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. Welcome to everyone, especially if you're here newly. Maybe something nourishing will happen for all of us. And thank you mostly for asking me to talk. When I'm asked to talk, I'm curious, I was curious this time, how does the Dharma talk seed get planted? What happens between then and now? And it's kind of like... The radar goes up and what's up, you know? And the next morning I'm chanting the breakfast chant as usual here.

[01:05]

And it's... Every time I do it I think, what is the pleasure of Zen? We chant every morning before breakfast. We stand in the kitchen and we chant, now as I take food and drink, I vow... with all beings to share in the pleasure of Zen and fully enjoy the Dharma. I remember Brendan, who lived here, would do this with great gusto. It was like this cheerleader leading us into the day. And so that kind of curiosity about the chant began to turn in me In the longer version of the chant we do during practice periods, there's a place where it says the meal nourishes us in our practice.

[02:08]

Its rewards are boundless, filling us with ease and joy. And this theme of joy in our practice is all through the temple. So we vow or commit every morning promise to share in the pleasure of Zen with all beings. And that includes everyone we live with, everyone we work with, our families, our friends, strangers, difficult people, to share in the pleasure and fully enjoy the Dharma. So I ask myself, what is this about, this pleasure of Zen? And I wonder what it is to live this vow and what helps me do that and what gets in the way. And most important, am I willing to turn toward joy and release suffering?

[03:15]

So that got me started. And then I looked up at my wall calendar, which is Suzuki Roshi's Zen mind calendar, and for April it said, the only way is to enjoy your life. Even though you're practicing zazen, counting your breath like a snail, you can enjoy your life. That is why we practice zazen, he said. That's a pretty big statement, to enjoy your life. So I think he's saying even in circumstances that might seem tedious or boring, like counting our breath or washing pots or making beds or responding to email over and over and over, day after day, the same things, our practice includes a lot of repetition, doing the same thing in the same way, day after day, until we see that actually it isn't the same at all.

[04:21]

I think he's saying, no matter what you're doing, you can enjoy your life. And that reminded me of a story that my first teacher told, Dayan Banaj, Soto teacher. She practiced, trained for 15 years in Japan, and came back to live and teach in this country. But before she did that, she went to Thich Nhat Hanh's place in Plum Village because she thought she needed to learn to teach Westerners because she'd been trained in Japan, she'd been teaching in Japanese. So she did a 90-day practice period in Plum Village, and in the course of it, at one point in a lecture, he said, you can enjoy your breathing. You can enjoy your sitting. You can enjoy your life. And she said to me, never in 15 years of training in Japan had that thought occurred to her.

[05:32]

There are other references to joy in our temple life, in our service in the morning. Our dedication often says, may we practice joyfully together with all beings. And of course, the loving-kindness meditation, the Metta Sutta, talks about being easily contented and joyous, that this is the fruit of practice. And may all beings be happy, be joyous, and live in safety. So I thought a lot about what is it to enjoy? Enjoy our practice daily. Literally, the word is rejoice. Can we rejoice in our life? Take pleasure in, delight in, feel ease, contentment, satisfaction. When I just hear those words, my whole body relaxes.

[06:40]

In Zen teachings, this happiness is a happiness that's without wanting to hold on to it or to get more. It's just to feel the full body-mind experience of it whenever and wherever it happens. It's a quiet kind of happiness that isn't related to external objects or circumstances. And it's laced with equanimity. The early sutras describe piti, which is joy or rapture, and sukha, which is a longer-lasting meditative pleasure or happiness. And these are states that come in the course of deep concentration practice. And the instruction with them, given to these renunciate monks of old is,

[07:49]

Let them infuse your whole body and mind. I love that image. Piti and sukha. And then of course the instruction is continue to practice because you'll go beyond them. So what is this pleasure of Zen? I think it's nothing less than liberation from suffering. Not from pain and difficulty, because that will always be there. But from the freedom from suffering with it. It's the third and to me the most noble truth. Yes, there's suffering. Yes, there are causes. But the Buddha said, I'm here to tell you there is liberation. There is freedom. So what is it to fully enjoy the Dharma?

[08:56]

I think of the Dharma as the truth of what is. And so we come to see the truth of what is, and then we can actually appreciate the truth of what is. Sometimes it takes a good dose of humor, but to me that is the full enjoyment of the Dharma. And it's the way of liberation, not to. So now we've gone from the simple meal chant to the vow of liberation from suffering. What makes it possible to live this vow? What are practices that nourish this way of liberation. And the word nourish means both feed and cherish.

[09:58]

We are, after all, chanting this chant before we're about to take nourishment and these words of gratitude and promise. We're about to be fed and cherished by the healthy food, by the crew, and the volunteers and the residents who've helped prepare it. We need to eat. We need this kind of nourishment in order to sustain our lives for the sake of enlightenment, as we chant, for the sake of awakening, liberation, for the sake of practicing. We've got to eat. But what else nourishes our practice? I think of three. There are many, many things that nourish our practice. I think of three. Compassion and kindness.

[11:02]

Here are your words. And forgiveness. And I want to tell you, I was working on this on Sunday. I'd gotten past this part. I came down to have a cup of tea. And my little yogi tea bag tag said... Practice compassion, kindness, and forgiveness. So I knew I was on the right track. Compassion nourishes liberation. We know it means to suffer with compassion. to bear with, to witness, but it also means to allow. In the Christian scriptures, there's a line that we're told Jesus said, which is, suffer the little children to come unto me.

[12:11]

Let them come. Allow them to come. Don't keep them back. Where is that Orion? Um... And for me, there's a metaphor in there too. Can we let the little ones come home that we've exiled? Allow them. Suffering is released when we can allow, witness, bear it in ourselves and in others. We can accompany one another. We can be a healing presence. Yes, I can sit with this pain in myself. Yes, I can sit with your pain. I can sit with what is. It reminded me of Zenju's talk on Saturday and the title of her book, which is The Way of Tenderness. Compassion practice is a way of tenderness.

[13:15]

And also of Christina's talk. She talked about living in alignment with reality, with this and this and this too, including everything. This is compassion, this is allowing. I did a long retreat, long in 12 days, not long. That's yet to come. A while back, and I am a Qigong practitioner, and I was doing Qigong after breakfast, and the whole song, Let It Be, came to me. Mother Mary comes to us speaking words of wisdom. Let it be. Avalokiteshvara comes to us.

[14:16]

And that phrase rolled around in me for a while. And I realized in the meditation that it was for me then and now better than let it go. Because it's allowing whatever's happening, whatever shows up, it's allowing it. And let it be, for me, can turn into a project. I am going to, I mean, let it go. I am going to let that go. Actually, letting it be seems to allow it to let go of me. So letting it be, let it be, is a compassion practice. And another one that came to me there was the phrase, relax into this. And that's a little bit like let it be, but this relaxing, I see how often I contract when something difficult comes up, and that relaxing into it can be very helpful.

[15:37]

So then what about the newspapers that show the photographs and the stories of the people in Nepal or yet another killing of a black man by police. Our tendency is to contract. Oh no. Perhaps feel helpless or overwhelmed, turn away. It's too painful. What if we relax into this? What if we let ourselves feel, allow, bearing witness to the suffering? What happens then? Relaxing our grip on clinging and aversion, uncontracted with what is. This is how compassion practice nourishes liberation.

[16:45]

and kindness does also. I came across a teacher named Ajahn Brahm. He's a Theravadan monk, British Theravadan monk, abbot of a monastery in Western Australia, and he's coined the word kindfulness. So we have mindfulness, which is moment by moment awareness of what is, And I think kindfulness then is seeing that with a kind heart, kind eye, toward your own responses, toward others' actions and words and persona. Could be expressing appreciations, this kindfulness. Could be offering encouragement.

[17:52]

It's an active practice. Like mindfulness, it's a deliberate practice. Maybe not so soto. Generous, considerate, respectful, courteous with one another. Kindfulness. Another kind and simple act is smiling. And in our Qigong practice, it's an ancient, physical, mental, energetic practice with specific exercises. And in almost every one of them, one of the instructions is, relax your forehead and put a smile on your face. And our teacher Li Ping said the other night, Whenever you're not talking, you should be doing this practice.

[18:57]

And Thich Nhat Hanh calls it mouth yoga. Smiling is mouth yoga. And apparently all this kindness is good for you. There are now psychological studies. a number of them that show, and I'll quote this one researcher, how micro moments of connection with others, like sharing a smile or expressing concern, improve emotional resilience, boost the immune system, and reduce susceptibility to depression and anxiety. So, that's pretty good. sales pitch for kindness. So compassion nourishes the way of liberation and joy by freeing us from the bonds of suffering.

[20:00]

It's enlightenment. And kindness softens the heart, mind, liberating us from negative emotions and thoughts, towards which, of course, we practice kindness when they do show up. And how does forgiveness nourish this practice? I don't know about you, but my heart can get hard and crusty toward people and situations, and sometimes, sometimes myself. And I don't think that's a very helpful ingredient for liberation and joy. So to forgive is to stop feeling anger towards someone who has done something wrong.

[21:04]

They've done something wrong. It's not like that's going to change, but you... I can stop it. Stop feeling anger. Stop blaming. That word forgive, for is completely. So completely give. Give over. Give it up. It's not easy or quick and many of us have been deeply wounded or have hurt others significantly. And so this practice, it's not quick, but if we take it up, little by little, the water dropping on the stone, it can shift. So I had tea with the Chusso last practice period, Tim Kroll, and in the course of that, somehow we got to forgiveness,

[22:09]

And he shared with me this meditation on forgiveness from Sharon Salzberg in a book called Loving Kindness, The Revolutionary Art of Happiness. And you might want to close your eyes and just take these words in. If I have hurt or harmed anyone knowingly, or unknowingly, I ask their forgiveness. If anyone has hurt or harmed me, knowingly or unknowingly, I forgive them. For all the ways I have hurt or harmed myself knowingly or unknowingly, I offer forgiveness.

[23:15]

Tim told me he uses this, he says it over and over and over at times, and that it's helped him a great deal. So then I wondered, well, what nourishes compassion and kindness and forgiveness? And for me, there's no question about that. Three things, silence, stillness, and simplicity. Quieting down settling down, slowing down, pausing, stopping, stopping completely. The world we're in now is so fast.

[24:28]

wonderful that more and more refuges like this place offer silence and stillness. And simplicity in material possessions and involvements. Can we simplify our lives? Can we simplify the involvements of that we're engaged in. All of this is, of course, our zazen, our simple attention to body, breath, and mind. So what hinders living this vow to share in the pleasure of Zen and fully enjoy the Dharma.

[25:48]

Just habit energy. Just conditioning. Just grasping for what we want and pushing away what we don't want. Just hindrances. They're all workable. I don't think this practice would have been around for 2,500 years. They weren't. The big question for me in all of this is am I willing to turn toward joy and release my suffering? I think more and more the answer is yes. But I also see that I hang on to it. It's like a familiar old shoe. I see that I don't want to give it up even though it doesn't fit anymore. And unlike the shoe, it hurts. It's better, says the mind, than the alternative, which is unknown and unknowable.

[26:55]

It's got drama. It's juicy. You'll commiserate with me on it. And that's a kind of belonging. So I got a lot of good reasons to hang on to it. And apparently the brain is in cahoots with the suffering. More research is showing something called the negativity bias, which is that our brains favor cautious, fear-based thoughts over generous, positive ones. Take something like five to one positive thoughts overcome this. I don't know why, but I find it helpful to know that. But with the companionship of spiritual friends, I'm beginning to see that the unknowable and the unknown is a great adventure.

[28:06]

Noble friends and noble conversation, as the Buddha said, support that. Wholesome activity supports that. So I think I am willing. So please, enjoy your life. Let's share in the pleasure of Zen. And let our tenderized, joyful hearts express themselves in this hurting world. 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.

[29:13]

And click giving. May we fully enjoy it.

[29:17]

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