AI and the Second Noble Truth

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

0:13 Good morning, everyone. Good to have all of you here on this beautiful Saturday morning. Curious here at Beginner's Mind Temple if anybody is here for the first time. Report an error in the passage at 0:13 Highlight the passage at 0:13

0:28 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Ten. Ten people here for the first time. Welcome. Great to have you here at the Beginner's Mind Temple. Report an error in the passage at 0:28 Highlight the passage at 0:28

0:43 This is a place where we have a community temple for you to come and unpack the mystery of you. So please feel welcome. Report an error in the passage at 0:43 Highlight the passage at 0:43

1:20 Or whether or not you consider yourself a Buddhist or a Jew or a Muslim or an atheist, we want you to come here because this is a community temple. So welcome to all of the newcomers. And I am Sozan Michael McCord. I work in administration here and am a priest. And I am thrilled to be with you this morning and talk about the second noble truth. Report an error in the passage at 1:20 Highlight the passage at 1:20

1:47 Which is usually not a place of joy, the cause of suffering. Anybody here ever suffered? Anybody here ever been bothered, afflicted by things outside you, inside you? Report an error in the passage at 1:47 Highlight the passage at 1:47

2:03 Anybody ever have the universe not the way that you want it to be? Either inside you or outside you? This is called the cause of suffering. And today I'm going to talk about the Report an error in the passage at 2:03 Highlight the passage at 2:03

2:17 Intersection between the cause of suffering and being a human in the age of artificial intelligence. Being human in the age of AI and the cause of suffering. Report an error in the passage at 2:17 Highlight the passage at 2:17

2:35 Now, I don't think that anybody in this room would probably say that I wouldn't mind suffering less. So that's a default that I'm going on. So just know that that's the context that I'm talking from. Report an error in the passage at 2:35 Highlight the passage at 2:35

2:48 I want to start off with an analogy about the context with which we hold things. Because I really like this saying, it actually goes back to the time of the Buddha. It was really encapsulated well by the Japanese author Murakami. And he said, suffering is optional. Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. Report an error in the passage at 2:48 Highlight the passage at 2:48

3:20 I don't know how many of you have ever skied or snowboarded, but if you're on a mountain and you're skiing and snowboarding, they have these giant mounds of snow that are there intentionally on the more difficult slopes called moguls. And if you're there skiing and you're on moguls, it's jolting your body this way and that way. And your hamstrings are probably getting a little tired and your face might be a little bit cold and you might be a little bit out of breath. Report an error in the passage at 3:20 Highlight the passage at 3:20

3:49 But you paid money for this. And here you are with your hamstrings burning and you're getting cold in different places and hot in other places and you're out of breath trying to avoid other skiers and you have these big moguls and you're getting jolted this way and that way and you've kind of got to flex your core just so and kind of got to balance so that you keep yourself upright. Report an error in the passage at 3:49 Highlight the passage at 3:49

4:15 This is what you paid for. The story about this experience that my body is having is that this is something that I want. Report an error in the passage at 4:15 Highlight the passage at 4:15

4:27 So then you find yourself a week later and you're back here in San Francisco riding a Muni bus and you have a bus driver that is just not that skilled or maybe just not that aware or just having a bad distracted day. And they're driving with their toe, and you're kind of lurching, and they're taking the corners really badly at too fast of a speed, and they're weaving in and out, and you're standing up in this crowded bus, and you've got to flex your core, and you've got to keep your kind of hamstrings moving so that you can keep yourself upright, and you're holding on to the thing, you're trying not to hit the people next to you, and you've got this story in your head that is growing in anger about this bus driver who's so whatever and this and that. Report an error in the passage at 4:27 Highlight the passage at 4:27

5:11 What's the number of this bus? And maybe I'll report them. These things arise for us. Now, I might have been having a fairly similar body experience that I was when I was skiing moguls, but the context with which I have held it has got me in a place of suffering. I didn't feel like I was suffering when I was skiing moguls, or maybe for the modern folks snowboarding, but I was paying for that. Report an error in the passage at 5:11 Highlight the passage at 5:11

5:40 I wanted that. So I have an idea about what's going on. I have a story. I have a narrative. And this is the thing that is truth. And now the truth of the story is that regardless of the fact that my body is having a very similar experience, this is not what I want. Something is wrong in the universe and it needs to change. How we hold things has a lot to do with whether or not we suffer. Report an error in the passage at 5:40 Highlight the passage at 5:40

6:08 And this is a lot of what the Zen practice gets us to do is to loosen our grip on the context with which we are so sure about what is happening inside me and outside me. Report an error in the passage at 6:08 Highlight the passage at 6:08

6:21 And as we get into this age of AI, we have to think about the context with which I am inclined to utilize the escape that all of these Report an error in the passage at 6:21 Highlight the passage at 6:21

6:46 why do I want to get out of this moment? Report an error in the passage at 6:46 Highlight the passage at 6:46

7:03 rid of, or I'm bored with, or I'm frustrated with, or I'm really sure there's going to be something when I click that next button that is going to bring me some bit of betterness than the current moment. And so this is something for us to explore, is why do I want to click the next button? And what about what's happening right now? Report an error in the passage at 7:03 Highlight the passage at 7:03

7:28 Because it is getting so easy for us to get out of what's going on. I mean, I can remember back in the 1980s when I was a teenager. Maybe some of you can remember back in the 1950s when you were a teenager. You know, I mean, it was just so much harder to get out of the moment, you know. I mean, whatever was on TV was whatever was on TV. And then you had to show up at the time that it was on. And you didn't have anything in your pocket where you can gamble or shop. Report an error in the passage at 7:28 Highlight the passage at 7:28

7:58 You had to actually go to a store, buy things. Report an error in the passage at 7:58 Highlight the passage at 7:58

8:06 But now, whether it is something that has to do with connecting to people around the world or reading the news or social media or shopping or gambling or a million things, our TVs, I can just be sitting there making my smoothie in the morning and look over at my Alexa and say, what's the temperature outside? Report an error in the passage at 8:06 Highlight the passage at 8:06

8:31 What should I wear today? I realized at one point that I was getting bossy. If I was going to have a relationship, maybe I should say, good morning, Alexa. Hope you're having a good day. Would you mind telling me? Rather than just ordering the machines around. Report an error in the passage at 8:31 Highlight the passage at 8:31

8:51 But yes, these things are right at our fingertips. We don't have to wonder. People used to go on trips and then before the telephone or before all the stuff that we have now, people go on trips and they'd be like, well, I'll be home in a couple weeks. But give or take a day or two or three. Report an error in the passage at 8:51 Highlight the passage at 8:51

9:09 You just have to be in wonder. When are people coming back? Now it's like 15 minutes before they were going to come here, they're going to text me. They didn't text me. They've got to be near here. Wait a second. That next button. How about just being with my own uncertainty? Report an error in the passage at 9:09 Highlight the passage at 9:09

9:29 Whole worlds are coming in regard to virtual reality. What we have right now is just the tip of the iceberg in the ability to escape. And it is incredibly important for humanity to be doubling down on their exploration of what it is to be a human being. And what is it that makes us suffer? And what is it that helps us not suffer? Because there are going to be so many more temptations than what we have now. Report an error in the passage at 9:29 Highlight the passage at 9:29

9:57 And they're going to be so much more immediate. I mean, things where you just, you know, blink your eye and change things, you know, or change your thought pattern and, you know. Smart homes, you go in and it knows it's you and it changes the artwork and the lighting and whatever. I mean, the Buddha left this opulent palace because he realized that, you know, who knows how much hyperbole was added after the Buddha died, you know, 500 years later, even wrote something down. Report an error in the passage at 9:57 Highlight the passage at 9:57

10:25 But the analogy is still pretty relevant. I mean, here we have a person that they don't even want to have, you know, rough things on their feet. So they lay down silk for them to walk on, you know. This opulent palace, a really rich, wealthy family. And he was just detached from his own capacity to even be with anything difficult or suffering. Report an error in the passage at 10:25 Highlight the passage at 10:25

10:49 And that was not bringing him happiness at all. And we're going in that direction of building opulent palaces for all human beings. I mean, even a person that is on the lower end of the economic scale has a much easier way of escaping now. than what they did 50 or 60 years ago as far as immediacy. And it's just going to get easier and easier and easier to not be with the thing that we want to be with. Report an error in the passage at 10:49 Highlight the passage at 10:49

11:24 The Pāli Canon makes it really straightforward when it says that the pain, the first arrow, is unavoidable. But to be reactive to our suffering, the second arrow is something that we add. Report an error in the passage at 11:24 Highlight the passage at 11:24

11:44 Now, all of you probably in here have a favorite food. I found out during COVID that my favorite food is very clearly Tex-Mex. And I can be alone with my chips and my guacamole and my salsa and my tortillas and my beans. And I still just instinctively have this habit energy, this need to add something like a podcast if I'm by myself or music or call a friend. Report an error in the passage at 11:44 Highlight the passage at 11:44

12:17 I realized at some point in time that I hadn't just sat down by myself at home for 15 minutes and just slowly, mindfully had my dinner. Even as much as I like Tex-Mex, there's just some reason why I need to add something to it. It's not enough. Report an error in the passage at 12:17 Highlight the passage at 12:17

12:38 And this is what is slowly happening to our society. Now, there used to not be the option of radio or a podcast or TV or what have you. And you made your dinner and sat down. And unless somebody else was there, you just didn't have an option. It was just you and your dinner. And you got used to your own boredom or your own loneliness or your own whatever. Report an error in the passage at 12:38 Highlight the passage at 12:38

13:01 And you didn't denigrate the lower end of the human spectrum of emotions. This was just a part of the highs and lows of life. Yeah, I'm feeling a little bit lonely. And I've got my text mix. And I don't need to hit a panic button. Report an error in the passage at 13:01 Highlight the passage at 13:01

13:20 I don't need to click a next button. I don't need to go shopping. I'm just going to eat my beans and be at one with my tortilla. And this is enough. Report an error in the passage at 13:20 Highlight the passage at 13:20

13:31 But we're slowly getting into a habit energy that I could actually feel more up, up, up. I could do something to just feel a little bit different rather than learning to be with my experience of being a human. Report an error in the passage at 13:31 Highlight the passage at 13:31

13:52 Now, we don't have usually any relationships in our life that have no boundaries and no shared agreements. I mean, if you have a romantic relationship, if you have a relationship with family, with co-workers, with people in your neighborhood, civic boards, we have these shared agreements. Report an error in the passage at 13:52 Highlight the passage at 13:52

14:15 Roughly, we have these boundaries that we set because they're necessary. We just inherently know that. We kind of got to talk a little bit about what our agreements are and what's okay and what's not okay. Report an error in the passage at 14:15 Highlight the passage at 14:15

14:30 But yet, with a lot of things that have to do with technology, which is an ever-growing relationship, we've never in many cases studied our relationship. What are my boundaries? Report an error in the passage at 14:30 Highlight the passage at 14:30

14:45 I mean, even if you have a really good friend and you like being around them and you go on a road trip and you're in the same car breathing the same air for three days, you might get tired of each other and you might just need a little space. You know, it's kind of like you've kind of burned this out a little bit. You know, we need to be around somebody else. We all kind of know this. But yet we can have something, whether it be a piece of technology or an application or something that's in our life. Report an error in the passage at 14:45 Highlight the passage at 14:45

15:15 And have no boundary with it whatsoever. Never study it. I have no shared agreement. How much of it can I take? Should I have it every day? Should I have it every hour? Do I ever take a break from it? What is the aggregate impact on me of having this in my life? Do I ever just intentionally every week take a break? Report an error in the passage at 15:15 Highlight the passage at 15:15

15:36 Until noon, I'm not going to look at my phone or turn on a screen. Report an error in the passage at 15:36 Highlight the passage at 15:36

15:44 Study it like the way that we study all of our other relationships. What is the impact on me? What generally comes up in my mind, what generally comes up in my body when I have this with me? Is it something that I can take in my life but only in little tiny bits? Or is it something that I can take in my life in a little bit more than little tiny bits? Or maybe it's something that really I can't take in my life much at all, but to turn it over and to study it. Report an error in the passage at 15:44 Highlight the passage at 15:44

16:17 There's a really interesting study that you can find online called the Tenacious Brain, how the anterior mid-singulate contributes to achieving goals. And this was written by Lisa Feldman Barrett and several other people at Mass General in Boston and Harvard Medical School. Report an error in the passage at 16:17 Highlight the passage at 16:17

16:39 Now, there's a really interesting thing in here, because the anterior mid-singulate cortex, or cortices, they're two little tiny things inside the brain, and for the longest time, Scientists didn't even really know what its purpose was. But they found this thing, a really interesting thing in this study, that if you didn't want to do something, but you know that you probably should. Report an error in the passage at 16:39 Highlight the passage at 16:39

17:05 I think the first part of the study had to do with individuals that really struggled with their weight. And they got them to work out, I think, three or four times a day for like 20 minutes each time. So not a big workout program, but they got them to kind of do something that they generally knew that they probably should do. Report an error in the passage at 17:05 Highlight the passage at 17:05

17:23 But they really didn't want to do it. And they had them do this for, I think it was 60 or 90 days. And at the end of that, they studied those two little regions of the brain, the anterior mid-singulate cortices. And they grew. They actually grew. And they thought, oh, okay, so this is about pushing through with will. Report an error in the passage at 17:23 Highlight the passage at 17:23

17:44 So then what they did was they studied people who ran like marathons and ultra-marathons. They thought, oh, it must be huge in these people. So they started out, you know, measuring it whenever they were first doing the study, and then they measured it 60, 90 days later. And they didn't grow at all in these people that were marathoners. But you see, the marathoners actually like to run. Report an error in the passage at 17:44 Highlight the passage at 17:44

18:06 And they're not pushing through something that has to do with, I mean, yes, there's pain, and there's skiing moguls, there's resistance, there's things that are having to be fought through physically, but they've signed up for this, and they really kind of like it. But there's all sorts of things that happen in life that we kind of know that we should do or we should stop doing. Report an error in the passage at 18:06 Highlight the passage at 18:06

18:32 We've already done enough of it. Eating ice cream, not eating ice cream, whatever it is. Watching the 10th episode on TV. Maybe I should go out and exercise. Maybe I need to socialize more. Whatever it is that we know that we likely should be doing. The paper's bottom line was that the interior mid-singulate cortices helps convert intention into sustained effort. And why it is that it connects so naturally to contemplative practice or Zen training, among other things, is a systematic method of repeatedly making that conversion, intention, sustained effort, returning to when you drift. Report an error in the passage at 18:32 Highlight the passage at 18:32

19:16 And in that, there's actually... A structure that can be measured in human beings when it is that we do this. And it's really interesting. And what they've also found is that individuals that have larger interior mid-singulate cortices have a much greater proportion of individuals that score higher on the happiness scale and also people that live to be over 100 years old. Report an error in the passage at 19:16 Highlight the passage at 19:16

19:43 A disproportionate, scientifically significant deviation from the norm. for individuals that have much larger anterior mid-singulate cortices. Report an error in the passage at 19:43 Highlight the passage at 19:43

19:56 Being with your aversion. Being human in Report an error in the passage at 19:56 Highlight the passage at 19:56

20:10 the age of AI is about setting ourselves up to lean into what it is that organically helps us be with what is. is to be able to hold on to it and have the increasing capacity to hold our bother or aversion not as a fixed property, but also not to go to war against it, but to hold it as a clue to our mystery. Report an error in the passage at 20:10 Highlight the passage at 20:10

20:36 This is coming forward for some reason. Why do I have such an aversion to this thing? Why do I want to click the next button? And to hold it with some curiosity. Report an error in the passage at 20:36 Highlight the passage at 20:36

20:48 I'm eating my Tex-Mex and I'm feeling lonely. Hmm. Report an error in the passage at 20:48 Highlight the passage at 20:48

20:55 There's probably some reason why I'm feeling lonely. And letting that be okay and not have to solve it right now. But to learn how to let things germinate, to sit on the back burner and to slowly manifest into, in some way or another, growing and learning into your answers as opposed to needing it right now. Report an error in the passage at 20:55 Highlight the passage at 20:55

21:26 Years ago in the, I think the 15th century was it? 15th or 14th. When they had the Gutenberg Press, I think it was the 15th century, the Gutenberg Press, Central Europe, and a lot of folks were really worried, especially in the monastery. Report an error in the passage at 21:26 Highlight the passage at 21:26

21:48 The Gutenberg Press made it possible to essentially create books and to create, use movable type. They actually had invented something similar in China several centuries before. We tend to remember the Western European history. And the Gutenberg Press had the impact on the society at that time, because a lot of the people that were literate were people that were monastics, who read the Bible and had access to books that had been hand-printed. Report an error in the passage at 21:48 Highlight the passage at 21:48

22:24 And in a monastery, oftentimes you would have like one Bible, and it would be there in the library, and you could go and you could read it. But the thing that people were worried about was, well, if we have this new technology, people are going to stop memorizing things. Because that's how people used to learn things, is you would go and you would have time with the Bible. Report an error in the passage at 22:24 Highlight the passage at 22:24

22:48 Maybe you'd get half an hour with it and you'd pick out a few verses and you would go through and you would commit those to memory and you'd be thinking about them all day long. And then the next day you'd commit a few more verses to memory. And now what's going to happen? Everybody's going to have a book. That's terrible. Report an error in the passage at 22:48 Highlight the passage at 22:48

23:03 What's going to happen to humanity? This is awful. It's going to go off a cliff. Now you see someone riding the bus and they're sitting there with a book and you're thinking, oh, they're keeping it old school. Report an error in the passage at 23:03 Highlight the passage at 23:03

23:16 Yeah, that's a person that's grounded. You know, the novel was kind of novel in the 19th century, especially the early 19th century. Report an error in the passage at 23:16 Highlight the passage at 23:16

23:29 I mean, there had been, you know, long form essay before with, you know, Homer's Odyssey and other things. But I mean, by and large, the The general population didn't have novels and first they were in newspapers as far as like serial chapters of things and then they got consolidated into books and people were really worried when this happened. Report an error in the passage at 23:29 Highlight the passage at 23:29

23:56 What is this form of technology going to do to people's brains? This is giving them narratives to step into whole new worlds that aren't even real and humanity's already deluded enough. The novel needs to be railed against. We should not have these things. This is going to give people nothing but a place to escape into delusion. And now you see somebody on the bus reading a novel and they're keeping it old school. Report an error in the passage at 23:56 Highlight the passage at 23:56

24:25 What is most important is how we learn to engage and adopt the things that come into our lives because they can have a very negative profound impact. And some things we just can't take much at all and some things we can't take at all. But one thing is for sure, unless any of us are prepared to go. Report an error in the passage at 24:25 Highlight the passage at 24:25

25:14 Revisit their shared agreements and do a life examination at the full moon and the new moon. They would do it twice a month. We've been doing it once a month with our recitation since it came from our tradition in Japan. Report an error in the passage at 25:14 Highlight the passage at 25:14

25:33 But examining our relationships, my relationship to myself, my commitments to my community, this was an essential part of practice. And so now we have an ever-growing relationship, whether we want it or not, with technology advancements, with things that are in our pocket, the things that just impact how we live. Report an error in the passage at 25:33 Highlight the passage at 25:33

25:58 And the question for us is, am I examining it and am I looking at it in regard to what's working and what's not working? Because built within all of these machines and tools, there is the capacity to escape. And so the second noble truth, the truth of suffering, what causes suffering, the root of suffering, is also the reason sometimes and most of the time and a lot of the times why these newer technologies become compulsions. Report an error in the passage at 25:58 Highlight the passage at 25:58

26:33 Why people did sometimes end up losing themselves in novel after novel in the 19th century because it was the only way to maybe escape. Why people have used substances since humans began to escape. And now it's getting so much easier. To escape. But there's a reason why I want to escape. And that is because I do not like the current thing that's being given to me. Report an error in the passage at 26:33 Highlight the passage at 26:33

27:08 Craving. Trying to extend. There's nothing wrong with liking. You know, right now it's time to eat dinner. I like my dinner. There's nothing wrong with liking your dinner. But craving is trying to propel that thing that I have an attraction to further than what Report an error in the passage at 27:08 Highlight the passage at 27:08

27:29 being offered in a healthy way by the universe. Sometimes I joke that somebody gives you a cookie great. Enjoy the cookie. It's cookie time. Report an error in the passage at 27:29 Highlight the passage at 27:29

27:42 and sometime before Cookie 12. It quit being cookie time. and learning when I am pushing something into craving, when I am trying to extend that thing that's happening. Like when you're with a bunch of friends and someone says something funny, someone else says something even funnier, and someone says something even funnier, and you're really, really laughing, and then someone tries to extend it, and they try to say something funny, and it's not funny. Report an error in the passage at 27:42 Highlight the passage at 27:42

28:12 And then somebody else tries, and you just realize, yeah, we're just trying to, no, the moment's gone. Yeah, we're just craving for that fun, happy, laughing state. But, you know, that was fun while it was going on. Now it's over. Let's quit craving. Let's quit holding on to that like it's a fixed property. Let's let it go, and let's get into the next moment. Report an error in the passage at 28:12 Highlight the passage at 28:12

28:32 And in the second noble truth, the cause of suffering, the holding onto, the grasping, the craving, there were three different types. One was for sensual pleasures, the desire for pleasurable experiences, the craving for becoming, this refers to the desire to exist in a particular state, and the craving for non-being, which is this is the desire to avoid or eliminate unpleasant experiences and situations. Report an error in the passage at 28:32 Highlight the passage at 28:32

29:01 All three of those things are the reason that a lot of us click the next button, certainly me. Report an error in the passage at 29:01 Highlight the passage at 29:01

29:09 And so looking at the second noble truth is the opportunity for us to examine our relationships with technology and to realize that it's just how I'm holding it. Report an error in the passage at 29:09 Highlight the passage at 29:09

29:25 Because if we learn to be with our mundane, if we learn to be with our boring, if we learn to be with the lower end of the slower, more contemplative, maybe a little bit sadder, lonelier parts of the human spectrum, We can use anything as an escape. We can use Zen as an escape, Zen practices. Report an error in the passage at 29:25 Highlight the passage at 29:25

30:06 We can use really helpful breathing techniques as escapes. Someone gave me this really wonderful breathing technique. In fact, it's the only one that I've looked at as far as medical literature that is proven to lower blood pressure. And it's the 478. Many of you might know the 478. But the 478 is you breathe in for four seconds. Report an error in the passage at 30:06 Highlight the passage at 30:06

30:30 It's like a long inhale. You hold it for seven seconds. And then you slowly exhale for eight seconds. When you're exhaling longer than you're inhaling, it tells your body, oh, it's not in a panic state. We don't need extra oxygen. It's actually a place where we can exhale longer than we're inhaling. And you do that for a couple of minutes and you will actually lower your blood pressure. Now, this is a good thing, I would think. I know how to lower my blood pressure. Report an error in the passage at 30:30 Highlight the passage at 30:30

31:00 So now, let's say that every time I go into my monthly meeting at work, and it's where we all talk about how we've all done, what we're doing, and what the next steps are, and one of those kind of big meetings. Every time I go in there, I'm panicked, and I really want to do a good job. So I tell myself, well, the good thing would be to step out in the stairwell and do my 4-7-8 breathing technique. Report an error in the passage at 31:00 Highlight the passage at 31:00

31:23 So I do that. Nothing wrong with that. That's great. I've lowered my blood pressure, did that for two or three minutes. It's wonderful. But here's the thing. I now have a technique to change how I'm feeling. And I was feeling nervous before I went into the room. And if I do that every single time as a default and I don't even think about it, I'm not going to ever get in touch with my nervousness. Report an error in the passage at 31:23 Highlight the passage at 31:23

31:49 And so using discernment to be with the fact that, hmm, right now I feel like I probably can Just be with this nervousness, and I'm going to be okay. Anything can become our crutch or our default if we just use it as an automatic pilot. Report an error in the passage at 31:49 Highlight the passage at 31:49

32:07 Oh, I need help here. I don't like to feel nervous. Actually studying how it is that I'm manifesting in the universe and letting myself not have this context of I need to do something different to change this, but learning to be with it. And then maybe if I'm feeling a little bit overwhelmed and I really feel like I need to lower my blood pressure, maybe I will do the 4-7-8 breathing technique. But it's done intentionally and it's chosen and it's not just an automatic default. Report an error in the passage at 32:07 Highlight the passage at 32:07

32:44 And so these are the things for studying as it becomes easier and easier and easier to just get out of the moment that's happening right in front of me. Report an error in the passage at 32:44 Highlight the passage at 32:44

32:58 There's this really wonderful faux documentary. Many of you might have heard of it called Perfect Days. And I love this. It's not actually a documentary. It's a film about, I guess you'd say, a documentary. But it recreates this life of this person in Japan. So this individual in Japan was followed around and studied and filmed for over a year. Report an error in the passage at 32:58 Highlight the passage at 32:58

33:34 And then they had some actors kind of play the different parts in this movie. It's by Wim Wenders, a very famous German director. But Perfect Days follows around this individual in Japan who his job is to clean the public restrooms. And he's got a van with all the tools. He's got a tool belt. He's got a case. And he spends his days going around all the different public toilets in Tokyo. Report an error in the passage at 33:34 Highlight the passage at 33:34

34:07 And cleaning the sinks, and cleaning the floors, and cleaning the walls, and cleaning the toilets. And a job that most people would look at as... Report an error in the passage at 34:07 Highlight the passage at 34:07

34:19 Okay, if I've got to make some money, then fine, I'll do this for a period of time. I'll save up my money, but boy, I'm getting out of this soon. And he approaches it with this joy. It's called perfect days. And it follows him in his personal time, where he is, you know, he doesn't have, as you would imagine, you know, he's not at the top end of the pay scale, so he doesn't have a really big apartment. Report an error in the passage at 34:19 Highlight the passage at 34:19

34:45 But he has his tea in the morning, and he really loves his tea. And he has these little rituals with the parks that he can stop at and be at the park and he has things that he likes to read and he really takes pride in getting all of these different porcelain objects just shiny as can be. And he really seems content and happy and just with what is there in front of him. So there's nothing wrong with trying to seek out a career or a profession that we like to do. Report an error in the passage at 34:45 Highlight the passage at 34:45

35:18 But it's with the understanding that it's not about finding that thing as a destination and then externally it will make us happy. It's about the way in which we engage it. It's about how we take in and the story that we're telling ourselves about the bus or the moguls. That is what is going to have to do with whether or not we are suffering. Report an error in the passage at 35:18 Highlight the passage at 35:18

35:42 Whether or not it is pain or it is not pain has to do with the context with which we are living. And I just got such a pleasure out of watching this man go around and take care of all the public toilets in Tokyo. And what a rich and happy life he seemed to have. I've known people that had far more wealthy, opulent, luxurious lives than him that didn't even get close to the stratosphere of his happiness. Report an error in the passage at 35:42 Highlight the passage at 35:42

36:16 Because it wasn't about finding that perfect job, that perfect person, that perfect situation. It was learning how to be with the thing the world is giving me right now. Report an error in the passage at 36:16 Highlight the passage at 36:16

36:27 And that doesn't mean that we don't try to improve ourselves or to find a way to remove a bother or to find a way to make something better here or there. But it's without the assumption that that is the thing that's going to solve stuff. Report an error in the passage at 36:27 Highlight the passage at 36:27

36:46 That is the thing that's finally going to, now I will be happy. Once I sit 10 years of Zazen, then I will be happy. Once I study all the precepts, and I really find the right teacher, and I find the right saṅgha, and I get my practice where I can do all these things, and I memorize all the paramitas, and we never arrive. Report an error in the passage at 36:46 Highlight the passage at 36:46

37:13 We're going to be... We're continuously given things that give us a little bit of aversion. Report an error in the passage at 37:13 Highlight the passage at 37:13

37:26 And so we're always being pulled into this thing of distraction, to distract us from the fact that I wish right now was a little bit different. But I could feel a little bit different if I just distract myself. And so one of the things that you find in the monastery is that distraction and being distracted Distracted and just being perpetually inclined to want to be distracted And if you let yourself just totally be into cleaning a sink with a toothbrush and you make that like a meditation, you actually become one with the thing that's in front of you. Report an error in the passage at 37:26 Highlight the passage at 37:26

38:13 And you're not looking for a next button. You're actually celebrating that mundane sink. And whatever it is that we have to be with, letting that be the thing that we're with. Zen celebrates the mundane. Because it's trying to get us to realize that it's not about the exciting, wonderful, as we say, cream-filled soup in the kitchen that now I can be energized by making this, rather than something that's just really plain kale salad. Report an error in the passage at 38:13 Highlight the passage at 38:13

38:48 But allowing myself to be fully in either one. and that I don't have to be doing the big exciting thing. to be alive at all the small moments and to really use them to bring myself back to the lack of distraction Report an error in the passage at 38:48 Highlight the passage at 38:48

39:26 more tempted to do as Artificial intelligence and all that it can create in regard to products and ways in which and tools and machines that allow us creating whole universes in VR where we can just get out of how we feel, it's going to also create the opportunity to be separated and to be distracted. Report an error in the passage at 39:26 Highlight the passage at 39:26

39:49 And learning to be with the thing that's right in front of me is learning to love being with the sink. It's learning to love being with myself. It's telling me subconsciously that I don't have to escape myself. I can be with myself, and that that's okay, and that that's enough. Report an error in the passage at 39:49 Highlight the passage at 39:49

40:15 And things like karaoke in the monastery, where you're just with something, a 40-minute ceremony with only six minutes of eating. And then somehow or another, over time, maybe not for everybody, but for me, I learned to love sesame soybeans. Report an error in the passage at 40:15 Highlight the passage at 40:15

40:34 Because I was just with them in a different way. I can't explain it. But at some point in time, I went from having an aversion to sesame soybeans to enjoying sesame soybeans. Report an error in the passage at 40:34 Highlight the passage at 40:34

40:48 And there's nothing really that amazing about sesame soybeans, but it just took on a different life in this ritual of learning to just be with something really simple. Oryoki is the way that we eat during practice period as a meditation. Report an error in the passage at 40:48 Highlight the passage at 40:48

41:07 A 40-minute ceremony with only six minutes of eating. So there's a lot of mundane in there, right? There's a lot of nothing going on. This is internally training us to be hopeful and to be encouraged and to be optimistic. Report an error in the passage at 41:07 Highlight the passage at 41:07

41:27 I can be with this. I can be with me. I can be with this moment. Maybe I can choose to change it, but I don't have to. I can be with it. I can just sit here and I can love sesame soybeans. I don't need to add anything to my text mix. Report an error in the passage at 41:27 Highlight the passage at 41:27

41:56 Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered free of charge and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, please visit sfzc.org. Report an error in the passage at 41:56 Highlight the passage at 41:56

42:18 May we all fully enjoy the Dharma. Report an error in the passage at 42:18 Highlight the passage at 42:18