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, and welcome to San Francisco Zen Center on this warm, sunny day. I suspect that many of you, like myself, have been impacted by this rapid series of mass shootings and killings. It doesn't seem so long ago where these events would seem to happen like once a year. And on the anniversary of it, we'd hold again the horror of it and the immensity of it.

[01:00]

for them to happen every day. I was watching myself in the middle of that this week. And then yesterday, I met with someone, and there's a group of us, I come from Northern Ireland, which had its own mass shootings. although we thought we had a good reason, which was religious diversity. Or, you know, the lack of tolerance of religious diversity. But yesterday I was talking to someone, and a group of us is planning a conference on compassion in Northern Ireland. And... involving politicians, the university, people in the mental health field, neuroscience, collaboration with wonderful department at Stanford called the greater good.

[02:20]

May we all aspire to that for ourselves and each other, the greater good. And then the contrast between the two. And then yesterday I was talking to this person, and it seems there's a strong likelihood that the Dalai Lama will attend. Exactly. If you're going to throw a party and the Dalai Lama comes, well, it's kind of lovely. Hello. I've had the good fortune to be around the Dalai Lama. I actually came to Northern Ireland a couple of times. I had the good fortune to be there and to watch his thoroughgoing ordinariness. And I thought, oh, when you're extraordinary, you're extraordinary.

[03:30]

or at least that was my notion of how he, his demeanor, how he relates, then his unrelenting openness. So with that as a background, you can imagine to hear that he was, I think it's about 80%, when he was coming. The contrast between the two helped me get in something a little deeper for myself. Having grown up with violence and entrenched bigotry.

[04:34]

my impression of it, maybe I'm simply talking about my own experience of it, is a kind of fearful despair. And at some point in my life, actually after I finished college and worked for a couple years, I left, went to the other side of the planet, in search of distance from that, in search for an alternative. And I came across Buddhism, and I thought, this is everything perfect. Buddhism is nothing but tolerance and kindness and compassion. Then, of course, over the years I discovered, well, that's not quite the whole story.

[05:43]

No. Far from it. But still. And hearing of those shootings and reading some of the details, honestly, I didn't read too much I was just wearied by it, the tragedy of it. Deeply disturbed, isolated men with a ready supply of weapons and ammunition, killing others and then often killing themselves. pointlessness, the uselessness, the tragedy, you know, to think of those people and all their families and friends and neighbors, all traumatized.

[06:50]

That's our world. Of course, we'd like to say, no, no, no, that's not my world. What I'd like to talk about today is we are, whether we like it or not, we're all in it together. I sometimes think, you know, well, here we are in the Bay Area, you know, a bastion of liberal progressive thinking. and sentiments and policies. But I would suggest to you, us and them always is a convenience.

[08:04]

to be all us, is much more challenging, and I would say, in consequence, a more fruitful and wholesome and integrated perspective. And then I watched what it was like when I was talking to this person, or actually afterwards, about this conference on compassion, the greater good. happening in a place where I was born. Although, you know, I've spent most of my life in California. But still, it carries for me some deep relevance, some deep significance, some deep importance. And again, I suspect that's how it is for all of us. Somewhere homeland, some way we identify, our own version of us, and often our own version of them.

[09:25]

This is how we're put together. But that having a kind of rising energy, that conference on compassion. the agency, the hopefulness of thinking I can make a positive contribution. I think part of the burden of those terrible, awful, violent tragedies is a sense of hopelessness. How can we have a country where weapons of mass destruction, you know, are so readily available that if you're of a mind, you can go and attend, you know, great sellings of these where there's thousands of them on display.

[10:37]

One of the weapons that was used can fire a hundred rounds in a minute. 0.6 of a second to fire a shot. The persons who were killed were killed in an extraordinary brief period of time. Can we find hopefulness there? Or is the emotional challenge for us to let our hearts be broken? Or both? It's some way when we dare to live the life we're living in the world we're living in,

[11:47]

These are the challenges that arise for us, whether we like it or not. Part of Zen practice, a very significant part of Zen practice is, can you stay in the middle? Can you stay present? And can you stay in relationship? Can you stay in the middle? Can you stay present? And can you stay in relationship? I gave a talk about a month ago, and I used the notion of there's I, which is I in relationship to what would surround me.

[12:51]

Close by and by this odd extension of the internet and the capacity to hear what's happening in the world moments after it happens. And then there's myself. What happens internally? And what do both of those do? I find in myself a fascination with the news. Unless I'm in somewhere where there isn't an internet connection, which fortunately that happens. I wish I could say, you know, that's a product of my great practice, but actually usually it's just circumstances.

[14:02]

But it is interesting when it does happen, I sometimes feel a relief. When the internet is there, barely a day goes by that I don't look at the news. And look at the current issues that are affecting our society. have my own set of responses, my own feelings, my own judgments, my own sense of what should happen and what should not happen. We should ban assault rivals immediately.

[15:17]

Maybe we should ban them for everyone, even armies. If you want to fight, use sticks. And what kind of political, social system are we in the throes of? And how could there be people who don't see it the way I see it and don't arrive at the enlightened liberal conclusions that I arrive at? How could they be so wrongheaded? To stay in the middle.

[16:22]

and to see how the world, how the Self, takes shape. What do I think the world is? What images do I have of it? And at that particular time, of this world, what stands out? Frightened, despair, hopeful, hopeful agency of the greater good. And in Buddhism, and in Zen, very much carries the flavor of this. To see that so thoroughly, to see the workings of your own world that you help create, I sometimes think we see the world, we experience the world, and we provide the adjectives.

[17:43]

Wonderful, terrible, inspiring. You know, destructive. And we have our own inner workings of the information that flowed in today. What do I carry into my dreams that night? What's lingering when I wake up in the morning? me think of Rilke's poem. When you wake up in the morning before you jump into busyness and pause. Actually, the poem he wrote says, Tiktai on the musical instrument.

[18:45]

It may be the generalization of his pause. Can you let yourself hold it all. Can you pause and say, okay. I once was calling up some company, I can't remember what, can't even remember the reason why I was calling, but it was one of those decision trees. If you want English, press one. If you want Spanish, press two. But after each decision was made and the button pressed, the voice would say, okay, you want English. Okay, you want to speak to a representative. And I thought, lovely. Okay, that is what I want. Could something in us pause?

[19:56]

Okay, this is the world I'm living in. Okay, this is the person I am. Okay, these are the people I'm living with. It doesn't mean everything about it is to my choosing. Everything about it allows me to be saddled, at ease, encouraged, feel empowered. No. It's a much fiercer proposition than that. It is what it is. Heartbreaking. Inspiring. Encouraging. Discouraging.

[20:58]

I have two grandsons, and I visited them last week. And the younger one, in what I think, what I experience is almost like a spiritual way, often refers to his older brother as brother. Brother, what do you think? And his father was telling me that whenever he will scold the father, will scold the older brother, the younger brother will step in. He said last week, or a couple of weeks ago, he was scolding the older brother for being mean to the younger brother. Don't be like that. And the younger brother stepped in. to rebuke the father.

[22:08]

This is my brother you're talking about. The aspects of our human nature that are so sweet. Wonderful. Our capacity for loyalty and deep connectedness. How lovely. Our capacity to plot and plan they saw the headline, a young man, I think he was 21, arrested.

[23:10]

He had a thousand rounds of ammunition. What's going through someone when they're planning in that way? The deliberate, careful steps of making that accumulation. of buying those weapons of destruction. What must the inner turmoil, the agitation, the kind of the impulse to destroy them? Or maybe something even more confusing, just the impulse to be violent. A random shooting we don't even know. what you're destroying, you're just destroying others' human life. Okay, that's the world.

[24:21]

And parts of it break my heart. Parts of it I can't relate to so thoroughly. that I can't even intellectually understand. In parts of it, my grandson, four years old, brother. And brother rides his bike and can do certain tricks. And younger brother, looks on, admiring, thinking, someday soon, I'm going to do that. And what brother would we not wish that for?

[25:23]

Or sister? We'd have that sweet nurturance being held, of being related to in that way. Sometimes we can think that Zen practice will offer us a kind of safe zone. And in a way it does. In a way, we construct, or do our best to construct an environment, an order, a shared commitment and engagement that creates something that we can trust. That in it, we can give ourselves permission to feel all that we feel.

[26:32]

that we can find the fortitude and the courage to stay upright in the middle of it, present with it, open to it. I was talking recently to someone who's about to, in a... a little less than a month. We'll go to Tassahara, our monastery, in the Vintala Winderness. And we were talking about what's it like when your day is devoted to a lot of meditation, a lot of silence, out in nature. It sort of draws you into presence. wonderful.

[27:48]

And it's terrible. You get to deal with yourself. Every day it asks you to say, okay, this is how it is. Okay, this is the thoughts and feelings that are going through me. Every day you get to see how you project out onto your brothers and sisters, in a way, like and dislike. And you have few distractions to kind of help you shut down that experience. there was a Tibetan teacher, Chogram Trungpa, and he said, this kind of experience is like being in a shower, which is too hot and too cold at the same time.

[29:11]

It's wonderful, and there are moments when it falls away, and the trees are just the trees, and the night sky is black with sparkling stars, and something in you wishes for nothing more. This is it. Internally, there is a settling. There's an okayness. and it doesn't have any great understandings. Sometimes it doesn't even have any emotion, maybe other than a certain kind of wonder or gratitude. In other times, there is a sense of affliction.

[30:14]

You're unsettled. You're disturbed. And sometimes you can conveniently project it out, the cause of it, onto someone else. And sometimes, more painfully, you can't. It's just who you are in that moment. Unsettled. Agitated. All of that goes together to teach us this is what it is to be alive. This is what it is to be myself. This is what it is to be I in relationship to everything. And this is the play. This is the territory of human consciousness and the human psyche. And each of us will write through our own creative genius.

[31:22]

a narrative that flows through it. Each of us will call up a memory, like looking in a scrapbook. Oh, that's right. And sometimes it cracks open and falls away. And how do we do that? Living in the city. With the great gift of the internet telling us all sorts of things we'd rather not know. But come back the next day for more. What's happening now?

[32:28]

And Zen, especially Soto Zen, which this style is, each day, each occasion, each time it occurs us to do so, to be in the middle, to be present, to be open to what's happening now. Is the dominant experience a feeling? Is the dominant experience a narrative that's infused with meaning and significance and charged with emotion? Is the dominant experience relating to someone else, either with delight or disapproval. The engagement that draws us to here, that lets us experience what here is, what's happening here and now.

[33:50]

When is it happening? It's happening now. And then we Our human consciousness is such we interject, why? What is it? Why is it? We have conclusions. This is a good thing. I'm inspired and encouraged to hear that the Dalai Lama might come. One thing I noticed about the Dalai Lama in his extra-ordinariness was when he would come in to give a talk

[34:57]

he would try to make eye contact and touch as many people as possible. And after a while I thought, that was the most important part of the talk. I was like, okay, now we've had the important part of the talk, let's just hang out for a little bit and I'll say something. And one day he said, I know this is in an environment where people have been bombing and killing each other for 30 years. He said, couldn't you all just get along? And of course, you think, oh, come on, there's all sorts of reasons, you know, there's... pivotal battle of the boy in 1690. A mere few moments ago.

[35:59]

The way it has shaped the society and what people think and live and how they identify and all the good reasons why they hate each other. But in that moment, you know, powerful naivete. What is it about the human condition that you can't just get along? What is it about me being me that's generating this response to the moment? a naive and powerful question. And when I was talking to this person about going to Tassahara, I was saying, and one of the big challenges is when you touch the power of that question, that you don't simply let it be

[37:26]

A wonderful reason for self-criticism. A powerful reason. Look at me stuck in these habits of thought and feeling and behavior that I seem to keep reproducing. Probably there's truth in that. You're seeing something that actually has accuracy to it. But the self-criticism doesn't help. It's discouraging. It's agitating. It's deflating. It's not my fault. It's others' fault. challenge for us is to meet it with compassion.

[38:35]

Ah, suffering. A 21-year-old boy amassing a thousand rounds of ammunition. What pain and suffering and affliction and distress and alienation has left them in that place. And then how to go forward. How to live this life, my life. How to live in this world. my world. And within Buddhism, we have a wonderful, peculiar response.

[39:43]

It's impossible. First of all, lower your standards. You're never going to get it all sorted out. Recognize that before you think. The Dalai Lama will come, and then everything will be perfect. Ain't gonna happen. I'll go to the Zen Center, I'll do Zazen, and I'll get everything together. I'll be a great person. I'll live a wonderful life. combination of the Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Mother Teresa. And yet, there's something in that, when we hold it with compassion, why shouldn't we have that kind of aspiration?

[40:51]

if we can mix in with it our own foolishness. I would say to you, to my mind, it seems a much better aspiration than buying yourself a thousand rounds of ammunition and a lethal weapon that shoots a hundred rounds in a minute. That's ten minutes you can fire a thousand rounds. but based on compassion, to have the aspiration, to have something that guides our life. And then the how is, how do we live it? Or as we would say, how do we practice the sensibilities, the principles, the values of that way of being?

[42:05]

How do we evoke the naive voice that says, can I get along with being myself? The Dalai Lama saying, couldn't you all just get along? How do I get in touch with the profound foolish wisdom of that question? And how? Noticing in ourselves when patience comes forth. Noticing in ourselves when impatience comes forth. noticing in ourselves when we're open and inclined towards compassion.

[43:17]

I would say, usually when it happens, it just seems ordinary. But why wouldn't I do that? The person was suffering. It's when we contract into the fearful place that insists upon us and them. It's complex. It's built around a whole lot of assumptions infused with our own confusion and fear and aggression. Usually for us, each one of us, it has deep roots in our psychological development. And in the Zen world, This interplay, these interplays are our coin. They're our teacher. So it's impossible to be perfect, the bodhisattva vow.

[44:25]

And in a way, that's what helps us learn how to live. And when we can start to engage it like that, our deep, fearful need to have the world be perfect doesn't carry so much authority. We don't have to be so perfect, and we don't need others to be so perfect either. Maybe the Dalai Lama will come. Maybe he won't. No.

[45:30]

Okay. And I'd like to end with the same poem I ended with the last time I gave a talk. And as I mentioned then, this is a poem by Joy Harjo, the first Native American to be made poet laureate. I thought, how lovely. To pray. Open yourself, open your whole self to sky, to earth, to sun, to moon, to one whole voice, that is you. And know there is more that you can't see, can't hear, can't know, except in moments steadily growing and in languages that aren't always sound, but other circles of motion.

[46:36]

Like Eagle, that Sunday morning over Salt River, circled in blue sky and wind, swept our hearts clean, with sacred wings. We see ourselves and know that we must take the utmost care and kindness in all things. Breathe in, knowing we are made of all of this, and breathe knowing we are truly blessed because we were born, and die soon within a true circle of motion, like eagle rounding out the morning inside us. We pray that it will be done in beauty in beauty. 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.

[47:37]

Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, please visit sfzc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[47:53]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_96.42