This morning, you know, anyone who has read the Lotus Sutra or studied the Lotus Sutra, the great Mahayana Sutra, is familiar with the story of the burning house. If you're not familiar, or even if you are, I'm going to talk a little bit about the story of the burning house. There was a father, it could be a mother, who had three children. Three is, you know, three is important because, as you'll see, had three children. And they all lived in this big house, big house. And they had a very luxurious life, actually.

[01:06]

And they had all kinds of playthings. And they were very much into their computers and toys and games and cars and stuff like that. And they were totally, really oblivious to the meaning of life, to any aspect of the meaning of life. And one day, the house caught on fire. And so the mother was trying to get the children out of the house, but the children were not paying attention to the fire. They just maybe, I don't know, look at the fire and say, That's a fire. But their special interests were more powerful to them.

[02:13]

They were really caught by their special interests. So the father said, how am I going to get the children out of the house? Just forget the time sequences here. He devised a way of doing that by promising the children that he had some carts outside, some really wonderful carts. Teslas, Gambardinis, and the children were really, let's go take a look at these carts. So, somehow he conjured them up. And he said, you know, there were different carts, different kinds of carts. according to the interests of the children.

[03:15]

Some children were interested in one kind of card, some children interested in another, and so the three children were interested in these three different cards. And, you know, in the story, it's the Sravakas, Pratyekabuddhas, and Bodhisattvas, right? So, this is all allegorical. So, The children came out of the burning house and took up the carts, and so that's how we saved them, right? So this is kind of like Buddha is trying to save us by promising us very expedient things. But the point that I'm wanting to bring out is that we're all living in the burning house. And sometimes it doesn't seem like it, and sometimes it does.

[04:17]

But right now, we're all faced with the burning house. The world is burning up. Literally. Literally burning up. We see so much destruction and mayhem and unbelievable inhumanity that it's hard to really absorb it. As the world grows smaller and smaller, and we actually are beginning to see in the tube, the actual destruction of things. There are people living in the Middle East under impossible situations. I can't even describe it. It's so impossible, improbable.

[05:21]

But what grabs us is the close proximity. The world is, we're being drawn into that world. So how do we escape from that world? I don't mean how we escape from the world, how everyone escapes from this madness. As we know, This world, this dualistic world, this world of greed, hate, and delusion, is actually, the world turns on those three characteristics. The Saha world, the dualistic world, turns on those three conditions, greed, ill will, and delusion. And we can see it in our own government.

[06:25]

Greed, hate, and delusion. Delusion is really big. We woke up one morning and the world had changed. Impossibly changed. We don't know what's going to happen next. The world of the Middle East is just nothing but destruction. And so I think of, every once in a while I think of Adam and Eve. You know, Adam and Eve lived in the world of Eden, which means various things. But in Buddhist terms, I would say Eden is the world of non-duality. Samadhi, the samadhi of non-duality.

[07:33]

And then that snake offered Eve the apple. Don't blame Eve. And then she said to Adam, well, you know, this is, if you eat the snake, somebody said, the snake said, if you take a bite of this apple, you will lose your samadhi. So the apple, if you take a bite of the apple, the apple is the apple of duality, good and evil. you will recognize good and evil. You will fall into the trap of good and evil, right and wrong, good and bad, this and that. So Adam took a bite, and boom, here we are.

[08:37]

So how do we get back? to Nirvana. Nirvana is, I think, a Buddhist equivalent of Eden. So this is what our practice is. How do we get back to Eden? How do we get back to non-duality, to understanding the difference between duality and non-duality, because we will always be practicing in duality. Good and bad is always with us, but we don't have to be caught by that. There are no solutions to our situation. This is what makes it so difficult. There's no master plan of how to save the world.

[09:42]

So, in Buddhist terms, first we have to be able to save ourself. That's Buddhadharma. It's hard to save the world, but how do we save the world? We have to save the world anyway, even though it's impossible. This is Buddhist understanding. At the conclusion of Hakuin's commentary on the five ranks, he says, foolish wise men filling the well with snow. Foolish wise men, or foolish wise women, however you want to say it. Foolish wise people. Filling the well with snow. Well, you know, you can't fill the well with snow.

[10:50]

It just keeps melting, right? But you do it anyway. So, if we don't have a way to go, then we just end up in despair. So when we think about good and bad, right and wrong, which side are you on? Even though it's impossible to have lasting peace, there's no such thing as lasting peace when it's compared to non-peace. Sometimes it's peaceful, sometimes it's not peaceful. One follows the other. Peace follows war or follows peace. Is there ever a time when war didn't follow peace or peace didn't follow war? There's always a war going on. Always. And there's always peace going on somewhere.

[11:51]

There can be a war in Lebanon where people are just being destroyed. And on the beaches, people are in their French bathing suits, enjoying the warm water. That's the way it is. We live in this wonderful paradise called Berkeley. But even so, we have more awareness than many people. So that's a plus for us, is that we are aware of what's going on in the world, and we can suffer with it A lot of people are not aware, and they only are interested in their own well-being. You know, the world turns on greed, ill-will, and delusion.

[12:57]

The Samsaric world. And that's the world that we experience. But Buddha's world turns on zero. turns on emptiness. Emptiness means, in this case, non-duality, oneness, completion, inclusion, beginner's mind. I talk to people who, feel so sad about the state of the world. How do we maintain any kind of composure in the face of all this? It's easy to compartmentalize and just kind of put it in that section and then go about our business.

[14:06]

And in some ways we do have to do that. we have to compartmentalize, otherwise we fall into despair. So I think what I'm talking about is how to not fall into despair, within despair. How not to fall into despair without forgetting without being aware. You know, the more we try to escape from something, the more we get caught by it. We can't escape. This is the burning house.

[15:09]

So when the father or the mother says, I've got something, some way for you to escape from the burning house, we can see that in various ways. According to the story, the Sravaka cart is the one that the Sravaka enjoys by saving himself. The Prachekabuddha cart is similar. The Bodhisattva cart, which is called the White Ox, is the Bodhisattva is more concerned with the welfare of the world than with his own state.

[16:13]

And that's our practice. That actually is our salvation. Yes. How does the Bodhisattva actually save all beings? That's impossible. But the impossible is what we do. Impossible is called practice. We have this vow, Bodhisattva vow, to save all beings. And people say, well, I don't want to say that because I can't save all beings and blah, blah, blah. It means save yourself. Saving yourself is saving all beings because we're not apart from all beings. We're one being with many heads and arms.

[17:21]

This is the world that turns on emptiness. The world that turns on emptiness means there's only one being with many heads and arms and eyes and brains and desires and stupidity, brilliance. It's not a matter of changing the world because it will always be this way. It has always been this way. Why is Buddha talking about it? Because that's the way it was 2,500 years ago. It's the same as it is today. It's never changed. So, in a sense, it is an individual thing.

[18:32]

Each one of us has the challenge of how to deal with the problems that confront us, these kind of deep existential problems. That's why practice is very personal to each one of us, and at the same time, it's universal to all of us. How do we deal, each one of us, with this problem? If everybody was really intent on sincerely doing that, that would be saving the world. So that's why we, our greatest gift is to teach the Dharma, to bring the Dharma into the world. It's not like I personally am going to save you.

[19:35]

But each one of us sincerely bringing the Dharma into the world has a far-reaching effect. It doesn't mean that there never will be war or that there will be lasting peace. How do we reconcile all this reality in ourselves? So I wanted to read a little bit of Suzuki Roshi's talk. The first talk in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. He says, people say that practicing Zen is difficult. In Japan they say that. We don't say that in America. Sometimes we do.

[20:41]

But in Japan, if you say you practice Zen, they say, difficult. Very difficult. So people say that practicing Zen is difficult. But there's a misunderstanding as to why. It's not difficult because it's hard to sit in the cross-legged position, although that's what we think about when we say it's difficult, or to attain enlightenment. It's difficult because it's hard to keep our mind pure and our practice pure in its fundamental sense. So what does he mean by keeping our practice pure in its fundamental sense? It means not getting caught with greed, hate, and delusion, and basing our practice on emptiness, or zero, or all-inclusiveness, or non-judgmental thinking, and unassuming mind.

[21:59]

which is called reality. So he says, I'm interested in helping you keep your practice from becoming impure. In Japan, we have the phrase shoshin, which means beginner's mind. The goal of practice is always to keep our beginner's mind. Suppose you recite the Prajnaparamita Sutra only once. It might be a very good recitation, but what would happen if you recited it twice, three times, four times, or more, or 10,000 times? How do you keep it fresh? How do you keep whatever you're doing fresh? Even though you seem to be repeating something over and over again, how do you keep it fresh each time?

[23:09]

How do you stay present? You might easily lose your original attitude towards it. The same thing will happen in your other Zen practices. For a while, you will keep your beginner's mind, but if you continue to practice one, two, or three years or more, although you may improve some, you are liable to lose the limitless meaning of your original mind. So, losing the limitless meaning of your original mind, meaning your all-inclusive mind. the mind that is not based on partiality. Greed, hate, and delusion are based on partiality. We see one side, but we don't see the other. What he's talking about sounds very simplistic, but what he's saying is beginner's mind means the all-inclusive mind.

[24:19]

not just some special state of mind, but it means the mind that doesn't fall into good and bad, right and wrong, this and that. It's the mind of zero, which is always the mind of reality before divisions. We call the mind of divisions delusion. I often talk about the clock. Every time you look at it, if you have a round watch that has hands on it and numbers, sometimes it has numbers, but, and every time you look at it, you have the opportunity to see what reality is. Because reality is the round watch without the hands and the numbers. The basic reality is without the hands and the numbers.

[25:25]

It's just zero. And it's a big oval, big round zero. And then we put the numbers on it, 12 of them in the hands, and they move. That's division. That's duality. This watch represents the oneness of emptiness and division. This is reality. But we're so caught up in the divisions that we don't pay attention to the reality of zero. All is one. All is one is zero. Even though we say it's all one, it's all zero. It's all zero until we divide it. And division is the cause of all our troubles. all troubles arise from 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. So without the background of zero, it's all trouble.

[26:39]

It's all problems. So look at your watch. There it is. So, you know, there's a saying in Zen, walls, tiles, pebbles, and everything, all phenomena are teaching us the Dharma, but we're not paying attention. Everything is teaching us, and we're not paying attention. So, we're being run by greed. And ill will and delusion. Delusion is the basis of the other two. Is there a zero in the three carts?

[27:40]

Can you explain where you might find the zero in the three choices? Zero is the basis of everything. And the mother or father offers the three cards. As a way to get out of the burning house. Expedients. Expedients to get out of the burning house, yeah. Buddhism gives us all kinds of expedients. The Lotus Sutra is full of expedients. Promises, you know, if you do this, you'll get that. And then when they get that, he says, no, I'm sorry, you know, I was just giving you an expedient to get out of your situation. Yeah, that's true. And so you find that in parables in the Lotus Sutra, where Buddha promises certain, the magic city, you know, if you keep practicing, you'll reach the magic city.

[28:41]

And then the arhats are, you know, practicing real hard. They say, I think we've reached the magic city. And Buddha says, well, not yet, not yet. That was an expedient just to get you going. In our practice, my teacher Suzuki Roshi did not give us any promises at all. That's why I knew I could trust him. He said, no promises. If you sit zazen, you will sit zazen. That's all. If you eat, just eat. If you walk, just walk. Even though there are goals, the goals are on the dualistic level. But the walking is walking in emptiness, which means walking with everything.

[29:42]

Yes. Or ignore it. Or compartmentalize it. I think about Assad, Mr. Assad, six feet or seven feet tall, six feet five or something, every day. He puts on a nice clean white shirt and a tie and a beautiful suit, and he walks out as if nothing happened. As if nothing happened. And he addresses people as if he was in some perfect state of no anxiety, no nervousness, I can't say whether or not he doesn't know the difference between good and evil. Maybe so.

[31:00]

It's very possible. But at the same time, he's killing everyone in the country. You see these movies, these documentaries of destruction. There are people in his country who go around just gathering arms and legs. That's their job. They just go around picking up arms and legs and body parts until they finally get it themselves. It's amazing. And he just, you know, it's hard to know what he's actually saying or what he's thinking. I have deep compassion for that person, even though, you know, I think deep compassion helps to save the world.

[32:04]

It really helps to save the world. But it's not enough. But it's important. Alan? You were melding mythological Yes, yes. Of good and evil. There are different interpretations. No, it's a place to go forward to. Yes, we say that.

[33:11]

Yes, but return also has a meaning. It's like Suzuki Roshi used to say, sitting zazen is returning to your original nature. Our original nature, so-called. quote-unquote, is Samadhi, which is Eden, which is Nirvana. Zazen itself is Nirvana, if you really sit Zazen. No, there's no need to get rid of anything. When you sit in zazen, you don't get rid of anything. You just let everything come up and go. You're not trying to get rid of anything. Because nothing really exists, so there's nothing to get rid of. Yes, everything will fall away as it is unsupported.

[34:30]

Whatever is unsupported falls away. That's why everything changes, because everything is supported for a little while, and then it changes, and it's no longer supported. This is how we talk about birth and death. In birth, there's a lot of support for arising. And then death means that the amount of support is no longer there. And what is there fades, or is just no longer supported. So then there's the big question about birth and death. Just be present for everything. Just be present. There's no coming or going. We don't go forward to, actually, to Eden or Nirvana.

[35:32]

Everything is just present. There's no going towards something or coming from something. Just now. Mark. A few months ago, Yes. Yes. Catsamadhi. Oh, cats are, cats, got it. Cats never left Eden. Well, enlightened is just a human term. Everything's enlightened. Why wouldn't a cat be? Enlightenment is the state of the world. And it includes delusion and destruction. It's a what?

[36:41]

It is a burden, yeah. It is a burden. It is a burden. I mean, people thrive on it. We thrive on it. Yeah, that's okay. You know, it's not like everything is the way it is because of causes and conditions. which means supposed to be. Supposed to be. It's just that we don't like it, or we do like it. Matter of like and dislike. Pleasure and pain. That's the dualistic world. The world of zero is everything is just as it is. And it's hard to accept as it is, unless we have enlightenment. Unassuming mind is the mind that is not given to opinions.

[37:51]

It just means open mind, ready to receive whatever is there without bias or preconceptions, even though you have preconceptions, even though we know, oh yeah, this will happen, that person's like this and so forth. We don't base our assumptions on what we think we know, even though we act out of what we think we know. But all of our assumptions are biased. And to have a beginner, that's a beginner's mind, is not to base your activities on assumptions. But if you do, you say, this is my assumption, not this is what I know, and so forth. So everything I'm telling you is based on my assumptions. But it's also what I know. Yes, Jerry.

[38:58]

Oh, very good. What I mean is, you can go to the Berkeley Bowl and get anything you want. You can go to the theater, you can live a life that you want to live, and if you are fortunate, you can have a job. that supports you and allows you to do all those wonderful things. The best food in the world, the cornucopia of everything.

[40:08]

Of course there are people suffering, and even the people that have everything are suffering. Yeah, it's not just the people in jail, the people on the street, people are cold. Everybody's suffering. It's just that some people are outstandingly suffering. But that's life. Doesn't mean the Berkeley isn't the cornucopia of the world. Yes. And that's an assumption. Yes, it's my assumption. Mea culpa. Because also I'm a human being, so I have assumptions and I have, you know, things that I say that are wrong. I apologize for deluding everyone. You thought you were going to come for some good reason. But I'm sorry. Yes. Oh, yeah. OK.

[41:11]

So this week, I met with, I was talking to this woman who defends, she's an attorney and she defends criminals. And I asked her how, Can you do that? How are you able to do that? And she said, because that act is not all of who they are. They are something else. So that's been rolling around in my head. And this is what I understood from what you said. Reality is a delusion, but it's also a reality. I'm guessing that the value lies either with our intent or our action. And I'm trying to figure out what she said to me and what this, there's something between them. There's a little string there, a thread, that I think is helpful for me, for example, to stop treating the word Republican and the word Trump

[42:16]

as cuss words, and I think that's important for me to do, but I can't, there's a thread in here. I know it's a big, it's a big job, isn't it? Yes, it is. But it's good, that's a good question, really good question. You know, somebody commits a crime, and we say, that's a bad person. That's an assumption. That's like, you know, it's like you get a spot on your shirt and you say, the whole shirt is dirty. Well, it's just a spot on your shirt, right? And a crime is just a spot on this person's personality. And so, you know, It's hard to treat everything as it really is because our tendency is, we have a tendency for blame. One of our most blatant tendencies is to blame everybody else for something.

[43:30]

Yeah, pretty much. Pretty much everything. We are so full of blame, you know. And to actually eat the blame is really good. It reminds me of the story of the snake head. The cook in the monastery made a special dinner for the abbot. I think that's the way the story goes. And while he was cutting the gobo, you know gobo? Burdock, this long, black, brown and black root. Japanese eat it a lot, gobo. And so he cut it into little pieces. And so he put gobo in the soup. And while he was cutting the gobo, there happened to be a snake. It looked kind of like a snake. And he cut the head off the snake and put it in the soup. When the abbot was eating the soup, he said, what's this?

[44:37]

And the cook looked at it, picked it up, and he said, ah, delicious. That's called eating the blame. We have to be able to eat the blame and not, oh, but you, but you, somebody, tells you something that you don't like, and then you turn it around and blame them for it. Blaming the messenger, it's called. Killing the messenger. Yes. Anyway, just going on, logging off. Thank you.

[45:16]

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