This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. And welcome to Beginner's Mind Temple. Several years ago, I ended up back in the monastery in Bangkok, Thailand, where I had ordained 40 years before. By coincidence, I'd become friends with a young monk who now lived there, and I thought it would be fun to go there and see what it looked like.

[01:00]

We wandered around, and it looked pretty much the same. And then he was going to take me to visit one of the teachers there. It so happened that the teacher was involved in some couple's counseling. But he seemed to think it was fine for us to sit in. I couldn't follow the tie at all. But in some ways, that was wonderful because I could see the looks on the faces. I could see the body language. The wife was sitting here. Her husband was sitting here. And the teacher was in front of them. And she was doing most of the talking. And she was talking in a... animated, incisive way.

[02:12]

And she would say something, and her husband's head would sink down a little. And the teacher would look on, attentive and knowing. And she'd say something else, and his head would sink down a little deeper. And the teacher would look on, knowing. And this went on for quite a while. And I thought, whoa, he's really getting it. I don't know what this guy did, but boy, it must have been something. And then after that phase was over, the teacher started to speak in a kind of moderate, soft, understanding way.

[03:22]

And first of all, he spoke to the husband. He looked at him and said something. What my mind made up was, you know that wasn't okay, don't you? You know that wasn't a very helpful or appropriate thing to be doing. And he was gently nodding. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it. And then he turned to the wife, and it seemed like he was saying, What are you going to do? Is anybody perfect? Is any relationship without its difficulties, its disconnections, its struggles? And then the teacher decided that they would chant.

[04:34]

And they... We all chanted a Pali chant for about five or ten minutes. And then that was it. And somehow the memory of all that came back to me in the last week. And I was thinking about... emotional life, how it is stirred up by and stirs up our relationships. One way or another, our whole life is relationships. Our relationship with ourself, our relationship with the people who are significant in our life, our relationship to the planet, and then with all our capacity now to stay connected and communicated and involved in all sorts of things worldwide.

[05:44]

What President Trump said at five o'clock this morning on a tweet. And then we can have our opinions and our judgments and our emotions about all of that. That's how it is. And how there's a line in a poem by Javier Saleto. It says, a short journey to everywhere distant. That way we can get utterly caught up in the details. Part of the reason that experience came back to me And by the way, then the couple left, and the young monk and I, we were talking about Abhidhamma, and then we started to talk with the teacher. We can get caught up in the details of the emotional difficulty, of the intensity of the feelings, of the way the feelings shape our perception, shape our thoughts.

[07:04]

shape our attitudes and to the person or persons. And in that beautiful human capacity where we can sort of like drop down a level, we can hold the experience in a different way rather than thinking of it as... and feeling it from the perspective of me. We experience it in some brighter way, some more ease, maybe from the other person's perspective. of bearing witness to what's going on.

[08:15]

And I was thinking, well, in a way, it was very helpful for me to not understand the details. Then I couldn't have my own opinion. Well, that wasn't such a bad thing. Oh, that was a terrible thing. Yeah. It just... see the body language, the facial expressions. And then he did this. Yes, I did. And my own imagination of the teacher saying something like, but don't we all do something like that every now and then? or maybe more often than we'd like to admit to ourselves. And of course, even though that may be the case, still to take responsibility, to acknowledge.

[09:28]

Yes. There's a teaching in Buddhism. It's called the Brahmajala Sutta. And it's about emotions. In some ways, it seems a little abstract, maybe even esoteric. It says there's three basic feelings, Vedana, pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral. They happen... in the context of worldliness or unworldliness. And then, of course, what exactly is the word that's being translated as worldly or unworldly? The various commentaries I read said anything from...

[10:37]

One translator translated them as worldly is carnal and unworldly is spiritual. But what of the different things I read, what struck me as maybe what it's getting at is the way in which we can get caught up in the details. we sort of get mesmerized by them. There's nothing but holding the experience in that way. Or the way in which we can hold them in a wider way, that we acknowledge them, in some ways, almost paradoxically, we see them more clearly. Is that unworldly?

[11:42]

I think it's a great question. I would say in some ways it's more worldly. Somehow when we're not shaken by the drama of it all, it's easier to see it and acknowledge it. This is how I behaved. This is how someone else's behavior impacted me. Maybe it is fundamentally pleasant or unpleasant. I think modern science keeps reinforcing basic Buddhist teachings. It all arises out of causes and conditions. relating to someone recently, and they were describing how their cognitive functioning had been impaired by a medical treatment they were going through.

[13:00]

And they had this kind of odd, dissident experience of watching certain thoughts come up. And even in the experience of having those thoughts and those descriptions of reality, thinking, This is odd. This doesn't seem quite real. And then fortunately, as their medical treatment progressed, their minds started to clear up. They started to rediscover a sense of self, a sense of the world, a sense of the place of thoughts. the way thoughts and feelings intertwine, co-create each other, that made sense. And aren't we all searching for that sense in a way in which our thoughts and feelings

[14:15]

our sense of being, our relatedness to each other. Aren't we all searching for some way for it to make sense, some way for it to have harmony, some way where we can maybe on one level have our needs met, maybe on another way teaches deeply. Worldly and unworldly. And I would say, maybe... Pre-age is humility.

[15:18]

This is a conditioned existence. If you go through certain medical treatments that disturb your biochemistry of your neurological system, your nervous system, maybe every system in the physiology, it shapes us, it influences us. This is what it is to be of the world. This is what it is to be part of existence. This is the nature of relatedness, as are our relationships. People say and do things that touch us, that influence us, that stir us in many ways, pleasant and unpleasant. and very occasionally neutrally, I would say.

[16:22]

And then unworldly, we have a sense of the arc of a human life. And we're all in this together. I'm going to read a poem. This poem was given to me by a Palestinian American who lives in Texas. And it's a poem by someone who lives in the town I was born in, who I had just met about six months earlier for the first time. name is Padraig of Tuma. Neither I, nor the other poets I love, have found the keys to the kingdom.

[17:31]

But I know that it's a good idea to sit anyway. So every morning, I sit, waiting, making friends with the habit of listening, hoping to be listened to. There I greet disorder. Chaos, my own unmade decisions, my own unmade bad, my desire and trouble. I grieved it with distraction and a sense of privilege. Beloved and bewildered, recognizing my burdens, my luck, my controlled and uncontrolled story. I greet my untold stories, my unfolding story, my unloved body, my own body. Greet the things I think will happen and I say hello to everything I don't know about the day.

[18:35]

Greet my own small world and hope to meet the bigger world that day. Greet my story and hope that I can forget my story during the day. hope that I can hear other stories with surprise during that long day ahead. And I greet God who is more than God. Hello to you, I say, as the sun arises above the chimneys in North Belfast. Padraigotuma. devout Christian as someone who thinks of themselves as a Zen Buddhist it seems Zen Buddhist to me but it also seems to me like a commitment to being immersed in the world to being of the world

[19:57]

with a certain kind of acceptance and trust. That impulse within us to contract, to be frightened, disappointed, annoyed, saddened. person I care for? How could the people I care for behave like that, say that, do that? How could this be the news? How does something within us accept

[21:02]

This is what it is to be part of what is. This is what it is to be worldly. And to sit in the middle of it. Watching it unfold as a personal narrative. I would say in the Zen context, to weave that with just being body, just being breath, just being thought, just being feeling. Maybe we could say that's being unworldly, but I would say maybe we can also say that's being more thoroughly committed to being worldly. That's a step beyond some kind of contraction or hesitation in an unexamined hope that it won't be what it is, but it'll be something else.

[22:16]

And in the Brahmajala Sutta, as in the Satipatthana Sutta, the admonition, the instruction, is not, do this and then it'll all be different. It's actually, do this and then it will be more thoroughly experienced for what it is. See it when it arises like this see it when it rises like that, and see it when it's neutral. Does that arise after our interaction when we chant? Does that arise in the early morning

[23:34]

before we leap into the red dust of the world when we just sit. Padraig is the director of a place that's dedicated to peacemaking. And he's dedicated to his version of spirituality that he thinks of as Christian and I think of as Zen. But he probably thinks of a reverse of mine. And within the teachings of Buddhism, this connecting to what is...

[24:39]

This is taking refuge in awakening. This is taking refuge in Buddha. This is trusting that life as it's happening is livable. This is trusting that contracting, responding with, oh no, investing, our emotional energy, our life energy into enacting, oh no, resisting, agitated, disappointed, disapproving. But that utterly understandable as it is, maybe we could even say inevitable as it is,

[25:42]

is not the whole story. A willingness to wake up in the middle of that. To take refuge in what is. To take refuge in awakening. And then to take refuge in the insights that arise when we do that. As Javier Saleto It's just a short journey to everywhere distant. It's not caught up in our story. It's not just that. Replaying our habits, our patterns. Rediscovering our own habitual way of suffering. rediscovering the limitation of our habitual way of suffering.

[26:51]

But more to see it, and in a way to see through it, to see that something else is possible within our human capacity. We don't have to simply repeat old patterns. As I thought of the couple sitting in front of the monk and thinking, is it essential that we have someone else bear witness? Can we bear witness to ourselves? Can we bear witness to each other? I would offer you that question. It's in style as we offer the question. We don't offer the answer. That's its great gift and that's its frustrations.

[28:02]

Live the question and discover the answer for you. Can you, as you experience the contractions, the knots, in your own life? Can you remind yourself? Can you be generous and kind enough to yourself to turn towards them? No. Can you have benevolence for yourself and for others? I was thinking of President Trump And I was thinking, this might come to you as a shock, but I don't have a very high opinion of his decision-making capacity. But I was thinking, what a corner to put yourself in to declare your own high intelligence, your own

[29:20]

depth of knowledge, the authority of your own decision-making, and then have to enact that out with the whole world watching. Seems to me quite a predicament. Everybody's going through something. Everybody's part of this web of relatedness. The Dalai Lama says, my good friends, my enemies, the Chinese. to do a double take when I first heard that.

[30:21]

Wait a minute, are they your enemies or are they your good friends? And the insight that sees things can coexist. Because Life is essentially the third refuge, the third place, the third activity, the third disposition where we can place our trust. Sangha, relatedness. That we're all in this together. whether we like it or not. Whether we voted for it to be this way or not.

[31:26]

We'll take the air, the water, and the earth creating things for us to eat. We pass out of existence in moments. Think of your own mind. Think of that deep, persistent narrative. Sometimes preoccupied with some incident. Sometimes a deeper kind of rumbling. The thorough experiences of attempting to sit still is experiencing the movement of mind, of body.

[32:36]

The thorough experience of trying to let the breath breathe the body and discovering Even though Suzuki Roshi in Zen Mind Beginner's Mind says, it's like a door swinging freely one way and the other in the breeze. When you hold that up, what do you discover? Most of the time it's not. The door is kind of sticky. Sometimes the breeze is going more one way than the other. Just letting it be what it is, flowing freely, seems like an impossible task.

[33:42]

Sometimes we learn to connect to ourselves, to each other, to our world through experiencing the disconnect. We discover ease through experiencing dis-ease. That relatedness, dependent co-arising, intrinsic as it is, is both. our heart's desire and the main source of our problems. Here's the rest of Javier's poem. Short journey to everywhere distant. Take nothing except gifts.

[34:44]

Take remembrances of kindness. Take the mistakes that set you on your way. Short journey to everywhere distant. Take nothing except gifts. Take remembrances of kindness. Take the mistakes that set you on your way. that something in us can hear sayings like that and feel a resonance, feel an affinity, a relatedness. Maybe it sparks some poignancy.

[35:56]

when we acknowledge we bring a whole lot more than gifts to our life, to each other. That even though we wish sincerely benevolence for ourselves and for others, we bring a lot more. But there's a koan there for us. As we live this life, is our deepest truth, is our primary source of instruction, our discontent, our agitations, our distresses, or is it that within us that already knows? And even though the breath doesn't flow like a freely swinging door,

[37:03]

Even though the body isn't embedded in stillness, even though the mind persists with its own agendas, can there be a trust? Someone described it to me quite recently as confidence in being. They said, that's my aspiration, confidence in being. Whether we need someone to bear witness to us,

[38:06]

or bear witness to ourselves, how will each of us nourish our being with that which helps it to thrive? That which helps it to not just get lost in the litter of its own distress. How will we do that? the guidance that question offers us, does it inform and guide our spiritual practice? No. Even now I would say to you, sitting there, can the mind and heart of what you are, can it be allowed to be completely itself? Is the sound of the small child saying, Mama, pleasant or unpleasant?

[39:30]

Does it evoke pleasant or unpleasant or neutral feeling? Is that grasped with the story? Or is it allowed to be like a flower held up in the middle of the vastness of life. So here's Padraig's poem again. Neither I nor the poets I love have found the keys to the kingdom. But I know it's a good idea to sit anyway. So every morning I sit, waiting, making friends with the habit of listening, hoping to be listened to.

[40:35]

I greet disorder, chaos, unmade decisions, unmade bed, my desire and my trouble. Say hello to distraction and privilege. bewildered, and beloved. I recognize and greet burdens, controlled and uncontrollable story. I greet my untold stories, my unfolding stories, my unloved body, my own body. I greet things that I think will happen, and I say hello to everything that I know, that I do not know about today. I greet my own small world and hope to meet the bigger world that day. I greet my story and hope that I can forget my story during the day and hear other stories and greet some surprising stories during that long day ahead.

[41:48]

Hello to you all, I say, as the sun rises above the chimneys in North Belfast. Thank 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 sfzc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

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