Expectations

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

0:14 morning. Good morning, everybody here and everybody online. My name is Lorenzo, and this is the second day of a three-day session in the middle of our winter practice period. Report an error in the passage at 0:14 Highlight the passage at 0:14

0:37 Tomorrow will be also a one-day sit, and this is my first dharma talk. Report an error in the passage at 0:37 Highlight the passage at 0:37

0:50 So first of all, please make yourself comfortable. I know that the tatami mat can be hard, especially after a full day of sit, so sit in. So please make sure your body is feeling comfortable enough. Report an error in the passage at 0:50 Highlight the passage at 0:50

1:09 So the topic of this dharma talk... It has a lot to do with the fact that I'm actually sitting here today. On Wednesday evening, at dinner, I received an invitation to give a dharma talk today. And if you think about what happened between dinner on Wednesday and now, there was not much time to prepare, right? Report an error in the passage at 1:09 Highlight the passage at 1:09

1:40 There was orientation and then there was a full day of sitting yesterday. Report an error in the passage at 1:40 Highlight the passage at 1:40

1:49 To tell the truth, I was also given the option of saying no. And we always had the option to say no. But saying no is not a very popular Zen thing to say. Report an error in the passage at 1:49 Highlight the passage at 1:49

2:03 And it's also very, very nice to say yes, which, of course, can get us in trouble. Report an error in the passage at 2:03 Highlight the passage at 2:03

2:15 And so last night, I confirmed, and I said, OK, I'll do it. And it feels very much like jumping off the 200-foot pole. And the pole is very much the mountain of expectations on myself that I have built in 64 years on this planet. And, of course, these expectations on myself come from all sorts of karmic conditioning outside, from inside, internalized. Report an error in the passage at 2:15 Highlight the passage at 2:15

2:54 But it certainly feels like a mountain. And if you may remember from my Way Seeking Mind talk a couple, three weeks ago maybe, I was born after my mom lost a stillborn two years before I was born. And now there is quite a bit of research on what happens to the child that is born. or what characterizes typically what sort of patterns exist in children that are born after stillborn and one of the things that they found was that parents of course not in a conscious way place impossible expectations on this child that lives as some sort of unconscious comparison happens with the dream baby that never had the opportunity to actually show their own imperfections right so so that is this perfect image of a child that was lost and and often I imagine not always but often expectations of matching that image are placed on the child that is born afterwards and Report an error in the passage at 2:54 Highlight the passage at 2:54

4:24 Another pattern that seems to happen is that is something that they call always second syndrome. The fact that the child that actually lives always feels second, no matter how high the expectations are and how much effort is placed to meet those expectations. Report an error in the passage at 4:24 Highlight the passage at 4:24

4:51 And I think my teacher Christina knows very well about that mountain. of expectations I live with and offered kind of the perfect medicine right to notice them and maybe to let them go at least a little bit so thank you Christina for inviting me to speak today and Report an error in the passage at 4:51 Highlight the passage at 4:51

5:22 we'll see how it goes and Report an error in the passage at 5:22 Highlight the passage at 5:22

5:36 I also want to say that like every medicine It goes down much better with a little bit of sugar, right? And the sugar in this case is very much the support I feel in this practice period. The warmth that seems to be generated by just our practicing together. It was moving this morning to be in Buddha Hall and hear the chanting of everybody at the unison. Report an error in the passage at 5:36 Highlight the passage at 5:36

6:00 together. Report an error in the passage at 6:00 Highlight the passage at 6:00

6:14 and loud and energetic. It was really beautiful and I feel that, that is the sugar that makes it easier to say yes. So as you can imagine, today I would like to talk about expectations and share some thoughts about how they interact. With our practice and I would say with our life, yesterday Christina taught us about shamatha, calming the mind and vipassanā insight and explained to us that calming the mind is very much a prerequisite to gaining insight and explained how thoughts and feelings interact with How to calm the mind and how to deal with them, fundamentally noticing them and then letting them be as much as we can. Report an error in the passage at 6:14 Highlight the passage at 6:14

7:27 And expectations are fundamentally a class of a category of thoughts. It's a particular category of thoughts that seems to lay low, seems to lay beneath our active mind. Report an error in the passage at 7:27 Highlight the passage at 7:27

7:45 And especially expectations that we place on ourselves are very insidious because they affect the way we actually perceive what we experience and also color everything that we experience with how things should be, with how we expect things to be. When Report an error in the passage at 7:45 Highlight the passage at 7:45

8:14 we expect something to go in a certain way, And then we receive something else, we are disappointed. And that's a source of suffering. We'll go back to that probably a little bit later. Report an error in the passage at 8:14 Highlight the passage at 8:14

8:34 If you have come across a taste of ice cream that you really love, and then you go and get an ice cream of that taste, and you find that the ice cream you receive has maybe an additional ingredient that makes it different from the... The taste that you are so fond of, it's very difficult to actually taste that new ice cream for what it really is. Report an error in the passage at 8:34 Highlight the passage at 8:34

9:03 You may find yourself saying, hmm, there is a little bit too much sugar, or hmm, it's softer than... So somehow having an expectation, even as simple as a taste of an ice cream, modifies the way we actually perceive the experience itself. Report an error in the passage at 9:03 Highlight the passage at 9:03

9:24 So they're powerful and to be closer to the topic of our practice period which is welcoming and accepting and living the body we are given moment by moment. Report an error in the passage at 9:24 Highlight the passage at 9:24

9:49 Reginald Ray who is the author of one of the books that Christina actually recommended for this practice period touching Report an error in the passage at 9:49 Highlight the passage at 9:49

9:59 Enlightenment shares that many of his students, many of his practitioners come to him saying, my body betrayed me or my body is betraying me. Report an error in the passage at 9:59 Highlight the passage at 9:59

10:17 And how can that be, right? How can the body betray you? The body is you. The body you have is you. You are the body you have. so how can that be that that the body feels it feels like So I would like to offer maybe a couple of minutes of reflection here. Have you ever experienced that? Have you ever experienced feeling betrayed by your body? Maybe when was the last time you felt betrayed by your body? Report an error in the passage at 10:17 Highlight the passage at 10:17

10:56 So let's keep quiet maybe for a couple of minutes so that we can connect with that possibility. I Report an error in the passage at 10:56 Highlight the passage at 10:56

· · · silence, 1 minute

12:24 guess we got the bell. Thank you. Report an error in the passage at 12:24 Highlight the passage at 12:24

12:31 Oh, yes. Can everybody hear me? Report an error in the passage at 12:31 Highlight the passage at 12:31

12:37 Thank you. Yeah. I wonder if anybody has anything to share about an experience of... Becky, please. Oh, you need the mic. Sorry. I have to say... Thank Report an error in the passage at 12:37 Highlight the passage at 12:37

13:02 you. This might be better? Yeah, perfect. Yes. I'm not the only person here aging, but as the aging gets more... Or it goes faster. So the chances to experience this wonderful sense of, how could my body have done this to me? Report an error in the passage at 13:02 Highlight the passage at 13:02

13:25 to me, the eternal me, right? It's like dharma gets concentrated. Report an error in the passage at 13:25 Highlight the passage at 13:25

13:40 us are going to escape this if we are lucky enough to live. Report an error in the passage at 13:40 Highlight the passage at 13:40

13:53 I also feel like my mind betrays me sometimes. Like there's something I think I should be able to do easily or I feel anxious about it or feel some resistance or lack of motivation and then I'm like, why is my mind betraying what I should be able to do? And where does that should come from? That's a good question. Yes, okay. Report an error in the passage at 13:53 Highlight the passage at 13:53

14:27 Thank you. The same, limitation. I wanted to be able to lift that heavy thing, or I wanted my body to be able to do something athletic that it couldn't do. You know, limitation. Report an error in the passage at 14:27 Highlight the passage at 14:27

14:54 I do feel betrayed every time I can't sleep. You can't sleep? I so relate to that. So Report an error in the passage at 14:54 Highlight the passage at 14:54

15:11 I have felt betrayed by my body in many points in my life, but lately, I have realized that my body is perfectly good at keeping me alive, which is what it's supposed to do. And that really what happens when I feel betrayed is that there's a mismatch of the expectations of what I want my body to do or what I think my body should be doing or what others tell me my body should look like, do, be able to accomplish. Report an error in the passage at 15:11 Highlight the passage at 15:11

15:41 And when my body is able to do that, I feel betrayed. But really it has to do with the expectations that I accept from others and from myself to impose on the body. That's what I've been learning this practice period. Thank you. Yes, I think this practice period is very much pointing us towards this separation somehow, this gap between expectations we have of ourselves, and we can say of ourselves, including the mind, and the body itself includes mind as a sense organ, but anyway, and the body, and the sense of self we have, and how difficult it is to let go of that sense of Report an error in the passage at 15:41 Highlight the passage at 15:41

16:46 Anybody else? what we actually are moment by moment. Yeah, thank you. Report an error in the passage at 16:46 Highlight the passage at 16:46

16:59 Occurred to me that one way that I feel my recently that I've experienced feeling my body betraying me is when I can't stay awake. Especially if it's something that I'm interested in or sitting or whatever. I Report an error in the passage at 16:59 Highlight the passage at 16:59

17:26 was hit by a car a few years ago and I broke my leg and I have a rod going through my femur. and pins and I didn't know they put that in there. I found out about it like a couple months later and it was very violating and I feel like you know there's still some funky things that happen with my knee and with my leg and still feeling like weaker than I did before before the accident and I think like I get stuck in between like is my body betraying me or like Is, you know, with these metal pieces in my body, like, what is my body? Is that my body now? So a lot of confusion and, like, alienation and betrayal. Report an error in the passage at 17:26 Highlight the passage at 17:26

18:16 Yeah. Yeah. I can feel what you're saying and maybe start with loving it and see what happens. Report an error in the passage at 18:16 Highlight the passage at 18:16

18:33 Anybody else? Great. Well, thank you. Oh, sorry. My body betrayed me yesterday. Darn it. I had a procedure, not to put too fine a point on it, a colonoscopy. And they put you under. And I never had a bad reaction to anesthesia. And I felt like I wasn't even in my body. And I felt very unstable and frightened. Report an error in the passage at 18:33 Highlight the passage at 18:33

19:00 frightened and But it came back today. So it's sort of like, okay, well, that was, everything is temporary. But I just, I feel so much more comfortable and I'm not going to fall over or cut myself with a knife in the kitchen. So it was an outside force, but it was powerful. It was really, as I say, it was quite frightening. Yeah. Report an error in the passage at 19:00 Highlight the passage at 19:00

19:27 Please, yeah, Kathleen. I'm going to bring up the other side of a coin. I actually have done that to my body. Like, I have arthritis in my spine, but I earned it. I mean, it sounds really like a funny thing to say, but I've worked my body very hard. Actually, I think my body has put up with me. I drag it places. I do things with it. It just comes along. I get a weird whim. Report an error in the passage at 19:27 Highlight the passage at 19:27

19:56 It does it. I don't even think about it. I think that that Report an error in the passage at 19:56 Highlight the passage at 19:56

20:24 is the risk we run, right? When we separate ourselves from our body and enter this form of Thinking of a body that can betray you, the other side of the coin, as Kathleen suggested, is not paying attention to the body and just, as long as it works, not even connect with it, just use it as an instrument. Report an error in the passage at 20:24 Highlight the passage at 20:24

20:52 But the body is a fragile thing, as we are, right? And at some point, it can happen. So it sounds like this is an experience that we... Many of us have had, in a way or in another, of feeling like, I wish my body complied, you know, like did what I asked it to do. And there is separation there. And I think that what we are trying to cultivate in this practice period is very much to reduce that separation, to make us closer to our body and welcome it and accept it. Report an error in the passage at 20:52 Highlight the passage at 20:52

21:35 In a much more open way, which to me has something to do with tackling expectations, figuring out what to do, how to relate to these ideas we have that because it went well for a day, for a week, for 20 years, for 64 years, then it should continue. Otherwise, it betrays me, right? And expectations are... Report an error in the passage at 21:35 Highlight the passage at 21:35

22:04 Impossible to eliminate. I don't know if you're familiar with Daniel Kahneman. He is an Israeli-American psychologist. He actually won the Nobel Prize in 2002 for his work in behavioral psychology. And he did quite a bit of work on expectations and what he calls predictions. Report an error in the passage at 22:04 Highlight the passage at 22:04

22:30 In fact, he was then borrowed by economics quite... and created a new subfield of economics called behavioral economics that came from him and he suggests and I'm quoting expectations are not just mental forecasts but active reference points that define how we experience reality instead of evaluating outcomes in absolute terms so in the way they actually are our brains calculate the gap Between what we expected and what actually happens. So that idea of feeling betrayed is sort of feeling like there is a gap. Report an error in the passage at 22:30 Highlight the passage at 22:30

23:17 And that's how I'm relating to my body. And one of his latest contributions, he passed away in 2024 by the way, is something called the fast brain that he defines as an intuitive part of the mind that automatically... automatically and instantly forms predictions and continuously compares reality to them. Report an error in the passage at 23:17 Highlight the passage at 23:17

23:44 It is inevitable to have expectations. Report an error in the passage at 23:44 Highlight the passage at 23:44

23:50 So probably this has something to do with a survival mechanism of expecting what's next and training the mind to continuously predict. Report an error in the passage at 23:50 Highlight the passage at 23:50

24:07 So the point is not so much like... How not to have expectations. Like thinking, the mind is made to think, the mind seems to be made to actually formulate expectations. But it's more like what to do with them, how to relate to them, which is often sort of the endpoint or a way of our practice, right? Report an error in the passage at 24:07 Highlight the passage at 24:07

24:31 How do we relate to feelings? How do we relate to thoughts? How do we relate to the fact that we constantly produce expectations? Report an error in the passage at 24:31 Highlight the passage at 24:31

24:42 And psychology and Buddhism go hand in hand up to a certain point. Both psychology and Buddhism tend to think that expectations are a source of suffering, are a source of disappointment and a source of suffering. Where they differ is how to deal with them. Report an error in the passage at 24:42 Highlight the passage at 24:42

25:08 So Kahneman and behavioral psychology suggest to hold predictions probabilistically and update expectations constantly with the new evidence as new evidence becomes available. Report an error in the passage at 25:08 Highlight the passage at 25:08

25:24 So in the case of the story of the ice cream, so if you know that you have this taste in your mind that you really like and then more or less 20 % of the times you find that shops put an additional ingredient, then You would adapt your expectation thinking that there is an 80 % likelihood that you're going to get the taste you really like. That's kind of the idea of Kahneman and behavioral psychology of how to deal with expectations. Report an error in the passage at 25:24 Highlight the passage at 25:24

25:58 The problem is to keep them rigid in their mind and so to have a flexible cognitive mind that can adapt to the evidence that we receive, kind of rejuvenate. constantly rejuvenate the expectations but you still have expectations right and and and so and and things can change so up to now it was 20 % of the time ice cream parlors would put an additional ingredient tomorrow it could be 25 % so that the likelihood of disappointment is there but Report an error in the passage at 25:58 Highlight the passage at 25:58

26:45 what they they suggest fundamentally is that we keep adapting So as we age, we adapt our expectations. But aging also is full of surprises. You can adapt as much as you want, but tomorrow could be, you know, the hip doesn't really flex or whatever it might be that happens. Report an error in the passage at 26:45 Highlight the passage at 26:45

27:10 And in Buddhism, and especially in Zen, the expectations or predictions per se are a point of disappointment and suffering. And so for Zen, It's very much like, how do we relate to them? And the idea is fundamentally always the same. It's, we notice them, we welcome them, and we let them be. We don't engage with them. We know we have them, but we jump. Report an error in the passage at 27:10 Highlight the passage at 27:10

27:43 We jump from the 200 football and say, I know I expect this from myself. Might just not happen. Just let that not hook us. Report an error in the passage at 27:43 Highlight the passage at 27:43

27:57 We may expect pleasure, stability. We can expect confirmation of our sense of identity. I think that's perhaps one of the most important aspects. Report an error in the passage at 27:57 Highlight the passage at 27:57

28:07 And these easily turn into wanting things to be the way we want them to be. And so there is a loss of openness. We miss out reality left and right. Report an error in the passage at 28:07 Highlight the passage at 28:07

28:28 Think about perhaps the most famous sentence of Suzuki Roshi, in the beginner's mind there are infinite possibilities, in the expert's mind few. That expert mind is the mind that has already supposedly acquired enough knowledge to have a full set of expectations about what may happen next and the possibilities the expert mind sees. Report an error in the passage at 28:28 Highlight the passage at 28:28

28:57 are restricted by this belief or by relying on the fact that with that knowledge things should go in a particular way. And then, as we know, rarely they do. But there is another aspect that I think was mentioned also by Christina yesterday that can really help us In our practice with expectations and this brought back to my mind an experience I've had with a group of students so when I was still teaching in college I used to a couple of times I took students to Green Gulch as guest students. Report an error in the passage at 28:57 Highlight the passage at 28:57

29:51 I used to teach a course called Way Seeking Mind in the religious studies department and it was during a May. May term in my university was an intense term where students would take only one class and so it was perfect to do travel courses or take students away because that's all they were taking. Report an error in the passage at 29:51 Highlight the passage at 29:51

30:18 And when we went to Gringalch, students had the opportunity to be in classes led by Tenshin Reb, Anderson, Fu, Schroeder, I can't remember others, but Daigon, Lueck. Anyway, and be exposed to various, I mean, these classes were just for them, and so there were often questions and answers, and I remember this student who asked Reb what she should do because she wanted to be generous. Report an error in the passage at 30:18 Highlight the passage at 30:18

31:00 She, you know, it was a 17-year-old. Report an error in the passage at 31:00 Highlight the passage at 31:00

31:15 not a confirmation that these actions or this whatever she did was received and effective. And she was really miserable for that, and now she's a nun, so she followed the path, so that's good. Report an error in the passage at 31:15 Highlight the passage at 31:15

31:35 And I remember Reb simply saying, do it as if there is nothing to gain from it. Just do it. Just offer it. And for myself, I mean, I thought about that quite a bit since Wednesday night. What if I offer it? Thinking, I mean, with the mind of not getting anything out of it. And that's super powerful. Because it's not that the expectations are not there, but they're put aside in some way. There is another part of the brain and another part of the mind that almost takes over and carries you. Report an error in the passage at 31:35 Highlight the passage at 31:35

32:20 So nothing to attain, I think that's what Christina mentioned yesterday, or thinking of not getting anything out of it, which is a teaching that applies to everything we do, from a half an hour of zazen to anything. Report an error in the passage at 32:20 Highlight the passage at 32:20

32:41 Maybe quite effective ways actually to deal with expectations when we have the opportunity, when we have the gift of noticing them, which is perhaps one of the most difficult things. Report an error in the passage at 32:41 Highlight the passage at 32:41

32:54 Not getting angry at them, but actually welcoming them and then letting them be. I'm doing it anyway. And see what happens. It opens up to a curious mind. Report an error in the passage at 32:54 Highlight the passage at 32:54

33:10 And perhaps even to a relaxed mind. So I would like to close by reading another passage from Reginald Ray that I find very instructive. Put my glasses for this. And that I think links quite nicely this topic of expectations to our bodies. Report an error in the passage at 33:10 Highlight the passage at 33:10

33:42 It's at the end of chapter 20. If you have the book, he Report an error in the passage at 33:42 Highlight the passage at 33:42

33:53 writes, The body receives experience in a completely open and non-judgmental way, but because of our investment in who we think we are or want to be in relationship to our hopes and fears about me or our attempts to maintain this self, we refuse to receive a great part of what the body knows and feels and understands. Report an error in the passage at 33:53 Highlight the passage at 33:53

34:21 Here, we means our conscious self. Our conscious mind, our ego. This is the process. Something happens, the totality of experience is registered on a somatic level, and our conscious mind says, no. Or we say, I want this part of what happened, but not that part. Thus, our ego consciousness doesn't simply receive what the body knows. Report an error in the passage at 34:21 Highlight the passage at 34:21

34:50 We don't receive the somatic information it is trying to deliver in a complete... This is what Buddhism calls ignorance. The ignorance is not being unintelligent or uninformed. It is the act of blocking our knowledge and wisdom received by the body and abiding in it that is inconsistent with our self-image. Report an error in the passage at 34:50 Highlight the passage at 34:50

35:20 Ignorance is actually incredibly intelligent. The activity of ignorance knows exactly what to accept and what to reject in order to keep the illusion of our unity and consistent self intact. Report an error in the passage at 35:20 Highlight the passage at 35:20

35:38 Sorry, of unity, yeah, and consistent self. In Buddhism, ignorance is considered one of the three basic mental poisons that operate to protect our self. The process of ignoring described above also involves the two other poisons. passion and aggression using passion or desire we try to draw to draw in and latch on to those small portions of our somatic experience that seems to reinforce ourself towards our consciousness using aggression we try to deny negate or destroy whatever in our body's knowledge is inconsistent with what we are trying to maintain our aggression Especially sets up a deep conflict, not so much with outside situations and other people, though we may view it in that way, but with our body itself, with information about reality that it is trying to deliver. Report an error in the passage at 35:38 Highlight the passage at 35:38

36:44 This is why people who are overcome with strong habitual aggression so often live in a hellish experience of life and die in misery. They are a deep war. with their own physical embodiment. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma Talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Report an error in the passage at 36:44 Highlight the passage at 36:44

37:14 Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, please visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we all fully enjoy the Dharma. Report an error in the passage at 37:14 Highlight the passage at 37:14