On Saturday October 2, 2021, SBZC was pleased to have Gerry Oliva Sensei as our Guest Teacher.

Gerry Oliva hails from New York City. She began her Zen practice in 1989 at Green Gulch Zen Center where her teacher was Tenshin Reb Anderson. She transitioned to practice at Berkeley Zen Center in 1996 and was lay-ordained by Sojun Mel Weitsman in 1997. Her Dharma name is Seisen Ikushin - Pure Stream Nourishing Heart. She was Shuso at BZC in 2008. She spent several 3-month practice periods at Tassajara Mountain Zen Center. She received priest ordination from Sojun Roshi in September of 2012 and Dharma Transmission in 2017. For the past 12 years Gerry has been facilitating the BZC Wednesday night drop-in sitting and study group. She is now BZC’s Coordinator and is active in the Awakening to Racism sub- groups: microaggression, reading group and Alameda county Jail PenPal project. Gerry is a retired pediatrician with a focus on Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health and Community public health. She has been on the faculty of UCSF Medical School for over 25 years. She still does some part-time consulting for UCSF. She has two grown sons and three grandchildren and delights in kayaking, birding, hiking and family life.

Full Transcript

Gata, an opening the Sutra, the Dharma incredibly profound and infinitely subtle, is rarely millions of ages now we see it here to receive and maintain it may we completely realize that the target is teaching.

I should say before I start, actually reach pull this forward now, that I also endeavor with great enthusiasm to encourage Joel to exercise at Tassajara and I would invite him on hikes when I went. The most hysterical one was when we were crossing the Narrows, which is this broad stream of water. I took the wrong turn, and in order to get to the other side of the pathway, you had to cross the Narrows. There were these big stones sticking up from the water, and of course Joel had never actually done anything like that. That's not true actually. I thought, "Oh my god, poor Joel, you know he'll fall or whatever," but he didn't know enough to be scared. So I was very delicately crossing the stream and Joel, like Tinkerbell, kind of bounced from stone to stone and came to the end. It was really funny. We've had tons of funny times.

I'll just reassure Jerry that I have, I'm now doing physical training and working with a nutritionist. Good to hear, good to hear. That's right, good to hear.

Okay, so today I'm really happy to be here in Zoomland with you. This talk comes out of kind of a journey, my journey through what I call the raging seas of the pandemic. It's been challenging me over and over again. I understand impermanence but not this. Sure, there's old age, sickness, and death. I know I can't hold on to anyone or anything, but how could my dear teacher die right in the middle of the pandemic and leave me without any guidance? How could my temple close so that I could no longer continue my daily body-to-body practice?

I hated Zoom at first. I had this hatred, this aversion. I'm confessing a strong aversion to having to rely on texts or email or Zoom for all my interactions. But then, after fighting it, after engaging in the battle with my big self, I started to recognize that this is it, you know? And every day I would say, "This is it, this is it."

People in my sangha would tell me that they saw me as a really grounded person, very grounded in practice. But this person in the middle of the pandemic, instead of swimming in faith as I had always done, was consumed by the sea of great doubt. I felt at times sort of paralyzed or stuck, trying to work with not self-judgment but just being present, just taking it moment by moment and then coming back to some aversion or some fear. So I started to more and more go back to the basics of Buddhist teaching and try to restore my foundation.

One of the ways that has sustained me, and Joel mentioned in his introduction, was this weekly sitting group I've done for over 10 years. The group has long-term members and short-term members and welcomes new people. It's a drop-in group. I never know who's coming or how many will be there. What I've noticed in the last year and a half or so is that whatever disturbing, frightening, or discouraging news I've had that day, whatever my mental state is with all the afflictive states of mind, when I walk into my office, I look at the altar that you see behind me, I light a candle, I bow with love to the pictures of Suzuki Roshi and Sojun Roshi, I sit down, I ring the bell and sit quietly, and almost imperceptibly, everything except the connection with the commitment to the students fades in the background.

For the past six months, we've been reading together and discussing Katagiri Roshi's "Returning to Silence," which ends with my favorite commentary on the Bodhisattva's Four Methods of Guidance. So that's what I'm going to talk about today. I surprisingly thought this would be a little dry for the students, but I found that the teaching really resonated with people. People could relate to deepening their understanding of these four methods in their lives, especially during the pandemic. Somehow, as we just quietly reflected on the teaching, people would come up with new insights: "Oh, I never thought of it this way." We just engaged in this kind of compassionate sitting and discussing and being with each other, and somehow Zoom began to be something comforting. We all could actually begin to relate to each other.

We started to look more closely - I don't know if any of you had this experience or how much you do sitting and practicing, but we do a lot of BCC. Eventually, you start picking up signals from people. You actually start to feel connected and you start to feel supported.

So I'll discuss these four methods and something about how they've impacted me and my little group over time, and hopefully, they'll be useful to you as well. In the translation that I was using originally, Kaz Tanahashi's translation of the Shobogenzo version, he calls the four methods of guidance: giving, kind speech, beneficial action, and identity action. In a different translation, they're called the four exemplary acts of the bodhisattva: offering alms, using kindly speech, showing benevolence, and manifesting sympathy. In other texts, these are known as four wisdoms: charity, tenderness, benevolence, and sympathy.

The first of these, giving, when Dogen talks about it, he says the essence of giving is non-attachment. Suzuki Roshi says that it's a recognition that every existence in the world, every cultural work that we create, is something which is given or being given to us moment by moment. We're creating something, and this is the joy of life, but this "I" which is creating and always giving out something is not the small self, it's the big self. When you give something, you feel good because at that time you feel at one with what you're giving. That's Suzuki Roshi.

Katagiri, interestingly, talks about the three ways of giving. The first is obvious, like the giving of alms - how you give material support like paying dues, donating money, working on the temple grounds, bringing food, or providing shelter as lay people do to support their teacher or the temple resident monks. But Dogen also includes offering flowers blooming on a distant mountain, a cup of water to someone who's thirsty, meeting the eyes of a smile, and smiling at someone you pass on the street. Dogen says the question is not whether the gift is valuable in material terms but whether there is merit, and he refers to that wonderful old Chinese tale of a little boy who meets the Buddha and his entourage on the road. He has nothing to give, but he is so in awe of the Buddha that he picks up some sand with his hand and walks up to the Buddha and gives the Buddha some sand. The story goes that in his reincarnation, he became King Ashoka, who was very renowned in Buddha's time for benefiting, devoting all his wealth and power to support Buddhism and to build stupas along the path of the Buddha's life. So if you go to India and do a Buddhist pilgrimage, you can walk along and go to Lumbini and go to Kushinagara and go to all the places that Buddha taught, and there are little stupas built by this little boy who gave Buddha a handful of sand. I just flashed on my grandson giving me a little cheese fish, you know, and then it's the biggest gift, the biggest gift, that little fish.

The other kind of teaching is Dharma teaching, teaching people to wake up. There's not a lot of words in some of these things when Buddha says them, but one of the things that Dogen, of course - his big thing is not the essence of giving teaching, it's not without self-consciousness, not without ego. You're not trying to impress anybody, you're not looking for fame or gain, you're not walking around speaking because you think that's a big deal. He says these are not your teachings, these are just teachings.

Dogen also says, "When you leave the way to the way, you attain the way." So when you leave the teaching to teaching, the teaching is the way. At the time of attaining the way, the way is always left to the way. When treasure is left just to treasure, treasure becomes giving. You give yourself to yourself and others to others.

Katagiri says that when you give a dharma talk, it's a great benefit to you because you get an opportunity to deepen your understanding. And that's really true, you know. When you are asked to give a dharma talk, you study way too much. You study way too much, you could ever share during the dharma talk. You want to really know, you're going to - you get through this phase. I mean, Mary Mocine, just - I don't know if you know her, she's another one of Sojun Roshi's Deshi, but she talks about, you know, she spends weeks gathering all these materials and then, you know, when it gets close to the talk, she kind of throws them away and just stands up there.

The third kind of giving is something I hadn't really come across in Katagiri Roshi's book "Returning to Silence." I hadn't really thought of it that way and people in my group were very interested in this. He said the third type of giving is fearlessness and there are four kinds of fearlessness: fearlessness arising from awareness of something omnipresent in the world, fearlessness arising from perfection of character, fearlessness arising from overcoming opposition, and fearlessness arising from experiencing the arising and ending of suffering over and over again until we're free from suffering.

This resonated very much with me. What I learned from my teachers was being able to go through life, watch them practice side by side with them, and watch them in their greeting each thing with deliberation, deliberateness, calmness, tranquility. For example, when I was talking about the pandemic, as the digital world is upon us and as we come across this stuff, we can get overwhelmed because it's really serious impermanence. It's deathly impermanence. We learn something and then that isn't right. We can't count on anything, but we can count on our breath and our practice. This gives us, when we rely on it, when we go through the world in a way that we can manifest that settledness, that being with whatever is, that fearlessness that really is an inspiration for other people. That is a great way, more than a dharma talk, that fearlessness is really what can impact people.

The other points that were made, and I think Dogen and Katagiri both stress, is that there is some stepping back from giving in a certain way. When you read a situation and you want to be generous and compassionate, you rely on your intuitive mind. You rely on your foundation of practice to be skillful. What is the right thing to say here? How can I support this person? What is appropriate for this moment? What can be discouraging? So that mind, we go back to our mind of compassion, we go back to our mind of tranquility, and in that mind we trust that out of that will come an appropriate way to give.

The other thing that they stressed was that giving begins at home. In other words, we have to take care of our practice. We have to take care of that. That is the essential bottom line. Dogen says if you are to practice giving, you're given to yourself. How much more so to your parents, wife, and children? Therefore you should know that to give to yourself is part of giving. Even when you give a particle of dust, you should rejoice in your own act.

Katagiri stresses that the way that we take care of ourselves is being upright and colorful, being upright and cultivating and strengthening our character. He says perfection of character is something that makes us free from suffering. Suzuki Roshi urges us to be kind to ourselves also. So we have to take care of our practice. That's the basis of giving.

The second method of guidance is right speech. Dogen defines this as when you see sentient beings, you arouse the mind of compassion and offer words of loving care. So much of our interaction, especially during these days, is about giving and writing. People are suffering and highly sensitive, at least I find they're seeking comfort or companionship, and our actions and our words are magnified. So it takes great care. It's very easy to misspeak when you're responding quickly to a text or an email, especially if it's charged. I used to put post-its on my computer that said "Stop, wait, don't respond, you're triggered, no don't do this."

I made one mistake early on in the epidemic at a senior student meeting. I said something that felt insulting in an email and I had to do penance at several senior student meetings after that. I thought, how could I possibly forget? I was doing something that I thought was defending my teacher, but in doing so, in the words that I used, it caused harm. So I had to eat that. I had to confess and repent, and of course that's what we do when we misspeak, because we always misspeak, especially to people closer to us.

Katagiri emphasizes that what's under our actions is the mind that produces the kind speech. This is the mind that sees each person as Buddha, capable of awakening, a mind that sees and understands how delusion and conditioning affect people's actions. Dogen says praise those with virtue and pity those without it. I thought that was really kind of interesting because those without virtue are also who can awaken, and we feel compassion for them rather than judgment.

Katagiri says if kind speech is offered, virtue will grow. Kind speech is the basis for reconciling rulers and subduing enemies. I thought that was very interesting. I was thinking about politics, reconciling rulers and subduing enemies, the kind word. Very interesting.

Katagiri also differentiates between nice speech or ingratiating speech designed to gain favor, and skillful speech which is offered as a gift to support people's awakening. He states, "Don't misunderstand kind speech thinking it is working for this moment. If somebody gives us friendly sympathetic words in order to help us, sometimes it doesn't work because we're not ready to accept them." That's what you say to your kids, right? You have to say, or your partner, they're not ready to accept the words. Even then we should know that it's working for this. We need compassion. If we use rough language and scold somebody, it is necessary that it be based on compassion.

So even if we have to do correction, it has to be coming from a place of not being triggered, but a place of really supporting that person in their practice. Sometimes we do have to say things as part of our Zen practice. If we become teachers, we see students kind of repeating the same problems over and over again and asking the same questions: "What do I do about this?" Sometimes you just have to say, "Stop. This isn't okay." But you say it with love, and if it's said with love and you feel love when you're saying it, that's what you have to feel. You have to find that love and support in you so that you can then say those words that are going to help someone and perhaps have an aha moment.

This was a really big issue at BCC during the pandemic because a lot of people used our listserv, and some people seem to be on the listserv all day. I mean, I was starting to just erase the listserv because people were so lonely. But then we started to have really heated conversation and some people insulted each other. It started to be, and the quote-unquote leadership, and I have the position of coordinator right now, the administrative position, we're kind of "What do we do about this?" We haven't really had to deal with something like this. People are obviously upset and triggered by the pandemic, but we have to stop this.

I ended up, we ended up writing a post to one person reminding them of kind speech and having to share that with everyone because there was such a huge amount of people who were really upset. This dissension was really causing, one person actually said he was going to leave if something wasn't done. So we ended up spending a lot of time trying to develop a set of listserv guidelines that were adopted by the board and so forth that we then made a part of our listserv guidance. But it was, and a lot of the guidelines really talk about right speech, that we do not use provocative language. We do not accuse people. It was shocking to have to do that in a spiritual community, but that's what the pandemic did to us. And so it was a learning, it was really a learning experience for all of us that we can fall so easily into this dysfunctional anger and controversy unless we are really diligent and vigilant and respond to it. So we learned, we all learned a big lesson with that.

The third method is called beneficial action. Dogen says that beneficial action is skillfully to benefit all classes of beings. That is to care about their distant and near future and to help them by using skillful means. And he urged us again with an open heart that has no expectation of getting any reward. In the same way that we practice giving and speech, we don't use speech for self-advancement. Dogen says, "Foolish people think that if they help others first, their own benefit will be lost, but this is not so." So again, just as in giving and speech, beneficial action is an act of oneness benefiting self and others together. So even if we do it without any gaining idea, the benefit, we share the benefit. The giver, receiver, and gift, the person, the actor, and the recipient of the action are one. When we do that with our understanding and our groundedness and our compassion, that's beneficial action.

So when we had to write the letter, a post back to the person who was the most aggressive on the listserv, we tried to appreciate him and understand his suffering. We knew that he had suffering. We knew something about him. We knew he had had a very difficult life, and yet he was doing harm. So when we took action with that person, we did so not banishing him, but asking him to recognize the impact of his speech.

Katagiri makes the point that beneficial action is the fruit of giving in speech. It's kind of like the eightfold path. You start with right view, and then right thinking, and then right speech, and then right action. So that's kind of what he's saying. You have to perfect the others. You can't really work on your speech without working on what's going on in your mind, the mind that is speaking, the mind that is giving. He urges us to constantly give thought to how we can cause everybody, all sentient beings, to awaken to themselves, and beneficial action is to lead them through word or deed to the Buddha way. He talks about the importance of paying attention to detail. We should be on the alert for opportunities to act.

At BCC, during the pandemic, a lot of new programs arose that were beneficial, that people felt that they wanted to give to other people. They wanted to manifest their practice, their generosity. Some members decided they were going to continue to come and keep up the temple grounds. We have Garden Day once a month. Other people started a homeless bag lunch program. They get together, they make their sandwiches, somebody picks them up, and somebody takes them to the homeless shelter. A number of groups came together to study racism and examine where we as individuals and organizations could become more inclusive. Someone else is starting a climate change group. There's always something beneficial that we can do, even in these times, to help others.

In the Wednesday night group, we talked about just when we take a walk on the street, noticing the people we meet, stepping in to help them. I had an experience of finding this young child running alone in my neighborhood, about three years old, and I kind of stopped the kid and said, "Hi, where are you? Where's your mom?" We went to find her. We back traced steps to where her mom was. Her mom was really thrilled to have her child back. Sometimes it's an older person who drops something. You can't pick it up. Rather than just, if you see somebody having difficulty just doing something spontaneous, we're smiling. We're just saying some simple verbal exchange. Commenting on people's dogs is always good. "Your dog is so cute. Your baby is so cute." And there's an interaction. There's an action there. There's "I see you. I am compassionate. I share your love of your dog. I'm joining you in your love of your child."

And just having this kind of discussion really gave people a feeling like we're not helpless here. The world is falling apart, but I can even take a walk or go to the supermarket or something, and some little action can really impact somebody. It can change somebody who's depressed and feels like nobody notices them. They're all alone and is desperate. Somebody smiling and having a conversation. I matter. I'm noticed. I'm included.

This leads to the last of the four, which is really what I've been talking about with the last three. Identity acts called identity action. Dogen says this means non-difference. Non-difference from self, non-difference from others. Katagiri says identity action means there's no difference between the object of our devotion and us. We're completely one.

I immediately think of my two grandkids that are nearby. One is two and a half and the other is just one. Just instinctively, of course I was a pediatrician, so I love kids and I had kids. I instinctively get down on the floor. I completely get involved in looking at their little faces to see what's going on in those little faces. What do they say? The older one speaks and can tell me various things that are going on in his little mind. When I do that, there's only one thing happening. There's putting the blocks on top of each other or climbing. There's climbing. There's hiding and finding. There's having play acting with stuffed animals, helping them to discover new skills. My great joy this week was teaching my grandson that when you count fingers, you actually count one number for each finger and that we all had the same number of fingers. There was just a joy in being two and a half again. Of course, I'm still a grandmother watching my grandkid and making sure nothing happens, but I'm also a two and a half year old playing with blocks.

Katagiri also adds that it's also the same way with nature. Taking care of nature. To be in nature and to be one with nature, you automatically take care of nature. That's another thing I do to feed myself. Just around my house, I just two or three times a day walk around my house in my yard. I look at the plants. All of a sudden, weeding has to happen. All of a sudden, one of the plants falls over and I have to put a support in it. Oh, these plants that aren't getting enough water, whatever. That is just an act of completely engaging. Engaging with those things. All that's existing is that plant that needs a support.

To me, identity action means being fully present and curious about who and what we encounter moment to moment. Fully present with our actions, words, and deeds moment to moment. My aspiration is to be able to intuit what's needed seamlessly and respond skillfully. Being as much connected and in a sense of oneness as I can. When I do that, I don't worry. When I do that, everything else falls away. I can be calm. I can find joy in simple things.

I hope that you will all practice the four methods of guidance with some consciousness at some point. When you're down, when you're afraid, when you're anxious, that you can really find that love and support in those actions. Thank you.

Thank you so much for this encouraging, supportive talk. Sange, this is your opportunity to ask questions. Please unmute yourselves if you have a question. Or a comment or something to add. Yes, all of those.