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Relationship at the heart of Dharma - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on December 31, 2023. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Relationship at the heart of Dharma

Good morning to all of you, and welcome. I am happy to be here with you. For those of you who are attending online, hello and welcome. It adds a kind of richness to have you along online.

We could say that today is a momentous day in that it's the last day of 2023, and tomorrow at midnight we usher in 2024. I think there's a tradition of people wanting to give inspiring, hopeful messages for the new year, and it would be nice if I did that today. Maybe I will; you'll have to decide.

As I think ahead for 2024, I think we're going to have a lot of challenges coming. The speed at which the climate is changing is surprising the people who were warning us that it was going to change; it's happening faster than we expected. It's way too early to tell whether we'll be going into drought again in California, but the snow levels are quite low again all across the western parts of this country. We can list all these changes.

Some of the wars that are being fought currently today, we don't see any end for tomorrow. They'll continue into 2024, and some of them might get worse, might expand and stretch. The ways in which the wars spill over across their borders to other countries around the world to create more and more division seems to be increasing, and that will probably continue into 2024. Certain reasonable scenarios for this country suggest that the presidential election will be very difficult, and we don't know who will end up being elected president in November. Chances are that a big part of the population is going to be quite challenged and upset by this.

As we look forward to some of the challenges that are coming in 2024, one of the things that is important to consider is to prepare ourselves for this. To prepare ourselves for November so it's not a shock and surprise. We want to be prepared and ready for whatever comes, prepared for the challenges of this country that—who knows how much stronger they'll become. I think this mindfulness practice we do, Buddhist practice, is meant to be a preparation for the challenges we face in our life. Most commonly, it's talked about regarding the existential challenges of sickness, old age, and death, but the Buddha frequently enough addressed the social challenges of his times, and the practice was also meant to address those as well.

The Convention of New Year's

We make this big turn tonight at midnight, or 10:30 at IMC. Some of us are making a lot to do about nothing, because nothing actually happens at midnight today. Nothing real in the world, I mean. It's kind of an odd New Year's time. Some cultures have New Years at a time that corresponds with astronomical changes. Wouldn't it make more sense to have the New Year on the Solstice, to mark something real?

Not only does it not mark something real, but it also marks a kind of fallacy. We call it the end of the twelfth month of the year, but we call it the tenth month in Latin—December. It's kind of a confusion that November is the ninth month, October is the eighth month, and September the seventh month. So we're confused in our language, at least. And then we come to this New Year's. It's a convention, and it's an unusual convention that was invented by people, probably men, a long time ago. It's not even a lunar calendar. In a very real way, as an existential thing, New Year's does not exist. It's a convention, a concept, ideas that humans have created. Much of the world lives by it, and much of the world has other calendars as well. One of the great things about living in the Bay Area is that you can celebrate New Year much through the year because there are so many different cultures here with different calendars. For a long time, the Chinese New Year was a big alternative to the Gregorian calendar new year, but now there are all kinds of other ones as well. And there's the Buddhist New Year that happens in April. We could just keep celebrating.

So it's a convention, but actually, conventions are important, and that's the emphasis for this talk today. Conventions are something that we create in relationship to each other. We either participate or don't participate, but if we participate in the conventions, we're actually participating in a way of relating to each other, to the world. We might think it's silly to emphasize this around the calendar, but it's actually true. It's one of an infinite number of conventions, of bridges, of networking that reaches out to how we're actually connected to other people.

For those of us who speak English here, English is a language which is connecting all of us as I speak. We share it; it's a bridge, it's a relationship. Language is all relational. There's a relationship that's happening with all of you as I speak, a relationship that happens to you as you listen to me, and there's a relationship that all of you share in being part of this together, listening to this together through the English language.

What is being conveyed through the conventions that we share? What's traveling on the sound waves, what's being carried along with it? I watched a movie last night with my family, and boy, was there a lot of swearing. It wasn't just swearing; it was actually talking meanly to other people. It was really heavy. I mean, they were emphasizing it in the movie, so it was part of the point of the movie. But wow, how can people be so mean to each other? In the way they were talking, they were conveying that the relationship was something really unfortunate, something painful, something harmful was being conveyed in the very words they spoke. Then a little bit as part of the purpose of the movie was to show a transformation of people. You could see that at some point after the transformation happened to a few of these people, their language became much softer and kinder, and there were little tears in their eyes as they spoke and cared for each other. That was very nice.

We have so many ways in which this network of relatedness is happening. One of them that we all share here in this country is this change of the year. For some of us, it doesn't really matter that much. I think we kind of do something at my house at 9:00 with the excuse that that's the New York Times Square time. We don't even turn it on to watch it, just say "okay." It's important for our children and one of our neighbors who wants us to do it for the children. My wife buys M&M's, and at the kitchen table where my kids eat breakfast, the new year is written out in M&M's. So it'll say "2024." My kids wake up and they get M&M's. You know, they're 21 and 25! [Laughter]

My neighbor, who loves this tradition—I think she's about 60—wants us to do it. She's not coming over for the M&M's; she just likes the idea. So it's a tradition that we have, and it's a way of relating to each other and caring for each other, or loving each other, connecting through this tradition that we do. There's something in this new year that knits our family a little bit together. That's nice.

The World is Made of Relationships

For better or worse, Buddhism is a religion, and as a religion, it tends to offer fundamental, universal orientations, values, and understandings of this life that we're living in. I'd like to suggest that, through the Buddhist lens, this world of ours is not made from atoms. It's not made from electrons or protons. It's not made of quarks and bosons and these subatomic particles. That's not what this world is made of fundamentally.

The world is made of relationships between things. Nothing exists without being in relationship to something else. Nothing exists that doesn't come from something, doesn't interact with something so it's known and has a purpose or has some existence. Nothing exists that doesn't have some impact beyond itself. Whether there was some kind of fundamental matter first that exploded in the Big Bang and then there were relationships of everything, or was it a relationship first—that's kind of like a chicken-and-egg question. The Buddha never answered such a question because he felt that there's beginningless time; there was no beginning.

The emphasis is not on the things of the world, like atoms. What's important is not the events of the world—how people relate, how people are doing what they're doing, and all kinds of things in the world. Rather, it's the relationship we have with it. The relationship we have with ourselves, the relationship we have with the different things happening within ourselves: our thoughts, our feelings, our motivations. The relationship to the events of our lives, the difficulties and challenges, our illnesses and our dying, and the wars of our society and our world. It's in the relationship that they're formed; that's the fundamental basis of life from a Buddhist point of view.

So what we're doing in Buddhism is having insight and understanding and transformations about the ways in which that relationship happens. This is what's key. If we're focusing on money, like the purpose of life is to be wealthy or have money, and it's just about the money, then we lose sight of the fact that money is really a relationship. Money has a certain relationship; it allows us to do things and connect to other people and have an influence and effect on the world.

It was kind of transformative for me financially that I live on dana¹. The money that I live with is freely given donations. I don't ask for anything, people just seem to want to support me as a Dharma teacher. To me, that money has a spin; it comes with a relationship to people who value something about the Dharma, who value a certain way of living. I feel like I have a responsibility or a desire or an inspiration to continue that spin in how I spend the money. So I wouldn't use the money I receive from dana to go out and buy cigarettes or guns. That would just seem completely disrespectful, or worse, for the relationship that money represents.

I would like to use it for good in the world and think about how I do that. Sometimes, because of that, when I go someplace and say, "Well, this is kind of expensive," I'll tell myself, "Well, it'll just support the people who receive it. That's good for them. I receive support, I'm happy to support them. It's okay." I don't know if that inspires you or not, but it inspires me.

What is the relationship we're contributing? What's the relationship we're forming? What's the impact we have? If it's all about "me, myself, and mine," it's too easy for that to sever relationships. It's too easy for that to dismiss how related we are, so that we are more likely causing harm rather than benefit. How do we live our life in the world of relationships, not in the world of things? How do we live in the world of relationships in a way that supports and helps everyone involved? And everyone in this world is involved. This is one of the fundamental principles of the Buddhist teachings.

Discovering the Sacred in Relatedness

I would like to propose—using a non-Buddhist word—that it is in the relationships we have with ourselves, with others, and the world that we discover what is sacred. That's where the sacredness is. Sacred is not in something out there, but it's found in the relatedness that we have. For Buddhists, the word I'm using for sacred is the word Dharma. Dharma is sacred for Buddhists, and Dharma is about relationships.

The most classic way of talking about it is dependent co-arising²—that things arise in dependence on other things. Things arise and exist in relationship to other things. This is a fundamental principle of the teaching. The Dharma is found in relationships. Dharma is not personal or impersonal; it's not in oneself or in the world. It is embedded in everything we are in relationship with. It's in that relationship. You do, in a sense, find it within, but it's not really personal. We do find it externally, but it's not really impersonal. It's all about the relationship we have.

For humans, the known universe is sacred because we live in relationship with it. However wide we can know it, however far our imagination can stretch—whether it's to the edges of your home, to your block, to the city, to the country, to the world, to the cosmos—however far you can imagine, the relationship we have to it, that's what's sacred. It's in how we relate and are related to that world that we find the greatest meaning, value, healing, and liberation. The most important values and things we want for our lives are found in some quality of relatedness to something.

The quality of relating, and the object of greatest reverence, is not what's on the other side of a relationship; it is how we relate. It's not an object out there that we revere, but rather the reverence in Buddhism is for that relatedness. How are we interacting? What are we bringing with us? What are we seeing? What are we intending? What are we supporting? What qualities are in that bridge, in that relatedness? The way we use conventions and language and speech and actions in relationship to others, what are we conveying in it?

Do we think about it? Do we become unconscious, where we don't care about other people? We drive on the freeway without any concern for others. You are still relating to the others on the freeway, but you're not taking responsibility or taking attention to what the relationship being formed there is. It can be sacred how you drive your car. If driving your car, you're considering all the circles of relationships that are coming into play. Do you drive on the freeway to make it a better driving experience for the other drivers, or are they all obstacles to you having a good driving experience, and so you use your finger to let them know? Or do you drive in such a way that's easier for other people?

Non-Harming as the Heart of the Dharma

When we come into these relationships, the heart of the Dharma that we teach—the part of Buddhist teachings—is non-harming. An ancient teaching is that the primary characteristic of the Dharma is non-harming. If there's any harming involved with Buddhism, then it's not the Dharma. The primary reference point for understanding the Dharma is non-harming.

Non-harming is a relational issue. With ourselves, not to harm ourselves. With others, not to harm others. This means non-harming in all our relationships, including to the animals and to the natural world. The teaching of the Buddha actually held this up as a very, very high value. This universal emphasis on non-harming that the Buddha gave is a challenge for us living the lives we live. Is it a challenge that we're willing to accept, to live with, to relate to in a way that is healthy and hopeful? Or do we just shut down and say, "Well, it's impossible to live a non-harming life," and then not think about it again?

It's possible that one of the most important relationships to rectify, to clarify, to move into this non-harming way is the relationship we have with ourselves. Violence and causing harm harms the one who is violent sometimes more fully than the one to whom violence is directed.

I'd like to propose evocatively, provocatively, and kind of as a catalyst for you to think about this—to see how it might be true—that relationships are stories. Every relationship is a story. It can be explained as a narrative: this happened, this is how we relate, this is how it unfolded. It's been said that the world is not made of atoms; it's made of relationships, made of stories. What stories do you live by? Are your stories ones that empower? Are your stories ones that create peace, bring love, bring friendship, bring kindness, bring support, that bring respect for everything that you encounter? Or do you have a story that you may be unconsciously living by that does the opposite of that? That just disrespects and disregards. A story that certain things are not important enough to pay attention to or to care for. A story that some people don't count.

We have a world filled with people who are treating each other as subhuman, treating each other as monsters. This is partly the reason why people can wage war, because of the stories that are told about how terrible other people are. So what are the stories you bring to everything you do?

Some people say we need new stories. I don't know if we need new stories, because I don't know if there are any new stories. There's been a lot of stories down through history; we just need to choose the right stories. There's a lot to choose from. The Buddha had a story, and I like that story. I think that's the new story, even though it's 2500 years old. Stories that heal, stories that unite, stories of mutual support and care. Stories of peace through nonviolence.

We can't solve a problem with the problem itself. We can't overcome violence with violence, greed with greed. We can't overcome the problems of overconsumption with more consumption. We can't overcome the problem of depleting natural resources by taking out more natural resources. In the world of conflict, we can't solve conflict with more conflict. We can't end divisions by continuing to be divisive. We can't end fighting by fighting more. We don't find self-respect by disrespecting others. We don't find happiness by denying happiness to others. We don't find safety by making others unsafe. We don't overcome selfishness through more selfishness.

The Power of Nonviolence

The fundamental aspect of Dharma is non-harming, nonviolence. Violence is always myopic. For the powerful, violence can be successful sometimes in the short term, but not in the long term. That happens in small ways between people, between friends, between families and spouses. People use power and violent language, violent assertions, to get their way, and they think, "Well, that was successful. I was angry and yelled at them, and they stopped doing what they did. Great." But then something shuts down in the other person. That person no longer trusts, that person no longer is willing to present themselves, and the relationship has now been severed in some way. Can it ever be healed? It might look like it; people pretend, people go along.

The Buddha had this wonderful teaching. I think it may be painful or unpleasant to hear, but this is the old story that should be the new story: The killer begets a killer. One who conquers begets a conqueror. The abuser begets abuse. The reviler begets one who reviles. I don't know if this is universally true, but I believe it's more true than not that when we cause harm in the world, we don't create conditions where the world is going to be safe for ourselves. So often, wars create more wars. They create people who are deeply hurt and traumatized, and one of the ways they respond 10 or 20 years later is to fight more.

I have a quote from a man named Walter Wink³, who was writing in the 1990s. Even if it's only half accurate, I think it's a meaningful quote. He wrote: "In 1989, thirteen nations comprising 1.6 billion people experienced nonviolent revolutions that succeeded beyond anyone's wildest expectations... If we add all the countries touched by major nonviolent actions in our century (the Philippines, South Africa... the independence movement in India), the figure reaches 3.3 billion people, a staggering 65% of humanity [back then]. All this in the teeth of the assertion, endlessly repeated, that nonviolence doesn't work in the real world."

There's something about how we remember violence, but we don't remember nonviolence very well. Soon after Sandy Hook, there was a very similar situation where a man with an assault rifle and 500 rounds of ammunition was able to force himself around the security at a school of 800 kids. He was going to try to shoot as many as he could. Somehow, he ended up holed up in an office with two hostages. One of the hostages, who was really scared, started talking to him. Her name is Antoinette Tuff⁴.

She started talking to him, and she started off by telling him the challenges she has in her life, that her husband had left and that she had wanted to commit suicide. She started talking to him about their shared grief, their shared challenges in life. She started telling him, "You don't have to die today. Life will still bring you bad turns, but we can learn from it." She started this conversation because she saw that this man who wanted to kill was a sick person who could be cared for.

Before she started this conversation with him, he had shot his weapon once into the floor of the room, and the police had fired a barrage of shots through the door that didn't hit anyone. It was a tense situation. She had this conversation with him, and she helped him understand that maybe he was better off turning himself in. She praised him: "You're a good person. I love you. I'm proud of you." At some point, he put down his gun, they opened the door, and that was the end of it.

We don't remember this event. We remember Sandy Hook. Shouldn't we be remembering this? Isn't this monumental, how many people it saved, that this act of nonviolence, this act of love and care had such a huge impact? This makes a difference.

One of my heroes is a man named Michael Nagler⁵, who was a professor of Peace Studies at UC Berkeley for forty years. I got this story from him, from his recent book on nonviolence. He says he studied these kinds of situations, and these kinds of people have done this much more often than we realize. He says they have four things in common:

1. You see a distraught person as a suffering person, not a threat or a monster.
2. You show the person they are not alone in their grief; you share your personal pain with them.
3. You offer, one way or the other, the teaching: "This too will pass."
4. You buck the person up. You praise them or do something positive, because many times these people have been bullied or never seen with respect.

I find it remarkable that in his study, these are the four principles he sees in common with so many of these events that don't make the news enough. This is what can change the world. Therefore, respect or love of one's opponents is pragmatically useful. It's a technique that distinguishes the deeds from the doers. This increases the possibility of the doers changing their behavior and, hopefully, their beliefs.

A Mass Movement of Relating

This talk is centered around the idea of nonviolence because, in Buddhism, this is a central principle that guides us into what is sacred. It guides us into what has the greatest value, which is the story that orients all the relationships we have to everything—to events, to things, to people, to this world. It is fundamentally a relationship of non-harming. That's the bottom line. Above that, there are things like love, generosity, kindness, and respect.

This is not necessarily unique to Buddhism. I wanted to read a somewhat famous passage from India, from the Mahabharata in its 17th chapter. The Sanskrit word for non-harming is Ahimsa⁶.

"Ahimsa is the highest virtue. Ahimsa is the highest self-control. Ahimsa is the greatest gift. Ahimsa is the best suffering."

Isn't that fascinating? Ahimsa is the best suffering. If you're going to suffer, suffer because of that.

"Ahimsa is the highest sacrifice."

In the United States, we have this idea that the highest sacrifice is to die for your country in war.

"Ahimsa is the finest strength. Ahimsa is the greatest friend. Ahimsa is the greatest happiness. Ahimsa is the highest truth. Ahimsa is the greatest teaching."

As we come to this momentous transformation that will happen at midnight (or 10:30, or 9:00 in my house), we are voluntarily—maybe you didn't realize it or you're reluctantly doing it—participating in a mass movement of a way we relate to each other. It's a bridge, a network, a connectivity that we all have. When we celebrate New Year's Eve, maybe we're celebrating those relationships. It's arbitrary that this is the New Year's Eve that we call it that, but it's not arbitrary the way that we're related to each other.

You could just ignore this one and go to sleep, that's fine. But don't ignore all the different ways that you relate. Don't ignore this fact that we're related to each other. Don't ignore the fact that the fundamental way of taking care of yourself is in taking care of the relationships you have with everything: yourself, with your atoms, with other people, with the natural world.

It's in relatedness that we discover the Dharma. It's in relationships that we discover where we cling and where we're generous, where we have hostility and animosity, and where we have love. It's in the relationship to things that we discover wisdom and our foolishness and our delusion. It's in the world of relatedness that we discover how to be free. Free of all that harms, intentionally harms, purposely harms. That clears the room in our hearts for the best qualities of the heart to come forth. Because the metaphorical heart is the deepest, most valuable place from which we can relate to anything and everything.

May it be that as we go into this new year and prepare ourselves for all the challenges that come, that we let our heart, that deep place within, be the place where each of our worlds begins. If we want to create a peaceful world, a loving world, don't wait for other people to do it. Don't wait for your politicians to do it. It begins with you. It begins with how you relate to the people close to you, how you contribute to harmony and peace with the people you know, and how that community then relates to the bigger communities. Let it flow from you, and let that be the place where you rest. Let that be the place where you're ready for whatever comes.

Even if the world comes with tremendous challenges that are overwhelming for all of us—as they are right now for others in Gaza and Ukraine and Somalia, and the list goes on and on of places where people are living under horrendous challenges—it might be our turn next. Be ready in such a way that you always remember that the world begins with your heart, the world that you relate to. Your relatedness, that's where it is.

This practice can support you and help you find how to rest in a place that is always creating a good world from you. And who knows what you'll be asked to do? The woman who talked the shooter out of shooting, until that moment, until that day she was in the public eye for the news and the books they wrote, she was an ordinary person, maybe like you. But something came her way, and she responded to it and related to it in a profound way.

So who knows what's coming for all of us? Let's be ready. Let's use 2024 not to have hope for what it's going to bring, but to have hope for how we can relate to whatever comes. We can use this practice. This practice is powerful, and if you give yourself to this practice well, it will show you the way to relate in a way that's beneficial for yourself and this world.

May it be so. Thank you.