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. It's such a beautiful day in June. And for those of you who don't know me, my name is Tova Green. I'm a resident here, and I've been co-leading a six-week practice period with David Zimmerman. I'm very grateful to have had the opportunity to do that. And today is the last day of the practice period. So for the last three days, we've been in a quiet, silent retreat, Sashin. And today, it's also a one-day sitting. So many people in the room are dedicating this day to sitting silently.

[01:02]

And for those of you who are joining us this morning, welcome. Is there anyone here who's here for the first time? Special welcome to you. And I'll try to not use words that you won't understand and really appreciate that you're here at Beginner's Mind Temple. So the other, I think, significant part about this date is that June is Pride Month in San Francisco, and it has great meaning to many of us, and I think could to all of us, and last week David referred to this month being Pride Month in his talk, and In two weeks we will have, which is Pride Weekend, we'll have a talk by Larry Yang from the East Bay Meditation Center and Spirit Rock.

[02:12]

And we'll be marching in the parade this year. I'll say more about that later. So my theme for today is sitting for our lives. And what does that mean? How does sitting benefit or affect or relate to our lives, our everyday lives, at work, with our families, in our community? For this practice period, we've been studying a text called the Xin Xin Ming. It's a poem that was written in the 6th century by a Chinese ancestor called Zensang. And it's amazing how relevant this poem is to the 20th century. I guess we're in the 21st century now. The 21st century. So despite all the time that's passed, it has many words and phrases and messages that are very relevant to our lives, and that's what we've been exploring over the last six weeks of the practice period.

[03:29]

the title of the poem is the Xin Xin Ming. One translation of that is Trust in Mind. And we've been exploring what it is to trust, what is the nature of mind, what are some of the qualities that help us develop this trust in mind. And by the mind in the Xin Xin Ming refers to a kind of spacious, vast mind, as well as to our everyday minds. But how do we access that vast mind that can help us have a different kind of perspective on our likes and dislikes, our judgments, our comparisons, the chatter in our mind? And how does that awareness help us live in this very wonderful and troubling world in which we find ourselves.

[04:37]

And I think it's especially because our practice period is ending that I really wanted to turn my thoughts today towards what we're taking with us, what we... take with us at the end of the one-day sitting and the three-day sishin as we re-enter our lives in their everydayness. I thought I would start by saying a little bit about myself and my background around some things that happened in my life. and talk about a couple of mentors who were and have been very inspiring to me, and refer to some lines of the Xin Xin Ming that might help us relate our experience to living in the world, and talk a little bit about some of the things that are happening at Zen Center and in the wider world.

[05:58]

and how we can practice with them. So those are many threads. I hope I'll be able to pull them all together. And sometimes, I think when we describe the practice period, the title that David suggested is Cultivating a Mind of Trust, Zen Practices for Living in an Uncertain World. And there's a lot about our world that's uncertain. I imagine you could all name several right off the bat, starting with climate change and including the number of wars that are going on, refugees all around the world, the tremendous violence in our world and in our country, The political situation we're in the midst of right now, so many things are uncertain about the world in which we live.

[07:10]

And one of my early experiences living in an uncertain world happened when I was coming back from my first semester at Antioch College. I took a Greyhound bus to New York. where I grew up. And my father met me at the Greyhound bus station. This was in 1957, so before some of you were born, I think. But my father met me, and we started walking across town to the subway, and we passed the office of SANE, an organization for a sane nuclear policy. And in the 50s, we were stockpiling nuclear weapons, and I learned about that at Antioch. And I was very interested to see that office, and I wanted to go in. And my father wouldn't let me, and he wouldn't go in.

[08:14]

He kind of froze. I could see in his body that he was upset and frightened. I didn't understand why at the time. And... I didn't know how to talk with him about it, but we didn't go in. And later I realized that this was the era of McCarthyism, and there was a lot of fear around speaking up for what people were concerned about in the world, because so many people were called on the carpet, lost their jobs, for speaking out. There was this red scare. And I think that that probably influenced my father's response. He also, not only did he not want to go in, but what he said to me was, what difference can one person make anyway?

[09:16]

And I think that question has really stayed with me my whole life. And I, I think each of us does make a difference, and if I could talk to my father now, I would say, Dad, you made a difference. He certainly made a difference in my life. And each of us makes a difference, and together we make a much bigger difference than we can alone. but I didn't know that at that time. So... I began looking for ways people could make a difference in the face of nuclear, the threat of nuclear war, or other forms of injustice. And eventually I transferred to UC Berkeley, and in the summer before my...

[10:22]

senior year, I went to, I took part in a voter registration project in Greensboro, North Carolina, which ended in our going to the March on Washington in 1963. And that was the first of many marches on Washington I went on for different causes. In the 70s, there was an ERA march on Washington, and by that time, I was a social worker, and part of a feminist therapy collective, and our whole feminist therapy collective put on our white dresses and marched in this march of women for equal rights. And later, I marched in Boston, where I was living, in the first pride parades we had there. It was very significant for me because I came out as a lesbian. in the 50s when most people were closeted and it was not easy.

[11:28]

And to be able to walk down some of the big streets in Boston with the bells of the Arlington Street Church ringing and many different groups marching together and people cheering was a great contradiction to what I had experienced. I think that's one reason why I really enjoy it when Zen Center marches in the pride parade. We can be a whole community, and these different parts of my life feel like they're connected. So in the 80s, I joined a civil disobedience affinity group. I had kind of taken a... a little turn in my life for a while and focused more on doing social work. And then in 1982, I went to a workshop with a wonderful Buddhist teacher and activist named Joanna Macy, who lives in the East Bay.

[12:36]

Have any of you worked with her or heard of her? She brings groups of people together to actually experience the ways in which we shut down when we hear about some of the difficult things going on in our communities and the world, and then moves us through those feelings of overwhelm or apathy or fear to a sense of connectedness with the world and what we love about the world. and then to a place of where we can see some possible ways of making some change in this world that we love. So after a weekend workshop I was in with Joanna Macy, I joined a women's affinity group, and our first action was in Seneca, New York, where there was a base where nuclear weapons were being...

[13:48]

and then shipped to England and Germany. And a number of us climbed over the fence and jumped down on the other side and were arrested. And as part of our non-violent civil disobedience training, we did a lot of exercises and we learned how to meet the police with openness and... recognizing we weren't different from the police. There's a sense of interdependence, which is something Joanna Macy teaches about, and it's one of the basic teachings of Buddhism, how we're all connected so that we were taught not to think of the police as our enemies, but just to, even when they were arresting us, to look them in the eye and know that they were not different from us. However, When I got back to Boston, where I was living, I was really angry with a lot of my friends who didn't go to the Seneca Women's Peace Encampment, who didn't think this was the most important thing that they could be doing.

[15:01]

You know, why not? And I realized that that anger was separating me from my friends. So I want to fast forward to coming to Zen Center. I... I had started meditating while I lived in Boston, but I came to San Francisco to live in 1990 and soon found my way to Green Gulch and the Berkeley Zen Center, because I was living in the East Bay, and then later to City Center, and I've been a resident here in Atasajara and Green Gulch for the last 16 years, so it's really become the focus of my life. And when I moved in, Blanche Hartman was one of my two practice leaders. And for those of you who don't know or didn't have a chance to meet Blanche, Blanche died four weeks ago yesterday.

[16:05]

We did a memorial service for her yesterday. And she had a great influence on many people, I think many more than she ever thought or knew. And including some wonderful students who are now teachers in their own right and have their own sanghas and their students. So Dharma grandmother or great-grandmother. And I like reading a book of her teachings that one of her students wrote. Zenju Earthland Manuel put together called Seeds for a Boundless Life. And in it, I found something which I remember hearing Blanche say, but it shed some light on what I was experiencing back then in the 80s. There was a time, this is Blanche's words, there was a time when my whole description of myself was, I'm someone who's fighting for peace.

[17:12]

And at some point, I noticed that was kind of an oxymoron. And if I wanted to work for peace, I should try to find some peaceful way to do it. And that's been sort of the story of my practice, because I think for me, that's what practice is about, finding a peaceful way, a way that has room for love and compassion for everyone, even those people who, for some reason, harbor greed, hate, and delusion. So I think that's an example of the mind that the Xin Xin Ming talks about, this big mind, vast mind. Sometimes it's referred to as grandmotherly mind. And there are other ways in which Blanche has been very inspiring to me. She grew up in Alabama. And her father was a lawyer who did civil rights work, so her family was quite marginalized by the white community.

[18:21]

And I think that may have been part of her passion for justice. And for the last many years, we've had a committee at Zen Center, the Cultural Awareness and Inclusivity Committee, which Blanche attended regularly, and she often would come with a box of chocolates that she would distribute to everyone as a way of appreciating the work we were doing. She also participated in the Pride Parade every single year we participated, which I think we started about eight years ago. We had a floating zendo on a truck, and we created an altar, and Blanche would sit there in zazen as we... went down Market Street and people were bowing and cheering and she was imperturbable. And I always was very grateful for that. And her support of students who were lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, as well as for students of color.

[19:34]

So... I thought I would just share a few lines of the Xin Xin Ming and give you a flavor for it and a little commentary on these lines. And so... There are many wonderful lines. It's hard to choose, but I chose these. If there is even a trace of this and that, of right and wrong, the mind essence will be lost in confusion. And the mind essence, with capital M for mind, is another word for equanimity. So with this vast mind, we're able to develop a way of meeting all of life's ups and downs with a kind of... And it's not exactly just going with the flow, although that's part of it, but recognizing that the things that sway us, that are both things that we're drawn to and things that we want to avoid, have to do with our states of mind.

[21:00]

And we can... relate to things in a way that doesn't throw us off balance. So that's the mind essence. Although all dualities come from the one, with a capital O, do not be attached even to this one. So we can't be attached to this state of equanimity or to this vast mind even... if we have experiences of it. But really what's important is to be able to live in the world and to be able to bring that quality of mind to all of the difficulties that we encounter. When the mind exists undisturbed in the way, nothing in the world can offend. And when a thing can no longer offend, it ceases to exist in the old way.

[22:04]

So we've been using a commentary on the Xin Xin Ming by someone named Musang, and the book is called Trust in Mind. And what Musang says about that passage is, this is not to say, so you might think, when the mind exists undisturbed in the way, nothing in the world can offend. It doesn't mean that we shut down and... don't care about what happens in the world or are unaware of it. It's not to say, this is Musang, that one loses all capacity for seeing the suffering in the world. To the contrary, the bodhisattva dedicates his or her life to doing precisely the opposite. The hunger of a child, the various human-made holocausts, the social injustices, the biological pain of each existence all evoke the compassion of the bodhisattva.

[23:05]

Yet this evocation does not come from a place of taking offense. Rather, the bodhisattva sees all such situations as suffering, sorry, the bodhisattva sees all such situations of suffering as unwholesome and employs whatever skillful means he or she can muster to address the situation. In other words, there's no personal anger in the bodhisattva's response to situations of suffering, only a skillful response balanced by wisdom and compassion. So it's along those lines about Blanche saying she realized she was fighting for peace and coming from anger and perhaps that's not the best place to come from, but instead coming from a place where we are aware of how we are interwoven with all beings, with everyone we meet, and that we're not separate islands, separate selves, and our actions can come from that connectedness and caring that comes from that connectedness.

[24:25]

However, you know, I think One thing the Xin Xin Ming does not really address is, and maybe because of the time in which it was written, but some of the structural, societal, and institutional change which is needed to meet some of the injustices that are rampant in our society and in our communities, And how do we change some of these things that we are aware of? But I think institutions are made of individuals with minds and hearts. So if those individuals who have some power and privilege in an institution, if we can examine our unconscious biases and see how we're contributing to the injustice,

[25:30]

and look for ways of changing the institutions in which we live and work, we're able to do that from a place of connectedness and deep caring about the way things are. I think there are many people who can inspire us to... work for justice, and the theme of this year's Pride Parade is racial and economic justice. So it's, I think the Pride Parade is generally in San Francisco, it's such a conglomeration of different groups marching, everyone from the dykes on bikes, the firefighters and police. some businesses, politicians, social service agencies, and religious groups.

[26:34]

But one thing that will be very special about this year's Pride Parade is that one of the community grand marshals is going to be Larry Yang, and Larry won an election to be the community grand marshal. Larry is a teacher, as I mentioned briefly, at the East Bay Meditation Center in Spirit Rock. And there's a beautiful five-minute video that the Pride Committee made of him. And in it he talks about growing up in an immigrant Chinese family and realized that at a young age he was attracted to other boys in ways he couldn't describe. And he had challenges fitting in and and became quite unhappy, turned to drugs and alcohol, and then later became sober and became a substance abuse counselor and retrained and then became a social worker and psychotherapist.

[27:41]

And during that period in his life, he was looking for a place of stillness and found meditation. He said, I found a deeper sense of who I was as a person, No one could take this away from me. And I think that deeper sense of who we are as people has to do with finding that spaciousness, that vast mind in ourselves. And he talks in this five-minute video about the path for people who've been marginalized could be due to sexual orientation, race, class, physical ability, age. And it's not easy for us, for people who've been marginalized, because of the unconsciousness of the larger culture. And this unconsciousness creates a lot of oppression in our lives, he said. So how do we move through that without harming ourselves or distancing ourselves from others?

[28:48]

And Larry says that mindfulness is always a choice point. And the question is, what will lead to greater suffering or what would lead to greater freedom? And can we embrace what will lead to greater freedom? And use the contact of cultures skillfully. He said, dominant cultures tend to dominate. Can we co-create a culture together instead of imposing one way on another? He said, we're raising all of us together. So in a couple of weeks, you'll have a chance to hear Larry speak his own words, but I really wanted to bring his presence and his contribution into the room today. So just to say a little bit about the San Francisco Zen Center's work on...

[29:55]

on our being a predominantly white institution. And this is something we've been working on since the 90s. I found an essay by Riamond Hilda Gutierrez Baldukhin, which she wrote about, I think it was published in a collection of writings on racism in our sanghas. in 2000. And she called it My Life and Times at San Francisco Zen Center from 1990 to 2000. The collection is called Making the Invisible Visible. Riamone started practicing here in the 90s and was a student of Blanche's. And currently she's living in western Massachusetts and has a temple there called Peaceful Dragon. She also edited one of the early books of writings by Buddhists of color called Dharma, Dharma Culture, Color and Culture.

[31:05]

Thank you, Dharma, Color and Culture. And she said that in 1993, she was invited to to join the board of San Francisco Zen Center, and she did join the board for three years and did a lot of work on setting some practices in place for those of us who are white. I wasn't here at the time, but the people who were to begin looking at art unconscious white bias and privilege. And involved the board and she started a people of color group. And that was the beginning of many different efforts over the last decades to work on this issue at Scent Center.

[32:17]

And it's still, I would say, very much... alive and in process, and we have a lot of learning still to do and working on this, how to make our community more, it's more inclusive and more... I'm struggling for the words because it goes way beyond welcoming. It's really about how Zen Center might look if there were more teachers and leaders of color and of different cultures and differing abilities.

[33:22]

And I think we've done... very well around gender and sexual orientation, but not so well in some of these other areas. So I just... say that this is work that each of us can do, particularly those of us who are white, and that we're looking at some ways of furthering or developing more awareness and not just stopping there, but also looking at

[34:27]

some ways in which we can change some of our practices at Zen Center to be more inclusive. So in looking at some of the other aspects of living in an uncertain world, I think that Our practice can help us meet some of the challenges that abound in the world, in our city and country and beyond. And what are some of those practices? I want to go back to some of the work of Joanna Macy.

[35:33]

I think in addition to developing mind and heart that's aware and developing our ability to meet the day-to-day challenges of our lives with openness and compassion for ourselves and others. There are some practices of gratitude, some practices of appreciating all the contributions people have made over the years that are helping us now and will help us as we go forward. There's a beautiful meditation that Joanna Macy includes in some of her workshops called The Great Ball of Merit.

[36:35]

And it's based on the practice of sympathetic joy. It's one of the Brahma Viharas, which are loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. And... I thought I would share it with you. I'm just looking for it. Well, I think I know it well enough that I'll stop looking for it. So it starts with just imagining over the eons all the deeds of kindness and helpfulness that people in generations past have done, reaching out a hand to someone in need, taking care of people who are ill, sitting with someone who's dying.

[37:53]

encouraging young people to learn all of these acts of goodness and thinking of them as piling up. Can you imagine gathering them into a pile and then thinking of the acts of goodness that brought you to this place in your life, all the people who taught you, your parents and other family members who helped raise you, all your friends and people who have encouraged you and those books you've read that have inspired you. And all of these acts of merit can be added to the merit of those from past times. And then as you... add to this heap of merit.

[38:55]

Think of some of the things that you may have done that have made a difference to others, and they also are part of this big heap of merit. And then we can just offer these big heaps of merit to the healing of our whole planet. Just... Imagine letting it go into the air and spreading it out over our city and the rest of the world. So that's in a way we can also, as we walk down the street and look at someone we pass, think about what that person might be contributing to the goodness of the city, the world. to our own lives, even someone we don't know.

[39:57]

I think it's also helpful, and Joanna's workshops end this way, with thinking about the world in which we'd like to live. Are there some things we would really like to see change in the world around us? can be in our families, our communities, our city, and the wider world. And think about one small thing that we could do in the next 24 hours that might move us towards that world that we envision. So that our practice is not only for ourselves. It It is a benefit to people whose lives we may not even know we've touched.

[41:04]

So I'd like to end with a few things. What I would say to my father again is, Dad, Your life made a difference. Not just because of all that you taught me and my sisters, but your life has inspired me to work hard, to... to try to make the world a better place and to value learning and... and even though, I think, and learning and living

[42:24]

in community, even though that's not what my father did. I think that realizing that one person alone is able to make a difference and that together we can do many things that one person cannot do alone. So there's a song that was running through my mind this morning that I'd like to share with you and invite you to join if you're open to it. It's the song that was sung in the 70s when Mayor George Moscone and Harvey Milk were assassinated in

[43:25]

And there was a lot of anger in the LGBT community and the whole city of San Francisco because they were deeply loved. And there was a rally that marched from the Castro to City Hall. And at that rally, Holly Near led people in a song, which is the song I'd like to share with you. It starts with, we are a gentle, angry people and we are singing, singing for our lives. And there are a couple of other verses, and then it ends with, we are a gentle, loving people, and we are singing, singing for our lives. And I think that's some of the transformation that can come when we work on things together, and when we certainly can come through our practice. We are a gentle, angry people, and we are singing, singing for our lives.

[44:39]

We are a gentle, angry people, and we are singing, singing for our lives. We are old and young together, old and young together. And we are singing, singing for our lives. We are old and young together, and we are singing together. singing for our lives, a land of many colors. We are a land of many colors, and we are singing, singing for our lives.

[45:40]

We are a land of many colors. And we are singing, singing for our life. A gentle, loving people. We are a gentle, loving people. And we are singing, singing for our lives. We are gentle, loving people. And we are singing, singing for our lives. Thank you for your attention, for your singing and now we'll be sitting for our lives for those of us who are continuing with the one day sitting and just share a few words of the Buddha go forth on your journey for the benefit of the many for the joy of the many out of compassion for the welfare the benefit and the joy of all beings

[47:02]

Thank you very much.

[47:30]

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