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. My name is Susan, and I'm giving the talk today at the end of a practice period, a Seven Day Sashin, and I want to be mindful of that and know that there are a lot of people who are probably very settled and very porous. So, in a way, I feel even more responsible for the words that are being offered. I wish I could say that I'm going to talk exactly about what the practice period has been about But I find that when invited to give a talk, the talk starts to form actually based on what is most present in my life.

[01:15]

What am I studying in my life? What's my current question, really? And it's almost impossible to talk about anything else other than that. I think it's related to what you all have been working on because everything's related. That's not quite fair. But I do think that one of the main offerings of our Zen practice is that it is seamless. It is not about just being on the cushion. It's about activity. It's about, as the little sign out, I hope it's still out there, on the front kiosk, said, there are no enlightened people, there is only enlightened activity. So that commitment to being awake in the midst of our actual life is what we practice for. We practice for our actual life.

[02:17]

Where this talk began was when I saw the movie Lincoln. And whether or not you've seen the movie or whether or not it actually depicts the truth, it brought up for me a really deep question. And I hadn't been exposed to the details. The movie shows the process over a fairly short period of time of bringing the 13th Amendment forward to be voted on. So the amendment that shifted this country's legality around slavery. And in watching this film, I watched a person, as he was depicted, have to hold two values and make a decision between

[03:27]

the deep commitment he had to ending slavery, and allowing the Civil War to go on for a few more days. That's at least the way the story was depicted. Again, I'm not a Lincoln expert, I'm not a Civil War expert, I'm not a constitutional expert. But what I was left with was, oh my dear, how, how, how does someone make a decision like that? Now, this is based, I think the deep question came up for me because I have taken some vows. Some of you in this room have taken the same vows. And the basic three vows are to do no harm, to do all good, and to free all beings.

[04:30]

I also think that this question hit me, not arbitrarily, but because in the past, I guess it's six weeks now, I've taken on the role of president of San Francisco Zen Center. That's not the same as the other president, but it does involve being engaged with decisions that affect people's lives. We all are engaged in decisions that affect each other. But in this way it's a more visible relationship between the decisions that are made and the effect and we see it and we live with it here. So these two things came together in being enlivened by that question which came up for me when I saw the film and then taking on this position.

[05:37]

The question is, how can the practice that we offer, how can that help in the process of making difficult decisions? So for a moment, I'm just going to look briefly at Mr. Lincoln, just through some phrases that we have. that he allegedly said. And I would suggest that they paint a picture of a person, these words and these actions he took, of someone whose basic mode of existence might have been based on empathy. So here's some of the things he said. allegedly said. I want him to have said.

[06:37]

Lincoln said, if slavery is good, it's a good no one has chosen for themselves. So, if one were to empathize with the position of being a slave, one would never choose that from. People weren't doing that. People were not. People had an attitude about slavery, which was based on many, many, many things, but not on empathy. And then Lincoln said, I have no prejudice against the Southern people. They are just what we would be in their situation. That is a mind-blowing, heart-opening statement. It reminds me, there was a meeting, not unusual here, a meeting in which we were looking at what is the vision for city center as an urban temple.

[07:48]

And we'd been looking at this for a while. This was another group of people to study and to move the study forward. And we gave people in the meeting a choice of breaking into two small groups and one of which would look at something we call widening the circle or offering program to the wider world, offering our practice in various maybe new ways, responding to requests coming towards us, turning outward. And then the other group was invited to investigate the sustainability of that offering. So the people who make that offering are people here in residence and what does it take to maybe offer maybe more? I don't know. Maybe not more, but maybe different things. And can that be sustained? So we broke into the two small groups. And the list of things that came out of each group were almost diametrically opposed, right?

[08:55]

We should do less. We should do more. You know, here were the two groups. And then at the end of the process, and I It might have been our abbess who said this, but someone in the group said, you know, if I had been in the other group, I would have come up with the exact same conclusions. So if people had switched groups, you know, if the sustainability issue had been looked at by the people who were looking at the widening circle issue, they would have had similar views. And to me, that was the most important thing that happened in the meeting. That was the most important thing. I don't know what the answer is. I think it's about balance. How do we find that balance? But that's empathy. Another couple things that Lincoln said.

[09:58]

He said... Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends? If we're not on different sides, we're facing the same direction. We're united. We're one. And this is important in community, this statement that he made. He said, I do not like that man. I must... get to know him better. When I think about going into meetings and representing a particular administrative view that I'm responsible for carrying forward, and when someone disagrees, I have a habit

[11:00]

of trying to convince that person to agree with me. That's my habit, and I'm pretty good at it. In the short run, in the short run, you can convince somebody, you can turn someone maybe in the short run, but that doesn't stick because there's an issue there. That person has an issue that hasn't been met, hasn't been heard, the person hasn't been seen. So this is a very... important challenge for me in this role I've said to a few people recently this role that I've taken on I know it's the right one for me because I feel afraid and for me that might not be the best way for others to feel but for me to actually feel afraid means I'm not in that confident place where I think I know what I'm doing

[12:02]

It's more really unknown. I don't know what I'm doing. And that dropping away of protective habit I am sensing, I am seeing, I am imagining is part of the process of empathy. And it's really scary. If I have to let go of my opinions that I'm supposed to be Promoting? You know? Installing? If I have to let them go and I'm completely vulnerable to being turned by someone else, oh, is that scary to me? That's really a challenge. So this study, what I'm talking to you about today is something that I am maybe in the first 10% of my investigation, so I am not claiming to have... great conclusions to offer you.

[13:05]

I'm just bringing you along with me in this study that I am starting and seeing is really important. And then, of course, this is a famous statement by President Lincoln in his first inaugural address where he said, we are not enemies but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be by the better angels of our nature. So the better angels of our nature. Those better angels, I think, say three things. I want to do all good.

[14:06]

I want to do no harm. I want to save all beings. That's what those angels are saying. I'm going to give you two words that I'm only going to touch upon, but I offer them to you as if you're interested in looking at this further, there's a lot more... including from Dogen and others about these two words, but it's called identity action. Identity action. And it's this request of empathy that we become intimate with the view of another. We become intimate. We become not separate from the view. of another. And we do it not to change them, or not even to change us, but just to become intimate.

[15:15]

Just to become intimate. So when I was reading this talk over just briefly this morning, trying to figure out what the track was of going from this thought to this thought, I noticed that at a certain point when I started to talk about softening the heart and being more vulnerable, all of a sudden I wanted to talk about the science of this. So my mind wants to engage in understanding that this is actually a rational thing to do, that the heart and the mind both need to be nourished in this process. So I got a little scared, and then I thought, okay, evolutionary psychology. Let's go look at that for a second. And as I was researching and thinking about this talk, I came across, as I looked up Better Angels of Our Nature, there's a book by Steven Pinker that has that as a subtitle, and he goes into, actually he proposes that this is maybe a less violent time than...

[16:24]

humankind has experienced in the past. And he places some of the reason for that on this kind of evolution, basically, of empathy. People have figured out that it actually works better. It actually works better when we get up out of our own silos of personal agenda and look at the and the greater impact of our action. And then, and of course, we do this with both our hearts and our minds. We find out that when we do it, there's this kind of sense of the actual connectivity between us, which is very nurturing, very, very nurturing. Once we get through the vulnerability of it, it's actually nurturing. So that encourages, that evolves this psychological sophistication, evolutionary psychology.

[17:32]

Of course, from the Buddhists' view, it's been going on for 2,500 years, this look at empathy and how it's put. Let's see. This is... This is from a review of the book, which I haven't read, but this sentence stood out to me. We have developed enhanced reasoning powers which give us the ability to detach ourselves from our immediate experience and from our personal or parochial perspective and frame our ideas in a more universal term, leading to better moral commitments. And it moves us away from the forms of morality that are likely to lead to violence. So this ability to detach ourselves from our immediate experience, that can seem kind of cold and maybe amoral. But zazen is actually the training ground for detaching ourselves, not in a non-involved way, but in a non-clinging way.

[18:47]

to our own views, getting a view of our mind. That's what happens in Zazen. We become intimate with our own mind and we see how fickle it is, how it moves about, how it really, is it really ours? Where are these ideas coming from? Have you ever sat in Zazen and thought, where did that idea come from? Happens to me all the time. Even the repetitive ones, it's like, why did that come up now? These are not my ideas. This is kind of a burning off of my karma. The karma based on the entire existence of all causes and conditions that have affected me and I have been affecting of. So this evolution is something that we actually promote. this evolution of understanding our views as non-absolute.

[19:52]

This is another part of the same review. The man that wrote the review wrote another book called The Expanding Circle, and he calls it an escalator of reason that can take us to an advantage point from which we see that our own interests are similar to, and from the point of view of the universe, do not matter more than the interests of others. What would a world be like if we actually saw that and functioned from that place? My view is not better from the point of view of the universe. So then I got through the kind of intellectual bypass for a minute and then I thought, okay, now I'm going to go back to the heart realm, the emotional realm, the more dangerous realm for me.

[21:00]

Anyone that's not comfortable, please make themselves comfortable. Because where wisdom and compassion meet, where a kind of a... Wisdom understanding is balanced by a hard understanding so that it doesn't become too abstract. This is the territory where I really think this study is. You may have to look at one or the other for a while, but it's where they meet, where wisdom and compassion meet. Because as you could hear as I was talking, you know, these are interesting ideas. But until you live in them, until you experience the kind of danger of them, that feeling of letting go, We're not really in it. We're not really in it if we're just thinking about it. I wonder... I've got time.

[22:16]

I want to present something about precepts that relates. And it's tricky. I put a call in to my teacher on Thursday saying, oh, help. I'm going to be talking about something and I don't know if I can actually do it skillfully. So I'm going to try. He didn't call me back. I'm on my own. And there's a wonderful, and I encourage you to look at this on the web if you want to go into more of the details of this, but a Zen teacher named Egyu Nakao, who at the time, I don't know if she still is, was the abbess of the Zen Center of L.A. She wrote this article in 1998. Is she still the abbess?

[23:17]

Thanks, Tova. And... It talks about three perspectives on precepts. And the first one is this fundamentalist perspective, which is pretty much don't kill. Right? We know those. It's based on some kind of absolute rightness or wrongness of an action. And it's determined by its tendency to produce that seem intrinsically good or bad. And these issues, we have Buddhist precepts that talk about not killing, not lying, not taking what is not given, not misusing sexuality, and then there's some others not praising self at the expense of other, not harboring ill will. These kind of precepts are mostly, I think, accepted...

[24:17]

Again, I'm not an expert, but it seems to me that many cultures uphold these basic, fundamental, absolute, don't-do-it-if-you-do-it-it's-wrong things. Thomas Aquinas has, in his Summa Theologica, says theft, lying, misusing sexuality. He said committing adultery and killing the innocent. Those are his five precepts. And there's huge, huge similarity across cultures. Not absolute, but a lot of similarity. And there are Buddhist traditions which are based on absolutely following specific precepts, not veering at all. Not veering at all. And that is a way to deal with right and wrong. And in a situation, again, this is based... I'm looking at this because I saw a situation where one had to decide between two things, both of which seemed... Anyway, it was... What do you call that?

[25:26]

Horns of a dilemma. A coon. Some really, really difficult thing to weigh. Even though this is out of order, I'm going to say that the... the fundamental precepts, even when you look at the admonitions to the monks that follow these very fundamental precepts in terms of Buddhist practices, the Theravadan tradition has many, many rules that people follow very, very strictly. But when you go into further detail of them, you will see that, for instance, I was studying this in something Gil Fronsdale wrote, who's going to be speaking here soon, there's an admonition against a monk hitting someone. But beneath that admonition is the admonition of not being angry. So for instance, if a monk is attacked and in self-defense needs to hit someone, that's okay.

[26:34]

As long as they're not angry when they do it. So even in the absolute realm, where there are fundamental preceptual agreements, how we, what our motivation is, is actually even more important than the rule itself. And that was really helpful for me to understand, because I think that the situation with that Civil War scenario and getting the amendment passed to free people, was the idea that absolutely there is no killing. Well, here was a situation where a human being accepted killing. He didn't do it directly. He accepted killing in order for this other good to happen. I don't know

[27:39]

what I would do, and I don't know if anyone here knows what they would do in that situation. It's almost unthinkable, right? The second perspective of the precepts is this bodhisattva precept realm, which is the way we work with the precepts here. It's how they're offered. They're offered as guidelines. And in order to work with precepts as guidelines, it takes a great deal of understanding of where you... How to say this? One of the greatest benefits I've had of being introduced to Zen practice was the opportunity to study my own ethical code as a grown-up. As a young child, I was told about the commandments, and I was confirmed as a Catholic, and I did that study you do when you're seven or eight years old, or ten maybe, and then didn't think about them again, didn't actually go into them again in my life, just sort of moved along, and I'm sure some of them eroded along the way based on how I was going to meet my personal agendas.

[29:08]

I know they did in looking back at the actions I took. But to be encouraged as a grown-up to look at those precepts and actually study what's important to me and why and what is my commitment. So that realm is what we offer, but they're offered as guidelines because we are expected to look at the subtleties. We are expected to practice balance We are expected to practice empathy. And what I'm discovering now with this question about how to make decisions is the most important thing is putting yourself in the other person's place. That's the basis of how we can even say that the Bodhisattva precepts are guidelines. Well, they're not arbitrary guidelines. It's not... What is it called?

[30:11]

It's not situational ethics. It's like, well, this seems sort of okay now because, no, you know, deep, deep, deep responsibility for finding the balance, for knowing what you care about, for seeing the results of actions. And again, to have these Bodhisattva precepts in this kind of guideline form means community is really important. Community is really important. You need to let me know if my interpretation of this guideline has been harmful. You need to let me know that. Because I could be deluded. That self wants to come up and get what it wants. It wants to, right? I need help. We all need to help each other. So in this realm of compassionate action, or the Bodhisattva precepts, the abbess of the LA Zen Center points out, because this is what I really wanted to know, she says, when we find ourselves in situations where the course of action is not clear, how do we engage our compassion?

[31:31]

And she says, okay, there are several guidelines, actually there are three she gives, for any given situation. We can consider the facts. We can consider the appropriateness. And we can consider our motivation. And I love those three. I think those are so helpful. Those are so helpful. Facts, you know, facts are like who, what, what, when, why, you know, not why. Who, what, where, how. is trickier. It's subjective. How much, how little. When we talk about right speech, there are various factors that we consider before we speak, and one of them is, is this the right time to say this? So that's a subjective part of right speech, too.

[32:39]

Is this the right time? Check. Check. And one way to check is, what's your motivation? What's your motivation? And that brings us to the third, which is, what's your motivation? And in this process that I'm studying myself, for me to be able to meet another person and become intimate with their view, I have to drop my protection. I have to drop... One thing for me, which is really difficult to drop, is momentum. I really love momentum. I like to be moving in a particular direction at a pretty fast clip, actually. And in the position I'm in now, that is not a good thing. Because there's too many people that have to come on board for any decision for me to be moving that fast.

[33:44]

You know, so what is leadership? What is leadership? You're a little bit ahead of the curve. You're supposed to be seeing the wider view and helping others to see it. But getting too far ahead, it must feel terrible to be pulled along, right? You can feel the rain, you know, the tight rope being pulled along something that's moving too fast. So dropping my own self-protection, and looking at, well, why is it up there in the first place? You know, do I need to be right? Do I need to win? Do I need to be seen as, you know, having the solution? What is my motivation that's keeping me from listening thoroughly? And, you know, I can feel the fear of, and it's because I'm a convincer, I can feel the fear of if I... If I take on someone else's view, I'm going to be converted to their view.

[34:46]

I can feel that anxiety. I don't want to be them. I don't want to take on some other. I don't want to completely let go of myself. And I think, folks, I think that's the request. I think that's pretty key. That doesn't mean to be wagged about, to not stand on anything, to not know what your relationship is to those kind of absolute moral values. It doesn't mean that. But the final kind of way of looking at precepts is in a much more broad and ultimate way. And without going into it, because that would be an entire lecture, And this is the dangerous territory. So when you start to talk about absolute territory, it may look like it doesn't matter what you do.

[35:48]

You know, everything is everything, man, that kind of thing. That's not at all what it means. It means being completely grounded in clarity about your moral values, in the practice of considering what's appropriate, and of really understanding your motivation and to... have the best motivation is for the self to drop away. If the self drops away and if there's a real sense that we're all in this together, what comes forth in terms of our activity is the most helpful response. she says this one thing about those three perspectives, the fundamental, the compassionate, and the absolute. She says, let me emphasize that all three are essential for wholeness.

[36:50]

And that to only be fundamental, she said, would result in unbearable rigidity. So we know that word fundamentalists, right? There's a rigidity in that way of interpreting understanding your moral basis. But she also says to hold on to an absolute position would be psychopathic. So I thought that was an interesting way of holding all three. We can't just sit in this kind of, the precepts are being practiced so I don't need to do anything. The way our life is, is the precept practice. Well, there's a truth to that, but there's also a delusion aspect to that. Because there isn't an opportunity today, because this is the end of Sashin and the lead-up to my good friend Lee Lip's Shusau ceremony, may it work very well for you.

[37:59]

Maybe I could just take a couple of minutes and see if there are any questions. Maybe three questions, and I'll repeat the question if someone wants to bring something forward. If not. Yes. But I wanted to ask you, it sounds very much as if you had to empathize with Lincoln in considering these things. What was that like? What was it like walking in Lincoln's property? So I just got asked, It sounded like I needed to empathize with Lincoln and what was it like to walk in that. It was unthinkable. It was unthinkable. I tried to sit in that situation and imagine being in that dilemma.

[39:08]

And... I was incredibly energized by that unthinkableness. That's the basis of why I'm still thinking about it, is that there was no answer there. It wasn't knowable. And I found that amazingly interesting and helpful. Welcome. Yes. I was just asked about consequences. And of course, that is an aspect of checking, I think, because we actually don't usually know the result of our actions, right? We do get feedback from the community fairly.

[40:11]

I mean, when you live together, you get the feedback really quickly, usually. of course consequences are a part of our precept practice, understanding the effect on others. But some of the effects are very subtle. It's easy to see that if you hit someone, they're going to get bruised. But is it so easy to see that if I put forth an idea that I have very strong opinion about, that the other person is going to feel... that I'm diminishing them. Is that easy to see? So the consequences that I'm talking about are more subtle, maybe. And, you know, I also steered away from it, but I'm going to say it anyway. Abraham Lincoln made a decision, and Abraham Lincoln was killed not long after he made this decision. One more, yes.

[41:17]

To me, it's easy to have compassion for something like Lincoln. How does one have compassion for complete selfishness and ego? And when is that too much? So I was just asked, the gentleman said it's easy to imagine having compassion for Lincoln, but how does one have compassion for a situation of great selfishness and ego, and when is it too much? I think it works much better to not resist the situation where someone is presenting themselves selfishly. If you push back against that, it's only going to entrench it more. to turn around and find the basis, to imagine this person, it's like I said, if you were in that situation, you might be behaving exactly like that.

[42:22]

If the circumstances of that person's life of rejection and pain and inability to communicate and who knows what the basis of that kind of holding to self is about, what kind of injury that that reaction is a reaction to, you might be behaving in exactly the same way. So if you care about this person, you're going to want to at least see if you can get around to that other side and try to be there with them. Just try to be there with them. Because I propose that mostly what people want is to be seen and heard. Mostly, that's what we want, to be seen and heard and loved. And that's pretty much what heals everything. If we can do that and not resist it, not want it to be different than it is, that's a key practice of zazen.

[43:27]

We sit with ourselves watching how we wish it were different. And it isn't, and it can't be, because this is now, and this is what we've got. So practicing with not wanting it to be different also would be a part of that, I think, response. I see more questions. I'm turning to the Eno. Where's the Eno? No, we need to respect that there's a lot of work still to be done in order to prepare for today. And I'll stand outside. Actually, I'll stand on the front steps for a few minutes if a few people want to talk, okay? So thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[44:32]

May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[44:35]

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