I outrace the truth with untitled words. Last time, I think it was last time, I talked about the Brahma-viharas, the four Brahma-viharas. Neta, Karuna,

[01:03]

mudita and upekka, loving kindness or friendliness, more than just friendliness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity. These kinds of practices In our Zen practice, we need to have some kind of foundation practice. We usually tend to think, and if we read Dogon, he talks about Zazen only. If you can practice Buddhism by Zazen only, just sit Zazen.

[02:10]

But I think we have to be careful not to take that too literally. If we read someone who has great authority and they say something, it's easy to just take their words literally and cling to their words. Dogen was talking to people who had a lot of background in Buddhism. and who had some foundation for their practice and was making a very strong point talking to Buddhists or people who had been studying Buddhism for hundreds of years was stressing the essence of practice.

[03:15]

But for someone like us, who doesn't have much background in Buddhism, Zazen only is good, but we need some foundation. We need to have some foundation in Buddhism in order to understand Zazen only and in order to be able to lead a positive way of life as Zazen. So practices, meditation practices like the Brahma Viharas are a very good foundation for Zen students. the attitude of Zen students or people's perceptions of Zen students as zombies, Zen zombies.

[04:23]

Don't talk much and sit very still and are kind of regimented. But as I said last week, a zombie is someone who has no feeling. So it's not that we have no feelings, but we tend to control our feelings. Control in the sense of having a positive attitude with our feelings. So, you know, when we come in the gate, when we start to think about zazen, and we look at our watch and leave home to come to the zendo, we're already beginning to think about zazen.

[05:37]

We're already entering into zazen. And as we come closer to the zendo, each step brings us closer to entering into zazen. And by the time we get through the gate, we're already in a state of zazen. So when people come to the zendo, they don't talk so much because we want to keep that meditative zazen mind. We're already entering into zazen. Sometimes we feel that there's not so much communication in speaking to each other. and so forth. That's because when we come to the zendo, we're already, even before we step into the zendo, we're already entering into zazen. And when we leave the zendo, we're still in that calm state of mind.

[06:44]

and gradually we re-enter into activity. And that kind of attitude is mistaken for some kind of anti-social behavior, but it's not. What we do when we enter into the meditative state of zazen is tendencies. We start to control our outward-going tendencies and enter into inward-going tendencies. So as I explained before, there are two aspects of zazen. One is turning inward, and the other is turning outward. And when we're turning inward, all of our effort is directed inward.

[07:47]

And when we turn outward, all of our directed energy is directed outward. And we should know the difference. And we shouldn't expect when we do one activity that it has the characteristics of the other. So, whichever activity we do should have a positive aspect. When we turn inward, we turn inward in a positive way. When we turn outward, we turn outward in a positive way. So how we feel about each other

[08:50]

and about the world is very important. How we express our feeling or our attitude toward the world should be done in a positive way. So the meditations, those four meditations on loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity, four states of love actually, four ways of expressing love, is done in a positive way, not just a casual way or a passive way, but a very positive, active way. So as a basis for practice, basis which supports our zazen practice and our everyday practice, we should know something about those four meditations and practice them, be able to practice them.

[10:12]

so that we don't fall into quietism or dispassion or passivity. So what I want to do today is to have us enter into these meditations First of all, if it's okay with you. Is it okay to do that? Okay. First of all, when we meditate on metta, which is goodwill or loving kindness, we meditate on ourself first.

[11:24]

So there are four aspects to this. First one is you meditate on yourself. Then the second one is you meditate on someone who is very close to you, who you like. It's pretty easy. Then you meditate on someone who you're indifferent to. Have no special feeling one way or the other. then you meditate on someone that you don't particularly like, someone who is maybe your antagonist or enemy. And you actually send a positive feeling of loving-kindness to each one of those four. So in turn, we start with ourself. So think of goodwill toward yourself. You say, may I be happy, may I have a good attitude toward myself, may I feel good and wholesome, and may I accept myself completely.

[12:38]

So for a few moments, we'll meditate on this, on ourself in this way. you can keep your eyes open and closed. Next, think of someone who you like, who is close to you, and direct this loving kindness to that person.

[14:41]

But be careful that it's not someone who arouses desire in you, or someone who is not living. And then pick someone who you feel rather indifferent to, not good.

[16:20]

not dead, no special feeling, and direct your love, loving kindness to that person for no special reason. May you be happy may you feel good so far And next, extend that feeling of loving kindness to someone who you really can't stand.

[17:57]

Someone who is maybe your enemy or your antagonist. Pick out the worst. and surround that person with a feeling of love and goodwill. Okay.

[18:59]

And then we can extend it, you know, we can say to the northern hemisphere, or the southern hemisphere, and then the whole universe can do that. Let's say, extend that feeling of loving-kindness to everyone in the northern part of the world, northern hemisphere. Okay. And then everyone in the Southern Hemisphere.

[20:43]

Just let this feeling of love go out to everyone in the Southern Hemisphere. And And then we can send this feeling of love to all the animals in the world. Next, we can work with compassion, karuna.

[22:33]

Think of, extend compassion to yourself for all of your suffering. Feeling of compassion, may I Not feeling sorry for yourself, but recognizing your suffering, accepting, and hoping that you won't have so much suffering. I hope I won't have... I hope that my practice will be such that it won't bring so much suffering on me. And then pick a friend, someone that's very close to you, and extend that compassion to that friend, that person.

[24:07]

I hope that they won't have so much suffering. And then extend that compassion to somebody who you don't feel one way or the other about. May that person not have so much suffering. And then extend our compassion to someone who is an antagonist or someone you hate.

[25:55]

May you not have so much suffering. When we say suffering, we mean suffering in its true sense. And then we can extend our compassion to all the animals.

[27:01]

And then you can extend it to the whole world. May the whole world be relieved of suffering. And then with sympathetic joy, mudita, for yourself, may I enjoy my life. Take pleasure in my life.

[28:38]

Pleasure in what I'm doing. May I be able to enjoy myself. And then for someone who is a close friend, may that person enjoy their life, and may I take delight in the fact that that person is enjoying their life. May I not feel jealous or envious. And for someone who is neutral, who you have neutral feelings toward, not one way or the other, may I feel joyful in your success.

[30:21]

without feeling jealousy or envy or ill will. And then someone who you have, who is an antagonist or enemy or you don't particularly like. May you enjoy your success. May I feel happy toward you for your successes without feeling jealousy, envy or ill will.

[31:28]

This is a very hard one to do. Very difficult. In the meditation practice, usually someone who is practicing this kind of meditation does it in slow stages and builds up a kind of confidence before really sending out goodwill to someone that is an antagonist. It's a difficult stage.

[32:55]

The last one is upekka or even-mindedness. This is, you know, a form of love without desire of any kind. And this even-mindedness is even-mindedness in that whether there's something good or something bad, thrown by it. So to yourself, you can say, may I have good equanimity. so that my mind is always in an imperturbable state.

[34:24]

This is our zazen practice. And then to your friend, may you have good equanimity so that your mind is always in an imperturbable state. And then with someone who you don't have any feeling particularly about, may you dwell in an imperturbable state of mind.

[35:58]

And then to your antagonist or enemy, may you dwell in an imperturbable state of mind. I went through these meditations rather quickly because it's pretty long. If you really did a comprehensive meditation practice, it would take quite a long time to do it, to really concentrate on each one

[37:30]

it will become a natural part of your attitude toward everything. Sometimes when someone who comes to me has a lot of trouble relating to people, I give them these Brahma-viharas to meditate on. But I think we should all meditate on these Brahma-viharas If we want to bring our mind to a state of peace, and if we want to bring a state of peace to the world, then our mind should dwell in a positive state, not just a passive state. Passivity is a kind of peacefulness, but it's not enough. A neutral state is a kind of peacefulness, but it's not enough.

[38:52]

I don't think we should be aggressive, aggressively peaceful, but maybe we should. But we need to, if Love and peace is our life and we need to express that in a very positive way as our life. And these old Buddhist meditations and carried over into Buddhism. It's just a basic foundation for Buddhist life.

[40:00]

Whether you're a Zen student or Theravada, it doesn't matter. We say, Suzuki Roshi always said that our Zen practice, Soto Zen practice is Theravada practice, or Hinayana practice, with a Mahayana mind. And he was always careful not to talk too much about our practice as the Zen school, like Dogen. He said, it's just Buddhism. What we're practicing is just Buddhism. So that we wouldn't lose sight of the fact that Zen is just Buddhism. and not some special sect that's exclusive, not some exclusive special So if we know how to practice our practice and also our practice is just universal practice.

[41:31]

We say that sitting zazen includes everyone. When we sit, it includes everything. But we also need to be able to express that in all kinds of ways. So these meditations are also a kind of zazen. And when it's no longer just a meditation practice, but is part of your life, then it's zazen. And myself, I don't sit down and practice these meditation practices one by one. I think it's good to do it. It's good to sit down and practice these meditation practices in a very thorough way, one by one. But if we just carry that feeling with us all the time, then in every situation that we meet,

[42:43]

we can express what's pertinent to the situation. It's just in the same way that we don't practice our precepts one by one, but through our zazen And through our attitude, precepts are being kept. But it's necessary to know what they are. And it's necessary to know what our forms of expression for love are. We talk about love a lot, but it's all mixed up. our emotions and feelings and desire.

[43:52]

So it's good to know what love is in its pure sense so that it sustains and supports but doesn't damage. Last time I talked about the counterfeit or near enemy of these four states. The counterfeit or near enemy of metta is desire or greed or cupidity. Looks like love. It's very close, but is not It's tainted. So, in the realm of dāna or giving, when we give something, we give love or compassion or sympathetic joy or

[45:15]

equanimity. It's always with nothing held onto. It's actually kind of indiscriminate. It's like sowing seeds. No particular reason or purpose other than just to do it for its own sake. if you have some string attached, that's not it. Looks like it, maybe, but isn't it. So, just maybe, just to give and forget, and constantly, that way we're constantly renewed. moment by moment, our life is renewed.

[46:21]

That's how we do it. As soon as we get caught by our giving, by our dana, we're no longer free. So we could call these four meditation practices four ways of freedom for ourselves and for others. And the perversion of these practices is four ways of entangling ourselves in the web of karma. So we're constantly freeing ourselves and freeing others. And if you can do that, then you can experience great freedom and great joy.

[47:31]

And the joy is just spontaneous. We don't have time for questions. I don't think we need any. We're okay. It seems that everything in our environment, in our So sometimes it seems that you have to choose between that kind of freedom and relationships. Well, what do you mean? Why do you have to choose? Someone said something to me last Saturday after lecture about... I can't remember who it was.

[48:39]

I can't remember exactly what they said, but it was very pertinent. Anyway, I think that It's always a struggle. Relationships are always a struggle. When you get into a relationship, you don't know what it's going to be like. You think you know, but you don't. And it's always a matter of refining. You go this way and that person goes this way. Constantly refining your life until you find out what your real purpose is. pity is to try and think what you can say or do for them that helps them to be strong and get through what they're going through.

[49:50]

Yeah, I think that's a good point. Compassion in practice is to help people to be themselves or to help people to be able to help themselves. If you're always helping someone, it's kind of pitiful. You always have to help someone. It's kind of pitiful, and we don't like to. People don't like to be pitied or feel that compassion comes out of it. It's a good point. And it's very skillful. You should learn the skill of allowing people to help themselves. And in our Zen practice, that's very Are you saying that instead of trying to persuade someone that you're doing a course of action to correct, that instead you should concentrate on removing their delusions, and that the course of action will become obvious to both of you?

[50:59]

That's ideal. Ideally, I would say so. Yeah. Ideally so. But you can't always say that you can always Well, then you have to take some secondary way. Are you suggesting that we take something part of our Zazen to read? No, I'm not. I want you to be careful. Do not think this is not a substitute for Zazen. Take some, watch your breath for a while. But not for me. No.

[52:00]

I want to know a little bit more about what you mean by getting caught by your giving. Well, getting caught by your giving means that if you have a string attached, then the string is attached to it and it's also attached to you. So that as much as you want something, then this thing is attached to you and you're being pulled around by that. So you've lost your freedom. As soon as you start being pulled around by something, you've lost your freedom. So if you let go, at least you have the opportunity to regain your freedom. So we're always practicing always letting go. How you always let go. So you're always giving freedom to yourself and to others. And you're not keeping something for yourself. So if you start keeping something for yourself, you're caught. Do you understand what I mean?

[53:08]

No, but I'm going to think about it. OK. Well, loving kindness is where you wish well for everyone, for someone. And sympathetic joy is where you take joy in someone else's success, where you have a good feeling about someone else's success. You lay down your own whatever interference you may have. rejoice with them over their successful success. If someone gets into a political office that you don't like, the one that loses always has to go and say, well, it's nice that you won.

[54:19]

We don't like to do it. Yeah, I just wonder, is it just rejecting that someone else's success can also be rejecting that someone else's delight? Delight? Well, that's just a way of saying it. Sure, delight, success. Because, I mean, there are little ways that people ... Strictly speaking, it's talking about people's spiritual success, you know, or their ... not so much whether they got a new car, it's okay, but that's not the veda, you know, coming to some understanding, you know, on success and being able to have some freedom. But in a general way, you know, with any kind of success, but not strictly speaking it's spiritual success, you know, real improvement

[55:25]

I've done a loving-kindness meditation for a long time and it's been a very effective way of getting rid of a lot of anger. And for about a year I did it just on faith without much happening and then spontaneously I think that it's getting a little late. I think we shouldn't just let this go, but from time to time we should bring it up and deal with it some more and not forget it.

[56:43]

Thank you. Thank you for being kind and effortless.

[56:54]

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