Good morning. Monday is the memorial day of Martin Luther King. So I was asked to speak about that today. I had always heard about Martin Luther King and always appreciated his message very much. But for a long time, he was simply one of many people who were talking about the most relevant issues of our time.

[01:02]

You know, this street over here used to be called Grove Street, and then it was changed to Martin Luther King. And I loved the name Grove Street, because to me, it reminded me of all the way Berkeley used to be, full of groves. That's why they gave it that name. And then it was changed to Martin Luther King. And I thought, I don't like a name a street named after a person. I like a street named after qualities or something. And I've always disliked names of mountains being named after politicians or explorers. Zen masters? Well, you know, Zen masters take their name from the mountain. Yeah.

[02:06]

But I very much appreciate, after really looking at Martin Luther King's eloquent and passionate and compassionate talks, I'm more than happy to have this street named after him. I think that Martin Luther King was probably, I would say, the voice in the wilderness for our country, or for our world actually. When I read his words, it's just like, just, being totally immersed in the truth and how could anybody not pay attention to this and go about their business not being changed by it so

[03:29]

I think that King is still alive with us, and his words are not just ephemeral or for some special time, but address the very heart of society. But I'm not gonna talk about King directly. I want to talk about something, some part of his legacy, you know, because King talked about everything. So he talked about world, the world affairs, and how nations should act, and how, as well as, the suppression of race.

[04:33]

So today I want to talk a little bit about race problems. And, you know, not too long ago, somebody came out with the fact that there is only one race, the human race. And we've known that all along, of course. I'm glad that they discovered that. But at the same time, there are races which are not, they're different parts of the world. People from different parts of the world have identifying characteristics, which is not good or bad. simply we're all different as well as all being the same. So I think we need to recognize, yes, we're all the same and yes, we're all different.

[05:41]

And the acknowledging and acceptance of the differences is what makes the difference in how we respond and interact with each other. have to recognize the difference, you know. So what I really want to talk about is how this racial issue plays a part in Buddhist Sangha. After the Civil War, during the Civil War, slaves. We talk about oppression and difficulty in various race relations in America. The Italians had problems, the Irish, the shanty Irish, who I love so much, there were signs at some point in our history that said no Irish allowed here.

[06:56]

and the Jews, of course, but the black people, the Africans, were totally disenfranchised. Families split apart and most of their humanity was taken away. So, this is very difficult to fix. Difficult thing to fix. So even though there was the Emancipation Proclamation and the freeing of the slaves, in the South, there was a lot of resentment. And even though the slaves were freed in a certain way, they were still suppressed and disenfranchised anyway. So then Martin Luther King came along in the freedom movement and this was the second turning of that wheel.

[08:08]

And so that loosened things up a bit. But it's far from over. The battle between the North and the South is not yet over at all. North and South is not I'm not talking about directions, talking about states of mind. Slavery is not yet over, you know. I'm not going to turn this into a political talk, but Martin Luther King would approve of it. But, you know, in my view, America is becoming the plantation. And the rest of the world is becoming the cotton fields. This is gross expansionism. And if you don't believe me, search it out for yourself.

[09:18]

Anyway. Our practice comes from our Japanese teachers. Asians also have been discriminated against for a long time in our culture. The Chinese in San Francisco had a terrible time. They couldn't vote, they couldn't hold any kinds of offices. They were simply coolies, not slaves exactly, very low on the scale. And so this practice that we have comes from, and of course the Japanese were interned during the Second World War. So during the war,

[10:27]

Americans occupied Japan just after the war, there was a lot of occupation and Americans started going to these Buddhist temples and got interested in Zen and so forth and then teachers came over and pretty soon there was some activity and here we are, you know, sitting in this room and many of us have given our lives to this. So here we have a Japanese style Buddhist practice with very few Asians and some Europeans, of all kinds of European background, Jewish background, and African background.

[11:41]

I think that this kind of activity, this Zen center, Zen practice, you know, the very nature of Zen practice is non-discrimination. That's the actual very basis of Zen practice, non-discrimination. So we can accept our Japanese background, so what? Some people say, well, when is it going to be American? What's American? I don't know what American is, really. I mean, somebody will tell me, I know. America is this melting pot of everyone in the world. That's one of the things that makes America what it is, is that it's not just a tribe. All the tribes are represented and interact with each other and in some way let go of their identity as tribal, but at the same time maintain

[12:57]

a tribal identity. So we have these two things. One is letting go of tribal identity and the other is maintaining some aspect of tribal identity. So we have a kind of split loyalty in some way. And so then we say, well, our Zen practice is open to everyone and without discrimination or whatever, but you know, not everyone is easily, feels accepted, even though there is that acceptance. I want to say that

[13:59]

I was saying that the slaves, the black slaves, were freed, and then we had that kind of acceptance, That didn't mean that people were really free. That freedom has to be worked out since that Emancipation Proclamation. The working out of that freedom has been going on, and it's not over. It's something that takes a long time to actualize in reality. There's a mandate to do that, but the freedom itself is a work in progress. So, it causes all kinds of difficulties for people, but it's a wonderful problem.

[15:21]

It's a great problem, because whoever has this problem, it looks like, well, they have the problem, or we have the problem. I have a list here of things that I wanted to say, but I better look at it, because it's not that we need to solve this problem. It's that we need to be, work, or be embedded in the problem. without trying to solve the problem. The idea of you wanna solve the problem means that, oh, we'll solve the problem and then everything will be okay. Everything will never be okay. There will only always be the problem. But that's what's wonderful, is that there's always the problem.

[16:23]

And the problem gives us a way to work on what we're doing. I don't want to solve this problem. I want to work within this problem. So sometimes, I don't know how to say this, you know? I don't know how to say, I don't want to say black people. I don't want to say people of color. I don't want to say any of those things because that, to me, that nothing fits. But maybe I would say disenfranchised people, or people who feel disenfranchised, people who feel that they're not part of the culture, they're shut out of the culture, and it looks like there's somebody who has privilege, which is true, and somebody that doesn't have privilege, which is true.

[17:26]

So the white people, so to speak, have privilege. It's true. No doubt about it. So if I'm a black person and I'm free to participate with a white person's cultural thing, is that what I want? Does that mean that I have to become a white person in order to do that? Well, it kind of does, because it means myself as a black person has to take on the values of a white person. Therefore, if I take on the values of the white person, then I'm kind of betraying my own roots. And if I don't take on the value of the white person, I'm not making progress.

[18:31]

So, it's a stymie. What do you do? Also, there's the idea of the problem of equality. Who is equal to who? If I'm a black person, does that mean I'm equal to you as a white person? Or does that mean you're equal to me as a black person? Difficult problem. And these problems are always present. But we always see things from our own point of view, you know. And then when we talk about discrimination and prejudice, white people have discrimination and prejudice. And black people have discrimination and prejudice, right?

[19:35]

We all do. Everybody has discrimination and prejudice. You cannot help having discrimination and prejudice. Martin Luther King was unbelievable because he had, you know, although he had all this pain, he never gave up his love for everybody. This is one of an unbelievable, I mean, love your enemies. That's his message. or love those people who are oppressive to you, let's put it that way. So he never gave up, he never turned around and said, I give up. My feeling is, you can talk about this subject forever, and rationalize all the problems And they're all there. But the basic thing is, if you don't engage, nothing happens.

[20:41]

If you don't engage, all the talk in the world means nothing. Whose fault it is, it's your fault. If I'm a white person, then it's my problem why black people are not here, or more black people. But it's not just one side's problem. It's the problem of, you know, it takes two to tango, is the old saying, and that's absolutely true. Even though the perception is that it's your problem, or my problem, that shouldn't make any difference. Because no matter how right the white person makes the effort to be right or to do the right thing, it still doesn't work.

[21:58]

And if the black person makes an effort to do the right thing, that still doesn't work. It's got to be everybody working together. Otherwise, it doesn't work. Now someone said, a Buddhist teacher, a black Buddhist teacher said, you know, because black people are on the outside looking in, you have to invite them in. And I agree with that. But even that doesn't work, always. Because the problem with that is that if I am a black person and you invite me in, why are you inviting me in? I can be your token black person. And then you can say, you see, we have blah, blah, blah. The only thing that works is for everybody to just engage with each other.

[23:03]

and battle it out, or whatever it takes to not turn back, not turn around, not get discouraged, take whatever, you know, somebody said, well, people are always stepping on my toes. Maybe so, why? Well, I don't know, maybe because I'm not white. Okay, but you stay there. you don't get turned around. This is Zen practice. That's what Zen practice is about. It's about not getting turned around by anything. Now when it comes to race relations, so to speak, don't get turned around. That's right where the practice lies. Otherwise there's always going to be this controversy.

[24:11]

There's a black or people of color sangha. That's okay. I didn't used to think that it was a good idea. I thought we should just all mix it up. But I think that it is important to have a, now I've changed my mind, it's important to have a person of color sangha. even if it's just a sangha within the sangha, because people feel comfortable with themselves and with each other, coming from the same family, so to speak, and then getting enough confidence to work with the bigger family. So I think that's good, that's okay. Whatever works, it's fine. You know, even within the white sangha, there's so much different racial characteristics.

[25:16]

So many different racial characteristics. I have never thought of myself as white. Someone else will. Of course, I'm kind of pale, it's true. But when I was a kid, I was always on the beach. Yeah, I was really dark. People used to think I was Mexican. They'd say, hey, Mexican kid. That's Southern California. So I know what it's like, a little bit, to feel like a Mexican. Because it was a little bit disdainful. It was also disdainful, you know, when I was growing up. I was born in 1929, and I grew up in the 30s. in the 40s in Southern California. And you would never say that you were Jewish to anybody. Never, almost never.

[26:19]

Because it was stigmatic to say that. You know, we're here in Berkeley, and you see these Jewish people going to synagogue with their yarmulkes on and their prayer shawls out in the street. If you, no one would ever do that in Los Angeles in 1930s or 40s, never. They used to wear a fedora, a snap brim hat, the men, because they're supposed to always wear a hat. But they'd never wear a yarmulke, I mean, they'd get stoned. So I remember these little kids, when I was a little kid, these kids coming up to me, these Christian kids, I could tell somehow they were Christian because they were so white. You know that the Jews killed Christ. I thought they were going to kill me.

[27:23]

So, you know, there's all kinds of racial stuff going on. because of a lot of progress in racial relations since then. Jews are accepted and Italians are accepted and Irish are accepted and Asians more and more. Chinese are still, because their language is so different for one thing, but the Jews and the Chinese are really very close. Chinese are called the Jews of the Orient because they're all merchants, but they're all deeply religious too. There's so much variety within every race and so we pin characteristics on race, but actually there are no special characteristics. Everyone has the same character.

[28:29]

A good Japanese is a good American. A good American is a good Japanese. Whatever good means. It means, you know, when you accept yourself thoroughly as who you are, you can accept everyone else who they are. And you can accept yourself as they are, as them. I remember one time at Sokoji, our old temple on Bush Street, San Francisco, there was some Japanese people going somewhere. And I said, well, is it okay if I go too? He said, well, he said, they're Japanese, you know. And I said, well, I'm Japanese too. It kind of startled him. But, you know, I'm Japanese, I'm black too. So, although we have to be able to identify with people.

[29:38]

And when we can identify with people, then we close the gap. Yes, I'm black, but I'm not black. But yes, I am black. So, you know, we want to make people feel comfortable and we want to feel comfortable, but this is not exactly a comfortable practice. It's comfortable, but it's not comfortable. We get our comfort, you know, within our discomfort. We find our comfort within our discomfort. When you sit sadhana, you know, when you begin to sit sadhana, it's very uncomfortable. You have to find your comfort and your freedom within that difficulty. And it's the same thing with relationships. Some of the racial relationships, difficulties that people may feel are really not as great as some of the just personality difficulties that go on in the Sangha.

[30:57]

So we have to be very sensitive. The other thing is when we come to practice, we all come with our characteristics, our personality, with whatever that carries. But then we all submit to practice. We come in this little door that says, leave all your stuff outside and just submit to practice. So that's the becoming one. And within that, we see everybody's face. In monastic practice, we all wear dark suits, so to speak, but everybody's face becomes very clear and distinct because we all wear the same clothes and each one's personality becomes very clear and yet we all belong to the same nose-hole society, as we say.

[32:24]

we're all, it's like 10 fingers, you know. This is the one fist, but with all this diversity of fingers. So it's really one being with many faces. So often I like to feel that we should, to make an effort to really appreciate the differences and the variety of the Sangha. One time, a long time ago, I had everybody say what their background was, what their racial background or their identity was. It's fascinating, absolutely fascinating. And when that came out, everybody felt like they were very familiar with each other, created a kind of wonderful familiarity somehow.

[33:31]

It's like when everybody goes around and says what their name is, without saying it too softly, you feel some more affinity with people. Then there's the question of wanting to be long and not wanting to be long. Wanting to be long is, yes, I want to do this for some reason. And not wanting to be long is, but I'm not sure. You know, it's like, When we come to practice, we don't necessarily know what it is. I think for most people who come here, it's a process of elimination.

[34:34]

Not that we want it to be, but the practice itself is not for everybody. It's for everybody, but it's not a practice that everybody can sustain or is ready for. So we like to encourage people, but we don't encourage people too much because I don't want someone to say, well you told me this is gonna be really good for me. It's a bummer. And blame me. So in practice we always, it's like in Japanese practice, Zen practice, especially in Rinzai practice. In Rinzai practice, it's like the strong puppies get the tit. You know, when a dog has nine puppies and only six tits, and then the strong ones get in there, and the weak ones, they can't see.

[35:47]

But as humans, we take the weak ones and we help, otherwise they wouldn't survive. And we help them to survive. So whether there's Soto Zen practice, it's more like we help all the weak ones to survive as well. In Rinzai practice, when the bell rings for Dokasan, all the students rush out the door, get in line to have dogasan with the roshi, you know, they just run to that line. In Soto Zen it's one at a time, you know, the jisho will get you or something like that, so it's more, you know, more nurturing. So we have this wonderful kind of nurturing sangha, but there's a limit to that as well. I've seen people fight to get on that list out there. Well that's why we create more and more teachers.

[37:02]

So a lot of subtle problems. So we don't always know what all the want to make as much room for people who sincerely want to practice the practice, there come special problems, you know, and the problems behind racial issues are sometimes unknown, you know, to people who are on the other side of that race, just unknown. I can remember one time, I think I talked about this before, when we had Zendo on Dwight Way, and I was walking down the street, and just close to the Zendo, to the house, and a couple of black kids were walking down the street too.

[38:07]

I think there were two or three of them. And they said, hey, mister, you live there? And I said, yeah. He said, what's it like in there? And I thought, well, that's an interesting question. They'd never been into the house of a white person before, so they didn't know what it looked like, except that it's for movies or something. And I said, well, you want to come in and take a look? Yeah. So they came in and looked around, oh, evaluating. And it was just about time for dinner. Somebody was cooking. I said, well, do you want to stay for dinner? They said, yeah, OK. So they sat down. fed them dinner, but they said, what is this stuff? There's a kind of like interesting dynamic of curiosity, wanting to be accepted in this place where they'd never been invited before, and yet making their own value judgments

[39:15]

because they didn't, whether they liked the food or not, I think they had to make some comment about it not being as good as theirs or what they were used to. It certainly wasn't what they were used to. And then they kind of left, okay, thanks, you know, and they left, you know. But it was a very interesting dynamic because I just saw so many, so much, I just learned so much from that encounter about attitude. Yes, we would like to be accepted in this world, but no thanks. Not necessarily. I mean, our world is as good as your world. What makes you think your world is so good?

[40:18]

White men can't jump. We think our world is the best world. That's just an assumption. So we do have a lot of assumptions and we go on our assumptions and it takes a long, long time to really get underneath what's really going on. And then there's the question of empowerment. Do you remember Butch? Well, Butch was from the Philippines, and he had a big problem of race relations. He didn't like Jews. But that's just an idea, you know. Jews were his best friends, actually.

[41:21]

But, you know, and he made an issue of it at one time at a board meeting. But I love Butch, you know. And he knew it was kind of an idea, but he knew that he had this problem of race, you know, which he took on. And it was a legitimate problem, absolutely legitimate problem. And, what was I gonna say, though? Empowerment. He, you know, he said, well, how come there are no teachers of color, you know? Within the sangha, where are the teachers, you know, of color? And my response is, well, when people hang around long enough, they can become teachers. then that possibility arises. We wait 20 years to empower somebody to be a teacher in our sangha.

[42:27]

15, 20 years. But I was, and I really, Butch was a really sincere person, and I was working together, and I wanted him to study here with us, and eventually, you know, have him be a teacher going back and forth to the Philippines. that it would be a wonderful thing. But he died, unfortunately. So, I think it would be wonderful. There are black Buddhist teachers. As a matter of fact, this, you know the turning wheel? are published by Susan Moon and so forth. I think this is probably the best Buddhist publication.

[43:30]

It's not slick. No slick pages, no slick photographs, but great content. And this one is about black dharma. And great articles. There's one by Alice Walker. that's really terrific. So I would recommend getting hold of this and also subscribing to the magazine because it's really good. Alice Walker is a Buddhist teacher and Ralph Steele, Buddhist teacher, And it's good to hear this, what they have to say, actually. And all part of the scheme. And there's a lot of rhetoric, you know, about what's right and what's wrong.

[44:36]

But my bottom line is, engagement. It's all about engagement. Without engagement, it's just rhetoric. I have time for one or two questions. Charlie? Is that Charlie? Yes. In the matter of identity, racial identity, we receive these governmental or corporate forms that ask us to check a box with respect to our race or ethnicity. What advice That's not an option. Well then I can't give you any further advice. Other is not human.

[45:42]

Well there's white and black and so forth. You can say black. Try that. So you didn't get a job. You had your hand up. Yeah, I was recently watching some films about King. I was recently watching films about King in the 50s and his movements in Montgomery, Boycott and so on. And I'm teaching a course now about Gandhi. It's really a kind of a minefield to talk about. You've picked a topic that's difficult to talk about without making mistakes, but you're not afraid of making mistakes, so it's okay. Anyway, one thing I wanted to comment on was you're saying that I'm black or that kind of statement.

[46:44]

I think that's a problem. You know, Gandhi liked to do that with the untouchable issue, which was very much like racism, And the untouchable leadership of their movement did not like that at all. Because there's this mushy place about oneness out of which a person with good liberal white views will say, I am. I speak for you, too, because we share the blah, blah, blah. But in fact, we're speaking from a position of privilege and not shared experience at all. So I wanted to mention that. One other thing is that in these films about the Montgomery event, you know, when they had meetings, those meetings, I was thinking of the People of Color Sangha, that's not just like to get over your insecurities and be able to talk to the larger family. In those meetings, like there was a style of black church, so people were free to move, to use their minds and bodies in the style of their culture.

[47:53]

And that's a beautiful thing, and that's something that we white people don't really understand, unless we make an effort. So the idea that came to me, which I probably won't enact, but maybe somebody has the courage to do so, is that if we want to make some progress on these matters you've been talking about, we white people are we people who are in the privileged categories at this moment in history. actually put ourselves in minority situations, you know, and see what it's like and withhold speech a while until we experience that. Yeah, I don't want to make an excuse for myself, but I said that doesn't mean that I'm not white by saying I'm also black. I'm not trading one for the other. I think that we can actually step into someone else's shoes and feel empathy and feel oneness with that.

[48:58]

One of the things that I think was so remarkable about Dr. King, and you alluded to this, and I think if I'm correct it was characteristic of Gandhi and certainly also that Eastern European dissidents, was that they took the values of the larger society, the government in which they were living, or in the case of the Eastern Europeans, the paper pretense, and said, you live by your ideals. And tried to hold a mirror up to America, or India, the British in India, and say, you are not living up to what you said your principles were. And we want you to live by your principles. And I think that was an extremely powerful way of working.

[50:05]

It even worked in Eastern Europe, where they said, OK, you have this legal system which justifies what you're doing to dissidents. We're going to file appeals. We're going to force you to go through the motions. We're going to force everybody who participates in the system to over and over participate in this fiction until they begin to refuse to do so too, which is kind of a different angle on that. But I think that's just an incredibly important message now as we see our country sliding into a kind of one party Dictatorship, I think that's what one of our parties has in mind, and what stands between us and that is people standing up and saying, wait a minute, you know, you said we can have elections, we're all going to get out and vote for the other side. You know, you said we have free speech, we're going to exercise it, we're going to demonstrate even if you make us be half a mile away from the president.

[51:11]

to try to force the country to live up to its ideals and to practice them. I mean, we've been given all this freedom, and if we don't practice it, we lose it. Yeah, that's right. And King showed how absolutely powerful that is. That's the weapon of the powerless. Yeah, that's right. We have to do that. The frightening thing is that people aren't getting necessarily is that anybody can be arrested for no reason, anytime, without recourse to any lawyers or any, they just disappear. Period. Anyway, I think people just don't get it's too hard to realize what's really happening and do something about it. It's just too hard for most people, until it's too late.

[52:15]

And then the express train would go, poof, and you're like, what happened? Sorry. Oh, somebody, Paul. And I feel like the whole idea of liberation or freedom has become so co-opted by materialism, and it crosses all the race lines, that people are free to own or to buy or be part of the commodity culture, and that what really, the whole idea it's not really a viable thing anymore.

[53:20]

Well, you know, something that occurred to me was that the slaves are no longer controlled by chains, they're controlled by plastic. Think about that one. Beings are numberless.

[53:46]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ