I gave this talk at our Full Moon Zen Sunrise Sit on April 10, 2024. A recording follows the text.

This is an excerpt from a sutra in the Pali Canon:

Monks, there are these three kinds of persons found existing in the world.  What three?  The person who is like a line etched in stone; the person who is like a line etched in the ground; and the person who is like a line etched in water.

And what kind of person is like a line etched in stone?  Here, some person often gets angry, and his anger persists for a long time.  Just as a line etched in stone is not quickly erased by the wind and water but persists for a long time, so too, some person often gets angry, and his anger persists for a long time.  This is called the person who is like a line etched in stone.

And what kind of person is like a line etched in the ground?  Here, some person often gets angry, but his anger does not persist for a long time.  Just as a line etched in the ground is quickly erased by the wind and water and does not persist for a long time, so too, some person often gets angry, but his anger does not persist for a long time. This is called the person who is like a line etched in the ground.

And what kind of person is like a line etched in water? Here, some person, even when spoken to roughly and harshly, in disagreeable ways, remains on friendly terms with his antagonist, mingles with him, and greets him.  Just as a line etched in water quickly disappears and does not persist for a long time, so too, some person, even when spoken to roughly and harshly, in disagreeable ways, remains on friendly terms with his antagonist, mingles with him, and greets him.  This is called the person who is like a line etched in water.

These, monks, are the three kinds of persons found existing in the world.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a very hard time watching the news lately.  I ate dinner alone in front of the TV the other night.  I could barely manage to nourish myself after seeing images of kids in Gaza dying of starvation.

For so many, their spirits, and now their bodies, have been utterly crushed.  Today is the beginning of Eid al Fitr, the feast marking the end of Ramadan.  There traditionally are celebrations after prayers—prayers in which Muslims pray for peace and mercy.  Like us, they also pray for the wellbeing of all beings.  It’s hard to imagine these prayers and these celebrations in the midst of what Muslims in Gaza and Muslims the world over are experiencing.

It’s so sad that we repeatedly enact these cycles of violence.  It so often seems one person’s or group’s spirits get activated and elevated in an angry way to crush another person’s spirits in response to some real or perceived offense.  That prompts those who’ve been harmed to retaliate.  The vicious cycle goes on and on.

It seems Gautama Siddhartha often was asked by monks in his community, and by others he met, how to deal with anger and conflict.  To be honest, some of his guidance seems a bit too demanding and idealistic to me; unlikely to be accepted and practiced by most people.  In one sutra, for example, he admonished his monks to be tranquil even if someone “were to sever you savagely limb by limb with a two-handed saw.”

To be fair, the Buddha was talking to monks in his community when he said this—advanced practitioners, we might say—and he likely was pointing toward what the Zen tradition later came to call the Absolute: the radical emptiness that escapes everyday sensible awareness for most people most of the time.  The perspective from which there is only non-killing.  The perspective from which “my” life isn’t really “mine.”  From which there is no isolated me and mine; only Life (with a capital L) and, whatever I am, I am one with Life in life (with a small l) and in death.  

From the absolute perspective, there is no birth and death, only Life.  If only we could all grasp this, I imagine the Buddha is saying with this provocative example, perhaps nonviolence, nonkilling, would become the norm from a relative, sensible perspective, too. 

Still, the teaching I read a moment ago seems more approachable for most of us, so perhaps better to emphasize.  Perhaps if each of us can progressively shift from being a person who is more like soft ground than stone, and then from one who is more like water than soft ground, we have some hope of reversing the vicious cycles to which we contribute.  To sparking virtuous interpersonal and cultural cycles in which our hearts are less and less inclined toward violence of any form, to any degree.

So, let’s continue to let our practice soften us.