This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good evening, bodhisattvas. And thank you, Tanto-san, for inviting me to address the assembly. And congratulations to Tanto-san and Treasurer-san on your recent Dharma transmissions. Dharma brother and sister, my heart is very full knowing that they're two trustworthy, straightforward teachers. And I won't add more, you know... praise because I don't want to embarrass you too badly in front of everyone because they'll tease you about it at work meeting tomorrow.

[01:03]

And thank you, Tassajara, thank you so much for your hospitality in hosting our retreat and hosting a summer of guest season, another summer of guest season. in which so many people come from so many different places and imbibe the flavor of the bodhisattva path in incense, the smell of the sulfur hot springs, food and most of all in kindness and compassion that's shown every day in so many different ways. Today I'm going to speak about something that isn't on the list of dharmas, but a topic that's close to my heart. And Donald invited me to speak on this subject, and that subject is resilience or resiliency.

[02:14]

And I think you might have asked me because of my personal experience with this subject. I am... I've been in the process of recovering from two fairly serious accidents, which had me feeling like a cartoon character. You know, the kind of cartoon character that runs off a cliff and then realizes that, oh, thud. So in the first one, I was putting a quarter in a parking meter, and a temporary wall from a construction site fell on my head and back. Then I was about 20 months into that rehab when a guy in an SUV hit me while I was crossing a street. And it was all very dramatic. And there have been many practice opportunities that have occurred as part of this recovery, which remind me of so many different practice opportunities that happen all the time.

[03:21]

It's not really different. And the practice opportunities that happen to someone who's been practicing for a long time and the practice opportunities that happen to a beginner in practice are basically the same type of practice opportunities. They come up because life often isn't what we expect it to be or things happen that we don't want that we don't ask for or the things that we do want we don't get them, or maybe we do get them, and then they change or end. This is called the first noble truth, and it's actually not pessimistic. It's a teaching of the Buddha that allows us to get real about life and to understand the opportunity that life presents to us every day.

[04:23]

So I was interested to know what resilience means. And I found out that it actually means bounciness. Who knew, right? It comes from the Latin word meaning to jump or to leap. And it means the ability to leap back or spring back when something happens. And, of course, the question comes up, well, what are you springing back to? Are you springing back to being the same person or a different person? Neither is exactly true. What exactly do you spring back to? And I was also interested in why is it important? So I asked Judith, why is it important? Why is resilience, why might that be important to someone? And she said, because resilience is there and it's abundant and we can connect with it.

[05:32]

And it's a topic that's important both to people who come here for a few days and to people who are here for the whole summer. And Judith's question was, well, what is it that brings us back to our intention and ability once we think, I'm tired of this or I'm exhausted? What brings us back? So that gives me a clue as to what we're springing back to. It has to be something that's even more important than being tired or resisting or not wanting something. So what might that be? And It leaves me with a question, well, what is bigger than being tired? What is bigger than being hit by a car or having things not go the way I want them to go?

[06:37]

What is more important than a momentary wish to have things go the way I like and not go the way I don't like? And we often speak about our intention here. We often speak about our intention or our vow. And that gives another clue. Whatever it is has to be strong enough to be able to be felt continuously or be accessible to us if we look. One of the most resilient people I knew was Darlene Cohen, my Dharma niece. That sounds funny, but she was. Darlene received Dharma transmission from my Dharma brother, Michael Wenger. And Darlene passed away last January after about 30 years of rheumatoid arthritis and the medications that went with that.

[07:50]

Darlene was an amazing human being. She was amazing because she was not saintly at all. But in her practice and in her life, she transcended pain on a day-to-day basis to live exactly the life she wanted to live, exactly the life she needed to live. It doesn't mean that she had everything that she wanted. She so missed her. her young, strong body that could do so many different things. But Jarlene kept her capacity to enjoy life, and she had found that elusive something or action or activity of the mind that transcends conditions. And...

[08:54]

In one of her books, I highly recommend this book. It's called Finding a Joyful Life in the Heart of Pain. And she also wrote a book called Arthritis Stop Suffering Start Moving. That was her first book. And I think this one was her second one. And then she wrote a third book, The One Who Is Not Busy. And I recommend all of them. And this one is particularly useful. to anyone who experiences pain or suffering, which I think is probably... Is there anyone here who doesn't? Just checking, because if there is, I think you should be up here and I should be there. So I re-read that book for what does Darlene say about this? How does she handle pain? How does she handle suffering? And in reading it, I remembered something that she used to talk to me about.

[09:58]

She said that usually we're only aware of one or two or maybe at most ten things about our life at any given moment. But she said that if she could be aware of a hundred things in a moment of her life, that the painful things would then become one hundredth of her total experience instead of a tenth or a third. And so her answer was to find out what is it to have a rich and meaningful life altogether in which pain is only part, only a small part. So her answer was to find meaning and to find beauty. and intention in the body that was offered at any particular moment.

[11:00]

So one of the ways that she did it was Darlene embodied interconnection. So the kind of connection and healing that the kind of connection that heals us no matter what, was an enormous part of her life. How many people here actually knew Darlene? So really quite a few. She wasn't that easy to miss, actually. You know, this robe is an okesa, and the small one with the neck piece is called a rakasu. And Darlene, when we sewed a rakasu for Darlene, it had to have fuchsia thread. because she wanted it to match the lace on her cami. So this was very Darlene, you know? And she always took care of herself. And not because, not out of some idea, but because she enjoyed it.

[12:08]

And so in her book she mentions some of the healing connections. that give life a sense of meaning, such profound meaning, that one can bounce back from a particular moment of suffering. She said to maintain a sense of connection with our bodies and the sensations, particularly with the rhythm of breath. And with our sensory reality, which she doesn't say this, but which the Buddha mentioned, as the second major source of nourishment in our life, besides the food that we eat. There's also nourishing the senses. The Buddha also talked about nourishing one's intention, which I think, intention, I think, is an enormous part of resilience. So by having an overarching intention in life,

[13:13]

One can keep the mind focused no matter what the conditions. And so Darlene didn't say intention, but what she said was our yearnings and needs, to maintain a sense of connection with our yearnings and needs. So what is intention but the deepest possible need, the deepest possible wish? Suzuki Roshi called it our inmost request. Darlene also suggested that we not lose touch with our feelings and emotions, our creativity, our fellow beings, or the texture of our activity itself. So Darlene's answer to established resilience was to be a whole person, a whole, connected, vital, alive, enjoying human being. no matter what. And, you know, other people talk about resilience.

[14:24]

I couldn't find the story, but do you remember the story about someone pointing out the difference between a bamboo and an oak? That in a storm, an oak tree can blow down and break. But the bamboo, which gets flattened, springs up again, basically because it's a weed. And weeds are really, really vital, really, really lively. They have to be to survive. They're flexible, not stiff. And so in my own recovery, the sense of intention is enormously important. I have to be willing to practice every single day. It doesn't matter whether my body sits zazen in the normal way or whether I sit zazen in a different way.

[15:35]

That doesn't matter. What matters is that I continue to practice both zazen And a sense of everyday mind or this very mind is Buddha activity. And for me, one of the main ways to do that is to keep doing yoga. Yoga means union. But the discipline of yoga is a discipline of accessibility and function at all the different levels and layers. of body, speech, and mind, starting with a sense of where we are morally and ethically in the world. What day-to-day practices are we going to do to express that in life? What is our physical and physiological stance in relation to the world? How do we breathe and roll with change?

[16:38]

How do we develop a sense of focus and one-pointedness in life and allow that to come to fruition so that we can appreciate the nature of life itself? So this is yoga. These are the eight limbs of yoga in ordinary language. And this retreat that we're doing now is called the Lifestream of Yoga. the life stream that goes along and gives everything light. And that's the function of yoga practice in life. And in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, Svatmarama mentions specific qualities that can be cultivated in a yoga practice to bring a sense of, he says, continuity and success. But I'd like to say resilience and transcendent. transcendence of various circumstances that might arrive.

[17:43]

And that is, cheerfulness is the first one. Not like, not that kind of cheerfulness, but a sense of positivity towards whatever arises. So, for instance, if you're making coffee and someone wants to talk to you, how do you maintain a sense of cheerfulness? You know, if you're the person making coffee or if you're the person trying to talk to someone and greet them in the morning, you know, and they're making the coffee and not greeting you back. Both of those things, both of those sides have an opportunity for resilience of recognizing our human life. The second quality is perseverance or the readiness to practice. And the list goes on. We have to be brave, courageous, not in a forced way, but in being willing to turn towards whatever our pain is so that suffering doesn't creep up on us from behind.

[18:54]

And we have to be willing to develop our understanding and to change. We have to have a firm faith or a firm determination. that will carry us through whatever circumstances arise. And anyway, I think that I don't want to spend too much time on theory of resilience, because theory doesn't actually help me very much. But just to say that resilience... basically to me boils down to an unshakable practice of friendliness towards whatever arises, the willingness to know it and be intimate with it in the service of a higher purpose. And it's not complicated at all. You just have to be willing to do it. And willing because it's important, because there's nothing else that's more important than living this moment.

[20:03]

right now with a sense of acceptance and joy. And I do have a case that I could have talked about, but I'm going to put that to one side right now. And instead, I want to read you a bedtime story. Okay? If that's okay. And this is from Viktor Frankl's book, Man's Search for Meaning. And I don't know if you know his story. He was a therapist, a logotherapist. I can't remember whether he was a psychiatrist or a psychologist. Does anyone know? Do you know? Psychiatrist. And he developed a discipline called logotherapy even before the war. But during the war, he was given the opportunity to emigrate to America. And because there was a chance that he could help his parents, he decided to stay.

[21:08]

And so he was scooped up and taken to a concentration camp where he lived in very, very difficult conditions. I don't think it was an out-and-out extermination camp, but close. And so he took his manuscript to the camp with him of the book that he was trying to write. And in the first day, he had to give it up, and it was destroyed. And over the next, I think, four years, he rewrote it in his mind, day after day. And this is his story, his words. Oh, part of what kept him going was... Every so often he would have a vision of his wife, who he had been separated from, but he knew that she was somewhere around there.

[22:10]

And he realized when he was having that vision of his wife that the colors of the sunset would become apparent to him. And he realized that love gave him the ability to be with his life. in those circumstances in a way that nothing else could. But this particular piece is not about love, but about his more general thoughts on how to survive concentration camp or basically anything with a sense of wholeness and peace. As we said before, any attempt to restore a man's inner strength in the camp had first to succeed in showing him some future goal. Nietzsche's words, he who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how, could be the guiding motto for all psychotherapeutic and psychohygienic efforts regarding prisoners.

[23:27]

And he also means anyone who suffers. Whenever there was an opportunity for it, one had to give them a why, an aim, for their lives in order to strengthen them to bear the terrible how of their existence. Woe to him who saw no more sense in his life, no aim, no purpose, and therefore no point in carrying on. He was soon lost. The typical reply with which such a man rejected all encouraging arguments was, I have nothing to expect from life anymore. Well, what sort of answer could one give to that? What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life. We had to learn ourselves, and furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men that It really did not matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us.

[24:36]

We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life, daily and hourly. Our answer must consist not in talk and meditation, but in right action. and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual. And then he goes on. No man and no destiny can be compared with any other man or any other destiny. No situation repeats itself. Each situation... calls for a different response. These were the only thoughts that could be of help to us. For us, the meaning of life embraced the wider cycles of life and death, of suffering and dying.

[25:41]

So it was a feeling of responsibility for life, of being willing to consult his conscience. no matter what the circumstance, to find out what was really important, what really mattered, and what life was asking of him. It doesn't mean we shouldn't meditate, you know, when he says it doesn't consist in talking or meditation. It means that meditation is a way to orient oneself, but that has to be lived. The... meditation and the action have to be united for resilience to be built in us. So with that little quote, I'll close. And I'll just say that the case I was going to talk about is in this book.

[26:43]

And there's little post-its. And I'll give you another clue. It's case 14 and 15. of the Blue Cliff Record. We'll talk about it on another day. And just, we have about, let's see, it's 9.12, so we have about six minutes for questions because I want to complete my vows so that monks can go to sleep. Okay? Does anyone have any questions, comments? You don't even have to raise your hand. Yeah. When you're lonely and sad and feel like you failed, just keep coming back to what you're trying to do.

[27:57]

Because the meaning isn't in the result. So my whole recovery has been a series of failures. There hasn't been any day in which I haven't made a mistake. I'm just trying to make them all once. You know? So I feel sad all the time. I grieve. I mourn. But that's not the most important thing about my life. Do you understand? So the important thing is to, if you're lonely, if you're feeling sad and like a failure, to suffer... in a way that benefits everyone, to grieve and mourn for and with everyone, not just keep that grieving and mourning as if it were all by itself.

[29:07]

Does that make sense to you? Because that grief, that mourning, that sense of failure, your mistake, might actually help someone else. It might also help you. But if you can say what the mistake was, that might really help somebody. So part of the resilience is finding a way to be a failure or to be a sad or a mourner in such a way that it gives life. instead of a way of dejection and despair. So grieving is actually quite satisfying. Do you know that? If you thoroughly grieve, if you wholeheartedly grieve, it's satisfying because the grief process tells you what was really important.

[30:11]

It's so important to know what you care about. If you know what you care about, because you know that you're in grief, that you're mourning, and that you failed. Then you have a clue about the territory of your real life. So I would say congratulations. Turn to face your grief and be friendly to it without letting your grief run you from behind. I hope that makes sense. Thank you. In regard to resilience, the surface level resilience seems to be decent at moving on, doing the next thing, trying to not dwell on things. But the deeper resilience, how I still feel when I come back around to that subject, to that person, or to that context.

[31:19]

doesn't seem to feel really resilient. I still feel either bothered or upset or worried or what I felt a minute ago, a year ago, you know, and there's a frustration of resilience. You know, I feel like my circus level resilience of doing things and moving on is going to eventually affect this other resilience and then will eventually catch up. Mm-hmm. It will. You know, but then finally I'll be resilient. I do know what you mean. And so what I'd like to say is look deeper. you're bouncing back in a habitual way if that's happening to you.

[32:20]

So look deeper. For instance, there's this, have you ever heard the phrase, a disciple of the Buddha does not harbor ill will? And yet, okay, let's say someone really did you wrong. Isn't that hard? Not to harbor ill will? So you think you've bounced back because you established other relationships or you moved on to the next thing. But when you see that person, the worm turns. So that's very, very hard. And to work with that, to recognize that, when you recognize that, you're being honest about the practice of the precepts and about our whole practice. Everybody knows exactly what you're talking about because everyone has that experience. So I'd like to tell you a little bit of a story, a quick story, about my divorce process.

[33:23]

It happened a really long time ago. I'll tell you one piece of it. So my main feeling about it was not, you know, particularly Zen. I'm sad to say. And then I found a wonderful statement in chapter one of the Dhammapada. He beat me, he abused me, he defeated me, he wronged me. A person who thinks this way will not be free from hate. He beat me, he abused me, he defeated me, he robbed me. A person who does not think this way will be free from hate. Hate is not defeated by hate. Hate is defeated by love. This is an eternal law. So there were some confrontative moments during the divorce process.

[34:26]

One of them is called a deposition in which you have to present yourself and various facts about your life in front of a hostile audience. And so I took notes to that. process. And this is really a long time ago. And now I see the whole process in a completely different light, I have to say, than I did then. And I have to say also that I will always love the young man I married. And there was a divorce process. And so life became much complicated as time goes on, right? But the notes I took, I wrote down the precepts, the 16 bodhisattva precepts. And so the lawyer would ask questions, this question, that question, another question, and I would consult the precepts. And then I would answer the question. And then, you know, then, you know, of course, they want to see your notes.

[35:32]

So that is a life-changing moment. So when someone wants to see your notes and you realize, oh, my notes are the precepts, and you hand them over, suddenly life becomes much lighter and brighter and has a much larger sense of possibility than if the notes were something like, And he did this and she did that. And then this happened and that happened. So if you're looking at your notes and they say things like, I vow to refrain from evil. And someone's asking you a question and there it is on the piece of paper right in front of you. No evil. Whoa. Okay. Anyway, we can do this. We can actually do this. Okay? We can live our lives this way with no evil.

[36:39]

And not just in divorce. But, you know, like even if somebody takes your good jeans from the laundry line and leaves a pair of crummy jeans that have a hole in them and a stain, You can do that still at that moment. Or if someone calls you and feels angry with you, but they live 120 miles away and there's no way to have the conversation on the Tassajara phone. And we can do it even if our retreat ends and we have to drive back and... attends to the thing that we really didn't want to do before we came this weekend. You know, so many possibilities are there. And we're out of quarters.

[37:42]

Time for all good monks and monquettes. Or I should say, all good monks, all good monastics to go to bed. Okay? Thank you very much. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[38:18]

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