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. In case you're saying, that's not Rita Gross, you're right, it's not Rita Gross, it's me. Um... Rita Gross, who was scheduled to give the talk this morning, is feeling unwell. I'm not sure if she's going to do her workshop. She's not going to do her workshop this afternoon either. Anyway, I was asked to fill in, and so here I am. I will say this in honor of Rita. Unfortunately, we're not going to hear. A while back,

[01:01]

maybe 15 years, she wrote a seminal book called Buddhism After Patriarchy. And I thought, in reflecting on it, and in its time, it acknowledged that indeed, through a great mix of circumstances, Buddhism in the West has a great deal of that flavor to it. that it's not so implicitly or unexaminedly defined by patriarchy. I'm sure there are some people who still think there's too much leaning in that direction, but I think it's fair enough to say that it's not, it has shifted. And Rita wrote a wonderful book examining that. in a very insightful and candid way. And then I realized, as I was busy thinking, oh, I will talk about the five faculties of awakening, and then I thought, uh-oh, wait a minute, this is Valentine's Day.

[02:23]

And then that sent my mind in a whole other direction. I was thinking of love, intimacy, you know, and how... A while back, a student of mine was telling me how he'd given up on the notion of romantic love, that he would meet his soulmate, they would look into each other's eyes and realize they'd known each other from past lives and they were the perfect match, and they would get together and have a blissful, unendingly happy relationship. And he'd given up on that notion. And I thought, that's pretty good, he's not that old.

[03:28]

And he is indeed planning, I don't know if it will happen, but he's planning on an arranged marriage. Sort of. He does know the person he's planning on marrying and they have spent time together. In a very interesting way, the genesis of it was an arranged marriage. And I remember many years ago, 40 years ago actually, I was living in Japan. And I remember being astounded when someone told me that 80% of the marriages are arranged marriages. And I thought, well, obviously I didn't understand what he was trying to tell me.

[04:33]

My Japanese was terrible, and his English was good, especially in comparison to my Japanese, but not perfect. And I thought, I must have misunderstood that. He didn't say 80% of the marriages are arranged. And then we extended the conversation, and indeed, that's He said, yeah. The mothers get together. He went to Komazawa. He's got a job with Mitsubishi. She went to, I can't remember which college she should have gone to. She studied tea ceremony, far arranging, and he's 28, she's 23. What else is there to say? It's kind of perfect. And I remember at the time being incredulous.

[05:35]

Couldn't be. How could that work? How could that bring forth happiness, contentment, intimacy, love? And then much more recently, when my student was talking about this, and I was thinking about... You know, that Western, I would say, ideal. The ideal of romance. Somewhere out there is the perfect person. And when we meet each other, we will just fall into the bottomless love in their eyes and live happily ever after. And then here's what, before I deviated into that dangerous territory, that I certainly don't feel qualified, here's where my mind went then.

[07:02]

I thought, men should have arranged marriages and women should look for love. And I remember this piece I heard on a very informative show that I used to listen to called Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers. And maybe I'm revealing, you know, the inadequacy of being a male, you know, like that men would listen to a show that's about how to fix car problems. They are hilarious and ingenious in their responses. And this guy called up to talk about his relationship problem. You know, well, of course, who would you talk to about your, who would a man talk to about his relationship problem except two guys that fix cars? And that wasn't lost on him or them. And they said, and they said, okay, well, tell us the problem.

[08:05]

He says, here's the problem. I've been together with my partner for many years, and we'd been moving towards marriage. In a tender moment, she said to me, I love you. And he said, and I paused, was silent for a moment, and then I said, I should fix the rust on your car. And she was really upset. Could you guys help me with this? And one of them said, I totally get it, of course. She said, I love you. So you thought, well, okay then. I should take care of you. Well, what needs to be taken care of? The rust on your car. He said, I totally get it. What's the problem?

[09:06]

And in the strangeness of my mind, these two connected for me. Romantic, arranged, and the way in which, I would say, there's an innate yearning and an innate capacity within us deeply appreciate the intimacy of being. In some ways, this is what sparks us on the spiritual path. Sometimes, In Zen we say it's wisdom seeking wisdom.

[10:17]

And what is that deep appreciation when we hear something or see something that inspires us? How is it that we can access and relish the sacred? And I think in one way it's the upholding of that. That I, with this other person, can spark this capacity for both of us. Limited human beings that we are, with our own desires and aversions,

[11:22]

meeting in that way, stimulating that in each other, something beautiful is possible. And then I think in the arranged. And then when I had that experience in Japan, you know, I was utterly intrigued. How does that work? Do they just live a married life devoid of romance? Is it just the shell of practicality providing a utility of mutual functioning? And how it came across to me, I don't mean to say this in any definitive way, but how it came across to me was that there is the intimacy of repeated connectedness.

[12:45]

In the Japanese aesthetic, a term you may have heard of or may not, wabi-sabi, the patina, of being used repeatedly. So whether it's an object, a floor, a building, whatever, that it takes on a certain character, a certain... I'm looking for another word for patina and not finding it, but a certain patina that shows the depth of its repeated intimacy. You know, you look at a door handle and you see the metal is worn and you think, how many times that handle has been touched and turned?

[13:51]

That even the metal has been worn down by soft skin. Or you look at the steps going into a church. And there's the granite step worn through the centuries of the feet of the faithful. That way of repeatedly involving ourselves in the everyday stuff of life. And of walking with another person. Of connecting in that way. fixing the rust on the car. And of course, it would be a great discussion to have. It's either of these

[14:57]

perspective superior to the other? Maybe you should do this, David. Maybe you have, huh? Or do they have for each of us a... Are they complementary? that romance leads to the everyday intimacy and that the everyday intimacy leads to romance. And now, in a totally flagrant way, I'm going to pretend that connects to the Buddhist text I was going to talk about.

[16:00]

And I have to say that up front because I'm sure your mind's going to say, wait a minute, aren't you changing subjects? Here's my pretense that these are connected, is that in some ways this innate capacity for the sacred, this innate capacity for love, intimacy, You know, the Greeks coined four words for love. There's eros, that energetic charge that involves the passions of our being. And then there's one, I'm not quite sure how to pronounce this, correct me if you know, storge. the familial you know that what I would say which in many ways speaks of this everyday intimacy the familial and then philia that affinity with friendship that affinity

[17:27]

for all sorts of things. A bibelophile, someone who loves books, that kind of affinity. And then agape, that selfless love, where it's born of giving, it's born of open-heartedness. And I would say all of them have a nobility. All of those kinds of love have a nobility that we're all capable of. And I would go even further, be even more extravagant and say we all want to express something in us that aspires, yearns for each of those experiences to be

[18:30]

such a one, to be such a person, to access and engage being internally and with others and with the whole world that invites all of those into expression. And of course, having the wonderful material society we do, someone had to say, and how can we commercialize this? This would be a great way to sell a lot of Valentine's cards and chocolates and flowers and restaurant dinners and whatever else. workings of our world.

[19:38]

And I would say not so much for us to dismiss as corrupt or perverted, but more how do we engage it with insight? How do we not disregard the nobility of those four varieties of love? How do we not disregard the human aspiration, inclination, yearning for all four? Okay, now here's my fragrant leap into Dogen's bendowa. But it does translate as wholehearted. Wholehearted practice of the way. The way.

[20:42]

The way in which a human being, to use a 70s term, realizes their potential. The way in which each of us and all of us can feel fulfilled, expressed, wholehearted, dare we say, loved, intimate. So here's a translation of this piece of Vendama. This wholehearted practice of the way that I'm talking about allows all things to exist in enlightenment. Another thing, another translation is, allows all things to come forth in awareness so that they may be experienced as going beyond.

[22:01]

It's going beyond the path of letting go, of going beyond that life is just a matter of not getting stuck. Of course, not getting stuck in just being lost in what you want and lost in what you don't want. Lost in investing all your energy and time in your own self-preferences. All of these kinds of love are asking something more than that of us. This wholehearted practice of the way I'm talking about allows all things to exist in realization, allows all things to come forth in awareness and goes beyond just trying not to get stuck.

[23:17]

Passing through that barrier, passing through the barrier of getting stuck and dropping off limitations. And then the literal translation is this. How could you be hindered by nodes in bamboo and knots in wood? And what that illusion to the physical world is, that the node in the bamboo is like a blockage, or the knot in the wood is like a blockage. These things occur in our lives.

[24:17]

The woman says, I love you, and the man says, I should fix the rust on your car. How will those two people ever understand each other? How will they ever come to the realization they're talking about the same thing? or that in some ways those two statements are a wonderful complement? How will we, each one of us, see that life is always offering us an almost transcendent presence in whatever we're doing? And that also the practical utility of day-to-day living has its own deep familiarity and intimacy. That's how we know ourselves deeply. How do you know yourself deeply?

[25:18]

You watch yourself day by day. You pay attention and you pay attention and you start to see the patterns of your being, the ways you tend to think, the ways you tend to emote, the ways you move in the world, the priorities, the preferences of your being. And that within that, there will be moments of misunderstanding, disconnection. There will be moments of stuckness, where we lapse into But I want what I want. I want it to be my way. Why aren't you the way I want you to be? Why doesn't everybody see the world the way I see it?

[26:23]

Is that too much to ask? Well, yes. It is. how do we pass through that limitation, that barrier? This wholehearted practice of the way that I'm talking about allows all things to come forth into awareness and allows us to go beyond the ways in which we get stuck. When we break through that barrier and drop off its innate limitations, ways of the world are no longer just problems and difficulties. So that's Dogen's statement. And so in the past while I've been asking myself

[27:40]

What is it to bring that, you know, Buddhism and Zen as an adjunct of Buddhism has an extraordinary craft for engaging in this existence in a way that enables the very things that Dogen Zenji is talking about. And not to limit it to Buddhism, I think all the spiritual traditions of the world have their extraordinary teachings and methodologies. But Zen and Buddhism are the ones I know a little about. And just as Rita Gross today's scheduled speaker. He was talking about Buddhism after patriarchy. Buddhism has to rediscover itself in each new environment and culture.

[28:49]

It's so interesting, you know, that Soto Zen, this style of Zen, was brought here by Shinri Suzuki Roshi. And almost immediately, there was a shift away from patriarchy. And it wasn't even a big discussion. It's just how it was. It was the 60s, it was a shift in the whole culture. It was finding an intimate relationship to this society, this culture. This is always our challenge. How do we take a tradition that is so much inspired by renunciation, going off and living in the forest, discovering a solitary serenity in which the intimate workings of your being start to become evident?

[30:03]

And how can that inform living in a city with a smartphone in your pocket. And texting your friends, I don't know, how many times a day. Or hoping they text you. So one of the notions I came up with was the notion of intentional pause. Pause, experience, now what? Our human consciousness tends to get engulfed in the flow of experiencing. And then these kind of thoughtful, introspective, self-reflective notions that I've been talking about, they become elusive, they become invisible.

[31:21]

We're living out our personal conclusion. And often it's not so examined. How do we pause and in a thoughtful way ask ourselves, explore, experience what's going on? So one formula I conjured up Pause, experience, now what? Because we're always in this stream of the activity of our life. Even if we're totally by ourselves. Our mind leaps back into the narrative, the internal stream of consciousness that it's involved in.

[32:34]

And then when our pause slows down a little, pause, experience, allow. Allow yourself to have the experience you're already having. Let this moment express itself. Let the intimacy of this moment be felt. and touched and seen. In whatever we're doing. And hopefully over time, in all the ways we're doing, in all the ways we're being, in all the modes and facets of our doing in our life. How can they all be moments of discovering awareness? And then I wanted to read a poem called Pause by Naomi Shihabnai.

[33:42]

Pause. The boy needed to stop by the road. What pleasure to let the engine quit droning inside the long heat to feel where they were. Where they were, the grasses were thirsty, leaning sideways in the ditch. big blue stem, little barley, Texas cup grass, hairy crab grass, green spangled top. She could stop at a store selling only grass names and be happy. They would pause and pause would seep into them. Fence post, twisted wire, brick chimney without a house, pollen taking flight, towards the cities. Something would gather back into place. Take the word home, for example.

[34:47]

Often considered to have an address. How could it sweep across you miles beyond the last neat packages of ice and nothing be wider than its pulse? Out here, everywhere, the boy looking away the fields the pause creates its own world its own point of access and what comes into being is a revelation if we allow it to be In its own way, it's an act of love. You pause and you see the person you're talking to.

[35:56]

You let them be, in the pause, who they are, and not just something that your world is bouncing off. or not just an object in the world, the psychodrama of the world you're creating, playing an archetypical role. You pause and you discover the physicality of being. How this moment's emotion is reverberating through your body, deepening your breath, shortening your breath. You pause and you experience the intensity of this mental state. Is it letting

[37:06]

the stuckness that can so easily come forth, is it letting it dissipate and soften or is it tightening it with the urgency of what needs to happen in your life? So, as Naomi says in her poem, you know, in the moment of pause it goes everywhere from the names of grasses in a Texas ditch, you know, to the simple detail, tangled barbed wire, to looking out across spacious existence. There was a famous saying by a Zen teacher of a thousand years ago, Yunmin, and he said, every day is a good day.

[38:21]

I wonder what he'd say, every day is Valentine's Day. Every day, the four modes of love are available to respond to that. innate yearning, that innate facility to appreciate the quality of any moment. Such a poem, written about going on a long trip on a hot day, and a little boy wanting to stop so he can pee. You know? What's so great about that? What's so special about it? It's gonna take that much longer to get where they're going.

[39:31]

And apparently they're right in the middle of nowhere, and it's hot and dusty. But in the pause, a moment of love, a moment of intimacy. The boy needed to stop by the road. What pleasure to let the engine quit droning inside the long heat, to feel where they were. Where they were, the grasses were thirsty, leaning sideways in the ditch. Big blue stem, Little barley, Texas cup grass, hurry crab grass, green spangletop. She could stop at a store selling only grass names and be happy. They would pause and the pause would seep into them.

[40:35]

Fence post, twisted wire, brick chimney without its house, pollen taking flight towards the cities. something would gather back into place. Take the word home, for example. Often considered to have an address. How it could sweep across you miles beyond the last neat packages of ice and nothing be wider than its pulse. Out there, out here, everywhere, the boy looking away, across the fields. Every moment spacious, every moment in the language of Dogen Senji, going beyond the barrier of stuckness.

[41:40]

This wholehearted practice of the way I'm talking about allows all things to exist in realization. Allows all things to exist in realization. And be more than just escaping how you get stuck. They come alive. we come alive. Whether it's extraordinary or whether it's just the everyday intimacies of the utility of our life. Either way. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center.

[42:49]

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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