Cultivating the Art of Tenderness

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

0:16 morning. Good Report an error in the passage at 0:16 Highlight the passage at 0:16

0:27 morning to everybody who is coming here to listen to this talk. Thank you for coming. And to everybody online, too, who is listening in. I have moved my seat backwards. Because then I can actually see you and you're not all the way in my back. And the Buddha is very close to help me. So that's why I changed the position of this platform. Who Report an error in the passage at 0:27 Highlight the passage at 0:27

1:04 is here for the first time? Are there anybody? Okay. So just see if anything of what you hear resonates with you. platform. Report an error in the passage at 1:04 Highlight the passage at 1:04

1:18 There's no need to try to understand everything that involves your mind, your mind that knows things or thinks it knows things. And you can just listen with your body, which is the recommendation to all of us to just, I love that picture, I can't remember who uses it, maybe Thich Nhat Hanh, to let the words be like rain and your body be like earth. Report an error in the passage at 1:18 Highlight the passage at 1:18

1:47 And let the rain just fall. Touch your body and let it do its own thing with it. Report an error in the passage at 1:47 Highlight the passage at 1:47

2:00 We have, we, a few of us, have been given a big gift to just be, to simply be for three days with nothing to do. With nothing to change, with nothing to strive for, with no goal, just sit and be with our own life in this unique body we have been given as Report an error in the passage at 2:00 Highlight the passage at 2:00

2:48 it is right now. And that is such a big gift. and is such a simple task that is really quite extremely difficult for us to do because Report an error in the passage at 2:48 Highlight the passage at 2:48

3:10 it actually requires to be willing to notice what thoughts come up, what feelings may come up, what memories may come up, what sensations may come up. And to not meddle with them, to let them simply be. Because if we don't engage them, if we don't Report an error in the passage at 3:10 Highlight the passage at 3:10

3:49 jump on the thought and create the story, or grasp the feeling and create the story, or grasp the memory and rehearse. A thousand times rehearsed story. It's like an old bone and we chew at it again. Dogs like to bury their bones and then get them back out. We are like dogs in that way. We are really like dogs. We love to rehearse the stories that we tell ourselves. Report an error in the passage at 3:49 Highlight the passage at 3:49

4:25 So to refrain from doing that is the task. And one way that It's taught in this tradition, which is really powerful to step back or stop. What we're doing is actually stop when we notice that we're in our old, you know, grudges. Report an error in the passage at 4:25 Highlight the passage at 4:25

4:56 Marsha tells, my partner Marsha tells a story from Harriet Greenberg, is it? You know, you don't remember? Anyway, something that happened when she was at school and she got hurt by that person, she can bring that back up and suffer again. I mean, and she knows it's absolutely useless. But it's an identifier, and that's our trap. Report an error in the passage at 4:56 Highlight the passage at 4:56

5:32 We identify with those stories we keep rehearsing. This was not fair. This is not what I wanted. This is bad. This is good. And so in these three weeks, three months, I was going to say weeks, actually three days, and I think, I hope we do it for three months, we are encouraged and invited To just keep letting go when we get attached, letting go when we think a story, letting go when we want to be somewhere else, because that is really a human predicament that animals don't have, and actually our body doesn't have. Report an error in the passage at 5:32 Highlight the passage at 5:32

6:40 Our mind, our human mind can do that. And David White says something really wonderful about this in a talk he gave, Navigating the Difficult Transitions of Life, and it's by the poet David White. The incredible thing about the natural world is that it is just itself. Report an error in the passage at 6:40 Highlight the passage at 6:40

7:11 That's why it is so healing, because it is not trying to get anything done that we are trying to get done. It's not carrying the world as a burden. The kingfisher is not saying, oh God. Another day of kingfisher, and the kingfisher never says. God, I am just deeply tired of this whole kingfisher trip. Every time I want a bite to eat, I have to get completely and utterly wringing wet. Report an error in the passage at 7:11 Highlight the passage at 7:11

7:53 Can I just have one day as a crow? The kingfisher never says that. The kingfisher is just the kingfisher. As human beings, We are the one corner of creation that can refuse to be itself. Report an error in the passage at 7:53 Highlight the passage at 7:53

8:21 As human beings, we are the one corner of creation that can refuse to be itself. And I would like you to take a moment to just think inside yourself what are the parts you are refusing to be. Report an error in the passage at 8:21 Highlight the passage at 8:21

8:48 You don't want to be. You don't want to be part of you. And Report an error in the passage at 8:48 Highlight the passage at 8:48

9:04 when you find those, when you find one or two or several, flag them with a beautiful flag so you can go back to them later. Report an error in the passage at 9:04 Highlight the passage at 9:04

9:19 We are the only corner of creation that knows what it means to live in exile. Because when we do that, when we refuse aspects of our being, Because they don't fit in the self-image we created, how we should be. We are exiling ourselves. We are putting ourselves in exile. And therefore, it is an absolute triumph for a human being just to be themselves. Report an error in the passage at 9:19 Highlight the passage at 9:19

10:00 In order for a human being just to be themselves, they have to come from the other. other end of the world. And we, by sitting still, by just allowing ourselves to... Report an error in the passage at 10:00 Highlight the passage at 10:00

10:20 be with what the experience is at the moment is coming from the other end of the world to out of exile. He Report an error in the passage at 10:20 Highlight the passage at 10:20

10:40 says more about this, but I think for right now that's enough. So there Report an error in the passage at 10:40 Highlight the passage at 10:40

10:52 is this Austrian psychotherapist and medical doctor and his name is Alfred Report an error in the passage at 10:52 Highlight the passage at 10:52

11:08 Adler. And he lived 1870 to 1937 and he founded a school called Individual Psychology. And Report an error in the passage at 11:08 Highlight the passage at 11:08

11:25 he says, at the tender age of six, we have created an image about ourselves. Based on experiences that started at our conception, our cells absorbed the fears, the anxieties, the happiness, the ease, the stress of the mother's body because that's in the bloodstream and that goes through the embryo. Report an error in the passage at 11:25 Highlight the passage at 11:25

12:05 Then what we hear, the hearing is the first sensory organ that develops in an embryo. So we hear sounds, we hear maybe the beautiful music or the soft voice of our mother or father or the fighting of the parents. So that's all imprinting already before we even are born. We also genetically Report an error in the passage at 12:05 Highlight the passage at 12:05

12:35 Inherit patterns from ancestors and habits. So if your parents had to flee, or your ancestors had to flee their country due to war, so what's happening all over the place, or be deported, or all the violences that are happening, actually imprint also genetically and get transferred to the baby. Report an error in the passage at 12:35 Highlight the passage at 12:35

13:08 So by six, then the baby's born and however it gets responded to, what meets its needs, what doesn't meet its needs, how it's handled, how it's fed, how it's soothed when it is distressed or not soothed when it is distressed, what it gets punished for or shamed for or praised for, all create In the child, an image about itself. What is good about me, what gets me nice results, people like me when I'm like this, and what gets me into trouble, and that is bad. Report an error in the passage at 13:08 Highlight the passage at 13:08

13:55 And with that, it also creates a view of the world, what it can expect from the world. And this resides In the background of our mind. It's not conscious. Some of it is conscious, but a lot of it is not conscious. And it absolutely shapes what we perceive. You know, yesterday, the Shuso talked about expectations. Report an error in the passage at 13:55 Highlight the passage at 13:55

14:30 And that expectations, can you say again what you say in the 12-step program about expectations? Report an error in the passage at 14:30 Highlight the passage at 14:30

14:44 Expectations are resentments waiting to happen. That's such a great way. When we have an expectation, that's what we're looking for. If it happens, we're happy. If it doesn't happen, we are resentful or disappointed. And what it also does, it doesn't allow us to see anything else. We may... When we may expect something, we miss that something much better is happening to our life because we're only looking to the right. So that self-image and that worldview is fixed, is connected to stories we keep telling ourselves over and over. Report an error in the passage at 14:44 Highlight the passage at 14:44

15:34 We have loops in our mind of how we talk to ourselves, how we... Pat ourselves on the back when we were good and how we treat ourselves like we were treated when we're not good, when we're bad. So we also internalize the relation, how people that took care of us related to us, this kind of relating we have incorporated and we treat ourselves the same way. Report an error in the passage at 15:34 Highlight the passage at 15:34

16:08 We scold ourselves, we shame ourselves, we put ourselves in a room and close the door. We hate ourselves. So this is all creating a really small prison around ourselves, which is completely self-created, even though we couldn't choose as children weak. We created it. So sitting still and not engaging with what comes up, but letting it be, giving it space, giving it its time, and not adding anything to it and not taking anything away from it. Report an error in the passage at 16:08 Highlight the passage at 16:08

17:00 Standing close and present, but not doing something with it. is allowing those things to actually become less fixed because we see them coming and we see them going. We actually give ourselves that opportunity to actually experience, not just know it up here, but actually experience that the thought can come up, it can bring feelings with it, and if we let them be and don't judge them and don't... Report an error in the passage at 17:00 Highlight the passage at 17:00

17:41 Do anything with them, they will also be replaced by another feeling, by another thought, by another sensation. So that makes those fixed views of ourselves more transparent, more permeable. And we actually are studying the self. Report an error in the passage at 17:41 Highlight the passage at 17:41

18:09 And then in the end, if we study the self, we forget the self, and I right now can't remember what's in between. To study the self is to? Report an error in the passage at 18:09 Highlight the passage at 18:09

18:19 Immediately? I Report an error in the passage at 18:19 Highlight the passage at 18:19

18:29 thought there was another sentence between. It was just to study the self is to forget the self? What? Report an error in the passage at 18:29 Highlight the passage at 18:29

18:42 So Report an error in the passage at 18:42 Highlight the passage at 18:42

18:48 it fits actually what... It's said in the Xing Xing Ming, which is the trust in mind, where it says the way is simple and clear for the one who is not picking and choosing. Report an error in the passage at 18:48 Highlight the passage at 18:48

19:05 So it is an immediate, you know, study the self, forget the self, and you're enlightened. Report an error in the passage at 19:05 Highlight the passage at 19:05

19:14 Which is really true, because they also say we're already enlightened, but all this other stuff is just... enlightened. Report an error in the passage at 19:14 Highlight the passage at 19:14

19:22 Like clouds covering up the sky. It's like bad weather. All these ideas we have about ourselves and these habits that come from these ideas because if we have an expectation of the world, we also develop a strategy how to be in that world so that only the good things happen and not the bad. And so we don't really meet the world. We meet our... Report an error in the passage at 19:22 Highlight the passage at 19:22

19:52 The idea of the world and meet it with our strategies how to be in some ways untouched by it or only touched in the ways we would like. Report an error in the passage at 19:52 Highlight the passage at 19:52

20:05 So not picking and choosing, that's another way of saying we're just sitting, allowing what is arising to arise because it has arisen, we don't choose it to arise. Report an error in the passage at 20:05 Highlight the passage at 20:05

20:22 Then we choose to add to it or spin the story or meddle with it or argue with it. That's a choice. But that it arises, it just arises. And can we not judge it? Because that's also picking and choosing. This one I like and this one I don't like. And I wanted the red one, not the blue one. So I want the blue one, not the red one. Why didn't I get the red one? Report an error in the passage at 20:22 Highlight the passage at 20:22

20:53 To just have that opportunity to do that for three days is an enormous gift and we are given a place to sit, we are given food to eat, we are given a place to sleep, we are taken care of. If we need to talk to somebody we can and in between we are just So you may have seen the signs hanging up today, practice noble silence, which we actually feel like is really beautifully kept these two days so far. Report an error in the passage at 20:53 Highlight the passage at 20:53

21:37 So Report an error in the passage at 21:37 Highlight the passage at 21:37

21:44 we don't want to change anything because Pema Chögyen says, Trying to change ourselves is often based on the idea that we are not good enough, which is a subtle form of violence against ourselves. Report an error in the passage at 21:44 Highlight the passage at 21:44

22:10 Isn't that interesting? To think of when we think we have to get better, we often think, this is really good. I want to get better. This is a good quality of mine to try to improve myself. Right? And we get accolades for improving ourselves, or we give them to ourselves. And to think of that as a subtle form of violence against ourselves is really interesting. Report an error in the passage at 22:10 Highlight the passage at 22:10

22:40 To turn that around, because maybe that changes, that takes a little bit out of the energy that that's a good thing to get better. Because if we... Report an error in the passage at 22:40 Highlight the passage at 22:40

22:55 Of course, when we get ill, we do get better if we allow our bodies to heal. So that's also an allowing. If we allow an illness and listen to it and what the body says, then we can help it rest. We can give it enough fluids. We can give it the right food. food and we have to give it rest which in this culture usually when your body is ill you get some pills and you don't rest you just continue you cover up the symptoms and you can And she also said, than being with what's happening. And because then that will give you information what's needed and what's helping. Report an error in the passage at 22:55 Highlight the passage at 22:55

23:56 So, and she also self - Says Pema Chodron, self-acceptance as ground is the foundation of spiritual work. To accept oneself fully right now rather than trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. Report an error in the passage at 23:56 Highlight the passage at 23:56

24:21 So that's what we're invited to do these three days. To accept, acknowledge, accept, embrace, surround with Kindness and mindfulness, attention, without any judgment. Report an error in the passage at 24:21 Highlight the passage at 24:21

24:45 And it leads to relaxation. I don't know how many of you have felt in those two days, and we have another day today, a moment of just ease, of just the relief of not having to do anything. Report an error in the passage at 24:45 Highlight the passage at 24:45

25:06 Entertaining the possibility that exactly the way you are, you are okay. Report an error in the passage at 25:06 Highlight the passage at 25:06

25:27 And she says something else that I think is also really, really helpful because sometimes we do have a really Report an error in the passage at 25:27 Highlight the passage at 25:27

25:39 difficult time. We may be given a difficult time with the body we have been given. And we try to find a solution because it's Report an error in the passage at 25:39 Highlight the passage at 25:39

25:58 tearing us apart or it's creating a division inside ourselves because it's aging because it's not fitting because and there's nothing to be thrown away we can't throw away the body we can't throw away the way it may not be fitting or we experiencing as not fitting so we try to find a solution that's such a human tendency Because we think if we have a solution for the dilemma we're in, that is a really felt and painful dilemma sometimes, we want a solution. Report an error in the passage at 25:58 Highlight the passage at 25:58

26:38 But she says, as human beings, not only do we seek resolution, but we also feel that we deserve resolution. However, not only do we not deserve resolution, We suffer from resolution because resolution is in some ways a fixed arrival at the fixed determination. Report an error in the passage at 26:38 Highlight the passage at 26:38

27:11 Then we suffer from that. We don't deserve the resolution. We deserve something better than that. We deserve our birthright, which is the middle way. Report an error in the passage at 27:11 Highlight the passage at 27:11

27:33 An open state of mind that can relax with paradox and ambiguity. That's our birthright. To relax with an open state of mind in paradox and ambiguity. And Report an error in the passage at 27:33 Highlight the passage at 27:33

28:02 that too we are trying to cultivate in these days. So I would say we're cultivating the art of tenderness. We're cultivating the art of gentleness. And when we get stiff and trapped in a judgment or in this is not the right form, you know, we changed our morning service and forms are really something wonderful. Report an error in the passage at 28:02 Highlight the passage at 28:02

28:34 They invite us into presence. So we try to follow the forms. to be fully embodied forms and then we get used to them and they become a habit which then we can do them without being present you know just automatic so we change the morning service not to challenge people but it does challenge people because we're doing it differently i forgot and Had to turn around, go back. Paul forgot, had to turn around and go back. Report an error in the passage at 28:34 Highlight the passage at 28:34

29:12 And that is really wonderful because the danger of forms and having such a big institution that tries to carry a tradition and keep it alive is that we think that's the right form and everything else is wrong. Report an error in the passage at 29:12 Highlight the passage at 29:12

29:37 Forms by themselves have absolutely no value. They're just forms and they're just agreements. They're just conventions. And so the forms we bring to situations or to fully fill them, they help us into presence. But if we cling to them and think that's the right way, they become... tyrants, tyrants of ourselves, and we feel justified to chastise somebody else who doesn't, or judge somebody else who doesn't, can't do them or does them wrong, you know, not the right way. Report an error in the passage at 29:37 Highlight the passage at 29:37

30:23 So we all have also cultural forms that are very different from culture to culture and we don't know those forms like we don't Know the unconscious life plan we have for ourselves that is in place at age six. Can you imagine what kind of brain development is at age six? There's very little and based on that is built a view of the world and what I can expect and how I can safely navigate this expected world. Report an error in the passage at 30:23 Highlight the passage at 30:23

31:03 So I Report an error in the passage at 31:03 Highlight the passage at 31:03

31:14 lost my thread. Report an error in the passage at 31:14 Highlight the passage at 31:14

31:21 Oh, the cultures. Yes. So when I came here to the U.S., somebody invited me to their home. And they said, here's the refrigerator. Help yourself to what you need. Here are the keys to this car. Use it when you want. And it's wonderful to have you here. And here's where you can sleep. And basically, that was it. Report an error in the passage at 31:21 Highlight the passage at 31:21

31:54 And I thought, they must regret having invited me. This is, you know, they don't want me to be here really, you know, they just suffer my presence. Report an error in the passage at 31:54 Highlight the passage at 31:54

32:13 I'm from Switzerland, so when we invite somebody, we spend time with them, we eat with them, we take them out, we do things with them. Report an error in the passage at 32:13 Highlight the passage at 32:13

32:28 Right? We don't give them our car key. We don't tell them, there's the refrigerator. Eat when you want. And we don't let them loose. You know? We tend to them. We want to spend the time with them. So over time, I started to realize probably an American feels like, they never leave me alone because this is such a culture of individualism. Report an error in the passage at 32:28 Highlight the passage at 32:28

32:53 You know? They don't want to impose on you or something. But on a Swiss culture imprint, I would think this is not wanting me. That would be my interpretation. And vice versa. So I think we are all trapped by these forms. But if we hold them And if we start looking, what does it mean in that culture? It may mean your behavior may mean something completely different. Report an error in the passage at 32:53 Highlight the passage at 32:53

33:38 And also to be gentle with our forms. So we eat now formal in the meditation hall, two meals. And we have bowls and we have chopsticks and we have a pad to clean our bowls. And afterwards... And so when the servers come by, we have hand signals to say when we had enough. Sometimes we hold the bowl, sometimes we hand them the bowl, but we can have signals. Report an error in the passage at 33:38 Highlight the passage at 33:38

34:11 We can say we want a little bit, and the server doesn't have to decide what the little bit is. It can just start with slowly more, and then you can say stop. You don't have to go like this. You stop. Which we sometimes do. We can gently say stop. When we have enough water we can gently lift the cleaning stick to say stop. Report an error in the passage at 34:11 Highlight the passage at 34:11

34:41 We don't have to go like this or flip it like this. Which we sometimes do and think that's, you know. And these things affect us. They affect us doing it and they affect the person receiving it. So can we be gentle around very clear forms? Can we be soft around them? It makes us soft. It softens our heart and our mind. Report an error in the passage at 34:41 Highlight the passage at 34:41

35:16 So being still and being silent calms the body and brings the mind and body together. And only when our mind is with Our activity. Are we truly alive? Otherwise we're exiled. If our mind doesn't want to be a kingfisher, doesn't want to be me, wants to be somewhere else, we exile ourselves. And we, in that moment, forgo the possibility to be fully present and fully alive and fully human. Report an error in the passage at 35:16 Highlight the passage at 35:16

36:03 But we can always come back to that. As long as we have a breath left, we can come back to being just this being, this moment, here and now. Report an error in the passage at 36:03 Highlight the passage at 36:03

36:26 That's right now happening, so just relax in the middle of it. So you can watch your mind going all different, you know, if I would take a picture of all our minds when we heard that sound, there were innumerable possible reactions and responses to this and we can just let those come and go and not grab them so Report an error in the passage at 36:26 Highlight the passage at 36:26

36:57 we will go back to the meditation hall continue with cultivating tenderness and gentleness and non-judgmental mind and spaciousness creating space so for example when you get something comes up and you get very tight in your body and there's lots of energy think of your body has a little bit of balloon capacity you can make it just a little bit bigger that reduces the tension inside the pressure inside your arms can just go absorb a little more your legs can absorb can just expand a little bit you can play with that it's working so the tension lowers and give it a big field let it flow through you rather than stop it so there are many ways you can just create ease and support ease in the midst of maybe a painful or stressful experience. Report an error in the passage at 36:57 Highlight the passage at 36:57

38:11 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 38:11 Highlight the passage at 38:11