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. Good to see everyone. Thank you for being here. And I thank Zen Center for inviting me today to talk about these words I have thrown out into the world. So I thought, well first I'd like to welcome, are there any newcomers here today? Newcomers to Zen Center? Welcome. Welcome to the center and welcome to the beginning of your beginning. Thank you. Beginner Minds Tempo. So I'm going to try to adjust this.

[01:03]

It feels like it's... Yeah, squeeze it. Yeah, okay, because it's not quite fitting my ear. Okay, I think that'll work. So I thought we'd start out with something that we don't do much here at Zen Center, which is a guided meditation. And so I'd like us all to either you can close your eyes or you can have just gaze down to a point on the floor and just find a way in which you can gain an inner reflection and begin to turn into your own heart rather than to the object sitting before you. Yeah, you can come in, it's just a perfect time to do that.

[02:05]

Let's begin by breathing. And that breathing is breathing in. And when you breathe in, to push your belly out. So your inhale is pushing your belly out. Normally we kind of hold it in when we inhale. This time I ask you to breathe in and push the belly out. And when you exhale, allow the air to come through your chest. So we're breathing in, pushing that belly out. And then we're exhaling through the chest. And if you feel you want to let your ear make a sound, you can. It's not the Zendo right now. You can do that. Let your ear be heard if you feel that way. So we're trying to get the breath to be in the body, in your body.

[03:45]

And as you're breathing in and breathing out, you're coming home to your own heart. Come home to your heart and how your heart is right now. And what your body's doing right now. what you want it to do and what it isn't doing. Just breathe in and feel your feet and your legs and your torso and your chest. And breathing in, coming home to your own heart, where your own suffering is. coming to your own experience of what is often called suchness and the ultimate experience of true nature is this life and this breathing right now that we're doing.

[05:10]

Now I want you to Continue breathing and continue listening to me guide you into this body that has been gifted to you. This body you inherited. So you already have gotten your inheritance. Don't have to worry about it. It's not at the bank. You got it when you were born. What a beautiful thing. So breathe and accept this inheritance of nature that you are. How beautiful in the magnificence of it. And yes, this body and this experience between bodies sometimes doesn't feel good.

[06:25]

Sometimes it feels difficult and challenging to be in these bodies as who we are. Difficult to understand the things that come our way and what we must do. or what we must not do. So we still breathe into the preciousness of this gift and would it, the situations it gets us into. Our body, mind, and speech. So now I'd like to invite you to see this body, this embodiment, as your path, as your spiritual path, as your walk.

[07:30]

Not Buddha's walk, not your teacher's walk, not someone else's walk, your mother, your father, grandmother, grandfather, aunt, uncle. but your walk. That this body is the spiritual path. Living in this body is the spiritual path. And feel the tenseness of that maybe. And feel the fire of that as well. The fire that comes with it. The way in which it has brought us into this door, each and every one of us have walked in this door of Zen center with this fire. And no, we won't burn the center down.

[08:33]

Because it's a different kind of fire. It's not a destruction fire. It's a fire of regeneration, of renewal. a fire that is moving and evolving towards its water, towards the tranquility, the healing, transformation, and towards the earth that we walk on. This is the kind of fire, the one that does not burn everything away. The internal blue fire is our lives. So imagine awakening. Imagine awakening, not as a thing, but as this body, awakening just like you do every morning, but awakening to what this life is, how we are living together.

[09:41]

So imagine this body is the only way in which you can awaken. This is the path in which you're coming through, is this body and this body only. not Buddhas, not your teachers, nobody else's body but your own. So imagine this is it. No matter how many books you read, even if you memorize Dashaun or Wei Neng or any of those great teachers, that still this body is it. Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva, when deeply practicing prasnaparamita, clearly saw that all five aggregates were empty and thus relieved all suffering. Sariputra, form, does not.

[10:50]

Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form. goes further to say, no eyes, no ears, no tongue, no, no, no, no, nothing, but we have all these things. So what does it mean? This was my first encounter with the sutras at Zen Center, the Heart Sutra. And in studying the Heart Sutra, evolved my book, The Way of Tenderness. I would say this is my dissertation. I don't get a diploma or degree, but this is it. So imagine that spiritual awakening. You are already on the path. You were on the path before you came. You were on the path just because you were alive and in this body. And you were using this body to go through the awakening. What if in this body that you have is raced, sexualized, gendered, classed, and on and on?

[12:05]

What if that is the fire for this nation, for this community, the fire in which we become awake in our interrelationship, in our varied embodiments? in order to experience the boundlessness that we all know that exists already. The boundlessness is here. The oneness is already here. We cannot possess it. We cannot rise to it. We cannot own it. We cannot become it. We can only be in these bodies. And when we transcend, I would imagine most of us will be leaving the earth at that point when we transcend it. So if you like, you may breathe deep again and come into the room more, or you can continue listening in the way that you are.

[13:14]

Oneness is itself. We are not one in the sense of each other. We are one in the oneness. We are one in the oneness. We do not create diversity. It is already here, and therefore, when we speak of race, sexuality, and gender, we are speaking of the natural multiplicity of oneness, constructed or an illusion, or otherwise. When we ignore the systemic suffering and unacceptable differences between us, we ignore the oneness. So it's very difficult sometimes for us to see the multiplicity and oneness. We know it's there. We know it's there, and we are wearing it and walking with it. but yet we don't see that as our spiritual path.

[14:24]

It's not talked about. It's talked about that we're the same, that we're all the same. And yes, that is true, but we're not the same as well, right? So when the same comes up, it's not the same we are human, which we love to say it's just us. If we would say the sameness is that we all come from the same source of life. We all have the same core source of life. If we say that, then we include all living beings, not just humans. Because then if we just say, yeah, we're the same, us humans, then we're in trouble. Just us humans. So yes, we're the same, but not the same because we have a heart and blood and guts. We're the same because the source of life that's making us breathe right now, and I think everyone here is breathing right now.

[15:26]

That is it. That's the same. That's it. Not the same as other. Not the same as the multiplicity of the oneness. It's the multiplicity of it. So this book, The Way of Tenderness, my name, Zenju, was my ordination name. given to me by Zinke Blatch Hartman. And it means complete tenderness. And like I always tell everybody, that means you get the name that you are not. It's not your essence. It's what you have to work at. So I remember when I received the name, the whole room in the ordination hall went, oh. And I was... And I was like, oh, my God, you know, what a name. What a name to walk with. And I took on the name.

[16:28]

You don't have to take on your name in this practice. But I felt important for me to take on that name and to grow with it and see what it meant and why it was given to me and that it was my essence. And it's really not my name, that we all could be Zenjiu. because it's really just an essence. It's not a name in which I possess. It's an essence in which we all can have and all can practice with. And so when you meet me and I say Zenju, then you become Zenju too, and you begin your complete tenderness practice. So the way of tenderness evolved because I felt a lot of softening and tenderness within my practice, along with the rage and the anger. And I felt both of them were tender. Both of them was tenderness. So that there are different kinds of tenderness. And I began to explore that name, complete tenderness, and what it felt and what it meant, and what that practice would be.

[17:32]

And especially as someone who is embodied in the way that I am, that has experienced a great amount of harmful discrimination and a great amount of street violence as well, I look like I haven't been touched, but I have been hurt and abused and treated like a non-human being. I have been dehumanized, and yet I sit before you in a Zen robe to talk about it. And I think it's important to talk about that. And so the way of tenderness, the way I came to see it as... to embrace this notion of multiplicity and oneness, so that I could experience the oneness that already existed. I didn't wait for places to provide it for me, like Zen Center to provide it for me, or wait for my family to provide the oneness, or wait for wherever I went, please provide me with my oneness. I didn't wait for that.

[18:34]

I didn't at all. I went forward because I realized in my practice, in my meditation, that the oneness exists. whether we were ignorant of it or not, including myself when I say ignorant of that or not, that I could not see it, I could not feel it. And so that was, to me, the practice of the way of tenderness. The other part of that was body as nature. And I began to understand that this body and these bodies are nature. And I began to see that I didn't feel that way, that I felt that, you know, I don't want that tree, I want this tree. I don't want this nature, I want that nature. And that nature is just form, it is form. And that what was happening in the discrimination and the harmful acts was a distorted response to appearance, to suchness, a distorted response to suchness, the true nature and the ultimate being.

[19:40]

of appearance, that there was a distortion happening. And I was internalizing it as well. So I became it. I became those things that were being projected and suffered. And maybe you have suffered too, have internalized something that is harmful to you and taken it on as you. But we are nature. And we are form. And I talk about in the book that I believe that this is the only planet so far that has found form. And so we have a great fortunate experience here to be nature on this planet at this time. It might not last, but we're here right now at this time. So... In the book, I talk a lot about my experience, and I actually got a letter from someone saying that they were very sad about my experiences.

[20:45]

And that's not the purpose of why I shared my experience. And actually, as a Zen teacher, you're usually guided to kind of steer away from your own personal experiences. And the more I was guided away from that, it seemed like the more I would do it. And I just couldn't stop doing that, and I felt that the reason is not to garner support or sympathy, but rather to share how I came to knowing the way of tenderness. to share the teachings because there's no other way I could share it. And I did, and I do talk about the, you know, I love the Jewel Mirror Samadhi. I love that poem, and I love the Psalm Dokai. And I love these poems that were written to me that felt like, that to me felt like messages about the way of tenderness.

[21:50]

I just kind of connected it to my life. And so, I took it into my life and I share the experiences to ground the kind of abstractness of these teachings and to use my own experience because what is better than that? person of African descent, and we have great griots in our lineages, and griots are storytellers, so you always tell the story. And many Dharma centers tell stories instead of Dharma talks. They just kind of tell stories, and you learn from the story. So that's why my stories are in the book, so that you can learn from it, whether it's similar to you or so different from your own life, that there's something in there for you. This book was a scary book to write because I felt that I was going against everything that, you know, that I, in my mind, thought was being taught. And one was identity, because identity is rarely talked about.

[22:54]

And I felt nothing's wrong with identity. Nothing is wrong with it. In itself, identity. That what was wrong with it was the distortions put upon the identity. So we really like roses instead of daisies. Somebody brings you some little daisies, so you're kind of like, I was hoping for roses. Or, you know, if that's your flower, it's not mine. If that's your flower. Oh, it's falling off here. Okay. Okay. I'm getting direction from the back. Clothes and technology. Okay, is that okay? All right. So the... I feel like maybe once I walked in the door and I heard the Heart Sutra that this book began.

[23:55]

How could there be no eyes, no ears, no nose, no... What? But at the same time, I felt such peace in hearing it and knowing it. I felt completely peaceful, and I ran... out and ask the Tonto head of practice, tell me what it means, tell me what it means. And can I get a copy? And they're like, no, no copy. You don't get a copy. And you just, you know, sit with it. So since 2001, I've been sitting with it until now. And that was a great guidance. And to understand that the no means in the no eyes, no ears, no mouth, no tongue, no taste, no smell, that in that sutra is directing us to compassion. That is literally directing us to the essence of Avalokites Vara Bodhisattva or Kwan Yin, if you know Kwan Yin.

[24:59]

So directing us to compassion given we have to be embodied. You know, and that It's not no and zero, it's no in and of itself. You cannot smell the dinner unless they're cooking it. So not in and of itself, there's no smell by itself. There's no self in and of itself, not there's no self. Many of us come here to become, I was talking to my partner and talking on a webinar about this, but the no self, we try to be that big S self. We come like, I'm going to turn into that one. I'm going to turn into Buddha. I am going to awaken. And we want to be the big S self. And lo and behold, you can't become it. Thank goodness. Thank goodness. We can't become it. We can experience it, recognize it, know it.

[26:03]

Once we become it, we're the little self again. So there's really no way out of this. Unless you're leaving, and some people do leave, right? Some people do leave. They take their lives. They take their lives because they don't know to breathe and continue and wait and wait and wait for the next moment. Young people taking their lives. So we live in a very interesting world right now where there's many, many killings and murders and just outrageous and many movements, Black Lives Matter and other movements associated with that. And I think how wonderful, how wonderful that we are burning up. Wow, we are on fire. Because we can't get to the water without the fire. We have to burn up to the ashes.

[27:06]

And then the water comes with the ashes and makes the earth, right? Elementally. That's true. So I'm really glad we're burning up. And this practice, Zen practice, is about cooking. So I've been cooked a lot. I have boiled. I have cried and screamed in the boiling. I have suffered in the practice and in the world So I wanted to maybe read one little section, and then I wanted to maybe, there'll be questions and answers afterwards in the lounge, but I also wanted to just read a little something to you. The body, distinct in its appearance and character, is the location of awakened experience. It's not out there. It's not gonna happen outside of you. And your teacher's not gonna give it to you.

[28:09]

Your mother can't give it to you, your father, your grandmother, nobody can give it to you. The distinct, the body distinct in its appearance and character is the location of awakened experience. We must acknowledge the relevancy of our lived experience. even within the absoluteness of our being, beyond our material embodiment. So we all know about, maybe some know about the two truths, the relevant and the absolute, or the conventional and the unconventional. But we rarely specify that, and in this book I'm specifying the relative. It's where sexuality and gender and class, you know, ability, physical ability. So we must acknowledge the relevancy of our lived experience, even within the absoluteness of our being, beyond our material embodiment.

[29:12]

So we really enjoy the thought of absolute. Oh, yeah. Feels good. And we really enjoy, notice I said the thought of absoluteness. And we love the thought of non-duality. Oh yes, I like that. I like the non-duality. That sounds right. That sounds where we should be, like where we should be. However, there is still duality. There is still relevancy. So there's still relevancy with the Absolute, they're interrelated, and there's still duality with the non-duality, and they're interrelated. So some of us are moving about, and if I become a good Buddhist, I must be non-dual. I must not really talk about race, sexuality, and just see myself as a human being. Well, then you've left off a whole half of the practice, which is the duality.

[30:17]

So non-duality is not superior over duality, and duality is not inferior. And some of the core teachings in this book is talking about the ways in which we make particular things in our life inferior and superior. And in that practice, we have a habit we have. We leave ourselves out of this life. We leave ourselves out of our interrelationship that we're developing here right in this moment. Right here in this moment, you're about to miss it. The oneness, you're about to miss the absoluteness if you're ignoring the duality. in the relevancy of our lives as embodied. So this book just simply invites you to explore the nature of embodiment within a boundless life, to let go of trying to reach onto this boundlessness and ignoring that we're really embodied so that when one needs to bring up their experience of how they are, you know, how they are embodied and how that brings suffering to them,

[31:28]

So when they're breathing in and breathing out and coming home, there it is. There's that suffering. So we must talk about it. We must explore it, share it with each other as Sangha and share it with our teachers or share it with our spiritual companions. Without that, we have an abstract, unsustainable practice, grounded in nothing, grounded in books, grounded in thoughts. spiritual thinking, our thoughts too. So, same thing. So I want to take one question, looking at the eno. One question or two to see if we have enough time. Yes, just before, in case somebody can't come to the after. Are there any questions about what I've said so far? Yes. So from what I gathered from what you said is that we have to suffer in order to not suffer. No, I never. Yeah.

[32:29]

No, you don't have to suffer, you know. There is an end to suffering. But you have to go through the fire of suffering. You can't go around it. So basically I'm speaking against spiritual bypass, some people call that. You can't go around it. You can't go around the suffering. So basically what I'm talking about is you have to go through the material of in order to get through this, to get to the awakening. And you don't know what the awakening is either. So you don't have to suffer. There are some times you already know how to prevent your own suffering. You know to feed yourself when you're hungry, if you can. And there are some people who are hungry who can't feed themselves, and then that becomes their fire.

[33:32]

So it's different for different people. So no, you don't have to suffer. But there is suffering, right? So I am speaking to kind of avoid the spiritual bypassing where we have the answers spiritually that we've read in books or that a teacher has said. And I must say that another reason why I put my experiences in here is because I wanted people to see how I came to the teachings that I'm presenting, that I lived the question, and I have some of those questions in here. I lived these questions, and then through living the questions, I was awakened to something, and that is... rather than just kind of saying what my teacher said or what I read. You know, what you might start out with, that's okay. But in the end, it is your own wisdom that will carry you and sustain your practice.

[34:39]

It is your own wisdom that comes through your own body, in your own life, your own lived life. And there's no wrong way, you know, or right way necessarily. There's just a way, there's just a Buddha way. There is the nature way. One more question. Another question? Yes. In relation to Black Lives Matter, is going through the fire the ultimate feeling? It can be, but not for everyone. For me, going through the fire has been because I had a practice that helped me to explore the nature of my life. And so I'm grateful for that. The Zen Buddhist practice, also my Nishwem practice I had before. So there's no way out of the fire for any of us.

[35:44]

But I think it's wonderful that there's a movement for Black Lives Matter and to begin to see what that means for everyone. including black people. So it's for everyone. You know, what does it mean and what is happening? So not answer the questions in our minds. We definitely can have a very wonderful and critical analysis, which I believe in, and have done some of that in the book. And we have done it for many, many years. And we have some wonderful teachers Bell Hooks, Angela Davis, and these wonderful teachers that have taught us a lot about oppression. So I wouldn't turn away from that, you know, but to include that in understanding. But eventually it would have to come through one's life to understand even the critical analysis. Because otherwise it just becomes talk and then you find yourself talking but not walking it.

[36:45]

So walk Black Lives Matter, just walk it. And see how far it goes and what does it mean for you beyond what it's been written about it. You know, so there's things been written about it. But for you in your life as you're walking that, what does black lives matter mean? You know, how does it come up in your life? And being honest with yourself and saying whether it pisses you off or whether it brings peace. You know, and just being with that and sitting with that. And you could sit with it for months. Okay, this is a book from 14 years of sitting. You know, more, really, because I started more sitting, because Nishin, if I include my Nishin practice, I'm talking at least 29 years of sitting practice. So, takes a long time to explore. Not solve. You know, we're often trying to solve and fix. And that has not been my journey, to solve and fix. When I entered Zen Center, I was fortunate enough to enter in the People of Color Sanctuary.

[38:11]

And it was wonderful. But when I wanted to begin to practice deeper, I go to Tassajara and do some practice periods here. I talk about that in the book. It was like I had to leap across a river. And I tried leaping, and I felt like I kind of fell in the middle of the river on my way because I felt like I lost home, and then there was no home ahead of me. So I felt a little bit lost in that. And once I actually swam across and I got further into the Sangha and began to practice here at San Francisco Zen Center, I was able to stay with, how could I stay with my call to walk the Dharma and to learn the Dharma teachings while... all that was happening to me, a lot of harmful things happening in the midst of this practice in the Sangha, you know, being hurt and feeling, oh, my God, I should go.

[39:15]

You know, I always tell myself the door is not locked. The door is not locked. But I stayed. And I think I persevered because I was called to these teachings long before I entered Zen Center. Probably long before I was born. Because when I heard about Buddhism, I said, that's what God was talking about. That was it. Because I would hear the preachers and I loved what they say. I love church. And I would listen. And I loved reading the Bible. But I was interested in what this life was. And so when I got to Buddhism, it felt like, ooh, this is what I always do. And so I stayed with being a monk and practicing. And when it was needed, I did speak up and speak out about the pain and the suffering. And I wondered, was this practice able to, I tested it, was this practice able to hold my experience, my life,

[40:16]

I tested it. And the more I practiced, the logs kept getting, and more logs kept getting on the fire, you know, more and more. And I looked at that as that I wasn't going to get burned up. And if it felt complete, I always allow, if it felt completely like I was in the wrong place, then that meant I would have to go. But I didn't. I didn't go on. I'm surprised. Sometimes, like, you know, I said, especially every step I would get to, I'd be like, really? You're still here? You know? And I can see the, like, you know, there's no gaining, right, in this practice. You want to gain something. I want to not feel this way. But I noticed that what I was feeling here is what I feel in the world anyway. So I might as well work it out right here. while we're sitting, while people are studying the same teachings, you know, to sit with those, and that way we could say, we could have the conversation in a context of teachings, which I didn't have in the world.

[41:28]

And so that's why. So I'm going to end now, and definitely we can continue this dialogue. I really like questions much better than just talking on. And so I invite you to continue breathing and to stay with your hearts and return home to your suffering. Every time you're out here, return home to your suffering. Thank you. 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.

[42:20]

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