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Introduction

I want to say some words for people who might be listening today on Audio Dharma. Maybe some of you are wondering what happened because it's not being broadcast on YouTube today. Somehow we're having trouble streaming from the computer, so we'll work on it and I'm sure we'll fix it.

As an announcement, it just felt right to me that for the next two weeks after tomorrow we'll take a break from meeting in person here at IMC. This is just to get our bearings a little bit with this new COVID situation. Probably we'll start again in two weeks, on Monday the 17th, in person, but we'll see how things develop. I don't feel so worried myself, but maybe that's from stupidity. [Laughter]

About two weeks ago, my son came home from college with Omicron. Going through that whole process, monitoring it and learning about it, was partly the motivation to close for two weeks. But it is also part of the reason why I'm not so worried about it. The precautions we have here are pretty good, and I think it makes it pretty safe for everyone. When we open again, we might request, maybe require, that everyone also be boosted. The boosters make a big difference. My son went through it, and he almost wouldn't have known he had it except he was told, and then he got tested. He had very minor symptoms. All of us quarantined, and all of us got tested at the right time, and so it's all good apparently. So that's the announcement.

A Year To Care

For the talk: this is the last Sunday talk for this year as we get ready to welcome in a new year. I remember when we brought in 2020, because of the "20/20 vision" thing, some of us talked about it being the year of clear seeing. Well, maybe it was in some ways. But now I'm thinking about 2022, and I would love it if it was a year of care, a year in which we cared. It seems particularly important at this juncture of human history that more of us care. It really makes a difference if we really come together, all of us, to care about so many things we've learned over the last year and over the last decades that are worth caring about.

I woke up this morning to learn that Desmond Tutu^[1] had died. He was a very inspiring person, both because of his fight against apartheid, but also because of his phenomenal work with the Truth and Reconciliation process in South Africa. That was so inspiring. It's one thing to set a people free from oppression like he did, which is so important; it's another thing to come out of that and try to heal the society that was so divided. South Africa probably wouldn't have managed so well if it hadn't been for the Truth and Reconciliation process. It inspired so many people in South Africa. Even people who didn't go through it formally in the proceedings they had, it just appointed a different way of being together.

Thinking about what I was going to talk about today, I read a little bit about his biography. I just wanted to mention that apparently he had polio as a kid and his right hand was atrophied because he couldn't use it. Also, when he was eighteen, he spent a year and a half in the hospital with tuberculosis. But there was an Episcopal priest who came to visit him and became his friend. That's what set him in motion to become a priest himself, and then become the Archbishop, and then become such a big influence on South Africa. He was a great, inspiring person, but we must also remember that there were people who cared for the inspiring people. The people who believed in them enough so that they could move forward and become someone wonderful.

Emphasizing this idea of care, there's a traditional story from the Middle East. Sometime in the days of old, there was a family that gave birth to a baby girl. There was an old, wise woman who lived at the edge of town, and she came to see this new girl that was born. She said, "Oh, she's a wonderful girl for sure, and she will die on her wedding night."

She grew up, and she was a wonderful person. She got engaged, and she got married. There was the wedding, and then there was a wedding feast that evening. The parents didn't tell anybody about this prediction, but they were a little bit on edge, thinking, "She's going to die tonight." It was a big feast, and everyone was partying, feasting, and dancing. Then, there came a poor beggar to the door of the party, knocked, and asked to have some food. Everyone shooed the person away—"No, no, no." But the bride somehow saw what was going on, and of all the people at the party, she was the one who went out there to give food to the beggar.

The party went on, there was the wedding night, and everyone woke up the next morning, and they were alive. The parents went to find the old woman and said, "What happened? We've been living with this idea that she was going to die." The old woman replied, "There was one thing that was going to save her, and that was if she did an act of kindness on her wedding night. But I couldn't have told you that, because then it wouldn't have worked. It wouldn't have been kind; it would have been done for that purpose."

The act of kindness saves someone. The act of kindness will save us. The act of care will save us. What will we save through our care? There is lots to care about now. They say that in terms of the whole climate change that's happening, it's not a matter of stopping it, but now our care can go into reducing the damage. In some ways, that makes it easier, because the idea of "all or nothing" is hard, but the idea that we can reduce it—each of us can reduce it in an important way, maybe by saving one life, one animal life, anything we can do to make it better—is an opportunity to care.

But one of the things that we save if we care is, in fact, our care itself. Caring, compassion, and kindness are some of the most important resources that we have. Care can be lost. It can be forgotten. It can be submerged in despair. It can be lost in anger. It can be lost in all kinds of things and distractions, like Netflix. But to care, to let that be beautiful—maybe what is saved is our care, and that counts. Who knows what our care will be needed for?

There's another Near Eastern story of a Sufi. A genie comes along and offers this Sufi one or two wishes—you can decide whether it's one or two. So the Sufi wishes, "May I help everyone I come across wherever I go. May I be helpful to people, but may it be that I don't know that I'm doing it."

He is given a big burlap bag to carry that's filled with seeds of fruit trees, maybe date palms. It has a little hole in the back of it. As he's carrying it on his back over his shoulder, it slowly loses these seeds out the back, but he doesn't see them falling. He keeps walking as he wanders around his part of the world, and he doesn't see that over the weeks, months, and years, behind him fruit trees grow that benefit the people around him. Does your care need to have proof that you've succeeded? Is it enough to simply care? Can you just care?

Sometimes we do get to see the wonderful fruits of our care, and sometimes it comes back to ourselves. Maybe this is a trite example, but it was a little bit inspiring, perhaps because it happened during a retreat at the retreat center, where everything is magnified a little bit. For those of you who haven't been there, we have a little coffee and tea area. Under the counter, there's a small refrigerator where they keep dairy milk and different kinds of milk. One day, I noticed that there was no milk there. I went out of my way to get a new, unopened container of milk, and I put it in the fridge for someone who was going to come. I didn't think about it anymore. A couple of hours later, I decided to have some tea and put some milk in it. I opened the refrigerator, and there was a full, unopened bottle of milk there. The person who benefited was me.

It's a silly example, but it comes around. I'll tell you another way it comes around that happened this week. My mother is now in a memory care home and is in hospice. A week or two ago, as all this hospice care was coming into play, I received a phone call. I get all these phone calls now from the hospice about all kinds of issues, from a wonderful place called Mission Hospice here in San Mateo. I got one of these phone calls, and the woman said, "I'm the Mission Hospice chaplain, and I'm getting ready to visit your mom." It turns out the woman who is my mom's chaplain was introduced to chaplaincy by taking the Buddhist chaplaincy training that I offered here at IMC some ten or eleven years ago. She went through the training and learned about all of this. It's a wonderful thing to train chaplains. Some of you in the room have been in the chaplaincy program; I can see at least three or four of you here. I just love doing it. I feel like it's a kind of pyramid scheme for joy, because people go out and benefit others, and then guess who benefits? It comes around. Who knows what our care does in the world. Maybe we don't need to know, but who knows the good we can do.

There's another story of a Christian monastery somewhere. The few monks that were left in the monastery were getting quite old. No one came to visit the monastery anymore, and no one was joining. It seemed like the monastery was just dying away. They could see that in a few years, none of the monks would be left, and what would happen to the monastery? It had been a thriving monastery in their youth, but now it was fading away. The abbot was a little concerned about this, of course. He was quite perplexed and decided, "I'm going to go visit this very wise rabbi in the next valley over." The abbot went to the rabbi and said, "We have this issue in our monastery. It's dying away, no one is coming, and it seems like it's coming to its end. Do you have any ideas of what we can do to revive it?" They had tea and talked about things, and the rabbi said, "No, not really. I don't know about monasteries." But then, as the abbot was leaving to go back home, the rabbi said, "Oh, by the way, one of your monks back at your monastery is going to be the messiah."

The abbot went back to the monastery, and the monks were eager to find out what he had learned. They all wanted to know what advice the rabbi gave. The abbot said, "He had no advice for us. He didn't have anything to say. But he did say this strange thing as I was leaving. He said one of us is going to be the messiah." The monks said, "Wow, that's strange." In the next days and weeks, the monks were wondering, "Who could it be? Well, it can't be Father Lawrence, he's always so grumpy. However, he's always helping. He's always at the right place when someone needs help. Could he be the one? Maybe... What about Brother Joseph? He's so lazy. No one does less than him in the monastery. But whenever he does something, he's always so kind." They went through everyone, wondering, "Could it be that person?" As they had these thoughts and recognized that each of them had something good going for them, they started treating each other with respect, care, and reverence in a way that they hadn't done for a long time. Then one day, some young people from town came to have a picnic on the monastery grounds. They felt something. They had little conversations with some of the monks and felt something special. They came back, and more of them came. Then some of them joined the monastery and became monks. After a couple of years, the place was thriving again with young, dedicated monastics.

What happens when we care for each other, when we respect each other and revere each other? What are the conditions we put in place? It doesn't take a lot of thinking to realize that those are very different conditions than being mean or indifferent. To care, to love, to be kind, as if your care is important, as if what you do matters. Maybe it doesn't have to be big. You don't have to become a Desmond Tutu. Maybe it's just that you care about a neighbor, or you care about someone who has a flat tire and you pull over to help them. I remember once in Palo Alto, a woman's car stalled in an intersection. She was standing there wondering what to do, and it seemed dangerous. I got out of my car, parked my car on the side, and I pushed her car to the side. It seemed like the right thing to do. I haven't thought about it in thirty years. Who knows who we're meeting? Do you know the people you meet? Do you know who they are and what their destiny is? Who knows, maybe they're like Father Lawrence. Maybe they're the messiah. Maybe there is something special there.

In 2013, some people cared for a thirteen-year-old girl who was shot in Pakistan. Two years later, that girl received the Nobel Peace Prize—Malala Yousafzai^[2]. Who would have known that caring for her would have such a big impact?

In 2018, a teenager started skipping school. A year later, Forbes magazine listed her as one of the 100 most powerful women in the world, and she ended up as Time magazine's Person of the Year. That was Greta Thunberg^[3]. Who would have known?

In 2020, a seventeen-year-old teenager working at the local mall changed America by taking the video of George Floyd dying—Darnella Frazier^[4]. And before that, there was a girl who went to thirteen different schools before she graduated high school, and then went on to be a single parent, cared for by friends, living on food stamps. What would happen to her? She is now currently the U.S. Secretary of the Interior—Deb Haaland^[5], from the Laguna Pueblo tribe. Who knows who is out there? Who knows who we meet? Who knows who you are? Some of these people are ordinary people, but who knows what comes their way.

All these things are inspiring, but also a little daunting when you mention great people who do monumental things. But each of them needed people who cared for them. The people who care don't have to know what the impact of their care is. What is important about care is the caring, without much thought about long-term impacts. Just take care to live a life of care. How would you live if you lived as if your life mattered? How would you live if you really thought that you could make a difference? I think our lives do matter.

Probably many of you know the movie It's a Wonderful Life. During the holidays, some people watch it. Maybe we can all be George Bailey^[6], the man who didn't think he'd done anything good in life and was going to jump off a bridge, and then an angel comes and shows him what the town would have been like if he hadn't lived at all, and it was awful. So here we are. We do matter, each of us.

We ended up with Guanyin^[7] on the altar. It's nice to have her there, especially for this talk on care, compassion, and kindness. There is a story about Guanyin. She is often depicted with eleven heads and sometimes a thousand arms. The story of how she got those eleven heads and a thousand arms is that she worked tirelessly to save people. Apparently, one day she had everything all tidied up—imagine that, everyone was good! Then she woke up the next morning, and sure enough, people were suffering again. It didn't take long for the suffering to come back. She did it again, but the suffering came back, and she saw the immense suffering of this world that she seemingly couldn't keep up with. In English, we would say she was heartbroken, but her head burst. It broke into eleven heads so she could be even more effective and helpful. The thousand arms are there because each hand holds a different tool or implement to help the world. She has all these heads to look everywhere. I like this story because some of us are afraid of having our hearts broken. If it's difficult to have your heart broken, maybe you haven't had it broken enough.

Maybe there's an art to letting it break, really break. Maybe then you'll be Guanyin; your heart will break into eleven hearts. Some people say that if your heart breaks into many pieces, it just has more surface area in order to feel, sense, and care for this world. I don't think we should be so afraid of having our hearts broken. If we can learn, maybe through mindfulness practice, to not resist it, not be oppressed by it, not be afraid of it, not be submerged by it, and not give up because of it. There is something about caring in spite of a broken heart, a sense of dignity and presence that allows the heart to break, and something caring emerges from that: caring for the world, caring for others, sensitivity, love, and kindness. If your heart is broken enough, what else is there but to be kind? What's left if you do it thoroughly?

These thousand arms, I think of them as hands that reach out and touch the whole world. It is remarkable that we live in a world now that has gotten so small. It's a bit of a cliché, but I can't help thinking that it's getting smaller and smaller in the way that what happens elsewhere affects us. Less than two months ago, someone got sick with COVID in South Africa and was discovered to have this new variant. When did I ever care so much about what happened to a sick person on the other side of the world? That one person—maybe that represents where it began—spread out across the whole world, and now the whole world is pausing from Omicron. We have this invisible force, this virus we don't see with our normal eyes. The fact that it spreads connects all of us all over the world. What happens in South Africa or elsewhere has a huge impact on us. Can we just close our borders and just care for ourselves, as if that's enough? If we want to care for ourselves, I think we should care for others.

It isn't just mothers going to nursing homes and having chaplains come that shows us how care comes back to us. If we don't care for the world, don't care for others, then what virus will come find us? I kind of love seeing people with masks on. I'm troubled by it, of course, but my assumption is that when people wear masks, they're caring for me. Certainly, when I'm wearing a mask, I'm caring for you. The fact that there's a room full of people where the care is visible, I think that's such a beautiful thing. It's love made visible, these masks.

Can we say there is something wonderful about COVID? The wonderful thing about COVID is that if we care for others, we are simultaneously caring for ourselves. It's represented by the masks. The mask is a way of protecting yourself, and you are protecting others. You get the benefits of both. You benefit yourself and you better care for others, so you might as well get credit for both. Don't just do it for your own sake, and don't just do it for other people's sake—do it for both. You get a lot more credit wherever credit is stored. I think that's where the credit is: in your heart. It's a beautiful thing to develop and expand this heart, sometimes by breaking it and letting it grow. It makes a difference. Your care makes a difference for you, and it makes a difference for the world.

Perhaps, just like the monastery, if we treat everyone as worthy of care, worthy of respect and reverence, it is a care that will return and benefit us as well. Not least because it's good for our hearts and our inner lives to treat people that way. I think of it as the natural way of being. Anything short of that requires resistance, contraction, closing down, pushing away, or being selfish.

So, the year of care. Some people have calculated that unless we change something, a million species of plants and animals will be extinct within the next hundred years. What will die if we don't care? Certainly, care will die. Do you want to live in a world where there's no care? I would rather live in a world that cares than anything else. With our care, some things will die, and one of the things that will die is our selfishness. Would that be so bad? I think it will be liberating.

So, 2022: may it be the year of care. By the end of the year, you'll know whether it was a year of care. If you cared, you will be the proof of it. May you benefit this world, and in doing so, benefit yourself. Thank you.