This podcast is offered by San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good evening, everyone. It's a joy and a delight to be here with all of you in the room and online. Your presence is greatly welcomed and appreciated. And for anyone who might not know me, My name is Tenzin David Zimmerman, and I am a resident here at City Center. I also serve as the central abbot of Zen Center currently. This evening, I thought I'd speak about our human struggle to endure the suffering that we encounter in our lives and in the world, and particularly how we might maintain some degree of could say sanity and presence of mind as we do our best to navigate it.

[01:06]

Or you could say in some cases, how we might endeavor to bear the unbearable. How can we hold simultaneously both the beauty and the love in our life and also the deep human suffering? And this inquiry is something that we might take up at various times in our life and in our practice, particularly depending on the circumstances that we might be encountering at any particular time. And recently, it's been on my mind because of a conversation that I had with a dear friend several weeks ago who's been grieving the death of her 22-year-old son who was killed in a motorcycle accident. And my friend, let's call her Miriam. Miriam and I have known each other for over 30 years. We first met when we were co-workers at the same healthcare organization.

[02:12]

And of course, over the course of several decades, we've had and shared some significant life events together, both joyful and heartbreaking. I remember when she first met her future husband, I remember the birth of her first child, as well as her second child, as well as the time that she navigated cancer, as well as the time she was dealing with a miscarriage. And so my friend now is in a deep state of mourning. And it's due not only to the death of her son, but also to a number of other significant losses in her life in the past year. About four months prior to the death of her son, her beloved father died around Thanksgiving. And then four months later, in March, her son was killed in the motorcycle accident. And then three weeks after her son's death, her mother-in-law, who was elderly and with whom she was very close to and was acting as a very important support system for her, died.

[03:28]

And then, two months after her son's death, and shortly after her mother-in-law's death, her husband of 25 years confessed to having an affair with another woman and subsequently moved out of their home, leaving Miriam and her teenage daughter alone with their grief. And... As I just simply recount these significant losses that she had experienced, I can just really feel the deep sense of sorrow and grief and loss and shock that one might encounter. And the question is, how does one bear so much loss in such a short period of time? A couple of friends and I had lunch with Miriam about two weeks prior to her son's funeral, which was just at the end of June. And it was the first time we had been together in a number of years due to the pandemic, and we spent like five hours just eating and catching up and reconnecting.

[04:37]

And during that time, Miriam was somewhat subdued and... She was engaging, but she wasn't really bringing forth so much what she was dealing with in the moment. And it wasn't until close to the end of our time together when, kind of almost out of the blue, she exclaimed, what does one do when their whole life has been devastated? How does one go on? I don't know some days whether I can keep it together. Some days I feel like I just don't want to go on. So how does one respond to a question like that? As Miriam was recounting the tremendous suffering she's been navigating, I recognize that there was nothing that I or my friends could do to alleviate her suffering other than to simply

[05:39]

be with her, to bear witness to her truth, the truth of her pain and her loss, to honor it, to acknowledge it and the profound impact that was having on her, and to offer a listening, loving presence. The thing is, we couldn't change or fix anything. All we could do is acknowledge the situation. and respect the profound depths of loss that she and anyone can experience in this life. And also to honor the ways that she has continued to do her best to do what is important now. And that entails taking care of her daughter, her teenage daughter, who incidentally is about to go off to college in the fall. So Miriam is really going to be alone.

[06:40]

in her house. And so the question has lingered. What does one do when their whole life has been devastated? How does one go on? I heard the poet David White once comment that even the most extraordinary human life is visited with an enormous amount of sorrow and loss over the course of a lifetime. And the sentiment is echoed by the Celtic theologian Philip Newell, who suggests life is a gift shrouded with pain. Life is a gift shrouded with pain. But as Helen Keller once wrote, although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of overcoming it. And of course she would know. In times of suffering and sorrow, how does one work through our pain, through our numbness?

[07:45]

How do we regain a sense of reconnectedness and aliveness in ourselves? And as our lives come into being, as we become who we are, we learn about sickness, old age, and death. realities that the Buddha led the Buddha in time to his path of practice. And it may seem at times that our whole life is nothing but a river of gain and loss. And then there's actually what we do with it in terms of how we create our own suffering from the constant changes that happen. and from the life that relentlessly unfolds within and around us. So I think it's fair to say that the world is a heartbreaking place. And I'll leave it to you to name all the ways that is true for you.

[08:51]

And practice teaches us, in some sense, to live with heartbreak. The thing is, we can't really be a loving person. unless we are heartbroken. And heartbreak is, you could say, the gateway, because it's the thing that often stops us, that makes us pause and ask ourselves, what is most important? What is most important in my life? And we can harden when our heart is too overwhelmed, when it's too touched by the brokenness of the world, It's too poked and prodded and torn. We become brittle at times. And we really don't want it to break. But you could actually say a life well lived is a heartbroken life. Can we see that as a positive thing, as something that's actually beneficial?

[09:58]

Can we allow ourselves to be completely, irredeemably, by our own suffering and the suffering of the world. To just let it break our hearts. Because when it does that, it means you're connected. It means in some way that you love this life. And the thing is, we don't want to get lost in our heartbrokenness. But we need to let the world's suffering break us in some way. To open the space of what we tried not to feel. What we try to protect ourself against. And the sad thing is too often we try to hold it together. Have you ever done that in the midst of great heartbreak? Try to hold it together? Keep our shit together?

[11:02]

look good, try to keep persevering in some way, and not let other people see how devastated we are. But I suggest to you that we take the space, create the space where you don't have to hold it together. Can you just allow yourselves in those moments to sob and to weep? And that maybe we can hold each other as we go through that. Because the thing is, grief moves on. Grief too is a river. It's not something fixed. It changes over time. And we need to be careful not to solidify around our story, whatever our story might be, our story of loss. And that's what we're looking at when we sit down on our meditation cushion seats, and something comes up, and it feels at times so emotionally impactful and strong to the degree that sometimes our whole body is shaking with some form of grief.

[12:24]

And if we could just release the story around it, And feel the feelings that are coming up. Feel the sensations. Acknowledge what's arising. Allow it to move through us. Can we not ignore or deny what it is that we're feeling or experiencing? Don't try to spiritually bypass it. Because the thing is, what we're feeling is valid. Whatever you're feeling is valid. Everything is valid in the sense, the story isn't valid. I'm not saying the story is valid, but the felt sense of it, the feeling that you're experiencing is valid. It's what's present. It's what's true. So don't deny it, but also don't supply it with more energy. Don't build on the story. Don't elaborate. Try to keep it going in some way.

[13:27]

So the heartbreak of the world is calling us to practice compassion. We are being called to compassion. Everybody is calling us to compassion. All the phenomena is calling us to compassion. Everything in our mind is calling for compassion. So compassion, karuna, it's one of the four Brahma-viharas, one of what's called as the sublime attitudes or abodes. And it's often described as a quivering of the heart in response to the suffering of the world. And the English word compassion derives from the Latin compassion, which means with suffering, the ability to be with suffering. And it doesn't mean suffering with or taking on the suffering of another. Sometimes we get confused by that. And we think, oh, I need to take on someone else's suffering, right? Suffering in exactly the same way they are. It doesn't mean that.

[14:33]

It means opening to a capacity to abide with suffering, my own and that of others. It means to be able to be in solidarity with suffering when it arises, to tend to it, to respond to it, and to seek as best you can to maybe offer some relief. Compassion is a response to the inevitable adversity that all human beings will meet in their lives, whether it's in the pain that's embedded in the fabric of aging, sickness, and death, or the psychological or emotional afflictions that debilitate the mind at times. And compassion is also the sober acknowledgement that not all pain, can be fixed or solved. But all suffering is made more approachable in a landscape of compassion.

[15:36]

My friend's grief around the numerous losses she's experienced in the last year brought to mind for me the story of Patacara. which is from the Terragata. The Terragata, for anyone who may not be familiar with it, is a collection of enlightenment poems by early Buddhist nuns and late women. And the story of Patatara also appears in the Pali Canon, although sometimes there's two names being used as Patatara, and sometimes the name Kisugatami is used, so it can be a little confusing. And Patatara is the eighth in the names of women ancestors that we chant here at San Francisco Zen Center. She lived in the time of the Buddha. She was born to a wealthy merchant family of Savati in the Kosala kingdom of northern India. And her birth name was Rupwati. And she is described in the stories as beautiful and a strong-minded woman. And when she was 16, her parents...

[16:47]

picked out an older husband for her to marry, as was the custom. However, Patachara was in love with one of the family's servants. And because marrying out of class was forbidden and dishonorable, Patachara and her lover ran away, getting secretly married and then setting up house in a remote area where her parents didn't know where she was. And so even though her and her husband were poor, they led a simple and happy life. And so in this detail, you get an indication of who Patacara is, that she's not one to follow the rules, but someone who actually trusted her own knowing heart and sought to realize that. So in time, Patacara became pregnant. And as it was the custom for the culture at the time, that a woman would return to her mother's house when it was time to give birth. And so Patatara wanted to return to her parents' house.

[17:48]

But she was delayed by her husband, who didn't want to do that. He was fearful that her parents might do something to him, harm him, because of his status and that they had run away. So Patatara chose to set out on her own, and hoping that the birth of her child would soften her parents' hearts. And... maybe bring about a reconciliation of some form. But she didn't make it very far before giving birth in a woods that was on the way. Now, can you imagine being a single woman who's giving birth in the middle of the woods? What a difficult situation that was. Unfortunately, her husband, who, realizing that she had left, followed Patachara and then escorted her and their newborn children son back to their home. And then a few years later, when Patichara was pregnant with her second child, she once again told her husband that she wanted to return to her family for the child's birth.

[18:56]

And again, her husband was resistant, still with the same kind of concerns and fear. So she set out to trek to her family village without him. But he soon followed and caught up with her. and the child in the woods. And it says at that point, a fierce storm began to kick up. And realizing that they all needed shelter of some sort, Patachar's husband left his family to go and find wood and some palm leaves to build some kind of enclosure. But as he was working, he was bitten by a poisonous snake and consequently died. Now, Patachar didn't know where her husband was or why he was coming back, and then suddenly she goes into labor, and she gives birth to her second child, alone once more. And so she sheltered her newborn and her other child as the storm raged on throughout the nights.

[20:00]

And then the next morning when her husband didn't return, she went looking for him, and she found his body next to a tree. And so grief-stricken, she decided to proceed to her family's village, hoping that she and her children would still be welcomed by her parents. As the story goes, Patachara has to cross a river, and remember, it's now swollen due to the torrent of rains the night before. Now, she was unable to make the crossing with both of her children in her arms and toe, so she told the toddler... the stay put on the one side, and she entered the water carrying the newborn. And then when she got to the other side, she carefully put the baby in a little nest of grass and then went back across into the river to fetch her other child. But when she reached mid-river, she saw a hawk fly by and swoop down and pick up the baby that had been on the shore, right, and begin to carry it away.

[21:05]

And she cried out, for the hawk to release the baby, but it didn't. Unfortunately, the child on the other shore thought that his mother was calling out for him to join her, and so he stepped into the swollen river and got swept away and drowned. So with her husband and two children both deceased, you can imagine that Patachara was brought to unimaginable grief, and her world was gone. Her identity of being a wife and a mother, again, shade by time and culture, was gone. Yet she somehow made her way out of the river, and she continued walking to her home. And along the way, she met an old acquaintance from her village, and she asked him about her family. And the acquaintance says to her, ask me anything, but please don't ask me about that family. But Patachara insists.

[22:07]

And so the villager then tells her that during the night, during the storm, her family's house collapsed and that her parents and brother were killed. So the story goes then that at that point Patachara went mad with grief. She lost her mind and her sanity. and could no longer protect herself. And so, as a result, she wandered through the countryside, naked, disheveled, disoriented, becoming an outcast in her madness. And now, up until this point in the story, Patachara had persevered against all odds, right? Holding as much as she could to those things in that way of life that served for her as value markers. and reference systems by which she identified herself and on which she based her happiness. But suddenly, all these are stripped away, leaving her with nothing to protect her against great suffering.

[23:12]

So at some level, she begins to realize that there's nothing she can hold on to, nothing around which she could organize her life or her identity. not only could she no longer fit into the cultural values in which she was embedded, but she also couldn't even rely on her old karmic habit patterns or ways of organizing her mind, her personhood, her sense of self. And so in the deepest sense, she is naked at this point. She's feeling fundamentally naked, no longer having the strength to keep it together. And so she comes undone, falling absolutely and totally apart. She's simply allowing her body in that moment to be with the truth. You could say the naked truth. Unfettered, unnamed, unjudged. So she's just wandering aimlessly, just being.

[24:17]

Just naked beingness. And this is what it ultimately takes us to be truly. free, that we become naked and profoundly vulnerable, stripped bare of everything with which we identify, everything by which we orient a sense of self. And it's this fundamental nakedness that can be the ground for a profound awakening. One day as Pachachara wandered aimlessly, she inadvertently came to upon the Jedha Grove, where the Buddha was teaching. And the Jedha Grove was a monastery in Uttar Pradesh that had been donated to the Buddha, where he often taught and the monks gathered. So as she walked in, the Buddha's disciples, just imagine, she's naked, her hair's all kind of, what's the word, disheveled, and she's just covered in mud and all kinds of...

[25:26]

aspects of the wilderness, they find her threatening and frightening. And so they actually try to turn her away. But it's said that when the Buddha saw her, he rose from his teaching seat and he followed her and he placed himself in her path. And he saw in that moment that she was so, you could say, completely broken that there was some way in which she was close to being whole. And so, as Pachatara approached the Buddha, he said to her, Sister, it is time for you to recover your presence of mind. Sister, it is time for you to recover your presence of mind. In other words, come to your senses. And with this very brief, straightforward instruction, she regained her sanity.

[26:30]

And suddenly realizing that she had nothing on, she accepted the cloak to cover herself. And the name the Buddha gave her, Patachara, means cloak covered. Now we might think the Buddha said something unique to Patachara to help her break out of her insanity. But we might consider that what she heard was not simply the words of Shakyamuni Buddha, but the timeless Buddha voice which calls for all of us to wake up from delusion and to recover our presence of mind. And it's only when we're able to become still and quiet and empty our minds of all our usual occupations with the process of selfing, that we can really hear and respond to this fundamental calling. And so having regained her senses, Bhattacharya proceeded to recount for the Buddha her tragic story.

[27:35]

And the Buddha listened. He listened with compassion and patience as she told her heartbreaking tale. And then she concluded, when she concluded, she said to the Buddha, help me, save me from this pain. And what did the Buddha say? The Buddha said, I can't save you from loss and grief. I can't take that pain away from you. But then he proceeded to offer her a Dharma discourse, telling her, do not be troubled anymore. You have come to one who is able to be your shelter and refuge. It is not only today that you have met with calamity and disaster. But throughout this beginningless round of existence, throughout samsara, weeping over the loss of sons and others dear to you, you have shed more tears than the waters of the four oceans.

[28:37]

You have shed more tears than the waters of the four oceans. But then the Buddha reminded her, at your death, even if your family had been living, They could only look on in helpless despair. They could do nothing for you. Only the Dharma can help you. In his book, The Way of Transformation, Daily Life as Spiritual Practice, the German psychologist Karl Fried Graf Durkheim wrote the following. The person who... being really on the way, we could say the Buddha way, falls upon hard times in the world, will not, as a consequence, turn to that friend who offers them refuge and comfort and encourages their old self to survive. They will not turn to that friend who encourages their old self to survive.

[29:39]

Rather, they will seek out someone who will faithfully and inexorably So they may endure the suffering and pass courageously through it, thus making of it a raft that leads to the far shore. Only to the extent that a person exposes themselves over and over again to annihilation can that which is indestructible arise within them. So what I think is critical about this story is that the Buddha said, was radically honest with Patacara. He didn't merely express empathy for her situation, and he didn't sugarcoat the true nature of her suffering. He was a good Dharma friend who told her exactly how it is, that we are destined to lose everything we cherish in this life.

[30:46]

There is nothing we can hold on to. including our loved ones. We can only find true refuge within our sorrow and suffering by surrendering completely to reality and to the truth of the Dharma. So you could say the Buddha offered Patacara a life raft, a Dharma raft, a raft to the other shore. But her journey to liberation from suffering required that she leave, behind everything that she had previously used to protect herself from suffering. What is it that you use to protect yourself from suffering? What ideas, what objects, what stories, what do you use to protect yourself from suffering? Are you willing to give it all up in order to be free? So the Buddha mind meets us in our suffering when we drop all the devices we use to buffer ourselves against it, against our life, really.

[31:57]

When we drop all the resistance, all the desire to blame someone or something for our pain. When we drop all the if-onlys, all the arguing and the plea bargaining for things to be other than how they are. Only then are we able to be liberated. Only then were we able to find true peace. And the Buddha listened to Patata's story of woe and recognized how much he had suffered, not only in this life, but over lifetimes, due to karma. And it's really simple if you think about it, this recognizing another suffering, recognizing our own suffering. But it's Tremendously healing. It's very powerful when we really listen to and recognize another person's suffering, and they can feel us taking it in, right?

[32:58]

To be able to say, yes, the suffering. Suffering is. This is the way it is to be human. Yes, the suffering has happened, and we can't make it different at this point. But we can say yes to it and we work within ourselves to find that which in us is indestructible. That which is able to hold and bear all nature of suffering because it is beyond suffering. Because it is the boundless capacity to express and embrace all truths, all realities, no matter how painful and heartbreaking we might find them. So when the Buddha told Patacara, recover your presence of mind, he pointed her back to her fundamental nature, her Buddha nature, to her Buddha mind, the luminous, clear mind, which is eternal, ever-present, and inconceivably trustworthy.

[34:09]

And this is our original mind. It's a presence of mind that has... that was with us when we were born and will stay with us as we grow old, get sick, and die. It's a mind that we can never truly lose. And can we only cover it up or become disoriented from it by getting lost in our thoughts and our stories of self and separation? So in this story, Patatara regained her presence of mind and her sanctity. And it's said that she immediately decided then to ordain with the Buddha and was taken into the nun's community, which warmly welcomed her. And she practiced diligently. And in time, the Buddha appointed her the foremost of nuns who were masters of monastic discipline, or the Vinaya. So Patacar became known for her ability to speak to the nature of impermanence because she had an embodied experience of it.

[35:14]

She deeply felt the impermanence. And she was also said to help those who suffered terrible losses. And she went on to have 30 disciples, it said, which for a woman of that time was quite unusual, I'm told. But Patachara's journey to awakening doesn't end there. In the Terragata, we learn... of her continued deepening realizations. And here's a portion of her enlightenment poem, which gives you a taste of how she realized one evening, what she realized one evening as she was preparing to turn in for the night. She wrote, checked the bed, and sat down on it.

[36:17]

I took a needle and pushed the wick down. As the lamp went out, my mind was freed. So, extinguishing the wick from her lamp, Patatara's mind was once and for all completely free. Now, what is it that went out in that moment? say, the fabricated construct of a separate self, a separate me, at the center of our experience. And this whole extended framework that we rely on to fuel its burning. For Patachara, what went out was the last trace of separation between her own suffering and the one body of all suffering, the suffering of all being. And that one body, however, it includes all joy, all wonder, as well as grief and all loss.

[37:22]

So seeing through the heart of impermanence, the water that's just kind of flowing into the ground, seeing the wick going out, those representations of impermanence. But right in there, right? is inexplicable beauty. There's inexplicable beauty in impermanence. There is no beauty without impermanence. And seeing that, at a fundamental level, Patatara's mind was freed. Actually, it was always free. It was free from the start. She just needed to realize this. So burdened by her story of self, of loss, of sorrow, Bhattacharya wandered through the wilderness of samsara until the Buddha said to her, now is the time to recover your presence of mind. And of course, his compassionate instruction is equally meant for all of us.

[38:26]

Recover your presence of mind. Recover your presence. Recover your mind, your true mind, your mind of sanity. You know, it's a mind that's at peace. Don't try to understand or fathom your situation or all the causes and conditions that have led up to it. Just be intimately present with the aliveness of here and now. Come to your senses. Come to your sixth sense gates. Come home now, without story, to life. what is in this moment. And this presence of mind is also a state of mind that we know as the beginner's mind. It's also a state of sati, of mindfulness. So it's both a state of forgetting the self and a state of remembering the self, remembering the true self.

[39:30]

So now is the time for you to recover your presence of mind. Not later. Not when we feel differently, feel better. Not when everything's okay. No time other than the eternal now. But again, this endeavor requires us a willingness to step into the unknown. Into the possibility of losing everything we hold dear. including everything by which we try to maintain a sense of identity. And it requires that we stop trying to hold it together. And it's something I'm practicing with all the time. And it requires that we allow ourselves to fall apart so we can finally surrender in complete trust to our awake mind, the Bodhi mind,

[40:33]

the mind that we have from the beginningless beginning. It's the mind that no teacher or anything can give us. We already have it. We already have everything that we need to navigate the difficulties and heartbreak of this life. We just need to trust ourselves, trust our own innate capacity, our own innate boundless, heart, mind, the capacity to be with it all, to allow ourselves and our minds to meet the truth, to meet reality just as it is, there, unendured, unfettered by our preferences. And when we can do this for ourselves, then we can learn to support others in doing the same for themselves. And like Patachara, we too can learn to appreciate both the beauty and love in our life, as well as the deep human suffering.

[41:43]

We too can become a Dharma beacon, encouraging others, continuing fulfilling our bodhisattva vow of saving all living beings, including ourselves. Thank you for your kind attention, your presence, and for being you. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma Talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma, For more information, please visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we all fully enjoy the Dharma.

[42:39]

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