Morning. Morning. Mr. Abonke, who lived in Japan in the 16th century, was returning from a journey one day and he came to a town where there was a horse that broke loose from a man and the horse was charging through the town wild and disorderly and Bankei said, the reason the man can't hold the horse is because the man is separate from the horse. This is not only true in the realm of animals and people, but in the realm of people and people.

[01:27]

and people and so-called objects. If you only see a horse as a horse, as something different from yourself, then you make the horse an object. As soon as you make the horse an object, then you have separation. Then it's a fight. between you and the horse. The most important aspect of Buddhadharma is not to fall into duality. Of course, the horse is the horse. And you were you. But, at the same time, you are the horse and the horse is you.

[02:29]

We have to understand both of these sides. And we also have to understand that you are not you and the horse is not the horse. There is no horse and no you. If you understand that, then no problem. There's a wonderful video of a cowboy called Ray Hunt, who I call the Zen Cowboy. He's written some books about how he handles horses. And he gives seminars around the country in handling horses. And he's unquestionably an expert as a cowboy.

[03:37]

So nobody can question his credentials. But his way of handling horses is to be one with the horse, for the horse to train him He's a horse trainer, but he lets the horse train him. And he keeps himself quite open to the amazement of all of his students. And in the video, it shows how he tries to understand the horse's mind. And in contrast, people always, cowboys especially, are quite mean to animals. I think that a lot of farm people are quite mean to animals because they see animals as animals.

[04:43]

If you see a dog as just a dog, then you treat the dog as dog. And the dog says, well, I'm just a dumb dog. So the master keeps the dog on the leash, which means that the dog never has enough freedom to express himself. And the horse is always treated as a slave, doing the master's bidding and never being allowed to express horse mind. In the old days, we used to say, horse sense. Because horses have gone out of style in this day and age. But when I was a kid, horses and cowboys were the thing. We always used to watch cowboy movies. I mean, cowboy movies was it. Now, you know, the kids say, I don't like horses.

[05:50]

They smell bad. Cowboys, you know, cowboys are dirty, you know. That's the attitude of kids these days, which is sorrowful for me. Because they're missing something. Part of what they're missing is the relationship between the cowboy and his horse. Between the human realm and the animal realm. And now, you know, we create chickens just to eat and farm animals just to eat, you know, and treat them very cruelly because we really objectify them. They're just objects for our appetites, actually. And an animal or a horse is

[06:51]

for our pleasure or for our work. In one scene in this video, Ray Hunt has his students, who are a lot of them are old cowboys actually, sitting on the horses without anything on their head, no reins or anything, and just letting the horses lead everybody around. And these old cowboys are saying, I've never been on a horse where I didn't have control of the horse. And here, the horse has control. Just letting the horse have control and all these horses and people are mingling around in this corral where the horse is just doing what they want. And it's amazing that the horses are harmonized naturally with the people when the people allow the horses to harmonize and to allow the horse to think and allow the horse to create this relationship with each other, other horses and other people.

[08:08]

And he says, In order to break horses that are wild, the cowboy usually sits on the horse and lets the horse buck until finally he's subdued. But Ray makes friends with the horse by rubbing the horse with his hand. And he said, when they're cold, the mother licks them with her tongue to calm them down. So not patting the horse, but petting the horse calms them down. And this way, the horse loses its fear and wants to cooperate. So, the cowboys and riders are always putting the horse in a defensive position.

[09:24]

And as soon as the horse gets into a defensive position, they become unruly, naturally. They don't want to do, they need to escape or want to do something else. So, his method is to allow the horse to want to cooperate. And then the person, to their amazement, sits on the horse and the horse lets him do that without trying to buck him off. So it's a wonderful lesson in relationship. He says, it's easy to make war, but it's difficult to make peace. But it's possible. But through understanding. Through not creating defensiveness and not wanting anything too much from a horse.

[10:36]

And One example was a good cowboy who, as soon as the horse learned one thing, he drove him to learn another thing. And as soon as he learned that, he drove him to learn another thing. And he never allowed the horse to just relax and feel confident in the last thing he learned, but just always pushing, pushing, pushing, which we do with our children often. Why did you get that D on your report card? So this carries over into how we deal with things, which normally we call objects. I always think of this in terms of how we make a sound on the bell.

[11:45]

What kind of sound do we make on the bell? Sometimes I teach people how to sound the bell. No matter how I say something, sometimes it works, but often it doesn't. It's not so much a matter of what I say, but it's a matter of how the person sounding the bell relates to the bell, not as an object. I can tell the moment I hear the sound whether the person that's making the sound is relating to the bell as an object or sees the bell as their own head. It becomes quite obvious. When the bell is your own head, a Buddha arises out of the bell when it's sounded and you feel some deep feeling.

[12:51]

When it's struck as an object, it's disturbing. Someone's attention is not there and it's just this separation between you and the bell. And as soon as there's that separation, no matter how much you try to do something well, it won't sound well. It only sounds right when there's no separation, when the bell is not thought of as an object. You don't think of the bell, oh this is an object, but your attitude is unthinking, or unfeeling, and it becomes an object. So, ordinarily, we tend to objectify the world. Originally, we, myself, so to speak, and what I'm relating to, are not two different things, even though they are two different things.

[13:59]

Even though they're two different things, they're one. It's like My left hand is the left hand, and the right hand is the right hand. But they're the left hand and the right hand of the one body. If you only see the left hand as isolated, as an object, and the left hand and the right hand as an object, you're separating, you're dividing your mind. The left hand and the right hand are the two hands of the one body, the Dharma body. This body, actually, is the Dharma body. And yet, at the same time, it's just this body.

[15:03]

This body does not belong to me. this body-mind does not belong to me. It belongs to the Dharma body, just like the bell belongs to the Dharma body. And the bell and myself should both be good friends. In the Sandokai, the meaning of the Sandokai is the absolute and the relative shaking hands. Literally means shaking hands. Hi, how are you? So the bell is the bell, but it's not just the bell.

[16:06]

It's your true nature. which you're sounding. And when you bring the sound of the bell out from your true nature, then you feel inspired because you recognize something. You hit the center of yourself. You hit the center of existence. This kind of bell is made in a, it's not a poured cast thing. It's a big, originally a big round piece of bronze, flat. And the way the bell is made is that they pound the center of the bell with a hammer and keep pushing the sides up at the same time until it

[17:11]

finally assumes this shape. These are all a little denser, a little teeny denser, therefore. They come about through that long process, and that gives the bell a potential for beautiful sound, deep resonant sound, which corresponds to something very deep within ourselves. So, how we relate to the bell, not as an object, how we relate to the mokugyo, that little wooden fish, bong bong bong bong, not as an object, but as a heartbeat, as our own heartbeat. When we carry something How do we carry?

[18:13]

How do we carry things around? When you relate to something, not as an object, then you carry it according to its function. When you carry something as an object, you're not carrying it according to its function. When you carry the pots, when you're serving the zendo, you don't carry them like this. You carry them like this according to their function as vessels for feeding the sangha. So you have that connection with them. This is how formality develops. Formality is not just doing something in an empty way. Well, it is empty, but not in that way.

[19:14]

But paying attention to the essence of the activity. When we come into the zendo, we don't just walk with our hands at our sides. We put our hands in this position because The whole body and mind is being attentive, becoming one with the activity in the zendo. When we serve each other during meals, we pay attention to how we're serving the food to the person, not as an object. but as yourself. As soon as you become into contact with the other person, then something happens.

[20:17]

And that activity connects. It's like... There's that connection. And then the two become one through the activity. And to recognize this and to let go of In order to become one with the other person through the activity, you have to let go of yourself and just become the activity, harmonize with the activity. So this is our practice. You can't be doing something else when you're meeting. It's hard because we're always going someplace. We're always thinking something and we're always having some desire. But to allow, actually, everything to fall away and just be there with each situation is actually our practice.

[21:29]

It's not easy to do all the time. frequently preoccupied with various things, stuff going on in our mind, and a desire to maybe be in some other position, or not wanting to let go, you know? I see so many instances of somehow wanting to be dominant in a situation or too passive in a situation. When the two come together, to actually let this flow and exchange happen doesn't always happen.

[22:42]

We're always often wanting to get on with our life. And we miss the meeting. We miss actually meeting. And so we're actually wasting our life through hanging on in a self-centered way. In this video, Ray Hunt says, the horse, he said, you know, you have, you want to get things done at a certain time, in a certain space of time, and so you become very impatient. He said, but the horse doesn't have any sense of time at all. For the horse, time is meaningless. But we have this urgency, sense of urgency. We want to get something done in a certain amount of time, and if it doesn't happen, we get very frustrated.

[23:49]

So we have this problem, a human problem of impatience and self-centeredness and seeing things objectively only. Those things outside of us as objects, we are the center and everything is revolving around us. Things do revolve around us, but we also revolve around things at the same time. So there is no fixed place. We like to think, though, of a fixed place because fixedness gives us some security. So we're always trying to fix ourselves. in some space, but, you know, the wind moves us, the ocean moves us, you know, and we can't stay there.

[24:59]

And so people feel insecure. And in order to feel secure, we try to bind ourselves down, screw down the bolts. But you can't do that. You have to let yourself flow with things to relate and not be fixed. There's nothing to be fixed to. There's no ground to stand on, actually. Even though we're on the earth, we're actually floating. This is actually called the floating, Japanese call this the floating world. It's floating, like clouds. Always changing. Even though it looks the same, one moment, suddenly the nose of the elephant changes, you know, the years start to transform into something else. So, yes, everything is moving around us, but we're also moving in that dance with everything at the same time.

[26:09]

So we're not fixed. It's not that we're fixed and everything is moving around us. Everything is moving and we are moving with everything and there's nothing fixed. No matter how much we try to secure ourselves. So where is the security? That's the big question. Where is the security? When we let go, of self-centeredness, then we fill the universe. There's no place to go. When you fill the whole bottle, there's no place for the wine to go. There's no need to be insecure. But it's only when we feel like we're losing something that we have a problem.

[27:19]

So, sometimes I see these conflicts, big conflicts between people. The Israelis and the Palestinians continually reacting to each other in an endless cycle with no way out. There's absolutely no way out. Because there's only reaction and objectification. There's no identification. And until there's identification, there's no way that things will change, no matter how much one tries to ameliorate the situation. So, The Israelis keep pushing their agenda and isolating the Arabs, and the Arabs keep blowing themselves up in the middle of the marketplace.

[29:07]

As soon as you create a whole bunch of martyrs who blow themselves up, you have to honor that. Otherwise, they have done it in vain. And if they've done it in vain, then you've lost your footing. the more people blow themselves up that way, the more entrenched they become in their inability to change. So the whole thing keeps escalating and nobody's backing down. And it's a great lesson in how not to be in this world. We should be learning something from that. The solution would be for everybody to just drop everything and start all over again.

[30:15]

Just start all over again. It's possible, but improbable. They should go into each other's houses of worship and drop their differences. It's totally delusional differences. Totally delusional differences. This is where religion plays such a terrible role in life, in society. when it becomes divisive. My religion, and this is the true religion, and my religion is the true religion, all heretics. Religion is necessary. It's absolutely necessary.

[31:18]

But it's also the most dangerous thing in the world. It's like, religion is like as dangerous as the hydrogen bomb. That is the most necessary thing in order to actually lead people in their relationship to the universe. So, my optimistic view is that all of this suffering will lead to a universal religion of sanity. in the next century. It's happening little by little, but I think that will be the evolution, because religion is evolutionary, it's not fixed.

[32:18]

When people think that religion is fixed, then it creates problem, because if religion is a manifesto, a revelation, then it can't be changed. And all the mistakes just keep being made over and over again. But religion is not a fixed manifesto. It has basic principles which should constantly be questioned. Constantly be questioned. And every generation has to create and modify the meaning of religion for our own time, based on the past, but not fixed to the past.

[33:31]

So it's always changing and transforming and should be changing and transforming according to reality. As soon as you have something fixed, you make mistakes. So we try to pin our, bolt down our security through the word. But the word means different things at different times to everybody. And religion has to come from us, not from outside. So every generation has the responsibility to question and create

[34:45]

the right, correct understanding for each time. Anyway, we should be careful not to see everything just as an object, but to realize that our true body is the whole universe and all the parts of the universe are not just objects against us, myself as a subject. Do you have a question?

[35:49]

There's three in the back. You know, I really believe that love is nothing impossible. And I have this really poignant experience. You have to speak up. Communicating with animals. And you can see subtly, because I love my dog, or your friend. He says he visualizes the dog when somebody describes it to him. He's wagging his tail and he sees him in a happy way and he communicates with him.

[36:57]

He told me a story Well, he said, well, I see the dog. He wanted to know if he had euthanized him or not. He should euthanize him. And he said, the dog said, no, I can't go because my mother and father, which is his master, his wife, aren't happy. He can't leave. But through him being sick in the hospital, they came to visit him. And they got together. So he asked him again. If they're in a good situation.

[38:13]

If they're in a good situation. So people learn a lot from them. But I'm wondering about this, actually being able to actually communicate on a logical level. Well, dogs understand your words, but they can't speak them. So we think that maybe they don't understand the words, but they do. We understand everything you say, and we have these long conversations, you know, and the dog is sitting there. But the dog understands all the words. When you mention something, you know, the dog says, oh, how do you know that? But the dog, they try to talk, you know. My dog goes, oh, mmm, mmm. So, but they do it, yeah. But as far as the words, they can't get them out. So, he's interpreting his own... He's interpreting, yeah.

[39:13]

So, you can interpret a lot. Do you actually feel that the dog is ready to go now? Well, that's interpretation, but... It's possible that he got the... You can become very sensitive to the dog's attitude and mind, so, yeah. On another side of this, nothing to do with animals. So I think one of the last things you said is not to see yourself. In relating to another person, if you're practicing, you don't believe that, you don't live that.

[40:17]

But you come into contact with people all the time who don't believe that. And just as you said, when you hear somebody hitting the bell, it's almost like you can see that in people to see what may be missing from somebody that they don't understand. how am I seeing myself as separate from them? you have to let go of your critical attitude and realize that everybody is just where they are.

[41:47]

And that there's a deeper way to relate than just relating through actions. So, you know, actions are going like this. like a, you know, windmill. And in order to get to the office, you have to go through the blades, you know, and get to the real place. So, you have to be able to get through all the activity of the person to get to their still place, which is the source. So, if you address people, as the source, rather than just the activity, then, although that may be bothersome, at some point when you become skillful, you don't let that bother you, you just keep going to the source.

[42:54]

So, but when you just, it's like, I use this example all the time. When you shake a stick at a dog, You know, the dog will start barking at the stick and start leaping at the stick and trying to bite it. And you can lead the dog all around with the stick. But the lion, when you shake a stick at the lion, the lion is there for the person. Right there in the middle. That's good. At least you know where you are. Right, so in order to become that, you need the right thing to be. Little by little. Charlie?

[43:57]

It seems as though there is a lot of encouragement to be fearful. You've got to get a CD-ROM to see whether there's a child molester living next door to you, and the Russian atomic bombs are unaccounted for, and maybe nailed to your roof. You know, fill in the blanks. Right. I mean, there's not enough jobs to go around. I just wondered whether you could say something about self-objects in the theater. Well, we live in an unstable world. And, you know, it's interesting.

[45:04]

A place where whenever there's a war going on in a city and so forth, People are getting killed and bombs are exploding and machine guns are going... But yet the people, they go about their daily business. You know? They go to the store. You just see people going about their daily business. And somehow, in this world of uncertainty, you just go about your daily business. I know it's difficult. And you wonder, well, this seems incongruous, you know. We should be taking care of these things, but we can't take care of everything. We cannot stop the ocean, you know. And we just live our lives out, and we do it in different ways. And if we lead exemplary lives,

[46:07]

so to speak. By exemplary I mean making an effort to practice. Then that effort will influence people and help to calm the ship. That's my feeling. Alan?

[46:30]

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