So welcome, everyone. Before we begin, I'd like to just take a look around our virtual Zendo and see you all. As David Zimmerman said to me when I was nervous about my first Dharma talk, take a good look around. You're looking into an ocean of love. So welcome, everyone. Welcome to San Francisco Zen Center via our apartment on 300, just up the street. from 300 Page. I'd especially like to welcome anyone who is new, if this is your first time attending a Dharma Talk here at Zen Center.

[01:08]

And I see that I wanted to welcome those joining us online, but I realize we are all online. So here we are. in our Zendo without walls. So, first of all, I'd like to thank Mary Stairs for inviting me to speak this evening. And I would like to express gratitude to Rinzo Ed Satusan and Ejen Munda Kutz and all our teachers who walk with us always, even in the dark. I would like to offer the merit of our time together tonight, turning the Dharma.

[02:16]

I would like to offer the merit to all of you on the front lines, on the front lines of the battle with COVID And I'm especially holding in my heart those on the front lines of the protests calling for equality and the end of police brutality. I've been listening. And I hear that you are tired. For some on the front lines, it's been 12 weeks. For African Americans in this country, it has been over 400 years. I can't imagine how to the bone tired you are of this. I cannot imagine the toll loss and oppression and hopelessness has taken on you.

[03:24]

Acknowledging this on every possible level is long overdue. I offer this Dharma seat tonight and going forward, this platform to amplify those voices. I am not going to empathize, but vow to do all I can to speak up for true change, and for accountability, mine and others. And as a step in that direction, I invite feedback, especially from those of you who've taken a vow of anti-racism, who have been studying your white privilege and conditioning, and from the people of color in our sangha. Feedback on what

[04:28]

I say from this Dharma seat tonight and from my leadership position in this temple, please help me see what I do not yet see so that we can go forward together in this work of saving all beings. Dr. Martin Luther King had a dream, a vision of deep hope. We who take refuge in Buddha have a dream of deep hope as well. It includes all beings. It is the Bodhisattva vow, a vow that we won't give up until all are happy, safe, and free from suffering. And we hear your call, your plea to no longer remain silent

[05:28]

Although we are each precious individuals, at the same time we are bound up together, as in the ancient image of Indra's net, or as Dr. King so beautifully expressed it, within a garment of destiny. In these days of pandemic and protest, the world burns with rightful rage. during these days, all I have, all I can do is to turn to practice and to ask, what is practice asking of me right now? What is the world asking of me right now? I believe the world is asking us to heal.

[06:31]

This is what practice asks of us moment after moment. It is the same request to not look away, to not look away from what is right here. To look and to stay with and to listen to and to see what is right here in this heart, this body, this experience right now. Beloved Buddhist teacher, Pema Chodron, reminds us with these words, that learning how to be kind to ourselves, learning how to respect ourselves, is important. The reason it's important is that fundamentally when we look into our own hearts and begin to discover what is confused and what is brilliant, what is bitter and what is sweet, it isn't just ourselves that we are discovering.

[07:52]

We are discovering the universe. We forget this truth, that this very heart is the heart of the universe, not separate from one single thing, delicately interconnected. The heart that the world is asking us to heal is our own. It is the universe. There is no difference. What is practice asking of me right now? This is actually the good news. It's the good news for practitioners. We need look no further. The work is right here. I like so many struggle these days to accept that this is enough. So many of us

[08:55]

have been connected in the past two weeks to resources to help amplify the voices of young Black leaders. What are they asking from us? How can we support them? Organizations to donate to. Podcasts, books, TED talks. Hearing people speak from their pain. Educating ourselves. on white privilege, on Black history. We want to do it all now. We know it is long overdue. And when I feel myself tipping into overwhelm and struggle, I return to the question. I return to my heart, to my breath. I return to the body, this body, and I allow it to guide and orient me.

[10:04]

Over the past six weeks, Mary Stairs took us on a deep plunge into the study of Lojang. These practices have a different flavor from our Zen training. Mary has studied and practiced them for more than 20 years. Traditionally, these 59 Tibetan teachings are memorized and applied to our everyday life experiences to train the mind and awaken the heart. I've come to think of them as a call and response. Perhaps that's because there's so many protests going on these days, many with call and response. The heart calls. And a slogan responds. For example, slogan 40, correct all wrongs with one intention. This slogan is used to remind us that when encountering difficult circumstances, we use that experience to drop into our hearts, our body experience of the moment.

[11:21]

And on our breath, We breathe in the suffering. And on the out breath, ease, light, compassion. In this way, we practice exchanging self and other. Of course, this takes years and years of study. I was only able to memorize a few of the 59 slogans. And I admit that they are already slipping away. But I believe that from the moment we set an intention to turn toward our heart and let it guide us, that this call and response begins. And then again, and again. We commit to responding to our deepest questions with kindness and with deep burning patience.

[12:29]

As Joan Sutherland says in her commentary in Vimalakirti and the Awakened Heart, we are not the manufacturers of compassion or the ones responsible for it. Compassion is already everywhere around us. and it is pretty much our job to just ride its currents. We ended our last three days of the six-week intensive just a few days ago, sitting together online in silence, practicing Tonglen with Mary's guidance, essentially bringing suffering in our own and others on our in-breath and exhaling relief from the suffering on our out-breath.

[13:30]

This practice is described as a way of melting the barrier between self and other. Protests in the streets, helicopters overhead, riding the currents of compassion. This may sound like a slow process, and the world is calling for us to act. People want a vaccine. They want change today. Understanding this dis-ease as our own and staying right there, melting the barrier of self and other. is not for the faint of heart, but it is the only hope we have. Noticing the moment when we shut down, close our heart, separate, withdraw, and believe that we are not of one heart.

[14:41]

In these moments, perhaps, we can only hold little glimpses of our vision of deep hope. Many of us during these days of protest have been thinking of our beloved deceased teacher, Blanche Hartman. Before I bring Blanche into our Zendo, into this room with her own words, I'd like to note that one of my very first memories was looking out our living room window at the student protesters streaming down our street. We lived a block away from San Francisco State. I remember being very little and very scared. It was 1968 and I was three years old. The student protesters took our garbage can lids and used them as shields and noisemakers.

[15:45]

And I remember that our back window on the car got broken. I actually remember reaching out and touching the back window. The student strike lasted five months and it was on those very front lines of that strike that the first female abbot of an American Zen center was born. This is from the book of Blanche's teachings called Seeds of Compassion. edited by Zenju Earthland Manuel. During the Vietnam War, I was a political activist. I fought for peace. There was some contradiction. There wasn't any peace in me. I hated the people who disagreed with me. That was a kind of war within me. In 1968, I was just beginning to look at

[16:47]

at the way in which I was vigorously clinging to my opinions about things and denigrating others who had different opinions. When there was a strike at San Francisco State University, the police came with their masks and clubs and started poking people. And without thinking, I ducked under the hands of people to get between police and the students. I met this riot squad of policemen face to face, with his mask on and everything. He was close enough to touch. I met this policeman's eyes straight on, and I had this overwhelming experience of identification, of shared identity. This was the most transformative moment of my life. Having this experience of shared identity with the riot squad policeman, it was a gift. Nothing had prepared me for it.

[17:48]

I didn't have any conceptual basis for understanding it. The total experience was real and incontrovertible. My life as a political activist ended with that encounter because there was no longer anything to fight against. The way I described it to my friends was the policeman was trying to protect what he thought was right and good from all of the other people who were trying to destroy it. And I was doing the same. Since I had no basis for understanding the experience of shared identity with someone I had considered completely other, that is the riot squad policeman. And because the experience had been so real and so powerful, I began to search for someone who would understand it. How could a riot squad policeman and I be identical? In my search, I met Suzuki Roshi.

[18:52]

The way he looked at me, I knew he understood. That's how I came to be an ordained monastic. This story of Blanche has come to me and many of us over these past weeks. Blanche says in her story that her political Life as an activist ended in that moment, but actually I marched in protests with Blanche many times down Market Street. Blanche was incredibly outspoken. Whenever she whiffed injustice or felt that something needed correction, Blanche was right there. Many of us were on the receiving end of her course corrections, of her feedback, of her love. A photo that Shundo shared on his blog this week was a Blanche in the 2011 Pride March. I was lucky enough to participate in that march with her.

[19:56]

I have this burning image of Blanche on the back of the flatbed that we had converted into a Zendo on wheels for the parade. And I have this image of her in the noble posture of royal ease. Statues and images of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara or Quan Yin, she who hears the cries of the world is often depicted in this posture. The posture is both meditation posture, fully absorbed in meditation, turning, toward her heart, turning toward the heart of the universe. Yet one leg is bent, foot on the ground, ready to respond to the cries of the world. This posture of royal ease expresses both deep effort and complete ease.

[21:07]

I used to believe as many new to meditation may believe that the meditation part of the posture was representing or represents the ease and that the gesture toward action was that of effort. The effort, however, that we make in meditation to return to the vow of looking at what is right here, looking into our hearts, our conditioning, the effort to quietly explore these farthest reaches of the causes and conditions of our suffering. This effort happens in meditation.

[22:09]

this bearing witness to our experience, whether the experience is intensity or dullness, whatever it might be, bringing to this experience curiosity and a whiff of questioning. What is this? Is the response to the call of the heart. This is exactly how we bring the cries of the world into our hearts, into our questioning. By looking into our experience with kindness and stubborn patience, this is the effort. Here dwells our commitment. Though seemingly simple, This patient's practice of returning over and over again to the experience of the moment with openness and kindness is where true transformation happens.

[23:22]

Blanche knew this was the way to transform the world, though she didn't know. She followed her heart, though. And it led her straight to a teacher with his own very being expressed to her that he understood her exactly. He understood something that was so intimate to her that she didn't yet understand herself. An exchange of self and other. Suzuki Roshi's expression was a response to the call from Blanche's innermost heart. This is the way to be on the front lines. The ease of royal ease, I believe, comes over time.

[24:29]

And it comes as a response to our great deep efforting. We begin to trust our hearts And we begin to act from a place of non-separation. And we are open. We are open to feedback. We are open to a course correction. For it is in the truth of our togetherness that we move forward. We're going to make mistakes. We need to rely on each other. to see ourselves. And together we ride the currents of compassion. So the world is calling us to no longer be silent about the inequalities we see all around us.

[25:33]

It is from our deep silence that we move with ease to do what we know in our heart and no longer be silent. In the Buddhist tradition, the word sukkha is used to describe the deepest type of happiness that is independent of whatever is happening. It has to do with a kind of faith, a kind of trust, that our heart can be with whatever comes our way. It gives us confidence that is sometimes described as the lion's roar. When I think of Blanche on the back of that flatbed, moving down Market Street in a sea of rainbow flags, her roar meeting the multitudes.

[26:39]

I too feel that confidence to meet what the world is asking of me. We are always asked to start right here with just this. What is available to me right here? Dropping into this body experience. in this moment, the beauty and tragedy of our inconceivable connectedness. As Abbott David says, opening the aperture of our hearts. So I'd like to ask, What does practice ask of you right now?

[27:42]

What does the world ask of you right now? Thank you so much, Nancy. We have about 15 minutes.

[28:47]

If you'd like, we have time for a few questions or comments if the assembly wants to participate in that way. If the assembly wishes to participate this way, by all means. Great. Then if you would like to ask a question or extend a comment, you can open the participants window and find the blue chat button and the Zoom host will. Raise a hand or the Zoom host will unmute you. Excuse me. Kodosan, no questions? No questions.

[29:50]

None just now, it seems. Going once. I have a question for them, then. Does this seem like enough? Mark, give us a thumbs up. So did KP. Looks like everyone's doing their work. Oh. Looks like May might want to ask a question. I do. I just didn't know for Aida bump into Kodo's CC Eno box. Nancy, thank you so much for your beautiful talk and your reflections. I really appreciated getting to hear that story about Blanche. It's been many, many years since I heard that and it felt so fresh and alive to, to touch into that again.

[30:53]

And I found it like, yeah, I find it both beautiful and like, there's like a little concern in me in the statement. And I was, I forget exactly what it was, but, and I was never an activist again, or would you rephrase that for me? Yeah. Yeah. I found that very odd also because I feel as though having known Blanche over many years and seen her at every possible protest where there was a Buddhist contingency, you know, she was there leading it. So I think that maybe she was saying her life as a political activist and not that that wasn't still part of her life. but it wasn't her identity, perhaps. Yeah. I sense also that there's some way that sometimes when people hold political activism, and of course not everyone, for some holding that seat as a political activist, there's an energy of othering to it.

[32:05]

But it's like, I'm fighting against you. And it seems like maybe whatever heart might have been entangled in that process of othering was let go of such that she could engage in the action of standing up for important causes and for non-harming and participating in protests. But that heart of duality had relaxed so that she could move from a much more pure and effective place. And so I think that's the kernel that I'm taking from that is that it's not about non-doing. necessary. You can still enact action, but with a very different heart. Yeah. Thank you, Nancy. Yeah, thanks, May. Nancy, someone asked a question in the chat. It's Takado. She says, Nancy, could you say anything about what it means to you to become Tonto as a lay practitioner or how you hope that it will impact your approach to this role?

[33:09]

Are you excited? Are you nervous? How does this change feel for you? Well, I wasn't planning on it. It was a big surprise when I was invited. And it happened during the pandemic that I was asked to step into this role. I think the conversation and leadership had happened before that, started before that. But it was kind of, it was just a clear yes. When I was asked to be Shuso, I think I said, no, I'm not sure how many times. So it's not like I feel as though I'm like holding the banner for lay practitioners. I am just excited about this for all of us lay practitioners.

[34:15]

So I'm sure I'll eat my words very soon, but I'm very excited actually. And in my conversation with Abbott David and with Abbott Ed, I felt nothing but kind of them wanting to explore this, you know? Yeah, I guess that's that. I see a hand raised. Bapu will be next. Bapu. Hi, Nance. Bapu. I got a question for you that's a tough question. Oh, no. It's the same question that I asked Shusou at Tassahara. It was a question about people of color who practice Zen.

[35:19]

There's a Zen teaching that our self is constructed, the various aspects of our identity are constructed. And the path to wisdom is about recognizing those constructions, interrogating them, letting them go. And yet, you know, for people of color, particularly those who grew up in situations of discrimination, your identity, aspects of your identity are challenged all the time. They're denigrated. They're criticized. And if you're lucky, over time, you learn to love your identity despite that, your color, whatever else. In fact, because of it, right? The things that are attacked, you learn to love and respect how do those two things square where there's been this difficult process of learning to love parts of yourself that others hate and yet here's the buddha's wisdom about saying those things are constructed and it's best if you let them go um

[36:35]

Well, it's not a difficult question because I know that you're here to help me answer that question, first of all. And, you know, Babu, I... I go back to the practice of patience and... to staying with the places that are so difficult. And I think that our deepest conditioning, that there is a certain determination that, or even devotion that needs to be brought to that study. So I would imagine that along the way that there are glimpses of encouragement.

[37:48]

And I think that maybe glimpses of encouragement help stay with the exploration. And I also think that it is really important for Zen, for teachers of color to lead the way. did that meet you in any way? In some ways, I'll say.

[38:53]

Where do you feel not met? Well, I don't want to monopolize. I know a couple other people have hands up, but I don't want to monopolize the time. But I'll say that it's a process to learn. how to love parts of yourself that others hate. And to square that with the notion that those parts of yourself, nevertheless, despite all that suffering and recovery, nevertheless, those parts of yourself are illusions or tools, however you want to look at it. It's difficult to know what to do, when to let go of pieces of your identity and when to embrace them. Let's continue this conversation. I see Ryan next.

[39:57]

Hi, Nancy. Hello, voice behind the square. I've got an interesting internet connection in my room here, so I've got to keep the video cut in order to not get kicked off. But I really appreciated your talk tonight, especially the part about Blanche and that anecdote. And it brought something up for me in her connection with the officer. And that's just a quick background. So my stepmother back in Georgia is a very, very religious woman. I mean, member of the religious right kind of religious. They got an NRA sticker on the... the refrigerator. There are so many crosses in that house that if Jesus walked in there, he'd probably start having flashbacks. I mean, this is a very, very, you know, great religiously affiliated woman. And she has her beliefs, her very strong beliefs as well about how the world in this country should be, most of which I do not agree with.

[41:10]

And I imagine a lot of people out here would not agree with as well. And It never comes off as hateful or anything like that. But what it really does come off as to me more than anything is self-righteous. And so my question then is how do we approach everything that's happening right now and not come off the same way? Is it possible? Yeah, I would say keep going to the places of connection. And when you say self-righteous, I feel a rigidity in that. Like I feel as, you know, like in her writing, like clinging to, you know, like where can a little softening happen? And I think it happens around the edges and I think it's noticing the rigidity. So there's,

[42:13]

there's a willingness, there needs to be a willingness to connect first of all. And then I just, I would say, start around the edges, you know, and, and I think it's also really important to bring an awareness to tone. You know, my daughter's been so helpful for me to hear myself, to hear my tone and, He likes going that, right? That voice, that, you know? And with that training, I've really actually understood when I've slipped into righteousness, you know? So yeah, I would say committing to hearing yourself. and your tone and asking for feedback.

[43:14]

I'm asking for feedback. I think we're gonna make a lot of mistakes along the way. I know I am. And, you know, this is a little off topic. Ryan, but I sent a text to a friend and he said back to me, and the little emoji was praying hands and they were dark skinned. There's all those different tones you can choose, skin colors. And he said, aren't those a little dark for you? And I was like, oh, I just felt like it was inclusive using the darker praying hands. And he pointed out to me so kindly, he said, no, actually, that is so that people who have that skin tone can use it because their whole world has been white for so long.

[44:19]

It was so lovely to have that explained to me. Anyway, as I said, off topic. Thank you. And thanks for your talk tonight. Yeah, thanks, Ryan. Nancy, we've come to 8.31. Shall we close with the closing chant, which is now in the chat window?

[45:03]

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