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 evening, everyone, and welcome to Beginner's Mind Temple. My name is Kyoshin Wendy Lewis, and... Tonight, I'll be presenting the third of three talks on the Chinese poem, Xin Xin Ming, Trust in Mind or Faith in Mind. And this poem is from the 7th and 8th centuries. So, so far, you know, with the support of these commentaries by Museng and Sheng Yan, and also the... Description and Commentary on the Four Brahmiharas by Analayo, I've been presenting this teaching on trust in mind as emphasizing equanimity and its value for cultivating and living one's life and cultivating and practicing meditation and studying the Dharma.

[01:18]

So that's the overview of the... teaching of the poem. And as I've said, mentioned in the other talks, Musung says, Chan or Zen was born out of what might be described as a nuanced sensibility of the absurdity of the human condition. So what absurdity questions is our tendency to see things in narrative form, that there's a kind of linear progress or process happening. And so absurdity questions that. And then the transformational potential of that is this deconstruction of our attachment to narrative continuity. And this is the underlying process towards equanimity, or as Meister Eckhart calls it, detachment.

[02:30]

So this is what's going on as we're trying to say, you know, neither before or against, neither, you know, heaven or earth, and all those things that the poem is juxtaposing. So Bhikkhu Analayo, in his commentary, says, Equanimity conveys an awareness of whatever is happening combined with mental balance and the absence of favoring or opposing. To be at ease and lack nothing comes about precisely through letting go of wanting to have things one's own way. So we're being asked to do something we don't want to do. We want things our own way. And sometimes we almost don't want things our own way so that we'll have things our own way, you know, so that we'll be heroes or something like that.

[03:33]

So we're kind of being nice by not getting our own way. So we're always attached to it. We're always around it and around it. So in Shen Yang's commentary, he describes trust in mind as meditation instruction. And Musung describes this as a teaching about how to live one's life and become a sage. And these perspectives actually balance each other because meditation is balanced or there's an interaction with meditation and this reflection on how we live our life and our behavior. and our relationship with others and ourselves and what's happening in the world. So the poem begins, The great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. When love and hate are both absent, everything becomes clear and undisguised.

[04:37]

Make the slightest distinction, however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart. So this is about our preferences, our desires, our aversions, and our confusion about which one we're actually experiencing. And how these pull us around in duality, you know, where heaven and earth set infinitely apart. And, you know, we have no choice but to be engaged with the world and with all these things that are happening and with the interactivity of heaven and earth, the absolute and the relative. So the absolute and the relative and how they're related and interact is in the concept of emptiness. And my favorite description of this is from Musang, and I've already presented it, so I'm actually doing a quick sort of review and filling in.

[05:42]

and then I'm going to go on with the poem, but I wanted this last talk or class to sort of be an overview so that someone could listen to it and get the whole thing. For those of you who are here for the first time particularly. So Musang has described the perspective of emptiness, which is one of the themes of the poem, as the integrated perception of of the interactivity of relative reality, or individual consciousness, and absolute reality, or the visionary cosmos. These are all the things that are going on that we are not aware of. And this is a dialectic or a conversation. And it engages us, in this kind of creative deconstruction of our assumption of this permanent abiding self.

[06:48]

And undercuts this sense of alienation from the world, this sort of separateness, being separate. And emptiness is considered to be an antidote to attachment. At the end of the last class, some of the questions that came up sort of posed, well, what about the still point? When these two things are like talking to each other, what happens when everything is still? You know, when all that isn't happening or when they're completely in dialogue. And this is where I think that's described in the poem. 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.

[07:52]

So 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. So we have this still moment. when all these expectations about how we're going to react to something or what it's going to cause to arise in our mind doesn't happen. And this is something that is cultivated. So according to the Dharma, most of our responses and reactions are based in a conditioned thought and experience and a kind of storehouse of impressions. that I believe can be compared to codependency, which is another word for attachment. So if you're struggling with trying to come up with what does that mean, if you know about codependency or have some experience with studying it, it's one way to look at it.

[09:00]

So something will appeal to us or we'll feel aversion toward it. or a person, and all that is sort of triggering things in our mind, including our emotions. So I think as that effort and that cultivation and that development of experiencing things through emptiness, through this dialectic or conversation between the absolute and the relative, as that sort of becomes more interesting and more mature, the reaction time slows down and sometimes stops. And I was thinking of how there are some sort of habitual interactions I have with people. Even in the Zendo, it's like I go into the Zendo and I know who I'm going to sit next to and I know all these things are going to happen.

[10:03]

And so I have this... there's this habit of how we're all doing that at the same time. And I made this effort to stop that, you know, that just, you know, okay, when I go in, I'm going to do this and the other person's going to come in and do, but have it be more fresh. And what I noticed is there are certain things that annoy me about all of that. And why? There's nothing happening in there. And so, you know, just in that nothing happening state of things, I can be triggered by nothing, by just my assumptions about the people around me and what I assume are their ideas about me. So this is, it can be very, it's very subtle because that's the only way we can notice it. So what I think happens in the still moment is

[11:06]

is that we get a hint of non-attachment and a kind of deep compassion because suddenly all of that goes away and this spaciousness or something or this sort of being moved by the fact that everyone is so... including myself, are so fragile or something or vulnerable. So I think in that place of stillness and compassion, we sort of shift how we see and interpret ourselves and others so that, as the poem says, a thing ceases to exist in the old way and the old mind ceases to exist. Now, I think, you know, as Musang says, that this is not so appealing.

[12:13]

And so that requires a kind of a trust, trust in the Dharma, the teaching, and trust in our mind's flexibility so that we can move towards that Dharmic generosity. And it can't be prescribed that So it has to be cultivated through application. Like you can't sort of describe to somebody what they're going to be like here. You just can't. But you can both apply the things to yourself and accept instruction about these teachings. So the poem continues. Things are objects because there is a subject or mind. and the mind is a subject because there are objects. Understand the relativity of these two and the basic reality, the unity of emptiness.

[13:16]

In this emptiness, the two are indistinguishable, and each contains in itself the whole world. If you do not discriminate between coarse and fine, you will not be tempted to prejudice and opinion. So maintaining equanimity is a strenuous effort that becomes less of a strain as it's exercised and cultivated. And Moosong comments that the poem's purpose is to bring us back to the basic issue of addiction to preferences and the way in which that addiction hinders equanimity. To live in the great way is neither easy nor difficult. But those with limited views are fearful and irresolute. The faster they hurry, the slower they go. Clinging cannot be limited. Even to be attached to the idea of enlightenment is to go astray. Just let things be in their own way and there will be neither coming nor going.

[14:24]

So I think embedded in this poem and most Buddhist teachings is healing. and this healing of our hopes and our fears in the midst of these circumstances in which they arise. And it's not a cure or an escape. I mean, there's nowhere to go, right? And it's not a bargain for our well-being. But I think it offers the possibility of living more at ease with reality. So I'm going to stop there because I've caught everybody up, I think, and see if there are any questions left over or if there are any questions or comments before I go on. Okay. So I think that most of us care about what happens in our lives and in the world.

[15:33]

great concern for us. And so in the midst of this kind of mixed arena of our relationships with people, close personal relationships and people we work with and meet, and also the state of the world, which includes things like wars and cruelty and heroism and altruism and all those sort of ideas we have about those things, how do we sort of reconcile equanimity to our ability to respond and be involved? So do we say equanimity is a removal, or how do we actually use it as a way of engaging? So in the tradition of Buddha Dharma, this reconciliation is based in morality. So I say this again and again, and I think... if history or even sort of random or haphazard self-awareness tell us anything, it's that human nature is consistent.

[16:47]

We keep doing the same things over and over. These teachings make sense to us, even though they're 2,500 years old, because our human nature remains kind of the same. So our basic kind of... survival instincts and techniques extend into this crescendo of desire and envy and anger and love and aversion and manipulation, self-sabotage, ambition, hope, success, joy, creativity, cruelty, and various forms of positive and negative narcissism. That was the list I came up with. So this is actually not a bleak picture of the human condition. It is the teaching of the first noble truth, which is that the human condition is based in anxiety or unsatisfactoriness.

[17:52]

It's just the basic quality of that because of old age sickness and death and all kinds of other things. But this is actually our resource. for the self-understanding that's developed and cultivated through the second, third, and fourth of the noble truths. So in Dharma, morality is not framed as should or should not. When I first came to Zen Center, the form and the precepts was, a disciple of the Buddha does not kill. A disciple of the Buddha... does not take what is not given. And I think that that format gives a better sense of these teachings being in the context of discipleship or trust. So as a disciple, you're trusting in the teachings. You're trusting in... That's the kind of trust that I think trust in mind is pointing to.

[18:58]

So morality then... is about developing self-understanding. And that includes all its revelations and its embarrassments. Those are both really important. And I think that trusting this development or cultivation through its kind of unfolding joys and sorrows is what the poem is pointing to. because this is the key to understanding ourselves, but also then understanding others and forgiving ourselves and others, and this unfolding process that never ends, but I think becomes more fluid when it's given this deep attention. And it also includes, you know, this recognition of the absurdity and the kind of awe and sort of grief or

[19:58]

kind of aching that we can have about the irresolvability of human condition. And we're always in the midst of it. And so the next section of the poem, if you wish to move in the one way, do not dislike even the world of senses and ideas. Indeed, to accept them fully is identical with true enlightenment. And so I think the implication is to see the world of senses and ideas as another resource for developing equanimity. So disliking that world of senses and ideas kind of undermines its role in our humanness and the vulnerability that I think is required for transformation. So generally, you know, one,

[20:59]

I, people, have a tendency to like the world of senses and ideas when it provides gratification and dislike it when it doesn't. So this is what the poem is pointing at. And this made me think, you know, well, what is the world of senses and ideas? So I'm going to give you sort of an example that, you know, in the midst of what we're calling the Me Too movement, with its undercurrent of both, you know, kind of raising consciousness about power imbalances and also shaming men and coincidentally shaming women... it seems that women's fashions have suddenly, have sort of veered towards being tighter and more revealing and also kind of girlish or childish.

[22:06]

And so I was thinking, you know, what, how do we, you know, sort of the implication of that being, how do we find our balance in this relationship between power and sexuality and sexuality and power? And I think the extreme ends of this move away from each other and kind of snap, and then they sort of move back towards each other. And I think that there's always some... There's a tendency for there to be some pain in there, this kind of ache of this human situation or... you might even call it. And I think that one of the things that can get lost, and there's good reasons for it, is our sense of humor about this area of our lives and perspective.

[23:10]

It sort of gets squeezed down. So it made me think, reminded me of when I, many years ago, worked in the financial district. One of the supervisors said, was a member of the Playboy Club, and he took us all out to lunch there. And, you know, well, anyway, I would never have expected to go. But the clientele were all very like him, sort of ordinary older men. And then there were all these very young women in these little silly outfits with the ears and everything, the bunny ears. And it was just very interesting juxtaposition. And to be there, Anyway, it was a very odd experience. But then I also, some years later, went on this little excursion into the North Beach porn shops with this group called Take Back the Night. And so I wouldn't, for whatever reason, I wouldn't normally go in those shops, right?

[24:16]

And the magazines, I was like, hmm. I won't describe them. I'll let you imagine. But anyway, and the fact that all of this stuff and that, you know, there are women who make their living, it's a lot. I mean, at that time anyway, almost all of it was magazines of women and again, the clientele were all men. And I just, you know, in both these experiences, I felt all this mixture of thoughts and feelings. You know, I was... startled and offended, and thought it was amusing and puzzling, and somehow it was moving. I mean, this is this huge area of our life, and this is one of the aspects of it, that this is how it gets expressed, thought about, worked out, or whatever. And so I was thinking, you know, how do we negotiate the kind of sensual aspect that is not located in the logical part of our body-mind?

[25:29]

It doesn't exist there. It doesn't function there. So the poem says that where our senses and ideas interact and divide need not be marked by dislike. And Musang actually comments that this line in the poem is perhaps one of the most crucial. Acceptance here is the middle way between indulgence and rejection. So in his sermon on detachment, Meister Eckhart says, Nothing is more gall-bitter than suffering, Nothing more honey-sweet than having suffered, For joy brings sorrow, and sorrow, joy. And so to recognize, you know, the fluctuation of the nature of things, and it's not necessary to be pulled by that into resentment or hatred or aversion or, you know, deep, complicated, harmful desires maybe too.

[26:44]

But particularly resentment is the one thing that equanimity is addressing. But to see, you know, examine all these different aspects of our lives and this one of the senses and ideas and our part in it. Like, how do we interact with all of this? What is our stuff? What is our perceptions and misperceptions? Eckhart says, take note, all who are sensible. No one is happier than one who has the greatest detachment. And the poem says, with a single stroke, we are freed from bondage. Nothing clings to us and we hold to nothing. All is empty, clear, self-illuminated, illuminating. In this world of suchness, there is neither self nor other than self.

[27:46]

With a single stroke, we are freed from bondage. Nothing clings to us and we hold to nothing. All is empty, clear, self-illuminating. In this world of suchness, there is neither self nor other than self. So as I was saying and applying earlier, you know, it's kind of... It might seem kind of superficial to think about equanimity when you think about the complexity and outrageousness of the circumstances of this world. But equanimity is not passivity. I think it's a perspective for cultivating sanity and availability. and maintaining a sense of the absurd in the midst of our efforts to perceive and experience reality as a narrative sequence.

[28:53]

So I hope that made sense. But is it comfortable? Equanimity? I don't think so. Certainly not in the way we would wish, right? We want it to be, you know, I think that this is what it, means about even to think of enlightenment as sort of being something wonderful and desirable is to miss the point. So I think that the point of all these efforts is not sort of getting things to be the way we wish they would be, but just to express in words... and kind of in deportment as best we can, and these teachings in the best way they can, that there's nowhere else to go, that everything's happening all at the same time, that ideologies can inspire us but also hinder us, and it's not hopeless, even though it can be both horrible.

[30:06]

And wonderful. So the poem ends. One thing, all things. Move among and intermingle without distinction. To live in this realization is to be without anxiety about non-perfection. To live in this faith is the road to non-duality. Because the non-dual is one with the trusting mind. Words. The way is beyond language, for in it there is no yesterday, no tomorrow, no today. So, are there any questions or comments? Yes. Oh, the description of empty and smooth songs?

[31:15]

Yeah. I read it over and over and over to you. It gets good. It is. And I think there are many different descriptions of emptiness. And I find the one that I think that you're referring to, where emptiness is equated with the absolute, is not very useful. Because, so what? I mean, the absolute is not understandable. You know, it's a conceptual thing. So, because it's all the things that we don't know what's, we're not aware of.

[32:19]

them happening um no what i think emptiness is is the container and and dogan talks about this too um when he talks about when you're in a boat in the middle of the ocean he's talking about the relative and the absolute and this container for them which is you know you can't see the shore but you know you know it's there but But he's putting in the context of more of this dialectic, this conversation, where it's happening within this container called emptiness that we're describing as emptiness, but the conversation happens within there. So in sort of religious context, I think of this as when a person prays to God. That's the relative and the absolute in conversation. But how that all functions is what's going on in emptiness.

[33:23]

So I'll read the description maybe. I don't know if that was helpful. The perspective of emptiness is the integrated perception of the interactivity of relative reality or individual consciousness and absolute reality or the visionary consciousness. This kind of huge, inconceivable, absolute reality. And then how do we relate to that in our individual consciousness? Because it's affecting us all the time. And so that's what emptiness allows us to do, is to have those things be in conversation. Did that make sense? I think it's really important to struggle with the concept of emptiness and any definitions that you come upon of emptiness because it kind of developed as a way to struggle with the teachings.

[34:42]

Because if you only sort of apply them as a kind of negation of yourself, as a kind of project for self-improvement, then they lose a whole dimension of transformation because it sort of cuts out the mystery of our vulnerability and trust in how the teachings actually function. Because we can't be, as I said, you can't be at the place where the transformation has happened. It's something that's always in motion. Something like that. Other questions? Yes. Well, it does make sense to me.

[36:15]

I think I understand what you're saying. So detachment or equanimity is actually a stronger place from which to respond. The development of equanimity or detachment is to not be reacting with our conditioned mind. So the reason I gave that example of the Me Too movement is I find that very, pulls me apart, you know, and it feels like it's accusatory and also victimizing. And so I struggle with it. But I still think it's really important that all this happened and it... sort of brought things to consciousness in a different way, even though kind of we always know that stuff's happening. There was a way it kind of, you know, made us look at things a little differently, or some of us, or maybe it didn't.

[37:20]

But it seems like it had that potential to sort of shift the way things, we look at things. And yet it's not like we know how to do things right. But we do know how to question things. And when, I mean, even, you know, we were all folding paper cranes and everything to send to Fort Sill. I was anyway. I was folding, folding, folding all these paper cranes. And then I heard that the children weren't going to go there. And I thought, well, but wait a second. We're not really doing anything. We didn't invite them here. Where are they going to go? You know, it wasn't like we said, oh, well, we'll provide a solution. we'll have some of those migrant children come and live here. So in a way, you know, it felt like something happened that was good, but it still didn't exactly address some problem that, you know, is kind of far away and not so... Does that make some sense of... Okay.

[38:29]

Holding it all, and yet also... Engaging in some way. And seeing how that unfolds. And maybe that's what it really is. It's like this willingness, you know, to be in the unfolding of things. Even though you almost always don't know quite what you're doing or how it's going to turn out. Any other questions? So I'm going to check the time. Great. So to close, I'm going to read you a poem. It was written by 16th century Italian woman. And I think it kind of sums everything up in this very beautiful way. And it came to my mind as I was studying.

[39:30]

Her name's Vittoria Colonna, and the poem doesn't have a title. When the troubled sea swells and surrounds a solid rock with force and rage, and finding it firm, the stormy pride breaks and the wave falls back upon itself. So I, like the rock, when the world's deep angry waters come against me, raise my eyes to heaven, robbing them as much of force as they with greater strength abound. And if at times desire's gale attempts new war, I race to land, and with a knot of love entwined with faith, I tie my boat to that in which I trust. so that whenever I wish, I can return to port.

[40:32]

That makes sense. I'll read it one more time. Why not? We have time. When the troubled sea swells and surrounds a solid rock with force and rage, and finding it firm, the stormy pride breaks and the wave falls back upon itself. So I, like the rock, when the world's deep angry waters come against me, raise my eyes to heaven, robbing them as much of force as they with greater strength abound. And if at times desires gale, attempts new war, I race to land, and with a knot of love entwined with faith, I tie my boat to that in which I trust, so that whenever I wish, I can return to port. So I wasn't able to go over every single line of the poem, but I hope that some of you will read it and enjoy it and find it inspiring and useful.

[42:01]

So thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[42:28]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_96.59