I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Good morning. I'm always struck by how complicated it is to sit down. Probably you notice that also. Today is one day sitting. That's the close of our aspects of practice period. And we've been studying the perfections or the paramitas of the bodhisattvas, the six perfections, giving, morality, patience, effort, meditation, and wisdom. And today, we haven't been doing them in sequence. Today I'm going to talk about patience. And this is one of my favorite subjects and one of my favorite practices because fundamentally I'm quite an impatient person.

[01:12]

So this is what I need to work on. But it's kind of doubly relevant today because yesterday I I had a crown on a tooth that came loose. And I went to the dentist to have it glued on. And he said, well, there's nothing really good to glue it onto there. So we have to pull this tooth. And I said, oh, really? Can we talk about this a little? And he said, no. So he said, I think it'll come out very easily. It's just a bad, bad mojo he put on that.

[02:20]

It was not easy. It was difficult to get out and he had to do a lot of cutting. And I miss my, my little bony friend. And so, you know, taking some painkillers, which made for very interesting zazen this morning on the first period. And I'm also taking antibiotics. But two things, so the practice of patience and perfection is Kshanti. And while he was digging around in my mouth, I was really thinking about Kshanti. I was thinking, okay, here's Kshanti. so to speak, where the rubber meets the road. Everybody goes to the dentist, right? If not, you should.

[03:21]

Nowadays, when they put this block in your mouth to keep it open, that's extremely uncomfortable. Aside from the yanking and pulling, that was the worst part, to have your mouth locked open for about 45 minutes. breathing with it, just breathing a patient energy that on the one hand was incredibly uncomfortable and you know it wasn't directly painful but it was very very uncomfortable and then pain came afterwards and on the other hand there was something strangely or minutely enjoyable or humorous in it. You know, I could see that, I could feel it, and I felt it. You know, just to thank him afterwards and just to, how can you describe meeting the world, you know, minus your tooth and plus this ordeal and feeling

[04:38]

even within all of that discomfort, that there was a kind of lightness or humor. And I really did feel it. And I think that that's a lot the spirit of Shanti. So that was one stage. And this morning, as I said, I felt okay for a while. And then I think the combined, if I'm oversharing, you can leave. The combined effect of a half of Vicodin and antibiotics left me nauseated. And I was, during the break, laying there, and I'd taken a little nap, and then I woke up feeling, and then when I woke up, I felt very nauseated and said, oh boy, well this is something. I wonder where this is gonna go. And the same thing, just can I breathe with this?

[05:42]

And realizing there was nothing that the universe required me to do except to be present with how I was feeling at that moment. you know, the planning part of my mind was thinking, gee, I wonder if I'm going to be able to give a talk. And I just thought, well, if I'm not, that's not the end of the world. There's lots of people in the Zendo who can give a talk. You know, let's just see where this goes and let's see how to take care of it. And I thought, well, maybe I should have a little yogurt and hot tea to try to settle my stomach. And that's what I did. And actually, I feel pretty okay right now. Happy to be here with you. But if you'll indulge me again, while I was lying there, a song came to mind.

[06:53]

And I thought I would singing you know I went to the dentist and what all I wanted was I just thought he would glue the cap back on my tooth you know and everything would be just fine. But, you know, it's not always that way. Well, you can't always get what you want No, you can't always get what you want You can't always get what you want

[08:03]

But if you try some time, you'll find you get what you need. You can sing that. Well, you can't always get what you want. No, you can't always get what you want. You can't always get what you want. But if you try sometime, you'll find you get what you need. I'm not sure that's strictly relevant, but I actually think it is. Because, so here's what Kshanti is.

[09:13]

Kshanti, or patience, it's not just patience. It's also forbearance. It's endurance. And I'll read something a little later. Thich Nhat Hanh has a wonderful way of framing it as capacity or inclusivity. My friend, Santi Karo, who some of you know, who was a student of Buddhadasa's, often quotes Acharn Buddhadasa, the Thai Theravada teacher. Patience is the supreme incinerator of defilements. That's really good. Patience is the supreme incinerator of defilements. And when you bring patience to bear, that's how you actually transform all of your afflictive emotions.

[10:18]

So this is a central practice for me because, as I said, I'm actually a very impatient person. When I told the kids upstairs that I was talking about patients, they had just, Sue had just come in and Sylvie said, well, you didn't talk to her in a very patient way. I said, that's right. I apologize. That's why I have to practice this because in every afflictive emotion or feeling or thought there's a Dharma door. There's an opportunity to meet it and meet it with a practice, with various kinds of practices and transform it into something that is rather than closed and locked, something that is open and leads to a wide and wonderful and unknown territory.

[11:49]

So In the context of patients, patients I think of as a kind of social practice, you can't practice patience apart it comes up fundamentally in the context of relations with other people the society is its context and whether that society or other beings whether that's the society of other other people or the society as I've talked about the society of the sentient beings of your own mind there's an interaction that has to happen that transformation is a relational one. And of course, as with all of these perfections or paramitas, they are intimately intertwined with each other.

[12:58]

The other night, Ross gave a really good class on virya, really linked. You have to make an effort to cultivate patience, but you also have to bring all of the other qualities, all the other perfections to it. If you're going to be patient, that means you're actually giving yourself something or you're giving that to other people. It has to be in the context of true morality, one that is not separate from other beings. That is itself the expression of wisdom, and I think that the mechanism of it, along with effort, is

[14:01]

you might call it meditation, you might call it concentration, it's mindfulness. Mindfulness is the light that we have to shine on our circumstances in order to actually manifest patience. I was talking with Lori about this the other day. She was remembering something that that Thich Nhat Hanh wrote about mindfulness which is mindfulness is sort of like sunlight on flowers that the light creates photosynthesis, it creates the light itself, the light of awareness, the light of mindfulness these various aspects of our lives mysteriously creates an energy of transformation.

[15:09]

So mindfulness is essential in the practice of patience. So what is it, if we think of patients as endurance, if we think of Chanti as endurance or forbearance, usually we think there's a whole realm of things that make us impatient. Pain, like the pain in my tooth or the pain in my belly. Insult. That's often the hardest. How do we bear when we feel, how do we bear ourselves? How do we bear others when we feel that we've been insulted? Whether it's, you know, usually it's thought of as unjustly accused, which is very painful.

[16:21]

that maybe, I'm not sure which is worse, to be unjustly accused or to be justly accused, it's a toss-up, I think, to feel impatient with oneself for something that one has actually done that is harmful or painful to other people. So there's pain, There's insult, there's harm, harm that you feel others are directing towards you. There's just plain irritation, like getting stuck in a large traffic jam. And then there are more dharmic dimensions of it. there's the pain of feeling a kind of spiritual emptiness.

[17:27]

I'm not talking about emptiness in the context of shunyata. I'm thinking about just feeling emptiness in the sense of being alone in the universe and feeling like the supports that you have at that moment are not visible. That is a deeply painful situation. And there is having to bear the various marks of existence in Buddhist terms, that things are non-self, that they are samsara in this world and essentially that they're impermanent, you know, in our habitual pattern mind.

[18:32]

When we're not awake we feel that impermanence is that things go away is very painful, that the ones we love go away, that our capabilities the capabilities of our bodies diminish, that things break, that things get lost. This is very hard to bear. So what usually is the result of this is of all of these various causes of suffering or pain is that we want things to be different from how they are. This is really where we suffer. We suffer because we want them to be different from how they are, or we want to be someplace other than where we are.

[19:44]

If we're not practicing If we're not able to practice mindfulness and shanti patience, Thich Nhat Hanh writes, this is an unhappy situation. I must go somewhere else. And you'll go from place to place, wandering like a prodigal son. And then he says, when you realize your own capacity to be happy anywhere, you can put down roots in the present moment. So this is maybe an easier sentence to write than it is to realize every moment but that potentiality is there. So that, how does that manifest? We've been talking about embodying the paramitas and so

[20:53]

Patience has to meet that energy of impatience or that energy of pain, and it meets in our body. We feel it. Everybody in this room, I imagine, knows when you've been insulted or when you've when this kind of fierce energy of impatience or upsetness arises, often it manifests as a kind of relentless energy. And I'm sure all of us have made mistakes. It feels like when this is happening, we are often very quick, I am very quick, to unconsciously want to unload it. You know, I remember a time when I got, uh, there was something that occurred that, that left me very angry at Sojin.

[22:07]

And, uh, the, energy that arose in my body was such that I felt like I had to go down and tell him right away. It didn't even, honestly, it didn't even occur to me to stop and sit down to breathe to see where this settles in my body in a half an hour or an hour to consider, does this need to be said now? Is it going to be helpful to do so? And because I did that, because I didn't meet that situation with Kshanti, we actually had to spend months working on the results of that particular interchange.

[23:15]

Now, I'm not saying that there wasn't anything, I'm not saying that there was no component of something that was maybe right or true in what I felt. But when we're in the grip of this, we have a great capacity to do harm. And so, I like something I read from Master Sheng Yen. Chan teacher said, if we do not respond in a harmful way, when confronted by those who wish to harm us, we can avoid harm. If we do not habitually respond negatively, it may seem that we are always surrendering, but in fact, we're developing the courage and skill to protect ourselves as well as others.

[24:21]

In the long run, it'll be better for everyone. In a situation like the one that I described, if I had been able to stop, reflect, even if I weren't able at that moment to change my state of mind, but was actually had enough of a small piece of patience to be able to not spread it around, then that would have actually mitigated the pain in the entire system, the pain between Sojin and I, it also brought in other people. So when you act not having cultivated Kshanti, you risk creating ripples that go far beyond the initial situation.

[25:31]

So if patience is the supreme incinerator of defilements, what we're doing, we're actually building a crucible, a container into which we gently place our emotions, our difficulties, so that they can be met with the flames of wisdom, which can flow in and express itself. So, where is this in my body? It actually does feel, it's interesting, impatience also has its heat. which is why I think patients and inpatients meet.

[26:40]

They interact with each other in a dynamic way. They have that capacity, and when they meet, there's heat. So it feels hot. It often feels like there's a kind of gnawing hunger. or feeling that simultaneously in my belly and in my head. I noticed this morning when I was having, uh, when I was feeling nauseous, uh, that my breath tightened up, uh, my chest tightened up. Sometimes when I find, whether it's impatience or anger rising in me, there's a kind of physical rigidity or armoring.

[27:48]

To practice patience is to let that feeling burn itself through. So I really like the, there's a couple of teachings that, from Thich Nhat Hanh and one from Pema Chodron that I think are relevant here. Pema says about kshanti, it's training in abiding training in abiding with the restlessness of our energy and letting things evolve at their own speed. If waking up takes forever, still we go moment by moment, giving up all hope of fruition and enjoying the process. It made me think of a quotation

[28:58]

I don't know if, many of you probably know of Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma. This is her book which is, I had to borrow a copy, it's only possible to find in Berkeley for some reason. It's a very important book, it's called Freedom From Fear. And in that piece, by that name in the book, when she says, saints, it has been said, are sinners who go on trying. Saints are sinners who go on trying. So free people are the oppressed who go on trying and who, in the process, make themselves fit to bear the responsibilities and uphold the disciplines which will maintain a free society.

[30:02]

Among the basic freedoms to which men aspire, that their lives might be full and uncramped, freedom from fear stands out as both a means and an end. A people who would build a nation in which strong democratic institutions are firmly established as a guarantee against state-induced power must first learn to liberate their own minds from apathy and fear. They have to have the patience to be able to meet and endure the circumstances they're in. And this is true in a political sense, and it's also true in every context of our lives and our practice. It's true in our zazen, what is coming up moment by moment. Sometimes it's just fine. Sometimes it's really difficult. Can you meet that?

[31:05]

Can you, the sinner, you know, just go on trying? I mean, I think that that is the part of the activity. It's not the entire activity of Sashin because we can't name what the activity of Zazen or the activity of Sashin is. We can't ever truly point our finger at it. but we know that we're meeting difficulty from moment to moment, as well as lightness, joy, and relaxation. So this is what Thich Nhat Hanh says, and this is where I really like his his notion of Shanti as capacity and patience, capacity, I'm sorry, capacity and inclusiveness. To suppress our pain is not the teaching of inclusiveness.

[32:11]

We have to receive it, embrace it, and transform it. The only way to do this is to make our heart big. We look deeply in order to understand and forgive. Otherwise, we will be caught in anger and hatred and think that we will feel better only after we punish the other person. Revenge is an unwholesome nutriment. The intention to help others is a wholesome nutriment. To practice Kshanti Paramita, we need the other Paramitas. If our practice of inclusiveness does not bear the marks of understanding, giving, and meditation, we are just trying to suppress our pain and drive it down to the bottom of our consciousness. This is dangerous. That kind of energy will blow up later and destroy ourselves and others.

[33:17]

If you practice deep looking, your heart will grow without limits and you will suffer less. So he sees in his inimitable radical way that patience is a capacity which we cultivate. We cultivate the ability to bear the unbearable. what seems the unbearable. I think of my friend, the prison activist, Bo Lazov, who has this motto that he uses in his life, which is, you can do this. And he will offer it to anyone, including men who are facing their death on death row, you can do this.

[34:26]

Humans have done this before. It's not a question of whether it's good, bad, right, or wrong. The question is if you can cultivate this capacity and this space inside yourself, That's the function of liberation. That's the way it works. And there's nothing more important to do. We do it within ourselves and then we do it with our families and we do it with our societies. You know, I'm thinking about Aung San Suu Kyi, because I've been very involved in Burma work for the last couple of months. And, you know, she is an astonishing exemplar of patience. She's been under house arrest for 18 of the last 22 years.

[35:31]

And she has not seen her children who are in England. She was not allowed to see her husband when he was dying of cancer. they wouldn't allow her husband to visit the military junta there. So the junta is an example of suppressing pain, the pain of the Burmese people, and driving it down into the bottom of their consciousness. Sooner or later, that energy will blow up. So far, it's been met with nonviolence and compassion, and one fears whether people will be able to sustain that. So actually, I expect to be going there in about three weeks, basically to witness with some other Buddhists from Asia, to witness and try to meet some of these monks who were

[36:35]

to me, extraordinary exemplars of patience in the world today. And if you look around, at least on the political front, you don't see a lot. They're there, but they almost never get in the news. To see thousands and thousands of monks chanting the Metta Sutta, that's their weapon, the weapon of mindfulness and loving-kindness. This is a really powerful lesson. And to do that, they had to use their bodies. They had to put their bodies at risk. And they were really at risk. Many of them were killed. Some of them were still disappeared and not identified. out of their sense of connection with the people of Burma, out of their compassion for the generals themselves.

[37:44]

This is the risk they chose to take. And this to me is like civil rights workers in the 1960s like many of Gandhi's followers, all of us, and all of them, sinners who keep on trying. This I find inspiring. As I find inspiring to be here with everybody, this room full of sinners, and maybe I shouldn't dwell on that too much, who are sitting here today with patience, with effort, with meditation, embodying the wisdom of the bodhisattvas.

[38:51]

I'm really grateful to be able to share that practice with you. So I think I'll stop there, and maybe we'll have a few minutes for questions. I'm aware of the time. Any thoughts or questions? Yeah. Thank you for your talk, Alan. I was at my mom's house last night, and she's a historian. She has this very huge 800-page book that's also called Freedom from Fear, and it's a history of the U.S. from 1929 to 1945. And the quote comes from FDR, apparently, and I don't No, I couldn't find the origin of that title in the book, and my mom couldn't remember. But she said there were four fears, that at one point he gave a speech saying that all Americans deserve the right to freedom, these four freedoms, and the freedom from fear was one of them. And it strikes me, hearing about Aung San Suu Kyi's book and her idea of freedom from fear, it seems like I don't know, maybe other people in the room know what the origin of that quote, but my idea about his book, his idea of it, is that we deserve freedom from fear, and therefore we're going to have security, and we're going to be safe, and we're going to go out and kill anybody who threatens us.

[40:17]

And that's how we get freedom from fear. And her definition is we get freedom from fear by embracing the fear and becoming comfortable with the fear itself. Um, yeah, well, first of all, she's very well educated and is, uh, knows, would be likely to, to know what, uh, what Roosevelt said, but again, you seem to have a response, and let me just say, what she, one second, just what, she begins this essay with this, most Burmese are familiar with the four agati, the four kinds of corruption, the corruption induced by desire, the corruption of spite against those one bears ill will, the corruption of ignorance, and perhaps the worst of the four is bhayagati, which is the corruption of fear, because not only does fear stifle and slowly destroy all sense of right and wrong, it often lies at the root of the three other kinds of corruption.

[41:30]

So she has a Buddhist analysis of it as well. Jerry? So I think that means that he had a more deep understanding of fear than fear from harm from others. It was fear from your own reaction to things. Yes. Right. And the capacity to be able to hold that fear without acting from it. Right, but the thing about, depression is a wonderful word, you know, it's a totally appropriate word. The thing, what people were experiencing, at least from talking to my parents in the depression, was the astonishing insecurity of existence.

[42:41]

you know, which is Dukkha, right? They were experiencing it where, you know, life had been comfortable and good and safe. All of a sudden, that was pulled out from underneath them and they saw there was nothing to support that, you know, except what they can manage to create for themselves. I mean, to some degree, materially, but what he was pointing to was a spiritual dimension, you know, even though he didn't frame it as spirit necessarily. I think he was trying to stop a run on the bank sack. Yeah, right. Right, but that was, yeah, I mean. I see a lot of people, there isn't enough money, we all go to the bank and ask for money, there isn't enough money. Right, right. The great faith that we have to have in our banks, and people lost that faith. Right. Yeah, I think that was it. Yeah, I... Yes, there is a principle of justice.

[44:55]

There is, although it's sometimes hard to determine, right. And we have to collectively try to determine what that is with those we trust, those we love, also with those we disagree. And I think that that is really important. And I have comfortably felt that if you just add to right, if you function from righteousness, almost invariably you're going to have a problem. Maybe not always, but almost invariably. One more. Go. Avalokiteshvara, there is the Christ of the world and I was thinking about Avalokiteshvara earlier yesterday.

[45:58]

The key upaya or physical means is listening. Being able to listen to what this other person has to say. Well, I think that's the capacity. I don't know about the object. Listen to objectively exactly. Maybe you can do that. It's really hard to say. It gets hard to say what's objective, but listen to it without your your critic operating in the midst of it. but maybe we should avoid listening. Yeah, it implies that. Actually, again, to go back to Thich Nhat Hanh, his mindfulness training on that is deep listening.

[47:08]

I think it's deep listening and, you know, listening and speech go together. Sue, I saw you, so you have last word. I was thinking about that moment of anger when you're insulted. It seems to me that The step before that is called training. Or it's called practice. You can only do what you have trained yourself to do. So, if you have some training in almost any modality, then when you face a crisis, you know how to take care of it, you know how to step back.

[48:12]

And even if those emotions arise, they do for me, I'll step out of it. I mean, the example that I gave really was a powerful lesson for me, so I really try not to do that. It doesn't mean I don't have the feelings, it doesn't mean I necessarily am not triggered, but I'll step back and get some space, and then if I feel like there's some point in re-engaging or engaging, I'll do that. But this is where, this is how we practice and cultivate kshanti. I'm sorry, Al is waving his hand, so. That's good, yeah.

[49:14]

And maybe Ross could act out by sounding the bell to end the lecture. Thank you very much.

[49:21]

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