Tending to the Cries of the Earth

0:00 This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. And Report an error in the passage at 0:00 Highlight the passage at 0:00

0:17 welcome to Green Gulch. How many is the first time? Welcome to those who are online. So welcome to everyone far and near, low realms and high realms, whatever. Wherever any living being is going to reach, this mettā will reach, they're welcome to engage. I also want to recognize the number of people that come every weekend. I feel like they're our maha saṅgha, so I welcome them. Report an error in the passage at 0:17 Highlight the passage at 0:17

0:54 I do recognize some of the folks that keep coming, and I see you as part of our saṅgha. This is right in front of you, huh? I can't see you either. There's a mic right in the middle. Anyway, there's a seat on the other side though. Yeah, okay. I Report an error in the passage at 0:54 Highlight the passage at 0:54

1:23 first want to give gratitude to all of my ancestors and all of those teachers and those who have inspired me and brought inspiration for me to be in this seat at this time and also to those who support me here at Green Gulch to be here to speak with you if you haven't heard me before I usually try to share the practice from how it has affected me or how I practice so I share the teachings and I like to integrate those teachings with the way it has affected my practice Report an error in the passage at 1:23 Highlight the passage at 1:23

2:11 I really feel very special. Not everyone gets a chance to take the seat, but many do. And I do want to thank Abbot Jiryu for inviting me to, constantly inviting me to do things I've never done before. So it feels every time as something new. And that part is scary, but it also is. What keeps me on the path? Because I'm always thinking I get there and then I have to do something. And I go, well, not quite. Even something as simple as offering the incense. Report an error in the passage at 2:11 Highlight the passage at 2:11

2:53 So today I want to share something. I'm always, as many know, very touched by chanting and sutras. and I want Everyone, I'd like to bring the teachings into the room. And so I'd like everyone just for a moment to first send a mettā out to your ancestors, to your family, your friends and community, and to the world where there's so much great suffering in so many ways. Report an error in the passage at 2:53 Highlight the passage at 2:53

3:33 And so we want to take a moment for that first. And Report an error in the passage at 3:33 Highlight the passage at 3:33

3:51 then to consider that what we're doing is not just for ourselves. Report an error in the passage at 3:51 Highlight the passage at 3:51

3:59 A way of gaining something that no one else has a chance to. Maybe where they live it's not allowed to gather. So we're doing that for others. So I want you again to think about how you suffer. I want you to actually, maybe there's a story in your mind. This will help you as we go through this talk. is to think of what has been a place of suffering and i'm sure you might come up with 10 stories right now you could probably come up with quite a few but maybe the one that Report an error in the passage at 3:59 Highlight the passage at 3:59

4:42 so that people understand you or a way of getting to know people or to connect and so to don't go through the entire story just pick a story have a title on it and and remember it as a Report an error in the passage at 4:42 Highlight the passage at 4:42

5:00 Kind of a point of place in which you connect where you notice this story arising, arising, arising. And I'm hoping that what I offer will help you maybe see what is happening and why this story's been going on for a month, two months, five years, 10 years, 20. How many have 20 years? That continue to come. Come on, it's all right, it's all right, it's all right. I got it too. We're all human beings. Report an error in the passage at 5:00 Highlight the passage at 5:00

5:33 One of Report an error in the passage at 5:33 Highlight the passage at 5:33

5:42 my favorite sutras is the Heart Sūtra, and I love just the first line. It's a lot of teaching in that. Report an error in the passage at 5:42 Highlight the passage at 5:42

5:56 When deeply practicing prajna paramita, clearly saw that all aggregates are empty, and thus relieved all suffering. Avalokiteshvara. Bodhisattva. When deeply practicing, Prajnaparamita clearly saw that all five aggregates are empty and thus relieved all suffering. Report an error in the passage at 5:56 Highlight the passage at 5:56

6:31 Okay, that's all you need to know. Wow. Relieved all suffering. That's something, isn't it? Can you hear that? That's amazing to me. That there could be something like that that could actually transform one's spirit, one's soul, one's mind, one's body in a teaching. That probably took decades to come through the Buddha. Avalokiteshvara is another name for Kuan Yin, or Kuan Yam, or Kuan Zeon, many names for the one who hears the cries of the world. Report an error in the passage at 6:31 Highlight the passage at 6:31

7:10 And a Bodhisattva is the one who also hears the cries of the world. And I'm assuming, if not everyone in here, it's probably a Bodhisattva. And we have gathered together again to at least look at. And listen to the cries of the world together. Report an error in the passage at 7:10 Highlight the passage at 7:10

7:30 So the five aggregates that is mentioned in that first line, I want to speak on that because they were the exact teaching that helped me to expand that suffering story I had and carried most of my life. Report an error in the passage at 7:30 Highlight the passage at 7:30

7:49 So they also before this Hold back. Before they speak of the five aggregates, there's the prajnaparamita. And we can't get all the way into it, but it's wisdom. So when deeply practicing prajnaparamita. So this is a very important part in that relieved of all suffering. So we kind of got relieved of all suffering. Oh, yeah, the five aggregates, if you know what those are, or you studied them before. Report an error in the passage at 7:49 Highlight the passage at 7:49

8:21 before. It became very much a study for me for many years. And as the librarian at Tassajara Zen Center, I studied it over and over from different traditions. It's very interesting to study it from Tibetan, these different Buddhist traditions. And it still comes to that core of the heart. And it made sense that we chanted all the time and that we would begin practice all the... Report an error in the passage at 8:21 Highlight the passage at 8:21

8:54 All the time with the heart. And that heart includes body and mind. And so I took it very deeply when I first heard the chant without knowing what five aggregates meant. Report an error in the passage at 8:54 Highlight the passage at 8:54

9:09 Aggregates sounded more mathematical to me. And it kind of turned me off that word aggregate. Although I did like math. But I wasn't good at it until I got, I don't know, when it got... I'm not good at arithmetic, but I'm really good at calculus and trigonometry and things like that. But I couldn't do arithmetic and still have trouble with it. Report an error in the passage at 9:09 Highlight the passage at 9:09

9:32 So I don't know what that is. But I wanted to share the five aggregates quickly so that we can see maybe how they may affect and how they hold that story and how that story affects how you see the world and how you see each other or different people in your family, your community. And how you see what is happening now, you know, and how you're responding based on some of this teaching. So one is form. Report an error in the passage at 9:32 Highlight the passage at 9:32

10:01 And I'm not going to go into the Pāli words for them or Sanskrit words. There are Sanskrit words. So form, so we can just say you and me right there. You kind of get that idea. There's feeling, that feeling of you and me. And the aggregates do give you that feeling that you, it is you and me. In these bodies, you have a name, I have a name, you came from some place, I came from some place, I had a mother and father, which I give thanks to right now too, for bringing me into this life. Report an error in the passage at 10:01 Highlight the passage at 10:01

10:34 And that's not to say they were perfect, but they did bring me here. And so they were the portals for me. And so I kind of see them out there, mom and dad. Report an error in the passage at 10:34 Highlight the passage at 10:34

10:46 And then when I see them in me, I just go, oh, no. nope. We're going to keep that over there. No. I don't like form. I don't like that one. As an aggregate, as something to hold on to. And then there's feeling, and that is having our emotions usually beginning maybe sometimes in the body, a sensation. Sometimes we don't notice that. Report an error in the passage at 10:46 Highlight the passage at 10:46

11:17 And so maybe when you came into the Zendo, you had some and you just kept walking to your seat with your hundred sensations. And then when I came out, you had some more. And it just keeps going on and on and on. And so I think this is a wonderful thing in being alive. You're alive. That's what they used to tell me when I was suffering. Congratulations. Report an error in the passage at 11:17 Highlight the passage at 11:17

11:44 I was like, mm. you know? Not quite what I'm expecting here. And so the other one is perception and it's how you see or how you might see the world with your senses or your mind, your eyes, your nose, your ears. All of these things get involved in how you perceive the world. And so this perception is also a way we concretize that you and me and... Report an error in the passage at 11:44 Highlight the passage at 11:44

12:17 The sensations and emotions. I want you to stop a minute and see in your story if you have one. And maybe your suffering is right now. In the moment. If you have one, just how is form, you and me, sensations, emotions, and how you're seeing yourself here in the moment. Yourself here with everyone sitting together. How is that happening for you? And just be honest. Report an error in the passage at 12:17 Highlight the passage at 12:17

12:44 You don't have to share this. It's personal for you right now. It's private. It's practicing right now in the moment. And I do this so that my words, part of them or some of them, can become something that you can use rather than you can think about. So don't go home and think about it. Just see what happens right now. And then see what happens later without having thought about it. You'll be surprised. Report an error in the passage at 12:44 Highlight the passage at 12:44

13:16 The other one is mental formations, and that is saying thoughts, things that come to our minds, too. And then consciousness, again, emphasizing the I, mind, that's really promoted by what we see, hear, think, taste, touch, you know, all of these things. Report an error in the passage at 13:16 Highlight the passage at 13:16

13:37 So there's Report an error in the passage at 13:37 Highlight the passage at 13:37

13:43 a part that, when I heard this part, There is no form, no sensation, no perception, no formation, no consciousness, no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, no sight, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, no object of mind, and no realm of sight, and no realm of mind consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 13:43 Highlight the passage at 13:43

14:14 There is neither ignorance nor extinction of ignorance, neither old age and death. nor extinction of old age and death Okay, Report an error in the passage at 14:14 Highlight the passage at 14:14

14:31 we can go home on that one too? Okay, there's nothing? Okay, I feel all those things, don't you? All of those things are very real. Report an error in the passage at 14:31 Highlight the passage at 14:31

14:42 So why would we have a teaching like that? What is that when we're trying to grasp it with our form, our feelings, our perception, our mental performance? suffering, no cause, no cessation, no path, no knowledge, and no attainment. Report an error in the passage at 14:42 Highlight the passage at 14:42

14:52 Formations in our consciousness right here in this moment. We're trying to grasp that with this human being that's made up of these aggregates. Report an error in the passage at 14:52 Highlight the passage at 14:52

15:05 What is that about? When I first heard that and chanted it, I felt immediate relief, and I didn't know why. Suddenly I felt off the hook. I didn't have to live in such, you know, what I see, what I saw, what I heard, you know. What I was trying to do with my life no longer needed to be attended to in that way. I think that's what I felt. Report an error in the passage at 15:05 Highlight the passage at 15:05

15:35 I just remember really feeling the relief and asking for a copy right away of the suture because I wanted to relieve that suffering that it said in the first. Just give it to me because I think I'm feeling it right now. And I'm going to take it home and do some more of this relief. And they immediately said no. Report an error in the passage at 15:35 Highlight the passage at 15:35

15:57 So at the time, in the old, old days of Zen, you did not get a copy of nothing. There just did not come to you. And I was just so shocked, you know, like maybe six or seven years later to see the sūtra book in the bookstore. I was like, what has happened here? This could have been easily done years ago. But I'm glad I didn't get a copy. Report an error in the passage at 15:57 Highlight the passage at 15:57

16:27 Because I just lingered with the feeling. I had the words until I chanted it again the next morning and the next morning and the next morning and the next morning. I wanted to memorize it, and I realized there was no memorizing, and plus I'm not very good at that anyway. It never happens. It's not old age. It's just my mind's not into it. Report an error in the passage at 16:27 Highlight the passage at 16:27

16:47 And so I would hear that over and over, the know this, the know that, the know that, and feel the same relief. And I didn't really understand why that was there. And then I said, oh, it's a translation problem. You know, they just can't quite find another word for no. And that might be true, but when I read all the other versions of the chant from different traditions, it was still there, that idea of this emptiness of things. Report an error in the passage at 16:47 Highlight the passage at 16:47

17:23 And when I felt the emptiness of it, just for a moment, I didn't know. What the feeling was, and I surely didn't know how to empty myself again, unless I heard the chant. I only had to hear the chant in order to feel it again, and I still kind of would hear the no. Report an error in the passage at 17:23 Highlight the passage at 17:23

17:47 So I wanted to tell you maybe two experiences that I had to help you. Wondering, does any of that help with the suffering stories you have, or does it give you a big blank? How many have a big blank? It's okay if you have a big blank page around. Great. Thank you. Yeah, of what that all means in relationship to the story I asked you to hold. Report an error in the passage at 17:47 Highlight the passage at 17:47

18:13 So it really takes, I want to say, time and a lot of practice. And that means a lot of zazen, a lot of stillness. If you're not doing zazen, stillness and silence to allow prajna, paramita to arise in you, to have wisdom. wisdom to arise in you, and compassion to arise in you over years around what it means. So I'm giving you a peak preview through my Report an error in the passage at 18:13 Highlight the passage at 18:13

18:42 in your life, so it's not guaranteed. Nothing's guaranteed. There's no 30-day trials, and you can't give it back. You already bought it, and nope. No returns or refunds. Report an error in the passage at 18:42 Highlight the passage at 18:42

19:02 When I was. Being ready to be ordained. And I was only interested in being a novice priest, quiet in the back, in the dark, forever, for the rest of my practice period. And you see that didn't happen. And so I was told by my teacher as she was bringing me into this priesthood, now you know what I want you to do with this. Report an error in the passage at 19:02 Highlight the passage at 19:02

19:36 What is it? What is she talking about? She said, I want you to go out and share the dharma. I want you to share it with everyone. And I especially want you to share it with your people. He said, I'm picking you in particular. And I was like, how come this keeps landing? It's very heavy weight. It felt like that. Report an error in the passage at 19:36 Highlight the passage at 19:36

19:57 And I knew this was the way Zenkei Blanche Hartman did her work and her practice. She ordained three priests of color, the first three priests of color in the Suzuki Roshi lineage. There was another person, but they stepped aside way long ago before I showed up at Zen Center. There were many at different Zen Centers, but by the time Blanche came to ordain and dharma transmit people, there were few, and I was one of the few. Report an error in the passage at 19:57 Highlight the passage at 19:57

20:34 I believe I went out and did what she wanted me to do, and that was share it with my family and friends and people who were around me, not proselytizing. I never said a word. I never said a word about what I was doing, where I was going, and that I was Buddhist or chanting or anything. Report an error in the passage at 20:34 Highlight the passage at 20:34

20:56 My hope was that it would arise in my body and people would see something different in me. And it happened. They did. I could feel they would ask me, what are you doing? Where are you going? Report an error in the passage at 20:56 Highlight the passage at 20:56

21:17 And so I still didn't share it in that way. Report an error in the passage at 21:17 Highlight the passage at 21:17

21:24 But I think to this day, I'm thinking of Zenkei Blanche Hartman. And I think she would be pleased. I consider her not only my teacher, but my dharma mama. You know, you do things for your mother. And I did. I see every year the effects of just staying in the gateway. I had everything in my mind. I had a lot of negativity. You know, I was moving with, oh, we need to do this. We need to change Zen. We need to change the Saṅgha. We need to change, change. Report an error in the passage at 21:24 Highlight the passage at 21:24

22:01 That would be in my mind, but I knew I only had one way to do it. One way. And that was with this life, with this body. It was the only way I could do it. And if I couldn't do it through that, then what good was it for me to talk everybody into it? And so I talked myself into it. And so there was a post on Facebook. And yes, I'm on Facebook. Report an error in the passage at 22:01 Highlight the passage at 22:01

22:32 And my family's on there, so I'm not going nowhere. That's how I find out who's getting married, who has a baby. Odd. Report an error in the passage at 22:32 Highlight the passage at 22:32

22:44 There was a post about the lineage of black dharma teachers in Zen, and they were trying to figure it out. And there is a lineage. There is an ancestral lineage that exists, and I wanted to make sure that it's spoken into the room and to talk about those pioneers. And the first to be dharma transmitted was Merle Cordo Boyd, who has now passed and practiced in the Maizumi Roshi. Report an error in the passage at 22:44 Highlight the passage at 22:44

23:13 lineage of Los Angeles, the Zen And I remember meeting her. I'm so glad I went all the way to L.A. I live in L.A., but I went to meet her in the garden, and I said, Merle, what are we to do? What are we to do? You know, Diane told me to do this or do that, and we'll bring the people in. And I said, like that cab driver right there, should we talk to him? And she's like, you know, she kind of like, she looks at me. Report an error in the passage at 23:13 Highlight the passage at 23:13

23:44 Directly in my eyes she said, I want you to know that dharma wheel is already turning without you saying anything. And I said, it is? We haven't done any work yet. And she said, well that's the reason you and I are sitting here. And I was like, wow. Because I had never really met a black dharma teacher transmitted in a brown role. Report an error in the passage at 23:44 Highlight the passage at 23:44

24:10 And it was a big moment to stop and be with that. To be in that moment. And so I still kind of went on around a bit with some negativity inside of me. And I knew it was around form, feeling, perception, mental formations and consciousness. I learned that later. That's why I studied it so much. I said, oh, this is me. This is me. So, you know, if I can let go of some of this or I could understand it a little more, I wouldn't feel so stuck in the place that I am with this story. Report an error in the passage at 24:10 Highlight the passage at 24:10

24:45 About what goes on and what doesn't go on, you know, in spiritual communities or Zen communities. So this lineage to me is a powerful affirmation because it really let me know that there was something else. There wasn't just what I saw, what I thought, what I, you know, it was more. There was this whole lineage that was being formed without my hands and I had nothing to do with it. Report an error in the passage at 24:45 Highlight the passage at 24:45

25:15 You know, I didn't manipulate it into being. And so the Jules Susan Harris, another Dharma, Black Dharma transmitted teacher who also passed, I think, in 2023. And he's number two. And well, he's number one in his lineage of his teacher, which was a New York village, Zendo. Pat Inkyo. And so he's number one in his. We have all these lineages. And then there was, I think in there, Angel Cota Williams, for those who might know her or them. Report an error in the passage at 25:15 Highlight the passage at 25:15

26:07 And then not long after that was Riamo Ilda Gutierrez-Badikin. She was actually the first. One of African descent to be dharma transmitted in the Suzuki Roshi lineage. Know that name. Know that name. Report an error in the passage at 26:07 Highlight the passage at 26:07

26:31 And then came, I always include, although she's not of African descent, we're just all together in that movement, and she's Vietnamese. Report an error in the passage at 26:31 Highlight the passage at 26:31

26:46 And then there was me. And so I say that to know that there is this very kind of quiet. Turning of the Wheel lineage, which for me was an expansion from my form, the way I thought, the way I felt, the way I perceived things. And so then I go, okay, there's this other thing. So did I go to, oh, now I'm going to start thinking positive of these things. I'm going to go negative, no negativity, just positive. Report an error in the passage at 26:46 Highlight the passage at 26:46

27:16 No, I didn't. That's not what sometimes the teachings feel like this. Instead of being negative. You can be positive and think like this. You know, you could have no mental formations and you'll not suffer. No, that's not what happened. Or a lot of times you're hearing Zen, this and that, it's this and that. And one time someone said, oh yes, it's paradoxical. Report an error in the passage at 27:16 Highlight the passage at 27:16

27:41 I said, no, it's not even that. It sounds like that. Oh, if you tell me this, then you're going to tell me it's that. Because that's Zen. It's this, oh, then it's that. So what's happening? There's this and that. It's no, no, no, no, no. What is it? What's happening there in those teachings? And I can say with this experience of watching this lineage evolve of teachers of African descent to say there is something else, and there still may be some negativity and trouble and suffering, but it's all together. Report an error in the passage at 27:41 Highlight the passage at 27:41

28:17 It's not just one. It's teaching us about expansion. So when we say no eyes, no ears, no nose, that's the expansion of what we're thinking about. There's an expansion in your suffering story. You don't have to go look for it. There is an expansion. There's something else going on at the same time, like there's something else going on in the world right now, the same time that we're in here. Report an error in the passage at 28:17 Highlight the passage at 28:17

28:41 We have not left the world. We're still in the world. We're just sitting over here in the world. When I started to understand this, this and that, this paradoxical, this way of no, no, no, and this kind of emptying out was a chance to actually turn in and to see and to understand how the stories keep moving and how they keep us in the one place, at least myself, in the one place. Report an error in the passage at 28:41 Highlight the passage at 28:41

29:13 And then as I practice more, because I feel that that practice of zazen is a practice of expansion. And so that's what we're experiencing when we're practicing. And that's what I experienced of the lineage that is expansive without me doing anything. I didn't do anything. I just show up. I do show up in the best way that I can. And the things that I offer in my writings are the practice and not an interpretation of how I see things because of my culture or my skin or whatever. Report an error in the passage at 29:13 Highlight the passage at 29:13

29:51 I am creating an expansion of what exists already. Report an error in the passage at 29:51 Highlight the passage at 29:51

30:12 You're still you. You're going to be you. I'm still me. And not paradoxically, but in a wider place. It makes no difference. So you can have both. You can have all of it. But which part of it causes the suffering? Report an error in the passage at 30:12 Highlight the passage at 30:12

30:40 Which part of it becomes that place in which You just can't get through. You can't think it out. I can't get out of how it feels to be alive in this world at this time. Report an error in the passage at 30:40 Highlight the passage at 30:40

31:01 Can you offer yourself or consider in your life now the Report an error in the passage at 31:01 Highlight the passage at 31:01

31:11 relief of suffering and also the continuation of it as one life and Report an error in the passage at 31:11 Highlight the passage at 31:11

31:23 someone saying congratulations when the bad things happen? I think Report an error in the passage at 31:23 Highlight the passage at 31:23

31:34 it's important in these times. To not, I think, overuse wisdom teachings. A lot of times I hear them and to overuse them as an excuse, overcompensate with things we haven't really quite experienced like compassion or wisdom. We just want to do them and hope that they have a result and not to say, you don't aspire to that. Report an error in the passage at 31:34 Highlight the passage at 31:34

32:09 You can aspire to it. loving kindness. You can aspire to compassion. Report an error in the passage at 32:09 Highlight the passage at 32:09

32:19 And yet you can let those things go, especially when the bell rings. I love when things ring like that. Report an error in the passage at 32:19 Highlight the passage at 32:19

32:36 What is it that you do? What is it that you think you're doing? And how has that worked out? Report an error in the passage at 32:36 Highlight the passage at 32:36

32:48 So we can only work here, and then we can work with people who are next to us. That's what I love about this practice. You can sit in here. I'm there and be together in all the difference, all the trouble. Report an error in the passage at 32:48 Highlight the passage at 32:48

33:09 Like, no, don't, no, no. Don't talk, no. But it's just the way it is. This is life. And I'm honored to have been brought into this part of my life, to be in the world in this part of the world. And not to say I'm not out there, because I am in all the years that I've practiced. Report an error in the passage at 33:09 Highlight the passage at 33:09

33:41 And to say I'm also concerned and worried and there's much anguish inside of me. And I must come with that anguish and speak to you while anguished and also speak to you while not. Report an error in the passage at 33:41 Highlight the passage at 33:41

34:00 At the same time, it's all going on. How do you live a life like that? How do you live like that? Report an error in the passage at 34:00 Highlight the passage at 34:00

34:19 I've done it all my life, so you can live like that. Anguish and not. I think we all have lived a life like that. Report an error in the passage at 34:19 Highlight the passage at 34:19

34:35 Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click. May we fully enjoy the dharma. Report an error in the passage at 34:35 Highlight the passage at 34:35