2020 has been an eventful year to say the least. A year filled with issues that have weighed heavily on many people's core beliefs. During these times when it's easy to find oneself in the midst of contentious topics, many find it hard to practice with the precept "not to harbor ill will." On 10/13, Eli Brown-Stevenson, a resident priest at City Center, shared how he has been practicing with this precept during these recent times.
Fear and Anxiety
Mei Elliott discusses fear and anxiety. Whether you're having a bout of full blown panic or experiencing daily anxiety, fear manifests in a variety of ways. Without realizing it, fear is often the driving force behind everyday choices, guiding our conversations, determining our decisions, and legislating our preferences. Given its power, how can we learn to be free from suffering in the midst of fear? During this talk we explore ways to identify and practice with anxiety and fear in daily life.
Making Your Own Way: Dogen's Birds and Fish
Zachary Smith, along with his usual co-host Mojo the Cat, leads us through a talk that was inspired from a particularly lovely passage in Dogen’s Genjo Koan where Smith explored what it meant to live a life of continuous practice.
Working with Helplessness: What to Do When the World Needs So Much Change
Michael McCord gives a talk titled "Working with Helplessness: What to Do When the World Needs So Much Change." Michael is a Zen priest and teacher, as well as the director of SFZC's City Center where he lives and practices.
Feeling Stuck
Mei Elliott leads the conversation around the theme of feeling stuck. Whether we feel stuck in a relationship or job, in a stubborn habit pattern or self-view, or are simply feeling stuck sheltering in place, the teachings of the Buddha offer a way to relate to life when things won't seem to budge. We will spend the evening exploring how perceptions and fixed views contribute to a sense of entanglement and how our practice can loosen our sense of feeling stuck.
Encountering Suzuki Roshi: Five Faculties of Zen Practice
Kodo Conlin leads YUZ with a talk titled "Encountering Suzuki Roshi: Five Faculties of Zen Practice." Through the lens of Zen teachings, Kodo discusses an ancient Buddhist practice known as the five faculties--faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom. Suzuki Roshi, the founder of San Francisco Zen Center, embodied these qualities for so many people, to transformative effect.
Choice
In honor of voting season, Eli Brown-Stevenson turned around the table and asked the group which topics they’d like him to focus on.
Blue Cliff Record Case #9, “Chao Chou’s 4 Gates”
Zachary Smith leads YUZ in an exploration of Blue Cliff Record Case #9, “Chao Chou’s 4 Gates.” Without giving too much away in advance (never a good idea when Koans are involved) suffice it to say that Chao Chou invites us all to consider what it actually means to be a “self” - this self - and that we’ll take up the invitation.
Loneliness
Mei Elliott explores the topic of loneliness. Given the increased social isolation many are experiencing during this time, she speaks about the way we can integrate loneliness into our practice such that it too becomes a Dharma gate. Regardless of whether you are working with loneliness or are meeting other challenges in your life, the teachings will center around skillful ways for meeting difficulty, whether that happens to be loneliness or otherwise.
Be Kind to Your Practice
Eli weaves together traditional Zen teachings from Suzuki Roshi with modern sources like Pixar's Inside Out.
Don't Hold Your Breath
Michael McCord explores how Every Day is Actually your Life, Even in a Pandemic.
Joy
Mei Elliott reflects on the theme of Joy. Despite spending a lifetime seeking joy, many people are still befuddled about where to find it, and often find themselves chasing after it, without realizing they're running in the wrong direction. During this talk we explore what joy is, where we can reliably find it, why joy is needed now, and how we can invite it into our lives.
During this time of great challenge and tragedy, joy can not be a mere accessory nor can it be seen as self-indulgent. On the contrary, joy is a necessary requisite on the path of liberation, and a necessary nourishment for bodhisattva activity. If we are to save all beings, we need the buoyancy that joy provides. The Buddha spoke abundantly about joy, and as such, we'll explore where this topic appears in the core Buddhist teachings.
The Dharma of Strong Emotion
Any therapists worth their salt will tell you that the full range of human emotion should be within the realm of experience on a daily basis and especially in times like these emotions can run high. Emotions carry a message - something to teach us - and the request of practice is to stand up close enough to them to hear that message in full without being overwhelmed or spun off into habitual response or defense.
Holding and Being Held: Race, Grief, and Balance
How do you envision, in specific ways, a more peaceful and just community? Can you see it? You're invited to describe one specific aspect of your vision of what possible, an aspect that feels nourishing for you to consider. What felt sense arises in you as you hold this vision? Is this nourishing for you, and how do you know? How could this inform your approach to activity, conversation, and community?
Practices for Well-being
Eli Brown-Stevenson leads a YUZ meeting on Practices for Well-being.
Holding our Pain for the World: Racism in America
Mei Elliott speaks about the many recent tragedies, both related to racism and the pandemic, and how to hold our pain for the world.
Martin Luther King Jr. said that "a riot is the language of the unheard." How can we learn to truly listen to the "riot" within, without turning away or suppressing it? When anger, grief, numbness, or despair rise up, how can we meet it with wisdom and kindness? This talk explores meditation training as an anti-racist response to injustice, highlighting how it can begin to dissolve implicit bias.
The Three Pure Precepts →
Zachary Smith leads YUZ on the three pure precepts, which are an integral part of the 16 Bodhisattva Precepts.
The Fifth Precept - Refraining from Intoxicants →
Heather Iarusso speaks about the 5th precept often translated as “I vow to refrain from intoxicants” and Heather writes, “Usually when we think of intoxicants, we think of drugs and alcohol. However, viewed through the lens of the Dharma, and amid the crucible of the pandemic, we will explore how the number one intoxicant is our resolved karmic conditioning
The Fourth Precept - I vow not to lie
Eli Brown-Stevenson hosts a discussion about the 4th precept, often translated as “I vow not to lie“.
Practice with Pandemic & the First Precept
Eli Brown-Stevenson hosts a discussion about practice during the pandemic. While the evening focuses on this theme, it also ties in the first precept, I vow not to kill (also framed as I vow to support life), which is the first grave precept in the Bodhisattva Precept Series.