Mahapajapati and Liberation

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. Report an error in the passage at 0:00 Highlight the passage at 0:00

0:15 Welcome to Beginner's Mind Temple. All of you who are here in the room and everyone joining us online. Am I reverberating? Is it okay? Can you hear me okay? Report an error in the passage at 0:15 Highlight the passage at 0:15

0:36 So let's see. So this morning we had a ceremony to honor the first ordained nun way back 2,500 plus years ago, Mahapajapati. Report an error in the passage at 0:36 Highlight the passage at 0:36

1:02 How many people were at the ceremony this morning? How many people would have been there had you known it was happening? Okay. Report an error in the passage at 1:02 Highlight the passage at 1:02

1:15 So the ceremony this morning started in the Zendo, and our practice period leader and senior dharma teacher, Christina Lerner, read a version of the story of Mahapajapati's going forth and seeking full ordination, because full ordination had not been approved for women at that time. Report an error in the passage at 1:15 Highlight the passage at 1:15

1:44 This is, I think, I read somewhere around five years after the Buddha had been teaching for some time, so five years. And in the reading, I'll read just a piece of it. Report an error in the passage at 1:44 Highlight the passage at 1:44

2:03 So how it was read this morning. So the Mahapajapati was the Buddha's aunt, maternal aunt, and foster mother. who raised the Buddha Siddhartha Gautama from infancy. And after witnessing his profound transformation, his awakening, and the benefit of that to countless disciples at this time, she herself recognized that the path to liberation was open to all seekers, regardless of their gender. Report an error in the passage at 2:03 Highlight the passage at 2:03

2:49 The story goes, with unwavering conviction, she and a number of Sakyan women took an unprecedented step, shaving the head, putting on the yellow cloth, and setting out on foot to Vashali to request full ordination from the Buddha, undeterred by hardship or uncertainty. Report an error in the passage at 2:49 Highlight the passage at 2:49

3:11 So this story, a few years ago, we were reading the more historically Historically encapsulated story from the Pāli Canon, which had a little bit more detail, some of which is disputed. Scholars have disputed some of it. And we changed the ceremony a little bit. So I want to talk about that, why we would do that, what it means to do that, and whether... Report an error in the passage at 3:11 Highlight the passage at 3:11

3:50 I'm not really asking whether you agree or not, but I just wanted to have that be a point of consideration. So in the story we read this morning, that Christina read this morning, Mahapajapati and her 500 shakin, probably mostly noble women, joined her in shaving the head and donning the robe. And walking from Kapilavastu to Vaishali, about 150 miles on foot. When she arrived outside of the hall with the pointed roof in the great wood where the Buddha was staying, she stood outside and it says, with her feet swollen from the journey, her limbs covered in dust. Report an error in the passage at 3:50 Highlight the passage at 3:50

4:46 And yet, despite the physical toll, her resolve remained firm. And she waited. So what the story leaves out is that prior to this, while in Kapilavastu, Mahapajapati had gone to the Buddha and asked for full ordination. Report an error in the passage at 4:46 Highlight the passage at 4:46

5:13 She asked him, and he said no. So she asked him again, and again he said no. And she asked him again, and he denied her a third time. So with that as the background, What does she do? She shaves her head, she puts on robes, and she takes 500 women and walks to Vaishali. This is probably some time after this happened. Report an error in the passage at 5:13 Highlight the passage at 5:13

5:45 So in this story, when she's asked and refused again and again, I just want to notice that she doesn't argue with him. She doesn't get into a debate, at least as far as the Pāli Canon reports. Report an error in the passage at 5:45 Highlight the passage at 5:45

6:05 And yet she did not accept this decision. This decision that just by virtue of having a female form, somehow she did not get to do this. She did not get to enter the full ordination path. She did not get to leave home and worldly affairs. Just think about what that means for a moment. To leave home and worldly affairs. To focus entirely and completely on waking up. Report an error in the passage at 6:05 Highlight the passage at 6:05

6:37 So this was being denied to her. So rather than submit to this answer, she gathered 500 women who all shaved their heads, donned the yellow cloth, and walked the 150 miles with her. Report an error in the passage at 6:37 Highlight the passage at 6:37

6:57 And then it says in the original telling, in the Pāli verse, That she had feet swollen. Okay, so the same thing is said. Her feet are swollen and she's caked with dust. It also mentions that she stood outside where the Buddha was residing and wept and sobbed. We kind of move that out. I'm just kind of pointing out some of the alterations that were made. So I just want to invite everyone to... Report an error in the passage at 6:57 Highlight the passage at 6:57

7:38 Settle into your body for a moment and imagine a time which I am sure every single person in this room has experienced, a time when you were told by some authority figure, maybe a parent, maybe a sibling, maybe a boss, maybe an institution, that you were told that you were not worthy or Report an error in the passage at 7:38 Highlight the passage at 7:38

8:06 that you were shamed, or you were told... This is not for you. When deep in your heart, you know that not to be true. Just feel what that feels like. Report an error in the passage at 8:06 Highlight the passage at 8:06

8:23 Maybe it was because of your gender. Maybe because of your race. Maybe because of your sexual orientation. Or maybe the food you eat, the clothes you wear, where you came from, what your background is. Physical ability, education, class, any number of different things where you were told, where do you feel that in your body when you recall an experience such as that? Report an error in the passage at 8:23 Highlight the passage at 8:23

8:59 Maybe Report an error in the passage at 8:59 Highlight the passage at 8:59

9:03 you feel it in your gut, maybe in your heart, maybe in your throat, maybe in your hands, maybe your hands feel itchy. Report an error in the passage at 9:03 Highlight the passage at 9:03

9:15 To be told this kind of message, to receive this kind of message, it doesn't stay in the conceptual or abstract realm. It becomes bodily memory that is carried around. And maybe if it's said again and again and again, it becomes lodged. It becomes something that maybe you internalize and believe yourself, despite a deeper feeling that it's not the truth. Report an error in the passage at 9:15 Highlight the passage at 9:15

9:38 It may lead to some chronic low-grade activation. You may not even be aware of it. It might be under the surface. Maybe it has the effect of creating some... Form of vigilance. Report an error in the passage at 9:38 Highlight the passage at 9:38

10:00 Vigilance about whether you are welcome, whether you belong, whether you're enough, whether you're too much. Report an error in the passage at 10:00 Highlight the passage at 10:00

10:22 So as the story goes, Ananda comes upon her and the 500 women, and as we heard this morning, Ananda asks her, what's going on here? He sees her distressed state. He sees all these women standing outside the Buddha's residence. He inquires, and she replies, Venerable Ananda, I have come seeking the going forth, yet the Blessed One has not permitted it. Report an error in the passage at 10:22 Highlight the passage at 10:22

10:53 Recognizing the deep sincerity and steadfastness of Mahapajapati, Ananda went to the Buddha and implored him to allow women the opportunity for full ordination. That says Rebecca Report an error in the passage at 10:53 Highlight the passage at 10:53

11:04 In the reading this morning, it goes on, though the Buddha at first remained silent, Ananda skillfully asked, Lord, are women capable after going forth from the house life into homelessness in the law and discipline declared by the perfect one of realizing the fruit of stream entry, once returner, non-returner, or arhatship? Report an error in the passage at 11:04 Highlight the passage at 11:04

11:35 They are, Ananda, the Buddha, affirmed. If that is so, Ananda continued, would it not be good if women could obtain the going forth? The Report an error in the passage at 11:35 Highlight the passage at 11:35

11:51 original story that we modified, I wouldn't say we changed it fundamentally, but in the original story, it again goes on. One time after another where the Ananda asks for him, the Buddha, to ordain Mahapajapati and her 500 followers. Report an error in the passage at 11:51 Highlight the passage at 11:51

12:21 And each time the Buddha denied him saying, after the first time saying no, the second time saying no, the third time saying enough Ananda. Report an error in the passage at 12:21 Highlight the passage at 12:21

12:42 How does that land compared to the Buddha remained silent until Ananda took a different tact? Where Ananda asks this is a different question, not one about whether the Buddha should or should not ordain women, but whether they are capable of attaining enlightenment, which the Buddha's answer was unequivocal. Report an error in the passage at 12:42 Highlight the passage at 12:42

13:07 Yes, they are capable. So Ananda says, well, if that's so, Lord, then wouldn't it be good if women could obtain the going forth? And in the version that we read, it just kind of goes into recognizing Report an error in the passage at 13:07 Highlight the passage at 13:07

13:29 her realization, determination, and capacity as a leader, the Buddha established the bhikkhuni order with Mahapajapati as its first ordained member. Report an error in the passage at 13:29 Highlight the passage at 13:29

13:40 So again, notice that Ananda doesn't argue or debate with the Buddha at all. He asks, he's denied. And he just asks a different question. Report an error in the passage at 13:40 Highlight the passage at 13:40

13:53 In the reading this morning, it then goes on to say, when receiving the precepts, and it doesn't mention the difference between the 227 precepts that monks, male gone forth ones, are given. That the women nuns are given between 311 to 364 rules. So it's a discrepancy of almost 100 rules. But not only those distinctions, but also the eight garudamas, the eight special rules, or the eight heavy rules that are given really as a condition for the Buddha saying yes. Report an error in the passage at 13:53 Highlight the passage at 13:53

14:48 I'm not going to get into the eight rules exactly, but in the reading this morning, we call that when receiving the precepts, including the eight heavy rules of subordination, which is an interesting word at an ordination ceremony, the eight heavy rules of subordination, which are each of the eight ones specify how nuns are... Report an error in the passage at 14:48 Highlight the passage at 14:48

15:17 Less than, each of the eight ones. Whether it's about how to show respect or what rules there are for being on retreat, who's able to give or receive instruction, what needs to be in place for there to be a closing ceremony, for a ceremony to be legitimate, how discipline is given, how ordinations are given, how admonishments are given, and how instructions are limited. Report an error in the passage at 15:17 Highlight the passage at 15:17

15:45 So each of them are placing women, Placing the nuns below the monks. As an example, a nun who's been ordained for a hundred years still has to bow down to a monk who's ordained that day. Report an error in the passage at 15:45 Highlight the passage at 15:45

16:04 So we kind of just call them the eight heavy rules of subordination in our reading this morning. And then Mahapajapati, it says that she wholeheartedly accepts them. Declaring, just as a youth fond of adornments would joyfully place a garland of jasmine upon their head, so too do I accept these precepts, never to be transgressed as long as life lasts. Report an error in the passage at 16:04 Highlight the passage at 16:04

16:30 So again, Mahabhjapati doesn't hesitate or resist, at least not according to the story, but she wholeheartedly accepts them. Report an error in the passage at 16:30 Highlight the passage at 16:30

16:44 So the difference between these two stories, and there's more differences as we will see. In the literal version, it really feels a certain way. And I'll just give an example of the feeling from my own and maybe a few others' perspectives. About two years ago, the first time I did the ceremony here, I believe, was the first time I did the ceremony here as the officiant. Report an error in the passage at 16:44 Highlight the passage at 16:44

17:14 We were in the renovation. It was held in the Zendo, not in the Buddha Hall. But after the ceremony, walking up the street with several other women, it's kind of like, we're just walking up the street. And the comment was made like, oh, God, that sucked. Here we are. I think there were like four of us. Report an error in the passage at 17:14 Highlight the passage at 17:14

17:43 Yeah. And one person said, fuck that. So it led to this really strong reaction. So here's a ceremony meant to celebrate the establishment of the women's order. And all of us were like, that really sucked. This is not okay. And yet, you could say that we whitewashed the ceremony, that we were trying to protect ourselves from what happened. Report an error in the passage at 17:43 Highlight the passage at 17:43

18:21 Or you could ask the question, what are we honoring? So in the reading, the original reading as well, it kind of centers Ananda as like, isn't Ananda great? Which he is. I just want to say, Ananda, thank you, Ananda. And to center Ananda's experience as like, oh, he came in and got this done for the women. Report an error in the passage at 18:21 Highlight the passage at 18:21

18:44 It's like, come on. So this Report an error in the passage at 18:44 Highlight the passage at 18:44

18:53 revised version. You know, it doesn't hide the fact that Mahapajapati did not get a clean victory, that her ordination still comes at an expense of subordination. Report an error in the passage at 18:53 Highlight the passage at 18:53

19:13 The fact that she still joyfully accepts these precepts, what does it say about, I don't know, the relation between institutional injustice and spiritual freedom? Report an error in the passage at 19:13 Highlight the passage at 19:13

19:30 There's something profound about that. Despite institutional injustice, there is spiritual freedom. So I just want to note that that's something that was retained despite its kind of like, ah, ouch feeling. So the revised version, I think it's what communities do to make a story livable, inspiring for modern practitioners. Report an error in the passage at 19:30 Highlight the passage at 19:30

20:04 Despite her taking on these eight special rules plus all the others, she's predicted to attain Buddhahood in the future. She becomes fully enlightened as an arhat. And Report an error in the passage at 20:04 Highlight the passage at 20:04

20:25 yet, it's also walking up the street with four other women to feel the trauma in it. And as I invited you all to check inside at a time when you too were denied based on what? Discrimination. Rigid, fixed views that hold you and don't let you be whole. This is something that each of us has experienced. Report an error in the passage at 20:25 Highlight the passage at 20:25

21:08 So this feeling of less than or being told not good enough, there's an explicit way that this is a form of oppression. And we see examples of this more and more today. Maybe not the eight heavy rules, but the rhetoric that is being increasingly found in the world in America today. Maybe it's just women shouldn't be in combat roles. Women shouldn't vote. These are things that are being brought forward in... Report an error in the passage at 21:08 Highlight the passage at 21:08

21:54 More and more, the public sphere, things are regressing. We see this in the highest good that a woman can be is a wife and a mother. Report an error in the passage at 21:54 Highlight the passage at 21:54

22:13 In seeing how sexual violence is, if not tolerated, is not seen as serious enough. We see it in the removal of Report an error in the passage at 22:13 Highlight the passage at 22:13

22:31 Honors bestowed upon people who are in minority positions. We'll just remove that statue. We'll remove that name from this honor. We're just going to do that. Why? Because that's DEI, and we need to get rid of it. This is what we see happening. All of the anti-diversity and equity and inclusion actions that have become executive orders. Report an error in the passage at 22:31 Highlight the passage at 22:31

23:02 Day by day, indeed, many civil and human rights, we see them being rolled back. So explicitly, this is explicit. But then, looking again outside of the conceptual into what does implicit trauma do in the body, how does it get internalized as maybe it's true, maybe I am less than, maybe I'm less likely to raise my hand, to use my voice. Report an error in the passage at 23:02 Highlight the passage at 23:02

23:34 Maybe I want to gargle with mouthwash before walking into the office because I might smell like curry, right? Self-deprecation, a denial of one's experience, a form of gaslighting, an internalized fear maybe that your voice is not welcome or it does not have weight, that you have to prove yourself again and again. Report an error in the passage at 23:34 Highlight the passage at 23:34

24:06 Just as a note, even in the story of, so today we did, it was a memorial service for Mahapashyapati. We focused on the going forth. But in the Pāli's canon, it even, like at her pari nirvāṇa, as she is taking her last, she goes to the Buddha, I'll go more into detail in a bit, but as she goes to the Buddha to say, I'm going to die, I'm going to, Relinquish the life force. This happened about three months before the Buddha himself died. But while she's there going to him and it's extolling her spiritual virtues and her spiritual powers, it says in the story that there were those who doubted it. Report an error in the passage at 24:06 Highlight the passage at 24:06

24:56 So the Buddha asked her to prove it. And then she did some spiritual magical things at the end. So even at the end... It's still there. So Report an error in the passage at 24:56 Highlight the passage at 24:56

25:12 when we look at the echo, I want to read the echo, the dedication at the end of the ceremony. In our echo, it says, in the pure reality body, there is no coming, no going, no female, no male, no silence or sound. So it starts off that way. Report an error in the passage at 25:12 Highlight the passage at 25:12

25:40 Shining a light on the dismantling of binary, rigid, fixed categories. This is touching the absolute. In the pure reality body, there is no coming, no going, no female, no male, no silence, no sound. And Report an error in the passage at 25:40 Highlight the passage at 25:40

26:10 then the next line, from this solitary body, Myriad awakened ones appear to teach, responding to beings like the moon shining in water. In brightness, the Buddha's foster mother appeared in this world with compassion and wisdom vast and wide. Today, in honor and celebration of her life, we have offered light, flowers, petals, sweet water, rice, and tea, and chanted the great compassionate mind, Dharani. Report an error in the passage at 26:10 Highlight the passage at 26:10

26:46 We dedicate the merit and virtue. of the ceremony to Acharya Mahapashyapati Gotami, who set forth on her path 2,500 years ago, establishing the wholeness of the home leaver's way, which Report an error in the passage at 26:46 Highlight the passage at 26:46

27:04 is in direct opposition to the rigid binaries of pigeonholing people into fixed views, into categories. Report an error in the passage at 27:04 Highlight the passage at 27:04

27:18 With red heart and steadfast resolve, she encourages beings to find their own voice and realize Buddha Dharma. Maybe at the time she didn't realize what she was up to or what the reverberations would be 2,500 years later. And then it ends with, may her pure practice and devotion dissolve barriers to understanding and awareness, and may we, And all beings practice together endlessly. So in this echo, just to say that it starts with bringing in the absolute perspective, the ultimate perspective, and then it shines on the relative. Report an error in the passage at 27:18 Highlight the passage at 27:18

28:08 So this tension, I think this ceremony very much illustrates this tension between the absolute and relative. Oftentimes we may feel like we need to fall in one side or the other, right? That's our dichotomized thinking. It's either this or that. It can't be both. And yet, what happens when we fall into the absolute? If we do that, we can actually bypass real suffering. Report an error in the passage at 28:08 Highlight the passage at 28:08

28:45 And I'll give you an example of this. Report an error in the passage at 28:45 Highlight the passage at 28:45

28:51 When I was a student at Tassahara, Actually, right before I went to Tassahara, I had the fortune of having a dinner with a Korean Zen abbot. And we were just talking about Buddha Dharma, as one does. And in our conversation, he mentions that Prajnatara, the 28th ancestor in the Zen lineage, the teacher of Bodhidharma, he mentions that Prajnatara is a woman in the Korean lineage. Report an error in the passage at 28:51 Highlight the passage at 28:51

29:21 And I was like, what? Because I never heard that before. And people call it the male ancestors. When we chant them, they're the male ancestors. And Prajnatara is right there in the middle at 28. Report an error in the passage at 29:21 Highlight the passage at 29:21

29:38 So I had heard this, and then... At one point while I was at Tassajara and just during the summer and there was a visiting teacher, a senior dharma teacher, and I was very excited. Somehow this, our chanting, the lineage came up and women ancestors and how we started chanting the women ancestors due to the efforts of people here at San Francisco Zen Center to make it whole, to honor the whole. Report an error in the passage at 29:38 Highlight the passage at 29:38

30:05 And so I brought up, well, you know, I heard that Prajnatara is a woman. And this teacher, I don't think he meant any harm. What is his response to me? No male, no female. Report an error in the passage at 30:05 Highlight the passage at 30:05

30:23 Which, you know, all right. But it didn't sit well with me, right? So that's falling into the absolute. That's diminishing. That's negating the real lived experience of, yes, there is male and female. Yes, there are categories that people are, Put into and then held to against their will, against their agency. Report an error in the passage at 30:23 Highlight the passage at 30:23

30:50 So in that sense, that was a kind of, I think, a kind of spiritual bypass. If we fall into, well, no male, no female, and that's where we land and that's where we stay. And in that sense, it's kind of in its most seductive form, right? Because it looks like the highest teaching. Report an error in the passage at 30:50 Highlight the passage at 30:50

31:10 But emptiness does not deny or erase the relative truth. Imagine saying to somebody whose own sense of self has been systematically denigrated, imagine saying to that person, well, it's all empty. Your self is all empty. That's not liberation. And then somatically looking into the body to fall into that. Report an error in the passage at 31:10 Highlight the passage at 31:10

31:44 What would it feel like to fall into the absolute without regard for the relative? Report an error in the passage at 31:44 Highlight the passage at 31:44

31:54 I think it would feel like dissociation. It would feel like numbing out. It would feel like cutting off, not allowing the full spectrum of one's experience. Report an error in the passage at 31:54 Highlight the passage at 31:54

32:05 It's kind of like a premature transcendence into some form of rigidity, right? Now, on the other hand, we might find ourselves falling too far into the relative where conventional categories are fixed as absolutes. Report an error in the passage at 32:05 Highlight the passage at 32:05

32:25 And this would deny lived experience. There are many examples of this. One that comes up frequently today is just the feeling of going to get your passport or your driver's license as a transgender person and being told no. I don't care what you think, how you feel, how you identify. You have to choose male or female. In fact, you don't even get to choose. Report an error in the passage at 32:25 Highlight the passage at 32:25

32:54 However you were assigned at birth, that's it. There is no other gender between male and female. Imagine the violence that does to one to be so completely denied and told your experience is not real. Report an error in the passage at 32:54 Highlight the passage at 32:54

33:14 And then there's the, you know, that's being imposed on from the outside. But we can also see how one can internally Fall too far into the relative. Imagine that you take up an identity kind of as armor or as defining you. Report an error in the passage at 33:14 Highlight the passage at 33:14

33:34 Many times it might not be good for you, but it might still happen. You might see yourself as a victim. I'm the oppressed one. That's how I relate to everything, always. That's falling too far into the relative. How do we find the middle way? Report an error in the passage at 33:34 Highlight the passage at 33:34

34:05 Another example today, which I read about, I don't think I have any, I have to confess, I don't have any lived experience of relating to this, but I read about what seems to be a radicalization of younger men, many younger men, not all younger men, of course. Report an error in the passage at 34:05 Highlight the passage at 34:05

34:33 There's this, through the influencer world and the, I guess maybe it's going down the rabbit hole, submitting to the algorithm, where what is given to you, what is fed to you in your pursuit of learning about the world becomes more and more extreme. Report an error in the passage at 34:33 Highlight the passage at 34:33

35:00 You see it in the increasing contempt, the increasing misogyny. Report an error in the passage at 35:00 Highlight the passage at 35:00

35:12 And not only that, again, that's the othering. What does it do to the inside to fall into such views? Anytime there's a binary, I suspect that one becomes better and one becomes worse. It kind of naturally happens when you say over here, separate but equal? No. It doesn't really work, does it? One ends up oftentimes being subjugated to the other. Report an error in the passage at 35:12 Highlight the passage at 35:12

35:52 And in those situations, I think that's a form of internalized binding to a category. What is the experience of being hooked into a rage loop? What is it like to have this kind of dopamine hit of outrage and then find another one that's even more outrageous? And then you just keep going and soon you find yourself saying horrible things. And it's like, what is the root? What is the pain? Report an error in the passage at 35:52 Highlight the passage at 35:52

36:22 pain, the trauma underneath it that is maybe unacknowledged, whether it be loneliness, fear of not making it in the world, economic insecurity, purposelessness, fear of not being accepted, not being loved. The response may be to subjugate. Report an error in the passage at 36:22 Highlight the passage at 36:22

36:54 Again, more of the rigidity, the fragmentation, the polarization, the binary. Report an error in the passage at 36:54 Highlight the passage at 36:54

37:08 And this behavior causes real harm. If Report an error in the passage at 37:08 Highlight the passage at 37:08

37:18 we fall too much in the absolute, maybe we don't see that. If we fall too far into the relative, maybe we don't find compassion. Maybe we don't really make room. Report an error in the passage at 37:18 Highlight the passage at 37:18

37:30 How do we make room for both? Report an error in the passage at 37:30 Highlight the passage at 37:30

37:38 Mahapajapati, in the story that we celebrated this morning, She didn't argue. She didn't rebel. Well, I guess she did. Yeah, she rebelled. But she didn't do it with hatred. She didn't hate the gatekeeper. She didn't resort to violence. She just kept walking toward the gate that appeared to be closed with red heart and steadfast resolve. Report an error in the passage at 37:38 Highlight the passage at 37:38

38:10 How do we hold both the absolute and the relative? How do we say, uh-uh, this is not okay, on the one hand, And how do we say at the same time, you are more than the story that you see yourself as. Whether you're the aggressor, whether you're the aggressed to, you are more than this. Report an error in the passage at 38:10 Highlight the passage at 38:10

38:35 So Mahapajapati accepted the eight rules and with an image of joyfully placing a garland on her head. This Report an error in the passage at 38:35 Highlight the passage at 38:35

38:46 is a fully realized or to become fully realized arhat accepting an institutional injustice without at the time without resistance to taking on these rules but it's not passivity perhaps she knew a deeper truth Report an error in the passage at 38:46 Highlight the passage at 38:46

39:09 that the institution or the rules can't touch. Maybe that was enough to sustain her. In Report an error in the passage at 39:09 Highlight the passage at 39:09

39:26 my own life, with the topic of gender, and this is Women's History Month, I myself find that I can fall into the absolute. It's probably the direction I fall sometimes with regard to gender in particular. So when I came back to San Francisco Zen Center after being gone for 10 years in Austin, and there's a cultural move that has been taken of... Report an error in the passage at 39:26 Highlight the passage at 39:26

40:02 Inviting people to introduce themselves and to share their gender pronouns. When I came to the first work meeting, I came to where it wasn't a request to share. It wasn't like, if you like. It was just like, tell me your name and tell me what your gender pronoun is. And that really pissed me off. I was like, I don't want to tell, what are you talking about? Report an error in the passage at 40:02 Highlight the passage at 40:02

40:21 You want me to choose? Report an error in the passage at 40:21 Highlight the passage at 40:21

40:25 You don't get to ask me that. I mean, it was really, it felt violent. To have me like, okay, you have to choose now. And so when I do say anything, I feel kind of bad about it sometimes. I say any pronouns are fine. It's true. Any pronouns are fine. And yet, when I go to the bathroom and it's men and women, I go to the women's room. Report an error in the passage at 40:25 Highlight the passage at 40:25

40:51 At Report an error in the passage at 40:51 Highlight the passage at 40:51

40:55 one point, David, Abbot David, we were talking about this. And I said something like, well, you know what I really feel like saying is, you know, I really feel like saying how I feel that day. Hi, I'm Mako. He, him. Because that's how I feel. And he's like, please don't do that. You're just going to confuse people. And Report an error in the passage at 40:55 Highlight the passage at 40:55

41:23 yet, I hear about the male ancestors and I see Prajnatara being misgendered. It chafes at me. So on the one hand, there's the absolute. It doesn't matter. On the other hand, it sure does. It sure does. So how do I hold both of them? whether we want it to or not our conditioning is what we have to deal with we have to Report an error in the passage at 41:23 Highlight the passage at 41:23

41:51 we have to step into it and meet it. We can't deny it. If we deny it, we do so at our own peril. To deny it is to fragment, is to cut off one part of ourselves. It's moving, leading away. So what Report an error in the passage at 41:51 Highlight the passage at 41:51

42:11 heals us? How do we, if it's... Holding strongly to our stories, whether they're from an absolute or a relative perspective, if it's not being able to let go of fixed views, if it's finding ourselves bound up in a rigid inflexibility, whether it's institutionally imposed, whether it's culturally bestowed or politically manufactured or personally told in our own bodies, this fragmentation, this partitioning of ourselves, It locks us into a frozen moment. This past weekend, last weekend, I and a number of people from Zen Center were given an opportunity to go for the weekend to a trauma workshop led by Bessel van der Kolk and a few others. Report an error in the passage at 42:11 Highlight the passage at 42:11

43:05 Bessel van der Kolk, for those of you who don't know, is a trauma researcher who wrote a number of years ago, The Body Keeps the Score. He's a somatic therapist and studied Report an error in the passage at 43:05 Highlight the passage at 43:05

43:16 Didn't start that way as a somatic therapist, but became one. I think he didn't say after the World Trade Center. It's when he started to turn to what is somatic? What is a somatic work? Because prior to that, the name of the game was psychoanalysis. And if you weren't doing psychoanalysis, if you weren't doing your story, you weren't funded, basically. Report an error in the passage at 43:16 Highlight the passage at 43:16

43:42 So when we get fragmented and we get locked or something happens, whether we're traumatized by the external or the internal and we lock ourselves into some fixed moment, the threat response, it's a threat, right? It keeps digging until we turn and face it. And it doesn't turn off. And this could happen in so many different ways, right? It does happen in so many different ways to each of us. Report an error in the passage at 43:42 Highlight the passage at 43:42

44:15 It shapes our identity. It makes it rigid. But why do we come to a place like this? Why do we come to therapy? Or for those who do go into therapy, to become whole? Maybe here we come because we want to restore a beginner's mind. Part of the workshop, we were shown some slides of children with their There's children with their mothers kind of making faces at each other, co-regulating, right? Little happy babies. How does this happy baby, 10 years later, 20 years later, 50 years later, get rigid, get calcified, get fragmented? Report an error in the passage at 44:15 Highlight the passage at 44:15

45:12 How does that turn? How do we turn away from that? I mean, Vessel van der Kolk basically throughout the workshop kept saying, you need to support parents giving resources to their children. That's how you stop it, right? Report an error in the passage at 45:12 Highlight the passage at 45:12

45:31 But what if we're in a 54-year-old body? How do we do it then? What restores fluidity and presence and reintegrates? What heals the fragmentation that being a human in this world just inevitably leads to in many different ways? How do we counter... Falling into this rabbit hole of submitting to the algorithm that just feeds us something outrageous again and again, making us more and more angry, hateful, contemptual. Report an error in the passage at 45:31 Highlight the passage at 45:31

46:10 You know, when we have a threat, we are under threat. If what's being fed is feeling threatened, when we're under threat, Our frontal lobe, our executive function kind of turns off. And our reptilian brain, the fight, flight, freeze, and fawn mechanism kicks into place. Report an error in the passage at 46:10 Highlight the passage at 46:10

46:35 The brain drains out of our core and goes to our extremities so we can fight or run. Report an error in the passage at 46:35 Highlight the passage at 46:35

46:45 So at this workshop, I've said this before in a... Some of our other groups that we've met here. Throughout the workshop, I kept, we kind of, us Zen folk, we kind of stayed mostly together. It was kind of cute. It was a big, there was like 300, 400 people in one room in these little uncomfortable chairs. So we kind of migrated and spread out and didn't say yes to the rigid body formation that we were asked to be in. Report an error in the passage at 46:45 Highlight the passage at 46:45

47:12 But I kept glancing at my Zen friends throughout the teachings. Because many of the things that were being offered as like, this is how you respond to trauma, this is how you heal, were like Zen 101. Report an error in the passage at 47:12 Highlight the passage at 47:12

47:30 Again and again, I mean, of course, there's a lot there that was not, that was beyond that, but there were so many basics that were covered. So some examples, how do you be in the body, not your story? Report an error in the passage at 47:30 Highlight the passage at 47:30

47:45 How do you let in bare sensation? The five sense doors, your breath, your posture. How do you attend to the present as opposed to getting whisked off into the narrative? We Report an error in the passage at 47:45 Highlight the passage at 47:45

48:05 mentioned the infant and the mother kind of making faces at each other and mimicking one another. This is co-regulation this morning as we're doing the ceremony. We just recently, last week, we had a chanting review in the morning, a chanting practice where we... Tried to harmonize with one another. This is just basic Zen temple life. And this morning, as people were all invited to offer fragrance at the little tables, each person in the ceremony was invited to come and offer. Report an error in the passage at 48:05 Highlight the passage at 48:05

48:39 And one of the things that happens when you go up and offer, you go up and you bow, you take a little bit, you put it to your forehead, and then you step aside slightly, and the next person comes up and you bow together. Report an error in the passage at 48:39 Highlight the passage at 48:39

48:52 And it's always kind of awkward when you're learning this, right? Because you're like, oh, am I bowing? Am I bowing? That's co-regulation. This is our nervous systems becoming attuned to one another. Report an error in the passage at 48:52 Highlight the passage at 48:52

49:07 We find this in our chanting. We find it in our bowing. When we bow to one another, we're not just bowing because it's a bow, right? We're actually bowing with another being. We're recognizing their Buddha nature when we bow. We're bringing in wisdom and compassion in the bowing. Christina recently has been talking about bowing and how amazing it is to take up the practice of bowing, even if you're having a conflict, especially if you're having a conflict with somebody, just to at least bow when you pass each other. Report an error in the passage at 49:07 Highlight the passage at 49:07

49:43 You don't know words, but bowing together, something softens. Just our practice of returning to zazen, Again and again. Atasahara, when there's a lot of periods during the day or here during Sashin, less so in Sashin because you're not talking. Atasahara, there's a mix of a lot of talking and a lot of sitting. Report an error in the passage at 49:43 Highlight the passage at 49:43

50:05 And so there's lots of opportunities for getting into conflicts with people or having your feelings hurt or something. And what do we do? We go back to the Zendo. Sometimes it gets to the point where... Just going to the zendo isn't helping. That's not enough. And we have mediated conversations. We sit down with somebody who's going to hold space. Report an error in the passage at 50:05 Highlight the passage at 50:05

50:29 Very similar to trauma therapy. When we do kokyo training, when we do our chanting, this being able to extend the exhale. Report an error in the passage at 50:29 Highlight the passage at 50:29

50:43 If you just breathe out and say, have a long exhale. Everyone just goes, breathe out. How long can you go? Now, if you breathe out while humming or making a sound, I can Report an error in the passage at 50:43 Highlight the passage at 50:43

51:02 go for a long time, it's a long exhale. So our kokyo training itself is somatic practice. Report an error in the passage at 51:02 Highlight the passage at 51:02

51:14 They also brought up the Report an error in the passage at 51:14 Highlight the passage at 51:14

51:20 practice of self-compassion, so necessary when healing internally. Can you stand to love yourself? Can you open that door? Report an error in the passage at 51:20 Highlight the passage at 51:20

51:36 Beginning with just noticing what's happening now, what's happening in the body, what happens when we take up a awake posture and bring our mindful attention to our breath, to the feeling of our seat, our buttocks on the cushions, our feet on the floor. These were all things that were brought up in the trauma workshop. It's like, this might be helpful for your clients. Yes. Report an error in the passage at 51:36 Highlight the passage at 51:36

52:05 I'm so glad I live in a community where this is just part of our daily temple life. Side note, I was invited this past week to talk about Zen temple life with a group of high school students. Report an error in the passage at 52:05 Highlight the passage at 52:05

52:22 My dharma sister, Erin Merck, teaches high school. And so it was kind of cool to go from this trauma workshop into what is Zen temple life and to kind of, you know, hear their questions and give them examples. So when we don't fall into our rigid views, or we notice when we fall into rigid views and we allow for spaciousness, we allow that to soften. Report an error in the passage at 52:22 Highlight the passage at 52:22

52:52 When we don't demand that reality actually fits into these narrow categories and be pigeonholed there, what opens when we pause? And step away from doing that. What comes alive for us? This is why people come to a Zen temple, in part. Report an error in the passage at 52:52 Highlight the passage at 52:52

53:25 A few other healing modalities or things that were brought up as examples of profound healing that Dr. van der Kolk brought up that I found really interesting and noteworthy. He brought up the cultural revolution in China where following incredible violence and suppression of dissenting views, they weren't allowed to talk about it. Report an error in the passage at 53:25 Highlight the passage at 53:25

53:59 So how do you process that kind of trauma when you're not allowed to even talk about it? He mentions that following that in the late 80s after Tiananmen Square, which is what the world saw, Report an error in the passage at 53:59 Highlight the passage at 53:59

54:17 People started doing qigong publicly in parks, moving together in an embodied way, co-regulating. And this is a response to trauma. After the World Trade Center, at one of the hospitals, so people were given options to go into therapy. There was a lot of psychotherapy at that time. But one of the hospitals did a survey one year later of survivors from the World Trade Center. Report an error in the passage at 54:17 Highlight the passage at 54:17

54:48 The bombing of the World Trade Center in 2001. They had collected 125 survivors and asked them, what helped you process, Report an error in the passage at 54:48 Highlight the passage at 54:48

55:03 let go, heal, address the traumatic feeling in the body of panic, anxiety, depression, freaking out? What was the top responses? Acupuncture, massage, yoga. EMDR. EMDR. Report an error in the passage at 55:03 Highlight the passage at 55:03

55:30 Yoga being used for PTSD. Again, getting out of your head, getting out of your story, getting into your body, allowing things to be processed physically. How do we release these knots and tensions that are what happens when we get fixed and frozen in a moment of great stress? The Report an error in the passage at 55:30 Highlight the passage at 55:30

55:57 use of rhythm and dance and making music together. For enslaved peoples, how is this a way to access the body, to heal, to co-regulate, to be supported? Report an error in the passage at 55:57 Highlight the passage at 55:57

56:17 So I would say that Zen, the practice of Zen, is an integrator. It's the path to wholeness. That's ideally where we're going. It's not to go onto the cushion and start cutting yourself up into pieces. How do we make space? How do we become curious? Another recommended trauma therapy practice. In Zen, rather than trying to cut something out, we ask the question, how do we bring it into the room? Report an error in the passage at 56:17 Highlight the passage at 56:17

56:52 How do we open our hearts? How do we do this safely? Not too fast. If you go too fast, you might re-traumatize yourself. How do you do it in a safe way so that it can be processed, released? Report an error in the passage at 56:52 Highlight the passage at 56:52

57:14 So I guess what I'm saying is it was very affirming to go to this trauma therapy workshop. I was like, yeah. Report an error in the passage at 57:14 Highlight the passage at 57:14

57:23 So getting back to Mahapajapati and the end of her life story, it's said that she lived to 120. She led the Bhikkhuni Saṅgha throughout that time. She became an arhat. And then, when she was ready, there was a full moon in Vasali. Months, again, this is months before the Buddha's own parinirvana. She gathered her 500 bhikkhunis and she goes to the Buddha to see the Buddha in the great wood in the temple with the pointed roof. Report an error in the passage at 57:23 Highlight the passage at 57:23

58:02 She goes there and she says to him, it was I who raised up your fleshy body. It was by your nurturing that my flawless dharma body was raised. Report an error in the passage at 58:02 Highlight the passage at 58:02

58:18 She asks for his forgiveness for anything that she might have done. His response was, what more could be said to one who is entering nirvāṇa? Report an error in the passage at 58:18 Highlight the passage at 58:18

58:30 The lay women who followed her wept. Mahapajapati said, enough, enough weeping. Today is a day of joy. And then she returns to her sanctuary with the 500 bhikkhunis who all sit together. And as the story goes, she goes through, she's sitting, and she goes through the jhānas in ascending and descending order. The description of her process mirrors the Buddha three months later. Report an error in the passage at 58:30 Highlight the passage at 58:30

59:06 And then she passes into her final nirvāṇa. And then something curious happens. I'm kind of not sure about this, but it says, the story goes that each of her 500 bhikkhunis followed after her all one after the other entering pari nirvāṇa like lamps going out I was like, wow, that's a big loss for the community. But who knows what that's really pointing to. Report an error in the passage at 59:06 Highlight the passage at 59:06

59:38 And again, as I mentioned, when she was telling the Buddha that she was about to take her parinirvana, she was challenged by somebody in the community, like, oh yeah. Report an error in the passage at 59:38 Highlight the passage at 59:38

59:52 So here we are. Today, 2,500 years later, during what we call Women's History Month, we're absolutely... It's Report an error in the passage at 59:52 Highlight the passage at 59:52

1:00:23 overheating. There we go. Thank you. So we're still receiving the benefits, and yet there's... It's endless. There's still a ways to go. There's still much to be countered, to be advocated for. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:23 Highlight the passage at 1:00:23

1:00:51 The ending of the ceremony, it brings up this image of a red heart. This is a very powerful Zen image. The red heart, one that is alive, embodied. It's a feeling heart. It doesn't transcend feeling or emotion. For Report an error in the passage at 1:00:51 Highlight the passage at 1:00:51

1:01:17 those of you who were in the ceremony this morning, you might have noticed that I kind of had some feelings during the reading where I burst into tears. I don't even know where that came from. I mean, I do. I've been preparing this talk, so I know where it came from, but it was surprising to me. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:17 Highlight the passage at 1:01:17

1:01:35 So with this red heart and a steadfast resolve, okay, the steadfast resolve, again, this is not an armored going-to-battle resolve. It's not rigid. It's just I know where I'm going, and I'm going to walk there. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:35 Highlight the passage at 1:01:35

1:01:57 It's the capacity to say, This is not okay, but then keeping it open, keeping the door ajar, moving forward, knowing in her bones, in her body, that the gate that looks closed is ultimately open, and just walking all the way to Vaishali anyway. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:57 Highlight the passage at 1:01:57

1:02:21 So in our own practice, how do we welcome what's being offered in a Zen temple life? It's not made explicit. We don't say, we don't spell it out. It's one of the amazing things about Zen is you're just kind of thrown in and you kind of figure it out. But again, very simple. Just sit. Let go of your story. Feel your feelings. Feel your body. Feel your breath. Stop identifying with your narrative. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:21 Highlight the passage at 1:02:21

1:02:54 Chant harmoniously. Listen with your ears. Be wholehearted in your chanting. Your nervous system will thank you. Bow without reservation, especially if you feel like you're holding onto something. If you're holding a grudge, bow even deeper. These are the suggestions of a temple life. Thank Report an error in the passage at 1:02:54 Highlight the passage at 1:02:54

1:03:30 you all very much for coming this morning. 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 giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:30 Highlight the passage at 1:03:30