This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good evening. Good evening. And welcome. It's my great honor. privilege and pleasure to introduce Brother David. Brother David Stangebrast. Brother David in some ways has led a singular life in his religious tradition of the Order of St. Benedict and in some ways has laid an extraordinary, wide, and very, like, quite his long, I was going to say career, that's obviously not what we call a long slate, this long practice life.

[01:19]

He interacted with many of the limited space of the religious world and has in his own way taken in this great breath of practice of spirituality and embodies it so wonderful gift for me to be able to teach with them each year and I think a great gift for those who repent And for this evening, he came up with a wonderful remedy to stop us both from being over-prepared.

[02:24]

We both brought a short reading. The other one doesn't know what it is. So I will offer a present reading and Brother David will comment on it and then he will offer a Christian reading and I will comment on it. And then you will have your chance to chime in and comment and ask questions and all that good stuff. You'd like me to go first or would you like to go first? I will go first. This impressively large and heavy book, it is the first volume of, a two-part volume of Shogo Denso, the teachings of the founder of this style of Zen, Soto Zen, in Japan. This quote is the first part of the first essay in it.

[03:29]

It's called, this translation says it's called Omni Endeavor of the Way. Oh, it's good. Omni Endeavor of the Way. It's called Omni Endeavor of the Wholehearted Way. And I'll read the opening paragraph and then I'll give it to you in front of me. All Buddha Tiktok does. who individually transmit inconceivable dharma, actualizing unsurpassable complete enlightenment, have a wondrous art, supreme and unconditioned. Receptive society is its mark. Only Buddhas transmit it to Buddhas without deviating, without veering off. Sitting upright, practicing Zen, is the authentic gate to free yourself in this unconfined and the unconfined realm of this samadhi.

[04:42]

Oh, that's music. Oh, shit. I was thinking like those TV shows where you get a free phone call. What strikes me most is the phrase, the authentic gate to free yourself. In the unconditioned realm of this Samara.

[05:50]

The authentic gate to free yourself. And since I'm invited to comment on it out of the Christian perspective, I would say what comes first to mind is the saying of Jesus, the truth will make you free. What is the escape that will make us free? It is the truth. And there we have to be very careful not to think of some formulated truth, some teaching that is called the truth. Unfortunately, many Christians think of it, that the truth there is enshrined in this or that piece of writing or doctrine. The truth is simply what is.

[06:54]

And that's the truth. And it's there even before we enter into it. It's the gate. And we are invited to enter into it. And how do we enter into it? By finding the gate. And it can be found everywhere and at every moment. Whatever is... Oops. Whatever is, is the truth. And if you open yourself to it and let it speak to you, and rejoin the appropriate rejoin, that is entering through the gate, it would seem to me. And this presupposes again that life and life stands for that great mystery with which we are confronted as human beings, life speaks to us.

[08:03]

It has been said that the great genius of the Hebrew Bible is monotheism. But I think this is not exclusive, there are other monotheistic traditions have been in scriptures in Hinduism before, the Hebrew Bible, but to me the decisive inside of the Hebrew tradition is God speaks. This ultimate mystery, why it's, that's how we encounter it, speaks to us. And at every moment is that gate through which life speaks to us and we are open enough to listen and let's know what does it say and respond and not by saying something obviously because it speaks to us also not by making words but by inviting us by offering us an opportunity and if we take this opportunity then we enter that day and suddenly we're free not that that

[09:21]

This exhausts it, but this might take at it for the moment, and then in our discussions we might be able to explore it further. When I come down with my own work, it seems to me like one of those peanut cartoons, right? Peanuts is going with Schrodinger, and he's the brain, he's the geek, and they have show-and-tell pain. So, Peanuts asked Schrodinger, what are you bringing? Oh, he says, a facsimile of the Dead Sea Scrolls. And what are you bringing? Peanuts says, I'm bringing the little duck I have in my bathtub. LAUGHTER I chose it because to me it is a word that sums up

[10:48]

the very source of the Christian tradition within the Jewish tradition, what Jesus stands for. And this comes from the Gospel of John, and the Gospel of John is not an account. The other three Gospels are accounts. They are also not really reporting, but there are accounts in the sense that there are messages and account and tell about the good news. And John reflects on it. The Gospel of John is a theologically essay. So when he says Jesus says this or that, he does not even necessarily suggest that Jesus said that in so many words, but what he stood for, and therefore it is true, and I take it as being true, but not necessarily as Jesus saying it with so many words.

[11:55]

And so one of these words, and the second one that John puts in the mouth of Jesus is, I have come so that they may have life, and have life in abundance. And I like that very much, and I'd like to see this as the very core of the good news. And I'd like to hear... I have come, and I have come that they may have life in abundance. I've come that they may have life, life in abundance. They may have life, life in abundance. From a Zen perspective, the notion that we're not fully awakened, that we're not completely realized Buddha, is a great mystery.

[13:27]

We're always existing in the midst of All that's happening. Our human organism is designed to hear it and smell it and see it and touch it and think about it and emote in relationship to it. And given that, we have this extraordinary capacity to ignore, separate, confused in relationship to it and there seems to be for us some necessary almost intervention in order for this natural state of complete engagement to become evident

[14:34]

seems that there needs to be some waking up, some shift, some reappraisal of what's always happened. And the reason I say seems like because we can't manufacture presence. Presence is. And in a way, we let go of follows separation, ignorance, confusion, destruction. And that something can come. Seemingly some agent, other than this preoccupation, that creates its obscuration, seemingly

[15:40]

Sounds and intervenes. A couple of nights ago, for those of you who weren't here on Wednesday night, we gave a talk, and we were both talking with the phrase, silence that neither voice may speak. But really, the words are clumsy. The crickets are always making the cricket sound. A disposition. lets it come to life. Even though we say come, it's not from there to here, it's not that time to this time. It's the realization of what always is. And the access to it

[16:42]

It's like we make the problem, then we work on resolving the problem, and then we say, this is it. From a Zen tradition, the intervention, we are a co-participant. There isn't A savior that simply through the benevolence arrives and says, I'm here. I'll make it all there. There is an involvement. And through this involvement, something is realized. Life comes to life. The signs of the crickets become the signs of the crickets. In a conventional language, we can't casually mean it and cynically say, but some of the crickets was there all along.

[17:53]

That's no big deal. It's true. But when there's full access to it, when we ignore it, when the destruction, when the diminishing are set aside, that's when this abundance is yielded. that everything that arises here is already abundant life. With this great human paradox that what we wish for, we wish for abundant life. What do we do? We hesitate. Yet for some strange reason, even though heartfelt wish is yes, we seem to be well-versed in no, maybe, and maybe later.

[18:58]

As this arrives, as now arrives in now, it's difference. from what has become normal, that we can attribute to it something other than what has always been. And then we try to not distract ourselves in our way. We have a certain flavor of agnosticism. Don't know. Just experience. Everything to learn, nothing to know. There is within us a beautiful curiosity. That in our deep wish to live, we also wish to appreciate.

[20:10]

And in that realizing gratitude just quite naturally arise for us and in fact we're so chilled we don't we just say yeah okay and and leave it there thank you very much what I hear you saying is that life is always there and when St. John says I have come to bring life the word bring is not in there it was usually understood I have come to bring you something that's completely new for you you've never seen it or something that would be a misunderstanding I think also what St. John has in mind what you say is life is always there and we are

[21:16]

We ignore it. And that is the ignorance, and that is the lack of appreciation, and that is lack of curiosity, and that is being half alive. And so it's really a waking up, a waking up. And there's another passage in one of the letters of Paul where Paul is quoting a very, very, apparently, so the exegetes say, a very early Christian hymn that may go back to the very earliest days, he writes about 20 or 30 years later. And what he's quoting is, wake up sleeper, wake up from your sleep, and Christ will enlighten you. And this word enlightenment, in Greek it's fortismos, literally enlightenment, And that was the name for baptism before it was called baptism. Baptism means immersion, and it's just describing what happens.

[22:20]

Outwardly, what happens inwardly was the earlier term for it, and that was enlightenment. So just waking up to life, waking up to life. It's all around you. That would be the basic message. Thank you. Thank you. That was fun. Any thoughts, any comments, any questions? So, Paul, when you were describing the experience, he said, we're not waiting for a savior to come from without and take care of it for us. And I know the concept of savior is intimately involved with Christianity. I wonder if you would comment on that, Brother David. Oh, I didn't hear a point excluding someone who awakens us. If the Buddha is the awakened one, he's also the awakener.

[23:23]

And what Buddha does for the Buddhist tradition, that's what Jesus does for the Christian tradition. He wakes us up to life. Come alive, come awake. Wake up. So maybe awakener would be more apt than savior? In our context, yes. So if we have a deep appreciation for awakening, we will naturally have a gratitude and appreciation for who engaged with this in the process. It's like in those moments where we have that spark of presence, it's quite naturally there is something very close to reverence for it, you know?

[24:25]

And interestingly, something, maybe not even close, but joy. There's this, in that realization, wish is fulfilled, and there's joy. And so that joy and appreciation, to me, it's quite easily seen how we would want to pay homage to it. When I say our context, awaken or maybe more fitting than Savior, I'm not rejecting Savior. I was lost and I was found, and it would be the Savior aspect, I was blind and now I see, and that's the awakening aspect, because it's quite in the same song and in the same context.

[25:28]

And this, of course, has still been very frequently misunderstood both by people within the Christian tradition and people who just know it sort of from here, say, where all the emphasis is put on the death of Christ, and because of this death on the cross, we are saved. The death of Christ is the outcome of his life, and if anybody lives as he lived, they will die in a similar way, whatever at that time is the crucifixion. We have to start with his life. And he lived to make people awake and alive. And when people come alive, and in his case that was it, in the setting of poor people in an occupied country, a Romans occupied, very exploited, very oppressed, if they come alive, they start a revolution.

[26:38]

But he was also a revolutionary, a mystic, that all of his mystic experience, that we are all God's children, we know that he called God Emperor, Father, so that was his mystic, he expressed his mystic experience, if God is our Father, if we utter him a mystery, if we are related to it, then we are all brothers and sisters, if they are brothers and sisters, ought to live as brothers and sisters, help one another. And so he created what would be the appellant to Buddha Sangha. And this is a network of nonviolence, of cooperation, of sharing, very opposed to this Roman pyramid of power where the emperor is on top, and it's all violence, all the fear, and competition, and a cave.

[27:46]

And he completely changed that. So he revolutionized even the concept of revolution, because normally revolution is just that the ones that are on top, on the bottom, get now on the top, and do exactly the same, and the pyramid remains. dismantled the pyramid and made a network out of it. If this happens, if anybody tries to do that because we still live in this power pyramid, they will be crucified in the end. The crucifixion was clearly defined for what this was the punishment. It was for revolutionaries and runaway slaves. Only that. And that meant for anybody who undermined the existing social order. And he undermined the existing social order and therefore predicted, I will end on the cross, he said that several times.

[28:51]

And that's not sort of second sight of prophecy in that sense of saying something that nobody else knows, but it's pretty obvious. And if you want to follow me, if you want to do that, you also have to take your cross upon yourselves. So in that sense, we must not privatize this or so. The salvation is living as he lived and therefore being ready to die if necessary as he died. That's the waking, not the free, the truth that will make us free. During the last two talks you've given, the earlier one and this one, about how much interpretation we have to do with the teachings, and I'm wondering if in the two traditions, I'm more familiar with the Christian tradition, so I find it maybe less straightforward because I started with it than something that I encountered with an adult, but why is the teaching so hard for us common people to understand?

[30:13]

Why do you do it? to interpret them for us. Maybe you speak and then I have clarity and I think why did the people who wrote the books for us say it clearly? Your consideration was that in both traditions there needs to be assistance in clarifying the message. More so in Christianity. I've got more trouble, into something that then sounds very nice. Yes. So, listening to you present Christianity, that sounds very acceptable and insightful in contrast to how it appears on first reading. And to all of us, the way you present things, It's quite acceptable.

[31:16]

It's not a pointless to anything. But if you went to Southeast Asia, it would be exactly the same situation. Don't you think so? Most of the people would say, what is he talking about? This is not our everyday Buddhist. Don't you think so? Yes, I do. I do agree with your point. So that is the reason why here in the West we need more explanation of it. But I would like to hear more from you. But just briefly, one can also pinpoint some of the reasons why the deviations came. And probably the most important one is the institutionalization of Christianity because when you have that many people it is difficult to keep a network of networks and the temptation is very great to turn this into another pyramid and unfortunately that happened

[32:39]

after about three centuries, but gradually things happened all at once, but it came to a head when Constantine made Christianity the state religion. And then basically he was the head. He was the first one to call a council because there was a great variety of teachings and they sort of got along more or less, but he wanted everything streamlined. And so we get going to the council, and we have everybody say exactly the same. And that was then perpetuated, and at present, at least in the Catholic Church, the Pope is still a successor of the Roman Empire, of the Emperor. And Pontifex Maximus, the great bridge builder, is a beautiful title, but it was a title of the Roman Emperor. So the Pope continues to be the oldest monarchy here that we have.

[33:44]

And an institution has many advantages, can do many things, like when you think how quickly and how elegantly the present Pope Francis is sort of turning things around. Maybe one person will even come out to do that. It would take forever if it was to a committee or something like that. But it also has this disadvantage. And the great disadvantage of every institution, and any one of you who knows a medical institution, an educational institution, a political institution, all these institutions are founded for a particular purpose. And after the shortest time, they forget their purpose and make self-perpetuation their purpose. And that happened also with religious institutions, all the religious institutions. And that is the biggest problem.

[34:49]

But I think, again and again, not only soon or later, but again and again, with people like St. Francis in the 13th century, and also David, the Catholic worker in the 20th century. And in between countless times, here and there, and here and there, saintly people live like Christ, and they establish a network. They establish what we call the Kingdom of God. That's this little group, it's the Sangha. And it happens over and over again, and that's where the real Christian thing is. And the monks, the monasteries, are little groups like that. They are not organs of the church, but they are little groups of basically white people who try to live what Jesus preached. And that is why a monastic or a sick Non-asic communities and similar communities, or extra-castly workers, are such important things.

[36:01]

Yes. Let me also say this. Realization, essentially, in essence, doesn't fit into conventional terms. You know, in conventional terms, we're thinking we have somewhat of a consensus around good and bad and higher and lower. And then realization steps out of the convention. In Zen, you know, this is pointed at by saying it's beyond thinking. talk about it, to create some relationship to it, we use language, we use images, we use convention. But in doing so, we're bringing back in a sensibility that the mystics go beyond.

[37:12]

And you can see this if you look at the mystical teachings, it's hard to know If you take out the name Jesus or Buddha or whatever and just look at mystical teachings, it's hard to know what may have been the religious heritage of the mystic because they have this universality. But they have been in a context. They have it within the imagery of where the person grew up. And then when that's brought back in, we impute it with something. We impute, okay, so you're telling me this is how to do it and that's how not to do it. This is the right way and that's the wrong way. And those that do it are the chosen people and the right people and those that don't do it are the wrong people.

[38:12]

And in the name of virtue, we should banish the wrong people. And most religions are fought in the name of, or most wars are fought in the name of religion. They're fought in the name of virtue, with God on our side. So inherent in our way of thinking is this sense of separation of duality. The mystical core is non-dual. mystical core happens in a context and this is the great dilemma for spiritual practice it happens in a context and it's attempting to go beyond the belief structure the implied assumptions of the context and mystics they do that and then so it

[39:20]

And, you know, you could see this in Islam. You know, you have the Sufi mystics. But the way they talk about Islam in conventional mind might seem irreverent, disrespectful. But actually, there you get it. There's a great example of Meister Eckhart, who spoke in this way as a mystic. And what people said, you're going to get into trouble. He said, oh, don't be ridiculous. Everybody knows what I really mean. Everybody didn't know what he really meant. In fact, the church authorities took exception and demanded that it come and account for what seemed to be inappropriate comments. And then, I think for us, not having grown up embedded in what you might call the orthodoxy of Buddhism.

[40:27]

You know, most, as Brother David was saying, most Buddhists in Egypt, if we heard their relationship to it, we think, it sounds like Christianity. You know, you do that, and you acquire merit, and that acquired merit helps you in the next life. What else are you talking about? With those that would come, and it's very interesting, I think that there are brands of Buddhism, you know, in the West, they don't have this basis on meditation and meditation as a doorway into a radical perception of reality. But those of us who do, we haven't been imbued with an alternate set of right and wrong so much.

[41:37]

And so it's a little easier for us to cast off how it has been, how the mystical teaching has been acculturated in the East. Because we, we actually, we're quite ignorant about it. So, you know, and I didn't know it, it's easier to not get caught up in it. So, if I'm hearing you right, what you're saying is, you say to the audible what you're both saying, Brother David is saying that the pyramid is wrong, that the current Pope sees the way it's structured, global warming, whatever she's taking on as a Christ figure, in other words, risking everything because he's identifying this is wrong and he's trying to get himself crucified because he's taking it seriously, let's say. He took it all the way.

[42:40]

He's not just saying, well, global warming, no global warming, poverty, no poverty, and he's taking a very strong position. And he's talking about kind of the disciple of the Roman Emperor, if we were to take some of his actions seriously. So the idea of acceptance of everything, of non-duality, of everything is, is, versus right and wrong. We have to make changes. People need to be really upset. And it means that I get killed in the end. So be it. I have to go this direction. So that seems very different. It's a very interesting point to bring up. In essence, non-duality does not take on the norms and the values of duality. So, we could say it doesn't confront it in the scene of the right will, but it does not endorse it.

[43:43]

It doesn't have any what? Endorse it. And an implicit in Buddhist teaching is that when we get in touch, we have a keener sense of how to live in harmony. That somehow, and I think collectively, globally, we're realizing this as we see the consequences of how we relate to the land, of how we relate to the sea, of how we relate to the animals, as we see the disastrous consequences, it's calling us to reconsider how we relate to them. And in that reexamination, I think we're developing a much deeper appreciation. You know, now we say, that little tree frog

[44:46]

that's half the size of your finger, that is precious enough that we should stop that building project and let it have its habitat. And this is, if you think about it, that's a statement a hundred years ago. If someone said that, we'd just say, oh, get rid of that crank, rip down that forest, you know. But we're both, you know, through a sense of connection. And I would say, you know, no, it's a wonderful drama. Are we learning too late? You know? It's our learning curve. It's the adjustment of our behavior is fast enough. And I think that's what the current Pope is saying. Wait a minute. Let's give this more energy and more attention. Because if we move slow at this, if we do it all wrong and cause disaster,

[45:46]

there won't be any going back. And basically that's the attitude of love. Because love, rightly understood, is living, yes, to belong. And we belong to all these things. They belong to us, we belong to God. It's all one big network. And if we take that very seriously and live accordingly, Well, that is the strictest definition, love. Not the one feeling towards someone who desire to... No, the real love is, yes, we belong together and I will live accordingly. And it's very different to my family. I have a different kind of belonging. And to the three frogs, I have a different one. What? In both cases, I belong, and I say yes, and I act appropriately.

[46:51]

That's not. I think there's a cautionary tale. As I just said earlier, as we declare war in the name of virtue, as we object to what we see as inappropriate, to just simply return a kind, a rejection of some aspect of our short existence, you know, other human beings, you know, we can object to the rations, but I'm still, I would say in all religion, this notion of seeing ourselves in each other, so that our objections happened more in a non-violent appreciation with still a clear objection.

[47:53]

In the Christian terms, object to the sin and love the sinner. In Buddhist terms, realize that all inappropriate action happens through a misinterpretation and a misunderstanding of what's going on. Maybe one last question. I've been reading Sri Aurobindo this week and he doesn't use this word but I think he talks about the institution of the mind and the dominance in a way. Different structures trying to maintain their position and dominance and I'm wondering what you would both say about this freeing ourselves, freeing our beings, whether through the gate or Christ to live abundantly.

[49:00]

You know, this institution in our heads. And contemplative life is... The notion of institution, to think of how we've... internally set up a way of thinking, a structure, an institution to our own conceptual and thinking process and how we need to free ourselves from that too. How your different contemplative paths achieve that. What you call institutionalizing our mind I would call it living by ideologies. So there's always a great danger to, we have learned something, we learn something, we understand something, but there's always the temptation not to keep it fluid.

[50:07]

This is what I understand now, but I hope it will grow, I hope you'll understand it all. And if I have this attitude of openness and victory, then I will not box my present understanding, and this boxing is what I call making an ideology out of it. And there are very many people who feel safe with that ideology, something first firm to hold on to, but it is a great danger for awareness, it cuts down our awareness. And there's also the institution, and we stand in an institution. I mean, a country, in a sense, with its government, that's also an institution. So we all belong to various institutions. And the question is, what do you do there? And the answer is, and that is a very difficult task,

[51:16]

to stay in and speak out. Or what the Quakers say, speaking truth to power. If you don't stay, it's difficult enough to speak out if you quickly get out. It's difficult enough to stay in if you just shut up. But to stay in and speak out, that is a kind of crucifixion. Because the staying in is kind of the vertical post that we're speaking out into our front. But it's a way of staying in and yet trying to change it. And we can only change it from within. People always ask me, why don't you get out of this church? I say, if I do, and I'm tempted at times, I would eventually end up to say, I'd suddenly get out of the United States, and then the next thing is, stop the world I want to get off. Developed by your blanket.

[52:23]

We can internalize that. We can say, the mystic depth is this vertical. Go deep. Go below. all the fixed ideas and assumptions. And then the horizontal is contextual. You know, take that mystical truth and integrate it into the context, both internal and external. And then I would say within the monastic system, we need both the order, the institutional hierarchy gives us, and then we also need a certain kind of common voice that I think when it's functioning effectively has a flavor of energy. It's modifying this hierarchy and refining it. This is how the common voice discovers how this is fully applicable to the work we live in.

[53:30]

And then, as we see often, you know, you have a revolution, the energy is in charge, and then sometimes you have totalitarian governments, a hierarchy is in charge, but really both internally and externally, they keep each other in balance. That's very beautiful and very hopeful. Thank you very much. For more information, visit SSCC.org and click Giving.

[54:20]

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