Power for the Way: A talk on the day before the inauguration of Donald Trump

Irish doorway,
photo by Melissa Myozen Blacker

To commemorate one hundred days of the presidency of Donald Trump, here is a talk (followed by a dharma dialogue with the sangha and other teachers) that I gave the day before the inauguration.  

Power for the Way:  A talk on the day before the inauguration of Donald Trump as President of the United States

Melissa Myozen Blacker, Roshi, Coming and Going Sesshin, Boundless Way Temple, Worcester, Massachusetts, January 19, 2017

During this sesshin we are reading and studying together the book Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, by Shunryu Suzuki, Roshi.  Today we’ll look into the section of Suzuki Roshi’s book called “Attachment, Non Attachment.”  Suzuki Roshi writes:

Zazen practice and everyday activity are one thing. We call zazen everyday life and everyday life zazen. But usually we think, “Now zazen is over, and we will go about our everyday activity.”  But this is not the right understanding. They are the same thing. We have nowhere to escape. So in activity there should be calmness, and in calmness there should be activity. Calmness and activity are not different.

Each existence depends on something else. Strictly speaking, there are no separate individual existences. There are just many names for one existence. Sometimes people put stress on oneness, but this is not our understanding. We do not emphasize any point in particular, even oneness. Oneness is valuable, but variety is also wonderful.   Ignoring variety, people emphasize the one absolute existence, but this is a one-sided understanding. In this understanding there is a gap between variety and oneness. But oneness and variety are the same thing, so oneness should be appreciated in each existence. That is why we emphasize everyday life rather than some particular state of mind. We should find the reality in each moment and in each phenomenon. This is a very important point.

So  -- I have something in my mind and heart today – and possibly the same is true for some of you as well.  Although it could be that you’ve been here so long that time and space have ceased to have any meaning for you. If so, my apologies for jerking you back into time and space. Today is January 19, 2017 and tomorrow is January 20, 2017 and tomorrow something will happen that will probably, but not certainly --  (I would say the chances are pretty high) change the way we live fundamentally and profoundly.

When our new president takes his oath of office, his hand on the bible facing the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, in that moment it’s hard to know how to meet an event of such profound implications.

There was a sweet and funny but also slightly devastating cartoon in the New Yorker recently showing our president-elect facing Chief Justice Roberts, and Chief Justice Roberts holding out a marshmallow. And the caption is: “I can give you this marshmallow now or if you wait 15 minutes I’ll give you two marshmallows and I’ll swear you in as the next president of the United States.”  The cartoon refers to a psychological study that was done with children to measure their attention spans, to see if they could develop the capacity to wait for something better than the one marshmallow they were offered in the present moment.   And many, many, many children below a certain age just couldn’t even conceive of waiting to get two marshmallows. So they would take the one marshmallow. I guess that also in my fantasy life it raised a little hope for me. Maybe Trump will take the marshmallow -- and then something else will happen.

But I’m pretty sure that Trump will indeed by sworn in as our next president.  So this is going to happen and some of us are looking ahead to a life where we need to step forward and take some action to prevent things that, or at least contribute to preventing things that might be devastating for many of us. Some of the promises that have been made about repealing certain laws that benefit hundreds and thousands and probably millions of people -- this will affect immigrants, Muslims, and people below the poverty line who depend on healthcare from the government. It will affect someone we know even if we don’t know that it affects us directly and because we are all one body it will of course affect us directly.

So since the election, in our sangha we’ve done a few things in response to this new world.   At the Greater Boston Zen Center in Cambridge, there’s been a forum to discuss people’s concerns and sangha members have continued to work at a local food pantry.   There has been a joint effort by people at Greater Boston and here at the Temple to work with the local system of jailing people and finding justice for people who are incarcerated.   David and I have been to many interfaith rallies, and on Saturday our Dharma Holder, Diane Fitzgerald will be going down to the Women’s March in Washington, DC,  and Joanne Hart will be going to the local Women’s March in Boston. And these are the things that we can do and there’s going to be more that we do to respond to the current and unfolding situation in our beloved country.

As Zen practitioners, it’s very important to take Suzuki Roshi’s guidance here, because there is protest and despair and difficulty. There is fear and sadness and there are the three poisons always active in us:  greed, anger, and delusive certainty. And if we act from those places our work in the world will be limited and bounce back against us, hostility against hostility. This is not our way. It is, however, the usual human way. But the way of Zen is to see that the practice we do here in the Temple, at the Zen Center, at our local practice groups, wherever we happen to be sitting, is the same identical practice that we bring out into the world.

One of our dharma ancestors in one of our Soto lines, Robert Aitken, Roshi, wrote a lovely book about the precepts. He wrote it quite a long time ago, in 1984 – almost 15 years after Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. The book is called The Mind of Clover, and I just want to read you a little bit from Aitken Roshi’s writing.  I feel that it’s very relevant here, and it’s certainly relevant to me.

Something that I’ve noticed for myself during these weeks of sitting at the Coming and Going Sesshin with our wonderful inspiring friend, Shunryu Suzuki, Roshi, is that I miss talking about koans. Those of you who know me know that I often give dharma talks, teisho, about koans and I haven’t been doing that for the past few weeks. So like Aitken Roshi I’m going to start with a koan.

Aitken Roshi quotes case 25 from the Blue Cliff Record:

The Hermit of Lotus Peak held forth his staff before his assembly and asked, “When the ancient ones reached this, why didn’t they stay there?” The assembly was silent.

Answering for his listeners he said, “Because it has no power for the Way.”

And later in this koan the hermit continues and he holds out his staff and he says, “After all, what is it?” And again, everyone is silent. And he says, “Holding my staff across the back of my neck, going to the thousand, the ten thousand peaks.” And Aitken Roshi comments,  “The myriad peaks are not mountains of isolation, but the peaks and valleys of our lives.”

So we say that if we just sit here and think that zazen is it, we don’t see that zazen is our life, that everything we do and everything that happens is a form of the practice and a demonstration of the awakened heart that is the Buddha heart. The heart of a Buddha is one that has awakened. And what do we awaken to? We awaken to everything. That means we awaken to greed, anger and delusive certainty as well as joy and happiness and calmness. And Suzuki Roshi says all these things are the same. They’re all just different manifestations of the awakened heart. So we learn this here in the stillness and silence.  Sitting upright in the middle of everything we learn how to be in the middle of everything and to take steps to help to heal the world, because we’re bodhisattvas.

We are not, as David’s teacher, George Bowman says, “miserable arhats.” An arhat is someone, according to the original Buddhist teachings, who sits with a great devotion to awakening and then has an awakening and then continues to cultivate their awakening through all these different stages until they become done with the world.

And we in the Mahayana tradition and especially in the Zen tradition call those people miserable arhats because they are so limited. Everything is about the practice -- as limited to upright sitting practice, to study of the sutras, to chanting and bowing and walking -- without understanding that getting in a car and going to work is a version of chanting and bowing and walking. And going to a protest rally in Washington or in Boston or here in Worcester on the steps of City Hall is a way of chanting and bowing and walking. 

Bodhisattva means “ wisdom being.” This is the wisdom being of the Mahayana, the Great Vehicle, which is our Way.  A bodhisattva is someone who is devoted to not stopping with our limited self as the be-all and the end-all of our practice. Instead we move forward, as Diane and Fran Ludwig and many other sangha members who have joined them, in becoming “ecosattvas.”   These are beings who are awake to the inter-being of the world. And at this time of crisis and shift in the culture of our country, and I believe, in the whole world -- we see this happening in many different countries, in many different religious institutions -- there is a tendency, probably born out of fear, to contract the heart, to no longer open to everything that is possible in this great human beingness that we all have. This contraction can cause blindness and is a source of the delusive certainty that I mentioned earlier.

So, the Hermit of Lotus Peak holds up his staff and he asks his sangha a question. There are many places in our inherited koan literature where somebody asks a question, a teacher asks a question, and nobody says anything. One of the most famous stories is about the monks of the eastern and western hall arguing about a cat.  In this story, the teacher Nanchuan says, “Say something or I will kill this cat.” And no one says anything. And out of Nanchuan’s great loving heart, he sees that these are people who are stuck in the limited view, in the miserable arhat view.  Nobody says anything. Nobody does anything. It’s like a whole bunch of ostriches just turning away and burying their heads in the sand. A cat is about to be slaughtered and no one says anything. The silence of the sangha is profound and it’s not the good kind of silence, which we sometimes celebrate in other koans. It’s a miss. It’s a coming up to bat and putting your bat down and walking off the field. It’s giving in to despair.

Many years ago David and I did a workshop, probably 30 years ago, with the Buddhist teacher Joanna Macy, called “Despair and Empowerment.” The morning was spent opening up to our despair about the world, through our sitting practice. We think things are bad now – and of course we thought things were bad then. In those days we lived with the reality of the possibility of nuclear holocaust, of the ecosystem failing and falling apart, of all the things that have just become worse over the last 30 years. Despite everything that we’ve done, racial injustice continues, wars continue to be fought overseas and even in our own communities in smaller ways.

In the workshop we sank into the despair, and Joanna encouraged us to go there as deeply as possible. That was before lunch. And then after lunch she asked us to use the energy of our despair to really come together and see what could we do -- how could we move forward instead of just being silent and turning away. She said, “How will you move forward?”    We were very inspired at the time, and David actually ended up working with Joanna for a while, being her assistant in a few of these workshops.

And this became part of the style of the way we teach, this really teaching people to face what’s here, to not turn away, to not avoid it, to face anger when it arises, to face great fear, to face the suffering in the body, the suffering in the mind that keeps trying to figure out: what should I do? What should I do? What should I do?…the suffering that is so much at the core of how we understand Buddhism.

And not to stop there but to see that all this stuff that arises is energy. It’s trapped energy. It’s limited energy. It’s narrowed energy and we discover that there’s only one thing that we can possibly do with that energy, and that is to allow it to transform into action.   Of course, we could try to sit on it and not do anything; we could turn away and be silent. But we know if we study history that turning away is rarely effective.  The harm that comes from letting things just happen is such a common outcome.  It’s easy to understand why this happens – because we are afraid, or in despair, or angry or frustrated or hopeless. 

In these koans where there’s silence and nobody says anything -- nobody comes forward – then the teacher, out of great love, shows the consequences of that silence. And in this koan, the Hermit of Lotus Peak wonders aloud why the ancient ones, who were able to reach this awareness of the awakened heart, the fullness of being a human being in the world, didn’t stay there. Why wasn’t that enough for them? Why didn’t Shakyamuni Buddha when he woke up one morning from his long sitting and fighting the forces of Mara and discovering things and saw the morning star -- why didn’t he just stay there under the Bodhi tree? Why did he get up and cause this whole mess that we call Buddhism? Why did he do that? Why do people who realize something then move forward into their lives, and encourage others to do the work that they can do? Every single one of us is only capable of doing what we can do. We can’t be like Superman in the old Superman movie, changing the axis of the earth and turning everything back. I wish we could but we don’t have that kind of power.

What is the power for the Way? It’s what we are uniquely suited to do and every one of us here has something that we can do. What I can do is go to rallies and speak from the Zen perspective about not othering, not dividing our hearts from those we disagree with, and encouraging people to go forward and do whatever they can do. That’s what I can do. Maybe what you can do is go on a march or organize or maybe if you’re a politician you can actually fight valiantly in the minority to not let things get so bad. It always reminds me of the story of the Sleeping Beauty where the little baby Aurora has been born and all of the fairy godmothers are coming forward and giving the baby all these wonderful attributes, beauty and various things. And then the evil fairy comes and curses the baby.  But one fairy has waited, stepped back, so that she can possibly help to repair the curse. This is what we can do. We can move forward to possibly, in our own way, repair the curse.

And then the koan goes on and The Hermit of Lotus Peak talks about this. He says I can hold my staff, that is, the teachings that I’ve discovered here in my zazen and take them everywhere, going to the thousand, ten thousand peaks. And Aitken says the myriad peaks are not mountains of isolation but the peaks and valleys of our lives. If we think zazen is about sitting still on a cushion then we haven’t yet realized what zazen is. If we think our responsibility stops with being awakened then we are miserable arhats indeed. To be a bodhisattva means to walk forward into our lives.

At the end of the Ox-Herding pictures, an old Zen depiction of the journey of someone who realizes awakening, there’s one where everything has dropped away and there’s the beautiful Zen circle, the enso. But the sequence of pictures doesn’t end there. The final Ox- Herding picture is “returning to the market place with bliss-bestowing hands.” And this is a picture of the bodhisattva walking into life. This is a picture of us taking what we learn here and utilizing it… not just for our own happiness or the happiness of our friends and loved ones but for the sake of the burning world. This is our duty. This is our obligation as Zen practitioners, as people of the Way. “Why didn’t they stay here?” the teachers ask.  And we answer, “Because it has no power for the Way.” The Way needs engagement.

I just want to read you a little bit from the end of the essay that this comes from in The Mind of Clover from Robert Aitken. He says:

We must save the world, but we can only save it by saving little pieces of it, each of us using his or her own small, partial ability. The task is clear, and very difficult. First we must set about changing our self-centered attitudes as individuals and search out our self-nature under the guidance of a good teacher. Next (the day after we begin to practice, that is) we must set about applying our understanding in the world. This can be overtly a life of service, such as teaching or social work, and it can be service with no tag on it, parenting and working in a store. Finally (on the second day of practice), we need to put our heads and hearts together in synergistic energy to apply the Dharma as a sangha.

I am tired of hearing people say that the application of the teaching is an individual matter. This is the lazy position of someone who does not really take the Bodhisattva vows seriously. If we want to save all beings we can do it efficiently and effectively together, step by step, networking, Indra Networking.

And here are Suzuki Roshi’s words once again. Maybe you can hear the implication in them.

Zazen practice and everyday activity are one thing. We call zazen everyday life, and everyday life zazen. But usually we think, “Now zazen is over and we will go about our everyday activity.” But this is not the right understanding. They are the same thing. We have nowhere to escape. So in activity there should be calmness, and in calmness there should be activity. Calmness and activity are not different.

We have nowhere to escape. Thank you.

Dharma Dialogue:

Melissa:  So please make yourselves comfortable and this is the time for our dharma dialogue. And questions, observations, objections…

Student One: I just want to say I can’t even express how grateful I feel for this talk. I guess because I had a feeling of real genuine warmth and community in this sangha but in some ways I haven’t felt at home -- just out of having difficulty reconciling my identity as an activist and being engaged with activism in the anarchist community in Worcester. And the way that I’ve always approached my Zen practice is related to a lot of what you were talking about, that these statements aren’t an individual matter. I’m very grateful that I do feel that opening here.

M:  Yes.

David Dae An Rynick, Roshi:  Thank you for saying that -- and it is an edge for all of us. And you know, we so treasure the silence here and this work that goes on, on the cushion. And I think this bodhisattva path of really getting exactly what you’re saying -- that this is the dharma you already know, right? This is not an individual matter and I think some of us are waking up to that in ways we haven’t been before, or haven’t been for a while. So this great work ahead of all of us human beings not just sitting on the cushion but engaging in the world with great courage AND with this compassion to see that this is it.  It can appear as either/or. Are you going to cultivate yourself or are you going to work in the world? And of course it’s not just the self in the world.  It’s just easy to imagine we’re not connected, and that’s such a mistake.  So thank you.

Student Two:  Two things came together for me. Thank you so much for what you said. One way is being very sensitive to what’s been occurring. My first thought came when Trump won the election. What’s next is resistance. And from personal experience, when I was young in Greece and the Nazis occupied the country and the city I was in there was resistance. Some of the people went into the mountains and they fought the Germans that way. Others just stood idly by and others did what they could to help people in hiding. And what kind of collides for me about proceeding is the notion of what can we do, what can I do? And the answer comes back in this life spirit of what you spoke and that is to resist. Don’t take it for granted, what has happened, and wait for better days. Throw sand into the gears of this new machine wherever we can. And enroll others and be patient. One of my fatalistic kind of attitudes is that, well, what difference can I make, the world is so huge. And what comes back has been the focus you’ve given me this time around at this retreat -- to be in the moment.

M:  Thank you.

Student Three:  I also want to thank you. That was very inspirational and I’ve been struggling over the last few days with the decision to come to this retreat. It was an easy decision two months ago but as the terrible things happening in Washington and around the country piled up and as more and more mobilization takes place it was hard to say, “ wow! I could be in Boston.” So I feel very much the way you feel and I think that I’ve always felt that one of the strongest attractions I had to this as a formal practice was the activation of compassion. That compassion was not something preached from a pulpit -- it sort of flew over your head in metaphysical swirls, but it had to be brought into the world. And I very much look forward to being part of this community as it moves in that direction. Thank you.

M:  Thank you.

Dharma Holder Steve Wallace:  So, such a lovely point. This practice of touching into hearing the cries of the world and letting that touch us and fill us with compassion. And then moving out from that place and gathering energy from this oneness and this need to do what we can to act in the world in support of all beings. And this sense of so many beings are in peril right now and how do we meet this? And for me personally it’s quite a struggle. So I, you know, have not been as active as some of you in the world, and here is this very clear call to something needing to be done here. And how, how am I going to respond? It’s quite a koan but as you point out, only to rage against the machine without connecting with this, this deep oneness and compassion for the world doesn’t feel right to me either. There needs to be this balance of finding this sense of oneness and using that uprising of compassion as the power that we use to move into the world, as Melissa was saying.

Student one:  So there’s a book that I’m reading that feels like the most important book I’ve ever read, and it’s called Radical Dharma, which Melissa you said you’re familiar with. And prior to the talk about this divide between activist communities and spiritual communities or spaces of healing -- in activist communities there is an almost unhealthy focus on anger and coming from a place of anger and outrage, and that being the only place where resistance can come from.  And I’ve confronted that in my practice a lot because I’ve had a lot of anger at myself from belonging to so many dominant identities -- like as a white person, as a male.   I’ve had a hatred of myself for those things and this is something that they talk about in this book.   I felt like I don’t deserve to heal -- as someone who perpetuates violence in these different ways -- just by virtue of identity. And I realized that I don’t know how profound it is for me to realize that, as a white person I do need to heal and I do suffer from the violence that I participate in.  I think there’s such profound potential in the merging of these two communities. There’s a lot that people in activist communities have to learn from different spiritual practices -- especially Zen. That’s something I think about a lot and the other way around, too.

M:  The other day I talked about Martin Luther King on Martin Luther King Day.  And it’s the same kind of thing that to bring this love and compassion and wisdom to our activism seems essential and yet…I grew up in an activist family in the 50’s and there was so much anger you know…and fear, a lot of fear, too…and hopelessness in a way. My parents fought for racial justice and against the war in Vietnam. And my mother always tells me this story about being pregnant with me during another dark time in our country’s history -- during the McCarthy era. And she was terrified every time the doorbell rang that it would be the FBI to take her away. I feel like I bathed in utero in paranoia…(laughter)…that’s where my paranoia comes from. I never trusted the government. My parents made sure that I didn’t trust the government. And as I got older and grew up in the 60’s there was all this activism.  And I saw this divide.  And my mother was worried about me when I started practicing Zen. She thought I was turning away from this. So I think this coming together, which is happening now…and has happened…Aitken Roshi wrote this book in 1984.  It’s very dated in a lot of ways but Aitken was a big activist in bringing the two communities together in his day.  He started the Buddhist Peace Fellowship along with Thich Nhat Hanh and some other people. And I think recently we have gotten sort of lazy. And now we’re in crisis, so everybody’s coming forward and this book Radical Dharma just came out. It’s a very hopeful time in a way even though it seems very dark and like we’re stuck in something difficult. I think because we can use this energy in this way.

Student Four:  It’s good that some time passed because my heart was beating really fast and when it does that it’s when something’s really important to me. So, living in a completely different country and yet being part of this world I’m also thinking that I often think about this…disaster happens in this world and we wake up to all this suffering that’s been going on the whole time. You know people are starving in Africa every day…disasters everywhere. But something radical happens and we wake up. And so if we try to keep that large perspective  -- yes, we have the president-elect and this thing happening tomorrow but there’s so much already going on that requires that we wake up. Just to remind ourselves of this bigger view. And then the other thing that comes to my heart is that it we don’t always have to take the two together.   That through our practice we can find out what is my contribution… in a small or large way. For some people it is to demonstrate, to walk rallies. For other people it’s something different.

M:  That’s right.

Student Four:  And to really use the kind of skillful means or sensitivity in our practice to find out where is it that we can come forward. Because we can get into these ways of thinking that we have to be activists that way, and just find that where is it that we can work? What does our life allow for? And it can be very small ways I think, very small ways also.

M:  Oh, yes.

Student Four:  My daughter’s father is an animal welfare activist and he’s been one for many years. He started out with anger and then he moved into much more skillful means and reaching much further. Not creating distance but creating intimacy and connection with people. So sometimes we’ve had that argument about what is more important?  To get out and stand on the soapbox and yell, or work in subtle ways? And I don’t think it’s one or the other.

M:  No. And I feel like it has to be aligned with our hearts.   So there are many ways, some subtle, some more direct: writing, organizing, running a temple, going to the food pantry, or going to a march. It doesn’t matter what we do.  I was going to say that I think the only thing that wouldn’t be useful would be turning away, but actually turning away is also important. Because sometimes we have to turn away to allow ourselves to prepare for when we turn back. So, all of it is the awakened heart in action.

Dharma Holder Bob Waldinger:  I’m resonating with what everyone’s saying and thinking that when I’m most passionately aroused that’s when my mind goes to try to create dualities.  It’s either activism or it’s contemplation. I’m a white privileged guy who’s harming people just by existing, or I’m a decent Buddhist who’s trying his best. Or I’m reacting to those Trump supporters who we have to fight against and throw sand in their gears. And I think that for me it’s when I’m most passionately aroused that I want to make these separations and so the challenge I’m finding is how do I stay passionately aroused and come back to the place of oneness and compassion from which I can act. And I think all of us are struggling with this … as Melissa was saying it’s not either/or…it’s not contemplation or activism. It’s not privilege or being one of the people.  We are all messy beings and so we try our best to do what little we can. But we keep trying.

D:  And I think too about cultivating courage, to have confidence. It’s so easy to get sucked out into what I should be doing or what someone else is doing, or I don’t know, or if I do this what if…and I think in some very genuine way on the cushion we actually are cultivating the capacity to show up and do something. Because we can’t know what the outcome is going to be and we can get scared on the cushion…I’m confused…and again and again with this posture and with this willingness whatever it is -- that this is my life, and how to do that not just here on the cushion. Laura, as you gave your talk the other day, one of the things you chose to say was about when we find our true way it is the Buddha Way. And so whatever we choose it’s from this place of trusting what we know. Trusting that deepest heart of compassion and then stepping forward to meet our life in the way each one of us has something to do that only we can do. And if we hold back because who am I? Or, it doesn’t matter, you know, there is this trust that is required to step out in whatever way calls to us in the moment.

Senior Dharma Teacher Laura Wallace:  Just continuing the flow. Bob spoke about whenever you’re the most passionate, and someone else spoke about the two different worlds, or two different communities, activism and spiritual. So what I noticed for myself is that when anger arises and fear arises there’s a great deal of energy and a lot of power! You know especially with anger…a lot a lot of power. And I was thinking about compassion and how often for me it appears as a softening and what arose for me in the moment was the energy of the softening, you know, not the same kind of like (exploding sound) of the anger, but more like (a smaller exploding sound).  It’s still a very powerful and moving energy of the softening of my heart. And to watch my mind make these definitions and ideas of where the energy can come from thinking that oh, yeah but it’s just energy…look at all these people that’s such great energy…but they’re angry and they’re afraid … and realizing that energy can arise as any number of things, that that energy can come forth from the fear or the not knowing what to do to.  And that I am angry but I don’t want to act from anger. We have a precept of not indulging in anger, not harboring ill will, right? So how can we sense the energy however it arises because when it does it also tends to move in a direction, and if I align with that then amazing things happen. It’s when I decide that only this energy is good over here and I’ll do that. Or the other thing is when I ignore where the energy is or clamp it down.

D:  And on that note let’s return to our zazen, trusting these energies in whatever form they arise.

Transcribed by Joanne Hart, edited by Melissa Myozen Blacker