Building a Posture of Love

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 Good evening, bodhisattvas. Thank you for coming. And I guess first, since you may not have met them, I'd like to introduce the two new figures on the altar. This is Bodhidharma. who founded Zen in China. So he went from India to China and is our first ancestor in China. And this tall plaque over here is Daigenshuri, great practice protector bodhisattva. Report an error in the passage at 0:15 Highlight the passage at 0:15

0:55 And they are here as part of a dharma transmission ceremony in which every morning the person receiving dharma transmission walks around to all of the altars and circumambulates the temple for respect and for blessing. And that blesses the whole temple and everyone in it and is a wonderful reminder of what we're doing here. So I wanted to let you know that that's why there's more figures on the altar than usual. Report an error in the passage at 0:55 Highlight the passage at 0:55

1:33 So, greetings. Report an error in the passage at 1:33 Highlight the passage at 1:33

1:37 And how many people here are in the practice period? Thank you. And how many people here are not in the practice period? Thank you. Good. So I'll explain where I'm coming from with this talk. So today I wanted to speak about something that has been spoken about a couple of times in the practice period, which is an intensive period of meditation. Report an error in the passage at 1:37 Highlight the passage at 1:37

2:10 When people share a schedule. So there are special classes and lectures during the practice period. And I guess it was a couple weeks ago maybe that senior dharma teacher Christina Lanehair, who's leading the practice period, said that love is not a feeling but a posture. Report an error in the passage at 2:10 Highlight the passage at 2:10

2:43 And that stuck with a couple of the people who have been teaching in the practice period. So last night, Mary Stairs, who's a former head of practice in this temple, now living in town, she was giving a class and she spoke about what is the posture of love. And so I was thinking about it because her talk was inspiring. Report an error in the passage at 2:43 Highlight the passage at 2:43

3:11 At the beginning and also because some of the examples that were given were really inspiring and helpful. Now I forgot to introduce myself. If we haven't met, I should let you know that my name is Shosan Victoria Austin. I'm a priest here and I started practicing in the 1970s and a lot of my friends from many years are sitting in this room. Report an error in the passage at 3:11 Highlight the passage at 3:11

3:41 So if I don't know you already, maybe I will get to meet you sometime soon. I'm glad you're here. Even if we haven't practiced together for 50 years, we've practiced together for at least 50 seconds. And I really appreciate it. So this is a difficult week. The headlines are quite difficult. Our country's at war. Report an error in the passage at 3:41 Highlight the passage at 3:41

4:07 And a lot of people think that Sitting is about passivity or about doing nothing. And those words are sometimes used, but the meaning is not that we do nothing or that we're passive. The meaning is that we don't add anything onto who we already are. We can act authentically without adding stuff onto who we already are. Report an error in the passage at 4:07 Highlight the passage at 4:07

4:36 So in a situation like this in which Tensions are high around the country, and we have these wonderful places that are refuges where we don't kind of manifest political stances or try to get people to agree with us. These places are a refuge. So I want to talk about a deeper aspect of peace or the body of love. Report an error in the passage at 4:36 Highlight the passage at 4:36

5:08 This practice is all about making an appropriate response, whatever our situation is that we find ourselves in. But people are different, and people might disagree in everyday life, in the institutions we work and live in, and in our country and our systems as to what an appropriate response might be. Report an error in the passage at 5:08 Highlight the passage at 5:08

5:35 So one example of this is I write an email to a group of students. I try to do that once a week. And a couple weeks ago, I was remembering in my email about being a protester in the 1970s for various causes and how a venerable Thich Nhat Hanh noticed that young people, many young people were protesting. Report an error in the passage at 5:35 Highlight the passage at 5:35

6:02 And trying to advocate for various causes and getting really very deeply burned out. So he sent us a Xerox. It might even have been a Ditto. Does anyone here remember Dittos or mimeographs? It might have been something like that because it was really grainy or it could just have been a Xerox that was Xeroxed many times over. Report an error in the passage at 6:02 Highlight the passage at 6:02

6:27 But he sent it and addressed it to young people. Young protesters. And the cover letter said something like, I notice that many people are becoming burned out. Report an error in the passage at 6:27 Highlight the passage at 6:27

6:42 Please, please receive these offerings that I am sending to you so that you won't burn out. And what he sent was the Mahasatipatthana Sutta and the Ānāpānasati Sutta. So he sent the sūtra on the four foundations of mindful awareness and the sūtra on full awareness of breathing to us. And so I memorized the Mahasattipatthana Sutta and was writing it out and giving it away, writing it out in nice notebooks and giving it away to people. Report an error in the passage at 6:42 Highlight the passage at 6:42

7:25 And pretty recently, one of those came back to me and I gave it to someone as a gift. It was really interesting to see that after such a long time. And so Thich Nhat Hanh advised us against being pushed around by righteous anger, particularly when the cause was important to us. And people on all sides of the various issues in our country right now and in the world have righteous anger. There are so many ways to be right. Report an error in the passage at 7:25 Highlight the passage at 7:25

8:01 Or to feel that you're right and that other people are wrong. It's hard. And so I wrote about this in my email and I received several thank yous. And I also received a very hurt email saying, look, I'm a member of a group who is being marginalized every day. My daughter and I are at risk of being kicked out of this country. We're good citizens and we risk this. Report an error in the passage at 8:01 Highlight the passage at 8:01

8:43 Righteous anger has a place. Righteous anger is what is sustaining me during this time. And you can't understand because you're not in this position. Report an error in the passage at 8:43 Highlight the passage at 8:43

9:02 I didn't know what to do with that feedback because what this person was saying is absolutely true. This person has an absolutely true point. This person is at risk every moment and I should know that. And I should know that anytime I say something that It appears that I could be saying that my way is right and other people's way is wrong, that it's going to hurt someone. And that any time I give a teaching, that's one of the risks, actually. Report an error in the passage at 9:02 Highlight the passage at 9:02

9:48 Because the teaching has the force not only of the words of the teaching, not only of the memorized sutras and teachings I've received from other people, but it also has the full force of the robe, the stick. The seat, whatever archetypes or projections people have, and for many people it has the full force of priests or religious leaders when you were growing up or teachers or parents, and we should know that. Report an error in the passage at 9:48 Highlight the passage at 9:48

10:21 So I said it was about appropriate response, this practice, and what does that mean? What does it mean that love is an internal posture and not a feeling? That peace is an internal posture and not a feeling. One of the things Mary said last night is that love as an internal posture can bring us through the activities of a lifetime and has the potential, she implied that it has the potential to grow as long as we're responding appropriately from a posture of love. Report an error in the passage at 10:21 Highlight the passage at 10:21

11:00 Whereas the feeling that we usually identify as love comes and goes. And so I think it's really important to understand what is a posture of love. Speaking of which, there is constructive pain and there is damaging pain. If you're experiencing damaging pain, rest and switch, okay? Find a sense of balance in your posture because... Report an error in the passage at 11:00 Highlight the passage at 11:00

11:29 Your listening is also my ability to speak. And your listening and hearing depends on stability and ease in your posture. Report an error in the passage at 11:29 Highlight the passage at 11:29

11:44 Again, not the physical definition of comfort that we usually have in this culture, which is lying around. You can even Have a posture of stability and ease if you're lying down and you're mindful and balanced, even if you're sitting, even if you're standing, even if you're walking, even if you're working. Report an error in the passage at 11:44 Highlight the passage at 11:44

12:13 And that's true of all of us, not just you. It's true of me and everyone. So how might we practice love as a posture? Through the body, through the breath, in our emotions and in our thoughts. Report an error in the passage at 12:13 Highlight the passage at 12:13

12:31 Okay, so are you Report an error in the passage at 12:31 Highlight the passage at 12:31

12:37 willing to do a little bit of work in this lecture event? Yeah, thank you. So this will be about a situation in which you feel yourself in danger of anger or reactivity. And I would suggest if you're new to this practice of finding Finding something that you'll react to with anger light. Not like, they took my house. More like, they didn't clean up after their dog. Report an error in the passage at 12:37 Highlight the passage at 12:37

13:23 If you have medium experience, they didn't clean up after their dog and this is the tenth time. If you have a lot of experience, something that is really deeply... Report an error in the passage at 13:23 Highlight the passage at 13:23

13:39 Do you know Report an error in the passage at 13:39 Highlight the passage at 13:39

13:46 what that is, what you're going to be working with? Do you need some time? You can make yourself comfortable and stable and allow something to come up. Report an error in the passage at 13:46 Highlight the passage at 13:46

14:02 And if it's too triggering for you, stop, okay? If it's too triggering for you, the magnolias and rhododendrons are blooming in Golden Gate Park. Visualize something like that. Report an error in the passage at 14:02 Highlight the passage at 14:02

14:20 So this is part one. This exercise we're about to do is based on a traditional understanding of the preliminaries of stable contemplation, in which we establish a safe external and internal environment to study ourselves. So we might think that that situation is outside of ourselves, and it is. But our reaction starts here. Report an error in the passage at 14:20 Highlight the passage at 14:20

14:54 So that's the part we're studying. So take the situation as kind of a framework within which to study this, not that. You can study that at 8.30, okay? If you want to, but maybe 8.30 tomorrow morning. So first, I'm going to ask that we develop an awareness of the extent of the problem we face. By looking at what's come to live in here in relation to it. So I'm going to be quiet for a moment. Report an error in the passage at 14:54 Highlight the passage at 14:54

15:37 And in that moment, I'll ask that you, from your balanced, comfortable posture, just ask yourself, particularly about reactions such as revenge, retaliation, or hiding. Report an error in the passage at 15:37 Highlight the passage at 15:37

15:59 are all normal reactions to a bad thing. Report an error in the passage at 15:59 Highlight the passage at 15:59

16:08 I'll just be quiet for a moment. Report an error in the passage at 16:08 Highlight the passage at 16:08

16:17 So that I can ask once again, to what extent have you built an inner house or an inner posture? Report an error in the passage at 16:17 Highlight the passage at 16:17

16:26 That's a kind of haven for these primary forms of angry reactivity. And I'm not talking necessarily about screaming reactivity. It could be... Any kind of reactivity that actually comes up. So here are some specific questions. Report an error in the passage at 16:26 Highlight the passage at 16:26

16:53 How many times a day with what intensity might thoughts or fantasies of revenge or retaliation arise based on either facts or assumptions that are accompanied by a feeling of anger, frustration, or rage? You can look at this dispassionately. As if you were seeing it from a very safe place. How many times a day with what intensity? And Report an error in the passage at 16:53 Highlight the passage at 16:53

17:36 how many times in general do you express these feelings to yourself privately or to another person for kind of responses of support or non-support? What kinds of responses do you receive? Report an error in the passage at 17:36 Highlight the passage at 17:36

18:04 I'm thinking of mine too, okay? Not just you. Report an error in the passage at 18:04 Highlight the passage at 18:04

18:15 What arguments do you make or have you made in favor of revenge, retaliation, or a personal bent to justice that's pushed by those? Report an error in the passage at 18:15 Highlight the passage at 18:15

18:29 To whom? Report an error in the passage at 18:29 Highlight the passage at 18:29

18:34 About whom? Report an error in the passage at 18:34 Highlight the passage at 18:34

18:41 To what extent have you identified opponents, repetitively thought about what they stand for? Report an error in the passage at 18:41 Highlight the passage at 18:41

18:53 Or equipped yourself to put any of these arguments into verbal or physical action. I'm Report an error in the passage at 18:53 Highlight the passage at 18:53

19:06 still with you, okay? This is not all grim. Yeah? The last part, to what extent? Yeah, to what extent have you identified opponents? Report an error in the passage at 19:06 Highlight the passage at 19:06

19:20 To what extent have you repetitively thought about what they stand for? To what extent have you equipped yourself to put any of these arguments in favor of revenge or retaliation? into verbal or physical action. Report an error in the passage at 19:20 Highlight the passage at 19:20

19:40 Remember that looking at these dispassionately and holding them safely is a posture of love for yourself and for everyone around us. Report an error in the passage at 19:40 Highlight the passage at 19:40

19:57 So reacting with anger, besides these overt instances of it, it also has structural supports for that posture. And it kind of develops and grows on them. Report an error in the passage at 19:57 Highlight the passage at 19:57

20:15 So some of this work I've done in conversations with Dave Rico, who wrote How to Be an Adult in Relationships. We've been working on this for a while, love and power. And I've been trying to understand the practice side of love and the practice side of power for a long time. So I want to just ask you about the structural supports on which anger grows. Report an error in the passage at 20:15 Highlight the passage at 20:15

20:44 How do you keep score in this situation? This is his wording. How do you keep score? Whom do you dislike or hate in this situation, whether it's a person or more than one person or a group? Report an error in the passage at 20:44 Highlight the passage at 20:44

21:04 How much do you dislike or hate them? What do you dislike or hate about them? Report an error in the passage at 21:04 Highlight the passage at 21:04

21:16 And what icons in your mind stand for these awful features of them? Report an error in the passage at 21:16 Highlight the passage at 21:16

21:30 So now you've dispassionately surveyed The house of reactivity that's been built in here. Now, know that you've done that work. Report an error in the passage at 21:30 Highlight the passage at 21:30

21:45 It is an act of love towards yourself to know about this dispassionately and not be pushed around by it. So now for a moment, soften your eyes and visualize, if you would, a sorrowless radiant light that spreads. Report an error in the passage at 21:45 Highlight the passage at 21:45

22:15 All pervasively and Report an error in the passage at 22:15 Highlight the passage at 22:15

22:21 let that light penetrate the structure that you found in here to Report an error in the passage at 22:21 Highlight the passage at 22:21

22:32 support you to face and accept the pain of that. The Report an error in the passage at 22:32 Highlight the passage at 22:32

22:43 light pervades the situation and your reactions. Let Report an error in the passage at 22:43 Highlight the passage at 22:43

22:59 that light sink in as a form of compassion to all of that. Report an error in the passage at 22:59 Highlight the passage at 22:59

23:14 We've spent a few Seconds or minutes, acknowledging the pain behind the reactivity, and we're sitting with that light. Report an error in the passage at 23:14 Highlight the passage at 23:14

23:32 We've begun the process of surveying the territory of suffering in this situation. Report an error in the passage at 23:32 Highlight the passage at 23:32

23:41 This is the ground on which we can build a home for compassion and effective appropriate response, knowing this about ourselves. Report an error in the passage at 23:41 Highlight the passage at 23:41

23:55 When I started to practice, I had a near-death experience. That was the occasion, and as I was flying through the air, time stopped, and the universe turned itself around and looked at itself through me. And I don't know if you've ever seen a Roadrunner cartoon in which Wile E. Coyote is tricked into sticking his finger in an electric socket. Report an error in the passage at 23:55 Highlight the passage at 23:55

24:20 And so he lights up, and all the hairs stand on end all over him. And you can see his skeleton. Have you ever seen that? Or is that too far in the past? Report an error in the passage at 24:20 Highlight the passage at 24:20

24:36 Okay, so that's what happened to me in this near-death situation, except what I saw was the personality structure that I had built up to cope with living, and particularly the wartime refugee nature of my family. Report an error in the passage at 24:36 Highlight the passage at 24:36

24:55 And I could see how puny that skeletal structure was. is in relation to what it needed to be to be a wise, compassionate, adult human being. And I was profoundly embarrassed to my very roots. But at that same moment, it was as if the universe cracked a smile, a forgiving, loving, bright, all-inclusive smile. Report an error in the passage at 24:55 Highlight the passage at 24:55

25:31 And so... There was a kind of a choice where I could either jump into the situation or turn away from it. So because of that smile, I was able to jump in. And then the next moment, I realized that I was alive. Make a long story short. And oh no, now I have to follow through. Report an error in the passage at 25:31 Highlight the passage at 25:31

25:55 I didn't use that nice language. I used worse language that included four-letter words and so on. And I was to fail miserably at practice for many, many, many, many, many years. And until I realized that practice is a process of failing and learning, failing and learning, finding these embarrassing, painful things and seeing the human side of them. Report an error in the passage at 25:55 Highlight the passage at 25:55

26:26 It's the small structure that we've built up that we see through. In that light, Report an error in the passage at 26:26 Highlight the passage at 26:26

26:38 I have like 90 million pages of lecture to give. I think we've covered about a half a page. But I want to say that when we know what torments us in a situation, we'll know to what we are attached. Report an error in the passage at 26:38 Highlight the passage at 26:38

27:00 And that gives us a sense of what we need to be delivered from or what we need to change. Whether it's the war out there or the war in here, we can develop a posture of love that starts from the ground of acknowledging our habits, the structure of inevitable failure that we have built because, you know, as Buddha said. Report an error in the passage at 27:00 Highlight the passage at 27:00

27:30 He beat me, he abused me, he defeated me, he robbed me. A person who thinks this way will not be free from hate. She beat me, she abused me, she defeated me, she robbed me. A person who does not think this way will be free from hate. Excuse me for the 90s expression, but duh, right? Hate is not defeated by hate. Hate is defeated by love. This is an eternal law. Report an error in the passage at 27:30 Highlight the passage at 27:30

28:01 Yesterday, Mary talked about Manjushri, having a sword of wisdom. A sword could be used for war or a sword could be used for discernment. And Manjushri is a, next time you're in the Zendo, you'll see that there's a Manjushri statue in the middle, usually in a Japanese monastery. I think it would be a Shoho Manjushri in the form of a monk. Is that so? Yeah. Report an error in the passage at 28:01 Highlight the passage at 28:01

28:30 But ours is more of a Southeast Asian Manjushri who has a sword, an upright sword in the right hand, and a scroll and a lotus coming out of the left hand. And that lotus stands for perfect wisdom. The scroll is perfect wisdom. The sword cuts through delusions. It cuts through the fictions by which we live our life, the ignorance. Report an error in the passage at 28:30 Highlight the passage at 28:30

28:59 that we allow to run us and gives us a way to work through that suffering through everything from how we make a living to our ethical ground to how we act, Report an error in the passage at 28:59 Highlight the passage at 28:59

29:25 how we work. You know, those are the everyday pieces of the Eightfold Path. But then all of those things, when we work with them in ways that actually feed the parts of us that wants to avoid attachment and ignorance and do good and be good and be loving, we create a loving posture from within, a posture of love from within. Report an error in the passage at 29:25 Highlight the passage at 29:25

29:58 That structure is a posture of love. Yesterday, Mary talked about mirror wisdom, great mirror wisdom, the wisdom that reflects everything equally. It doesn't mean that everything is the same. It means that we can look at everything without adding, oh, I love that or I hate that. It's not that we never love or hate something. It's that Beneath that love or beneath that hatred, there's a through line, a continuous line of awareness of what it really is and who we really are and who we really want to be. Report an error in the passage at 29:58 Highlight the passage at 29:58

30:41 And honoring that, respecting that, allowing us to be protected by practitioners through the ages and practice protectors, practice protections of that we can build. That is a posture of love externally, and we can build it internally. Report an error in the passage at 30:41 Highlight the passage at 30:41

31:09 I'm going to shut up now so that you can ask some questions. I would actually at some point speak about the physical posture of love and inclusion in the body and how we can... Work with our neuroendocrine messaging system, both as a preparation for meditation and in everyday life. But that will have to be for another time. I want to save the 10 minutes for you. And thank you for being patient with this potentially depressing topic that I brought up, to look dispassionately. Report an error in the passage at 31:09 Highlight the passage at 31:09

31:57 at places that are not in us the posture of love as the ground for building something new. 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 31:57 Highlight the passage at 31:57