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 morning, everyone. Good morning. This feels so much more formal than the rest of what we've been doing this summer. So I'd like to first... Thank Paul and Greg for inviting me to give this talk. And Goya for letting me be here long enough to give this talk. I wasn't expecting to be here this long. And thank you, Enosama, for setting up the room. I just want to start with a disclaimer or confession.

[01:11]

I was a little nervous to give this talk, which is why Catherine announced I was giving the talk, and Greg and I at the same time said, no, no, not. And I think it was partly because we had a lot going on. in my professional role as a program doctor. But more so than that, I was feeling just kind of raw emotionally with what's going on in our country and in my personal life as far as my mother being stuck by herself in Florida while the virus is raging all around her. Feeling a little hopeless and disempowered. And then just also feeling... I think the initial prompt of this talk was something I wrote in my journal, which was, how do I melt the anger in my heart?

[02:20]

And I guess I was feeling that. Just a lot of waves of anger and sadness rushing through me for the last while. I wasn't sure I was having difficulty finding words and phrases to express what was going on for me. But a few people asked me, really, a couple people asked me why I decided not to do it. They wanted to make sure that I wasn't being silenced, which I appreciate. And that amazing joke, like, well, if I'm really being silenced, of course I'd do it. So I appreciate the people who asked me about it. I found that. encouraging. So, I also wanted to say that if anything I say here harms anybody, I apologize in advance. That's not my intention. I take full responsibility for the impact and I welcome your feedback and the opportunity to have a conversation.

[03:25]

So, In 1984, it was my senior year of high school, and me and a few of my friends decided to go celebrate our friend, Martha's, being accepted at the Harvard University. She graduated third in our class of 500 people, and she was the only person in our graduating class who was attending Harvard. The person who graduated first The valedictorian was going to MIT, and the person who graduated second was going to the University of Virginia. Somehow, Harvard set out for us as a brass ring. So we jumped into my friend Tracy's car. There was four of us, and we drove to this village of Bronxville, which is about a There's about 7,000 or 8,000 people who live there. It's about two miles north of where we grew up in Mount Vernon, New York.

[04:33]

And there was this Hagen-Dazs there on the main strip, which I believe is still there. And me and my friends, we had frequent, had gone to the Bronx so many times, and it always was kind of a difficult place for us because you couldn't skateboard on the sidewalks. They had all these rules against kids is what it seemed like to me. So we would walk there and go to the movies and stuff, but that was one thing that stood out for me is that we weren't able to skateboard. So after getting our ice cream, we sat down in the booth and we started talking excitedly about how long it was going to Harvard and how excited it was going to be. And yeah, it was just a fun time. And at some point we noticed that behind us in the booth, were a few other girls, teenage girls like ourselves. And at some point, we noticed that they were making fun of us. They were snickering and sneering and laughing in a direct manner toward us.

[05:37]

We probably did the same. As soon as we felt that they were doing this to us, we probably started making comments as well, who knows about what. But they continued, and at some point, Rhonda got so riled up And she fished into her purse, pulled out her Harvard student ID card, shoved it into their space. She turned around. She was sitting with her back to them and said, Harvard University, read it and meep. And we were just like, yeah, awesome. It was like a touchdown. It was just this amazing blow. And we were just so excited. It was just incredible. Her delivery, everything was perfect. And they were silenced, of course, by her gesture, her statement, her declaration. And they left at some point. And we decided to follow them. I don't remember all the details, but they got to their car.

[06:42]

And I remember getting into our car and following them. I don't remember if we actually did follow them. But we ended up on this very wide street. One side had a park with lots of trees, and then across was these beautiful palatial houses, very well lit and manicured. And I remember it was October because Miranda was accepted early admissions, which means she wouldn't find out in fall. And there was also all these pumpkins, these jack-o'-lanterns on people's scoops. So Tracy stayed in the car. She was our getaway driver. We jumped out, and we just smashed the hell out of those pumpkins. It was just... orange pumpkin flesh fibers and membrane everywhere, all over the stoops and the sidewalk. And boy, did that feel really good. And then we just jumped into the car and drove off. So I never would have really unpacked this scenario back then the way I am now.

[07:49]

because I was just a teenager then. But I was curious, you know, what were the markers that signified to them that we were other, that gave them permission to other us? And, of course, the first was skin color, right, as it is today. Skin color is still one of the major markers that somebody is different. And my friend Rhonda was black, and Tracy was biracial. Her mother was from Japan, and her father was Spanish. Tracy, Anna, and I were both white, and so it probably would have passed, if they hadn't been with us, it probably would have passed for white because of our skin color. But maybe the markers of class would have shown through our skin anyway, maybe because of our accents. You know, her father was Italian, and her mother was Austrian, which meant she spoke fluent Italian and German. And my...

[08:51]

grandparents were from Italy and from Scotland. And perhaps maybe our clothes weren't the right clothes. You know, in the 80s, it was the United Colors with Benetton and eyes on, and people wore top-siders, the kind of preppy look. So we did not belong to their white, wealthy, pedigree culture. And of course, when we're teenagers and young adults, we don't always know that we're swimming in some culture. It's just the ocean that we've been born into, and we just swim along in it not knowing. So coming up in the 80s, in the ecosystem of my family, school, and my neighborhood, I wouldn't have used the word racist or classist to describe those girls. I would have called them snobs. That would have been the word I would have used. Because I was self-conscious about being working class, I don't think it even registered for me that they were being racist. Also, because I was white, so I wouldn't have taken that on in that moment.

[09:53]

But perhaps, I imagine that Tracy and Rongo took their comments as racist, although none of us ever talked about it. Just in those moments in our bodies, we knew. We knew we were being othered. Nobody had to really say anything to us. We knew that we had stepped inside someone else's circle. And had you driven by... while we were smashing the pumpkins. Maybe you would have called the schidlums. Maybe you would have called the police because you had not witnessed how we were shamed in other just moments before. You might have had less empathy because you had less information. You just saw the results, but not the cause. Had you known about our personal struggles on a daily basis with racism and classism and sexism, maybe you would have had more empathy. And had you been practicing Buddhist at the time, Instead of judging us, perhaps you would have taken the backward step and shown the light on your own past behaviors, the times when you were enraged, the times when you acted out, the times when you were not able to stay open, present, and calm with what was arising for you in the moment.

[11:04]

Maybe you had never smashed pumpkins in your life, or maybe you drank too much, or maybe you worked too much, or maybe you were having an affair. Those are definitely more acceptable coping mechanisms in our capital society. So when we were smashing the pumpkins, what were we really smashing? We were raging against those snobby girls' voices, telling us that we didn't belong, that we weren't good enough, that we need to stay in our place. And we were also smashing our own internalized voices that were telling us the same thing. Dr. Martin Luther King calls this the internal violence of the spirit. And I first heard of this phrase in this book that I've been reading by Akazu Hago called Healing Resistance. He uses the phrase internalized oppression. He defines it this way. It's when the messages from oppressive systems and worldviews about our inferiority take root inside our own minds until we start believing in our inferiority.

[12:10]

So what were some of the negative beliefs I had learned by the time I was 17? Now that I'm almost 53, it seems like 17. There really wouldn't have been much I could have learned in those years, but couldn't believe, taking in those negative beliefs. But a few of them that I've identified is that I believe that I was inferior because neither of my parents had gone to college and my two older brothers had dropped out of high school. And they were actually pretty much just truants, my brothers, after getting out of grammar school. And I believe that wasn't as valuable as my two older brothers. because I was raised in a family in a neighborhood that had internalized patriarchy. It was handed down to my father and his father and the whole extended family. And of course, women internalizing patriarchy as well. And also having been sexually abused as a child, I also believed that men were not trustworthy and would dominate and mistreat me. You know, these beliefs were part of my internal culture, right?

[13:15]

My karmic conditioning. and they are reinforced and amplified as I grew into adulthood. And had we as teenagers been taught to pause, reflect, and remain calm when the snobby girls mocked us, then maybe we would have wondered, why are they acting out? What negative beliefs had they internalized? How had their sense of entitlement and superiority caused them harm? If they were scorning us, who had belittled them? If they truly loved themselves, if their eternal culture was one of peace and integration, then they wouldn't have to puff themselves up by putting us down. And had we not smashed the pumpkins, would that have meant the absence of racism and classism? No. Had those girls not mocked us, would that indicate the absence of conflict? No. Both scenarios would just reflect a negative piece. The absence of tension that comes at the expense of justice.

[14:18]

This is the definition that is in Cosmo's book. This is a new phrase for me as well. And he defines negative peace. He says it's created and maintained by ubiquitous, which means all pervading, unspoken, understanding that surfacing conflict is not welcome. Another phrase for negative peace, which I think I like even better, is... A tyranny of civility. A tyranny of civility. That's another phrase that a non-violent educator used. So in my observation, this negative piece is one of the main signifiers of spaces that are dominated by white-bodied people. I've had several teachers at the San Francisco Zen Center tell me the same story about an organizational consultant who told them that the dominant culture at San Francisco Center was one of conflict complaints. I call this a false harmony. This creates an air of oppression.

[15:21]

I feel that cloaks are white privilege and stifles the voices of people who do not measure up to the standards of white-bodied supremacy. And I had some really painful experiences of Being a white-bodied person, when I graduated from journalism school in Washington, D.C., I moved down to the middle of nowhere rural Florida. I think there was maybe 20,000, 30,000 people in the entire county, and I lived in this little town. And it was an extreme culture shock for me. I was a newspaper reporter for the Tampa Tribune. Yeah, the overt racism in that town was very difficult for me to witness. And the white settlers, because my skin is white, saw me as an ally.

[16:25]

They would say racist things to me because I look like them. And what made matters worse for me was that the black people also saw me as racist. because of the color of my skin. And now I understand what racist means as having a white body means just inherently racist, if you will, within our society. Back then I would have said that I wasn't prejudiced and I wasn't a bigot. There were a couple of instances where my heart was just torn out. There was, yeah, there was this, within a week of my showing up into this middle of nowhere town, these three black kids murdered an elderly black man.

[17:55]

as the white people call it. And I went to the arraignment for their hero. And I saw them sitting in these old, old, big, I don't know, they're just these ginormous chairs, wooden chairs, and their feet were nowhere near touching the floor. And I didn't see any relatives of theirs there. And I sat down on the bench next to these three black teenagers, and they instinctively slid away from me. And I said, hey, I said, I shot her today. And they started laughing, and the kid closest to me smiled and said, he said, no, you're straight, you're straight. And then we just sat there together on this bench. Of course, I didn't talk with them about how they felt about what was going on.

[18:59]

I just felt a relief that I made a connection with him, that I exchanged smiles and I was able to deal with him. And then I, that's another point. I was the only reporter for the Tampa you're doing in this small town. And I was sent to talk to this pastor at a church about some local issue. And I just walked, I mean there was no cell phones back then, I just walked in and announced and I saw him walking through the um, the sanctuary of the church and I introduced myself and he was a black man and I told him that I was here to talk to him about this issue and I wanted to find out what he thought. And he said, oh, I'm not talking to you. I'm not going to get a fair shake. And I tried to persuade him that I really wanted to hear what he had to say and I was going to be fair.

[20:05]

And he was not budging all of his defense as well. And as I turned to walk away, I just looked back and I said, really kind of out of desperation, I didn't even know I was going to say this. I said, if you don't judge me for being white, I won't judge you for being black. And then we just sat down and started talking. Somehow just naming... I don't know, again, it was just an instinct. I didn't plan on saying anything like that. But just somehow naming it just seemed to, at least for that moment, allay some of his mistrust of me as a white person in his space. And... This... So in this situation, I zipped down there for two years. I felt what it felt like to be othered. Again, you know, stepping inside their circle, walking with this weapon of my white skin through their community, causing harm

[21:20]

reminding them of this institutionalized racism, which to me sounds a little too abstract. It just reminds them of hatred and not belonging. And I remember once I walked into the community center, I become friendly with this man named Victor. And even though I was afraid because I was white and I was in a predominantly, I was in an all-black side of town, And I remember walking into the community center down this little path, and there were people on either side of me. And I just felt the dagger of those stairs as I walked. I didn't really have any vocabulary for any of that. I just knew, I just felt pain I felt just so much suffering about this legacy of hatred the unspoken unspokenness of what happened in our country and in our hearts and yeah, it was

[22:51]

Very difficult two years for me to be there. And anyway, it's very wonderful and eye-opening. Fast forwarding from there to coming to Tassajara in 2008, I never would have then described the culture of Vassali as white body, or I didn't even know. I never even heard of white body supremacy. It wasn't even in my vocabulary. At that time, in 2008, I was just fleeing the misery of my own personal life. I was so focused on my own suffering when I got here, I really don't think I noticed much else. You know, Tassahara is a specific white-bodied space Most of us are college educated.

[23:55]

Many of us, not all of us, come from upper and middle class society. And we've had enough privilege in our life to actually have heard the word Zen and have so many sources or are desperate enough or committed enough to become residents to drop out of capitalist society for a while and practice the way here in this valley. So it really wasn't until I returned to Tassajara in September 2015, after living in Brooklyn for two years and working at the Brooklyn Zen Center, that I realized what a monoculture Tassajara was. You know, I had forgotten what it was like to live in a multicultural world like New York City, and to have friends like Rhonda, Tracy, and Anna. And since I have lived and worked in white dominated spaces for 26 years, I did the calculations The further I moved away from New York City, New Jersey, that area, the wider and wider my world became.

[25:00]

And what saddens me and enrages me is that for all those years, I was complacent and complicit in this institutionalized racism. You know, I noticed that most of my colleagues and neighbors, and when I started practicing at the Austin Zeta Center, that most of the people there were white, like myself. I never asked why. I never asked myself, how can I change this? And because my skin is white, I had the privilege to not ask those questions because my life and the lives of my loved ones were not at risk. However, ignorance is not an excuse. Ignoring is the opposite of intimacy and is the absence of presence. So even though I identify as white and have given all the privileges afforded white-bodied people in our racist world, I often feel like a misfit in this white Anglo space and I usually gravitate to people of color or people who come from like a more working class environment.

[26:07]

I often feel that I have to use my white voice to communicate with people because if I use my working class Italian American accent, people are going to dismiss me. They're going to think I'm not smart or they're not going to take me seriously because I sound like a working class Italian-American from New York. And I had that experience at least once, at least once here and a number of times out there. So one of the examples of that was a few years ago, I had mentioned to somebody higher up than me in our San Francisco Zen Center hierarchy, And I said, oh, I thought it would be fun to be the Sheikah. And this person said that I still had some rough edges that I needed to smooth out before I could take on that role. And I feel like that might be true in some ways. I mean, who doesn't have rough edges?

[27:10]

But after a few days, I start to feel the impact of that person's comment. And I went back to this person and I said, here's how I took that scene. that I'm not white enough and I'm not wealthy enough to interact with our privileged white guests. I'm too Italian. I'm too working class. And this person was shocked that I think shocked that I said something because we don't speak about conflict. We just dance around it. And that the person never thought about class in that way. And this person apologized to me and thanked me for helping to show where some blind spots might be around class. And again, I don't dismiss that I have rough edges. I just want to know what you think those rough edges are and what are the lenses to which you're measuring my edges. So had I not spoken my truth, this person's blind spots around class would not have been illuminated.

[28:18]

They would have had no idea what the impact of their statement, what their comment was to me. There was a bit this negative piece instead of our relationship became stronger because the conflict was surfaced, disgusted and healed. When we avoid conflict, the weeds of delusion grow in the shade of our blind spots. I find this culture at odds with our study and practice of Zen, where we are exhorted by Dogen to study the self by taking the backward step to illuminate what's happening in our internal world. In my years at Tassajara, I have seen or heard about many instances of racism, sexism, classism, ageism, and ableism. But the ism that is universal and the most insidious is our own internal schism, the alienation from our original face, our true self. Other words to describe schism are a fracture and disunion, which to me speak to our own internalized oppression.

[29:20]

The unexamined beliefs and unresolved internal conflicts that we externalize and that become the culture of an institution, organization, or religion. If we are unable or unwilling to bear witness to our own internal culture of oppression, how can we possibly engage in generative, nonviolent, and healing, and perhaps messy dialogue about the harm perpetuated by institutionalized business? Another way you can look at me and my friends smashing those pumpkins is that when we're disturbing the peace. But Kazu says that it's impossible to disturb what does not exist, which is what's going on right now. You say these protesters are disturbing the peace, but there really isn't any peace. They're just giving voice, putting action to this rift that already exists in our hearts and minds. externalized into society.

[30:22]

In the book, Kazem references a sermon by Martin Luther King where Dr. King speaks of a peace boiled down to stagnant complacency and deadening passivity. I think the name of the sermon is, When Peace Becomes Obnoxious. I thought that was a great title. So for me, I feel this is how I was living my life for many, many years. Practicing zazen, living at Tassahara, and studying with my teachers and Dharma sisters and brothers helped wake me up to this stagnation. It was why I left the comfort of my middle-class 9-to-5 life. Although I wouldn't have said it in that way, but the misery of that unfulfilled life propelled me out of there. Kazu calls this awakening disturbing the complacency. And I really, really love this phrase. I know that we're not supposed to have goals in Zen.

[31:29]

However, for me, the goal of being a Zen practitioner is disturbing the complacency of my internal culture. What are the skims in my heart-mind that cause me to harm myself and others? How can I disturb the complacency of my white-bodied privilege, of my college-educated mind? Being a Zen priest, living in this beautifully serene valley, wallowed into viruses of hatred and COVID tear our country apart. We can lay the injustices of society in the sunlight of ultimate reality, but they will not magically transform unless we do the hard, messy work of investigating and healing our inherited karmic condition. Buddha nature is the wisdom that runs through all things, It does not differentiate depending on our skin color, our country of origin, the clothes we wear, or whether we roll along sidewalks or walk on them. However, until we acknowledge and celebrate our differences, until we heal our internal schisms, until we name our conflicts, we will continue to experience the suffering of separation, of the falsisms that we become identified with.

[32:44]

We cannot do this work alone. At least I know that I cannot do it alone. I need everyone in this room to illuminate my blind spots and help me heal the schisms in my heart and mind. If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a sangha to liberate all beings. The armor around our hearts will not melt until the walls of our minds collapse. When I was in college, I had the fortune of becoming familiar with the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. And one of my favorite quotes is, peace between countries must rest on the solid foundation of love between individuals. And I'd like to take that just a little further and add, love between individuals must rest on the solid foundation of peace within ourselves. Oh, we chant at the end though now?

[34:00]

No. Oh, okay. Okay. But I think everyone can hear me, or should we record, can you? We'll record. Okay. Oh, thank you. If there are any questions or comments or... Thank you very much for your talk. It really struck home for me. Apart from the practice of upright sitting, What do you recommend as skillful means for healing the schism in my heart?

[35:07]

Surrounding yourself with people who love you enough, know you well enough, to shed light on those schisms. And I think reading books can be helpful, right? The wisdom, not only of Buddhist teachings, but other people's teachings around integrating our psycho-emotional karmic beings. And I think Like for me, going to some place different, some place where you're not in the dominant culture is helpful to see what ocean you've been swimming in when we step outside of our circle. It's a little harder to ignore, although human beings have a great ability to be in denial.

[36:21]

It can still be helpful to shake up our conditioning by putting ourselves in places where we don't feel comfortable. The comfort and convenience are overrated when it comes to liberation. Thank you very much. Thank you. I have a follow-up question. Will you please set the light on those things that you were talking about right there when you see them in me? Haven't I already been? Just checking. As you have for me as well, Rick. Just checking. Thank you. Same goes for me. Yes, Nicole. Thank you, Holly, for your honesty and vulnerability and for bringing these really important things forward for me, particularly talking about

[37:28]

the detonating nature of silence. We talk about silence and there's like a stillness that runs through all things. And there's also a silence of complicitness. And I've found that to be the most harmful aspect of being in Sangha. we see sangha member mistreating another sangha member we witness witnessing all kinds of injustices and then being afraid to say something I really feel strongly that we can take up these issues in this business, which is of course really important so you understand and identify these dynamics.

[38:50]

And like you said, which we can't call out. If we can't say with love and dignity and compassion, what you're doing is harming another person. You need to see that. create more diversity. We can't create more equity if we can't even just see each other as human beings and hold each other accountable. And thank you for bringing that up. Thank you for your courage and your clear-sightedness and your willingness to Yeah, just be human, be authentic. I think Sangha, sometimes it's difficult for me to be intimate with people here, because I see you all the time, and the vulnerabilities sometimes are very difficult, and how to maintain a real harmony with people.

[39:55]

It's like, we know what shoes people wear, because we see them outside the bathhouse, and we see them outside the Zendo. We can sit in concentrated states, know who's walking past us in the Zen though. Maybe sometimes we even, if you sit long enough next to somebody, you know their breathing pattern. There's a certain type of intimacy. I think that's maybe more of a heightened sense of our senses, right? We're not so distracted with other things, not so caught in our heads. And yet, sometimes there's That isn't really intimacy, it's just better listening, more cheap listening, and the intimacy of bearing our hearts and the willingness to be vulnerable with all the messiness inside.

[40:57]

And I think if we're sometimes in an environment where everybody's not doing that, It's kind of hard to do that. And how are we going to be judged for crying while getting into Dharma talk, for crying while asking a question, for getting angry, for expressing resentment, for just refusing to be, like you said, silenced. And I don't really have all the answers. I just keep asking the questions and doing my best to take responsibility when I screw up, when that anger which I seem to have inherited from my ancestry and my childhood, when it filters how I see things, when it infects how I see things.

[41:59]

I think for me that's one of the skills for me are unhealed. Like I said at the beginning, how does the anger at my heart heal? I hope it does. I'm really open in hoping that it does heal. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[42:52]

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