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 the first Saturday morning talk of 2011. I was thinking about that tendency many of us have, you know, with the New Year or New Year's resolution. And thinking, you know, one of the thoughts that occurred to me was that certainly in the realm of practice, it formulates around something like this. Knowing what we know.

[01:00]

letting that knowing resolve into how we act in the world, how we relate in our relationships, how we relate in our work, how we relate to our own well-being, and how we let that be an unfolding rather than a determined clinging to an agenda that arises out of that knowing. How to let that knowing resolve into a way of being that's more of an unfolding than a clinging to what we know. Someone gave me this article on something called relational identity theory. And it's from a professor at Harvard.

[02:06]

And believe it or not, this is what he did. He went to Davos in Switzerland, where they hold this World Economic Forum each spring, where the movers and shakers, the economic ministers and heads of state and people in charge of the largest corporations in the world, academics, they all come together to discuss. You're having a hard time hearing? Okay. So they all come together to discuss economic situation of the world. Anyway, so he did this psychological experiment with them. He took a group of I think about 50 of these people. Heads of CEOs, professors, economists.

[03:08]

And he broke them into six groups. And he called them tribes. And then he had them do certain experiments to sort of identify as a tribe. And they had about an hour to do that. And then this this is quite literally how it's written up in the paper, this alien appeared and pronounced that if you don't all get together and become one tribe, the world will be destroyed. So get to it. And he said, they did what, and he said he's done this maybe 50 times, everything from to college kids, to all sorts of people. And they did something that almost every other group did.

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They started off reasonable, rational, collaborative. One group said, the ethos of our group is to accept everyone, no matter who they are and no matter what they believe. So obviously, you should all join our group. And two of the other five did. But the other three didn't. And he said, what happened to the groups was, what he experiences is happening is that... They started reasonable and they became emotional. That their inability to unify agitated them.

[05:18]

And as they became agitated, guess what? Things worked even worse than before. And eventually they... I think the word he used was they... exploded they they were no longer able to keep any semblance of collaboration or communication it was just like to hell with this it's never going to work and then he goes on and he explains this wonderful thing called relational identity theory which And if any of you want to come to Q&A, I can cite you on the article and you can read the whole thing to yourself. But my synopsis of it is this, is that we know and our knowing as it engages the world becomes impassioned.

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And as it becomes impassioned, our tendency is to become entrenched. It's somehow the very knowing, the very innate wisdom that we've gathered over a lifetime. Each of us has been alive a lifetime. Each of us has met people who taught us things. who exemplified, who demonstrated to us kindness, patience, integrity, honesty, tolerance. I would suggest you, maybe one of us would say, well actually I never did see that, but maybe we didn't get wholesale consistent messages around these things but we saw them to some degree I would suggest you it's it's that very knowing that brought us here today it's it's the product of what we've learned in the life we've lived it brought us here and it's something of that knowing that at this turning of the year

[08:07]

This turning of the solstice that prompts us to say, okay, let's start over. Let's enter this new year with resolution. With a resolution that's born of knowing. It's born of wisdom. that has been accumulated through a lifetime. And then it engages the world and it becomes impassioned. And how could it not be? We're alive. We're passionate creatures. We have emotions. We draw conclusions. Would we want that we didn't? that we had no emotions, that we lived in a state of intellectual oblivion.

[09:13]

But those very impassioned responses can betray us. They can lead us astray. Instead of drawing us into a harmony with all existence, they can create their own difficulties. Certainly in Zen practice, and I would say in Buddhist practice, this knowing, this knowing what you know, in very general terms we call it Buddha nature. Something in us, when we settle down, when we take a breath, when we let go of our agitations and distractions, something in us knows. And one strong element of practice is knowing what you know and letting it register and letting it be trusted and letting it influence who we are and how we are and what we do and how we relate.

[10:39]

And then the challenge becomes for us is both the pause. Our life is more like a continuing narrative. Our internal dialogue is more like a stream of thought, of feeling, of images. then snippets, and then silence, and then, you know, it flows from one thing to another. I remember in doing a poetry workshop, the person writing the workshop offered us a delightful exercise. And here was the exercise. You listen in on casual conversations as you're walking along. And you take a snippet. And I listened in and someone said to someone else, and then everybody laughed.

[11:56]

It's like, I don't know how your mind is, but my mind can barely resist filling in the before and after. Oh, there was a group of people and they were doing something. And then it It gave rise to a moment of mirth and happiness. And then everybody felt better. We love a story. It's very difficult for us to let something just be a discreet and independent, isolated event. There's something in us that's intrigued by that piece of information. And of course the marvelous thing about that workshop was that the poet was saying, and this can be quite literally a thing of beauty.

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It's not necessarily the consequence that we become entrenched, that we become adamant, that we become intolerant of other. The narrative we create can be held lightly and when it's held lightly and still appreciated it has a beauty in some ways we could say this is part of the aspiration of practice it's not saying be a completely different person don't have human traits don't have an emotional response Have all that and notice what happens when it comes up. Notice the difference between getting entrenched and adamant and letting it bubble up.

[14:11]

So it's something like reserving conclusion and judgment. And here's a poem by, as far as I know, our new poet laureate, William Mervin. He calls it a momentary creed, a creed, a believing and knowing, the consequence of knowing, believing. I believe in the ordinary day that is here, at this moment, and in me. I don't see it going its own way, and I never saw how it came here. It extends beyond whatever I might think, I know, and all that is real to me. It extends beyond whatever I think I know and all that is real to me. So another attribute of holding our knowing lightly is we don't know everything.

[15:32]

We know what we know. And it's a treasure. It can guide our life. It can help us enter the world with integrity and compassion and wisdom. But we don't know everything. It's a constant unfolding. we'll always, if we will allow ourselves, we're always in learning mode. It is the present that it bears away. Where has it gone when it has gone from me? There is no place I know outside today except for the unknown all around me. The only presence that appears to stay Everything that I call mine is lent to me. Even the way I believe the day for as long as it is here. Everything is lent to me.

[16:35]

Everything's provisional. I would reshape it a little bit. I would say, We know values. When we pay attention with a clarity and a subtleness, something in us resonates with the values of kindness, of generosity, of patience, of tolerance, of thoughtfulness. Something in us resonates with the values and the details, the facts, the conclusions, the incessant, wonderful human tendency to create a story, to create a narrative, we can hold it as a provisional truth. This is how it appears to me.

[17:38]

In that exercise in Davos, the psychologists called them tribes. So this is how it appears to me and this is how my tribe think about things. Do other tribes think about it this way? Maybe, maybe not. Will that push me into an entrenched way? Can something about my workings stay fluid, stay adaptive, stay responsive? As we start to settle, we can look in our own human life and our own responses. We can look at the difference between reactive and responsive.

[18:46]

It's significant. One has a malleability to it. One has an ongoing opportunity for new possibilities. New ways of being. And one has sharp edges to it. Ways in which we exclude each other. And in a strange way, often we exclude ourselves too. Certainly we tend to exclude our own knowing. And then into this wonderful, intriguing and perplexing and sometimes painful human condition, we can pause and we can say, now what?

[19:53]

Now at the turning of the earth, that the solstice has passed and the days are starting to lengthen and the nights grow shorter and the spring will arrive in a few months now what? knowing what I know even the narratives that I make up provisional as they are What is my intention for my life? This one precious fleeting existence interwoven with all other existence. And what is it to take it seriously? And what is it to hold it with resolve?

[20:55]

not as an inevitable act of becoming entrenched and adamant but as a path of exploration of discovery of adaptation of responsiveness what kind of intentions would that bring? knowing what I know about being alive and What do I have to say about my relationships? What intentions would I bring to them? What intentions do I bring to the work that I do with my life? What intentions do I bring to the person that I know myself to be? with the emotional and psychological traits that I have.

[21:59]

So from the perspective of awareness practice, these intentions and the resolution to enact them are a way to enter into a more full relationship with the life we're living. Not because we know the answer, but in fact to discover the answer. And not because the answer is the answer, but the answer is the answer of the occasion, of the relationship at that time. And then sometimes it brings forth a powerful question. Should I stay in this relationship? should I stay in this job? Should I stay living in this city? And then sometimes it brings up a different kind of question.

[23:09]

Should something about how I'm in this relationship, this job, this city, should something about that really be addressed? And should I focus on that is trying to bring a different quality of being to any one of these attributes. So this temple, this Zen center is called beginner's mind. So this is really what I'm talking about, is this mind of beginning again, of starting over. So I'd like to talk a little bit about the particulars of what it is to start over. You know, in a way, that's what I've been talking about is the enactment of it.

[24:19]

The natural complement to the enactment is discovering. best we can the noticing what's happening the acknowledging that that's what's happening and the experiencing of it and that has a relational and interpersonal relational dimension okay what's that in relationship to others and then it has a personal intrapersonal. The very same process that we go through with our tribe and our tribe in relationship to other tribes, however we constitute them. There's something similar going on inside of ourselves with the different aspects of who we are.

[25:22]

How does being your parent's child relate to being an autonomous person who's living their truth, making their way in the world? Do those two parts of you have a good relationship? Are they on speaking terms? Or are they bitter enemies? So we watch, you know, we watch each aspect of us as it arises. What's the world of being your parent's child? And who are you in that world? What kind of thoughts and feelings arise?

[26:30]

What kind of habituated responses come up? What kind of experiences draw you into that? And I think any of us who've read much of psychology or even just thought of it know that our parental figures often, some people would say always, play a role in how we're relating to significant people in our lives. Oh, just like my mother, just like my father. And here's how I feel about my mother, my father. You know, often as a Dharma teacher, you know, and then people come for one-on-one interviews, often I feel like how they're relating to me telling me a lot about how what the relationship with their father is sometimes with their mother but some people walk in with a deep expression of trust no and then some people walk in it's a deep wariness okay hmm I'm not so sure about you

[28:03]

Some with a sense of competition. Okay. Let's get down to it. Let's struggle. Let's see who's in charge here. Maybe some part of us thinks, well, isn't that all extraneous? Isn't that all getting in the way? No. That is the way. That is what we're going to talk about directly or indirectly. That is the substance of the relationship. It's not the aberration that prevents the relationship. And this is one of the challenges to learn when we're doing zazen, when we're practicing awareness. All this stuff happens and we think, well, how do I get rid of all this? and then really meditate. All of this is what you meditate on.

[29:17]

All of this is what you become aware of. What's happening now is an all-embracing question. It's quite different from what do I think from my entrenched adamant position should be happening now? And how do I assert a deep resolve that makes that happen? And then something in us experiences the sad fact that we can't quite pull it off. We can't quite make the world. We can't quite make the other person. We can't even make ourselves adhere to the agenda we've set up.

[30:19]

So the intention, the resolve, yes, it has an intention to it. But it's the intention of engagement. Okay. And then what will happen? My intention around my work is this and then I will see what happens. I will smile at everyone in my office and hug them each morning. And then you see what happens, you know? Maybe you become the most popular person in the office. Or maybe they all sort of like talk about you on the breaks, like, you know, there's something weird about that person. So that both within the exacting particular of zazen, of engaging the attributes of the self, something's just the same as engaging the particulars, the complexities of your world, of your life, of your relationships, of your job, whatever other dimension that you want to think of.

[31:56]

They're all conditioned. They are not under your control. And they won't be. It's an interconnected life. Even if you smile at them and hug them every day, they still go into other parts of their life where other people are not smiling at them and hugging them. And that influences who they are when they meet you. That's just how it is. Even though you bring a resolve to sit up straight, to let your body relax, to connect your breath, to stay open, to let your mind be fluid and appreciative, the other influences and factors and conditions of who you are come into play. And can they be noticed?

[32:57]

As Marilyn was saying, We can notice them to the degree we can notice them. We're not omniscient. We don't see everything. We see what we see. We hear what we hear. We notice what we notice. And that's what we can bring awareness to. Can this awareness have a quality, something closer to appreciation than this human tendency towards adamant resolve? So it's a delicate proposition.

[34:03]

You sit down and you intend to be present. You intend to stay in the here and now. You intend to let the thoughts, the feelings, the complexities of your psychological and emotional life just appear in this sphere of awareness. And it's experienced in the way it's experienced. Can it be accepted? Just as it is. Okay. This is my consciousness in this moment, in this spirit of Zazen. Okay, this is how my relationship with this person is right now. Right now, it's deep and warm.

[35:07]

Right now, we're a little estranged and having a hard time communicating. You can spend 40 years with someone and still have moments, maybe you have more moments after 40 years of feeling estranged and having a difficult time communicating. And just as the psychologist discovered in the experiment in Davos, It stirs our emotions. It's not a neutral event. We care about who we are. We care about the lives we're living. We care about the impact it has upon us. Maybe some part of us would like to think, well, I accept each person where they smile or frown. Most of the time, the smile strikes us

[36:08]

as more pleasant and the front strikes us as more unpleasant. So at the heart of awareness, something about accepting the world as it is. And then it seems like here's a great contradiction. Intention, resolve, sincere dedication and commitment, and just accept it the way it is. Seems like they're in contradiction. Well, if you're just accepting it the way it is, why would you even bother to kind of like have some intentionality other than that? Because the attention gives us a way to access, gives us a way in, gives us a way to move forward. We don't just sit still forever.

[37:14]

We get up and we interact. We enter the world. The sitting still teaches us something fundamental about the human condition. The getting up and the interacting teaches us how to live what we know, what we've learned from this human life. I would hope for myself and for each of us at this turning that we take ourselves seriously enough not to be adamant. That we take ourselves seriously enough to remember to know what we know. and to allow remembering to know, to be part of how we live our life.

[38:21]

We know kindness is a better strategy than aggression. How many times have you become adamantly aggressive and thought, that really helped the relationship? Not to say sometimes it doesn't play some role, but most of the time it's destructive. It's disconnecting. It creates stuckness, reactiveness. To remember to know what we know. And to remember to resolve to live it. And then to remember something about the playfulness, that we're making up this narrative.

[39:28]

Someone frimes at us and it's almost irresistible to make up a story. Sometimes we make up a story about ourselves, and sometimes we make up a story about them. That's why I was charmed when I was given that exercise, you know? Take a snippet of someone's conversation. Don't be rude. Don't listen to all the details. Just take the little snippet. And then everybody laughed. And just watch what your mind does with it. Actually, what the suggestion was, was take a number of snippets, jot them down, and then lay them out, disconnected as they were in the day.

[40:35]

But when you lay them down, they find a connection. something in the genius of the human mind. We're very good at making up stories. We're very good at connecting details, experiences. But it has so much to teach us when we hold it lightly. When they frightened me, I started to think this way. I started to have these kinds of feelings. I started to have this kind of judgment about them. That's the last time I'm going to give them a hug. My resolution has changed.

[41:38]

I'll smile and hug everybody except them. Can we hold those workings? Can we relate to them almost like, that was like a spontaneous poem of the moment. So Merwin's trying to get at the conclusion, the belief we make out of this marvelous, interactive, conditioned existence. The momentary belief, the momentary creed that we're all engaged in all the time. I believe in the ordinary day that is here at this moment and is me.

[42:45]

I do not seeing it I did not see it going its own way, but I never saw how it came to me. Do we see the beginning or end of anything? It extends beyond whatever I may think I know and all that is real to me. There's more going on than what I think. It is a present that it bears away where it has gone when it has gone from me. There is no place I know outside today except for all that's unknown to me. Sometimes as we notice our own creation, it's always like we get a sense of its own limitation. Oh, that's my opinion about that person. That's all my opinion about that person.

[43:46]

And there's all sorts of aspects of that person that are just not known to me. And yet, in this moment, my opinion of them is so impassioned. The only presence that appears to stay, everything that I call mine, is lent to me. The only presence that appears to stay is lent to me. Even the way I believe the day for as long as it's here. And it is me. This is all lent to me. It's a momentary proposition. by individual consciousness out of the great stream of interdependent existence.

[44:52]

And yet I have no option but to live the life I'm living. This is the great proposition of our human existence. Yes, it's entirely subjective, but it's what each of us has. 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. 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.

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