This podcast is offered by San Francisco's Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. So, first I wanted to say hello to the different groups. I thought we have so many... This is the first practice period I've been co-leading with my good friend and Dharma auntie, Vicki Austin. help so um i'm aware of how many people there are in a practice period and all of the different needs and all of the different ways people come here so i wanted to start by saying thank you and welcome to all of the residents of city center i see you sprinkled in here we have 50 to 55 residents practicing that live here at city center that are Many of them are in the practice period, and they're all practicing together, supporting this temple.

[01:06]

And then there are all the people that we call them. We've had non-residents, which we changed to commuter practitioners for this practice period. And I was a commuter practitioner for a decade, maybe longer, driving to the financial district and back here with my briefcase in suit. changing into my robes. So I was a commuter for a long time. So all the people that commute, that come into practice, welcome. Welcome and thank you for being here. It takes an effort to be a resident and it takes an effort to get up and come here too early in the morning. And I wish you so. I lived at 12th and Lake and I had to get up every day at four so I could come here to wake the residents up. And my wife got up at quarter to four to wake me up. And she got no glory. I was the great Shouseau, but she was at home. She'd say, wake up. They're going to oversleep. You've got to go. So it takes a big effort to come in and sustain this practice.

[02:10]

And yet this would not be the temple it is without so many people coming in and bringing their gifts to this practice and sharing their hearts. Really, this is maybe the lecture about sharing your heart. and your life together, just as you are. And then we have our online. Now we have people across the country, maybe the world, watching. So thank you for coming here today and practicing with us, even though you're not physically present. I know you're there. I know you're there. And I wanted to say, pardon? 13. 33. So all of you online and people everywhere, thank you for making this effort. And I wanted to say, this is one of those things you get to say, like, hi, mom. I wanted to say hello to my special friends, Hattie and Enzo. I promised they were watching.

[03:14]

Hattie, Enzo, hello. Hattie is four and Enzo is two. So maybe let's sit for just a second and kind of hold all the ways that we've, what we're looking for, what brought us here and how we're connected and just be aware of the effort to come here and practice and the gift of this place, Zen Center. Just for a minute, let's just hold that and come here in an attentive way. Embody it. And then before I talk about what I'm going to talk about today, I was asked to make an announcement for a show of hands for how many people rode their bicycles.

[04:56]

I didn't. I live next door, but somebody. How many? How many? I can't put it up. How many people rode your bicycles today for miles? Are you here coming? No. Oh, OK. So a fair amount of people. I think this is part of the bike to worship that's going on. And I saw a table. I didn't know about this. Somebody said, see how many people rode their bikes? So I thought that was unusual. So there's a table outside, and I guess there'll be an event afterwards or something happening. Okay. Okay. All right. All right. Good. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. So now down to business.

[06:03]

Down to business. So we're halfway. I just realized this is the halfway point of our practice period or study period that Victoria and I are leading and working with and supporting each other and being supported in. I'm learning a lot, by the way, in this practice period. People are coming to me. sharing their practice, and it's actually, I'm learning a lot about ways to encourage people to practice and how I practice. So it's been a very useful process for me so far, and I hope it is for the people in the practice period too, not just for me. And practice period for people who haven't done one, the word ongo literally translates is to dwell in peace. So we find an abiding place or a place where we maybe try to find some quiet and some way to support each other in making this inquiry, making our inquiry into what I would call our own suffering and delight.

[07:08]

I think it's a big question in our lives, this question of suffering and happiness or true joy. how we leave one behind and work with it, and how we learn to be truly happy in a mature way. So in a way, this is the big container of, I feel, the practice period, but also of our practice as Buddhists, and maybe in a bigger sense as our inquiry or what we do here on Earth as human beings. So... And we always have a theme for the practice period. So our theme was, come as you are. We want to see you as you are. And now, of course, we offered some variations in the schedules and different things for this practice period. And somebody said, well, that's a lot of work. And that's the nature of freedom and maturity.

[08:12]

there is some more work to be involved in having more space or more freedom to creatively engage in the activities of your life. So we wanted to offer this bigger place to help people to find out as mature practitioners and maturing practitioners, what really works for you in your Buddhist practice, in your inquiry into happiness and suffering. I think Vicki used the theme that Darlene or one of the themes of suffering and delight. I like that a lot, suffering and delight. So how do you stay balanced and focused in real ways as you inquire and make this inquiry for yourself? So we wanted to kind of set a container, a six-week space to do this. And as Buddha said, I commend you to Sangha. This is not something you can do alone, you know. And much of the compassion that we'll train in is based on extension and empathy.

[09:16]

It's an immeasurable outreach that never stops when it's engaged with the body and the mind. And so far, I think it's worked pretty well. Sometimes we weren't so clear, or we thought we were clear in instructions, but it's amazing how many ways something can be understood. And actually, in the mistakes, people have found some big insights in their own practice, I think, or not understanding us and doing something else. They actually said, well, this actually was really good, although I didn't know I wasn't supposed to be doing that. that could be something useful but maybe we should do a little less of that for now and come back into the fold there's several people that have come to me with different uh different approaches like that so um so the theme you now know is come as you are and of course this is not the danger is you know we hear that there's then that uh you know

[10:28]

It's not a call to narcissism. You know, this is our first or anything goes. As Trungpa said once, he wrote a wonderful book called The Myth of Freedom. He said, so you can do anything you want. So what? So what? Now what are you going to do? You know, now you've got yourself in a flying corner, haven't you? Now you're really going to get alienated. Now what are you going to do? So in a little, so, but approaching that area of that space, we find out the need for each other, the heart need for each other, and the context of this environment that we practice in, I think. So it's not a call to, hopefully, confusion. Although somebody might approach it that way, and then we'd have to respect and work with that. Maybe people say, well, I'll just sleep in every day for six weeks. And I don't know. Maybe that'll happen. It hasn't happened. Usually you get tired of sleeping in, you know.

[11:31]

When I was first at Tassajara, I remembered Targaryen. You're supposed to like just eat what's in this endo. And there I was at 49. I remember I'd go back and on the third night I had my stash of chocolate and under my blankets I had my flashlight and I would eat chocolate because I could. And I had to do that. And then I had to feel really silly doing that. And then I just slept at night and relaxed. But I had to enact that a little bit. Sometimes we have to act foolishly in order to learn something. And part of come as you are is to accept that in each other, you know, with generosity and kindness and support, putting a good word in. The topic that we are teaching on are the Brahma-Vaharas, which are a classical meditation training technique from the 5th century that was codified by Buddhaghosa. And the four movements of the Brahma-Vaharas, and Brahma-Vahara means Brahma like the king of the gods in the Indian pantheon, Brahma.

[12:43]

And vahara is to abide or abiding. And a monastery in India is called a vahara, also another name for a monastery, vahara. That place that you're grounded on, you find safety in. So this translates to divine abidings or immeasurables. And I thought, you know, in Buddhism, I wouldn't say maybe divine, but we would say something like that which is unconditioned or interpenetrating or interconnected and therefore unmeasurable. It just extends outwards continually, just like consciousness, just like compassion, just like kindness. It's a movement that keeps extending and doesn't have boundaries, doesn't have fixed places, so it becomes an immeasurable activity. And today I'll talk primarily about two aspects, or one Brahma-vihara, kindness. We have 30... three minutes, I think 35 minutes to talk.

[13:46]

And shamatha or triangle abiding, which is the conditioning that was the part of the training in order to express kindness and compassion to sustain this activity. So I'll kind of highlight those two aspects. In general, this is, you know, in Buddhism, there are two wings. You could say two big schools, compassion, which you could say has an emotive quality to it. Although Buddhism, emotion isn't really defined that way. It's a mental aspect. It's not defined the way we use emotion. It doesn't matter. We would call it emotive. Emotive and wisdom, which we would call insightful. Often in the older schools, this was divided into shamatha, which is the training in tranquility, and compassion was part of that training, and kindness was part of that training, in order to set the conditions.

[14:46]

Just like a farmer would, if you were going to plant seeds, you don't just throw them in any old ground. You begin to cultivate the ground very carefully, putting in the right nutrients. and shamatha is the training in how to do that in a mature and skillful way buddha found that the mind body was a perfect vehicle for gaining insight in enlightenment or maybe it's better to say for enlightenment to express itself it really is a better way or for the light to flow would be a better way even for this expression to happen but But it needed some refinement. Usually, generally, we move toward excitation to dullness, back and forth. And it needs some conditioning or some work in order to become ready to express the light, for the light to flow clearly through. So the shamatha training is a training in order to condition.

[15:47]

and to learn and it's and of course this can't be written in a book if we could somebody would have said do these five things you'll be conditioned enlightenment will follow it's not going to happen like that our karma our dispositional formations are uniquely our own and they're myriad so the conditioning is quite unique and has to be engaged by each person in a in a in a intelligent fashion So I think of mindfulness, by the way, I use mindfulness as intelligent attention. Not just knowing where your feet are, but knowing what the nature of feet means, what the nature of desire is. This is intelligent awareness. So we need to have some stabilization of being together and to condition the ground in order for this flower to bloom, so to speak. So from Buddha's, I took this from Buddha Gosa in his writings on the Brahma Vaharas.

[16:54]

He includes this in the first page. We all desire to be happy and avoid suffering. I visited all quarters with my mind, nor found I any dearer than myself. Self is likewise to every other dear. Who loves him or herself will never harm another. Buddha. So this is the inquiry point or the inception point. And then what develops is what we choose to develop, how we cultivate something. Great wholesomeness and goodness or wholesome fruit can arise, or something much less desirable can arise, darkness and evil even, dark places. So we have a choice to make. But our common heritage, the thing that we have in common is this need to be truly happy, to be truly happy, to be truly safe, and to avoid suffering.

[17:55]

And we share this with all sentient life on the earth, not just the people in this room, but everybody in this city, this country, the world. Everybody's negotiating this place together. So we have a great thing we can support each other in and talk about. We can make this a better place by our actions, by what we do, and how we condition the soil to produce wholesome fruit or wholesome effects. Sometimes in Buddhism they say, you know, you can imagine that consciousness is like planting seeds in a great garden. Watch the seeds you plant. What you plant is what will be reaped when the conditions are right. if you plant kindness and compassion and truly extend that, embody that, enact that, then the nutrient of your own consciousness begins to shift.

[18:59]

We tend to see objective things out here as separate from us. What you sow, you reap. It's not later, it's almost simultaneous. You're actually conditioning the mind consciousness yourself to have a certain outcome. And that you can control. That you have some input in and you need some skill in how to affect that outcome or how to have that arise properly so so in a way this is come as you are and make a really serious inquiry into how you can be really happy not foolishly happy and we probably most of us i'm 65 i've tried a lot of stuff you know This car will make me happy. This friend will make me happy. This is the best job. And each thing falls short. So then sometimes people give up and they say there's no meaning to this. Life is just dismal. So don't do that. Soften and keep making the inquiry.

[20:02]

What's really going to work here? That's important. Don't get overwhelmed. Don't get defeated that way. So what do you do? I was thinking, you know, when I talk about the Brahma Vaharas, I was thinking of a jazz quartet. They actually work more like an ensemble piece. You know, we put them in linear fashion like we're going to do. We'll get loving kindness wrapped up and then we'll... But actually, as you extend, so it's embody, extend, attend to, and then see the wisdom or the connection of what's going to happen, things begin to shift in ways that are unknown to us.

[21:05]

I don't think true peace ever comes except on the ground of concrete action. Thich Nhat Hanh said, I think this was after Dick Baker's problem, they said, well, what should we do? And he said basically, well, somebody's going to have to, not literally these words, somebody's going to have to engage in some foolish behavior and make peace. Somebody has to, you know, and we say practice like a fool, like an idiot secretly working with him. In a sense, adhimsa and true kindness and compassion is foolish. You can't make sense of it. in some way it's not logical in that way and yet it has a definite effect and you can explore that for yourself when you engage in that way when you raise a kind thought the world begins to change you you live in a different world almost immediately and somebody else can respond to you in a unique fashion perhaps that you would never expect and something develops this is the ground of being

[22:13]

This is the dynamic round that Buddha is talking about when he teaches things like the Brahma Vaharas. So it's like a jazz quartet. But you've got to play the music, folks. This is the thing. You can't just talk about kindness. You've got to really practice it. You can do this anywhere. I've been doing this a lot the past year. You can practice with people. You can stand during morning service and go up and down the rows and just hold that person and wish them the best. I mean, really wish them the best. Drop all of your crazy ideas and protections about who they are and who you are and really wish them the best for a moment. You return to ground zero in that moment. You become a child of Buddha. And something new is possible for the first time. And if you get really good at it, they call you a miracle worker. They say, like, Christ, you walk on water. You did something unique, something we didn't expect. You just did it.

[23:14]

You just produced peace. You enacted something. So this is about enactment, engagement, embodiment. I think if there were any, maybe the most important thing that I would think we'd want to convey is that you can almost see sensory motor engagement with kindness and compassion at the core level. That's when the real action starts to happen. Real activity and real shifting starts, transformation starts. So, but first, you know, I've been doing these shamatha workshops for tranquility at one day sittings. And the trick is, We really want to get something done. And even in the shamats at workshops, people are trying to be the most trainable people in the group. So right away, we get off to a funny start.

[24:17]

It's like, I'm going to be the easiest here. So we objectify or project our actions in order to acquire something. And then it becomes very rigid and tight. So the first aspect is ease on off. Steve Stuckey used to say, take your foot off the pedal. Ease on off a little bit. So this is part of your practice, learning how to ease on off in a mature way. You can be vigorous and alive, in fact. When you're really easy, then you can actually, I think, you can engage creatively with things. And they're not so overwhelming. You actually engage in a different way. So first, we cultivate. And we have to start somewhere. You know, every time I talk about this, somebody will say, well, you know, it's a big world, it's a mess, and Ukraine is a disaster, and I don't know what to do, and so it's hopeless. Don't go there. We're all baby Buddhas in this room. You know, the Dalai Lama said, somebody asked, and they were doing an interview, and they said, Howard Cutler, and he said, do you ever get lonely?

[25:27]

And the Dalai Lama said, well, not really. And he said, well, Why is that? And he said, it's because I've cultivated interest in other people my whole life. He reaches out. And he said, even if people are angry, but it took him 80 years. I've cultivated a true interest in the people around me. I'm connected in my heart to the people around me. But he took him 80 years. He's the Dalai Lama. So we start somewhere. Don't worry about saving the world. Raise a kind thought today. A sustainable kind thought, unsupported by sights, sounds, smells, or objects. It's just the thought of kindness, unsupported by anything. It becomes immeasurable then. Very powerful force. So maybe if you're left doing one thing, Don't be overwhelmed.

[26:28]

Or one thing you would take away is to engage and embody raising such a kind thought, first for yourself, and then for someone else, someone around you, someone that perhaps you care about or you have some openness to. Don't worry about its effects or what it's going to change or if the Republicans will win or not. That's not why you're doing it. You do it in the hope that out of this something powerful or beneficial will arise for you and the people around you. A few more minutes on a few points, a few pointers called stable. In the shamatha tradition, there were some things that were suggested as you want to cultivate this place for yourself. One is... Suitable environment. You know, this is a tricky one.

[27:32]

Who has the perfect environment? Well, maybe nobody, but there are ways to make your environment suitable or workable for this activity of ease and training in shamatha and attention. So it's ease and attention that you're cultivating here. So suitable environment. And this isn't just where you put your head in. You're friends. It can be environment involves itself in things that you eat, how you take care of yourself, how you take care of the mind-body that you were given to work with as you make this inquiry. And there are always variations in there. Going for perfection, maybe too much. And knowing this isn't a situation that's going to work. If you're doing shamatha and next door there's a jazz band practicing day and night, you may want to say, I better not try this.

[28:36]

It's not going to work at this moment. I'll do something else. It's OK. But usually we can find some way to create suitable environments. And you have to put some energy into this. What do you read? What do you think about? What are the movies you go to? Well, who do you associate with? You look at all of those things. The choices are conducive to setting the condition for this true inquiry into happiness. Darlene Cohen once, she said, she was a wonderful teacher here. She said, you know, I go kayaking every year or two, and I go out on the water with people that have severe physical limitations. And we go as a group. And we paddle in the sun. And in my body, I soak up the sun and the memories of those summer days. And then later, when I need them, I use them again.

[29:36]

Maybe in the morning when my arthritis is so painful I can't open a jar. I use that again. So this is skillful use of a nutrient, which is joy and pleasure. affirming connections. It's skillfully to use these things. They build in the shamatha tradition. We cultivate the ground of joy and ease and let it soften and broaden. Like you need to cultivate the spark and then not get lost in it, not get excited about it, but cultivate it and bring it into your practice. into your body literally in a mature way so the movement of the brahma vaharas starts with this kindness which is almost in many ways i think of it in this modern science talk a positive biofeedback loop you break out of dismal projections and you start to care about something positively me i don't want to suffer and i want to wish myself well and then you do it with another person you begin to shift and

[30:47]

this kind of quiet it's almost a pleasant place if you're relaxed and at ease and you shift in this way a kind of easy pleasure not a gross or mundane pleasure necessarily a very easier pleasure starts to be cultivated cultivate that it's the seed of enlightenment cultivate that kind of easy place you need to grow it you know and you'll make mistakes you'll try to grab it try to have it alone. It won't work. And then you'll learn. You'll cultivate it, and it'll cultivate you. So Darlene would kayak and store it in her body. So she knew she was a wise practitioner. In order to make this effort, you have to cultivate this kind of sunlight and support, sunlight and warmth, joy of friendship. be content and have few desires as often.

[31:54]

You know, I woke up thinking, I was thinking, I have this old Honda and I think I should buy a new car. And I thought, I really like this car. It's got all the right dents now. And it gets me around. But, you know, if you begin to lose your contented mind or appreciate the thing you have, maybe you have an old Honda or you have a great bike, Or you have wonderful water. It doesn't matter what you have. Be content and appreciate that thing. So if Darlene were kayaking and having a wonderful experience and began comparing kayaks, you would deprive yourself of the state of contentment and bliss and undermine your own practice. But if you just enjoy your kayak, your vision of the sunshine, your situation and appreciate it, then there's some possibility for this. or this aspect to grow. Again, you're conditioning the soil here.

[32:55]

You're working. It's the working basis for enlightenment. So ethical discipline is one. And my dharma name is tokoden, which is the field of virtue, which I actually didn't like a lot. I always thought it was like... too sweet like I wanted to be a dragon. And Mel gave me the name and then Michael said, nah, that's perfect. So virtue, you know, I like it more now because I realize virtue has more to do with goodness and character. It's not a series of regulatory things out here. It's the cultivation of being a good person. worthy person would he use the phrase a noble one this is what he means by by a noble you um you you work on your own dispositional energy how you relate to things every day and you begin to cultivate this this is part of this farming i'm doing a lot of farming metaphors you're cultivating your own disposition

[34:10]

As your disposition shifts, you relate to things differently and they respond to you differently. And this cultivation is the work of a lifetime. And because it's cultivation of disposition, it's alive and creative. It's not just memorizing a rule or fitting in or being politically correct. There's nothing wrong with that, but you have to go deeper. You have to bring this alive. You have to embody this. activity so then you become a person of virtue and the last two and abbott ed touched on these i think i thought of having few concerns and i'll link these together because they and avoid compulsive ideation is what it's read those are big words but uh i thought it was a wonderful lecturer and had mentioned in his training career to be avid he had been a bartender many years ago which you know it's very demanding if the bar is full so one thing you can do is to be totally overwhelmed and say well this is an impossible situation i should never have been placed here and the management is crazy or you can see the whole picture and begin to make drinks and relate to each person meet each person

[35:40]

So this is breaking through compulsive ideation, something you can always do. This is some way to work with the overwhelm that we're going to practice shamataya. I mean, it wouldn't be ideal if we could all go to Maine together this afternoon for a month. Or as BA Wallace says, really you need six months. It's really hard to do in the streets. It's really hard to do this in the streets. But I think you can do it. It'd be banner headline news if you could. And I'm interested in doing it in the streets, by the way. So this is one thing you can do to avoid, you know, to use this phrase, we mentally proliferate and compulsively think, linking past, present, and future together. The simplicity of sensation perception gives way to thinking in compulsive ideation very quickly. So meditation is a desolidification process. where that compulsiveness is broken down, that compulsive ideation, framing things, linking past, present, and future into overwhelming demons breaks down.

[36:52]

Oh my God, I can't do anything. And then you go, I just wanted a ginger ale. And you give the guy a ginger ale. And you go to the next person. So there's a way we can work with this. And one is to meditate, to stop and abide, to slow down, to care for yourself. to stay here, not to project, not to build on the past. We stay here. These are ways to break this down. And of course, sometimes it's too much. And then you have to make a life change. I just can't do this. This is creating bad effects in my life. And we make a change. Know why you're changing. It's tricky business to get off the bus. Know why you're getting off the bus. Know the nature of buses and who made buses too. It's a big job. It's a big job being a human being, by the way. So that's about it.

[37:54]

I've used my allotted time up. And maybe the big thing is, if I left with any thought, is start small. Buddha said, forbearance and patience is the greatest virtue in Buddhism in many ways. Be willing to start small. Do one kind thing and connect to it. I don't like random acts of kindness. You have to really embody your kindness. You have to be there for it. Really open your heart to another's suffering and your own suffering. Really connect in that way. Small things. Avoid sarcasm. Don't cut people off. Stay open as much as you can. If you're angry and you can't talk, it's okay. You can be angry, but you don't have to hurt anybody. You can be angry, and you can also extend a good wish for the person.

[38:55]

You can do both. So do that today. Do that today for yourself. Buddha, you know, in the enlightenment story of the Buddha, I'll end with this, he practices for six years assiduously and ends up in a river drowning as a skeleton. And a young cowherder, Sujata, sees him and says, geez, that's a noble-looking fellow. I think I should help him. He's going to drown, and she helps him to the bank, and she gives him rice milk, which is a... Sheer, it's called. I guess they're still eaten in India. Sheer, S-C-H-E-E-R. It's like rice porridge. And he feels energy come back into his emaciated and worn-out body.

[39:57]

And he says, And I remembered sitting under my father's rose apple tree as a young boy, quite at peace and at ease, upright, and seeing the ground turned over, In the animals' houses, their lives, the insects being damaged and destroyed, my heart extended out to them. And out of that experience, he says, could this be the middle path? Could this be the way to enlightenment? Wonderful story. So ease and compassion open a door. Open this door, or open the door for Shakyamuni. That's what he said. Let this be the middle path. Ease, joy, compassion. And then he took that and he looked into it deeply.

[40:59]

And then he shared it with us. Because he couldn't not share it with us because his heart was open. So keep your hearts open and learn how to do it wisely too. Take good care of yourselves. Be kind. Start there. And spread it around. 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 sfcc.org and click Giving. May we all fully enjoy the Dharma.

[41:52]

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