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. Hello, everyone. I'm not assuming we're all in the same time zone. So saying good evening is risky. But anyway, it's good evening here. And I want to thank Nancy Petrin, our Tonto or head of practice for inviting me to speak tonight. I also want to thank Cotto Di'ino for this introduction. And I'd like to thank the Zoom host behind the scenes, Matt Nichols. And I want to thank all of you for participating in this talk tonight. And it wouldn't happen without you.

[01:03]

So we're co-creating this event. So I've been giving a lot of thought to what connects us in this time of the COVID-19 pandemic, when so many of us have been practicing social or I like to call it physical distancing for nearly a year. what connects us to one another, whether we live alone with family or friends, or as some of us do in a community, in this community, it's a center. You know, one response might be, well, the internet connects us. But I think there's more than the internet and some of our Buddhist teachings and practices that help us to connect. beyond our own walls to our loved ones, our city, our country, and the planet.

[02:06]

And another question I'll reflect on is, what enables us to enact our bodhisattva vow, the vow to live and be lived for the benefit of all beings in this time of limited, ability to actually be together physically. So the theme of my talk tonight is harmonious activity. Another word for it is cooperation. Looking at the mind or the heart-mind, since mind and heart are so connected, the heart-mind and the actions that enable us to connect with each other. for the common good. I will be referring to some teachings of the Buddha and of our Zen ancestor, A.K. Dogen, as well as some lessons we can learn from trees and some daily practices that foster cooperation between individuals in communities and in our world.

[03:20]

So I'll start with the Buddha. Over 2,500 years ago, he taught about four methods, he called them four methods of embracing others. He said in a translation by Bhikkhu Bodhi, he was speaking to the gathering of monks, monks, there are these four means of embracing others. What for? Giving, endearing speech, beneficial, a beneficent conduct and impartiality. These are the four means of embracing others. And he elaborated on these words in a verse. Some of these words may sound very familiar because they were, this teaching was embraced later on by our Soto Zen ancestor, E.H.

[04:24]

Dogen. But first I'll share the verse that goes with the Buddha's teachings. Giving endearing speech, beneficent conduct and impartiality under diverse world conditions as is suitable to fit each case. These means of embracing others are like the linchpin of a rolling chariot. I really like that image of the linchpin of a rolling chariot and that these ways we can behave in our lives, giving endearing speech, beneficent conduct and impartiality can really connect us with others. So as I mentioned, A. He Dogen picked up on these teachings in a short essay he wrote called The Bodhisattva's Four Methods of Guidance, also translated as The Bodhisattva's Four Methods of Social Relations.

[05:40]

So I think embracing others and social relations, very connected. This is a teaching that Abbot Ed and Abbot David brought up. during our Rohatsu Sashin in December, so some people who participated in that may remember this teaching. But Dogen referred to these four qualities. He referred to them as giving, kind speech, very close to the Buddha's endearing speech, beneficial action, and the fourth... which the Buddha called impartiality, was expressed as identity action. And that can also be translated as cooperation or as harmonious activity. So I was curious about what kanji or how Dogen expressed this in Japanese.

[06:49]

And I asked my friend, Paula Arai, who is a Buddhist scholar, if she could find the kanji that Dogen used, and she did. And there were two particular kanji. The first one, Do, and it's not the same Do as Do, that is the way, Do, different kanji that are expressed as do this kanji means together and the g the second kanji means event or activity together and event or activity so together they have a sense of acting in sync or in tune with each other and All of the translations, identity, action, cooperation, and harmonious activity all convey the sense of this kanji.

[07:54]

And in this context, harmonious activity, I'm going to, that's the translation that I resonate with the most, but also cooperation. They're based on the understanding that we are not separate. Our actions spring from a sense of our interconnectedness with one another and all beings sentient and insentient. So this really led me to think about an article that I read recently in the New York Times magazine titled The Social Life of Forests. Perhaps some of you saw it. The magazine had a beautiful cover that week with photographs of old-growth trees, very tall trees, very awe-inspiring trees. And the article describes the work of a woman named Suzanne Simard who grew up in the old-growth forests of British Columbia.

[09:05]

Her grandfather and her uncles were horse loggers, so they used very low impact methods to selectively harvest cedar, Douglas fir, and white pine. And Suzanne, as a child, spent a lot of time in those forests and really loved the trees. And later she attended graduate school in forestry. And as she was studying forests, By that time, there were many forests that had been clear-cut and then replanted. And when the loggers replaced the old-growth forests with new plantings of trees, they spaced the trees very evenly and got rid of most of the underbrush, including other species of trees.

[10:10]

So they would be... kind of very homogenous forests instead of these diverse old growth forests. And instead of thriving, the trees that were planted in this way were frequently more vulnerable to disease and climactic stress than trees in the old growth forests. And Suzanne Simard noticed that newly planted Douglas fir were more likely to get sick and dry whenever The trees that they normally grew next to, aspen, paper birch, and cottonwood trees, were removed. So she did some research to find out what was happening, why these trees were getting sick and dying. And her research showed that all of these trees were intertwined and that they supported one another's survival. saw that a forest behaves like a single organism.

[11:15]

And she learned that trees send signals to one another through subterranean networks of fungi and that species are interdependent in her words like yin and yang. She also noticed there was a special role for the oldest, largest and most interconnected trees, which she called mother trees. as they nurture those around them. She saw that what one tree produces can feed and inform or rejuvenate other trees. And her research was really initially really questioned by other foresters or ecologists, biologists, because it challenged Darwin's theory of survival, the survival of the fittest, which stresses competition more than cooperation, was being questioned because she really saw that it was cooperation that created the healthiest environment for these trees.

[12:32]

So I've been thinking about how Our community is like a forest in the ways in which we come together as individuals. And as we live together, I'm thinking here of our residential community, but how as we live together, our sensitivity to one another grows. We're able to support one another by our actions as well as by our words. There are some very simple practices in the daily life at San Francisco Zen Center that heighten a sense of harmonious activity. And so I invite you, most of you listening to this talk, I think do not live at San Francisco Zen Center or at any Zen Center, but as you listen, I invite you to reflect on parallel experiences in your own lives, in your own families or friendship networks or at work.

[13:44]

So some of the things that I'm thinking about, but we may even take for granted living at Seth Center because we get so used to them. But one, you know, actually from the beginning of the day till the very end of the day, there are practices that connect us. So our day at our city center in the main building, 300 Cent Center, the Julia Morgan building, which is the building I live in, our day starts with someone ringing a wake up bell. That person starts in the basement in the Zendo. and runs through the corridors of each of the three floors. A different resident does this every morning. And at night, another resident does what we call night watch. The night watch closes doors and windows, checks that lids are on, compost buckets in the kitchen, and the ovens are turned off, switches off lights, and gently rings a small bell in all the corridors to let us know we're safe.

[14:58]

the night. Although these are physical activities, they rely on the generosity of each resident who rings the wake-up bell or serves as night watch. One evening recently when I ran into the night watch, she was cleaning the counters in the small kitchen, and I thanked her for doing that job. She told me how much she enjoyed taking care of the community in this way. So there are many ways in which our actions, seen or unseen, contribute to the well-being of others and connect us through those actions. We also differ from trees in that we as humans can communicate with each other verbally. Excuse me. A kind speech is one of the components of harmonious activity.

[16:02]

And one of the tools we've been using at San Francisco Zen Center for a number of years to heighten our awareness of how we communicate with one another is called agreements for multicultural interactions. They're communication agreements And because we communicate with our bodies as well as with our words, they're called agreements to multicultural interactions. And they're borrowed from the East Bay Meditation Center in Oakland. These agreements are posted in our dining room and a couple of other spaces where normally, or I shouldn't say normally, but prior to COVID-19, we had classes in those spaces. And... we refer to these communication agreements in classes and meetings.

[17:03]

And I want to highlight three of those agreements, which I think really help connect us, although all the others are relevant. The first one is move up, move back. And it's the meaning of that. or the way it's described is to encourage full participation by everyone who's present in a meeting or a group. And you can think about this in your workplace. How does this, or in your family even. Take notice of who is speaking and who is not. If you tend to speak often, consider moving back and vice versa. So earlier in my life, I was quite shy, but now I notice I have a tendency to jump in when I'm in a group or at a meeting.

[18:06]

And so I try to step back and let someone else be the first to speak or only speak once until other people have spoken more than once, until other people have spoken once. And if I'm leading a meeting, I also will try to invite those who haven't yet spoken to speak before I call on someone for a second time. And it's often the case that members of dominant groups speak up first. So if we are a member of a dominant group, and by that I mean white, male, heterosexual, Those are some of the, that those designations in a way give us more power in a situation and we may be more likely to speak up and other voices may not get heard.

[19:14]

So the second communication agreement that I think is really important Helpful is understanding the difference between intent and impact. And by that, that is described as trying to understand and acknowledge the impact of what we say and also what we do. And if we deny the impact of something that we've said by focusing on our intention, that may be more destructive than the initial interaction. For example, if someone tells me that something I said hurt them and I said, oh, I didn't mean it, that wasn't what I intended, I'm actually negating their experience. And instead, I've learned to thank someone when they tell me that and try to apologize. Really learning, have been learning.

[20:16]

It's not easy to apologize. in a thorough way so that person really feels met. And to say without being defensive that I am sorry. And I think a heartfelt apology combined with an intention to learn from the interaction can go a long way. We have a practice of doing this at San Francisco Center, sometimes in work meetings. And I'm always touched when someone speaks up. And just in the last week, someone apologized one morning at work meeting for forgetting to ring the wake-up bell when it was their turn. Another resident who had cooked breakfast apologized for burning the applesauce. That person did it in an email to the community.

[21:17]

And someone apologized for communicating in a way that had not been skillful. So we can really acknowledge things that we have done or said that had an impact on others. It's a way of expressing this interconnectedness. So. Another way of using our ability to practice kind speech is in the way we deal with disagreements or conflict. Our community, once at a meeting of leaders from all three centers, City Center, Tassajara, and Green Gulch Farm.

[22:22]

We have these meetings usually once a year. We did a little survey of those who attended and asked people to describe Zen Center in three words. And then another resident and I did a word I forget what it's called, but where you can easily tally how many times certain words have been used and then do a printout. So the words that are used the most come out much larger than the words that are used less. And one of the most used words that we use to describe our own community was conflict avoidance. And avoiding conflict is a way of coping with conflict, but it doesn't usually lead to resolution of the conflict. And so we've been paying more attention to how we communicate when we have disagreements or conflicts. And that includes learning how to give and receive feedback, how to have difficult conversations, when to ask for help from a third party, and practicing with this freedom.

[23:35]

precepts regarding speech. And all of this can help us to weather some of the storms of community life and misunderstandings, disagreements, ways we miss each other. I think that this applies to everyone, not only those of us in a residential practice community, that when we really are able to face and meet conflict or disagreements, it may bring us closer. So there's a book that I appreciate very much by Larry Yang, who is a teacher, was on the teacher's council. I think he's retired from teaching now. He was on the teacher's council at Spirit Rock, and he was one of the founders of the East Bay Meditation Center.

[24:39]

This book is called Awakening Together, the Spiritual Practice of Inclusivity and Community. One thing he talks about is the concept that when conflict arises, instead of breaking apart, we can break together. I appreciate this way of describing what can happen when we actually try to resolve a conflict that may be affecting us as a community. He writes, in the unconsciousness of our larger culture, when differences become strong, the predominant condition pattern is to fragment and scatter into our respective corners, spaces of comfort, familiarity and safety, quickly polarizing into adversarial stances.

[25:43]

However, the spiritual practice of community awareness is to instead ask, how do we stay in the room and in relationship with each other, regardless of what arises, rather than split apart? And he asked the question, what would it be like, even amid all the complexity, even in the face of injuries, even in the face of harm, to break together rather than break apart? Could we stay together even as we experience our differences and the hurts caused by them? What would it be like to hold our hearts open toward the injuries caused by our seeming adversity? adversaries as best we can how do we stay in the room with each other stay in relationship with each other even when the unconscious reactive mind or even the conscious one wants things to be different from the way they are we may not have the skills yet nor the awareness nor even the kindness

[26:55]

But those can gradually come if we have the intention of not leaving the room and of not leaving the relationship. So those were Larry's words. And I think the long-term benefits are worth the struggle to open and understand one another across differences. So recently, and I think this applies to all kinds of groups and larger groups, way larger than a single community. So I want to ask you if you can guess who recently said these words. Let us start afresh. Let us listen to one another, hear one another, see one another. Show respect to one another.

[27:55]

I wonder who you think that was. Does it sound like Thich Nhat Hanh or the Dalai Lama? He actually wasn't a Buddhist teacher. Those were the words of President Biden. Let us start afresh. Let us listen to one another, hear one another. see one another, show respect to one another. And it reminds me of the way Dogen ended the section on kind speech in the Bodhisattvas Four Methods of Guidance. He ended that section with the words, kind speech can turn the destiny of a nation. So as we reflect on the harmonious activity, that supports forests as well as our human lives.

[28:57]

May we continue to develop the heart-mind that supports us to stay connected with one another. I'm going to end my comments with a song. Some of you may know this. It was at one time sung by Pete Seeger, but it's not one of his better known songs. Step by step, the longest march can be done, can be done. Many stones can form an arch, singly not. singly none, and in union what we will can be accomplished still.

[30:00]

Drops of water turn a mill, singly none, singly none. 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.

[30:35]

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