Good morning. So it's a crisp winter morning and I think that a lot of people from the community are at the Women's March and I commend them for being here, for being there and being here. So actually what I'm going to speak about today is related to that, to that sense of community, to what Martin Luther King called beloved community. I was away last Monday, which was Dr. King's birthday. He would have been 89. last Monday.

[01:00]

He was born the same year as Sojan Roshi, although he hasn't gotten to 89. It's not your birthday yet, but it'll come. I was able to visit and talk with the Houston Zen Center with our friend Galen Godwin. And then on Dr. King's birthday on Monday, I went out, there was a work day at a a farm, sort of farm to field to school education project in Houston, which is quite wonderful to see. It's gonna be quite extensive. And they've got all these schools participating and chefs participating and teaching the kids how to eat and cook, which is really foundational.

[02:04]

foundational for healthy families, foundational for healthy communities. So I've been thinking about beloved community and studying Dr. King for many years. And I'm gonna go back and forth between Dr. King's teachings and basic Buddhism. So I'm gonna start with something that I heard long ago, the first time I heard it was in this Zendo, and I had never encountered it before. It was a talk that was given by Kathy Fisher here, and she read this verse. It's the verse that's kind of the epigraph of the start of this huge theravada buddhist meditation manual the vasudhi magga the path of purification and it's drawn from the pali from one of the pali suttas so here it is the inner tangle

[03:29]

This generation is entangled in a tangle. So I ask of the Buddha this question. Who succeeds in disentangling this tangle? The inner tangle and the outer tangle. This generation is entangled in a tangle. And so I ask of the Buddha this question. Who succeeds in disentangling this tangle? When I heard this, I think that Kathy didn't give it any context. She just sort of started out with it. And I felt like my brain was just frozen in that moment, asking, where did this come from? It sounds like modern poetry to me. It's so pointed and clear and yet impossible to get your mind around.

[04:39]

And then it was interesting to find out that it was 2,500 years old. And also interesting to note that 2,500 years ago in North India, they were already thinking this generation has a problem that maybe the last one didn't. And nothing has really gotten any better or simpler since then. So there's an answer. The answer is Buddha's reply. When a wise one trained in virtue develops heart and understanding, then as a way-seeker, ardent and wise, one succeeds in disentangling the tangle. When a wise one trained in virtue develops heart and understanding, then as a way-seeker, ardent and wise, one succeeds in disentangling the tangle.

[05:53]

Thinking about it this morning, I would have my own revision. I would say then as a way seeker, ardent and wise, in community with other seekers, one succeeds in disentangling this tangle. I don't think we do it alone. And I think that's part of the frame of the whole question, the inner tangle and the outer tangle. The inner tangle and the outer tangle are so tangled up that we can't separate them. Now the Buddha is saying his reply is saying they can they can only be untangled in practice.

[06:57]

And this is. Even though we don't know and we're not really trying to do anything as we're sitting. I feel like we're sitting and facing the wall and. Very carefully, and lightly going through and examining and untangling the knot, the knot of our lives, the knot of our community, the knot of our society. And I think what he's saying here by framing it as the inner tangle and the outer tangle is that our minds and our life are intimately bound up with the world. And you really can't work on one without the other.

[08:04]

And you have to understand how deeply the conditions of self, which come from our experience, our background, our families, so many different factors are bound up with the world and the immediate society that we're in or immediate community that we're in. I'll talk about this later, but the Buddha, even though what his teaching emphasized was a kind of radical self-examination, really looking at yourself and all of the hindrances, the difficulties that we have, the suffering that we have, but the context in which he

[09:11]

The context he set up for doing that work was Sangha, community, those of you in this room, those of us that show up here and in the various other communities that we have. He modeled the Sangha on the larger society that he was living in in North India. There was a the Vajayan confederacy this is 2,500 years ago was already a kind of model republic that was run on very similar principles to what the Buddha created as his own community or Sangha. I'll talk about those later.

[10:15]

For me, when I arrived, when I really arrived here in the early 80s, and I walked in the gates and I came into the Zendo and then hung around afterwards, I had this really deep intuitive sense that I had come home, that I had found the community. And this is with an awareness that all my life I've been looking for community. I think probably because my family wasn't such a functional model of community, but I think I feel from high school on, that's what I was looking and I found it in different places. And I valued it in such a way that I have always maintained that sense of community

[11:25]

going back to that time. I have most of my high school and college friends. We're still friends. There's a college friend in the room right now. And we may not see each other for 10 or 20 years, but that connection is really palpable. Same thing as I have high school friends now going back more than 50 years. And then move from there into very much into a music community that is local and national and international. And the Buddhist community, the immediate Buddhist community, this as my touchpoint, but also the larger Buddhist community and particularly the circles of engaged Buddhists which is also national, international, and then other communities that I've become part of.

[12:35]

In a few weeks, I'll be going to India, where I go most years, and there I practice and teach and spend time in a community of Ambedkarite Buddhists, Buddhists who have converted to Buddhism and renounced what was identified as their untouchability. So all of these things have been just this kind of formless seeking of community. And I feel very good about that. I think that I hope I will be always looking for that and valuing that. But when I came, when I walked in here, I found it right away. And it's interesting, I may have said this before, it wasn't, I feel like I was sort of lucky that Sojin Roshi was actually in Japan.

[13:46]

Because it wasn't just a projection on an individual. It was a feeling of the whole community and the feeling of this room. Literally this room. And. I think that. We model what Dr. King spoke of as beloved community. So this, I think, is one of the central messages of Dr. King. Think of him, you know, he gets put in a box as a civil rights leader or put on a postage stamp as a kind of vague, equalitarian figure that we admire but don't know much about. But what he was teaching that flowed through all of his work and his writing was the principles of nonviolence, which means how do we relate to each other in community?

[15:11]

That's what it was all about. How do we relate on an equitable basis? So he said, we must all learn to live together as brothers or we will all perish together as fools. We are tied together in a single garment of destiny caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. For some strange reason, I can never be what I am until you are what you ought to be. So we're 50 years down the road from Dr. King's words and vision. And, uh, at least of late it never seems it's never looked more possible that we will actually perish as fools you know the fools and the greedy and the hate-filled have tremendous influence in our country and in the world and the extent that we

[16:37]

values our own power if you will uh and don't stand up for what we understand to be wholesome don't stand up for practices and ways of being in relationship to each other that lead to community or yeah, we're partaking of their foolishness. And we allow ourselves to participate in the disempowerment and the oppression of others out of our own fear often. So Dr. King borrowed this idea.

[17:43]

He learned it in theology school. I think he got it in studying the work of Reinhold Niebuhr. And Niebuhr got it from this late 19th century theologian, Josiah Royce, who actually framed this word, beloved community. Dr. King developed his own sense of it. And it was very much like the model that the Buddha created. And I'll read you some of his principles, what he created for his his own community. And I feel that what Dr. King was teaching was a beloved community that was based on the vow, a vow to practice certain values and to do it together and to resolve our differences peacefully and non-violently.

[19:00]

To quote Dr. King again, he said, the aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of beloved community. The aftermath of nonviolence is redemption. The aftermath of nonviolence is reconciliation. And the aftermath of violence is emptiness and bitterness. So I want to read you I was looking today and came across, these are the, from the Pali Suttas, the Buddha's, what he called the seven conditions for social harmony. So he's talking to the Lechawis, who were the largest tribal group in the Vajayan Confederacy.

[20:07]

The Blessed One said this to them, I will teach you Lechawis seven principles of non-decline. Listen and attend closely. One, the Chavis, as long as the Vajis assemble often and hold frequent assemblies, only growth is to be expected for them, not decline. So to gather and talk and to conduct the business of the community, a larger community, together. Two, as long as the Vajjis assemble in harmony, adjourn in harmony, and conduct the affairs of the Vajjis in harmony, only growth is to be expected for them, not decline. So there you have the principle of harmony and also like coming together, carrying that intention of harmony through

[21:18]

each step to meet with that intention, to conduct yourself, uh, with each other respectfully, to resolve whatever differences you can so that you can go up so that you can go away with respect and harmony. Three, As long as the Vajjis do not decree anything that has not been decreed, or abolish anything that has already been decreed, but undertake and follow the ancient Vajji principles as they have been decreed, only growth is to be expected of them, not decline. So, I don't take that in a completely literal way. But I feel like what he's saying is don't change the rules to suit your immediate whim.

[22:22]

That the rules that have that we have. Have arisen for a reason and a context, and from my point of view, it's not like they're they can never be changed. because I feel like our circumstances, some aspects of our circumstances changes and change in the rules and the laws maybe need to adjust to them. But to recognize that there's a fundamental wisdom or at least an intended wisdom in how they were shaped and don't be quick to change things. Four, as long as the Vajjis honor, respect, esteem and venerate the elders and think they should be heeded, only growth is to be expected for them and not decline. So that's, we should, it's useful to appreciate the wisdom of age

[23:38]

And age can certainly have its problems. It can get stuck in various ways. But to respect it, not just because it's right, but also to respect that our elders have been on a journey. They've been on a long, journey that has not always been easy. And it might be that it's appropriate just to respect the fact that they're here among us and listen to them. They're worthy of respect just for their lives. And then, you know, maybe they actually know something. doubtlessly they do.

[24:41]

And then five is as long as the Vajjis do not abduct women and girls from their families and force them to live with them only growth is to be expected for them not decline. So we can see that they had some of this some parallel gender issues back 2,500 years ago as we are continuously uncovering within our own society. And I think it's fair to say that, you know, whenever an affirmation or a statement is offered, the implication is that it's somewhere some people are doing it the other way around. You know, so women are being abducted, women and girls, and they still are being abducted. And it's like this will destroy any sense of harmony and community that we have.

[25:50]

And six is as long as the Vajjis honor, respect, esteem, and venerate their traditional shrines, both those within the city and outside, and do not neglect the righteous oblations as given and done to them in the past. Only growth is to be expected for them, not decline." That's interesting because I think the implication there is he's not saying this applies just to the Buddhists. He's asking people to respect the numberless faiths that you'll find in India, as some of you have experienced, and to hold them all respectfully and to

[26:56]

respect the fact that others have other beliefs and practices. And if we can honor that and respect it, then we can live in beloved community. And then the last point, he says, as long as the Vajjis provide righteous protection, shelter and guard for the arhants, for here, for the the enlightened buddhists and holding, Vajji's holding in mind this thought, how can these arhants dwell at ease here? As long as we take care of what's precious in our religious community, and that was a strong value there, then again, holding them in respect as we hold our elders in respect, as we hold women in respect, then the community will grow and not decline.

[28:14]

The Chavis, as long as these seven principles of non-decline continue among the Vajjis and the Vajjis are established in them, only growth is to be expected and not decline. So this principle of mutual respect, this principle of peaceable resolution of conflict, is very important. Dr. King, you know, he didn't suppose that the beloved community he was speaking of was devoid of conflict. Conflict is actually essentially creative. But when we stake our you know, our personal opinions and our values.

[29:23]

And if we really drive that stake in the ground and say, I'm going to stand this ground and fight for this, then we're going to perpetuate a cycle of violence and abuse and we're trying to break the cycle. This is what Dr. King says in one of my favorite sermons. He says, so he says, one can strenuously oppose systems of oppression without hating the person of the oppressor. And when the battle is over, when the conflict is over, a new relationship comes into being between the oppressed and the oppressor.

[30:28]

And this is the beloved community. And he says more pointedly, looking at the conditions of our world, looking at the violence that's pervasive in so many corners, He says somewhere somebody must have a little sense and that's the strong person, the person who can cut off the chain of hate, the chain of evil. Somebody must have religion enough and morality enough to cut it off and inject within the very structure of the universe that strong and powerful element of love. I really, that last phrase, to inject within the very structure of the universe that strong and powerful element of love.

[31:33]

That's a worthy goal. And people are doing that. Some people are doing other things that I was really struck I was struck in Houston, they have a couple of residents there and they have a very vibrant community. But one of the people who's in residence now is a dreamer. He's someone who's subject to DACA. You know what I'm talking about? This is a guy who was in his early 30s. He's a professional photographer. He grew up here and he is, they really, this is taking a stand, you know, it's like, okay, we're going to open

[32:35]

our residents to him, irrespective of what his legal vulnerability might be in the long run. He's a practitioner and he has something really important to offer. But meanwhile, they hold in community his vulnerability at this moment. And I think this is an important thing for for us to do, not just in relation to immigration, but also in relation to questions of race that emerge in our own larger and more local community, questions of immigration, questions of gender violence, to our practice includes everything.

[33:37]

Everything is folded into our practice, not just negative or difficult things, also joyous and celebratory things. But it all needs to be part of it because it's part of our life. It's part of ourselves. that we're training and learning not to reject and not to set aside. And that takes effort. Just as it takes effort to wake up morning after morning and come down here. It's actually the coming down here part is easy. Well, being down here part is easy. It's the getting up that's not easy. But that's our vow and our intention. And we do difficult things. And that's the smallest difficult thing we can do. There's lots of others, much more, much more difficult.

[34:42]

But if we can train ourselves in stretching our capacity stretching our capacity in a non-violent way. Not doing violence to yourself, not forcing yourself to do something that is unhealthy, but just to say, I can try harder. And I try harder for the sake of my friends who I'm practicing with. I can try harder for the sake of this world and for the beloved community that I'm in. So before we move on from Dr. King's birthday, I just wanted to underline this and then we, you know,

[35:46]

so much else is happening and we don't have to remember other things. But keep it in mind and keep in mind this idea of beloved community and what does it mean to you? What do you value? What do you want to see in your immediate surroundings and also in our in our city and in our nation and in our world because it's in our hands. So I think I'll stop there and leave. There's time for some questions and some discussion. The floor is open. Katie? Let me just find, let's be precise here.

[37:01]

There they are. Thank you. If I can find it. It was here a moment ago. Well, he talks about the aftermath of nonviolence. The aftermath is the creation of a beloved community, it's redemption, it's reconciliation, and so on. Oh, here it is, I'm sorry.

[38:04]

When the battles over a new relationship comes into being between the oppressed and the oppressor. Hopefully, that's if the principles of nonviolence are invoked, then a new relationship is potentially created. Mm-hmm. Well, first of all, let me say, and this is my perspective, not necessarily his, that the battle's never over.

[39:31]

Things are always falling out of balance. This is about finding, to me, it's about finding balance. There are people who are oppressed, and there are people who are oppressing, and there always have been. So for Dr. King, what he kept doing, which is really interesting, was he kept widening the field. as, you know, as his short life evolved. So he was looking, he began with a successful local action in Montgomery, Alabama, which had, which had larger implications. And then there were other civil rights struggles with local dimensions that had, that had larger national implications.

[40:33]

And then as the 60s unfolded, he began to shift his focus to war, to opposition to war. And he understood, he had a very sophisticated analysis. He understood that that was there was a complete linkage between that militarism and that violence within us and poverty. And, you know, he was, to an extent, ostracized by certain of his allies and friends because he was moving out of the realm of civil rights into what was for him the logical extension of his religious beliefs. But for me, I mean, I just would say I don't think that battle is ever over.

[41:39]

And I think that we're constantly working. We have to work on our relationships. You know, maybe in the process, they become more balanced. There's less oppressor and oppressed as a duality, but I think it's constantly unfolding. I think the family is an aspect of beloved community. You know, I think of what Thich Nhat Hanh, what I saw of Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Zen teachers, as his teachings evolved in the 70s and 80s, what he realized was in order to build the community that

[42:42]

he envisioned, and he was very, well, I don't know what the extent, there was a mutual influence between him and Dr. King. They knew each other. But I think what I saw in Thich Nhat Hanh, because I was really paying attention to him, was he saw as the nucleus was, first of all, you have to be, find a way to be peaceful yourself. Really, the territory of that, the prime working territory of that was family, is family. You have to have a harmonious, beloved community in your family. If you're running amok in your family, and you have all kinds of high-minded values in society, there's a real disconnect. So I think that that's, And it works the other way. The kinds of values that you have for society can lead you to look at how you're conducting yourself in your family.

[43:49]

So that's what I say. It's kind of like, if you can't do it at home, you don't have much right to talk about it anyplace else, I don't think. Yeah, Heiko. Talking about the oppressor Do you think that the oppressor and the oppressed become aware of their new position if they fully engage? They can, they do. If you look at successful non-violent transformation, even on a national basis, you look at the history and you see there's

[44:52]

certainly there can be awakening on the part of the oppressor and there's the awakening on the part of the oppressed is seeing the humanity of the oppressor and not turning them into an object. So to me, both of them are in a process of de-objectification. If you really see on a common basis, say that you and I have, then you're going to be a whole lot less inclined to, one is going to be less inclined to steal from the other or to oppress the other or, you know, exploit them in some way or other. Because you can't, you know, there's another expression from Dr. King, he says, I am my brother's keeper because I am my brother's brother.

[45:54]

I think that's powerful. What do you mean? We're always having to find balance. And I just think that's our habit is There's very deep habits of self-concern and very deep have, you know, and the institutions of nations and community have their own interests that are not quite identified with those of individuals in it. So you're constantly having to work against, I think, work against this objectification to work to really see the true humanity. And I think that part of the battle is you have to see your own. you really have to be able to turn that light inward and see it and accept it.

[47:01]

Uh, because if you can't see your own, again, you're not going to be able to see others. Yes. Yeah, yeah. In other words, how do you discern between when to respect and follow the elders and follow the rules, even when a fair amount of time, sometimes elders can be unwise. And so, and yet, it doesn't make for Yeah, I think, well, the way I discern is I have good friends.

[48:08]

So I have a community to rely on. I have several communities to rely on. So I don't just, I'm not just falling back into my own opinion or I'm trying not to. And again, just to see the elder as a person. as a complete person and to hold respect for that person on that basis and to see if that person has some wisdom, because they almost definitely do. But you don't have to follow everything. That's not necessarily what respect means, but you might want to listen to it. So Yeah, and then we have to make our decisions about what to do. And also maybe to think. Each of us who would like to be an elder someday.

[49:19]

And we'd like younger people to. Listen to us and we have something to say, and so to give that respect back. Penelope? So I'm sitting here, you spoke about arriving here at GCC and having a sense of home. Yeah. How am I recognizing homes? certainly one place is here or in my other those are natural homes where i i feel the value shared i don't it isn't that i have equal relationships with everybody but i feel the baseline of the shared value i also experience that with beloveds in my life

[50:24]

open to somebody that's really challenging for me before I even get to the national level. He doesn't do it. I must say, I've scoured his work. He does it in action. You have to read what he did, and you actually have to read transcripts of conversations that he had in meetings. That's where it's enacted. He doesn't theorize about it a whole lot. To me, there's an expression, I think I've got it from Suzuki Roshi.

[52:07]

It's like stand up from your own two feet. Something like that. It's like, yeah, stand up from the ground, stand up, yeah, stand up from the ground. This is what, so that means to me, finding a way to be home wherever you are. And that's, you know, that's hard to do. I wonder, Sochin, is there anything that you would like to say? Yeah. But it's basic attitude, and basic attitude is we're born into a community, or we segway into a community, but wherever we are, we're in it, on the bus, you're in the community, you're in the airplane, you're in the community of the airplane, wherever we are, we're permanent to

[53:28]

I always thought that I was a citizen of the world, as an issue of citizenship, but you don't get citizenship that way. You have to be careful. The local community and my community, how do we relate to our surroundings? It's not like these are the parameters, these are the people, etc. It's like wherever you, wherever we are, we're in a place. Thank you.

[54:37]

You know, there's a story about somebody asked a student about his teacher and, you know, what's your relationship? How do you feel about your teacher? Well, I half agreed and half don't. In this case, I would say, I fully agree with everything you just said. And that's where we're going to end. Thank you.

[54:56]

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