahara. Because it proved to be an impossible task. And so I got to see, I got to suffer so much that eventually I kind of got to look at that. And Ricky was there. Remember Ricky? And he didn't like me. There was someone else who took me aside and said, Gil, I have to talk to you. He took me out of the kitchen. And he said to me, Gil, if you weren't so sincere, I'd punch you out. So monasteries are dangerous places. So this idea of being liked, you know?

[25:08]

And so, anyway, the point I'm trying to make is, you know, when I'm feeling kind of down and empty or whatever, it's very easy to look outside of myself or something to complete myself or fill myself. And my hope is that by relaxing, being present, giving yourself time and feeling, feeling what's here, yielding to the feelings, both the difficult ones and the beautiful ones, yielding to them in the body, with the body, that... this beautiful process begins happening, this tenderizing, this softening, this opening process, this revealing process. And with time, I believe it's pretty much a natural process that your love will begin shining. And you'll find that your own love is such a beautiful and valuable and happy thing that it becomes nice if other people love you, but it's not... It's probably overrated, at least in the songs.

[26:08]

I'm in the process of writing a book, kind of a book on loving kindness. What I've done is I've gone through the earliest teachings of the Buddha from the Pali Canon. and collected all the passages I could find on loving kindness. And before I collected them, I said to myself, it was not that many. It's going to be a short book. And as I started collecting them, there were more and more and more and more quotes. And now this is a huge body of literature, so proportionally it's not that much. But when you gather them all together and then look at them all, it's very easy to conclude that in the teachings of the Buddha, our wonderful ancestor, that loving-kindness had a really, really central role. It was expected, almost as one of the foundational practices for the monastics who studied with him, that they would cultivate, express, live with loving-kindness.

[27:22]

And he said that in subtle ways, in kind of simple ways. He said things like, he said, the wealth, monastics aren't supposed to have money. or jewelry and things like that, but the wealth of a monastic is loving-kindness. That's your wealth. If you want to be wealthy, that's how you discover your inner wealth. The beautiful thing about this inner wealth like loving-kindness is that it's portable. The other thing he said, kind of rhetorically I believe, he said that if bandits grab you and begin sawing off your arms. If you give rise to hate, if you hate the bandits, you are not following through on my teachings. But rather, you should cultivate not only loving kindness for them, but you should cultivate boundless loving kindness.

[28:23]

It's kind of hard, you know, with your arms being sawed off. But I take that as rhetorical. You know, it's like it's so important, it's so valuable that you're calling back on loving kindness to discovering what it is, trying to awaken it, hold it as a value. It's not easy. You can't always do it. But have it as a value. That even if bandits are sawing off your arm, then you would fall back on that as well. Maybe all of you know the story that I think is worth repeating of a Tibetan monk who was in jail in Tibet after the Chinese invaded for a long time. and finally was released or escaped or something. And someone asked him, were you ever in danger while you were being tortured and real danger? And he said, yes. There were times where I was in danger of losing my compassion for the guards, prison guards, for the people torturing me.

[29:27]

Isn't that phenomenal? That's what he's concerned. The real danger was losing his compassion. And then there's another kind of story that's told in the Vipassana world a lot. In the late 60s, early 70s, there was an American woman who was in a rickshaw going through a difficult part of some city in India. And some man jumped her, pulled her out of the rickshaw to accost her in some way or other. And someone came to her assistance and she was able to get away. So she went to her teacher. say, well, what should I have done? And he said, with all the loving kindness you can muster, hit the person over the head with your umbrella. So it doesn't mean you can't defend yourself, do what's appropriate, but that can you do it with loving kindness. In fact, in the vinya of the monastics of the Theravadan tradition, I was surprised to discover a few years ago,

[30:35]

that they are allowed to hit people. Do you know that? You know, you don't get too close to them. But they cannot hit if there is ill will in their hearts. And the expression is they're allowed to strike out as a means of escape. So if someone's hitting them or someone is about to push them off the cliff, they're allowed to strike out with their hand to kind of fend off the blow or push them away. But there can't be any animosity. There can't be any ill will in that movement. So I don't know how we interpret this in a modern life, but the point I'm trying to make is this emphasis on loving kindness doesn't have to be sentimental or doesn't have to be unrealistic. I think it's an understanding that we live in a difficult life, a challenging life. But loving kindness is a wonderful protection, and it's a wonderful way to take care of each other. in this life that we live. And the last thing, a couple of more things I'd like to say.

[31:38]

In the Theravada Buddhist tradition, all the Brahma Viharas, whether it's loving kindness, compassion, equanimity, sympathetic joy and equanimity, can be developed to such a degree that they become, they're called liberations of the heart. They're not the same as ultimate liberation, but they have such a high value that they're given the name of a liberation, a form of liberation. And they take that form when the loving kindness is cultivated and radiates from you boundlessly, has no limits. There's no one who you don't feel boundless love for. And it goes out in all directions. And it kind of is a general characteristic or quality. of the state of mind, the state of heart that you are. So it isn't just like a little seed of loving kindness or a little kind of feeling of being kind or friendly to someone, but it's kind of like you're saturated, like all your pores are dripping.

[32:44]

It's everything. There's no limitation to it. There's no anger. There's no fear. There's no tension that's holding it in. All the tension, all the fear, all that. And even in order to have this boundless quality, the sense of being self-preoccupied, as to fall away as well. And so there's a kind of boundless quality. And it's a really beautiful thing. In the Theravadan tradition, the early Buddhist tradition, the general understanding is that loving kindness is the foundation for compassion, for sympathetic joy, and for equanimity. So that loving kindness is kind of like the basic open sensitivity of the heart, basic place where the heart is. And when it's open and present and relaxed. And then when we encounter, you know, in that open place, then we feel friendliness or kindness to ourselves and to others. When that basic kindness encounters someone who's suffering, then it morphs, the kindness morphs into compassion.

[33:49]

When that basic kindness encounters someone who's having a good time, who's happy and successful in life, then it morphs into sharing the joy with them, appreciative joy. And so there's a kind of morphing quality that goes on. And in other Buddhist traditions, they sometimes feel that compassion is the root, is the foundation that morphs into loving kindness and other forms. So they all morph into each other as is appropriate in the situation. So now I wanted to read. This is from the Middle Link Discourses of the Buddha. Imagine that there is an easily accessed pond with clear, delightful, refreshingly cool water. If a tired, parched, and thirsty person, scorched and exhausted by hot weather, came across this pond, the water would be used to quench both the person's thirst and hot weather fever.

[34:58]

It is the same for a person who, after learning the Buddha's teachings, cultivates loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. From this, the person gains inner peace, and because of this inner peace, cultivates what is appropriate for a monastic. So cultivating loving-kindness, cultivating peace, leads to what the Buddha was pointing to. to what's appropriate for someone practicing seriously. So I hope that this little talk works a little bit like a pep talk, or if not as a pep talk, as an encouragement to argue with these ideas, to challenge these ideas and be challenged by them. And ask yourself questions like, when you're not feeling kind, why? What do you believe? What do you feel? What's your motivation? What might be the reasons and what might be the ways to access loving kindness at times you don't?

[36:05]

But when you do feel friendliness, is there some ways that you can act on it more? There's some ways you can expand it and spread it out. Can you somehow begin questioning your life or exploring your life around the theme of compassion and loving kindness to challenge yourself and to open your hearts further? So that's what it is. So thank you.

[36:53]

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