Good evening. So today is officially Martin Luther King Day as a national holiday. This week also is Dogen's birthday, so I spoke about Dogen yesterday. Tonight I'll speak about Dr. King. You know, every year on Martin Luther King Day, I feel it's important to speak about his true teachings, and this year more than ever. I want to speak about Martin Luther King's real spiritual teachings remain relevant and they're relevant to our bodhisattva practice now, especially in this week before Donald Trump's inaugural. Dr. King not only had a dream.

[01:02]

But he championed the poor and economic justice. He opposed militarism and the Vietnam War very strongly. He was killed organizing a labor union in Memphis. He spoke out strongly against the Vietnam War and U.S. government foreign policy and militarism. He stood for not strong nonviolent resistance against oppression and modeled how we can do that. These are issues for American Buddhists as well. Again, especially this year, this week, Friday, a man who bragged about his sexual assaults on women will become president. He has encouraged hate speech against African Americans, against Muslims, against immigrants, against Hispanics, against LGBTQ people, as well as women.

[02:04]

So I just have to say this. His appointments, his prospective appointments are dangerous, racist, like the potential Attorney General. They threatened to end health care for women and other people, to destroy public education, to destroy our environment, like the potential Secretary of State, who was the CEO of ExxonMobil, which since the 1970s has known that fossil fuels I've been destroying, I've been creating climate damage and destroying human and biological habitat, but funded denial instead of talking about it. So, I would say that in the spirit of Dr. King, on Saturday, the day after the inaugural, there's a Million Women March in Washington, D.C.

[03:08]

Hogetsu Lori Belzer from Ancient Dragon will be there representing us. Here in Chicago from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. there will be an action as there are many actions all around the country. And actually things are happening all week. But Saturday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. starting at the Banshel and Grand Park There'll be an action, which I plan to attend. And there'll be, for those who want to join up with the Buddhist Peace Fellowship folks, they'll be meeting at 930 at the Barnes & Noble Estate in Jackson. So there are things we can do, even in the face of what is going to be a very difficult time. And in the spirit of Dr. King, this isn't about hate, so I'm going to talk more about that.

[04:16]

But we don't have to hate Trump voters, even though they voted for someone who has encouraged hate. I understand that some Trump voters were trying to vote for change, just like Obama voters were voting for change in 2008. Our Zen practice focuses on, first of all, turning our attention within, awareness of our own state of mind, our own hearts, paying attention to our own patterns of anger and greed and hatred and confusion, trying to seeing seeing that and allowing that to transform, bringing awareness to our own presence, but also our awareness is expressed in our Bodhisattva vows and precepts. And we see that working on ourselves includes working on the world, working in our world.

[05:20]

And then working on our world helps us to work on ourselves. So Dr. King expressed that very powerfully in so many ways. He's best known, of course, for his I Have a Dream speech that he gave in Washington, D.C. in April 1963. And I think that can be seen as part of the dream of Western Buddhists, too. We've just chanted, may all beings be happy. May they be joyous and live in safety. One of our precepts is to benefit all beings. Dr. King said, I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all, well, the declaration says that all men are created equal. We could say all people, all beings are created equal. The refrain to his speech was, let freedom ring, free at last, free at last.

[06:23]

So this call for justice is part of Buddhism too. I guess there's some American Buddhists who think that Buddhism should be apolitical, but that's not what Buddhism really is. Shakyamuni Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, did something very radical. He included outcasts, lowest caste people in his order. He included women eventually in his order. Our bodhisattva precepts. to be helpful rather than harmful, to be respectful, to benefit all beings, help us to recognize that our karma is collective as well as individual. We are connected with all beings. We sit together with all beings. So, Dr. King and the tremendously courageous movement that he was just one of the leaders of.

[07:28]

We think of that movement as he was the leader of it. He was one of the leaders. There were many, many, many, many brave people who sacrificed and gave their lives for voting rights, for the rights of African-Americans, for the rights of all people to vote and to live equally. And in terms of America today, racism and even slavery, we could say, continues in the mass incarceration of young African-Americans and the attack on minority voting rights, which was part of how Mr. Trump gained the White House, even though he lost the popular vote by almost 3 million votes. In key states, we know that people were not allowed to vote.

[08:31]

There were various ways in which minority people, African-Americans and others, young people, Hispanic people, were deprived of their votes. and minority people's job opportunities and educational opportunities that Dr. King and others fought for will be even more under attack with Trump's appointees. So we have to face the situation we're living in. We see the ongoing murder of young black people by police. And just this week, the Department of Justice stated that The Chicago Police Department had systemic problems in terms of how it treated African Americans and how it treated minorities. It's not just a matter of a few bad apples. This isn't to say that there aren't good policemen as well who try hard to try and respond, but we have a serious problem.

[09:40]

So despite the courageous work and sacrifice by Dr. King, who gave his life, and many others in the Civil Rights Movement in the 60s, the karmic legacy of racism remains deeply ingrained in our culture. Of course, our economy, our society, both North and South, was built on slavery. And with mass incarceration unfairly racist now, Jim Crow continues in many ways. All of this is part of the culture we've been living in. Clearly, with Mr. Trump becoming president, we'll face a more difficult situation.

[10:46]

All of us will. So I wanted to quote from a couple of speeches that Dr. King gave. Besides, I'll have a dream speech. One of the things that is remains a significant problem in our society is the amount of money that we spend on weapons and on war. And so Dr. King, one year to the day before he was killed, gave a very strong speech, April 4th, 1967, in Riverside Church in New York, at a meeting of clergy and laity concerned against the Vietnam War. And he talked about the line, a time comes when silence is betrayal. So I think for us, too, not to talk about this stuff is a portrayal of our values, of Bodhisattva values, of our practice, of uprightness.

[12:00]

This Dr. King, you know, many people think that he was killed because he spoke strongly against the Vietnam War, and may well be. He said, we must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. So part in that speech, it's a long speech, and I encourage you to look it up on Google, but he quoted Thich Nhat Hanh. And all the things he says about Vietnam apply very directly and clearly to the situation in the Mideast in terms of our invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, which has triggered mass refugee crisis and ongoing wars.

[13:05]

So this is quoting from Dr. King, quoting Thich Nhat Hanh. Each day the war goes on, the hatred increases in the heart of the Vietnamese and in the hearts of those of humanitarian instinct. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. the image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom, and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism." So this is Dr. King quoting Thich Nhat Hanh in 1967. And we can see how our well, not just American attacks in the Mideast, but our funding of Saudi Arabian attacks in Yemen and so forth and so forth, contributes to refugee crises all over the world and more and more Muslims being encouraged towards terrorism.

[14:18]

Dr. King said, after quoting Thich Nhat Hanh, If we continue, there will be no doubt in my mind and in the mind of the world that we have no honorable intentions in Vietnam. It will become clear that our minimal expectation is to occupy it as an American colony, and men will not refrain from thinking that our maximum hope is to goad China into a war so that we may bomb her nuclear installations. If we do not stop our war against the people of Vietnam, Immediately, the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horrible, clumsy, and deadly game we have decided to play. So, you know, the concerns of Dr. King that many years ago seem very relevant now. Dr. King also talked about his concern not just about the bad actions of bad people. but, quote, the appalling indifference of the good people. So a big part of what Dr. King was concerned about was to encourage all of us to respond.

[15:30]

So now, with President Trump coming, how do we respond? So Dr. King modeled strong, non-violent resistance and non-cooperation. And the Civil Rights Movement in the 60s accomplished a lot. We might say that there's still a lot to do and that things are not well, and that's true, but still. and a lot can be accomplished. And the next eight years or four years or whatever it is, we have a president who seems to think that being president is a good business opportunity for his businesses.

[16:40]

If it wasn't so sad and dangerous, it would be farcical. And yet, the other piece of what Dr. King offered us still is to love our enemies. And this also is in accord with how we can model strong Buddhist non-violent non-cooperation and resistance. Some piece of that. So I'm going to quote a little bit from a speech that he gave in 1957. 10 years before the speech against the Vietnam War. This is a little long section, but I'll see how this goes.

[17:45]

How do you go about loving your enemies? I guess the first thing is this. In order to love your enemies, you must begin by analyzing self. So I'm reminded of Dogen saying, to study the way is to study the self. We have to be clear about where we sit. as we take on marching in the streets to respond to all of the difficulties that we're going to face from the Trump regime. I'm sure this seems strange to you, Dr. King said, that I start out telling you this morning that you love your enemies by beginning with a look at self. But it seems to me that this is the first and foremost way to come to an adequate discovery to the how of the situation. Now, I'm aware of the fact that some people will not like you, not because of something you've done to them, but they just won't like you. I'm quite aware of that. Some people aren't going to like the way you walk.

[18:48]

Some people aren't. aren't going to like the way you talk. Some people aren't going to like you because you can do your job better than they can do theirs. Some people aren't going to like you because other people like you. And because you're popular and because you're well-liked, they aren't going to like you. Some people aren't going to like you because your hair is a little shorter than theirs or your hair is a little longer than theirs. Some people aren't going to like you because your skin is a little brighter than theirs. And others aren't going to like you because your skin is a little darker than theirs. so that some people aren't going to like you. They're going to dislike you, not because of something that you've done to them, but because of various jealous reactions and other reactions that are so prevalent in human nature. So, that's one place where he starts. And that's sort of interesting. You know, how do we see that people have these ways of being in the world? So he also says, love is creative understanding.

[19:50]

Love is creative, understanding goodwill for all people. It is the refusal to defeat any individual. When you rise to the level of love, of its great beauty and power, you seek only to defeat evil systems. Individuals who happen to be caught up in that system you love, but you seek to defeat the system. So I can speak very strongly about, for example, the CEO of ExxonMobil, who may be our Secretary of State, and all of the terrible things that ExxonMobil have done. And I could go down the list of the various other Trump appointees. But it's not about them as individuals. It's about the system of what they've been involved with as racists, as billionaires who are profiting off the suffering of people, and so forth and so on. How do we change that system? I don't wish Mr. Trump ill.

[20:52]

I wish he would not be in a position to harm people. And when we understand things that way, then it's not about, it's not personal. It's about changing the way the world works, speaking truth to that, strongly resisting the oppression. Anyway, that's what Dr. King is talking about, I think, and to me it fits with some Buddhist principles. He says, somewhere somebody must have a little sense, and that's the strong person. The strong person is the person who can cut off the chain of hate, the chain of evil. And that is the tragedy of hate, that it doesn't cut it off. It only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe. Somebody must have spirit enough and morality enough to cut it off and inject within the very structure of the universe that strong and powerful element of love. So he talks about love in terms of brotherly and sisterly love. Agape is the Latin name for it.

[21:55]

How do we find that spirit? I think it's interesting and maybe instructive for us in a way for us to think about how we could actually. resist. So he also says, I'm just reading little excerpts here, but some people resign themselves to the fate of oppression. They somehow acquiesce to this thing. But that, too, isn't the way, because non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. There's another way. That is to organize mass nonviolent resistance based on this principle of love. It seems to me that is the only way. As our eyes look to the future, as we look at across the years and across the generations, let us develop and move right there, right here. We must discover the power of love, the power, the redemptive power of love.

[23:01]

When we discover that, we will be able to make this old world a new world. we will be able to make people better. So that's what Dr. King was talking about. Next eight years are going to be challenging. We must not cooperate with oppression and fear. We have to find ways to support people in our Sangha, in our city, in our society, who are being abused and oppressed, and there's going to be lots of them, and maybe all of us, in some ways. We must speak out against injustice. But today is Martin Luther King Day, and he has a lot of lessons for us. He has a lot to say about our bodhisattva vow, may all beings be happy. So... This is a difficult week, and yet I'm thankful for the model and the example of Dr. King.

[24:07]

So I would welcome any comments or responses or questions anyone has. Yes, Kyoshin. Thanks for leading that 1957 speech. collection of his speeches and sermons. And I was just struck with so many wonderful things. What could have been, I haven't heard before. jail, and he said, we should enter the cell the way a bridegroom enters a bridal chamber.

[25:15]

It was love. And I thought, oh my god, that is very shocking and amazing. I've never heard that before. Why is that not a famous quote? It's really amazing. So, you know, there could be opportunities or reasons for civil disobedience sometimes in the not-too-distant future. And I just think about doing it with that idea of it being a transformative thing for both the jailers, and the jail. I think that's the way you've thought of it. It's really remarkable. I hadn't figured it out, but I knew I thought I'd share it with you, and someone else could figure it out. The way a bridegroom enters the bridal chamber. How does a bridegroom enter a bridal chamber expecting something wonderful to happen that you don't quite understand going in?

[26:23]

Thank you, thank you, thank you for mentioning that. I've done civil disobedience numbers of times during the Vietnam War, during the early 80s, during nuclear protests, around the time of the invasion of Iraq, but I haven't done it in a long time and I'm looking forward to to opportunities this year, and maybe some of you will join me, and I'll go in clerical garb. It feels like my obligation as a priest to do that. That's for me. I'm not telling anybody else to do it, but anybody who wants to join me, I'll let you know. Who knows when there'll be opportunities? Sometimes you don't know. I've thought about doing it other times when there were things going on in Washington or New York, but that's more difficult because then you might have to go back to hearing far away, so I'll stick to Chicago.

[27:36]

But my experience of it, Gyoshin, has been a wonderful experience almost all the time, and actually talking to The marshals, for example, at the Federal Building in San Francisco in 2003, some of whom had gone to Desert Storm and agreed about the invasion of Iraq, and we had good conversations. and also being with other people who had done this. And so, anyway, I'm looking forward to reengaging that practice, and I'll let you know when I know that I'm going to be doing it. So, but thank you for mentioning that. It's a practice that is, you know, to do with dignity. And it was a practice that was key to the civil rights movement that Dr. King and many people in the civil rights movement did.

[28:42]

And they would go in to jail and sing the civil rights songs. And it was a powerful part of that movement. So thank you for mentioning that. That's not the only way to express resistance and not cooperation, but that's one. And it can be a real practice. Other comments or questions or responses? Yes, Ben. So you mentioned things in the collaboration with people. One of the things the Trump administration will likely do that will affect lots of people in Chicago, potentially your neighbors, people who work with you, He's promised to increase the campaign of mass deportations of people who are here without proper documents. In many ways, this is something that the Obama administration has already been doing, but he's promising to ramp this up.

[29:45]

has promised and then waffled on the promise to immediately withdraw protection from young people who applied for stays for deportation under DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival policy. It was a policy that President Obama put into place whereby young people who arrived under a certain age could apply for a three-year deferral of deportation. This was just an executive order, so it's something that Trump could reverse Saturday, I suppose, if he decides to do that. There are already lots of organizations in the Chicago area that are planning various forms of assisting people who might face deportation, from assisting them with legal aid, to assisting them to for a state or deportation, two, organizing themselves to shelter people who might face deportation, organizing to not cooperate with immigration and customs enforcement agents who might try to remove people, two, physically sitting down in front of buses who are deporting people.

[31:07]

So this is just one of the examples. And thank you, Ben, for sending me there. Our alderman, Pawar, whose office is around the corner here on Lincoln, has been organizing religious faith groups in our neighborhood. So I'm hoping we'll join with that to help with that issue. Yes, Bricia. Recently I'm sending my own feelings regarding the election and what's to come. I'm trying to actively decolonize For me, the anger isn't to force love or compassion, but trying to figure out how to change that.

[32:21]

Yeah, this is something that I have spoken of a lot. And patience, as a practice in Buddhism, is not passive. It's active. It's attentive. It's being willing and ready to respond when we see some way to respond. So it's about sitting, not like with some dull shutting out of the world, but being present and patient and looking for ways to be helpful and responsive. And the energy of anger is very important. trying to suppress anger is not helpful. Anger sometimes is very natural and appropriate, but our precept about this is not to harbor ill will, holding on to anger. So what Dr. King says about hatred, and that's what's been unleashed in this electoral campaign. Hatred is not helpful, and hating those who hate isn't helpful, but turning our anger towards

[33:45]

energy towards resolution, towards resolve, and commitment, and determination, and seeing clearly what's going on, and commitment to positive response. That energy can be very helpful. And that's easy to say, to do it involves, you know, keeping on paying attention to it. So yeah, thank you. Yes, Caitlin. I'm not sure what that means. Yes, I've heard that. But does that mean that the Chicago police authorities will not cooperate with the deportation?

[34:48]

I don't know. I'm curious about that. Does anyone know? Yeah, so it's not very clear what that means exactly. The Chicago PD, and they've not done this for a long time, so this is not new, the Chicago PD does not automatically turn over information about people who they detain to Immigration and Customs Enforcement that a lot of other police forces do. This is just the Chicago PD. And so PD and other counties, police officers in other counties do. A sanctuary city does not mean that the Chicago PD will stop Immigration and Customs Enforcement from carrying out deportations. You know, you have steel rates in the past five years. And I don't think that is what's going to happen. Because if you look in Waukegan, they're actively turning over.

[35:50]

Yeah. Right. And the fact that there's various counties doing things like driving to work can become incredibly complicated. Under the Obama administration, there was a policy put into place called Safe Communities whereby the police of certain counties were incentivized to cooperate with us and share information about people who needed help. One of the things that will probably happen He's promised to deport more criminals. Probably the category of how that is defined, which is different under immigration proceedings in the criminal justice system, probably those categories will be expanded. So we will probably see things like people who are on gang task force lists being deported.

[36:52]

criminalization of minority communities and enforcing deportation. Other comments? Kathy? At the same time, I very much agree with what was stated here. We need to be reporting what he's doing, but it's like, I think we need to get at the heart of issues and be talking about those and get them to the press and get them talked about among ourselves in terms of, well, can we do this in a city or what can we do?

[39:06]

Yeah, it's very complicated and obviously our country is divided in various ways in how we talk to each other and try to talk respectfully to everyone. It's challenging, but important. Yes, Kathy? One of the things that comes to mind that will probably be a chopping block is that neutrality. Yeah. Yeah, freedom of the press is important. Yeah, you have to look for independent media to really get information.

[40:27]

I like democracy now. Bill, do you have any comments? I'll bet you do. I'll give you the last word. It's almost time. No, I think I'll just leave it at that. Okay. Anyone else have something you want to say? Jeremy. I don't know if I can draw that comparison, but there's so many things that were wrong this time, and he showed so much bravery. And I feel that if we could just summon a tentative, and really be clear at it right now, because I think it's dividing this country, it's the youth of this country, it's dividing but not maybe as much as

[41:43]

I think you're right. I think there is reason for, not blind hope, but there, you know, I think, you know, there are lots of positive things that have happened, and I think there is, you know, culturally possibilities for the future, and it's going to be interesting. So, yeah, thank you for that.

[42:19]

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