or from any of you who came this morning thinking that you were going to hear Kadagiri Roshi speak. As you can tell, that's not what's happening. Kadagiri Roshi is leading a seven-day session at the city center this week and decided that he would stay put there. But he will give the lecture next Sunday. And I hope that you will all come and talk. So in the meantime, I ask your forgiveness and support in being me and not him. And I'd like to begin by reading a poem which today's blowing and howling came to my mind. It goes as follows. Sunshine is delicious.

[01:01]

Rain is refreshing. Wind braces up. Snow is exhilarating. There is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather. Tame birds will sing of freedom. The wild ones fly. Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own. And from morning to night, as from the cradle to the grave, is but a succession of changes, so gentle and easy that we can scarcely mark their progress. You may be surprised as I was when I found out who was the author of this poem. And that author is Charles Dickens. But I love this line. There is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.

[02:07]

By way of beginning, I'd like to say a little bit about the beauties of this season. In particular, this storm and the storm that we just had this past week. which among other things has caused these splendid breakers to open up the sandbar at the mouth of the creek that has its gravel beds up in Muir Woods and its mouth at the foot of Green Gulch Valley. And in the breaking up of that sandbar, the opening of the mouth of the creek, what happens is that the salmon who spawn in the gravel beds in the woods can now come into the creek and go up creek to do the spawn, which marks the end of their lives. And for any of you who have the opportunity to go for a walk in the woods, far enough into the woods to where the gravel beds are, I would invite you to enjoy a treat.

[03:18]

These splendid, magnificent fish that come back to the stream where they began their lives. They go through a marked transformation in the process. They change color. They turn the color of brick, kind of brick red. Their flesh becomes quite different, soft and strange from what we're used to. The females swim over the gravel beds hit the gravel with the tail, making a kind of depression into which they can lay their eggs, and then the males swim over, fertilizing them. And they then, once that procedure is finished, die. Magnificent creatures, these salmon who live in this creek, which marks the lower boundary of Green Gulch.

[04:19]

So a few days ago, when I was going down the hill from here to the house where I live, I realized that the sandbar was being taken away. In the winter, we don't have a beach. We have gravel and this wonderful open-mouthed creek. So for me, that's one of the beauties of these storms, knowing that that process is happening in such a timely way. I also realized when I came in the driveway this morning and saw much of the eucalyptus trees on the road, giant branches and leaves and hunks of trees lying about. These winds are kind of housecleaning for the trees. And strangely enough, the winds also bring a wonderful silence. Because of the location of our electric lines coming out to this area, here at Green Gulch and also for the Newer Beach, we will traditionally in a storm like this lose our electricity, sometimes for a day or two.

[05:36]

And so there's that wonderful stillness to look forward to when all the electric current is gone for a little while. Perhaps you can tell that I love these big storms. I think they're quite wonderful. What I would like to speak about today arises out of the same field, so to speak, that I spoke of the last time. As some of you know, I have been fortunate to be part of a study group where a small number of us are working with the precepts. And as I reported to you the last time, we are still working with the precept about a disciple of the Buddha does not lie, or as we are formulating it these days, I promise to tell the truth. We've progressed a bit into that segment of the landscape which has to do with

[06:42]

keeping or telling or holding secrets? What does it mean to lie or to not tell the truth to ourselves, in particular about our own experience or ourselves? This process of working with a small group of people with this precept continues to be a process which is taking me very deep disturbingly so, some days. And I am continuing to be encouraged by the kinds of things that others are willing and able to bring up to the surface, so that we can say something to each other about what each of us is beginning to see. On Monday mornings, I drive up to Buenas, where a small group of us are sitting together. permission from the Episcopal Church to use St.

[07:48]

Aidan's Church, which is this tiny Episcopal Church in the hills, which is fortunately not used at six o'clock in the morning on Mondays. So we go in and make a fire and push the chairs back and make a little zendo for ourselves. Very nice. And any of you who wants to join us, please do. I love particularly the drive up in the morning before dawn. I never know who or what I will meet on the road, but there's always some creature out, deer or fox or some unusual bird. Last week, a flicker. But also, this last week as I was driving along, Suddenly, what blooped up onto the screen of my mind was the practice that has to do with appreciating the success of others.

[08:58]

I'm not entirely sure what that arose from, but I had one of those, aha, here's a practice that's arising and taking me by the scruff of the neck, presenting itself to me. And in some way, I think that this practice arose for me directly out of what I've been doing in working with the precept about telling the truth. What I realized as I considered the practice for the duration of the drive up to willingness, was that it has the possibility of being a great antidote to a judging mind. That inner judging voice, which is criticizing and commenting on how things are less than perfect, immediately seems to be quieter when my attention is directed

[10:11]

towards the success of those around me. And I'm always grateful for practices which still that voice for myself and for others. So this little discussion that I had with myself on Monday morning led me to look at what in the texts of Buddhism sometimes are called the social emotions consideration about how we practice cultivating or developing certain qualities that affect our relationships with other people. And I would like to talk a bit about these characteristics or qualities that are suggested in the Buddhist tradition. because I find them for myself helpful, and I think you may find them helpful also.

[11:16]

Specifically, I'm talking about the qualities which Wendy Johnson mentioned when she talked a couple of weeks ago. Those qualities that include friendliness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and impartiality. I think that the sequence is extremely important. I noticed that if I have been working with cultivating friendliness, my ability to evoke or cultivate sympathetic joy seems to be a little bit more, I don't want to say successful, but anyway, there's more occurrence, you might say. One of the texts that I went to is a book by Edward Konze, which I would recommend to you, Buddhist Thought in India.

[12:25]

And there is a chapter in there which he's written on the social emotions. And there was one quote in particular which is quintessential Konze. For those of you who do not know him, he is now deceased, but is a great scholar in Buddhist studies. And some of us had the opportunity to study with him some years ago when he was a visiting professor at the University of California in Berkeley. A very irascible, thorny, porcupine of a person. You will get that from this quote, I think. The weeds of malice which are natural to the human race would soon choke the frail wheat of hard-won benevolence." He took a dim view of human nature.

[13:26]

So the cultivation of these qualities is in the interest of weeding out, or at least not fertilizing and watering these weeds of malice. which may be somewhat in the nature of human nature. The first one of friendliness, cultivating friendliness, part of what is addressed in Buddhism, in considering the nature of friendliness, is the so-called near enemy of friendliness, which is greed. For many of us, probably most of us, we don't have so much trouble being friendly with those we like, our children, our loved ones, our friends. But it's very easy to then slip into a kind of greed.

[14:36]

For example, with one's lover. And to have that friendliness be characterized by a kind of partiality, picking and choosing for those we like, and not so easily applied in the direction of those with whom we have some difficulty. So it's in that sense that greed is seen as a near enemy of friendliness, a danger which friendliness not informed by compassion or wisdom, can lead us to. So, in cultivating friendliness, what I want to do is to consider in the detail of my daily life ways of cultivating open-heartedness, an attitude of bestowing benefit to others.

[15:39]

Can I each day with whoever I happen to be near relate to the pleasant side of each person, no matter who they are? Can I find that pleasant aspect in a person that I might more quickly think of as my enemy or disagreeable in some way? So in cultivating friendliness, one of the places that I go to in working with myself and my own tendencies is to consider as a kind of practice seeing what I can appreciate or what I find pleasant in another person without exception. The consequence of this is whatever tendency I may have to ill-will or malice is somewhat still.

[16:55]

Without my directly trying to still that ill-will, the natural consequence of focusing on that which I appreciate in another person is inevitably some stilling of that. quality of ill will or irritability towards someone. Some years ago, when my children were little, when I first started practicing Zen at Zen Center, I realized that I was going to be very unhappy if I did not find a way of practicing on this path in a way that included my children in my life as a parent. So one of the practices that arose for me, and in fact, I think out of reading this book of Panzees, was a practice of being willing to do whatever I did for my children in a way that I would be willing to do with any child

[18:14]

that happened to be in front of me. That is, to work with my tendency to have some special relationship with my children and to make an effort to cultivate my capacity to see all children as my children, not making some preference for this child rather than that one. It was, at times, a practice which I found rather difficult, but quite illuminating. And in retrospect, I realized that my tendency to be a kind of possessive parent, possessive mother, was probably modified or modulated as a direct consequence of this particular practice. And in fact, one of the things that I've discovered over the years has been discovering some quality that I, in fact, deeply enjoy in children as I meet them, including a child who may be ill-mannered or noisy or rude or cruel, even, that directly out of this practice has come some ability to put myself in

[19:43]

each child's shoes, to have some slightly more developed capacity to think about how did this child come to be this way, not in some blaming or judging fashion. I think in the cultivation of friendliness, one of the issues that arises very quickly for most of us has to do with our ability to be friendly with ourselves, to love ourselves, to be accepting of the way we are. There seems to be, in all of the major religious traditions of the world, certainly strikingly both in Buddhism and in Christianity, and emphasis on loving others as we love ourselves.

[20:45]

And of course, one of the difficulties that arises for many of us is a difficulty in loving others if in fact we don't love ourselves. So, in practicing cultivating friendliness, what each of us may find is that the work we have to do is that of cultivating our ability to be friendly, to be gentle, to be kindly with ourselves. Among other things, this will be a way for us to have these qualities available in our relationships with others as well. There are several verses that I have found helpful and that I want to suggest to you in cultivating this attitude of friendliness with ourselves.

[21:52]

To say to ourselves each day, perhaps when we first wake up in the morning, and if possible many times during the day, may I be happy and free of ill will. to genuinely have this wish, this promise, this vow for ourselves, not exclusively, not at the expense of others, but beginning with ourselves. May I be free from hatred, oppression, any kind of disturbance. May I lead a happy life. Do you, when you consider saying this to yourself, do I, when I consider saying this to myself, have some twinge?

[22:59]

Maybe I don't deserve to be happy. And if there is such a twinge, such a thought, to note that and make this promise anyway. To let go, to disperse whatever energy of qualification or but. I have to do such and such first before I'm worthy of whatever. I have a friend who has a very big yes but and I suggested in fact to her the other day that she might name this voice, Mrs. Yes But. Because whenever she and I talk about some little mantra, some verse that she might say that has to do with loving herself, immediately Mrs. Yes But shows up.

[24:03]

And in our recent conversation, my friend was telling me how clearly she can see the necessity of this kind of practice when she works with other people, and how thoroughly, unequivocally, she is not on the list. So she promised me this week that she would do her best to ask Mrs. Yes But to sit down in a comfortable chair nearby but to be quiet while she promised to herself, may I be happy and free of ill will. Aristotle said, in the good man, all parts of the soul are not in any way variants, are well disposed toward one another. So, of course, what I'm suggesting is that in the cultivation of friendliness, what we get to look at is whatever nibbling, ambivalence, or reservation, or exception we may have, especially having to do with ourselves.

[25:28]

And that if we really want to cultivate friendliness, may we please include ourselves on the list of those with whom we will be friendly. It is suggested in the literature that self-love is maintained when one is less intense and exclusive and when one is more detached and impartial. when we accept the contents of our own self. I know for myself, when I think of being in this way with myself, there's this little voice that comes up. What about those tendencies?

[26:32]

What about those qualities or capacities that I have for being corruptible? Aren't I just going to run amok? But that's a little bit of Mrs. Yes, But. If I can accept the contents of myself, if I can have some accurate, descriptive, not judgmental, but descriptive understanding of my nature, and have that acceptance not be intense or consuming in some way, but more just in the ordinary ongoing experience of things. In the very noting of things as they are with myself lies my capacity for being different in each moment.

[27:40]

If I understand deeply my nature, my tendency to be critical, then I'm more likely to pick up a practice which allows that tendency to be a little quieter, in a way that if I'm not willing to touch or note, except in that manner, my nature, my tendencies, leads to, if I'm not so in touch with my nature, that leads to a kind of blindness. Oh no, I wouldn't do that. Another practice that I have found extremely helpful in cultivating friendliness is a practice of considering that person whom I might think of

[28:43]

initially as my enemy, as my teacher. You may think that sounds crazy, but consider for a moment some person that you think of as an enemy. There's great possibility that you might learn something about yourself in being with such a person. What is it in this person which is disturbing to you? Is it perhaps some quality that you may have in yourself and which you would rather not notice or acknowledge? Is it some quality such that your response is one of fear? And can you Examine that fear to see to what degree it's based on some old memory and perhaps not so current.

[29:52]

Can you see what this person is doing which leads you to consider the person your enemy from their point of view? in that way of considering, how does someone come to be this way? In cultivating these capacities, we are encouraged to notice the usefulness, the necessity of concentration and of wisdom in particular. in cultivating friendliness. That it is concentration and wisdom which allows us to what's sometimes described as cleanse friendliness of any tendency for exclusivity. I'll be friendly with the people who are in my club, but not the outsiders.

[31:03]

I'll be friendly with my family, but not with others who are different from me or family or my plan. Exclusivity in that sense. It is in bringing friendliness up out of our cultivation of concentration and wisdom that allows us to cultivate friendliness which has some quality of unlimitedness. A friendliness which is ready in many circumstances, not those that we pick and choose. It is suggested that true love arises out of contact with the truth, and that we can only know the truth in solitude.

[32:06]

So there is this kind of irony, that although what I'm talking about has to do with qualities that arise in our relationship with others, to cultivate these qualities we must also find time and circumstance for a kind of solitude, which allows us to see things as they are, to be in touch with the truth in some deep sense. that is beyond the phenomenal world, the world of conditioning. So this cultivation of friendliness then leads us to the cultivation of compassion and sympathetic joy. Compassion has to do with our participation with the suffering of others,

[33:10]

And sympathetic joy has to do with our participation with others in their happiness. If we become too involved in the suffering of others, we can become rather gloomy. So, it's useful to watch what's happening in our effort to cultivate compassion. There is also, out of some noticing, interest, attention with the suffering of others some capacity which may be overt or covert for enjoying that suffering. I think it's that quality which we recognize sometimes as cruelty. So

[34:12]

We need to keep our eyes open, pay attention in our cultivation of compassion. We can very easily slip into some attitude of a compassionate heart. I just need to cultivate a compassionate heart. I don't need to worry as long as I'm being compassionate. But can we pay attention to the subtle detail of this attention, this interest, this noticing of the suffering of the world, so that it stays in some balance, awake to these pitfalls of gloom or cruelty. I'm so much in the midst of considering this practice about enjoying the success of others.

[35:26]

I feel like I want to simply state that that is what I'm working with and tune in for the next chapter in this particular area. A year or so ago when I was studying a text that comes from India in the 8th century by Shantideva. There is a chapter in this text which is called The Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way on cultivating sympathetic joy. Cultivating one's ability to put oneself in another's shoes. But I think, in particular, to do that around the success, the happiness of others seems to me very fruitful. Because, of course, immediately what I notice in picking up this practice is that I run into myself, my capacity for a certain kind of small-mindedness.

[36:41]

my capacity for comparing someone's success versus another's, in particular mine. Why are they having this success and I'm not? That sort of conversation one can have. And what I notice in this few days of working with enjoying the success of others, is that in focusing my energy in this direction, without my paying any attention to the more negative aspects or tendencies of my mind and heart, there is already some dissipation of those negative energies, a kind of inevitable purifying my heart of ill-will. Without focusing on the ill-will, it begins to fade.

[37:48]

How nice, as a consequence of turning toward the enjoyment of the success of others, to have that consequence. I'm suggesting to myself and to you this morning that we can begin with the simple successes of the people we know and work with and meet. They may have to do with the material realm or they may have to do with the spiritual realm. It doesn't really matter. We can just pick up whatever success we see in the lives of those around us, and enjoy that happiness that we see in others.

[38:50]

If some thought arises of worrying about, yes, but, will I have this too? Or will I miss the bus of happiness? to have some confidence in our capacity to surprise ourselves. The fourth quality on this list of social emotions is that of impartiality. It's a little tricky, I think, to talk about because the language of Buddhism and talking about impartiality can sound a little cool. And yet my experience in meeting people who have cultivated impartiality in some deep way is anything but meeting coolness.

[39:58]

It has more to do with noticing that there is, in addition to that which is pleasant and that which is unpleasant, a whole range of that which is neutral. It is possible to cultivate a kind of serenity which comes out of an acceptance of things as they are, This is a very useful practice for any of us who are... What comes to my mind is what my friend calls it, being an ambulance driver. That tendency to race around and fix things. Try to make everything right in the world. But this quality of impartiality has to do with being willing to be present, noticing things as they are, and in particular noticing the limits of what it is we can do or fix.

[41:16]

A kind of radical non-interference. And I think that embedded in this quality is an attitude of deep respect for oneself and others. If we really understand the degree to which each of us can take care of ourselves, we aren't so quickly then trying to fix something for another. We rather have that quality, that attitude of non-interference, which arises out of understanding that each of us also has the capacity to fix or take care of whatever we must. Again, this quality of impartiality may be seen as an antidote to ill will and to greed.

[42:27]

moving into that realm that is not picking and choosing between that which I want or don't want, that which I find pleasurable or unpleasant, abiding with things as they are, present and awake, So I think that Mr. Dickens' poem is, in a way, a nice expression of this cluster of qualities that I'm unpacking a little bit and that I hope you will consider unpacking for yourselves. There is no such thing as bad weather.

[43:31]

only different kinds of good water. Thank you very much.

[43:38]

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