Good morning. So we had a nice little rain shower here this morning, a little reminder of winter in West Moran. Can you hear me okay back there? Let me know if my voice fades. So it seems like spring is almost ready to come. The plum tree between the office and the Wheelwright Center is starting to bloom. In Japan, the plum tree blooms in the middle of winter. We used to go see the plums in the shrines there with the snow on the ground in early January, but Wendy tells me that the plum here usually blooms a little later. We're having a bit of an early spring, a mild winter, certainly compared to what's happening

[01:08]

back east, or when I remember this time of year, shoveling snow a few times a week where I grew up back east. But the nights are still dark, and spring's not quite here yet. And also in our culture, it seems like a dark time. There's a lot of cruelty and violence and horrible things that happen out there, and we all know about them. And at the same time, there's also this sense of something else that's some new possibility or some new awareness that's maybe getting ready to emerge. If we can hold on until spring. So it seems like an appropriate time to talk about Buddhist practice in the way I want

[02:17]

to talk about Buddhist practice today. Okay. So the way that I'd like to talk about Buddhist practice today is to talk about our practice as practicing in Buddha's womb. And this is also practicing as Buddha's womb. So, maybe those of us who come here in the early morning and sit upright at five in the morning in this dim room full of the energy of meditation, maybe you can have some resonance with this metaphor, this image of Buddha practice. It seems like cross-legged upright sitting is the fetal position in Buddha's womb. And all of our practice forms, our sitting positions and the forms in the meditation

[03:23]

hall, are containers, are wombs for us to grow in Buddha's way. We started a practice period here two weeks ago, so about 20 people are practicing quite intensely, developing the embryo of Buddhahood. And the theme for this practice period is precepts. So this is also another kind of Buddha womb. And the first precept is taking refuge in Buddha. So taking refuge in Buddha is also practicing in the womb of Buddha. And practicing in the womb of Buddha, or practicing as the womb of Buddha, is also taking refuge in Buddha. So this is a very traditional way of expressing Buddha's practice going back to India and

[04:38]

China. In Sanskrit it's called Tathagata Garbha. So Tathagata is another name for Buddha. Buddha just means the awakened one, one who's awakened. Tathagata, the Chinese version of it means, thus come or to come or to appear in thusness, in suchness, in reality as it is. In Sanskrit it means to come and go, or to come or go. In the reality of suchness. So there are many names for Buddha. To just be, to just come, to just appear, in accord with what is, Tathagata. Garbha is a very interesting word.

[05:39]

It means literally womb, and at the same time it also means embryo. And another translation that's sometimes used is matrix. So in my dictionary matrix means, one meaning is just womb, but also it's the place from where something emerges. So this Garbha is both womb and embryo. So when we sit in this meditation posture called Zazen in Japanese, it's like we are the self, our self is the embryo, and everything in the whole world is the womb of Buddha. That we're sitting in.

[06:40]

The physical world around us, everything in the meditation hall, all of our friends, family, everybody we've ever known. The trees and the rocks and the birds and the cats and the animals outside. So this image of womb and embryo shows us how close we are to Buddha. It's that intimate. But at the same time that we are the embryo and the world is our womb of Buddha, when we do this sitting practice, we are the Buddha womb and the whole world around us is the embryo. Developing into a Buddha land, into a pure land.

[07:46]

So, the person who, the Japanese monk who brought this tradition of practice to Japan from China in the 13th century is named Dogen, he says about this, when one displays the Buddha mudra, mudra is a position, so this is a hand position, it's a mudra, but just to sit in this way is also a mudra, and actually whatever we do is, whatever physical position we are in is a kind of mudra. But this one particularly is called the Buddha mudra. When one displays the Buddha mudra with one's whole body and mind, sitting upright in this concentrated meditation, even for a short time, everything in the entire phenomenal world becomes the Buddha mudra, and all space in the universe completely becomes enlightenment. So, this is hard to understand in our usual way of thinking.

[08:57]

There is this intimate connection between us and the world around us, and even if we can't see it or understand it or know it, when we just do this, when we take this on, when we actually take on Buddhist practice, this is what teaching says is happening. So, particularly a practice community like this is a very special one. There is a very strong container to develop the capacity of the embryo of Buddhahood. Dogen wrote in great detail about how this container works. All the different things we do during the day, all the ways we interact, are helping develop this womb of Buddha and embryo of Buddha. So, for example, he talks about the responsibility of the people taking particular positions in the practice community,

[10:06]

and their responsibility to nurture everyone else in the practice community. In his instructions to the head cook, the Tenzo, he says, if you sincerely prepare food, all of your conduct and performance becomes the activity for the sustained development of a womb of sages. So, we're here developing our capacity to practice the Buddha way and supporting each other to do that too. So, this is a strange and mysterious relationship. The embryo feels the womb as itself. It doesn't have any sense of anything outside the womb, and it doesn't have any sense of the womb as separate from itself. And a mother feels the embryo as itself.

[11:10]

The embryo is very close, at some point it's an other, at some point in the development, but it's still, it's not separate. It's very close. And modern psychologists are discovering aspects of ways in which our prenatal and birth experience actually affects us, stays with us through our life. So, to practice in this way, in this intimate way, with each other and with Buddha, is developing this womb of sages. So, usually this teaching of practicing in Buddha's womb is spoken of in relationship to the teaching of Buddha nature.

[12:14]

We can be Buddha embryos because of this essential nature, our essential Buddha nature, that it is said that all beings, not just that all beings have, all beings are this Buddha nature, open. Vast. Radiant. But, of course, because of our conditioning, because we don't believe it, because of all of the ways in which we get tangled up with our lives in the world, we don't see that. We don't feel that. So, in the Flower Ornament Sutra, the Avatamsaka Sutra, it says, there is no place where the wisdom of the Tathagata does not reach.

[13:19]

Wherefore, there is not a single sentient being that is not fully possessed of the wisdom of the Tathagata, of the Buddha. It is only due to their false thinking, fallacies and attachments that beings fail to realize this. If they could only abandon their false thoughts, then the all-encompassing wisdom, the spontaneous wisdom, and the unobstructed wisdom will clearly manifest themselves. So the Buddha, with his unobstructed, pure eye of wisdom, universally beholds all sentient beings in the whole world, in the whole universe, and says, strange, how strange. How can it be that although all sentient beings are fully possessed of the wisdom of the Buddha, because of their ignorance and confusion, they neither know nor see that? I should teach them the noble path, thus enabling them to forever leave false thoughts and attachments and perceive the vast wisdom of the Tathagata within themselves, not different from the Buddha's.

[14:22]

So the teaching is that this openness, this vastness, this wisdom is fundamentally available to us. We all have this capacity. And I think we all have some sense of that. We all have some glimmer of that. I don't think we would be here otherwise, wanting to hear about it. So this word nature, I want to look at it a little more, this Buddha nature. In the case of Buddha nature, it means a thing's nature, its essence, its character or quality. So in English, Buddha nature means In English, the word nature, as in a thing's nature, is the same word we use for the world of nature, the trees and the mountains and the birds and the fish.

[15:38]

In Chinese and Japanese, it's a different character, it's a different word. But also traditionally, particularly in Zen, there's some sense of the relationship between this nature, this fundamental nature, which it is said we all have, we all are. There's some relationship between that and the world of nature. Much of Chinese and Japanese Zen teaching and Chinese and Japanese art and poetry has to do with nature and the way that that can show us our fundamental nature. This nature is a metaphor to show us the working of awakening mind. So I can't resist the temptation to read a little bit from Cultivating the Empty Field by my favorite Zen nature writer,

[16:40]

Chiantong Hongzhi, who was in the same tradition as Dogen in China a century before. He talks about connecting the mind and the body and connecting with this fundamental nature. He says, The essence is to empty and open out body and mind as expansive as the great emptiness of space. Naturally, in the entire territory, all is satisfied. This strong spirit cannot be deterred. In event after event, it cannot be confused. The moon accompanies the flowing water. The rain pursues the drifting clouds. Settled without a grasping mind, such intensity may be accomplished. Only do not let yourself interfere with things and certainly nothing will interfere with you. He also says,

[17:42]

People of the way journey through the world responding to conditions carefree and without restraint. Like clouds finally raining, like moonlight following the current, like orchids growing in shade, like spring arising in everything, they act without mind, they respond with certainty. This is how perfected people behave. I like that. I'm going to read it again. People of the way journey through the world responding to conditions carefree and without restraint. Like clouds finally raining, like moonlight following the current, like orchids growing in shade, like spring arising in everything, they act without mind, they respond with certainty. Just resting is like the great ocean accepting hundreds of streams all absorbed into one flavor. Freely going ahead is like the great surging tides

[18:45]

riding on the wind, all coming onto this shore together. How could they not reach into the genuine source? How could they not realize the great function that appears before us? A dedicated practitioner follows movement and responds to changes in total harmony. So this harmony of nature, of the natural world, the way everything in the natural world is connected and works together and supports each other, this is a clue to this underlying, this fundamental Buddha nature, which we become more fully as we practice in Buddha's womb. So there's another meaning of nature also. There's the world of nature, the natural world, and then there's the sense of natural as things happening naturally.

[19:46]

And those two meanings of natural are the same in English and in Chinese and Japanese too. So we talk about the natural world and we talk about things happening naturally. And literally in Chinese it means on its own, things happen on their own. Naturally. And we can get a feeling from that, from some of the poetic images of just the rain, the clouds finally releasing their rain, the moonlight reflected on the current of the stream. But there's a problem with this because we tend to think that natural also means automatic. Things happen naturally. And we think that means that that has nothing to do with us, that they just happen automatically. Things happen separate from us.

[20:49]

So every time the Buddhist teaching has been introduced, this problem has appeared. This problem of thinking of natural as automatic. So in the time of the historical Buddha Shakyamuni, 2,500 years ago, there was a philosopher who said that there is some essential spiritual wisdom that you can depend on, that really exists, and you don't have to do anything but just know that that's there. And Dogen in Japan in the 1300s faced the same problem. Most of his monk disciples had studied with a teacher who was trying to practice Zen, but they had this idea that all you have to do is know that this mind is Buddha, and that's all you need to do. And in our own time,

[21:54]

when Zen was being introduced into America, when people like D.T. Suzuki and Alan Watts were talking about Zen in the 50s and early 60s, there were not so many people actually practicing, actually trying Buddhist practices on. There were mostly intellectuals and artists and poets who were interested in this interesting philosophy. So there was what Alan Watts used to call Beat Zen, and that's kind of entered the culture. Just go with the flow. Whatever happens is cool, man. We don't really have to do anything. We just have to hear about this and hear that there's this Buddha nature, and then whatever happens is groovy. But that's not what this is about.

[22:57]

That's not how the Buddha womb and the Buddha embryo work. So this image of Buddha embryo means that the Buddha has not yet emerged. There's the capacity, but we're still developing. And our presence and attention and intention is required. It's not enough to just hear about these teachings. How do you actually enact the Buddha womb? How do you actually enact the Buddha embryo? So Dogen said, although this teaching is abundantly inherent in each of our lives, in each person, it is not manifested without practice. It is not attained without realization. We have to make this real.

[24:02]

Or as one of my favorite American Zen poets says, he not busy being born is busy dying. So how do we get born? How do we nurture? How do we, as Buddha's womb, nurture the embryo of Buddhahood? It's not automatic. It's possible to miscarry. And sometimes it seems that abortions are necessary. So the effort of Mother Andrew and child are both required. And it's not exactly effort. It's to continue, to continue living and making that real. So it's a kind of effort. So another aspect of this image, I feel, is we think that the appearance of a Buddha is miraculous.

[25:11]

To imagine seeing Shakyamuni Buddha 2,500 years ago would be a miracle. Or some great teacher to actually meet Dogen. Wow. It would be a miracle to see someone like that, right? Or maybe those of us who never met Suzuki Roshi. I wish we could have done that. But in the same way, to see a newborn baby is a miracle. Every time you see a new baby, it's miraculous. Where did this being come from? So in Buddhism, we say that to be born as a human being is a miracle. One story about this is that

[26:18]

there's this turtle swimming along under the oceans, and every hundred years, every hundred years, it sticks its head up above the surface of the ocean. And at the same time, there's this ring floating along on the ocean. So the likelihood of being born as a human being is as likely as this turtle sticking its head up every hundred years and putting its head through this ring floating on the surface of the ocean. So it's quite wonderful that we are here as human beings and we can hear about this Buddha nature. And I'm particularly happy to celebrate this miracle with you all today of being born as human beings, because this happens to be my birthday. Happy birthday to you.

[27:28]

Happy birthday, dear Diane. Happy birthday to you. Thank you. So anyway, we're here in this miraculous world. I should have kept going. So there are two stories that I wanted to mention that maybe clarify the workings of this Buddha womb, two stories from Buddhism. You know, half of us have the capacity to experience the reality of this metaphor, have the capacity to be mothers and experience that from that side. But the other half of us who have the capacity to be fathers also have experienced this.

[28:30]

We came from the womb. At least I think so. Is everyone here womb-born? They say in Indian Buddhist cosmology that there are four kinds of birth. So womb-born is one of them. Then there's being born from an egg, like chickens and so forth. And moisture-born, which they talk about as worms or fish or maybe some others. And then there's a fourth one, metamorphosis. There's one translation. So that's like moths and butterflies that come from cocoons. But also they say some heavenly beings and some hell beings also are born by metamorphosis. So anyway, it looks like we're all human beings here. So the first story I wanted to tell is actually not a womb birth, but I think it's relevant to this process that we're all in of practicing in Buddha's womb. And it's an old story in Zen about the way that a hen and a chicken,

[29:35]

the way a chick is born. I don't know if this actually happens this way in biology, but the story is that when the time is right, the chick starts pecking at the shell from inside. And at the same time, the hen pecks from the outside. And the timing's got to be just right. And together, the shell is cracked and the chick emerges by their pecking together. So this is a story about the relationship between teachers and students, between Buddhas and sentient beings. So again, it takes the pecking, the breathing, the living, the working of both sides, from the womb side, from the embryo side. The other story is from the Lotus Sutra. So the Lotus Sutra is a scripture teaching by the Buddha.

[30:38]

And in the Lotus Sutra, the historical Buddha Shakyamuni was preaching to his disciples and many bodhisattvas. Bodhisattvas are awakening beings, beings who are dedicated to awakening everyone. So there was this huge assembly of disciples and bodhisattvas and people listening to the teaching of the Buddha. And in the middle of this Lotus Sutra, some of them say to the Buddha, Well, how will people hear about this teaching in the future, after you're gone, in the far future? So maybe from our side we can hear this question as, you know, them asking later on, 2,500 years from now, when the world's gone wrong, in the age of television, how will they hear this teaching? And the Buddha said, Don't worry, no problem.

[31:41]

And then suddenly from, they emerged from the open space under the ground, many, many, many bodhisattvas, many awakening beings. Must have been quite a sight. Imagine, so in the middle of our sendo there is Manjushri, the bodhisattva of wisdom. So imagine thousands and millions and billions of beings like that just popping out of the floorboards and floating around in the sendo here. So all of these numerous bodhisattvas, awakening beings, helpful beings, sprung out from the womb of Mother Earth, from the open space under the ground. So there are many, the story goes on,

[32:43]

and there are many things that could be said about it, but what I feel mostly is the fertility of our situation, of being in this world, and the grasses, like the grasses and flowers and trees that spring out of the ground, these numerous bodhisattvas. But also there's this inconceivability, this way in which we can't really get this in our usual way of thinking. The workings of the Buddha womb are beyond our usual sense of things. So again, think of the embryo sitting in the womb, developing, has no sense of anything outside the womb or even what the womb is. So it seems to me maybe from different grounds, different expressions of the Buddha womb emerge.

[33:45]

Last autumn I returned, a year ago last autumn, I returned from practicing for two years in Japan, and since returning I've been trying to look at how to express my sense of the difference in the practice and my sense of the depths in the practice there. And I think maybe this relates a little bit to how we practice in Buddha's womb. So Suzuki Roshi came and founded Zen Center, which includes Green Gulch and Tassajara. He came to America in 1959, and originally he came as a missionary. He was a temple priest for the Japanese-American temple in Japantown in San Francisco. And all the people who had heard Alan Watts and D.T. Suzuki and people who were interested in this non-Japanese-American started showing up and wanting to do Zazen, wanting to do meditation with Suzuki Roshi.

[34:49]

And Suzuki Roshi was very impressed with what he called beginner's mind, with the sincerity and freshness of these people. He really felt and recognized the Buddha womb in America. In Japan, Suzuki Roshi had not been a famous or important Zen master. He was the temple priest for a large temple in a small town. And I met a number of Japanese priests who were just temple priests in small towns, and many of them, their practice is really fine and their understanding is real clear. I think if many of them, if they had happened to show up in San Francisco in the 60s, something would have happened. The time was ripe, as they say. But of course, Suzuki Roshi was the one who came, and he was ready.

[35:54]

He recognized Buddha's womb, and he found a way to meet us and nurture our Buddha nature. Today in Japan, there's also still this sense, though, of Buddha's womb, and it's a little different. But it's got this quality of 1,500 years of grounding, so to walk through these temples where people have been practicing for that long, 1,000 years, 500 years, 1,500 years sometimes, there's a real power to that. And even though there are many things wrong with Japanese culture, as there is with ours, still there's this sense of trust in Buddha, and it's an everyday reality in many places, in the small towns and little rice villages, and even in some of the older cities and some of the neighborhoods. So I felt it a lot from the old Japanese women who lived in the neighborhood where I lived in Kyoto.

[36:57]

Every morning they were out sweeping in front of their house and cleaning, and they were pretty humble, but there was also this awareness. They knew what was going on in the neighborhood, and they were kind and neighborly. So I felt this sense of trust, a sense of trust in being in the womb of Buddha. Once a year I would get together with them for this festival that happens in late summer in Kyoto, a festival for Jizo Bodhisattva, the Earth Womb Bodhisattva, and we would chant the name of Buddha 1,000 times or more with this huge rosary going around the circle of a dozen of us. Then afterwards they would eat sweets and tell jokes and laugh. Very simple, but this sense of trust.

[38:01]

Of course, traditionally in Japan, people, and China too, people have this sense that things were better in the old days, and of course they were. So one of the teachers I practiced with, named Shinkai Roshi, was a friend of Suzuki Roshi. Suzuki Roshi had invited him to come and help in America, but he had been involved with things there anyway. I used to go to his temple in the mountains west of Kyoto, and I told him about my feeling about these old Japanese women, and he joked with me, well, even the old women were better in the old days. So the last time I talked to him, he said to me, you know, understanding is easy. Understanding is not important. The important thing is just to continue. So I think this just to continue is very important for us.

[39:11]

This is trust in Buddha's womb. This is taking refuge in Buddha. Just to continue. There's a word I learned in Japan that's pronounced myo-ka or myo-jo or myo-shi, and it means inconceivable help or inconceivable guidance. In this first part of it, inconceivable literally means dark or mysterious. Womb-like. It's womb-like nurturing. So in Japan, when they, it seems like they pray. It's kind of a prayer, but it's not exactly to an external deity. It's a little bit different, and we can't say whether these bodhisattvas are out there somewhere or in here. It's not relevant. It's just this energy. But there's this sense of, that there is this guidance or help,

[40:14]

that we are embryos practicing in Buddha's womb, and that if we place our trust in the workings of Buddha's womb, it will be nurtured. And then we also become wombs of Buddha for everyone else. Both ways. So I think what's important in this is this attitude of trusting our world and trusting our life, facing our life uprightly, whatever happens. And especially when problems or difficulties confront us, these difficulties are guidance, they're help in our own development as Buddha embryos and Buddha wombs. Recently I came across something about the etymology of the word blessing. So blessing comes from the same root as to bleed,

[41:19]

but it also means to wound in its early meaning. So all of our wounds are blessings, can be blessings. All of the problems that come to us are ways of helping us to develop in this way. So entering this practice is entering this inconceivable intimacy with Buddha's womb and Buddha's embryo, taking refuge in Buddha, taking refuge in precepts. So I hope we will just continue making this effort to practice uprightly in the midst of our lives. Thank you. Mayor. Question and answer session. For a while we set up a category for Americans to come and practice together with Japanese monks.

[42:22]

And the cross-cultural aspect of that was an important part of the experience. Thank you. So the American monks were always asking questions, wanting to understand all the different practices we were doing and the things that we said and so forth. And for the Japanese monks, that was very rude. They're trained, not just monks, but Japanese educational system. I taught in colleges a little bit too. They're trained not to ask questions. You absorb what the teacher tells you and regurgitate it, and that's the educational system. So for us to be asking questions kind of implied some disrespect, whereas for us it was very respectful. We were interested and wanted to learn and wanted to understand. But for them, their practice was actually doing it,

[43:25]

taking on the practice and the tradition. Particularly in the temple where I was at, that branch of Soto Zen, they emphasized very much kind of impeccable performance of all the rituals and so forth. So in the middle of service, if somebody was standing in the wrong place or hitting the bell wrong, they would just come and move you physically. Or they would stop everything and say, no, the bell should be this way. That was their training, and they were constantly correcting each other. For us, that was rude and disrespectful. But for them, that was part of their wanting to enact the teaching. So for them, that was their way of trusting and respecting and venerating the teaching. So this was an interesting difference. So that's part of it. Yes? I have read that in Japan the practice of Zen is not open to the layman readily,

[44:29]

that in America it is, but in Japan it is not. Is that true or not? No. It isn't true? There are, in a way, it's apples and oranges. So what layman means, what priest means in Japan is much more fixed. And so there's this sense in which people, lay people in Japan, have this particular role of supporting the teaching by making donations to temples. So that's part of lay practice, and it's understood as not just fundraising or something, but actually as their way of relating to connecting with Buddha's womb, to use that metaphor that I used. Also, though, so there's that side of it, but also many of the places where I went and sat,

[45:33]

sat in intense five-day or seven-day meditations, there were lay people who would come to those too. So quite a few lay people come to sit in certain monasteries. Now there is much more of a professional monk-type thing that happens there, and there's not so much communities like this that are basically lay communities. So in one sense I'm a priest, but I'm a lay priest. I'm not a monk in the traditional South Asian way, even though I spend time in the monastery. All of this stuff has to be retranslated, and we have to find new words to fit our cultural context. It's really different. But anyway, there are lay people who go and sit zazen quite intensively. In between working in their jobs, they take a week off and go. Just the way people do here, people come to Green Gulch to sit zazen. It's the same thing. So that happens in Japan. But there's also much more of this focus on monastic training, where they have these institutions and establishments set up to train monks to become temple priests. So there's all these temples, and the temple priests have to go through some particular training,

[46:40]

so they go for a year or two or three to these monastic institutions where there's particular rigorous training. And some of those are closed to lay people. They're particularly training temples for lay people. We all have this capacity to just be awake. Actually, that's very natural. It's something that I think many children have some experience of, this openness. And we... But we don't make that real. So that's our work, but it's a mutual thing. It's like the hen and the chick. It's something you can't do by yourself, and yet somebody else is not going to do it for you. Can you say more? What does it mean to do it? It sounds like an effort.

[47:40]

Well, maybe you have to be something. Take the do out of it. You have to go and... You have to intentionally do your life, be your life. You have to be aware of... We use this word practice. This is an interesting word. So for us, the model is the meditation hall. We go and we take this posture, and we sit there without moving much for 40 minutes, or a day or a week, or whatever it is we're doing, and just watch what happens and stay with it and continue doing it. So there's some attention and intention. There's some awareness that we need to bring to it. It's not enough to just kind of... I'm not saying it's not possible to practice while you sleep,

[48:43]

but for most people, sleeping is not practice. So there's a kind of paying attention. I think that's maybe the main thing. And also paying attention and then looking at the consequences of how you are in the world, what you're doing, how things happen, especially with these problems, with these blessings that come to us. In those situations, when you see how we think of a self, how we invent a self separate from others, when we see the way in which we react to problems such that we see ourselves separate from others, and those things, that's part of our life. That's the place where we can see how we're not in tune with this intimacy we're doing.

[49:48]

So to pay attention to all of these things and to see the workings of it and to then try to bring your full awareness to it and do your best with it. So it's not that you have to do some special thing. It's in whatever you're doing. It's not some special place or some special activity or some special experience or state of mind. It's whatever your job is, whatever you're taking care of a family, whatever your relationships are, to see how this process is working there. And we get a glimpse of that from sitting in the meditation hall and then see how that affects or illuminates the rest of our everyday experience. But we have to actually be there and be watching it. It's not that somebody kind of does it for us.

[50:53]

I was fascinated by the allegory of the turtle in the ring. And I feel very pleased that I am a human being here to enjoy the world that I was born in. But I need to know more about what the concept is. Am I fortunate to be born a human being instead of a turtle? Or am I fortunate for my soul to have been embodied in the body that I now have? Explain to me my good fortune. You're very fortunate to realize that you have good fortune. That's the most important. To be grateful for the situation we're in, with all of its complications. That's really helpful. So that's first. Including all the difficulties and problems and horrors of the world. What is it that... We have the opportunity to then interact with those situations, to do something actually helpful.

[52:03]

So this opportunity is something to be very grateful for. I think partly it's talked about in terms of the human being is the situation where it's most easy to hear the teaching. From the point of view of Buddhism, they talk about being a human being is the situation in which it's easiest to hear about this process of awakening. This process of spiritual emergence. So if you were born a turtle... Turtles are considered quite auspicious in many parts of the world. And they live long lives. So I think a turtle has a right to feel grateful too. But maybe a turtle doesn't have... Partly because we have the problem of not realizing this Buddha nature.

[53:06]

Not realizing that the nature of reality is this vast, open light. That we think it's something else. We think that we're separate from the world. We think we're alienated and estranged and dissatisfied. We're well aware of all of the complications of living as human beings. So because of that, we have the chance to then illuminate those situations. So that's the fortune of being human. Did I have the option of becoming a turtle? That's a concept that I need clarification on. I mean, at one point I'm told that a soul has no options. The option is either to stay in the spiritual state or to leave the body. And now I hear that perhaps it was my good fortune to be born a human being instead of a turtle.

[54:10]

I didn't know I had that option of becoming a turtle. Well, I don't know if you did have that option. I don't have any clarification. Well, you're asking about this whole hornet's nest of stuff about incarnation. And I can just tell you what my understanding of the teaching about it is. I don't... I can't... Anyway, it's... We arrive at this state because of past karma, because of past actions, and our actions and the actions of others. So we have the possibility of being born human, depending on... So it's not exactly that there's a soul, by the way. It's definitely not that there's a soul in Buddhism. It's not that there's some you who could be born as a turtle or a human being. So I should say that right away. It's not that there's some you who... some self or soul in that sense that will be born as some other human being after this body and mind is gone.

[55:17]

But yet we... Anyway, we're here. We're human beings. And I'm not sure it's so useful to speculate about how... the process of how we found birth here. I mean, there are various teachings about it, but the point is that we're here, and what do we do? There are various teachings about this, and Tibetans particularly specialize in it. We talk about past lives in Zen too, but it's not... it's future lives. And that's kind of a basic worldview in Asia, that there is some kind of spiritual direction that we give by our actions, and that that continues in some way. But it's not exactly like there's some you that's going to have some other life. But the point is, what do you do with the situation you're in? Yes? Do you have a question? Yeah.

[56:25]

What is reality apart from the big illumination? Is there more to reality, or is that it and everything else is illusion? It's all reality. But it's all illusion. Laughter Well, William Blake said, everything that can be imagined is an image of the truth. So, it's all reality expressed in a certain way. And what's delusion is not the reality. What's delusion is our ideas about it, or our views of it, our attachments to it. There's no problem right here. The problems are that we have some attitude about it, and other people have attitudes about it, and we get caught up in the ramifications of that. So, reality is not some other place, across the ocean, or up in the sky, or under the ground.

[57:34]

Reality is right here, in exactly the way this room is right now. So, it's not about getting to some other place. So, delusions are real delusions. Delusions, too, are real delusions, right? Yeah. They're delusional in reality. It's also reality that, you know, the delusions that you have about reality, your notions and ways of looking at this and that, and thinking this and that about the way things are, those are real, too. You know, that's just, those are your real delusions. And you probably have to work with them. Yes? I'd like to know how you cope with something that I'm struggling with, which is my good fortune, and just the other horrible fortunes of the others. And particularly, I've been reading about Rigoberta Menchú.

[58:38]

About who? Rigoberta Menchú. She won the Nobel Peace Prize last year. She's a Guatemalan. Oh, the Guatemalan. Yeah, I didn't... The story of her life and her family, her church, and her guilt. Such obviously good people, you know, suffer so much. I don't know, I can't reconcile that with my own life. It's real hard. You know, there's one level that's just your own life. So, I made this joke about television, but we know so much more about the world from movies and television. And I just saw this very fine movie about these Irish people who were put in prison for years and done nothing. And, you know, we could just spend the next hour talking about all the atrocities and horror in the world, and we know about them. So, there's also, though, there are also problems and horrors in our own life.

[59:44]

You know, look at your work and family and the people you know, and, you know, that's the place to start. But then also, if there's something you can do about some of those... If there's something you can do to help people in Bosnia or Guatemala or Mexico, I think you do it. Often there's not much that can be done, but to know about it, I think, is helpful. And to bring up the question and to not kind of pretend that it doesn't exist, I think that's helpful. It's hard. It's real hard. But, you know, we don't have to go to Guatemala or Bosnia. There are homeless people on the streets of San Francisco. You know, there are terrible things that happen in Marin County. You know, this is the working out of all of the confusion that we've all had for innumerable lifetimes. So, to do what can be done, you know, with what's in front of you, I think is important.

[60:49]

And not to hide from these realities is important. It's hard. I was just going to say, what makes us think that it is the total truth? Everybody on television says this person is good. There was a history about Gandhi in movies and books. We haven't experienced it. How would we really know what that person really was? And what's really the truth about all these atrocities we hear? I feel like we're wasting so much time paying attention to all that what everybody else says. And then when this is out, we just try to restore this person who really deserves attention. I think that's right. I think it's good to question, you know, to have a question about it.

[61:51]

We hear something, and it may be fairly convincing. But having experienced myself some cases of being involved in something which then later there were books about or whatever, you know, you know that the reality is much more complex and rich and bright and vast. And, you know, so history is a fiction. History is a fiction we're trying to awaken from. And yet there are, I think there are people in Bosnia and Guatemala. So we don't know exactly what's happening. I think it's, I think when given the state of the media in this country, it's important to read between the lines and use your sense and question.

[62:55]

And we don't really know. So it's hard to know exactly what's the right thing to do also because of that. But I think the point you're making is right that to look, you know, in our own, how do we take care of our own life? How do we take care of our own relationships? How do we deal with the people we have conflict or argument or problems with in our own life? I mean, that's something you even there you don't really know what's going on. But then you can start to actually try and find out how to take care of that. Well, I think that I think if everybody, if everybody was awake, yeah, that's true. The Serbians who are trying to do ethnic cleansing could not, if they really looked in this way, would realize that they're not separate.

[64:03]

And that Bosnia used to be a place where Bosnians and Serbians intermarried and lived together. And, you know, so I think that's true. And yet the fact of the confusion in the world is there. So we do what we can. Walter. I think the whole idea of the separateness, seeing Bosnia as something terrible happening there, which is so, it is terrible. But I think it also awakens within myself that I can't do anything about Bosnia, but I certainly can do something about myself. And so there is no separation. So what I see over there really is my projection of myself on to Bosnia. And what's going on over there is going on over here. And I take care of over here.

[65:05]

Maybe something could go out in the world and change that. But for the most part, I'm interested in changing myself so that I don't create Bosnia. I think what you say is good. But also there's this thing now in American Buddhism, not just American Buddhism, some parts of Asia too, of what's been called engaged Buddhism. And people trying to bring a Buddhist perspective to dealing with the social, political, institutional problems of the world. So I think there's a side of our practice which is, there's one side where we go into the zendo and face the wall and really be with ourselves and really see what that is. But then there's the other side where you come out of the zendo and as Gary Snyder says, there's sitting and there's sweeping the temple and you can decide how big the temple is.

[66:12]

So I think that naturally there's this side of insight, of turning within. And there's a side of extending the hand, of compassion, of trying to be helpful in the world. So there are Buddhists who are acting as Buddhists to try and deal with some of these kind of global issues. And it's pretty tricky. But I think first, well I don't even want to say first or second, I think that we have to look at how we're doing our own lives. But isn't that simultaneous with reaching out into the world? I mean I just, I get really emotional when I hear a conversation such as this about, you know, just take care of yourself. I mean I know you have to do this and you wouldn't even be capable of loving anyone else until you do your work yourself. But it seems that we have such a short time. You know, people's plight when they're sitting rotting in some jail in some really out of the way place in the world,

[67:19]

it's always that somebody out there cared and knew and brought to the attention of the world that this injustice was happening. And it seems to me, you know, we can just sit here in California and talk like this for the rest of our lives, you know. That everyone has to find whatever they can do. And sometimes you feel really guilt ridden and question your motives for doing something, but you try to do something. Yeah, this is a great discussion. I think they do come up together. Yeah, my sense is that the longer you sit, the more there's some sort of an organic process that happens. Where you can sit every day and then it's unavoidable that when you go out in the world you're not paying more attention and that something comes out of that sitting. And that's been my experience. The longer I sit, the more I'm different and more proactive in the world. I just want to just say that of my own experience that when I'm in touch with myself,

[68:28]

then it's true that it comes up together. The action and the awareness, it comes up together. And so that I know that when I feel helpless, it's when I don't know who I am, what's going on here. So I think the sitting and also becoming aware of my own responsibility to myself. Myself first. I say first. But my own responsibility from that, they come up together. Yeah, I also don't think it's an either or. I mean, sometimes you have to pay attention to yourself. And you don't have to be doing both at the same time. You don't have to beat yourself up because service is still showing somewhere.

[69:31]

And on the other hand, you don't have to ignore it. Sometimes if you want to stop child abuse, don't hit your kid. That's where you start. And then you also do what you can. You know, there's a time to expand your actions and a time for them to contract. If you generally know instinctually what time it is. You know when you're hungry. You know when it's time to reach out when you have that energy. You know when it's time to face the wall. I think we all know that. It's not up to any of us individually to stop the bombing or child abuse, except in as much as we can ourselves. Then when we have extra, we do extra. Yeah. Perhaps there's another facet of this. In our own country, we can do things that encourage cultural diversity and honoring of other people.

[70:38]

And we can do that in our own lives. With one of my groups that we belong to. And in every way that we possibly can to encourage this love of other people. That's what our country is about. And it makes me very sad when I hear what happens to immigrants. People on the totem pole in our whole country's history have always been persecuted. If we could do something individually, collectively, to help the lowest people on the totem pole in our own country, we would be able to help them. I think one of the wonderful things, there's so many different Buddhist teachings because there's so many different kinds of people. So each person in this room now is their own particular womb of Buddha and their own particular Buddha embryo.

[71:42]

So each person, and then the same person at different times, expresses a different facet of this wisdom, compassion. I think the danger is to kind of ignore what's going on. There's a traditional warning in Zen particularly not to kind of get too attached to sitting in a way of kind of sinking into some blissful state or wanting to get high by doing some particular spiritual practice. That's not what it's about. But it may be that someone looks like they're just meditating all the time and they're actually being very helpful in the world. We don't know exactly what's helpful. I think it's important to do what we see in front of us to do.

[72:45]

And sometimes somebody has an idea that actually has global impact quite directly. And it's just what they saw to do. It's what they were impelled to do by their practice. I feel it's very difficult to, you said before, that not to hurt children. I said if you want to stop with your child, start with your own child. And I really thought, you know, actually start with yourself because you are the child and you're the present person and you're the old person. It's already in you. Actually, even if you're not the turtle, you still can be the turtle because in you is also the turtle and all the other things. And I know when I, for example, don't like certain things, there's an aspect in me I don't like. And it's very hard to like something in oneself that seems so ugly.

[73:50]

And it is very important probably to love everything. I mean, I don't like mosquitoes. I squash them and I find them. There's probably this mosquito in me, a part that I cannot love. You know, a parasite maybe or something. And if I could just begin to love that, then I can be all these things. I can be the turtle and the tree and I don't really have to worry about the world. Well, I think you have to pay attention to the world. It's not enough to kind of look at it all on yourself. It's not separate. It's not separate. So, there's this phrase, myoka, inconceivable help or inconceivable guidance. You know, the embryo doesn't know how they are being fed in the womb. We don't know exactly how this process, what action someone might do that has...

[74:58]

In fact, every action that everyone does has this ripple effect. That's the way it is, actually. Everything we do affects the whole world. That's really true. So, then when we see the ways in which there are problems, well, how do we respond? And it is, I think, someone was saying, a kind of a natural thing. It's not something we can always kind of figure out what's the right thing to do. We just respond. So, that story about the bodhisattvas in the open space under the ground, when Buddha's asked, he goes on to say that they're the ones who like to keep quiet and are practicing and studying the way, but they don't like to kind of hang out in Zen centers, you know, because there's too much institutional problems and confusion and too many people, and they just really like to stay quiet, but yet they are practicing helping all beings. They actually are, and they're there, and they emerge when necessary.

[76:00]

So, this is not to say that everything is perfect and works out, that there are not horrors in the world, but it's not so clear-cut what the right answer is. So, everything that everybody said, I think, is wonderful. I just want to continue listening. It's been wonderful hearing everybody. I was just about to say the same thing in a different way. I think the hardest thing for me is just to bear being king. And when I can feel that abusive person inside of me, when I feel that I am incapable of really conditioning people, where all that within myself, to be able to embrace all that within myself,

[77:16]

and the only thing that I can come up with is when I'm feeling that, the dark side, if you will, of lust, and there's many different things. And I know that I have compassion, too, but when I sit down, when I'm sitting, and I can sit with all of that within myself, it can be a pain in the ass. I think one of the things that comes up in practice, it's very difficult,

[78:22]

and it's real important just to see our own confusion in our own... The thing is, when usually people who are just doing their ordinary life in the world don't know when they're in the way of something, and when you see real clearly how our habits and conditioning kind of gets in the way of being who we can be, it's real painful. And just seeing that is really important. We need to do that. We need to actually face ourselves. So the just continue is to see that, keep going, and just bringing our attention and awareness to it changes it. So there's something about this that's transformative. It's not about just kind of sitting there and nothing's happening.

[79:23]

An embryo is being constantly transformed, going through these incredible changes. So first is to see the way in which our illusions and conditioning and desires and fears and ideas about the way the world is and who we are, and all that stuff is there. It actually comes with being a human being, and sometimes it's hard to bear that. But just to bear it is the point. Not just to bear it, but to bear it and actually bring your energy to it and actually be willing to face it. So to sit uprightly and face the wall is practice for actually facing reality of our lives and all that stuff. And without judgment, without judging myself, when I have a compassion for the world that is within me, and I see it in someone else, it's easy for my mind to immediately judge

[80:27]

and not do that. And the more I have compassion for the world since I made a war, the more I see that in other people, the occasion comes up, and I have compassion for that, instead of judging. I think what you were saying about having compassion for yourself, I think that is really important. So the other extreme of just kind of getting into some blissful state and kind of ignoring the world is to be out there trying to do good, and not really seeing the ways in which your own habits and conditioning and ideas about things are being implemented, rather than just kind of clear responsiveness. Compassion does start here. How can I, as you're saying, how can I be compassionate to the child in me? How can I be compassionate to the abused and abuser in me?

[81:34]

That's necessary. But this idea of self and other, though, we're getting hung up in this again. It's not separate. It's not separate. And of course, we get hung up in it. That's what it's about. That's the problem. We do see ourselves as separate from the Bosnians or separate from whoever, and separate from each other, separate from our friends, separate from the people around us who we want to be with more or want to be with less or whichever. We see them as some object, and actually we're so much part of each other, and yet there's also this side of we have a particular responsibility. I just want to ask, what occurs to me is Buddha,

[82:37]

having gone through many different types of practices, and suffered a great deal. And it wasn't until he said he was not going to get up from this spot until he was enlightened. And when he became enlightened, he said that the stars and everything else came up together. And we're all enlightened. And I think this is the actual process. This is the suffering, the paying attention to oneself, to the problems of our own, and efforting and trying to get to the crux of what's going on, the suffering that's going on within ourselves. Once that happens, I think there is that lifting, that lightness that occurs.

[83:43]

Well, there's the side of our good intentions and efforts and actions. There's also this other side, which I was trying to point out, which is something that's clearer in Japan, actually, in this taking refuge, the trusting. So to accept that we're, to use the metaphor I was playing with today, that we're living in Buddha's room and that we are Buddha's room, to trust and take refuge in Buddha. Not that everything is perfect in some kind of Pollyannic way, but just to actually put ourselves into and engage in that process to continue. That's faith. That's enough. Well, we have to keep doing it, yeah. Yeah, that's right. And that includes everything that everybody said here. We have to just keep doing our best. And trust, this trust, the English word faith is a problem.

[84:47]

I think that our Judeo-Christian background or the way it's been transmitted to us is that we have faith in some idea or some belief or some being or thing or whatever out there. So it's easy to distort this idea of Buddhism Bodhisattvas into that too. And I think popularly sometimes maybe it's understood that way in Asia. But fundamentally it's more like how do we have confidence and trust in our lives, and our lives includes the whole universe, and then do it and keep going in the middle of all the problems. Patience is real important. That is what faith is. Okay. Yeah, same thing. Confidence, trust. Yeah, we're working with English words and we have to kind of... So taking apart these words and seeing what we actually mean by them

[85:50]

and the different implications of what... Natural means that there's some natural process, but it doesn't mean that we're not part of that, that it happens kind of outside of us automatically. So our own process of coming to how do we deal with all this is part of this natural process, is this natural process. And I'm going with the natural process and now I'm going to take action. And if I stumble with that one, like there's going to flow a delusional, just having things be natural, and then coming to a point which is acceptance, and then coming to a point of, well, how can that be changed? We'll find a way to come up with that. I think just asking that question is the most important thing,

[86:50]

to look at it and to ask the question, to keep asking the question, and it changes. But also trusting your own responses in the situation and being willing to make mistakes, because we're constantly making mistakes. Dogen said his life was one continuous mistake. And that change is a natural process, but then it needs to give stagnation. There's a point where... Well, but we don't always know. Is the embryo sitting in the womb stagnating? It may be that it looks like nothing is happening. And transformation happens in this inconceivable way. So this thing about our understanding is not what's important. We want to understand it. We come from this tradition of rational, scientific, wanting to understand everything. So we have to try and do that, because that's who we are.

[87:52]

It's not that that's bad, but that's not where the action is. Somebody said when it's not about getting the right answers, it's about asking the right questions. Asking the right questions and just keeping asking questions and not getting stuck on any answer. One of the big problems is to think that you understand. If you understand, that's great. And in fact, it's easy. You can understand. But then, once you have something that you understand and you hold on to it, it becomes some thing and then you've totally lost it. You can't get stuck on any view. You can't hold on to that. Which doesn't mean we don't... If you're the kind of person who wants to understand, then your mind is going to do that. That's okay. But to continue, actually, this level, this deeper level of...

[88:57]

I don't know the word for it in English. Trust, being Buddha's womb. I'm trying to talk about it in various ways. It's taking refuge, I think, in Buddha is maybe the best way to talk about it. Taking refuge in Buddha in the whole process of awakening in ourselves and all beings. And that's kind of more fundamental than our attempts to understand and figure out and take action and all that stuff, which we also should, you know, it's part of it. We have to do that. Yes? All beings. I mean all beings. Plants. Yeah, I like plants. Yeah, plants and mosquitoes and trees and rocks and mountains and oceans and light and, you know...

[90:01]

Sentient. So that's a kind of standard Buddhist phrase. Sentient beings means beings with sentience. And I guess the Tibetans say that plants don't have sentience. And I think in Chinese and Japanese Zen, we often talk about plants and rocks even having sentience. And, you know, this is an interesting topic that we can talk about. But I think the level that this taking refuge is on, though, is more basic than, you know, even sentience or non-sentience. So sentient being is opposed to Buddha. Sentient being is one who has these confusions, you know. But, for example, the Cheyennes say that rocks have consciousness. Of course, it's a lot different timeframe and level and nature of consciousness than humans. I don't know. Yes.

[91:05]

This is my question for you. Great. When I was in your talk about the turtle and the brass ring, I was getting that it also meant miracles. And is it the turtle just hitting that brass ring when it came up, is that the miracle of enlightenment? It's a miracle. Is it so rare? Or is it just looking to the miracles and everything in your life and seeing it as such? Yeah, right. In that story particularly, it's the miracle of just being born as a human being, let alone the miracle of being a Buddha or seeing a Buddha. So the Zen attitude about this is just chopping carrots and cleaning your room and walking down the path,

[92:08]

those are the miracles. When we see our life that way, we can really appreciate our life and make our life more full. So that's taking refuge in Buddha too. Cleaning your room? Sometimes. What about getting your kids to clean their room? That's advanced practice. That's advanced practice. Anybody else? Comments, statements, questions? I'm curious about the concept of ambition. Didn't Buddha say that ambition is the cause of all evils? What do you mean by ambition? Well, myself personally, sometimes I feel a bit ambitious. So I feel frustrated because I've been trying to study Buddhism for three years,

[93:14]

but I'm also a businessman, ambitious. So at first sight, I'm confused about that. I thought Buddha said something about ambitious is the cause of all suffering. Well, I don't know if he said that. I disagree, though. Again, with all of these English words, we have to look and see what you mean. So Buddha did talk about desire as a problem. Desire is related to ambition. I think it's not so much the desire, but the thing that comes up just after that, after the desire, which is trying to get it, seeing the thing you're just seeing, having a desire, then seeing some object, imagining some object of desire, and then acting and trying to get a hold of it, and then trying to possess it and all that stuff. But that's a problem. That puts us in opposition and splits our being

[94:15]

and takes us away from refuge in Buddha in this way. So I think it's important to see what is your ambition, what is your desire, what is your... So Suki Roshi used to talk about what is your deepest intention. So I think you have to be very ambitious to be Buddha or Bodhisattva. Buddha wanted to save all the beings in the universe. I mean, come on. Is that chutzpah or what? So that's actually our vow. Our vow, the Bodhisattva vow, the vow of beings dedicated to universal awakening, is to save...

[95:00]

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