This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. I want to give thanks to Shorin, Shorin's son, for doing my vows and entering for me and for Jessica and San, in joining us in a new form here at Tassahara. So, everyone, Eno San, thank you for helping us create something different and might have missed a few beats there, but we're here and all is done and we're ready to share, you know, in the Dharma tonight. I am Zenju and I... I used to practice here not very long.

[01:02]

I think I practiced here six months or so. I've been with the San Francisco Zen Center now for 18 years. And a lot of people say, well, we've never seen you before. And you've never seen me before. That's just the way it is. But I have been here and have been around. And it's been a great pleasure always to come back to Zen Mountain. and to see old friends and to look at including the trees, old trees and places I used to stand and sit and eat and all these kinds of places. And I want to thank the Central Abbas for an invitation always to teach. My teacher was Zenke Blanche Hartman who passed away in May. 2000, I think that was May 13th, I know, but I don't remember the year.

[02:03]

About 16, I think, 2016. And so I feel like I sit on her behalf quite often. And this kotsu, this is called the kotsu, a staff she had designed after her kotsu that was made for her. Jim Abrams. And it's made out of tiger wood, you know, so not very many people have this. I feel very special. I like to brag about it. That I have this. But tonight it's even more special to have some tiger wood, me and you, in the caring of this beautiful kudzu and putting new energy into it. So thank you. So... yellow light's always very different. All right.

[03:05]

So tonight I thought I'd talk briefly about what is freedom. We talk about freedom a lot. What is it? And what do we mean when we say it ourselves? What does it mean in our culture? And what does it mean on our spiritual path when we talk about liberation and freedom? So quite often we go, yeah, I kind of know what freedom is. I've been calling on that for a long time, all my life maybe. Maybe you have called on it. So this song came up in my head. I'm not going to sing the whole thing because I actually don't know the whole song, but it's a Sweet Honey in the Rock song. We who believe in freedom cannot rest. Know that one? We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it's done. We who believe in freedom cannot rest.

[04:10]

Who knows it? We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it's done. Briefly, you know, so what's that? You know. What freedom and what comes up? Of course, this song came up through the civil rights movement. And so some people have some pretty good ideas of what that would look like and what was wanted and what was needed and what the vision was and what we desired and what we continue to desire. But sometimes we don't really look at what it really means and how that might come about, how to unfold freedom in this culture and this life at this time in 21st century right now. and how to continue. And then when they say, you know, we cannot rest, doesn't mean that we keep going and never rest. It just means that we will remain awake. It's actually the same as we will not go back to sleep, roomy. Same thing. Just different words, right?

[05:14]

Same thing. So there's different kinds of freedom of maybe freedom from being captive or freedom... or freedom from a violence, freedom from a particular country. Some folks have to run away from their country to save their lives, save their family. What other kind of freedoms? Anybody want to share that? Freedom from addiction. Poverty. Debt. Hate. Oppression. Fear. Discrimination. Anger. All right. Trauma. Self. Getting closer.

[06:18]

So all of that is important. All of that is important. And freedom from, some might just be simple, freedom from their parents. Freedom from your partner. Freedom from your children. Freedom from your family. Freedom from stress. So I'll go to Tassajara and hang out and breathe and hang out in the waters. Is that freedom? Yeah. Yeah, it's a kind of freedom. It's a kind of freedom. All of it is a kind of freedom. So what freedom was Buddha speaking of? What was freedom? What was he talking about? And I remember being drawn to this practice when I heard the word liberation. And I said, oh yeah, that's my practice. I'm all about that. And when are we going to get to it? Wait, what's happening? Liberation. I think I used to say it a lot, you know, teachers.

[07:19]

Yeah, liberation. And I used to love chanting the robe chant, you know, wearing the robe of liberation. Wow. That just was so deep to me, you know. And at the same time, somehow I knew there must be a little bit more to this than what... was feeling into and everything everyone has said has been my experience of trying to be free of something of the trauma of the you know the the oppression the addiction fear anger all of these things as a human being we are all part of a particular kind of human condition and what that looks like and so I stayed with this practice in order to also explore this idea of liberation and also coming from a Christian background where much of my church experience was part of the liberating effort for African Americans.

[08:24]

And so I was raised in a black church, in a Christian church. And the civil rights movement was no different than going to church. Everybody who was doing the civil rights movement, we met in the church. That's where the meetings were held. That's where everything went on because that's where we came together to pray. So the liberation in terms of what we were looking for in our spiritual life and the liberation that we wanted in our external lives was one and the same. There was no doubt that you couldn't even get any of that unless you went to church. So every black person went to church, mostly, because that was the one place we came together. in a way that we could talk about our liberation from discrimination, from oppression, and where we could organize, and where we could have things for the children and schools. When I was part of helping to develop an African-American school in Los Angeles, still going, Marcus Garvey Elementary, well, it's a high school now, elementary, junior high, high school.

[09:31]

It's much bigger than when I started. And just for that idea of forging and exploring liberation. So in this practice, every time I hear the word freedom and liberation, a lot of times sweet honey in the rock comes to mind. And a lot of times there's this blank, you know, like what does it look like and what does it take? And so I'm leading a private study retreat with the Still Breathing Zen Meditation Sangha. and we are looking at the Dhammapada. And the Dhammapada. Dhamma means teaching, and pada actually means foot. So, you know, so you're kind of like the derivative is foot, and so it's path. You know, the path, the teachings of Buddha in this one book. And we're looking at the translation by Gail Fronsdale. It's very new, very new translation.

[10:34]

I think he added to one he had done before. So this book is a book of Buddhist teachings that claimed in the past and in the present and in the future to provide two things, to provide happiness in our lives and to provide freedom and liberation. So all you need is this one book and we're done. Who's interested in this book? Who's interested in this path that requires you to walk, you know, walk the teachings, not learn it so you can memorize it and teach it, but to walk the teachings. And so this also was another book that came into my life early on in my practice, actually before I even began any Buddhist studies. I had found the Dhammapada. I was reading quite a few books of... ancient Chinese philosophy, I Ching, Taoism, and I was reading Rosicrucian.

[11:41]

So in this was all like, I was like 19, 18, 19, 20. So I always had a, you know, kind of a, I think drawing to it and being called to it because something about it said, yeah, this is how it should be. I loved Christianity too. I practiced deeply and for a long time, and loved going to church because, like, I would go, like, tell me about that again. You know, I wanted to know about death. I wanted to know about life. And so the Dhammapada came into my life, and I started reading some of that early on in my years. And I said, yes, I want happiness, and I want freedom and liberation, and said, this must be a great teaching here. And so in the ancient times in which some of these teachings existed, of the Dhammapada came from even some ancient songs. So just like we were singing that one song, our ancient poetry, and we were singing that, there's a teaching in that.

[12:44]

There's a feeling that comes up in us when we sing that song. And that's the same with this book that has a lot of poetry in it and songs and is written in that way. And many other teachings in Buddhism are written as poems and songs. And of course that also attracted me because I started writing poetry at eight years old. And I started writing it because I was a very muted, silent child. And so that was the only way I could speak my voice. And I was taught poetry by one of my teachers. I didn't like to read at all, so I got a D every time. It's like, I'm not reading any books, and I'm not doing any book reports. And so I said, I'll have the time. She like said, try poetry. And I tried it, and I was like, okay, this I understand. And this is something that I can learn from. I felt like I was learning so much from poetry, then reading stories. Later, I began to read stories I love to read. So on the Dhammapada, Buddha is talking about happiness.

[13:50]

And a lot of times we have our ideas of what that is, too. I would be really happy if... I would be really happy if this person did that. I would be really happy if this place did that. I'd be really happy if, you know, maybe we didn't have to get up so early to sit. You know, all these things that we think bring in this happiness are sometimes we think of happiness in which all of what we need in our life is taken care of. You know, our housing, our food, all the things we need, education, all the things we need to be in this world, to be human beings in this world. We want those things. We want to be taken care of and that our welfare is looked after, that our wellness is priority. And in that, there's happiness and that the actions that are taken by anyone around us are important. or whatever, it has to be actions about wellness, actions about welfare.

[14:56]

And so that is of interest to me too, you know, looking at this two-prong theme of this book is the happiness and also the freedom and liberation. But I still move to the freedom and liberation because I'm interested in what that is. Here at Zen Center, we are attempting to hone into spiritual freedom and the freedom to walk a path and to walk a path that keeps us in a way not suffering the suffering, not suffering our condition, finding ways to have a spiritual freedom. Rather than, and not to say that all the things we talked about were freedom, are not spiritual. Because they are. Because they're life. Because they're dharma.

[15:57]

Because they're our body. They're who we are. How do we do that? Well, there's many ways. We can march and we can sing the song, Sweet Honey and the Rock. And that's great. But we can also walk another path. And where we're sitting and we're becoming aware of our own and personal human conditions. So when we're walking the spiritual path, so I'm really clear about freedom now for myself. When I'm talking about it, I'm talking about being free from those conditions, those things in my mind that keep me from being free, that hold me back. I am a person who miserably failed at speech, and I might be doing that now and don't know it, but I did not do it. I would not do it. I could not do it. I was a very muted teenager, and I would stand up in speech class, and it would just be horrible, a horrible experience. And then I began to write, and then my writing became published, and that was like almost the worst thing to happen to an introverted, muted person, because I didn't know you had to go around and talk about it, you know, if you publish it.

[17:11]

So I thought, well, just read the book. Why do I have to come and tell you about it? Tell you about what I just wrote. And I still have that attitude. I just wrote it. So I'm done arguing. So I was wondering, what was holding me back? What was keeping me from being free? Like freedom took another place. Like, okay, I can't be free. I'm oppressed. I live in this body. You know, it's black, it's queer, it's this, it's that. It's none of the things that seem to be loved in the society. How do I live in a society fully as a human being, as myself? How do I live that way and be just as I am, just as I am, not changing anything in that way, and be free? Where is that? Where is that, and how does that happen? And this is what this practice has given me over the years. It's that ability to sit with that, even all of that, all those stories that kept me muted.

[18:16]

They kept me muted. I had a lot to say. When I found out I had a lot to say, then you couldn't keep me quiet. You know, so sometimes I really wish to find that old quiet earthland, which was my name. Where is she? You know, I liked her. So, but. So now it's like this place in which I could maybe part of myself could feel, I wonder what's going on in people's minds. Or it could be things are going on in people's minds. Period. The end. Because I could ask how much it was happening. Hmm. One time I went somewhere and they didn't seem to be smiling. You know, they were just sitting still and they were really quiet. And I told somebody, I said, all those people were so quiet. You know, it's kind of my first time talking about books. And they were just staring.

[19:17]

And she said, well, they were listening to you. I was like, that was an opportunity to look at. In my mind, they weren't listening to me. They were upset or something. You know, it was in my mind. And so I want to read this really quickly, just one part of the Dhammapada. First in the beginning, Gil Fransdell's translation. I also like this translation because he makes an effort to work with, you know, pronouns. And because some of the older versions were written for the male monks in places way, way, way long ago. So he's trying to bring this up into the 21st century, these teachings. And if you want to know, you could read the whole book and know all of Buddha's teachings. So in the first stanza, all experience is perceived by mind. So whatever experience you're having, the experience I'm having, I'm saying, I think I'm doing pretty good.

[20:20]

That's my experience. You know, in my mind. And I might be looking for it. Am I doing pretty good? Or you want to hear amen? Hallelujah. We all want that in our lives. We want to validate our experiences. But all experience is perceived by mind, led by mind, made by mind. So some of this has been used to the new age to say, think positive. And it's not that simple in that way. So if you think negative, all the things that are happening negative in your life is because you think negative. If that were so simple right now, everybody think about having $1.5 million. Like right now. And believe it. You have to believe it first.

[21:22]

Okay, maybe we'll drop it down to $100. So... It's asking us to look at our experience and how we shape our lives. When we shape our lives, we shape each other because we impact each other. And we shape our culture. We shape our country. We shape everything. You know, we shape how are we going to come in and Zenjiu can't really walk or bow, you know, struggle. So we shape with our minds an experience that... could either discombobulate you or go, yeah, that works. What a wonderful thing to share. What a wonderful thing to share bowing and offering incense for all of us and to make it a collective opening, a collective offering. So all experience perceived by mind.

[22:23]

led by mind, made by mind, speak or act with a corrupted mind, speak or act with a corrupted mind, and suffering follows as the wagon well follows the hoof of the ox. Speak or act with a corrupted mind, and suffering follows as the wagon well follows the hoof of the ox. And so, so a lot of people have taken that out, speak nice. and no suffering will follow. So it's still asking us to be free from the place of the mind. That's the spiritual freedom. To be able to speak one's heart, one's mind, to express one's light, to express one's body, speech, and mind openly and freely from one's own heart. And that's where the freedom comes in. And when I do that, When I can do that and you can do that and we can do that, then that we can have an experience of freedom in the moment, actually, in the moment.

[23:34]

And we can take that experience of freedom and march and sing Sweet Honey in the Rock. We can take that right into that. It's no separation. And we would probably march more closely together. I've been at marches where I'm wondering if we're marching for the same thing, you know, with a person next to me. you know, marching against war. I remember marching against, you know, I think it was the Iraq war, and the person next to me was really disturbed by me being next to them. And I thought, wow, in the moment, I thought we were marching for peace, and there was no peace right there, right there. Forget about Washington, D.C. It was done there. And so the anger was this way, and the peace was not possible. It was not possible because we weren't working in our minds and with each other. So I invite you to consider your life and this life and how you are living it.

[24:37]

And I want to give time and a few moments to answer some questions. You can go on and on with the Dhammapada. It's a very ancient text. and has wonderful teachings, very simply put, but still must be studied. You can take that one stanza and study it for the next ten years. You really can. And find freedom. Or you can read the whole book and forget about what was in it, and move on. That sounds like that's from the Dhammapada. Can you walk it? Can you express it? Have you taken the time and the patience to just see what would unfold for you if you let go of something? And what would happen to your story? What would happen to the other in your story? What would happen to you without your story? What would get your story changed? And when your story changes, we do get a little discombobulated.

[25:39]

Oh, no. Oh, my gosh, what happened here? You know, I can't bow. What am I going to do? Oh, no, I can't do it. I don't want to talk. I can't bow. You know, looking at, well, what can you do? You know, what's the boulder? We talked about that early in class. What's the boulder in the way? You know, we had things all planned. They drive me down the road, and there were all kinds of obstacles. You know, the stage was in the middle of the road. First of all, in the morning, the truck we were going to use was gone. You know, because we hadn't, it just didn't happen that way. And then we got it, and then there was that. And then we went down the road further. It was just, you know, interesting, interesting to see. And then if we didn't have the freedom, we could just been stuck or complain or, you know, get like very, you know, irate with what was happening and create the suffering, you know, because it's going to follow.

[26:40]

just like the wagon follows at the hook of the ox. It's a guaranteed thing, right? Guaranteed. So I'm going to stop here and open up for a few questions because now I'm not a quiet person. I can go on and on. Any questions or comments or something you'd like to share this evening? Yes. Yes. Christianity is very much a part of my life and who I am. I believe that without it, I would not have had the discipline. I also practiced Nichiren tradition too. By the time I came to Zen, it was no problem to just sit for hours.

[27:40]

So the discipline was already there. Being in church, you sit a lot. And I still, I believe that Jesus Christ, as much as the sage is Buddha, and had teachings of the same mind, I feel that the translation sometimes in the pulpit was different. And I feel sometimes even in Buddhism, the teaching sometimes I go, no, that's not true. So I still am that way about there's no difference when I'm at church or if I'm here. I really still have my own mind and my own experience of the teachings. And I was a devout Christian and I really thought Christianity, the way I read it and heard it, would save the world. I really did believe that. And I was a Christian for a very long time. I feel it's very much a part of me. not so much in the way that some churches express it or preachers express it.

[28:42]

I also practice a small amount of Yoruba religion, African religion, and that actually just came into my life spontaneously with a tribe in Dahomey, and I wrote about that in my latest book, Sanctuary, and Looking for Home and Belonging. And this tribe was swooping me up. They were from Africa, you know. And I would go to the ceremonies. I didn't know what was going on. Just like when I came to Zen, I had no idea. You know, I was just sitting there following, and I followed them. And they eventually left. It was in Los Angeles, where I'm from, was born. And they eventually left Los Angeles because they were very harassed a lot for doing ceremonies, you know, with drums and, you know, being mostly nude sometimes, the women. And so people didn't understand it. And so that practice is inside of me, too. Later to find they were feeling I was part of their tribe.

[29:43]

It was a very wonderful experience that I still walk with. And so I think every gateway that I have walked through is with me. It's an experience of my life. And I would never talk against any of them. and they deeply touched me, each one. I thought I was going to be a Christian minister, actually, but I couldn't talk. And you had to really preach, boy. You had to really preach. Also, my church didn't accept women as preachers and ministers, and they still don't, even to this day. So, yeah. Did somebody raise their hand back there? that I saw I had. Yes? Did you say something about being safe in one's body?

[30:46]

Because sometimes I feel really unsafe in my body because there is not an obvious threat coming at me, but because of my past experience, And so I found that in my own self, my own body, especially someone like myself that has been assaulted, you know, and I've written about it in Dharma color cultures and an edited anthology that I was in, and I somehow was brave enough to talk about being kidnapped and raped by gunpoint.

[31:48]

And so I was able to, I didn't know how I would live after that. And if I could, and I would, you know, could feel it in my body for many years, even with help, I still could feel it. And I decided that that was something that definitely probably was imprinted on my bones. And also, I stopped looking for the safety and turned into what I felt in my bones. And to find out what my bones could tell me about what that was, not only for me, but for everyone. That's why I shared it for other people who experience things against their body against themselves, and to know that every moment, whatever's going on in the mind, it may not necessarily be what's going on. So in the beginning, every time somebody would walk behind me, it'd be, you know, and no matter where I was, people would look at me like, oh, what's wrong with her?

[32:55]

And it's like, oh, God, I guess I showed something. And so I began to know these things were going on in my mind. As everyone, to a certain degree, something in everyone's mind is going on from some past injury, some past experience that didn't feel so good. It doesn't matter what the depth of the injury or the wound was. And so you get to really study your mind in these situations and see if what is happening is happening. This is an ongoing practice for me, regardless if I'm doing something about the trauma in my body or just whether or not I'm dealing with a racial situation or whatever is happening. to see first, what is in my mind first, and to clarify that so that I'm not moving by the wound. I'm moving by the liberation, by the freedom, because I'm actually knowing that it's my mind and my conditioning. And then I can take an action from liberation rather than from the wound.

[34:01]

It's the same as my social action. Is my social action from my womb because I'm mad or I got hurt, or is it from understanding the liberation of it all? You know, it's a process. And what is liberation? I learned a lot about that in the Dhammapada, you know, and a lot about that in Zen practice. There's a lot more than just the Dhammapada. So that's the most I can say here and now, that freedom is possible even in the midst of oppression, even in the midst of rage, even in the midst of woundedness. It's all there together right now, right this moment. All experiences are perceived by the mind. And what we see is right here, right now. And it's old. It's ancient. I was teaching today. the all my ancient twisted karma that we chant. You know, we're saying we've been in this for ancient aeons. What has happened to you and me is old.

[35:03]

It's ancient, ancient, ancient. And then we work with that as people, you know, coming. Instead of an apology, we avow. I fully avow. That's a big moment. in this zendo, as I was teaching today, to fully abow all ancient twisted karma. From beginningless breed hate and delusion. Born a body, speech and mind. I now fully abow. Take that and heal with it. You know, ask it to hold you. The teachings aren't to be just memorized and spit out. We can, I always say, make them partners. Make the teachings beloved. Get to know them. Have a relationship with them. Hate the teachings. Love the teaching. Throw them away. Get another teaching.

[36:04]

You know. Experience them. Live them. Make them your beloved. 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, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[36:34]

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