This is what I wanted to talk about this morning. I wanted to talk about how does that Buddhist practice, our Zen Buddhist practice, support us to relate to turmoil in our society, racism in particular. African-Americans being subjected to inappropriate behaviors? How does our practice help us relate to that? I think in a way, if we don't ask and answer that question, they'll feel like two different things. Maybe talk about this.

[01:02]

when we should be talking about that. And also I think that our practice has a lot to offer as we look at these things. I think is that notion of appropriate response. The challenge for us is like how do we bring that to anything and everything life presents? This morning I'd like to reference it from the six paramitas. In particular, the sixth paramita. Prajna or insight. So I want to do a certain kind of experiment. Let me just see where we get with it. But let me preface it by saying this.

[02:06]

I think our Zen training asks of us that whatever arises in our life, in particular, what's arising has for us an energy, kind of intense engagement, but for one way or another, positive, negative, or just intensely interesting. It's a telltale sign that there's something there that we would learn from if we explored it. think of this particular issue and then all the other of racism and then the other issues that intersect with I think they have a lot to teach us especially maybe most importantly about our own being part of that's what prompted me the last time I gave a talk to talk about my own history

[03:32]

I'd learn from that? What are my biases? I started the last talk by mentioning an experience I had where I was with another group of teachers, four of us teach a course, year-long course, and we were thinking, asking ourselves, well, how can we help us all and the people take the course to be more attentive to the influences of racism and teacher said, well, there's this marvelous thing called the Harvard Intricid Bias Test. And then another teacher who I think it's relevant is half Mexican and half Native American Indian. I said, I don't mean to be offensive, but I need to say that if I told my family

[04:44]

who are half Mexican and half American Indian. That's how we were going to explore diversity. They laughed. I thought, oh, so we're displaying implicit bias as we talk about taking a test to explore implicit bias. I don't think we have to be filled with consternation or guilt about such things. I think we should be educated, informed by them, but surely Buddhism teaches us that conditioned existence, however it has come into being for us, will assert a conditioned response to what's going on

[05:46]

which makes wisdom, or, you know, vajna, not wisdom beyond wisdom, a particular kind of challenge. And I think for that reason that prajna comes as the sixth paramita, you know. The paramitas, as hardly usually formulated, We have generosity. A sense of engagement that's not about scarcity, but more about that life is abundant, life is rich, and as such, giving and receiving promote our general well-being. And then the second paravita is cultivating the positive qualities of practice.

[07:01]

And then the third one is patience. Despite our good intentions, despite our earnest notion that paravita An implicit bias test would be a good thing to do. Someone might come along and say, well, maybe and maybe not. Despite our good intentions to behave and act in a certain way, our biases bubble through. Our fixed patterns of thinking and behaving and emoting assert themselves. flips us over any agitation, you know, towards ourselves or towards others, I think the conversation becomes dangerous. And in a more practical way, I think it gets misled by a feeling of danger.

[08:20]

I think most of us, I know certainly for myself, have a lot to learn about many things. And this topic is one of them. I will make mistakes. Others will make mistakes. That's part of learning. And then the fourth parameter is... How do we engage with the constancy and energy? Maybe it's in practice we would say, give yourself to it.

[09:25]

Not because of self excellence in our being. Because that's the very nature of our being. The Blue Jays give themselves to trying to get food from our plates. Whether we like it or not, they're fully committed. ourselves to the life of living. Give ourselves to the society we're part of, whether we like it or not. Is there any other way to facilitate transformation? And then the fifth part of Vita,

[10:26]

is entering deeply the merciful ocean. Be immersed in, be part of. Yes, we can learn a certain amount in the abstract. But really, we're part of something. And I think this is why co-teacher was talking about, oh, you want to do something abstract to learn about something that's intimate to being alive. And then the sixth part of me, that wisdom, it's How in the midst of subjective being, how in the midst of being so thoroughly immersed that we can't see the totality of the influences that are acting upon us and the consequences of our behaviors.

[11:55]

How could we come to the answer? So here's the experiment. I thought of some responses to that last question. How do we cultivate insight? Or how do we realize insight? And I thought we could break up into trials and discuss. I created two things. category I called reflections and the other one I called practices and I thought we could break into triads and in the triad try them on discuss them it was the emphasis on try on you know if you just become abstract and philosophical we could say all sorts of things

[13:02]

I totally adore that. And I'm going to give my whole life to it. Yeah, right. If you poke around in your being, how does it appear to be? So here's one way to think of the process of insight. And I would think in spirituality. that arises with contemplation. We contemplate something. And as we bring attention and energy and engagement to it, the contemplation teaches us see the implications of it.

[14:11]

I was reading an article, a transcript of a dialogue between Rishma Nankin and Robin D'Angelo in both current luminaries in the world of attaining to racism, the impact of it in particular what the Antelope's perspective is, how that takes shape within a white heritage. And one of the things that stood out for me in what the original site, he said, you know, any idea I think that it can be subject to pathology. Now, when he was talking about identity, he was saying any fixed way of thinking.

[15:14]

You've got a certain identity, a certain way of categorizing people, categorizing yourself, categorizing any aspect of society. He was saying racism, classism, ageism, sexual orientation, he said, any of them can become a pathology. Any of them can be. That way of thinking, that way of categorizing, can get stuck and rather than serve to open a dialogue, it sort of reinforces a presence. And then Robert DeAngelo, she added it. And in engaging that, does it take you, the question is, does it take you in?

[16:24]

Or does it let you out? And what she was getting at it was, does it invite you into a more thorough engagement with what's represented by that concept, that identity, that way of thinking. Is there a way to go in and explore it? What is it? What are the implications of it? What are the assumptions of it? What's the skillful relationship to it? How do I as a conditioned being. I have my biases in relationship to what are the challenging questions it presents that I'm moving out of. And that's where she got the out.

[17:28]

To avoid this. We move out. that engagement that can inform us. And we can also act out our thoughts, our feelings, our behaviors are the product of our own relationship to that fixed thinking. That's reactive rather than insightful. And when I read both of their comments, I thought, sounds like Buddha's teaching today. So how do we act in? How do we become insightful?

[18:33]

And so I thought, first one is contemplation. And I tried to offer some reflections that support that. And I would say mostly that it is a cognitive process. It's a process of thinking. And then the second category is Where we go beyond ourselves, where we go beyond our judgments, our ideas, our usual ways of thinking about something, is Mary Oliver would say, a silence in which another voice speaks.

[19:36]

It's more like it speaks to us rather than we tell it what we say. I was thinking of moments where something registers wordlessly. Or maybe in a moment, instead of being in the throes of our usual patterns, we see our usual patterns.

[20:37]

We see ourselves thinking and feeling about something in particular life. In that moment, we just allow that observation to inform us. And in many ways, that stepping out of the conditioned self, if you think of Doga talking about dropping off body and mind, And how extraordinarily significant that was for him. How throughout the Shoghasa he refers back to that as a seminal mind.

[21:38]

Contemplation. Going beyond the self. And then the third one. especially in the Mahayana, wisdom beyond wisdom, that we give over so thoroughly that, to use Thich Nhat Hanh's term, we experience the consequence of interbeing. There's something about a state of being that communicates to us beyond any conceptual or cognitive process This is particularly interesting when we start to think of, you know, Rafe Menachem's book, it is the body of trauma, you know, how something is embodied.

[23:05]

When you add it to that, the Buddhist notion, the coexistence, is one Buddha body that we sometimes open to Buddha body. It's something that opening and feeling into being with connects and communicates in a way that goes beyond a thing. Okay, so I'm making one, two, four, four. And you will see

[24:12]

on starting a compile at the front plate. Reflections. Can you recall particular instances when you had an insightful clarity? Consider what it is to be open to and live the wisdom of practice. What helps and what hinders your access to clarity and wisdom? Are there things you could do It helped you step out of your habitual gaze of being and acting. Considering the three kinds of wisdom, how have you experienced them? And how have they clarified and realized? So, I thought we could break into threes. I would say respond to the questions... in a nonsensical way. Just see what comes up for you.

[25:17]

It doesn't have to be so rational. It doesn't have to be, you know, logical. Insight, by its very nature, tends to lift us beyond just what we can't reason out. And maybe just, for the sake of convenience, you could join with the people closest to you. So the bottom of the first page, you'll see reflectance. Let me go through the questions one at a time and then each person answer.

[26:40]

So let's do this for 15 minutes. So I think of that as a exercise in contemplation. One of the useful issues of contemplating the activities of the self is that almost always it's an intriguing subject for us. Regardless of whether we think we're wonderful or terrible, it's still intriguing. What a terrible person I am.

[27:41]

I'm so bad. I'm so ashamed. I'm so wonderful. I think I'm kind of enlightened. Maybe I'm the best practitioner. There's something about contemplation when we accept the invitation to go in, to explore deeply, to engage. It can take us into a modification of thinking that's more spacious. And then if it's in relationship to the self, then the way we're relating to the self is invited to be more spacious.

[28:45]

And that spaciousness has an affinity for kind of an accepting equanimity. How do we bring that, can we bring that to each of the disciplines? I was born in poverty. And up to this age, I was deep with a ship. Then, at the grand age of eight, I said to myself, I didn't make this economy.

[29:47]

Why should I feel ashamed? It's not my doing. I just got born into it. But still, it had a hook. Something at the internal. At some point, that dissipate helped, I think, by the marvelous privileges that life was then presenting in contemplation. Is that so? not to draw conclusions, not to reinforce, to use Reshmael Menachem's term, not to reinforce the pathology of that way of thinking.

[31:05]

Maybe so. It's more like to put the emphasis on The insight, the sense of space, the balance of mind, the non-grasping of thoughts and feelings, to let that be the teacher. Then the insight sweeps back into the other parameters. And they have a collective benevolence. We offer

[32:20]

generosity to ourselves and others. We offer the okayness to be who they are. We have a more astute notion of the request of with the human condition. Reference. The willingness to engage. Yes, I will. We're drawn to

[33:23]

immerse in the merciful motion. Then in a way, what in more karmic, wanting what we want, wanting to avoid what we don't want, starts to be related to in a different way. Yes, there is that in the human condition. And as Robert DeAngelo said, to make towards

[34:23]

This has a lot of energy. Oh, this is challenging. This is frightening in scope. This is shifting me right from underneath all my fixed ideas. Hmm. Sounds like a lot to learn now. Almost that kind of gratitude. Ah. Look at me being tweaked. All the parametras support us in that term. from reactiveness, acting out your realm, I'm about to kind of, what are we doing?

[35:42]

What's this about? Who am I in this dynamic? What do I think and feel that the person is What is this society you're living in? What are the prevailing wings of opinion and prejudice? And within us there's less of a need to have all the answers. There's us and of course us are right and by extension that makes me right it seems kind of right there in sparse

[37:05]

Maybe so. What's going on? What's this about? I would say to you, that's the heritage of the Zen School. Nothing to know, everything to learn. reflection can help. And as Reshma says, you can also get stuck in it, conjure up some idea and think. That's it. So that was the experiment.

[38:10]

I hope it helped. In some way or other. And if it didn't. There's lots more teachings coming around today. Thank you very much.

[38:25]

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