Where do you come from?

May 17, 2020 Margaret Syverson

Where do you come from?

Dharma Talk
Sunday, May 17, 2020

The topic of the talk today is Where do you come from? So many koans begin with this seemingly ordinary question. Here’s one of my favorites from the Book of Serenity, a collection of koans used in our Zen tradition. I’ll read the introduction first and then the koan itself:

CASE 12: DIZANG PLANTING THE FIELDS
The introduction:
Scholars plow with the pen, orators plow with the tongue. We patchrobed mendicants lazily watch a white ox on open ground, not paying attention to the rootless auspicious grass. How to pass the days?

The case:
Dizang asked Xiushan, “Where do you come from?”

Xiushan said, “From the South.”

Dizang said, “how is Buddhism in the South these days?”

Xiushan said, “There’s extensive discussion.”

Dizang said, “How can that compare to me here planting the fields and making rice to eat?”

Xiushan said, “What can you do about the world?”

Dizang said, “What do you call the world?”

Good question, don’t you think? Almost as good as “How to pass the days?” We thought we knew what the world was. We engaged in extensive discussions about it, in fact. What were we missing that is obvious now that he ground has disappeared from beneath our feet? What were we plowing with? The tongue, the pen, the computer keyboard, the smartphone screen? Now we are like the mendicant monks, watching a white ox grazing, and not paying any attention to the grass. How are we passing our days? Our lived everyday experience is our actual response to this koan. What do we call the world?

We have the ability with our technology to bring together people coming from great distances. We are fortunate that our spiritual tradition is not dependent on gatherings in churches, in buildings and grounds, finance committees, youth outreach ministries, missionary ventures, and church socials.

It is a practice grounded in everyday activity, and in the simple act of stopping, coming into stillness, and silence. Its qualities of present moment awareness can be practiced anywhere, alone or with others. This unexpected Covid-precipitated upset in our daily tasks and obligations allows us to step back and notice what we are paying attention to, what we are giving our energy and care to. Further, we can explore and deepen that quality of attending anywhere and in any activity. We find in spiritual friendships the support for that process of waking up in our own lives, and discovery of what really matters, what our heart’s aspiration truly is.

But those friendships are not themselves dependent on our being in the same place. They are dependent on our intentions, expressed in thoughts, words, and actions. We are discovering in these times that our ways of relating are shifting, yet the aspiration for connection and mutual support is still strong. We are highly adaptable creatures, and we will adapt to these ever-changing circumstances as well. Our practice provides a powerful foundation from which we can meet whatever is arising. I think we are all still in a bit of shock about how swiftly the circumstances have changed, and how global this change has been, but we are continuing to learn how to adapt and manage in the new reality we inhabit. Suddenly life and death are of supreme importance, and not only our own. Every day we are confronted with their absolute reality in stark numbers, in the ways that people we know begin to be stricken. In this, our practice is invaluable, keeping us awake and aware, asking us over and over again to discover how to live from an open heart, a boundless mind, and an interdependent web of relationships. What does it mean to express mindful, energized care in each new moment?

What struck me this week is how it is as though we have been transported by spacecraft to another planet, a planet eerily similar to our own. There are beings like ourselves, some kindly and some combative, and many of them seem to speak our language. There is a different social structure, in which people keep apart from each other, rather than gathering together. It is alien and weird to see so many stores and restaurants and shops just like at home, yet utterly empty and dark. Or, alternatively, with goods rushed outdoors and hurriedly deposited in waiting vehicles. The air is cleaner than on our former planet, yet so many people are wearing masks. It is puzzling and strange. Only the children seem unaffected, drawing with chalk on the sidewalks, giggling, and riding their tiny bikes.

When we are apart, when we cannot reach out and touch each other, hug each other, sit knee to knee in quiet contemplation, it is easy to feel lonely, separate, abandoned or shunned in this world. We must find the ways to connect at a deep level on this new planet.

Our zazen practice is a basic and simple process for grounding ourselves and opening a vast space within. Maybe you have felt a deep emptiness or even a sense of despair in this situation. I think that is not only normal, but essential. We are facing a hard koan. What is emptied out is all of our old assumptions—about ourselves, about other people, about the world itself, our old habits, beliefs, routines, expectations, judgments and self-centered orientations—just vanished. Even the tiny certainties in our everyday lives—that we can buy yeast at the grocery store, that we can meet a friend for lunch at a restaurant, that our office will be humming with activity— are upended. Suddenly we are filled with questions, and great doubt.

This happens all the time, of course, people face life-upending events all the time, yet it has never happened all at once on this scale—globally. We are powerless in new ways, and so confused by it. And we are transfixed by the spin in the news cycle, the experts, the politicians, the endless litany of everything is terrible, heartwarming, creative, broken, hopeful, devastating—we really don’t know.

On this new planet there is no past, no future, and no present; there is only this one ongoing activity, which every living being is sharing. What is a bodhisattva doing in this moment? We look around, and we can see evidence of bodhisattva activity everywhere, so we can be heartened, in the midst of the resounding silence, the distance, the tidal wave of change we are immersed in.

Our practice is not about singing hymns, listening to sermons, trying to be good boys and girls so that we can end up in heaven and not some terrible place. It is about listening, deeply, to our heart’s true clear aspiration, born of wisdom and compassion. It is about the creative expression of that aspiration right now, in this moment, in this new reality. We are, as we have always been, on our own. Not on my own, our own. The fabric of sangha is not so frail that it can be destroyed by our physical separation: the Buddha’s disciples wandered far on their own, teaching the dharma wherever they found themselves, and practicing in solitude.

This dharma, the teachings that have survived 2500 years of every kind of catastrophic change, is resilient. And now we have the opportunity to participate in the evolutionary changes that are under way in our own time, to infuse them with the values of benevolence, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity.

But to do so, we need to train, and we need to practice. There’s no time for dithering around here. I have heard from some folks that they feel disengaged, distracted, unsettled in their practice. I think that is understandable given the jolt we’ve experienced, the alien planet we now find ourselves on. But it is our practice that will provide the resources and nourishment we need in these times, that will sustain us and enable us to be awake to the possibilities for awakening ourselves and others in every situation. When we are in free fall, we need the stability that our practice offers, and we need the spiritual friendships that nourish and sustain us. And we need to remember that we practice not for our own well-being, although that is certainly a benefit, but as a support for others. We practice as an expression of our care.

We are confronted daily with the dharma. The truth of suffering is constantly before us, even when we ourselves are comfortable. We are aware that our situation can change in an instant, that our well-being is precarious. The immediacy of suffering is all around us. This is, the Buddha taught, a truth realized by the noble ones, the ones who have awakened.

And we can see, too, the truth of the origin of suffering, the yearning in ourselves and others for things to be different, our quarrel with life as it is. Arising within us is the resistance, the rebellion against all that we dislike, all that we fear, all that we find oppressive and unwanted. The noble ones realize this too, and they regard our struggles with compassion.

Can the suffering be ended? Will a vaccine end it, a treatment plan? A government stimulus check? It should be obvious that there are no endings until there is an end to our battles against reality. When we give up—since reality always wins—when we surrender our demands that the world and its beings serve our wishes, satisfy our yearning, our suffering, as well as the suffering we are creating for others, ceases. This too is realized by the noble ones, the ones who are awake.

What does a life like that look like? How do we find the path to it? You can go exploring if you like, you can blunder around in confusion or become apathetic, or you can find a map. The eightfold path is a map. If we are finally fed up with suffering, if we have given up on all the ineffectual ways we have tried to distract ourselves, protect ourselves, and numb ourselves to our own suffering as well as the overwhelming suffering of others, we might be tempted to finally take a look at the map. Maybe we will wake up then, like the noble ones.

We begin with the necessary first step, right view. Well, that means my view, doesn’t it? Everybody else’s view is either right, like mine, or very wrong view. Our first stumble on the path. Right view in our practice is about clarity of view, and in that sense, complete view. We sometimes speak about our practice as aperspectival. This means that we can see a situation from every other viewpoint. We understand why people hold those views, and we do not dismiss them. It does not mean that every other viewpoint is equally valid, which is extreme relativism. The Buddha clearly taught that there are wrong views. Views that are unwholesome or destructive, views that are nihilistic or views that are essentialist are, in the Buddha’s teaching wrong views. However the Buddha did not make this a moral issue; it is a practical one. Wrong views will not get you where you want to go, if your aspiration is for awakening and for serving. Even to follow the map you need right view from the very start. It is not a matter of your opinion: we’ve all been pretty sure of where we are going only to find that the map disagrees. If we insist on our opinion, or if we abandon our perspective, either way we end up lost. Use the map! The Buddha also warned against fixed views. Right view is not a fixed view from which you can battle others for the higher ground. We must realize that any view is provisional, impermanent, adaptive to situations, subject to new learning and experience. When we learn and evolve, when we move to a different ground, our view changes, our horizons shift, and we understand different experiences. So our view is always about clarifying and aligning with life itself.

When we bring our brahmavihara practice to this issue of right view, we can see that it is not merely a matter of seeing clearly or comprehensively. Suppose we are infused with and radiating kindness or benevolence, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity—how does that change our view? How does it change our perspective on others’ views? How does it change our demand that the world accord with our view?

It is absolutely necessary to establish right view in order to unfold the map of the eightfold path and head in the direction of awakening:

right intention, which directs our energy and attention our of our deep care and vow.

right speech, that is, speech that is truthful, meaningful, caring, wise, and connecting

right action, action that supports life, the relief of suffering, and liberation for oneself and others

right livelihood, our means of supporting ourselves through meaningful work

right effort, where we put our energy, our time, our skills, and our resources for the benefit of all beings, free of greed, hostility, and ignorance

right mindfulness, what we pay attention to, and the quality of that attention

right concentration, our wholeheartedness and fully integrated being, beyond confusion and distraction.

And now suppose each one of these dimensions of the path is also infused with kindness, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity? This is the true path of the bodhisattva. This is our path.

Where do you come from? In every moment you can ask yourself this question. In every conversation, in every Zoom session. It is a broad and open inquiry: where am I coming from? And it is also mutual. We can hold at the same time that inquiry of others: where are they coming from? Maybe we are not sure; we need to find out, mostly by listening.

The ancient Zen masters practiced this in their penetrating gaze and this question that seems so innocent and trivial. where do you come from? I come from the kitchen, I come from Wisconsin, I come from parents locked in struggle, I come from the country, I come from Austin, I come from the University, I come from this aging body, I come from Charles Cooper, Ed Hutchins, Mary Barr, Joko Beck, Flint Sparks, I come from Buddhism and our Zen ancestors, I come from not-knowing, and I come from all of you, our sangha. I come from this time, the time of pandemic, the time of upheaval and renewal, the time of spring, the time of longer days and violet evenings and summer nights spangled with stars ahead.

Of course I miss seeing all of you in the zendo, and the easy connection and physical experience of hugs, shared laughter, a hand on the shoulder. But I feel you coming together, even across great distances, even through a screen, and even without your physical presence, I can feel your care for each other, for this practice, and for the wise and compassionate teachings of the Buddha. Our technologies have been a blessing and a curse, but in this, I am grateful for the way we are allowed to be together when we are distant from each other. Let’s keep practicing the brahmaviharas and see how our path unfolds, each in our place, yet warmly connected and on this strange planet, together.

Threading the Needle

April 26, 2020 Margaret Syverson

Threading the Needle

Dharma talk
Peg Syverson
Sunday, April 26, 2020

Anne Lamott wrote:

You start wherever you can. You see a great need, so you thread a needle, you tie a knot in your thread. You find one place in the cloth through which to take one stitch, one simple stitch, nothing fancy, just one that’s strong and true.

Many years ago I shared a favorite poem with my Writing Center staff. I didn’t think much about it after that, I’ve shared many poems with them. But when I retired, they surprised me with a gorgeous Japanese calligraphy of the poem translated into Japanese by a calligrapher here in Austin, and it is displayed in the Zendo now. And they had made a poster-sized copy of the poem to hang in the reception area of the new Writing Center facility in the Perry-Casteñeda library at UT.

This week this poem has shown up twice, once in Kim’s daily art piece, and again when it was read at the beginning of the Madison integrated intensive by Suzanne Kilkus. Many of you know this poem well but for those who are not familiar with it, I’ll read it for you, and send it out via email. The poet. William Stafford, has long been a favorite of mine since back in my years studying poetry in the Writers Workshop at University of Iowa. I still have a battered copy of The Rescued Year, a collection of his poems published in 1966. Here’s the poem:

The Way It Is

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

Something about this poem touches people, and I want to talk about it today in connection with our Zen practice. There are some obvious connections, the way we somehow pick up the thread of Buddhist practice and keep going, even when it mystifies our friends and relatives. It probably even mystifies ourselves at times. And it takes us through all the various ups and downs of a human life, even though we can’t say exactly how and why this practice is so necessary. A thread, really, is so slight, so insignificant. A breath, a bit of stillness and silence.

I want to take this analogy a little bit further today, and I want to connect it with our present day situation and everyday practice. I first want to point out that our thread may be meandering rather aimlessly, or without a clear direction, rather loose and even confused or tangled. We may find ourselves in a knot, or struggling to find meaning and purpose. Finding Zen practice is like picking up a needle and passing the thread of our lives right through the eye. Now we have a form, a structure for making that thread useful. It doesn’t change the thread; it gives a direction, a trajectory, and a purpose, whether we are mending a torn shirt, sewing on a button, or creating a fabulous fashion statement. The needle carries the thread through all kinds of situations: denim, silk, wool, cotton. It can make masks for a pandemic, curtains for a bedroom, or Buddha’s robe.

Is it ordinary, or is it holy? Reb asked. Our thread—how are we sewing our lives?

When we sew a rakusu, this representation of Buddha’s robe, we take up the needle and thread and begin, stitch by stitch, to piece together a way to wear Buddha’s teachings as our own heart and mind. Breath by breath, stitch by stitch, we are not only sewing to hold bits of fabric into their proper shape, we are embodying a practice that is directly connected 2500 years back to the Buddha himself.

The stitches are practical, but also visible on the face of the rakusu, an image representing countless moments and states of mind. What is this thread that connects us throughout time and space to the Buddha himself?

It is the warm hand to warm hand transmission of the Dharma, the teachings, through our Zen ancestors, men and women who faithfully, breath by breath, practiced with sincerity and wholehearted care. What they discovered, they transmitted, until it could be conveyed to us, through the warm hands of our own teachers, and we, in turn, convey it for others, not through exalted states of consciousness, not through lofty pronouncements or sermons, but through our everyday acts of kindness, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity, breath by breath, stitch by stitch.

In the Buddha’s time, the disciples would go to the charnel grounds and find scraps of discarded cloth from bodies, bleach them, dye them, piece the scraps together and make their robes from them. There was nothing about these robes that made a fashion statement, that someone could envy or covet. Nothing special.

The needle of Zen practice carries the thread of Buddha’s teachings through all of us in every interaction, in every moment of mindful, energetic care. Making a single stitch is a tiny act, almost insignificant on its own. Keep going and you sew a line, a vast robe of liberation, a formless field of benefaction. Follow the needle, a reliable guide for the thread and a way to pierce the fabric of our own conditioning, to make it useful, to make a life of dignity and worth from the scraps of fabric we are given.

We can make a life of spiritual harmony with all being, a life of generosity, morality, patience, vigor, contemplation, and wisdom from any piece of cloth in our own lives, any circumstance and situation. We take up the needle and thread it. And in doing this, we carry forward the teachings and practice of our Zen ancestors for the next generation, so that they will not feel abandoned and bereft in the midst of lives that look like a meaningless jumble of thread.

In the lineage of Buddhist ancestors, which we are chanting at 6:00 AM on weekday mornings, you should know these first six names that come right before Shakamuni Butsu Daiosho:

Bibashi Butsu Daiosho
Shiki Butsu Daiosho
Bishafu Butsu Daiosho
Kurosōn Butsu Daiosho
Kunagōnmuni Butsu Daiosho
Kashō Butsu Daiosho

They are the Buddhas that came before Shakyamuni Buddha, the Buddhas of past aeons. Butsu means “Buddha,” and it therefore is an office, a position, not a person. You will also hear, in some ceremonies, the name Maitreya Buddha, which is the Buddha yet to come, the Buddha of the future. This leaves a gap, a space for the present moment Buddha, unnamed. That would be you. You are the Buddha of your own life, there is no other. As it says in the Eihei Koso Hotsuganmon:

Buddhas and ancestors of old were as we;
we, in the future shall be buddhas and ancestors.
Revering buddhas and ancestors,
we are one buddha and one ancestor;
awakening bodhi-mind, we are one bodhi-mind.

Our only difficulty is that we do not recognize this. Sometimes we may glimpse it, but then we forget, get distracted, fall into our conditioning. It’s like we put down our needle and lose track of our sewing. That’s ok, just pick it back up and begin again, breath by breath, stitch by stitch. Sati, translated usually as mindfulness, means to recall. Where was I? What was I doing? Take a breath.

The effects of such tiny gestures are cumulative. In the beginning, it feels awkward and strange, and we struggle to manage each one: each stitch, each breath, each zazen period, each intensive. We make mistakes and correct them, or leave them to show. Over time, the stitches become more even, the practice seems to do itself, and a rakusu, a relationship, a life takes its distinctive shape. When it is completed, a robe, a community of practice, a lifetime feels profound, deep, meaningful, and satisfying.

When we are actually sewing Buddha’s robe, we silently say a chant with each stitch:

namu kie butsu

There are different translations of this chant, but my favorite is the one I was taught: Here I plunge my life into Buddha. Stitch by tiny stitch, this is embodied experience, dedicated practice.

We are in difficult times, you don’t need me to tell you that. The ancient Zen koan that I put with Stafford’s poem presents us with a contemporary dilemma.

Why can’t clear-eyed bodhisattvas sever the red thread?

Why can’t we escape into exalted states of consciousness and lose ourselves in the emptiness of sky-like mind? Why doesn’t our practice allow us to float about 3 feet above the dust and noise and terrors of modern life, calm and serene, filled with saintly benevolence for the suffering beings below? Well, am I the only one who started out believing that’s what practice was for?

We pick up the needle and thread it. We call a parent, we wash dishes, we put on a mask, we get frustrated, despairing, terrified, we sit in zazen, again, again, again. We make this red thread useful, we sew a life, a friendship, a marriage, a community, an illness, an aging, a dying.

Yesterday, Laurie organized sangha members who came to Appamada to weed, keeping an appropriate distance. The air was cool and fresh, and they worked hard for two hours. One at a time, tiny weed by tiny weed, they pulled up the myriad weeds in the walkways and gravel. One by one, the path became clear. I was handling household chores, too, one by one, and I felt so connected and heartened by this expression of great care for our sangha.

We have a collective sewing effort, beyond our personal Zen practice, our individual threads. Together we are weaving the heartfelt community we have all longed to belong to, a fabric of kindness, compassion, care and support for whatever we are going through, whatever our lives bring us. It is enacted through efforts, both tiny and mundane, like pulling a weed, and enormous and sweeping, like Robyn Reso’s wonderful bequest, and everything in between.

I can’t tell you how grateful I am for your sincere and wholehearted efforts gathering even from a great distance, the threads that we are all bringing to our sangha, and weaving this larger community, now, in this present moment, when it is most needed. It is so wonderful to see your faces. May our sincere practice and the compassion of our ancestors and their teachings carry us safely through these times together.

Link to printable Stafford Poem

Appamada Practice Period and the Brahmaviharas

March 15, 2020 Margaret Syverson

Appamada Practice Period and the Brahmaviharas

Peg Syverson
Sunday, March 15, 2020

Well, our practice period is starting off with a bang, and those of you who somehow forgot to sign up for practice period are finding yourself in it anyway, because the central questions now are the questions we face every day in practice: what is this situation I find myself in? Who am I in this situation? How can I be mindful and skillful in managing my internal psychological systems, my body, my relationships, my work under these extraordinary conditions? How can I be aware of what is happening without being distracted, anxious, fearful, angry, or in denial? And probably lurking in the back of your mind might be the question: where is the joy in all this?

Practice period is a time for deepening our practice, setting our aspirations a bit higher, connecting with spiritual friends more deeply, and doing the experiment of making our spiritual path a bit more central in our lives. It prepares us and trains us for greater challenges, such as the ones we are facing right now. It reminds us that there are many conditions that are out of our control, that impact others around us, and that fuel both the worst and the best in people. We are only responsible for our own responsiveness to whatever is arising, pleasant, painful, or neutral. Even when this particular scare is over, the uncertainty, suffering, and demolition of our notions of self will remain. In a sense, nothing we experience is ever “over.” Everything we’ve lived through, every action we’ve taken, every word we’ve spoken lives on in our very cells, in our deepest subconscious, and in the way it reorganizes our lives. This is the definition of karma: not some divine retribution for our sins, but the embodiment and ongoing lived expression of our experiences and intentions.

But…joy? The Buddha taught the discourse called the Anapanasati Sutta and the four brahmaviharas of kindness, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity specifically to emphasize that his teachings and these practices are joyful, because, as he put it, “Just as the river Ganges inclines toward the sea, slopes toward the sea, flows toward the sea, and reaches the sea, so too Master Gotama’s assembly with its homeless ones and its householders inclines toward Nibbāna, slopes toward Nibbāna, flows toward Nibbāna, and reaches Nibbāna.”

In these times of alarming news and bungled responses to crises, it is easy to be anxious, fearful, distressed, furious, and all sorts of other emotions. There is a tendency to worry about one’s own well-being, to fear for those we love, to shut down the work of practice, which is to open to everything. We are glued to the news, which reports intermittently that things are much, much worse than we thought, and much less frightening than we might believe. We are in our homes, isolated and challenged to maintain our practice.

I want to encourage you to use your practice in these times as a source of nourishment and guidance. We’ve been sheltered by our relative comforts and lulled into a kind of complacency that is the near enemy of true equanimity. It is wise to remember that our attitudes, speech, and actions impact not only ourselves, but others in widening ripples, as our very essence is relational and interconnected with every other living being. To radiate panic and dread is to infect others more widely than we an imagine; to radiate the brahmaviharas is to help ourselves and others find their footing in these wholesome and practical teachings of the Buddha.

I have found so much joy in the present time of crisis, that it has surprised me. Some of it is unexpected, some comes from the usual suspects, like my little granddaughter, my son and my sister, and some of it is the result of intentionally watching for joy, for sources of delight and wonder: a tiny purple wildflower, a kind crinkle of eyes in the supermarket, slicing a well-formed mushroom for an omelet, an idea for the sangha connection in walking. I am in good health, and I have resources to support me, and I feel not only joy but the good fortune in that, knowing that so many others are struggling right now. That means I can offer assistance, that I myself can be a resource for others. What a joy that is at my age!

You, too, I suspect have been surprised by joy in the midst of all that is unlike joy in the world, and in a little bit we can share some of those moments. Let’s think about what provides the foundations and conditions for joy arising.

First of all, there is the establishing of the precepts, the teachings of Buddhism as the foundation of an ethical life. Abiding with this moral foundation we engage in relationships with each other and with the world that are harmonious, dignified, and non-harming. In itself, this is a basis for joy. Our minds are clear and untroubled about our own conduct, regardless of the behavior of others, or the circumstances we encounter.

Second, as we practice the brahmaviharas, we foster joy in ourselves and in others. Our benevolence, or lovingkindness, not only radiates outward from ourselves, but invites, supports, and connects with kindness in others. It is an energetic field with genuine force, like gravity or electromagnetism. If your practice is half-hearted or uncertain at first, the field will be small, but as you continue to practice, it will become more powerful than you can imagine. So we must practice it on the cushion so that we may become more and more imbued with it, make our home in it, and operate more and more from that home. You can probably feel the deep sense of joy that accompanies an act of kindness, no matter how small, or even the feeling of kindness itself, not to mention the kindness of others toward us.

The practice of compassion, the second brahmavihara, may not seem conducive to joy, since through it we are contemplating and actively addressing suffering, but what can be more joyful than to see suffering relieved or transformed into peace? If we relinquish our fear and dread in witnessing the suffering in ourselves and others and turn toward the liberating potential in it, we are immediately struck by joy. Compassion becomes clear-eyed and skillful and precise, bringing freedom in the midst of suffering.

When others are joyful, we can practice empathetic joy, and participate in that joy unhindered by our own jealousy, envy, and greed. This multiplies the joy overall, and warmly connects us with others who are joyful. The word joy is right in the name of this brahmavihara, and yet it can be difficult to find the joy in others’ happiness. Maybe we are critical of how that happiness was obtained, maybe we are judgmental of the person as unworthy, or feel it is unfair that they should have happiness. We need to watch for these aspects of our own conditioning that are not really discernment, but its near enemy: judging mind. We would like to be the ones to decide who gets happiness, when, and for what. But the universe, in case you haven’t noticed, is not set up that way. It is set up on the much larger karmic calculus that moves across aeons, in vast reaches of time and space, and beyond our meager capacities. Thank heavens! That’s a level of calculation I would not like to be in charge of. I can barely manage my own bookkeeping. So just recognize all that hinders our capacity for absolute joy in the happiness and well-being of others. This is a relational practice, as we always teach.

But what about equanimity? Surely that is not joyful! Isn’t it about having no feelings? Steadiness and imperturbability? Imagine you are on a small rowboat, out before dawn on a still lake, nothing at all on your mind as the first light of dawn begins to penetrate the mist rising from the surface of the water. The lake is still, and the horizon grows lavender and then rose and gold. In that moment of calm and ease, do you not feel joy? I think in many ways equanimity contains the deepest joy, but I cannot explain it. You have to recognize it yourself. To be in untroubled waters, to be, oneself, untroubled by hindrances such as grasping, anger and irritation, dullness, restlessness and worry, doubt, or by external circumstances seems like a recipe for joy. To be able to right yourself when you have been shaken brings joy. To offer calm when others are distressed, afraid, in panic, is gift of joy.

Why seek happiness, which is ephemeral and dependent on favorable circumstances and is in any event such a fleeting emotion? The joy of abiding in the brahmaviharas is untouched by passing emotions and thoughts; it is timeless and vast. It is perfectly possible to feel joy even in sadness, even in distress. Where does that joy come from? It is unbidden and unquenchable. It is the very ground of being. Of course we do not feel it all the time, we are not awake to its presence. And that is why we practice, why we attend to the brahmaviharas, why we investigate them mindfully. It is not that something “brings you joy.” It is not that you somehow need “more joy” in your life. You will see that our practice is recalling that we can always become more and more aware of the joy that is available in every moment. Radiating the brahmaviharas of benevolence, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity is a direct practice path. With that in mind, I am curious to hear about moments of joy you have noticed in the past few days. If you raise your hand I can see that you have something to share with all of us.

OK, that is all for today. By the time this practice period is over, I expect our current health emergency will also be over. Still, I am very happy to see you and connect with you in this new way of practicing together, and very interested in any feedback you have about this process. Have you been able to hear and see all right? If not, we will make adjustments.

Don’t forget tomorrow morning we will begin our sangha walk. I’ll be walking rain or shine, so please join us if you can, right in front here, at 8:30 on weekday mornings. Join us online for other offerings listed on the calendar. Be safe and be well, follow the precautions and we will get through this difficult time together.

Courage and Caution in an Age of Fear

March 8, 2020 Margaret Syverson

Courage and Caution in an Age of Fear

Dharma talk: Peg Syverson
Sunday, March 8, 2020

I want to talk today about courage and caution in an age of fear:

I first want to talk about the operations of fear.

In evolutionary terms, fear was a response to a direct threat to survival. These threats were immediate and palpable: a charging elephant, a thunderstorm, a volcano erupting. There were other, invisible threats to survival, such as bad water holes, poisonous mushrooms, and disease, but we were not aware of them and did not fear them. I’m pretty sure though, that early humans did fear the great mystery of death, and thus religions were born.

Over time and much experience in many conditions, humans learned to fear more things: cruel rulers, other clans who might attack them, gods who punished them, famine and drought. Still, people could not become paralyzed by fear, and probably unless faced with a direct threat, they were generally untroubled by it. In any event, they still had to go about their everyday activities finding food, shelter, and companionship for themselves and their families.

In modern times, we have faced two trends that have amplified our fears in many, many ways. The first is the trend created by mass media, beginning with the earliest newspapers and magazines, that of advertising. Advertising generally has two approaches, sometimes used simultaneously: making you fear want something you didn’t know you should be afraid of (morning breath? Ring around the collar?), and making you desire something you didn’t know you needed. Fear and craving go hand in hand: when we are afraid, we look for something to soothe, numb, or relieve us. When that fails, we often become angry, looking for someone or something to blame or punish or exile. Advertising depends on the success of the medium in which it appears and so there must be a market for that medium, which leads to the second trend, which is also amplified by mass media: the lure of the sensational. Sensational stories grab our attention and fill us with a kind of eager anxiety. We consume them voraciously. We can now read and hear sensational stories from all around the world and from every culture. There are more than 8 billion people on the planet, so it seems the sensational stories are proliferating everywhere, even though they are statistically insignificant. Some of these are benign: a 98-year old yoga teacher dancing the tango, a toddler patting the face of his crying baby brother, a cat playing the piano. But many of them only serve to create and amplify our fears and our anxiety: terrible scenes of earthquakes and floods and fires, reports of massive climate change, photos from war zones, torture, and the miseries of refugees fleeing their homelands.

We have been taught to fear so many things! Sometimes I wonder about all that we have learned to be afraid of: the sun causes cancer, so we slather on the sunscreen or defiantly refuse to or negligently forget to, but always, we have an underlying current of unease. Of course there is the food whipsaw: we shouldn’t eat salt—no wait, we should; we shouldn’t eat fat—no wait, we should; we should eat processed foods, they are healthy—no wait, we shouldn’t. We worry, of course, about the usual things, losing our jobs, getting sick or hurt, taking care of those we love—our children, our parents, our friends. We worry about getting to work on time, picking up groceries, filling out our tax returns. We worry about our weight, our aches, and our gray hairs. But also we worry about the things that are constantly in the news cycle: the political situation, climate change and its irreversible effects on weather, drought, floods, rising sea levels, animals and food crops. We are worried about the plight of refugees, whom we have been told to fear, although they carry no weapons, have no power, are terrified and lost, far from their homes, and cannot speak for themselves. We are afraid of the unrest in our own country, fearing each other and filled with mistrust and hostility even within our own families. Through fear we have been made to treat others with anger and dismissal, or with confinement and cruelty. Their crime is solely that they are different in some way: different skin color, different language, different sexuality, different views.

We are now subject to a great contagion, which is greater even than the current virus that has most recently inspired it: the contagion of fear and its locus. It is hard to look in any direction without finding cause for fears that have been greatly fanned by media, rumor, and speculation. It is a short step beyond fearing others to fearing our own bodies: now we are not to gather together, we are not supposed to touch our face, we are to fear our own hands, which have been contacting the world, touching alien objects that were once familiar and unnoticed: an armrest in an airplane, a doorknob, a faucet. Now the fear complex is complete: there is nothing that is not to be feared—not the sun, nor the sky nor the water, nor the weather, nor other people who don’t look like us, nor other people who do look like us, nor our own bodies and minds, and the fear industry is booming: surveillance video is everywhere, we have turned schools into prisons with armed guards, our actual prisons are for-profit institutions, and we travel into terror. We have sacrificed so many of our freedoms in accepting illusional promises of safety and security. It only takes one shocking incident out of millions and millions of unremarkable events to empower the ratcheting up of “security” measures that only increase our fear and do nothing to create true safety, because true safety cannot ever be achieved. Fear is the well-worn tool of authoritarians and dictators.

What should we do? After all, aren’t these things actually frightening? To contract a serious sickness is of course something we are wise to avoid. No one wants to be the victim of a terrorist attack or a shooting in a shopping mall. What I am watching that worries me though is the ongoing amplifying of the threat level so that ultimately we are convinced to simply stay home, hunkered down in front of our televisions and computers, alienated from each other and from our own bodies, absorbing more and more horrifying news until we are numb and isolated and terrified. Yet nothing is done to remove guns from circulation, to create genuine peace in nations at war, to relieve the terrible conditions and income inequality in countries that result in floods of refugees.

Even more importantly, once so confined, we are eager consumers for whatever will give us peace of mind: face masks, hand sanitizers, movies, food, booze, gadgets, and surfing the web. We buy more weapons and security cameras for our front doors and we look at our neighbors with dread and suspicion. A black man walks down a suburban street and the alarm goes out over NextDoor. We worry whether to send our children to schools that seem like magnets for every deranged gun nut. We are genuinely terrified of the political polarization that has divided families and frayed nerves in the workplace.

I have no easy answers for this disturbing trend. Frightened people are easily manipulated: by rumors, by media spin, by ruthless and corrupt politicians and leaders. It has ever been so. If you cannot lead from love, it is always safe to lead from fear; it just depends on finding pervasive fears that can be exploited. I cannot promise that there are not causes for our concern. But rather than mitigate the causes, our systems of governance and capital only exploit them for their own advantage. We need to make genuine sacrifices in order to address the larger problems of climate and income inequality—yet no one is talking about sacrifice; we need healthy governments to manage epidemics of diseases—instead we have ignorance, greed, and hatred leading not only our own country, but so many others, we need wise discernment and compassion to address so many of the conditions we fear: homelessness, safe travel, climate change, immigration, social media. But that is not what is happening. Instead there is denial of causality and inept reactions to situations that could have been foreseen and prevented or skillfully addressed. Our leaders are not awake, they are not compassionate, and they are not competent. What to do?

We can only work at this level, the level where we have influence and capacity. We can help each other. Of course we should take reasonable precautions, but we must guard against being tugged into the tide of panic and isolation. We will get sick, we will get old, we will die.

Here are the Five Remembrances in Buddhist teachings:

I am of the nature to grow old; there is no way to escape growing old.

I am of the nature to have ill health; there is no way to escape having ill health.

I am of the nature to die; there is no way to escape death.

All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature of change; there is no escape from being separated from them.

My deeds are my closest companions; I am the beneficiary of my deeds. My deeds are the ground on which I stand.

Our Buddhist teachings of recognizing this first noble truth are an honest and fearless gaze at what is actual and inevitable. How can we tolerate it? We are given to believe that the anxiety we feel when we contemplate this truth can be relieved by…what? Buying face masks, buying hand sanitizer, buying an exercise video, buying more vitamins, stocking up for quarantine. How can we dance with each other, kiss each other, travel to meet each other, learn from each other, explore the world when we are paralyzed by fear? I’ll repeat this: you are going to get sick, get old, and die.

Oh, how we long for this not to be so. And thus craving is born: craving for life, craving for whatever will bring relief, craving for prevention and denial and even craving for non-existence, for death itself, to relieve our fear and dread. This craving is the real source of our suffering, and I am sorry to say the forces in our culture are aligned to manufacture, amplify, and distort it. They are especially designed to distract us from its true sources. It’s a total setup. How can we awaken from this dream, this craving for what can never be provided: comfort, safety, perfect health, eternal life?

It can all be stopped. Not through a political revolution, not through the marketplace, not through the media, not through the internet. It can be stopped right here, it can be stopped by you, and it can be stopped by all of us together. I will repeat this: you are going to get sick, you are going to get old, and you are going to die. The real question is what you do with your living, what you do with this precious life you have entered into. Do you want to live in fear, trembling with dread and anxiety, afraid of everyone and everything? I don’t. I will get sick, I will get old, and I will die, but I do not want to do those things in terror. So, what does the Buddha teach about the path out of this tangle of fear and craving? Does he really imagine this can all be stopped?

Yes. It can be stopped. We can walk the path of the bodhisattva, of the true disciple of the Buddha. We will still get old, we will still get sick, we will still die. We will still be apart from those we love, and with what we do not love. Please be clear about this. If you are clear about it, no one can ever threaten you with these, because there is nothing that can prevent them. We will use wise and compassionate caution, not panic as we walk this path together. And what is that path—the Buddha’s eightfold path? Here’s the original description with the Pali terms translated by John Allen on Buddhanet. He notes:

Note: The word Samma in each of these eight steps means 'proper', 'whole', 'thorough', 'integral', 'complete', and 'perfect' - related to English 'summit' - It does not necessarily mean 'right', as opposed to 'wrong'. However it is often translated as "right" which can send a less than accurate message. For instance the opposite of 'Right Awareness' is not necessarily 'Wrong Awareness'. It may simply be incomplete. Use of the word 'right' may make for a neat or consistent list of qualities in translations. The down side is that it can give the impression that the Path is a narrow and moralistic approach to the spiritual life.

1. * Samma-Ditthi — Complete or Perfect Vision, also translated as right view or understanding. Vision of the nature of reality and the path of transformation. I consider this is the clear-eyed view of what is true, noble, beneficial, and caring. Our ongoing inquiry is: what is the whole story here? What am I missing? What has not been told? What is actually happening? Whose voice has not been heard?

2. Samma-Sankappa — Perfected Emotion or Aspiration, also translated as right thought or attitude. Liberating emotional intelligence in your life and acting from love and compassion. An informed heart and feeling mind that are free to practice letting go. I would express this as an ongoing examination of and inquiry into what our deepest aspiration and intentions are in every moment.

3. Samma-Vaca — Perfected or whole Speech. Also called right speech. Clear, truthful, uplifting and non-harmful communication. Included in this aspect of the eightfold path, I believe, is considering what we are taking in from others’ speech, what we are hearing or reading, whether in person, or in various media. The ongoing inquiry into what I am speaking and what I am hearing: is it truthful, beneficial, and kind? Not sure? Are you reading Twitter? Are you talking about the latest shocking news? Take a guess.

4. Samma-Kammanta — Integral Action. Also called right action. An ethical foundation for life based on the principle of non-exploitation of oneself and others. The five precepts. I think this means the ongoing inquiry into what is the best use of our skills, capacities, resources, and most of all, presence. What am I doing, and how does it align with my aspiration?

5. Samma-Ajiva — Proper Livelihood. Also called right livelihood. This is a livelihood based on correct action, the ethical principal of non-exploitation. The basis of an Ideal society. I think our ongoing inquiry is given the brevity of life, what contribution are my labors making to the well-being of myself and others?

6. Samma-Vayama — Complete or Full Effort, Energy or Vitality. Also called right effort or diligence. Consciously directing our life energy to the transformative path of creative and healing action that fosters wholeness. Conscious evolution. Our ongoing inquiry here is: how do I direct and cultivate this life force? Obviously this includes good care and nourishment of our own bodies and minds so that we are resourced enough to express it in the world.

7. Samma-Sati — Complete or Thorough Awareness. Also called "right mindfulness". Developing awareness, "if you hold yourself dear watch yourself well". Levels of Awareness and mindfulness - of things, oneself, feelings, thought, people and Reality. We practice meditation to wake up, so the ongoing inquiry here is: am I awake, or am I in a dream state: a state of dread, a state of fantasy, replaying the past or fantasizing about the future. Am I fully attuned to nature, to my surroundings, to those I meet?

8. Samma-Samadhi — Full, Integral or Holistic Samadhi. This is often translated as concentration, meditation, absorption or one-pointedness of mind. Here our inquiry is about how we are developing our awareness through our sincere and consistent practice, connection with community, and working with our teachers.

John Allen, the translator, notes, about this eighth step: None of these translations is adequate. Samadhi literally means to be fixed, absorbed in or established at one point, thus the first level of meaning is concentration when the mind is fixed on a single object. The second level of meaning goes further and represents the establishment, not just of the mind, but also of the whole being in various levels or modes of consciousness and awareness. This is Samadhi in the sense of enlightenment or Buddhahood.

This is a courageous path. It is not blind to reality, it is not swept along by current opinion, it is not in denial about very real risks. But it refuses to collude with the forces of Mara, whispering in our ears, or our social conditioning which is vulnerable to contagion—not only of disease, but of emotion states, rumor, and the sensational.

My graduate school mentor was an accomplished pilot who studied crew navigation riding in the cockpit of planes, studying the kinds of mistakes made by pilots and crews. He had been an anthropologist on a remote island in the Trobriand Islands. When he arrived on the island, he and his wife were in a terrible automobile accident in which one of the passengers were killed and both he and his wife were badly injured. His response? He didn’t go home. He told his wife they needed to get deeper into the bush. Once I told him that I admired the way he had never been limited by fear. He replied, oh, I have definitely had fear! Yes, I said, but you have never been limited by fear. By comparison I could clearly see how many of my own life decisions had been governed by fear.

I don’t want that, and I don’t want that for you. Lives cramped by fear get smaller and smaller, more and more superficial, more and more obsessed with the trivial and the unimportant, more and more isolated, lonely, and despairing. We have work to do here, and we don’t have a lot of time to do it, no matter how long we live. Let’s try to do it together with as much courage as we can muster, and with wisdom and compassion for ourselves and for each other, and for all beings.

How to be disagreeable

February 2, 2020 Margaret Syverson

How to be disagreeable

Dharma talk
Sunday, February 2, 2020

How many people here would consider themselves somewhat conflict-avoidant? Very conflict avoidant? I thought so. For many people Zen practice is an oasis of peace in a conflicted world, an oasis of silence in a noisy world, an oasis of ease in a complicated world. It is a blessing that we can find such an oasis. But today I want to talk about disagreement and conflict, the very thing most of us are fleeing from when we come into this practice.

But let’s be clear:

Having a different point of view is not disagreement; even having a different political view is not disagreement: believing the other person’s viewpoint or actions are wrong or harmful is. And sometimes that is necessary. So today I want to talk about how to be disagreeable.

Our compassion and vow for relieving suffering does not mean to be silent, passive, or accepting of everything, a doormat, in other words.

Our paramita of tolerance does not mean to stand mute in the face of cruelty or injustice.

Our practice of generosity does not mean to allow others to take what we have not given, nor that we should deplete ourselves through self-sacrifice or martyrdom.

Our ideal of harmony with others does not extend to the harmony of illusions, nor does it mean to avoid disagreement at all cost.

We have an ethical responsibility to be upright, speak truthfully, relieve suffering, and liberate all beings, particularly from the suffering created and sustained by ignorance. That means speaking up against injustice and cruelty, taking action to stop suffering, and working to end harm. When that harm is caused by systems and social structures, we work to transform them.

And sometimes that means we have to disagree. Many of us are conflict-avoidant—that’s part of the appeal of sitting with others in complete silence. Some of us have suffered through bitter disagreements in our families, and carry scars from those childhood wounds. We have worked in stressful workplaces where conflicts are either brutally public, or worse, underground and toxic.

In school we were taught not to question authority and not to disagree, to keep our hands to ourselves and behave like nice boys and girls. The schoolyard was a different story. Maybe there were bullies who dared us to disagree with them, with punishing consequences, or fights with a best friend that left us frustrated and furious.

All of these early experiences shaped our relationship to conflict—so often characterized by violent emotions and relationship damage that we had no idea how to repair. We certainly were not taught how to skillfully use disagreement or even conflict to deepen relationships or to improve a situation.

So I want to talk a bit about how you can use Zen practice to be more disagreeable. I’m sure whether you should tell your family or friends that this is what you are learning in Zen! Still,

Our practice is about meeting reality just as it is.

This is not Disneyland. it is not Camelot or some utopia. Those things are fantasies and we must live fully awake in the real world. In that world we have a part, a position, a path, and a vow. We need to be able to energetically counter the forces of greed, hatred, fear, and most of all, ignorance, because everyone suffers from their effects. So how can you become disagreeable?

We have to begin from some fundamental understandings. First, disagreement is a normal and healthy part of human relationships, even with those we love. It does not mean a break or rupture in our relationship, or that something is terribly wrong. It makes sense that coming from different life experiences, viewing the world in different ways, and having different intentions and aspirations, we would necessarily have differences of opinions, some slight and some serious. So this is a normal occurrence, and a healthy one, not a terrible problem.

The situation we are in with polarization of the larger culture, in fact, is a perfect example. Why would we expect that a nation as diverse as ours, with the history it has had, with the injustices that it has perpetuated, would not have powerful differences within and outside of it? Certainly those differences have been magnified and amplified by cynical manipulation by media and by those with destructive intentions, and this is a great danger to our nation’s capacity to find a wholesome way forward in the midst of them. We are really struggling with this situation right now.

So whether in our homes, in our neighborhoods, in our society, we must recognize that disagreement, even conflict are both normal and potentially productive. Violence, hatred, and ignorance as an expression of them are not.

The second understanding is of our fundamental human worth—our own, and those with whom we disagree. Every person has the potential for compassion, generosity, openness, care, and wisdom, even when they seem farthest away from it, and we must hold that understanding even for those we most strongly oppose. Our voice, as well as the voices of others, are worthy of being heard and met with curiosity, genuine kindness, and willingness to listen.

The third understanding is that ignorance, hatred, and greed are a kind of sickness, like cancer. If a friend or even an acquaintance tells us they have cancer, we have a response based on care and concern. It is no different with the three poisons: they literally are poisoning the person and worse, polluting the environment around them. They are a kind of sickness for which the Buddha offered healing medicine. But how to get the medicine to an unwilling patient?

The fourth understanding is that we can learn skillful means for being a doctor in our world. This practice is a kind of medical school for cultivating those skills. But we need to practice, and if we submerge all of our differences and disagreements even in our own sangha, how would we be able to practice with them in a safe container?

The fifth understanding is that everything is workable. Everything in our lives is part of our training program in wisdom and compassion. Disagreements and conflicts arise to teach us and to test us. They teach us so much that is valuable that I hope you do not miss those opportunities, and they test our aspiration and our capacity to maintain our practice of mindful care at all times.

Think of a disagreement or conflict not as me or us against another, but as a situation we are in together. It is often painful and difficult and unpleasant, and that is why we tend to try to avoid it in any way we can. How can we use our practice and our whole being to move the situation together toward liberation from suffering, toward wisdom and compassion, creating spaciousness and ease where there is contraction and stuckness?

The rules of engagement:

Pay attention. It is easy to tune out, dismiss, or project onto the other.
Get as much information about the situation and the persons in it as you can
Be respectful—of yourself as well as others, no matter what, even if and especially if they do not seem respectful of you
Listen to where they are coming from. If it’s not clear, ask questions, and keep asking questions until you understand. Be clear about where you are coming from.
Find a place of stillness inside. Take slow, mindful breaths and ground yourself
Stay curious about the process, don’t get caught in the content: how does it feel for you to be telling me this? Are you concerned that I will not listen to you? Attend to the process inside as well as outside: I can feel myself getting distressed when I hear that…
Take a break if you need to, when you feel yourself getting caught or stuck
Match the fire to the menu: if the differences have small consequences or minor effects, don’t bring the heavy artillery to them. When the consequences are large, don’t hold back in fear or feelings of inadequacy. Turn up and turn down the heat as appropriate to the situation.
Practice, practice, practice. Experiment mindfully and take note of the results. What happens if you speak up when you tend to be silent? What happens when you are quiet when you usually are forward?
Don’t try to be a hero. We can’t save anyone, or anything. We can only be who we want to be, so think: who do I want to be in this situation? Am I only interested in being right at any cost? Do I want to win something?
Live to fight another day: recognize when you’ve reached a stopping point, where things must be left for now. Know that you are planting seeds, not slaying dragons.
Reflect on what you’ve learned in the situation: about yourself, about the other person, about the situation itself

Our practice is relational, but that does not mean we are striving for some sentimental notion that we will somehow be able to keep all of our relationships harmonious and caring all of the time. It takes a long time to grow our capacity to meet any situation that arises with our full attention and mindful care, fully living our aspiration and vow. Meanwhile, we have ongoing opportunities to practice every day. You may feel well, this situation is too difficult, this person is impossible, these conditions are unworkable. That’s OK, it just means that situation is advanced practice, and you may not be quite ready for it yet. Keep practicing with what you can manage, and you will build the capacity to meet such situations. You will come to appreciate all challenges to our equanimity as opportunities. It doesn’t mean we like them, or that we create them, but simply that we meet them knowing we are being instructed and tested by them.

Non-Oppositional Disagreement: a paper I wrote for my students years ago.