Good morning. Our speaker today is Catherine Cascade, who is a disciple of Hozan Alan Sanaki, and has been a resident priest here at Berkeley Zen Center since 2007. Catherine began to sit at Shasta Abbey, and then was with Maile Scott at the Arcata Den Group before coming here. Katherine is by profession a hospice chaplain and she is presently a chaplain at the Holtz Hospice out in the valley. We're so happy to have you speak with us this morning, Catherine.

[01:03]

Thank you. Thank you, Megan. Good morning. Good morning. I hope you're all managing to stay comfortable, reasonably comfortable, on this brisk and refreshing summer morning. We're the tribe of folks who are not on vacation and not sitting in the mountains and rivers retreat. I don't know if sitting is quite the right word for that. Sitting and hiking and probably a good bit chillier than we are. So this morning I'm going to talk about loving speech or kind speech. At the same time that I started preparing to give this talk, I was also approaching a situation in which I need to talk with someone with whom I have a difficult relationship about a difficulty, a particular difficulty that has arisen between us.

[02:19]

And when I went to Po San, my teacher, to talk about this, He suggested that I study Bodhisattva Shishobo. Hozan and Shohaku Okamura have a translation of that fascicle from Dogen's Shobogenzo, and they render the title as the Bodhisattva's Four Embracing Dharmas. Now the list of four things, it goes all the way back into the Pali Sutras. And when people are referring specifically to those, to how it appears in the Pali Sutras, it's often, the title is often rendered the four foundations of social unity. And it's often cited when people are talking about peacemaking.

[03:25]

So those four embracing dharmas, the four foundations of social unity are giving or offering, dharma, kind or loving speech, piyavaka, beneficial action, atacharya, and identity action, samanatata. So because I was struggling with how to talk with someone and was approaching a situation where talking was likely to be the vehicle through which the other three embracing dharmas might manifest, I decided to focus on loving speech or kind speech or kindly speech.

[04:31]

Sometimes I really appreciate seeing a given word in Pali or Sanskrit rendered in a lot of different, slightly different translations. It's kind of like the facets of a jewel or something. I can see it more completely. So, what is loving speech? We have in the Noble Eightfold Path, we have right speech, and I'm not sure if that's the same as loving speech or if loving speech is a subcategory of right speech, I don't know. And in the precepts, we have some guidelines about what does not constitute right speech or loving speech.

[05:33]

Those are lying, self-promoting at the expense of others, fault-finding, withholding, and angry speech. But what is loving speech? This is a do message. We get those do not messages, but this is a do message. In a previous incarnation, I was a special ed teacher, and I worked with behavior disordered kids, and I learned the value of do messages. Not, you know, don't think about monkeys, don't think about monkeys. So I appreciate that. What to do? So here are some excerpts from Dogen's fascicle, Bodhisattva Shishobo, the part on loving speech that really came forward for me, that really stood out for me.

[06:55]

got lit up. He starts off by saying, loving speech means whenever meeting sentient beings, first arouse compassionate mind toward them, and then offer caring and loving words. First arouse compassionate mind, then offer words. Later he says, From the moment we begin to delight in loving speech, it grows little by little. When we practice this way, loving speech, which is usually invisible and unknown, will manifest itself. Whether we are subduing a deadly foe or making peace among people, loving speech is fundamental. And his closing sentence is, study the way that loving speech has the power to transform the world.

[08:05]

It is not merely praising someone's abilities. That really got my attention, the power to transform the world. So first arouse compassionate mind. So I took a look at that. Can I, in this difficult situation, arouse compassionate mind, wake up compassionate mind? And in waking up compassionate mind, I needed to look carefully at the other person and What I saw was someone at a very challenging and uncomfortable time of life, quite aside from the difficulty arising between us, and a person with some fear.

[09:17]

And I found that in myself too, some fear and mistrust. So, yeah, both of us with this mistrust and this fear, this suffering. Suffering not so different from each other. Now, some mistrust is certainly not unjustified or misguided. I don't leave my wallet on the shoe rack outside and trust that it'll be there when I go back out because things have disappeared from the shoe rack. But when I make the decision not to leave my wallet out there and bring it in, I don't necessarily experience fear particularly.

[10:22]

Fear is something extra. So what about that? Looking more deeply into that fear that was, that is, has been arising in me in relation to this difficult situation. Trying to get to the bottom of that, one of the things that I found was that it was related to a feeling of helplessness, of not being able, not quite knowing how to meet the situation. I felt like I lacked the means, the skillful means. And when Dogen talks about the third of these embracing dharmas, which is beneficial action, he says, beneficial action means to create skillful means to benefit all living beings.

[11:41]

So that was helpful. And that increased my desire to study loving speech, which hopefully would give me some skillful means in this situation where I was experiencing some mistrust. Fearless Mrs. said to me the gift of a bodhisattva, it's one of the gifts of a bodhisattva, this wonderful mudra of raising the hand. It's the fearlessness mudra. So how can I receive this gift of fearlessness, give this gift of fearlessness to myself and by extension to this other person as well?

[12:46]

Even when there is some mistrust, some genuine mistrust, One of the things that came up in my mind was a saying that many of you may have heard in one form or another. The form I've heard it in is, keep your heart open and tie up your camel. Keep your heart open and take sensible precautions. In my case, tying up my camel in a kind of real literal way takes the form of putting a club on the steering wheel of my car. I park it outside in front of BCC, and I have an ancient and venerable Toyota. It's really ancient. And it's of a vintage that is easily started with sort of non-specific key-like objects.

[13:51]

you know, the blade of a pair of scissors or something like that. And actually, people have tried to steal my car out there in front of BCC several times and found these things broken off in the door locks, broken off in the ignition. So now I've got a club on the steering wheel. And that allows me to keep my heart open to the neighborhood. And I don't You know, fearful particularly. So how can I keep my heart open? How can I arouse and awaken a compassionate mind and keep it awake while at the same time keeping my camel tied up seeing things as they really are? to give rise to some kind of speech in the midst of it all.

[14:58]

Katagiri Roshi has a couple of books. They're in sequence. The first one is Returning to Silence, and the second one is You Have to Say Something. Returning to Silence, Keeping My Heart Open, Awakening Compassionate Mind. And then I have to say something. How am I going to do that? Thich Nhat Hanh in a wonderful little book called Interbeing says that loving speech is born from understanding and patience. So understanding, standing under, right in the middle, not stepping away, not pushing away, not standing outside, not distancing myself. and standing under and inside and listening deeply for the meaning inside the words, inside the other person's words, what they're saying, what they're doing.

[16:14]

What does this person care about? What does this person need? What does this person want? Listening for that. understanding and patience. Sometimes it seems like patience means waiting, waiting for something else, waiting for things to be different, waiting for things to be other than this unsatisfactory way that they are. But I think that what patience really means is just Accepting things as they really are and staying present with them. Just staying there. Not in a hurry. Not wanting things to change. One might want things to change. But not dwelling in that mind. Being with things as they really are.

[17:18]

Letting things be as they really are. Paying attention to how things really are. and not turning away. Not turning away. As I said, I used to work with kids and a wise person in that arena said that for kids, paying attention is an operational definition of love. And I think that has a lot of truth in it for the rest of us too. paying attention. So I think that patience and paying attention have a lot of overlap. So first arouse compassionate mind with understanding and patience.

[18:23]

And then offer words. Then offer words. And the interesting word here is offer. Offer words. It brings us back to the first embracing Dharma, which is giving or offering. Making an offering. difficult situations where there's mistrust, it's pretty easy to slip into using words as self-protection, as defense, as a weapon, or as a bargaining tool. Use words in some instrumental way to make something happen that's favorable to oneself But here, in the sense of being and embracing Dharma, words are an offering.

[19:36]

Dana. The word Dana refers, in its root meaning, to the reciprocal circle of giving and receiving alms and dharma on the part of the monks in the Buddha's Sangha. The monks offer dharma, the Sangha offers alms, and it keeps going around. Lewis Hyde in a book called The Gift, which I understand was very influential for Maile Scott, who, by the way, I didn't I didn't meet Maile until after she died, but I do feel like I meet her often in the faces, the eyes, the stories of people who did meet her when she was alive. I understand that was a book that was very influential to her.

[20:42]

It's called The Gift, and one of the central teachings of that book about gifts is that something is only a gift if it keeps moving. So it's not a gift if I take it and keep it to myself. But in gift-giving cultures, it's a gift because it circulates. Like the circle of Dana with the monks and giving Dharma and the Sangha giving alms. And it's really brings forward the non-duality of giving and receiving. We do lay ordination every year, and one of the words for the ceremonies around lay ordination is jukai.

[21:42]

It's a Japanese word, jukai. And it means both Giving precepts and receiving precepts. It can be used in either way. It's the same word for giving precepts and receiving precepts. And it isn't like a compound word, giving and receiving precepts. It's one word for what's going on there. Something that's not dual. not split between the giver and the receiver. And as I looked at that, what I realized is that in loving speech, in kindly speech, it's not self speaking to other, but in a very real and concrete way, self speaking to self.

[22:48]

I receive my own words simply in the speaking itself. Right then I experience the karmic effects of my own words in my own body-mind. How does it feel in my body-mind when I give angry words? Or when I give friendly words? So I invite you to try it out. Imagine in your mind's eye, or however you imagine, some people don't imagine in their mind's eye, however it is that you imagine, that you're face to face with someone with whom you have a difficult relationship. And that difficulty, that difficult relationship has flared up and you are really, really angry.

[23:53]

You're very angry at that person. They have violated something that really matters to you. You're really angry and you just spit out angry words. Imagine, in your mind, spitting out those angry words. and feel how that feels in your body right now, how it feels in your throat, how it feels in your chest, how it feels in your belly, in your arms, in your hands. So now, letting that cloud blow over, imagine in your mind's eye, or whatever else you use for imagining, that you're in a kitchen, and on a low table, there's a tart, a lovely, big, beautiful tart.

[25:18]

It's got a buttery, flaky crust, It's filled with creamy custard and strewn across the top are beautiful glittering fruits, berries, blackberries, raspberries, slices of nectarine. And it's just beautiful. And with you in the kitchen is a small child of whom you're quite fond. Or maybe it's your dog that you just dearly love. Now, that little hand, that doggy tongue, are going for the tart. And you stretch out your hand quickly, quickly, and you take hold of the little hand, or you take hold of the collar, of that sweet dog and you say, no, no, you can't do that, I won't let you do that, no.

[26:27]

So notice how that feels, how that feels in your throat, in your chest, in your belly, in your arms, in your hands. So even the words that are not spoken have an effect. So Tolkien says, from the moment we begin to delight in loving speech, it grows little by little. So it grows. It grows, it increases. The effect grows, naturally grows. So, the effect, that puts us in the realm of karma, the law of cause and effect.

[27:41]

In this kind of unknowably vast network or web of interconnections, When you drop a pebble in a pond it makes ripples and the ripples go out and out and out and then they come in contact with other ripples or with objects and more ripples go out from there and it's the effect grows in ways beyond what we can know. It's said that only a Buddha can understand karma completely because it's just so unimaginably complex. So each volitional act, each word that we choose has that quality of

[28:51]

growing. So if we choose loving words, loving speech, it naturally grows. It's not so much a matter of getting the words perfect as it is the intention behind the words, the intention behind any volitional act. It brings us back to compassionate mind, awakening compassionate mind. is the mind ground out of which loving speech can arise. And he says, loving speech has the power to transform the world. Boy, did that ever get my attention. But this isn't about making nice and telling people how great they are. It's not just for when the going is easy. We really need it when the going is not easy. How can I offer words offer words that are hard to hear.

[29:54]

The other person might really prefer that I not say an offering that the other person might initially not wish to receive. So I went looking for skillful means. I went looking for do messages, more do messages, and went rummaging around on the internet. We 21st century Western Buddhists have the wonderful advantage of being able to access so much on the internet, so many of these old, old wisdom writings. So I found a good bit. One of the first things I found was on a website called urbandharma.org and it's by Bhikkhu P.A.

[31:02]

Payutto talking about about Piyavakta, the second foundation of social unity or the second foundation or the second embracing Dharma. And he said, it's usually based on the first three sublime states, which are the Brahma-viharas, the divine abidings, metta, loving-kindness, karuna, sympathy or compassion, mudita, taking joy and the joy of others, and upetta, equanimity. He says, friendly speech based on netta as a basic attitude in everyday situations. kindly speech based on Karuna in times of difficulty, as with words of advice and condolence, and congratulatory speech based on Mudita, as in words of encouragement in times of happiness and success. Those are the easy ones.

[32:02]

However, when confronted with problems in social situations, Piyavaka can be expressed as impartial and just speech based on Upekta. equanimity. So impartial and just, fair. There are also lots of references to the Buddha saying, speak only when it is, speak only what is true, timely, and beneficial or hopeful. But I really hit paydirt when I got to the Sarayaka Sutta. which talks about the ten courses of wholesome dharma. Ten ways that wholesome, not dharma, karma, sorry. The ten courses of wholesome karma. And he has a very informative list relating to verbal conduct.

[33:06]

So he starts off to be true. There's no getting around it. It should promote concord. That made me think about a book that was around a lot in the 80s. It was called Getting to Yes, and it was about negotiating in difficult situations. Getting to Yes. What promotes... Where do you find the possibilities for concord, for agreement, for unity? So, promoting concord. It should be civil, polite, and not harsh. It should go to the heart, not intellectualizing, but going to the heart of the matter from your own heart. It should be reasoned and definite, which is to say clear, as clear as you can be, and connected with good,

[34:12]

well-intentioned. And then he winds it up with something that really opened things up for me in a surprising way. He said it should be speech-worth recording. And I thought, oh dear, this is going to be recorded. And then it'll slip up and stumble, and things I wish I had said differently is going to be recorded. And then, Shelley said to put it on the internet. But I don't think that's what he meant. Going back to my years working with little kids, and I did work with little kids, mostly pretty little kids, and having little kids of my own, that awful moment when I realized that they had been, in their little minds, picking up and recording some aspects of my speech, I did not want to hear it played back.

[35:16]

How unseemly it was, and I particularly was aware of that when my Midwestern parents came to visit and my young son busted out with a few words that really were not, really sounded awful when they were listening to that recording. What it made me aware of is we're always recording in each other's minds. We're always receiving and somehow what we say to each other goes in and in some way stays there. Some might say we're always teaching each other something about how to be either for good or for ill. And it points to speech that is not kind of self-indulgent, self-expression.

[36:23]

You know, I want to be heard, god damn it, and I'm just going to say my piece how I want to say it, and nobody can stop me. Not that kind of speech. There's a place for that, but not when you listen endeavoring to engage loving speech in an interaction. So speech is spoken from the point of view of what will be heard, what will be understood, how will this speech be received, what seed is this speech planting in the ear of the listener as well as in my own body-mind. as I speak it. So I think that's enough speech from me. And I'm curious if any of you have anything.

[37:27]

I'm wondering, thank you for the speech. It was very kind. And I would ask if you could elaborate on something you mentioned, which is kind of speech in a bargaining or negotiating context. And I'm thinking in those contexts, you're not exactly, if you're in a bargaining situation, not exactly, or you shouldn't exactly be being selfish, but you do have interests to represent. Like, for example, in business negotiations, and the tendency would be to use words as a tool to get what you want. And yet, of course, you want to be civil, and you want to have all those criteria. So I wonder if you could elaborate on that, if you've given thought to that. Yeah, I have. I think a big piece of it is looking for common ground, looking for common concerns, common interests, looking for what you and the other party might have in common as far as

[38:40]

Not necessarily the details of the outcome, but coming to a satisfactory conclusion together. I think that that holds a lot, actually, because it invites you into the space of not So I and you, this and that, separation. At the same time, clearly representing what matters to you. And that actually can be one of the hardest parts. I remember a situation where I was having a real struggle and An older woman was trying to help me and she said, you left yourself out of the equation.

[39:49]

So that's real too. That's important. When you look for common ground and the possibility for Concord, don't leave yourself out of the equation. Don't leave your wallet out. Did you have a question? I was wondering how it went, your discussion with a difficult person. It hasn't happened yet. I'm still working on it. Dean. First when you started talking about, you know, right speech or loving speech, I sort of, you know, shook my head a little and thought, oh wow. But because it's been my experience that in communities such as this where we're trying towards a sort of a common peaceful goal, that that's often interpreted as only saying nice things.

[40:52]

And it's left me with being here, which, you know, this is, you know, one of my homes. It just is. But I also have an underlying idea that I can't always trust that people are going to tell me what I need to know. because there's this focus on being nice and being kind and that a lot of times people don't say things that might be a really good thing to say because maybe it will hurt someone or maybe it will upset someone or cause someone to be defensive so things just aren't shared. So I think that I have a little bit of a reaction But, you know, a little bit of my skillful eye-rolling reaction to the loving speech, kind speech, whatever. So, what do you think about? Well, I think you're making a couple of really important points. Loving and kind speech is not making nice.

[41:55]

It's not just saying what the other person likes to hear. And one of the reasons is that you're depriving the other person of information. that they need. You said, people might not tell me what I need to know, what I need to hear. So when we do that, it's taking the easy way out. It's not taking responsibility for offering helpful words. If we refrain, it's like withholding. There's a precept, which is not being stingy with Dharma or wealth. And that can be a factor in not saying what needs to be said. And I think that often we do need to say the words, the hardest time to do this, and it comes up not uncommonly, is to say the words that

[43:02]

The other person maybe wishes you wouldn't say, doesn't especially want to hear, aren't easy to say. That's when we really need the practice. That's when I really need the practice and the skillful means. And I think it's really important. One of the things I didn't talk about a lot here but would like to at some point is trust. What really builds trust is the honest, transparent way of talking and being with each other. Warts and all. That's what makes it possible for us to trust each other. And if we're in a situation where we just sort of stay on the surface and make nice, that can't grow. So I think that's really an important point. I see the signal.

[44:03]

Do we have time for one more? Sue? This is such a big topic, but it strikes me too that there's an important step before this, as before so many things, which is the step of even being willing to do it. You know, when somebody has insulted you, me, What I want to do is get even and fast. The step of being able to give that up and move on, I mean, how do you deal with that? That just seems to me a real crucial step. Well, I think about returning to silence and patience. Patience and understanding with that That sentient being who's hurt, who's been hurt, who's been insulted, that's a hurt.

[45:10]

And being with that, taking care of that first. I think it's a precondition for being able to, it's what Thich Nhat Hanh says, understanding and patience, a precondition and understanding and patience with this sentient being, not leaving this sentient being out of the equation, taking good care of yourself. So specifically, do you mean that by sitting or by stepping back or taking as long as you have to? Taking as long as you have to, I think. Yeah, taking as long as you have to. There's one story about the Buddha saying, you know, when you have the urge to speak nine times out of ten, don't do it. Take your time. And compassion for this one is the foundation of being able to arouse compassion for anybody else.

[46:21]

I think I'm getting a real signal at this time.

[46:25]

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