After hearing about the ordeal that Ed Brown went through when a member of the audience sent a complaint to several senior priests about the content of Ed’s dharma talk. I felt that if I were asked to talk, I would be compelled to pass out a disclaimer to cover my ass. (Of course, I have never been asked to speak at ZC, and at least one of the reasons might become clear if you make it to the end.)
Friends, we have gathered to practice one of the most essential pieces of our work together. We listen and respond all the while realizing that the perfect dharma is imperfect in our hands. We chant a bit here and there and make some odd-sounding promises about dedicating our efforts to the liberation of all beings but then comes a presentation of the dharma. I intend to do my job. Hopefully, you will be offended; if you come with a mindset that can only hear what you’d like to hear, please leave. I am not a mind reader. I am not quite sure where my own mind will lead me, but hopefully it will be down a dark alley that needs a bit of light. If you’re at least willing to stay, sit still, and follow your own mind, you are welcome. This is a joint exploration. If not, the time is now. Please leave.
If you are willing, your mind and mine can start to dance, more like a call-and-response in the Black Church, allowing us to see ourselves. I say something, and you respond. There’s as much of a formula here as treading the well-known lyric of the "Old Rugged Cross."
On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross,
the emblem of suffering and shame;
and I love that old cross where the dearest and best
for a world of lost sinners was slain.
If I follow the (boring) script of most Zen Center talks, I will open by telling a personal story and paint a picture of myself, the inadvertent hero of my story, as stumbling along through life. Despite my sincere training, I got distracted; I stumbled, cracked my head, stepped in shit, mindlessly crushed a frog or even a snake, heard a madperson screaming incoherent truth in the center divide on Market Street, thoughtlessly dropped in the gutter the fiver that was intended for Mother Theresa, but I use the occasion to turn my attention inward, examine myself, realize that in this fleeting instant the dharmakaya opened with unmistakable brilliance. I resolve to dive in more deeply, to apply my Buddhist principles more generously, plus any number of other worthwhile ways in which I might lessen my suffering and the suffering of others in the world. I am not disparaging any of these aims or outcomes. In a word, they are lovely. it’s all very genial. We smile over cookies and tea.
But now we come to the part in my talk where you ask, why is he saying that? How dare he go there? That tone. That language. We can talk about sex and drugs and rock and roll as long we use the prescribed politically correct language and (at least pretend) that is all in the past. We left those experiences as we emerged from the Summer of Love with a drug hangover that lasted a few weeks. Thank god it cleared up quickly.
Most talks are, at least to some degree, commentary on some Buddhist Scripture. And if it gets real, it gets real, but the chances are minimal. I recall hearing a public talk by the Dalai Lama when he attempted to bring an esoteric distinction from a Gelugpa text into a bedroom fight between a husband and wife. He was not successful, but not because of the bedroom part. He turned it into an Ozzie and Harriet squabble, not a serious discussion about sexuality and the inequality of power and consent. He opened the door but then didn't walk through. He played it for the laugh. Ed Brown’s accuser would have little to complain about.
I promise that if I am lucky enough to open a door, I will try to walk in. I certainly will not shy away due to some prudery or elevated sense of myself.
Now, just to be clear, my mother taught me well, and I usually reserve profanity for private moments. I will also try to frame what I say in a way that you are at least open to listening. I certainly will not encourage you to break the precepts even if I am commenting on the “Kill the Buddha” koan, but neither will I try to explain it away or give an answer I don’t have—certainly not one that you want to believe but is just a pack of lies.
When I first started going to Hartford Street Zen Center, there was a small group of gay men who were students of one Tibetan teacher or another. They gathered around Issan because he was himself a serious student willing to talk to them about their practice while their teachers were too far away or sitting on a throne too high. One Monday night after Zazen, I met one of these men, and we struck up a tentative light-hearted conversation. That next weekend, he was headed south to LA for a White Mahakala ceremony led by the renowned Kalu Rinpoche. I mentioned that I had taken refuge with the Rinpoche almost 20 years earlier. He said come along. We would drive down to Monterey Park, where the Rinpoche’s supporters had rented a Chinese hotel for the occasion. Afterwards we would go to a seedy Hollywood hotel my new friend liked for some reason I cannot fathom other than it was gay and seedy. Coincidentally my friend Juan B. was also going to attend. We arranged to meet at the ceremony. He was going with some of his rich Chinese friends, and they had already made dinner plans. A steady stream of world-renowned chefs had turned this affluent suburb into a gourmet haven for Hong Kong cuisine before HK was to be handed back to the People’s Republic
My new friend and I went to the ceremony, did the complicated visualization, chanted, and received what would be Kalu’s last blessing. We then went to the gay hotel for a sleepless night of incessant knocking on the door, and in the morning we drove back to San Francisco. There had been no sign of Juan and his friends. I called Juan, but he did not answer.
I returned to a flood of horrific news. Juan and his friends had been seated at a choice table facing the street when a driver lost control at high speed, jumped the curb, and crashed through the large plate glass. One of Juan’s party was killed. They were all taken to hospital. The emergency room and morgue became the shrine room of the White Mahakala. After we clean up the blood, comfort the grieving, and arrange for the cremation, what else is there for us to do? Some might ask why the occasion of a great blessing turned into a nightmare. Can a lama spin a tale of hidden karma and honorable intentions to help us escape our fear of pain and death? Is there any satisfactory explanation beyond the pious lie machine? I say no, not within the realm of our understanding.
The choir invokes the image of the old rugged cross. It is imaginary. It makes no sense. In our case, the only part that does make sense is that it is an emblem of suffering. Somehow the hymnist manages to drag love into the picture of sin and shame. I’m sorry. That is the best I can do with it myself without wandering into a make-believe world of elevated lies. Sometimes the dharma is like that, rudely breaking into our world with no formal introduction, not making any sense.
It seems hit or miss. I will not ask you to forgive the pun. Sometimes a teaching will get you to first base, and sometimes the fly ball will be caught and you’re out. But we still honor the dharma. We cannot retreat. It is in the very nature of the dharma. If you can't hear that and are going to feel affronted, please leave.
