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 would like to introduce our speaker and say a little bit about why she's taking the talk tonight. This is Linda Galligan. and she is the current director at Tasikara. The practice period theme that we're working with is practicing with intention, making a difference in the world. And in Buddha's Noble Eightfold Path, right intention comes after right view and before right speech and right action. So it's where we begin to make our intention manifest in our activity in the world and it's where we begin to make a difference in the world.

[01:04]

So I thought Linda would be a great person to talk about right speech because she's spent a lot of time intensively studying difficult conversations And this last year, she's been doing trainings for staff of SEND Center at City Center, Grouch, and Tassajara on how to skillfully have difficult conversations. So I think she has a lot to say to us. Thank you, Rosalie. Really happy to be sitting here with all of you tonight. Thank you. So yes, I've been working with Difficult Conversations for the last year or more, the book called Difficult Conversations. How many of you are familiar with the book? Some, but not a lot. I'll say just a little bit about it. It's not a new book, and it actually started out of the Harvard Negotiation Project, and the people who were involved in that started out in...

[02:13]

very difficult world political situations. One of the main authors worked to end apartheid in South Africa, working with all parties, worked with the US-Iran hostage negotiations, and worked in Rwanda. So they took what worked there, expanded it to work with corporations, and eventually wrote a book basically for lay people, you know, for just everyday people working with difficult conversations. And it's all the same basic stuff. And I will credit Gail with saying that this is a non-dual approach to conflict. It's very resonant with dharma, which is very exciting to me. It's very jargon-free, and it's very practical. It doesn't talk much about values other than the efficacy of not blaming people because they get defensive, and that doesn't seem to help very much. But I think there are some deep values that underlie it, and it's certainly very resonant with all the Buddha's teachings on right speech.

[03:17]

And in fact, right speech appears throughout the teachings in multiple places. It's, as Rosalie mentioned, the third step of the Eightfold Path, and specifically, there are four types of unwholesome speech that the Buddha identified as lying, backbiting and slander, or divisive speech, harsh speech and abusive language, and frivolous speech and gossip. And of the ten grave precepts, I find it really notable that four are related to speech. Not to lie, not to slander, not to praise self at the expense of others, and not to disparage the three treasures of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. And again, in the Dogen's Bodhisattva's Four Method Guidance, the third one is kind speech.

[04:20]

And Dogen says, Kind speech means that when you see sentient beings, you arouse the mind of compassion and offer words of loving care. Kind speech is the basis for reconciling rulers and subduing enemies. I thought that was very interesting. Again, with difficult conversations, that's so interesting. It's like, if I'm going to subdue my enemy, aren't I going to argue him into the ground? No, saying kind speech is the method for subduing enemies, for making them not your enemies, actually. Isn't that the best way to subdue them, to subdue both your minds? Those who hear kind speech from you will have a delighted expression and a joyful mind. Those who hear of your kind speech will be deeply touched. They will never forget it. You should know that kind speech arises from kind mind and kind mind for need of compassionate mind.

[05:27]

So as with most of the teachings, there's what's called a negative side and a positive side. The negative side is what not to do, the positive side is what to support or to promote. So in the precepts and the Pali Canon, the focus is on what not to do. don't lie, don't slander, don't gossip, don't engage in harsh speech or ill will. But Dogen talks about kind speech as the beneficial aspects of speech, the positive benefits that we can bring. So why is speech so central to all the teachings? I think... One of the main reasons is that our words are such a significant way that we can create tremendous suffering for ourselves and others. I was looking in Shohaku's book, Living by Vow, and he was talking at the beginning about the Buddha talking about samsara and the six realms of samsara, the hell realm, the hungry ghost realm, the angry...

[06:48]

animal realm, and he said, hell is when people live together and make each other suffer. That is hell. When we create suffering for ourselves and each other. And one of the main ways that we can create suffering is through our words. The words that we say out loud and the words that we don't say out loud. The words that we say to ourselves in our heads and the words that we say in our heads about other people. Words have such tremendous power in our world, and I think... I think because we live in such a verbal atmosphere, we read all the time, we talk all the time, we're just communicating so much that our words literally shape our world. They're what we see. Word can turn something for us, they can shift our mind...

[07:51]

in a positive way or a negative way. So because of the power of words, the Buddha and all the teachers have focused quite a bit on how to work skillfully with speech and with language so that we are having beneficial effects from our speech rather than harmful ones. I think also the Buddha talked a lot about right speech because He was negotiating this rapidly growing community of monks and nuns. And whenever people live together in community, they will talk. And obviously talking can create some challenges as well as delight. So I can just imagine it's like, okay, don't lie. Yeah, and don't slander either. And harsh speech, no, that's really out. Because you could see the effects.

[08:51]

None of the precepts, none of the guidelines were developed just as a good idea. It's like, oh, this has harmful effects. This is what we should do. This is what we should not do. So the words contribute to conflict and they also contribute to peace. Whatever we take as real, is real in its consequences. So if we are hearing words, if we're saying words, that gives whatever it is more weight. And we tend to believe it more. You know, we do service and we recite vows, and this is because of the power of words. We repeat them over and over again so that we're putting what we want, what we want to intend foremost in our minds, and we're not just running on old patterns of words, maybe some painful things that our parents said to us or teachers said to us, the painful things we might believe about each other, or maybe it turns the other way and it's the painful or difficult things we believe about others.

[10:11]

I've been noticing... Lately, it's interesting working with speech and difficult conversations in this whole area. I've gone through many different phases of what I'm aware of and what I notice. And what I've been really noticing lately is that when I'm having a hard time, if there's fear or unease or agitation, it's very easy for it to turn to irritation or ill will and project it out. And then if I start, you know, just not consciously, but you know, these little thought trails are going on, because that person, I'm experiencing them as making my life hard. Maybe they are occasioning a situation that I don't know how to deal with very well. You know, but I'm experiencing them as difficult, not as my difficulty in dealing with the situation. If I'm not having trouble dealing with someone, I do not particularly experience them as difficult.

[11:22]

I may kind of recognize, oh yeah, so-and-so, they're quirky, or they're like they are, or whatever, but know how to deal with them, so that's fine. They may be a little challenging, but that's cool. You know, I may even feel pleased that I know how to work with someone. You know, I may feel that satisfaction. that if I'm feeling stumped, it's very hard not to put that on the other person in some way. It can be very subtle, very subtle. Or I could put it on myself, I could say I'm no good because I don't know how to do that. I should know how to do better. But that's just, that's two sides of the same thing, the whole thing about blame. And in this book, Difficult Conversations, The whole first half of the book is devoted to reflection, to seeing what's going on, to understanding how is this situation? There is a situation here and I'm finding it difficult to talk about.

[12:28]

So before I jump in or avoid, let me reflect a little bit. And it offers some guidance about how to reflect on that. And the first one is that... There's not one truth. We all have our stories, and each of our stories makes complete sense from our own point of view. From where I sit, this makes sense. From where you sit, it makes sense to you. Your stories may look very dissimilar, but when we can see that from our point of view, that's what it looks like, it's a lot easier. Otherwise, we're just talking about who has the truth. The second one is about the difference between intention and impact. And I think this might be important to bring up when you're talking so much about intention, that we know our own intention and our intention is truly good. If we're sitting here in this room, we probably overall have very good intentions.

[13:35]

that sometimes the impact of what we say or what we do is not what we hoped. And if that's the case, and someone comes back and lets us know that something was very painful, it can be really hard to hear. And then we might say, I didn't mean it that way. And even, you're overreacting. Because I know I didn't mean that, so you must be overreacting. And of course, we all know how that feels for someone to tell us that. I am not overreacting. That is how I feel. Thank you very much. But on the other side of that, if we're hurting, we tend to attribute bad intentions to the other person. If I'm hurting so much, you must have meant to hurt me. Or you don't care. So starting to get clear about what's going on.

[14:44]

Be curious, investigate. What is the situation that's actually happening here? And then the third main area is the difference between blame and contribution. Instead of going to blame, can we talk about how each of us contributed to this situation? It can be very difficult to talk about contribution without feeling like, but then I'm to blame. It's your fault. I don't want, because we don't want to be at fault. We don't want to be at fault. We don't want to be blamed. So we try to get it off us and onto the other person or else we take it all on ourselves. I'm completely at fault. But looking at contribution is having a witnessing mind. It's having a calm, kind mind and being able to say, how did we get here? Just that.

[15:44]

How did we get to this place? Oh, you said this and I said that and oh, I see, I understood it in this way and because that was the sense that I made of it, I did this and on we go. Whatever we take as real is real in its consequences. That's huge. If we think something is real, we're going to act on that. That becomes our reality. Can we hold what we think is reality very lightly in our words and in our actions? Can we be curious? Can we ask ourselves, is that really so? Is that really the case? Maybe, but also maybe not. And maybe we could learn something. learn something about ourself and learn something about the other person. So as we learn to stop suffering, as we vow to stop the suffering in ourselves and in the world,

[17:03]

We turn our attention increasingly toward taking responsibility for the words that we say out loud and the words that we say inside our heads. At first we don't even notice them. I think that's one of the things that people fairly universally experience when they first sit down to meditate. My God, I didn't know it was that noisy in there. And the things that I say to myself, oh my God. But as we learn to listen without reacting, we get a little space around it. And we can find a little kindness. And we can take more responsibility. We can start to act instead of react. We vow not to cause harm. We vow to awaken with all beings. We vow to end delusions.

[18:07]

And the first step is just to be present with what is. Before we can end anything, we have to know what it is. And we have to be very familiar, very intimate. We really have to turn toward the suffering and turn toward what's actually happening. We can do it on our own, but it really helps to do it with others. To do it with others that we really trust, who can... hear us, and not think that that is us, who don't just take it all in. At Tassajara this week, there is a retreat of a group of women veterans that's led by Lee Lesser and Chris Fortin. This is their fifth year at Tassajara. They come down for five days. And a lot of what they do is they share their stories. These are almost all combat veterans, and many of them have been on several tours of duty, mostly Iraq and Afghanistan.

[19:24]

And what they have been through is literally unimaginable, I think, to most of us, and unspeakable. and they haven't had any way to say what their experience has been or to share it. And coming together in a safe environment with the support of practice and leaders, they share their stories and they bear witness to each other. They're to start saying what it is that they've seen what they've experienced, and in many cases what they themselves have done, to confess as well as to share, to give words to their experience, to give form to what has been overwhelming, to come out of the silence and the being trapped in their heads and in their bodies

[20:42]

and to be seen and heard and witnessed. And this is the power of speech. This is the power of speech to heal. And again, this is how we become responsible and accountable more deeply for the whole of our lives. When we can show up for our own lives, and take responsibility for how we are now and what we put out into the world and what we put in our own minds. You know, just as we have some choice over what we feed our minds and what we feed our thoughts, whether it's media or internet or books or conversations, we can take responsibility and choice for the thoughts we have. We can decide, I don't want to go there. I don't want to feed those negative thoughts, whether they're about ourselves or about others.

[21:48]

Ed Brown tells a story about Suzuki Roshi. He said one day, I think Ed was the Tenzo at Tassahara at the time, he went to Suzuki Roshi And he was just having a really hard time with the kitchen crew, and he was just complaining about them up one side and down the other. They're laser and attentive. They don't follow instructions. Lazy monks. And Suzuki Roshi listened rather patiently. And when Ed had finally wound down, Suzuki Roshi said, to see virtue, you must have a calm mind. To see virtue... You must have a calm mind. It's very hard to see the good in other people or the good in ourselves when we're full of agitation or ill will. So we cultivate our intention through cultivating composure, through cultivating calm, through finding ease in our bodies,

[23:04]

This is a training, this is part of our Zen training, is to cultivate ease because it is the ground for so many beneficial qualities. When we're at ease, it's so much easier to hold difficult stuff. There's more space for it, there's more calm for it. We're grounded, it's like we can meet it rather than being immediately thrown off balance by what comes. So one of the challenges in working with right speech is finding our way between these negative admonitions, negative just meaning don't, don't lie, don't backbite, don't slander, and the positive ones of be kind, be encouraging.

[24:17]

I think the... The five traditional ones about right speech are, is it kind and helpful? Is it true? Is it the right time? Is it the right place? And it can be very challenging if we're in a difficult situation and all that's really going on in our mind sounds a lot like slander or backbiting or ill will. And we feel like Can I say anything? If I can't say something nice, do I say anything at all? How do we work with what is difficult when we're not clear, when we're not in a calm state of mind? It's wonderful to cultivate composure and ease and support, but what about the times when we're not? What do we do then? because it can be all too easy to do a nifty little spiritual bypass and say, well, I'll just have kind speech, or it's not the right time or the right place, so I won't bring this up, and I'll just avoid this difficult conversation.

[25:38]

And maybe there's really a big impact to not having that difficult conversation. Maybe the big impact's on you, maybe it's on the other person, maybe it's on the community. At Zen Center, we tend to mostly be very kind and not want to hurt people's feelings. So I'm going to guess that probably more than half of you here might find it challenging to speak up and say something rather than your habit is just blurting something out or being confrontational. I'm just guessing. Odds are. So when difficult things arise in the mind, the first thing is just to notice it's there. To have some compassion for the one who's suffering, that would be you. To listen to what's under the words, to the feelings, to the body, to the experience.

[26:49]

How does it feel? What is the experience? of having this little train running around in my head with some little black thoughts on it that might include, I'm not supposed to be thinking things like that, feeling things like that. I'm trying to be a good student. What happens then? So we practice meeting each thing that arises, whether we like it or not. Accepting that it is, it's happening, it's here. Being kind, but not letting it run our life either. My teacher, Sojin Roshi, once said to me, everybody has a crying baby inside them.

[27:50]

At the time, I remember kind of thinking, except him. He probably doesn't. And then later, of course, I realized, of course he does, or he wouldn't be able to say that. We all have a crying baby inside of us. And he said, when you have a crying baby, and I've often thought of it as a cally baby, one that just is inconsolable and can't be comforted and is just completely distressed, that one. The moderately crying babies, those are fine. You just burp them and then they go to sleep. That's not the baby I'm talking about. The ones that kind of drive us crazy. The ones that are unacceptable. And he said, we can't get rid of it. We can't throw it away. And we can't smother it or choke it or toss it out the window. And we also can't let it run our life. We can't just fix it and make it better.

[28:59]

This is the baby that's not responding to a fresh diaper. It's not responding to food or kuchiku. This is the inconsolable one. And when we let the inconsolable one run our lives, then we might behave badly sometimes and cause more suffering for ourselves than others. because we're hurting so much, even if we're not in touch with that. But that baby has things to say, and they need to be heard. There's no set way of working in this realm. There's no rules except just the usual guidelines for practice. Beware, notice it, cultivate compassion and a lot of patience.

[30:03]

And restraint. I think in this situation, restraint is very appropriate to not act out of that place, to not be taken over, to not act out. Just to hold steady. You can think of a good parent You know, holding a crying baby, but not getting upset about it. Not too upset. Not completely losing it. And just taking it with you. Okay, baby, here we go. We're going off to work now. Now we're going to the zendo. Oh, good, we can cry together in the zendo. And over time, the baby becomes consoled. And that's when teachers and Dharma friends are so helpful. You know, that we can be there for each other. We accept so much, so easily in other people that is just unacceptable in ourselves.

[31:11]

I can't possibly. But for others that's easy. So speaking to ourselves A kind parental voice. Not if you have a mean parental voice, not that one. The kind one, the one we all know somehow or wish we had. That one, the one we already know even if we never had it directly. The encouraging one. This helps us with our intention. This kind mind really helps us keep going with our vows and our intentions. keeps us on track, keeps us encouraged, keeps us going. We have just a few minutes for questions, if anyone has any. Yes?

[32:13]

We're talking about over time that they become controlled. And I find that not too much. If that makes me cry. I have definitely found that it helps for me to not try to change the baby and to listen to the baby and accept the baby's crying. And there are times when they kind of teal out for a little bit. But I'm curious about that, because it's not been my experience with the ones who are inconsolable. I find that when I step back and try to control them, I'm not as caught up in it. Thank you for asking that. Yes, I think when I say is consoled, it's like it will pass. And then it might come back. But it's not this fixed thing. You know, it's not a fixed part of ourself that we think, oh yes, that. It's like, oh yes, this arises and it passes and now I have some understanding about, it's not mental understanding, but experiential sense of, oh yes, under these causes and conditions, the inconsolable one shows up again.

[33:39]

Oh, hello. Yes. And it becomes waves of energy. Yes? Related to that, I'm wondering if you think, as opposed to being consoled, that the baby can actually grow older? Because sometimes I feel like the more I listen and I'm patient with myself, the more my emotional age sort of develops. So is the baby always going to be an infant? Or can the baby, like, become a toddler? And a teenager. Yeah, I think there's parts of us that didn't have a chance to grow up, and then they get a chance to grow. And I've also had the experience that parts of me I thought were pretty well grown now, at least in middle school.

[34:40]

Certain causes and conditions arise, and it's like, bingo, back to the old stuff. So... Yeah, there's certain things that are just really triggering for those old, old places. But if we have some space around it, we won't react to it quite in the same way. So it doesn't take over as much. Maybe the baby is in the next room and someone else is taking care of it too. Not just us, you know. I don't know. You can only take a metaphor so far. Anything? Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco 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.

[35:45]

May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[35:46]

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