This podcast is offered by San Francisco's Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good evening, everyone. It's wonderful to be here at Zen Center. It's been a long time since I lived here in this building, but it's still kind of my home temple, and so it's great to be here. I'm talking tonight about bodhisattva values and social engagement. So many of you know, most of you know, we have 16 precepts in our tradition, 10 major precepts, and Dogen added three refuges in Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, and three pure precepts. And I won't go through all of them. I'd like to... uses commentaries Thich Nhat Hanh's precepts on interbeing.

[01:04]

And I'll just read a few of those that'll be relevant to what I'm going to say. Thich Nhat Hanh says, always speak truthfully and constructively. Have the courage to speak out about situations of injustice, even when doing so may threaten your own safety. Do not live with a vocation that is harmful to humans and nature. Do not invest in companies that deprive others of their chance to live. Select a vocation that helps realize your ideal of compassion. Do not kill. Do not let others kill. Find whatever means possible to protect life and prevent war. Possess nothing that should belong to others. Respect the property of others, but prevent others from profiting from human suffering or the suffering of other species on earth. So Thich Nhat Hanh's 16 precepts are kind of commentaries on our 10 major precepts. But in terms of basic bodhisattva values, I kind of in some ways boiled them down to three.

[02:11]

The 10 precepts are very helpful as specific guides, but in some ways the basic values come down to helping rather than harming. basic Buddhist teaching about hymns and non-harming, but that also means actively, positively to be helpful. So in each situation, how to be helpful rather than harmful, and how to support others to be helpful rather than harmful. So that's one. And then inclusiveness, to benefit all beings, to include all beings. And I'll talk more about that. And then third, respectfulness. So The precept is sometimes translated as not to slander, I read as not to speak of the faults of others. This doesn't mean we can't speak of harmful actions, but not to speak of them in terms of blame or demonizing particular people. How do we speak about harmful actions in terms of how to help end those harmful actions?

[03:18]

Rather than blame, how do we... help dispel ignorance so we all have a part in that fundamental ignorance? How do we help to not engage in harmful actions? So these basic bodhisattva values, Dogen has one of his Dharma Hall discourses in Ehe Koroku, Dogen's extensive record that I had the privilege of translating with Johago Gamora. This is one of his later short talks that I'll read in its entirety, but it just goes to the basic principle of these bodhisattva values. Dogen said, the family style of all Buddhas and ancestors is first to arouse the vow to save all living beings by removing suffering and providing joy. Only this family style is inexhaustibly

[04:21]

bright and clear. In the lofty mountains, we see the moon for a long time. As clouds clear, we first recognize the sky. Cast loose down the precipice, the moonlight shares itself with the 10,000 forms. Even when climbing up the bird's path, taking good care of yourself as spiritual power. That kind of encompasses our whole practice. But this first sentence, the family style of all Buddhas and ancestors is first to arouse the vow to save all living beings by removing suffering and providing joy. So family style is a common Zen expression for a particular teaching style. We can talk about Suzuki Roshi's family style, but here he's talking about the basic style of all Buddhas and all their followers. Bodhisattva vow to save all beings. In the Lotus Sutra, maybe the most important sutra in East Asia and the most important for Dogen, it says that the single great cause for Buddhas to appear in the world is to help beings onto the way to awakening and to relieve suffering.

[05:37]

That's what Buddhas are for. That's the reason Buddhas appear, just to help beings onto the path to awakening and relieve suffering. So, obviously our meditation practice, our zazen, is not just a self-help practice. It's not just about personal psychology. Of course, zazen does have this transformative function and we all, if we engage in this practice ongoingly and regularly see its benefits for ourselves and people around us who are doing it. But it's not just about us. It's not just about taking care of yourself. So we sit facing the wall. And facing the wall is not to keep people, certain people, or the world out.

[06:39]

We don't face the wall as an escape from the world. Bodhisattvas do not build walls to keep out people who are different from us, but to learn from differences. So we sit facing the wall as a mirror. We don't keep certain beings out, but the wall is a mirror to see our deep communion and non-separation from all beings. So our zazen is just to face the wall, just to face ourselves, just to face all beings. So we could call this zazen practice that we focus on here, the samadhi of all beings. We never sit alone. Even if you are sitting at home when you're not here at Zen Center,

[07:45]

We never can sit alone. Everybody you've ever known, everybody you ever will know, even the people you don't know you know, are part of what's happening on your seat. This samadhi of all beings is deep communion with all beings and with all space and with all time. This is not just... This is the actual experience of this samadhi of all beings. And we start to have some sense of this viscerally when we do this practice ongoingly. This samadhi of all beings, this deep communion with all space and all time. It's not just personal. So actually this samadhi of all beings is a social practice. If your sitting up in Tassajara or down in the basement here is strong enough, maybe it can help heal the problem of racism, the problem of climate disruption, which I want to talk about both of those tonight.

[09:09]

But this samadhi of all beings is a communion with all being. in all space and all time. But Bodhisattva practitioners also address systems of suffering in the world. How do we face the wall? So I've been translating the first noble truth as just facing sadness. Usually it's translated as suffering, but just to face sadness. Beneath all the fear and anger and hatred in the world is just pain. It's personal, it's collective. There's sadness. And it's a noble truth because we can sit and face it. We can sit upright and still and be present and face the sadness.

[10:14]

And there's a tremendous dignity and power to being able to do that. This is a noble truth. This is the starting point of our practice. It doesn't mean it's not sad. It is. How can we sit and face that? So this is personal and collective. Of course, we need to face our own personal patterns. And habits of greed and anger, hatred or delusion become intimate with those patterns so we don't react and act out based on those habits and cause harm to ourselves or others. We acknowledge both personal and collective or societal karma. We avow our ancient twisted karma from beginningless greed, hate and delusion, both individually and collectively. This is our practice, facing the sadness.

[11:20]

So there are bodhisattvas doing engaged practice. There are, we could say, a couple of different modes. There's caregiving and system changing, to make that distinction. So both of these are important. And many people here, I think, are engaged in caregiving in some way. So that would include things like hospice work or working in prisons, helping guide meditation for all the people involved in the mass incarceration in our society, helping with soup kitchens, helping with food pantries, calling on the sick, teaching children, many kinds of caregiving that people do, and that's very important. But I want to talk tonight more about the other side, about systems changing.

[12:23]

So it's kind of obvious now in our society that there are many systemic sources of suffering, of sadness, of pain, structural causes of suffering, corruption of our society's economic system and political system and justice system. violence, inequality, injustice, racism, and climate damage, and encouragement of hatred and prejudice by politicians and media. These are huge problems. They affect all of us. We can pretend they're not there. We can go about our daily lives, but really, they affect us all. These are part of our collective Ancient Twisted Karma. So I want to particularly talk about racism and about climate tonight a little bit. There's so much to say. So I've been really appreciating the Black Lives Matter movement and joining in on actions in Chicago where I live and where my temple is.

[13:47]

and really want to encourage people to consider supporting this. This has to do with facing the patterns of slavery and racism that are so deeply embedded in our society's karma. Michelle Obama last month spoke about waking up each day in a house built by slaves. It's not just the White House. Our whole US economy is built on racism and slavery. And the many unarmed black people being killed by police, it seems every week, and often the police not being held accountable

[14:52]

This has to do with this karma. So how do we talk about race and racism? I've been encouraging talking, just talking about this in my sangha. How do we talk about this? Of course, there's also the destruction of the Native American people. But in so many ways, our whole economy, North and South, was built on slavery and racism. And this involves looking at We have our own personal karmas to look at and our own personal history, and yet our personal history and karma is not separate from our collective national karma. And so history is interesting. We look at the past. Our practice and our teaching in Zen and in Buddhism gives us many tools to look at Time and karma and how we look at history.

[15:54]

Some historians now talk about the American Revolution in interesting ways. Of course, the American Revolution gave us these values of liberty and justice for all. Wonderful values that our Zen ancestors in feudal Asia didn't have the ideal even of participatory democracy. we may not have that, but we at least have the idea of it, and that's really important. And yet, also, historians now are looking at how the American Revolution, at least in part, you know, everything is so complicated, but at least in part, the American Revolution had to do with the colonists being afraid because Britain was getting ready to abolish slavery. And slavery was not just important in the South, it was important to the economy of the North too.

[16:57]

So, you know, history is tricky. So we have to look at all these different sides of things. How do we talk about race and racism? How do we recognize, you know, if we think we're white, those of us who think we're white, whatever that means, you know, how do we look at our white privilege? How do we look at the reality of African-American mothers who have to be concerned about what happens to their children or sons when they go off each day? I did a meditation program for activists a couple months ago and there was a Christian fellow there who said that all of us are recovering racists.

[17:59]

Interesting way to look at it. We all have some relationship to this issue. So given everything that's happening in our world now, how do we look at this? Each of us has some relationship to this problem. How do we look at this and how do we This Black Lives Matter movement, what I've seen of it is really, and I've marched in Chicago, and there's a lot of anger, it's very strong, but it's really non-violent. And of course, there are eruptions of violence, and there's so much power there, and there's so much in our society around all of us. So what I'm suggesting is that because of our practice, because of our ability to face the sadness, we have something to offer.

[19:06]

We can participate in a way that is helpful. So there's much more to say about that. But I also want to talk, we could do a whole practice period on that, but I want to also talk about the problem of climate. So I was supposed to go to Tassajara this past weekend, and as you all know, there's a fire around Tassajara, and I guess it's getting better, huh? Slow down. I wasn't able to go to Tassajara. I was going to be teaching some classes there this last weekend, and So instead, I was here, and I was able to get some work done, which I'm happy for. But, you know, the science says that the fires in California is a product of climate damage. And we now know that ExxonMobil knew about

[20:17]

the effects of climate damage in the 70s and did actually sponsored research that really showed what was going to happen. But instead of revealing that, they spent tens of millions of dollars to cover it up. And I want to recommend to people truthout.org. There's a reporter named Dar Jamal, D-A-H-R-J-A-M-A-I-L, who does monthly... reports on each month's new science about climate. So I just want to read a few highlights of his August 1st report. Just a few little bits of what's happening this month with our planet's habitat. He starts off talking about Alaska. Does anybody here from Alaska? Well, anyway, in late June... Due to glaciers melting at unprecedented rates, the side of a mountain nearly a mile high in Alaska's Glacier Bay National Park, which had formerly been supported by glacial ice, collapsed completely.

[21:26]

The landslide released over 100 million tons of rock, sending debris miles across a glacier beneath what was left of the mountain. Mountains that have been largely covered by glaciers for eons are losing their ice cover, and the soggy, unstable land underneath is giving way to Landslides are usually large enough to cause seismic tremors, sometimes close enough to the ocean tsunamis. Again, there's a whole lot here, so I recommend looking at Truthout.org, but I'm just going to read a few things. He interviewed some young people who talked about their anguish at seeing seals going extinct, for example. One of them talked about One of his favorite things was to go to Juneau and visit the Mendenhall Glacier, but visiting it over time and watching it melt more and more each year, it's now small, tiny.

[22:28]

It's not going to be there much longer. In the United States, heat records have become the norm. Last June, this past June, was the hottest on record and became the second June in a row to hit the record. May was the 13th month in a row for record-breaking planetary temperatures, and I just saw that this last July was also the hottest month on record. So I'm just flipping through some of the highlights, or lowlights. Forests in the world are becoming mass casualties to what he calls anthropocentric climate disruption, a technical scientific name. Millions of trees have died off across Europe, the United States, the U.S. Southwest, and California. And these die-offs have been directly tied to this ACD, anthropocentric climate disruption. And in Siberia... In the Siberian Arctic, Russian scientists are finding what they are referred to as fountains of gas, massive amounts of methane and carbon dioxide bubbling up from beneath the tundra to the extent that is causing the Arctic tundra to jiggle like jelly, forming blisters of heat-trapping gases with shockingly high levels of carbon dioxide and methane.

[23:51]

As global sea levels rise, New York City is planning on spending $3 billion to build a 10-foot high wall around lower Manhattan, not to protect it from Mexicans, but from the storm surges and rising seas. In Australia, the Great Barrier Reef is suffering what they call a complete ecosystem collapse. Glacier National Park in Montana, has anybody ever been there? Yeah, some heads. That park used to contain 150 glaciers. Now it has 25. The Amazon rainforest is seeing record-setting wildfire season, and experts have also stated unequivocally that wildfire is burning across the western United States, particularly in California. So the fire near Tassajara is being fueled by ACD-amplified factors such as... droughts, beetle infestations, winds, and record-breaking heat. Siberia has been ablaze throughout most of the summer.

[24:59]

An area larger than the state of Maryland has already burned. So that's just a few of the things in that report. Okay. What I really want to talk about, though, tonight is that we hear this stuff and we see what's happening in our society and And it's really easy, it's really available to feel overwhelmed or to feel hopeless. And what I want to say is that that's not realistic. That's a kind of indulgence. It's a kind of laziness to feel hopeless. It's a kind of self-clinging. Actually, change happens. As bad as things are, change happens. This is basic Buddhist teaching.

[26:00]

There's so many examples. And usually, the real changes that happen don't happen because of some elected political leaders, but through the awareness and actions of many people. We could say, Thanks to Sangha, in the widest sense. So, in my lifetime, the Berlin Wall came down, the Soviet Union collapsed, apartheid ended in South Africa. More recently, thanks to the LGBTQ movement, gay marriage is legal in many places in this country. Couldn't have been imagined 10 years ago, maybe even 5 years ago. 100 years ago, Women were not allowed to vote in this country. Now we have a woman running for president. This didn't happen thanks to some men who got elected and said, oh, let's let women vote. It happened because of decades of women marching and lobbying.

[27:04]

So change happens. We have to study that history, too. I want to read some excerpts from... the new edition of Rebecca Solnit's Hope in the Dark, talking about how this works. So this was written this last year. She says, this is an extraordinary time full of vital transformative movements that could not be foreseen. It's also a nightmarish time. Full engagement requires the ability to perceive both. 21st century has seen the rise of hideous economic inequality, perhaps due to amnesia both of the working people who countenance declines in wages, working conditions, and social services, and the elites who forget that they conceded to some of these things in the hope of avoiding revolution. Hope doesn't mean denying these realities.

[28:08]

It means facing them and addressing them by remembering what else the 21st century has brought. including the movements, heroes, and shifts in consciousness that address these things now. Among them, Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, Idle No More, the dreamers addressing the DREAM Act and immigration rights, Edward Snowden, Laura Poitras, Glenn Greenwald, the movement for corporate and government transparency, the push for marriage equality, a resurgent feminist movement, economic justice movements, addressing and in many cases raising minimum wages. fighting debt peonage and the student loan racket, and a dynamic climate and climate justice movement, and the intersection between them all. This has been a truly remarkable decade, the decade we're in, for movement building, social change, deep, profound shifts in ideas, perspective, and frameworks for broad parts of the population. And, of course, backlashes against all these things.

[29:10]

This is what we're in the middle of. We're in a time of change. We're in a time of change that includes really the possibilities for positive change. And so what I want to do tonight is encourage you all to be part of that and to talk about the ways in which our practice has something to offer to that. 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, please visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we all fully enjoy the Dharma.

[30:00]

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