very tragic and difficult week for everyone with the fire. And I think we've all had a lot of time now to think about it and to think about what, why, how, all these questions that come up. And what are some of the important lessons to be learned, maybe, or to think about? Maybe we already know the lessons, you know? I think we already know what all the lessons are. But how we, something like this, brings up to us very clearly what maybe is obscure, becomes obscure. When we start to get involved in our life.

[01:09]

We forget a lot of times what the real lessons are and what the real basis is. I think that what comes up for me is the transiency and ephemeral nature of our life, which is always there, moment by moment. we actually live our life moment by moment. And sometimes when we put the picture of our life together, when we actualize our dream, we tend to sometimes ignore the transiency of life. And then when something like this happens, It suddenly looms up in our consciousness.

[02:12]

So, over and over again, we build something and then it's taken away. So, transiency and great patience, patience our life. And equanimity is a big factor in our life. How to actually stay centered when something difficult happens. When all of your dreams suddenly collapse and all your hard work is gone. Where are you then? So these are important lessons for everyone and it is important for us in our practice.

[03:21]

Every day in our practice we should be aware of these factors. Impermanence, patience, equanimity. stability in the face of good times and bad times. But it's really hard to talk about because what comes up for us is compassion and compassion for all the people who lost so much. And I think that overrides everything else. So these two things go on, or accompany each other.

[04:22]

One is really great compassion, which comes to the forefront. And in retrospect, wisdom, which teaches us lessons that we need to learn. and how to maintain our wisdom without getting lost when we start to be successful. One of the problems, I think, with success is that we tend easily to lose our balance and lose our wisdom. So sometimes failure and tragedy back down to where we really are and what's really going on in life in a real way. I want to read you a passage here from this book, The Tiger's Cave, which is a commentary by a Soto Zen abbot in Japan, Abbot Oboro.

[05:43]

It's his commentary on the Heart Sutra, and he's talking about karma. He's talking about this part in the Heart Sutra where the translation is a little different, but you'll recognize it. He says, all these things, Shariputra, have the character of emptiness, neither born nor dying, neither defiled nor pure, neither increased nor lessened. He says, these phrases addressed to Shariputra from Avalokiteśvara teach the character of emptiness. As emptiness, it can have no characteristic form. We may think that even in emptiness, some form must remain, but there is no need for it to be so. The true form is no form. The form of the true suchness is the form which is negation.

[06:45]

True form is spoken of as the form of no form. and only so can it be expressed. That form is nothing visible to the eye. It is the life of truth. The whole spirit of the Heart Sutra is that the real form, the form of suchness, is no form, and so it is said here. All these things means the five skanda aggregates. We are to discover the satori of emptiness in these illusory forms. to awaken to the fact that the forms are at the same time emptiness, and then there is no more the form of birth and death. The standpoint here is that the world of birth and death is just illusory sticking to self. By the time we have the thought that something has come, it has already vanished. Such is this world. The world's of relative good and evil, of hell, ghosts, animals, asuras, men, and also the heavens. all are upraised upon illusory sticking to self.

[07:49]

When we think we have done some good, that good is at once destroyed. It is all appearing and vanishing. Because these worlds stand on illusion, even good is no more than an occasional event caused by associations. And when the associations are bad, the manifestation created by that good entirely disappears. Relative good and evil are always appearing and disappearing. A sutra says, though merit may be piled up as high as the Himalaya, one flash of anger and it is all consumed. Merits from good deeds, when associations become a little unfavorable, are destroyed with a flaring up of passion. Our life is destruction of what has been built and building up of what has been destroyed. Underneath building, a destruction, and underneath the destruction, building, repeating again and again the same sort of things. All worlds of illusory attachment to self are the same.

[08:51]

This pitiable human state is symbolized in the Buddhist story of Sainokawara. In the ruined temple of Daisenji, there is a representation of Sainokawara, of which a good deal remains. there is the dry riverbed of the story. And in the middle stands a great stone figure of the Bodhisattva Jizo. Around it have been piled up countless little pagodas. The story is familiar to all Japanese, how those who die in early childhood go to this place and employ themselves in building the pagodas. They remember their parents in the world and build up one for their father and one for their mother, piling up the stones one by one A demon suddenly rushes in from the side and, whirling an iron pole, smashes down everything they have built. The children, terrified, run to the stone Jizo and hide themselves for a while in the long sleeves of his compassion.

[09:56]

We get the feeling of pointlessness, that it is futile to keep building up the stone towers, only to have them smashed down by the demon. If they are always to be destroyed, why build them? But that will not do, for this is Sayeno Kawara, a place where the karma associations find fulfillment. When the demon goes off, the crowds of children come out again and build their pagoda towers. Just as they think they have finished, out comes the demon and all is destroyed. What was built up is broken down, and then what was broken down is rebuilt. Repeating again and again, the same task is the state of sae no kawara. Is not our human condition like this also? In the worlds of relative good and evil, raised up on illusory attachment to self, we may do some good, but then, when the karma associations are unfavorable, evil passions arise and destroy it all.

[10:59]

We rebuild what was destroyed, and what we build is again destroyed. When we think we have completed something, it disappears. And what has disappeared again comes about. So the endless wheel of life revolves. This is the character of the human condition. And in spiritual training, it is called the law of circularity. What a thing to happen to such a splendid man. This is all the shiftings of human nature. From the point of view of spirituality, it is only going round and round in the world of relative good and evil. It is not the profound spirituality. All the worlds of illusory sticking to self are worlds of birth and death. So it's long been recognized that we build something and then some demon comes along and destroys it.

[12:10]

And then we build again. So another part of, another factor is acceptance. And acceptance goes along with patience. Being able to, kshanti is the word actually in Sanskrit for one of the six paramitas. Shanti includes patience, but it also includes the ability to accept everything as it is. Difficult. Really difficult. But there's no other way, actually.

[13:17]

And when we can accept everything as it happens, as it is, and see it clearly, and with patience, then from that clear mind, we know how to proceed. And we have our grief, but out of our grief comes our hope. I was returning from Tassajara last Sunday. I'd been in Tassajara for three weeks. And as you may remember, if you were here, the last time I gave a talk, I talked about our Japanese relationship with Japan.

[14:22]

And the Sotos school's organization was proposing a two-week Sashina Tassahara, gathering together Japanese teachers and the foreign teachers from Europe and America. And we had that sashimi, which I'll tell you about. But I was just returning from there and driving down the freeway Sunday when I saw this huge cloud of smoke. And I tried to pinpoint where it was coming from. And it was about noon.

[15:24]

So it was just getting going. And all of us have had some kind of similar experience, I think, of suddenly we found ourselves confronted with this thing. Well, I do want to tell you about this, because people have been asking about it. But I also want to know if you want to say anything about how your feeling or how we haven't discussed anything about this week, all week. So I wonder if you have anything that you want to say or discuss or express. Why there's such a heaviness?

[17:20]

Well, I think that people do have to put their feelings aside in order to operate. And then little by little, that will surface. And it's different with each person. I think that if we look into our own compassion, if we really open ourselves to our own compassion, then we'll find out how to respond to a situation.

[18:32]

Because every situation is different. Every person's feelings are different. And there's no formula. If you look for a formula and try to apply it to a situation, it doesn't fit. So the main thing is just to be open. without your own agenda, I think. Just keep your mind open and keep your heart open. That's very compassionate. And then you can respond to a person's situation. That's my feeling. I think you're right. And I think the more pain somebody is in, the harder that is. I spent the week at my local junior high school where the very, very best and very most favorite teacher was killed in the fire.

[19:48]

hard to believe anyway but this guy was somebody who taught them how to be safe in the wilderness and how to fire rockets and he seemed to be able to do anything and so it was it was a great shock and as the week went on and it became clear and clear every day that Dr. Loggins wasn't coming back. It got harder and harder to deny, and there was more and more pain in the school. And my daughter cried more and more. And the more pain there was, the more And so a whole lot of us went down to the school and just made, formed little groups of kids and teachers and parents, you know, all day long.

[21:18]

Anybody who wanted to could come down and just talk or get a hug. And it was really, it really pulled the community together. And the beautiful way the children did a memorial service. And what they appreciated about this teacher was that he lived every moment. And they said that. And that he was always right there, living every moment. to find one's composure in the middle of all that.

[22:34]

In a hospice work also, when you're treating people who don't have very long to live, There's no formula for how you treat people. You just open and listen. Receptive, actually. And without telling them any special story that you want them to hear. Just helping them to do what they have to do. it's difficult and at the same time, easy. So, it always brings us back to ourself, you know, like where am I? How am I taking care of myself?

[23:36]

And we kind of take care of people, we take care of others in the way we take care of ourself. So it's important for us to know, well, how am I going to take care of myself? How am I going to comfort myself? How am I going to rationalize or keep myself clear and realistic? So that's why it always comes back to, And what we practice is what we can give to others. It's the basis of what we give to others. Yes? I was going to say that usually I have a big problem in this area. And it is that when I see, especially people who are very close to me, who are suffering, it's there's something in me that cannot bear it.

[24:45]

and I want to force things so that they will not experience their pain or go through that danger. It's unbearable to me and I lose... and I lose the sense of reality in that sense because one way or another I'm desperately trying to alleviate that pain. Yeah. I think that... I would say partly that problem comes from wanting to alleviate. You know, sometimes all we can do is to hold somebody's hand. We want to do some more, you know. We want it to stop. But it doesn't stop and it's not going to stop. And all you can do is offer yourself, offer your hand or offer your something, you know. Just be with the person is enough. And compassion means to be able to identify with someone else's pain, not necessarily to try to stop it, but to be with it, to identify or understand it.

[26:05]

So just to be with somebody just to maybe just to walk with them through something is enough. That's plenty. But you have to be able to open yourself to what's happening, but not necessarily try to close it off in the other person. To close it off? Not to try to necessarily close it off in the other person or in yourself. But on the other hand, If we take on too much of the other person's suffering, then it's hard to help the person. So this is where we have to have some balance. We have to be able to suffer with someone and at the same time have some non-attachment to the situation.

[27:12]

Otherwise, you can't be a doctor. unless you have some non-attachment to the situation, and at the same time, you're very attached to the situation. So, there are two sides of attachment. One is to be with, to be concerned and empathetic with the situation, and on the other hand, to be objective. If you're not objective, then you just get sucked in, yourself. So you have to have both these qualities. Otherwise you can't really do anything, you can't move. So you become the other person. Then there are two of you instead of one. So we have to have this quality of being centered in ourself and at the same time extending ourself.

[28:15]

But if you try to cure somebody, it's difficult, maybe too much, just to be with the person. For me, what was made clear once again is that we know so little about peacekeeping and stewardship of the land and taking care of it. and that we don't have community so that there aren't community watches. And what Joanna Macy, you know, in her book, World is Love, a world of self, says to be the guardian of the fire, to watch the fire. She's talking about nuclear waste and not to bury it, but to watch it and to hold it. And so we know how to send troops, you know, to the Gulf and mobilize for destruction, we don't find that much interest, really. I was struck again that we're not very interested in peacekeeping.

[29:20]

And that now, in my own life, I find that almost more dramatic. How to make peace feel dramatic and feel very vital. Yeah, little by little, we learn that we need to be stewards rather than Greed, greed, coming from the point of view of greed. We want to use everything, but we don't want to have to take care of it. So that's a problem. And it's much more exciting to start a war than, you know, you blow up the bugle, everybody gets excited. It's easy to stir things up that way, everybody united, but it's hard to get people united behind taking care of the land. dealing with the environment because we're too used to using it.

[30:22]

And now it's being taken away from us. Candy. You know, you can't have that candy anymore. And we have to grow up. And it hurts. It really hurts not being able to have everything that we want. And to have less and less so that everyone can share more. And to take care of what we have. But it's true that we like to live in the woods, but we don't know how, actually. We really don't know how. We put ourselves right in the middle of the fire, of the tinder, you know. I bet you Madison Avenue could make it look really romantic if they put them there. I'm sure that someone could get us to feel just as passionate about taking care.

[31:25]

I mean, the way they know how to, you know, affect us with images. It's true. They affect us with images, I'm sure. They could do it. If it was in their interest to, I guess. But it's hard to turn it around. It's just, the momentum is so great that it's really hard to turn it around. Anyway, that's a whole other argument, which I don't want to get into. So, I wanted to talk a little bit about, while I still have a little time, about this event that happened at Tassajara. It seems like when I was in, when we had the earthquake, I was in Tokyo with the same people. Watching the result on TV. And now I was with the same people in Tassajara, and I just left them.

[32:27]

We just parted. Let us know before you get to that. So, when I was in Tokyo two years ago, We talked about how, you know, how the Americans and Japanese branches of this school can do something together. And so sometime during this year, they suggested that we have this get together at Tassajara and invite the teachers from Europe and America and Japan, some teachers from Japan. And I thought it was very good because there were 30 of them, and then 30 people in the normal practice period at Tassabarum. We had to put it together that way, that we had this special sashin at the beginning of the Tassajara practice period, which was confusing for a lot of people, especially the new students at Tassajara.

[33:34]

But it worked very well, and it evolved every day, and we became more and more, our barriers broke down more and more. And we could see, you know, they could see mirrored in us their arrogance. And we could see mirrored in them our arrogance. So little by little, we'd bump into each other. We knew this was going to happen. But we were determined that we really wanted to find out where we were. How can we really meet? Because as I said in my lecture, is that east is east and west is west. You know that old saying? I think by Kipling. And never the twain shall meet. And I said, and Mr. Yoshinami, that's his koan. Because he was, he's the translator and he stands in between our practice and their practice. And one of the things that we thought would be nice is that at some point they could send over half a dozen monks from Japan to go to Tassajara for a while, and I said with a translator, and that we would send over maybe half a dozen people to practice in Japan.

[34:58]

and to have this kind of interchange going on. And so I think they're up for something, but they have to convince the people that are higher up. Japan is very hierarchical, and the Japanese religious hierarchy is, you know, there's somebody up there. And there's a whole council of their old men who had Japan can possibly do this practice. But the younger people, they want this to happen. They see new horizons and are quite happy to see how we can integrate with each other. So it's kind of an exciting time. And I think that Although there were no promises of what would come out of this get-together, I feel rather optimistic that something will, and that there'll be more recognition from Japan.

[36:08]

Acceptance, actually. I said, I gave a little talk there, and I said that it's kind of like the illegitimate children coming home to be legitimized. You know? And Mr. Yoshinami thought that was right on. Do we really want to come back after we've been out on the street for 20 years? Do we really want to, you know, come back and take on the family way? And do they want us to come back and bumble around in their house? I think yes and no. There's a little bit of tension between yes and no, but I think it's more like yes. But they were also willing to look at our way, and I thought it was great for them to go to Tassajar and see that we actually have this, you know, what actually happens there during the practice period, which is more practice than they have in Japan.

[37:22]

to actually say, well, you know, some of these things I think would be better for us to do. Like the way you're doing some of these things, you know, we'd like to, I think that would be good for us to do. And some of the things that they do, you know, seemed like it'd be nice for us to do. So there was that kind of exchange too. And then I suggested, you know, it was getting very difficult because the practice period people were taking care of everybody. And it was getting more and more difficult for them. And so I suggested that Reb and I serve. So we served lunch in the zendo. And that kind of turned everything around. And then they started doing, you know, participating that way, too. And so we were all, you know, just kind of doing this thing together. Because the basis of their, of this kind of, sort of, special sashin is mostly lectures. We have two lectures every day. And it was between 90 and 100 degrees the whole time.

[38:32]

In the middle of the afternoon, you're in the zendo, you know. By a Japanese teacher being translated by somebody else, it takes twice as long. It takes an hour and 45 minute lecture. So it was good, but it was wearisome. So I suggested that we try not to base such a thing on lectures, but more on interaction and discussion. So, you know, every time I said something, they would say it. But then also, you know, later, they would say something and I'd go like this. And later I'd go like this. So it has this kind of ebb and flow. And it's exciting to be able to walk into this situation and see how we can make something work. It's just inevitable. Either we have to work together or we have to be separated. It doesn't make any sense to be separated because the world's coming closer and closer together.

[39:35]

And we have to learn how to really get along with each other and to work with each other. So that's what's happening. That's a whole new frontier that's starting to open up. And actually, they're sort of interested in ecology and world problems. And I think that will come up soon about, you know, is there something we can do, some kind of work we can do together that is not just dealing with in-house, So, I think it could be quite a big thing if everybody's honest.

[40:37]

I said that the main thing for me, actually, is that just being able to get together and be with each other. That's the main thing. And if that's successful, everything else will flow out of that. And I also said, we're like, you know, the Japanese see us as kind of like children. And I remember when Tatsugami Roshi came to Tassajara to set up the monastic system in 1970. He said, well, this is a baby monastery with baby Bodhisattvas. But the babies have grown into children, you know, they're kind of adolescent. It's been 20 years, more than 20 years since then. And after Suzuki Roshi died, we didn't have any Japanese teachers, and so we've been kind of out on the street, as I put it, learning through our own hard knocks.

[41:45]

And now we're ready to come back and face these family and so we're not babies but we're also don't have 700 years of maturity that they do so there's something to learn from that and you know anyone who's ever had any children always says the children are my teacher But the children can't say, I'm your teacher. That's kind of arrogant, right? So I think that there's something that they learn from us, but we can't consciously teach them something. Yeah, could you? I've got a couple of specific things that will illustrate what happened or where difficulties were besides the language and translation.

[42:58]

Well, there were no difficulty in language. I think the biggest difficulty is that they have preconceptions. They have a lot of preconceptions about what we're doing and who we are. And... Do you mean in regard to formalities or to... Everything. Everything. Our understanding, the way we do things. Like this one teacher said to me, he said, Well, how long have you been teaching? And I said, well, since 1970. And he said, but, I mean, how long have you been teaching after Dharma transmission? And, you know, it took us, you know, years and years to get Dharma transmission because we're in the United States, right?

[44:01]

So that's just been a little while, right? But you can't count that. I said, you can't count that. You have to count from back here, where we actually started teaching after Suzuki Roshi did. That was our responsibility. Because they go by a certain kind of program. Their program, it's hard for them to see outside of their program. And so we have to show them that we're not within that program. We have a different program. Because in the Japanese program, a youth from a family temple would go to the university, Komazawa University, for four years. And then he'll go to Eheji Monastery for a year and a half or two. And when he gets out of the monastery training, he'll go to the family temple, and his father will give him Dharma transmission, and then he takes over the temple.

[45:06]

and it's like a church. But that's not our way at all. We can't be judged by that kind of system, because we don't have that. That doesn't mean anything to us. Our way is to sit Zazen, to practice the Dharma, in a different kind of way. So the standards and rules that pertain to them don't cover us at all. They know that, but because They're trying to find a way to get around that, see? To actually recognize that what we do is the right way to do what we're doing. But that takes time, see? So this is a process of... We know that this will happen, but it all has to go through the process. Even though you know this will happen, you can't say, well, let's just do away with the process and make it happen. You have to go through the steps in the process. So that's what's happening. It sounds like children growing up like parents saying that their children have been grown up for a long time, actually.

[46:13]

I mean, they've grown up, they've gotten married, they've had their own estate of some sort. But it's still difficult for parents and children to say yes. That's right. So it's very difficult, and we have to have a lot of patience with parents. Firmness. Firmness and patience. That's true. Yeah. I can't see because my glasses are on. It's interesting what you're saying. You have to speak louder because of the airplane. It's interesting what you're saying because I had a similar experience this week with the flyer. I'm a writer. And I'm a writer in a large organization, in a large corporation. And I spent the week doing, writing an article who had been affected by the fire. So I spent the day on Tuesday talking to people who looked up and saw a 150-foot wall of flame coming down on top of everything they owned, and had enough time to grab their wallets and flee, or who came home and found everything they owned up in smoke.

[47:28]

And it was heartbreaking, as I'm sure you all know. In an emergency, we in this organization are trained to do what we have to do to get the job done. And I approach this task as a journalist, except that I work in a corporation with a new manager who is very concerned about hierarchy and the channels and so forth. And then I remembered that there were some retirees of the bank who also lived in the area who no one had thought about. And the bank had made financial assistance available to its employees but had forgotten retirees. And I asked about the retirees and was told that no effort would be made to contact them.

[48:34]

No effort at all would be made to And I was upset about that and I was rather insistent that we make an effort as soon as possible to let them know. And so what happened was I was focused on the goal and in the process And it's interesting to me that now I'm trying to settle and come back to some peace. I think that I did what I believed was the right thing. And I don't believe that I could have done it any other way. And there are consequences for the way that I did it. And I have to live with those consequences.

[49:36]

And also, I have to find a way to not get it comes up when people are You know, if we understand, if we make an effort to understand what causes those on the other side to be the way they are, then it's a lot easier to know how to deal with them. But what we usually do is we just face, we come face to face with the face, and we don't see all this stuff behind the face that makes the face what it is.

[50:47]

And we have to make an effort to get behind and see it from the other side. That's called identity action. We have to be able to identify with someone who we feel antagonistic toward, or we feel is antagonistic to us, or is the other side. to try and understand why they're the way they are. And to actually put ourselves in that person's position. And sometimes we run off kind of half-cocked and we get into trouble. So we have to cultivate patience. and identity action.

[51:53]

I know, you know, I could just be really angry, and a lot of people are. They're real angry at the Japanese, you know. Why don't they blah, [...] blah? But that's not going to help anything. there's a reason why they act the way they do. And it's like, I expressed it like my son who says he loves candy. And there's all this candy in the store. And I said, well, you can only have candy at certain times. He said, but they sell all this candy and soda. Why do they sell it then if I can't eat it? Perfectly logical, but there's no experience behind it to temper that logic. And we're all like that. Why don't you understand?

[53:02]

Why don't you blah blah blah? perfectly logical way. I mean, our minds work so logically, you know, but logical is only one aspect. The other is experience, understanding, and sometimes what seems logical is not logical, and sometimes the logical is not the way to go. I'm going to answer in a very short way. At first, they were very skeptical. But now, of course, they're very awed by, they're very respectful, truly respectful. And Suzuki Roshi always talked about that the Soto school should be reformed by us.

[54:08]

And I thought, how are we ever going to do that? And I see how that will happen. It's not that we're going to do anything. It's just that all we have to do is our practice. It's all we have to do. We don't have to try to reform anybody. All we have to do is what we're doing, and everything will take place as it's supposed to. And it will be reformed too.

[54:36]

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