This podcast is offered by San Francisco's Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. So greetings again on this MLK weekend. As some of you may know from past years, it's tradition that on the talk on this weekend, we do dedicate, acknowledge... it to Martin Luther King Jr. 's work, legacy, and the way that he continues to support beings in the world. Today, I wanted to reflect on one particular aspect of Dr. King's path. I mean, you could basically take a bunch of just Buddhist terms, tenets, bodhisattvas, put them in a, you know, a hat and just draw different Buddhist language that could describe his efforts, but I wanted to focus on one quality that quietly sustained everything he did.

[01:05]

So in Buddhism, there's a set of practices called the paramitas, qualities that sustain a life of care. One of them is virya, which is often translated to energy, effort or diligence. I've been particularly in preparing for this talk and studying the Paramitas influenced by one of our past abbots, Norman Fisher's book called The World Could Be Otherwise. And I really am appreciating that title at this day and time. There's one copy left in the bookstore. So if, you know, I'm hoping that I at least inspire one person to check it out. But in his book, he frames Viria as joyful effort. And so that's what I wanted to bring forth today. And joyful effort arises when love, vision, and direction are strong enough to keep going without collapse or hardening.

[02:10]

And one of the reasons I like the way that Norman lays it out is for each parmita, he kind of outlines them. in a very helpful way, telling us what it isn't. But also, especially with this, giving some detail to the desire that helps drive us, the vow that helps direct us, and the integrity that helps align us. So I'll be using that framework kind of as a guide and then letting MLK walk us through it And of course, we all know he wasn't a Buddhist, and I'm not trying to lay things out that way. But when I looked at this teaching, I really recognized something deeply familiar. So today, I won't be as much of a memorial in the sense of looking backward. I think of MLK Day, and I'm trying to push that off on y'all, as more of a day of renewal.

[03:17]

almost like a New Year's Day for effort. Perhaps a moment where we ask together, what does it mean to begin again in the direction of something larger than ourselves? When I look at Dr. King's life through this lens, like I said, I recognize something very familiar. And for me, that's a love that kept showing up again and again. And so I want to offer a particular definition. on the outset, and that is that joyful effort is a love that keeps showing up. And what I want to trace this morning is not a list of qualities, but a single movement on how love becomes effort, how effort stays human, and how it's sustained over time. And of course, there'll be many definitions in... the ways that Buddhist language evolved over the years and mix up of translations, I wanted to start with just talking about the word love.

[04:21]

So the way that I'm holding it today is that love is not just a feeling or affection or sentiment. It's the kind of love that depends not on being inspired or liked or rewarded, But this type of love is pointing more towards commitment. Love as willingness to stay in relationship with people and with the world, even when it's difficult or when it costs us something. So when the inspiration fades, when hype wears off, our willpower that's fueled by anxiety runs out, joyful effort is what remains. It's what's left when the moment becomes ordinary, and yet we choose to stay. And I also wanted to mention something about joyful here, because when I first heard it and was thinking about it for this talk, I'm like, oh, that's kind of confusing, especially since we're talking about injustice, suffering, and real harm.

[05:32]

So joyful in this context, or joyful effort, doesn't mean that what we're facing is pleasant, or that everything feels good. I'm often held and supported by a teaching that my dear teacher, Rinso Ed Sarazan, put on the back of my rakasu, which is the little bibs you see people wearing. And it's usually a teaching message or emphasis. And on the back of mine, it's referring to a koan that every day is a good day. And it doesn't mean that every day is easy or agreeable. We know that that's not how it is. But each day, exactly as it is, is workable. It is complete in itself and intimately connected with everything else. So joyful effort names the quality of showing up without adding resistance, bitterness, or collapse.

[06:34]

It's meeting the day fully, even when the day is hard. So in that sense, the joy that we're talking about isn't a mood. It's more a willingness to stay in relationship as it is. Norman describes Virya. as an energy that is not mechanical or forced. And I think, or at least for me, waking up, getting out of the bed, making my daughter's lunch, a lot of these things that I do day in and day out feel somewhat mechanical or can feel forced. And I'm sure residents here feel that way, sometimes getting up for zazen. But Norman used an image of these Japanese knockdown dolls, usually seen as Bodhidharma. I knew I had to bring it in because if I just referenced it, I didn't know if people would know what that is. And I hope the online folks can see it. But when you knock them over, they pop right back up. Not because they didn't, ooh, I got them to sit on the side.

[07:37]

I have mystical powers on this seat, I guess. But not because they deny the fall, but because, okay, this guy. Times are hard. Times are hard right now. But because the energy of being knocked down becomes the energy of getting back up. It's one motion. Getting knocked down is already getting back up. And when you look at Dr. King's life, you see many moments that he practiced this. Meeting after meeting, speech after speech, march after march, jail cell after jail cell, setback after setback, and then returning. LAUGHTER King quotes this, or I'm going to quote King. He names this very plainly. He says, human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and persistent work of dedicated individuals. I don't know if he meant to say like never rolls in, tireless, anyways.

[08:41]

But that in a nutshell is joyful effort. And in this sense, tireless doesn't mean superhuman, even though when I... watch his work, I'm like, wow. But it really just means not giving up on the direction of your life. So if joyful effort is the love that keeps showing up, then a question that's natural to ask is, how do we see clearly enough to keep showing up without burning out or giving up? Again, how do we see clearly enough to keep showing up without burning out or giving up? And in the book, Norman talks about binocular vision. I don't know if you all have heard him talk about this before, but you can kind of look at it as the absolute and the relative in that same realm. But he says that bodhisattva path requires this binocular vision, seeing with two eyes, one eye that sees the world exactly as it is, full of injustice, suffering, harm, backlash,

[09:47]

limitation with no denial. The other eye sees the world as something else at the same time, human dignity, possibility, connection, the sense that the world doesn't have to always remain as it is. With one eye open, we lose depth of perception. We either drift into idealism or we can sink into despair. With two eyes, we can stand in reality without surrendering our imagination. So Dr. King clearly had this binocular vision. He was not naive at all. He didn't ignore violence or hatred. And he also refused to let the horizon of possibility collapse. There's a line where he puts this quite clearly. We must accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope. So finite disappointment in the foreground, infinite hope in the background.

[10:54]

And I think this will be an appropriate time to say something about hope, since that is another one of those words that I don't know if we quite translated right. But hope does not have to mean, and I'm going to speak about hope several times. I think it's a very... It's at the basis of this joyful effort. But it doesn't mean clinging to outcomes. King's hope was not optimism. It was discipline. It was interesting this morning in the Buddha Hall, we had a service dedicated to his memory and legacy. And during it, we played the I Have a Dream speech, which I think is a typical sentiment that gets brought up. But it was interesting because in contrast, when I was preparing this, I found an interview of him. And there was a later moment in his life where he reflected on the I Have a Dream speech.

[11:57]

And he speaks very honestly about how his relationship to that language had changed. And I felt it's also, again, very apropos for this time and day. So he said, I'm going to confess that I'm going to confess that the dream that I had that day has in many points turned into a nightmare. Now I'm not one to lose hope. I keep on hoping and I still have faith in the future, but I've had to analyze many things over the last few years. And I would say over the last few months, I've gone through a lot of soul searching and agonizing moments. And I've come to see that what we have is many more difficult days ahead. And that some of the old optimism was a little superficial. And now it must be tampered with solid realism.

[13:00]

I think the realistic fact is that we still have a long, long way to go. So I hear a lot of truth in that still. obviously. And what I also hear in that is not a loss of hope. It's the deepening of it. King doesn't abandon faith in the future, but he also refuses to let the faith float above reality. And I think that's really important. He lets optimism be tampered with realism, not to weaken the work, but to strengthen it. And so this is a very mature version of joyful effort. where the vision is still there, but it's closer to the ground. It knows things will cost more, it knows the road will be longer, and yet it keeps going anyway. So this is binocular vision in motion, one eye holding possibility and the other fully open to difficulty without canceling each other out.

[14:04]

It was the willingness to keep acting in the direction of love, even when results are uncertain. So, of course, a joyful effort is about staying. And then we also have to talk about what pulls us away. And as I mentioned, Norman was very direct here. He says joyful effort is not or is often defined by what it's not. Excuse me. So I wanted to say something about laziness. And of course, we all know laziness means lying on the couch eating Doritos. But this is really important. It can also look like constant motion, busyness, distraction, overwork, and really importantly, anything that keeps us from facing what we need to face.

[15:10]

So I really felt that was an important way to hold laziness because I'm... often someone who can get into those other things and think that it means progress or functioning. Now, there's a specific form of laziness that I wanted to uplift today, and that's cynicism, which often can be masked as sounding kind of intelligent or together. You know, it may say nothing really changes or that's just how people are or it's too late anyway. Sometimes I think it comes forth because of unprocessed grief, sometimes because of exhaustion or just because of the fear that we hope and then we get disappointed again. So one way we quietly give up is by telling ourselves that we're just being realistic. Dr. King pushed back on this directly. He reminded us that progress does not arrive on its own.

[16:12]

It has to be practiced into being. So again, MLK Day sometimes can be a day of safe quotes and softening edges. That's one risk. Another risk is that we feel inspired for a moment and then return to the same habits and call that realism. And I kind of sense that in a little uptick of social justice that we had some years ago. And then things try to return to realism. So again, I'd rather see this day as a renewal of effort, not strain, not pressure, just recommitment. Very much similar to our bodhisattva ceremonies, our full moon ceremonies that we have monthly, a way to recommit. There's a quote that I love that my teacher often does say, which I think speaks to this. Suzuki Roshi says, just to be sincere and make our full effort in each moment is enough.

[17:15]

So it's not perfect effort, but it is full effort, and the effort that actually fits in the moment that you're in. You might notice when your care has gone quiet, not because it's gone, but perhaps just because it's tired. So once we see what drains effort, next we can ask a very practical question. How do we actually sustain this joyful effort? And this isn't in the sense of theory, but more so in our bodies, our schedules, and our ordinary days. Something that I kind of contrast to the movements that happened back then and kind of the way that activism is happening now is that in the... civil rights movement, similar to our practice, they had forums, they had trainings, meetings, songs or chants, discipline and shared practices, which sometimes I feel is missing today.

[18:22]

You know, like we all go out, I went out with my daughter, had the no kings, but it, you know, it felt like a flare that then just returned to less coordination or less action. And these forums, like our forums, hold people when fear and fatigue show up. They don't restrict us, but support us and help liberate us. One of the great misunderstandings about effort, both in a spiritual sense and also a societal sense, is that we tend to think it means push harder. Both King and Norman point to something more subtle, that effort adapts without abandoning its direction. So I wanted to talk a little bit about joyful effort in all conditions. And one current example, so we're not just referencing the past. I know probably the whole room here has seen the news recently with monks quietly pilgriming across the country.

[19:29]

I think they started in Texas and then going to DC. I could be wrong. You can let me know later. but they have no signs. They have chants, but no chants that are aimed at opposition or opponents. No policy demands. Just walking for peace. And, you know, I went and tried to watch the sources, a bunch of different sources, because what was really special to me, you know, that part of the country, the kind of south, southeast, I don't think there's a lot of Buddhism. I mean, obviously they're from Texas, but... to hear how they were impacting people was just incredible. You know, people really like, all right, they tell us just to breathe in and we breathe out and having their kind of first moments with mindfulness. But people stopped. They turned towards them, not because they were being persuaded, but because something in that steady embodiment of effort invited attention.

[20:31]

And I really feel that's no different from a very... embodied way of this joyful effort. It was very interesting coming down here this morning. I am quite captivated by how sunlight appears in the different windows and spaces you can see here on the bowing mat. And that too very much reminded me of this joyful effort, this presence that just is there. So that's joyful effort, not dramatic, not loud, not optimized for impact, just present repetition with integrity again and again. So of course, this is the same quality I see, not just in MLK's speeches, but in how he kept adjusting his effort without abandoning Val. So joyful effort is not a... kind of maximum output, it's an appropriate effort.

[21:33]

And one of the things we need to do is to learn how to modulate energy without abandoning our direction. For me, again, that's a huge practice. And knowing also that effort takes different forms. It could look like action, getting out there, but sometimes it could look like rest. It could also look like stepping back so someone else can step forward. It's important to know that joyful effort is not more. It's true. And what I mean by that is effort needs to match your life as it actually is, not as you think it should be. So if effort is sustained over time, it has to be fed, aimed, and aligned. And so like I said in the beginning, the way that Norman kind of broke down his chapter was talking about desire as fuel, vow as direction, and integrity as alignment. So desire is what's fueling the effort. And I know that in Buddhism, like when I talk with students or Q&A, it's always like, am I not supposed to have any desires?

[22:40]

In Mahayana Buddhism, desire is not a race. perhaps recognized and transformed. There's a type of desire that shrinks us, and there's a desire that expands us. I think that's maybe an easier way to hold it. And Dr. King's work was fueled by desire for dignity, fairness, beloved community, and that type of desire ends up being compassion in motion. The next aspect is vow, which gives us a direction. knowing that vow is not a checkbox, although it can feel that way sometimes. But vow is also something that you don't finish. It's something that you live inside. I want to take a moment to... I don't know where they're at in the room. We have two folks. Maybe they're not in here. Maybe they're sitting. Lauren and Michael, who will be taking the great binoculars and receiving... priest robes later this afternoon here in this Buddha hall.

[23:44]

So bow to them. They're downstairs sitting zazen. But when we hear the word vow, it can sound abstract or kind of religious, like a promise that you either break or you keep. The way that I've been taught or come to understand it is a little bit more simple and practical. A vow is a direction that you choose to orient to. even when the path is hard, when you're tired, even when you don't know how things will turn out. Dr. King's vow to nonviolence was not passive, and it certainly wasn't just sentimental. He was very clear about that. He described nonviolence as one of the most potent weapons available to oppress people in their struggle for freedom. So when he... called nonviolence a weapon. He wasn't talking about force or domination. He was naming discipline.

[24:45]

He was saying that this is a way of acting that requires training, restraint, courage, and repetition, which I do believe all vows require to keep or to walk towards. And nonviolence wasn't something that he believed in abstractly. It was something he committed to practicing again and again, again in the speeches, in the marches, the jail cells, the moments of deep personal risk. This can be seen as directional effort. Once the direction is chosen, the question isn't, do I feel like this today? The question becomes, how do I take the next step in this direction, given the conditions I'm in right now? Again, remember, it's where you're at. In Zen, we take our vows and we know that we can't complete them, not to set ourselves up for a sort of failure, but to give our life a compass. Not trying to achieve the vow, we're practicing let it shape how we respond, how we speak, how we act, and how we return when we fall short.

[26:00]

King's vow to nonviolence worked exactly in this way. It didn't guarantee success. It didn't prevent suffering. We know that. But it did keep his effort aligned. And it kept the work from collapsing into retaliation, despair, or reactivity. The vow held the direction even when the road was unclear. So I'm going to take a quick drink here and let you ponder for a moment on what direction are you willing to commit to practicing, especially on the days when results aren't visible. So next on that list is integrity, which is important. And really that's when life stops arguing with itself. Integrity in most senses means some aspect of wholeness and alignment.

[27:03]

When we're divided, saying one thing and doing another, energy leaks everywhere. I mashed up a whole bunch of definitions that I like about integrity, so here it is. Integrity is when your inner commitments and your outer actions are no longer at odds. When you no longer have to manage different versions of yourself. when your choices make sense to your own heart and when your actions don't leave you feeling divided afterward. And again, not because, again, everything's resolved, but because nothing is hidden from practice. And this is very much similar to our practice of Zazen, I feel. The next part is courage, which is some of what all this cultivates. And that really allows us to stay human in the presence of fear. Courage in this sense isn't just as we tend to think of it as fearlessness, but it's more so relationship with fear. King, as we know, faced real danger, but he also practiced a quieter, more demanding kind of courage, the courage of staying human.

[28:13]

The courage of refusing to let fear, anger, or threat return him into the very thing he was resisting. And again, it's one of those things I feel is a slippery slope nowadays. One of the ways that I think fear shows up in our time is through polarization. And we see how quickly people are reduced to labels, how easily disagreement turns into dismissal, how fast we move from critique to cancellation, from accountability to vengeance. And it's a cycle at play where harm is answered with more harm, exclusion with more exclusion, and certainty replaces curiosity. And again, I'm out there with the F this person sign, but really I hope that we can collectively study that and really see if that's just cultivating more anger or more of this moving from accountability to vengeance.

[29:20]

And King understood that this kind of cycle might feel satisfying in the short term, which I really do feel when I get enraged, but it corrodes something essential, and that is it hardens us. It shrinks our capacity to listen, to repair, to imagine transformation. Nonviolence for him wasn't just about tactics. It was about refusing to let the struggle strip him or the movement or humanity. So when we talk about courage here, we're talking about bravery in the face of danger. We're talking about the courage to stay in relationship, the courage to resist becoming reactive, vindictive, or performative. That's another one. It's really the courage to hold people accountable. We do need to do that, but without turning them into disposable objects. That kind of courage is not loud.

[30:22]

It doesn't get much applause, but it's a form of joyful effort, an effort that we keep choosing humanity even when fear is pushing us to do otherwise. So another question before I go into the home stretch. Where do you notice the pull to harden or polarize? And what would it mean in that moment to practice the courage of staying human? So I said I'd tie back to hope, which I am now. Again, this isn't the belief that things will turn out well. It's more so refusing to let the future close. King said that the arc, and many people have heard this, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. So I want to be clear what... About hope, I don't mean. Hope is not grasping to a particular future.

[31:24]

It's not insisting that things turn out a certain way or clinging to an outcome so that we can feel reassured. That kind of hope actually collapses pretty quickly if things don't go as planned. Dr. King points to something much sturdier, and it's the practice of staying open. Open to possibility, open to transformation, open to the fact that the next moment is not yet written. So in a sense, hope is relational. It lives in relationship with our vow. We don't hope instead of acting. We hope because we've committed ourself to a direction. So this kind of hope doesn't ask, will this work or will this work out the way I want? But can I stay present and in responsive to what's unfolding without closing my heart? So I think that's why King spoke of infinite hope. His hope wasn't based on guarantees.

[32:26]

It was grounded in commitment. So hope, as I'm using it here, is not passive waiting. It's the inner posture, kind of like the source that allows us to keep practicing our vow without becoming rigid, cynical, or despairing. So an important point, and you often hear this kind of rug pulling in Zen, but it's important for me to say that joyful effort is empty of joyful effort. And then joyful effort isn't something that you possess. I know I like read the book and I kind of get hyped up, but it's not a badge. It's not a standard for you to measure yourself against. Suzuki Roshi said, and put it very simply, So your effort should be directed at nothing. Which means don't become someone special. Don't turn effort into self-judgment.

[33:27]

Practice because practice is life. So on this MLK Day weekend, I'll leave you with this. Joyful effort is a love that keeps showing up again and again and again. And the question is not am I doing enough, but it's how can I keep showing up without hardening my heart? So maybe on this MLK Day, what it asks for us is not admiration, but participation, not inspiration alone, but renewal. 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 sfcc.org and click Giving.

[34:30]

May we all fully enjoy the Dharma.

[34:33]

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