The Bodhisattva in Difficult Times

This talk from the Insight Meditation Community of Washington’s 2017/2018 New Year’s retreat explores the Buddhist archetype of the bodhisattva and its universal quality across spiritual and other traditions of commitment to the transformation and awakening of one’s own heart for the benefit and freedom of all beings. The civil rights movement in the U.S. and the role and courage of Rosa Parks and other ordinary people—is presented as a ‘bodhisattva movement’ and a model and encouragement for the challenges we face today.

Transcript

So welcome.

The title and the theme of the talk this evening is the Bodhisattva Path in Difficult Times.

I think the second part doesn't need any translation.

The Difficult Times,

The Bodhisattva Path,

I'll be talking about and exploring in the talk this evening.

I want to begin with one of my favorite Jack Cornfield stories.

Jack had a friend who was working as a speechwriter in Jimmy Carter's White House back in the 1970s,

Late 70s.

Some of us here may remember that.

His friend was named,

Interestingly,

Was named Milton Friedman.

Same name as the Nobel Prize winning economist,

Conservative economist,

But a different person.

And at the time,

The country was going through an economic downturn.

There was a Mideast oil embargo and there was high inflation and there was stagnation.

It was a challenging economic time.

And Jack's friend,

Milton Friedman,

Got a call from a financial officer who managed billions of dollars for one of the major church denominations.

And the man was understandably worried about the economy and its impact on the church's portfolio.

And the man asked if Jack's friend,

Milton Friedman,

Had any advice as to where the money might be safely and wisely invested.

And after listening to the story,

Jack's friend,

Milton Friedman,

Said,

Have you considered giving the money to the poor?

And after a period of silence at the other end of the phone,

The financial officer said,

Is this the real Milton Friedman?

And Jack's friend said,

Is this the real church?

I love this story because it's kind of light and it's humorous,

But it really has a kind of a deep meaning as well.

Is this the real church?

I kind of maybe circle back a little bit later to kind of the real church,

You know,

What the real church might be.

So we've reached the final evening of our five-day retreat.

New Year's Eve.

We're preparing to go back to our daily lives.

And five days ago,

I used the metaphor at the beginning of the retreat of coming from the marketplace into the monastery here,

Kind of on retreat.

You know,

We talked about out of the dense forest of our lives,

Martha Postlethwaite's phrase,

Into this kind of time-limited,

I think of it as like an intentional community.

You know,

We're here with shared intentions to consciously bring awareness to our experience,

As we've talked about,

As we've explored,

To say yes to what is,

To meet the joys and the sorrows,

The difficulties,

And the more pleasant experiences with a compassionate awareness.

And I hope and trust that over these days you've experienced some of the fruits of cultivating this non-judging awareness,

Cultivating loving presence.

Perhaps it's some clarity about patterns that you find yourself caught up in and the possibility of letting go.

Anyone found something that they've been able to let go of a little bit over these days?

Maybe.

Great.

Maybe it's just glimpses,

But even glimpses point to something,

Don't they?

They point to some possibilities that may not be fully here right now,

But may be kind of in more in seed form right now.

Maybe you've touched into moments,

Times of peace and well-being.

Anyone here had some experience of that?

Wonderful.

Touching into beauty,

Into love or compassion for yourself or for others.

And maybe for some it's been quite a challenging time.

Maybe the difficulties,

The challenges have been more predominant.

And even when this is the case,

We may find that the fruits of what you've planted,

Even in working with the difficulties,

May bloom,

May blossom later.

So it's wise not to make too early a judgment about things and to really keep our hearts and our minds open.

But hopefully you've experienced some of the fruits of these practices over these days.

And on this final evening of the retreat,

We begin the turn towards returning to the world,

Going back,

If you like,

In this metaphor,

Going back into the marketplace.

And maybe it raises some anxiety.

Does anyone feel any kind of concern going back into daily life?

Some just kind of good to just notice and acknowledge,

Which is really the starting point of our practice.

It's kind of,

Yes,

This is here right now.

And meeting it with kindness and with care.

It's not uncommon as we come to the end of a retreat for participants to feel some concern or anxiety.

It can be the feeling that here on retreat we have all of the supports of the teachings and the practices.

We have the talks,

We have the noble silence,

We have the community,

We have a hundred other people doing,

Kind of following the same program as we are,

Which may be slightly different when we go back into our daily lives,

As we know.

And we might feel like,

How will I be able to manage going back to the busyness or the challenges of daily life?

And in these times,

It's kind of where the talk is more leading tonight,

In these times there may be for some added concerns about going back into the world,

The larger world,

The political and the global realities that we face.

I'd say for many of us,

I don't want to generalize and assume I'm speaking in any way for everyone,

But for many of us I know this was,

This year that's coming to an end,

2017,

Was a difficult year.

Many of us felt that the values that we cherished felt like they were in many ways under attack,

Values of compassion,

Of truth itself,

Of inclusion and diversity,

Welcoming of the stranger.

All of these felt threatened or under attack.

Certainly I can speak for myself in saying that.

These that we are part of or care deeply about were harmed or threatened,

Immigrants,

Muslims,

Members of the LGBT community and others.

And the future of our planet feels,

I think feels somewhat more tenuous,

You know,

With what some of the developments over the last year.

So some of the questions that I'd like to explore this evening are,

How do the practices and the teachings we've been engaged in over these days support us as we go back into our daily lives?

And in a way that's kind of that,

That's maybe more what we're looking at,

You know,

Tomorrow and some of the program tomorrow morning.

How do they help us to live wisely and kindly in difficult times?

And particularly,

How can our practice and our engagement help heal the suffering of the world?

How can,

How do these practices,

These skills and practices that we're cultivating over these days,

How do they relate to and how do they support us in engaging with the larger issues that face our world today?

You know,

Is there a relationship and what is that relationship?

You know,

We sometimes talk in just in a somewhat simplistic way about the inner and the outer.

You know,

How do these inner practices of compassion,

Of mindfulness,

Of loving-kindness,

Of equanimity,

How do they support us and how do they help us engage in the world?

And can they really be a vehicle,

If you like,

For larger change in the world?

You know,

What would a world look like where,

You know,

Political issues were determined and discussed and debated,

Bringing a real heartfelt awareness,

Bringing the kind of practices that we've been engaged in over these days into those discussions,

Into those debates?

And what is the arc,

The trajectory by which these practices can help us create what Charles Eisenstein spoke of as,

The more beautiful world our hearts know is possible?

The more beautiful world our hearts know is possible,

The name of his book.

It's a beautiful title,

I think,

Because it really,

I think,

Does speak to the way we have a sense,

I think,

That things could be different.

You know,

Politics could be different.

Global discussions and debates about how we live together in the world could be very different than they are.

And I think probably we feel that what we're doing here is not unconnected to that or not only connected to that in the way of like,

Oh yeah,

I'm dealing with my own stuff and so I'm a nicer person going out and that's going to be helpful.

Yes,

I think that will be the case,

But can it be more than that as well?

And what would that look like and what is the kind of the path and the passage towards that?

And the reflection I want to share or reflections I want to share tonight is that these practices of loving presence,

Of compassionate awareness of our moment-to-moment experience lead,

I think lead directly and naturally to the wish to respond to the suffering of the world and to take action to alleviate suffering.

And that a key Buddhist archetype,

The archetype of the Bodhisattva,

And I'll talk about that more in a minute,

Can help provide the vision,

Kind of focus our vision and help us deepen our courage as we move our practice back into the world and engage in with the suffering of the world.

And when I say that,

I don't mean that we all have to go out there and march and protest and get arrested.

For some that may be the path,

But it could be much more personal than that,

You know,

In our work that we may be doing and in our families and in our communities.

So I'm speaking about this kind of healing the suffering in the world,

Not in a kind of more narrow political way,

But in the broader,

In a broader way.

And what I'd like to use as an example of the Bodhisattva ideal,

You know,

In a collective level is a movement from American history,

Particularly the civil rights movement of the 1950s and the 1960s,

As something that can provide us with maybe a template is to kind of define the term,

But a vision really of how we can engage with injustice and with inequality and with what may be harmful in the world in a way that is truly,

Truly heartful,

Truly grounded in the wish to open our hearts to all beings,

That it's grounded in that.

And if we look at the kind of the politics as we define it in our culture and our society and even in our world today,

I think we have a much narrower sense of like a politics is more will my group get this and kind of a narrow thing.

And what I'm speaking of is engaging in a heartfelt way,

Looking for the benefit of all beings.

So that's the direction I'd like to go in.

And I'd like to just pause for a minute here and just check in,

Take some moments to check in.

And so you could,

And this is really simply awareness,

Kind,

Compassionate awareness.

I invite you just to bring,

You might close your eyes and bring your attention inward.

Just notice,

Feel your body here,

Connect with your breathing,

Maybe a deeper breath if that's helpful.

And just take a moment to reflect on going back tomorrow,

Going back into the world,

Maybe reflecting on your own personal situation or family work situation,

As well as the larger,

The broader kind of situation in the country and the world.

And just see what comes up for you.

What comes up for you.

And see what comes up and see if you can meet it with kindness,

Whatever it is,

Make space for whatever's here.

If it's helpful,

You can put your hand on your heart,

Your belly.

And just breathe into whatever you're experiencing,

Whatever you're aware of.

And you might feel a sense of hope or courage as you sense going out,

Going back into the world.

Or maybe it's more,

It's tighter.

It might be tighter,

More worry,

More foreboding.

Maybe a sense of not,

Don't know or a mixture.

See if you can just breathe into whatever is here and meet it with kindness,

With care.

Just as we've been doing over these days.

You know,

This is,

It's like this.

This moment is like this.

This experience is like this.

So just to simply this,

And then if you'd like to open your eyes or keep them closed,

Whatever feels comfortable.

I believe everything that we've been doing on the retreat,

All of the skills we've been cultivating,

All of the practices that we've been doing are precisely the skills we need to open our hearts,

To wake up and to engage wisely and kindly with the suffering of others and the suffering of the world.

And I just want to look at a few ways in which,

You know,

I think that this is the case or this can be the case.

You know,

Looking at the fruits of our practice and how they can help us in these challenging times.

And the core of our practices on retreat has been to open to the joys and the sorrows.

You know,

We've used many metaphors,

Welcoming the guests,

Bringing radical acceptance to our experience and to our life,

Saying yes to what is.

And we can see that when we,

I hope we can see that when we meet our experience in this way,

In this recognizing,

Allowing,

Welcoming our experience,

That something changes in this attitude,

In bringing this way of being,

Way of experiencing what's arising for us.

The French philosopher and writer Blaise Pascal said,

All of humanity's misfortunes arise from man's or our inability to sit quietly in a room alone.

All of humanity's misfortunes arise from our inability to sit quietly in a room alone.

And as I hear that,

I hear,

You know,

If we can sit quietly,

If we can open to our experience,

You know,

Bring kindness and care to what's arising,

Then we don't need to act it out on the world.

We don't need to act it out in blame and anger and,

You know,

Because we can resolve it,

We can transform it in our own hearts and our own minds.

So we've been sitting quietly in a room alone with a hundred or so other people over these days,

Meeting our experience with awareness and with kindness.

And we've practiced working with the difficulties and the hindrances that come up in meditation and come up in our daily life.

And we see,

I think,

That the difficult mind states and emotions can be transformed when met open-heartedly,

You know,

So that meeting,

Seeing the difference,

Has anyone seen the difference between being caught up in anger and then the difference between that and being aware of anger?

You know,

That sense of,

You know,

We're in the story of we're angry about whatever it is and we're,

I think of it sometimes as like being on a horse.

It's riding full speed,

Full gallop,

And somebody shouts out to the rider,

You know,

Where are you going?

And the rider says,

Don't ask me,

Ask the horse.

You know,

I mean,

A lot of the time it's the horse that's kind of taking us and we're kind of like following the horse.

So what we're doing here is we're kind of like,

Okay,

With kindness and with care,

We're saying,

Okay,

Horse,

We'd like to go this way now,

You know.

This is the wiser way to go,

You know,

To go towards what leads to greater happiness and greater well-being.

I love a phrase,

Something that the Tibetan teacher Ming-ge Rinpoche said,

Is that our happiness depends on choosing between the discomfort of opening to our mental afflictions and the discomfort of being ruled by them.

Our happiness depends on choosing between the discomfort of opening to our mental afflictions and the discomfort of being ruled by them.

There's discomfort in both cases.

There's discomfort in opening to our suffering,

But it leads to,

You know,

The Buddha teaches it leads to the end of suffering.

But if we're ruled by our mental afflictions,

It just leads to wash,

Rinse,

Repeat.

You know,

Over and over we come back and do the same thing again,

And wonder why nothing has changed.

You know,

When we're acting out the same habits over and over.

The more we open to our own pain,

The more we can open to and respond to the suffering of the world.

We build the courage and the resilience not to be overwhelmed by the suffering of others and the suffering of the world,

Because we've been able to open to our own.

Over the last few years,

I've been helping lead trainings,

Mindfulness and related practice,

Trainings in the Middle East for human,

Humanitarian aid workers,

And you know,

Who are working mainly on the Syrian refugee crisis.

So we've been doing a number of workshops in Jordan,

Amman,

And other parts of Jordan.

And we have a kind of an image that we use,

Which is a very familiar one.

I think probably almost everybody in this room has heard it.

You know,

When you get on the airplane and the flight attendant says,

You know,

In the event of an emergency,

Put on your own mask before assisting others,

You know?

So the image is really putting on our own mask before assisting others,

That we need to put on our masks if we're gonna be of any help to others.

Because if we're caught up in stress and worry and agitation,

How are we gonna be as an aid worker?

Or just as a mother or a father or a,

You know,

Somebody working in the health sector,

How are we gonna be with our clients,

Our family,

You know,

Those we're working with,

If we're completely kind of discombobulated ourselves,

If we're caught up in stress and worry and anger?

So really what we're doing,

I think one of the things we're really doing here is we're putting on our mask first.

Did I say seatbelt?

I may,

If I did,

Paula Deuce.

Put on your mask before assisting others.

You know,

We're taking care of ourselves in order to be able to more effectively and more compassionately and more wisely engage in the world.

And on some of these trainings,

It's been really moving.

On recent trainings,

The majority of the participants have been Muslim women,

You know,

Many of them wearing the hijab.

And some of the things they've shared have been,

Really,

I've been moved by.

You know,

Some have shared how the practices of mindfulness and compassion have helped them deepen their own spiritual practice,

Their prayer life,

If you like.

You know,

And others have said,

I've practiced all my life being kind to others,

But I've never practiced being kind to myself,

Bringing self-compassion to myself.

And some have shared that it's the most powerful practice they've ever done is to be kind to themselves.

You know,

So these practices are hugely supportive as we engage in the world.

We see,

Too,

How by cultivating the beautiful emotions,

The Brahma Viharas,

The divine abodes,

How these can help us live more happily and more freely and support us when difficult emotions and painful mind states come up,

Fear,

Worry,

Anger,

Arise in our lives or arise in the world situation,

The situation around us.

Sharon Stolzberg speaks about loving kindness.

She says,

A mind filled with fear can still be penetrated by the quality of loving kindness.

Moreover,

A mind that is saturated by loving kindness cannot be overcome by fear.

Even if fear should arise,

It will not overpower such a mind.

So it's like a,

It's an armoring,

But a really healthy protection.

You know,

It's a protection cord of loving kindness because fear,

It's a,

You know,

It doesn't allow fear to come in or if fear does come in,

We can work with it.

It doesn't overpower the mind.

And through these,

Through our practice,

We gain insight into what Jonathan spoke about the other night,

The three characteristics of life,

The selflessness,

Impermanence,

And suffering,

A dukkha of unsatisfactoriness,

And that seeing clearly can help us live freely.

And one of the key insights that arises from our practice is to see that each one of us has within us the capacity for great good or great harm,

Depending on the qualities of heart and mind that we cultivate.

You know,

It's not,

Through practice,

We come to see that really the dividing line between humans is not into good and bad,

You know,

Irrevocably good and irrevocably bad,

Good people and bad people,

As though there was some essential difference,

But rather between clear seeing and not seeing clearly.

Yes,

That the difference is not good and bad,

Good and evil,

But wisdom and ignorance,

If you like.

And the beauty of that is that that's really very changeable.

We can move from not seeing clearly to see clearly through training the heart and mind.

So it's not a given that,

Oh,

This person is always like this.

We all have the capacity to wake up,

To see things clearly,

Just as we all have within us seeds that can lead to great harm to ourselves and to others if we water those seeds.

So do we want to water the seeds of anger and blame and hatred,

Or do we want to water the seeds of compassion,

Kindness,

Generosity,

Love?

And that's really what we're choosing here.

We're choosing to water the seeds of kindness and compassion and care to ourselves,

To others in the world.

So rather than good and evil,

We can see those who cause harm as being,

As Tara spoke about,

Like the dog with its foot caught in the trap,

You know?

And there's some beautiful expressions of this.

One is from the great Soviet writer and dissident from that era,

Alexander Solzhenitsyn,

Who said,

If only it were all so simple,

If only there were evil people somewhere else insidiously committing evil deeds,

And it was simply necessary to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them.

But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.

And who is willing to destroy a piece of her own heart?

Who is willing to destroy a piece of her own heart?

And Thich Nhat Hanh,

In this beautiful poem,

Some of you may know well,

Please Call Me By My True Names.

I'll just read a little bit of it,

Just for time reasons this evening.

Please call me by my true names.

Do not say that I'll depart tomorrow.

Even today,

I'm still arriving.

Look deeply.

Every second I'm arriving to be a bud on a spring branch,

To be a tiny bird with still fragile wings,

Learning to sing in my new nest,

To be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,

To be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive in order to laugh and to cry,

To fear and to hope.

The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death of all that are alive.

I am a mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river,

And I'm the bird which when spring comes,

Arrives in time to eat the mayfly.

I'm a frog swimming happily in the clear water of a pond,

And I'm the grass snake that silently feeds itself on the frog.

I'm the 12-year-old girl refugee on a small boat who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate,

And I am the pirate,

My heart not yet capable of seeing and loving.

Please call me by my true names so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once,

So I can see that my joy and my pain are one.

Please call me by my true names so I can wake up,

And so the door of my heart can be left open,

The door of compassion.

And that,

I'm really taken and struck by,

Moved by the line of the stanza on the refugee girl raped by the sea pirate,

Where he says,

I'm the pirate,

My heart,

Not yet capable of seeing and loving,

So that there's the possibility of waking up.

There's always that possibility of waking up,

Even if we or others have done great harm,

That we can wake up out of delusion,

Out of ignorance.

And I think the world,

I think we know the world needs these ways of working for the good of all.

Leonard Cohen said,

The heart has got to open in a fundamental way.

Heart has got to open in a fundamental way.

And it's understood in Buddhist teachings that all the external manifestations of hate and war and racism and injustice arise from the human heart,

That they're collective expressions of our failure to bring open-hearted awareness and compassion to our experience.

And then they come out as in collective forms as division,

Delusion,

Conflict,

And suffering.

As Albert Camus said,

We all carry within us our crimes,

Our ravages,

Our places of exile.

Our task is not to unleash them on the world.

It's to transform them in others,

In ourselves,

And in others.

So just take a moment to pause here,

Just reflect.

Maybe you can think about just maybe any small way of how these practices might be brought into the world in vision,

Bringing them into the world,

Into your world,

To create some more peace,

Maybe break old patterns,

Shift old habits,

Allow hearts,

Your own heart,

And others to open.

So I want to reflect now,

Moving into the kind of talking about how we go in how I comfort people to come out above what other people have to come out to be using Haiti,

About the patterns they're talking about,

Remind others,

Remind them that they're not lost or resonant,

That they're 여기에,

But they are secure and that people are accepted,

That they heard those lines,

That they碰 are a foster parents.

How we go,

How we take these practices and skills we've been cultivating and bring them into the world,

And particularly into engagement,

In whatever form it takes,

With the suffering of the world.

And one of the keys to bringing our practices into engagement with the suffering of the world is the vision or the archetype of the Bodhisattva.

Now,

The Bodhisattva,

Two words,

Bodhi means awakening,

Connected with the same word as the Buddha,

Kind of awakened one,

Bodhi,

Awakening.

And sattva is a being.

So an awakening being,

It's somebody on the path to awakening,

A being on the path to awakening.

And in different Buddhist traditions,

Vows are taken.

It's a recognition that our own awakening,

Our own freedom,

Is inextricably linked to the freedom and the awakening of all beings.

It's really an expression of non-separation,

Transforming ourselves through our practice and bringing our practice into the world for the benefit of all.

In his book,

The Wise Heart,

Jack Cornfield describes three qualities of a Bodhisattva.

You could think of a Bodhisattva as a spiritual warrior,

You know,

A warrior not with traditional weapons,

But the kind of spiritual weapons of the heart,

And maybe come back to that a little bit later.

She or he,

The Bodhisattva,

Or they,

Begin by acknowledging the truth of their situation.

It's like this.

Not that it's right or just,

But this is what this moment is like.

This is a reality.

And they face the truth,

Turn towards the difficulties,

And shine the light of understanding on them.

So it's consciously taking our practices,

As we've been doing over these days,

And shining the light of understanding on them,

Facing the truth of our situation.

What is true right now?

What am I experiencing?

What am I seeing?

And the second is they work to find peace within themselves.

So to cultivate a way of being with their experience that leads to peace and well-being,

By engaging in a training or practices to let go of painful mind states,

Afflicted mind states,

Anger,

Greed,

Hatred,

And develop positive ones.

Love,

Compassion,

Peace.

And again,

These are the practices that we've been doing.

These are bodhisattva practices.

Acknowledging and accepting the truth of our situation,

Working to find peace within ourselves.

And the third,

And this I think is the bridge to engagement in the world,

Is the bodhisattva envisions actions and a path of liberation for themselves,

Their community,

And their world,

And then commit to working to those ends.

So the bodhisattva ideal or archetype comes when we take these practices and we consciously and in a kind of visionary way,

We say,

I want to help in the healing of the suffering of the world,

And we direct it,

Our engagement,

Our actions to do that.

And whatever it may be.

Jack says,

Envisioning has enormous power.

With our vision and imagination,

We can help create the future.

Envisioning sets our direction,

Marshals our resources,

And makes the unmanifest possible.

Makes what isn't in existence possible.

So that you can see the practices we've been doing,

And then the kind of shining the light and this ideal of the bodhisattva,

This archetype,

And seeing ourselves as bodhisattvas or potential bodhisattvas.

Kind of that directing and envisioning,

And having the courage to act on our vision,

To move into the world in this way.

And I want to,

This evening,

And I think it's quite appropriate to do so,

Take an expansive view of the bodhisattva.

The bodhisattva is obviously rooted in the Buddhist tradition.

And there were wonderful examples in,

Many,

Many examples alive today and in the past of bodhisattvas.

Just to name two of the most,

One that,

Ones that have played an extraordinary role in the last 50 and more years are His Holiness,

The Dalai Lama,

And Thich Nhat Hanh.

Both pioneered the path of compassionate engagement in the world.

And a living examples,

Really,

Of bodhisattvas.

But there are examples in other traditions as well,

I think,

Of individuals who have taken,

Have done the inner work.

And that's really the essence,

Is doing the inner work and then with the strength that comes from that inner work,

Engaging in the world for the benefit of all beings.

I think,

And I've talked at other times about Nelson Mandela,

Who is very,

Very close to my heart and I think maybe to many others as well.

Who used his 27 years in prison,

Unjustly in prison,

In apartheid South Africa,

To transform himself and cultivate compassion and forgiveness for those who'd committed great violence and injustice against the black majority in South Africa.

And he was able,

In that process,

To help create conditions for a peaceful and negotiated transfer of power to the majority in South Africa,

As you know,

In 1994 through that process.

Which could otherwise have,

You know,

People were predicting a bloodbath,

A major civil war.

And he was able,

And not just him,

It was there with a movement as well of committed,

Dedicated people.

But he played a crucial role.

And I see that very much as the Bodhisattva ideal in action.

Think as well of,

In our times,

Of Dr.

Martin Luther King,

Who really again embodied the ideal of the Bodhisattva,

Saying no to injustice,

While not putting those who perpetrated injustice out of his heart.

Tara talked about that today in the forgiveness meditation of how we can forgive somebody and without putting them out of our heart.

We may need to put them out of our lives,

You know,

And have safe boundaries,

But not to put them out of our hearts.

And so we think of Dr.

King,

Who said to white supporters of segregation who'd been engaged in great violence and hatred,

He said,

We will meet your physical force with soul force.

Do to us what you will,

And we will still love you.

Do to us what you will,

And we will still love you.

We will not only win our freedom for ourselves,

We will appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you in the process,

And our victory will be a double victory.

And,

You know,

When I even wanna read this,

And I've read it and seen it many,

Many times,

It kind of takes my breath away.

You know,

Just the bodhisattva quality of that,

You know,

It's very rooted in the Christian tradition very much of,

You know,

Jesus turning the other cheek,

You know,

And that,

But the courage and the strength to say,

Do to us what you will,

And we will still love you,

And to have that be the basis for engagement in the world,

For taking action for justice,

You know.

And so many other examples,

And I think we can be inspired by these examples,

So it's not some rarefied thing,

You know.

I keep coming back to that young man in TNMN Square,

You know,

Who stood in front of the tank,

You know,

And put his hand up like that,

You know.

Just that image of kind of saying no,

But,

You know,

We don't know enough about him,

But there was just that courage to do that,

The courage to say no,

But what's crucial in the saying no is that we keep our hearts open,

That we keep our hearts open,

That we don't put anyone out of our hearts,

Even those who we see as the perpetrators,

Those doing great harm.

And I also want to kind of focus this evening on the overall movement,

The civil rights movement,

The struggle by African Americans,

And their allies for equality,

For freedom,

For justice,

For dignity,

For civil and human rights,

As a movement that was really a movement rooted in Bodhisattva ideals,

Rooted in the inner transformation that helps make the transformation in the world possible.

You know,

We have so many examples how,

You know,

People want to change the world,

And the world is out there,

And if you could just change the out-there part.

But what happens,

We come back to the lines from the great philosophers,

The who,

You know,

Remember?

You know,

Meet the new boss,

Same as the old boss,

You know?

It's so often that that's the case,

You know,

You have great movements for justice,

But it's kind of justice is out there,

And change is out there,

And so the new rulers come in,

And it may not take too long before they become the people with the mano dura,

You know,

The heavy hand down on the population,

That that can change.

What prevents that from changing is that the change comes from within,

That it's part of the process of changes,

The changing of our hearts.

And so that movement really was a movement rooted in Bodhisattva ideals of love,

Of compassion,

Of forgiveness,

Of nonviolence.

And as I said,

The language and the symbols are mostly Christian ones,

But the practices of love and compassion are universal human practices of the heart,

Universal practices.

So in a sense,

It doesn't so matter what the language is.

It may be Christian or Jewish or Muslim or non-religious language.

What's important is that there be the transformation,

The work to transform the heart,

And out of that,

Work for the freedom of all beings,

For the awakening of all beings.

And that can be the awakening of the heart,

And it also can be the awakening of moving towards justice and freedom in that kind of broader,

What might be seen as a political sense,

You know,

Having people free from hunger,

Free from poverty,

Free from racism,

The essential acts of engagement,

Tasks to take on in our time.

So that is a movement.

And I also find it a profoundly inspirational movement because it provides a model for the kind of engagement in politics I think that we need at this time.

You know,

In the face of great harm being caused to individuals,

Vulnerable individuals and communities,

What is needed,

I believe,

Are ways of engaging that are rooted in values,

That are rooted in the heart,

In compassion,

In love.

And if it doesn't happen in that way,

I think change is always going to be limited.

You know,

It's always going to be,

Yes,

We might get some improvements,

But we'll still have the same.

.

.

We won't have dealt with the underlying patterns,

The underlying issues and problems.

And I'd like,

You know,

In the time remaining,

Focus specifically on an individual,

In this case Rosa Parks,

As a Bodhisattva.

You know,

Her.

.

.

And I want to focus on her not as an icon in so much of the movement,

But really as an ordinary person who is willing to take a courageous step,

In this case staying in her seat and refusing to be moved.

It's a familiar story,

At least in the outlines,

To probably everybody here of refusing to move to the back of the bus,

Giving rise to a boycott that was very important in the civil rights movement.

But for many people,

And I think particularly for many white people,

It stays on the level of kind of an icon,

You know,

And not necessarily knowing more or more deeply.

And obviously,

Not going to be able to get into it in a huge amount of depth today.

But I just want to fill out the story a little bit more in these kind of the Bodhisattva qualities and just share a little about that day,

First of all,

Beginning on that day.

On December 1st of 1955,

After a long day's work at a Montgomery,

Alabama department store,

Where she worked as a seamstress,

Rosa Parks boarded the Cleveland Avenue bus for home.

And she took a seat in the first of several rows designated for colored passengers.

So she was in the first of the quote colored section of the bus.

And the Montgomery City Code required that all public transportation be segregated,

White section,

Black section,

Colored section.

And the bus drivers had the powers of a police officer when they were on the bus.

So they could be in the same role,

Really,

As a police officer while operating the bus.

And they were required to provide what was quote separate but equal accommodations for white and black passengers by assigning seats.

So they were the authority.

You sit there.

You sit there.

And this was accomplished with a line roughly in the middle of the bus separating white passengers in the front of the bus and African-American passengers in the back.

So when an African-American passenger boarded the bus,

They had to get on the front,

At the front,

To pay their fare.

And then they got off the bus,

And they had to re-board the bus at the back door.

As the bus Rosa was riding continued on its route,

It began to fill with white passengers.

Eventually,

The bus was full,

And the driver noticed that several white passengers were standing in the aisle.

The driver of Rosa Park's bus stopped the bus and then moved the sign separating the two sections back one row.

So the quote colored section became a white section.

And so he asked the four black passengers to give up their seats to the white passengers who were standing.

The story,

I think,

As we know,

Rosa Parks,

Three of her fellow black passengers gave up their seats to white passengers.

But Rosa Parks refused and remained seated.

The driver said,

Why don't you stand up?

To which Rosa Parks replied,

I don't think I should have to stand up.

Whereupon the driver called the police,

Had her arrested.

She was charged under chapter 6,

Section 11 of the Montgomery City Code,

Taken to police headquarters,

Later released on bail.

Just something she said about that experience.

First she said,

I didn't get on the bus to get arrested.

I got on the bus to go home.

I got on the bus to go home.

A lot of actions are taken,

Important actions are taken symbolically.

We're going to make a test case.

She was tired.

She got on the bus.

She wanted to get home.

But she also said about her arrest,

She said,

I'd given up my seat before,

But this day I was especially tired.

Tired from my work as a seamstress and tired from the ache in my heart.

Tired from the ache in my heart.

Just to let something of the background,

Her background.

She was born 42 years before the bus,

Refusing to get up and move her seat on the bus.

She was born in Tuskegee,

Alabama.

Her maternal grandparents were born into slavery.

And after her parents separated,

She and her mother and brother moved in with her grandparents.

She went to segregated schools.

She attended Alabama State Teachers College for Negroes,

As it was called.

But she had to leave in the 11th grade to look after her sick mother and her grandmother.

She didn't go back to school,

But she did get her high school diploma later after marrying Raymond Parks,

Who worked as a barber.

He was active in the NAACP,

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

And Rosa Parks became active in civil rights issues from 1943.

She actually was the youth leader and the secretary of the branch to its head,

E.

D.

Dixon.

And she was also involved with the Montgomery Voters League,

A group that helped black people pass the test so they could register to vote.

You're probably aware of the often they have to answer many scores of questions in order to be able to vote,

To qualify for vote,

Which white people didn't have to answer.

So on the evening she was arrested,

The NAACP started making plans for a boycott of Montgomery city buses.

A group of leaders met that day to discuss strategies and formed a new organization,

The Montgomery Improvement Association.

And a newcomer,

Dr.

Martin Luther King,

Who'd been recently appointed the minister of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church,

Became a leader and spokesperson for the movement.

So after Rosa Parks was arrested,

Members of the African-American community were asked to stay off the city buses from December 5,

1955 and take a cab or walk to work.

And some walked 20 miles to and from work.

That night,

35,

000 handbills were made and circulated to all black schools in Montgomery.

They read,

We are asking every Negro to stay off the buses Monday in protest of the arrest and trial of Rosa Parks.

You can afford to stay out of school for one day.

If you work,

Take a cab or walk.

But please,

Children and grownups,

Don't ride the bus at all on Monday.

Please stay off the buses Monday.

So Rosa Parks was fined $14.

She refused to pay.

And the boycott that began that day lasted for 381 days.

During that period,

Black churches were burned.

Martin Luther King's home and the head of the local NAACP,

Edie Dixon's homes,

Were destroyed by bombings.

Increased pressure was put on the African-American community members and leaders to end the boycott.

People were arrested under anti-boycott laws.

But the buses continued to run almost empty for more than a year.

Ultimately,

The strength of support for the boycott,

The legal pressure,

Economic losses to businesses,

Led the city of Montgomery to lift its enforcement of segregation on public buses.

And the boycott ended on December 20,

1955.

The boycott,

As I think we know,

Was a seminal struggle in the civil rights movement.

And it began with just this act of an individual,

A working class African-American woman who'd had a long day at work.

And she was tired.

But as she said,

Her heart was tired.

She was tired of segregation.

She was tired of injustice.

And she said,

No,

I'm not going to move.

And when you think about that kind of that willingness to say no,

To take the step to say no,

It was a great risk.

Many others had been or would after this would be killed.

Medgar Evers,

Emmett Till,

Malcolm X,

Dr.

King.

There have been almost over 4,

700 lynchings in the years between 1882 and 1968.

Almost 3 quarters of them were African-Americans.

But Rosa Parks was willing to say no.

She was willing to kind of say,

This is enough and to take that step.

And out of that step came huge advances in the movement for civil rights and for racial justice,

A movement that,

Of course,

We know is still very much in process today.

Some other things she said that moved me.

She said,

I was a person with dignity and self-respect.

And I should not set my sights lower than anybody else just because I was black.

And about what gave her the strength to resist,

She said,

I've learned over the years that when one's mind is made up,

This diminishes fear.

Knowing what must be done does away with fear.

And she said,

And this is also important,

She said,

Whatever my individual desires were to be free,

I was not alone.

There were many others who felt the same way.

So just to reflect on just that little kind of snippet in a way,

Just a piece of an individual willing to envision something different,

A different way of being,

A different way of living,

Somebody willing to act with courage without turning the oppressor,

In this case,

Into the enemy or the other.

And I want to just reflect on this process of cultivating the heart of a bodhisattva.

And I want to,

Just given the time,

I'm noticing the time,

I just want to read one more,

Share one more kind of vision of the bodhisattva.

And this is the vision of the Shambhala warrior.

It's a story told by Joanna Macy,

A wonderful teacher,

Given to her by her Tibetan Buddhist teacher.

And I want to thank Kyra Jewell,

Who brought this to our year of Engaged Dharma Group that we have in Washington.

And I think it's a beautiful story and can be very inspiring to us.

It says,

There comes a time,

This is the Tibetan legend,

There comes a time when all life on earth is in danger.

Barbarian powers have arisen.

Although they waste their wealth in preparations to annihilate each other,

They have much in common,

Weapons of unfathomable devastation and technologies that lay waste to the world.

It's now when the future of all beings hangs by the frailest of threads that the kingdom of Shambhala emerges.

You cannot go there,

For it's not a place.

It exists in the hearts and minds of the Shambhala warriors.

But you cannot recognize a Shambhala warrior by sight,

For there is no uniform or insignia.

There are no banners.

And there are no barricades from which to threaten the enemy.

For the Shambhala warriors have no land of their own.

Always they move on the terrain of the barbarians themselves.

Now comes the time when great courage is required of the Shambhala warriors,

Moral and physical courage.

For they must go into the very heart of the barbarian power and dismantle the weapons.

To remove these weapons in every sense of the word,

They must go into the corridors of power where the decisions are made.

This is the Joanna Macy's teacher saying this to her.

The Shambhala warriors know they can do this,

Because the weapons are mano-maya,

Mind-made.

This is very important to remember,

Joanna.

These weapons are made by the human mind.

So they can be unmade by the human mind.

The Shambhala warriors know that the dangers that threaten life on earth do not come from evil deities or extraterrestrial powers.

They arise from our own choices and relationships.

So now the Shambhala warriors must go into training.

How do they train,

I asked?

They train in the use of two weapons.

The weapons are compassion and insight.

Both are necessary.

We need this first one,

He said,

Lifting his right hand.

Because it provides us the fuel,

It moves us out to act on behalf of other beings.

But by itself,

It can burn us out.

So we need the second as well,

Which is insight.

The first is compassion.

The second is insight into the dependent co-arising of all things.

It lets us see that the battle is not between good people and bad people,

For the line between good and evil runs through every human heart.

We realize that we are interconnected as in a web,

And that each act with pure motivation affects the entire web,

Bringing consequences we cannot measure or even see.

But insight alone can seem too cool to keep us going.

So we need as well the heat of compassion,

Our openness to the world's pain.

Both weapons or tools are necessary to the Shambhala warrior.

So I want to finish up this evening just with reflecting on what it would mean to be a Shambhala,

To be a Bodhisattva,

A warrior,

A Bodhisattva,

A spiritual warrior,

As we go back into our lives.

And what I've spoken of this evening is that the archetype of the Bodhisattva can inspire us to envision how we can act with courage to help heal the suffering of the world.

Many ways I've said that we can do that.

And that these qualities of the Bodhisattva are universal qualities,

Opening to the truth,

Transforming ourselves through our willingness to be with what is,

And envisioning a path to help free ourselves and others from suffering,

And then taking courageous steps to put our vision into effect.

And as I've said,

In our own history,

We have a Bodhisattva movement that can inspire us in the civil rights movement based on compassion,

Nonviolence,

Love,

Courageous action.

And give us an example,

Rosa Parks,

An ordinary person,

But one among millions of other unarmed people who marched and walked and sat down and got arrested and wrote letters and voted to help,

In the words of Martin Luther King,

To move from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice,

A path that obviously we're still on today.

And this movement can be a model of our engagement today when we're called on to resist injustice and oppression and other forms of separation with an open heart.

So I'd just like to finish with just a couple of minutes of sitting quietly.

And I'll invite you first to,

Again,

Bring your attention inward.

Open to whatever is present right now.

Notice what's arising,

What's here in the body,

Here in the heart,

What's going on,

What's happening in the mind.

Just meeting whatever is here with care,

With kindness,

With compassion.

And just take some moments to reflect on how you might choose,

If you choose,

How you might choose to bring this bodhisattva,

Ideal or archetype into your life and into the world as you go back,

Come out of the retreat.

Is there a way that you would wish to engage in social action and social justice?

But it could be just having difficult conversations or working on your own heart,

Letting your own heart be open to the suffering of the world.

And just see what comes up for you.

Just see what arises.

See if anything wants to arise and wants to kind of be in the moment of the moment.

See if anything wants to arise and wants to kind of be visioned,

Envisioned,

That might want to move towards action and speech in the world as you go back into the world.

And just sit with that for a moment.

And as you do,

I'll just finish with a poem by Raina Maria Rilke.

I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world.

I may not complete this last one,

But I give myself to it.

I circle around God,

Around the primordial tower.

I've been circling for thousands of years,

And still I don't know.

Am I a falcon,

A storm,

Or a great song?

Or a phil jutam,

Or a melody,

A lament of love?

Thank you for listening.

To learn how you can support the teachers and Dharma Seed,

Please visit dharmaseed.

Org or email us at dharmaseed.

Org.

Reviews

Absolutely inspiring. A mini retreat of the soul.

I enjoyed learning how cultivating a compassionate heart not only helps us to kindly hold our own painful feelings and emotions but also helps cultivate the wellness of all beings. I also enjoyed learning more about Rosa Parks the civil rights movement in the U.S.

Thanks so much hugh🙏❣ so very inspiring and informative and emotional for me! I hope one day I can be grateful enough to join you all in a retreat!!❤ namaste🙏😌♾

Very insightful. I will use several teachings from here

Inspirational and thought-provoking talk that is utterly relevant to the testing times in which we live. It is good to be reminded of what can be achieved through courage and compassion. Thank you.

Beautiful. Heartfelt and inspiring talk on the challenge of opening the heart in hard times. Thank you Hugh!

Thankyou Hugh, Simply - Sincerely. Your words, voice, stories bring your message alive & make it oh-so accessible, I feel encouraraged & able to transform knowledge (from prior learnings & from this talk) into Being. That feels like real, useful inspiration 🙏

Thank you for this talk, Hugh. It resonated deeply with me and I intend to return and listen to it again. 🙏🏼

Deeply compassionate talk which I gained insights and understanding from. Thanks Hugh. 🙏

Enormously inspiring! Wish I had more stars to rate this. 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
Thank you 🙏

This is my third listen :) Every time the message deepens. It's beautiful to listen to. Thank you for the contribution. ☮☮🌹☮☮

Great talk, thank you for sharing 🙏

Wonderful. Thank you so much. Namaste

Powerful and inspiring. Thank you.

Hugh's talks and guided meditations are always a source of strength and wisdom and a constant reminder of the importance of compassion for oneself and others in our lives. Thank you.

I am grateful for this

A gentle reminder and meditation on the simple way of the bodhisattva, the daily way, the way we live in loving kindness.

Very interesting talk and useful focus/reminder about compassion for all including ourselves. Thank you🙏🏼

Everything I needed to hear to go forward Compassionately a day open my heart. Thank you for your vital teaching.

I want to hear everything this man has to say! I love him. I love his perspective. I love his goodness. I love that he is in the world.