Good morning, and happy Valentine's Day. I think this might be the first time we've ever had a Lenis Saturday right on a Valentine's Day. So in honor of the occasion, I'm going to, as I announced, talk about Zen and love. Or love and Zen, or I don't know, something like that. And actually, I brought chocolates for everybody. And I think it's actually maybe even enough for everybody to have one, so please. Well, people can take them as they go. It's okay. Okay. So, you know, for Eskimos, people who live in very cold climates, Eskimos have more than 50 words, I don't know how many exactly, but many words for snow.

[01:01]

More than 50 words for snow. So I think in a culture that was emotionally sensitive and emotionally mature, and maybe spiritually mature, there'd be, you know, over 100 words for love. So I don't know what love means. I'm going to talk about some of it. But, you know, it means many, many aspects of this word called love. Isn't that a song? Anyway, I thought I'd start with some rock wisdom, since so many popular songs are about it in one form or another. So, of course, the Beatles said, all you need is love. And they also said, the love you take is equal to the love you make. So, Elise George had been studying karma. And then Bob Dylan said, love is all there is, it makes the world go round.

[02:10]

Probably somebody else said that before him. He's good at stealing lines. Good lines. But, you know, it's true, love makes the world go round in many, many ways. So here we are. He also said, no matter what you think about it, you just won't be able to do without it. Take a tip from one who's tried. But then he also wrote a song called, love is just a four-letter word. So, I don't know. I don't know what love is. Then there's Tina Turner, who said, what's love but a second-hand emotion? So, we say, I love you, or isn't that lovely, or, you know, and we don't know what it means, usually. So, I think just to notice that is important, and yet somehow this word is important. And somehow I think it's what Zen is about, too.

[03:14]

Then there's also Donovan, one of my favorite love songs is by Donovan. He says, wear your love like heaven. That's another kind of love. And then there's kind of this anxiety, or even desperation about love. Like the eagles singing, you better let somebody love you before it's too late. Or Gracie Slick saying, don't you want somebody to love? Don't you need somebody to love? You better find somebody to love! Anyway, I think in Buddhism we have various kinds of practices. One of them that I talk about a lot is the ten paramitas, the ten transcendent practices of generosity, and ethical conduct, and patience, and skillful means, and commitment, and powers, and meditation, and effort, or enthusiasm, and wisdom, and so forth.

[04:21]

So, maybe love should be the eleventh. Or maybe love is what all of them are about. And maybe all the different kinds of bodhisattvas, all the different archetypal bodhisattvas, I've brought a few for the altar today, maybe we need all these different kinds of bodhisattvas because there are so many different kinds of love. So, what does Buddhism have to say about this thing called love? Our first meditation instruction, our basic meditation instruction is to turn the light within, to take the backward step and turn the light inwardly, to be present and upright and look at ourselves and feel how it feels to be this person, this body, this mind on this cushion. So, I think love, first of all, includes accepting yourself and forgiving yourself.

[05:23]

We make this vow to save all beings, and you have to include yourself in that. So, we must find our compassion for ourselves before we can be helpful to anyone else. And of course, they both go together, because we're not separate from others. But it's hard sometimes to just accept and be kind and loving and generous and patient and thoughtful, and just this person. When we see all of our confusion, all of our frustration, all of our habits, all of the ways in which we're damaged, all of our fears and anger, how can we love that person? So, I don't know, maybe most people out there in the world, you know, I don't know, maybe there are people out there who don't have trouble loving themselves, and there's a wrong kind of loving yourself, too. So, this loving yourself includes saving all beings.

[06:30]

So, I would say in Buddhism, love is basically about this interface of self and others. This basic split of delusion that is available in our human consciousness, where we think we have to love somebody else and can't love ourselves, or we have to love ourselves at the expense of others. So, we talk about saving all beings as the basic bodhisattvic intention. How do we love all beings? Part of loving all beings is to know that there are various ways to do it. So, maybe all of those songs I was referring to in the beginning are right. You know, maybe love is, you know, this is just a four-letter word, and it's also what makes the world go round. So, to actually love all beings means kind of accepting,

[07:37]

and accepting all the different kinds of beings. There are some beings for whom it's easy for us to love. There are some for whom it's very difficult. So, we have this basic attraction and aversion. It's like, you know, built into electromagnetism. We have the positive and negative charges, and there are some things and maybe some people we find attractive, and there are some beings we find repellent sometimes. So, really, loving all beings, the Buddhist idea of loving all beings, is pretty challenging. How can we be non-judgmental? How can we accept, but also not be sentimental about it? See the differences. See the differences in our own feelings. So, there are different ways to love all beings. So, this year I'm trying to really love George W. Bush and send him back home to Texas. We'll be happy, you know. For example, that's just my problem. Anyway, maybe it's all of our problems.

[08:38]

But how do we love all beings in different ways, as they are, not in terms of how we think they should be, or how we want them to be, or how they are for us, you know? So, we have a lot of people here today. Lovely. So, this tension between loving all beings and loving particular beings is part of our problem with this love thing. So, there's this, I guess it's a Greek word, agape, brotherly love sometimes, or God's love for all human beings, for all humankind. And conveniently, I received a definition of this from Fr. Tissot, who's part of the Zen Catholic workshop I'm doing. Come on in, Marian. There's a seat up here. So, again, we're talking about loving oneself, loving all beings,

[09:46]

loving someone, you know, on Valentine's Day. What is this love? There's so many different kinds of love. This agape, Fr. Tissot, this definition he sent me, it's the Greek word for love. So, this is more like loving all beings, but I'll come to this. There's a difference, too. But he said it's the term used in the first letter of John. And God himself or herself is agape, this love for all humankind. And, again, this Catholic priest, Fr. Tissot, said that sometimes agape is contrasted with eros, which he defines as self-seeking love. I want to come back to that, too. But then he says, actually, eros is the human face of agape. It is the basis of desire for the higher life and union with God. That's pretty good. So, we love particular beings as a way of loving all beings.

[10:49]

We love all beings, and it helps us love particular beings. He says, agape flows from God into the human soul, from which it is shared unselfishly, wisely with others. This is the real meaning of charity. So, he says charity is from the Latin charitas, which translates to Greek agape. Charity extends to all, whether they are Christians or not, he says kindly. So, even for Buddhists, you know, Christians can have this kind of love. So, this thought of generousness for all beings, this thought of, you know, we say to free all sentient beings, to save all beings, relates to this. Except that, I have to say, we say in Buddhism, may all beings be happy. Basic Buddhist wish, may all beings be happy. So, it's a little bit maybe beyond agape,

[11:50]

and I'm not trying to brag or be comparative with Christianity. I love Christians, it's okay. But, you know, the Buddhist idea is non-anthropocentric. It's not just about people. It's just to love all beings. May all beings be happy. Just to wish well to all beings. This is basic Buddhist intention. So, we chant it sometimes in the Metta Sutra, the Sutra of Loving Kindness. So, there are a couple of, there's a number of Buddhist words we might think of in terms of love. Metta is this loving kindness, and it's an actual particular practice where we think of particular beings, or we could think of all beings, but we could do it in terms of particular beings. Then there's Karuna, which is compassion, which is really sympathizing with the suffering of all beings, but also particular beings. So, you know, I looked at how Dogen uses the word love

[12:55]

in this extensive record that I'm, I'm on page 200 of 700, going through the proofreading of the page galleys now. Anyway, we use the word love in translating, and it's not, you know, I was talking about all, the Beatles saying, all you need is love, or you love your love like heaven, or love makes the world go round, all these pop song loves. Dogen says people in the mountains love the mountains. It's not even loving animals or plants, it's just loving the mountains. But sometimes maybe if you've been out in the woods or in the mountains, you might feel loving the mountains. If you actually spend time living out in the woods, out in the mountains, out in Bolinas, you might really love Bolinas. Not just the people or the buildings, but just, you know, this ground, this space. People in the mountains love the mountains.

[13:58]

He also says we should, he says to his students, he says you should love each moment for 10,000 years. How can we love this moment, this breath, and this one? He also says how could we either hate or love the spring winds or autumn moon? So he's talking about love beyond loving and hating. Of course, we do have attraction and aversion. We might like some kinds of weather more than other kinds of weather. Just like we like some kinds of people somehow. At first sight, and others maybe not. One of his poems, he says, Dogen says, how delightful, mountain dwelling, so solitary and tranquil.

[15:00]

Because of this, I always read the Lotus Blossom Sutra. With wholehearted vigor under trees, what is there to love or hate? How enviable, sound of evening rains in deep autumn. So sitting wholeheartedly, vigorously, on our cushions, what is there to love or hate? How wonderful, the sun shining on an early spring day in Bolinas. What is there to love or hate? Can we love each moment like that for 10,000 years? Can we love beyond love or hate? Beyond attraction and aversion. So, Dogen also says in another poem, when I love mountains, mountains love their master. For rocks big and small, how can the way cease? So there's a part of love, there's one of the aspects of love.

[16:04]

Maybe not the kind that we think about so much on Valentine's Day, but there's a kind of love that is just being in love with how wonderful it is to be alive today. Just being in love with or just loving the reflection of the sunlight on the water or the fragrance of flowers or the opportunity to take another breath. So this is one Zen approach to love. But again, coming back to Valentine's Day and talking about love on Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day, usually we think of romantic or erotic love. So amongst our Bodhisattva precepts, there's one that we translate now in the Sukhya-Vaishnavism, a disciple of Buddha does not misuse sexuality.

[17:06]

Challenging. So that same precept grows out of the more traditional Theravada monk and nun precept in which it does not engage in sexuality, celibacy. And in mainland Asia, for monks that's still the case, even though in the Japanese lineages we have non-celibate clergy. In American Zen, we are practicing as people in the world. But just a word for celibacy. My friend, Brother David Steindl-Rast, who's a wonderful Benedictine monk, very sweet man, lovely man, told me about celibacy. If you love everybody, promiscuity doesn't work. It's pretty hard to pull that off. So he says in celibacy I can just love everyone. And he's very loving and very affectionate. And so that's one way actually to use sexuality through celibacy, to actually be loving in that way.

[18:13]

So there are many ways to not misuse sexuality. But I think in the West in general, we recognize that romantic love and relationship can be a kind of practice. It can be a way of finding out about ourself. It can be a way of expressing our love for all beings. It can be a very challenging way of trying to find how to not misuse sexuality. And there are principles, again from the precepts, about how to do that. The basic principle in Buddhist ethics is just non-harming. How can we not hurt ourselves or the other person? It's very challenging. So another precept is the disciple of the Buddha does not lie, which means the disciple of the Buddha is truthful. How do we be honest? With our own feelings, with ourself,

[19:14]

with another person, and our feelings with that other person. How can we find our way to, in the middle of confusion, the confusion of powerful feelings, be clear and honest and straightforward and try not to hurt the other person or oneself. So another precept, sometimes it's translated as not stealing, but we say a disciple of Buddha does not take what is not given. So part of how sexuality often becomes difficult is when we have attraction we want to grab. It's this human tendency. How can we not take what's not given? Maybe that means how do we accept what is given? When is the right time to accept what is given? How do we do this in a way that's honest, in a way that's not harming, in a way that's clear?

[20:16]

This is very challenging. It's a very advanced practice. And I think there are particular challenges in our culture. So we have this ideal of romantic love that this kind of myth that goes back, I don't know, to maybe the French troubadours or something. This idea that maybe we can find this one soul mate, this one person who will satisfy all of our needs, all of our sensual and sexual needs, all of our spiritual needs, all of our emotional needs, our intellectual needs. It's a lot of stuff to put on one person, any real person. So we have to be non-sentimental, realistic about who we are and who other people are before we try to engage in the precept of properly using sexuality.

[21:19]

Sexuality can be wonderful, can be a way of seeing the wonder of being alive, and yet it's very easy to misuse it. So how do we act responsibly? This is part of the challenge of Valentine's Day. How do we say, I love you? So I hope this won't offend anybody, but I brought chocolates for everyone. They're on the back table, and I think there's actually enough for everybody. But some of you, maybe, you know, I'm going to try not to take one myself. Not good for my figure. But please, all of you, for Valentine's Day, please have a chocolate if you'd like. It's up to you to decide whether you want one or not. Although I just saw something in the news where they're saying now that there's something, some substance in chocolate that's like the substance they've discovered in green tea and red wine, and it's very good for the heart. This is good news on Valentine's Day. Then I heard some other news after I got that chocolate about free trade chocolate,

[22:21]

or that the way cocoa is actually grown in some countries is really oppressive to some of the people who are on those cocoa plantations. So this is a difficult world to live in. So how do we actually express love in a way that is wholesome and respectful and that is a practice, that is a way of learning about ourself and learning about the other person, about seeing the other person as, you know, if we're in that kind of relationship, as our teacher in some ways. Respecting limitations is very important. So instead of projecting all these ideals of some fantasy wonderful supermodel, super soulmate, whatever, to actually respect the limitations of the other person and of oneself. It can be a dynamic practice realm,

[23:25]

and yet sometimes love is not enough to sustain a relationship. Take a tip from one who's tried. Sometimes love is just not enough. So this is a practice, a work. How can we do this? So at this point I want to make a kind of personal confession. I've talked in some of the Wednesday groups about confession and the value of confession. So just about me. The reason I became a Zen priest, the reason that my teacher accepted for me to become a Zen priest 20 years ago for ordaining me, is how much I like falling in love. So that's why I'm a Zen priest, because I do like falling in love. And it's a very kind of useful weakness on my part because it's very humbling. And also it keeps your heart open and vulnerable.

[24:26]

So anyway, that was 20 years ago. But maybe only two or three people have known that before I confessed it today. But on Valentine's Day, you know, I'm old enough, I can tell you all. So happy Valentine's Day. I love you all. Thank you. So, you know, this thing about romantic love, technically, in Buddhist terms, it's a delusion. To love just one person, it's a fantasy, it's a delusion, it's not seeing the emptiness of all beings, it's not seeing the sameness of all beings. And yet, this delusion may be the way that we express our Buddha nature in this world. So we may have some idea of emptiness

[25:33]

or some idea of Buddha nature or some idea of loving all beings. We may love all beings, but hate each of them in particular. It's possible. This happens to some people. So actually, as we sit and we open ourselves to loving all beings, we actually, you know, we express that with particular beings. We express that in some relationship, you know. Not just romantic relationships with friends, with family, with pets, with students, with teachers. How do we express this delusion? So the most dangerous attachment in the Bodhisattva way is attachment to non-attachment. You might hear about non-dualism and emptiness

[26:35]

and non-attachment and think, how wonderful and I want to be like that. And if I can only, you know, get up on some cloud somewhere, on some mountain peak somewhere, then I can love all beings. But actually, we are in the world. We have to actually find our expression of Buddha nature, find our way of loving with particular beings. So, sometimes to love one person is to love all beings. To love all beings is to love that one person. So if you have that kind of relationship, or with the beings, whoever they are that you do love, how does that support you in being kind to others too? How does your, how does your, the kindness you feel from others support you with particular beings? This is very challenging, you know. This isn't, this is, this is something we have to practice at. So again, as I said in the beginning, we start by forgiving ourselves, by learning how to love ourselves,

[27:37]

by learning how to accept and be the person we are. And again and again, we have to come back to that. And be willing to make mistakes, and be willing to see one's own limitations, and the limitations of one's own ability to love. So this is the fundamental Zen koan. This is it. How do we give ourselves to all beings? And how do we do that with particular beings? Whether it's your children, or grandchildren, or your parents, or your siblings, your friends, with animals, with trees. I know people who are gardeners who love their garden. And that helps them love other beings. So in a way, love is just

[28:42]

this creative total giving. When we love someone or something, we give ourselves to it. We give up ourselves. This doesn't mean that we should harm ourselves in the process. We take, we actually are giving up ourselves. Nourished by this giving of ourselves in love. This is just offering Buddha to Buddha. So if we keep paying attention to how it is to be this person on this cushion, sustaining our gaze, sustaining our attention, looking at our intention, what do I want? Seeing our attraction and aversion. This practice, we become intimate with ourselves. And then we can share that. So the more we are willing

[29:45]

to face ourselves, the more we are willing to know ourselves, to see our own habits of loving and not loving, our own habits of confusion, and fear, and anger, we're more open. And actually, we can be more intimate with others. So Zen is actually a very passionate practice, I believe. It may look very stoic, just sitting upright, not moving, forty minutes at a time. But actually, to really do this, to sustain this, it's very passionate. You have to care about the quality of your life, and the quality of the life around you. And from this kind of passion comes compassion. Compassion is just passion together with. So sitting together for a day, you know, we're compassionate to each other, we support each other to find our own passion, to struggle with our own passions. To be willing to be

[30:46]

intimate with ourselves, enough to keep sitting in the middle of our own confusion, and attractions and aversions, and impatience, and fears, and so forth. And also, to allow this sense of wonder, this sense of appreciating each breath, of loving each moment for ten thousand years, as Dogen says. So my favorite koan, of the classic koans, is in the Book of Serenity, Case 98. A monk asked Dongshan, the great founder of Soto Zen in China, among the three Buddha bodies, which one does not fall into any category? Well, I could just say, among the bodies of Buddha, which one does not fall into any category? Dongshan said, I'm always intimate with this. I'm always close with this.

[31:47]

And that line Reb drew on the back of my transmission rocksuit. I'm always close to this. Which aspect of Buddha, which body of Buddha, doesn't fall into some category, some qualification, some judgment? I'm always close with this. He doesn't say that he found that body of Buddha. Close with this question. Intimate with this question. One of the verses commenting on it says, this closeness is heart-rending if you search outside. Why does ultimate familiarity seem like enmity? Why does ultimate familiarity seem like enmity? So, some of you may have experienced the people you are closest to can feel like your enemies.

[32:49]

And when you feel closest to yourself, you might feel enmity, you might feel disgust, you might feel anger. This closeness is heart-rending when you seek outside. So, maybe not misusing sexuality is thinking that the other person is going to take care of all of your needs. How can we respect our own limitations and the other person's limitations? How can we be willing to be close enough to ourselves to not try and grab something out there? And yet then, from that place of ultimate familiarity, how can we say, I love you? From that place of just being this

[33:54]

confused person you are, with these thoughts and feelings, with these particular longings and distastes. You know, this person on your cushion right now. How can you say, I love you, to the world? And of course, to particular beings in the world. So, I would say that the point of Zen practice and of all these forms, all of this bowing and hand gestures and you know, all the monastic forms, the point is just to uncover and to give birth to our own truest love. To find our own capacity to love as deeply and widely as we can, with some calmness, with some steadiness, with some patience for how difficult this world is. With some patience

[34:57]

for the times when we don't feel very loving. How can we find our own center and find our own way of expressing our capacity to feel, to feel ourselves and to feel others, to empathize with others, to feel this intimacy with others. This is what we're doing, sitting quietly, upright. Breathing. Seeing each moment. The love you take is equal to the love you make. Love is all there is that makes the world go round. No matter what you think about it,

[35:58]

you just won't be able to do without it. So here we are, we're in the world as particular human-type folks trying to find a way to live our lives and to express our love. So we all want to love and to be loved. Eyes horizontal, nose vertical. And we each have our own way of doing it. And, you know, I was talking about non-harming, but a lot of times it just hurts. Because it's not the way we think it should be. It's not the way we want it to be. It's actually alive, you know, it's in process for lifetimes. So it's okay to hurt, you know. That's actually maybe where we start versus Noble Truth. So there's time for a couple

[36:59]

of questions or comments if anyone has any. We talked about the importance of giving up the self and love. Can you hear her in the back? No. We talked about giving the self and love, but isn't it possible to give to each other? Yeah, so giving the self and love also means giving to the self and love. So it's not giving and it's not it's not giving away. It's it's giving from that place where we just love to give. It's not

[38:01]

it's not if you think of so this practice of generosity is related to love. This practice of dana, of giving. It's not there's a mutuality. There has to be this mutuality. You can't if someone doesn't want your love no matter how much you try and give it to them you're just going to cause problems. That's not no, it's there's this thing that happens where there's just the gift and there's giver and receiver but the receiver allows the giver to give. The giver is helped by the receiver in the giving and it's a circle. So it's actually about love too that if you're giving in a way that you feel depleted and drained this is why people in the healing professions the helpers people many of you in this room are do healing work in some form or another and if you feel like you're healing you're giving up yourself

[39:02]

you can't sustain it. So giving is a huge practice. How do we give in a way that we can just appreciate the giving and we realize that it's a mutual thing that it's something that so my experience of oh at one point I was working in an old age home where the people were just falling apart their bodies and their minds were falling apart and I'm starting to appreciate now how this is and and I was young then and but I felt like you know and they liked it that I came as a volunteer and was helping but actually I got so much more out of it than they did I think it was just just to be able to be there and to be so appreciated so those people who go into healing work have to find a way to do it that's where you don't get burnt out where it's sustainable where you actually can appreciate the gift of being able to give and loving is like that too

[40:03]

it has to be nurturing both yourself and whoever you're trying to give that to true well just sometimes we can feel this dramatic sudden opening of being in love loving and being in love maybe aren't the same thing you know but falling is you know suddenly the world is like swirling all around you and stuff it can be very dramatic so I don't know what do you think it's like? yeah it's interesting so we have to in a sense it's falling it's giving up being up there

[41:07]

you know above the world it's being willing to be right in the middle of here we are human beings with feelings and emotions and confusion so in that sense yeah sure falling falling is good it's good to fall down and then learn how to get up again you know this is how we grow up you know we fall for things and try and get up again it takes a while sometimes that's a good image yeah yeah yeah and it's you know love is like yeast you know it's alive it does things we don't understand it's alchemical it makes things happen it makes the bed starts to bubble you know so yeah love is like yeast yeah Liz we Colleen you want to respond to that? biological urgings? hormones?

[42:07]

you know how the sailors took notice yes they said we're not going anywhere we're going to stay with the decent girls we're going to get you back into the line they said some years ago when they started the band of accidents no wonder there was an urgent they had fallen in love with the decent girls and they wanted to start a family no hormones needed anything so they said if you overcome anything you'll get bigger and yeah that's always going on to be a parent

[43:10]

I don't know I've never been one so I don't but I you know it just happens right and and suddenly then you have to deal with it so the biology that's that's how we grow up you know we learn from these experiences we have the opportunity to learn from these experiences sometimes we look for love in all the wrong places but anyway it's it's something that we have to continue doing because we're alive whether or not it's romantic love you know love your grandchildren love your pets love your the people you work with or your friends so there are ways that are of doing all of this loving that are not part of Valentine's Day but here we are so happy Valentine's Day a couple of announcements before we close there's a few flyers on the table I'm going to be doing a

[44:11]

workshop I'm actually doing a Dharma talk that morning Saturday the 28th at San Francisco Zen Center on the koans of Yun-Yan who was the teacher of Deng Xian who I mentioned he's the man who said just this is it and you should know there's one who's not busy so there's information about that on those flyers also it's just a couple of months now April 16 to 18 we're having a three day sitting there will not be an April sitting we are not having in Belenus but there's a sitting at the yearn at Greenoise we've had in the last two years it's nice because it's a round space sing along and there's lots of birds singing along singing along so

[44:46]

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