Good morning. I've been enjoying this wind and the dry leaves. It feels like, for me, the most leafy autumn I've ever experienced. In terms of the elements, wind is purifying and cleaning, has that emotion. I came across this poem, a Dogen poem, in this new Eihei Koroku book.

[01:13]

There's a number of poems that Dogen wrote for portraits, self-portraits and portraits of other people. This is the poem that's written for the portrait that I think we're pretty familiar with. It's a headshot of Dogen and he's kind of got a thick neck and his robes are kind of a little bit lower cut. They're not up high and he's not on a chair. Do you know the one? I mean, there's just a few that we're familiar with. Anyway, it's on the back of the book. And the poem for that is... He refers to himself as this mountain. So it's a poem about a self-portrait. There's probably other allusions to himself, too. Autumn is spirited and refreshing as this mountain ages.

[02:18]

A donkey observes the sky in the well. White moon floating. One is not dependent. One does not contain. Letting go, vigorous with plenty of gruel and rice. Flapping with vitality right from head to tail. Above and below the heavens, clouds and water are free. Isn't that just a perfect poem for a session? The translators have where it says one is not dependent. One, the moon, is not dependent. One, the sky, does not contain. So autumn is spirited and refreshing as this mountain ages. A donkey observes the sky in the well.

[03:22]

White moon floating. One, the moon, is not dependent. One, the sky, does not contain. Letting go, vigorous with plenty of gruel and rice. Flapping with vitality right from head to tail. Above and below the heavens, clouds and water are free. So this autumn is spirited and refreshing as this mountain ages. My daughter right now is participating in a demonstration at Fort Benning, Georgia, at the School of the Americas. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, it's the school that trains military personnel in all sorts of counter-insurgency methods.

[04:32]

One of the main methods is removing the water from around the fish. Meaning the fish in this case are the guerrilla forces. And then you remove any sources of sustenance by removing and massacring and so forth civilian populations that are around them so that they can't be supported. Anyway, and all the methods. The School of the Americas has for decades been teaching this. Anyway, she's demonstrating there with 10,000 people. 10,000 people are there. And she was describing, it's a small town, Fort Benning, and there's a street leading up to the gates of the fort. And there's a lot of police and the 10,000 people are all on this one street that's leading up and put together.

[05:38]

A lot of young people, all these young people, they're working for Latin America. And I guess the actions today of civil disobedience or going over the wall, whatever they do, is going to happen today. So, we sit. Today, our response is to sit.

[06:40]

And we may have the question, well, how is this going to help? How does this help the world, those, all those beings? We have to answer this question for ourselves. I wanted to talk today about Chapter 12 of the Lotus Sutra, which is the chapter called Devadatta. Devadatta, Devadatta. And there's some sense that this chapter, and chapters 13 and 14 as well, were later additions, or not in the first edition,

[07:47]

but later additions to emphasize and expand the teachings that were already being presented in the Lotus Sutra, but to more fully expand. And Kumarajiva's translation didn't have Chapter 12, but another translation did. And then what we have now is Kumarajiva's translation with the insertion of Chapter 12, Devadatta, done by another translation later. So, this chapter, Devadatta, has a lot of food for thought and practice. And it has two sections. The first part has to do with Devadatta himself, the Buddhist cousin. And the second part has to do with the Naga princess. And what happens with the Naga princess, the eight-year-old Naga princess.

[08:55]

So, just a little bit about who Devadatta was. Devadatta was the Buddhist cousin, I guess Ananda's brother, and became a monk. And supposedly he was rather a gifted, charismatic teacher, and very ambitious. And he wanted to be the leader of the Sangha. The Buddha was getting older and asked, I guess, if he could be designated as the leader of the Sangha. And although the Buddha felt he was a teacher and could be an inspiration, he didn't want to choose anybody to be his successor. You know, he left the body of the teachings as the teacher and not wanting to choose anybody. So, Devadatta was angry about that, I guess, and actually came up with another more strict set of precepts.

[10:12]

Actually, five different things, and presented that to the Buddha as, you know, things that should be added to the Vinaya. And the Buddha said it was fine if he wanted to practice that way, and if others wanted to practice with him, they were free to do so. But he didn't want to adopt those extra, more ascetic five things. And they were that the monks and nuns would dwell in a forest and never sleep in a village or town. That they would not live in huts or buildings, they would only live under trees. They would not accept invitations to eat in a home, in a lay person's home. They would take the alms and go back to the forest. They would not accept gifts of robes, but would gather scraps and make their own robes, and that they would be only vegetarian. So, at that time, you know, the monks and nuns would receive whatever food the donor would give, and if it was vegetarian, fine.

[11:21]

If it wasn't, fine, you just ate whatever was offered, right? So he offered these five further ascetic practices, and they weren't accepted. But a lot of people, a lot of monks wanted to, the story goes, wanted to practice in this way, and about 500, it says, about 500 monks went with Devadatta to practice in this way. And supposedly they were younger monks who maybe hadn't had that much contact with the Buddha, with Shakyamuni Buddha. So this was noted as one of the five grave offenses, which is creating a schism, a division in the Sangha. And the other five grave offenses that Devadatta was involved with were killing a father. The five gravest offenses are to kill your father, to kill your mother, to kill an arhat,

[12:23]

to draw blood from a Buddha's body, to cause the Buddha's body to bleed, and to cause a schism in the Sangha. So when the Buddha didn't appoint him as the head of the Sangha, he went to Prince Ajatashatru, who was King Bimbisara's son, Ajatashatru. And as often happens, or as stories about this often say, the crown prince wanted the power and wanted to overthrow his father. And Devadatta kind of was scheming with him because Devadatta wanted him to be king so that he could have some influence to help Devadatta gain control and power over the Sangha. So he kind of aided Ajatashatru in his schemes, and he plotted to kill his father, which didn't work.

[13:30]

And then he imprisoned his father, King Bimbisara, under house arrest, and didn't allow food to be brought to him in order to starve him to death. And his mother, Vaidehi, visited her husband and hid food on her person. And I seem to recall she made like a paste of honey and flour, and then nobody put it on her, and then he kind of ate it off of her. And she kept him alive that way for quite a while, until they discovered that, her subterfuge, and how she was feeding him on the sly. And her son, Ajatashatru, said she wasn't allowed to visit him anymore. Forbade it, and King Bimbisara died. And part of the story is that the physician, the Buddhist physician and the physician to the royal family was the same person.

[14:34]

And he kind of let the Buddha know that Devadatta was behind a lot of this. So it's pretty serious acts that were performed by Devadatta. He also, it's said, tried to kill the Buddha three different times. One was he sent assassin, a swordsman, to kill the Buddha who was sitting in the moonlight by himself. And this assassin came with a sword. Kind of like in our chapter 25 of the Lotus Sutra, he couldn't do it, wasn't able to do it. Seeing the Buddha practicing that way, he just couldn't do it. And the Buddha told him, you know, you should get out of town and don't go the way you had planned to go. Don't go by that pathway. Because he knew or had a sense that the assassin was going to be killed to cover up the crime, which was true.

[15:40]

They were waiting for him. So the assassin went by another road and skipped town. That was one. Another was Devadatta had some people roll a big boulder down from Diamond Mountain, right? It doesn't say Diamond Mountain, but roll a big boulder down. And the Buddha wasn't killed, but the boulder struck him in the left foot. And he was wounded very badly and bled profusely. So this is this offense of causing the Buddha's body to bleed. Happened with Devadatta in this big boulder. And then the last one was Devadatta had men release a wild elephant to go after, you know, trample the Buddha who was coming along. And the story goes that the elephant, the Buddha was able to calm the elephant and the elephant bowed down to the Buddha.

[16:41]

You know, the motifs of these stories you can find in other stories. But the teaching of, you know, being able to subdue a wild beast, wild elephant with ones. I think we've seen that, you know, there's certain people that with horses and so forth, they can, you know, calm them. It's not a fabricated thing, I think. So for the Buddha to have this wild stampeding elephant be calmed. And then actually at Green Gulch for Buddha's birthday, the elephant, you know, can do things like that. The big elephant bows to the Buddha and does things. So here we've got this Devadatta, Buddha's own family member. And as we know, within families, often the depth of acrimony and jealousy and sibling rivalry and non-sympathetic joy, you know, runs very, very deep.

[17:58]

And also between, you know, in a religious sense, groups and sets and so forth that are close to each other, pretty close, often have the most trouble. When something's very different, you accept it in a different way. But when it's so close but different, we get, you know, so angry. And so Devadatta kind of holds that place in the stories of Buddha's life and so forth. Well, later on, just finishing up with Devadatta, this time in the Buddha's life was a very difficult time. But he stayed put and continued to practice and, you know, sat through it or, you know, stayed.

[19:07]

And Thich Nhat Hanh calls that non-violent resistance to oppression, this time in Buddha's life where you have the king and various things happening against you. So to just stay true and not depart. So eventually, Shariputra and Maudgalyayana, who had been invited to help teach these monks through their contact with those teachers, most everybody returned to the Sangha and didn't stay with that separate sect. And Devadatta eventually became very, very ill and was asked to be taken to the Buddha and took refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Devadatta renewed that. And Ajatashatru became kind of mentally deranged, which you can imagine after, just like Macbeth or, you know, Lady Macbeth,

[20:12]

you know, to do such horrific acts, the effect on one's mental calm and so forth is very strong. So he became mentally ill and this same physician suggested that he, you know, go to the Buddha for help. And he said, no, no, I can't. I'm afraid, you know, the Buddha will be so angry with me. I can't face him. But he said, no, go to the Buddha. The Buddha is compassionate. And he did and there was a reversal or he was able to, the Buddha acted as a physician in this case, in order to heal this spiritual difficulty, mental and spiritual, emotional. And in the beginning of the Lotus Sutra, I don't know if you remember, but Ajatashatru is in the assembly. In that introduction, when all the different people are named, he's there at Vulture Peak listening to the Lotus.

[21:19]

So he's brought in back into the fold of humanity, even after having done these terrible acts. So here we have Devadatta and he would have been well known to the people who practicing at the time or, you know, being exposed to the Lotus Sutra, they would have known very well who Devadatta was and the terrible things Devadatta had done. So what happens in the Lotus Sutra? You know, we've just had, we're all in the sky now, you know, the Buddhists. Did you see the picture that we posted of the two Buddhists? That's on the cover of a book about medieval Japanese Buddhism and original enlightenment. That's the cover. And then the other one is taken from Japanese culture in the Lotus Sutra. There's some illustrations in there.

[22:20]

So the Buddha begins to address the Bodhisattvas and the celestial beings and the four groups, and he tells them a story about himself in innumerable kalpas of the past, something that happened. He had been tirelessly, in another lifetime, he'd been tirelessly seeking the Love Flower Sutra. And during many kalpas, he was a king who vowed to seek the supreme enlightenment, perfect enlightenment, Bodhi. And his mind was very set on this. Desiring to fulfill the six paramitas, I earnestly bestowed alms with an unsparing mind. And he was a king at this time. He gave all sorts of things, elephants and horses and the rare seven and countries. And sorry to say, but he gave his wives and children. Anyway, they go to the extremes.

[23:27]

You know, he gave his head, eyes, marrow, brain, the flesh of my body, hands and feet, unsparingly. At that time, people's lifetime was beyond measure. And for the sake of Allah, I gave up the throne of my domain, gave up governments to the crown prince, and with beating a drum and open proclamations, sought everywhere for the truth, promising, whoever is able to tell me of a great vehicle, I will all my life provide for him and be his footman. So can you imagine this king who gave everything away, walking around, beating this drum, saying, anybody who can, you know, tell me of the great vehicle, I will, you know, be their servant forever and provide them with everything. At that time, a certain hermit came to me, the king, and said, kind of a sage or seer, one of these wandering religious people that we know about from India.

[24:31]

I have a great vehicle named Wonderful Law Flower Sutra. If you will not disobey me, I will explain it to you. I, the king, hearing what the hermit said, became ecstatic with joy. It's one of these instances, this guy comes and says, well, I've got the Law Flower Sutra in a fuel. If you won't disobey me, I'll tell you about it. And he was just ecstatic. He became ecstatic with joy and instantly followed him, providing for his needs, gathering fruit, drawing water, collecting fuel, laying his food, even turning my body into his seat and bed, yet never feeling fatigue of body or mind. While I thus served a millennium past, and for the sake of the law, I zealously waited on him that he should lack nothing. And then the World Honored One proclaims this over again in verse.

[25:36]

Gathering fruit, fuel, and gourds, and in season reverently offering them, keeping the wonderful law in my heart, body and mind were unwearied. Universally for all living beings, I diligently sought the great law, not indeed for my own sake, not for the delight of the five desires. So I, king of a great domain by zealous seeking, obtained this law and at last became a Buddha. Now, therefore, I preach it to you. And then the Buddha said to all the bhikshus, the former king was myself, and the sage at that juncture was the present Devadatta himself. You can imagine the effect that had on the assembly. What? You're kidding. You can't be serious. Devadatta? The very one? And then the Buddha goes on.

[26:43]

Through the good friendship of Devadatta, I was enabled to become perfect in the six perfections, in kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. In the 32 signs, the 80 kinds of excellence, the deep golden-hued skin, in the note it says that, where is it? The word kshatriya, I think, means golden-hued. Is that true? Anyway, when they call them the deep golden-hued skin, it's a word that we know that means that. The ten powers, the four kinds of fearlessness, the four Brahma-viharas, the 18 special unique characteristics, the transcendent powers of the way, the attainment of perfect enlightenment, and the widespread saving of the living, all this is due to the good friendship of Devadatta.

[27:53]

So the Buddha is basically saying, my enlightenment and the accomplishment of the four Brahma-viharas and the immeasurable compassion and loving-kind and all these things is because of the friendship of Devadatta. I declare to all you four groups, Devadatta, after his departure and innumerable kalpas have passed, will become a Buddha whose title will be king of the gods, Tathagata, worshipful, all-wise, perfectly enlightened in conduct, well-departed, understanding of the world, able to leap tall buildings at a single bound, peerless leader, controller, teacher of gods and man, Buddha, world-honored one. Those are the ten epithets of the Buddha. It always reminds me of Superman, you know. Look up in the sky. It's a stoop. Look up in the sky. It's a bird. It's a plane. No, it's Superman.

[29:02]

Yes, it's Superman, who's come to earth, who's, how does it go? Faster than a speeding bullet, able to leap tall buildings at a single bound, more powerful than a locomotive, and who, disguised as Clark Kent, okay, world-honored one and whose world will be named divine way. At that time, the Buddha, king of gods, shall dwell in the world for twenty innumerable intermediate kalpas and so forth. He preaches about why the law will be preached widely for all the living and living beings as numerous as the sands of the Ganges will attain arhatship. And innumerable beings will devote themselves to pratyekabuddhahood and devoting themselves to the supreme way and all this. This is all about devadatta. And all the gods and people with various flowers, sandal powder, incense, perfumed unguents and so forth, banners and flags and so forth, shall respectfully salute and pay homage to the wonderful stoop of the precious seven.

[30:12]

The Buddha said to the, and now, so he's awed them with this story, right? They're just, I mean, it doesn't say that, but you can imagine. And then he says, if there be in a future world, that's, you know, I think we're included in this, any good son or good daughter to hear this devadatta chapter of the wonderful law flower sutra with pure heart and believing reverence and is free from doubt, such a one shall not fall into the hells or become a hungry spirit or animal, but shall be born into the presence of the Buddha of the universe. And wherever that person is born, they will always hear the sutra and enjoy marvelous delight. As to the Buddha into whose presence those people are born, that Buddha shall be by emanation from a lotus flower. So I think this, you know, the teaching all along that's been proclaimed in the lotus is that all beings without exception are fully endowed with Buddha nature, you know.

[31:36]

And all these beings that have been predicted so far have been the sravakas and the arhats and the ones who have practiced so strenuously. And one might think, well, of course, you know, subhuti and of course, shariputra, even though they're ecstatic with joy and surprised themselves, we might think, well, yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, that's no surprise, of course. And then these other, even the training and the ones who are still in training and Rahula and, well, of course, I mean, they've been practicing with the Buddha. But then in this chapter, it widens out to Devadatta, you know, who's done these incredibly unskillful acts, you know, grave offenses. And it includes, when the Buddha says all inclusively, it includes those beings too, you know. So it's a very mind-expanding teaching that's being brought forth, the all-inclusiveness, very expansive, and really stretches.

[32:55]

Like, well, then if Devadatta, you know, after many kalpas and so forth, then, gee, I mean, I haven't done those five things, or maybe, you know, you can begin to say, well, maybe I'm included too, you know. So I think it has a healing effect, you know. Now, I am, and also for our own relationships, you know, we have people in our life who have rolled boulders down on us, figuratively speaking or otherwise. We have people who have split our families, you know, who have done, you know, caused a schism, how we might say, and have we cut them off, have we relegated them outside of our vows somehow.

[33:57]

And so, I think this chapter is, you know, Devadatta is an archetypal figure in this, and we can use the archetype in that way, but what is the meaning in our own lives? And I suppose we could also talk about our own psyche, you know, parts of ourselves that are beyond remediation, beyond their, you know, that we can't forgive, we can't accept, they're not part of Buddha nature somehow. So we can look at it intra-personally, our Devadatta parts, and intra-personally with our family, especially because he's a family member, I think that's an important point. And other beings that we see as not having our best interests, that are really trying to bring us down or something. Do we have people like that in our life, and can we have this wideness that includes them?

[35:05]

Not condoning the actions, I don't think there's condoning that it's okay, but this compassion that includes acceptance and that eventually there is transformation. Transformation is possible. And I feel the people in our life that we have calcified around maybe or hardened ourselves towards or categorized, that has an effect on our ability to open to others. We might think, well that's that, but I can open to all these other people, magnanimously or something. But the free-flowing clouds and water being free, and the vitality, you know, letting go, vigorous, with plenty of gruel and rice, flapping with vitality, right from head to tail.

[36:08]

I think our full vitality from head to tail is affected by these areas of devadatta, non-acceptance. So I think each one of us can look within and without. You know, going to the School of the Americas, you know, when I was in Colombia I met this colonel of the, some of you have heard this, of the army, the Colombian army, who is in charge of this brigade. And as we, the delegation met with him and he said very proudly, my brother is studying at the School of the Americas, and it's like this group of pacifists, you know, from Fellowship of Reconciliation, it's like, you know, here is right in front of us, you know, someone who, if not this year, might go next year to study there and his brother studies there, proud of it.

[37:10]

And the person in front of us had been cited for, you know, torture and human rights abuses in these reports we had read. So working with my own reactions and feeling myself closing to this being, you know, who I knew had, I mean, I'd certainly read about beings, read about horrific things, but I don't think I ever knowingly sat with someone around a table that, you know, had been cited for torture, you know, and whose brigade had actively participated in massacres. So I was practicing at the time with not closing down, not hardening, not walling off, because this was a human being, a real-life human being who showed us pictures of his dad in a uniform, you know, was proud, here's my dad who was a military man too.

[38:27]

And, you know, it was, you could, I mean, I was saying to myself, how was he brought up, what kind of upbringing, how was he treated as a little boy, you know, so that he made these choices to have this life. He said, I'm very proudly, I'm a man of war, you know. So actively working with feeling my body actually closing and open to this person, open to this person, and I hadn't, I didn't have the Devadatta chapter in my mind. I mean, that would have been useful, I think. But I did have Thich Nhat Hanh's poem, Call Me By My True Names, that came up, you know. I too could have been a colonel in the 17th Brigade if the causes and conditions were such and made those choices, you know.

[39:33]

That was very clear to me. So the Buddha thanks Devadatta and cites him as, you know, because of Devadatta in the past, what a good friend he had been to me and taught me, because of that I was able. And it is dependent on beings that we are able to realize our Buddha nature. We are in dependence on beings, we develop, our compassion is awoken, our resolve and our bodhicitta is awoken. So that's the first part of this Devadatta chapter called Devadatta alone, but the second part is also, you know, takes up some cherished notions and turns them upside down.

[40:57]

You know, the cherished notions of there's enemies, unrepentant, and they're outside, they're beyond the pale, right? And then the second part of the chapter is about the Naga Princess. I don't know, maybe we should stop there. Do you think that's going to be too much? What do you think? Should we stop there and talk a little bit about the Devadatta thing? Because the Naga Princess, it's a whole other giant discussion really about women and dharma and so forth. What do you think? Yes, stop with Devadatta? It's a lot, isn't it? That's what my feeling is too. So, why don't we...

[41:57]

Yeah, why don't we leave it right there? It's interesting, the transition between the Devadatta and the Naga is... There was an attendant for Abundant Treasures, you know, the Buddha sitting next to Abundant Treasures in the stupa. And one of his attendants says, let's go home now, you know. I think it's so great. You know how they're just like, can we go? I'm kind of ready. How about you? Let's return to our own land. And then Shakyamuni says, wait a minute, he wants him to meet somebody. But I thought that was such a great little transition there. Which happens, you're at the party and you're kind of, can we go? So, there it is. So there's the Devadatta story. And just one other thing, which is, someone mentioned to me how sometimes this Devadatta chapter can be used,

[43:07]

like all of Dharma, can be perverted in some way or used in terms of, oh, that's okay. In fact, there's a further chapter that Dogen brings up, a chapter in Ehe Koroku, where Devadatta comes before the assembly and basically says about his karmic acts, he uses emptiness as a kind of excuse. Oh, but there is no real good or bad, and there's no evil and no good, and there's no real being for karma to return to. So I'm kind of scot-free. So this is this, which I brought up and Kathy had asked about in the other lecture, this confusion between getting caught in the emptiness and causing effect, and Devadatta in another piece, in another fascicle, uses that. Yeah, I did all these things, but hey, in emptiness there's no good and bad, right?

[44:11]

So you can't get me on that. And that's categorically, by all different teachers, uncovered as faulty, not right thinking, and just an excuse to indulge oneself. So that's another Devadatta thing. And in that part, he goes to Avici Hell for a long time. And Avici Hell, and in the Hinayana tradition, he goes to Avici Hell where there's very little chance of more favorable rebirth. But anyway, in the Mahayana Sutra, Devadatta is faint and predicted. So is there anything you'd like to bring up? I've been thinking about that for a while. That those who drive past it, because otherwise, nobody can ever come to it.

[45:22]

It's just a process. And that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to see if I can find a way to help them, because there are a lot of them, and I'm trying to see if I can get them to come to it. It puts it right out there to be able to turn it and look at it, and check, oh, I was holding back about that one and that one. How about Stalin? What about Stalin? You know, you can pick out historical. How about Caligula? You know, remember what Caligula did? I don't want to talk about it. It's hard. It's hard to accept that. I love everybody.

[46:27]

Sometimes I want one more person. Yes? Can you explain more about the relationship with your husband? How many people were there? Did you talk more with him? Were you able to see him again? Is he there with you right now? How does he feel? What happened? I was with a delegation of about... How many were us? We split at a certain point. I think we were about 12 or 13. I didn't wear robes. That was a question, should I go in robes? And my daughter felt like in Colombia, they wouldn't be read... They couldn't be read in a way that... She thought it would be less beneficial to wear robes than to just go as a regular American citizen delegate. That carried the weight, rather than a religious person,

[47:28]

or it might be some strangeness there. I didn't wear robes, but I wore just whatever I usually wear when I'm not wearing robes. Dignified garb is my effort. I don't think I'll see him again, although it's interesting. He said, email me. He was kind of open like that. His face was very waxen, not very mobile, not very... He looked like the archetype of a Colombian military person. He didn't have bullets across his chest or anything like that, but just very military stance and held himself in a military way. It was very interesting. We had just come from these peace communities, campesinos who are working the land

[48:29]

and have had human rights abuses, terrible things happen, and heard the stories. So coming from that on to the military base with all the... And the interesting thing is, in Colombia, there's a draft. You have to go into the military after high school. And if you don't, you can't go to college, you can't get a job. You have to have your paper that's been stamped that shows you've done military service or you are barred from regular society. So you have all these young people there who are kind of... They just all go in there. There they are in their camouflage young guys. I don't think women have to. I think it's a men thing. And they're forced to be there, and then they're forced into terrible situations. The whole thing is very poignant.

[49:30]

So we brought up... The 17th Brigade has been cited by a commission on human rights. They are supposed to be protecting these peace communities. They're supposed to be under their protection, but instead other things are happening. So we brought up... We were there to ask about that. And he had a barrage of things that he was saying, denigrating and slandering the peace community, that they were really guerrilla. And Sarah was translating. I don't know if you want to hear this story, but if she could barely... The translator, she just channels and just says what they say with no interpretation, even an inflection of voice. But she could barely do it. She said it was the hardest translation she ever did because he was blatantly, patently talking about people she knew and had lived with for a year, wonderful people and saying these things.

[50:35]

And she just translated straight. At a certain point, she actually had a reaction and then kind of calmed herself and just... And his head, it was all written down. They had interviewed someone who had been... Anyway, and he said, You can have a copy of it, a Xerox copy of it. And I said to Sarah, Do you want it? And she said, Yes, we would. The delegation would like a copy of that. And so he Xeroxed it for us, which turned out to be something that they hadn't seen yet and they shared with other NGOs, Peace Brigade, and so it was a good thing that we got that. Anyway, he was hospitable. My house is your house. Mi casa es su casa. Very... So it was everything. It was the full range of human stuff. And the effort to not abandon beings, to not put him in a non-human realm or something.

[51:41]

That was the effort. That was my effort. And we were very respectful, the group. Actually, another group had gone there, as Sarah told us, and one of the people, I think it was Peace Brigades International. I shouldn't say what. I'm not sure really. They lost it and started to get angry. And he, Colonel Sanchez, lost it too. And then he showed, he flipped up his desk and he had been taping the whole thing. And, you know, it was... It went from polite interaction to... It escalated very fast and he got very angry. This is interesting from yesterday when we talked about when the 10,000 things come, don't try to control them. He had this banner in his office that said, those who are under your control, those who are controlled, we do so by force.

[52:48]

Something like that. That was his motto, you know. I read that. I am in another world here, you know. So that's just a few things about it. I don't think I'll see him again. Yes. I went this summer, July, for about three weeks altogether. I can't quite explain to you the way I went through this. I don't know what else I'd like to do. I guess I've been working with it in terms of understanding what it represents for the entire community. And thinking about how to work together. On one hand, I want to say,

[53:49]

I've been working with it for a while. I'm not ready to discuss it. I don't want to discuss it with you. I'm not ready to talk to you. I want to give you an opportunity to talk about the topics that you're interested in. I'm not ready to open it up. I don't know how you feel about it. Yeah. Well, I think you're right about hypocrisy, and it doesn't work. But to accept yourself as you are, which is not open now. I'm not open now to this person, and maybe not open to that, that they're symbolizing for me inside me. And to accept that with compassion, is, you could say that's like the Buddha accepting Devadatta back,

[54:51]

or King Ajatsatru back. You can find compassion somewhere there, for yourself, for being so closed. You know? And that will be felt by the other person too. Yeah. Can you stand on the precepts of loving yourself? Yes. So, in those interactions, you know, we stand on politeness, right speech, bring the precepts up, you know. There is a way to interact that doesn't act out you know, and expresses the fullness of your,

[55:52]

you know, when we act out, we're expressing just a small part of who we are. When we act out our anger, or our dislike, or irritation, that's just one part of us. We also have this wide, how we, this wide vow, you know. And, so, so we, I was, I have this thought now that, you know, people often say, well I was expressing myself when they expressed their irritation or their anger. That was full expression. I just got it out there. And if that's what it was, that's what it was. So, I was fully expressing. And to me that's one of those excuses. That isn't full expression. We're much wider than that, you know. The full expression may be

[56:56]

the restraint, you know, the refraining from acting out. Acting out is narrow. Do you know what I mean? So to express the fullness may mean we feel it, and yet we are protecting beings from that narrowness, narrow-mindedness, by refraining from acting it out. And it doesn't, though, mean that it doesn't arise. I think, but that, the non-arising is slowly, slowly, you know, comes as a fruit of practice, I think. And I don't think it's hypocritical either, you know, the refraining. I think hypocritical is saying what isn't true.

[57:56]

Yes. [...] So the point you're making is if these terrible things happen to the Buddha that tried to kill him and those things as a karmic consequence? It's interesting this, in,

[59:11]

I think Kathy had brought this up about, you know, not everything is karmic, right? And one of the things that's mentioned is assault. I think I mentioned assault, climate conditions, diseases, not, I mean, you could say there are some diseases that through our own actions, willfully, you know, we got sick. You could say that too, but there are some things, there are some things in the world, not everything is due to our own karma. Karma is voluntary, voluntary actions of body, speech, and mind. We voluntarily do things, think in certain ways, and it's conditioned by ignorance, you know, ignorance, karmic formations, you know, the ignorance of our own true being conditions actions of body, speech, and mind. So, you know, I, so this assault thing,

[60:15]

maybe this is one of these cases where it wasn't from the Buddhist actions that this happened, these assaults, these assaults on his life, you know? They could, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You know, karma is such a huge topic, you know, there's collective karma, the karma of a country, let's say, you get thousands of people thinking in a certain way, and acting in a certain way, and you've got war, you know? So there's a lot of different ways to talk about karma. I think as a teaching story,

[61:16]

you know, the Buddha's non-anger in the face of assault and attack, and the, for me, the more the point of the story is skillful action in the face of angry beings or people who intend to harm and compassion more than the karmic, you know, consequences of the Buddha's actions that somebody would even want to do that. Maybe the, it was in order to be able to teach about this, you know, maybe the whole, the sole purpose of it. So that's how I see it, you know, as the inclusion of these kinds of stories. I mean, I think of these as all teaching stories, actually, is how I think of them. Well, that's what Suzuki Roshi said

[62:48]

about his mother, right? She was superstitious. Why was she chanting this weird thing? You know? So, if there's any, if you think of actual shackles and chains, real shackles and chains falling off or soaring off, like in this, the sword, the guy dropped the sword and bowed, you know, took refuge or whatever. If you think a hellstone, if you think of it literally, it may be, you might think it's magical. If you think about being shackled and chained with anger and ill will and slanderous motive, you know, which are shackles and chains, and if you call forth infinite compassion in yourself, how that will change and transform, is that magical? Or is that, I mean, you might say the magic of practice, but does that

[63:50]

strike you the same way as just being wishful thinking? No, I was thinking if you were to think, when that person said that to me, it felt like being thrown off Mount Sumeru. I mean, it really felt that way. I was, I went head over heels. I went from the heights to the depths. All they had to do was say that to me, and they got me, you know, and I hate them, you might think. And then you bring up, you bring up may I be compassionate, or whatever, you help me to be compassionate. I call on it, the Bodhisattva of Infinite Compassion that resides in my own heart, eyes of compassion,

[64:50]

observing sentient beings, assembles an ocean of blessings beyond measure. These eyes of compassion, you know, may I look out with eyes of compassion, even when someone says such a thing to me or treats me that way, you know. That's the power of that sutra for me. Not so much the the actual, you know, shackles and chains and swords breaking and that I'm not going to drown. It's more, can I drown with a heart filled with compassion, you know, in, in life and in the ten thousand things as they come uncontrolled. That's how I think of it. And there is, in some ways, you could say that's magic, you know, but it's like practice magic rather than sorcerers. But that's one of the reasons we don't chant this in the summer. You know,

[65:51]

I got this frantic call from one of my Dharma brothers who said, they're chanting this thing and the guests and what are they going to think and this isn't Buddhism and we can't do this and it's, anyway, because it needs a kind of interpretation. If you walked in here as a guest, oh, I think I'll go to service and they're telling me if I chant this I'm not going to drown and shackles are going to fall away and you might think, uh-oh, I think I came to the wrong place. So it needs the kind of context, I think, practice context. Yes? During the Devadatta, he is about second generation and I was thinking about if you want to think about people who've lost members of their families in the U.S. who are putting in death penalties and we want to discuss that kind of thing. We want to discuss that and people may contact you and you can talk about

[66:53]

Yeah, yeah. Did everybody hear Tova? She mentioned an organization of family members whose relatives were murdered, victims of murder who opposed the death penalty and actively work the meaning of the chapter for her Devadatta chapter is reconciliation but actively work to, in some cases, make contact with the perpetrator of the crime and work on reconciliation. yeah. Yeah. For me, those stories of people who are able to do

[67:58]

meet with the person who is who has done the worst possible thing, you know, and to have reconciliation and forgiveness and those those stories are you know, before the time is before the time. It's not possible and you can't push it and yet to be working and open to it and allowing that turn and that healing to take place. So when you hear about other people, if you're not able to do it yourself, it feels like it's it's impossible. How could it be? And yet, I think we have that human beings have the capacity. We do. Adiant? Yeah.

[69:32]

You can say that that's the that's the cosmic joke right there. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, you know, mountains are mountains and then they're not mountains and then they're mountains again. But that third time through when mountains are mountains again, there there's a joke there too. Oh, yeah. Those mountains. Sure. Sure. So that's I think we sit right there. I think that's that's our life right there. Right there. And you know, that's just writing a letter home. Right there. Thank you for your question.

[70:36]

So one more. Chris. Hmm. Yeah.

[71:40]

Well, thank you for bringing up that Dharmagate that you're actively working in. Okay. I just wanted to mention that this this book this will be the last lecture of the Sashin. And tomorrow we're going to have a Shosan ceremony instead. A Shosan ceremony is a question and answer ceremony with me. And I guess tomorrow I guess the Ino will talk about the form and all that. But it'll take place during lecture time. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

[73:09]

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