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. I've never given a talk in this room before. I lived here a long time ago. My daughter is now 11. And we lived here from birth to age 2. Even though I lived here for two years, I actually didn't spend that much time in this room because I was otherwise occupied. So my strongest memory, actually, of this room is my daughter being about this tall and mostly crawling all over this tatami mat and actually really enjoying crawling over there and ringing the bells. So that's what this room is for me in some ways. become very interested in the question of intention.

[01:11]

And it started actually when I was teaching basic meditation, mindfulness, not as a Zen center, but in the working world for people who were very caught up in what they were doing and very appreciative of having some way to be more present. And as I was teaching ways to notice, sitting up straighter, standing up straighter, noticing the breath, etc. This question of intention started to arise. The question was fundamentally of what do we think we're doing here in our life or in our work? So are we running around creating something? Are we making money? Are we... doing what our parents wanted us to do? Are we doing what we think it takes to be happy? How are we relating to others?

[02:13]

How do we start to ask this question? And I've talked with people who have very exciting, good jobs and are very smart, and they say, oh my gosh, I've forgotten to ask. Even with this really great job, is this really... what I want to be doing or what do I think I'm doing here. In honor of Earth Day, which is tomorrow, I'm going to start with an intentional quote from someone familiar to us. It says, I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to put to rout all that was not life, and not when I had come to die, discover that I had not lived. This is someone who spent a lot of life energy turning towards this question of intention and explored it quite deeply.

[03:26]

And we're still reading his words today. So probably it would have been a different book if he had decided to rent a small room in the middle of New York City. It might have been a fine book, but it would have been a very different book. There may have been a way he went into the woods also knowing that he would be taught. It wasn't all just up to him. Intention is part of the Noble Eightfold Path, as you may know. Sometimes it's called right thought or right intention or right aspiration. So different translations that have slightly different feelings. And it's the second in the Noble Eightfold Path after right view or right understanding.

[04:34]

And it comes in between right view and understanding and then right speech, right action. So it's that mental place, space, moment of considering how do we understand what's happening here, our lives, reality, Buddhist teaching, what the heck's going on, and how am I supposed to, supposed to, want to, aspire to, act, show up, talk, because we have to, because we're human. So it gives that space to ask, how am I thinking about things? What am I intending? And looking at right understanding, some different elements of it that traditionally are talked about. One is things obviously, but sometimes we don't get it, are impermanent. They're always changing all the time.

[05:39]

Things... are interconnected. There's kind of no stable self. You know, if you try to find the thing in the thing, you can't quite get it. And the idea that if you try to hold on to things that you can't really hold on to, there's suffering. And then also the idea of karma, which means action. So intention is also very closely tied to karma. So how do we think... What do we think we're doing? The thing about karma, actually, is we don't know. We have no idea what our actions are going to, how they're going to ripple out. So the smallest thing, saying hello to someone, showing up, you don't really know where it's going to go. So if we pay attention to our state of mind as we do something, that's kind of the best that we can do, in a way.

[06:41]

There's some interesting quotes about intention. One is Venerable Maha Gosananda, who is in Cambodia, a great leader of Cambodia. He says, The thought manifests as the word. The word manifests as the deed. The deed develops into the habit. Habit hardens into the character. Character gives birth to the destiny. So watch your thoughts with care and let it spring from love born out of respect for all beings. Read that one more time. The thought manifests as the word. The word manifests as the deed. The deed develops into the habit. Habit hardens into the character. Character gives birth to a destiny. So watch your thoughts with care and let it spring from love born out of respect for all beings. for all beings.

[07:44]

And then the Buddha says also, all that we are is the result of what we have thought. It is founded on our thoughts. It is made up of our thoughts. If a person speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him as the wheel follows the foot of the ox that draws the carriage. All that we are is the result of what we have thought. It is founded on our thought. It is made up of our thoughts. If a person speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him like a shadow that never leaves him. I'm talking about renunciation. There are three basic things that traditionally are taught with it. One is simply non-harming, like a physician, do no harm. One is non-ill will, wishing people well. And then the third is renunciation. Sometimes we get this kind of funny feeling.

[08:55]

We're like, what is renunciation? But just like I said a minute ago, with the understanding, if we understand how things are, that we can't really hold on to them, then renunciation is actually just living in that way, not giving out the things that not the things themselves, but in a confused relationship with them. So the idea, if you try to hold on to something that is always changing and impermanent, then there's going to be suffering. do we make this actually real in our lives? So these are a lot of words from a Buddhist tradition. But what does this have to do with me exactly?

[09:56]

I just think, you know, what is my intention coming in here this morning? I could say a lot of different things. You know, one is to show up and to try to offer something of benefit. But in a way, I don't know what's going to happen. So there's a kind of showing up, a wishing and aspiration, and then also a kind of letting go. Like we can intend, but we can't actually do it ourselves, because in a way we can't do anything ourselves. So I invite you right now for just a moment to consider what was the motivation, what brought you here today? There were plenty of other things you could have done. It's incredibly beautiful outside. I actually thought, is anyone going to actually be there? Because they probably had every intention to show up today and then saw what a beautiful summer day, such as we rarely get, it is, and thought, well, I think my intention, despite my best intentions, I have something else to do.

[11:11]

So for a moment, maybe you want to close your eyes for a second. What brought you here today? What is your intention in showing up, listening to these words? And underneath it, there's maybe another question, and you may or may not have the answer to it, but it's worth asking. What is the heart's innermost request? What is my deep wish, my deep heart wish? open your eyes, but how often do we consider this question? I heard recently of a practice of a certain group of Catholic monks that every morning they go outside the monastery to take their cup of tea with them and there's a ditch that's purposely dug outside of the monastery and they go sit in the ditch and

[12:22]

to drink their cup of tea, and the ditch is representative of their own grave. So every morning, to sit in your own grave and drink your cup of tea, and maybe enjoy it, in the sense that it cuts right through, OK, what am I going to do today? How am I going to spend this precious day, which of course could be the last? It brings up this question of intention and even deeper, the motivation. You know, what's the calling of this life? What's the calling of today? And intention's a little bit different than goal also. Goals are very useful. You know, I want to lose 10 pounds. I want to finish my project right next Tuesday. I want to take three trips by the end of the year. These are all wonderful things to do. But they're supportive of something that's more, an intention is a bit more of an orientation.

[13:26]

It's connecting with something bigger, kind of a way you're orienting your life. And then you can choose different goals that support that. And when intention is very strong, or maybe at the deepest level, it touches into vow. What is a vow? And how is a vow different from intention? What does a vow do? Why do we vow? Why do we have the vows floating around all over the place here? You know, we have, we'll say it in a chant at the end. Many different kinds of vows, bodhisattva vows. A vow seems stronger than an intention, or maybe it's the same as an intention, but just deeper, or a deeper understanding. Beings are numberless. I vow to save them.

[14:29]

I was teaching in a sangha... And one person, actually, the part of the group practice before I came was, instead of saying, I vow to say, we vow, we vow to save them. So that illuminates another aspect of it, that together, we do this together. And I resist it. I said, no, no, there's also something, there's something lost in that too, that there's the personal understanding If we can talk this way, forgive me, whoever, to say I vow. But there is something valuable in that sense of responsibility. I take that in my own body. I vow. And also we vow. So we had a bit of a back and forth on this, and then we consulted a scholar. And in the original, it's more like no pronoun at all, not I, not we, just vowing.

[15:33]

Vowing happens. Vowing happens. And my feeling now is that all three are true. You know, I vow, we vow, vow. Vowing arising, and there's no way we can really understand how it all happens together. I've always appreciated in the four bodhisattva vows, you know, beings are numberless, I vow to save them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it. That they're these impossible vows. That we're vowing all the time. What do we think we're doing? I feel like it saves us. It's this great protection. that we vow these impossible grand vows with all our heart because we can't accomplish them.

[16:37]

We can never check them off. Say, I did that. Check. Okay, now on to the next thing. You know, it's forever opening and asking and relating these numberless beings. What does it mean to save them, awaken with them, meet them, be present, Realize there's not a them. It's an endless, endless way for us to engage. And I find also in vow, there's an active or intention. Also, there's an active element. And this is also in Buddhist teaching, you know, effort, right? Effort. There is an energy. There's something energetic. I'm going to show up. I'm going to be there. And there's also a kind of, and I can't do it. Or St. Francis of Assisi, make me an instrument of thy peace, a kind of surrender. And both of these things, I think service happens in both of these things.

[17:38]

There's the saying, you know, use me, I'm here. And I'm going to get up and I'm going to do this. And somewhere in that balance, I think our life fully blooms. Just reading, there's something called the... I think it's called the Heroic Imagination Project that's being created by Philip Zimbardo, who is a well-known, legendary professor of psychology at Stanford, and the idea of trying to cultivate heroes, the idea that we can cultivate this heroic impulse. I mean, he sees it as... There are very few people on the what he calls evil end of the spectrum, and then a few people on the heroic end. And then he said, and the majority of people do nothing and with no imagination whatsoever. Is that true?

[18:42]

And so he's created this heroic imagination cultivation project to try to create heroes in waiting almost, or ready to jump, to move towards that instead of I-centric, kind of the we, the we-centric. And I think this isn't fully developed yet, but one of the initial practices is to try to do something nice for someone every day. I thought, okay. But I thought, we have our own kind of maybe bodhisattva and training practice where we're doing all these different things. And what is heroism? Is it the extraordinary? putting yourself at risk for others in an extraordinary way, or is simply really being present and orienting a life towards being present, is there perhaps a kind of heroism in that as well? One story I heard from that, though, of a little boy who was eight years old in China, and there was a big earthquake, and the school was collapsing, and he ran back in, and he rescued two of his...

[19:48]

classmates, and people asked him, why did you do that? And he said, I was the hall monitor. It's just what I do. It was my job, right? So I think how we think of ourselves and where we put ourselves is just what we do, you know? And vow also, literally, in terms of neurology, literally shapes the mind. So I think it's Aristotle, actually, who said we are what we repeatedly do. And also what we think. And this is why right thought is so important. As you think something over and over, you incline the mind, you're actually cutting, laying down pathways physically in your mind. So then in a stressful situation, that's the way you go. So noticing, sometimes in these practices, and this is what I tell people who are very new to this also, it's like we have super highways in our head. of how we would habitually react to things.

[20:49]

So learning to do something slightly differently, like instead of yelling at someone when you get upset to stop, remember, oh, I can take a breath. I can feel my feet on the floor. That's like cutting a path in the long grass. It's not natural or easy. We're used to doing it a certain way. But the more we practice, then the more natural that becomes. And then in the pressure, that's where we go. We have a chance. of going that direction. So one question is, how do we support this? So we can say we have an intention, we have a vow, we want to be present. How does this get supported? And I notice there are many different practices. If you look around, just even say, Zen Center, like all the different things we do, like offering incense or chanting or coming and bowing.

[21:52]

Why does that happen? You know, what does that do? And I think it affects us on very profound non-conscious levels. So I notice for myself a practice I try to do is in the evening is here we do a call confession and repentances and then also taking refuge. in Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. And I notice that if I'm kind of tired and I'm already in bed and I think, oh, darn, I forgot, and I just am lying there in bed saying it to myself, I feel like there's some value in that. I notice if I get up and I actually stand in front of my altar and put my hands in gasho and say it silently to myself, that feels a little more, has a little more life to it. If I actually verbalize it, speak it, hear it, I feel those vibrations in my body and it's even more alive. And then if I actually bow, then somehow it's a whole other layer. And then on top, then even beyond that, if I'm in the Zendo doing this with a whole group of people and everyone's voice and the bells and we're bowing together, it feels like a whole other level of I'm being permeated with this.

[23:05]

I'm being shaped with this. And... you know, having a child and at times being busy and not being in the zendo for service, if I go some time without it, I notice, I feel different. Something there is being nourished, shaped, oriented, reinforced. When I put myself in that place and go through these rituals, which I think are extremely powerful. There's a quote, if I have it, I think I do. So Petsu Norman Fisher, a teacher in this lineage, wrote this actually in a Huffington Post blog that he did a while ago, but I keep returning to it. And it says, there is no doubt in my mind that ancient religious traditions, despite all their baggage and painful histories, are still very valuable, the more so in this present scientific materialistic age

[24:08]

when human confusion and the search for sustainable meaning are as drastic as ever. There is simply no way to match the amount of experimentation, discussion, literature, history, tradition, or doctrine and know-how that is embedded in these age-old discourses and institutions. Starting all over with new practices, theories, and doctrines, or mixing and matching what we can find from various religions as it suits us is okay. But it is simply not as good, not as deep, and not as thorough. For myself, I find myself going out and experimenting and mixing that team quite a bit. And I find it a wonderful, skillful means, and it reaches people. And I find I keep coming back to this. I keep wanting to put on this road. I keep wanting to bow in front of the Buddha. I keep wanting to chant and be with Sangha and study yoga.

[25:12]

That this for me is the deep well. And I think it supports this question of, what do you think we're doing here? It doesn't answer it for me, but it helps me keep orienting to that place. can pass an interview with Joanna Macy, a wonderful thinker and activist and also has thought very deeply about how we are able to open to or close from the larger world situation. What is happening? What is happening to the earth? What is happening to injustice, et cetera? How do we decide to close? How are we able to open How are we able to experience whatever, if opening involves a certain amount of pain or difficulty, are we able to stay with that to get to what she says is really a deep love under there.

[26:23]

But she was saying in this recent article in Inquiring Mind that she recently did a three-month retreat at her house. And she said she found it very rewarding to practice with Jizo who is known for being able to go into the most difficult situations with beings and be present. And so the interviewer asked her, you know, well, what's new now that you did this three-month retreat? And she said, what is new, perhaps, is a greater recognition of intention. Because it's not as if we suddenly get zapped and look and see in the net of the way that everything is amazingly interconnected. It's that we choose to see it. India's net reveals itself to us when we dare to see it and live it. Similarly, Jesus chooses to make his vow, and his vow in turn shapes him, opens him to future ones. If there was an aha on this retreat, it was that we are all capable of choosing to make a great vow.

[27:31]

Here's your great vow. Have we chosen? We choose to make great vows. And she says, you know, do we? Maybe it's not like we're zapped. There's a choosing. Yes, I want to open and see it. But then there are all these practices, choices we make that support that. And as she said with the jizo, you make the vow, but then the vow shapes you, opens you to future vows. I was talking to a neuroscientist about this. Well, what happens when we keep returning to this question? And for him, he said, it's like a shape in my mind, like a structure in my mind that helps move us a certain way. And then also, we started talking about inertia, psychological inertia. We start, you know, we have our routines, both physical routines, but also mental routines. We keep thinking about things the same way. And he was speculating that there's something about vow that breaks that up a little bit, disturbs it, so that we have more sense of freshness or choice, or how do we really meet this person?

[28:40]

in front of me, even if it's my spouse and I've seen them up 10 million times. You know, how do I actually be present with this person? And Zen Center, you know, is a, this kind of, a monastery is a very intentional environment. I was walking around Cloud Hall, which is the kind of hall right outside the Zender at Green Gulch, and there are, you know, cushions for sitting in people's rooms, et cetera. And I thought, oh, you can actually physically see people's practice. You can physically see people's intention. You know, just like here, the fact that this mat is straight and clean, that someone is looking after that. You know, we create this space, and this space in turn shapes us. So there's a question of what shape do we put ourselves in to be shaped, knowing that we can't stay... the same. You know, we are shaped by wherever we are.

[29:44]

I've told this story before, but I had this great aha when I was in my 20s and I lived in New York. And I really, in some ways, really enjoyed living in New York, in some ways found it very challenging. It was a more dangerous city then. And at some point I got it like, oh, there is no me that is going to, in a way, survive this. You know, that I can't just be myself, as I understand it, and not be shaped by this environment. So, is this the way I want to be shaped? And my choice was actually no. You know, one year was fine. And I kind of miss California. I kind of like the California shape. I think I'll go become a California me, right? But I knew I couldn't, I couldn't, I could not control it. It was beyond me. So again, putting yourself into these, you know, as Norman's talking about these practice environments, it's in a way saying, shape me. You know, I allow myself to be shaped. I allow myself to interact with this environment in a certain way.

[30:48]

I allow myself to show up where people are making vows. Maybe I make a vow too. It seems useful to me to ask intention and vow on all these different levels. Okay, we're sitting in the ditch drinking our cup of tea. What are we doing today? What are we doing with this life? What is my deep heart wish? Am I willing to remember to even ask that question maybe on a daily basis? And then what springs out of that? Are there vows maybe to benefit All beings, is that a worthy vow? To be present? To cut through delusion? All these vows?

[31:49]

Are there intentions that support that? You know, intention to be present? Are there practices that support those intentions? Maybe meditate every day? Maybe be part of Sangha? This morning I went for a walk in the hills above Green Gulch. You may know Hope Cottage, way up there on the top of the hill. It's a great walk going up. Part of my intention was to support being more fully present here this morning, as I was considering this. But as I was walking up, I also thought, could part of my intention be to pay attention? to notice. And there was something about the gift of the morning and it being so bright and sparkling that I was not completely obsessed about what I was going to say here this morning, but could actually notice what was around me.

[33:03]

And I was doing some stretching and I bent down and there was a newt, kind of right there, a California newt. And I'm so grateful I was present enough to see it. And then as I was sort of standing up, I noticed on the side of the hill, these grasses coming out, and just, you know, grasses. But at the very end, they had these, like, tiny yellow flowers at the end, which I had never, ever seen before. And I've been living at Green Girls for years and years. And then I also later saw these red flowers that were just sort of like that, you know, just great. And I thought, you know, I think I used to know the name of those flowers, but I don't know. So I could at least notice that I didn't know. And I reaffirmed my wish to simply pay attention. I'm struck by the Harry Philip Zimbardo's vision of heroic action, or what do we need to do to actually move things or shift things in a positive direction. But I also thought, and it starts with paying attention right now, where we are.

[34:10]

There's a story that people tell a lot at Green Gulch of Harry Roberts, who's a Native American teacher and guide who helped people in the early days of shaping Green Gulch. And there's a story that if people would ask to be his student, the first question he would ask them is, find me five native plants. And if they headed off to find five native plants, that was it. No hope for them. But if they actually looked down right where they were, then he would perhaps accept them. So how do we be, are we present right where we are? If we're not grounded and present right where we are, then how are we able to actually step out and meet what needs to be met? There's someone at Green Gulch now who is not from this place, but spent time there.

[35:18]

He's actually spent some time living in the place where I grew up. I almost never meet anybody from the place where I grew up these days, which is a small town, very small town in southeast Texas in the middle of a place called the Big Thicket. And believe it or not, it's actually one of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet. A lot of different ecosystems cross there. And I have spent thousands of hours in woods there. But as I was talking to him, he had trained as a ranger there. You know, I knew, I did know that we have all four types of poisonous snakes. The United States lived there. I did not know we had two different kinds of rattlers, that they're two different species. And he proceeded to tell me all these different things that I didn't know, having grown up right there. And so I appreciated this question of paying attention.

[36:19]

The bell is ringing. There's one thing I want to finish with. Two things. Three things. One is, okay, two from His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Religion does not mean just precepts, a temple, monastery, or other external signs. For these, as well as hearing and thinking, are subsidiary factors in taming the mind. When the mind becomes the practices, one is a practitioner of religion. And when the mind does not become the practices, one is not. And also his own practice, which you may consider if this is something you might want to take on. He says, every day, think as you wake up.

[37:24]

Today, I am fortunate to have woken up. I am alive. I have a precious human life. I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others, to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. I am going to have kind thoughts toward others. I am not going to get angry or think badly about others. I am going to benefit others as much as I can. So what would your day be like if you said this to yourself every day? And then finally, just to end with a poem by Rumi called Every Tree. Every tree, every growing thing as it grows, says this truth, you harvest what you sow. With life as short as a half-taken breath, don't plant anything but love.

[38:26]

The value of a human being can be measured by what he or she most deeply wants. Be free of possessing things. Sit at an empty table. Be pleased with water. The taste of being home. 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.

[39:11]

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